3UC/4UC for VP: Project Coordination Thread

[pineappledan]

That was... a lot of complimenting yourself for your own idea...

 

[adan_eslavo]

Making new Penteconter class will be tough to do. But there's still possible to change only picture and name (leaving unitclass name as dromon) and then copy values to f.e. BYZANTINE_DROMON making little mess with the code.

That was... a lot of complimenting yourself for your own idea...

Like always?

I thing AI won't understand "legacy" promotion. IMO we should change it.

 

[pineappledan]

Agreed, nothing is gained by redefining an entirely new unit class for the penteconter and deleting the dromon unit class. Just change the art defines of the default dromon to be the penteconter and update the unit text.

Just finished with Greece and Polynesia text. I'll finish Spain, France and Ethiopia tomorrow then I'll send it to you. Gonna go to bed

 

[adan_eslavo]

What about Illyrian Lembi/Liburna from this mod instead of Penteconter? I cannot check it out coz Im writing from phone but it would be much closer historically to dromon (Dromon was upgraded version of birems and liburnas, liburnas were adapted by romans at Accium).

 

[FoxOfWar]

Re: Babylon UU. Good points about it being very likely something that's not going to see much use. I propose we take a page off of Ethiopia's book, and give this simple spearman (or even warrior) replacement a good, home-defensive promotion that carries on. "Legacy" incidentally is a very good name for it and feels 'almost there' in this sense, even if AI can't make use of it as it is (a good reason for redesign).

The promotion can be made even somewhat strong if it's something that can not really be used that offensively (bonus in own lands, making kills in own lands, bonus near capital, when fortified etc.) or as meat-shield vs. cities at best (defense, defense vs. ranged, healing). If on a warrior, it can be quite strong, as then it obsoletes QUICK, and you are sacrificing other early game to make them.

 

[Hinin]

UM - Shotelai (replaces Longswordsman): Available at Metal Casting. 22 CP. Has "Hooked Weapon" (On attack reduces starting movement of enemy unit by 1. Lost after unit upgrade) and "Anti-Mounted I" Promotions.

I just tested the unit ingame : the +50 % CS against mounted unit is just too much (and there is no historical explanation for this) (+ I understand that is unit is meant to lock down and destroy enemy cavalry, and it seems an interesting UM to me, but I think we should reduce this bonus or find something else).

UI - Monolithic church (Worker Improvement): Available at Theology. +2 Production, +2 Culture and +3 Faith. Must be built on unfeatured hill, Marble or Stone. Cannot be adjacent to each other. Improves Stone and Marble. +1 Faith and +1 Culture at Machinery, +1 Production and +1 Culture at Architecture and +1 Production and +2 Gold at Archaeology.

Tests will need to be done in a full game in order to see if this UI works well and is interesting.

I thing AI won't understand "legacy" promotion. IMO we should change it.

I agree. Let's think about something else.

 

[FoxOfWar]

Also, gave Ethiopia a test. Monolithic Church works, seems balanced, and makes the lands look very unique to Ethiopia. Very solid(pun intended), I like. It comes in late enough that it won't shake the early religion game, but can give a huge boost when it comes if you get lucky with hills/stone placements.

If anything, I would slightly spin around when it gets bonuses to be more thematic:
+1 Faith +1 Culture at Acoustics
+1 Production +1 Gold at Architecture
+2 Culture +1 Gold at Archeology.
Getting a bonus in Machinery feels off, and it's on the wrong side of tech tree, on next tier, to beeline for either.
Possibly another +1 Gold +2 Culture at an Atomic/Information tech.

The Shotelai is sadly rather forgettable, but has possibilities. Did not end up in that many fights in the game though, so can't fully comment.

 

[Jarula]

Oh camon I have drunken a wee bit but the whole idea was really exciting. Just imagining it really cool. It sounds like a really fun game. I don't always compliment myself.

I just was so excited because I thought it was a really cool idea. Any thoughts on balanced?

 

[pineappledan]

@adan_eslavo i don’t think it really matters which one you go with, a Lembus or a Penteconter are both fine choices. Penteconters are older, in fact lembi are the ship design which replaced penteconters, so it’s just a difference of dates more than design.

