Jarcast's Nan Madol for VP

[jarcast2]

Nan Madol

DOWNLOAD | Steam | Pictures​

Leader - Isokelekel


UA - Tiahk En Sapw
At Masonry workers may build on Atolls Great People Improvements that yield +1 Great General point and +10% Production toward Wonders.
Reefs, Atolls and Coral provide +2 Culture, +2 Golden Age points, +50% Defense and claim adjacent tiles.
During Golden Ages, Naval Units may claim neutral Luxury Resources once, granting Food and Production in the Capital.

Spoiler UA Details :

The GP improvements buildable on Atolls are: Citadel, Holy Site, Manufactory, Town, Academy.

UA is compatible also with Barrier Reef natural wonder featured in More Wonders for VP modmod.

Food and Production in the Capital from claiming neutral sea luxuries is equal to double the respective yield rate produced per turn in city.
Naval Units will automatically check and claim sea luxuries if they are set on exploration automation (gear action icon).

UGP - Nahnken (Great General)

May be expended to place an Atoll on a Coastal tile within or adjacent to owned borders.
Uhpa Promotion: Friendly Units within 2 tiles of this Unit who defeat an Enemy Unit send Production to the Capital and the nearest owned City equal to 75% of the killed Unit's Combat Strength.
May construct a Citadel improvement. Has Leadership ability.

UB - Kepidau (Harbor)

Unlocked at Compass.
350 .
+1 Culture, +1 Production, +1 Golden Age Point from Fishing Boats and Quarries.
Spawn an Atoll nearby upon construction.
Land Units transiting through or next to the City receive the 'Imwen Wahr en Kepidau' Promotion: When embarked gains +2 Sight and +1 Movement, that increase to +3 during a Golden Age.

Upon completing a Sea Trade Route originating here and targeting another Civilization, triggers a (or strengthens an existing) Historic Event, producing Tourism with the targeted Civilization and one third the amount with every other Civilization.
+1 Food from Coast and Ocean tiles, and +1 Production from Sea Resources worked by this City.
Sea Trade Routes gain +50% Range and +2 Gold.
+15% Production of Naval Units, and +2 to Military Unit Supply Cap.
Can only be constructed in a Coastal City.

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More Unique Components

UB - Nahs (Zoo)

Unlocked at Scientific Theory.
720 .
+2 Happiness.
+1 Culture, +2 Faith from Farms and Plantations.
The Palace yields +1 Great General point, +1 Production.
+5 Production with a Nahnken or Citadel within working radius (not cumulative).

+500 Science when completed.
Nearby Jungle and Forest tiles gain +1 Culture and Tourism.
Upon completing a Sea Trade Route originating here and targeting another Civilization, triggers a (or strengthens an existing) Historic Event, producing Tourism with the targeted Civilization and one third the amount with every other Civilization.
-1 Unhappiness from Boredom.

UU - Proa (Trireme)

Unlocked at Philosophy. Obsoletes at Navigation (Astronomy with Enhanced Naval Warfare mod).
120 .
18 , 6 (+1 )
Can enter deep Ocean but at half movement.
Flying Proa Promotion: 25% chance to withdraw from Melee combat. Heals 10HP when starting the turn on or adjacent to an Atoll, a Reef or a Sea Resource tile.
Rebbelib Seafaring Promotion: When revealing tiles, earns XP and gains Culture, Golden Age points in the nearest owned City.

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Credits:

• grant: map art, icon art for Nahnken and Kepidau
• Firaxis: icon art for Proa
• gwennog: promotion icons art
• zwei833: oceanic warrior unit model for Nahnken
• Stable Diffusion AI (SDXL): little help with leader art
• Jarcast: the rest

If you like the mod leave a thumb up on the Steam workshop page that Vox Populi mods are always bombed >.>

 

[Efialtis]

Thanks for your hard work.
At first glance this civ reminds me of the Minoans. Even the Proa has similarities to the Minoan Argo.
Although i think 6 movement points is a bit too much considering the gains in XP/culture.
I'll give it a try when i start a new game.

 

[gwennog]

The artistic part is very successful, it makes you want to play .

 

[jarcast2]

The artistic part is very successful, it makes you want to play .

