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

[pineappledan]

This is from one of my debug panels, you can extract all info about resources without any happiness gimmick. This code displays for all players info about a specific resource (iResID) and its sources.

Thanks for the info. This code returns the total number of each resource, including strategics, correct? This seems to go above and beyond what I need. I only need to check if the civ has at least 1 copy of any luxury resource (via direct control, import from another civ or from CS ally). Also, I'm specifically looking to use this code for Netherlands, who can import multiple copies of the same luxury, so that causes a bit of a problem.

This looks like you essentially looped through all resources for each civ and tallied them up in various configurations? Seems pretty intense.

CountAllResource() is something I have never seen before. I tried looking it up, but the CBP documentation is so scattered accross hundreds of pages of forum posts, I can't even find anywhere that says what this function does.

Always start with the most important condition that saves the most. In this case it should be pPlot:GetImprovementType() == GameInfoTypes.IMPROVEMENT_POLDER, not checking for promos.
If you have 200 units and 10 polders in the game, it will save you AT LEAST 190*4=760 promo checks each turn.
Then probably if there is war - also cuts down unnecessary checks.
And then the rest.

Going war -> polder -> promos is also good.

That certainly improve the performance, but my main concern is this lua hook firing any time any unit anywhere is moved/built/purchased/attacks. UnitSetXY can fire dozens of times every turn, so I would very much like to avoid using that hook. Setting a hook on TileImprovementChanged and setting a marsh feature beneath the polder seems like a great way to get a similar movement-limiting effect without having to rely on war -> polder -> promos checks at all. I'll just test it myself and see if I can get it to work without messing anything up.

 

[pineappledan]

Update:
I have made the changes as I described them:

    - Waag rework
        ==> Removed bonus Defense and %GPP for every import/export luxury
        ==> Removed +3 gold to Market in City
        ==> Added +5 base city defense
        ==> Added 3 Gold, 3 Production if a Caravan moves through city (same as village improvement)
        ==> Added 1% Distress reduction and 1% GPP rate in city for evey unique luxury on empire. 
    - Polder lua rework
        ==> removed movement sap on enemy movement onto Polder (too lua-intensive)
        ==> Completion of a Polder now adds a Marsh beneath it (costs 3 movement to enter a Marsh tile)
    - Riad rework
        ==> Removed bonus for TRs in city
        ==> Added +1 gold and +1 tourism per Era
        ==> Added 15% of gold converted to G Merchant Points in city

Now, a second look at the Goedendag:

• The Goedendag halting growth in the city is, in practice, a massive detriment. We should remove this aspect of the unit; it wasn't a good idea
• The Burgemeest bonus is very situational, and worse, it's a UnitSetXY lua hook, so it takes a massive amount of computation.

Proposal:
I was looking at Lastsword's version of the Goedendag, and I think we could do something similar:

• Burgemeester - +10CS if the unit begins its turn garrisoned in a City
  • Garrisoned Goedendags then have a massive 30CS if attacking from a city, or if they can manage to attack an enemy unit by beginning their turn on a city.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

So only Caravans proc Waag? That is a shame. Maybe coastal cities should automatically get the +3 so the typical cities I settle on 1 tile islands to secure a unique, hard to get luxury to trade don't permanently lose out on yields? It's not particularly impressive yields for the era anyway, there's ancient era/early classical era UBs with more or comparable yields that don't need you to do anything. That's why I suggested it to give more than 3 before, it just doesn't seem impressive at all for something that will be hard to be applied everywhere. Many cities just won't get the bonus at all if you go wide Netherlands which is valid because of two great UUs, lots of Gold, great benefit from puppets and vassals for the civ, demanding luxuries has great synergy. AI might hate me if I do well anyway, they might as well have valid reasons related to my inclination towards conquest.

