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

[Diomedes_]

Hey @pineappledan,
I've got a few more ideas for changes for 4UC and was wondering what you thought of them:

1) Assyria
- increase Iron Chariot strength in some way, either by buffing their adjacency bonus promotion or increasing their base combat strength by 1.
- Justification: Iron Chariots just don't feel that strong/special. Assyria is quite weak early on and could use some help getting their UA up and running.

2) Austria
- Grenzer now a musketman/gatling gun (light infantry in EE) replacement.
- Justification: 1) ranged infantry units are much more useful when defending, which is mostly what Austria is going to be doing with their units in the late game anyway. 2) the Mehal Sefari already does the whole defensive melee infantry thing, so the grenzer is a bit repetitive. 3) Grenzers were for most of their history pure light infantry units, only being occasionally used in line infantry roles by the tail end of their existence.

3) France
- Replace the Triplane with a Napoleonic Era unit. I have a few ideas, but I'll just include my favorite.
- Grenadier-a-Cheval: Cavalry replacement available at Rifling (much earlier), - 3 RCS, deals splash damage to units within 1 tile of target, +1 RCS with each level attained, Great Generals 1 and extra bonus from GG's (maybe +15% CS/RCS when within radius)
- Justification: France is a rather weak civ, the triplane replacement is a very weak, late, and niche unit, and nothing in France's kit reflects Napoleon's Grand Armee. The Grenadier-a-Cheval has relatively high melee combat strength to help them push through units, and their splash damage works well to weaken surrounding units which your infantry can then pick off. Not to mention that ranged cavalry already synergize very well with France's UA, as you often use many of them to attack a single target during a turn. The Great Generals 1 and extra bonus from GG's further reflects their napoleon-ness.

 

[Hinin]

deals splash damage to units within 1 tile of target

The Arabian UU1 already does that.

Cavalry replacement available at Rifling (much earlier)

The Shoshone UU1 will surely be moved to Rifling in the near future, so that niche will be occupied soon.

Cavalry replacement

There are already at least 3 Cavalry replacements (Russian, Shoshone, Moroccan) which occupies most of the interesting niches of the unitclass (crowd control / damage, accessibility / economic warfare, mobility / defense respectively). An offensive Skirmisher unit, at a time when most battle are made up of lines of units, with not a lot of room to maneuver, would require a very significant bonus to be usable (that, and the Russian UU1 already does the job quite well on that front).

I agree with you that 19th century France should at least have something though, and that the SPAD, although interesting in concept, doesn't quite deliver, to me mostly because the endgame isn't as balanced and interesting tactically as the rest of the game (which is a whole other can of worms). We are currently working on a France rework with gwennog, and will talk about it as soon as we have something.

 

[pineappledan]

1) Assyria
- increase Iron Chariot strength in some way, either by buffing their adjacency bonus promotion or increasing their base combat strength by 1.
- Justification: Iron Chariots just don't feel that strong/special. Assyria is quite weak early on and could use some help getting their UA up and running.

The assyrian UU is weird because there's never a particularly good time to use it. There's just too much stuff that comes too fast with Assyria's kit, and you're probably better off rushing to Writing in all cases anyways, because the Royal Library is the lynchpin of the entire kit.

FWIW I think the chariot is a strong UU already, on paper, but the issue is Assyria's tech path. No amount of fiddling with the unit will change that. Regardless, I'm planning to scrap the unique promotion. stay tuned.

2) Austria
- Grenzer now a musketman/gatling gun (light infantry in EE) replacement.
- Justification: 1) ranged infantry units are much more useful when defending, which is mostly what Austria is going to be doing with their units in the late game anyway. 2) the Mehal Sefari already does the whole defensive melee infantry thing, so the grenzer is a bit repetitive. 3) Grenzers were for most of their history pure light infantry units, only being occasionally used in line infantry roles by the tail end of their existence.

There are currently 3 unique muskets and 3 unique fusiliers. 4 muskets if you include the Tlingit. Moving Austria's Grenzer means we have 4/5 musketmen and 2 fusiliers, and we would break up the Standschutzen/Grenzer synergy.

Aside from me just not really wanting to do the work for a pretty debatable change, It lessens the overall unit diversity.

