SiBr3's Hatshepsut 0.2.1 (beta)

[SiBr3]

Official discussion thread for the mod, available here

Please feel free to report bugs and leave suggestions or feedback

 

[Renouf]

Just finished the Antiquity age as new Hatshepsut in an explosive runaway game where I managed to get nearly every wonder. Age ended at 15/7 wonders, 22/20 resources.

The Great:

• This mod makes her civ choice wayyy more dynamic. In the base game she only really has synergy with Egypt, but here your starting civ can change your game massively. Mississippi for Monk's Mound? Khmer for Angkor Wat? I ended up choosing Aksum to snipe the Great Stele from the AI (immortal difficulty) and the +400 gold every time I finished a wonder in my capital was insane snowball for Antiquity.
• This didn't happen in my game because of that snowball-train, but you can definitely see a world where Deity AI is beating you to wonders but you're still focusing and nabbing the really strong ones. I like the strategy there on higher difficulties, especially in sniping a game-defining wonder like Angkor Wat pushing you down a tall-science path, Monk's Mound pushing you towards economic and trade, or Mausoleum setting you up for a crazy Bulgaria-Buganda. This Hatshepsut is one of the most strategic and flexible leaders in the entire game, comparable to Ibn Battuta's dynamism.
• I love the production bonus from resources. Is it OP? Maybe. But it's so fun I don't care. It's like having Tomb of Askia (the goat) in every city. Speaking of which I plan to go Songhai next and beeline that Tomb, so we'll see if the production stacking there breaks the game. It also pushes you towards heavy trading towards the end of the era no matter your wincon, which is fantastically thematic.

Wonders I can guarantee worked with my own eyeballs:

• Great Stele: Gave 400g every time you build a wonder, but very hard to take from AI
• Hanging Gardens: Gave me 2 expansionist points and supercharged my farms
• Gate of All Nations: Correctly gives +4 War Support. Instant Tubman
• PETRA <3: The glory days of civ6 Petra return. +2 production, +2 gold to all desert tiles in that city.
• Pyramids: +2 gold, +2 production on all river tiles. Goated on desert rivers with Petra
• Weiyang Palace: +12 Influence on one tile is nuts
• Mundo Perdido: Works like Petra, +2 science and happiness on tropical tiles
• Colossus: +6 resource slots, +2 economic points. Crazy. Settled a city just for this one wonder
• Monk's Mound: +8 resource slots. Obscene with Hatshepsut's production boost from resources. Can singlehandedly win you the econ victory
• Angkor Wat: Correctly gave +2 specialist slots to the city, leaving me at 3 specialist slots in total
• Byrsa, Oracle, Emile Bell: Byrsa's effect can't really double. Emile is similar, but shoutout to the +2 diplo points it gives you. Didn't check Oracle's numbers but I assume it worked
• Colosseum: +4 happiness on every quarter is crazy, basically makes buildings free. Great for surviving the happiness crisis that triggered
• Sanchi Stupa: Got curious, so looked at my yields and saw this worked exactly how you'd expect. +2 culture for every 5 excess happiness, which is more powerful than it sounds. Was able to skyrocket to +500 culture a turn after building this - not from this wonder alone, but the Sanchi-Colosseum combo was contributing at least +100 culture.

Potential Playthroughs / Wonder combos for Antiquity:

• Aksum, Great Stele + Wonder spam. The one I went with. Worked out for me, but probably not consistent - got very lucky sniping Stele from the AI. The most 'neutral' playthrough, unfocused, requires a big snowball which can potentially be boring. But this doesn't mean the leader is boring, you just have to focus your build a little:
• Egypt, Petra + Pyramids for beautiful yields in the Capital. These two give +4 production +4 gold on desert rivers. Pick up Hanging Gardens for the +2 food on farms if you're ahead. Beelining Ha'amonga a Maui in the tech tree is critical (AI loves this one), combined with Egypt's traditions it'll give navigable rivers +5 food, +5 culture in addition to the production / gold / flood yields.
• Khmer, Science focus. Nab Mundo Perdido early for a big leg up in science, then get Angkor Wat before anyone else with your civics tree. From there you can use your science advantage to get Pyramid of the Sun for the crazy +6 culture on quarters. Nalanda and JNR's Great Library can fit nicely here for a codex focus (though didn't have JNR's mod installed so couldn't test if it works). Hanging Gardens too if you invest the two expansionist points into specialist buffs, and the passive +20% growth is strong throughout the game.
• Mississippi, Resource slot focus. You'll get Monk's Mound really early in the civic tree (along with bonus resource slots in the Capital), so you can focus everything on getting Colossus. The Mississippi unique trader gives you gold back whenever you use it, meaning you can purchase a new one using the gold you made from the previous one to quickly fill your resource slots. Really take advantage of Hatshepsut's percentage boosts for having more resources slotted. If you're braver, I think there's potentially more slots with Carthage's cothon, and this would also propel Numidian Cavalry to oneshot levels of strength.
• Persia, War playthrough. Potentially the most fun. Open with Gate of All Nations for 4 war support on all wars, with military point and Ankus mementos we can stack this to +6 from early game. Eat your heart out Harriet. From there we want to beeline Terracotta Army for the 2 free Persian unique generals (who start with the best promotion in the game) and 50% commander xp. Build up your three big scary Persian armies and once another civ makes a wonder, you simply take it by force. It's your divine right, it'll be twice as good in your hands. We really want to beeline the Mausoleum of Theodoric in the civic tree for the +2 militaristic points and +200% pillage yields (assuming that part works) but the AI loves this wonder more than any in the game. No stress if they build it before you, you know what to do. March over there and make it yours. Prioritize conquering this wonder over all others because it sets up your exploration age really nicely (think of it like the military Angkor Wat) but also keep an eye out for Weiyang Palace (+12 influence just means more war support for you) and Dur Sharrukin (affects all your settlements, so will make your conquered cities absolute bloodbaths for the AI to take back). Another tip: standing a hostile unit on a wonder will stop the AI from completing it, so if someone's competing with you for something you want there's no shame in going to war just to park your unit on it for a 100 years. Another tip: Conquered wonders won't give you points towards the 7 World Wonders legacy path since they aren't yours. If this annoys you, try razing the city containing the wonders (this let you rebuild the wonders in previous games but I'm not sure how it works in 7 - if this works, priortize doing this on crappy AI Petras). End the age by buying 3 altars to become the Bulgars or buying 3 siege units to become the Mongols. If you managed to get Mausoleum Bulgaria will be even better, but either works, just really depends on your mood. Bulgaria into Buganda if you've decided you want to raid the world and funnel it into wonders of your own, that Rila Monastery can turn into Relics. Mongolia if you're having too much fun conquering cities and are happy to let the AI keep building the wonders for you.
• Maurya, Happiness build. Hopefully we start with tropical so we can open with Mundo Perdido for +2 happiness to each tile. From there focus Colosseum in the civic tree (AI usually ignores this one for a bit), and then get Sanchi Stupa from your civics. From there you want to pump excess happiness in your capital, amplified by the Mauryan quarter. Import as many dyes and llamas as you can. With the Mauryan traditions, this is going to give you +1 science, +1 gold, +2 culture for every 5 excess happiness, which adds up fast. You'll also want to pick up Emile Bell for the 2 diplomatic points which we can put into the happiness side of the tree to give +1 happiness per age for every resource in that city, allowing this to remain potent in future eras. For your two pantheons, a happiness increasing one is tempting if you have the terrain but you can't really go wrong with the 10% production towards wonders / +1 production on every mine double whammy, especially with your infinite celebrations giving you your government boost to wonder prod 24/7.

Suggestions:

• Balance wise, I think she is too strong. You said you didn't want her to be balanced which I can respect, if every leader was as interesting and fun as Ibn or Harriet the game would be a lot better imo (looking at you, Friedrich). I'll also acknowledge that I've only played her once in the first era and I had a really good, really lucky game where the AI failed to contest any important wonder. However, I still think she does a little too much... I shouldn't be getting 15 wonders in an Immortal game while I struggle to finish 7 normally. I don't think she needs the percentage production AND percentage gold AND culture AND influence from resources. The resource based scaling is already leagues better than base game where she only gets 15% production in her navigable river cities, which you're already passing once you slot 4 resources. Production is already the strongest resource in the game and its very sparingly used in leader design, compare with Augustus and Tecumseh. Also consider that these leaders usually have one form of scaling. Augustus has a flat 2prod bonus that scales off number of towns. Tecumseh has a flat 1prod per era bonus that scales off number of suzerains. Basegame Hatshepsut has a flat percentage that scales off the strength of your city's production (15% of total). Your Hatshepsut has two sources of production scaling, both scaling with the number of slotted resources in your city AND further scaling with it being 5% of the production already built up in that city. I'm only at Antiquity, but I predict it's going to get a little out of hand late game as my cities get better. If this was a flat number rather than a percentage like Augustus or Tecumseh (even a '1 per era' like Tecumseh) it would snowball less in late game - if indeed it does. Haven't got there yet. This would also add some strategic depth with resource shuffling, where you might want to cram resources in a new city to get it off the ground faster. Currently there's no reason to shuffle resources out of your capital since that new cities 5% is going to be infinitely smaller than my capital's 5%, but if it was '1 production' that could be a meaningful difference.
• Moving away from production, I think she simply gets too many free yields. It's thematically fitting but she just does too much. Basegame has two, culture and production. Here we have 4. I was able to remain competitive for every wonder in my game and suzerain 4 or 5 city states with my extra influence, letting me blitz through the civic and tech trees even faster. My suggestion, just cut two. And IMO it should definitely be the culture. This Hatshepsut is way more interesting when she has to strategically select wonders or choose her starting civ for their associated wonder to guarantee she'll get it earlier than everyone else. A lot of this strategic depth is gone when she has free culture boosting her up the civic tree to more wonders and her optimal playstyle becomes 'build every wonder in your capital' like I did - with the 'potential playthroughs' section hopefully I've proved she's more interesting when she has to fight for her wonders. Her wonder choice should be what makes her flexible and strategic, not her breadth of yields. I plan to do the 'wonder conquerer' playthrough next because it sounds fun as hell, and you wouldn't need any of the 4 yields for that one. You could probably cut the influence AND gold on top of that and she'd still be extremely good in all circumstances. Production is core to her identity and its the most fun - the rest are not really necessary.
• If you wanted to keep all four, I think you'd need to split it so your home resources give you the culture and influence, then the imported resources give you the production and gold, a bit like how she works in base game with that distinction between the two. But IMO that's less fun since it forces you into trade to get anything built, rather than trade being something you want to do naturally because it makes you even stronger. Of course, just having her be OP and owning it is a fine choice as well.
• Super minor thing but her 'False Beard' level 5 memento (+2 culture on wonders) is not affected in any way by this mod and I was wondering if this was intentional or not. Consistency wise, Isabella's mementos like '+2 gold per age on Natural Wonders' are doubled by her ability, giving +4 gold in Antiquity, but for Hatshepsut this is not the case. Was this an oversight or intentional to stop her snowballing through the culture tree? I see you've changed her static culture bonus to a 'per age' one which makes more sense, but this memento remains its basegame self of 2 culture on wonders always, which means it falls off past Antiquity. Giving Hatshepsut +4 culture on wonders with this memento might be too strong or it might be okay with her culture bonus from unique resources removed. In a perfect world, maybe it would be like a '+1 culture per age on Wonders', meaning she'd only get two with the double wonder yields in Antiquity, four in Explo, etc. But that would have the side effect of making it significantly worse for anyone running it in Antiquity who isn't Hatshepsut. There's also a cultural legacy that works the same way where its +1 culture and +1 happiness on wonders but I haven't checked to see if it interacts with her yet. Could be worth testing this too - it's actually a pretty weak legacy bonus basegame imo, so this mod could make it worth picking up if it gets doubled.

