The Touhou Mod Development Thread

[Magma_Dragoon]

I think Alice would be better represented as a city state. She's kind of a shut in... And Yukari's a weirdo who sleeps all day...

Kappa civ sounds pretty good. That extra hammer from rivers might be a bit op, at least to have from turn 1.

 

[bouncymischa]

I think Alice would be better represented as a city state. She's kind of a shut in... And Yukari's a weirdo who sleeps all day...

It's the classic issue with basing a civ on fictional character... there is a relative lack of "empires" in Gensokyo, so it's easier to just take a character and say "what would they do leading an empire?" That was the idea behind Touhou Epic, at least.

That said, I can see Alice leading an empire of dolls. Even Yukari is pretty super-intelligent when she puts her mind to it...

Kappa civ sounds pretty good. That extra hammer from rivers might be a bit op, at least to have from turn 1.

The Super Youkai Warhead now scares me, now that I'm fully awake. Basic guided missile is Range 8, Power 60. The SYW is Range 16, Power 140. It's over twice as strong! It's like making a Swordsman UU that's stronger than a Musketman! Yikes.

As I said before, for a Kappa civ I'd be all over making a Guided Missile UU -- it is one of Nitori's defining attacks. But this one feels a bit over the top... X3

I still think the UAs look cool, though.

 

[aranicar]

Hi, I'm the writer of the new Touhou Civ mod on Steam. A thanks to Huitzil for linking me to this.

My apologies for not participating earlier, I didn't know this particular thread existed and I've only been modding Civ5 since Dec of last year.

The Super Youkai Warhead now scares me, now that I'm fully awake. Basic guided missile is Range 8, Power 60. The SYW is Range 16, Power 140. It's over twice as strong! It's like making a Swordsman UU that's stronger than a Musketman! Yikes.

As I said before, for a Kappa civ I'd be all over making a Guided Missile UU -- it is one of Nitori's defining attacks. But this one feels a bit over the top... X3

I'm not sure if you saw bouncymischa, but the production was increased by 100%, from 150 to 300. It's basically just two Guided Missiles + a bit into a unit. The range is what makes it really good, but I might reduce it (to something reasonable like 12) because range + damage is quite a powerful combination. One of the things that annoyed me while playing was the uselessness of the Guided Missile. I had to mass-produce them to deal any significant damage to ONE unit, let alone the 180 Strength cities (60 Power is just not enough vs info age units). This unit is supposed to ease the micromanagement of the GM.

That extra hammer from rivers might be a bit op, at least to have from turn 1.

Nitori apparently has a really hard time getting off the ground in my test runs, so that's why the +1 Production. I don't like it, but she couldn't even get to industrial age without being overrun by some other player.

Right now I'm working on the Diplo Text for the 3 civs, but I've already got changes in the works, such as Alice losing the production bonus and going for a unit flank bonus and a new UU for Alice (an easy mass produce industrial age unit with more flank/adjacent attack bonus).

 

[bouncymischa]

I'm not sure if you saw bouncymischa, but the production was increased by 100%, from 150 to 300. It's basically just two Guided Missiles + a bit into a unit. The range is what makes it really good, but I might reduce it (to something reasonable like 12) because range + damage is quite a powerful combination. One of the things that annoyed me while playing was the uselessness of the Guided Missile. I had to mass-produce them to deal any significant damage to ONE unit, let alone the 180 Strength cities (60 Power is just not enough vs info age units). This unit is supposed to ease the micromanagement of the GM.

Ahhh, I'd missed that part. (In my defense, as I said in my earlier post, I was mostly looking at these first thing in the morning when I wasn't fully awake yet. X3) And given that I haven't used Guided Missiles much myself, your arguments do make sense.

I'm curious to see how the flank bonus will go for Alice... I suppose I still like the idea of her having a production bonus, but with a "Doll Sized" combat penalty to her units, but not sure how well that'd work out in actual play.

 

[aranicar]

Ahhh, I'd missed that part. (In my defense, as I said in my earlier post, I was mostly looking at these first thing in the morning when I wasn't fully awake yet. X3) And given that I haven't used Guided Missiles much myself, your arguments do make sense.