3) France
- Replace the Triplane with a Napoleonic Era unit. I have a few ideas, but I'll just include my favorite.
- Grenadier-a-Cheval: Cavalry replacement available at Rifling (much earlier), - 3 RCS, deals splash damage to units within 1 tile of target, +1 RCS with each level attained, Great Generals 1 and extra bonus from GG's (maybe +15% CS/RCS when within radius)
- Justification: France is a rather weak civ, the triplane replacement is a very weak, late, and niche unit, and nothing in France's kit reflects Napoleon's Grand Armee. The Grenadier-a-Cheval has relatively high melee combat strength to help them push through units, and their splash damage works well to weaken surrounding units which your infantry can then pick off. Not to mention that ranged cavalry already synergize very well with France's UA, as you often use many of them to attack a single target during a turn. The Great Generals 1 and extra bonus from GG's further reflects their napoleon-ness.

You and @Hinin can fight this one out. If you put 3 people in a room to discuss the French kit you will fight back and forth over 6 different opinions. I am already gunning for a UA rework for France, and I won't

The Salon is close to Napoleon, from the late monarchy and enlightenment era into the first French Republics.
The argument that "but French civ doesn't have any X from Y era" holds absolutely no water with me, unless your goal is to give the French something from every era. Napoleon's combat bonus in the UA is representation for his own era. Getting rid of the SPAD necessarily means getting rid of the only unique air unit to give France something a combat unit from a class that there are at least 10 of already. I see no value in getting rid of a modern era french component in favor of a napoleonic one, other than personal taste, and that's fine. But that's all it is.

The Shoshone UU1 will surely be moved to Rifling in the near future, so that niche will be occupied soon.

It already is.

 

[Diomedes_]

@Hinin
Points well taken haha. I completely forgot about the splash damage from camel archers and shoshone's UU being earlier.

@pineappledan
Point well taken about Assyria, maybe moving the unlock for iron chariots? Two ideas I just came up with:
- 1) move their unlock to The Wheel (super early), decrease base CS further to 11 or 10, and increase the bonus CS from horses and iron, to either 3/2 or even 3/3. The Wheel is on the way to Writing, making them much more accessible, and having them available earlier adds additional flavor and allows Assyria to potentially get their UA going earlier, something the civ as a whole really needs.
- 2) for the unique promotion, maybe give them Great Writer points on kill (1/kill, or 0.1/CS of the defeated unit, if you can do decimals). Helps get their UA going more quickly and is fairly thematic as the Assyrians were notorious for documenting their battlefield successes.

As for the Grenzer switch to ranged infantry replacement, with Klephts being made a commando replacement instead, I feel like another slot for a ranged infantry UU has sort of opened up, and there is the aforementioned overlap with the Mehal Sefari. However, I totally understand not wanting to put the work into a change that isn't an obvious improvement.

What are your ideas for a French rework? Ever since I put some thought into Germany I have also been thinking a lot about how to change France, as they are kind of uninteresting/weak/awkward. Most of my ideas center around doing stuff with Great Generals, great works, and non-conquest warfare. Would be interested to see what you've been thinking about, if you're willing to share.

 

[KlHannibal2]

Hey @pineappledan,
I've got a few more ideas for changes for 4UC and was wondering what you thought of them:

1) Assyria
- increase Iron Chariot strength in some way, either by buffing their adjacency bonus promotion or increasing their base combat strength by 1.
- Justification: Iron Chariots just don't feel that strong/special. Assyria is quite weak early on and could use some help getting their UA up and running.

2) Austria
- Grenzer now a musketman/gatling gun (light infantry in EE) replacement.
- Justification: 1) ranged infantry units are much more useful when defending, which is mostly what Austria is going to be doing with their units in the late game anyway. 2) the Mehal Sefari already does the whole defensive melee infantry thing, so the grenzer is a bit repetitive. 3) Grenzers were for most of their history pure light infantry units, only being occasionally used in line infantry roles by the tail end of their existence.

3) France
- Replace the Triplane with a Napoleonic Era unit. I have a few ideas, but I'll just include my favorite.
- Grenadier-a-Cheval: Cavalry replacement available at Rifling (much earlier), - 3 RCS, deals splash damage to units within 1 tile of target, +1 RCS with each level attained, Great Generals 1 and extra bonus from GG's (maybe +15% CS/RCS when within radius)
- Justification: France is a rather weak civ, the triplane replacement is a very weak, late, and niche unit, and nothing in France's kit reflects Napoleon's Grand Armee. The Grenadier-a-Cheval has relatively high melee combat strength to help them push through units, and their splash damage works well to weaken surrounding units which your infantry can then pick off. Not to mention that ranged cavalry already synergize very well with France's UA, as you often use many of them to attack a single target during a turn. The Great Generals 1 and extra bonus from GG's further reflects their napoleon-ness.

