3UC/4UC for VP: Project Coordination Thread

[hokath]

• Do you think AI will use new Tarkhan ability (stationing in city when razing it)? I think it is very highly situational for human, but for AI...

  I don't think the AI can be told how to use this. Consider an alternative.
  
  Yamato: Do you think its a good idea to let a ship have 3 range? I'm not an expert on the current conversation but it seems like that causes all sorts of problems for the AI.
  If there were a limited number and they were super-strong, like the great bombard, I suppose they would want to be a stand-alone unit class. Could be cool.
  I can put together the xml/sql for Japan.
  
  Venice had two unique ships giving 5 uniques, iirc. Why was this?

 

[Infixo]

Do you think AI will use new Tarkhan ability (stationing in city when razing it)? I think it is very highly situational for human, but for AI...

AI will not use any „active” ability programmed in Lua. Unless you also programm that. That is why I try to avoid extensive Lua scripts - they can be exploited by a human.
Only „passive” abilities will be used, because they are independent from AI.
And by active / passive I mean if the ability requires a player to do something before, or create specific condition, etc.
Also, since this is external to AI logic, they will also have troubles valueing it properly, thus units or buildings may end up not being built at all or be underutilized.

 

[adan_eslavo]

@Infixo https://github.com/adaneslavo/More-Unique-Components-for-VP/invitations
Works?

@hokath Ask pienappledan, please. I was against such inconsistency, but the main argument is that both uus substitute same base unit at sme time and one is stronger and one is weaker.

 

[Hinin]

Damn... this is so op. I had a World Wonder in VPEE that was giving 5 cs and 50 hp to all coastal cities and it was considered quite strong. And you basically give away twice more.
Btw, there is code to grant hp and cs to cities on various conditions.

This bonus was already suggested in the "UC by civilization" (by the way, the Barbican gives 10 CP while being a replacement for an Armory, which doesn't give CP normaly : de facto, Poland has the same kind of bonus, as has Greece with the Acropolis).
What could be done, @pineappledan ?

@hokath Ask pienappledan, please. I was against such inconsistency, but the main argument is that both uus substitute same base unit at sme time and one is stronger and one is weaker.

Venice is considered to be a civilization with 4.5 UCs. The two unique Venitian units are unlocked at the same tech, and are quite similar (both replacing the Galleass, even if, officially, the GGalleass replaces the Galleass and the Fusta is a "stand-alone" unit), but they have different utilities :
- the Fusta are weak but cheap Galleass with no maintenance cost, 4 MP instead of 3 and capable of withdrawing when attacked in melee (these are the "mosquitoes" of the Venitian navy, weak, but numerous, mobile and difficult to suppress ; moreover, being cheap, they can be bought more easily in Venetian puppets around the map) ;
- the Great Galleass cost the same as the Galleass, with more CP and RCP (they are the "battle tanks" of the Venetian navy, to use when the mobility of the Fusta isn't sufficient to compensate for their weakness).

 

[adan_eslavo]

Anyone tested this Venice in the term of AI? Does AI use both or spams only one of its UU?

@pineappledan Can you look at new 22px flax font icon? I changed background color and added more contrast to existing colors. Tell me if it is good. If yes, then we need to rework rest of icons same way. Github issue was posted for that case.

 

[FoxOfWar]

One very minor plus side I've come across, that I like: the Dromon/Penteconter swap. Why? Because Dromon attacking land units (happened a LOT with barbarians on an island map) took about five years to go through the animation, whereas Penteconter attack animation is pretty slick. Also it does make Dromon feel more unique

Game in progress for the Marathon/ 13 b'ak'tun, but holy cookie is it a lot of waiting for that last one. Eh, at least I did some wiki reading on how the Long Count works while waiting, so yay?
(At least repeating it on Epic will be a lot faster...)

EDIT: Some observations as I go through the overview doc:
Still not fully sold on SPAD S.VII: It replaces a unit at least I see or use very, very rarely, and it does not benefit from France's UA. It being a Bomber replacement would not be correct historically, but I reckon it would actually see some in-game action then.

 

[adan_eslavo]

2 things:

• Safavi Agitator gives on Fast game speed 1 GAP and Faith and 0 Gold
• Riad gives on Fast game speed 0 culture and gold from trade routes.

Gor now I made them be 1 on that speed, but it is the same value like on normal so fast is buffed a bit.

 

[hokath]

pull request for pineappledan's bugfixed stuff and japan: needs lua added, modinfo file does not include the horsearcher lua file either

edit: I gave the Yamato Great Generals I as suggested, but of course ships generate Great Admirals. I'm not sure if the promotion will boost them or not.

 

[adan_eslavo]

Merged and added my 25.3 update.