@Hinin shotel were used to hook rider’s legs and drag them off their horses (ouch). The curve of the sickle is so dramatic that they were also sometimes able to hook shields or even reach around them to stab.

The shotel on paper looks really strong.
I don’t think they should be moved forward into classical, berserkers already do that.
If the anti-mounted is too much, we could reduce it to 25% maybe. I think antimounted should be dropped on promotion, same as it is for spearman
On the other hand, I think the reduced move promotion should stay on upgrade. We could call it ‘hamstring’ or ‘maim’ if the weapon name is a sticking point.
Is the increased CP necessary? They’re a pretty awkward looking weapon, it seems odd to give them more power, plus I don’t feel it’s mecessary with how good their unique promotions are.

@FoxOfWar I tried to match the chateau for parity. Basically, I wanted it to be a competitive with france’s UI, but give production and faith instead of food and gold and no defense. I think the yields as you have presented might be too much, I especially don’t want the monolith to “out-culture” France. I think the yields as they already are in-game are too much; I think the production on the last tech should be dropped.

The only reason I picked machinery was because Notre dame is unlocked there. I was like, “oh hey, a bigass church, I am currently modding in a bigass church.” Let’s make machinery the Bigass Church tech. Plus you need good machinery to hew a church from solid rock! But yeah, I think the techs can be moved around a bit, for sure

 

[De_Genius]

UM - Langskib (replaces Caravel) ; available at Physics instead of Compass ; 20 CP instead of 25 ; have the "Can move after attacking" and "Viking Exploration" (Embarked units starting on the same tile may also cross ocean tiles and all units in adjacent tiles heal an additional 10 HP per turn. Lost after upgrade) promotions.

Promotions rolled together and generic Medic promotions removed.
This seems concise and fun to me.

I will go ahead and implement this as soon as possible.

 

[pineappledan]

It appears to be a most excellent ship indeed. My only fear is that with the +10 hp being a unique promotion, it will now stack with medic, so a unit with medic II and a nearby langskib could heal for 30 hp/turn. I would probably drop the healing entirely, or just give them medic I, since the stacking heals is probably unintentional. Having 3 promotions isn’t bad, there’s plenty of UUs that already exist that have 3. I think having both medic I and II (4 total) was what was making it feel overboard

 

[De_Genius]

It appears to be a most excellent ship indeed. My only fear is that with the +10 hp being a unique promotion, it will now stack with medic, so a unit with medic II and a nearby langskib could heal for 30 hp/turn. I would probably drop the healing entirely, or just give them medic I, since the stacking heals is probably unintentional. Having 3 promotions isn’t bad, there’s plenty of UUs that already exist that have 3. I think having both medic I and II (4 total) was what was making it feel overboard

You really think it would be too much ? It takes quite a lot to get the Medic promotions, and it will lose the VE promotion and the healing with an upgrade. Giving it only adjacent healing also encourages the player to have more of these ships along each other on a raiding party towards their enemies, which seems kinda Vikings to me

 

[De_Genius]

Anyway I have implemented the changes according to the last discussion.
I could use some nice icons for the promotions though.
Any suggestions for the Viking Exploration promotion and the attached Ocean Moving promotion ?

 

[De_Genius]

Btw. I took a quick test with the Langskib and accompanied a landing party over the ocean attacking another civ. That felt really Viking, especially when the ship could provide a support role of healer afterwards.
I am really digging the Langskib and its use.

Btw. sorry for the post spam and overly fondness of own creation

 

[adan_eslavo]

Anyway I have implemented the changes according to the last discussion.
I could use some nice icons for the promotions though.
Any suggestions for the Viking Exploration promotion and the attached Ocean Moving promotion ?

If you are skilled artist you could do an Icon for Koa's promotion. I used one of the naval promotions but it is not the best choice. Also Shotelai's one could be changed. I tried to paint them but I'm not skilled enough to draw such complicated things in GIMP.

I can change Shotelai's promotions a bit. Production for Church was dropped after you mentioned it for the first time. Do I need to change more values or do we stay with these ones?