On iron chariot and grenzer I agree. But I do like the synergy the spad has with the french UA. Logistics means you can prime for the bonus twice. And it goes well with autocracy. Spad needs no oil, as does the zero. Spad upgrades to zero. Autocracy also gives free airports. And probably you have imperialism/pentagon for 6 spads = 12 attacks coming from every city, without need of strategics and buffing all your other attacks. Sounds like a good and unique synergy. Autocracy also goes well with the domination/culture playstyle. It is late though and I did not try that in practise.

 

[Teholb]

I recently had a chance to play China again after your recent adjustment. I play on Emp, so I'm not sure how the higher difficulties feel, but it seems spot on. Your mods are fantastic, thank you for putting so much work and detail into them. This one in particular brings so much more to VP.

BTW, Pitz Court is my new favorite UB. Great concept, much wow.

 

[Nudimmud]

I can't seem to find installation instructions anywhere for this...? Having troubles getting it to work at the moment.

 

[der_weihnachtsmann]

I can't seem to find installation instructions anywhere for this...? Having troubles getting it to work at the moment.

i had the same issue, i just dropped the file into the mods folder and it worked

 

[pineappledan]

well, I guess this is enough stuff for an update, so I will go ahead and post it.

v76:
- Reworked
    - Adds the Krupp Gun as the unique unit for Germany, replacing the Stormtrooper
- Tweaked/modified:
    - New unit models/textures for the Iron Chariot and Scythed Chariot
    - Iron Chariot
        - lost Fury of Nergal bonus
        - Gains Shock Cavalry promotion - 25% CS bonus on open terrain
- Bugfixes
    - Roman Latifundium now give Bananas +1 food and +1 gold (compensates for Bananas having no base yields of their own)
    - Roman Latifundia only add a Plantation to new Figs if there is no improvement there already (reports of them overwriting GPtiles)
    - text fixes
    - code optimizations for Grenzer and Khlept

Credit to @Rekk for figuring out a better-optimized implementation for the new Krupp Gun promotions. I hope people enjoy this new beast; he's got quite a bit going on under the hood!

Hopefully we won't be changing Germany's UU for a while...

 

[Bruhmoment]

Man what are you doing to my boy germany, it's like the 3rd UC now
anyways, I have seen that the original author of UC has also created a 5th and 6th unique component (6th one got uploaded not too long ago, this guy be crazy tho). Do you plan to integrate these mods or are you going to keep it 3rd and 4th UC

 

[Hinin]

Man what are you doing to my boy germany, it's like the 3rd UC now
anyways, I have seen that the original author of UC has also created a 5th and 6th unique component (6th one got uploaded not too long ago, this guy be crazy tho). Do you plan to integrate these mods or are you going to keep it 3rd and 4th UC

We talked about adding more UCs at some point, with a focus less on yields and more on mechanics, but the result wasn't good (it was either AI-unfriendly or contributing to yield bloat). I don't think pineappledan is for more UCs, and neither am I. I would prefer that we focus on consolidating Vox Populi core elements (for example, fixing the supply and yield overflow of the endgame) and make new projects (new victory conditions).

Plus, imagine all the modmod compatibility work it would require. 4 UCs per civ is already a lot.

 

[Hinin]

well, I guess this is enough stuff for an update, so I will go ahead and post it.

v76:
- Reworked
    - Adds the Krupp Gun as the unique unit for Germany, replacing the Stormtrooper
- Tweaked/modified:
    - New unit models/textures for the Iron Chariot and Scythed Chariot
    - Iron Chariot
        - lost Fury of Nergal bonus
        - Gains Shock Cavalry promotion - 25% CS bonus on open terrain
- Bugfixes
    - Roman Latifundium now give Bananas +1 food and +1 gold (compensates for Bananas having no base yields of their own)
    - Roman Latifundia only add a Plantation to new Figs if there is no improvement there already (reports of them overwriting GPtiles)
    - text fixes
    - code optimizations for Grenzer and Khlept

Credit to @Rekk for figuring out a better-optimized implementation for the new Krupp Gun promotions. I hope people enjoy this new beast; he's got quite a bit going on under the hood!

