Here is the current list of Dune Wars Civilizations and Leaders.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233031&stc=1&d=1257073184

Leaders: Duke Leto Atreides (Philosophical/Financial); Paul Atreides (Philosophical/Spiritual); Alia of the Knife (Aggressive/Spiritual); Leto II (Philosophical/Imperialistic)
* Hawk Thopter, a UU replacement for Vulture Thopter with +1 move.
* Pilot School, a UB replacement of Aerie which gives more XP for starting thopter and hornet units.
* Bee interceptor, UU replacement of Wasp with longer range and better intercept.
* Owns Caladanian Wine UR, +2 happiness


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233036&stc=1&d=1257073184

Leaders: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Aggressive/Organized); Beast Rabban (Aggressive/Protective); Feyd Rautha (Aggressive/Charismatic);
* Can generate slave units on combat victory.
* Devastator Tank, UU of Heavy Scorpion.
* Slave Pit, UB of courthouse which has no real effect since slavery "whip" is temporarily removed.
* Inkvine Regiment UU of Heavy Trooper.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233035&stc=1&d=1257073223

* All initial units, and some later foot units, start with double speed desert movement.
* Several powerful melee UR units unlocked by Water Debt unique resource, which the Fremen control.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233033&stc=1&d=1257073184

* Imperial Trooper UU replaces heavy trooper
* Laza Tiger UU replaces master guardsman; a HN unit intended to pick off isolated enemy units.
* Selamlik, UB of courthouse building which gives -50% war weariness.
* Several powerful melee units unlocked by Sardaukar Cooperation UR.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233032&stc=1&d=1257073269

* Sayyadina UU, teaches combat/drill promotions to units in stack.
* Line of 4 Kwisatz Haderach UUs, each one is irreplaceable and gives bonuses to all units in stack. For example, the ultimate unit gives +50% attack strength, two first strikes, and immunity to first strikes.
* Reverend Mother, a late game spy type unit with access to diplomatic missions. These include +1 diplomatic bonus, convert city, and destabilize civilization. Requires Sisterhood Covenant UR, so other civs may build it.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233038&stc=1&d=1257073269

* Plague effect on combat result which gives -25% strength and is easily passed from one unit to another. If an infected unit enters a city, the city receives -2 health.
* Axlotl tank, late game building to provide ghola (clone) unit commanders with high experience.
* Face Dancer, UU of spy, has access to Poisoner spy promotion. Can assassinate settled great people.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233037&stc=1&d=1257073312

* Four walker UR units unlocked by Thinking Machines UR
* Three UB which are variants of the late game automated factory and research center; these use thinking machines, and the Ixian variant avoids the happiness penalty.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233039&stc=1&d=1257073312

* Spy units gain 1 XP per turn.
* Trike, UU of Quad with +1 movement.
* Chemical trooper, UU of Grenade Trooper with more collateral damage.
* Saboteur, UU of spy. At present this has no special effect.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233034&stc=1&d=1257073312

* Elaccan Gladiator, UU of hardened bladesman; high strength, but automatically dies after any combat win or lose.
* Smuggler: has trade mission like Great Merchant but less powerful.
* Smuggler's Haven: replaces Landing STage; same effect, but Ecaz can build three instead of two.
* Sculptor's Garden: UB of Mushtamel; +1 trade route.
* Owns Opafire and Semuta UR (+2 happiness)


(As of Dune Wars 1.6.5)

This thread is to discuss the different factions and leaders in general, but there are also some specific things it would be interesting to discuss.

1. How do we make the different factions play differently? One of the great strengths of Fall from Heaven II is that each faction is so different to play that there is massive replay value.

2. Should we have new Dune specific traits? If so what? For example, the Bene Gesserit could have a Prescient trait giving them Espionage advantages and their units First Strike promotions.

3. Are there any ideas for new civs that are different enough from the current ones?

4. What traits should each leader have?

5. Are there new leaders we could add to get two leaders per civ?

Try to be constructive in any criticism, and offer alternatives.

wow just wow,

i wont even know where to being to work after i set a stable version, you added so much files so far!!

No worries. All of the new files are in the graphics update 1.2.1 which Deliverator has linked, and they do not change the gameplay.

ah great david.

sorry im seem to be away alot - its busy times in real life now.

but...in three weeks ill be back full time!

How about House Ix, with industrious and scientific traits.
Lots of mechanical units, and maybe some things that get close to violating butlerian jihad restrictions against thinking machines.
Super-computer type building that increases research output, cyborg warriors.

Traits differentiate factions, but not enough; the civ traits simply aren't powerful enough to have a huge impact on how you play.
UUs are a great way to differentiate civs, so are different palace bonuses, but so are different civ mechanics.

Maybe some mechanics that were like super-traits, or significantly increase the power of traits.

Some civs could be favored towards more aggression, conquest and slavery/exploitation of natives (Harkonnen). Maybe the Harkonnen could enslave units when they capture them, and then sacrifice these for production in cities. Maybe they could have a unique building that added hammers and commerce at the cost of unhappiness.

Some factions favor influence and meddling; maybe Bene Gesserit and Imperium infiltrators could literally buy enemy cities like probe teams could in SMAC, or maybe could start wars between enemy factions, or significantly reduce the influence output from enemy cities, or use an ability that integrated with influence driven war submod to shift the influence on a particular tile - basically, add some extra super-good espionage options to these factions.

I'd like to see the Tleixu even more... biological. Some kind of biological warfare weapons; maybe a super-virus from espionage that decimates a city population.
Face dancers with hidden nationality (maybe a mentat assassin UU instead of a harbinger UU), and/or maybe the FFH Marksmen trait.
Axolotl tanks that are like cloning vats and increase military unit production, or a national wonder that creates a free copy of any unit construted, like FFH Clan Warrens.

Spacer guild that is even more trade oriented; bonus trade routes, maybe they could get hammers or food from trade routes, like the lizardmen unique civic Lost Lands in the Fall Further modmod.
Maybe a unique building that acts like an airport in terms of airlifting units around the map; the guild has access to massive freighters.
Access to spy satellites that have recon missions with a large radius.
Maybe give them some para-troop units

Atreides could have diplomatic bonuses; maybe an inherent +2 to +3 diplomacy modifier with all other players except the Harkonnen. Maybe extra diplomatic options; they can form more than one permanent alliance, or could form a permanent alliance after a shorter time in shared war/defensive pact.
They could also get some inherent happiness bonuses in their cities.

Make the Fremen into real jihadist holy warriors. Give them bigger bonuses for having their state religion in cities, but big penalties for having non-state religion.
Maybe lots of cheap warriors whose death doesnt' cause war weariness.
Maybe some units that are like submarines; invisible when in the desert, and can only be detected by a handful of infantry units, so they can launch stealth raid assaults to pillage some stuff and run.

Make the Sietch Tabr Fremen into real terraformers, trying to realize Liet Kynes' vision and turn Arrakis into a real planet. Maybe they can hoard water somehow, and release it to turn desert tiles into land tiles, or have a "spell" like vitalize from FFH that can actually change underlying terrain.
Give them inherent terrain bonuses from forests, so they're encouraged to terraform differently, and various other terraforming advantages.

Anyway, just some brainstorming.

yeas i support making the houses more unique, no dougt.

via - traits, units, buildings, and more.

as for the extra 5 houses - ix is defenetly among them -
heres a link to the suggested houses:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Family_Houses_in_Dune

Another thought; you could make the Tleilaxu agnostic, a la FFH, and give them their own religious buildings but prevent them from building any of the others.
It just feels very wrong for the Tleilxau populace to be worshipping outside religions, given their fanaticism.

I like those ideas.

Guild => trade bonuses
Gesserit => espionage missions
Harkonnen => slavery
Tlielaxu => bioweapons
Fremen => cheap fighters, worm transport
Sietch => terraformers
Atreides => diplomacy

Imperium, Fenring, Ordos => nothing yet. Wikipedia says Ordos is interested in wealth and employs mercenaries. Fenring is an assassin and an "almost-ran" Kwisatz Haderach. Imperium could specialize in heavy infantry like Sardaukar. We have some ideas for Ix; maybe they could replace Fenring.

I really think we need more uniqueness to these, before adding new ones.

Imperium definitely needs kickass Sardaukar. They could also be Culture warriors, with unique buildings that give % culture bonuses. If feels like they should be well placed to win a cultural Influence victory.

Fenring is an assassin; maybe some stealth or assassin type features - some units with the FFH marksmen promotion?

Ordos IIRC is non-canon, they were literally created by Westwood for Dune 2 (that was the first PC game I ever bought).
Mercenary units could work fine; maybe they could have a unique building that lets them instantly create some mercenary units in that city in exchange for gold, like how FFH creates mercenaries with the Guild of the Nine. The units could have an intrinsic +1 gold upkeep modifier.
AI won't handle this though, of course.

I really think though that while faction differentiation is important, you need to cut out the number of units and structures, or at least use obsolesence to clear out the number available at any given time.
The mod feels way too bloated with too much stuff in the build menus, and the tech tree could probably use some streamlining.

Traits differentiate factions, but not enough; the civ traits simply aren't powerful enough to have a huge impact on how you play.
UUs are a great way to differentiate civs, so are different palace bonuses, but so are different civ mechanics.

Maybe some mechanics that were like super-traits, or significantly increase the power of traits.

Actually, I was thinking of deep unique mechanics like the Khazad in FfH2, where the amount of gold in the bank affects civ-wide happiness and production. This is much deeper than a normal trait.

The Fremen's special relationship with the sandworms would be a good opportunity to make gameplay fundamentally different for them.

I agree there are too many units and buildings - the Danger of More is pitfall number 1 according to Kael (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=173061). Removing stuff can actually improve the mod.

Agree completely that new mechanics (like Khazad vaults) are a good way to differentiate factions.

Fremen and sandworms would be good, or fremen and terraforming, or both.

Make Sandworms a unit class of their own, and give Fremen a unit that gets a huge (like +300%) combat bonus against that unit class, and can capture that class if it beats it in combat. So the worm-tamer captures the sandworm and can then use it.
Problem is, AI probably won't understand this , so you might just have to go with buildable sandworm rider units, that function like normal naval units and can only move in desert tiles.
These units could also have an infantry-only carrying capacity.
Maybe take away access for Fremen to some of the normal transports and mechanized units; Fremen really should be mostly infantry-oriented, using Worms to get around rather than the normal transports.
Their sandworm transports could have a high movement rate in the desert tiles, but once they're on land you have to move around at the 1-tile infantry movement rate. This would make fremen into kindof "naval raiders". They rule the deserts with sandworm units, but have to hit-and run. They have difficulty carrying out sustained land-based campaigns because of low-unit movement and poor mechanized units.
Fremen units could also get combat bonuses in deserts and deep deserts.

Another possibility; Fremen factions could start with somethnig like the FFH barbarian trait, which makes them at peace with barbarians.
If you used some of the Fall Further mechanics to split up different barbarian factions, you could have a "world" barbarian faction with sandstorms and worms, and have Fremen at peace with them (makes sense that Fremen should survive sandstorms better), and then a separate "smuggler" barbarian faction that Fremen are at war with as normal (and maybe the Guild should be at peace with the smugglers, since the smugglers need the guild to export their spice?).

Also, thanks for linking that design article: I strongly endorse basically everything in it, very well written.

I'd strongly suggest compiling a list of all the buildings, and adding up all the total bonuses.
Count the total possible happiness and health bonuses, and bonus trade routes, bonus trade income, culture output, bonus hammers/gold/beakers, etc. Make sure they aren't too much, and that there aren't too many buildings in each class.
There probably only needs to be 1-2 buildings of each type in each era.
So maybe a total of 4-6 gold boosting buildings (market/bank etc.), 4-6 total beaker boosting buildings, etc.

I really want to be able to place a thumper, capture a worm and ride it as the Fremen. But you're right it would probably be impossible to get the AI to do this.

Ordos IIRC is non-canon, they were literally created by Westwood for Dune 2 (that was the first PC game I ever bought).

In Dune 2, two of the Ordos special units were the Deviator tank and the Saboteur. The Deviator is a missile tank that fires gas filled warheads. The gas temporarily brings the target under control of the Ordos (if successful). I would like to see this in Dune Wars as I think it is a cool idea and technically achievable. The Saboteur could just be a replacement for a Spy but with an increased chance in destructive missions.

Here's me, suggesting new units when we need to cut the number down more than anything... :)

Koma13 is currently looking at reworking the early units. Perhaps when he has finished his review we can look at further streamlining of buildings, units and the tech tree. It might be worth trying the approach of taking out every single unit apart from the absolute bear essentials, and gradually put things back in, only keeping the things that meet the requirements outlined in Kael's article.

If we can make the UUs have special abilities (like the Deviator tank idea) then that will also help with faction differentiation.

The deviator was pretty silly :-)
Having a nerve has that confuses units and makes them unable to act (like Charm Person from FFH) and gives a defensive penalty is one thing, but its pretty ridiculous for the gas to somehow let you take over an enemy military unit.
I'd make it disruptive and weakening rather than mind control.

I'd suggest one idea from Kael's How to Mod link posted earlier; 8-10 different units per era.

The deviator was pretty silly :-)

Granted, but fun though. Who doesn't want to use the enemies own big guns against them?

I'd make it disruptive and weakening rather than mind control.There's also the option to make it go berserk for a round or so - attacking the next possible target (I totally get this effect on my best units in FfH2 every time, because the mutation spell hates me). That way, it doesn't have the silliness of gas-induced mind control, is still chemical and makes it strategically more interesting, because it can backfire as well, if you don't use it well. And way more fun than plain weakening.

Also, it would be less annoying than in FfH2, because it's only a single special ability of a single unit.

Cheers, LT.

I dunno, I think losing control of your units is the opposite of fun. And an attack that makes one unit attack another is basically a guaranteed unit kill PLUS a unit majorly damaged. Which is really too powerful for one Deviator unit to be able to do every turn: you kill one unit and cripple another without any risk to yourself, every turn? Also, the FFH effects normally target the top unit in the stack, which is the most powerful, so you're getting rid of their *best* two units, killing one and damaging the other.

Though I guess units are more disposable here than in FFH, which encourages very carefully developed high level units and heroes.

Unless you meant that it goes berserk, but not barbarian, and so it can still only attack enemy units? So all you're really doing is provoking an enemy unit into attacking you? That could be useful I guess if you're sitting on a defensive tile, and isn't nearly as imba.

Unless you meant that it goes berserk, but not barbarian, and so it can still only attack enemy units? So all you're really doing is provoking an enemy unit into attacking you? That could be useful I guess if you're sitting on a defensive tile, and isn't nearly as imba.I didn't thought of copying it 1:1 from FfH - the ideal implementation would be like this: You attack unit with the deviator -> next turn, the unit attacks the weakest adjacent unit/stack (outside of its own tile, of course), i.e. makes an attack with the highest success chance.

If that's you... well, sucks to be you! Otherwise, it allows you to mess with the strongest defender, but it will never destroy the strongest defender. It's a roundabout way to mess with enemy formations - you can use it to provoke it into attacking you - or to damage adjacent stacks/units. Also, due to the move due to the attack, it messes with an existing stack.

But in no case it allows you to destroy the strongest unit around you. Also, ideally, the deviator would end its movement after the attack, meaning it would always be a possible target.

Cheers, LT.

What if there are no units in adjacent tiles? This seems likely, since: a) if you're smart you get away, and b) AI tends to focus in stacks, so unlikely to have other nearby units.

And if there is an enemy unit in an adjacent tile, then the Deviator effect is killing one of them; either the attacker, or the defender.

I'd also suggest making it a "spell" ability on the Deviator, rather than something that happens from attack. Either would require a fair amount of coding.

I have tried out some experiments.

For Harkonnan, I have locally changed the game so that any kill by a Harkonnan has a 75% chance to generate a slave. The idea comes from this modcomp (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12666), although I did not like that implementation so I did my own. His implementation results in double buttons in the tech tree. I haven't tried it out much. The AI will use this effect, by accident; it will not plan to do more attacks to generate slaves.

For Tleilaxu, I have locally changed so that any Tleilaxu infiltrator unit gains 1 XP per turn. With the Super Spies code, spies can get promotions and there are some advanced assassination and bribery missions. My first implementation is a little painful because when the unit levels up (every few turns at first), it comes out of fortify and shows up in the list of active units. So you have to pay attention to it, pick the promotion or at least set it back to sleep. In FFH, hero and sorceror units which gain XP this way do not wake up; you may come back many turns later and find it has five levels available. That is more convenient but I do not know how to implement it.

I have played this one a little and it is not quite as much fun as I hoped. I built a couple of infiltrators. They cannot cross desert so I built a hover transport to take them to an enemy city; fortunately I had open borders so I could drop them off. They had a bunch of levels, but I had no espionage points to spend, so they couldn't really do anything. I guess it takes a little more planning to put up the espionage slider and build espionage related buildings.

I'd like to get "some kind" of new mechanism like this for each civ. The fremen could use the dune grass terraforming I listed in this other new thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=326635). I like the idea of doing something with precognition and/or the worm life cycle for Bene Gesserit, but I have not figured out the details. We have a few simple ideas, but nothing solid enough to implement yet. I will keep thinking about it.

I have locally changed the game so that any kill by a Harkonnan has a 75% chance to generate a slave

I think this works fine; the biggest challenge is in what happens to the slaves once they're created. Though 75% is probably a bit much, I'd make it go down to 25% or so and increase the benefit of each slave, otherwise the slaves become a micromanagement hassle.
Also you get military benefits from having lots of slaves created on the battlefield, because the dumb AI values caputring workers highly, so you can easily lure them into wasting movement recapturing slave units rather tan actually attacking you. And the upkeep costs of large numbers of slaves can be a problem.

In FFH (and Warhammer) the slaves are half speed workers, but the problem is the AI thinks they're workers and uses them as such (and pays upkeep on them) despite the fact that they're pretty miserable workers. This slows down their improvement construction because they don't realize that they still need to build more real workers.
I'd have the slaves purely sacrificable for hammers like a mini-great engineer, hopefully the AI could handle that and get the slaves back to its cities by giving them great person AI rather than worker AI?
In Warhammer we're also toying with some ideas of making slaves rarer but sacrificing them in cities to create permanent slave pit structures.
Another possibility; have slaves like great people but settleable rather than sacrificable. Settling a slave makes a slave specialist, which does nothing by itself, but a slave pits building can be constructed in the city which gives +1 hammer per slave (and maybe +2 unhappiness).
The "accidental" AI use for creation is fine, you normally kill enemy units whenever you can regardless.

I'd really want to make Bene Gesserit more espionage oriented than the Tliexu; there are surely more interesting ways to model their biological mastery than through espionage.
You could also make infiltrators able to cross coastal sand tiles.

Creating new espionage missions is pretty key though for more espionage to have any effect; my favorite suggestion (of my own, yes its crass) is the espionage mission that alters tile influence. I love the idea of the Bene Gesserit using espionage to expand their borders out into your territory while remaining at peace.

I think this works fine; the biggest challenge is in what happens to the slaves once they're created.

I didn't give any more details besides pointing at the modcomp I took the idea from. In that modcomp, slaves are workers who work 1.5x *faster* but they are killed when they finish the improvement. Working the slave to death definitely adds to the feel. The original modcomp did this by cloning all the build actions and using an existing flag to kill the unit upon completion like a workboat. I implemented it differently with a python action upon completion of an improvement or removal of a feature.

I'd really want to make Bene Gesserit more espionage oriented than the Tliexu; there are surely more interesting ways to model their biological mastery than through espionage.

In the books, Face Dancers seem to be the perfect infiltrators; that is what I was working from. Maybe Fenring is the one who should get super duper spies, I was kind of stuck on what to do with him.

I want to come up with something related to prescience and the worm cycle for Bene Gesserit. I am thinking maybe a Reverend Mother would be a new specialist type you can only create once you have the Little Maker bonus.

You could also make infiltrators able to cross coastal sand tiles.

It is still very slow to travel to the first mission and travel back after the mission. I am thinking that after hover tech, an infiltrator can get a custom stealth hover and fly around pretty fast. That might be a UU for the Tleilaxu, or for everybody if it's too powerful.

Creating new espionage missions is pretty key though for more espionage to have any effect; my favorite suggestion (of my own, yes its crass) is the espionage mission that alters tile influence. I love the idea of the Bene Gesserit using espionage to expand their borders out into your territory while remaining at peace.

Super spies is an sdk only mod, which is too bad from my standpoint. It is nicely integrated into promotions and the espionage xml, but I don't have the ability to add missions. One co-author of that mod is Lord Tirian who has also been spotted around this sub-forum, so there is a possibility.

I understand what you mean about altering tile influence, but I don't see how the game effect would work. In vanilla, suppose I conquer one of your outlying cities and pop a great artist to immediately expand the cultural borders. It resets all the influence in all the tiles. Then suppose you conquer the city back. All the influence is reset again. Now suppose there was a Bene Gesserit affected tile in the middle somewhere. All the routines that do this setting and resetting need to treat this tile specially. I think this would be pretty odd looking.

In FFH, at least in a previous version, there is a hero Loki who can culture flip *cities*. It usually only works on small new cities, so he floats around the borders looking for new cities to flip. That should really annoy the former owner. But maybe there is an idea there.

One espionage mission I would like is "spread water". I could send spies to the deep desert inside your cultural borders, and have them ruin areas by spreading water. This would prevent little makers, so there would be no spice blows there. This would indirectly hurt your economy.

What other sorts of espionage missions would be good, if we had somebody to add them?

In that modcomp, slaves are workers who work 1.5x *faster* but they are killed when they finish the improvement. Working the slave to death definitely adds to the feel.

I don't think this works here. There are relatively few terrain improvements, and it feels like you need fewer workers than you do in vanilla - particularly if tubers get taken out and you don't have to spend time chopping forest or jungle, and there are no roads to build.

To make this work, you'd really need to add some superior terrain improvements that take a long time to build or increase improvement construction times across the board.

Basically, the times when you need a worker force to be building improvements are relatively rare in this mod, so mostly the slaves would be pretty useless. One-off hammer construction bonuses in cities are likely to be much more useful, and still could feel like working them to death. I think the Harks could work people to death as easily in a factory as they could building terrain improvements (which feels more like Mao really).
Another gruesome thought, from Dune + a tinge of Waterworld; if Fremen capture people, they could render them for water..... a 1-off bonus to food storage in that city?

Also on the current slave setup from the modcomp; this is of course exploitable by the human player. If you have a stack of slaves, they can all speed up the construction of a single improvement, but only one of them actually completes it and dies.


I want to come up with something related to prescience and the worm cycle for Bene Gesserit. I am thinking maybe a Reverend Mother would be a new specialist type you can only create once you have the Little Maker bonus.

