3UC/4UC for VP: Project Coordination Thread

pineappledan · Dec 28, 2017

I wouldn't even bother changing the art assets; the vanilla worker looks plenty Roman as is. What you could do it swap the Coloni's unit icon for the latifundium's icon in the civ select screen by making the 64x64 pixel icon art for the Coloni the same as the latifundium. This fix would only work if the 64 pixel art is not used anywhere else in-game though

The help text could say this:
"Instead of plantations, the Roman Coloni build Latifundia. Latifundia are a unique improvement which spawn an adjacent source of Figs. Figs are a bonus resource which are improved by a plantation immediately when they appear."

adan_eslavo · Dec 28, 2017

Help text will not be visible in civ select scree because of many abilities of worker. Maybe if I delete all other unique improvements from Roman list it ill show up.
I will check how it looks like after swapping.
For now I rework all Maya as was said before. Almost finished.

pineappledan · Dec 28, 2017

So with @IcyAngel's recent civ roundup, I thought I would piggy-back off him and do one of my own. Many of my points will be reinforcements/rebuttals on his points, inevitably, but I have a few ideas of my own too

America

Spoiler :

Arabia

Spoiler :

Assyria

Spoiler :

Austria

Spoiler :

Aztec

Spoiler :

Byzantine

Spoiler :

Celts

Spoiler :

Dutch

Spoiler :

Egypt

Spoiler :

France

Spoiler :

Germany

Spoiler :

Inca

Spoiler :

India

Spoiler :

Japan

Spoiler :

Portugal

Spoiler :

Russia

Spoiler :

Songhai

Spoiler :

Zulu

Spoiler :

Lastly, is it time to absorb @FieryCharizard7's England into either Adan or BG's larger portions? No one has given any feedback on England, and I think that largely has to do with it being loose and by itself. If I recall, all that needs to be changed on it is that the free GArtifact needs to changed from a generic one to a specific one

adan_eslavo · Dec 28, 2017

pineappledan said:
So with @IcyAngel's recent civ roundup, I thought I would piggy-back off him and do one of my own. Many of my points will be reinforcements/rebuttals on his points, inevitably, but I have a few ideas of my own too
America

Spoiler :

Monitor - The Hampton Roads and Monitor promotions are both weak on their own, and relatively easy to code promotions, but I think they would really help make the monitor a flavorful unit. Monitor makes the unit contribute a little more to city defense and crime, like a naval garrison. Hampton Roads makes the Monitor ZOC undeniable

Arabia

Spoiler :

Madrasa - The building is anti-synergistic with the Arabian UA right now. The science on faith purchases should be 20% of the faith cost of the unit/building, not a static amount. As it is, this building punishes saving for faith purchases on GPs and pushes for Zealotry and faith buildings too hard (monastery/cathedral/synagogue, etc). Basically, this building would work a lot better if it worked like a bank.

Assyria

Spoiler :

Iron Chariot - I think armor plating is a fine enough placeholder for now, but I'm looking forward to the Fury of Nergal promotion being implemented. It reinforces Assyria's high-risk playstyle.

I can see why no strategic requirement on a horseman would be risky, with how powerful they are (though the same might be said of skirmishers). Would it be possible to have the chariot use either Iron OR Horses? Maybe you would have to build two separate units which differ only in their strategic requirement to accomplish that though.

Austria

Spoiler :

Landwehr - I think the Yorkscher Marsch is in a good place right now at 2 culture. Garrisoning units should be a small perk, not a core. No change needed

Aztec

Spoiler :

Eagle - I think Eagles' Sentry should be replaced with a unique promotion called Eagle Eye which has the same effect +1 vision. This would not change anything except it would allow Eagles to also get Sentry, so they could get +2 vision potentially.

I have been pushing for woodsman for a while, but I think it's equally valid to leave that as is. Keep Jaguars more unique

Byzantine

Spoiler :

Hippodrome - I will repeat IcyAngel, in that I find the +1 culture/Gold on palace utterly pointless.

I disagree with the majority opinion on this forum, in that I prefer option 2 for how the Lua Event should eventually work on Hippodrome. Making 4 choices which affect gameplay will be harder to balance, more complex, and the AI will not know how to pick optimally. We have not created any mechanics which trigger on new Eras, and I think the 1 turn of resistance, then a WLTKD (which the Hippodrome buffs) really plays into the hooliganism which surrounded the real Hippodrome.

