%+Ancient Forest (skin and model by Chalid) (Woodelf)- Only grow into fellowship of leaves state religion civilizations. Have a chance of spawning Treants when enemy units enter them.

Maelstrom (Corlindale)- This is a 3x3 tile sea feature. The map script will force exactly 1 on every map with water on it. Then have a chance of destroying ships that go through it (and when we get into "Fire" have it send the ships to hell instead).

+New Forest

What if that water div 2 spell gave immunity from the maelstrom to a unit?

What if that water div 2 spell gave immunity from the maelstrom to a unit?

I like Corlindales idea to make krakens immune to it so the overlords can use the maelstorm to their advantage, but I wouldnt want to make a spell to make ships immune to it (besides that would be an awfully specific spell).

Possible terrain features:

Wastelands - Barren and grey terrain. Yields 0 food, hammers and commerce(perhaps some hammers for AV civs). Plains will have a (small) chance to turn into wastelands in AV empires. Living units standing in wastelands will get health degeneration, but undeads and demons will get defense bonuses. Wastelands might be a terrain type more suited for Hell, though.

Caverns - Can be found rarely in Peaks(which can be traversed with caverns in them) and Hills. Units standing in a cavern square are invisible, and gets defense bonuses if someone tries to attack them(ie: tries to enter the cavern square). Barbarians will often be lurking in unexplored caverns.

I have a question about the Fellowship of Leaves economy, more particularly the lumbermill and ancient forests.

Unless I've overseen something a forest+lumbermill provides 3 hammers while an ancient forest (which can't have a lumbermill) provides one food and one hammer. Personally in general I consider three hammers more attractive than one food and one hammer, and thus when playing a civ with the Fellowship I'd try to build as much lumbermills as possible, and only keep enough ancient forests to let the city reach size 20. So I'm wondering, is it intended that IMO ancient forests aren't very attractive economically?

If not, may I suggest removing the +1 hammer for lumbermills that Hidden Paths give? That way ancient forest (+1 food, +1 hammer) would IMO in general become more attractive than forest+lumbermill (only +2 hammers), and the lumbermill would mostly be useful for non-Fellowships only. Using lumbermills doesn't feel very protective towards forests anyway.

If the current situation is intended though, and Fellowship civs are supposed to use lumbermills a lot, may I suggest moving the tech that enables it to something else more nature-related, eg Survival? Currently it's Iron Working, which more or less is on what feels like a Dwarven tech b-line to me. When I played as the Wood Elves in FfH1, it didn't feel right to me that in order to play the Elves well I had to emphasize a Dwarven tech b-line for a long period.

FWIW, that's a Maelstrom rather than a "Maelstorm".

I found the same thing with the lumbermills as maniac - perhaps a Leaves wonder giving +1 hammer per ancient forest?

I would prefer that ancient forests instead give +2 food and +1 hammers.

I agree with Loki.

You need the Ancient Forests for health reasons, but since they only provide 1 food/1 hammer, it's better in the long run to cut them down, use FoL Priests to cast Bloom for new forests, and then build lumbermills.

Maybe we add some improvements that can only be built in ancient forests later on?
Something like a very slow evolving cottage that give +1 gold and after 50 turns +1 gold an +1 hammer and maybe after another 100 turns + 2 gold and +1 hammer ? Something related to the fabuloes Animals that live in these forests :)

Considering that you already can build cottages in Ancient forest squares, and after while, with the right civics and techs, cottages become pretty hard core, I don't see why we need a new type of improvement for Ancient forests. Heck, I thought the whole point of ancient forests was that you could build stuff on them! Huge cities allow for loads of specialists, which means plenty of hammer opp's.

I think Ancient Forests should be left alone. Clearing one should potentially spring a barbarian Treant. :)

I think Ancient Forests should be left alone. Clearing one should potentially spring a barbarian Treant. :)

That would be very nice. Very narnia.

Perhaps the happiness bonus should only apply to ancient forests?

I think Ancient Forests are good enough. As Wilboman mentioned, improvements can be built in them. So the discussion is not really whether 3 hammers or 1 hammer and 1 food is better, but rather whether 3 hammers or 1 food, 2 hammers and 4 commerce(cottaged ancient forest with Arcane Lore) is better. With the additional defensive capabilities of Treants, I'd most definetely choose the Ancient Forest.

I think Ancient Forests are good enough. As Wilboman mentioned, improvements can be built in them. So the discussion is not really whether 3 hammers or 1 hammer and 1 food is better, but rather whether 3 hammers or 1 food, 2 hammers and 4 commerce(cottaged ancient forest with Arcane Lore) is better. With the additional defensive capabilities of Treants, I'd most definetely choose the Ancient Forest.


Can everyone built improvements in them or just the elven civ... have not played with fellowship in this version so i don't know ;).

I didn't notice being able to build in them with a non-Elven civ the other day, but it might just be that I was assuming they'd be cleared. If you can build in them then there's no issue.

Only Elven Workers can build in forest, I think. I guess it can be a problem if you are Leaves, but not elven, hadn't really thought of that. I almost always play elves when I use Leaves.

As i thought. This is why i would propose a unique improvement for ancient forests for the other races (like above).

We might want to block cottages from growing into towns when built inside a forest/ancient forest. What do you think.

Oh and can we built farms in forests? Might be a bit strong two with +2 food from farm and +1 food from ancientforest. I"d like to reduce this to +1 food and no upgrades for farms in forests. Maybe we add a complete new set of imfrovements for the forets?
Maybe:
Fruit tree forest +1 Food
Treetop cottage/Hamlet/Village +1, +2, +3 Commerce (+1 Hammer with Arcane Lore)
Cultivated Forest +1 Hammer

And for the Non Elven an kind of universal improvement buildable in Ancient forests:
Enchanted Forest or something with +1 C/+1C+1H/+2C+1H

As of .11a if you put a lumbermill in a forest, then that forest becomes an ancient forest the lumbermill is not destroyed and you still get benefit from it. Have not tested yet for .11b.

:goodjob: @ Chalid

What if the enchanted forest improvement could only be built by adepts?

What if the enchanted forest improvement could only be built by adepts?

I'm still not sure why you'd build any improvement there. But a druid or druidess or something elven would be better than a simple worker.

I'm still not sure why you'd build any improvement there. But a druid or druidess or something elven would be better than a simple worker.

Ancient Forest: +1 Food +1 Hammer
Forest with Lumbermill: +2 Hammers
When you need Hammers the Forest with Lumbermill is better than the Ancient forest. So people start cutting ancient forests to bloom forests to built lumbermills. Thats not good but understandable.
Enchanted Ancient Forest would be +1 Food +2 Hammer +2 Commerce. This is obviosly better than an Forest with Lumbermill, but not so good as an
Elven Ancient Forest with Town: +1 Food +1(+2 with Arcane Lore) Hammers + 5(?) Commerce

I don't understand how you can build a town in an Ancient Forest, but not a regular forest. Doesn't the building of the town cut the forest down? :confused:

The Enchanted Ancient Forest sounds cool to me.

Elven can built towns/farms and so on in forests as well in ancient forests. (I would like to cut this to village at max in forests through)

Elven can built towns/farms and so on in forests as well in ancient forests. (I would like to cut this to village at max in forests through)

I guess I recall that. :blush:

Too bad we couldn't change the graphic or name. Maybe an elven cottage and have it swinging or built in the trees not on the ground. :)

Is this a vanilla thing: why does a plains hill have 1 more hammer than a desert hill? Or is that only after terraforming? I had my adept turn a desert hill into a plains hill and my production went up, but food didn't. I found that odd.

