Civilisation Attributes open discussion

[Just an idea]

INDIA
UU: Patiyodha and Varu
Patiyodha is a cheaper Longbowman with -1 Strength, bonus when attacking Forest or Rainforest, that starts with Woodsman I and Formation. It is available with Nobility. It does decent job against barbarian units India faces. However other units can also deal with those. Spear line is most of the time superior against Elephants and Shock promoted Horsemen perform at least comparably against Axemen and Swordsmen, and they have superior mobility. Point is that by the time India gets to Nobility, it has either already stabilized against barbarians or lost UHV. In my opinion India would benefit from earlier Unique Unit.

Varu is more expensive Lancer with +2 Strength, only 1 movement and +25% against Heavy Cavalry. It requires Ivory instead of Horses. UU with extra Strength can obviously be quite strong. Varu comes too late to be significant help against barbarians. They were however very helpful when one decides to expand beyond Indian subcontinent for 3rd UHV.

UB: Edict
Monument with -10% to City Maintanance. I did test by using World builder and in year 1200 difference between having Edict in all my 13 cities and none of them was 16 gold per turn. For most of the UHV run benefit is less and India relies more on religion than Monuments for culture. If game continues past UHV deadline and inflation costs start stacking up, Edicts are big help. Maybe small Happiness boost could be added to synergize with UP.

UP: Power of Purity
+1 health per 3 excess happiness. Its not flashy as health is one of those benefits that are quite unnoticeable until one runs out of it. Between temples, plantation resources and Monarchy India has usually abundant happiness. UP does help grow cities for 3rd UHV.

UHVs
1. Control Hindu and Buddhist Shrines in 100 BC
2. Build 20 Temples by 700 AD
3. Control 20 % of world population in 1200 AD

India gameplay until second UHV is completed is quite stressful. You need to expand to ~10 cities while not killing of your research while dealing with barbarians spawning randomly inside your territory. Problem is that India has very little production during early game and can't really afford to lose units to bad combat rolls.

PHOENICIA
UU: Sacred Band and Numidian Cavalry
Sacred Band is a Spearman with +25 % when fighting in cities and Amphibious promotion. Unit does good job when defending cities and being Spearman is helpful against North African Camel Riders. Units base strength is too low to really leverage its city attack bonus and amphibious capabilities.

Numidian Cavalry is a Horseman with no penalty to city strength, +50 % against Melee units and starts with Disengage and Desert Adaptation. This very powerful. Beats Legions in fair fight.

UB: Glassblower
Market with +50 % Trade Route yield. Its not huge improvement, but it adds up when stacking extra Trade Route effects like Merchant Trade and Great Lighthouse. Facts that Markets are already useful for UHV 3 helps.

UP: Power of Mercenaries
Gold Rushing military units is always available and at half cost and no extra upkeep. This lets Phoenicia to create army to conquer Rome real fast.

UHVs
1. Build a Palace and the Great Cothon in Carthage by 300 BC
2. Control Italy and Iberia in 100 BC
3. Have 5000 gold in 200 AD

First one is quite cheeseable by founding Carthage as your first city. I think Tyre should spawn few turns before Phoenician start as an independent city to prevent that. Sometimes Greece decide to build Great Cothon early and there is little Phoenicia can do to beat them to it besides just invading them. This can be little frustrating when it happens but doesn't happen often enough to be a problem.

While I don't like Gold hoarding goals as last UHV and it is also contrary to Phoenicia's UP, it might actually be necessary to limit their UP. With two cities producing military I averaged to one Numidian Cavalry per turn on Epic, while still increasing my treasury.

 

[Leoreth]

Great feedback, thanks. I especially have thoughts on both of their UPs:

The Power of Purity: I don't think effects that are like +X per Y excess happiness are really a good idea. It's a really unstable formula especially here because health helps drive population which drives down excess happiness which drives down health which drives down population etc. It's also hard to see the benefit that it brings.

A better idea that basically encourages the same things would be: +1 health from buildings that provide happiness. Still synergy with building religious buildings, some other buildings as well (but not that many are available in the time frame it's relevant). It's probably a bit stronger but not too much, and I think the more straightforward nature of the rule is worth it. Thoughts?

The Power of Mercenaries: I am mostly wondering how many people are using Citizenship to rush units when not playing Phoenicia. Is it worth it? It feels strong as Phoenicia but they should not be the only ones to use it.

