More Unique Components for Vox Populi

3rd and 4th Unique Components for VP - Official thread 87

You’ve reminded me that I have been meaning to boost the Holkan’s CS to 7 for a while now. Holkan was always designed to match the warrior, but when warrior got the bump from 6=>7, we forgot to change the Holkan as well.

So next version, Holkan will be +2 CS and no barbarian penalty, with a ruins bonus cherry on top, in your words. Otherwise, you can’t please everyone, and you if you try to design every component to work well with every player’s preferred settings, difficulties, etc. then you are leaving us with a very narrow design space. Can’t please everyone; if you don’t like it then don’t play with the Maya

In my opinion, the AI would be more fun if they got survivalism I instead of pathfinder I. As it is now, the AI covers more ground by default on higher difficulties and Hoover’s all the ruins up, leaving the player out in the cold. It’s not a fun mechanic right now, because it feels really unfair, and I have heard just as many people disable ruins to reduce RNG as there are people who disable it because it’s a rigged mechanic right now. Many different voices on this forum have lobbied for a switch to survivalism for AI, so maybe you should add your voice to that if you feel that it is important.
 
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As it is now, the AI covers more ground by default on higher difficulties and Hoover’s all the ruins up, leaving the player out in the cold. It’s not a fun mechanic right now, because it feels really unfair, and I have heard just as many people disable ruins to reduce RNG as there are people who disable it because it’s a rigged mechanic right now.
There is some truth to this, and I believe that it is the same talking point that @amateurgamer88 was referring to in his earlier post on the subject:

Regarding ruins, it's actually more imbalance on higher difficulties if you enable it since AI can have 2 Pathfinders with Trailblazer I and/or Trailblazer II.

Although, I think this whole "the AI gobbles up all the Ancient Ruins above King difficulty" discussion, while relevant, is outside the scope of the 3rd and 4th Unique Component mod. Its more to do with the AI starting with Trailblazer I full stop, whereas my issue with the Holkan was that it was providing little benefit to high level AI (but a noticeable one to AI opponents below King difficulty who don't start with Trailblazer I).
 
The pathfinder I promotion is fitting and relevant to the Maya’s jungle start bias and I am in no mood to change it. My opinion is that any perceived shortcoming with the Holkan is actually a shortcoming of how base VP distributes early promotions, and thus is better taken up with G.
 
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I'm getting a problem where the leader screen for other AI players is broken. They can still initiate trade, but I can't do anything unless they suggest it to me first.
 
What was the logic behind the extra yields from Tributes for the Hunnic UNW, Alti Cur Council? Do people still tribute a lot starting in Medieval era or do they start actually allying themselves with CS? For my games at least, Ancient Era and early Classical Era is when I tribute to start snowballing if I went Authority. Medieval era just seems a weird time or maybe someone can shed some light on this decision?
 
Originally I wanted to make the alti cut trigger a golden age if you demanded tribute from a major civ, but it was too hard. We settled for tributing CS. Your tribute culture bonus doubles from the authority finisher, then you get the alti cur 1 tech earlier, and you get the first step up in era scaling, so you can get a flat 100:c5culture:/200:c5gold: in addition to the actual tribute bonus, and all these buffs to tribute unlock around the same few turns. It’s not a bad idea to keep tributing, into medieval, even if you aren’t Huns.
 
Has anyone else had issues with China consistently running away with the game? I just had it in a Timurid game, but I've seen it a lot before. I don't usually mind tech leads too much, especially small ones, but when China is halfway through their Renaissance policy tree while the rest of the world hasn't finished their Medieval one, the game is mostly over. They just pick up every single wonder, have a massive empire, and laugh at any attempts to stop them since they have some solid UUs too.
 
perhaps we should axe one of their exam hall specialist slots?
The thing I don't get is that both the UCs we gave china are primarily diplomatic, a niche China doesn’t otherwise fulfill with their base UCs, yet I haven't heard a complaint about China monopolizing diplomacy; all the complaints are from them crushing people before congress is even founded. I'm at a loss regarding how we can do anything about it, or if the problem has anything to do with 4UC at all.
 
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For China, is it possible to design UC that only benefits the civ if the civ is behind? If they are leading, then these UC don't offer anything vanilla VP units and building doesn't offer already. Therefore, they are no different from VP China. If behind due to whatever reason, China will get a boost that might help them catch up to the leader.
 
For China, is it possible to design UC that only benefits the civ if the civ is behind? If they are leading, then these UC don't offer anything vanilla VP units and building doesn't offer already. Therefore, they are no different from VP China. If behind due to whatever reason, China will get a boost that might help them catch up to the leader.
Like Ethiopia's old UA? I think people would hate that... I also don't know what metric you would use to determine who is behind.
 
If people hate that, then we should avoid it. My idea of determining who's behind is with the ranking. Aren't there WC resolutions that can give those further behind a boost like Scholar in Residence and Endowment for the Arts?
 
