Beta UHV discussion

[sedna17]

Hey everyone,

One of the major goals of the beta is to make sure that the Unique Historical Victories (UHVs) are balanced and fun. This thread is my attempt to bring some order to the process of changing UHVs.

If you have ideas for UHV changes, try playing a game with them as your goals. See if it makes a good game and is appropriately challenging. Then report on your results in this thread.

Here are some things to keep in mind.

1. Length: The complete set of three UHVs should encourage players to play through a civ's most important era. Although most games should be long, it is nice to have some relatively short-term UHVs just to provide a diversity or when people want to play a short game (Babylon in RFC was a good example).
   
2. Open-ended last goal? It is sometimes nice to have an open-ended (i.e. no time limit) last goal which you can finish early or late. Of course, this normally means that the last goal is a bit easy (with no time pressure). Our Norse are like this. The colonizing civs are (sort of) also. Not every civ should need to be this way.
   
3. Historical? Our general model for UHVs is that two of them should be roughly things that the civilization accomplished and the third should be one that they did not (but perhaps aspired to).
   
4. Difficulty: Our main focus is on balancing the UHVs at Monarch level. Again we aspire for some range in difficulty. Not all civs need to be fiendishly difficult, but some should be. Currently most of our UHVs are too easy.
   
5. Variety: Diversity in UHVs are good (as long as they are relatively easy to code). UHVs which specify control of territory are very common right now, as are colony-building UHVs.
   
6. Time Pressure/Direction: We want to provide some UHVs which are like puzzles -- they require highly focused play in order to meet each goal as it comes up. Not all civs need do this to the same level, but it is always nice for a player to have a specific goal/task at all times so they aren't just playing mindlessly.
   
7. Synergy with UP/UB/UU: UHVs which benefit from using Unique Powers (UP), Buildings (UB) or Units (UU) are particularly nice.
   

 

[sedna17]

UHVs currently under revision/discussion:

Poland -- new UHVs currently in the SVN. Details to follow.
Venice -- Current goals too short. One should probably feature collecting money?
France -- No early goals, so no structure to early game. Change 1st one to re-creating Charlemagne's empire before Burgundy/Germany spawn ala Rome in RFC?

 

[ezzlar]

Spain -- Four cities in North africa and some other isles. Is this really a challenge? Build 4 settlers and voila!
Cordoba -- Largest city in the world by 1000 AD. Very difficult since Constantinopel starts much larger.

 

[Morholt]

I just had a go at recreating the Carolingian Empire and:
-2 cities in each of Burgundy and east of the Rhine, 1 city in each of Lotharingia and Lombardy by 840 AD.
is definitely doable. Not too difficult, but changes the way you expand in the early game and makes you more vulnerable to vikings + english.

 

[BurnEmDown]

I think Spain's UHV could be like England's UHV in RFC - 2 cities in several different areas, the areas could be: North Africa, Mainland Italy, Sardinia & Corsica, and all the Islands in the Atlantic. This would mean 8 cities total outside of Iberia, so in a typical UHV game where you own Iberia and vassalized Portugal, you'd have about 12 cities in Iberia and 8 cities outside of Iberia, which would hurt your research and your colonization UHV. I think with this setting the date of the UHV should be a little earlier to make it harder and have more effects on the colonial UHV.

Venice - I don't think a collect money UHV should be done, that's extremely boring. Unlike the Byzantine's UHV where you not only have to collect money but also protect your collapsing Empire, which Venice you'd only have to put 100% on gold, maybe get some extra cities like in southern Italy, and just press enter until the UHV is in. A better UHV would be something with more action and challenge, though I have to admit I can't think of anything myself.

 

[micbic]

I had given proposals for the French UHV around 8 months ago. Here they are (revamped a bit)
1) Control 3 cities in Frankia, 2 in Burgundy (Rhone valley included), 3 at the Rhine valley (that can be anything! Switzerland, Alsace, Westphalia, Low Countries...)and 1 in Italy by 844 (843, but turn corrected) AD
2) Control the historical territory of France, making sure there is at least 1 Catholic Temple in each city, by 1452 AD (samely, turn corrected 1453)
3) Build the Notre Dame, the Cluny Abbey, the Versailles, the Chateau de Fontainebleau and 6 colonial projects by 1709 AD

 