 

[Zaddy]

I like the proposed new Indian UHV; I was coincidentally just playing a Indian game last night. The proposed change would reward you for building temples and give you a natural reason to pursue the 2nd UHV, which is nice from a "gameplay aesthetic" standpoint.

re: rushbuying units:

Outside of Phoenicia and Tamils (saving gold as required for UHV 1 allows you to quickly rushbuy units for UHV 2) I don't recall ever using it. It's simply too expensive for most civs. The fact that the rushed units murder your economy with increased maintenance and can't be upgraded makes it even worse. It also has to compete with simply whipping units with Despotism.

To go off on a slight tangent, I really feel that Despotism is much more useful than basically every other civic in it's category pre-factories. After factories whipping often becomes unnecessary and you can switch to a more relevant civic; but for 99% of civs I'm often in Despotism the entire game. There's a reason Slavery was THE civic in vanilla, and even with the changes to whip anger made in this mod it still is the best way for civs to build infrastructure or armies quickly.

As is I personally feel Despotism is overly centralizing for a large majority of the game. At the same time it feels to me as if Despotism is the only way many civs (particularly older civs with poor modifiers) can build infrastructure and armies in a reasonable time frame.

 

[Dracosolon]

Despotism is strong but it has to compete with the so-strong-it-had-to-be-repeatedly-nerfed Republic and the very solid Monarchy. Not sure how satisfactory the balance is at this point in development. If Despotism is too tempting for some civs though, I would think this could be helped with an additional early building that helps with . Maybe some other way to whip or rush buy workers could be interesting too.

A better idea that basically encourages the same things would be: +1 health from buildings that provide happiness. Still synergy with building religious buildings, some other buildings as well (but not that many are available in the time frame it's relevant). It's probably a bit stronger but not too much, and I think the more straightforward nature of the rule is worth it. Thoughts?

That would be:
-Temples (so mostly Hindu and Buddhist),
-Arena,
-Cathedrals (again Hindu and Buddhist).
If buildings with from resources count:
-Weaver,
-Market,
-Forge (though really it's more like if the Forge didn't affect health).
And from civics:
-Pagan Temple.

So between 5, 8 or 9 , and with a significant investment in . Potentially 2 more with a third religion. Does that sound balanced?

A boost on Edicts would be an incentive too, though maybe that'd make them too strong and they could just get the bonus instead.

e: A weaker version could just include from religious buildings, since monasteries are less synergistic than happiness buildings for the population UHV.

 

[Zaddy]

Despotism is strong but it has to compete with the so-strong-it-had-to-be-repeatedly-nerfed Republic and the very solid Monarchy. Not sure how satisfactory the balance is at this point in development. If Despotism is too tempting for some civs though, I would think this could be helped with an additional early building that helps with . Maybe some other way to whip or rush buy workers could be interesting too.

Eh, I prefer whipping an army and conquering somewhere with happiness resources instead of just parking units in cities with Monarchy. In my opinion Despotism > Monarchy basically every single time. Despotism gets you faster basic infrastructure and armies as well. I find that even for Europeans pre-colonization the game has enough ways to solve happiness issues that Monarchy generally isn't necessary.

Republic is more interesting for some civs, but even historic Republic civs like Greece or Rome, I find myself immediately switching to Despotism. Republic has some niche uses but it doesn't compete with Despotism broadly in my opinion.

 

[Leoreth]

Despotism is strong but it has to compete with the so-strong-it-had-to-be-repeatedly-nerfed Republic and the very solid Monarchy. Not sure how satisfactory the balance is at this point in development. If Despotism is too tempting for some civs though, I would think this could be helped with an additional early building that helps with . Maybe some other way to whip or rush buy workers could be interesting too.

Exactly. I also agree that pop rushing is the strongest ability in the game, which made Slavery essentially a must have in BtS. I think DoC is better than BtS in two regards: as you mentioned, I took pains to increase its opportunity costs by making it compete with all the other strong civic effects: military happiness, extra specialist food (not available in BtS but clearly strong), maintenance reduction, and extra great people birth rate. The only not so great civic in this column is Elective, which imo still has its uses as an early game civic for civs that struggle to improve their territory. Especially Hereditary Rule was considered the second strongest civic in BtS, in particular because you could combine it with Slavery to mitigate its downsides, this isn't possible anymore. And secondly, at the very least if people would want to have the pop rush ability throughout the whole game, Despotism is a more sensible civic to run for all of history, instead of Slavery.

I feel like if Despotism is too attractive, it's often because Republic doesn't suit your situation, and Monarchy is not quite worth it by comparison. Maybe it deserves a small buff. I generally agree that resources can cover for Monarchy, but the limited resource effect rules push back against that, making Monarchy more valuable again.

