I just wanted to say that I did read the above. However that doesn't really matter much at all, you get +15% food during WLTKD, and you're obviously getting 10 times more WLTKD if you found 10 times more cities. Combined with eventual other bonuses that unlocks during WLTKD (like the UB bonus, religious bonus and the circus maximus (although that one kinda scales somewhat negatively with empiresize, so maybe it evens itself out). Also the base +25% groth bonus you have during WLTKD, assuming it is still there.
China
- Thread starter BenchBreaker
- Start date
Totally new mechanics are always fun. Thumbs up from me!! 
@tu79 sure you can do that (delaying advancement on purpose), but is it really worth it? If it will be - it will still be fun and somehow represent China - as a civilisation - well.
@tu79 sure you can do that (delaying advancement on purpose), but is it really worth it? If it will be - it will still be fun and somehow represent China - as a civilisation - well.
tu_79
Deity
I'm testing China and I have a Mandate of Heaven started by getting a luxury the city wanted. I think it's not intended to work like this. If this stays as now, a great merchant will yield a massive amount of food and culture, even if it only lasts a couple of eras. I haven't tried circuses yet, (currently at a birthday party), but it seems that this is triggering Mandates of Heaven too.
It is supposed to. Any WLtED does it.
tu_79
Deity
Wow, that's better than I expected. I'll try to finish this game before you nerf it
We'll see if China needs the nerf - I think the civ is doing just fine right now. Nevertheless the connection to Great Merchants is intentional (silk road, anyone?). Circuses make sense in the context of Chinese acrobatics. 
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I had to quit my first game with China due to extreme unhappiness from all that growth. I definitely expanded too much, but I was leading in everything. Its a really cool design, I would rather you have to found or capture cities to keep it going though, just by staggering circuses and picking up a few luxuries you can get pretty close to infinite WLTED, and Great works/ cities provide a fairly small chunk of the Mandate of Heaven yields.
Sounds about right, as per Chinese history.
Re: latter point, you're saying _only_ the Mandate of Heaven bonuses from GW/Cities? I could do that - I'd leave the food bonus during all WLTED but remove the +1c/f in all cities from circuses/GMs/etc. if there's too many of them.
Probably need to move it back to 15% food though.
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In the Renaissance of another game, I have to say I am really intruiged by this mechanic. Its very powerful but it really hurts to advance era.
So the mandate triggers only locally when you get a WLTED, I think that's fine. Tu's post made me think it happened everywhere (which would be overpowered).
So the mandate triggers only locally when you get a WLTED, I think that's fine. Tu's post made me think it happened everywhere (which would be overpowered).
Yeah only locally. So GMs are one of the few global occurrences of it.
tu_79
Deity
Great Merchant is not triggering Mandate of Heaven for me. It just give +20 turns of WLTKD (yes, king, not empress), but no extra food/culture. I don't mind, really. I think the extra culture should come from conquests and great works, as stated in the unique description. I'm playing in King right now, but I can't remember when I snowballed so hard before. (Disclaimer: I had a good start, with Byzantium as the only neighbour and space for 8 full sized cities.) Happiness is a problem in classical. After all cities are connected, it begins to shine.
The great merchant worked just fine for me, food/culture from traits went up by 1 in the capital when I consumed it.
EDIT: Are you sure you're not just being confused by tooltips not updating until you switch turn or go into city-view moving a citizen?
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tu_79
Deity
Can't say for certain. Every other MoH showed in the notification panel to the right, and that didn't happen with the merchant. I ll try when the next one appears.
Pic from a game as China on Deity, Pangea, standard size standard speed.
In this game I rushed to lighthouses, founding only my capital and Shanghai before reaching it as tradition. This meant I had a really long time to develop without losing my bonuses. Didn't fight an early war but had some absurd barbarians (2 camps pumping horsemen on turn 45) and I was prepared for Polynesia to come over. I went tradition. 3 progress (the building policies), then 3 Aesthetics.
Right now, I have 8 less population than Mongolia (who has 5 more cities). I'm tied for second in tech, 1 behind Babylon. I'm beating Poland by at least 4 social policies. All this to say, I think the UA is too powerful. I've had neverending WLTED for about 80 turns, it briefly stopped in the newer cities for like 3 turns. Also I don't have the WLTED religious belief, if I had it I'd easily be leading Babylon in science. I feel really confident I've already won that game, the mongols are close to my score but are so far behind on tech and culture.
It also highlights another thing I'm noticing and somewhat annoyed by, Mongolia being the strongest AI in every single game. He also declared war on me from the other side of the map for no obvious reason like 3 turns after we met.
In this game I rushed to lighthouses, founding only my capital and Shanghai before reaching it as tradition. This meant I had a really long time to develop without losing my bonuses. Didn't fight an early war but had some absurd barbarians (2 camps pumping horsemen on turn 45) and I was prepared for Polynesia to come over. I went tradition. 3 progress (the building policies), then 3 Aesthetics.
