I was playing the Doviello the other day, well nice to play but nothing special.
They reminded me a bit of the Barbarians of "Magic the Gathering", the Keldons.

That made me come up with several ideas for them.
I started modding a bit (finally those programming classes paid off) and created a new civic for them, which i called "Witch King".

the idea behind this goverment civic was to be an all out war civic, with boost for production, no war weariness (the first thought was to reverse War Weariness, making them happy when at War, but i didn't know if that is even possible), a malus to health less culture and almost no research at all. ( i added less gold for balance).

may need a little balance but worked out better than expected.

then i wanted to add a special promotion for that civic, called "Witch King".
the idea was to make your most experienced unit The Witch King, or if a unit with at least lv6 could get that promotion, when no unit else already had it.
That unit would represent the Leader of your civilization, so if he dies there would be some unhappiness for some turns.
or if you have stronger unit you can challenge him, which might be a spell that makes the strongest unit on the plot the Witch King.
Well the problem is, i have no idea how to add this, if someone has an idea how i can add this, i would really appreciate it.

I'm trying to figure this out myself, but this could take a while, since i have no experience in xml or python.

mfg
Timo

PS: I'm happy to upload my results when i have something worth sharing

Sounds a lot like how the Mercurians and Infernals are being handled (leaders as units), but in civic form? Sounds interesting. But how about: if your leader unit dies (to an enemy unit, I should say), you could get dumped back into despotism with 5 turns of anarchy.

And could you call the civic "Warlordship" and the promotion "Leader"? Witch-King reminds me too much of LOTR ;)

yeah, the name probably isn't very good, creativity isn't one of my strenghts.

some rounds of anarchy with a killded leader sound good.

mfg
Timo

My thoughts on Frosty Raiders (Essentially viking type civ here) is that they should either be heavily invested in the sea (as ice is not very useful) and that they should earn most of their resources and production from raids (not territory capture).

In this, I think that they (the Doviello) should revolve around a concept of "growth" that is attached to military action. In this, i think that they could have a unique set of buildings and other options that are directly tied to wealth. This is disimilar to the khazad in that where the khazad actually produce their wealth, the dovilleo will be forced to steal it. I think that the first thing that could be done is that every time the doviello kill a unit they gain some gold, Perhaps they would gain an amount of gold equal to the experiance of the unit and/or the strength of the unit. This would provide a small influx of gold. Also, I think that the doviello should have a "different style" of pillaging. In this, if they pillage a resource, they would gain access to that resource for x amount of turns. You pillaged gold? Your civ gets gold as a resource for 10 turns. I also think that the Doviello should/coulg gain technology progress (not techs themselves but perhaps beakers IN some techs) every time they killed an appropriate unit or sacked a city. The doviello should have a third option for citys. "Sacking". You can capture, Raze, or Sack a city. Sacking a city would differ because it would kill half the population (not all), it would destroy half the buildings (not all), and would provide twice the gold, and half THAT amount in beakers. The only problem is, that the invading unit would be instantly returned to the capital (To laud its glory) and this would stifle constant invasion. Perhaps all units within 1 square of the city would be forceably moved back to the capital. (IN this it would encourage spread out attacks to multiple cities, instead of concentrated forces - as the concentrated force would always be returned to the capital.) The Cultural Garison of the sacked city should perhaps also be halved. But ownership remains the same.

To balance this, i think that the production of the doviello should be retarded a bit. Perhaps dont give them access to windmills, workshops or any "higher level" improvements. Just the lower level improvements.

On that note, there should be more of a difference in quality between lower level improvements and higher level improvements. With notable exceptions for race-specific improvemnts like the dwarven mine, which will always be high quality.

Also, I think that like desert, ICE should carry with it some penalty. I'm thinking that instead of movement penalties and indefenseability, that perhaps it should be a slow drain on health and a % promotion that gives all units stuck in ice an 50% chance of -1 movement. (this would mean occasionally units would be "stuck" in ice, and the ice would be eating away their strength). THe doviello and any other "cold types" would be immune to this effect.
-Qes

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 just posted that in design terrain thread... ice really needs to be scarier

IT IS Scarier. I live in Minnesota. Were Viking decendants and we Know what our ancestors liked and what they liked to do. Ya live in ice, but you pillage the "warmies". Then you move to the midwest of another continant and lament "The olden times".

-Qes

yeah, there indeed need to be some more advantages for Doviello on Ice.

getting extra research points from capturing cities is something i was thinking about, too.
I just don't know how to implement this.
as far as i know i would have to add it to CvEventManager.py .

well, i'm trying right now, but to be honest i've no idea what i am doing, if somebody with experience in this could give me a hint this would be really cool.


mfg
Timo

Isn't there already a mod that does that?

Or maybe the promotion Warrior King (I don't know about witch king, sounds magic based) is availible to them any time, only givable to one unit at a time who must be level 6 or something. Only when they already have one such unit can they adopt the civic, Warrior/Witch King, which would have benifits like you describe. Then if he dies, it's back to anarchy til you promote another.
This would be easier to balance, since their hero comes late, though of course they could get a religious hero to jump start their conquest.

Oh, and Dovellio will probably get a bit more fun when some of the v16 unit models come in.

How about a Doviello Nomad unit that can spawn units when residing on Tundra? Like in the Warlords Mongol scenario?

nothing special about the doviello?

that's crazy!

i have yet to play a game with the doviello in which i've gotten immortals, or any other tier4 unit

because i've won by then!

they get cheap units, have no need for many buildings, and so you spend your time creating lots of axemen, or BATTLEMASTERS, and crushing your opponents... those units are so cheap!

the doviello already play, quite well, like a barbarian horde...

a few bonuses in ice, and a viking ship UU might work, but they're already pretty flavorful to me

how about:

A civic that, when converted to gives your highest xp unit the hero promotion. (and perhaps a unique tracking promotion "Warlord")
If this unit dies you go into anarchy and revert your government civic to the default. After the anarchy and 10 turn waiting period between civic changes you can switch back and a new unit is promoted to leader.

