Tomatekh's Benin Empire for VP

[Hinin]

Benin Empire
Download here
(require Vox Populi 2.1.1 or later)
(Made with Tomatekh's authorization)

Leader - Ewuare

UA - Warrior King's Earthworks

Cities gain 1 Attack Range and increase the output of Processes by 5 %. Units grant Great Engineer points in the Capital when leveling up, can remove Forests, Jungles and Marshes more quickly and gain more Production from it. Cannot construct Citadels or Manufactories.

Spoiler UA formulas :

Great Engineer points gained = (level - 1) x 4

UU1 - Isienmwenro (unique UnitClass)

Unlocked at Chivalry / obsolete at Rifling
Upgrades into Fusilier (so cannot be upgraded before becoming obsolete)
225 Production cost
Limited to 8 copies

25 CS
2 MP / 2 Vision

Formation I
Quick Study
Movement Transfer to GGeneral
Combat bonus when stacked with a GGeneral
Battle Songs - +1 MP / Vision ; Gains Combat Strength when wounded ; Heals 35 HP when killing a hostile Unit
Earthworks - Can remove Forests, Jungles and Marshes ; lost upon upgrade

UGPTI - Iya

Must be constructed by expending a GEngineer or GGeneral
Must be constructed next to an owned City
Removes forests / jungles / marshes
Improves all Resources under it
When constructed, claim all tiles within 2 tiles

+100% CS to Units defending on the tile
Inflicts 30 damages to hostile Units ending their turn next to it

+5 Food
+5 Production
+1 Science
+2 GGeneral points

+1 Culture / Gold to adjacent Villages

Gets the same Policy and Tech yield bonuses as the Manufactory and Citadel combined

Spoiler 4UC Compatibility :

UU2 - Egile Eyokuo (replaces Musketman)

Unlocked at Metallurgy
325 Production cost

22 CS / 30 RCS (Range 2)
2 MP / 2 Vision

Cannot Melee Defend
Attack malus against Naval Units
Great General I
Odomuomu - Can pillage without cost ; when pillaging, gain 5 XP ; +25% base CS on pillaged tiles
Earthworks - Can remove Forests, Jungles and Marshes ; lost upon upgrade

UB - Igunematon (unique BuildingClass)

Unlocked at Engineering
200 Production cost
Requires a Forge in the City
Limited to 5 copies

+1 Supply
+1 Iron

2 Engineer specialists
+3 GEngineer points

+3 Culture and Gold to Engineer specialists in City
+20 Production and Science in the City whenever an owned Unit dies, scaling with Era

Melee, Gun and Archer Units produced in the City gain the War Supply promotion

War Supply - +5 HP ; +10% CS when adjacent to a City

Credits :
- Tomatekh : Original Design, Research and GameText, Map, DoM screen, CivIcon
- Janboruta : Leaderscreen, LeaderIcon, UU1 UnitIcon, UB UnitIcon (from Nri civilization)
- Leugi : Improvement 3d model and ImprovementIcon
- JTitan : dds modification of Songhai Pikeman for UU1
- Gedemon, Nutty & Dolen2 : Original 3d models from Ethnic Diversity for UUs (Songhai Pikeman and Ethiopia Oromo_Orange)
- LastSword : UnitIcon for UU2 (from Ashanti civilization)
- Hinin : VP adaptation, new Design, Research and GameText

Main reference : Osarhieme Benson Osadolor, M. A. The Military System of Benin Kingdom, c. 1440 - 1897. Hamburg, 2001

 

[Hinin]

Known issue for V.1 :
- Civilopedia article for the Igunematon is bugged, and doesn't show up (I still don't know why)

Be aware that, as a first version, some aspects of the civ may be too powerful. Know that it is always like that at the start, for I prefer nerfing that buffing (it at least allows a mechanic to make an impression). Don't hesitate to leave a review to contribute to the refining process.

 

[Hinin]

V.2 online :
- Changed Battle Songs to heal for 35 HP when killing instead of +10% CS per adjacent hostile Unit (the function didn't work as intended)
- Changed Leader flavors

 

[Rosete]

Some feedback after spending some time with the Civ:

UA:

Cities gain 1 Attack Range

This is very strong, and I like it a lot. It allows me to forward settle very aggressively and use my city as a siege tower almost.

grant Faith and Food when Units pillage or level up, and increase the output of Processes by 5 %. Units can remove Forests, Jungles, and Marshes more quickly and gain more Production from it.

The bonuses are nice to have, but not very impactful. You never really want to work processes because getting infrastructure up is much more important, so the increased process output is quite niche. The clearing bonus is not very exciting. In sum, a fairy weak UA, but that's not necessarily a bad thing because the rest of the kit is quite strong.

