Someone mentioned this recently, and I agree so much that I wanted to start a new thread to emphasize my agreement with this issue: Khazad should get +1 food from hills. Or mines. Whichever.

To balance it, this could be made part of a unique civic for Khazad. To me, it just makes sense... they live freaking underground, what exactly do they eat when they're down there? Obviously something which doesn't require farms on flatland... so why should a Khazad empire in pure hills have no food?

A simple +1 per hill/mine wouldn't be overpowered, but it'd go a long way to making a Dwarven empire a little more sustainable.

Yes, I've thought of that too and probably others as well, but I don't recall any official word.

No civ in FfH has food crises thanks to agriculture and sanitation. Also, the Khazad are strong enough as is.

Ditto on Monkeyfinger's response. Regardless of whoever you play, there's never a shortage of food, and Khazad already have probably the best production capabilities of all the civs, and they're definately in the upper tier of civs already. There's no reason to make them even more powerful.

A simple solution could be for Arete mines to lose their extra hammer and instead gain their extra food from that mine there instead.

No civ in FfH has food crises thanks to agriculture and sanitation. Also, the Khazad are strong enough as is.That requires farms, which you can't build on hills. My point is that Khazad should still have at least some food production in a city which doesn't have access to both fresh water and flatlands; grassland + hills should be plenty to keep them slowly growing.

I think it's better like it is.
Khazad are powerful already and extra food would change their cities in [even more] production monsters.

It's called Merchants. Settle great merchants for +1 food. Yey! :)

I'm not saying the Khazad need this but flavour-wise they might grow mushrooms in their underground homes - plenty of protein for a growing dwarf!

That requires farms, which you can't build on hills. My point is that Khazad should still have at least some food production in a city which doesn't have access to both fresh water and flatlands; grassland + hills should be plenty to keep them slowly growing.


If ANY civilization is surrounded by tons of hills with no fresh water or flatlands, then it isn't going to grow. It's not just the Khazad civilization. Why should the Khazad get large food bonuses (as well as production bonuses) for building a city in a spot where citizens of other civs would starve themselves to death in the same position?

This idea, if it were implemented would be make Khazad extremely unbalanced. I'm not opposed to the ideas (in theory) that were posted in that other thread, "For the Dwarves," although I, personally, don't support any of them, but they are certainly more balanced than what you are proposing, IMO.

I actually change Arete from +1 hammer to +1 food and commerce from mines, but I've noticed that because the hills and mines already have -1 food, it's actually does mostly nothing. You'd have to set it to +3 to get any benefit, but at that point you'd get +1 from a Plains mine and +2 from a Grassland mine.

In any case, I tend to favor that dwarves can work mountain tiles for small amounts of food (as you suggest, fungi or other food that grows in near or total darkness, not to mention mountain-dwelling cattle like goats) and commerce (small deposites of gemstones/metal, if not necessarily a large enough resource to be mined). No production because there's no guarantee that all that mined rock is useful for anything. Maybe 2/0/1, with Sanitation giving +1 food and Blasting Powder +1 production. I guess in the end that would not change much, since you'd still need another citizen to work the tile, but it's mostly a flavor thing.

Just give the Dwarfes -1 :food: for Farms and +1 :food: for mines.
Plus, let them build mines on flatlands.

I would love to see FFH to have such big differences between the tribes.

If ANY civilization is surrounded by tons of hills with no fresh water or flatlands, then it isn't going to grow. It's not just the Khazad civilization. Why should the Khazad get large food bonuses (as well as production bonuses) for building a city in a spot where citizens of other civs would starve themselves to death in the same position?

This idea, if it were implemented would be make Khazad extremely unbalanced. I'm not opposed to the ideas (in theory) that were posted in that other thread, "For the Dwarves," although I, personally, don't support any of them, but they are certainly more balanced than what you are proposing, IMO.

I agree with schlalex - his idea would make dwarves want to stick to hills more which is their flavour. They should be able to survive in hilly environments much more easily than any other civ (which means they need more food from hills).