Year vanilla plain hills do give no food but 2 hammer. The reason is: the hill gives +1 hammer -1 food. in desert there is no food to be taken, by plains the food gets taken by the hill. the hammer is added to both but the desert starts with 0 hammers, plains strat with 1 hammer.

Ancient Forests should get +1 hammer with Hidden Paths to balance out lumbermills.


edit: ops, I didn't know you could build cottages and farms in ancient forests. Sounds a bit silly... anyways disregard my comment.

Are you sure? I thought that only the true elves could improve forests/ancienct forests with things other than mills.

I guess I recall that. :blush:

Too bad we couldn't change the graphic or name. Maybe an elven cottage and have it swinging or built in the trees not on the ground. :)

Well we could...

Well we could...

Yeah, we could beg C. Roland or Chalid to make us a nice model. :)

*looks somewhere else*

You can't hide from the combined begging power of loki and I!

Honestly I have no idea how you'd attach something to the Ancient Forest model, unless when built you replaced it with a newer Tree+cottage model.

Great posts about the various forest options for Elves. One thought occurred to me as I was reading through them. Shouldn't Elves or Fellowship of Leaves Civs be able to get more out of forests than other Civs/Races? Then I wondered how to balance those bonuses since forests (ancient forest excluded) are much more abundant than other resources.

Here is a suggestion on how it could be done:
Allow Fellowship Civ or Elves to receive a bonus to forest tiles. Elves get +1 commerce, Fellowship Civ gets +1 food. As a drawback, either the Civ or Elves get no food bonuses for farms on other resources, but do get the resource. Such as a farm on a rice resource only yields the rice resource, not the +2 food. And/or they are unable to receive hammer bonuses from mining resource areas such as iron or bronze.

This would change the whole play dynamic for Elves and the fellowship Civ and could still be partnered with the other forest suggestions to give different bonuses to the terrain. With the right improvements on a tile, they can get the bonuses they otherwise are lacking from the loss of mine or farm bonuses.

It could be taken further to allow Elves or Fellowship Civ the ability to convert excess food to hammers (I don't know if this is possible) to balance out some of the negative items mentioned above.

Finally, other civ units could be given the ability to burn a forest or clear cut, which would cause negatives for the tile such as burned forest has -1 food/-1 hammer/-1 commerce. Then the Elven worker or Adept could have a heal forest upgrade at some point to repair the damage.

This might help broaden the differences between some of the Civs/Races and could be applied to other groups as well. One thought is dwarven civ gets +1 food by mining a tile or some similar modifier.

Just a bunch of thoughts,
Gaebril

I think that this is too drastic unfortunately, but perhaps could be toned down a little?

First of all, awesome mod. :thumbsup:
I played as Ljosalfar a couple times, and I have some thoughts on Ancient Forests:

Time:
Ancient Forests are ancient, they should take a long time to grow.
Randomly turning forests to ancient forests in 'Leaves lands is a good implementation, but can be spotty and makes it difficult to schedule the workers. One really should be able to measure the aging of forests.
Perhaps a more predicable cottage-like upgrade system ("X turns to ancient forest") would be better? Forests as a whole could be tiered like "Young Forest" -> "Forest" -> "Ancient Forest", with ancient requiring 'Leaves territory and a laborer on tile. This ensures that the city is cultivating and tending the forest so it can grow greater than a un-tended wild one. Perhaps the number of turns needed can have a random component and druids can expidite the process -somewhat-. The game could also randomly plop down "Young Forests" instead of full-grown ones for new forest growth.

Pillaging:
What is ancient majestic forests filled with wonderous creatures to the Fellowship of Leaves, may be prime timber or charcoal, inhabited by pelts filled with reagents to many enemies of the forest. While the treants defending it may be huge, so are the looting possibilities. Allowing military units to pillage ancient forest or workers to chop it for great rewards only makes sense. The infernals might even burn them as a ready-made sacrifice to the hells for a boon. The time taken to grow ancient forests means that destroying them would be true defilement, a more devastating loss than towns to the owner, hence why they are so protective of them.

Balance:
Ancient forests with towns/farms on them were unbalancingly powerful. The ability to add another improvement on top of the bonuses of the forest is what is unbalancing, as the ancient forest by itself is not so great with Grassland + Ancient Forest = 3F 1H. As a result, only the elves have a -huge- incentive to go 'Leaves, whereas other races, while welcome to go 'Leaves for the happy/healthy bonus, don't have incentive to grow forests since they can't build improvements on them, making their use of 'Leaves as a nature religion half-hearted at best. One thing I prefered about FfH1 was that your race didn't so directly determine your strategy. Allow other races to build these other custom forest-improvements you've been talking about. Specializing different parts of the forest is good, but uber-town-forests is too much.
Also, maybe ancient forest bonuses should only be present while 'Leaves is state religion, to prevent freeloaders from upgrading and improving forests only to switch to another religion and keep the bonuses. If they want to switch they can lose the bonuses and gain incentive to chop all that giant timber they've grown.

Bugs?:
I noticed the ancient forest model doesn't behave like Civ4 forests, but rather as Civ4 buildings. This is probably so they won't sink into the ground around roads and improvements. Unfortunately this means they float in mid-air around hills and look repetative in consecutive tiles. It'd probably be tricky coding to get the best of both worlds, but I thought I'd mention it since I don't think anyone else has reported it. I also noticed Bloom can be cast over improvements that don't normally mix with forests, like mines and quarries.

1. Welcome to the forums and I'm glad you liked the mod.
2. I don't think they need a laborer. Instead, the city will have to be working hte tile. In a leaves civ this implies them taking care of the forest.
3. I really like your aging forest ideas. However, perhaps here and there the game can start with a few groves of ancient forests that survived the age of ice.
4. Yah, switching out of leaves should simply make your ancient forests start devolving into normal forests. Not immediate, but pretty quickly.
5. Perhaps pillaging them gives some gold? Or a lot of gold? Maybe a happiness bonus for some civs?
6. I'm not sure how to balance the ljosfar using leaves.

I think disallowing building towns in ancient forrests. Doing so should make it revert to normal. How many civs can have a farm, mine, and town on the same square?

1. Welcome to the forums and I'm glad you liked the mod.
2. I don't think they need a laborer. Instead, the city will have to be working hte tile. In a leaves civ this implies them taking care of the forest.
3. I really like your aging forest ideas. However, perhaps here and there the game can start with a few groves of ancient forests that survived the age of ice.
4. Yah, switching out of leaves should simply make your ancient forests start devolving into normal forests. Not immediate, but pretty quickly.
5. Perhaps pillaging them gives some gold? Or a lot of gold? Maybe a happiness bonus for some civs?
6. I'm not sure how to balance the ljosfar using leaves.

