Released!

Fixes
1. Sanctuary now kicks all units out of the casters borders.
2. Flames won't start in Burning Sands cities.
3. Building Cost Mod is now correctly calculated for Gambling Houses (thanks Vehem!).
4. Penguins can no longer spawn on peak tiles (the mighty flying penguins of Erebus are no more).
5. The Circle of Gaelan events now trigger correctly.
6. Kidnap now works correctly (fixed by Sto!).
7. Event loading moved to the normal xml load process instead of in post globals (for some reason having it in post globals was causing intermittant CtD's reloading save games).
8. Svartalfar can build Machinists Shops.
9. EventTrigger now require all religions listed instead of just one of them (to keep the temple burning events from triggering unless both religions are in the city).
10. Hidden Nationality units in transports are treated as if they don't have hidden nationality (so you cant bump enemy units with a transport with a HN unit in it).
11. Fixed the smugglers guild event.
12. Events that gift units with promotions will now correctly apply the promotion.
13. Fixed an equipment duplication bug in Add to Flesh Golem (fixed by Sto!).

AI Changes:
1. Boosted the power rating of the Infernals and the Mercurians so they are more likely to act aggresivly after being summoned.
2. Adjusted all leaders tolerance for battle odds, some take less risk (Elohim), some take more risk (Doviello), some randomly decide from turn to turn (Balseraphs).
3. AI won't attack with Heroes (world units) if his attack odds are beneath 95%.
4. AI won't attack with true Spell Casters if his attack odds are beneath 95%.
5. AI realizes it wont destroy forests when laying improvements if it is bMaintainFeatures (the Ljosalfar and Svartalfar).
6. AI is more likely to build unit enabling buildings (if no ai building prereqs aren't enabled).
7. AI is more likely to prefer high strength units.
8. Rewrote the AI_getStrategyHash function to base decisions on FfH functions instead of vanilla configuration.
9. AI taught when to vote for and against the new voting mechanics (they will no longer vote positively for everything).
10. AI is less likely to build forts together (added a pPlot::isBuilding check).

Additions/Removals:
1. bCult attribute removed from Religions (depreciated function).
2. Added a No Techs game option (for scenarios).
3. Added a No Buildings game option (for scenarios).
4. Added a No Projects game option (for scenarios).
5. Added a Capture All Buildings game option (for scenarios).
6. Added a No World Spells game option.
7. Added the Summon Tiger spell (available to Fellowship of Leaves priests, loki).
8. Added the Governors Assassination event (Judgement).
9. Added the Mushrooms improvements (art by Psychic Llamas).
10. Added the Mushrooms event.
11. Added the Volcano Creation event.
12. Added the War Games event (judgement).
13. Added the Goblin Wastes event (rewards nature).
14. Added the Slave Ring chain event (crime).
15. Added the Angelic Procession event.
16. Added the Library Fire event (rewards water).
17. Added the Sickness event (rewards body).
18. Added the Scorched Staff (equipment, +1 fire affinity).
19. Added the Meteor event (rewards enchantment).
20. Added a Spell Delay feature (delays make the caster immobile and unable to cast for the delay time period, the spell triggers when the delay time is over).
21. Added the Battering Ram unit (1 strength but 25% bombard rate).
22. Added the Create Battering Ram spell. Allows the Khazad to make siege units in the field. (delay 5, consumes the forest in the tile, only usuable by Khazad melee units, requires engineering).
23. Added the Sobs event (rewards spirit).
24. Added the Guardian of Pristinus Pass unique feature.
25. Added the Crime Increase event (crime).
26. Added the Crime Decrease event (crime).
27. Added the Two-Headed Cow event.
28. Added the Decius leader (Bannor, Calabim and Malakim leader).
29. Added the Pick Alignment event (Decius can select his starting alignment).
30. Added the Centaur Guard unit (model by AA, texture by seZ).
31. Added the Auric Ulvin unit (for scenarios, art by seZ).
32. Added the Drifa unit (for scenarios).
33. Added the Muirin unit (for scenarios).
34. Added the minor leader mechanic (minor leaders don't show up in any menus, and are not playable but can be used in scenarios).
35. Added Minister Koun minor leader (for scenarios).
36. Added 21 Sign (Constellation) events.
37. Added the City Split event (city wants to form its own nation).
38. Added the Soverign City event (city wants to rule itself).
39. Added the Mercenary Gouging event (idea by Philippe).
40. Added the UpgradeCiv unit attribute (so that captured ogres, centaurs, vampires, sect of lies, etc all upgrade to civ specific units instead of the capturing civs units).
41. Added the Ring of Carcer unique feature (imprisons Brigit, can only be entered by units of level 15 or higher).
42. Added the Brigit unit (hero, can only be gained by getting a unit through the ring of carcer).
43. Added the Enclave improvement (Kuriotate only, town upgrade, grants +1 gold and +1 food over towns, art by Woodelf, idea by TheJopa).
44. Added the City Feud event (idea by Xuenay, you thought I forgot didnt you?).
45. Added the City Feud Arson event (idea by Xuenay).
46. Added the City Feud Merc event (idea by Xuenay).
47. Added a Slower Experience game option (halves the amount of xp gained from combat, rounded up).
48. Added the Call of the Grave spell (Ars only, does 40% death damage the enemies, heals all undead, raises 3 wraiths from graveyards, range 2).
49. Added the Ira unit (water walking, +1 strength whenever it defeats a living opponent, max of 4 at once).
50. Added the Ira Unleashed spell (Avatar of Wrath only, summons up to 4 Ira).

Balance Changes:
1. Priests don't have a resource requirement anymore.
2. High Priests have resource requirements (all are Incense except for the RoK High Priest who requires Gems).
3. If a Hidden Nationality unit spawns a unit through combat, that unit will have Hidden Nationality too.
4. All animals spawned through create animals start with Hidden Nationality (and Hidden Nationality removed from the specific unit definition).
5. Dies Diei reveals all invisible units within your borders.
6. Nox Noctis makes all your units within your borders invisible (if they aren't in cities).
7. Shades made into National Units (4 per player).
8. Lions have a 10% chance to upgrade to Lion Prides after each combat.
9. Kidnap has a maximum 95 % chance of success.
10. Immobile units can't cast spells anymore.
11. Bloom has a 2 turn delay.
12. Inquisition has a 3 turn delay.
13. The Tower of Eyes provides a free Dungeon in every city.
14. Ancient Towers can be razed.
15. Warriors can no longer use iron weapons.
16. Gifting units is disabled (to many exploits).
17. Mana no longer reverts to raw mana when the plot converts to a new owner.
18. Freaks never expire.
19. Illusions have a 90% combat limit (they can't actually kill units), and heal completly after each battle.
20. The Doviello start with Lucian instead of their bonus 2 beastmen.
21. Units with Poison strength now pass the poisoned promotion to living units they battle.
22. Event chance increased from 2% to 4%.
23. Stygian Guards strength reduced from 6 to 5, given Water Walking, ability to use Bronze/Iron/Mithril weapons, are now Melee instead of Disciple units and no longer require Bronze/Iron/Mithril to train.
24. Feast is now Calabim only (captured vampires cant feast on city populations).
25. Increased Expansive from +2 to +3 Health.
26. Added +3 Happiness to the Sprawling trait.
27. Reduced the Beast of Agares build cost from 500 to 120 and its movement increased from 1 to 2.
28. Worldbreak has a chance (based on the AC) to start fires in non-Sheaim cities.
29. Humans and the AI don't get bonuses against animals from the handicap level (the barb bonus still applies).
30. Ars, Buboes, Stephanos and Yersinia can fly.
31. Illians switched from Chaos to Law mana.
32. The Spread Council of the Esus ability only requires that the unit have the Council of Esus religion, not that the state religion be the Council of Esus. AI players will never spread the Council of Esus unless it is their state religion.

Cosmetic Changes:
1. New Arena model art by woodelf.
2. New selection sounds for lion's.
3. New selection sounds for succubus's.
4. New Svartalfar Adept model by seZereth.
5. Fixed Pit Beast/Manticore model by seZereth.
6. Buildings now correctly list all units they enable.
7. New Illusionist model by seZereth.
8. Spell descriptions now hotlink to other objects (so for example a spell that adds a promotion inlcudes a clickable link to that promotion).
9. New Svartalfar Immortal model and animations by Ploep.
10. Aerons Bounty and Spread Council of Esus spells will show, but be greyed out, when disabled (instead of not displayed at all).
11. Songs all redone (some moved around, some cut, some added, some base themes songs now play no matter what religion/era you are in).

First reply :D

Looks good :D

Al

Swish. The fixes and cosmetics are really nice, and hopefully the AI changes are too. Did you fix the witch chain as well as the Circle one?

I haven't set the release date yet. But this is the changelog so far...

Additions/Removals:
6. Added a No World Spells game option.
7. Added the Summon Tiger spell (available to Fellowship of Leaves priests, loki).
20. Added a Spell Delay feature (delays make the caster immobile and unable to cast for the delay time period, the spell triggers when the delay time is over).
21. Added the Battering Ram unit (1 strength but 25% bombard rate).
22. Added the Create Battering Ram spell. Allows the Khazad to make siege units in the field. (delay 5, consumes the forest in the tile, only usuable by Khazad melee units, requires engineering).
28. Added the Decius leader (Bannor, Calabim and Malakim leader).
29. Added the Pick Alignment event (Decius can select his starting alignment).
40. Added the UpgradeCiv unit attribute (so that captured ogres, centaurs, vampires, sect of lies, etc all upgrade to civ specific units instead of the capturing civs units).
43. Added the Enclave improvement (Kuriotate only, town upgrade, grants +1 gold and +1 food over towns, art by Woodelf, idea by TheJopa).