Concerning Goedendag it's already the best pikeman replacement, outclassing the Macedonian Phalangitae and superior to the Polynesian Maori. Granted, it's good since Pikemen suck - were a Longsword or Knight to get features like these, it'd likely be broken but for a Pikeman it only makes him a very good UU.
Halting growth was unique and not all that bad - 50% of the food is converted into Production, so the boys got up fast. I often built them in cities under attack and they did come fast enough to make a difference. I liked it myself when I played the civ. It might've been making it weaker, but the unit is really very strong, especially for its cost. I'd keep that as it were.
I understand the change to Burg if it's a LUA problem, but this idea with +10CS is a bit weird. I can abuse it to go Shock, +1 Movement, build roads and quickly remove any non-melee foe AI sends near my cities by having a turn of one super Tercio in early medieval, a Rifleman in Renaissance and Rifleman at 45, almost the 50 of the next unit in the row. AI might find it a problem, I can even use roads + potential citadels to quickly assault with an unit that acts an era above for a turn. Interesting thing, will not be OP due to inconsistency and needed preparation and the amount of units it'll affect, but it seems like I'd prefer the old Burg. I will have to get used to the new one and give it a try.
The Waag was the bad one in the civ, and it's a sidegrade of what it was at best, trading more and easier Great People% and more for a few distress reduction points and better yields, but only at a condition that might prove impossible to fulfill if it's only Caravans - many cities might not be getting anything special out of the UB
A coastal city on Tiny-Island-Who-Knows-Where won't spawn a GP anyway and that 8-12% from the UB is unlikely to be even one GP point before you work 3-4 GPs, it won't benefit from the defense, if it gets spied upon I won't care - only less production cost and -distress work. The yields not being applicable sucks.
Conquerors benefiting from the Waag yields means conquering the Netherlands is even more profitable than it was. It'll probably be harder to do now, though.

My thoughts on what the changes shape up to be:
The Goedendags were really great for Authority Netherlands focusing on conquest with lots of trade with decently sized and not completely destroyed vassals as they are, I don't see a point in that halting growth change. I found it cool when playing them, useful at the right times. Something to consider for sure, I wouldn't just spam tons of them permanently - but that's fine, they were very good with all these promotions and this cost, they should have a drawback that sometimes is positive.
Waag should give the improvement with the yields to all coastal cities unconditionally, 3 with Caravan only needed for landlocked cities.
Does Polder putting Marshes underneath the tiles mean all the tiles without Marsh effectively get +1 from Polder because the Marsh is created? Like, Grassland/Plains river Polder has +1 from the Marsh even if it wasn't there before? What about Flood Plains where Marshes do not spawn? It's a fine change anyway, Polders aren't the best compared to other UIs. They're just spammable, which means Autocracy's +3 really does them favours, and +1 at this point in the game won't do much.

 

[CppMaster]

Do roads improve Oppidum the same way they improve towns?

 

[pineappledan]

The Waag was the bad one in the civ, and it's a sidegrade of what it was at best, trading more and easier Great People% and more for a few distress reduction points and better yields, but only at a condition that might prove impossible to fulfill if it's only Caravans - many cities might not be getting anything special out of the UB
A coastal city on Tiny-Island-Who-Knows-Where won't spawn a GP anyway and that 8-12% from the UB is unlikely to be even one GP point before you work 3-4 GPs, it won't benefit from the defense, if it gets spied upon I won't care - only less production cost and -distress work. The yields not being applicable sucks.

Oh quit your moping. It is unambiguously an upgrade. It's more yields and scraps a completely useless 1 defense on trading, which was only ever useful when Crime existed. It also makes the Waag universally more consistent, and its value is no longer strictly tied to keeping diplomatic ties. Each point of needs is also roughly 2x as strong as it used to be.

Most importantly, it doesn't simply double-up on the UA, which was the main thing I was trying to get away from. Worse than imbalanced, it was bad design.

Currently, the building provides a potential 11 and 3 every turn, in comparison to the Bank's 8. I toyed with the idea of adding a base 2 to the building, but the base bank already gives soooo many yields. The building coming in the medieval era and being 150 cheaper is also pretty major.

I have tested the Waag now with both Ships and Caravans. The 33 works with ALL trade units that pass over the tile. Regardless, you're being over-dramatic, don't you think? Plenty of UBs would render minimal benefit to a 1-tile island city.

I found it cool when playing them, useful at the right times. Something to consider for sure, I wouldn't just spam tons of them permanently - but that's fine, they were very good with all these promotions and this cost, they should have a drawback that sometimes is positive.

The AI does spam them though. The AI sees it gets a unique unit and builds them constantly. They fall behind in city size in my games because they spend way too many turns pumping out dozens of these units, freezing their city growth.

I understand the change to Burg if it's a LUA problem, but this idea with +10CS is a bit weird. I can abuse it to go Shock, +1 Movement, build roads and quickly remove any non-melee foe AI sends near my cities by having a turn of one super Tercio in early medieval, a Rifleman in Renaissance and Rifleman at 45, almost the 50 of the next unit in the row. AI might find it a problem, I can even use roads + potential citadels to quickly assault with an unit that acts an era above for a turn. Interesting thing, will not be OP due to inconsistency and needed preparation and the amount of units it'll affect, but it seems like I'd prefer the old Burg. I will have to get used to the new one and give it a try.

