Rogue's Civarium 0.12b

[RogueAustralian]

Very happy to have helped!

I did not correlate hill with rough, but I definitely should have coming from Civ 6. I too am a big MTG fan.

As for the commander idea, I actually having thought it over, to that end, realize it would probably just be way easier to somehow enable naval commander production in antiquity instead. I definitely imagine army commanders applying to naval units being incredibly hard to make happen. Totally understandable if you don't see the idea fitting for the Civ. I think it's an interesting concept nonetheless for an antiquity naval Civ someday, maybe Norse or something. (Speaking of, an 'infamous' Norse tactic was to carry their ships across land to new bodies of water, when necessary. That too seems like a really cool design space for their Civ.)

Excited to see the forthcoming masteries! Quick work on the fixes. I'll be testing some of your other civs this weekend probably and post again. Thank you for your mods!

So glad to hear you enjoy them! I will say that the next civ I’m working on is the Saxons, which will likely be focused on religious gameplay and pantheons. I’ll have to play with that cross land ability with naval units - I have some ideas but not sure if it can be done yet. Hmm.

Edit: maybe that would fit in with the Saxons. I’ll have to look into that.

 

[eqn]

Sumer notes:

Starting with Writing is super flavorful and made picking my early techs a bit more interesting than usual. I don't think it's particularly 'overpowered' by any stretch so no concerns there whatsoever.

Seems every settlement is providing Bronze. Unsure if this is intended or if there's supposed to be a specific trigger for it. As is, with the power of such a resource, it seems incredibly strong when combined with the extra resource capacity provided by their unique quarter. Even if it were limited to only one copy of the resource, like those provided from becoming Suzerain for example, I think that would still be decent.

The unique improvement "Ziggurat" is listed as a Building in the Civ's description rather than "Improvement". It also unfortunately seems to only get adjacency from Navigable Rivers and not Floodplains (despite saying so). Overall I think it's got a low floor but high ceiling. That makes it pretty well balanced overall considering the additional power a well placed Sumer unique district can provide, which makes it plenty acceptable.

Speaking of, attached is a picture of just how strong this unique quarter can be. The yields pictured (8 Prod, 6 gold, 3 science, 3 happiness) is with only 3 rough tiles adjacent and no specialists. Perhaps both buildings having the exact same adjacency in this way could be a bit overpowered, at least in Production. Changing this would be to limit the quarter's power some and encourage more thoughtful placement. If one building had the same adjacency of Ziggurat, for example, then the pictured placement would be ideal (3 river tiles on the other side) and the pictured yields would essentially be the quarter's maximum possible yields. If the buildings do keep the shared adjacency, as is, then there could be such a placement that would even be twice the yields pictured if placed "perfectly" (surrounded by 6 rough terrain) and that would certainly be insane. That said, there is of course the potential of the opposite. If you're not careful when settling you could have cities that completely lack rough terrain. I suppose that could be considered its own balancing point in some regard.

The +2 gold on rough terrain policy seems incredibly strong, too, but again this is at least somewhat counter balanced by the fact the Civ notably lacks any unique units and thus heavily relies on such convenient 'economy' in a lot of ways.

I'd at least consider splitting up the +2 gold and the 2 quarter buildings each into individual civics to unlock. All three on the same one civic feels like an extremely big power spike. Often Civs need to study two different civics for two buildings and a lot of their powerful policies, like the +2 gold one, are also separated as such.

The +1 food on rural districts adjacent to navigable rivers / floodplains policy unfortunately seems to not be working at the moment. I love the thought though. Hopefully it's an easy fix!

The +5 trade route range policy seems to be working!

Overall I love the design. I think all of the offerings from the civics and the sheer uniqueness due to the tradeoffs mentioned make the Civ one of my favorites once ironed out a bit.

 

[RogueAustralian]

Sumer notes:

Starting with Writing is super flavorful and made picking my early techs a bit more interesting than usual. I don't think it's particularly 'overpowered' by any stretch so no concerns there whatsoever.

Seems every settlement is providing Bronze. Unsure if this is intended or if there's supposed to be a specific trigger for it. As is, with the power of such a resource, it seems incredibly strong when combined with the extra resource capacity provided by their unique quarter. Even if it were limited to only one copy of the resource, like those provided from becoming Suzerain for example, I think that would still be decent.

