Hegemon

[Blue Monkey]

Thanks for posting that pic BM. Thats what i encountered with Sparta and others too.

Any civ that uses the Amer files will have the problem. I'm sure Rambuchan will include the file in the next patch/update.
In the meantime we can at least play without all our cities gradually turning to black monoliths.

 

[Vuldacon]

Blue Monkey and King Coltrane... I corrected that and other Graphics. Palettes Sizes and Resolution issues caused this.
Still going over files and making others.
I am sure Rambuchan will Update or Probably Re-Upload the entire game when corrections and additions are completed.

 

[Rambuchan]

Thanks for the interim fix up on the AMERWALL Blue Monkey.

Yes, when I release an upgrade all this stuff will be fixed. It will also ship with ALL the new graphics work Vuldacon has been creating. There are going to be some lovely lovely surprises and touches.

I've been pretty tied down with work and family lately. But I've been squeezing game testing in, alongside graphics work with Vuldacon. I still need to do more testing of various things, like governments, the league improvements and new units I'm bringing. And all those pedia entries!

It'd be massively appreciated and a big help if people keep posting their findings and thoughts - even the most minor ones. I'll include it all.

 

[Rambuchan]

Virote Considon - Yes, the Mycenaean Swordsman is the one! Thank you! Any thoughts on using LM terrain / the Theodosian Walls from Kyriakos for the Long Walls? I know nothing about LM terrain.

7ronin - Thanks for the feedback. What are your Domination percentages and do you have a screenie including mini-map to help assess this please? Agreed on the female fantasy unit. Thanks for slapping my wrist! I won't make the game shorter don't worry. In terms of marking more terrain on the map, I was considering this for mountains. Might still do it. The islands however are marked by many of the new Tribal Resources that came with v1.3 - which you still haven't checked out, even with all those ancient coins included for you!! - such as Thassians and Samians.

King Coltrane - I hope good solid applications went in on time? I'm especially in need of feedback and findings from the League Improvements and how easy/difficult people have found the Hegemonic Victory. I posted some simple questions related to these two areas for you. It'd be great to hear what you found please - and indeed anyone else who has played through to the late game.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Vuldacon's your man where it comes to fitting the LM graphics in - as always

Other than that, the only (minor) problem I foresee is that the Long Walls will be there on the map from the dawn of time.

 

[Rambuchan]

Other than that, the only (minor) problem I foresee is that the Long Walls will be there on the map from the dawn of time.

Call me picky and all, but that minor problem might well be a deal breaker. It'll be Long Walls as Great Wall then.

 

[Keroro]

A few observations (I'm not in front of a civ computer at present, so apologies if one or two are a bit vague):

The Steel advance has an arrow pointing to tactics or strategy (can't remember which), but it is not required for the advance. I've researched up to tactics without researching steel.

The Diolkos wonder (I think that's the name) states that it will not cause a Golden Age for Korinth when built. It does.

Hypaspists arrive just one advance before Thureophoroi, rendering them pretty pointless. Hyp = 9/4/2 Thureo = 12/4/2. Suggestions: Either give Hypaspists an extra hitpoint or extra point of defence, or move them forward one tech, or make them able to enter mountains. The Hypaspists were Alexanders go-to unit for special operations, along with the Agrianoi and toxotoi so the latter option would be what I would go with.

I'm only playing my first game on a quite low difficulty level, but I am finding that I'm just raking the gold in. I'm not sure that the mint is required as an improvement. Maybe it should be a small wonder? Remember that every tribute gives 50 gold, which is quite a bit.

Linked to the above point, I've been able to remain on either 90% or 100% research the whole way through the game so far. Now I accept that Korinth is a scientific civ, which makes research more potent, but that seems a bit too high to me. Maybe upkeep costs for some improvements need to go up, or the number of units each government can have for free needs to come down a few?

You asked in a previous post about turns and tech costs. I'm approaching the end of the tech tree and tech costs seem too low. The end game costs should be higher in my opinion, to allow more time for the classical units and early hegemonic units to be used to good effect before the game-winning ultimate units arrive. However, ignore this opinion if someone has played on a higher level and found things about right. I'd argue for 500 turns rather than 550.

