China

[BiteInTheMark]

Hmm. So now the bonuses on WLTED are in 1 place, but the raw yields are split between the UA and UB. Couldn't we do this?

UA: Creating Great Works or gaining cities starts a "We love the empress day". +10% Food and Gold during "We love the empress day"
UB: Creating Great Works or gaining cities grants +1 and +1 Culture in this city. Bonus declines each era by 50%. +1 for every 4 Citizen in this City. -1 Unhappiness from illiteracy.

Then you only have to say the thing about declining by 50% each era once. It's much sleeker this way, and only a bit weaker.
IMO the 1/4 could be done away with completely in favor of something else. Maybe 25/ on ITR completion, or some other bonus that isn't just a pop scaler.

I would stay with the extra food as UA, its thematic and gives atleast some bonus for the first cities till paper makers are online. I think China needs that growth infusion early to scale better. I wouldnt nerf that part only cause of a better looking description.
The gold for population scaler is fine. The main goal of nerfing early culture without weakening China too much is already achieved, not needed to invent to wheel again.

 

[Gazebo]

If we took culture off the UA, couldn’t we just shift it to the paper maker? I mean paper was a huge cultural tool, so flavor it makes sense. It also delays the culture bonus and makes the UB more interesting. Seems to hit all of the needed changes.

That’s what I suggested above. Dibs!

G

 

[pineappledan]

I would stay with the extra food as UA, its thematic and gives atleast some bonus for the first cities till paper makers are online. I think China needs that growth infusion early to scale better. I wouldnt nerf that part only cause of a better looking description.
The gold for population scaler is fine. The main goal of nerfing early culture without weakening China too much is already achieved, not needed to invent to wheel again.

China would still have the +35% and +10% from a free WLTED on turn 1, so it’s not like she would get nothin in my proposal. It’s just that splitting a bonus into a trait and building that do the same thing isn’t elegant design. The UA should do 1 thing and the UB should do another thing, and maybe the two synergize with each other. They shouldn’t just literally do the same thing with only minor differences.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

China would still have the +35% and +10% from a free WLTED on turn 1, so it’s not like she would get nothin in my proposal. It’s just that splitting a bonus into a trait and building that do the same thing isn’t elegant design. The UA should do 1 thing and the UB should do another thing, and maybe the two synergize with each other. They shouldn’t just literally do the same thing with only minor differences.

The difference is, a long long time, it was ok, that China get +1/ from turn 1 in every city. Now you want to completly deny this bonus for atleast 70-90 turns and only get in exchange +10% gold for a 5 turn lasting WLTED in mostly crappy cities without infrastructure. That nerf would hit too hard.

 

[Stalker0]

Throwing this one there, to bring the WLTED back into focus.

UA: When founding a city, Great Work, or conquest....go into WLTED. +10% food. Whenever you enter a new era, all WLTED immediately end.

UB: +10% gold, and +2 culture, during WLTED.

 

[pineappledan]

The difference is, a long long time, it was ok, that China get +1/ from turn 1 in every city. Now you want to completly deny this bonus for atleast 70-90 turns and only get in exchange +10% gold for a 5 turn lasting WLTED in mostly crappy cities without infrastructure. That nerf would hit too hard.

... Yes? That's why I also suggested adding something a little stronger/more interesting on the paper maker than a 1/4 pop scaler. Lots of civs have boosts that don't impact turn 1. an immediate, boosted WLTED would still be a noticeable benefit, even if it doesn't compare to Carthage.

Spoiler So here's my new proposal for China: :

Mandate of Heaven
Creating Great Works or gaining cities starts a "We Love the Empress Day" in all Cities. +10% Food and Gold during "We Love the Empress Day"

Paper Maker (Library)
+2 +1
No Maintenance
1 Scientist slot
-1 Illiteracy
1 Specialist does not generate Urbanization
Internal Trade Routes to or from this city provide 25 and 25 on Completion, scaling with Era.
+1 and +1 Culture in this City when a "We Love the Empress Day" begins. Cumulative Bonus is halved when a new Era Begins.

So add normal WLTED triggers as a source for the gain. Add a bit of ITR flavor by re-adding the now abandoned instant boost trigger.

 

[CrazyG]

Almost permanent WLTED is a big bonus, do yields during need to be boosted at all?

 

[CrazyG]

Playing as China after her changes.

The notification still says food and culture, even though its been changed to food and gold.
You get notifications that WLTED has ended, and a city demands a luxury, while WLTED is still going.
According to the tooltips, you get 10% for the We Love the Empress Day, and 25% growth for We Love the King Day. these bonuses would multiply each other if I understand them correctly.

She still seems extremely strong to me, the UA is extremely impactful early on, and the paper maker is actually really strong and scales fairly well.

 

[pineappledan]

I still have this bug in my ear about changing the global yield trigger to a specific multiple, and removing the conquest trigger. I have absolutely zero time to be doing any playtesting right now, but if I coded an alternative UA for China, would someone be able to give some feedback comparing the current version vs my thick China?

Here's what I'm thinking:
Thicc China
UA: Mandate of Heaven
+1 and and a 'We Love the Empress Day' in All Cities whenever a city gains its 8th Citizen. Bonus yields are halved on Era Change. +10% and in Cities during 'We Love the Empress Day'.

UB: Paper Maker (Library)
+2 +1
No Maintenance
1 Scientist slot
-1 Illiteracy
1 Specialist does not generate Urbanization
Internal Trade Routes to or from this city provide 20 and 20 on Completion, scaling with Era.
+1 and +1 in this City whenever you create a Great Work. Bonus yields are halved on Era Change.