UGPTI - Iya:
I didn't think I would like this as much as I did. I like that the placement limit encourages me to use my city as a siege position. Aside from that, it gives solid yields.

UU1 - Isienmwenro:
Wrong and redundant use of exemplary; it is an adjective, here you used it as a noun. It is better to say, each player can only have x; much simpler and easier to understand.
Very strong unit! I like it.

UU2 - Egile Eyokuo:
Its strength level is in line with other muskets UU. Not much to say, it does its job.

UB - Igunematon:
Currently, its wiki page is empty, so probably a bug.
For a building that is limited to 3, it is not very strong. The +3 Engi points are only applicable for the capital really, maybe you can squeeze out a GE in the second city. Generally, non-capital cities cannot gain GPP fast enough to offset the era increased cost. The extra GE slot is not very good because you may not have enough pop or happiness to spare to work these slots. even for my capital, I would not work all 3 slots because I don't want to give up working the slots for other GP. The extra yield to engi is a nice bonus. In sum, I don't understand why this UB is limited to 3 when it is not that strong, and often times you can't take full advantage of its bonuses.

I really enjoy the civ, I like the way it encourages me to play differently.

 

[Hinin]

You never really want to work processes because getting infrastructure up is much more important

It is more about the second half of the game, where you need to choose a victory condition, and mostly have production to work with. This allows you to transition more smoothly towards what you want if needed. Also, don't forget it also helps puppet cities gain a bit more gold.

The clearing bonus is not very exciting.

If you rush Iron Working, you can use the bonus production to rush specific wonders very effectively. Later, the faster clearing speed allows you to clear features that restrict your line of sights with your unique units, during offensive campaigns especially (so that your siege units can attacks cities more easily).

UGPTI - Iya:
I didn't think I would like this as much as I did. I like that the placement limit encourages me to use my city as a siege position. Aside from that, it gives solid yields.

It's a good development tool, and also has the unique effect of allowing secondary Benin cities to fare quite well even when playing Tradition : you don't want to waste the culture bomb on your capital, so that often means a lot of early production for your frontier cities.

Wrong and redundant use of exemplary; it is an adjective, here you used it as a noun.

Yes, sometimes I make mistakes in English. Sorry about that. I'll correct it next time.

Very strong unit! I like it.

Don't hesitate to tell me if you feel like it is too powerful for its time. I'm trying to balance the limitation / power level of the unit to find the golden spot.

UU2 - Egile Eyokuo:
Its strength level is in line with other muskets UU. Not much to say, it does its job.

It synergizes also quite well with the UA : if you manage to take Zealotry, you can basically refund the faith cost of the unit very quickly, which allows you to field an army fast. The bonus food is also good to help your production cities to better grow for the second half of the game.

Currently, its wiki page is empty, so probably a bug.

It's a bug, described in my second post. I still don't know why it's like that.

For a building that is limited to 3, it is not very strong. The +3 Engi points are only applicable for the capital really, maybe you can squeeze out a GE in the second city. Generally, non-capital cities cannot gain GPP fast enough to offset the era increased cost. The extra GE slot is not very good because you may not have enough pop or happiness to spare to work these slots. even for my capital, I would not work all 3 slots because I don't want to give up working the slots for other GP. The extra yield to engi is a nice bonus. In sum, I don't understand why this UB is limited to 3 when it is not that strong, and often times you can't take full advantage of its bonuses.

Think of it as a Engineer Guild : it gives you access to potentially +9 GEngineer points. Even in secondary cities, that's enough to make them viable GEngineer spawning points, so not limiting it (especially if you take the bonus yields given) would provoke a lot of yield inflation I feel. Don't forget that each Iya brings potentially more than 20 Production, and you can have 6 per cities (+ the yields from policies and beliefs for unique improvements and great people improvements). I don't feel like making the building omnipresent would be a good idea : I prefer to restrict its presence, but make it noticeable where it is.

 

[gwennog]

It's a bug, described in my second post. I still don't know why it's like that.

@Hinin, you forgot the Building in the BuildingClass.

On the way to a new adventure .
Finally, you changed the music,

 

[gwennog]

or level up

Doesn't work for me on units that have just been built, only on levels gained in combat. That's a fair bit, in my opinion.

 

[gwennog]

UGPTI - Iya:
I didn't think I would like this as much as I did. I like that the placement limit encourages me to use my city as a siege position. Aside from that, it gives solid yields.

I agree, it's a very interesting and original UI with its position against the city and the two squares claimed when building it. J'adore .

grant Faith and Food when Units pillage or level up

If this bonus went very well with Norway , here I find it strange and underperforming. Why not something like GEP and Science when update and level up units? It would be better in my opinion to launch the GEngineers apparition and to advance Science a little. After all, the invention of the Iya and the work of metal in Igunematon justifies it well.

