Japan

[Seek]

I don't think it would change our strategies - it's extra culture for building units, something we'd normally do anyway. Extra yield to strategic resource tiles changes our city placement strategy.

I disagree - generally when going domination I'll build a core army that will end up heavily promoted and then focus on infrastructure, and attempt to settle any strategic resources early anyway. With the bursts, I'd have incentive to continue producing units which would change my usual playstyle. Off the top of my head, some changes I would make to my normal warmonger game would be to 1) gift many units to allies or CS (re: proxy wars), 2) prepare for a second war while waging one, or 3) attack with impunity because I'll always have fresh units to reinforce (especially if we keep the UA).

 

[Thalassicus]

@Seek
Your idea is feasible and wouldn't take long to code. If we do it, we probably should still figure out a way to make the Samurai more unique. Do you have any ideas?

 

[Seek]

Not at the moment. But mitsho's idea for an extra move (and maybe move after attack) is intriguing!

 

[Thalassicus]

I believe 3 and move-after-attack would basically make them a knight. A melee form of chu-ko-nu might be more unique.

 

[wobuffet]

I like Blitz better, too (with Japan's UA, that's two full strength attacks per Samurai per turn!). You could always use your 2nd move to retreat/swap places with the unit behind you.

 

[orangecape]

Japan's trait makes damaged units fight as if they have 20hp. The old policy effect gave damaged units a +25% bonus, which makes 19hp units fight better than 20hp units. It's similar, but not as fun, because it makes us micro-manage our units to keep them wounded.

Actually Thal, this isn't right. I thought exactly as you did because that is what the damn descriptive text says but when I actually tested the vanilla Autocracy bonus here is what it *actually* does:

Reduces the penalty to damage from being hurt by 25% additively. That is, units take a 2.5% penalty to damage for each point of HP they lose in VEM, (5% in vanilla) and the policy negates the first 25% of that. Thus units at 50% health do full damage but units at 1 health do ~75% damage.

Without the policy units at 1 health do ~50% of normal damage.

The policy essentially negates the penalty for being hurt completely until the unit gets to half health and then it goes normally below that. It works exactly as Japan's trait does except that Japan's trait works all the way down to 1 health.

Why they chose to give it the very misleading text they did is quite beyond me.

 

[albie_123]

Consider me a vote for keeping the UA as is and giving Samurai blitz.

I just don't see why we should change one of the most fun UA's in the game.

(Also, please don't make Catherine's UA a 'slow in borders' ability. We already have the Great Wall AND the Freedom finisher giving the same bonus, which in my opinion is already too many.)

 

[Txurce]

From the quote in my previous post it sounds like Firaxis has intentionally slowed down combat, but by how much is unknown.

I interpreted the Firaxis quotes as eliminating little guys killing big guy as easily en masse, rather than generally extending battles - although it does read that way.

Consider me a vote for keeping the UA as is and giving Samurai blitz.

I just don't see why we should change one of the most fun UA's in the game.

(Also, please don't make Catherine's UA a 'slow in borders' ability. We already have the Great Wall AND the Freedom finisher giving the same bonus, which in my opinion is already too many.)

Count me as a vote for Blitz as well. It may not even need the +3 over longwords.

 

[Thalassicus]

I interpreted the Firaxis quotes as eliminating little guys killing big guy as easily en masse, rather than generally extending battles.

This is how I read it as well - basically reducing the minimum damage like I did, so 5 blitz archers can't take out a GDR.

 

[Seek]

I have no major problems with Blitz, it was just that it struck me as stepping on China's toes a bit.

I certainly hope you guys are right re: the supposed slowing of combat, it doesn't seem like that would fix much for the AI.

 

[KmDubya]

The UA is cool as is.

The new samurai with blitz sounds fun.

What if you got rid of the dojo and went with a more modern UB to represent Japan Inc. or the way they quickly went from a backwards nation to a modern world power?

Maybe a wall street (the third tier bank building) with a production bonus or a factory that adds gold? Something that would represent their modern corporate structure.

