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

[infidel88]

I've been playing as America and Homestead feels crappy. Comparing to Ducal Stable for example.
You get +2 from horse, sheep and cattle. That's ok. You also get +2 from bisons. That's awesome, especially if you conquer Shosho and flavorful.
Claiming tiles withing city range is... just a feature? How many tiles and how much will you actually get with that? Given you have manifest destiny earlier and will try to grab that tiles anyway - in my whole 11 city empire I managed to grab 3 tiles (note - I had Angkor Wat earlier, but still). That was 120 . Underwhelming to say the least.
Finally +25% border growth. Except... I don't want border growth as America. At least not until Industrial or so. I want to buy cheap tiles and get massive from my UA. If I get tiles from my UB, I can't utilise my UA fully

As for monitor, I haven't reached it yet, but I have Great Lighthouse and plan to get imperialism, so 12-move monitors sound juicy. And I have coastal passage to another continent

 

[FoxOfWar]

I more or less agree with this assessment. The static bonuses are nice but the grabbing of those tiles does more on paper than in practice, as more often than not by the time the city can build Homestead, it probably has already expanded its' borders to said tiles.

I wonder if it being a tech earlier, slightly cheaper to build, and losing the extra border growth (which is kind of a nonbo with the UA anyway) would work?

 

[civplayer33]

Great Mod!

I want to add an observation about Germany here, which has already been pointed out by @Enrico Swagolo earlier:

Playing Germany and I don't like the Teutonic Order. What I dislike is the conversion is as much a positive as it is negative. Spanish one is mostly going to be positive as it spares you from using Faith, but this one means you have to spend one on Missionary (and Inquisitor if Holy to remove pressure), and you might have to spend MORE Faith than if such an ability didn't exist. What I mean is Inquisitoring border cities can get you many converts, while Missionaring them is less generous. It also takes away the possibility of conquering a border city of another religion, getting the enemy religion building up before converting it to yours to get a stronger city overall. If you conquer something far away where you have to get your religion up with Inquisitors + Missionaries regularly, it just means your city won't get any religion-related bonuses for a long time.

I can only echo that statement. In my current game I am conquering some of my neighbor's cities as Germany, with Teutonic Order up, and I find that on average sized cities (around 15 pop) I have to use two missionaries as well as an Inquisitor to establish my religion in those cities despite that fact that they all already had 2 or 3 followers of my religion; this is also despite the fact that I have Dioceses active (25% stronger Missionaries) as well as have built Borobudur (1 extra spread for Missionaries).
The reason for this is either that an Inquisitor can't convert citizens who only follow a pantheon (which is what they will follow after being conquered by my Chapter units) or that Missionaries don't actually work properly, since I was able to use them earlier to much greater effect when converting cities with Pantheon-only citizens, while now it seems that Missionaries have as hard a time converting citizens as they would if those citizens actually believed in a religion, which they don't anymore after my conquest.

This actually feels like a bug, essentially. Either I should be able to use the Inquisitor to convert Pantheon-believing citizens or (and I think this would be much more natural) my Missionaries should have as much ease converting Pantheon-believing citizens that got deconverted with a Chapter unit as they do converting Pantheon-believing citizens in cities that never had a religion.

Without this the Chapter promo actually does much more harm than good since I can't get any benefits from the foreign religion but I also don't have the benefit of being able to cheaply convert newly conquered cities with Missionaries. If it isn't possible to fix this I would suggest changing that aspect of Teutonic Order to something else.

There is also another bug with Teutonic Order that I found but I want to test it a bit more, first, and then I will post a bug report on your GitHub.

Big fan of this mod though, it adds a lot to the game!

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I think this Teutonic Order feature should just be scrapped. It's not useless, but harmful in it's current form and it's not exactly accurate for how the Teutonic Order worked. Killing or capturing enemy units in their lands and pillaging their improvements giving their cities your followers is more like their type of missionary work, they did not turn the populace into atheists by conquest. It just makes no sense and makes the building pretty bad because of how inquisitors/missionaries work. The building itself is pretty weak as well, I feel. Like the other defensive-focused UB, Waag, it's not that great. Morale everywhere is neat, but not worth it. I suggest boosting the Faith per barracks to 3 and removing the Chapter's 'conversion'.

 

[civplayer33]

I think this Teutonic Order feature should just be scrapped. It's not useless, but harmful in it's current form and it's not exactly accurate for how the Teutonic Order worked. Killing or capturing enemy units in their lands and pillaging their improvements giving their cities your followers is more like their type of missionary work, they did not turn the populace into atheists by conquest. It just makes no sense and makes the building pretty bad because of how inquisitors/missionaries work. The building itself is pretty weak as well, I feel. Like the other defensive-focused UB, Waag, it's not that great. Morale everywhere is neat, but not worth it. I suggest boosting the Faith per barracks to 3 and removing the Chapter's 'conversion'.