Thanks although my merit is limited in this sense (only 2 icons "and a half" out of 6).
I had this mod planned since 2 years ago before my long hiatus. Art has been always my nemesis so I asked grant, another modder quite known in the vanilla scene, the favor of doing some art and was lucky he obliged.
Without him and the new text-to-image AI technologies that helped me with the leader scene this mod would have never been released honestly.

Btw, I added also a Steam workshop link.

 

[Urzamax]

Ooh, this looks fascinating! I love Civs which encourage interacting with the environment in unusual ways, and such a strong affinity for Atolls is very unique!

 

[gwennog]

Without him and the new text-to-image AI technologies that helped me with the leader scene this mod would have never been released honestly.

Is this Dall e that you used? I admit that the result is really interesting.
Otherwise, I started a game. I think the proximity of an atoll would be a good start for civilization. Which is far from being the case with every launch. Perhaps an Atoll should be placed automatically when the first city is placed.

 

[jarcast2]

I used Stable Diffusion XL AI.

I thought about placing an atoll upon founding the capital but then I should have written it somewhere in the UA and had no space left and it sounded too much cluttering.
The alternatives were: give the capital an atoll at start and break the game setup graphics with a too long UA (4 lines is the limit) vs. attach the atoll spawn to Kepidau that appears later but gives one for sure to all coastal cities that construct the UB.
In the end I chose the latter.
The atoll tile with UA bonus and a GP uti becomes a godly tile in terms of yields so waiting for Medieval era to have one if got none seemed a good compromise in terms of balance.
In addition there is also the unique GG that creates atolls, which per UA are weaker sea Citadels given the defense bonus and the culture bomb.

Btw, if you guys like the civ leave a thumb up in the steam workshop page that vox populi mods are always bombed...

 

[gwennog]

A small bug, when you claim a luxury resource, the pop up icon show an Iron.

 

[gwennog]

I thought about placing an atoll upon founding the capital but then I should have written it somewhere in the UA and had no space left and it sounded too much cluttering.

Just that not having any, I restarted the game until (I know, it's not good ). The idea was to avoid that without necessarily putting it in the description. On cast, you check that there is an atoll ready for the spawn point and if not, you place one. But after having played, it is not necessarily necessary since indeed there are other means to have some.

 

[jarcast2]

A small bug, when you claim a luxury resource, the pop up icon show an Iron.

I know.
I used this to make the notification:

hPlayer:AddNotification(NotificationTypes.NOTIFICATION_DISCOVERED_LUXURY_RESOURCE, sText, sTitle, hUnitPlot:GetX(), hUnitPlot:GetY())

I honestly I didn't know how to show also the resource icon and I left it be hoping no one bothered. xD
Now that I read around I just discovered that I needed to add the resource id as next element:

hPlayer:AddNotification(NotificationTypes.NOTIFICATION_DISCOVERED_LUXURY_RESOURCE, sText, sTitle, hUnitPlot:GetX(), hUnitPlot:GetY(), resID)

and I did a quick test and it works.
If you can't bother to wait for the update then you can go edit the lua and add ", resID" to both notification instances at lines 296 and 333.

 

[jarcast2]

Just that not having any, I restarted the game until (I know, it's not good ). The idea was to avoid that without necessarily putting it in the description. On cast, you check that there is an atoll ready for the spawn point and if not, you place one. But after having played, it is not necessarily necessary since indeed there are other means to have some.

In the end I followed your advice.

Update is online:
- Civ now starts with an Atoll near the capital if there is none within 3 tiles.
- Atoll given by Kepidau is now visible.
- Fixed notification icon when ships claim a sea luxury.

 

[gwennog]

Jarcast, another small bug, apparently missing alpha_48.

 

[jarcast2]

Jarcast, another small bug, apparently missing alpha_48.

View attachment 662351

Gotcha . Update is online.

 

[KlHannibal2]

In the end I followed your advice.

Update is online:
- Civ now starts with an Atoll near the capital if there is none within 3 tiles.
- Atoll given by Kepidau is now visible.
- Fixed notification icon when ships claim a sea luxury.

Starting with an atoll at the capital sounds way more consistent. Getting the super tile in ancient or in medieval makes a huge difference.

 

[CromulentRomulan]

this is a very strong civ, but with an appealing aesthetic and gimmick so I wanted to leave my feedback.

