The Touhou Mod Development Thread

[bouncymischa]

I do need to work at cleaning up my error messages, though. It can get frustrating trying to find the real source of a problem when there's hundreds of redundant lines.

As DarkScythe says, though, my own games are generating equally large debug files without problems, so it's probably not the debug messages.

I think I'll try to tone down Shinki's flavors a bit and bring her more in line with Pedro, who's probably a good model for her.

 

[nvdr]

Well, that's from like, 8-10 turns so I thought it was unusual, being a non-coding type person. Certainly seemed the most unusual out of everything I saw.

I'll try turning off a few mods and see if I get another game that crashes, I have a feeling it might be more related to other mods I picked up since installing Yumemi, rather than her.

I suppose I'll leave her as an AI with this game as well, see how she does.

I will say, bright as they are, Yumemi's colors are still a lot easier on the eye than Shinki's were, even if I have no idea how they're related to the character.

And since it's related and has gone unanswered: what will be done about Reimu's colors? The obvious combo is taken in both forms by official civs.

 

[bouncymischa]

Well, that's from like, 8-10 turns so I thought it was unusual, being a non-coding type person. Certainly seemed the most unusual out of everything I saw.

Sometimes you don't want to know what's going on behind the curtain of computer programming.

I will say, bright as they are, Yumemi's colors are still a lot easier on the eye than Shinki's were, even if I have no idea how they're related to the character.

And since it's related and has gone unanswered: what will be done about Reimu's colors? The obvious combo is taken in both forms by official civs.

I've considered tweaking Yumemi's colors, but I'm pretty happy with how they look. There's an Inuit civ under development that's using ice-blue and white, but comparing Yumemi's colors to theirs Yumemi's cyan looks fairly distinctive. Perhaps cyan is just a more "natural" color to our eyes than the lavender-pink I was using for Shinki before...

I'll have to confess that the colors aren't really related to Yumemi, who, if anything, has a more red theme. (Hence her theme music, 'Strawberry Crisis'.) But there's already tons of red civs out there, and I've always liked the looks of cyan/white for my high-tech civs -- the civ borders have a nice "force field" look to them, and the scheme goes well with the laboratory and tech citadel models. So while Yumemi's colors aren't directly related to her per se (if anything, they're more Chiyuri's colors), they do work well with the civ.

As for Reimu, I'm probably going to try going with a wine-red and white or off-white. While the in-game depictions of Reimu usually tend towards the more basic red and white, I've seen artwork done by other artists that give Reimu a slightly more "realistic" palette with darker reds. Instead of white, I could probably go with cream with that sort of palette.

 

[SylphTempest]

Hello everyone,
I'm attempting to create a civilization with Reimu as the leader (I see I'm not the only one, but I'm going to continue anyway), and because I'm brand new to modding (and coding in general), I'm having some trouble.

I've been using Kael's tutorial as a starting point, and I'm fairly sure I have most of what I need down, but there is a specific problem I'm having.

I am trying to replace the regular shrine with a Hakurei Shrine, as well as the Palace with a Great Hakurei Shrine that provides a point of Faith as well as the Culture it normally does. I think I have the palace replacement down, but I can't seem to find the base code for the normal shrine in the Civ5 building files (ctrl-f "shrine" gives me nothing), so I'm not sure how to create the Hakurei Shrine in the code.

...I'm also not sure if my civ is balanced at all, because I've given it a bunch of little bonuses (a free tech (Pottery), as well as a free Hakurei Shrine in the capital, on top of Farms adding a Faith point per yield). If this is too much, I'd love to know so I can undo something. (Probably the free tech tbh? Seems like a bit much to me, maybe)

edit: it occurs to me after i post that this is probably the wrong section to be asking that particular question...hmm.
edit2: is there no delete function? that makes me sad. ignore this then, i'm gonna go post this in the proper section. >:I

 

[nvdr]

As for Reimu, I'm probably going to try going with a wine-red and white or off-white. While the in-game depictions of Reimu usually tend towards the more basic red and white, I've seen artwork done by other artists that give Reimu a slightly more "realistic" palette with darker reds. Instead of white, I could probably go with cream with that sort of palette.

Depending on the exact colors and how distinct it actually is versus Austria, it could be pretty nice. Shame there's no way to have Marisa truly be the Black/White either. (Well, without conflicting with City State coloration.)




So in line with my comment that I'd test playing against certain civs, I decided to test myself along with Yumemi AI.

I played as Remilia on King, without building a single world wonder or taking a second city in any way. My only bonuses were from buildings, religion and national wonders. This was partially as a challenge and partially to see what the AI did if left with free reign over all world wonders.