Celts

Spoiler :

Scythed Chariot - Testing is required to really get a sense of the balance for this unit. Everything is there (and is awesome), it's just a matter of tweaking numbers

Dutch

Spoiler :

A few ideas to buff the Polder:
Currently, Polders cannot be built on marsh like they could in Vanilla. There is a modmod which re-implements marsh polders, and this might be a worthwhile addition

I propose that Polders remove all movement points from enemy units which enter a tile with a polder, like a chariot rough terrain penalty. This would reflect how the Polders are flooded and converted back to marshland as a way of defending the Netherlands during both WWI and WWII.

Egypt

Spoiler :

Khopesh - I agree with Hinin that the unit can do without the anti-mounted upgrade. As is, the unit looks like an early, only slightly less powerful swordsman, which doesn't require strategics. I think that is a suitable flavour for the unit to have, and would help avoid comparisons to the hoplite, which the unit has identical power to, but has Much better promotions than

France

Spoiler :

SPAD - The unit has more range than a normal triplane, but it is lost on promotion. I think the unit should get the range promotion so that it stays on upgrade

Germany

Spoiler :

Angst has been voiced on how the UCs we have given Germany could make them very dangerous throughout the entire game, but also that the newest patches are absolutely crushing to the German playstyle. I vote for a wait and see.

Inca

Spoiler :

I'm really happy with what we have planned here. Looking forward to seeing it in the game

India

Spoiler :

Qila - this building is very straightforward. It's powerful as useful as is, but if we can think of something to add a little flavor then I'm all ears

Japan

Spoiler :

Yamato - Considering the proposed range of 3 and indirect fire, should we also add the siege promotion (100% RCP vs cities) to this unit so it's a full conversion to naval artillery?

Portugal

Spoiler :

University of Coimbra - I think the +2 in city for every CS feitoria should be increased to +2gold, +1 Production. This UW just doesn't have enough punch yet

Russia

Spoiler :

Licorne - This unit is too powerful right now. It has double move in enemy territory, can move after firing and has 3 range. I think the range should be removed. Our discussion of the French 75mm revealed that the base, in-game field gun would have outranged a licorne, so I think it makes sense.

Songhai

Spoiler :

Mud Pyramid Mosque - This building is lackluster as an idea. I'm leaning towards the Qadi instead. This would be the 3rd courthouse replacement in the game, unfortunately, but I think it's a much more interesting concept

Zulu

Spoiler :

Iziko - Another lackluster building ATM, but I think we just need to give this more thought. What if it triggered a yield whenever a unit levels up on empire, instead of on population growth? That would match the Zulu UA and InDuna better

Lastly, is it time to absorb @FieryCharizard7's England into either Adan or BG's larger portions? No one has given any feedback on England, and I think that largely has to do with it being loose and by itself. If I recall, all that needs to be changed on it is that the free GArtifact needs to changed from a generic one to a specific one

I forgot to reduce Licornes range on last update. Will be in v20.
This is huge buff to Polder. Do you have in mind what we take in exchange?
SPAD for now has only Quick Study staying on upgrade. I think Stable range is doable.
@pineappledan Could you make Figs Font Icon 22px more sharper? It is to faded comparing to the other small font icons. You could send me this one with one for Strategic View I asked before. I would add them in this update.
@FieryCharizard7 said he will get back to coding after I gave him some suggestions. If he is willing to pass me his work then I can add his England and repair (I hope) rest of the things after I finish Rome Crusade.

pineappledan · Dec 28, 2017

adan_eslavo said:
This is huge buff to Polder. Do you have in mind what we take in exchange?

Maybe take the +1 gold to villages/towns off of them?

adan_eslavo said:
@pineappledan Could you make Figs Font Icon 22px more sharper? It is to faded comparing to the other small font icons. You could send me this one with one for Strategic View I asked before. I would add them in this update.

I can do that later tonight

Jarula · Dec 28, 2017

I really like the changes to Germany why not though give slaganz morale?

adan_eslavo · Dec 28, 2017

I used lua code from Enginseer's Polder2 and non of the new worker replacement is needed. It was so easy.

Hinin · Dec 28, 2017

adan_eslavo said:
I don't like Klepht mercenaries idea. They weren't mercenaries but revolutionist or guerillas fighting for Greek independence afair.

