G&H's Louisiana for Vox Populi

[Hinin]

Louisiana
Download here
(requires Vox Populi 1.4.6 or later)

​

Leader - Joseph "Beausoleil" Broussard

UA - The Grand Settlement

Spawn a random Unique Unit every 20 turns. Allied City-States and Cities in Resistance increase the amount spawned and grant XP to units (half bonus for Friendly CS). Finishing a Building, Improvement or GPTI grants Gold, Faith and Influence with City-States sharing your Religion. Cannot use Production to create Military Land Units.

• The Unique Units spawned can be from any civilization from base Vox Populi or from custom civs you've installed alongside Louisiana. They are never Unique Great People or Unique Units from Louisiana. They can be of the second tech tier of your era, but never an era superior to your own. For more details on what era Unique Units come from throughout the game, see below.
• V.2 onward : the UU spawned is never a Civilian, Siege or Recon Unit.
• V.3 onward : spawn speed is conditioned by game speed: Base 20 turns with 0.75/1/1.25/1.5 modifiers.

Spoiler Unique Unit Type :

Era < Industrial : UU of the current Era
Era = Industrial : UU Renaissance and Industrial
Era > Industrial : UU Renaissance and beyond

• These Unique Units gain XP from Military Buildings in the Capital City normaly.

Spoiler Formulas for UA :

Number of spawned UUs : 1 + 1/10 points (2 per Allied CS and City in resistance, 1 per friend CS)
Gold : 10 * Era * gamespeed
Faith : 3 * Era * gamespeed
Influence : 1 at all Eras
For GPTI and World Wonders : all gains x 5

__________________________________________________________________________________
UU1 - Grand Voyageur (replaces Pathfinder)

Spawned in Capital City whenever a Great Merchant born. Cannot be Produced.
Upgraded into Paratrooper (cannot be upgraded by a Ancient Ruin)

Gains base CS and bonus promotions throughout the Eras :
8 / 13 / 20 / 26 / 33 CS (Ancient / Classical / Medieval / Renaissance / Industrial)
2 MP / 2 Vision

Ignores Terrain Cost
Reconnaissance
Withdraw from Melee (80)
Métissage - When discovering new tiles or level up, gain GMerchants points in Capital, scaling with era - Lost with upgrade.
Indigenous Allies Promotion - When a Great Merchant is expended, each Grand Voyageur gives the Guide and Pemmican Promotion to all friendly Units on the same landmass
(Guide and Pemmican Promotion: Ignore terrain cost and immune to Land Plagues (ID2) for 10 turns)

Promotions gained throughout the Eras :
Classical Era : Engagés (+1 Vision ; adjacent healing units heal +5 hp) - Lost with upgrade ; Treasure Hunter
Medieval Era : Interprète (+1 MP, +35% against Barbarians) - Lost with upgrade ; Can Traverse Oceans, Additional Vision when embarked, Additional Defense when embarked
Renaissance Era : Petite Guerre (+15 HP, +10% CS to friendly Units within 2 tiles)
Industrial Era : Entrepreneur (generate GMerchant points per turn) ; Scavenger, Attack Bonus (25)

Spoiler Formulas for Great Merchant points gained from Métissage :

Discovering new tiles: 0.12 x Era x GameSpeed x Num of Metissage
Level up: 10 x Level x GameSpeed

Spoiler Formula for Great Merchant points gained from Entrepreneur :

Per turn: 2 x Num of Entrepreneur x GameSpeed

__________________________________________________________________________________
UI - Bayou Cabin (unlocked at Currency)

Must be built on Flat Coastal Marsh/Forest/Jungle tiles. Cannot be built adjacent to another Bayou Cabin.
When constructed, spawn a Shrimp Luxury Resource below and improves it.
Doesn't remove feature.

1 ///

When working at least one Bayou Cabin, a City gains the Fait Do-Do Unique Building.

Tech bonuses :

• Guilds : +1 /
  
• Acoustics : +1 /
  
• Radio : +2 Culture

UB - Fait Do-Do

1 slot for GWMusic
1 slot for Musician Specialist

Unique Luxury Resource - Shrimp

• Monopoly : +10% in all Cities. +1 Food and Culture on Resource.

Spoiler 4UC Compatibility :

UGP - Krewe (replaces Great Musician)

Mardi Gras - When expended in your territory, triggers a WLTKD (15 turns at normal GameSpeed). When expended in the territory of another civilization, its nearest city enters Resistance for 3 turns, scaling with GameSpeed.

__________________________________________________________________________________
UNW - Vieux Carré (replaces Hermitage)

Unlocked at Acoustics (instead of Architecture)
Automatically built in the Capital after 3 Krewe or Great Musicians are expended.
No Population requirement. Cannot be Produced.

+3 GMusician points (instead of Culture)
+1 Tourism to Merchants, Musician and Civil Servants Specialists in Empire
+1 Tourism to Great Works in City
+10% Culture and +25% GP generation in City

+1 Paper
+50 % Production towards Diplomatic Units during WLTKD.
-15 % Boredom and Religious Unrest in all Cities

3 slots for GWMusic (instead of GWArt / Artifacts) : +10 Gold and Culture when themed

Spoiler Promotion Icons by gwennog :

1 - Métissage
2 - Indigenous Allies
3 - Guides and Pemmican
4 - Engagés
5 - Interprète
6 - Petite Guerre
7 - Entrepreneur
8 - Mardi Gras

Common Aspirations and Influence :

• Senshi and RawSasquatch: The Cajuns (Beausoleil)
• Octoski: Acadia (Beausoleil)
• Sir Ocean: Louisiana

Artistic Credits (All Rights Reserved to original authors) :

