Vox Populi Congress Proposal Workshop

[Rekk]

So do admit you prefer to stay ignorant in that matter? Having this information could help make a better decision about it.

Okay. You do it, then.

 

[pineappledan]

Adding this to the pile. Today I learned that the shared religion tourism bonus does not work even if you completely convert another civ....as long as that civ has founded a religion. I think that's silly, no other tourism bonus do you get to ignore "just becaus eyou don't want to". And religious founders tend to be cultural leaders in the game anyway.

The bonus should work like any other, you do the work of converting themn, you get the bonus. If they convert back, you lose the bonus. simple as that.

Counterproposal:

Spoiler :

Religion owner gains 2% tourism modifier with a foreign civilization for each city that civilization owns that is converted to your religion.
Max of 25 cities/50% Tourism modifier
Fealty policy increases this amount to 3% tourism modifier per city.

rationale:
- Functional: This method will work on all civs, whereas the current system only works on civs that haven't founded religions. The current majority religion modifiers only works on 3/7 foreign civs on an 8-player standard game.
- Doable: Turning it into a stacking per-city bonus does not require re-defining how state religion and majority religion work.
- Familiar: a stacking per-city tourism modifier is already how Franchises work, and we already have WC votes from religious authority that scale based on converted cities, so none of this is new concepts.
- Flexible: This method acts on a city level, not with majority religion on a civ level, so it gives more incremental bonuses that reward your spreading progressively, which is more interaction than a huge 0/1 majority religion effect.
- Transparent: This method is easier to track and understand for players, because they can just count converted cities, and not have to gauge how far they are from majority, which requires counting populations and might include cities that aren't still in the fog for the converting player.

 

[pineappledan]

Proposals for next round:

Spoiler Byzantium/Persia UU shuffle :

Current Cataphract:

Byzantine unique knight​

unlocked at Chivalry​

200 , requires horses​

28CS (+4 from Knight)​

3moves​

can move after attack​

-25% reduced city penalty (down from 33%)​

Open Terrain bonus (+30% CS in open terrain)​

does NOT have ignore terrain bonus (ie. benefits from hills, forests, etc.)​

New Cataphract:

renamed to Aswar​

Persian unique Horseman​

unlocked at Military Theory​

100 , requires horses (+10 from horseman, but still -25 below war elephant)​

15CS (+2 from Horseman and -1 from Elephant)​

3moves (same as Elephant)​

can move after attack​

does not benefit from terrain defense​

-25% reduced city penalty (down from 33%)​

Armor Plating II (+25% defense)​

New Dromon:

Moved from CS gift pool to Byzantium UU​

Byzantine unique Galleass​

Available at Theology (1 tech earlier)​

175​

17, 26RCS, 1 Range (+3 CS/+2 RCS from Galleass)​

4 Moves​

Can move After Attack​

half move in deep ocean​

Naval inaccuracy​

Cannot Melee attack​

Splash I​

Greek Fire unique promotion​

+20% when attacking naval units​

Places a plague debuff on attacked units that prevents them from healing while fortified (can still heal via actions like kills and pillage)​

​

Persian Immortal: Moved to CS gift pool
No balance changes

Rationale:

• Better unit diversity
  • We currently have 3 Spearman UUs (Pictish warrior, Immortal, Hoplite), 3 Knight UUs (Madekalu Cavalry, Naresuan's Elephant, Cataphract) and 0 galleass or horseman UUs.
  • This changes the UU mix to 1 Horseman, 1 Galleass, 2 Spears, and 2 Knights.
  • A boat UU, and those are in short supply
• Better History
  • Heavy armoured cavalry were invented by Persians/Iranians and their use on the battlefield was a durable hallmark of Persian warfare right up until the Arab conquest, spanning multiple dynasties. The Greek/Roman Cataphractoi and Clibanarii were copied off the Persians and Sarmatians in reaction to their tactics. Even going as far back as the famous Macedonian Companion Cavalry (Hetairoi), they were copies of Median and Persian noble mounted companions (the Asabaran). The Romans were famously awful cavalrymen, and relied on allies and mercenaries for their cavalry needs. The first Roman divisions of Cataphractoi were Sarmatian (ie. Iranians). Even up to the late empire, the Romans and Byzantines relied on importing both horses and riders from elsewhere. Giving the Byzantines a unique Cataphract does a disservice to actual military and tactical innovations that they did do.
  • As a historical unit that was invented and manned by actual Byzantines, The Dromon is much more appropriate as a UU for that civ. The Dromon features several unique and historically significant innovations in ship design that the Romans and later Byzantines are actually responsible for, unlike the Cataphractoi. Dromons were the first ships in the Mediterranean to use lateen sail rigging, they were the first ships to use carvel-built hulls ever, and of course they employed the legendary Greek fire, a predecessor of modern napalm, as a ship-to-ship weapon. Dromons deserve better than being some obscure minor CS gift, or their previous use as a generic unit. They were incredibly special and important, and VERY Roman.
  • While it is reasonable to assume that the Achaemenids had a royal guard, the only sources we have to support the existence of the Immortals are all Greek. We don't even have a Persian name for them, much less any corroborating evidence for their equipment, tactics, or composition. This puts them on a level just above historical fanfic and propaganda. Meanwhile, we have many more sources and much better information about Persians' use of armoured heavy cavalry. Even if they are real. the Immortals are specific to the Achaemenid dynasty, while the Aswar, Grivpanvar et al. formed a major component of any Persian army all the way up to the Sassanids, making that a much better representative unit.
• Better gameplay synergy
  • The current Cataphract is basically a major stat stick on a civ that doesn't really use its UU that much, because their UA is so flexible you could basically give them anything.
  • Meanwhile, Persia's +1 move and % CS during GAs makes a 3-move, high CS early cavalry unit a great addition to their roster. The current immortal has bonuses for fortifying and healing, which involves standing in place. The Immortal's bonuses are anti-synergistic with the UA, which promotes movement and attack.

