3UC/4UC for VP: Project Coordination Thread

[Hinin]

The Seir Morb art definitly points toward a Field gun or Artillery replacement. What is the historical description you would like to use for this unit ?

 

[pineappledan]

it is a disappearing gun from the Franco-Thai war of 1940. I haven't thought exactly what would be the civilopedia yet

 

[adan_eslavo]

Nice, they look awesome.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Floating gardens has a requirement. Our ottoman And venetian UBs have requirements, as does the current incarnation of the Swedish UB

Floating Gardens actually does not have a requirement. Neither does the Runestone, which is the existing Lighthouse replacement. That's only two base UBs inherited from buildings with requirements, but I think it sets a fairly clear precedent. Removing requirements from UBs gives them more flexibility, and I think it's a good thing to stick with.

For now we don't plan to make it compatible with E&D. Only with VP. Maybe later some other team will do compatibility patch.

I personally think we should consider compatibility with E&D. There are only a handful of modmods for VP out there, so I think a little work in avoiding conflict would be worth it. I unfortunately don't use E&D, so I'm not aware of all the changes that would be required. I guess we'll just need to rework the events that grant new UUs and UBs to civs?
Speaking of mod compatibility, I think we should consider what to do about modded civs. It's not feasible to give every modded civ a new set of UCs, but I'd like to give them some kind of generic bonus so they don't get left behind when all the core civs receive a power boost. 3UC gives non-core civs +1 Culture to the palace, which obviously won't be enough for VP. Would +1 to all yields at start be too much?

BTW @Blue Ghost did you look into your civ's leader traits? Everething ok in there?

What leader traits?

 

[pineappledan]

3rd times' a charm. I haven't changed the seir morb, but I am much happier with this version of the ban chang icon:

Spoiler :

Floating Gardens actually does not have a requirement. Neither does the Runestone, which is the existing Lighthouse replacement. That's only two base UBs inherited from buildings with requirements, but I think it sets a fairly clear precedent. Removing requirements from UBs gives them more flexibility, and I think it's a good thing to stick with.

I just confirmed this. Son of a gun. if that building doesn't get a requirement (which is actually a funny picture in my mind), then there's no reason for any other building to have one at all either. I mean we can't have a worse offender than the floating gardens, after all.

@adan_eslavo In light of this we should remove the building requirement off bastu. I vote for keeping the requirement for ocean on tersane though. that might be a bit beyond the pail

I'll remove the building requirements off of the paridaeza proposal as well.

I personally think we should consider compatibility with E&D. There are only a handful of modmods for VP out there, so I think a little work in avoiding conflict would be worth it. I unfortunately don't use E&D, so I'm not aware of all the changes that would be required. I guess we'll just need to rework the events that grant new UUs and UBs to civs?

This is the list of units which are given to civs in the events & decisions:
Sweden - Hakkapelliitta
Rome - Ballista
Korea - Turtle Ship
England - Longbowman
Venice - Great Galleas (???)
Ottoman - Sipahi
Greece - Companion Cavalry

Buildings from Events & decision:
Venice - Saint Marco's basilica
Babylon - Ishtar Gate
Poland - Jagiellonian University
Byzantium - Theodosian Walls
Arabia - House of Wisdom

So. we have a problem with Rome, Sweden, Korea and England. Curiously, we didn't overlap on a single Unique wonder or building. Previously when a UU has been swapped out for another, the event decision reward was simply switched to 3 free copies of that unit. This was the case when Shoshone got their Comanche riders back.

I'm pretty sure we also have a problem with Venice. I haven't tried the Venice which Enginseer made for us, but based on his description, I'm pretty sure I'm going to hate it. I know he essentially gave them a second UI, and no new UU. That means that Venice would only get a military unit if they used Enginseer's Events & Decisions. I'm pretty sure he did that on purpose so that it didn't overlap with his mod, but it makes venice obscenely lopsided within our own mod.

Bonus fun thingies:

• Russia's unique decision is founding the streltsy, but gives normal musketmen.
• Denmark's unique decision is to form a Thing. This reduces army maintenance by 20%
• Aztec's unique decision is "Form the Imperial Jaguars and Eagles", but they only have jaguars. It gives 30XP to all existing jaguars when passed.
• Carthage's unique decision is "Hanno's Voyage", which among other benefits gives a free G. Admiral (which would be a shofet with our mod)
• The Maya Decision is to establish "Pok-Ta-Pok", another name for the Mayan ballgame. It gives +2 culture to Kuna. We could change this to actuall boost our Pitz courts
• China's decision is "Establish the Imperial Exams", and it currently gives +1 production and culture from paper makers and +1 culture from universities on empire.
• Persia's decision gives them access to Byzantine Cataphracts as an additional UU. We could make a new decision which plays off their use of Qizilbash with our mod.
• Mongolia's decision gives +4 gold for courthouses, and our mod gives a unique courthouse which can be built in non-occupied cities
• Greece's Event decision also plays off philhellenism, and makes allied CS give free military units at the outbreak of any war.
• Japan's event decision is called "Patronise the Theatres" and we are considering making a kabuki theatre for them.

