3rd and 4th Unique Components for VP - Official thread 88.10

[Drakle]

Byzantium can really stack bonuses. Just started a game, midway through the Classical era, beelining towards the National Wonder, so I haven't got all of them online yet. Also just grabbed my Wine monopoly, right after founding, so my faith production is really taking off. Took the 1 Faith for every 3 citizen pantheon, so Basilica will make that 2 faith for every 3 citizens.

WLTKD
National Wonder +15% Gold and +20% Culture on Empire during WLTKD
Theocratic Rule boosts the Faith, Culture, and Gold output of a city by 15%.
Synagogues City Science increases by 10%
Burghers +15% production and city Border Growth doubled during 'We Love the King Day
Protectionism +10% Food and Science in Cities from WLTKD.

(Capital Only) Mausoleum of Halicarnassus boosts City Science, Gold and Production increases by 10%.

Total +30% Gold (40% in Capital), +35% Culture, +15% Faith, 20% Science (30% in Capital), 15% Production (25% in Capital). All in addition to the normal food bonuses, and a extra 10%

Golden Ages
Mosques +15% Culture in the City during Golden Ages
Divine Inheritance (Capital Only) Holy City produces +20% of its yields during a Golden Age.
Cultural Exchange +10% Culture in all Cities during Golden Ages.
Enlightenment +10% Science in Cities during a Golden Age.
School of Philosophy +20% Science in the city during Golden Ages

+25% Culture, +45% Culture in the Capital, along with +20% of everything else. And of course the base +20% Culture and Production. So 45% everywhere, 65% Culture in the Capital

In total, it's possible to get +100% Culture in the capital, just from WLTKDs and Golden ages. Let alone Tradition finisher, Wonders, and other stuff.

Of course, that is two separate sets of conditions to fill. So far I've been able to keep a consistent WLTKD in the capital after Halicarnassus, and most of the time in secondaries. I also just finished my first Golden age, so the next one is a long while off.

Also unless I take two medieval era policy trees, I wouldn't grab both Burghers and Cultural Exchange. Or both Protectionism and Enlightenment as Industrial Trees. And Synagogues and Mosques fills both normal follower belief slots (I've only grabbed Mosques so far, and also thinking of either Church to trigger WLTKDs or Veneration for faith purchase gold and culture. Any advice on which would be the better choice?

 

[pineappledan]

I've seen somebody mention that the Aztecs can't build the floating gardens and that indeed happens. I am playing with the latest beta and Aztecs start and finish building the FG, but then the building doesn't appear in the list of built buildings and you are able to start building FG again and so on.

The Floating Garden is a very special building because it is BuildingID == 0. Thus, if the code can't locate a building that you have failed to define properly, it defaults to manipulating the Floating Garden, because that's the top of the list.

My pet theory is this:
There must be some lua code somewhere in someone's mod with a City:SetNumRealBuilding(aBuilding, 0) command where "aBuilding" is not correctly defined. The code can't find 'aBuilding' it is supposed to set to 0 in the city, so it zeroes Floating Garden instead. And wouldn't you know it, Aztecs are the only people that have Floating Gardens in their cities in the first place, so they are the only ones who notice this faulty code zeroing this building.

You said this is happening on the exact same turn as you build the building, so that could either mean this is happening on a GameEvent.PlayerDoTurn.Add() GameEvent.BuildingConstructed.Add() lua hook

@AndreyK, you need to post a list of the mods you are using. If I am right, then the floating garden could be deleted by any mod that uses lua to add/remove dummy buildings in cities.

 

[AndreyK]

I think I found the mod that conflicts, I did load modmods by one and it happens after adding More Wonders for VP

 

[adan_eslavo]

I think I found the mod that conflicts, I did load modmods by one and it happens after adding More Wonders for VP

I'm looking at the code now, but cannot find the error.

• Did anyone built Qalhat or Zimbabwe that turn?
• Was cities conquered that turn?
• What wonders were built?
• What did you built last turn?

 

[AndreyK]

No, I just run the quick tests of game, with Really Advanced Setup, made a start in Medieval, started with city size 4 and did nothing except building Floating Gardens

 

[adan_eslavo]

Can you enable only VP + More Wonders and check again? Without MUCfVP?
I'm checking and all my dummies are defined correctly I suppose.

