Corsica (Pasquale Paoli) from DMS's Civilizations for VP

[gwennog]

OK I finally finished the game

Thanks again for this complete review.

Overall the civ is a lot more powerful then you would think. The bonuses you get from spending great people is quite something.

This is the desired effect, very happy that it produced it. Especially with the units which may seem weak at first glance, I had the same feeling, but @Hinin 's design is really well thought out.

The biggest issue so far was tracking the timer for the great people

Following your remarks, I searched and found how to bring up GWAM events in the Events Overview, that should help.

We are preparing a new version with this possibility and some other fixes to decrease the power of this civilization a little.

• Withdraw the production bonus from the Stantari
• Remove game speed modification on XPs and set GMusician's Event XPs to 5.
• Decrease the cost reduction of the Macchieri

Thank you, I hope you liked this civilization and I can assure you that its nickname is not misused, a very beautiful destination for the holidays .

 

[gwennog]

V5 Online:

Game Balance:

• Remove Stantari Production when a citizen born
• Remove game speed modification for XPs (GMusician Event and Marauder Promotion)
  
• Set GMusician's Event XPs to 5
• Decrease Cost reduction of the Macchieri (-33% to -25%)

Texts:

• Correction and improvement, thanks to Hinin

Events:

• Now visible in Events Overview
• Durations of events of the same era are now cumulative
• The bonuses of the events of different era are cumulative and the durations run in parallel

 

[AndreyK]

What is "across all boundaries" promotion?

 

[Hinin]

What is "across all boundaries" promotion?

Oups we forgot to put it in the description part of the thread. It's a promotion given to Settlers by the Stantari and which allows them to traverse Mountains and Water tiles (plus gives them +1 Vision).

 

[ridjack]

Corsican Cultural Victory Post-Mortem

TLDR Corsica is fun overall with some very unique ideas, but quite over-powered in its current state, and maybe a bit too mindless as a Tradition/Artistry civ. A couple of adjustments to reduce the hilariously strong yields on GWs from the UA, and to make the Macchieri less of a walking engine of doom would greatly increase my already-positive opinion of this wonderful Civ.

THANK YOU @gwennog and @Hinin for this lovely civ. Look forward to playing more of your civs, and to seeing what the Corsicans become.

Broad Overview of Game Events:

• Overall, this game was fairly uneventful. With being nestled deep in the mountains and having two UUs that could cross them at will, the few wars declared against me were one-sided. The ones I declared were even moreso. The one effect those wars did have is that I had most of the map unexplored until very late in the game, which probably contributed to the overall lack of drama.
• I was able to settle several heavily mountainous areas, including one with the Fountain of Youth that would later become my holy city.
• Speaking of which, I actually screwed up pretty massively early on; I had played a few games before this one with Corsica as Progress, and I usually moved my holy city out of the capital if the Prophet hadn't spawned there already. I forgot I was playing Tradition, and moved the holy city to Al de Baran. I didn't realize this mistake until much later, but it doesn't seem to have done much to harm me.
• I was declared on early by both Denmark and Spain, usually at the same time. These consisted of Denmark attempting to take Al de Baran while Spain focused on Geffen. These were always dealt with the same way: parking my Armigeri on and behind the mountains and taking pokes at frontline units until they gave up. I don't think any of my cities ever took any damage. They later spent most of the game fighting each other.
• Greece declared on me shortly after Macchieri came online, and in response I went over and burned down two of his biggest cities, taking him from top score to somewhere near the bottom.
• Not long after I finished with Greece, Denmark and then Spain both declared for the final time. They were both conquered, capitulated and made irrelevant.
• Pretty much everything after that was coasting to my eventual CV. Musicians were required for India and used but probably not needed for Arabia. Everyone else fell in line on their own.