I'm curious to see how the flank bonus will go for Alice... I suppose I still like the idea of her having a production bonus, but with a "Doll Sized" combat penalty to her units, but not sure how well that'd work out in actual play.

I just realized something, Nitori's nuke subs and missile cruisers can carry double the amount of firepower in missiles now xD.
With 2-3 missiles in every ship each with 12 (I am nerfing the 16 super range) range having a 140 strength punch... Perhaps I should weaken it a bit.

Alice will still have her UB production boost, which is still a good 50% land bonus.

 

[Huitzil37]

50% land bonus from a building is really, really huge, dude. The only other 50% bonus to unit production in the game is from the Kremlin, which is a lategame Wonder, and only for armored units. Like, 15 or 20% would still be good, but not totally blowing the lid off of every other production-boost building.

I think Alice makes a good civ leader in that you can easily come up with a reason for her to be leading a civ made of dolls. Her big quest is to create a completely independent doll, right? This is either how she does it -- by creating an environment where their magical doll-programming will become so iteratively complex, as with human behavior, as to end in emergent independence. Or, it's what she does when she has succeeded at this task: create a perfect world of dolls for them to occupy.

Something probably ought to give her +food from Forests, since her population IS made of wood.

edit: Also, the Guided Missile is EXTREMELY late-game, so it runs into the same problems as the Giant Death Robot UU. What if the Super Youkai Warhead was instead a unique missile that was far less powerful and that you got much earlier? Early access to a completely new unit type could be cool and very distinct, changing how to play as them and play against them.

 

[bouncymischa]

edit: Also, the Guided Missile is EXTREMELY late-game, so it runs into the same problems as the Giant Death Robot UU. What if the Super Youkai Warhead was instead a unique missile that was far less powerful and that you got much earlier? Early access to a completely new unit type could be cool and very distinct, changing how to play as them and play against them.

I'll admit, personally I like the idea of having some late-game UUs. I suppose it depends on how late in the game one considers a "late-game UU" to be viable, though. I usually find in my own games, my end-game push comes using Modern to Atomic units, although I've had a few where I used Information age units to steamroller over my opponents to secure victory. The Guided Missile is at least available at the very beginning of the Information age, rather than the tail end like the GDR, at least.

Still, if you wanted to move a Guided Missile UU up in techs, I'd say move it to Rocketry? It's only one tech ahead, so it's not too big of a leap, but it's a lot easier to race to Rocketry than Advanced Ballistics, since you don't need Nuclear Fission.

.... Now I'm sorely tempted to try and make a Yumemi Okazaki civilization. Partly because Strawberry Crisis is an awesome song, and partly because I'd want to give her an Information age UU to play with.

 

[aranicar]

50% land bonus from a building is really, really huge, dude. The only other 50% bonus to unit production in the game is from the Kremlin, which is a lategame Wonder, and only for armored units. Like, 15 or 20% would still be good, but not totally blowing the lid off of every other production-boost building.

The problem with Alice's 'Doll' units are that they MUST get multiple groups out in order to be effective. Sure 50% is a lot, but each individual unit is weaker (70%, less than 3/4 of an actual unit), and you have the unit maintenance. Alice early game was quite difficult for me vs the barbarians, even with the absurd unit production boosts in v1, since I don't really make many units early on. Right now my goal is to have it so that without support, Alice is VERY weak, but in groups, her units are only sub-par. Her strategy is to defeat the opponent through tactics, or by outproducing them. The strategy against her would be to outmaneuver and isolate her units (alone they melt like butter), or to out tech her, because in my playthroughs any civ with a military tech advantage destroyed her.

Maybe I should reduce it to 60% unit strength? Surely that's too much. :\

Something probably ought to give her +food from Forests, since her population IS made of wood.

I like that idea XD.

I'll admit, personally I like the idea of having some late-game UUs. I suppose it depends on how late in the game one considers a "late-game UU" to be viable, though. I usually find in my own games, my end-game push comes using Modern to Atomic units, although I've had a few where I used Information age units to steamroller over my opponents to secure victory. The Guided Missile is at least available at the very beginning of the Information age, rather than the tail end like the GDR, at least.

