Quo's Combined Tweaks v7.0.19 BETA

[Guynemer]

Try playing as the Maori. You will have plenty of production.

 

[VCrakeV]

Try playing as the Maori. You will have plenty of production.

The Maori is broken anyway; a sphere should not be justified as good because an overpowered civ is still overpowered with the addition of the sphere.

 

[isau]

Is the Maori extra production on unimproved tiles generally considered powerful? I can see how it would be but wasn't thinking it was too bad, so I made it their Friendship gift. I encountered them in a recent game and made friends and I can see how it would be problematic. I may need to think of something new.

Also FYI I am almost certainly going to nerf the new Hellenic so the population cap for districts is lifted only for the city with the Government Plaza, not the capital and also the GP city. It's a bit too powerful right now for every city to have two cities with huge internal trade route bonuses.

 

[Grathocke]

Regarding Steel and Thunder, I haven't worked with that mod in some time. As written, the QTC mod will grab units based on affiliation with a civilization if that civilization is part of the sphere. I could lock out units from appearing manually or just revise the list to be a hardcoded rather than dynamically adjusting list of that is what players prefer.

I play with Steel and Thunder too. I was bebopping along nicely as Egypt not thinking about anything in particular when I discovered Iron Working. I was sort of surprised when I saw all the choice units I got, then I remembered the details of the new sphere. For me it is too much. I would vote to tone it down some, that is, if I had a vote.

 

[VCrakeV]

Is the Maori extra production on unimproved tiles generally considered powerful? I can see how it would be but wasn't thinking it was too bad, so I made it their Friendship gift. I encountered them in a recent game and made friends and I can see how it would be problematic. I may need to think of something new.

Also FYI I am almost certainly going to nerf the new Hellenic so the population cap for districts is lifted only for the city with the Government Plaza, not the capital and also the GP city. It's a bit too powerful right now for every city to have two cities with huge internal trade route bonuses.

I think it's more of a collection of things: the bonus production on unimproved woods and rainforests, free techs, fast embarked units that can traverse ocean from the start of the game, a fantastic UU, +1 food fishing boats that culture bomb, and the Marae (replaces amphitheater) give 2 faith and culture to every passable feature (woods, rainforests, marsh, reefs, etcetera).

It's a lot of stuff lol. The Inca and Hungary are also quite strong, but I think Maori takes the cake. I'd love to see some balancing of the new civs (especially the weaker ones), but I figure you want to finish sorting out spheres first.

 

[isau]

I really like how spheres have improved since their introduction. I used to always turn them off, but I think I'll keep them on when I download the next update (I still have Arabesque with gold on rivers lol). I always found it strange that if i played as Arabia with spheres, I'd have half as many great person points (particularly odd for scientists). I'm glad that was traded for the golden age combat malus.

That said, I have some concerns. First of all, i feel like Asian Pacific, if not underpowered, is at least unappealing; I won't be using any Asian Pacific Civs, at least with spheres enabled, unless it's changed. The medieval era is a long wait for trade routes, and I don't believe the bonuses make up for it. While fisheries can make up for lost food from domestic routes, and gold from acquiring water tiles mostly makes up for international trade routes, you'll still be missing out on production from domestic routes. This is really important, as it helps jump start new cities, which you'll want to be doing more of in the earlier eras, when you're expanding the most, and don't have factories to help new cities.

Secondly, I'm worried that Nubia *might* be a little too powerful. I'll probably test them out with my next game, but here are my thoughts: Nubia doesn't have it's own district, so its unique infrastructure (Nubian pyramid) isn't obsoleted by the sphere; the Nubian pyramid itself is a solid improvement, especially when you're spamming districts; the housing bonus from Zulu's encampment and Kongo's neighborhood allows Nubia to focus on amenities (e.g in religious beliefs/pantheons) to grow huge cities early on. This allows Nubia to build even more districts.

Perhaps I'm overthinking the power of Nubia, and really it's just a neat synergization with its sphere. However, I feel more strongly about Asian Pacific needing some TLC.

Nubia is pretty strong but also suffers a unique -3 combat in all situations IMO helps to balance it significantly. The extra range on Ranged units is quite nice, especially paired with the faster XP, but it works itself out so that as the game progresses these units are quite vulnerable, in part because despite added range they don't have added vision, so the extra range is mainly useful on defense instead of offense. That said, I often am ignorant of strategies top players use, so its possible I am missing something big. If there's a lot of concern about Nubia I could up the combat penalty to -4. I think going higher than 4 would be excessively punitive.

It may be the case that Nubia's Pyramid improvement should lose its district speed building bonus in favor of something else.

I'll take your thoughts into account on Asian Expanse. I recently lowered the Gold burst effect from 250 gold to 150 gold after a player felt 250 was too high. I don't personally find the Medieval trade route restriction too bad. The reason that specific effect was picked was to break people out of the usual routine. I'm not sure it totally worked; I still find myself building the usual districts in anticipation of when the traders unlock, they just come later. I've considered some different options for how this ability works, similar to how Arabia is revised by this mod.

 

[isau]

I play with Steel and Thunder too. I was bebopping along nicely as Egypt not thinking about anything in particular when I discovered Iron Working. I was sort of surprised when I saw all the choice units I got, then I remembered the details of the new sphere. For me it is too much. I would vote to tone it down some, that is, if I had a vote.