I think the best avenue to nerf Despotism directly would be messing with the population to production formula. But I have no idea which effects that would have.

That would be:
-Temples (so mostly Hindu and Buddhist),
-Arena,
-Cathedrals (again Hindu and Buddhist).
If buildings with from resources count:
-Weaver,
-Market,
-Forge (though really it's more like if the Forge didn't affect health).
And from civics:
-Pagan Temple.

So between 5, 8 or 9 , and with a significant investment in . Potentially 2 more with a third religion. Does that sound balanced?

A boost on Edicts would be an incentive too, though maybe that'd make them too strong and they could just get the bonus instead.

e: A weaker version could just include from religious buildings, since monasteries are less synergistic than happiness buildings for the population UHV.

I was thinking only buildings that inherently provide happiness. That makes it +3 health from Hindu Temple, Buddhist Temple, Arena and up to +5 for every fourth city after investing quite a lot of production into cathedrals. I think cathedrals can be disregarded for that reason. Also, Arenas aren't too cheap either and Buddhist Temples come a bit later in the game. I would not say that's overpowered. Even if let's say Jainism was added into the mod it would not be overpowered.

 

[Zaddy]

I guess it could be an oddity of how I play, but at the very least I've played hundreds of hours of this mod with the current civic set up and can say I've used Monarchy and Elective maybe once or twice, even considering the modified resource rules. Hereditary Rule was good in vanilla, but if it was a choice between HR and Slavery in vanilla, any player worth their salt would choose Slavery 100/100 times. Happiness can be managed via other methods, but nothing replaces whipping (except factories).

Despotism simply offers too much: Faster workers, faster infrastructure, faster settlers for colonization/expansion. Crucially the infrastructure you build can often pay for or even create happiness for your city. Not really any skin off my nose if it remains as is, but IMO that civic category is lacking in true choices right now. Do with my feedback what you will.

Perhaps I should offer context for the settings I usually play, which is Regent or Monarch difficulty and Marathon speed. It's possible that Marathon speed influences my choices, as buildings take ages to build without whipping.

 

[Dracosolon]

I was thinking only buildings that inherently provide happiness. That makes it +3 health from Hindu Temple, Buddhist Temple, Arena and up to +5 for every fourth city after investing quite a lot of production into cathedrals. I think cathedrals can be disregarded for that reason. Also, Arenas aren't too cheap either and Buddhist Temples come a bit later in the game. I would not say that's overpowered. Even if let's say Jainism was added into the mod it would not be overpowered.

Alright, that sounds like a reasonable ballpark. I never really paid much attention to the bonus during my playthroughs since as previously said it's so finicky so I wasn't sure if the expected bonus was roughly the same. Still, I think "+1 on religious buildings" has my preference as it's easier to sum up, and because monasteries seem like they'd better fit India's flavor than arenas (did ancient India even build those?).

Perhaps I should offer context for the settings I usually play, which is Regent or Monarch difficulty and Marathon speed. It's possible that Marathon speed influences my choices, as buildings take ages to build without whipping.

Whipping is a bit weaker on faster speeds since it takes one turn no matter what and thus represents a greater fraction of the production time you'd normally get.

 

[Zaddy]

Whipping is a bit weaker on faster speeds since it takes one turn no matter what and thus represents a greater fraction of the production time you'd normally get.

I don't believe that's true, unless I misunderstand you. In the case of buildings, on Marathon they're 300% of the hammer cost compared to Standard, while whipping on Marathon provides 300% of the hammers per population point compared to standard speed. On that metric, whipping is not necessarily efficient immediately. That said, a whipped building has more turns to provide payoff compared to Standard, which probably makes whipping infrastructure better on Marathon.

Additionally, units are only 260% of the hammer cost on Marathon compared to Standard, while whipping still provides 300% of the hammers it normally does. So, whipping units is definitely more efficient on Marathon. Compounding this effect this that war is much more rewarding on Marathon, as you have more turns to move your units around and wage war in general.

This all assumes none of the marathon modifiers has been touched by this mod. If they aren't, it might be a good idea to increase unit costs on Marathon to be more in line with the rest of the gamespeed increases.

 

[Leoreth]

The point is that if a unit takes 3 turns on normal and 9 turns on marathon, you can hurry them with the same population because their production gain scales with game speed. But the hurry action itself takes one turn. So you save 2 turns on normal and 8 turns on marathon, so it is 4x more effective rather than the 3x more effective you would expect from the game speed scaling modifier.