Spoiler American Minuteman Commando :

Current Minuteman:

Unique Musketman​

Available at Metallurgy​

325​

2331, 2 Range (+1,1 from Musket)​

2​

Standard abilities​

Cannot Melee Attack​

Naval Misfire​

Unique abilities:​

Ignores terrain movement costs​

Barrage I​

GAPs on Kills​

New Minuteman:

Unique Commando​

Unlocks at Economics (1 tech early)​

400 (down from 500)​

3233, 1 Range (Commandos have 32:c5strength)​

3 moves​

Standard abilities​

Naval Misfire​

Ignores terrain movement costs​

Brute Force​

XP from exploration​

+25% on attack​

5XP from pillage​

Unique abilities:​

Screening (+10% flanking bonus and unit counts double for flanking bonuses for other units. requires proposal 5-56 to pass)​

Cannot Melee Attack​

Naval Inaccuracy​

Minuteman Unique Promotion (lost on upgrade)​

Has a Ranged attack​

Benefits from flanking attacks like a melee unit​

Base Commando:

Loses % chance to Withdraw from Combat​

cost lowered to 500 (currently 600. 125 cheaper than Fusilier, 100 more than Lancer)​

Rationale:

• The current Minuteman UU is a problem
  • Free Barrage I is really boring as a unique bonus
  • The Minuteman is still buildable when Military Academies unlock in Industrial, which allows you to get 3 promotions on starting units. Minutemen built in Industrial can therefore gain immediate access to Range. With the combination of their ignore terrain and 3 range, Minutemen gain a huge power spike a full era after they unlock. They also become extremely dangerous as Gatling Guns with the combination. So this means that Minutemen are strongest in the part of the game after their upgrade has unlocked and they are obsolete, but still buildable. It's not a good look to have a UU that is stronger once it's obsolete and upgraded.
  • Not only is it a weird power spike dynamic, but it also makes the Minuteman one of the best UUs in the entire game. To have this kind of exploit be top tier is a bit ridiculous.
• Better unit diversity
  • We currently have 2 Musketman UUs (Ottoman Janissary and Minuteman) and 0 unique Commandos
  • This adds a unique Commando and 1 unique musketman
• Better history
  • the minutemen were irregulars, basically the cream-of-the-crop of America's militia. They seem to fit the bill for scout line units a little more snuggly for theme.
• More mechanical diversity:
  • The minuteman's current abilities are all things that other UUs do. Berber Cavalry also get free Rough Terrain ignore, and tons of units get yields on kill. This would be the first unit that has a ranged attack while its base unit has a melee attack.
  • We have this shiny new ability that lets ranged units benefit from flanking. We can use that to make a melee unit a ranged unit and then switch back seemlessly on upgrade. The only melee line that lets us do that cleanly, without ruining their combat role, is the scout line. If you did that to an infantry unit they wouldn't be able to take cities and that would ruin part of their niche for an era, but commandos aren't really city-takers anyways.
  • We don't have very many unique recon units, and the current minuteman's abilities make them a ranged unit that can do scout things. So why not instead make them a Scout unit that can do ranged things? That's more different.

 

[Little Billy]

Imo the immortal is way too fun to use to be relegated to a CS gift and significantly better than a cataphract such that I would not consider a cataphract a suitable replacement. Extra healing is useful the whole game wheras extra CS is only useful before you upgrade it. Upgraded immortals with march are good tanks and kill things incredibly efficiently. Persia with cataphracts would just feel like a worse songhai to me.

