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

[pineappledan]

On my Ethiopia game i found out that monolithic churches built on featureless hills are only getting the finishing policy tree bonuses, while those built in stone resources are recieving the full bonuses (pantheon and religion beliefs included), is this intended? I'm playing in the latest version of 4UC and VP.

The monolithic churches should get all the upgrades from beliefs etc.

The bonuses from beliefs are tied to the actual belief itself, however. You need to convert a city to a religion or it won’t get the bonuses. Are you comparing a mono church on a hill near an unconverted city to a mono church on stone near a converted city?

mmmh i got an LUA error message in the firetune2 concerning ethiopia "return a nil value" line 24.
maybe it is related

Not related. The lua is only used to check the ideology bonus.

 

[mavol6]

The bonuses from beliefs are tied to the actual belief itself, however. You need to convert a city to a religion or it won’t get the bonuses. Are you comparing a mono church on a hill near an unconverted city to a mono church on stone near a converted city?

As you can see, the churches on the hills on the right only have the policy bonuses (ancient and medieval branch finishers) while the ones built on a stone resource get the full bonuses (including pantheon, founder, 2 follower, enhancer, reformation, plus 3 production from stone resource and stoneworks).

 

[Bhawb]

Question I raised before, but it got sidetracked by the Huey Teocalli discussion:

The Aztec Eagle. Is it any good, in y'alls experience? To me it feels almost like a filler/niche unit unless you're straight up diving into Domination from the word go - and keeping at it throughout the early ages. It's very good at the classical warfare thing (although it not being an upgrade to Jaguars feels rather awkward at points), but I don't think Montezuma exactly had difficulties in the melee units department to begin with, and arguably Jaguars are just better due to the jungle bonus and self-heal, even with the +5 CS in Eagle's favor.

Yes and no. I agree it is a very niche unit due to its placement and how Aztec plays in general.

I tend to find that if there is any possible nearby civ to bully early you should do it. But this means that pretty quickly you'll likely have taken workers from civs/CSs, gotten plenty of gold to buy others, etc., and Aztec plays pretty tall in general too so you don't need 10 workers for your 5 cities. Getting workers is cool, Sentry is fine, not needing Iron is solid for Aztec's start, but it only has +1 CS which is a ~7% buff, and doesn't have any of the Jaguar's very powerful abilities. So overall it isn't any better at bullying civs than a swordsman would be, it just rewards you a bit more for it, and it doesn't need Iron which is admittedly great.

Essentially, Eagle is an okay unit in a really poor spot on the tech tree for Aztecs that doesn't give enough to be worth it imo, with a few exceptions. Also it feels awkward when you've got two melee units competing for the finishing blow, and it feels taxing on your unit supply to have both UUs be melee one after the other. It is a nice way to have a Swordsman unit that doesn't require Iron and having a million workers can be fun assuming you don't get screwed by the maintenance.

I don't think they should upgrade into each other, that would be insane (and historically inaccurate, but so is a lot of how the Aztecs work in game). Any enemy near a jungle would get blitzed by ultra-promoted Eagles that would smash any unwalled city. And the flavor of the Eagle is fun enough. Maybe move the Eagle to a later unit like Longswordsman? The Aztec Empire actually lines up historically with the Renaissance, from early 1400s to early 1500s being their time of power. Or slot it into a different tech on the tree?

The issue I see is how to fit the two units properly into Spearman/Swordsman lines without overpowering Aztec's early game but still making both units powerful. Too much strength in Ancient warmongering is way too good when civs won't get walls too quickly.

Total side note, is it a good idea to update to the newest VP patch at this point? Not sure if it/4UC have gotten to a point where at least I won't get massive issues.

 

[pineappledan]

View attachment 521084
As you can see, the churches on the hills on the right only have the policy bonuses (ancient and medieval branch finishers) while the ones built on a stone resource get the full bonuses (including pantheon, founder, 2 follower, enhancer, reformation, plus 3 production from stone resource and stoneworks).

Very strange. There is no difference between monolithic churches on stone and on hills; they’re the same improvement and so they should benefit from the same boosts. It is the same SQL which provides yields to improvements on most pantheon beliefs...

Perhaps someone can advise?

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Yes and no. I agree it is a very niche unit due to its placement and how Aztec plays in general.