Sparte is an appropriately warmongering monster. Took me ages to fight through the Peloponnese. Good job there.

Am on around 45,000 tribute - looks like I'll be going for that victory on this first run, though I have a few oaths coming in too. Like you, I'm slightly concerned that you gain too many points from non-flag unit tribute. I'd say the following should contribute most to tribute:

Wonders. Great works are for the glory of the Gods after all.
Flag unit tribute. Obviously.
City capture.

Research advances and defeating units shouldn't contribute much in my opinion, maybe nothing at all?

The artillery units seem to all have blitz. Intended?

Consider giving camps a point of culture so they're destroyed on capture. I feel wrong about capturing cities with camps and getting champions from them - surely the camps should only work for the civilization they're intended for?

_____________________________

The story of Korinth continues:

Chapter III, in which Korinth takes the prominent position it now occupies on the world stage.

Our mighty armies love conquest! Mykenae falls, easy prey to our elite champions. Now Thebes declares war upon our beloved polis. Our armies are reversed - sent across the Isthmus to repel the invaders. Our careful positioning of cities to be exactly three days march [in other words, one turn accross roads] from each other pays dividends, as we can defend with ease, never allowing a weak point to appear in our defences. The Thebans are thrown back, and their cities taken or laid to waste by noble Sysphe's first army of Korinth [three elite champions in an army = woe for the enemy]. In the midst of this war - treachery! Athens declares against us and attacks our lightly defended rear. But their armies are stymied by the dense terrain and the second army, instituted by wise Kleon, garrisons our border city and buys time for us to send relief. Ultimately the Athenian cites are unable to mount a sufficient defence to us - and their cities on the mainland fall quickly.

Peace with Thebes and Athens, now that they are vanquished from the Greek mainland. Our borders are now with Phokis to the north, Argos and Sparte to the south.

Our attention turns to Sparte. These persistent Peloponnese Perils must be defeated once and for all. In order to provide stability at home as our armies prepare for the tussle the Diarchy is instituted. From now on one King will remain in Korinth while the second campaigns. The people are happy and confident with this arrangement and respond with an increase in productivity.

Finally, inevitably, war with Sparte comes. Their military moves en masse into our territory, threatening the new cities that have been founded in the mountainous lands of Mykenae. But this is not where the main thrust comes. What perfidy is this! Argos, long our friends in peace, have sided covertly with the enemy and allows Sparte's forces free access through their lands. The time for revenge for this outrage will come soon enough - for now it is sufficient to make a similar deal with them to enable us to fight on even terms with the enemy. Our armies advance into Argos, and stall the stacked deplayment of the Spartan forces, allowing our Gymnitos and newly raised Katapults to wreak havoc on the indecisive Spartan ranks. [Note - the fight against Sparte was epic, and on several occasions I came within a whisker of losing Mykenae. Argos and Mykenae are only two tiles away from each other, and Argos had the higher culture, meaning that the Spartan troops could advance adjacent to the city on roads and attack very quickly. I obviously couldn't destroy the roads without declaring war on Argos, so in the end I just stuck an army in the way and prayed to Ares and Athena that the Spartans would go around instead of through it. Which they did. Good AI! ]

Finally our troops' superior deployment wins out, our borders swept clear, and our armies can start the advance on Laconia. First target - Sparte itself.

This tale shall continue later in Chapter IIII of our tale. [I'm at work and this post is really way too long already.]

 

[Rambuchan]

Hi Keroro,

Somehow, posting from work is much easier than at any other time of day...

Thanks for the report and the feedback. Much appreciated and needed.

On your game:

I'm glad to hear Athens is feisty in v1.3. They lacked balls in the previous version. Glad to hear you took control of Attica too. That's not easy with Thebes and Sparta knocking on your door. Well done sir and nice sledgehammer usage of the Champions there. No wonder you're rolling in the cash with all that Attic, Boeotian and then Peloponnesian land to rule over. Vineyards and Sanctuaries aplenty.

To have managed to repel the Spartan Army's advance on you is no mean feat, especially in that tight tricky area around Argos. Top work fella! They are always very tough and war with Sparta always seems inevitable. Even on lower difficulty levels they've always managed to take at least one city off me, which doesn't usually happen when I play.

