Muisca Confederation: In Concept and Practice

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Ahoi,

This is a refinement of my Muisca civ design as introduced in my exploratory concepts/testing thread. This design has been simplified for consideration to be added to the game, and includes a map wherein you can play as the Muisca, will all bonuses/units created through triggers.

Note that this design uses slingers as a semi-regional native unit that has a different ability for each civ (only Inca slingers have an anti-infantry bonus).

Muisca
Defensive Civ:

Muisca

  • Stone lasts 25% longer.
  • First Town Center generates gold. (5/15/30/40 per min) / Age
  • Houses replaced with Lodges. (70 wood, 15 Pop, Heal villagers within 5 tiles. (12 HP/min))
  • Spearmen and Skirmishers +0.33 range, +33% to all attack types, and +1/1 armor (all per Age.)
  • Destroyed buildings spawn a Guecha Warrior, from Feudal.

Unique Technologies:

Muzo
Muzo820Ă—450 143 KB

-Muzo Emeralds: Stone mines provide 100% additional gold, Trade units generate 10% more gold. 225 W 225 G
-Poisoned Lances: All spear-wielding units (Spearmen, Skirmishers, Eagles, and Guecha Warriors) gain a charge attack (every 1st and 5th attack deals about 2x damage). 800 W 800 G

Unique Units:
Guecha Warrior: Fighter that throws spears that deal melee damage. Has a small bonus against siege. Benefits from both infantry and archer upgrades (including thumb ring, ballistics, and chemistry).

Guecha Warrior Stats

HP:50 Speed: 1.15 Attack: 4 Armor: 0/2 Range: 4 Bonus: +2 Vs Siege
50 W 50 G
Elite: (Cost 750 F 350 G)
HP:50 Speed: 1.15 Attack: 5 Armor: 1/3 Range: 5 Bonus: +3 Vs Siege
50 W 50 G

Slinger: Ranged unit that deals area damage, has attack ground, and anti-building bonus.
(+3 S Reload Time, +2 Range, Attack, and Pierce Armor, blast width (1), anti-building damage (+7) compared to the Inca slinger).

Missing Techs: Gunpowder and Cavalry related units/techs, Ring Archer Armor, Arbalester, Elite Skirmisher, Pikeman/Halberdier, Elite Eagle Warrior, Arson, Onager, Siege Onager, Scorpion/Heavy Scorpion, Siege Engineers, Stone Shaft Mining.

Muisca History and Description:

The Muisca Confederation was a powerful Andean coalition particularly known for their powerful economy, specialized in agriculture, precious metals, and salt and emerald trade, the latter of which is a famous export of Colombia to this day. The Muisca were different from their neighbors in South and Mesoamerica due to their lack of monumental stone architecture as well as their comparatively peaceful nature.
The defensive nature of Muisca bonuses makes them difficult to push, and allows them both to save wounded units and employ ambush tactics by hiding inside buildings. Their offensive potential against buildings is very poor, lacking Arson and having the worst Siege Workshop in the game, although this is somewhat mitigated by their slingers, which function similarly to siege units. Muisca bonuses and technologies allow them to bank a large quantity of gold, which helps them field Eagle and Guecha Warriors.

Here is a map where you can play as the Muisca. Set your player #/color to 3/Green. This map is different from the one released in the larger thread, as Muisca is the only new civ it includes.
Muisca Civ Concept.aoe2scenario (136.5 KB)

Broken Editor Units

Note that since the devs generally put minimal effort into the Editor, none of the triggers I created that modify any unit’s attack or armor work anymore (as of the 6/29/22 “update”), so UUs will have different attack/armor values than what is shown in this thread. Nothing I can do about that until the devs decide to fix the Editor.

2

The second bit is too close to Bohemians, could have stone mines last 30% longer and stone miners don’t need droppoff points, maybe work 10% slower though.

Interesting idea, but it will never be used as a scout. It’s literally a free relic from the start of the game, it even generates gold faster than a relic by Imp. Maybe if you couldn’t garrison it it might be a bit more interesting.