• @Ziad asked for VP consistent notifications. I have not finished it yet, but I'm very close to that.
  
• I modified Experience function according to what @Infixo said.
  
• Fixes spawning of flax from Nilometer.
  
• Added popup to Riad (big problem here with VP notification on right side. I didn't add that because it would show new one every turn from every city. Very spammable).

@hokath can you move your files and folders to be consistent with current folder tree? model to 3DModel folder, proper naming, every civ to different folder, file names like in rest of foders (Babylon f.e.) etc.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I think for the Teutonic Order's active effect, I'd like to see something not tied to faith or religion. A small passive bonus to faith as a historical nod is fine, but base Germany is not a religion-focused civ. We're drifting a bit far from Germany's original design, so I'd like something that ties back into that. Something trade-related, perhaps?

Damn... this is so op. I had a World Wonder in VPEE that was giving 5 cs and 50 hp to all coastal cities and it was considered quite strong. And you basically give away twice more.
Btw, there is code to grant hp and cs to cities on various conditions.

Yeah, I felt +10CS to all cities was a bit strong as well. Reducing it to 5 for now.
What is the code? How do you use it?

Submitted a diff for Germany. Crusader promotion not included; I'll add in a replacement once we agree on one. Also leaving the Civilopedia and help text to @pineappledan, since he's doing that stuff now.

 

[adan_eslavo]

Finished Notifications update and added two more experience changes (Pitz and Tophet). Updtaed only on Github.

 

[pineappledan]

Spoiler Teutonic order tweaked version :
Teutonic Order (replaces Heroic Epic)
Available at Chivalry (2 techs LATER)
Does not require Barracks
135 production (scales with number of cities)

+100 HP, +3 culture and Free Armory in City (instead of +1 culture) => I suppressed the science yield, since the maintenance-free Barrack/Armory will already give a good amount of science
+1 gold, +2 faith, +10 CP and + 50 HP on Barracks in Empire (making them maintenance-free, similar to a shrine and an Order at the same time)
+2 gold to Armory in Empire (making them maintenance-free)
Units trained in a city with a barracks gain the "Chapter" promotion (+10 % CS ; gain faith when pillaging or attacking cities) => Being a different promotion than the one given by the Orders religious buildings, having both give tremendous bonus for your conquests
Gain a major amount of faith whenever your conquer a city for the first time (you can use it to buy an inquisitor/missionary, or keep it for GP in the industrial era).
1 Great works of Writing slot

I think for the Teutonic Order's active effect, I'd like to see something not tied to faith or religion. A small passive bonus to faith as a historical nod is fine, but base Germany is not a religion-focused civ. We're drifting a bit far from Germany's original design, so I'd like something that ties back into that. Something trade-related, perhaps?

Well we flipped Iroquois to diplomatic with their NW. I don't think giving them late religious flavor is much of an issue, since they only really have 1 focus (CS diplomacy/trade), with a bit of militarism. The slaganz already helps with the diplomacy angle, and Teutonic helps lean in on the militarism angle. Religion doesn't focus any specific win condition, and there are even diplomatic tenets that can be adopted. Also this wonder comes late enough that it probably wont help them found.

• I think the +5CS reduction sounds good, and reduce the HP to 50.
• Reversing maintenance is not necessary, because the 5CP and 2 faith is more than enough. I would take off the gold.
  
• The crusader promotion worries me, because it would stack with Morale if Germany got Orders, so all their units would have 20% CS by default. I think the building needs to give morale, and then another unique promotion so that Germany can't use that exploit.
• Crusader or Chapter are both fine names. If it turned all citizens who weren't following your religion in the city to no-religion then that would be great; that's very close the the inquisitor action idea anyways.
• Heroic epics give 0.25 per citizen now, right? that should be included I think
• Maybe not bother with the "if city has a barracks" thing, and make the promotions free to any unit built on empire. Sounds like that's easier
• As for what Crusader/Chapter promotion could do, sounds like there have been several pretty good ideas, and I think they all sounds pretty good:
  • On city conquest, all citizens not following your majority religion are reverted to no religion (or killed instantly, if we really wanted to go for realism)
  • Faith when attacking a city (so like a faith version of the viking promotion. I like it)
  • +10% CS in foreign lands (I like this because crusaders)
  • +10% CS vs civs following a different majority religion
• As has been said, faith on city capture is bad because it's too close to Spain. Conversion on capture is bad because it's too close to spain, but I like the "clear out other religions" idea because it might help Germany reform faster, and you know. Germany is where the reformation happened.

Yamato: Do you think its a good idea to let a ship have 3 range? I'm not an expert on the current conversation but it seems like that causes all sorts of problems for the AI.
If there were a limited number and they were super-strong, like the great bombard, I suppose they would want to be a stand-alone unit class. Could be cool.
I can put together the xml/sql for Japan.

