3UC/4UC for VP: Project Coordination Thread

[Jarula]

Radical idea: @Blue Ghost wanted something for each of the 4 Great Inventions, but chu ko nu doesn’t represent any of them. So why not drop the Chu ko nu?

Paper maker: Paper
Fire lancer: Gunpowder
Xiafan guanjun: Compass
Examination hall or Siku quanshu: Printing press



Then just make chu ko nu a CS gift. You'd get either a 1 Cla/2 Med/1 Ren or 1 Cla/1 Med/2 Ren UC spread.


The original was a straight 10% buff, and 20% during WLTED. I thought that scaled too well so @Blue Ghost suggested a flat 40GPP. I split the difference and suggested 5% and 30GPP.
For context, the first GP is born at 100 GPPs, and it doubles every time (100->200->400 etc.). So a flat boost would be 30% of your first GPP, extremely good at getting your first few GPs out and then it levels out.

• I thought that felt more historically accurate, with how china led the world in social and technological development for much of its history, and then was surpassed and subjugated by 'westernized' powers later.
• Keep in mind that it would scale every era, so 60 in renaissance, 90 in industrial, etc. Every time a citizen is born.
• The UA gives bonus food and WLTED boosts growth by 35% total, so that's a large synergy. It might need to be weakened even more, given how China can grow so rapidly.

We can fiddle with the numbers later I guess? My initial impression is that it's still too strong and offers too much synergy. Perhaps it's best to remove the % boost to GPs entirely


How many games in your sample size? Also using the same map is a bad way of testing balance, you should use generated maps so you know that civs aren't living and dying based on start locations.

If you're playing with a bunch of civs in true start locations its no wonder Europe performs poorly. They are in very tight competition for space from the start. Constant jockeying and warring would sap progress when compared with civs like Brazil, Indonesia or Zulu, who are in their own little world.

Yeah I typically try civ 4 traits in civ 5 edit them culture 2 for 3 instead of 2 for 5 and Nerf all noneuropeans traits. Maybe my assessment is off.

Prolly should just give 2 social policies per era and civ 4 traits giving all European the amped culture. You are right though.

I basically try to use this like an alternate history simulator.

 

[Blue Ghost]

YNAEMP is fun, but it is not balanced, and I don't want to try to balance around it.

Removing the Chu-ko-nu is certainly unconventional, but I could try it. I haven't started working on China yet, so no work lost. I like the proposal of the Xiafan Guanjun.

Pikeman replacements are tricky, since they come at the same tech as the longswordsman, which is generally stronger. A pikeman replacement would have to compete directly with the longswordsman. The Maori Warrior is unlocked at a different tech, which helps mitigate the issue a bit. I think putting the Fire Lancer at Metal Casting might be a little better for gameplay.

If we're keeping the White Tower for England, then yeah, I'd prefer not to have another Hermitage for China. Two different replacements for the same national wonder is pushing things a bit, and three is definitely too much. I'd go with the Examination Hall in that case. Should the GPP on citizens born go to a random GP, or just Great Diplomats?

 

[Enginseer]

Ok found it.

There are some negatives however, but this isn't my mod anymore. Feel free to modify and own as you wish.

• The art is bad.
• The art is reused.
• The UI doesn't show for some reason(it's supposed to use trading post art)
• The UI(user interface, not unique improvement) doesn't properly show up when you try to build it(this is a dll problem that I am trying to fix at the moment)

Otherwise here it is.
Trading Post - The Venetian Unique Improvement that grants +3 Border Points, +1 Food, and +1 Gold. If the trading post gets a connection as a route. The border point is upgraded to culture. Over 5 turns(or more idk), it will evolve into a Colonia.
Laguna - The Venetian replacement of the Harbor. Same as a Harbor except it double the yields of Atolls and increase all river tiles by +1 Food. It also increases the yield of the Arsenale, Glassworks, and District. So the more you have these Lagunas, the more your Capital benefits.

