Mongolia

[ElliotS]

Honestly I think my idea is better because it removes the need for a gamey cooldown, adds more counterplay/interaction, doesn't remove heavy tribute as an option and removes the lump sum vs more tributes over time argument.

"Mongol Terror: Mounted ranged units get +2 and ignore ZoC. For every former city state controlled by the Mongolians, they gain +1 ///// in each city. +25% vs city state units and +50% against city state cities."

The cooldown sounds like the kind of mechanic you hate most G. I'm honestly surprised you're not jumping at the idea to get rid of it. (Not meant to be manipulative or petty or something, read it at face value.)

 

[crdvis16]

Honestly I think my idea is better because it removes the need for a gamey cooldown, adds more counterplay/interaction, doesn't remove heavy tribute as an option and removes the lump sum vs more tributes over time argument.

"Mongol Terror: Mounted ranged units get +2 and ignore ZoC. For every former city state controlled by the Mongolians, they gain +1 ///// in each city. +25% vs city state units and +50% against city state cities."

The cooldown sounds like the kind of mechanic you hate most G. I'm honestly surprised you're not jumping at the idea to get rid of it. (Not meant to be manipulative or petty or something, read it at face value.)

In terms of game play I like your change best.

I wonder if Gazebo wants to keep the heavy tribute thing as a nod to the Mongol tactic of scaring people into submission. Though when the Mongols got cities to submit without resistance weren't they relatively lenient? If so, wouldn't it make more sense for G's update to then have the city state retain its population and buildings (ala Rome)? Or maybe my knowledge of Mongolian history is a bit too rosy.

 

[KaoticKanine]

Nah, you're knowledge ain't rosy. The Mongols were truly lenient to places that submitted to them without resistance, while those who did resist were effectively wiped off the face of the Earth lol

In light of this discussion, I'm almost inclined to give out my own slight revision for Mongolia's UA I've been thinking up, which I hope would be a compromise for benefitting from City-States while keeping in-line with Mongolia's history. But admittedly the idea would run the risk of Mongolia being OP in domination, and lose out on being 'anti-diplomatic' ^_^;

 

[Gazebo]

Honestly I think my idea is better because it removes the need for a gamey cooldown, adds more counterplay/interaction, doesn't remove heavy tribute as an option and removes the lump sum vs more tributes over time argument.

"Mongol Terror: Mounted ranged units get +2 and ignore ZoC. For every former city state controlled by the Mongolians, they gain +1 ///// in each city. +25% vs city state units and +50% against city state cities."

The cooldown sounds like the kind of mechanic you hate most G. I'm honestly surprised you're not jumping at the idea to get rid of it. (Not meant to be manipulative or petty or something, read it at face value.)

The Mongols were the ultimate 'blob empire' IRL. They should deal in big shifts of power, shutting down diplomacy with rivals, and big chunks of yields gained suddenly. I don't feel that 'sustained yields in the empire because of CS conquests' is representative of the Mongol Empire. The Mongols were bullies and relied on terror to subdue enemies without a fight. That's quite possibly the most infamous aspect of their conquests, the fact that fear alone cowed people to their side. I don't want to lose that.

The cooldown isn't a big deal, it doesn't bother me.

G

 

[crdvis16]

The Mongols were the ultimate 'blob empire' IRL. They should deal in big shifts of power, shutting down diplomacy with rivals, and big chunks of yields gained suddenly. I don't feel that 'sustained yields in the empire because of CS conquests' is representative of the Mongol Empire. The Mongols were bullies and relied on terror to subdue enemies without a fight. That's quite possibly the most infamous aspect of their conquests, the fact that fear alone cowed people to their side. I don't want to lose that.

The cooldown isn't a big deal, it doesn't bother me.

G

Any chance a small nod to the "without a fight" part gets included? Right now the CS loses population and buildings as if it was conquered the old fashioned way which maybe contradicts the idea of leniency to those who submit? Would it be too much of a pain to give their CS forced annexation the Rome treatment and keep buildings/population?