Has anyone else had issues with China consistently running away with the game? I just had it in a Timurid game, but I've seen it a lot before. I don't usually mind tech leads too much, especially small ones, but when China is halfway through their Renaissance policy tree while the rest of the world hasn't finished their Medieval one, the game is mostly over. They just pick up every single wonder, have a massive empire, and laugh at any attempts to stop them since they have some solid UUs too.

perhaps we should axe one of their exam hall specialist slots?
The thing I don't get is that both the UCs we gave china are primarily diplomatic, a niche China doesn’t otherwise fulfill with their base UCs, yet I haven't heard a complaint about China monopolizing diplomacy; all the complaints are from them crushing people before congress is even founded. I'm at a loss regarding how we can do anything about it, or if the problem has anything to do with 4UC at all.

No, China's UA is still really good. Getting :c5food: and :c5culture: from just Gaining Cities and making Great Works is potent, even when you lose 75% of those Yields with every Era. 3/4 UC's doesn't directly affect that. In my last game as China, I found that I could go Wide and actually be ahead in Social Policies.
 
No, China's UA is still really good. Getting :c5food: and :c5culture: from just Gaining Cities and making Great Works is potent, even when you lose 75% of those Yields with every Era. 3/4 UC's doesn't directly affect that. In my last game as China, I found that I could go Wide and actually be ahead in Social Policies.

This is what I notice. China always has like 9-10 cities and somehow is still MASSIVELY ahead in policies, and I have no clue how. That said, I literally never play without 4UC (why would I want a LESS unique game?) so I can't say if it is 4UC or not, but it doesn't seem like it should be.
 
I think Japan's uniques are pretty weak. Kabuki's problem is that the UA will inflate the GWAM costs so much, a part of the unique (+5 GW/A/M per guild) is not going to do a lot if you were already fighting consistently at this point - and if you weren't, then you're playing the wrong civ. The Guilds in general do something, but the points only ever matter inside of the capital - with how GA/GG generation affects the UA, other cities don't benefit. It's neat they're worth working thanks to the bonus yields, though, but the UB still doesn't feel good. Before all the Guilds and relevant Kabukis are up, it's industrial, and with how tight the happiness is now for a warmongerer, you need those Constabularies and Grocers and Banks as well because Kabuki isn't going to deal with unhappiness at all.

The tech it comes up at further delays the full power of Kabuki - there's two wonders there to consider. Summer Palace might not be super important, but it's worth a try so that pesky Statecraft Portugal which allied 66+% of the CSs on the map with Roman Forum doesn't get an even better deal on it's diplomatic units. If you get those, the time you get Kabuki AND Musician's Guilds up to get total yields of the UB makes it industrial era. It's not an UB that feels worthy. Before the MGuilds are up, a Kabuki's yields are even more underwhelming than what they are when maxed.
In addition, Kabuki lies. It says it doesn't require an Amphitheater, but it does. Further delay in other cities, also for the yields.

On the other hand Yamato is a thing you won't even get to see in most games, and the way it's going this game I likely won't see one either.

I suggest having Kabuki come up earlier, combined with costing less, as well as having it not require the Amphitheatre as it promises in the OP and in game. This way, it's not going to compete with as many buildings and you'll have time to get the yields up with Musician's Guild. I'd also recommend granting a Specialist free of Unhappiness to the Kabuki so Japan has an easier time working the guilds.
 
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What about the 50:c5culture: on ITR end, did you get some use from that?
I’ll remove the building prerequisite, but I’d rather not mess with tech unlock. The Yamato is moved forward too, after all.
Instead, I think we should have a bit more fun with the Unique guilds than we are currently:
Remove the +1 yield to kabuki from all guilds
New bonuses:
Gagaku: -2% policy cost for every Monogatari on Empire
Monogatari: 1:c5science: and 1:c5production: for every Kabuki on Empire (3:c5culture::c5science::c5production: total on kabuki)
Ukiyo-e: -3%:c5gold: building maintenance on empire

Discuss
 
I'm almost in industrial and I'm still building the Kabuki's in most cities (only around 20% have it) as I desperately need Happiness buildings first because the Happy Face situation is in dangerous 60~% area, so the 50:c5culture: on ITR end is not used too much because some of the cities that require it to be built to give me yields don't have it (Kyoto receives some Mendicancy + Fealty ITRs with Production/Food, but is yet to build one as it's building Summer Palace to hinder Maria's crazy CS antics as Osaka's rushing a Sistine). In general since it's renaissance it's 150:c5culture: per ITR (x2 so 300 if in both cities IIRC Gazebo's or someone else's explanation of the mechanic), and it'll be 400:c5culture: if both in recipient/sending city of ITR in industrial. Nice, it's around 10:c5culture:/20:c5culture: per turn per trade route in industrial (when Kabuki's are going to be all set). Not bad, though Japan wants conquest for Hero Worship/GG/GA generation and at the 20 cities I have it's not all that powerful.

