Suggestions and Requests

[SultanRedSnake]

I'd first like to qualify my upcoming suggestion by stating that I did my best to search for previous posts of a similar nature did not find any, but I'll still apologize in advance if this has been covered. I should also thank Leoreth for doing this whole thing.

Future Portugal UHVs:

Before I make any suggestions, allow me to first acknowledge that I (think) I recall hearing Leoreth stating that these will be changed in future version but that's it's not all that high on the list of priorities, which I fully understand. I'm not personally unhappy with the current goals as they are (not that my feelings matter), but I think that they're objectively due for a revamp. I'll do my best to state my case.

UHV 1: Have Open Borders Agreements with 14 Civilizations by 1550 AD.

I'm guessing this one is inspired by Portugal's having established the first global empire based on trade. I get where its coming from. However, I think I can argue against both on historical and gameplay grounds. Historically speaking, the Open Borders requirement always struck me as a bit of ironic comedy. When Portugal entered the Indian Ocean it pursued a determined policy of forcibly closing off "borders"; namely, all access points to the Indian Ocean (Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Straights of Malacca) in order to force the movement of goods along the Cape route over which they held a monopoly. This was not a nation of "free traders".

Historical pedantry aside, I think most players would agree this goal has never added up to much of a challenge. It's always been a freebie to me.

UHV 2: Control 12 Trading Company Resources by 1650 AD.

Alright now we're talking. Yeah sure there's the stereotype that the Crown had tunnel vision for spices, but once the Indian Ocean trading networks were firmly under control, the Portuguese set about moving just about everything they could for a profit (Hormuz ended up as their main factory for selling Arabian/Persian horses to Indian magnates). I think this one is a winner, but I'd suggest upping the number to 14-15 since more goods have been placed on the map over the past few versions (EDIT: New map coming. Duh. Forget the number suggestion for now).

UHV 3: Settle 15 Colonies in Africa, Asia, and Brazil by 1700 AD.

Mostly spot on but not specific enough. Something more along the lines of England's requirement would be more suitable and challenging. One could go even further and throw in a North African requirement to recall the Portuguese crown's crusading obsession with Morocco.

What I haven't offered yet is a replacement for UHV 1. I'm floating a few ideas. Maybe the African settlement goal could be separated and moved up to recall the Portuguese "string of bases?" Throw in a "first to settle/circumnavigate" the Cape? Include India in some way as a territorial requirement (Casa de India!)?

In conclusion, thanks again to Leoreth for making this whole thing happen. Portugal has always been my favorite civ to play (in this mod as well as EU IV and even RFC Europe).

 

[JHLee]

How about changing the UHV1 to something like 'Have N trade routes with other civs by 1550AD'?

 

[JHLee]

One thing about the Turks: What is the reason behind their UP changing between peacetime and wartime?
It is so strange to declare war on a faraway civ that you'll probably never actually engage in battle,
only so that you can capture Barbarian horse archers roaming around Central Asia.
Wouldn't it be more intuitive to merge the UP so that they would keep the 'capture barb cav' ability both in peace and war?

 

[BaneFire]

One thing about the Turks: What is the reason behind their UP changing between peacetime and wartime?
It is so strange to declare war on a faraway civ that you'll probably never actually engage in battle,
only so that you can capture Barbarian horse archers roaming around Central Asia.
Wouldn't it be more intuitive to merge the UP so that they would keep the 'capture barb cav' ability both in peace and war?

I mean I guess the theory is you're a "nomadic kingdom" when not at war so they don't attack fellow nomads, but then rally to the call of conquest and land when needed.
But yes in reality I just declared war on Ethiopia/Tamils to have the permabonus because it's always useful.

 

[catacau]

How about changing the UHV1 to something like 'Have N trade routes with other civs by 1550AD'?

'Have N OVERSEA trade routes with other civs by 1550AD', sounds more challenging and suitable

 

[makka]

Don't know if this has already been mentioned or discussed, but I find it annoying (or balance breaking, or whatever you might call it) that the player gains a significant advantage when not starting to play as a certain civ right from the start menu after auto-play, but instead plays as another civ before and then switches to the actual civ intended to be played, because you get all the additional units for the AI.
Therefore, I'd suggest to make those additional units spawn only during flip turn, so the AI gets 'em exclusively (as intended).

Also (once again, I apologise if this has been covered, I'm just too time-restricted right now to scour all the discussion that took place since my last attendance here), the ITER wonder needs to be nerfed down severely, in a large empire with many cities (e.g. Russia) it even causes an overflow error because of the ridiculous amount of commerce it produces.
A simple cap (as with shrines; at 100, maybe?) would do, I guess.