The unique improvement "Ziggurat" is listed as a Building in the Civ's description rather than "Improvement". It also unfortunately seems to only get adjacency from Navigable Rivers and not Floodplains (despite saying so). Overall I think it's got a low floor but high ceiling. That makes it pretty well balanced overall considering the additional power a well placed Sumer unique district can provide, which makes it plenty acceptable.

Speaking of, attached is a picture of just how strong this unique quarter can be. The yields pictured (8 Prod, 6 gold, 3 science, 3 happiness) is with only 3 rough tiles adjacent and no specialists. Perhaps both buildings having the exact same adjacency in this way could be a bit overpowered, at least in Production. Changing this would be to limit the quarter's power some and encourage more thoughtful placement. If one building had the same adjacency of Ziggurat, for example, then the pictured placement would be ideal (3 river tiles on the other side) and the pictured yields would essentially be the quarter's maximum possible yields. If the buildings do keep the shared adjacency, as is, then there could be such a placement that would even be twice the yields pictured if placed "perfectly" (surrounded by 6 rough terrain) and that would certainly be insane. That said, there is of course the potential of the opposite. If you're not careful when settling you could have cities that completely lack rough terrain. I suppose that could be considered its own balancing point in some regard.

The +2 gold on rough terrain policy seems incredibly strong, too, but again this is at least somewhat counter balanced by the fact the Civ notably lacks any unique units and thus heavily relies on such convenient 'economy' in a lot of ways.

I'd at least consider splitting up the +2 gold and the 2 quarter buildings each into individual civics to unlock. All three on the same one civic feels like an extremely big power spike. Often Civs need to study two different civics for two buildings and a lot of their powerful policies, like the +2 gold one, are also separated as such.

The +1 food on rural districts adjacent to navigable rivers / floodplains policy unfortunately seems to not be working at the moment. I love the thought though. Hopefully it's an easy fix!

The +5 trade route range policy seems to be working!

Overall I love the design. I think all of the offerings from the civics and the sheer uniqueness due to the tradeoffs mentioned make the Civ one of my favorites once ironed out a bit.

Again, fantastic feedback! I have to check my design notes - I believe Bronze is supposed to come from one of the unique buildings though (or perhaps the unique quarter), but it shouldn’t be in every city on founding.
The ziggurat text should be a pretty easy fix.

I do like your note on splitting them into different civics - I’ll look at my notes and see how it fits together - similarly with adjacency, I think perhaps a prod base / gold adjacency swap on one of them may be best.

The tradition fix should be straightforward - I think

I’m glad you like this one. It is intended to sort of be the “Isabella of civs” - swingy and situational, but strong without focus. It’s also my favorite one I’ve put together, and I was quite fond of how flavorful starting with Writing was as a bonus.

I appreciate you taking the time to dig into this - it’s encouraging as I explore what civs are next on the docket. Thank you!

 

[RogueAustralian]

@eqn - New update for Sumer based on your feedback (plus a culture icon!)

Edit: Extra bonus for what I'm working on with the Saxons:

 

[Ryansinbela]

Saxons could be a good transition into a Viking Civ as far as I know (I might be wrong)

 

[RogueAustralian]

Saxons could be a good transition into a Viking Civ as far as I know (I might be wrong)

I do have some plans for Viking civs, which would seek to build off of the Saxons and the Germania civ someone else did, but I have a few other exploration era civs in mind first. (I’ve been starting to list my next three planned civs per era in the OP)

 

[czechball]

so Croatia's one of the planned civs you have

neat

 

[RogueAustralian]

so Croatia's one of the planned civs you have

neat

I am also actively looking at Serbia / Czech / something to finish the path in the modern age; it’s just not one of the next three I have planned right now.

I’m also going to be working on making a modern Spain, and renaming exploration Spain to Castille

 

[Ryansinbela]

What are your ideas for Judea

 

[RogueAustralian]

What are your ideas for Judea

Have to do some research, because most of my knowledge of Judea is very Old Testament based, but I am very interested in seeing how this overlaps with TCS's Outremer civilization and using that as a design touchstone.