It seems entirely sensible for Korinth to go for the Tribute Victory. I knew it would be tough for them to go Hegemonic with the big boys on their backs. Sticking around, taking them out and getting that victory is one achievement for sure.

Just wondering - Have you seen any evidence of Sparta (or indeed Athens and Thebes when they were around) building any of their League buildings? Maybe Makedonia? Do please keep an eye out for these and also for whether you feel the Oaths of Fealty are too easy or hard to get.


----

Your observations:

The Steel advance:

Yes, I've spotted this too. The arrow is correct on the tech tree. Steel should be, and is now in the updated biq, a requirement for Standing Army tech. This lengthens progress through the Hegemonic Era to the end game units and also addresses your Hyspaspitsististist observation.

The Diolkos wonder causes Golden Age:

Damn! Then I've misunderstood something about wonders and GAs. I thought that if you don't check the characteristic for the improvement (eg. Militaristic, Commercial etc) then the chance of a GA if you're one of those traits is eliminated. Someone please clarify how this works. We want a wonder without any chance of a GA please.

Hypaspists:

I gave them the amphibious ability to both represent their special ops in history and also to give them something over the Thureophoroi, which can't attack from ships. Is this enough difference? And, in light of the note above on Steel Tech correction which separates these units by a few techs, is this still enough? (I like the idea of allowing them into mountains anyway!)

Too much Cash:

This is one of the key areas I'm really looking for feedback on. Thank you. I think the solution here lies in tinkering with Governments, as you suggest. All of them basically have too much in the way of unit support. I'll be axing this right down and also putting rate caps on some of the earlier governments.

- Late techs too cheap: I slapped a bit more on all techs in the Classical & Hegemonic Eras for the v1.3 upgrade. But I think I'm just going to go ahead and whack another 50 on the cost of all the Hegemonic ones. Maybe the tech tree doesn't get completed in some games. That's fine.

- Get rid of Mint: Would doing this still be required alongside (a) dropping unit support of each government and (b) whacking 50 onto the cost of all Hegemonic Era techs? I like having it as a Small Wonder actually but if the change doesn't need to be made then that saves doing wondersplashes for the mint.

500 turns rather than 550:

Yeah, it's in that range somewhere. With more late game reports this can be finessed. I always lean towards too much of everything before fixing the final, at least an early game end and frustration doesn't result from not enough turns/cash/VPs etc.

Sparte is an appropriately warmongering monster:

Hell yes. It always gets massively tense with those guys around. And, if you're going to take them on, the longer you delay the harder you pay.

Tribute:

I've tinkered with this and think I've found the right balance between the different elements in the game. Tribute given and received is now most lucrative, but the others all contribute too, roughly keeping the overall amount of VPs you'd get the same - to aid calculating and estimating the appropriate limit to set.

I'll think about taking slain enemy units and research advances off the list of VPs. I can see the latter going. Messes up the calculations a wee bit doing this though.

The artillery all have blitz. Intended?

Yes, intended. Those ballistae look like they can do multiple damage in one turn to me! At least, that was the point of them when they were invented.

How is your UU treating you by the way? Is it a more powerful enough improvement on the other artillery on offer? Lethal Bombard working ok?

Also, any ideas on what sound effect to give those ballistae? I'm a bit stumped.

Consider giving camps a point of culture so they're destroyed on capture:

Yes, I've done this now. I wasn't aware of the difference culture or lack of it made upon capture.

 

[Virote_Considon]

The Diolkos wonder causes Golden Age:

Damn! Then I've misunderstood something about wonders and GAs. I thought that if you don't check the characteristic for the improvement (eg. Militaristic, Commercial etc) then the chance of a GA if you're one of those traits is eliminated. Someone please clarify how this works. We want a wonder without any chance of a GA please.

A wonder will cause a Golden Age if either:
a) It has all the civ traits of the civ building it (e.g. a Mil/Ind wonder such as the Great Wall would grant a Golden Age to the Mil/Ind China in the unmodded game)
b) It has all of the civ traits of the civ building it which haven't been covered by a wonder already, e.g. Rome (Mil, Com) builds Sun Tzu's Art of War (Militaristic) or Adam Smith's Trading Co. (Commercial) = No Golden Age, but if it builds both of them, then the second one it builds will give it its Golden Age, because both its traits have been covered.

