Civilizations Reborn

I got it thank you so much!

Really enjoying the mod, looks really crisp.

One note: I started playing as the Nubians trying to get the Pyramids. The strategy seems to be to delay the Egyptians with your militia giving you time to catch up. However, in my game the Harappans consistently builds the Pyramids at around turn 90-100 on Marathon. I don't know if there is a strategy to get around this, but it might be a suggestion to take Pesedjet as requirement for the Pyramids so either the Nubians or the Egyptians will built it.

That's my two cents; looking forward to trying more civs and playtesting UHVs!

 

Thank you very much!
I'll look into this. The Harappans should favour the Sphinx more, but I've seen enough reports of this that it's probably not a case of bad luck.

 

Any appetite for a medieval civ in the area of modern-day Ghana? I don't know enough to make a proposal, I'm not even sure what they'd be called as Ghana Empire refers mostly to a civilization overlapping geographically with the Mandinka. All I know is that the coastal region south of the Mandinka core is probably distinct enough from Medieval Mandinka and Medieval Benin that it could be represented in some way. Any thoughts from the community?

 

Yes! Great Idea!
Tatars/Golden Horde (including more or less friendly to each other Qazan + Crimean + Tumen' Chanates) could be historical opponent of Russia in 14-16 centuries and their UHV could be oriented to reconstruction of Mongol Empire's Legacy!

 

Were there any organized states in the region before colonial times? The closest I could find are states like the Kingdom of Ashanti and Dahomey, but these were born in the 1600s and never grew very big.

 

Having the Mongol Empire collapse lead to some civilisations like Yuan (China with rename, until a civic change/collapse), Golden Horde, Ilkhanate (Persia with rename, until a civic change/collapse) would be very cool

 

Yeah, perhaps not. I thought there might be but then I may have just been confused by the "Empire of Ghana"

 

Anyone get anything out of the Kanem Bornu?

UHV1: Seems very, very, very difficult. Getting 1 great statesman and 1 great merchant is doable in time but 3 great merchants seems absurd. Consider Mali which has a similar goal, except it's only 1 great merchant. Even with Republic and Monasticism (plus whipped Zango and Market) I could barely reach that 2nd GM. Maybe a better/luckier run could have got me to 2 GMs. I'll keep trying though, I thought Burma was impossible with 5 great people but I just managed to do it, although their UP is obviously a lot better.

UHV2: No way. 5 slaves is already tough enough (I got 2, maybe if I sent units deep into Congo, Nigeria and Mali it would be possible to get more), but possibly doable, but getting 10 strategic resources by trade is just absurd. I'm not even sure that there are 10 strategic resources available for trade! No one in Africa has any to sell, if you're lucky and contact Europe then you might be able to find an iron or two going, but that's it. 10 is beyond any reasonable reach.

UHV3: Surprisingly doable. With all the great merchants and decent commerce in your starting area, you can actually just buy a bunch of trebuchets and longbowmen which will easily defeat Nigeria, and you can just settle Cameroon. Libya is harder - in one game, the Almohads with gunpowder had it, so that wasn't going to happen - but doable.

Another comment is their UU which is completely useless lol. Replacable parts? A tech you'll be getting in around 1750 (if lucky, but this is a central African country with 2 cities in the core, so expect it in like 1850 more realistically), which provides no bonus to pursuing the UHV. Either you get the Iron Helmet well after you've got the UHV so there's little conquering to be done, or you get it well after you've failed the UHV so it's kind of useless. Not to mention, and I am not being racist here, but I sincerely doubt that the Chadian Empire ever used 18th century European standards of gunsmithing. Either make it available far earlier or replace it with a longbowman or other replacement unit.

Nonetheless still fun as a civ, I like these one/two city early spawn civs that have far later UHVs meaning you have a few centuries to prepare for them.

EDIT: Oh also, in UHV1, if the Fatimids don't spawn, if the Arabs control Egypt or if Makuria conquers the Fatimids, you can't achieve it. Diplomatic Mission can only be done in the capital. I literally worldbuilt-changed-capital Fatimids in one game because their capital was Dongola which obviously isn't in Egypt.

 

You can squeeze 5 cities into the core, which might be worth it because of the UP, especially with vasallage and manorialism.

