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

[Enrico Swagolo]

What if all Armada on the map got XP every time an Armada killed an opponent? Like, 2-5 XP to all 'madas if you kill with one

Spoiler :

excluding the Gajah type of 'mada, he doesn't need XP from Spain

. Is such a thing even possible? It'd be very cool, AI can't screw it up, and it'd incentivise getting a huge amount of them before you go and smite some unrighteous daemon worshippers or other cultists with your holy navy.

 

[FoxOfWar]

What if all Armada on the map got XP every time an Armada killed an opponent? Like, 2-5 XP to all 'madas if you kill with one

Spoiler :

excluding the Gajah type of 'mada, he doesn't need XP from Spain

. Is such a thing even possible? It'd be very cool, AI can't screw it up, and it'd incentivise getting a huge amount of them before you go and smite some unrighteous daemon worshippers or other cultists with your holy navy.

...that would actually be really cool. I approve.

 

[adan_eslavo]

@Enrico Swagolo, @FoxOfWar I could suggest modification to this: 10 XP to 'madas in 3-tile range, 5 XP in 10-tile, and 1XP for the rest. This would cause your packed 'madas get better bonuses than other ones on the other side of the world. I would imagine this like message about battle going from port to port. After long time such message has almost no meaning to the crew of the remote unit.

Check should be easily done with function checking the distance.

Cannot waith to code 'madas lua



I didn't play Songhai with Qadi, but maybe some points I will list below will help undecided people find their "unliked thing" of that UC:

• it focuses on relligion, but is Songhai really relligious nation (I mean in game Songhai)?
• what is the point of gold from non-followers? If you get relligion then you probably invest it into prophets or missionaries to convert your people. But this will dimnish your gold income in the city. Theoretically Less religious unrest could help you get with many non-followers but those 2 things are on the opposite sites,
• 10%p to c is put there out of the blue. I don;t understand what is the point.

What can I suggest:

• no additional faith
• 1 for non-follower - more natural, they show you some uniqueness of their life (culture),
• additionally similar to 1 for the non-follower would be - if there is 1 city with Qadi and it has non-followers bonus is 1 , if there two such cities - 2 etc. This would mean that wiping city from non-followers too quickly would dimnish your gold revenue in total. There must be at least 1 non-follower f.e
  • City A has 10 and 5 non-followers, City B - 6 and 1 non-follower and City C 10 and 5 non-followers. All have Qadis. So in total it gives you (5+1+5) * 3 = 33 and 11 per turn
    
  • but if that 1 non-follower from city B will be converted it will give: (5+5) * 2 = 20 and 10 per turn
    
  • so relligion conversion is not we want to achieve. I think of how AI handle this. I would suggest something radical: each additional city will slightly raise cost of missionaires and prophets for Songhai making them vulnerable to other ones and "inviting" foreign culture to the city. Some kind of Anti-relligious gameplay.
• whole point is those things doesn't really seem to fit Qadi, because Qadi is Islamic Judge so it is meant to be the person who punish people for being of wrong faith - something opposite. This would mean total change of UC for Songhai.
• Unhappiness reduction from relligious unrest should be thremendous - 75% minimum,
• Maybe "investing" faith so Qadi gets -1 and +5 with +5% to some units to make war easier to get more cities to increse the number of non-followers in your country. -1 would make getting missionaires even harder.
• War, war, war! Moar war = moar gold and this was basic Songhai playstyle. Songhail relliogus flavor should be lowered to bare minimum as well.

 

[FoxOfWar]

I like the idea of Armada getting distance-based XP based on kills other Armadas do. Potential for much sweetness, definitely.

Qadi I haven't played with myself, but purely from flavor perspective anything religion-related feels odd to the Songhai we have in-game. Given Songhai playstyle in general, something that helps with the "downsides" of getting a new city seems better - reducing religious unrest by a ton is certainly a good starting point, after which I'd probably give the building some combination of culture/production/gold, some as just base yields maybe.