 

[King Coltrane]

Apps are due next week, but I'm basically done. And yes they are good haha. This doesnt mean I'm done with final papers yet... just 3 more days!

ANYWAY! let me get you some feedback before I get back to the grind.

Hypaspists: +1hp and mountain entry would be good. I personally am fine with archers for amph units. Once you get the upgrade (especially) theres no issue with defeating anything you'll find on an island. I like Hypaspists having that flexibility too, but I dont think its enough for them to warrant their usage. And honestly, I'd rather have classical hoplites/thorakitai supporting my champions (+a-million-hp) than use hypaspists as they are. However, if they could move through mountains and had +1 hp, I would be more inclined to find a place for them in my army, as pillagers/attack forces, etc.

-absolutely lower unit support all around. as athens (yes they are especially rich) i was able to win a hegemon victory by buying the resources i needed, without much thought. Macedon wanted 6000 gold for their 2 resources, which i was happy to pay since I still had 7000 left after. but my army was pretty big. if i was paying a lot for that (and I mean A LOT) then I would have had to fight more. (and i also found a potential exploit: if you buy the resources the turn before you get the oath techs, the other civs sell them for nothing. now i decided not to use this option just to see how things would go, but i had such a tech lead (playing on emperor btw) that i could just give them a tech and it would work out. )

agreed on steel

regarding mints, etc: if you tie them to "requires river" flag you can effectively limit how many can be built. while it doesnt COMPLETELY make sense, it would solve the problem of having too many of them.



as for your previous questions:

1) I mostly traded, though i did a fair bit of conquering too. my expansion was driven by historical precedent (70%) and necessity (30%), so I didnt get to macedon or thessaly.
and maybe it was a bit too easy, but i was athens after all.

2) I honestly didnt really build many of the league buildings. I tried in some cases but couldnt (samos), found it too expensive/costly, or felt better served building a thorakites (in thrace). I could see these being VERY useful improvements, but to be honest, I didnt see the need. I was doing well enough. Trust me, I wanted to build all of them, but having a few hypaspists on a random island didnt seem worth it. maybe you should redo the system a bit. Maybe make the delian league require X number of a certain building or something?

More on Leagues, etc: As Athens, I took out Elis (who thankfully declared war on em) on my own, then had an alliance with EVERYONE ELSE on the peloponnese to take out sparta. mostly i just wanted those other guys to hold sparta in place/take out some units. I doubted they would be able to take a city. But I could! and did! I used my imp. triremes full of archers to take out their 2 coastal cities (i had had an earlier war with them where i took all their island colonies), then squeezed them between the simultaneous advance of my Elis-conquering army from the north and my Cycladic-conquering army from the south (via ships) and took out the spartans. i took casualties, but not many, thanks in part to: LEAGUE HOPLITES! specifically, I would load one (or 2) into an army and make them literally unbeatable. I think they produce units at the right interval of turns, but as athens, i was just such a monster that it was all mine. i got the snake pillar and the delian league and was able to steam roll. I dont think macedon got theirs, because i dont think they had the techs for it (nor had they expanded enough). I think I just won too quickly, as no one else was even in the hegemonic age (except lydia, but they didnt have techs). my input isnt too helpful other than to say that these wonders/units can be a game changer IF you havent already basically won, which is the way it should be i think. if you're on path to victory already, it does help, I will say that. But to be honest, they were just the cherry on top of my massive pre-existing military cake.

timing, etc: it feels good to me (though admittedly, the other powers were kinda backwards). I think you may want to add more into the hegemon era, as it feels a little empty to me. increasing tech times is ok too.

 

[7ronin]

I finished my first game (v1, low level of difficulty) as Ionia.
1. I think I was one or two techs short of finishing the tech tree.
2. I won on points. No one else was close.
3. When the game ended I had Thrake down to three cities.
4. Constant wars among the other civs. Because their "empires" were so spread out beyond the homeland (a city here, a city there) there was a lot of give and take.
5. Sparta was a powerhouse; Athens less so.
6. I had several triremes defeated by single merchant ships. That doesn't seem right.
7. The entire map was covered by cities except for the south east corner of Asia Minor.
8. The barbarians were annoying (as they probably should be). I had to devote a lot of resources to "rear area security."
9. Greek fire wasn't as lethal as advertised. I was expecting an Iron Age version of nuclear weapons. I was amused by the disembodied amphorae bobbing across the scenery.
10. I managed to capture a number of cities through cultural conversion.
11. Careful placement of cities was very important to minimize sea movement.

