New Version - July 17th (7-17)
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Enrico Swagolo
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I think Poland's problem is that it's mostly a weak civ that doesn't seem very coherent. The UA is just mediocre at best, the UU is the worst in the game, the UB is an unreliable RNG lottery. I seriously can't think of an unit I'd like to have available less than WH, even including Panzer which also has problems and comes even later, but at least that one has no direct counters but bruteforcing and can't be worse than the non-UU variant in many situations, like when the WH stupidly charges to his death where a Lancer would do fine, or pushing the enemy unit around means you won't be able to kill it so you can't use the WH, or WH actually saves the unit it tried to kill. This is just an annoying unit to use.
So there's an easy but not strong UA that's meant to work in every situation, an extremely crappy UU, and RNG UB that's meant to lure you into restarting for a start that actually has Pastures anywhere near. There's no common theme here. I don't understand why what should be a "jack of all trades" meant to be able to be picked up for a beginning player should have such heavy RNG elements with it, it's no jack of all trades - it's jack of all reloads or your UB's only benefit is some XP for Horse line alone and a single Horse resource that doesn't even give you a Pasture for the Stable. This UA just can't carry a bad UB and UU, it can hardly pick its own weight up. If Poland is meant to be a jack of all trades and/or for beginners, it should definitely have more reliable tools, it makes little sense as it is now.
I think Ducal Stable and Winged Hussar need a redesign, or some changes.
From what I saw in playthroughs OCC involves avoiding conflict while still having as big an army as possible, and GG Citadels don't have many yields, not as much as Colonias did.
WH is pretty fun to use and really strong when used well. It takes some skill to use effectively and there's definitely the possibility of it hurting you if you use it poorly. Yes, you can screw yourself by using the knockback effect stupidly. You can also use the knockback effect to score kills on units that would otherwise be impossible. Using the WH was one of the most satisfying parts in my recent Poland play through. Calling it the worst UU in the game is just hyperbole and makes it harder to take the rest of your post seriously IMO.
And that's a shame because I agree with your critique of the Ducal stable being so reliant on RNG pasture tiles. I put maximum reroll pressure on myself in my game because I decided I would only do a playthrough where I could found a religion using God of the Open Sky in an effort to make super pasture tiles (stacking some other bonuses as well). Having that requirement did indeed force a number of rerolls so your idea of the Ducal creating a pasture tile sounds like a great way to add consistency to that line of synergy for Poland.
IMO the UA is somewhat bland but it's not that big of a deal.
ridjack
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Sure, if you want to go to war, regularly, with <10 supply for most of the game. Granted, the supply issue would be somewhat remedied with the changes in this update, but even then, you'll never see as many GGs as you would MoVs.
This isn't something I would consider an "important" issue, given that OCC is an extremely niche play-style in the best of times. It just strikes me as a bit unfortunate and, maybe more-so just unnecessary. Venice wasn't balanced, but I never really thought it was 'meant' to be, so to speak.
Enrico Swagolo
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It's not me being stupid or playing stupidly like you imply, it's map, movement and enemy dependent which one who is enlightened enough to not use it stupidly such as yourself should already realise. Imagine a situation like you have two WHs, and there's harsh terrain around. Rivers here, hills there, whatever. He won't die in one WH hit, you need two. If you hit him with a WH, he escapes, and the next WH hit will not only have your WH hit with a terrain penalty - it also means your WH goes there, right with him, which might be very undesirable and lead to your guys death. If your reasoning to this is "well you shouldn't attack, that's using it stupidly", then the "stupid use" is what wouldn't be stupid at all for a regular Lancer. In that situation, those two Lancers could just attack the guy and safely go back, so there - in that situation - the Lancer'd be superior.
Let's imagine an AI which ended up forming a rotated chevron by mere chance. You want the middle part of the chevron dead, the left/right side are not reachable. It'll take two Lancer/WH hits. Lancers take two hits from the front, the guy dies with the second - Lancer takes the top chevron spot with the killing blow, he has a spot where there's no ZOC, can escape. One winged hussar gets a hit, he can escape... Except the killing, second one, won't be able to unless he goes further into enemy territory. Is there units there? Either way, WH might very well die.
Any situation where you don't want to find yourself in the tile that the enemy unit you can attack is? Lancer'd be better. Any situation where the tile the unit will end up after being hit by a WH is undesirable and means follow up attack can lead to the death of your guy? Lancer would be better. It's not stupid using, it's just me thinking "if I had two Lancers and not two WHs here, I wouldn't have a problem and this guy would die". I can abstain from using WH in that situation, but that doesn't make WH look good. It's a proof of how bad he is.