A commando minuteman that has a ranged attack only as long as you keep them commandos runs into the same problem as keshiks and camel archers did in vanilla and zeppelins in VP. (rip zeppelins, my favorite unit). You build a bunch of them because they are really nice, but they become significantly less nice once you upgrade them. So you keep them around until they deal only 5-10 damage a hit and die to anything.

 

[pineappledan]

Spoiler 350 AI games civ rankings by win rate :

Top 6 civs won more than 5% more often than the other civs. a massive chasm in win rates
Japan, Austria and Poland are taking nerfs this congress. It's time to nerf the other 4.

Spoiler Byzantium & Arabia UA/UB swaps :

Spoiler current stuff :

Current Arabia
UA: A Thousand and One Nights
+1 Culture, +1 Science and 15% towards a random Great person in your capital whenever a Historic event is triggered

UB: Bazaar (unique market)

322​

1 Merchant specialist​

1 to Trade Routes to or From this City​

Completing a Trade Route to another civ triggers a Historic event (same as Caravansary/Harbor, but 60% as strong)​

+50% land Trade Route Range​

+1 to Spice and Sugar​

Current Byzantium
UA: Patriarchate of Constantinople
Can always found a religion. Can always pick any belief and has 1 additional belief slot. -15% Faith purchase costs. Can purchase unlocked Great People with Faithin Classical

UB: Tetraconch (unique Temple)

32​

+1 for every 3 in the city​

1 Great Work Slot​

-1religious unrest​

+25% religious Pressure in this City​

+100% religious pressure from Trade Routes originating in this City​

+1 to Incense, Wine, and Amber​

​

Spoiler Proposal :

Proposal summary:
- Give Arabia Byzantium's existing UA, unchanged, and rename it
- Give Arabia a modified version of Byzantium's UB bonuses on the Bazaar
- Give Byzantium a modified version of Arabia's stacking HE bonus

- remove the % Great person completion, but give them a unique HE trigger​

- add a new faith scaler for safe founding​

- replace Byzantium's UB with a new UI: a unique Fort improvement.

Details:
New Arabian UA: Seal of the Prophets

Can always found a religion. Can always pick any belief and has 1 additional belief slot. -15% Faith purchase costs. Can purchase unlocked Great People with Faithin Classical​

New Arabian UB:
Bazaar(unique market)

32​

+1 and for every 4 in the city​

1 Merchant specialist​

1 to Trade Routes to or From this City​

+100% religious pressure from Trade Routes originating in this City​

+1 to Spice and Sugar​

New Byzantine UA: Arete
+1 Culture and +1 Science in your capital whenever a Historic Event occurs. Whenever a City adopts your Religion for the first time, a Historic Event is triggered. Cities gain 10% of their City Defense as Faith each turn.

Aplekton (Unique Fort replacement)

Same build requirements as Fort​

50% tile defense and NoFollowUp​

Blocks changes to ownership on its tile. (ie. immune to culture bomb etc. Can only be flipped by city conquest)​

+1 2​

+1 for each adjacent neutral Tile​

+1 and 1 for each adjacent tile owned by a different Civilization (includes City-States)​

+2 at Steel​

+2 at Chemistry​

+2 at Military Science​

+4 at Electronics​

+4 at Stealth​

Gains all the same Wonder/Policy/Ideology bonuses that a Fort gets​

Spoiler Rationale :

Rationale:

• Inspired by this mod, which swaps Byzantium and Arabia's UAs
• Thematic reasoning:
  • Islam is the youngest Abrahamic religion and major world religion. Byzantium was a major center of arts and science, and not explicitly a theocracy like the Arab caliphates were.
  • although thematic, I've always found that Arabia's and Byzantium UA's would have been even more so if swapped, with the late but major historical religious event that was the birth of Islam on one hand, the importance of Byzantium in safekeeping knowledge from Antiquity for a millennium and its role in exporting its alphabet and religion towards the Slavic people on the other
  • The various caliphates should support more wide play. The Islamic empires spread explosively and controlled an enormous empire from Morocco to Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Byzantium was a rump state of the Roman Empire, constantly under siege embattled from all sides by Varangians, Bulgars, Arabs, Seljuks, and the claimants to the former Western Roman Empire. They Clung to a balkan and Anatolian empire, but rarely gained ground, only able to hold their borders against constant encroachment and invasion.
• Arabia's UA needs a nerf
  • The stacking bonuses are already fairly small, but the frequency of HEs makes the UA very potent
  • The rest of the civ's kit has been cut down to minimal power. The Bazaar has only modest bonuses and the Camel archer is mediocre
  • The majority of the civ's power is the % Great Person completion on Historic Events, which greatly increases the birth rate of GPs, which in turn triggers more HEs, which triggers more GP births. This is a direct positive feedback loop and it is poor design to have the UA feed off itself in this way.
• New mechanics are neat
  • Adding a unique HE trigger to the civ sounds like a fun and interesting compensation for losing the GP spam from the old UA
  • Faith from city defense is very thematic for Byzantium, which boasted a nigh-impregnable city defense for a thousand years
  • The new UI is a unique replacement, which is unique for a UI
  • The idea of an improvement scaling off of adjacent tile ownership, rather than resources, features, or improvements, gives unique incentives to forward settle an aggressive-defensive perimeter of border cities and maintain a solid defensive line while you build stacks of your UA's power in your Capital.
  • The tension between the faith bonuses and incentive to spread vs the conventional Artistry path which gives HEs for GAs and Archaeological digs sets up an interesting choice for medieval policies

