Firebug
Not-so Great Engineer
Tell that to Atilla, Al-Rashid and Enrico. They have the most seperate, and mainly unrelated features. I see no reason why Merchant specialists can't yield food (and possibly culture according to the balance).
Palmyra, Collab Mod
- Thread starter Firebug
- Start date
Tell that to Atilla, Al-Rashid and Enrico. They have the most seperate, and mainly unrelated features. I see no reason why Merchant specialists can't yield food (and possibly culture according to the balance).
UA: Pearl of the Desert: When a caravan ends its turn in your borders gain Production and Food in the Capital. Gain a Free Military unit whenever a Great Merchant is born.
UU: Clibanarii (Horseman) - Higher strength (15 v 12) and ignores terrain costs when in Desert. However, it is more expensive.
UI: Tomb Tower - Available at Masonry and only buildable on desert. Yields +1 happiness, faith and culture. Whenever a great person is expended in the city working the tower it gains +1 culture.
Voilà, a simple and elegant soluction that doesn't step on anyone's toes.
UU: Clibanarii (Horseman) - Higher strength (15 v 12) and ignores terrain costs when in Desert. However, it is more expensive.
UI: Tomb Tower - Available at Masonry and only buildable on desert. Yields +1 happiness, faith and culture. Whenever a great person is expended in the city working the tower it gains +1 culture.
Voilà, a simple and elegant soluction that doesn't step on anyone's toes.
Voilà indeed. The only problem is the Clibanarii, as it's effect is a little meh and pretty inacurate. How about we give it a promotion that makes it generate great merchants? Or better yet:
UU: Clibanarii (horseman)
Higher strength (15 vs 12), but lower movement (3 vs 4). Gains Great Merchant points from battle.
I can't find information if they were mercenaries or not... and this also might be a good representation of their uses of mercenaries.
UU: Clibanarii (horseman)
Higher strength (15 vs 12). If purchased with gold, gains Great Merchant points from battle.
IMO they were never mobile and their downfall was the fact that they got too hot during battle in deserts.
Redaxe said:
True but neither is the Incan Terrace Farm. Many civilizations in the tropical latitudes have utilised terrace farming as a means to survive in mountainous terrain and also to handle the immense tropical rains (Asia, Americas and even Yemen & North Africa...).
There is no reason why a Civ cannot have a unique attribute that isn't entirely specific to there civ. For instance Byzantium has the Cataphract, but Persia invented it
England has the Ship-of-the-Line but other European naval powers built ships of the same size....
Arabia has a Bazaar - but so do multiple middle-eastern countries.
Most people like the tomb tower - that is fine and a good idea but we already have the Moai - that fills a similiar purpose of a UI monument that provides culture.
The food issue is the problem though - a date palm plantation would resolve this and provide food in certain desert tiles that are otherwise unproductive...
Possibly you could put a hidden feature in that reduces the food requirement of the citizen working the tomb tower from 2 to 1. Much like the Civil Society policy does. It doesn't add food, just reduces the amount that the citizen working the tile has to eat?
NiaoMeow said:
I agree with Firebug. Germany and Japan have this too you know... There is no reason why a UA can't have multiple things going on, it's intended to be help balance. UAs are intended to let a civ do some unique things but sometimes the implementation of that feature might weaken a civ or overpower it so some further balancing is required.....
Take Venice for example. You could say that giving them double trade routes and an easy means to puppet citystates would make them too powerful so they need to have their settlers removed. Or conversely that removing their ability to build settlers requires that they have another strong aspect of their UA... Venice isn't a particularly good example as they are still a bad civ but the argument is there that having multiple aspects of a UA allows you to be more creative with a UA.
If you're going to give Palmyra a desert flavored theme then allowing merchants to provide food is absolutely a good idea. Unfortunately though working merchants though will still delay your scientists and engineers and disadvantage the civ. Perhaps uncoupling the great merchant counter from scientists or engineers (or at least reducing it's penalty) is required?
Natan35
Mayor of St. Natansburg
I've got some sort of a different direction...
Palmyra(Zenobia)
UA: Riches of the Desert
+1%
trade route range for each tile claimed by your 
capital, and +1% 
Great merchant generation for each city you may send a trade route to. Gain 
production and 
food from trade units ending the turn in your territory, increasing with each merchant specialist in the nearest city.