My point here is that a Courthouse replacement is something Songhai will be wanting to build in newly taken cities anyway - it doesn't have to be super-amazing really. Some extra yields on a cheaper building that's the first you buid in a new city - that is already quite a bit of help.Culture costs get up as you conquest, production helps the city get more usable after you ransacked a third of the buildings, and gold of course can invest in the war machine/rebuild.

Just tossing ideas about:
UB - Qadi (replaces Courthouse):
Available at Philosophy
200 Production Cost
Production cost scales with number of occupied cities
can be built in non-occupied Cities
eliminates unhappiness from occupied cities
+3 Production
10% Production output converted to Culture and Gold
Reduces Religious Unrest by 80%

In my opinion, one of those things that don't need to be super-fancy - rest of Songhai's kit is already very visible, as it were. While the gold and culture seem small, odds are that by late medieval, the first five buildings you (re)build in a captured city are going to be production buildings.

Or put in other words, with this, Songhai gets captured cities up to snuff faster than any other civ.

EDIT: Also, gonna start that Morocco test now. Sorry for the sidetrack

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I also like the distance-based XP, except ever having it at 1 will bring problems. It means quick gamespeed still gets 1 (so two times as much as others), and Epic also gets 1 (50% less) in that case while the XP costs are different. I suggest bumping it up to 2, perhaps limitting the range if it's OP.

Concerning Qadi, isn't 10% Production to Culture it has super broken? I mean, I'm on Poland this game in just mid renaissance, and almost every city has 100 production. Many have 120, 150, and the number will only grow. That's easy 10+ Culture per city, on top of 1 Gold for each non-believer and some faith - on a civ that has more Production with their other UB. Did anyone actually play Songhai before calling Qadi court bad? It is boring, sure, but it seems like a much better pre-nerf Indian Mughal Fort (15% CS <<<< 10% Production) with some bonus stuff, and Mughal/Qila got justifiably nerfed. This one just outclasses it several times over. Production output shouldn't be converted into Culture in big amounts (or preferably at all) because it's too bally, so I do support a rework.

 

[FoxOfWar]

I also like the distance-based XP, except ever having it at 1 will bring problems. It means quick gamespeed still gets 1 (so two times as much as others), and Epic also gets 1 (50% less) in that case while the XP costs are different. I suggest bumping it up to 2, perhaps limitting the range if it's OP.

Concerning Qadi, isn't 10% Production to Culture it has super broken? I mean, I'm on Poland this game in just mid renaissance, and almost every city has 100 production. Many have 120, 150, and the number will only grow. That's easy 10+ Culture per city, on top of 1 Gold for each non-believer and some faith - on a civ that has more Production with their other UB. Did anyone actually play Songhai before calling Qadi court bad? It is boring, sure, but it seems like a much better pre-nerf Indian Mughal Fort (15% CS <<<< 10% Production) with some bonus stuff, and Mughal/Qila got justifiably nerfed. This one just outclasses it several times over. Production output shouldn't be converted into Culture in big amounts (or preferably at all) because it's too bally, so I do support a rework.

I'm not really calling the Qadi Court bad, just that the building doesn't fit that well with the general playstyle, other than being a replacement for a building Songhai will build a lot.

Hence, just tossing numbers around. I'd probably be fine with just +3 / +2 / +2 , with the most complicated thing about the building being that hefty religious unrest reducing.

Alternatively, give it a yield scaler based on something else, like the number of Qadis in the empire (course, that's something one needs to be very careful with).
Or yields on conquering cities, if we want to help the Songhai snowball even better in Medieval. (Probably not, heh.)
Killing a unit yield is kinda used in a few places already, sadly.

There's a lot we can do, after all.

EDIT: Gave Morocco a go. And unless I derped up my installation, I am not seeing a change. Will have to double-check.
Editedit: Yup, done did took the wrong files. Sorry. Testing in motion now.

