I've been playing a long game as a Luchuirp, and while I'm enjoying having unlimited numbers of fireballers there is not one piece of stone on the whole map. This means, in turn, no upper tier units for me - clockwork golems, sure, but no Arcane Golems, no Nullstones, no Gargoyles... that's a lot of missing pieces from the Luchuirp arsenal. I'm trying to enjoy the Luchuirp, since they are the only good side which I find at all interesting thus far, but they really need some way to be able to get their needed stone. Perhaps a dwarf-only variant on with Divine Earth 2 (like enchanted weapons/repair for dwarf 1 enchantment) which would allow them to switch iron and stone deposits?

To be perfectly honest, I'm kind of sick of stone resource being so damn rare. ROCKS ARE NOT RARE. Throughout civilization, every continent, every nation has had access to rocks. Often, I manually add a stone resource to EACH civilization when I play just out of spite and pure hatred at such a game which makes rocks inaccessible.

LOL, but seriously though, maybe Kael could code in alternatives to stone? Like marble?

Either that or just scrap the stone resource.

Perhaps a dwarf-only variant on with Divine Earth 2 (like enchanted weapons/repair for dwarf 1 enchantment) which would allow them to switch iron and stone deposits?

Why would a religion based spell be race specific?

It could be added to be a Dwarven Druid only spell.

but I see right now they don't get access to the dwarven druid...

hmm.. maybe give the mud golem a "spell" that puts down Stone, and sacrifices the unit to do so.

You think that might work?

Cheers!

LOL, but seriously though, maybe Kael could code in alternatives to stone? Like marble?

Either that or just scrap the stone resource.
Actually, I think every Luchuirp unit that requires stone is buildible with marble as well.

But at the least, it could be added to the mapchecker to make sure that there are at least 2 of each stone and marble on each map.

thats why i like quarries/plantations/etc. being buildable on non-resource places and having a chance to find their resources heh

Perhaps you could just have the Luichirp palace start with stone instead of one of their mana sources, much like how the Hippus start with horses. That would be a simple and elegant method that wouldn't require any additional coding or map generation modification.

I personally think that stone, marble, and metal resources should be made much rarer on normal tiles, but should show up often in peaks. Dwarven workers could be allowed to move impassible and build roads in the mountains, or you could adopt the ideas for religion specific roads that I proposed in the first thread I ever started. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=210298

How does restricting access to rare resources help a civ dependent on them? (Luchurip have mud golems, not dwarven workers.) If I understand you, only dwarven workers and some RoK unit would be able to harvest these resources from peaks, and they would become rarer outside of peaks.

I was forgetting about that for a little while. Mud golems would also need this ability. I also like the idea of building quarries in the hope that they might be useful. Perhaps they could just make the chance for their appearance relatively high in peaks. It does seem to me that following a mining-centered religion should help players find more stone/marble/gems/metal resources.

I personally think that stone, marble, and metal resources should be made much rarer on normal tiles, but should show up often in peaks. Dwarven workers could be allowed to move impassible and build roads in the mountains, or you could adopt the ideas for religion specific roads that I proposed in the first thread I ever started. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=210298

What are "normal tiles"? You mean all the flat lvl ones (desert, plainlands, grasslands etc)? If not, then this bonus would be severely imbalacing, resources have too much of an impact on the game to be made more available to one specific civ/religion.

The resources systems is not working very well.
Playing on Duel maps, prince, highlands with 7 more civs (for a total of 8)... I sometimes found resources number very difficult to cope with. For example, more reagents than civs... not very easy to understand... and less copper than civs...

I think the resources should always be something like "number of civs-1" so you have to fight for them. Let's remember some civs also bring new resources (mines spawning gold/iron/copper or hippus with horses in the palace)...