Sounds interesting, but I think you also need to capture their meddling/influence peddling somehow. They're puppetmasters.
And there are already Truth Sayers, who are just a specialist kind of Reverend Mother.
Another thought for Fenring spies; they could have the chance to kill off settled great people in enemy cities (again with the assassination specialization idea), or to create a diplomacy penalty between two enemy factions (assassinating someone and framing another faction for it).

I understand what you mean about altering tile influence, but I don't see how the game effect would work.

I would think it would work the same as influence driven war; the effect of using the mission would be the same as the effect of winning a battle on that tile (or maybe a 2x or 3x multiple of this effect).

In FFH, at least in a previous version, there is a hero Loki

Hmm, yes this was related to another idea I had above; either the city flipping mechanic, or a spell caster who can reduce the culture output of a city.
Maybe a bene gesserit spy type unit can cast a spell in enemy cities that creates a building that gives say -30% culture in that city?
I don't know how easy it is to lift the FFH magic coding into another mod, but this would be trivial to do in the FFH engine.

This would indirectly hurt your economy.
This seems... inefficient. I can't imagine that in the Dune world (at least, pre-transformation into a non-desert world) that it could possibly be efficient to deliberately take water and spread it around in the desert in your enemies lands. Water is far too valuable to waste like that; it would take massive amounts of water to have any significant effect on a huge area of desert wasteland, and you'd be far better off using that water yourself.

Basically, the times when you need a worker force to be building improvements are relatively rare in this mod, so mostly the slaves would be pretty useless. ... I think the Harks could work people to death as easily in a factory as they could building terrain improvements

I can add an action button to the slave in a city, which converts into a hammer bonus. I like that. Also, there is the Arena building in FFH where a unit can gain experience or die. We often see Feyd killing slave gladiators, so maybe a slave can be turned into local unit XP also.

Another thought for Fenring spies; they could have the chance to kill off settled great people in enemy cities (again with the assassination specialization idea), or to create a diplomacy penalty between two enemy factions (assassinating someone and framing another faction for it).

Killing off GP is exactly what the current assassination mission does. Blaming another faction is an excellent idea but nobody has implemented it yet.

I would think it would work the same as influence driven war; the effect of using the mission would be the same as the effect of winning a battle on that tile (or maybe a 2x or 3x multiple of this effect).

Yes, but in IDW the idea is that you are making a visible line of attack with multiple combats, so you get a moving "front". A single RM with a single action would create a point, not a front.

Maybe a bene gesserit spy type unit can cast a spell in enemy cities that creates a building that gives say -30% culture in that city? I don't know how easy it is to lift the FFH magic coding into another mod, but this would be trivial to do in the FFH engine.

Careful with that "trivial" word, Mr wont-edit-an-xml-file :-)

I agree the concept of creating fake buildings on cities, or fake promotions on units, is very helpful. Decreasing culture output should certainly be possible, given an SDK person to add the espionage mission. Diplomatic penalties are a great idea, but I do not know how deeply buried the hooks for that might be.

Yes, but in IDW the idea is that you are making a visible line of attack with multiple combats, so you get a moving "front". A single RM with a single action would create a point, not a front.


My concept was that the mission would be very cheap to perform, and so by repeating it over several turns you would eventually form a front advancing into enemy territory.


Careful with that "trivial" word, Mr wont-edit-an-xml-file :-)
:-)
How about "straightforward"?

The way the buildings work in FFH is that the building stays in the city as long as the spellcaster who created it doesn't leave (or, more precisely, as long as there remains a unit in the city that can cast the spell that created it).
Creating a permanent building from an espionage mission could also work well; that sounds like a powerful effect, which is good, since most espionage is underpowered.

Its potentially a mechanic that could be repeated; you could create a building that gives a food or water or health penalty, or a hammer penalty, or a commerce penalty, or unhappiness or whatever.

spies from different factions might be able to create different such buildings. Maybe Atreides create an underground radio station or something that creates discontent in their enemies, while the trade guild or fremen sets up smugglers who siphon off water, and ordos set up saboteur teams who reduce hammer output.

All such buildings should be destroyed 100% when the city gets captured though, so you don't end up stuck with your own things.

One underlying behavior of the current espionage system is that when the mission is completed, the spy either dies (on failure) or returns to your capitol. I suppose this is to prevent a player from triggering many many espionages on the same city until the owner is finally able to send a counterspy there.

If we use espionage as the basis for this, the influence mission happens once and then there is at least a few turns pause until it can happen again. I had never used espionage very much because it takes so long for the spy to reposition. Or else you need enough spies to create an assembly line of sorts, with a new spy arriving every few turns.

A hidden spellcaster might be a better way, but then the first step is to reimplement all the existing espionage missions as spells, before we could add any new ones.

If we use espionage as the basis for this, the influence mission happens once and then there is at least a few turns pause until it can happen again. I had never used espionage very much because it takes so long for the spy to reposition. Or else you need enough spies to create an assembly line of sorts, with a new spy arriving every few turns.

I've never really used espionage much, cos I don't really like how its implemented in civ.

But I think the espionage points you have are a binding constraint too; you can't keep spamming missions because of the chance of failure and the cost in espionage points of performing a mission.

Possible fixes would be:
a) have the influence mission have a very low chance of failure or capture
b) increase the movement speed of spies (or UU spies of some factions that are more espionage-oriented). Particularly necessary because of the lack of roads in this mod (actually I think roads would work well late game; movement is still very limited because of the broken up nature of the mapscripts and the need for transports to cross sand).
I'd imagine a spy could easily have its own thoptor and move at 4 tiles per turn.

The influence mission should still take time; you perform the mission, succeed, get teleported back to capital, walk back to the front, perform it again, etc.
It shouldn't be too easy to advance a front out; this is potentially powerful ability, particularly if you use it to steal access to bonus tiles.

I have collected our suggestions about super spies and posted in the super spies thread. Please read at this link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8235913&postcount=47), for additional super spy suggestions.

From that thread it sounds like Lord Tirian can't do any work on Super Spies until August or so.

Vendettas (Kanly) and Alliances

What can we do to model this? The Fremen and Atreides should hate the Harkonnens etc. How do we make factions hate each other and or forge alliances against a shared enemy?

What can we do to model this? The Fremen and Atreides should hate the Harkonnens etc. How do we make factions hate each other and or forge alliances against a shared enemy?

You can try tweaking the CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml. FavoriteCivic/FavoriteReligion could be a good start.

hey guys,

if you wanna add more spy missions - johny smith added to one of dw early versions - super spies from woc - it adds around 10 new missions...

if you wish i can look into it and see if we can get it back in?


****
alright guys,
im moving on to adding civs,

write you suggestions,
i have some in mind:
House Richese
ix
House Ecaz
House Vernius
House Mutelli

if you have suggested leader head pics and units..go ahead...
i dont want to invent some from my wild imagination...hehe

I'd suggest that you make sure that any new faction have a clearly identified theme that is different from the other factions before adding it.

Like:
Atreides, diplomacy, loyal subjects
Harkonnen, slavery, exploitation
Ix, mechanical technology
etc.

Its better to have 8 factions that play differently (with 1-3 leaders each) than it is to have 14 factions that are basically the same.

Also, does it make sense to have separate Vernius and Ix factions?

Is there a document which lists the new woc spy missions? The super spies thread I mentioned has two new missions, assassinate and bribe.

I think we want to give each house a unique ability, like the slaves and hero spies I added in 1.2.3. If we add more houses, it will be harder to find these unique abilities. At least right now, I definitely think "More is not better".

I know Keldath really wants to add these factions so we better have a go at differentiating them.

Ix and Richese are both machine makers. We really need to make them specialise in different sorts of machine if they are going to be interesting.

One of my notes about the existing resources was going to be that Shigawire (native to Salusa Secundus) and Fogwood (native to Ecaz) shouldn't really be on Arrakis.

Fogwood is quite interesting in that it is shaped by thought. Ecaz is also the source of Semuta the addictive drug-music-combo thing that one of the Harkonnen captains is addicted to. Anyway, potentially Ecaz could revolve around drugs and shaping things with your mind or telekinesis.

The other two I believe are prequel Houses and I don't know much about them.

Edit: Leaderheads is going to be a challenge, to find something that doesn't look out of place compared to the others...

And Vernius and Ix sound like they don't warrant two factions as Ahriman says.

Why don't we just add Ix for now, until we have some better ideas for the others?

hey guys,

well your not into adding factions...hummm...

well - i agree to add just ix then...

i just like a bit veriety with houses - a normal-large-huge map with 10 of a kind seems to me abit boring,

but, i go with whatever you guys think is right,
but ix.....i likem - i rather they will be in - got some nice mech art for them :)

and the leaders will be a challenge, no doubt, im scouting wikipedia ...

Adding Ix brings us to 11, which is enough for a huge map with no duplication. I am sure it will have cool unit art. But there is nobody from Ix in the movies, so I cannot see where any leaderhead art would come from. Maybe a generic cyborg type guy, say like a Borg from Star Trek: Next Gen?

yeah - some cyborg could be nice.

heres a though, how about getting a pic of those dudes that helped carry the navigator in dune 1984? they had a speaking patch on then,
its not an ix, butits a character from dune :)

I can probably cobble together something reasonable for a Leaderhead. It probably wants to be from some more obscure movie/TV than the Borg from Star Trek - that will be a bit obvious and break the mood. I'll have a look through my DVDs...

I know the guys keldath is talking about from the dune miniseries. They are like the "interpreters" for the navigator. They definitely have funny eyewear. I don't think any of them are in close-ups. Unfortunately I rented the disks instead of buying them. But it may be worth a cruise through them to see if those guys could be used.

I've got the two miniseries if we need them, but I think I've got the perfect movie. Let me whizz through it and see...

yeah track down some sci fi b- movies hehe..thank god theres so much of these :)

Here you go. One of the Strangers from Dark City. There's a photo on the back of the DVD with one with an eyepiece which would be perfect, but I couldn't find it when FFing through. The only eyepiece one I could find was too close to camera. Still this guy is pretty cool and seems inspired by the Lynch Navigator nannies anyway. Attached the files in leaderhead DDS format. Button included.

On the subject of mechs - can I quote myself:

1) The Butlerian Jihad means that there shouldn't be any robotics or computer controlled stuff (except when we add the Ix). Everything should look like it could be purely mechanical/clockwork driven. The mech style Bursegs have got to go IMO - they look cool - but Burseg is just a military rank so if we keep that unit class they should be human units. For me, Dune is almost as much fantasy as it is sci-fi. There are plenty of sci-fi mods out there so this is one way to make the mod stand out as unique.


I think Ix will stand out more if they are the only Civ to have robots, mechs and computer technology.

I don't think we should have mechs for every faction - it is not very Dune and there are so many more imaginative and interesting ways to go. There are plenty of other mods people can play if they want mechs.

Hero units - definitely! Big mechs everywhere - no!

(Mech rant over.)

ahh great deliverator!

i take your advise on mechs,


ill have to find another kind of unit set to replace the burseg - do you have something in mind?
making them as a human unit or some sort of vehicle ?
the problem is, that there isnt that many models for sci fi mods...

but i agree with you, ill se the mechs for the ix.

I guess we could look for different placeholders for the mechs, but eventually, I and hopefully others will get around to replacing a lot of units with unique art. Once, the water changes are bedded in I can move back to focusing on unit art. Making the Bursegs badass looking human units would probably be most appropriate...

What do think of the IX leaderhead candidate I posted?

Edit: On heroes/super units, to quote myself from the Dev thread:
Could we have World Units like in FfH so that there are some hero units which there is a race on to build like wonders? Also, I've thought before that it would be interesting to have a Civ mod where your leader actually appears as a unit in the game - spice extends life so you have an excuse for long lifespans. Maybe there could be a range of Leader unit promotions to add a sort of role playing element. Having Paul Muad'Dib as a unit with special powers would be cool. A cool thing about the original 1992 Dune game was that your Fremen would be more powerful if Paul was in the battle and even more powerful if he was riding a worm. That game is worth a play if you didn't get it first time around.

The Leto II - worm-human-hybrid - could be an amazing late game unit - maybe call it God Emperor.


I do like this idea of having your leader in the game. You can nuture them over time from vulnarable to awesome like in an RPG. They could be immortal but lose abilities when they die, or get a number of lives perhaps. It doesn't work for every leader. Works? Paul Muad'Dib, Mohiam, Alia, Rabban, Feyd, Scytale, Stilgar. Perhaps not? Spacing Guild, Emporer, Duke Leto. For the Emporer we could make up a high ranking Sardukaar hero.

Could we make support for spells like in FFH2? If so that could be a good way to capture worms once you have attracted them with a thumper. There is lots of other cool stuff we could do with spells. The boardgame concept of Karama (miracles) got me thinking...

Could we make support for spells like in FFH2?

A few mods have done this. Basically you take the FFH sdk completely, and throw away most of the xml. There is documentation about this, which I have never read, in the FFH modding sub-forum. I don't think there is any smaller step to take, to lift out just the spell system; it has tendrils everywhere, so it is all or nothing.

If we were to do this, there are several local changes we have made which would have to be redone. I think the FFH SDK is so different from vanilla, that it would not be a simple merge. The local changes we have are all-terrain vehicles, the new NoDangerCount, and we are using a few external mods such as jimprovement and now super spies. Since keldath had so much "fun" merging woc and 3.19, I predict similar "fun" down this path.

A lot of what is done with the FFH spell system can also be done with standalone python. Both systems have a similar problem that the AI does not know how to apply them very well.

I am moderately interested in learning the internals of the FFH spell system, but I think it would be a big effort to get there.

A lot of what is done with the FFH spell system can also be done with standalone python. Both systems have a similar problem that the AI does not know how to apply them very well.

Probably best stick with python then seeing as that is your speciality. It is much easier to chop and change than SDK code which is better from a testing ideas point of view I guess. I can see how it would be very challenging to teach the AI how to capture a worm.

hey,
yeah the is dude looks pretty cool, i do like the dark blue shade, very appropriate.

as for spells and ffh,

well, i ddi take a look in the ffh sdk once, its is so complicated, there are tons of lines and code added there over time.

spells in our mod can open up so much possibilities for us yo utelize,
having hero units - leader hero unit that can be there is fun -
do you guys remmber civ 3 - regecide vistory?
you started the game with a king unit - if it gets killed - you loose, last king standing wins -
we can harness this idea - so that unit, starts on game start, and over time - it recives special promotions via battle exp or buildings or some system , that empowers it over the ages so it will be relevant to use it to attack and use spells.

david,
i know your very skilled with python and you can do alot,
but,
sdk code is less heavy on the mod and its speediness,
i would really hope we can recruit a skilled sdk buddy that can enable us to to much sdk work.

:))

Don't forget koma - I think he is perhaps slightly modest about his SDK abilities ... given that he tracked down the medium hover CTD.

If we have/can get the SDK ability, we could use Python to implement features and then, when they are proven to work, we could reimplement in the SDK. I have noticed that the spice blow turns take a little while on my old machine, so I guess Python slowdown could get to be an issue if we keep adding stuff. I'm guessing FFH2 have their policy of minimal Python for a reason.

I really really like the idea of a Regicide Victory - that would be very interesting. I think we can probably just make the leader you are playing the King unit. Will some imagination we can come up with appropriate abilities for them. The only thing is I'd want my powerful Leader to go out in the field and fight. It could be annoying if he is killed in some freak way. Perhaps we could have a certain number of lives like with the FFH2 Immortal unit. Great idea keldath.

What happens to civs whose leader is killed? Could they become Vassals?

jey, glad you like regicide :)

we can develop it further indeed .

tyeah i also suspect koma have some good sdk skills.

maybe ill start bugging people here to help us...


and yeah - too ,much python - will slow down our mod...


*******
im almost completed first fraft of the ix confederacy

ill upload the chages later i hope - ive done a really nice flag ! deliverator - youll be proud :)

i invented most of the city names by the way - im good at naming.

going back to work.

and yeah - too ,much python - will slow down our mod...

This is a common misperception. Inefficiently written code in any language will slow things down. Granted, I go to some effort to find an implementation which does not require much processing time; but I highly doubt that any well-designed python has a big runtime cost.

Even if spice blows were done in SDK, if you suddenly add 100 squares of terrain which have a complex graphics effect, the game will pause to draw all of that.

I like the fact that all the python for DW is one file, whereas any particular change in the sdk is spread across 5-10 files which must be merged across possible contradictions. But now this is turning philosophical.

This is a common misperception. Inefficiently written code in any language will slow things down.There's a crucial difference between Python and SDK stuff. The SDK stuff is compiled and runs in a similar fashion to an executable.

Python is an interpreted language - the Civ engine always needs to read in the code, "translate" it into machine code and then execute it.

This additional overhead (reading into interpreter, then interpreting it, then executing it) makes Python slower than SDK code - also Python is a very simple and human readable programming language, which makes it a bit less efficient, because it is a very high-level language. Take a Python script and a C++-compiled code - if both are written in the most efficient way, the latter will still run faster.

Of course, for bulk scripting as in running stuff over the whole map... even the best efficiency gain won't help.

The lag due to appearing map features is mainly due to loading of textures into the graphics memory - only faster harddrives or smaller textures can help there (basically, most graphics stuff is in the graphics engine anyway and we can't really touch how it's processed there - we can only work on the number/size of things we give it).

By the way, you could also put all changes in the SDK in a single big file, if Firaxis had written it as a single source code file... but at a certain point, these things are way easier to manage if you break them down into distinct chunks.

Cheers, LT.

There's a crucial difference between Python and SDK stuff. The SDK stuff is compiled and runs in a similar fashion to an executable.

Python is an interpreted language - the Civ engine always needs to read in the code, "translate" it into machine code and then execute it.

Yes, thank you for the definition. But normally this is the difference between microseconds and milliseconds, which is not noticeable by a human.

(I'll post this here too as it's probably more appropriate.)

Guild mechanics, Homeworlds and Backstory

I've been thinking about mechanics for the Guild. It's hard to make sense of them as a Civ on Dune without other planets and their ability to fold space.

So I was thinking I would like all houses to be able to pay the Guild to get reinforcements from their homeworlds. Koma has raised the idea of immigration before. Also, he has produced some lovely Europe screens for Civ4Col. Image we have beautiful Homeworld screens for each Civ. The Homeworld screen has a finite supply of units and prices - a total rip off of the Civ4Col purchasing settlers system. The money paid for a reinforcement unit goes to the Guild civ. The Guild civ obviously doesn't get to do this. They'd also need a major penalty since they are getting paid from all quarters. So, we make spice yield little or no income for them since it is all needed for their Navigators to do the space folding trick.

I would love this because it would give us the concept of space existing beyond Dune, the reason why spice is so important and a much more complete portrayal of the Dune universe.

We make a post-apocalyptic backstory. There was a War of Assassins of Dune and something happened that wiped out virtually everyone. The reasons why technology is primitive is because of the extent of the devastation. However, importantly, the Houses still know that they are houses and that they have homeworlds. If they can get enough spice together to pay the guild, then they can get reinforcements. I like the idea of buying units, before you have the relevant tech to build that unit. You'd have to price everything so that it is very expensive to do that.

Of course it might not make sense for the Guild to be a playable civ if you went down this road, but overall I think it'd be pretty damn cool.

If it came down to keeping the Guild as a Civ or have something like this, I'd say scrap them as a Civ.

Easiest way to do this would be to prevent them from getting harvesters, and not give them a spice guild corporation for their faction.
Or: have the current spice guild corporation (that comes in late game)

The problem is; can you ever teach the AI to intelligently order units?
So it has enough to defend itself and wage decent wars, but not so much that it destroys its economy.

Is there a limit on the number per turn you can order (1 per city per turn?)? Or once you research the tech for unit x can you immediately order a huge army of them?

I've never tried the Civ4col mod you refer to, but I don't think FFH ever really got it working well with mercenaries. Did they do it well in Broken Star, the BTS scenario?

Another issue; you'd have to somehow scale the benefits by map size. A huge map with 15 players would order in a lot more units than

This would also really mess with the commerce/hammer balance.

Maybe desirably; an extreme way to implement this would be to cut down on hammer yields from tiles, and make all units purchasable and NOT buildable (or nearly all - maybe a handful of hammer-buildable militias), so all that hammers represent is your ability to build local infrastructure (ie buildings in each city).
Would be hard to get the AI to choose an intelligently sized army, and would make improvement-building a little boring since all you would want to do is cottage every tile.

Yes, thank you for the definition. But normally this is the difference between microseconds and milliseconds, which is not noticeable by a human.Sure, it just adds up. I'm not saying Python is bad and get rid of it - it's a valuable tool, mainly because it's very accessible and modifiable. But for core operations that are repeated over and over again (sort of the "meat" of a mod or the main mechanics of CivIV), putting as much as possible into the SDK is better. Also, it depends on the computer - older computers will exaggerate this difference. Of course, perfect playability on older PCs can't be the goal - but it's a nice extra to eke out a bit of extra performance.

But since the mod doesn't have a dedicated SDK modder, I guess the question is moot anyway.

Cheers, LT.

deliverator,

how about making something like a mercenary system,

units cost some money - that kinda goes to the guild, or something like this....

*********************

anyway - patch 1.2.6 is up :

the ix faction with full properties is introduced to dune wars.

http://ul.to/ji20lh


see mopre info on how to install - on the incremental patch thread.

deliverator,

how about making something like a mercenary system,

units cost some money - that kinda goes to the guild, or something like this....

For me, it's all about the homeworlds. I want to see the homeworlds. I want somehow to feel that space and other planets are out there.

What I'm suggesting is a bit more interesting than a mercenary system. You can pay the guild to get more of your own UUs or other units when you desperately need them. If we create these homeworlds as entities in the game, then there are other interesting things we could potentially do with them...

Civ4col is just shorthand for Civilization 4: Colonization. If you've ever played either that or the original Colonization, then you know the Europe screen. Homeworlds could be a similar concept.

i know the europe thing,
i played about 5 minutes at col'...i lacked some action so i returned to bts.

sounds really interesting and hard thing to do.

but defently, this would be something that will bring the mod to a whole other level.
i really hope we get someone to help us with this fantastic idea.

Civ4col is just shorthand for Civilization 4: Colonization.

Ahh. Yes, I played the civ4 col; fun for about 5-6 hours, boring after that.

There wasn't really any particularly intelligent AI there for purchasing units. It seemed in general that the AI was pretty braindead, the only real challenge was in fighting the expeditionary force.

Broken Star BTS mod is probably a better starting point for code/UI/AI.

I think adding the new screens and all that wouldn't be too bad, but yes, the AI and the code to back it up would be a challenge. Let's see what koma thinks...

Europe screen is haunting me... :)

... but I can give it a try. It will be very basic. Just a screen you can open up, order some units and a turn later they will show up in one of your cities. I think I can teach the AI to use it. Later we can add some more complexity to that concept. Don't expect any results soon... still interested? :)

I agree the post-apocalyptic background is one way to rationalize all these groups being there, without much tech. I agree the mercenary screen sounds interesting.