All in all, incredibly good mod that transforms Hatshepsut from one of the most boring and one-dimensional basegame leaders into one that's as fun as Isabella yet as strategic as Ibn Battuta. You could never touch this again and I think she'd still be one of my favourite leaders. Once I'm done with my Aksum game I'm definitely jumping back in to try a more focused playthrough

 

[SiBr3]

Just finished the Antiquity age as new Hatshepsut in an explosive runaway game where I managed to get nearly every wonder. Age ended at 15/7 wonders, 22/20 resources.

The Great:

• This mod makes her civ choice wayyy more dynamic. In the base game she only really has synergy with Egypt, but here your starting civ can change your game massively. Mississippi for Monk's Mound? Khmer for Angkor Wat? I ended up choosing Aksum to snipe the Great Stele from the AI (immortal difficulty) and the +400 gold every time I finished a wonder in my capital was insane snowball for Antiquity.
• This didn't happen in my game because of that snowball-train, but you can definitely see a world where Deity AI is beating you to wonders but you're still focusing and nabbing the really strong ones. I like the strategy there on higher difficulties, especially in sniping a game-defining wonder like Angkor Wat pushing you down a tall-science path, Monk's Mound pushing you towards economic and trade, or Mausoleum setting you up for a crazy Bulgaria-Buganda. This Hatshepsut is one of the most strategic and flexible leaders in the entire game, comparable to Ibn Battuta's dynamism.
• I love the production bonus from resources. Is it OP? Maybe. But it's so fun I don't care. It's like having Tomb of Askia (the goat) in every city. Speaking of which I plan to go Songhai next and beeline that Tomb, so we'll see if the production stacking there breaks the game. It also pushes you towards heavy trading towards the end of the era no matter your wincon, which is fantastically thematic.

Wonders I can guarantee worked with my own eyeballs:

• Great Stele: Gave 400g every time you build a wonder, but very hard to take from AI
• Hanging Gardens: Gave me 2 expansionist points and supercharged my farms
• Gate of All Nations: Correctly gives +4 War Support. Instant Tubman
• PETRA <3: The glory days of civ6 Petra return. +2 production, +2 gold to all desert tiles in that city.
• Pyramids: +2 gold, +2 production on all river tiles. Goated on desert rivers with Petra
• Weiyang Palace: +12 Influence on one tile is nuts
• Mundo Perdido: Works like Petra, +2 science and happiness on tropical tiles
• Colossus: +6 resource slots, +2 economic points. Crazy. Settled a city just for this one wonder
• Monk's Mound: +8 resource slots. Obscene with Hatshepsut's production boost from resources. Can singlehandedly win you the econ victory
• Angkor Wat: Correctly gave +2 specialist slots to the city, leaving me at 3 specialist slots in total
• Byrsa, Oracle, Emile Bell: Byrsa's effect can't really double. Emile is similar, but shoutout to the +2 diplo points it gives you. Didn't check Oracle's numbers but I assume it worked
• Colosseum: +4 happiness on every quarter is crazy, basically makes buildings free. Great for surviving the happiness crisis that triggered
• Sanchi Stupa: Got curious, so looked at my yields and saw this worked exactly how you'd expect. +2 culture for every 5 excess happiness, which is more powerful than it sounds. Was able to skyrocket to +500 culture a turn after building this - not from this wonder alone, but the Sanchi-Colosseum combo was contributing at least +100 culture.