The Foreign Legionaires weren't mercenaries either (although the image of the "ex-legionaire now mercenary" is popular in fictions). By suggesting the Klepht as I did, I had two things in mind :
- I wanted to separate thematically the Greek standing army and the guerillas which fought against Ottoman forces. The Klepht existed at a time where Greece hadn't any real army, since the country was occupied, but, in the context of a Civ V game where Greece will always have a standing army, I thought that the unit could be a sort of mix between a mercenary-type unit and a infantry skirmisher which could stand side by side with the Greek "Hoplites" Riflemen.
- I wanted to have another effect for the interaction of the unit with allied CStates, since the Corsair now also gain food/production on kill (and the bonus of the Corsair fits more thematically).

adan_eslavo said:
It is not possible to make specialist and gppoint to specialize in different areas. I can make dummy building which produces GSerP f.e. and is spawned immediately after building Agora. Those points would be visible only in Agora's description and in Great Diplomat Meter. Specialist as a person produce only their type of GPPoints and it is coded into them. We could make our own type of specialist but it is not worth such amount of work.

I suggested a similar method for the Grande Ecole (the creation of a building with a engineer specialist when the building is constructed), so this way of doing things is fine for me. What do you think of the concept itself ? It would make Greece even more interactive with the CStates through the use of GMerchants and GDiplomats.

adan_eslavo said:
To be honest I only like this Ambush promotion with range attack before melee in defensive stance.

Maybe this could be something we could use for a later UC.

pineappledan said:
W.R.T. combining Barbary Pirates and Razzia promotions, that would not change anything within the game mechanics. The one thing it would change is it would make a very, very long promotion description. I would keep them broken up just so that they are more legible to the players.

Your argument is valid. However, if the effect of the current "Barbary pirate" promotion becomes only "Can enter rival territory", the resulting fused promotion wouldn't be much longer than the current "Razzia" promotion.

pineappledan said:
I think you are misunderstanding the potential of the 'barbary pirate' promotion. You could park 1-2 corsairs in another civ's territory and turn them into barbs on purpose. No declaration of war, no unit maintenance, no supply cap, and as long as the civ is a good distance from you, no blowback.

I have an idea : I don't like the idea of randomness in this promotion, so why not transforming the "Barbary pirate" promotion into : "Can enter rival territory ; when disbanded, becomes a barbarian unit instead" ? This way, you could control the transformation, and it would capture the "undisbandable" nature of the pirates/mercenaries : when not paid, they looted the lands around them (so like civ barbarians let loose).

pineappledan said:
The klepht ideas, outside of the "can move after purchase", I'm not a fan of. I don't know much about the kopesh, but it seems okay to me to take their anti-mounted promotion. They have 2 fairly good promotions otherwise to compensate, and it would help distinguish them from the hoplite, who has the same CP, but worse promotions

For the Klepht, I simply think some more attributes should be added to it and the Cacadores to make the two unit more unique.
For the Kopesh, we agree completely.

pineappledan · Dec 28, 2017

Here is the Fig SV icon, and a sharpened up version of the font icon. I did the SV icon at 256px, which is consistent with how it appears in the extra luxuries mod. If they are really 128px as you say then it should be a small matter to scale this down.

Current Klepht build

Spoiler :

So the problem is that both this unit and Cacadores are mobility-centered, "ranger" units, albeit they go about it in different ways. Cacadores gets access to scout promotion line abilities while Klepht gets double hill movement and moves after attack. Klepht's big difference is it's lack of covering fire and its Philhellenism bonus, so any differences will come from there.

Some other possibilities for Klephts and Philhellenism, in light of @Hinin's critique:

Spoiler :

Can make the Influence boost small enough that it barely keeps up with decay, then give some other benefit. Option 3 would be an interesting thing, I think

EDIT: added to the list of possible alternatives. I will copy this onto the 4UC spreadsheet

Hinin · Dec 28, 2017

pineappledan said:
Perhaps the real issue is the Klepht's bonus on kills then? what if instead of Klephts getting a food/prod bonus per CS ally, they got 5 Influence on kills to all city states?

Imo, this would be far too powerful. I think we should avoid any type of bonus adding influence to all known CS : every time I've seen this kind of thing in a civ V game, it was so abusable it threw the balance off immediatly. Sorry if I'm a little too absolute here, but I don't think it is the right solution.

