(July 6th, 2019, 05:17)Charriu Wrote: I think the main issue I have with the change is that China looses it's major uniqueness with this change.
This is part of the issue I've struggled to get my head around.
The UU were first implemented in Alpha, the CKN, WC, Impi were all balanced in that first pass over 12 years ago. In the context of what was unique at that point, the CKN was not the only unit that had collateral, could kill and.coild attack off boats.
The UB were implemented in Warlords, so that was the next time all of the civ balance was reconsidered but nothing had changed at this point.
It was at the design point of BtS that siege lost the ability to attack off boats and kill, but the civs were never rebalanced at this point. Unrestricted leaders were brought in at the request of the MP crowd for greater replayability, and the Devs had concerns regarding balance issues, but nothing was done because, frankly, no one had the experience to know what to do.
So the uniqueness of China is completely accidental, it was never meant to be the only civ to have this we abilities. In fact, one way to consider it is that the balance design at base BtS was that those abilities now unique to China should exist because they were...unwanted? Considered by the Devs to be OP? I'm not entirely sure, except the Devs did want to break the prevalent strat and f just massing siege units. That issue never really existed IMO, and definitely does exist now.
I do, however, have reservations about realising siege to attack off boats and kill, because that means there are several units that need to be reconsidered, whereas just changing the Xbow is a much easier change to assess, balance and control. I also don't think that damage to uniqueness is a concern given the start of this posts point. With that in mind, I reckon the potential change to the Xbow is worth testing on an islands type map, in addition to the naval changes posted about previously.
On X-bows and CKNs: Prior to this change, most of China's power is on its techs and UU. With starting techs made slightly less important and regular X-Bows brought much closer in power to CKNs, does China need more from the Pavillion, or are the CKN's advantages enough as-is? Looking at it from a different side: If regular Crossbows can do collateral, both off of ships and as two-movers over hills via G2, it will be to a player's advantage to have some around as suicide units (or even better for fast-mover-via-hills purposes if they withdraw a lot with G3) even into the age of Infantry. Is that desirable? (Note these questions are not rhetorical; I'm asking because I don't know if this is too much or too little or neither or both.)
On Persia's UU: Because you said there's no more room for a Chariot UU to exist in and I like to be contrarian, and also because it goes with the legend of the Persian Empire's "Immortals" (which were supposedly kept permanently at full strength, with all sick, injured, or dead replaced immediately) the Immortal could retain its BtS artwork and function as a Chariot that doesn't miss out on defensive bonuses and starts with March. They'd still enable a quicker (but not earlier!) early rush while no longer overrunning Archer defenders, and they'd also make great zone defenders, especially against swarms of barbs. Their early rush also isn't as nasty as the Zulu version because you still need AH and BW if you want to chop or whip them out.
(July 5th, 2019, 09:32)Krill Wrote: Japan: Fishing/The Wheel. UB: Harbour replacement. *Need to choose a name*. +2XP for land units.
I'd suggest Nanban Harbor. If you want a brief Civilopedia "background" entry, here's a quick take:
Nanban Harbor Wrote:The Nanban trade period in Japan was characterized by widespread foreign trade and piracy. It was during this period that European personal firearms and the techniques of their manufacture were introduced to Japan, where their design saw further improvements and swelling production, with tens of thousands of new guns built each year, changing the face of Japanese warfare. Even when the Tokugawa Shogunate's isolationist policies closed nearly all the nation's harbors to foreign trade, the process of learning, adopting, and adapting foreign technology, which came to be known as "Rangaku," continued through the enclave of Dejima in Nagasaki harbor.
And in case you want to use the names I suggested for the Indian uniques and want Civilopedia "background" entries for those too...
Kila Wrote:Fortress cities have been built on the Indian subcontinent since ancient times, especially along important trade routes, and this tradition continued through the medieval period, and even to the era of the British empire, when major cities like Mumbai grew out of the small towns beside which fortresses were built to protect the trading posts of the British East India Company. Some of the old "Kila" fortifications survive to this day, with their ornate gates built wide and tall enough to allow laden elephants to pass.
Urukku Pikeman Wrote:The high-carbon crucible steel produced in the Tamil region of southern India, known as "urukku" in the local language, was famed throughout the world: It was from this metal that the weapons were crafted that came to be known and revered in the West as "Damascus Steel." Such weapons as these, including the blades of pikes, were reputed to be tougher, more resilient, and capable of holding a sharper edge, than any other contemporary steel.
You could call the unique barracks a “Satrap’s Court”. Historically speaking, the connection between a satrap’s court and a barracks is a bit weak, but it is at least distinctly Persian and more interesting than just “barracks”.
I would give the Numidian Cavalry a -35% malus against pikemen too. Of course, most of the time the pikemen will have a good chance to win anyway, but that chance will be reduced, and I don’t think that the Numidians should have an advantage over their Medieval Era counters like that.