 

[Just an idea]

I like suggested changes to India's UP. It feels more controllable than current version. Regarding buildings that give happiness; Palace also gives and Cathedrals don't actually have static happiness increase, but +2 when they are of your state religion and +1 with Incense.

Buying units is good for Phoenicia. Its also somewhat viable for civs with Gold hoarding goal followed by conquest one, such as Tamils and Byzantines. Because of extra upkeep Mercenaries should be used either for quick conquest or as emergency defenders and then disbanded. Problem with using mercenaries for attack is that rushing units is most effective when done early and during early game amount of commerce produced is rather low so after starting gold is used buying gets you units slower than whipping them. As for using them for defensive wars is that due to high upkeep cost of Citizenship its not usually worth it to keep it after boosted infrastructure has been built. So using mercenaries would require one to switch to Citizenship and off from it after war is over, which is usually not worth it.

 

[happysheep]

I guess it could be an oddity of how I play, but at the very least I've played hundreds of hours of this mod with the current civic set up and can say I've used Monarchy and Elective maybe once or twice, even considering the modified resource rules. Hereditary Rule was good in vanilla, but if it was a choice between HR and Slavery in vanilla, any player worth their salt would choose Slavery 100/100 times. Happiness can be managed via other methods, but nothing replaces whipping (except factories).

Despotism simply offers too much: Faster workers, faster infrastructure, faster settlers for colonization/expansion. Crucially the infrastructure you build can often pay for or even create happiness for your city. Not really any skin off my nose if it remains as is, but IMO that civic category is lacking in true choices right now. Do with my feedback what you will.

Perhaps I should offer context for the settings I usually play, which is Regent or Monarch difficulty and Marathon speed. It's possible that Marathon speed influences my choices, as buildings take ages to build without whipping.

Personally as a mostly china player, I don't really see the point of whipping in RFC DOC past the early game. I play on epic speed and once you finish building your taixues and granaries theres really not all that much worth to build for a long time and monarchy often seems better to work more cottages. whipping more units will bascially just crash your econoimny, and the only marginal use for whipping would be whipping, say, a lighthouse in Qingdao or Guangzhou. Even then, it seems like the amount of gain for having a lighthouse earlier vs losing scientist and cottage turns seems pretty marginal and not worth the whipping unhappiness AND the monarchy loss. But idk i only started playing late last year so I wouldnb't be surprised if my RFC DOC strats are wrong

 

[Zaddy]

Personally as a mostly china player, I don't really see the point of whipping in RFC DOC past the early game. I play on epic speed and once you finish building your taixues and granaries theres really not all that much worth to build for a long time and monarchy often seems better to work more cottages. whipping more units will bascially just crash your econoimny, and the only marginal use for whipping would be whipping, say, a lighthouse in Qingdao or Guangzhou. Even then, it seems like the amount of gain for having a lighthouse earlier vs losing scientist and cottage turns seems pretty marginal and not worth the whipping unhappiness AND the monarchy loss. But idk i only started playing late last year so I wouldnb't be surprised if my RFC DOC strats are wrong

I would say China has a special case, where it really has not much need to quickly conquer or consolidate it's region militarily (and trying to play super expansively just crashes your economy because China's modifiers aren't very good). But even still, once you've build all your infrastructure, you should have enough happiness resources that spending turns revolting to Monarchy seems rather pointless, and Despotism can whip off excess population for nice-to-have infrastructure that will quickly grow back, because China is food-rich and their UP synergizes well with whipping. At least, that's my experience, but I won't say I'm an expert in playing China.

The point is that if a unit takes 3 turns on normal and 9 turns on marathon, you can hurry them with the same population because their production gain scales with game speed. But the hurry action itself takes one turn. So you save 2 turns on normal and 8 turns on marathon, so it is 4x more effective rather than the 3x more effective you would expect from the game speed scaling modifier.

Okay, I understand better now, thanks for explaining. Maybe I'll try some games at Standard speed to see if I still feel Despotism is still overly centralizing like it is on Marathon.

 

[happysheep]

I would say China has a special case, where it really has not much need to quickly conquer or consolidate it's region militarily (and trying to play super expansively just crashes your economy because China's modifiers aren't very good). But even still, once you've build all your infrastructure, you should have enough happiness resources that spending turns revolting to Monarchy seems rather pointless, and Despotism can whip off excess population for nice-to-have infrastructure that will quickly grow back, because China is food-rich and their UP synergizes well with whipping. At least, that's my experience, but I won't say I'm an expert in playing China.



