Shoshone discussion

[pineappledan]

There has been some discussion of Shoshone that has come up in the last few months. This is a discussion of user feedback of the Shoshone's abilities, ideas for what people would like them to do, and debate about ideas.

Spoiler results from latest tests from AI games :

Shoshone placed 34th on Emperor difficulty and 30th on Warlord difficulty. Not the worst showing, but low.

As of posting, there is a congress proposal to change the Shoshone that you can vote on right now.

[Vote] - (5-44) Shoshone UA change

Voting Instructions Players, please cast your votes in the poll above. Vote "Yea" for every proposal you'd be okay with if it were implemented. Vote "Nay" if you'd be okay if these proposals weren't implemented. You can vote for any number of options. All votes are public. If you wish, you can...

forums.civfanatics.com

This proposal was submitted without much preceding discussion, creating an impetus for this thread.

A modder has made a balance mod that reworks a bit of the Shoshone's kit:

Spoiler Hinin's Shoshone Tweak :

UA tweaked
UA - Vision Quest
Founded Cities start with 8 additional tiles, and Conquered Cities acquire 4 additional tiles. All Units receive +20% CS when fighting in owned territory, gain bonus yields and can choose rewards from Ancient Ruins.

UI buffed
UI - Encampment
+1 Culture at Drama and Poetry
+1 Gold and Food from being on a City Connection Route (doubled if railroad)

UB replaced by another UB
UB - Nukkakahni (replaces Amphitheater)
Unlocked at Currency (instead of Drama and Poetry)
150 Production cost (-25%)
No Maintenance cost

2 Culture
2 Science
2 Gold

+25 Food in the City when Units from the City kills hostile Units, scaling with Era
+25 Border Growth points whenever constructing a Building
+33% Production towards all Settler Units
2 GWArt / Artifact slots (same theming bonuses as the Amphitheater)
-1 Unhappiness from Boredom

There is also a post by me in the congress proposal workshop:

Spoiler :

Current UA: Great Expanse
Cities claim up to 8 tiles on Founding and 4 tiles on Conquest.
Land Units receive a +20% Combat Strength bonus when fighting in friendly territory.
All Recon Units can choose rewards from Ancient Ruins.

New UA: Great Expanse
Claim adjacent unowned land tiles when Cities claim a tile of the same type. (current Huns ability)
Land Units receive a +20% Combat Strength bonus when fighting in friendly territory.
All Land units can claim Ancient Ruins. (if 5-18a passes)

Notes:
I would suggest the following changes be made for the UA tile claim bonus to work better:

• Tile claim AI only picks the best tile to expand to when this trait ability is active, instead of randomly picking from the top 3
• AI's Tile valuation adds the value of adjacent tiles of the same type when choosing a tile to claim if this trait ability is active.

Rationale

• The Shoshone UA is called Great Expanse, but the Hunnic tile claim bonus is stronger (it claims more tiles faster)
• The Hunnic tile claim ability is more interesting and continues to work throughout the game, instead of mostly being an early expansion-phase bonus that never is used in the mid-game
• The Huns and Shoshone have lots of overlapping abilities (see above), and I think the Huns should drop their tile claim ability in favour of the Shoshone
• Getting to choose ruins instead of getting them randomly is a weak bonus, and a chore. It's not a fun ability, and many people simply turn Ruins off if they don't like the randomness.
• Allowing all units to collect ruins if only Scouts can normally would be a much more impactful and useful ability.

Discuss!

 

[ma_kuh]

Shoshone are positioned like some generalist civ, but in practice they just feel amorphous. They don't build any synergy for science or tourism, so they don't beat focused civs in those arenas. I don't really know what I'm supposed to want to do with them. Is Conquest secretly what they're all about, despite having a defensive UA and UI? Oddly one of their stronger plays is to pick up a pantheon as soon as possible from a nearby ruin.

They have border growth (but it doesn't trigger Authority), they want lots of improvements (but Progress's wide cities don't make use of the free tiles, and Tradition doesn't have as many citizens on the map).

Also I miss the unique recon unit they had in vanilla, if they could have a reason to build recon units for combat or economy that would be neat.