 

[czechball]

I am also actively looking at Serbia / Czech / something to finish the path in the modern age; it’s just not one of the next three I have planned right now.

I’m also going to be working on making a modern Spain, and renaming exploration Spain to Castille

alrighty

 

[eqn]

Seems the Ceorl shows up twice on the load screen for some reason

 

[eqn]

Saxon Notes
Another home run on uniqueness. The fact that you get highly mobile but weakened infantry in droves definitely makes this Civ play in a very unique way.

Speaking on the Ceorl (infantry), I usually don't use Mementos but I did take the +1 infantry movement one this game, and with the ability to ignore vegetation they were far better than scouts. In fact I didn't produce scouts at all, since two-for-one infantry turn one was too good to pass up. I noticed the combat strength reduction, but honestly it seemed relatively minuscule all in all. This is mostly due to how easy it is to stack insane combat bonuses, from Iron, leader passives, commanders, and the Bronze Working mastery.

The Runwita (Culture on Adjacent tiles to Sacred Groves) and the Witengamot (Scaling food on town halls/palaces/moot halls) policies unfortunate do not work. Though I did not get a chance to try them, the Runwita policy seems quite strong in theory due to its Age scaling potential affecting several tiles. The Witengamot policy unfortunately seems weak in concept simply due to the poor scaling that food has in general, which is really just an issue the game faces as a whole.

The infantry upkeep reduction policy works, in the next age. Funnily, the Ceorl maintained a zero upkeep cost regardless of tier so the policy never did anything in Antiquity. Clearly an unfortunate but hilarious bug.

All other social policies / passives worked from what I could tell. Not sure on the stealth passive for Sacred Groves as I couldn't find a good opportunity to try it. In concept it seems kind of insane for ranged units on defense but I'm not sure how stealth works in this game really.

The Moot Hall is super cool. Having an ageless building that can only be built in the town center is such a cool concept. The passive that gives it an Influence adjacency for quarters seems strong but not necessarily OP since it doesn't scale through the ages. In fact, the nature of it being a passive rather than a policy means it didn't carry over through the ages at all. That may be something to consider for current/future civ designs when choosing between passive effects and policies for mechanics.

The Sacred Grove is definitely insane. Notably, while I could not place them next to one another I was able to build them on non-vegetated terrain. I went with City Patron Goddess, and by the end of Antiquity I was pumping out 100 Influence per turn. I can imagine with some of the other pantheon choices it might be insanely broken (production/gold, per usual), but I'll need to do another play through to test that. Notably the Sacred Grove did lose its pantheon bonuses when transitioning to the next age. I suppose that's due to the game abandoning that information at that point? The only bonus it provided at that point was the +2 food. If the Runwita policy did work through the ages, though, then I definitely would see plenty reason to still keep the Sacred Groves around, of course.

 

[eqn]

Quick England Test Notes
Noticed a tooltip hover bug with the civ in the game creation screen, screenshot attached.

The gold cost / production cost for the unique naval commander is far too low relative to the default naval/army commanders.

The naval commander has 7 movement. This seems insanely high. Not sure if that's the case for the regular naval commander, just an observation. Other naval units only have 4 movement.

Just to note, the unique naval commander benefits from its own commander bonuses. This isn't inherently broken, but it is insanely strong.

Dry Dock was buildable in non-distant lands (all cities) while Spice Port was buildable in both my capital and in distant lands.

Spice Port lacks any description besides +4 Gold in game. Seems to not provide anything besides +4 gold presently.

The unique quarter effect doesn't work.

Spice Colonies policy card doesn't work.

Mercantile Expansion policy card reads "Establish Trade Relations" instead of "Improve Trade Relations". It also unfortunately doesn't work.

+10 Naval Strength passive (Pax Brittania mastery) doesn't work. To be honest this seems really high. +5 would probably be a reasonable ceiling on something like this.

All things said and done I love the design. Once all these little bugs get fixed up I think it'll be an incredibly strong exploration Civ. Nothing stands out as a balance outlier besides the mentioned naval strength passive.

Anything not mentioned seems to be working.

