JFD's Kingdom of Norway (Haakon IV) for VP

[Hinin]

Kingdom of Norway
Download here
(requires Vox Populi 2.1 or later)
(DISCLAIMER : I tried contacting @JFD on civfanatics and discord, to no avail (no possibility for a private message, and I do not want to pollute his threads with demands). If he asks this modified civ to me removed, I will do so immediately)

Leader - Haakon IV

UA - Grand Leidang

Melee Land Units and Naval Units gain the Birkebeiner and Leidang promotion respectively. Gain Great Writer points in Capital from killing Units and +2 Production from Great Works and cultural Specialists. Cities gain a free GWWriting slot and grant Food and Faith whenever pillaging, scaling with Era.

Spoiler Unique UA promotions :

Birkebeiner - The Unit has no malus for attacking from the sea or from being wounded. +20% CS to owned Naval Units within 2 tiles.
Leidang - +5 HP. The Unit has no malus from being wounded. +20% CS to owned Land Units within 2 tiles.

Spoiler UA formulas :

Great Writer points from kills : 3% of the amount required for the next Great Writer to be born in the Capital per kill.
Food / Faith from pillage : 8 Food / Faith in all Cities, scaling with Era

UGP - Skald (replaces Great Writer)

Can be expended to found a City (3 Citizens and 3 additional tiles when founded), with the following Buildings :

Spoiler Building list :

- Council
- Monument
- Shrine
- Library
- Lighthouse
- Forge
- Amphitheater
- Temple
- Well (if possible)
- Watermill (if possible)

Can be expended to create a GWWriting or generate Culture.

Skaldic Expedition - When born, grants 50 Great Admiral points and 150 Faith, scaling with Era.
Can traverse Ocean tiles
Additional Vision when embarked
Sentry
Ignores Terrain Cost

UU1 – Knarr (replaces Galleass)

Unlocked at Education (instead of Guilds)
175 Production cost

11 CS / 21 RCS / 1 Range (instead of 14/24)
5 MP / 2 Vision

Cannot Melee Attack
Can Move after Attacking
Attack malus against Land Units
Sea Ghost – Invisible to non-adjacent Units ; lost upon upgrade
Reconnaissance
Infiltrator

Removed – Cannot End its Turn on Ocean Tiles

Spoiler 4UC Compatibility :

UB1 – Stafrkyrkje (replaces Temple)

Unlocked at Philosophy
200 Production cost
1 GPT maintenance cost

3 Faith
3 Food
15 % of Food is carried over after a Citizen is born
+100 HP

+25 Religious Pressure
2 GWArt slots (+3 Food, Faith and Culture when themed with GWArt of different Eras)
-1 Unhappiness from Religious Unrest

1 Artist specialist

Resource bonuses

UU2 – Rennamenn (replaces Fusilier)

Unlocked at Rifling
625 Production cost

38 CS / 4 ASD
2 MP / 2 Vision

Formation
Field Works
Highlander – +25% CS and Double movement in Tundra, Snow and Hill
Infiltrator
Can move after attacking

Spoiler Promotion Icons (by gwennog) :

1 - Birkebeiner
2 - Leidang
3 - Sea Ghost

Credits
- Original mod components :

• JFD : Original Author, Coding, Design, Research, Writing
• Janboruta : Leaderscene, Leader Icon, Civ Icon, Civ Map
• Sukritact : Skald Unit Icon
• DarthStarKiller : City List Research

- VP adaptation :

• Hinin : Design, Research, Coding
• gwennog : Promotion Icons

Links to original mods wiki pages :
- Kingdom of Norway (Haakon IV)
- Iceland (Ingolfur Arnarson) : Skald

 

[Hinin]

My personal recommandations for a Peace and a War Theme for the civ :

Spoiler Peace Theme :

Spoiler War Theme :

If you want to replace the themes of the civ with those I recommend, you can download this audio file, and simply replace the one present in the mod with it.

 

[Rekk]

I would like to use the name Highlander for VP, that's excellent. Note that the double movement works even in treed hills and tundra.

 

[Hinin]

I would like to use the name Highlander for VP, that's excellent. Note that the double movement works even in treed hills and tundra.

The name comes directly from @adan_eslavo's Promotion Overhaul, which streamlines, corrects and gives a lot of name flavor to promotion text. Pls take a look.