If Korea/Babylon/Poland/Maya are the very top tier for Firaxis' civs, then Eirin is their equivalent in terms of the Touhous. She was an absolute monster the entire game. She was tech leader and wonderspammed to all hell all game. I won on Science while BEHIND her on tech. (She had actually hit Future Tech several turns before I even started with the spaceship part rush.) I'm not entirely sure she's overpowered so much that she just outclasses all her competition in a way that honestly matches how I personally interpret her character. Perhaps not the best indicator for balance, but this is honestly the sort of performance I'd want to see from Eirin as a leader. (And it's the sort of performance I'd like to see Yukari be capable of as well.) Here's Eirin's wonder list at the end of the game.

Regarding less established civs:

Yuuka: (note that I still have the super early version that doesn't even have proper code to render sunflowers.) She seems to have done fine, although I never really saw any indication that she really uses any of her uniques. I admit the fact that the version I've been using being so old means I don't really pay quite enough attention to what she does. She does seem properly aggressive, although I kinda feel she should be sort of aligned more for one sort of victory. As it stands her uniques seem to almost have been taken from three different civs, even if they do all fit her and somewhat align in terms of how to use them. The whole thing with the sunflowers removing food seems like adding challenge where there shouldn't really be one, and the AI probably won't be able to ever handle that. I don't really know what to suggest though, Yuuka's a hard subject to work with.

Shinki: Since it's been mentioned here, I made sure to keep an eye on her progress. That said, Eirin kinda ruined any shot she had at being a runaway. Here's a screencap of what scraps she picked up, and also her stellar relations with everyone. It doesn't really look like she was looking at tourism at all to be honest, although her plans of conquest didn't get her very far either. I don't know what to make of this, and honestly I'm not sure if any judgement could even be valid with a sample size of one. (Although I admit she's easy to initiate a player lead runaway with.) Also worth noting is that she started in grassland forest. And the Kappa were thrown into the arctic.

Yumemi: For a long time she was more or less neck and neck with the Kappa, and both of them are definitely very strong in the early game. One again, Eirin kind of wrecked them, but as the Science Victory screen can show, she wasn't doing too bad. Honestly, if I had left it going, it'd have probably been her racing to space versus whatever the lunar juggernaut was planning to win with. As for whether or not the AI knew how the assistants work, I can't say. She was doing fine on tech early on though, and I'd say it's at least a decent sign that it figured it out?

Keine: She didn't really seem to be anything special really. She took a city off the Oni early on, but lost it again after some time and then never really amounted to anything. She certainly did nothing worthy of note.

Suika: I just want to comment that I've never really seen Suika be a frightening Oni horde, to rival Ghenghis or Attila (or Utsuho). She always seems to just be a relatively passive civ that's middle of the road in terms of performance and rarely seems to accomplish much. I might have to try a conquest game as her and see how that goes. As it stands though, I've never seen the AI be very powerful with her.

 

[DeletedSettler]

I'm not entirely sure she's overpowered so much that she just outclasses all her competition in a way that honestly matches how I personally interpret her character.

If you outclass everything, how are you not overpowered?

I ran two games as Shinki with Yumemi as an AI.

Game one was prince, Small Continents, Tiny (4 players). I started on a great spot with a bunch of tundra and some snow, so I went insane with crystal forests. A few turns past the end of the game I had 22 wonders, over 600+ culture per turn, and 151 tourism. As for how Yumemi did:

http://i.imgur.com/urW9qjF.jpg

She didn't have a whole lot of improvements set up, and definitely no labs. She was, at the least, ahead of the other two AIs in science.

Game two was Continents Plus, Standard (8 players), and I bumped it up two levels to Emperor. I almost always play on Prince so this was a hoot. I had no chance of winning, but I consistently held off invasions from my neighbor Atilla.

As for her: http://i.imgur.com/v1pQCMR.jpg

Seemed like decent enough, although she got overran by the Zulus and lost her capital about 30 turns later. I was on another continent so I couldn't see her home much, but embassy-vision showed no labs.

I figured I wasn't going to win but Shinki's great production kept me from dying miserably with Emperor Atilla as my neighbor. Churn out units in time for wars. I've never even tried Emperor before.

 

[bouncymischa]

Hello everyone,
I'm attempting to create a civilization with Reimu as the leader (I see I'm not the only one, but I'm going to continue anyway), and because I'm brand new to modding (and coding in general), I'm having some trouble.

I've been using Kael's tutorial as a starting point, and I'm fairly sure I have most of what I need down, but there is a specific problem I'm having.

I am trying to replace the regular shrine with a Hakurei Shrine, as well as the Palace with a Great Hakurei Shrine that provides a point of Faith as well as the Culture it normally does. I think I have the palace replacement down, but I can't seem to find the base code for the normal shrine in the Civ5 building files (ctrl-f "shrine" gives me nothing), so I'm not sure how to create the Hakurei Shrine in the code.

