Merijn new civs and other projects

[merijn_v1]

Allcivs update:

- included African unitartstyle

 

[Edmund Ironside]

Every time I see an update here I think "wow, has Merijn created another new civilization!?" How many more are you planning to create?

 

[Orbii]

Some feedback on Zimbabwe (as played on the AllCivs branch on M/N):

• UP feels really good and promotes a city spamming playstyle that is also consistent with the crummy land of South Africa. UB is a significantly less impactful, as given the land in Africa it could be reduced to just +1 Production for Cows and have the exact same effect as it has now. Didn't get to the UU, but I imagine that's more of a UHV 3 thing.
• UHV 1 was doable, and is a good goal - I did it by rushing Great Zimbabwe with a GE. Didn't see an AI build the wonder before me.
• UHV 2 is impossible. As played on AllCivs, this goal requires you to settle all of South Africa, and conquer Swahili, Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mali, and half of the Mamluks to secure the Sudanese Ivory, as well as have enough workers to develop all of the necessary resources, often on difficult terrain. This is simply not realistic, especially with UHV 1 being a builder goal. Even without AllCivs, you'd still need to conquer the East African independent cities, southern Egypt (either Egyptian respawn or an independent city), the Congo, settle a city to secure the Nigerian ivory, conquer the Mali, and settle South Africa.
• While I didn't play to this point, I think UHV 2 and UHV 3 should have their regional checks switched. UHV 2 should be to monopolize all Sub-Equatorial luxuries, and UHV 3 should be to ensure no colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa. This would make UHV 2 very doable - I could have, with better play and less focus on infrastructure in my coastal cities, made enough units to conquer the Congo and Swahili, easily - and I imagine, given the strength of the UP and Great Zimbabwe, had a strong enough economic base to declare a Monroe Doctrine over Africa.

 

[merijn_v1]

Every time I see an update here I think "wow, has Merijn created another new civilization!?" How many more are you planning to create?

Zimbabwe was probably the last one for now. I have ideas for some more civs, but those definitely require the new map. Some of the civs I created I originally intended to include after the new map, but I couldn't hold myself working on it.

Some feedback on Zimbabwe (as played on the AllCivs branch on M/N):

• UP feels really good and promotes a city spamming playstyle that is also consistent with the crummy land of South Africa. UB is a significantly less impactful, as given the land in Africa it could be reduced to just +1 Production for Cows and have the exact same effect as it has now. Didn't get to the UU, but I imagine that's more of a UHV 3 thing.
• UHV 1 was doable, and is a good goal - I did it by rushing Great Zimbabwe with a GE. Didn't see an AI build the wonder before me.
• UHV 2 is impossible. As played on AllCivs, this goal requires you to settle all of South Africa, and conquer Swahili, Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mali, and half of the Mamluks to secure the Sudanese Ivory, as well as have enough workers to develop all of the necessary resources, often on difficult terrain. This is simply not realistic, especially with UHV 1 being a builder goal. Even without AllCivs, you'd still need to conquer the East African independent cities, southern Egypt (either Egyptian respawn or an independent city), the Congo, settle a city to secure the Nigerian ivory, conquer the Mali, and settle South Africa.
• While I didn't play to this point, I think UHV 2 and UHV 3 should have their regional checks switched. UHV 2 should be to monopolize all Sub-Equatorial luxuries, and UHV 3 should be to ensure no colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa. This would make UHV 2 very doable - I could have, with better play and less focus on infrastructure in my coastal cities, made enough units to conquer the Congo and Swahili, easily - and I imagine, given the strength of the UP and Great Zimbabwe, had a strong enough economic base to declare a Monroe Doctrine over Africa.

Thanks for the feedback.
I'm open to another bonus for the Kraal, but I don't know which one.

For the second UHV, you do not have to conquer/settle all of South Africa. Sorry I didn't clarify it, but this is what you should do to achieve the UHV:
1. Have at least 1 copy of every resource yourself.
2. Make sure that all major civs (so independents are excluded) do not have access to the resources in Africa. What I mean by that is that they don't have one of those resources improved in sub-Saharan Africa in their territory. There are a few possibilities to achieve that: 1 Conquer/raze the cities which has those resources in there culture zone. 2 Collapse them (independents are excluded as mentioned) 3 Pillage the mines/camps on those resources. 4. Vassalize the owner. Civ are allowed to import the resources from other civs or by improvements outside of sub-Saharan Africa.

