3UC/4UC for VP: Project Coordination Thread

[Blue Ghost]

I think changing things from the way they work by default is a real cost, and we need to evaluate whether or not the benefit is worth it. In this case, I don't think it is.

In other news, event-based tourism on kills works! The Pracinha lives!
(I'm using a flat 100 tourism, since making it dependent on unit CS isn't doable with the existing tools we have.)

 

[Hinin]

And there's nothing wrong with no participating in coding. For me your input as a bugfinder and thinker is invaluable.

I’ll get back to you with either the Tamil or Hindu word for an elephant’s injury-induced rage, but how about this:
Naga malla unique promotion “amok” - when below 50% hp, deals 10 damage to all units around it, enemy or friendly.
That wouldn’t be a promotion that I would carry forward though, since it’s very specific to elephant physiology... crap.

It's not a bad idea at all gameplay-wise, since the Naga-Malla is, through its attributs, a frontline unit (a tank which punishes you when you hit it too muc... I love this, it gives me a RPG feeling).

It makes little difference I think, but I would probably just make it a source of unimproved bison, without autobuilding a camp. Use your discretion however, it has a unique flavour if it is already improved

I don’t like the idea of the UW spawning an actual horse tile, myself. I can’t really put my finger on it though.

The idea to spawn new resources on nearby tiles isn't a bad idea if it doesn't distrupt you improvement agencement (I'm speaking farm placement here). For the Horse tile, I would suggest the opposite of what happens with Indonesia : the tile would appear in priority on the city tile and, if this tile is already occupied (by a seen or unseen resource), then it would appear on a nearby tile.

I get that. I was thinking that an alternative could be to have the city enter 1 turn of resistance at the beginning of a new era, and then trigger a WLTKD afterwards. I think people would find that pretty crazy if they don’t know the historical context though.

I think adding the Hippodrome event will give much flavor to this UW, but this idea you have could be a good backup plan if it doesn't work.

How about make eagle warrior pikeman and jaguar warrior longswordsman?

Being of Nahua/Spanish descent, the idea of an Aztec civilization being having more "advanced" UMs wouldn't displease me.
However, gameplay-wise, the Aztecs fills a niche role : the early-game super bully which benefits the most of vampirising the economy of nearby civs (role that is later taken by the Zulus with their sprawling armies). With that in mind, the fact that the too UM are Ancient, first-in-line, units seems very logical and moving them to the Medieval era looks to me like a bad idea for now.

In other news, event-based tourism on kills works! The Pracinha lives!
(I'm using a flat 100 tourism, since making it dependent on unit CS isn't doable with the existing tools we have.)

Viva !

I'm going to the testfield today (plus I have some tables to do). See ya !

 

[Hinin]

Also, I would like to test the UMs made by pineappledan, but the link isn't working anymore...

 

[pineappledan]

I need to get back to my desktop, so I can re-upload the files. CivFanatics didn’t allow me to add my files, didn’t like the file format or something. I was thinking I might just ask Adan at a later time to roll them into his versions, since I’ve only made 2

@Hinin my original idea was to have the hippodrome do both.

1. Have the prompt asking which team you support, but it would have no game effect.
2. Have the resistance/wltkd cycle every era, to help proc more use out of the wonder

The original idea was to make it a comical jab at how people say the events don’t change anything or effect gameplay meaningfully by having your choice do literally nothing at all. Sort of an in-joke at the expense of people who hate the event system

 

[adan_eslavo]

I think changing things from the way they work by default is a real cost, and we need to evaluate whether or not the benefit is worth it. In this case, I don't think it is.

In other news, event-based tourism on kills works! The Pracinha lives!
(I'm using a flat 100 tourism, since making it dependent on unit CS isn't doable with the existing tools we have.)

You can laways use my code from Klepht where Food/Production gain is dependent on Killed Unit CP, Era and Number of CS Allies.

                local iAllies = 0
                local iBaseBenefitFromKill = 25
                local iUnitAverageStrength = 50
                local iKlephtEraPlusOne = 4

                for id, player in pairs(Players) do
                    if player:IsAllies(iPlayer) then
                        iAllies = iAllies + 1
                    end
                end

                local iGain = (pDefendingUnit:GetBaseCombatStrength() * iBaseBenefitFromKill / iUnitAverageStrength) * ((pPlayer:GetCurrentEra() + 1) / iKlephtEraPlusOne) * (iAllies + 1)
             
                pCapital:ChangeFood(iGain)
                pCapital:ChangeProduction(iGain)

I need to get back to my desktop, so I can re-upload the files. CivFanatics didn’t allow me to add my files, didn’t like the file format or something.

