I am creating a mod that introduces a new civilization. I want the civ to be themed around roads in some way. My first thought was to give the civ a trait that gives 1 extra happiness per trade route, similar to the social policy that does the same thing, specifically limited to land trade routes if I could. I would probably give it some other minor bonus, as the first part by itself is rather weak. It didn't matter, though, because I didn't see any way to do that using XML, and I don't know Lua at all, so I decided to skip that idea.
So now I'm thinking about having the civ not have any maintenance cost on roads. There's no direct way to do that, but I found a work-around I think could work. I made a Unique Unit based on a Worker for the civ. I gave the UU a special Build-type and Route-type, making sure not to give it a regular road build, just my special one. That allows it to build only my special road route, which is exactly like a regular road route, except that it has no maintenance cost (i.e. roads are free).
I created a Unique Building that didn't really have anything to do with the Unique Ability (or at least that's what I thought at first). There's nothing complex about the UB. It's just a Colisseum replacement that gives one more happiness than usual and a Merchant slot. I'll explain why I was wrong about the UB and UA not being related a little later.
I hadn't come up with good Unique Unit, but as I had to create one in order to make the UA work, I might just leave that one as the only UU.
Here are thoughts about my first run playing with this civ (on a Large Islands map on Chieftain difficulty to give me time to check things out without being bothered by other civs):
I made beeline for The Wheel so I could check to see if my new roads were going to work and not cost anything. Everything worked how I wanted it to, so hurray! Then I made a beeline for Construction so I could check out my UB. Everything worked there too, so hurray again!
(The drawback to this was that some jerk AI civ beat me to the Great Library because I didn't get Writing quickly enough. Oh well, that wasn't really the goal.)
So now I'm building maintenance-free roads to all the spots I want to build new cities. There's room enough on my island for 4 more decent cities, so when I get those built, I had 5 cities with a total of 15 roads connecting them all to the capital.
My biggest concern was whether the UA would give me too much gold, thus making the civ Overpowered. At first I didn't notice much difference from a normal game. But 15 roads means I was making 15 gold per turn more than I would normally (maybe 20, I'm not sure if the roads that automatically get built under a city counted). Plus there was the extra gold from trade routes that I'm quite sure I wouldn't have had in a normal game, because I wouldn't have prioritized building trade routes quite as much as I did. When I got my pantheon, I took Messenger of the Gods (+2 science from cities with trade routes), again something I benefited from early because I had trade routes up where I normally wouldn't have. I kind of felt like I was running away with the game, but it's hard to tell because I was playing on Chieftain, and it's always easy to be a runaway civ on Chieftain.
Then I realized how the UB related to the UA and how they defined the civ's overall strategy. This civ is well-suited to a wide empire, with lots of cities to connect with those free roads. You should be raking in the gold. But you'll need to fight unhappiness with all those cities. Enter the UB, 1 more happiness per Colisseum than usual. Buy 'em with all that extra gold you're getting. And of course, the Merchant slot just means even more gold.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to finish the game. It crashed. I wasn't sure if my mod caused it or not. I had long since stopped building roads, even though I could have built many more at no cost, and I already had several of my UBs built. AFAIK, I didn't have anything else in the mod that would have occurred at that point in the game and caused the game to crash.
So here are my questions, in bold for your convienence:
1. Is this civilization overpowered? If the answer is a resounding "YES!," then there's no need to answer the next questions.
2. What should I do about my UA and UU? As it stands I have a UU that just builds free roads, otherwise it's a regular worker, and "technically" I have no UA, as the trait is tied to the UU. Should I add in a minor UA? Leave it with "no" UA, and just give the existing UU another ability of some kind? Leave both the UA and UU as is and create an additional UU that's more like a traditional UU (i.e. combat oriented)? Something else?
3. How is my UB? Do you like how it meshes with the UA, or should I change it in an attempt to keep the civ from being a runaway? If I should change it, what changes do you suggest?