My thoughts (NOTE: ALL OF THIS IS MY UNEDUCATED OPINION. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.):

• The Unique Ability: The first half (GWAM points from specific tiles) is strong and simple. It's free GWAM points without a lot of interaction required from the player. I enjoyed it in the beginning, and then very quickly it just becomes a free source of those points that I'm no longer thinking about.
  • The second half of the ability is... a little ridiculous, actually. Towards the end of the game, each Great Work was stronger than multiple GPTIs, and I had a lot of them. I've already talked about this with @Hinin on the Discord.
    Spoiler :

    
• First UU, the Armigeri: These guys are cool, fun and well-done. They are reasonably strong, with a set of promotions that makes them extremely versatile and threatening without ever feeling overpowered. I particularly like the more interactive way to gain bonus XP, and would like to see this idea used more.
• First UB, the Stantari: I don't know that there's much to say about this. It lets Corsica work specialists in all their cities, lets their settlers move around their favored mountain terrain more easily and gives you a place to put the early Music GWs you'll hopefully be getting from their UA.
• Second UB, the Furtezza: Pretty much the same situation as the Stantari. It does the job of supporting a "wide CV' playstyle with a small tourism boost and an extra Great Artist slot for all of Corsica's cities. The only small potential problem with it is more related to the second UU, the Macchieri, which I'll dive into now.
• Second UU, the Macchieri: I left this guy for last for a reason. This thing is an absolute monstrosity, a destroyer of worlds, a bringer of death to all of Corsica's enemies uncontested by any other unit I can think of, with its only real competitors being America's Minuteman and the Zulu's Impi. I've talked about this a lot with @Hinin, but I understand this mod is mostly @gwennog's baby so I want to make sure I leave this here, too.
  • Being a recon unit with automatic Trailblazer III means the only safe defense against them, terrain wise, is water. Lakes, oceans and ice are the only tiles they can't attack from. On top of that, mountains are considered rough terrain for the purposes of triggering both the Pilum-style damage and the skirmisher-esque ability to move after attacking. They're also ranged, meaning the only damage they ever take is on the defense, where they almost certainly have Survivalism II's total +50% CS and probably SIII's 75%. And even if they can't heal on the mountain itself, all they have to do is hit and move back to the nearest hill, forest or desert to let SIII heal the very little damage they manage to take. Being a Commando also means they have 3 points of movement, so they can start their on a nearby rough terrain, swap out with a Macchieri that just attacked and move out of the way for yet another one. AND if they start taking the Trailblazer line promos after SII, they're moving around at turbo speeds. I was able to have hordes of these 26 / 30 dudes swarming a 50 - 60 AI city, kill all the defenses, blockade and siege it down to capture range within something like 5 turns if the defenses were strong.
  • They also have a 25% bonus when attacking, but @Hinin has already said this will be probably be removed.
  • If all of that weren't enough, they also have the previously mentioned Pilum-style 15 damage as long as they start in rough terrain. Now, honestly, in all my games with them, this ability has meant very little. I wasn't even sure it was working until I talked to @Hinin and he clarified that it has kind of a 1-turn lag, so that you actually have to start two turns in a row in rough terrain before you'll see the damage. In its current form, that 1-turn lag makes this ability a little too clunky to be meaningful, but it's also possible it would be a lot more noticeable if there were every any units left alive to take the damage in the first place. I don't think there were any units that survived an encounter with Macchieri for two entire turns.
  • I think the Pilum-style damage in rough terrain, on its own and with some tweaks to make it more intuitive to use, would be enough to make this unit interesting and strong without all the other insanity. I don't think it's a good idea to give a ranged unit access to the Survivalism line of promotions.
  • Oh, and I almost forgot I mentioned the Furtezza with respect to these guys: the Furtezza gives 10 bonus XP to recon units, which means that, with Barracks and Armories, one other source of XP is enough to build all your Macchieri with Survivalism III right out of the gate. I used Orders to accomplish this, but honestly you could even just save up a pair of Great Musicians until all your Macchieri are built and pop them both at once to accomplish this with the UA.

