3UC/4UC for VP: Project Coordination Thread

[Hinin]

• "Burgemeeste" is triggered when moving in or out of a luxury tile. It worked well when I tested it.

• "Goedendag!" is triggered after moving in and out, after training unit, after creation (gift) and after death. It should work in every possible outcome. Many tests needed then. I did not tested situation when Goedendag is standing next to the city and unit is created in there. It also should get this buff at start, but it probably won't.

• I thought about implementing LastSword's 3D model but it uses some english pikeman model. Look there and tell me if it is better than those macemen.

Ok so I'll do more tests.

• I think Mongols should have wider testing in normal gameplay to fully check them out. Yassa Court is giving many buffs to offesive players and it is difficult to make quick check of balance. I think that mix of Tug Banner Warrior and Yassa Court can be deadly for other players, but maybe Yassa is not powerful enough.

• It will be difficult to check in game reduction of crime and so on, because there's no info in any tooltip. I chekced it via SQLiteSpy.

This is why I intend on doing a full test session.

So, test session 2.

Khopesh :
- In this test session, the -20 % CS of Fatigue worked fine at first sight (no accumulation, triggers on the first attack etc), so I don't know what happened the first time. However, there are two things bothering me : the promotion description isn't correct anymore, since it is still the "-10 % CS, stacking up to three times" promotion description ; the effect doesn't seem to disappear or weaken in the two next turns after the attack (how is it supposed to work exactly ?).

Nilometer :
- The food/gold and culture effects of the Nilometer work fine, but the description of the building within the civilopedia talks about Flax, and nothing like this appears when creating the building (for various reasons I know).
- The picture of the building isn't visible in the civilopedia (once again, I'm nitpicky)...

Koa :
- The "strategy" part of the civilopedia for this unit talks about how this unit can efficiently attack from sea and through rivers, although the unit doesn't have the "Amphibious" promotion. We have the choice of deleting this part of the "strategy" section, but I would be more for adding the Amphibious promotion to the unit (it gives a promotion unavailable to reconnaissance units, it increases the combat polyvalence of the unit ; it synergizes with the Polynesian UA).

That's all. I'll do more tests for the Goedendag now.

 

[pineappledan]

K'atun Ahaw - probably hard to code, but I will think of it tomorrow. It would be easier to make it dependable on eras instead of turns. Similar effect, less work.

Yeah I don't know. I just wanted to do something that wasn't yields on kills. That makes it too much like aztec, and I want to make sure the two civs stay distinct from each other.

Should "Poison weapon" stay after upgrade?

Yeah, this is age-long gripe with promotions being removed on upgrade.

Could you do the same calculations for other game speeds for Pitz Court? Or maybe you know what is game speed modifier. I will need 4 sets of those vlalues to put in lua or use modifier with checking game speed (easier and simplier variant). I don't know if it is possible to check B'aktun arrival but I will check that.

There might be a trigger or notification that you can tie it to w.r.t. the mayan long count UA, which gives free GPs at each b'ak'tun, then you wouldn't need to make so many lists for game turns. The Maya UA must keep a separate table from the one which allows your to get a free GP (ie leaning tower of pisa), because it keeps track of GPs which you have already picked.

Otherwise you could make the yields trigger on the event that player gets to choose a free GP, and then make the following exceptions:
Leaning Tower of Pisa construction
Empire State Building construction
Hero of the people ideology
Cult of Personality ideology
National Treasure Policy

- The food/gold and culture effects of the Nilometer work fine, but the description of the building within the civilopedia talks about Flax, and nothing like this appears when creating the building (for various reasons I know).

Yeah, still hoping we can get that flax up and running. We have to get that working so that we can get latifundium working too; the problem is identical, so we are really killing 2 birds with 1 stone.