I agree. If you're going for the UHV, you won't get it in time, but if you're going for a domination victory or something, it seems to have a cool mechanic. That cool mechanic seems to be intended for UHV3, so it's a shame its too late in the game to use for it. Maybe it could replace arquebuisier instead? Ethiopia also has quite a UUseless unit because it's so late in the game but at least it has another one that is more useful.

 

This was a rather unceremonious end to a particularly successful Vietnam game

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Perhaps. I ended up with 3 cities (capital, one to the bottom left of lake Chad, and Azozou near the desert/hills mountain) in my core in one game, but Azozou is useless and the second city takes a while to get going. A domination victory as Chad is a funny idea.

 

Hi guys!

I've been playing some of the new civs and I wanted to write a post concerning the achievebalitiy of their UHVs. However, I realised that I do not know what the 'standard' setting is supposed to be. I always assumed that a UHV should be at least achievable on Monarch, but since the standard setting in the game is Regent is was wondering whether that assumption is correct?

 

Sorry I haven't been responding. It seems I stopped getting notifications. I'll be getting notifications from now on.

The intended settings are Regent, Standard speed.

I was able to complete the 1st Chadian UHV in previous versions, but that may have since changed. The second is largely untested and I'll look into changing the values to be more possible but here's a few tips for strategic resources in case it'll help:
1) Canceling deals and then enacting them again, while gamey, does count towards the total
2) Camels count as a strategic resource, they're a massive part of the Kanem Bornu UHV2 from the few tests I did

I intended for native units to begin to really agress the Kanem after roughly 1200 AD, perhaps I forgot to add them

My bad on their UU, I'll change them to an Arquebusier in the next update

Also a quick heads up, the 1700 AD scenario seems to have been broken for the last few versions. Expect a fix in the next update.

 

Hi 1SDAN,

I'd like to point out a few victories as well which are quite "undoable" atleast from what i've tried on Regent
Zimbabwe - 2nd goal (resourses) - most of the resourses are scattered all over africa - Mali -gold, Ivory, gems , Nigeria - ivory + gems sometimes and Kongo holds ivory and gems and so on. 1st goal is very tricky to begin with and i always get it at the near end , without building any armies , after that i just get an army and kill Swahili + Kongo, but the time is no where near enough to go through Mali and Niger , not to mention the jungles prevent movement. I was thinking if you could reduce the tiles which cover "sub-saharan Africa" to Kongo+Swahili+parts of Niger perhaps? Mali is quite the stretch and often they dont get bothered by anyone to collapse them.
Kiev'Rus - I have no idea how to actually win with this Civ , i've tried numerous times and the best i've gotten was first goal or 3rd goal + 1 trade mission , there are just too many things to do , UP is really bad imo as it just halts your growth, and if mongols accedently get conqs at 1220+ you just lose.

By the way a general thought on vassalizing civs through wars - i really can't seem to get a war vassalage on anyone even by reducing them to 1 core city + 1 defender , they just don't vassalize which makes victories such as Russians/HRE and so on just undoable. Might be just me, but on the regular version there isnt much of a problem.

 

New Update

Added Lithuania

UP: The Power of the Pagans - All cities are pagan and no religious disunity from the most popular religion while running a Pagan State Religion.
UU: Vytis - Replaces Lancer. Woodsman I. Woodsman II. +25% vs Civilizations of other faiths until the end of the Middle Ages.
UB: Vaivadija - Replaces Courthouse. +1 Statesman Slot. +25% Great Person Rate.
Yagaylo's Legacy: Control more territory than any European civ in 1500 AD
Act of Kreva: Gift 7 units to Poland and have friendly relations with them in 1600 AD
Defiance of the Three: Control or Vassalize Austria, Prussia, and Russia in 1918 AD
Pagan Religion: Romuva, Sacred Grove replaces Pagan Temple, URV2: Control Saint Peter's Basilica (References "The Pagan Pope")

At this point Eastern Europe is rather cramped in terms of cities, though considering the histories of Poland and Lithuania as nations which have seen themselves divided and conquered and conquerors many times over the years, I find this choking of their land based resources to aid in giving their gameplay an appropriate feeling of claustrophobia and proximity to danger.

New Stability Mechanic for Poland/Lithuania and Austria/Hungary: When they control a city in the other's normal area, have a defensive pact, or vassalize the other, they gain their United Dynamic Name and share core populations for stability purposes. Poland and Lithuania's cores also expand when they control a city in the other's territory, which means that while Poland's base core has been shrunk, it's maximum core territory has been expanded.