EDIT: Argh, @Hinin ! A Chinese horseman has just looted my Iya and this one has disappeared, I don't think it's normal.

EDIT2 : It's a display problem, pillaged is present but not visible.

 

[Hinin]

EDIT: Argh, @Hinin ! A Chinese horseman has just looted my Iya and this one has disappeared, I don't think it's normal.
EDIT2 : It's a display problem, pillaged is present but not visible.

I'll take a look.

If this bonus went very well with Norway , here I find it strange and underperforming. Why not something like GEP and Science when update and level up units? It would be better in my opinion to launch the GEngineers apparition and to advance Science a little. After all, the invention of the Iya and the work of metal in Igunematon justifies it well.

Because there is no GEngineer point yield (although I advocated on Discord for the addition of all GPeople points into yields, to open modding possibilites).

The Faith from the pillage / level up is a reference to how the Oba, as a warrior king, was the center of a warrior cult which emphasized his dominion over the whole kingdom, and how frequent military campaigns against neighboring people was at the core of this perpetual show of strength.

The Food from pillage / level up is a reference to the unique role the Kingdom of Benin played in the African slave trade, especially starting the 16th century, when the acquisition of firearms from the European powers justified slave raiding wars.

That said, I've also been thinking about making the civ gain GEngineer points whenever killing (3%), so I'm ready to do changes.

 

[Hinin]

V.3 online :
- Fixed a problem with the Leaderscreen, the 3d model of the Iya when pillaged, and the Civilopedia article of the Igunematon
- UA changed : now gains Great Engineer points from leveling up (courtesy of gwennog )

 

[Rosete]

Some more feedback

The Isienmwenro is very dominant the moment they are available. They 2-3 shot other mele units and decimate range units. Swordsman are the only thing that is tanky enough to slows them down. Given their strength, the limit to 8 is a very good balance. Human players often can't field that many units so 8 isn't really that heavy a penalty, on the other hand, it really limit the CIV in AI hands (imagine facing AI benin spamming Isienmwenro without a limit).

The UI becomes even stronger with autocracy increased citadel range (+4).

The CIV does very well in war and production. However, it is lacking somewhat in science/gold/culture so later in the game there is space for other civ to catch up to Benin. Overall, I think the balance is good but I still think that their UB is on the weaker side.

 

[Hinin]

- Fixes to GameText and the Igunematon being buildable by all civs (courtesy of gwennog once more)
- Added a floating notification above the capital whenever GEngineer points are gained from the UA
- Buff to the Igunematon : now can be built in five cities

 

[looorg]

I had already started my game on v2 so this is for that version and not version 3 even tho it mostly seems you could build a couple of more Igunematons (which is nice).

While the Isienmwenro are nice and all, eight of them is plenty. They level up fairly quickly into some kind of murder machines. They fairly soon also sort of get out tech:ed so they need all their promotions.

I guess the easiest way to play this is to just do more or less eternal wars to fuel the born engineers (sort of like the Skalds with the JFD Norway). The difference here I guess is that you have to level up the units and that sort of stalls out a lot faster. But you will have a jolly good start if you just follow the city-state quests of conquest for massive amounts of free xp and such (I managed to get Range 3 Catapults this way which is somewhat rare).

The backside as noted is that this engineer and general train stalls out as soon as the units starts to get up in level. So you either constantly have to get new units to just level and then get rid of when they somehow become unproductive in that regard; have them for a few easy levels and then gift them away if you don't need them as cannon fodder for whatever campaign of war you are currently on. But in some regard it's almost like you are supposed to play them like some kind of warring death cult and the units are just not supposed to live that long as they become unproductive XP wise. Already in the Ren era I feel that there is a lot less free engineers coming out to help the cities; it's not like the endless amounts of Skalds you had with Norway.

In some regard I rely more on the Egile (rifle replacements) then the Isienmwenro (they sort of filled their role early but then are mostly relegated to tank and shieldwalls for the ranged units to hide behind). The pillage for XP helps a lot here to.

Also a funny thing I don't know if it's intended or not but Iya do stack; so you can build a few around a single tile and that gets +1 gold etc per Iya.

But basically my 3 (since it was only 3 at the time) cities that are the production hubs just pump out Egiles to do war and if they die they die, they served their purpose of getting me levels.

 

[Hinin]

But in some regard it's almost like you are supposed to play them like some kind of warring death cult and the units are just not supposed to live that long as they become unproductive XP wise. Already in the Ren era I feel that there is a lot less free engineers coming out to help the cities; it's not like the endless amounts of Skalds you had with Norway.

You just gave me an idea.