Thanks for the correction about the effect.

 

[Diomedes_]

This seems like a really interesting and dynamic civ! The decisions of how to use your Skalds and what policy tree you go with first seem incredibly dynamic and impactful on the overall course of your game. I really like civs with UAs/UCs that push you towards unusual playstyles or whose strength can be harnessed in really different ways, and this civ seems awesome in that regard. Going full warmonger but also rushing the top half of the tech tree--very cool!

 

[adan_eslavo]

I would like to use the name Highlander for VP, that's excellent. Note that the double movement works even in treed hills and tundra.

The name comes directly from @adan_eslavo's Promotion Overhaul, which streamlines, corrects and gives a lot of name flavor to promotion text. Pls take a look.

Thanks for the correction about the effect.

BTW @Rekk could you look at this github thread? Something happened in latest VP update and promotions cannot be fixed on my end, altough I tried :/

 

[looorg]

This looks quite interesting. I'll try this next I think. Just a question, to see if I understood this correctly. So if I kill about 30 units (or every 30 units or so that I kill) will/should grant me a great writer? If so this will be a cultural powerhouse like no other.

 

[Hinin]

This looks quite interesting. I'll try this next I think. Just a question, to see if I understood this correctly. So if I kill about 30 units (or every 30 units or so that I kill) will/should grant me a great writer? If so this will be a cultural powerhouse like no other.

Yes, it's 3% of the total amount required for the next GWriter. Since it is quite a new kind of bonus (it is a sql function that was introduced by VP, but never used until now), I'm not 100% sure what value to use (2 or 3%), so tests and reviews on that matter would be welcome.

This seems like a really interesting and dynamic civ! The decisions of how to use your Skalds and what policy tree you go with first seem incredibly dynamic and impactful on the overall course of your game. I really like civs with UAs/UCs that push you towards unusual playstyles or whose strength can be harnessed in really different ways, and this civ seems awesome in that regard. Going full warmonger but also rushing the top half of the tech tree--very cool!

That was my way of introducing some aspects of Scandinavia that weren't used for 4UC, so I'm happy you're interested.

 

[looorg]

Yes, it's 3% of the total amount required for the next GWriter. Since it is quite a new kind of bonus (it is a sql function that was introduced by VP, but never used until now), I'm not 100% sure what value to use (2 or 3%), so tests and reviews on that matter would be welcome.

I did a little test start just to see, mostly to check if VP2.1 was doing ok and such but ended up playing about 200 turns (which is not that much on marathon).

I think I had overestimated how powerful the amount of great writer points would be. It wasn't that it wasn't what I believed but it was a little harder to always finish them off with killing blows in the ancient era so they run away, and rob me of my writer points. It might be a bit odd that you can gain writer points from the start. Mainly due to the fact that there is no place to put the great works of writing. In the very early game the only place for a great work of writing is the Heroic epic. Other buildings for it doesn't really come around until Drama (amphitheaters). But mainly this is or was related to that it's not as easy to guarantee kill shots on things in the ancient and early eras as I imagined when I read the line. I sort of glossed over the practicality of it all. Barbarians also give writer points so that has a lot, or some, farm potential in it.

But that is sort of resolved by itself as you will have to (and probably want to) use the first Skald as a city creator. A city which at the time is like a golden utopia of power since it contains so many pre-built buildings that there isn't even tech researched for. When I plonked down the first Skald city I had 9 techs in total. So that city is amazing in every way shape and form (it had multiple buildings in it I didn't even have the tech for -- forge, library, temple, amphi, council, lighthouse, monument, shrine and a well -- I didn't have the techs for temple, amphi, lighthouse or a library). But also you need to do it cause it is the only way as noted to store your other great works of art.

There is the third option of creating treatises but without a lot of great works of various kind stored up it's very luck luster, I think this will be awesome (or overpowered) in the mid-late game when you have accumulated enough works and just every 30th kill can create a new treaty for a large influx of culture (this is more how the end game works imo; writers are waited for until the end and you just spam them out and gain many policies quite rapidly). It's not a like a treatie would be bad to spawn; when I got the option doing it would be like instantly gaining 16 turns of culture in one go. It's just kind of meh compared to creating a great work (which I couldn't do at the time) or founding a godlike utopian city. It wasn't really a hard choice.