Packing to zip is enough. You can do it with program I use: HaoZip. I don't know why they don't support their own civ5mod files. When packing there's small inscription about what format you can upload. Just look for it.

I was thinking I might just ask Adan at a later time to roll them into his versions, since I’ve only made 2.

I could do this, but I saw your code was prety messy when I looked for something in Indonesia :/ It will be really time consuming.

Any idea how VP guys did that their dummy buildings/policies etc. don't appear in the SQLite? They certainly use them but I can't see them there and all of mines are visible and I don't like it.

Another question: A while ago I thought about changing barbican picture to this one. Do you like it more or less than present one?

 

[Blue Ghost]

You can laways use my code from Klepht where Food/Production gain is dependent on Killed Unit CP, Era and Number of CS Allies.

                local iAllies = 0
                local iBaseBenefitFromKill = 25
                local iUnitAverageStrength = 50
                local iKlephtEraPlusOne = 4

                for id, player in pairs(Players) do
                    if player:IsAllies(iPlayer) then
                        iAllies = iAllies + 1
                    end
                end

                local iGain = (pDefendingUnit:GetBaseCombatStrength() * iBaseBenefitFromKill / iUnitAverageStrength) * ((pPlayer:GetCurrentEra() + 1) / iKlephtEraPlusOne) * (iAllies + 1)
            
                pCapital:ChangeFood(iGain)
                pCapital:ChangeProduction(iGain)

Tourism can’t be added dynamically in Lua like other yields, hence the need for a workaround.

 

[Hinin]

So, first report about my new game (I am using Polynesia on Communitas map, Epic speed, difficulty 6, last version of your mods). The others civs are Denmark, France, Austria, Spain, Shoshones, Arabia, Celts, America and Russia.

Some things to say :
- I won't have a picture for it, but it seems the bleed effect of the Koa doesn't stack (it was always -10 HP).

- The fact that the Koa is a Pathfinder replacement has its utility : in the early game, I have been able to use a mix of Koa and warriors to pacify my starting continents, a quite big island shared with Denmark, and recover a lot of ruins without getting beaten back by barbarians (except one time because I was taken by surprise). I obtained a significant early game advantage (I was using Progress and obtained 2 free techs, 1 free population in the Capitale, one upgrade to a Koa, gold to invest in Fale Tele and other minor things). Moreover, because the Koa has 7 strength (and becomes quickly quite endurant thanks to "Survivalist" promotions and the ability to embark) and "Bleed", I was able to aggressively attack Denmark when it wanted to settle near me. At the end, I really like the Koa and only wish the Bleed effect could really stack : with "Survivalist III", it could become a frightening unit of the same kind as the Jaguar.

- You said several times that the Maori warrior is a weird unit which get eclipsed by the Longswordman, and I disagree with you : it served it's purpose very very well by being spammable (cheap cost and no Iron requirement), very effective near a Moai, and giving its ability to the Tercio later. In this game, I don't use the Swordman/LSM line or the cavalry line (because we are basically on an island Denmark and me, movement is limited and naval units are key to protect the flanks) : the Koa/MW mix is mobile when needed, strong, requires no strategic resource and, when well used, really shines (I've only played one game with them though, but I've been fighting an Authority Denmark all the time, and we know that this is a civ thriving in coastal combat)

- The Fale Tele, when combined with the Progress branch, gives a constant flux of resources that is discreet enough to not seem op, but really helps on the long run.

- The Celts don't have much Oppidum in their territory (we have open borders, so I could scout it) : I think adding some GMerchant point to their UA could help.

- Spain has been subjugate by Austria, so I couldn't see the Hacienda (which, in the v. 10 isn't fixed anyway). Sorry for that.

 

[adan_eslavo]

Tourism can’t be added dynamically in Lua like other yields, hence the need for a workaround.

It's a pity. I didn't know that. Could you post code for that workaround? I'm really curuious how you did this.

- I won't have a picture for it, but it seems the bleed effect of the Koa doesn't stack (it was always -10 HP).

Works well. You need to attack 3 times by 3 different units at the same turn. Did you do this that way or you tried to attack again and again with one unit? I will change description to be more clear.