I really didn't like the Burgemeester promotion. I get what it's trying to do, with the Flanders militia being derived from merchants, but positioning melee units over luxuries is incidental. Your main battle line won't be dictated by where resources are on the map, or you risk putting units out of position. It feels random and arbitrary in a game.

I considered only making it +5CS, but it's such a situational promotion that I worried you would get little use of it if it were so low. The idea behind the promotion is the battle of Courtrais, which took place on a marshy field immediately outside the city. A militia of Goedendags obliterated a French professional army of heavy cavalry in that fight. The situation you describe -- getting a 3 movement Goedendag and walloping a single unit -- sounds like a good bit of fun, but I expect in a normal game you would only get to do that 1-2 times. It would feel really good though, granted. The main utility of this promotion would likely be how a +10CS unit in a city would double-back onto the city's defense statistic, and you would have a very potent garrison in the city. If people think 25CS is enough then the number is easy to change, but I would prefer people try it before making knee-jerk assessments. Lastsword's version actually had the Goedendag's additional power equal 1/2 of the city's, so that would be +20CS with a castle.

Does Polder putting Marshes underneath the tiles mean all the tiles without Marsh effectively get +1 from Polder because the Marsh is created?

Yup! I've been fooling around with this in my tests, it gives +3 to the base tile, regardless of what the tile was before (hill, plain, etc.). If built on a floodplain -- floodplains are features -- it replaces the floodplain with a marsh. You can also clear the marsh beneath a polder, but why would you do that? I am considering setting a lua hook for if someone clears a marsh on a desert tile, which would then place a floodplain feature beneath it, but I can't imagine why anyone would be removing the marsh in the first place.

Do roads improve Oppidum the same way they improve towns?

No. The Oppidum doesn't have the road/TR bonus. They get the improvement adjacency bonus instead. This was an intentional design choice, and it's also why we didn't disable Towns for the Celts, because you might decide you actually want a town on your Railroad/Caravan route.

 

[infidel88]

I am considering setting a lua hook for if someone clears a marsh on a desert tile, which would then place a floodplain feature beneath it, but I can't imagine why anyone would be removing the marsh in the first place..

pantheon?

PS. Regarding 1-tile cities on islands - that's the worst and most useless thing Civ games are making and VP hasn't addressed. Even if they are there to secure important resources, they should be a burden in every other manner. They should have problems grow over 10 pop. Meanwhile we're changing Cyprus into Taiwan.

 

[pineappledan]

pantheon?

Goddess of Purity gives 1 for every marsh. There is no pantheon which provides yields to floodplains. I had forgotten that the pantheon bonuses were that high for marshes; that might be game-breaking if Netherlands manages to found a religion with that pantheon.

 

[civplayer33]

Goddess of Purity gives 1 for every marsh. [...] that might be game-breaking if Netherlands manages to found a religion with that pantheon.

FWIW I picked that pantheon in my current game and while, if you have a lot of marshes in your territory, it's certainly super nice for early game and still nice for mid game, I find that starting in late mid game (late Industrial) marshes aren't worth keeping anymore in most cases since many improvements are just better at that point. Of course, if you combine it with additional bonuses in certain situations, like Polder, it's different, but that's pretty niche. The point is, I don't think there's a problem with the pantheon itself.

 

[pineappledan]

FWIW I picked that pantheon in my current game and while, if you have a lot of marshes in your territory, it's certainly super nice for early game and still nice for mid game, I find that starting in late mid game (late Industrial) marshes aren't worth keeping anymore in most cases since many improvements are just better at that point. Of course, if you combine it with additional bonuses in certain situations, like Polder, it's different, but that's pretty niche. The point is, I don't think there's a problem with the pantheon itself.

The problem is that my change to Polders makes it so netherlands can manufacture marshes on both sides of entire river systems. That will likely result in all worked tiles on some cities benefitting from the pantheon; a yields bonanza

I may need to create a new feature, basically a polder marsh, but without the benefit of the pantheon.

 

[civplayer33]

I may need to create a new feature, basically a polder, but without the benefit of the pantheon.

Hmm yeah I guess that may indeed be warranted.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Played some Netherlands with copied lua/sql things from the github, and so far Goedendag's second ability Burgemeeste(r) doesn't seem to work on Tercio so it probably won't work on Rifleman as well. The unit's been nerfed so far, it having two unique abilities staying after upgrade was part of it's power - it became only stronger after Tercio came to existence as it regained the anti-mounted promo it didn't have.