Spoiler Greece UA change :

Current Greek UA:
Influence degrades at half and recovers at twice the normal rate. +5% Combat Strength of owned and Allied Units for each City-State alliance (up to +25%). Treat neutral City-State territory as friendly territory.

New Greek UA:
Pledges of Protection grant -50% Influence decay.
+4% Combat Strength of owned and Allied Units for each City-State alliance (up to +40%).
Treat neutral City-State territory as friendly territory.

Rationale:

• Mechanical diversity:
  • We don't have a civ that manipulates PoPs yet, but we have 3 different civs that do things based on Allied status
• Better theme
  • The Hellenic League was a pact of mutual defense against the Persians. PoPs make more sense than allies.
  • As the most explicit Diplomatic/Militaristic hybrid civ, Greece is the best candidate for a PoP mechanic without having to add more military flavor.
• Nerf Needed
  • Greece is a top 6 S-tier civ right now, and needs to be weakened somehow. CS decay has been made faster and more punishing at higher levels of influence, and all of these global nerfs have made Greece -- who is only half-affected by all these decay increases -- relatively stronger.
  • locking the half CS decay bonus behind a PoP is weaker than now, where it is unconditional
  • The current +25%CS, capped at 5 CS is too easy to do. The cap is too low. maintaining 10 PoPs is much harder and so it makes the combat bonus more interactive, rather than feeling automatic

Spoiler Germany UB nerf :

Current Hanse:
53
1 merchant specialist
-1poverty
+2 for TRs to and from this city
Gain 5% in this city for all TRs targeting city-states on empire
10% of Gold in this city is converted to Science

Proposal:
Remove the Gold to Science converter

Rationale

• Austria also has a yield converter, and we need to try to make the 2 German civs more different
• Germany needs to be nerfed and this is the least interesting bonus he has. Hitting any part of his UA or his big global %production modifier would hurt his uniqueness.

Spoiler Ottoman UA nerf :

Current UA:
Completing a Trade Route grants +150 Science and Food to the origin City if International, or Culture and Gold if Internal. Bonuses scale with Era.

Proposal:
Reduce the instant yield on TR end from 150 to 100

Rationale

• Conventional numbers nerf
  • compared to Portugal and Morocco's yields on TRs from their UA, the current Ottoman UA gives roughly 1.5 to 2 times as many yields per turn, depending on how fast the TRs complete
  • In addition to this the Ottomans have a positively beastly UB and UU, which also contribute to their power.

 

[pineappledan]

Other UA change ideas:

Spoiler Siam UA change :

Current UA:
Influence with City-States starts at 40. Yields from Friendly and Allied City-States increased by 100%. +25% to Combat Strength of Allied City-State Capitals. +10 Experience to Units gifted by City-States.

Proposed UA:
Yields and Unit Gifting frequency from Friendly and Allied City-States doubled. +10 Influence from Diplomatic Missions.

Rationale:

• The current UA has 2 weird bonuses:
  • +25% to Combat Strength of Allied City-State Capitals is basically useless. It doesn't affect you. It only manages to make tributing your allies a little harder for enemy civs. Otherwise it's a non-factor
  • 40 starting Influence is an ultra-early steroid, but it is a 1-off bonus that has no lasting impact. It just gets you some early quick yields from meeting CS and then doesn't do anything ever again. A bonus that has impact for the whole game would be much better
• Conventional, safe bonus for the most pure diplomatic civ in the game. relevant, straightforward, and easy to use.
• It's unique. We don't have a civ that boosts diplomatic missions

Spoiler India Change :

Current UA:

Starts with a Pantheon.​

Great Prophets require 35% less Faith.​

Founding a Religion converts all owned Cities.​

+0.6 Religious Pressure and +1% Food for each Follower of your primary Religion in a City.​

No Unhappiness from Religious Unrest.​

Cannot build Missionaries.​

problems:

Spoiler :

