Giffica
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2014
- Messages
- 32
Working on adding an Akkad civ, but I am certainly not talented enough to do any of the art stuff, so I'm merely using a default template. The civ is specifically going to be with my custom edits of the YNAMP Europe map which has me setting up a pre-bronze age collapse style game, with custom TSL's, customs civs, and some changes to tiles and the geography of the map (to better fit the era, and to reflect the river geography of the day). None of that changes anything about the civ, other than I guess potentially some abilities may be more useful in my setup than on average, making it a kinda meh civ. However, I would like to ask for some help, and some opinions. These are the civs specifics so far:
Leader Bonus - King of All Men
Reduced maintenance cost on units
Leader Agenda
Tries to include as much territory as possible to his empire. Does not like civilizations which control little territory.
Always tries to keep a large standing army. Respect other civilizations with large armies.
Civilization - Akkad
Ability - The First Empire
Upon conquering a city state or capital, you receive an infantry unit
Unit - Composite Bowmen
3 range, +3 strength??
Building - Temple of Ishtar (shrine)
+1 greater writer points, Apostle's gain +charge
So I've tried to maintain as much strategic value as possible, but also allow the abilities to synergize in an interesting way. Sargon was chiefly known for his historic military conquests, but I tried to choose effects that don't just give raw bonuses, but rather provide strategic value, even outside of war (potentially).
The Temple of Ishtar reflects Sargon's appointment of his daughter as priestess of the temple, and her writings which were passed down through tradition. Ideally I want to also change Sumeria to also have a great writing bonus, as these two nations really did form the foundation of civilizations mythos. The apostle charge allows Sargon to leverage his religion in his conquests, something he historically did, founding temples to ishtar, and using it to culturally (religiously at that time) unite the region.
Sargon and the Akkadians introduced the composite bowmen to their army, and it was specifically known for having a larger range and larger piercing power. This is what the range and strength ideally reflect. The range I like as while archers are already quite weak, this will give the Akkadians a unit to build that their neighbors generally will not get much use out of. The reason being is that my personal game will include Sumer, Elam, Assyria, and numerous other nations. Sumer relies on war carts, while I have yet to build Elam or Assyria. However, both were more infantry based, rather than complexly trained militaries. Sargon is the one who introduced that concept, thus enabling archers/warcarts/horsemen/trained phalanx soldiers to a degree others could not at the time. Sumer's war carts will enable early dominance of mesopotamia, but the rivers will prevent them really from fully conquering the land. So a nation like Akkad will ideally gain military dominance post war-cart period. This would be when archers start to become more effective. So ideally, that's what I wanted the composite bowmen to provide. A nice military niche for Sargon, and for less offensive players, a very good way to defend your cities early.
Now, the reduced maintenance cost will obviously help immensely. It's a pretty strong ability in my experience, so I think it's satisfying enough. It also is a defensively useful military ability as well, not just a domination ability like many others. This reflects Sargon being the first one to create a standing army in world history. He did so at a time where having a large army would be very expensive (he circumvented this by a combination of loyalty/legitimacy, and a very efficient/money saving bureaucracy. I would add something related to roads or postal system (two other things he revolutionized), but that might be too strong? Opinions?
The ability is especially nice for my game, but also I think is what gives Sargon such snowball potential. In my game there will be literally 7-8 city states/capitals within 10 tiles of Akkad. No joke. So he will have the historical ability to, in the span of a very short period, completely conquer that region (or any large region in any game he is in). Empire building was Sargon's VERY SKILL. But he also instituted a practice where conquered city states paid tribute to him in the form of soldiers. This was a major contributing factor in his success.