UU: Patron
Replaces great merchant. While not able to perform trade missions, the Patron grants units within 2 tiles of him +3%
strength for each caravan you own. Alternatively, it may be consumed to create an additional trade route slot, which will also grant you a copy of horses.
UI: Funerary Tower
Unlocked at Masonry. The funerary tower may be built on desert tiles, never adjacent to each other. It yields +1
culture and +1 
faith, and additional +1 culture for each civilization that may be reached by a trade route from the city working it. Carries over 5% of the food when a new 
citizen is born.
Palmyra(Zenobia)
UA: Riches of the Desert
+1%
trade route range for each tile claimed by your capital, and +1% Great merchant generation for each city you may send a trade route to. Gain production and food from trade units ending the turn in your territory, increasing with each merchant specialist in the nearest city.UU: Patron
Replaces great merchant. While not able to perform trade missions, the Patron grants units within 2 tiles of him +3%
strength for each caravan you own. Alternatively, it may be consumed to create an additional trade route slot, which will also grant you a copy of horses.UI: Funerary Tower
Unlocked at Masonry. The funerary tower may be built on desert tiles, never adjacent to each other. It yields +1
culture and +1 faith, and additional +1 culture for each civilization that may be reached by a trade route from the city working it. Carries over 5% of the food when a new citizen is born.But the design is not a good one if it has 3 random things going on! Let's look at vanilla Japan: 2 things going on, creating a double focus. Venice: Trade and puppeting. I'm not saying UAs can't have more than one thing going on; I'm saying they should not have 3 separate things going on.
Also, aren't we trying to make a civ that is better than the vanilla ones? It's awfully amateur to make a design that gives random yields combined with two different unique abilities. A big part of designing is condensing everything into one, streamlined design.
Arabia is considered one of the strongest desert civs, yet it has no food bonuses. A civ does not have to be helped through a certain biome just because they lived there IRL. Palmyra was never a massive city that was able to sustain large populations in the desert, and I feel like the design is beginning to become a nondescript desert trade civ.
Finally... if we need food, can you guys just at least try to make an interesting bonus? At least a non-OP bonus?
I've got some sort of a different direction...
Palmyra(Zenobia)
UA: Riches of the Desert
+1%
UU: Patron
Replaces great merchant. While not able to perform trade missions, the Patron grants units within 2 tiles of him +3%
UI: Funerary Tower
Unlocked at Masonry. The funerary tower may be built on desert tiles, never adjacent to each other. It yields +1
As always, an amazing design. But I think you are missing the point of the Empire of Palmyra. Palmyra was a trade focused empire, but they were not mercantile. They also heavily focused on military (how else would they conquer a third of the Roman empire?) and a unique culture. They should have a military focus but they do not need a merchant focus. It's kind of an afterthought of Palmyra.
shaglio
The Prince of Dorkness
I believe this would require some DLL coding wizardry of the WHoward/Gazebo caliber.
Firebug
Not-so Great Engineer
An AFTERTHOUGHT of Palmyra??
I'd quite like you to look beyond Zenobia and her Empire's measly 3 year existence. Sure, it was impressive, but the focus here is Palmyra. The city, its culture, its architecture, and its trade. The way they took on the Roman Empire wasn't through a vast military, but through Zenobia's deception. She left the Roman Emperor believing she was still working for him, minting coins with his face on and all the other kind of things that would soften him up. The moment he realised, Palmyra was destroyed in a short war. All Zenobia did was take advantage of the issues in Europe that kept the Emperor busy, in one of the toughest times of Rome and in its final years of its existence as an Empire. The right cards were all dealt out for her, she just had to play them.
This is why we focus on the trade more then military.
This is why we focused on production from trade.
This is where the trade focus itself comes in, and the focus on caravans.
This is where the expansion focus comes in, with their connections to the silk road and other trade routes.
Merchant focus, and also where my idea for Free Military Units with Great Merchants came from.
Tomb/Funerary Towers came from this.
In defense of the military focus, which we did try to add with the Clibanarii and free units:
but where did this army come from?
The economy, and the patrons who hired them for Merchants.
And this is why we think Clibanarii should be the UU.
YOU'RE ALL ROOD AND STEWPD AND YOO NEED TO DESIDE NOW^^^ literally my friend (actually)
But seriously, I get what you're saying. Palmyra is focused on trade, but not Great Merchants. They were known as a trade hub, not a famous birthplace for merchants (you get what I'm saying).
