MC and LITE's Nubia for VP

[pineappledan]

Update: I tried it on my end and couldn’t get it to work. It occurs to me this code, even if it were to work, needs to check for resources first so it isn’t putting an archaeology site on a hidden aluminum or something.

since @Enginseer made this code and this is his mod conversion originally I am loathe to change it, but since he added the hidden antiquity site, landmarks have been given a global happiness modifier, have had their base and increased, and their per-era scaler now adds too. I’m thinking that the free 10+ landmarks on empire would easily break this civ.

I really like what enginseer was trying to do with the archeology site though, which was to give other civs and incentive to “loot” Nubia for artifacts and put Nubia on the defensive.

I wonder if there is a way to give a free artifact via lua? Then civs could get a free artifact by pillaging a royal pyramid.

 

[pineappledan]

Okay, I’ve spoken with Enginseer and I now understand how the code works... sort of. TL;DR it is working as intended right now, and it’s not as OP as I feared.

On any map size there is a set number of antiquity sites that will ever spawn, depending on certain actions taken in early eras. Completing a royal pyramid triggers an antiquity site event, comparable to killing a barbarian camp. The end result is that the Nubians artificially trigger more antiquity-generating events in their territory, meaning the total number of potential antiquity sites on the map will be rigged to put more in their territory. They do not just plant an extra antiquity site on the map in excess of the game settings’ max sites, and not every pyramid is guaranteed to have a site spawn below it. The probability of a site spawning below a pyramid also becomes less and less as the game progresses.

 

[pineappledan]

v8 for Nubia:

Royal Pyramid
 - Dropped +1 production at Architecture
 - fixed bug (introduced by me) that disabled Era scaling on pyramids built after Classical
 - fixed text to say a chance of ruins spawning below pyramid

Cenobium
 - Increased ITR bonus to match changes to workshop
 - Reduced base faith to +2
 - Increased production scaling to 1/5, up from workshop's default 1/10

 

[pineappledan]

v9 for Nubia:

Cenobium feature rework
conversion resistance increase to 25%
faith yield increased to 3 again
bonus to city HP removed
Faith to Defense converter removed
Building now gives +25% defense in city

I'm just killin' lua's left right and center

 

[pineappledan]

v10 for Nubia posted
Further DLL integration. UA's garrison bonuses are now added via a unit promotion. Yields will update on the same turn and no longer use lua. Should result in slightly more stability.

 

[ridjack]

I hate to say this because Nubia are currently my favorite warmonger to play, but I think the Apedemaks might potentially be too strong, especially with the new lower city CS. They can pretty much one-shot an un-garrisoned border city, and an ancient era capital isn't much more difficult.

 

[pineappledan]

Poor Nubia. The nerfhammer came too hard for them.

Apedemak are now 1 range, and have 10 RCS

 

[pineappledan]

Nubia compatibility update posted

 

[Drakle]

Are Apedemak archers still 1 range? Since the 1 range archers were quickly reverted in VP.

 

[pineappledan]

They are 2 range again, yes.
Current archers are 46
Apedemak Archers are 68

My UnitTweaks mod increases all archer and archer UUs' CS/RCS numbers

 

[Drakle]

Playing a game of Nubia right now. The garrison limits the very early game exploration, but garrisons and then Authority are great at getting cities to take off fast production wise. Culture from the UI backs up Authority which is somewhat culture weak. The faith coming from a Construction improvement might be a bit too late to grab a religion if lacking a faith base. But in this game, while I was one of the last to a pantheon, I was first to religion. Combo of going shrine first in most secondary cities (since Authority gives a free culture growth with Imperium) and God of the Sea, when I had a lot of fishing boat tiles in my first 4 cities.

The UU are both solid. The early archer I didn't use to take cities, since the strong production allowed me to fill out the area I wanted with cities, and started hitting my unhappiness ceiling. But it was good for barbarians hunting.

I got a event a turn or two after hitting the Classical, that gave me a free unit with every city. This really helped, since a few of them were Medjey, which I weren't able to buy normally lacking gold. The big constrain for me ended up being happiness and gold so far.

Now I'm just waiting for a declaration of friendship to end, to start war mongering.

Really solid civ, and plays well to my liking for civs with strong opening games, like Aztecs and Carthage. .

One question. What does the UU mercenary upgrade into? Longsword man? And do they keep the temple guard promotion?

 

[pineappledan]

Medjay upgrade to longswords and keep their temple guard promotion.

My own experience is the civ is very starved for gold early game. The high early production actually can hurt you because you start raking in building and unit maintenance costs before your economy can support the army/infrastructure. Never struggled too much with unhappiness tho

 

[Drakle]

Tried another game. Entered the Classical era through Mathematics instead of Iron working, so the free units in every city were all spearman or horseman, instead of a mix of those and Medjeys. So pro tip, make sure to tech into Iron Working. Since Medjay are expensive and some free ones are helpful. Somewhat annoying that I can't get free ones from Conscription or purchase them with Zealotry, buts that UU. Still haven't seen any AI purchase them from me, even with embassies.

Anyway, I think the Apedemak archer is a tad too strong. Or the AI really needs to have a way to combat archer rushes, without just adding even more City strength. I rolled over Arabia and Sweden with three Apedemak and a single spearman. And once I got some levels in accuracy, I was one shot killing full health enemy chariots. Tactically the AI really needs to stop ditching cities and withdrawing the units.

