Suggestions and Requests

[freethink]

I was thinking today about events that can make the transition between Pagan and World Religions more interactive.

If a pagan civ has deification could occur every 10 or 20 turns.

Title:

The Gods demand tribute!

Text: Our priests and priestesses are decrying the current state of affairs they warn the people that retribution will come if we do not grant sacrifice to the gods and spirits. Should we appease the malcontent sorcerers or punish them for causing unrest?

Option 1: We will bequeath the sacrifice that is due (-10 food in all cities, -50 gold, +1 anger in cities that have a religion)

Option 2: Now is the time to host an extravagant celebration to grant honor and glory to our esteemed deities! (-20 food in al cities, -150 gold, +1 happiness in all cities, +100 culture in capital, +2 anger in cities with a religion)

Option 3: Gods will play the games that they please. We will tell the superstitious advisers to be gone and imprison anyone who causes trouble
+1 unhappiness in all cities. Can also cause the civil unrest event to fire

Can fire for any pagan civ is a religion is in 25% of the cities (maybe Judaism could be excluded?)"

Title:
Our faith is challenged!

Text: Recently, wandering teachers and pilgrims have led some of the citizens astray from the gods that we have honored since time immemorial. We need to do something to protect our sacred tradition!

Option 1: Let us gently remind the people of our gods with celebrations
-100 gold, small chance that world religion will be removed from cities.

mini event text: The citizens of-CITYNAME- have reaffirmed their old faith!

Option 2: Send out our priests and priestesses to hunt the troublemakers who threaten our way of life.
+2 unhappiness in all cities, -1 population in all cities (or cities with a religion), you receive a single religious persecutor unit, small chance that world religion will be removed from cities.
Chance of triggering unrest and fire event

Option 3: There is nothing to be done, the people will follow any faith they wish.
Chance of unrest. -10 food in all cities (Followers of new faiths are withholding taxes from our pagan colossus)


These two events are supposed to grant more immersion into the pagan experience which I think adds more complex gameplay to Ancient playthroughs. These events are written generically in such a way that I hope can be applied to all pagan civs. Also, Leoreth said before that Paganism should stay an inferior option to world faiths, so I put that into consideration when proposing the effects of each choice.

I think the second event could be useful to players that want a few extra turns to build pagan wonders or if they are trying to beeline to a pagan victory goal. however, fighting to retain paganism does come at a cost. Also even though it would be fun I purposely refrained from using natural disaster effects or anything that could be interpreted as supernatural. I don't think DOC suggests at any point that any belief system could be true

Title:
The old faith strikes back!
Could be caused by one of these conditions:
-An Ancient Civ has converted to a world religion
Or if it could be coded
-Can occur randomly within 10 turns of a recent convert to world religion from a pagan religion
-More likely if it the year is before 100 CE

Text: Our conversion to our new faith displeased the unrepentant seers of the old ways. In an attempt to regain their lost power, they are raising mobs to attack our places of worship!

Effects: The capital will suffer anarchy for one turn, and temples can be destroyed.

Mini event text if our civ: Pagan fanatics are rioting!
Mini event text if another civ: -Pagan fanatics in -CIV NAME- are rioting!

 

[Dannimal]

I suggest AI Byzantium spawns with Constantinople having the Theodosian Walls pre built.
In some of my 3000BC games I see the Byzantine AI being are wiped out by barbarians before 700AD. I do not know if the AI can bribe barbarians via the unique ability, so having the walls should guarantee their survival to the medieval age.

 

[Dracosolon]

So I've been thinking that with the new map and birth protection mechanics, it's now much more feasible to push back the French spawn to 485 AD (~conquest of Soissons by Clovis) as was discussed at some point.