I’ll get the bug/housekeeping stuff out of the way first. In my playthrough neither the GG nor the Harbour generated atolls functioned correctly, or at least as I understood them to. The GG didn’t generate any visible change to the map, the harbour generated a graphical change that resembled an atoll but which didn’t register any yield changes that correspond to the Civ’s UA. I used IGE to workaround this.

This mod currently suffers from a bug that seems to afflict many mods that include JFD compatibility – namely the music stops functioning. I applied the same solution that @gwennog pointed me towards here (#28) for this their Ireland Civ and this fix works, but maybe you want to patch this for other users.

Last bug, I found I was unable to toggle the yields display off for GTPIs on atolls. This was a shame as I wanted to see the art for them.

I don’t know if the worker constructed GPTI contribute to the bulb actions of great persons. Some of my early hurry productions didn’t seem to do so, so I’m not sure if its working as intended. As a matter of Civ balance I think its preferable if the atoll GPTI don’t contribute

The way that the Civ description is worded is a little unclear but makes sense once its read carefully. I initially thought that the ability was that GPTI improvements could be constructed on atolls, and so I thought this was a tradition Civ, only realising once I got to masonry that the ability was to construct GPTIs on atolls so I restarted that game

I like both the unique buildings a lot and that their pacing in the tech tree offers new dimensions to the Civs kit throughout the game.

The airlift to cities with a harbour ability of the UH is absolutely insane and a lot of fun. But it is so powerful that I think some rebalancing of the Civ is merited. I was not playing a representative game for this faction (I managed to get Chichen Itza and I was playing with Enginseer’s revision to the Teocali that grants it GAP instead of gold) but this Civ has a lot of bonuses towards golden ages and if you can get a perma golden age rolling early then you are essentially playing the game with a Tier 3 autocracy tenet potentially as early as the renaissance. The airlift ability synergises with the Civ’s playstyle as it lets the Civ settle atoll dense areas and be able to reinforce or drop workers or great generals there. It’s an ability that you are incentivised to play around and will want to play around once unlocked because it makes you so dynamic. But I think it makes the Civ OP given they don’t have many weaknesses aside from potentially suffering isolation unhappiness in the early game.

The ability to claim luxuries during golden ages is also fun, and can be very powerful for map presence if you have coral on the map as the claiming adjacent tiles can give you a lot of territory that is now off limits to the AI. If timings work out then it can also help rush a wonder. For the most part I found that this ability was spent before I was able to upgrade into Caravels. I’d be inclined to maybe make the ability to claim neutral luxuries a unique promotion for the their unique triereme to save you some room on the Civilizations description text.

The unique great general feels like the odd element out of their total components. They don’t have any incentive to engage in land war to generate them. This seems reflected in the multiple places that the kit just gives free great general points to the Civ. I suspect that they could probably play as a cultural warmonger pretty effectively, but I find it hard to justify passing on progress purely for the ability to get atolls turned into GTPI more quickly. Cultural victory definitely seems like their win condition. Maybe they should have a unique great admiral instead?

I like the Civ a lot, they definitely feel distinct from Polynesia and a civ that plays around terrain is a nice addition to the roster. But my gut feeling is that being able to construct GTPIs and having access to airlifts so early makes them too powerful. I don’t really have a suggestion of how to balance them though, because both of those elements are really engaging and define the civs identity. A place to start might be in reducing the benefits that the harbour and zoos give (I think the harbour could lose the culture boone to quarries). Maybe take away the production boost to wonder building too. Or maybe there is some sort of thematic malus that you could give the Civ, or a malus that the existing VP game design suggests but which hasn’t been filled yet (maybe @pineappledan could weigh in on that). There's not much that I'd push to be taken away from this Civ so maybe a malus would be a better way to go

 

[KlHannibal2]

this is a very strong civ, but with an appealing aesthetic and gimmick so I wanted to leave my feedback.

I’ll get the bug/housekeeping stuff out of the way first. In my playthrough neither the GG nor the Harbour generated atolls functioned correctly, or at least as I understood them to. The GG didn’t generate any visible change to the map, the harbour generated a graphical change that resembled an atoll but which didn’t register any yield changes that correspond to the Civ’s UA. I used IGE to workaround this.

This mod currently suffers from a bug that seems to afflict many mods that include JFD compatibility – namely the music stops functioning. I applied the same solution that @gwennog pointed me towards here (#28) for this their Ireland Civ and this fix works, but maybe you want to patch this for other users.