Balance Changes:
1. Priests don't have a resource requirement anymore.
14. Ancient Towers can be razed.
15. Warriors can no longer use iron weapons.
20. The Doviello start with Lucian instead of their bonus 2 beastmen.
22. Event chance increased from 2% to 4%.
23. Stygian Guards strength reduced from 6 to 5, given Water Walking, ability to use Bronze/Iron/Mithril weapons, are now Melee instead of Disciple units and no longer require Bronze/Iron/Mithril to train.
25. Increased Expansive from +2 to +3 Health.
26. Added +3 Happiness to the Sprawling trait.


^ These all sound quite good (especially the battering rams!), and more events are welcome. What does Lucian do, however?

Lucian is an axeman hero, nothing else special.
Now, the $1,000,000 question is... Who is Decius?

Sweet... I know you said no set release date yet... but an estimation, maybe?

I love you, Kael. So nice to see a game designer who actually listens to his players and makes suggested changes. :)

Lucian appears to be a normal axeman, only you start with him instead of needing bronze working.

Anyway, looks great. I like most of these changes. My favorites are:

1. Boosted the power rating of the Infernals and the Mercurians so they are more likely to act aggresivly after being summoned.
41. Added the Ring of Carcer unique feature (imprisons Brigit, can only be entered by units of level 15 or higher).
42. Added the Brigit unit (hero, can only be gained by getting a unit through the ring of carcer).
13. The Tower of Eyes provides a free Dungeon in every city.
14. Ancient Towers can be razed.
15. Warriors can no longer use iron weapons.
25. Increased Expansive from +2 to +3 Health.
26. Added +3 Happiness to the Sprawling trait.
27. Reduced the Beast of Agares build cost from 500 to 120 and its movement increased from 1 to 2.

My only real objection:

22. Added the Create Battering Ram spell. Allows the Khazad to make siege units in the field. (delay 5, consumes the forest in the tile, only usuable by Khazad melee units, requires engineering).

So, like, the only civ getting a real boost... is already currently the most powerful one in the game. What gives.

And three questions:

21. Added the Battering Ram unit (1 strength but 25% bombard rate).
28. Added the Decius leader (Bannor, Calabim and Malakim leader).
23. Stygian Guards strength reduced from 6 to 5, given Water Walking, ability to use Bronze/Iron/Mithril weapons, are now Melee instead of Disciple units and no longer require Bronze/Iron/Mithril to train.

Can Battering rams move?
Who's Decius and what does he do? (expect this one a lot)
Didn't Stygian guards originally have 8 strength, not 6?

looks great, a lot of good options for scenarios :)

Great! I love it...

Added the Decius leader (Bannor, Calabim and Malakim leader).

1 Leader for 3 Civs? Strange.


Immobile units can't cast spells anymore.

Can Barbatos move now then?

[COLOR="#ff8c00"] Immobile units can't cast spells anymore.

Can Barbatos move now then?

For that matter, what becomes of Acheron's meteor breath?

I hope it means that Barbatos is gone. I'm sick of seeing him wipe out unlucky civs on turn 2.

Looks like some pretty big changes! Especially...

28. Added the Decius leader (Bannor, Calabim and Malakim leader).

New leader that can govern 3 civs??? Im excited to see how this is implemented!

Also, do you plan on adding the Hydra unit made by PsychicLlamas? The art for it looked really good and i think it would make a great addition. He said he was going to make it so that it gained a head for for every combat promotion.

Added the Decius leader (Bannor, Calabim and Malakim leader).

1 Leader for 3 Civs? Strange.


Immobile units can't cast spells anymore.

Can Barbatos move now then?

i think theres a distinction between immobile (like by blind) and 0 movement

Looks very nice. I wonder If I should wait for .32 to base my modmod off.

3. If a Hidden Nationality unit spawns a unit through combat, that unit will have Hidden Nationality too.
4. All animals spawned through create animals start with Hidden Nationality (and Hidden Nationality removed from the specific unit definition).

Just to be clear, this means that they they start with the HN promotion? Assuming that is right, how is it done? Is it hardcoded like that, or can we easily make other promotions be passed on to the spawned units too?

21. Units with Poison strength now pass the poisoned promotion to living units they battle. Also, how is this done? Is it hardcoded, or can we easily make other damage types pass on promotions too? Is it 100% of the time, or randomly? If random, can you adjust the chances? I'm thinking I want Fire damage to sometimes give a "Scorched" or "Burned" promotion (weakening the unit, but also granting fire resistance) and Cold to grant "Frostbite" or "Hypothermia" (slowing the unit and giving a negative healing rate).


Edit: I concur with Sureshot. Barbatos never was immobile (unless blinding light or entangle immobilized him)

Looks very nice. I wonder If I should wait for .32 to base my modmod off.



Just to be clear, this means that they they start with the HN promotion? Assuming that is right, how is it done? Is it hardcoded like that, or can we easily make other promotions be passed on to the spawned units too?

Also, how is this done? Is it hardcoded, or can we easily make other damage types pass on promotions too? Is it 100% of the time, or randomly? If random, can you adjust the chances? I'm thinking I want Fire damage to sometimes give a "Scorched" or "Burned" promotion (weakening the unit, but also granting fire resistance) and Cold to grant "Frostbite" or "Hypothermia" (slowing the unit and giving a negative healing rate).

No hardcoding, there are variables int he global defines for the hidden nationality promotion and the posioned promotion (just like mutated). If those are set then these effects happen in the SDk. If you black those values then these things dont happen.

28. Added the Decius leader (Bannor, Calabim and Malakim leader).
29. Added the Pick Alignment event (Decius can select his starting alignment).


Huh, could you elaborate?


10. Immobile units can't cast spells anymore.

I think this would cause problems with Barbatos....

Brilliant! Can't wait to see the changes implemented!

Particularly this one:
7. Event loading moved to the normal xml load process instead of in post globals (for some reason having it in post globals was causing intermittant CtD's reloading save games).
All this time I thought it was just my crap computer...

7. Added the Summon Tiger spell (available to Fellowship of Leaves priests, loki).
41. Added the Ring of Carcer unique feature (imprisons Brigit, can only be entered by units of level 15 or higher).

looks good overall, just these 2 i have questions about:

Does this mean the balseraphs and FoL followers will have a tiger cage in every single one of their cities?

Brigit will generally become a calabim hero right? They're the only ones who are sure of getting some lvl 15 units.

Very excited about all of these changes!
Only the tiger spell for Loki has me a little worried...

Does this mean the balseraphs and FoL followers will have a tiger cage in every single one of their cities?

Also, since Loki comes so very early, won't this turn Loki from an already horrendously powerful hero into an absolute civ-destroying juggernaut? Especially with Keelyn?

Very excited about all of these changes!
Only the tiger spell for Loki has me a little worried...



Also, since Loki comes so very early, won't this turn Loki from an already horrendously powerful hero into an absolute civ-destroying juggernaut? Especially with Keelyn?

Its not for loki, it was an idea from Loki.

yea could you explain this decius thing? or is it for scenarios only?

I really don't see how the Bannor would accept the same leader who leads the Calabim, because if he also leads the calabim, wouldn't he be a vampire?

Also, what's the goblin wastes thing about? I know you don't want to spoil the events too much, but I'm just wondering here. A similar question, what do you mean by rewards nature for goblin wastes and rewards water for the library fire. I can see why the others have the rewards, sickness rewards body, which represents healing (although life mana could work, but I'm not going to argue over this as body mana works for me), the one for the library fire and water is obvious, but I don't get the goblin wastes one.

It's cool that the Gaelan event string is fixed, I've been wanting to get the continuation of it.

edit: oh yea, will there be a sort of crater from the meteor? There are a few hell tiles that have a crater-like feature on them, so that could be used.

I think it might be better for the FoL spell to summon a random animal instead of a tiger. Perhaps only one that could spawn on the type of terrain of the caster's tile?


I guess I can copy the way poisoned is handled for the other damage types easily enough. I'll be making a custom dll for my modmod anyway.

You didn't answer my question about the odds of getting poisoned. I think that 100% is too much. Also, does poison resistance decrease the odds? It should. (The requirement that the unit be living is probably unnecessary if resistance is taken into account)


Edit: (in response to the post after mine) I'm pretty sure it is all all the time, but it is only in your borders. I was thinking it would good if this required you have both the Nox Noctis and Council of Esus State Religion. Currently the religion is very nice to have as a secondary religion, but there is less incentive to adopt it. I think it would be overpowered if you can get this and the benefit of the Dies Diei while following another religion, but if these effects are tied to State Religion then it is a nice boost to religions that aren't adopted often enough. It would probably be good for the units not to keep their invisibility after attacking though; maybe it should grant Hidden to all units in you territory instead? (I'm guessing an in-borders stealth promotion might be too much; it would be better for the Sidar world spell to grant stealth though)

How easy would it be to borrow from this code to make/bring back a wonder like the Core of the Subtle, which applies the invisibility to only one unitclass (or unitcombat). Or to give any promotion to all units in your borders (or everywhere overall)?