...I'm also not sure if my civ is balanced at all, because I've given it a bunch of little bonuses (a free tech (Pottery), as well as a free Hakurei Shrine in the capital, on top of Farms adding a Faith point per yield). If this is too much, I'd love to know so I can undo something. (Probably the free tech tbh? Seems like a bit much to me, maybe)

edit: it occurs to me after i post that this is probably the wrong section to be asking that particular question...hmm.
edit2: is there no delete function? that makes me sad. ignore this then, i'm gonna go post this in the proper section. >:I

Welcome to the thread, Sylph!

I certainly don't mind if other people want to take a shot at making civs I've discussed making -- at worst, there'll be two versions of Reimu out there for people to decide between.

As for game balance, off-hand it seems like you're stacking a lot of bonuses together. At the very least, getting rid of the free tech would be a good start, and I'm not entirely sure about the faith from farms. I suppose it depends if you'd rather overshoot the mark and scale your civ back, or undershoot and work your way up, in terms of balancing the civ against the others?

Depending on the exact colors and how distinct it actually is versus Austria, it could be pretty nice. Shame there's no way to have Marisa truly be the Black/White either. (Well, without conflicting with City State coloration.)

Thinking about it, the wine-red I'm considering may fall a bit close to England. I may end up trying to come up with something halfway between England's red and Austria's red...

As for Marisa, I'm currently using a deep midnight blue, which seems to be working fairly well. My screenshot near the top of the previous page has a sample of it, although I'm somewhat tempted to try a deep green, instead. (Really not enough green civs... )

Yumemi: For a long time she was more or less neck and neck with the Kappa, and both of them are definitely very strong in the early game. One again, Eirin kind of wrecked them, but as the Science Victory screen can show, she wasn't doing too bad. Honestly, if I had left it going, it'd have probably been her racing to space versus whatever the lunar juggernaut was planning to win with. As for whether or not the AI knew how the assistants work, I can't say. She was doing fine on tech early on though, and I'd say it's at least a decent sign that it figured it out?

I don't think I've posted v8 here, where I modified the Research Asssistant's AI from EXPLORE to ATTACK. According to DarkScythe, the change does seem to make the AI use the Research Assistants more effectively, although they do less scouting without a proper EXPLORE unit.

Suika: I just want to comment that I've never really seen Suika be a frightening Oni horde, to rival Ghenghis or Attila (or Utsuho). She always seems to just be a relatively passive civ that's middle of the road in terms of performance and rarely seems to accomplish much. I might have to try a conquest game as her and see how that goes. As it stands though, I've never seen the AI be very powerful with her.

Most of the feedback I've gotten on Suika is fairly positive, and I know in my own games against her she's been a decent little warmonger -- at the very least, eager to provoke wars. I think I modeled her flavors after Genghis. I could take a look and see if some of her flavor values could use tweaking to encourage her to make more units...

If you outclass everything, how are you not overpowered?

Ahhh, questions of game balance...

As for how Yumemi did:

http://i.imgur.com/urW9qjF.jpg

She didn't have a whole lot of improvements set up, and definitely no labs. She was, at the least, ahead of the other two AIs in science.

Game two was Continents Plus, Standard (8 players), and I bumped it up two levels to Emperor. I almost always play on Prince so this was a hoot. I had no chance of winning, but I consistently held off invasions from my neighbor Atilla.

As for her: http://i.imgur.com/v1pQCMR.jpg

Seemed like decent enough, although she got overran by the Zulus and lost her capital about 30 turns later. I was on another continent so I couldn't see her home much, but embassy-vision showed no labs.

Hmmm... I still suspect the initial 1 Science from Labs may not be enough to entice the AI into building them early on. Although Yumemi's improvement construction flavor should be set fairly high, so if she's not building any improvements at all it may be that she just happened to swing low in those games.

Anyways, thanks for the feedback, everyone!

 

[SylphTempest]

Welcome to the thread, Sylph!

I certainly don't mind if other people want to take a shot at making civs I've discussed making -- at worst, there'll be two versions of Reimu out there for people to decide between.

As for game balance, off-hand it seems like you're stacking a lot of bonuses together. At the very least, getting rid of the free tech would be a good start, and I'm not entirely sure about the faith from farms. I suppose it depends if you'd rather overshoot the mark and scale your civ back, or undershoot and work your way up, in terms of balancing the civ against the others?

Hmm, I suppose you're right.

My idea was to have Reimu's civ get a lot of faith early on. The only reason I had the idea to offer Pottery as a free tech was because it's a prereq for shrines, so it made sense to me. I'll go ahead and take that out.

