Suggestions and Requests

[Lilna]

Slavery already lets you capture workers in war, which models the whole "turn raids and warfare into econ" aspect well I think, and is a massive bonus all things considered. Every worker captured saves you several city turns that you would have spent building one, and often lets you develop newly conquered areas right away using their own people, rather than having to ship someone over.

 

[migck]

Regarding this change

- adjusted position of Kiritimati and Marquesas

This may need adjusting the maps .csv files of all civs with the new positions. Or at least of those who had historical tiles there (most important the Polynesians themselves).

...And while you're at it, maybe adding the Faroe Island(s) could be considered? Maybe there's some change that can be made to avoid the Moai Statues being built there (a max latitude?), also giving it an obsoleting tech might be warranted for a long term Polynesian player.

 

[Lilna]

The new update to Nubia looks good - I'll have to autoplay a few games to see if they stop becoming the rulers of Egypt when the Arabs collapse.

One suggestion I have though is to tweak their final UHV a little. The current one has two main issues with it:

1: The Nubians weren't famous as early adopters of Christianity. In fact, they were pretty late to convert, and noted by Roman authors as staunch pagans, still building pyramids for their dead into the 300s, and only converting in the 400s. Their real claim to fame was how long they were able to remain Christian, while right next to a powerful Arab Egypt. Which leads to...

2: Their Baqt UP is effectively useless in relation to their UHV. Played well, a Nubian UHV ends a bit before the Roman conquests. And even on an 'average' victory, things have to finish quickly because the requirement of founding Orthodoxy means you have to rush technology (which is fortunately easy to do with all of Egypt's commerce). You never interact with the Arabs, and so apart from maybe Persia your UP never sees use.

There are two possible solutions to this in my eyes. The first is giving them a UP and third goal more related to ancient/classical Kush (maybe conquer the Levant, a goal of Taharqa's and a good challenge between stability issues and invasions - do it early and try not to collapse, or wait for law and throw down with Greece/Rome). The second, and probably better option is giving them some Orthodoxy related goal that will require them to interact with Arabia and use their UP in some way. Maybe a requirement to either control Egypt or be on Friendly terms with its owner while being Orthodox in certain years, to give some freedom in how to do things (the new Makurian period should make control difficult, but an option if Arabia collapses or looks to be about to collapse by the date). But at this point I'm kinda just spitballing.

 

[Hickman888]

The new update to Nubia looks good - I'll have to autoplay a few games to see if they stop becoming the rulers of Egypt when the Arabs collapse.

One suggestion I have though is to tweak their final UHV a little. The current one has two main issues with it:

1: The Nubians weren't famous as early adopters of Christianity. In fact, they were pretty late to convert, and noted by Roman authors as staunch pagans, still building pyramids for their dead into the 300s, and only converting in the 400s. Their real claim to fame was how long they were able to remain Christian, while right next to a powerful Arab Egypt. Which leads to...

2: Their Baqt UP is effectively useless in relation to their UHV. Played well, a Nubian UHV ends a bit before the Roman conquests. And even on an 'average' victory, things have to finish quickly because the requirement of founding Orthodoxy means you have to rush technology (which is fortunately easy to do with all of Egypt's commerce). You never interact with the Arabs, and so apart from maybe Persia your UP never sees use.

There are two possible solutions to this in my eyes. The first is giving them a UP and third goal more related to ancient/classical Kush (maybe conquer the Levant, a goal of Taharqa's and a good challenge between stability issues and invasions - do it early and try not to collapse, or wait for law and throw down with Greece/Rome). The second, and probably better option is giving them some Orthodoxy related goal that will require them to interact with Arabia and use their UP in some way. Maybe a requirement to either control Egypt or be on Friendly terms with its owner while being Orthodox in certain years, to give some freedom in how to do things (the new Makurian period should make control difficult, but an option if Arabia collapses or looks to be about to collapse by the date). But at this point I'm kinda just spitballing.

IMO, I think "Conquer the Levant" is already played out enough with plenty of other early game civilizations, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Persia and Hittites, all needing to conquer it. I think another direction is warranted for Nubia. In my Nubian post awhile back:

After putting out my video for Nubia, I wanted to get my thoughts out there on how this civilization plays. But since Nubia's region is so close to Egypt, and it's first goal basically necessitates conquering Egypt, I decided to coopt this thread to include Nubia as well.

