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

[FoxOfWar]

Thoughts and ponderations, this time on China.

Examination Hall, as brought up before is... relatively 'meh', but damn China being so good otherwise. At the moment though what I'd do is slightly up the amount of GP points on citizen birth(and nerf the passive bonus to GP rate), as it's a miniscule drop in the bucket on the scale that it wouldn't be noticeable if not for the fact that I was actively looking for it.

I think I'd rather have the building only get GPP on citizen birth and not give a passive bonus to them at all, actually. Noticeable boosts are more fun than passive percentage rates, in my opinion.

Xiafan Guanjun is fun, powerful and works. Nothing to complain here. (Except a minor thing that with VPEE it seems to come in Astronomy which is era-and-half before Frigate, heh.)

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Thoughts and ponderations, this time on China.

Examination Hall, as brought up before is... relatively 'meh', but damn China being so good otherwise. At the moment though what I'd do is slightly up the amount of GP points on citizen birth(and nerf the passive bonus to GP rate), as it's a miniscule drop in the bucket on the scale that it wouldn't be noticeable if not for the fact that I was actively looking for it.

I think I'd rather have the building only get GPP on citizen birth and not give a passive bonus to them at all, actually. Noticeable boosts are more fun than passive percentage rates, in my opinion.

Xiafan Guanjun is fun, powerful and works. Nothing to complain here. (Except a minor thing that with VPEE it seems to come in Astronomy which is era-and-half before Frigate, heh.)

Agree with this. One UC is good, the UB is rather mediocre. Both components give China a CS focus, strangely or coincidentally.

Xiafans should probably replace the other Ranged Ship than in VPEE.

 

[pineappledan]

I’m not a big fan of the 5-10% GPR either. Doesn’t make any difference outside the guild cities, and even there its laughable.
I’ll remove the extra civil servant slot, increase the GPPs to 20, remove the GPR rate, and add 1 in city for great works

I’m going to change the elephant camp to give 1 to all camps, rather than just ivory

 

[FoxOfWar]

Sounds like good changes to me.

 

[pineappledan]

Can anyone confirm if the Elephant camp gives on gifted units like it's supposed to? I was playing a progress game with Goddess of Love; I had so many instant yield boosts appearing every turn I couldn't tell if it was working.

Seowons already give 1 to Great Works in the City. The exam hall was also only giving 7.5GPPs, scaling with era, so 15 in Medieval. I bumped that to 20 on birth, and +2 to GWs in city, and removed the extra specialist and %GP rate. Should be a rather noticeable buff

I like removing the civil servant; that makes Iroquois the only civ with an extra Civ Servant specialist, solidifying them as the premiere GDiplomat civ

Agree with this. One UC is good, the UB is rather mediocre. Both components give China a CS focus, strangely or coincidentally.

Now the Exam hall actually gives no bonuses for Diplo above the base Chancery. Hopefully that makes the 4UC feel less like we are pigeonholing the civ.

 

[Legen]

I like removing the civil servant; that makes Iroquois the only civ with an extra Civ Servant specialist, solidifying them as the premiere GDiplomat civ

About the Iroquois's part, I've experimented their UB and found that it suffers from happiness issues. I sometimes had my second civil servant expelled due to happiness fluctuations and, were it not in my Capital, it would likely lose the first civil servant as well. Maybe it should have 1 or 2 specialists not causing urbanization unhappiness? This UB comes really early, so you had little time to gain urbanization protection from other sources by the time it comes online.

 

[pineappledan]

About the Iroquois's part, I've experimented their UB and found that it suffers from happiness issues. I sometimes had my second civil servant expelled due to happiness fluctuations and, were it not in my Capital, it would likely lose the first civil servant as well. Maybe it should have 1 or 2 specialists not causing urbanization unhappiness? This UB comes really early, so you had little time to gain urbanization protection from other sources by the time it comes online.

Not a bad idea. The sachems’ council basically functions as a guild for diplomats, and all the guilds give 1 free urbanization.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

I like removing the civil servant; that makes Iroquois the only civ with an extra Civ Servant specialist, solidifying them as the premiere GDiplomat civ
Now the Exam hall actually gives no bonuses for Diplo above the base Chancery. Hopefully that makes the 4UC feel less like we are pigeonholing the civ.

Well, it was a Chancery UB with a 2nd Civil Servant. Should get you your next Great Diplomat faster.

 

[Jarula]

Great idea for the exam Hall...

Massively increase production grant +1 class to granary and aquifer... Food and culture on GP/policy adopt

 

[Bhawb]

In late Industrial of a Byzantium game, went warmongering with a Zealotry religion that also took the WLTKD founder(?) bonus belief. Nearly permanent WTLKDs have been really interesting, and surprisingly I've been able to grow constantly since roughly medieval without issue, most of my cities are now past 20 pop and still super happy. Hippodrome has been a pretty fun and flavorful addition, although I was sad to find out that there are very few ways to lean into WTLKDs much.

That said, Dromons feel a bit awkward to use well unless your target is primarily coastal. Due to their position on the tech tree they require you to either delay your land military (which is what you actually need to do anything) or you get them pretty late. Also Splash was just straight up useless 95% of the time all the way through Cruisers, since 1 range Splash requires luck or terrible positioning just to get an extra 5-10 damage. The unique promotion was extremely strong though, letting my Dromons fight above their weight class when Spain was already using the next tier of ranged ships.

