Is it possible to have this as a unique ability?

[SecretFangsPing]

I'm making a new civ and I wanted to find out if it was possible to make spies lower city defenses in the city that they are positioned in while making diplomats spread religion.

If the former isn't possible, can I make the Underground Sects reformation belief be my unique ability?

 

[Machiavelli24]

can I make the Underground Sects reformation belief be my unique ability?

Not really. Underground Sect's SpyPressure is a property of beliefs and has no counterpart in traits.

...make spies lower city defenses in the city that they are positioned in while making diplomats spread religion.

It is sort of possible, but a bit clunky. For spies to reduce defense you would have to reduce the inherent defense of cities and add that defense back in with a building. Then check each turn to see if a spy of a civilization and remove the building.

For diplomats you can't directly increase pressure but you could use convertPercentFollowers.

 

[SecretFangsPing]

For diplomats you can't directly increase pressure but you could use convertPercentFollowers.

How would I go about doing that? I'm a total noob at XML.

 

[Machiavelli24]

It would require some lua, the difficulty of which depends mostly on how comfortable you are with the basics of programming. If you are just learning to make civ mods than you may want to stick with just effects that can be done in XML until you start feeling more comfortable.

 

[SecretFangsPing]

OK, thank you. I guess that ability will have to wait until another day.

 

[SecretFangsPing]

Is the submarine's invisible trait considered a promotion? What is it called in XML? I'm guessing it's something along the lines of <promomotiontype>promotion_is_invisible_to_all_except_destroyers_and_submarines or something.

 

[PawelS]

It's PROMOTION_INVISIBLE_SUBMARINE

 

[SecretFangsPing]

How would I make a unit require a strategic resource? Would it be something like <RequiredResource>Iron</RequiredResource>
<RequiredResource>Horses</RequiredResource>?

 

[Machiavelli24]

Unit_ResourceQuantityRequirements. You can take a look at the horseman, swordsman, etc for examples of how to make a unit require a strategic resource.