485 AD: Spawn at Paris on the 3000 BC scenario, flip an independant Cologne next turn (two important cities for later, and representing the Frankish presence in both France and Germany well enough).
Next few turns: conquest of whatever cities are present in France.
600 AD (8 turns later on Normal speed): Start of the scenario, with Cologne + all French territory (I think Paris + Bordeaux + either Lyon or Marseille or both work).
Then the game proceeds until 840 AD (23 turns after 600 AD), where HRE spawns and flips Cologne. This leaves the French player with some latitude to plunder cities they'll know will flip to HRE (and possibly Spain), though obviously their army should be weak enough that they can't push their advantage too much - and with the bigger map, conquests will take longer in general. Then the flip weakens them a little while also easing their maintenance.

My concern is Rome. It's a sensible move to conquer it if you're close to it, and it would be briefly historical as a Carolingian thing. But then wouldn't it be too much of an advantage? And what happens with the HRE?

Some possibilities (outside of keeping the 750 AD spawn, which would be perfectly understandable for balance reasons):

-Go with 485 AD but increase Rome's defenders to make it a true challenge,
-Put it in HRE's flipzone,
-When HRE spawns, Rome and Italian cities go independant,
-Reworked Italian spawn?

None of these possibilities are terribly satisfying. One thing I've been considering would be to make ownership of the Catholic Holy City more difficult by tying it to Apostolic Palace mechanisms. You can conquer Rome normally, but to hold on to it you need some sort of approval from other Catholic civs. If you fail to get it, Rome flips to Independants. Triggers could be:

-If you lose an election for Pope (or maybe just get too small a percentage),
-If as Pope, too many of your resolutions fail,
-Maybe bad relations in general?

Ideally this would make ownership of Rome more precarious and less attractive, along with encouraging more cautious inter-European relations (assuming diplomacy modifiers are adjusted so that medieval Catholic civs aren't so chummy). Players with continental conquest goals would be more ambivalent toward conquering Rome instead of seeing it as a must as is currently the case, and would need to have a smarter diplomacy game if they do get it. Italy would have a lot of trouble holding on to Rome due to its small size, which might be a good thing due to the current emphasis on northern city-states and the general precariousness of Italy's territorial history.

 

[Lennon789]

I think there are enough Latin American civilizations to warrant the creation/inclusion of a soundtrack for that part of the world, which could also apply to Spain and Portugal after they've lost their New World colonies.

 

[LukeAtmey]

I think there are enough Latin American civilizations to warrant the creation/inclusion of a soundtrack for that part of the world, which could also apply to Spain and Portugal after they've lost their New World colonies.

I like this idea. Overall I love the dynamic soundtracks as they really help immerse you and enhance the experience of playing a particular civilization. To be fair I would love if the dynamic soundtracks went on and continued even after Reneissance era. Should the expaning of dynamic soundtrack list happen at any point in future I'd volunteer to help finding suitable tracks.

 

[Steb]

So I've been thinking that with the new map and birth protection mechanics, it's now much more feasible to push back the French spawn to 485 AD (~conquest of Soissons by Clovis) as was discussed at some point.

485 AD: Spawn at Paris on the 3000 BC scenario, flip an independant Cologne next turn (two important cities for later, and representing the Frankish presence in both France and Germany well enough).
Next few turns: conquest of whatever cities are present in France.
600 AD (8 turns later on Normal speed): Start of the scenario, with Cologne + all French territory (I think Paris + Bordeaux + either Lyon or Marseille or both work).
Then the game proceeds until 840 AD (23 turns after 600 AD), where HRE spawns and flips Cologne. This leaves the French player with some latitude to plunder cities they'll know will flip to HRE (and possibly Spain), though obviously their army should be weak enough that they can't push their advantage too much - and with the bigger map, conquests will take longer in general. Then the flip weakens them a little while also easing their maintenance.

My concern is Rome. It's a sensible move to conquer it if you're close to it, and it would be briefly historical as a Carolingian thing. But then wouldn't it be too much of an advantage? And what happens with the HRE?

Some possibilities (outside of keeping the 750 AD spawn, which would be perfectly understandable for balance reasons):

-Go with 485 AD but increase Rome's defenders to make it a true challenge,
-Put it in HRE's flipzone,
-When HRE spawns, Rome and Italian cities go independant,
-Reworked Italian spawn?

