Civilization Request Thread

[Arison]

1.You can enter enemy territories without open borders anyway... I'm assuming you mean foreign territory.
2. The Loa is a bit weird IMO.. Missionaries are usually on the move, so I'm not sure how useful would a +1 faith bonus while stationed on a certain terrain be here... Perhaps give it something stronger, such as a lower cost per each tile of a specific terrain type in your territory.
3. About the Houngan: by every unit, do you mean enemy units as well? And if the damage is dealt to all enemy units, it could be quite OP, considering that wars (which that civ encourages) usually give you more and more great generals...

Other than those 3 things, I think its a pretty good design...

Foreign territory, yes

Maybe I should make the Loa a lot cheaper to be able to allow you to have a whole load of them stationed on their terrains while also using others as missionaries

It should really be damage within a certain area, but maybe like one damage to every enemy unit or something like that.

 

[David Xanatos]

I have returned.

In honor of Crash Bandicoot's 20th Anniversary, I'm looking to finally complete the triumvirate of Evil Video Game Doctor Civs by creating a Civ led by Dr. Neo Cortex himself. Currently I'm working on some of the visual assets, and have some rough ideas for their unique ability and units, as well as a potential 'gimmick' of sort to really make him different to play as.

As such this post is more to look for people potentially interested in helping out with art, and, of course, programming, as while I'm somewhat capable in the former, I've still no real skill with the latter. I really wanna go all out with this, for old time's sake.

 

[Klisz]

Harkodos has a Cortex civ planned; perhaps you could collaborate with him?

 

[David Xanatos]

Unfortunately, he's un-interested in collaborating. Has nothing against me going ahead and doing a version of my own, though. Still leaves me without help though.

 

[Sgtwolf00]

Rip this thread, let's add some life to it though! What'd you guys think of this design? It's from the weekly mechanic challenge thread, the mechanic being that caravans can create roads (Civ VI inspired as you can see). I tried to make it unique, but lack of time forced me to create this design, which have the same UU and UB name as the already existing Samanids, but what can you do?

The Samanids under Isma'il ibn Ahmad

UA: The Heart of the Silk Roads
Caravans create Roads when on their trade missions, these Caravan created Roads allows all adjacent tiles to them to yield +1 Gold, cities connected to the capital produce +1 Gold, Science, Culture and Faith, increases to +2 if the empire is in a Golden Age, gain Golden Age points when capturing cities.

UU: Ghilman (Knight Replacement)
Replacement for the Knight, no city combat penalty and it earns Golden Age points from kills. Can earn promotions faster and when reaching level 5 the Ghilman can be retired in a city. Giving you a burst of Golden Age points and increasing all the yields of that city by +1

UB: Madrassa (University Replacement)
+33% Science, it also yields +1 Culture and Faith and this is increase by another yield if there is a city connection to this city. GWW slot and a unique Specialist Slot called a Scholar, yielding +3 Golden Age points and Great Scientist points.

 

[FallenAesir]

Welp, with Civ6 out I guess this thread is pretty much dead. I'm curious whether the China split is still going ahead, because I'm thinking of doing some modding with a Chinese Civ (Ming Dynasty Emperor Chenghua, based on spying and internal control)

Emperor Chenghua (Ming Dynasty)

UA: East and West Depot
Gains +2 Spies. Spies based in your own cities reduce unhappiness by X. (Not sure if the second part is codable)

UU: Jinyiwei
Elite replacement for the Longswordsmen. Cost significantly more to produce and has a significantly higher power
Grants combat bonus for fighting near the Capital.
-X% enemy spy stealing rate in the city they are garrisoned

UB: Spy Depot
Replacement for the Constabulary. Cost slightly more to produce.
-25% enemy spy stealing rate
-2 unhappiness

Emperor Chenghua (Zhu Jianshen) was known for the establishment of the Western Depot, on top of the existing Eastern Depot. Both "depots" are essentially spying agencies that conducted missions for the Emperor, spying upon their own populace. The Jinyiwei are Imperial Guards, highly skilled that were eventually co-opted by the East and West Depot. Freedom was hugely curtailed due to the paranoia of the Emperor. As such, playing as Emperor Chenghua requires a player to play as he lived.