 

[BaneFire]

Suggestion for both the new and current map:
Tibetan mountains should open up to Kashgar when Tibet spawns. Currently (and yes this is more an issue with the current map, but still), you're forced to awkwardly eek around into India or through Xi'an which isn't historically realistic, considering the historic Tibetan Empire did control Kashgaria and the Tarim Basin/Hexi Corridor region. This is especially annoying in the current version because as Tibet, a realistic 5 city empire would be something like Lhasa, Shillong, Pagan, Dunhuang and Kashgar - all areas historically controlled by Tibet (although Pagan is a little far south). Being able to actually reach and reinforced Kashgar/Dunhuang rather than hope China is feeling nice would be good.

 

[JHLee]

Suggestion for both the new and current map:
Tibetan mountains should open up to Kashgar when Tibet spawns.

This would enable Turkish Oghuz and barbarian cavalry to enter Tibet and personally I don't think Tibet needs another horde of barbs coming to raid them.
They are very weak already and it is not hard to see them collapsing due to barbarian swordmen.

 

[BaneFire]

This would enable Turkish Oghuz and barbarian cavalry to enter Tibet and personally I don't think Tibet needs another horde of barbs coming to raid them.
They are very weak already and it is not hard to see them collapsing due to barbarian swordmen.

True, there is probably a fix to this. Firstly I reckon the Khampa could be reworked to instead of having open terrain and city attack, to have hills defence and anti-light cavalry role. This means you could camp it out in strategic mountain overpasses and slaughter barbarian cavalry.
Secondly, the Tibetan barbarian swordsmen don't even make any sense. This isn't like India where your lack of native strategic threats (other than the Tamils) means you need something to prevent you from non-stop steamrolling. This is a small mountain kingdom that unified its internal borders and real threats are massive empires to the South and East respectively. There's no need for repeated barbarian spawns in the way that China and India get.

 

[Enyavar]

True, there is probably a fix to this. Firstly I reckon the Khampa could be reworked to instead of having open terrain and city attack, to have hills defence and anti-light cavalry role. This means you could camp it out in strategic mountain overpasses and slaughter barbarian cavalry.
Secondly, the Tibetan barbarian swordsmen don't even make any sense. This isn't like India where your lack of native strategic threats (other than the Tamils) means you need something to prevent you from non-stop steamrolling. This is a small mountain kingdom that unified its internal borders and real threats are massive empires to the South and East respectively. There's no need for repeated barbarian spawns in the way that China and India get.

First, about opening Mongolia to Tibet and the other way around: why would you do this? The regions of Mongolia and Tibet had not too much military contacts. Cultural ones, probably, but as far as I know there was never an invasion of Tibet from the North(west) in pre-modern times. Keshiks and other cavalrya hordes advancing on Lhasa is not historical.
Probably, a route could be opened in the year 1800 or so, and not only from North, but also from South.

The barbarian swordsmen are probably there for several reasons, I would suppose: In a gameplay sense, they hold Tibet in check, because otherwise, the human player wouldn't need to fortify Lhasa and concentrate all their power on the conquest side of the mountains. In a historical sense, they would represent other, native groups that challenged the Tibetans.

 

[1SDANi]

The main problem is that historically Tibet was only able to attain their conquests during a period when China was going through a massive bout of instability. Since Tibet spawns so close to 600AD China is rarely in any condition for Tibet to be able to sign an open borders for their mutual safety from each other. If civs could start scenarios with certain pre-existing stability levels and statuses I feel the Tibetan game could be made to be more possible to conquer their historical territory. That is of course assuming that AI are more likely to sign open borders and accept demands when they're unstable.

 

[Genghis Khaiser]

It doesn't make sense that Scientific Method slows down science. It obsoletes Monasteries so it is only helpful if you're the first in researching it or have enough hammers in any city and you are ready to build your National College. It should have a scientific benefit for all, like +10% Science in all cities, +10% science per Library and University or +1 Science per Scientist.
In the base game, there was the free tech bonus of Liberalism, which is not present in DOC. It should be available with another technology, like Civil Liberties, Printing, Physics, or Electricity.

 

[JHLee]

Yeah, the most annoying thing I think about SM in DoC is that it obsoletes monasteries and there is no way to enable cities (that you didnt buils monasteries earlier) to build missionaries, unless you select Tolerance which is enabled by a tech that is on a totally different branch.
This is especially annoying when you are a colonizing civ and the only way to spread your religion to colonies is to build your missionaries at home (which is already busy building other stuff) and ship them over which often takes like 5 turns.

