Arabia

[Mitch.sp]

And you're here voicing your opinion, that's awesome.



While you're pretty unlikely to get roads/caravans going before classical era, your ancient era is still painful just to look at

Yes, I feel a little guilty when was writing the table, but was made this way to keep an uniform progression.

I agree that 1 of each yield per tile throughout medieval era is pretty crazy, I mean even if you beeline, getting into renaissance is hard work.
Anyways while I still completely dislike the UA as it is, following your suggestion or just ramping up medieval era yields to +2 while keeping the rest of the table the same would be a better solution.


However if you are still committed to this UA that doesn't have any religious component at all, you should probably rework the religious part of the UB.

Maybe one option to add a bit of a religious component to the UA is add 1 Faith to previous yields only applicable to city tiles (to be clear, 1 Faith in desert city tiles with trade route or road) for example since Medieval ahead.

 

[Funak]

Maybe one option to add a bit of a religious component to the UA is add 1 Faith to previous yields only applicable to city tiles (to be clear, 1 Faith in desert city tiles with trade route or road) for example since Medieval ahead.

I entertained the thought of just replacing one of the yields from the UA with faith, but I'm not sure it comes early enough to be relevant. Also, the only realistic yield to replace would be the gold, and that seems rather un-thematic.

 

[Gazebo]

Here's what I've got thus far (actually set down and penned it out in the DLL:

UA: Culture/Food/Gold (removed production to avoid Petra problem)
UB: removed faith and religious pressure (added religious pressure to basilica)

Scaling:

Culture

Ancient 1
Classical 1
Medieval 1
Renaissance 2
Industrial 2
Modern 3
Atomic 3
Information 4

Food/Gold
Ancient 1
Classical 1
Medieval 2
Renaissance 3
Industrial 3
Modern 4
Atomic 5
Information 6

G

 

[Funak]

Here's what I've got thus far (actually set down and penned it out in the DLL:

UA: Culture/Food/Gold (removed production to avoid Petra problem)

Guess we aren't thinking of the same things when we say Petra problem
By Petra problem I mean that the yields provided by the UA (or petra) are balanced around flat desert being useless for improvements, Trading-posts in vanilla and nothing in CPP. But since they provide the same yields for desert hills that not only have some extra production in base, but can also actually be improved, by mines in this case. It really doesn't have anything to do with production, it mostly results in either desert-hills with mines being extremely strong, or flat land desert tiles without improvements being extremely weak.
However, I'm not sure I dislike the change to culture either way. Pushing that much culture into the game early on might be too strong however.

UB: removed faith and religious pressure (added religious pressure to basilica)

I like the fact that you removed the religion from the Bazaar, but lets not get hasty about the Basilica, it along with Byzantium have other problems that would probably be better to tackle.

About the Bazaar, maybe improving the "incoming trade routes generate X/X gold" number slightly? I don't think any other UB does that, and with the bazaar being a pure trade-building now that could be fitting.

 

[Finarvi]

I agree with Funak's opinions And I think that idea with deserts giving +1 +1 is very interesting. Faith is yield that is very rare so it would be something new. And it would give you interesting feature: you could decide to work desert to get pantheon early. Even better if you get desert resource (which would also scale better with eras because you unlock iron, oil, uranium). Other idea was to give something like +1 +1 to improved desert (so quarries, mines etc. but also trade routes villages and GP improvements).

I see many more synergies with desert-faith-trade features. Current features are hmm, as Funak said: weird. Not saying they're very bad but I really dislike all this +3+3+3 brutal force.

 

[Gazebo]

I agree with Funak's opinions And I think that idea with deserts giving +1 +1 is very interesting. Faith is yield that is very rare so it would be something new. And it would give you interesting feature: you could decide to work desert to get pantheon early. Even better if you get desert resource (which would also scale better with eras because you unlock iron, oil, uranium). Other idea was to give something like +1 +1 to improved desert (so quarries, mines etc. but also trade routes and GP improvements).

I see many more synergies with desert-faith-trade features. Current features are hmm, as Funak said: weird. Not saying they're very bad but I really dislike all this +3+3+3 brutal force.

Overlap with Desert Folklore in that context is iffy. I'd rather leave the faith from deserts element to that pantheon.

G

 

[Funak]

Overlap with Desert Folklore in that context is iffy. I'd rather leave the faith from deserts element to that pantheon.

Absolutely, it was just one suggestion for how to handle it.

 

[Furkhail]

Could I suggest something along the lines of extending the influence of oasis and floodplains to adjacent not useful tiles.

For instance it could give +1 food or +1 production to those flat dessert tiles adjacent to floodplains and oasis and he ability to build farms on those tiles. Or maybe pastures (even without the proper resource), is just the same but more apropiate historically. It could read: "UA: Arabia can build pastures in flat dessert tiles adjacent to flood plains or oasis. Those tiles also get +1 food."

All of this removing the current UA yields from caravans ofc.

Traditionally the bedouin nomads would travel from agricultural settlement to another along the dessert.

Besides, unless you make the yields to stay after the destruction of a caravan, Arabia is screwed with the current system. I pretty much never let them have any caravan. Even if it means an early coldwar. I just destroy those caravans and nothing more, one civ less to worry about. The destruction of a couple caravans is terrible for Arabia. Think about it. If you lose an early caravan it hurts. Now, imagine losing yields to.