4. Do you think my mod caused the game to crash, or was it coincidence? I didn't notice anything in the database log. Should I be checking some other log?
I know this is a long post, so I thank you for reading it. I also thank you in advance for any advice or suggestions you give me.
So now I'm thinking about having the civ not have any maintenance cost on roads. There's no direct way to do that, but I found a work-around I think could work. I made a Unique Unit based on a Worker for the civ. I gave the UU a special Build-type and Route-type, making sure not to give it a regular road build, just my special one. That allows it to build only my special road route, which is exactly like a regular road route, except that it has no maintenance cost (i.e. roads are free).
I created a Unique Building that didn't really have anything to do with the Unique Ability (or at least that's what I thought at first). There's nothing complex about the UB. It's just a Colisseum replacement that gives one more happiness than usual and a Merchant slot. I'll explain why I was wrong about the UB and UA not being related a little later.
I hadn't come up with good Unique Unit, but as I had to create one in order to make the UA work, I might just leave that one as the only UU.
Here are thoughts about my first run playing with this civ (on a Large Islands map on Chieftain difficulty to give me time to check things out without being bothered by other civs):
I made beeline for The Wheel so I could check to see if my new roads were going to work and not cost anything. Everything worked how I wanted it to, so hurray! Then I made a beeline for Construction so I could check out my UB. Everything worked there too, so hurray again!
(The drawback to this was that some jerk AI civ beat me to the Great Library because I didn't get Writing quickly enough. Oh well, that wasn't really the goal.)
So now I'm building maintenance-free roads to all the spots I want to build new cities. There's room enough on my island for 4 more decent cities, so when I get those built, I had 5 cities with a total of 15 roads connecting them all to the capital.
My biggest concern was whether the UA would give me too much gold, thus making the civ Overpowered. At first I didn't notice much difference from a normal game. But 15 roads means I was making 15 gold per turn more than I would normally (maybe 20, I'm not sure if the roads that automatically get built under a city counted). Plus there was the extra gold from trade routes that I'm quite sure I wouldn't have had in a normal game, because I wouldn't have prioritized building trade routes quite as much as I did. When I got my pantheon, I took Messenger of the Gods (+2 science from cities with trade routes), again something I benefited from early because I had trade routes up where I normally wouldn't have. I kind of felt like I was running away with the game, but it's hard to tell because I was playing on Chieftain, and it's always easy to be a runaway civ on Chieftain.
Then I realized how the UB related to the UA and how they defined the civ's overall strategy. This civ is well-suited to a wide empire, with lots of cities to connect with those free roads. You should be raking in the gold. But you'll need to fight unhappiness with all those cities. Enter the UB, 1 more happiness per Colisseum than usual. Buy 'em with all that extra gold you're getting. And of course, the Merchant slot just means even more gold.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to finish the game. It crashed. I wasn't sure if my mod caused it or not. I had long since stopped building roads, even though I could have built many more at no cost, and I already had several of my UBs built. AFAIK, I didn't have anything else in the mod that would have occurred at that point in the game and caused the game to crash.
So here are my questions, in bold for your convienence:
1. Is this civilization overpowered? If the answer is a resounding "YES!," then there's no need to answer the next questions.
2. What should I do about my UA and UU? As it stands I have a UU that just builds free roads, otherwise it's a regular worker, and "technically" I have no UA, as the trait is tied to the UU. Should I add in a minor UA? Leave it with "no" UA, and just give the existing UU another ability of some kind? Leave both the UA and UU as is and create an additional UU that's more like a traditional UU (i.e. combat oriented)? Something else?
3. How is my UB? Do you like how it meshes with the UA, or should I change it in an attempt to keep the civ from being a runaway? If I should change it, what changes do you suggest?
4. Do you think my mod caused the game to crash, or was it coincidence? I didn't notice anything in the database log. Should I be checking some other log?
I know this is a long post, so I thank you for reading it. I also thank you in advance for any advice or suggestions you give me.