6. Nox Noctis makes all your units within your borders invisible (if they aren't in cities).

hmm, wouldn't that be kind of overpowered? Is this a one time thing or is it an active effect, sort of like having into the mist worldspell active all the time?

Also, are some of those new event stuff event chains? because it sounds like some of them are, such as maybe the 21 signs event.

I'm looking forward to those new event stuff :)

As far as the summoning tigers go, I guess that would make the most sense for FoL because they have an emphasis on forests/jungles and tigers are one of the more powerful units in the game. Also one of the rarest, I've only seen them in a few games. While bears and elephants would be considered woodland or jungle animals (the asian elephant lives in more wooded environments than thier african cousins), bears are too dang common and elephants are the only animal that can currently be promoted into an unit. So, it makes alot of sense to me.

@ Demus on the previous page, the part about tiger cages will be tested out once we all get a chance to play this.

What about new unit graphics for Svartalfar hunters? It seems odd for a recon focussed civilization not to have some unique graphics. The scout graphics are awesome by the way.

very nice :)

I particularly like:

- AI changes
- Kuriorate rebalancing
- taking iron off of warriors
- spell delay feature (do think that if it applies to bloom it should probably apply to vitalise and spring too)

Nothing new from Ploe & C. Roland in this version yet huh? :(

/ah well nvm, maybe next time

Edit: and guys, I think Kael's being deliberately schneaky about this Decius guy, to see how we react :)

Edit 2: What about new unit graphics for Svartalfar hunters?

cough (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6598771&postcount=630)

Edit 3: Ah, didn't see the Svart Immortal & War Centaur/Centaur Guard unit (whichever name gets used in the end).

yea and the reaction is 'give more info on this Decius guy', with variations.

I'm pretty sure all of us don't mind a new leader in the mod, it's the bieng a leader for 3 civs that doesn't make sense. I could somehow see some bit of lore to explain leading the Malakim and Bannor, but Bannor and Calabim? The Bannor and vampires just don't seem to mesh as far as a joint leader goes.

27. Added the Two-Headed Cow event.
28. Added the Decius leader (Bannor, Calabim and Malakim leader).
29. Added the Pick Alignment event (Decius can select his starting alignment).

Decius is the Two-Headed Cow, duh. No way a one-headed cow could rule three civilizations.

Decius is one of the main characters in "Ice", his full story will be told then. It will all make sense by the end.

Rewards nature means the player gets a better option if he has that mana type. The orphanage fire that exists in 0.31 rewards both life and death (giving each a perk option to the event).

43. Added the Enclave improvement (Kuriotate only, town upgrade, grants +1 gold and +1 food over towns, art by Woodelf, idea by TheJopa).

ohshi

Between this and the sprawling upgrade, I take it you took the low scores of the Kuriotates in that one topic seriously, huh? I'll definitely want to give the improved Kuriotates a go.

Well the Kuriotates do need a boost because thier cities aren't all that super and they don't grow much bigger than 24 maybe.

I sort of expected them to grow maybe 40+, or even 50+, but 50 would be stretching it. Which is my idea of a megalopolis city that they would have.

Just wondering here, are there any new event chains? besides the fixed witch event chain (I was told it's a chain) and the Circle of Gaelan chain.

So, like, the only civ getting a real boost... is already currently the most powerful one in the game. What gives.

And three questions:



I think you misunderstand, the battering ram is for the KHAZAD not the Luchirp.

The poor Khazad could use a little something as it is.

And with the time taken to build it via the spell delay it isn't exactly avoiding the mobility of siege weapons issues, its just a novel way to go about it.

21. Added the Battering Ram unit (1 strength but 25% bombard rate).
22. Added the Create Battering Ram spell. Allows the Khazad to make siege units in the field. (delay 5, consumes the forest in the tile, only usuable by Khazad melee units, requires engineering).


May i suggest that Battering Ram becomes a Promotion rather than a unit ? (in the same way as the Great Commander can be attached to a unit as promotion).
The point is that Battering Ram as Promotion will be attached to a unit and therefore be more easily to handle. You dont have to worry about movement etc. The idea is also that a Battering Ram has to be carried by somebody and therefore it makes perfect sense to attach it to a unit.

Actually personnally I am most worried about the movement. If the Battering Ram has 1 movement (and no haste can be applied, because the Ram is non-living) it is simply not useful except in the early game (and it certainly wont be available from the start). But a Battering Ram that can be carried around .. that would be awesome!!!!

I think you misunderstand, the battering ram is for the KHAZAD not the Luchirp.

The poor Khazad could use a little something as it is.

I fail to see how either dwarven civ is could be the strongest civ in FfH. Obviously, the Khazad are weakened by their lack of magic. The Luchuirp seems weaker to me though, perhaps because I like leveling up a tiny but elite military so much. I love their flavor, but specialization is very important in the game. They need more ways to get promotions (probably through UBs) and a way to retrofit old golems to get these promotions (probably with a gold cost and a few turns on immobility). Their big weakness though is mobility. Golems are just slow.

(My modmod adds more Luchuip UBs, retrofit spells, and a SPECIALUNITCLASS_SIEGE. Siege units and Golems have this special unit type, and some dwarven and Runes UUs can carry this type of cargo. Mobility problem solved! They do have to drop the siege units to get into ships though... I'm unsure as to whether I'll actually keep this in.)


Battering rams actually seems like too rudimentary a siege unit for the dwarves to use to me. Although rams can be more advanced (with shelter for the crew, a metal head, etc) they are basically just logs that you bang against things. Basic battering rams seem more like a Doviello thing to me. (I'm thinking I may make this spell available to most civs (but not the elves) and give the Khazad a stronger UU that might take a turn ot two longer to build)

Hmm...would it be possible to add the ability for siege units to reduce city defenses while attacking, combining bombardment with a direct attack? I personally think that this would be much more realistic. I'll probably let most siege units (not catapults though) have a ranged attack so cannons would still really be bombarding, but people could still get hurt.

10. Hidden Nationality units in transports are treated as if they don't have hidden nationality (so you cant bump enemy units with a transport with a HN unit in it).
Great! It's been my pet peeve for a while! Does the fix work if you unload & reload the HN unit while inside the other guy's city ? Have you checked whether the bug also exists with the Troyan Horse ?
Cheers

I love you, Kael. So nice to see a game designer who actually listens to his players and makes suggested changes. :)

I've noticed this too! Thanks for the lion and succubus voiced Kael! :D

Al

...
Hmm...would it be possible to add the ability for siege units to reduce city defenses while attacking, combining bombardment with a direct attack? I personally think that this would be much more realistic. I'll probably let most siege units (not catapults though) have a ranged attack so cannons would still really be bombarding, but people could still get hurt.

Nice idea. Add it to the battering ram so you have to attack with its 1 strength to get the deffence down.

I also like the attachable option for the battering ram. The unit could have 0 move and could attach to a unit like great commanders do. The battering ram could decrees the units strength but add it back and with bonus to the unit if its attacking a city. It would have to disappear after the attack. Again, the problem is the AI.

Wont the AI mass cut all forests when playing the Khazad anyway? Or wont it be aware of the spell at all?

Like the rest of the changes a lot.

I fail to see how either dwarven civ is could be the strongest civ in FfH. Obviously, the Khazad are weakened by their lack of magic. The Luchuirp seems weaker to me though, perhaps because I like leveling up a tiny but elite military so much. I love their flavor, but specialization is very important in the game. They need more ways to get promotions (probably through UBs) and a way to retrofit old golems to get these promotions (probably with a gold cost and a few turns on immobility). Their big weakness though is mobility. Golems are just slow.


Movement wise Golems aren't fast, sure, but a Golem Army can successfully attack on multiple fronts, due to vastly superior strength, and the ability to cast fireballs. Oh, and a few adepts can keep repairing the stacks, giving them better healing than March. And keep in mind a Fresh Made Iron Golem is likely strength 15. A Champion with Iron is at best 9.6.

I don't necessarily feel the Chirp are the best, but the Khazad are very obviously not even in the running, so I figured he mistook one dwarf for another.

What about new unit graphics for Svartalfar hunters? It seems odd for a recon focussed civilization not to have some unique graphics. The scout graphics are awesome by the way.

Nothing new from Ploe & C. Roland in this version yet huh? :(

/ah well nvm, maybe next time

Edit: and guys, I think Kael's being deliberately schneaky about this Decius guy, to see how we react :)

Edit 2:

cough (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6598771&postcount=630)

ya the unit graphic im most interested in is svartalfar huntress, because hunters come so early and are one of the longest in use units in the game, and recon is the focus of the svartalfar who are one of the major focuses of shadow phase.. but cant complain cause the longer it takes seZ to make it the more insanely awesome itll be heh

I have a question about Acheron- is it possible to give him 2 or 3 movement, but also the item that is reducing movement to 0? My personal quest in almost all games is to catch Acheron, because he is my favorite dragon. Or instead of that kind of item give him possibility to choose also second movement promotion (mobility 2 is available for animal unit, but not for beast).


2. Added a No Techs game option (for scenarios).


Are scenarios included in this new release?


