The fact its a team bonus is the problem. A player might queue up a ton of villagers not even realizing he went out of food. And when the food flows in those later villagers still ate into your gold supply so thats 1 less archer for you
Its more a noob trap issue really
Fair points. I hadn’t considered scenarios where you might do it accidentally. It forces players to have to be very precise in feudal and similar scenarios.
Which is tricky but reasonable (arguably) for the person who picked the civ. But teammates potentially suffering negative effects because someone else on the team picked this civ is definitely too much.
Yeah I made a Roman (pre Ror) and vandal civ with him and I was definitely more for a streamlined design. I agree that sometimes he goes too over the top and his ideas are impractical (coming from me it is saying a lot lol). But I still like very much to know about other ideas and civs I don’t know much about yet like Zimbabwe so keep up the good work, I’m gonna read it for sure!
The vandal farming “bonus” is downright brutal. More expensive slower gathered farms? I dont care how much more food they have that’s gonna let tour enemies run circles around you regerdless of civ
Okay looks like it was changed to no longer penalize gather rate. Even still early on this is not a bonus because the extra food doesnt matter until youve gathered enough of it but the extra wood is vital gonna hurt. This wood loss works against its naval power status if you need to supplement fishing on land
Also the TBs are complicated for no reason. Why not q simpler “Heavy cavalry units +2 damage vs buildings” instead of qualifier of needing arson. A team bonus that’s always active is far more satisfying than a one shot or duper qualifier gatekept one
That’s how I usually make my own bonuses but he finds them boring I guess… I still think you should use them every once in a while. But I’d lie if I say he’s not more creative than me in coming up with them. Yeah sometimes he exaggerates, I mean fair enough, to each their own, it still makes me curious about what he can come up with.
My original vandal civ:
Bonuses:
They start with a mobile town center that shoot slower and has less hp until castle age
Heavy demolition ship free upgrade (needs war galley and imperial age researched)
Reseeding or building a farm where there was already one costs 20% less
Destroying enemy buildings provide 25% of their resources cost in gold
Galley, fire ship and demolition ship lines attack Vs transport ships +5
Unique units:
Froya (available at the castle in castle age, cavalry with range that ignores building armour)
Unique techs:
Raids (Cavalry archers, scout and galley line attack Vs villagers, trade carts and trade cogs +5)
Intolerance/Persecution (When an enemy monk converts one of your units you gain half the cost of the unit in gold)
Team bonus: Blast radius of petards and demolition ships lines + 25%
They couldn’t trade in my original design but that got lost with his one. Maybe it was too much, I’m not the best at balance but as you can see mine is more streamlined. The thing that convinced me less in his vandal built was not farms but the transport converting mechanic probably.
I think the tower/stone focus is excessive. Some amount of this is good, and appropriate for a Zimbabwean civ, but it kinds of looks like “What if we made a civ called the Tower Spammerians,” with a couple other attributes for flavor. There are like 5 different bonuses that approximate to “save stone for towers” in different ways. I’m aware that some of them have other uses, but just for comparison’s sake, I’m going to focus on the tower aspect: (And yes, I’m being a little ungenerous to emphasize the point.)
Saves stone on repairing towers.
Saves more minable stone for towers.
Saves 20% on building towers.
Save stone from destroyed towers.
Saves stone from Daut towers.
From a cost perspective, a generic civ takes 125 stone from a mine to make a tower. The Zimbabwean civ takes 175 stone from the same (125) mine, and their towers only cost 100 stone after the discount. After the UT, you get 40% of the 100 stone back when the tower is destroyed, so the final back end “cost” of that tower is only 60 stone. So if the “life-cycle” of stone is completed, (mine to tower destruction), this civ has nearly 300% of the stone longevity for building towers than the average civ. And that doesn’t count savings on repairs (from regeneration) or from destroyed/deleted foundations. I’m aware that it doesn’t necessarily play out that straightforwardly (although it could), but it’s just too much. Seems very heavily overfocused on stone longevity and defensive buildings to the detriment of everything else. It would almost be like if the Romans had 5 bonuses for scorpions, and nearly all of them were various forms of scorpion discounts or refunds.
Related to my early comments, this is just too much of a one-trick identity. Tower rushing is something that has been consistently nerfed by devs, and “turtling” per se isn’t really a great strat. I think more defensive-oriented civs would be interesting, but the existing ones like Byzantines, Teutons and Koreans are more well-rounded.
Agreed, but also, I think one post about this is enough. No need to hijack the last third of this thread with that discussion.