Give the civic a few other abilitys too,
+ 10% military production
- 20% war wearyness
+ 2 unit xp mele/archer
medium upkeep

how about:

A civic that, when converted to gives your highest xp unit the hero promotion. (and perhaps a unique tracking promotion "Warlord")
If this unit dies you go into anarchy and revert your government civic to the default. After the anarchy and 10 turn waiting period between civic changes you can switch back and a new unit is promoted to leader.

Give the civic a few other abilitys too,
+ 10% military production
- 20% war wearyness
+ 2 unit xp mele/archer
medium upkeep

Nice idea - but in most cases your most experianced unit will already have more than 100xp. So not much point in giving him the hero promotion.

I think Doviello and the Clan are tough to play with the raging barb option. This is because you really have to manage your score or you can get the nasty surprise of the barbs declaring war on you while you are building up your civ.

I have never tried Doviello, but every time I have played Sheelba or Jonas, this has happened to me no matter what I did. Then, it is tough because your civ is not built to defend against the raging barbs.

I think Doviello and the Clan are tough to play with the raging barb option. This is because you really have to manage your score or you can get the nasty surprise of the barbs declaring war on you while you are building up your civ.

I have never tried Doviello, but every time I have played Sheelba or Jonas, this has happened to me no matter what I did. Then, it is tough because your civ is not built to defend against the raging barbs.

You could try raising the difficulty level, that should fix your problem :)

the hero promotion also gives access to heroic strength 1&2 and twincast.

one thing that would add flavour to the more barbaric civs would be to allow their axemen to chop down forests, offering them a utility like the way dwarven soldiers can build mines.

one thing that would add flavour to the more barbaric civs would be to allow their axemen to chop down forests, offering them a utility like the way dwarven soldiers can build mines.

Hey this is a good idea. But of course ONLY for barbarian civs. Perhaps they'd get a free fort out of it "on the formerly forested tile" For their efforts?
-Qes

one thing that would add flavour to the more barbaric civs would be to allow their axemen to chop down forests, offering them a utility like the way dwarven soldiers can build mines.

K, added. Doviello and Orc Axemen can chop forests and jungles (with the right techs).

K, added. Doviello and Orc Axemen can chop forests and jungles (with the right techs).

Sweet ... how about them getting pillage from chopping down
Ancient Forests outside their cultural boundries? That'll add a nice new hostility vector (Ljo -> kill -> Barbarian civs) :)?

Sweet ... how about them getting pillage from chopping down
Ancient Forests outside their cultural boundries? That'll add a nice new hostility vector (Ljo -> kill -> Barbarian civs) :)?

Yeah, unfortunatly its not that easy to do. I may need to check out what it would take to improve outside of cultural borders.

Sweet ... how about them getting pillage from chopping down
Ancient Forests outside their cultural boundries? That'll add a nice new hostility vector (Ljo -> kill -> Barbarian civs) :)?

I think chopping down an ancient forest, NO MATTER WHERE IT IS, should have a LARGE % chance of spawning a permanent barbarian tree ent.

One should not be able to chop down ancient forests (Regardless of where they are) without some serious consequences.
-Qes

I think chopping down an ancient forest, NO MATTER WHERE IT IS, should have a LARGE % chance of spawning a permanent barbarian tree ent.

One should not be able to chop down ancient forests (Regardless of where they are) without some serious consequences.
-Qes

Why?









No monster appears when a gem mine is pillaged, or moved into. The "free" treant spawns occur quite nicely already. To chop down a forest there is already a chance the Trant will spawn. That's enough. That's flavorful.

Yeah, unfortunatly its not that easy to do. I may need to check out what it would take to improve outside of cultural borders.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=184795
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4206878
the improvements outside borders requires SDK changes apparently, the first link is to the thread about integrating some other mods into ffh, and the second is the thread for building improvements outside borders.. which would be great if it could be put in, so many fun things could be done :p

and grat about barb civs being able to chop trees :D

Well Ancient Forests are trees with own minds, living trees... I agree with QES on this one, there should be a change of a major enfuried ent apearing....

Well Ancient Forests are trees with own minds, living trees... I agree with QES on this one, there should be a change of a major enfuried ent apearing....

There already is that chance ... any hostile unit moving into a AF has a chance for the ent to spawn. Again, that is flavorful, and that is sufficient.

It should be up the the civilization to protect its forests. Not some uber robot that appears to relieve the nation of the responsibiity to defend itself.

Im my opinion It should be a big change, like more than 50%, when you chop a AF, and the treant should be stronger than the normal one and be BARBARIAN and PERMANENT, attacking the agressors and every one else on their fury, even the ones who tried to protect then...

Or failed to protect them if you think about it a little more. (you call yourselves guardians of nature and you won't even guard us trees?!?)

I tough about that whe I wrote the post :crazyeye:

But if you do implement that, be sure to give axemen bonuses against Treants. Axes are made to chop down trees, remember.

I can see it now, "But Mr. Treant, you were standing on the only source of iron on this whole continent" :)

But if you do implement that, be sure to give axemen bonuses against Treants. Axes are made to chop down trees, remember.

Ah yes, the oft-forgotten Other Side Of The Coin. Well said. +200% against Treants sounds about right for Axemen. :)

lol... not that much :crazyeye:

+100% is ok...

lol... not that much :crazyeye:

+100% is ok...

Well, I WAS going to say +300%, but I figured I'd just save us time and go straight to the compromise. :D

And vulnerable to fire.

if the treant is barbarian (maybe even enraged?), this tactic could even harm the defending nation, so it's not only a bonus for them. (also, you don't have to pillage the forest in the first place...)

Why?

Becauase your chopping down an ancient forest...
Treants are the guardians of forests.

How more clearly could i put this?

