Rome

[pineappledan]

In case people don't want to read 5 months of posts about this, a lovingly curated list of reasons why stealing UBs and UNWs should be removed from Rome:

Spoiler Rome's core competency has never been its ability to steal UBs :

Explanation: Rome gets extra terrain, bonus for building construction, and keeps all regular buildings that aren't NeverCapture. That's really good. Rome's ability to steal UBs is so peripheral to its core competency that it's not even mentioned in the UA description.

Counterpoint: Rome's the special-est snowflake in all of human history and they deserve to have the best UA.

Counter-Counterpoint: No they aren't, and no they don't.

Spoiler UB stealing creates an issue with modmodding and future-proofing :

Explanation: Currently, any custom civ or UBs that use lua have to include Rome in their check for valid Civs. As a result, Rome is a fairly significant hit on computing performance

Counterpoint: Modmodders arguing against making more work for themselves isn't a valid argument.

Counter-Counterpoint: ... What the hell?

Spoiler Human players can abuse the mechanic in ways that AI can't :

Explanation: If a human thinks they are about to lose a city to Rome, they can sell their UB so Rome can't get it. With the change to Rome catching NeverCapture buildings, they can also sell defensive buildings before Rome takes the city. AIs don't know to do this, so they don't know that selling their UBs makes the city less valuable to Rome, and they don't know that selling their defense buildings will make recapturing the city easier

Counterpoint: That's fine. It's fun

Counter-Counterpoint: People keep banging on about unfair human advantages in every other aspect of the game. So no; Evidently it's not.

Spoiler Leader balance discussion cannot happen if UNWs can be stolen :

Explanation: UNWs contain large, global effects that are roughly as powerful as an extra UA. Global, empire-wide effects affect all Roman cities, allowing your core cities to directly benefit from buildings they never built, while still enjoying all the regular benefits of Rome, such as their own UB.

Counterpoint: You make it sound like Rome just gets extra UAs. If you don't want Rome to get these UNWs then don't let Rome conquer you.

Counter-Counterpoint: So what if Rome is on another continent and there's nothing I can do about it? Better yet, if it's such a big problem for Rome to take UNWs, why not make it so Rome can't take UNWs???

Spoiler The relative rarity of Rome managing to steal a UNW/Ikanda/Dojo actually makes this whole situation WORSE, not better :

Explanation: If people want VP to be at least somewhat balanced, having a rare interaction like this makes for lolrandom ass pulls, where Rome gets to throttle the game by virtue of who they started next to. If Rome manages to take over a certain neighbor and then gets to leverage the full power of their UNW in addition to Rome's existing kit then game over.

Counterpoint: That's fine. It's a rare occurrence and snowballing is accounted for.

Counter-Counterpoint: Not like this it isn't. You're talking about Rome being able to take over durable, potent and unique abilities; the game isn't designed to help reign that in.

Spoiler You can get >80% of the bonus of a unique barracks/armory replacement by having 1-2 on empire :

Explanation: Aside from the inherent silliness of having Roman troops running around with Bushido and Buffalo Horns promotions, you can funnel most of your relevant military unit production through those cities to get an outsized amount of benefit.

Base VP only has unique promotions on barracks/armory, but what if modmodders add a unique promotion from a building that isn't one of these? Just one more, albeit minor, future-proofing argument.

Counterpoint: Yeah but that's pretty hard to do, since those are often 3rd-string cities.

Counter-Counterpoint: No, it's not hard to do at all. You only need to funnel melee unit production through these cities, not ALL unit production. The recent changes to internal TRs have made this even easier to accomplish. There's tons of workarounds that make it neither difficult nor burdensome to build your melee units in an otherwise smaller city, such as the new Freedom tenet that allows full XP on purchased units.

Spoiler Why did anyone even WANT this change in the first place? :

Explanation: Rome doesn't get anything exceptional beyond higher building retention and more tiles for conquering a civ with a UI; why was it so important that they get access to every possible unique infrastructure boost if it causes so many problems? If you wan't all the UBs just go futz about in Firetuner.

