(8-13a) Hinin/Gwennog/Pdan/Rekk 4UC Egypt

[Stalker0]

The more I think about it, the more I think either the city part or the ruins part is superfluous. You can (and lots of people do, as I understand it) play without ruins, so it has to be that one really.
I will update the OP to scratch the ancient ruins part. I think it's unnecessary variance (sometimes you get like 7 ruins!)

I would shift it to pure wonders. Wonders are an absolutely known quantity, you know the absolutely maximum impact they could have on the archeology race (and prevents things like generating more ancient sites than are allowed type of thing).

You might need to make the obelisk cooler to compensate but no issue with that since it requires a wonder.

 

[Stalker0]

I will use the old Spain card because i think the argument still holds. We changed Spain because their "inability to convert their religion" was too oppresive. Either you conquered them, or often had to fold to their religious power.

Its feeling the same way with egypt and teh archeology game. If I want a piece of the archeology mini-game....I have to kill egypt? (in which case I basically get ALL of the archeology game). Is that really a good look for the game....everytime Egypt is in the game I have to wipe them to enjoy one of the standard mini-games?

 

[hokath]

I didn't experience that when I played as this Egypt, but of course it depends on settings (difficulty and map size).

For standard size I'm not sure how many total artifacts there are. Do you know?

 

[pineappledan]

I would shift it to pure wonders. Wonders are an absolutely known quantity, you know the absolutely maximum impact they could have on the archeology race (and prevents things like generating more ancient sites than are allowed type of thing).

You might need to make the obelisk cooler to compensate but no issue with that since it requires a wonder.

If you shifted it to only wonders there is a good chance you would only get to build your UI a handful of times all game. There needs to be some sort of “safe” source of obelisks or else the component is too unreliable to be justified

 

[pineappledan]

A compromise idea:
What if ruins on settle were a new ruin that didn’t pull from the global pool, and ruins that spawn from wonders DID pull from the global pool?

That would result in the same number of additional artifacts from Egypt’s kit that are supplied now: 1 city = 1 additional site/artifact

 

[ScarletArkyning]

A compromise idea:
What if ruins on settle were a new ruin that didn’t pull from the global pool, and ruins that spawn from wonders DID pull from the global pool?

That would result in the same number of additional artifacts from Egypt’s kit that are supplied now: 1 city = 1 additional site/artifact

Seems like a good compromise.

 

[ScarletArkyning]

If this and Hokath’s England are both passed then England will be Kill-On-Sight for Egypt

Isn’t that one historical tho? England stealing everything from Egypt that wasn’t nailed down?

 

[Cebrudras]

Could we make the UA grant everyone Open Borders on Egypt or is that too jank?

 

[hokath]

What if ruins on settle were a new ruin that didn’t pull from the global pool, and ruins that spawn from wonders DID pull from the global pool?
That would result in the same number of additional artifacts from Egypt’s kit that are supplied now: 1 city = 1 additional site/artifact

It's a nice option. It feels like this would make the artifact-increasing effect start to vanish on larger and larger maps, since the number of cities you have presumably because a smaller fraction of the number of sites allowed.
On that tangent, there's also the concern that since the number of possible wonders is constant, the UA strength actually decreases as the map sizes increases due to more competition.

I will make the edit in the OP. Since the number of artifacts increasing due to Egypt is the current behavior, it is already baked-in to the current balance stats. I'm still a little put off by that though.

Could we make the UA grant everyone Open Borders on Egypt or is that too jank?

Too jank. I'll tell you what could be cool though, a World Congress Resolution that gave everyone open borders with the target civ. Kinda like a friendly sanction. Would also be useful when there is a culture victory holdout.

 

[pineappledan]

My main concern is that Tying the Obelisk and UA to ONLY wonder production would make both components Stronger in an OCC, since you don't spend any on settlers. That seems weird.

