Leaders: BNW Adaptation

I don't know why we'd want to go away from the obvious themes. We're trying to retain some semblance of the 'stick to vanilla' ideal we began with, aren't we?
 
Maybe one could create some theme around the Kleinstaaterei? That defined the German lands for far longer and actually made them quite unique in Europe.

Austria should have the HRE theme, Germany should focus on a Prussian / post-unification theme. It's like we don't have viking uniques for Sweden, because there is already another Civ that represent that era (Denmark). That doesn't mean that part of history was more or less important for Germany/Sweden, only that it's a bit redundant to have 2 civs on same theme.
 
Perhaps we could build a Roman UA around puppeting bonuses? That way conquest is important but Rome still remains a Capital-centric tall/wide hybrid.
 
If Rome was going to have a UB which supported the Capital-centric wide hybrid I was wondering if it was possible to maybe do a unique Caravansary, which when built in a city other than the capital gave the capital 1f1p (or something) if connected by city connections.

Perhaps Rome could also have unique roads with increased movement + the city connection bonuses to the capital?
 
Is it though? On my play with Venice I was running out of viable trading partner quite fast. Guess that had to do a lot with it being a Small Map (but the civ needs to work there as well) with a non-expanding France and Mongolia as neighbours (Each had one city until the Renaissance when I took one over) and a bit further away Siam refused to settle on the coast... :crazyeye: In short, the extra trade routes didn't bring me that much more money. Some yes, but overpowered?

As a result, you can imagine I found the civ rather bland and it needs so many "special rules" so it can work. I had to search long for a City State with Iron f.e., as there was none in my immediate are (and France and Mongolia refused to expand). That's annoying, not fun. Sure it's a bit of a challenge to figure it out, but in the end it's not that different. Now I'm not saying we should change them, but that I really don't understand what all the fuzz is about with this civ.

Lastly I could annex cities I conquered. Wasn't even asked whether I want to raze or puppet them (Is that a bug or has it something to do with the 'raze' fix?)

Eh, sounds to me like you just got a bad map. In my Venice game I never ran out of cities to send my trade routes to and was making like 400GPT in the Renaissance.:D And don't forget about Domestic TRs, you can send a lot of food and production this way (while not really sacrificing gold, unlike other civs).

Do you play in strategic mode? There's a bug where if you capture/MoV a city in strategic mode you can annex the city. I don't think Thal changed anything wrt Venice.
 
No, it wasn't in strategic mode. The only other mod I could think of that could have an influence is the Advanced Start Setup. I also didn't get the "you've met a CS popup", so it really might have been a problem somewhere... and it only happened with City States, not major civ cities if I remember right.

Still, I'd say this will be a problem on small maps with Venice and more expansionistic AI's don't necessarily mean better trading partner cities. I do give you the point about Domestic Trade Routes. It probably will result in that now that I've taken over my continent completely. Doesn't answer what is so fascinating about them though. It's still a mystery to me :)

[Another observation from that game: The World Congress can snowball way to quickly if you've got only one civ that goes after CS, like in mine Siam]
 
This is kind of a bug report...

I was playing with India and the happiness mechanic seemed really off. There was double unhappiness for the number of cities, but the unhappiness penalty for population was off. It's supposed to be half unhappiness, but it seemed more like 1/4th unhappiness. As a result, my happiness was extremely high. I just quit that game because it seemed broken.

Highly recommend changing India's unique ability to something else.
 
@mitsho
All popups are broken. If you press F6 twice, the popups should appear again. (ie. opening and closing the Science window)
 
This is kind of a bug report...

...

Highly recommend changing India's unique ability to something else.

Well yeah, it's getting changed, see the opening post again :)

@mitsho
All popups are broken. If you press F6 twice, the popups should appear again. (ie. opening and closing the Science window)

Huh really? It's a bit embarassing that I didn't notice that... :)
 
I would like to put forward the idea that Rome needs to have 'more' than just military might as its Unique feature.

I'm remindered of the scene in 'Life of Brian' where the question is asked: "What have the Romans ever done for us?". The answer of course was given about: sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, public health and peace.

Clearly, although set in a comical situation, the message is true. Rome has provided all manner of things that have benefitted civilization greatly.

