New Civ Idea - Sinhalese

[Juggernaut8704]

“The ancient land of Tamraparni known for its spice trade with the Greco-Romans has been inhabited by various people groups including the indigenous Veddas, Tamils, and the Sinhalese. The epic of Mahavamsa traces the lineage of the Sinhalese to Prince Vijaya and his followers who left the port of Suppāraka across the sea to reach this beautiful island. Later known by the names of Eezham, Ceylon, and Sri Lanka, this centre of the trade attracted numerous invasions from across the sea in Tamils and Kalingans, as well as from the other side of the world (Portuguese, Dutch, British). Despite all this, the defiant Theravada Lions held firm to their traditions. Under Parakramabahu, the Sinhalese reached unprecedented heights of prosperity as he launched campaigns into Tamilakam and even Burma. Their Buddhist cultural practices and architectural forms spread across Southeast Asia.”

TechTree

Overview

Sinhalese are a defensive civilization. They don’t have any early game economic bonuses but as the time passes they become stronger. Their villagers work faster around monasteries. They are able to research all armour techs in blacksmith by just researching the infantry armor techs. Their fire ships are 20% cheaper thus allowing them to defend their costs more easily. Their elephant units cost reduced by -10 gold for each relic they garrison. Their unique unit is the Kastane Warrior trained at Castles which is an Infantry that always takes 10 hits before killed for non-elite, and 15 hits before killed for elite version. He is trained for food and wood cost only and has the prized kastane sword which returns gold when he is dead. They are also able to train Velakkaras, a two population mercenary tamil siege unit that protects units behind it and throws a boomerang that passes through massed units. Researching Land of Serendipity gives them and their allies 1000 stone instantly which is very useful for fortification. Researching their imperial age tech bondikula gun gives their hand cannoneers blast damage. Them and their allies get to build outposts with no stone cost so it might be a good idea to build more of those.

Characteristics

Unique Units

Kastane Warrior = Infantry Unit trained at Castle which takes no bonus damage and returns some gold when felled.

Velakkaras = Siege Unit trained at Siege workshop costing two pop space that protects units behind it who receive 50% less damage from incoming projectiles and throws a boomerang that passes through crowded units.

Unique Technologies

Land of Serendipity = The player and allies recieve 1000 stone.

Bondikula Gun = Hand Cannonneer 0.5 blast damage.

Civilization bonuses

• Villagers work faster around monasteries
• Fire Ships are 20% cheaper
• Blacksmith Armour Techs merged
• Elephant units -10 gold cost for each Relic Garrisoned (max 3)

Team bonus

• Outpost cost no stone

In-game dialogue language

• Sinhalese Units speak Sinhala. The Velakkara Mercenaries speak Eelam Tamil.

Wonder

Dharma Expansion

[Temudhun]

Quite a few interesting idea, the armor upgrades one being especially interesting to me. I’m not so sure about the two pops units, considering even elephants, trebuchets and canon galleons only count as one.

[Ifavorwining]

Kastane Warrior = Infantry Unit trained at Castle which takes no bonus damage and returns some gold when felled.

Sounds reasonable

Velakkaras = Siege Unit trained at Siege workshop costing two pop space that protects units behind it who receive 50% less damage from incoming projectiles and throws a boomerang that passes through crowded units.

Sound like a worst version of the Hussite Wagons also even War Elephants cost 1 pop

Land of Serendipity = The player and allies recieve 1000 stone.
Bondikula Gun = Hand Cannonneer 0.5 blast damage.

Not a fan off one time resource payoff and the devs are trying to move away from it. And the Bondikula Gun is Op and would be better served by a short range gunpowder UU.

Villagers work faster around monasteries

if this effects all of your eco then it is probable op in Late-Castle/Imperial Age.

Fire Ships are 20% cheaper

Reasonable naval bonus if you are missing demoships.

Blacksmith Armour Techs merged

According to the tech tree this only means the Infantry and Archers which is a good bonus for infantry-archer civ that I would have liked to see for Dravidians as an alternative to the cheaper barracks techs. But the problem is this is really doesn’t fit their techtree they lack
Arbalest, Champion, Halbs, Arson and their EA lack elite and husbandry which is justified with the relic bonus.