 

[hokath]

Personally not thinking about OCC, but more that if you had it on only wonder production you would see very few UI and barely any outside the capital. The yields would also have to be higher.
At that point it would be much easier to just give +x, y, z yield per World Wonder (which is already a table iirc)

 

[Rekk]

For standard size I'm not sure how many total artifacts there are. Do you know?

Between 5 and 8 per starting player.

Sites don't like spawning near each other, so Egypt is unlikely to get many if any new sites at all in or near its borders at Archaeology.

you would see very few UI and barely any outside the capital

Antiquity sites produced from wonders appear randomly near any of your cities, not in the city where the monument was built. I wrote it this way specifically because they would all appear in the capital, otherwise.

They appear on ancient ruins in order to give an interesting direction for Egyptian settling; They have a high likelihood of spawning on Ancient Ruins naturally and there are a limited number of ruins, so this is a nice tie-in for Egypt who wouldn't normally get any of these at Archaeology. Even if Egypt spawns a high number of sites from ruins, it's unlikely they'll be able to settle on top of all or even most of them.

Note that after archaeology is discovered, any antiquity sites created by the UA are in addition to the total number of sites.

 

[azum4roll]

What happens if you already own all the sites on the map and still try to "reveal" one more?

 

[Rekk]

What happens if you already own all the sites on the map and still try to "reveal" one more?

I think you're asking:
"What happens when someone discovers Archaeology if Egypt has already spawned all 40-64 antiquity sites before then?"
No additional sites will spawn naturally.

Or maybe:
"Can sites spawn near each other if they have to?"
There is a weighting algorithm that severely reduces the likelihood of a site spawning within 3 tiles of another one, but if there's nowhere else to spawn, then spawning inside that range isn't prohibited.


Ownership has nothing to do with it.

 

[Rekk]

A compromise idea:
What if ruins on settle were a new ruin that didn’t pull from the global pool, and ruins that spawn from wonders DID pull from the global pool?

That would result in the same number of additional artifacts from Egypt’s kit that are supplied now: 1 city = 1 additional site/artifact

I was unable to create "free" antiquity sites using Lua, but with c++ this is definitely possible.

 

[Rekk]

The goal with the original Obelisks was to provide some way for the Egyptians to better defend their "core tiles", since this is a civ that puts a lot of yields on a single spot.

If by core tiles, you mean almost the entirety of Egyptian territory. A 3 tile radius with one guaranteed monument per city is a lot of ground, only getting larger as wonders are built.

 

[azum4roll]

I think you're asking:
"What happens when someone discovers Archaeology if Egypt has already spawned all 40-64 antiquity sites before then?"
No additional sites will spawn naturally.

Or maybe:
"Can sites spawn near each other if they have to?"
There is a weighting algorithm that severely reduces the likelihood of a site spawning within 3 tiles of another one, but if there's nowhere else to spawn, then spawning inside that range isn't prohibited.


Ownership has nothing to do with it.

No, I was asking
1) If one Egypt player somehow spawns all the antiquity sites (does this include hidden ones btw?), what happens if they try to spawn one more?
2) If there are multiple players with the trait, do they steal sites from each other?

 

[Rekk]

No, I was asking
1) If one Egypt player somehow spawns all the antiquity sites (does this include hidden ones btw?), what happens if they try to spawn one more?
2) If there are multiple players with the trait, do they steal sites from each other?

Note that after archaeology is discovered, any antiquity sites created by the UA are in addition to the total number of sites.

The code just spawns a site whenever Egypt settles a city, finds a ruin or builds a wonder, period. At Archaeology, the code decides how many sites will exist based on starting major player count, then finds how many sites have already spawned, then generates additional sites until it has reached the number it wanted originally.

 

[azum4roll]

So there can be potentially more than the standard amount of sites in the world, but all will be in Egyptian territory.

 

[Adonis_VII]

@L. Vern Did you have any metrics on Great People production in your stats? I think it would be interesting to know how many extra Great Culture people civs with bonuses get; this would give a concrete comparison of extra great works from other UAs vs Artifacts from this proposed UA.