Leaders: Part 2

[mystikx21]

Invisible I suspect works like subs do in the base game, and only reveals within a small radius without promotions to detect that specific invisible unit. So "anti-spy" could see "spy", something like that. I'm not sure I could think of a unique we'd want that on since it appears even leaving it on subs isn't that popular because of how poorly the AI handles detection.

No nationality would have some advantage for piracy and disruption. The disadvantage would be that the unit would need to have raw healing, march style healing, or high strength because everyone could attack it.

 

[Thalassicus]

I posted these oddball promotions to see if we can come up with anything interesting and out of the box.

One idea off the top of my head - invisible scouts that can enter borders might be an interesting unique unit. "Invisible" units are visible to any units 1 tile away from them, or units with a "see invisible" effect.


@mitsho
5 tiles for free is basically what I did for the Land Grab opportunity, so it's definitely feasible. I prefer the tile bonus on the unique ability so it's available at the start of the game, when claiming terrain is most important.

The Roman UA absorbs progress towards technologies known by leaders we conquer. Jelling Stones give massive culture to one city. They both are rewards from conquest, but operate on different levels (national vs city) and different yields. Jelling Stones are a good example of a unique national wonder that can't be done as a UB or UA.

I have not actually tested RangedSupportFire to see details of it in action. I estimated what it does from the promotion tooltip. I guess they intended archers to work that way at some point in Civ 5's development.

 

[Ahriman]

The Roman UA steals progress towards technologies known by leaders we conquer.

This sounds problematic. This means that there is no advantage in attacking anyone who isn't ahead of you in tech. If you keep up in tech, then you gain no advantage from the UA at all. A bonus on city conquest already only triggers fairly rarely.

It's also not very flavorful; Rome was more technologically advanced than most civs it conquered.

If Rome is to have tech bonuses on conquest, I would prefer a formula that gives beakers as a function of city population and game turn or current tech level or similar.

 

[mitsho]

You also have culture listed as a yield the capital gets on conquest So they are not different yields by your current plan. Still don't like a bunch of badly written stones forgotten in a field as a unique feature...

So are you going to clear the culture from the Roman UA thus making it weaker?

I'm not sure on the invisible scout, may be useful to avoid barbs and gain a few turns by cutting directly through enemy territory, but is that worth a UU spot? May fit on Iroquois the best?

@Ahriman changes are you're behind in tech somewhere when you're a conqueror. But okay, a raw amount of science may be better (balanced and fun in any case )

Here's my comments in the table, I feel like it's easier to suggest changes this way, avoids too large walls of texts? (Or maybe not, since it's a huge list... d...it, it was all for nothing

Spoiler :

 

[Thalassicus]

The Roman strategy revolves around beelining and backfilling. Romans leap ahead to some distant tech, then backfill other techs through conquest. It represents the way Romans absorbed new ideas like Etruscan engineering, Liburnan ships, Latin language, Greek religion, and so on.

We could first gain techs the conquered victim knows, then advance other techs less efficiently. I'm okay with adding that for people technologically superior to everyone else in every way. It seems unlikely if we're at an appropriately matched difficulty level.

@mitsho
Could you save it as a .png? It has lower filesize than .jpg for this type of image, and jpg created compression artifacts.

I like the idea of an Ethiopian spice market which gives a bonus each time the city grows. The bonus could be based on population, X*pop, an instant version of the normal per-turn yield from population bonuses.

 

[sukritact]

I'd keep the Hwa'cha; it well represents early adoption of gunpowder by Asia. In any case, most of the articles about Napoleonic Artillery seems to place emphasis on its lighter frame. I'd suggest adding +1 mobility or eliminating setting up, and maybe +25% against fortified units if necessary.

Call the Greek UI "Agoras"?

IMHO, "Dance school" sounds ridiculous, and comes to early to represent Bollywood.

 

[Thalassicus]

@mitsho
I just thought of an interesting variation on your Ethiopia idea. What if cities that grow with a Spice Market present send immediate yield to the Capital (gold/culture/faith/etc)? Ethiopa's traits are tall and capital development.

@sukritact
That sounds good. The lack of setup would make the Gribeauval Gun a Renaissance archer-like unit, something totally unique. I could see it with either a direct combat bonus or one targeted specifically at fortified units.