Right now, I have 8 less population than Mongolia (who has 5 more cities). I'm tied for second in tech, 1 behind Babylon. I'm beating Poland by at least 4 social policies. All this to say, I think the UA is too powerful. I've had neverending WLTED for about 80 turns, it briefly stopped in the newer cities for like 3 turns. Also I don't have the WLTED religious belief, if I had it I'd easily be leading Babylon in science. I feel really confident I've already won that game, the mongols are close to my score but are so far behind on tech and culture.
It also highlights another thing I'm noticing and somewhat annoyed by, Mongolia being the strongest AI in every single game. He also declared war on me from the other side of the map for no obvious reason like 3 turns after we met.
To be perfectly honestly, I haven't seen Poland being top in policies/culture since their UA was changed.
That being said, my experience with China was pretty much exactly as yours. Early policy-lead because of mass settling and GW/GM spam in classical or ancient era after that permanent WLTKD with the flat food/culture from the UA being way less relevant every era. Huge cities from the WLTKD and a policy-lead from the early culture bonus translates into a lead in pretty much everything from the midgame and onward.
I think I'm going to make it so that you only get the Mandate of Heaven city yields from the GW/settle/conquer and take away the +1 food (replace it with something else or remove it?). The WLTED food bonus can stay.
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Sounds like steps in the right direction. I absolutely think the WLTED food bonus should stay. I wonder if the culture could be dropped rather than the food, maybe 1 food 1 science? Or just 2 food, or keep the culture but in only accumulates in the capital. Always starting with 2 culture is a really big deal, culture snowballs. The ability to build a settler that effectively produces 2 culture and 1 food, plus a WLTED, in the capital is really powerful. Its easy to build too because your early social policies can grant production. I settled Shanghai before turn 30 in that game.
BTW, the paper maker is actually quite good. By itself its weak, but I really appreciated the poverty reduction and +15% gold is almost always available, and can stack really well with stuff like thrift, or the gold monopoly I had in that game.
My other main problem with the UA is how it gets increasingly weaker as the game goes on, assuming you don't go on a massive conquest spree (and gets way too strong if you do). Maybe that's by design, but I really feel like there are way too many pure conquest civs in the game already. Yes sure, the WLTKD piles up into infinity assuming you work your merchants and turn your writers/artists/musicians into great works (I also tended to pick merchants from any free GP event/wonder/policy) and +15% food in all cities is definitely nice, but later on even with a fairly high number of settled cities you never stack the trait food/culture high enough to feel significant, and with the way the drop-off works you seem to start off from 0 again every era. What I'm trying to say is that I think there are too many eras .
Maybe there is another solution one could employ? No drop-off but only gain yields in the capital? More yields in later eras but with even harsher drop-offs (maybe full drop-offs by design)? Maybe something else?
Either way, if the idea behind the rework was to make the UA more interesting than 'permanent WLTKD with a bonus' it might have failed to deliver on that, but then again it's quite possible I misunderstood the intention.
As for the Paper Maker, it is definitely decent enough, would it still be decent enough without the out of control growth and permanent WLTKD? Not so sure about that, but it is possible.
.Maybe there is another solution one could employ? No drop-off but only gain yields in the capital? More yields in later eras but with even harsher drop-offs (maybe full drop-offs by design)? Maybe something else?
Either way, if the idea behind the rework was to make the UA more interesting than 'permanent WLTKD with a bonus' it might have failed to deliver on that, but then again it's quite possible I misunderstood the intention.
As for the Paper Maker, it is definitely decent enough, would it still be decent enough without the out of control growth and permanent WLTKD? Not so sure about that, but it is possible.
Making it just food would be fine by me, though I worry that food alone isn't terribly exciting.
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My other main problem with the UA is how it gets increasingly weaker as the game goes on, assuming you don't go on a massive conquest spree (and gets way too strong if you do). Maybe that's by design, but I really feel like there are way too many pure conquest civs in the game already. Yes sure, the WLTKD piles up into infinity assuming you work your merchants and turn your writers/artists/musicians into great works (I also tended to pick merchants from any free GP event/wonder/policy) and +15% food in all cities is definitely nice, but later on even with a fairly high number of settled cities you never stack the trait food/culture high enough to feel significant, and with the way the drop-off works you seem to start off from 0 again every era. What I'm trying to say is that I think there are too many eras
Maybe there is another solution one could employ? No drop-off but only gain yields in the capital? More yields in later eras but with even harsher drop-offs (maybe full drop-offs by design)? Maybe something else?
Either way, if the idea behind the rework was to make the UA more interesting than 'permanent WLTKD with a bonus' it might have failed to deliver on that, but then again it's quite possible I misunderstood the intention.
As for the Paper Maker, it is definitely decent enough, would it still be decent enough without the out of control growth and permanent WLTKD? Not so sure about that, but it is possible.
'Starting over' each era is somewhat intentional - I may have overshot it as a consequence of wanting to prevent snowballing. I could make it so that the UA does not trigger WLTED day from GW/conquer/founding. Instead, you'd just get the Mandate of Heaven yields every time you settle/conquer/GW, and then the WLTED day bonus would only come into play through natural means. De-link the elements, if that makes sense.
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