Potential Playthroughs / Wonder combos for Antiquity:

• Aksum, Great Stele + Wonder spam. The one I went with. Worked out for me, but probably not consistent - got very lucky sniping Stele from the AI. The most 'neutral' playthrough, unfocused, requires a big snowball which can potentially be boring. But this doesn't mean the leader is boring, you just have to focus your build a little:
• Egypt, Petra + Pyramids for beautiful yields in the Capital. These two give +4 production +4 gold on desert rivers. Pick up Hanging Gardens for the +2 food on farms if you're ahead. Beelining Ha'amonga a Maui in the tech tree is critical (AI loves this one), combined with Egypt's traditions it'll give navigable rivers +5 food, +5 culture in addition to the production / gold / flood yields.
• Khmer, Science focus. Nab Mundo Perdido early for a big leg up in science, then get Angkor Wat before anyone else with your civics tree. From there you can use your science advantage to get Pyramid of the Sun for the crazy +6 culture on quarters. Nalanda and JNR's Great Library can fit nicely here for a codex focus (though didn't have JNR's mod installed so couldn't test if it works). Hanging Gardens too if you invest the two expansionist points into specialist buffs, and the passive +20% growth is strong throughout the game.
• Mississippi, Resource slot focus. You'll get Monk's Mound really early in the civic tree (along with bonus resource slots in the Capital), so you can focus everything on getting Colossus. The Mississippi unique trader gives you gold back whenever you use it, meaning you can purchase a new one using the gold you made from the previous one to quickly fill your resource slots. Really take advantage of Hatshepsut's percentage boosts for having more resources slotted. If you're braver, I think there's potentially more slots with Carthage's cothon, and this would also propel Numidian Cavalry to oneshot levels of strength.
• Persia, War playthrough. Potentially the most fun. Open with Gate of All Nations for 4 war support on all wars, with military point and Ankus mementos we can stack this to +6 from early game. Eat your heart out Harriet. From there we want to beeline Terracotta Army for the 2 free Persian unique generals (who start with the best promotion in the game) and 50% commander xp. Build up your three big scary Persian armies and once another civ makes a wonder, you simply take it by force. It's your divine right, it'll be twice as good in your hands. We really want to beeline the Mausoleum of Theodoric in the civic tree for the +2 militaristic points and +200% pillage yields (assuming that part works) but the AI loves this wonder more than any in the game. No stress if they build it before you, you know what to do. March over there and make it yours. Prioritize conquering this wonder over all others because it sets up your exploration age really nicely (think of it like the military Angkor Wat) but also keep an eye out for Weiyang Palace (+12 influence just means more war support for you) and Dur Sharrukin (affects all your settlements, so will make your conquered cities absolute bloodbaths for the AI to take back). Another tip: standing a hostile unit on a wonder will stop the AI from completing it, so if someone's competing with you for something you want there's no shame in going to war just to park your unit on it for a 100 years. Another tip: Conquered wonders won't give you points towards the 7 World Wonders legacy path since they aren't yours. If this annoys you, try razing the city containing the wonders (this let you rebuild the wonders in previous games but I'm not sure how it works in 7 - if this works, priortize doing this on crappy AI Petras). End the age by buying 3 altars to become the Bulgars or buying 3 siege units to become the Mongols. If you managed to get Mausoleum Bulgaria will be even better, but either works, just really depends on your mood. Bulgaria into Buganda if you've decided you want to raid the world and funnel it into wonders of your own, that Rila Monastery can turn into Relics. Mongolia if you're having too much fun conquering cities and are happy to let the AI keep building the wonders for you.
• Maurya, Happiness build. Hopefully we start with tropical so we can open with Mundo Perdido for +2 happiness to each tile. From there focus Colosseum in the civic tree (AI usually ignores this one for a bit), and then get Sanchi Stupa from your civics. From there you want to pump excess happiness in your capital, amplified by the Mauryan quarter. Import as many dyes and llamas as you can. With the Mauryan traditions, this is going to give you +1 science, +1 gold, +2 culture for every 5 excess happiness, which adds up fast. You'll also want to pick up Emile Bell for the 2 diplomatic points which we can put into the happiness side of the tree to give +1 happiness per age for every resource in that city, allowing this to remain potent in future eras. For your two pantheons, a happiness increasing one is tempting if you have the terrain but you can't really go wrong with the 10% production towards wonders / +1 production on every mine double whammy, especially with your infinite celebrations giving you your government boost to wonder prod 24/7.

Suggestions:

• Balance wise, I think she is too strong. You said you didn't want her to be balanced which I can respect, if every leader was as interesting and fun as Ibn or Harriet the game would be a lot better imo (looking at you, Friedrich). I'll also acknowledge that I've only played her once in the first era and I had a really good, really lucky game where the AI failed to contest any important wonder. However, I still think she does a little too much... I shouldn't be getting 15 wonders in an Immortal game while I struggle to finish 7 normally. I don't think she needs the percentage production AND percentage gold AND culture AND influence from resources. The resource based scaling is already leagues better than base game where she only gets 15% production in her navigable river cities, which you're already passing once you slot 4 resources. Production is already the strongest resource in the game and its very sparingly used in leader design, compare with Augustus and Tecumseh. Also consider that these leaders usually have one form of scaling. Augustus has a flat 2prod bonus that scales off number of towns. Tecumseh has a flat 1prod per era bonus that scales off number of suzerains. Basegame Hatshepsut has a flat percentage that scales off the strength of your city's production (15% of total). Your Hatshepsut has two sources of production scaling, both scaling with the number of slotted resources in your city AND further scaling with it being 5% of the production already built up in that city. I'm only at Antiquity, but I predict it's going to get a little out of hand late game as my cities get better. If this was a flat number rather than a percentage like Augustus or Tecumseh (even a '1 per era' like Tecumseh) it would snowball less in late game - if indeed it does. Haven't got there yet. This would also add some strategic depth with resource shuffling, where you might want to cram resources in a new city to get it off the ground faster. Currently there's no reason to shuffle resources out of your capital since that new cities 5% is going to be infinitely smaller than my capital's 5%, but if it was '1 production' that could be a meaningful difference.
• Moving away from production, I think she simply gets too many free yields. It's thematically fitting but she just does too much. Basegame has two, culture and production. Here we have 4. I was able to remain competitive for every wonder in my game and suzerain 4 or 5 city states with my extra influence, letting me blitz through the civic and tech trees even faster. My suggestion, just cut two. And IMO it should definitely be the culture. This Hatshepsut is way more interesting when she has to strategically select wonders or choose her starting civ for their associated wonder to guarantee she'll get it earlier than everyone else. A lot of this strategic depth is gone when she has free culture boosting her up the civic tree to more wonders and her optimal playstyle becomes 'build every wonder in your capital' like I did - with the 'potential playthroughs' section hopefully I've proved she's more interesting when she has to fight for her wonders. Her wonder choice should be what makes her flexible and strategic, not her breadth of yields. I plan to do the 'wonder conquerer' playthrough next because it sounds fun as hell, and you wouldn't need any of the 4 yields for that one. You could probably cut the influence AND gold on top of that and she'd still be extremely good in all circumstances. Production is core to her identity and its the most fun - the rest are not really necessary.
• If you wanted to keep all four, I think you'd need to split it so your home resources give you the culture and influence, then the imported resources give you the production and gold, a bit like how she works in base game with that distinction between the two. But IMO that's less fun since it forces you into trade to get anything built, rather than trade being something you want to do naturally because it makes you even stronger. Of course, just having her be OP and owning it is a fine choice as well.
• Super minor thing but her 'False Beard' level 5 memento (+2 culture on wonders) is not affected in any way by this mod and I was wondering if this was intentional or not. Consistency wise, Isabella's mementos like '+2 gold per age on Natural Wonders' are doubled by her ability, giving +4 gold in Antiquity, but for Hatshepsut this is not the case. Was this an oversight or intentional to stop her snowballing through the culture tree? I see you've changed her static culture bonus to a 'per age' one which makes more sense, but this memento remains its basegame self of 2 culture on wonders always, which means it falls off past Antiquity. Giving Hatshepsut +4 culture on wonders with this memento might be too strong or it might be okay with her culture bonus from unique resources removed. In a perfect world, maybe it would be like a '+1 culture per age on Wonders', meaning she'd only get two with the double wonder yields in Antiquity, four in Explo, etc. But that would have the side effect of making it significantly worse for anyone running it in Antiquity who isn't Hatshepsut. There's also a cultural legacy that works the same way where its +1 culture and +1 happiness on wonders but I haven't checked to see if it interacts with her yet. Could be worth testing this too - it's actually a pretty weak legacy bonus basegame imo, so this mod could make it worth picking up if it gets doubled.

All in all, incredibly good mod that transforms Hatshepsut from one of the most boring and one-dimensional basegame leaders into one that's as fun as Isabella yet as strategic as Ibn Battuta. You could never touch this again and I think she'd still be one of my favourite leaders. Once I'm done with my Aksum game I'm definitely jumping back in to try a more focused playthrough

I really appreciate your taking the time to put together this incredibly detailed write-up. All your points are fair and well-considered. It's difficult to see how these effects will scale without thorough play testing, so thank you for being a guinea pig.

I especially agree with what you're saying about her trying to do much. The wonders are their own reward, so I shouldn't necessarily hand them to her on a platter with extra bonuses. I'd like her to be a powerful choice, but rather through good planning than from straight up free handouts, so I'll definitely pare down some of the resource-related bonuses. I'll consider all your points for the next revision.

If I can figure out a good mechanism, I might make the wonders more expensive for the player to build, but with the reward being the payout from the doubling of yields and effects.

With regards to the mementos, I haven't yet got around to revising them to synergize with the mod. I'll revisit these in future revisions.

 

[Renouf]

Didn't finish my exploration age because I was so ahead it wasn't fun anymore, but can confirm the wonders generally seem to work. I ended around turn 30 for stats reference.

Tomb of Askia is the standout, giving 4 production per resource slotted. Was able to turn a new city into a 300 production, 600 gold one with just this wonder - god knows how crazy it would've gone in my capital with all the resource slots it had already.

Speaking of slots, the wonders in this age that give relic slots aren't doubled, but I suspect this is intentional. The wording for example with the House of Wisdom is 'GAIN 3 Relics. HAS 3 Relic slots' so the number of relics you gain is doubled to 6 but the slots stay 3.

