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

[phantomaxl1207]

Brazil needs some focus on Yields that aren't Culture, Tourism, or Golden Age Points. I would rather Brazil not have a Stadium UB, as that would make them even more of a Late Game Civ. That's how Brazil and Tourism Gameplan feels to me, even if their Uniques don't come late.

Tersane: That is also how it feels to play the Huns. It can be hard to keep the Units you capture. The Huns do have the advantage of being able to capture some good UU's. Also, the Tersane Yields are very good.

Great Bombards devastate Cities, at the cost of not providing good lasting Promotions for Upgrade or even being able to gain any XP very well.

 

[Legen]

Brazil already has a focus on gold. All the base uniques (UA, Brazilwood Camp and Bandeirantes) provide gold. Brazil is as much of an economic civ as it is a cultural civ.

If you feel a need to change the sambadrome, I'd consider trading something of it for gold (e.g. removing the +25% GAP on golden ages for a +3 gold after researching Radio), which would keep the civ's themes intact.

In fact, I don't like the +25% GAP because Brazil is not actually a golden age civ. A brazilian GA turn is no better than a generic civ's GA turn, unlike it is for Egypt, Persia and Korea. In terms of uniques, Pedro only cares about starting the golden ages. Brazil's main focus is actually the Carnivals, a.k.a. brazilian WLTKD, which it uses as an extra source of GAP through the reduced needs in the city. At least, that is how it was meant when the civ was redesigned.

Notably, in the base VP, you can completely neglect Chichen Itza and similar bonuses because you don't need to stay in a GA to benefit from your uniques. The sambadrome's +25% GAP during golden ages change that. I think the civ should be keeping its focus on Carnivals instead and, if you want to keep the +25% GAP, I'd at least ask to change it to during Carnivals, instead of during golden ages.

 

[Bhawb]

While it is true that Brazil doesn't care about GA length, and doesn't get direct bonuses from being in a GA, Brazil 100% is a GA focused civ. A Brazil that isn't getting GAs is a Brazil that has lost the game. That said, I agree with you that it would make more sense to tie any bonuses to Carnival over GAs.

I'm not sure that Brazil really needs more gold focus unless we wanted to try to expand the civ towards having a secondary Diplomacy/Freedom Science win condition, which might be a way to get away from focusing too much on Culture Victory and end up allowing an already snowbally civ to double down on its snowballing.

 

[Legen]

Brazil doesn't need mure gold focus, its base uniques already do a good job without 34UC help. I'm only saying that, should 34UC try to refocus the new uniques a bit less on culture/tourism/GAP in favor of something else, gold is the alternative that the civ's design already supports.

I still consider Brazil as not a GA focused civ, since its power is not on being in a GA itself (before Sambadrome). Nonetheless, if we do consider Brazil to be a GA civ, it's at least flavorful that it's the only GA civ to do so without having a boosted form of GA. If base VP Brazil misses Chichen Itza, it's not going to suffer nearly as much as, say, Korea.

 

[pineappledan]

And it nicely divides Brazil's UCs into Colonial Brazil and then Modern Brazil. I also don't think there are many Stadium replacements?

My Canada mod has a Stadium replacement. Every other civ gets to play with extra UCs and Brazil is functionally base VP until the last ~60 turns. That's fun kryptonite.

Even the idea of the Samba Schools and more formal Carnival parades isn't a century old, starting in the first half of the 20th century. They'd make a great replacement for Stadiums since that is literally what they are, and by pushing them back they can be allowed to be incredibly strong without the current problem of Brazil getting its perma-GA flowing in Renaissance and getting too much of a head start going into Ideologies. I'd even be fine with them getting buffed if it is too late in the game, focusing this entirely around enhancing the Carnival mechanic.

I could move it back to zoos, but that's as far as I would be willing to push it.

Brazil needs some focus on Yields that aren't Culture, Tourism, or Golden Age Points.

...That's 3 yields. Assyria gets fewer focuses than that, unless you count unit XP as a yield. Also, I guess the extra GMPs from the extra specialist slot don't count? The on the sambadrome is the only extra source of GAPs that Brazil gets, a civ whose main focus is getting as many separate GA triggers as possible.

So would this be better?

Spoiler sambadrome rework :

UB - Sambadrome (replaces Zoo)

available at Scientific Theory
900 Production Cost
6maintenance
+1 Happiness
+4 Culture and +4 Golden Age Points (up from +2)
500 Tourism with all civilizations on completion (up from 400)
+1 to all Jungles and Forests near this City
+1 Gold and +2 Golden Age Points to Musician Specialists in this city
1 Musician Specialist Slot
-1 from Boredom in this City​

I'm going to push a new version soonish

 

[Legen]

The sambadrome suggestion seems to be missing for a late UB. Though, Brazil is already quite strong as it is.