Now it's on to the new version.
edit note: I meant to say "maximize sea movement" vice "minimize sea movement."

 

[Keroro]

Hi. Suggestion for a line of wonders to represent the colonisation of areas outside of the boundary of the map. I wanted to throw the suggestion out there for any discussion. I've put some possible examples down. Obviously these wonders could potentially be made available to all, I've listed their historical founders.

Corinth:
Syracuse. A magnificent Greek city in Sicily, one of the most powerful Greek states of the age. Syracuse was founded from Corinth and was allied with Corinth and Sparta. It fought off invasions from Athens, Carthage and, for a while, Rome. Its military might was considerable under the Tyrants who ruled the city. One of the greatest Greek scientists, Archimedes, was a citizen.

Great Wonder - Colonisation of Syracuse. Available only to Corinth (through the Corinth Special advance that they begin the game with). Available Seafaring? (the city was founded around 700BC). Requires port in the city. Auto-produces hoplite every 12 turns. Increases gold in city by 50%.

Phokis:
Massilia. Phokis was very active in the colonisation of the south French and Spanish coasts, founding Massilia, Agathe and Emporion. These cities traded with, and entered protection pacts with, the fledgling Roman republic. Wines and slaves were the main exports.

Great Wonder - Colonisation of Massilia. Available only to Phokis. Available Seafaring? (the city was founded around 600BC). Requires port in the city. Auto-produces libation wines every 8/10/12 turns? Creates one happy face in each city and/or doubles happiness from temple improvements.

Lydia:
Panticapaeum. Miletos was the foremost colonising polis in the Greek world. Panticapaeum is in modern day Crimea, at the north of the Black Sea. It was an extremely important grain exporter, until competition from Egypt following Alexander's conquest of that region. The Greek colonies of the Crimea were constantly fighting or under truce with the Skythian tribes of the area.

Great Wonder - Colonisation of Panticapaeum. Available only to Lydia. Available Exploration? (the city was founded around 600BC, but since this is a Lydian wonder I thought it best to have it turn up fairly late to stop it being too powerful). Requires port in the city. Increases gold in the city by 50%, auto-produces a cavalry unit (possibly Cimmerean).

Kyklades:
Cyrene. The oldest and most important Greek colony in Libya. Nicknamed the Athens of Africa, Cyrene was founded by settlers from Thera, and was home to a number of important Greek thinkers including the Cyrenaic school of philosophers.

Great Wonder - Colonisation of Cyrene. Available only to Kyklades. Available Seafaring. Requires a harbour in the city. Auto-produces trireme every 10 turns. increases research by 50%.

One of the things I think would be useful is to limit the colonisation wonders to the second tier civ groups. The big four have their league improvements after all and don't really need beefing up. Though the ones listed were of particular importance there are also plenty of other influential Greek colonies that could be used. Of interest could be colonies in the Black Sea region, Cyprus, South Italy and trading colonies in Egypt.

Ram - When writing this I did notice that most of the cavalry units are either very early and not very good, or very late and very, very good. Would you consider a mid-Classical era cavalry unit? Maybe one extra advance channelled off iron working?

 

[Rambuchan]

Yes, I'm very much up for putting Colonies in. More or less as you've outlined them. This was why I kept Corcyra / Kerkyria in the game and was keen on Ionia too. I started a post which outlines where I've developed the idea to - quite far really! But I'm pretty beat after a super hectic day, so couldn't complete it. For now I'll say this:

1) There are two types of colonies really and one other important factor to bring out:

~ Apoikia - a city-state in its own right (these can produce troops & ships)
~ Emporia - a trading port/hub (these can produce taxation/tribute and cause happiness)
~ The Mother City! (how do we do this?)

