well, since we're gonna have to wait a short while before FF 0.43 is out, might as well start this thread now :D

Gekko's wishlist:

first of all, I'll start with a couple ideas I have in mind. then I'll just toss a nice list of modmods to get ideas from, in the hope that you guys will find something you like in there and decide to add it to FF ;)

so lemme say that if there's gonna be an ice elemental in FFH 0.34, I think it should be in FF instead of the ice golem. you know, golem is Luchuirp-ish stuff ;) while we're talking about ice, it would be really good ( if it's not in 0.34 already) to have ice elementals/ice golems , and blizzards, turn water into ice that ground units can then walk on ( temporary of course ) . this would be sooo awesome. the ice elemental/golem should definitely be amphibious: it's not a problem to cross rivers when you can just freeze them and walk over :D

then, it would be nice so give the Doviello some kind of bonus in tundra terrain, like +1 food for tundra tiles, or maybe something more interesting :D

edit: it's sad that the guilds have been axed in 0.34 :( I think it would be awesome if instead of getting rid of them, FF decided to make them have more effect on the gameplay instead of something that's more of a random event, and leave them in - I loved the FFH guilds much more than the BTS ones even though they weren't being used often. they were fun and cool, as opposed to the ones in BTS which I found kinda boring. :)

also, it would be nice to have more kinds of units benefit from better metals. why do only melee troops benefit from bronze/iron/mithril weapons? it seems weird that cavalry and recon wouldn't love having better quality weapons as well :D and you could also have duskwood ( additional strategic resource in Orbi ) give a bonus to archery units just like metals do for melee right now ( that's how it is in Orbi IIRC ) ;)

ok, and now I'll just drop a nice list of modmods that you can get ideas from ( next post ) ;)

kewl modmods in somewhat random order: part 1 - complete modmods:

1) Orbi modmod - lots and lots of great stuff in here. the reworking of the melee line is a nice touch imho, currently everything's streamlined and the Shock promotion is a no-brainer. then you have the new resources, great commanders from XP, new guilds, civ-specific pagan temples, and a lot other nice changes (buildable war elephants FTW :D ) . http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=282567

2) Rise of Mania - I know it's for an old version of FFH, but I'm pretty sure there are a lots of changes in there that didn't make it into FFH and they would be extremely good in FF: defensive withdrawal, micromanagement reduction, zone of control, AI improvements... http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=192096

3) Tarquelne's modules: I'm not particularly fond of the Salt Golem, but all the others are very nice. I love the Holy Warriors module :D

4) Apepis' modules: AltAmurites ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=287683 ) would give the Amurites a more "unique" feel that they lack right now imho. the Wonderspack ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7151060#post7151060 ) is awesome since FFH doesn't have many wonders and could use more. the Altcivics ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=261997 ) are very nice as well, gotta love Magocracy :D

5) Snarko's options mod - I absolutely LOVE this ! :D http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=226635

6) DrPepper's Amurite Unique Spells - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297876

7) DrPepper's Fixed Mercurians and Infernals - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297605

8) Combat Skill Points - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=299885

9) MrUnderhill's Hyborem free units - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7479752&postcount=3

10) Avahz Darkwood's Hippus Flavour Mod - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=281524

part 2 - modmods not yet complete:

1) Fall into Revolution - a dream come true :D http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=294422

2) Wiser Orcs - better AI, do I need to say more ? :P http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254369

3) the Jotnar - quite obvious. we all now they're gonna be in FF sooner or later, but I felt it would be unfair to leave them out of the list :P http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=278848

4) Expanded Mercenaries - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=285468

5) Mailbox's Economic mod - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=288728

6) crystallized mana - conquerable nodes - I know Johniten was working on this last time I've heard from him... this modmod is LOTS of fun :D http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290161

7) Magister's modmod - honestly, how can you leave this out of the list? :P http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=259763

8) Malakim+ - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=294155

9) MarnokMod - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=277098 ( 0.34 version here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=294785 )

10) Fall Further RLD - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297713

11) Rise of Darkness - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=299914

12) Ri-Hatz's founding city mod - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297538

13) Methuselah's Extended religion modmod - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7630104#post7630104

part 3 - mods still in early development :

1) Legion of D'Tesh - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=276614

2) Upgradable Heroes http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=291562

3) Espionage!! - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=286235

4) Nomadic Civilization - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=284611

part 4 - The Dream

1) Dale's Combat Mod for FFH. DCM is soooo awesome... stack attack brings tears of joy to the eyes :D

2) IDW for FFH. ties together very nicely the cultural and warfare aspects of the game ;) - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=188007

3) TheLopez's Immigration mod for FFH - migration in FFH, nuff' said :p - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=173972

4) TechConquest for FFH - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=245593&highlight=techconquest

Gekko;7326799']so lemme say that if there's gonna be an ice elemental in FFH 0.34, I think it should be in FF instead of the ice golem. you know, golem is Luchuirp-ish stuff ;)

Check out Age of Ice's pedia entries - the Ice Golems were actually made by Barnaxus for Mulcarn after the Luchiurp failed to stop the ritual allowing him to enter creation.

ah I see, thanx for the info I'll check it out ;) I still like ice elementals better than ice golems though, if just for the fact that all the other elemental spheres get a summonable elemental ;)

although, since the ice sphere is gonna be "special" in 0.34 , it might be nice to have something special like a golem instead of an elemental. it's in the lore already so it's pretty good I guess :)

dammit, now I don't know which one I like better, golem or elemental :D

I think that Ice Golems would be better as either an Illian-only unit or an Ice/Enchantment cross sphere spell rather than the normal summon of the sphere. There is room for both Ice Golems and Ice Elementals. It might also be nice to see Frost Giants as Berserker UUs.

I hope you don't take away the ability to build Ice nodes to stay in line with the main mod.


I think you should consider the summon changes I've proposed elsewhere. All summons should have something special about them.

post 2 editted with a list of modmods. hope it's useful, it should at least make it impossible to forget about them and make them all easily accessable ;)

I'm really really hoping that you guys decide to import some/most of the stuff that is in Orbi cuz that modmod is great and it complements FF really well :)

oh, and I forgot to post this in the first post: it's sad that the guilds have been axed in 0.34 :( I think it would be awesome if instead of getting rid of them, FF decided to make them have more effect on the gameplay (instead of something that's more of a random event), and leave them in - I loved the FFH guilds much more than the BTS ones even though they weren't being used often. they were fun and cool, as opposed to the ones in BTS which I found kinda boring. :)

edit: also, it would be nice to have more kinds of units benefit from better metals. why do only melee troops benefit from bronze/iron/mithril weapons? it seems weird that cavalry and recon wouldn't love having better quality weapons as well :D and you could also have duskwood ( additional strategic resource in Orbi ) give a bonus to archery units just like metals do for melee right now ( that's how it is in Orbi IIRC ) ;)

Well, I don't think we'll incorporate EVERY modmod that exists for Fall from Heaven! And one of the joys of doing a modmod is getting people to give you feedback on your work, which encourages you to invest more time and effort in things. Incorporation into a larger project steals all of that from a modder (why give feedback to only the Jotnar thread when it is in Fall Further and you can get a lot more replies from a full sub-forum of people? And how do you know for sure the bug was from them and not from the base mod, so you go report to the base...)


Also, if you haven't noticed, I have a tendancy to do things in my own way quite often. I might find some ideas from other people's work on occasion, but in the end I implement it my own way, and wind up finding all kinds of fun new extensions later :)



As for unique summons, I haven't yet seen anyone come up with ideas quite as "off the norm" as my own original proposals quite some time ago, so I see no reason to try and consider any of those ideas TBH (meaning: if I ever have the time to actually redo the summons, I'll go with my old ideas, some completely new ideas, and possibly the latter portion will have some influence from reading other people's ideas on the forum). Same with the Horsemen if anybody thinks to ask for them to have more "flair" to make you fear them.



And Gekko: If you got a list this long, it's time to mod-mod-mod! ;)

And Gekko: If you got a list this long, it's time to mod-mod-mod! ;)

:lol: anyway, I know FF is not going to incorporate every modmod out there. at first I just wanted to point out a few features of orbi and rise of mania that I liked a lot. but then there's so many modmods and I felt bad about only mentioning a few. :D so I thought hey, I'll just list them all so they can easily take a look and see if there's anything they like ;)

part 4 - The Dream

Dale's Combat Mod for FFH. DCM is soooo awesome... stack attack brings tears of joy to the eyes :D

And what a dream it is...

If orbi isn't implimented in FF... I hope Ahwaric will use orbi to add to FF instead of adding to FFH. I think orbi is really fun and adds a lot to the game.

Well, I "released" my early works on Malakim. I still don't have enough time to learn how to export units from 3ds Max properly (I get weird very thin lines here and there with the unit exported etc.) or I would already start to work on Flying Carpet UU :). It will definitely be in, sooner or later.

ah, I forgot to put Jabie's ambitious espionage project into the list - fixed now :P

... *user slowly reads list* ...
Impressive list of mods ... now we need somebody to compile it...

I was thinking that the game could use more Avatars. I'm thinking that letting the Sidar perform Ascension in order to gain a Laroth Ascended could be quite interesting. They don't realize it, but they've been helping his vanquished sorcerer to overthrow Arawn for a long time. Having an active once-mortal god of death entering creation would be awesome.

(The Ascension Ritual should make a leader very evil.)

That might be interesting.It could require that you have killed a certan number of heroes and could spawn all heroes that have been killed thus far when you complete the ritual.

ah! I forgot that even though 0.34 introduced explorable lairs, there is still lots of stuff in the MarnokMod that didn't make it in. so, list updated again :lol:

I wish for all the things that have been wished here especially orbi and mailbox econ mod, as well as what has been discussed about forts and tier 4 spells given by tower wonders. - and a new staff that can be captured from a barbarian lich hero that grants channeling 2 and fire 2.

It does not need a minimum number of killed heroes (for the player that is). Who would waste it for only one or two heroes? Use it only when you get them all.

The AI will of course need some help here.

:old: I would like to see the tech "Rage" usable for the woodelves.
Maybe a wardancer as in Warhammer? :clap:

I think the Elohim should get Spiritual as a starting trait, it fits them perfect ;)

btw, ranged attacks ( archers, siege, etc. ) should not cancel the fortify bonus, for 2 reasons: first, it makes no sense. second, the AI would be a lot more willing to use them I guess ;)

I disagree. The ranged attack is a pretty powerful tool when used defensively even without the fortify bonus. And remember this is a turn-based game but we are simulating events happening in real-time. If an invasion is to happen that "turn" then the ranged bobardment and the invasion of the city would be happening near simultaneously, therefore any fortification the defenders may have had was lost when they repositioned for the ranged strike.

well, as I see it, ranged attack is done during one's turn, and is basically just archers/whatever shooting at enemies from afar, it doesn't involve melee battles ( actually, it is done *before* the enemy charges at you. think preemptive strike :D ). the archers would be standing still and shooting, so I really don't think the fortification bonus should be lost ;)

I was just looking at the old Promotions and Perks mod and I was wondering, how hard would it be to add promotion prereqs for the number and type of units in with and around the current one? Or a python script that runs after all the other conditions are met (like with spells)?

Something like:
<PrereqUnitsInStack>
<PrereqUnitCombatsInStack>
<PrereqUnitsWithPromotionInStack>
<PrereqTilesSurroundedFriendly>
<PrereqTilesSurroundedNeutral>
<PrereqTilesSurroundedEnemy>
<PrereqPythonFunction>

Main issue with adding things like that is how very frequently the list of promotions is checked for which ones are available and how many promotions there already are. Adding a loop of the entire tile and/or neighbor tiles can wind up being a relatively large processor cost, especially with how the AI likes to make stacks of doom.

Most things which can be done with these kind of tags will wind up being slightly better (or at least quicker on the processor) when I have had time to program the Aspects. Then you can have a unit grant an aspect to the tile they are on which is used as a prereq for promotions on other units. It accomplishes the same thing (can promote if the right unit is on the tile), but avoids the loop over all potential units on the space.

The python interlock would possibly not be too hard to code, but runs into the same issue. Promotions are queried a LOT, and sticking a call to python in there might be a bit costly. Though it would only be called for those few promotions which actually have the tag, and you can try to ensure that all such calls are restricted by existing tags to the point of rarely being made.

So, any chance we could get a preview of what's going into .43? :please:

seconded :D

btw, it's very nice to know that the Nomadic Civilization project is still alive. it will be extremely hard to complete due to the Civ4 engine being city-centric (sic) , but would be awesome. second post updated :p ( Malakim+ moved to "mods yet to be completed" - used to be "mods in early development" )

Well, in my mind - what goes into FF are for us to wish for and Vehem to decide. I do not want FF to become -too- alien vs vanilla Fall From Heaven. And too much stuff will clutter FF and make updates a living hell.

However, some of the suggested features do have my vote. I have to disagree about holy warriors, espionage and upgradable heroes but I like for example DCM, Nomadic civilization and expanded mercenaries.

Jotnar will take a few more weeks, possibly two months to be 'presentable'. And for my wife and me to be satisfied in handing it over.

as always, looking forward to the Jotnar ;)

I'd like to add Xienwolf's proposed 'Aspects' system to the wishlist.... So many amazing things you could do with it. ;)

I'd like for Cualli and Mazatl horsemen to not need horses anymore, it doesn't make sense since they are riding raptors and not horses. OTOH, a raptor resource only available in jungles would be incredibly cool :D

I'd love to be able to build farms on hills once irrigation is researched. or maybe a later tech like engineering or machinery. it makes no sense that hills totally prevent irrigation.

I guess it could be interesting to have a "Terracing" tech that would allow farms on hills.




Would it be too much to add an expensive, late game ritual capable of killing an entire race/making one civ mysteriously disappear, like Tebyrn tried to use in the D&D campaign and like might have been responsible for the Aifon's destruction?

I have thought of terracing... I guess the only purpose would be a situation like I had in one game (tectonics map) I had where my starting position was all hills but 3 tiles and I couldn't move out. I wouldn't mind this idea, although I see more of a need for a tech like biology allowing farms on any flat tile without the need for spreading irrigation.

If you had terrancing type abilities, and it required construction as an earlier tech, there wouldnt really be a need would there? For build-farms-anywhere, as you could spread freash water irigation from ANY freash water source to damn-near-anywhere.

Hm. ^.^

btw, could most modmods posted in that list be made into a custom game options? that would be totally awesome as then everyone could easily choose the ones he likes or dislikes :)

If you could place farms on any flat tile like in the old biology tech, then for most cases you probably wouldn't need terracing and could build mines on hills, what they are better used for.

actually I really want to be able to build farms on hills for easy and early food in very hilly areas ;)

Could be useful for the Dwarves in some circumstances.... Been many games where my capital couldn't grow past 6 or 7 for the longest time.

it would be awesome if the algorithm that chooses the defending unit in combat would be a little more smart so that it avoids using high XP units if they have very low chances of winning. let the fodder die instead!

troll lairs from Orbi modmod would be very nice as well.

ogres and stoneskin ogres should NOT be mounted line imho. it makes no sense at all to reseash stirrups, warhorses and armored cavalry to build... something that has nothing to do with horses? I'd change them to recon or melee and make the mounted line be made of goblins riding carnivore mean animals ( wargs, bears, giant spiders... )

btw, am I the only one that thinks that animal lairs are totally dull right now? first, it would be good to be able to choose if you want to get rid of them instead than them automatically disappearing if you step on them. they could also have some additional perks if you keep them in your cultural borders. for example they could yield an animal resource that you can use to build units ( elephant lairs allowing building war elephants, wolves allowing wardogs etc. ) . or pop a HN animal belonging to the player every now and then. or, having an animal lair in the BFC could allow that city to build them. HN animals should probably be built with food surplus instead of hammers, and carnivores should require a livestock resource ( you gotta feed them :lol: )

I'd really like more Disciple units (all of them?) to have spells that damage Demons and Undead, and the current ones 'Destroy undead' would need replacing with a more powerful one.