 

[Troller0001]

Welp, with Civ6 out I guess this thread is pretty much dead. I'm curious whether the China split is still going ahead, because I'm thinking of doing some modding with a Chinese Civ (Ming Dynasty Emperor Chenghua, based on spying and internal control)

Emperor Chenghua (Ming Dynasty)

UA: East and West Depot
Gains +2 Spies. Spies based in your own cities reduce unhappiness by X. (Not sure if the second part is codable)

UU: Jinyiwei
Elite replacement for the Longswordsmen. Cost significantly more to produce and has a significantly higher power
Grants combat bonus for fighting near the Capital.
-X% enemy spy stealing rate in the city they are garrisoned

UB: Spy Depot
Replacement for the Constabulary. Cost slightly more to produce.
-25% enemy spy stealing rate
-2 unhappiness

Emperor Chenghua (Zhu Jianshen) was known for the establishment of the Western Depot, on top of the existing Eastern Depot. Both "depots" are essentially spying agencies that conducted missions for the Emperor, spying upon their own populace. The Jinyiwei are Imperial Guards, highly skilled that were eventually co-opted by the East and West Depot. Freedom was hugely curtailed due to the paranoia of the Emperor. As such, playing as Emperor Chenghua requires a player to play as he lived.

Wouldn't it be easier to grant Happiness instead of negative Unhappiness?
(Not sure how player:HasSpyEstablishedSurveillance(iSpyIndex) specifically works, but it seemed the most appropriate spy-method regarding your question).
It seems like a pretty cool design, and what perhaps could make it even more unique is if one of the spies was already available at the start of the game (or X eras earlier)?

(The thread is not dead yet, thought it's starting to get very underpopulated )

 

[FallenAesir]

Wouldn't it be easier to grant Happiness instead of negative Unhappiness?
(Not sure how player:HasSpyEstablishedSurveillance(iSpyIndex) specifically works, but it seemed the most appropriate spy-method regarding your question).
It seems like a pretty cool design, and what perhaps could make it even more unique is if one of the spies was already available at the start of the game (or X eras earlier)?

(The thread is not dead yet, thought it's starting to get very underpopulated )

It would be easier but no one has ever felt happy with more domestic spies, right?

I'll be looking into the spying files to figure out how it works when my exams are over... I don't think earlier spies are possible since the Ui Infrastructure isn't there, right?

 

[Troller0001]

It would be easier but no one has ever felt happy with more domestic spies, right?

Just watch out because the game ignores negative values in the <Happiness>-tags of the building definitions!

I'll be looking into the spying files to figure out how it works when my exams are over... I don't think earlier spies are possible since the Ui Infrastructure isn't there, right?

Sadly I cannot answer that, but what I can do is wish you luck for your exams

 

[FallenAesir]

@Troller0001 Thanks for the encouragement!

Since I'm utterly bored, I'm going to post the second Chinese civ I'll work on. (This honestly seems easier, though I suspect the 2nd part of the UA will require some Lua). I think I can observe the first part of the UA from JFD's original HRE script, whilst the third part is just through editing values in the leader file.

King Xian of Zhou (Zhou Dynasty)

UA: Lords of Spring and Autumn
Can only settle puppeted cities. Gains a great general when a city is found. Greatly increased generation rate for Great Writers.

UU: Vassal Lord
Unique replacement for Great General. Cannot be earned through combat. Greatly increases combat abilities of nearby units, greatly increases exp rate of nearby units.

UB: Philosopher's School
Unique replacement for library. +3 Great writer points. 3 Slots for great works of writing.

While many know about Qin's war to unify China, few knew that there was a ruling monarch above the seven vassal lords of the Spring and Autumn era: Qin, Qi, Shu, Yan, Zhao, Wei and Han. Each lord was, in theory, a vassal to the King of Zhou, the true son of Heaven. However, real authority laid in the hands of those who held military power. This period of great chaos inspired a great many scholars to debate the true way of governance. It was in this time that the ideas of Confucius, Mencius, Laotzu and Motzu rose to prominence. Each Vassal Lord patronized a different school, pushing a different path, leading to the flourishing of the Hundred School of Thought.

Again, I'm going for almost unknown leaders with amazing flavor and building from there. However, art will srsly kill me. No idea how to get the art for these guys :/

 

[Troller0001]

@Troller0001 Thanks for the encouragement!

