pineappledan's Civ Tweaks

[Edaka]

Hey, enjoying your work! Haven't tried China out yet, but I've played several games with your Spain. I gotta say that the yields really are low, so I've bumped them up to 3 5 per tile on settle, 5 10 per tile on border growth and tile purchase and 10 15 per tile on conquest and citadel bombs. Feels about right to me for now.

 

[pineappledan]

I’ll need to play a game ,but that’s definitely higher than anything I would intend.

I haven’t changed the yields since the culture cost on tiles increased though. I’m thinking I will increase all tiles to 36

 

[Edaka]

In this one game I got a lucky territory bomb ruin, so it got me an instant crap ton of faith which I used to take the border growth pantheon. I went authority as well. I founded 6 cities, in half of which I went monument -> shrine and in the other half - shrine right away. With all this I was able to found second after Kasimir, who had taken the fertility rites pantheon. Don't remember the turn I founded on, unfortunately. Emperor difficulty. So far doesn't seem OP in the early game.

Regarding conquest yields: here's an example.

Spoiler :

As I've mentioned, I went authority this game, so that's where science and culture are coming from. As you can see, the faith and gold yields are relatively on par. I got an Armada worth of gold and two missionaries/inquisitors worth of faith.

Spoiler :

 

[pineappledan]

First off, ruin tile yields are tied into culture bombs, so you got 1015 per tile on the ruin, so probably 4060. That’s higher than what I would want to be possible with a lucky ruin.

As I've mentioned, I went authority this game, so that's where science and culture are coming from. As you can see, the faith and gold yields are relatively on par.

That’s the problem tho. The yields should be noticeably lower than a standard yield on conquest. They get yields from 6 tile earning mechanics, and most bonuses augment just 1 or 2 of those. The fact your gold and faith rewards are on par with your culture/science rewards on that conquest are evidence to me that you have overtuned the civ.

 

[Edaka]

First off, ruin tile yields are tied into culture bombs, so you got 1015 per tile on the ruin, so probably 4060. That’s higher than what I would want to be possible with a lucky ruin.

Yeah, I realise that. It definitely seems too much and too lucky, but I specifically used the example to illustrate that even with that I didn't found first.

That’s the problem tho. The yields should be noticeably lower than a standard yield on conquest. They get yields from 6 tile earning mechanics, and most bonuses augment just 1 or 2 of those. The fact your gold and faith rewards are on par with your culture/science rewards on that conquest are evidence to me that you have overtuned the civ.

In my example I would've got 1800 and 3600 without your tweak, though, if I'm counting correctly. (I got 960 with the starting value being 40, so if we use the multiplier 960/40 = 24 and the yields for conquest in base VP (75 150), then 75*24 = 1800 and 150*24 = 3600).

Now, that means with base VP I would've got 3600-760-400 (the cost of an inquisitor) = 2440 more and 1800-1140= 660 more . Add in the fact that during the game I had to manually spread my religion to my own cities, as well as use an occasional inquisitor here and there to battle foreign religions. You don't have to do any of that in base VP. With all that being said, I don't think I've overtuned the civ, though I agree that I've been getting yields for earning tiles all game long and it's a big bonus, albeit one that's not so easy to measure.

Regarding settling own fresh cities: I need to settle a city and then acquire 4 another tiles to break even with VP's faith bonus for settling. In order to break even with VP's gold bonus, I only need to earn one tile after settling, though. A little too heavy on the gold, perhaps, but faith seems reasonable to me.

 

[pineappledan]

The 24x multiplier is based on city population on conquest (12) and era.
VP Spain's yields on conquest are pretty nuts. I understand that comparisons to the base VP Spain are unavoidable, but the yields and general utility of Spain's VP UA are patently absurd, hence why I felt the need to make this Civ mod in the first place.

Being heavier on gold and lighter on Faith is definitely intentional. In my redesign, I want Spain to have a Faith generation edge, but not so strong that they are a shoe-in for a religion. With their faith-purchase for ships, Spain is the only faith-based civ with an in-built faith sink. This means they are the only faith civ who shouldn't need to found, and I think base VP makes a grave error by putting so much emphasis on Spain's need to found.

Yield on conquest cannot be your only metric in this calculation. If I change the yields to 36, that compares rather favourably with America's 20 on purchase ONLY, and Russia's 20 on natural expand ONLY

EDIT: Maybe I should change it to 73, the two holiest numbers in Catholic numerology? lol. Has a nice ring to it.

 

[pineappledan]

Posted!

Spain now gives 73 on all tile claims

 

[Recursive]

- Harappan Reservoir now gives +2 to lakes and oases instead of +2

If I'm not mistaken, this is now the case in base VP as of the latest version.

 

[Drakle]

Gonna reupload this.
With the growth changes being as severe as they have been, I'm going to try reducing the / to every 5 for China. In Chinese numerology, 5 is traditionally associated with the Imperial Court, though it is not a particularly auspicious number like 8 is. Lets give it a go.

I downloaded this mod but the UA on the leader screen still says 8. Haven't tested, but still needs fixing. Only just downloaded it a couple days ago.

 

[pineappledan]

I reverted it back to 8. I just liked 8 more, and I think it gives a little more latitude to set up in ancient before you go nuts in classical

 

[Drakle]

I was trying out China, and I found a potential bug.

I produced one settler in my capital. Then afterwards my capital grew back to 6. Then a few turns later, I got a free population from an event. So Capital is 7 population. But on hitting 7 population, it triggered the WLTKD, food and culture, despite the trigger being on 8

Is this intended? Or a bug? I have no idea of how it is coded, but I assume the settler is likely the issue. I only have the base VP mods, 3rd and 4th, your civ and unit tweaks, and a few QOL mods.