It is a dark fantasy and demons and the undead crowd the dying world, will not the gods at least equip their servants with some sort of defence against these forces?

Perhaps something like 'blinding light' but against undead.. 'hold undead' 'turn undead' or something. Are not that a classical clergical power?

it would be awesome to keep units that have an ability that they would lose if upgraded from getting obsoleted!

i.e. divided souls have unique abilities that ghosts don't have.
austrin explorers ( hunter UU ) have ignore movement terrain cost, while rangers don't.

and a lot of other examples. I think it's just fair to let the player build this units all troughout the game, otherwise it's really annoying when you lose some useful abilities due to having advanced in tech.

I totally agree.. I have noticed the loss of abilities as well, and thought it was annoying.

Would it be possible for the Conqueror trait to be extended to settlers? As in, Decius conquers a Ljosofar city, and when that city builds a settler, the new city is also Ljosofar?

It would be possible, with SDK work. Not sure how desired it would be though. Could lock you out of having any cities which are actually your own if the only one you have is your capital and it gets razed by a horseman.

Maybe a choice, like the Kuriotates have between city and settlement? I just like the idea of the conquered peoples forming colonies of their own.

I still wish that Tolerant/Conqueror was bases on the cultural percentage. Settlers should be born with an ethnicity bases on the percentage in the city, which should carry over to the city it builds. Cities should also start with the religion of a settler when a settler is randomly assigned a religion.

Gekko;7367568']it would be awesome to keep units that have an ability that they would lose if upgraded from getting obsoleted!

i.e. divided souls have unique abilities that ghosts don't have.
austrin explorers ( hunter UU ) have ignore movement terrain cost, while rangers don't.

and a lot of other examples. I think it's just fair to let the player build this units all troughout the game, otherwise it's really annoying when you lose some useful abilities due to having advanced in tech.

Might be a useful game option choice, if one could opt to keep building obsolete units in a city.

Example, when you get Malevolent Designs, and you might desperately need to create Stygian Guards for some amphibious assault, TOUGH, you must create (or upgrade) all four Eidolons before you can build a Stygian Guard again. Maybe you'd LIKE to be able to keep building Stygians. Or if really strapped for time & hammers, maybe you'd like to keep building Drowns (rather than Stygians). Upgrade them or not at your discretion.

Guess it also makes better sense in the case of "lost abilities" as well. Rather keep a low tier UU than be forced to get a "plainer" albeit higher tier upgraded unit (ie rather have the Austrin type hunter than the Austrin type ranger).

Don't know how hard that'd be to make an option... I assume digging into some file or another by your lonesome and changing some flags about obsolescence would be possible as well (in which case, maybe someone'll speak up). Again, can also imagine being really desperate to keep upgrading Freaks to "cheap" swordsmen or archers (5 gold) vs. expensive Mimics or Longbowmen (much more than 5 gold). Sometimes you don't need the highest tier units to pursue certain meat grinding exercises.

I still wish that Tolerant/Conqueror was bases on the cultural percentage. Settlers should be born with an ethnicity bases on the percentage in the city, which should carry over to the city it builds. Cities should also start with the religion of a settler when a settler is randomly assigned a religion.

You want the ethnicity of the city based on the culture present in it, but you want a settler to be able to start a city (no culture at all) which has an ethnicity other than your own? How on earth would that work?

Might be a useful game option choice, if one could opt to keep building obsolete units in a city.

Example, when you get Malevolent Designs, and you might desperately need to create Stygian Guards for some amphibious assault, TOUGH, you must create (or upgrade) all four Eidolons before you can build a Stygian Guard again. Maybe you'd LIKE to be able to keep building Stygians. Or if really strapped for time & hammers, maybe you'd like to keep building Drowns (rather than Stygians). Upgrade them or not at your discretion.

Guess it also makes better sense in the case of "lost abilities" as well. Rather keep a low tier UU than be forced to get a "plainer" albeit higher tier upgraded unit (ie rather have the Austrin type hunter than the Austrin type ranger).

Don't know how hard that'd be to make an option... I assume digging into some file or another by your lonesome and changing some flags about obsolescence would be possible as well (in which case, maybe someone'll speak up). Again, can also imagine being really desperate to keep upgrading Freaks to "cheap" swordsmen or archers (5 gold) vs. expensive Mimics or Longbowmen (much more than 5 gold). Sometimes you don't need the highest tier units to pursue certain meat grinding exercises.

The flag you are wanting is <bNeverObsolete> in CIV4UnitInfos.xml, if that is 1 then you can always build the unit, even if capable of building all upgrades of the unit.

On my wishlist.... perhaps not for .43, but later!? I would like to see an effort to make the Ljos more flexible. Wardancer axemen and a second religion that made economic sense.... or 2 "song of x" holy city wonders that had the potential to take the religion one way or the other.
+ More offensive potential to early archers..... not necessarily more off strength .

@Gilg buff the archers? they have a ranged attack and can get collateral damage promotions, how godlike do you want them to be? That is totally key in early combat.

I'd love the spell "waterwalking" to affect the whole stack but prevent it from healing. that way you can't exploit it by attacking, then retreating in the ocean to heal, rinse and repeat.

oh, and the mechanic that xienwolf applied to the Nox Noctis is so awesome, it could apply very well to quite a lot of things in the game. the first thing that comes to mind is the "haste" spell. being able to toggle it on and off instead of being forced to cast it EACH TURN would be sweet. :)

Sputnik323..... Perhaps I have been playing to much regular FFH these last weeks!?

@Gilg - I understand totally... I have been tempted to download .33, FF, and Orbi and just play the old versions, dont know if I can wait anymore!

Orbi 0.14 introduced some awesome additions like using animals to boost units and shapeshifting for the Doviello, and a new race, the Mechanos, that would be really good in FF as well :) .

moving forestcutting and junglecutting to earlier techs might be good... 2 reasons:

1) the AI has a big problem with heavily forested starts, sometimes it screws them up really, REALLY bad

2) it would make the outcome of the game less dependent on start location and more on actual skills.

I'd love to see FF get rid of mega-super-uber stacks ( you know, those "just stick all of your units in one stack and go on a killing spree" kind of things where you have 200 units on a single tile ) the way the Total Realism mod handled it: having more than a given number of units in a single tile reduces their effectiveness. this would greatly enhance the strategy in the game imho, and raise the need for combined arms ( thus making combat less streamlined and more interesting - more planning needed )

these are 2 copy+paste, bear with me but I really like these ideas:

1) "BTS-style quests sucked imho, they were just random stuff popping up without any reason.

that said, I think there is room for quests in FFH2. instead of having them happen randomly like BTS, you could go the ol' good Warlords way and let Heroes and possibly high XP units "get" quests. you could go the Warlords II way and have some "Oracle" improvements spawn at map startup where you can get quests. or you could go the Warlords III way and have quests available in cities. you could then have 3 increasingly difficult levels of quests, with increasingly good rewards of course. level 1 could need a pagan temple in the city, level 2 a religious temple and level 3 a holy shrine.

setting aside ( i.e. resigning ) quests should be possible, but have some penalty associated with it."

2) "if a superpower emerges from the alliance of 2 powerful civs, the others should stop their wars and unite against the newborn huge threat. that shouldn't be extremely hard to code and it would be quite a lot more fun imho. in snarko's options mod you can have an alliance with more than 2 members btw, which would allow the AIs in imminent danger of being obliterated off the face of Erebus altogether to do just that. I still think that a mechanic that allows allies to break the alliance if they both desire to should be put in place btw. single-handedly breaking the alliance should be possible too, but it should cause huge problems ( being considered a villain by anyone, revolts and possibly revolutions, massive unhappiness, etc. ) . alliances are poorly implemented in BTS, and I'm pretty positive that modders could flesh out the concept into something a lot better. "

a couple things I miss from BTS: flanking attacks for mounted units vs siege engines, and forts acting like cities ( canal building, resource providing, etc. )

oh, and another couple awesome features from Orbi 0.14 : commune with nature allowing farms without irrigation ( like Biology in vanilla civ ) , and of course the expanded mercenaries :)

Core of the Subtle

Core of the Subtle

Whoah, an old favorite. :D

Core of the Subtle

YES!
10chars

excuse me for my utter ignorance but what IS the "core of the subtle" ? :D

anyway. I really liked that thread in the general ffh forums a while ago about getting food from trade routes to simulate, well, food trade ( something that is utterly missing in civ4 ) . lots of very nice ideas there. I think that another thing that should be present in the game is migration. some ideas:

1) cities that are growing into unhealtiness/unhappiness could have a chance to have some population pack up and go live somewhere else more comfy ( a small city with no health/happiness issues ) . this could be automatic or done with some other mechanics that I'll suggest in point 2)
2) aside from spontaneous migration there could be the possibility for the player to choose if he wants to move some population in another city for whatever reasons he may choose. this could be done via the city screen ( lose 1 pop in city A, gain 1 pop in city B ) , or via units. for example you could create a "commoner" unit that causes the city that produces it to lose 1 pop, and then you can sacrifice the unit into another city to gain 1 pop there. or you could just make settlers gain an ability that allows them to get sacrificed into a city to gain population. you could also let workers be sacrificed in a city to gain a citizen specialist ( 1 hammer ) . I guess that there should also be a cap to the amount of population that you can add in a city in a short span of time in order to not have a city built on turn X be population 25 on turn X+1 of course :D ( think a "cooldown" similar to the one for sacrificing population with slavery )



completely unrelated: the way the "hero" promotion works right now in FFH2 seems a bit too simple. let me explain: spellcasters automatically gaining XP over time are just fine. but having a hero that's supposed to be a melee figther gain XP just by sitting in a city and drinking punch seems silly. these guys should be encouraged to get out and get their hands bloody imho. so basically the Hero promotion is fine as it is for spellcasting heroes , but IMHO combat-oriented hero should get a different hero promotion that boosts the xp they get from combat. that way they still gain XP fast and develop into the nice killing machines they are supposed to be, but they can't just hang around get XP from that :D

sorry for the double post, and a big sorry for all the multiple posts above of course :lol: . here are a couple of ideas I had some ideas ago that I'd like to share with the FF guys ( :D )

1) "I think the goblin fort mechanic is great and lots of fun, but goblin forts seem to be too common. some more variety would make things a lot more interesting. orcish villages, spider caves, troll lairs, the list could go on forever.

and another fun thing would be to have lairs not always spawn identical creatures ad infinitum, but creating them with a random promotion, and even different creatures ( like barrows not spawning ALWAYS skeletons, but spawning a wider variety of undead etc. of course, the more powerful varieties should begin spawning after a while )" -> btw this would go very well alongside Imuratep's suggestion ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=296346 ) for a wider variety of barbarians ( i.e. no more barbarians always being orcs which is boring after a while )

2) "my gripes with Armageddon and Hell Terrain:

ok, the way hell terrain spreads right now ( first AV, then evil, then neutral, good is immune ) makes sense but I think it could get a tweak from a gameplay perspective... what I don't like here is that good civs are supposed to be the guys that want to get out there and fight against evil, but since they are immune from hell terrain they can just merrily sit there and watch evil civs get overwhelmed with hellish lands. so evil civs get punished for being evil while good civs get rewarded for being good basically. the only guys that get something out of raising the AC are the sheaim, and even for them the benefit is not as huge as you would like...

so I like the way that hell terrain spawns to evil territory first , but I think that preventing the advance of hell should not be a reward just for being good, but for being order ( and maybe empyrean ) . AV civs should get bonuses from hell terrain imho. that way good civs would have a good reason to go order and cleanse the world of evil, and evil civs would have a good reason to "sell their soul to the devil" and go AV. I think this would boost the feeling of "as the end of the world gets closer, you are encouraged to take sides, be it good or evil" and give more conflict and epic battles in the endgame.

btw, mercurians getting angels from good units and infernal getting manes from evil units are another thing that makes a lot of sense but isn't really good gameplay-wise imho... it works great with the AI as they will try to get allies to get involved in wars, and those allies will have units dying and providing them with angels/manes. but in the hands of a human player, it means that mercurians will get a lot of angels by killing GOOD civs while infernals get lots of manes by killing EVIL civs. I guess these two should be switched around. think Basium "redempting" evil units and giving them a chance to purge themselves of sin by aiding in the war against hell, and Hyborem corrupting good units and using them as infernal beings to help into his wicked plan :D "

3) "one issue that I've noticed in FFH2 is that most games end up dominated with just a couple religions ( usually FoL and RoK cuz they come early ) . this makes things a bit dull cuz of A. not enough religious conflict and most important B. if there are no AV civs around ( as is often the case if the sheaim are not in the game ) the end game gets really stagnant, which is quite obvious since with no AV spreading the AC ( which was designed primarily to address late-game stagnation and keep things fun as long as possible ) doesn't go up and civs are just shaking hands or barking at each other.

this is due to the AI still using vanilla mechanics for religion, but religion in FFH2 is TOTALLY different.

suggestion: make the AIs a LOT more willing to adopt religions they found. they should also take into account if they own the holy city for a religion, and even more so if the holy shrine has been built there. this will mean a lot more variety in practiced religions and make sure that things stay fun and don't drift into a RoK+FoL world :) "

Gekko;7387431']excuse me for my utter ignorance but what IS the "core of the subtle" ? :D

It was one of FFH's older wonders that made your workers invisible as long as they stayed in your borders, along with granting free Great Engineer points (which was great in the early game before you could found Runes and build the Mines of Gal-dur). IIRC, it was removed because of concerns that workers could be used to spy on enemy cities, but now that we have Nox Noctis (which does that for all units), there's little reason not to bring back Core of the Subtle.

Would definitely be amazing as a early wonder... save your workers from barb assaults.

IIRC, it was removed because of concerns that workers could be used to spy on enemy cities,

How? You can already see all tiles within your borders and then some, and if they leave they become visible.

Gekko;7387477']
suggestion: make the AIs a LOT more willing to adopt religions they found. they should also take into account if they own the holy city for a religion, and even more so if the holy shrine has been built there. this will mean a lot more variety in practiced religions and make sure that things stay fun and don't drift into a RoK+FoL world :) "

I agree with the first part, no so sure about the 2nd part. Had a recent game in normal ffh where the light elves(who were running order), declared war on the shiem, who had founded the AV, took the AV holy city, and then switched right over to AV. I took that from them about 20 or 30 turns later, causing them to swap right back to order. This random religion swapping based merely on which holy cities they have + what religion most of your cities have is somewhat silly(and their alignment was flying all over the place).