Tweaked Harappan Wonder Preferences
Swapped Pyramids and Sphinx flavours, I forgot to do this when I swapped their effects
Hopefully this makes the Nubian UHV less inconsistent by reducing Harappa's tendency to snipe the Pyramids

Tweaked Kanem Bornu UHV
Tweaked Bulala Natives


Kanem Bornu Iron Helms now replace Arquebusier
Hopefully this makes the Kanem Bornu UHV possible

Tweaked Thailand and The Khmer's normal and broader areas such that can no longer flip Hanoi on respawn

Protestantism is the only religion that can be founded in the Americas, no more Orthodox Norte Chico

Tweaked Kievan Rus Settler Map
Largely so that they don't settle a Novgorod that inevitably gets replaced with Vilnius on the Lithuanian spawn. This does have the knock on effect of making Sankt-Petersburg and Helsingfors's location and existance less consistent, which is more of a matter of preference as games are more varied but sometimes Finland doesn't exist.

Added Polynesia to 600 AD scenario

Tweaked Persia in 600 AD

Tweaked Scrolling Scoreboard Values, the Scrolling Scoreboard is now officially part of the vanilla DCR experience (in the previous update it was merely an option in the BUG settings)

Tweaked the 1700 AD scenario so that it's actually playable

More tweaks I don't remember

TWEAKS

On the topic of the Zimbabwe UHV, I've never been able to complete it, @merijn_v1 can you confirm whether it was doable in your original All_Civs mod, and if so what your strategy was?

I'll look into this, the only part of the vassalage code I remember changing is making Civs more willing to accept Vassalage when you're running Elective. Perhaps I messed something up when implementing that.

 

I have no idea. I did some tests to check if the code is working. I didn't do much checking how doable the UHV are. Mostly because my UHV achieving skills are limited. (I lack to apply specific strategies required for the UHV and apply a general strategy to basically all my games) My idea was to release the civs and change doability of the UHV based on the feedback of other players, because my own is not the best for rating how doable an UHV is.

This applies to most (all?) of my civs. So it is possible that some are way too hard or way too easy. Feel free to make changes if that makes these UHV more interesting.

What part of the UHV are you struggling with?

 

That's good to know

Same as XFactor, the Resources goal.

 

Personally I think this is one of my more creative UHV, and concept wise this is one of my favorites I created. First of all it is IMO truly unique, whereas many others are a variation of a common UHV. (For example, there are many "control area X" UHV, all with a unique twist, but the overall concept is the same) And there are multiple strategies to achieve it.

The UHV consists of 2 parts. The first is to control at least 1 copy of the resource yourself. I guess this isn't the hard part. (I don't know the map on top of my head, but IIRC the required resources are relatively close)

The second part is that other civs in sub-Saharan Africa should not have access to these resources. A common misconception is that you should control all of the required resources in sub-Saharan Africa, and therefor controlling almost all sub-Saharan Africa. But that is not required. You should make sure that other civs in Africa do not have the required resources improved. This only counts for resources in Africa. If Ethiopia grabs an ivory resource in Asia that is fine, as long as they do not have a controlled ivory resource in sub-Saharan Africa.

Not having access to the resources means that they cannot have the resources improved. There are several strategies to achive this:
1. Pillage the improvements (probably the most viable option)
2. Conquer/raze the cities that control the resources
3. Collapse the civs (independents are allowed to have the resources improved)
4. Vassalize them (your vassals are allowed to have the resources improved)
5. Use spies to destroy the improvements

So what are the problems you encounter in dealing with the UHV? Is it the misconception? Is it overexpension? Is it the inability to maintain a military force? Is it lack of time? Are there too many civs in Africa you should deal with? Something else?

I guess that a bit more information in the victory screen would also be useful. (even if you do know what the actual goal of the UHV is) I will create a PR with an updated victory help soon.

 

Seems like the issue is I and others misunderstanding the term monopolize to own all rather than to be the only owner.

 

Personally, when I play as Zimbabwe, the hardest thing to deal with is Mali because they're so far away.

 

Yes, in past versions of Zim I've always thought it meant that all the resources must be in your cultural borders. The reality is much more manageable and actually pretty interesting.