This is absolute last priority imo. I think this is a matter of "first mover advantage", and they simply snapped up every free UU from the vanilla game. It's hardly fair to us to say we can't use those same units when slight modifications to the rewards would suffice.

Speaking of mod compatibility, I think we should consider what to do about modded civs. It's not feasible to give every modded civ a new set of UCs, but I'd like to give them some kind of generic bonus so they don't get left behind when all the core civs receive a power boost. 3UC gives non-core civs +1 Culture to the palace, which obviously won't be enough for VP. Would +1 to all yields at start be too much?

As a quick band-aid, sure. It definitely won't be enough, but I'm not sure why anyone would want to play with those extra civs after we've shaken down the entire modding community for their loose UCs.

imo the best course of action would be to take a handful of 4UC-compatible civs and roll them in after we finish up and if people still want to keep going.

Off the top of my head I can think of 4 custom civs with enough existing material to make 4UC versions of, and no overlap with what we have already done:
Canada
Hudson's Bay Company (East IndiaCompany)
Coureur des Bois (Explorer)
Expeditionary Force (Great War Infantry)
Hockey Stadium (Stadium)

Australia
Digger (Great War Infantry)
Prime Minister (Great Writer)
Rock Paintings (Stone Works)
Public House (Grocer or Hotel)
Dingo Scout Car (Light Tank)
Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel (Non-Combat special unique support unit)
Tlingit
Noow (UI)
Xaa (musketman)
Plankhouse (Lighthouse)
Esquai-ah (work boat, trireme)
Potlach House (Bank, Caravansary)

Israel
Kibbutz (UI)
Macabee (swordsman)
Shofet (GG)
Temple of Jerusalem (Grande Temple)

 

[adan_eslavo]

Personally I like 1st version more. I tried to copy this light efect you managed to do in those 2 icons but for now I failed.

@Blue Ghost Every leader has it's own values for different traits in Leader_Traits table. F.e. Casimir III had FLAVOR_MOBILE equal to 4. We added him another horse unit so he has now 2 and he has stables that also focus on cavalry. Then I decided to raise this value for him to 8 or 9 (I don't remember what exactly) to make him more focused on that aspect of the game. You can see all flavors changed in my modmod in separate folders. I would like to hear from everyone some critcism about it because since I updated this there were no comments.

 

[pineappledan]

I'm using DJSHenninger's ready-mades which he released to the community. All you have to do is rotate them around and use the colourize settings to get them how you like.

The third, most recent option I made blew up the elephants so they should much more visible in the smaller icon sizes. The thing in the foreground is now much more obviously a log

EDIT: I think if we are going to drop the yields from resources from city states, then the Ban Chang needs something more. That proposition was going to be the building's main impact on the game.

Is creating such a mechanic not viable using the GetResourceFromMinors table?

 

[adan_eslavo]

I think we should focus on mod for now. Then it will be matter of while when we make small compatibility patches. If we focus on 2 things for now and something change then this will double our work. Of course if someone really wants to do it now, please go with it. I will focus on base game for now. Maybe it is because I never play E&D.

On a side note, after finishing this project I will continue ny cooperation with @NikMuazHakim and his modpack for multiplayer. Currently v14. I will try to help him incorporate our mod there.

@pineappledan Could you make better icons for Klepht and Sachem's Council? The last one is bothering me much.

I will check that function for Baan Chang.

 

[pineappledan]

Sure I could try giving that a go. Do you want me to use the same images? What is that round structure with the sachem?

 

[adan_eslavo]

You can use different ones. Those I found in uncle google.

@pineappledan What model will we use for Seir Morb? Do you have any idea?

 

[pineappledan]

I think the De Bange 155mm from this mod fits best. It's about the right calibre and helps diferentiate from the fireld gun by being slightly larger and a different colour

Doing further reading, I think the unit should be a field gun replacement, and not an artillery replacement. I had mis-read JoeyDiamond's original post describing the weapon and thought that the gun was from the Franco-Thai war of 1940. Its is actually from the Franco SIAMESE war of 1893.

for the klepht I was thinking of using this picture:

Spoiler :

I haven't found anything satisfactory for the sachem council

 

[De_Genius]

I have been working on the Goedendag, and it is ready for testing now. There might still be some issues regarding the promotion not being applied or removed correctly, but that should be it.
I have also managed to make the Waag inherit all the properties of the bank now and given it a nice flavour description.