2nd comment, guessing this has been proposed before, but with broader alignment, is there any way to have religion have a more gradual effect on your alignment, rather than one big jump when you first adapt it? I know this is somewhat implemented by some units giving a align boost/loss when you build them, but with av and order, you still get huge jumps on that turn(which can be abused, as with one game I switched over from runes to order about 2 turns before the av hit 75, just to prevent hell terrain from entering my land)

The intention is that when we sit down to overhaul Broader Alignments to make it actually work the way it feels best to do so, that there will be lots of "per-turn" modifiers. So religion and most civics would have per-turn adjustments. Might even make a certain degree of per-turn adjustment be required for some civics (so you don't have to actually be completely evil/good when you adopt them, you just have to be heading there quickly, and if you are just "Maintaining Alignment" by balancing your per-turn levels, then you aren't dedicated enough to use that particular civic)

The intention is that when we sit down to overhaul Broader Alignments to make it actually work the way it feels best to do so, that there will be lots of "per-turn" modifiers. So religion and most civics would have per-turn adjustments. Might even make a certain degree of per-turn adjustment be required for some civics (so you don't have to actually be completely evil/good when you adopt them, you just have to be heading there quickly, and if you are just "Maintaining Alignment" by balancing your per-turn levels, then you aren't dedicated enough to use that particular civic)

That would be amazing... wouldn't see civs flip-flopping around so much.

When I first see Scorch spell I was curious when to use it, but now It's my favorite spell .. :) -25% defense for enemy units is cool, especially if you turn all plots around your settlement (not city) to desert ... :)

Can be Scorch spell (Sun I) improved in next release? :D
- turning grassland to plains
- when turning plains to desert also remove forest

That would be amazing... wouldn't see civs flip-flopping around so much.

When BA is satisfactorily up-and-running several events will probably be added to the Scions.

When BA is satisfactorily up-and-running several events will probably be added to the Scions.

I remember some early ideas for a world spell that would have different effects if the Emperor was Good or Evil..... Would be awesome to see that revived. :)

1) a new game option similar to "all unique features" but for all unique barbarian units ( great apes, leviathan etc. ) would be quite cool. :)

2) a couple more victory conditions? I think the game right now misses a diplomatic victory and an "armageddon victory"

vanilla style diplomatic victory doesn't fit FFH though due to Erebus being a world torn apart by wars between good and evil. so I thought about something like: both councils get a resolution which is basically the same as vanilla diplomatic victory, but that's not enough to win. you have to get EVERY civ to either be wiped out or vote you as winner.

so, after you win the resolution, all council members basically form an alliance, then they have to go out to get the remaining civs to either join the council and vote the winner, or be destroyed. this would work for both councils obviously and it should be quite fun in causing massive Overcouncil VS Undercouncil wars :D

for an "armageddon victory" , I thought of something like an evil counterpart to the Altar of the Luonnatar : a "world ritual" ( i.e. a ritual that only one player can have, like world wonders ) that "channels" the power of Armageddon so that it shields the building civ from it and buffs its effect on all the other unfortunate guys. which would result in an "Armageddon victory" where everyone but the winner is wiped out, eheh. it should be buildable by evil civs ( and maybe neutrals ) , and send out a warning like Curse the Lands when someone starts it, so that you can prevent others from completing it. if you complete it BEFORE armageddon ( AC 100 ) kicks in , you win as soon as Armageddon happens. if Armageddon happens before the ritual is completed, you win as soon as you complete it ( basically you're tapping the reverberating power and casting it upon your opponents )

3) being able to de-settle GPs would be nice. to keep things as simple as possible it could be done so that if a GP gets de-settled, then it can only be settled afterwards ( i.e. no golden ages, rushing wonders, bulbing etc. ) . although, to make it more interesting one could also make it so that a de-settled GP can still do all of his regular activities ( bulbing, GA etc. ) BUT with a reduced effectiveness depending on how long he/she has been settled ( i.e. if you keep a GP settled for 50 turns and then desettle and use him to bulb, you only get 50% the beakers you would have got normally, etc. )


4) in case my above idea about migration was interesting, I found a modcomp by TheLopez that does something similar, might be worth checking out ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=173972 ) it seems really well done.

5) Moctezuma's Influence Driven Wars modcomp ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=188007 ) is awesome and would be great to have in imho ( alongside Fall into Revolution, of course ;) )

Also adding option to disable worker's experience can be cool. It annoys me ... :D

snarko's option mod updated to 0.34H ... now if this gets into FF, I'll be the happiest guy since the invention of happiness itself :D

I'd love to see FiRe in as a game option once it's a bit more complete...

I'd love to see FiRe in as a game option once it's a bit more complete...

Hear hear! The Revolutions mod is the one thing I miss from non-FFH2 civ. Not to everyone's taste but IMO it makes the game 10x better.

I'd love to see FiRe in as a game option once it's a bit more complete...

Hear hear! The Revolutions mod is the one thing I miss from non-FFH2 civ.

Aye - I'm keeping an eye on that one too :)

a couple more ideas:

1) I've been playing with the hidden gameoption that makes it so that buildings don't get destroyed when you capture a city and it's great. I'd love for this to be normal, and have a chance to destroy buildings tied to siege bombardment instead ( i.e. you take down fortifications, but you damage the city a bit - makes sense to me )

2) animals being able to enter cultural borders would be fun as well. suddenly you have to keep them bears from eating all the livestock from your pastures, and kill wolves before they eat your unwary workers etc. :D maybe as a custom gameoption?

would it be possible to NOT let automated workers build forts? that would be sweet! they always waste a BFC tile right now, and it's annoying. forts are good only when they are wisely placed, something that an AI obviously can't do :D ( although the best solution would be to let them only built forts at suitable chokepoints - that's more complicated of course )

I remember some early ideas for a world spell that would have different effects if the Emperor was Good or Evil..... Would be awesome to see that revived. :)

On this note, would it make sense to tie the Kahdi final decision to alignment as well, if you are neutral you still have a choice but if you are totally good or evil, you are locked on that path. Another option would be perhaps have some sort of temporary or even perm penalty for choosing the option that seems to go in the other direction of your religion/civ decisions(aka you are mostly evil, but don't want to side with mammon, you get a promotion that weakens you somewhat, or some sort of nationwide unhappyness or something).

patch B of Orbi includes some great changes... the new "tent" improvements look great for the Chislev for example, and explorable animal dens are awesome as well ;)

btw, DrPepper836 has put out a very interesting tweak of the mechanics that grant manes and angels to the infernals and mercurians here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7406102#post7406102 :)

Honestly, only thing I really want to request is an early changelog... That way we can all start drooling a little early. :D

Scions included
Civ Select Screen
Updated for FfH 2.34 G (or possibly H)


Good enough? ;p

Scions included
Civ Select Screen
Updated for FfH 2.34 G (or possibly H)


Good enough? ;p

Awww... But that's only the things we knew about already. :)

:D it looks like the guys wanna keep it a secret so that we all go "WOW" when it's finally out :p

ah, I forgot another great feature of the latest Orbi patch: the new fort mechanics ;)

MrUnderhill has put up a file that prevents unique features from disappearing after exploration. good stuff imho ;) http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7408109&postcount=8

oh, and the new animal dens introduced in the latest Orbi patch are awesome indeed. griffin nests, gorilla shacks, spiders lairs, etc. ... it's fun ;)

modmod list updated with MaxAstro's modmodmodmod :p

lots of awesome changes in there, would be great for FF imho. ;)

some more suggestions:

1) Ballistas! my favourite siege engines are missing = sad panda :lol:

2) spells having an effect on alignment ( broader alignments ) and on the AC ;)

3) lairs NOT disappearing after successful exploration. instead, they get replaced with a different "cleared lair" improvement that does not spawn units, and it can revert back to a normal lair after a while. this would be more fun than just getting rid of them forever imho.

4) specific Hell-version graphics of peaks, ice and tundra so that we can tell if Hell terrain has spread on those.

5) being able to get rid of the goblin dump ( from the random event ) AFTER you got it with nature mana or something else that fits.

6) no more wooden golems tossing fireballs, and no more golems with more than one resource prereq ( like iron golems being iron OR mithril - should be iron only imho, otherwise they are not iron golems :D )

What about a ballista tower as a building? Build it in the city, it spawns a single ballista unit you can use to do ranged attacks. It has 0 def(so isn't targeted by assassins, and won't help defend). Basically only good for the ranged attacks(might want to give it range 2).

Edit: another Idea(also posted it in Orbi). What about siege units getting free promotions from techs in the engineering line? It makes sense that with engineering, you can build a better catapult, but you aren't totally reinventing it(its still a catapult). It also makes sense that as your knowledge of engineering advances, you could even make field improvements to the catapults you already have? (This could be semi-minor improvements, or it could replace the existing level system for siege, prevent them from getting xp, and instead improve them with tech(or leave them with some sort of accuracy promotions from exp (that perhaps increase its chance of hitting when used for its range attack), since that sort of improvement makes sense as you get a more experienced group of men operating the siege engine, but other than that, the engine isn't going to improve much just by using it).

nice ideas Kjara, the ballista tower sounds good ;)

also, shouldn't rangers and beastmaster get back their subdue animal/beast promotions? I never really understood why those were taken out in 0.34 - if anything, the recon line needs a boost, not a nerf imho. ;)

What about a ballista tower as a building?

Neat idea - possible via a module too, I think.

the latest version of FiRe! has a nifty button that allows " avoid unhappy faces" , something really, really useful imho ;)

1) it'd be nice to improve the compassion civics with some more useful features, right now they're all sooooo boring :D
2) on a related note, someone mentioned changing the "expansive" trait to buff worker and/or settler production, which sounds great ;)
3) it'd be great imho to have the marksman promotion ( assassins etc. ) target units with the channeling and the hero promotions instead of the ones with measly combat ratings. this would make assassins a lot more useful at killing GOOD units and not get tricked and waste their time killing scouts ( which looks very weird ) . the Guardsman promotion should probably get a lesser prereq then ( say combat I instead of III ) , and assassins could use a national limit or 12 ..
4) another nice feature to add would be a way to terraform without micromanagement. when you have a huge empire casting bloom/sanctify/whatever in every single tile gets REALLY boring :\
5) not sure if this has been suggested already, but some Illian rituals would be better off repeatable imho: white hand, samhain and the deepening ;)

1) suggestion for making "automated workers leave old improvements" less mandatory:

automated workers should never build a new improvement over one that provides a resource, nor build a new improvement over one that develops over time ( cottage and fort types ) .

2) it would be cool to let the grigori once again build the altar of the Luonnatar with Luonnatars like it used to be some FFH2 versions ago! if it's way too easy, you could always make it so that they need to be a very high level before they can be used to build/improve the altar :D

3) this thread http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297318 is very interesting... it'd be very nice imho to have some unsetteable terrain that stays even in the endgame and keeps spawning animals and barbarians : those tend to disappear from the map so fast as cultural borders expand... :(

edit: double post

1) are Duin and his werewolves still animal units in FF? I guess they'd be better off as beasts. Orbi has a tweaked subdueing animals/beasts a bit in a nice way imho, the promotions are available sooner and some animals ( spiders, griffons, sea monsters etc. ) that are actually "beasts" and not animals have got their racial promotion changed accordingly ;)

2) it'd be nice to have the agnostic trait block the building of temples so that you can't build temples by getting the religious techs with eyes and ears/tech trading.

3) someone mentioned that it'd be cool for the Illians to be able to summon blizzards instead of having to hunt them down, agreed 100% :D

animal dens, lairs, goblin forts etc. having barb cultural borders around would be really nice ( taken from the "slower expansion" thread ) :D

Gekko: In regards to your Agnostic comment, we just made it impossible for Eyes & Ears to grant you a tech which you cannot research for yourself. Much more elegant I think, and pretty sure it was already that way before patch O.

I'm thinking that Agnostic civs's units shouldn't get random religions, so Grigori Medics (and Priests of Winter, if made buildable) don't get random religions and thus high priest spells. I'd probably block it in the SDK if I were compiling my own, but I think adding a simple
if pPlayer.hasTrait(gc.getInfoTypeForString('TRAIT_AG NOSTIC')):
unit.setReligion(-1) in def onUnitBuilt(self, argsList): in CvEventManager.py would suffice.

That would also already be done, but in the SDK right where the attempt to assign a religion is done and was significantly improved earlier, to include that fix.

thanx for the reply xienwolf - I didn't remember that was in a previous patch. good to know :goodjob:

some more ideas:

1) there seems to be a common consensus that warriors remain too effective too long if you have copper - maybe they should be unable to equip metal weapons ? ( after all if they get metal weapons they're no longer club-wielding warriors, they're axemen/swordman :D )
2) if you choose to include the spearman line as Orbi did ( I hope so ;) ) those could probably have no resource prereq ( wooden spears ) and be able to get metal weapons ( metal-tip spears) . they should, however, need more hammers than warriors to be produced I guess.
3) it seems like the AI is too prone to build scouts even when under attack. I was besieging the doviello capital ( early game so it was their only city ) and they were building scouts instead of warriors :\ needless to say, they got crushed under my mighty Amurite heel :lol:
4) it'd be nice to be able to manually choose which tiles the city should work without it deselecting automation - so that the governor tries to keep things as close to the player's selection as possible, but if some better tiles become available it uses them ( for example if I'm working 5 grassland hills and mushroom appears on one of the unused tiles, the governor start using that mushroom tile - this would take away some micromanagement imho )

Spearmen get metal tips, but warriors don't get metal spikes? Bat with Nail is the ULTIMATE in personal defense!

Controlling governor selection of tiles is best accomplished by setting the "Emphasize ___" buttons. Anything more than that would be a nightmare to code I think, though I haven't checked it out.

damn, now I WANT a Bat with Nail :lol:

1) as Jean Elcard said, adapting Better BTS AI to FFH/FF would go a long way into improving the AI imho.

2) DrPepper has put out a nice Amurites Unique Spells modmod, worth checking out I guess. nice spells in there ;) http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297876

3) End of Winter option and ice spells ( blizzards, ice elementals/golems etc. ) temporarily turning water/rivers to ice that suitable units can walk upon :D

4) a gameoption that doubles the number of lairs on the map ( "monster world" ? :D ) would be nice

Since, you know I come from high up north, I absolutly want to see more use of Ice to create 'passage' over water. Its one of the times we really whacked the danish on their asses, a cold early-winter and a daring march with a whole army over frozen sea. The king barely managed to flee the capital.

Gekko;7414362']1) as Jean Elcard said, adapting Better BTS AI to FFH/FF would go a long way into improving the AI imho.

Unfortunately it's only a small part of Better BTS AI that could be of use. I many cases it's simply too specific.

a couple ideas for anyone that wants to code frozen rivers ( via end of winter, ice spells etc. ) : they don't act as trade routes anymore, they no longer give a penalty for crossing while attacking, they no longer give a movement penalty when crossing, and they get all the benefits of having bridges ( construction tech IIRC ) even if you don't have them. ;)

a sidenote on barb AI: you often see a goblin fort guarder by a goblin archer, and then as soon as they spawn a couple goblins, the regular goblins remain to defend while the archer goes out harassing. it should be the other way around I guess since goblin archers are wicked good defenders (and they'd make a good unit for the clan of embers imho ( of course without the poison damage ) )

In other words, it does absolutely nothing and it would be far simpler to temporarily remove rivers.

