Zimbabwe for VP

[jarcast2]

Zimbabwe

DOWNLOAD​

Leader - Nyatsimba Mutota


UA - Kalanga Legacy
Cities gain Production from unique improved Resources nearby, scaling with Era.
Receive a Trade Route slot for every 4 improved Cattle resources.
Mines and Pastures provide +1 Food, +1 Gold, +1 Border Growth.

Spoiler UA details :

Production from resource diversity = (number improved unique resources within City working radius)*(number of eras)*(UAfactor)
UAfactor = 0.75 before Industrial era and =1.2 afterwards.

UU - vaNyai (Pikeman)

Unlocks at Steel
135
19 (+2)
2 moves

Formation I promotion
Rozvi Bull Horn Formation promotion: Flank attack bonus increased by 25%.
Kutema Ugariri promotion: Upon reaching level 5, the Unit gains the one-time ability to place a Cattle Pasture on a resourceless plot within 3 tiles from the nearest City. The tile permanently gains +1 Culture and is claimed if in neutral lands. Promotion is kept on unit upgrade.

Spoiler Kutema Ugariri details :

Allowed features: Forest, Jungle, Marshes, Flood Plains; only the last is kept, the others are removed when placing the Cattle pasture.
The ability doesn't work if there is a not-yet-revealed resource on the plot so to not overwrite future strategic resources.
For the AI: a list of eligible plots from the nearest owned city from the unit is compiled, then one plot is chosen at random from the list.

UB - Zimbabwe (Castle)

Unlocks at Chivalry.
300 , 1 maintenance.
+2 Gold to international Trade Routes.
+1 City Defense for every Trade Route to or from this City.
+1 Science for every 3 City Defense.
+1 Production to nearby Quarries, Mines, and Pastures.

+8 Defense, +150 HP
Reduces the city's damage taken from attacks by 2.
Military Units Supplied by this City's population increased by 10%.
Contains 1 slot for a Great Work of Art or Artifact.
Empire Size Modifier is reduced by 5% in this City.

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More Unique Components

UU2 - Zvigidi (Commando)

Unlocks at Railroad.
500 (-20% )
30 (-2)
3 moves

Ignore Terrain Costs, +25% when Attacking, Brute Force, Commando, Reconnaissance, Scavenger.
Can move after purchase.
Chimurenga promotion: +30% Combat Strength and +10 HP healed in friendly territory.
Gun Trade promotion: +2% Combat Strength for every owned international Trade Route (max +20%).

UB2 - Rambatemwa (Zoo)

Unlocks at Scientific Theory
Does not require a Circus in City
810 (-10%), 4 Maintenance (-1)

Upon construction it places and connects a copy of the Wildlife luxury resource on an unimproved Forest or Jungle tile (if no eligible tile is available a new Forest/Jungle tile is placed on an empty tile).
Every turn there is a 3% chance Wildlife spreads to an adjacent unimproved Forest or Jungle tile.

Spoiler Wildlife Resource :

+1 Culture, +1 Science, +1 Tourism
Monopoly bonus: +2 Culture, +2 Science from Resource tiles.

Wildlife dummy improvement (no graphics):
A Wildlife tile gains +1 Culture for each adjacent another Wildlife tile.
Fertilizer: +1 Gold
Biology: +1 Food, +1 Science

+500 Science when completed.
Nearby Jungle and Forest tiles gain +1 Culture, Faith and Tourism.
Completing a Trade Route originating here and targeting another Civilization triggers a (or strengthens an existing) Historic Event.
-1 Unhappiness from Boredom.
-1 Unhappiness from Urbanization.

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Spoiler Other :

Njelele (Grand Temple)

Everything is the same as the Grand Temple except name, icon, and civilopedia entry.
Basically I kept it for flavor and to not waste the icon I spent time making . ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

Credits:

• Sukritact: civ, leader, Zimbabwe UB art, text from MC's Zimbabwe mod, Zvigidi icon and model from The Ashanti mod, icon for Wildlife resource
• LS: vaNyai icon from LS' Zimbabwe mod
• RawSasquatch: Rambatemwa icon from CL's South Africa mod
• hokath: curator of previous Zimbabwe's VP version
• Gwennog: promotions icon art
• pineappledan: design help
• Jarcast: design, code, Njelele icon

Feedbacks are welcome

 

[Bruhmoment]

aw man you got me with the jebait at the start, god damn it

 

[jarcast2]

Sorry I bamboozled you lol.
If I made a post is because it's 90% done and I just need to check if all the lua functions (vashambadzi mission mostly) works correctly in game.
I am confident the download will be up by the end of next week.