Why not a new improvement which is available to everyone for Hills which provides some food (Potato Farm & Billy Goat Ranch)? You could allow Arete to give it a bit of a bonus as well, but then it helps solve the problem of heavily hilled land being bad food for all Civs.

Or just allow Windmills much earlier (Construction maybe? Dwarves like this tech anyways. Or Mathematics if that seems to early) and have Arete improve them a bit as well like +1:food:? (they are mostly useless now anyways since they come so late). If it seems out of flavor for the Khazad or the Mod, might rename and retexture them to something xienwolf suggested and the team likes. So that not more clutter need to be added whith enough existing options.

Lumbermills (Perhaps for Khazad, or Clan or another timber-Intensive economy :p. +1 :hammers: from Commune with Nature had been removed sadly then they where useful if not Arete or Gunpowder were Available.), Watermills (for Lanun perhaps) and Workshops (for Luchirp naturally :P) could perhaps also use a beaf-up btw. Or just be removed anyways since at least Watermills and Workshops seem hardly worth it now under any circumstance. (Tying to flavorful or otherwise underpowered civics might help to make them more interesting as well.)

All of those seem dull compared to the other options and might make the Landscape look more interesting if given a real use...

Windmills and watermills are good to get the most out of golden ages.

I say take away farms from khazad, let them wait for mathmatics to build forts on wheat and such, give +1 food for thier mines (maybe require construction), and -1 food for cottages, -2 food for towns. Kazahd r over powerd right now thier only weakness is magi

Possibly give them a building that will let u turn thier hammer production into food production. That could be interesting.

If ANY civilization is surrounded by tons of hills with no fresh water or flatlands, then it isn't going to grow. It's not just the Khazad civilization. Why should the Khazad get large food bonuses (as well as production bonuses) for building a city in a spot where citizens of other civs would starve themselves to death in the same position?Because they're a different species. They live underground. Why should Doviello and Illians be fine in tundra when everyone else isn't? Because that's their flavour. What's great about FFH is the differentiation between civs... radically different playstyles. So why should every civ get food the same way?
This idea, if it were implemented would be make Khazad extremely unbalanced. I'm not opposed to the ideas (in theory) that were posted in that other thread, "For the Dwarves," although I, personally, don't support any of them, but they are certainly more balanced than what you are proposing, IMO.So, uh, balance it. I'm not saying to give it to them for free -- I said to put it as a unique civic, likely paired with a penalty of some kind. All I said is they need to be able to get food from either hills or mines, one of the two. And of course it needs to be balanced.

Or how about a unique improvement for Khazad that generates food on a hill? Building it means you don't get a mine in that plot.

Arete should give bonuses to all the machine based improvements, mines, quarries, windmills, workshops, and watermills. This would only work if other improvements were granted bonuses by civics though.

Arete should give bonuses to all the machine based improvements, mines, quarries, windmills, workshops, and watermills. This would only work if other improvements were granted bonuses by civics though.
Mines, quarries, and workshops aren't really machine-based though. Besides, Arete is more about increased individual effort leading to increased production rather than anything to do with dwarven mechanical aptitude. Quite frankly it's the Luchiurp that have the way with machines, there's no indication that the Khazad are in any way superior engineers. Better metal-workers, maybe, but most of the machinery in FfH is wooden anyway.

I'm playing with the Khazad now and I was thinking about the same thing, since my capital turned out to have 20/21 hill plots. Now, I think giving every mine more food would be to big of a boost, but what about just an extra food for the city square? Didn't see this idea mentioned so far.

The problem isn't the Khazad... Its the map many people like to play on. Those that think they are over powered may play vanilla maps. Those that think they are under powered play on custom maps that thematically selects the location for each civ from the group of possible location sites. As such the Khazad get put on hills a good bit. Its not the Civ it the maps. The problem here is that if they are allowed to farm shrooms, etc [to balance them out on custom maps (ie Erabus) and the flavormod] then those who dont like those will find the Khazad too strong. How to fix this???? I dunno, but I like to use the Erabus map, so I just edited the Khazad and the Luchiurp so that their palace also acts as a granary giving them a boost until they can use the AI logic to find a better site for their second city....

avahz is right. the problems isn't the dwarves themselves, is them usually starting on heavy hilled (sic) places with next to no food.