 

[albie_123]

I really like that idea for Ethiopia, Thal. But I've always felt the Babylonians should be the 'super capital' Civ... hm.

It's a good sign to have so many great ideas with the only confusion as to where to put them!

As far as Prototypes go, I think it's perfect for Germany. Whereas not particularly accurate for all of European history, the German army is usually portrayed as lacking technologically (German tanks in 1939/40 were in fact considerably worse than the French) and not gargantuan in size, but made up of well-trained and well-commanded troops, which is exactly what this UA would promote.

For Rome, has the idea of acquiring other Civ's UU's gone out the window?

For the Ottomans, maybe every improvement built within a 1-tile radius of a city provides an extra yield? (eg. a farm provides 1 extra , a village 1 extra , etc.) I suppose this represents how the Ottoman empire was made up primarily of large, empty states with a few megacities, especially in North Africa, but more importantly, it sounds fun.

 

[Ahriman]

The Roman strategy revolves around beelining and backfilling.

I think that's too narrow, and it's something the AI isn't going to understand how to do. It's not easy to see if an enemy has a tech you don't have, so it's easy to see that this ability could backfire and give you nothing. That might be really frustrating. And it's not fun to be effectively penalized for playing the game well and advancing in tech.

It represents the way Romans absorbed new ideas like Etruscan engineering, Liburnan ships, Latin language, Greek religion, and so on.

You could still represent this through an ability that gave science and culture on conquest, without needing any requirement that you're literally learning techs that the other player has. But even that is a narrow ability that might only kick in a few times in any given game. We just don't conquer that many cities.

 

[albie_123]

We just don't conquer that many cities.

I dunno, by the end of a game going Conquest, you can get 5 under your belt by the Medieval era.

 

[Brannock]

I dunno, by the end of a game going Conquest, you can get 5 under your belt by the Medieval era.

Only 5?

 

[albie_123]

Well I'm sure you can get many more depending on how you play and your proximity to weaker Civs, was just basing it off of the game I've got going at the moment.

 

[Alteris]

@Alteris
Welcome to the community!

I'd be okay with adding some bonuses back to Persia. The original concept with them was to make golden ages better in every way. That got sort of disrupted when G&K made GA's better anyway. The more frequent golden age part of Persia was moved onto the unique building, which gives instant progress towards a golden age. I believe this is more exciting than a passive increase in golden age duration.

Thanks for the welcome, it's been a long time since I've posted on a forum anywhere

I thought a bit more about it today and you're right, Persia spends an effective longer period of time in golden ages due to Satrap's Court already so they don't need much of a boost in that regard.

I thought about the UA you've got on there now and one idea got me excited. The current UA is definitely powerful (50% more culture is a lot of culture), but it feels like it pushes Persia to play a strictly cultural game. Again not bad, they do well at it, but the Persians historically had a bit more propensity to war than the "Diplomat" personalities. Playing tall and cranking golden ages to increase the overall culture yields over time works but it just takes a strategy I'd do anyway if playing culturally and making it a bit easier with more frequent and more powerful golden ages.

Historically the Persian satrapies were the method by which the Achaemenids kept order. Unlike previous empires (Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian) in the neighborhood they did not attempt to suppress and crush the conquered peoples and overthrow their gods but governed with benevolence and for the most part allowed conquered peoples to self rule so long as they caused no trouble. The Biblical account shows pretty clearly the contrast (in the eyes of one of those conquered peoples) between the Persian rule and that of their predecessors - the Jews were liberated and allowed to return to Judea and raise up their temple and nation again.

What if we took the historical concept of the Achaemenid model of government and built the UA around that - make Persian conquests slightly less inclined to rise up and with more leeway for cultural output?

The UA could be +1 Movement in Golden Ages (or +x% culture in golden ages) and puppeted cities generate less extra unhappiness and have no occupied culture penalty (if I recall occupied status cities generate 25% less). I'm not sure at what rate cultural buildings in conquered cities are destroyed in this mod but if possible that could also be decreased substantially or even set to zero. The idea being to give Persia reason to look for culture victory differently than the standard way. This'd need balancing to be no more or less potent than other civs of course but I'm not the expert on that, just a fan that enjoys the mod

 

[mitsho]

@mitsho
Could you save it as a .png? It has lower filesize than .jpg for this type of image, and jpg created compression artifacts.