These numbers are really weird. The HP is negligible, and the attack bonus might be too strong. Just pick one I think, and it should be the HP, because the attack thing is too similar to some other civs. Maybe change it to +5/+15/+25 HP or something like that, but then maybe remove final armor. Could even go higher, like +10/+20/+40, with no final armor for either unit.

This one is strange, I don’t think they need it. It’s also a different variant of the Khmer. Maybe you could just make it that military units can be regarrisoned in the building that produces them?

Interesting idea, why not just say “Military buildings spawn unit(s) when destroyed”, and then alter the list of things done.
Overall, I fell like you are trying to condense two bonuses into one line for several of these, so that you can get around the complaints regarding how many bonuses you have.

This is only worthwhile if you get it before mining stone. It’s also too close the the Polish bonus, I think it needs a full rework.

This seems a bit too strong, but if you took out the final armor upgrades for all these units, then it could be interesting, as high attack, high HP for the trash units, but not so good on armor.

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This is weird… Muiscas barely used stone for constructions. They most used wood an clay. Maybe could have a bonus related to this. Idk, vils repair building faster, or normal speed but at half cost.

4

What if both, pikes and skirms could «hide» next forests? They are invinsible while stand 2 tiles max around a forest and no attack

5

TBH, when I decided to make these playable via scenario, I constrained myself with what was possible in the editor (e.g. no drop-site free miners or other mod-only bonuses). I may reconsider that, although for now I think it’s valuable to have a fully playable civ with all the bonuses I’ve described here. As an aside (and I’ll rarely say this about in-game civs for fear of sounding like a certain someone), I do think giving Bohemians all the mining techs for free was bad design, as much for Bohemians themselves as for taking away that option to have any of those techs for any other civ.

It can be used to scout the map faster in Dark, or to find your own sheep while your eagle goes forward to lame, but yes, it will be garrisoned after that. I think the garrison attribute is fine, it just requires you to protect the building in question (like Gurjaras protect their mills). So it’ll play out like a mini Regicide, but with lower stakes.

Muisca don’t get Elite Skirmisher, Pikeman or Halberdier. The damage (including bonus) increases are almost exactly calibrated to match how those units would perform with the standard upgrades. Essentially free Eskirm/Pike/Halb, but designed differently for flavor. If anything, the HP boost may be too much, and I may reconsider it, but I’m not convinced given how bad their siege is. Also, the low-armor high-hp schtick is something I already do with Polynesians, but that’s another thread.

Ah ya got me. I’m a bad boi. The only place I arguably do that is with the second to last bonus, but it made sense to combine them since they apply to the same units and are synergistic (I guess the first as well, but I’ll remove free stone mining). Also, the Lodges attribute is almost not even a bonus, I just had to make houses cost more than 25 W so that them spawning a spearman when destroyed wouldn’t be broken.

Similarity to the Khmer bonus is superficial - it’s purpose is to save villagers and/or save on walling. In theory, this adds a lot of tactical depth to Muisca because they can use it to save wounded military units, or for defensive ambush potential, which is a concept strangely absent from AoE2. It takes some work to set up, but you could bait attackers to an apparently unguarded mining camp (with a couple counter units inside), use any building to hide your army comp/numbers, and generally make your base less straightforward to attack. I don’t know that it would be used that frequently, but in certain situations I think it’s a solid bonus, and quite different from anything else that exists in the game.

You mean before you’ve mined all the stone, right? Even if you get it with only 250 stone left (seen by Muisca as 312), it’s arguably worth it for a favorable wood to gold conversion, to say nothing of the trade boost in TGs. Also, the consensus from what I’ve seen seems to be that effects with similar mechanics are fine if one is a bonus and one is a UT, and due to this being a much higher % and on a civ that will use the gold very differently than Poles, I think it’s fine. I may tweak the amounts, but I’m a big fan of this concept as a mechanic, and think it fits very well with the civ.

This approximates to around +25% raw DPs - it’s 5 damage worth of attacks done in 4 (a little more in practice due to how much of the low base attack gets soaked up by armor), which I don’t think is at all crazy for trash units and Eagle Warriors that don’t get the Elite upgrade. Also keep in mind how much the units affected carry Muisca in lategame. Basically nothing that isn’t affected by this tech is any good, except maybe champs and slingers (and slingers will need some fine tuning to perfect their essentially micro-onager role).