1) as somebody mentioned, a no-micromanagement-needed way to use govannon's trainings would be nice

2) white hand as a full-blown religion! :D

3) what about letting catapults get mobility promotions? a lot of people seem to hate them cuz they are slow ( and I guess they are right )

I was making similar suggestions in the main thread (sorry for cross-posting) -- but I'm told it's not necessarily the right place. Sooo... ;)

Although not everyone will agree with this, but it would be nice to have a unit that could be attached to cannons, and that would increase their move +1 space on open plains or on roads -- such as a team of horses to pull cannons and their caissons. The assumption is that cannons are presently oxen-drawn. While they are being pulled by horse, the cannons can only defend and with a -50% penalty. Despite the latter, I think this would be useful since cannons cannot be Hasted magically. I hate having a fast moving army, and leaving the cannons behind.

Another idea would be to add an enchantment spell that would affect cannons specifically, just like archery units -- either a fear effect (the roar of the cannon), a bonus to collateral damage, destroying individual buildings (like in Dale's Combat Mod), or a barrage bombardment which would make the target space impassable temporarily.

What about baggage trains? The idea here would be to give a small attack bonus to units in enemy territory if they are in the same space as their baggage train, or adjacent. It would also negate the maintenance cost of these units being in enemy territory. If captured, the baggage train would be worth a certain amount of gold to the enemy. It should cost gold to construct a baggage train (perhaps the sacrifice of worker units too), and it is lost when returning to friendly territory. There ought to be a limit on how many baggage trains can be built, perhaps one per Civ at any time, or one per unit with the commander promotion.

Catapults and trebuchets ought not to be any faster than they current are since they need to be installed (if not actually built) directly on site -- and therefore aren't really mobile units at all. They're also too big and cumbersome, nothing like cannons at any rate.

some nice changes in Orbi patch c ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7023649&postcount=2 ) , Orthus got march, archers bronze weapons, repeatable White hand ritual... ;)

new version of Mailbox' mod is out, some good stuff is in like hell terrain giving less food ( sheaim are unaffected ) , explorable city ruins and shamans creating barrows ;)

1) fuzzybunnies suggested in the "regicide ffh style" a mechanic that allows units to affect maintenance. if that's possible I think it could provide a very nice mechanic to give something unique to a couple civs. for example, you could have a hero act as a forbidden palace ( reducing city maintenance ) . or you could have a hero offset the additional unit maintenance for being outside cultural borders for all friendly units in his tile ( Lucian? ;) ) providing the Doviello with a very mobile army that can constantly harass enemies without weighing on their economies... many possibilities here ;)

2) it would be nice to have the city of a thousand slums wonder have a different effect if built in a kuriotate city ( since those can already work the third ring of tiles ) . +1gold in all BFC tiles for example?

3) a spell that can create and delete peaks would be great fun :D

4) unicorns! I miss those. I'd love to see them in the game in some form ( spawned by a lair? wondering around in woods? created by an event? whatever ) . I guess they'd be nice as a unique resource given only by the Elohim palace for example, which allows them to field a UU ( it seems to fit them pretty well imho ) .

5) providing palaces with some unique effects instead than mana, mana and more mana would be nice. some could give unique resource, some could give items, some could spawn units, etc.

6) it's great to see that XP gain is gonna get balanced at different gamespeeds in the future. keep it up, that's awesome. I hope one day the game gets balanced at any gamespeed :goodjob:

7) this thread http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297273 has a lot of nice ideas for making Armageddon ( AC 100 ) more interesting. it IS dull right now imho.

8) discussion on the "AI considerations" ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297223 ) thread seems to show that lowering AI flavour weightings for techs would lead to the AI choosing techs more wisely.

9) elves can still chop forests without bronzeworking. I'd say either NOT let them chop, or let them chop at bronzeworking like everyone else, this feels weird.

Gekko;7426055']1) fuzzybunnies suggested in the "regicide ffh style" a mechanic that allows units to affect maintenance. if that's possible I think it could provide a very nice mechanic to give something unique to a couple civs. for example, you could have a hero act as a forbidden palace ( reducing city maintenance ) . or you could have a hero offset the additional unit maintenance for being outside cultural borders for all friendly units in his tile ( Lucian? ;) ) providing the Doviello with a very mobile army that can constantly harass enemies without weighing on their economies... many possibilities here ;)

Sounds similar to what I was suggesting as an effect for an army's baggage train (see my post on Nov 5). :goodjob:

While not directly affecting Maintenance costs, you can already have units grant (or cost) gold within proximity of a city. And making a unit not cost upkeep is also long since possible in the code. Could be worthwhile to create a promotion which can be bought by Leaders with Barbarian Trait that has no prereqs and removes unit upkeep for the unit (call it Hunter/Gatherer, Self-Sufficient or something like that).

Different effect for the Kuriotates from CoaTS would be as easy as making a Unique Building for them to replace it.

not sure if this has been mentioned already so here it goes: currently if a kuriotate settlement is the holy city of a religion, it is impossible to sacrifice a GP to build the religious shrine in it, which is kinda sad..

I tend to dislike the current way settlements work anyway tbh. for example I'd like to see them being able to build workboats and palisades.

totally unrelated: I'd love to have cities be able to joint-build stuff. so for example you could have 3 nearby cities working together to build a wonder, or have a city help out a nearby newborn city get that monument get done ASAP, or have a group of cities work together on a ritual/building/whatever, etc.

of course for a city to be able to help another one out they should be connected by a trade route, and the effectiveness of doing so should be linked to proximity, techs, etc.

when joint-building units, for a city to be able to join production it should of course have the building that allows production of the unit ( so only a city that has a training yard can help another one out for production of an axeman, etc. )

Gekko;7426792']totally unrelated: I'd love to have cities be able to joint-build stuff. so for example you could have 3 nearby cities working together to build a wonder, or have a city help out a nearby newborn city get that monument get done ASAP, or have a group of cities work together on a ritual/building/whatever, etc.

of course for a city to be able to help another one out they should be connected by a trade route, and the effectiveness of doing so should be linked to proximity, techs, etc.

A simple way to accomplish this would be to add a production slider. When you want cities to help out, they can make production like you can make gold, culture, and tech.

If you are going to add a production slider, may as well add a food slider too :D

Gekko;7426792']not sure if this has been mentioned already so here it goes: currently if a kuriotate settlement is the holy city of a religion, it is impossible to sacrifice a GP to build the religious shrine in it, which is kinda sad..


Easiest fix would to be to change the code for city selection to exclude settlements for consideration for holy city placement.

I used to have a link to the formula for how cities were selected for religions, not sure where it is now, but I believe it is weighted on city size and number of religions already in the city (and it is heavily weighted against being founded in the capital).

Of course this could be exploity. If settlements were excluded, as Kuriotates, I would simply only build settlements (for the resources) until I founded a religion, since it would then be in my capital.

If you are going to add a production slider, may as well add a food slider too. :D

:clap: This is something I have wanted since civ 1.

Easiest fix would to be to change the code for city selection to exclude settlements for consideration for holy city placement.

I used to have a link to the formula for how cities were selected for religions, not sure where it is now, but I believe it is weighted on city size and number of religions already in the city (and it is heavily weighted against being founded in the capital).

Of course this could be exploity. If settlements were excluded, as Kuriotates, I would simply only build settlements (for the resources) until I founded a religion, since it would then be in my capital.

this wouldn't fix the issue with the Kuriotates conquering a holy city though ( since it will become a settlement )

@sputnik: nice idea about a production slider!

Gekko;7427341']this wouldn't fix the issue with the Kuriotates conquering a holy city though ( since it will become a settlement )

Can't have everything. But... how about changing the Slum wonder for the Kuriotates, so that it allows you to build/upgrade one more city. Then if you capture a holy city, you have a chance to make it a real one. I think that should be possible. Have the number of cities be able to increase if you have that wonder.

That would make sense... Gives the wonder a useful effect for the Kuriotates that isn't too far off from it's normal effect.

1) it seems that in FFH 0.34 you can get multiple items if you pop a chest with many units selected. I noticed this was true for Foxtrot in FF 042. hope you can fix this in the new version. ;)

2) it'd be great if you could ask Kael about the change that makes the AI use their summons to attack even in the field instead than only in cities ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7410214&postcount=7 ) so that we can get it before FFH 0.40 ;) summons should not cause WW btw imho.

3) an interesting change to how siege engines work: give them a chance to get captured instead of destroyed, don't let them attack normally anymore ( just ranged attack ) , but give them a powerful ranged attack that deals collateral damage and let them take mobility promotions. that way people will use them cuz they don't slow the army down too much, and they will be a very valuable asset, but they need to be escorted. also it'd be great to have BTS style flanking attack.

1) I'm not a fan of 0.34 style barb AI, they often seem to travel long distances and ignore nearby foes. I'd rather have them focus on nearby civs. and they often suicide against cities instead than pillaging, I guess they should beeline cities only if they have an actual chance of taking it.

2) Marnok had some cool ideas in this thread, worth checking out imho ;) ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7431517#post7431517 )

3) flexible difficulty often seems to end up acting like "increasing difficulty" right now. I suggested a tweak here -> http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=298401

4) it'd be nice to be able to build plantations in forests/jungle without bronzeworking/sanitation. this would be good for those times when you're stuck with a very forested/jungle start, and it should hopefully help the AI start out better as well.

1) it seems that the AI ha a problem with pacifism civic in which it will chose it and still build lots of unit and end up with an horrible economy. it's not a very good civic for the human player tbh. suggestions here ;) http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=296262

2) some nice ideas about privateers and pirates here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7432188#post7432188

Could the Doviello Palace's earth mana be changed to Ice mana?

1) what about changing the "gives unhappiness to civs that don't adopt this civic" effect from republic to liberty? it makes a lot more sense imho and it would have an interesting synergy with the fact that the overcouncil can force it. some civs should probably be immune to the unhappiness effect though.

2) guerrilla promotions giving both defense AND attack bonus like woodsman does, to make the two even ( currently woodsman is a lot better imho )

3) it looks weird to see Orthus, the Barbarian King travel all alone. he should be travelling along with a party of orcs imho. this would make him a lot harder to kill without making Orthus himself uber powerful ;)

4) it would be cool to have frostlings be UUs for the Illians, buildable only after you complete Samhain. ( and yes, I still think that Samhain, the White Hand and The Deepening should be repeatable :D )

5) why were the slayer abilities ( manslayer, elfslayer dwarfslayer etc. ) axed from FFH? I'd love to see them back in :)

6) some interesting ideas about the Amurites here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=296943

7) I think it's lame that Malakim get NOTHING out of the poison tech. I really liked Deon's idea about Hashishins ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7319019&postcount=25 ) :)

8) there's a cool suggestion about air combat here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7435046&postcount=85 . this would definitely add something to the game imho, with more flying units included ;) or at the very least, it would work well for Chislev's Hawk UU

The Lightning Bolt spell should be restored to its former easy use. Right now, the spell will provoke a war if another civ's units are in the area of effect. That's a total drag, if not totally absurd when the units in question happen to be vassals of the caster (which happens a lot)! I'd rather have a weaker version of the spell and not have to worry about nearby friendly troops getting hit -- either that or a high-enough level caster ought to be able to avoid the unwanted effect on friendly troops.

I really like fuzzy_bunnies' idea about a saboteur unit in this thread ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297794 ) .

marksman promotion should definitely NOT work against siege engines imho, while a saboteur unit could have a lot of different useful and fun uses ;)

there's quite a lot of interesting discussion and suggestions about assassins in this thread btw ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297777 )

Marksman/Guardsman haven't worked the same in FF as they work in FfH for quite a while. I did not switch to Kael's version when he fixed it up in the latest patch either. It is just a small thing that people haven't really noticed is all :)


For us, Guardsman doesn't make a unit more likely to defend the stack (so if there are stronger units present THEY will take the brunt of the non-marksman damage). But if there is ANY Guardsman in the stack when a Marksman attacks then the Marksman acts like a normal unit attacking the stack of ONLY guardsman units (so the best guardsman will defend, but nothing without the guardsman promotion will even attempt to defend).

Add to that an Assassin cannot target a non-living unit (no ships/seige/angels/demons/undead/illusions....), nor a unit with 0 strength (unless it is a worldlimited unit... Corlindale), nor a unit with a different domain (ships, hawks. Both already covered earlier, but you can never be too careful).

I just haven't mentioned it in the other thread because they aren't talking about FF there, so it doesn't help the discussion to mention how my version works ;)

ah! that's great to know xienwolf, thanx for the reply. I definitely did not notice the change, I guess I need to play more ;) :D

it has been pointed out ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297208 ) that Doviello are the only civ that can no longer build warriors as soon as bronzeworking is researched. doesn't look quite right, uh? I say either warriors go obsolete as soon as axemen come for EVERY civ, or the doviello should be still capable of building them just like any other civ. I'd prefer option 1, but that's up to you guys to decide ;)

Gekko;7437799']it has been pointed out ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297208 ) that Doviello are the only civ that can no longer build warriors as soon as bronzeworking is researched. doesn't look quite right, uh? I say either warriors go obsolete as soon as axemen come for EVERY civ, or the doviello should be still capable of building them just like any other civ. I'd prefer option 1, but that's up to you guys to decide ;)

The real problem here is that warriors with bronze are just that much better(per hammer) than axemen with bronze. Id rather see that fixed than the stopgap of making sure that all civ's have the same access to warriors with bronze working.

The other problem with the first suggestion is then you get the possibility(in the main game at least) of cities that can't build any melee unit, and possibly any combat unit if they don't have a training ground built yet. While not a problem here, I really don't want to be forced to accumulate a huge number of warriors, then grab bronze working right before declaring war to take advantage of the hammer advantage warriors give at that point.

Any chance of making warriors unable to use bronze perhaps? Would weaken warriors without weakening them too much at the start, and make it so that bronze working isn't always the best rush move off the start.

From the changelog, Axemen get +25% vs warriors. That should make axemen a proper replacement for warriors. If it doesn't, I'm sure the bonus will be increased until it does.

That will of course further weaken archers...

From the changelog, Axemen get +25% vs warriors. That should make axemen a proper replacement for warriors. If it doesn't, I'm sure the bonus will be increased until it does.

That will of course further weaken archers...

Except that basic archers are now much cheaper to acquire tech-wise (less than Bronze Working instead of more), and they are more valuable in defense as a result of the Warrior's relative weakness. I think that Archers are a very decent defensive unit now, with their inherent bonus when defending city walls and the ability to weaken approaching stacks (at the cost of their fortification bonus - so it pays to keep a few fortified and to use others for ranged attack for best results).