There are already a few trade route based civs. Arabia and Morocco already fill the desert caravan niche. I suppose there is room for one more.
Maybe a Caravanasary UB?
The UU could have a golden age point bonus from kills - not entirely original but it kinda fits the theme of a culture based civ
Maybe a Caravanasary UB?
The UU could have a golden age point bonus from kills - not entirely original but it kinda fits the theme of a culture based civ
Well we should be able to differentiate a Merchant specialist from a Great Merchant. Have to sleep on this one I guess.
Firebug
Not-so Great Engineer
I think we have very different ideas of civ modding. Its not about filling a niche, or a gap. I couldn't care less if there was another trade civ in the game, especially since there are hundreds of Civ mods out there that focus on trade.
Palmyra is a trade civilization, there should be no argument about it. And to be honest, this thread is testing my patience and making me hate collabing. I decided to start this project with the rest of Civfanatics to try and make a high quality civilization out of respect for Palmyra's history. But now its reached the point where theres now just 3 or 4 of us arguing over a design that has basically not changed. When is setup this thread late last year it in the hope that collabing would be faster and easier then trying to research alone, but i'm getting a pile of designs with claims that it represents the civilization well but doesn't actually show any evidence towards it. I have written paragraphs explaining what i think Palmyra is and how it can be represents, i have read articles and listened to short podcasts about Roman history and Palmyra because i was decided to making a good Palmyra civ. But people like Niaomeow, sorry to target you like this, you just keep replying to every damned idea saying it doesn't represent Palmyra? what the hell have you proven in doing so? you know more about Palmyra then everyone else? Explain yourself then! i wrote paragraph after paragraph explaning why i think Palmyra is a trade civ not a military one and you just reply with
You treat me like a
. Sorry for the damned language, This is getting ridiculous. I'm not telling you you're stupid and need to decide quickly, i'm just explaining that after months of working on this civilization we have made LITERALLY ZERO PROGRESS. At this rate i'm going to call the project stops and work on it alone and with friends. Your immature impression of me is, well, immature. Its not helping us progress and you need to grow up if you want to work on this civilization. Learn to listen to others.- Production from Caravans that end turn in your territory.
- Clibanarii - tough but slow.
- Tomb Towers - Desert only. not adjacent. +1 faith, +1 culture and +1 happiness when worked. yields an extra +1 culture every time a great person is expended in the city working the Tomb Tower.
I think we have very different ideas of civ modding. Its not about filling a niche, or a gap. I couldn't care less if there was another trade civ in the game, especially since there are hundreds of Civ mods out there that focus on trade.
Palmyra is a trade civilization, there should be no argument about it. And to be honest, this thread is testing my patience and making me hate collabing. I decided to start this project with the rest of Civfanatics to try and make a high quality civilization out of respect for Palmyra's history. But now its reached the point where theres now just 3 or 4 of us arguing over a design that has basically not changed. When is setup this thread late last year it in the hope that collabing would be faster and easier then trying to research alone, but i'm getting a pile of designs with claims that it represents the civilization well but doesn't actually show any evidence towards it. I have written paragraphs explaining what i think Palmyra is and how it can be represents, i have read articles and listened to short podcasts about Roman history and Palmyra because i was decided to making a good Palmyra civ. But people like Niaomeow, sorry to target you like this, you just keep replying to every damned idea saying it doesn't represent Palmyra? what the hell have you proven in doing so? you know more about Palmyra then everyone else? Explain yourself then! i wrote paragraph after paragraph explaning why i think Palmyra is a trade civ not a military one and you just reply with
You treat me like a
This is the solid confirmed stuff that i want from this civ. This is not going to change.
- Production from Caravans that end turn in your territory.
- Clibanarii - tough but slow.
- Tomb Towers - Desert only. not adjacent. +1 faith, +1 culture and +1 happiness when worked. yields an extra +1 culture every time a great person is expended in the city working the Tomb Tower.
Ok! Great!
We should stick with the old Clibinarii design (shock and cover, more strength less movement) because it is simple and good.
All we need to know is what the second part of the UA is.
A few points to think of:
The first part is about trade, but the rest of the design is not.