I am having some problems regarding how to implement the "+3% GPP per exported/imported resource" modifier on the Waag. I have been looking at the Austrian and Dutch traits, but they have not helped me a lot.
Do any of you have a good idea how to make this ? We could always make it a flat modifier, but I would like to incorporate some dynamical gameplay to make it more exciting.

I have attached the mod in version 5

 

[adan_eslavo]

I had one thought. We add promotion for every unique ability that involves gaining yields (Bogurodzica, Philhellenism, Epic, Sanat Maria). Maybe we should modify Pictish Warrior to follow the same pattern.

I could see also possibility to add more flavor to some units by changing name for their unique promotions. Pictish Warrior - "Bonuses from tile, tundra ans snow" and Jaguar - "Heals by 25 HP on kill" are just hillarious.

I almost finished programming Dhanuraashi and started testing it out. What do you think about moving +5XP to Epic and therefore make all on kill abilities into one promotion?

 

[pineappledan]

Sounds like busywork.

Heal 25HP on kill - Blood for the Blood God
Bonus on tundra and snow - Santa's Slay

I don't think it matters, much whether it's all yields including XP, or if it's bonus XP attached to the bonuses for XP; It's functionally identical The XP paired with culture fits the name of the promotion better

 

[adan_eslavo]

@pineappledan May I have another request to you? I know you have plenty of work with doing all descriptions, but could you look into promotions too? There also maight be some spelling errors or lack of consistency.

 

[pineappledan]

I’ll look through the promotions of the new stuff, sure. Changing the names of existing promotions will come later if I have the interest.

While I’m at it I would likely change some policy texts and beef up some sparse civilopedia texts. Right now there are more serious issues with the text in VP than minimalist promotion names. eg. The civilopedia entry for Lebensraum is rather vague about the tenant being fancy-speak for ethnic cleansing. There's some rather damning omissions which steer the VP civilopedia into being "problematic".

 

[adan_eslavo]

I also saw lots of incosistency in unit, building or promotion descriptions. For instance when unit has unique promotions and they are mentioned in descrption sometimes they are marked green color, sometimes with quotation mark and sometimes they are not marked. Or I saw promotions where icons where in different places or same thing was descriped in few different ways. It should be done slowly with every corner checked. But that's me and when I see such things they burn my eyes. I think VP guys didn't pay attention to such minor things. We could clean up this mess. If you want that of course.

 

[pineappledan]

This sounds like the beginning of a project which should really be its own mod, then we could go to Gazebo and ask if our "text update" modmod could be incorporated fully into base VP. Best to focus on the things we plan to change mechanically within this modmod, and not start editorializing the rest of the game

 

[FieryCharizard7]

3rd times' a charm. I haven't changed the seir morb, but I am much happier with this version of the ban chang icon:

Spoiler :

View attachment 482165

I just confirmed this. Son of a gun. if that building doesn't get a requirement (which is actually a funny picture in my mind), then there's no reason for any other building to have one at all either. I mean we can't have a worse offender than the floating gardens, after all.

@adan_eslavo In light of this we should remove the building requirement off bastu. I vote for keeping the requirement for ocean on tersane though. that might be a bit beyond the pail

I'll remove the building requirements off of the paridaeza proposal as well.

This is the list of units which are given to civs in the events & decisions:
Sweden - Hakkapelliitta
Rome - Ballista
Korea - Turtle Ship
England - Longbowman
Venice - Great Galleas (???)
Ottoman - Sipahi
Greece - Companion Cavalry

Buildings from Events & decision:
Venice - Saint Marco's basilica
Babylon - Ishtar Gate
Poland - Jagiellonian University
Byzantium - Theodosian Walls
Arabia - House of Wisdom

So. we have a problem with Rome, Sweden, Korea and England. Curiously, we didn't overlap on a single Unique wonder or building. Previously when a UU has been swapped out for another, the event decision reward was simply switched to 3 free copies of that unit. This was the case when Shoshone got their Comanche riders back.

If there’s a comparability issue with E&D, I could always give England a different unit. The city crates also gift longbowman as well in VP. Maybe a knight replacement? A knight that could “joust” and be expended for culture.

 

[adan_eslavo]

We discussed this and longbowman is best we could fit for England. I think we should keep it for base game and eventually change it in compaibility patch for E&D later.

@pineappledan yeah, that would be lotta work. But some minor things can be changed to make better feel like those promotion name change I did for pictish warrior. That's only one line of code . If you would like to make such a mod then I'm in. I think @Gazebo will like it.