Some people are making the point that losing heavy tribute is still a net loss even with the +250% one time yield bonus. I think it's a net gain with respect to the CS being tributed but I believe the way it currently works is that you can't use regular tribute against any other CS either (the 50 turn limit applies to all CSs and you are locked out of heavy tribute everywhere else). So you are losing the potential for heavy tribute everywhere which is kind of a big loss (especially if authority). Maybe if the CS you puppet/annex retains all of its buildings then the bonuses will be great enough to be a unambiguously a net positive?

Of course this would need to be balanced- no idea how Mongolia tends to perform currently.

 

[Gazebo]

Any chance a small nod to the "without a fight" part gets included? Right now the CS loses population and buildings as if it was conquered the old fashioned way which maybe contradicts the idea of leniency to those who submit? Would it be too much of a pain to give their CS forced annexation the Rome treatment and keep buildings/population?

Some people are making the point that losing heavy tribute is still a net loss even with the +250% one time yield bonus. I think it's a net gain with respect to the CS being tributed but I believe the way it currently works is that you can't use regular tribute against any other CS either (the 50 turn limit applies to all CSs and you are locked out of heavy tribute everywhere else). So you are losing the potential for heavy tribute everywhere which is kind of a big loss (especially if authority). Maybe if the CS you puppet/annex retains all of its buildings then the bonuses will be great enough to be a unambiguously a net positive?

Of course this would need to be balanced- no idea how Mongolia tends to perform currently.

I think it already works that way (the surrender) - if not, that's how I intended it to work, so I'll look.

G

 

[pineappledan]

Ideally the heavy tribute and annex would be different buttons, but that doesn’t sound realistic for the AI

 

[ElliotS]

The cooldown isn't a big deal, it doesn't bother me.

I hate it both because it feels VERY gamey and because it locks heavy tribute out for everyone else.

How about this: A poll!

Should we find a solution that doesn't need a cooldown, or is the cooldown acceptable?

Also I take it that you can't have Mongolia have the ability to demand heavy tribute like normal, but every 50 turns when you do it you annex the CS and get an extra 150% yields?

 

[Gazebo]

Ideally the heavy tribute and annex would be different buttons, but that doesn’t sound realistic for the AI

The UI won’t support it.

G

 

[Gazebo]

I hate it both because it feels VERY gamey and because it locks heavy tribute out for everyone else.

How about this: A poll!

Should we find a solution that doesn't need a cooldown, or is the cooldown acceptable?

Also I take it that you can't have Mongolia have the ability to demand heavy tribute like normal, but every 50 turns when you do it you annex the CS and get an extra 150% yields?

Lots of things in the game have cool downs.

G

 

[pineappledan]

The UI won’t support it.

Right, yeah.

I dunno, I'm kinda in the no-cooldown camp as well; it doesn't seem right to me. There's tons of ways to have some sort of interaction with city-state intimidation without making it such a powerful effect that it needs to disable other aspects of normal play...

What if Passive intimidation gave additional bonuses and made the CS a doormat?

City-States you can demand tribute from:

• Provide passive yields (maybe culture and gold every turn)
• Cannot declare war on you
• Their tiles can be stolen with no penalty (GG steal, can purchase or naturally expand into their tiles as if they are neutral)

Would that preserve the Mongol terror flavour?
I think a bonus to passive intimidation would be interesting

• Gunboat diplomacy is the only thing that works off passive intimidation right now
• differentiates itself from Zulu's ability more
• Very unique, because you can get added benefit from allied/friendly CS if you can also intimidate them.
• preserves the tributary feeling without taking away your ability to take tributes normally, you can just let tributes roll in passively

 

[Gazebo]

Right, yeah.

I dunno, I'm kinda in the no-cooldown camp as well; it doesn't seem right to me. There's tons of ways to have some sort of interaction with city-state intimidation without making it such a powerful effect that it needs to disable other aspects of normal play...

What if Passive intimidation gave additional bonuses and made the CS a doormat?

City-States you can demand tribute from:

• Provide passive yields (maybe culture and gold every turn)
• Cannot declare war on you
• Their tiles can be stolen with no penalty (GG steal, can purchase or naturally expand into their tiles as if they are neutral)

Would that preserve the Mongol terror flavour?

Not an AI friendly solution, and also a ton of new code.

I really don't see what's wrong with the current mechanic. I feel that this is being over-thought.

G

 

[pineappledan]

Not an AI friendly solution, and also a ton of new code.

Just the passive yields then? Would that be doable?

I really don't see what's wrong with the current mechanic. I feel that this is being over-thought.

I think CrazyG put it best:

Mongolia's UA removes an action I want to do (heavy tribute) and replaces it with an action I don't want to do. If I really want to annex a city state, its not hard to just take it normally.

While I get that the idea is to make annexing city-states something that you DO want to do, if you're Mongolia, it rubs me the wrong way. In order to make it something that I DO want to do, I think you'd have to make the carrot so big that the civ is actually overpowered. In other words, to make me overcome my mental block about annexing city-states, you'd have to make it too good.

Perhaps it's a matter of personal preference and playstyles being different between people, but I prefer to keep CSs alive in my games. I like liberating them, I like managing diplomatic ties, I like doing CS quests, etc. Maybe I just throw up my hands and say I'm not the target demographic for this civ.

 

[YukiN]

I think we should just test with no pop and building loss first. It's a big difference in power without upending what's already there.

 

[crdvis16]

I think we should just test with no pop and building loss first. It's a big difference in power without upending what's already there.

If no pop loss or building loss is in along with the one-time big tribute bonus then I'd be quite happy with the Mongol update personally.

 

[ElliotS]

Lots of things in the game have cool downs.

G

I can't think of anything with a cooldown that feels close to as gamey as this. (Maybe I'm forgetting something?)

Great people buying makes sense, because it wouldn't make sense for people to faith a ton of great scientists into existence at once.

Diplomacy unit buying is pretty bad for sure, and if that was open to change I would like to think on it.

Past that nothing else comes to mind. What am I forgetting?

 

[Gazebo]

Just the passive yields then? Would that be doable?

I think CrazyG put it best:

While I get that the idea is to make annexing city-states something that you DO want to do, if you're Mongolia, it rubs me the wrong way. In order to make it something that I DO want to do, I think you'd have to make the carrot so big that the civ is actually overpowered. In other words, to make me overcome my mental block about annexing city-states, you'd have to make it too good.

Perhaps it's a matter of personal preference and playstyles being different between people, but I prefer to keep CSs alive in my games. I like liberating them, I like managing diplomatic ties, I like doing CS quests, etc. Maybe I just throw up my hands and say I'm not the target demographic for this civ.

I think the latter point is the best takeaway. If you don’t want to nuke diplomacy, don’t play the mongols.

G

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

what if we just replace Ger with Finnish Sauna

Ger is probably the greatest weakness of the civ and ought to get no maintenance at least. It's just such an unappealing, weird building.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Ger is unappealing, I agree. I also agree with those who'd rather see no cooldown (or reduced one), who'd rather have the Mongols be able to demand heavy tribute, and that Mongols could conquer CS with population/infrastructure remaining intact.

 

[Gazebo]

what if we just replace Ger with Finnish Sauna

Ger is probably the greatest weakness of the civ and ought to get no maintenance at least. It's just such an unappealing, weird building.

The Ger is fine - it's a small, useful bump in power to give the Mongols a quicker Pantheon (and maybe a Religion), and also give them some early game 'insurance' in the event that they aren't near CSs or conquerable neighbors.

We're not reworking the entire civ - that ship sailed some time ago. Some tweaks to the bully reward are all that is needed.

G