If it was not for the Skald city I would suggest trying to come up with an early second building replacement of some kind that had great works of writing slots, just so you had some place to store them. Could be some early version runestone and consider then the stone as the place of great writing that you slot the work into. Possibly as a monument replacement; basically a monument with a great work of writing slot in it. Just as a backup if nothing else. It might still be an idea if you want a second 3-4uc building since it now only has the temple replacement.

 

[Hinin]

I did a little test start just to see, mostly to check if VP2.1 was doing ok and such but ended up playing about 200 turns (which is not that much on marathon).

I think I had overestimated how powerful the amount of great writer points would be. It wasn't that it wasn't what I believed but it was a little harder to always finish them off with killing blows in the ancient era so they run away, and rob me of my writer points. It might be a bit odd that you can gain writer points from the start. Mainly due to the fact that there is no place to put the great works of writing. In the very early game the only place for a great work of writing is the Heroic epic. Other buildings for it doesn't really come around until Drama (amphitheaters). But mainly this is or was related to that it's not as easy to guarantee kill shots on things in the ancient and early eras as I imagined when I read the line. I sort of glossed over the practicality of it all. Barbarians also give writer points so that has a lot, or some, farm potential in it.

But that is sort of resolved by itself as you will have to (and probably want to) use the first Skald as a city creator. A city which at the time is like a golden utopia of power since it contains so many pre-built buildings that there isn't even tech researched for. When I plonked down the first Skald city I had 9 techs in total. So that city is amazing in every way shape and form (it had multiple buildings in it I didn't even have the tech for -- forge, library, temple, amphi, council, lighthouse, monument, shrine and a well -- I didn't have the techs for temple, amphi, lighthouse or a library). But also you need to do it cause it is the only way as noted to store your other great works of art.

There is the third option of creating treatises but without a lot of great works of various kind stored up it's very luck luster, I think this will be awesome (or overpowered) in the mid-late game when you have accumulated enough works and just every 30th kill can create a new treaty for a large influx of culture (this is more how the end game works imo; writers are waited for until the end and you just spam them out and gain many policies quite rapidly). It's not a like a treatie would be bad to spawn; when I got the option doing it would be like instantly gaining 16 turns of culture in one go. It's just kind of meh compared to creating a great work (which I couldn't do at the time) or founding a godlike utopian city. It wasn't really a hard choice.

If it was not for the Skald city I would suggest trying to come up with an early second building replacement of some kind that had great works of writing slots, just so you had some place to store them. Could be some early version runestone and consider then the stone as the place of great writing that you slot the work into. Possibly as a monument replacement; basically a monument with a great work of writing slot in it. Just as a backup if nothing else. It might still be an idea if you want a second 3-4uc building since it now only has the temple replacement.

Thanks for the review.

At first, I had put even more buildings for the Skald, since I thought the function Unit_BuildOnFound still required technologies to put buildings, but it doesn't, so I scaled it down. That said, I agree that if you manage to get a Skald very early on, the resulting city is really powerful. However, as mentionned in the Strategy part of the unit, stacking Great Works of Writing early on can also be more interesting (simply because you do not always have a good placement for your Skald cities, and you want to bulb), and I agree the civ could benefit from having access to an early GWWriting slot. Since the civ already has a free building in its code (the dummy building used to provide yields when pillaging), I could simply make it a true building that gives out a GWWriting too (and add the bonus in the UA).

One thing to note about the Skald is that, when it founds a city, it is NOT counted as being expended for the sake of bonuses triggered when expending GPeople (University of Sankore, Founder beliefs, Tradition etc). It is due to the action of founding city not having the possibility of having the marker "DoneByGreatPeople", like Unique Great People Improvements do. I could make a suggestion on discord on that matter, but I don't know if that's possible to make a change.

But that is sort of resolved by itself as you will have to (and probably want to) use the first Skald as a city creator. A city which at the time is like a golden utopia of power since it contains so many pre-built buildings that there isn't even tech researched for. When I plonked down the first Skald city I had 9 techs in total. So that city is amazing in every way shape and form (it had multiple buildings in it I didn't even have the tech for -- forge, library, temple, amphi, council, lighthouse, monument, shrine and a well -- I didn't have the techs for temple, amphi, lighthouse or a library). But also you need to do it cause it is the only way as noted to store your other great works of art.