1. Thanks for the welcome :) and for reading a long post ;)
2. That's what I meant: in Civ3, citizens working tiles were called 'laborers'. Sorry, I should have been more clear.
3. Thanks, and interesting idea, maybe that could be connected to this "wilderness" thing being discussed elsewhere and Ancient Temples.
4. and 5. :goodjob:
6. This is tricky. Fellowship of Leaves is definately all about the forest economy. The problem is that when Ljosalfar is all about the forest economy as well, it kind of stacks. While it makes sense for elves to be more synergistic with 'Leaves, it's too much. Being Ljosalfar and not founding 'Leaves is like being Catherine and not building a single cottage, and doing so feels wrong like Catherine cottage-spam.
This goes more towards civilization design, but perhaps Ljosalfar should be about combat in forests, while 'Leaves emphasizes the :) / :health: / :culture: / :food: / :commerce: aspects of the forest. This way Ljosalfar would be better at attacking/defending forested kingdoms, but any civ could get the full 'Leaves economic benefit of forests. Maybe the "Elf" promotion could give attack bonus against a defender in the forest and not spawn opposing treants when attacking ancient forest.
Strangely though, this might make Ljosalfar a Fellowship of Leaves backstabber. :p

The Fellowship of Leaves is an instant and most likely long lasting hit.........Kilmorph at Higher levels maybe Mountain Raising at Borders and control of Pass formation.........I know it is foreboding and what I am about to add is even more so..........good religion alliances beyond the realm of mortals........like during Apocalypse......Mountains rise to protect ancient forests and right after golems recieve vitae...An Alliance is formed to Banish the Evil.....earthquakes planetwide........mortals and their civilizations find the importance of not only their religious faith but how they treat those of other faiths because when push comes to shove the Big Dogs (I mean gods) ..Pack up together and if the mortals don't like it then there are other consequences........."Like a thousand pardons Temples of Kilomorph" and simutaneosly "A thousand pardons Temple of Leaves"and together",We had no idea that your most powerful one was a friend of ours and now unless we help you ours won't help us anymore........The poor elves surrounded by mountains they cannot pass and frustrated dwarves that keep having their resources eaten up by randomly spawning Ancient Forests......
.........anyway the mountain Idea for Kilmorph was the original idea after considering the neatness of the Ancient Forests then I jumped to Cataclysm and thought.....How would the gods react to those that treated their followers well/poorly and if they were at a respectable toward other divine beings how would the regard the intollerance or acceptance of others by their followers and their fellows........if in the end it had Dramatic Real World effects it would be quite impressive if not a little disturbing like the Homer and all of the Great Myths...............All from thinking about terrain and what you have already done......later I've gotta a game to catch with MadBrad..............I'm Playing dwarves again that randomizer can really pick em

The following sort of touches on improvements, civs, and resources. Maybe too much to change at this point, but some ideas could be cherry-picked.

How about having unique workers with different selections of improvements for each racial group?
If captured, they would retain their abilities (as planned for next version anyway) but are slaves, with workrate at 75% or 50%. the down side of this system is that it limits some player choices, but only until you capture or have gifted workers of other tribes.

Humans-most civs. As is
Elves
Cannot build farms or workshops. Have the following unique improvements:
Elven village: buildable only in forrests/ancient forrests. Same as normal cottage-> village improvements, except grows at half speed.
Tree Herder: Only buildable in forrests/ancient forrest. + food. Does not require irragation, but doesn't increase with sanitation.
Elven Workshop: Built on planes; -1 food, +1 production, chance of discovering mana. If this happens, destroys workshop.

Elves would thus have less health resources, but wouldn't need it if they had enough forrests aroung thier cities. Otherwise similar to now, but villages grow slower because they already have the forrest/ancient forrest hammer bonus.

Dwarves
Cannot build cottages. Have the following unique improvements:
Underhome: Only built on hills. Act as cottages->villages, but can also access hill resources as if they were mines (without the mine hammer bonus of course), give units stationed on them an extra 5-10% defense per level (cottage type 5, hamlet 10, etc.) Chance of discovering gems, gold, etc.
Terrace Farm: Built on hills, act as farms including spreading irrigation.
Build roads twice as fast.

Orc-Barb & clans of Ember
Cannot build lumber mills or villages (their cottages won't upgrade all the way.) Have the following unique improvements:
Gatherer's Hut: Only buildible on jungle. If jungle is chopped, GH also destroyed. Doesn't provide resources. +1 food, + production.

Gives orcs an even better early start, but a bit of a penalty later.

Cherub Worker-Elohim & Basium
Trained 2X fast. cannot build cottages. Upgrades at Religious law to Seraph Worker, train normal, build hamlets instead of cottages.

Not sure of this one, wanted them to have something special but I don't think this is it. :blush:

Infernals--don't build workers. Slaves work at normal/faster? speed. Imps can build normal improvements at half speed.

@Nikis-Knight:

We have discussed some days ago that we want captured workers to stay as they were before capturing, so a captured elven worker can built in forest and so on. :) Its just a matter of time till it will be included. And yes we do want to differentiate the workers further (not all but some) so your proposals are very welcome.

Here are a few more ideas to pile on top of what Nikis-Knight suggested:

Elven workers:
Can build forest paths. Allows Fellowship of Leaves or elves 1/2 movement cost to move across (specialized roads for them only). Can only be built in forest tiles.
Can't build regular roads.

Dwarven workers:
Can build tunnels (underground roads for dwarves). Can only be used by civ controlling that tile or those with open border agreements. 1/2 movement for dwarves or other "underground loving" races. 1 movement all others. Can be built on mountain tiles?
Can't build regular roads.
Can build underground grotto, creates a +1 food, +1 hammer in a tile. Maybe a small chance to discover reagents or some such. Buildable only on Mountain and hill tiles.
Search for new mine - can use a special action to try and discover a new resource on a tile. Have the worker spend X turns inactive on a tile trying to determine if there is a resource hidden (random 10% chance of discovering a mineable resource).

Human workers:
Build roads at 2x speed.



Here's a different suggestion for higher difficulty levels:
Have the resources be degraded over time. Mines deplete the resource over time (stone quarry runs out of quality stone, copper mine runs dry). This could be a reverse of the cottage clock, possibly even random in duration. May have to increase the chance of discovering another resource (see dwarven worker above).

Thats all for now,
Gaebril

Here are a few more ideas to pile on top of what Nikis-Knight suggested:

Elven workers:
Can build forest paths. Allows Fellowship of Leaves or elves 1/2 movement cost to move across (specialized roads for them only). Can only be built in forest tiles.
Can't build regular roads.

I actually pitched this same idea a few weeks ago to the design team. The end result after we talked about it was that we would have to add a lot to do it and in the end it just wasnt worth the small amount of flavor it would add. It was better to just increase the elves movement in forests (enemy and their own) and give them a bit of a boost when they defend in or attack into forests. Which is out current plan.

Dwarven workers:
Can build tunnels (underground roads for dwarves). Can only be used by civ controlling that tile or those with open border agreements. 1/2 movement for dwarves or other "underground loving" races. 1 movement all others. Can be built on mountain tiles?
Can't build regular roads.
Can build underground grotto, creates a +1 food, +1 hammer in a tile. Maybe a small chance to discover reagents or some such. Buildable only on Mountain and hill tiles.
Search for new mine - can use a special action to try and discover a new resource on a tile. Have the worker spend X turns inactive on a tile trying to determine if there is a resource hidden (random 10% chance of discovering a mineable resource).

As for the tunnels, the underground is so hard to involve at a strategic layer. The dilema tunnels brings us to is why can a above ground unit attack a unit thats traveling through a tunnel? As soon as we introduce a pseudo-underground mechanic we will expose a lot of situation that dont make sense.

But I dont have any problem with undergorund themed buildings and improvements (improvements are a bit harder to implement because the AI doesnt do a good job of picking what to improve where).

Human workers:
Build roads at 2x speed.

Here's a different suggestion for higher difficulty levels:
Have the resources be degraded over time. Mines deplete the resource over time (stone quarry runs out of quality stone, copper mine runs dry). This could be a reverse of the cottage clock, possibly even random in duration. May have to increase the chance of discovering another resource (see dwarven worker above).