None of these possibilities are terribly satisfying. One thing I've been considering would be to make ownership of the Catholic Holy City more difficult by tying it to Apostolic Palace mechanisms. You can conquer Rome normally, but to hold on to it you need some sort of approval from other Catholic civs. If you fail to get it, Rome flips to Independants. Triggers could be:

-If you lose an election for Pope (or maybe just get too small a percentage),
-If as Pope, too many of your resolutions fail,
-Maybe bad relations in general?

Ideally this would make ownership of Rome more precarious and less attractive, along with encouraging more cautious inter-European relations (assuming diplomacy modifiers are adjusted so that medieval Catholic civs aren't so chummy). Players with continental conquest goals would be more ambivalent toward conquering Rome instead of seeing it as a must as is currently the case, and would need to have a smarter diplomacy game if they do get it. Italy would have a lot of trouble holding on to Rome due to its small size, which might be a good thing due to the current emphasis on northern city-states and the general precariousness of Italy's territorial history.

I like this. Post-Roman Europe is a bit too empty for my tastes currently.

To solve the Italian question you bring up, pushing the Italian spawn earlier might work. I suggested in the 1.18 brainstorming thread that Italy could spawn in Venice around 800 AD. This would make sense as Venice was the first northern Italian city to become wealthy and powerful, and would allow it to be represented better without creating a Venetian civilization. An earlier Italy would make it more difficult for foreign civilizations like the Franks or the Germans to hold the peninsula. With a new mechanism to easily change the capital, it would also represent Italian history better. The civ could respawn around 1140 (current spawn date) if it was previously destroyed.

I also like your suggestion for Rome. Rome does end up controlled too often by civilizations, while spending more time as an independent city would be more appropriate.

 

[Dracosolon]

I'm still a bit skeptical of the idea of an earlier Italian spawn as Venice but I'll play along. Tentative UHV:

* The Serenissime: Culturally flip two cities by 1200 AD and conduct two trade missions by 1300 AD.
The first part is mostly so that you can't just conquer/settle your fellow Italian cities and have to simulate the formation of the Lombard League.

The trade missions could be replaced by anything (I went with something vaguely Marco Polo-ish), but I was wary to come up with a more warlike goal since there isn't a lot of space for the historical Venetian colonies, and because it would be redundant with the third UHV. An alternative idea might be "control X trade routes/get X gold from trade routes", which would require you to get more coastal cities to build Lighthouses and Wharfs. Something to do with resources could also work.

Alternatively, something naval-based like sinking ships or building them might be thematically fitting, but would risk being too luck-dependant since there isn't a whole lot of enemy ships in the Mediterranean (also personal taste but I hate that kind of goals). There were talks at some point of including a (Venetian) Arsenal wonder, this could be used to synergize naval power and economy ("+1 trade route per naval unit of level X or more", perhaps?). San Marco Basilica could also be reworked ("+2 trade routes per settled GP?").

* Birthplace of the Renaissance: Build three medieval wonders and reach influential culture in three different capitals by 1600 AD.
You get a bit more freedom in your wonders but Santa Maria/San Marco/The Sistine Chapel are still the latest so they'll be easier to aim for. The capitals goal might be tedious but would sort of simulate the city states - and also eventually allow the player to relocate their capital to Rome if they're so inclined.

* Futurism: Be the first to discover Radio, Psychology and Fission and control X% of the Eastern Mediterranean and Ethiopia by 1940 AD.
Credit to borhapp88 for this one (also those titles are much better than mine). I like the tech goal because there's so much time between 1600 AD and 1940 AD that just focusing on conquest is a bit boring.

I'm aware that those are a lot of different goals and that the end result is a bit verbose. Simpler goals could also be worded if that's too much.