The ability is a cool idea, but it only works for an era and only on a few units, less than were affected before when there was much tactical usage to consider. 30 CS for a time is nice, but it's harder to get and in practice there's UUs like Samurai that might be less powerful for that particular turn, but they can work everywhere.
+25% on luxuries was stronger because it consistently worked and more units were affected without it going away on upgrade, and I've used it on assaults by planting the GD on a luxury to provide CS to nearby units which aren't GD. I also liked to put one on a luxury near the coast so the AI wasted time bombarding him as I was preparing ranged units and/or my own fleet to take the ships out. The ability should disappear on upgrade if it doesn't work at least, but the unit's definitely weaker than it was because it's harder to use it, and the window to use it at it's strongest is smaller. I'd prefer a percentage like +25% if unit starts turn in the city as this way it'll stay on upgrade, keeping the old flavour.

Waag's better than I thought meaning it's not a downgrade from what it was, but it's still one of the weakest UBs. I understand your reasoning with an earlier Bank giving much yields by definition and not wanting to give Netherlands too much in late medieval, but there's a flaw in it. To get the full Bank yields, you have to have Customs House, Caravansary (and Market for bank), so that is Production and possibly a tech (Guilds) before it starts giving all that- it also balances the others out, as there's no way I'd be building Caravansary in some cities without it and even with it, it's sometimes abandoned. Granted, the lower cost basically makes the Caravansary free.
Maybe it could buff the Windmill as well, joining the 2 other buildings? That's pretty thematic and fitting, and since it's available later (late renaissance), it won't possibly be a problem. It won't do much, but it'll be something.

EDIT: does distress reduction work?

 

[pineappledan]

The ability is a cool idea, but it only works for an era and only on a few units, less than were affected before when there was much tactical usage to consider. 30 CS for a time is nice, but it's harder to get and in practice there's UUs like Samurai that might be less powerful for that particular turn, but they can work everywhere.
+25% on luxuries was stronger because it consistently worked and more units were affected without it going away on upgrade, and I've used it on assaults by planting the GD on a luxury to provide CS to nearby units which aren't GD. I also liked to put one on a luxury near the coast so the AI wasted time bombarding him as I was preparing ranged units and/or my own fleet to take the ships out. The ability should disappear on upgrade if it doesn't work at least, but the unit's definitely weaker than it was because it's harder to use it, and the window to use it at it's strongest is smaller. I'd prefer a percentage like +25% if unit starts turn in the city as this way it'll stay on upgrade, keeping the old flavour.

It would be nice if the Burgemeeste was kept on upgrade. The only way to do that will be through % modifiers, since base CS modifiers have to be tied to a single unit.

I'll take another crack at the lua tonight, along with making a new feature to put beneath the polder: The Koog (identical to a marsh, but no pantheon synergy)

Waag's better than I thought meaning it's not a downgrade from what it was, but it's still one of the weakest UBs. I understand your reasoning with an earlier Bank giving much yields by definition and not wanting to give Netherlands too much in late medieval, but there's a flaw in it. To get the full Bank yields, you have to have Customs House, Caravansary (and Market for bank), so that is Production and possibly a tech (Guilds) before it starts giving all that- it also balances the others out, as there's no way I'd be building Caravansary in some cities without it and even with it, it's sometimes abandoned. Granted, the lower cost basically makes the Caravansary free.
Maybe it could buff the Windmill as well, joining the 2 other buildings? That's pretty thematic and fitting, and since it's available later (late renaissance), it won't possibly be a problem. It won't do much, but it'll be something.

I'll keep it the same for now then. Not every building needs to knock your socks off. If Netherlands really is falling behind I will see about upping either the TR yields or adding some base production.

Edit: changes posted, haven't tested

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

There's bugs and weird things in the current Netherlands build. That, or I did something incorrectly.