Thats all for now,
Gaebril

Ive played the old versions of civ where resources appear and dissapear, I always thought it was a design mistake. In my opinion, randomness detracts from a strategy game and players should be presented with clear, predictable goals which they can build short and long term plans around. Planning a major war around gaining a resource only to have it disseapper while the war is going on or shortly after it is gained isn't fun. Losing the game because your iron resource dissappears just as a war begins isn't fun.

As for the tunnels, the underground is so hard to involve at a strategic layer. The dilema tunnels brings us to is why can a above ground unit attack a unit thats traveling through a tunnel? As soon as we introduce a pseudo-underground mechanic we will expose a lot of situation that dont make sense.
You could call them tunnel networks, describe them as a series of shallow, man sized tunnels that mainly just bypass high roads to make travel easier for those who know them, but are labarinth to those unused to travel underground as they branch out into dead ends. Enemy units can attack units within the tunnels, but defenders get a 20% bonus as they A have the hometurf advantage and B tunnels force attackers to come to the defenders. You could also make deep tunnels that Kilmorph units can hide in, Which allows them to effectivly become invisible while immoble in a deep tunneled square. This would allow for ambushes, as emeny units could unknowingly pass over deep units or head toward a square with hidden deep units, but as be ambushed by them as soon as thier backs are turned. You could do something similar with fellowship of leaves for forests. Deep forest routes could conceal legions of the fellowships best raiders, ready to strike and then dissapear back into the wood

But I dont have any problem with undergorund themed buildings and improvements (improvements are a bit harder to implement because the AI doesnt do a good job of picking what to improve where).


what about mighty mountain strongholds improved forts that can only be built on hills. Also dwarven Underhill dwellings that expand to stone grottos that expand to Undermountain halls

Ive played the old versions of civ where resources appear and dissapear, I always thought it was a design mistake. In my opinion, randomness detracts from a strategy game and players should be presented with clear, predictable goals which they can build short and long term plans around. Planning a major war around gaining a resource only to have it disseapper while the war is going on or shortly after it is gained isn't fun. Losing the game because your iron resource dissappears just as a war begins isn't fun.

Yes but it also allowed for civilizations to play catchup when a source of iron suddenly appeared when they had none before

Yes but it also allowed for civilizations to play catchup when a source of iron suddenly appeared when they had none before

But that feature already exists in the game.

The tunnel system could be implemented from vanillla methods renamed probrably if Obsidian gates uses railroad tech then what about another tech for travel that allows for unstoppable travel and surprise attacks even it on a gameplay level it "looks" like something else from vanilla Maybe make Tunnel Dwarf based on Airdrop or some other airborne unit....just because it is airborne in vanilla doesn't mean it will nessisarally be that way in FfH2.

Airborne units would have a slightly better method of seeing some underground terrain changes if elven or something because of the way surfacke terrain an plant life is affected.............these are just role playing aids to describe the getting around diffficult program mechanic.....The dwarves could just as easily be invisible anyway with these methods and I don't think it should be just for dwarves either, dark elves and maybe infernals and ,gods forbid, probrably orcs........anyway loop de loop......

.....Giant Eagles plummetting from High above to drag the dwarf it hears out of his "safe" little tunnel just like a rabbit out of a hole........"who would have thought the god of the sky really does hate dwarves and has sent his servants for me while within the bosom of OUR MOTHER....." where his last thoughts beford being cast along another fate.

An airborne transport unit could be modified to transport other units through tunnel a tunnel guide if you will on map tunnels like roads are not fesible at this time as discussed on several threads......but cavern and tunnels could be expansive enough to require a unit and that can change things if one where to modify air units to sybolize underground units......definitely outside the box but it "could" be possible without messing to much with the AI and map mechanics.....Even if air units (some of them) get bonus against them if they are angels or something so be it......another great terrain disregarder would be a unicorn unit for good only alignments and I have a world unit in mind on that note too........I don't know if tunnelling could work as a promotion unless you modified airdrop promaotions for it....if that would even work........you see there are game mechanic issues and the team has alot of posts that seem to give a lot of repeat....so please read the other threads because they like the ideas about tunnels and dwarves ect...but unless your offering program suggestions on how to prevent bog or contradiction and roleplaying suggestions too and bug reporting then......you aren't the only frustrated person working on the issue........I ask this respectively readers because kinks in systems and this one especially is something we are all for getting past.............Thanx

PIT Trap: After Hell opens up these randomly spawned or randomly open/Closed switch effected area drops some poor passing bastard into Hell..........(music for which the first 3 bars from Ring of Fire by Jonny Cash would be great!) Maybe it could be something constructed by Veil later in game. and a little sign in a ring shape on the outside of the pit stating: Abandon All hope Ye who enter here..In latin that would also be a nice touch.

in civs wich adopted overlords some kind of waterplant (seatang)could spawn like the ancient forsts at the followers. only on coast and sea tiles but in all conected sea tiles even so its not overlord controlled (the spreading just starts in a overlord controlled terretory, workboats could be able to build a kind of tang farm.

New terrain: swamp, mountain, (and wasteland as others said), holy ground.

Feature: cave/hole, giant grass, mangrove, cliff/canyon (like a river that is impassable).

Also add healing rate to all terrains/features. Should be harder to heal in desert/swamp/ice, and easier on farms and forrests and such.

New terrain: swamp, mountain, (and wasteland as others said), holy ground.

Feature: cave/hole, giant grass, mangrove, cliff/canyon (like a river that is impassable).

Also add healing rate to all terrains/features. Should be harder to heal in desert/swamp/ice, and easier on farms and forrests and such.

Heya Zuul, havent head from you in a while. We ended up using your light/heavy promotion concept for golems and it works great.

We probably wont play much with terrains until "Fire". When we introduce hell we will really be pushing to come up with some clever flavor/function terrains to represent that unholyiest of places. As we do that we may make some changes to the earthly terrains as well, but I wanted hell to get first crack at the creative ideas.

in civs wich adopted overlords some kind of waterplant (seatang)could spawn like the ancient forsts at the followers. only on coast and sea tiles but in all conected sea tiles even so its not overlord controlled (the spreading just starts in a overlord controlled terretory, workboats could be able to build a kind of tang farm. the tang gives a food+1 and prod.+1. ships wich are not overlord get a movment penalty (half movment) in the tang , when a ship sinks in a tank tile there is a small prozentage that a drown apeers in controll of the tile owner, it dosent matter whos ship sunk there,overlord ships get a little defense bounus.thats just a idee for balance issus, may its to hard do develop

Hi Kael. Yea I was away from civ4 for 3 months or so. But now Im back playing and as addicted as ever :p.
Nice that you like the heavylight promotion concept. I got some futher ideas on promotions for FoH. But I will take them in the correct thread.

How would you feel about adding a route type, named Hidden Path, which is built automatically together with the elven farm/cottage/pasture..., starts with 120 iMovement, but gets -90 iMovementChange with the Hidden Paths tech and another -10 with Commune with Nature or something? Result would be that other civ units with the Commando promotion but without Hidden Paths tech couldn't rush through elven forests. The Elves would keep their home advantage. It would fit with the idea of ancient forests as mysterious and impregnable.

One could do a similar thing for Dwarves or Runes religious civs in general. With the Arete tech, add a new worker order which builds a mine together with a new route type called "Underground Tunnels". Likewise they could start with 120 iMovement and only give -90 with Arete (and another -10 with some other mining/metal related tech).