 

[Leoreth]

Are you really trying to backdoor Venice right now

 

[Dracosolon]

I don't expect anything given your previous statements on the subject, this is a thought exercise - and like I said, I'm not too hot on it either. Personally my main objections would be that expansion would risk feeling like Venice conquering and creating a unified Italy (as opposed to the current implementation putting the city states on a more equal footing) and that the eastern Mediterrenean is too tiny to meaningfully represent its conquests.

 

[Steb]

Are you really trying to backdoor Venice right now

Eh, it's my idea so allow me to defend it a bit. I don't care about Venice more than the other Italian cities, but I do think that it was the first northern Italian city to rise from the post-Barbarian invasion mess and become a notable power in its own right, thanks in large part to trade with Byzantium, and possibly helping jumpstart the other cities in turn. The current setup, in which northern Italy is either a bunch of independent cities, or controlled by foreign powers, until the Lombard League, is... it's okay, I guess, but it's skipping over a lot of interesting history, it makes it too easy for France/the HRE to control the area (which was the concern I was specifically addressing here), and also the Lombard League doesn't feel like such a pivotal event in real history.

But, and I insist on this point, this change would only work if we came up with a mechanic that forces or greatly encourages capital changes. Nobody here wants Venice to be the capital of the Italian civilization for the entire game. If Italy had a "Power of City-States" UP that gave it a free capital change every 5 techs or something (I'm spitballing here), or some other mechanic, then that would lead to a more interesting Italian gameplay experience IMO, since we'd see Milan, Florence, Venice, Rome etc. all serve as capitals at various points.

Also, an earlier spawn with a single city, no flips, and only a small initial army, would make the early Italian game more fun and challenging: you're just a small city-state, by default weaker than the other European powers, and you need to acquire other mainland cities (or Venice's maritime empire if going that route) through significant effort and strategy.

I wouldn't create a Venice-themed UHV, either. I don't want the civ to focus more on Venice, especially from the Renaissance onwards. It just so happens that Venice is where post-Roman Italy first started to grow powerful and rich.

Like Dracosolon, I don't really expect this to happen, but I think there's a lot of potential in the idea. As a bonus, it would make people stop asking for Venice all the time!

 

[Dracosolon]

For capitals I think it could make sense to have various Palace buildings that become available at different techs/eras and provide strictly better benefits. In the current game it's usually not worth it to build a Palace because you already have its benefits in another city and the stability map ensures that your most important cities are close to each other.

So you would start with the regular Palace in the ancient era, then techs like Politics or Statecraft could unlock better versions that you'll likely want to build anyway, which means you'll have to reconsider its city location while you're at it (though keeping it in the same city would be an option).

As for the benefits a stability bonus (that could even replace the current bonus you get per era) would fit, as would maintenance in nearby cities, , percentage, etc.

All of this, of course, is dependant on if wanting incentives for the Palace to move more often is really the goal (I think there are some bits in the code to do it automatically for some AIs?).

 

[Lennon789]

I'm not sure how balanced this would be, but from a flavor standpoint it would be interesting if Great Generals could reform the government just like Statesman, particularly since there seems to be some thematic overlap between these two Great Person categories. For example, playing as Colombia, I just spawned a Great General named Francisco de Paula Santander, who in addition to being a military leader also served as the acting president of New Granada and the President of the Republic of New Granada. Interestingly, he came to be known as "The Man of the Laws."

 

[Dracosolon]

Just for fun, revisiting the concept of Nomad mechanics, this time going with the idea "what if it worked like a civic?":

Nomad status:

- +1 , +1 from Pasture, Camp,
- +100% Trade Route Yield,
- -50% construction speed for Buildings, Workers and Improvements,
- Free Nomad promotion for land units,
- Lost upon ???,

Synergizes with Elective, Slavery, Merchant Trade, Conquest/Tributaries.

Nomad promotion:

- Double Movement in flat Plain,
- Can buy similar units on any tile,
- Can be sacrificed to build Pasture, Camp,
- Can be upgraded anywhere,
- Lost upon losing Nomad status.

