[Vote] (2-06) Rome Rework Proposals

[Recursive]

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 discuss your choice(s) in the thread below. You can change your vote as many times as you want until the poll closes.

VP Congress: Session 2, Proposal 6
Discussion Thread: (2-06) Proposal: Please Perpetuate Pilum
Proposer: @crdvis16
Sponsor: @pineappledan

Proposal Details
Pilum is an awesome special promotion for Rome's UU. It does 10 damage to adjacent units who end their turn next to a fortified Legion. It encourages an interesting twist on warfare where you want to plop the Legion in a good defensible spot and then fortify them, preferably with a medic unit nearby. They act as mini mobile citadels!

However, the promotion is lost on upgrade. I hate promotions that are lost on upgrade... it feels unfun. It makes you not want to upgrade your Legion and it ends a period of uniqueness to playing Rome when the game has barely begun!

Proposal: Remove the 'lost on upgrade' attribute on Pilum so that any Legions that survive the early game can continue to act as mini citadels going forward as later era melee units. To compensate, remove the free Cover I promotion to make Legions a little less tough.

I know Pilum is a great unique promotion but I really don't think this change would be over the top. It's really not THAT easy to keep melee units alive so the number of Pilum Legions upgraded into later melee units would continually dwindle as the game goes on. And losing Cover I would reduce their survivability a bit, forcing Rome to invest in more promotions on their Legions in order to get to Cover I/II.


VP Congress: Session 2, Proposal 6a
Discussion Thread: (2-06a) Counterproposal: Rome Rework
Proposer: @pineappledan
Sponsor: @pineappledan + @axatin + @Rekk

Proposal Details

Current Rome bonuses:

Civilizations

Back to Vox Populi Front Page Below you will find a list of all civilizations and leaders in Vox Populi, as well as their unique abilities, improvements, units, and buildings. 4. The list of Buildings that Conquistadors come with: Council, Granary, Market, Monument, Barracks, Shrine, Watermill/...

civ-5-cbp.fandom.com

Glory of Rome
+15% Production towards buildings already in your Capital
Captured Cities retain all their buildings (including UBs and UNWs, but not regular NWs) and gain 4 free tiles.

Legion (Swordsman)
Available at Iron Working
18 CS
Discipline
Cover I
Pilum (lost on upgrade)
Can build roads and forts

Colosseum (Arena)
+233
+2%gold from City Connections on empire
+2 to barracks, forges, and armories
gain GG/GA points in this city and GAP points in all cities when you kill a unit, scaling with era
Resource boosts

Problems:
- Rome's building stealing bonus is unique, but it is conflicted, awkward, situationally ridiculous, and it's a modmodding nightmare that degrades turn performance and stability.

• The fine print of the UB stealing ability is that it can steal all buildings in a city, including NeverCapture buildings.
  • This has created the need for all sorts of extra code so that it won't steal dummy buildings or UA abilities tied to hidden buildings in cities. It's created the need for rulesets over top of rulesets and nested checks that make making new things for modders overly complex.
  • Rome's ability doesn't steal national wonders, because it was determined that Rome could steal multiple copies of stacking global bonuses by capturing multiple copies of the same building. Even from capturing the same national wonder multiple times off the same civ. For example, Rome could get multiple global +2 to Arenas on empire boosts from capturing multiple Circus Maximus national wonders. But on the other hand, some civs have unique national wonders, so it was decided that there should be an exception to this exception, and that they should be able to capture those, AND get to keep his own copy of that base national wonder if he has already built it for himself. BUT, only one of those UNW can exist in his empire at a time, so an exception to the exception to the exception. Confused yet?
  • Any unique building ability that is encoded in lua also needs to check if Rome is in the game, because Rome can steal the building. In the case of a mod like 4UC, this means that while each civ only has to check for the presence of 1 building in their cities, and execute the code for that building, on Romes turn it needs to check for and initiate the bonuses for ALL unique buildings. This can mean dozens of separate checks on Rome's turns. This problem is further exacerbated by custom civs. This means modders face a choice between either: a) breaking compatibility with VP Rome for their modmod, or b) risking game crashes and major performance hits if everything has to also work for Rome.
  • This issue is potentially infinite, since modmodders in the future can just keep adding new civs and components to the game, but it all has to pass this Rome rule.

- Rome is an odd duck right now. It's simultaneously too special, and not very special at all. Aside from its UU and the building bonuses in the UA, it's mostly built around doing things that other civs do, but worse.

• Rome gains 4 free tiles on city conquest, compared to Shoshone's 8 free tiles on settle. Shoshone's bonus is 2x as strong, earlier, and easier to use, and can be used by raze-resettling cities too.
• Rome's yields on kill bonuses are similar to Greece's Acropolis, but the Acropolis gives culture on kills, which I would rather have

- The GGeneral and GAP yield bonuses are strange. They feel like the push Rome more towards being a border blob and a GA civ, respectively, but neither of them is supported by anything else in the kit, and they don't coalesce into a unique playstyle.
- In general there are just too many capture bonuses, via beliefs, policies, and Traits, and Rome contributes to this problem in its own small way.
- Civilizing Mission (Imperialism Policy) is a really awkward attempt at copying the build retention ability by making rebuilding conquered cities really fast. A building retention bonus is a better fit there.

