[Custom Civ] The Garamantes for VP

[hokath]

The Garamantes for Vox Populi
Download Link

Djalla -- Desert Rose
Units starting the Turn on a Land Trade Route connected to you gain +1 Movement and Ignore Terrain Costs.
Founding a City creates an Oasis Feature on the tile.

Plumed Nomad
(Scout)

14
Fezzan Marauder:
Double moves in Desert. 20% less damage from Cities.
Steal 75% Damage as Gold when attacking Cities, capped at 10x city strength

Aghrem
(Watermill)

5 Strength and +50 HP
+1 Food for every 4 Citizens (up from just Production)
+1 for every 2 Desert tiles worked
+1 Food, Gold, and +2 Border Growth Points on Oases worked by this City.

Foggara
(Unique Improvement)

Unlocked at Engineering
Requires Desert
+1 , +2
Source of Fresh Water
Built on top of (replacing) Mines or Oil Wells
Connect Resources (and give +2 Gold if they do)
No Two Adjacent
Adjacent Desert +1 Food, Gold, and +2 Border Growth Points
Adjacent Farm +1 Culture

Javelin Rider
(Skirmisher)

12
11 (+2)
Ignores Terrain Costs​

Credits:

• Tomatekh: Original mod creator
• Janboruta: Plumed nomad art (original mod)
• Sukritact: Foggara art (original mod)
• Jarcast: coding, design, wisdom, javelin rider icon
• Danrell: Babylonian Horseman model
• LastSword: Javelin Rider unit flag
• RawSasquatch: Aghrem art
• Hokath: design, testing, earlier VP version

 

[hokath]

Question to anyone who knows about this region:
To what extent do extant peoples in this region (Libya) have a connection with -- a place in their historical identity for -- this culture?

 

[Nightmare Dusk]

Desert Raider (Double moves in Desert. 25% less damage from Cities. Steal 125% Damage when attacking Cities, capped at 10x city strength)

I'm sorry, i'm not sure what it means to steal 125% damage from cities

 

[hokath]

So if you deal 20 points of damage to a City, you get 25 Gold. It's the same mechanic as Piracy on Naval Melee Units.
Edit: Oh I see part of the description was missing. Yeah its "as Gold", not some kind of lifesteal.

 

[azum4roll]

You're stealing Hashemite Raider's promotion name :/

 

[jarcast2]

@hokath how about: Desert Raider Fezzan Marauder ?

 

[hokath]

Edit: Updated name, also tweaked the numbers on it down a bit (got lost in the sauce)
25%->20% dmg reduction from Cities
125%->75% gold steal

 

[gwennog]

Hello Hokath,
I tried this mod in version 4.16.2. First of all thank you for the work, an interesting design and a really beautiful set.
However, I encountered a problem in my game. If the start is quite fast and quickly boosted by the Aghrem, the civ reaches a plateau of stagnation. There is no component in the UA that evolves over time and the placement of the Foggara is too restrictive to really provide significant support. On a large terrain, I could only place 3 for 8 cities and unless you play on a specific map, as soon as you move away from your starting desert, the improvement becomes useless.
Increasing the availability of the Foggara a little could be a good idea, perhaps in the plains or next to a mountain to get closer to other systems of the same type such as the Iranian quanat or the Moroccan khettara.
This is of course only a first opinion, I will have to test other games.

 

[hokath]

Yes the scaling really must come by conquering more Desert.
However I share your experience that the most recent version of the UI placement is perhaps overly restrictive (map script depending ofc).
Perhaps Fresh Water is too broad (Oasis, 1 tile Lakes you often seem to get, and your City tiles) and it should really be no-two-adjacent + no-river. I'm not sure there is a no-river flag atm, I will have to check.

In the base mod the condition is Desert Hills, and so we went toward Desert. I guess equally we could have gone toward Hills. Doesn't feel quite right to me though.

 

[gwennog]

In the base mod the condition is Desert Hills, and so we went toward Desert. I guess equally we could have gone toward Hills. Doesn't feel quite right to me though.

Only plain and desert hills regardless of whether there is fresh water on or not would probably be a good placement rule, I think.

 

[hokath]

The nice thing about current placement (i.e. not limited to hills) is that it guarantees you can farm every flat desert tile.

 

[gwennog]

The nice thing about current placement (i.e. not limited to hills) is that it guarantees you can farm every flat desert tile.

I agree but it's for show, not really for playing and between the city aquifer and the one you could place on every other hill (plain and desert) you will have almost the same possibility.

 

[hokath]

How about the way the Monolithic Church works: so tile requirement but then can also be built on specific resources. I am thinking like Desert Hills and Mining Resources (anywhere).

 

[gwennog]

How about the way the Monolithic Church works: so tile requirement but then can also be built on specific resources. I am thinking like Desert Hills and Mining Resources (anywhere).

This is a good idea, I think. Just using the desert hills if you don't keep the limitation of no fresh water (often the hills are bordered on one side by a river). If you add the second proposition (hill with mining resource), do you think you will make it exploitable or will it be lost?

 

[hokath]

Following @gwennog's feedback and my own playtesting the following changes are now playable

Aquifer Feature: Removed

UA: Creates an Oasis under Cities you Found
The way this works is at first it gives Fresh Water and no Yields (City ignores bonus from feature)
But since its a real Oasis you get yields from Aqueduct, Garden (and if you are playing with Tweaks, Hotels), etc.
Graphics seem to work more consistently (at least for me) also

Aghrem:
- Culture from worked Desert increased to 1/2 (from 1/3)
- Oasis bonus lowered to +1 (from +2) Food, Gold, and +2 Border Growth Points

Foggara:
- create Fresh Water
- are built on top of (replacing) Mines or Oil Wells
- connect Resources (and give +2 Gold if they do)
- No Two Adjacent
- does not require Desert anymore
- give adjacent Desert +1 Food, Gold, and +2 Border Growth Points
- give adjacent Farm +1 Culture
- no longer destroyed when Pillaged

Plumed Nomad
- Strength set to Scout+2 (down from +3)

 

[KlHannibal2]

Interesting civ, which I just tried.

