Vox Populi Congress Proposal Workshop

[Achico]

All Creation is supposed to NOT found, and has immediately available (and high) yields to compensate.

And again, the yields are not immediately available, you are still need to wait for AI. Moreover, these yields are not so high from my perspective

 

[azum4roll]

You only pick All Creation if you neglect faith generation, which means you're often the last to pantheon anyway.

 

[Achico]

In other words, this is a deliberately defective pantheon, which was conceived in this way. I get it)

 

[Stalker0]

General thoughts:

All Creation: I could see it, heck you could just remove the faith from monument, go pure capital yield, no faith.
Creativity: This is a nerf and unneeded.
Protection: too much of a nerf, and a lot of people like the healing, I don't think removing it will be popular.
Council of Elders: I do agree it could likely use a buff, or maybe holy law needs a nerf, I've been struggling to get away from holy law nowadays.

 

[Diomedes_]

Unrelated to current pantheon discussion, but I would be interested in a slight change to Germany's UA.

I've played two games with them in the past two weeks and while I really like the civ with 4UC, I think the second half of their UA is clunky.
- First off, it is very difficult to know what tech level city-states are at, meaning that it is difficult to know how many turns of influence you're going to get from a gifted unit if it doesn't die.
- Second off, Barb horde quests seem like they have been going absolutely crazy in the past few builds of the game, meaning that city-states are using their military units way more, but you have no control over whether they use units they produced themselves or units you gifted them.

While obviously these things add a layer of strategic thinking and require game awareness, I think they're just too unpredictable. It got to the point where in my second game I was barely using the mechanic because normal unit gifting quests were both significantly more rewarding and predictable, and the points in the game when unit gifts would have been the most impactful (i.e. late classical, medieval) were also when my gifted units stood the greatest chance of being killed or upgraded within just a handful of turns. I think getting +X influence for a flat number of turns scaling with gamespeed would be a better way to implement this otherwise quite interesting part of their UA, or at the very least have either upgrade OR death (not both) stop the bonus influence.

 

[Anarcomu]

upgrade OR death

Definitely death, in this case. A unit can upgrade, then die, but not the opposite.

 

[rkkn]

I didn't have much issue with Germany's UA when I tried playing them. I just made sure to keep in mind tech upgrades. I did not gift any warriors because spearman upgrade is quite early. However I did gift tons of spearmen in ancient and classical, because it takes a long time to get to pikes. Archers are an iffy gift choice since composite bowmen are earlier than pikes, while archers are same or later than spears. Free companies are also amazingly good gifts when you first get them.
That said, the fact that there are windows where gifting is good and other times where it is bad can indeed be a little awkward.

 

[ma_kuh]

Okay, taking another pass at changes to Spain's UA, now that stats have come in and they are still pretty weak. (I think Spain probably has more systemic issues, like poor victory pursuits for their kit and AI's general difficulty with managing naval invasions. I'll try to address those in a separate proposal I think, since a full change to the UA may not get a sponsor.)

Keeping with my initial idea:

1. Remove "Spanish Inquisition" themed abilities from Reconquista (Spain's UA)...
   • Remove "Inquisitor from conquering cities" (and Inquisition hidden unique unit) from the UA.
   • This might be the toughest sell of these changes, but I firmly believe that the Inquisition BELIEF deserves this ability more. The Spanish Inquisition is very popular, but the historical reality is that there were many Inquisitions that took place, and their rise came about due to reformations in religious practice, not directly because of Spain. The hope would be for Inquisition to be a thematically solid choice for Spain, but that is a secondary concern.
2. ... and add them to Inquisition (Enhancer Belief).
   • Add "Inquisitor from conquering cities". [Optional: keep the Inquisition hidden unique unit, for flavor reasons, if possible]
   • Remove "-33% Inquisitor cost." to remove a redundant ability.
   • [Looking for input: Is there something else this belief needs to be more competitive? Maybe some positive internal pressure so your satellite cities remain faithful? If the code is feasible, maybe having it grant the unique "Inquisition" unit would allow a more interesting Remove Heresy action, which also includes a spread action at the same time.]
3. Move the hidden Mission building off of the Conquistador and make it part of Reconquista.
   • "After adopting a religion, founding a city 12 or more tiles away from your capital builds a free Mission, immediately applying 1000 religious pressure of your majority religion and providing +2 and +3 and . You may purchase Missions in cities you own using faith."
   • The yields are intended to be a foil to the Monastery, which provides +2 and +3 and .
   • Open to ideas on this building, but the main part is that it will auto-convert cities you found "far away," ideally on other continents, but with allowance for Pangea-style maps to function.
   • It can also be backfilled into existing cities of your empire using faith, as well as cities you conquer, rewarding an overall expansionist playstyle, but not solely through war.
   • Kicking in after adopting a religion is a little bit weird, but I think it works with the history. You'll have founded or adopted your civ's faith and have your Missions going, which is sensible. This also means that it can work even if you don't found, which may be uncommon but doesn't completely neuter the UA if it happens.
4. QOL improvement for Conquistadors.
   • Allow Conquistadors to settle 12 tiles away from the capital, rather than strictly on other continents.
   • Works for Pangea-style maps, and helps reinforce the Mission aspect of the UA.
   • For many situations this will be fairly identical to how it operates now.
   • [Looking for input: Is 12 tiles the right threshold for Conquistadors and the Mission? My reasoning is that your first ring of cities will be 5-7 tiles away from your capital, so a depth-2 ring around that would be 10-14. I wouldn't want it to start clipping into island settlements, so not too large.]