Edit : Option 3 seems to be the most interesting (it is a good idea), but it seems difficult to code, no ?

pineappledan · Dec 28, 2017

I don't think so? You would have a lua event trigger for a CS gift, immediately delete and replace the unit with a klepht. Give the Kelpht the XP from buildings in the city it was given to, then an additional 30XP. It could use the InitUnit() like the current incarnation of the Shophet

I like your idea of the corsair being converted to a barbarian if disbanded outside friendly territory. I think I like it better than the "can enter enemy territory and be a barbarian" thing. Maybe it could do both, but I don't think it's necessary.

@Blue Ghost, would it be possible to remove the "can enter enemy territory without open borders" and replace it with "When disbanded outside friendly territory, converts to a barbarian instead of disappearing."?

Blue Ghost · Dec 28, 2017

America:
Out of the two proposed promotions, I think Monitor would be easier to implement, so I'll go with that one. Hampton Roads might do weird things with unit pathing.

Arabia:
Unfortunately, the function for detecting when a unit or building is built can only tell you if faith was spent to buy it, not how much faith was spent, so scaling yields by faith spent is not an option.

Assyria:
Okay, I'll try to get Fury of Nergal working.
One possible idea for the Iron Chariot is for it to get bonuses for owning horses and/or iron. Something like +20% bonus for having unused horses, and +20% for unused iron, with a corresponding reduction in base CS.

Aztecs:
I don't think having a separate promotion for increased sight is going to matter all that much gameplay-wise. So the main question is whether it would be better aesthetically. Personally, I think it's more elegant to use existing promotions than to make new ones with the same effect.

Egypt:
If the Khopesh is too strong, I can nerf it. Bonus vs. mounted will be removed in the next release.

Portugal:
I don't have the best handle on balancing for unique wonders, but the University of Coimbra seems really strong already. The main reason I removed the production from Feitorias was simply for aesthetics, to reduce the number of different yields the building gives. If it's not enough, I can add one Culture in addition.

Morocco:
Okay, the question is what to do about the Corsair. What was the intended purpose of its converting to a barbarian? I see it as mostly a downside mechanic, to prevent it from camping in rival territory to pillage trade routes. The Xiafan Guanjun also gets the ability to enter rival territory, but it doesn't get to pillage trade routes while it's there. I guess converting to a barbarian could be desirable in niche situations, but spending a bunch of hammers to throw barbarians at one opponent instead of building yourself up doesn't seem like a winning strategy.
Alternative proposal: Have the corsair spawn a barbarian corsair (maybe two) when it plunders a trade route. That way you can get the ability to harass the opponent with barbarians without having to sacrifice your own units to do so.

pineappledan · Dec 28, 2017

Blue Ghost said:
Okay, the question is what to do about the Corsair. What was the intended purpose of its converting to a barbarian? I see it as mostly a downside mechanic, to prevent it from camping in rival territory to pillage trade routes. The Xiafan Guanjun also gets the ability to enter rival territory, but it doesn't get to pillage trade routes while it's there. I guess converting to a barbarian could be desirable in niche situations, but spending a bunch of hammers to throw barbarians at one opponent instead of building yourself up doesn't seem like a winning strategy.
Alternative proposal: Have the corsair spawn a barbarian corsair (maybe two) when it plunders a trade route. That way you can get the ability to harass the opponent with barbarians without having to sacrifice your own units to do so.

iiiineteresting... Like how barbarian units spawn galleys whenever they plunder your trade routes. I like it! :yup:

What I imagined was a sort of "plausible deniability" or "war by proxy" way of using Morocco. They are heavily discouraged to engage in direct war because their UA prioritizes keeping a diverse portfolio of trade partners. Their new UA, however, allows for Pillaging without War. Converting your UU into a barb when it is directly adjacent to another civ's border would essentially be War without War. If you could convert to barb on disbanding then the ability to enter territory without open borders is redundant, since you can simply park them just outside, disband them, and the barb will wander in.

I'm not sure what you are referring to w.r.t. the Xiafan Guanjun. They can enter CS territory without any diplomatic cost, sure, but they can't enter major civ territory without an open borders agreement. Can they?

Blue Ghost said:
I don't have the best handle on balancing for unique wonders, but the University of Coimbra seems really strong already. The main reason I removed the production from Feitorias was simply for aesthetics, to reduce the number of different yields the building gives. If it's not enough, I can add one Culture in addition.