• That's 6 different abilities in 1 UA!
  • What a mess! look at all the fiddly abilities needed to make this thing work.
  • This is the clearest example of a civ UA being overdesigned
• Boosts both Passive spread and Great Prophets. No clear theme
  • Compensates for not having missionaries by boosting... Everything else possible. Once again, a mess
• Scaling Passive spread as a UA doesn't work
  • We've been trying to get this civ UA to work at some decent level of power for years, and it always falls out of balance, goes under or overpowered for long stretches of time. It requires constant tuning, but none of it addresses the fundamental problem that Passive spread doesn't match the pace of the religion game, and no amount of fiddling with it is going to fix that.
  • In the early religious game, Passive spread is almost non-existent. You need to spread to multiple cities to gain critical mass. Devs tried to address this with automatic conversion, but that only partially works, and it doesn't help them defend themselves, or maintain spread to new cities or growing cities
  • In late game, the population spread becomes overwhelming. Missionary costs get higher and higher, and so the effectiveness of missionaries falls away as the game progresses, but passive spread just gets stronger and stronger. It doesn't match how the religion game is supposed to become stagnant, but continues to ramp up. Meanwhile, the cost of inquisitors for other players to defend against your passive pressure also gets more and more expensive. It's not possible to balance this mechanic because it is way to weak to start and way too strong at the end.
  • If another civ comes and tries to convert you early you're basically screwed. India has almost no defense against conversion until enhancing and getting inquisitors. Early and vigorous conversion can turn off your UA with almost no possibility for counterplay
  • It's boring. Your unique ability focuses on a passive mechanic, and de-emphasizes actively spreading with GProphets and turns off Missionaries entirely. emphasizing GProphets as the main spread component would be more active, and give players something to do.

Proposal
New UA: Mahatma
Starts the game with a Pantheon.
Great Prophets require 35% less Faith, and spend only 1 spread action to Found a Religion, Enhance a Religion, or build a Holy Site.
Cannot build Missionaries.

UB Change:
Add +1% Food in this city for every follower of its primary religion.

Notes:

• Great Prophets that do not have all 4 of their charges cannot Found a Religion, Enhance a Religion, or build a Holy Site.
  • In other words, every Great Prophet can do 1 major action first, and then instead of being expended, they get 3 spread actions
• The for Harappan Reservoir is now just any religion. It doesn't have to be your majority religion. It just scales off whatever is the biggest religion in that city.
• Requires AI work to teach the India AI to always Enhance or plant a Holy Site if able to.

Rationale:

• The idea is that all GProphets can spread, so they become your main way to establish your religion. Your Great Prophet that founds your religion can immediately spread it to 3 more cities.
• No more automatic conversion, immunity to unrest, or scaling pressure bonuses. fewer, stronger bonuses that focus only on better Great Prophets
• India retains its food bonus, scaling with followers, but now it's off the UA, freeing up space. It is also slightly more flexible, allowing you to get the bonus on a converted city. India is a very pluralistic society, so it makes sense to allow them to benefit from multiple religions.

Spoiler Hunnic UA Change: Round 2 :

Congress 5 Hunnic UA: Scourge of God
+10% Combat Strength for each subsequent attack against a single target during a turn.
Inflict +100% and receive -50% War Weariness.
Claim adjacent unowned land tiles when Cities claim a tile of the same type.

Proposed Change: Scourge of God
+10% Combat Strength for each subsequent attack against a single target during a turn.
Inflict +100% and receive -50% War Weariness.
All tiles with Gold or Culture gain 1 more for 1 turn for each Citizen you kill.

Note: Things that kill Citizens:

• Capturing cities (cities lose population)
• Razing cities (lose 1 per turn)
• Nukes

Losing population by Starving cities does not count.

Reasons:

• Huns and Shoshone are too similar:
  • skirmisher UU
  • flatland unique tile improvement that unlocks in late ancient era and gives
  • UA ability that gives a combat bonus and free tiles. Not cheaper, specifically tiles at no cost.
  • They're both Grey
• Additionally, every civ from the Eastern European Steppes in the game (Huns, Mongols, Russia) has a bonus to border expansion and it is both repetitive and creatively bankrupt
• Huns could benefit from a unique angle, and we don't have a Razing civ in the game.
• New bonus is very 'Scourge of God'.
• The tile claim bonus is interesting, and stronger than the Shoshone's current bonus. I think it could find a good home there.

Spoiler Shoshone UA Change :

Current UA: Great Expanse
Cities claim up to 8 tiles on Founding and 4 tiles on Conquest.
Land Units receive a +20% Combat Strength bonus when fighting in friendly territory.
All Recon Units can choose rewards from Ancient Ruins.

New UA: Great Expanse
Claim adjacent unowned land tiles when Cities claim a tile of the same type.
Land Units receive a +20% Combat Strength bonus when fighting in friendly territory.
All Land units can claim Ancient Ruins. (if 5-18a passes)

Notes:
I would suggest the following changes be made for the UA tile claim bonus to work better:

• Tile claim AI only picks the best tile to expand to when this trait ability is active, instead of randomly picking from the top 3
• AI's Tile valuation adds the value of adjacent tiles of the same type when choosing a tile to claim if this trait ability is active.