But can you work out the early game units and get those balanced first?

Europe screen is haunting me... :)

... but I can give it a try. It will be very basic. Just a screen you can open up, order some units and a turn later they will show up in one of your cities. I think I can teach the AI to use it. Later we can add some more complexity to that concept. Don't expect any results soon... still interested? :)

That'll teach you for doing quality work! I'm definitely interesting in seeing something like this done - I don't mind if it takes a while and basic is fine.

Just for the record - here's a list of Homeworlds:
Atreides - Caladan
Harkonnen - Geidi Prime
Corrino - Kaitain
Bene Gesserit - Wallach IX
Ordos - Sigma Draconis
Fenring - we'll have to make one up...
Tleilaxu - Tleilax
Ix -Ix
Fremen and Sietch Tabr - given the advantage of the worms, I think it is OK for them not to have anything.

I'd be happy to help out will background images - but that might be the fun bit...

I'd be happy to help out will background images - but that might be the fun bit...

Of course I will need help with the backgrounds. But I first want to do a proof of concept.

im almost completed first fraft of the ix confederacy
ill upload the chages later i hope - ive done a really nice flag ! deliverator - youll be proud :)

Good work on the Ix. Nice to see Lord Tirian's hovertank and Coyote's crazy six-legged mech in there. However... david raised the issue of distinct team colours on the Art Thread and I think it would be best if we made the Ix team colour a light silvery grey to stand out from the terrain and be distinct from the others. If we do that I might have to make the background of the flag match the colour. Would you mind if I changed it around like this?

off course not deliverator...

i kinda layed the basics....i figured you'd wanna change this...but i did my best :)

Leader/King Units and Heroes

Thinking more about hero units and regicide, I think the idea of your leader being a king unit in the game is a great one. If we proceed with this we need to come up with suitable powers and abilities for all our leaders.

It would also be good to have one or two other hero units per faction. Here are the Leaders and Heroes from the board game for starters. I've highlighted in bold the ones that would be Leader King units in Dune Wars. The other ones are potential candidates for faction heroes.

As the Atreides you play Paul Muad'Dib. Your heroes are Thufir Hawat, Lady Jessica, Gurney Halleck, Duncan Idaho and Dr. Yueh.

As the Fremen you play Dr. Kynes. Your heroes are Stilgar, Chani, Ortheym, the Shadout Mapes and Jamis.

As the Bene Gesserit you play Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Hohiam. Your heroes are Princess Irulan, Mother Romallo, Alia, Lady Fenring and Wanna Marcus.

As the Emperor you play Shaddam IV. Your heroes are Count Fenring, Captain Aramsham, Burseg, Caid, Bashar. (These last three are just military ranks and not that flavourful)

As the Harkonnen you play Baron Harkonnen. Your heroes are Feyd, Rabban, Piter de Vries, Captain Iakin Nefud, Umman Kudu.

As the Guild you play Edric. Your heroes are Staban Tuek, Esmar Tuek, Master Bewt, Soo Soo Sook, Guild Representative. (The smugglers and guild are sort of merged in the game)

yeah very cool,

i think someone once did a regicide code for civ4, but i never got aorund to work it.

perhaps koma13 can write this in sdk,
or someone else..

I've updated the opening post with factions and leaders as of Dune Wars 1.3.

Leader Units and Heroes continued...

Leaving aside the implementation of Leader units, hero units and regicide victory (I'll optimistically assume it's possible). I've tried to draw up a starter list of Leader Units and Hero Units for each faction.

It occured to me that there are some common traits or abilities among these leaders and heroes. These could become promotions/special abilities for them.

Mentat - MN - some benefit to research, some other benefits?
General - GN - gives abilities promotions to stacks or units enmasse.
Individual Fighter - IF - a powerful individual combat unit.
Preborn - PB - no ideas yet
Bene Gesserit - BG - there is already a thread about BG powers - there's no getting away from the fact that they're hard to make sense of as a Civ since they have representatives pretty much everywhere. The earliest Dune threads made this point.
Stealth - ST - stealthy movement

Certain characters such as Paul Muad'Dib have to have unique abilities really. One way to achieve gameplay balance, interest and theme consistency, is to make some factions have weak leaders, but powerful heroes (e.g. Atreides), while others have super-powerful leader units and weaker heroes (e.g. Fremen). So to take the analogy of chess, some factions have a King and a Queen, and others have a King and Queen rolled into one, and some Knights and Bishops.

Also, the distribution of characters into these roles is tricky. Several characters could arguably belong to two or three different factions. Anyway, these are just ideas and a starting point...

Atreides
Leader Units: Leto [GN]
Hero Units: Lady Jessica, Thufir Hawat [MN], Gurney Halleck [GN/IF], Duncan Idaho [ST/IF]

[B]Fremen
Leaders Units: Paul, Leto II [PB], Ghanima [PB]
Hero Units: Chani [IF], Ortheym [IF], Korba [IF]

Sietch Tabr
Leaders Units: Liet-Kynes, Stilgar [GN/IF]
Hero Units: Sayyadina Ramallo , Jamis [IF]

[B]Harkonnen
Leaders Units: Baron, Feyd [IF], Rabban [GN]
Hero Units: Piter de Vries [MN], Iakin Nefud[GN]

Corrino
Leaders Units: Shaddam IV, Irulan
Hero Units: Captain Aramsham [GN]

[B]Bene Gesserit
Leaders Units: Mohiam , Alia [BG/PB]
Hero Units: Wanna Marcus [BG]

[B]Fenring
Leaders Units: Count Fenring [ST/IF]
Hero Units: Lady Fenring

[B]Guild
Leaders Units: D'murr Pilru
Hero Units: The Tueks?

Tleilaxu
Leaders Units: Master Scytale
Hero Units: Facedancers?

Ix
Leaders Units: Hwi Noree
Hero Units: ?

Ordos
Leaders Units: Roma Atani [MN]
Hero Units: ?

I've updated the opening post with factions and leaders as of Dune Wars 1.3.

How come you have a picture of the dude from Dark City with the name Hwi Noree? Hwi Noree was the *woman* ambassador that was sent by IX to Leto II to distract him. She was described as being very beautiful.

???

maglockm
hi!
welcome to dune wars,

good comment - we didnt know hwi was a woman (im still reading the book ...)

plus we had no idea what pic to use deliverator got this one so we used it - i remember reading on wiki that there was another ix ambassador - what was hes name?

do you have a suggestion on a hwi pic?

How come you have a picture of the dude from Dark City with the name Hwi Noree? Hwi Noree was the *woman* ambassador that was sent by IX to Leto II to distract him. She was described as being very beautiful.

Yes, this happened because I went off and found a leaderhead pic before Keldath had actually produced the civ XML.

We can either find a male Ix Leader to use, or find a suitably beautiful techno lady that fits with the other leaders somewhere.

We can either find a male Ix Leader to use, or find a suitably beautiful techno lady that fits with the other leaders somewhere.

Hm, beautiful techno lady. Will this cause people's heads to explode?

i remember reading on wiki that there was another ix ambassador - what was hes name?



Malky is the other IX ambassador. From the Dune Wiki :

--
Malky was an Ixian ambassador to Arrakis during the reign of Leto Atreides II, the God-Emperor.

He was known to have unofficial dispensation to discuss taboo topics with Leto, because Leto was fond of him. He apparently possessed some special insight into Leto and his Golden Path.

At some stage, Malky was recalled to Ix. Shortly thereafter, Malky's neice, Hwi Noree, was sent to take his place. Upon Hwi's arrival on Arrakis, it was discovered that Malky was involved in Hwi's conception and development.

When it had been announced that Leto and Hwi were to wed, Malky was recalled to Arrakis by Leto, and murdered by Moneo Atreides, the God-Emperor's majordomo.

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So the picture would do fine for Malky. He is described as "a cynical and roguish friend of the God Emperor" at his page in Wikipedia. Hwi Noree was apparently created using Malky's cells (DNA) in a no-room - to hide from the God Emperor's precience.

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Hope this helps.

yeah! malky! thats the one,

i think it will just fine.

thanks a lot.

hehe david...

im a bit of a treki my self...that chick from voyager is the most good looking chick ever to be in star trek :)

The Bene Gesserit as a Civ nation can be given a lot of spy type units to represent that they have representatives everywhere. They should also easily get open borders with other nations.

Cheers,
Sword

Hm, beautiful techno lady. Will this cause people's heads to explode?Too well-known, I'm afraid. Plus: She was part of a series for four seasons - that makes it hard *not* to see Seven.

If she only had a single appearence or only appeared in a single film or so, it might have worked - but going against dozens of episodes is hard.

Cheers, LT.

Renaming the Ix Leader to Malky seems to be the way to go for now. If we find a suitable picture we can perhaps add Hwi as a second Ix leader.

yeah we need a less familiar woman pic..

seven is too familiar.

:)

kthx, I will rename hwi to malky and add the wikipedia text.

How about Deathstills as a Fremen Water Cache UB that preserves even more water (or gives +1 water income).

Deathstills as UB is a good idea, I suggested the same in the terraforming thread.

That we have two factions, Fremen and Sietch Tabr Fremen, is something I have struggled with. In 1.3.8 I am planning to make all their unique units shared between the two. Theme-wise they've both *got* to have Worm Riders and Fedaykin, etc. Two factions does gives us the opportunity to have more leaders, but the distinction between the two is hard to justify from theme.

The best I can think is that we give them same UUs and UBs but different leaders and perhaps different unique abilities representing their different priorities. Even that is stretching the source material. I'd like to know the rationale for two factions, maybe it's in the dev threads somewhere. Civil war amoung the Fremen would not be an impossibility given their tribal nature I suppose.

With Paul, he could equally be a leader of the Atreides, Fremen or Sietch Tabr Fremen, since Sietch Tabr was the base of his operations at the beginning of his leadership of the Fremen.

There was a fremen tribe called the waterstealers, wich make an appearance in dune messiah.
They could be a substitute for Sietch Tabr fremen.
For them other fremen and ofworlders where the same, a source of water and killed them on sight in the past, till all other fremen tribes banded together to kill them. They survived and went into hiding.

I would say that one group of Fremen should be designed to be militant Jihadists (as controlled by Alia), while the other would be aimed at being more pro-terraforming.

These are quite different agendas. I can easily imagine different Fremen going one way or the other; which is more important, waging a jihad to spread your religion across the planet (and the galaxy), or making the planet actually nice to live on?

I am including House Ecaz as a new civilization in patch 1.3.8. They will have a trade advantage and effectively be the drug suppliers of the Duniverse. I know this is adding another civ to the mix when we still have a lot of work to do to make the existing ones interesting, but I think these guys are different enough in character to be interesting.

These are Ecaz related items from the Dune Appendix:
ECAZ: fourth planet of Alpha Centauri B; the sculptors' paradise, so called because it is the home of fogwood, the plant growth capable of being shaped in situ solely by the power of human thought.

SAPHO: high-energy liquid extracted from barrier roots of Ecaz. Commonly used by Mentats who claim it amplifies mental powers. Users develop deep ruby stains on mouth and lips

SEMUTA: the second narcotic derivative (by crystal extraction) from burned residue of elacca wood. The effect (described as timeless, sustained ecstasy) is elicited by certain atonal vibrations referred to as semuta music.

ELACCA DRUG: narcotic formed by burning blood-grained elacca wood of Ecaz. Its effect is to remove most of the will to self-preservation. Druggee skin shows a characteristic carrot color./ Commonly used to prepare slave gladiators for the ring.

VERITE: one of the Ecaz will-destroying narcotics. It renders a person incapable of falsehood.

I don't know anything about the prequels. They seem to get mixed reviews. In terms of leadership there seems to be some contradictions. From Wikipedia:
In the House Atreides prequel (p551 Hodder & Stoughton publication) House Ecaz is led by a Duke Prad Vidal who is noted as being an avowed enemy of the "Old Duke" Paulus Atreides. In the subsequent House Harkonnen and House Corrino prequels (written by the same authors) however House Ecaz is led by Archduke Armand Ecaz whose actions are continually cordial (to the extent of proposing a marriage alliance) in regard to House Atreides. The time frame between these novels is in the vicinity of 10 years and no attempt is made to explain Ecaz's change of leaders or their apparent about face on all matters relating to House Atreides over this period.
Rationalization: In Paul of Dune, it is explained that Duke Prad Vidal is a sub-leader who overseas House Ecaz's holdings on their home planet of Grumman, especially in the capital city. The Archduke Armand Ecaz overseas all of House Ecaz's vast holdings, which span over various star systems.

I'll probably go for Archduke Armand Ecaz with Philosophical and Financial as traits. Any ideas for where I might get a good leaderhead image. The leaderheads we have so far are DVD screen captures so we probably need to find someone from something reasonably obscure who looks like he could be the Archduke of a planet which provides the majority of the universes most popular narcotics.

What do you think about getting rid of one of the two identical Fremen civs?

I don't mind that idea actually, it is confusing for there to be two. Could be another 'Less is more' situation.

Is it OK to have a faction with 5 leaders?

nah...i dont like getting rid of the second fremen,
i acctually liked that pheonician at the time suggested to spit the fremens,

so we can have more leaders,

and besides,
i dont want the mod to be too thin,
im quite happy with the current factions we have,
we can do a lot with them and make everyone distinctive.

but, if you guys insist on removing one fremen civ, then i would like to replace it with another faction.

I think the idea is to either (a) find some strong way to make the two Fremen civs distinct, or (b) replace one of them with Ecaz. The only drawback to eliminating one of the Fremen is that we have a lot of leaders for them, from the books. Ghanima is pretty minor, I added her but we could easily remove. Liet is nice, but may work better as a mythological figure than an actual leader. Would people scream if we moved Paul to Atreides? That faction only has one leader.

Splitting the Fremen would be OK if they were distinctive enough conceptually, but I don't think they are. It is just really confusing. The Sietch Tabr Fremen are Paul Muad'Dib's Fremen... :confused:

At some point adding the Waterstealers suggested by Greeneyedzombie could be interesting because they are different in terms of character.

A mod that has 20 or 30 civs can be much more thin than a mod with 10 really distinctive factions that offer really different gameplay and replayability. Some mods have 100+ civs, but that doesn't make me want to play them.

I want to add House Ecaz. So removing Sietch Tabr and adding Sietch Tabr Leaders to the Fremen would make it one in, one out. We'd still be at 11 civs which is a good number to make each one distinctive. We could also drop Ghanima since she is just a clone of Leto II...

I like 2 Fremen civs, representing that not all Fremen are of one mind, and they may still definitely have conflicts between each other.

I like 2 Fremen civs, representing that not all Fremen are of one mind, and they may still definitely have conflicts between each other.

Can you suggest anything which should be different between them? Every time I consider a Fremen ability, such as worm riders, I feel I must give it to both civs.

I think its ok for most units to be the same. But I would differentiate them mostly with UBs; the terraformers get things like deathstills and better windtraps that give better water income (and maybe their spaceport tradegood could be a unique resource that makes the reservoir buildings build faster; so double the cost of the reservoirs and then make them build 50% faster with this resoruce?), while the jihadists get things that increase their military potential, particularly of their infantry, like the sietch bonus that gives extra infantry mobility.

I could also see the Jihadists getting some cheap spammable fanatics UUs who have no upkeep cost and whose death did not cause war weariness.

OK, on balance of the points raised, I think we should keep the two Fremen civs, but rename them to make the distinction clear. The new names I propose are:

Chouhada Fremen (prev. Fremen) (theme: Jihad, the purging of Arrakis)

YA HYA CHOUHADA: "Long live the fighters!" The Fedaykin battle cry. Ya (now) in this cry is augmented by the hya form (the ever-extended now). Chouhada (fighters) carries this added meaning of fighters against injustice. There is a distinction in this word that specifies the fighters are not struggling for anything, but are consecrated against a specific thing--that alone.

Sihaya Fremen (prev. Sietch Tabr) (theme: Liet's Way, the terraforming of Arrakis)

SIHAYA: Fremen: the desert springtime with religious overtones implying the time of fruitfulness and "the paradise to come."

great , i agree with you deliverator.

its better since we have a theme for each of them now,
one could have some jihad units - suicide ones..:)

one will have transformers and such.

nice.

I'm thinking the Chouhada Fremen could make use of the Draft mechanic to create units.

Since, both Fremen civs should have water discipline advantages and bigger populations, the jihadists can then spend their population on disposable units.

With regards to possible Ecaz Unique Units how about a unit that fires darts filled with this:
ELACCA DRUG: narcotic formed by burning blood-grained elacca wood of Ecaz. Its effect is to remove most of the will to self-preservation. Druggee skin shows a characteristic carrot color./ Commonly used to prepare slave gladiators for the ring.

It could render a unit incapable of attacking, similar to the Fear promotion in FFH2.

Isnt it better to start making a thread for each civilazation and discus in those where we want to go with them? I find it kind of hard to keep track in this thread what we want to do with them.

a thread for each civ? i think this is too much....

one thread should be enough .....its not nice to spam the sub frum with many many threads,

its really unnecessary,

so far we are doing fine, right?

Having each civ their own thread makes it easier to flesh them out.

Can we replace Alia with Sheena, Murbella or Raquella for the BG-sisterhood? she really doesnt fit with them. Bieing what she is, a preborn consious bieing, the sisterhood would never allow her to live.
An idea for an UU is the valkyrie. According to wiki they where trained with BG, HM and Ginazswordmaster techniques.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bene_Gesserit

well, i do like having alia as a leader, it adds to the game theme,

but,

i tend to agree that her place isnt a bene gesserit leader.

what do you think? maybe making her as the atredis leader? after all she lead the house after paul was gone...

valkyrie sounds nice.

she didnt really lead the atreides anymore. she fits more with the jihadist/imperial fremen. For the atreides I would either take Jessica or the first atreides Vorian who fought against his father (one of the titans) in the butlerian jihad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorian_Atreides

Maybey I should reread all those books for more Ideas. ;)

ive just finished the first book :)

well, ill ask the guys for more opinions, i dont really mind.

ive just finished the first book :)

well, ill ask the guys for more opinions, i dont really mind.

Wich first book? the dune series? or the ones written by his son?

she didnt really lead the atreides anymore. she fits more with the jihadist/imperial fremen. For the atreides I would either take Jessica or the first atreides Vorian who fought against his father (one of the titans) in the butlerian jihad.

I'd go with Jessica if you needed a second Atreides leader. Thats kind of the point; she falls in love with Leto and betrays her role as BG by giving him a son.

Agree that Alia makes more sense as Fremen than BG also.

David asked for ideas for unique mechanics for Corrino and Ix. Some of these ideas are compiled from this thread:

CORRINO ideas

+ For the Sardaukar, I like the idea that they are powerful but slow in the Dune environment. They should also be quite expensive to maintain with the life of comfort and decadence that they expect.
I would like their to be a way that you can build up levels of UBs that represent building up Sardaukar legions and the instantly deploy them en masse to a location on the map. So the Corrino game plan becomes build up your Sardaukar reserves which should be expensive, and then try and use them decisively when you are ready to strike. Depending how the homeworld idea pans out, you could pay the Guild to buy Sardaukar reserves from Kaitain.

+ At present we have dropped House Fenring. I'm fine with this, as I think all the sneaky, assassin type stuff fits equally well with Ordos. House Fenring does not really have any background information in the Dune canon, whereas Count Fenring himself does. Why not make Fenring a hero unit for Corrino using the respawning technique discussed on the Heroes thread? His abilities can be to assassinate other national units/hero units/weakened units as well as some diplomatic abilities to incite war or stop wars if he is sent on embassy to a particular civ.

+ Cultural/Influence advantages.

IX ideas

+ I like the use of super computers to boost research, but it would be cool if some how if you pushed the thinking machine research too hard, then round two of the Butlerian Jihad was declared against you and you suddenly find yourself at war with pretty much everyone, or severe diplomatic penalties.
+ Ix should also have some technology based promotions for mechanical/vehicle units, smart targeting, more devastating weapons, better engines, etc.
+ Ix should have reduced price upgrades.
+ Cymeks could have a small % chance to create another Cymek on victory that keeps the target unit's promotions. (Borg rip-off.)

Does anyone remember the Ixian specially bred workers from Prelude to Dune? I forget the name, but these could be an Ixian UU worker replacement with only 1 movement point but +50% work rate.

Random ideas for UUs/UBs:

Ordos Trike. Replaces Quad (early game mobile unit). Has +1 movement rate or +20% withdraw chance.

Atreides Sonic tank. Replaces medium scorpion. Does collateral damage.

Harkonnen Devastator. Replaces heavy scorpion. 25% higher base strength level (=50?) but only 1 movement point.

Bene Tl Facedancer. Replaces mentat assassin. Steels 1 promotion from any unit it defeats in combat (a la FFH mimic).

Bene Tl Axolotl Tank. UB, requires Genetic Manipulation tech. Gives +50% GPPs.

Fish Speaker. High level infantry unit, requires the Golden Path religion.

As current;
Worm rider
Fedaykin
Sardaukar
Xian walker/cymek/avatar.
Suggestion: maybe the Fremen/Ixian/Corrino/etc palaces should automatically provide 1 free copy of their natural free resource?
So you can get extra from a Landing stage and trade them, but each faction will always be guaranteed to be able to build their own special units.

Spacing guild
Rather than the hard-to-balance mechanic of having the trade guild units cost gold and having their spice guild be spreadable by executive, why not create a Guild-only national wonder that functions as a second spice corp hq, turning more spice into gold?
So we end up having 1 spice corp for each faction, +1 more for the CHOAM religion shrine, +1 more for the Trade Guild civ? It could come with the Spacing Guild tech.

Suggestion: maybe the Fremen/Ixian/Corrino/etc palaces should automatically provide 1 free copy of their natural free resource?
So you can get extra from a Landing stage and trade them, but each faction will always be guaranteed to be able to build their own special units.

The Fremen palace does provide three copies of its unique resource automatically. The Ixian and Corrino unique resources cannot be selected by any other player. So Ix/Corrino can always build a landing stage to get its resource. It may be that they would choose some other resource first, but they are the only ones who can get it. If Ix/Corrino is not in a particular game, then any civ can select their resource, but only the first one will get it.

A thought:
I'm currently reading Paul of Dune. Mediocre, but still fun.
Why is Duke Prad Vidal the Ecaz leader? He is just a nobleman who rebels against the Archduke during the conflict with Grumman, and is then executed/assassinated by Duke Leto Atreides.
The leader of Ecaz is Archduke Armand.

This was me. I read the last note on this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SandChigger/Discrepancies) and thought Duke Prad sounded more interesting. I'm happy for it to be changed to Archduke Armand. More importantly, I need to change the Ecaz civ colour from lilac to the turquoise vacated by the Guild.

Huh, looks like the authors goofed.
Well, I'd still probably go with Armand; looks like he is there for 3 books vs 1.