6

Looks like the civ doesn’t have much going for it. The unique house is overshadowed by the Incas bonus, let alone the Hunnic one, and it only saves 5 wood and some building time compared to a generic civ building 3 houses. It also probably means you get ruined from house walls, and this might even mess you up on some nomad maps.
Living relic dude might as well be a gold trickle cuz being garrisonable in the TC and always having him right from the start (ie.unlike Gurjara sheep that might be stolen) = you will only lose him through big mistakes or if you’re in a situation where you’re going to lose the game because your enemy can run around razing all your TCs, which is never a good sign.

I see that the spear/skirm bonus is balanced around giving the civ a sort of “free pikes and halbs” bonus but alongside the missing techs it means your skirms are going to lack both the range and pierce armour for dealing with archer units. Even after the imp bonus they are strickly worse against CA units than a no bracer elite skirm.

The destroyed building bonus blows because in the early game you’re more likely to just get a spearman at best, but since m@a archer is the thing that’s the more likely to raze something it’s going to be useless. Then starting from castle age it’s just not enough units to slow down the enemy in any meaningful ways.

Stone bonus and UT1 are good ideas but not for a civ that has so many holes it’s rarely going to see the payoff.

So ig players are supposed to abuse the garrison bonus to survive. But I don’t think the kind of players who could use it to its full potential would want to touch the civ with all its weaknesses.

Your UU shares with the ratha the whole “benefits from more upgrades” deal but the rathas has two handy little things:

  • stats
  • a mechanic that helps it against its counters

Meanwhile your UU needs many upgrades to be playable and its minimum range helps it die to the unit type it’s supposed to counter. Could be fine on a stronger civ but here you don’t need something that’s only good 20 min after you lost.

It’s also a problem for your second UT, the civ has just so many holes something that could be OP just sounds not worth anymore.

Idk if “mini mango” slinger feels any good, but it’s surely not enough to redeem the civ at this point.

Tech tree: did you check the “no tech tree” box? That’s way too many holes especially for a meso civ. Especially for siege, you say they are a defensive civ that has a hard time to push but it feels more like you are transforming the enemy civ into a better defensive civ than you are. It’s also ridiculous you can somehow only build scorpions by losing siege workshops, even more so since your skirms don’t really counter cav archers.

Overall it feels like you will be fighting more against your bad bonuses and bad tech tree than the opponent when playing this civ.

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I want to be positive but I have a problem with the majority of the stuff here

This doesnt do much. Its a way worse Incan house bonus

Just unnecesary

This is bad because it encourages laming. Just send your eagle forward while you use the Zipa to explore your own base

I love the idea of a second scout and at some point I thought it was very cool, but its not possible to use well.

Very niche and way too weird. I would just stick with one unit type or just scrap the bonus that will barely do anything

Whats the point of this? For spearmen is just free upgrades but slightly worse and for the skirms you get more damage and hp but less pierce armour and range. I dont understand what you are trying to do

It overlaps with Teutons

What does this mean? THe secondary effect is also quite bad

Seens fine

Also the civ seems extremely underpowered. They would suck hard in TGs

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I say free gold trickle might as well be living relic dude. I don’t like the idea of free infinite resources without some kind of tradeoff. Yeah, most game modes this unit approximates to just free gold, but there are enough cases that are different - FFA, team games where you might get pushed but could still win, etc. In these situations I’d want to reward keeping the unit alive vs. just giving the player the bonus.

I don’t think you have to be a micro god to make good use of this bonus. Sure, it’s not going to save you from bad macro or help your aggression, but it’s the kind of bonus I think people will generally underrate until they get some experience with it, and discover the situations in which it can be surprisingly useful. I also forgot to include that I triggered this bonus to include monks as well, which even average players should get value from if they go monks. I’ll update that in the OP

Overall you have useful critiques, although I think you’re undervaluing their early game potential and have an all-or-nothing attitude when judging the usefulness of some of the bonuses. Their feudal spears/skirms are strong with no drawback, their gold trickle helps with early eagles/archers, and the stone bonus can be helpful for Trushing. Early-mid game they might play out similarly to Incas, going Eagles, Xbows, or even monks and siege backed up by a large gold boost when they can get Muzo Emeralds. Late game I agree that they are too weak, and the UU is probably too expensive. I’ll make some changes with that in mind.