Random note:
One thing I noticed while playing was that I was able to claim an on-land coastal goody hut using a cog by hitting the "coastal pillage" button. Not sure if there's a string to extract this functionality specifically from such a unit but it may be a way to give that function to the Illyrian Settler eventually. Hell, even just letting the settler pillage in general is actually pretty neat considering it's basically strictly a naval scout after settling. It also synergizes with the pillage bonus for the Civ.

 

[RogueAustralian]

Saxon Notes
Another home run on uniqueness. The fact that you get highly mobile but weakened infantry in droves definitely makes this Civ play in a very unique way.

Speaking on the Ceorl (infantry), I usually don't use Mementos but I did take the +1 infantry movement one this game, and with the ability to ignore vegetation they were far better than scouts. In fact I didn't produce scouts at all, since two-for-one infantry turn one was too good to pass up. I noticed the combat strength reduction, but honestly it seemed relatively minuscule all in all. This is mostly due to how easy it is to stack insane combat bonuses, from Iron, leader passives, commanders, and the Bronze Working mastery.

The Runwita (Culture on Adjacent tiles to Sacred Groves) and the Witengamot (Scaling food on town halls/palaces/moot halls) policies unfortunate do not work. Though I did not get a chance to try them, the Runwita policy seems quite strong in theory due to its Age scaling potential affecting several tiles. The Witengamot policy unfortunately seems weak in concept simply due to the poor scaling that food has in general, which is really just an issue the game faces as a whole.

The infantry upkeep reduction policy works, in the next age. Funnily, the Ceorl maintained a zero upkeep cost regardless of tier so the policy never did anything in Antiquity. Clearly an unfortunate but hilarious bug.

All other social policies / passives worked from what I could tell. Not sure on the stealth passive for Sacred Groves as I couldn't find a good opportunity to try it. In concept it seems kind of insane for ranged units on defense but I'm not sure how stealth works in this game really.

The Moot Hall is super cool. Having an ageless building that can only be built in the town center is such a cool concept. The passive that gives it an Influence adjacency for quarters seems strong but not necessarily OP since it doesn't scale through the ages. In fact, the nature of it being a passive rather than a policy means it didn't carry over through the ages at all. That may be something to consider for current/future civ designs when choosing between passive effects and policies for mechanics.

The Sacred Grove is definitely insane. Notably, while I could not place them next to one another I was able to build them on non-vegetated terrain. I went with City Patron Goddess, and by the end of Antiquity I was pumping out 100 Influence per turn. I can imagine with some of the other pantheon choices it might be insanely broken (production/gold, per usual), but I'll need to do another play through to test that. Notably the Sacred Grove did lose its pantheon bonuses when transitioning to the next age. I suppose that's due to the game abandoning that information at that point? The only bonus it provided at that point was the +2 food. If the Runwita policy did work through the ages, though, then I definitely would see plenty reason to still keep the Sacred Groves around, of course.

- The Ceorl can get adjusted down further. The goal is to leave scouts with some place thanks to their increased visibility, but I'm also ok with a generally better option than scouts too as a unique unit (compare the Jaguar to the scout from the Maya - and yes, I know Maya's busted)
- Shame about the Runwita and Witengamot. Both underwent several iterations due to balance - trust me, you would've loved some of the earlier drafts but I couldn't get them working in general
- Ceorl maintenance - oops. That one's a bug They should have maintenance. (By the way, as for why they're showing up twice on the loading screen - I know *why* it's happening but not why it's happening because I'm doing things the same way with Ceorls as other civs unique units. It has to do with the fact that there are 3 "tiers" of Ceorl, like other units.).
- Sacred Grove not persisting to the next age is more intended than not, although I didn't have a vision in mind in which I preferred. The goal with Runwita is to give it it some specific usefulness afterwards. I have some thoughts on how I'll fix this, I'll have an update soon - fixing maintenance, Runwita, Witengamot, and the placement restrictions on the Sacred Grove.

Witengamot and placement restrictions for the Sacred Groves both seemed to be working to me when I release, so I'll double check, but note that Sacred Groves can be placed on Vegetated Terrain, not just forests, which there's a version of for every biome.

This is fantastic feedback as always; will respond to your England feedback when I get there.

EDIT: Just confirmed Witengamot works; Leonard's Policy Yields doesn't show it working, but that's a bug with that mod.