At the same time, if you don't have all these buildings, the unit loses a lot of its power, and as I said, losing bulbing potential can be detrimental in the long term. Skald have a window where they are very powerful (Ancient to Medieval), but they fall off hard afterwards, and are better off being used for other things. Thus, I needed to make this window of opportunity noticeable, and what I wanted most was a city allowing you to not feel the increase in science / culture costs when founding it (since it brings you needed yields immediatly as a compensation).

 

[Hinin]

V.2 online :
- Added a free Great Work of Writing slot to cities from the UA
- New Promotion Icons, courtesy of @gwennog

 

[AndreyK]

As I always play with raging barbs option seems founding ability with so many buildings very OP.

 

[looorg]

I noted two other things I forgot to mention, they might be intentional. But the temple replacement doesn't require a shrine to build and the Knarr can't pillage sea tiles.

As I always play with raging barbs option seems founding ability with so many buildings very OP.

That was one of my ideas to but turns out it was a bit more complicated. They just don't want to stand there and die. They keep running away on low-hp escaping into the sea etc. Once you get more units etc then barbarians are usually mainly a thing of the past.

That isn't to say I have not gotten a fair amount of barb camps and kills going but it wasn't as farmable as I was thinking. In that regard you are probably better off farming city-states.

 

[gwennog]

the Knarr can't pillage sea tiles.

Yes, I have the same problem.

I don't know if it's intended but just in case, you must add Pillage at 1 in the unit SQL (it is 0 by default). It would be a shame if the knarr couldn't loot .

 

[Hinin]

Here are the files you can replace in the mod to fix these two problems. They will be included in the next version, of course.

 

[Hinin]

As I always play with raging barbs option seems founding ability with so many buildings very OP.

A lot of elements of a game can be turned up to eleven if you change some game parameters : yields from exploration on a giant map, authority and god of war with raging barbs. The other way around is also true for espionage and ancient ruins, depending on the civs.

I balance things around standard map size, standard speed and with the events and ancient ruins disabled.

 

[Hinin]

V.3 online :
- Bugfix for : missing Building requirement for UB, missing ability to pillage for UU1, missing First Meeting Diplomacy text
- UA tweak : removed yields from pillaging, increased Great Writer points gained from killing units by 1/3 (from 3% to 4% per kill) and buffed unique promotions
=> Birkebeiner : added "no combat malus from being wounded"
=> Leidang : added +5 max HP
- Skald : now also grants Faith when born

 

[gwennog]

removed yields from pillaging

It's unfortunate, I think Norway will lose their incredible versatility and ability to take advantage of even the smallest combat action .

 

[Hinin]

It's unfortunate, I think Norway will lose their incredible versatility and ability to take advantage of even the smallest combat action .

Too similar to the God of Storm belief, I think, and the ability scaled quite badly : it was basically only a very early game thing, and I found it occupied a slot of the kit for not much. Nothing forbids its return in the future.

 

[looorg]

This turned into Skaldfarming. I miss the yields from pillage, tiny tho they might be. But I guess the extra % of kills makes up for it. Basically early wars turn into Skaldfarming. Every turn or so you kill 3-5 units, it's now 25 units for a Skald so lets say every 6-7turns or so a Skald is born.

I had not thought much about it previously but the Skalds can cross oceans, so I used a few of them to cross oceans before everyone else to setup colonies on those yummy islands far away from everyone. The trick is just mainly to get on land without getting killed by barbarians.The big issue with that tho is that they don't have your religion or pantheon. Perhaps they should have that to? Sort of like how Spain (I think it's them) get their religion in a city as soon as it's started. After all the Skald brings the traditions with them.

So not being at war kinda sucks in that regard. The turns I spent at peace was horrible. As noted I'm now basically farming Egypt for all they are worth. If this had been any other game I would have pushed to capture them but now I'm leaving that option out for as long as possible. Including a save just for fun.

But so far I'm having fun. The Knarr and it's ghost ability tho really messes with the AI. They can't seem to grasp what is happening so they sort of just stand there take damage, try to heal, not running away so you just swoop in turn after turn until they are dead.