Hinin's Tweaks for VP

Antiquity Sites cannot spawn on tiles that have GPTI or cities.
 
That's the issue though, isn't it? Without this change, civs can plant their cities and GPTIs without having to worry about "losing out" on an antiquity site because it will simply be assigned to a different tile, and the timeframe in which the sites have spawned but are not yet visible is relatively short. With it, that window is massively widened, effectively penalising all other civs just because Egypt happens to exist in that particular game.
 
Ah.... I see what you mean now. Yes, that's a problem.

I don't actually know what will happen. I think players who couldn't see the Antiquity Site resource actually would immediately open an archaeological dig pop-up and could choose an artifact to keep the GPTI around.
 
That's the issue though, isn't it? Without this change, civs can plant their cities and GPTIs without having to worry about "losing out" on an antiquity site because it will simply be assigned to a different tile, and the timeframe in which the sites have spawned but are not yet visible is relatively short. With it, that window is massively widened, effectively penalising all other civs just because Egypt happens to exist in that particular game.
I have seen civs plant cities on top of invisible antiquity sites, so I don't really see the problem.
 
Ah.... I see what you mean now. Yes, that's a problem.

I don't actually know what will happen. I think players who couldn't see the Antiquity Site resource actually would immediately open an archaeological dig pop-up and could choose an artifact to keep the GPTI around.

I'm pretty sure that currently, GPTIs will function as a completed archaeological dig if planted while the antiquity site is visible (although it will still kill off an archaeologist elsewhere for some reason), but will remove the site to no effect if it is not. If you look in CvPlot.cpp, the GPTI successfully digging the site relies on getResourceType(), which then checks whether the resource is revealed or not.

I have seen civs plant cities on top of invisible antiquity sites, so I don't really see the problem.

The issue isn't not being able to settle, it's what settling does to the antiquity site.
 
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V.6 online :
- Machrek update : new kits for Egypt, Arabia, Byzantium and Persia (UA, UB, UIs or UUs depending on civs)
=> Thanks you very much to @gwennog, @pineappledan, and especially @Rekk (who did the lua and helped greatly for the design) for the Egypt rework
- France and Rome UNWs update + Legio reworked (now able to create a weak version of the Fort even in hostile territory)
- Greece and Netherlands tweaks (UB for Greece, UU1 and UI for the Netherlands)
- General tweaks : removal of combat damage randomness (thanks to @Rekk and Flamingcheesepie for it) ; rework for promotion-giving natural wonders (to make them more unique in some ways, still WIP)

Known issue : the new Arabian CivIcon seems to revert back to its original form after the first time it is used

As always, don't hesitate to remove parts you don't like and make reviews for better discussions. :)
 
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I do not like the Arabia/Byzantium switch. Making Arabia pious is a bit cliche and I loved the flavour of turning the literal Mecca into Mecca of Culture. The Byzantium UI looks super cool, though. Adjacency always leads to cool gameplay imo, especially since GPTI are also plannable. The village part might be too easily cheesed by just building them in silly places, though. Is it possible to make the bonus only trigger for villages on city connections?
Egypt sounds conceptually cool, but the UI here kinda does nothing. You could almost replace it with the GA boost starting at 1, though that would be too strong during the first few turns of the game. Also, will other Civs try to steal artifacts from stuff covered by Obelisks? Would be super historically accurate but way too annoying^^
 
Making Arabia pious is a bit cliche and I loved the flavour of turning the literal Mecca into Mecca of Culture.
I mean, it's basically the Civ VI Arabia UA translated into VP. Plus, I don't see how it could be cliche on Arabia (whose religious ascendency was very much based on the idea of having birthed the "last prophet" among the "religions of the Books") and not on Byzantium ?
I loved the flavour of turning the literal Mecca into Mecca of Culture.
You can still choose freely specific beliefs + the unique University to make you gain a lot of science, food and culture if you want. Having a fully pacific, cultured Arabia is very much possible, but it's now not the only viable strategy with the civ anymore.
The village part might be too easily cheesed by just building them in silly places, though. Is it possible to make the bonus only trigger for villages on city connections?
It is not unfortunately. That said, if you put villages everywhere just to gain some food on your UI, your economy will suffer, so there is no reason to go that way during most of the game (except perhaps with Rationalism, which wants you to spam villages).
Egypt sounds conceptually cool, but the UI here kinda does nothing.
It serves several purposes :
- help you gain yields before the first GAge, but with a delay (the time you take to move one of your few workers early on and improve it)
- make Antiquity Sites clearly visible for other players
- provide a combat bonuses around antiquity sites (so that you can use them to defend yourself or attack a nearby city)
- after Archaeology, make you choose between it (the Antiquity Site + Obelisk combination provides better types of yields for the endgame + yields from ideologies + the combat bonus) or the Landmark (no risk of being stolen, big boost of Gold if needed, synergy with Artistry and beliefs)
Also, will other Civs try to steal artifacts from stuff covered by Obelisks? Would be super historically accurate but way too annoying^^
Yes, they will try, and it's entirely intended : you either have to act isolationist, closing your borders to protect your obelisks (good idea if you play towards a scientific or militaristic victory condition) or you can open up, and convert the obelisks into landmarks or artifacts as fast as possible (better for cultural victory). The goal of this rework was to increase the interactivity of the Egyptian kit, and it works well in that regard.
 