2) These are the heavy/notable historical colonising civs currently represented in the game:

~ Euboia
~ Phokis
~ Korinth
~ Ionia (Miletus/Milesians)
~ Kyklades

So these are the ones to get the Colony Great Wonders. And some of them, like Phokis and Ionia, should get a few.

3) Technicalities:

Yes, it makes best sense to have these as Great Wonders and also to tie these wonders to their unique hidden civ tech. (I was originally going to create a dummy colonisation tech and give it to all the second tier Greeks to give them a leg up and allow them to colonise, but (a) not all of them merit it historically and (b) Korinth already start with the maximum four techs, so they'd have to be left out. Can't do that!)

Seeing as most of the colonies that we're interested in were founded roughly between 750-500BC, having the Port improvement as the pre-requisite would have them come too late (c.450-400). So I'd go with harbour in most cases. I've begun to detail pre-requisites in the unfinished post and will share when it's done.

They should be cheap to build.

4) One issue that lingers in my mind is this:

Do we really want supposedly far off colonies being built in capital cities? I know that they're symbolic given the map we've got. But I think that there should be some 'communication challenges' between the colony and mother city. In other words, there should be a good challenge to get your tribute and troops back home. If this doesn't happen then we'll end up with more superpowers on the mainland. One way of doing this is to have these wonders require the Islanders resource in the city radius (and, being cheap to build, poor island production won't matter). But there's probably something else which can be done here...

 

[King Coltrane]

not much time to comment, but my 2 cents: flag them as forbidden palaces (so they cant be built in the capital), but give them a 5-10 gpt maintainence cost. initial establishment wasnt easy, so this would reflect it well. however, given enough time, the troops, tribute, tax improvements etc will pay for themselves

 

[7ronin]

I started a new game (latest version) as Euboea. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that they don't have any nearby iron or copper (and no one wants to trade). Are there fewer resources to be found in this newest iteration?

I have mixed feelings about translating everything into Greek. It's all interesting but it takes a while to absorb it all. I have trouble just keeping track of all 31 civs. If you can translate, fine; if not don't stress over it.

Colonies as wonders. I think you're on the right track with this.

 

[Rambuchan]

7ronin - Glad you're onto the new version. It's MUCH better. More going on, more interesting and prettier too (wait till you see those coins appear on the map). And it's getting even prettier over here with the graphics legend doing his thang.

Euboia: Yeah, they ain't one of the big hitters. As an island civ, they've got to set out to sea to get the resources they need, or fashion some kind of trade with the horses they sit on (not many of those around). Given the wholesale reworking of resources for v1.3 it's hard to say whether there are less than the previous. I know Euboia got a leg up in v1.3 in terms of bonus resources and also marble, so they'll be able to keep up a bit better in techs and cash and are more powerful than previously, but still one of the minor ones. Try one of the mainland civs if you feel they're too weak for you.

Greek language: Thanks for commenting on this. Not many seem to have so far. I agree that having everything in Greek would be mighty confusing. I'm currently thinking the balance between English and Greek is about right. Gotta have some Greek in there!

Colonies: Yes, it's a great idea from Keroro and they will definitely come in, which leads me onto....

----

Colonies:

I haven't had the time to progress the post I prepared on these, so will just go with where I got to. Below are the colonies that I reckon should be included. Feel free to chip in and suggest changes guys.

Notes:
- I’ve used this wonderful map along with other things to arrive at this list.
- The effects take into account both the historical qualities of the relevant colony and also the power balance for these civs in the game.
- The required improvement may not seem appropriate. They have been chosen to try and get timing as close as possible to history.
- Ditto for the required resource in city radius. These have been chosen to get the civs building in certain places on the map. Corcyra for Corinth, for example, requires them taking over that civ and island.