The main goal was however to reduce over-reliance on warriors.

the effect of blight right now seems to hit huge cities A LOT worse than small ones. which is not quite "fair" imho. if you guys could tweak the code in order to make it more balanced to different city sizes, that would be great ;)


oh, and did you check the latest version of Flavourmod? man, it's awesome! :D http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7438216&postcount=122

I'm beginning to dislike how Agrarianism is a good tradeoff on plains while being just a boost on grasslands. this makes grasslands too good especially in the crucial early game.. axing the -1 production would be better imho :)


btw, I've noticed there have been some good suggestions in the Orbi thread lately. worth checking out I'd say ;)

a couple issues in FFH 0.34 that are borderline bug/feature:

1) when someone converts to council of Esus, you get the message "civ X converted to CoE" . kinda ruins the whole "secret" feeling :D

2) Dies Diei ( and I'll guess any other invisibility-revealing effects ) let you see treasure chests "belonging" to other players

-------------

as someone noted, having ancient towers be explorable ( but usually not destroyed after exploration of course ) would be nice :)

and I'll second Mailbox when he asks to set fort-types to ActAsCity . except that I want them to be able to collect resources and be navigable just like in BTS :D

oh, and I'm still hoping that the "very customizable" version of Erebus ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297852 ) posted a while ago by Hemiptera can be updated to the latest version. that's too good to let it fade away! :D

My wishes for FF has changed... I wish for an early version to be released soon :P

1) I posted some suggestions about frozen rivers in a previous post, apparently I had missed one of the things that should change if a river is frozen: it should not give +1 gold to surrounding tiles ;) after playing the new version of flavourmod with enhanced end of winter, I'll say this would definitely be nice. you could have rivers start out frozen and gradually begin flowing again as the world thaws ;) the impassable ice should be made walkable ( except by very heavy or fire-aura units I guess, and freezing/melting ice with ice/fire/sun? spells during the game would be fun :)

2) you could add an "icebreaker" ship. let it travel on impassable ice and have it turn the tile to water when it moves upon the tile, and the AI will be able to use it too I guess ;)

3) being able to build ancient towers ( watchtowers ) both inside and outside cultural borders would be great. those can be really useful if placed in the right spot ;)

4) someone suggested having hell terrain spreading even to good lands at AC 100, I like that idea :D

5) spiders being invisible is nice, but sometimes it seems overdone. I mean, them being invisible in forests is perfect, but having them invisible on plains is weird. perhaps they could be made always invisible when in forests/jungles , and have them invisible on "no-feature" terrain only when fully fortified ( burrowing, some spiders do that to surprise their prey )

Vehem, I am sure its been mentioned. But some more clever mechanisms to create new dungeons and the like during mid and late game?

I had made some suggestions in the main thread -- I'm reposting them here since the "Wishlist" thread seems to be the right place. I don't know if there was real interest from either Vehem or Xienwolf to do anything with these ideas when I originally posted them (???), but just in case, here they are. ;)

The first was about explorable city ruins and a possible haunted land:

What if a cursed land was created when the map is spawned, like in a desert for example. It doesn't have to be very large. Nothing at first betrays its haunted nature.

Each haunted square has a small chance of generating undead as long as a non-barb unit remains on anyone of them. The longer intruding unit(s) remain in the cursed land, the more powerful the various spawned undead and the greater the frequency of their appearance. Sooner or later, the intruders will get killed. Leave the land untouched for several turns, and the counter "resets" itself back to the "weaker" skeletons.

Somewhere in the cursed land lies an ancient city ruin. It is invisible until the intruding unit enters its square. If the intruder explores the ruin, the entity controlling these undead appears in an adjacent square, along with a "circle of carcer" to imprison it and the intruder (four adjacent squares?). If it is a stack of intruders, only the most powerful unit remains while the others are kicked out of the circle.

If the intruder defeats the entity, the other undead are removed (they find resting peace in the world beyond), and the winner gets some treasure or a special power. A "Good" intruder might lower the AC. An "Evil" intruder might instead gain control of the entity in some way.

To prevent all the undead from overrunning the neighboring lands, they should have a duration of a few turns after they leave the cursed lands.

The other idea is about game mechanics of city unhappiness.

since FF goes through the effort of warning the player of cities about to become unhappy one turn ahead, why not go the extra mile and automatically have the affected city's growth blocked, and then inform the player of the fact? Like this, the player has the option of releasing the city growth manually, rather than the opposite. I would think that in most cases, the players would want to block city growth. This would be more practical for this reason and also because it is easy to miss that little warning message. It would also be very useful to have a small icon appear on top of the city bar, alluding to the fact a city has its growth blocked.

Of the two ideas, the last one I think would be the most valuable (perhaps more achievable).

I've been playing with the latest version of FfH, which is very cool, but I do miss nonetheless the FF modmod and all its niceties.

:cheers:

@Ambreville: I suppose you are look for something like this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=193259&d=1225682842

It's a feature from the FiRe mod mod, which (if active) stops city growth automatically, if the city would grow unhappy the next turn and lets the city grow again if the happy cap allows it.

@Ambreville: I suppose you are look for something like this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=193259&d=1225682842

It's a feature from the FiRe mod mod, which (if active) stops city growth automatically, if the city would grow unhappy the next turn and lets the city grow again if the happy cap allows it.

YEAH!!! That's exactly what I was looking for. Cool. I hope this will be included in the next FF version. Any reason why it might not be possible?

1) MrUnderhill has created a nice unit model for Odio... time to bring him back! :D and Psychic_Lamas has created nice models for the tower of eyes ( which would be better off as a unique feature imho ) and the blair of lacuna, check out the art blog thread ;)

2) it seems that you can see that someone is worshiping CoE by looking at the icon in the upper corner when you trade with them :\ ( CoE being "secret" is not well done anyway imho... I kinda remember xienwolf saying he wanted to tweak it, looking forward to that ;) )

3) it would be nice if HN Black Wind was visualized by enemies as a generic ship, so that they can't tell that it's the Lanun attacking them ( it's supposed to be the whole point of HN after all )

4) some great suggestions have been posted in the "what improvements do YOU want?" and the Orbi thread lately ;)

5) Flesh Golems can still get all weapon upgrades ( bronze, iron, mithril ) simultaneously, not really fair I guess :D

@Gekko:

#2-- Till we get time to actually hide Esus, we don't consider it hidden at all.

#5-- Not in FF, neither can mimics.

it looks like FF is always one step ahead :D

I guess you already "fixed" grigori medics getting divine spells then? ;)

Ayup. As well as a few other tweaks to religion & agnosticism

Might be nice to give the Grigori some kind of Inquisitor/Alignment change unit at Code of Laws, call it a "Justice of the Peace". Would I really want Ashen Veil spreading through my lands if I know the net result is going to be Armageddon?

For Christmas I want (besides "corporations") a revamping of the civs uniqueness... Fresh buffs and bright nerfs. a collection of all the good suggestions and then tadaaa....

@Gekko:

With respect to the Black Wind being a generic unit, we should understand two conflicting issues:
1: Being a generic unit to hide it basically only tries to hide it from another human player from realizing what it is
2: Any human player seeing a "hero" promotion on a generic privateer with dozens of promos would immediately know what it is

You might argue that we could... then somehow hide the promos on privateers, but... I definitely would not want to be fighting against a unit that shows the wrong combat odds... a very dangerous precedent if done so :lol:

One thing which would be nice on the wish list is to re-expose the capacity for Espionage. You needn't put in an Espionage system, just remove the code blocks that completely skip Espionage so that the capacity is available and I'll post the necessary XML files.

My wish is for FF 0.43 to be released before Ice. You have 27 days.

You're giving them way too long. The new version of Fall Further should be released within 1 week, so we have something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving.

You're giving them way too long. The new version of Fall Further should be released within 1 week, so we have something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving.

I didn't think you played it in anycase? Wasn't your version traditionally a very heavily modified base-FfH?

I didn't think you played it in anycase? Wasn't your version traditionally a very heavily modified base-FfH?

If by "traditionally" you mean when your code wasn't available to borrow. I prefer to use the FF DLL and Schema when I can. Several of my ideas are not possible in base FfH but are in FF. I not a fan of the new civs, but the added functionality in FF is nearly indispensable. I had a python version of the new passive xp gain in place at once point, but removed it for efficiency. I plan to use your system extensively.

If by "traditionally" you mean when your code wasn't available to borrow. I prefer to use the FF DLL and Schema when I can. Several of my ideas are not possible in base FfH but are in FF. I not a fan of the new civs, but the added functionality in FF is nearly indispensable. I had a python version of the new passive xp gain in place at once point, but removed it for efficiency. I plan to use your system extensively.

The code was always available since the version I started including DLL changes - though Xienwolf is far more consistent with keeping the link to the sourcecode up-to-date. Even back in the "dark ages" though, I'd have quite happily uploaded the latest on request.

EDIT: Thinking about it - I do recall that you were trying to use the DLL back then, but were having trouble with compiling it... That all sorted now I guess?

By "available" I meant available for the most recent version of FfH. I don't want to go back and loose content or abilities Kael added since you last releases, and I don't think I'm up for merging them either. I don't think that Xienwolf usually releases the schema files seperate from the main release either, so I'm usually afraid I'll leave out something important if I don't just wait until the whole thing is released. I don't think that the source code last released on November 4th is up to date.


I figured out the problem I was having compiling at one point, but that was so long ago I forgot what it was so I might make it again next time. I know I got your version to compile, but most of my personal changes didn't work out as well. I really haven't had enough free time to try to work on it lately.

Sheaim units ought to be able to subdue/capture undead barb units through combat or magic (specialized units like beastmasters or disciple units).

FF 043 is out, but that's no reason to stop dropping suggestions here :D

1) it'd be nice if "pillage improvement" and "pillage road" were 2 different buttons, so you could choose. this would also allow you to pillage the roads on tiles with unique improvements ( currently this is impossible ) . pillaging roads should be possible even in one's own territory, to make commando promotion less useful for your neighbours.

2) IMHO the kinds of mana granted by palaces could use a overhaul. some of them feel weird. examples IIRC: Bannor having Earth ( fire would fit much better ) , elohim with spirit+nature+water ( spirit+mind+life would fit them perfectly I guess ) , list could go on forever :D

3) creatures spawned by events ( like the giant that wants pigs, or spiders in mines ) are immobile, for some unknown reason.

4) being able to gift indipendence to cities and create colonies even if they are on your same continent would be AWESOME. especially on land-heavy maps like Erebus. :)

5) do boarding parties still require a harbour instead of a training yard? if so, that would be good if changed so that Lanun can build their champion UU even in cities with no coast nearby. (btw, attacking units in coast tiles with them still shows no combat odds IIRC, but that's a base FFH issue )

6) I really liked Imuratep's idea of having the Amurites capable of building some unique artifacts (items) to equip their heroes and high XP units with. this would give them something unique and flavourful :) http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7469133&postcount=80

7) MC's idea of having some ritual allowing peaks to be worked is great. although I'd love to see this taken one step further and have a civ capable of settling+moving+working peaks. frost elves maybe, or a man/bird flying race :D

8) MC suggested to have Acheron able to move without the need for mobility promotions, but set his AI so that he always defends his hoard. then if somehow his hoard gets stolen from him, he goes on a rampage until he captures the city it's in :D http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7479624&postcount=22

9) I'd like flaming arrows to work as metal weapons ( bronze/iron/mithril ) do, instead of being a spell.

10) it'd be great to have a couple more game options: disable hidden map, disable fog of war and no buildings destroyed on capture ( it's already there, just make it visible :D )

11) being able to set hawks on auto-explore would be AWESOME. less micromanaement FTW! :D

12) I think that resources on tiles with jungle/forest on them should be harvestable without the need for bronze working/sanitation ( like in Orbi ). this would make forest/jungle heavy starts less damaging, something that would be great for the gameplay imho.

13) it'd be great to have the barbs declare war on barbarian trait civs based on a mechanic that actually makes sense. the current point system is lame imho. something based on alignment and culture would be a lot better :)

14) it seems like the Roar ability is still giving issues in FFH 034H ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=300496 ). is it working fine in FF?

15) Baron Duin does not create werewolves if he is HN , or if he has an attached great commander :(

16) it'd be nice to see some units unable to explore lairs. elephants foe example, and siege engines. you know, those that clearly would not be able to enter dungeons :D

17) wonders that give free buildings used to give them only to the guy who built it, and not the the guy who OWNED it. is it still working that way, or has it been fixed? that would be nice :)

18) it seems that Hyborem has AI_DEFEND_CITY, making the infernals a lot less aggressive and dangerous than they should

19) require complete kills could use some tweaks. I'd love to use it but currently it's not working very well. for example, not ALL units should be able to "keep you alive" even if you have no cities. naval units, workers and possibly invisible units ( to avoid exploits ) should not be able to do that. and if a civ has no cities, it should become a minor civ ( i.e. no diplomacy ) until it manages to capture a city again :)

20) the AI often moves its units one at a time instead of as stacks, which makes them take a lot longer than they should to complete their turns. and often they seem to move units around aimlessly :\

some more stuff ( modmod list on 2nd post updated btw ) :

1) Orbi 0.15 has tons of great changes. ( who said ballistas ? :D )

2) Combat Skill Points ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=299885 ) looks interesting, you guys might do something useful with it ;)

3) Shatner has posted some great suggestions in this thread : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=299834

4) MrUnderhill has posted a very interesting code to provide Hyborem with more free units to make him have more of an impact on the game : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7479752&postcount=3

5) Skallben has posted some great suggestions about pirates here : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=235937

6) some nice ideas for OO here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7486684&postcount=30

7) TechConquest ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=245593&highlight=techconquest ) would make for a nice addition to FF imho. you could make it a unique ability of a civ for example :)

8) Ri-Hatz's Founding City Mod would be a great gameoption for those that want slower expansion :) http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297538

Gekko;7492768']7) TechConquest ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=245593&highlight=techconquest ) would make for a nice addition to FF imho. you could make it a unique ability of a civ for example :)

For the new civilization I like to call "The Borg" or what? :scan: ;)

I don't have a clear idea about that, but it would fit barbarian trait civs nicely imho ;)

oh, another minor issue: it'd be nice to have some of the cultural borders' colors changed a bit. the grey one of the Sidar is very difficult to see, and the Infernal one is impossible to tell apart from the barbs. Ljolsafar's green one is also kinda hard to see on grasslands, but that's very very minor :D

Barbarian trait you say ... hmm ... how about a civ relying totally on conquest to tech then? Could be interesting in terms of game play. Maybe the Orcs (The Borcs)?

well, even though I dislike Star Trek I think that would make for a nice new civ in FF :D

You dislike Star Trek!? Shame on you. ;) (my nick is actually reference to star trek)

Geez, huge list of some things which are nifty... but couldn't you at least test some of them instead of asking "Did you already do this?" At least 4 items on your list are already done.

problem was, I was on a pc without access to FF when I posted it. sorry about that :D

Not a problem really, just a lot of the ideas we have done are good ideas, so if I don't remember that we did them when I read an idea to use it... well, 3 hours later I realize that the code seems to already do what I am wanting it to do.

some more ideas and suggestions... sorry if some of these are already in :D

1) a ritual to gain peace with the barbarians would be nice. even better if they were divided in different factions a la snarko's, that way multiple rituals for each kind of barbarian would be nice :) http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=300719

2) you've probably thought of this already, but here it goes: to make barbarian activity balanced on every game speed/map size/number of civs you'd probably have to use an algorithm that checks the aforementioned. another thing it should probably check is sea level, as less sea will mean more land on which the barbs can spawn.

3) celestial compass does not affect Illian rituals IIRC, but I guess that's intentional to avoid balance issues.

4) Samhain is usually useless, and overpriced. if the frostlings were friendly to the illians, it would be a lot more interesting ;) http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=300781

5) HN units can't board non-HN boats ( base FFH issue )

6) a tech prereq for the Stasis worldspell would be very welcome imho. getting it by that early on is crippling, and BORING.