Faith from farms was a bit of a stretch, too. It was ultimately the result of me giving up on thinking of a good trait and picking something simple and easy to do just to get to the testing phase (which I made the mistake of waiting until I was pretty much done to do, whoops...), and wasn't gonna be the final trait anyway. At first, I wanted to give her a trait I'd call "Peacekeeping", where she'd gain a bonus against civs that were also at war with a third civ themselves, but that seems difficult and also probably overpowered (paired war declarations would make Reimu pretty scary). Then I had the idea to give her a bonus to culture and faith during wartime (while taking a penalty to gold and science)...but again, had no idea how I'd go about that.

I'll think of a better trait when I get the mod to actually show me a civ in the civ select screen...and finish testing everything else. Lmao.

 

[nvdr]

If you outclass everything, how are you not overpowered?

A mid tier official civ still outclasses the lowest tier, do they not?

Eirin is definitely very powerful though, and I'd never argue with that claim. She honestly could be one of the absolute strongest civs that aren't made intentionally to be overpowered, simply because of the versatility of her uniques. Within the set I compare her to (that being the other touhou civs), she's easily the strongest overall. (I'd say that Utsuho is the best conqueror though, especially in the late game.)

Eirin's got a lot of powerful bonuses and perhaps they're all a bit too much overall. However, her great person based UA is relatively unique in terms of the touhou civs, and while it would perhaps be befitting of the Brain of the Moon, another touhou with a science UA is not exactly something that's being begged for. She's focused on growth and great people, and her UA/UB synergize really well, which makes her stronger as a result. Her UU being a great defensive unit to protect her valuable tiles and cities only helps keep her strong.

Also worth noting that the game that commentary went with had her get like 20 wonders and I'm sure pretty much any civ would be a powerhouse with those bonuses backing them up.

She could probably use a nerf to some degree, but I'd hope it wouldn't be at the cost of what makes her what she is right now. Unless something amazing was the alternative, then by all means go ahead. I'm sure there's some crazy scripting magic that could make Eirin really interesting as opposed to just versatile. (Is it okay if I say that she could be yet another poccy candidate? >__>)

As for Marisa, I'm currently using a deep midnight blue, which seems to be working fairly well. My screenshot near the top of the previous page has a sample of it, although I'm somewhat tempted to try a deep green, instead. (Really not enough green civs... )

Dark greens are certainly not common, and could be easier to distinguish from black as well. Also goes with the whole forest theme, really. Maybe an off-white secondary color for her too, to match the color of mushrooms. The undersides of mushrooms, at least.

Most of the feedback I've gotten on Suika is fairly positive, and I know in my own games against her she's been a decent little warmonger -- at the very least, eager to provoke wars. I think I modeled her flavors after Genghis. I could take a look and see if some of her flavor values could use tweaking to encourage her to make more units...

Well, this is all just what I've seen of her as an AI, I've never played her personally. That said, she seems a lot less successful in conquest versus what I've seen Utsuho and Nitori do. Although as I've said previously, Utsuho excels at war and Nitori's tech often means she's ahead of her neighbors, making them easy prey. If anyone could use a constantly replenishing free army, it's Suika. Perhaps she's worth revisiting at some point simply because you've improved as a modmaker since setting her up? Her current uniques seem a lot less complex than your recent work.

 

[bouncymischa]

Hmm, I suppose you're right.

My idea was to have Reimu's civ get a lot of faith early on. The only reason I had the idea to offer Pottery as a free tech was because it's a prereq for shrines, so it made sense to me. I'll go ahead and take that out.

Faith from farms was a bit of a stretch, too. It was ultimately the result of me giving up on thinking of a good trait and picking something simple and easy to do just to get to the testing phase (which I made the mistake of waiting until I was pretty much done to do, whoops...), and wasn't gonna be the final trait anyway. At first, I wanted to give her a trait I'd call "Peacekeeping", where she'd gain a bonus against civs that were also at war with a third civ themselves, but that seems difficult and also probably overpowered (paired war declarations would make Reimu pretty scary). Then I had the idea to give her a bonus to culture and faith during wartime (while taking a penalty to gold and science)...but again, had no idea how I'd go about that.

I'll think of a better trait when I get the mod to actually show me a civ in the civ select screen...and finish testing everything else. Lmao.

Complex UAs are quite a challenge to do, because nearly all of them require at least some degree of Lua, which can be intimidating to a first-time modder. (Heck, it took me months to build up the courage to finally venture into doing Lua...)

One idea you might want to look into is the "dummy building" -- a building that you assign to all of your cities using the Traits table, but is invisible on the building list. (This thread details the relatively simple XML required to make a building invisible in the city view.) Dummy buildings can be quite useful, as they have a variety of ways to modify or generate yields. You could, for example, given Reimu a UA where Shrines and Temples generate additional gold, for example. Might be a good start for your first mod.