1. Priests don't have a resource requirement anymore.
2. High Priests have resource requirements (all are Incense except for the RoK High Priest who requires Gems).
5. Dies Diei reveals all invisible units within your borders.
6. Nox Noctis makes all your units within your borders invisible (if they aren't in cities).
13. The Tower of Eyes provides a free Dungeon in every city.
27. Added the Two-Headed Cow event.
3. AI won't attack with Heroes (world units) if his attack odds are beneath 95%.
4. AI won't attack with true Spell Casters if his attack odds are beneath 95%.
5. AI realizes it wont destroy forests when laying improvements if it is bMaintainFeatures (the Ljosalfar and Svartalfar).
6. AI is more likely to build unit enabling buildings (if no ai building prereqs aren't enabled).
7. AI is more likely to prefer high strength units.
8. Rewrote the AI_getStrategyHash function to base decisions on FfH functions instead of vanilla configuration.
9. AI taught when to vote for and against the new voting mechanics (they will no longer vote positively for everything).
10. AI is less likely to build forts together (added a pPlot::isBuilding check).


These changes are great!

Wohooo! Nice changelog, and my proposal made it in as well!
Especially glad to see more events, and eventchance going from 2% to 4%, so double. Does this mean we get 8% with living world? :drool:

Are the new options, meant primarily for scenarios, set to be non-visible? That way a scenario writer can still set them quite easily (make them visisble for himself, or edit the scenario file to toggle options), but there isn't quite so much option-clutter for the normal games to sort through.

That or a new tab for all of the Scenario-Oriented options in the Custom Game screen.

Are the new options, meant primarily for scenarios, set to be non-visible? That way a scenario writer can still set them quite easily (make them visisble for himself, or edit the scenario file to toggle options), but there isn't quite so much option-clutter for the normal games to sort through.

That or a new tab for all of the Scenario-Oriented options in the Custom Game screen.

Yes, if its marked for scenarios its not visible in the custom menu (I think No World Spells is the only visibile new option in 0.32).

The Sovereign city and City Split event are for me the most interesting addon in 0.32.
Are these new events something which will be further developed or are these just events?What i mean is: will these event be triggered by particular elements like religion,city culture,happiness, other events or they will randomly appear without any prerequisite?
Can you use diplomacy with these new city states and will they get a leader to interact with?Any idea if these events could be further developed with introduction of minor cults or ideological zealots willing to declare independence?

8. Rewrote the AI_getStrategyHash function to base decisions on FfH functions instead of vanilla configuration.

Just curious, what's this do? (What role does the AI_getStrategyHash function serve? What vanilla functions did it use for input that got replaced with FfH-specific ones?)

The Sovereign city and City Split event are for me the most interesting addon in 0.32.
Are these new events something which will be further developed or are these just events?What i mean is: will these event be triggered by particular elements like religion,city culture,happiness, other events or they will randomly appear without any prerequisite?
Can you use diplomacy with these new city states and will they get a leader to interact with?Any idea if these events could be further developed with introduction of minor cults or ideological zealots willing to declare independence?

Yeah, I was wondering about this too. Internal strife and civil war is something I'd like to see in FfH. Of course, not in annoying way like in civ2 - bang, you are now in civil war - but as a slow process in which you have a great deal of influence. Adopting civics like city states would destabilize your empire, theocracy would increase religious tensions, so you'd have to combine with strong inquisitors presence... People would want to change to republic and liberty, generals (therefore your units, but not those with loyalty) would want aristocracy or god king, nationhood, military state, conquest. Slaves would revolt in case of slavery...


As far as I know Kael wanted to implement civil wars (and city states were designed to increase chance to start a civil war) but it was removed as unfun and unpredictable. I think we reached a stage (with all SDK possibilities and events) where it can be implemented in very nice manner.

For one, it wouldn't be *AN event*, but always a series of events. So you would know when your civ is unstable and why. They you would be faced with demands of the one side. You could deny them, or go ahead and bow down to their demands. So what if you have to abolish slavery - sure, you will lose slaves and you will suffer somewhat, but you will always have an option to avoid civil war. Or option to bribe them with gold, or assassinate their leaders, or suppress them... You will have the choice and be able to predict the events.

Just curious, what's this do? (What role does the AI_getStrategyHash function serve? What vanilla functions did it use for input that got replaced with FfH-specific ones?)

AI_getStrategyHash is the routine that AI players run through to determine what strategy's they should be pursueing. They strategy's accepted here determine everything above (what units they build, what those units do, if the ai declares war, if it feels threatened, etc). So it is about as low level as you can get in AI decisions and the place I wanted to start in reworking the AI.

Specifically there were some strategies that didn't make any sense in FfH terms. For example the Ai has a programmed strategy called land blitz that becomes acceptable if it has enough land units with high movement, shared borders with a potential enemy, etc. One fo those etc's is that the player has to have some anti-aircraft units befopre it will consider the strategy. That makes sense in vanilla where it wouldnt be wise to rush a bunch of non-AA units into an enemies area only to be decimated by aircraft. But in FfH all that means is that they will never see that a land blitz is an effective strategy.

0.32 is really the first step of working on the AI. Id like to add strategy hashes for new things eventually like trying to compelte the altar of the luonnotar (the ai rushes prophets and moves them to the altar city to add to it).

And we also begin to move up through the elements, once the player strategy is set we begin to look at the use of the units in that strategy, what makes since, where spell casting figures in, etc. For exampel there is a peace strategy hash where the ai doesn't feel threatened, that would be a good trigger to start sending adepts out to cast spring and such. Ai's preping for war may be better off sending adepts around casting enchanted blades and those waging wa may be best off hooking their units up with stacks. There is a lot to do, it isnt very sexy work (like adding new features) but for the rest of the project that sort of work (and the scenarios) will probably be taking most of my time.

Yes, if its marked for scenarios its not visible in the custom menu (I think No World Spells is the only visibile new option in 0.32).

Actually, Capture All Buildings sounds like it would be kind of a fun option sometimes; would be nice if all the scenario-specific game options could just be moved to a different menu, so they didn't clutter things but were still selectable for when you wanted a crazy game.

a couple more comments here from me :)

23. Added the Sobs event (rewards spirit).

Kael, could you explain this one? while the other events are clear from their names, I don't get this one.


5. Dies Diei reveals all invisible units within your borders.
6. Nox Noctis makes all your units within your borders invisible (if they aren't in cities).

I might be the only voice of dissention on this one, but this combo sounds very powerful if one player manages to get both, unless there is more to it than you're not telling us.

5. The Circle of Gaelan events now trigger correctly.

I assume the witch event chain is also fixed?

AI_getStrategyHash is the routine that AI players run through to determine what strategy's they should be pursueing. They strategy's accepted here determine everything above (what units they build, what those units do, if the ai declares war, if it feels threatened, etc). So it is about as low level as you can get in AI decisions and the place I wanted to start in reworking the AI.

I see, neat. Thanks for the explanation.

I might be the only voice of dissention on this one, but this combo sounds very powerful if one player manages to get both, unless there is more to it than you're not telling us.

It doesn't sound all that powerful to me - and currently the two new religions don't seem as strong as the old ones in the first place. This is boosting them a bit, which is a good thing.

On one hand, I consider Empyrean the best religion right now. Chalid is wearing Hemah's old mantle of "uber arcane hero", the temples are good, and Blinding Light is still awesome. But then, I think the Deis Diei boost is a lot weaker than the Nox Noctis one, unless it works on HN units instead of just invisible ones.

Empyrean weak? Are you kidding? Radiants and Rathas can immobilize massive armies with just a handful of troops, Luriduses (Luridi?) turn entire stacks into fodder to train up your troops and mages with, and Chalid does the same thing except even more so. Oh, and the extra council vote (which applies to BOTH councils) is just icing on the cake.
edit: What Monkeyfinger said, basically.

CoE, well, there you have a case. Esus isn't that great IMO as a primary religion, though I always try to grab it for the Undercouncil if I can.


2. Adjusted all leaders tolerance for battle odds, some take less risk (Elohim), some take more risk (Doviello), some randomly decide from turn to turn (Balseraphs).
3. AI won't attack with Heroes (world units) if his attack odds are beneath 95%.
4. AI won't attack with true Spell Casters if his attack odds are beneath 95%.

Does #2 affect #3? In other words, will Doviello take more risks with heroes while Elohim won't? Likewise for #4. Also, is it possible to make #4 XP/promotion-dependent? In other words, will the AI try to level up its newbie adepts on mid-range combat chances (50-70%), but keep the adepts/mages that already have a few spheres out of combat? As it is, the AI rarely if ever has any mages, and doesn't use the casters it has effectively anyway.

By the comments Kael has made so far, the fix to Gaelan is very specifically just fixing Gaelan. It isn't an overarching change to how events work.

The Witch Event, from what I recall seeing, doesn't have any follow-up events written yet. So technically they all work perfectly as intended.

I thought someone had said that the witch event was part of an event chain, but heck.

I'm still wondering what the Sobs event is about, although I'll probably have to wait for release.

As far as my knowledge of English is concerned, to sob is to cry, weep. So probably some haunted area event, or depression related. Anyway it has an extra option if you have spirit mana, which fits the my impression.

I know what the word means (and you're correct), just the word alone doesn't give alot of definition to what the event is.

I have a little idea here that could connect the sickness event with the plague one which can give a graveyard. If you choose the wrong option for the sickness event, you will have a higher chance of getting the plague one which gives the graveyard as one result, which resets it's chance of happening after it triggers. If you choose the right option for the sickness event, the chance for the plague one does not change. Of course though, I have no idea how easily codeable this would be, and the sickness event might be different enough from the other one, or maybe similar enough, that they couldn't really be chained.