I could give you tons of situations which I've encountered when I've played Poland. In fact, all it takes is to play one playthrough and you'll see several. You can paint those situations as "using it poorly" when you engage, but a regular Lancer would have no such problems, no such dilemmas and he could safely attack, whereas the Polish WH can't. That Polish WH cannot engage in such situations where a Lancer could are simply situations he's inferior in. Is it a bad play to use him then? Perhaps, but Lancer has no such problems. That such situations exist where Hussar will die and Lancer won't, and they exist often, just reflects poorly on him. If avoiding "stupid use" means you can't do what you'd usually do with a Lancer and be fine, then it just proves my point.
Can you please name one other unit where such situations can occur? Like, a situation where you attacking with a UU Spear means the UU dies, while a regular Spear would be all fine? I can't wait for your list of all these UUs which meet this specification. Will they also have the upside of less than 10% more CS than the replacement and a single, easily gotten Promotion that everyone can get?
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BiteInTheMark
Deity
I think this "accidental" growth thing is a fantasy thing out of nowhere. I would really like to see/hear how often this really happens, cause it can only happen by constructing buildings with progress or growing borders with authority (not counting food missions from CS which only hit capital).
And the effect is massively overrated, cause atleast for renaissance on, the effect of building ALL buildings of an era is enough to only get around half the food which is needed to gain one more citizen in a normal sized city. (can't say that much before renaissance, cause I started tracking the numbers from a renaissance game on)
If "accidential" growth is a problem, then the removal of instant food sources already should have solved the problem, no reason to increase the food cost anymore.
A big part of the discussion about food and growth, initialized by @CrazyG, was about increasing the value of food. If you increase the food cost for the next citizen, you only reach the point earlier, till investing in growth is less rewarding than investing the same food for hammer heavy tiles and specialists. Its actually exactly the opposite we wanted to achieve. I cant say how big the impact of the change is, but its in my eyes the the completly wrong lever to achieve the goal.
The change to India make absolutly no sense. Removing/reducing the food bonuses only makes them less special and also hurt the other part of the UA, the additional growth by population. Neither possible unhappiness problems by very big populations nor the possible lack of good tiles cause of too slow border expansion is adressed, increased border expansion cost only make it even worse.
Enrico Swagolo
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I haven't seen that accidental growth either, unless it's that case where CS will give you Food for TR and I didn't even know that. Food from Authority/Progress policies didn't seem to do all that much for pop above 10 in my experience, especially since border growth at that point would take many turns (Authority) or buildings wouldn't give all that much. I guess it was sudden increases once that border popped or that building got raised, but isn't that the entire point of instant yields?
I also agree about India changes being homogenisation, though slight. I'd understand something like +1F +1P to Farms, but all this Food turned to Production will probably make it less unique.
I also agree about India changes being homogenisation, though slight. I'd understand something like +1F +1P to Farms, but all this Food turned to Production will probably make it less unique.
Not balanced wasn't the issue - the issue was that Venice was generally too weak and provided neighboring civ(s) with a ton of extra expansion land. It was just dumb design.
"I don't know what this did, but I'm against it and it was a terrible idea."
I'll take "fantasy things out of nowhere" for $500, Alex.
G
Enrico Swagolo
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You guys are on a first name basis now? I knew you were just being tsunderes.
You've correctly identified the times where using a WH is stupid:
1) where the knockback puts the enemy out of range of your other units
2) where the knockback overextends your WH
You didn't bother to include the two obvious flip sides to those issues as well as others that result in good outcomes:
1) where the knockback puts the enemy unit into range of your units
2) where the knockback effect gets your WH into safety
3) when the knockback effect is blocked and causes extra damage
4) when the knockback effect can save a friendly unit that would otherwise die
I had a ton of fun with this in my playthrough setting up kills for my ranged units. It's not THAT difficult or rare to get these instances to work and avoid the bad situations.
Noob Fanboy
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I want to try funding a religion with Venice without Goddess of Beauty, in Deity. Wish me luck
BiteInTheMark
Deity
You are wrong, you twisted my statement. I know what the change is doing, but cant say HOW BIG the impact ist. Independently how big the impact is, any cost increase for growth making it only worse.
I didn't twist anything. You literally cannot tell me what the change did. You just know it did something. That's an objectively absurd reason to dislike something.
Please, for the love of all things binary, test before you complain.
G
BiteInTheMark
Deity
Stop calling me an idiot not noticing what this change is doing. Thats a mathematical function, no vodoo. The food cost to get a new citizen are raised. To be exactly by 10,6% for a 18-citizen city, 11,9% for a 23 citizen city and 13,6% for a 32-citizen city.
Even if it would be only 5%. What do you want to achieve with this?
ridjack
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Right, that's what I was referring to by "not balanced." Which is why I keep him turned off when not playing him, as mentioned. I just never saw it as a big deal for one civ to be a super outlier like that; just my personal opinion, though, and obviously not necessarily a good way to go about balancing the game. I'm sure you made the right call; it just makes me sad-face, is all.