Dark greens are certainly not common, and could be easier to distinguish from black as well. Also goes with the whole forest theme, really. Maybe an off-white secondary color for her too, to match the color of mushrooms. The undersides of mushrooms, at least.

Marisa currently has a very light blue to go with her midnight blue background -- if I switched her to a very deep green, I'd probably make the 'white' a cream color, similar to the Ottomans. I agree that it would complement the forest theme, so I'll give it a try.

Well, this is all just what I've seen of her as an AI, I've never played her personally. That said, she seems a lot less successful in conquest versus what I've seen Utsuho and Nitori do. Although as I've said previously, Utsuho excels at war and Nitori's tech often means she's ahead of her neighbors, making them easy prey. If anyone could use a constantly replenishing free army, it's Suika. Perhaps she's worth revisiting at some point simply because you've improved as a modmaker since setting her up? Her current uniques seem a lot less complex than your recent work.

I feel like I should take a look at Nitori to see how I can improve Yumemi's tech game a bit. X3

As for Utsuho, thinking about it I can see what you mean -- the last time Utsuho showed up in one of my games, she was a definite warmonger that went after several civs. I can't recall exactly how Utsuho's bonuses work, but I can look into adjusting Suika a bit to make her closer to Utsuho in terms of a military threat. At some point, I probably will revisit my civs -- I do want to start upgrading the icons now that I'm better at it, for one, and I've seen several other civ modders go back and revise earlier civs they made, so Suika may be a good candidate for that.

On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure how I'd change her at this point -- I do find a certain appeal in simplicity, so I'm not terribly keen on the idea of making her more complex simply to make her more complex. But I can look for ways to build upon her existing strengths to augment her military threat just a bit more...

 

[SylphTempest]

Complex UAs are quite a challenge to do, because nearly all of them require at least some degree of Lua, which can be intimidating to a first-time modder. (Heck, it took me months to build up the courage to finally venture into doing Lua...)

One idea you might want to look into is the "dummy building" -- a building that you assign to all of your cities using the Traits table, but is invisible on the building list. (This thread details the relatively simple XML required to make a building invisible in the city view.) Dummy buildings can be quite useful, as they have a variety of ways to modify or generate yields. You could, for example, given Reimu a UA where Shrines and Temples generate additional gold, for example. Might be a good start for your first mod.

yeahluadoeslookprettyscary

Fake buildings for traits, huh...?

Didn't even know you could do the dummy building thing. That seems doable enough.

I'm gonna stick with what I have now until I get the mod working (I'm obviously missing something...not sure what, though), but I'll definitely bookmark that thread and check it when I'm ready to change the trait to something a bit more fitting.

 

[Huitzil37]

I'm pretty sure that Eirin's blanket 25% bonus to GP generation is too good. I'm going to remove it, and maybe tone down the bonus from the Apothecary. A 50% GP bonus before wonders turning into, say, a 20% GP bonus before wonders is probably more reasonable.

 

[nvdr]

So I was trying out that Aya lead Bunbunmaru civ that showed up on the steam workshop, and while I have some questions about it, I have no idea if its author is here.

So instead I wanted to comment on something else that came up during the game.

And that is that aranicar deserves a shoutout for directly referring to Yukari's... lackluster bonuses, with a line from Yukari herself.


Also I didn't notice Yumemi using her labs and Eirin did a lot worse. (And Utsuho did terribly.)

I honestly think there's some kind of randomized competency mechanic that causes civs to get better or worse AI assigned to them at the start of the game. It's my best theory as to why they're so variable.

EDIT: didn't see this before posting

I'm pretty sure that Eirin's blanket 25% bonus to GP generation is too good. I'm going to remove it, and maybe tone down the bonus from the Apothecary. A 50% GP bonus before wonders turning into, say, a 20% GP bonus before wonders is probably more reasonable.

Might want to give some other bonus that's less powerful to replace the GP one, because I'm not sure food from GTIs is that impressive. Maybe a science from plantations or jungle thing, to go with the bamboo forest thing with the actual Eientei as well as Eirin's genius?

Could be totally wrong and +2 food from GTIs really is just that powerful, though.

 

[bouncymischa]

yeahluadoeslookprettyscary

Fake buildings for traits, huh...?

Didn't even know you could do the dummy building thing. That seems doable enough.

I'm gonna stick with what I have now until I get the mod working (I'm obviously missing something...not sure what, though), but I'll definitely bookmark that thread and check it when I'm ready to change the trait to something a bit more fitting.

Once you get the hang of Lua, it's not quite so scary... but it definitely is a big step.

