(8-18a) 4UC Greece: Long-Awaited Greece Nerf (and Klepht Buff)

[azum4roll]

Links:

[DLL] - (8-18) 4UC Greece

This is a thread for discussing the addition of 2 more unique components to the Greek civilization.

forums.civfanatics.com

(8-18a) Greece Alternative

Current: 1. Klepht (replaces Commando - Light Infantry in EE): available at Railroads 600 :c5production: Production Cost 34 :c5strength: CS 3 :c5moves: Movement "Ignores Terrain Costs" "+25% when Attacking" "Can Move After Attacking" "Philhellenism" (Gain :c5gold: Gold and :c5production...

forums.civfanatics.com

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Greece's decay lowering mechanic has been disproportionately overpowered ever since the decay formula was reworked to be exponential. It starts overtaking the proposed Austria's marriage (fixed 200 resting influence) at somewhere between 500 and 600 influence, without needing to spend gold. This proposal conserves the ability (and drops the pretty useless part), but limits it both in time and scope. It also smoothens the combat strength from CS allies, so it scales slower and caps later.

UA - Hellenic League
+3% Combat Strength of owned and Allied Units for each City-State alliance (up to +30%). Treat neutral City-State territory as friendly territory.

UNW - Parthenon (replaces Scrivener's Office)
Unlocks at Writing
Standard costs
No population requirement
10% cost scaling per city
+2 Paper (up from +1)
+2 +3 +1 (up from +1 )
Grants 2 free Emissary on completion (up from 1)
+25% Production towards Diplomatic Units on empire (up from +10% in this City)
+1 Food for Every City-State Friend
+1 Food, +1 Gold, and +1 Faith for Every City-State Ally
1 Civil Servant slot
+1 Gold and +1 Culture to all Markets and Herbalists
Diplomatic Units trained in all Cities gain the Proxenos promotion (-50% Influence decay of target City-State for 10 turns when performing a Diplomatic Mission.)
Note: 10 turns are added every time a Proxenos unit performs a Diplomatic Mission. There is no cap for this. The turn number should be noted on the decay tooltip.

The half decay is moved from the UA to a 10-turn ability on diplo units. The double influence recovery is removed as it's pointless on a diplo unit which already restores influence, and too wordy to stay on the UA for the minor effect.

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UU2 - Klepht (replaces Commando)
Unlocks at Railroads
Standard costs
38 (+6)
Reconnaissance
Brute Force
Commando
Combat Bonus When Attacking (25)
Scavenger
Can Move After Attacking
Philhellenism (+40% Combat Strength in Friendly City-State Territory.)

Default unit AI is set to UNITAI_FAST_ATTACK, same as Conquistador. This also makes it eligible for some free unit spawns that exclude recon units.
Flavors are also set similar to a combat unit.

Philhellenism, combined with the UA, means it has +40% strength in all CS territory, even while attacking one. As a recon UU, its base CS is made similar to common melee units. Even if not in CS territory, it can still benefit from the move after attacking + ignore ZOC combo very well. Should be at suitable power as a unique unit entering late game.

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EDIT 1: Changed combat strength per CS ally to 3%, capped at 30%.
EDIT 2: CS allies now give gold to Parthenon. Building boosts are nerfed to +1 .

 

[pineappledan]

Oof, I'm going to have to track the turns that have elapsed since I did a diplo mission so I can max an ability that was just always on before? That sounds like too much work. I agree that the decay bonus is too strong now, but I don’t like the micromanagement needed to track of turn timers like that.

IMO the cap on the % CS bonus per ally scales too fast and caps too soon. I would change to 3%, up to 10 allies (max of 30%)

 

[Cebrudras]

Could we make it global, but only apply for that turn? Organizing things so you just use one diplo unit per turn seems less annoying.

 

[hokath]

Both posts above are great suggestions.

 

[Circe]

Planning to pop a diplomat every turn seems more tedious and less friendly to the AI. You'll eventually reach the point where you can maintain the bonus permanently, so the nerf is merely a higher gold cost, and you can dump them all in your closest neighbor.
I'm assuming it refreshes to 10 every time a diplomatic mission is performed under the initial proposal, perhaps it could accumulate turns up to a higher cap instead, so there's less concern about waste. Reduce the number of turns per mission if necessary. I'd vote for it as is, though.
I like the Klepht, it needs the extra power if it's going to be good for anything.