Outside of Tomb of Askia, the wonders in this age aren't as directly game winning as in Antiquity - I suspect I was so far ahead because of my antiquity age, rather than anything in explo. Many of them are also Happiness wonders, so a Maurya traditions happiness build becomes a lot more powerful here. This build doesn't sound so strong on paper but I'm pretty sure Colosseum + Sanchi Stupa is why I entered the age with ~400 culture, increasing to ~900 by turn 30. For reference, here's the wonders that can compound happiness even further:

• Borobudur: +4 Happiness, +4 Food on all Quarters (global)
• Brihadeeswarar Temple: All buildings receive a +2 Happiness adjancency with navigable rivers (global)
• El Escorial: +8 Happiness on all cities within 7 tiles of this wonder
• White Tower: +8 Happiness in this settlement for every tradition in your government, must be built in a city that isn't your capital (great if you move it)

The other playstyle which can be continued in Explo is the beautiful rural yields one.

• Shwedagon Zedi Daw: +4 Science on rural tiles with a natural happiness yield, but must be built adjacent to lake
• Serpent Mound: +6 Science, +4 Production on unique improvements
• Forbidden City: +4 Culture, +4 Gold on fortification buildings. Can work nicely with Serpent Mound for a Chinese Great Wall or Bulgaria's Hidden Fortress build

There's also room for a tall build if you went Angkor Wat:

• Machu Pichu: +6 Culture, +6 Gold on adjacent buildings
• Notre Dame: +6 Culture on Specialists during Celebrations

The two 'strong in any circumstances' wonders are Rila Monastery (for two relics whenever you complete a wonder) and the Tomb of Askia for insane production and gold in a city. For this reason I think her two best explo civs are Songhai or Bulgaria to get them earlier, though maybe there's a case to be made for Inca. The AI tends to love beelining Rila, Tomb of Askia, Machu Pichu, Serpent Mound and El Escorial (which correctly gives you +2 settlement limit) so it's worth picking a civ who can get these earlier if they're core to your strategy. Of course her best playstyle is still 'get every wonder' but still her most boring. I think Tomb of Askia may make it worse for Explo, since as long as you get it and have decent enough culture you can easily 2 turn every wonder, especially with how Hatshepsut's production boosts stack with Tomb. Haven't played modern, I'll probably restart antiquity with a more focused build to keep the game more competitive, but her best modern pick is undoubtedly Mughals for the ability to buy wonders with gold.

 

[SiBr3]

SiBr3 updated SiBr3's Hatshepsut with a new update entry:

0.2 (beta)

• Balancing and tweaking of abilities
  • Wonder Yields and Effects are now doubled only in the age in which the wonder was constructed
  • Cities no longer receive a free resource slot for completing Wonders. Instead, 20% increase to Celebration length for that age (amounts to a 2 turn increase per Wonder on Standard Speed).
  • '+5% Production and Gold for each resource assigned to settlements' modified to >> '+1 Production and Gold per age to cities for each unique resource in...

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[SiBr3]

SiBr3 updated SiBr3's Hatshepsut with a new update entry:

0.2.1 (beta)

• Hotfix: +1 extra Culture for each unique Resource during celebrations now correctly associated with the False Beard memento. Was associated with Royal Mace in error.

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Renouf]

Guinea pig's back for another antiquity game with Hatshepsut! I played Egypt with Royal Mace and False Beard.

• Love the mementos. Having those parts of her kit as optional add-ons feels a lot better, and its also fun to run False Beard & Uraeus with other trade leaders. They're definitely among the strongest mementos in the game (compare how late '+1 influence on science buildings per age' kicks in compared to '+1 influence on unique resources per age, doubled in a celebration') but it doesn't bother me since anyone can run it. Excited to try them with Jose and his infinite celebrations.
• Royal Mace is a little wordy, and getting a free merchant is very rarely useful IMO since you want to be maxed out most of the time already, at least on Hatty. It's a bit like Civ 6 Peter where you've just got all these civilian units standing around with nowhere to send them. Would much prefer the '+1 Resource Slot from Wonders' to come back with Royal Mace, it's just more fun!
• I go back and forth whether 'wonders are only doubled during their own age' is the right choice. It hurts a lot of the inter-age synergies (Angkor Wat tall shenanigans, Great Wall spam with Petra x2 + Serpent Mound x2 + Forbidden City x2) - but at the same time stuff like Colosseum + Sanchi Stupa giving you 400 culture right from the rip is clearly far too strong. Not to mention a lot of the wonders only come at the end and are 'set up for next age' type wonders (Angkor Wat, Monks Mound) - though maybe that's more incentive to choose those civs as Hatshepsut to give you more time to play with them. All in all I think it's a necessary evil for balance but it's a sad one. Pour one out for the +200% yields from pillaging + Bulgaria combo I never got around to trying, and tbh the whole 'conqueror Hatshepsut' playstyle in general - less of a reason to do that since you'll lose their double effects at age rollover.
• The longer celebrations is interesting and even more thematic than before with her consolidating legitimacy from her construction projects. I like having that be the axis of the whole power, though it's weird she doesn't have the Diplomatic tag instead of Cultural with the celebration focus but that's getting ahead of ourselves.
• RESOURCES - I had 20 unique resources by turn 60 in my very average very normal game. I had five wonders by that point too, so my celebrations were lasting 20 turns. This was giving me 40 culture per turn (slightly more from the government bonus culture), 40 production in every city, and 40 gold in every city. The culture generation appeared to be fine, but unfortunately I think the production is still too high. My capital had strong production as expected, but the fact I was able to upgrade a new settlement to a city and then immediately get that 40 production to 1-turn buildings is a little crazy. My plan was even to cart over Egypt's unique people to rush wonders in my new cities - wasn't even necessary, they were able to complete the wonders I wanted in 3-6 turns.. If you're going to make further changes I think it should be here, some kind of '1 production and gold per age in settlements for each resource slotted' and leave the empire wide stuff to the mementos. Resource shuffling is balanced by you only having 2 resource slots in a new city, meaning at most you can slot in 8 production with two gypsum. Getting that 40 off the bat is a little nuts. And getting gold from cities forces you into this weird 'cities only no towns' playstyle where you don't need the gold from towns anymore and are way better off just having cities with no buildings in them. I know it's balanced by only being 40 during celebrations and 20 most of the time, but you're going to be in infinite celebration from halfway through the age onwards
• I can't speak on whether +40 Influence in Antiquity is balanced because I don't have that memento yet Just consider that when you give extra celebration length you're basically giving infinite celebrations once you hit six or seven wonders since you still gain happiness towards the next celebration while the current one is ongoing. That does sound like a lot of influence to have in Antiquity

