Regardless, I wanted the Croatians to play differently from the other Balkans civs to justify their inclusion. They’re the only explicitly naval civilization among all of them.
Sometimes gameplay considerations are more important than historical justifications, as long as you don’t deviate widely from history (see the Armenians for a negative example of this).
Here are my ideas:
Instant Fishing Ship spawn reduced to 1
Remove free techs
Replace the extra villager attack with a useful eco bonus
New bonus: Military units take -25% damage if within 5 tiles of a Town Center
This bonus references the Twelve Noble Tribes of Croatia.
Kondura now makes the Galley line cost -50%, instead of removing the gold cost
Greatly improve the archer options
CHANGELOG
Receive two free Fishing Ships after building the first Dock → Receive one free Fishing Ship after building the first Dock (requires a Town Center)
Villagers +1 attack per age (starting in Feudal) → Lumber Camp upgrades increase lumberjack carry capacity by +2 each
Careening, Dry Dock, Gillnets free → Military units take -25% damage within 8 tiles of a Town Center
Team bonus of Knights +3 attack vs buildings reduced to +1
Zupani now gives Bani +3 attack vs archers in addition to Barracks units.
Kondura now reduces Galley cost by 30% instead of removing the gold cost entirely. The Croatians now also have Shipwright, further reducing the wood cost of ships and increasing their production speed, so now fully upgraded Croatian Galleons cost 45 wood and 21 gold instead of 90 wood and 30 gold (a 50% reduction in wood cost).
Receive Arbalester
Receive Shipwright (as previously mentioned)
Receive Bracer, but lose Ring Archer Armor
@JasuniSmith @Pulikesi25 @EvilPanda494 I have made significant changes. Let me know what you think.
Nice bonus, gives a good lead with the fishing. At the same time not too OP. Comparable to many water/hybrid civs.
Also an amazing change. +2 carry capacity after double bit axe is quite small ~4% through feudal age while +4 after bow saw is quite decent. Moderate eco fits well for a civ with strong military bonus.
This is actually a great bonus for a slow eco civ. It’d make monks extremely hard to kill, and very easy to defend with much fewer army. But the civ has Paladin and halberdier with all upgrades, and this bonus could be exploited in imp. I’d suggest modifying it in a way where it mostly remains as a defensive bonus.
You have to remove paladin, plate barding armor if you’re providing bracer. Will make the military bonus more useful and well fitting in this current version itself. Will also make bani a good fit as a support unit since they’ll get 7 p.armor even without plate barding and kill skirms reasonably fast. Shipwright shouldn’t be available when bracer is unlocked. 30% cheaper galleys with shipwright and bracer is already quite solid. Kondura should either cost slightly more resources, maybe 1000 food or be a slower upgrade and take an additional 45 seconds. Otherwise it becomes too much of a powerspike in early imp.
Would +3 per upgrade be too much, or should I stick with +2?
Perhaps I can remove Husbandry, to make Knights less mobile. Or maybe I can simply reduce it to a 5-tile area, like I was originally planning to.
That makes sense.
Yes, that was my logic behind including them in the effect of Zupani. Not only does it make sense from a historical perspective (both the Bani and Zupani had a connection to the Twelve Noble Tribes of Croatia), but it gives the Banus a specialty, rather than simply being a damage sponge.
Didn’t you tell me that wood becomes an issue on water maps? I figured that Shipwright would help with not only making the Galley line cheaper, but it would also improve the rest of the navy too. But if you think it’s too strong, I can remove it.
I still think this is too OP on nomad. Currently the meta is opening dock and then a few fishes. Persians are considered a great nomad civ just because they have +50 wood making them able to build a fishing ships right after built the dock, while this bonus is even better in any way, being free of cost and time, and would make this ipotetical civ a First pick in any nomad/water setting.
One could also simply make a different fishing ships bonus without affecting their eco capability too much like make them move faster, or produce faster, or other boni
It’ll create some imbalance for water but I guess it could be ok. But in the +3 version the civ should definitely not have Paladin and plate barding.