- The "strategy" part of the civilopedia for this unit talks about how this unit can efficiently attack from sea and through rivers, although the unit doesn't have the "Amphibious" promotion. We have the choice of deleting this part of the "strategy" section, but I would be more for adding the Amphibious promotion to the unit (it gives a promotion unavailable to reconnaissance units, it increases the combat polyvalence of the unit ; it synergizes with the Polynesian UA)

The original unit gave amphibious, and I agree that I think it would be a good match for the unit.

 

[FieryCharizard7]

I will take Persia and Maya.

@David de Vasconcelos Creating Art

@FieryCharizard7 Did you manage to resolvr all issues with England?

Just finished with my winter exams. I’ll be resolving and testing soon.

 

[Hinin]

Test session 3 :
I'm sorry, but the Goedendag promotions didn't work in this playtest : I made a list and tested all the ways you described to acquire the bonus, and I placed Goedendags on tiles with LR, LR improved within and out of my territory, attacking barbarians on LR tiles (so I was entering the tile), attacking barbarian Goedendag who moved on a LR tile before I attacked... Maybe someone else could test this to see if I'm not alone in that case (using the Ingame Editor with barbarians is the best way, but you must think about moving the units to be sure of the "sample") ?

 

[pineappledan]

@adan_eslavo Baktun turn counts:

Spoiler :

On quick speed:
Turn 67
Turn 77
Turn 88
Turn 102
Turn 122
Turn 152

On standard speed:
Turn 62
Turn 72
Turn 86
Turn 101
Turn 117
Turn 133
Turn 152
Turn 183
Turn 234.

EPIC:
99 - b4
115 - b5
131 - b6
150 - b7
177 - b8
203 - b9

no idea for marathon

 

[Blue Ghost]

Fatigue should go away at the start of the turn when the unit is fortified.
Yeah, seems I forgot to update the text description. Will do that.

 

[adan_eslavo]

@Hinin what luxury resource did you test? Maybe its matter of list correction. I will check that again.

When I get back home I will fix v17 and update. In last moment before update I changed promotion names and didn't update lua file for Goedendag. That's why it doesn't work. Sorry. I will also add that missing variant for Goedendag! I wrote before.

@pineappledan :

• For 20 turn cycle i can check game turn but making it tied to unit will be tough. I also can check calendar year and if I count it corretly every 394 years is new Baktun. So what I suggest is exchange of abilities:
  • Maya unit will get bonus cp every baktun (it can be 1 turn sometime). So first bonus should be small and increment expotentialy because next baktuns take more and more turns
  • Pitz court will get bonus faith every 20 turns counting not from construction time but from the beggining of the game.
• Quizilbash looks weak comparing to winged husar. It has 1 movement more and powerful ability. Yields and faith purchase are nice but not enough for such late unit.
• Paridaeza is nice. Do you think those increased yields will be enough?

 

[pineappledan]

I have updated the remaining resources. added some text blocks and a .lua code for the tarkhan's ability. I think we should extend the ability to any civilian unit (GPs, workers, settler), it currently only gives bonus move to settlers.

The carthage implementation looked pretty straightforward, so I did it... kinda... there's some bugs that I have no idea how to fix and I'm .lua retahrded (apparently this word is censored?). I've attached the carthage UCs here.

Carthage info

Spoiler :

Shofet - GG replacement
2 moves
15% attack to all units in 2 tiles
Hannibal ante Portas - Cities take bonus damage if near a Shofet
Units that begin their turn stacked with, or adjacent to a Shofet ignore ZOC for that turn
can build citadels, increases unit supply cap by 2

Shofet may embark to become a Great Admiral and back again, (must be in owned city?)
May be expended to heal your fleet
May go on a 'voyage of discovery' to give you 2 copies of a new luxury

Tophet - Shrine Replacement
No maintenance (down from 1)
-2 Food
3 Faith, 2 Culture (up from 2 faith)
1 Gold for every 4 population in city

The Tophet is a bit uninspiring right now, but it serves its purpose, and it's unique in that it actually SUBTRACTS a yield, consumes yields equivalent to 1 population in city. I considered playing around with the hurrycostmodifyer to make it cheaper to invest in for carthage off the bat (which seems like the natural thing to do), I'm not really sure if hurrycostmodifyer does anything in VP though?