The Ancient forest is a quasi-sentient thing and will protect itself. Most of the time, its associated with FOL, becuase the civ who adopts FOL is a mortal manifestation of the same "will". However, for Ancient forests in lands that have either "Lost" their civ-guardians, and/or have changed religions and/or have had boarders move, should still retain some measure of self-preservation.

Self-preservation is all im talking about here. And a Barbarian Treeant who's appearnce depends on the destruction of its ward makes perfect sense.


No monster appears when a gem mine is pillaged, or moved into. The "free" treant spawns occur quite nicely already. To chop down a forest there is already a chance the Trant will spawn. That's enough. That's flavorful.


Gem mines arnt quasi-sentiant. And chopping down an ancient forest that is in your own lands, when youre not FOL, because of boarder movement - ISNT enough. Because there is no consequence. You wanna kill FOL forests? Culture-expand over them, chop em down, NOTHING will be pissed off by that. Thats rediculous.

Please. The forests are bestial and are at minimum aware of self-peservation. I'm not sure they take much in the way of "political ramifications of boarders" into account.

-Qes

Gem mines arnt quasi-sentiant
My... My precious?

But if you do implement that, be sure to give axemen bonuses against Treants. Axes are made to chop down trees, remember.

And Treants should have weakness to fire, if they dont already.

My... My precious?

No, my smurf wrangling friend. No.

MY Precious.

-Qes

EDIT: Grey Fox I agree. Treeants shouldnt like fire.

need a god thats more barbarian like that would make them more useful i think

Becauase your chopping down an ancient forest...
Treants are the guardians of forests.

How more clearly could i put this?

The Ancient forest is a quasi-sentient thing and will protect itself. Most of the time, its associated with FOL, becuase the civ who adopts FOL is a mortal manifestation of the same "will". However, for Ancient forests in lands that have either "Lost" their civ-guardians, and/or have changed religions and/or have had boarders move, should still retain some measure of self-preservation.

Self-preservation is all im talking about here. And a Barbarian Treeant who's appearnce depends on the destruction of its ward makes perfect sense.




Gem mines arnt quasi-sentiant. And chopping down an ancient forest that is in your own lands, when youre not FOL, because of boarder movement - ISNT enough. Because there is no consequence. You wanna kill FOL forests? Culture-expand over them, chop em down, NOTHING will be pissed off by that. Thats rediculous.

Please. The forests are bestial and are at minimum aware of self-peservation. I'm not sure they take much in the way of "political ramifications of boarders" into account.

-Qes


I'm sorry QES, I have a hard time feeling AFs are "specal" when I see about 300 AF tiles at the end of a game. If the ancient forests was really a special feature, a patch of forest comprising say 1%-2% of the map, then yeah, I'd say tha't "special." But AFs as implemented right now are "common", not "special". Add a robot defender to every other tile in someone's empire and how the devil is that going to balance out? Don't even have to pay for those insta-defenders. There's already a chance for such a robot to emerge simply for entering an AF tile. Isn't that enough?

One can't have one's cake and eat it too. If AFs are as common as we see now, they deserve to be at risk for chopping. If AFs were actually rare, then it would be flavorful to have the also-supposedly-rare ents emerge to defend them. It is not flavorful to have ents as common as raging barbarian Orcs, nor will it lead to game balance.

Sometimes one must make a choice. Since the game right now spawns a lot of AF tiles, giving a couple realms the incentive to chop them down makes for a great source of diplomatic friction and open hostility. That means more fun. There are players who like playing Doviello and Clan ... they deserve to have a few cool mechanisms apply to their favorite realms too.

I'm sorry QES, I have a hard time feeling AFs are "specal" when I see about 300 AF tiles at the end of a game. If the ancient forests was really a special feature, a patch of forest comprising say 1%-2% of the map, then yeah, I'd say tha't "special." But AFs as implemented right now are "common", not "special". Add a robot defender to every other tile in someone's empire and how the devil is that going to balance out? Don't even have to pay for those insta-defenders. There's already a chance for such a robot to emerge simply for entering an AF tile. Isn't that enough?

One can't have one's cake and eat it too. If AFs are as common as we see now, they deserve to be at risk for chopping. If AFs were actually rare, then it would be flavorful to have the also-supposedly-rare ents emerge to defend them. It is not flavorful to have ents as common as raging barbarian Orcs, nor will it lead to game balance.

Sometimes one must make a choice. Since the game right now spawns a lot of AF tiles, giving a couple realms the incentive to chop them down makes for a great source of diplomatic friction and open hostility. That means more fun. There are players who like playing Doviello and Clan ... they deserve to have a few cool mechanisms apply to their favorite realms too.

The crys for balance generally fall on my very deaf ears. The reason i Play FfH is flavor, then the "gameplay". Now while ive always agreed that gameplay is important and can never be ignored, when we speak on very small matters (like speicifc bonuses, or tile differentials) then were nit-picking.

I agree, that Ancient Forests tend to be over common near the end of the game. But instead of allowing willynilly chopping, personally I think that Ancient forests should be powerful and rare. I think the % chance under FOL should plumit drastically. And perhaps all forests everywhere get a VERY small chance of independantly turning into AF. (This would give non-FOL civs an opporunitiy to randomly and independantly gain AFs).

Ents:

Ents in my opinion are underpowered and overly common. I agree that they're an "oft spawn" situation. But in the late game, if we're honest with ourselves, they're of not much use. T4 units eat them alive, and T3's can gang up on them. Personally I think the ENTs should be a force to be reconed with individually, and en masse nigh unstoppable. But their apperances should be far more rare.

In this, My "barbarian ent" philosophy should be understood to be apart from FOL ent-ness. If there is FOL coverage over an AF, then it has 0% of chance of spawning a barbarian ent, all it can spawn is civ-specific ents.

If the AF is in non-FOL territory then potential spawns are only ever barbarian units. ALSO, I did not intend the Ent to spawn BEFORE the AF is chopped down, but instead, in responce TO it. So the AF STILL gets chopped down. And on the offence, IN territory belonging to the FOL, chopping forests would have 0 reprocussions except for the already standard issue of wandering around in unfriendly AFs.