Since I'm utterly bored, I'm going to post the second Chinese civ I'll work on. (This honestly seems easier, though I suspect the 2nd part of the UA will require some Lua). I think I can observe the first part of the UA from JFD's original HRE script, whilst the third part is just through editing values in the leader file.

King Xian of Zhou (Zhou Dynasty)

UA: Lords of Spring and Autumn
Can only settle puppeted cities. Gains a great general when a city is found. Greatly increased generation rate for Great Writers.

UU: Vassal Lord
Unique replacement for Great General. Cannot be earned through combat. Greatly increases combat abilities of nearby units, greatly increases exp rate of nearby units.

UB: Philosopher's School
Unique replacement for library. +3 Great writer points. 3 Slots for great works of writing.

While many know about Qin's war to unify China, few knew that there was a ruling monarch above the seven vassal lords of the Spring and Autumn era: Qin, Qi, Shu, Yan, Zhao, Wei and Han. Each lord was, in theory, a vassal to the King of Zhou, the true son of Heaven. However, real authority laid in the hands of those who held military power. This period of great chaos inspired a great many scholars to debate the true way of governance. It was in this time that the ideas of Confucius, Mencius, Laotzu and Motzu rose to prominence. Each Vassal Lord patronized a different school, pushing a different path, leading to the flourishing of the Hundred School of Thought.

Again, I'm going for almost unknown leaders with amazing flavor and building from there. However, art will srsly kill me. No idea how to get the art for these guys :/

Seems cool (mostly simple yet effective), though it seems kind of odd to me to have a Vassal Lord not actually having to do anything with being an actual vassal. What I could imagine is it providing bonuses with CS-relations or providing bonuses when actually allied or being friends, or something with 'giving him land (game-wise, make him construct an improvement with a culturebomb-radius)' which will have increased yields and/or no maintenance, but will give that territory to a CS/barbarians/a newly initialized player while still making the plots workable by cities (see NOTE2 below)


What I do think is Overpowered, or too strong, is the free general per city, because if you go wide (which the AI tends to do in some cases) you'll have so many Great Generals so quickly! (perhaps focus more on Great Writers in the UA and make their Great Works better, make every city provide a base of +1/2 Great Writer points, or something completely else)

NOTE: In case you didn't know, one of the design challenges was to make a civ from this area around this era (I remember because it's the only challenge I've (barely) won, ever ), so you could check that out for some more inspiration. (IIRC it was the History/era's challenge)

NOTE2: This is all just friendly criticism/advise, and remember that I usually do not look at the 'moddability' a lot when designing, which is why I quite often end up with interesting (or mostly wacky) ideas that might work, in some sort of way or with some (minor/major) changes
(When making the actual mod, I usually just go with the flow/idea until I run into unmoddable issues, and that's when I start making changes )

Spoiler :

Tldr is at the end of the spoiler
Let's take my recently released 'The League of Legends' Civilization and the Monaco mod I'm (still) working on (and that has been delayed a LOT) as an example for this:

Story time with Troller!
So let's start with 'The league of legends'
My initial idea was that their UA transforms every luxury into a Salt resource, which turned out to be pretty moddable/codeable. However, as I soon realized, this would give them serious happiness issues, which is why I decided to make those resources also provide a small amount of happiness (to counter the lack of different types of luxuries). Later, when testing this ability, I noticed that Pearls and Crabs (or other sea luxuries) were also getting transformed, and had completely forgotten that those were also luxuries! What I could've done was exclude those, but I felt that it would be weird to only have those left, but more on a 'thematic' sense. Thus I ran into my next issue, how would I build improvements on those!?
Several tries later I still had not found a way to change the mine-improvement such that it was also construct-able on water (I could only get to to be construable on the land OR the water), so I ended up using a fake improvement and lua to change it to the normal mine. While this example doesn't inherently show the 'unmoddable' side of designing a civ, it does show how I had to change up the wacky idea (all luxuries are salt) to something better and more useful, changing the design in the modding process and in the end making it a better civ overall!