• Choeur Adleisia: Peace Theme - Turlutte Acadienne Montréalaise
• Le Vent du Nord: War Theme - La Marche Des Iroquois
• Allen Toussaint: Southern Nights
• Ambrose Thibodeaux: Les Haricots sont pas salés
• Aurora Nealand and The Royal Roses: The Devils Gonna Get You
• Bruce Daigrepont: Acadie À La Louisiane
• Clifton Chenier: Bon Ton Roulet
• Creedence Clearwater Revival: Born On The Bayou
• Dr. John: Down in New Orleans
• Rod Bernard: Fais Do Do
• Fats Domino: Walking To New Orleans
• Jon Batiste: I Need You.
• Jelly Roll Morton: New Orleans Blues
• John Delafose: Mon coeur fait mal
• Kid Ory: Muskrat Ramble
• Lightnin' Slim: New Orleans Bound
• Louis Armstrong: When the Saints Go Marching In
• Mahalia Jackson: Walk In Jerusalem
• Professor Longhair: Mardi Gras In New Orleans
• Robert Pete Williams: Grown So Ugly
• Sidney Bechet & Teddy Buckner: Souvenirs De La Nouvelle Orléans
• The Meters: Mardi Gras Mambo
• The Balfa Brothers: La danse de Mardi Gras
• Zachary Richard: Ma Louisiane
• Zydeco Joe: Jack Rabbit
• Patterson & Barnes, Leon Zeytline, Jules Arthur, Jerry Schewehm, Gianluca Bosello, Herb Roe, Alan Kinsley, Debra Hurd, Zina Saunders, Dan Junot and others: Music Image Splash
• Herb Roe: Unit Icon Krewe, Leader Icon
• Eugenio Zampighi: Building Icon Fait Do Do
• Shrimpu-art: Shrimp
• Gedemon, Nutty & Dolen2: Original Iroquois Musketman and Iroquois Scout 3d models from Ethnic Diversity
• Sukritact: Ogichida 3d model from The Anishinaabe (Pontiac)
• Octoski: Appalachia Skirmisher 3d model from Octoski's Appalachia
• Ryanjames: Aniwina from The Cherokee
• Uighur_Caesar: Hammock Gunman from Uighur_Caesar's Seminole
• bernie14: Commando 3d model from The Boer Republics
• Xenon257R: 3d model for the Bayou Cabin

Development Credits :

• Hinin: Research, Design, 3d models dds modifications, some basic SQL, GameText, Diplomacy, Leader Flavors, Testing, Leaderscreen, Map
• gwennog : XML, SQL, Lua, Design, LeaderIcon, UnitIcons, ImprovementIcon, BuildingIcons, PromotionIcons, Leaderscreen, Research, 3d models integration, Map, Testing, Direction

Special Thanks :

• Jarcast, JFD, Adan_eslavo, Sukritact, LeeS, Pinappledan, Enginseer: lua inspiration and source
• Irkalla: Civ Icon guide
• Deliverator: 3d model guide
• HungryForFood: Lua API wiki

Very Special Thanks :

• InkAxis: fixed different dll problems otherwise this mod would not work
  
• Astérix Rage: provision of a paint.net toolbox to make promotion icons, valuable advice for the artistic part

 

[Hinin]

Hello everyone !
To celebrate this day of Mardi Gras (all according to plan), we release this new custom civ based on Louisiana, and New France in general (pineappledan's Canada beware ).

This mod was first meant to be a simple rework of the existing gwennog's adaption of Senshi and RawSasquatch Cajuns custom civ, but after we made big change after big change, we realized we had basically created a new civ, so in the end we decided to create a new thread and page, and show the result as what it truly is : a fusion of aspirations (see credits) mixed with gwennog's dedication to make the ideas in my twisted mind come true. As always, it is a work we did together from start to finish, and we hope that you will enjoy this new custom civ.

As for the principles behind this kit. The main idea was to use the diversity of diplomatic ties France had in North America from the 16th to the 18th centurie to create one civilization that could take advantage of the unique units of any other civ, and would provide support to them through their only unique military unit, the Grand Voyageur. However, the civilization only has one exemplary of each unique unit it gains from the UA (so each one you gain is quite precious) and has problems with the rest of its land army (which must be bought, and thus suffers from experience problems). It is a civilization made as a love letter to veteran Vox Populi players who one day wished to have an heterogeneous army of unique units.

Despite how complexe the civ may seem at first sight, once you start to play with it, you'll discover that things flow quite naturally. If you have any question about how things work, don't hesitate to ask here. We did what we could to make all the formulas transparent in the first post, but it's normal to have questions.

Here are some alternative Peace and War Themes for those like @Heinz_Guderian who like to delve into the musical world of the custom civ they play.

Spoiler Alternative Peace Theme :

Spoiler Alternative War Theme :

Known issues for v.1 :

• As always, the per turn Great People point gained from bonuses are affected by Great People generation modifiers, but this isn't visible in the notifications. It is a visual problem, and doesn't affect gameplay.
• Until 1.4.7 is released, there will be a problem with the Guides & Pemmican promotion granted by the Grand Voyageur. Basically, the base turn value of the promotion stacks with itself sometimes, and so units will have the promotion 10 turns the first time, 20 turns the second etc. It is linked to a bug in base Vox Populi for the PromotionDuration function. Many thanks to @InkAxis for fixing this problem for the next version.

Thanks for reading, and, as we say in France, nous vous souhaitons une agréable partie.

P.S. : We wanted to make Beausoleil, the leader, very talkative (he has 12 in Chattiness). If you can't pardon his French, don't hesitate to reduce the value in the GameDefines SQL, line 10.

 

[Rekk]

However, the civilization only has one exemplary of each unique unit it gains from the UA (so each one you gain is quite precious) and has problems with the rest of its land army (which must be bought, and thus suffers from experience problems).

Does this mean that each unique unit can only spawn once?

 

[Hinin]

Does this mean that each unique unit can only spawn once?

No, but we made sure that the variance stays really high, so the chance of getting the same unit two times is very low.

The base cooldown between two UUs is 35 turns in standard speed. A game is about 300 to 350 turns at that speed, and the lowest cooldown possible is 15 turns (which you reach with 10 City-State allies). It means around 20 unique units in the best scenario, with around 3 units per Era. With that in mind, you have a low number of UUs selected in quite a big pool during the first 4 eras.

Even in the Industrial Era, when the number of unique units in the era diminishes, we decided to keep Renaissance Era UUs in the pool. For the endgame, it's "Renaissance Era units and later" that can be spawned.

Plus, we are not even talking about 4 UC and custom civs. Each new unique unit added that is not a unique Great People can be used by the UA.

If we discover the civ is too weak, we could lower the base cooldown and minimum cooldown to 30 and 10 respectively, but we need more data before taking a decision. If we buffed that aspect, we could end up with 25-30 UUs per game, but that would still stay within the confines of the acceptable, knowing there are already around 40 UUs in base VP.

 

[looorg]

This might sound harsh but on slower speeds and larger maps this is just painful. The initial game is horribly slow compared to any other civ. It's essentially anti-fun to the max.

As you can't buy any pathfinders (or build them). You can buy units but they are as noted very expensive in the start. It took until turn 106 for me to get the free unique unit, I guess this scales with game speed then as it's not 35-40 turns. It was a Sabum Kibitum (babylonian spearman I think). If this had not scaled with game speed it should have triggered at least twice already. So I'm stuck with the initial warrior and one bought archer unit. You can't really take out barbarian camps as you can't afford to send them away. This is going to suck the big one as soon as the AI start to declare wars on weaker opponents.

