Japan's Kit

[crdvis16]

If anything, I'd say Japan's UA has anti synergy with Tradition, or at least anti synergy with wanting to work GA/GW/GM specialist slots. The more you utilize the UA and gain GA/GW/GM GPPs from GG/GA spawns the more your specialist slots become less able to produce those great people. Every time you get a general or admiral you increase the GPP needed to get your next artist/writer/musician, essentially making the GPP from working for slots less beneficial.

For instance, one could probably create a scenario where a Japan game went so well in terms of war, Hero Worship, and faith buying GG/GA that past the relative early game you could work every available GA/GW/GM slot in your tradition capital but those slots could never catch up to the ever increasing GPP cost for the next artist/writer/musician due to generals/admirals constantly increasing it. In practice, this doesn't probably happen until maybe late game but it does illustrate the anti synergy with Tradition's specialist working theme. If the generals/admirals gave free great people like Maya's UA without increasing GPP costs then this anti synergy wouldn't be present.

Not to say that Tradition isn't still a good choice, but that might have more to do with Tradition v Authority than Japan in particular?

Edit: also, some of the ideas sound cool in this thread. And I think Authority having a science issue is spot on.

 

[azum4roll]

White Tower is a unique Ironworks.

 

[azum4roll]

For instance, one could probably create a scenario where a Japan game went so well in terms of war, Hero Worship, and faith buying GG/GA that past the relative early game you could work every available GA/GW/GM slot in your tradition capital but those slots could never catch up to the ever increasing GPP cost for the next artist/writer/musician due to generals/admirals constantly increasing it. In practice, this doesn't probably happen until maybe late game but it does illustrate the anti synergy with Tradition's specialist working theme.

The GPP from specialists is still always useful in the capital as they contribute to spawning GWAM. The specialists in other cities basically won't give anything but yields, but it's ok - Tradition only gives bonus to capital anyway.

 

[crdvis16]

Yeah- a Tradition capital with the extra specialist slots and the bonuses to GPP generation typically outstrip other cities. Satellite cities might not ever spawn a GP.

I'm saying that Japan's UA in particular could actually make a Tradition capital's GPP generation pointless due to how it can constantly increase the GPP needed to spawn those artists/writers/musicians. That case is probably hard to pull off, but I believe even the more normal case of just spawning a typical number of generals/admirals works against making artists/writers/musicians through working slots. Hence why I'd call Japan's UA anti synergy with that part of Tradition.

 

[Anarcomu]

I'd argue here that getting early GPs normally become more important, since it "increase the value" of your next UA bonuses via more GPPs. It does fall off in the later stage of the game, but you could definitely rush it in the early game.

 

[crdvis16]

I think "increasing the GPP bonus of your UA" might not be the right way to think about it. What matters is generating the artists/writers/musicians.

Every time you spawn a general/admiral you increase the GPP needed for the next artist/writer/musician which essentially dilutes the strength of working specialists to generate those great people.

One way to test the thought is to take Japan's UA to an extreme: change it from "spawning a Great General or Admiral gives 50% GPP towards the next Artist/Writer/Musician" to "50,000% GPP towards the next Artist/Writer/Musician". In this example, spawning a single General would give you like 20 Artists/Writers/Musicians (I'm guessing 20 IDK the actual number) and for the rest of the game I don't think your specialist slots would ever be able to generate enough GPP to spawn the next artist/writer/musician- they would be hopelessly behind.

This is why I think Japan's UA has anti synergy with Tradition. Japan actually has some incentive to not work artist/writer/musician slots at all, at least not for the GPP as long as they are able to generate generals/admirals at a good clip.

 

[Legen]

Not really, you can think of Japan's UA as a potential 50% GPP cost reduction. If a civ generated 8 of a given cultural person, the cost for the next one is 2150 (base 150 + 250 increase per previous GP), which takes forever for a generic civ. With Japan's UA, it is potentially just a 1075 cost instead (about as if you priorly generated 4 of that GP) for your specialists to work towards. Japan would need to generate about 16 of that great person (costing 4150 GPP) to be in the same situation as that generic civ would.

My proposal of adding Great Engineers as an UA trigger, but lowering the GWAM points to 34%, could increase that GPP cost reduction to a potential 68%, further extending how long your cultural specialists stay relevant for GP generation. For instance, that 2150 cost for a generic civ would potentially be a 688 cost for Japan's specialists to work towards with that modified UA, which is just a bit over the cost after generating 2 previous GPs (150 + 2*250). I should revisit that proposal.

Note that Authority's capital can also reach the point of a cultural specialist from its guilds taking extremely long to generate another cultural person, that isn't exclusive to Tradition. The difference is that Tradition's extra cultural specialist is a 27% to 33% increase in base GPP generation (guilds having a base 3 GPP for writer, 5 GPP for musician, before specialist slots are filled), so it takes more births for a Tradition capital to reach that point. It is as if cultural GPs cost between 20% to 25% less GPP for Tradition, positioning it to make better use of Japan's UA as a GPP cost reduction in the long term than Authority.

White Tower is a unique Ironworks.

Yeah, I forgot that. I was remembering the White Tower from when it was a replacement of the National Intelligence Agency.

I love the idea of the Tatara but I think I'd still prefer it as an early Ironworks, maybe have it unlock at Metal Casting since that's close to Steel. I'd suggest a number of Great Musician slots only rather than the other two since I noticed I was able to fill Great writers and Artists fairly easily due to their guilds unlocking earlier. Plus National and World Wonders early on tend to have more slots for GW's and GA's. I'm not sure what theming bonus would work best, maybe stick with the science since it's a scientific discovery and the Ironworks already gets a production boost anyways. I reckon +5 iron instead of +2 would be good too. Maybe it could even incorporate a faith and or cultural yield as a kind of mystical element to it? I'm just spit balling here though so I've no idea how hard it would be to code or if it would mess up other aspects of the game having it come earlier

One thing about this, the Japan proposals for the 4UC integration were trying to address the issue of Japan generating cultural great people before the civ unlocked buildings with GW slots. The unique Ironworks (or whatever it ends being) doesn't need to address that if you can make a separate proposal for that. For instance:
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Proposal

• Move the Art/Artifact slot from Castle to Monument.
• Move the Music slot from Temple to Shrine.
• Add a Writing slot to the Council.

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That would address Japan's GW slot issue and free your unique Ironworks to focus on something else. It also helps the Maya, and covers some niche situations for early warmongers (i.e. conquer a Tradition neighbor with great works before you have slots to store them). I want to propose something along these lines next Congress.

You'll also want some unique/global effect for this Ironworks, like you see in the Assyrian Royal Library, or in the proposed E-temenanki for Babylon. Here's my attempt for this unique Ironworks, assuming the above GW slot proposal (or something equivalent):

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Engineer-based design:

- UA change: Now also triggers on Great Engineer birth, but GWAM progress is lowered to 34%. +1 Culture and Faith to Engineer specialists, instead of Defense buildings.

Tatara (replaces Ironworks, takes the Kabuki slot as Japan's 2nd UB)
Unlocked at Iron Working (from Machinery)
Production cost scales with number of Cities
5 Iron (from 2)
10 Production, +5 Culture and 5 Faith
1 Engineer slot
+2 Culture and +2 Faith to Manufactories in the Empire.
When a Great Engineer is born in the Empire, gain Science equal to 100% of your Culture and Faith per turn as an instant yield. (global version of the Kabuki's Musician ability, the yields and GP choices can be easily changed with database values, but the global nature requires DLL changes)
25 Science whenever a building is constructed in this city, scaling with Era. (baseline Ironworks ability, no changes)
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