Proposal:
Pax Romana

+15% Production towards buildings already in your Capital.​

Can Forcefully Annex city-states via Tribute.​

Conquered City States continue to provide rewards​

• Forced annexation is an old VP Mongolia ability, but I propose some changes to it
  • Forced annexation is a 3rd option in the "Demand Tribute" menu of the CS window. It does not replace Heavy Tribute.
  • Unlike the old Mongolia, forced annexation just gives you the city and all its units. It does not also give instant yields
  • All owned former city-states (either tribute-annexed or conquered) give you the yield bonuses of a CS friend of that type (eg. a captured Cultural CS will give per turn in your capital)
  • Owned former city-states are not counted as CS friends for things like Chancery building yields.
  • The one exception is that owned Militaristic CS gift units as if they are Allies, ie. they gift units at a higher rate, and will gift their UUs.

Legion

Available at Iron Working​

18 CS​

Discipline​

Cover I​

Pilum (stays on upgrade)​

Can build roads and forts​

UI - Villa

unlocked at Engineering​

No Two Adjacent, Not on Resource, Not Adjacent to City​

311​

Villa gains +1 for each two adjacent Farms/Plantations/Pastures​

Each Villa on Empire provides 2 to the Capital​

+1 at Printing Press​

+1 at Electricity​

​

Civilizing Mission (Imperialism policy)

Conquered cities retain all buildings. Puppeted cities and cities with a Courthouse gain +10% Production towards buildings, with an additional +10% Production per Era difference between your current Era and the building's Era.​

​

Great Expanse (Shoshone UA)

Newly acquired Cities gain additional territory (8 tiles on Found, 4 tiles on Conquest), and your Land Units receive a Combat bonus when fighting within their own territory. All Recon Units can choose rewards from Ancient Ruins.​

VP Congress: Session 2, Proposal 6b
Discussion Thread: (2-06b) Counterproposal: Rome Rework - Wide Happiness Bonus (amended)
Proposer: @axatin
Sponsor: @axatin

Proposal Details
Proposal for Rome's Unique Ability

Pax Romana
- Empire Size Needs Modifier reduced by 33% *
- Can Forcefully Annex city-states via Tribute
- Conquered City States continue to provide rewards

* Clarification: The Empire Size Modifier is now defined as (5% per city, excluding the capital and puppets, plus 1% for 4 citizens in non-puppet cities), multiplied with modifiers for difficulty and map size. The proposal is to multiply this value by 0.67. Reductions apply as before (e.g. Walls add -5% to the value).

Rationale
I would like to give Rome a bonus on wide play and stability, acknowledging that they not only conquered a large amount of territory but also held it for a long time. The tern Pax Romana refers to a period of inner stability and peace in the Roman Empire although wars were being waged at its borders.

The ability to annex city-states (which is the same here as in the original proposal) gives Rome an incentive to expand early and it provides Rome with additional early units. The reduced empire size modifier in an incentive to keep on expanding and building a wide empire. It would replace a +15% production bonus towards buildings already in the capital, which doesn't work together well with the CS annex ability as forcefully annexed city-states retain all their buildings.

The happiness system will undergo some changes in the upcoming version, so I cannot really say how weak or strong the UA proposed here would be. The value would of course be subject to play-test and ratification.


EDIT: Proposal amended.
First version of the proposal:

Spoiler First version of the proposal :

Proposal for Rome's Unique Ability

Pax Romana
- Needs Thresholds Modifier from Empire Size is reduced to +6% per (non-puppet) City in the Empire (for the other civs it's 9%)
- Unhappiness from War Weariness is decreased by 25% in all cities
- +15% Production towards Buildings already present in your Capital

Rationale
I would like to give Rome a bonus on wide play and stability, acknowledging that they not only conquered a large amount of territory but also held it for a long time. The tern Pax Romana refers to a period of inner stability and peace in the Roman Empire although wars were being waged at its borders.

Some counter-arguments to this proposal are that the originally proposed Roman UA (city-state annexation using tribute) models the historical development of the Roman empire well and that there are other historical civilizations that lasted longer. Please see the original proposal thread for a more detailed discussion.

The happiness system will undergo some changes in the upcoming version, so I cannot really say how weak or strong the UA proposed here would be. The values would of course be subject to play-test and ratification.

EDIT: SECOND AMENDMENT: Proposal updated to reflect changes in the current version


VP Congress: Session 2, Proposal 6c
Discussion Thread: (2-06c) Counterproposal: Rome Change - No Unique Building Stealing
Proposer: @pineappledan (not normally allowed, but I grandfathered it because the rule change wasn't implemented yet)
Sponsor: @axatin

Proposal Details
Only change to Rome: change the building retain on conquest ability so it doesn't let them steal UBs and UNWs anymore.

This ability is a headache for modmodders, and Rome doesn't really need it. More explanation and discussion in the linked discussion: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/2-08a-counterproposal-rome-rework.680256/