7) about Lanun pirate coves: not being able to spam them is great, but building them on water with workboats just feels weird. I'd rather have them built by workers on tiles adjacent to sea, and have them act as vanilla civ forts so that ships can enter the tile. the tile should remain a land tile though, no terraforming involved. being able to change crews in them would be great. flavour starts could also put some on the map in suitable places like it does with towers and forts, that would be very nice. and being able to build them even outside cultural borders would be great as the Lanun, make those 1-tile islands in the middle of the ocean actually useful :D every civ should be able to use them I guess, just only the Lanun should be able to BUILD them.

8) now that we have marshes in the game, wetlands just feels redundant. I think it'd be better to remove them and have marshes substitute them in the wetland/lizard civs mechanic. btw, being able to turn marshes to grassland after a tech would be AWESOME. I hate having those crappy tiles sit around with no terraforming available to improve them :\

9) as MC said, being able to choose which city you want to gift to the mercurians instead of having them take a city that's vital and often away from the frontlines would be GREAT. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=300776

10) again as MC said, Kuriotate AI should love gifting settlements to permanent allies :D

11) having the strength of the demonic horsemen scale with map size would be nice, as on bigger maps they'll have to face a lot more foes. giving them march might make them a lot more fearful. a gameoption to make em tougher would be nice too. and as someone said, units captured by buboes via command should probably start at full health, otherwise they're often just XP for the player. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=300937

12) after a spellcaster has learned the lvl 1 spell of a sphere, he can then get the lvl2&3 spells even if you no longer have that kind of mana ( this could be already fixed in FF though... I don't use mana much so I'm not sure ) . anyway, it'd be great in the future to have a more complex magic system where the amount of mana you have determines how many/how powerful spells you can cast each turn :D

13) I don't really like how the resurrection spell works right now. I'd much rather resurrect heroes via a ritual. imho resurrect should bring back to life all the units belonging to the player ( possibly works for the whole team ) who casts the spell that got killed during the current turn ( which means even units that got killed on defense during the wait time between turns ) . obviously it should have a cap on the number of units it can resurrect to avoid balance issues. anyway, I find this idea a lot more intriguing than the current implementation :)

edit: 14) a "broken compact" gameoption that makes the mercurians and infernals start on the map on turn 1 along with the other civs would be nice :)

1.) Would be cool to have Feral Vampires running around.

2.) Barbarian player's peace reliant on a civic choice and sticking with that choice rather than getting a high score.

3.) A ritual for Barbarian players to summon barbarians (repeatable)

4.) A larger variety of barbarian "animal" spawns such as elementals, treants, etc...basically have the barbarian spawns run the gamut of the summonables

5.) Cyther's upgradeable heroes mod is pretty cool....(I remember someone around here mentioned Lucian was going to be upgradeable or something?)

Gekko;7503972']
8) now that we have marshes in the game, wetlands just feels redundant. I think it'd be better to remove them and have marshes substitute them in the wetland/lizard civs mechanic. btw, being able to turn marshes to grassland after a tech would be AWESOME. I hate having those crappy tiles sit around with no terraforming available to improve them :\


Strongly in support of some sort of merge here between the two terrains when you have the time.

Its really somewhat confusing/annoying to have marshes fall in the middle of your lizardman empire, since they are really bad squares, that cannot be improved with the swamp improvement(since they can't go wetland). I went as far as removing them from the mapscript(in a hacky way, just mapped all of them to grasslands), since they are unremovable(vitalize should be able to remove them at the very least) and just seem to not fit together(as well as being slightly buggy as noted that you have to chop them before you can build farms/cottages on them if they haven a jungle as they give 0 food that way).

This has also gotten me thinking, any plans for making workers able to improve land(ala vitalize), in the very late game at a much slower rate, with perhaps some gold cost? The builder in me cringes sometimes when I play dwarves who I believe have no access to the vitalize spell? (well, arguably I never get a chance to play with it with any civ at the levels I have been playing unless I'm elves with some druids, since nature mana is never a priority mana wise, but at least the option is there? :) ) I doubt it would be that unbalancing if 2-3 of the late game techs gave the ability to get rid of a few of the more annoying types of land, such as marshes.

some stuff I had forgot about :D :

1) having a dropdown option for Erebus mapscript that changes the average size of the valleys would be great. I'm having a blast with "50% peaks" ( thanx Jean Elcard ;) ) , but I'd love to try a game with normal peak amount and large valleys. I just hate those 5*5 totally enclosed valleys, they turn the map into a maze :D

2) I don't really like the current mechanic for the dispel spell. I'd rather have nodes converted back to raw mana via a ritual ( that possibly needs metamagic mana ) , and dispel be dispel: deactivate all enemy magic buffs in the surrounding 8 tiles. for game balance this should probably have a chance to get resisted and possibly affect even friendly units. ( personally I dislike switching mana nodes to build the ToM, but I do see that this is needed in order to make this victory condition accessile to non-warmongers. hopefully the AI will understand this sooner or later :D )

3) I think this modcomp has a nice idea. checking it out is worth it imho :D ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=279371 )

a couple base FFH issue that you are likely to know already:

1) HN units cannot capture enemy units ( command ) , nor can they create new ones from combat ( slaves )

2) flexible difficulty works very poorly with mercurians and infernals since you start with a very low score.

3) the amurite worldspell makes it impossible to use some abilities that aren't actually spells.

some more stuff :

1) an "undo movement" button for those times when you misclick would be nice, I miss that :D

2) I'd love to be able to build war elephants with ivory. pretty please? :lol:

3) dragon bones could be changed to give a unique "dragon bones" resource instead of ivory, so as to easily get rid of that elephant trapped in the rib cage. this unique resource could also give a bonus to Luchuirp bone golems I guess ;)

4) cyther's new winged civ looks awesome. it would be great as a civ that can settle on peaks and work them ;)

5) aside from that, more flying units would be great. no fantasy TBS game is complete without a good number of flying units I'll say :D going the "MC way" and giving all units in the game that have wings the flying promotion would be nice. archery units should get a bonus against them to act as a counter since flying is indeed VERY powerful.

6) after thinking about it for a while, I have to say that MC's suggestion of making chariot-type units stronger, but limiting the tiles they can enter ( i.e. no marshes, forests unless they have roads, etc. ) would be nice.

7) last but definitely not least, having snarko's improved AI would be great. I mean of course AIs that actually make demands and such stuff even with each other, instead than only with the player ( which feels kinda lame imho ) :)

Maybe we should rename this thread the "[to_xp] gekko's wish list." ;)

Maybe we should rename this thread the "[to_xp] gekko's wish list." ;)

Would be appropriate. :lol:

Heh heh the dude certainly has a lot of ideas

Maybe we should rename this thread the "[to_xp] gekko's wish list." ;)

:D

I wish I was as good at modding as I am at spitting out ideas :lol:

Yeah, well -- I do sympathize with you here!

1) the avatar race means that the unit has a very high chance of defending. this makes Auric Ascended too vulnerable imho... his very high strength means that he will defend very often even without "improved chance to defend the stack"

2) I think it might be good to create a new promotion that has only one effect: making the unit "less likely to defend the stack" , and taking away that ability from channeling and hero promotions. this would allow to further customize units ( arcane units should all get decreased chance to defend stack, but NOT all units with the channeling promo should imho. vampires for example, and any unit that's good at fighting but can also use a couple spells. )

3) it'd be nice to have flexible difficulty raising/lowering difficulty less/more depending on the speed you're playing at.

4) you're already doing a great job at balancing the games at different speeds :) I hope in the future you'll also have more stuff scaling with map size, that would be great. for example, movement points scaling with map size.. :D

5) as MC said, having "impersonate leader" make you control both your civ and an AI one hotseat-style would be awesome. I think we can all agree that having the ai control your civ is not good :D

6) considering the amount of time and effort that goes into building Auric, the Meshabber and the mithril golem, I think it'd be very nice if they caused some havok around them if/when/where they die. the mithril golem could cause a huge earthquake that causes damage to non-flyers and alters the landscape ( randomly raising/lowering peaks and hills) , Auric could cause cold damage and turn the surrounding area to ice, and Meshabber could cause fire damage and start flames around. all of them should probably destroy improvements, and the concept could be expanded on other units, like Basium and Hyborem for example.

7) pyre zombies right now are very difficult to deal with, especially if your opponent does not rely entirely on them and keeps them protected. I think their explosion should not have a damage cap so that it can't kill units, and if they get attacked and successfully killed they should explode on the tile they're on and damage their own stack, making them as dangerous as they should :D

8) Succubi have mind 2 ( charm person ) , but they sonly have channeling 1 : shouldn't they have channeling 2 ?

9) axemen get a bonus against warriors, which is awesome. does that bonus also include warrior UUs like beastmen? it should, imho.

10) there seems to be an issue in base FFH that makes high priests of winter unable to cast call blizzard. not sure if this is true for FF though, I haven't played them in a while..

11) it would be nice if the info that is shown when you're choosing a tech would only list things that you can actually get. like, hiding heroes belonging to other races, promotions that you'll never be able to get, etc. :)

12) I know you've heard it many times already: when adaptive trait prompts you to choose a trait, it would be great to have mouseover tell you what that trait actually does :D

13) when trading maps, it'd be great if the game would tell you how many tiles that map would reveal, so that you could evaluate if buying that map/selling your map is a good idea or a ripoff before it's too late :D

14) I think MC's version of feast ( you can feast a city to death ) would be nice. of course, caution would be needed so that the dumb AI doesn't destroy its own cities :lol:

15) this mod ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=163657 ) has some VERY intersting stuff imho. like stacking food/hammers in a treasury that cities will be able to use later, for example. some mechanics that could work great with implementing food trade ;)

16) AbandonRazeDemolish would be great to have ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=252243&highlight=abandon ) , being able to raze/abandon cities and demolish buildings can sometimes be very useful. in FF though, not all civs should be able to do all of this imho ( possibly based not only on civ, but on alignment as well ;) )

Gekko;7507134']some more stuff :
6) after thinking about it for a while, I have to say that MC's suggestion of making chariot-type units stronger, but limiting the tiles they can enter ( i.e. no marshes, forests unless they have roads, etc. ) would be nice.


I have to disagree, most maps they would be come useless. Not being able to move them around would just not be fun.

However an intersting side effect of that could be that they get negitive mods in certain terrain. Or maybe Stay same strength as current but add +X% bonus on Plains and +X*2 on Grasslands Say +10% Plains and +20% Grasslands, -10% Hills, -20% Forrest, -30% Anchient Forrest, -40% Jungle, -50% Deep Jungle for instance.... is is possible to say +20% Roads but no bonus for trails? So a Anchient Forrest with roads would net -10%?

End result would let them move but limit where you want to fight with them.

Gekko;7516320']1) the avatar race means that the unit has a very high chance of defending. this makes Auric Ascended too vulnerable imho... his very high strength means that he will defend very often even without "improved chance to defend the stack"

2) I think it might be good to create a new promotion that has only one effect: making the unit "less likely to defend the stack" , and taking away that ability from channeling and hero promotions. this would allow to further customize units ( arcane units should all get decreased chance to defend stack, but NOT all units with the channeling promo should imho. vampires for example, and any unit that's good at fighting but can also use a couple spells. )

I have a feeling that either Kael meant it to be this way because healing rates are done by percentage (meaning even in rival territory, 1 turn worth of healing means about 4 strength points regained for AA), or just to ensure that a swarm can take down Mulcarn EVENTUALLY. Otherwise if it was just to ensure that the Godslayer would attack Mulcarn and avoid cronies, he could have just set it up so that the Godslayer made the unit specifically target AA first if he is in a stack (UnitTypeTargets kind of field, or the existing UnitCombatTargets and a unique UnitCombat for Avatars). Note how I am not stating my thoughts on actually changing anything though. Haven't made a decision on how I think about the matter. Same with #2, but seems like a decent idea.

Gekko;7516320']3) it'd be nice to have flexible difficulty raising/lowering difficulty less/more depending on the speed you're playing at.

Thanks for the reminder, I had meant to change that one a while back, but got distracted by other sections of the code and forgot about the idea. Final Five and other challenges which are turn based will get the same treatment.

Gekko;7516320']4) you're already doing a great job at balancing the games at different speeds :) I hope in the future you'll also have more stuff scaling with map size, that would be great. for example, movement points scaling with map size.. :D

The problem with scaling things is finding a common multiple. You'll note that in general things which scale by gamespeed are 3, 6, or much larger. This is so that they don't get rounded horribly causing some of the shifts to make little sense (scale 1 by gamespeed and it doesn't change at all except in Marathon). Since a lot of movements are very low numbers, it is incredibly difficult to adjust to gamespeed, unless you increase average movement so that move 1 units only exist in a duel size map. But then you have to rebalance the entire game from the ground up almost.

Gekko;7516320']8) Succubi have mind 2 ( charm person ) , but they sonly have channeling 1 : shouldn't they have channeling 2 ?

Don't need channeling 2 to cast rank 2 spells, but if you have channeling 2 and a rank 1 spellsphere, you can learn new spells, which in this case we do not want.

Gekko;7516320']9) axemen get a bonus against warriors, which is awesome. does that bonus also include warrior UUs like beastmen? it should, imho.

Such bonuses are based on UnitClass, so yes, all UU's (that state in the Civilopedia "Replaces ___") are also vulnerable

Gekko;7516320']11) it would be nice if the info that is shown when you're choosing a tech would only list things that you can actually get. like, hiding heroes belonging to other races, promotions that you'll never be able to get, etc. :)

Right up until you accidentally trade away a "Useless Tech" to a civilization you aren't familiar with and realize that you just enabled his most awesome UU and got a whole 25 gold for the trouble...

Gekko;7516320']12) I know you've heard it many times already: when adaptive trait prompts you to choose a trait, it would be great to have mouseover tell you what that trait actually does :D

Are you sure we don't? I wrote code for that before joining the team and it should have been in ever since.

Gekko;7516320']13) when trading maps, it'd be great if the game would tell you how many tiles that map would reveal, so that you could evaluate if buying that map/selling your map is a good idea or a ripoff before it's too late :D

And then a few weeks later you'll ask that it let you know which tiles, and if they are just ocean.... ;) Maps ain't worth much, you take a risk :p

Right up until you accidentally trade away a "Useless Tech" to a civilization you aren't familiar with and realize that you just enabled his most awesome UU and got a whole 25 gold for the trouble...

you're right, I even thought about this myself, then forgot about it prior to posting. :D good call.



Are you sure we don't? I wrote code for that before joining the team and it should have been in ever since.

I guess you're right, now that I remember my last game with an adaptive trait civ ( Malakim ) was prior to the release of FF 043 so it was base FFH. :goodjob:

-----------------------------------------

thanx for the reply btw :)

Otherwise if it was just to ensure that the Godslayer would attack Mulcarn and avoid cronies, he could have just set it up so that the Godslayer made the unit specifically target AA first if he is in a stack (UnitTypeTargets kind of field, or the existing UnitCombatTargets and a unique UnitCombat for Avatars). Note how I am not stating my thoughts on actually changing anything though. Haven't made a decision on how I think about the matter. Same with #2, but seems like a decent idea.

Except that those tags only exist for units, not for promotions. He probably didn't feel like doing the work to let promotions have the same ability, if he even remembered that the ability for units even existed. I tend to think that this is the only reason for Auric Ascended to defend so much. I also don't think that a god should be able to be defeated by swarms of fodder, only by the godslayer.