Giving them food on top of their mines is too much, they're already very powerful.

Why not create an improvement that can only be created on hills and provides +food instead of +hammers? Something along the lines of keeping livestock as your food supply, just like many highlanders did.

That way a Dwarf starting in very hilly terrain can still grow, but it's a decision that has to be made between growth and production, not letting them have their cake and eat it too.

Whether or not this would be a FFH-wide improvement or dwarf improvement is debatable.

Wouldn't it be easier to mod the maps in question to put some flatlands next to the hills?

Wouldn't it be easier to mod the maps in question to put some flatlands next to the hills?

Sure, but I see it as a flavor thing as well, not just a map issue.

A simple +1 per hill/mine wouldn't be overpowered

I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn...

Food is the most important resource - the Lanun are broken on water maps because of their +1 food / water tile... +1 food for hills would make a good civ incredibly good.

How about a building instead - "Mushroom Farm", +2 heath, +4 food.

one idea that comes to mind would be to let them build pastures on hills without resources, giving them some food. imho some of the factions that favor "bad" terrain like the doviello ( tundra ) or the malakim (desert) should definitely get some bonuses from those terrains that actually makes them prefer those to other, like FF lizardmen with jungle.

edit: westamastaflash's idea looks nifty too btw :D

Well shrooms are already an "improvement" so maybe make the Dwarf worker build it only on Hills. That way you will have to choose.... do you want a food supply or hammers


(please dont hurt them hammer!!!!)

buildable shroom improvement is also a very good idea

Oh no, not this again. The dwarves are overpowered enought as it is. If you want to have large metropolises, then don't build cities in places where people will starve. Everything is a tradeoff.

it depends a lot on what map you're playing on. I play erebus with flavourmod, and they actually have VERY little food. it just came to my mind that the best way to solve this would be to just let them build farms on hills. it doesn't break anything cuz mines are still way better for them, and it saves your arse if you get stuck in all plain hills with no food in sight.

The best way to solve it would be to unscrew the map and give them food.

Oh no, not this again. The dwarves are overpowered enought as it is. If you want to have large metropolises, then don't build cities in places where people will starve. Everything is a tradeoff.

Oh no, not this again. The dwarves are overpowered enought as it is. If you want to have large metropolises, then don't build cities in places where people will starve. Everything is a tradeoff.

Oh no, not this again. The dwarves are overpowered enought as it is. If you want to have large metropolises, then don't build cities in places where people will starve. Everything is a tradeoff.

Oh no, not this again. The dwarves are overpowered enought as it is. If you want to have large metropolises, then don't build cities in places where people will starve. Everything is a tradeoff.

Oh no, not this again. The dwarves are overpowered enought as it is. If you want to have large metropolises, then don't build cities in places where people will starve. Everything is a tradeoff.

Oh no, not this again. The dwarves are overpowered enought as it is. If you want to have large metropolises, then don't build cities in places where people will starve. Everything is a tradeoff.

And quit arguing that it would make sense lorewise for a boost like this to be given. The khazad moved OUT of the caves for a reason - because being restricted to living in hills sucks ass and stops your civ from growing, progressing, and not being miserable all the time. Settling in an excessively hill-heavy areas, in lore terms, is the Khazad screwing themselves over by misguidedly going back to the old ways which were abandoned because they didn't work.

Also, FfH is balanced around the random maps, not custom ones like erebus. As this discussion helps prove, balancing the game around both is just about impossible, so... yeah. Bear that in mind if you use maps like that.

Give them the ability to build farms on green hills (like cottages). Agriculture would balance via the loss of one production on farmed hills and would keep windmills useful for them.
Maybe in addition add the ability to build farms without the usually needed river/sea/irrigated-farm next to that tile.

How about a building instead - "Mushroom Farm", +2 heath, +4 food.