Waag doesn't actually work, I was wrong before. I looked at yields before/after Waag in the capital, and nothing changed neither for the city nor the city tile. It says there's City Ruins in Amsterdam and other Waag cities so maybe that's what's wrong - or I made the changes wrong. The yields part doesn't work, at least, the GP%/-distress is hard to tell. Several cities are sending internal routes to Amsterdam and other cities, and the city tile didn't improve - neither did the total amount of yields, not even after resending the route. In addition, this is very hard to connect in a wide empire. Annoyingly hard, if not impossible if conquests keep on stacking and with the 4 routes I have available now, soon to be 5, this simply won't work everywhere.
Even if it worked it's just an annoying UB to make use of now, to be frank, especially since it's not really that much better than the regular Bank. I don't think Netherlands need something like that, the micromanagement of luxuries is painful enough when even EUI is not completely reliable and sometimes deals just suddenly end (if someone cannot fulfill their end of the deal anymore, like when their X resource is pillaged), and I have to already plan ahead to maximise the amount of Polders I can spawn.
I'm starting to think I genuinely preferred the old one over this as it was just something to build and forget even if it was weaker in the yield aspect (but stronger at GP% + defense, and had 1 more merchant, even if he was a bit of a flaw as well) I think Netherlands could use something simpler that just exists and does it's job (uniquely, or less so), in other words. I don't like how it is now. Overcomplicated and, while perhaps thematic, it's not fun to play with. At least not if you play wide Netherlands like I do.

Goedendag works fine, I saw a +50% CS bonus against someone for a single attack when one got Merchant Militia promo. Doesn't seem OP. It's just one attack unless he stays inside/

Polders can no longer be built on non-fresh Marshes, something broke.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Waag won't give the yields no matter what I do. Even if both cities have Waag or only one it's not working, neither if the city is the target or the caravan/cargo ship happens to go through it. I'd prefer if the idea was dropped because trying to make it affect as many as it (theoretically, but not practically - due to the hidden improvement being City Ruins bug) does now took a lot of time.
The +1% distress/luxury bonus is (going to be? I don't know how to check if it works - it's not displayed anywhere) more counterintuitive than what it used to be, to be honest. If I have 1 copy of Copper and no one else has one or simply doesn't want to give me his, I have to choose which bonus I keep - 1% distress/GP% or yields. The choice is yields, but I effectively lose out as compared to previous, stronger import/export bonus that stacked with the UA. In the previous case, as Netherlands I always gave the thing away, gaining both bonuses.

Off-topic, I find it a strange design decision that the only civ in the entire game that has in-built help with getting luxury monopolies doesn't have the "bonus yields per monopoly" feature, but a random warmonger civ like Songhai does. Well, maybe not the only, there's Indonesia as well, but Indonesia has 3 free ones which is probably too much in-built help. Granted, conquest's the easiest way to acquire them anyway so maybe that's ok.

Polders also say they are built on an "Ice Hill" no matter where they were previously, all I've built so far have 0 yields and citizens cannot be put on them as the result of them having no yields. The preview says it'll give me the regular Polder yields, but afterwards I'm left with useless tiles. I only noticed now cuz I turn off yields being shown on every tile without clicking a civilian/going into a city as this makes the game like to crash somehow.

I don't know why there's so much focus put into the defensiveness of the UI considering what the Waag and Goedendag do. Draining movement by being a sort-of Marsh is... nice, but does Netherlands need it? Isn't that putting too much effort into making Netherlands simply annoying to conquer? The civ has bonus defense from Waag and Goedendag (now turned more defensive with a nerfed offensive) at this point in the game. Maybe that's trying too hard with 3 uniques that help defense so much (Waag the least, Polder - from what I understand - will be decent at it).

 

[pineappledan]

the bugs will be something I will iron out this weekend. G posted a draft changes log, so I will try to get AE to come in, review changes, and we can push a new version shortly after the new VP beta is released.

I take your meaning re: Songhai's bonus vs Netherlands, and I agree. Swapping the 33 on a TR passing through a city makes much more sense for an empire which was focused on over-land trade ie. West Africa. This would also address the complaints about how the 11 per monopoly was too powerful, because the bonus would be pushed back a full era if placed on the Waag. The monopoly bonus provides a nice synergy for the Dutch UA, while the village tile bonus makes perfect sense for a building which is meant to be an entrepot.

Re: The Polder's movement debuff, we offloaded the village/town bonus to we could give it to Russia's UB instead. I wanted to give Netherlands something to compensate, and giving the polders an ability which restricts invader movement seemed both wonderfully historical and unique. It sounds like your main complain with it right now is merely that it is broken, which is fair enough. Hopefully your impression of it will improve when I fix it.