I'm not sure if this has been settled, but I just wanted to throw in a quick suggestion. The first Fremen (Chouhada Fremen now, I guess) seems to be made up of solely leaders from after House Atreides gained the imperial throne. I was always under the impression that Paul's empire didn't really count as being Fremen; a major theme of the next 3 books was how the Fremen had become "water-fat" and lost almost all of their previous traits in a matter of years after Paul became emperor. By the time of Leto II, this would be quite pronounced, and considering it a Fremen empire would be absurd.
This is why I figure that this faction should be considered separate from the earlier Fremen, and probably be called something else entirely. I believe "the Mahdiate" was used to describe the new power structure in Dune: Messiah (sort of analogous to "the Kingdom," I suppose). Anyway, I just feel that would be more suitable, but I can see why you'd want to keep it as Fremen. It would also make it a little easier to fit Alia as a leader (though she really doesn't fit anywhere, I guess).

Hi Fallen Phoenix. Welcome to Dune Wars.

The opening post isn't up to date with the current state of the civs. As of 1.4.8 there is only one Fremen faction with Liet-Kynes and Stilgar as the leaders. The Atreides now have Leto I, Paul and Leto II as leaders.

It is tricky to choose which leader goes where in a universe with so many divided loyalties. I think Alia probably should be Atreides too, since she is at no point loyal to the Bene Gesserit in the books, but 4 leaders for one faction might be excessive. I've also thought of having two incarnations of Paul - one an Atreides leader and one as Muad'Dib for the Fremen - maybe we could add some code to ensure that both incarnation can't appear in the same game.

So, we're getting to the stage where we want to start differentiating the factions. Here are some brainstorm ideas:

First, 9 factions feels a bit small. Maybe we should consider eliminating one of the religions (the way of Shai-Hulad isn't that interesting), or add another faction.

Atreides:
Themes: honorable, benevolent, diplomatic, respected, air power, quality > quantity, vendetta with harkonnen
Preferred civics: hereditary rule -> theocracy, Kanly, private property, free trade, Arrakis paradise
Preferred religion: Qizarate (golden path)
Unique mechanics:
An intrinsic +3 diplomacy benefit with all factions except Tleilaxu (no change) and Harkonnen (-3 penalty).
I dislike the "free units" for Atreides, I think it makes little sense; it makes then a quantity army with poorly
Unique stuff:
An improved falcon thopter, strength 10 rather than strength 8.
An improved desert airfield, that comes at an earlier tech (air power rather than aerial combat), and gives a free "skilled pilots" promotion (+10% strength) to all hornets and thopters produced in that city. Or just combat 1 or more xp.
A sonic tank, replaces the medium scorpion. Possible changes: does collateral damage, maybe slightly lower base strength but bonuses vs guardsmen and melee (sonic waves more effective vs infantry than vehicles, very weak vs aircraft).
Atreides heir; gives +20% defense bonus to all units in stack.

Harkonnen:
Theme: brutality, slaves, militaristic, treacherous, power-hungry, vendetta with atreides, soviet-style army: quantity and heavy tanks
Preferred civics: slavery, planned economy, Arrakis spice
Preferred religion: Landsraad/CHOAM
Unique mechanics:
-3 diplomacy penalty with Atreides.
Slave mechanic from combat, as current. This is quite powerful. Maybe we could increase the slaves to 2 moves, but decrease the chance of generating one from combat.
Also, the slave should appear in the tile of the harkonnen unit, not the tile of the unit they kill.
Unique stuff:
Devastator heavy tank.
Maybe a heavy roller as well with higher strength, or extra first strikes? The devastator is very very late-game.
Maybe some improved artillery/siege units; an improved assault cannon or missile launcher
Maybe a factory of some kind that gives a military production bonus, and/or free xp to vehicle units: Forgeworks, at desert industry tech, gives +10% military production and +2 xp to newly created vehicles.
Slave pit building as current.

Ordos:
Themes: espionage/sabotage, hit-and-run, light-fast-attack units, mercenary, profit-seeking
Preferred civics: war of assassins, serfdom, mercantilism
Preferred religion:
Unique mechanics:
These guys will really need some bonus espionage missions in order to become interesting. This is probably hard to do, both manipulating the espionage missions *and* getting the AI to understand how to use them. Some possible ideas:
i) Sabotage units. Damages every hostile unit in the tile by 10% damage (maximum 50% damage). AI will only use it against factions that they are at war with.
Maybe they could use the FFH/Fall Further "raider" trait, which gives a raider promotion to their units, which automatically pillages any tile their units move into (in territory of units they are at war with). Or at least get a +50% gold bonus from pillaging.
Unique stuff:
Saboteur. Infiltrator replacement but starts with 2 moves.
Deviator. assault cannon replacement, but with a bombardment ability, that can add a "confused" promotion to enemy units (with 20% chance), that prevents them from attacking , and wears off with 75% chance after each turn.
Trike: quad replacement with 20% higher base withdraw chance.
A replacement assassin bureau building, with an even higher espionage output (16?).


Ecaz:
Themes: trade, others??
Preferred civics: hereditary rule, free trade
Preferred religion: Landsraad/CHOAM
Unique mechanics:
Can build a third landing stage, getting 3 total trade good contracts.
Unique stuff:
Unique building that gives extra trade route/trade route income bonus.

Corrino:
Themes: Emperor, Sardaukar (best assault troops), traditional, political, militaristic rather than trade, preserve the status quo
Preferred civics: imperium, imperial fealty, faufreluches, arrakis spice
Preferred religion: Imperium
Unique mechanics:
Unable to adopt Qizarate, messianism, Tl Supremacy or Technocracy religions.
Superior access to offworld troop imports - maybe a faster refresh rate of their pool?
Unique stuff:
Sardaukar troops and imperial militia and trooper, as current.
An improved tribunal building that gives extra maintenance reduction , or a UB national wonder that acts as another Forbidden palace?

Bene Gesserit:
Themes: manipulative, influential, rule-from-the-shadows, pacifist tendencies
Preferred civics: meritocracy, great convention (culture bonus)
Preferred religion: any
Unique mechanics:
Spies can perform a mission that acts like an Influence-driven-war pillage.
Ability to manipulate religions; can BG somehow get an extra +2 culture per turn for each religion present in their cities?
Unique stuff:
Reverend mother (as current). Maybe the reverend mother should also detect invisible units (so its hard to use infiltrators on BG).
Unique building (Bene Gesserit): Missionaria Protectiva. +1 culture. Gives +2 culture +1 happy per religion present in the city.
others?
Maybe some unique buildings with culture bonuses: BG should be best placed to win a cultural = "political" victory.

Fremen:
Themes: desert warriors, little technology (scavenged), powerful melee, water discipline, raiders, worm transport.
Preferred civics: theocracy, water discipline, arrakis paradise.
Preferred religion: messianism/jihad
Unique mechanics:
Sandrider infantry units (as current, but should also apply to guardsmen units).
Cannot build most siege units, vehicles and aircraft. When destroying a thopter, hornet, siege or vehicle in combat, have a 25% chance of capturing it.
Need AI changed so that they can launch amphibious assaults without transports.
Melee infantry start with thumper promotion? See discussion here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=335213&page=2 (starts post 33, goes onto next page
Unique stuff:
Deathstill (as current)
Crysknife fighter, sandrider, fedaykin (as current)
Maybe a few more to replace not being able to build roller, hornets, thopters and scorpions?

Ix:
Themes: technology, computerization, industry,
Preferred civics: planned economy
Preferred religion: technocracy
Unique mechanics:
Technocracy religion buildings benefit from Thinking Machines trade good.
Unique stuff:
Ixian walker units, as current.
Maybe an earlier game hammer boosting building? Factory and the technocracy ones are quite late.

Bene Tleilaxu:
Themes: xenophobic, isolationist, religious, bioweapons, biological research, distrusted by all
Preferred civics: theocracy
Preferred religion: Tleilaxu supremacy (can't adopt any others)
Unique mechanics:
Unique religion (founded very early, can only be adopted by them, spread automatically to any new cities they found, no missionaries - so cannot easily be spread to conquered cities). Cannot adopt any other religion.
Priest focused specialists (unique buildings give priest slots, shrine boosts priests)
Tleilaxu plague (see discussion http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=335213&page=5 post 87 onwards)
Ghola creation (building powerful units: newly created units have the same xp as the highest xp unit you have lost of that type)
Unique stuff:
Facedancer (acts like Balseraph mimic from FFH: steals a promotion from any unit it defeats)
Axolotl tanks. Gives GPP bonus and allows ghola creation.

We need more ideas, but thats a few more for now.

Thoughts, suggestions?

A few changes added.

I thought of an alternative mechanic for Tleilaxu gholas; use the FFH-style immortality mechanic; immortality fits well, but balancing it was tricky.
It would take some complex coding though.

When an axolotl tank is built in a city, the *next* unit (and only the next) built in that city gains the Ghola promotion, which functions the same as the FFH immortailty trait (when killed, the unit is ressurected in the capital city).

Thus, you can get 1 immortal ghola per city with an axolotl tank.

Alternative implementation: when you build an axolotl tank, give the ghola promotion to the unit the player has with the highest level of experience who does not already have the ghola promotion.

Ecaz is looking a bit thin. Some ideas raised before:

Here are some entries from the appendix of Dune.

ECAZ: fourth planet of Alpha Centauri B; the sculptors' paradise, so called because it is the home of fogwood, the plant growth capable of being shaped in situ solely by the power of human thought.

SAPHO: high-energy liquid extracted from barrier roots of Ecaz. Commonly used by Mentats who claim it amplifies mental powers. Users develop deep ruby stains on mouth and lips

SEMUTA: the second narcotic derivative (by crystal extraction) from burned residue of elacca wood. The effect (described as timeless, sustained ecstasy) is elicited by certain atonal vibrations referred to as semuta music.

ELACCA DRUG: narcotic formed by burning blood-grained elacca wood of Ecaz. Its effect is to remove most of the will to self-preservation. Druggee skin shows a characteristic carrot color./ Commonly used to prepare slave gladiators for the ring.

VERITE: one of the Ecaz will-destroying narcotics. It renders a person incapable of falsehood.

Looking at the examples given above it also gave me the idea for House Ecaz. You don't have to read too much between the lines to assume that the inhabitants of Ecaz are the drug barons of the Duniverse. You go to the Ixians for your machines, the Tleilaxu for your genetic engineering and to Ecaz for your narcotics. If we create them as a faction then their spaceport can produce twice as many imported goods as the other factions, giving them a higher happy cap, more trade opportunities and potentially access to certain units.

From the Dune Encyclopedia, it's worth reading the full Ecaz entry, and Ecaz, Plants of:

"The Greenhouse Planet," first discovered in 8112 B.G. It was listed as a nondescript planet with a humid atmosphere, moderate temperatures, shallow inland seas covering vast areas of the two main continents and the customary large variations between the equator and the poles. Ecaz soon became the fief of House Plana and gained a reputation as a botanical bonanza: the humidity, more than the warmth, accounted for its unparalleled profusion of plantlife. House Plana sponsored extensive research laboratories in an attempt to catalog and breed useful strains of some of the more intriguing plants: all methods were used, including forced mutation and spraying of controlled environments with mutagenic compounds.

The atomic release of the mutagenic microbes of House Plana had resulted in a flora run wild in the thousands of years of isolation. Most of the animal life of the planet had died, except for the insects: In addition, there had been a complete elimination of hardwood plants and considerable dieback among all plants with life-cycles of more than one or two local seasons. But the niches vacated by the extinction of the more long-lived plants did not stay vacant for long. Entirely new forms of plant life had arisen on Ecaz: many were totally unknown and so phenomenal that the explorers were ridiculed by their colleagues, even when they presented specimens.

So, in addition to being our trade faction I think we should be using the rich and varied planet life of Ecaz as part of their theme. In a universe where narcotic use is respectable Ecaz is the source of many of the most sought after narcotics.

For Corrino, as mentioned before, it would be interesting to give them some ability to incite or stop wars between other factions.

You don't have to read too much between the lines to assume that the inhabitants of Ecaz are the drug barons of the Duniverse.

So, in addition to being our trade faction I think we should be using the rich and varied planet life of Ecaz as part of their theme.

This sounds cool, I'll think about it.

For Corrino, as mentioned before, it would be interesting to give them some ability to incite or stop wars between other factions.

How about they get 2 votes in the Landsraad? And add some Over-council style declare-war-on-X motions.

Redirecting Discussion started in Sucession Games thread

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=338098 page 1

So far 3 things:
DW Spi trait not providing any bonus except no-anarchy.
my Suggestion to make discount for missionaries hammer cost for Spi leaders by 15% was liked by Ahriman
Religious Victory terms are too hight. New suggested value by Ahriman is 80%

I've started updating the opening post, so that there is an overview of the current state of civs. I'll will take a little while to get all the info down.

A couple of small ideas:

Since the Fremen aren't really picking up religions at the moment how about creating a special kind of missionary unit for them: the Sayyadina. Firstly, this unit can have the Sandrider promotion to aid mobility. Second, once Shai-Hulud or Mahdi are founded, the Sayyadina can spread either of them even if the religions have not yet spread to any Fremen city. I don't know if this doable, it's just an idea.

Sculptors' Garden UB for Ecaz - the place where Ecazi sculptors shape fogwood with their minds. I'm thinking of something that replaces the Mushtamal and provides an gold/commerce benefit in addition to the +2 health, since the sculptures are valuable.

Since the Fremen aren't really picking up religions at the moment

Another possibility; when Fremen research Jihad tech, they get an event with two options; one gives a single Shai-Hulad missionary in their capital, the other gives a single UU mahdi missionary in their capital.
Maybe the event should trigger only if mahdi has already been founded, and/or if the Fremen do not have a state religion.

Sculptors' Garden UB for Ecaz - the place where Ecazi sculptors shape fogwood with their minds. I'm thinking of something that replaces the Mushtamal and provides an gold/commerce benefit in addition to the +2 health, since the sculptures are valuable.

Seems reasonable. A trade route bonus might fit better with their encouraged playstyle (keep open borders, do lots of trade).

You guys did such a great job on this, that I actually went out and purchased Civ4 solely for this mod. So far, and I am certainly no expert on civ4 yet, it looks and plays great. The only suggestion I would make would be to put Paul under the Fremen rather than the Atreides. While he is certainly an Atreides, he more or less was adopted by and adopted the Fremen way of life. He became emperor as a Fremen, surrounded himself with Fremen in all high places of government, took a Fremen mate, lived and died (twice?) as a Fremen. That would add an extra Fremen and take away an Atreides since they have 4 now. Just a suggestion, although it may be too late if there are no planned patches. Thanks for the great work on this.

You guys did such a great job on this, that I actually went out and purchased Civ4 solely for this mod.

That is high praise. Thanks a lot!

The only suggestion I would make would be to put Paul under the Fremen rather than the Atreides. While he is certainly an Atreides, he more or less was adopted by and adopted the Fremen way of life.

At one point in the history of the mod we did actually have Paul Muad'Dib as a Fremen leader, back when we had two Fremen civs. It's a tricky one, even after he becomes Muad'Dib Paul still retains the title Duke of the Atreides and uses the title when it suits him. We could have both Paul Atreides and Muad'Dib as separate leaders but then you could have them fighting each other which would be odd. And you could also make a case that Leto II and to a slightly lesser extent Alia should be Fremen leaders too.

With the current setup you can roleplay Paul, and attempt to win an alliance with the Fremen (something we are trying to do in the current succession game (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=340372)). Through some of the mechanics we have, it is possible for the Atreides to build Fedaykin and other Fremen units, by obtaining the Water Debt bonus from them in trade.

Just a suggestion, although it may be too late if there are no planned patches.

Don't worry. There have been regular patches every few weeks for quite a while now and the hectic pace doesn't look like letting up anytime soon. And we're always happy to have suggestions. :)

I can see your point here. Although, Paul never took the title of Duke until he was supposed to challenge Stilgar for leadership of the sietch and right before he became emperor. You could make a case for Leto, although he was born into royalty at that time and the Fremen pretty much disappeared under his rule. Alia, well she is just crazy. Even though she was raised Fremen, she caused them to rebel against her during her reign. Like I said about Paul, he lived, ate, breathed, loved, and died Fremen.

I didn't know you had to trade water debt to get Fremen troops. I have been trying to get Fedaykin and worm riders for Paul and haven't been able to despite having the tech, at least for worm riders. So you have to trade water debt to get them?

I didn't know you had to trade water debt to get Fremen troops. I have been trying to get Fedaykin and worm riders for Paul and haven't been able to despite having the tech, at least for worm riders. So you have to trade water debt to get them?

You can see in the civilopedia entry that Fremen Water Debt is required for these units. The Fremen player starts with that resource, anybody else has to trade for it.

You can see in the civilopedia entry that Fremen Water Debt is required for these units. The Fremen player starts with that resource, anybody else has to trade for it.

Thanks. I was so excited to play this game that I skipped over it and jumped right in. I ended up getting in good with Stilgar and traded for the water debt to make some worm riders. I also tried to do this with the BG so I could get reverend mothers, but they won't budge.

As far as leaders go, or more specifically civilizations, what are the Ordos? Are they from the new books?

The last question I have, and perhaps this should be in a different thread so I apologize if I ask it in the wrong place, but why do reverend mothers get prescient ability? I figured this should only go to Kwisatz Haderach, and the ability should be such that a unit would know the outcome of the battle before it happened, thus deciding whether to attack or not.

As far as leaders go, or more specifically civilizations, what are the Ordos? Are they from the new books?

I understand they are from the Dune 2000 RTS game by Westwood.

The last question I have, and perhaps this should be in a different thread so I apologize if I ask it in the wrong place, but why do reverend mothers get prescient ability? I figured this should only go to Kwisatz Haderach, and the ability should be such that a unit would know the outcome of the battle before it happened, thus deciding whether to attack or not.

Any thread is fine! I think the K.H is *better* at precognition, but anybody who uses spice gets some of it. We discussed a little bit how to model this on an older thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=327003). Giving a long visibility range seems like a reasonable approach; you can see your enemies coming and make a counter-plan. If you can think of some more things we can do with precognition, it would be great. I don't think we have made it a strong enough part of the game yet.

I understand they are from the Dune 2000 RTS game by Westwood.



Any thread is fine! I think the K.H is *better* at precognition, but anybody who uses spice gets some of it. We discussed a little bit how to model this on an older thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=327003). Giving a long visibility range seems like a reasonable approach; you can see your enemies coming and make a counter-plan. If you can think of some more things we can do with precognition, it would be great. I don't think we have made it a strong enough part of the game yet.

Prescience is something that only the Paul and Leto had, or at least complete prescience. Alia had a very little. Reverend Mothers don't have prescience really. The spice helps enhance their abilities, like truth sense, and the guild navigators had a limited prescient brought about by living in the spice, but KH prescience was a combination of the spice and the Atreides genes.

I thought about this this morning and came up with an idea that you could attach the KH (I also figured it would be a single unit rather than a technology) like the general, but able to be removed, and it would tell you exactly what the "roll" would be if that unit attacked another unit or city, thus letting you decide whether you want to do so or not. Perhaps the KH unit could be the Atreides heir or something (I have one but don't really see any benefit to it currently). I hadn't thought of the ability to see further away, but that could be a possibility as well. I am not thinking anything that would be uber powerful, as you could still get surrounded or attacked while in a city and die.

I understand they are from the Dune 2000 RTS game by Westwood.

Ordos were in the original Dune2 by Westwood, long before Dune2000.

Ordos were in the original Dune2 by Westwood, long before Dune2000.

The name House Ordos is mentioned in the Dune Encyclopedia (http://www.thedune.ru/duneenc/download/DUNE_ENCYCLOPEDIA.pdf), which is not considered canon itself, but is quite entertaining nevertheless. I presume that's where Westwood got them from for 1992 Dune II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II).

I know that Corrino have already 3 leaders, but Farad'n makes alot of sense, if not more than his mother.

Yeah, I'm up for adding Farad'n, particularly since getting a leaderhead image is easy from the Children of Dune miniseries. What traits should he have?

Ahriman would like us to swap in Elrood for Wensicia. My main issue with that is that we are generally trying to stick to the Dune -> Dune Messiah -> Children of Dune timeframe and I prefer to go with Frank Herbert creations rather than prequel stuff where possible. Wensicia does lead House Corrino for a time before Farad'n takes control.

Ahriman has also proposed replacing Erlin Malky with Rhombur Vernius from the prequels. The main obstacle is finding a decent image of aristocratic-looking cyborg that fits with the other photographic leaderheads. I'm not saying the current Malky image is great, but I'd want something that is a fitting improvement.

As pointed out on the Jacurutu forum (http://www.jacurutu.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1853) we should also really change the name of House Ix to the Ixian Confederacy since Ix is not a House.

I prefer having the Corrinos as really being Imperial, hence why I prefer Elrood over Shaddam. Eldrood is Emperor something like 15 years before the start of Dune, its hardly out of timeline. How long after the End of Dune is Farad'n?

As I recall (long time since I read Children of Dune), by the time of Wencisca and Farad'n, Corrino is basically a shadow, with very little real power.

I also think 3 leaders for a given faction is plenty, and that there is no need for Farad'n. His personality is pretty similar to Irulan anyway. If you really wanted to include him, then just rename Irulan.

I would be tempted to move Alia to Fremen to leave Leto I, Leto II and Paul as Atreides.
Or alternatively, move Paul to Fremen.
Paul and Alia are both militaristic, religious fanatic leaders, but Paul is generally more diplomatic and tolerant, so it might make more sense to keep him as Atreides and move Alia (who is generally more barbaric) to Fremen.
Plus, having "Paul Atreides" as a non-Atreides leader could be weird.

As for Ix... there are multiple source issues. The Ix of Rhombur Vernius et al from the prequels, set shortly before Dune, IS a House. The Ix of 3000 years in the future, under Leto II, is a confederacy. I'd tend towards the less-canon but more contemporary source rather than the canon but distant future source.

Last time I requested this, I did link to some art possibilities, I will try to track those down again and see if anythnig else pops up, but other people will probably know of better art out there than I.

I think I'd prefer having Paul Muad'Dib back as a Fremen leader as idahopotato suggested to moving Alia there.

OK, I'll see if I can find some good art for Elrood - there are alternate Emperors in Dune 2000 and Emperor:Battle for Dune that might fit the bill.

I did link to some art possibilities

I did look at those, but they had 'Stock Photo' printed over them, and didn't really feel consistent with the others.

Yeah, I'm up for adding Farad'n, particularly since getting a leaderhead image is easy from the Children of Dune miniseries. What traits should he have?

Ahriman would like us to swap in Elrood for Wensicia. My main issue with that is that we are generally trying to stick to the Dune -> Dune Messiah -> Children of Dune timeframe and I prefer to go with Frank Herbert creations rather than prequel stuff where possible. Wensicia does lead House Corrino for a time before Farad'n takes control.