This is perfect. Not overpowered (A pure plains hill city would be able to grow to 3 pop) but plays to their strengths (production - you have to build something to get something) and their lore (dwarves love ... mushrooms?:crazyeye: Maybe not lore...)

Well the Humans have no problem moving to a new spot on the custom maps, it is the AI that has an issue. By the time they get going they are surrounded by the other AI players so they dont last long or have to subjugate themselves. So it goes back to the fact that the custom maps are the problem not the civ itself. In fact on a vanilla map them Dwarfs may stomp a mud hole in you with their fire power.

This thread should really be:

"Compensating on low food starts with Erebus(Creation) mapscript"

Obviously, MANY FFH players love this map script, to a degree. The major issue that arises is low food starts (Hit Khazad, Luichirp, Doviello, Illians, sometimes Hippus) alot. These civs are generally placed in a)Hills with almost no flat land/rivers, b)Tundra with almost no way to make farms on, c)plains with some hills and few rivers.


On a standard Map (ie... Fractal), Khazad are fine. On Erebus mapscript, many civs suffer GREATLY.

This thread should really be:

"Compensating on low food starts with Erebus(Creation) mapscript"

Obviously, MANY FFH players love this map script, to a degree. The major issue that arises is low food starts (Hit Khazad, Luichirp, Doviello, Illians, sometimes Hippus) alot. These civs are generally placed in a)Hills with almost no flat land/rivers, b)Tundra with almost no way to make farms on, c)plains with some hills and few rivers.


On a standard Map (ie... Fractal), Khazad are fine. On Erebus mapscript, many civs suffer GREATLY.

Yea I exclusively play on that map. It adds to the flavor and feel of the game. Especially seeing that Erebus is flat. To balance out the placement issue I will go to world builder and either give those nations an additional settler or add food resources in their fat cross... In fact I would suggest (and I will in the proper thread) for them to use the Fury Roads map script that checks the fat cross and if it lacks resources then the script will add it...... Oh Monkeyfinger you forgot to add one more quote I am not sure you got your point across :)

:dubious: Evidence that the "Crisis" has a more sinister source. See this post by the Erabus map creator... ;)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7162756&postcount=17

:dubious: Evidence that the "Crisis" has a more sinister source. See this post by the Erabus map creator... ;)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7162756&postcount=17

Haha thats pretty funny. :goodjob:

Oh no, not this again. The dwarves are overpowered enought as it is. If you want to have large metropolises, then don't build cities in places where people will starve. Everything is a tradeoff.

Seriously. It just comes down to choosing a good spot for your city. The Khazad don't need any special bonuses, I stopped playing them because they were too easy.

People have been talking about Erebus as if that's the only issue... the game I initially created this thread due to a problem in was not on Erebus, it was on a random, Fractal, map. On that map, as Khazad, I had the choice of a few directions in which to expand... there were ranges of hills to the east and to the south, a little flatland to the north and more to the south east. West was ocean. In the east was a large chunk of hills with no less than four gold resources. What self-respecting Khazad wouldn't settle that? But of course, any city settled in there (area was almost completely hilled, except for a few mountains) was doomed to never grow. This just didn't seem right, so I posted the thread.

Also, nobody seems to be talking about the Khazad worldspell, which is another large part of the issue. Like, as Khazad, you're probably favouring hilly areas to begin with (random map or not), and then you cast your spell and a good chunk of your flatland becomes hills, meaning you have even less area to farm.

Just let Khazad farm on hills. It's really not too much to ask, and I have no idea why some people are getting all indignant as if this were a totally inappropriate request.

if i remember correctly the worldspell keeps any farms built on land that gets changed to hills.

Like, as Khazad, you're probably favouring hilly areas to begin with (random map or not)

Why? http://www.civfanatics.com/images/blank.gif

if i remember correctly the worldspell keeps any farms built on land that gets changed to hills.
Yeah, but after it has been pillaged, you can't rebuild it, which might screw up your whole irrigation network around an area with lot of hills.
So why are Khazad able to farm on hills created with the world spell, but can't build farms on hills? ..at least green hills.