 

[azum4roll]

That makes 2 UBs for Spain.

 

[ma_kuh]

It's also a lot of text. I was writing it up for a proposal yesterday and had to abbreviate the numbers for the border growth to get it all in. The numbers are wrong for non-standard game speeds anyway, but I bet many would see giving up that precision as a bad thing.

We do have precedent with things like the Khan, but of course that's a Great Person, so it makes sense that the improvement might also be unique.

 

[ma_kuh]

Perhaps switch the Mission and Hacienda:

1. Mission becomes the UB displayed during game setup.
   • Detail its abilities and stats in the building card so they don't need to be explained in the UA.
2. Hacienda becomes part of the Conquistador.
   • Conquistadors may be expended to found a city at least 12 tiles from the capital, or to build an Hacienda.
     • Hacienda become rarer improvements, since they need the equivalent of a land "workboat" to create them.
     • Would likely need some yield adjustments to compensate.

Challenges with this approach:

• Maybe the Hacienda needs to be for Conquistador and all future recon units? I don't like that, it becomes very inconsistent, and lots of text to explain (or worse, hidden).
• Maybe the Conquistador could be a unique GGeneral, with the unique ability to build cities, the Hacienda, or the normal Citadel. No other differences from GG.
  • Not great either because then we're back to having war-based rewards with no way to support having the war. Also slightly conflicts with Naval faith-buy, which implies a GAdmiral tie-in, if anything.
  • Other than the above, it does feel pretty nice that conquistadors might be your army generals, leading the exploration of new worlds and then being rewarded with land and holdings. Very thematically on-point.

 

[Phosphoraptor]

I want submarines to steal gold/science/culture by attacking cities, with advanced units stealing more. How feasible is it to code changes to the blockade promotion mechanic like this?

 

[Achico]

I hope experienced modders will be able to help figure this out before the proposal phase ends.

So, is it technically possible to add mechanics that allow the city to work all the acquired tiles around the Fort, even if these tiles are outside the base radius of a City.

Of course the Fort should be inside base radius.

If it's possible, will it have serious negative impact on performance?

 

[ma_kuh]

That sounds like it's more distance/inclusion checks than just looking at 4th and 5th rings. For one, you're checking if the Fort is in the 4th or 5th ring.

 

[Achico]

To put it in a nutshell - I'm just wondering if it's possible to create an additional working radius around a certain improvement.

These City-range check is only necessary for verification whether the new radius belongs to a certain city

 

[Rekk]

To put it in a nutshell - I'm just wondering if it's possible to create an additional working radius around a certain improvement.

These City-range check is only necessary for verification whether the new radius belongs to a certain city

no, this will take even more processing time than a generic 4-5 ring work radius.

 

[Achico]

no, this will take even more processing time than a generic 4-5 ring work radius.

Thanks a lot for the answer

 

[pineappledan]

There are a few problems with the Dutch UA, and I wondered if we could talk about it:

Current UA: Dutch East India Company

+3 Culture and Gold for each different Luxury Resource you import or export from/to other Civilizations and City-States, scaling with Era.​

Can import duplicate Resources, and Major Civilization imports count towards Monopolies.​

​

First off, I really like this UA. It breaks rules so the Dutch can do things that other civs simply can't, and it provides unique incentives. Fantastic.