Still, if you wanted to move a Guided Missile UU up in techs, I'd say move it to Rocketry? It's only one tech ahead, so it's not too big of a leap, but it's a lot easier to race to Rocketry than Advanced Ballistics, since you don't need Nuclear Fission.

I've been playing with the idea of moving the SYM down an era (range 8; strength 60; production 150-250). Would at least make it a useful unit. Currently, the GM is worthless in the age that you get it in unless you mass produce it (which is a pain to micromanage). The 60 strength doesn't even do full damage vs an Infantry unit. Personally, I would put it somewhere near Atomic Theory, but Rocketry sounds pretty good (especially since Nitori should be one or two techs ahead of everyone else).

That being said, I won't be able to test out any changes until I've gotten the Diplomacy done first (I spent 6 hours on Sunday setting up my diplo code so I'm only 3/4 of the way through Yukari lol).

EDIT: Please bear in mind that I haven't had the time to play a BNW game, so all my game experience has been done on G&K. I will update to BNW eventually, but I'm busy with work and will finalize/clean up my current assets first, so expect that after two weeks or more. You can disable BNW in the DLC menu, but I'm sure nobody wants to do that.

 

[Kiefmaster99]

Touhou Epic coordinator here. Nice to see some progress on the Touhou mods.

Just to throw in a few more cents into the general discussion. In terms of the number of civilizations, Touhou doesn't suffer the same problem as many other anime/game-related mods in that there isn't a shortage of civs, and it doesn't nearly suffer as much from shoehorning characters into civilizations.

Just off the top of my head, the obvious factions are:

Spoiler :

Hakurei Shrine (+ Forest of Magic) (+ Oni)
Probability Space Hypervessel
Mugenkan
Makai
Scarlet Devil Mansion
Hakugyokurou (+ Mayohiga)
Eientei (+ Lunar Capital)
Human Village (+ Secret Sealing Club)
Higan
Youkai Mountain (Kappa/Tengu)
Moriya Shrine
Heaven
Palace of the Earth Spirits
Myouren Temple (+ Nue/Mamizou)
Hall of Dreams' Great Mausoleum/Senkai
Shining Needle Castle (+ Tsukumogami)
Team 9 (+Three Fairies)

...which is 17 civs, 26 if you want to include 'breakaway' civs. Minimum. That's at least as many civs as vanilla Civ5, and certainly much more than the 5 (+2) in the Madoka mod.

And as always, if you want to borrow stuff from the Touhou Epic mod, give me a shout. In the worst-case scenario the guy doesn't respond, I will tolerate the use of models for modding as long as credit is given.

Now for some comments on individual civs:
Eientei: I would reduce the food bonus from Specialists to +1F. The UA seems to be modelled after Korea's, but the Food bonus strikes to me as more powerful than equivalent science. Also, the red/blue colour combination is kind of hard on the eyes, dunno if that was intentional (fitting with Reisen's theme), but I'm thinking of using a faint yellow instead of red.

Moriya Shrine: I would add +1Food to mountains to make them more attractive if you're still sticking with that.

 

[Huitzil37]

The problem with Alice's 'Doll' units are that they MUST get multiple groups out in order to be effective. Sure 50% is a lot, but each individual unit is weaker (70%, less than 3/4 of an actual unit), and you have the unit maintenance. Alice early game was quite difficult for me vs the barbarians, even with the absurd unit production boosts in v1, since I don't really make many units early on. Right now my goal is to have it so that without support, Alice is VERY weak, but in groups, her units are only sub-par. Her strategy is to defeat the opponent through tactics, or by outproducing them. The strategy against her would be to outmaneuver and isolate her units (alone they melt like butter), or to out tech her, because in my playthroughs any civ with a military tech advantage destroyed her.

Maybe I should reduce it to 60% unit strength? Surely that's too much. :\

I keep thinking of it in terms of making the bonus cumulative. Which, if it isn't like that now, I think you really ought to look into, because that just seems neat and unique. If it's cumulative, then her bonus + the similar bonus from Honor means that you need 2 units by each other to make them equal to a normal unit at 70%, and every unit thereafter buffs it. This is probably still too much work, so, I would probably make it -20% or so, so you are weaker alone but stronger teamed up, which would justify a less than 50% production bonus on her doll parts, and push her toward "group tactics" instead of "massive horde".