Without proper use of the civ ability, Sargon will find his military quite weak. Sargon is a ruler that flourished through constantly military conquest, with a do or die mentality. He was constantly suppressing revolts of city states breaking free, and, if my custom game works out well, Sargon/Akkad can even revive themselves, like they historically do many times, if they lose capitals/city states. While maintenance provides a cushion to your economy, it does not directly help you in any way militarily. Sargon's only "advantage" could be said to be his efficiency in keeping and raising soldiers at a time where formal militaries did not even exist. In this way, the maintenance and city conquering synergize very well, and the addition of a strategically useful archer early on will help him gain the "advantage" he needs to dominate. Ofc, he is an early domination oriented civ, but if you don't conquer early, when Sargon will see the most use of his numbers advantage, you may not have enough to win a long term game. +1 great writer and +1 apostle charge doesn't seal a victory, or really help much.
In much the same way Sargon reflects humanities earliest efforts to create a civilization, this Sargon civ reflects a players need to create a foundation for their civilization early on in the game, and if done correctly allows a player to dominate a game.
The chief weakness of Sargon is his inability to necessarily get his snowball rolling, which would be accurate. Sargon founded the city of Akkad from virtually nothing, so to conquer your first city state/civ you will not have very many advantages. However, if you can get that first city state, then another players capital, you're military numbers will be too large for anyone else to really stop. However, Sargon must conquer early. Larger on gaining a single unit is not going to swing a game. Especially when you only gain that unit on capital conquest. Early on, when the ratio of capitals to cities is very even, most cities you conquer will need a solider. Later on however, you will need to eat 10 cities before taking a capital, definitely not that useful later (although, still decently strong, and definitely can help ALL game).
My question. How the heck do I actually code such an ability? It's possible, because the Macedon/Persia DLC added some modifier that allowed Alex to gain a unit on conquest, I just don't know where that is to copy, or what exactly I would need to write. The other abilities I can figure out though.
If I actually get this civ working, I plan to create a minimum of 6 civs, probably more.Those would include:
Sumerian rulers (Eannatum of Lagash, Enmebaragesi and Ur-Zababa of Kish, Lugal-zage-si of Uruk, and Ur-Nammu and Shugi of Ur)
Assyria (probably Ashurbanipal, I think there may even be demand for this civ)
Hittites (Mursili II, maybe a demand for them as well?)
Ebla (Irkab-Damu)
Mari (Iblul - II)
Elam (Kutik-Inshushinak)
Medians (Cyaxares)
Better Egypt Civ
Arabians? (Moabites, Amorites, etc)
So if anyone has any opinions and can tell me what the code would look like for such an ability, that would be awesome!
Leader Bonus - King of All Men
Reduced maintenance cost on units
Leader Agenda
Tries to include as much territory as possible to his empire. Does not like civilizations which control little territory.
Always tries to keep a large standing army. Respect other civilizations with large armies.
Civilization - Akkad
Ability - The First Empire
Upon conquering a city state or capital, you receive an infantry unit
Unit - Composite Bowmen
3 range, +3 strength??
Building - Temple of Ishtar (shrine)
+1 greater writer points, Apostle's gain +charge
So I've tried to maintain as much strategic value as possible, but also allow the abilities to synergize in an interesting way. Sargon was chiefly known for his historic military conquests, but I tried to choose effects that don't just give raw bonuses, but rather provide strategic value, even outside of war (potentially).
The Temple of Ishtar reflects Sargon's appointment of his daughter as priestess of the temple, and her writings which were passed down through tradition. Ideally I want to also change Sumeria to also have a great writing bonus, as these two nations really did form the foundation of civilizations mythos. The apostle charge allows Sargon to leverage his religion in his conquests, something he historically did, founding temples to ishtar, and using it to culturally (religiously at that time) unite the region.
Sargon and the Akkadians introduced the composite bowmen to their army, and it was specifically known for having a larger range and larger piercing power. This is what the range and strength ideally reflect. The range I like as while archers are already quite weak, this will give the Akkadians a unit to build that their neighbors generally will not get much use out of. The reason being is that my personal game will include Sumer, Elam, Assyria, and numerous other nations. Sumer relies on war carts, while I have yet to build Elam or Assyria. However, both were more infantry based, rather than complexly trained militaries. Sargon is the one who introduced that concept, thus enabling archers/warcarts/horsemen/trained phalanx soldiers to a degree others could not at the time. Sumer's war carts will enable early dominance of mesopotamia, but the rivers will prevent them really from fully conquering the land. So a nation like Akkad will ideally gain military dominance post war-cart period. This would be when archers start to become more effective. So ideally, that's what I wanted the composite bowmen to provide. A nice military niche for Sargon, and for less offensive players, a very good way to defend your cities early.