 

[Jarula]

Damn enginseer you rocked it. You come up with some brilliant ideas.

I like Laguna but maybe should do culture/science yields instead

 

[pineappledan]

Removing the Chu-ko-nu is certainly unconventional, but I could try it. I haven't started working on China yet, so no work lost. I like the proposal of the Xiafan Guanjun.

Glad to hear I havent made more work for you

Pikeman replacements are tricky, since they come at the same tech as the longswordsman, which is generally stronger. A pikeman replacement would have to compete directly with the longswordsman. The Maori Warrior is unlocked at a different tech, which helps mitigate the issue a bit. I think putting the Fire Lancer at Metal Casting might be a little better for gameplay.

the Maori warrior gets +5 CP (increase of 25% over pikeman) so it can have parity with longswords. Effectively the maori warrior is a longsword that gets -10% to opponents and doesn't require iron. I think 10th century is late enough that I wouldn't move it up a tech. I think a good alternative is increasing the debuff to adjacent enemies. 5% is negligible. I would would increase that to -10% and -20% vs mounted, and then increase base CP to 18 instead of 17.

Maori hits for 20, and debuffs for 10%. Vs a longsword it will debuff the enemy to 18 (20-2), so it has a 2 CP advantage.
Fire lancer would have 2 less CP, but the same debuff vs longsword would make them equal in power

So Maori have a better tech line, and their higher CS means they hit a little harder and take less dmg from ranged and cities (because debuff only affects immediately adjacent). Fire lancer would hit for AoE and have 10% more vs mounted. I think that's fair

If we're keeping the White Tower for England, then yeah, I'd prefer not to have another Hermitage for China. Two different replacements for the same national wonder is pushing things a bit, and three is definitely too much. I'd go with the Examination Hall in that case. Should the GPP on citizens born go to a random GP, or just Great Diplomats?

I'd open it to all GPs except admiral and general so that it can trigger cultural GPs. If it only boosts diplomats then it doesn't help generate more WLTED. This is effectively a weaker version of arabia’s UA, but it Procs way more often in more cities. I think 30 is an okay starting point, but we might need to reduce that. I don’t know

EDIT: Also, Blue, I think the Lamassu Gate needs a GW slot. The first GW slot comes 2 tech later with their wonder, so generating a great writer that early could cause trouble. if we don't make space.

 

[David de Vasconcelos]

First, welcome on the forum !

The fact is that Brazil already has a unique luxury resource, and giving it another one would make it look like a simili indonesia. I agree that the wealth of Brazil comes mostly from the exploitation of natural resources, but I think the second UB should focus more on the Brazilian culture and less on its territory (but it's only my point of view).
What do you all think about this ?

Thank you Hinin!

It really looked like Indonesia, and as quoted, Pineappledan will make players only start playing the game if there is very good start.
Both UU Pracinha and Samba School make sense for Brazil, Brasilwood and Bandeirantes are also very good. So I thought why not make the Samba School generate yields for sugar and coffee.

UB: Samba School replaces Opera House

Spoiler :

+5
+4
1 musicians specialist slot
1 emply Great work of Music slot
+ 50% Great Musicians rate in the city
+3 Turism at Radio
+1 from Musicians Guild
+2 and +1 from Sugar and Coffee plantations.

 

[Jarula]

Opera House is normal +10% culture this almost looks weaker...

Why not this
The musician
Great musician rate
+1 gold +1 tourism to guild
Great works of music grant +1 tourism
+10% culture

 

[David de Vasconcelos]

Opera House is normal +10% culture this almost looks weaker...

Why not this
The musician
Great musician rate
+1 gold +1 tourism to guild
Great works of music grant +1 tourism
+10% culture

I forgot the 10% culture in the city.

UB: Samba School replaces Opera House

Spoiler :

+5
10% in the city
+4
1 musicians specialist slot
1 emply Great work of Music slot
of music grant +1
+ 50% Great Musicians rate in the city
+2 Turism at Radio
+1 +1 from Musicians Guild
+1 and +1 from Sugar and Coffee plantations.