I would also like to harvest peaks with the khazad... they should be able to do so, even if they only give 2 hammers

I didn't mean that you couldn't till find stone, marble, gems and metal where you find it now, I just think that it should be easier to find them in peaks. There would still be enough of the resources for many (perhaps half or two-thirds) of the civs to get 1 each from passable tiles, but RoK and/or Dwarf civs could have much better chances of getting a surplus of these resources, which they could trade to civs who need it. I would be fine with letting them build mines/quarries on these tiles, which would often but not always lead to resource discovery. Also, if territory containing a dwarven mine taken over by another civ it cannot be destroyed, so the conquering civ would get the bonus too.
Flavorwise, I think that the Runes needs to be tied a little more closely with delving into the earth, making peaks profitable terrain.

How about a "dwarven engineer" unit that can be set to explore a peak- like a worker in an ancient temple. After 20 turns or so, there is a chance of discovering a resource on that peak which a dwarven worker can then be sent to build the improvement on. It wouldn't take anything away from other civs, but would give a slight boost to dwarves.

It would still require giving their workers the ability to move through impassible terrain and to build things there. I would like to see some human RoK civs potentially doing the same thing. What if the dwarven engineer could be built by anyone with the Arete civic and would abandon those who don't keep it? It could also be given the ability to actually build in the mountains if other workers cannot.

Ancient temples were taken out of the game for fire, and may or may not reappear one the gamefont is updated.

Not necessarily. Maybe add a new terrain type- can't think of a good name, "explored peak" that exploring changes the peak to.

Once explored, it is no longer impassable. That way the opponents could still get there to pillage any improvements. Dwarves already have mines, don't need any more pillage-proof improvements!

And I know the temples were taken out, I just mentioned because thats how I thought the mechanic could work!

I've been playing a long game as a Luchuirp, and while I'm enjoying having unlimited numbers of fireballers there is not one piece of stone on the whole map. This means, in turn, no upper tier units for me - clockwork golems, sure, but no Arcane Golems, no Nullstones, no Gargoyles... that's a lot of missing pieces from the Luchuirp arsenal. I'm trying to enjoy the Luchuirp, since they are the only good side which I find at all interesting thus far, but they really need some way to be able to get their needed stone. Perhaps a dwarf-only variant on with Divine Earth 2 (like enchanted weapons/repair for dwarf 1 enchantment) which would allow them to switch iron and stone deposits?

If you'd playing a human civ you'd have the same problem if you lacked Mithril, and I doubt Mithril is more common than Stone. The good thing is that you can see stone from the very beginning, and plan your strategies based on this. With Mithril, it's gamble&hope.

I tend to get mithril more often than stone. I can't remember the last time I got stone within a reasonable distance of my start.

Improvements on peaks would not be pillage proof-they could be pillaged by druids, beastmasters, and any other unit that can move in normally impassible terrain. My idea for the RoK specific road would let more units move impassible (at least if they already have the RoK promotion), thus more units could pillage mountain improvements.

Improvements on peaks would not be pillage proof-they could be pillaged by druids, beastmasters, and any other unit that can move in normally impassible terrain.

Only druids and maybe some summons; recon units cannot pillage.
edit: really? okay.

Only druids and maybe some summons; recon units cannot pillage.

Druids can not pillage either.

Oh yeah...Well anyway, the road I proposed that would be necessary in order to let the resources actually be used would let other units travel into the tile to destroy its improvements.

shure you can pillage them, use the earthquake spell

blah , 2 copper time .....

first off it was mentioned that someone was playing with a total of 8 players on a duel size map and having a hard time finding stone.... GREAT you should have. you picked a map that had enough resources for 2 civs, where those 2 civs were meant to fight over STRATEGIC resources. every resource will seem rare in this instance.

2nd i have played the luchirp countless times ( though my spelling of the name sucks). and have NEVER had a hard time getting stone. the easiest way for you to get stone if you dont already have it is to found kilmorph , build the mines and trade iron for stone. the AI will take that trade every day of the week.

3rd, STRATEGIC resources are meant to be that , strategic ... not everyone should have them.

the gnomes are gifted with a very strong early game unit that i would highly recomend using to explore. if the map is sized anywhere close to defaults you will not be in a situation where its impossible to get stone. you may have to go to war for it but everyone is faced with those situations. this is no different then incense , reagents , or the metals (however the metals ahve been changed).