Yeah, but after it has been pillaged, you can't rebuild it, which might screw up your whole irrigation network around an area with lot of hills.
So why are Khazad able to farm on hills created with the world spell, but can't build farms on hills? ..at least green hills.

One word. Exploit.

So you suggest that farms get destroyed on hill tiles created by the world spell?

and I'm really curious about why oh why they really dislike expanding whenever played by the AI. they just hate building cities and are happy with just their capital. which makes them a punching bag :(

Khazad are really not too strong... Every Civ has it's good sides, and it seems the Nerfers want to make everything the same. So no Golem's for Lichurp, No sea farms for Lanun, and of course no irrigation on hills for Khazad. So, Why not? If you want to have every civ the same, you can play vanilla...

I completely agree that it would make them special and give them flavour. It was once said, that this is the main goal, to make distinguishable Civ's.

And if they really are too good on vanilla mapscripts... have you every used them with rocky climate? Then you get the same result - Khazad don't builds cities. And without cities. you loose.

So you suggest that farms get destroyed on hill tiles created by the world spell?

I suggest you learn how to place cities.

Yeah..I'll foresee, which plains and graslands will be transformed into a hill, when using the worldspell, and I'll try to plan my irrigation network around them. :rolleyes:

I suggest you either learn how to grasp the issues we are talking here or stop increasing your postcount by posting arrogant, useless replies.

Food production for stunties should be based on tech. Allowing stunties to build food buildings is a better solution than bestowing magical hill farmer benefits that lessens the whole mining thang (Khazad like hills right). I think that if the stunties should gain any super MiKa523 special benefits, they should allocate some of their coin to do so. After getting ROK (duh!) Khazad are on the road to being super rich (yes i know part of it goes to happiness) but the player should choose between researching buildings for food or the other tech paths.

I do not think the Khazad should start with a food buff, that is just silly. What about the races that start with agriculture, shouldn't they get a food buff too?

p.s. Windmills are cool, why not harp about increasing their food production?

edit: Oh yeah I am still against food buffs for stunties but this is my suggestion if the:confused: side wins.

I think windmills and watermills should be moved to construction, and their upgrade at engineering, instead than engineering-->machinery. currently it takes ages to get to them, by the time you do the outcome of the game is already pretty much decided, and if you had food shortages till then, you're definitely gonna get killed. furthermore, it allows everybody for a little more flexibility in their improvement choices, instead than just farm, mines and cottages everywhere. windmills and watermills are not that good btw, so it's definitely not gamebreaking. Vehem implemented this change in the latest version of FF, and imho it's good enough to be adopted in FFH too. windmills could benefit from having the bonus that comes at machinery switched from +1 hammers + 1 commerce to + 1 food and + 1 commerce too. that would make it 2 food + 2 commerce. definitely not overpowered considering it comes late-ish in the game , and it makes sense, since if you are building windmills instead than mines on hills, it usually means you are hurting for food. especially if your playing as khazad, why on earth would you build a windmill otherwise? you got plenty of ways to get production anyway, food is more of an issue in hilly places.

Yeah..I'll foresee, which plains and graslands will be transformed into a hill, when using the worldspell, and I'll try to plan my irrigation network around them. :rolleyes:


That does seem like a legitimate concern. I would have given the usual snide remark on learning how to place cities, but their world spell does throw a wrench into the works. Just allowing them to farm hills doesn't seem so bad. I haven't played them too much, but my understanding is that they get almost no magical capabilities and have some unhappiness penalties when they don't have enough gold per city (both of which making my usual global conquest play style not work so great). With these penalties in mind (even with the extra happiness when you do have enough gold) does a little extra food really seem so bad?
Just give appropriate requirements to hill farming (at least mining and agriculture, probably construction as well), and it should be fine. Should be. ;)

yeah, hill farming sounds good too. plus, it fits their worldspell. otherwise their worldspell might actually by a drawback, not good.

btw, this could apply to the luchuirp too: after all, dwarves ARE dwarves, and with flavour starts the luchuirp usually end up in the most foodless spots, even worse than khazad usually.