Now, let's talk a bit about Monaco's Unique Unit, the Prince's Carabinier.
Inherently, we (it was/is a collab mod) we wanted it to have 'Denmarks UA in friendly territory, but also both ways' for thematic reasons. As it turned out, it is (yet) impossible to change embarkation-costs for specific units. While I do have an idea now (using some more lua trickery) to make it work in some sort of way (detect embarkation and then grant them movement points), this wasn't the case back then so we had to think up of something else. In the end, we still settled for the 'stronger near the coast'-idea (for thematic reasons), and ended up giving it a promotion which allows it to ignore terrain costs and grants it +1 sight when adjacent to a coast- or lake-tile. This also shows that the design of an idea (even though it's less wacky) transformed into something moddable, while still keeping the 'thematicness' and uniqueness of the idea.

TLDR: 2 examples that show why I like to look at moddability mostly during the modding itself, but in the end I guess it's just personal preference

 

[FallenAesir]

Seems cool (mostly simple yet effective), though it seems kind of odd to me to have a Vassal Lord not actually having to do anything with being an actual vassal. What I could imagine is it providing bonuses with CS-relations or providing bonuses when actually allied or being friends, or something with 'giving him land (game-wise, make him construct an improvement with a culturebomb-radius)' which will have increased yields and/or no maintenance, but will give that territory to a CS/barbarians/a newly initialized player while still making the plots workable by cities (see NOTE2 below)

What I do think is Overpowered, or too strong, is the free general per city, because if you go wide (which the AI tends to do in some cases) you'll have so many Great Generals so quickly! (perhaps focus more on Great Writers in the UA and make their Great Works better, make every city provide a base of +1/2 Great Writer points, or something completely else)

NOTE2: This is all just friendly criticism/advise, and remember that I usually do not look at the 'moddability' a lot when designing, which is why I quite often end up with interesting (or mostly wacky) ideas that might work, in some sort of way or with some (minor/major) changes
(When making the actual mod, I usually just go with the flow/idea until I run into unmoddable issues, and that's when I start making changes )

Wow thanks for the feedback again!

1) The GG are Vassal Lords. They don't make other states vassals, they themselves are the vassals. This is why every city is immediately puppeted, they only listen to you at times, but are always unhappy/refuse to take orders. Think of it as the player himself being the powerless king in the capital. I guess I forgot to write: cannot annex these cities, but that was what I started out with.

2) I'm not too sure why its OP. For one, every single city is puppeted meaning you can never build what you want there. I always thought the unhappiness would serve as a huge constrain on human players. The only city from which you can get units reliably is your own capital.

The idea is, again, built from flavor. Most people focus on the actual lords themselves, because that;s what people remember. However, I'm building the civ based on the king that is only in name, so everyone in your empire refuses to listen to you, you're suffering from unhappiness problems and the vassal lords (based in each city) are extremely powerful militarily wise. The UB is meant to represent how each vassal lord patronized a particular thinker.

I did approach these ideas the very same way you did, but I tend to just take simpler ideas and twist them to make interesting gameplay ideas based on the flavor. I guess I tend to think in simpler terms because I'm subconsciously restricted by the codability. :O

 

[Troller0001]

Wow thanks for the feedback again!

1) The GG are Vassal Lords. They don't make other states vassals, they themselves are the vassals. This is why every city is immediately puppeted, they only listen to you at times, but are always unhappy/refuse to take orders. Think of it as the player himself being the powerless king in the capital. I guess I forgot to write: cannot annex these cities, but that was what I started out with.

2) I'm not too sure why its OP. For one, every single city is puppeted meaning you can never build what you want there. I always thought the unhappiness would serve as a huge constrain on human players. The only city from which you can get units reliably is your own capital.

The idea is, again, built from flavor. Most people focus on the actual lords themselves, because that;s what people remember. However, I'm building the civ based on the king that is only in name, so everyone in your empire refuses to listen to you, you're suffering from unhappiness problems and the vassal lords (based in each city) are extremely powerful militarily wise. The UB is meant to represent how each vassal lord patronized a particular thinker.

