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

[Zuizgond]

In all my games, Iroquois is performing extremely well. Their UA is good, the longhouse is very powerful and prowlers are insane (indirect fire + 80% chance to retreat from melee + woodsman). I think a little nerf is necessary.but I don't know what to change. Maybe nerf or remove the retreat chance of prowlers.

What is your experience with the Iroquois?

 

[CromulentRomulan]

Pleased to see the changes to the Inca quilqa, I had taken to removing Inca from games because it became very frustrating dealing with other Civs gaining the ability to station units in mountains so it'll be nice to have them in the rota again

 

[Anarcomu]

Same sentiment for Iroquois here, they are a pain in the ass more than anyone else if you end up being their neighbors (and they will mostly hate you for being near you whatever you do).
Didn't notice it was their prowlers, but indeed, my last war was very painful and they got their prowlers.

 

[CromulentRomulan]

In all my games, Iroquois is performing extremely well. Their UA is good, the longhouse is very powerful and prowlers are insane (indirect fire + 80% chance to retreat from melee + woodsman). I think a little nerf is necessary.but I don't know what to change. Maybe nerf or remove the retreat chance of prowlers.

What is your experience with the Iroquois?

The Iroquois are indeed strong but I don't think their unique components are anything but win more additions, all of the strength you mentioned comes from their base VP kit. My understanding of this mod is that its purely supplemental and not an expansion intended to balance Civs (which would be an impossible task with 2 x 43 additions).
That said prowlers feel like they have the same power level as some of the other stronger additions in the mod, but a lot of those are on Civs that don't have an existing military strength so maybe you are correct that removing one of indirect fire or retreat from combat is warranted

 

[Zuizgond]

The Iroquois are indeed strong but I don't think their unique components are anything but win more additions, all of the strength you mentioned comes from their base VP kit. My understanding of this mod is that its purely supplemental and not an expansion intended to balance Civs (which would be an impossible task with 2 x 43 additions).
That said prowlers feel like they have the same power level as some of the other stronger additions in the mod, but a lot of those are on Civs that don't have an existing military strength so maybe you are correct that removing one of indirect fire or retreat from combat is warranted

Their base VP kit is indeed already very strong but when I look at this post https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/3-6-ai-only-game-statistics.684041/ I see that Iroquois are average while with 4UC they are performing far better. So I concluded it must come from the 3rd or 4th UC and I doubt it comes from Sachem's council.

Also indirect fire + woodsman is a very strong combo.

 

[pineappledan]

v86 posted

- Compatibility
    - added N.Core's updated enlightenment era compatibility
    - more text fixes for component changes from base VP
- Tweaked/modified:
    - Portuguese - U of Coimbra
        - removed yields per feitoria on empire
        - whenever a Great Admiral is expended, all naval units have all movement restored this turn
    - Huns - Ulticur
        - removed happiness for 20 turns after demanding tribute
        - gains +2 happiness for every major civilization at war with you (moved from Sachem's council)
    - Iroquois - Sachems Council
        - Sachems council UNW removed
        - Replaced by Tadodaho UGP
            - Reciprocity promotion no longer gives half yields if friends. gives full yields on tile every time
            - resting influence for CS expending increased to 45 (up from base 30 for GDiplomat)
-Bugfixes

Changelog for v86 as well, since I didn't post that before:

- Compatibility
    - removed all population requirements for unique national wonders
    - text fixes for smaller component changes
- Tweaked/modified:
    - Austrian Grenzer
        - now only adjusts CS for diplomatic marriages when trained. Does not update on level up
    - Incan Qullqa
        - removed free Coca resource (and monopoly bonus)
        - added +3% gold on empire from city connections
        - Qullqa now makes the city immune to starvation and stagnation
    - Inca UA
        - Yields on mountains changed from 1 Science and Food to 1 Science, Gold, and Production

I have reworked the qullqa so it adds yields directly now, instead of giving dummy buildings.
The dummies were susceptible to yield inflation from yield modifiers. Also, directly adding the yields allows the Qullqa to circumvent the stagnation of settlers. The city will still grow by 1 stored per turn, even when in forced stagnation.

The new Tadodaho has been a long time coming; directly giving the reciprocity bonus to a UGP is cleaner than adding it indirectly via a UNW. Flashy new unit model and nicer icons as well.
I want to add some way for the Iroquois to generate more Tadodahos, but am still trying to figure out design and implementation. Feedback is appreciated.