The problems I have with it are:

1. The name is terrible.​

It has the word "Dutch" in it, which is redundant. It's like Calling America's UA "American Manifest Destiny".​

There is already a national wonder called "East India Company". I think at minimum either the Dutch UA or the national wonder needs to have a name change.​

2. It's not multiplayer compatible.​

There are some civs that provide too much counter-play, exposing you to the whims of other players. The UA's economic engine is dependent on other players being willing to trade with you at all, putting you at the mercy of human players, who are much more willing to coordinate and gang up.​

India also had this problem, because coordinated human players can just spread on him and shut his passive pressure abilities off before they can get going. A change to that was approved last congress, so that just leaves the Dutch.​

​

Here's the alternative UA that I came up with:

Wisselbanken
Gains Gold equal to 2% of total Gold reserves each turn. Can enter into debt at a 2% Gold Interest Rate
15% of the Gold spent to purchase Units or invest in Buildings is converted into Golden Age Points.

This UA allows the Dutch to have negative gold, which they have to pay off with interest. Interest is treated in the same way as building or unit maintenance.
This also makes the Dutch immune to the Science penalty for having no gold reserves. When civs have 0 Gold and negative GPT, they lose 1 for each negative they would have lost. Instead, the Dutch simply gofurther into negative gold. They always have the ability to pay, even if they have no to pay with.
I imagine this would create some very interesting strategies, because you are basically not limited by gold reserves, only gold income. For instance, you could disband your entire army to reduce maintenance costs, and then purchase them back again if a war ever breaks out, because you have effectively limitless ability to put new units on the map. You could enter into debt very early to buy a turn 1 worker or invest in your first few buildings.

The Dutch UA basically has no interactions with the UU or UI. Their whole kit is quite disjointed, so it's easy to swap one part out without having to change the others. Actually, the UA's dependence on good AI relations had a bit of countersynergy with how aggressive their UU is, so I think that this change would also make a Dutch playstyle slightly more coherent.
As I said I really like the current Dutch UA, but I just don’t see how it’s workable if VP wants to have multiplayer as a goal. The UA is per text for a modmod.

 

[CppMaster]

There are a few problems with the Dutch UA, and I wondered if we could talk about it:

Current UA: Dutch East India Company

+3 Culture and Gold for each different Luxury Resource you import or export from/to other Civilizations and City-States, scaling with Era.​

Can import duplicate Resources, and Major Civilization imports count towards Monopolies.​

​

First off, I really like this UA. It breaks rules so the Dutch can do things that other civs simply can't, and it provides unique incentives. Fantastic.

The problems I have with it are:

1. The name is terrible.​

It has the word "Dutch" in it, which is redundant. It's like Calling America's UA "American Manifest Destiny".​

There is already a national wonder called "East India Company". I think at minimum either the Dutch UA or the national wonder needs to have a name change.​

2. It's not multiplayer compatible.​

There are some civs that provide too much counter-play, exposing you to the whims of other players. The UA's economic engine is dependent on other players being willing to trade with you at all, putting you at the mercy of human players, who are much more willing to coordinate and gang up.​

India also had this problem, because coordinated human players can just spread on him and shut his passive pressure abilities off before they can get going. A change to that was approved last congress, so that just leaves the Dutch.​

​

Here's the alternative UA that I came up with:

Wisselbanken
Gains Gold equal to 2% of total Gold reserves each turn. Can enter into debt at a 2% Gold Interest Rate
15% of the Gold spent to purchase Units or invest in Buildings is converted into Golden Age Points.

This UA allows the Dutch to have negative gold, which they have to pay off with interest. Interest is treated in the same way as building or unit maintenance.
This also makes the Dutch immune to the Science penalty for having no gold reserves. When civs have 0 Gold and negative GPT, they lose 1 for each negative they would have lost. Instead, the Dutch simply gofurther into negative gold. They always have the ability to pay, even if they have no to pay with.
I imagine this would create some very interesting strategies, because you are basically not limited by gold reserves, only gold income. For instance, you could disband your entire army to reduce maintenance costs, and then purchase them back again if a war ever breaks out, because you have effectively limitless ability to put new units on the map. You could enter into debt very early to buy a turn 1 worker or invest in your first few buildings.

The Dutch UA basically has no interactions with the UU or UI. Their whole kit is quite disjointed, so it's easy to swap one part out without having to change the others. Actually, the UA's dependence on good AI relations had a bit of countersynergy with how aggressive their UU is, so I think that this change would also make a Dutch playstyle slightly more coherent.

This is definitely an interesting idea, but isn't it basically infinite gold? What's stopping me from investing in every building and buying units whenever cooldowns are off?

 

[Stalker0]

Can enter into debt at a 2% Gold Interest Rate

It feels like the optimum way to play then would be to infinitely drop into negative gold, buying tons of units and buildings early and starting the steam roll.

Which then means you won't be able to make any trade deals using gold, which is basically the complete opposite of how dutch plays today.