As a point of interest, or side-note, you can put a land unit in the build queue, but it will take 12000 turns to build a warrior (in my turn0 capital) and the game just isn't that long.

It took me to T78 to get the first Great Merchant. This is just unbearably slow scouting progress with just one scouting unit up until that point. You might want to consider gifting a second pathfinder at the start on larger maps or slower speeds. Since you won't have easy access to a second scouting unit you can't really get the goodie hut things going either. As noted this is slow and painful. That is starting to sounds like a broken record but it's just a fact at this point.

I have already run into the issue a few times in the early game (pre-pottery) of there is just nothing to build in the city, except workers or putting hammers into some dummy land unit that will never be built. You don't have processes this early either. Alternatively if possible create a process unique to the civ that does something that you can use from the start. It's not a big deal but it's still slightly annoying. But it should be less and less of an issue as the game progress.

Also there is a graphics glitch in that when you hover over the leader graphics circles in the top right corner you can't see your own full tooltip as the leaders elbow sticks out from the circle and covers part of your tooltip (the amount of pops you have). Funny perhaps. Not a big deal when you only have a single or couple of cities but it becomes a bit more interesting or important later in the game when you can't really glance your total pop. I guess this could be a resolution or screenmode issue and not show on all modes. But it doesn't really explain why he isn't centered inside the circle like all the others.



T96 i got the notification that in 10 turns a unique unit would appear in my capital (at T101 it was the 5t notice), so around turn 106 then for it to trigger the first time. This is just to slow. For this to even be viable or proper against the rival AI this just can't scale with game-speed imo or the time between just have to be a lot shorter or it has to spawn more then one unit. While the spawn speed will perhaps change a bit later due to variations and other triggers it's just to little and to slow to be meaningful. Otherwise you'll most likely be forced to go authority just to get the free conscripts or zealotry so you can buy units with faith. But it is to dependent on buying all your units and this ability won't do as it is now. For a full game this will grant you like 15ish units or so. Which for larger maps and slower game speeds is not even relevant.

This just isn't really a viable civ at higher difficulties, slower speeds or larger map-sizes as it stands now. It's a mildly interesting curiosity that is just to painful to play and it quickly turns very much not fun to play with. I'll give it a few more turns but I don't see this changing.

 

[gwennog]

This just isn't really a viable civ at higher difficulties, slower speeds or larger map-sizes as it stands now. It's a mildly interesting curiosity that is just to painful to play and it quickly turns very much not fun to play with. I'll give it a few more turns but I don't see this changing.

Hello Iooorg,
I'm really sorry that your testing of this mod was so unpleasant and brought you so much pain .
I'm not going to try too hard to defend it because presumably it doesn't suit you at all.
Just a few dots, since it's too slow, why don't you try playing at a higher speed? Personally, I always play quick and I don't get bored at all.
OK, you found a graphics glitch but the rest. We spent a lot of time on all the details, 3D models, icons, promo, music,... Is there really nothing of value to you ?

It took until turn 106 for me to get the free unique unit

Strange, in marathon, the first unit appears after 60 turns, are you sure you didn't accidentally forget one, you were so bored ?

Anyway, thank you very much for trying, any opinion is welcome.

 

[looorg]

OK, you found a graphics glitch but the rest. We spent a lot of time on all the details, 3D models, icons, promo, music,... Is there really nothing of value to you ?

It's not that. I do appreciate the work. I do tend to test all of yours and Hinins civs. Most of them are fine, I think this is actually the first one that is kind of broke. While I find things that don't work and "complain" about them they do tend to come together in some aspect or way. Sometimes they are a little quirky but that is part of the fun to see how you can put this together and make it work, or horribly abuse it. Here the parts are interesting by themselves but at least in the early game they just don't work together or they are insignificant versus the difficulty and game speed. The other shrimp civ one worked better in that regard, even tho the shrimp abuse was horrific by itself. But there was a working flow in that civ that is missing here. Aspects of it might be there in theory but not practically.

I must confess that I do tend to play with music off so I never really hear the music, I'm sure it's great. As noted it's not that it didn't have interesting things, abilities and such. Separately and by themselves they are interesting. On paper (or in the description) they are interesting but they don't come together as a cohesive unit or civilization. That might change mid- or late- game but in the early game which is all I tried so far it's not really working. The parts just don't work together on slower speeds and higher difficulties. It becomes very hard to chain them into a working machine or engine. I guess this is one of those things that then you won't notice, or won't matter, at quick or standard speed but become painfully obvious at marathon speed.

While a personal preference I don't really care for the faster speeds. I don't find that you get to the full experience. Things move to fast to be meaningful. To many things get glossed over and your decisions doesn't have the same impact or significance. Buildings and units doesn't really become meaningful as far as I'm concerned. But this clearly might be one of those civs where it is needed.

But at my preferred speed the free yields are just not significant, beyond the great merchant points but more about that later. Getting +15 faith and +2 influence when a pop is born as an example doesn't matter. You don't grow that fast under normal circumstances. Also it's not enough faith to secure anything really and you probably won't have any city-states you are allied with (and has your religion that won't even exist in the early stages of the game) at this stage so the influence is just wasted, or doesn't appear. Even if you did get the influence it would be gone it two turns and you won't gain pops that fast. If the influence didn't deprecate (like an Austrian wedding) then it might work but now it would just be fleeting and gone. But it's not even that. For this to be relevant you would have to be tall and wide at the same time. So many cities each growing. It might come together later in the game as a passive viable influence generator but early it does not do anything. They might be viable amounts on quick speed but they are not on marathon.

The ability to get great merchant points from scouting will stop, not that the entire world is discovered but you won't have the tech to cross the oceans so you'll probably be stuck for some time on your continent unless the map was kind to you and managed to create some little passage or it is a pangea like map. But that can't really be counted on, unless picked at start. As your army won't be viable or large enough to wage war with vs the AI at this stage you won't level them up that way either. They'll just stall out in that regard, no more xp, no more scouting, no more GPP. Perhaps some kind of building or something that grants passive gpp, you basically just need markets and be able to work them at that point or that aspect of the civ just grinds to a halt. The second Great Merchant/Grand Voy was at T180, it took that long cause there is nothing to scout and you really can't do to much fighting with them.