I think the whole resource or lack of it can be a problem, and I have a solution.

A new unit, avaliable to everyone, it's a magical worker. With this worker you can sacrifice them and they may be able to generate a random resource. This may sound very powerfull right now, so lets limit it a bit.

1st, this unit is an upgradable unit, now since workers can't gain xp, and Dwarves can't gain mages, others can't gain priest, it will need to be a high priest or high mage. So any tier 3 priest or mage or druid unit can become this sacrificial worker.

2nd, The ability to gain a resource is powerful, so it's a random geterator when you sacrifice the unit, which has a 10% chance to give you nothing, and 90% chance of gaining any resoruce which that land can have and a 10% chance of another result. This means, on a hill, you can get copper, gold, mithrall, pig, sheep, any resource you can get.

I think this would mean that if you are after a resurce you don't have, it's random if you will get it at the cost of a unit it took you a long time to build-up.
What do you all think?

Thought about having "inferiour" alternatives and "inferior" resources?

Ie, have all 3 of the following resources:
Iron, Meteor Iron, Mithril Iron, Pure Mithril

Then, if you had a unit called Bob, strength 10, that usually needed Mithril:
Bob0 [Requires Iron] Strength 8
Bob1 [Requires Meteor Iron] Strength 9
Bob2 [Requires Mithril Iron] Strength 10
Bob3 [Requires Pure Mithril] Strength 11

Each one would obsolete the one before, and have exactly the same other requirements and costs, so you would always want to build the best one you could. Upgrading a pre-built unit to the best-of-class would only cost the fixed price (20 gold) once you gain access to the better material.

You can do this with other resources. Ie, stone can be split up:
Limestone
Sandstone
Granite
Basalt
Marble

I like the idea of having different resources appear in varying qualities, but it might just be a little to complex to be worth it. It could not be added immediately, since they have reached a temporary cap on the number of resources allowed. Therefore almost everything else in this post are probably bad ideas.
It would be far more realistic if there were buildings needed to refine a resource into a more usable form(a smelter could turn crude iron or copper into their pure form, which might be present on the map but much rarer), or to create some new resources out of multiple old ones . The Tailor (a building currently available only to Kuriotates, I think) could produce various types of clothing, a new luxury resource, instead of just improving the gold or happiness of existing resources. The new resources could then be traded. Perhaps multiple metal should make alloys which are treated as separate resources, or are just both needed to give the metal upgrade (copper isn't enough to make bronze, you need tin, or zinc if you prefer brass).

I would prefer giving the various resources slightly different bonuses, not just +1 strength per level (If you add enough levels, you make a civ without metal resources far too weak). Then, perhaps the metal upgrades could be given in the way that the navel upgrades longshoreman crew, buccaneer crew, and expanded hull are currently. They would be upgrades that you could freely switch between (assuming the unit is in a city with all the metals available) and which are not tied to the unit's xp. This might answer the problem of a metal like lead giving the movement penalty along with the heavy promotion.

In Ancient Roman times, bronze was associated with witchcraft, probably because the most arcane rituals were thought to have been passed down from the bronze age unchanged. Perhaps adepts should be able to get this one metal promotion, and it could offer a slight magic bonus?

I remember reading somewhere (in a parody of the King Arthur story which I truly disliked) that elves and other magical creatures hated the use of iron because it required delving into the earth, hurting mother nature, but that they were fine with Meteor Iron, which they used to fashion such things as Excalibur. That probably does not fit as well in FfH, but it might be interesting to not let elves use normal iron.

You do realize that stone and Marble are currently separate resources, right? I could see adding different types of stone, but again I would prefer different bonuses. For instance, some stones add more to a building' prestige but aren't physically as strong or durable. It would be gneiss if a castle built with granite could offer more defense but one made of marble had more culture. Perhaps different types of stone should also effect the strengths of certain golems.