I would add production instead of culture. Feitoria means 'factory', they were markets and warehouses for the trading of goods. I think production would be more apt.

The Feitoria system as it currently exists in game offers little reward for establishing feitoria inside CS territory if you already have access to their luxury. All that is given is vision around the feitoria and some bonus production/food on trade routes with that CS. This means there's rarely more than 4-5 unique opportunities to steal CS resources, and no reward for building feitoria outside the range of your trade routes.

Blue Ghost said:
One possible idea for the Iron Chariot is for it to get bonuses for owning horses and/or iron. Something like +20% bonus for having unused horses, and +20% for unused iron, with a corresponding reduction in base CS.

Not a bad idea.
Iron Chariot
13 CS (2 less than horseman)
+25% CS if empire has source of iron or horse (13x1.25=16.25, +1 from horseman)
Does not require horses

Would it be possible to have the bonus only apply if (Available Iron + Available Horses) > # Iron chariots?

Blue Ghost said:
Out of the two proposed promotions, I think Monitor would be easier to implement, so I'll go with that one. Hampton Roads might do weird things with unit pathing.

I hadn't thought about AI pathing. The unit would prevent units from dipping in and out of ZOC, which might be desireable, but AI might not understand it has to give the monitor a wide berth.

Blue Ghost said:
Unfortunately, the function for detecting when a unit or building is built can only tell you if faith was spent to buy it, not how much faith was spent, so scaling yields by faith spent is not an option.

Would it at least be possible to have the madrasa give quadruple yields on GP purchases then? By industrial that 20 science has become 40 science (GetCurrentErax10). That's only 4% of the faith cost of your first GP, and the math gets worse from there, since the GP costs scale logarithmically. Even at 4x science yields that's only 16% Faith -> Science conversion.

Looking at this math, I think 40 science on purchase would be optimal (GetCurrentErax20). Outside of military units, the average non-GP purchase is 200+ faith. The current 10% science conversion is worse than a Bank. Raising it to 20% would be more in line for a UB I think

Blue Ghost said:
I don't think having a separate promotion for increased sight is going to matter all that much gameplay-wise. So the main question is whether it would be better aesthetically. Personally, I think it's more elegant to use existing promotions than to make new ones with the same effect.

Elegance is one thing, I was more interested in having the Eagle have the potential for +2 vision. That could simply mean giving the unit Scouting II instead of Sentry, but making it a separate promotion is also an opportunity to make it thematic.

Any thoughts on my suggestion for Japan?

EDIT: @adan_eslavo I noticed you are altering pantheons for the latifundia as well. I had forgotten about pantheons.

Is adding the yields for Oral tradition (now Goddess of Springtime) wise? They will have plantations on the figs as well, which will receive the GoSt bonus, so this would effectively double the yields from this pantheon
Rhiannon makes total sense though, yeah. If the monolithic church has kept its marble then that should be added here as well, right?

Blue Ghost · Dec 28, 2017

pineappledan said:
iiiineteresting... Like how barbarian units spawn galleys whenever they plunder your trade routes. I like it!

What I imagined was a sort of "plausible deniability" or "war by proxy" way of using Morocco. They are heavily discouraged to engage in direct war because their UA prioritizes keeping a diverse portfolio of trade partners. Their new UA, however, allows for Pillaging without War. Converting your UU into a barb when it is directly adjacent to another civ's border would essentially be War without War. If you could convert to barb on disbanding then the ability to enter territory without open borders is redundant, since you can simply park them just outside, disband them, and the barb will wander in.

I'm not sure what you are referring to w.r.t. the Xiafan Guanjun. They can enter CS territory without any diplomatic cost, sure, but they can't enter major civ territory without an open borders agreement. Can they?

I added the ability to enter rival civs without open borders to the Xiafan Guanjun, since that's the easiest way I found to negate the diplomatic penalty from city-states.

pineappledan said:
I would add production instead of culture. Feitoria means 'factory', they were markets and warehouses for the trading of goods. I think production would be more apt.

The Feitoria system as it currently exists in game offers little reward for establishing feitoria inside CS territory if you already have access to their luxury. All that is given is vision around the feitoria and some bonus production/food on trade routes with that CS. This means there's rarely more than 4-5 unique opportunities to steal CS resources, and no reward for building feitoria outside the range of your trade routes.