Rationale

• The Shoshone UA is called Great Expanse, but the Hunnic tile claim bonus is stronger (it claims more tiles faster)
• The Hunnic tile claim ability is more interesting and continues to work throughout the game, instead of mostly being an early expansion-phase bonus that never is used in the mid-game
• The Huns and Shoshone have lots of overlapping abilities (see above), and I think the Huns should drop their tile claim ability in favour of the Shoshone
• Getting to choose ruins instead of getting them randomly is a weak bonus, and a chore. It's not a fun ability, and many people simply turn Ruins off if they don't like the randomness.
• Allowing all units to collect ruins if only Scouts can normally would be a much more impactful and useful ability.

 

[pineappledan]

A commando minuteman that has a ranged attack only as long as you keep them commandos runs into the same problem as keshiks and camel archers did in vanilla and zeppelins in VP. (rip zeppelins, my favorite unit). You build a bunch of them because they are really nice, but they become significantly less nice once you upgrade them. So you keep them around until they deal only 5-10 damage a hit and die to anything.

Commandos upgrade into Paratroopers, who have +10 CS and can paradrop, so it seems worth it to upgrade.

 

[Rosete]

Siam UA change:

Current UA:
Influence with City-States starts at 40. Yields from Friendly and Allied City-States increased by 100%. +25% to Combat Strength of Allied City-State Capitals. +10 Experience to Units gifted by City-States.

New UA:
Yields from Allied City-States increased by 200%. +100% to Combat Strength of Allied City-State Capitals.

Rational:
- Siam's UA have a lot of tacked-on bonuses. +10 xp to units gifted by city states is useless because of how rare this is. 40 starting influence gets you a whopping 5 turns of bonuses when you first met a city state. Both are very inconsequential and quite bland.
- The new UA honed in on Siam's niche of buffing city states. This gives incentive for Siam to gift units to city states beyond fulfilling quest. These buffed-up city state units are now a real threat instead of the mild annoyance that they currently are.
- Open interesting scenarios where Siam can effectively wage proxy wars using its city states. Placing spies in allied city states to prevent coups.
- The buff to 200% is to make the UA feel impactful. This should make Siam more competitive with others in terms of yields.
- Dropped the bonus from friends. The new UA gives a lot of bonuses to allied, so if you want it, you have to go all in and get allied status.

In short, the new UA aims to trim the fat and buffed up the meat!

 

[gwennog]

Inspired by this mod, which swaps Byzantium and Arabia's UAs

Very good idea, I really like @Hinin 's swap and your own interpretation.

 

[azum4roll]

Commandos upgrade into Paratroopers, who have +10 CS and can paradrop, so it seems worth it to upgrade.

It's still a bad battle unit regardless. Its role is to spot, pillage and maybe help flank, but its attack and defense are both terrible.

 

[azum4roll]

Siam UA change:

Current UA:
Influence with City-States starts at 40. Yields from Friendly and Allied City-States increased by 100%. +25% to Combat Strength of Allied City-State Capitals. +10 Experience to Units gifted by City-States.

New UA:
Yields from Allied City-States increased by 200%. +100% to Combat Strength of Allied City-State Capitals.

Rational:
- Siam's UA have a lot of tacked-on bonuses. +10 xp to units gifted by city states is useless because of how rare this is. 40 starting influence gets you a whopping 5 turns of bonuses when you first met a city state. Both are very inconsequential and quite bland.
- The new UA honed in on Siam's niche of buffing city states. This gives incentive for Siam to gift units to city states beyond fulfilling quest. These buffed-up city state units are now a real threat instead of the mild annoyance that they currently are.
- Open interesting scenarios where Siam can effectively wage proxy wars using its city states. Placing spies in allied city states to prevent coups.
- The buff to 200% is to make the UA feel impactful. This should make Siam more competitive with others in terms of yields.
- Dropped the bonus from friends. The new UA gives a lot of bonuses to allied, so if you want it, you have to go all in and get allied status.

In short, the new UA aims to trim the fat and buffed up the meat!

• It's 10 turns of bonuses if you stop playing with UCS, and it's very impactful, but random.
• +10 experience is a vanilla ability, and it should be dropped.
• I don't think the yields from friends/allies need to be buffed. Germany will start crying.
• We need something equally impactful to replace the starting influence, but it shouldn't be more yields from friends/allies.
• CS allies already give it +25% city strength, and current Siam only gives it 25% more. It helps the CS to defend itself, but no power on the aggressive side.

My proposal:
1. Yields from Friendly and Allied City-States increased by 100%.
2. +25% Combat Strength to Allied or Pledged to Protect City-State Units (stackable).
3. Friendly City-States never declare war on you.