I don’t see a problem with a bonus that encourages laming (or any other tactic really), is there any particular reason that any bonus that helps with this is taboo? I get that some people don’t like to be lamed, but it’s part of the game. The Celt sheep bonus is an example of an already existent laming bonus (that works differently), so I’m not sure what the matter is with this, especially since most would acknowledge this civ needs some help.

Good point, there’s no real strategic reason to have different unit types. I may just make them all Guechas, which probably scale the best in terms of being weak early game, but high powered in lategame.

Sure, but how often do you actually see that aspect of the Teutons’ tech used? People get the tech for the range, the garrison aspect is rarely used lategame because it’s one of those things that becomes less worth managing in high pop, high attrition situations. Muisca are much more likely to get use out of this ability early and mid game, when its easier and more valuable to micro your smaller army, and stuffing cheap infantry like spears into towers could be quite advantageous for defense or Trushing.

Similar to the Poles bonus, but as a tech. Mining 100 stone gives you 100 stone and 100 gold.

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I dont normally have problems with it but while normally you sacrifice havingbthe scout in your base to lame here, not using the scout to lame would mean wasting the bonus

This is a bad argument. Just because something is boring it doesnt mean that it can just be ignored

Boring. A reverse version would be more interesting (mining gold generates stone)

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Rarely used is arguably evidence of bad design, or at the very least, the door is open to making this bonus available earlier when it will be much more useful, especially if done via a different method (civ bonus vs tech). If Teutons had this as a bonus from the start, I would not have suggested this, but lategame UT vs. bonus from the start is different enough for me.

Couldn’t resist putting those back to back. Getting stone from gold is a lot worse strategically, especially as a unique tech. Extra gold in Castle is a strong powerspike and can be used for a variety of unit comps. Extra stone in Castle is only good for more castles, which is both weaker and more predictable than the current bonus, to say nothing of definitely not being what this civ needs. I understand the desire to not have a bonus/tech appear too similar to another civ’s bonus/tech, but it’s almost like people would rather give a civ an bad/unhelpful bonus merely because it looks very different from any existing bonus. Something like gold that generates stone is only more interesting on paper and only because a bonus of that kind is not explicitly used already. Besides, if the devs aren’t too worried about reusing the same mechanic in different contexts, why should I be?

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Thats not how civ bonus vs tech works. The point of it is that you pay for a better version of a civ bonus. Just dont do this.

But it overlaps with the Poles and not it a good way like, its tecnically fine but its boring and wont take effect until you build a castle. Stone is very limited so a UT for stone miners is a bit silly

You are putting two way too situational bonuses that are already used somewhere else togheter. Thats just not good

Its also just more useful. Theres way more gold on the map than stone so its not as situational by the time you get the UT.

And yeah the game works like that, you cant just reuse mechanics just because they are cool, you have to do it carefully.

What do you mean with this? The devs reuse cheaper scouts, extra attack on infantry and cheaper units but with every bonus having advantages and disadvantages as well as trying to make them feel diferent

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This one instance of overlap is kinda like the Huns TB/Chivalry overlap, which may or may not be fine depending on who you ask. At least getting more gold out of stone makes more sense for this civ than having it the other way around because they already have longer lasting stone.

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Not really the same. Faster working stables isnt a gimmick and its not related to am scarce resource

Even with longer lasting stone theres a very high chance the UT is never researched because theres not much stone in the map anymore.

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How is this not explicitly true and applicable to Muzo emeralds?

Not an argument.

