[New Feature] Unique City-States (@adan_eslavo expansion)

[adan_eslavo]

UNIQUE CITY-STATES FOR VP​

Once I started working on Unique City-States initiated by @Enginseer I didn't think it will grow to such a big overhaul. Because mod now contains multiple features not available in base version, and because people recommended starting my own thread for better clarity, here it is!

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Unique City-States currently contains bunch of new features listed below:

- 78 new City-States;
- 14 new luxury resources for non-Mercantile City-States;
- unique ability for each City-State, available when one of the conditions below is met (multiple players can benefit of the same bonus):
     a) you must be an Ally;
     b) you must have an Embassy on their territory;
     c) you must have over 600 Influence with them);
- passive abilities for some City-State traits or personalities;
- new City-State interface (only EUI);
- numerous balancing changes;

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If you want to check the details (added City-States, planned City-States, current additions, statistics): OVERVIEW.
If you want to see how City-States are spread out: MAP.

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Important note 1: If you want to play with Even More Resources, download minimum v11 version (older ones are not compatible)! Here is the link.
Important note 2: Remember you can adjust the mod settings at your will. Look at the screenshot below:

Spoiler Settings :

Important note 3: For those, who want to have unique sounds played with City-State Diplo Popup screen (same way like it is done for vanilla City-States), there's now an additional file (it is uploaded in this post) you can manually substitute in your Civilization V directory. For me it was:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization V\Assets\DLC\Expansion2\Sounds\XML\MinorCivSounds_Expansion2.xml"

Important Note 4: UCS enables a Custom Mod Option called "CS Overseas Territory". You can disable it by changing 1 to 0 in the following line:

Spoiler CS Overseas Territory :

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Troubleshooting:

• "I can build every unique improvement from the UCS, without an alliance." --> clean cache;

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Download Unique City-States (v18.3) for VP 5.0
Github Repository (v18.3)

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Spoiler City-States :

"W" means the leader from City-States Leaders is a woman.
White: coded
Orange: in the final planning phase
Purple: lack of key feature required to code
Red: questionnable or missing
Blue: on the list, but without the idea

Spoiler New Resources :

 

[adan_eslavo]

v15.5.3 for VP 3.10.14 fixing Ambracia:

- fixed Ambracia garrison bug;

 

[adan_eslavo]

v15.9 with some tweaks and fixes for VP 4.X. Also, there's a bonus - unique sounds for new City-States! For more info look at the first post of this thread, download the file, and replace the original one.

- added new icon for Tulou (by @gwennog);
- added unique sounds for all new City-States:
    - readded 18 sounds unused so far (tried to match them as possible), and 2 of them will be moved to different places when appriopriate CSs will be coded:
        - Maritime:
            - Adeje --> Jakarta;
            - Chevak --> Venice;
            - Djibouti --> Rio de Janeiro;
            - Parihaka --> Copenhagen;
            - Taipei --> Helsinki;
            - Honiara - Lisbon (will be moved to Bilbo, when added);
                - Sydney, Quebec City got back their own tags (error in base files);
        - Mercantile:
            - Dar es Salaam --> Segou;
            - Douala --> Luba;
            - Ouidah --> Ouagadougou;
            - Quelimane --> Bornu;
            - Sanaa --> Marrakech;
        - Militaristic:
            - Brooklands --> Dublin;
            - Clermont --> Edinburgh;
            - Faya --> Sokoto;
            - Kigali --> Bunkeya;
        - Cultured:
            - Andorra --> Warsaw;
            - Ayutthaya --> Seoul;
            - Aberffraw --> Vienna (will be moved to Vaduz, when added);
    - replicated already used sounds for the rest, as I have no more sound files to use:
        - 2 Maritime;
        - 6 Mercantile;
        - 11 Militaristic;
        - 8 Cultured;
        - 16 Religious;
- Genoa's yields tuned down a bit to 40 Gold and 10 GAP (was 50 and 15; late game the yield bonus is significant, especially when you buy them with faith);
- fixed Ambracia garrison bug;
- moved whole changelog from the forum to this file;

 

[statusquo]

- unique ability for each City-State, available when one of the conditions below is met (multiple players can benefit of the same bonus): a) you must be an Ally; b) you must have an Embassy on their territory; c) you must have over 400 Influence with them);

Wait, is this means, you don't need to be ally to get the unique city state trait? Like late game, when AI have like 2000 influence, you can just grab 400 and get the benefit?
Or rush Great Diplomat, to secure some distant city state buff with Embassy? This would be honestly a game changer imo..
If so, i'm guessing, you will lose those buffs, if city state declares war to you right? Not so obvious in case of Embassy.
Also, i believe city state retains influence points, when allied civ attack you, so even at war they can be still 400+..

Btw. i think i played some time ago a game without this mod, and there is no coming back, City states felt so plain and useless

v15.5.3 for VP 3.10.14 fixing Ambracia:

Are those above new ways to get city state abilities work for this version?

