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

[Bhawb]

My mans Monte does need help. I'm in a game with him right now, he had a solid jungle-heavy start next to Egypt with a lot of barbs to take care of, and he got completely smashed by Egypt. Lost everything except his capital, barely managed to get two extra cities settled which will quickly become Timmy-food for me to raze pretty much for free before I have to deal with a 10 city Egypt. I do think part of the problem is how busted Progress is vs Authority right now and how weak the bottom half of the tree is, but if Authority Aztecs are losing wars this early there is a problem.

 

[documental]

Could it be a flavor thing, or a consequence of the AI declaring wars less often?

To be effective they need to constantly declare war/make peace.

 

[pineappledan]

I haven't played the new versions, but it could be the incredible amount of food that the HT gives was as much a hindrance as a help in previous versions. The new Growth modifier should help with that. The other problem I find is that early uniques tend to throw the AI off, and they invest way too much early into unit spam. Having 2 early units could be throwing Aztecs off, but there isn't much I can do about that now.

 

[Bhawb]

I do think, at risk of just badgering the Aztec UU stuff we've talked about before, that having two UUs of the same "type" (infantry melee) so close together hurts the AI. The upgrade thing was pretty neat, but at the end of the day you have two UUs, that essentially ends up with one invalidating the earlier one very quickly and doesn't allow each to shine in the same way most UUs do. And while this might not be a huge deal for some civs, Aztecs are so hyper focused on warmongering that they need to rely on their UUs to not suck.

 

[pineappledan]

v48 is live:

v48:
- compatibility:
    - Field Works Promotion line added to Pracinha, Carolean, and Landwehr
    - University of Coimbra culture on technology unlock reduced to 25
- tweaked/modified:
    - SpanishArmada    ==> Reduced CS, but increased bonus CS from Invincible
            ==> No longer has bonus XP on kills
            ==> added Boarded II for plague immunity
    - Sachems Council ==> code optimization. Uses SQL for unit promotion now
    - Eagle CS increased to 17
- fixed:
    - Suffet ==> bugfixes for multiple suffet spawning and Imperialism policy compatibility

In other news, the base admiral no longer has 2 charges of heal, so all known bugs on the Suffet are now addressed. Ta Daaa

 

[Legen]

About the Tophet, is it intended that its culture on unit purchase doesn't contribute towards the city's Border Growth?

 

[Guynemer]

About the Tophet, is it intended that its culture on unit purchase doesn't contribute towards the city's Border Growth?

I *think* that is true of every source of instant culture yields in VP, but I'm not 100% certain.

 

[pineappledan]

can't add culture locally without an SQL trigger if you want it to contribute to early border growth. It is what it is.

 

[Bhawb]

Playing as Ottomans, the Tersane isn't giving the Prize Ships promotion like it says it should. Loving the Great Bombards though. I shouldn't have any extra mods that are conflicting.

 

[pineappledan]

Cannot replicate. Make sure you are only looking at units produced in that specific city, and only melee naval units

Spoiler :

 

[Bhawb]

I'll double check my mods tonight, but I know 100% that it wasn't an issue with application. I made sure to build Tersane with Barracks/Armory in every coastal city before building any navy at all, and every Caravel from every city is missing the promotion, only having whatever promotions I picked with XP. I'm guessing there is a conflict somewhere in my mod list since it is working for you and the buildings are there, although I can't imagine what it would be off the top.

Edit: I'll have to check my versions too, to make sure. It could be an issue between 4UC and VP, I'm not on the latest version of either, maybe something weird got mixed up in there.

Alright, yeah, like a big ol' dumb dumb I was playing v45 not v48, and somewhere in there the issue was fixed. But thankfully it looks like updating doesn't break the game as far as I can tell, since none of the civs in-game have been changed in between.

 

[IcyAngel]

Hello!

Is there a reason latifundia cannot be built next to each other? It's frustrating because plantation luxuries very often spawn in this fashion.