I very much agree with Chalid's ideas (edit: the ones on page one specifically), and also with Arcadian's. Suffice to say that any disagreement I have with them is minor and disregardable. Of course, we still should have a further balance so that the elves aren't the only ones that can be Fellowship effectively.

I propose making it so that the Ljosalfar can't chop down forests when they're Fellowship, or at least face unhappiness or even rebellion penalties for doing so. After all, they are dealing with a double dose of treehuggery and such. Balance does seem to be needed here.

Just had an idea.. dont know if its been suggested before.

Given the land is recovering from the time of ice, then it is logical that over time that the land will "recover" from the weight of the ice and rise (specifically low coastal areas). This would have the effect of coastal tiles becoming land-locked (effectively destroying the harbour) - but giving more land to develop on. (was thinking about Harlech in Wales - the castle is now 2+ miles from the sea, yet was built with its own harbour...).

An opposite effect would be collapsing of land into the sea/destruction of terrain on a permanant basis.

Could each tile have a base chance +/- for it rising/falling (including sea/ocean)? Then over time you can convert it from land/sea/ocean or ocean/sea/land.

Imagine.... your lovely city on that beautiful flood plane, with its gleaming temples, markets and libraries, sliding, slowly into the depths....

Atlantis all over again!

alpha centauri had that, but it also had a building that would let a city survive underwater, the pressure dome

a fantasy equivalent, maybe something like "airy water" or something, or "arcane dome" that would allow it or something

but as far as i know, i haven't seen a mod that allowed deep sea mining, so i'm not sure if it would even be worth looking into

I think that would work either as an armeggedon spell or a scenario. Or at least have a toggle. Most people would be annoyed if they unexpectedly lost a city, or if all of a sudden they had no coastal cities! But it'd make an interesting scenario.

I also posted this in the Design: Improvements section but the idea could be related to this thread as well.

Arcane Road:

Roads that are actually shorter if you walk on them properly through arcane means.

"...with that said, we'll be taking the Mage's Path to Enaillellion today. For those who've never used it before, be careful not to step off the road or loose the runes that our company Adept is passing out to you.
If you do you may never catch up to us. And you'll catch hell from me if you do." - Hamallandel, Amurite Commander.

Replaces Vanilla Railroads
Looks like a normal road, but a little bit different. Darker, Streighter, glittering if possible.

Randomly created by map script to exist on fresh world as ruins of the Age of Magic
Near those anchient temples and watchtowers preferably.

Initially provides the normal 2x movment of roads,
But once you understand the magic of it with Alteration
it provides 4x (5x?) movement

Buildable with Strength of Will & Mithril Working & enchantment mana & takes a long time to build.
Some limit to them so they cannot be spammed would be good as well.

Shouldn't peaks have the same movement cost as hills? Right now mountain chains are like highways for rangers (which is definately fun for getting around but seems a little off).

I wasn't sure which thread to put this in, but it could be interesting to add this as a terrain feature:

-Rebelious/Unrest
-Wilderness
-Haunted

For example, perhaps the sabatour could built the improvement 'uprising' in enemy territory (not without risk or expense, of course) which would then have a chance of creating a certain number of barbarian units every turn? Perhaps they could be given the summoned promotion, so they are more like guerrila fighters than noral barbs.

Haunted could sommon a unit within a certain radius every turn.

Tainted could give -1 food for most civs and religions, but +1 commerce for others and no food penalty. And perhaps spreads from cities with the Ashen Veil, only being removable by good and neutral priests.

I wasn't sure which thread to put this in, but it could be interesting to add this as a terrain feature:

-Rebelious/Unrest
-Wilderness
-Haunted

For example, perhaps the sabatour could built the improvement 'uprising' in enemy territory (not without risk or expense, of course) which would then have a chance of creating a certain number of barbarian units every turn? Perhaps they could be given the summoned promotion, so they are more like guerrila fighters than noral barbs.

Haunted could sommon a unit within a certain radius every turn.

Tainted could give -1 food for most civs and religions, but +1 commerce for others and no food penalty. And perhaps spreads from cities with the Ashen Veil, only being removable by good and neutral priests.

We have wilderness areas speced for "Shadow". They wont be player generated but will be lands that player culture won't spread into until certain actions are completed. Depending on the type of wilderness (lizardman infested jungles, an undead spawning necropolis, etc) you can have a variety of effects and creature types.

Maybe mountain peaks should give units in them a negative healing bonus - this will keep their usefulness as a transit route for rangers etc, but prevents them being so useful for hit and run attacks.. ....

New forests seem weird at the moment, elves can go double in heavier forests but not in new forests?
I'm thinkin it might be annoying to add New Forests to all those promotions to get them to work, seems like a good idea would be to make new forests have no added movement cost and no defense bonus (they're just seedlings after all, shouldn't have such a great effect). Plus this would stop a variation on the worry of what people could do with mass mountain creation (i.e. enemies are coming so you build a wall of mountains/new-forests to stop/slow them).

We were talking about this in the Svartalfar thread, but what do you guys think about adding a Dark Forest terrain for evil civs that have the Fellowship of Leaves as their state religion, as an alternative to having just Ancient Forests for everyone?

Noone is really saying an Ancient Forest can't be evil... With so many old and grumpy trees hanging around, spreading their dense foilage, I'm sure there must be a bad seed or two:lol:

More seriously, it has to do with complexity and resources. The more stuff that gets added to the game, the more artwork resources, space and loading times the mod acquires. And that, in turn, translates into loads of waiting for what really amounts to small tweaks.

Just think about Lord of the Rings, the Old Forest near the Shire is kind of evil...

Exactly, Julius. Resources aside, I consider ancient forests to be a form of sentient being - the trees are alive, and they have personalities. If you're lucky, they're nice, but I think they mostly follow their own agenda. And they DON'T LIKE STRANGERS (see: Ents).

I would exactly say that, you can see again in the Lord of the Rings (ok, i love Lord of the Rings) when the Ents at first refuse to enter the war against Saruman, they are more interested in their own forests than the rest of the world

itd be neat if Ice terrain made units invisible by making the terrain always covered in fog, except the tile a unit of yours is on, gave a slight defense bonus, and cost 3 movement to walk through, and maybe applied a very minor negative healing penalty.
atm Ice and Peaks are just quick passage, no yield, highways.

I think Ancient Forests are good enough. As Wilboman mentioned, improvements can be built in them. So the discussion is not really whether 3 hammers or 1 hammer and 1 food is better, but rather whether 3 hammers or 1 food, 2 hammers and 4 commerce(cottaged ancient forest with Arcane Lore) is better. With the additional defensive capabilities of Treants, I'd most definetely choose the Ancient Forest.


I agree with Colindale and Woodelf. Ancient Forests work very well right now. Thery certainly do not need enhancement.

Instead of comparing AFs only in the end-game, how about looking at the early game too? I have had many a food-starved city start growing because just one forest went Ancient. Cities near tundra, or desert, or hills, or heck even among plains, all often stagnate untll the +1:food: and irrigation-spreading technologies appear. Not wit Leaves. All your cities will grow steadilly and starting form a much earlier date. All that stuff counts too. It's not just one snapshot of the endgame that counts.

Not to mention all the stuff you DON'T have to buy under leaves Health buildings, happiness buildings, farms, mines, etcetera all are built far less often than for non-Leaves realms. If part of the price one has to pay for all that is a lack of lumbermills in AFs, then that's a pretty good deal IMO.