What was your opinion on the no-move-and-shoot aspect of North Africa? I have a feeling its a bit excessive and I should reel it back to only affect Ranged units. Or perhaps even just units that are "normally" melee but have a Ranged attack (the Persian unique unit for example).

Let me think about the best way to deal with how extra unit mods interact with this mod.

 

[isau]

isau updated Quo's Combined Tweaks with a new update entry:

Quo's Combined Tweaks v7.0.16 BETA

I am beginning to feel comfortable enough in this to call it a Beta test, altho there are still some bugs. Mainly some visual issues with DLC civs and some snags with Lua scripts not running properly in Gathering Storm.

Sphere Changes

• Hellenic: The population cap for the number of districts built is now only lifted in the city with a government plaza, not also the capital.
• Asian Pacific: Slightly upped the amount of Gold provided to a city that captures 3 ocean tiles...

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[isau]

isau updated Quo's Combined Tweaks with a new update entry:

Quo's Combined Tweaks v7.0.17 BETA

I am beginning to feel comfortable enough in this to call it a Beta test, altho there are still some bugs. Mainly some visual issues with DLC civs and some snags with Lua scripts not running properly in Gathering Storm.

Sphere Changes

• Hellenic: The population cap for the number of districts built is now only lifted in the city with a government plaza, not also the capital.
• Asian Pacific: Slightly upped the...

​

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Grathocke]

What was your opinion on the no-move-and-shoot aspect of North Africa? I have a feeling its a bit excessive and I should reel it back to only affect Ranged units. Or perhaps even just units that are "normally" melee but have a Ranged attack (the Persian unique unit for example).

Let me think about the best way to deal with how extra unit mods interact with this mod.

I found my slingers were useless. I couldn't close and shoot, so they weren't effective. This might not be as bad with archers since their range is further. I don't use spearmen much in the early game, so I can't address them. Also, since the Egyptians have the Maryannu chariots, I use them a lot.

 

[Guynemer]

Had Shaka in my game; his suguba show up normally, but his mbanza showed up with a red exclamation point, exactly like when a friend of Cyrus builds a pairidaeza.

Also, I think Asia Pacific is plenty strong, at least as Indonesia.

 

[isau]

Had Shaka in my game; his suguba show up normally, but his mbanza showed up with a red exclamation point, exactly like when a friend of Cyrus builds a pairidaeza.

Also, I think Asia Pacific is plenty strong, at least as Indonesia.

Interesting, I haven't noticed the missing Mbanza. I am hoping this is a resolvable situation. It has something to do with the way that the expansion packs interact with the core game but I am not sure what is causing the missing link to happen. The method used to add the Mbanza is very different from adding the Pairidazea, so its an underlying problem affecting multiple systems.

 

[Balerune]

Interesting, I haven't noticed the missing Mbanza. I am hoping this is a resolvable situation. It has something to do with the way that the expansion packs interact with the core game but I am not sure what is causing the missing link to happen. The method used to add the Mbanza is very different from adding the Pairidazea, so its an underlying problem affecting multiple systems.

Had the same problem with the missing Mbanza in my game.

 

[isau]

So a bit of bad news. I've done some checking and the Mbanza art asset issue may not be fixable for expansion civs. It works correctly for Kongo but not for any civ added by an expansion pack. I'm not sure why. It may have something to do with the dependencies file the expansion packs use.

I may be forced to remove the Mbzanza from the Sub-Saharan African special, which I hate to do. I thought access to the Mbanza was a nice tie in for that sphere. I could unlock normal neighborhoods at Guilds and provide some kind of adjacency bonus for forest/rainforest.


Regarding missing art assets related to friendship gifts, those gifts sadly may just have to be redesigned. Please report any situations where you're getting the missing art asset effect.

 

[Guynemer]

The Mbanza and the Pairidaeza are the only situations I have run into this problem so far, for the record.

 

[isau]

The Mbanza and the Pairidaeza are the only situations I have run into this problem so far, for the record.

Thanks. To replace the Pairidaeza gift, I could consider providing a different ability from Cyrus' list. The only one I'll stay away from is the "advanced roads" ability, because I am unsure what would happen if that ability is provided and then taken away. The additional trade route is easy, but is already what Cree provide. How would people feel about additional gold for internal trade routes? (Maybe +2, with no bonus Culture.)

 

[isau]

What's really weird/interesting: the Australian unique improvement (Outback Station) appears to function as a friendship gift just fine. It's just these two art assets that I know of. The Paradizea used to work before the second expansion pack, too.

 

[Guynemer]

Yeah, other friendship gift improvements have looked normal to me--Outback Station, Chateau, Open Air Museum. Haven't had the chance to test the Golf Course, though.

I think gold for internal trade routes would be fine.

 

[Setis]

The "immune to plunder" ability for trade routes in the North African sphere isn't working. Harald just plundered my trade route as Dido.

 

[isau]

The "immune to plunder" ability for trade routes in the North African sphere isn't working. Harald just plundered my trade route as Dido.

View attachment 520529

Thanks for the bug report. Bug confirmed. I thought this modifier was called Modifier Player Units (plural) and not Modifier Player Unit (singular). The Modifier is currently applying itself to the player object instead of the units owned by the player. I'll see if I can fix shortly.