Splitting China-- Help needed!!

[pyroflare77]

First off, yes, I am aware that there are various civilizations out there of Chinese dynasties and many still in the woodworks. This isn't a Chinese civilization pack, but rather a proper split of the vanilla China civilization, which has Han and Tang components within. I was holding out for JFD's China pack far down the line, but it looks like only Qing will come out of that, and Wu Zetian will thus remain untouched.

There's one big problem about my plans here-- I'm no coder or artist at all. The extent of my coding skills is making minor edits here and there. My only mod is a crummy little Babylon tweak. I'm sure I can whip up base xml/sql just fine since it would be editing an established template, but lua is where I would get stuck. Art, too, obviously. So I'm mostly just an ideas guy here that can compile stuff together.

And I also don't have a full design for the Tang dynasty, so any help there would be appreciated.

So here's the ideas I have thus far for both dynasties:

Han Dynasty:
Leader - Han Wudi
Unique Unit - Chu-ko-nu. Unchanged from vanilla.
Unique Building - Paper Maker. Unchanged from vanilla.
Unique Ability - Legacy of the Han: +1 gold and science for each embassy. Upon advancing to a new era, specialists provide +2 of an additional chosen yield.
Unique Decision 1 - Prepare Imperial Expansions. This reflects all that military expanding. I haven't thought of the conditions or requirements for these decisions, only their effects. This simply provides vanilla China's UA along with a great general in the capital.
Unique Decision 2 - Patronize the Music Bureau. Writer specialists also generate great musician points, and musician specialists also generate great writer points.
Color - Some kind of red on some kind of yellow.
Symbol - The boring route could be chosen and the character for the dynasty could be used. I was thinking using some kind of bird like in these things:

Spoiler :

Best case scenario would be stealing Jan's old Han symbol and recoloring it

Tang Dynasty
Leader - Wu Zetian
Unique Unit - Qing Ji. A knight replacement that is slightly weaker but ignores enemy zone of control.
Unique Building - Pavilion. A garden replacement that gives +2 culture and +2 faith. Doesn't require fresh water.
Unique Ability - Pax Sinica: International trade routes provide golden age points based on resource diversity. During golden ages, specialists generate +1 of their associated yield.

Color, symbol, and decisions are retained from vanilla China. Imperial Exams decision is altered slightly, halving the construction of libraries and providing +1 culture to libraries, pavilions, and universities.

So, as it can be seen, I need a lot of help from the community here to make this vision a reality. Also help to even finalize the ideas in the first place. Really, the only thing I truly do have other than existing assets is Han Wudi's peace and war themes

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If a modder wants to lift these ideas off of me and just have me as a consultant in some manner, that would be terrific and probably the most realistic way this can happen

 

[DarthStarkiller]

I can help with art. Not right now, but eventually.

 

[pyroflare77]

Just thought of an interesting idea for Tang's ability. Not sure if it's possible, though:

Pax Sinica: International trade routes provide golden age points based on resource diversity. During golden ages, specialists generate +1 of their associated yield.

This not only helps out the Silk Road theme I was going for, but also the large amount of naval trade with parts of Asia the Tang was doing at the time. The specialist boost and golden age theme fit with the all-rounder secondary concept, because the Tang was one of those cool guy dynasties that did everything well.

 

[pyroflare77]

Tang unit thought of. It will be Qibing (which is just Chinese for cavalry; my creativity is strong). That westward expansion was accomplished with their cavalry, but they used light cavalry instead of more armored ones. So a knight replacement that's slightly weaker but ignores enemy zone of control. For the unit art, I could probably be lazy and just use Ethnic Unit's Chinese horseman model, whatever that is.

 

[Hoop Thrower]

According to various sources the type of Cavalry the Tang used was the Qing Ji, which means... wait for it... Light Cavalry.

Slightly better at least?

 

[pyroflare77]

Yes, slightly better

 

[Ajsieg]

I will say that you should slightly change the original uniques, since you have both of them as one civ, you're basically reskinning china. If you just provide an extra bonus for each of them, then it would be fine.

 

[pyroflare77]

The Chu-ko-nu and Paper Maker are fine as they are. The switch up of UAs should make the Han more distinct than China. Even though their ability is still in there as a decision, the cost will probably be rather high so they're not just China+.

As for the Han's ability, even though I don't know the limits of Civ V coding, what I've thought of for the extra specialist yields just sounds like a pain. A pop-up every time a specialist is assigned sounds really convulted and annoying. It could be assigning the extra values per era, but that still sounds complex. Making the yields static per specialist would be simple, but not versatile enough. But leaving it up to player choice just sounds like a surefire way to just get SCIENCE SCIENCE SCIENCE.

Could a random yield be determined at the game start and assigned to the specialists? Perhaps something like the Maya's ability could be used: pick a new yield for specialists every era and you can't pick the same one until everything's cycled through.

 

[Ajsieg]

The Chu-ko-nu and Paper Maker are fine as they are. The switch up of UAs should make the Han more distinct than China. Even though their ability is still in there as a decision, the cost will probably be rather high so they're not just China+.

As for the Han's ability, even though I don't know the limits of Civ V coding, what I've thought of for the extra specialist yields just sounds like a pain. A pop-up every time a specialist is assigned sounds really convulted and annoying. It could be assigning the extra values per era, but that still sounds complex. Making the yields static per specialist would be simple, but not versatile enough. But leaving it up to player choice just sounds like a surefire way to just get SCIENCE SCIENCE SCIENCE.

Could a random yield be determined at the game start and assigned to the specialists? Perhaps something like the Maya's ability could be used: pick a new yield for specialists every era and you can't pick the same one until everything's cycled through.

Just look at New Deal in the Freedom Ideology of Korea's UA. It does what you want to do with specialist yields.

 

[tmxk2012917]

I think Han Wudi 's UA can be designed based on the vanilla UA because he is fond of wars

 

[pyroflare77]

But that leaves out all the other great things the Han did.

 

[AlbDreamweaver]

But that leaves out all the other great things the Han did.

Not that I agree with tmxk here, but I think he has a point in that nothing that the Han would have accomplished would have happened were it not for the ruthless subjugation of all of China via warring. You can see that made quite evident in their inevitable collapse once they lacked a strong leader.

Perhaps a UA that highlights the factional nature of the country in the late Han might be an interesting nod to the period that most players would be most familiar with (The Warring States).

 

[pyroflare77]

The leader is Han Wudi. He's having none of your factional natures.

As for the ability, I think choosing a yield to boost specialists with every era advancement would allow the player choice I'm looking for but without any of the abuse potential. Probably a less harsh cooldown on picking the same option since there are only so many eras in the game. Vanilla China's UA should still be a decision I feel. If I leave it as part of the Han's UA then I've just made a buffed China instead of something different.

 

[pyroflare77]

Or I think a ridiculously easier method and just have specialists provide +1 great people points. And the Prepare Imperial Expansions decision will also give a free great general in addition to China's UA.

No, that crossed out part won't work well. It'd basically just be slapping on a simple modifier to great people generation, and that's just part of Wei's UA.