Bugs w.r.t. the Shofet:

• Not really a bug, but the Shofet can only embark/disembark from cities in the base mod. This is noted in the description, but this is a pretty serious handicap, and I think it should be able to disembark/embark from anywhere. It is not obvious to me how this limitation was put in place, looking at the .lua, however. It might not be possible to have the unit disembark/embark from a city because the .lua essentially "kills" the general/admiral and then spawns the corresponding admiral/general in an adjacent square. It might not be possible to spawn new GPs outside friendly territory like that
• Because of how supply cap is coded in CBP, every time the shofet disembarks in the mod it raises supply cap by 2. Essentially, the code considers disembarking and disappearing to create an GA shofet as having "used" the GGeneral shofet, so it awards the supply cap as if you created a citadel. a workaround might be to add the supply cap to Shofets when they are first born, instead of used up? I don't know

For 20 turn cycle i can check game turn but making it tied to unit will be tough. I also can check calendar year and if I count it corretly every 394 years is new Baktun. So what I suggest is exchange of abilities:

• Maya unit will get bonus cp every baktun (it can be 1 turn sometime). So first bonus should be small and increment expotentialy because next baktuns take more and more turns
• Pitz court will get bonus faith every 20 turns counting not from construction time but from the beggining of the game.

The 20 turns for pitz court would work fine... If you are getting yields every 20 turns like clockwork though, that's really just the same thing as getting 1/20th the yields for every turn. Seems needlessly complex to do something like that. Is it not possible to have the PC trigger any time you are prompted to choose a free GP, and then make exceptions to silence when you got them from wonders/policies?

Getting the increased CP on baktuns wouldn't make sense, because the title of 3-k'atun ahaw essentially means 3-k'atun lord, which means you have been alive for 3 periods of 20 years. A Ba'k'tun lord doesn't exist because people don't live for 400+ years IRL.

• Quizilbash looks weak comparing to winged husar. It has 1 movement more and powerful ability. Yields and faith purchase are nice but not enough for such late unit.

Well winged hussar is pretty much the bell of the ball for lancer replacements; I don't think you would want something as good as WH anyways. Even if the unit isn't comparatively strong to Hakkapelliitta or WH that might be fine, though I think it's probably about on the level with Hakka right now. Could also add GAP as a yield when in enemy territory as well, maybe?

• Paridaeza is nice. Do you think those increased yields will be enough?

...Maybe? It's good yields, and the removal of river requirement is a nice buff too. Could triple the yields on guilds to 3c/3g, since you only get to build 6 of those on empire

 

[Jarula]

Persia bleh.

I made a better UU replacing horseman gets armor plating (historically accurate fair and fun)

The UB is WAAAY too late. +30 c is great but should be early.

And by the that late it's ability is no go.

Persias UB should be either early good or powerful enough to make up for it's lateness.

Why not a stone works replacement. In fact the old one stone works with 1 ga slot and +10 c +10 p whenever a gp is expended is fair and accurate.

Basically the two units proposed are safavid persia era when Persia really should just do as I planned horseman with armor plating

Simple yes definitely encourages legacy playing. In fact fudge it why not give a golden a promotion to both immortal and clib that give Persia the umph the they deserve in the early game. Remember who sacked Babylon who was the great challenge for Alexander?

 

[adan_eslavo]

• I will look for the event then. If not I will try to implement it that way.
• Yeah you are right hatun lord on baktun would not make sense and flat 20 turns not counted since the creation time neither. I will try to make global array with unit id and creation turn. Maybe it will work. Do you think khatun lord should be stricted to maya's holkans only? Gifted ones from cs shouldnt use it (they didn't have calendar).
• I will add gap to qizilbash and triple yields on paridaeza.