 

[adan_eslavo]

I just built Floating Gardens (MUCfVP, Even More Resources, Wonder Planner, IGE).

Spoiler FG built :

Any special conditions needed to replicate?
If you have the bug with only More Wonders, then maybe it was resolved in my current build, not released yet.

 

[AndreyK]

Yes, I enabled VP 1-6, RAS and IGE and MWfVP and it still doesn't allow to build FG

 

[adan_eslavo]

Maybe I fixed it and even didn't know about it. I will do one more check later to be sure it's gone.

 

[Pill]

I just played a couple games with this modmod and it's pretty much essential for Civ5 like Vox Populi is. Everything is so polished, and the new units and buildings are so much fun to use. I particularly love the Iroquois' Sachem Council; the Great Diplomat effect is very flavorful and unique. Thanks for the hard work!

 

[Legen]

I want to reiterate about Babylon's E-temenanki population requirement, currently higher than the Scrivener's Office. I still find that it keeps being built at least one era later (sometimes at Renaissance) with the current population requirement, as Babylon is prone to tech through Ancient-Classical really fast and consume lots of food with scientist specialists due to the Walls of Babylon. Especially when using Goddess of Wisdom, which pushes you to keep a scientist on every city and tech considerably faster than with any other pantheon choice.

I think the requirement needs to be greatly lowered, possibly removed, so that it actually gets built at the expected time, Classical Era. As it is, the UB's potential feels partially wasted, as its food bonus to shrines don't reach your early game, when the civ most struggles to feed the scientist on the Walls of Babylon.

 

[pineappledan]

I want to reiterate about Babylon's E-temenanki population requirement, currently higher than the Scrivener's Office. I still find that it keeps being built at least one era later (sometimes at Renaissance) with the current population requirement, as Babylon is prone to tech through Ancient-Classical really fast and consume lots of food with scientist specialists due to the Walls of Babylon. Especially when using Goddess of Wisdom, which pushes you to keep a scientist on every city and tech considerably faster than with any other pantheon choice.

Etemenanki's national population requirement is 20, the same as the Heroic Epic which unlocks at the same tech level. This is 5 less than the National Epic's 25. I recognize that this could present a hurdle if you rush it, but I have tried to take this into account already.

I will reduce the pop requirement to 15 for the next patch. This will be consistent with Assyria's Royal Library

 

[Legen]

It could be that the E-temenanki got indirectly affected over time. Specialists consuming 3 food instead of 2, settlers now lowering population on the producing city and, in Goddess of Wisdom's case, get a requirement to work a specialist. It takes longer nowadays to meet population requirements.

Right now, Babylon doesn't need to rush Mathematics to have the hurdle, it struggles to meet the population requirement of pretty much every national wonder it unlocks. Scrivener's Office at Medieval is also common.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

The Polish barbican that replaces the armory does not get culture or science from Colonialism policy in Imperialism Tree.

 

[pineappledan]

The Polish barbican that replaces the armory does not get culture or science from Colonialism policy in Imperialism Tree.

It's invisible, but it is there.

The barbican can't be both a castle and an armory buildingclass. Those are distinct. Instead, the Barbican places a dummy Armory building in the city when it is built. There are more castle bonuses, so we elected to give the barbican the castle buildingclass, but the armory dummy building is still there, just invisible to the UI. The bonuses to armories from Fealty and Arenas behaves the same way

 

[Galva]

Just tried few games with Aztecs and Monty is ridiculously OP if played right. Key to domination is to upgrade few jaguars to eagles as they will wreck every city without walls.

10 kills can be achieved relatively easily farming barbs and main point is to accumulate kills to single unit. With 2 eagles you can wipe 2 or even 3 Civs completely off the planet and man is it fun.
Maxium cheese, gotta love it!

 

[Drakle]

Just tried few games with Aztecs and Monty is ridiculously OP if played right. Key to domination is to upgrade few jaguars to eagles as they will wreck every city without walls.

10 kills can be achieved relatively easily farming barbs and main point is to accumulate kills to single unit. With 2 eagles you can wipe 2 or even 3 Civs completely off the planet and man is it fun.
Maxium cheese, gotta love it!

Aztecs power is actually golden ages since they can chain golden ages and end up in an endless one, far earlier than any other civilisation. And of course 10% food, and extra food, faith and EXP after triggering them. Added to the golden age bonuses that can be obtained, most notably the founder belief that is +20% of all yields in the capital and Mosques giving extra golden age culture.