At turn 161 I was declared war upon. The only reason for that to happen was that I didn't have an army. Six units, two of them grand voyageurs (also why are they all named Jacques? They already withdraw from combat, if they had a Baguette under their arm it would be perfect. It's like the french jokes write themselves here ). The only reason the game just doesn't end here is that the AI while having a superior army in a quantitative way is bad at using it but it should basically have crippled or crushed the player here. It's not like I could have defended my cities with 6 units and no walls or any other defensive structures. But the AI just can't commit to early wars like it should when it has the advantage.

Also some of the Grand Voyageurs have really long names, so long they don't fit in the box. Once again possibly a screen-size thing.


One of the main issues overall is that gold that you previously, or normally, invest in buildings now have to be spent on units. So you don't really get the proper city building yield infrastructure going or it is getting delayed. The free unique units was supposed to solve that issue I gather but it doesn't. One of the main sources, or large influxes, of gold are scouting. Which doesn't really take off either with just one pathfinder and you can't get more pathfinders/scouts except from scouting with the first one and hope you don't get stuck and it goes from there. Scouting with a non-scout unit would be really bad with this civ as you would lose out on the few benefits you get. A couple of scouting units can normally take out barbarian camps on remote island etc but a single one can't. But for this to work there should be a flow here between aspects of the game that just are not here or working together.

Strange, in marathon, the first unit appears after 60 turns, are you sure you didn't accidentally forget one, you were so bored ?

I'm sure. Is that T60 standard or quick? But it is not that it was so many units that I couldn't count them so I'm sure. I looked at the saves. I got the notification on T96 and then the unit came on T106. It became even worse for the second one. The notification came on T201 so it won't appear until T211 It somehow managed to become even slower as the game progressed. I guess someone or something was unhappy or in rebellion or whatever it was again that could shorten the time the first time.

But I I played until T201 and I think I'll stop here. It's not really coming together. Shrimps might change some things but it won't solve the overall early problems. It is as noted not very fun as a combined thing. It's kind of painful at the larger maps and slower speeds. While some of the aspect of it might be interesting they are just not coming together and getting this to work and being playable in some viable sense is to much of an issue as it stands now. This is just either for quick speeds, small maps or one-city challenges. But not for huge maps and slow speeds and high difficulty.

(save game included below, or somewhere)

(edit)
I decided to try another 100T game
T52 first merchant, more things to scout then the first game so it came a little faster
T55 Monty threatens war. But does nothing. Monty being Monty.
T96 first notification of a free uu in 10t. Exact same turn as the previous, above mentioned, game. So if one is supposed to spawn (unit) on turn 60 (marathon) something is wrong.

 

[Hinin]

Just as a sidenote, Beausoleil is very often dominating in my games (standard, huge, emperor), so I do not think the civ is too weak. To be honest, some nerfs are coming on some elements.

I just think there is a problem on GameSpeedScaling for very slow games for all the parts of the UA. We'll talk about it more.

also why are they all named Jacques? They already withdraw from combat, if they had a Baguette under their arm it would be perfect. It's like the french jokes write themselves here

Only 3 of the 23 names used for the GVoyageurs are Jacques (there are 5 called Pierre). You can check in the GameText. It's just that the first one is always Jacques Cartier.

Also, no need to be rude.

Also some of the Grand Voyageurs have really long names, so long they don't fit in the box. Once again possibly a screen-size thing.

It's a screen size / resolution problem. Normally, the font size diminishes if the name is too long, or the UnitClass name disappears.

But for this to work there should be a flow here between aspects of the game that just are not here or working together.

The kit is made to be about heterogeneous aspects coming together to form something cohesive later on. The Vieux Carré, in particular, creates synergies between all the aspects of the kit. Thematically, we are talking about the amalgamation of a multitude of colonial and metis cultures assembled to form a kit that offers a lot of possibilities, but with this military weakness at the start that, I understand, can be infuriating. Basically, the civ is an economic / cultural toolbox that is about diversity and being able to adapt to what you're given, but it's a bit rough around the edges right now.

These are the things we are doing for V.2 :
- Nerf the number of GMerchant points gained from revealing tiles slightly (to avoid the AI snowball we are seeing regularly) : from 1.15 x EraScaling^2 x GameSpeed to EraScaling^2 x GameSpeed
- Fix the GameSpeed problem
- Decrease the cooldown timer between two UUs by around 14 % (from 35 to 30 in standard speed, with the minimum moved from 15 to 10 turns)
- Add granularity : Friendly CStates will give half the bonus
- Add an xp bonus component for the CS reward (+2 per Ally / City in Resistance ; +1 per Friend) => it allows bought unit to be more relevant later on, and improves the performance of your UUs.

 

[pineappledan]

Only 3 of the 23 names used for the GVoyageurs are Jacques (there are 5 called Pierre).

Jaques Cousteau?

 

[looorg]

Just as a sidenote, Beausoleil is very often dominating in my games (standard, huge, emperor), so I do not think the civ is too weak. To be honest, some nerfs are coming on some elements.

I don't think it's weak either as such. I can see potential. But it's also not working in the early game. But as noted I think in some aspects it will come together later on. The problem is getting there and still being viable yourself compare to the rivals. You are also in a much worse situation early on compared to others.

I just think there is a problem on GameSpeedScaling for very slow games for all the parts of the UA. We'll talk about it more.

I find this a common problem with a lot of mods that scale things with game speed. They want things to remain linear. That this is or should somehow be fair and even between speeds. But they often miss out on that the slower the game and the larger the map the greater the need. You need a much larger army in a slow large game then a quick small one. For various reasons, more land you can't really keep moving your entire army all over the place all the time etc, you need to be able to fight multiple front wars at the same time etc. So quite often things that scale should remain the same between speeds but in reality they become worse the slower the game, in a lot of mods (not this one specifically).

Here, in some regard, this becomes worse as you have just removed an entire means of production. You are now left with either getting free units every 100ish turns (apparently it should be 60 but it isn't, or whatever future fix speed there will be) or buying them for gold which you normally don't really have or if you have it if you buy a unit you are not spending it on something else. Choices. Good. But here also worse as you have less choice since you can't chose to produce a unit. Made worse cause you really don't get any kind of proper compensation for the loss or hit you just took for the unique aspect of not being able to build units.

Another way of seeing it is that the free uu isn't really working as a compensation on slower speeds. The style here is normally to build more cities and some of those cities will build your army. Here they can't since you can't build one. Having more cities doesn't make it spawn faster. So now you have to get gold cities and buy an army? Which tends to be somewhat problematic at least early but then usually as the game progress gold becomes a non-issue (until it's time to upgrade you hundreds upon hundreds of units). You just have to get there and that will be an issue as you will now be artificially a lot weaker then normal which the diploAI will pounce on. Possibly more so then normal.