Gekko;7207322']yeah, hill farming sounds good too.


Civilizations don't build farms on hills because it's impractical to get water up there. You could never get remotely near the amount of agricultural output on a hill as you would on flat ground. And the idea that dwarves are building farms on hills or in their caves is just silly.

Also, as mentioned by several people, that Erebus map isn't balanced for all the civs in FFH. So, as far as I'm concerned, the problem isn't with FFH, it's with the maker of the Erebus map. I've played as the Khazad numerous times in FFH. I've never ever had a problem with map placement.

I might consider the idea of moving windmills to Construction, although I wouln't want to see windmills give +2 to food (a windmill giving as much food as a farm?)

The Khazad are basically well balanced for the vanilla FFH. Considering that this topic was discussed a few months ago (and Kael made absolutely no changes), I can pretty confidently predict that there will be no significant changes to the Khazad (thankfully). Now, if you want make them more powerful on the Erebus map, well. . . nobody is stopping you. You can give them any kind of bonuses you want.

Civilizations don't build farms on hills because it's impractical to get water up there.


Erm... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rice-fields-Indonesia-(Java).jpg)

Just depends what kind of farming you're doing.

Why are so many people opposed to the idea of giving Khazad and Luchirp a better use for their hill terrain, when everyone seems to accept the Elven Forest Improvements (+Ancient Forest). I think lore wise it makes sense that Elves can build Improvements in the woods, so it also would make sense (lore wise) to give the Dwarves a bonus on hills (so that they would prefer building cities there).

you may not like Erebus map script, but also on a Vanilla map script with Rocky climate there would be many nice spots with gold for building Dwarven cities on hills.

Surely it would cause a balance problem, if The One [Kael] just gives them +1 food on hills - but I'm sure it will be possible to produce some kind of draw back also.

Or maybe I don't understand the Dwarves correctly. Monkeyfinger said, they left the hills because hills suck, but I'm not sure if this is entirely correct. As far as I remember the Luchirp made an empire outside of hills in the Age of Magic, but not so the Khazad.

Or on a completely different approach: we could say, the Dwarves are meant to NOT grow big cities. In most fantasy books (except one) they have a quite diminishing population. But they have MUCH gold. So why not increase their ability to generate gold in mines (instead of building many towns in hills, they build just some special mines that generate production and gold). This would make them the only civilization that has much gold without big cities. To balance it, one could take away building villages entirely or make it so that the never grow to towns.

I think something like Goldmines (maybe INSTEAD of a normal mine: another improvement), would help to distinguish them further from other civ's and it would go hand in hand with their lore, without creating size 20 hill cities. Well, just some ideas.

Of course it is after all the descision of the design team. They have a good feeling for all the races, and I'm sure they will make, what fits best for each one.

Or on a completely different approach: we could say, the Dwarves are meant to NOT grow big cities. In most fantasy books (except one) they have a quite diminishing population.

Same holds true for elves in most fantasy books, but here it is far from the case.

In traditional fantasy dwarves trade pop for wealth, elves trade pop for skills.

And the idea that dwarves are building farms on hills or in their caves is just silly.


I gotta take issue with that statement. Any fiction that uses dwarves, from Snow White to LoTR puts dwarves deep in their mountains, with little interest in anything else.

Lately I've been playing Dwarf Fortress, and I'm irrigating and building a huge underground farm growing plump helmets and cave wheat. Now that's dwarfy.

My idea would be to create a new hill improvement type only for Dwarfs (linked through a unique starting tech like Lanun have): "Underground agriculture". So you wouldn't be able to get shields from it as well as food, it would be a specialized square.

If any of you have played Dwarf Fortress (freeware game) that's what I'm thinking of, large caverns carved out near underground rivers with a system of flood barriers to control water needs, they could grow mushrooms or bizarre kinds of plants which don't need a lot of light.


