The Netherlands - new playable civ!

[Tremo]

I thought of having two UU's for Carthage, but decided against it for the sake of keeping the Civ balanced and interchangable with other projects. So no Numidian Horsemen/Mercenaries for me. But what I would suggest is, since you are understanding the need for The Netherlands to have a naval UU, is to change your current UU to a naval unit.

Yeah... this is true. it's a bit unfair for a Civ to have a seperate UU for almost all eras. But yes, the Swiss mercs are something i could switch for a naval unit.

But i would like some input from other players from this. Because i don't want to ruin too many player's games by changing units. Mainly because any savegame with Swiss Mercs in it would probably no longer be useable if i erase them.

I might just leave it as it is and set a naval unit as an 'optional' download.

 

[Hyronymus]

There were of course some very efficient Dutch ships sailing the 7 Seas but I wonder how overrated their significance was.

If you dive into history a bit you'll discover that the Dutch developed a way to produce wooden planks at an astonishing rate. This became possible because of the on-going improvements of the sawmill industry along the river Zaan (remember the Zaanse Schans?). It's estimated that some 800 (!) sawmills occupied the river banks during the Dutch Golden Age. This extreme production rate allowed the Dutch not just to build better ships but moreover many ships.

Now compare this to the balance in WW2, where the Americans had the inferior Sherman tank and the Germans had the superior Tiger tanks. The superiority of the Tiger tanks didn't matter in the end because they were swallowed by the vast number of inferior Sherman tanks. Conclusion: it's not always quality that matters, sometimes quantity is of more importance.

Back to the core issue: will a naval UU fit better than a land UU. It will if you decide upon quantity but not necessarily if you judge it on quality. Looking at Civ4 gameplay I say naval units are underrated (as usual) so giving a country a naval UU feels like a cheap trick to me. Another important point is that the Swiss Mercenaries allowed the United Provinces to claim indepence and stay independent. The ships didn't help there, only after 'our' indepence was consolidated the ships could bring us a Golden Age. They couldn't have done that if The Netherlands were still under Spanish rule.

EDIT: and this was a quick reply

 

[Roetghoer]

Indeed the navy is underdeveloped, once again, in Civ4. I was particularly anoyed by the caraval and it's inability to carry at least settlers. I was playing the britannia scenario by Vadus which was great, but i had to wait until i could build galleons for the real viking action.

Maybe some civs just should have an advantage at obtaining the galleon, lower science cost or something. I dont know if this is possible for a single civ in the game though.

And for the indepence part, i do agree that the mercs were a large contributing unit but it still stings a little that they are not Dutch!!! here something similar exists as with the naval units. The Dutch could afford to pay these mercs because of a very good financial position, due to advanced trade routes within Europe (mostly with poland for wheats etc.) Just like the ability to build larger quantities of ships due to the sawmills in the Zaan region

For the game i'd like to be able to play a more colonizing and explorative role playing The Netherlands. That's just a matter of taste but to this end i'd like to have an improved naval unit for the Dutch.

 

[Tremo]

There were of course some very efficient Dutch ships sailing the 7 Seas but I wonder how overrated their significance was.

If you dive into history a bit you'll discover that the Dutch developed a way to produce wooden planks at an astonishing rate. This became possible because of the on-going improvements of the sawmill industry along the river Zaan (remember the Zaanse Schans?). It's estimated that some 800 (!) sawmills occupied the river banks during the Dutch Golden Age. This extreme production rate allowed the Dutch not just to build better ships but moreover many ships.

Now compare this to the balance in WW2, where the Americans had the inferior Sherman tank and the Germans had the superior Tiger tanks. The superiority of the Tiger tanks didn't matter in the end because they were swallowed by the vast number of inferior Sherman tanks. Conclusion: it's not always quality that matters, sometimes quantity is of more importance.

Back to the core issue: will a naval UU fit better than a land UU. It will if you decide upon quantity but not necessarily if you judge it on quality. Looking at Civ4 gameplay I say naval units are underrated (as usual) so giving a country a naval UU feels like a cheap trick to me. Another important point is that the Swiss Mercenaries allowed the United Provinces to claim indepence and stay independent. The ships didn't help there, only after 'our' indepence was consolidated the ships could bring us a Golden Age. They couldn't have done that if The Netherlands were still under Spanish rule.

EDIT: and this was a quick reply

I could always cut build costs by X% to signify the UU.

Nevertheless, the Dutch crews were extremely experienced and their sailing ships were efficient. How else were they the only ones to beat the almighty Brittish navy at one point? Dutch ships were smaller, faster and more agile, and as a result were very hard to hit. That's a quality in it's own. (British ships were big, bulky and powerfull but basically screamed "SHOOT ME!")