 

[pineappledan]

Oh, no if that last production has been dropped I have no complaints re: the monolithic church. I must have missed that in the latest version; it didn’t look like it had been dropped. I’m sorry, I have no access to a computer right now because of my trip, so I couldn’t download the newest version and check myself. FoxOfWar’s suggestions for switching the techs that upgrade yields of course needs consideration, and if anyone has opinions regarding yields and balance are great. I don’t mean to sound like a tyrant, or to try to quash debate, if that’s what it seems like. I’m just very animated about this project.

Re: the langskib, if it’s dropped on upgrade that might mitigate it some, and I agree that the supporting promotion make it feel more Viking. I’m just worried about potential for exploits. If people are comfortable with Vikings healing that much on turn then I’m simply outvoted. On the other hand, if Vikings are healing 25 or more hp per turn by fortifying, they might pillage less. I think splitting up the heal and giving medic I is a happy medium. If the langskib gets some XP they can up it to medic II, but at least we are making it an XP sink, and they aren’t stacking multiple healing promotions.

Alternatively, if there is a way to expressly make sure that the langskib’s healing does NOT stack with medic then there’s no problem, but that would have to be noted in the tooltip.

Is there a way to make the unit flag a promotion icon? Make that icon pull double duty? That would save some time painting custom icons

 

[adan_eslavo]

Alternatively, if there is a way to expressly make sure that the langskib’s healing does NOT stack with medic then there’s no problem, but that would have to be noted in the tooltip.

@De_Genius There is other way. In New Promotions mod there's piece of code that create mutuallyexclusivegroup. There are 3 promotions and when one is chosen the other 2 become unavailable. Parts of code (I could miss something so you need to check this on your own):

--One SQL
ALTER TABLE UnitPromotions ADD MutuallyExclusiveGroup INTEGER DEFAULT -1;

--Second SQL
<!--SET MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE FEATURE-->

<Update>
<Where Type="PROMOTION_WISDOM"/>
<Set MutuallyExclusiveGroup="1"/>
</Update>

<Update>
<Where Type="PROMOTION_ENTERTAINER"/>
<Set MutuallyExclusiveGroup="1"/>
</Update>

<Update>
<Where Type="PROMOTION_MYSTICISM"/>
<Set MutuallyExclusiveGroup="1"/>
</Update>   
</UnitPromotions>

--And Lua
function OnCanHavePromotion(iPlayer, iUnit, iPromotion)
  local iGroup = GameInfo.UnitPromotions[iPromotion].MutuallyExclusiveGroup
 
  if (iGroup ~= -1) then
    local pUnit = Players[iPlayer]:GetUnitByID(iUnit)
 
    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
    end
  end
 
  return true
end
GameEvents.CanHavePromotion.Add(OnCanHavePromotion)

You could modify this code and add same value for Langskib's promotion and medic II, so medic II wouldn't show up for this unit. Then only Medic I would be available.

Is there a way to make the unit flag a promotion icon? Make that icon pull double duty? That would save some time painting custom icons

There always way to do that but you need to make 3 types of icons (4 different sizes) and paint them with shadows. I cannot do that for now.


I manged to make those floating texts for Philhellenism and Bleeding. Now it makes things lot more visible for player.

 

[pineappledan]

I manged to make those floating texts for Philhellenism and Bleeding. Now it makes things lot more visible for player.

Okay, we need to think of all the things we’ve made that need that text:
Shotelai
Greek fire on dromon, if we make that upgrade work same as Koa
Scythes on the chariot?

 

[Blue Ghost]

The Arabian UU and maybe UB could use that as well.

 

[Jarula]

Oh maybe a cool way for shophet if not done would be grants leadership to both land and sea units within two tiles whether on land or at sea.

Ie let's say shophet is on desert right next coast tile. On one side is a knight on other side a quintrieme both night AND quintrieme get +15%.

A good way to do it would be similar to my praetor idea 2 Unique great people one replacing admiral one general both practically identical. That way shophet both are created by the same process great admiral points make a shophet so do great general. Maybe since this is CBP after all why not make it a slightly stronger buff +20%