Suggestions and Requests

[1SDANi]

A couple of shower thoughts about the early game unit lines: Obviously more of 1.6 and beyond considerations than 1.5 ones, for obvious reasons.

Would the AI be able to handle a merged scout and skirmisher line? The lines don't seem to overlap anywhere, it would give America a Skirmisher unit for the Revolution which adds some nice historical flair, it'd give Old World nations something to do with their scouts after they are done exploring with scouts, it would give more use to the scout line for human players, who typically know the map well enough to not need a scout, and it would fill that weird inconsistency where Skirmishers are a classical era unit even though from what I've read skirmishing was one of the earliest tactics in warfare. My main concern with balancing this would be the AI, would there be any issues in that regard?

While the previous thought was more of a "interesting idea shower thought", this is more of a "why is this a thing shower thought". Why are Swordsmen and Spearmen separate lines? Putting aside the fact that swords were never used in warfare in a major capacity, I've never seen a use for Spearmen outside of fighting the majority Heavy Cavalry nations.

Would it be OP if we merged the two lines into a single Spearman line? Obviously there would be tech tree issues, but I really don't see why City Attack and Heavy Cavalry Counter should be two separate lines.

The Archery line is City Defense and Light Cavalry Counter.
Skirmishers are Collateral, Withdraw and Rough Terrain Counter.
Light Cavalry are Withdraw, High Movement, and Open Terrain Counter.
Heavy Cavalry are High Movement and Siege Counter.
Siege are Collateral, Withdraw, and City Counter

But then we get to
Swordsmen who are purely City Counter.
And Spearmen who are purely Heavy Cavalry Counter

Why is this?

Thankfully seafood is not affected and maritime republic is very useful. Especially for Greece , Carthage and Rome. Also how can you use Carthage's UP without Republic?

I mainly didn't use it because I settled Carthage, Iol, and Oea as my core cities, and there are two wheats on the Maghreb, in addition to a single farm pre-irrigation and 4 farms post-irrigation. I found that I much rather the 3 and later 6 Food given by the Farms than the 1-3 food given by specialists. It just didn't make sense to run specialists when I could be working Food tiles to grow into a bigger and more profitable city.

As for how I used Carthage's UP without Republic, I didn't. As I said, I ran Republic for a total of about 5 turns. I played the game until right before Rome got conquerors and then I switched to Republic, rushed out a bunch of Atlas Elephants, and switched back. I never actually conquered Rome, I just waited for it to collapse and then picked up the pieces.

I'm currently at 1936 and have Turkey, Portugal, Netherlands, France, and Spain as my Vassals. So I think I did pretty well.

 

[Zaddy]

Okay then so how about:
- Vassalage: +1 production per Farm
- Central Planning: old school +1 food per Workshop, Watermill
- Ideology: +1 production per Workshop, Lumbermill
- Nationalism: +1 production per Town

I think Vassalage having +1 Production on Farm would be a great bonus.

I feel like the extra food Central Planning used to give was very fun and I miss that mechanic. I'd welcome it's return. Right now, Central Planning struggles hard to compete with Public Welfare or Free Enterprise.

On Ideology, how about this:

Revolution (or Radicalism):

Low Upkeep

No unrest in newly conquered cities
+100% Great General Emergence
Great Generals may undertake Great Statesmen actions
+1 from Workshops

OR

Revolution:

Low Upkeep

+10% in cities per Pleased (or Friendly?) civ with the same economic (or government?) civics
No unrest in newly conquered cities
100% Great General Emergence
Great Generals can undertake Great Statesmen actions

Just throwing some ideas out there.

 

[Zaddy]

Also, I realized I didn't actually provide any reasoning for my proposed effects for the Revolution/Radicalism civic. Here's my thinking:

-No unrest in newly conquered cities is a pretty useful effect which is applicable to many civs, and fits the rapid expansion of, say, revolutionary France, and the establishment of "client states" etc.

-+100% Great General Emergence is buffed from +50%, because as Leoreth said, Constitution gives 100%, and great generals are arguably the weakest of the Great People anyways.