...or make it so it actually converts the other followers (or half of them, if that's too OP) to Germany's religion.

 

[pineappledan]

Homestead has a countersynergy problem, that's for sure. I don't want to just add some base yields to it, or it will start to overlap with Ducal Stable. I also don't like the idea of moving it forward, it doesn't really fix the issue.
Some alternatives to the +25% border Growth.

• 10% of food is carried over on citizen birth (they were farms, after all)
• +1 to Farms (Don't want to stack too much with the normal bonuses of Stables, otheriwse I would extend this bonus to Pastures as well.)
• 15 on border expansion ('Free land'. So America gets gold from natural growth and production from purchase. Overlaps with cathedral, and sort of crowds into Russia's niche, so I'm not too hot on this one)
• Cities with a Homestead can build Pioneers. +25% Production towards Workers and Settlers in City (unlock Pioneers a full era early. Everyone was clamouring to give America that settler flavor)

Teutonic Order is out of date at this point, and it never worked all that well. Orders have been furnished with a 2 in city on kill since we started this mod and we didn't keep up. The idea was that we wanted to make the T.O. give a mini-Order in each city remains, so why don't we do this?

• Scrap the chapter promotion (no +10% outside territory or conversion on conquest)
• Return Teutonic Order to Iron Working (it's incredibly difficult to find a decent balance by moving a building BACK. I think we missed the mark here and sacrificed balance for historicity, to the mod's detriment)
• 25 Faith Whenever you kill a unit or pillage a tile, scaling with era.

...or make it so it actually converts the other followers (or half of them, if that's too OP) to Germany's religion.

No good. Germany doesn't have a secure religion, so that would be a bonus more or less contingent on how well your early game goes, and this would be far too similar to Spain. Raw faith output can be leveraged for other things at least.
Moving the Order earlier makes Germany much more competitive for religion, but I wouldn't say it's clinched necessarily. This could make for an interesting gameplay style though, where Germany goes hard military in early Classical so it can secure a religion.

 

[civplayer33]

Teutonic Order is out of date at this point, and it never worked all that well. Orders have been furnished with a 2 in city on kill since we started this mod and we didn't keep up. The idea was that we wanted to make the T.O. give a mini-Order in each city remains, so why don't we do this?

• Scrap the chapter promotion (no +10% outside territory or conversion on conquest)
• Return Teutonic Order to Iron Working (it's incredibly difficult to find a decent balance by moving a building BACK. I think we missed the mark here and sacrificed balance for historicity, to the mod's detriment)
• 25 Faith Whenever you kill a unit or pillage a tile, scaling with era.

If it still gives the faith, defense and HP and Morale to Barracks then that sounds good, though I'd prefer the Chapter promo to stay and simply gain the faith on kill/pillage while losing the conversion (and retaining the +10% outside friendly lands); could lower the amount of faith on kill a little or reduce the era scaling if that's too much.

Also, it seems when using Enlightenment Era the melee units of that era don't have Chapter any more. Don't know whether that's intended, a mod conflict or a bug...shall I make a GitHub report?

I also made a GitHub report about another problem with the TO.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Homestead has a countersynergy problem, that's for sure. I don't want to just add some base yields to it, or it will start to overlap with Ducal Stable. I also don't like the idea of moving it forward, it doesn't really fix the issue.
Some alternatives to the +25% border Growth.

• 10% of food is carried over on citizen birth (they were farms, after all)
• +1 to Farms (Don't want to stack too much with the normal bonuses of Stables, otheriwse I would extend this bonus to Pastures as well.)
• 15 on border expansion ('Free land'. So America gets gold from natural growth and production from purchase. Overlaps with cathedral, and sort of crowds into Russia's niche, so I'm not too hot on this one)
• Cities with a Homestead can build Pioneers. +25% Production towards Workers and Settlers in City (unlock Pioneers a full era early. Everyone was clamouring to give America that settler flavor)

I definitely disagree with the bonus to Farms, that's lame. Too many things buff that, with India and some other civ having +X to farms. I don't remember if Latifundia still has it because I believe it was removed, but it's still slightly lame. Also overlaps with Cathedral. I'd give it the Pioneers and remove the maintenance if it has any.

Teutonic Order is out of date at this point, and it never worked all that well. Orders have been furnished with a 2 in city on kill since we started this mod and we didn't keep up. The idea was that we wanted to make the T.O. give a mini-Order in each city remains, so why don't we do this?