The buff to the 2nd ability and the new 3rd ability replace the starting influence + alpha.
The 2nd ability gives the CS attack power as well as defense, and you can expect them to help you conquer your rival's cities much more easily.
Combined with the 3rd ability, which gives you a chance to flip CS even during war (outside of coups), Siam's enemies should never trust their CS "allies".

 

[azum4roll]

On Arabia and Byzantium:

There's nothing balancewise wrong with Byzantium's kit, and we should not change it just because it's "thematically better".

There are still space for nerfs in Arabia's kit (see below):

Current UA:
When you complete a Historic Event, your Capital gains +1 Science and Culture, and 15% towards the progress of a random Great Person.

Current Bazaar's difference from Market:
+2 2
+50% Land Trade Route range
Triggers a Historic Event when a Land or Sea Trade Route from this City is completed
Historic Event strength = 6

For reference:
Caravansary/Harbor's Historic Event strength = 10
Zoo's Historic Event strength = 5

Arabia completes more than 200 Historic Events throughout a game, which could mean 30 free Great People, but note that each of them also increases the cost of the next one, which harms the natural generation of Great People, so in reality the number of Great People they gain over a normal civ should be much lower than that. The Capital yields are also not that significant outside of the ones you get by rushing Stonehenge/Pyramids.

Looking closer, it seems the kit's greater power comes from the Bazaar.
1. Base yields

2 Faith per city pretty much guarantees founding, and 2 is only beaten by Walls of Babylon in the Ancient Era.​

2. Trade Route range

This gives better passive religion spread, but isn't too significant.​

3. Historic Event

Trade Route completion has always been a major factor of Tourism gain. For Arabia, each of them is stronger than the one you get by producing a Great Person. Compared with other civs, each Historic Event from TR is also significantly (at least 40%) stronger.​

​

Other TR buildings in City	Relative Historic Event strength with Bazaar	Relative Historic Event strength without Bazaar
None	6	0
Caravansary/Harbor	16	10
Caravansary/Harbor + Zoo	21	15

There's no reason for the Bazaar to buff TR Historic Events by that much. Its existence merely aims to provide an extra early source of Historic Event (to trigger the UA), and is not intended to be a major Tourism source throughout the game.​

​

The balancewise correct nerf for Arabia thus should be on the Bazaar.
Base yields: 3 2 2 => 3 1 1
Historic Event strength: 6 => 1

 

[gwennog]

it just because it's "thematically better".

I thought we were playing Civilization, the theme still a little important if not as much playing chess.

 

[Anarcomu]

Some questions for modders here who have experience in Civ coding :

• Is it possible coding-wise to have numerous possible upgrades for a unit (ex : spearman into pikeman OR longswordman)?
• Can each upgrade have a different icon in the case first answer is yes ?
• Can a unit use more supply / strategic/upkeep ? I highly suspect yes for strategic, don't know for supply nor upkeep thought.

Alternatively :

• Is it possible to allow an action (pillage, upgrade etc.) based on presence/absence of a promotion ?
• Can a promotion affect base of a unit ? Actual viking promotion do it on pillaged tiles, just want to know if it would be possible everywhere.
• Same as before, could a promotion change supply/strategic/upkeep ?
• Can a specific promotion change how the unit's icon appear on the map ?

The end idea behind this is to have a system akin to Civ 6 military, when you get to choose between large number of weaker units, or smaller number of stronger units. I think this would be a great way of reducing amount of units on the map.

 

[Anarcomu]

Or maybe it is far too much hassle for what would be gain, I don't know, but I personally dislike carpets of units, I don't want to spend that much time moving all those around.

 

[azum4roll]

Is it possible coding-wise to have numerous possible upgrades for a unit (ex : spearman into pikeman OR longswordman)?

Highly impossible.

Can a unit use more supply / strategic/upkeep ? I highly suspect yes for strategic, don't know for supply nor upkeep thought.

Supply: not sure
Maintenance: yes
Strategic: see Diplomat and Ambassador

 

[pineappledan]

It's still a bad battle unit regardless. Its role is to spot, pillage and maybe help flank, but its attack and defense are both terrible.

In the era of Artillery units, I can’t see an I upgraded Commando doing much of anything, I agree.

New UA:
Yields from Allied City-States increased by 200%. +100% to Combat Strength of Allied City-State Capitals.
[…]
- The new UA honed in on Siam's niche of buffing city states. This gives incentive for Siam to gift units to city states beyond fulfilling quest. These buffed-up city state units are now a real threat instead of the mild annoyance that they currently are.
- Open interesting scenarios where Siam can effectively wage proxy wars using its city states.

2. +25% Combat Strength to Allied or Pledged to Protect City-State Units (stackable).