 

[pineappledan]

The Grenzer change looks more obnoxious than anything. Is that for balance reasons or to smooth some code?

This was mostly a coding thing. The CS was being updated whenever the unit gained a level. Players were reporting this as a bug to me, because the CS wasn’t always matching the amount of marriages they had. The alternative would be looping through all units every turn and counting the diplomatic marriages. For something that updates so rarely, it didn’t seem worth it to do something that requires so many calculations so often. Therefore, I just made the fact that this unit doesn’t update its own CS on a constant basis explicit.

In all my games, Iroquois is performing extremely well. Their UA is good, the longhouse is very powerful and prowlers are insane (indirect fire + 80% chance to retreat from melee + woodsman). I think a little nerf is necessary.but I don't know what to change. Maybe nerf or remove the retreat chance of prowlers.

What is your experience with the Iroquois?

At least wrt AI players, I never weigh UUs very highly. The AI is only so-so on capitalizing on a UU power spike. I have been knocked out a few times by Iroquois in my own games, but that tends to be after they have gobbled up 1-2 other players.

This new Tadodaho is quite a bit weaker than the old sachem’s council, for now. I think they still need some way to generate more of these. I definitely think the having a defined secondary VC helps make Iroquois more rounded and potent.

Qullqa disabling stagnation and starvation is really intriguing, really want to play with that, but I'm not sure the mechanic suits the Incans. They don't really have food issues. Gonna really, really miss the coca too, that's a huge loss not just for Inca but the entire modded game.

Pleased to see the changes to the Inca quilqa, I had taken to removing Inca from games because it became very frustrating dealing with other Civs gaining the ability to station units in mountains so it'll be nice to have them in the rota again

Well if a change isn’t well-received, at least there doesn’t appear to be a consensus against it

The Coca will still be around as a exotic cargo lux, but otherwise it’s gone, yeah. I dislike giving luxuries as unique component; it waters Indonesia and Brazil down. If you look at the stable of custom civs in the civ 5 workshop, you’ll see unique luxuries are one of the most common, pablum bonuses that every modder seems to land on for want of any unique angle to their civ design. It’s the bonus of last resort.

In the Inca’s and Coca’s case, when the qullqa was first added, VP had no answer for how to take an Inca city that couldn’t be melee attacked through impassable mountains. The Coca was added to address that corner case, because if you could just take Most Inca cities then the coca monopoly would give you the tools needed to take All of them. That’s no longer necessary with the scout line rework, which gives mountain walking to trailblazer III.

Re: Inca’s and their food, that is why I changed the yields on mountain to production, instead of food. Maybe I should also change the mountain adjacency for terrace farms to production?

Lastly, the UofCoimbra change was another longtime coming change. That lua for adding the yields from each international feitoria has always been unreliable. It was yet another augment on the feitoria, already the single most complex and feature-laden component in the game. This new effect gives Portugal a tool to move around quickly, maximizing the Age of Exploration yields, and giving Portugal an extra edge on maneuvering and positioning in naval combat. It also helps level the playing field between GGenerals and GAdmirals for Portugal. When playing them, I have always felt incentivized to prioritize land TRs, because free GGenerals are just so much better than GAdmirals. That didn’t seem right to me for roleplay.

If people aren’t sold on the GAdmiral restoring all moves, I could change it to just restore all moves, or change it to give +1 move and refresh all boat attacks, essentially turning it into a free 1-time global logistics/blitz. We want to be careful not to just copy Sweden’s UA though.

 

[pineappledan]

Also, this missed documentation, but in addition to slimming down the Grenzer, I finally got around to removing all of the old Rome dual compatibility hooks, that enabled rome to use everyone else's UBs in case he captured them. The game should be more stable and run faster when Rome is in the game now.

 

[pineappledan]

re-uploaded.

I moved the 4UC stuff for Israel out of this mod. You will need to re-download both mods if you want to use that custom civ.

If you don't use Israel, nothing has changed.

 

[pineappledan]

Okay, so now that I've gotten through a few changes, I was hoping to start a conversation on how to improve this mod.

Hope to get a discussion going on what components players think are deficient, and how they might improve them.