 

[adan_eslavo]

v9 out. Many tweaks and bug fixes. Added Spanish Armada.

 

[pineappledan]

I would remove the last production off architecture for the monolithic church. Might be a tad too much

These suggestions to the samba school aren’t getting around the problem that making a unique that depends on random map resources that may never be in a game at all. It’s the equivalent of giving a civ specific combat boosts that only apply against specific enemy civs. How broken would it be if Spain got +30% vs Maya, Aztec and Incan civs, and what would you do if those civs weren’t in your game?

We can’t represent everything. For every buff we give a civ we ignore 20 more fascinating tidbits about that culture. Cramming brazil’s history of plantations into a samba school is pretty hackneyed. Plus it’s uncomfortable giving golden age points to plantations to Brazilian plantations when those plantations are the single largest example of racial slavery in world history.

Okay at 22 pages of discussion this is getting unwieldly. I'm going to start a spreadsheet which divides all the UCs by civ. That way we can contain discussion of the UCs to their own pages, rather than having things buried in a single chronological string

 

[David de Vasconcelos]

I would remove the last production off architecture for the monolithic church. Might be a tad too much

These suggestions to the samba school aren’t getting around the problem that making a unique that depends on random map resources that may never be in a game at all. It’s the equivalent of giving a civ specific combat boosts that only apply against specific enemy civs. How broken would it be if Spain got +30% vs Maya, Aztec and Incan civs, and what would you do if those civs weren’t in your game?

We can’t represent everything. For every buff we give a civ we ignore 20 more fascinating tidbits about that culture. Cramming brazil’s history of plantations into a samba school is pretty hackneyed. Plus it’s uncomfortable giving golden age points to plantations to Brazilian plantations when those plantations are the single largest example of racial slavery in world history.

Okay at 22 pages of discussion this is getting unwieldly. I'm going to start a spreadsheet which divides all the UCs by civ. That way we can contain discussion of the UCs to their own pages, rather than having things buried in a single chronological string

It really could be frustrating, I remember a match with Rome in which I had no iron, olives or perfume, it was very difficult. What about this:

UB: Samba School replaces Opera House

Spoiler :

+5
10% in the city
+4
1 musicians specialist slot
1 emply Great work of Music slot
of music grant +1
+ 50% Great Musicians rate in the city
+2 Turism at Radio
+2 +1 +1 from Musicians Guild

 

[Jarula]

Yes!!! Will say perhaps too much tourism drop the radio

 

[Blue Ghost]

For China, I think I’ll keep the Chu-Ko-Nu and go with the Xiafan Guanjun as the new unique unit. The Fire Lancer is thematic, but too close to the Maori Warrior in function, and it’s hard to make a exciting pikeman UU.

I’m not opposed to the idea of UBs adding a bit of a bonus to particular resources when thematically warranted, as long as those bonuses are a small side benefit rather than the primary draw of the UB.

Sorry for the slowness of updates from me. I’ve been a bit busy with work (software development), so I haven’t really been in the mood to do more of the same in my free time. I’ll continue to work on this as my time and bandwidth allow, but it may be a while.

Thanks everyone for your work in brainstorming, developing, and coordinating this project!

 

[pineappledan]

This might ruffle a few feathers, but I think I've got an interesting idea for a Carthaginian UB. We don't currently have a civilian UC for Carthage:

Spoiler :

Tophet (Shrine Replacement)
-5% food growth in city
+3 faith (up from 2)
+1 culture
+1 gold for every 5 citizens in city