Whether or not you use this idea is up to you Kael.

The Sobs and Soverign City events.

nice Kael.

Although I'd have to say that your only other city wanting to go soveriegn that early in the game has got to suck. Just a little thought here, did you add a check to make sure your capital city doesn't get targeted by the soveriegn city event? Since you would think your government seat would be almost immune to that type of rebellion.

nice Kael.

Although I'd have to say that your only other city wanting to go soveriegn that early in the game has got to suck. Just a little thought here, did you add a check to make sure your capital city doesn't get targeted by the soveriegn city event? Since you would think your government seat would be almost immune to that type of rebellion.

Yes, and I forced that event to trigger there. It would be incrediably unlikely in a normal game (in fact the event is pretty rare to ever occur).

I'm liking the Sovereign City event -- just to clarify, however, granting the city sovereignty would mean that they would continue to contribute their yields to the empire, but the Governor would determine the build queues and allocation specialists and tiles? If that's the case, will there be different Governors that could be randomly determined who would focus the town on Science, Food, Military, etc. (as per the automate city functions)?

I'm liking the Sovereign City event -- just to clarify, however, granting the city sovereignty would mean that they would continue to contribute their yields to the empire, but the Governor would determine the build queues and allocation specialists and tiles? If that's the case, will there be different Governors that could be randomly determined who would focus the town on Science, Food, Military, etc. (as per the automate city functions)?

It makes them their own AI player, but they are still your civilization (so if you are grigori, they are grigori) and they are on your team. Similiar to how the Mercurians are on your team. The only thing really joined is that you are bound by each others wars and line of sight and research is shared.

Another question about #21: Is the promotion only granted through combat, or would it also be given if a spell were to do poison damage? I don't think there are any such spells now, but they could be nice. I'm mostly thinking that I'd want the promotions from fire and cold damage to be dealt like this too, and would like it if I could just copy and paste the code (or, better yet, if you went ahead and added the ability but not a promotion in the global defines. Or adding this field to CIV4DamageInfos.xml instead)



I'm assuming that #1 doesn;t really mean all units. Your own units shouldn't be ejected, nor should those of your permanent allies.



I was just thinking that it would be good for promotions (like channeling1-3, hero, and extension1-2) to be able to reduce the spell delay time. An adept might take 5 turns to cast spring, a mage could do it in 3, and an archmage could cast it instantly.

While on the subject of spell mechanics, I thought I'd again request that promotions (like extension 1-2) have the ability to increase the range of ranged spells. Grey Fox already included this in Broader Alignments, so you could just borrow his code if you wish. *the range of Maelstrom should be reduced to 1 if promotions can boost it) Or, you could try to get all fancy and make it work within a radius instead of a square, and/or make the strength/chance of success for the spells decrease with distance (blinding light with extension 1 and 2 in Broader alignments is a bit too strong)

I also really think that Twincast should boost non-summoning spells too, and that having multiple promotions with this tag should make the abilities stack. Could you just make this tag cause a caster to cast the same spell twice? It wouldn't matter for spells that grant promotions, change terrain, or convert/kill the caster, but for direct damage spells it would be great.


This one is really a long shot, but could you try to bring back targeted spells? At least letting you target which tile, even if not the unit. I have a suspicion that you could borrow code from air combat (which the AI understands) and get an AI that knows how to exploit targeted spells.Handling it in C++ would also probably be much faster and less buggy than the old spell interface. (I don't expect this could be done in time for .32, however).

Incorporating many of xienwolf's xml changes would be very nice too. I'm also still hoping for some things that are as of yet still beyond xien's skill (and obviously also mine), like promotions vs multiple promotions and <UnitClassTargets> and <UnitCombatTargets> (and maybe a new <PromotionTargets> tag) for promotions (I'd really like to allow units with marksman to cast spells granting such promotions, effectively letting you choose which unit in a stack to attack)

(Speaking of marksmen made me want to request that units with 0 strength (or perhaps no unitcombat) never be targeted by the marksman promotion. It might also be good to exclude units that couldn't defend anyway, like birds or ships in cities. It is really annoying to target these.)


Edit: @ MaxAstro: you can easily make the option visible in your version by changing its <bVisible> tag to 1 in CIV4GameInfos.xml. I went ahead and did this with all the options in .31, and set my favorites to be on my default (I never really use any of the current hidden options anyway though).



I still think that the Invisibility effects of the Empyrean and CoE shrines should also be tied to having the appropriate state religion.





Sovereign city seems cool. I was thinking that it might be cooler though if you were given a choice of it being a permanent ally or a vassal/colony, and if you had the option to switch.

One problem I see here is that it could make you unable to make a permanent alliance through diplomacy. Could you remove the "only 1 permanent ally" restriction?

It could also be nice if there were an event that let you switch from one of your civ's leaders to another while keeping the same empire.

ya the unit graphic im most interested in is svartalfar huntress, because hunters come so early and are one of the longest in use units in the game, and recon is the focus of the svartalfar who are one of the major focuses of shadow phase.. but cant complain cause the longer it takes seZ to make it the more insanely awesome itll be heh

well. yea, i was on vacation at the beach... and now have to catch up with uni... so, i will try to work on the Svartalfar huntress next. just be patient ;)

well. yea, i was on vacation at the beach... and now have to catch up with uni... so, i will try to work on the Svartalfar huntress next. just be patient ;)

heh :p

27. Added the Two-Headed Cow event.


Brahmin anyone? :lol:

Brahmin anyone? :lol:

:lol:

What next? The Brotherhood of Steel? :p

Al

I believe the Tower of Eyes needs to be renamed. It made sense for a wonder which awarded the Sentry promotion; but doesn't really sound like it's awarding Dungeons.
Great patch by the way, thanks.

P.S.:@Monkeyfinger: Stygian Guards have base 6 str and +2 unholy, so that goes down to 5 +2 (I know your post is old, but I didn't see anyone responding to you, so...)

I believe the Tower of Eyes needs to be renamed. It made sense for a wonder which awarded the Sentry promotion; but doesn't really sound like it's awarding Dungeons.
Great patch by the way, thanks.

P.S.:@Monkeyfinger: Stygian Guards have base 6 str and +2 unholy, so that goes down to 5 +2 (I know your post is old, but I didn't see anyone responding to you, so...)

The Tower of Eyes was the tower Kylorin locked Perpentach in. It supposed to keep him trapped and was guarded by golems (which Perpentach couldnt use his mind magic on). Thats why it acts as a super dungeon. I need to get a pedia entry down to explain it better, and in all honesty it should probably be a Unique Feature since it existed in the Age of Magic.

You could think of it like this: Tower of Eyes = security cameras everywhere.

I think having the tower of eyes as a Unique feature and still grant free dungeons if it is in your borders and you have reached a certain tech would be great. it would be something cool to go kill your neighbor over. unique features really break up the monotony of the map and make it feel more like erebus.

It makes them their own AI player, but they are still your civilization (so if you are grigori, they are grigori) and they are on your team. Similiar to how the Mercurians are on your team. The only thing really joined is that you are bound by each others wars and line of sight and research is shared.
If the newly independent city is on your team, does that kill your research? Or does 50% increase in research cost per team member not apply in FfH?

I think it still exists, but you can override if in CIV4GlobalDefinesAlt.xml if you want. I think it would be good for Kael to go ahead and override both this and the National wonder limit for One City challenge games, so I don't keep needing to do so every version.

and get rid of the great person threshold increase for teammates too, thats a huge pain for multiplayer team games, especially for grigori.

Decius is the Two-Headed Cow, duh. No way a one-headed cow could rule three civilizations.

Dangit Kael, he guessed it... we gotta scrap that idea now...

Oh, excellent!
I can't wait to see it!

So if I get the Soverign City event and later summon Basium, would that make a 3 way permanant alliance? Or is thare a block against that....

7. Added the Summon Tiger spell (available to Fellowship of Leaves priests, loki).

Maybe it could be better to summon random animal (except elephant)?

28. Added the Decius leader (Bannor, Calabim and Malakim leader).
29. Added the Pick Alignment event (Decius can select his starting alignment).

Sounds like there's an interesting backstory here :)

So if I get the Soverign City event and later summon Basium, would that make a 3 way permanant alliance? Or is thare a block against that....

You are forgetting one. Make a regular alliance, get the event, and build the gate. Tada four-way alliance.

I've had plenty of three way alliances before with a regular alliance + Basium.

NONONO

IGNORE EVERYTHING BELOW: WRONG THREAD LOL

//Am I the only one not taking this discussion into the realms of reality?

//This is a dark fantasy mod. Evil people are evil, and gobble up nice friendly good people. Evil people torture, good people dont etc. It's a game...

//Al

Actually, dark fantasy is where the lines between good and evil are blurred, not absolute.

WRONG POST SORRY!!! ARGH

Al

it isnt very sexy work (like adding new features)Even though of course new features are exciting and great - if the AI doesn't work well you don't have too much fun playing with them. I think it's great that you want to improve the AI to use the FfH features more efficiently (or even at all)!

The other changes are also really exciting, I'm very much looking forward to 0.32!

Are there any plans to implement Vehem's civ specific citystyles?
Also, could you PLEASE implement Sureshot's blue drown reskin? Yellow just doesn't feel right to me...

Been meaning to ask... you guys need any help with Python code? I've noticed you taking snippets from forum posters, and I'm getting pretty capable with the language now, so I'm wondering if I could help?

