Leaders

[Txurce]

Again, I'm not sure if they need the buff without even playing them, and look forward to the opinion of all the players who like using naval power. (I'll try them next, now.) But I think your proposal (and Albie's) is a very good concept.

 

[mitsho]

There's no reason why the Ottomans have to be as strong as Germany - was Denmark as strong? - as long as they are competitive. I think their UU's majorly outclass Germany's and bring them up to a close enough par. More to the point, I think at least a few games should be played with the Ottomans before they are dismissed as too weak for the human player. (Like the Mongols, they aren't one of the stronger AI civs.) Given VEM's emphasis on naval power, a large, well-promoted navy could be brutal on coastal cities.

I'm not saying they are too weak, just not fun. While England's UA can be used on Sea Maps with large landmasses and few islands, the Ottomans fall short (= few sea barbarians). It's just such an incredibly specific UA. Also the Sipahi as a mobile unit is mostly effective on deforested plains/grasslands, that bites itself with lot's of sea for barbarian galleys. It's just that the civ does feel out of sync for me. We have the same problem with the German Tank as well, that's just so late for a UU.

And I agree that one needs to play first, that's why I wrote that I didn't play as them yet. But you know, my day has only 24 hours and a civ games takes long.

 

[albie_123]

@Babri, getting gold AND free ships from every defeated ship is probably too strong. My suggestion confines the ability to melee naval units as it would be quite hard to take a capital ship with a melee ship - not impossible, but not too easy.

@Txurce, I agree, Suleiman is not a high priority buff. My suggestion for his ability was more geared towards encouraging the use of the new navy units when they are implemented.

 

[Txurce]

@Txurce, I agree, Suleiman is not a high priority buff. My suggestion for his ability was more geared towards encouraging the use of the new navy units when they are implemented.[/QUOTE]

I love the idea, since it fits them so perfectly. I can't wait until it can be implemented. In the meantime I'll play the v24 Ottomans as soon as I finish my v23 Korea game.

 

[Babri]

@Babri, getting gold AND free ships from every defeated ship is probably too strong. My suggestion confines the ability to melee naval units as it would be quite hard to take a capital ship with a melee ship - not impossible, but not too easy.

Maybe u have a 75% chance of capturing ship + gold. The problem is that AI don't really create many ships + there are few barb ships unless u r playing archipelago. Also the captured ships cost extra maintenance so u would be needing some gold, otherwise u would start loosing gold.
Edit : Getting gold also makes perfect sense, pirate ships pillaging gold from opponent ships.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'd like to point out starting with a warrior+trireme is powerful on just about any map. Triremes move twice as fast as land scouts, and even though it's limited to a specific tile type, it lets us reach other leaders and citystates quicker. Remember each citystate we discover first gives bonus gold. I feel that's more powerful than the barb-capture aspect of his trait right now. It's fun to have a ship so early, especially on my favorite map type, Continents Plus. That map places half the citystates on offshore islands.

On a side note... I wish they'd released Continents Plus as an update to the standard Continents map. It's such an unbelievable improvement to gameplay... yet many people don't have it because it's hidden in a DLC. It sure is worth the $5!

I discovered there's no Building_ImprovementYieldChanges table (only features, resources, rivers, lakes, oceans, specialists, building, per-pop...). This means there's no support for adding to farms. I can manually code it, but it will take several hours instead of several minutes... so a Korean Granary is much harder than I anticipated. I was planning to add it in the current version, but given that it would take a while, I need to focus on bug-fixing priorities instead.

 

[Babri]

I would still say either add gold from defeating ships or simply change it to capture all ships. The reason is that its importance greatly decrease once u get the benefit from initial ship. If u could simply add gold bonus when defeating ships, naval warfare would become much more desirable for Otto & u may want to have some fight with other naval civs to have some nice shiny gold to support ur increasing size of janisarry army.

 

[Txurce]

The problem is that AI don't really create many ships + there are few barb ships unless u r playing archipelago.

Also the captured ships cost extra maintenance so u would be needing some gold, otherwise u would start loosing gold.

Getting gold also makes perfect sense, pirate ships pillaging gold from opponent ships.

I have used this trait with Germany before. There are more than enough barb ships. With Continents Plus, there are more than more than enough!

Extra maintenance is a good built-in limiter that applies to Germany as well. There has to be a limit to the size of armed forces.

I'd like to point out starting with a warrior+trireme is powerful on just about any map. Triremes move twice as fast as land scouts, and even though it's limited to a specific tile type, it lets us reach other leaders and citystates quicker. Remember each citystate we discover first gives bonus gold. I feel that's more powerful than the barb-capture aspect of his trait right now. It's fun to have a ship so early, especially on my favorite map type, Continents Plus. That map places half the citystates on offshore islands.

I discovered there's no Building_ImprovementYieldChanges table (only features, resources, rivers, lakes, oceans, specialists, building, per-pop...). This means there's no support for adding to farms. I can manually code it, but it will take several hours instead of several minutes... so a Korean Granary is much harder than I anticipated.

I had the same thought about the initial value of the trireme. In fact, I'm debating not playing for Conquest my first game with the Ottomans, but rather an aggressive, warring, CS- and gold-based science game.

 

[Txurce]

As I suspected, the Ottomans are a powerhouse. Playing on my standard Emperor/Continents Plus, and aiming for a warmongering science victory to test the Ottomans' flexibility, I picked up the GL, HG, HS and PT in the capital, and the Colossus in my second (coastal) city. Choosing Honor first combined with the exploring, metastasizing trireme, I managed to corral several CS alliances and establish a tech lead fairly quickly. (By the way, the trireme was on the wrong end of the land mass, and couldn't have made slower progress.)