- The fact that the Koa is a Pathfinder replacement has its utility : in the early game, I have been able to use a mix of Koa and warriors to pacify my starting continents, a quite big island shared with Denmark, and recover a lot of ruins without getting beaten back by barbarians (except one time because I was taken by surprise). I obtained a significant early game advantage (I was using Progress and obtained 2 free techs, 1 free population in the Capitale, one upgrade to a Koa, gold to invest in Fale Tele and other minor things). Moreover, because the Koa has 7 strength (and becomes quickly quite endurant thanks to "Survivalist" promotions and the ability to embark) and "Bleed", I was able to aggressively attack Denmark when it wanted to settle near me. At the end, I really like the Koa and only wish the Bleed effect could really stack : with "Survivalist III", it could become a frightening unit of the same kind as the Jaguar.

It will be now Scout replacement. Do you have in mind some tweaks to nerf it?

- The Celts don't have much Oppidum in their territory (we have open borders, so I could scout it) : I think adding some GMerchant point to their UA could help.

How many of them they have and what era you are on?

- Spain has been subjugate by Austria, so I couldn't see the Hacienda (which, in the v. 10 isn't fixed anyway). Sorry for that.

What fix do you have in mind? It should work well beside the thing concerning 2-tile from city yields.

 

[Hinin]

Works well. You need to attack 3 times by 3 different units at the same turn. Did you do this that way or you tried to attack again and again with one unit? I will change description to be more clear.

Oh ok. I thought attacking with a unit with Bleed was what made the damages stack over time : I understand now, but I think it is a bit weird that the promotion works like that.
I explain : for a reconnaissance unit, the important when you attack is to be opportunistic, be able to flee and regenerate life and find a way to kill your enemy bit by bit or with the support of other units ; the way the bleed effect stacks for now gives you incentive to send groups of Koa (preferably three) to put down big targets, but I think it is more the job of units of the Spear line. For me the bleeding effect should work like this : after hitting an enemy (through attack or defense), this enemy will lose 10 hp at the beginning of its next turn, then, if you hit it again with a Koa, the effect is renewed and strengthened (becoming -20 hp then -30 hp), allowing you to essentially weaken the enemy on several turn without putting you in too much danger (against a strong enemy which could resist the attacks of three Koa without being destroyed, the damages each Koa would suffer for attacking would be detrimental to their future survival I think).
My vision and explanations may be a little confusing, but I hope you understood it.

It will be now Scout replacement. Do you have in mind some tweaks to nerf it?

I don't think this unit need a nerf for now. As it stands, it is original and can be powerful when well used.

How many of them they have and what era you are on?

I've found two at the beginning of the Renaissance era (since there is no policy or wonder that gives a free great merchant, I think the Celts only had 3 GM at a maximum and used one for a trade mission).

What fix do you have in mind? It should work well beside the thing concerning 2-tile from city yields.

Never mind. I'll test Spain this evening to see if everything is all right.

NB : I've seen the modifications you did to the Shotelai. I think the unit shouldn't have a higher base strength than the Samurai (25 strength is the domain of the Tercio), but I like the fact that it is basically an early and "Iron requiring" version of the Tercio.

 

[pineappledan]

I could do this, but I saw your code was prety messy when I looked for something in Indonesia :/ It will be really time consuming.

It would just be a matter of drag and dropping the 2 folders, then copy/pasting the files from the .modinfo file. I agree it's messy in there, but there's a few things which I had no clue how to do, so I lifted them wholesale from the original mod. ie, the Indonesians technically have a unique worker so they can build kampungs while embarked

everything has to be combined at the end anyways, and rolling my civs into yours allows people to have fewer downloads/mods to manage. It would be a quality of life thing for the people who are testing.

Packing to zip is enough. You can do it with program I use: HaoZip. I don't know why they don't support their own civ5mod files. When packing there's small inscription about what format you can upload. Just look for it.

Thanks, I'll do that. I have to fix some text with the kampung, and I want to change the promotion descriptions on the prau anyways. Looking back I think the Bastu also needs to get toned down a little too. I reinstated their fresh water requirement as a start, the thing gives a lot of culture for classical era though.

Another question: A while ago I thought about changing barbican picture to this one. Do you like it more or less than present one?

I vote to keep the picture you have. Lastsword's picture doesn't really give much sense of what a Barbican is supposed to look like in relation to the rest of the walls; it's disorienting.

the way the bleed effect stacks for now gives you incentive to send groups of Koa (preferably three) to put down big targets, but I think it is more the job of units of the Spear line. For me the bleeding effect should work like this : after hitting an enemy (through attack or defense), this enemy will lose 10 hp at the beginning of its next turn, then, if you hit it again with a Koa, the effect is renewed and strengthened (becoming -20 hp then -30 hp)

I think the aim was to use the promotion to effectively disable a fortified barb camp's healing, or run around with 2 or 3 in a wolf-pack if you got into an early-game border war. The promotion as you have described would give 60 damage over 3 turns, plus the normal attack damage. This would kill any ancient or classical unit outright, and I can't think of any possible way to make that fair.