Perhaps something simple but enhanced like an improved aquaduct or freshwater bonuses to ALL Farm tiles or greater science output from libraries or universities.

Rome doesn't have to be all out military.

Just saying.:)
 
On Rome, I think Rome needs to better represent that it was a giant black hole in the ancient world sucking in culture, gold, food, and resources from all around, or in another analogy, the militaristic version of a Ponzi scheme

Uh... For real? So connecting the Mediterranean world with roads, bringing about huge advances in engineering, creating a vast market for artists around the Mediterranean world to produce works for Roman patrons, keeping sea lanes safe for trade, and ending famines by improving agriculture & access to fresh water in exchange for a little tribute (10%) is now a Ponzi scheme? Sign me up!

And then there's the whole Pax Romana - two centuries of peace and prosperity that allowed said culture, gold, food, and trade to flourish. And the letters you're reading on your screen - created by the Romans.

Just thought I'd mention it :)

EDIT: Now that I think about it, "Pax Romana" would be a cool theme if the current one doesn't work out. Internal city connection value doubled, road maintenance halved, internal trade route value increased around 50% (not gold, Ottomans have that), +1 gold production in the capital per city puppeted/annexed or per city-state ally could be some ideas. That'd be kind of cool.
 
Delekhan,

I never said it didn't have its bonuses. Rome was an absolute juggernaut, unlike any western state to that point, which is precisely why it rolled over everything else. And why it aggregated all the advances of western society to that point into something marvelous.

I have a lot of admiration for Rome but it was doomed to crash harder than, say, the collapse of a Persian or Chinese dynasty. Beneath those dynasties would always be Persia and China. Persia and China remain major political and cultural forces to this day. But Rome was controlling something hundreds of times greater than itself.

By its structure it was indeed dependent on constant military expansion. When that slowed, Rome's structure had serious problems and started to cave in under its own weight.

As to benefits with puppet states Rome was good at using them but I think Persia fits better to be modeled around them. The Persians practically invented the concept of puppet government on a large scale with the satrapies and it was the hallmark of their style of empire. Reduction of the extra puppet unhappiness points in exchange for dropping or weakening something else would help further develop a unique gameplay style for Persia.
 
The satrapy system was a pretty remarkable structure for the Achaemenid (sp?) Persians. It even impressed Alexander enough that he kept portions of it in place.

However if we're going to go down the route for puppet cities that we went in GEM (with big yield penalties) that kind of puppet city-based ability may become problematic.

Personally I think puppet cities shouldn't have any yield penalties at all. Not controlling them or making units from them is bad enough, and now with BNW they also contribute to the science penalty.

If you want to represent the satrapy system for the Persians (in case their current UA doesn't work out), a better way to depict it would probably be to give them 2 or 3 capital cities (first 2 or 3 cities are considered capitals, with the accompanying bonuses. Maybe the second one becomes enabled in the Classical Era, and the third one in the Renaissance).
 
You can't tie a UA to puppet cities because you are not supposed to keep those. As soon as you can switch to an annexed+courthouse you should do that. This means that for this civ, puppeted cities need to be BETTER than annex+courthouse. So it's a grand-scale rebuilding alike Venice. Sure, it's doable, but I can't think of a good way to do that...

As for Rome, sure, there may be better ways to reflect the variety the civilization possessed, but then that is true for nearly every other civ, see the discussions on Germany... What is important is that we don't add a UB to have one, but that it makes sense civ-design-wise. The "early war giant" at the moment has a danger in it to become quite like 'zerging' which I dislike, but else. The Liburna is a bit strange I agree, but then we are about challenging ideas and stereotypes, no? I feel like it could be a fun civ as designed in the tree conquering along the coast while setting up trade routes. The only problem is that Liburna and Legion are on opposite points in the tree (but the Legion gets moved earlier?) and that Rome the city itself could maybe use the production bonus of a free barracks to get going. (It probably needs the Spoils-of-War gold-on-kill policy as sthg else than the finisher to work, but that'll come)

I would like to do a 3rd-unique modmod afterwards since I think it's flavourful (we can't really do it now as it's big work and makes all other new-civ mods incompatible), so it's not that big a deal imho that they don't have any Unique Building. We can't do everything after all. See opening post: Are you okay with most of the leaders is the question for this thread.
 