 

[pineappledan]

Intended. The civ marks the 8th time the city has grown a population. It does not give the bonus when you hit exactly 8 population.

This avoids 2 issues: China doesn't feel as slow to start if Settlers don't hurt your UA, and you cant just hit 8, build a settler to go back to 7, then grow back to 8, or starve/grow on a repeated cycle

 

[Drakle]

Okay, I've played Tweaked China a bit more, into the Renaissance. I like the concept, but it still feels a bit rough. I will also talk about the 3rd and 4th Uniques, but I will just post it here.

I went Progress, in order to set out a number of cities, to best generate WLTKDs. I played on Epic, Large, and while I ended up on a continent with 4 other civs, I ended up having a decent amount of space, aided by a bit of aggressive forward settling and an early fight with India. I ended up settling 7 cities, in total and conquered 2 off India much later, then vassalised his remaining city, 1 annex, 1 a puppet to stop their pressure (they picked Churches as their first belief, so I wanted to head them off early) from killing my religion. I noticed that conquest of cities with a existing 8 don't seem to give WLTKD, so Authority would be suboptimal with this China.

Of them, only my capital triggered in the ancient era, while all the rest triggered one after the other in the Classic era. The later ones settled in the Classic era I got online quickly with internal trade routes.

I got the first religion with the mine pantheon, lots of mine luxuries and Mt Kalish in my second city. I built the religion around WLTKD, so Theocratic Rule and Synagogues. And grabbed Halicarnassus in my capital.

But the WLTKD, ended up somewhat wasted because the rapid growth just knocked me head-on into a wall of unhappiness. First I had to take Equality before Expertise, which temporarily pulled me out of the unhappiness. But it didn't last long, and soon I was back in the red, despite actively trading for luxuries, targeting happiness buildings, and spreading around trade routes and internal routes. Which then meant I couldn't reach the second trigger with most of my cities. The capital I got to it, and the third trigger, since it was easier to reach with a bunch of settlers having subtracted population.

So by the time I reached Burghers, the string of Classical-Medieval WLTKD had ended, as too had the circuses, WLTKD I had built in my cities for happiness management. Most of my cities were shy of 16 by varying amounts and with the happiness situation, some would take a while to hit the trigger.

As for the rest of the kit, most of it is aimed at a more Tradition playstyle. Paper Maker doesn't offer much of a bonus, a few stray gold and science on great works isn't much for a non Tradition civ, and it being subject to era change makes it even worse. Examination Hall's extra gold on Great works is also negligible. The GPP on citizen birth is a decent concept, but it came after my great growth spurt in the Classic, so I didn't actually get that much from it, with the growth in my cities largely stalled out.

I think that China really needs some extra happiness management, to suit its major growth. Otherwise, the hitting of the population triggers becomes a major struggle, and the food bonuses get wasted.

Also, do the WLTKD number of turns scale to game speed? They individually feel a bit short. This was fine in the Classic era at first, when my cities were hitting 8 population within a few turns of each other, but after that, it felt too short. Not sure if this too is by design or an issue of playing on different game speed. The current length might be okay if the trigger were lower, but the gap between 8 and 16 takes a while.

Examination Hall also comes too late. Historically Wu Zetian, and her changes to the examination system, happened way earlier. It coming earlier allows it to appear in time for the Classic spurt of growth, instead of that coming and going.

Finally, I think that either the Great Work focus needs to be changed since the UA no longer grants WLTKD by creating great works. Both UB give bonuses to them, but going Tradition limits the WLTKD. Generally, the design of China feels a bit too spread out. Parts of the kit urge going Tradition, others Progress. Then there is Artistry (Great Works), Fealty (WLTKD and growth), and Statecraft (City State Influence). Some civs should be all-rounders but tweaked China, with 3rd and 4th Uniques, feels a bit more like playing with a partial kit.

 

[maxf]

For myself, I reworked Russia. I don't like its UA: in fact, why does it have doubled resources? Does it handle resources better? Definitely not. It has a lot of resources from a huge territory, so I removed the doubling of resources from Russia and added +50% to the production of settlers and +1 happiness in each city (and changed trait's name to 'Russian expansion').

Another problem is that Russia gets too much gold from its unique buildings and events, almost each adding a lot of gold. Russia has never been too rich country, so this should be reworked in my opinion.

Finally, Russia was never too scientific until the 20th century, so I don't like the scientific bonus of expanding borders either. But Russia was relatively cultural, so I replaced +20 Science with +10 Science and Culture. But this creates another problem: the addition of culture, coupled with a reduction of cultural cost of tiles, especially with the corresponding pantheon and Angkor Wat (do not forget the Monument), causes an explosive expansion: a new city expanses every turn up to 10-12 tiles already in Medieval or Renaissance.
In general, I think that the system of reducing the cost of tiles should be changed: not the cost should decrease, but the growth rate should increase. Say, 4 sources of + 25% of the border growth rate should accelerate it 2 times, but not 10 times as now (as far as I understand, there is some lower limit for reducing the cost of tiles, 10 or 15% of initial cost). Or these reductions should not act additively, but multiplicatively: 2 sources of -25% tile's cost reduction should give a total value of 0.75 * 0.75 = 56% of initial value, but not 50% (4 sources 32% instead of current lower limit of 10 or 15%).
Since I can't change the system such deeply, I just replaced the -25% of the tile's cost with -15% on each source: trait, pantheon, buildings.