Current (SVN) development discussion thread

[civ_king]

For the long run, it's generally a better idea to take two of the eight required cities for the UHV from Corea & Japan. Mostly because it's the logical thing to do and that those city sites help out your empire immensely. I've always interpreted the 1st UHV condition for China as a subtle context to conquer your neighbors, much like how the "be first in score" condition for Japan is a subtle context to conquer your neighbors (along with the not-so-subtle Greater Empire of Japan goal).

And wait, what? Discovering Paper founded you Catholicism?
That can't be right. Don't you mean Theology?

I believe you can go through Theology to get to Paper

 

[Leoreth]

Okay.

The Shenyang flip considerably hurt my game and was very unwelcome.

I thought you had implemented that economy degradation for ancient civs that you mentioned in one of these threads.
Looking back at my save, I think my Economy problems stemmed from:
1) Diverting hammers normally reserved for gold & science buildings to troops because
they kept defecting to Mongolia after refusing to turn over Shenyang.
2) Fast, aggressive teching and tech trading on my part that hurts my (Civics?) rating with rapid civics unlocks.
I'll try and finish up getting Communism anyway and hope I make it through to Fascism before I collapse.

I think I specifically excluded China from the ancient civs that got their privileges removed, but I'll look at that again.

China seems fine. I just finished the first UHV condition without settling any cities in Manchuria, my most northern city is Beijing. I quite liked the new puzzle actually. There is a synergy between their UB, UP and UHV conditions that is very cool. Two of their required techs are bulbable with GS, and with the extra Scientists slot of their UB, you rack them up very quickly, especially with all the excess food running triple scientists in four cities. I bulbed alphabet, compass, paper and most of education. With the early alphabet and my UP allowing me to get monopoly techs for cheap, I could trade for everything I else I needed. I was even able to build the Great Wall which was very cool and solved my barbarian problem.

Cool, will you finish your AAR then? Would be nice to read. And I found the Great Wall to be the cheaper solution to the barbarian problem as well.

Their new UP is extremely exploitable though if you keep a scout in the west and focus on the techs you need for the UHV conditions, you can research deep into the tree very quickly and then trade for everything you need. It is 990 ad and I am researching liberalism, although I think it might be smarter to forego and go right for gun powder. As well there is a stabilizing effect. With super china feeding the ancient world techs, most of the classical civs are still around. I am also interested in seeing what happens with religions in Europe, as my beeling for paper resulted in the chinese founding catholicism.

Good point about the tech trading, maybe I'll make the AI value Chinese techs less to avoid this kind of exploit.

For the long run, it's generally a better idea to take two of the eight required cities for the UHV from Corea & Japan. Mostly because it's the logical thing to do and that those city sites help out your empire immensely. I've always interpreted the 1st UHV condition for China as a subtle context to conquer your neighbors, much like how the "be first in score" condition for Japan is a subtle context to conquer your neighbors (along with the not-so-subtle Greater Empire of Japan goal).

Well, it's a matter of taste if you want to go for military or peaceful expansion. I got the extra two needed cities from settling Manchuria, which left me with enough spare production to build the GW and shut down the barbarian problem for good.

 

[Qiu]

Is Philippines in America's war-map?

 

[BenZL43]

Hi Sanguivorant! Haha I learnt this trick from Leoreth long time ago. Nobody will read this page anymore anyway unless in a very random coincidence. You can use your old post too to reply since it's very hard to use VM with all the limited editing features.

The following cities are European cities that based on my observation, chance of showing up is greater than 75% in all scenario, starting from the Iberia. Please help me transliterate the Arabic/Masri/Persian city name, respectively, for these cities so I can add it to the CNM I'm working on. Unfortunately, we can't use letters like ā in the CNM (more info on Modmoding Q&A thread).
Thank you very much ^^

#BARCELONA
Arab: برشلونة
Persia: برشلونة
Masri: بارسلونا

#TOLEDO
Arab: طليطلة
Persia: تولدو
Masri: توليدو

#MADRID
Arab: مدريد
Persia: مادرید
Masri: مدريد

#CORDOBA
Arab: قرطبة
Persia: کوردوبا
Masri: كوردوبا

#LISBON
Arab: لشبونة
Persia: لیسبون
Masri: ليشبوا

#SANTIAGO
Arab:سانتياغو دي كومبوستيلا
Persia: سانتیاگو د کمپوستلا
Masri: سانتياجو دى كومپوستيلا

#LA CORUNA
Arab: لا كورونيا
Persia: لاکرونیا
Masri: [not available]

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

I think I specifically excluded China from the ancient civs that got their privileges removed, but I'll look at that again.

While we're on the subject of that, I want to plead the case that India get the same treatment.
I feel like it would be a good representation of the current and ongoing economic growth in India that is somewhat understated.

 

[Leoreth]

But India really is too stable currently. It's necessary at least as a temporary measure until I've increased their barbarian threat.

