[submod] Cross' Overhaul: Wu, Bulgaria, Fatimids, Macedon, Iroquois, Armenia, Parthia, Minoans, Ghurids, Timurids, Khazars, Xia, Shu, Nigeria, Zulu

[Tigranes]

I know Siege Elephant looks cool for Ghurids, who now represent all Northern Muslim Indian states, including Delhi but excluding Mughals. However it just doesn't fit the military focus of Ghurid civ. Muslim and Hindu states in the south were more advanced in artillery compared to the Delhi rulers of this period because of their contact with the outside world, especially Turkey, through the sea route.

Of course Delhi Sultanate did utilize some gunpowder weapons, but always to a lesser extent compared to later empires like the Mughals. The most notable example being the Delhi Sultanate's defeat by Babur of the Mughal Empire at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526, where Babur's superior gunpowder weaponry proved decisive.

I understand your reasons for not giving Siege Elephants to Timurids, but they don't define Ghurids at all. Some other flavor unit is needed for them.

 

[Crossphazer]

I know Siege Elephant looks cool for Ghurids, who now represent all Northern Muslim Indian states, including Delhi but excluding Mughals. However it just doesn't fit the military focus of Ghurid civ. Muslim and Hindu states in the south were more advanced in artillery compared to the Delhi rulers of this period because of their contact with the outside world, especially Turkey, through the sea route.

Of course Delhi Sultanate did utilize some gunpowder weapons, but always to a lesser extent compared to later empires like the Mughals. The most notable example being the Delhi Sultanate's defeat by Babur of the Mughal Empire at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526, where Babur's superior gunpowder weaponry proved decisive.

I understand your reasons for not giving Siege Elephants to Timurids, but they don't define Ghurids at all. Some other flavor unit is needed for them.

I'll look into it. I don't like the SoI Mujahideen UU because I don't really see their heavy infantry as something special. Maybe an armored elephant from one of the other civs or another similar unit model. Might shift the elephant cannons to another civ as a result. We'll see.

Edit: maybe a heavy spearman UU. There are very few of those. Something like the Veteran Muslim Spearmen of the Ghurid army list from Field of Glory II Medieval. Otherwise an armored elephant is like I said above.

New Patch
Timurids no longer independence civ, but spawn can still be avoided if the human player is Mongols or Turks and is stable.

 

[Crossphazer]

New Patch

• Ghurid Mujahideen Spears unit
• Siege Elephant moved from Ghurids to Dravidia
• New model for middle eastern archer (more generic)
• New artstyle specific to Egypt for archer
• Persia starts at war with Assyria (but not Babylonia or others)

 

[Tigranes]

Great updates!
Timurids start without Advanced Start mechanics, is that intentional?

The weirdest thing happened to me: Timurids spawned with a Settler, because 1S Kesh had to be razed to make room for Samarkand, but founding Samarkand gave me free Silver Tree wonder immediately! Is this a new mechanics?

Spoiler P.S. :

Did you have a chance to look into Cretan Olive Hill situation, please? I really want to try 2-city Crete Minoan strategy.

 

[Alamart]

Great updates!
Timurids start without Advanced Start mechanics, is that intentional?

The weirdest thing happened to me: Timurids spawned with a Settler, because 1S Kesh had to be razed to make room for Samarkand, but founding Samarkand gave me free Silver Tree wonder immediately! Is this a new mechanics?

Spoiler P.S. :

Did you have a chance to look into Cretan Olive Hill situation, please? I really want to try 2-city Crete Minoan strategy.

Ghurids too

 

[WhiteEyes]

I don't mind if Ghazi moved from the Arabs to any Central-West Asian Muslim civs but Mujahidin could work too I guess.

 

[Alamart]

Is it possible to reduce the likelihood of Persia adopting Zoroastrianism in the event of respawning after the Arab conquest? Otherwise, I constantly see how the respawned Shiite Saffarids accept Zoroastrianism a few turns after respawning.