 

[Genghis Khaiser]

OR monasteries should obsolete with a later tech, like Civil Rights or Civil Liberties. With either of them you would lose them but would have either Tolerance to compensate for their need for building missionaries or Secularism if you want to take back their science or at least part of it.

 

[Enyavar]

First of all, I think that Monasticism should provide a currency bonus for having a monastery, and not just because they share the name. I feel that the +25% to buildings bonus from Clergy is very powerful; and the bonus points on Great Persons from the Monasticism civic are quite good, but cannot really compete. A small currency bonus (+1 or +2 as a fixed bonus; or some percentage; or a resource-dependant currency bonus for having gems, wine, cows, elephants...) could make the difference where under certain circumstances, Monasticism has more immediate benefits than Clergy.

On the other hand, a monastery could give -1 Happiness under Totalitarianism. And Revolutionarism could give a small one-time gold bonus if the player chooses to "de-establish monasteries" (read: loot them) upon the civic change, after which the existing monasteries would be gone. Maybe Revolutionarism could also give a -1 Happiness to churches as well; and they could be similarly de-established upon the civic switch. After all, organized religion is quite the antithesis to revolutionaries; and I feel that switching towards the "darker" civics should come with consequences. If a player chooses to return to democracy later, rebuilding churches within a few turns is child's play in modern times.

This approach could also work with a Theocracy switch: When the player switches to Theocracy, they are asked if they want to de-establish/persecute the non-state religions. Gold bonus for the looted buildings, and a high chance that religions are removed from a city if they are not in the core area of that religion. I think that this mechanic would also make the Persecutor unit unnecessary, and even enable the AI to persecute religions that they don't want in their cities. And finally, Theocracy should, in my opinion, give a +50% production bonus towards state religion missionaries and buildings. Again, my argument here is that Clergy is a very powerful Civic and this would be an argument for dipping into Theocracy for a while.



On the topic of Sc.Method: there are some issues with tying the monastery to a certain tech. I will name a few: In Germany, monasteries were made obsolete with Secularisation under Napoleon, in 1806; arguably some time after having "researched" Sc.Method, and tied to a political decision (policy change) and not a scientific obsoletion. In America, I think that many would argue that Protestant Seminaries are still built. In buddhist countries, monasteries are also still founded.

There are several ways this mechanic could be changed, but I'm not too sure it should be changed. The current obsoletion presents the player with a clear choice/challenge if they want to abandon their monasteries rather early or rather late.

 

[Publicola]

Considering that it was a Augustinian monk who discovered genetics in the mid-1800s, why exactly do monasteries go obsolete in the first place?

And considering that Gregor Mendel is literally a textbook example of 'the scientific method' in practice, why does it have to obsolete with that tech in particular?

It makes sense for monasteries to decline in importance in the modern age -- switching to Protestantism turns Catholic monasteries into , switching to 'Secularism' makes it impossible/harder to build monasteries (or simply to spread a new religion in the first place), something like that. But monasteries remained centers of scientific advancement long after their decline. And I definitely agree that pinning the obsolescence to Scientific Method doesn't work in terms of its effect: "if I want to maximize my scientific progress, I'll hold off on Scientific Method until the last moment so I don't lose my monasteries."

 

[BaneFire]

There should definitely be some sort of civic or [national] wonder that lets you build non-city religion religious buildings. For example as Portugal I colonised Asia, but would have to ship a Catholic monastery all the way over there, hope it successfully converted, then build a Catholic Monastery etc. Instead if I had something like a "Jesuit College" National wonder (for Catholics), then I could just build the monasteries there and the missionaries too.
That, or at least have the Trading Company event give you missionaries in all the cities. Sure they might not be successful, but some were (eg, Goa is now rather Christian).

 

[Visard]

Monasteries are too good; it´s cheaper to build 3 monasteries than one university.
They would be more balanced if only a state religion monastery provided the science bonus.

 

[JHLee]

Maybe just remove the science bonus from monasteries, or have it go obsolete after SM (but the culture and ability to build missionaries remain).

 

[1SDANi]

What if science from monasteries was a constant number rather than a percentage? Then it wouldn't need an obsolescence tech, as tech costs go up the bonus would become less and less meaningful.

Speaking about civics and such, remember how every now and then people talk about how Elective isn't nearly as good as the other civics in its category? What if it allowed the production of buildings with food?

Poland, Scandinavia, and Holy Rome are particularly rich with food but rather lacking in terms of luxury resources to the point that unhappiness and stagnation are common issues. It would create an interesting scenario for the Holy Romans in particular as they start with both Elective and Tributaries. In order to grow, their cities would have to build missionaries, commerce, work boats, etc.