 

[pineappledan]

Since a new version of VP is not forthcoming, here's an unofficial release to tide you over:

v46:
- compatibility:
- Spices ==> changed to Cinnamon (expected to change in VP next version)
- Unique Promotions ==> courtesy of Asterix Rage, all promotions have unique graphics (except 5)
- tweaked/modified:
- Licorne ==> Added combat bonus vs Gunpowder units.
- Unique Japanese Guilds ==> Halved the instant yields from GWAM births.
- Exam Hall ==> +2 Gold to Great Works in City. Increased GPPs on Citizen birth to 15.
           ==> removed +GPP rate (and GPP rate boost on WLTKD). Removed extra Civil Servant Specialist Slot.
- Elephant Camp ==> Changed +1 Faith for Ivory to +1 Faith for Camps.
- Suffet ==> Added unique embarked unit model and icon
         ==> ZOC bonus now stays on embark
         ==> Whenever a GAdmiral is born, it appears as a Suffet GGeneral in your capital instead
- Various text and file name tweaks.

 

[Rosaria's Sandwiches]

Suffet is untouched in this one right?

 

[pineappledan]

Suffet has been updated with the new fixes.
This does not resolve the problem with you being able to disembark/re-embark your Suffet to regenerate heal charges, and you still can only disembark in owned cities, but it resolves the problem with GAdmiral births glitching the system, and retaining ZOC on embark actually makes them more useful as a GAdmiral than as a GGeneral, especially in early game maneuvering, where your units can exploit ZOC ignoring to get behind an enemy and pin them along the coast.

 

[Dolen]

I wonder if there is any need for adjustment of ranged combat strength in accordance with the latest update.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Since a new version of VP is not forthcoming, here's an unofficial release to tide you over:

v46:
- compatibility:
- Spices ==> changed to Cinnamon (expected to change in VP next version)
- Unique Promotions ==> courtesy of Asterix Rage, all promotions have unique graphics (except 5)
- tweaked/modified:
- Licorne ==> Added combat bonus vs Gunpowder units.
- Unique Japanese Guilds ==> Halved the instant yields from GWAM births.
- Exam Hall ==> +2 Gold to Great Works in City. Increased GPPs on Citizen birth to 15.
           ==> removed +GPP rate (and GPP rate boost on WLTKD). Removed extra Civil Servant Specialist Slot.
- Elephant Camp ==> Changed +1 Faith for Ivory to +1 Faith for Camps.
- Suffet ==> Added unique embarked unit model and icon
         ==> ZOC bonus now stays on embark
         ==> Whenever a GAdmiral is born, it appears as a Suffet GGeneral in your capital instead
- Various text and file name tweaks.

Can't wait to play, you're my favourite uploader of suspicious .zip files.

Big thanks to Asterix Rage for the promotion icons, I am sure they will kick ass.

 

[pineappledan]

I wonder if there is any need for adjustment of ranged combat strength in accordance with the latest update.

All our units are added via SQL, and their RCS are tied to the base units' values. There shouldn't be any problem, but since it was just -1RCS to a handful of ranged and mountedRanged units, we may want to assess where that puts our units now. At the very least, it means I need to update the OP.

@Dolen, would you be a dear, and could you compile a list of the units that had their CS/RCS changed in the latest patch? I'm still playing on 6-2, since I didn't like the happiness changes in the newest patch.

Edit- nevermind:

UNIT_MONGOLIAN_KESHIK == -1
affected units: scythed chariot

UNIT_CROSSBOWMAN== -1
affected units: Sofa, Longbowman

UNIT_MOUNTED_BOWMAN== -2
affected units: Pancerny

UNIT_MUSKETMAN == -1
affected units: Prowler

UNIT_CANNON == -1
affected units: Great Bombard

UNIT_GATLINGGUN == -1
affected units: klepht, Cacador

UNIT_FIELD_GUN == -1
affected units: seir morb, licorne

UNIT_ANTI_TANK_GUN == -2
affected units: hashemite raider

Do any of those look they need to be kept where they are? Looks fine to me.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

k'atun ahaw is broken, I got Pitz Court in the capital, previously built units don't get it regardless of type (melee, ranged, scout), I recruit any type of unit and it doesn't get it as well. Atlatlists/Scouts/Spears don't get any promotions, neither on build nor on buying nor even on another free GP, and only a freshly built Horseman got something - he has "free HP heal" (unit can spend a promotion on healing 50 HP ???) and Legacy I. I think something's broken in the code

 

[pineappledan]

k'atun ahaw was always meant to only be given to units built AFTER the pitz court, instead of retroactively. Now that I think about it though, this isn't very fun, and is confusing. It is sufficient that the K'atun ahaw levels do not accrue until after the pitz court is built. I will change.
Asterix has found some bugs in my implementation of the unique promotions, so I'm fixing that too.
Also, Asterix is making 2 new promotion icons, bringing the number of non-unique promotions down to 3. Stay tuned.
Also also, I just realized that a lot of the unique improvements we added use Polders as their guide for removing features, so a bunch of UIs currently don't remove marsh. Will fix in upcoming hotfix.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

except even the post-pitz unit doesn't give me the promotion, but some two different ones, one that doesn't exist anymore (50 heal, was just a choice in vanilla) and legacy i (after katun). Unless that's what you mean by bugs in implementation of unique promos.

 

[pineappledan]

except even the post-pitz unit doesn't give me the promotion, but some two different ones, one that doesn't exist anymore (50 heal, was just a choice in vanilla) and legacy i (after katun). Unless that's what you mean by bugs in implementation of unique promos.

The hope is that we can eliminate the bug by assigning UnitPromotions_UnitCombats to the k'atun ahaw promotions, and distributing them via sql. This will also be a small optimization (less lua). I'm also looking at a way of removing the Barbican's lua for distributing the Embrasure promotion. That will remove a UnitSetXY function from the game, the holy grail!