I think that the Tower + Tower upgrade discount was a good step to adding some versatility. Tower upgrades include Fletching, Bodkin, Bracer, Ballistics, Chemistry [Core foot Archer upgrades], Masonry, Architecture [Common upgrades], Guard Tower [She can be a big help in some games, especially when you have weak monks], Keep, Arrow Slits, Murder Holes and Heated Shot. The 20% upgrade discount might be fringe compared to bonuses that other civilizations get, but it is nice and some of those upgrades require saving up for, so it is consequential. Furthermore, the discount does not apply to stone alone. This is something that can be built upon, but the towers are fine for now, unless you want to slightly increase the discount (This is hard to balance, 20% was meant to be a safe and clean figure). I would keep this particular bonus if you were looking to remove tower related bonuses.
Does it affect all of these? I guess it could, but my understanding of the way it’s written only refers to directly upgrading towers to Guard or Keep, + Arrowslits + Heated shot on top of these at most. If it’s intended to include all possible techs that can apply to a tower, (including Faith and Heresy btw), it should be phrased that way, as it’s not intuitive that fletching line is a “Tower Tech” per se. But if so, that is indeed more versatile.
Still think the towers are too stacked though. A discount on top of a refund on top of longevity of relevant resources on top of a special ability (regen) should raise red flags in almost any design context. Even for a kind of niche unit like towers or scorpions, I don’t consider it a good design to have 4 or 5 separate bonuses/UTs converge on one unit. I would emphasize 2 or 3 of these at most. For example, perhaps the 20% discount applies to TCs as well, but scrap the TB and have the first UT increase regen rate rather than provide a refund.
Essentially, it was not how I had it drawn in my mind, but the OP used the more expansive language in his explanation which was wiser because it added the Blacksmith techs to its design. As the civilization is shaped right now, I would not see any player researching either Faith or Heresy with this civilization as it cannot fight Monk Wars, its siege is lackluster, and it lacks cavalry. Atonement is a keystone technology that this civilization is missing.
You are probably right that this civ has a lot tower related bonuses that it might be too strong, but adding the tower discounts was suggested, and it could just be dialed back. The civ is not meant to be a one-trick tower civ at all, since you are also meant to play around this bonus, which I think you may have overlooked:
-All land units get +1HP per Town Center(max +7) and +3HP per Castle(no limit) you own
This means land units (villagers, military units, siege, monks, and trade carts) will get stacking hit points, so you would want to start spending stone on Castles and TCs to start ramping up your military by Castle Age. By late Castle Age, if you manage to get about 5-7 town centers and 2-3 castles (which is doable in 1v1s and especially in team games), you will have 11-16 bonus HP to all your land units - which is the Vietnamese, Vikings, Aztec and Celt bonuses in one! But the drawback is that you have to keep your Castles and TCs standing to enjoy these bonuses, so your opponents will have to play around this and be aggressive to stop your tempo, and you must react defensively. With the HP bonuses to these variety of units, it actually gives you flexibility with your military comp rather just going only towers. In team games, it is not even unusual for generic pocket civs to have 10+ Castles, so just imagine that. This is the reason they have a couple of limitations in their tech tree.
With this bonus, I envisioned this civ to be defensive, but with ramping or creeping power, unlike other civs that rely on power spikes. This civ’s strategies may be limited or predictable, but that is what gives this civ flavor, and would cater to defensive players. Not all civs have to be flexible on all situations and maps, ex. the Goths, which was always a fan favorite despite it not being successful in the pro scene.
It would be quite odd for miners to generate food while mining unless it really has a historical reference. I am also careful adding more eco bonuses to this civ since they already have good defenses and can be unstoppable late game due to the increasing hit points of their land units. Other defensive civs like the Byzantines have managed without early eco bonuses, but unlike them, the Zimbabweans even get a boost early by starting with 4 houses, which translates to 120 free wood plus work time saved on villagers. Your TC plus 4 houses means 25 pop space, so they have the convenience of the Huns during Dark Age, while the wood savings will help you stabilize in the Feudal Age, which I think is already enough since this is the only good “window” your opponents can punish you before you start ramping up your Castles and TCs later on.
Digging for roots/yams or potato like foods?
I sincerely hope we’ll have them one day.
The effect of their cheaper counter units is well known, as is of their cheaper Imperial Age. They have a playstyle that easily keeps pace with their economy, and eventually snowballs in the hands of a skilled player.
When it comes to their tech tree, their Monks are very good and their siege has both BBC and Siege Ram. Their Archers are good though not excellent, and their infantry are only missing 1 key technology, due in part to their ability to spam Halbs for an absurd price. Their cavalry performs fine, but not excellent, missing both Bloodlines and Blast Furnace. Whilst people tend to think of them for their camels, their Knight line sees use, and their Paladins are applied Judiciously. You have no equivalent to a Knight line, which is true of other civs.