I tend to find that if there is any possible nearby civ to bully early you should do it. But this means that pretty quickly you'll likely have taken workers from civs/CSs, gotten plenty of gold to buy others, etc., and Aztec plays pretty tall in general too so you don't need 10 workers for your 5 cities. Getting workers is cool, Sentry is fine, not needing Iron is solid for Aztec's start, but it only has +1 CS which is a ~7% buff, and doesn't have any of the Jaguar's very powerful abilities. So overall it isn't any better at bullying civs than a swordsman would be, it just rewards you a bit more for it, and it doesn't need Iron which is admittedly great.

Essentially, Eagle is an okay unit in a really poor spot on the tech tree for Aztecs that doesn't give enough to be worth it imo, with a few exceptions. Also it feels awkward when you've got two melee units competing for the finishing blow, and it feels taxing on your unit supply to have both UUs be melee one after the other. It is a nice way to have a Swordsman unit that doesn't require Iron and having a million workers can be fun assuming you don't get screwed by the maintenance.

I don't think they should upgrade into each other, that would be insane (and historically inaccurate, but so is a lot of how the Aztecs work in game). Any enemy near a jungle would get blitzed by ultra-promoted Eagles that would smash any unwalled city. And the flavor of the Eagle is fun enough. Maybe move the Eagle to a later unit like Longswordsman? The Aztec Empire actually lines up historically with the Renaissance, from early 1400s to early 1500s being their time of power. Or slot it into a different tech on the tree?

The issue I see is how to fit the two units properly into Spearman/Swordsman lines without overpowering Aztec's early game but still making both units powerful. Too much strength in Ancient warmongering is way too good when civs won't get walls too quickly.

Total side note, is it a good idea to update to the newest VP patch at this point? Not sure if it/4UC have gotten to a point where at least I won't get massive issues.

I'm in the middle of a dominant Aztec run without this mod, and I can already tell that I probably wouldn't have built a single Eagle. The Jag spam with their promotions in Aztec turf is just too good, and is all you need to get the ball rolling. The workers gained and +1 CS are inconsequential for the reasons you also mentioned. If I've been conquering, I'll have some horses at my disposal for when Jags start to taper off.

I agree that upgrading Jags into Eagles would be way too strong, but as it stands there's no incentive for me to play MUCfVP Aztec with the current implementation because it seems pretty underwhelming. Moving to a different tech might work, considering you want those possible workers early, but won't get eagles online quick enough as you're often going the opposite direction for Calendar (Aztec start = jungle = plantations). Even with the change, I'd probably never build them to be honest...

 

[FoxOfWar]

Having Eagles replace Longswordsmen might actually be an option worth at least exploring - that way they'd come online when Jaguars obsolete, circumventing the issue somewhat. Also good points about them not upgrading into each other too. (Unless we go so far as to make Eagle a Tercio replacement I suppose... hmm.)

Edit: moving it further down would also allow one of the UU's to actually benefit from Huey Teocalli's bonus exp, so there's that.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Moving Eagle to Longswordsmen still leaves for tweaking; the worker capture is completely trivial at that point, so Aztec's second UU is essentially just a longsword with +1 CS? As mentioned, both UU's competing for final blow is also really not ideal.

After reading up a bit more on Aztec culture, they really do seem tricky to figure out. Along with the general historical inaccuracies and timeline that come with Monty, both Eagles and Jaguars were essentially the same, meanwhile you have other elements already taken from similar civs (Maya with atlatl and Inca with slingshots).

Ironically, there's more potential for other UB's not revolving around war. Obsidian would be a cool new unique resource (I know it was prevalent throughout all of Mesoamerica and not exclusive the the Aztecs, but...) that could possibly be implemented similarly to Inca's Coca(?), and the Telpochcalli could be used in place of the public school (with emphasis/bonuses toward XP, synergizing with bonus from Huey Teocalli).

 

[amateurgamer88]

I'm curious if it's possible to have Eagle replace Longswordsmen that's available in late Classical era while the Aztecs just don't get Swordsman at all?

And are there any civs that have UUs that gain CS from kills yet? Or is that too hard to code?