That said, I think dummy buildings are one of the most powerful tools for making UAs -- you can suddenly do a lot more interesting and creative stuff, even with just XML, by assigning dummy buildings to cities. Even once you venture into Lua, many of the ways you'll want to manipulate your civ will be done through spawning dummy buildings. So it's a very handy tool to learn. :3

I'm pretty sure that Eirin's blanket 25% bonus to GP generation is too good. I'm going to remove it, and maybe tone down the bonus from the Apothecary. A 50% GP bonus before wonders turning into, say, a 20% GP bonus before wonders is probably more reasonable.

Unfortunately, I've rarely had Eirin appear in my games, nor have I really played her myself. (I'm usually too busy testing my own civs out... X3) So I can't offer much advice about her balance...

Still, I'm glad to see you post! I know you've been busy with other projects and things, but glad to see you're still dabbling with Touhou civ modding!

And that is that aranicar deserves a shoutout for directly referring to Yukari's... lackluster bonuses, with a line from Yukari herself.

I have to admit, I've never actually played against aranicar's civs... but that is a pretty awesome diplomacy screen! D: I should really activate his civs, too.

I do look at Nitori and wonder if Yumemi's science output is somewhat lacklustre, although I believe you said they were able to keep pace before? I'm still tempted to increase the science output of the labs...

Also I didn't notice Yumemi using her labs and Eirin did a lot worse. (And Utsuho did terribly.)

I honestly think there's some kind of randomized competency mechanic that causes civs to get better or worse AI assigned to them at the start of the game. It's my best theory as to why they're so variable.

Which would probably induce Yumemi to use her labs. I'm going to try playing a game against her myself tonight, and see what happens, but I strongly suspect the AI just doesn't value the 1 Science labs.

As for competency, it's probably just a product of the flavor system. It may be that unless the AI swings rather boldly in favor of a certain strategy, it might end up haphazardly going towards various goals, which inhibits their performance compared to a human.

 

[bouncymischa]

Also, a question I've been meaning to ask, since I'm near publication: Should I keep the civ name "Scientific Geniuses" for Yumemi, or switch it to "Probability Space Hypervessel"? I already use "Touhou - Probability Space Hypervessel" for the name in the mods selection screen, because "Touhou - Scientific Geniuses" sounds... rather vague. So not sure if I should just go and switch the civ name over to PSH entirely...

 

[nvdr]

I'm personally not a fan of the name "Scientific Geniuses", it just seems kinda dumb to me. The short form could maybe be a nice, cromulent word like "Probabalistic" or similar. I'm not a big fan of the diplo screen also having Chiyuri, but that's just my personal opinion.

Regarding buffing her science: I kinda think Nitori gets in the OP range, given that she can get to 2 science from all river tiles and 3 from lakes. It depends on the start of course, but if you or the AI gets a good starting spot, that's a lot of free early science even with just her UA. Balancing Yumemi to that would certainly make her a potent science civ, and probably get the AI to use the UI, but I'm not sure sure about balancing while comparing to a high variability but also very potent UA.

That three pack is kinda all over the place, in my honest opinion. still, they're not uninteresting to play against.


Oh and another note I forgot regarding the Bunbunmaru game: It seems Cirno has some issues moderating her unit production. I don't know if her driving her own economy and research into the ground was intentional but it doesn't exactly make her a strong competitor in any situation. (Which I suppose is accurate to the source material if nothing else...)

 

[bouncymischa]

I'm personally not a fan of the name "Scientific Geniuses", it just seems kinda dumb to me. The short form could maybe be a nice, cromulent word like "Probabalistic" or similar. I'm not a big fan of the diplo screen also having Chiyuri, but that's just my personal opinion.

As much as 'probabilistic' is a real world, it sounds rather clunky -- I'm feeling more inclined to simply use 'probability' to make compound nouns -- so 'Probability Warrior' or 'Probability Battleship' or 'Probability Research Assistant'. I do have a certain fondness for "scientific", but there is the possibility it'll overlap with the Railgun civ (I'm not sure what adjective they use), and "probability" is rather more unique.

As for Chiyuri, there are a few reasons I like that particular image for the diplomacy screen. One is that most of Yumemi's art is red (as she's usually associated with red colors), which conflicts with the blue palette I've used for most of her civ. There's also the fact that part of the inspiration/motivation to do this civ was the Disunified Field Theory of Magic video, which plays up the "glowing tubes" background from Yumemi's final stage, but I haven't been able to find many images that incorporated it. Finally, Chiyuri is strongly associated with Yumemi as her sidekick and assistant, much like, say, Ran and Yukari. (After all, Ran does appear in the Yukari diplomacy screen.. ) And her tendency to confront everyone entering the hypervessel amuses me -- even in Yumemi's story arc, when she returns to the hypervessel Chiyuri waves her gun at her. So I liked the idea that whenever the player went to speak with Yumemi, Chiyuri would be there threatening the guest with her gun.

I can take another look for alternative images, but for the time being I'm fairly satisfied with the image as it is.

