So this Pekkandru system (that you presented as an early form of Corporation) forces you to make a choice between changing the targets of your TRoutes as often as possible or commit to old ones in order to gain percentage bonus. The concept is sound, but as you said the UB doesn't stand out very well. It seems more an extension of the UA (only tech tier 2) than a true UC, and as you mentioned making this UC a UNW isn't the solution (there is already enough similarities with Carthage).
That I love. I would even suggest maybe having a yields conversion as an alternative (eg. : gain 25 % of the
Tax Revenue of your Vassals as
Production).
I wonder if swapping the
gold in all cities and the
GAdmiral points to the UB would make it feel better?
UA name option 1:
Vira-Valanjiyar (eng: "Valiant Merchants")
UA name option 2:
Disai Ayirattu Ainnurruvar (eng: "Five Hundred Lords of a Thousand Directions")
Completing an International
Trade Route places a Pekkandru in the target City. +1
Gold in all Cities for each Pekkandru. +1
Trade Route Slot for every 5 owned Cities and every Vassal.
Thirvai (Customs House)
Available at Guilds
350 Production Cost
+2
Culture,
Science, and Production
25% of your Tax revenue from Vassals is converted to Production in this City
Every Trade Route from this City to a foreign City with a Pekkandru increases this City's Science and Culture rate by +5%
Completing any Trade Route To or From this city generates 50Great Admiral Points, scaling with Era
when a
Trade Route originating here and targeting another Civ is completed, receive a
Tourism boost with the civ based on your recent
Culture output
1
Merchant Specialist Slot
Tobacco Resources gain +3
Coffee Resources gain +1
+2
Tea Resources gain +2
+1
Banana Resources gain +2
Now the kit won't generate GAdmirals passively until you're close to unlocking deep ocean movement for them. Early GAdmirals can be a bit silly, with their deep ocean movement allowing you to scout far beyond other civs in early eras. This also allows us to split the vassal bonuses and gate one to the era where vassals unlock. It's also a more sensible spot for that Thirvai icon; we will have to make a new one for the Thirisidai.
The UA's scaling global gold and free TRs means there is a lot of power installed in the UA, so the UB doesn't have to be that good; it can just focus mainly on generating the GAdmirals and giving a few other small trade benefits.
I would have liked to see the TR from Vassals part integrated into the Ottoman UA, as you know. As for the TR slots from cities, I personally think it is too strong : Petra and the Colossus both only give one, and are considered high priority just for doing so.
Yes, and you would need 10+ cities to get 2 TRs. TRs are good, but they aren't fantastic on their own, especially since their TRs aren't actually stronger or better, unlike Carthage, who also gets more TRs from its Uniques. You aren't likely to hit 10 cities on a standard map until you start pushing other civs back, unless you got a start with a ton of space. I rarely break 10 cities in a standard game. I actually predict that it's too weak, and we are likely to increase it to 1 TR per 4 cities. It is their UA, after all.
I don't think the Ottomans are likely to change, but the way that the Chola vassalized or otherwise culturally and militarily dominated Odisha, the Chalukyas, Yangon, and Srivijaya makes it fit well here too.
Acquiring vassals usually means a high investment in military forces, while simply gaining more and more cities demands no interactivity. That's why I avoided that kind of bonus for my own kits.
Too much emphasis on vassals as a mechanic risks making the civ too high risk for too little reward. It's also bears mentioning that too much emphasis on era-locked abilities like vassalization in the UA doesn't feel great; era-locked abilities are much more at home on UBs, which have their own tech locks.
I like that the scaling bonus from number of cities feels "safe", it helps buffer the vassal bonus. It's not totally non-interactive, as it is your largest incentive for an ICS strategy with Chola. The global franchises also help mitigate poverty, the largest source of wide unhappiness in the latest patches.
The problem I have with this UI is that nothing else in the kit supports Faith, and especially not Holy Sites (as you told me when I suggested something in the same spirit). Not all UCs in a kit are supposed to go in the same direction, but for Faith / Religion based-ones, it's tricky because Faith, when not founding, loses a majority of its value (making something like this work will be an objective of the Feudal France project we currently have with
@gwennog).
All that said, one suggestion I have is to make the UB an early Temple replacement that spawns a Kovil Kulam on an adjacent tile and gains power with Pekkandru. That way, you give the civ a tech tier 3 source of faith in addition to a support to its food supply, and it liberates the 4th UC for something else.
Maybe more administration-related, to complete the peaceful wide trinity of commerce / naval power / diplomacy (in parallel to the war-related part of the kit) ? Plus, a second way to benefit from the Pekkandru system later into the game (Civil Service) could be interesting.
I really detest those abilities that just plop something down on the map without you getting a say, personally. I don't like control and land management being taken away from me. Having the Kovil Kulam be a self-contained UI also has other advantages, like not needing additional art and text resources, more understandable, and feels less arbitrary.
I could reduce the faith to 1 point, such that it is vestigial flavor, as opposed to a main yield. As I said when you suggested something in the same spirit, the Temple Tanks, though connected to religious buildings, are primarily irrigation reservoirs and storm drains. Tamil Nadu has some 38,000 temples, and the Chola built a huge proportion of them, but temples in Tamil society doubled as community halls, public works, and banks, distributing loans and administering the irrigation system for the local farmers. The Kovil Kulam are central to the practical functions of the temple, so I think we can have a bit of
Faith to acknowledge their religious link, but emphasize other yields and utilities as much as possible.
How about this?
UI - Kovil Kulam
Unlocked at Philosophy
Must be built on flat grassland or plains, with no access to fresh water, and not adjacent to another Kovil Kulam
Removes features
1
Faith / 1
Culture / 2
Gold / 2
Food
Kovil Kulam gains +1
for each adjacent Farm (ie. Farms boost KKs, not KKs boosting Farms)
Acts as a source of fresh water (ie unlocks baths in adjacent cities, freshwater boost to farms, etc.)
+2
Food at Guilds
+1
Gold /
Faith/
Culture at Navigation
+2
Gold /
Food at Fertilizer
So the improvement is a big
Gold battery that gets bigger the more farmland you can surround it with. The KK gives freshwater +1
to any nearby farms, and the farms in turn pay back into the temple's irrigation system. This softens the no access to freshwater limitation too, because it puts higher emphasis on lots of farms anyways.
CS scales with era (see below)
MP
Border Growth for each adjacent Forest, Jungle, or Marsh
You generally almost never want to either of that, so AI probably won't know how to use it.