I've been playing with the idea of moving the SYM down an era (range 8; strength 60; production 150-250). Would at least make it a useful unit. Currently, the GM is worthless in the age that you get it in unless you mass produce it (which is a pain to micromanage). The 60 strength doesn't even do full damage vs an Infantry unit. Personally, I would put it somewhere near Atomic Theory, but Rocketry sounds pretty good (especially since Nitori should be one or two techs ahead of everyone else).

By "a lot earlier" I meant, like, Industrial era. Don't even make it replace the Guided Missile (I know I have seen a few custom civs whose UU doesn't replace anything because it's weird or specialized, so I know it's doable), just give Nitori an Industrial-era missile, with appropriate damage and cost, that nobody else gets.

 

[bouncymischa]

Moriya Shrine: I would add +1Food to mountains to make them more attractive if you're still sticking with that.

I might... currently, my cities don't seem to like putting citizens on mountains when I leave them to their own devices, and putting citizens there to get the bonuses tends to cause my cities to stop growing. Still, it could be argued that it's a good trade-off... I dunno.

I've got my current version of the civ zipped up as a .rar file, but the civfanatics forums are being stubborn and not letting me upload it so people can test it out.

By "a lot earlier" I meant, like, Industrial era. Don't even make it replace the Guided Missile (I know I have seen a few custom civs whose UU doesn't replace anything because it's weird or specialized, so I know it's doable), just give Nitori an Industrial-era missile, with appropriate damage and cost, that nobody else gets.

Out of curiosity, Huitzil, do you dislike Modern and later UUs? I had a discussion with another friend of mine about it today. I tend to find I do most of my wars in the Modern and later eras, so I don't have much of an issue with a late-game UU... but I know I always hear stories about people ending the game in the Industrial era, so maybe that's why some people don't like UUs they might never reach? I dunno...

I agree that you could make a UU that's distinctly different from the unit it replaces -- for Makai, my planned Dragon unit will be more like a Helicopter Gunship, but replace Cavalry, so you have an early hovering unit, so I can understand the idea. I'm just not sure why with the Flower Tank and SYW you seem keen to move them up to the Industrial era...

 

[aranicar]

I keep thinking of it in terms of making the bonus cumulative. Which, if it isn't like that now, I think you really ought to look into, because that just seems neat and unique. If it's cumulative, then her bonus + the similar bonus from Honor means that you need 2 units by each other to make them equal to a normal unit at 70%, and every unit thereafter buffs it. This is probably still too much work, so, I would probably make it -20% or so, so you are weaker alone but stronger teamed up, which would justify a less than 50% production bonus on her doll parts, and push her toward "group tactics" instead of "massive horde".

I have no experience with LUA and I don't have time to learn it, so I will avoid that at all if possible. Besides, it doesn't really make much logical sense why group bonuses are cumulative for Alice only and not for anybody else.
I still feel like I should avoid buffing units to greater than average strength when they are bunched together. Giving too many bonuses leads to "death balls" and giving too little leans towards "generic ok trait". What I am going for with Alice is that she utilizes the 'quantity', rather than the 'quality' strategy. Her dolls are easy to make and replace, but they are less capable of doing the job well. The only reason why they get any bonuses is because having more units gives greater tactical flexibility. Partially the reason why I'm changing to flank bonuses now (surrounding gives bonuses, not adjacency, makes more tactical sense).

By "a lot earlier" I meant, like, Industrial era. Don't even make it replace the Guided Missile (I know I have seen a few custom civs whose UU doesn't replace anything because it's weird or specialized, so I know it's doable), just give Nitori an Industrial-era missile, with appropriate damage and cost, that nobody else gets.

I juggled with that idea for a bit.