~ Rhegium (Euboia)

Founded: 720
Apoikia
Requires: Granary + Islanders in city radius
Produces: Tribute every 12
Effects: Shields & Trade in water; reduces corruption (Forbidden Palace)

Notes: Messenia also played a part in settling this but we can forget this?​

~ Naxos in Sicily (Euboia)

Founded: 735
Apoikia
Requires: Granary + Islanders in city radius
Produces: Hoplites every 12
Effects: Shields & Trade in water; reduces corruption (FB)​

~ Syracuse (Korinth)

Founded: 734
Apoikia
Requires: Trade House + Flax in city radius
Produces: Hoplites every 8
Effects: Veteran Sea & Land Units; Doubles city growth; Doubles Research Output; Food, Shields & Trade in water; reduces corruption (FB)​

~ Corcyra (Korinth)

Founded: 733
Apoikia
Requires: Trade House + Corinthians & Islanders in city radius
Produces: Trireme every 8
Effects: +1 Ship Movement; Food, Shields & Trade in water; reduces corruption (FB). Can meltdown (revolt and civil war in Corcyra)​

~ Cyrene (Kyklades)

Founded: 762 then again 632
Apoikia
Requires: Granary + Wine in city radius
Produces: Tribute every 12
Effects: Doubles city growth; Doubles Research Output; +1 Trade in tiles; Food, Shields & Trade in water; reduces corruption (FB)​

~ Massalia (Phokis)

Founded: 598
Emporion
Requires: Trade House
Produces: Hoplites or Tribute? I like the idea of Phokis being a tribute victory civ.
Effects: Doubles city growth; 50% tax increase; +1 Trade in tiles; Food, Shields & Trade in water; reduces corruption (FB)

Notes: Big time trading station with Gaul and the ‘natives’ of the area this was the first city of modern day France, now known as Marseilles. Managed to carve its own little empire of sorts along the coast westwards.​

~ Emporion (Phokis)

Founded: c.570
Emporion
Requires: Harbour
Produces: Libation Wine every 10
Effects: +1 Trade in tiles; Food, Shields & Trade in water; reduces corruption (FB)​

~ Hyele (Phokis) --- First called Hyele, then Ele, then Elea.

Founded: 540
Requires: Harbour
Produces: Hoplites
Effects: 50% research increase, reduces corruption (FB)

Notes: Best known as the home of the philosophers Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, as well as the Eleatic School of which they were a part.​

~ Panticapaeum (Ionia)

Founded: c.600
Emporion
Requires: Harbour
Produces: Taxation every 10
Effects: Tribute & Corruption & +1 Happy all cities​

~ Trebizon (Ionia)

Founded: 756
Emporion
Requires: Trade House
Produces: Taxation every 10
Effects: Cash and happiness​

~ Phasis (Ionia)

Founded: c.600BC
Emporion
Requires: Harbour
Produces: Some kind of mid-level Thracian skirmisher
Effects: Cash I guess​

Keroro - One note of clarification: Lydia aren't Greek! They were barbaroi, speaking something quite different to Greek. It was Miletus/Ionia who founded and ran the colony you suggested, along with a bunch of others around the Black Sea. So it's not Lydia getting the colonies. But I have an enhancement plan for these guys too...

Not sure if it was noticed yet, but I made the Cimmerian cavalry unit available only to Lydia for v1.3 and will keep it that way. They have a base movement of 4! I'm also making them require silver resource (payment) in a general move to tie more units to resources.

I did this because I need to get Lydia to be the prime conquerors of Asia Minor, but it's a BIG bit of land. So I was thinking of bringing in some wonders for Lydia too. But I’m torn on whether to have these represent Lydia’s Empire (control of all western Turkey till crushed by Cyrus in 500BC) or whether to go for representing Persian domination of all that land. So....ideas for Persian and Lydian wonders that aid conquest and maintenance of a large land empire there would be appreciated.

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King Coltrane - Thanks for all the feedback. I shall respond to these in due course. For now, I just want to check, when you say use the Forbidden Palace flag to stop the colonies being built in the capital city, is this the 'reduces corruption' flag under the wonders section of improvements?

 

[King Coltrane]

yeah, the reduces corruption flag for wonders.

and i would go for the persia route for lydia (after all, Croeses became an adviser to Cyrus according to Herodotus)

 

[Virote_Considon]

In my Greek scenario, I'm giving Persia a wonder called "The Royal Road" which places some form of guest-house type improvement in every city on the continent. The effects of this improvement are that it allows the building of Veteran Air Units - though there are no air units in the scenario. However, Persian units will have the Airlift flag, allowing them to move between the cities rather quickly when needed. I'm also going to be using the airlift/airdrop flags for the Scythians and maybe the Macedonians if they take the city where Persia builds their Royal Road (which could itself perhaps require a wonder which only the Lydians can build in their capital )

If you wanted to use this idea but still didn't like that the Lydians would be able to move a unit from a city on one end of Asia Minor to the other, you could perhaps just use the "airdrop" flag to represent them deploying in a more direct radius. Though note that only 1 unit may "airlift" from a city at a time, though infinite can "airdrop".