I find we have different tastes regarding what is considered boring, so I don’t find a conflict of vision with another person sufficient reason to change the tech. Granted, I would like my civ designs to be as palatable as possible to as many people as possible, so I am open to exploring ways to preserve a similar effect to the current one via a different mechanic, but stone from gold isn’t the needed answer (although it could be an okay bonus for another civ). The limited amount of stone is essential for balancing the high power of this tech while it lasts, and it synergizes well with longer lasting stone. And the Trade bonus allows the tech to retain utility in TGs even when all the stone is gone.

All of the following explicitly use the same mechanic and many of them apply to the same units:

-Berber scout discount vs Magyar scout discount
-Garland Wars vs Burmese infantry attack bonus
-Leitis vs. Wootz Steel,
-Magrebi Camels vs. Berserks/Berserkergang
-Italian age discount vs. Byzantine Imp discount
-Dravidian TB vs Slav TB
-Teuton conversion resistance vs First Crusade
-Frank Castle bonus vs Inca stone bonus vs. Slav Detinets tech
-Lithuanian extra food vs Persian extra food
-Forced Levy vs Kamandaran
-Supremacy vs. Inca villager bonus.
-Lechitic Legacy vs Logistica vs Druzhina
Hell, Maurauders is literally a copy-paste of the Anarchy tech

Basically every argument that you would use to defend why these are fine (different amounts, play out differently, stronger tech vs weaker bonus) applies to my idea for Muzo Emeralds. So most of the dislike of this tech I would ascribe to a resistance to the appearance of similarity to existing bonuses, which is understandable, but not consistently applied given how frequently this type of thing is already used. If, pre-Dravidians, I had designed a civ with a Wootz Steel tech, many people would have had problems with it as “a Lithuanian rip off that makes the Leitis not feel special anymore,” and applied to generic units no less, but here we are.

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Im talking about the garrison bonua

Its just the conclusion of my previous argument.

Its boring because its a copy of another very unique bonus and its stregths are way too situationally dependant. Its just bad to have a UT be built around a limited resource, evdn if its the only way to balance it

I admited earlier that Muzo Emeralds is tecnically welk designed, I just have problems with it on practice. To me it sounds like its not fun and it doesnt feel different at all fromnthe super unique Pole bonus

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That’s fair. To me, the Teuton Garrison effect of their UT is like a large piece of farmland that someone owns, but they only ever use/plant on a small part of it, while forbidding anyone else to make use of it. Sure, the bonus is “already taken,” yet it comes at a point where it will seldom be used, and ends up for most intents and purposes as a wasted bonus, a missed opportunity to be used where it would be most impactful (early-midgame). I say just give Teutons the bonus from the start, or take it out of their UT. Even so, I’m not hellbent on including this bonus for the final design on the civ, and am considering other options. Some possibilities, I’m entertaining are to have Castles fire more arrows, or add an anti-ram bonus to buildings (which will be removed from Tarascans when I refine their design).

I can live with that; I really like the tech. Again, I’m open to ways to have a similar effect via a different mechanic (and not something too gimmicky), but I haven’t heard any great alternatives, nor discovered one yet myself. Still exploring though, nothing’s set in stone, not even the famous Muzo Emeralds.

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I do think you really need to look into alternatives, it doesn’t feel like a great design to me to be honest. It’s a paid copy of the Poles bonus with minor variation, then it does the same thing as Grand Trunk Road, but only for trade carts, and on top of that, it’s also just a weaker Spanish bonus that doesn’t affect the team. It’s just a paid collection of slightly altered bonuses and another tech, which doesn’t feel very cleanly executed to me. I can’t remember all your civ bonuses for all your civs, and I’m on mobile currently, so it’s hard to check, but if you really wanted to stick with the emeralds idea, you could have relics generate stone if it isn’t in use elsewhere. I think you may have used that bonus already, I can’t remember. Other than that, if you can’t give the tech a more distinct effect, I think you might be best off reworking it into something else entirely. Those are my thoughts on it.