All right, I can do that.

pineappledan said:
Not a bad idea.
Iron Chariot
13 CS (2 less than horseman)
+25% CS if empire has source of iron or horse (13x1.25=16.25, +1 from horseman)
Does not require horses

Would it be possible to have the bonus only apply if (Available Iron + Available Horses) > # Iron chariots?

Would be a bit more complex code-wise, but I think it could work.
I'm thinking to count the bonuses for iron and horses separately. Either have each give +20%, or have horses only count on offense, and iron count on defense.

pineappledan said:
Would it at least be possible to have the madrasa give quadruple yields on GP purchases then? By industrial that 20 science has become 40 science (GetCurrentErax10). That's only 4% of the faith cost of your first GP, and the math gets worse from there, since the GP costs scale logarithmically. Even at 4x science yields that's only 16% Faith -> Science conversion.

Yeah, that's doable.

pineappledan said:
Elegance is one thing, I was more interested in having the Eagle have the potential for +2 vision. That could simply mean giving the unit Scouting II instead of Sentry, but making it a separate promotion is also an opportunity to make it thematic.

Hmm, I suppose I could. I don't think it's necessary, but I'll consider it.

pineappledan said:
Any thoughts on my suggestion for Japan?

+100% attack bonus against cities? That's a huge bonus. If we do that, we'd have to nerf it some other way. Bring its base CS way down, maybe.
Also, Indirect Fire on a naval unit? So it can hit targets really far inland?

pineappledan · Dec 29, 2017

Blue Ghost said:
I added the ability to enter rival civs without open borders to the Xiafan Guanjun, since that's the easiest way I found to negate the diplomatic penalty from city-states.

Oh I had imagined that the Kowtow would simply mitigate the effects of trespassing if you weren't already friendly.

If you wanted it to work in the way you describe, Wouldn't it be more elegant to have the promotion give more influence to non-friendly city-states, and then go down to +2 influence if the city is friendly? Like, if trespassing is a -5 influence penalty per turn, make the kowtow give 7 influence in non-friendlt CSs? Then you wouldn't have to give it permanent open borders

Blue Ghost said:
I'm thinking to count the bonuses for iron and horses separately. Either have each give +20%, or have horses only count on offense, and iron count on defense.

If that's the case, the unit would be slightly hobbled by not having 2 resources. I wouldn't go lower than 14 CP base
Iron Chariot
14 CP (-1 from horseman)
Equine Offense: +15% on attack for an available source of Horses on Empire (14x1.15= 16.1)
Ferric Defense: +15% on defense for an available source of Iron on Empire (14x1.15= 16.1)
Nergal's Fury: 10% CS for every adjacent enemy unit
No Horses Required

Blue Ghost said:
+100% attack bonus against cities? That's a huge bonus. If we do that, we'd have to nerf it some other way. Bring its base CS way down, maybe.
Also, Indirect Fire on a naval unit? So it can hit targets really far inland?

The Yamato is the last UC in the game, and the current proposal has a reward for killing it. Earlier this week you contemplated moving another similarly late UC up just so it could get more use. I'm more worried that we might not go far enough with this unit. The armies are so big and complex by that stage of the game that a UU has to be major in order to create any sort of swing.
The base battleship already has indirect fire

EDIT: updated my list of possible alternative Klepht ideas (see above). Copied onto the 4UC by civ spreadsheet

For my money, I think that Philhellenism should be changed to +3 :c5influence:

Influence on kills; a small enough bonus that it would be difficult to abuse.
Then I would add the "Yeast of Liberty" promotion (+4% CP/RCP for every foreign capital the enemy controls)

Hinin · Dec 29, 2017

In the civ overview spreadsheet, I've formulated an idea concerning Songhai : since both the Songhai UM will be unlocked at the same time, why not make both UM interact with each other (the Sofa has the "Father of the Horse" promotion, whose effect I don't like, but I like the idea behind the promotion itself ; why not give the Mandekalu cavalry an effect allowing it to spawn Sofa one way or another ?).

For the Sofa itself, I would be for making it a utility unit with additionnal CP, less RCP, a dramatically reduced cost (a sort of medieval version of this unit) and a lot of utility : "Medic I" seems a good start, and "Father of the Horse" could increase this healing for mounted units ; in addition, because the Sofa were slaves, why not make them able to have some worker actions in order to quickly repair the pillaged improvements of conquered cities ? We could also nullify their maintenance cost, or reduce their cost based on the number of conquered cities owned by the player.

