Byzantium: UA-While on first glance the Arabia-Byzantium swap felt a little weird, the more that I consider it the more I feel like it fits. Not only was Constantinople a center of learning and a repository of the knowledge and culture of the ancient world and the center of faith for generations of Orthodox Christians, it was also called 'The City of The World's Desire' for a reason, and the rework really drives that home. I also like the connections to the Ottoman UA, that's a clever little touch and also works well historically because Constantinople, even at the lowest ebb of the Byzantine Empire, was still a vital trade hub due to its position on the Bosporus. I'm slightly concerned that the faith bonus will let you snowball your Historical Events and thus your GP generation even harder than base-game Arabia by financing your GP purchases (especially with the appropriate Reformation belief), but then again it is only 1 faith per event, and GP purchasing is both on a cooldown and also scales exponentially in price. Should probably be fine.
I've found the resulting Byzantium quite powerful, with a more coherent defensive and a balanced economy (focus on trade routes to trigger the UA, Food and Production from the UI, science / culture / faith from the UA, variety of yields from GPeople). That said, I'm always looking for ways to refine the design even more. Right now, the questions I'm asking myself are the following :
- is the Varangian Guard gold cost / maintenance cost ratio balanced for its power level ?
- could the Dromon be tweaked a bit ?
- should be Hippodrome be changed, or kept as it, with its ability to support wide Byzantium in combination with the UI ?
Anyway, the UA will be renamed Encyclopaedism next version (based on pineappledan's suggestions).
As a long-time Age of Empires player, there will always be a part of me which instinctively associates the Cataphract with the Byzantines
That's one of the reasons why I chose to make the Varangian unlocked at Chivalry : it allows Byzantium to not have to choose between its UU and powerful cavalry.
UB-The Grand Souk is a really interesting design, I'm not totally sure what to think about it but I'm looking forward to giving it a go and seeing how it feels in practice. I've always found the Bazaar rather boring, so I'm glad to see it changed up for something cooler! Quick question about the wording of the strategic copying ability; does it work like the East India Company and double the amounts of all the strategics improved by the city, or does it give a free single copy of all the strategic resources like the Statecraft strategic bonus? I assume the former, but the wording is slightly vague.
Basically, each Great Sooq gives you 1 copy of each strategic resource of the game. This means :
- 1 Horse
- 1 Iron
- 1 Paper
- 1 Coal
- 1 Aluminium
- 1 Oil
- 1 Uranium
This way, Arabia has, through a trade building, the means to pursue a variety of strategies without being as dependent on terrain as other civs (so it follows the same idea gameplay-wise as the UA : a civ that is made to be reliable whatever your strategy). That said, I'm worried about the Paper bonus, and may remove it.
Netherlands: UI-I always really like improvements built on water, and this is no exception. While it's a little saddening to lose the Marsh synergy, I think the new Polder works a lot better on a much wider variety of maps and encourages more interesting settling decisions rather than just chasing after wetlands. I also appreciate it coming much earlier, because it's a key part of the kit and it was really frustrating to have to wait until the Renaissance to truly turn on the Dutch economy. Can it be built on Lakes? Would be awesome if so.
Lakes are considered Water tiles, so yes it can be built on them.
I'll make the UI require 3 adjacent land tiles in the next version, with some bonus adjacency yields as a compensation. Currently, the UI is too spammable.
UU1-Nothing to say here, I totally agree with the changes and keep up the good work!
Thank you for taking the time to review so many aspects.
Hinin, some problem with ArabiaReworkCivFlag_048.dds
Write in modinfo :
<File md5="c998beeafcd1028d4ca22a48b2ec1065" import="1">Civ_Changes/ArabiaByzantiumPersia/Art/ArabiaReworkCivFlag_045.dds</File>
instead of :
<File md5="c998beeafcd1028d4ca22a48b2ec1065" import="1">Civ_Changes/ArabiaByzantiumPersia/Art/ArabiaReworkCivFlag_048.dds</File>
Fixed. Thanks for that.
On the other hand, I have the Culture Overview display which does not work well. I haven't looked yet if it comes from your mod.
I've noticed that as well; the main thing I've seen is that as soon as you get more than one Great Work of Writing they both seem to disappear. They're still noted as being in your possession, but you can't see, theme or trade them.
@Rekk, do you think it could be related to your lua ?