Babylonia

[J. pride]

Yeah, why not. We can tie it to Monarchy completely, since most later civs will start with it anyway.

Yeah, that sounds even better since it is alot less scripted. All in all, I think this will be great in preventing early mega cultural empires.

 

[Ekolite]

Sounds like a good idea to me. Although China and to a lesser extent India might possibly be affected by not being able to access all their resources as quickly, although that's not necessarily a bad thing..

 

[Leoreth]

Exactly. And it even makes sense historically.

Other news from the Babylonia front: I've settled on the Ziggurat as their UB, it replaces the Pagan Temple, requires Polytheism and provides +4 culture, +5% science and +5% culture.

Babylonia works otherwise fine at the moment, but it's not possible to cram Masonry in which I'd like to have. The reason for that is the classical era tech penalty, which I plan to delay a little for Babylonia.

 

[jammerculture]

I like this idea, but why monarchy? I don't see the connection between having a king and spreading culture. I would think alphabet or literature would be a better choice as it makes more sense. As well I rarely see the early civs go after monarchy. Persia starts with it, and sometimes babylon gets it, but rarely any of the others. It is not on any of the needed tech paths for China. I rarely see Greece with it before they collapse, and less Greek culture is imo, a step back, they rarely cover enough territory a it is.

Babylon definitely needs to be able to research masonry

 

[Leoreth]

The idea is that you need something like monarchy to exert control over anything that isn't within the direct surroundings of your city.

But I've realized that Babylonia needs its third ring, to get the wheat for growing larger than Chang'an and Pataliputra. Limiting it to three still makes sense, though.

 

[jammerculture]

I agree it's that fourth growth that creates the problems most of the time

 

[J. pride]

But I've realized that Babylonia needs its third ring, to get the wheat for growing larger than Chang'an and Pataliputra. Limiting it to three still makes sense, though.

Why not just move the wheat one tile west? Three in my opinion is a lot since it covers not just Mesopotamia but also parts of Iran, Syria, Armenia, Arabia and Anatolia

 

[Leoreth]

Because Esfahan relies on this wheat. Also, I'm not going to mess Babylonia's strategy up only to make things look prettier.

 

[Linkman226]

Suggestion:

Tie settlers to Monarchy
Make the Egyptian UP that this is no longer true for them.

 

[Ekolite]

No, the Egyptian UP is good as it is, and restricting settlers till that late would make no real sense for China and India imo. It would also screw up Phoenicia completely.

 

[Leoreth]

Agreed.

 

[Linkman226]

How's the Egyptian UP any good anymore when nearly every civ already starts with civics selected? It needs to be revised one way or the other.

And Phoenicia honestly should start with Monarchy. And of course it makes sense for India/ China to be restricted to one city initially. Although perhaps Monarchy is not the tech, maybe something about a thousand years earlier.

 

[J. pride]

How's the Egyptian UP any good anymore when nearly every civ already starts with civics selected? It needs to be revised one way or the other.

And Phoenicia honestly should start with Monarchy. And of course it makes sense for India/ China to be restricted to one city initially. Although perhaps Monarchy is not the tech, maybe something about a thousand years earlier.

I agree, it is rather easy for the early Chinese and Indians to expand due to the better terrain. Also, it makes sense that every civilization start out as a city state (except maybe Greece and Pheoncia) and then start expanding at some point in their history; whatever tech that might be. This is rather crucial to strict Egypt and Babylon to two cities and as far as China and India are concerned, they have all the time in the world later on.

 

[jammerculture]

ugggh really guys?

every game starts out with a beeline to monarchy?

Let alone the concept of researching that far with one city. Think about production and food rich capitals like Changaan.

And explain why it is crucial to restrict that force-ably any civs to a number of cities? We already have a stability system to do that, and UHV goals that can only reasonably be accomplished by restricting your city sprawl.

I see no benefit to any of this

 

[Linkman226]

Never mind, you just made me realize that this would ruin the fun level by forcing Monarchy beelines.

 

[J. pride]

I would still like early Babylon to have just 1-2 cities and early Egypt 2-3 cities; I know that scripting that sounds harsh but some other "incentives" should be given to the AI and the human to comply to this. Well actually I could care less how other people play their game but the AI, I absolutely hate all of Eastern half of Africa belonging to Ancient Egypt or Babylon exerting influence all over the place.

 

[Linkman226]

This

And this

And I personally think of Babylonia in RFC as Assyria as well.

 

[J. pride]

And I personally think of Babylonia in RFC as Assyria as well.

Yes that's great but you do realize that most of these cities are already there and need to be conquered which does not require the AI to found more than 2 cities. Sur, Jerusalem, Thebes, Memphis are all there in any given game for the Babylonians to conquer.

 

[AOS9001]

On the question of influence sprawl, you could make it so that culture doesn't reach more than a tile into desert without water, like in SoI.

That's probably not the best idea, given how it's really mess up Mongolia and China with all their nearby deserts...

 

[killerkebab]

How much does the AI pay attention to stability penalties? If the idea is to entice the AI to found less cities, and the AI does pay attention to stability, why not add a few extra stability penalties for having more than x amount of cities for Egypt/Babylon before the discovery of a certain tech?

I'll leave the amount of cities and the relevant tech for the more experienced players and historically minded people to decide