I could probably have won the game just by sitting back, but went to war against Polynesia with a bunch of triremes. That doesn't work. So I beelined for Compass, upgraded my siege-ready triremes, and laid waste to three consecutive coastal cities. My army is almost exclusively CS-based. On t160 I am #1 in score, ahead in beakers by almost 2:1, have a big lead in population (!), and may well never build any of my UU's. However, anyone serious about conquering with these guys could clear the table not long after researching Astronomy and Gunpowder. The exploratory advantages of a large navy (as proven by the old Germany) is tremendous.

 

[Babri]

I always feel that Greek Phalanx is quite underwhelming. Won't it make sense that u give them 30% bonus Vs cities so that they are more useful like they were in vanilla. This ability won't carry on to pikes.

 

[Thalassicus]

Hoplites are more useful in vem than vanilla for warfare in the field:

Vanilla

• 9 vs melee
• 9 vs cities
• Bonus disappears when upgraded.

Vem

• 11 vs melee
• 07 vs cities
• Bonus remains when upgraded.

I feel it would be unrealistic for a phalanx formation to help urban warfare (vs cities). It's vulnerable to flanking, which is easy in city streets. From a gameplay perspective, I don't think Alex needs a buff. I already buffed his trait and companion cavalry (which Firaxis nerfed a lot). Alex also ranked decently in the favorite leaders poll.

 

[albie_123]

Alexander is not only not in need of a buff, but the Phalanx is very fun to play with. He's one of those leaders with a very good set of fun and specific attributes, such as Bismarck, or Harun.

 

[Babri]

Fair enough. I didn't thought that deeply.

 

[Thalassicus]

I've been thinking about Elizabeth and Harald. I'd like to focus one on a combat bonus, and the other on a movement bonus, to distinctively set them apart from one another. I can think of convincing points either way, so I'd be okay with either of these:

Option A

• Vikings can quickly traverse water and disembark without a penalty.
• England's navies are more powerful than other navies.

Option B

• Viking fury gives power to ships.
• England can build a wide-stretching naval empire.

 

[albie_123]

I was thinking about this recently as well.

I think you should wait on changing them until the new naval system you talked about is implemented, and when that happens, I think England should have a focus on Capital ships and naval combat, being strong / able to smash other navies easily, while Vikings take the more explorative and lighter route, focusing on Light Ships (Ranged, possibly Melee).

As a general idea, what I think what would be good is:

Vikings:

• +2 for Light Ships
• +1 Vision for Light Ships
• No penalty for embarking / disembarking

English:

• + for Naval Units
• Free Blitz promotion for Capital Ships

Again, this is just a general idea. (The Blitz promotion might be a bit much.) But making the distinction between Light Ships and Capital Ships for different Civ Abilities would be very fun, and historically, the Vikings being explorers - they did reach America first, after all - and the English having a strong, elite navy makes more sense than the reverse.

My dream idea for the Vikings is to have the Beserker UU turn into a quick naval melee unit, the Longboat, when embarked, but that's not feasible, I'm guessing.

 

[Thalassicus]

There is actually a "UnitEmbark" event available to us so that might be possible, but I'd have to do more research to know for sure.

I'm uncertain if I will add melee ships before the expansion. I think it's possible right now, but I have some work planned for VEM in April. It will be difficult to release significant changes to the mod during that time. I've been discussing melee ships early because it's a complex addition to gameplay that requires a lot of thought.

 

[albie_123]

That's awesome!

But, even without that idea, the Light Ship / Capital Ship split seems like it would make sense to me, especially considering England used to have a Capital Ship (Or as close as possible in vanilla) UU.

EDIT: You snuck in that edit after I posted

Alright, well, with that considered, what you've done with .51 seems to be alright.

Can I ask, will what was discussed in the Navies thread be considered in post-G&K patches even if it doesn't match up with how Firaxis implements them?

 

[Txurce]

EDIT: You snuck in that edit after I posted

He's always doing that!

Thal, I think the changes you made to these two civs for v54 look great.

I will probably test Korea next, to see if the quick boost with farms makes up for (or exceeds) the GS and capital-building nerfs.

 

[Thalassicus]

Since Korea starts with a worker, we can improve a farm by turn 5 to increase our science rate by 15%. In theory it's powerful enough I considered leaving the trait with just the farm bonus, but I want to see what people think of it in practice before making further changes.

We were originally going to have a +2 specialist trait and +1 on farms building. That wasn't practical because the Buildings table has no way to increase yield of an improvement. However, traits can do that. So I realized I can switch them: +1 on farms from the trait, and a "Jade Hall" national college replacement giving +2 for all specialists in all cities.

This also fits Sejong well from a historical perspective, based on research I've done.

 

[Txurce]

Since Korea starts with a worker, we can improve a farm by turn 5 to increase our science rate by 15%. In theory it's powerful enough I considered leaving the trait with just the farm bonus, but I want to see what people think of it in practice before making further changes.

We were originally going to have a +2 specialist trait and +1 on farms building. That wasn't practical because the Buildings table has no way to increase yield of an improvement. However, traits can do that. So I realized I can switch them: +1 on farms from the trait, and a "Jade Hall" national college replacement giving +2 for all specialists in all cities. A national wonder like that even fits the Jade Hall concept better from a historical perspective.

Like I said, I'm looking forward to trying it. I have no doubt that the farm option will be more fun. Should I understand that, as v54 states, it's +1 for scientists, but +2 once the NC is built? I didn't think so based on the v54 notes, but that's how I read what you just wrote.