Pillaging:
What is ancient majestic forests filled with wonderous creatures to the Fellowship of Leaves, may be prime timber or charcoal, inhabited by pelts filled with reagents to many enemies of the forest. While the treants defending it may be huge, so are the looting possibilities. Allowing military units to pillage ancient forest or workers to chop it for great rewards only makes sense. The infernals might even burn them as a ready-made sacrifice to the hells for a boon. The time taken to grow ancient forests means that destroying them would be true defilement, a more devastating loss than towns to the owner, hence why they are so protective of them.

Balance:
Ancient forests with towns/farms on them were unbalancingly powerful. The ability to add another improvement on top of the bonuses of the forest is what is unbalancing, as the ancient forest by itself is not so great with Grassland + Ancient Forest = 3F 1H. As a result, only the elves have a -huge- incentive to go 'Leaves, whereas other races, while welcome to go 'Leaves for the happy/healthy bonus, don't have incentive to grow forests since they can't build improvements on them, making their use of 'Leaves as a nature religion half-hearted at best. One thing I prefered about FfH1 was that your race didn't so directly determine your strategy. Allow other races to build these other custom forest-improvements you've been talking about. Specializing different parts of the forest is good, but uber-town-forests is too much.

The idea of pillaging AFs seems quite promising upon first impressions. That seems like a great route to both flavor and play-balance. Lets keep this idea alive. :goodjob:

I agree that non-Ljo Leaves followers will be drawn by the allure of lumbermills and this is not evactly Leafy. However I do not tink the answer lies in piling yet more production onto what is already a very, very productive religion. I think we need to look back a step.

Right now FfH is rather schitzophrenic. It hasn't really decided where certain power originate. What the **** do I mean? I can't really explain it except by the three obvious examples: Ljosalfar/Leaves, Khazad/Runes, and Lanun/OctoLords.

Leaves is the religion of Nature. It's power is manifested in the game primarilly through forested terrain. The Leaves as state religion grants the civilization with certain enhanced abilities, primailly involving forest. The same comments apply to Rune hills and mining) and OctoLords (sea power).

But there are three civilizations that also derive their benefits from Nature, the Earth, and the Sea. Ljo can build improvements in forests, move fast throught them, fight well in them, and so forth. Likewise for Khazad and hlls, ditto Lanun and the sea. Now, none of these realms are required to follow the "expected" religion. Oh sure, there are powerful synergies to entice each Civ to go down the expected path. But there is no reason they must do so. This leads to situations that don't seem to taste right, in terms of flavor.

Ljosalfar can invent Runes to gain the added religious revenue and the superior hills combat promotions. But even though the Elves in this fantasy word derive their power from the Runes, they wil till retain many LEaves-like abilities: Build improvements in forests, double move and +10% STR in woods come to mind. How does the race that invented the Earth religion continue to derive powerful benefits from the Realm of Leaves? More powerful benefits than Leaves grants to its own state religionists?

Or consider Khazad trading in earth for water and inventing the OO for the culture. Now the shorites pray to their crazed undersa masters, yet they retain some nifty earth-based abilities such as unpillageable mines, fast hills movements, and the increased ability to find special mineable resources. Seapower+landpower=not all that shabby ... but once again why is Kilmorph so generous to adherents of the competition.

Lanun are slated to be FfH's seapower, but nothing but habit stops them from inventing Leaves. Extra food from Ancient Forests plus extra food from every sea tile plus massive happiness bonuses from the Leaves civic and you have the potential for some massive Lanun cities, and/or some serious Conquest production. Which is all well and good, but why do teh sea gods continue to allow Lanun ships to sail so fast, or to extract so much of the ocean's bounty?

I call this situaton schitzophrenic, because it strikes me that Nature Power in FfH does not originate with Leaves, it originates with Ljo and Leaves. And ditto for the other two. When the civilization happens to pick it's "expected" religion, things don't seem so out of whack. But it leads to oddities such as non-Ljo Leaves followers cutting down AFs.

It also leaves other terrain-loving civs looking awfully pale by comparison. Doviello get a combat bonus for fighting in tundra. Pardon my lack of enthusiasm, but whoop-tee-doo. That will help holding off the Ragers, I suppose. but what would help a lot more would be a religion designed to thrive in tundra regions. Likewise the Malakim get a desert bonus. Once again, handy for fighting over rich patches of desert, except, at 0/0/0 production we rarely see wars fought over rich swaths of desert.

My point is, serveral civs have been created with an eye to enjoying a specific terrain. But their "enjoyment" varies dramatically. Doviello and Malakin get some mild combat/movement bonuses in some low-value terrain types. Khazad, Ljo, and Lanun, in contrast, are granted numerous terrain-specific abilites in high-production terrain types.

Furthermore, it can be said the civilization-specific bonues given Lanun, Ljo, and Khazad dwarf the abilities for given for state worshippers of the cooresponding religion. Ljo can build improvements in forest ... the single most powerful specialability in the game, bar none, IMO ... shouldn't that be Leaves state-religionists? Shouldn't unpillageable mines be a boon granted by Kilmorph? Are not the OctoLords the ones who bestow the bounties from the sea?

Sure, dwarves are traditionally miners ... and if they follow tradition, if they follow Kilmorph, they will act as traditional dwarves. But FfH allows the non-traditional path to be trod. If the dwarves choose a non-traditional path, if they choose to hug every tree they see ... why do they still act like traditional dwarves? Shouldn't a non-traditional path taken in the early game result in non-traditional mannerisms during the endgame?

Well, that's just something that's bugged be a bit. If it was just a matter of flavor, i wouldn't care. But I think there are play-balance / gameplay fun aspects here. As in other threads, I beleive the tech tree needs a bit of reshuffling. If that day ever comes to pass, I hope some thought is given to the 'schitzophrenia' situation I've described.

That's just my take on the matter. I am guessing I will find myself holding the minority opinion once again. ;)

I like the ideas brought up earlier in this thread about giving the dwarves some special things to build on mountains/hills. Heck, I think dwarves should be able to build cities on mountains and certainly mine them and put towns in them. That would be really cool. That would draw dwarves towards the mountains in a special way -- right now I avoid them like with any other Civ (rather sad). People could attack and take these mountain cities and work mountains that had dwarven mines built in them, but couldn't construct them themselves.

There should also be some way to produce food in hills and perhaps mountains as well. Who knows how this works in Fantasy worlds, but dwarves definitely live underground. They should have some way of producing food underground.

What if Arete gave +1 food on every hill/mountain instead of +production/commerce?

dwarven farms that can be built on hills :D

Also, five pages back there is a nice thread on hills and mountains. Lots of good ideas.

How about using the cottage mechanism again?

Mountain Mines

Do not require construction. This is so the workers will stay blocked bty mountains like everyone else.

Mountain tiles automatically provide a small yield to the dwarves.
The mine grows like a cottage and provides more yield as time goes by.
It should, as fully grown, be comprable to hill+mine or a plains town

Unpillageable of course.

for yields:
Mountain Mine: (should be comprable to unimproved terrain, 2 yield)
2 :hammers:

Extensive Mine
3 :hammers:

Great Mine
3 :hammers:, 1 :commerce:

Mountain Town
2 :hammers:, 2 :commerce:, 1:food:

+1 :food: with Sanitation to Great Mine, Mountain Town
+1 :commerce: with Arete to Extensive Mine, Great Mine, Mountain Town


Why the food? The areas that were mined initially, are now great halls and passages. They are now used for living quarters and as mushroom farms.
Living quarters add the trade, as cottages do, and the mushroom farms provide food.
With no room for the farms initially, the tiles are not self sufficient.
But with enough time and proper Sanitation, they become completly self sufficient.
The drop in hammers is because you've dug out the usefull things already, and too much of the space is devoted to living now.