I guess it just irks alot of people that the Romans would be meh, since they're pretty legendary in the west. Caesar Augustus is at the top of the rankings in Civ score afterall. ;)

Will say up front that I'm not a fan of the Liburna just as I'm not a fan of the Companion Cavalry for the Greeks.

Also, about the Legion, a little strength bonus is pretty boring compared to what has been done to the Mohawk Warriors, probably the funnest and best ancient/classical era unique currently (sans the battering ram again!). The fact that you start with one, it requires no iron, fights better in forests, and thanks to their UA also moves better in them, makes for an awesome unit that completely changes my playstyle everytime I play the Iroquois.

Same goes for the Hoplite, since it is good vs Melee and Horses plus the promotion line of the spears and you start with one it plays very differently than standard spears or swords.

The Legion right now just feels bleh compared to those, by the time I build some and get them out there longswords have showed up.
Perhaps decreasing the strength to 12 from 13 (swords are 11 I think) and giving them a cover promotion so they can preform better vs mass composite bow spam early would give them some flavor.

It comes down to either their situation on the tech tree or their unit requirement. The hoplite, mohawk, horse archer, egyptian chariot, slinger, bowman, jaguar, etc etc, are all resourceless.
That means that civ can lean on those units whatever the situation, whereas if Rome has no early Iron they're screwed. But I'm not entirely convinced removing an Iron requirement would be the answer. Lastly, their ability to build roads isn't very useful because of their late position on the tech tree.
 
I guess that's the idea, moving the legion one tech forward to the iron reveal which they have 5 free copies of means you can build them right away. And the Testudo promotion is here to stay and makes Roman Infantry good throughout the ages. It's cover but it doesn't replace it. Being able to build Roads is just nice flavour alongside that. The main point is the free iron they get I presume.

The Liburna then is mostly there to provide gold-from attacks and help out with coastal cities.
 
Swords are 15. Or were. Spears were 11 (I haven't messed with the new version yet to check unit changes). Legions were 18 in GEM. I think they would be fine with cover and roads. But a modest strength boost would also work.

Liburna does feel bleh mostly because it comes at the same time.
 
A unique building would be nice and I am no fan of the liburna either but that is not the point I am trying to make. The Romans offer an opportunity for a unique play style if we can make it work with just their ability I do not mind the liburna. The tall Rome wide empire will make Rome a unique experience, two special units at the same time won't. I still think that roads should send production back to Rome not gold, gold might be better late game but Rome needs to be strongest in the early game.
 
A unique building would be nice and I am no fan of the liburna either but that is not the point I am trying to make. The Romans offer an opportunity for a unique play style if we can make it work with just their ability I do not mind the liburna. The tall Rome wide empire will make Rome a unique experience, two special units at the same time won't. I still think that roads should send production back to Rome not gold, gold might be better late game but Rome needs to be strongest in the early game.

All Roads lead to Rome: 1 production in Rome per city connected to it + Production discount for buildings built in Rome?

Okay, why not. It's self-feeding as well, you need to conquer something first to reap the benefits (or do we give one free production for Rome being connected to Rome?). I'd guess such an ability would need a cap (15?) and no more buffs for the UA. More Gold for each connection however works as well since you'll probably buy each building in Rome anyways (need to build units here, so that the other cities can build buildings. If you buy in other cities, you waste your UA after all).

I'm not seeing however how this changes lots of things for Rome. It's worth a try...
 
Hard to think of a UB for Rome though. They were most famous for their Roads if you define it as something you could build anywhere, forums were just a copy of Agoras and existed in most places anyways before Roman conquest, unlike say, the Gymnasion being tied closely to Greek culture and being the center piece for its culture spreading in newly founded cities and conquered ones in the east.

An Improvement replacement would be best I think. Give them "Roman Roads" which are better in some way. If I'm mainly building units around the capital then I need to get them to the front super fast if we're going for a supercapital/wide flavor.

That would open up the UA for something interesting.

UA for Rome itself, Roads for Wide, Legions for Conquest.
 
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