Elephant units -10 gold cost for each Relic Garrisoned

Add a limit or players will have to deal with post-imp trash Elephantos,

Team bonus

• Outpost cost no stone

The generic team bonus suggestion but why on a civs that lacks townwatch?

[AbuzzJam4677680]

Merged armor upgrades? Infantry and cav share the same armor upgrade?

[Temudhun]

I guess it also works for archers.

[Juggernaut8704]

Yes it works for infantry, cav and archer armors. All upgraded at the base cost of infantry armors.

[Juggernaut8704]

@Ifavorwining

worst version of the Hussite Wagons

Yeah remember they are built at siege workshop so they are easy to mass. Population is meant to offset that.

@Ifavorwining

if this effects all of your eco then it is probable op in Late-Castle/Imperial Age.

Well a lot of other civs also become OP if the game is drawn long. Game is not really balanced based on that. It is balanced generally on 45minute(fast) total time.

@Ifavorwining

Add a limit or players will have to deal with post-imp trash Elephantos

Ah yes forgot to mention the limit is of 3 relics.

@Ifavorwining

The generic team bonus suggestion but why on a civs that lacks townwatch?

To promote building more of these outposts for the civ.

[BidGorgon527960]

@Juggernaut8704

which takes no bonus damage

What do you mean by no bonus damage?

[RatcicleFan]

Interesting concept.

[Juggernaut8704]

It will take an exact amount of hits before dying. 10 hits for non-elite, 15 hits for elite (doesn’t matter how hard the enemy hits it)

[TungstenBoar]

@Juggernaut8704

• Villagers work faster around monasteries
• Fire Ships are 20% cheaper
• Blacksmith Armour Techs merged
• Elephant units -10 gold cost for each Relic Garrisoned (max 3)

Seems extremely underwhelming early game, and not a fan of area effects in general tbh. Either way if you want to keep the area effect I think they need at least feudal monasteries

Also not a fan of two pop space UU, the two pop space limit is only a problem in imo and ib general doesnt fit the game and the unit doesnt need it

[AbuzzJam4677680]

This gives less flexibility to adjust the civ imo.

[FranksAreLame]

@Juggernaut8704

Villagers work faster around monasteries

How much faster do they work?

@Juggernaut8704

• Fire Ships are 20% cheaper
• Blacksmith Armour Techs merged

These are fine. The Fire Ship discount is standard fare, but the Blacksmith tech merge is a creative bonus that saves time and resources. I like it.

@Juggernaut8704

Elephant units -10 gold cost for each Relic Garrisoned (max 3)

I’m not too approving of this, since I think the Lithuanian relic bonus is a very unique niche that shouldn’t be expanded upon too much, but I do appreciate this one being taken in a different direction, even without Elite Elephant Archer & Husbandry.

@Juggernaut8704

*Outposts cost no stone

I recall this being an oft-thought idea as a replacement for the old Portuguese team bonus before they got buffed, so I don’t mind it being here.

@Juggernaut8704

Their unique unit is the Kastane Warrior trained at Castles which is an Infantry that always takes 10 hits before killed for non-elite, and 15 hits before killed for elite version. He is trained for food and wood cost only and has the prized kastane sword which returns gold when he is dead.
…
Infantry Unit trained at Castle which takes no bonus damage and returns some gold when felled.

Stats, resource cost, training time, and Elite research info are missing.
Also, I am very confused by the writing for this unit:
Does it take a fixed amount of hits before it can properly take damage? Is it immune to bonus damage? Do both apply to this unit? If it gives gold upon death, then why doesn’t it cost any?

It’s got too many gimmicks attached to it for me to like it, and I would rather it just have one gimmick; if it’s trying to be too many things at once, then it’s not good.

@Juggernaut8704

Velakkaras = Siege Unit trained at Siege workshop costing two pop space that protects units behind it who receive 50% less damage from incoming projectiles and throws a boomerang that passes through crowded units.