 

[adan_eslavo]

Wait, is this means, you don't need to be ally to get the unique city state trait? Like late game, when AI have like 2000 influence, you can just grab 400 and get the benefit?
Or rush Great Diplomat, to secure some distant city state buff with Embassy? This would be honestly a game changer imo..
If so, i'm guessing, you will lose those buffs, if city state declares war to you right? Not so obvious in case of Embassy.
Also, i believe city state retains influence points, when allied civ attack you, so even at war they can be still 400+..

Btw. i think i played some time ago a game without this mod, and there is no coming back, City states felt so plain and useless


Are those above new ways to get city state abilities work for this version?

It has worked that way since almost the beginning (like v8 or smth) of my journey with UCS. The only things I have changed recently are:

• you need 400 influence instead of 240 to get the bonus; late game, most players have such a value in few of them; when I finish my current game I will see what the values are and decide whether or not to increase it even more;
• even if you have an embassy, declaring war makes you lose the bonus; when you are in peace, bonus is automatically regained;

The problem with that was that the info was hidden in the depths of the original thread, so people like you couldn't know that. I tested that and it works nice. If you have a Great Diplomat, you can evaluate abilities and grab a permanent bonus with an Embassy there, without a concern of being the ally or not.

I think Influence is lost when you are at war with a City-State. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[adan_eslavo]

This is current CS situation in my game:

Kolamba    Maria Theresia    763
Kolamba    Elizabeth I    448
Kolamba    Dido    446
Kolamba    Darayavahush I    440
Wootei-niicie    Maria Theresia    1805
Wootei-niicie    Harun al-Rashid    621
Wootei-niicie    George Washington    499
Geneve    Pachakutiq Inka Yupanki    1945
Geneve    Maria Theresia    519
Geneve    Darayavahush I    462
Zanzibar    Maria Theresia    1146
Zanzibar    Elizabeth I    667
Zena    Dido    817
Zena    Maria Theresia    523
Njarjana marh    Darayavahush I    630
Njarjana marh    Dido    407
Praha    Darayavahush I    555
Quebec    Elizabeth I    506
Santo Domingo    K'inich Janaab Pakal I    688
Ambracia    Maria Theresia    649

 

[adan_eslavo]

Amendment of the post above:
These all are getting the bonus from huge influence, but they can also gain them from different sources.

So, if we exclude allies, we have only 10 left. Quebec, Santo Domingo, Ambracia and Praha do not give the bonuses from the 3rd condition. That would be if not the SoIs! But there are two, so me and Austria also get bonuses from 3rd conditions because even though we have high influence, we are not allies. Of course Carthage has also high influence over 400 there, so the sum is 0, and finally nothing changes, beside the fact who the ally is.

I have an embassy in Praha (I'm also the ally, so this does not matter) and Zena (I have low influence, but I still get the bonus). So in my situation this does not change much. Other civs that have embassies are:

• Arabia --> Njarjana marh (gets the bonus),
• Austria --> Wootei-niicie (gets the bonus),
• Carthage --> Zanzibar (gets the bonus),
• Inca --> Ambracia (gets the bonus), Geneve (already a leader),
• America --> Kolamba (gets the bonus), Quebec (gets the bonus), Santo Domingo (gets the bonus).

Embassies matter! In the endgame this is nivelated by the huge influence, but in earlier eras this made a huge difference.

So as you can see, Embassies give bonuses to few of them that have low influence and even cannot compete with the leaders having 1800 or over 1900 . That's sick, but true they invested so many in these two City-States.

This means that in game of 8 Major Players with 14 City-States (yes, 4 of them are dead, most of them by England), 6 of 8 Civilizations gain bonuses from the 3rd condition in 6 City-States of 10 alive, a total of 10 bonuses that they would not get otherwise, because they are not allies nor have an Embassy there.

Now, let's assume we would increase the threshold to 500 , only by 100 . What would this change? Now only 4 of 8 civilizations would gain a bonus from 3rd condition in 4 different City-State (each in different one). This could be taken into account after few games. One game is enough to judge.
Go further, and set the cap to 800 , 10 times the Alliance value (80 ). Now no one is getting the bonus, so the 3rd condition is not working at all in my game.

Only one more note: Great Diplomat in my game close to endgame gives 240 . Still you need two of them to pass 400 .

To summarize, how many bonuses each civilization gets we need a table (I hope my calculations are correct, but even if I'm wrong this does not change the situation much):

Civilization	Alliance	Embassy	Huge influence	Total of 10 (it's not the exact sum of the columns on the left)
America		3	1	4
Arabia		1	1	2
Austria	3	1	6	6
Carthage (2 SoI: Kolamba, Njarjana Marh)	3	1	3	4
England	1		3	3
Inca	1	2		2
Maya	1			1
Persia	1	2	3	4

As you can see, only Austria is getting 6 bonuses, but she's the crazy one. Next are Carthage with 4 (but she has 2 SoIs, but used to have more), America (3 Embassies, also had 1 SoI before) and me.
I think we can play a bit with a threshold at 400. I don't think it's too frequent, and value is easy to remember. What do you think?