The dwarves, with enough time, could fill entire mountain ranges with tunnels and homes.

The growth should be slower than cottage growth because its harder to dig then just build, even if you are a dwarve.

Could give a chance to discover preceious metals/gems there as well. Just during the extensive mine and great mine stages though.

This is a nice idea but I don't know if it could be easily implemented in the Civ engine. I suspect that something like this is much easier with an improvement. Also, I don't like the idea of the hammers going down. That might create an obnoxious situation where you are selective about your use of the mountain tile because sometimes you really need the three hammers sometime.

The tile yields I proposed are entirely changeable.

I proposed the automatic start of the mine to prevent any idea of giving dwarven workers the ability to cross mountains. An early unit capable of entering mountains would be unbalancing and annoying. (haha, my workers on a mountain and you can't kill him)

I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to code. Something like the formula for anchient forests should work. Automatically create a "Mountain Mine" in every Kazad mountain tile and destroy it if it leaves Kazad control.

If the mine has expanded at all I would leave it there even if others take over the city, it just shouldn't be able to expand any more.

What if Dwarfs couldn't build regular farms except on wheat/rice/corn? But instead they could build mushroom farms (or whatever) on hills and, perhaps, mountains.

Proposal for Mushroom farms: These would start out providing 2 food but wouldn't get the river gold bonus. That way you could expand your population enough (one food wouldn't be enough if you couldn't build regular farms). They could get some bonus later like the sanitation bonus.

Glad to hear your proposal wouldn't be hard to code, Alazkan. I don't really understand these things...

To Unser:
Your comments seem to be mostly about flavor. I don't really see a problem with it, because I see the civ bonuses as natural, cultural adaptations to the environment that that civs has been associated with, in this age or in ages past. Elves have been reverent towards forrests in the past, leading them to be able to build in them; but if their ideology changes, that doesn't mean that they will discount the bonuses they got, though natural means, by building in forrests.
Lanun know how to build better ships well; this doesn't necessarily have a thing to do with the Octopus overlords. If they adopt that creed, they can retain their shipbuilding knowledge and get the ability to summon big squids as well, but if they follow, say, the order, they still remember how to build better boats, etc.
That's my take, anyway.

I proposed the automatic start of the mine to prevent any idea of giving dwarven workers the ability to cross mountains. An early unit capable of entering mountains would be unbalancing and annoying. (haha, my workers on a mountain and you can't kill him)

Unbalancing? How so? It's a 0 Str worker. He can sit there and wave.

It's not like there aren't any other units that can move through mountains, either... Druids can, for example, as can all manner of spells. So if a worker hiding in a mountain bugs you, fireball him.

This may have been mentioned somewhere but i couldn't find it in a read through of this thread.

Has any thought been given to a Raise / Lower land mechanic? This would make it possible to make land bridges and raise mountains or create channels to make more effective borders. Maybe this could be limited to within your own cultural borders. This was one of my favorite things about SMAC. In FfH i enjoy sinking enemy cities with the tsunami spell.

Also - what about forest chopping outside your borders, particularly in enemy territory? It would be cool to send in a squad of workers escorted by a tough troop and start chopping. You shouldn't get the production bonus (too far away) but it could wreck your opponent's lands. This could also be used to lessen the value of potentially settlable lands.

Disclaimer: ideas stolen from a friend i just introduced to FfH. He loves it although he generally doesn't like fantasy stuff.

- feydras

This may have been mentioned somewhere but i couldn't find it in a read through of this thread.

Has any thought been given to a Raise / Lower land mechanic? This would make it possible to make land bridges and raise mountains or create channels to make more effective borders. Maybe this could be limited to within your own cultural borders. This was one of my favorite things about SMAC. In FfH i enjoy sinking enemy cities with the tsunami spell.

Also - what about forest chopping outside your borders, particularly in enemy territory? It would be cool to send in a squad of workers escorted by a tough troop and start chopping. You shouldn't get the production bonus (too far away) but it could wreck your opponent's lands. This could also be used to lessen the value of potentially settlable lands.

Disclaimer: ideas stolen from a friend i just introduced to FfH. He loves it although he generally doesn't like fantasy stuff.

- feydras

The Engine (as far as i know) does not work like the SMAC engine.
There isnt a three way axis for the game. There are tiles, and features. Those features can include peaks and hills. Which would simulate "up". But there isnt a "down". If I understand this correctly. There are water squares, and land squares. The water squares vary in "depth" but its a misnomer. Really its like the diffrerence between plains, grasslands, and desert. Its just that each is more or less likely to be close to land squares. You cant "Raise" terrain. Or "lower" it.

If I'm wrong, I'll be very excited to see something like this implemented.
-Qes

i have a mod that makes tsunamis lower land in stages, and im gonna make one that will raise land with the same mechanic once i find a good earth spell that targets that way and if high level (will only take a second to make it since itll be the reverse of the tsunami one)

i dont think workers should do what you suggest, but currently in 0.16 Axemen can chop forests like workers, and kael expressed interest in making them do so outside their own borders, but that involves the "build outside borders" mechanic, which is an SDK change so not sure if hes gonna do it (or yet maybe), i hope so because so many neat things can be done with such :p

EDIT: QES, theres features and terrain, and Plot type which includes varying heights, of Water, Flatlands, Hills, Peaks. My tsunami spell uses such quite nicely.

It's an improvement more than a feature or terrain type, but eh

This is more aimed for the clan or Dovellio


-Training camp: +2% military unit production (whilst worked) and/or +1 great commander points

-Whaaaaag! Banner (Yup, stealing the name from warhammer): Replaces cottage, can be built in forests.
Gives a smaller monetry output but will spawn a melee unit when it reaches its last upgrade, and simultaneously degrade the banner to the lower level- so that it cycles and produces more units. Units have a chance of gaining a promotion based on the terrain it occupies.

On a balance note, these cottages would take time to develope so these would not give the civ lots of quick units to rush with.

I'm not sure how difficult it will be to add in, but Maybe somewhere down the line a marsh terrain (like in Rhye's) could be put in. I wouldn't expect it to be implemented for use in generated maps, but it would be nice to have available for use in pre-made maps and scenarios.

please? (/bump)

Why would you want marshes? What purpose would they serve? How would their function differ from that of jungles?

I would guess it would be to make terrain impassible to some (heavier) units. It might also be nice to add a terrain (shallows?) that is passible to both land and to the smaller water units.

It is a cool looking terrain, Rhye did a good job on it. Unfortunatly it takes a terrain, feature and bonus to make. Since we are heavy on bonus's (we've maxed them out until I rebuild the gamefont file) we won't be adding anything that requires them for a little while.

the important functions of the marsh (from my pov) are to: a.) create natural barriers that aren't mountains (differing from mtns. in that they don't block LoS and are better fitting aesthetically in certain places); b.) create unhealthiness that can reduce the usefulness and potential of certain areas; and 3.) create 'undevelopeable' land titles that allow for expanded landmass with less of a performance hit.

I haven't really examined the implementation in RFC, but it seems to me that all the important functions could come from the base and feature. I'm not sure what role the resource part plays. Actually now that I think about it, just a feature might suffice for ffh. I think it would just have to prevent movement of most units (like peaks), not allow improvements, have -3 food,hammer, commerce(or so), and have a negative health of like .7

I know it's not terribly useful to the mod as a whole, but I think it could be quite useful in map and scenario making. I certainly wouldn't expect it to be high on the list of things to do, and I can wait or go without if i must. I'm just happy you consider it.