Oh I get it now, now the free Vassal Lord per puppeted city makes way more sense now
For some reason I didn't really pay close attention to the 'puppeted city'-part of the UA, and mostly overlooked it in my last post. I think it seems like a reasonable trade-off for the free Vassal Lord, and the extra XP gain from it seems like a great way to keep up in military strength but through extra promotions instead!
NOTE: When coding the Vassal Lord, give it the standard GG promotion and do not make any other promotion with the <General>-tag (or sth like that) set to true. Only the first promotion (as in, the one with the lowest ID) with that tag will allow GG's/VLs to spawn, and will screw over the rest

I did approach these ideas the very same way you did, but I tend to just take simpler ideas and twist them to make interesting gameplay ideas based on the flavor. I guess I tend to think in simpler terms because I'm subconsciously restricted by the codability. :O

Don't be afraid to try out new stuff, just start with it, and if it doesn't work immediately, try it in a different way. If you still cannot find a way to make it work, post a question/ask for some help.
I've never done any UI-coding whatsoever, but that didn't dis-encourage me to try it out anyways in the latest thing I'm working on!

Spoiler :

 

[Troller0001]

It was kind of unfair for the enemies of DK Country: Tropical Freeze to not receive a design, whereas the enemies from DK Country Returns did receive one.
So well, here you go Snowmads, now you don't need to be jealous of the Tiki Tak Tribe:

DK Island Snowmads (Lord Frederik)

UA: Tropical Freeze: Declaring war to a Civilization causes their land and water tiles to turn into snow- and ice-tiles respectively (only some water-tiles are converted). When negotiating peace, all tiles are transformed back. Enemy units entering those tiles also unfreezes them. Units may enter ice tiles. Units gain 10% combat strength on snow, tundra, and ice-tiles.
UU: Snowmad Ship (replaces the Galleas): Only has a range of 1, but has 19 Combat Strength instead of 16. May carry 1 Snowmad (in the same way Carriers carry planes), which can be increased to 3 with Promotions. Snowmads stationed on the Snowmad Ship may attack targets on adjacent land-tiles, acting as if they were attacking that target when embarked. Snowmad receive no combat penalty from 'Attacking from the Water' when doing so.
UU: Painguin Tuck (replaces the Pikeman): Only gains a 25% Bonus vs Mounted units, but gains double movement on snow-, ice-, and tundra-tiles. Gains the Cover I promotion as well.

Oh and while I'm still at it, here's a design for the Toad Brigade
The Toad Brigade (Captain Toad)

UA: Treasure Tracker: Starts with 3 Brigade Members instead of a Warrior. Ancient ruins bonuses are stronger. Yields from Artifacts are doubled and Landmarks provide an additional +2 Culture.
UU: Starshroom (replaces the Caravel): Airship unit instead of a Naval unit that ignores terrain costs. Gains a weaker version of the 'Air Recon'-Promotion (2 tiles radius is revealed) but does not gain bonuses or penalties from Terrain. Gains +1 Movement compared to the Caravel, and may carry a Brigade Member. (Caravel replacement since it's used for exploration)
UU: Brigade Member (replaces the Scout): Randomly gains one of the 6 'Brigade'-Promotions, which yield different effects. Only 6 may be active at a time. May be expended to construct an Archeological dig upon discovery of Archeology.

Spoiler :

Ancient Ruins UA bonuses:
- Crudely Drawn map: Roughly 50% more tiles are uncovered
- Barbarian Activity: Tiles in a 2-tile radius from Barbarian Camps are also uncovered
- Ancient Era Tech: Gain 50% Research to another Ancient Era Tech
- Citizen: Gain 50% food towards the next citizen as well
- Unit upgrade: Gains +10% Combat Strength too
- Gold/Culture/Faith: 50% more
- Super Faith (ancient prophecy): Free Shrine and Temple in the Capital (if it already had one/both, in another city, etc.)
- Settler: Settler ignores terrain cost
- Worker: Worker is 10% faster

Brigade Promotions:
- Captain: Units within a 2 tile radius ignore terrain costs as well.
- Advisor: When meeting City States, this unit uncovers all of their territory.
- Sleepy/Drowsy: This Unit falls asleep every 5 turns, making it not able to move for a turn but regaining double the HP that turn as usual.
- Hard Worker: Speeds up workers when stationed on top of them.
- Banker: Store 10 Gold for every plundered ruin. Add this Gold to the treasury upon entering friendly territory.
- Mailman: Accumelates letters every 10-20 turns, providing a small burst of either Gold, Science, Culture, Faith, Golden Age Points, Production (in the nearest city), or Food (in the nearest city).