-2f and gold per pop on Tophet is not good combination.

 

[Hinin]

A solution to the numerous problems of the Shophet could be to make the unit a GGeneral with bonus when embarked instead of a GGeneral transforming into a GAdmiral when embarking. I explain :

Spoiler Sophet :

We could give a promotion to the Sophet giving it the MP and Sight difference between a GG and a GA when embarked (so, +3 MP and +2 Sight ?), and transform its "Leadership" promotion into, I don't know, a "Grand Leadership" promotion (so a +15 % CS, but to all units, land or naval, the Sophet being embarked or not).

We should also give the Sophet all the actions GG and GA can do (it would be a boost since the unit could make a discovery voyage, repair naval units, move from coastal city to coastal city or construct a Citadel on a land tile, being embarked or not) and make so that, when a GAdmiral is meant to be born, a Sophet appears in the city instead (it must also be considered a GG and a GA by CStates, for quests reasons).

For the Maya, since the UA gives us access to a unique trigger (being the baktun count), using it for the two new UCs seems indeed the best we can do to make the civ more unique.

Spoiler Maya :

- For the Pitz court, why not make it give an important bonus (faith, science, food, I don't know for now) if a certain condition is met at the end of a baktun (I don't know if there is a "if" element that can be used in the code of the game for this kind of thing though...) ? Let's imagine, for example, that the Pitz court would only give a bonus if the happiness of the city is superior to -3 : it would mean that the player should be attentive to the well-being of all cities for the UB to be effective (maybe a reference to the fact the Maya civilization was composed of autonomous city-states, so all were considered political centers).

- For the UM2, the same idea could apply : maybe a powerful heal (why not full heal, the Kris swordman already has a full heal) and some CS bonus (which would decrease within a few turns) at the end of every baktun (so attacking near the end of a baktun and then rejuvenate the unit to surprise the opponent) ? The ability would be less powerful later in the game, but, as you said, we could increase the CS bonus to compensate (if we take this idea, I don't think a xp bonus would be good, since the Swedish already have a heal/xp bonus).

What do you think ?

 

[pineappledan]

It sounds like you could have to make a turn count trigger of your own design for the maya. That being the case, I have an idea to reduce computing time:

Every 20 turns the trigger hits, and it searches owned units for the ka’tun ahaw promotion. If it finds a ka’tun promotion it replaces it with the 1 higher promotion. You don’t have to keep track of age for each unit, just a promotion check every 20 turns. This is more true to IRL, since being a k’atun lord is defined as having lived within 2 different k’atuns, not having lived for 20 years. It’s like how we have all lived in 2 different centuries even though none of us are 117.

A heal every 20 turns would be interesting, but once again I’m wary of having it be too close to the jaguar (who heals on kills). Personally, I would make it a heal of only 10hp instead of a full heal, since that makes it akin to a promotion.

If you were to make this turn counter it would be a shame to do all this work on a pathfinder... what if the ka’tun promotion line were a free promotion given to units trained with a pitz court in it? Then your whole army would get the bonus after classical. If we did that then i think the numbers would have to be lower though (5% every 20 turns. max of 20% instead of max 30. 10hp heal at turn of ka’tun)

Hinin’s Idea of a conditional bonus could justify the X every 20 turns. Instead of making it clockwork, it would be like a parent checking if you’re sleeping. It could check a single unhappiness metric. Maybe it could check boredom in each city and if unhappiness from boredom = 0 on turn XX, then it gives a reward

-2f and gold per pop on Tophet is not good combination.

the -2f is equivalent to an extra pop in city. you can think of the Tophet as a free population in city who works a 1fa/2c + 0.25g per pop tile (the difference in yields between a normal shrine and a tophet, including the change in maintenance). it definitely needs a scaler of some sort, since yields from populations increase in time and the tophet needs to at least keep on top of that. a 1f/2c tile in that ultra-early stage of the game would be a big boost, since players are especially hungry for culture and faith early, but I think it needs more.