Now, if NO implementation is made, and all things are kept as they are now, I've no real problem with it. But the nature of the AF (while it should be more rare, i agree) is that it IS going to try to defend itself if it has a burst of insight. AFs dont LIKE being chopped down, and so what other options have they? Hence the barbarian Ent.

Also, if AFs are "all over" as you said, that means Multiple civs are under the religion of FOL. If you have ONE or two FOL civs, then the AFs are generally going to be quarentined in those areas. The barbarian ent issue is therefore mitigated immediately to "rare" occurances, since the only possibility of their apperance is in Non FOL territory and after a AF is chopped down. Frankly, this doesnt happen ALL that often unless your dealing with a FOL v Culture Whore situation. Any of the "barbarian civs" dont strike me as particularly cultueresque, and when they go on the attack IN FOL territory, nothing would change. The only ents to spawn would be normal FOL spawnage.

So, while your trying to defend the "gameplay" and balance issues, while i can respect that, this "occurance" would be rare, and equally hostile to the FOL players in the game. "Mad, enraged ents" dont have allies.

Summery:

AFs grow only in FOL territory. And Barb ents shouldnt spawn in FOL territory.
Barb Ents %chance spawn only AFTER a good chopping down of a AF.
Barb ents are not friends of FOL civs - Or any civ for that matter.
Keeps things consistant for AFs
Keeps Balance becuase its not particuarly Pro or con anyone. Its the game defending itself.
I like cheese.

-Qes

I think chopping down an ancient forest, NO MATTER WHERE IT IS, should have a LARGE % chance of spawning a permanent barbarian tree ent.

One should not be able to chop down ancient forests (Regardless of where they are) without some serious consequences.
-Qes

Well, I'm fairly good at reading between the lines, but I didn't see this coming. ;)

The crys for balance generally fall on my very deaf ears. The reason i Play FfH is flavor, then the "gameplay". Now while ive always agreed that gameplay is important and can never be ignored, when we speak on very small matters (like speicifc bonuses, or tile differentials) then were nit-picking.

I agree, that Ancient Forests tend to be over common near the end of the game. But instead of allowing willynilly chopping, personally I think that Ancient forests should be powerful and rare. I think the % chance under FOL should plumit drastically. And perhaps all forests everywhere get a VERY small chance of independantly turning into AF. (This would give non-FOL civs an opporunitiy to randomly and independantly gain AFs).

Ents:

Ents in my opinion are underpowered and overly common. I agree that they're an "oft spawn" situation.

...

"Mad, enraged ents" dont have allies.

Summery:

AFs grow only in FOL territory. And Barb ents shouldnt spawn in FOL territory.
Barb Ents %chance spawn only AFTER a good chopping down of a AF.
Barb ents are not friends of FOL civs - Or any civ for that matter.
Keeps things consistant for AFs
Keeps Balance becuase its not particuarly Pro or con anyone. Its the game defending itself.
I like cheese.

-Qes

It's cool that your thinking has evolved. But clearly I was responding to something entirely different from your latest post. :)

I agree that it is entirely possible to create a different Ancient Forests system in which it would make sense for Treebeards to come out of the woods and start tipping over towers. But that's not the way it is in FfH at this moment. Ents do not have a starring role in this saga, else there would be an Ent civilization. All that's happened is the Axemen of a couple civs have gained tha ability to chop down forests. We don't even know if they can do this in enemy territory yet. This is a small change so far, and it makes sense WRT to the existing AF situation. Small changes are good. Kael and Ko. kan realitkally be expekted to kode only so much.

The Orc units are not 'Orcy' enough. They seem bland and nothing special about them. Lizardmen and Ogres are somewhat nice, but I play Clan of Embers for the Orcs.

Why don't Orcs get a racial bonus like Elven and Dwarven units recieve?

The crys for balance generally fall on my very deaf ears.
Does this mean you're okay with rangers being the strongest T3 unit (IIRC)? that doesn't sound too flavourful to me.

The Orc units are not 'Orcy' enough. They seem bland and nothing special about them. Lizardmen and Ogres are somewhat nice, but I play Clan of Embers for the Orcs.

Why don't Orcs get a racial bonus like Elven and Dwarven units recieve?

As I've said before in another thread. I dont think they are done with the orcs yet. I think being Orcish will have a bonus soon (as well as the current drawback of having a promotion against you+the fact that barbarians are orcs mean that many others will take the orc slayer promo, atleast in MP).

The Orc units are not 'Orcy' enough. They seem bland and nothing special about them. Lizardmen and Ogres are somewhat nice, but I play Clan of Embers for the Orcs.

Why don't Orcs get a racial bonus like Elven and Dwarven units recieve?

Chand suggested they be given some limited ability to develop in Jungle terrain. Enough so a city could get a head start in Jungle before Sanitation, but not so much that they could build jungled super-cities. (If that makes sesne.) How does that grab you for Orciness? Emerging from the "inhospitable" areas of the world seems like a pretty good match, IMO. What about IYO?

Does this mean you're okay with rangers being the strongest T3 unit (IIRC)? that doesn't sound too flavourful to me.

Rangers as the most badass unit in the field strikes me as odd flavor wise, so no. But my complaints are not out of its comparison to other units, but instead its flavor in the FfH world.

Though, i've never posted on the Ranger issue. (Until Now)
-Qes

Well, I'm fairly good at reading between the lines, but I didn't see this coming. ;)



It's cool that your thinking has evolved. But clearly I was responding to something entirely different from your latest post. :)

I agree that it is entirely possible to create a different Ancient Forests system in which it would make sense for Treebeards to come out of the woods and start tipping over towers. But that's not the way it is in FfH at this moment. Ents do not have a starring role in this saga, else there would be an Ent civilization. All that's happened is the Axemen of a couple civs have gained tha ability to chop down forests. We don't even know if they can do this in enemy territory yet. This is a small change so far, and it makes sense WRT to the existing AF situation. Small changes are good. Kael and Ko. kan realitkally be expekted to kode only so much.