Editum addendum: Now Riad does not seem to get any yields from trade routes at all. Le sigh. This is just my non-coding-ability talking, but it might be a thought to use a different scaler thought for this one.

 

[adan_eslavo]

Armada reworked. Values of XP: 5/3/2 for 3/10/inf-tile range respectively.

 

[pineappledan]

What if all Armada on the map got XP every time an Armada killed an opponent? Like, 2-5 XP to all 'madas if you kill with one

I could suggest modification to this: 10 XP to 'madas in 3-tile range, 5 XP in 10-tile, and 1XP for the rest. This would cause your packed 'madas get better bonuses than other ones on the other side of the world. I would imagine this like message about battle going from port to port. After long time such message has almost no meaning to the crew of the remote unit.

This idea sounds like we should replace the Santa Maria Promotion (GAdmirals on kills). I think that would be nice, since we have the Yamato's Kantai Kessen promotion which does the same thing, but 2x as strong. It would help differentiate the units more.

Overall, I don't like the idea of making it depend on range. I prefer E-Swag's original idea.

• The distance-dependent part means a ton of lua checks on a ton of tiles, and I can see this really hurting performance. We just made Chaebol 20x more computation-heavy, after all.
• It will be hard to balance. 5XP for all units within 3 tiles might be too strong, no matter how you slice it. 2XP global, or even 2 XP if within 4 tiles, and none outside it would probably be more fair. I can imagine with 5XP, a big naval battle could end up in endless level-ups, and things could get completely out of hand very fast, especially if they manage to kill a few embarked units

I will reiterate, don't think the new armada changes are warranted or necessary. I think the old armada design better reflects the history, and offers more interesting gameplay

Qadi I haven't played with myself, but purely from flavor perspective anything religion-related feels odd to the Songhai we have in-game.

I'm not overly happy with the Qadi at all. It's a necessarily faith-based building, it requires a lua calculation every turn to do a rather boring yield conversion, It's 1 of 3 courthouse replcements, making courthouse the building with the most UCs, tied with Garden.

I'd like another shot at my treasury idea:

The Trans-Saharan trade was the lifeblood of the Western African empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai. Each of the 3 empires used the lucrative trade of Gold, Salt and slaves to form the base of their power. Rock salt mines in the north, exchanged for precious metals from mines in the south formed the original basis for a West African Empire which would unite the two resources under a single administration, and extend their trade to the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

Treasury
Caravansary Replacement
200
unlocked at Currency
+1 , +2, +2 (up from 1 only)
When a Land Trade Route originating here and targeting another Civ is completed, receive a Tourism boost with the Civ based on your recent Culture output.
Land Trade Routes gain +50% Range and +3 Gold
International Trade Routes gain +2 Gold
+1 from Merchants.
+1 / for every 2 desert, or tundra tile worked by city. (up from 1/ for every 3 tiles)
+1 and +1 to all Nearby Luxury resources
Truffles +2
Cotton +1/
Furs +1/

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I went to Beta branch on github and saw newrmada's already there, I will try checking it out.

I like the Treasury idea. I also am not a fan of there being a third courthouse replacement as they're innately hard to balance and boring. I just don't like this building having more of a terrain buff. Right now almost every civ has +X at Y terrain type, I'd rather the Treasury get 1 or maybe even 2 more base Gold but the desert/tundra stuff be at the default 1 for 3 so Songhai remains completely terrain independent.

 

[pineappledan]

So like this then?

Treasury
Caravansary Replacement
200
unlocked at Currency
+2 , +2, +2 (up from 1 only)
When a Land Trade Route originating here and targeting another Civ is completed, receive a Tourism boost with the Civ based on your recent Culture output.
Land Trade Routes gain +75% Range and +3 Gold
International Trade Routes gain +2 Gold
+1 from Merchants.
+1 / for every 3 desert, or tundra tile worked by city.
+1 and +1 to all Nearby Luxury resources
Truffles +2
Cotton +1/
Furs +1/

 

[adan_eslavo]

@pineappledan:

• Armada:
  • it's not as much computing as you think. If player has let's say 20 Armada's then there will be only 20 simple-one-function-checks.
  • I agree that it will be hard to balance. I noticed it while testing. Initial 10 XP was much too large amount considering that armada that kills a unit gets 5.
    