 

[Rambuchan]

Hi guys

Hope you've been having fun with this?

Apologies for the tardy and somewhat disjointed responses lately. I've been quite busy with work, that flat purchase which is going ahead, marching on with all the graphics stuff and also play testing the various things that have so kindly been suggested.

I'll now get back to the posts in the order that I've neglected to reply to them in!

A wonder will cause a Golden Age if either:
a) It has all the civ traits of the civ building it (e.g. a Mil/Ind wonder such as the Great Wall would grant a Golden Age to the Mil/Ind China in the unmodded game)
b) It has all of the civ traits of the civ building it which haven't been covered by a wonder already, e.g. Rome (Mil, Com) builds Sun Tzu's Art of War (Militaristic) or Adam Smith's Trading Co. (Commercial) = No Golden Age, but if it builds both of them, then the second one it builds will give it its Golden Age, because both its traits have been covered.

This is very valuable information. Thank you, dear VC. The weird thing, however, is this: Diolkos has no characteristics/civ traits flagged and yet Keroro still got a Golden Age. Indeed, all the civ specific wonders have no characteristics flagged, idea being there would be no GA caused!

 

[Rambuchan]

King Coltrane - Good luck with those apps my man!

~ Hypaspists:

Yup, I was sold when I saw the posts. These now (in the biq I'm yet to release) have both the +1HP and mountain access. They can still mount amphibious attacks too.

~ Unit Support Costs:

Yup, I've dropped these by 2 for every size city and for every govt, right across the board. Unfortunately, I also put rate caps on certain govts to try and re-model the tech tree progress. So now we're all rolling in cash lol. I'll likely remove the rate caps and hopefully the reduced unit support will make the difference. See the note on Mints below as another measure to deal with the cash thing.

~ Buying in Hegemonic Resources:

Yes, I too paid cold hard drachmae for some of these. It was a lot of cash, but I had a lot and wanted to win. That's just bad business on the seller's part. They lost. Anyway, I'm feeling like being able to buy in too many Hegemonic Resources, even at high prices, isn't a good thing. So there are three possible tweaks to consider here:

1) The increased unit support costs mentioned above would deprive players of having sufficient cash to purchase these resources.
2) Have a few less of each Hegemonic resource around. For balance, I went for three of each Hegemonic resource in v1.3. But I'm beginning to think there should perhaps only be two of some of them, especially those that don't double up as tribal resources for the camps (eg. Athenians & Argeads). Tinkering with the number of those resources that are linked to Tribal Camps would seriously upset power balances.
3) Both the above.

Having done the v1.3 Hegemonic Victory - what do you think?

~ Mints:

I've decided to tie these to silver now. After all, the Greeks mainly coined in silver. Rivers was a leap too far I'm afraid! So, as silver's now required in the city radius, there'll generally be less cash knocking about from fewer mints and a few more important specialist cities. I always like specialist cities!

~ League Buildings:

Yes, I think these are really for when it's a tight game and best enjoyed when you're on higher difficulty levels. But they're fun even on lower ones! I'm about to hit these with my current test game and will consider their cost, given your feedback. Not sure what you are thinking of in terms of them requiring a certain number of buildings being built first though. Boules? Harbour? That kind of thing? I'm unsure about how necessary something like this would be, but am always open to being sold of course.

~ Timings, techs etc:

This is getting even better I think. Subject to this rate cap and unit support cost fiddling I'm doing.

~ Hegemonic Era feels a bit empty:

I think this is partly due to me omitting the link between Steel and Standing Army which, once corrected, does lengthen that era a fair bit. However, I'm not really into adding in techs just because it looks or feels a bit empty. The units and improvements and victories are all covered with what's there already. What I have done though is bump up the costs of these Hegemonic Era techs considerably so each become more significant.