I am personally a big fan of the idea that the barbarian civs can chop down forests. I fully support it. I love that their axeman units do exactly this. My problem is not with that function, but with the (now addmittedly vague) role of AFs. If they're mysterious and slightly uberized, and Ents are supposed to be a force of nature (I dont want an Ent Civ), then people chopping down AF should bring consequences, or at least a risk of consequences.

These consequences on enemy soil is that your pissing off the enemy. The consequences on NON-enemy soil should still be a factor to consider before proceeding.

And im sorry my thinking hath "evolved" ill do my best to return to slime status. mmm, primordial goo.
-Qes

If they're mysterious and slightly uberized, and Ents are supposed to be a force of nature (I dont want an Ent Civ), then people chopping down AF should bring consequences, or at least a risk of consequences.

Yeah I agree, they should not be a civ. They should be a slow and long lived race that dont care about petty small things happening during a short time as some centuries (short for them, they could be sleeping or meerely discussing what time of day is the best). But when they ARE angered, they will be surely pissed off.

Yeah I agree, they should not be a civ. They should be a slow and long lived race that dont care about petty small things happening during a short time as some centuries (short for them, they could be sleeping or meerely discussing what time of day is the best). But when they ARE angered, they will be surely pissed off.

VERY well said. I agree. This is exactly what ive been feeling.
-Qes

I agree, too. Also, I'd rather say AF are rather too common than too strong (mostly flavorwise I mean). Or, actually maybe leaves is too common, again also because it is the alignment neutral religion.

Flavorwise I wished another religion would take the place of the common, aligment indifferent religion. Ok that's another topic, sorry.

I am personally a big fan of the idea that the barbarian civs can chop down forests. I fully support it. I love that their axeman units do exactly this. My problem is not with that function, but with the (now addmittedly vague) role of AFs. If they're mysterious and slightly uberized, and Ents are supposed to be a force of nature (I dont want an Ent Civ), then people chopping down AF should bring consequences, or at least a risk of consequences.

These consequences on enemy soil is that your pissing off the enemy. The consequences on NON-enemy soil should still be a factor to consider before proceeding.

And im sorry my thinking hath "evolved" ill do my best to return to slime status. mmm, primordial goo.
-Qes

I agree that the classic concept of the sentinent 'ancient forest' involves pissed off ents emerging should someone be so rash as to attempt a lumberjacking. But right now I don't think the 'classic' concept is the 'FfH' concept. FfH AFs appear at random. Entire continents can be peppered with AF tiles all over. That doesn't fit the classic concept of some very special patch of forest. I'm no Tolkein expert, but I'm pretty sure he didn't have Ents scattered all over Middle Earth. They were found only in that one forest IIRC. So FfH AFs are different from Tokeinesque AFs. No biggie. That's fine. I personally have no problem with different fantasy imagined differently. It is for that reason that 99.9% of my feedback is concerned with gameplay balance. Contruct the fantasy setting any way you like, just so the game is interesting to play.

Right now FfH AFs are just to common to allow robot defenders to emerge to defend them. The fact they are so common is what makes the Axeman chopdown such a good idea. One realm wants 'em to spread ... other realms want to reverse the process. War breaks out and everyone is happy. But if FfH did have a small very special patch of AF, then we probably would not want to allow mere grubby Axemen to chop it down in the first place. ;)

I don't care what flavor Kael and kronies decide upon, but I do expect they respect play balance. I have played countless games full of flavor but empty of balance. I just haven't played any of them twice. Such games have no reply value; all the bells and whistles are just so much chrome. But that's just me.

BTW I meant nothing by the word 'evolve' other than the concept of change occuring over time.

what about giving Orcs the Possibility to capture defeated Units (not as slaves, but as captives or pows) to bring em back to an altar and sacrifice them to Bhal for favour.
By that getting "a yet to define" bonus depending on the amount of captives being sacrificed at once??

what about giving Orcs the Possibility to capture defeated Units (not as slaves, but as captives or pows) to bring em back to an altar and sacrifice them to Bhal for favour.
By that getting "a yet to define" bonus depending on the amount of captives being sacrificed at once??

How about copying the great people reward system? For the first reward you need a few sacrifices, for the next reward you will need more, and more and more, etc...

Sacrifice captives to gain raw GP points, maybe? Meh, I like the Orcs-build-in-jungles idea better, but we might be able to use them both! :D

I don't know, are Orcs associated with jungle anyway? Wouldn't they just burn it down like forests?

I don't know, are Orcs associated with jungle anyway? Wouldn't they just burn it down like forests?

I would say they are more associated with hills/mountains/plains, but if think about the shamanism about orcs in many RPGs/stories/games shamanism is often related to jungle in my book.

I agree that the classic concept of the sentinent 'ancient forest' involves pissed off ents emerging should someone be so rash as to attempt a lumberjacking. But right now I don't think the 'classic' concept is the 'FfH' concept. FfH AFs appear at random. Entire continents can be peppered with AF tiles all over. That doesn't fit the classic concept of some very special patch of forest. I'm no Tolkein expert, but I'm pretty sure he didn't have Ents scattered all over Middle Earth. They were found only in that one forest IIRC. So FfH AFs are different from Tokeinesque AFs. No biggie. That's fine. I personally have no problem with different fantasy imagined differently. It is for that reason that 99.9% of my feedback is concerned with gameplay balance. Contruct the fantasy setting any way you like, just so the game is interesting to play.

