Shoshone discussion

[Stalker0]

The objective of this was to try to incorporate all that extra land they get from that UA for something other than just defense. Trying to create some economic benefit for tiles outside working distance so that Shoshone are incentivized to maximize their tile claims, settle wider and further apart.

And that's fair, you could stick with the OG concept of a population free improvement that has to be spread around. I do think my tweak to make it where its the pop growth itself that triggers the civilian unit removes a lot of the problems I noted above (removing the need for food as one big example).

The biggest issue with the concept then is the late game scaling. I am still "growing" at size 4 or 6 or whatever, but I now have modern food bonusese, so I would expect the civilian unit production to skyrocket. You would probably need some secondary value to use those units, or shut off teh mechanic somehow.

 

[pineappledan]

Or new idea: just make the encampment work like a local version of the proposed Roman villa.

Great Expanse

• Claim adjacent unowned land tiles when Cities naturally gain a tile of the same (terrain) type. Tile picker always chooses the best tile to grow to.
• Land Units receive a +20% Combat Strength bonus when fighting in friendly territory.

Encampment
Tile requirements unchanged
Tile defense and damage unchanged
+21
Nearby city gains +1

Nearby city is the city that owns the tile
The +1 culture ignores working distance and doesn’t require being worked.

That gives some economic benefit for tiles outside working distance

 

[Haldar]

I have no idea about balance, but when it comes to gaining benefit of having vast amount of tiles, maybe something along lines:
- change Encampent so it makes tiles have 0 yields, and is not workable;
- change UA to have yields for every encampment inside your borders

That would promote having wide borders, even beyond the 3 tiles range (or 4 for Tradition), somewhat discouraging population growth, and requiring you to actively build the encampments, not just gain yields for having huge borders, although encampment having no "people" on it is kinda counter thematic, so maybe change the UI to some other building.

 

[pineappledan]

I think you would still need to make the encampments workable, because otherwise you would turn off the ideology bonuses to UIs. Making them a global bonus that frees up To work other tiles would also make them hard to balance unless the yields they gave were 1) global yields, and 2) relatively small, like no more than 3 total per improvement.

 

[pineappledan]

The biggest issue with the concept then is the late game scaling. I am still "growing" at size 4 or 6 or whatever, but I now have modern food bonusese, so I would expect the civilian unit production to skyrocket. You would probably need some secondary value to use those units, or shut off teh mechanic somehow.

Unless the katayna pops still contribute to the cost of the next birth

 

[ma_kuh]

Here's a variation that juggles where pieces sit amongst the abilities. Population is limited in a more natural way --reduced growth-- and doesn't force a hard cap. The Taikwahni/Katayna functions similarly to a mini-citadel or satellite city, claiming the area around itself (but without stealing). You can also chain the border beyond even the 5-tile range --although I'm not sure if that will allow the tiles to be worked, even with the new locked tiles.

Great Expanse
Cities with 4 or more population gain a free Taikwahni whenever they gain population, and have 50% reduced Growth.
Land units gain +20% combat strength in owned territory.

Taikwahni
Unique civilian unit.
Can be consumed to build a Katayna within or adjacent to your borders.
Claims neutral tiles of the same terrain type when expended.

Katayna (same stats and behavior)
Can be built anywhere except next to other Katayna.
1

+1 at Mathematics​

+1 at Machinery​

+1 at Metallurgy​

+1 at Industrialization​

+20% tile defense
Deals 5 damage to adjacent enemy units every turn
Has a free citizen permanently assigned to it

gives yields on the tile to the city that owns the tile​

ignores city working distance (ie. can be >3 tiles from the city as long as the tile is owned by that city)​

circumvents city population cap (contributes to population scaling abilities)​

 

[Stalker0]

Unless the katayna pops still contribute to the cost of the next birth

true but at that point its starts to seem jenky. We are doing all this stuff to not have pop....but kind of have pop.

It goes back to maybe its simplier to provide incentives to work the land over specialists, and just not cap pop at all.

 

[Stalker0]

What if all shoshone cities could work tiles 4 away? Then you really have the great "expanse"

 

[Stalker0]

Ok so trying a different idea.

UA: The Great Expanse
Settled cities gain tiles (unchanged). +1 production on all tiles. Cities can work tiles up to 4 units away. +20% CS to land units in owned territory.

 

[pineappledan]

I thought the reason we generally disallowed 4 tile rings was because it was so performance-heavy? Having 1 city for a few civs with it was okay, but having a civ with potentially 20+ cities with 4 tile rings, and maybe even 1 with 5, would create stability problems?

 

[pineappledan]

true but at that point its starts to seem jenky. We are doing all this stuff to not have pop....but kind of have pop

Kinda like how Venice can’t make settlers to settle cities with… and then is given a UU that can settle cities.

I guess the way this is going is that you have to create an alternative mechanic for growth instead of eliminating growth completely. Otherwise you break too many things in the game that assume your cities can grow.

 

[Stalker0]

Kinda like how Venice can’t make settlers to settle cities with… and then is given a UU that can settle cities.