Also a funny thing I don't know if it's intended or not but Iya do stack; so you can build a few around a single tile and that gets +1 gold etc per Iya.

Since you can have 2 Iya adjacent to a Village at a maximum, the potential stacking isn't very high. It was mostly meant as a way to compensate for the fact that the Iya occupies a spot that is usually taken by Villages, so Benin has a lesser number of them usually.

Thanks for the review.

 

[looorg]

You just gave me an idea.

Looking forward to that?

Since you can have 2 Iya adjacent to a Village at a maximum, the potential stacking isn't very high. It was mostly meant as a way to compensate for the fact that the Iya occupies a spot that is usually taken by Villages, so Benin has a lesser number of them usually.

I think in theory I can do a few more since you can have Iya next to another Iya as there is nothing that prevents them from being placed next to each other (perhaps there should be?). So i'm fairly sure I have a city where I could put down 3 Iyas to a village (it already has two but I think I could if I put down another city in the area there could be another one to cover that tile -- they are sort of in a star-formation (or Y-formation) around the village. With proper geography I think I should be able to do one with 4 (a double from one city and two singles from others with the minimum distance between cities).

 

[looorg]

I managed to break the Isienmwenro limit of 8. I currently have 9 of them. It's not really something you can "arrange" as they gave me one as a tribute during an era change. But apparently that just checks for some viable units as they dish them out without caring about any build limits set in place. Not that it matters all that much in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Hinin]

I managed to break the Isienmwenro limit of 8. I currently have 9 of them. It's not really something you can "arrange" as they gave me one as a tribute during an era change. But apparently that just checks for some viable units as they dish them out without caring about any build limits set in place. Not that it matters all that much in the grand scheme of things.

Well, I cannot do much on that front unfortunately, aside from using lua to remove any new unit appearing after the 8th (which would be overkill I think). At least it provides an incentive for the civ to vassalize as much as possible to gain stronger units in the long term, and we are lacking vassalizer warmongers.

I think in theory I can do a few more since you can have Iya next to another Iya as there is nothing that prevents them from being placed next to each other (perhaps there should be?). So i'm fairly sure I have a city where I could put down 3 Iyas to a village (it already has two but I think I could if I put down another city in the area there could be another one to cover that tile -- they are sort of in a star-formation (or Y-formation) around the village. With proper geography I think I should be able to do one with 4 (a double from one city and two singles from others with the minimum distance between cities).

There is nothing preventing them for being put next to each other, right, but they all need to be next to a city. This means, in the long term, that a Village cannot be next to more than 2 at the same time because of the hexagonal distribution (see yellow hexagons).

Spoiler Picture :

 

[looorg]

Well, I cannot do much on that front unfortunately, aside from using lua to remove any new unit appearing after the 8th (which would be overkill I think). At least it provides an incentive for the civ to vassalize as much as possible to gain stronger units in the long term, and we are lacking vassalizer warmongers.

As noted I don't think anything should be done about it. After all there is only going to be viable a couple of times, two normally -- I guess you could go for a third if you ignore rifling and go high in the tech tree in the modern era but clearly that just wouldn't be worth it, certainly not for a warmonger. It was more of a "fun" thing that happened. Something that was somewhat unexpected.

There is nothing preventing them for being put next to each other, right, but they all need to be next to a city. This means, in the long term, that a Village cannot be next to more than 2 at the same time because of the hexagonal distribution (see yellow hexagons).

Spoiler Picture :

View attachment 628921

All true if you just take one city into consideration. But stack cities at the minimum distance and you can without to many issues get 3. It does stack even if the Iyas come or are attached to different cities. I assume since that tile, with the village, is in some regard a common tile between all the cities.

If I just put, or had planned better and put a city between the hills at the bottom left in the picture below (where the tooltip is showing) I could have created a Y formation of cities and had one village be adjacent to 3 Iya:s. I'm Not saying that it would be a good city location for the third city etc. It certainly wouldn't be worth it to gain one extra gold for a village.

But you can, geography permitting create such overlap. That said to find the land where such a layout or pattern is a good idea is another issue I would say. If you could somehow have 4 cities in a X formation you might be able to create a one that is adjacent to four, but I have not really looked into that to much. But creating one with 3 was somewhat trivial and can be done with just two cities; one doing a double and then one from the second city. You could probably create two cities with doubles at minimum distance for a four tile village to but as noted I'm not sure it's a very good idea. But it is probably possible.

 

[Hinin]

V.5 online :
- Increased the chopping speed bonus from the UA from -2 to -4 turns
- Removed the CS and Health bonus from the Igunematon ; replaced it with a small Production and Science bonus whenever a Unit dies

 

[Dimmy]

CTD in my current game, ~turn 220, on Benin's AI turn. Wanna review a log eventually?