In comparison to, say, the stele it doesn't compare well:
Stele gives +3 faith over base building, Tophet gives +1fa/2c, so about even there
Stele gives +25% fa during GAs and increases rate of border growth. Tophet only gets 1g per 4 pop
Stele has no drawbacks, Tophet drains food.

We could add 1 prod for every 4 pop on top of the 1g per pop. Carthage is mainly gold and production focused after all
Even then, I think it needs another boost. Any ideas?

 

[Jarula]

Why not simply do the stone works or make garden available at engineering?

 

[adan_eslavo]

To sum up I made something like this:

Spoiler Persia and Maya :

Persia:
UM - Qizilbash (replaces Lancer): 40 CP. Can be Purchased with Faith. "Name" (Gains +1 Faith, +1 Culture, +1 Gold and +1 GAP for every turn spent in enemy territory) Promotion.
UB - Pairidaeza (replaces Garden): Does not require river. +3 Culture, +3 Gold, +3 Tourism. +25% GPP in City. +3 Culture and +3 Gold to Writer, Artist and Musician Guilds in City. 30 Culture as an instant boost when a Golden Age begins, scaling with Era. +1 Food and +1 Gold from Citrus and Cocoa. +2 Gold to Oases.


The Maya:
UM - Holkan (replaces Pathfinder): 6 CP and +1 Movement. Has "Goody Huts II" (Additional +25% Goody Huts Bonus) and "Maya Long Count" (Heals unit by 10 HP every 20 turn, and fully heals unit every B'ak'tun). Does not have debuff vs barbarians.
UB - Pitz Court (replaces Arena): +2 Faith, +2 Tourism, +3 Culture. 15 Faith as instant boost on construction of the Pitz court. 10 Faith, scaling with Era at the beginning of every B'ak'tun. 20 science as an instant boost at beginning of new era, scaling with Era. Units trained in the city gain "K'atun Ahaw" (7% CS for every 20 turns the unit has existed (Hun/Ka'a/Oox) and 9% on the 4th (Kan, 30% in total)) Promotion. -20% Boredom. +2 Culture from Perfume, +1 Food and +1 Gold from Olives. +2 Production to Armories, Barracks and Forges in City.

• Quila's description has mistake and can be misunderstood. Can you find it.
• I decided to change Kibitum name to Sabum Kibitum based on this and this.
• v18 out. Small (big) patch.

 

[pineappledan]

how would you trigger the full heal on the pathfinders prior to the researching of mathematics? I would just keep the 20 turn heal and drop the b'ak'tun one. It might feel too random. People can keep track of the 20 turn cycles better, so I think they would prefer that when dealing with combat units. Can you imagine how hair-pullingly frustrating it would be to have an enemy pathfinder heal fully on a random, hard to remember turn order just as you were about to kill it? It would feel arbitrary, since no one else has access to the long count numbers.

I agree that if we do the k'atun ahaw promotion on the arena then we can happily drop the faith bonus on construction. I think the K'atun ahaw, if it's going ot be on every land unit, needs to be reduced to 5% increments. That makes it a small enough bonus that people would really have to weight the cost benefit of 20% CP vs having a large standing army for 80 turns.

Could call the Qizilbash yields promotion "Safavi agitator". Qizilbash are tukic/Azerbaijani tribesmen who were swayed into service by the Safavids/converted to Shia Islam/agitated against the Ottomans. The recruitment and use of Qizilbash was a self-perpetuating propaganda victory, as the Qizilbash will generate faith which can be used to purchase more Qizilbash.

Could just call the Maya Long count promotion "renewal cycle" or something.