  • so 2 XP in 5-tile range would be good? (it would be 3/2/1/1 using game speed scaling)
  • if f.e. 3 XP in 3-tile range then it will be 5/3/2/1.
• I like your Qadi idea. It's making Songhain another desert empire:
  • you mentioned Salt and Gold, so why not adding bonuses to them? I suggest +1 on Salt and +1 on Gold
    
  • drop 1
  • buff only desert by 2 , 1 is strange on desert.
    
  • what about some bonus resource - Camel which appears on desert tiles?
  • you mentioned slaves. Maybe Military Cap addon? It's a warmonger faction.
    
  • drop from luxuries
  • leave only range to land trade bonus + gold.

So maybe this:

Spoiler Treasury :

Treasury
Caravansary Replacement
200
unlocked at Currency
+2 , +2, +1 (up from 1 only)
When a Land Trade Route originating here and targeting another Civ is completed, receive a Tourism boost with the Civ based on your recent Culture output.
Land Trade Routes gain +100% Range and +3 Gold (up from 50%)
International Trade Routes gain +1 Gold
+1 from Merchants.
+1 /+2 for every 2 desert worked by city (up from 1/1 per 3)
+1 /+1 for every 3 tundra worked by city
+1 and to all Nearby Luxury resources
Truffles +2
Cotton +1/
Furs +1/
Gold +1
Salt +1
+1 Flat Military Supply Cap

 

[FoxOfWar]

Treasury works too. Slight problem with giving a trade-boosting building to a traditionally warmongering civ(if you go conquering, you often find yourself without too many trade partners and/or keeping up trade routes is not worth the effort if you're at war), but that can be alleviated by not focusing on the trade route bonuses of Caravansary and just making an otherwise sorta-decent building into something worth being called Unique

 

[adan_eslavo]

Look up! My version is not totally concerned on TRs. It gains bonuses from desert, salt, gold, luxuries and slaves :]

@FoxOfWar What about armada version: 2 per 5-tile or 3 per 3-tile is more balanced?

 

[pineappledan]

Slight problem with giving a trade-boosting building to a traditionally warmongering civ(if you go conquering, you often find yourself without too many trade partners and/or keeping up trade routes is not worth the effort if you're at war

City-States, my dude.

so 2 XP in 5-tile range would be good? (it would be 3/2/1/1 using game speed scaling)

3/2/1/1 sounds good, but I would make it a radius of only 3. Make it so that Armadas travel in these hilariously compact clumps, so it is difficult for them to maneuver, just like the real Armada

you mentioned Salt and Gold, so why not adding bonuses to them? I suggest +1 on Salt and +1 on Gold

I wouldn't make specific bonuses on specific luxuries. The Songhai used Gold and Salt, yes, but those are the resources they had on hand. I expect if they had furs and nutmeg they would have made a trade empire on that.

I like your Qadi idea. It's making Songhain another desert empire:

That's hopefully not the intention. The Songhai don't have a desert start bias. Indeed, present-day Mali isn't a desert, it's just next to one.

leave only range to land trade bonus + gold.

The +3 gold to land routes is from the base caravansary. I think the +2 gold on international trade routes is necessary to link it to the history. Otherwise it's completely unmoored from the real history of the Songhai. They were a trade empire, they got rich off being the last stop before the vast Saharan desert, and partial control over the salt trade. They became rich and powerful enough that they amassed an army to march downriver and take over the Mali empire, where the gold mines were located.

If we take away all the bonuses to international trade routes then there's no historicity left in the building at all

what about some bonus resource - Camel which appears on desert tiles?

...no. Too much work, and desert tiles are too rare. Songhai doesn't have a desert start bias.

you mentioned slaves. Maybe Military Cap addon? It's a warmonger faction.