Tophets are ritual and burial sites for child sacrifice, found in many old Carthaginian cities.
Once disregarded as balck propaganda on the part or Greek and Roman historians, general consensus within the last 5 years has come down in firm support that Carthaginian nobles sacrificed their own children, under 5 years of age, as burned offerings to their cheif deity, Ba'al Hammon. Ancient sources describe the ritual as involving a large brass statue of Ba'al (called Saturn or Cronus in Roman and Greek texts), with arms outstretched, and tilted inward, on which the child was placed. Below was a burning fire. When the child struggled in discomfort against the hot statue they would be funneled down into the flames and burned alive. This was practiced in times of hardship (eg. famine, or during military invasion), but also in keeping with an oath taken when a boon was asked of Ba'al (eg. in return for the safe return of their merchant vessel, or a bountiful harvest)

 

[FoxOfWar]

@pineappledan That's... kinda creepy-awesome. I like it.

Gameplay-wise, Carthage actually does not mind a small growth penalty early, 'cause it wants to keep up that city-spam for that sweet turf and UA bonus. Later on, -5% growth is negligible. Also, would be the only shrine replacement (unless I'm forgetting something).

 

[Hinin]

This might ruffle a few feathers, but I think I've got an interesting idea for a Carthaginian UB. We don't currently have a civilian UC for Carthage:

Speaking of Carthage, if we want to use the unique elephant of vanilla as their UM2, what will you do about the model/icon/picture for the War elephant already in VP ?

After testing the Celts with the Oppidum (which works fine in terms of yield), I have some questions to ask :
- Does the Oppidum benefits from the bonus affecting the Town (I am not speaking of the road, but of the policies and other improvement, ex. Colonia) ?
- Is the Celtic great merchant also able to build Towns (the UI tells that when I'm using it) ?

I have also some suggestions (and I know one may infuriate pineappledan) :
- Why not add the same kind of bonus the Ceilidh hall has from the pantheons for the Oppidum ?
- I think the 3 GMP per turn in the capital the UA offers aren't enough. Why not doubling that bonus ?
- Why not making a full-fledged unique GMerchant (I can search for 3d models and picture if you want) with some additionnal benefits including the building of the Oppidum ?
- Extreme idea : why not making a unique GMerchant/GGeneral (so it appears whenever one of the two should appear) why the benefits of both (so it could build a Town, an Oppidum or a Citadel depending of the needs, it could conduct a "diplomatic" (aka money/WLTKD mission) in CStates and would have the normal combat bonus of the GGeneral), maybe named Taoiseach ? This way, we would see much more Oppidum than right now (and the modification to the UA wouldn't be necessary anymore), and it would fit the theme of the Celts (wide and aggresive expansionists in the early game with bonus for peace times later). For the picture, we could use the picture of Vercingetorix.
+ When expanding the Taoiseach (whatever the result), you would still gain +2 to your military reserve (so the Celts would have a lot more soldiers).

 

[adan_eslavo]

After testing the Celts with the Oppidum (which works fine in terms of yield), I have some questions to ask :
- Does the Oppidum benefits from the bonus affecting the Town (I am not speaking of the road, but of the policies and other improvement, ex. Colonia) ?
- Is the Celtic great merchant also able to build Towns (the UI tells that when I'm using it)?

You can build both. This is necessary because Oppidum is restricted to few terrains. I hope AI will understand it but this needs further testing. I programmed town bonuses from policies to Oppidum. Could you test if AI is building Oppidum right now? It could help in balancing this UI.

I have also some suggestions (and I know one may infuriate pineappledan) :
- Why not add the same kind of bonus the Ceilidh hall has from the pantheons for the Oppidum ?
- I think the 3 GMP per turn in the capital the UA offers aren't enough. Why not doubling that bonus ?
- Why not making a full-fledged unique GMerchant (I can search for 3d models and picture if you want) with some additionnal benefits including the building of the Oppidum ?
- Extreme idea : why not making a unique GMerchant/GGeneral (so it appears whenever one of the two should appear) why the benefits of both (so it could build a Town, an Oppidum or a Citadel depending of the needs, it could conduct a "diplomatic" (aka money/WLTKD mission) in CStates and would have the normal combat bonus of the GGeneral), maybe named Taoiseach ? This way, we would see much more Oppidum than right now (and the modification to the UA wouldn't be necessary anymore), and it would fit the theme of the Celts (wide and aggresive expansionists in the early game with bonus for peace times later). For the picture, we could use the picture of Vercingetorix.
+ When expanding the Taoiseach (whatever the result), you would still gain +2 to your military reserve (so the Celts would have a lot more soldiers).