 

[civ_king]

FFFFFFF I wrote a massive post and had the browser crash.

tl;dr The Maratha should have a very cheap, weak frigate replacement with a very high withdraw, first strikes and invisibility.
And of course you could use the Maratha to weaken the Mughals

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

FFFFFFF I wrote a massive post and had the browser crash.

tl;dr The Maratha should have a very cheap, weak frigate replacement with a very high withdraw, first strikes and invisibility.
And of course you could use the Maratha to weaken the Mughals

If it had Invisibility, it wouldn't be able to protect your Galleons in the stack.
What would you call this, by the way?

 

[Leoreth]

The Marathas already spawn quite often in appropriate times, depriving the Mughals of the Deccan. The interrelatedness of Marathas/Mughals/Europeans doesn't work quite right currently, and part of the reason is that the Marathas still work with the old Indian modifiers which make them weak compared to the Mughals. We have to live with that for now; only a revamp of the respawn mechanic could fix that.

 

[Synapce]

I was just wondering, have you changed the spawn area maps for any civilisations? If so, is there somewhere I can see them?

 

[Leoreth]

Partially, yes, the Mongols got an expanded spawn (even more expanded in the case of the AI), for example.

The area that flips on spawn is identical to a civ's core, which you can see while hovering over a tile when playing as this civ (foreign cores are shown in red, and in most cases you can infer whom they belong to as well). I don't have actual maps for them at the moment, though.

 

[Synapce]

Ok, thanks, that's all I wanted to know

 

[Leoreth]

New commit is up, including appropriate leaders for respawned Egypt (Baibars and Nasser) and a fleshed out respawned Persia (UU, UB, UP and UHV), in large parts imported from Synthesis.

Their UP here gives them +2 research and culture per religious building (should this be more?) and the UHV is:
- have open borders with 6 European civilizations in 1650 AD
- control Mesopotamia, Transoxania and Northwest India in 1750 AD
- have a city with at least 20000 culture in 1800 AD

Haven't tested the goals yet, especially the third probably needs to be balanced to get a good threshold.

 

[J. pride]

New commit is up

Did you already commit?

Edit: Never Mind

 

[Leoreth]

Was going when I typed it

Forgot Nasser's graphics though, but that's up now too.

 

[J. pride]

Was going when I typed it

Guess I was excited ; ill try to finish Safavid UHV and report it in the Screenshot thread ASAP.

Since im on the topic of the Safavids, Is Tabriz already put out of Ottoman spawn and is it encouraged to be founded one tile north?

 

[Leoreth]

It's not in the Ottoman core anymore, but I haven't changed anything to its location. From the general aesthetics of Persia's borders, I tend to say I'm happy with where it is currently.

 

[J. pride]

From the general aesthetics of Persia's borders, I tend to say I'm happy with where it is currently.

Sure, but in that case it is my recommendation that you start the Persians at Tabriz because early Middle East can become as cramped as Europe but without the equivalent resources. Founding Tabriz (by the Arabs) that early is counter intuitive as it "steals" resources from other cities. The Arabs should be encouraged instead to found Isfahan (a vast majority of the time they pick Tabriz or Isfahan as their first city in Persia); when 1500 roles by the Safavids can spawn on an empty Tabriz and flip Persia from there. The capital can automatically change to Isfahan by 1600 ad. Although the capital change seems a bit unnecessary but it has two main advantages:

-Allows for aesthetic and gameplay balance in the game as Persia's borders will look natural but at the same time early Middle East would not be as cramped up.

-Speaking historically, this is more accurate since the Saffaviya movement and the Safavid Dynasty emerged from North Western Iran and Azerbaijan so it makes sense to start them there and Tebriz was the first capital of the empire.

 

[Spritz]

Hi all,

I play tested China. Some observations:

- UHV on monarch is quite easy (maybe to easy)
I had invented Printing press before mongols spawned an than already had 30 chokonu ready to kill the invading keshiks which of course was quite easy.
- stability was never a really problem. at the moment i achieved my first goal (the cathedrals) i had +77 on economy.
- Khmer and indonesia wanted to be vassilized before 1200AD
- When Corea spawned it was weak defended and not a challenge for 5 swordmen.
- Japan declared on me without doing anything. After i pillaged all its fishing boats i set out a trireme which was directly destroyed. Then they gave me all their gold in exchange for peace.

Recommendations based on observations.

- Change UP of china to +15%
- Give korea more archers on spawn. (and maybe free walls)
- Relate Japans willingness to agresiveness to their attack strenght

BTW in like the mod

 

[Cosmos1985]

Welcome to the forum Spritz!

I'd like to add that in general it could be awesome if the AI could be more focused on own strength vs. opponent strength before declaring war. In other words, stop it from declaring war without any chance of succes. My last Rome game had Ethiopia declaring war on me 20 turns after their spawn for no apparent reason, I had 11 cities and about 15 Legions, 3 of them in Egypt, and they had absolutely no chance of achieving anything by declaring war.