Your alternative to the current UA is not appealing, nor is it code-friendly.
Absolutely, I have no idea what's code-friendly, and I only brought that grabbing and improving luxuries thing up because someone else mentioned it a while back. I'm not attached to it but I thought it felt pretty interesting. If someone is not code-friendly, or hard to code or anything else, just say so, I'm here giving suggestions not making demands and not trying to push a specific idea through. I however feel like I need to bring some kind of idea because if I dismiss an idea without one you tell me I'm being overly negative.
Here's the deal: saying that you get a building before anyone else (for free) is 'not unique' is illogical. The very fact that you get it early, for free, makes it unique by the very definition of the word.
Maybe it is unique, but it is not very unique
Here's the deal: Having boats that travel further than any other civ can is unique. Getting to keep every building including unique ones when you conquer a city is unique. Being able to buy tiles that other civs already own, that (no matter how frustrating or silly) is unique. Having access to a whole bunch of civ-specific pantheons is unique.
No matter where you are in a game, those abilities are still there, defining the civilization. You could do a information era start, and Rome would still be Rome.
Getting free harbors just does not make me feel that way. It feels more like 'Oh, I don't have to build harbors' rather than 'Wow, holy shirt, I'm Carthage I have awesome instant harbors!'
I've actually played like half a game as a landlocked Carthage, only to be awkwardly surprised when I reached the ocean and couldn't find the 'Build Harbor' button.
This is kinda iffy, but what I'm trying to say is that if I for example played as the old Arabia and started in a full grassland area I would instantly reroll because I wanted to make use of my unique ability. I just did not feel that way about Carthage. It is kinda hard to explain this, but it just doesn't feel very special to me.
Furthermore, there's nothing 'band-aid' about gaining gold for settling cities.
That's how it felt to me, and that's all I said about it.
To be quite honest, this is one of those times where you, Funak, have decided that you don't like something, and you are now trying to reinvent the wheel and deploy every possible disparagement of the UA (including trying to 'appeal to the mob' with your "people have told me" statement) in order to get it to be what you want it to be. That kind of argument doesn't work very well.
First of all, to quote yourself: "You really need to dial it back a bit. A lot, actually.".
Really I'm not trying to re-invent anything, I gave a suggestion for a change that I figured was minor, when you said it wasn't minor I pulled back and tried to figure something else out.
I'm also not trying to appeal to any mob anywhere, I do talk to people, a lot of people. Not here and not exactly related to CPP but the people I've talked to about Carthage in vanilla have been rather dismissive of the idea of instant buildings, and I do agree with them.
I did not honestly think it would need to be changed here at all, I figured someone would eventually come with some great idea that would replace the gold on settle thing, possibly taking the harbor down with it.
I'm not particularly sure when, or why, you decided that UAs with free buildings are an evil, but they're not, and there's absolutely no reason for me to spend hours writing code to replicate what a harbor can do so that the word 'harbor' isn't in the Carthage UA text.
Again, you don't have to do anything, it was just a suggestion. For someone who normally doesn't care much for my suggestions you sure are hung up on that one thing.
The Carthaginian did not necessarily need to change at this point, it was not a direct balance-issue like the free stone works for Egypt or the caravansaries for the Ottomans, but I always thought at some point someone would have to do something about them. I'm mostly just here now because it would be hypocritical to just attack two of the free buildings for being boring free buildings while one remains.
No time like the present.
In short, instead of telling me all the ways this UA reflects laziness and misery, why don't you spend more time explaining how a different UA is fun?
I can't do that, because suggesting a replacement is usually met with 'Don't fix what isn't broken' or 'Don't re-invent the wheel'. In fact even proposing a direct replacement would just sound like an arrogant demand. The process of replacing something clearly has to be first understanding why something needs to be replaced and then figure out a better solution. If I can't even pass the first point I'm never going to get to the second.
I can understand if you take things personally, after all you designed most of it (not the harbors in this case, but whatever). But you have to understand that with you having the final say on things there just isn't a counter for you saying "The current UA is fine", all I can do at that point is bringing up reasons why it isn't fine, because you're locked the alternatives down.
I'll be the first to admit that I use the response "I think it's fine" way too much, but considering I don't have any form of power over the project those words don't carry any form of weight.
That being said, I do really believe that the Carthaginian UA is going to have to change at some point, and I feel that we might as well get rid of the free harbor now if we are going to get rid of the other free UA buildings.
That being said I have no idea at all what would be easy to implement and what would be hard to, so I need you to tell me that instead of getting angry about me wanting you to work hours to change minor things.
That's all.
lol