I would much prefer it if you changed it so that promotions could use those targets fields, as I have several promotions planned that depend rather heavily on it. (I'd also really like it if you added a similar tag that targets units with specific promotions.)

Ahh.. just remembered a minor pet peeve of mine that occurs occasionally...
You know those events when a dwarf offers to transmutate your gold into copper and vice-versa?
It'll be nice if... we could actually get to check our maps before we decide, rather than try to recall if we had a spare copper lying around to want to change one into gold.

So... something along the lines of...
Turn 1: Dwarf offers to transmutate copper into gold for say 50 gold. He'll be back for your decision on the matter
Turn 2: Do you want to pay the dwarf to change your copper into gold?

That'll be great :lol:

Ahh.. just remembered a minor pet peeve of mine that occurs occasionally...
You know those events when a dwarf offers to transmutate your gold into copper and vice-versa?
It'll be nice if... we could actually get to check our maps before we decide, rather than try to recall if we had a spare copper lying around to want to change one into gold.

So... something along the lines of...
Turn 1: Dwarf offers to transmutate copper into gold for say 50 gold. He'll be back for your decision on the matter
Turn 2: Do you want to pay the dwarf to change your copper into gold?

That'll be great :lol:

Or something along the lines of
"Dwarf offers to transmute one of your (3) copper resources to gold for 50 gold."
Where obviously the number in parentheses would be you actual resource count.

Still, sometimes I'd really like to be able to take a look at the whole map before deciding lol, since often I don't bother hooking up multiple resources of the same type if they were out of my city's BFC but yet within my cultural borders. ;)

But even so what you mentioned, hbar, would certainly be a large improvement over the current event, and admittedly should be way easier to code in.

You would also want it to state how many gold resources you had currently I imagine. Just so you know if you already have one or not.

It triggers on a specific tile right? So you know in advance if it is in workable range of a city?

Another way to do it would be to spawn a temporary unit with a unique spell. If you want to transmute, you use the spell, otherwise it's gone the next turn.

I don't think I've ever used the transmutation though, but I mostly play with Blessing of Amathon.

Toll Houses

You could build one in a city in order to collect a little gold each time a foreign unit enters its BFC (while at peace of course). Toll Houses would be available with the Guilds tech. 1 gp per land unit, 5 gp per sea or air unit. Invisible or HN units don't pay, of course. Toll is deducted from the owning civ.

It would make cities located at choke points very valuable. The way this might work is that a visitor receives the "Taxed" promotion in exchange for the toll while in a foreign BFC, and would lose it when exiting the BFC. If the owning civ does not have the cash for the toll, the visiting unit cannot enter.

a couple more ideas and suggestions:

1) being able to choose "Random" for more options would be great. for example, Erebus has options for 0% peaks, 10%, 20% etc. why not random? ;)
same for all the checkboxes in the custom game setup. think good ol' Minesweeper: one click sets the option on ( an "X" appears in the checkbox ) , two clicks set the option to random ( a "?" appears in the checkbox ) , three clicks set it back to off, loop. ;)

2) it would be AWESOME if the more XP a unit has, the slimmer the chance of it defending get. high level units should only defend when chances of victory are very, very high. due to the well-known shortcomings of Civ combat system, you can't choose which unit you want to defend with. and since vanilla Civ is NOT focused on fewer, strong units, you often see your most powerful units dying on defense. :( if XP decreased the chances of the unit defending, you could use cannon fodder for defense ( who cares if they lose ) and use your strong units for attacking, thanx to your superior human common sense wise choices :D

3) assassins should get a bonus when defending against assassins imho. right now assassins are great for killing assassins, which doesn't make much sense. you would think a guy that kills for a living knows how to NOT get killed, right? ;)

4) shouldn't coastal cities be able to build sewers as well?

5) I'd love to see cities built on riverbends be considered riverside.

6) there's still the old exploit of gifting an opponent a city, capturing it, gifting again, repeat until the opponent LOVES you. if you can fix this you're awesome. ( and you're pretty awesome already, trust me :p )

7) another exploit is creating a great person with Alazkan's mirror and then using the illusion to start a golden age :D

8) AIs still often like building scouts instead of warriors in the early game. this often gets them killed. or was this changed in patch E? ( seeing as patch E "improved AI for defending cities" )

9) possible change for the "Wither" spell : make it cancel all food output of farm tiles in a 3x3 radius for a while. alternatively, just make it cancel all food output, not just farms ( idea stolen from AoW, I liked that spell :D )

10) if HN units will never be able to be grouped, I hope that the Svartalfar wordlspell gets changed. a mechanic that raises micromanagement by 1000% is, ipso facto, a bad mechanic imho. if you choose to do so, you could start a poll asking people for a new idea - I'm sure many will come ;)

11) this one is obviously a wish for a distant future: I hope that someday FF will overhaul the crappy unrealistic way that Civ handles resurces. i.e. no more 1 bronze mine providing enough bronze for a worldwide empire, and being able to "spread" live resource ( grains, livestock ) , etc.
same could be said for maintenance cost, no more units costing a hell of a lot more as soon as they step 1 tile outside of cultural borders, but maintenance costs linked to distance from homeland, etc. :)

Gekko;7535353']
3) assassins should get a bonus when defending against assassins imho. right now assassins are great for killing assassins, which doesn't make much sense. you would think a guy that kills for a living knows how to NOT get killed, right? ;)

I agree that assassins should be useful guarding against other assassins, for two mechanics reasons:

1.) Guardsman as a promotion is lame.
2.) Would save having to come up with yet another unit.

The only thing is though, that assassins should be good at countering assassins, so maybe instead of getting a defense bonus, the assassin should have a higher chance of defending the stack...

You even think that FF guardsman is lame?

Meh. Guardsman sounds like a unit not a promotion. The minor defense bonus can be useful in the early game I suppose. Never take it myself unless I play Bannor then I take it all the time. ;)

Minor, PER UNIT, defense bonus. And I can't remember if it is defense which can be bombarded away with seige, but I am inclined to think it is not.

You are right however I find it hard to believe people promo up hordes of guardsmen specifically for the bonus, thats at least 6 or 7 dudes to get 20%. Nice little bonus for Bannor, but then they get it for free.

I don't play Bannor so I have no idea if that bonus can or cannot be bombarded away.

Yeah, it's mostly for Bannor, or people who have some good training buildings for their home force.

really bro if I am that worried about assassins, I roll around with skeleton summons, they always seem to take the hit, course I cannot haste them so they are slow but that is my strategy. Otherwise I just use weaker units to soak up the hitman goodness.

Guardsman promotion are for players who want their units to gain xp from killing attacking assassins instead of getting picked off each turn, I guess thats why it is expensive promotion wise.

problem is that using skeletons and other weak units to defend against assassin doesn't make sense imho. an assassin would never target a weak, useless unit :D

I think there ought to be a cap on the total number of assassins a civ can build. It becomes pretty ridiculous when a civ builds armies 80% made up of assassins.

I still think that promotions need to have the ability to target specific unitclasses/unitcombats/units with other promotions. I'd like marksman to let you switch out between various targeting promotions so you could pick targets, or at least the basic type of targets. The same tag could make the Godslayer target Avatars.

i'd be down with promotions like Magekiller or Expert Fighter for assassins that would help them bypass my mages' legions of loyal skeletons but WAIT there is a pesky guardsman hanging around, gotta kill him first.

Short of being able to somehow select a target, I wish that, rather than looking at lowest defense, the game looked at highest ratio between Value (Power? Asset?) and Defense rank.

I had a game where I ended up with too many captured wolves, lions, tigers, and especially bears. After generously caging them in my cities, I wished there were a way I could sell off my herd of useless bears for cash. ;)

I'm wishing for a new tag in civ4eventinfos.xml that can change the terraintype of the tile that was picked.. alternatively, does anyone know how you get python calls from within an Event to select the specific plot that was picked during the Event Trigger? For python calls made directly from the Trigger, you can use

kTriggeredData = argsList[0]
pPlot = gc.getMap().plot(kTriggeredData.iPlotX, kTriggeredData.iPlotY)

but if you make a python call from the Event (so the player can make a choice), it seems like it can't access the triggered plot data, and I have to use findClearPlot to get a random plot nearby.

You'd want to use the same approach as Hyborem's Whisper for that one. Trigger selects a few appropriate plots, and makes those be the options available for selection on the event. I would say that specification by Compass Direction should work nicely for selection buttons (N/NE/E/SE/S/SW/W/NW/Center/Nothing). Then you reference the Trigger plot and adjust yourself 1 tile by directiontypes (command exists for it, but I cannot recall it as I haven't used it before)

I would love to see a wonder, that would nullify any magic within x amount of plots away from the city, that would not allow spells to affect the area, as in they cannot be used at all... not even spring. The thought behind the Wonder, is the people of the city were weary of spell casters, and wished to live without the worry of them within their city limits.

I started to add such a wonder (The Nullstone Citadel) in my version a while back, but then realized I couldn't figure out a way that wouldn't slow the game way down with excessive python prereqs.

Well if it can't be done, without slowing the game down, then I guess it isn't really needed.

It could be done, and might become part of the enhanced Rituals project at some point, but it is probably a little bit too absolute for what our new framework will be.

I didn't say it was impossible, but if it is added the code should be mostly in the DLL. It is beyond my C++ skills, but Xienwolf probably wouldn't have too much trouble with it.

1) I wish that FF 044 implements Marnok's mechanic of having forts built via a spell, which would keep automated workers from spamming them :)

2) I've noticed that in the Fall of Cuantine scenario, there's fur resources in forests (i.e. not only in ice/tundra ) . I thought this looked and felt good. maybe it could be the same in FF. same with the camps and pastures placed where there's no resource - at first I thought it was odd but I must say I kinda like it. making more improvements available, not just on resources ( Mailbox's modmod style ) could be nice :D

3) Avahz Darkwood has a nice modmod in the Hippus Flavour mod ;)

4) Mercenaries should not eliminate the "we fear for our safety!" unhappiness imho, they are not to be trusted, they're just there for the money and population shouldn't be happy with that ;)

5) I definitely agree with the change in Orbi modmod that makes city raider unavailable to animals ( replaced with flanking promos ) . city raider animals don't make sense, but flanking ones do imho ;)

6) hill giants are beast units, but recon units still get their bonus vs animals against them. kinda unfair :(

7) having hell terrain spread even in good civ's territory at AC 100 would be cool imho.

1) as Grey Fox pointed out somewhere, size 2 cities are immune to River of Blood, which is unfair: they should revert to size 1 imho.

2) it seems that barbs spawned in the fog of war don't get free promotions on higher difficulty levels like units built in cities do.

3) with the new implementation of enraged loyalty has become utterly useless, but I'm pretty sure you guys are gonna change it slightly to make it useful again ;)

4) sometimes units will attack across rivers even if they could avoid it, due to the pathfinder favoring tiles with roads even if it means suffering a combat penalty due to river crossing :7

5) it would be awesome if they AI could be thaught to properly use terrain bonuses/maluses to its advantage. often times you see them attacking across a river when they could have moved to that tasty hill+forest tile right next to your city and attack from there...

6) now that compassion civics are gone, the Overcouncil has lost the resolution to force adoption of Public Healers. what about adding a resolution to force Republic? that would be both flavourful and work nicely gameplay-wise imho ( due to the happiness penalty that Republic gives )

7) is there a way to let the Kuriotates able to build wonders like the great library even on small maps where they can't build 3 cities? that would be sweet :)

8) the "dedicate monument" event should be rebalanced: +2 food is awesome, while +1 health is rather useless.

9) shouldn't the Expansive leader trait boost production of granaries AND smokehouses?

1) I'd love to see catapults and other units capable of bombarding city defenses, to be able to do so against fort-type improvements too. and a way of quickly taking your city defense bonus back to normal after it has been bombarded would be nice as well. :)

2) shouldn't there be a council resolution about accepting or not a new member in the council? it's kinda weird that they are just letting anyone in imho.

3) it'd be cool to have the new barb clans introduced in the latest Marnok mod for some added variety and flavour :)

4) hopefully sooner or later you guys will be able to make HN units truly look like barbarians instead of it being immediately clear ( to a human ) who is actually attacking them. :D

5) I'd love to see the changes from Malakimplus get merged into main FF :D

6) slavery giving +1 hammer to quarries is fairly trivial given how uncommon quarries are in FFH. maybe a little gold bonus from plantations as well for flavour?

imho adding salt and stone resurce to FFH would be both good gameplay wise and give quarries some more usage instead of marble only.

alternatively, quarries could be made buildable on every hill like in Orbi. and maybe Slavery could get increased yields from workshops, plantations, quarries, mines... maybe even farms. slaves are useful everywhere after all. to balance this, obviously the civic would have to get some drawbacks, like slave revolt random events, unhappiness etc.

7) MC suggested that you should be able to terraform via magic even other people's territories. perm allies come to mind, but I guess letting the player decide whose lands he wants to improve ( even neutral and vassal lands ) would be good.

8) it might be nice to change the Stoneskin spell so that it affects the whole stack ( the effect would have to be a lot less powerful of course )

9) shouldn't Charadon get Charismatic like in MaxAstro's mod? he is so much worse than Mahala right now.

10) I think there's some great suggestion about the way the AI gets extra XP at high difficulty levels in this thread http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=304875

Gekko;7607592']1) as Grey Fox pointed out somewhere, size 2 cities are immune to River of Blood, which is unfair: they should revert to size 1 imho.


Should not only take it to 1 pop but take it to 0 food stored probably.

On this note are the scions immune to this world spell? If they aren't they prob should be(mostly or totally immune) as they are mostly undead?

Gekko;7607592']
4) sometimes units will attack across rivers even if they could avoid it, due to the pathfinder favoring tiles with roads even if it means suffering a combat penalty due to river crossing :7

5) it would be awesome if they AI could be thaught to properly use terrain bonuses/maluses to its advantage. often times you see them attacking across a river when they could have moved to that tasty hill+forest tile right next to your city and attack from there...


The other problem is that if you are 2 or more squares away, it doesn't show the river penalty in calculations if you do the attack from there even though the path it is showing that it will be attacking across a river(which I have done once or twice by accident). If you fixed this, it might fix the fact that pathfinding seems to want to attack across a river when it doesn't have to/ai not considering it).

would it be possible to tell the city governor to NOT use certain kinds of specialists ( and possibly to use certain kind of specialists as soon as a slot for them becomes available: "I only want priests in this city" , etc. )? that would be nice, especially for the grigori that will want to have as many adventurers as possible, or for the sidar who may want to avoid priests since they are the only ones they don't get buffs for, etc..

I just found out that fire elementals cannot enter snow tiles. wtf? they should turn snow tiles to tundra when they walk upon them imho. I miss those "path of life/death/whatever" abilities from AoW, having a unit leave a path of its own terrain behind is just awesome :D

That reminded me, I think that promotions should be able to chance the plot counter o the tiles the unit moves though. I started doing this though a pyPerTurn function, but started to think that it would be too processor intensive, and generally just not as good. I'd really like to see the spread of hell to be much less passive, instead being caused mostly by evil units passing though a land. I'm thinking Demon, Stigmata, and Unholy Taint would slowly increase their plots counters. The current method of setting all Infernal territory to a plot counter of 100 and having it spread to AV evil, other Evil, and then Neutral lands would pretty much be obsoleted by having the more evils units spread hell instead.