I'd consider a "15 turns of Carnival in the city on completion", just like Circus and Churches. A late UB needs some sort of impact to compensate for its timing, and a free WLTKD could do it for a civ so reliant on it.

 

[pineappledan]

I'd consider a "15 turns of Carnival in the city on completion", just like Circus and Churches. A late UB needs some sort of impact to compensate for its timing, and a free WLTKD could do it for a civ so reliant on it.

are Carnivals just WLTKDs with a different name, like China's WLTEDs? I thought they were a unique 10 turn thing independent of both WLTKD and GAs. I don't even know if what you're talking about is possible.

 

[Legen]

Brazil's WLTKD is Carnival in the city screen, just like China's WLTKD is "We Love the Empress Day". Any WLTKD source (e.g. luxuries, great merchants, Circus) will trigger a Carnival in the cities, with all the UA's bonuses. It doesn't have to be from a golden age.

Also another reason I don't consider Brazil to be a golden age civ, a lot of the civ's power is actually in its unique WLTKD.

 

[pineappledan]

So maybe I should keep it as an Opera House replacement and just swap the +25% with a 10 turn WLTKD trigger?

 

[Legen]

Seems fair to me.

 

[pineappledan]

new update posted:

v49:
- compatibility:
    - Rough Terrain Penalty added to Mounted Ranged units
        ==> Scythed Chariot, Hashemite Raider, Pancerny
- tweaked/modified:
    - Hacienda ==> moved to Compass tech
    - Sambadrome ==> removed +25% GAP during Golden Ages. Added 10 turns WLTKD on completion
- fixed:
    - Armada ==> fixed boarding party II bug

 

[ridjack]

Are Turtle Ships meant to keep their Coastal Patrol penalty on upgrade? They are atm.

 

[Legen]

Note that the Sambadrome is not reporting to gain +3 Tourism at Radio.

 

[pineappledan]

Yes I dropped that bonus. Does the text still say it does?

 

[Jiggly]

Hey, I would like to play with England on Diety against 8 other opponents, but would like it to be really balanced. What would you consider the most "balanced" aka, not buggy or don't need too much more tweaking Civs in this mod?

 

[ridjack]

Just wanted to reiterate because it seems it got missed: Korea's Turtle Ships are currently keeping their 'halved movement speed in deep ocean' penalty on upgrade, or at least they did when I got them as a unit from a CS.

 

[pineappledan]

Hey, I would like to play with England on Diety against 8 other opponents, but would like it to be really balanced. What would you consider the most "balanced" aka, not buggy or don't need too much more tweaking Civs in this mod?

Can't really speak to that because a) there's fairly little playtesting for modmods, so balance is much less solid, and b) the mod is mostly in maintenance mode right now; there hasn't been a new component or significant rework of a component since the Inca got a new UB in April.
The most stable civs with the fewest, least recent changes, and that use the least lua are as follows:
Austria
Ethiopia
France
Indonesia
Korea
Polynesia
Shoshone
Sweden
Zulu

Just wanted to reiterate because it seems it got missed: Korea's Turtle Ships are currently keeping their 'halved movement speed in deep ocean' penalty on upgrade, or at least they did when I got them as a unit from a CS.

I'll fix in upcoming update. The change is already up on github.

 

[pineappledan]

Heads up that I am on vacation this week. No update for the Aug 21 patch is forthcoming, but most of the sql tables should make the change automatically. Almost all RCS and promotion changes will happen automatically, but the heroic epic change poses a considerable problem for us WRT the Teutonic Order. That will require some deliberation

 

[Guynemer]

Perhaps change it to "Teutoburg", which would make it more fitting for the new placement in the tech tree? And in addition to the previous TO bonuses and the new GG, maybe a bonus to forest (culture?) in the city where it was built? This could make up for the relative loss of power with the Heroic Epic getting moved earlier in the tech tree.

Alternately, and this is probably pie-in-the-sky, too-much-new-resource-heavy-code, but... if it did become Teutoburg, perhaps providing a promotion that gives +X strength against civs that have X more technologies? And/or +X against civs that are at war with CS that you have pledged to protect.

 

[pineappledan]

I’m ready to take G’s suggestion and just move the heroic epic to Steel for any of my mods that interact with it (4UC, macedon, Israel). I’m frankly a bit baffled that G is cool with how this affects VP’s Sweden and Japan, but whatevs.

Got half a mind to just roll my Spain fix into 4UC as well; at this point there is no doubt in my mind that it is a better, more interesting UA than what bass VP currently has for Isabelle