So basically sacrificing and city quality in exchange for mobility and , encouraging further conquest and expansion.

 

[need my speed]

Can we gain a sum of gold (along the same rate as the production>gold conversion when building Wealth, I suppose) when gifting a unit to another civilisation?
I do not think adding a new diplomacy mechanism of buying or selling units would be possible or desirable (with regards to AI and with regards to how intuitively it should work; how are you going to sell one specific unit out of the many dozens that you have?), but simply adding gold to the gift unit function could potentially make for some interesting strategies, or even new UHVs, and could also be fun for role-playing.

 

[Dracosolon]

What if the "one less Temple required per Cathedral" effect is given to the Clergy civic? I think it could be synergetic with a lot of medieval and early modern states that built a lot of religious architecture. Can be given to both Clergy and Theocracy, if also possible.

China: 2 Confucianism, 2 Taoism
Ethiopia: 1 Orthodoxy
Korea: 1 Buddhism, 1 Confucianism
Poland: 3 out of the three Christian religions
Mughals: 3 Islam
Mexico: 3 of your state religion

One possibility would be to restrict it to Catholic civs by having it require an Apostolic Palace resolution. That way the change is restricted to Poland (1 less temple, still has to possess 4 cities) and Mexico (the UHV could be amended to 4 Catholic Cathedrals specifically, though that would require Mexico to always start Catholic, and also requires 1 more Cathedral in a limited timeframe. Or the Apostolic Palace effect could obsolete/not apply to the New World).

Thinking back to this discussion, I've tought of an alternative: Why not allow state religion cathedrals with one less temple if you're on the same continent/subcontinent as the shrine? By this I mean the categories below, excluding Africa, Asia and America:

lEurope = [rBritain, rIberia, rItaly, rBalkans, rEurope, rScandinavia, rRussia]
lMiddleEast = [rAnatolia, rMesopotamia, rArabia, rPersia, rCentralAsia]
lIndia = [rIndia, rDeccan]
lEastAsia = [rIndochina, rIndonesia, rChina, rKorea, rJapan, rManchuria, rTibet]
lNorthAfrica = [rEgypt, rMaghreb]
lSubSaharanAfrica = [rEthiopia, rSouthAfrica, rWestAfrica]
lSouthAmerica = [rBrazil, rArgentina, rPeru, rColombia]
lCentralAmerica = [rCaribbean, rMesoamerica]
lNorthAmerica = [rCanada, rAlaska, rUnitedStates]
lOceania = [rAustralia, rOceania]

lAfrica = lNorthAfrica + lSubSaharanAfrica
lAsia = lMiddleEast + lIndia + lEastAsia
lAmerica = lSouthAmerica + lCentralAmerica + lNorthAmerica

This would effectively extend it to other religions than just Catholicism and be a bit fairer. Some UHVs would be affected though:

Poland: one less Catholic or Protestant church depending on state religion (I'm assuming that the Cathedral is destroyed if the requirements are no longer met so you can't just switch state religion - alternatively, that's one less Catholic and one less Protestant church), still needs four Orthodox ones.
Mexico: unaffected.
Ethiopia: unaffected unless a city in Africa is chosen as Holy City (which could be prevented if the Ethiopia player is human I guess?).
Mughals: affected if the requirement is simply continent instead of subcontinent.
Korea: affected for Confucianism, same deal as Mughals for Buddhism. If the "Cathedral is destroyed if its conditions are no longer met" rule applies, then that's just one less temple.
China: affected, but that means the Chinese player has to spend two on shrines instead of Golden Ages - and with the new map, they'll probably need a great number of city to cover their historical territory anyway.

Note that some of these require an AI to do you the courtesy of building the shrine for you, which means you might still want to plan for one more temple rather than rely on luck.