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.

UU-I love the Varangian Guard, because it's an awesome unit both mechanically and flavorfully, and really rewards you for sending out early trade routes to build up your gold stockpile in preparation for a Medieval explosion. As a long-time Age of Empires player, there will always be a part of me which instinctively associates the Cataphract with the Byzantines, but I think that the Varangians are a worthy and arguably much more synergistic and interesting replacement.

UI-I'm a little bummed about the removal of the Basilica because faith scaling is fun, but the UA mostly makes up for that anyway. I definitely like the idea of a more defensively-minded Byzantium, particularly because it incentivizes you to place forts where they can protect your roads and trade routes, which is really good historical flavor, plus it synergizes well with the scads of Great People you'll likely have pouring out of your capital.

Arabia: UA-While it is something of a shame that we no longer have a literal 'cultural Mecca', Arabia still has the Madrassa to help keep up some of those themes, and as noted you can tailor your religion for any style of play, so I think it works well overall. Also, strong agreement on Arabia's flag, it looks way better now.

UU-I very much appreciate the reworked Camel Archer, Splash Damage on a 1-range Skirmisher unit is incredibly underwhelming. And of course the unit is just generally more interesting now that you actually have some incentives to use the thing offensively rather than it being effectively a worse version of Morocco's UU1.

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.

Iran: UU1-As much as it grieves the AoE II part of my soul to see the Cataphract here, I suspect this will be a good change both historically and mechanically, turning the effective but boring Immortal into a GA & horse-powered tank.

UU2-Ooh, now this is interesting. I really love the interactions this has with the UA, so that it's mostly a highly-effective defensive unit...until you hit the Golden Age Switch and it suddenly becomes a terrifying all-purpose sniper. Very cool! No idea how balanced it will be until I play with it, but definitely very cool.

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.

UU1-Nothing to say here, I totally agree with the changes and keep up the good work!
 
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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>

I really like the new design of Egypt. 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 really like the new design of Egypt. 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.
 
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. :thumbsup:
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 ?
 
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.
I'm not a fan of water improvements requiring an embarked worker to build it. I believe they should require workboats (which would also prevent them from being super spammable in lake tiles).

@Rekk, do you think it could be related to your lua ?
Nope.
 
I noticed a lot of errors in the database.log, maybe it's from there?

No other mod database :
Thanks. I fixed most of them (though a large part are due to the More Beliefs / 4UC / Pineappledan Tweaks / Enlightenment Era).

The thing I'm still trying to understand is the ArtDefine_Landmarks.LayoutHandler problem with SPECIAL : I have nothing like this in the Tweaks mod.

I'm not a fan of water improvements requiring an embarked worker to build it. I believe they should require workboats (which would also prevent them from being super spammable in lake tiles).
Cities on Lakes can build Workboats, so it doesn't prevent the spam.
 
The thing I'm still trying to understand is the ArtDefine_Landmarks.LayoutHandler problem with SPECIAL : I have nothing like this in the Tweaks mod.
As far as I can tell, this is a BNW error.

Cities on Lakes can build Workboats, so it doesn't prevent the spam.
Yes, but you actually have to build the city in the lake, or link the lake through a canal. Prevents it from being super spammable = reduced the number of situations where the improvement can be placed.
 
Workboats building polders sounds like a fun, subtle little nerf. It also makes them a tiny bit more different from Indonesian Kampong, which are built by embarked workers.

I don't really understand caring about worker vs work boat enough to form an opinion, other than making it slightly harder to just fill in all lakes sounds fine. Before going that far, I would make them not buildable on resources or features though (currently Hinin has them clearing them). fretting about them being too common in 1 instance, but not the other isn't consistent.
 
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Before going that far, I would make them not buildable on resources or features though (currently Hinin has them clearing them). fretting about them being too common in 1 instance, but not the other isn't consistent.
To be honest, it didn't click to me that they can be built on resources and features. What kind of features exist in the water except GBR? Does that mean they can be built on land? Regardless, I agree that it shouldn't happen, and just be strictly limited to water + 3 adjacent land, and nothing else.

What do you mean "not the other"?
 
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right now, they can be built on Atolls, fish, and sea oil, but they aren't buildable on marsh
IMO they should totally be buildable on Marsh, but not on resources/atolls
What do you mean "not the other"?
Your concern that they are too common if they can be built inside lakes where a work boat can't get at them, but your lack of concern that they can be built over fish tiles.
 
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