[sedna17]

I had given proposals for the French UHV around 8 months ago. Here they are (revamped a bit)
1) Control 3 cities in Frankia, 2 in Burgundy (Rhone valley included), 3 at the Rhine valley (that can be anything! Switzerland, Alsace, Westphalia, Low Countries...)and 1 in Italy by 844 (843, but turn corrected) AD
2) Control the historical territory of France, making sure there is at least 1 Catholic Temple in each city, by 1452 AD (samely, turn corrected 1453)
3) Build the Notre Dame, the Cluny Abbey, the Versailles, the Chateau de Fontainebleau and 6 colonial projects by 1709 AD

I just had a go at recreating the Carolingian Empire and:
-2 cities in each of Burgundy and east of the Rhine, 1 city in each of Lotharingia and Lombardy by 840 AD.
is definitely doable. Not too difficult, but changes the way you expand in the early game and makes you more vulnerable to vikings + english.

I played a game attempting to get the following by 840 AD (actually 836, because Burgundy spawns on turn 840):

2 cities in Burgundy (including Marseilles), 2 cities in Italy, 2 cities in Germany, 2 cities in Spain (the Hispanic Marches).

I just barely failed -- taking my second Spanish city one turn too late. Along the way I ended up taking the barb cities in southern France of course. There were lots of tense moments when horse archers and vikings threatened my conquered cities. I didn't have to fight the Moors, but I at least came into contact with them. It's a lot to do in the first few turns (not much time for building infrastructure), and I haven't played it through to see how the decline turns out. I think it's specifically important to require cities in Burgundy/Germany spawn zones.

 

[Cetrix]

Well I think that it will be more reallistic if we have only 1 city requirement in Spain and 3 in Germany, and not 2/2.

I agree for another UVH including build some wonders, like Cluny, Notre Dame.

 

[BurnEmDown]

Instead of build, maybe own them? So if Burgundy builds them you'll conquer them, and the same for Genoa, maybe even Germany, Spain, Venice or England. The human player of course couldn't risk letting the Byzantines or another far off civ building one, so it's only to give you a chance to still win if Burgundy builds Cluny or something similar.

 

[Opera]

Maybe Spain should have something related to the Spanish Armada. Since you said one could include a unhistorical feat, conquering two or so cities in England might be one of them. Either that or conquer/control 2 cities in Italy (including Sicily), 1 in the Low Countries and 1 in England.

The two other UHVs are fine for me. Uniting Iberia is really fun to do, even though I'm not sure how the religion stuff is counted. Should ALL cities be ONLY catholic? Or should ALL cities have catholicism? Also, I think I know the answer but... why not allow an Islamic Spain? I mean, uniting Spain under Islam might be fun

Then the 6 colonies UHV is kinda mandatory for Spain...

 

[sedna17]

Wonders are good. We'll go with "own" so that you have more options.

2) Control the historical territory of France, making sure there is at least 1 Catholic Temple in each city, by 1452 AD (samely, turn corrected 1453)

I think this will be too easy. England/Burgundy are the only civ you really have to worry about (a clever player could severely handicap both at spawn time) and churches are cheap (especially with the Pope typically building some). I confess I haven't tried it though -- if over-extending yourself to get the Charlemagne empire really hurts I suppose it could require some effort.

 

[BurnEmDown]

How about "Control the historical territory of France, with X cathedrals in non-conquered cities", so that a player will have to conquer some of his territory, but unlike the other UHV allowing you to conquer wonders, you will have to build the cathedrals yourself.
Maybe this is too much though...

 

[Jusos2108]

I have a suggestion for the Swedish UHVs

1. Control Sweden, Finland and two Baltic cities in 1620AD
2. Do not lose any cities to Germany, Poland or Russia before 1700AD or control the Baltic Sea by 1700AD
3. Conquer Moscow and Warsaw by 1750AD

 

[sedna17]

How about "Control the historical territory of France, with X cathedrals in non-conquered cities", so that a player will have to conquer some of his territory, but unlike the other UHV allowing you to conquer wonders, you will have to build the cathedrals yourself.
Maybe this is too much though...

Cathedrals (like most buildings that produce culture) are destroyed on conquest, so that wouldn't be a concern...