Last bug, I found I was unable to toggle the yields display off for GTPIs on atolls. This was a shame as I wanted to see the art for them.

I don’t know if the worker constructed GPTI contribute to the bulb actions of great persons. Some of my early hurry productions didn’t seem to do so, so I’m not sure if its working as intended. As a matter of Civ balance I think its preferable if the atoll GPTI don’t contribute

The way that the Civ description is worded is a little unclear but makes sense once its read carefully. I initially thought that the ability was that GPTI improvements could be constructed on atolls, and so I thought this was a tradition Civ, only realising once I got to masonry that the ability was to construct GPTIs on atolls so I restarted that game

I like both the unique buildings a lot and that their pacing in the tech tree offers new dimensions to the Civs kit throughout the game.

The airlift to cities with a harbour ability of the UH is absolutely insane and a lot of fun. But it is so powerful that I think some rebalancing of the Civ is merited. I was not playing a representative game for this faction (I managed to get Chichen Itza and I was playing with Enginseer’s revision to the Teocali that grants it GAP instead of gold) but this Civ has a lot of bonuses towards golden ages and if you can get a perma golden age rolling early then you are essentially playing the game with a Tier 3 autocracy tenet potentially as early as the renaissance. The airlift ability synergises with the Civ’s playstyle as it lets the Civ settle atoll dense areas and be able to reinforce or drop workers or great generals there. It’s an ability that you are incentivised to play around and will want to play around once unlocked because it makes you so dynamic. But I think it makes the Civ OP given they don’t have many weaknesses aside from potentially suffering isolation unhappiness in the early game.

The ability to claim luxuries during golden ages is also fun, and can be very powerful for map presence if you have coral on the map as the claiming adjacent tiles can give you a lot of territory that is now off limits to the AI. If timings work out then it can also help rush a wonder. For the most part I found that this ability was spent before I was able to upgrade into Caravels. I’d be inclined to maybe make the ability to claim neutral luxuries a unique promotion for the their unique triereme to save you some room on the Civilizations description text.

The unique great general feels like the odd element out of their total components. They don’t have any incentive to engage in land war to generate them. This seems reflected in the multiple places that the kit just gives free great general points to the Civ. I suspect that they could probably play as a cultural warmonger pretty effectively, but I find it hard to justify passing on progress purely for the ability to get atolls turned into GTPI more quickly. Cultural victory definitely seems like their win condition. Maybe they should have a unique great admiral instead?

I like the Civ a lot, they definitely feel distinct from Polynesia and a civ that plays around terrain is a nice addition to the roster. But my gut feeling is that being able to construct GTPIs and having access to airlifts so early makes them too powerful. I don’t really have a suggestion of how to balance them though, because both of those elements are really engaging and define the civs identity. A place to start might be in reducing the benefits that the harbour and zoos give (I think the harbour could lose the culture boone to quarries). Maybe take away the production boost to wonder building too. Or maybe there is some sort of thematic malus that you could give the Civ, or a malus that the existing VP game design suggests but which hasn’t been filled yet (maybe @pineappledan could weigh in on that). There's not much that I'd push to be taken away from this Civ so maybe a malus would be a better way to go

A malus sounds interesting and would make them even more unique. Also, I find the bonus to coral quite random. Maybe better give them a smaller bonus to all sea luxuries.

What about a malus for each non-water tile adjacent to a city? This would give them an incentive different from all other civs when settling. It would also make their cities an easier target for naval attacks. They already are a very juicy target when they get their GPTIs up. And vulnerable cities on 1 tile islands counterbalance their airlift bonus for defensive units.

 

[jarcast2]

I’ll get the bug/housekeeping stuff out of the way first. In my playthrough neither the GG nor the Harbour generated atolls functioned correctly, or at least as I understood them to. The GG didn’t generate any visible change to the map, the harbour generated a graphical change that resembled an atoll but which didn’t register any yield changes that correspond to the Civ’s UA. I used IGE to workaround this.

I did not encounter those bugs in my playtests, but I will look into it again.

This mod currently suffers from a bug that seems to afflict many mods that include JFD compatibility – namely the music stops functioning. I applied the same solution that @gwennog pointed me towards here (#28) for this their Ireland Civ and this fix works, but maybe you want to patch this for other users.

