Civ differentiation : playstyles

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

23 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

I think Sparta without Spartans is weird, but it is also weird to have only one champion unit and let it be available early.

Small typo there.  Allow me to show how it could be rewritten:

"I think Sparta without Spartans is weird, and it is also unique to have only one champion unit and let it be available early."

Jokes aside, I don't see non-citizens as a champion being a good candidate despite the mechanics you proposed being interesting.  Those individuals seemed to be rather rare.  Xenophon probably only was able to get such an education for his children due to his personal friendship with Agesilaus.  

To me the skiritae unit virtually occupies the second champion slot despite being a citizen soldier.  There are definite problems with its current state (why is it so slow?) that I think would make it not just a beefy legionnaire.   

Removing champions in fact might be a good way of improving diversity.  Rome for instance, had horrendous cavalry compared to that of Carthage, leading to much of Hannibal's success, yet in game their consular bodyguards are considered first rate.  I would strongly advise removing it to better establish Rome as a predominantly infantry and siege based civilisation.  Why does the bodyguard exist?  Because the commandments of game design dictated that all civilisations should only have two available champions at the time.  

[LetswaveaBook]

6 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

it is also unique to have only one champion unit and let it be available early."

 

That is opposite to what I was thinking, but I can respect that. The thing I dislike about Sparta is that they have so little variety of units, but that could say more about my views than it says about the Spartans.

8 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

Why does the bodyguard exist?

A good question, but I would like to rephrase it: Why does the consular bodyguard exist and have excellent stats? If it was a sub-par unit, I think it would not be such an issue from a historical point of view.

[maroder]

Since there has been some mods made recently which change the territory dynamics:

I thought this might also be something that could be used for more differentiation. So just to put the idea out somewhere:

What if we would group the civs into different classes who have different ways to claim new territory? These classes could be based on their history ( or at least what most pepole know them for ).

I was thinking of something like:

the 'Imperial/ conqueror' civs

- they get only one CC, but every building of them has a larger territory influence and they have buildings like the theatron. So they are constantly building outwards or are trying to capture the buildings of the enemy (possibly with a higher capture rate?)

the 'governor' civs

- they also only get one CC but can build build cheap military colonies / satrapys of some sort who give less territory compared to the starting CC

the 'tribal' civs

- multiple regular CC to represent the different tribes

the 'nomad' civs (yet to come)

- territory doesn't matter

 

As you can see the only thing that would change are the imperial civs (and the nomads).

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 hours ago, maroder said:

the 'Imperial/ conqueror' civs

- they get only one CC, but every building of them has a larger territory influence and they have buildings like the theatron. So they are constantly building outwards or are trying to capture the buildings of the enemy (possibly with a higher capture rate?)

 

Perhaps a special upgrade for captured enemy CCs, aka "Colonia" (for the Romans), that assimilates them somehow. Usually, captured CCs can only train the captured CC's native citizen unit.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@maroder I think your idea in addition to @ValihrAnt's changes to CC/colony costs and territory expansion would make territory and map control a more dynamic part of the game.

I also like Vali's economic bonuses as they add more civ dfferentiation in a good way.

Edited January 24, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce