Hokath's Changes

[pandasnail]

Don't know if you remember me from wayback, but I just played my first two games in pretty close to a decade, both with this modmod included. First thing I'm going to say is espionage is way better now, and scouting is way better now. I remember crazy leveled up Paratroopers being real weapons, and this is better. And all the added buildings are great!

That said, I'm not crazy about the more advanced Authority edit. I played one game with it, and one without, both on Epic King 14/28. In the first one, as Denmark, with the Authority, I just never felt there was enough culture, as being able to bully minors just doesn't seem consistent enough to be the main culture generator. Even with 28 in the game, I only really had one that super close to me, and two more that were kind close. Now, I will admit, I may have won this game anyway if I'd remembered exactly how Culture Victory works and started to attack Egypt earlier, but it was King difficulty, and Denmark is very good at what it does.

Second game I played as France with the smaller Authority change, and yeah, maybe had too much culture, but how much of that was this version of Authority, and how much was just how much free units the French UA got me is maybe a question. Kinda weird to me that France is almost an Ancient Era specialist, but that's another matter. I could see changing how Authority gets culture, but I hope there's another way that's more reliable and doesn't involve me moving half my army back and forth across the map either.

Was actually going to say something about the Observatory too, as I like there being certain esoteric things that don't fit into the perfect structure. Bums me out that Elephants are apparently being lost to Carthage. But sounds like Observatories have already been changed.

Cool to see that people are still working on this mod after all these years!

 

[pandasnail]

Forgot to mention that the siege unit change makes things much less frustrating, but also seems to make conquest, especially earlyish conquest much easier. Also, not sure if the AI knows how to react to it, but that would probably take changes in the main mod itself.

 

[hokath]

@pandasnail Welcome back!

Yes the advanced Authority I am still not 100% sure on. I think the balance is ok, judging by how AI do with it, but ofc AI balance != human balance. I quite like the yields from training units, though I am not sure about the numbers. You referred to bullying as the "main culture generator" and that's probably not the vibe we want (although, the conversion is lower here than base VP! just comes 2 policies earlier). Moreover, because of the bullying aspect it is a bit map dependent, it's not desirable to have too much power in it. I also think the AI might not bully as much as they maybe could? All that to one side, I am 100% sure that Yield on Kill is not appropriate for the Ancient Era tree -- beside all the other complaints outline, it scales too much into the late game with more units and more CS to convert.

France is very strange. And in the game its weird too
Ancient Regime in the Ancient Era, eh. I avoid this one personally.

Siege change makes conquest easier and that's 100% what I wanted. Especially the Catapult. As far as I know AI is fully aware of Indirect Fire when position. Whether it knows what a good mix of units might be (how much siege vs archer vs other) is another question. I certainly flip-flop on this a lot.

Cool to see that people are still working on this mod after all these years!

It is really nice that the project has proved so engaging. I don't know if you're on the Discord? It's very active.

Edit: P.s. seems there was an error with the version I posted last night -- Observatories were getting Faith from all Buildings, not just locally (!)

 

[pandasnail]

Okay, so I think in the Authority idea, the 'main culture generator' is really supposed to be building units. Problem is, and I hope this doesn't seem arrogant, at least on the slower speeds, I think the human just needs to replace their units less frequently than the AI, especially an AI warmonger. In my very few Standard speed games, things are more of a grind I realize. Used to be that on slower speeds, you could build an army early, and then for pretty much the rest of the game the only new land units you'd need would come from the free units at 10 pop increments, or CSes, or Vassals or so on. Now, the AI is clearly better at fighting now, and does kill more units than it used to. For instance, in that France game, I thought I had a certain victory, and was kinda lazing about until I could build the Citizen Earth, and then Hiawatha launched the most impressive overseas naval invasion I've ever seen. I did repel it in the end, but it was much closer than I expected. Also, the last power on my own continent was Korea, and it took quite a lot to get through their line of Hwachas. Anyway, the point is that the AI kills more than it used to while defending, but I believe I'm still building less units than an AI does when it goes on the attack.

The AI issue with the Catapult is they don't seem to know they have to attack the side of the formation with the hard-to-hit siege. Or kill as much as possible on the other parts I guess. But it just seems like when I have a catapult behind a hill, they spread out their damage too much, killing nothing.

So the only reason I even have a discord account is I needed to make one to download a specific mod for EU4 that I didn't even end up liking. I'm probably not going to contribute as much as I did back when, but we'll see. Especially since I seem to have missed the conversations regarding making the quite fun four unique modmod official and all the changes to it, but we're all in a holding pattern until that actually gets implemented. I could be misinterpreting that situation I guess.

Also, is it possible for me to go into the SQL and change the Observatory thing midgame. I'm not that far into it, but I started one as the Zulu last night.

 

[hokath]

Yes we're basically holding on changes until 4UC is done. There will be a "gold" 2UC version before that but only technical changes to the backend in that.

I don't think you can add the SQL in mid-game, no.

 

[TheHatOnTop]

@TheHatOnTop I went on a reading binge about astronomy in the Islamic Golden Age, and how astrolabes work. I hope you're happy.
Made the following changes

Spoiler :

Observatory
No longer has a Policy requirement
Requires a University in the City
+1 (from 2) Science and 1 (from 2) Scientist Slot(s)
They unlock at Astronomy in T1 Renaissance, as makes sense!
Public School loses its Scientist slot to keep the number of slots the same. (not like highschoolers are making serious breakthroughs)
+3 Science from Atolls
As many Observatories are located here as opposed to Mountains
+1 Science and GAdmiral Points to Harbor in the City
+25% Sea Route Range
Harbor reduced from 50% Range to 25% Range
Astrolabes etc.
+1 Faith from Buildings that must be purchased with Faith
Religious significance of observatories even into more recent history -- see the pedia text!

I tried to keep a niche building but, like the changes to e.g. the Hotel, several small niches. Hopefully this is a better representation of the very important role astronomy had on our development.
p.s. I really enjoyed this video

Wahey nice! I was thinking something sea based as well for.

 

[statusquo]

@hokath
Hey, i dont have time to do research now, when and who made that siege units have shooting over obstacles by default enabled, im just guessing it was here, basing on my vague memory
I just played Korea, and Howchas cant shot over obstacles as it is connected to the promotion they temporairly losed.. I know logistics is pretty strong, but still i wonder if it is intended.
Im guessing it should have same treatment as Roman Balistas, but those losing only Sieage Inaccuracy, and keep Siege engine, so they actually can shoot over obstacles.. so yea,,
I mean, i want just clarify, it fhat was intended..

 

[hokath]

That's right it is done here.
I didn't realize Hwach'a didn't count as a Siege Engine, though reading their strategy text where it describes them as "operating similar to ranged units rather than siege" I guess this makes sense.
Clearly they can't have +100% versus Cities, but we could give Indirect Fire if that's something you want to see? Otherwise I would just leave it be and keep treating them more like ranged.

 

[statusquo]

Clearly they can't have +100% versus Cities, but we could give Indirect Fire if that's something you want to see?

Hmm.. i must say i have more arguments to add indirect fire, than, keep it as it is
1 ) We already lose 100% to cities..
2 ) Its kinda inconsistent, as the reason to add indirect fire to all siege units, was due to clunkyness, comparing to mass archers.
3) Its kinda not fair, to lose access to indirect fire, basically until gunpowder..
4) As an upgrade to catapults, which you not only lose damage to cities, but also positioning advantage
5) Indirect fire is kidna connected, to shooting range, and Howchas historically are precursors to gunpowder units, so they kinda have range
6) They still keep "moving half speed in enemy territory" which is kinda second "signature trait" of all siege units..
7) Damage wise, howchas 21 is kinda a bridge between Composite bowman 14 and Crossbowman 19, i mean 21 with logistics is a damage ahead of the time, but
at the same time, Crossbowmans, dont have half speed, and are actually cheaper

Any way, my chief compain was that i sometimes couldnt defend with them, in my cities, as they couldnt shoot over hills and forests, kinda sucked aganst catapults and tebuchets

Btw, wiki says regarding Hwachas:
"Approximately 100 projectiles were loaded and launched in one volley, and had a range of up to 2,000 m (6,600 ft)."

I also found this regarding simple bows:
Traditional/Longbows: 50–100 meters (effective), but skilled archers can hit targets beyond this.
Crossbows: 100–200 meters effective, with some models exceeding 300 meters.

And this is regarding trebuchets:
Small trebuchets (replica or small-scale models): 50–100 meters
Medium trebuchets (historical battlefield size): 150–300 meters
Large trebuchets (siege engines like Warwolf): 300–500 meters
Extreme ranges (theoretical maximum with optimized design): 600+ meters

Well, if this is not convincing, then i dont know what is

Off topic, as i did small research, this historically Hwochas range was actually impressive

 

[hokath]

Any way, my chief compain was that i sometimes couldnt defend with them, in my cities, as they couldnt shoot over hills and forests, kinda sucked aganst catapults and tebuchets

Ok so the key part is the second bit (since the first part is the default behaviour), the enemy can shoot you but you cant shoot them back.
This is enough I think.

had a range of up to 2,000 m (6,600 ft).

That's crazy
Seems like they need Range not Logistics!

Edit: Update OP so Hwacha have a promotion that grants indirect fire over obstacles

 

[AndreyK]

Playing as Siam after upgrading cannons to Seir Morb - those can't shoot over obstacles.

 

[hokath]

Funny, I am playing them too and just saw it also
Will fix.

 

[AndreyK]

I have a question about Colonialism policy- did you take out Global Monopoly modifiers or that could be a bug? I just took it and got no modifiers from it.

 

[AndreyK]

Strange, I don't see anything changed on Monopoly Screen, but on tiles I see yields added, so Global Monopoly modifiers works in Colonialism.

 

[Blue Ghost]

In the file for Celts, I see this line
UPDATE Belief_GreatPersonPoints SET GreatPersonType = 'GREATPERSON_WRITER' WHERE GreatPersonType = 'GREATPERSON_ARTIST';

I'm guessing this is supposed to only apply to the Celtic pantheon, but it's also affecting Goddess of Beauty. That confused the heck out of me.

Great work on these changes! I'm trying them out, and so far I'm loving all of them.

 

[hokath]

did you take out Global Monopoly modifiers or that could be a bug?

I didn't touch this one. I can check on my end.
Edit: Seems to work for me. Here is Colonialism+Whales monopoly, registers as 20%

Spoiler :

it's also affecting Goddess of Beauty

Woops! Sorry about that. Not sure how I missed the WHERE clause there when I had it in the two lines above lol...

 

[AndreyK]

I didn't touch this one. I can check on my end.


Woops! Sorry about that. Not sure how I missed the WHERE clause there when I had it in the two lines above lol...

I posted second message - they work, I think it's not on your end, just Monopoly Screen doesn't show changed modifiers. I think that just VP thing.

 

[AndreyK]

I conquered city with Port Royale, but didn't get spy points, so only one that builds it get the points?

 

[hokath]

Yes, Spy Point sources are like instant yields and cannot be lost/gained by conquest.
Not sure it necessarily *should* work this way, but if it didn't you could lose Spies...

 

[azum4roll]

If processBuilding is ever rewritten I'd have the extra spies be lost (not respawning when they die, and no new spy on era change until the debt is paid off), just like when you lose tenets due to revolution.