I'm not quite sure how to resolve this. Either spawn more often, spawn more units then one (think of it like a vassal tribute on era changes) or make gold purchases cheaper or just get more gold. Also it was very random, in the second game the UU I got was the babylonian siege tower. So a unit you can't really use except as a booster to other units which you don't have; I think I rolled my eyes when I saw it spawn.

That or you somehow front-load the bonus; as in the bonus is greater early and become worse the longer the game progress. As an example you spawn more units early but the more times you spawn, or the longer the game have progressed the longer it will take for the next spawn to happen. Sort of like how a Great Person become more expensive after you had one.

That said things doesn't have to be completely equal between civs and this could be fine as is but then noted as such. In that this is somewhat broken on slower speeds and larger maps. You will have a very bad time unless you lucked out geography wise and probably even then compared to more or less any other civ.

Also you normally don't buy units. That might be a preference but if I find it that you don't. You only do that if there is some xp event or a war emergency of sorts. When or if you don't have XP buildings it doesn't matter but once you do it does. Problem is naturally in the early game you don't have much gold to buy and build things with. The great merchants here doesn't really compensate for that at the start. Over the whole game you'll possibly have more cities and it will add up but for the setup phase of the game it doesn't really do much. You can normally compensate for the XP loss by doing lots of defensive wars or doing conquest city-state quests for some city. But with an army so small to begin with it's not really a very good option or viable.

That said there are just like two ways to get extra units here then and one is to go Authority and depend on conscripts (which are bad) or your religion just HAVE to grab zealotry so you can buy units for faith. Otherwise the mid game is going to be excruciating.

Only 3 of the 23 names used for the GVoyageurs are Jacques (there are 5 called Pierre). You can check in the GameText. It's just that the first one is always Jacques Cartier.

That was supposed to be a joke. I only seen the three first once and of them two were named Jacques.

Jaques Cousteau?

At least then you shouldn't have any issues crossing the oceans.

 

[gwennog]

Jaques Cousteau?

Sorry, no more red beanies in stock .

 

[gwennog]

So if one is supposed to spawn (unit) on turn 60 (marathon) something is wrong.

No bug, it's 105 turns, it's me who can no longer calculate . And in fact, it probably does not help your vision of the mod .

I really wanted to understand your feelings and I tried a marathon game (which I had never done before with any civ) and I understand a little your boredom. Second GVoyageur after 32 turns, but the third is long overdue and nothing more to discover, it takes the help of a market to see it appear on turn 133. If I agree that it's not very suitable for slow speeds, a large map on the other hand does help. The faith bonus works well, it is far from useless, but one way of playing with Louisiana is to quickly convert the neighboring CSs to establish control over them with the influence bonus and in marathon speed, we have the impression that we will never get there.
I think that the planned changes should improve everything for the spawn time of units and the fact that we can quickly have friendly cities that will now count in all mechanisms.

I still tried another marathon game with Greece to see. The feeling for me is exactly the same , as far as I'm concerned, it's more related to the speed of the game than to the civ played.

 

[looorg]

I really wanted to understand your feelings and I tried a marathon game (which I had never done before with any civ) and I understand a little your boredom. Second GVoyageur after 32 turns, but the third is long overdue and nothing more to discover, it takes the help of a market to see it appear on turn 133. If I agree that it's not very suitable for slow speeds, a large map on the other hand does help. The faith bonus works well, it is far from useless, but one way of playing with Louisiana is to quickly convert the neighboring CSs to establish control over them with the influence bonus and in marathon speed, we have the impression that we will never get there.
I think that the planned changes should improve everything for the spawn time of units and the fact that we can quickly have friendly cities that will now count in all mechanisms.

I still tried another marathon game with Greece to see. The feeling for me is exactly the same , as far as I'm concerned, it's more related to the speed of the game than to the civ played.

That is probably more related to you not being used to playing marathon games. So that could just be cause Marathon speed just isn't for everyone. Everything does take longer, everything also lasts longer. It's that planning aspect of it that I like. So I don't think you got what I found problematic, or not all of it anyway. It's not that things that a long time that is really the problem. Example, on quickspeed when you are at war you can up until that point more or less ignore building walls if you will and then just pump some cash into it and have it up in a matter of a couple of turns. The city will be fine. On Marathon it might early on take 30-40 turns to get the walls up. You can not wait to start building it until the enemy is at your gates. It has to be a long term decision to erect walls and where. Such planning details is one of the core differences. Another one would be on large maps and slow speeds you have cities that create your army. That is not an option here, you now have to have cities then that make gold so you can buy units and that takes longer and is more problematic since investing gold in units usually goes against what you would normally do which is to invest gold in buildings to build a yield generating engine. So by taking away the means of producing units and not really giving any kind of compensation (the free uu is just to slow and random to matter in that regard) a core aspect what how you play the game at the speed, size and difficulty is crippled. So you are compounding bad things on top of each other that you would never normally do, one bad aspect forces you to do other bad things which makes you sort of suffer long term problems. This then also makes it even harder since now the Diplomatic AI is going to consider you weak, or it almost always does this but here you will be even weaker then normal and that is going to be quite bad. Not that the early AI wars usually amount to much but still. A couple of units and 2-3 scouts are not going to put up much of a proper defense when needed. It will have long term effects, which is sort of what matters at slow speed more so then quick speed.

About the random UU. Doesn't it check if you actually have the resources for said UU? I tried a game this afternoon (so see I don't utterly hate everything about the mod, I'm trying but as far as I'm concerned it's still broken and needs fixing badly, but mainly I wanted to see if I could push a game into the classic-ren-era and see if things really change radically with the shrimpin' and such things -- that said I heavily tweaked the map setting and restarted a few times to get a start that was hot, wet and swampy so it might not exactly be a fair start but me heavily trying to tilt things in my favor) and the rando kept giving me horse units even tho I had no horses so they sort of just then stand around being useless since they can't heal.



But at the core the problem is still the same, the amount of free uu is to low and to slow (and to random -- it could perhaps be great if you got the right unit but if you get "bad" units they are just making things worse) compared to the loss of unit production/build.

I'm not sure what a proper solution would be if it's just a matter of spawning more often, or spawning more units, or some other compensation. One other aspect would be that you should probably get another pathfinder/scout/gvoy somehow earlier then what you do. Depending on the map/geography getting a second pathfinder is fairly high on the list when playing any other civ. Faster then now and this anyhow.