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I generally respect your feedback, but its clear that we have some pretty different ideas regarding several aspects of design. I think where we agree is that civs should feel unique and should have useful bonuses that that are not too similar to other civs’ (as a general guideline). Where you lose me is is that you seem to be a purist about having bonus types and mechanics exclusive to 1 civ, and that avoiding any kind of overlap should be an absolute, unbreakable rule for new civ design. Correct me if I’m wrong of course, your position may be more nuanced than that, or maybe it’s just with Poles-adjacent bonuses or something, but that’s the sense I get from your critiques. I get that you don’t like the gold-from-stone mechanic being used for anything else under any circumstances ever, but the history of AoE2 is rife with examples of previously exclusive bonus types or mechanics being given to more than one civ. Hell, the devs don’t even follow that rule today (Leitis → Wootz Steel being the most recent example, but one of very many such cases).

Goths used to be the only civ with cheap infantry (far more central to their identity than Poles’ stone bonus), and then one day the devs just up and gave the most useful part of that ability to a couple dozen civs via the Supplies tech. (Goths also used to be the only civ with 2 UTs, which was then given to every other civ lol, to say nothing of the Huskarl hardly being unique anymore given the dozen or so units today that have “Huskarl-like” pierce armor). So having sacred cows as far as bonus types or mechanics is a recipe for disappointment. I guarantee that the devs will do something like this a DLC or 2 down the road (not necessarily with the stone bonus, but with something that is currently 1 civ exclusive), and everyone will suddenly be cool with it because its the devs, not some random guy designing civs. Bottom line is, feel free to not like the tech, but I don’t find your dislike of it consistently applied to other ingame overlaps that are entirely comparable.

Lol, this kind of stuff doesn’t work on me. It’s a negative rhetorical framing that I know is not applied consistently to things that already exist. You mentioned Grand Trunk Road: I can say: “It’s a paid copy of the Turks [gold] bonus with minor variation, then it does the same thing as the Spanish bonus (but weaker), and on top of that, it’s also just a weaker Aztec relic bonus that doesn’t affect the team. It’s just a paid collection of slightly altered bonuses.” So effin’ what? That statement is literally void of meaning other than as an attempt to disparage something you’ve already decided you don’t like. It says nothing about whether or not the tech is useful/balanced/appropriate, or whether it satisfies any other metric I care about. My point has been, and remains, that there is nothing wrong with my tech that doesn’t have significant and varied precedent in the game already. So I’m going to chalk this up to difference of opinion in the aesthetics of design.

Truth is as well, with econ bonuses you’re pretty constrained. There are 4 resources, and every eco bonus has to do with either getting them faster or getting more of them. You can get fancy by tying these to all kinds of different mechanics, but there is no need to reinvent the wheel if you can use the same mechanic more than once, while changing the numbers/accessibility enough to make the bonuses/techs play out fairly differently. Most modders/civ creators take the predictable route and just suggest things that have already been implemented, but with different resources (e.g. relics that give stone, miners/lumberjacks that don’t need dropoff points, etc). These aren’t the worst, I will use some of them, but they’re slim pickings, and it’s not surprising they haven’t been used considering how most of the great, intuitive bonuses (food and gold) are taken.

I wouldn’t call having double the effect, or more, “minor variation” any more than I would say the Sicilian farm bonus is a ripoff or “minor variation” of the Chinese farm bonus. Even if there’s no variation, that doesn’t instantly make it bad. Nobody gets hot and bothered that the Viking TB is literally the Malian wood bonus, just for docks, or that Marauders is literally Anarchy for Huns.

Eh, what does this have to do with Emeralds at all (either via mechanism or benefit)? They didn’t come from/weren’t used as relics, and they were used to generate wealth/money/trade, not for building. Also not needed by a civ with a stone bonus. This was a Chimu bonus in the large thread that was cut, and will be used elsewhere, but not here.

The best alternative idea I’ve come up with that I don’t hate is to have the Tech spawn 2 goldmines under 1 TC, and keep the trade bonus (10-15%). What I like about this is it will give them a similar increase of gold over the long term. What I don’t like about it is that while it is superficially different than other bonuses (solely because it uses a different mechanic and therefore doesn’t trigger the “looks too much like another civ bonus!” knee-jerk tripwire), it plays out almost exactly like a clone of the Malian gold bonus, which is pretty weak and boring, especially for something you have to pay for. It also removes the eco powerspike they would have gotten from the initial bonus with having double income from stoneminers.