 

[eqn]

Venice Quick Bug Test Notes

Unique Settler lacks additional embarked movement.

+3 Production on Coastal settlements policy doesn't work.

+1 Naval Command Radius policy doesn't work.

Random note:
Can confirm regular naval commander (Vs English unique) only has 3 base movement, same with Cogs, scaling with any bonuses.

 

[RogueAustralian]

Pushing out an update for the Saxons based on @eqn's feedback:

- Ceorls now cost slightly more, are fairly weaker, and have maintenance
- Witengamot confirmed to work
- Runwita's bonus changed (+2 culture on unique improvements per age)
- Sacred Groves can now be placed on any *flat* terrain and cost considerably more
- Ceorls now have maintenance

 

[eqn]

- The Ceorl can get adjusted down further. The goal is to leave scouts with some place thanks to their increased visibility, but I'm also ok with a generally better option than scouts too as a unique unit (compare the Jaguar to the scout from the Maya - and yes, I know Maya's busted)
- Shame about the Runwita and Witengamot. Both underwent several iterations due to balance - trust me, you would've loved some of the earlier drafts but I couldn't get them working in general
- Ceorl maintenance - oops. That one's a bug They should have maintenance. (By the way, as for why they're showing up twice on the loading screen - I know *why* it's happening but not why it's happening because I'm doing things the same way with Ceorls as other civs unique units. It has to do with the fact that there are 3 "tiers" of Ceorl, like other units.).
- Sacred Grove not persisting to the next age is more intended than not, although I didn't have a vision in mind in which I preferred. The goal with Runwita is to give it it some specific usefulness afterwards. I have some thoughts on how I'll fix this, I'll have an update soon - fixing maintenance, Runwita, Witengamot, and the placement restrictions on the Sacred Grove.

Witengamot and placement restrictions for the Sacred Groves both seemed to be working to me when I release, so I'll double check, but note that Sacred Groves can be placed on Vegetated Terrain, not just forests, which there's a version of for every biome.

This is fantastic feedback as always; will respond to your England feedback when I get there.

EDIT: Just confirmed Witengamot works; Leonard's Policy Yields doesn't show it working, but that's a bug with that mod.

Didn't mean to imply the Ceorl was overpowered for its scouting potential, to the contrary I loved that it provides so much potential utility to that end. Even using it for scouting, the scout's abilities were sorely missed none the less. As for a combat strength reduction, probably doesn't need too too much. I just naturally leaned really hard into the idea of stacking those bonuses because I knew how well they would synergize specifically with the double production.

Apologies about Witengamot. Could've sworn I checked it inspite of the policy yields mods but I must have missed it. I try to make sure I don't rely too much on that mod for this testing for that very reason!

Keep up the excellent work as always.

 

[RogueAustralian]

Didn't mean to imply the Ceorl was overpowered for its scouting potential, to the contrary I loved that it provides so much potential utility to that end. Even using it for scouting, the scout's abilities were sorely missed none the less. As for a combat strength reduction, probably doesn't need too too much. I just naturally leaned really hard into the idea of stacking those bonuses because I knew how well they would synergize specifically with the double production.

Apologies about Witengamot. Could've sworn I checked it inspite of the policy yields mods but I must have missed it. I try to make sure I don't rely too much on that mod for this testing for that very reason!

Keep up the excellent work as always.

No sweat! I appreciate all the hard work you put into testing things. I do think the Ceorls could stand to be nerfed because of the doubling and because of the Saxons other bonuses, so we'll roll with that. I'm sure it'll still hit a perfectly reasonable power level in aggregate.

Quick England Test Notes
Noticed a tooltip hover bug with the civ in the game creation screen, screenshot attached.

The gold cost / production cost for the unique naval commander is far too low relative to the default naval/army commanders.

The naval commander has 7 movement. This seems insanely high. Not sure if that's the case for the regular naval commander, just an observation. Other naval units only have 4 movement.

Just to note, the unique naval commander benefits from its own commander bonuses. This isn't inherently broken, but it is insanely strong.

Dry Dock was buildable in non-distant lands (all cities) while Spice Port was buildable in both my capital and in distant lands.

