GEM generic modification

[Genghis_Kai]

From a balance-based view, I guess it would not hurt. Most of the civilizations that would benefit from this are rather weak anyway (from the 1500 AD map, at least).

GEM does not have extensive coastlines - to my mind it's a map that favors land based strategies over sea based strategies. It rarely makes sense to settle coastlines only.

However, I have no idea how it could work out in other scenarios. Personally, I'd prefer to boost the financial trait itself by lowering the threshold for the bonus rather than improving ocean for all coastal civilizations, therefore supporting more diverse strategies.

Best Regards,
Ace

But I think lowering the financial trait's bonus threshold to 1 coin is a bit too much. The financial trait would almost get a +1 coin for every tile since GEM has so many rivers.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Yes, you are definitely correct there... I did not think of the abundance of rivers.

There's always the option of having the trait increase your commerce. I'm not sure if total commerce can be increased via XML, but it should be possible to increase gold generated by something like 20% - although the bonus would not be as impressive, it fits the term "financial" well and is surely useful. The synergy with seafaring civlizations is removed though.

Best Regards,
Ace

 

[Bastian-Bux]

As said, a 20% income is almost useless, uneless you are willing to micro manage a lot, and even then its much weaker then a plain +10% research.

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Oh, and on a sidenote: all your maps are heavily lacking in fish/crab/clam, as was pointed out by someone talking about comparison between Creeals and Sushi. Maybe you could increase here a bit?

 

[Ace of Spades]

Maybe you could increase here a bit?

I disagree. As you can see here the increased importance of crops is rather realistic, as they provide the vast majority of food on Earth.

Sid's Sushi is rather nice on GEM, too - especially if you want to push your borders or aim for cultural victory. Although it will never produce quite as much culture as Create Con, it's still good compared to what buildings can give you.

Best Regards,
Ace

 

[Genghis_Kai]

On the sea tile commerce issue. I just come up with an alternate solution: +1 commerce for building Harbor. So by default, sea tiles are 1/1/1, but with lighthouse and harbor, it becomes 2/1/2.
The original +50% trade route yield for harbor might then need to be reduced to +25% for balance.

 

[Genghis_Kai]

I disagree. As you can see here the increased importance of crops is rather realistic, as they provide the vast majority of food on Earth.

Sid's Sushi is rather nice on GEM, too - especially if you want to push your borders or aim for cultural victory. Although it will never produce quite as much culture as Create Con, it's still good compared to what buildings can give you.

Best Regards,
Ace

I second this. If you check my statistics, Rice, Wheat and Corn are already weighted down by a factor of 5 to 6 as compared to fish, not to mention Clam and Crab.

 

[Joshua67]

I second this. If you check my statistics, Rice, Wheat and Corn are already weighted down by a factor of 5 to 6 as compared to fish, not to mention Clam and Crab.

Id also like to add that seafood can be traded for and/or defended.Ive noticed that ive had to actually defend by territory from sub or destroyer raiders on my fishing areas.Very good map i must say.The increases may seem small but they make the countries themselves more realistic and able to last in a fight as opposed to being steamrolled by X numbers of ONE type of unit.
As russia i was able to wipe finland out but thats only after concentrating all tank, infantry, and air forces i could spare to the assault.I think it took me about 6 turns ?maybe 10 at the most.And that was just to take out a minor 4 city civ who wasnt built up!
Anyways its a good mod so far and i havent encountered any bugs yet.

 

[Jabarto]

On the sea tile commerce issue. I just come up with an alternate solution: +1 commerce for building Harbor. So by default, sea tiles are 1/1/1, but with lighthouse and harbor, it becomes 2/1/2.
The original +50% trade route yield for harbor might then need to be reduced to +25% for balance.

That's a really good idea. I think the reduced trade bonus would be necessary, especially when you take Carthage's UB into consideration.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Due to the increased speed of modern land units, Paratroopers now become practically obsolete rather fast. Maybe their range could be increased slightly?

Something similar can be seen for aircraft, since a gunship or modern armor can often move further in a single turn (especially when capturing enemy cities) than your aircraft coverange will reach.

Maybe paradrop and aircraft ranges could be increased by 50-75% ?

Paratrooper, Fighter, Bomber: +50%
Stelth Bomber, Jet Bomber, Guided Missile, Tactical Nuke: +75%

Best Regards,
Ace

 

[Ace of Spades]

Another, more cosmetic issue: Some civilizations seem to be defined twice. For example, when I move my mouse over a hippodrome it says "Unique building for the Byzantine Empire" twice.

Is this intended? Or a by product of defining new civilizations?

Best Regards,
Ace

 

[Ace of Spades]

Hello Genghis,

just wanted to say I am currently testing the change you proposed to harbors (+25% trade routes down from 50%, +1 commerce on sea tiles) and it works fine in my recent Japanese game. I think the balancing is okay this way, sea-based civilizations get a small boost but it's not too much.

Best Regards,
Ace

 

[Genghis_Kai]

Hello Genghis,

just wanted to say I am currently testing the change you proposed to harbors (+25% trade routes down from 50%, +1 commerce on sea tiles) and it works fine in my recent Japanese game. I think the balancing is okay this way, sea-based civilizations get a small boost but it's not too much.

Best Regards,
Ace

Thats great

 

[Halt]

However....

Financials need a boost

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Halt is correct. Getting that boost with harbors is probably to late for an early tech lead as financial should allow you to get.

 

[Genghis_Kai]

Another, more cosmetic issue: Some civilizations seem to be defined twice. For example, when I move my mouse over a hippodrome it says "Unique building for the Byzantine Empire" twice.

Is this intended? Or a by product of defining new civilizations?

Best Regards,
Ace

This is probably due to pseudo civ I've created. Every unique building/units are replicated from the base civ. I think that would cause the issue you raise. I could try if I can change it to read something like "Unique building for the Byzantine Empire" and "Unique building for the Hungarian Empire" if possible.

 

[Ace of Spades]

I guess that happens because of the "TXT_KEY_BLA_BLA" used for localization... I noticed that the civ adjectives seem to be subject to this to some extent, too. For example, when a venetian caravel sinks mine, it would read (in-game):

"Your Caravel was destroyed by a Dutch Caravel"

If you change it, it will not be localized... but to my mind, that's not a problem, I do use the English version anyway

Best Regards,
Ace

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Kai, could you include "culture over the water" in your mod? Your map is so big and contains so many islands, that this is dearly needed. It might make sense to reduce culture over ocean by 50%, but there needs to be a way to culturaly capture islands 3 plots away with a legendary city.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Regarding culture, on a sidenote: Culture is an issue altogether in GEM I have to admit. To my mind, the impact cultural expansion is too strong in some scenarios, this is due to the fact that cities start with a lot of culture genereation (sometimes as high as 100 cpt), but city culture level is rather low and plot culture is zero at the start - where it should be quite solid in reality.

Therefore, culturally strong cities can expand their borders very rapidly in early game, a fact that I find to be quite annoying. I know of no way to change plot culture in scenarios though. One option would be to set many cities to a higher culture level, therefore emphasizing distance over cpt generation due to the way plot culture is calculated. Maybe a script could be used to add plot culture, but that would be very laborius a task indeed I fear.

Best Regards,
Ace

 

[MusX]

+1 hammer on water isn't a generic modification, it change game very much. Don't you think that Levee could do that, and Dike give +2 hammers on water, +1 hammer near river