Nubia:​

Historical Goals:​

1. Have 200 gold, 200 culture and acquire 5 happiness resources by 900 BC. In practice, this is a conquest goal with a couple of extra conditions- namely, making sure your resources are hooked up and you have enough gold in the treasury. In my experience with multiple games, this goal is obtainable most of the time. However, there is still the wildcard of how successful the Sea People are in the north against Egypt, the general makeup of the Egyptian army, and if you are able to capture Egyptian workers to build the improvements in time. (I was also incentivized to settle one tile to the west, to get cultural access to the desert Ivory, rather than forcing myself to capture the Egyptian dye south of their capitol.)
2. Have a population of 40 in happy cities by 300 BC. I'll be honest, I don't like this goal. Nubia's 3rd goal of beelining Ethics already incentivizes maximizing a happy and full population for your cities, and if this goal didn't exist, I probably would've gotten 40 population in my cities without even explicitly going for it. Instead, I would like to see UHV2 focus on trade. From what I understand, Nubia was renowned for exporting Gold and Ivory to Egypt, and both Nubia and Egypt constructed forts, in part, to help guard these trade routes. From a gameplay perspective, Nubia's first goal involves acquiring many luxury resources (perfect for selling to other civilizations); And Nubia's 3rd goal involves beelining Ethics (which I researched early, in 360 BC). Requiring Nubia to take a detour to Contract and Currency to help complete this goal would be good for preventing Orthodoxy being founded too early, and also add a degree of tension for the player that currently doesn't exist for UHV2, after you conquer Egypt. Suggestion: Acquire 500 (?) through trade (selling resources, trade routes) by 300 BC.
3. Found Orthodoxy and control an Orthodox Cathedral by 600 AD. This goal is good. I think if UHV2 changes to require researching Contract/Currency as I suggested, it will keep the tension still fairly high for founding Orthodoxy. The final deadline can definitely be changed to an earlier date though: I finished it Turn 159, 71 turns early!

Spawn Date:​

Generally speaking, I think it's a good thing to maximize the amount of turns that a civilization has to play on the map. Unless that civilization is especially expansionist, and spawning it too early would mess with the balance of civilizations (looking at you Rome...), I think we should allow that civilization to spawn earlier, so as to give the player more agency over their playthrough. I think this case is especially strong for Nubia, as the Nubian civilization was interacting with the Egyptians well before 1650 BC. I suggest the Nubian spawn date get pushed back to 2400-2200 BC. The player should now start with only 50 in treasury, and be missing the Ceremony technology (Mudbrick Pyramids!), to set them back a little more.

The main concern would be that the player now has the ability to go for a Medjay rush against Egypt 25 turns earlier, leading to a too-early conquest. To counter this outcome, I propose...

Medjay:​

...that the Medjay be transformed from an Archer UU, to a Skirmisher UU, and his technology requirement be changed to Leverage. This would solve two problems with the Medjay: Preventing an early Medjay rush (if Nubia changes to spawn earlier), and his ridiculously strong city defense strength ( of 6).

Mudbrick Pyramid:​

I really like the Mudbrick Pyramid. My only complaint is that it is functionally identical to the Javanese Candi, except that the Candi also gives an engineer slot. I hate to see a unique building just be a worse copy of another unique building. Perhaps we can give something extra to the Mudbrick Pyramid: +1 to help counter the early whipping? +4 to help meet the culture goal? +2 xp for Archery units, to help the Medjay rush a little more?

​

I suggested a trade oriented goal for the Nubians, as none of the early game civilizations have a "Make " goal anymore. Albeit my suggestion was to replace the 2nd goal, which I felt already came naturally after conquering Egypt, and you can pretty much accidentally walk into the second goal at that point.

Very much agree on the UP. I imagine that their UP would be useful post-UHV game, as the Arabs are typically furious with anybody of a different religion. But for the scope of their UHV, over two millenia now, it doesn't come into play. Maybe their capital can get a small wealth bonus for every access to a luxury resource that they have, showcasing their early trade routes with Egypt.

 

[Lilna]

Yeah, like I said, I think a goal based around Makuria is a better fit than cramming another Kushite conquest goal in there. And I like the idea of their UP - the Baqt is arguably the longest peace treaty in history and a fun thing to represent.

They might benefit a lot from changing their second goal too, since like you said it pretty much autocompletes after you conquer Egypt. Something trade-based like you suggested could be a good representation of the Meroitic period, which splits their UHV goals nicely into their three golden ages: The 25th Dynasty, Meroe, and Makuria. This would also help to stop the time waiting until goal 3 from being an end-turn simulator.

 

[Krieger-FS]

I do share some of your concerns about the Nubians (in fact, I’ve been reading extensively about them and hope to soon share a proposal for their city names and settling map values), and I fully agree with the issues regarding the UP and UHV.