• Scrap the chapter promotion (no +10% outside territory or conversion on conquest)
• Return Teutonic Order to Iron Working (it's incredibly difficult to find a decent balance by moving a building BACK. I think we missed the mark here and sacrificed balance for historicity, to the mod's detriment)
• 25 Faith Whenever you kill a unit or pillage a tile, scaling with era.

No good. Germany doesn't have a secure religion, so that would be a bonus more or less contingent on how well your early game goes, and this would be far too similar to Spain. Raw faith output can be leveraged for other things at least.
Moving the Order earlier makes Germany much more competitive for religion, but I wouldn't say it's clinched necessarily. This could make for an interesting gameplay style though, where Germany goes hard military in early Classical so it can secure a religion.

At Iron Working it's too late to truly impact a Religion unless it gives you a free Prophet anyway. It's fine and most importantly unique at Chivalry, being the only delayed building in the game. It'd be cool if yet another building joined Barracks in the "boosted" area, with both providing you essentially all the Orders benefits. Maybe not Barracks and, let's say, Castles (very Teutonic building), but Castles and Armories so it's harder to get up if it's too strong. No civ has an UNW that boosts Armouries while Aztecs boost Barracks, so that'd be better.

Like, half of the bonuses of Orders go to Castles or Barracks, half to something else. Only XP from Orders shouldn't be given as that'd be too strong if Chapter still exists with free 10% CS and even without it, that's probably too much free XP. Anyway get both buildings, you get what basically is free Orders. Pick Orders for your religion and you have so many Orders, you instantly get free Order (Ideology)

Spoiler :

no you don't

Alternatively, I like the 25 per kill/pillage only to TO idea.

 

[pineappledan]

Alternative alternative: Teutonic order reduces the % population needed to reform by 5% . That would actually be incredibly historical.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Alternative alternative: Teutonic order reduces the % population needed to reform by 5% . That would actually be incredibly historical.

That's an awesome idea to be honest, but why not both that and Faith per kill/pillage? I don't think the building would be OP with both of these, especially if Chapter's messed with.

 

[pineappledan]

If we did that, then the TO would definitely need to move back to iron working so Germany has a good chance of founding. If we have a bonus to reformation (an idea that is actually perfect historicity) then it will feel really bad if they can’t manage to get a religion

I would probably just give the faith on kills in that case though. Keep Denmark more unique, and prevent us from overstacking on faith bonuses. I don’t want Germany to become a hard faith civ to the exclusion of everything else

 

[civplayer33]

So what exactly is the plan now? Move TO back, faith on kills, no more Chapter promo but the Barracks boosts stay?

 

[pineappledan]

No change to barracks
Scrap chapter promotion
Move TO forward
faith on kills, but just in the city, probably just 20, scaling
-5% population needed to reformation

I like this a lot better because it locks the TO temporally and spatially to a single city, rather than having chapter promotions on your paneers. That seems a bit silly

 

[civplayer33]

Ahhh edit wars...okay if it's this:

No change to barracks
Scrap chapter promotion
Move TO forward
faith on kills, but just in the city, probably just 20, scaling
-5% population needed to reformation

then I like it

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

It being at Iron Working's not going to help the AI all that much to be honest. If you don't go instantly to Iron Working with only pottery detour (and maybe Barracks tech), chances are all religions will already be taken before it's built - if you rush it, then it'll be more or less fine, but the AI'd need to really prioritise Iron Working for that UNW to have an impact. I'd probably go Pottery (try Stonehenge) > Mining into Bronze AND/OR Animal Husbandry > Construction into Iron Working with Authority into Dominance for Science per kill, spam the Slugga boyz > Spearmen and kill as much as I can before rushing Imperium so I get IW very fast, but the AI doesn't plan so far ahead. A bigger detour can mean it won't do much, if anything, for the religion. This does not help.

But then, Sluggas. Why not just give them some Faith per converted barbie? Like, 20-40, scaling with gamespeed only. They're not OP, this bonus only works and matters early when there's still any real barbies, the unit can bear a little boost without turning gamebreaking, while this way TO can safely stay at Chivalry as the civ will get their Faith boost to help found. Germany gets a more historically accurate UNW that is unique in being the only delayed UNW/UB while they still get an easier religion. It also means you don't have to rush Iron Working even if it won't give you access to Swordmen or you don't even have any mines, which is nice.

Also in my opinion Denmark's not going to lose uniqueness to be honest. IIRC Hall of Honor gets Faith or some other yield per pillaged improvement, too, and Denmark's would scale with cities well while TO only works in the capital and provides different yields. Sure, HoH's so late it doesn't matter and could just as well not exist, but still. Some Autocracy policy boosts pillages as well I believe, but only coastal, or was that scrapped and I'm mistaken? Polynesia didn't turn less unique with Danes getting earlier embarkation as well.
Granted at 25 or even 20 per kill and pillage it'll surely be OP in classical era (with many ancient era techs unteched, since you have to rush it if my Slugga suggestion isn't listened to) so it shouldn't happen.