Spice Port lacks any description besides +4 Gold in game. Seems to not provide anything besides +4 gold presently.

The unique quarter effect doesn't work.

Spice Colonies policy card doesn't work.

Mercantile Expansion policy card reads "Establish Trade Relations" instead of "Improve Trade Relations". It also unfortunately doesn't work.

+10 Naval Strength passive (Pax Brittania mastery) doesn't work. To be honest this seems really high. +5 would probably be a reasonable ceiling on something like this.

All things said and done I love the design. Once all these little bugs get fixed up I think it'll be an incredibly strong exploration Civ. Nothing stands out as a balance outlier besides the mentioned naval strength passive.

Anything not mentioned seems to be working.

Random note:
One thing I noticed while playing was that I was able to claim an on-land coastal goody hut using a cog by hitting the "coastal pillage" button. Not sure if there's a string to extract this functionality specifically from such a unit but it may be a way to give that function to the Illyrian Settler eventually. Hell, even just letting the settler pillage in general is actually pretty neat considering it's basically strictly a naval scout after settling. It also synergizes with the pillage bonus for the Civ.

- Tooltip fix is an easy one. Missed that when adding support for Lovelace.
- Yeah, your notes on the naval commander (all three of them) are products of pushing a knob too far and still figuring out balance. All three of your notes on balance are noted and I'll accommodate accordingly. I'll tweak this around
- Dry Dock is intended to be built in all cities; Spice Port is supposed to be distant lands only, not capital and distant lands. I'll see if I can fix that. That may be a game engine issue, so it may be able to built in capital regardless.
- I'll look into the Unique Quarter effect - that has been one that's been a perennial source of grief
- Spice Colonies / Mercantile expansion - will look into
- I'm probably just going to drop the Pax Britannia naval strength passive anyways, especially given the mobility that England naturally confers through both its UA and its civic trees.

Quick Summary for England 0.15 (TL;DR) - Fix spice colonies, fix mercantile expansion, fix UQ effect, drop Pax Britannia naval strength passive, and rebalance Admiralty Flagship.

Not sure when this one will be out, but as always, thank you for your feedback!

 

[eqn]

No sweat! I appreciate all the hard work you put into testing things. I do think the Ceorls could stand to be nerfed because of the doubling and because of the Saxons other bonuses, so we'll roll with that. I'm sure it'll still hit a perfectly reasonable power level in aggregate.

- Tooltip fix is an easy one. Missed that when adding support for Lovelace.
- Yeah, your notes on the naval commander (all three of them) are products of pushing a knob too far and still figuring out balance. All three of your notes on balance are noted and I'll accommodate accordingly. I'll tweak this around
- Dry Dock is intended to be built in all cities; Spice Port is supposed to be distant lands only, not capital and distant lands. I'll see if I can fix that. That may be a game engine issue, so it may be able to built in capital regardless.
- I'll look into the Unique Quarter effect - that has been one that's been a perennial source of grief
- Spice Colonies / Mercantile expansion - will look into
- I'm probably just going to drop the Pax Britannia naval strength passive anyways, especially given the mobility that England naturally confers through both its UA and its civic trees.

Quick Summary for England 0.15 (TL;DR) - Fix spice colonies, fix mercantile expansion, fix UQ effect, drop Pax Britannia naval strength passive, and rebalance Admiralty Flagship.

Not sure when this one will be out, but as always, thank you for your feedback!

No sweat! Been loving your new Civs. Definitely breathing a lot more life into the game for me. Especially like how I've seen Ada spawn in as the Saxons when I chose random already in a game. Super cool that you can give them a preference, and hopefully that means the AI will spawn in as them too!

Curious what your thoughts are on my 'random note' about giving the Illyrian settler the ability to pillage. Kind of a 'two birds one stone' approach to making it so they can grab land goody huts, but I think it's such a cool idea and gives the unit some more use beyond that initial settle and coastal scouting.

Just started a new game with the re-balanced Saxons. My units are getting slapped even by the independent people now! Seems fair to be honest with how strong the 2-for-1 is, and once I get the scaling going I'm sure they'll still be insane. Overcoming the deity AI bonus is gonna be rough work!

There's a bug with the description of the reworked Runwita policy card, screenshot attached.
View attachment 725463