But you do have a point about naval units being underrated. I rarely use any large quantities of ships unless I'm stuck on an island or use an island map.

 

[Hyronymus]

British ships were big, bulky and powerfull but basically screamed "SHOOT ME!"

I always thought the Union Jack was meant as an aiming point, with all those lines converging to one point *

But OK, let's agree on the efficiency of the Dutch ships. Wouldn't it be possible to have the Dutch build important naval improvements at a faster rate or even have drydocks give +6 experience points rather than the standard +4?

*please, don't start about me mistaking the Union Jack for the English flag. I know the difference & history, I'm just making a joke.

 

[Tremo]

UPDATE! New version; v1.06

• New and resized leaderheads
• Some xml cleaning concerning the leaderheads

Also added an .exe installer on the first post for easy installing (full version only, not the update).

For people that already downloaded the full version, click here to download the update!

 

[Martinus]

Yeah... this is true. it's a bit unfair for a Civ to have a seperate UU for almost all eras. But yes, the Swiss mercs are something i could switch for a naval unit.

But i would like some input from other players from this. Because i don't want to ruin too many player's games by changing units. Mainly because any savegame with Swiss Mercs in it would probably no longer be useable if i erase them.

I might just leave it as it is and set a naval unit as an 'optional' download.

While having a naval UU is probably more historically correct for the Dutch, I would still keep the Swiss mercenary instead, for the same reason they axed the English naval UU from Civ 3 and put a redcoat in Civ 4. Why? Because many maps feature either very little or no water at all, making the naval UU totally useless, whether a land UU always has some uses.

 

[Martinus]

Also adding special abilities to Civ, beyond those from special UU, leader traits and starting techs is a very bad and imbalancing idea, imo. If Dutch can build cheaper ships, why not give Romans an ability to build cheaper colosseums etc. - you could find countless such things for every single civ out there. You need to avoid a temptation of overpowering your favourite custom civ like that, as this will discourage people from using your mod, except for a small group of fanbois.

 

[Hyronymus]

In essence I don't think giving each nation a rebate on some sort of building would be wrong. It is however not advicable to introduce it for a selected number of civilizations alone, if you introduce it it would be best to introduce something similar for other civs too.

 

[Tremo]

Heh, I think the way it is, is going to be the final version. I'm simply leaving it the way it is unless bugs and/or mistakes are found. Just released v1.06 and now I'm going to start on my next Civ (most likely the Maya).

 

[Roetghoer]

I'll be playing Dutchies for a while then

 

[tdb]

Question: Why does this mod change the Lion unit? I ran it through my modswitcher's diffing utility and got the following result:

<UnitInfo>
  <Type>UNIT_LION</Type>
  <iCombat>3</iCombat>
  <UnitMeshGroups>
    <iGroupSize>2</iGroupSize>
  </UnitMeshGroups>
</UnitInfo>

In case someon can't parse that in his head, it's telling that iCombat is now 3 (it's 2 in the original file) and iGroupSize is now 2 (3 in original).

Is this perhaps part of some other mod which was left in by mistake?

 

[lawine]

Dutch ships were smaller, faster and more agile, and as a result were very hard to hit. That's a quality in it's own. (British ships were big, bulky and powerfull but basically screamed "SHOOT ME!")

Not neccesarily, the Dutch Republic had ships of the line aswell, such as the Zeven Provincieen, which as i recall was a 74-gun ship. Which certainly isn't small. Certainly calling it's trading vessels small would be pretty wrong. Fluyts and indiamen like the batavia were not small, they were pretty huge actually.

 

[fugazi]

dank je for the mod! Will be using it, as both leaders mix talent mixes I've been wanting to try out for a while!

-bug! why is the flag black? No orange/lion to be seen here

 

[azuil]

Thanks a lot!
Works great (only also the black flags.. but, nevermind...)
Now I can play my own country! I like the swiss mercenary too.


btw.
Some units say "at your service".
What dutch man have i heared saying this before? hehe

 

[fugazi]

marechaussee would be a better unit, instead of the standard marine.

 

[Roetghoer]

marechaussees??????--> [marechaussees]

Whats so special about them?? do they pay u regularly maybe?

 

[azuil]

hehe...

 

[Hyronymus]

Marechausses are the Dutch equivalent of the Militairy Police and border patrol. I can't think of anything special about them that would make them suitable as a Dutch unique unit. Definetly not as a replacement of the marines, simply because they aren't marines (by far).

 

[fugazi]

Van Heust created them to fight guerilla wars against the Atjeh people, I'm talking about what they were, not what they are now, that way most UU's would be mood.