If you have time and will you could make a similar analysis from your game too! This would help me evaluate how these bonuses apply in different conditions and playstyle!
For the values there's one line in the BalanceDemandsIt.lua file you must uncomment:

--print("PSEUDO_ALLIES", pMinorPlayer:GetName(), pplayer:GetName(), pMinorPlayer:GetMinorCivFriendshipWithMajor(eplayer))

 

[TakkuPanda]

What is the probability of CSs gifting their unique units if the technology is unlocked (and not yet obsolete)?

I've gone through a few hundred turns on 15.5 and 15.6/15.7 and with more than 20 units I've received so far, not a single one of them has been a unique unit! I want to know if I'm being incredibly unlucky or if there's some other factor preventing them from spawning.

 

[Rosete]

How does these new CS interact with abilities that improve CS yields like Siam's UA, Austria's UA and the Abode religion enhance? Or do they don't at all?

 

[adan_eslavo]

What is the probability of CSs gifting their unique units if the technology is unlocked (and not yet obsolete)?

I've gone through a few hundred turns on 15.5 and 15.6/15.7 and with more than 20 units I've received so far, not a single one of them has been a unique unit! I want to know if I'm being incredibly unlucky or if there's some other factor preventing them from spawning.

What units do you mean? If SwissGuard, Gurkha, Teaat etc, then they are not gifted at all (they shouldn't be, but this is on the VP side to fix it, as I have no more tools to forbid that). There's a mentioning about the way you can construct (with Production) or buy them (either with Faith or Gold).

UU gifts from Militaristic CSs are left unchanged, so they have base VP chance and mechanics to spawn. If there's something wrong about that, or you think it is, post in on github or discord for further investigation.
Only Ambracia has the ability to increase the frequency by 10%.

If you mean Friendly CSs' gifts of civilian units, then chance is 1%. You must be at least friend of them, to be counted for a gift.

 

[adan_eslavo]

How does these new CS interact with abilities that improve CS yields like Siam's UA, Austria's UA and the Abode religion enhance? Or do they don't at all?

Do you mean rewards from quests? They act normally like their base counterparts. They are just normal City-States.

 

[dhrgusdlrns]

The new version of UCS still doesn't work with MPMP like previous version.
When I include it into my mod pack, the map is generated without resources.
Actually, it's not 0 but it's really rare even though my setting is legendary starting.
If you need anything to fix it, please tell me!

 

[Dragonfabri]

Does Rome keep the unique benefits if it conquers these City States, sibce they are treated like Allies? Or do they require embassies or doesn't work at all?

 

[AndreyK]

Alliance with Prague seems very powerful. Just found this CS and staged a coup there. I'm in Renaissance, so my missioners cost 390. I used 6 of them and got faith&culture respectively 160 80, 136 68, 232 116, 144 72, 88 44, 104 52.
I play as Maya, so have lots of faith generating. I will try to keep alliance with Prague at all costs.

 

[adan_eslavo]

v15.10 with new stuff and fixes:

- Brussels:
    - now has new Promotion supporting your units, both civilian and military on Marshes and Rivers;
- fixed few minor lua issues;
- added info about Embassies not giving access to abilities during wars;
- clarified the text when you have a huge influence with a City-State;
- finally added groups for flag promotions;

One note: because VP 4.2.5 is declared to be stable, I will probably not update version for VP 3.10.14 anymore, so v15.5.3 will be the last one for it.

 

[statusquo]

with new stuff and fixes

Hej, i play v15.5.3 so forgive me if this was already fixed for VP 4.0+

I got in the game Tiwanaku, the one with unique missionary Sisqeno, that allowed building Sunken Courtyard improvement.
Sunken Courtyard has +1 science if near city, and i also usually build Towns near cities, because you can pack more of them later.
But i misplaced my Sunken Courtyard and my worker didnt showed any actions on it. It seems that its not possible to remove/replace it.
This seems not like intended behaviour

 

[adan_eslavo]

Hej, i play v15.5.3 so forgive me if this was already fixed for VP 4.0+

I got in the game Tiwanaku, the one with unique missionary Sisqeno, that allowed building Sunken Courtyard improvement.
Sunken Courtyard has +1 science if near city, and i also usually build Towns near cities, because you can pack more of them later.
But i misplaced my Sunken Courtyard and my worker didnt showed any actions on it. It seems that its not possible to remove/replace it.
This seems not like intended behaviour

I forbid replacing UIs provided by CSs in certain cases, so the AI would not constantly replace them over and over. If you have no strategic resource underneath, which would justify the replacement, it is blocked. You must be careful with placement, and be sure you want them in that place.

 

[GreekIrish]

I have events enabled and I'm still not getting ally status bonuses. Any ideas?

 

[adan_eslavo]

I have events enabled and I'm still not getting ally status bonuses. Any ideas?

Clear cache.
Mod conflict.

Without logs I cannot tell you more.

 

[Murderologist]

Something in this mod prevents loading scenarios. What file are called or checked when loading a game?