Okay, I understand better now, thanks for explaining. Maybe I'll try some games at Standard speed to see if I still feel Despotism is still overly centralizing like it is on Marathon.

On the happiness point ild say not really. Even after calendar I usually need 3-4 more happiness in the outer cities on monarch, not to mention paragon

 

[Just an idea]

PERSIA (I'm not forgetting anyone)
UU: Immortal and Savaran
Immortal is a cheaper Spearman with +100% Attack against Archers and March promotion. Immortals do decent job in Persia's initial conquests in Mesopotamia and Levant. They also do good job in handling Barbarian Horsemen in Central Asia and Indus Valley. However when encountering Greek Hoplites and Roman Legions they, contrary to their name, tend to die rather quickly. They are cheap enough that they could probably overwhelm them by numbers, but that leads to lot of War Weariness and is not worth it in my opinion. After early game most useful as garrisons. While I think mechanically unit fits into Persian game, name and function don't really meet. Immortals were elite heavy infantry unit. Sparabara might be more fitting unit name.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparabara )

Savaran is Lancer with -2 and no city strength penalty. It is available with Generalship. Good for fighting Romans.

UB: Apothecary
Pharmacy with +2 and +2 on improved Incense tiles, +1 on improved Silk and Spice tiles. It is available with Medicine. Persia will have large enough empire to have sufficient resources for its core cities and other cities should be kept small for expansion stability purposes so I didn't find building useful for most of my cities. However it provides +5 for Parsa so it can be good in right circumstance.

UP: Power of Satrapy
Extra stability for recently conquered cities. Also not mentioned in power's description, but looking at stability code, Persia suffers reduced expansion stability penalty for foreign culture in cities. Effect of UP's that only affect stability can be hard to tell. I can however say for certain that without this power my empire's stability would have gone to Unstable.

UHVs
1. Control 7% of the world by 140 AD
2. Control 7 wonders by 350 AD
3. Control 2 shrines in 350 AD

7% of the world is a lot. It requires pretty much constant expansion, while also dealing with barbarians and Greek and Roman conquerors that can make life quite hectic. Especially the Greek one's because, due to turn order, they can attack after spawning before player has chance to react. In current version Greek infantry in conqueror event is usually Swordmen which are easier to deal with than Hoplites, especially if Persians have Savarans. Early game can also be somewhat swingy. If Babylonia has Skirmishers its possible that starting Army is not enough to conquer them.

7 wonders can usually be had just by conquering Babylonia, Egypt and Greece. Persia also has 3 Zoroastrian wonders they can build. Apadana Palace is very useful by increasing Worker workrate and helping push borders for UHV 1. Great Mausoleum's +50% Golden Age length felt less necessary but still nice to have. I'm however bit disappointed in Gondeshapur. Due to there being more critical techs than Medicine (Currency, Generalship) by the time Gondeshapur get built, its almost the conquest deadline, so free Medic promotion doesn't have time to make an impact. +1 Food from Scientists isn't that helpful either because 3rd goal requires Great Prophets.

3rd goal is about spawning enough Prophets and not collapsing before deadline.

 

[Leoreth]

I have always been thinking about changing the Persian territory goal into a population goal instead. Persia is often credited with controlling the highest percentage of the world's population of any empire in history. But I don't know what the consequences would be.

 

[brett0007]

Id argue that was because Persia conquered at the time two of the most densely populated areas of the planet,(Egypt and the fertile crescent/Mesopotamia) rather than anything the Persians did
uniquely in regards to population growth. If anything it was their hands off approach to governing with satraps and client kings that was fairly novel for its time.

 

[Leoreth]

What's your point? It's the Persian conquest goal, the question is just how to measure it.

 

[brett0007]

In game going off population alone may be a bit hit or miss and dependent on the AI. Like a bad encounter with some barbarians could result in a lot of raised improvements or workers being destroyed. Hampering the growth of the civs you need to conquer to hit the pop requirement.

 

[Steb]

I have always been thinking about changing the Persian territory goal into a population goal instead. Persia is often credited with controlling the highest percentage of the world's population of any empire in history. But I don't know what the consequences would be.

Seems worth trying, for both thematic and gameplay reasons.

Right now for instance there isn't a strong incentive to conquer Greece because it doesn't have a large land area. But harassing Greece to reduce its population, or conquering it and growing its cities, would now be two viable strategies.

Conversely settling places like Central Asia for the territory would be less useful, which is good.

I suppose instability from large non-core cities would become an issue but perhaps the UP can be tweaked if needed.