Considering the issue of OP versus non-OP civs, I do wonder... is it better for the initial version of a civ to be a bit overpowered, and then get toned down with revisions, or to be a bit underpowered, and then get buffed? The former does mean that the civ will make a bigger splash and stand out in people's minds, so it makes a better impact... but at the same time, I know nerfing things can leave a bad taste in people's mouths, so the latter might go over better. But then you're likely to have less interest in the civ, even after making it better...

 

[bouncymischa]

Also, my plans to update Suika just got a massive shot in the arm -- Nomad or What has done a fantastic new oni model for me to use for the Kishin. He should look awesome when I get him in the game! I've also been meaning to update her art assets a bit, now that I'm more proficient at making icons, so it's a good time for an all-around update.

So, since there were some comments that she was a bit lacklustre compared to, say, Genghis Khan, Attila, or Utsuho... any suggestions? I'm not sure I want to modify the UA much, as I do like its straightforwards simplicity, but I could buff either the Kishin or Brewery (or both!) to help make things a bit more interesting.

For the Brewery: given what I now know of Lua, I could have the various brewery resources add happiness as well. As well, having access to certain luxuries (such as Citrus or Wine) could increase military unit production in the city. Note that this wouldn't be local access, but empire-wide access, including if you got the luxury in trade from someone else. As long as you've got Wine, you've got drunken onis.

For the Kishin: I could move towards making him an actual "hero" type unit that can fight alongside your army, since I now know how I can scale his strength over time. (Mima's skeletons already use a variation on that theme for their combat power...) Not sure I'd want to do much more, and I can't recall if there's issues with the AI using a combat unit as a general (or vice versa), depending on the combat AI... but since the Kishin can't make a Citadel anyways, it may be worthwhile to do. Certainly, beating down enemies with a terrifying oni sounds fun!

 

[nvdr]

As much as 'probabilistic' is a real world, it sounds rather clunky -- I'm feeling more inclined to simply use 'probability' to make compound nouns -- so 'Probability Warrior' or 'Probability Battleship' or 'Probability Research Assistant'. I do have a certain fondness for "scientific", but there is the possibility it'll overlap with the Railgun civ (I'm not sure what adjective they use), and "probability" is rather more unique.

It was just a thought. Railgun uses the prefix "Railgun" (yes really), but Probability does have a nice ring to it anyway.

And speaking of ridiculous science civs, ooh boy Railgun.

As for Chiyuri, there are a few reasons I like that particular image for the diplomacy screen. One is that most of Yumemi's art is red (as she's usually associated with red colors), which conflicts with the blue palette I've used for most of her civ. There's also the fact that part of the inspiration/motivation to do this civ was the Disunified Field Theory of Magic video, which plays up the "glowing tubes" background from Yumemi's final stage, but I haven't been able to find many images that incorporated it. Finally, Chiyuri is strongly associated with Yumemi as her sidekick and assistant, much like, say, Ran and Yukari. (After all, Ran does appear in the Yukari diplomacy screen.. ) And her tendency to confront everyone entering the hypervessel amuses me -- even in Yumemi's story arc, when she returns to the hypervessel Chiyuri waves her gun at her. So I liked the idea that whenever the player went to speak with Yumemi, Chiyuri would be there threatening the guest with her gun.

I can take another look for alternative images, but for the time being I'm fairly satisfied with the image as it is.

To be fair, I have no idea what you'd replace it with, given that you're working with a PC-98 character, even if Yumemi is popular. (She's not exactly Mima or Shinki but she's up there.)

Also, Chen's in Yukari's diplo pic as well, but I think both shikigami aren't exactly as prominent as Chiyuri. They seem to more accentuate Yukari's position rather than distract from it.

Also, my plans to update Suika just got a massive shot in the arm -- Nomad or What has done a fantastic new oni model for me to use for the Kishin. He should look awesome when I get him in the game! I've also been meaning to update her art assets a bit, now that I'm more proficient at making icons, so it's a good time for an all-around update.

So, since there were some comments that she was a bit lacklustre compared to, say, Genghis Khan, Attila, or Utsuho... any suggestions? I'm not sure I want to modify the UA much, as I do like its straightforwards simplicity, but I could buff either the Kishin or Brewery (or both!) to help make things a bit more interesting.

For the Brewery: given what I now know of Lua, I could have the various brewery resources add happiness as well. As well, having access to certain luxuries (such as Citrus or Wine) could increase military unit production in the city. Note that this wouldn't be local access, but empire-wide access, including if you got the luxury in trade from someone else. As long as you've got Wine, you've got drunken onis.