 

[pineappledan]

I think for Shoshone, it’s instructive to compare to the Huns:

• Both civs have a unique tile improvement, the Eki and the Encampment
  • They both unlock in late Ancient era
  • The both require flat land with no resources, the only difference in placement is that eki is blocked by rivers and can be built outside your own land, and encampments cannot be built next to each other
  • Eki gives 1, and extra on adjacency
  • Encampment gives 21. It also gives some tile defense and 5 damage per turn to adjacent enemies.
  • Neither is particularly interesting. Their yields, placement, and function overlap a lot. Eki just got buffed this Congress, so now I think it’s the clear winner for strength.
• Both civs have a unique mounted Ranged unit.
  • The Hunnic Horse Archer unlocks much earlier and is relatively more useful. The Shoshone’s Comanche unlocks too late to help Shoshone get ahead of someone, and they aren’t that powerful on their own.
  • For unique abilities, The Comanche has more moves , withdraw on attack and science on pillage, while the Hunnic archer has relatively high stats for its era and is about to receive a multiAttackBonus.
• Both civs have a combat bonus in the UA.
  • The Shoshone get a 20% home territory combat bonus.
  • The Huns used to convert units on kill, but are being switched to France’s old 10% MultiAttack bonus.
  • Neither of these are particularly strong, but the Hunnic bonus is more flexible, and geared towards aggression (it stacks highest when used vs cities) while the Shoshone bonus is purely defensive. Generally I would say the Hunnic one is better.
• Both civs have a free tile claim bonus
  • Not just cheaper tiles, these are the only two civs in the game that get free, costless tiles.
  • The Shoshone get a static 8 on settle and 4 on conquest.
  • The Huns get every adjacent land tile of the same type when a land tile is claimed. In an ideal situation, this can get you up to 5 free tiles with a single border expansion, in addition to the claimed tile. This has synergy with the Eki, which can be built next to you land, allowing you to direct the border growth where you want to go. This gives Huns the unique ability to direct their own border expansion.
  • The Shoshone ability is faster and more consistent, but the Hun ability quickly overtakes it. It gives far more raw tiles and is more interactive for players.
• Both civs also have a Third ability in their UA:
  • The Shoshone recon units get to pick ruins instead of getting random rewards. This is a small bonus, and many players simply turn off ruins because they don’t like them. It is also a bonus that obsoletes, becoming an irrelevant, dead ability after the initial exploration phase.
  • The Huns get half War Weariness and inflict 2x war weariness against their enemies. This ability is somewhat hard to gauge the power of, it’s effect against enemies is subtle, but the bonus to your own war weariness reduction can allow you to perpetually war.
  • Between the two, the Hun ability is the clear winner. It gives a clear military bonus that works all game long, while the Shoshone bonus relies on random ruin distribution, doesn’t give you more yields, and ceases to do anything at all after about 50 turns.

So there you have it. Broken down into its constituent parts, the Shoshone and the Huns basically have equivalents to each other, piece for piece. In every case, the Huns have a stronger, more flexible, easier to use bonus than the Shoshone. The Hunnic kit also provides a clear warmonger direction, and while the Shoshone’s strict reliance of defensive bonuses gives a coherent theme they are left without any clear victory path.

The one thing I will say that the Shoshone have over the Huns is I like their colours more. Both civs are even similar in colour scheme, but the Shoshone have a nicer grey.

I think Huns and Shoshone need to be more different from each other. Any redesign should work on trying to make these two civs more distinguishable.

 

[Anarcomu]

I like their colours more

This. Shoshone are perfectly balanced then.

 

[azum4roll]

The Shoshone recon units get to pick ruins instead of getting random rewards. This is a small bonus, and many players simply turn off ruins because they don’t like them. It is also a bonus that obsoletes, becoming an irrelevant, dead ability after the initial exploration phase.

This is comparable to Siam's initial influence with CS.

• Both abilities are map/game setting dependent.
• Both abilities become irrelevant after the early game, but can be impactful in the very start of the game (early first policy/pantheon).
• Siam's rewards are random, while Shoshone's eliminate randomness that all other civs have.

 

[rkkn]

fwiw I really like early-game-only bonuses. Trying to leverage an early bonus to get a lasting advantage is fun gameplay

 

[pineappledan]

This is comparable to Siam's initial influence with CS.

• Both abilities are map/game setting dependent.
• Both abilities become irrelevant after the early game, but can be impactful in the very start of the game (early first policy/pantheon).
• Siam's rewards are random, while Shoshone's eliminate randomness that all other civs have.

Yes, pretty much. That is another bonus I would dearly like to have removed for the same reason. Obsoleting bonuses are for units, not UAs.