Ahriman has also proposed replacing Erlin Malky with Rhombur Vernius from the prequels. The main obstacle is finding a decent image of aristocratic-looking cyborg that fits with the other photographic leaderheads. I'm not saying the current Malky image is great, but I'd want something that is a fitting improvement.

As pointed out on the Jacurutu forum (http://www.jacurutu.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1853) we should also really change the name of House Ix to the Ixian Confederacy since Ix is not a House.

I like that there aren't a bunch of characters and stuff from the prequels, as most of the time they either don't make sense, or else just add stuff because it seems cool. I didn't know that the Ordos where from the Dune Encyclopedia. The DE was authorized by Frank Herbert, so that seems cool. Plus the DE is a really fun read.

Farad'n doesn't make much sense as a leader, since he took over pretty much the same time he became royal consort to Ghanima. Wensecia does make sense (although I can't stand Sarandon but that is another story), as she was in control for at least 9 years, but probably ran things much longer than that with Shaddam in semi retirement. Shaddam Ruled for 60 years, so Elrood could not have been a ruler 15 years before Dune starts.

Paul does make the most sense to be Fremen, even more so than Alia. If you don't like having the Attreides name, you could just call him Muad'dib. And even though Paul doesn't appear to be barbaric, under his leadership more people were killed than under any rule in human history. According to the Dune Messiah, even more so than the emperors Genghis Khan and Hitler. There are several entries in the DE on Paul, with one claiming that he was really a Fremen that just took Paul's name since there really wasn't any proof.

Shaddam Ruled for 60 years, so Elrood could not have been a ruler 15 years before Dune starts.

My timing is off then.

But still; what if Shaddam hadn't had Fenring kill off Elrood?
Elrood could still have been alive for a long time, given Spice geriatric propertties.

I think I'd prefer having Paul Muad'Dib back as a Fremen leader
I have no particular problem with this.
Another alternative: he could be either. Like Decius, in FFH.
This would be superior to having a "Paul Atreides" as Atreides AND a "Paul Muad'Dib" as Fremen, since that way could have them facing off against each other.

My timing is off then.

But still; what if Shaddam hadn't had Fenring kill off Elrood?
Elrood could still have been alive for a long time, given Spice geriatric propertties.


I have no particular problem with this.
Another alternative: he could be either. Like Decius, in FFH.
This would be superior to having a "Paul Atreides" as Atreides AND a "Paul Muad'Dib" as Fremen, since that way could have them facing off against each other.

Not sure what Decius, but if he could be either that would be cool, with different traits. Like say if the Baron's plan had failed, Paul would have been different. More like Leto and focused on air and desert power, and maybe never became the KH. But as Muad'dib, he would have Fremen tech tree, KH/prescience, and focus more on conquest rather than peace. For a picture you could use one from the old movie and one from the new, like you guys did with the BG.

This is the best image I've found for Rhomber Vernius:
http://mojette.deviantart.com/art/Cyborg-officer-concept-87530309

Apparently, Shaddam succeeded Elrood on his death in the year 10,156. Still, I'm not convinced he is a better fit then Wensicia.

I'll second Deliverator - Wensicia is part of original series, and fits as most un-moral side of House Corrino.

Also i think we may want use some photoshopping , but not a picture/drawing, because it would not look consistent with other leaderheads, which are simply photos of characters.
We can use by the way Edric O , as ixian leader. Anyways he served Ordos, but in dune 2000 Ordos described as allies of IX, and he as Ixian Thinking machine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U70lX3N8y4o

Or just be 3rd leader for Ordos. (Pro, Fin)?

This is the best image I've found for Rhomber Vernius:

Looks quite good.

I'll second Deliverator - Wensicia is part of original series, and fits as most un-moral side of House Corrino

Elrood is completely canon, its just he's dead before Dune starts. He's still referred to, and still shows up in the family tree.
I really dislike Wensicia, but partly this is just my Dune >>>> Children of Dune bias showing.
I also have no real feel for the personality of Wensicia; the leaderhead values I gave for her were more what I imagined Elrood might be. A slightly less aggressive, less impetuous, more calculating version of Elrood. Maybe this still fits ok for both.

Where are you getting any kind of personality of Elrood? I know he is mentioned briefly in Dune, but not with any kind of sense in the kind of person he was. Wensicia on the other hand has a very large role in one of the books. And if you are using her image from the movie, then an even larger role.

Elrood's personality comes only from the prequels.

Prescience is something that only the Paul and Leto had, or at least complete prescience. Alia had a very little. Reverend Mothers don't have prescience really. The spice helps enhance their abilities, like truth sense, and the guild navigators had a limited prescient brought about by living in the spice, but KH prescience was a combination of the spice and the Atreides genes.
I agree with idahopotato! Prescience is more Paul or guild stuff...
...what is missing for the BG is the feared voice!!

Ideas for implementation:
When a Rev.Mother (stack) is attacked by a ground unit, there is a (small?) percentage of chance, that the attacking unit changes its mind and doesn't attack at all. It then looses its movement points.
Also (or alternativly) a "special bombard" button could be attached, that allows a mother to let a unit withdraw (the next possible field) or better (to implement): looses it's action for next turn. The success of the voice could be dependent on the XP-level of the opponent. Also a promotion "immune to voice"/"high voice resistance" could be possible for some units (such as the Atreides heir ;)). Also several "voice-upgrades" could be thought of (all with different success rate), such as loosing more "time" then just a turn, being damaged, being killed, being converted.
Also consequences for failing the "voice-mission" could be thought of.:satan:

Greetz Hived.

Voice / Prescience can be also a Trait.
just sayng

I dislike the idea of Voice having combat effects. Its like David Lynch all over again, turning Bene Gesserit into super-ninjas.

The voice can't stop a regiment of soldiers from shooting you.

im not 100% on what the voice or BG are based around, but what if you used the 'tolerant' trait from FfH, where cities captured by the leader can build its UBs and UUs?

No, I don't really think that makes sense. We definitely do not want Bene Gesserit building Atreides heirs and Facedancers and Devastators and chemical troopers.

The Bene Gesserit are devious political manipulators, masters of intrigue. They should have massive cultural benefits, and abilities to gain terrain and possibly cause revolts without war.

OOOH in that case hows this for an idea.

Give BG the Voice as a trait which causes non BG cities within x squares of the BG cultural border a small chance to revolt each turn, also remove the diplomatic penalty for 'cultural borders clashing' with the BG, and possibly allow the BG Forts to expand their cultural radius one more square.

potentially also give the Rev.Mother one off abilities similar to the FfH Trust (+4 diplomacty "you seem trustworthy) and maybe even Peace (Stops all wars with the user at the cost of the units death.) these would only work if Rev.Mother is a world unit though and cant be rebuilt.

I dislike the idea of Voice having combat effects. Its like David Lynch all over again, turning Bene Gesserit into super-ninjas.

The voice can't stop a regiment of soldiers from shooting you.
Hmmm... combat effects are thought of easiest. As the Rev. Mother is a unit and units normally only have effects on opponent units/cities, I see no other choice than giving here combat effects. Making her "GP-like" and let her improve "home" seems not fitting to the voice.
Of course a BG-witch can't voice a whole army... but maybe she can come along with the commander. Until the opponent faction leader realizes this, a turn can be gone! I also don't see a witch on a battle-field like a war-mage or something. Of course they are sneaky! The fact, that the voice won't always succeed shows, that it is not always possible, to voice the opponent leader.
Alternativly, they could get a "spy-function"... maybe also as "spiritual advisors": As soon as in opponents capital: sacrifice to become spiritual advisor-> +1 diplomatic influence "we are happy, you give us advices"... maximum: +4.

...but that's not the voice...
The voice could either be used, to "force" diplomatic agreements... but 1.) how to implement? 2.) too strong!!

some better ideas?! IMO the voice is one of the main abilities of the witches... it should be implemented somehow!

Greetz, Hived!

@david: If we have two incarnations of Paul, Paul Atreides for the Atreides and Paul Muad'Dib for the Fremen is it possible to write some code that will ensure that both don't appear in the same game?

pseudocode:
If player leader is Paul Atreides and Paul Muad'Dib is in the game then
choose alternate Fremen leader
else if player leader is Paul Muad'Dib and Paul Atreides is in the game then
choose alternate Atreides leader

@david: If we have two incarnations of Paul, Paul Atreides for the Atreides and Paul Muad'Dib for the Fremen is it possible to write some code that will ensure that both don't appear in the same game?

I don't think I can stop the user from setting up that scenario in the custom game screen. Is it important to have him in both? I don't see too much benefit.

In that case, I'm with the move him back the Fremen and call him Paul Muad'Dib camp. That way both Fremen and Atreides will have 3 leaders. His leaderhead is more Fremen than Atreides anyway.

DV32: Is it possible to edit the pedia so that Civilizations have information on their URs and URUs? A new Controlled Resource section perhaps.

At the moment the new player might think that the Fremen, for example, have no unique units when, in effect, they do.

In that case, I'm with the move him back the Fremen and call him Paul Muad'Dib camp.

Can I suggest the Decius solution from FFH? He can be a leader of either, but is still just a single leader who can only show up once per game.

At the moment the new player might think that the Fremen, for example, have no unique units when, in effect, they do.

Good point.

Can I suggest the Decius solution from FFH? He can be a leader of either, but is still just a single leader who can only show up once per game.

I don't think I can stop the user from setting up that scenario in the custom game screen. Is it important to have him in both? I don't see too much benefit.

We can change plot abit and add The Preacher (freemen)
Favorite religion Shai Hulud
Some fitting personality which hates Qizarate , Arrakis Paradise

He became real fremen when he left his palace, attpmted to give his life according fremen tradition because he was blind.
It also, kinda , different person. And we may make them completely different even.

DV32: Is it possible to edit the pedia so that Civilizations have information on their URs and URUs? A new Controlled Resource section perhaps.

This is already present in 1.6.3. If there is a more obvious way to do it, please let me know. If you get the hover help for the civilization, you will see that the UR are listed there as "controlled resources". I did not list the URU, because it seems redundant; once you know the UR, you can go to the bonus and it already lists which units it enables.

The same hover help appears, in a different format, in the Dawn Of Man popup. I never really noticed this till I added the code, but the DOM popup also lists the UR and UU. It also shows the UR as of 1.6.3.

1. Do you feel that the URU should be listed directly from the civilization pedia, or is it enough to list the UR and keep the existing list in the bonus pedia?

2. Is the hover help for the civilization enough, or should we also add material into the text of the civilopedia? The text is entirely background material with no in-game mechanics, which is the same as vanilla.

I don't think I can stop the user from setting up that scenario in the custom game screen. Is it important to have him in both? I don't see too much benefit.

Ever feel like you are repeating yourself? ;)

It would be for flavour only since people wan't to lead the Fremen as Paul Muad'Dib. It's probably not worth it if it is going to be significant coding which is probably is. I was just wondering if there was straight-forward fix to stop Paul vs Paul if you selected random leaders. If you set up a Custom Game with Paul vs Paul then I would expect the mod to change it.

So since both seems too much effort - do people prefer Paul Atreides as an Atreides leader or Paul Muad'Dib as a Fremen leader? idahopotato and myself prefer the latter.

I've moved him to Fremen for 1.6.4.

I am indifferent.
It does mean though that no-one will be able to replicate our succession game :-)

I am indifferent.
It does mean though that no-one will be able to replicate our succession game :-)

They can always use 1.6.3. Since 1.6.4 has pretty big gameplay differences, they would not be able to replicate it with 1.6.4 anyway.

The Decius-style solution sounds the neatest way to do it, since every Civ-game is a bit of "alternate history" and seeing Paul sometimes as Atreides, sometimes as Fremen sounds very much like that.

But in absence of that, I'd say: Muad'dib! Muad'dib! Muad'dib! For some reason, the Muad'dib is very iconic of Dune and omitting him from Dune Wars sounds odd.

Cheers, LT.

Few another ideas for Leaderheads:

1. Sayyadina Ramallo , BG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyadina_Ramallo

her memory went to Jessica

2. Muriz, Fremen , Leader of the Cast Out. (need some good shot from CoD movie 2003)

A few people play games with more than nine civs. The AI selector chooses civs to repeat, but it doesn't care if the civ has more than one leaderhead. If the civ has multiple LH, you will never get duplicate LH. But, there are three civs with only a single LH each: Bene Tleilax, Ecaz, and Ix.

Can anybody find (a) a good LH picture for a second Ecaz? (b) a good LH picture for a second Tleilax? (c) either one LH picture similar to our blue Malky for Ix, or else two similar new LH pictures for Ix?

We also need names for these three. We'd prefer names in the *Frank* Herbert books, but the prequel/sequels are OK also. If possible they should be contemporaries of Paul, rather than several centuries to either side.

Photos should be at least 512x512 so we can shrink them a little. Several different sizes are needed; don't worry about that, we can easily shrink as needed.

1st we have Hwe Noree from God-Emperror - Ix, Malky's relative (i trying to be much close to Dune > CoD time)
2nd I'll check some good sites with pics - it should be photo quality

Can anybody find (a) a good LH picture for a second Ecaz?

A second Ecazi leader should be Duke Prad Vidal.

a good LH picture for a second Tleilax?


Tleilaxu art that was actually some kind of twisted gnome would be ideal.

1st we have Hwe Noree from God-Emperror - Ix, Malky's relative (i trying to be much close to Dune > CoD time)

Hwee Noree and Malky are both thousands of years in the future, which is why I favor Rhombur Vernius instead, but I guess Vernius and Malky would be ok I guess. Didn't Deliverator post a cyborg Vernius picture at some point?

If we decide on who new leaders are going to be, then I will go through and try to create Leaderhead stats for them.

Ah!!! I have LH for Tleilaxu!~!!!

There is a master of them undecovering in Emperror.
He is actually look like twisted gnome :D
I'll go find the video :)

Found it :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGsowywyc3E&feature=related

I'd still like to use this (http://mojette.deviantart.com/art/Cyborg-officer-concept-87530309) for Rhombur Vernius. I know it's not a photo but with some manipulation it might be possible to pass it off as photographic. The Emperor game Ordos mentat just doesn't look as good.

Found it :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGsowywyc3E&feature=related

I never played that game. I guess the woman who turns green is the face dancer, so the green woman is your suggestion for the tleilax leaderhead? I don't understand how this relates to Ordos, maybe a different game altogether, but the current Executrix leaderhead for Ordos looks very similar to the green woman.

BTW, what is the worm thing *with arms* at the end of that clip?

Lol - nope its just how they represented - and that is Green man - who was disguised as RM.
That greenie is how Tleilaxu look in their true form in Emperror. We might to try to look better.
I agree that it is not best one - i just posted to show how they been shown in Emperror - Tleilaxu.
It was looking better in my memories that it is.

@Deliverator - i had some better picture around, let me find it please, i'll post it soonish.

How about this Hwee Noree
(picture is just female )

How about this Hwee Noree
(picture is just female )

The problem is all the other leaderheads are photographic, not drawn. I would prefer to stick with a consistent format.

It is more photographic than one from Devianart

Hovever we have couple of days i've seen something once , i'll search more

I've taken the green gnomish Tleilaxu suggested by Slvynn and de-greened him a bit to make a fairly decent leaderhead for their second leader. Find the files attached.

In terms of names, there is quite a lot of inspiration in the Dune Encyclopedia under the Twisted Mentats heading.

I like either:

One of the most notorious
twisted Mentats to be produced by The
Tleilaxu was Goya Solidar...

Although he wouldn't be contemporary of the other leaders, there is a bit of background there. Alternatively:

Multifest Hydros, the
mental-politician who possessed seven
different personalities.

I just think Multifest Hydros is quite a cool name for some reason.

Here is a sheet showing the current traits. If we add three more LH, what traits should they use? Creative and expansive are under-represented. Should we change some of the existing leaderhead traits? Please suggest.

I think the current traits are a little dull, and unbalanced.
I'd like to suggest that we add some new traits, and maybe change the existing ones too.

See attached Excel sheet for a draft proposal (still needs some tweaking).

See attached Excel sheet for a draft proposal (still needs some tweaking).

I see no attachment. :confused:

Gah! I must have attached it as an Excel file directly, rather than zipping it, which of course failed. Its on my home pc, so I'll post it tonight.

Attachment.

In your sheet, I see several new traits. Political appears to be Creative, renamed, which is fine. There are three new ones, Innovative, Trader and Mechanized. I don't know how to get -50% unit upgrade cost, or +1 trade routes per city. So I can implement Mechanized easily, but not Innovative or Trader. It may be that you found these traits in other mods, where there have been sdk changes to add these flags; can you say which mods they are from?

Can we move innovative and trader to other traits? Malky is industrious / innovative; Rhombur is innovative / mechanized; Armand is financial / trader. Suppose we change to Malky industrious / protective; Rhombur political / mechanized; Armand financial / philosophical.

Both Liet-Kynes and Stilgar are expansive / charismatic; change Liet to political / charismatic.

We would like to add another BT leader, say Goya Solidar as expansive / industrious and another Ecaz leader, say Prad Vidal as industrious / protective. This also balances out the count of each trait a little.

Updated sheet attached, changed fields in yellow color.

Political appears to be Creative, renamed, which is fine.

Tweaked, for more culture and more building bonuses.

Creative was too weak.

t may be that you found these traits in other mods, where there have been sdk changes to add these flags; can you say which mods they are from?

Trader isn't very important, and could be dropped. I'm pretty sure there is an Ingenuity trait in FFH (on Khazad dwarves) which gives -50% unit upgrade costs.

Can we move innovative and trader to other traits?
By move... to, do you mean substitute ... for.
Trader is unimportant, but I quite like innovative. Alternatively, adopt my Ixian design, where the Ixian UB reduces unit upkeep costs in that city, as here. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8635159&postcount=13
Which solves your problems with Technocracy religion and Ixian overlap.

Another alternative possibility, is to change Innovative to Scientific, and give a science boost rather than an upgrade cost reduction.

In any case, this was just a start-point, but I think we need more traits in general, and we need to move away from Spiritual and Aggressive, which had too many.

Both Liet-Kynes and Stilgar are expansive / charismatic; change Liet to political / charismatic.

Political doesn't really make sense for Kynes; he ignores his political role and is deeply apolitical, and has no personal political power. Innovative or philosophical would suit better, or change Stilgar to aggressive/expansive.

We would like to add another BT leader, say Goya Solidar as expansive / industrious and another Ecaz leader, say Prad Vidal as industrious / protective.

Prad Vidal should probably be aggressive/trader or aggressive/financial, or political/financial. Neither protective nor industrious make sense with his personality as betrayed (basically, he betrays Armand with the Moritani, helping in his assassination plot and staging a coup at home.

I don't see expansive as really a Tleilaxu theme, though I guess you could argue that biological expertise could improve ecology. I'd say Spiritual/industrious or innovative/industrious.

I'd like also another Trait - Prescient, which have its place - for Paul, Leto, and BG leaders.
Not sure what it could do.

Also i think that Leto I should be charismatic - he was charismatic, actually, making friends with Fremen and gathering loyal friends to him like Duncan. I also not sure if financial fits him so much...

I also agree that Trader is unimportant - there is Financial already, and they are too similar by their meaning.

I'm pretty sure there is an Ingenuity trait in FFH (on Khazad dwarves) which gives -50% unit upgrade costs.

That is correct. See wiki (http://fallfromheaven.wikia.com/wiki/Ingenuity).

Political doesn't really make sense for Kynes; he ignores his political role and is deeply apolitical, and has no personal political power. Innovative or philosophical would suit better, or change Stilgar to aggressive/expansive.

I'd vote Philosophical/Charismatic or Philosophical/Expansive for Kynes, and Aggressive/Expansive for Stilgar as you suggest.

Some other trait ideas that are just words, but could give Espionage or other benefits:
Treacherous (Baron)
Insidious (Ordos)
Manipulative (Bene Gesserit)

A Pre-Born trait for Leto II and Alia might be good, purely because that concept is not in the mod yet.

There are some interesting ideas for traits in this FFH2 modmod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8123721&postcount=3).

First I would say, any leader trait that we add needs to have a clear gameplay purpose.

I'd like also another Trait - Prescient, which have its place - for Paul, Leto, and BG leaders.
Not sure what it could do.

I think we should avoid adding traits for pure flavor unless we can really think of good gameplay reasons for them.
Also, Bene Gesserit aren't prescient.

Also i think that Leto I should be charismatic - he was charismatic, actually, making friends with Fremen and gathering loyal friends to him like Duncan. I also not sure if financial fits him so much...

How about Charismatic/Political?
Charismatic would actually stack nicely with the Atreides pilot school, giving level 3
thopters straight off.

I also agree that Trader is unimportant - there is Financial already, and they are too similar by their meaning.
How about Financial/Political for Archduke Armand?
Political serve nicely as a peacetime civic complement for a trader civ - and for a spice-oriented civ.

Philosophical/Expansive for Kynes, and Aggressive/Expansive for Stilgar

Sounds fine.
We could also rename Expansive to Ecologist. We'd have to take it away from the Tleilaxu though and replace with something else.

Some other trait ideas that are just words, but could give Espionage or other benefits:

I considered these sorts of things, but I decided to avoid them. Espionage is/should never really be powerful enough that its going to be a big game-swinger, particularly in AI hands (the AI is never going to be *good* at espionage even if it uses it) and so any trait that encourages this is likely to be very weak. We should be striving for balance across traits.
The War of Assassins Civic and some factional UBs are sufficient to encourage particular espionage, a trait is too narrow to do this.

A Pre-Born trait for Leto II and Alia might be good, purely because that concept is not in the mod yet.
Again though, what would that do in gameplay terms?

Just because a particular character has a given personality aspect or feature doesn't mean that will make a good Civ4 Trait.

How about Charismatic/Political?
Seems good :)
Also yes - nice synergy for thopters, and if we take Atreides leaders - Leto I have most assossiation with 'thopters, Alia and Leto II less

How about Financial/Political for Archduke Armand?
Seems good :)

We could also rename Expansive to Ecologist. We'd have to take it away from the Tleilaxu though and replace with something else.

I think other name will be better - otherwise it will be too narrow, there is worker bonus which i dont know how to relate to ecology
But if yes then:
Also if i remeber well - Ecaz home planet is very Ecology-Friendly place, At least Prad Vidal can get it....

Spoier contain some stuff for further speculation, observations about Leto II, and kinda proposition for all, which is very optional, but, i think, follow lore more precisely.

And again - i dont see how Leto II favors Qizirate - He favors Shai-Hulud in act - by his end, by path he went, and alot of places he says that i am Shai-Hulud/remnant of Shai-Hulud, and while he create his ordered (but not bureocratic!!!!) religion, he do it to maintain himself and his Golden Path, but he start as Shai-Hulud and end as Shai-Hulud, and he often mention this - and Shai-Hulud is part of him - Worm, his God-Tyrant.
His religion is not so bureocratic in fact..... i'd leave Qizirate to Alia's Religion in books, But make Golden Path some cool end-game wonder, and Qizirate cathedral being renamed to something different.
I just finished english version of God-Emperror, and seems to me that this is proper, in many places....