Palmyra had a focus on military
We might want food bonuses
Firebug
Not-so Great Engineer
If we have a production focus in the first half, thanks to trade, then we should think about what people might want to spend that production on. Do they want wonders for more great people, to use with the UI, or do they want military units? The more Palmyrene thing would be buildings/wonders, but if we wanted a military focus (because they were quite heavily military at some points in history) then we can consider that.
The other option is giving them a focus on expanding their borders, since they did extend their area of influence so they could be part of the silk road. They also taxed traders that arrived, as well as imported food because their agriculture was focused more on luxuries.
The Clibanarii design you mentioned is nice and simple, and like it. Shock is good for defending their desert start bias, the cover represents their strong armour, the less movement represents how they rekt by their low stamina, and the higher strength also represents their armour. In most situation it will be able to take on Cataphracts (the strongest Firaxis Horseman replacement), and have an advantage over them when in flatland.
The main reason we considered food bonuses was their importing of food and their agriculture, but we don't HAVE to have it if people don't want it.
The other option is giving them a focus on expanding their borders, since they did extend their area of influence so they could be part of the silk road. They also taxed traders that arrived, as well as imported food because their agriculture was focused more on luxuries.
The Clibanarii design you mentioned is nice and simple, and like it. Shock is good for defending their desert start bias, the cover represents their strong armour, the less movement represents how they rekt by their low stamina, and the higher strength also represents their armour. In most situation it will be able to take on Cataphracts (the strongest Firaxis Horseman replacement), and have an advantage over them when in flatland.
The main reason we considered food bonuses was their importing of food and their agriculture, but we don't HAVE to have it if people don't want it.
Spoiler :
Fair enough - you're the project manager here so lets build on this design.
For food imports - maybe every caravan an AI sends to this city increases growth by X percent or food by X amount. Some here think that Palmyra wasn't a mercantile state so focus on Merchants doesn't theme well. This would put more emphasis on trade and diplomacy.
One issue with caravans is that in the early game its very hard to get caravans that can reach your civ from long distances. Getting early caravans really means having lots of close neighours, or building roads. Perhaps Palmyra could get a bonus to road building rate to make it easier to establish trade routes?
Maybe even a city connection bonus if a road ends at a friendly citystate or another friendly players city (+5% city connection gold for a maximum of 5 cities for 25%).
Clibanarii.
Horsemen units suffer from their position in the tech tree which is right before pikemen become available. Higer strength and shock would help here
I like the idea of shock and cover. Maybe even bonus great general points like the Companion Cavalry. That gives the civ a bit of a military twist - and faster great generals in the early game are not to be sneezed at, its a formidable bonus to military
Cover should be a given I think to make the unit a bit tougher against ranged attacks.
Perhaps even the heavy charge from the Winged Hussar could be relevant. Promotion would disappear on upgrade though, otherwise it is too powerful.
Firebug, I think there has been great discussion along the way with many points of view having weighed in. It's time for some decisions to be made, and since you are quarterbacking this project, I think it's up to you to decide what gets included. Other ideas that don't make the main mod can be included as Events/Decisions or 3rd/4th Unique Components.
I'd like to see this project completed too, so let me know if I can help.
Firebug
Not-so Great Engineer
I agree that if we do have a caravan focus we'll need to increase the trade route range. But i'm not sure how to do that. Perhaps for the UA: Trade route bonuses from buildings and wonders are doubled. (Caravansary becomes 100% land trade route length and +2 gold from land trade, market becomes +2 gold from trade routes, harbor becomes +100% sea trade route length and +2 gold sea trade... etc. etc.)
This might be OP though. Perhaps just trade route length from buildings is doubled.
Another option is Caravans moving along desert like road.
Edit: Only 2 buildings increase trade route range, making it pretty bad as a UA.
Clibanarii could have increased combat strength against damaged units. This isn't based on any historical event, but instead makes them useful in the role that Horseman failed at, supporting the troops. Use your infantry to damage the enemies, charge in your Clibanarii to finish them off while tanking any damage by Archers (i'm not sure if Cover includes city bombardment).
The biggest worry i have with Clibanarii is horse resources, how often do they appear in desert? If its too much of an issue the Clibanarii could, like the war chariot, not need horses. This could be explained by trade, and simply buying the horses from elsewhere.
Heres another design.