You need this for "Ice!" When the new version is released it better be!

Methuselah's Altar of the Damned victory condition for evil civs would be great to have in FF :D http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7630104#post7630104

Gekko;7630311']Methuselah's Altar of the Damned victory condition for evil civs would be great to have in FF :D http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7630104#post7630104

Agreed. I've wanted an evil Altar victory for quite a while.

Agreed. I've wanted an evil Altar victory for quite a while.

Benefits for RPing evil are a priority (rather than Armageddon hurting those that seek to cause it as much as everyone else), but I have to agree with Kael's principle of avoiding repeated mechanics. I'd rather have a unique condition for evil players to achieve rather than an altar with "EVIL" printed on the side...

In 044 however, conquest victories should be a little easier for certain civs when the AC is high, and there's even more incentive for the good guys to prevent the spread of hell terrain...

Flavor names-- I'd like to see individual units automatically given unique names based on civ and unit type. For instance, Twenty-Third Battalion, Dusk Brigade, for military units; Havrix the Impetuous, Varofex the Unstable for adepts, and so forth.

Rare or powerful units could be given more impressive-sounding names, and the style of the names could differentiate one civ from another almost as well as unique graphics.

Thats just a bunch of random things, while most likely easy to impliment, they would probably end up burdening the system. Besides, you could do that yourself =D

Benefits for RPing evil are a priority (rather than Armageddon hurting those that seek to cause it as much as everyone else), but I have to agree with Kael's principle of avoiding repeated mechanics. I'd rather have a unique condition for evil players to achieve rather than an altar with "EVIL" printed on the side...

What if the "evil altar" caused some percentage of damage to enemy units under a certain level each turn they remain within the "Obscurum Fidelis" (the owner's borders)? As more of the altar is built, it progressively affects units of higher experience levels.

With an early altar, enemy units that die within the Obscurum Fidelis provide some extra experience to disciple units in the same space as the altar. With a mid-level altar, defeated units return under the control of the altar's owner, as skeletons (or other low-level unit more appropriate to the owning civ (??). With a higher level altar, the enemy unit is reborn under the control of the altar's owner and gains the demon promotion.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=305767

it would be nice to have the minor leaders available as leaders in the epic game once the modmod is a little more fleshed out. allows people the further customize their playstyle and adds a little variety ;)

Gekko;7639921']http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=305767

it would be nice to have the minor leaders available as leaders in the epic game once the modmod is a little more fleshed out. allows people the further customize their playstyle and adds a little variety ;)

We'd had similar theories, along with tying them in to FiRE somehow as derivative civs (same theory as Colonies in BtS - the new civ is based on the old civ). It does look like notque is doing a good job, as well as the one by Verily :goodjob:

Benefits for RPing evil are a priority (rather than Armageddon hurting those that seek to cause it as much as everyone else), but I have to agree with Kael's principle of avoiding repeated mechanics. I'd rather have a unique condition for evil players to achieve rather than an altar with "EVIL" printed on the side...

In 044 however, conquest victories should be a little easier for certain civs when the AC is high, and there's even more incentive for the good guys to prevent the spread of hell terrain...

I'd love to see some victory mechanic tied to hell terrain. Not sure exactly how it would work, but perhaps one needs to spread hell terrain to all of the world sites or a certain percentage of the world, raise the ac to some minimum, then do something to achieve victory(perhaps sacrifice some collection of high end units as part of a ritual, perhaps some subset of the following: an immortal, an archmage, a great sage and a high priest of the veil/overlords/winter). This would likely need to go hand in hand with such changes as allowing hell terrain to enter good lands at some high ac as well as possibly new ways to spread hell.

It might also be interesting to have the snake totems get bonus's based on the value of the ac?

An archmage/high priest(or perhaps priest level even) level anti hell spell would be interesting as well. Some sort of santify that spreads much as hell terrain does, but in the opposite direction, decreasing the counter(at a faster rate then hell would spread in of course) in a spread pattern around a city that has the archmage/high priest maintaining the spell to perhaps some area limit(5th or 6th ring of the city perhaps, or a smaller range if its a priest spell). This would give us a way to resist hell terrain without having the micro hell that is sanctifying currently. This could give us a late game world that is a few towns that have priests garrisoned resisting the wave of hell terrain, but most of the world being overrun. Honestly, I'd be fine with this replacing the current way of removing hell terrain, so that is really quite hard to remove it if its not near a city of yours, which would work well with the above victory mechanic. As evil civs would be trying to displace good civs from near the world sites, and the good civs would be trying to defend them(to maintain that priest presence) to prevent evil civs from winning.

If there was an alternative evil victory, I'd like it to be something that would push the civ to be in opposition to raising the AC.

It seems to me that civs like the Svart, Calabim and Dov (at least not AV practicing ones) would see the raising AC as impacting on their power. The Balseraphs I guess may go in for the ride...but even they may find themselves wondering at some point whether the big ugly Demons should be the ones having fun at their expense...

If there was an alternative evil victory, I'd like it to be something that would push the civ to be in opposition to raising the AC.

It seems to me that civs like the Svart, Calabim and Dov (at least not AV practicing ones) would see the raising AC as impacting on their power. The Balseraphs I guess may go in for the ride...but even they may find themselves wondering at some point whether the big ugly Demons should be the ones having fun at their expense...

Again - there are some fairly significant changes in this department. There's still room for a non-demon/AC oriented victory condition though, so ideas in that direction may well be of interest...

Just an unrelated thought -- I'd like to see the dwarven races having access to a unique terrain improvement: the tunnel.

Basically a dwarven civ should be able to build no more than one or two of these (one with iron & construction, another with gunpowder). The "tunnel" in question essentially comes in the form of a citadel built on top of a mountain. The fortification in effect allows passage through that mountain square, and a massive defensive bonus for holding it.

I think the simplest way to make this work would be to give a random dwarven worker a promotion to enter mountain spaces, and make forts buildable on mountains (???). The worker loses that promotion when the mountain fort is built.

This could be relevant especially with the Erebus map.

Just an unrelated thought -- I'd like to see the dwarven races having access to a unique terrain improvement: the tunnel.

Basically a dwarven civ should be able to build no more than one or two of these (one with iron & construction, another with gunpowder). The "tunnel" in question essentially comes in the form of a citadel built on top of a mountain. The fortification in effect allows passage through that mountain square, and a massive defensive bonus for holding it.

I think the simplest way to make this work would be to give a random dwarven worker a promotion to enter mountain spaces, and make forts buildable on mountains (???). The worker loses that promotion when the mountain fort is built.

This could be relevant especially with the Erebus map.

What Id like to see is something along the lines of a "dwarven mine" city building if the city is built next to a mountain. This could give a small cash/commerce bonus that increases as you get the metal techs(mining, etc). It also could act as a weaker version of the nexus, where one could argue that they all connect underground, and you can send units between them, at some cost, perhaps % chance to lose the unit or with some delay. Ideally you would only be able to send it to other cities with dwarven mines though, not as airports work currently.

Personally I think that all Dwarven workers should be able to walk across mountains whenever they want. I mean, the majority of their people live inside of these things, surely they have found ways to easily traverse them.

Then maybe giving them a unique improvement, kind of like the Lanun Pirate Cove, which is a tunnel that can only be built on mountains, and not within say 5 spaces of another would work perfectly. It would allow all other dwarven units to pass through the tunnel.

This large advantage could possibly even offset the terribl starting positions the dwarfs are getting on the Erebus maps these days, because they would have quick access to areas that other civs would have to use boats to reach.

On the topic of which.. because I haven't played FF for a while due to my countless failed attempts to win the FFH scenarios on Diety (it's not possible), I was wondering if the AI still struggles so terribly with colonizing and/or attacking over water? I know from playing regular BTS on PerfectWorld that I'm almost alwys beaten to settling the uninhabited islands by AI civs, and it's always saddened me that the AI in FFH seems to have forgotten it has this ability.

Personally I think that all Dwarven workers should be able to walk across mountains whenever they want. I mean, the majority of their people live inside of these things, surely they have found ways to easily traverse them. .

Not sure that I agree with the logic that living underground makes someone able to walk over hills/mountains easily, but would like to see tunnels added.

Perhaps one way to do this would be to have a Khazad Engineer unit (perhaps a National unit...or perhaps an option open to all Great Engineers, and thus all civs?) to be able to cast a Build Tunnel "spell" that in a similar way to bombard would affect a selectable neighbouring tile.

Would need a spell delay - and I'm thinking on the lines of 8-12 turns (ie; will usually average around 10 turns, but can take a little longer/shorter to represent different rock types/issues*). When the "spell" is finished the Mountain tile would be replaced with a new Mountain Tunnel tile which allows movement onto that tile.

* hmmm...or perhaps, have a turn delay of 5 turns - but for each turn their would be a 20% risk that the tunneling has to be restarted ("We've hit a seam of Obsidian/Granite - we'll have to start again!")

It would mean that the tile wouldn't be limited to one direction of travel (ie; a unit entering the tile could then enter any passable terrain neighbouring it)

Perhaps, "Mountain Tunnel" tiles could then be defined as being able to build improvements on by standard workers- mushroom farms, mines (with a higher chance of revealing bronze/iron/mithril/gems than hills) or fortifications - though possibly with a risk of tunnel collapse for the latter two (kills units (except flying) on tile, and reverts back to mountain)...

Interesting line of discussion I started. I'm glad to see there are plenty of ideas for that topic. What if there was a random chance creatures of the deep might appear in the tunnel (Balor barbs for example)?

would it be possible to show what kind a unit is ( mounted, melee, arcane etc. ) when highlighting it with the cursor?

Gekko;7654344']would it be possible to show what kind a unit is ( mounted, melee, arcane etc. ) when highlighting it with the cursor?

Very good idea. Had some problems finding out sometimes too. Should be easy to implement. Let's take a look ...

great :goodjob: another thing: sentry for land units is supposed to wake the unit if enemy units appear in its visibility range, right? it seems that they only wake if the enemy unit is max 1 tile away right now.

Thought I had made that display when I added the ability for a promotion to change your unitcombat. Guess I didn't. Or I linked it to only showing if non-standard.

For sentry they must be visible to THAT unit, and most units only have a 1 tile visibility range, so that might be what you are noticing.

ah, that makes perfect sense. could sentry be set to wake a unit if there's an enemy unit within "attack range" ( i.e. they can be attacked in the very same turn the unit wakes ) ? that would make it much more useful I think. you know, I tend to forget to do something about those pesky barbarians trying to enter my borders, so the sentry mission is a godsend :D

I think it would be a good idea if units on foot could enter volcano spaces (still -- siege weapons and cavalry shouldn't). It would be interesting since volcanoes appear at random and could end up opening a gap through a chain of mountains. Units could take some damage while in a volcano space.

about Simultaneous Turns in single player: right now they seem to make no difference in between turns waits. however, I noticed that StormBringer mentioned starting a multiplayer LAN game and then playing it single player, and that way it works as it should. I'm wondering if there's a way to tell the game to adopt that same behaviour when choosing simultaneous turns in true single player games? that would be awesome!

Can you get Worldbuilder to work in Multiplayer (especially hotseat) games? I believe Kael tried to as a hidden game option a while back but when I tried it in a hotseat game (I've never played a real multiplayer civ game) clicking on the button to enter worldbuilder didn't do anything.

The Simultaneous turns was removed. With a more complicated code setup I could get it to work right maybe, but there will likely be many bugs that come along for the ride. So it'll need to wait till I have more time.

No opinion on worldbuilder MP right now. I have other goals with worldbuilder which are far more worthwhile though, so at best: no time soon.

Hey guys,

Long time lurker, don't even remember if I've posted on the subforum before. Just wanted to ask: How's the integration of FiRe! going? I want to suggest also taking a look at Notque's minor leaders as major leaders modmod - developing a unique leader is even more fun than developing a unique hero, and it might even be worth including in FF, especially as more stuff from the Revolution mod makes it into the game.

Thanks

Well, I may have helped to encourage him to develop the leaders to grow like that because it was already our plan for when we have FiRe up and running and I wanted someone to play guinea pig for us ;) I am adoring his newest setup with a percent chance to gain the promotions though, don't think I had even considered such an approach.

Well, I may have helped to encourage him to develop the leaders to grow like that because it was already our plan for when we have FiRe up and running and I wanted someone to play guinea pig for us ;) I am adoring his newest setup with a percent chance to gain the promotions though, don't think I had even considered such an approach.

The % chances came up whilst we were chatting in #erebus the other night - I suggested that he might want to have a chat with Jean Elcard about FiRE as he was considering reimplementing it for FfH2 Ice himself...

Definitely sounds like the two projects belong together though...

Agreed, I'm loving being able to grow my leaders, and would love it even more to see it in FF. :D

Seems I should keep a closer eye on Notque's thread. FFiRe is surely one of the next projects I'll put more time on, but keep in mind that I have to finish my studies this summer/autumn. That cuts away a lot of time I would rather like to spend on modding ...

some suggestions :

1) flavourstart could place some pirate coves on the map after map generation, like it does with goblin forts, towers etc. these pirate coves would basically be explorable lairs that spawn barbarian ships every now and then. after successfully explored, they would turn into the regular, useful pirate cove improvement. barb ships spawned by it could belong to a new barbarian faction, "Pirates" , that wonder through the seas and occasionally land some raiders on shores. they could get Pirate UU instead of Privateers, so that Lanun can actually use their HN pirates and the victim will not know it was them ;) Lanun might even start at peace with pirates, would be a nice added touch.

2) shipwrecks could occasionally spawn drowns ;)

3) hidden lairs! i.e. lairs that are there, spawn monsters, but can't NORMALLY be seen and destroyed. some ways to see them could be through units that can see invisible ( and maybe a couple others, like lightbringers for example ) , through a unit just wondering by and getting lucky and stumbling upon it ( i.e. when a unit stands on the tile or on the surrounding tiles it has a chance to see the lair ) , or through maps ( the random event that currently creates a dungeon for example, could be changed so that it REVEALS an invisible dungeon instead )

4) have flavourstarts place a couple treasure chests on the map after map generation. I guess it would be better to have them start invisible as having a treasure chest just lie there would be weird ( and revealed via the same mechanics as hidden lairs would ). an exception could be a treasure chest that is visible, with a tough monster sitting on the tile guarding it ( with the held promotion so that he doesn't wander around ) . some treasure chests could even be on water tiles of course ( sunken chests, invisible to all except OO units maybe? )

5) if you choose to use this "treasure chests expanded" ( tm :p ) concept you might want to take a look at the code that's normally used when a chest is created in the game. it really seems like it's specifically looking for areas that are not reachable by foot, which is often annoying.

6) End of Winter could cause treasure chests, lairs and other stuff to appear as the ice melts. "the thawing ice revealed a treasure chest near citynameX" would be nice to see in the game imho :D

1) Actually instead of adding a "Pirates" faction I would be more inclined to add a "Independants" faction which would be what all Hidden Nationality units appear as, and would randomly spawn units which are available to all currently living civilizations (so as to make it impossible to say "That Independant is a Darkelf, so I know it was Grey Fox who attacked me. Because now it might actually just be a computer controlled random spawn, or it might be one of his units post-worldspell)

3) That is one of the things which will happen with Aspects, far in the future.

4) That would actually be a nice approach to keeping the treasure chest random spawns from always being in the same random locations.