 

[Guynemer]

Consider me a vote for early & cheap pioneers for America; it'd be unique, fits the country well, and is a strong enough buff to the homestead that it probably wouldn't need further tweaking.

 

[civplayer33]

Well I'm playing Germany right now and I got a Religion as third (even with India in the game) on Large Map without any faith boosts...and I've seen many times (including in this very game) that non-religious AIs can found, so I don't think we necessarily need to make everything extra easy for the AI; I like pinappledan's new idea better, for my part.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Well I'm playing Germany right now and I got a Religion as third (even with India in the game) on Large Map without any faith boosts...and I've seen many times (including in this very game) that non-religious AIs can found, so I don't think we necessarily need to make everything extra easy for the AI; I like pinappledan's new idea better, for my part.

I think the AI's performance and understanding of uniques is important, though. If it benefits from a religion this way, then it should get something to help with it, even slightly, and not on a situational tech that they'll get no benefit from if they start next to no/little iron or mines. Byzantium got changed so they always found, for instance, because they depend on a religion to be played optimally. While a human would probably found most of the time, if not always, when he wishes to, that doesn't mean we should be making things harder for the AI when giving Slaganz faith on conversion is a solution that is both unique as other UUs get it on kill, not on conversion, but also simpler and allowing the TO to be unique in being delayed.

I would be more positive about this if Iron Working TO gave Germany 2 free Iron resource. This way, even if you don't get access to Iron that early, rushing it will at least provide you access to two Swordsmen. I think it'd suck that as Germany, I'd be forced to rush Iron Working even when there's not many (or any) tiles benefiting from Forges and no Iron for Swords, while the AI in a similar situation wouldn't even realise how badly the map screwed it over. There'd be a huge difference in a Germany that starts next to a mining resource (or at least quarry resources cuz construction's on the way), one that also has Iron and one that doesn't in that one pursues a nice path with tons of good Production and an access to a neat unit while also getting a nice help with the religion, while the other just doesn't get most of the goodies.

 

[civplayer33]

I would be more positive about this if Iron Working TO gave Germany 2 free Iron resource. This way, even if you don't get access to Iron that early, rushing it will at least provide you access to two Swordsmen. I think it'd suck that as Germany, I'd be forced to rush Iron Working even when there's not many (or any) tiles benefiting from Forges and no Iron for Swords, while the AI in a similar situation wouldn't even realise how badly the map screwed it over. There'd be a huge difference in a Germany that starts next to a mining resource (or at least quarry resources cuz construction's on the way), one that also has Iron and one that doesn't in that one pursues a nice path with tons of good Production and an access to a neat unit while also getting a nice help with the religion, while the other just doesn't get most of the goodies.

Well I don't think we'd necessarily be making things harder for the AI, we just wouldn't be making it extra easy and Germany would still have plenty of good stuff without a religion so it's not completely fair to compare it to Byzantium whose major unique factor is tied to religion. But I certainly have no problem with TO giving 2 iron...for historicity one might say that the Germanic tribes made pretty good steel in the Classical era so that *kinda* makes sense, I guess .

 

[pineappledan]

But then, Sluggas. Why not just give them some Faith per converted barbie? Like, 20-40

You’re basically advocating for giving Germany Israel’s UA by way of a Pictish warrior... no thanks.

IIRC Hall of Honor gets Faith or some other yield per pillaged improvement, too, and Denmark's would scale with cities well while TO only works in the capital and provides different yields.

Peoria gives 10 culture on pillage. I agree I’m not overly concerned with Denmark right now. However, with how Denmark is under a lot of scrutiny, and the pillage mechanic keeps changing, I would rather keep clear of it.

think the AI's performance and understanding of uniques is important, though.

The AI understands to beeline for techs with uniques, and I’m not too concerned about iron working’s more niche qualities.

Byzantium got changed so they always found, for instance, because they depend on a religion to be played optimally.

Byzantium’s not exactly a fair comparison; she only gets basilica in late classical. A bad map roll with 1-2 other faith civs, and someone else getting a decent pantheon or faith resource start could mean that all religions are taken by early classical.

I think to soften things, we could give the TO a free barracks instead of armour, and increase the base faith of the TO to +4. That would give a solid 6 faith per turn if you rush it; that’s huge. Regardless of your pantheon/resource options, rushing the bottom of the tree for a guaranteed 6 faith per turn would secure you a religion in most situations.

Edit: it sounds like an early unlock on pioneers is a clear favourite for the homestead. I’ll have to consult with @adan_eslavo on how to do this though... it doesn’t sound too difficult, but I worry it could require a for loop every turn