 

[pineappledan]

Is there a reason latifundia cannot be built next to each other? It's frustrating because plantation luxuries very often spawn in this fashion.

it’s so you can’t build a latifundium on top of your fig resource and chain them off each other. Latifundium give 1 to adjacent plantations, so they aren’t really much stronger than an adjacent plantation luxury anyways

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Armada's get Boarding Party I twice instead of BP II.

 

[Legen]

In other news, the base admiral no longer has 2 charges of heal, so all known bugs on the Suffet are now addressed. Ta Daaa

I think the only discrepancies left from the base general/admiral form left are:

• the inability of disembarking a general outside a friendly city/fort/citadel;
• the inability of having an admiral garrisoned in a city to safely buff nearby naval units;
• the lack of the base admiral's "teleport" ability between owned cities;

About the first two, I remember older suggestions of having both land and naval auras on the Suffet in both forms, which would mostly cover them.

About the last one, what if the general form had the "teleport" ability instead? It should cover the inability to have the admiral form garrisoned when trying to use this ability. Also very convenient for Carthage, as this civ tends to neglect roads between its cities.

 

[Jiggly]

Hey. Great mod by the way!

I am playing with England. It says that spies "operate" faster and one level up. When it says faster, what exactly does that mean, faster in what regard? Also my starting spy is a recruit. Does it still operate one level up? If your spy is max level special agent does still "operate" one level higher like an invisible max tier?

 

[Bhawb]

I've gotten late enough into my Ottoman game to start weighing in on the 4UC. I wasn't able to really abuse Great Bombards due to a very isolated start, and by the time I got my UCs online I had to go to a new continent to use them. I did have a couple of times where I set them up in random island tiles within range of an island city, and even in very subpar conditions they are really fun to use. I think I shot a city for half of its HP the first time I used one, which is ridiculously powerful, but fair due to the hefty limitations (2 units, 1/5th HP per shot).

I did get Tersane working after some updates, and it also feels really nice. I don't love that captured units start without promotions but that has nothing to do with 4UC and it'd definitely be broken if they gained experience. In general the captured units 8/10 times just absorb 1-3 attacks immediately and die before they get a turn. While that doesn't "feel" the best on paper for stealing units, functionally it is an extremely potent way to win naval combat, especially when you have a tech advantage and can nearly one-shot any ranged unit with your 1 tier stronger melee. In my case I also won the Treasure Fleet, so all those newly captured units can more quickly heal up and get into the action. And whichever units survive are donated to secure more CS allies and I'll build a new unit with more promotions to replace it, and nab myself some science in the process.

I also have to say after multiple games against Brazil, I think 4UC Brazil is straight up busted. Sambadrome gives extra culture, GAPs, and more culture, and more GAPs, and a musician (with more culture and GAPs), and GAPs during GAs on top of all of that. I've had an entire continent to myself early game for an insane Progress start with like 12 uncontested cities, followed up with very successful wars resulting in 1 (soon to be 2) vassals, and I sanctioned Brazil in the very first WC, and yet they are still a solid 3 policies ahead of everyone else in the game (including me), ahead of me in science by 3 techs, and beating even #3 Egypt at wondering, and this is just barely in Modern so they still have a lot of steam to pick up. The Ottomans and Egypt aren't weak civs in 4UC by any means either, but Brazil is effortlessly pretending we don't exist, and I think a lot of it has to do with Sambadrome giving massive yield bloat with significant amounts of both flat and % increasing yields, to the two best yields for Brazil, and Brazil doesn't have to do anything to take advantage of them other than build the buildings.

 

[pineappledan]

I am playing with England. It says that spies "operate" faster and one level up. When it says faster, what exactly does that mean, faster in what regard? Also my starting spy is a recruit. Does it still operate one level up? If your spy is max level special agent does still "operate" one level higher like an invisible max tier?

That is part of the base VP, but I can still answer that. Yes, functionally, England's spies operate as if they are 1 level above what they are, so that means lvl 3 spies functionally are a special level 4. They are faster in that they take fewer turns to do things. English spies establish surveillance, steal tech, perform coups, travel, etc. faster than other civs' spies.