Counterpoint: Because it's cool and I like it.

Counter-Counterpoint: It's hard to argue against taste, but it's not exactly a strong argument either.

 

[Enginseer]

Rome's core competency has never been its ability to steal UBs

And its play style on the scene is uninteresting and boring without the ability to steal UB. For historical competency, the Romans did incorporate foreign forces into their army.

UB stealing creates an issue with modmodding and future-proofing

??? Putting IsDummy is too much work. There's also a trigger that detects when a Building has a GreatWorkType: -1, then it will assign the true IsDummy since the default value is 0 rather than -1.

Human players can abuse the mechanic in ways that AI can't

Humans have been selling their buildings to cities that are already lost. Rome UA only makes it that you can't entirely sell everything since you can only sell 1 building per turn.

Leader balance discussion cannot happen if UNWs can be stolen

How unlucky Rome just happened to capture a National Wonder where most if not all will build their UNW in their Capital! Damn, Rome needs to be punished for capturing and holding Capitals with a huge diplomatic penalty and warmonger penalty added in order to absorb one of their bonuses. Oh, they can only steal 5 UNW? Good thing there are no modmods that overbloat the usage of UNW then.

The relative rarity of Rome managing to steal a UNW/Ikanda/Dojo actually makes this whole situation WORSE, not better

When the Japanese, The Zulu somehow loses to a Roman army despite the fact their Dojo and Iknada should give them a much stronger advantage than mere Legionaires, that's on the Japanese and Zulu, no? Appealing to the mere extremes is not a solid argument.

You can get >80% of the bonus of a unique barracks/armory replacement by having 1-2 on empire

Nice.

Why did anyone even WANT this change in the first place?

Why not?

 

[Stalker0]

Honestly Pineappledan has a point. And as G has noted in the happiness discussion, he does want mechanics to be somewhat modmod friendly.

Rome's UA has a potential for abuse that few other's do, and you have to account for it in ways you don't with other UAs. Now I do agree that the old Rome was boring, but there are a million other possible ways to give Rome bonuses than making them the Borg.

 

[tothePAIN]

The chance of capturing a UNW and never capture buildings keeps Rome interesting. I've enjoyed this version of Rome.

 

[chicorbeef]

Capturing White Tower more or less guarantees +6-9 Culture in every city. I understand you not liking this and IIRC you've modded out UNW capture for your modmod.

But what's the issue, balance-wise, with UB capture? I know, Pineappledan, that you don't like fringe cases where you get more boni than you're supposed to, but getting a Dojo or Ikanda is nowhere near broken, infact I care more about a generic building like a Chancery or a Workshop to be preserved than a Dojo. Getting a Dojo or Ikanda requires you to build new units from scratch and it does not apply to your already promoted army. It's like recieving a militaristic CS UU gift. Also, I am fairly certain that no one has conquered Japan and then been like "lolz this game so easy now" solely because of the Dojo, it's just not as big a deal as you make it sound.

It's also historically accurate if you consider how extensively the Romans used auxiliaries (which would be a viable explanation for them "running around with Buffalo Horn promotions").

Rome has been able to capture UBs for some time now, it's not something new.

 

[TheBigFundamental]

I'm against capturing UNWs and in favour of capturing UBs.

 

[Rekk]

Why did anyone even WANT this change in the first place?"
Explanation: Rome doesn't get anything exceptional beyond higher building retention and more tiles for conquering a civ with a UI; why was it so important that they get access to every possible unique infrastructure boost if it causes so many problems? If you wan't all the UBs just go futz about in Firetuner.

Counterpoint: Because it's cool and I like it.

Counter-Counterpoint: It's hard to argue against taste, but it's not exactly a strong argument either.

UB capture makes Rome a much more exciting civ to play than without, that's why people have latched onto it. Once that is in play, it becomes very disappointing when you come across a civ whose UB is a nevercapture.