Super Youkai Missile:
Tech: Flight
Cost: 250
Strength: 45
Range: 6
Cost to Strength Ratio: 5.5 (compare to Great War Infantry with 6.4)

Out of curiosity, Huitzil, do you dislike Modern and later UUs? I had a discussion with another friend of mine about it today. I tend to find I do most of my wars in the Modern and later eras, so I don't have much of an issue with a late-game UU... but I know I always hear stories about people ending the game in the Industrial era, so maybe that's why some people don't like UUs they might never reach? I dunno...

I agree that you could make a UU that's distinctly different from the unit it replaces -- for Makai, my planned Dragon unit will be more like a Helicopter Gunship, but replace Cavalry, so you have an early hovering unit, so I can understand the idea. I'm just not sure why with the Flower Tank and SYW you seem keen to move them up to the Industrial era...

If you start the game out from Ancient era, these Civs will be weaker until the endgame, where they would be stronger for an 'infinite' amount of time. You can't choose to stay in Classical era forever because you have Legionaries (everybody else will get gunpowder units and blow you up), but once the game reaches the Information era, it stays there forever.
That and sometimes while playing you just want to play with your UU earlier. XD

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

I'd lump Yukari in with the Mari/Renko/Yumemi/Chiyuri civ. They would be a science focus civ with a UB that allows airlifts in the classical era to approximate the effects of Yukari's portals.

By Chekhov's Gun we can determine Mari is a descendant of Yukari and Renko is a student of Yumemi.

"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

If Mari weren't Yukari's descendant, they wouldn't look similar and have similar powers. If Renko weren't Yumemi's student, Renko would not be a physics major.

My take on it, but I'm busy with Yuyuko's gpp sapping national epic right now.

 

[bouncymischa]

If you start the game out from Ancient era, these Civs will be weaker until the endgame, where they would be stronger for an 'infinite' amount of time. You can't choose to stay in Classical era forever because you have Legionaries (everybody else will get gunpowder units and blow you up), but once the game reaches the Information era, it stays there forever.
That and sometimes while playing you just want to play with your UU earlier. XD

True, but you could always play a civ with an earlier UU. It's one of the reasons I'm trying to make sure my civs are all strong in different periods, so there's some variety, rather than everyone getting their toys at roughly the same time.

I'd lump Yukari in with the Mari/Renko/Yumemi/Chiyuri civ. They would be a science focus civ with a UB that allows airlifts in the classical era to approximate the effects of Yukari's portals.

By Chekhov's Gun we can determine Mari is a descendant of Yukari and Renko is a student of Yumemi.

"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

If Mari weren't Yukari's descendant, they wouldn't look similar and have similar powers. If Renko weren't Yumemi's student, Renko would not be a physics major.

My take on it, but I'm busy with Yuyuko's gpp sapping national epic right now.

Personally, I'd like to take a shot at making an independent Yumemi civ -- I've been wanting to include a sci-fi-ish Touhou civ for a while. It'd be a fun way to make use of some of the sci-fi models I've had sitting around. And she has an awesome theme.

I guess if people really wanted to combine them, I could try to make a Seihou civ instead? :3

 

[Huitzil37]

I DON'T like Information Age UUs, for a couple of reasons. You say the Information Age stays "forever", but it really doesn't, because the game is almost over by then. And the point of most UUs is to give you an advantage against enemy civs at a similar tech level, but the Information Age is the era you're least likely to have competitors in, so you need them the least then. And since advantages snowball, an earlier UU is better, if it gives you the ability to take some territory you wouldn't otherwise then an earlier UU gives you more time to use that territory to your benefit. You don't stay in Classical forever because you have Legionnaires, but you get a boost from Classical onward for all the you wrecked with your Legionnaires.

I don't want to put everything in Industrial, so far I have made 2 Industrial UUs (Spring Herald, Yatagarasu Bomber) and 2 Renaissance (Defense Force, Flower Tank).

 

[aranicar]

Both are good points. I'll need to think about my playstyle and how I should design/place units in the future. I don't like early UUs because I never get to use them much, I don't like late UUs because I never get to use them, and I don't like mid-game UUs because everybody else has UUs in mid-game . That probably means that I'm open to UUs of all ages.