 

[Hinin]

To be honest, having the Jaguar be upgraded into the Eagle wouldn't be that much of a novelty : there are already two civilizations, Ethiopia and Arabia, that have UUs of the same line (infantry for Ethiopia, ranged cavalry for Arabia).
Having two UUs following one another, however, would be indeed a new thing, but I think the Aztecs is one of the civilizations for which it makes more sense : the Aztecs have always been defined in Civ V by the effects of having such a powerful UU as the Jaguar at the beginning of the game, and using it and the UA to gain yields and steamroll afterwards. Because of this, giving the Aztecs another unique infantry unit when the Jaguar is still available is a bit redundant and can make it feel a bit wasted, even if the free Workers are nice (and can be sold if you have enough of them, you know...).

One proposition I could have is the following :
- have the Eagle become an ironless, cheaper (so lower upgrade cost) but weaker (maybe around 18 ?) Longswordman that is available earlier (and with some kind of utility promotion) ;
- have the Swordsman disabled for the Aztecs and the Jaguar be upgradable into the Longswordman instead of the Spearman.
=> This would mean that the Aztecs would never need Iron for their infantry.
=> Also, since the Jaguar promotions would be passed to the Eagle, it would, despite its lower initial CS, still hit harder and move faster in forest/jungle and heal when killing (+ all the promotions acquired because of the amount of experience the Jaguars would accumulate before), so it would still be a fearsome unit.
=> If your Jaguar army suffers loses, the fact that you can produce cheap LSM, combined with the bonus XP from the Huey Teocalli, allows you to maintain a reasonably strong army, and so to not lose steam.
=> It would mean that the Aztecs would be a bit vulnerable during the early Classical age, since they wouldn't have Swordsmen, but the Eagle would be available soon after if needed.
=> The Spearman/Pikemand branch would still be available in case your enemy produces a large amount of mounted units and you don't have a terrain advantage to tip the scale.

I know it's a radical idea (and some elements of it have still be discussed in the past months), but I think it would allow both Aztec UUs to feel relevant, which isn't the case now. Also, the bonus of the Eagle can still be tweaked if it feels underpowered or overpowered.

What are your thoughts ?

 

[FoxOfWar]

It's definitely a different approach, but if it makes sense for any civ to have such a different direction for melee units, it's Monty's crew. I like that little bit of vulnerability inbetween techs (well, mildly speaking since Jaguars are pretty darn good anyway, even against Swordsmen just due to the ability to position better if there's any forest around at all), and it would make for more motivation to keep your Jaguars alive, which I consider a good thing.

In such a case, the Eagle would not need anything overly 'sparkly' as a promotion necessarily, as the fact that you upgrade an already awesome unit, without iron, earlier and cheaper to it... is a lot.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Perhaps we should make Eagles similar to how they are in Age of Empires II. Eagles there have high Movement Speed and Great Pierce Armor, making them great choices for fighting Ranged Units. The Main Line of Infantry in AoE2 (Swordsmen) had an attack bonus vs Eagles, making them their Counter Unit.

 

[pineappledan]

I don’t necessarily have any problem with moving the eagle to lonngswords. There are currently 4 swordsmen replacements (Indonesia, Aztec, Rome, Iroquois) and 3 longswords (Ethiopia, Denmark, Japan), so it doesn’t resolve any UU spread issue. If anything, it actually contributes to a larger problem we have, where the medieval era is where the most UUs are concentrated.

I absolutely do not agree with combining sword/long sword. That’s silly. Having a warrior replacement obsolete in Renaissance is very silly. Having an opportunity to build Jaguars, immediately upgrade them to eagles, then research gunpowder and have tercios that have:

• +43% and double move in forest/jungle
• 25hp heal and 50% chance of a free worker on kill
• +1 vision
• +50% vs horses

@Kim Dong Un also ignores the vision and lack of iron requirement in his analysis. Just pointing that out. @FoxOfWar and @Bhawb pointed out the bad tech tree placement. What? It’s right next to floating garden; Aztec prioritize the bottom of the tech tree anyways. Why are people neglecting iron working? Forges are a priority building, if a UU isn’t enough to convince you of picking up a great tech then you simply aren’t playing well.

As I said, I don’t necessarily have a problem with moving eagle. I can sympathize with the frustration of having two units competing for last hits. However, so many of these other arguments are simply non-sensical.