I never play with in-game music so I did not notice.
When I update the mod I will fix that part.

Last bug, I found I was unable to toggle the yields display off for GTPIs on atolls. This was a shame as I wanted to see the art for them.

I have no idea why it happens because I did not change anything related in that sense.

I don’t know if the worker constructed GPTI contribute to the bulb actions of great persons. Some of my early hurry productions didn’t seem to do so, so I’m not sure if its working as intended. As a matter of Civ balance I think its preferable if the atoll GPTI don’t contribute

The atoll GPTI are different database entities in code and I did not add them in the related table so they don't contribute.

The way that the Civ description is worded is a little unclear but makes sense once its read carefully. I initially thought that the ability was that GPTI improvements could be constructed on atolls, and so I thought this was a tradition Civ, only realising once I got to masonry that the ability was to construct GPTIs on atolls so I restarted that game

I made Masonry tech as requirement as a matter of balance so you don't have the op tile immediately at the start of the game.
If you think about it it makes sense given Nan Madol complex is made of basalt stone.

Maybe they should have a unique great admiral instead?

If you make a research about Nan Madol/Pohnpei history and can find a Great Admiral UU to suggest I will gladly change. Because I could not find any. Only noble titles that can at most be used as GG or GDiplomat.
Also they were not much of a thalassocracy to justify an admiral UU. Except for Isokelekel who supposedly came from another island, most of Pohnpei history was about fighting within the island, not conquering others.
In the end there's always a trade-off between gameplay mechanics and accurate historical representation.

I like the Civ a lot, they definitely feel distinct from Polynesia and a civ that plays around terrain is a nice addition to the roster. But my gut feeling is that being able to construct GTPIs and having access to airlifts so early makes them too powerful. I don’t really have a suggestion of how to balance them though, because both of those elements are really engaging and define the civs identity. A place to start might be in reducing the benefits that the harbour and zoos give (I think the harbour could lose the culture boone to quarries). Maybe take away the production boost to wonder building too. Or maybe there is some sort of thematic malus that you could give the Civ, or a malus that the existing VP game design suggests but which hasn’t been filled yet (maybe @pineappledan could weigh in on that). There's not much that I'd push to be taken away from this Civ so maybe a malus would be a better way to go.

If I had to nerf the civ I'd be more inclined to remove the airlift from Kepidau altogether to be honest.
EDIT: And instead tie to the UB a promotion giving bonus movement to embarked units.

Also, I find the bonus to coral quite random. Maybe better give them a smaller bonus to all sea luxuries.

It seems the fact the whole Nan Madol complex was historically built upon a coral reef is irrelevant after all.

 

[Valliand]

I didnt encounter the bugs you described either. The harbor did spawn an atoll correctly, only the GG generated atolls werent visible until reloading the game but i believe the OP mentioned this

 

[KlHannibal2]

It seems the fact the whole Nan Madol complex was historically built upon a coral reef is irrelevant after all.

Not irrelevant, but balance should have the higher priority here. Having their main bonus based on atolls is already very map-dependent. But a bonus for a single luxury out if dozens makes the civ even more random and map dependent.

How about this: real atolls always contain corals. So the coral luxury can be regerded as a rare kind of coral that does not exist everywhere. Nan Madol can still build their buildings with normal corals that are found in every atoll.

In any case, the civ is very creative and interesting!

 

[CromulentRomulan]

Yeah perhaps remove the airlift ability. The Civ’s kit is strong enough as it is and that ability can be easily overpowered. The bonus yields the 2 UB grant to surrounding terrain are nice to preserve


I don’t know a great deal about the Pohnpei civilization. I should have elaborated on the great admiral over great general as it was purely a gameplay recommendation. I don’t know what your design intent is but you have a number of places that the Civ gets great general points for free (from the improvements and from each zoo built). Not knowing much about the Pohnpei civilization those bonus GG points feel like those are artificial additions designed to grant the Civ access to a unique component. So I thought a great admiral would be a better fit purely on the basis that the Civ might generate more great admirals organically. If the choice of great general as a unique unit is intended to reflect the martial theme of the civilization then that’s fine.

I think the coral bonus is fine even if its RNG whether you have it in a given game or not. You have a minimum of N+1 atolls for your cities once the harbours are online so it doesn’t feel like the Civ is at the mercy of map spawn