Even better, create a new luxury resource for them, "Dwarven wine/ale" brewed from these subterranean plants maybe through a unique building, Dwarven brewery. Give the dwarves something to trade for.

You could make the squares very expensive to make (say 20+ worker turns) for a 3 Food, 0 shield, 0 trade yield. I don't see how that would be unbalancing, they would get a little food to grow but at the significant expense of all shields and trade. So few dwarven cities would have more than a couple of them

Meh, I would just try to figure out how to "build" Mushroom improvements and use those if I were to mod in something for the stunties.

Also, if Dwarves could just build regular farms on hills, the food output would still be one less then flatlands farms, woudn't it? So at best wouldn't they be exivilent to +3 food, rather then +4? Of course, the total value of farms might be off in my example, but hill's produce -1 food, don't they?
Edit: and of course, anyone who says people don't farm on hills should read about Terraces, which were used by Incas, Romans, and East/South-east asia rice farmers.

Also, if Dwarves could just build regular farms on hills, the food output would still be one less then flatlands farms, woudn't it? So at best wouldn't they be exivilent to +3 food, rather then +4? Of course, the total value of farms might be off in my example, but hill's produce -1 food, don't they?
Edit: and of course, anyone who says people don't farm on hills should read about Terraces, which were used by Incas, Romans, and East/South-east asia rice farmers.

Okay the thought of dwarves terracing a hill sounds just silly, otherwise I would have said just use Power of the Terrace from Rhys for the Incan civ.

The point somebody made about Elven forest improvements is very, very good. Honestly, that's pretty freaking broken right there... Ancient Forest is worth keeping just by itself, also having a farm, town or mine in that square is madness. It's ridiculous to say that that's okay, but that it's not okay for the Dwarves to get any kind of special benefit from or use of hills -- or Malakim & desert or Doveillo & tundra, for that matter. And, look at those civilizations... Doveillo and Malakim freaking need a boost. Khazad are okay as is, but not particularly flavour-differentiated, certainly not compared to the elves, or even the Luchiurp. Letting them use hills as if they were flatlands (but maybe make it so they can't spread irrigation, as a balancing factor) would go a long way to putting them more on an even level with the Elves, and to differentiate them from just a human civilization that went RoK.

If Dwarves *shouldn't* be able to farm hills, why the hell should Elves be able to farm forests? Which is more real-world implausible?

I stick with the idea to make something like Goldmines. If you are a Dwarf every Mine gives you +3 Gold, but you can't build any cottages. Or make another Improvement actually called Goldmine that's only available to the Khazad (and maybe Lichurp).

Alternatively give them the ability to cut forrests from the beginning (if you want to live in a cave and have no wood to secure everything, have fun), which would give them a huge bonus against other forest starter civ's.

And the Mushroom improvement I really like, it's a bit like that ToT scenario Midgard, where you could build cities underground and farms were Mushrooms down there. So yes, that would be a nice idea.

There is absolutely no reason, why Dwarfs should not be able to use hill terrain (which is a terrain feature), like Elves can use forrest terrain (which is a terrain feature).

Something completely different: Give Dwarven units +1 strength at a higher production cost. I know... unbalancing... but very loreful, hardy bastards...

What about a UB, a "trade post", that gives +1 food per each mining resource (iron, gold, gems...) dwarves have? That would represent that they are not good farmers, but exchange their fine craft for food instead. It would also encourage dwarfs towards mining everything that gets at hand. This option could be tuned by purely selecting which types of mining resources would be suitable for that (e.g. just gold and mithril...)

What about a UB, a "trade post", that gives +1 food per each mining resource (iron, gold, gems...) dwarves have? That would represent that they are not good farmers, but exchange their fine craft for food instead. It would also encourage dwarfs towards mining everything that gets at hand. This option could be tuned by purely selecting which types of mining resources would be suitable for that (e.g. just gold and mithril...)
I like this idea too, but with just any mine could +1 per mine be a bit much? A large city might have +4 food enough for 2-3 extra pops.

Maybe +food per two mines (rounded down).

