Counterproposal to (5-59) Nerf "gift specific unit" quest
Proposal:
Rationale:
As it was pointed out in the discussion of the OP, nerfing the rewards doesn't address the deeper problem of the quest: It can effectively be fulfilled by giving the city-state gold, which is then partially refunded. Beside the fact that this doesn't feel like a good quest design, it is also effectively a trade of gold for influence. It's similar to the vanilla implementation of just spending gold to get influence, and goes against the VP concept of having to use diplomatic units (of course, diplomatic units can also be bought, but at least there are cooldowns, they have to actively travel to the CS, and there's the paper restriction).
With this proposal, an XP requirement is added that forces the player to actually produce the unit, not just buy it. This makes it harder to fulfill the quest and the player is faced with the decision if he really wants to give away a fully-trained unit. The restriction that the quest is not given if there are no buildings that give XP yet prevents having an incentive for delaying Barracks.
One limitation of this proposal is that with the Freedom Policy "Draft Registration" (Full XP for bought units), it would still possible to fulfill the quest as before. On the other hand, in the late game the relative value of the quest has decreased a lot because of the strong rise of unit costs in Industrial, and because diplomatic units can now be produced in high numbers.
Proposal:
- The rewards for the quest stay as they are currently
- In order to fulfill the quest, the gifted unit must have a minimum amount of XP (stated in the quest description)
- The amount of XP required is the amount of XP a newly produced unit has when produced in the "best" city
- UI improvement: When selecting a unit to gift to the CS, the hexagons around the units that fulfill the requirements have a different color than white
- The quest will not be given if no buildings that give XP have been built yet (no "0 XP" requirement)
Rationale:
As it was pointed out in the discussion of the OP, nerfing the rewards doesn't address the deeper problem of the quest: It can effectively be fulfilled by giving the city-state gold, which is then partially refunded. Beside the fact that this doesn't feel like a good quest design, it is also effectively a trade of gold for influence. It's similar to the vanilla implementation of just spending gold to get influence, and goes against the VP concept of having to use diplomatic units (of course, diplomatic units can also be bought, but at least there are cooldowns, they have to actively travel to the CS, and there's the paper restriction).
With this proposal, an XP requirement is added that forces the player to actually produce the unit, not just buy it. This makes it harder to fulfill the quest and the player is faced with the decision if he really wants to give away a fully-trained unit. The restriction that the quest is not given if there are no buildings that give XP yet prevents having an incentive for delaying Barracks.
One limitation of this proposal is that with the Freedom Policy "Draft Registration" (Full XP for bought units), it would still possible to fulfill the quest as before. On the other hand, in the late game the relative value of the quest has decreased a lot because of the strong rise of unit costs in Industrial, and because diplomatic units can now be produced in high numbers.