So it is supposed to be this slow with the spawning then? As it's not a bug then. Didn't Hinin say 3 spawns or so per era? On this speed with that spawn rate you should be happy if you get 1 or 1.5 spawns in the first era (it could marginally improve with other factors later). A far cry away from 3. So it is essentially worse the slower the speed if you get 3 per era on quick and standard but you get 1 or at best perhaps 2 on marathon. So if it's not a bug that is just way to slow to be viable as a compensation/replacement or anything. Best case scenario then is about 15-20 free uu if you run the game up to the automatic end at turn 1500. Which more or less makes this a curiosity or irrelevant instead of an actual compensation or something to be counted or planned for and with. In a long game, large game you'll need to get several hundred units most of the time so getting 15 free once is pretty much making it worse then conscription and you don't have to pay for those units to get them, just grow.

 

[gwennog]

so see I don't utterly hate everything about the mod,

I see it clearly, and I am very happy and interested to read your analyses. It's just your style but which is quite typical of the forum and which always surprises me. I know that it's the game mechanics that interest players the most, but there's not much feedback on an icon, a music, a gametext, even though I see a certain importance in it. I must be too flowery but when I see Pinappledan's work on the Goths for example (animated leader, unique original improvement, dialogues,...), I admit that I'm amazed, regardless of the mechanics.

And I hear very well your comments on the marathon mode , I also think that I will test the mods in this format from time to time to see the effect.

 

[looorg]

I see it clearly, and I am very happy and interested to read your analyses. It's just your style but which is quite typical of the forum and which always surprises me. I know that it's the game mechanics that interest players the most, but there's not much feedback on an icon, a music, a gametext, even though I see a certain importance in it. I must be too flowery but when I see Pinappledan's work on the Goths for example (animated leader, unique original improvement, dialogues,...), I admit that I'm amazed, regardless of the mechanics.

That might just be normal. When things are fine people don't say much or anything. You mostly just get to hear the complaints when things are wrong. So you get this idea that people are just hating on everything while most things are actually fine. I think most things are fine here, it's just that as an engine it is not working in the early game and what you took away is not compensated (the free UU) with anything that is actually useful or that you can depend on (you could get some nice UU but you could apparently also get crap once that are now just taking up space and supply).

But this is the flawed logic of linear progression, you shouldn't get less when it's slower you should get it more often as the need is greater then when the game is fast. The Marathon game is about having and playing with more. Not the same, not less. Even getting the same, which appears to often be the goal is in that regard wrong as the need is not the same or linear in the same regard. I believe this is the fault of the spawn ratio.

But then it could be that the free UU is actually not supposed to compensate for the removal of unit production. But then you are playing with a crippled civ for some kind of historical or artistic reasons, or you just like pain or taking giant bites out of a horsehocky sandwich.

I actually liked the leader icon, I even found it kind of fun that his elbow was sticking outside the circle. I like the red sliver in the top left corner used on the icons. It looked nice. I just didn't like that it was misaligned inside the circle and it was sticking out and covering my tooltip (which I also depend on and/or read). So his elbow sort of removed information for me which I don't like.

Having played C5 for many thousands of hours I just resorted to turn the sound and music off. The standard music grew old fast, a few hundred hours and you heard it all. So you are in that regard just a victim of to many hours played. It has nothing to do with the music in the mod. I guess this takes away some of the work but I don't think you should feel bad about that aspect. I also turn off most animations etc as I want things to go fast in that aspect (I don't care about the movement animations or the combat animations in that regard). So yes I do sort of miss out on music, leaders, animations, dialogues etc as the one thing I care most about are the mechanics and how the fit and flow with each other. I do tend to read civilopedia texts and such tho for what is unique and new about each civ/building etc in trying to see how it fits in and how to optimize it. So that part isn't lost. I might just not be looking at it as closely as the mechanics.

Anyhow I did reach Currency after about 290 turns, I forgot to note the exact turn. So I can now start the shrimpin'. It's just painfully noticeable how much behind the cities are in infrastructure since the gold have had to be diverted to the army instead of going to fishing boats, building investment and workers. I have snagged a religion (Renewal, Noble Truths, Orders) and I guess to alleviate a lot of these issues I'm going to have to go try and snag Zealotry just so I can get my gold back to invest in infrastructure again. But as it is now it's really painful and it's just noticeable how far behind from where you would be with any other "normal" civ compared to this even when I tried to create very favorable geographical conditions (but then the random crapped on that by spawning bananas in half my marsh/swamps )

But as an example the first really weird step where this becomes noticeable. When you go from Archer to Composite Bowman. You have to have built a barrack otherwise you can't buy them, you can build them but you can't buy them. But you have not built a barrack cause you spent your gold on buying the army. In a normal city where you build your army you would have invested and bought a barrack early but now it's been less of an issue or you just have not had the gold.

I didn't really check yet since it has not been an issue but I assume since they are purchased units they also get just half xp or something such? I don't see it mentioned, but I didn't look very closely. But if you are going to depend on buying all your units they should at least get full xp from it (like the policy) or just something to make up. Otherwise the bad is really just stacking up, not only are you forced to buy units for gold but they are also then going to be less trained or worse then normal (or however we should view experience).

Beyond that I don't know. Then we go down to semantics of what is a "military land unit"? Clearly it's everything that isn't a ship or a plane. But are Archers or Siege units really the same as Melee land units? They are technically other category of units, even tho they are also all land units in a venn diagram kind of way.

Third free units (at t316) was a Dromon. If I can't build military land units shouldn't I at least get land units (that said I know I wouldn't complain if it had been a Ship of the Line). It's just that this is so utterly useless as a unit and a waste of supply. Could the free UU at least not count towards my supply cap then since it insists filling it up with mostly random crap units. To recap then so far I got a horse unit when I had no horses, I got a Siege Tower when my army is so small I can't really conquer anything (might be good a lot later) and now I get a ranged ship as the third one). Random be random yo! Perhaps the list of UU should be curated a bit or if it's possible offer a choice of a few units then and not just pushing these random atrocities on you. But still, feelz bad like most other things here so far.