 

[Hinin]

The free worker on kill and the +1 vision wouldn't have to be kept for the Eagle (the bonus I proposed are already quite strong, so +1 vision would actually be enough I think). Also, these are just ideas, you know... no need to use strong words like this...
Finally, I have personally no problem with the current tech placement of the Eagle, but more with the unit itself because of how anecdotic it appears compared to the Jaguar.

Wouldn't it be possible to make so that the Jaguar is kept obsolete at Steel ?

 

[amateurgamer88]

For me at least, it's not that the Eagle is at a weird tech placement. Rather, I wonder what situations you have when it comes to building the Eagle. Jaguar is certainly a unit you want to build early on and, by hunting barbarians, they have quite a few promotions to them. With limited supply cap, I don't necessarily have the incentive to get the Eagle in lots of situations when I'd rather use Spearmen that were directly upgraded from Jaguars. For other civs, there's an incentive to get Swordsmen over Spearmen. For the Aztecs, that incentive is much less.

As for the promotions, Eagle is also at an awkward place. At this stage, you can capture Workers by attacking your neighbors and I won't be waiting until Classical era to get my first Worker anyways. In addition, the Eagle doesn't have the movement to really make use of its extra vision. Ironically, Forest/Jungle heavy terrain makes them less useful. While no Iron is nice, I personally don't like their overall kit.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I actually enjoyed the Eagle in my last games, but it's not a thing to spam too hard. I got several to get me free Workers with no work penalty and the free Sight is convenient. They're meant to Fortify and hold the line before you attack and get some stuff back. If you get two Workers from an Eagle which you will need to fix improvements in conquered lands (if not, sell for gold), then congratulations - Production cost of the Eagle is fully returned. Get three, and the Eagle was more than free, it was beneficial. You can safely sell captive non-Eagle Workers with no issues, using slavery of captive civilians is needless. They're not too useful if there's much woods, though, but if that is not the case - Eagle has a place. But it's not a really big spot.

There is a point though at which I did say "zog da Jaga-boyz, zog da Eagle-boyz" and just made ranged units out of smartness. The overlap between them is pretty big and it's not a perfect situation. The vision is nice, but the unit isn't exactly super dominant and if a regular Sword cannot take an unit a survive, the Eagle won't enslave an unit and survive either. I feel Eagle would have a cool niche if it had a feature where it automatically Fortifies if it loses it's movement by killing an unit. A heal per kill is what Jaguar has which is why I suggest something else, Eagle's suggested fortify gimmick would be very cool and unique. Is it possible (for Eagles) to learn this power?

 

[FoxOfWar]

Yeah, if I have been bad at putting it into words: the Eagle feels... awkward, and niche. It's okay for what it is... but definitely not exciting either. Best I suppose I can summarize it is... why would I build Eagles? What is their purpose? They don't really offer anything Montezuma isn't already pretty good at (I find myself getting plenty workers from just city captures if I go ball-to-the-walls conquering.), they aren't an interesting unit on their own and they don't - rather importantly - ADD anything to Montezuma's Classical era army, unless you've killed off all of your Jaguars somehow. When your supply (and production) is limited, and you have plenty of melee units, why would you build more that aren't even that much more powerful than a unit you can get earlier, compared to things like ranged, horse units, naval or siege?

Maybe it's a playstyle thing, but I find myself attempting to stabilize after Ancient era conquests around that time, unless I have really weak neighbours to go after my first one or two - or finding myself a need for more diverse army, not more melee units.

(Also Forges aren't a priority building in my opinion, definitely not when Floating Gardens exist, that post-arena +2 production is an afterthought at best. Also due to Huey Teocalli's nature, you want it sooner rather than later, and it's on the opposite side of the tree.)

Since I play random and on Marathon, I end up playing maybe four-five games a month... so odds are next time I even get Montezuma will be around summer or so anyway, so y'all might take my opinion with a grain of salt as usual.

 

[Cebrudras]

It would be a bit wacky, but how about making eagles strategic-less, 3-movement horsemen replacement with cool promos? The tiny number of horsemen uniques has been brought up a while ago and the aztecs are probably the one civ you can give some weird "I swear they become worth the effort once you upgrade them to knights" sidegrade to without utterly crippling them during the early game because of how good jaguars are.
Giving some native american civ a horseless ancient horse unit also is pretty flavourful.