Spoiler (Most of) the empire at the end of the game :

Spoiler Policies :

Spoiler Religion :

Spoiler Final Tourism Overview for the World :

Spoiler Core Cities :

The capital (on production focus for the CEP):

The Holy City:

The Third Wheel:

Spoiler City List (Shout-out to the City Production mod for this screen.) :

Spoiler I finally got to see India's religion at full power, and it's a terrifying thing of beauty. Most pressure I've ever seen. Eastern Orthodoxy and Pohakantenna were the two religions founded on the same continent as India. :

Spoiler The Citadel Wars (No idea what actually went down, I mostly wasn't involved) :

Spoiler The army that conquered two civs and obsoleted another. :

Why the hell does Egypt have so many Commandos?!

 

[gwennog]

THANK YOU @gwennog and @Hinin for this lovely civ. Look forward to playing more of your civs, and to seeing what the Corsicans become.

Thank you very much to You, @ridjack for taking the time to do such a comprehensive analysis .
Just a question, did you play with the last version (V5) ?

We need to take time to digest all the information but several points are already being reflected in order to balance.

• Bonus of events should be readjusted and can be directed less heavily on the Great Works to favor other types of play than Tradition / Artistry.
• If I ask you if this is the last version you tested, it's because the events are cumulative in duration in this version, maybe these are too long?
  
• Doomsday Machine Macchieri will have to be nerfed

I've talked about this a lot with @Hinin, but I understand this mod is mostly @gwennog's baby so I want to make sure I leave this here, too.

It's a little more complex, basically it's a civilization that I had adapted but we have reworked it so that it is more original and corresponds better to the VP universe. And in all of G&H's rework / creations, for one idea that I produce, Hinin comes up with at least ten . So I cannot claim paternity alone, it even has obvious genes from @Hinin, for exemple Macchieri is a recon unit (See the Ainu people) .

Thank you again for this feedback.
One last question, on what type of map did you play?

 

[ridjack]

Just a question, did you play with the last version (V5) ?

One last question, on what type of map did you play?

Yes, on Communitu_79, mostly default map settings.

Bonus of events should be readjusted and can be directed less heavily on the Great Works to favor other types of play than Tradition / Artistry.

I liked how they added yields to certain resources. This would at least require you to work the tiles to get the yields, and would also reduce the number of items getting those yields in a Tradition game.

If I ask you if this is the last version you tested, it's because the events are cumulative in duration in this version, maybe these are too long?

@Hinin mentioned that the bonuses stacked if you had one event going from a previous era when you started a new one. My GWs were showing 20 of some yields towards the end; that means multiple past era events had to still be going; like, four or five eras worth. Probably worth doing something about that.

Doomsday Machine Macchieri will have to be nerfed

Poor guys.

 

[gwennog]

@Hinin mentioned that the bonuses stacked if you had one event going from a previous era when you started a new one. My GWs were showing 20 of some yields towards the end; that means multiple past era events had to still be going; like, four or five eras worth. Probably worth doing something about that.

Yes, it is, but I admit that I find it hard to imagine.
There are 4 eras for events Corsica Ancient / Classic, Medieval / Renaissance, ... +20 means 2 + 4 + 6 + 8. So that you had enough GWriter in the classic era to keep the +2 going until the Atomic era.
You are on turn 349, the duration of the event at standard speed is 15 turns. It means you expende 349/15 = 24 GWriters before the end of classic era !!
I think there is a problem in my code .
If you don't mind and have kept a save, could you take a screenshot of the contents of the Events Overview? Otherwise, that's okay, help without it is already precious.

 

[ridjack]

Yes, it is, but I admit that I find it hard to imagine.
There are 4 eras for events Corsica Ancient / Classic, Medieval / Renaissance, ... +20 means 2 + 4 + 6 + 8. So that you had enough GWriter in the classic era to keep the +2 going until the Atomic era.
You are on turn 349, the duration of the event at standard speed is 15 turns. It means you expende 349/15 = 24 GWriters before the end of classic era !!
I think there is a problem in my code .
If you don't mind and have kept a save, could you take a screenshot of the contents of the Events Overview? Otherwise, that's okay, help without it is already precious.