Been meaning to ask... you guys need any help with Python code? I've noticed you taking snippets from forum posters, and I'm getting pretty capable with the language now, so I'm wondering if I could help?

Not really, most of the time other people are fixing my broken code (usually Sto). What I really need at this stage is balance feedback, or I watch the modmods pretty closely looking for things people implement that make sense in the main game.

@theJopa- I dont know about Vehem's city sets. They looked pretty awesome in that screenshot and I definitly want to play with them. But I will have to play around them a bit to see how they work out (Im guessing they will be added).

What happens when you found a religion and you've got the sovereign city even going? Is there a chance they will be the holy city? I've played team games over LAN a bit, but still am not sure how it determines who gets it. I would just hate for them to get the reward of founding a religion when their contribution is so mediocre. Not that I'm too likely to let them be free anyways :king:
Side note: is it just me or do most events occur way before you would even have a chance to access the prerequisites for most of the options? Half the time, I feel like I'm stuck with only bad decisions.

If the sovereign city event happens and you allow them to leave, it's no longer your city. Like when Basium shows up -- if you found a religion after the arrival of Basium, does he get it? No? Same thing.

and to whoever said it... if you had the sovereign city event and summoned Basium, yes, you'd have a team of three. Big whoop. Two of the three would still be really weak.

in team games whoever put the most actual research into a religion tech is the one who founds it, unless they aren't researching it at the time it is founded (i.e. if both are researching it for most of the time and one person stops right before its founded, the other will get it).

will the city in the sovereign city event get their own palace? if so, this could be VERY powerful (mana, commerce from palace etc.)

Since the AI doesnt trade Resources they have no spare of and you can't vassalize them since they are your ally its actually valueless / no different for the player unless they whould be from another Civ and use their different Mana to your favor in the field...
Only players and vassals can give away their only resources by trade. it seems to. (and makes sense, otherwise AI might give away its only of a strategic resource and lose the ability to use certain Units.)

In online team games, does the Nox Noctis invisible effect work for all the team members? Because if it does, that's one heck late-game bonus I would definitely try to get. I can't even begin to imagine the kind of havoc this wonder can wreck.

Can I bring up a cosmetic issue way in advance? The sobs event has a couple of typos - should be "sadness" and "two-storey".
Not sure "any populace" or "that brought the message" make sense in the sovereign city one either - "any of the populace", or "any citizens" perhaps?

Well if cosmetic issues can be pointed out, then in the sobs event "the sounds flows" only needs one plural...


Oh and, yay release date!!!!

Can I bring up a cosmetic issue way in advance? The sobs event has a couple of typos... "two-storey"...

That one's just an American/English spelling difference.

But anyways, looking forward to .32, and finding out about this enigmatic new leader...
Oh and...

1. Priests don't have a resource requirement anymore.
2. High Priests have resource requirements (all are Incense except for the RoK High Priest who requires Gems).

Excellent. I was tired of my priest-based tactics being fouled up by a lack of resources. At least now I can get some form of priest into the front lines to capture what I need.
I take it the AV priest reagent requirement has been changed.

How exactly are the Enclaves going to be implemented? Is a new XML tag going to be added or will Kuriotates just have a unique worker and unique cottage -> enclave?

I'm curious, does the AI include units that are invisible when considering how strong an opponent is? For instance, if you built the Nox Noctis, and hid your entire army with its effect, will the AI think you've suddenly become a pansy because 80% of your military strength just disappeared?

I would guess no, because the power graph does not take into account promotions.

And here we go for the longest week of this year !

44. Added the City Feud event (idea by Xeunay, you thought I forgot didnt you?).
45. Added the City Feud Arson event (idea by Xeunay).
46. Added the City Feud Merc event (idea by Xeunay).

Yay! :)

Xuenay, though. ;)

Can't wait :).

And here we go for the longest week of this year !

yea because of finals and all, but it'll seem to go by pretty quick and then summer vacation! :)

Speaking of the power graph, I would really like to be able to see it while actually playing the game and not having to do 'retire' (after saving it of course) to look at it. I don't do it very often, but still...

Anyone figures out what the game itself calls the graph, I"ll have it visible in about 5 minutes. Just can't find it in the code so far :(

I have no clue, all I know though is that it appears due to the espionage thing.

22. Event chance increased from 2% to 4%.

How does this differ from the Living world option?

How does this differ from the Living world option?

It basically means living world is always on... and that if you turn on living world, events will go up to an impressive 8%.

Anyone figures out what the game itself calls the graph, I"ll have it visible in about 5 minutes. Just can't find it in the code so far :(

I'm just gonna tell you the easy way to do it. If you still want to change the code afterwards I can tell you where to do that too :P

Open CIV4EspionageMissionInfo.xml. Change bSeeDemographics from 1 to 0. If there's no espionage op for showing demographics then they display by default.

Thought it was called Demographics, but when I enabled that in the SDK it wound up not showing the power graph for me. Guess I should have looked at a lower level :)

It basically means living world is always on... and that if you turn on living world, events will go up to an impressive 8%.

is there a easy way to change this myself? (i want more)

40. Added the UpgradeCiv unit attribute (so that captured ogres, centaurs, vampires, sect of lies, etc all upgrade to civ specific units instead of the capturing civs units).

Nice, No more Vampires splitting into 5 Berserkers hehe :)

Edit: And will Brigit use Valkyrie graphics, or something completely different?

Looks great. I can't wait!

Please help me though! By FAR my #1 desire in any future FFH release is a "don't build forts" option for automated workers!

My workers are spending half their time building forts which I have no use for and are wasting valuable spaces in the heart of my empire. I have to then go catch all the automated workers and manually tell them to go back and fix it. Almost more work than just managing them all in the first place. I love that the AI builds forts but this would be so much more enjoyable if my workers would just quit it with the forts. Thanks for such an awesome mod!

@blacknight, I agree they build them in stupid places...maybe there is a way so that they don't build forts anymore.

@ blacknight & mimic: 10. AI is less likely to build forts together (added a pPlot::isBuilding check).

That doesn't neccesarily mean that workers won't waste time building forts or doing it where I don't want them (which is why I never use automate workers), but we'll just have to wait and see.

16. Gifting units is disabled (to many exploits).

This is a shame for single players. I often use gifts of entire obsolete stacks to help fight proxy wars, help aligned neighbours defend themselves or even to rearm a new vasal ahead of our next campaign.

Please could this change be an optional item and not just across both single and MP please...

^I second that.

I can't even imagine automating my workers. Maybe it's because I've been playing civilization since civ I, but it just seems like a central part of the game. I've always thought of automation as an option for when you're finishing up a domination or conqest game. It just seems to go without saying that the AI is going to completely mess up your city planing.

It was being exploited in Single Player as well (people gifting animals and then capturing them repeatedly for one).

If you want to help a vassal, grant him some free Techs and Resources. If you want to assist in a war, declare war, or bribe the enemy to declare peace.

The AI will get better, so you won't need to assist your vassals quite so much.

16. Gifting units is disabled (to many exploits).

This is a shame for single players. I often use gifts of entire obsolete stacks to help fight proxy wars, help aligned neighbours defend themselves or even to rearm a new vasal ahead of our next campaign.

Please could this change be an optional item and not just across both single and MP please...
It was being exploited in Single Player as well (people gifting animals and then capturing them repeatedly for one).
[...]
Yes, it's a shame that gifting units will be disabled. I hope this is only temporally.

About the exploit with gifted animals and gifted units with Enraged promotion:
After you gifted a unit it should get a certain promotion (50% chance of wearing of per turn or something). Make it so (if possible) that you don't get any experience from killing (or capturing) units with that promotion.
(You don't even need a new promotion, just use the Blur promotion and add this feature.)

I was going to ask what exploits are possible by gifting units, but while playing the Sheaim I realized I can gift away my gate units and get more.

KC: thanks. :)

3. AI won't attack with Heroes (world units) if his attack odds are beneath 95%.

Have adjustments been made for Losha?

I agree with Sofista. Units with the immortal promotion should be used with less caution.

Also, how do we use game options that are not able to be set ffrom the custom start screen? Some would make interesting maps.

Also, how do we use game options that are not able to be set ffrom the custom start screen? Some would make interesting maps.

You have to edit the <bVisible>0</bVisible> tag in CIV4GameOptionInfos.xml's define for the option to <bVisible>0</bVisible>.

(Or, if you want it always on, you could set <bDefault>1</bDefault> and <bVisible>1</bVisible>)


And yeah, Immortal units should be very aggressive. Should this be only those with the immortal promotion, or also the units that are intrinsically immortal? If the latter, can we make sure they are only aggressive when they really are immortal (not if they have already died that turn?)

I was going to ask what exploits are possible by gifting units, but while playing the Sheaim I realized I can gift away my gate units and get more.

The really big exploit is gifting Arcane units to another player who then gifts them back; the units will keep getting free promotions. Also, you can gift away permanent summons and resummon them.

There is one major downside to equipment being gifted, though; it's now impossible for team members to give equipment to eachother unless they let a barbarian grab the item first. Perhaps it could be made so that team members can pick up dropped equipment?