I've found two at the beginning of the Renaissance era (since there is no policy or wonder that gives a free great merchant, I think the Celts only had 3 GM at a maximum and used one for a trade mission).

Could be a matter of altering the celt's AI flavours. The Celt leader's flavours haven't been touched, but by default the AI puts low priority on merchants. Could look at what Venice's flavours are, and tweak based on what he does w.r.t. GMPs, eh?

NB : I've seen the modifications you did to the Shotelai. I think the unit shouldn't have a higher base strength than the Samurai (25 strength is the domain of the Tercio), but I like the fact that it is basically an early and "Iron requiring" version of the Tercio

I'm in agreement. As is now, looks like upgrading to tercio just frees up an iron, and little else. I think the 22CP was a good spot (2 more than base longsword), but even going down to just the standard 20 would be fine since the maim promotion is so good.

@adan_eslavo I'm still correcting my text for your civs, but I've sent you a 'rough draft' of all the civs. I haven't finished the full writeup on the armada, and I now see I missed proofing the updated description of the Celt UA. I'll get those to you soon, but just in case I ended up in your junk mail I thought I'd let you know here.

Remember kids, writing 1500 words in notepad, with no spellcheck, is a bad idea.

 

[Jarula]

Why not do something different make opedium not just town replacement make it a replacement for a few other go tile improvements as well...?

Make them replace holy sites too.

 

[pineappledan]

Why not do something different make opedium not just town replacement make it a replacement for a few other go tile improvements as well...?

Make them replace holy sites too.

hmmm..... that's an interesting idea.

We'd have to change the yields, of course, but that's okay. The issue to discuss with that idea is whether that would mess with balance in another way: religious wonders

The religious wonders give large yield boosts to holy sites, and this presents two problems:

• Celts need a large portion of the global population to build a religious wonder, but their playstyle and UA actively discourage spreading your own religion to other civs. This would create an anti-synergy, where you either keep your sick-nasty bonuses to yourself, or expend huge amounts of faith to proselytize so you can get your wonder up. Max your oppida or max your religious advantage. pick one.
• the massive bonuses on holy sites could be purchased on two types of great people, with separate faith costs, doubling your access to post-industrial oppida at reasonable faith costs

The more likely candidate for combining, IMO, is great engineers, who have fewer complex mechanics associated with them than prophets do. I think the first thing to try, however, is to alter Boudicca's proclivity for great people, and see if we are happy with how she does with that.

 

[Jarula]

Simple grant opedium more tech boosts.

Solution more techs that grant +1 to all yields.

Or you could do exactly what trying to do I'm doing to Rome a unique gp replacing 2 separate GP both that plop same UI.

Maybe grant Celts unique prophet/merchant called great druid.

Actually I might say great scientists or musicians

Maybe unique action conduct great ritual grants huge amount of gold faith and culture.

Or improve oppedium a lot

 

[adan_eslavo]

I will modify leader flavor from 5 to 8 (same as Enrico Dandolo) and increase GMP points from everything to 2:

INSERT INTO Leader_Flavors
              (LeaderType,        FlavorType,               Yield)
VALUES        ('LEADER_BOUDICCA', 'FLAVOR_GREAT_PEOPLE',    8);

That should help. Do I need to change flavors of other leaders? It would be reasonable (f.e. France AIR and SCIENCE).

I modified Shotelai yesterday:

Spoiler Shotelai :

UM - Shotelai (replaces Longswordsman): 25 CP. Has "Maim" (On attack reduces starting movement of enemy unit by 1) and "Hooked Weapon" (25% Bonus against mounted units. Lost after unit upgrade) Promotions.

@pineappledan I just paste your text into modmod. There's some mess in Hacienda Texts when there should be 5 texts (there are 6) and 3 are the same. Same with Monolithic Church. Look at Oppidum as a base one.

Remember kids, writing 1500 words in notepad, with no spellcheck, is a bad idea.

Why don't use Notepad++. I used it when coded in C++, C#, SQL etc. It also has basic spellcheck tool. After using it I would never return to basic win 7 notepad.

 

[FoxOfWar]

Small note: Pogost stages seem to be visible even when playing non-Russia. Might want to take a glance at that.