(July 5th, 2019, 09:32)Krill Wrote: Villages, Towns, are permanent and cannot be pillaged or improved over. Also provide access and tile yields to Oil, Coal, Aluminium and Uranium.
I see the point of stopping towns and villages from being pillaged, but I do not think that you should prevent them from being paved over by new improvements. I don’t think that the extra security for grown cottages is worth the loss of player agency, especially since it isn’t that much more security. Sending workers to destroy someone else’s new towns and villages is a lot less appealing than sending military units to do it, so I think that it can still be allowed.
Workers give no gold for destroying improvements, so one of the main incentives for destroying improvements is gone. If the intervening third player has any new world settlements to get started or any new conquests of their own that they want to adjust, then the opportunity cost could be high enough to discourage sending over the workers. That is even more true because the workers will need a sizeable military escort to not be driven off, and those military units could be useful somewhere else.
Japanese, Persia and India names should be implemented. I think I've reconciled the differences between the EventTriggers and EventInfos files, so hopefully the reported bugs don't reoccur, but can't promise anything.
No time to do anything else this morning, going to work in 15 minutes.
The events seem to be working correctly now. However…
Privateers receive a 60% bonus against ships of the line, but it should be 65%. Also, the game says the bonus is against TXT_KEY_SHIP_OF_THE_LINE.
War elephants still require ivory and do not require iron or iron working. The same remains true for ballista elephants.
Lions have a gigantic negative strength. I do not know what would happen if it engaged in combat with something, but I suspect that it would be weird.
The names of both Indian unique things still start with the adjective “Indian”. Now that they have their own distinct names, I don’t think that those adjectives are needed anymore.
The Numidian cavalry still has +50% against melee instead of +35%, and it has a +35% modifier against spearmen on defense. I assume that it should be -35% against spearmen on defense instead.
The Ethiopian stele does not give sentry to units built in a city with one.
The baray does not have +1 culture and does have +1 commerce, while the changelog indicates that it should have +1 culture and should not have +1 commerce (Khmer seems a bit weak right now, though, so it would probably be fine to leave the +1 commerce in).
Bonus screenshot! When I was rolling maps to test for bugs, this hilarious snake-shaped peninsula formed on one of them.
Mali’s skirmisher has a -35% penalty against archers rather than a -40% penalty.
All done! I went through and looked at everything you mentioned changing in post #65 of the 4.1.0.1. discussion thread, and the rest of it was correct, so I am pretty confident that the above list contains everything that needs to be fixed before this version is ready for use in a game.
I've fixed all those changes. Thanks for spending the time to identify them MS .
I've also buffed the Baray: I've added a single artist slot, and corrected the culture problem. It's makes it a bit of an amalgam with the original Greek Odeon, but it feels a bit better placed to me. Good enough for this pass of the mod IMO.
I've uploaded the mod into the first post.
I'll answer the other points a bit later when I have time.
(July 6th, 2019, 17:55)RefSteel Wrote: On X-bows and CKNs: Prior to this change, most of China's power is on its techs and UU. With starting techs made slightly less important and regular X-Bows brought much closer in power to CKNs, does China need more from the Pavillion, or are the CKN's advantages enough as-is? Looking at it from a different side: If regular Crossbows can do collateral, both off of ships and as two-movers over hills via G2, it will be to a player's advantage to have some around as suicide units (or even better for fast-mover-via-hills purposes if they withdraw a lot with G3) even into the age of Infantry. Is that desirable? (Note these questions are not rhetorical; I'm asking because I don't know if this is too much or too little or neither or both.)
On the power of China: Drama is a dead tech, to the extent that I think it is fair to value the UB as nil power, so the entirety of the power is, as you say, on the techs and the UU.
PB27 was played on the 3.X mod line which essentially removed the value of any start tech variation except Myst for religion. I feel that the 4.X line does not go that far in affecting tech values, but is still a good indicator of how I expect 4.X starts to play out. I do feel that start techs are going to be of much lesser importance in 4.X games (you still need to have either 1 relevant food tech or Mining, but that just means that civs come in 3 levels: civs with no tech you want, civs with 1 tech you want, or civs with 2 relevant techs). It will be much simpler to value the start techs now. That said, China is a Mining civ, so is essentially always pickable even if you had a Fish/Cow start, for instance.
IMO, the UU for China doesn't give a significant power change except when being used for naval invasions, it's just...good. Whilst fighting lots of land based conflicts, China isn't OP, or causes players to build monostacks of CKN, the CKN is kept for flexibility and extra collateral. Compare it to, say, Rome, or Vikings, and I don't think the Pavilion+CKN compares favourably to either the Praet+Forum or Zerk+Trading Post. I don't think buffing the Xbow to give a small amount of collateral will make it strong enough to drastically change unit compositions (partly because you have to have the techs to build both cats and trebs to be able to build the Xbow, and because the Xbow would only hit 3 units compared to the CKN hitting 5). So I don't think the change to the base Xbow diminishes it's value on land based maps, and it is still better than the Xbow in terms of transport capacity efficiency (because Xbows hit fewer units, need more units to cause collateral, so the mix with cats and trebs is different between China and everyone else, and China gets the CKN earlier as the CKN does not need Construction).