I played a bit more in my France game. It's very important to wait a while after Burgundy spawns before trying to attack them (or your units clip), but other than that it's pretty easy to wipe them out. I gave away my two German cities to Venice, and Germany is about to spawn. Suffered a bit of instability, but I'm fine now. It will be very easy to destroy Calais when the English spawn. I built the first wonder on the list (Cluny Abbey). My economy isn't great, but I'm keeping up in techs so far.

I guess the vikings and magyar horse archers (barbs) were a little annoying, but certainly not end-of-the-world type stuff.

Essentially it didn't feel like my empire collapsed, just like I trimmed off some of the useless edges.

 

[Morholt]

Perhaps the Burgundian spawn zone should be increased to match the treaty of Verdun + Germany spawning at the same time? I imagine the early Frankish game to be something like Rome in RFC - expanding like crazy while fighting of hordes of barbarians, and then a bunch of evil civs spawn in and take your cities while you retreat to your core lands and finish up the UHV (exept for France, that would only be the first half of the game).

 

[LuKo]

I have a suggestion for the Swedish UHVs

1. Control Sweden, Finland and two Baltic cities in 1620AD
2. Do not lose any cities to Germany, Poland or Russia before 1700AD or control the Baltic Sea by 1700AD
3. Conquer Moscow and Warsaw by 1750AD

Control Sweden... what? Isn't it better and more historical to make "Control Baltic Sea" as the first condition? Then the second one could be sth like: "Lose no more than 25% battles" to be original and represent the best army (of some period). The Deluge, etc. was connected with Dominium Maris Baltici, so I would put sth different like: "Be 1st in score in..." or if the first one is too hard: "Control X iron/metals".

 

[sedna17]

Perhaps the Burgundian spawn zone should be increased to match the treaty of Verdun + Germany spawning at the same time? I imagine the early Frankish game to be something like Rome in RFC - expanding like crazy while fighting of hordes of barbarians, and then a bunch of evil civs spawn in and take your cities while you retreat to your core lands and finish up the UHV (exept for France, that would only be the first half of the game).

This is my vision too. We don't really have hordes of barbarians at the moment, but they could be increased. I don't have a particular problem with moving Germany forward. I think there's some prohibition in the code against having two civs spawn on the same turn, but 1 turn won't make much difference.

 

[Jusos2108]

Control Sweden... what? Isn't it better and more historical to make "Control Baltic Sea" as the first condition? Then the second one could be sth like: "Lose no more than 25% battles" to be original and represent the best army (of some period). The Deluge, etc. was connected with Dominium Maris Baltici, so I would put sth different like: "Be 1st in score in..." or if the first one is too hard: "Control X iron/metals".

Usually Norse has the Skoone area under their control and in my test game they had 7 knights, 4 Longbowmen, 3 pikemen, 3 arqubueses, 2 Guisarmiers, 3 bombards and 1 trebutchet in there, so taking it was actually rather difficult. Maybe you should try those UHVs before commenting.

Futhermore, controlling Baltic Sea would mean that they had take over northern the Baltic States, Germany and Denmark, which will be challenging. "Lose no more than 25% battles" sounds quite easy, all you have to do is kill one unit and then do nothing.

Anyways, I changed the UHVs a bit based on the test game:

1. Control Sweden, Finland and two Baltic cities in 1600AD
2. Control the Baltic Sea by 1650AD
3. Conquer Moscow and Warsaw by 1700AD

I know that it is lame, because all the conditions have something to do with conquering, but that's pretty much what Sweden did during the Empire era.

 

[Morholt]

Perhaps something like "have a unit with 50 (or whatever) experience" to represent an elite army? This would force the player to fight conservatively, which is historically accurate - Sweden always had very little manpower.

 

[LuKo]

Futhermore, controlling Baltic Sea would mean that they had take over northern the Baltic States, Germany and Denmark, which will be challenging. "Lose no more than 25% battles" sounds quite easy, all you have to do is kill one unit and then do nothing.

No every UHV should be easy (allegedly there is too little hard UHV). And "Lose no more than 25% battles" sounds easy if you are not going for UHV. If combined with first it is extremely difficult (but allows quite easy 2/3). If it's too hard (to code because otherwise you can always change it to 40% or sth) then Morolth's condition sounds quite good but 1. very challenging and frustrating or 2. really easy. It depends whether you can add multiple GG to unit or not.