 

[albie_123]

I don't think that meshes very well with the UA or UU, the current playstyle of the Civ, and, well, historically, it doesn't quite fit. While Japan is now recognised for its economic prowess, that was certainly not the case from unification, and was only really present decades after World War Two.

 

[rfxmills]

Giving Japan a gold bonus wouldn't fit, their post-war boom was kick-started by the US and busted big time in 1991. They didn't bounce back, so the 90s became the lost decade, then as they still didn't recover, it's become know as the lost decades instead.

Stick to a military/culture combo. Barracks or castle replacement that gives base + for iron/horses was interesting. If you don't want to give extra experience, maybe a melee production boost?

 

[wobuffet]

I quite like Bushido as a UA, and I think the Dojo's pretty fun as is, too. (Would it be possible to make it add XP for any unit garrisoned there? Thematically that'd be very, very tight, although it encroaches a bit on that Tradition policy [which could stand to be buffed to 0.5 XP per turn or so, by the way ]).

I'm okay with buffing/changing the Samurai; strategic UUs should be strong to compensate for requiring strategic units.

 

[Thalassicus]

Would it be possible to make it add XP for any unit garrisoned there? Thematically that'd be very, very tight, although it encroaches a bit on that Tradition policy [which could stand to be buffed to 0.5 XP per turn or so, by the way ]).

Yes, that would take just a few minutes' work. How about the Dojo gives +1 per turn for garrisoned units instead of the +20 when the unit is created? It could represent extended training and meditation.

 

[wobuffet]

Ooh, interesting. I'm worried that when making lots of units, the Dojo would be worse than the regular Barracks then... how about 10 for new units + 1 (or 0.5, if that's too much) per turn for garrisoned units?

A bit off-topic, but I'd like to see the Tradition policy bumped up to 0.5 or 1 / turn or so for garrisoned units too.

If one or either of these proved too powerful, maybe we could cap garrison training at 40 or so on a per-unit basis (like with Barbs)?

 

[rfxmills]

Yes, that would take just a few minutes' work. How about the Dojo gives +1 per turn for garrisoned units instead of the +20 when the unit is created? It could represent extended training and meditation.

Like it, would it stack with the tradition policy or replace it? Also as Samurai are losing the shock promotion, would you change the start bias of Japan to increase the chance of getting iron?

 

[rfxmills]

Ooh, interesting. I'm worried that when making lots of units, the Dojo would be worse than the regular Barracks then... how about 10 for new units + 1 (or 0.5, if that's too much) per turn for garrisoned units

It should be the same as a normal barracks, plus the + 1.

A bit off-topic, but I'd like to see the Tradition policy bumped up to 0.5 or 1 / turn or so for garrisoned units too.

Further off-topic, I saw a post about what things should scale with game speed. The consensus seemed to be one-off boosts should scale, but per-turn shouldn't. I think garrison experience should be an exception to that rule.

If one or either of these proved too powerful, maybe we could cap garrison training at 40 or so on a per-unit basis (like with Barbs)?

And that's a good idea.

 

[Txurce]

Speaking of Japan... I just ran into a knight with Forest, Ambush, Charge, March and Blitz. That is a different unit altogether, putting it at least an era ahead. Too much, in my opinion.

 

[Thalassicus]

Ooh, interesting. I'm worried that when making lots of units, the Dojo would be worse than the regular Barracks then... how about 10 for new units + 1 (or 0.5, if that's too much) per turn for garrisoned units?

My earlier post might have been a little ambiguous; what I'm thinking is:

Old
10 all units.
20 land units
2 on horses, iron

New
10 all units.
1 per turn for garrisoned unit in this city.
2 on horses, iron.

Did you mean 10 for units, like the barracks, or on top of the normal barracks bonus?


@rfxmills
It would stack with Tradition. All players have precisely 5 iron in their territory. The current start location priority system is very limited, we can't make a leader favor starting at a particular location within that territory. It's possible to replace the system and I've been thinking about it for a very long time, since last summer... just haven't gotten around to it yet. The "assign starting plots" file is incredibly long and complex.

@Txurce
That's an inevitable side-effect of AIs doing better at conquest.