 

[Bruhmoment]

All good mate - civ itself seems interesting. Play wide and trade? Sounds fun, hope to try it soon

 

[gwennog]

I really like the design of this mod, the only question I can have is in relation to the Vashambadzi, do you think the AI will know how to use it?

 

[hokath]

What a nice thing to see!
Yes, this formula was found in a ancient ruin and its origins are unknown.
The basic logic is that it has a cap to it, and that it attempts to not scale too aggressively on a bigger map size with more cities compared to a smaller one with fewer.

 

[jarcast2]

I really like the design of this mod, the only question I can have is in relation to the Vashambadzi, do you think the AI will know how to use it?

That's a question I asked also in the discord.
I can code a custom mission and effectively insert it in game through sql and lua similarly to the Great Admiral free luxury mission was added.
For human players it works fine, however, I have no idea if the AI will use it effectively when conditions are met because there are no Mission_Flavours table or the like.
The safest way is to code a workaround function just for the AI like picking the available trade route with the highest gold and force it if the unit has not been expended yet after a certain number of turns (to allow construction of Towns)

What a nice thing to see!
Yes, this formula was found in a ancient ruin and its origins are unknown.
The basic logic is that it has a cap to it, and that it attempts to not scale too aggressively on a bigger map size with more cities compared to a smaller one with fewer.

Yup, I saw that the cap is 60 of each yield while the minimum is 1.
I just was having a seizure while trying to understand it at first.

 

[gwennog]

That's a question I asked also in the discord.
I can code a custom mission and effectively insert it in game through sql and lua similarly to the Great Admiral free luxury mission was added.
For human players it works fine, however, I have no idea if the AI will use it effectively when conditions are met because there are no Mission_Flavours table or the like.
The safest way is to code a workaround function just for the AI like picking the available trade route with the highest gold and force it if the unit has not been expended yet after a certain number of turns (to allow construction of Towns)

Thank you.
Not sure to have understood all your solution, not the level but I will watch it with interest, to learn .
I just looked in the SQL database, there are missions, I did not know. Cool.

 

[jarcast2]

Thank you.
Not sure to have understood all your solution, not the level but I will watch it with interest, to learn .
I just looked in the SQL database, there are missions, I did not know. Cool.

You can look at the gamedefines.sql and the lua of my Etruscans mod to see how I implemented the custom domestic trade mission for the merchant UU.
Also in that case I coded a workaround for the AI. It relies on a random draw when the conditions are met (that is 20% chance the unit does the mission when adjacent to a City).
I honestly hope this issue of how AI deals with custom missions will be addressed at some point in the future by VP devs because there's so much potential in terms of creativity for unit modmods like Hinin's ideas for a nomad settler or my stupor-induced wacky concept of a smuggler unit trafficking luxury resources across borders.

 

[Urzamax]

Terrifying alchemical formula aside, what's considered to be part of the Trade Network? Does it include City Connections, or only Trade Routes? And does every city in the chain need to be passed through/have its own trade route going from one city to the next?

 

[jarcast2]

Terrifying alchemical formula aside, what's considered to be part of the Trade Network? Does it include City Connections, or only Trade Routes? And does every city in the chain need to be passed through/have its own trade route going from one city to the next?

Ony trade routes. In detail, as far as I understood from deciphering the code, given Zimbabwean city A, the network is made of:
- primary nodes: the set of cities B connected to A through Zimbabwean trade routes from A, and trade routes toward A from set of cities C
- secondary nodes: the sets of cities D, E connected through trade routes from/to set of cities B, sets of cities F, G with trade routes from/to set C
and so on...
The linked cities counts all the nodes.

 

[Urzamax]

Ah, okay. And Secondary and Primary Nodes are counted equally for purposes of the ability?

 

[pineappledan]

I've never been a fan of civ designs with 3 civilian bonuses. In this case 2 UBs and a UGP. They tend to be stronger, because economic civilian bonuses do not obsolete.

 

[Urzamax]

I'd argue that the Kraal is more of a Military Building, since its only real economic bonuses beyond that of the basic Stable are Border Growth. The major bits are the non-Mounted Melee production bonus and the XP bonus.

 

[jarcast2]

In the last few days I put the mod development on hold as I was wondering about changing part of the UA and replacing the Kraal with another UC.
In the end I decided to keep the UA as it is for the moment, while I am searching another UC because, as pineappledan made me notice, the Zulu's Ikanda is a Kraal so they somehow would represent the same thing, despite historical sources mentioning the Kraal being part also of Shona people's culture. It doesn't help the fact that in the 1830s an offshoot of the Zulus conquered the Rozvi kingdom and settled the current Matabeleland region.