Hopefully we won't be changing Germany's UU for a while...

Just wanted to signal that the new 3d model of the Scythed Chariot is invisible right now.

 

[pineappledan]

Odd. it is working for me:

Spoiler :

anyways, I have seen that the original author of UC has also created a 5th and 6th unique component (6th one got uploaded not too long ago, this guy be crazy tho). Do you plan to integrate these mods or are you going to keep it 3rd and 4th UC

Mikeburnfire is the original 4UC author, not this guy.
6 UCs is too many, especially for some civs that we are already straining to come up with more UCs for.
The Huns, for instance, took some really deep cuts to find a unique component for. There's a lot of research and consideration that goes into these components on our side, and I while I am happy to use someone's existing work when they have had a similar idea, or already implemented that component somewhere else, I am not interested in simply adding content for its own sake. That 6UC mod is simply not to the standard that we have set for ourselves here, either in for content or complexity.

Purely from a game dynamics point of view, 5 UCs is straining it, and 6UCs is too many. There are some civs that simply don't exist outside a small window of time, like Assyria's entire existence being fully contained inside the Ancient Era (even though Assyria existed for twice as long as someone like America, earlier eras just span larger amounts of time). The consequence of this would be all of 6 of Assyria's components would packed into 2-3 tech lines. This only creates a larger glut of inflation in a specific era, and makes it impossible to balance around civs that have to coast on lots of small, early bonuses, while other civs get to be more spread out and varied.

It's also just... extremely hard to come up with that many new game mechanics without repeating yourself. We would need more mechanics and base game components just so we had more stuff to work with or abilities to augment. Thus, a better use of our time is jus to.. make those new mechanics. There is also game stability and performance concerns with a mod that large, and the file size from more components would mean the mod would be too big to host on the CFC forums.

No, there's just too many downsides to such an expansion.

 

[Zuizgond]

Thanks for this awesome mod! Just tried it for the first time and it really helps making civs more different from each other.

Just a minor thing with the Celts. I noticed that if a non-Celt unit is attacking from an oppidum in Celt territory, they do not move when they kill an unit like it was an owned citadel.

 

[pineappledan]

Intended. All high defense tiles work that way now, regardless of owner

 

[Zuizgond]

Ok didn't know that. Thanks for the quick answer!

 

[Zarrk]

Thanks for the continious updates, these added uniques make it's very fun to rediscover civs that I didn't play for years. I too am encountering a problem with the Scythed Chariot: invisible model (but still selectable) and weird graphical glitch, like some torn parts of a brownish/purplish overlay all over the screen when zooming.

Edit: Also there is no sound played when moving or attacking and combat resolution is instantaneous while moving happen at normal speed.

 

[stii]

Agree with not adding 5/6th things. It is already very hard to balance everything and I've been pleasantly surprised how close the power level of the 3/4th are to the main mod. Slightly weaker in general but still with a few UU that might be too good

 

[Bruhmoment]

Agree with not adding 5/6th things. It is already very hard to balance everything and I've been pleasantly surprised how close the power level of the 3/4th are to the main mod. Slightly weaker in general but still with a few UU that might be too good

I guess you could say. Though some civ's are still weak even with the UU (talking about you America), so that's why I thought about it
Anyways - I think france is fine aside the SPAD, I liked the consecutive attack giving more strength, you could swoop in with a few skirmishers and take a city in a few turns. Salon is pretty weird as France in napoleon's time was into warfare. (I imagine going to war with all of Europe art would be your last priority, lol)

 

[stii]

I guess you could say. Though some civ's are still weak even with the UU (talking about you America), so that's why I thought about it
Anyways - I think france is fine aside the SPAD, I liked the consecutive attack giving more strength, you could swoop in with a few skirmishers and take a city in a few turns. Salon is pretty weird as France in napoleon's time was into warfare. (I imagine going to war with all of Europe art would be your last priority, lol)

Well then the problem would be even slightly ageeing on what the best/worse civs are.

I'd view America as very average. Their ability is fine, their UU is good and their UB is awful. And that is in the base mod before even getting in 3/4c balance stuff.