(8-43) 4UC Zulu

[pineappledan]

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

Spoiler Full kit with 4UC changes :

Spoiler Description of new components and changes to existing kit, differences from base component are underlined: :

UGP - InDuna (replaces Great General):

3 Movement Points​

"Leadership"​

"Ibutho" (When expended, grants +30 XP to the unit the Induna is Stacked with)​

Cannot Construct Citadels​

Can be expended to construct an Isibaya​

UGPTI - Isibaya (replaces Citadel)

111​

+11 to Cattle on the same Tile​

Places a Source of Cattle on the tile.​

1 to Adjacent Pastures​

100% Tile Defense​

30 damage each turn to Adjacent Enemy Units​

UB - Iziko (replaces Amphitheater)

Available at Drama and Poetry​

200 Production Cost​

No Gold Maintenance​

+3 Culture and +2 Faith​

Culture on unit Levelling. Scaling with Level (1 at level 2, 2 at level 3, etc.)​

+1 Culture and +1 Gold to Dyes, Brazilwood, and Silk, +2 Culture to Lapis Lazuli​

+33% Great Writer Points​

2 slots for Great Works of Writing (+2 when themed)​

 

[pineappledan]

Reserved

 

[Stalker0]

the unique GG and its improvement looks cool!

 

[azum4roll]

+11 to Cattle on the same Tile
Places a Source of Cattle on the tile.

I don't get this. Why not add that to the base yields?

 

[pineappledan]

There was a reason, but I can't remember what it was.

 

[pineappledan]

Overall grade: B
Zulu didn’t need much more help with warfare, so the 4UC team opted to use their warfighting bonuses to provide some cultural and economic benefits. The InDuna gives a little extra XP on expend, but is otherwise a purely economic boost over the base GGeneral. Likewise, the Iziko is a pure culture battery that turns war stories into global culture across your empire.

InDuna & Isibaya
Theme - A. The InDuna were warchiefs that organized the Ibutho of fighting men under their command. The Isibaya are commonly known as Kraals in English, militarized compounds for living and cattle protection. The Zulu culture and economy was centered around the cattle herds, which is noticeably absent from the current kit.
Mechanics - A. Great General that gives a large sum of XP to the unit it is stacked with when expended, and plants a cattle resource under its unique citadel replacement. It’s pretty flashy, but perhaps a bit style-over-substance. The adjacency bonus for other cattle resources does give the Zulu a slightly altered priority for placing their citadels, if you are in a position where you can be a bit more flexible with where you need your citadels.
Uniqueness - B. The abilities and components are interesting and unique, and the historicity is good. However, This is the Third Great General replacement, in addition to the Khan and the Suffet.

Iziko
Theme - D. It’s a bonfire. The centrality of the Iziko to Zulu life does not strike me as particularly different from any other culture, who all have strong attachments to firekeeping, stories, and music. We tried to give the Iziko a bit of flavor from South African philosophy of Ubuntu, but I don’t think that comes across.
Mechanics - B. A global version of the Dojo yields from leveling up. As would be expected the Iziko scales a lot with the number of cities in your empire. The unique bonus is undeniably potent in combination with the Zulu UA; no other bells and whistles required. The fact you have to divert all the way up to Drama and Poetry to get this culture engine on the Zulu, of all people, is interesting enough.
Uniqueness – C. Not that unique, and there is already the Greek Acropolis/Gymnasium with a similar culture for warfighting bonus on the Amphitheatre slot.

 

[hokath]

Yes I had that thought too.
The reason is presumably because you can construct the Citadel somewhere it cannot spawn the Cattle underneath itself?
Doing this loses you yields twice. Once from the cattle themselves and then once from the improvement bonus to the cattle of +1/+1 (same as pasture?)

 

[pineappledan]

Ah, yes that’s right. The cattle isn’t placed if you put the Isibaya on a tile that already has a resource. there needs to be an improvement yield so that the cattle actually does something, and people have no incentive to actually spawn it.

 

[Recursive]

Does the Iziko culture scale with era?

Sponsored.

 

[pineappledan]

No, the Iziko scaling is only by level and by number of cities:
Instant culture in all cities on empire is equal to the new level -1
1 culture for reaching lvl 2
2 culture for reaching lvl 3
Etc.

 

[hokath]

We have a Building_YieldFromUnitLevelUp already, is it really worth adding a slightly different version?
The two things here are the citadel placing the cattle, so a Improvement column PlacesResource
and the XP to stacked unit when the GG is expended, also needs AI support

 

[pineappledan]

That building table is local and the Zulu one is global. It also scales completely differently.

 

[hokath]

Ah ok so it's Building_YieldFromUnitLevelUpGlobal we want
Does the current one not scale with level like you describe?

 

[pineappledan]

The current one scales much higher and faster with levels, using exponents based on levels.

 

[Recursive]

So to clarify each Iziko grants +1 Culture in every city at level 2? So two Izikos would grant +2 Culture in every city?

 

[pineappledan]

Each iziko grants 1,2,3, etc culture when any unit levels up on empire. So unlike the dojo which only gives yields in 1 city, the total yields you get when units level up is multiplied by the number of Iziko’s you have built on empire.

 

[pineappledan]

So two Izikos would grant +2 Culture in every city?

When a unit attains lvl 2, Two izikos would grant a total of +2 culture on empire. +1 instant culture for each iziko.

 

[azum4roll]

Still giving the AI an unfair advantage, but this can't be easily transformed into yield from XP...

 

[Recursive]

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