There are lots of other resources that could be split up, such as horses(some are better for work and so give extra hammers, other are faster, giving extra movement, while still others have the strength needed to carry a knight in full armor), sheep (cashmere, anyone?), gems (diamonds, emeralds, rubies, turquoise, etc), and probably every other resource too. Of course as stated in the beginning, most of these would add extra complication to the game and probably would not be worth it.

Maybe a function could be added to the great engineer that allows the player to sacrifice the great person to add a mineral resource to a hills tile. Think of it as the great engineer conducting a survey to find the selected material. This would not be too unbalancing since adding the great person to a city already produces great benefit to the economy that would have to be given up to add a resource instead.

Hm... sacrificing a great person to make a resource sounds like a cool concept. Maybe it should be sacrificed inside the city to create a building that supplies the resource?

Hm... sacrificing a great person to make a resource sounds like a cool concept. Maybe it should be sacrificed inside the city to create a building that supplies the resource?
This is a brilliant idea. There is another thread about balancing the Altar of the Luonnatar calling for great people to be made more useful. What better way than this?

A 1:1 ratio is too powerful given that strategic resources need to sometimes be a struggle to get. I suggest the following:

2 Great Engineers:
-Can create a building that gives 1 copper (requires tech pre-reqs)
-Can create a building that gives 1 iron (requires tech pre-reqs)
-Can create a building that gives 1 mithril (requires tech pre-reqs)
-Can create a building that gives 1 stone

2 Great Sages:
-Can create a building (ie, Herbal Nursery) that gives 1 reagents

2 Great Merchants:
-Can create a building (ie, Trading Post) that gives 1 incense

Each building can only be built once, like holy city shrines. This would neatly fix the ongoing complaints about lack of incense & reagents, too, but at a reasonable cost. It also gives a much bigger decision to make when deciding how to use some types of GP.

Hm... sacrificing a great person to make a resource sounds like a cool concept. Maybe it should be sacrificed inside the city to create a building that supplies the resource?

This idea doesn't thrill me. Limited resources are one of the few sources of uncontrived tension in the game. Giving every civ the ability to remove the 'have/have not' element from the game in a peaceful manner would kill that; why race to settle an area with incense if you can just pop some in an existing city? No need to go to war to get iron if you can just make it yourself.

That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing a specific civ being given this ability. It might also make a good leader trait.

This is a brilliant idea. There is another thread about balancing the Altar of the Luonnatar calling for great people to be made more useful. What better way than this?

A 1:1 ratio is too powerful given that strategic resources need to sometimes be a struggle to get. I suggest the following:

2 Great Engineers:
-Can create a building that gives 1 copper (requires tech pre-reqs)
-Can create a building that gives 1 iron (requires tech pre-reqs)
-Can create a building that gives 1 mithril (requires tech pre-reqs)
-Can create a building that gives 1 stone

2 Great Sages:
-Can create a building (ie, Herbal Nursery) that gives 1 reagents

2 Great Merchants:
-Can create a building (ie, Trading Post) that gives 1 incense

Each building can only be built once, like holy city shrines. This would neatly fix the ongoing complaints about lack of incense & reagents, too, but at a reasonable cost. It also gives a much bigger decision to make when deciding how to use some types of GP.
I'd suggest that the iron providing building would require the copper one (i.e. you have to use two great engineers), and the mithril one would require the iron one (i.e. you'd have to burn three great engineers).
This idea doesn't thrill me. Limited resources are one of the few sources of uncontrived tension in the game. Giving every civ the ability to remove the 'have/have not' element from the game in a peaceful manner would kill that; why race to settle an area with incense if you can just pop some in an existing city? No need to go to war to get iron if you can just make it yourself.

That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing a specific civ being given this ability. It might also make a good leader trait.
They'd still be very limited. Great people might technically be an unlimited resource, but it becomes much more difficult to pop the next one as you get more.