 

[Tigranes]

Is it possible to reduce the likelihood of Persia adopting Zoroastrianism in the event of respawning after the Arab conquest? Otherwise, I constantly see how the respawned Shiite Saffarids accept Zoroastrianism a few turns after respawning.

Yeah, something fishy is going on with Sunni Islam spread in Khorasan/Sentral Asia/south Persia sometimes. On all my Timurid starts I need to use my missionaries and build some more because there is a notable lack of Sunni Islam in many cities.

 

[Alamart]

Achieved the first and second historic victories for Delhi. I didn’t immediately realize that I needed to conquer the city of Tibet in the very northeast of India, and I didn’t immediately realize that only cavalry and not infantry could get there, but in the end the conquest of Hindustan was over

 

[Alamart]

Well, with all his might he repelled the invasion of the Timurids and this is a historic victory. Played on Monarch difficulty and Marathon speed. I think I’ll try to play further to try to stop the European invasion and modernize the state.

 

[Crossphazer]

Great updates!
Timurids start without Advanced Start mechanics, is that intentional?

The weirdest thing happened to me: Timurids spawned with a Settler, because 1S Kesh had to be razed to make room for Samarkand, but founding Samarkand gave me free Silver Tree wonder immediately! Is this a new mechanics?

Spoiler P.S. :

Did you have a chance to look into Cretan Olive Hill situation, please? I really want to try 2-city Crete Minoan strategy.

Ghurids too

Yes in both cases, the regions they spawn into are fairly well developed and they spawn with a large army so I don't think they really need any advanced start points. Maybe like 20 points so they can build any missing/pillaged roads from the capital.

I have not made a mechanic for giving Silver Tree Fountain. You had this occur every time? It's possible it's a mechanic that gives you wonders from the city you destroy when you spawn. So the wonder may have been in Kesh before it was destroyed. I don't actually know, it's just a hypothesis.

Edit:
I have reviewed the code for civ Rise (spawn) and indeed, if a city is destroyed to make room for a civ's first city, the wonders are rebuilt in the new city. I'm pretty sure that's what happened to you.

Is it possible to reduce the likelihood of Persia adopting Zoroastrianism in the event of respawning after the Arab conquest? Otherwise, I constantly see how the respawned Shiite Saffarids accept Zoroastrianism a few turns after respawning.

Yeah, something fishy is going on with Sunni Islam spread in Khorasan/Sentral Asia/south Persia sometimes. On all my Timurid starts I need to use my missionaries and build some more because there is a notable lack of Sunni Islam in many cities.

Since Persia has the Zoroastrian holy city, it will always be tempting for a civ based in Persia to adopt Zoroastrianism. However I have ran a ton of games and only maybe 1 out 10 times have I seen Iran become Zoroastrian. I will continue to play with the spread factors of Sunni and Shia both in Persia and other regions.

 

[Crossphazer]

New Patch

• Give classical-era conquerors the same city raider promotions as later conquerors
• Increase Phoenician unit production cost modifiers
• Select random GP if no GP points when Silver Tree Fountain power activates
• Gaul name for Celts vassal of Rome
• France name as Francia when vassal of Rome
• Nerf Rome maintenance modifiers
• Reduce number of conqueror stacks Rome gets
• Reduce number of Roman/Byzantine kills for Parthia UHV2 from 35 to 30
• Wu text key name fixes
• Spread hinduism/islam to southeast asia regardless of if there are any civs alive there
• Spread Islam to Central Asia in medieval period
• Spread Shia to historical Shia hotspots during medieval period

 

[Tigranes]

Mongols collapsing to Natives in Central Asia feels like a bug...

 

[Crossphazer]

View attachment 709996

Mongols collapsing to Natives in Central Asia feels like a bug...

Yeah, that shouldn't be happening for that region and era. I think I know what to change to fix this.