So you do not need to control every ivory, gold, silver and gems resources in sub-Saharan Africa. You only need one and make sure the other civs in that area don't.

The gold in Southern Egypt is outside the sub-saharan territory BTW.

 

[Orbii]

Thanks for clarifying UHV 2 - that makes a lot more sense now and is very reasonable, and could possibly be inferred from the choice of 'Monopolize' as the goal. As for Southern Egypt, I was actually referring to the Sudanese Ivory, which tends to get swamped by Egyptian or Ethiopian culture; I did notice that the Gold was out of the UHV area.

 

[Steb]

I also tried Zimbabwe on the All Civs branch. They're cool. Also cool is the new unit art, although it's a bit weird that the button for workers is the same as the slave button.

I don't have comments on the UHV, I failed the first one and then didn't bother. The UP is cool. The starting situation felt a bit strong: when Kongo spawned several centuries later they were backward in tech and pretty much anything. I don't know much about medieval Zimbabwe but they were probably roughly on par with Kongo? I was on par with neighbouring Kilwa Sultanate though, so I'm not sure what's appropriate. Also starting with 3 settlers may be a bit much.

Most of the time I open the victory screen (but not always) there is an exception that prevents the display of the second UHV goal. It says the exception is in line 3436 of Victory.py, in is Monopoly: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'isImpovementBonusMakesValid'.

 

[merijn_v1]

Fixed the African worker button
Zimbabwe starts with 2 settlers
Fixed Zimbabwean monopoly UHV

 

[ales_]

The Romans and Egyptians are forced to collapse (if alive) when Italy and the Mamluks spawn respectively to avoid strange behavior

What about Greece and Byzantium?

 

[merijn_v1]

Italy-Rome and Egypt-Mamluks share (potentially) the same capital, which could lead to some strange behavior. Greece and Byzantium do not have this problem.

 

[soul-breathing]

I find that Qing's UHV1 is nearly impossible, usually there're only 10-12% population in China and Manchuria. How about change it to "Control or vasselize 25% of world's population"?
And 1800ad seems a little early, maybe 1840ad or 1850ad are much better.

 

[merijn_v1]

Fixed Mamluk UHV
Changed Manchurian 1st UHV to: Control 25% of the world population in 1850 AD

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Some feedback on Zimbabwe (with your all civs pack):
- First UHV: is great and very balanced. Failed the two times by 1 and 3 turns to build the wonder, but did it in turn 79 in the 3rd try.
- Second UHV: Very interesting and different, but extremly hard - at least! Has anybody achieved it on normal speed and diffculty?
I conquered Mombasa (on gems) going over the mountains, not through swahili lands. I pillaged Congo Ivory (in the final turn), razed nigerian city on ivory, and plundered some improvements in eastern Mali. To ferry enough elephants to Mali to destroy all mines and conquer a city on ressouces maybe possible - but i failed for some turns. The mines should be doable with earlier compass, but the city will be very hard as only elephants can enter the jungle around the city.
- 3rd UHV: Not really played until now.

I am hardly an expert on african history, but isn't the historical/contestet area a bit too big? And the african civs seem technologicly very advanced for their time.

All in all very fun! Thank you for filling the gaps on the map with new and exiting new civs.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

And they should not start with clergy as they have no major religion.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Did the 2nd UHV! Settled Lubango and build cogs earlier to ship elephants to Mali. Mombasa was not founded, so I only had to raze a fortress on the gems near Swahili. Fun and challenging UHV!

3rd one will probably be easy. I am near turn 120 (1600 AD) and have Firearms, which Portugal and England do not have. I think the Zimbabwe is way to advanced technologily. No European has shown.

 

[merijn_v1]

I think I have to redo the techs for all my African civs. In general, I copied the list of starting techs of the civ that spawns closed to it chronologically and add/remove a few techs. I guess I should remove some more for the African civs. I based the modifiers on the Mali ones. Maybe I should revise those as well.

Thanks for the feesback on the UHV. I’m glad you like them. I didn’t know if the date of the 1st UHV was good. My idea was to set the date so it provides a desired level of challenge. It seems my first try is good. (This approach I uses for many of my civs. Please give feedback on the date. I’ll happily change them so the UHV are at a challemging level.)