It's like that all over, or it feels like that. Nothing really clicks together. So much gold have been sunk into getting the army up so you can hold off the rivals (in this case I'm stuck between Japan and Austria). Your army isn't great enough to really push them either yet so the wars are mostly defensive and about killing units. But it's awkward that so much gold have gone to units instead of boats, workers and building investments and for all that I have so far gotten two UU (a Tarkhan and a Siege tower). The third Great Merchant is really slow since there is no more to explore right now and even with working the market it's very slow progress to the third one which will or should create the Vieux (edit: I read this wrong, it was 3 musicians/krewe; so that is going to take a long looong time before that comes online even with the dodo's). At the moment it's going to arrive at around turn 500 (- whatever the customs house will eventually yield so it will shave a few turns but still). (edit; even picking the event that gave 300 gpp; picking merchant this is still far away, this is where I noticed that I had read the Vieux wrong and it wasn't 3 merchants but 3 musicians/krewe -- i should have picked something else here instead of merchant points).

On the top of my head the only other things that would generate points would have been the Great Lighthouse (pipe-dream when you try and go for Currency) and Colossus which isn't really in the tech path either. The next point will probably come from Customs house and that is currently a long way off. So the great merchant train stop quite abruptly as soon as the scouting stops.

The shrimp bonus at this stage when it first comes in isn't really doing much or helping that much either. There is just not enough gold to cover both being forced to buy and army and also investing in your infrastructure. While getting nothing worthwhile in return.

I'm sure the parts are fine in theory, but it just doesn't work properly when put together. There is not enough gold to go around. There is normally a problem early to get gold to go around just for the infrastructure and now you seriously have to dip into the fund to to cover the army and get nothing to cover the other side. So you get stuck with having to do everything based on a single resource (gold) that can't be accumulated fast enough to cover all the needs.

I have my religion, I have reached the shrimp, I have the monopoly but this is not going to come together until much much later and getting there is some kind of masochistic dream. If this works fine on quick and standard it's cause the speed keeps glossing over all the problems.

 

[gwennog]

Your feedback is very interesting on the quality and number of UUs. I will discuss it with Hinin but ignoring the gamespeed could be a good idea and filter the units by removing for example naval and siege units.

Your army isn't great enough to really push them either yet so the wars are mostly defensive and about killing units.

For that it is normal, it is not a civilization which must push these enemies, just contain them. Although in quick speed, where gold is the opposite of marathon, I got a lot of it really really fast, I was able to easily build an army of UU and purchased units to take a city of Ashurbanipal.

 

[looorg]

For that it is normal, it is not a civilization which must push these enemies, just contain them. Although in quick speed, where gold is the opposite of marathon, I got a lot of it really really fast, I was able to easily build an army of UU and purchased units to take a city of Ashurbanipal.

I have destroyed a rival city, mostly thanks to AI silliness of walking around with a settler near my border and then declaring war on me and then sort of emergency settling it. So it wasn't really a great feat of might or anything.

The problem is that pushing the AI back or just holding the line is a recipe for losing. You have to eventually, sooner rather then later, take the fight to the enemy instead of just sitting and waiting for them to declare on you over and over and over again. They just grow stronger at a pace you do not. The only way to break that is to break them. I have to stop the flood of missionaries to and war or just wiping them out is the only way. Otherwise I'm just wasting faith by flipping things back and forth back and forth. You have to break them. Basically at this stage now the game is just an endless war with minor pauses of peace. There is always at least one civ that is declaring on me, they are all hostile. Just basically due to weakness.

While the demographic score for soldiers is kind of messed up since it counts everything and everything isn't really applicable. But lets just look anyway. I'm last. No surprise there. I have 107935, the leader (which is unknown to me) has 211542 and the global average is 165582. It doesn't really mean much, they could just have a lot boats or whatnot. And the leader isn't on my continent so I don't know who they are. But the gap between the average and the best is smaller then between me and the average which is bad news for me. Part of it as noted could be a large amount of ships which I don't care about, the other part is that it's deity so I'm behind on tech so they'll have more new units with a higher combat rating.

Just for fun my best position in the demo is land where I'm third, Asyria if first and I guess Persia or an unknown in second. But I'm dead last on population, gnp, soldiers and literacy. Second to last on manufactured gods (which is all kinds of bad, i'm at 2/5ths or so of the best (assyria). Which is because all (or well a fairly large portion of it) the gold had to go into the army instead of infrastructure.

The 4th unique unit was a Turtle ship, better then the third option. It just doesn't really help with homeland defense. It's another unit sucking away unit supply. Disbanding it could be an option but at the same time it was one of few units so it's not really an option either as this is then in essence the equivalent of disbanding 106 turns of "hidden production". But it's being pushed further and further away now, by this speed for spawn I think the total amount of "free uu" at the end of time (T1500) will be like 12-13 units. That is really a super poor replacement in the grand scheme of things of losing your own means of production.

But then of cause if you had played on another kind of map (say with many islands) then getting ships might be nice, even tho you can build those normally with production. But still you might get annoyed then that you keep getting land units you don't want.



It's kind of messed up that the Vieux Carre can show up as a city-state build quest considering that you can't build and it's not realistic that you will have the 3 krewe until about mid-late-industrial era, or around there. So it's now blocking the city-state quest to build a national wonder behind something you can't really do anything about. This will probably block it for at least three eras. It's like them asking you to build the Hermitage in the classical era. It only shows up cause it shows up early in the tech tree but you have very little influence and ways to get the three krewe considering that musicians guilds are not until Acoustics and the Do-Do just doesn't cut it for really influencing the construction. I don't think there are any events to get free musicians or musician points either.

(EDIT x2)
At about turn 530 things are starting to work somewhat better. But it's not the engine that has gotten better. The saving grace at the moment is espionage and stealing gold but it's a crutch of the highest order. But even with it it's not enough to really get it going. But it's slowly creeping up there. Question then is if one can catch up, which is always the hard part. The other part that is making this "work" is Zealotry supplying all the units so gold can be spent on infrastructure again. It has somewhat normalized the civilization and the production. Gold can now be spent on Infrastructure and the units come out with full XP.

If one wanted to grant more scouting units perhaps one could gain another great voyager on every tech that grants a scouting unit upgrade (sailing/scout; compass/explorer etc)?

Included my current save. It's now turn 607 and it's starting to come together. But as noted this has a lot more to do with Espionage/Zealotry then that any mechanics are starting to kick in. I still don't have 3 krewe; still only had one and the second one is still over 100t away. In some sense I guess Espionage/Zealotry have sort of nullified the whole bad engine and mechanics aspect of it all.

There was a city-state quest to conquer Tokyo that granted 150xp to all units which made most of my range units come into getting extended attack range. So I guess this is the time to push Japan back and then turn around and go for Austria and push them off my island. America is trying to play world police running around declaring on everyone they can for gold but it doesn't really amount to much.