But China has the Pavilion at Aesthetics in 4.X, and I think that changes quite a lot. The Pavilion in a size 3 city can push out 13.75 culture per turn, nothing compares to that for controlling territory except Holy Cities, wonders, or Caste. I think that change alone is enough to keep China in a good place, still pickable.
Which brings me back to why I've been thinking about the Xbow change: it isn't China that has the problem, it is what the CKN unlocks in terms of naval attacks, which is a specific scenario that IMO needs addressing. But that scenario isn't really fixable by just nerfing the CKN, given we want players to interact in conflict, and Castles exist to make it much easier to hold individual cities (plus the obsoletion changes buffs Engineering). Nerfing the CKN means fixing yet another civ, and then having to rework the balance around Medieval and Renaissance island warfare. The less invasive change appears, to me at least, to be changing the Xbow.
Quote:On Persia's UU: Because you said there's no more room for a Chariot UU to exist in and I like to be contrarian, and also because it goes with the legend of the Persian Empire's "Immortals" (which were supposedly kept permanently at full strength, with all sick, injured, or dead replaced immediately) the Immortal could retain its BtS artwork and function as a Chariot that doesn't miss out on defensive bonuses and starts with March. They'd still enable a quicker (but not earlier!) early rush while no longer overrunning Archer defenders, and they'd also make great zone defenders, especially against swarms of barbs. Their early rush also isn't as nasty as the Zulu version because you still need AH and BW if you want to chop or whip them out.
You make a very good point about March on chariots. The counter point I'd make is this: why do I want a chariot with March? If my unit lives I can put it back into position to fight sooner, saving 2-4 turns. This makes it slightly easier to farm a HE chariot. I could theoretically save on one or two units to fight barbs, but only if I am not barb busting, but that is a sentry net to reveal incoming attacks as well, so it's not a definitive saving. After the horrendous time I had dealing with barbs in PB42.
I think the scenario where they have the greatest impact is this: A chariot rush where the healing on the two or so turns between a second city and capital means getting the kill or not. This is essentially still the same problem, but given the lower power of the chariots, I would agree it is still questionable how much a problem it is. So I see this UU concept as a bit of a dud, really: Why would I pick this compared to Zulu, so I can still leave Impi in fast mover stacks, or Egypt with a chariot that has combat qualities? The only real answer I can come up with is this: I would have to really, really value the UB. So we could leave the Persian UU as a chariot with March (and I'd probably say throw in a free strike and drill 1), but we'd need a new UB. Library UB seem to fit? I have no issues with implementing this idea FWIW.
(July 7th, 2019, 03:33)Magic Science Wrote: I would give the Numidian Cavalry a -35% malus against pikemen too. Of course, most of the time the pikemen will have a good chance to win anyway, but that chance will be reduced, and I don’t think that the Numidians should have an advantage over their Medieval Era counters like that.
I thought about what you've written here, but I don't think you are being entirely fair: Every unit that has a strength increase works better against all of their counters. The WC, Preat, Indian UU, Strosstrupper, Red Coat. The NC is being purposefully held back against the spearman, but there is also the WE that will counter it, and the WE is not going to be much more easily available to all civs due to the resource requirement change. With that in mind, I don't think the malus needs to be given against pikes as well.
Quote:
(July 5th, 2019, 09:32)Krill Wrote: Villages, Towns, are permanent and cannot be pillaged or improved over. Also provide access and tile yields to Oil, Coal, Aluminium and Uranium.
I see the point of stopping towns and villages from being pillaged, but I do not think that you should prevent them from being paved over by new improvements. I don’t think that the extra security for grown cottages is worth the loss of player agency, especially since it isn’t that much more security. Sending workers to destroy someone else’s new towns and villages is a lot less appealing than sending military units to do it, so I think that it can still be allowed.
Workers give no gold for destroying improvements, so one of the main incentives for destroying improvements is gone. If the intervening third player has any new world settlements to get started or any new conquests of their own that they want to adjust, then the opportunity cost could be high enough to discourage sending over the workers. That is even more true because the workers will need a sizeable military escort to not be driven off, and those military units could be useful somewhere else.
There is one issue you have not mentioned: if a player thinks they are going to lose access to their towns, or even if they feel that they would benefit from the immediate hammers from workshops over towns, then a player could pave over their own towns with workshops. We end up with the exact same problem: all captured land ends up being workshopped to the hilt.
Towns need to be locked into the map to become a strategic objective: capturing the commerce centres can be a huge boost to a players tech rate: Not all land becomes equal, it is not just about workshopping everything and building wealth or units. I think that people accept this point to some degree or another, but I also feel that players get unreasonably hung up on being able to redevelop cities to be whatever they want come the late game. I don't really see any way to reconcile this, because I don't see this "loss of agency" as an issue. I'm not even sure I can see it as a loss of agency.
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