The UI or the UB can be a 3UC. it would be a shame not to make use of davey_henninger's UI model though.Palmyrene Empire
Zenobia
Pearl of the Desert - Foreign caravans that end their turn in your territory give your capital a production bonus (Encourages expansion to gain more territory). Bonus increased for each trade route originating from the Capital (encourages sending trade out). Free Caravansary in the Capital when you research Horseback Riding (More trade route range).
Clibanarii - Doesn't require horses but is more expensive then the Horseman it replaces. Starts with Shock I and Cover I and has extra combat strength against damaged units.
Funerary Tower - Only buildable on desert and not adjacent to each other. Yields +1 culture, faith and happiness. an extra +1 culture per great person expended in the city working the tower. (or, each Funerary Tower worked by a city increases its culture output by +2%)
or
Tariff Court - Replaces the Caravansary, has the usual bonuses. Also receive +2 gold from incoming trade routes. Cost of purchasing military units decreased by 10%.
Houston we have a winner - sounds perfect!
In fact there's some interesting history about this - how eastern civilisations 'lost the wheel' and society instead turned to the camel after Roman civilisation disappeared.
http://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/197303/why.they.lost.the.wheel.htm
Once, in ancient times, the Middle East teemed with carts and wagons and chariots, but they were totally driven out by the coming of the camel.
For all the discussion there has been among archeologists about why advanced societies such as those in pre-Colombian Central and South America never invented wheeled transport, there has been little notice taken of the amazing fact that Middle Eastern society wilfully abandoned the use of the wheel, one of mankind's greatest inventions.
The most common explanation of this phenomenon is lack of, or deterioration of, roads in the Middle East, and to be sure the old Royal Road of the Persians and the whole network of Roman roads at some time fell out of repair and then passed out of use. However, roads are built for wheels and not vice versa. Their decline paralleled that of the wheel; it did not cause it.
Actually, the dry Middle Eastern climate was much better suited to vehicular traffic than were the forests of pre-modern Europe, where rain could be regularly counted upon to turn even the best unpaved road into mud. Even today high speeds can easily be maintained over long stretches of desert track.
Furthermore, the Turks in early times used carts without roads on the Central Asian steppe, as did the unknown ancient inhabitants of the Sahara Desert. And in the United States the pioneers crossed the continent in wagon trains without benefit of asphalt. No, roads are not the answer to the riddle.
Instead it was the long, slow pace of the camel, two and a half miles an hour, 20 miles a day, for weeks on end, that spelled the demise of the wheel. Because of the primitive state of harnessing technology in the ancient East, where even a horse could not be harnessed effectively to pull a heavy load, the camel could not be hitched to a wagon.
There is one Roman relief showing a camel chariot race, but it is hard to believe that it was not intended as comic relief. Good harnesses for camels were designed in Central Asia and, in the 19th century, in the Australian desert, but these did not affect the Middle East.
The only way to make use of this immensely strong beast for transport was to throw the load, averaging anywhere from 300 to 500 pounds, on its back. Thus the pack camel came to compete directly with the ox cart for heavy transport.
The ox cart was equally slow, and in the competition the camel had certain positive advantages. It ate otherwise unusable desert plants, which made its upkeep inexpensive. Little wood, a valuable commodity in the largely deforested Middle East, was required by ancient saddling technology. And its care and breeding could be left to the nomads and thus not be a burden upon the farmer or merchant.
These advantages meant that camel transport was about 20 percent cheaper than wagon transport, according to the edict on prices issued by the Roman emperor Diocletian in the third century A.D. Therefore, simple economic efficiency caused the camel to supplant the wheel, not some mysterious reversion to primitive life.
So there you go, roads are not actually as important for desert trade routes as we would be tempted to think. History has proven otherwise so it is quite appropriate to have a UA that can ignore roads for desert trade routes
How about this
UA: Caravans move along desert tiles as if they were roads. +50% production towards Caravans, Caravansaries and Markets
Production from Caravans that end turn in your territory. Golden age points or culture or faith could fit thematically too, if that is too much focus on production.
Clibanarii: I think the UU without horses is a bit too strong. Strength 14, MJovement 3, shock 1, cover 1 & extra Great General points. No need for extra combat strength vs damaged units as they'll get access to the powerful charge promotion at 30exp. That is powerful enough already, much more so than the Cataphract.