 

[Bhawb]

I played through 3 early game setups as Aztec just to see how I felt. The Eagles just don't feel special compared to other UUs. That isn't to say you'll never build them, but I don't really use them like a UU as much as a Swordsman that is a tiny bit better. You won't be delaying workers for your cities until Iron Working, that's way too late, so the extra workers just help you speed up some upgrades before they get sold unless you've captured cities. But you don't really want to use the Eagles to finish enemies since they won't get the heal on kill, they are slow as hell with no movement bonuses, and you need them for defending ranged units while Jaguars do their thing flanking. So I ended up building at most 2-3 of them to grab an extra worker or two and defend my backline units.

As a side note I also generally dislike UUs that don't bring anything unique when they upgrade. Upgraded Eagle's just keep Sentry (not that they should keep worker on kill), so I have absolutely no incentive to keep them alive compared to my Jaguars that keep Woodsman and Heal on Kill which are incredible upgrades all game long. That isn't to say we need to change them just because of that, but that's my 2 cents.

Not that I think historical accuracy is the most important, but Eagles and Jaguars were literally identical in Aztec culture. It was a single order, the only known difference is what they wore to combat. Also, literally every single 4UC Civ either has their two UUs as different unit types or they upgrade into each other. Aztec is the only one that has two UUs of the same type that don't; yes I'd consider melee infantry the same regardless of the early game spear/sword differentiation. That is a major source of pain that no one else faces. I'd suggest one of three ideas: make them a different unit type (probably ranged), give them a significantly different melee setup like a quasi-GG to make it worth having two melee infantry UUs, or make them a direct upgrade.

While I personally like the idea of shifting Eagles into a Ranged slingshot support unit and making Jaguar/Eagle into a Mandekalu/Sofa setup, I can understand that we already have Atlatls in the game which is what they used.

Or, what about making them a Spearman replacement available at Iron Working with similar abilities as now? Woodsman, Heal and Worker on kill, and adjust CS, cost to upgrade/produce, and whether they should have Sentry. Avoids the weird upgrade path issues and then Aztecs just ignore the Swordsman line.

 

[amateurgamer88]

I have been thinking about making Eagle a Spearman replacement idea. What if we change Jaguar a bit so that, upon upgrading to Eagle, they will be at their potential? My idea is a bit like this (values can be adjusted a bit):

Jaguar:
+3 Combat Strength.

+10% Combat Strength when battling in Jungles or Forests. (Lost upon upgrades)

Heals 15 HP when it kills enemy units. (Lost upon upgrades)

Starts with the Woodsman Promotion. (Keep during upgrades)

"Captives of War" [25% chance of spawning a Worker on Kill (without debuff)] (Lost upon upgrades)

Eagle (Spearman replacement):
Available at Iron Working

+4 Combat Strength.

+33% Combat Strength when battling in Jungles or Forests. (Lost upon upgrades)

Heals 25 HP when it kills enemy units. (Keep during upgrades)

Starts with the Woodsman Promotion. (Keep during upgrades)

"Sentry" (Keep during upgrades)

 

[Hinin]

While I personally like the idea of shifting Eagles into a Ranged slingshot support unit and making Jaguar/Eagle into a Mandekalu/Sofa setup, I can understand that we already have Atlatls in the game which is what they used.

Another problem with this idea is that it will give the unit some very strange animations for a ranged unit (since its combat animation is a melee one) : either it will go in melee and attack without enemy reaction, or other weird things.
For those like me who use strategic view or quick animation, it won't have an effect, but for a lot of people it will simply look like something wacky...

My idea is a bit like this (values can be adjusted a bit):

I think it's a good alternative to what I proposed : a sort of two-step UU which combines the bonus of the Eagle and the Jaguar will redistributing them in a manner that makes them more relevant (I particularly like the idea of swapping the "Captive of war" promotion with "forest/jungle combat bonus).
The only thing that I dislike is that it will indeed make the Spearman more relevant, since it's a UU, but the Pikeman will be the new victime, sort of. This is to avoid that kind of situation (and for the idea of an ironless army in the early game) that I proposed to put out the Swordsman : maybe we could do something similar with your proposition (make the Eagle an early cheap/weaker Pikeman replacement) ?