What do you think ?

pineappledan · Dec 29, 2017

I don't mean to sound like I'm necessarily in love with what I proposed for the Sofa, but I much prefer it to what you have suggested. Most of that comes from me not agreeing with your view on how a support unit would function in game. I think the Sofa, as proposed, does an admirable job of support. It heals units faster and increases CS of a unit class different than its own.

Sofa originated as the stablehands of the mounted nobility soldiers (Farari), but eventually took on the roles of skirmishers and footsoldiers. They weren't laborers, so allowing them to build improvements wouldn't be accurate.

The Farari (mandekalu cavalry), being nobility, were expected to finance and maintain their own weapons and armor. Sofa were purchased and outfitted by the state. I don't know how you reflect this difference in-game, but I don't think simply reducing maintenance would do the trick. If anything, their maintenance should be GREATER than your cavalry.

I don't think they really are similar to the Goedendag at all.
Goedendag are melee, Sofa are ranged
Goedendag gives CS bonus to any unit; that includes other Goedendags. Sofa bonus is only to cavalry; they can never strengthen another sofa.
Goedendags have 1 tile radius, requiring a pike-wall formation. Sofa have a 2 tile radius, so they form a nucleus or beehive, likely stacked with a GG

The two units would play extremely differently. Since your cavalry don't have penalties vs cities they form the melee core, while the sofas accompany the GG and siege weapons.

Narmer's Iry-Pdt was the inspiration for my Fusta proposal. Ultra-low CS and production cost, no maintenance and no special abilities. It's not a support unit; Iry-Pdt is a zerging unit.

I'm more concerned with the buildings. Honestly, I think the Sofa is fine as it is. I have been thinking about possible UBs for Songhai and this is what I have come up with:

Qadi (Courthouse)

Spoiler :

Qadi were the courts which implemented Sharia law, which was in full effect within the Songhai Empire. The upper and middle classes were generally Muslim, but the lower class was mostly comprised of people who followed traditional local beliefs. I like this better than the mud pyramid mosque idea, but not a whole lot. It's the 3rd courthouse replacement, which is bad.

Treasury (New Building Class)

Spoiler :

A new building class which does very little on its own, but reinforces culture and gold for every conquest made. You have to stay hungry and on the warpath to get much use from the building, since most of its bonuses decay within 10 turns.

Arbi Compound (Workshop)

Spoiler :

Arbi were royal slaves, the property (mamluk) of the royal house, who worked as craftsmen, skilled labor, and musicians. This proposal is similar to the others, but the replaced building would be further back, and would synergize exceptionally well with the existing Tabya.

Jarula · Dec 29, 2017

Like the courts and treasury courts is honestly best though. Personally I think the idea of only one of each is kind of silly.

Infixo · Dec 29, 2017

Guys, since you are creating a lot of new units and assigning promotions to them, and probably creating new promos as well, you might find useful an updated Promotions page I did for Civilopedia. It lists all promotion features directly from DB, so you can very easy find bugs, inconsistent entries or descriptions, etc.

pineappledan · Dec 30, 2017

Carthage & Venice are complete and ready to be incorporated.

Venice works as is, no strings attached

Carthage requires the most recent version of the VP mod (12-15), and the replacement of the CvGameCore_Expansion2.dll file, found at ...\MODS\(1) Community Patch with the one which has been attached here.

It is necessary because it exposes historical and supply cap triggers to .lua code, so they could be turned off on GP birth in .lua. This was necessary because the conversion of Shophets from GA to GG and back again by embarking/disembarking is considered a consumption of the original unit & birth of a new GP. This triggered Historical Events and Supply Cap increases simply by moving back and forth on the coast.

Special thanks to @Infixo for the necessary coding to alter the .dll file. This unit would not have been possible without his effort.

Future versions of VP should hopefully not require the replacing of the .dll file. We have made @Gazebo aware of the change and it will hopefully be incorporated into future patches. Infixo has offered to take on the job of proper documentation and submission of the .dll for update.

If you do not update the .dll file the game will still run with Carthage. They will just have access to endless tourism and military supply

3UC/4UC for VP: Project Coordination Thread

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