Right now FfH AFs are just to common to allow robot defenders to emerge to defend them. The fact they are so common is what makes the Axeman chopdown such a good idea. One realm wants 'em to spread ... other realms want to reverse the process. War breaks out and everyone is happy. But if FfH did have a small very special patch of AF, then we probably would not want to allow mere grubby Axemen to chop it down in the first place. ;)

I don't care what flavor Kael and kronies decide upon, but I do expect they respect play balance. I have played countless games full of flavor but empty of balance. I just haven't played any of them twice. Such games have no reply value; all the bells and whistles are just so much chrome. But that's just me.

BTW I meant nothing by the word 'evolve' other than the concept of change occuring over time.

These are all very good points. And the commonality of AF abundance is an issue I respect. Now, I have a thought - just me.

Why not change New Forests - Forests - Ancient forests into a system like cottages villages? Or is that too lame? It might be too lame.

But if FOL peopels worked a tile (blessed by religion) the forest transforms into an AF. The rarities of AFs would be restricted to being primarily around FOL (blessed) cities. Then these AF's could be given more power and ents, also subsequently more power.

Perhaps New Forests could still turn into regular forests on their own (but please, a lot lot slower).

It MIGHT be cool to make AFs impassible except by people with woodsman promotions. INCLUDING the elves. (Only the Penitant man shall pass).

Cool?

-Qes

Ps. I dont easily take offense...but seriously...dont diss primordial goo or I'll go Precambrian on your ass.

EDIT: Id like to see more variety in types of Forests and Mountains, personally.

Id love to add to teh New forest, Forest, and Ancient forest - the Haunted forest, and the Maiden Forest. The haunted forest would be a hotbed of barbarian producing activity (but not a city) and potentially a location for future questing, this would randomly appear on the map and not be connected to anything else. The Maiden forest is an EVEN OLDER Ancient forest. These would have REDUCED work benefits, but would be exceedingly rare. THe benefits however, would be the increadible defensive qualities of it (200%) and some other boon, like access to ent making, or fey creatures. Perhaps a restriction on the civ - unable to normally produce other units in that city. Still very cool.

I don't know, are Orcs associated with jungle anyway? Wouldn't they just burn it down like forests?

Perhaps not 'jungle' in the specific sense. But 'jungle' in the sense that they are forced into living in the marginal, unhealthy regions. Be they swamps, scrubland hills, whatever, the dwell wherever more advanced, intelligent races don't want to live.

In Civ terms, that terrain is called 'jungle'. :)

yeah, I had something like that in mind, too. A simple way of going into that direction would be to remove the health malus from jungle for orcs. So then they could live next to it but wouldn't get a specific advantage...

on the other hand, if they can build in jungle, they don't get a specific advantage from the jungle itself, either, I see.

another crazy thought

what about giving them a happiness bonus for a couple of turns, when they kill a unit, you could differ humans, elves and dwarves.
Happiness would be caused by trophies gained from the killed units (maybe ears, teeth or heads).
each killed unit would give happiness for like 2 turns and the bonus stacks, meaning that nif you kill 5 units you get 10 turns happiness and it is prolonged by 2 turns for every unit.
with the 3 races you could get up to 3 happiness through this, may sound much, but you would probably have to be at war with 3 civs for that.

additionally if you have one of those "Ear Ressources" units produced in the capital get the according Slayer Promotion.
or maybe a national wonder for Doviello thats grants those bonuses.

then there should really be a Bloodlust Spell, avaiable to Doviello and CoE at Divine III or maybe a minor version on II.
The Minor Version could give the whole stack +20% Power for 1turn, maybe -10% Defense too.
The Big Version could give ONE unit +50% Strenght for 1 turn and heal the unit for a tiny bit, at the end of turn the unit gets something like 5-25% Damage. (That would mean the unit gets a temporary boost in strenght, during which it feals no pain, but when the boost is over it may die, depending on how severe the damage taken was (seems fitting to the theme))
instead of the 50% bonus i think a direct bonus to the Strenght Points would be better( like Heroic Strenght)
the reason is that 50% could be overpowered with the really strong units, but otherwise it would be to weak for a lv III spell

mfg
Mavy

another crazy thought

...

additionally if you have one of those "Ear Ressources" units produced in the capital get the according Slayer Promotion.
or maybe a national wonder for Doviello thats grants those bonuses.

...

mfg
Mavy

All sorts of good ideas in this post. Dunno if they can be programed to exist under the Civ engine but it's good brainstorming. But how could anyone not live the concept of 'Ear Resources'? :lol:

Two words Viking Kittens (http://users.wolfcrews.com/toys/vikings/)

Two words Viking Kittens (http://users.wolfcrews.com/toys/vikings/)

Another follower of the Catinuum!

It is good to see a fellow brother in fur.
-Qes

This thread does give me some idea. How about giving the doviello a tech equivalent to seafaring, but for tundra and ice. Maybe having an air based spell for them and the illians for converting terrain to tundra and ice, with an appropriate balancing spell elsewhere to convert it back. This might be more flavorful for the illians, but it could also give the Doviello a bit of a "frostling" feel. Both of those civs seem to be focused on keeping or returning to the age of ice.

Lanun actually get their +1 food from water from their palace. Would be neat if Doviello got +1 food from ice/tundra so they could actually have some hope of maintaining a city in icelands.

Could give them a civ special that makes the lands around them turn to tundra or ice like the way forests turn to ancient forests for FoL

Lanun actually get their +1 food from water from their palace. Would be neat if Doviello got +1 food from ice/tundra so they could actually have some hope of maintaining a city in icelands.