Honestly, there is a case for Aztecs to be a Tradition civ, that opens Authority.

 

[Jiggly]

Sorry to interrupt your friendly conversation, but I did manage to obtain an eagle before classical era during several games. Just had to make sure one of my units got most of the finishing blows on barbarians (and the buffed warriors of Bismarck for example in one game). Yes you won't have an army of these buffed Eagles, but one or two of these bad boys can cleary wreak havoc quite a bit in the early game (which is one of the main goals when playing Aztecs, isn't it ?), and so help you trigger your GA. As for producing Eagles later in the game, it's mostly dependant on what type of opponent you face, and your gold/production. Upgraded-jaguars are very good units when massed in forested zones, while Eagles are more useful as all-around units in a mixed force or in hilly/non-rough terrain, where their additionnal vision and their buffed stats allows you to be more proactive. Also, don't hesitate to sell your workers when you have enough of them : a bit of gold every few turns always helps.

In any cases, the Jaguar is still the emblematic UU of the Aztecs in the MUCfVP modmod, since it defines so much of the Aztec playstyle. The Eagle is more of a "cherry on top" UC (the unique UW, by comparison, has a lot more impact when built-around).

As for the Aztec faith bonus, it is indeed not sufficient alone, but it's still a very good tool to supplement your pantheon : choose wisely depending on your playstyle, and use the early harassing of the Jaguars to ruin your neighbours early game while ensuring that you'll found your religion (usually among the 3 first, but, as always, it depends on what other civs are around).

how do you sell you workers? I didn't know that was a thing

 

[Hinin]

how do you sell you workers? I didn't know that was a thing

You can sell any unit by clicking the disband button on the unit card (image of a skull). I doesn't always appear immediatly after obtaining a worker, but i should still be here a few turns later.

The best course of action when you obtain workers from enemy civs (with the Aztecs or another civ) and you don't need them is to move them into your territory as quickly as possible, and then disband them. The few GPT you lose in the process of moving the units will be compensated by a small gold amount when disbanding the workers (like 20 gold), which isn't negligible in the very early game.

 

[Hinin]

By the way, since there is a new official version of VP that has just come out, I would like to talk about some of the UCs of MUCfVP.

Spoiler Assyria :

I already gave my thoughts on the current state of the Assyrian UCs in the last pages of the thread, but I'll copy it here.
- with the rework of the skirmisher line, the Iron Chariot now has the open terrain bonus/rough terrain malus of the skirmishers, despite being a melee unit. It is a flavorful element, but it isn't balanced with the base CP of the unit, so what do we do ? Also, the unit description needs to be reworked, since the unit doesn't have the "rough terrain movement malus" anymore ;
- the CP of the Iron Chariot begins at 13, and not 12 as indicated on the unit card, that's kind of strange (not taking into account the unique promotions of course) ;
- concerning the unique CP promotion of the unit, by the way, I don't really understand how it works : do I conserve the CP bonus even when trading away iron and horses (had a case where I had 2 15 CP Iron Chariots while having 4 horses, but trading 2 away) ?
- the unique wall offers one less bonus CP to the city than the base Walls.

Spoiler Celts :

I think that the Oppidum should also, in a minor way (like maybe 25 % of the normal amount), boost the science produced when using a GScientist, since it already does that for the GEngineer and the GMerchant. That way, using a GS to create an Oppidum isn't a net loss in the long term.

For the Scythed Chariot, the "Carnyx" promotion seems a little anecdotical to me. I understand that it is meant to provide a promotion that is not lost on upgrade, but I think we could find a more interesting kind of bonus.
Maybe, since the Celtic chariot was meant as a way for infantry to quickly move between places on the battlefield, we could instead provide the unit a defense bonus against melee attacks (something similar to the Turtle Ship), but in exchange we could lower the base CP a bit (like 7 instead of 9). This way, the Scythed Chariot would become a sort of anti-infantry skirmisher unit, but its weakness against ranged attacks would be more clearly defined. What do you think ?