 

[KlHannibal2]

Very cool design! Any chance of a release any time soon?

 

[jarcast2]

Very cool design! Any chance of a release any time soon?

Thanks.
Honestly I am not fully convinced by its current design (maybe I am too perfectionist) but if people liked to play the civ as it is, then I should stop dillydallying, get back to work and release it.

 

[Patee]

Please do

 

[jarcast2]

Thanks for the support.
In the last weeks I have been super busy with work and had not even time to check the new VP 4.0+.
It is likely I will resume my modding projects in the second half of December during xmas holiday.
Zimbabwe is on top of the list, as it is already half done.

 

[pineappledan]

I support the push to add more sub-saharan civs. I have an Idea for alternative design.

I think the current design, posted in the OP doesn't offer much identity. It's really, really strong, but achieves this with raw yields on mines and pastures. It doesn't push players in an interesting way or form a novel playstyle. It's also just.... really complicated.

Spoiler :

• A UA that places luxury resources undercuts Indonesia
• The vaNyai as described in the OP is super-strong. It's like a 2x power Impi
• The Kutema Ugariri ability is feels bad, because it incentivizes you to delay improvements until you get your unique pikeman, who can make stronger versions of the pasture and mine.
• The Zimbabwe does a little bit of everything. It has specialist slots, it gives 2 different stacking bonuses and lots of yields. It's all over the place. TR range isn't a bonus worth giving since it can actually make your TRs worth less.
• I'm opposed to adding components to civs unless they have a really good reason to be there. They need to be on a civ that is guaranteed to found, and with a unique Grand Temple that is very dicey. Also, Zimbabwe has lots of other things that are noteworthy about their culture besides their religion, and we need to be very careful about adding new faith-centric civs. Zimbabwe is not Israel or Tibet, they aren't a civ where I feel there is no other way around the faith aspects of the civ.
• The Zvigidi is in the same upgrade line as the vaNyai, and also has some really powerful abilities. Too many things going on, and making the two units stackable, and only 2 units apart to boot, is going to result in some insanely powerful UUs.

Spoiler design :

Zimbabwe
​

Leader - Nyatsimba Mutota

UA - Legend of Ophir
Cities gain +1 for each unique improved resource nearby, scaling with Era. This bonus is increased to by +1Gold for each International Trade Route from the City.

UU - vaNyai (Pikeman)

Unlocks at Steel

135 ​

20 (up form 17)​

2​

Formation I​

'Rozvi' promotion - Gains 25% base CS when standing on a pillaged tile. (old Viking ability)​

UB - Dzimbabwe (Castle)

Unlocks at Chivalry.

300 ​

11​

+1 City defense for every Trade Route to or From this city.​

+1 Science for every 3 City defense​

+1 Production to Quarries and Pastures near this city (up from quarries only)​

+2 Gold to International Trade Routes to or from this city​

+8 Defense, +150 HP​

Military Units Supplied by this City's population increased by 10%.​

Contains 1 slot for a Great Work of Art or Artifact.​

Empire Size Modifier is reduced by 5% in this City.​

Spoiler 4UC :

UU2 - Zvigidi (Commando)

available at Acoustics

400 Production Cost​

34 CS (up from 32)​

3 Movement​

Ignores Terrain Costs​

+25% when Attacking​

'Chimurenga' promotion: +30% Combat Strength and +10 HP healed in friendly territory.​

UB2 - Game Reserve (Zoo)

available at Scientific Theory​

Requires a Circus in the City​

900 Production Cost​

+5, +5Science​

+2 1Culture, and 1Science to Forests, Jungles, and Camps​

-1 Unhappiness from Boredom​

500 Science when completed​

Whenever a International Trade Route is completed, Receive a Tourism boost with the target civilization​

25% of the from World Wonders, Natural Wonders, and Improvements is added to the Tourism and Science output of the city.​

Spoiler explanation :

The main mechanic and playstyle stresses Resource Diversity.
There is only 1 other civ that manipulates resource diversity right now: Carthage. However, Carthage is locked to coastal, so the RD bonuses are a secondary concern. Zimbabwe only cares about maximizing it, because all of his UA abilities are boosted by making his cities diverse w.r.t. resources, which also makes them attractive to trade with. This in turn gives them Science from their UB. So they have a small edge pushing towards SV, and major bonuses towards infrastructure.

I largely kept the UUs the same, but toned down their abilities.

I couldn't think of what else to put on the Safari, except to double down on the SV potential by co-opting tourism mechanics.