Playing Ottomans. Playing a bit of a one-city challenge as I wanted to toy with the UA + Tradition + wonder spam, but seems Tersane is really sweet. And I've already noted before that the Great Turkish Bombard is also rather scary, that 'can have only two' is definitely a right call.

 

[adan_eslavo]

Small note: Pogost stages seem to be visible even when playing non-Russia. Might want to take a glance at that.

Ahh, that's probably same thing like with Great Turkish Bombard. It will be quick fix.

Playing Ottomans. Playing a bit of a one-city challenge as I wanted to toy with the UA + Tradition + wonder spam, but seems Tersane is really sweet. And I've already noted before that the Great Turkish Bombard is also rather scary, that 'can have only two' is definitely a right call.

Good to hear that we managed to create it balanced with first touch. Yeah more than 2 would be destructible. It is much more powerful than Trebuchet. Little bit than Cannon. And even can compete with Field Gun, but at some cost.

 

[Hinin]

Just tested Spain ingame and have a few things to say about the Hacidenda :
- The yields are interesting : an Authority/Fealty Spain is at this state of the game a powerhouse in faith/food/production, and the Hacienda reinforces them in that theme while giving a hefty amount of gold (which synergizes well with the Mission).
- I understand the theme of the Hacidenda as a UI : an inverted Oppidum, which gets stronger on its tile from the resources around it (so it concentrates potential on a single tile, liberating citizens for other things). However, I think the Hacidenda being, with the Feitora, the latest UI in the game, should have a more unique feature.
Because, once again it's mostly about brainstorming, I'll first list the UI and their unique attributes before coming to my ideas.

PS : The suggestions I put in the file can be considered extreme, but it's mostly to create debate.

 

[Blue Ghost]

It's a pity. I didn't know that. Could you post code for that workaround? I'm really curuious how you did this.

SQL:

INSERT INTO EventChoices
            (Type, EventDuration, Expires)
VALUES        ('PLAYER_EVENT_CHOICE_PRACINHA_TOURISM', 1, 1);

--------------------------------
-- EventChoices
--------------------------------   
INSERT INTO EventChoice_InstantYield
            (EventChoiceType, YieldType, Yield)
VALUES        ('PLAYER_EVENT_CHOICE_PRACINHA_TOURISM', 'YIELD_TOURISM', 100);

Lua:

local iTourismEvent = GameInfoTypes['PLAYER_EVENT_CHOICE_PRACINHA_TOURISM']

function PracinhaTourism(iAttackingPlayer, iAttackingUnit, iAttackerDamage, iAttackerFinalDamage, iAttackerMaxHP, iDefendingPlayer, iDefendingUnit, iDefenderDamage, iDefenderFinalDamage, iDefenderMaxHP, iInterceptingPlayer, iInterceptingUnit, iInterceptorDamage, iPlotX, iPlotY)
    local pAttackingPlayer = Players[iAttackingPlayer]
    local pAttackingUnit = pAttackingPlayer:GetUnitByID(iAttackingUnit)
    local pDefendingPlayer = Players[iDefendingPlayer]
    local pDefendingUnit = pDefendingPlayer:GetUnitByID(iDefendingPlayer)
    if(pAttackingUnit:IsHasPromotion(GameInfoTypes.PROMOTION_TOURISM) and iDefenderFinalDamage >= iDefenderMaxHP) then
        if pAttackingPlayer:GetEventChoiceCooldown(iTourismEvent) == 0 and not pAttackingPlayer:IsEventChoiceActive(iTourismEvent) then
            pAttackingPlayer:DoEventChoice(iTourismEvent)
            pAttackingPlayer:DoCancelEventChoice(iTourismEvent)
        end
    end
end


GameEvents.CombatEnded.Add(PracinhaTourism)

Basically, when the Pracinha kills something, trigger a custom event that gains you 100 Tourism.

 

[adan_eslavo]

 for row in DB.Query("SELECT ID FROM UnitPromotions WHERE MutuallyExclusiveGroup = ? AND ID != ?", iGroup, iPromotion) do
      if (pUnit:IsHasPromotion(row.ID)) then
        return false
      end

A while ago I found something like this. Maybe theres way to put something intob SQL that way.

 

[pineappledan]

Things that aren't noted as unique, based on what I see from Hinin's doc, which I think should be noted:

The kampung is the only water-based improvement
The oppidum increases hp of nearby cities by 10
Monolithic churches only hill requirement UI, are nigh-incapable of food (only UI that is almost guaranteed to be food-negative)
Hacienda is only tile that modifies a building