Could give them a civ special that makes the lands around them turn to tundra or ice like the way forests turn to ancient forests for FoL

Ah right I forgot it was from their palace now. But yeah, the biggest problem with playing a tundra-based civ is the fact that you can't do much with tundra.

and id hope theyd learned a way to find food in tundra by now, they lived in it for a long time

and id hope theyd learned a way to find food in tundra by now, they lived in it for a long time

How about a special resource. Reindeers, only Doviello can hook them up, and doesnt give a bonus until a camp is built. Gives a very good food bonus.

then theyd still want to vitalize their lands, since then theyd get even more food

if tundra got +1 food itd be like grasslands for them, and ice would be like tundra, which would be nice

they need more though i think, like invisibility in Ice, +% def in ice, +% attack in ice and tundra, make ice like deserts and cost 2 movement (and block visibility like a peak does)
be nice if ice in general gave a def bonus, since its gotta be hard to attack people in ice

i really like different civs liking different landscapes, it means theres times when land is amazing for one civ and poor for another, meaning they may not fight simply because neither has anything the other can use

then theyd still want to vitalize their lands, since then theyd get even more food

Well, nerf vitalize. I've never gotten that far in a game yet, but it seems like its a too good spell.

grasslands aren't exactly the ultimate terrain.

there are a few sub-standard terrain types, including: ice, desert, tundra

but in general plains and grasslands are plentiful, and they are equal.

1:food:1:hammers: vs. 2:food:

and the change from plains to grasslands isnt even one i like, normally i want to turn grasslands into plains for the production

if anything, spring is overpowered, as it changes a 0 yield tile and adds 1 :food: and 1 :hammers:, where as changing a plains into a grassland is an even trade.

vitalize shouldnt be changed except to make it take longer and be automateable (by making the spell summon a terraformer worker who can be automated to build 'improvements' that do the land terraform)

I think most people would rank one :food: over one :hammers:. One :food: is essentially worth half a tile. If you have a bunch of crappy tiles, then that :food: isn't that valuable. But if one tile gives one :hammers: four :commerce:, then one :food: is worth half a hammer and two :commerce:. However, this doesn't take into account the happicap, but I'm not sure how it would effect the equation.

Either way, spring is still a powerful spell. I wish there was a spell like it for ice tiles (the first level sun sphere spell, perhaps?).

i can't agree on the 1 food equalling 1 hammer, it really depends, ive heard people say hammers are worth more than food, and that commerce is worth more than hammers, people are not in agreement on the subject

i would like that sun spell, though i think we need more reversals too, like one that can turn grasslands into plains, or into ice, etc.

Commerce, as a whole, is more valuable than hammers. If you were to offer me a hundred hammers per turn to be distributed around my cities, or a hundred commerce to be distributed, I'd choose the commerce. However, individual hammers are tougher to come by (until you get Arcane Lore, at least for me). Same deal with food- it's why I'll build a cottage on corn instead of a farm in the early stages of the game. First, the tech that gives farms isn't worth it until later, and second, my city couldn't use all that food anyway. That, and farm cottages look so funny. :lol:

ya, those corn metropolis' are insane heh

food really doesn't become important until you have the happycap raised a lot unless you have non-uber city placements, but when you need it its very important, when you want to build wonders production starts becoming very important, commerce is important in the long term, but when war is near production becomes the most important.

Yeah. I guess it boils down to the fact that excess food is worthless, excess hammers aren't very useful, but there's no such thing as excess commerce.

Yeah. I guess it boils down to the fact that excess food is worthless, excess hammers aren't very useful, but there's no such thing as excess commerce.
Excess food is not worthless when building settlers/workers, or under conquest civic. Or when pop-rushing or feasting population alot.

excess hammers can become anything commerce can with the right techs

and there are many uses for food like grey fox said :p

Well, for most situations it is. And even when it isn't worthless, hammers could do the job just as well. In fact, under God King, hammers are multiplied by 1.5 while food converted to production is not.

And hammers can only be converted to stuff that commerce can with a terrible rate of efficiency.

Well, for most situations it is. And even when it isn't worthless, hammers could do the job just as well. In fact, under God King, hammers are multiplied by 1.5 while food converted to production is not.
ahhh, that explains why food didnt seem to match up to production for me before under conquest heh

but still, pop rushing is useful, and being 2/3 of the production of hammers isnt so bad, food has some versatlity so its good, 2/3 of the function of something else is alright, since its not its main purpose

hammers 1/2 to commerce isnt bad either, commerce can't be converted into food or hammers, so its not as versatile (though can kinda be turned into hammers at some rate by rush buys, dont know what the conversion rate is on that)

Agreed. I'm still struggling to figure out a ratio of value for :food:::hammers:::commerce:, but I guess it's really situational.

Agreed. I'm still struggling to figure out a ratio of value for :food:::hammers:::commerce:, but I guess it's really situational.

I can agree that its Highly situational. But Commerce is almost always useful, wether it be paying for maintainance, or research, or rushing something.

:food: to me is always a realative value of capasity, in general, its the weakest of the three, but is also the most necessary to garner the other two.

:hammers: are always about expansion, they're directly responcible FOR that expansion, in multitudes of areas, physical expansion through cities and workers, or military and forced expansion through units and conquest, or the production of bulidings for expansion of culture and enterprize.

:commerce: Progress. simple and succinct, thats what this is. WIth Gold you progress through the ages, which is what a lot of civilzation is all about, and functions as the lifeblood of everything else, like civics manipulation, army size, and diplomatic barter.

The main issue with these three, is that while the first seems like it could potentially be the most powerful, it is mitigated by not one, but two different factors, unhealthiness and unhappiness, each producing their own kind of cap.

These two vairables, DO NOT put caps on :hammers: production or :commerce: production. In this, Food loses value becuase it has to be manipulated through more means than does the other incomes. If happiness and Unhealthiness more directly impacted the non-:food: income, i think that we'd see a balancing of the issue.

My suggestion? Make it an incomplete transfer. In this, If specialists were made more important, then High population cities would be come more valuable (in general all population points would increase in individual value)
Secondly, perhaps we could tie Unhealthiness to :commerce:, and Unhappiness to :hammers:. The excuse being, that Unhealthiness regards easily the level of sophistication and trade occuring, unhealthy cities do worse in trade, because they're not as glitzy, or the like. Unhappiness could directly impact :hammers: because an unhappy laborer is a violent laborer. Directly impacting :hammers: production via this method would be good. Also, this would make the impacts of Happiness and Healthiness far more important to deal with than merely increasing the population size of cities.