Re: the general defensive flavor of the Netherlands' UCs, it seems like everything unique to their culture also makes them incredibly difficult to conquer. This sentiment goes all the way back to the Romans, who never really controlled the low countries. The Frisians never conquered the land; they merely moved in and integrated, becoming an ethnic and linguistic majority in the area. Spain never conquered the Netherlands either; they acquired the land via diplomatic marriage. The only example I can think of for the Netherlands actually being conquered is by Germany in WWI and WWII, and at tremendous cost. Without going into their colonial holdings, it's very difficult to come up with unique aspects of Dutch culture which don't directly contribute to the land being difficult to take, and even harder to hold.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I agree on the Waag and Gumey, that will be a nice change.

I'm not against the Polder change as it's pretty cool and won't be a problem as the Polder might not even be anywhere where it's hard to counter (and even if it is, mounted can handle -3 marsh movement), but I was mostly meaning that if it can't be done, it can be undone as they have other defensive bonuses already and if it's too hard, it won't create issues if it's missing. Netherlands won't be an issue. Let's be honest here, William can't possibly be anywhere near as bad as Mr Pachacuti and his Mountain range with two 1-tile wide entrances filled with 2shot Composites. Basically yeah, the bugs are the Polder problem.

 

[pineappledan]

I'll up the base yields on Gumey to 222, and add 222 if a TR passes through it. So double base yields.

I'll then revert the Waag bonus to the old Gumey bonus of 11, instead of the current 12 for ETRs to city

 

[pineappledan]

G also announced a new table for buildings: Instant boosts from completion of an ITR to that city.

I'm definitely going to add this to my Tlingit civ, but it gives an extra tool to play with for 1 civ in particular: Japan.

New Kabuki proposal:
UB - Kabuki Theater (replaces Opera House):
available at Acoustics

600 Production Cost
does not require an Amphitheater
+3 Culture
+5% Culture
+33% Great Musician Points
+1 Gold to all Musicians' Guilds
replaces each of the Guilds with a unique Japanese version of that Building on construction
50 Scaling with Era on Completion of an Internal Trade Route to this city​

No changes to Ukiyo-e, Monogatari, or Gagaku.

Reasoning:
- The extra % on G Artist/Musician/Writer double-dipped on the extra GPP bonuses from the guilds and was only useful in guild cities.
- The Bonus on ITRs provides that sweet Sakoku bonus for when you aren't pursuing a CV with Japan. Close the country down to trade, and Japan's UB still allows you to pump out lots of defensive culture.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

G also announced a new table for buildings: Instant boosts from completion of an ITR to that city.

I'm definitely going to add this to my Tlingit civ, but it gives an extra tool to play with for 1 civ in particular: Japan.

New Kabuki proposal:
UB - Kabuki Theater (replaces Opera House):
available at Acoustics

600 Production Cost
does not require an Amphitheater
+1 Culture
+5% Culture
+33% Great Musician Points
+1 Gold to all Musicians' Guilds
replaces each of the Guilds with a unique Japanese version of that Building on construction
50 Scaling with Era on Completion of an Internal Trade Route to this city​

No changes to Ukiyo-e, Monogatari, or Gagaku.

Reasoning:
The extra % on G Artist/Musician/Writer double-dipped on the extra GPP bonuses from the guilds and was only useful in guild cities.
With all guilds constructed, Kabuki used to get 633, which was a bit much. This reduces to 433
The Bonus on ITRs provides that sweet Sakoku bonus for when you aren't pursuing a CV with Japan. Close the country down to trade, and Japan's UB still allows you to pump out lots of defensive culture.

I don't think 63 is much at all for mid-late renaissance considering it also requires a Kabuki to be built in 3 Guild Cities first and a Guild unlocks on the same tech so it'll be up to it's full strength at earliest a tech later. You're looking at it wrong I think - it was just 3 above the replacement which is pretty bad for the era, with some GP points + % and negligible yields per certain bonus specialists. At just 13 it will be pretty bad, especially since most of that Tourism's going to go away because of city scaling. I already considered it to be average or below average. I think it should have it's old Culture back, with the per ITR just replacing the old bonus percentage, maybe at a lower value than 50.

 

[Epaminondas II]

On the current version of VP (12-18) and the current version of unique components (v39) I am getting complete freezes of the game when I end the turn. It doesn't crash but the entire game locks up while the music keeps going. My PC is still responsive though and I can alt-tab out of the game and easily close it. I am getting the crash very consistently at about turn 300 (I can reload but it will only go a few turns at most before crashing again) on a large continents map. Looking for any help on what the issue is or how I should go about trouble-shooting, all the search results I got were from the January issue with VP.

Edit: I have not played too long of a game with the current version of VP but I have not been having this issue with VP in the past by itself just now with the unique components.