You brought this up before, and I answered it then.

Quizarate is, *by definition*, the religion of Leto II. Its the bureaucratic theocracy of Leto's Empire, constricting mankind and forcing them along the Golden Path. Leto basically take's Alia's religious infrastructure and runs with it - and declares himself a god. I don't see any major distinction between the religion of Alia and Leto II, in how it affects the day to day lives of ordinary people.

Shai-Hulad religion isn't about worshipping a worm - whether they be a real worm or Leto himself. Its about representing the old traditions of the Fremen and the native peoples of Dune circa the start of the book Dune. Leto II does not represent the Old Ways - he represents a very New Galactic Order wayof doing things.

Golden Path works better as a building than as a wonder, because it is something that gets built everywhere - the golden path isn't somethnig that just affects one city, its designed to affect all of human society. And it isn't a single creation that is suddenly there, its a slowly spreading affect that takes hold of cities one by one.

"Final" version, any more feedback?

There is an double speed for CHOAM directorate on Political which can be built only by GP, i think it should be removed from benefits - anyways you cant build it using normal hammer production.

Also once we wanted to add discount for Disciple units on Spiritual - And i will explain why its better - because of Qizirate
Game water not allow to grow cities too big, and Qizirate have +5 happy already for Golden Path. But very expensive missionaries. It seems to me that it will be better to provide just discount on disciple units , because with all offworld resources that +1 happy bonus seem to be insignificant (with temple speed halved espessially, which become primary building). Mahdi temple may take its own bonus because it have not disciples.

"Final" version, any more feedback?

If you don't like Innovative, then can we have Scientific?
+X% beakers (10? 15?), double speed libraries and research labs

Expansive might be to weak. Maybe we should add double speed catchbasins and reservoirs back?

* * *
There is an double speed for CHOAM directorate on Political which can be built only by GP, i think it should be removed from benefits - anyways you cant build it using normal hammer production.

IIRC, CHOAM directorate is the Landsraad religion cathedral, not its shrine. The cathedral building is the one I intended, anyway.

Also once we wanted to add discount for Disciple units on Spiritual
Do you mean missionaries here?
I'm not sure. Cheaper missionaries might be a bad idea.
As an alternative, how about: missionaries start with Mobility 1? That would help out a little in the early game.

Qizarate missionaries are *designed* be very expensive, because they wipe out every other religion when they spread. They are better than a missionary plus inquisitor; IIRC an inquisitor wipes the non-state religions of the owner of the city, not of the owner of the inquisitor. So you can't use inquisitors to thin out enemy religions except in people who you can force to adopt your own state religion.
If anythnig, I think they are probably too cheap.

I find happiness matters at high difficulty levels and lategame, but if we think that happiness is too apparent then we should find other means of cutting down the available happiness.

Also, there is no real way to have happiness feel scarce *and* have water feel scarce. Your city size is either capped by happiness OR water.

I like this idea of mobility - but we have not such promotion
I agree that missionaries are too cheap
thats alright, but less hapiness - more curve for difficulty level challenge
yes happiness is too apparent starting from midgame , anyways its better to cut it - one who is being hurt here is Hi difficulty player, but thats good.

I like this idea of mobility - but we have not such promotion

Easily added.

anyways its better to cut it

What happiness bonuses are there that you think we could cut? Maybe the happy bonus from diamonds; make it is a purely tile increase and strategic resource.
I think we already have fewer normal happiness bonuses than in vanilla.
Any many of the temples and cathedrals have lower or zero happiness bonsues relative to vanilla.

Where do you think the extra happiness is coming from here, relative to vanilla? 2 happy feels right for the offworld goods, and 2 goods per civ seems right.

Buildings combines with abundant amounts of resources and offworld resources.
Offworld resources produce huge amount of hapiuness, cause most of them traded , and when traded 2 x +2 hapinnes can be easily 4 x +2 hapiness (in some cases even more), which produce +8 happines

We have fewer happiness buildnigs vanilla - and many of the religious buildnigs don't provide happiness (whereas they all do in vanilla). I *think* we have fewer normal happiness luxuries than in vanilla.

Offworld resources produce huge amount of hapiuness, cause most of them traded , and when traded 2 x +2 hapinnes can be easily 4 x +2 hapiness (in some cases even more), which produce +8 happines
Our potential solutions here are:
1) Reduce the offworld goods from +2 to +1. Con: messes up balance with other offworld goods, and makes offworld less important.
2) Reduce the number of landing stages from 2 to 1. Con: makes offworld less important, no longer a race to offworld in order to get goods (no chance of being left out with ~12 goods and 9 players).
3) Increase AI's unwillingness to trade goods, so only close allies will trade. Con: potentially makes AI unwilling to trade anything unless very very close allies, which detracts from diplomacy as part of the game.
4) Reduce the number of trade goods generated by a landing stage contract from 3 to 2; so you can only share a trade good with 1 other player. Con: might not solve problem.

I'd be inclined to start with 4).

4 and 3 at least

How much happiness is contributed by (a) buildings - which ones? (b) my own offworld trade resources, or (c) offworld resources traded by other AI's?

I am not sure #4 will have much effect. Could you look into some of your games with many AI players using chipotle debug mode, and see how many times the AI has even traded these resources? If the number of offworld resources traded is small, then #4 will have no real effect. Even if the number of trades is fairly large, how many of them would be prevented by simply reducing the number of resources from 3 to 2? This allows the AI to trade once, but not twice with the same resource.

I agree spiritual seems weak, and I will add a -25% discount on missionaries for them.

I am not sure what problem we would be solving by giving missionaries mobility I (or just increasing their movement rate to 3 in xml, which is even easier.) Can you clarify?

I can add a scientific trait, which gives +25% research bonus. Is 25% too strong? If we add that which buildings should be cheaper? Would we need to remove any cheap buildings from other traits?

yes +25% science is TOO strong - Science is very important in this game
My adivice is to hold this or add lets say + beakers to certain buildings (not %, exact amounts)
like library get +3 beakers
or +1 beaker to scientist specialist 5% to research
or maximum 10% , and thats is too much, i'd say even less is better

about offworld resources - AI trade them often,
but what we should care about is not AI. I , personally, cant see problem in AI traiding struff with AI. The problem is Player - and so hight amounts of hapinnes which neglecting some disadvantages of hight difficulty levels.
Our solution can be just making 2 units instead of 3 , and then increasing trade value for offworld resources for AI/Player.

Edit: Redirected to offworld goods thread

yes +25% science is TOO strong - Science is very important in this game. My adivice is to hold this or add lets say + beakers to certain buildings (not %, exact amounts) like library get +3 beakers

Thanks for the feedback. Without sdk changes, we cannot have a trait grant a beaker rate to a building. A trait can reduce the hammer cost of a building, or increase the happiness of a building. So I will not add scientific.

about offworld resources - AI trade them often, but what we should care about is not AI. I , personally, cant see problem in AI traiding struff with AI.

To make sure I understand, you are saying that the player can easily trade with other AI's who have offworld resources, and collect a large number of them. If the AI only had 2 resources, and/or if the AI placed a much higher value on trading them, then the player could not collect so many. Is that right?

We adjusted the iAITradeModifier flag for the resources concluding in this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8620044&postcount=43). Perhaps those values are wrong, and we should make all the offworld resources much higher. What do you think?

I agree spiritual seems weak, and I will add a -25% discount on missionaries for them.
Then maybe also increase the Quizarate missionary cost slightly?

I am not sure what problem we would be solving by giving missionaries mobility I (or just increasing their movement rate to 3 in xml, which is even easier.) Can you clarify?
I meant as a benefit to Spritual trait; Spritual leaders woudl spread missionaries faster, because they had higher movement rate. Its not a huge issue, it was just a minor idea ot give a mild benefit.

I can add a scientific trait, which gives +25% research bonus. Is 25% too strong
25% is too strong. 15% might be more reasonable, and that could be very powerful too.
libraries and research centers were the double speed buildings. (University was with Philosophical).

My adivice is to hold this or add lets say + beakers to certain buildings (not %, exact amounts)
like library get +3 beakers

This would require sdk changes.

I made a new Ecaz leaderhead. I suggest we use this new one for Archduke Armand and the existing one for Duke Prad.

Great. Now we need a second, photographic, Ixian leader.

Now we need a second, photographic, Ixian leader.

I would go ahead and use the non-photographic cyborg for now. Its more important to have something cybernetic than something photographic. Probably not too many photo-quality pics of cyborgs that aren't highly recognizable as other fictional characters.

I thought I should centralize and clean up my proposal for Ix and Technocracy.

Technocracy religion:
Founded by Industrialism. Cannot be founded by Fremen, Tleilaxu or Bene Gesserit.
Allows:
Automated Factory. Requires Technocracy religion. Requires Industrialism Tech.
+35% hammers, +2 unhappy.
+15% hammers with Ixian Technologies resource.

Computerized Research Lab. Requires Technocracy Religion. Requires Thinking Machines tech.
+35% beakers, +2 unhappy.
+15% beakers with Ixian Technologies resource.

NO unique Ixian versions of these.

Create some Butlerian Jihad events, mostly for flavor, that trigger only in cities with these buildings.

Potential issues:
i) Require Technocracy state religion, rather than just presence of religion?
ii) What techs should things go at? Cybernetics left too empty with the buildings only at 2 techs? Create an Ixian Cyborg UU (with no national limit) at Cybernetics tech as well as a Walker URU there?
iii) Happiness penalty just in local city (+2 or even +3), or in all cities in continent, or all cities in your empire (only +1)?

* * *

Ix faction:
Has unique access Ixian Technologies (like Corrino have access to Sardaukar Cooperation), 2 copies.
URUs: 4 Ixian Walker units, national limit 10 each, require Ixian Technologies resource. (these stats and tech requirements may need some tweaking.)
UB: Ixian Skunkworks. +10% hammers, +10% beakers, units in this city have a -50% upgrade cost. Costs 200 hammers (more?). Requires Desert Industry tech.

Issue:
-50% upgrade cost too large a bonus? Drop to -40%?

* * *

This is cleaner, and avoids many of the objects to the previous design.

The Harkonnen Inkvine trooper seems very strange to me.

1) Inkvine is literally just a plant, that can be made into whips to control unarmed slaves. Its not a combat weapon, and its not somethnig a soldier would use. It feels bizarre for this to be a combat weapon, and it feels very strange for it to be giving a combat bonus against units with swords!
http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Inkvine
2) A weaker city defender with a bonus vs melee feels strange to me. How is this related to the Harkonnen themes? Harkonnen should have a high-mass quantity army of weak soldiers and conscripts, and should focus more on heavy tanks and artillery.

* * *
Also, the Harkonnen Devastator was intended to be super-high strength, but only have 1 movement point. That thing is sloooow.

Another idea: is it possible to reduce xp given to newly created units?
So you could have a "conscription center" that gave -1 xp to newly created units, but +20% military production rate.
It wouldnt' take units below 0 xp, but would reduce the bonuses given by other buildings.

Or: Harkonnen could have a barracks replacement, that gave a +20% military production rate rather than the +3 xp. Or tweak the numbers slightly for balance.

* * *
Ordos trike might need an extra city attack penalty, to ovoid OPness and to emphasize its function as a raider.

(redirected comments on units to the 1.6 feedback thread.)

At the moment, most of the factions will not play particularly differently, we need to improve this.

In terms of our goals:
i) Fremen are probably closest to playing differently because of sandriding, and we could go much further if we give guardsmen sandriding, remove their access to most suspensor/thopter/vehicle units, and maybe give them the capture unit ability.

ii) Ix have the potential to be differently (particularly with the mechanized trait) in favoring a much more vehicle-heavy army type.

iii) Tleilaxu have the potential to play differently if we can increase their "isolationist/disliked by everyone" theme and boost their priest economy.

iv) Ecaz have the potential to play differently if we can really encourage them to rely heavily on trade routes; we want to make it so that they want to keep having good relations with lots of people, to maintain open borders and resource trading, to really maximize their economy size.

v) BG are going to have a tendency to want to keep at peace except for *one* enemy at a time, using their Kwizatz Haderach to boost a super-stack of doom.

vi) Ordos have some nice flavor as mercenary raiders as AI players, but how can we make them feel more like raiders in human hands?

vii) Corrino don't feel very special. How can we improve this?
How can we make Atreides and Harkonnen feel like they will actually have different playstyles?

I am in favour of all this including the vehicle capture for the Fremen, but you have made a good point in the past that there will need a great range of UUs if we remove suspensor/thopter/vehicle access for them.

I have suggested the ability to provoke wars as being something that could be Corrinos unique ability. I know this was recently discussed for the Reverend Mothers, but maybe we should give this to Corrino since RMs already have an ability to adjust diplomacy.

I think we should think of a unique ability for every civ. Just adding UUs and UBs is not going to achieve much more faction differentiation than vanilla has.

I tend to disagree that adding UB and UU and some URU mechanics will not make civs distinct enough, but thats old talk , wont come back to it.
UB and UU already dictate to play differently, focus different techs, use different units. With espionage features, and intresting unit mechanics like traitor or KH that would be enough - simply there need to be more of them.
Simply some "special" mechanics might be abused by Player and misused by AI, and some will make some civs incredibly strong against other civs (Fremen capturing vehicles against Ix), so with them we need to care, balancing them with other civs as well upon addition.

ut you have made a good point in the past that there will need a great range of UUs if we remove suspensor/thopter/vehicle access for them.
We wouldn't have to replace every lost vehicle. Really, we would only have to add something at the techs that would otherwise be useless. At the techs that still provide other valuable benefits (eg some of the industrial techs that provide buildings) then we'd be fine just dropping things.

I have suggested the ability to provoke wars as being something that could be Corrinos unique ability.

I'm not sure I understand this one, thematically. What is the idea behind this one?
The Corrinos here aren't particularly skilled diplomatically - at least by the time of Shaddam.

One other suggestion on this sort of thing from a while ago was to give Corrino an extra vote in the Landsraad (like how Malakim can get an extra Overcouncil vote in FFH?).

I tend to disagree that adding UB and UU and some URU mechanics will not make civs distinct enough
That's not what I said. What I said was that *just* adding 3x UU and 1x UB will not make the civs distinct enough.
Its not what Deliverator said either.

so with them we need to care,
I agree that we need to be careful.
The specific Ixian/Fremen thing is a good point; maybe we would have some way of making the Ixian walker vehicles immune to capture. Capturing some suspensors, thopters and scorpions is more what we have in mind here.

I tend to disagree that adding UB and UU and some URU mechanics will not make civs distinct enough, but thats old talk

It may be possible to get civs playing differently with only UBs, UUs and URUs, but I think at least one of those items per civ should have an ability that cannot be found in vanilla. That might be a promotion (like Sandrider) or it might be a special ability for one of the UUs (such as the Reverend Mother). I appreciate that "special" mechanics might be harder to balance and lead to AI issues, but they are also more interesting from both theme and gameplay perspectives.

We wouldn't have to replace every lost vehicle. Really, we would only have to add something at the techs that would otherwise be useless. At the techs that still provide other valuable benefits (eg some of the industrial techs that provide buildings) then we'd be fine just dropping things.

You're right, I actually meant to say "the Fremen will need a greater range of UUs if we remove suspensor/thopter/vehicle access for them".

I'm not sure I understand this one, thematically. What is the idea behind this one?
The Corrinos here aren't particularly skilled diplomatically - at least by the time of Shaddam.

I suppose conceptually it might not make sense since we have the Imperialism religion so Corrino might not have the Imperial influence they possess as the beginning of Dune. It is actually a bit difficult to flesh out the theme of Corrino, separate from the Imperial throne. Perhaps we should add some special abilities to the Sardaukar to make them more fearsome.

I thought I should centralize and clean up my proposal for Ix and Technocracy.

I agree. (It is the holiday season.)

The key point here is renaming the Ixian UR from Thinking Machines to Ixian Technologies, along with the Mechanized trait for the Ixian leaders. This way, technocracy buildings can be about thinking machines, and Ix can be about upgraded combat vehicles.

So, let us have these three buildings exactly as you described. For the Ixian UB, we need a promotion, "Adaptable", which is granted by the Skunkworks building. The promotion grants a 50% upgrade discount. In addition, we can add some promotions for vehicles and walkers which are unique to Ix.

One problem is that the walkers are URU, not UU. Perhaps two of the walkers can be UU and the other two can stay URU. This lets the other players have a taste, without getting the whole thing.

For promotions, I am thinking of things like "Self-Repair" which allows March plus a self heal rate; "Radar" which reduces collateral damage ("incoming!"), and perhaps others. If these are limited to Ix, then their vehicle army would lead to a different play style.

I agree. (It is the holiday season.)

Wahey! I know what I'm thankful for this year :-)

This way, technocracy buildings can be about thinking machines, and Ix can be about upgraded combat vehicles.

Precisely, and Ix's flavor is innovative mechanized, and both Ix and Ordos have a preference for Technocracy religion.

For the Ixian UB, we need a promotion, "Adaptable", which is granted by the Skunkworks building

This way, technocracy buildings can be about thinking machines, and Ix can be about upgraded combat vehicles.

Are you sure? There are wonders in many mods (and I thought in vanilla) which just reduced the upgrade cost of units in that city.

There is an important functional difference between the two proposals. The building-reduces-upgrade cost means that even units built in the early game can be cheaply upgraded, whereas the building-grants-promotion means that only units produced in the midgame onwards will have the reduced cost.
I'm not deadset against doing it the promotion way - it could be that being able to cheaply upgrade your quads to rollers might be too strong - but we should consider the functional difference.

One problem is that the walkers are URU, not UU. Perhaps two of the walkers can be UU and the other two can stay URU.

Sounds fine. We might need to move them around and change their stats too. I worry that they aren't really powerful enough.
We should also decide; are these going to be national-limited super-elites, or unlimited regulars, or a mix? This has implications for their stats/tech location design.

I am thinking of things like "Self-Repair" which allows March plus a self heal rate; "Radar" which reduces collateral damage ("incoming!"), and perhaps others

I like these, though radar might need to do somethnig else too (first strike chance?).
Another way of course to effectively reduce the promotions to Ix would be to make them require the combat 1 AND Flanking 1 promotions. That way, they aren't absolutely limited, but they are far more accessible, since all Ixian vehicles will have these to start.

There are wonders in many mods (and I thought in vanilla) which just reduced the upgrade cost of units in that city.

I guess I misread your original post, I thought you proposed cheap upgrades for units *built* in that city. In this case granting a promotion has exactly the effect.

I did not search exhaustively in the forums or other mods. But, there is no xml flag in vanilla (and therefore no wonder in vanilla) which grants cheap upgrades. I found one of tsentom's mods "Leonardo's Workshop" (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11090) which grants cheap upgrades to *all* units regardless of location. This is a pure python mod; I read the code, and the idea is pretty easy. I could modify that to only operate in a particular city.

The problem I see with a building for cheap upgrades in a city is, as usual, getting the AI to use it. If you have units in some other city which are basically idle and could be upgraded, it is a good idea to move the units to the city with the building, and then upgrade. The AI wouldn't know this.

We might need to move them around and change their stats too. I worry that they aren't really powerful enough. We should also decide; are these going to be national-limited super-elites, or unlimited regulars, or a mix? This has implications for their stats/tech location design.

The current stats are:

Walker: str 8 cost 75; requires Liquid Fuel; upgrades to cymek; first strike +10% city +50% melee
Avatar: str 11 cost 110; requires Cybernetics; upgrades to cymek; 10% intercept +25% thopter, hornet, vehicles
Cymek: str 14 cost 125; requires Heat Shields; upgrades to spider; 30% intercept +25% thopter, hornet, vehicles
Spider: str 20 cost 170; requires Thinking Machines; +25% melee

A while ago, you wrote:

Move the Avatar to Industrialism, boost its strength to 13. Move the Cymek to Cybernetics, boost its strength to 16. And then maybe we make the Avatar and Spider into anti vehicle/air, and make the cymek the anti-melee. Or make one of them anti-guardsmen. Give all a national limit 10.

Since we are making these human controlled like tanks, we should not use cybernetics or thinking machines as the techs. To take advantage of cheap upgrades, I suggest an upgrade path of all four. Maybe the first and third ones could be URU, and the second and fourth ones limited to Ix civilization. That way the other players can get a taste, but they can't upgrade them.

Would you like to propose a new design for these four?

Another way of course to effectively reduce the promotions to Ix would be to make them require the combat 1 AND Flanking 1 promotions. That way, they aren't absolutely limited, but they are far more accessible, since all Ixian vehicles will have these to start.

The easiest way I can find to make these promotions Ix-specific is to create one new promotion, Mechanized, which is +10% combat and +10% withdrawral. This is equivalent to your proposal (which is in 1.6.5) to give units Combat I and Flanking I. But, now the Ix-limited promotions can require Mechanized.

If I add the capability to make a promotion require a resource, then some of the promotions could require Ixian Technologies and some could require Mechanized; this way other players can get a taste.

I guess I misread your original post, I thought you proposed cheap upgrades for units *built* in that city. In this case granting a promotion has exactly the effect.

Ah, I must have been unclear. But the promotion method is certainly a potentially viable alternative.

which grants cheap upgrades to *all* units regardless of location.

Mimicing the Civ3 wonder. Interesting. This is possible, but I'd prefer for Ix to have a building that had to be built in multiple places.

The problem I see with a building for cheap upgrades in a city is, as usual, getting the AI to use it.

If this were a National Wonder, where the AI had to move all its stuff to a single city to get the cheap upgrade, then I'd agree.
But by design, the Skunkworks is a building that you can build all over the place - and its small beaker and hammer bonuses make it worth doing that.

Therefore, the AI doesn't need to know to move units to particular cities, all it needs to do is to build the Skunkworks, and then it will automatically get the benefits.

The only potential issue is: technically units can be uprgaded anywhere in cultural borders, not just in cities. Does the AI upgrade its units outside cities, ever? Does it do so often enough that it would perform significantly worse with this uprgade?

I can't help but think that the AI's units are nearly always either in its cities, or outside culture en-route to an enemy city invasion, and so in practice the AI would get 95%+ of the benefits of this that human players would, which I think is an acceptable AI degradation.

Can we think of any way of testing this?

Since we are making these human controlled like tanks, we should not use cybernetics or thinking machines as the techs.
Agreed for thinking machines, but I could still see somethnig at cybernetics. Cybernetics can mean various things that don't require any degree of artifical intelligence; a human with technologically enhanced reflexes, or strength, or endurance, or aiming.
We could also have a separate Ixian UU Cyborg here I guess, instead of a walker, but I could also imagine a walker cyborg that was basically directly linked into its human pilot's nervous system, rather than something that was piloted using buttons and switches and steering wheel type things. This could be the Cymek.