I just wanted to point out that Bhuric has updated the unofficial patch 2 days ago so I hope any relevant changes are included in the latest FFH release :)

Update:

Extended spy ejection protection to Great Spies (and any other unit considered "always invisible")
AI Civs under Theocracy will no longer accept gifted Missionaries
Units withdrawing from combat will be removed from selection group (thanks Moctezuma)
When bumping naval units from cities, preference will be given to water tiles
Tweaks/bugfixes to improve starting city locations (thanks SevenSpirits)
Cities no longer require a Monument to allow Spies to sabotage buildings


Bh

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6827753#post6827753

The only 2 of those that matter to FfH are the removal from groups on withdraw, which I am pretty sure Kael did quite a while ago, and the Naval Unit bumping, but I'm not sure when that every actually happens, so I don't know if it matters. Also POSSIBLY the city start location tweaks, but that isn't too likely to matter for FfH, too many rules are different here.

It was being exploited in Single Player as well (people gifting animals and then capturing them repeatedly for one).

If you want to help a vassal, grant him some free Techs and Resources. If you want to assist in a war, declare war, or bribe the enemy to declare peace.

The AI will get better, so you won't need to assist your vassals quite so much.

I just play single player (as do a lot of people) and the exploit above seems pretty pointless as do all exploits in single player becuase the only person your cheating is yourself. If i wanted to cheat, i could just go into world builder and do what i wanted so what is the point? I can understand this perfectly for multiplayer games but against the AI - who is the removal of gifting trying to protect? If it is just a menu option, then cant thoes who want it that way just turn it on and off or for multiplayer games.

I know its not a big thing but its a strategy i use often that is also realistic. Throughout history nations have helped thier allies with miltary aid (technology, financial and even troops) instead of just declaring war on a common enemy. Also, as i turn off tech trading (i dont feel its handled fairly by the AI) then i often dont have many options to assist a weaker friend other than iron/broze/horse resourse gifts with some cash.

Please, i know its probably more work to add it as a menu option but please could you at least consider it...:sad:

I know its not a big thing but its a strategy i use often that is also realistic. Throughout history nations have helped thier allies with miltary aid (technology, financial and even troops) instead of just declaring war on a common enemy.

Please, i know its probably more work to add it as a menu option but please could you at least consider it...:sad:

I could not agree more - I do not realy like this option removed. In single player it doesn't realy matter and in multi disabling it has both good and bad results (equipment, spare animals can't be gifted).

So, an option in menu or at least in an xml (even python) file somewhere would be great :) Best with some info what has to be changed...

EDIT: Attachable battering ram is a great idea, too :)

^ seconded

Random thought re: Defensive trait: When a unit with the Homelands trait is killed, the killer gets 50% normal XP. (In addition to its current effects).

^ seconded


I would have to Third that, I have used that to save a weaker civ on my boarder to keep distance and fight proxy wars with a stronger AI. It is a valid stratagy even in todays world....

Does the -50% to experience game option come into effect after bonuses from Raider, Valor, and Great Commander have been added, or does it halve the -base- experience?

Wil any more minor leaders be added? They will make interesting gameplay.

I assume it's not possible to make specific units un-giftable.

while i'm not sure how difficult it would be to block arcane units from getting free promotions when gifted(probably a pain), wouldn't it be fairly easy to block gifting of units to empires you are at war with, and either blocking the gifting of hidden nationality units, or forcing them to declare nationality on gifting. then if you gifted them to someone only to try and recapture them, by the time you could try to recapture them they should be long gone, assuming they went HNat again. or am i missing something.

^ What Inkling said.

Another bit of balance feedback:

Considering the Grigori's first hero can often destroy multiple AI civ's by his lonesome, can we slow it down just a smidge?

Change suggestion:

Grigori Palace provides 1 GPP per turn (Adventurer) instead of 2.

New Unique Grigori Obelisk provides +1 GPP per turn (Adventurer).

This way you get your 2 points only after building your first Obelisk, or if you get the free obelisk event. On the flip side, much earlier on can your non capital cities produce adventurers.

I just play single player (as do a lot of people) and the exploit above seems pretty pointless as do all exploits in single player becuase the only person your cheating is yourself. If i wanted to cheat, i could just go into world builder and do what i wanted so what is the point? I can understand this perfectly for multiplayer games but against the AI - who is the removal of gifting trying to protect? If it is just a menu option, then cant thoes who want it that way just turn it on and off or for multiplayer games.

I know its not a big thing but its a strategy i use often that is also realistic. Throughout history nations have helped thier allies with miltary aid (technology, financial and even troops) instead of just declaring war on a common enemy. Also, as i turn off tech trading (i dont feel its handled fairly by the AI) then i often dont have many options to assist a weaker friend other than iron/broze/horse resourse gifts with some cash.

Please, i know its probably more work to add it as a menu option but please could you at least consider it...:sad:


I agree with this poster and also would like if gifting would remain in SP.

I just play single player (as do a lot of people) and the exploit above seems pretty pointless as do all exploits in single player becuase the only person your cheating is yourself. If i wanted to cheat, i could just go into world builder and do what i wanted so what is the point? I can understand this perfectly for multiplayer games but against the AI - who is the removal of gifting trying to protect? If it is just a menu option, then cant thoes who want it that way just turn it on and off or for multiplayer games.

I know its not a big thing but its a strategy i use often that is also realistic. Throughout history nations have helped thier allies with miltary aid (technology, financial and even troops) instead of just declaring war on a common enemy. Also, as i turn off tech trading (i dont feel its handled fairly by the AI) then i often dont have many options to assist a weaker friend other than iron/broze/horse resourse gifts with some cash.

Please, i know its probably more work to add it as a menu option but please could you at least consider it...:sad:

There is a difference between cheating through the world builder and cheating by using an option in the game. With the world buidler you know you are cheating and you are making a conscious decision about it. With the other you are just using the tools the developer gave you to the best of your ability. In fact that is one of the major goals of the game, to figure out the system and develop plans for you empire that are effective. The player trusts that the developer has made all the options reasonable and if we have doen our job all reasonable plans are effective without being to powerful.

So one of our respnsibilities are designers is to remove or boost the bad options, and nerf or remove the over powered ones. Gifting is one of those over powered options, one of the most broken since it allows you to circumvent so many of the games balance restrictions.

Adding it as a game option still condones the fact that it is a balanced option. Including broken options is bad game design.

Loki does have an idea for a better way to implement a "gifting" like mechanic. But we need to wait for another mechanic to come through before we can try it out. So we do have plans to bring this sort of functionality back. But not in 0.32.

Another thing to look at while we are talking about exploits:

Remove the ability to bypass your National Unit Limit by upgrading Units in allied cities instead of your own.

it also seems that in allies cities you can upgrade regardless of buildings (they do have to have proper required resources tho).

The Slower Experience game option will be really a must for anyone which want to play a balanced game at Marathon Speed.
I would also suggest to scale the Hero Promotion with game speed, there is a huge difference if you get 1xp/turn with a turn limit of 600 turns/1200 turns or 1800 turns.

It would be great to have hero experience rate modified depending game speed. Even more, I'd love to have the channeling promotion depend on game speed. Since I always play on quick, it seems like I never get to play with mages (much less archmages) since my adapts never have enough experience to promote. It would be nice to play with the spells more often.

Cheers,

Why not use the mercs mod as a build guide to allow some form of gifting?


For those who dont know what I am talking about:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=162016&highlight=Mercenaries

Heh and while you are at it, it would be great if the Hippus got the ability to sell out some of its units =)


While I am at it let me spam out an old thread of mine :mischief:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=263170&highlight=hippus

Have yet to encounter an earthquake event, is there one?

Maybe an earthquake would level everything on random tile (city, improvement, forest, units, even a feature) and surrounding tiles suffer some damage.

Could have a chance of generating marble or mineable resource, earth elemental or earth mana. Also have a chance of turning tile into a hill tile (not sure if that would work for sea or ocean tiles but would be cool)

Unlikely to have an major effect early game but potentially significant later on

Could have lower chance of occurring in RoK lands, and if it does more likely to generate resource

Could even be a RoK ritual:-
Event; A Stonewarden shows remarkable aptitude in shifting the earth and believes with some further experiments and practice may be able to generate an earthquake to smite our enemies, do we fund further research?

Event; A Stonewarden intends to try to generate an earthquake but the consequences could be dire, do we allow the experiment to proceed? An earthquake strikes random tile within Empire and allows Earthquake Ritual

Ritual; Can cause an earthquake to strike random tile within given area (like hawk recon area). Maybe lowers all other civs attitude but doesn't cause war?

Sorry about the long rambling post :) and I don't even know if any of that is doable :confused:

There is a difference between cheating through the world builder and cheating by using an option in the game. With the world buidler you know you are cheating and you are making a conscious decision about it. With the other you are just using the tools the developer gave you to the best of your ability. In fact that is one of the major goals of the game, to figure out the system and develop plans for you empire that are effective. The player trusts that the developer has made all the options reasonable and if we have doen our job all reasonable plans are effective without being to powerful.

So one of our respnsibilities are designers is to remove or boost the bad options, and nerf or remove the over powered ones. Gifting is one of those over powered options, one of the most broken since it allows you to circumvent so many of the games balance restrictions.

Adding it as a game option still condones the fact that it is a balanced option. Including broken options is bad game design.

Loki does have an idea for a better way to implement a "gifting" like mechanic. But we need to wait for another mechanic to come through before we can try it out. So we do have plans to bring this sort of functionality back. But not in 0.32.