Mine of Monodom: 1 engeneer, provides Copper and +2 production
Mine of Duodom: 1 engeneer, requires Monodom, provides Iron and +2 production
Mine of Triodom: 1 engeneer, requires Duodom, provides Mithril and +2 production

Mine of Null: 1 engeneer, provies +1 production to every city
Mine of Stone: 1 engeneer, provies stone, requires Mine of Null

Mine of Deep: 1 engeneer, provies +5 production here
Mine of Marble: 1 engeneer, provides Marble, requires Mine of Deep

:)

Of course, all of this needs the AI to understand it.

Mine of Monodom: 1 engeneer, provides Copper and +2 production


To hard, you should have, like the other 2 the 1st Mine not give any resource

You guys simply need to play with a mapscript where you can force certain resources. Sto has a bunch of scripts over in the relevant forums. For instance you could set that there has to be a stone resource in the general vicinity of each player's starting point.

blah , 2 copper time .....
2nd i have played the luchirp countless times ( though my spelling of the name sucks). and have NEVER had a hard time getting stone. the easiest way for you to get stone if you dont already have it is to found kilmorph , build the mines and trade iron for stone. the AI will take that trade every day of the week.


I'm the OP, and there was no stone on the default settings (2 continents, normal size, temperate, 6 players) on the whole map. You can't trade for what isn't there. However, if there were a spell (ok, not divine - sorcerous, then) which turned iron into stone and vice versa, you could do the exact same thing you suggested without running into the flaw I mentioned above.

Stone and marble ought to not be requirements at all, just speed up the construction of golems that currently require stone or marble. Keep in mind that there is no unit or improvement in vanilla that requires stone to build. Why should FFH 2 have stone be a requirement for anything?

Perhaps.. Just perhaps, because it's an entirely different game?
Well, not entirely, but you get the point.

Because the unit is not human-it is actually made of stone. Still, since you can build units like swordsmen without having any metal to actually craft a sword, I suppose it is reasonable to make such units buildable without stone.

Perhaps.. Just perhaps, because it's an entirely different game?
Well, not entirely, but you get the point.

Yeah I get the point.

Also, what I posted about Vanilla was a really lousy argument for anything because I did not fully explain it. The point is that CIV was not designed to have stone and marble be a requirement for anything. For that reason, stone and marble were left to be some of the rarer strategic resources and unpoppable later on because eventually they become useless. This is not working so well in FFH 2 however because stone and marble are now requirements but it is still very difficult to gain access to stone or marble if you did not start near stone or marble.

Ah, ok. (sorry for the cocky attitude in my first reply btw, was in a bad mood :))
I get what you mean, but I still don't really mind FfH using everything differently. But yea, it's rather annoying for the Luichurp (how the hell dyou spell that anyway).

Because the unit is not human-it is actually made of stone. Still, since you can build units like swordsmen without having any metal to actually craft a sword, I suppose it is reasonable to make such units buildable without stone.

That is true, so maybe it would be better if all Golems could be built without access to resources, but they gain bennifits if you have them. So a copper Golem is a 8 str unit, but with copper it gets +1 Str and +30% city attack. A Gargolye is a Str 5 creature, gets +1 Str & +20% city defence with Stone, and +2 Str, +40% city Defence with Marble (don't stack)

Just my thoughts

Perhaps something like that, but I got Marble before I got Stone multiple times, so I wouldn't see any of those two superior to the other.

Marble is not a very strong stone, so it should be inferior for military purposes. It would be like making your soldiers weapons and armor out of silver or gold-it might impress people, but it doesn't make them more effective in combat.

I think it is most reasonable just to make the golems cost more shields but to make the resources increase the building times.

I also think it would be nice if the transmutate spell were improved as I suggested somewhere recently, so that it could turn any metal into any other metal, and so that it could change both marble and gems into stone and stone into either one.

what if gargoyles has a spell or something that if they had acess to stone they could get extra city defence or somethign or if they had marble they give extra culture or happiness or something like that but because its heandled with a spell they could only have one and the player gets to choose