To take advantage of cheap upgrades, I suggest an upgrade path of all four.
Agreed.

Maybe the first and third ones could be URU, and the second and fourth ones limited to Ix civilization. That way the other players can get a taste, but they can't upgrade them.

This sounds quite interesting. Would it still be worth trading for? Should we do something like this with Sardaukar too, so that Corrino get full flavor, while others who trade for cooperation only get a taste?

Would you like to propose a new design for these four?
Sure, go ahead. We're generally thinking along the same lines here.

The easiest way I can find to make these promotions Ix-specific is to create one new promotion, Mechanized, which is +10% combat and +10% withdrawral. This is equivalent to your proposal (which is in 1.6.5) to give units Combat I and Flanking I

These are not quite equivalent; with combat 1, you can instantly get the specialization promotions (eg improved shields) that require combat 1. If that is not a desirable design function, we could drop it, if it is, we could just make them require combat 1 OR mechanized.

If I add the capability to make a promotion require a resource, then some of the promotions could require Ixian Technologies and some could require Mechanized; this way other players can get a taste.
Interesting.

Another alternative; maybe all the walker units should start with Mechanized, even if built by someone else? That might help if the trade good were otherwise too weak, and would let the walker units get the radar etc promotions, even if their normal vehicles could not.

The term Cymek refers to a human-machine hybrid rather than a walker type vehicle. It doesn't really fit with the other names. Perhaps we should shuffle the names around so that Cymek and Avatar belong to Technocracy, Walker and Spider to Ix.

I've suggested before that we could have a mechanic for Cymeks where if they defeat a Melee or Guardsman unit then they have a percentage chance of creating another Cymek unit - representing the conversion of the defeated unit into a cyborg. This unit could belong to the Technocracy religion. If Technocracy is about thinking machines then it would make sense for it to allow units that are cybernetic not just vehicles that happen to have two legs.

We could also bring back the Ixian Hover Tank using Lord Tirian's graphic if we want another vehicle for Ix.

The term Cymek refers to a human-machine hybrid rather than a walker type vehicle.

Yes, but these are still human brains augmented by machinery. This feels possible for a high-end Ixian unit even without going Technocracy and introducing artificial intelligences.
From the Butlerian jihad prequel books, the cymeks were basically human brains in advanced combat walkers.

Perhaps we should shuffle the names around so that Cymek and Avatar belong to Technocracy, Walker and Spider to Ix.
I'd rather we keep Tehnocracy and Ix generally separate, lest we fall back into the debates we've had before. I'm happy to change unit names, but 4 Ixian UU vehicle units feels appropriate, and it feels appropriate that one of them might be enabled by cybernetics tech.

If we wanted to move the Cymek name to a Technocracy religion UU at Cybernetics tech, fine, but lets keep that separate from designing Ix.


I've suggested before that we could have a mechanic for Cymeks where if they defeat a Melee or Guardsman unit then they have a percentage chance of creating another Cymek unit - representing the conversion of the defeated unit into a cyborg

This feels out of flavor.
These aren't the Borg; also, they're not short on human inputs; they would give advanced cybernetic wargear to their own most loyal fighters, not captured enemies.
Also, the limits on producing cymeks woudl be on manufacturing all the equipment, not on the availability of human subjects; you wouldn't suddenly get more mechanical equipment just from defeating an enemy unit.

But by design, the Skunkworks is a building that you can build all over the place - and its small beaker and hammer bonuses make it worth doing that. Therefore, the AI doesn't need to know to move units to particular cities, all it needs to do is to build the Skunkworks, and then it will automatically get the benefits.


Seems reasonable, we can try it.

I've suggested before that we could have a mechanic for Cymeks where if they defeat a Melee or Guardsman unit then they have a percentage chance of creating another Cymek unit - representing the conversion of the defeated unit into a cyborg.

I think the direction we are going now is that Ixians don't specialize in thinking machines or AI, but they have much better machinery than the other guys. Cyborg mechanics seem to blur the line, so to make the thematic difference more obvious, maybe we should stay away from that for now.

The term Cymek refers to a human-machine hybrid rather than a walker type vehicle. It doesn't really fit with the other names. Perhaps we should shuffle the names around so that Cymek and Avatar belong to Technocracy, Walker and Spider to Ix.

I agree we should stay away from cymek and avatar as names if we are aiming at walking tanks. How about:

Crawler: str 6 cost 80; requires Desert Rovers
Walker: str 10 cost 110; requires Maula Pistols (Suspensor Devices?)
Spider: str 15 cost 125; requires Desert Industry
Black Widow: str 20 cost 170; requires Industrialism

The Crawler and spider are URU available with Ixian Weaponry resource, walker and Black Widow are only available to Ix. We need a different name for the base promotion of units built by Mechanized trait leaders. I don't like "Ixian Tech", it is not different enough from Ixian Weaponry, but I can't think of anything better. The effect is +10% combat, +10% withdrawal. Existing promotions available with Ixian Tech:

Interception, Suspensor Disruption, AP Rounds, Improved Shields, AA Rockets, March.

(Interception may seem like an odd choice, think of it as a mech combat game where you mount a pod of AA rockets)

New promotions available with Ixian Tech:

Self Repair: +10% heal rate in every territory
Close Defense: -50% collateral damage
Adaptive: +50% to all experience

Also, how about moving Technocracy one level later in the tech tree so it is founded on cybernetics? This also makes the difference between techno and ix more clear.

Close Defense: -50% collateral damage

This promo sounds a bit weak compared to the other two.

The Crawler and spider are URU available with Ixian Weaponry resource

I would suggest that we keep calling this "Ixian Technologies". Remember that in the design there is still a mild synergy with the Technocracy buildings, so it makes more sense to keep this as something generic.


Crawler: str 6 cost 80; requires Desert Rovers
Walker: str 10 cost 110; requires Maula Pistols (Suspensor Devices?)
Spider: str 15 cost 125; requires Desert Industry
Black Widow: str 20 cost 170; requires Industrialism

I think this biases the design too much towards the early game.
Strength 10 at Maula pistol tech would also be far too strong; maula pistols are strength 5, and the highest strength unit anywhere near there is strength 7 hardened bladesmen.

I also quite like the idea in the current versions of these, in that these units are specialists (anti-melee, assault, anti-vehicle/air, etc.). The quad/rover/scoprions units are already generalist high-strength units.

There is also the problem that the resource (as currently implemented) is unavailable until offworld trade, so there is no real point in having UUs available before then. And I think the Ixian Technologies should have to be imported - and not be palace-supplied like Fremen Water Debt.

Interception, Suspensor Disruption, AP Rounds, Improved Shields, AA Rockets, March.

All of these sound fine. Possibly shock could be added (I'd hate to be a guy with a sword against a combat walker!), and blitz. These would also be available to all the Ixian vehicles, not just the walkers.

However; my understanding was that you had to assign promotion availability to a unit class. So, it would be impossible to have these promotions available to walkers without also making them available to every other vehicle unit.
You could have "March promotion; requires Combat 2 OR Mechanized", but then a scorpion would be able to get march after getting combat 2.
Its not a huge problem, but its something to be aware of.

[Where mechanized promotion is +10% strength +10% withdraw provided by the Mechanized trait.]

Also, how about moving Technocracy one level later in the tech tree so it is founded on cybernetics?


I understand the goal, but I think that would just be too late for a religion, it just wouldn't get spread.
Remember that despite its visual display in the the tech-tree, industrialism isn't quite in the same tech "tier" as other units visually next to it. It is deliberately much cheaper than those; it was really an earlier tier, but just shifted to where it is for graphical ease.

Self Repair: +10% heal rate in every territory
Close Defense: -50% collateral damage

These are both very weak; I would rather get a combat promotion than either of these.

Adaptive: +50% to all experience
This is a little odd as a unit promotion. A unit that is particularly adaptive?

If we're going to have these, they should also probably be slightly superior promotions.

How about:
Sensor array. +1 first strike chance, +1 line of sight.
Self-repair, +25% repair rate in every territory.
Boosted engines, double movement rate on rock, graben, +5% withdraw rate.

And for unit stats (just some ideas)

Crawler: Strength 8. 1 move. +40% vs melee units. +10% city attack. Ignores city walls. Requires chemical explosives tech.
Walker: Strength 11. 1 first strike. +50% vs thopters, +50% vs vehicles. 20% air unit intercept chance. Requires solid fuel tech.
Spider: Strength 14. 1 move. +50% vs guardsmen. Requires Industrialism tech.
Black Widow: Strength 22. 1 first strike. 1 move. Ignore city walls. Does collateral damage to 1 unit. Requires cooling systems? (High end of tech tree will get a redesign anyway)

They probably shouldn't get defensive bonuses either.

Remember that despite its visual display in the the tech-tree, industrialism isn't quite in the same tech "tier" as other units visually next to it. It is deliberately much cheaper than those; it was really an earlier tier, but just shifted to where it is for graphical ease.

Perhaps we should rename Industrialism anyway so that it resonates more with the thinking machines theme of the Technocracy religion - we have two * Industry techs already.

Not sure about the name Black Widow, how about Tarantula?

Perhaps we should rename Industrialism anyway so that it resonates more with the thinking machines theme of the Technocracy religion - we have two * Industry techs already.

Industrialism is what gives factories; we don't want it to be a Technocracy-only themed tech. You could call it "Advanced industry" I guess.

I like Tarantula better than Black Widow.

Industrialism is what gives factories; we don't want it to be a Technocracy-only themed tech. You could call it "Advanced industry" I guess.

How about Mechanization? Then it's at least different to the vanilla term, and more distinct from the two Industry techs.

How about Mechanization? Then it's at least different to the vanilla term, and more distinct from the two Industry techs.

Sounds fine to me.

Not sure about the name Black Widow, how about Tarantula?Another random idea: Arachnopod (it roughly translates as "spider-leg", similar to the way ornithopter translates as "bird-wing").

Cheers, LT.

And for unit stats (just some ideas)

Crawler: Strength 8. 1 move. +40% vs melee units. +10% city attack. Ignores city walls. Requires chemical explosives tech.
Walker: Strength 11. 1 first strike. +50% vs thopters, +50% vs vehicles. 20% air unit intercept chance. Requires solid fuel tech.
Spider: Strength 14. 1 move. +50% vs guardsmen. Requires Industrialism tech.
Black Widow: Strength 22. 1 first strike. 1 move. Ignore city walls. Does collateral damage to 1 unit. Requires cooling systems? (High end of tech tree will get a redesign anyway)


I kind of like having all four units in one upgrade path, which is why I did not give the melee benefit, interception benefit, etc. Can we view these units as a 'mech construction "microgame"? In mech games, you customize your mech so one can be built as a melee monster, another as an anti-air specialist. How about some Ix-specific promotions like "Buzzsaw: +40% melee", "Anti-air: +50% vs thopters, 20% interception". Then as your unit gets levels and upgrades, it gets more powerful.

I kind of like having all four units in one upgrade path

Why does having the units have different specializations preclude them from being in the same upgrade path? This doesn't make sense to me.

Each successive unit is still far superior to the previouos one, so they could still all be in the same upgrade path.

Can we view these units as a 'mech construction "microgame"? In mech games, you customize your mech so one can be built as a melee monster, another as an anti-air specialist. How about some Ix-specific promotions like "Buzzsaw: +40% melee", "Anti-air: +50% vs thopters, 20% interception". Then as your unit gets levels and upgrades, it gets more powerful.

Hmm. Its an interesting idea; fairly low base strength but access to a range of superior promotions. THe idea is definitely worth exploring, but there are a few issues we should consider.
I guess I worry it dosent' feel very Duneish - we don't want to start feeling tooo mechwarriorish.
Also, this could preclude using the sensor-array/self-repair etc. type promotions, which are only slightly superior.

Is it worth borrowing some of the "mutually exclusive" promtion code from Planetfall?
So, you can pick *one* from a list of "super-specializations" (Buzz-saw, anti-air, etc.), and then other promotions (including sensor array, self-repair etc) as normal.
I guess my worries there would be:
a) Player confusion
b) AI confusion (AI might not choose synergies well; it could choose the
c) AI decisionmaking; we dont' want the AI to decide that one of the promotions is superior and just always pick that one.

The other disadvantage of doing it this way is probably unit AIs.
I'm still fuzzy on how unit AIs work (and this is something I'd really like to know more about!), but my understanding is that each unit has an AI package like explorer, city raider, medic, city defender, stack defender, etc.

With the design in post 223, you can give the various units different unit AIs; spider can be a city raider, walker can be a stack defender, crawler can be a city defender, etc.
But you can't do that if the base unit is all just a vanilla strength unit with no specialization, and the specialization is driven entirely by promotion. Unless the unit AI can defend on promotions?

I had an idea for Pre-Born and Abomination traits.

I was thinking that Pre-Born could be the same as the Adaptive (http://fallfromheaven.wikia.com/wiki/Adaptive) trait in FFH2, so that you every X turns you have an opportunity to pick your second trait from a list. This would represent the Pre-Born leader drawing on the wealth of experience of their ancestors to adapt to their current circumstances.

The Abomination trait could be the similar to the Insane (http://fallfromheaven.wikia.com/wiki/Insane) trait so that other traits randomly change every X turns.

No leader would start with the Abomination trait. There would be a risk that the Pre-born trait is replaced by the Abomination trait when certain criteria are met.

i) Probably a fixed number of turns per each gamespeed would have to pass before Pre-Born can turn into Abomination. After then fixed term has passed then there is a risk.
ii) Perhaps the more times you switch traits when Pre-Born the higher the risk of falling into Abomination.
iii) Falling into Abomination should probably cause a diplomatic penalty with some factions, Bene Gesserit, Fremen, maybe Atreides.

For example, Leto II would start with the 3 traits:
Philosophical, Spiritual, Pre-Born

Alia would start with the 3 traits:
Aggressive, Spiritual, Pre-Born

Every X turns there would be the opportunity to switch the second trait (in Leto's case Spiritual) to another one.

After some fixed number of turns passes Leto II is at risk of Abomination. If he does fall into Abomination then his traits change to:
Philosophical, Spiritual, Abomination

...and there is a random chance each turn that his other two traits would switch to another two from the trait pool.

We might have to give some other benefit to the Abomination trait to counter-act the random switching and diplo penalties, or perhaps the trade-off is simply the advantage of having had the Pre-Born trait initially.

Anyway, it's just an idea.

I had an idea for Pre-Born and Abomination traits.

Hmmm. Interesting. I can see that doing something like this might help to distinguish Alia/LetoII from Duke Leto I.

iii) Falling into Abomination should probably cause a diplomatic penalty with some factions, Bene Gesserit, Fremen, maybe Atreides.

Why Atreides? Also, obvioulsy if this is only *on* Atreides leaders, it would only apply in an over-stocked game with multiple Atreides civs.

We might have to give some other benefit to the Abomination trait to counter-act the random switching and diplo penalties, or perhaps the trade-off is simply the advantage of having had the Pre-Born trait initially.

It seems reasonable that Pre-Born is an advantage that could be offset by a weaker Abomination.

The other way to do this, that might help to keep Alia and Leto II more distinct, would be to have Alia be Abomination (= FFH insane, 3 traits, always changing: so she could be Aggressive/Spiritual/Imperialistic + Abomination) while Leto II was Adaptive (Philosophical, Spiritual/Pre-born).

Here is a combined proposal for the Ixian units, including details of the promotions.

New unitcombat: Walker.
Crawler: Strength 8. Requires Chemical Explosives tech and Ixian Tech UR. Upgrades to Walker.
Walker: Strength 11. Requires Solid Fuel tech. UU for Ixians. Upgrades to Spider.
Spider: Strength 14. Requires Industrialism tech and Ixian Tech UR. Upgrades to Tarantula.
Tarantula: Strength 22. Requires Cooling Systems. UU for Ixians.

Promotions:
Ixian: +10% combat, +10% withdrawal. Granted by Mechanized trait to vehicle, walker, suspensor unitcombats.
Interception, Suspensor Disruption, AP Rounds, Improved Shields, AA Rockets, March, Shock: add Ixian as "Or prereq"
Sensor Array: +1 first strike chance, +1 visibility. Requires Ixian and walker unitcombat.
Self Repair: +25% repair rate in every territory. Requires Ixian and walker unitcombat.
Close Defense: Immune to first strike, -75% collateral damage. Requires Ixian and walker unitcombat.
Adaptive: +50% to all experience. Requires Ixian and walker unitcombat.
Buzzsaw: +40% vs melee units. Requires Ixian and walker unitcombat.
Anti-air: 50% vs thopters, +50% vs vehicles, 30% air unit intercept chance. Requires Ixian and walker unitcombat.

So, you can pick *one* from a list of "super-specializations" (Buzz-saw, anti-air, etc.), and then other promotions (including sensor array, self-repair etc) as normal.

This would probably improve the results, but it seems like a lot of work. Let us try the above promotions without this, and if we find that Ixian walkers become unmanageably powerful, we can try a nerf.

I'm still fuzzy on how unit AIs work (and this is something I'd really like to know more about!), but my understanding is that each unit has an AI package like explorer, city raider, medic, city defender, stack defender, etc.

There is a set of unit AI's including the ones you have listed. Each unit has one default unit AI but is also allowed to choose among a subset of these AI's. For example, in civ4unitinfos.xml, Master Guardsman has a default unit AI of City Defense, and it can choose between Attack or City Defense. The game may switch the unit AI of a particular unit to any one of its valid AI's. I am not sure of the effects of the AI's beyond the name, and I am not sure how the game chooses to switch from one AI to another.

I propose to grant each of the walker units all the related unit AI's: attack, city attack, and counter. Then we would "hope" that the game would choose the right unit AI for each unit based on its promotions. It would probably be hard to tell if the game is doing this effectively, and if we determine it isn't doing this effectively, it may be hard to change the code to improve it. Still, I think giving the same list of unit AI's to each unit is probably close enough.

Sensor Array: +1 first strike chance, +1 visibility. Requires Ixian and walker unitcombat.
Self Repair: +25% repair rate in every territory. Requires Ixian and walker unitcombat.
Close Defense: Immune to first strike, -75% collateral damage. Requires Ixian and walker unitcombat.
Adaptive: +50% to all experience. Requires Ixian and walker unitcombat.
Buzzsaw: +40% vs melee units. Requires Ixian and walker unitcombat.
Anti-air: 50% vs thopters, +50% vs vehicles, 30% air unit intercept chance. Requires Ixian and walker unitcombat.

Several issues.
First, what do you mean by walker unitcombat?
Walkers are still vehicle class. Missile trooper types and the AP rounds promotions should still work against them.

Which creates a problem. If walkers are just vehicle class, then

Also, I had thought the intention was that the "slightly improved" promotions like self-repair woudl also be available to normal vehicle units, like Rollers and Quads.

I dont' think you can just merge the "super-promotions" like buzz-saw and anti-air with the "slightly improved" promotions like self-repair.

I still don't understand what "Adaptive" is supposed to represent. Yes, Ix ix technologically innovative; they have good scientists who are clever at coming up with new technologies.
But why should this improve the ability of their units in the field to accumulate experience, and become elite?
I also don't understand what "close defense" is supposed to represent. Is this supposed to be a point-defense system for shooting down incoming projectiles?

Also, why only two "specializations", buzzsaw and Anti-air (maybe call it, "AA suite" or "AA package")? Why not an anti-guardsmen specializiation?

Let us try the above promotions without this
The AI will choose buzz-saw and anti-air on every unit, because they are so much more powerful. I don't think it works merging super-powerful specialization promtions to be just as accessible as normal promotions.
I would prefer to go back to the old system of specializations hard-coded into the unit, or a mutually exclusive system.

Still, I think giving the same list of unit AI's to each unit is probably close enough.
Ok.

First, what do you mean by walker unitcombat?

Sorry, it means, "I will add a new walker unitcombat". I will make sure all the promotions for/against vehicle apply to walker also.

Also, I had thought the intention was that the "slightly improved" promotions like self-repair woudl also be available to normal vehicle units, like Rollers and Quads.

I can remove "requires walker unitcombat" from Sensor Array, Self Repair, Close Defense and Adaptive so they will be available to any unit with the Ixian promotion.

I still don't understand what "Adaptive" is supposed to represent ... But why should this improve the ability of their units in the field to accumulate experience, and become elite?

Think of the Borg from Star Trek Next Gen. You could hit them with a weapon, but a few minutes later the same weapon would not do any damage because they had "adapted". That was the exact word they used, as I recall. Also, it seems like +50% experience is a useful thing which is not covered by any existing promos. I thought of a different name like "Fast Learner", but that does not seem very mechanical.

I also don't understand what "close defense" is supposed to represent. Is this supposed to be a point-defense system for shooting down incoming projectiles?

Yes, that is what I meant. I will call it "point" defense, that is more obvious.

Also, why only two "specializations", buzzsaw and Anti-air (maybe call it, "AA suite" or "AA package")? Why not an anti-guardsmen specializiation?

I thought of an "Urban Assault" package, which would give "ignore building defense" like melee. That would require an sdk change to put this onto a promotion instead of a unit. I can do that, but it is more work. What other capabilities could an "Urban Assault" package give? Just say +40% vs guardsmen? What does that actually represent in terms of weaponry?

The AI will choose buzz-saw and anti-air on every unit, because they are so much more powerful. I don't think it works merging super-powerful specialization promtions to be just as accessible as normal promotions.

The problem with specializations on the units is the upgrade path. We want the Ixian to use the cheap upgrades with Skunkworks. I am afraid the user will think, "But I like the +40% melee on this unit, I don't want to lose that when I upgrade".

I think both the human player and the AI are likely to choose buzzsaw and antiair early. Perhaps these two, only, should be made mutually exclusive. I am not sure how to make this easily understandable to the player. I can add a hover help line like, "Prevents Buzzsaw promotion"; is that enough?

I would probably add the promotions without being mutually exclusive first, and then do the sdk work to make them mutually exclusive later. Do you think a unit with both buzzsaw and antiair would be too powerful?

Think of the Borg from Star Trek Next Gen. You could hit them with a weapon, but a few minutes later the same weapon would not do any damage because they had "adapted".

I'm no Star-trek expert, but from what I understand the Borg are basically a collective consciousness, a mechanical hive-mind.
Ix aren't. Their soldiers in the field are still just normal humans, I don't think it makes sense for them to "adapt" their units in the field any more than for anyone else. Their engineers and scientists are innovative, not their ordinary soldiers.

I had another idea for the "super-specializations"; maybe they should also add a vulnerability? So, a buzzsaw gives +40% vs melee, but a -10% vs guardsmen?

Just say +40% vs guardsmen? What does that actually represent in terms of weaponry?
I would have thought that this would just be improved shielding, and maybe anti-missile systems (chaff, etc.), and maybe better ranged weapon targeting.