Sure, and considering how much work we have done with Venice (and the jury still debates how "balanced" a civ they are). Its a good example that we shouldn't break fundamental mechanics unless we absolutely have to. And again I think in this case we can incentive working the land and not specialists in much simplier ways.

I mean hell maybe the simpliest thing to do here is just make the encampment "OP". then you want lots of land for the encampments, you want to work encampments over specialists.....everything might just takes care of itself.

 

[pineappledan]

It’s a good demonstration of how if you break a fundamental mechanic of civ you will spend the rest of the kit reinventing the wheel or compensating in some other way.

 

[hokath]

Nearby city gains +1
Nearby city is the city that owns the tile
The +1 culture ignores working distance and doesn’t require being worked.

This is where my thoughts were going.
Another possibility would be something like
+x yields in capital for every y tiles owned
where the yields could be `all yields' or just tourism/culture or whatever.
This sidesteps the question of exactly which tile "belongs" to which city

 

[pineappledan]

We have buildings that boost “nearby” resources, so I think we can work off that implicit understanding of “nearby” without delving into tile ownership in the text description.

@Rekk is currently working on a new Villa improvement for Rome that will give 2 to the capital for each villa on empire.He’s also planning on releasing a local version of that code, which allows buildings to gain yields for each improvement type near the city. These are tied to a building table, so in the case of Rome, it is the palace that gains 2 per villa on empire.

The Shoshone could use the local version of that ability.

Rek has been chatty on discord re: the Shoshone, but hasn’t chipped in here, so I will CC his proposal here:

Great Expanse

• Newly acquired cities (settled or conquered) gain 3 free tiles.
• When your Borders expand, claim all adjacent unowned land tiles of the same type.
• Land Units gain +20% Combat Strength in friendly territory.
• Clearing Barbarian Encampments also gives an Ancient Ruin reward.

Encampment
Tile requirements unchanged
Tile defense and damage unchanged
+21
Nearby city gains +1 for each Encampment if it has a Smokehouse, +1 if it has a Customs House, and +2 if it has an Interpretive Center.

Tech upgrades:
1 at Drama
1at gunpowder
1at rifling
1 at advanced ballistics

 

[CppMaster]

Clearing Barbarian Encampments also gives an Ancient Ruin reward

This is cool!

 

[Rekk]

Rek has been chatty on discord re: the Shoshone, but hasn’t chipped in here, so I will CC his proposal here:

Fully texted out UA:

Rationale:
In my opinion, we should be trying to preserve Shoshone's current ability and desirability of settling cities far apart from each other. It is the only civ that can settle greedily to maximize the number of high quality tiles per city without severely stalling initial growth (they can settle such that their only good tiles are in the 2nd or 3rd rings and instantly gain access to them). This goes hand-in-hand with encroaching on other players' settling regions.

Keeping a portion of the initial tile claim allows the Shoshone to continue to settling greedily, while the claim ability lets them quickly grow into a strong forward settler.

The proposed UI change gives a reward for 4-5th ring without being explicit about it by giving a local yield-per-improvement to the Encampment. So, if a Shoshone city manages to get into a 4-5th ring without the player wanting to have settled there, they can still gain benefit by continuing to build encampments for both the dot damage and the local yield.

The Barbarian Encampment as Ancient Ruins is the least connected of the kit, but it was suggested a while ago, and it's cool. It allows the original ancient ruins theme to stay and provides an actual benefit to players who have turned ruins off (also, the AI is incentivized to clear camps already).

Aside:
I'm pretty sure "nearby" is not a synonym for "owned" in our VP parlance. Are there other abilities that conflate the two?

 

[pineappledan]

I think the two different (technically 3) free tile methods is a bit excessive and redundant, but Rek likes how this retains the “in your face” impact of a Shoshone forward settle. I think it would stay depending on if you can make 4 different abilities fit into 3 lines of UA text space.

The barb-camps-are-also-ruins extends the usefulness of a ruin bonus past the ruin phase, since you can be clearing barbs much later and more consistently well-into mid game with how the new barb spawn mechanic works.

 

[ma_kuh]

If worst comes to worst, you can always put the "Barbarians = Ancient Ruins" into the Homeland Defender promotion (with a rename, perhaps)...

It's also a little ambiguous whether the initial 3-free-tiles benefit from "claim adjacent unowned land tiles with the same terrain". I think the intent is that they don't, judging by the rationale. I guess the wording is relying on "after borders expand [naturally]"?

 

[Rekk]

If worst comes to worst, you can always put the "Barbarians = Ancient Ruins" into the Homeland Defender promotion (with a rename, perhaps)...

Enginseer is on a crusade to make sure UA promotions are always fully described in the UA. 4 lines is fine for a UA.

It's also a little ambiguous whether the initial 3-free-tiles benefit from "claim adjacent unowned land tiles with the same terrain". I think the intent is that they don't, judging by the rationale. I guess the wording is relying on "after borders expand [naturally]"?

The intent is that they don't. Border expand (technically border growth) is a specific mechanic. If it's not clear enough, then we can switch the words to "gain additional tiles" and "after border growth", if "claim" makes the community think of border growth. Note that Spain uses "gain" for its all-encompassing ability, and Russia uses both "expand" and "growth" interchangeably for its border-growth-specific abilities.