How To implement?

I suggest that :food: should be related to Unhealthiness and Unhappiness as it is now.

I Suggest that :hammers: Lose One base hammer for each Net Unhappiness

I suggest that :commerce: Lose 2 Gold per net Unhealthiness.

We Can also tie in alignment to this.

Evil civs should be immune to the :commerce: negative effects of Unhealthiness (Wallow in filth)
Neutral Civs should be Immune to the :hammers: negative effects of Unhappiness. (Protests are Peaceful)
Good civs should get +1 Happiness (like being good)

Just Ideas,
-Qes

in previous civs i think lots of production led to waste, which seems more like itd be unhealthiness... though not sure that was fun

Unhappiness already affects :commerce: & :hammers:, since an unhappy worker dont work. And unhappines makes you value :food: less since you dont want your city to grow to become unhappy. Unhealthiness does and should affect :food:. Thats a GOOD mechanic. And since it affects :food:, it affects :commerce: & :hammers: as well. Since they are both dependant on you having population, and population is dependant on :food:.

So I think it should stay as it is.

Unhappiness already affects :commerce: & :hammers:, since an unhappy worker dont work. And unhappines makes you value :food: less since you dont want your city to grow to become unhappy. Unhealthiness does and should affect :food:. Thats a GOOD mechanic. And since it affects :food:, it affects :commerce: & :hammers: as well. Since they are both dependant on you having population, and population is dependant on :food:.

So I think it should stay as it is.


I know all of what you just said, but theres not a direct corilation. THe only corilation between unhappiness and unhealitness and :hammers: & :commerce: is the relation it has to :food: and subsequent citizenry to work tiles. Thats a long way around to affects something.
I was comparing each "income resource" one to another. Food is the weakest, with Gold being the strongest. Gold is a direct contributor throughout the whole of the game, it gives money for purchases, and beakers for science and potentially notes for boarder expansion. Hammers produce units and buildings, food produces citizens. Note how gold does 3 things, hammers 2, and food 1. Yet there are not one but 2 types of impedements to food.

I maintain that its debateable if having more total population, one civ to another, makes that civ more powerful. Honestly, I think that there are too many other considerations to be assessed. But it's debateable enough that we cannot consider total-citizenry to be the mark of whether or not a civilizaiton is particularly powerful. I think we CAN determine NUMBER of cities and the ability to hold them as a good signifier, because it would mean that enough money is being made to deal with maintenance, and enough hammers are being produced to effectively protect that much space. I believe, and have always believed that # of cities is the best indicator of a civilizations power.

Now many of you are going to say that a few great cities is better than a lot of crappy ones. But let us be honest, In building our civilziations, we dont spam cities and grab the crappiest city spots first, we grab the best spots first. So it can be assumed that most cities of any given civilzation were the best possible options they had at any given time. Including the "crappy" spots. In this, then, it still is about direct number. Those who can effectively have and hold and continue to produce with more cities is more powerful.

Food, however, does not equal cities. In fact people with lots and lots of hammers can produce settlers equally as fast as your nearest food king. Or if slower, its not a big deal because the hammer king could simply invade the food king.

Food as a resource is increadibly weak. Primarily becuase it only serves one function, but subsequently becuase its blocked by two impedements. If hammers and Gold were also blocked by SOMETHING, then you'd see strategies emerge that would focus on food, and slavery and the like.
For food to be more equally effective in any game, it would have to be able to preform another role, or citizens, the output of food, would have to have more functions that working tiles that bring hammers and gold.

Let me put it this way. Food is Oil, Gold is Fuel, and Hammers are a M60 machine gun. If your civilization is a Armed Jeep, then you can see the relation of how this works. You need the oil for your jeep to run, to function, however, it does nothing else interesting. The Gas does everything, it powers the beast, and can accelerate it to mindnumbing speeds, the machine gun is to ward off other armed jeeps, if you didnt have it, your jeep would be toast.

The function of the Food, in my little analogy, clearly makes it important, and necessary, but not at ALL interesting or powerful.

As it is, people have "just enough" food to be slightly growing. Even then you dont want unhappy people. Though unhappyness doesnt really have any negative modifiers to it, since all execess unhappi people simply dont work. Its still good to actually have those citizens.

Regardless food is weak, hammers are nominal, and gold is uber powerful. This is why the cottages are the "best" improvement in the game, because they offer the most possible for their tile. In gold.

If food had more options, or if hammer and gold has some impedements, I think we'd see more diverse economic strategies.

I just want it to be plausible that someone would try to "monopolise" food and make food production a back bone of some strategy. Same with Hammers (the kahazad sort of fill this role currently, but really thats STILL based on gold) Gold as a strategy is ALREADY the mainstay. You maximise gold? You win. I want hammer based, and food based socieites. I think to do this for food, specialists need to be enhanced (so that there are causes to use them more often) and/or increase the sheer amount of food IN the game, so taht the "undervalued" nature of it is supplanted with sheer volumue. If for example, we dont want to change how food works, then let us increase the total potential yeilds of it everywhere. The net consequence of this would be that strategies like "conquest" as a civic, and slavery - uses would be far more useful, because youd have more excess population to spend on things.

I'm done rambling again.
-Qes

Making all three of the yields simply clones of each other won't help anything. I'm still not sure what you're trying to fix here, but I believe that the game is better with the three different yields having three different effects. Currently, two corn resources next to your capital means that you can expand it really fast, and quickly build settlers and workers. I see no reason to make it more powerful.

I also disagree about having unhappiness and unhealthiness effect hammers and commerce directly. Even if it takes a moment to see how they're related, it cannot be denied that they are, and so they work out as game mechanics. If you want the connection to be greater, just say that one unhealthiness subtracts two food and one unhappiness makes two citizens not work.

And further, do we really need another confusing mechanic to alienate any new comers to FfH?