Some ones that I have been thinking about, or that other players have pointed out to me in other channels:

Venice: Laguna

Spoiler :

• It's the only UB that is placement restricted to some cities.
• Venice has no way to generate any additional GMerchant points, even though it has a unique one. If anything, because of their inability to assign specialists outside their capital, they are probably slower at producing GMerchants than a more normal civ
• It's also kind of weird that no Venetian UCs unlock in Renaissance at all. They're all Medieval, which also makes that era too packed
• Could replace the Laguna with a Palazzo (unique bank) from this Genoa mod. It's where I got the idea for Morocco's Riad ability that converts GPT into GMerchant points
• 
• However, that would mean we would have to come up with a new ability for the Riad, or an entirely new component.
• What you think?

Persia: Pairidaeza

Spoiler :

• This UB gives 15% during GAs and the Persian UA converts 15% GPT on empire into . It's circular in a dumb way
• I've struggled for a long time to come up with something for this UB, or to replace it, but I have never been happy with anything given to Persia.

Byzantium: Hippodrome

• Rome is going to lose its Colosseum UB soon. Maybe Byzantium should take over the unique Arena slot?

Rome: Latifundium

Spoiler :

• The art for the Latifundium is going to move into Rome in the near future in order to become the Villa UI, when that happens, I need a replacement component for Rome.
• I could just move the Colosseum into 4UC, but maybe there's some better ideas out there?
• The specific bonuses on the current Colosseum remind me of a Roman Triumph. Maybe a Triumphal arch would make a better UB idea?
• Here's my try at a Triumphal Arch UB. The icon's similarity to the national monument notwithstanding, I think it's an improvement on the Colosseum's basic concept:

Spoiler triumphal Arch :

Fornix (Unique Heroic Epic)​

Can be constructed in all cities​

21 great writer point​

Gain a free Great writer when you complete an Arch in your capital​

Free Morale promotion for units trained in this city​

1 GWWriting slot​

5 GG or GA points in the Origin City and 5 GAP in all cities with a Triumphal Arch whenever you kill an enemy unit.​

2 and to Arena built in this city.​

1 and to all Arenas build in other cities on Empire.​

 

[Guynemer]

Man, that would end up being A Lot of tourism and gold on arenas for Rome, assuming you build a fornix and arena in every city

 

[Rean]

The unique bank could have the old 20% merchant generation bonus that was on Venice's UA some time ago to encourage wider play.
For Persia, maybe have it give tourism on spending gold in the city (same way bank grants science)?

 

[jarcast2]

Venice: Laguna

Spoiler :

• It's the only UB that is placement restricted to some cities.
• Venice has no way to generate any additional GMerchant points, even though it has a unique one. If anything, because of their inability to assign specialists outside their capital, they are probably slower at producing GMerchants than a more normal civ
• It's also kind of weird that no Venetian UCs unlock in Renaissance at all. They're all Medieval, which also makes that era too packed
• Could replace the Laguna with a Palazzo (unique bank) from this Genoa mod. It's where I got the idea for Morocco's Riad ability that converts GPT into GMerchant points
• View attachment 665171
• However, that would mean we would have to come up with a new ability for the Riad, or an entirely new component.
• What you think?

For Venice if you want a named and non-generic alternative with a mercantile flavor to keep consistency with the other non-generic Venetian UBs I would suggest the Fòntego dei Todeschi.

Edit: the Fondaco dei Tedeschi is in the Rialto district so it would count somehow as duplication. Nevermind.

 

[Zuizgond]

Is there something wrong with the Latifundium that you want to change it?

 

[pineappledan]

The art for the Latifundium is going to move into Rome in the near future in order to become the Villa UI, when that happens, I need a replacement component for Rome.

 

[usadefcon1]

I'd like to see the colosseum stay in some capacity.

The triumphal arch is cool, but it isn't exactly exclusive to Rome, the French have one of the most famous ones.

 

[pineappledan]

I'd like to see the colosseum stay in some capacity.

The triumphal arch is cool, but it isn't exactly exclusive to Rome, the French have one of the most famous ones.

Yeah, but the French have one because they’re Rome LARPers.

 

[Hokiefan00]

Buildings that should grant resources (i.e. Buffalo Pound, Nilometer, etc.) don't do so anymore.

 

[pineappledan]

Gonna re-upload. I made some changes to the random number generators, and obviously it didn't work.

 

[APLion]

Regulars CTDs, and lua logs show runtime errors while handling Austria UU from this mod.