 

[azum4roll]

I really should've noted that the turns stack (add 10 turns every time a Proxenos unit performs a Diplomatic Mission). You aren't supposed to keep track, and neither are the AI. Just consider it bonus influence that's delayed.

I'll also edit the UA to 3% per ally capped at 10.

 

[pineappledan]

I really should've noted that the turns stack (add 10 turns every time a Proxenos unit performs a Diplomatic Mission). You aren't supposed to keep track, and neither are the AI. Just consider it bonus influence that's delayed

Ah, that’s much friendlier.

Still I would be sad to lose the stacking gold. I think that sets greece apart a lot more from the other diplo civs than an influence bonus alone.

The original Parthenon design has very little gold on it so that it is not overly cluttered by the stacking gold. This design removed the permanent gold but added no gold back onto it. I feel this is a grave oversight, because the Parthenon was a treasury 1st and a temple 2nd. There needs to be way more gold on it.

 

[azum4roll]

I've nerfed the building boosts and given gold per CS allies. Better than trying to balance a permanent bonus that seems to be able to grow out of control.

 

[hokath]

Ah I see you put 1 gold on Allies. That's a good idea. Perhaps it can be +2.
+1/+1 bonuses on buildings are probably in the right ballpark.
Proxenos at 10 turns stacking may be too few turns, perhaps consider 15.

Hard to judge exactly how much of a nerf this would be.

Klepht will be pretty strong at 38. Fusilier strength with move after attack and scout movement promotions. More attractive than current, maybe I can ignore Rifling for a bit and tech to Diplomats

 

[pineappledan]

posting this here from the discord:

I think changing the decay reduction to be something that is targeted is a genuine improvement of the mechanic. It makes it more strategic and engaging.
I also like re-scaling the combat bonus so that it is not so easy to hit cap.
Both of these are very large nerfs to Greece's existing kit.
Azum is also proposing to strip out the stacking gold on diplomacy actions; this means the 4UC components will be used to nerf Greece almost exclusively, and offer no new mechanics.

This is being done because @azum4roll says that Greece is too strong, but I think the worry about Greece being OP is overblown.
Greece is Ranked 15th in base VP 4.5 and 14th with 4UC: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/650-ai-game-4uc-stats-analysis.689648/
That's good, but it is still 2nd quartile, and not part of the top 10 which are a cut above the other civs. So Greece is not a major balance concern, and 4UC doesn't change that much about their placement.

This proposal would make 4UC Greece weaker than the current 2UC Greece, at the same time as every other civ is getting stronger. I think a reasonable to predict that Greece will be hit very hard by this change.
The current Parthenon's stacking gold is not the balance menace that some community members are making it out to be.

I think you should put back the stacking gold from diplo missions. I think nerfs this severe are uncalled for.

 

[azum4roll]

Greece is not played to its full potential by the AI.
- They usually pick Tradition, and won't try to do a Hoplite rush to eliminate a neighbour or two.
- Yet their personality is so hostile that they still get into multiple front wars, just later than when Hoplite is in its peak and other civs' UUs and walls start coming online.
- In 4UC, a human player would probably diplo bomb the closest CS for the permanent gold income that'll feed into more diplo units (especially with the UA capping at 5 allies), but the AI just doesn't know that and instead plays the normal diplo game.

Stacking permanent gold, if it were to exist, will need a cap. Unlike historic events, you can do a lot more diplomatic missions over the game.

 

[hokath]

MAGI:
Need to tweak the Greek scaling and cap values -- first is database but second is DLL
Different promotion compared to base, maybe as a column that specifies turns and assumes -50% decay?
Strength in friendly CS territory -- I don't think this exists but someone can correct me -- would be another column in UnitPromotions

 

[axatin]

The cap value is also database, BALANCE_MAX_CS_ALLY_STRENGTH is the max number of CS counting towards the bonus.

 

[azum4roll]

New columns in UnitPromotions:
DiploMissionHalfDecayTurns (integer, default 0)
FriendlyCSModifier (integer, default 0)

Need UI support on the influence tooltip for the remaining number of turns.

 

[Recursive]

Sponsored.

 

[Recursive]

Timestamp post to arrange all the threads in a neat order.