I kept the last 100 turns of saves in case they were needed for something like this, however I don't think I have the "Events Overview" available, since I keep the actual events all turned off.

 

[gwennog]

I kept the last 100 turns of saves in case they were needed for something like this, however I don't think I have the "Events Overview" available, since I keep the actual events all turned off.

I understand better now , you played with an overpowered version of Corsica . You must activate the events for this civ works correctly.

Otherwise, each type of event fires once but never ends. It greatly changes the whole course of the game and even the management of when or not I trigger an event to increase certain yields.

For me, that does not call into question the fact that to mitigate the tradition / artistry orientation, the events should act less on the GWorks but on the other hand, it raises the question of the feeling of overpower of the civ that you had.

 

[ridjack]

So this requires the actual good/neutral/bad events to be activated? Honestly, if that's true then I unfortunately have no further interest in the civ.

Just to be clear, I do have the events system activated, as it's required for a number of things. But I turn off all the actual events because I don't find them even slightly fun.

EDIT: Seems I do have the "game option" for events off, so. That's really unfortunate to hear.

Here's hoping you guys can come up with a way to do this that doesn't involve events. I guess I'll be removing Corsica from my mod list.

Sorry for wasting your time.

 

[Rekk]

You can turn events on and disable positive, neutral, negative events.

 

[gwennog]

Here's hoping you guys can come up with a way to do this that doesn't involve events. I guess I'll be removing Corsica from my mod list.

As @Rekk says, you can play by activating the event system but without activating the bad / neutral / good events, it works fine.

 

[Rekk]

Doesn't base VP use the event system for spies? I can disable events on the start screen, but utilize spies just fine. Is the way your mod works different from that?

 

[gwennog]

Doesn't base VP use the event system for spies? I can disable events on the start screen, but utilize spies just fine. Is the way your mod works different from that?

Surely since it is necessary to activate on my side. In my first version, there was no need to activate but the events did not appear in the events overview and the durations were not cumulative.
At the moment, using events is a bit new to me, I'm progressing slowly.

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

Just wanted to say that I like the music for this civ a lot, especially the peace music is a real banger!

Is it only possible to have one song for each civ for peace and one for war?

 

[Hinin]

Just wanted to say that I like the music for this civ a lot, especially the peace music is a real banger!

Is it only possible to have one song for each civ for peace and one for war?

Yes, that's how it works, unfortunately.

I can at least give you good bands you can listen to if you like Corsican chant.

First, there is L'Alba, which is among the most famous recently, and did the song used as a Peace Theme. Their most famous song is Sta Mane, whose lyrics are heart wrenching (you can find an English translation in the comments of this page).

The band that did the War Theme (which by the way is the Corsican anthem) is I Muvrini, which is a more well-established one. Aside from typical songs, like Te Corsica, they worked in a variety of styles, from the romantic / baroque songs like Addiu a ghjulu to more pop / folk ones, like their most recent ones.

We had two additionnal choices for the War Theme : Sta Mane (linked above) and Rinucciu di a rocca (nationalist song).

Also, if you like that kind of singing, just know that Georgian and Corsican styles of singing are famously similar (see here a collaboration).

 

[gwennog]

Just wanted to say that I like the music for this civ a lot, especially the peace music is a real banger!

Thank you Heinz, you are our biggest supporter on our musical choices .
These are great talking moments that Hinin often comes out on top for the good of the mod and our ears.

 

[Hinin]

These are great talking moments that Hinin often comes out on top for the good of the mod and our ears.

Argh, stop this gwennog, pls.
We both know it's a collaborative effort.

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

Well I wasnt as big a fan of the ainu music, but I guess not all cultures produce music that I deem enjoyable