@hokath It causes issues, but relatively minor ones. The issue is generally that with move and fire, 3 range units could engage enemies, and then move back into the fog of war. The AI could not intuit where an enemy had gone to, since they were no longer visible.

This is less of a problem with battleships because their main role is shore bombardment. You should probably be using submarines for your ship-to-ship combat. Vanilla had 3 range naval battles for every civ after all.

If you are going to make the unit a unique class it should probably be at the same tech as a normal battleship though, eh? Doesn't make much sense for the unique battleship to come earlier than the normal one. If you choose to make them a unique unit class, can you post what you plan to do? I think that if it is chosen to be a unique unit class then it needs to be buffed significantly.

edit: I gave the Yamato Great Generals I as suggested, but of course ships generate Great Admirals. I'm not sure if the promotion will boost them or not.

Could build a custom promotion called kentai kessen which gives GA points on attack. This would probably be worth it for the increased clarity alone. Check the Spanish armada's Santa Maria promotion for a template, but I would increase the amount of GAPs given to maybe 5 per attack

pienappledan, please. I was against such inconsistency, but the main argument is that both uus substitute same base unit at sme time and one is stronger and one is weaker.

My reasons for the Galleass/Fusta split were as follows:
Venice already marches to the beat of its own drum, they already get 1 unique GP, 1 unique UI, 4 unique wonders, 3 of which are mutually exclusive. So that's 6 UCs in base VP, so making it 8UCs vs 9UCs is okay, I think. If we are going to throw out the rulebook for 1 civ it's Venice; the rulebook has already been thrown out for them for years.

Venice's largest military contributions to world history were the Arsenal/drydock system and the Galleass. One is already in-game as a unique wonder, and the other is already a base unit. The old unique unit for them was just.... a slightly bigger galleass. Their other big contribution was the Fusta, which are smaller, anti-pirate craft which became so popular in the Mediterranean, they actually started being used by the pirates themselves more than by Venice. The unit model for the Moroccan Corsair is technically a Fusta.

giving Venice a split unit, where the two are cheap/strong versions of the other accomplished a few things:

• Venice would now have 2 unique military units like everyone else (base VP violates the 1 military/1 civilian rule for venice)
• Represents real venetian history and acknowledges their invention of the Galleass without making their UU option boring
• consistent with VP's "big bath" approach to giving Venice lots of uniques to play with (their Merchant is technically both a UGP AND a UI, their UW is really 4 different UWs)

@pineappledan Can you look at new 22px flax font icon? I changed background color and added more contrast to existing colors. Tell me if it is good. If yes, then we need to rework rest of icons same way. Github issue was posted for that case.

I really don't like the new one, but I don't understand why you felt this needed recolouring. Citrus and spice already have white backgrounds, and Figs and Flax are very unlikely to show up near each other in a game. Really don't see anything wrong with the old ones, and they looked a little less pixelated besides

 

[adan_eslavo]

• light blue and white coulour make low contrast. It is also visible on big sizes, but in 22px flower was barely visible,
• just for differentating. Why not creating different background? What if we have citrus near flax f.e.?
• citrus and spice both have very good quality and high contrast pictures.
  
• I sometimes have that need to change something. I cannot tell you why.
• Citrus has light blue and spices a bit darker blue background,
  
• I will work more on that flax.
• or maybe I will go with that without any changes:

Spoiler Flax :

 

[pineappledan]

Do what you want. You could even put some linen in the background like this, and put the flower in the foreground. I'm not really interested in going at this a third time.

Spoiler :

For reference to others, this is the current flax icon I made

Spoiler :

256 px icon:

Font icon:

Do you think AI will use new Tarkhan ability (stationing in city when razing it)? I think it is very highly situational for human, but for AI...

I agree the AI wouldn't grasp this.

Current Tarkhan unique promotion:
Sacker - When stationed in a city that is being razed, gain 10 culture and 20 gold every turn. Razing Speed is doubled

Could maybe make it stationed in city or adjacent to city, to increase the chance the AI will just happen to have the tarkhan nearby.

Otherwise we need to think of something entirely different.

So the issue with Tarkhan is that the horse archer comes around the same time, so Huns is getting a significant power spike with both its UUs. The Tarkhan's design was to make it a utility UU, since horsemen are so strong anyways. Since they don't need horses for skirmishers they can sink horses on Tarkhans, make them slightly cheaper, but make their bonuses focused on economy, infrastructure and support.

