ArchangelOfDoom
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2014
- Messages
- 55
Spoiler :That is definitely a cool idea, especially considering there are no UBs which replace the well right now. removing the plot requirements and making it stack on water mills would implicitly give that river bias the base building asks for, without that god-awful +2 to trade routes, which is useful for 2-3 cities at best.
Looking at the real plankhouses, they are housing complexes, effectively pacific coast longhouses, but the way the wood is harvested from living cedar is truly fascinating.
If I were doing the Chinook (which I am not), my suggestion would be as follows (differences from well in bold):
Plankhouse: well replacement
unlocked at mining
+1 prod, +1 food
+1 prod and food for every 4 citizens (0.20/pop -> 0.25/pop, same as water mill)
no buildings restrictions (can be built on river, can be built in city with water mill)
Optional (pick 1)
+1 culture from lumber mills (Reflect the cedar harvesting. Could be too much)
+1 food on improved ocean resources (addresses how VP compatibility removed lighthouse's +1 food on fish)
+1 unit supply cap (reflects that these were housing complexes & offsets Esquai-ah eating up supply)
Chinook Plankhouse & Watermill Vs. Aztec Chinampa:
Same base yields (3/3 - food/prod)
Better pop to food/prod conversion (0.5 vs 0.4 per pop)
+75 hammers to build (partially)
-1 gold (doubles building maintenance)
Available earlier (partially)
more flexible/less dependent on fresh water
Toss-up on tile yields. Food on river more plentiful than improved resources; sea resources stack gains higher for less pop working.
Lumbermill buff way worse; it's only useful much later & requires improvement. Unlikely to use lumbermill bonus much because of civ's coastal bias, but it add's historicity and softens how absolutely addicted to coastline this civ is.
What I have outlined above is of course slightly above the desired power curve for a UB. I intended to give options, not a final word on what should be done. I would drop supply cap and change +1 on workboats to just +1 on fish only. The stackability with water mill is interesting enough on its own
When matched with @ArchangelOfDoom's other change of it only taking 1 Esquai-Ah to lock down a city, I don't see much need in a constant buff to keep the ship relevant. If shirtless dudes in a canoe can hit for even 50% of what a frigate does for the price of a discount workboat in the same era, that would break the game. The fact that the UU already comes a full tech level before any other civ has access to naval units is interesting enough already.
I would take the way you described the UA in this thread and copy it to the CBO compatibility superthread. The way you described it in this thread a week back was much easier for me to understand. If it were me, I would also bump 4 luxes up to industrial (2->2->3->3->4->4->4), but that's super minor.
So, w.r.t. Indonesia, the Chinook are:
In return for all these down-sides, they get:
- more limited in city placement (UA restricted to coast, Indonesia can settle inland and still use their UA)
- get their 3rd tile at almost the same time, but based on a luck roll, refreshing every 20 turns
- have fewer unique monopolies (2 vs 3)
- Are required to eat into unit maintenance and supply cap to maintain their UA's luxuries
I had a little trouble wrapping my head around the luck system at play, but I really do love what you've done with it. In comparison to Indonesia, though, the Chinook UA is lackluster.
- Automatic improvement of luxuries
- 1 extra luxury tile at the modern era (Indonesia caps at 3/city)
I think the easiest and most interesting way to rectify the lack of power with the chinook UA is to make the monopoly bonuses on orca and salmon more powerful/unique. Indonesia gets:
I propose, orca monopolies give +1 tourism & +2 GAP per tile (whale-watching), and salmon give +2 food per tile & +10% culture to cities. This would synergize with their luxury focus, which promotes peaceful play & trade routes, ie. cultural/diplo victory. Getting a source of tourism up that fast might be a balance issue; I don't know. Maybe the GAP alone is good enough
- 5 global happiness on cloves
- 3 prod on nutmeg per tile
- 20% growth in all cities from pepper
- whatever that 3rd luxury can be traded for to other civs (gold/treaties/luxuries, etc.)
But of course, that is entirely my opinion. I just took Enginseer's critique and ran with it
Hold up, how does Indonesia get their third resource per ity? I thought it only got 2 ( 1 from UA, one from UB ). In light of this new information I'd definitly be down with the proposed monopoly changes and bringing the work boat food bonus back to the UB. However, I don't like changing the UB to a Well as the early cheaper lighthouse helps a lot with the early game exploitation of your UA. A lighthouse at tier 3 tech instead of tier 1 tech would severely nerf the Chinook's in tems of early expansion and growth.