I am highly against lumping Touhou chars into civs for Civ5. This isn't Civ4 where every civ has multiple leaders, so we would lose a lot of diversity. It would be fine for me if the mod itself was a total-conversion, enabling multiple UUs/UBs etc... but since most of us are just adding a few civs to the game, I don't feel like it's necessary to do that.

Anyways, I'm thinking of an idea involving Sekibanki as a civ. Her UU would either be an Archer or Composite Archer (headthrowers ) with 1 range that works like the Gatling Gun and Machine Gun archer units and lowers the strength of nearby enemy units by a bit.

 

[bouncymischa]

I'm getting really annoyed that I can't seem to get my Moriya Shrine civ uploaded here so people can test it. Starting to wonder if I should just try and get it cleaned up enough to post to Steam...

 

[Kiefmaster99]

Regarding UUs/UBs/UIs and era placement:

First, regarding the placement of units in later eras, I do have to agree that you don't want to place them too late for two reasons. First, it's more fun I guess you could say to put units at least in an era you'd expect the player to be able to use before the game ends. Second, except for an American B17 on a Carrier (and even then that's a bit dubious), no unique unit afaik has the last word in power. All unique units become obsolete in the tail-end of the Information Era.

Also, keep in mind the distribution of Touhou unique units and such as a whole. The setting of Gensoukyou is in quasi-feudal Japan, but don't be afraid to put units in the Ancient or Atomic eras. Though I guess this is less of a concern, and can be dealt with later.

I am highly against lumping Touhou chars into civs for Civ5. This isn't Civ4 where every civ has multiple leaders, so we would lose a lot of diversity. It would be fine for me if the mod itself was a total-conversion, enabling multiple UUs/UBs etc... but since most of us are just adding a few civs to the game, I don't feel like it's necessary to do that.

Of course plenty of diversity would be lost. But you have to keep in mind that, if you really wanted to do individual chars, at a rate of one civ per char, you're looking at about 80 civs, counting spell card users alone. I think there is more than enough diversity to be found in Touhou alone even with clumping into factions, and I doubt 80 civs would be an easy thing to manage, let alone finish. Quality over quantity.

 

[aranicar]

Not to be pushy or anything, but what civs are you all working on? I was going to make a Moriya Shrine one but since bouncym is already doing that I'll scrap that idea. I don't want to overlap over anyone's work. I saw Mamizou, Riko, Makai, and Hakugyokurou. Any I missed?

 

[bouncymischa]

Of course plenty of diversity would be lost. But you have to keep in mind that, if you really wanted to do individual chars, at a rate of one civ per char, you're looking at about 80 civs, counting spell card users alone. I think there is more than enough diversity to be found in Touhou alone even with clumping into factions, and I doubt 80 civs would be an easy thing to manage, let alone finish. Quality over quantity.

I agree that there's little point in making a civ for every Touhou character -- there's no real point in making, say, a Sakuya civ, since the Scarlet Devil Mansion is better represented by Remilia. On the other hand, I could certainly see Yukari, Renko/Mari, and Yumemi all making three valid and distinctive civs on their own -- Yukari with an emphasis on gaps for mobility and combat, Renko and Mari with an emphasis on exploring and diplomacy to reflect their club activities, and Yumemi as a pro-science civ with an emphasis on sci-fi technology.

Not to be pushy or anything, but what civs are you all working on? I was going to make a Moriya Shrine one but since bouncym is already doing that I'll scrap that idea. I don't want to overlap over anyone's work. I saw Mamizou, Riko, Makai, and Hakugyokurou. Any I missed?

Currently I'm finishing:
Human Village (Keine)
Moriya Shrine (Kanako)

I've started:
Makai (Shinki)
Tanuki (Mamizou)

I know we've tossed around some ideas for other civs before -- at one point I was considering a "Forest of Magic" civ, but given that the Alice civ is now underway, it may be best to divide it up into a Marisa civ and possibly a Rinnosuke civ... not sure. Huitzil and I had talked about ideas for a Byakuren and a Miko civ, to complete the religious "trinity" between them, but nothing concrete yet.

I'll probably want to, at some point, do a sort of sci-fi Gensokyo civ. I'm currently leaning towards making it a Yumemi civ, although depending on how people feel I could make it a Seihou civ instead...?