That would be a lot of work to do, but reasonable. I think diplomatic mission for him are too much, it would be GG/GM/GD in one person. We would definitely need 3D model. Generally I like the idea.
I won't probably add CH bonuses from Pantheon to Oppidum. It will be too much work and would break the balance of the UI and also it would destroy uniqueness of CH. Adding cap from lua is not probably possible, but it could be added to Oppidum (probably).

How we buff Yellow Brow after Deleting its "Anti-Mounted I" promotion?

 

[pineappledan]

Speaking of Carthage, if we want to use the unique elephant of vanilla as their UM2, what will you do about the model/icon/picture for the War elephant already in VP ?

Oh I thought we were either going shofet or numidian? I prefer the Shofet because they are ethnically Carthaginian instead of being a unit from a client state. I didn't really like the Foreign Legion for the same reason when France had it
My vote was the shofet; that sounded interesting with it being a general/admiral combined. Plus if the tophet gets printed the you got a SHOfet, a TOphet, and maybe even a PROphet

After testing the Celts with the Oppidum (which works fine in terms of yield), I have some questions to ask :
- Does the Oppidum benefits from the bonus affecting the Town (I am not speaking of the road, but of the policies and other improvement, ex. Colonia) ?
- Is the Celtic great merchant also able to build Towns (the UI tells that when I'm using it) ?

GMs can spawn both for now, though I'm not really sure why. As a GP tile I don't think the oppidum should have tile restrictions, and it seems like the oppidum would be superior to a town in every case.
I'm not aware of any policies that affect towns, but as a "town", a GP tile, and a UI here are the things that should buff the Oppidum, that I can think of:
Polder adjacencies (+1 gold)
New Deal (+4 gold)
Urbanization (+2 food)
Military-industrial complex (+3 Science)
5-year Plan (+1 Production)

I have also some suggestions (and I know one may infuriate pineappledan) :
- Why not add the same kind of bonus the Ceilidh hall has from the pantheons for the Oppidum ?
so bonus from the GM points from the pantheon, then GM points for every belief, and base 1 or 2 GM points to the Ceilidh hall?
- I think the 3 GMP per turn in the capital the UA offers aren't enough. Why not doubling that bonus ?

I think that sounds alright, but I think we need to be careful with balance, or we will drown Celts in GPs. Recall that all babylon and Venice get is 1 free GP at X tech.
A bunch of us will need to try Celts out in full games before we know what the right amount is for sure. Any tweaking we do right now is only speculative

- Why not making a full-fledged unique GMerchant (I can search for 3d models and picture if you want) with some additional benefits including the building of the Oppidum ?
- Extreme idea : why not making a unique GMerchant/GGeneral (so it appears whenever one of the two should appear) why the benefits of both (so it could build a Town, an Oppidum or a Citadel depending of the needs, it could conduct a "diplomatic" (aka money/WLTKD mission) in CStates and would have the normal combat bonus of the GGeneral), maybe named Taoiseach ? This way, we would see much more Oppidum than right now (and the modification to the UA wouldn't be necessary anymore), and it would fit the theme of the Celts (wide and aggresive expansionists in the early game with bonus for peace times later). For the picture, we could use the picture of Vercingetorix.