It fits the role well if civ has almost fu arbalester, units harder to kill around their tc, so design wise they’re good. But its too niche of a specialty and is one of the few non-unique units, no special unique ability as such. That’s fine for a secondary unique unit of a civ but imo a castle unit should have some unique ability.
Yes and now its the opposite side where Croatians get the unfair advantage. Shipwright + 30% cheaper galleys is too big of an advantage. If you replaced gold cost with wood, that’s like 100+ wood ships which puts Croatians at a disadvantage. I think 30% cheaper is fine, its like a better version of shipwright but restricted to galley line which are the most common late imp navy unit anyway.
But Persians also get +50 food, faster working tc/dock while this will be the only bonus for this civ. I don’t think its relatively that much stronger compared to Japanese, Dravidians, Italians, Persians or Malians. It might be a little bit stronger but tech tree has its weaknesses, so it won’t be that obvious as a first pick.
That’s perfectly fine too.
The +2 version seems more balanced, so I’ll stick with that.
To be honest, I think special abilities are overrated. Not only are they gimmicky, but I think they try too hard to make the unit special. Giving the unit a unique role, stat boost, or bonus damage is usually enough to make it unique. That’s how the classic UUs worked, and it’s simple and easy to parse. I prefer the old design strategy rather than the new one of constantly introducing new gimmicks. Gimmicks are fun, but frustrating for longtime players, whereas a simple stat change is easy to figure out.
It’s still 10% less wood than the Koreans, who have a 20% wood discount for ALL ships, on TOP of Shipwright. They get half of that for free and instantly. If a UT affecting one unit is barely better than a civ bonus for many units, and worse than the civ bonus plus a cheap tech, it’s not a good tech.
Dravidians have one of the best naval eco bonuses, plus an additional 200 wood for each age up, and they’re one of the strongest water civs. However, they’re terrible on land. If the Croatians can be more balanced, it’ll be golden.
Ya I didn’t mean any special mechanics, I’m not particularly interested in them either. Extra damage vs skirms is also a Bengali bonus. This unit is just a cavalry with higher p.armor but lower dps kind of similar to Tarkans.
But you’re not doing Shipwright tech which Koreans will have to do and Korea don’t get an eco benefit like free fishing ship or cavalry with bloodlines, so they’re less versatile wrt land army. And if you look outside a couple of matchups, its a tech that gives 10% more wood discount for more price, which is completely fine.
Fair point but my point is other civs like Japanese, Italians, Persians have similar tech trees until imp and also get a proportionate benefit for hybrid play. This free fishing ship won’t be overpowered. If it comes to that, the fishing ship could be made free of cost but still requiring time to produce.
I don’t support this solely because I kinda want to see a Sclavenians/Illyrians civ where you can choose to be Croatians or Serbs as you age up.
Are these medieval people or ancient era people?
Sclavenians are the ancestors of all southern slavs, who moved into the region in the early middle ages. Illyrians are actually a different people altogether that lived there before that, but it’s a word sometimes used to refer to southwestern slavs (although it’s a modern usage).
But if these people speak different languages can they be considered offshoots of the same people.
You know that some languages diverged from a common ancestor, right?
I just learned about the Narentines, a South Slavic tribe that engaged in piracy in the Adriatic Sea from the 9th to 11th centuries. They faced up against the Venetians, were briefly conquered by them, and ended up later becoming part of Croatia. This civ can probably represent them as well.
Yeah I know very cool right? But I think they remained pagans while croats converted to Christianity. They used to live in so called pagania indeed.
The fact that they remained pagan isn’t such an issue. The Huns and Mongols were pagan and the Cumans were Christian, yet they can build Christian churches, Buddhist monasteries, and Muslim mosques, respectively. Perhaps the Croatians can have a rather poor Monastery to represent this aspect of them.
I’d say cumans and Huns should have a shrine indeed and regional skins for monks in general.
Regional skins for Monks, I agree. But I’m not sure regional Monasteries are needed, at least right now. Most of the time, civs have the correct religion or sect for the architecture set they possess; there are only a few counter-examples, like the ones we mentioned, as well as the Magyars and Poles.
Well Huns and other tengrist steppe civs (for now just Mongols and cumans) could get a different nomadic set and the shrine is already there.