Upps, sorry about that. I shouldn't post stuff and then go to bed... Changed it and I guess I'm going to change the colour of my changes from red to orange as well, red seems too close to the bordeaux (?) you chose.

I like the idea of an Ethiopian spice market which gives a bonus each time the city grows. The bonus could be based on population, X*pop, an instant version of the normal per-turn yield from population bonuses.

@mitsho
I just thought of an interesting variation on your Ethiopia idea. What if cities that grow with a Spice Market present send immediate yield to the Capital (gold/culture/faith/etc)? Ethiopa's traits are tall and capital development.

Glad you like the idea Yes, probably the effect needs to be dependent on population to distract from using it wide.

The "send yield to capital" however sounds better for the Ottomans, you know, a conquered empire supports the large capital Istanbul with taxes and other vassal agreements sent.

I'd keep the Hwa'cha; it well represents early adoption of gunpowder by Asia. In any case, most of the articles about Napoleonic Artillery seems to place emphasis on its lighter frame. I'd suggest adding +1 mobility or eliminating setting up, and maybe +25% against fortified units if necessary.

Call the Greek UI "Agoras"?

IMHO, "Dance school" sounds ridiculous, and comes to early to represent Bollywood.

I was thinking long on that, but then I though, hey, we have the Chinese Paper Maker, so what... (maybe we should find a different name for that as well)? But I got impressed by the list of Indian Dances on wikipedia. I first wanted to give them a "Park" UI that adds food or other yields near river to let them use their worker from turn 0? (Egypt could then shift to something else near rivers better for wonders)

Your Gribeauval Gun (no set up) seems good and distinct enough from the Hwacha that we can keep both, (but I'm waiting for someone to complain that it's overpowered )

Agora is more of a central place in the town. The only rather common greek thing that was usually just outside the city walls were the Necropole, large ceremonial cemetaries that greeted each traveller when arriving at a town. Not sure that works as a name for a village replacement...

For the Ottomans, maybe every improvement built within a 1-tile radius of a city provides an extra yield? (eg. a farm provides 1 extra , a village 1 extra , etc.) I suppose this represents how the Ottoman empire was made up primarily of large, empty states with a few megacities, especially in North Africa, but more importantly, it sounds fun.

Sounds interesting and good, but then the Ottomans are supposed to go ICS AND support a large pirated navy? Might be too much for them?

We just don't conquer that many cities.

It's a payoff of course. Bonus on unit combat victories are the other option we have for military "conquest" bonuses and those can much easier be exploited. Maybe these effects should be combined with a smaller permanent one, like 1 free yield in the capital per building of that type built (i.e. Science and Culture for Rome, Faith and Gold for Spain)?

The UA could be +1 Movement in Golden Ages (or +x% culture in golden ages) and puppeted cities generate less extra unhappiness and have no occupied culture penalty (if I recall occupied status cities generate 25% less). I'm not sure at what rate cultural buildings in conquered cities are destroyed in this mod but if possible that could also be decreased substantially or even set to zero.

I'm okay with losing the culture aspect since we have other civs excelling at culture now. Movement + less puppet penalty sounds okay. The Satrap court is also something that should be built in Puppet cities rather fast, so that works as well. (Only the AI will suck at using it...). However, culture buildings already stay on conquest in this mod (since culture is one of the bigger problems for conquest empires and the idea is that they don't fall too far back in culture themselves, otherwise the social policy system - and the nationalism tree especially - are useless (for them)).

 

[sukritact]

Agora is more of a central place in the town. The only rather common greek thing that was usually just outside the city walls were the Necropole, large ceremonial cemetaries that greeted each traveller when arriving at a town. Not sure that works as a name for a village replacement...

UIs don't replace existing improvements though. I think a slightly stronger village sounds rather boring.

We could do the Olive Grove I proposed much earlier (built on a forested coast, +1 Olive Oil), but that doesn't seem to fit with the current theme...

If Greece is a conquest civ, we could do a "Bouleuterion" as a replacement for the courthouse or any of the governmental buildings. Though I'm not sure of the possible effects. Perhaps have it replace the Palace (I suppose also a good way to represent Athenian Democracy), which is limited to 4 IIRC, and have them provide those cities with culture upon capturing a city.

 

[mitsho]

Greece seems more geared towards peaceful wide at the moment to me, cities are faster founded than conquered, city states are easier to get for wide civs and military ones benefit more peaceful playstyle (cheaper than rush buy them), a spearman with bonus against melee units (esp. if it stays) is good for defense and whatever the last unique will be will go well along there as well UI's for example are also more prone to peaceful play, no?

I'm fine with any of your suggestions btw. and fine with Greece as a peaceful wide (cultural) civ.

When looking over my list again, I found that the Krepost now is pretty similar to the Dojo! Both barracks replacements that give production on strategics... My vote goes toward Japan's Dojo being adapted (or the Krepost changed to a different building, maybe Armory while increasing the bonus more)

 

[sukritact]

When looking over my list again, I found that the Krepost now is pretty similar to the Dojo! Both barracks replacements that give production on strategics... My vote goes toward Japan's Dojo being adapted (or the Krepost changed to a different building, maybe Armory while increasing the bonus more)

I'd vote for renaming the Dojo as well as adjusting its effect. Feels strange to have a martial arts school (which are normally found in Buddhist temples) replacing the barracks. A Shiro would make more sense...

 

[bagas12]

If the barbary port is gone, for a faster piracy for the ottomans, i suggest to change them to a harbor and change the name to Razzias Rally, that give hugh experience bonus + movement plus the always hostile.

This way we could realy be pirates YaY.

But serious the barbary corsairs was sort of a high experienced crew, some even fight in the ottoman army later on, they rarely made a unsucefull raid, even beat combined fleets of italians and spaniards.

And we could spice it more, and give extra gold in attacks of citys, and capture of civilians too, i dont know if its hard to implement this but the slave raids was very common for the barbary corsairs, and lots of this slaves capture, the children at least, become later on janissarys.

Some sort of gold or trade bonus dont feel right for the greeks right now, we have some bigger things to represent for them.
I feel that greek should become military + culture, as we have the leader of might Alexander.

Just to give a ideia
I suggest we give some bonus of culture per unit fighting or enemy unit killed, a great deal of ancient greek culture today is most remenbered as military might or some sort of millitary, ex The battle of Marathon, Thermophylai, Sparta , Hoplites, Pyrric Victory, Pyrric Hinself, Alexander, Gaugamela, corinth helmets, Troy, even oddisey was about the return of Odysseu after troy.
Yes we remenber alot of the philosophy, democracy, the poems, gods, but it was just sort of about the military, and as we have Alexander in the leader spot, and hellenisation was a great deal in his time he even managed to create a hellenistic state in india (bactria).

And for UB we could have named to acropolis and give culture

As the english dont get the spy, why not give to the russians, KGB anyone?

--------------------------------

Edit. nevermind just got the aztec already have that bonus

 

[Tomice]

The "adjacent to city" effect for improvements would fit well for America, too!

From the wikipedia article: "Suburb"

In many parts of the developed world, suburbs are different from the American suburb, both in terms of population and in terms of what they represent. In some cases suburbs of cities outside of North America are economically distressed areas, inhabited by higher proportions of recent immigrants, with higher delinquency rates and social problems. Sometimes the notion of suburb may even refer to people in real misery, who are kept at the limit of the city borders for economic, social, and sometimes ethnic reasons. An example in the developed world would be the banlieues of France, or the concrete suburbs of Sweden, even if the suburbs of these countries also include middle-class and upper-class neighborhoods that often consist of single-family houses. Thus some of the suburbs of most of the developed world are comparable to several inner cities of the U.S. and Canada.

So basically, American cities are inverted compared to e.g. central Europe, where there's often a busy, shiny, touristy, medieval city center (often car-free!) and outskirts which at least used to be inhabitated by the working class/lower class.



I also think it would work well with the wide, expansionist theme America has. What about +1 gold for every improvement within the inner ring? Wide empires tend to rely on gold rather than production, so it would help a lot I guess (then again, more gold always does *g*). Or we could reduce it to gold for nearby villages only, not sure if that would be desireable however (it would reduce choices).

 

[AlpsStranger]

Hey, do you think we could look into the Maya more? Theology is really too deep in for their ability to be interesting.

What if we could soften/nerf the ability some other way and let it start at calendar or even from the very beginning of the game?

Example: What if the great people come in a set order instead of letting you choose them?