Basically:

• Production is still too high
• Love the mementos
• Can't wait to see what you do with the Egypt rework

 

[SiBr3]

Guinea pig's back for another antiquity game with Hatshepsut! I played Egypt with Royal Mace and False Beard.

• Love the mementos. Having those parts of her kit as optional add-ons feels a lot better, and its also fun to run False Beard & Uraeus with other trade leaders. They're definitely among the strongest mementos in the game (compare how late '+1 influence on science buildings per age' kicks in compared to '+1 influence on unique resources per age, doubled in a celebration') but it doesn't bother me since anyone can run it. Excited to try them with Jose and his infinite celebrations.
• Royal Mace is a little wordy, and getting a free merchant is very rarely useful IMO since you want to be maxed out most of the time already, at least on Hatty. It's a bit like Civ 6 Peter where you've just got all these civilian units standing around with nowhere to send them. Would much prefer the '+1 Resource Slot from Wonders' to come back with Royal Mace, it's just more fun!
• I go back and forth whether 'wonders are only doubled during their own age' is the right choice. It hurts a lot of the inter-age synergies (Angkor Wat tall shenanigans, Great Wall spam with Petra x2 + Serpent Mound x2 + Forbidden City x2) - but at the same time stuff like Colosseum + Sanchi Stupa giving you 400 culture right from the rip is clearly far too strong. Not to mention a lot of the wonders only come at the end and are 'set up for next age' type wonders (Angkor Wat, Monks Mound) - though maybe that's more incentive to choose those civs as Hatshepsut to give you more time to play with them. All in all I think it's a necessary evil for balance but it's a sad one. Pour one out for the +200% yields from pillaging + Bulgaria combo I never got around to trying, and tbh the whole 'conqueror Hatshepsut' playstyle in general - less of a reason to do that since you'll lose their double effects at age rollover.
• The longer celebrations is interesting and even more thematic than before with her consolidating legitimacy from her construction projects. I like having that be the axis of the whole power, though it's weird she doesn't have the Diplomatic tag instead of Cultural with the celebration focus but that's getting ahead of ourselves.
• RESOURCES - I had 20 unique resources by turn 60 in my very average very normal game. I had five wonders by that point too, so my celebrations were lasting 20 turns. This was giving me 40 culture per turn (slightly more from the government bonus culture), 40 production in every city, and 40 gold in every city. The culture generation appeared to be fine, but unfortunately I think the production is still too high. My capital had strong production as expected, but the fact I was able to upgrade a new settlement to a city and then immediately get that 40 production to 1-turn buildings is a little crazy. My plan was even to cart over Egypt's unique people to rush wonders in my new cities - wasn't even necessary, they were able to complete the wonders I wanted in 3-6 turns.. If you're going to make further changes I think it should be here, some kind of '1 production and gold per age in settlements for each resource slotted' and leave the empire wide stuff to the mementos. Resource shuffling is balanced by you only having 2 resource slots in a new city, meaning at most you can slot in 8 production with two gypsum. Getting that 40 off the bat is a little nuts. And getting gold from cities forces you into this weird 'cities only no towns' playstyle where you don't need the gold from towns anymore and are way better off just having cities with no buildings in them. I know it's balanced by only being 40 during celebrations and 20 most of the time, but you're going to be in infinite celebration from halfway through the age onwards
• I can't speak on whether +40 Influence in Antiquity is balanced because I don't have that memento yet Just consider that when you give extra celebration length you're basically giving infinite celebrations once you hit six or seven wonders since you still gain happiness towards the next celebration while the current one is ongoing. That does sound like a lot of influence to have in Antiquity

Basically:

• Production is still too high
• Love the mementos
• Can't wait to see what you do with the Egypt rework

Love the mementos. Having those parts of her kit as optional add-ons feels a lot better, and its also fun to run False Beard & Uraeus with other trade leaders. They're definitely among the strongest mementos in the game (compare how late '+1 influence on science buildings per age' kicks in compared to '+1 influence on unique resources per age, doubled in a celebration') but it doesn't bother me since anyone can run it. Excited to try them with Jose and his infinite celebrations.