 

[psyblade]

Building on the idea of holy sites, what if each religion has 5 holy sites. These are pre-placed (or spawn once the city on that tile or one within 2 tiles is built).
This Holy Site building cannot be constructed, but if you spend a Great Person, it upgrades it into a Pilgrimage site.
Pilgrimage Sites give opinion bonuses to others of the same religion (+1 with one site, +2 with 3 or more), increases religious spread to counter natural decay, increases the city’s trade routes’ effectiveness, and gives a civ-wide bonus. At 3 shrines or more, all non-aerial military units gain the blessed promotion, increasing healing rate and +1 first strike bonus.
Some cities are holy sites for multiple religions, however, and owning a holy site of another religion but not also having open borders + defensive alliance imposes an opinion penalty. The opinion penalty is applied regardless of OB/DA if running theocracy. If a hostile unit of another religion spends at least 1 turn within 1 square of its (occupied) religious site, they gain the blessed promotion as well, representing religious fervor to take the city. All such instances are removed if the above conditions (owning 3 religious sites or being within 1 square of an occupied site within the last round) are not fulfilled. AI would prioritize its own pilgrimage sites/religious sites, and be able to demand them as if they are ‘liberated’ cities.

This idea has several purposes:
1. It could add an extra mini game for religious plays,
2. It can serve as a use of excess great prophets,
3. It could help push the AI to launch more religious wars that target pilgrimage sites, especially if it is tied to AI weight.

 

[Dracosolon]

Happy new year everybody. Here's to the next turn.

Minor suggestion - would it be possible, as part of a civ's birth, to set a minimal population threshold in flipped cities, so as to reduce randomness at start? Since Independent cities have their units expelled, it's not uncommon for an AI or Barbarians to opportunistically attack one and reduce its population.

In addition to that - what is the reason for Independent units being expelled from soon-to-be "rise of civ" territory? I understand that Barbarians might need it so as to not reduce their menace, but Independents frequently have nowhere to go (such as the Sana'a archer on the 600 AD start, which pretty consistently ends up on the Suqutra island all by its lonesome). Couldn't Independent units either be destroyed, or if that's undesirable, relocated to their nearest city?

 

[Alexandre92]

Hi all and happy new year.
Completing Chateau Frontenac looks unreal for Canada. They should start with tech, that will allow them to start building it as soon as they start, I guess.
(Latest downloadable version / Monarch / Marathon)

And also there is some buggy notification early in the game for Canada.

 

[Ballazic]

Hi all and happy new year.
Completing Chateau Frontenac looks unreal for Canada. They should start with tech, that will allow them to start building it as soon as they start, I guess.
(Latest downloadable version / Monarch / Marathon)

And also there is some buggy notification early in the game for Canada.

Not to mention even if you build it after you get the tech, its not going to help you complete the objective to build a rail line across the continent. Whereas if you can start from the beginning, it becomes a choice. Montreal can either pump out settlers and/or workers or build the wonder.

 

[Dominus the Mentat]

Kongo’s pagan religion should be Bukongo instead of Yoruba. Yoruba is an ethnic group of west africa which have its proper language and culture, including its own traditional faith called Isese. The kongo people are a bantu ethnic group located in central africa which have its own traditions and religious beliefs before the europeans have show up with christianity. Their traditional religion is called Bukongo, which is wrongly represented in the game as Yoruba. The faith bases itself on a complex animistic system and a pantheon of various gods and spirits. Humans may manipulate the universe through the use of charms called Nkisi, which are spirits or an object that a spirit inhabits. Most of the religious practices happens in sacred altars or shrines called Kiteki.
My suggestion is to change Kongo’s pagan religion name to Bukongo, the temple to Bukongo Kiteki and its symbol to the kongo cosmogram (which is the same symbol of Kongo's banner in the game).
The temple building graphics could continue the same, since it represents well how the shrines are described in pictures or images made by the europeans.
I would also suggest to change its URV goal to something related to culture, like: have an average culture of X or have X culture, instead of resource control. This would represent the Bukongo creation of spiritual objects (Nkisi) to protect and give blessings or give curses and harm people.
I also can help with the civilopedia text about the traditions, religious beliefs and their shrines if the suggestion is accepted.