I don’t want to point too fine a point on the slavery part, since the Sofa is already a slave-soldier, so we’ve already covered that.

How about this?

Entrepôt
Caravansary Replacement
200
unlocked at Currency
+2 , +1, +1 (up from 1 only)
When a Land Trade Route originating here and targeting another Civ is completed, receive a Tourism boost with the Civ based on your recent Culture output.
Land Trade Routes gain +75% Range and +3 Gold
International Trade Routes gain +2 Gold
+1 from Merchants.
+1 / for every 3 desert, or tundra tile worked by city.
+1 to all Nearby Luxury resources
+1 and +1 for every 250 Gold in your reserves, max of 4 (so, base yields up to 255 if you have 1000 gold in the bank)
Truffles +2
Cotton +1/
Furs +1/

 

[phantomaxl1207]

So like this then?

Treasury
Caravansary Replacement
200
unlocked at Currency
+2 , +2, +2 (up from 1 only)
When a Land Trade Route originating here and targeting another Civ is completed, receive a Tourism boost with the Civ based on your recent Culture output.
Land Trade Routes gain +75% Range and +3 Gold
International Trade Routes gain +2 Gold
+1 from Merchants.
+1 / for every 3 desert, or tundra tile worked by city.
+1 and +1 to all Nearby Luxury resources
Truffles +2
Cotton +1/
Furs +1/

Would still need something else. Either boost the base Yields a bit more, or the Luxury Yields. I'm comparing it to the Burial Tomb. It's just that the Burial Tomb is that good.

Songhai is going to be very Productive as they enter the Medieval Era. Their Tabya gives them Production, the new Qadi gives them Gold. Even without Neighbors to Trade with, Internals are guaranteed Production.

Edit: that new suggestion seems good.
[+1 and +1 for every 250 Gold in your reserves, max of 4 (so, base yields up to 255 if you have 1000 gold in the bank)]

 

[adan_eslavo]

Entrepôt

Entrepot/Entrepout/(or some other transliteration), civ 5 do not like letter ô

Land Trade Routes gain +75% Range and +3 Gold
International Trade Routes gain +2 Gold

Fine by me. What about 100% Range? Too much?

+1 to all Nearby Luxury resources

What about: +1 /+1 to all Nearby Luxury resources?

+1 and +1 for every 250 Gold in your reserves, max of 4 (so, base yields up to 255 if you have 1000 gold in the bank)

AI won't handle this. Human will know about keeping 1000 gold in treasury. AI will spent its money and won't know tht it had bonuses from its UC. Maybe +1 for each 20 PT, same for production.

Overally a bit bland.
Another ideas:

• on merchants
• from followers
• +1 TR if at war (if war ends then player may end up with situation like: 5/4 possible trade routes); max cap needed, f.e. maximum of 5 even if there are 40 such buildings?
  
• +5% TR range for each war
• each trade route to or from the city increases border growth of that city

 

[adan_eslavo]

Updated Armada.

@Hinin mentioned Exam Hall and Andelbaevegelse as potential targets for balance. I like the second one. Yes it is strong. It only seems to lack something original. For now it is just a building boosting smth here or there. It needs flavor.

 

[FoxOfWar]

Clearly heading to a good direction. Would +1 per 20 produced by the city, and +1 per 20 in the city work, as a bonus? Sort of work off of a each other, but really only shine in a well-developed city. (On top of the base yields, supply, luxury +1/+1 and longer trade routes, anyway.)

 

[adan_eslavo]

@FoxOfWar what about trade route distance bonus per war as cherry on the top?

 

[FoxOfWar]

@FoxOfWar what about trade route distance bonus per war as cherry on the top?

That could work, though could create awkward situations where you lose the TR availability after the war. Which would otherwise be fine, but the AI tends to be very mercurial about when it wants to war with you (In the sense that it's often very predictable which AI wants to declare war on you, but less so is the when of it.)