As was pointed out by Azum, the 25% to the city state capital just boosts the city. It doesn’t boost units.
Both yours and Azum are suggesting that Siam should boost the power of CS allies and use them to fight, but we already have a civ that does that: Greece. Greece’s stacking global % Combat Strength bonus affects his allies (or at least claims to). So if you want to pull that bonus off Greece and give it to Siam then okay, but I don’t think Siam and Greece should both have 95% identical CS boosting bonuses.

IMO, we already have 2 civs that are more hybrid War/Diplo with Greece and Germany. Austria is hybrid Culture/Diplo, and Siam is the only civ we have that is sort of “pure” Diplomatic, with only the smallest SV secondary focus. It’s also the most basic civ, aside from its weird, weak, obsoleting bonuses that don’t affect the game much. It’s kind of like the “Poland” of Diplo civs, acting as an easy introduction to the mechanics. I think that’s a good niche to have, and so I don’t see Siam getting more complicated or crowding into German/Greek design space as a good thing for the civ roster overall.

There's nothing balancewise wrong with Byzantium's kit, and we should not change it just because it's "thematically better".

Yeah we do. We changed Sweden from a diplomatic civ to a war civ in VP by basically giving them pieces of China’s vanilla UA. If the theme is better, and it gives us some good design inspiration then it’s totally fair game.

 

[Rekk]

maintaining 10 PoPs is much harder and so it makes the combat bonus more interactive, rather than feeling automatic

Maintaining 10 PoPs is as easy as maintaining one PoP, so this bonus is binary.

The Shoshone UA is called Great Expanse, but the Hunnic tile claim bonus is stronger (it claims more tiles faster)

I have to contest this. Huns only reach parity with Shoshone after 16 tiles (ie. 8 border growths, assuming the adjacent land claim triggers every time). Also, Huns have a way to direct Border Growth (and thus the double claim) using Ekis, and is one of the main benefits to Ekis. You're not suggesting porting this over to encampments, and regardless, it would both overencumber the UI and not work as well due to the NoTwoAdjacent requirement.

 

[pineappledan]

I have to contest this. Huns only reach parity with Shoshone after 16 tiles (ie. 8 border growths, assuming the adjacent land claim triggers every time).

Have you tried the Hunnic border claim? It does not work how you describe. It claims EVERY adjacent neutral tile of the same type. A single border expansion event can give you up to 5 free tiles. Within 3 or 4 border expansions you will almost guaranteed have more free tiles than the Shoshone’s static 8.

Also, Huns have a way to direct Border Growth (and thus the double claim) using Ekis, and is one of the main benefits to Ekis. You're not suggesting porting this over to encampments, and regardless, it would both overencumber the UI and not work as well due to the NoTwoAdjacent requirement.

That’s why I added this part:

Notes:
I would suggest the following changes be made for the UA tile claim bonus to work better:

• Tile claim AI only picks the best tile to expand to when this trait ability is active, instead of randomly picking from the top 3
• AI's Tile valuation adds the value of adjacent tiles of the same type when choosing a tile to claim if this trait ability is active.

I agree that training and teaching the AI to use the tile expansion is too hard for too little gain. I don’t think they use it adequately on the Huns already. I first suggested that maybe Shoshone recon units could “train” the shoshone’s tile claim onto them when they stand on unowned adjacent tiles, but to get the AI to use that effectively requires teaching the UA an entirely new unit management and tile valuation system. It basically requires reverse-engineering recon mission logic and tile valuation, systems that the AI already has.

Instead of training the AI to use improvements or units to train the border expansion, the best way to make the AI use this ability is just to make the border growth evaluation only pick the best tile, and to account for adjacent tiles of the same type in its valuation. The human player won’t have control over it like with the Huns, but they never had an AI pick border growth in a way that always tries to pick the best tile.

I think that satisfies both the human and AI training requirements.

 

[azum4roll]

Greece’s stacking global % Combat Strength bonus affects his allies (or at least claims to). So if you want to pull that bonus off Greece and give it to Siam then okay, but I don’t think Siam and Greece should both have 95% identical CS boosting bonuses.

I agree that we should pull that from Greece. You're going to change him to a pledge civ, and he should be the protector of the weaker CS units.

IMO, we already have 2 civs that are more hybrid War/Diplo with Greece and Germany. Austria is hybrid Culture/Diplo, and Siam is the only civ we have that is sort of “pure” Diplomatic, with no explicit secondary focus. It’s also the most basic civ, aside from its weird, weak bonuses that don’t affect the game much. It’s kind of like the “Poland” of Diplo civs, acting as an easy introduction to the mechanics. I think that’s a good niche to have, and so I don’t see Siam getting more complicated or crowding into German/Greek design space as a good thing for the civ roster overall.

I see the proposed Siam as a peaceful diplo civ actually. Perhaps I should change the 3rd ability to "Friendly City-States do not follow when their allied Player declares war on you"?