I had no idea if the 2nd UHV was challenging/doable in the first place or not. (I have to rely on feedback of you. I’m not a very good player. Some UHV I find really hard, whereas many of you think they challenging, but not really hard.) I’m glad that this is possible. I like the concept of this UHV and would be sad if I had to scrap it because it is impossible.
I initially only intended the UHV to includd gold and ivory. I feared that with only those resources there were to few competitors and therefore not much challenge. For that reason I included silver and gems (because they are similar to gold in a sense). It seems that was a good decision.
I will see if I can do something that more units then War Elephants are useful for the UHV. (I didn’t consider this would be a problem for the UHV)

I copied the 3rd UHV from the Ethiopians. I guess if I tune down the tech rate this UHV will be more challenging.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

To make other units useful against Mali and Congo they must be able to move through jungle.

I finished the Zimbabwe game (3rd UHV was missing). The main "problem" was that the portugese did not invent firearms before 1700 AD - so no european arrived. So easy win. But I think this a problem of the main mod, that portugal does not priorize firearms enough to start the trading company event.

So my advice is more theoretical than practical. I think it will be too easy, because most of the area is historical and the Rozhi will be too strong against Arquebusiers. I don't think the Zimbabwe should have better single units than the Portugese.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Now some feedback on the Mameluks (600 AD):

UHV1: Very hard and a bit luck dependent. I got it in the third try in the very last turn. It is very dependant on the situation of the arabs and the units you may or may not flip.
You have to build an army, settle another city on the Nile, build infrastructure in Cairo and the other cities on the Nile (for UHV2) and get the right time to conquer north Africa, Mesopotamia, Levante and Hedjaz. Too many independent crossbows and you are done.
It is doable, but I think not with every starting situation. So you may think about adding 1-2 catapults, an extra swordsmen or horsemen and some workers to the starting units, if it should be more manageable.

UHV2: Really cool! As it finishes only a short time after the first UHV you have to divert your ressources very clever. I got Cairo to size 17 or 18 and the Nile population to around 35, so it should reliably doable, but is very challenging in combination with UHV1. Liked it very much.

UHV3: You can build up your rushed empire without much problems. Not bad, but not challenging. More military pressure from the Ottomans perhaps? Auto-war with the mongols (after turn 70)?


The sugh is very weak. Market with +10% culture. An health or happiness bonus would really helpful in the Nile delta and especially Cairo. The culture is not really needed.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Gave the Philipines a try:

They should start with a buddhist missionary and (at least) a granary in their capital.

Having "pleased" relationship is a condition for building an embassy. Is this intended? If so, it should be documented.

I got a free balanay when the Swahili spawned. Intended?

Balanay should upgrade to Galeon or be a unique cog. So it is obsolete after your first tech. (Guilds with the +50 % commerce in capital civic is too good to pass for a one city civ.)

UHV1: Interesting and different. Not sure if 7 is doable. I got Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Mughals, Mongols. Korea and China collapsed. Khmer, Thais or Tamils may be possible in some cases.

UHV2: The same as Indonesia. :-(
I got gold, gems, silk, dyes, spices. Pearls could be settled in the pacific. No chance to trade any luxuries and I don't think conquest is really an option, with so little production.

UHV3: Should be doable with 2 GMs and 100% gold.

 

[TJDowling]

Gave the Philipines a try:

They should start with a buddhist missionary and (at least) a granary in their capital.

Having "pleased" relationship is a condition for building an embassy. Is this intended? If so, it should be documented.

I got a free balanay when the Swahili spawned. Intended?

Balanay should upgrade to Galeon or be a unique cog. So it is obsolete after your first tech. (Guilds with the +50 % commerce in capital civic is too good to pass for a one city civ.)

UHV1: Interesting and different. Not sure if 7 is doable. I got Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Mughals, Mongols. Korea and China collapsed. Khmer, Thais or Tamils may be possible in some cases.

UHV2: The same as Indonesia. :-(
I got gold, gems, silk, dyes, spices. Pearls could be settled in the pacific. No chance to trade any luxuries and I don't think conquest is really an option, with so little production.

UHV3: Should be doable with 2 GMs and 100% gold.

Also, how exactly do you found an embassy? I followed the guidelines with pleased relationship in all kinds of cities but it didn't work. Am I missing something. Is it a specific ship/unit, whatever, is there a button I'm missing?

 

[merijn_v1]

Any ship that is in a coastal city of a pleased (or better relation) should be able to establish an embassy, provided you don’t already have an embassy with that civ.