This text needs to be here or else you can't read the spoiler

 

[FallenAesir]

UU: Snowmad Ship (replaces the Galleas): Only has a range of 1, but has 19 Combat Strength instead of 16. May carry 1 Snowmad (in the same way Carriers carry planes), which can be increased to 3 with Promotions. Snowmads stationed on the Snowmad Ship may attack targets on adjacent land-tiles, acting as if they were attacking that target when embarked. Snowmad receive no combat penalty from 'Attacking from the Water' when doing so.

Umm, is a Snowmad a third UU, or are you referring to the Painguin?

But... wow that UA is amazing.

 

[Troller0001]

Umm, is a Snowmad a third UU, or are you referring to the Painguin?

They are the 'people/inhabitants of the Civilization', so practically the same as the Dutchmen to The Netherlands, or the Germans to Germany.
Now, since the Snowmads do not have an official name for their tribe/country/army, I decided to also call their Civilization 'The Snowmads' as well.

But... wow that UA is amazing.

I'm afraid that it could be too strong or too easily abused though

 

[FallenAesir]

They are the 'people/inhabitants of the Civilization', so practically the same as the Dutchmen to The Netherlands, or the Germans to Germany.
Now, since the Snowmads do not have an official name for their tribe/country/army, I decided to also call their Civilization 'The Snowmads' as well.

Oh, so you're thinking of shifting the population onto the boat? This is really interesting, I can imagine a wooden galley loaded with penguins armies on nearby coast with snowballs.

I'm afraid that it could be too strong or too easily abused though

You could put a turn limit to the transformation. Maybe it disappears when a peace treaty is possible? Maybe only unimproved terrain?
(Also, I have a hunch transforming the terrain with improvements on it will instantly crash the system)

 

[Troller0001]

Oh, so you're thinking of shifting the population onto the boat? This is really interesting, I can imagine a wooden galley loaded with penguins armies on nearby coast with snowballs.

I'm glad you like it

You could put a turn limit to the transformation. Maybe it disappears when a peace treaty is possible? Maybe only unimproved terrain?
(Also, I have a hunch transforming the terrain with improvements on it will instantly crash the system)

I've never been such a big fan of turn limits (just personal preference). Perhaps I can change it to 'only some tiles', instead of all tiles, or perhaps increase the 'thaw-radius' of units transforming the terrain back to the normal terrain.

I've not really looked at moddability a whole lot, and I know that there are quite a few issues with transforming terrain. E.g. it doesn't update the graphics. I have not heard about that crash issue though, and I've changed improved terrain several times with IGE (most accidentally though).

 

[FallenAesir]

I'm glad you like it


I've never been such a big fan of turn limits (just personal preference). Perhaps I can change it to 'only some tiles', instead of all tiles, or perhaps increase the 'thaw-radius' of units transforming the terrain back to the normal terrain.

I've not really looked at moddability a whole lot, and I know that there are quite a few issues with transforming terrain. E.g. it doesn't update the graphics. I have not heard about that crash issue though, and I've changed improved terrain several times with IGE (most accidentally though).

Yea I'm not concerned about the moddability either, more of the balance! Mostly cos units can't walk on ice and freezing their entire coast, for, say Britain, would completely wreck them. Also doing it on island maps probably means they won't be able to do anything anymore. But if you prefer extremes in terms of power, that makes sense too! I'd be extremely annoyed if the AI does it and refuse to negotiate peace lol.

 

[Troller0001]

Yea I'm not concerned about the moddability either, more of the balance! Mostly cos units can't walk on ice and freezing their entire coast, for, say Britain, would completely wreck them. Also doing it on island maps probably means they won't be able to do anything anymore. But if you prefer extremes in terms of power, that makes sense too! I'd be extremely annoyed if the AI does it and refuse to negotiate peace lol.

I think you might've missed this line in the original post:

Declaring war to a Civilization causes their land and water tiles to turn into snow- and ice-tiles respectively (only some water-tiles are converted).

This was to prevent the exact issue you just pointed out
I could've probably described that way better, but ability-descriptions and such have never been one of my strongest points. I usually try to over-complicate my sentences/try to crop too much in a single sentence, which is a pretty bad habit