Some suggestions: The UB and UI favor you going low on the tech tree. Also, the UI interacting with mining resources favors going bronze working early. The plumed nomad is high up on the tech tree, and does not seem that strong. How about making it unlock somewhere lower on the tech tree? What about iron working?

Building the UI on mines on mining resources and replaing the mines makes going god of fire unattractive. Can god of fire be changed by this mod to also affect the UI on mining resources?

Also, given most bonuses involve desert, the civ is very terrain-dependent. How about letting the oasis spawn not under a newly founded city, but next to it?

And a crazy idea: how about letting citadel land grabs transform all affected tiles into desert?

 

[hokath]

Can certainly look at the God of Fire affecting the Foggara, good idea.

It is certainly terrain-focussed and of course that's intentional. Hopefully this Foggaras change is a happy middle ground. Spawning the Oasis adjacent to the City is a bit problematic in the very early turns just because its such a good tile unimproved so it really has to stay under the City.

The idea of converting tiles to Desert is cool! A little bit ahistorical for these guys but maybe in a different desert civ it could work.

 

[jarcast2]

The issue with changing terrains of a tile is that the in-game graphics won't update to reflect the change unless you save and reload.

 

[KlHannibal2]

Can certainly look at the God of Fire affecting the Foggara, good idea.

It is certainly terrain-focussed and of course that's intentional. Hopefully this Foggaras change is a happy middle ground. Spawning the Oasis adjacent to the City is a bit problematic in the very early turns just because its such a good tile unimproved so it really has to stay under the City.

The idea of converting tiles to Desert is cool! A little bit ahistorical for these guys but maybe in a different desert civ it could work.

Thank you for the quick reply. I would like to test them with the god of fire fix. I did not mean that all ideas are strictly necessary to fix the civ.

Regarding the plumed nomad, how would you see it used optimally? The bonus against cities is kind of weird on a scout replacement. Scouts don't get the drill (?) promotion line that would make them better against cities. You won't take cities with them. I could see them attacking cities away from the front lines, just to farm gold. But if you go for early war, you will want the strong units low in the tech tree. So getting scouts would take some time. Also, scouts would be very vulnerable if the AI sends proper combat units to confront them. Maybe the best use is to farm gold from a city state after killing all its units.

Some more thoughts on general interactions of the components: extra border growth goes well with taking authority and god of the expanse. However, they come quite late for founding with god of the expanse.

The Moukahla sounds very strong in desert, but it comes late. If I go authority, I would like to conquer early, and conquer all the desert I can as early as possible. If I go for domination, I would conquer other terrain after getting the desert. When the Moukahla unlocks, I would probaly already have all the desert in range. So I would like to see some desert combat bonus early in the game.

I try to figure out how the movement bonus from trade routes could be used best. I can see mostly defensive advantages. Letting enemies come into your desert and being slowed down there. Then, you attack them from multiple sides with your movement bonus. For attacking, I struggle how you could get good use out of it. There won't be a trade route goung to the civ you attack for long. I can only see the benefit of moving fast into enemy lands as the war starts, and mabe for sending reinforcements faster. The bonus is most useful on cavalry, getting 4 or 5 moves with ignore terrain.

How about giving ignore terrain cost in desert to all units and city connections by desert from the UA? That would be in line with Inca, Iroquois and Songhai. And remove the trade route bonus.

 

[hokath]

If you manage Survivalism III you actually can take (non Capital) Cities with the Plumed Nomad. In fact in the recent version I felt it should be 1 CS less because they are just quite hard to answer. You want them early (helps if you have Coast to make Sailing a better choice, I admit) and to go for possibly several opponents' weak Cities to farm Gold as you tech to Masonry. Then, I use the Gold to buy Catapults and actually go for a Capital, if possible. But this is just one mode. I think there's another possibly where you beeline Engineering and play more peacefully. Then, yes, I imagine you go for a City State maybe or beeline later into Explorer and use them as like a delayed UU attack (into Desert).

In terms of having all the Desert already conquered, this is probably a map-size thing. I play on large terra-style mostly and there is always more Desert to conquer, but I see how this can be a problem on say, Oval. Then, yes, Moukahla will feel like wasted potential. We could explore some non-combat bonuses when they cannot be used normally because of the map. E.g. Garrison yields or lower production or maintenance costs.

On the one hand I like the Gold from Cities. On the other it does feel very hard to balance -- sometimes you get lucky and hit the jackpot. So I could see a consolidation of the 2 Promotions to bring Desert CS-increase earlier but reducing the Gold gain. I'm not 100% sold on this though.

Trade routes are definitely better defensively. The best you can really do offensively is sending the internal route to a newly captured City and then springboarding off that to the next target. This can work really well when there's rough terrain in the way and otherwise it would be a slog, but again very situation dependent.

How about giving ignore terrain cost in desert to all units and city connections by desert from the UA? That would be in line with Inca, Iroquois and Songhai. And remove the trade route bonus.

You know I never thought of that lol (this trade route bonus is adapted from the original mod) but it would be completely logical.
However in comparison to those other civs rather weak, no? As Desert cannot compare to Hills or Rivers.
So probably better off keeping the trade bonus in the end.

p.s. Updated with lines for God of Fire on Foggaras-improved resource