 

[CrazyG]

I don't think there should be a bonus to both food and growth from the same source, its weird.

Honestly a free WLTKD is strong enough even without an additional bonus, China gets so many of them, and they come early when the extra food is extremely impactful. If you got an instant burst of . With merchants and great works you really easily go infinite with WLTKD or very close to infinite, and there are plenty of synergies available to use them.

 

[Deljade]

I really like the chinese UA. The culture may have been too strong but I'd be bummed to see the early food change

 

[Txurce]

I don't think there should be a bonus to both food and growth from the same source, its weird.

Honestly a free WLTKD is strong enough even without an additional bonus, China gets so many of them, and they come early when the extra food is extremely impactful. If you got an instant burst of . With merchants and great works you really easily go infinite with WLTKD or very close to infinite, and there are plenty of synergies available to use them.

China is in my new game. They opened an early lead and have kept it, based on a huge population (6/82). Rome is at 12/115.

 

[Stalker0]

I don't think there should be a bonus to both food and growth from the same source, its weird.

Honestly a free WLTKD is strong enough even without an additional bonus, China gets so many of them, and they come early when the extra food is extremely impactful. If you got an instant burst of . With merchants and great works you really easily go infinite with WLTKD or very close to infinite, and there are plenty of synergies available to use them.

I think the issue we are having with China, is in an attempt to preserve all of the fun aspects of the civ, we may not be willing to cut enough to do the proper balance adjustment.

As noted above, having near permanent WLTED for the whole game is already pretty darn strong. Add a sprinkle of culture from the paper maker and a very strong UU, and we may already have a top tier civ. It may be time to accept that we can't throw all the fun stuff in China's bucket and expect them not to dominate.

 

[CrazyG]

I think the issue we are having with China, is in an attempt to preserve all of the fun aspects of the civ, we may not be willing to cut enough to do the proper balance adjustment.

As noted above, having near permanent WLTED for the whole game is already pretty darn strong. Add a sprinkle of culture from the paper maker and a very strong UU, and we may already have a top tier civ. It may be time to accept that we can't throw all the fun stuff in China's bucket and expect them not to dominate.

There isn't much we can do to nerf the ChuKoNu without just redesigning it. I think China is top tier before you even get the ChuKoNu though, at least with this iteration of the happiness system. Its pretty easy to just build like 5 settlers in a row, add progress, a good monopoly, and a pantheon such as wisdom or commerce and you can pull ahead of deity AI by turn 80. She isn't really much weaker than her previous self, yea gold is worse than culture but the increasing value of food goes a long way to offset that. For China, 15 culture for getting a building is much stronger than 10 food/10 culture, the UA alone grows you enough in the early game to work pretty much every tile the borders grow to. You really should just spam settlers after getting your 3rd social policy, settle until the

This isn't just China, though. Spain or Carthage make the game super easy right now as well, the happiness system isn't slowing down expansion enough.

 

[pineappledan]

I'd like to point out that my alternate UA/UB does the following:
- removes the turn 1 bonus
- takes the WLTED trigger almost entirely out of the player's control (very hard to time population growth with era changes, unless you use Stop Growth)
- removes the WLTED from GWs, so you only get free ones from growing large cities. This makes the triggers less reliable and less capable of being staggered
- spreads the yields to ///, based on the global trigger that occurs, so China isn't so stacked on specific yields.

I think my proposed changes would address your biggest issue with China's expansive playstyle. I'll try to get it released tonight. It would also more explicitly reward China for a thick, growth for growth’s sake playstyle, which only India does, but in a very different way

 

[Bhawb]

- removes the WLTED from GWs, so you only get free ones from growing large cities. This makes the triggers less reliable and less capable of being staggered

You have 100% control over this happening. It would mean you would have to lose out on a bit of the added growth of WLTED in cities you are saving to time your proc but you always have control over when a city grows.

 

[CrazyG]

I'd like to point out that my alternate UA/UB does the following:
- removes the turn 1 bonus
- takes the WLTED trigger almost entirely out of the player's control (very hard to time population growth with era changes, unless you use Stop Growth)
- removes the WLTED from GWs, so you only get free ones from growing large cities. This makes the triggers less reliable and less capable of being staggered
- spreads the yields to ///, based on the global trigger that occurs, so China isn't so stacked on specific yields.

To be honest, I'd rather have heavily food and gold, or even purely food, rather than large amounts of 4 different types of yields.

After playing as Spain and getting a huge lead before even using conquistadors or missions, I think the real issue is the happiness system. It makes spamming settlers really strong.

 

[pineappledan]

I haven't bugchecked it (I'm away from my home computer and can't run civ).

Here is my proposed China change: I give to you, Thicc China.

 

[KittyKat3120]

I haven't bugchecked it (I'm away from my home computer and can't run civ).

Here is my proposed China change: I give to you, Thicc China.

@pineappledan Is Thicc China viable? And how can I add it to my game as I really like the changes in it

 

[pineappledan]

Got it to work:
Thicc China
UA: Mandate of Heaven
+1 and and a 'We Love the Empress Day' in All Cities whenever a city gains its 8th Citizen. Bonus yields are halved on Era Change. +10% and in Cities during 'We Love the Empress Day'.

UB: Paper Maker (Library)
+2 +1
No Maintenance
1 Scientist slot
-1 Illiteracy
1 Specialist does not generate Urbanization
Internal Trade Routes to or from this city provide 20 and 20 on Completion, scaling with Era.
+1 and +1 in this City whenever you create a Great Work. Bonus yields are halved on Era Change.