I'm not certain. But you might not spawn a free UU if you are at or above the supply limit. Either that or the timers are really off for some reason. So if you sort of flip over on that turn it should drop you get, or might get, nothing. If that is the case it then just wasted wasted 106 turns of secret production.

Considering the supply can fluctuate out of your turn you could be massively screwed. I think it might have happened once so far. I didn't get (or missed) the 10t notification but received the 5t notification but then on the 5th turn nothing appeared. Cause during the processing I reached the supply limit due to war weariness.

Part of this is probably beyond the mods control or scope. This due to that the supply limit is really borked in the latest version of Vox. It keeps recalculating constantly -- click anything, put a building in the queue, turn growth on and off, reassign a specialist etc and it just recalculates back and forth. One click you are over, the next click you are under. Previously you could go over and still do unit up and until a limit beyond that but now the cut off point is the limit. This really doesn't help here.

Ex. Had lighthouse in a build queue. Was two from the limit. Invest gold in it. BAM! I'm now three over the limit.Back and forth, back and forth. I do hope they fix that soon and revert back to how it was.

Not sure if it is the patch or the mod but nobody wants to sell me open boarders (or even trade ob for ob). I guess it could be diploAI considering me to weak for open borders. I guess I have to start racking up the war mongering score now then ...

 

[gwennog]

It's kind of messed up that the Vieux Carre can show up as a city-state build quest considering that you can't build and it's not realistic that you will have the 3 krewe until about mid-late-industrial era, or around there. So it's now blocking the city-state quest to build a national wonder behind something you can't really do anything about. This will probably block it for at least three eras. It's like them asking you to build the Hermitage in the classical era.

You are right, it will change in the next version (Acoustics instead of Currency).

 

[looorg]

You are right, it will change in the next version (Acoustics instead of Currency).

Good. There might be some other issues to that might need looking into, besides the previously mentioned.

I'm completely unable to have any kind of "open borders" deal with anyone except vassals. They all rate open borders as impossible. Even civs that you have declaration of friendship and defensive pacts and are at or have been in joint wars with together. It works if I just play plain Vox but with this mod I'm unable to get open borders with anyone. Which is a bit of a bummer. I know the AI have them as I have seen their units walk in each others lands. But no AI has formed any defensive pacts with anyone else. I offered Monty one and he took it so it has been the only on in the entire game. Which is a bit weird. They will buy open borders from me but they won't trade open for open or sell me open for gold. It's all rated impossible even with Best Friend Forever Monty.

It was somewhat amusing when the baby boom event triggered. So many notifications. Would it perhaps be possible to compact them if you have more then a few cities? As all those Birth of a Citizen +x faith +y influence does not compact like some other notifications.

There was some weirdness with the UU notifications, at some point I was getting notifications every turn going back and forth. First it was spawning in 5 turns (there had not been a 10t notification), the next turn it was spawning in 10t and then it was back to 5turns again. I guess it recalculates or updates constantly. I assume it might have been a hurricane event or something that puts some city in unrest back and forth or something such. It was just a bit odd.

It took until turn 731; so almost half game (even tho the first half plays faster then the last half normally) to get the third Krewe and spawn the Vieux. It was at the near end of the Industrial era.

So I managed to play the game eventually. But only after picking religious options (zealotry) that more or less just negated the "can't build an army" mechanic. Before that it was basically not fun and tedious. So 731 turns in and I have received a grand total of seven unique units (2 boats, 3 horse units, 1 land unit (samurai) and 1 "special unit" (siege tower)). I guess the Siege tower at least eventually turned useful as a healing machine. But as noted it's not a good replacement for not being able to build units. No unit is supposed to take 100+ turns to build no matter what speed it is. The buying unit thing only became really an option after having picked zealotry to take some pressure off and once the espionage circus started. So you are forced into getting as many spies as possible; run gold steal mission; invest and buy units (or I would have bought units for gold if I didn't have zealotry). But this free unique can't be the backbone of any army on higher difficulties or larger maps.

I have not lost any UU yet. But I have lost two GV:s; one got stuck when some borders closed around him and could never get out as there was no open borders. The other one went down in a hail of Austrian musket fire as they all targeted him.

 

[Hinin]

I'm completely unable to have any kind of "open borders" deal with anyone except vassals. They all rate open borders as impossible. Even civs that you have declaration of friendship and defensive pacts and are at or have been in joint wars with together. It works if I just play plain Vox but with this mod I'm unable to get open borders with anyone. Which is a bit of a bummer. I know the AI have them as I have seen their units walk in each others lands. But no AI has formed any defensive pacts with anyone else. I offered Monty one and he took it so it has been the only on in the entire game. Which is a bit weird. They will buy open borders from me but they won't trade open for open or sell me open for gold. It's all rated impossible even with Best Friend Forever Monty.

People have been signaling this problem in base VP too, and this mod doesn't do anything linked to AI flavours or diplomacy, so I really don't think it has something to do with it.

It was somewhat amusing when the baby boom event triggered. So many notifications. Would it perhaps be possible to compact them if you have more then a few cities? As all those Birth of a Citizen +x faith +y influence does not compact like some other notifications.

I think we should indeed replace this with flying notifications above the city when the citizen is born, instead of having a wall of notifications on the right. I never play with events, so thanks for pointing out the problem.

There was some weirdness with the UU notifications, at some point I was getting notifications every turn going back and forth. First it was spawning in 5 turns (there had not been a 10t notification), the next turn it was spawning in 10t and then it was back to 5turns again. I guess it recalculates or updates constantly. I assume it might have been a hurricane event or something that puts some city in unrest back and forth or something such. It was just a bit odd.

There may have been problems with the per turn check, but in the end it doesn't matter, since we'll change how it works in the next version for something more manageable (stable cooldown between UUs, but with the number of units spawned increasing with your number of Allied / Friend CStates), and it won't require a per turn check anymore.

I guess the Siege tower at least eventually turned useful as a healing machine.

We have removed Civilian and Recon Units from the UU pool for the next version.

I have not lost any UU yet. But I have lost two GV:s; one got stuck when some borders closed around him and could never get out as there was no open borders. The other one went down in a hail of Austrian musket fire as they all targeted him.

My way of using the GVoyageur is to focus as much experience on one (who discovers the whole map if possible), since the GMerchant points gained from leveling up can be great with a high level unit. The other ones are more like simili GGenerals that provides healing, combat buffs and the unique temporary promotions to units on their front. That said, losing one is a problem, but you'll gain quite a few of them in a game if you manage to ramp up the GMerchant points production.