Spoiler Denmark :

The "Viking Exploration" promotion of the Langskib was initially supposed to provide a way for units to cross oceans early. However, some elements hinder its use, and makes it very AI unfriendly :
- The "can cross ocean" bonus it provides to embarked units only lasts one turn. Because of this, if the Langskib moves farther than these units, they become stuck and you must manually reposition a Langskib on them so that they can move next turn. Originally, I think the "can cross ocean" bonus was supposed to last until the embarked units found themselves on coastal tiles (so that they don't have to be babysitted by Langskibs) but, as I said above, it doesn't work right now unfortunately.
- The fact that you have to position the Langskib exactly on the same tile as an embarked unit to give the bonus makes it almost impossible for the AI to find a way to use that bonus. To maybe give it a chance, why not also give the bonus to adjacent units ? The goal is to provide ocean-crossing capabilities to Denmark anyway, so why keep it difficult to use ?

Spoiler Egypt :

The Kopesh has several problems right now, due to its design and its unit line :
- First, despite being designed as a unit without an "anti-mounted" bonus, it now has the "formation I" promotion. It should be removed.
- Second, as several persons has pointed out since the release of the mod, the Kopesh is in competition with the War Chariot for the execution of enemy units (the War Chariot gives yields when killing, while the Kopesh has a special promotion allowing it to kill more easily). I understand that giving player choices is something that we want when designing UCs, but in that case that choice actually hinders the free use of the two UCs. I think that providing the Kopesh a bonus opposite to what it currently has (so a combat bonus against units with more than 50 % health) is the most simple way to finally put an end to that problem that regularly comes back in the discussions.

Spoiler France :

I think the production/population bonus of the Grande Ecole is just too much (it's the same as the Steam Mill), knowing how France fares in the hands of human players. Since the building already gives production from using scientist specialists, why not reduce the production/population to something like 1/5 ?

Plus, a little nitpick, but the description of the historical section of the building has a false information in it : it says that entry is "barred" to strangers, but it's simply not the case (more than 20 % of students at Polytechnique, one of the most prestigious grandes écoles, come from abroad for example).

Spoiler Huns :

The "Migration" promotion is quite good, but the fact that it only gives +1 movement to stacked settlers and workers gives the same kind of problems that the Langskib : it makes its use awkward and AI-unfriendly. Why not make the bonus given to adjacent (and stacked) units, plus maybe increase the bonus movement to +2 (although, if I remember correctly, there was a problem on that side when we did tests in beta versions of the modmod).

Spoiler Incas :

The Chasqui, although now more useful and balanced, is still a bit bland in its design (although the model and the flavor are excellent). I was thinking that having a very land-focused Scout replacement unlocked at Sailing is a bit strange, so why not make it unlocked at Masonry ? It would be appropriate flavor-wise (since the Chasqui depended on the Incan infrastructures and the tambo relays) and also would put them on a more logical tech-line for the Incas (since the Terrace farms are also unlocked at Masonry). What do you think ?

Spoiler Mayas :

The Holkan is really dependant on the placement of Ancient Ruins to be relevant in the early game. Because nowadays every player begins with two units, the AR-hunt is even more fierce than before. Why not buff the Holkan a bit (either in CS, or in yield/AR, or even maybe by giving it a bit a yield when killing) ?

Spoiler Ottomans :

The Great Turkish Bombard still has the "+100 % CS against cities" bonus in addition to the "+150 % CS" it is supposed to have. Because of this, it is far too powerful when used. I understand it is meant to be a terrifying anti-city weapon, but that's a bit much, knowing its base RCS, no ?

Spoiler Spain :

As said SuperNoobCamper on this page, I think that the Armada is too easy for Spain to spam because of its UA, and also is a bit too powerful CS-wise. Because of this, I suggest increasing its production/faith cost a little, while making its playmake potential a little more dependant on the "Invincible" promotion (lower the base CS of the unit by 1, or maybe 2, but increase the Invincible bonus by the same amount, so that the unit is less tanky in the long term, but keeps this "shock and awe" utility).

Spoiler Zulus :

I think that the Iziko appears like an early toned-down version of the Japanese Dojo, and so needs to be modified a bit.
First, since it is a more informal type of cultural site (less an infrastructure, more a gathering), why not reduce its production cost ?
Second, why not make the culture/lvl also scale with era, plus maybe give a bit of GG points so that InDuna can be spawned (and so expended) more frequently ?

Thank you for reading. If I can be of any help to test things, don't hesitate to ask.