Thank you for the response Kael. Hopefully a better gifting system will evolve. I am not an expert player so many of the exploits listed above were new to me but if there is a new gifting system planned for the distant future please could it address the strategy that i belive it is more commonly used for.

I use it to support weaker civs against a common rival, almost fighting a proxy war through my industrial might. If my civics are all set up for peace and i am going for a altar / tower victory, i really dont want to have to get into a long protracted war against an rival with a similar sized army.

The gifting ability allows me to militarise a buffer nation or natural enemy to either slow down or if i really fund them well - even hold an aggressive rival. Sometimes it does backfire - they become the vassal of my rival and turn my own gifted troops against me or if i fail to give enough gold as well, they sometimes disband my gifted forces.

If a new mechanic could still allow this idea of helping allies but just short of gowing to war then that would be great. Couple of ideas to stop exploitation:

- Gifted units lose all promotions
- only allow gifting of three classes (tier 2 melee/cavalry/ archers)
- Gifting a unit in another players city adds a fully built unit of that type into the production queue for that city (after the current build)
- Gifted units (non animal / tier 2>) turn into mercenary units with just combat 1 and 0 experiance

Is there a way to set the max number of turns before victory. IE a setting in the options that says game ends at turn 400.??

if you make a worldbuilder save of the game with a time victory on set, you can adjust how many turns it is. on quick i think the default is 400 turns with time victory on

I think it would be cool if city states made all of your cities different civs (but if you were malakim they would all be malakim and you would keep your capital) and either they were all your vassals or in a permanent alliance with you.

30. Ars, Buboes, Stephanos and Yersinia can fly.

hmm, how will we be able to attack them now? This is certainly something that is going to be tweaked because we have only a few flying units and none of them are true combat units. Except maybe the griffin, but I haven't seen that in the game.

As far as the recently added change from chaos to law for the Illians, it makes more sense because chaos is closely linked to fire, which is the opposite of Mulcarns sphere. Besides, the chaos spells such as mutate really don't fit with Auric Ulvin, who is supposed to be a reincarnated Mulcarn.

flying doesnt make it impossible to attack them, it only gives them flat movement, +1 movement, and the ability to walk on water or mountains and other impassible terrain

I didn't say it would be impossible to attack them, just that the few flying units (I'm not sure if the various angels are classed as flying units or not) that there are, aren't really combat units. While the hawk has combat capability, it is too weak to really be considered a combat unit.

You used to be able to get flying from mutate, not sure if that's true anymore. I don't think the flying promo has anything to do with combat. Might prevent defensive bonuses

Flying does prevent defensive bonuses, but otherwise doesn't effect combat. You can easily attack flying units with either land or sea units. It is basically the same as waterwalking except that it also lets units move through peaks, gives +1 movement, makes them ignore terrain, and doesn't let the use roads. Unlike Water Walking, it does not negate the amphibious combat penalty.


I personally think that waterwalking might be better for them, so they could use roads and get defensive bonuses.


In the current version of my modmod, I've added a "Winged" promotion to all units with wings in their graphics (except Gargoyles), and let units with this spell cast Take Flight (which gives flying) and Land (removes flying). Usually you'd want to be flying, but not if you want to use roads/highways (I added railroad equivalents at engineering. These clear forests, unfortunately even when built by elves) or to defend. I'll probably try to balance it somehow, perhaps making Flying randomly expire and grant fatigued instead and having a chance to hurt or even kill the unit (when it crashes to the ground or drowns). Or, I might just remove it. It was fun to play around with though.

@Magister
Another, more time consuming, way of doing it would be to add +% versus flying to various units. Archers, for instance. So you'd want to land before attacking a group of longbowmen.

So, what is an Irda?

The only thing I've found by that mane are the Infrared Date Association, Intermittent rhythmic delta activity, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, and Iskandar Region Development Authority, but I'm not sure how any of those fit in FfH.

The Irda are a fictional species in the fantasy world of Dragonlance. They are the first born of the Evil gods, and also the ancient predecessors of the contemporary Ogres.
From Answers.com (http://www.answers.com/irda?cat=technology&gwp=13).. atleast more fantasy oriented than your finds heh

From Ask.com (http://www.answers.com/irda?cat=technology&gwp=13).. atleast more fantasy oriented than your finds heh

you got to it first, but anyways, here is the one from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irda_%28Dragonlance%29

I'm not sure how they would fit into the role that Kael is trying to do though.

well theyre from an evil god and theyre blueish in the picture, and theyre the predecessors of ogres.. so evil (made by evil)+water (blue skin)+big (predecessors of ogres) are associated with avatar of wrath (hes big, evil and can walk on water)

You want a Horseman of the Apocalyse to stop and dig graves for his victims?


It is a good idea, in a slightly different approach, no matter how strange it might seem mechanically. Rather than having him spawn graveyards, have one of the other Horsemen do it. It is pretty common that they spawn very close together, if not on the same turn. So why not give them mechanics which can interact to become more powerful? It'd be kinda cool if your recation would vary from "Oh, a lone Horseman? Yawn..." to "There's 3 of them together?! RUN!"

Just because they have blue skin does not mean that they have affinity for water. The closest mana type that they could belong to could be chaos, or if you go by the fact that the creator goddess Takhisis is known as the dragonqueen, fire mana.

Honestly, I know practically nothing about D&D stuff, but I'm just stating what makes sense to me.

im just making up silly reasons heh, from the long description i wouldnt think hes referring to the dragonlance irda, but being blue could be a remnant of an older irda source that does links them to water

Ahhh a release date... finally :)

Al

Sorry that was a mistype, that was supposed to be Ira, not Irda.

Which leads to a whole new series of questions, like what the Irish Republican Army are doing in Erebus :p

Fightin' English.

I'm pretty sure that is completely made up. Still, is that particular unit going to have an unique graphic, maybe not at release, but eventually?

Yeah, I thought it might be Ira. It makes more sense for Anger to be associated with Chaos/War than for the more civilized ancestors of the Ogres, or especially than the Infrared Data Association.

Of course, it does seem like they might be even more associated with the body sphere. After all, Odio was said to have lead the Army of Ira. I kinda assumed that Ira might be a type of angel or "body/hatred/anger elemental" under Aeron. Of course, these two spheres do seem closely linked, and I've always assumed that Aeron and Camulos are each other's closest allies.

Fightin' English.

Lol the IRA has like... disarmed :p

Al

If the Army of IRA was led by Odio, shouldn't that be O'Dio instead? :D

Lol the IRA has like... disarmed :p

Al

And was fighting the northern irish protestants, who were primarily scottish-descended presbyterian, rather than english, but then this is Civ, with a pop-culture view of history, so nvm ;)

/with apologies for the thread derailment

A little request:

Would it be possible to have a little screenie, keeping track of heroes currently in a game? Could be very useful for reprising older saves, or drawn-out games.

A little request:

Would it be possible to have a little screenie, keeping track of heroes currently in a game? Could be very useful for reprising older saves, or drawn-out games.

What happens if one of the players is grigori?

A little request:

Would it be possible to have a little screenie, keeping track of heroes currently in a game? Could be very useful for reprising older saves, or drawn-out games.

Thats not a little request to code. If someone adds a new tab to the demographics screeen for heros that shows heroes that have been in the game, if they are dead or no and their civilization (if the civ has been met, otherwise unknown) I'll add it.

Will heroes who abandon a civ, cause of a religion switch or otherwise, ever be available for other civilizations?

Will heroes who abandon a civ, cause of a religion switch or otherwise, ever be available for other civilizations?

Probably, I think its a good idea. I just havent figured out a decent way to implement.

Kill the hero and undo the flag which claims he has already been built. Doesn't let you carry over their promotions and whatnot, but it does the task well enough that nobody ought to complain too much.

That could work, but I still think I'd prefer that when a unit abandons one civ it triggers an event that makes it be converted to the ownership of some other civ with the proper prereqs, complete with promotions, levels, etc.

One caveat to the brute force method: Make sure they don't drop their starting equipment (if any Abandoning units HAVE starting equipment), but allow them to drop equipment collected by other means (probably be easiest to delete the equipment from their list of starting promotions while deleting the fact it was ever built, and allow the gear to drop on the ground where they were upon Abandon).

MC: Having the unit move to someone else who DOES meet the requirements would require that such a player exists, or temporarily storing all data for the Hero until anybody does meet the requirements again. It also potentially leads to issues with instant city capture if you happen to be at war with the new owners.

You could do a search for people allowed to keep the hero, and if none exist, THEN delete the fact the hero was ever created. And to solve the other issue you could move the hero to the nearest unoccupied tile in the new owner's cultural influence before you convert it to belong to them.

Well the relatively complex way to make them keep their promotions when they are abandoned is to keep a Matrix of all heroes in CvGame with their promotions as the 2nd array. Then just check this array when the hero is created and promote the hero accordingly.

So, what will the base stats of an Ira be? If they get +1 :strength: from each battle but are too weak to actually win against anything but workers, then they aren't worth much.


I still think that the gold cost of spreading CoE should be raised if there are no religious requirements, and I still the the new Shrine effects should be tied to state religion.

I'm thinking that Evil or Neutral AIs with no state religion shouldn't be blocked from spreading Esus.

Sorry that was a mistype, that was supposed to be Ira, not Irda.

You might want to consider calling them something else. I know "ira" is the Latin word for "anger," but when you capitalize it it looks like the name of someone's great-uncle -- not too threatening. ;)</