The terrian was near perfect, as it was mostly flat and full of rivers. I stuck to razing cities that got in the way of my planned settlements, until I got my religion (Hero Worship) and started conquering some puppets. Sweden decided in the middle of a war to construct the Temple of Artemis, so I got a free Golden Age from the combined UA and Founder Belief.

Thrift (10 gold in each city) is borderline mandatory for Nubia, because of the gold needed. I normally grab the production belief, but Nubia doesn't need extra production.

 

[SolutionIt]

Tried another game. Entered the Classical era through Mathematics instead of Iron working, so the free units in every city were all spearman or horseman, instead of a mix of those and Medjeys. So pro tip, make sure to tech into Iron Working. Since Medjay are expensive and some free ones are helpful. Somewhat annoying that I can't get free ones from Conscription or purchase them with Zealotry, buts that UU. Still haven't seen any AI purchase them from me, even with embassies.

Anyway, I think the Apedemak archer is a tad too strong. Or the AI really needs to have a way to combat archer rushes, without just adding even more City strength. I rolled over Arabia and Sweden with three Apedemak and a single spearman. And once I got some levels in accuracy, I was one shot killing full health enemy chariots. Tactically the AI really needs to stop ditching cities and withdrawing the units.

The terrian was near perfect, as it was mostly flat and full of rivers. I stuck to razing cities that got in the way of my planned settlements, until I got my religion (Hero Worship) and started conquering some puppets. Sweden decided in the middle of a war to construct the Temple of Artemis, so I got a free Golden Age from the combined UA and Founder Belief.

Thrift (10 gold in each city) is borderline mandatory for Nubia, because of the gold needed. I normally grab the production belief, but Nubia doesn't need extra production.

I don't think the AI struggles too much in dealing with archer rushes rather that the Apedemak's stats are just really strong. Their RCS is already really solid for the time they come at. If I'm not mistaken composite bowman sit at 11 RCS, which puts the Apedemak right now only 2 points away from it, anyway point is that their RCS is significantly higher than the CS of warriors and spearmen are a commitment that early in the game due to tech placement. On top of that volley isn't just limited to city attack but also fortified units so you can't just fortify and heal to counter the damage since it just ramps up their RCS more. It'd probably be better to either nerf the RCS or just give them sieges 1, 2, and 3 from the catapult line to achieve the same thing?

 

[pineappledan]

It'd probably be better to either nerf the RCS or just give them sieges 1, 2, and 3 from the catapult line to achieve the same thing?

Ain’t nothin wrong with the apedemak’s 8/6 CS/RCS. Egyptian war chariots have 5/9, 4 moves, and all their special promotions, while they cost the exact same. Nubia is far more focused on conquest as well.

If I gave them Siege stem promotions then they would be able to take siege leaf promotions as well, and then just take volley anyways.

 

[SolutionIt]

Ain’t nothin wrong with the apedemak’s 8/6 CS/RCS. Egyptian war chariots have 5/9, 4 moves, and all their special promotions, while they cost the exact same. Nubia is far more focused on conquest as well.

If I gave them Siege stem promotions then they would be able to take siege leaf promotions as well, and then just take volley anyways.

I must have changed their values in my own modmod then and forgot to adjust. However, You'd be surprised to hear this but Volley is actually inaccessible to the Archer Combat Class. You have to put that promotion as available to their combat class in the first place, which then opens it up after unlocking all 3 sieges, which are also only available to the Siege Unit Class.

 

[pineappledan]

Some light housekeeping:

• UA now gives 15% cost reduction to all Archer units (wasn't enough bow flavor for "Land of the Bow")
• increased Apedemak archer production cost to 60 (5 more than archer, rather than 5 less)
• cleaned up some text and code, removed some dummy buildings and promotions that were no longer being used.

 

[pineappledan]

Unit garrison yields are now gated behind a DLL option that must be enabled for performance reasons.

 

[pineappledan]

Apedemak Archer renamed to Pitati
Promotion: Blessing of Apedemak (river movement) replaced with Mercenary (no gold maintenance)

I found that the river movement was wasted on a unit that still loses all movement by crossing the river.

I also found that an early archer rush was hampered by nubia’s inability to field more than 4 archers without going bankrupt.

thoughts?

 

[SolutionIt]

It is an early archer rush with a promotion that just makes fortifying against them a bad strategy and takes out cities faster. I think it is fine considering you can also just rush military theory and get your barracks set up quicker with the garrison ability of the Civ. Making them not cost gold maintenance is good enough as a buff since you'll still make a reasonable amount of early-game GPT. Yes you'll suffer production and growth bonuses but that is the drawback of having very strong early game rushes, losing out on your infrastructure.

Nubia definitely seems like it could lean much better on Progress now with that one change to the promotion since you could build a maintenance-free army and get your Unique Improvements set up very quickly. Paired with Authority you could definitely get some strong yields early on while still being able to threaten with early game conquests, and of course get the unit supply you want built quickly.

But yeah I think it is fine with that one change for what you want to do. I don't think it needs to be free from unit supply or have unit supply come from somewhere else.