Shoshone’s ability takes out Some of the randomness, but ruin quantity and location near your start are still random, just like CS locations near you or on your continent. A bonus that helps me find more ruins faster, like Iroquois free woodsman, or America’s +1 sight is a more powerful ruins bonus than the Shoshone’s, because it translates into more ruins. In addition, their bonuses don’t obsolete, because they have utility beyond just for ruins.

Any civ with a movement or vision bonus in their UA is better at ruins than Shoshone without being pigeonholed by it.

 

[azum4roll]

Yes, pretty much. That is another bonus I would dearly like to have removed for the same reason. Obsoleting bonuses are for units, not UAs.

Shoshone’s ability takes out Some of the randomness, but ruin quantity and location near your start are still random, just like CS locations near you or on your continent. A bonus that helps me find more ruins faster, like Iroquois free woodsman, or America’s +1 sight is more powerful ruins bonuses than the Shoshone’s, because it translates into more ruins. And this bonuses don’t obsolete, because they have utility beyond ruins.

Any civ with a movement or vision bonus in their UA is better at ruins than Shoshone without being pigeonholed by it.

Technically Shoshone still translates into more ruins because you should be grabbing the map ruin to get double movespeed and +1 sight the first thing you do. And you have a guaranteed turn 20 pantheon without bothering with Stonehenge.

The only problem with the ability is that it's human only.

 

[pineappledan]

As if a civ with one of those other abilities couldn’t also just get the map ruin early. That’s not exclusive to the Shoshone, they just get to pick it. It’s not stronger in the Shoshone’s hands, and in fact sets them back because getting a ruin that they might have gotten anyways is an entire UA bonus for them while America could get the benefits of that same ruin and have another +1 vision radius on top.

 

[ma_kuh]

I suppose a very basic buff would be: Choose Rewards from Ancient Ruins => Discover Additional Rewards from Ancient Ruins

The details:

• Get a second Ruins roll when triggering the empowered ruins (still with Recon only?).
• Additional reward is reduced (50% would be my opening pitch; going higher/lower would be balance tweaking).
  • For non-numeric rewards, translate them into a like-themed bonus (e.g. Free Tech roll = Science equal to 50% of an Ancient tech).
• Second roll cannot be the same as the triggering roll (so no double-faith). (Also exclude recently-picked options?)
• No choice menu, so no extra clicking for the ability.
• All random, so AI and human are on even footing.
• Still does nothing if Ruins are turned off.
  • Maybe give a compensatory Additional Reward rolls on some other trigger, like how the Research Agreement wonder has a back-up effect when the mechanic is missing?
  • Other triggers that would make sense:
    • Founding a city (like what's in the Congress now, but without the complication of being a full-fledged Ancient Ruin, and without the choice menu popup)
    • Finding a CS (something with a controlled number of hits, and still ties into interacting with other cultures)
    • Finding a major civ (this one is kind of weird, I'll admit)

I'm still inclined to move away from a Ruins-focused bonus for the Shoshone in general, but if we stuck with it this seems like an appealing middle ground. Or at least something to try while we iterate on interesting mechanics.

 

[azum4roll]

Some ruins can't be quantified.

 

[Markal]

I am always playing with ruins on (emperor difficulty). I agree they are random and unbalanced but personally I like the thrill of looking for them, it's a nice reward for exploration as the early game and discovering the map is my favorite phase of the game.

I'd say that the baseline for a "safe" game is 3 or 4 ancient ruins. Below that I'd keep playing only if I have another bonus nearby or spawned a start I really like. A very good/lucky game can have you find 6+ ruins (btw I stopped playing on the communitu map partly because it's way too easy to snag all the remote islands ruins the AI is not competing for).

With that being said, back to the topic of the day. I never liked playing the Shoshone and they are one of the most boring civ to me (possibly THE one), even though on paper their bonus to ancient ruin could appeal to a player like me. Frankly I wouldn't mind if that part of their kit was erased in favor of something more interesting. The maya with 4UC is a better design for ancient ruins hunting for instance, so the focus on AR is not bad per se but I'd say that part of the thrill of the AR design is the randomness of it (for the better and the worst). Taking it away like The Shoshone does is not compelling for those who like playing with AR (imo) and won't cut it either for people who despise the AR mechanic.

 

[Gizmoman]

Main thing I dislike about the ruin thing is that it only applies to the scout units, meaning if your initial warrior discovers the ruin instead of your initial pathfinder, you kinda lose out on that part of the UA.

 

[stii]

So it seems like we have two issues.

AI doesn't use the main mechanic, it just can't.

Players don't all play with ruins on, enough that having this mechanic is a problem.