It should definitely have negative health and hammers. I don't see why it should have negative food instead of just 0. I believe rice actually grows better in such terrain. Maybe you could only build the farm improvement there, and only if rice is present. In that case, I can understand something like a -1.

I think it would be interesting if some resources could initially be very rare, but would spread in the territory of whoever already has it. This could represent the process of domesticating and spreading crops or animals. If you already have wheat or rice, these could spread to your other farms. Perhaps you could build pastures for horses, pigs or sheep to appear in,if you already have some. These would either need to take longer to build, or have a low chance to actually be useful.

Why don't smokehouses give a bonus for fish like they do for pigs, sheep, or cows?

Getting back to the thread topic, the most needed terrain change is creating a hell version to replace the remaining terrain types, so players can tell just where hell exists.

I can give you another reason for marshes. Make gunpowder only appear on them, not on hills. I always thought it was very strange to mine something that is explosive. Off course then marshes would have to be crossable.

Alternate hell terrain for it would be some kind of tar pits.

If attached to a river or a lake then the marsh would spawn along side. You would have to prevent it with irrigating.

Ok, here is an idea of mine that comes with the marsh idea. There are some land areas were there is no access to water thus making farms impossible. Sometimes there are lake nearby but I have to build several farms in a no-city land to get the water to the city. Now, why not make a irrigation improvement just to spread water. You could build it only in your cultural borders but it would be faster then a farm. It would be used only to get water near your city and maybe lower the chance of caching fire to nearby titles. Available with sanitation or a tech before.

Then on some islands there is no way to get water. Could we have a well? Buildable only in your culture borders or even not. That would be a nice feature, nothing big but helpful.

_Valis;5274650']I can give you another reason for marshes. Make gunpowder only appear on them, not on hills. I always thought it was very strange to mine something that is explosive.

Strictly speaking you aren't mining gunpowder but saltpeter. Gunpowder is a generic term for explosive compounds based on saltpeter, explaining vanilla Civ4s saltpeter resource instead of gunpowder. The most commonly known gunpowder recipe is saltpeter, sulphur and charcoal, which produces a rather primitive version of black powder. The charcoal has to be as pure as possible, making certain types of wood more suitable than others for producing it.

That being said (sorry for the off-topic'ing above), I think marshes would be a nice addition but not nice enough to warrant a high priority at the moment.

I am working on a marsh/swamp terrain/feature for FFH. (Marsh is a terrain type and swamp is a feature). Swamps have a chance of "swallowing up" any unit that passes through them. (with the exception of some units or units who take a swamp promotion (or woodsman, not sure yet))

I have the marsh part done but may need someone to model a good looking swamp feature (if not, I am attempting to do it, but I = teh suck when it comes to 3d modeling)

The other idea I had was a cliff feature that prevents land units from entering a sea square (or disembarking off a ship) and prevents a land unit from moving to another land square if a cliff is in the way.

:bump:

(If this doesn't belong here please feel free to move it.)

I've only just dl'd FfH 2.025 a couple of days ago and I picked the Ljosalfar right away and came to notice the already mentioned issues/thoughts about the ancient forests. And I'm a bit torn on the production discussion, i.e. the lumbermills.

I've noticed, that the elven workers can build lumbermills on forests but not on new or ancient forests. I found that rather disturbing. It forced me to build an improvement that would force the worker to chop the forest. After that the bloom, wait for forest and be fast with lumbermilling combo. Because oddly enough a lumbermill stays in the forest when it upgrades to ancient, iirc.

So here's what I'm torn between: #### Would a native speaker have put it this way? :confused: ####

Option A - The more moral and logical option


# File is CIV4UnitInfos
# In the define elven worker section change

<Build>
<BuildType>BUILD_LUMBERMILL</BuildType>
<bBuild>1</bBuild>
</Build>

# to

<Build>
<BuildType>BUILD_LUMBERMILL</BuildType>
<bBuild>0</bBuild>
</Build>





Option B - The "dream of more power" option


# File is CIV4ImprovementInfos
# Add the following code to the lumbermill info:

<FeatureMakesValid>
<FeatureType>FEATURE_FOREST_ANCIENT</FeatureType>
<bMakesValid>1</bMakesValid>
</FeatureMakesValid>




Option A seems to be more elvish since it simply disallows to industrially exploit the forest. While Option B is certainly empowering the Ljosalfar-FotL Combo but is granting this bonus to other civs that use FotL as well.

---

Please note that I have only played FfH for a couple of days and that I have no clue of programming or modding at all. I'm a music therapist after all. But I'd highly appreciate your comments and witty remarks. ;)

Oh ... this is probably the place for a big fat

:) Thank You! :)

to all those modders who made this come true.

I wasn't aware that the Elven workers could build lumbermills; prior to BtS, they could not. I don't think there supposed to be able to build them now. (There isn't really a reason to change bBuild to 0; just delete that section entirely)

Actually, I was just thinking that it would be more appropriate if no FoL civ could build lumbermills, but if only they could build the Forest Preserve improvement from BtS. (I would also want eh Dark Elves to have the same workers as the Ljosalfar.) Forest preserves should increase the rate at which a Forest becomes an Ancient Forest, spread Forests/Ancient Forests, and have synergy with Guardian of Nature civic (probably happiness, maybe free bards if possible). Lumbermills should also be builable on Ancient Forests, be more productive there, have negative effects with Guardian of Nature (probably unhappiness), and have a chance of demoting an Ancient Forest back to a normal Forest. (It might be appropriate for lumber mills in general had a small chance to clear the forests from the tile completely, and then be destroyed since there is nothing left to cut. This could probably just be handled trough events.)

I found the same thing with the lumbermills as maniac - perhaps a Leaves wonder giving +1 hammer per ancient forest?


Ahem......

[...]
Actually, I was just thinking that it would be more appropriate if no FoL civ could build lumbermills,
[...]
Lumbermills should also be builable on Ancient Forests, be more productive there, have negative effects with Guardian of Nature (probably unhappiness), and have a chance of demoting an Ancient Forest back to a normal Forest.
[...]


Err, :huh:?

But I hear you on the events. :lol: That's a cute idea. :D And I definitely hear you on the same worker units for the dark elves. ;) I second that.

Ja.

I read that, Rex. And I think it might be nice. But would you suggest a wonder then or rather a national wonder? A civics option would be nice too. I wonder what that could be? :mischief: :p ;)

Feature for the elven races scout units: Hidden steps
Available as upgrade.

Would effectively permit scouts to be hidden from enemy units while staying in a forest. This could even have 2 levels where the first level grants the hidden feature while not moving and the second level permit the scout to move and remain hidden.

Feature for all races scout units: Watchful
Available as upgrade.

Can detect enemy hidden scout units.

This could branch out to other scout units acting in their natural environment. Like Lizardlings in the jungle... You get the picture.

"Feature" doesn't mean any new concept, only terrain features (forests, flames, etc)


The fitst "feature" you suggested is basically thr same thing as the Forest stealth promotion. This was a recon-only promotion that required combat2 and woodsman1 and granted invisibility to the unit only while it was on a tile with the Forest, Ancient Forest, or Jungle features. This was present in all the pre-BtS versions of FfH (at least since I discovered FfH .16 a little more than a year ago). I will be greatly disappoined if it isn't brought back.

There are already units in the game that can detect invisible units (Hawks and Sand Lions, for example)