 

[Funak]

Could I suggest something along the lines of extending the influence of oasis and floodplains to adjacent not useful tiles.

For instance it could give +1 food or +1 production to those flat dessert tiles adjacent to floodplains and oasis and he ability to build farms on those tiles. Or maybe pastures (even without the proper resource), is just the same but more apropiate historically. It could read: "UA: Arabia can build pastures in flat dessert tiles adjacent to flood plains or oasis. Those tiles also get +1 food."

All of this removing the current UA yields from caravans ofc.

Traditionally the bedouin nomads would travel from agricultural settlement to another along the dessert.

Besides, unless you make the yields to stay after the destruction of a caravan, Arabia is screwed with the current system. I pretty much never let them have any caravan. Even if it means an early coldwar. I just destroy those caravans and nothing more, one civ less to worry about. The destruction of a couple caravans is terrible for Arabia. Think about it. If you lose an early caravan it hurts. Now, imagine losing yields to.

Let's not nag at Gazebo too much now, he made up his mind about the caravan thing.

 

[Furkhail]

Let's not nag at Gazebo too much now, he made up his mind about the caravan thing.

Oh! The irony!

 

[Funak]

Oh! The irony!

Yeah, but I just feel like an when people come in and support my ideas after G have already put his foot down. And while that is mostly because I am an , this doesn't really help

 

[Furkhail]

Yeah, but I just feel like an when people come in and support my ideas after G have already put his foot down. And while that is mostly because I am an , this doesn't really help

But what you think is putting his foot down about the caravans I believe is just about being desertfocused. Stated by him as: "This defeats the purpose of the UA being desert-focused, so no." He just changed the UA, so it is not like Russia where he is completely fine with it. So, I'm just giving my input, with something desert based. Not as extended or in depth as yours but...

 

[Furkhail]

And even if the caravan-yields stay, I brought up a concern about them.

Nevertheless you shouldn't feel bad right now because I wasn't supporting your idea per se. Just piggybacking your post without any fees whatsoever ofc. DCMA me if you want

BTW, this forum has censorship right?

 

[Funak]

But what you think is putting his foot down about the caravans I believe is just about being desertfocused. Stated by him as: "This defeats the purpose of the UA being desert-focused, so no." He just changed the UA, so it is not like Russia where he is completely fine with it. So, I'm just giving my input, with something desert based. Not as extended or in depth as yours but...

Land trade routes and desert

This would look really silly on the map, and defeats the purpose of the civ being 'land trade routes and desert.' The current UA works, and is balanced around the RNG + player choice regarding roads, tiles, and trade routes. I feel like this is more of an issue of 'you don't like it' (which is fine, but not necessarily grounds for change) than 'this is imbalanced.'

Anyways I'll just stop now, if you want to challenge the big man to a duel at sun-set go ahead and do that

BTW, this forum has censorship right?

I believe so, I've gotten words deleted in the middle of my posts making the entire thing sound silly. I also got a warning, by some mod, about using some word that wasn't covered by the auto-censorship.

 

[Furkhail]

Anyways I'll just stop now, if you want to challenge the big man to a duel at sun-set go ahead and do that

Is that from JFD Events and Decisions? "Duel with G." That would be awesome.

 

[jacktannery]

Just played a game as Arabia (immortal difficulty, marathon, sandstorm world). Feedback on new mechanics.

1. It all works this time! The increased desert yields work consistently when under a trade route or city connection and then disappear when the trade route or city connection is over. I never experimented with harbours (ie if a city with a capital road connection builds a harbour, will the road connection still have increased yields?) but the rest works as intended.

2. The yields felt balanced to me. I was playing on a desert map, though, which gave me a serious advantage.

3. I really enjoyed the MASSIVE amount of micromanaging the trait involved. Not for everyone, I admit, but very enjoyable to me. Added a whole new dimension to my game. It's going to be hard to go back to another more passive civ ability after this game.

4. The trait encourages the construction of RIDICULOUS road systems. I mean ridiculous. Basically, the least direct and most convoluted you can make your roads, the better the trait. Which also involves settling cities 6 or so tiles apart to maximise road winding. As I said, for me this was a lot of fun. Luckily the increased desert movement means I didn't mind that none of my units ever used the roads to get around between cities. The only thing I'll say it that it might not lead to the most realistic road network.

 

[Funak]

What if you let TPs on desert also provide the bonus? It would be kinda thematic, and since TPs is the only thing you can really build on desert-tiles you're going to give up those tradingposts on your roads or tradroutes(where they would be more useful) to get more desert-tiles with increased yields

 

[jacktannery]

Well actually the real trick with Arabia is to get each road to hit each desert-based resource and desert hill. Also to hit desert tiles adjacent to oasis (as these can be farmed). I also had some trading posts but these were my least numerous improvement.

I think changing their trait to simply having buffed trading posts would - for me at least - be way less fun. Though it would admittedly make for more sensible road networks.

 

[Funak]

I think changing their trait to simply having buffed trading posts would - for me at least - be way less fun. Though it would admittedly make for more sensible road networks.

I actually meant in addition to the roads.

 

[Strigvir]

The real question is can AI use current UA effectively?