Something that would fit the current effect better would be something like “spawns 2 special goldmines that are mined at 2x the normal rate,” but then I’d have to write another page or 2 to (maybe) satisfy the whims of the “that’s gimmicky!” crowd. I also would not be able to effect this without modding (and might not be able to even with), so at that point I might as well introduce all kinds of pie-in-the-sky ideas without regard to whether they could actually be implemented.

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Yeah, it is slightly more nuanced. It’s not so much about the civ bonus being reused, like I’m literally fine if a civ had free squires, even though Celts effectively had it, what I’m not a fan of is paying for some civ bonuses mashed into a UT.

That’s true, but I picked my three things for a reason. Like Grand Trunk Road, your thing generates 10% more, but instead of all gold income it’s just trade, so weaker in that regard. Then, you pay for the Poles bonus, but a different version (I haven’t actually read it recently, so correct me if I’m wrong, but was it a super buffed Poles bonus?), and then the trade thing is also similar to the 25% extra gold from Spanish trade, but it’s less, and not a team bonus. You also have to pay for it. Hence how I arrived at the conclusion that the tech is sort of just a few other techs/bonuses thrown together into a new thing.

I think there’s a difference between how those play out, and something that just directly takes from other bonuses.

I’m not saying it does, I’m not even sure I think you should stick with the Emeralds thing, I’m just offering a suggestion.

Now that might be a good idea. Instead of doing it like that, I would drop the trade thing altogether, and make each TC, present and future, spawn 2 gold mines under it, could even be a special type of emerald mine, maybe with special rules, such as belonging to a player, who is the only one capable of mining it, not taking up space, or mining faster.

Maybe, but using a different mechanic is better than copy pasting the same mechanic from a few sources. That’s my current view on it.

20

I would omit consideration of the Spanish team bonus altogether, it’s really not relevant, and consideration of that bonus is already covered by considering the trade aspect of GTR, double counting it just makes my tech seem more convoluted than it really is. Yes, the tech was originally 120% gold vs the Poles 50% (currently nerfed to 100%). The trade aspect mainly exists to still make it a useful tech in TGs even if you’ve already mined all the stone, although it isn’t strictly essential, and the numbers could be tweaked. Again, I maintain that paying for a bonus that another civ gets for free is nothing new, and is even used somewhat frequently, (Goths infantry bonus vs Supplies, Garland Wars vs Burmese free infantry attack, Magrebi Camels tech vs Berserks, Chivalry vs Hun bonus, a bunch of others I’ve already listed). So I can kind of understand why someone might not like the tech, I don’t find that nearly compelling in the face of everything that already exists. Difference of vision between us on that.

Maybe, but they literally borrow the same mechanic, which seemed to be a critical aspect of your dislike of the feature. There are many others I’ve mentioned that play out more similarly (Garland Wars - Burmese bonus…but I repeat myself). Anyway, we won’t see eye to eye on this, but I think I’ve made a solid case for using this mechanic on another civ, whether or not everyone agrees.

Again, I love the idea, but this is the type of thing that I’m not sure is even possible via modding (I know that farms have a work rate that affects the speed of collection, but IIRC mines don’t), and one essential feature of my designs thus far has been that they are fully grounded and I implement every feature in the editor and thus they’re fully playable (since TBH devs will never just yoink a full civ design from this forum), even if they never see any kind of implementation beyond the scenarios/campaigns I create with them. What’s the use of a bonus that, on paper is more balanced, or more exciting or whatever, but disqualifies the rest of the civ from implementation in any form? It’s a nice idea, nothing more, and in my case that’s a negative because it wrecks what was otherwise playable, if imperfectly designed by some peoples’ standards.

I’ll keep this in mind of course, but I consider bonuses of unknown or unlikely viability as last resorts, to be avoided if at all possible for practical reasons, however good they may be on paper.

Edit: The only other viable way I can think of that would achieve a similar effect is for the tech to give 2 gold mines, then greatly increase the gold mining rate for a limited time before reverting. (Say +50% gold mining speed for 2.5 min or something). Not my ideal solution, and it might be hard to balance, but it’s a workable option.