Possible alternative promotions:
Barbarian Commander: Barbarians converted by Tarkhan gain 25HP on conversion (too hard)
Sack: Double razing speed if stationed in city (No yields, situational, optional, I think it's neat, but it has minimal gameplay benefit)
Bellum Alet': Pillaging heals all adjacent friendly units by 10 HP (my favorite)
Enemy intel: on defeating an enemy unit, adjacent enemy units have -25%CS penalty for the next turn (convoluted, situational, weird synergy with war elephant)

Or we could go with @Hinin's original proposal of bringing back the Battering Ram, but make it a unique support unit class like the siege engine.

EDIT: @Blue Ghost could you re-add the link to the 4UCs by civilization spreadsheet? it seems to have been deleted from your OP
The link was moved and I got confused, nevermind!

 

[Infixo]

What is the code? How do you use it?

I mean there is a Lua script in VPEE (or Wonders Expanded) that does the effect. It is a simple script, that puts a dummy. Also handles city conquering, etc.

 

[adan_eslavo]

New art for flax added on Github.

@Infixo when can we expect new VP update with your corrections? Do you know some appx date?

 

[Infixo]

@Infixo when can we expect new VP update with your corrections? Do you know some appx date?

All my changes are incorporated, but I have no clue when G. will release a new version.

 

[Hinin]

Sacker - When stationed in a city that is being razed, gain 10 culture and 20 gold every turn. Razing Speed is doubled
Could maybe make it stationed in city or adjacent to city, to increase the chance the AI will just happen to have the tarkhan nearby.

The problem with this promotion is that, because the Tarkhan has the penalty against cities, the AI will use it rarely to attack cities, and so the chance for the unit to be in or adjacent to a city being razed is actually quite low... An other solution would be to extend the range of that ability to two tiles, but then, a player with lots of Tarkhan around a city would get too much bonus yield (actually, the same thing would happer with the "in or adjacent to the city" version)... I still like the idea, but it's obvious it is a mechanic that cannot bring previsible yields to an AI...

Barbarian Commander: Barbarians converted by Tarkhan gain 25HP on conversion

We've already discussed this promotion : I'm ok with it, but tweaks may be needed (also, is it possible for the heal to only affect captured barbarians ? I fear that it will heal all units captured by the Tarkhan, which, as you said previously, would be too powerful).

Sack: Double razing speed if stationed in city (but no yields)

Same problem as for the "Sacker" promotion : how will the AI handle this ?

Bellum se Ipsum Allet: Pillaging heals all adjacent friendly units by 10 HP

A reverse "Garland mines" ? That would be quite nice. The name of the promotion is too long unfortunately (and using only a part of this name would ruin the beauty of it) : why not using "Vae victis" (woe to the vanquished) instead ? It is less direct than "Bellum se ipsum allet" in its relation to the effect of the bonus, but it is still related to the pillaging of Roman territory (by people Romans would call barbarians).

Enemy intel: on defeating an enemy unit, adjacent enemy units have -25%CS penalty for the next turn

I like this promotion, but I think some tests would be needed to see if this isn't too powerful. For the name, even if I understand the relation between it and the effect of the promotion, I think we should use something more direct and thematic : "Terror", "Scourge" maybe.

It would make the Tarkhan an alternative to the war elephant, and allow some interesting "breaching tactics" using Horse archers and Tarkans to soften and terrorize the enemy line before the heavy infantry comes in. The downside being that it would make the unit a bit too "combat focused", which is what we wanted to avoid...

Or we could go with @Hinin's original proposal of bringing back the Battering Ram, but make it a unique support unit class like the siege engine.

The problem is that we don't know how the AI will handle this either...

 

[Infixo]

@adan_eslavo I have experienced one crash of FireTuner with the mod. Also, InGame context started to disappear from FT, which is rather a bad sign. I will investigate further. Did you notice anything particular about those crashes?

 

[adan_eslavo]

Unfortunatly no. I have only this:

Exception: System.FormatException
Source: mscorlib
Thread: Main Thread
Description: Nieprawidłowy format ciągu wejściowego.

Stack Trace:
   w System.Number.StringToNumber(String str, NumberStyles options, NumberBuffer& number, NumberFormatInfo info, Boolean parseDecimal)

   w System.Number.ParseUInt32(String value, NumberStyles options, NumberFormatInfo numfmt)

   w FireTuner2.LuaStateManager.OnLuaStatesRecieved(List`1 luaStateStrings)

   w FireTuner2.Connection.RouteMessages()

   w FireTuner2.frmMainForm.tmrProcessMessages_Tick(Object sender, EventArgs e)

   w System.Windows.Forms.Timer.OnTick(EventArgs e)

   w System.Windows.Forms.Timer.TimerNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

   w System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

I'm not sure but because of shofet message spam from plot iterator it was difficult to track what caused it.