Again, missing info to allow for proper judgement.
Two population slots = nope
Either way, it seems to be a combination of a Hussite Wagon and a Chakram Thrower. Since we don’t know what its stats are, I can’t say for how balanced this unit could be.

@Juggernaut8704

Land of Serendipity = The player and allies *receive 1,000 stone.

mfw

One-off techs like these are frowned upon by the community, and I myself don’t like them because they’re not engaging, and apply only temporary boni that don’t have lasting effects.
Regardless, this is insanely broken. Stone is a very precious resource, so instantly giving one thousand stone to yourself & allies means they can start booming very quickly OR building 1 and a half Castles just like that. This technology is pretty nuts.

@Juggernaut8704

Bondikula Gun = Hand Cannonneer 0.5 blast damage.

I am, however, okay with this one. As long as it costs the right amount of resources and the blast damage isn’t 100%, it should be fine.

[Juggernaut8704]

@FranksAreLame

How much faster do they work?

faster by 20%

You guys can playtest all the civs as well on Dharma Expansion.

[WedInk504838973]

@Juggernaut8704

Kastane Warrior = Infantry Unit trained at Castle which takes no bonus damage and returns some gold when felled.

I’m ok with this.

@Juggernaut8704

Velakkaras = Siege Unit trained at Siege workshop costing two pop space that protects units behind it who receive 50% less damage from incoming projectiles and throws a boomerang that passes through crowded units.

Just make them expensive and as a 1 pop space unit.

@Juggernaut8704

Land of Serendipity = The player and allies recieve 1000 stone.

I’m not a fan of 1 use UT and considering 2 of them got reworked recently i would look for something else.

@Juggernaut8704

Bondikula Gun = Hand Cannonneer 0.5 blast damage.

Sounds strong but it could be ok.

@Juggernaut8704

• Villagers work faster around monasteries
• Fire Ships are 20% cheaper
• Blacksmith Armour Techs merged
• Elephant units -10 gold cost for each Relic Garrisoned (max 3)

Over all the bonuses look quite balanced, maybe some adjustments to the tech tree.

@Juggernaut8704

Team bonus

• Outpost cost no stone

I’ve also thought of this one as a substitute for the Portuguese TB.

[Ifavorwining]

about the monastary bonus it only takes affect castle age how would you feel if it affected TC’s instead? Alternatively you could swap it out with a healing bonus of 10 per minute if you wanted to nerf the Civ. Also one of the commenters mentioned that the relic discount is too similar to Lithuanian, how about every elephant on the field gave a 1G discount instead? I don’t care too much if I designed the game every civ would have a version of the Lithuanian bonus instead of the gold trickle.

[Juggernaut8704]

Actually the bonus is also intended to promote the building of more monasteries for Sinhalese, which suits them asthetically, tying it to TC will make it overly simple. Hope you understand what I mean. 11

@Ifavorwining

Also one of the commenters mentioned that the relic discount is too similar to Lithuanian, how about every elephant on the field gave a 1G discount instead?

That is a good idea, I will save that for a future civ, the only problem is auto-researching techs when resource is available is hardcoded by the devs. If we put research time = 0, then the resource costs automatically becomes zero (that lithuanian relic resource bonus is the only exception that works). So it is very hard to implement the tech will need to be clicked to manually lower the cost for every unit that is recruited. I will test if it is implementable.

[Juggernaut8704]

@WedInk504838973

I’m not a fan of 1 use UT and considering 2 of them got reworked recently i would look for something else.

This one in particular is having quite a strong effect. 1000 stones is no joke.

@FranksAreLame

Stone is a very precious resource, so instantly giving one thousand stone to yourself & allies means they can start booming very quickly OR building 1 and a half Castles just like that. This technology is pretty nuts.

I just want to use all the options available to modders to make as fun unique techs as possible.

[DynasticPlanet5]

If you think you can do it better by all means make once yourself instead of telling someone in an… 8 month old necro to do better

[DynasticPlanet5]

You said “can you please redo the civ” which can be construed as sarcastic please as though there is an obligation to change things.

That can read as unpolite