 

[Crossphazer]

New Patch

• Make Tagmata accessible as a UU for the player as well
  • Give tagmata movement 1 so that the AI doesn't delete the unit.
  • Remove city garrison 3 on tagmata to make it less OP when used by player.
• Extend Dravidia fall date to 1750
• Extend India fall date to 1150
• Restrict whole-of-India Indian rebirth zone to period in industrial era or later
• Add new rebirth periods to Dravidia and India
• Combine "Huna" and Hephtalite Hunnic spawns into one barbarian wave
• Turks start at war with Kushans. Slightly buffed starting units.
• Move India spawn from -600 to -650
• Collapse-to-natives/barbarian check now uses the collapsing player Era rather than the global era.
• Give Timurids more units per stack for the Punjab conquerors.
• Timurids do not start at war with Ottomans (let them focus on Ghurids first).
• Tweak Timurid war map priorities.
• Make Sunni-preferring leaders somewhat averse to Shia and Shia-preferring leaders very averse to Sunni.
• Make Sunni or Shia-preferring leaders averse to Zoroastrianism.
• Give Swahili's leader a preference for Shia.
• Add single extra Macedonian conqueror stack for Punjab if Macedon secures its Persian conquest box (does not need to include Herat)

 

[Tigranes]

Case for 2-city Tibet:

With the new map Tibet does not have to be 1-city civ anymore. If we simply add freshwater lake Manasarovar, it will be possible to have initially Indy city of Kyunglung there. It was the capital of ancient Zhangzhung kingdom, existing from about 500 BCE to 625 CE, pre-dating Tibetan Buddhism. The Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophies and practices of Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan emperor Songtsen Gampo conquered and unified the Zhangzhung lands with Tibet. The freshwater lake and possibility for another city in Tibet will not change balance or noticeably slow down the game but will make a better use of enlarged map, will allow some action in Tibet proper before going to China and in general will make it harder to vassalize this cool civ.

 

[Crossphazer]

Case for 2-city Tibet:

With the new map Tibet does not have to be 1-city civ anymore. If we simply add freshwater lake Manasarovar, it will be possible to have initially Indy city of Kyunglung there. It was the capital of ancient Zhangzhung kingdom, existing from about 500 BCE to 625 CE, pre-dating Tibetan Buddhism. The Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophies and practices of Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan emperor Songtsen Gampo conquered and unified the Zhangzhung lands with Tibet. The freshwater lake and possibility for another city in Tibet will not change balance or noticeably slow down the game but will make a better use of enlarged map, will allow some action in Tibet proper before going to China and in general will make it harder to vassalize this cool civ.

View attachment 710099

I will have to look into the geography of that region a bit more before I make a determination about what to change or add.

 

[Landyn Linhares]

no way my king 1sdani is here

 

[Landyn Linhares]

playing as the parthians, and after Macedon collapsed Persepolis became a native city

 

[Crossphazer]

playing as the parthians, and after Macedon collapsed Persepolis became a native cityView attachment 710126

Yes, that's normal, in classical or ancient era, civs can collapse to native, barbarian or both types of indies. In medieval era, they can collapse to barbarian or indies. American and African civs collapse to native prior to Nationalism being discovered by anyone.

New Patch

• Tiles on, east and south of Ur starts as Lagoon, becomes Desert.
  • Basrah/Ur tile stays lagoon
• Remove free Egyptian archer.
• Move Shushan spawn up to interfere with Sumeria less
• Modify some early civ tech priorities to help Babylonia UHV
• Change some early civ wonder building priorities to help Babylonia UHV
• Alter Babylonian UHV to work better with starting in Sumeria.
• Switch up some 3000BC civ techs
• Babylonia starts with extra worker due its reliance on getting cottages online earlier than the other civs
  • Desert/Lagoon tiles take 2X the time of other tiles to work, this means it takes 24 turns on Epic to build a cottage with 1 worker