The pathfinder UU is a cool unit so maybe they should stop interacting with ruins at all and have an ability like Brazil's UU explorers. Scaled down a lot but something like that would still give a similar effect that works for everyone.

 

[Rekk]

The pathfinder UU is a cool unit so maybe they should stop interacting with ruins at all and have an ability like Brazil's UU explorers.

The Pathfinder isn't a UU in VP.

 

[hokath]

I'm playing my newest game with Hinin-Shoshone. I've never played Shoshone before (!) so I wanted to inform my opinion.
As I feared, they are kinda lame... I got maybe 5 or 6 ruins having built an additional scout on quite a large continent and the boost feels like it was fairly minor.
Encampment feels nice to be able to put down with the route bonus in Hinin's changes and I've gone Progress to try to really build up a strong infrastructure early.
I got the Religion founded just now but I didn't have a good feel for what I should go with; ended up picking Transcendant Thoughts (name? era bonus yields) and Scholarship (+sci from followers) since I don't have any science bonuses on the map atm.

It's hard to identify anything at the moment, though I would say I felt like I should shy-away from +yields on border growth since the UA has claimed a fair number of cheap tiles already. Maybe the fact you'll run out sooner doesn't matter so much for the period of the game when these effects are most relevant? But it feels a little off. This idea with the Hun tile claiming bonus replacing the free tiles would solve this and even make those bonuses feel lucrative?

 

[pineappledan]

A proposal for ruins just passed that blocks non-recon units from picking up ruins. The proposer suggested that maybe the Shoshone ability could be changed to allow all of his land units to pick up ruins.

I like that a lot better than the current bonus. If all Shoshone units can collect ruins then they can use their early warrior to get more ruins. That’s better than just eliminating the randomness of the rewards, especially with how @azum4roll is proposing to balance ruins to make the best ruins weaker and the worst ruins stronger. The ability only makes sense when there are some real duds mixed with some super-good picks, but picking between a few equally good options makes less sense.

Letting all units get ruins is still a ruins bonus, which I dislike, but it’s at least better than the current one, and getting rid of choosing ruins makes even more sense now.

 

[pineappledan]

This idea with the Hun tile claiming bonus replacing the free tiles would solve this and even make those bonuses feel lucrative?

The hun ability is still free tiles, it only triggers yields on tile claim on the 1 tile you expanded to, not all the adjacent tiles you also get for free.

Unless the border growth yield abilities are changed, tile claim yields make even less sense with the Huns ability than with the current Shoshone ability. It’s just so many free tiles.

 

[Markal]

I agree with you but, to be clear, when we say "all units" we just mean the starting scout and warrior. Of all the games I ever played I don't remember any occurrence where my second unit (be it a warrior, an archer, a slinger or even a horseman) got to collect a ruin. It may happen but it's so rare it's not worth mentioning as a gameplay option, even less so for an UA. Ofc there is the niche case of remote ancient ruins discovered only after ocean navigation is unlocked but at that point the bonuses are irrelevant anyway.

With the starting warrior it's not hard indeed to get 1 or 2 ruins. More is possible but it's not very often. So while I agree it's better than what we have now, it's still really lackluster as part of an UA. What's hurting The Shoshone from the feedback of many people is a lack of any/several paths to any type of victory.

I'm not good at balancing anything so I just throw a rough idea here but for instance what if upon discovering ancient ruins you'd get a permanent bonus to your capital/a random city (+X science/culture/faith or whatever - scaling with era?). By the time you discover most of your ancient ruins it's unlikely you'd get more than your capital but it could favor tradition or give a boost for progress/authority, or make founding a religion easier. It's not giving you any option for victory but it could feed into the turtle game of a tradition/strong capital at least. Or it could be a food bonus upon discovering ruins to allow the capital/any city to work faster the tiles it unlocks with the other part of the UA.

 

[azum4roll]

I'm not good at balancing anything so I just throw a rough idea here but for instance what if upon discovering ancient ruins you'd get a permanent bonus to your capital/a random city (+X science/culture/faith or whatever - scaling with era?). By the time you discover most of your ancient ruins it's unlikely you'd get more than your capital but it could favor tradition or give a boost for progress/authority, or make founding a religion easier. It's not giving you any option for victory but it could feed into the turtle game of a tradition/strong capital at least. Or it could be a food bonus upon discovering ruins to allow the capital/any city to work faster the tiles it unlocks with the other part of the UA.

That's even more stuck to having ruins on. If you turn ruins off you may as well disable the civ.