Is also already part of VP, so equally exciting alternatives are much more difficult to get past the Going for Gold mark. I don't even think any alternatives actually have been proposed.

It's also historically accurate if you consider how extensively the Romans used auxiliaries (which would be a viable explanation for them "running around with Buffalo Horn promotions").

How difficult would it be for Rome to build the UU of civs whose cities they have captured, in or out of the those cities?

 

[Enginseer]

How difficult would it be for Rome to build the UU of civs whose cities they have captured, in or out of the those cities?

Super Hard. A guy that tried to rework Rome UA in Steam Workshop had to add many separate copies of unique units for this to even be feasible.

 

[Rekk]

Super Hard. A guy that tried to rework Rome UA in Steam Workshop had to add many separate copies of unique units for this to even be feasible.

What about incorporating the military city-states gift system, except for conquered cities?

 

[displayer]

Rome now: Amazing, could play for hours

Rome if you couldn't take UBs: Literally unplayable

 

[Enginseer]

What about incorporating the military city-states gift system, except for conquered cities?

? So you would just ally them?

 

[Rekk]

? So you would just ally them?

Conquer a city, get a unit every X turns matching the civ of the city you conquered. X could be reduced by the number of cities you own of that civ.

 

[Enginseer]

Conquer a city, get a unit every X turns matching the civ of the city you conquered. X could be reduced by the number of cities you own of that civ.

I'd rather have the UB.

 

[Rekk]

I'd rather have the UB.

I definitely agree that UBs and UNWs are definitely more powerful than UUs in the long run, and I can't help that Ducal Stables, Wats and Missions are more interesting than Winged Hussars, Narusan Elephants and Conquistadors.

Plus, this would give something that Rome would otherwise not get from all of the UI (and UNW) civs, at the cost of having to be super aggressive against nearby Ancient Era civs. You'll probably miss out on the UUs of a bunch of civs on the other continent as well.

All assuming this is even programmable, anyway.

 

[pineappledan]

I’m fine with Rome taking UBs. It would be nice if civs would just stay in their own lane so Lua for UBs doesn’t have to trigger if rome’s in the game, but it’s that’s a minor headache reserved for custom civ modders.

I’m absolutely against Rome taking UNWs though.

 

[Minh Le]

It would be much more interesting if we can immitate the Auxiliary system of Rome in the game in some ways though.

 

[pineappledan]

It would be much more interesting if we can immitate the Auxiliary system of Rome in the game in some ways though.

Maybe you could do something like the authority finisher? Whenever a city hits a multiple of 8 it gifts a unit. Occupied cities gift relevant unique units at the relevant tech levels, based on the original city owner?

That could replace the tiles and buildings on conquest ability. Sounds tough to code tho

 

[Enginseer]

It would be much more interesting if we can immitate the Auxiliary system of Rome in the game in some ways though.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=514655444

 

[Rekk]

I’m fine with Rome taking UBs. It would be nice if civs would just stay in their own lane so Lua for UBs doesn’t have to trigger if rome’s in the game, but it’s that’s a minor headache reserved for custom civ modders.

I’m absolutely against Rome taking UNWs though.

If I have access to foreign auxiliaries in some way, I'd be okay with converting captured UBs into generic buildings, and maybe even allowing Rome to keep monuments/defense/military ... although if I recall correctly the current setup is currently all or nothing; you can't keep monuments but not National Wonders (@pineappledan suggestion of changing NeverCapture to 0% for the desired buildings notwithstanding).

 

[pineappledan]

On another topic besides my endless axe to grind re:Rome's UA, it's kinda poopy that the Legion's unique promotion is lost on upgrade. While it's nice that they retain their cover promotions, losing unique promotions is a lot less fun because they get to keep an interesting flavor into later eras. On the other hand, I understand that legions might simply be too powerful if they could keep their promotions, because allowing them to upgrade could mean high XP units with lots of defensive promotions, making them impossible to dislodge while causing too much damage.

Would reducing the pilum's damage to -5 be enough of a nerf that people would be okay with letting it stay on upgrade?