So the total you present would be:
-6% Policy cost
-9% building maintenance
+3:c5science::c5production: compared to Opera

I think it'll be pretty hard to balance with such values. It seems not easy to evaluate how good it'd be, though it'd admittedly be unique.
I have some ideas that'd make Japan very unique indeed, but I don't know if it's possible:

No Amphitheatre req
Kabuki receives +1:c5culture::c5faith:( :tourism:?) (or some other yields, or points?) for every vassalised civilisation and/or civilisation you're Influential over (or have the :c5capital: Capital of instead of Influence).
Gag/Mono/Uki no change, or add to them another free not-unhappy Specialist, or add +1:c5greatperson: GWAM point per Vassalised/Influential/conquered Capital. It'd add up.

No other base civilisation wants to vassalise or has any special encouragement towards it and it'd sort of work here. It'd also differentiate the civ further from France as France pretty much wants to kill everyone completely, especially after razing and having their cities resettled which is a fun tactic.
 
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What are people's thoughts on Germany?

Their UNW seems too powerful in that it covers their weaknesses. Before, Germany has nothing special in the early game and mid game but has a stupidly powerful late game. Now, they have this UNW that makes them extremely competitive in religion which means that their early and mid game has been strengthened significantly. Being able to reform easier doesn't help either. They can play a strong religious game early on and then transition into the late game monster they are known for.

One of their competition, Austria, can also be very powerful late game but their tools all arrive in Renaissance Era or later. I think we can all agree that Austria isn't very impressive until those mid to late game tools get unlocked.
 
What are people's thoughts on Germany?

Their UNW seems too powerful in that it covers their weaknesses. Before, Germany has nothing special in the early game and mid game but has a stupidly powerful late game. Now, they have this UNW that makes them extremely competitive in religion which means that their early and mid game has been strengthened significantly. Being able to reform easier doesn't help either. They can play a strong religious game early on and then transition into the late game monster they are known for.

One of their competition, Austria, can also be very powerful late game but their tools all arrive in Renaissance Era or later. I think we can all agree that Austria isn't very impressive until those mid to late game tools get unlocked.
You've kinda hit the nail on the head there for why we did what we did. Germany and Austria are two Germanic civs that focus late game diplomacy, the only difference being that one has bonuses to locking in CS allies and the other gets more from CS allies. One has a mounted ranged UU and an early Renaissance UB, the other has a mounted melee UU and a late medieval UB. One converts CS allies into :c5greatperson:GP rate and the other converts them into :c5production:Production and raw yields. We pushed German UCs earlier because it was an opportunity to make the two civs more different in playstyle/counterplay and power curve. If given 4 unique slots to work with, hell yeah we’re going to mention the Protestant reformation. That’s probably the single most important thing to come out of that civ.

We had to cover for Germany’s weakness and make him a more all-rounder because Austria has the exact same weakness.
 
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You've kinda hit the nail on the head there for why we did what we did. Germany and Austria are two Germanic civs that focus late game diplomacy, the only difference being that one has bonuses to locking in CS allies and the other gets more from CS allies. One has a mounted ranged UU and an early Renaissance UB, the other has a mounted melee UU and a late medieval UB. One converts CS allies into :c5greatperson:GP rate and the other converts them into :c5production:Production and raw yields. We pushed German UCs earlier because it was an opportunity to make the two civs more different in playstyle/counterplay and power curve.

We had to cover for Germany’s weakness and make him a more all-rounder because Austria has the exact same weakness.

One issue I see is that Austria doesn't necessarily lock in a CS allies. While this might be true at the early game at a huge cost, some efforts are still needed later like maintain TR and send diplomatic units for those highly competed CS. For a game where there are a few civs competing for CS, Austria still has to work for it. She might require fewer diplomatic units overall but she still need to take action.

At the moment, I don't see Germany as an all-rounder. Instead, I see a civ that's only average during the Ancient and is very strong for rest of the ages. We can all agree that religion is very powerful if used properly. You give Germany the tools it need to quickly move through the ages so it can then unlock Hanse and pull ahead of other civ. I don't see a power curve for Germany anymore since it seems to just plateau starting in Classical Era once that UNW is built.

I can understand the idea to make them more different but I see one civ getting a lot more love than the other. One can go heavily religious early and that won't interfere with its late game CS competition. Meanwhile, the other can easily lag in Science and Culture on higher difficulty before it finally has the tools needed to compete for CS mid to late game. The weakness of Germany might've been eliminated but Austria's playstyle is still very one dimensional. I know Austria can go for domination or cultural but Germany can do those as well. Germany might be more multidimensional now but Austria playstyle still hasn't changed from the: I need to get as many CS as I can.

There's also another issue. Austria is more vulnerable to CS being captured by other civs. While Germany can be hit pretty hard as well, a strong religion can mitigate some of the damage caused by it so Germany can transition to a different victory condition altogether. It's also true that both civ can have a strong religion but Germany can get the benefits faster and thus is still ahead in the game. If I face a strong Germany and Austria, I know Austria is easier to cripple than Germany.
 
So... Are you suggesting that Austria is underpowered, or that Germany's TO needs a nerf?
 
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