-The Great General as statesmen represents Latin American and African strongmen setting up governments that rely to a great extent on revolutionary or radical rhetoric. Think Mugabe. This also allows a neat interaction where a civ can revolt into Revolution and then use the Great General's newfound ability to Resolve Crisis to end the anarchy immediately. No better way to represent a coup than that, I would think.

-The +1 from workshops, when combined with a potential +1 from Central Planning, would really make this civic worth running to Marxist civs.

-The additional commerce from similar-civic civs I think fits quite well, even if it is quite awkward on wording. The specifics could be worked out, but really just any bonus from Pleased/Friendly civs with similar civics would be pretty cool IMO; it gives players a good incentive to make nice with their communist/democratic/capitalist/whatever brothers, and encourages players to care about the civics others are running, which is somewhat absent from the game right now. Not even really sure if this is possible to stick on a civic though. I believe the effects you can put on civics is a bit limited, is it not?

Still having to think about Totalitarianism. I will say that I think the gameplay it encourages (beat up on your cities and really abuse them for everything they're worth) is really cool, but I think the actual "reward" is a bit weak. But in general, I like the idea of making unhappiness matter less and I want to keep that in any change to Totalitarianism.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

-The additional commerce from similar-civic civs I think fits quite well, even if it is quite awkward on wording. The specifics could be worked out, but really just any bonus from Pleased/Friendly civs with similar civics would be pretty cool IMO; it gives players a good incentive to make nice with their communist/democratic/capitalist/whatever brothers, and encourages players to care about the civics others are running, which is somewhat absent from the game right now. Not even really sure if this is possible to stick on a civic though. I believe the effects you can put on civics is a bit limited, is it not?

In Planetfall trade routes to civs that share your favorite civic give more commerce, perhaps we could steal and adapt that?

 

[Tigranes]

In Planetfall trade routes to civs that share your favorite civic give more commerce, perhaps we could steal and adapt that?

One of the things that I would like to be reflected as how the trade roads often feed the cities, not just nearby farms. Let's say you run Republic as Rome -- than any internal city that has trade route with Rome should also supply capital with some food, which will be deducted at colony and added to the capital.

 

[1SDANi]

One of the things that I would like to be reflected as how the trade roads often feed the cities, not just nearby farms. Let's say you run Republic as Rome -- than any internal city that has trade route with Rome should also supply capital with some food, which will be deducted at colony and added to the capital.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Trade Routes should be expanded HUGE proportion! Cities should gain access to resources through trade routes, and said resources should affect the yield, yields should flow through trade routes (would also disincentive making OP Agreements with your enemies).

Both cities' culture spreads through trade routes in the forms of Books, Plays, etc.
Science spreads through trade routes in the forms of tools that can be reverse engineered, innovative philosophies, etc.

Etc

 

[Leoreth]

I know, I have some ideas on this, and posts where I describe them in some degree are scattered across this board. However I think other features are more important at the moment.

 

[1SDANi]

I know, I have some ideas on this, and posts where I describe them in some degree are scattered across this board. However I think other features are more important at the moment.

I believe a few of those posts were in response to my posts IIRC. I just love the idea of a Trade Economy and I won't stop reminding everyone every chance I get!

In more serious lines of thought, do you have any idea when you may be adding the previously discussed civic changes or something to a similar effect? I can't wait to see them be an official part of the mod.

 

[Leoreth]

Maybe later today. I prioritise genuine fixes over content changes like this but after yesterday there isn't a lot of that left.

 

[ales_]

Obviously more of 1.6 and beyond considerations than 1.5 ones

Just a reminder that both 1.5 and 1.6 were already released years ago.

 

[Tigranes]

Just a reminder that both 1.5 and 1.6 were already released years ago.

He obviously meant v 1.15 and 1.16 . It is unkind to nitpick on typos.

 

[Ogi123]

So we are talking about civics? In all honesty changing them isn't that difficult just some XML editing, well unless you want to get fancy.

Anyway my main problems are:

1) Conquest: this is civic witch ironically doesn't reward conquering, it's just as good for civ that don't cottage and want better units for defence. My proposition here is to reward aggressive players and made it pointless for peacemonger.