I don't think a guardsmen bonus should be on an urban assault package though. The idea would be that this would be good against guardsmen out in the open, not in close quarters.

An urban assault package would probably need to have a small city attack bonus.

If we went this way, I think we'd have room for 4 specialization paths, IF they were mutually exclusive.

The problem with specializations on the units is the upgrade path. We want the Ixian to use the cheap upgrades with Skunkworks. I am afraid the user will think, "But I like the +40% melee on this unit, I don't want to lose that when I upgrade".

Ok, I can see that, but I actually really like the idea that their walkers fulfill different combat roles at different stages.
It never makes sense to prefer a strength 8 +40% vs melee unit to a strength 11 unit that has other bonuses.
So you'd never actually not want to upgrade the unit.

I think both the human player and the AI are likely to choose buzzsaw and antiair early.
Well, a human player might take buzzsaw and then normal combat promotions, to super-specialize. But in general, agreed.

Perhaps these two, only, should be made mutually exclusive
Well, it would need to be the 4 if we went with a Buzzsaw, AA, Urban Assault, Advanced Shielding range of promotions.

I am not sure how to make this easily understandable to the player
I agree that this is tricky. I forget how Planetfall does it.
One of the best ways is to make the "super-specialization" promotion button have a different color background (red?), so it is obviously "different". Adding text in the units that they can only get one super-specialization would also help.
Hover help would be "Prevents other Specialization promotions".

That would probably do it.

Do you think a unit with both buzzsaw and antiair would be too powerful?
Probably - particularly if we added all 4. Better to do it all in one go.

Their soldiers in the field are still just normal humans, I don't think it makes sense for them to "adapt" their units in the field any more than for anyone else. Their engineers and scientists are innovative, not their ordinary soldiers.

Maybe we need some other opinions on this point. I think it represents the idea that all the leaders have some engineer / scientist innovation ability, including military leaders.

I would have thought that this would just be improved shielding, and maybe anti-missile systems (chaff, etc.), and maybe better ranged weapon targeting.

This seems like an all purpose combat buff, nothing specific against guardsmen. How is this different from a copy of Combat N?

An urban assault package would probably need to have a small city attack bonus.

I was trying to think of something different from just a copy of City Raider.

If we went this way, I think we'd have room for 4 specialization paths, IF they were mutually exclusive.

Four? Anti-melee, anti-air, anti-city is three. But the only one which is really different from existing promos is anti-air; Buzzsaw is just a copy of Shock. I am not sure how to take these "super" specializations anywhere. What did you have in mind for a *path* of these?

This seems like an all purpose combat buff, nothing specific against guardsmen. How is this different from a copy of Combat N?

Sorry, in my head this would be a +% vs guardsmen. Chaff would work vs rockets/missiles, shielding vs normal projectiles, it wouldn't necessarily help vs tank shells or melee weapons.

I was trying to think of something different from just a copy of City Raider.
To clarify; it would also add the ignore city walls.
So it would be like "Ignores city walls, +10% city attack".

Four? Anti-melee, anti-air, anti-city is three
Anti-melee, anti-air, anti-city, anti-guardsmen.

What did you have in mind for a *path* of these?
I didn't, really - they're your idea :-). Its would just be that each unit can have a single super-specialization. No path.

My preference is still just to hard-code the specialization into the different walker units.
But I'm happy to do a promotion method instead if we can make it work.

My preference is still just to hard-code the specialization into the different walker units.

Given the number of other things I want to do, buzzsaw and anti-air being mutually exclusive is too much work. I will adopt your specialization by unit from this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8680025&postcount=222). Since we have one vote "for" and one "against" adaptive so far, I will add it but if other "against" votes arrive I'll remove it. I think that covers everything for this part of the design.

Uh alot of stuff
i like it
sorry been busy with some reallife immidiate projects
:)

Is it possible to have UU great people?

I think it would be pretty cool if Tleilaxu great priests (and settled great priests) could be "Master" (or "Tleilaxu Master"), rather than "Great Priest".

Rhombur Vernius should probably be Industrious/Mechanized, not Creative(=Political)/Mechanized.

(I need to update the opening post of this thread sometime...)

Harkonnen Ideas/Thoughts from the 1.7 thread:

I don't know if you need a theme for the Harkonnenns, but perhaps them staining the enviroment would work. My rational for that is in the Great Revolt books, Giedi Prime is decribed as being a verdant paradise, but by the time of the House books, Geidi Prime is decribed as a land of oil streaked sky and polution. So perhaps they get more benefit out of resources but eventualy those resources dissapear (with a popup letting you know in advanced) forcing you to go on the offensive to get more resources. It seems to fit the Harkonnen idea of 'use it then lose it.'

I think this is quite interesting. The Harkonnens could use some more rounding out as a faction. I have recently finished Children of Dune and it does mention that peak spice production on Arrakis was under the Harkonnens. It might be good to capture this 'suck the planet dry', exploitative streak. Having blackened polluted terrain might be visually interesting, but I wonder whether the game would stay interesting for the Harkonnen player if there terrain gradually degrades. Perhaps greater spice productivity at some other expense (more unhappy population or Fremen revolts?) could be part of their unique abilities?

"Suck the planet dry" is interesting, and polluting terrain is interesting. For Hark, we currently have slaves, the Inkvine Regiment, the Devastator tank, and the Slave Pit for whipping. Previous suggestions include an artillery unit, a traitor unit, a splash effect missile, and a barracks which gives +mil prod instead of experience. We also discussed adding a "sacrifice" button to the slave, but I am uncertain how to make the AI trade this off effectively.

An easy way to model pollution is with city unhealth. Perhaps a UB factory with higher output and higher unhealth? Maybe a mine variant, which gives hammers but reduces water output in adjacent plots? (I don't think there is a direct way to do "unique improvements", but a UU worker with one extra build mission would probably work.) Having some kind of grey cloud around the mine would be cool.

One of the interesting-sounding features of the White Lies Black Ops Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=336721) (which I haven't actually tried yet) are hostages:

"Hostages, which may be taken when attacking a city or pillaging certain improvements. Hostages can be publicly executed (driving up war weariness in the target civ), sold back or put to work in work camps."

I'm interested to know how in particular the execution->war weariness and work camp options work. These sound like they could add theme to the Harkonnen. ooggbboo has released the source code for the WLBO mod in this post which might be worth looking at.

The "shadow diplomacy" and Diplomat unit missions might be interesting too.

I like the artillery, cruise missile and traitor unit ideas.

How about a build that gives +gold and +unhealth? That might be a good way to model environmental exploitation for economy gain. Where is it written that only hammer boosters should cause unhealth?
"Extractive industry" or something?

We now have the Howitzer and the Death Hand missile (although it is not area effect - perhaps that is not particularly useful anyway). I still like the idea of a Traitor unit or renaming the riot causing spy mission to Turn Traitor and make it exclusive to the Harkonnen - strong theme.

I also think that the Harkonnen should be the best spice extractors, perhaps even having +4 spice from their palace, with some other penalty to offset it.

Also, it has been pointed out by Ajidica that Charismatic is not really and appropriate trait for Irulan and I agree. Perhaps we could switch her to Protective?

One change we had consensus on a while ago but was never implemented; boost slaves to 2 movement points and let them cross deserts, like workers. Increases utility significantly - and lets you use them as worm food :-)

I don't think the Death Hand needs area of effect, collateral damage is all that is needed. A MIRV-style graphic animation would be cool.

They should still have Devastators too, no?

I think resource depletion or losing water points is not going to be fun.

Bonus spice from the palace is tricky.
First, it has the potential to be incredibly unbalancing in the early game.
I could see us replacing the core +8 commerce with say +2 spice +2 commerce, or +3 spice -1gold -1 beaker.
So this way the extra spice would benefit only through spice silo building and the 3 wonders that give spice benefits.
However, this won't work if we make palace spice give gold from spice instead of commerce (they have to have commerce in order to fund early game research).

Making them favor spice somehow is good in principle, but we'd have to think of a good way to do it. Yield bonus on harvesters for a Harkonnen-only slavery civic is doable.

A UB that gives hammer or gold bonus in exchange for unhealth seems doable.
Currently the slave pit building is pretty boring, we could work with that somehow.

I like the idea of making slavery a Hark-only civic. Then what we could do is make it give nothing but allow whipping, but we could significantly boost the gains from whipping population (eg 50% more hammers than current).

Protective sounds fine for Irulan.

On Turn Traitor type things, perhaps people could give thoughts on my espionage comments:

I have used the Incite Revolt ability, which is nasty because it removes all city defenses for the turn - whicih is of course the turn that I invade it with everything. Its nasty.

The AI never uses any of them against me. The only AI spy actions I ever suffer are the occasional destroyed improvement, which does nothnig in the long-run. And sometimes steal treasury, which takes a small amount of gold (waste of EPs).

I think the problem is: the AI wastes all its EPs on low-value missions, and so never actually gets big enough EP accumulations to use nastier missions.

I wonder if what we should do is remove many/most of the spy missions, really leaving each particular spy with only a small number of missions to choose from, either cheap missions or expensive missions.

So: Saboteurs can only destroy buildings, and are the only ones who can do this, so we can make the Sabotage Building mission cheap.
Split the BG missions into "cheap" missions (the diplomacy influence ones) and "expensive" missions (city takeover, faction-wide anarchy); give the former to a Sister unit, and the latter to the Reverend Mother unit.

We could make a Harkonnen Traitor spy unit, whose only ability was the 1-turn incite revolt

The Facedancers could have poison/plague missions only.

Ecaz could have a steal treasury mission.
Fremen could have some kind of water stealing mission.

As current, Atreides left without, but with superior espionage resistance (through higher EP point income).

I think the advanced espionage options would be more interestnig and flavorful if they were tied more closely to their intended faction, and a narrower scope might make it easier to force the AI to use them.

Cutting away the low-impact missions would be a big help.

Too many missions available means the AI ends up using none of them well. It also lets us focus on making cheap/powerful missions that are available only to particular factions and match that faction's flavor.
I think we should eliminate any spy missions except those that have major and flavorful impacts.
Less is more.

So if we're going to have an improvement destruction ability, it should be on the Ordos saboteur only, and it should be almost free in terms of EPs.
Similarly, if we're going to have steal treasury (raiding for spice, or water?) it could be Fremen only, and again be almost free.

(Some more ideas, most from other mods, that will probably not be included, but will hopefully jig the modder's minds somewhat. :) )

Faster slaves seems nice. Giving them a fall from heaven type ability to rush buildings would also be useful.

For slave pits, perhaps slave pits could increase the production gains from whipping, and/or slave unit sacrifice. I could also see slaves being addable as specialists (sort of like great person specialists that add some production, perhaps. Or they might just add a free citizen equivalent.)

Extra production from unhappy citizens in most games might also make sense as an effect (Like genejack factories or the Calabim building.), although the populations don't usually seem to grow enough to actually have much unhappiness (at least when I play non-terraformer.)

I wonder if what we should do is remove many/most of the spy missions, really leaving each particular spy with only a small number of missions to choose from

Here is how I could imagine this working (design not quite complete, suggestions welcome):

Faction-unique espionage.
Design goal: Make espionage a more interesting part of the game, by making the espionage options available to each faction both powerful and flavorful.
Some factions will have "better" missions than others, and so espionage will be a stronger faction strength for them.
Each unit can have a trio of promotions (Facedancer 1, 2, 3) that give improved benefits; these could be better for some units than others, and there could be just generic ones used for the "non-espionage-based" factions.

The idea here is that the basic Infiltrator unit will be removed, and these will be the *only* espionage missions available to each faction. Most of the vanilla ones are either weak and/or uninteresting.

Harkonnen
Theme: Treachery
Unit: Traitor
Missions: Lower defenses (put city into unrest for 1 turn like current foment unrest mission)

Corrino
Theme: Assassination, political power
Unit: (Is there anything used to describe Fenring? That's who we'd be modelling here.)
Missions: Assassinate (assassinates a great person), Add culture (adds friendly culture to city - maybe something else, this one is pretty weak.

Ordos
Theme: Sabotage
Unit: Saboteur
Missions: Destroy improvement (weak, but almost free mission), destroy building

Bene Gesserit
Theme: Intrigue, manipulation
Units: Sister, Truthsayer
Missions:
Sister: Force friendship (as current),
Truthsayer: Purchase city mission (as current), Civ-wide anarchy (as current)

Fremen
Theme: Raiders
Unit: Razzia Commando
Missions:
Some kind of water theft mission would be ideal
Otherwise, just a cheap steal treasury.

Atreides
Theme: Upright, virtuous, loyal
Unit: none, but UBs with higher EP output (maybe an Internment camp replacement?) so that passive benefits are gained faster and enemy missions are made more expensive.

Tleilaxu
Theme: Biology
Unit: Facedancer
Missions: Improved version of Poison water (higher unhealth). Plague (expensive ability, actually kills population)
Promotions increase mission success chance.

Ecaz
Theme: Bribery
Unit: Agent
Missions:

Ix
Theme: Technology
Unit: Infiltrator
Missions: Steal tech, ?

Faction-unique espionage.
Design goal: Make espionage a more interesting part of the game, by making the espionage options available to each faction both powerful and flavorful.

I do really like this concept. Making espionage flavourful like this is a great idea, and it will make gameplay more focused too.

Ecaz
Theme: Bribery
Unit: Agent
Missions:

I've been thinking about Ecaz a bit recently. Their theme is not that well developed so far. The Smuggler unit is OK. The Elaccan gladiator I don't like too much, I think gladiators and drugged up slaves belongs more to the Harkonnen.

I had a few ideas for them. The theme for them in my mind is not just traders, but narcotics suppliers - aristocratic drug barons if you like. Also, as I mentioned in this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8502624&postcount=119), I'd still really like to make the rich plant life of Ecaz a strong part of their theme. I would potentially like to see them have 4 or 5 bonus resources when they get reconnected with Ecaz at Offworld Trade. Only a couple of these would be happy/health resources the rest would enable promotions or provide other interesting benefits. Things like Krimskell Fiber could be a promotion with a bonus against Melee units for example.

Anyway, on your civ-specific espionage missions, I'd already had an idea for Ecaz to make Semuta slightly more interesting than just a super happy bonus. You could have an Espionage mission Establish Semuta Den which creates a Semuta Den building in the target city, this would somehow syphon off a portion of that's cities gold, negative gold in the city and positive gold for Ecaz. Just a rough idea.

I also thought about leader Semuta addiction causing diplomatic bonuses - in Dune the Baron knows he can rely on and manipulate Nefud because he is a Semuta addict - so potentially leaders could become addicted to Semuta as well.

I do really like this concept. Making espionage flavourful like this is a great idea, and it will make gameplay more focused too.

Great! Hopefully by limiting the available missions to only powerful and flavorful options, the AI will feel like its doing a better job.

I've been thinking about Ecaz a bit recently. Their theme is not that well developed so far. The Smuggler unit is OK. The Elaccan gladiator I don't like too much, I think gladiators and drugged up slaves belongs more to the Harkonnen.

I agree. I'm not sure if we should keep or drop the gladiator unit, but its not great flavorwise.

I'll try and think of some options.

You could have an Espionage mission Establish Semuta Den which creates a Semuta Den building in the target city, this would somehow syphon off a portion of that's cities gold, negative gold in the city and positive gold for Ecaz.

Interesting, not clear how we would implement it though.
How would we code getting gold from a building in someone else's city? And even more difficult; how would we display it to the player?
More feasible would be to say create a building that gave a -15% hammer penalty in the city (and the building was destroyed 100% probability if the city was captured).
I remember we discussed this sort of thing a long time ago, and rejected it as David thought it wouldn't be fun for a player to have a permanent penalty that you couldn't get rid of.

I had a few ideas for them. The theme for them in my mind is not just traders, but narcotics suppliers - aristocratic drug barons if you like.
I like the idea in general, its just implementing that is hard.

I also thought about leader Semuta addiction causing diplomatic bonuses - in Dune the Baron knows he can rely on and manipulate Nefud because he is a Semuta addict - so potentially leaders could become addicted to Semuta as well.
This doesn't feel right. Loyalty bonuses for underlings, sure, but you shouldn't be addicting leaders of other factions. Besides, diplomacy bonuses starts stepping on other faction benefits; good relations shouldn't be in character for drug lords.

Harkonnen
Theme: Treachery
Unit: Traitor
Missions: Lower defenses (put city into unrest for 1 turn like current foment unrest mission)Perfect idea. Dr. Yueh comes to mind.Corrino
Theme: Assassination, political power
Unit: (Is there anything used to describe Fenring? That's who we'd be modelling here.)
Missions: Assassinate (assassinates a great person), Add culture (adds friendly culture to city - maybe something else, this one is pretty weak.Fenring was an assassin for all practical purposes and he was highly skilled in political blackmail. The unit could be called 'Court Assassin' perhaps? Assassinate fits. Instead of add culture, how about blackmail leader - can only perform in enemy capital; prevents civ from declaring war on House Corrino for 10 turns; causes civ to vote the same as House Corrino in Landsradd elections for 10 turns.Ordos
Theme: Sabotage
Unit: Saboteur
Missions: Destroy improvement (weak, but almost free mission), destroy buildingSince the theme for Ordos (at least in the civ description) is wealth, how about the following -
Theme: Wealth
Unit: Mercantile Raider
Missions: improvided steal treasury - could be possible to make treasury go negative, thereby impacting target civ's overall economy; pilfer resource - cause enemy tile to flip culture (e.g. mine on ore) thereby giving Ordos access to it? Or if not possible to code, maybe just remove resource from map entirely.Bene Gesserit
Theme: Intrigue, manipulation
Units: Sister, Truthsayer
Missions:
Sister: Force friendship (as current),
Truthsayer: Purchase city mission (as current), Civ-wide anarchy (as current)It would probably be better to just have 1 unit type IMO. I think that would be more uniform. Civ-wide anarchy is extremely powerful with purchase city mission not far behind. Maybe access to these missions could be related to promotions somehow.Fremen
Theme: Raiders
Unit: Razzia Commando
Missions:
Some kind of water theft mission would be ideal
Otherwise, just a cheap steal treasury.The Fremen did attack spice operations in the book. Might I suggest pillage improvement instead. I think that fits the theme for them pretty well.Atreides
Theme: Upright, virtuous, loyal
Unit: none, but UBs with higher EP output (maybe an Internment camp replacement?) so that passive benefits are gained faster and enemy missions are made more expensive.The loyalty theme I like a lot. My suggestion - make Duke's Bench also give a free promotion to all military units built in the city. Call it 'Diehard Loyalist' or some such, giving a 50% defense against bribery missions. See Ecaz suggestion below.Tleilaxu
Theme: Biology
Unit: Facedancer
Missions: Improved version of Poison water (higher unhealth). Plague (expensive ability, actually kills population)
Promotions increase mission success chance.I like the Plague mission so that should be kept. Instead of poison water, why not 'Infiltrate Garrison' which would destroy an enemy unit. Basically, unless stumbled upon first, the Facedancer kills the target unit, takes on their appearance, and then flees when safe (success) or is found out and killed (partial success). In the Dune books that is what Facedancers actually did.Ecaz
Theme: Bribery
Unit: Agent
Missions:Here's how you could do Ecaz -
Theme: Bribery:goodjob:
Unit: Turncoat Handler
Missions: Bribe military unit - if successful causes unit to become Ecaz unit but with experience reset to 0; cost should be based on unit level; promotions would be: I - reduce cost by 20%, II- increase success by 20% and III- retain 20% of experience.
Ix
Theme: Technology
Unit: Infiltrator
Missions: Steal tech, ?Steal tech would probably be good enough. Since the espionage cost would probably be high (judging by vanilla civ), promotions could focus on bringing the cost of the mission down, otherwise the unit would eventually have nothing it could do. Destroy buildings (such as factory, refinery etc.) would fit the theme however. Anyway, that's just my 2 cents.

'Court Assassin' perhaps?
Maybe. I still think there is a better name out there somewhere.
How about "Imperial Operative"?

nstead of add culture, how about blackmail leader - can only perform in enemy capital; prevents civ from declaring war on House Corrino for 10 turns; causes civ to vote the same as House Corrino in Landsradd elections for 10 turns.
Preventing war sounds possible... voting sounds hard to code. Also, Landsraad is problematic because the resolutions (other than war) are so weak, and because the AI is terrible at deciding which things it should vote for or against.
I've proposed the idea of Corrino getting 2 votes in Landsraad as a faction advantage, but I think we should keep this separate from espionage.

The problem is that we want abilities that are not "niche". The AI is never any good at deciding when to use niche abilities.
The Harkonnen "treason ability" is already likely to suffer from this; the AI won't know to use it the turn before it attacks.
Assassinate is already very niche, so the second ability needs to be something that is always useful.
Add culture is lame, I agree... but we need something *generalist".

Maybe if the blackmail ability both prevents them from declaring war on you for 10 turns, and also acts as the "counterespionage" mission that makes enemy missions more expensive?

Since the theme for Ordos (at least in the civ description
The Ordos were created for the Dune 2 computer game, and a Saboteur was their unique advantage there. So its a nice shoutout for fans of the games to include things like that when its possible. So Saboteur makes the most sense for Ordos.
The nice thing about Building destruction is that its always useful.

An improved version of steal treasury works fine, but we have to decide where it fits.

Or if not possible to code, maybe just remove resource from map entirely.
That's not fun to have used against you. Losing a critical resource forever is a no-no.

The Fremen did attack spice operations in the book. Might I suggest pillage improvement instead. I think that fits the theme for them pretty well.
One of the problems we face is that we have to use the existing espionage AI.
The AI doesn't use espionage missions on water tiles, so we're never really going to be able to get the AI use espionage missions on
So improvement sabotage is going to be limited to land tiles, where I think it makes more sense to be used by Ordos Saboteur.

I suggest we leave harvester raiding for the Raider unit, that can have an auto-pillage ability.

Instead of poison water, why not 'Infiltrate Garrison' which would destroy an enemy unit
Its reasonable, but I don't know if we have the ability to code this kind of thing.
Killing 1 unit is generally useful and probably isn't too powerful, though facedancers are more assassins than able to take out an entire regiment.

Bribe military unit - if successful causes unit to become Ecaz unit but with experience reset to 0; cost should be based on unit level; promotions would be: I - reduce cost by 20%, II- increase success by 20% and III- retain 20% of experience.

I think removing a unit from an enemy *and* giving it to you might be too much... I dunno. Might be ok. I don't know if this kind of thing is codeable. We can see what David thinks.

Steal tech would probably be good enough.
We'd probably also want a cheap secondary mission of some kind.

How about "Imperial Operative"?That has my vote.Maybe if the blackmail ability both prevents them from declaring war on you for 10 turns, and also acts as the "counterespionage" mission that makes enemy missions more expensive?That seems logical.