As described, I don't think the AI would be able to handle that. You can't add any new abilities to GPs unless they are passive or augment abilities they had before. It would be easier to just have a separate great merchant spawn every time a GG or GA spawns.
The reason we did just a UI change, in no small part has to do with the fact that I don't really know of any unique Celtic merchants, entrepreneurs or businessmen. If we make the MERCHANT the unique thing, then we have to make a list of unique GP names for the units, a civilopedia entry for a Celtic GM, and figure out a way of modifying their WLTKD bonus as well.
I don't know that information, I don't know if we will find Celts with a financial acumen interesting enough to merit being immortalized as GMs. Even if we do that seems like an awful lot of work. The Carthaginian Shofet also already does the 'combining 2 roles into 1' thing, and in a way that I think the AI will be able to wrap its head around

TL;DR - I'm more worried about the 'lore' and the AI, than I am with unit models or 'balance'

You can build both. This is necessary because Oppidum is restricted to few terrains. I hope AI will understand it but this needs further testing. I programmed town bonuses from policies to Oppidum. Could you test if AI is building Oppidum right now? It could help in balancing this UI.

I don't think Oppida should be restricted in any way, and since they are better than towns if we only gave them that option then we would force them to make oppidum. I think the AI will do better with Oppida then they do with towns; the AI seems to understand adjacency bonuses, but doesn't build towns on roads. If we force the AI to use oppida, and make them buildable anywhere then they should do better with them.
And that's to say nothing of the HP and defense on the tile

How we buff Yellow Brow after Deleting its "Anti-Mounted I" promotion?

I'm confused, I thought we were keeping the anti-mounted? I thought this problem arose because Hinin said that they were getting 100% vs mounted instead of the regular 50%? They should get 50% vs mounted just like a normal Tercio, right?

(and I know one may infuriate pineappledan)

Naw man. I'm nobody's boss, and I'm glad people are talking

EDIT: @adan_eslavo I am looking through the oppidum code and here's some other things I notice:

- Oppidum doesn't appear to improve luxuries
- No bonuses given from ideology tenets that improve UIs (5 year plan, Military-Industrial Complex, Urbanization)
- not buildable on plains? I don't think there should be any restrictions, but why not at least plains?​

 

[adan_eslavo]

I'm confused, I thought we were keeping the anti-mounted? I thought this problem arose because Hinin said that they were getting 100% vs mounted instead of the regular 50%? They should get 50% vs mounted just like a normal Tercio, right?

Yep, but our first concept was giving him 3 different promotions from tercio. Now, we dropped One Anti-Mounted and he has only 2. Do we give him something instead of this one or leave as it is.

EDIT: @adan_eslavo I am looking through the oppidum code and here's some other things I notice:

- Oppidum doesn't appear to improve luxuries
- No bonuses given from ideology tenets that improve UIs (5 year plan, Military-Industrial Complex, Urbanization)
- not buildable on plains? I don't think there should be any restrictions, but why not at least plains?​

Neither do town.
I made policy and ideology bonuses identical as Town (New Deal, Tradition Finisher)
I deleted any restrictions from Oppidum. Now it can be build anywhere. So town shouldn't be build even if it is not deleted.

@pineappledan Do you have some texts for me to put into newly added civs?

 

[pineappledan]

Yep, but our first concept was giving him 3 different promotions from tercio. Now, we dropped One Anti-Mounted and he has only 2. Do we give him something instead of this one or leave as it is.

Yellow Brow (Ohamupe)
Tercio replacement
25 CS
anti-mounted I
Fights at full strength when damaged.
‘Big Horse Dance’ Promotion - Double fortification bonus (80% instead of 40%)

I never intended anti-mounted to work different from a normal tercio; it was meant to just be a confirmation that it would still have the normal tercio bonus. I'm sorry if that was unclear. It should be the exact same promotion as what tercios get, so that when the unit upgrades into fusilier they don't receive a normal anti mounted promotion and a second, special yellow brow one.

I try to define all bonuses in my proposal descriptions, so people get a better sense of the complete building/unit, instead of only stating things that are changing/additional like Blue does

@pineappledan Do you have some texts for me to put into newly added civs?

Not yet, no