I also have to say after multiple games against Brazil, I think 4UC Brazil is straight up busted. Sambadrome gives extra culture, GAPs, and more culture, and more GAPs, and a musician (with more culture and GAPs), and GAPs during GAs on top of all of that. I've had an entire continent to myself early game for an insane Progress start with like 12 uncontested cities, followed up with very successful wars resulting in 1 (soon to be 2) vassals, and I sanctioned Brazil in the very first WC, and yet they are still a solid 3 policies ahead of everyone else in the game (including me), ahead of me in science by 3 techs, and beating even #3 Egypt at wondering, and this is just barely in Modern so they still have a lot of steam to pick up. The Ottomans and Egypt aren't weak civs in 4UC by any means either, but Brazil is effortlessly pretending we don't exist, and I think a lot of it has to do with Sambadrome giving massive yield bloat with significant amounts of both flat and % increasing yields, to the two best yields for Brazil, and Brazil doesn't have to do anything to take advantage of them other than build the buildings.

sadface. Brazil is pretty laser-focused on that CV, so making components for Pedro is really hard. Maybe his numbers are just too big? I can remove some base yields and the tourism at Radio. Maybe that's enough?

 

[Legen]

sadface. Brazil is pretty laser-focused on that CV, so making components for Pedro is really hard. Maybe his numbers are just too big? I can remove some base yields and the tourism at Radio. Maybe that's enough?

My experience playing the civ both in base VP and with 34UC is that it has more to do with the base uniques. Brazilwood camps and Bandeirantes come earlier than the 34UC uniques and are already enough for a snowball, provided that he isn't handicapped by a warmonger. People playing without 34UC already reports AI Pedro snowballing if left unmolested, I don't think this mod is the cause.

The sambadrome is more of an issue in how much GAP it can provide by the time you're ready to bulb great artists. I don't think it needs the +25% GAP during golden ages. Outside that, I think the balance discussion should be on the base uniques, not much about the 34UC ones.

 

[Bhawb]

sadface. Brazil is pretty laser-focused on that CV, so making components for Pedro is really hard. Maybe his numbers are just too big? I can remove some base yields and the tourism at Radio. Maybe that's enough?

That's an unfortunate problem with a few civs, yeah, and Brazil is one of the biggest possible offenders because of how it wants to snowball GAs permanently in the late game, and anything that makes this occur earlier has exponential scaling, whereas a lot of other UCs don't have that issue. It also sucks that Brazil just... doesn't really have much to focus on as a civ other than CV, nothing else makes sense.

I think there are a couple of ideas to work with to some varying degree:

1) Push Sambadromes to be a later building. Brazil didn't start construction of these buildings until very recently, with Rio's being as recent as the 80s. Even the idea of the Samba Schools and more formal Carnival parades isn't a century old, starting in the first half of the 20th century. They'd make a great replacement for Stadiums since that is literally what they are, and by pushing them back they can be allowed to be incredibly strong without the current problem of Brazil getting its perma-GA flowing in Renaissance and getting too much of a head start going into Ideologies. I'd even be fine with them getting buffed if it is too late in the game, focusing this entirely around enhancing the Carnival mechanic.

2) Nerf the yields that allow Brazil to too quickly snowball, the two big % yield modifiers, and if necessary replace them with someone less recursively snowballing. The issue with the current building is that once Brazil hits its stride with GAs, it has no unhappiness, 25% culture, and massive tourism and gold bonuses. With 25% GAPs during GAs, Brazil's permanent GA threshold has been moved forward a ton, and this can start snowballing in Renaissance in 4UC, at which point Brazil's UA turns into "this civ doesn't have an unhappiness system, has 35% increased Culture, and every GA start is like getting a Great Merchant and Great Musician bulb".

Personally I'd go with 1, it reinforces that Brazil is a late-game powerhouse and if you wait until Stadiums, you deserve to lose. And it nicely divides Brazil's UCs into Colonial Brazil and then Modern Brazil. I also don't think there are many Stadium replacements?

Also yeah, Brazil is powerful without 4UC, but at the very least we can tidy things up pending G fixing the rest of Brazil.