Yes, and I think Uraeus makes missing out on City Patron a non-issue.

Royal Mace is a little wordy, and getting a free merchant is very rarely useful IMO since you want to be maxed out most of the time already, at least on Hatty. It's a bit like Civ 6 Peter where you've just got all these civilian units standing around with nowhere to send them. Would much prefer the '+1 Resource Slot from Wonders' to come back with Royal Mace, it's just more fun!

Great point, and yes I did notice the merchants stacking up a bit, especially when your neighbours start warring with you. I could certainly put the resource slot ability here quite easily. And I don't think any other mementos have a similar ability. I think it was too much for the main ability, but for a memento I think it could be justified.

I go back and forth whether 'wonders are only doubled during their own age' is the right choice. It hurts a lot of the inter-age synergies (Angkor Wat tall shenanigans, Great Wall spam with Petra x2 + Serpent Mound x2 + Forbidden City x2) - but at the same time stuff like Colosseum + Sanchi Stupa giving you 400 culture right from the rip is clearly far too strong. Not to mention a lot of the wonders only come at the end and are 'set up for next age' type wonders (Angkor Wat, Monks Mound) - though maybe that's more incentive to choose those civs as Hatshepsut to give you more time to play with them. All in all I think it's a necessary evil for balance but it's a sad one. Pour one out for the +200% yields from pillaging + Bulgaria combo I never got around to trying, and tbh the whole 'conqueror Hatshepsut' playstyle in general - less of a reason to do that since you'll lose their double effects at age rollover.

I won't rule out rolling it back, but I wanted to see how games would play out this way. Originally, before I posted 0.1, I had it as 'Wonder yields and effects are doubled when Hatshepsut has the most Wonders', but I found that was really not that hard to meet, or if you fell behind in one era, you'd never catch up, so the ability would essentially be useless. I've also tested a -100% Production penalty for X turns after building Wonders. That would mean you have to be more selective in what Wonders you go for, or be forced to spread your wonder construction out among different cities. The auto-play tests of this penalty really slowed down AI Hatshepsut's wonder output, and she'd constantly get Wonder's sniped.

I also have a concept for a compromise, where each wonder would get a great work slot, and you'd earn a certain number of amulets (think heart scarab, ankh, Eye of Horus, etc) each age that you could slot into Wonders to apply the yield doubling effect.

The longer celebrations is interesting and even more thematic than before with her consolidating legitimacy from her construction projects. I like having that be the axis of the whole power, though it's weird she doesn't have the Diplomatic tag instead of Cultural with the celebration focus but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

If you're going to make further changes I think it should be here, some kind of '1 production and gold per age in settlements for each resource slotted' and leave the empire wide stuff to the mementos. Resource shuffling is balanced by you only having 2 resource slots in a new city, meaning at most you can slot in 8 production with two gypsum. Getting that 40 off the bat is a little nuts. And getting gold from cities forces you into this weird 'cities only no towns' playstyle where you don't need the gold from towns anymore and are way better off just having cities with no buildings in them. I know it's balanced by only being 40 during celebrations and 20 most of the time, but you're going to be in infinite celebration from halfway through the age onwards

Fair points, and I had feared it would be the case. I was determined to link her city/settlement production resource abilities to unique resources, but the game has no specific effect available for doing it, only for player-level yields. So the way the current ability works behind the scenes is: Grant yield >> to all cities >> if player has at least one Cotton resource. Copy and paste for every resource available in the age. I've been testing a modification of this, where you would receive the production/gold yield per unique resource slotted in the city, so it would pay to have variety in your resources slotted. The caveat of this would be that you get no extra benefit from unique Empire resources, which would be a shame. A variation of that could be, player-level gold from unique empire resources, city-level production from slotted unique city/bonus resources. And then there's whether to do a flat or percentage yield. Percentages are good in that they're only as strong as your intrinsic production output, so it's kept in check that way. But having said that, percentages are slow to kick in unless they're quite high, but if they're too high, they start to snowball. Anyway, I'll do some more testing with this ability, so watch this space.

I can't speak on whether +40 Influence in Antiquity is balanced because I don't have that memento yet Just consider that when you give extra celebration length you're basically giving infinite celebrations once you hit six or seven wonders since you still gain happiness towards the next celebration while the current one is ongoing. That does sound like a lot of influence to have in Antiquity

Yes, there's probably some room for balancing here.

Can't wait to see what you do with the Egypt rework

It's definitely a work in progress. It's probably too OP and has too many fingers in too many pies as it stands. I'm also not sure whether the AI can cope with the settlement limit ability. I gave the AI a massive bias towards settling on Fresh Water as a countermeasure. I've attached it if you feel like playing around with it. The Hyksos Bow ability doesn't work at the moment, but everything else is functioning fine as far as I'm aware. I've also included the Unlock All Mementos mod if you wanted to try any mementos you haven't unlocked yet. I don't think it's available for download anymore, or at least not anywhere easy to find.

Thanks again for your ideas and general guinea-piggery.