-> +100% when taking a city - this isn't as powerful as it seems conquering new big city is not that common occurrence in classical era.
-> -25% XP needed for unit level up or +100% XP gain for units -> you will be rewarded for combat making it easier to build experienced army.

2) Republic: currently only use of this is for Carthage due to they UP other civs almost immediately should switch to despotism or monarchy. Early there isn't enough / or specialist slots for this civic to be useful.

-> + per specialist - I really liked that effect in some previous versions, with some initial building investment it allowed me to run early specialist economy.
-> can hurry units with - no change here.

3) Colonialism: My main problem here is +XP for water units it's rarely useful drydocks are usually enough for purpose of navy building. Secondary, costs of colonial empire can balloon really quickly and + per colony isn't enough to offset it.

-> remove +4Xp for water units add: reduces colonial maintenance - should be enough for building large colonial empire.

4) Multilateralism: Bunch off effects that aren't that well put together, and defensive pacts with AI are rarely good idea. But honestly here I don't have good idea.

Okay then so how about:
- Vassalage: +1 production per Farm
- Central Planning: old school +1 food per Workshop, Watermill
- Ideology: +1 production per Workshop, Lumbermill
- Nationalism: +1 production per Town

This is good but then I will vote for removing vassalage fort and castle bonus, nationalism fort bonus. Just to make it less cluttered.

 

[Tigranes]

So we are talking about civics? In all honesty changing them isn't that difficult just some XML editing, well unless you want to get fancy.

I would guess editing XML is the least of the worries, the problem is to predict how every single civ will respond to this changes and how the world will ultimately evolve. Lot's of things to balance with civics!

 

[need my speed]

- Central Planning: old school +1 food per Workshop, Watermill
- Ideology: +1 production per Workshop, Lumbermill

I have no objections, but I never really understood the reasoning behind this, so I thought I'd ask - why? Do Workshops represent the proletariat? And Watermills, then? How do these even differ from Farms, actually (yes, they could be hydroelectric dams in the late-game)? Do Lumbermills represent paper, and thus, the spread of the ideological message?

 

[Leoreth]

Yes! These pamphlets may be written with the blood of the proletariat but they are also written on the corpses of our trees!

 

[Genghis Khaiser]

Something that I find inaccurate, especially in the late game, is that a city surrounded by farms grows faster than one that is surrounded by villages and towns.

In order to reflect on this urbanization that started with the Industrial Revolution, the Town improvement should have +1 or +2 food, triggered either by an Industrial Era technology or a late-game Civic.

 

[1SDANi]

Something that I find inaccurate, especially in the late game, is that a city surrounded by farms grows faster than one that is surrounded by villages and towns.

In order to reflect on this urbanization that started with the Industrial Revolution, the Town improvement should have +1 or +2 food, triggered either by an Industrial Era technology or a late-game Civic.

Agreed, a +2 Food improvement is just so good, it lets you have a larger core city, and thus more of both specialists and foreign cities. The best place for Farms ATM is within core territory, and the best place for Cottages is outside of core, which is the opposite of what should be happening.

 

[Tigranes]

The truth is that trade routes should supply core with food, not just farms. North Africa was feeding lazy Romans not nearby farms. Civ5 tried to implement it with rather clumsy Caravans and Cargo Ships. Civ4 has more elegant automatic routes, which may take a lot of calculations for PC but free's human player from looking into city lists. When two internal cities trade they can send to the core city one food per food resorce in non core city's radius.

 

[KeeperOT7Keys]

History Rewritten has Redistribution civic, gives half of the trade yield as growth to the city, it is a simple but a nice example.

I have no objections, but I never really understood the reasoning behind this, so I thought I'd ask - why? Do Workshops represent the proletariat? And Watermills, then? How do these even differ from Farms, actually (yes, they could be hydroelectric dams in the late-game)? Do Lumbermills represent paper, and thus, the spread of the ideological message?

I think it's because they are all sources of production, which in the game is associated with order/central planning. Actually I think we can buff mines too, but mine production is usually something related to the early stages of capitalism/industrialism instead of socialist states.

 

[Visard]

Highways could give one for towns instead of one .