Or it could be linked to luxury resources only. A gold/gem mine produces the normal bonuses but if linked to a special building it produces extra food as well. That would require two levels of a same improvement though (basic resource exploitation and enhanced) which I don't know if Civ4 can do

Finally the best way IMO would be to allow food trading as in Civ2 (via caravans) but I think that's not been built in to Civ4. Food trading is certainly something I miss even when playing civs which don't have food problems - it allows city specialization, agricultural centers and production centers and also creates interesting strategic scenarios (losing a food producing city could cripple your manufacturing cities even far away from the front).

yeah, food trading would be totally awesome. seeing as trade caravans can add hammers in a city, I don't think it would be difficult to creat something that adds food instead.

Okay the thought of dwarves terracing a hill sounds just silly, otherwise I would have said just use Power of the Terrace from Rhys for the Incan civ.

Soo, does the fact you just, lets say argued, the fact that I mentioned terraces mean I'm right about Hill farms giving 1 less food (total) then flatlands farms?

Soo, does the fact you just, lets say argued, the fact that I mentioned terraces mean I'm right about Hill farms giving 1 less food (total) then flatlands farms?

I think perhaps that the UB school of thought is gaining ground in this debate because that sounds a lot more expensive and a lot less silly. Also you people mention flavor this and flavor that yet neglect to mention anything about pastures. I would think it would be more plausible for mountain dwelling people to have pastures of, oh say, goats (mountain goat makes for miserable eating btw). After all from animals you get production such as skins, drink (milk from mammals) and meat.

Personally anything that does not encroach on the map seems better to me, I simply think that agriculture should not be as big a deal as trading techs (which hopefully the UBs would be linked to somehow) to a group of metal crafters producing high value goods.

edit: thats wild mountain goats bub.

I never said that they should be able to farm hills, infact a UB would be a good Idea. I was just saying that even if Dwarves could farm hills they wouldn't get as much food from them as flatlands.

I never said that they should be able to farm hills, infact a UB would be a good Idea. I was just saying that even if Dwarves could farm hills they wouldn't get as much food from them as flatlands.

darnit the more I type the more I want to say that I really do think that the stunties should be able to extract something from mountains Rhys style, just a hammer and a food could make a difference.

I'm favoring food trade routes too. Like the old civ (was it civ2?) where you can build a food caravan and send it to another city then that city would gain +1 food and the other city would lose +1 food. This way you can have Dwarven cities that specialize for production and other dwarfish things and outside settlements that just produce food.

Seriously, cave wheat?

well don't necessarily think of hills as rocky caves... when I think of hills I just think of terrain higher than the surroundings :P

I'd agree with everyone saying the Dwarves need absolutely nothing in the way of food. If anything, I'd say the only thing I'd want the Khazad to get is 2-3 :hammers: from mountain tiles.

I think the Khazad as they are now are indeed a powerhouse, but they don't work as fluffy as they could/should. Rather than favouring them, too many hills in the fat cross cripple them as they'd cripple most other civs. The same goes for Malakim in desert areas.

Can't really come up with sensible suggestions at the moment, but I hope Kael&the team are considering this an issue to be addressed.

Thanks to this thread I played a unmoded FFH2 game with Lichurp - and I got a hill (plains) start (with a vanilla map). I changed then the prerequisite for wind mills to construction and it's bonus to engineering likewise to the new FF patch. Well it worked quite well, not very big cities, but very productive (okay mostly thanks to the hammers from gift of the nauseates but anyway). I think that's quite flavourful. Later I built Genesis, which maybe is not that flavourful but... however I think this change is a good thing. One could discuss to let the bonus at machinery and only change the windmill to construction. And Construction is too cheap with 400 if you do it that way. Don't know if this would help an AI Dwarven Civ as much, though.

I gotta take issue with that statement. Any fiction that uses dwarves, from Snow White to LoTR puts dwarves deep in their mountains, with little interest in anything else.

Lately I've been playing Dwarf Fortress, and I'm irrigating and building a huge underground farm growing plump helmets and cave wheat. Now that's dwarfy.

Fungus farms FTW!