 

[adan_eslavo]

Spoiler Persia and Maya v2 :

Persia:
UM - Qizilbash (replaces Lancer): 40 CP. Can be Purchased with Faith. "Safavi Agitator" (Gains +2 Faith, +2 Culture and +1 GAP for every turn spent in enemy territory) Promotion.
UB - Pairidaeza (replaces Garden): Does not require river. +3 Culture, +3 Gold, +3 Tourism. +25% GPP in City. +3 Culture and +3 Gold to Writer, Artist and Musician Guilds in City. 30 Culture as an instant boost when a Golden Age begins, scaling with Era. +1 Food and +1 Gold from Citrus and Cocoa. +2 Gold to Oases.

The Maya:
UM - Holkan (replaces Pathfinder): 6 CP and +1 Movement. Has "Goody Huts II" (Additional +25% Goody Huts Bonus) and "Renewal Cycle" (Heals unit by 10 HP every 20 turns). Does not have debuff vs barbarians.
UB - Pitz Court (replaces Arena): +2 Faith, +2 Tourism, +3 Culture. 10 Faith, scaling with Era at the beginning of every B'ak'tun. 20 Science as an instant boost at beginning of new era, scaling with Era. Land units trained in the city gain "K'atun Ahaw" (5% CS for every 20 turns the unit has existed, stacks 4 times (20% total. Hun/Ka'a/Oox/Kan)) Promotion. -20% Boredom. +2 Culture from Perfume, +1 Food and +1 Gold from Olives. +2 Production to Armories, Barracks and Forges in City.

 

[FoxOfWar]

(I don't like the idea of healing every B'ak'tun count, as unless I am mistaken, they have at VERY long intervals in longer game speeds as it's based on years. So random heal at a time when you've basically had time to forget about the UA (has happened to me) is just... very 'eh. Doubly so that usually on Marathon you've already discovered everything worth discovering on your continent by the time you hit Mathematics in the first place. So this unit would be a slightly-better Pathfinder on Marathon speed, mostly. And then you'd just feel bad for not playing Shoshone...) Nevermind that aside, just saw adan's take, which does not have this problem. Holkan seems pretty interesting now.

Getting science boost at beginning of a new era feels actually fairly nice and grandiose. I like, and the CS promotion feels good.

Persia's uniques seem fairly good now, testing will tell.

 

[adan_eslavo]

And what about Qizilbash? I changed slightly yields gained in last version.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Both Mayan UCs right now have the problem of being too complex and busy.

The Holkam has five distinct advantages over the pathfinder, while most base UUs have just two or three, especially if they’re early game. The extra movement and the goody hut bonus make it excellent for early exploration, so that’s what I would focus on. The lack of barbarian penalty is not needed. And Renewal Cycle is largely irrelevant. An extra 10 HP healed over 20 turns is hardly worth anything. And pathfinders are not combat units; why would you plan for them being injured at the exact time a b’ak’tun starts?

The main problem I have with the Pitz court is that it has three separate passive instant yield triggers. Why do you get one thing for every b’ak’tun, one thing every 20 turns, and one thing every era? Passive instant yields aren’t that interesting anyway unless they’re big, so splitting the yields between different triggers just dilutes all of them.

 

[pineappledan]

Looks like @Blue Ghost is critiquing the v1 proposal instead of the update?

There’s only 4 things going on with the Holkan. I agree that the 3 moves isn’t necessary. Especially with 3 moves already on kibitum.

The heal every 10 turns would stack with the survivalism promotion line, so I like the synergy there. The biggest gripe I have with early pathfinders is all the time you spend healing and this helps reduce that slightly. It’s also a fun, small, but very interactive bonus that gets you into thinking more about your turn counter, so it gets you into the unique maya long-count playstyle earlier.

I think the removal of the penalty vs Barbarians is good, Doesn’t feel right to hobble the UC like that. No other scout line UC has kept the penalty yet, indeed the only UC in the base CBP actually gets a BONUS vs Barbarians (bandeirantes).

There are now only 2 triggers on the arena, not 3, and one of them is very rare (only on change of era).

Re the qizilbash, persia’s Deal is GAPs and gold, so I would subtract a culture and add 1 or 2 gold to the quail ash yields imo