(2-06a) Counterproposal: Rome Rework

[pineappledan]

Counterproposal to: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/2-08-proposal-please-perpetuate-pilum.680223/

Spoiler 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

Spoiler 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.

Spoiler 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.​

 

[pineappledan]

My concept of what Rome seems to be going for in VP is that it is a very infrastructure-focused conquest civ. Rome is incentivized to conquer and maintain a large empire, but doesn't have much in the way of direct military bonuses to help it do that, outside from a very well-defined power spike around its singularly powerful sword rush. This gives Rome a toolkit that rewards getting an early lead on conquering and then coasting on that.

A UI prioritizes getting land, and one that is banned from being built in your first ring near the city is even more so. This puts pressure on you to expand through conventional means.

The force annex bonus gives Rome a safe way to kick off initial conquests and land acquisition, simply by bullying nearby CS neighbours. This gives Rome cities with their full infrastructure and a small unit levy that it can quickly amass for an early rush, augmented by its own UU.

Civilizing mission seems to want to be Rome's retain building bonus, so why not let it? Take out the UB stealing, and the NW stealing, and let it just ignore capture chance.
I think we should remove the ability to steal NeverCapture=1 buildings. We can simply make walls, barracks, etc capture chance == 0% and not have rules that break other rules.
This makes modding and designing around these bonuses much easier, and will solve the biggest problems with modmodding for VP: Rome.
This also has the side benefit of letting us remove the on city conquest bonus. We already have lots of yields on city conquest bonuses, and we even have another on city conquest bonus: Crusader Spirit

 

[crdvis16]

Man I've been gone a long time, I didn't know Mongolia lost their bully annexing of CSs. I always thought that was an interesting mechanic so would be happy if it returns. Though why did Mongolia lose it in the first place?

 

[pineappledan]

Though why did Mongolia lose it in the first place?

A lot of players didn't like the option of heavy tribute taken away from them. It was preferable just to have a better tribute and the option of conquering a CS conventionally. forcing annexation with the same button as heavy tribute was actually less player freedom.

A major condition of CS annexation coming back would be that it would need to be a separate button from heavy tribute, but this is also made necessary because tributing was reworked. Tributing, including heavy tributing, now allows you to threaten and tribute city-states much easier for very small amounts. If the forced annexation was kept as it was as just the same threshold as heavy tributing, then you could force annex city-states with your starting pathfinder and warrior.

 

[ma_kuh]

I almost want the annexation ability as capstone perk for authority more than any one civ, but with authority maybe the idea is you basically have an army that can take the city anyway if you wanted, so it's redundant.

 

[CrazyG]

I like this. Its very good to have annex the city-state in addition to heavy tribute, because lacking heavy-tribute in the early game was a huge disadvantage. Keeping the yields is a cool mechanic that makes conquering a CS actually a good idea.

I agree the colosseum is just a weird, worse version of Greek acropolis. Villa providing food to capital is interesting.

 

[Rekk]

Alternatively:

UI - Villa
unlocked at Engineering
No Two Adjacent, Not on Resource, Not Adjacent to City
12
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

As with PAD's proposal, the adjacency would require a database rework to allow any of the three improvements to contribute to half of the requirement.

 

[pineappledan]

Villa providing food to capital is interesting.

It's very "Africa". We had a long discussion about this, and I really liked the idea of Rome being fed by the far-flung latifundia of the empire's rural estates. Rome was the first city to break 1 million people, a feat that wasn't repeated until probably the 1600s, and involved grain shipments from not 1, but 2 different breadbaskets in the Mediterranean

 

[zeofig]

Villas giving the capital food sounds like fun, and flavorful

 

[Delvemor]

With your 3/4 UC mod, Rome would then have 2 different UIs, that would be neat.

 

[pineappledan]

The villa would replace the latifundium. They would use the same model.

Undecided what the 4UC would look like.

 

[hokath]

Undecided what the 4UC would look like.

It would be nice to push something out a bit further in the tech tree. Something from the later (split) Roman period perhaps.

Totally agree with everything in the OP. The UA is, and has always been, super weird and unexciting to me.

 

[nekokon]

I'm more concerned about Civilizing Mission keeping all buildings. Didn't you just explained why, as Rome's UA, it's such a pain and should be removed ? Why bring it to civilizing mission ?

 

[Revolutionist_8]

I really like the concept and I'll vote for it. It's interesting from both historical and gameplay point of view.

I'm just thinking that won't it be a bit too easy to absorb CSs like this? (I haven't checked heavy tribute recently, but earlier you could just park a bunch of units around and be done with it)
I assume that annexing like this would incur the same diplo penalty as a heavy tribute? (both to protecting major civs and bully-afraid CSs)

Also, minor thing, but where would be the extra yields from annexed CSs displayed? If it's global (which is all of them except Food from Maritime CSs) then it should go to the top panel where already is, but if it remains "X from City-States" then that can be confusing. But again, very minor thing.

Also also, since it's literally impossible to live without 4UC, we have to think about a replacement. Do you have some ideas already, which we can discuss (or vote for)?

 

[gwennog]

Undecided what the 4UC would look like.

The @Hinin 's version in Hinin's Tweaks for VP for Rome is very interesting and could be a source of inspiration for 3/4UC and maybe even for the global version.

 

[Rekk]

I'm more concerned about Civilizing Mission keeping all buildings. Didn't you just explained why, as Rome's UA, it's such a pain and should be removed ? Why bring it to civilizing mission ?

The pain is keeping unique buildings. Civilizing Mission would cover unique buildings into default buildings.

 

[balparmak]

I'd rather have "build roads&forts" stay on upgrade(animations be damned), keeping pilum but not impi throw feels weird. Otherwise looks solid&fun, especially the villa

 

[azum4roll]

Also also, since it's literally impossible to live without 4UC,

It's totally possible. You're all just addicted to it.

 

[Alpharius]

It's totally possible. You're all just addicted to it.

Makes sense. I consider PDAN as my online crack dealer.

 

[CppMaster]

I vote no, because it makes Rome UA less exciting. I don't lay with mod mods that add new civs or 3/4UC, so it's no a problem for me. If a mod mod has a problem with Rome UA, it could just include changes to it too.