For the Kishin: I could move towards making him an actual "hero" type unit that can fight alongside your army, since I now know how I can scale his strength over time. (Mima's skeletons already use a variation on that theme for their combat power...) Not sure I'd want to do much more, and I can't recall if there's issues with the AI using a combat unit as a general (or vice versa), depending on the combat AI... but since the Kishin can't make a Citadel anyways, it may be worthwhile to do. Certainly, beating down enemies with a terrifying oni sounds fun!

About the comparison to Utsuho: she's the one I've seen have most success with conquest out of the touhou civs, and I think there's a good reason for that. She has early access to decent science alongside production thanks to the mine part of her UA. She also has an early bomber from the Yatagarasu, which makes sieges a bit easier. Add on free iron and uranium from her forge replacer, which also gives the normal 15% production of land units to ALL units. And then you've got her biases for conquest and nuke use, which are very high. (She shares Gandhi's 12s in nuke making and nuke using.)

All in all, she's pretty absurd for conquest. However, it's another case of Huitzil making a civ that fits its leader really really well (see: Eirin) and it just so happens that touhous, especially the ones that people make civs for, are inherently overpowered conceptually. (Except Cirno.)

For the bonus thing: would it be possible to have Wine give a bonus to all units? Or maybe have breweries give a unique strategic resource (sake) of some kind like the Honnouji Academy civ's Life Fibers? Perhaps a bonus based on how far ahead in tech the opponent is?

And the Kishin as actual combat units sounds like a great idea. It's not like the oni they get their names from would be content to merely watch a battle, they'd be right there fighting.

I also think she might be a bit too friendly with her neighbors, I've never had a case where she's been the sort that inspires suspicion like that of seeing Mongols or Huns or even Greeks show up on your borders. (Whether in unit or city form.)

 

[bouncymischa]

It was just a thought. Railgun uses the prefix "Railgun" (yes really), but Probability does have a nice ring to it anyway.

And speaking of ridiculous science civs, ooh boy Railgun.

Can't recall what their bonuses are like. X3 As for the adjective, I was looking at the discussion about sukitract's Decisions mod, and one of the examples featured a bunch of artists commenting about "Sioux taste". Thinking about it, I had to admit that "Scientific taste" made more sense than "Probability taste" and sounded more amusing... so we'll just have to see!

To be fair, I have no idea what you'd replace it with, given that you're working with a PC-98 character, even if Yumemi is popular. (She's not exactly Mima or Shinki but she's up there.)

There's bunches of Yumemi art on safebooru and such... but most of it is Yumemi against a red-colored abstract background with crosses and such. I could potentially try to make a diplo screen using an image of Yumemi against a custom background, maybe... but eh, it's not a high priority.

About the comparison to Utsuho: she's the one I've seen have most success with conquest out of the touhou civs, and I think there's a good reason for that. She has early access to decent science alongside production thanks to the mine part of her UA. She also has an early bomber from the Yatagarasu, which makes sieges a bit easier. Add on free iron and uranium from her forge replacer, which also gives the normal 15% production of land units to ALL units. And then you've got her biases for conquest and nuke use, which are very high. (She shares Gandhi's 12s in nuke making and nuke using.)

All in all, she's pretty absurd for conquest. However, it's another case of Huitzil making a civ that fits its leader really really well (see: Eirin) and it just so happens that touhous, especially the ones that people make civs for, are inherently overpowered conceptually. (Except Cirno.)

Huitzil is really amazing at making civs that fit their leaders. I'm jealous! ;__;

For the bonus thing: would it be possible to have Wine give a bonus to all units? Or maybe have breweries give a unique strategic resource (sake) of some kind like the Honnouji Academy civ's Life Fibers? Perhaps a bonus based on how far ahead in tech the opponent is?

And the Kishin as actual combat units sounds like a great idea. It's not like the oni they get their names from would be content to merely watch a battle, they'd be right there fighting.

I also think she might be a bit too friendly with her neighbors, I've never had a case where she's been the sort that inspires suspicion like that of seeing Mongols or Huns or even Greeks show up on your borders. (Whether in unit or city form.)

It would be fairly easy to have Breweries give out a unique luxury -- I was debating if I should make a Sake luxury, so that you weren't potentially screwed by a lack of certain luxuries around. The Life Fibers could be an interesting example of how to use resources to buff units...

I don't know if Suika's that friendly with her neighbours. It's been a while since I played against her, but I recall her being a decent enough warmonger in previous games. Her combination of expansionism and aggression mean she'll try to settle cities as wide as she can, then start going to war against people. On the other hand, I believe her Loyalty is set fairly high (a trait I think she shares with Genghis). So if you make friends with her she's unlikely to backstab you. But maybe I should set her conquest flavor up more like Utsuho's...

I think I'll look into what I can do to encourage military production with her. It'd be fun to tie it into resources, so that as you get more alcohol you can build units faster. The main question with making a Sake resource would be whether or not each Brewery should produce it, or only certain ones?