Now, the reduced maintenance cost will obviously help immensely. It's a pretty strong ability in my experience, so I think it's satisfying enough. It also is a defensively useful military ability as well, not just a domination ability like many others. This reflects Sargon being the first one to create a standing army in world history. He did so at a time where having a large army would be very expensive (he circumvented this by a combination of loyalty/legitimacy, and a very efficient/money saving bureaucracy. I would add something related to roads or postal system (two other things he revolutionized), but that might be too strong? Opinions?
The ability is especially nice for my game, but also I think is what gives Sargon such snowball potential. In my game there will be literally 7-8 city states/capitals within 10 tiles of Akkad. No joke. So he will have the historical ability to, in the span of a very short period, completely conquer that region (or any large region in any game he is in). Empire building was Sargon's VERY SKILL. But he also instituted a practice where conquered city states paid tribute to him in the form of soldiers. This was a major contributing factor in his success.
Without proper use of the civ ability, Sargon will find his military quite weak. Sargon is a ruler that flourished through constantly military conquest, with a do or die mentality. He was constantly suppressing revolts of city states breaking free, and, if my custom game works out well, Sargon/Akkad can even revive themselves, like they historically do many times, if they lose capitals/city states. While maintenance provides a cushion to your economy, it does not directly help you in any way militarily. Sargon's only "advantage" could be said to be his efficiency in keeping and raising soldiers at a time where formal militaries did not even exist. In this way, the maintenance and city conquering synergize very well, and the addition of a strategically useful archer early on will help him gain the "advantage" he needs to dominate. Ofc, he is an early domination oriented civ, but if you don't conquer early, when Sargon will see the most use of his numbers advantage, you may not have enough to win a long term game. +1 great writer and +1 apostle charge doesn't seal a victory, or really help much.
In much the same way Sargon reflects humanities earliest efforts to create a civilization, this Sargon civ reflects a players need to create a foundation for their civilization early on in the game, and if done correctly allows a player to dominate a game.
The chief weakness of Sargon is his inability to necessarily get his snowball rolling, which would be accurate. Sargon founded the city of Akkad from virtually nothing, so to conquer your first city state/civ you will not have very many advantages. However, if you can get that first city state, then another players capital, you're military numbers will be too large for anyone else to really stop. However, Sargon must conquer early. Larger on gaining a single unit is not going to swing a game. Especially when you only gain that unit on capital conquest. Early on, when the ratio of capitals to cities is very even, most cities you conquer will need a solider. Later on however, you will need to eat 10 cities before taking a capital, definitely not that useful later (although, still decently strong, and definitely can help ALL game).
My question. How the heck do I actually code such an ability? It's possible, because the Macedon/Persia DLC added some modifier that allowed Alex to gain a unit on conquest, I just don't know where that is to copy, or what exactly I would need to write. The other abilities I can figure out though.
If I actually get this civ working, I plan to create a minimum of 6 civs, probably more.Those would include:
Sumerian rulers (Eannatum of Lagash, Enmebaragesi and Ur-Zababa of Kish, Lugal-zage-si of Uruk, and Ur-Nammu and Shugi of Ur)
Assyria (probably Ashurbanipal, I think there may even be demand for this civ)
Hittites (Mursili II, maybe a demand for them as well?)
Ebla (Irkab-Damu)
Mari (Iblul - II)
Elam (Kutik-Inshushinak)
Medians (Cyaxares)
Better Egypt Civ
Arabians? (Moabites, Amorites, etc)
So if anyone has any opinions and can tell me what the code would look like for such an ability, that would be awesome!
I'm kidding, I was planning to make him at some point in the near future.
