[DLL] (8-NS) 4UC Austria UA Change

[ichris22]

Goal: Allow Austria to fulfil the fantasy of controlling city states without locking other civs out of most city states.

UA - Habsburg Diplomacy Current

+50% rewards from CS Quests. May arrange marriages to Allied CS with Gold. While at peace with Married CS, gain 75 Resting Influence, scaling with Era, and +15% GP generation in the Capital.​

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UA - Habsburg Diplomacy Proposed

+100% rewards from CS Quests with CS you border. May buy Sphere of Influence with Allied bordering CS using Gold. +25% GP generation in the Capital per Sphere of Influence and you may buy tiles from a sphered CS.​

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Rationale: The current UA for Austria makes their influence over city states global and can prevent other civs from being able to ally most city states. This change would give Austria a much greater reward for allying city states, but restrict that reward to a local level thus limiting the amount of city states under their control. It would also introduce some counterplay via the World Congress should Austria snowball. The exact percentage increase of rewards and GP generation rate can be changed if the consensus is that they are too high. Allowing Austria to purchase tiles from married city states is to prevent cities from being too weak from their proximity to a CS.

Amended to be more compact

Original 4UC changes which are included

 

[Rekk]

This UA is double the length of the current one (which is already quite long). If you can't describe the UA in four lines maximum on the Civ select screen, then it's trying to do too much.
Especially now that there are two other components to spread bonuses onto.

 

[Anarcomu]

I would go for a slightly different and condensed proposal :

UA - Habsburg Diplomacy Proposed
+50% rewards from CS Quests with CS. May arrange marriages to Allied bordering CS with Gold. While at peace with Married CS, gain a sphere of influence and +25% GP generation in the Capital.

 

[hokath]

If you have a sphere of influence I imagine you must be at peace.
So an even more streamlined form is
UA - Habsburg Diplomacy Proposed
+50% rewards from CS Quests with CS. May buy Sphere of Influence with Allied bordering CS using Gold. +25% GP generation in the Capital per Sphere of Influence.

With the obvious caveat that this includes spheres you get normally from the congress. Could drop GP rate to +20 to accommodate. I think it's more fun this way.

 

[Rosete]

This will mega buff Austria. The bordering requirement means that you're essentially trading 1 settler for 1 SoI. This UA will supercharge Austria's bonuses, not localized it. I'll just plop a city next to a city state, and gain a SoI that can only be removed via congress.

 

[ichris22]

If you have a sphere of influence I imagine you must be at peace.
So an even more streamlined form is
UA - Habsburg Diplomacy Proposed
+50% rewards from CS Quests with CS. May buy Sphere of Influence with Allied bordering CS using Gold. +25% GP generation in the Capital per Sphere of Influence.

With the obvious caveat that this includes spheres you get normally from the congress. Could drop GP rate to +20 to accommodate. I think it's more fun this way.

Amended to be shorter using this format

 

[ichris22]

This will mega buff Austria. The bordering requirement means that you're essentially trading 1 settler for 1 SoI. This UA will supercharge Austria's bonuses, not localized it. I'll just plop a city next to a city state, and gain a SoI that can only be removed via congress.

Right now by the end of the game you can marry every city state. Even if you can do this for a few, it's significantly less than currently possible.

 

[Stalker0]

The OG mentions that this will limit the scope of allies Austria can have but I don't see why that is. Is the gold cost here siginificantly more than in the current UA?


I will say I used to be on the +100% Quest train, but my eyes were opened by good debate and my own deep look at just how good that bonus is. +50% bonus is already tremendously good, +100% creates some weird power explosions at certain points in the game, and is not needed.

 

[ichris22]

The OG mentions that this will limit the scope of allies Austria can have but I don't see why that is. Is the gold cost here siginificantly more than in the current UA?


I will say I used to be on the +100% Quest train, but my eyes were opened by good debate and my own deep look at just how good that bonus is. +50% bonus is already tremendously good, +100% creates some weird power explosions at certain points in the game, and is not needed.

The +100% is only for CS you border and you get no bonuses with others, I made a typo when shortening. It doesn’t limit how many allies Austria can have but how many they can marry. You should only be able to marry a handful with this change vs the entire world in the current version.

 

[pineappledan]

Will you lose your sphere of influence if you lose the city bordering that city-state?

Otherwise I don’t see how this meaningfully limits Austria’s ability to marry CS, Except when you meet a city-state late enough or on too isolated of a start to have any valid settling locations near it. You used to pay gold for a large resting influence increase, and that is being changed to paying gold and a settler for a permanent sphere of influence. Just settle a crap city within range of a city-state, lock growth, marry the CS, and then sell the settled city to the nearest player for a positive diplo buff.

 

[Rekk]

Right now by the end of the game you can marry every city state. Even if you can do this for a few, it's significantly less than currently possible.

Right now, you don't get Spheres of Influence.

 

[azum4roll]

Sphere of Influence >>>>> resting influence. There are also CS on islands in the middle of nowhere that you can never share a border with unless you know how to terraform, so this ability is map dependent.

 

[pineappledan]

Indeed. A shared border requirement would make archipelago maps almost unplayable for Austria

 

[ichris22]

Indeed. A shared border requirement would make archipelago maps almost unplayable for Austria

The game is balanced around a standard game, not every map type. To address your earlier comment, you can't trade your own settled cities only conquered ones. So settling a terrible city just for this will make your empire worse with global increases for science etc. Not to mention the AI won't like you doing that and have a high chance of conquering both your city and newly allied CS.

 

[Rekk]

The game is balanced around a standard game, not every map type. To address your earlier comment, you can't trade your own settled cities only conquered ones. So settling a terrible city just for this will make your empire worse with global increases for science etc. Not to mention the AI won't like you doing that and have a high chance of conquering both your city and newly allied CS.

There's a huge gulf of difference between "not balanced for" and "unplayable on".

 

[Rekk]

I just realized that this doesn't have anything to do with 4UC integration.

 

[DoveCDog]

Maybe it would be good to add a caveat then:
If a City State does not share a border with any Civilization, you can buy the Sphere of Influence. You lose the Sphere of Influence if you do not share a border with the City State but another Civilization does.

 

[Recursive]

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