Personally, I think they deserve a Medieval UHV, with a religious focus being the most obvious choice. They have a fascinating history during this period, and extending their gameplay would make the UP more useful. They were indeed late adopters of Christianity, and their history saw considerable religious conflict within the Christian faiths — at different times, the various Nubian kingdoms adopted Greek Orthodoxy, Coptic Orthodoxy, and even Monophysitism.

Recently, I suggested some tweaks to UHV3 (to make it last longer and increase the usefulness of the UP): removing the requirement to found Orthodoxy but keeping the Cathedral in 600 AD, while also requiring settling a Great Prophet in Alexandria and ensuring that all cities along the Nile are Orthodox by 1100 AD and are controlled by Christian civs. This would also represent the Makurian/Nobadian attacks on Islamic Egypt: they often raided Upper Egypt and occasionally brought the region under their influence; by the time of the Third Crusade, relations between the Nubians and the Crusaders had increased, and there may even have been a poorly coordinated attempt to unite forces to conquer Egypt.

 

[banzay13]

Can be stealth destroyer not so stealth? I mean, it's BIG warship. In digital era you have sattelites, planes but can't see warship near you coast . You can see small boat at any hex on map, but not big beautiful warship. It cant dive, fly or something. You can see it by optics.
It can became visible in your coast (shore) area, and near your naval unit.

 

[migck]

Can be stealth destroyer not so stealth? I mean, it's BIG warship. In digital era you have sattelites, planes but can't see warship near you coast . You can see small boat at any hex on map, but not big beautiful warship. It cant dive, fly or something. You can see it by optics.
It can became visible in your coast (shore) area, and near your naval unit.

well consider that a game turn is at least one year in the digital era where stealth destroyers appear, which could represent them doing night cover ops and running circles around their chasers with their radar blocking for weeks or months on end.
But giving the satellite unit the ability to see their invisibility class is not a bad idea. In vanilla BtS, Airships can see submarines which doesn't make much sense (and you lose that only aerial submarine detector when they upgrade to fighters). Satellites being able to get direct visuals on surface ships is not far fetched.

 

[AOS9001]

Can be stealth destroyer not so stealth? I mean, it's BIG warship. In digital era you have sattelites, planes but can't see warship near you coast . You can see small boat at any hex on map, but not big beautiful warship. It cant dive, fly or something. You can see it by optics.
It can became visible in your coast (shore) area, and near your naval unit.

In my fantasy naval unit tree rework (yet to be posted) I ditch the stealth destroyer entirely in favor of the guided missile destroyer. The stealth destroyer is an end of history hallucination where the United States military as of the first years of the GWOT is the final form of military and template all nations aspire to, instead of the multi-billlion dollar failure not being replicated anywhere, even in the USA, it turned out to be. I really don't like that unit.

 

[Hickman888]

In vanilla BtS, Airships can see submarines which doesn't make much sense (and you lose that only aerial submarine detector when they upgrade to fighters). Satellites being able to get direct visuals on surface ships is not far fetched.

Airships were deployed to safeguard convoys, being able to spot enemy submarines when they surfaced from the water. Yes it might not make too much sense that Fighters don't also have this submarine-spotting ability, but I think the intended goal was that Destroyers would then take up that mantle of being the "submarine spotters" of the rock-paper-scissors dichotomy.

In my fantasy naval unit tree rework (yet to be posted) I ditch the stealth destroyer entirely in favor of the guided missile destroyer. The stealth destroyer is an end of history hallucination where the United States military as of the first years of the GWOT is the final form of military and template all nations aspire to, instead of the multi-billlion dollar failure not being replicated anywhere, even in the USA, it turned out to be. I really don't like that unit.

I just dislike the Stealth Destroyer for being able to enter my coastal waters and blow up all my fishing boats, undetected. It's just one more stealth unit that I need to prepare ahead to properly defend my own coast. I think there's a case to be made that the Stealth Destroyer should not maintain it's stealth inside enemy territory, at the very least.

Also, why don't you post your ideas for a naval unit tree rework? I'd be interested to see it.

 

[AOS9001]

I just dislike the Stealth Destroyer for being able to enter my coastal waters and blow up all my fishing boats, undetected. It's just one more stealth unit that I need to prepare ahead to properly defend my own coast. I think there's a case to be made that the Stealth Destroyer should not maintain it's stealth inside enemy territory, at the very least.

Also, why don't you post your ideas for a naval unit tree rework? I'd be interested to see it.

Sure, I'll write up a post. The biggest problems of 1.18 seem behind us, which is what I've been waiting for.

 

[AOS9001]

Double post: I made a thread about it.