Their free LOS upgrades along with their extra building HP are high value civilization bonuses. You never have to stall TC production for any of those 2 upgrades, and Byzantine Outposts are absurd in value.
If I had to compare the Byzantine bonuses to the current bonuses of the Zimbabweans, I would find the latter wanting. The Tower bonus helped catch up, but the TC/Castle to unit HP bonus does not compare to the Byzantine building HP bonus in value. The Byzantines have a better tech tree, particularly in alignment with their bonuses, and opponents will try to overrun you before you get value out of your other bonusses. Your second UT may be more practical overall than either of their two in a normal game, but your first one probably needs a rewrite. It is fine to be at this place, developing civilizations well takes time and reflection. You are trying to create a civilization using your own inputs, we are simply trying to be faithful to them whilst bolstering it to be competitive.
If you fought Byzantines with this civilization, you could find yourself in a pickle.
To add some context (On the HP bonus in particular), what makes Hussar such an important upgrade is that it is a capstone upgrade. Because of that it is expensive. If what it is capping is already an inferior product, it will not produce a much better product. On good products, it produces great products. It is unfair to compare it to what builds the product up to be a good product, its job is to make the good product great if not excellent.
Yes it is absolutely true that the Byzantines are a more well rounded and flexible civ since historically they were an encompassing empire, and they are a legacy civ. My point is that the Zimbabweans can have other options and bonuses to work with and not just with towers that tie in with their game plan. It may not be enough, but with their defensive resilience and and early boost, compared to Byzantines, I don’t see them getting destroyed in Castle Age since Byzantines don’t have anything particularly strong unit except for Catas. They can be destroyed by Byzantines in Imp, mainly due to BBC and Elite Catas, but the Zimbabweans can still answer with Arbs, towers, and buffed Gano Axemen (with the Imp UT, making them fast like El Dorado eagles, but stronger).
In open maps, they are not designed to be top tier here, but they are not completely useless. With their boost from Dark Age, they can open faster than a civ with no early boosts and go for Archers/Skirms or MAA-Trush into Feudal. Or depending on the map and matchup, they can full wall, tower up, fast Castle and field Assegais to raid and threaten cavalry and archers, and forcing the enemy into skirms which is a good thing for them since skirms can hardly pressure early.
I can see aggressive civs, and civs with good siege can shut down their game plan, but with their gold and stone longevity, they may outlast them in the hands of a good defensive player, that will utilize this civ’s bonuses and access to counter units. This civ is destined to be lackluster in water maps, and have limited mobility; only having the Assegai that is like the Cav Archer for this region. They may still need an eco boost or access to certain techs to not be helpless in certain matchups/situations, but with testing, I’m sure it would be easier to pinpoint which way to go.
Hehehe maybe my Sinhalese friend, but that’s so cute cuz root crops are only a couple of inches deep, and mining is on a whole other level. 
I’m sorry but I can’t quite understand this…a simpler explanation maybe?
A civ supporting super defensive turtling isnt the way to go. People arent gonna AI style toss 5 infantry at a time at tour tower defenses until they have no gold left. Theyre gonna grab the straggler gold you’re too entrenched in your base to go and grab and theyll starve you out.
I dont care about history it needs to make it to the castle age and beyond but its late game feels lacking without the tools to get there quickly while Aztecs can and can swarm you with Eagles before you can react
I noticed that, but it takes a (high) critical mass to pay off such that I think playing to take advantage of this bonus will only rarely be optimal. The HP effect per TC/Castle added is very low relative to both the constraints (costs/time) and advantages (booming, map control) of both buildings. Most civs will be able to outboom/beat you on timings, siege push your TCs, or otherwise establish a winning position before you can get enough castles/TCs for the HP bonus to become very impactful. Lacking knights puts them in a similar boat with Dravidians, although the Dravidians have a better eco bonus until mid-lategame. This civ’s only early eco bonus is 100 W and some vill time on the free houses.
I would say it’s very unusual above a certain (low) elo. I play a lot of BF TGs (14-16xx), and even players going for a strong UU seldom have more than 5-6 castles. Of course it’s possible to get any number, but apart from the tower rush, this civ being decent hinges so heavily on a massive boom/turtle situation, yet doesn’t reliably have the eco or military options to get there. Which is why I suggested that the tower discount apply to TCs (and lose some other stone-saving bonus) so there’s at least a small but direct aid to booming. That’s my two cents, but it’s your party.
Cheap trash units allow them to afford defense and booming. Your civ’s regenerating buildings might be comparable to the Byz building HP bonus, but they don’t really have anything on the eco or military side (aside from towers) to help defend when booming. Yeah, you can spam towers for defense, but you still have to gather the stone, which is a high opportunity cost compared to getting res for units or techs.