To which point, my original question: How difficult would it be to grab old Venice from my still-installed previous version and bring him forward to replace new Venice? Would it just be as simple as replacing all the Venice-related files like any normal mod, or would that be likely to break something somewhere else that would require more skills? If it's easy enough, I may just make old Enrico into a "custom civ" that I can slot in whenever I want to play him; since I never let the AI use that version of Venice anyway, I'm perfectly fine with having two Venetian civs floating around in my games.
G, sorry but I have to side with Bite on this one. You changed the growth formula so that mid growth would be slower (that was the explanation provided when we asked what the new growth numbers mean). Further, the amount of food has been reduced in various places.
Bite is making the point that when the cost of getting that next pop is harder, than the next pop becomes less valuable compared to other strategies. So the benefits of growth are further lowered. As he said, we don't know how big that effect is. It could be a little harder, or it could be a lot harder. But to the camp that thought that growth was already "weak"...these changes will make it weaker. You don't need to test to know that, the trend is already clear, even if the absolute amount of that trend is not.
Now if we misunderstood the change in the formula, and you think it actually makes growing easier, than that was our misunderstanding, and its back to testing to see the amount. But if the growth numbers are making it slower at certain points, than Bite's point is valid. You may believe that growth could stand some weakening, in which case alright, that's your call. But Bite's concern is not invalid.
On Poland, I think the civ is fine. Not all civs need to be the coolest thing I've ever played, sometimes they just need to provide solid bonuses. the Winged hussar is an interesting challenge of a UU. The UA is solid. The civ seems fine to me.
Enrico Swagolo
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Good outcome 1) implies your WH is behind the enemy line and there's enough enemies to move there without proccing ZoC or many troops around so the WH can move freely there so it gets an attack from the back. Unless you're already winning the war, in which case it's not needed. Still, I can't say no to this, I remember such situations.
2) Can't imagine such cases. If you let's say attack while surrounded, movement will still then proc the ZoC effect, meaning the enemies still get their attacks off on you. Maybe one less unit will attack and he will get off fine, but that's... rare. Still, okay.
3) Yup. Doesn't compensate the bad ones still.
4) That's easily accomplished in other ways, it can in many cases lead to WH's death if it's related to 1/2, and the fragile unit probably isn't another WH, otherwise it'd escape.
I can get more bad situations:
3) where the knockback effect endangers your other units (Lancer wouldn't have the problem)
4) where the WH and another unit are alone, and knockback saves the other unit because of terrain, getting it closer to reinforcements. (you can flip it I guess)
In general any situation the charge movement is unfavourable, Lancer is better. I think the frequency of my cases far outweighs yours and even if they don't, or they're comparable, WH is still the worst. WH is the lone time and unit it happens to, and a human losing an unit is worse than the AI with bonuses doing so - since WH endangers your unit and isn't much better otherwise, it is the worst. Because it alone has so many situations you cannot deny that are worse than the replacement, it is the worst. There's UUs for civs that can kill stuff much more easily (compared to their era than WH is to its era) - they'd easily get a kill for an unit from their era whereas it'd result in a situation where WH would just push the unit of its era. In the games I've played, WH felt more like a negative than a positive. Here we might disagree on the frequency though we both agree with the occurrence of such cases where a Lancer would be better, but we both know you can't find another unit which this applies to. There's no other UU where regular can be in (almost?) as many cases be better than the alternative to the point it results in either your unit's death or saving the life of your enemy. Compared to the dominance of certain other UUs relative to their era, WH doesn't present anything especially good to compensate, either - so it'll push one where, let's say, a Hoplite or Cataphract or ISlinger/Chukonu would've killed an unit of its era or previous. It's not much better than the Lancer when it comes to stats or dealt damage, so having cases it leads to its own or others death means I am certain it is the worst UU.
WH is bad, has its flaws and I don't see how saying it is the worst makes my post hard to take seriously or means I play badly when you lack the power of saying what the worse one is, and that power is literally just writing words and hitting "post reply". Maybe I just forgot the worse one that is only slightly better than the replacement in CS but can easily kill itself, but you could be less passive-aggressive with all that "plays stupidly" and just say what it is.
Anyway, as you couldn't provide the cases of unique units which die where regulars wouldn't before I will help you out, the examples of other comparable units I can think of which can die where regular wouldn't are the Cataphract and that Indian Naga Malla because that lack of movement can be annoying and kill them, but the damage they deal and their tankiness (NM+CA) /early tech (NM) would be broken otherwise. Cataphract has no real counter at all but bruteforcing him down with bigger numbers, and neither does (or did? not sure post ranged mounted nerfs) a mass of elephants to be honest, though Cats are definitely better. They're really good, especially the Cataphract with those promos of his. They're not just slightly better to the point your regular unit of the type with one more level up that AI gets can do almost the same or better, they obliterate. They cannot be the best UUs ever because of the flaws, but I can see their effects.
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