Just merge elements of Grigori, Dural and Mechanos in one Griduralmech civ :p

Since there're some mutual theme elements of Grigori and Austrin it can even be Griduralmechstrin :lol:.

That's kinda what I'm doing for Grigori for my personal FfH modmod anyway...

I'm not sure Machinarum can compete right now with the other religions on multiple levels, namely: the units (gameplay) and the philosophy behind the religion (lore). From a purely lore standpoint, Machinarum right now seems like a cult of machine worship and feels very shallow. I think for it to compete on a theological level it needs to morph more into the Mechanos' mindset (at least, according to civilopedia text), which is "Screw the gods! Look at what we mortals can do without you!", but this sort of pro-mortal mindset is already present in Mechanos and Dural (with less of the "Screw the gods!" aspect) societies.

I guess this rambling does have a clear thought to it. Change Machinarum away from an appendage of the Mechanos and make a "religion" which focuses on the achievements of mortals, which include science and technology (the Mechanos' favorites), art, etc.. This "religion" would have strong followers (I would assume) in Mechanos, Dural, and Grigori societies. It wouldn't be atheism, since there is overwhelming evidence that the gods exist, but maybe just be a rejection of those gods, or at least a higher value placed on mortals. Perhaps they see Armageddon as the culmination of the God's failure/meddling/incompetence or something. I have no idea what this would mean in-game. This is more thinking aloud and trying to see what sticks or sparks other's imagination.And here I was thinking Mechanos were overpowered for what they were supposed to be. Clocktower, not a difficult building by any means, giving free magic resistance promotions to all units in that city? It might not be much early on, but it can be tremendous later (giving immediate access to the element-resistant), and doesn't seem appropriate for a civ who's drawback is supposed to be, you know, magical incompetence.

Likewise, building an Adeptus as a Grigori (Tolerant trait), I was rather suprised to see it be able to do all sorts of divine priestly actions that really don't seem to have much basis, considering I, the undisputed tech leader in all accounts, hadn't even gotten sanitation yet for Medicos.

As I religion/civ, I have to say: I don't like them much. They scream of one-upmanship, in that the latest of every civ designed just has to be better than the last one. Their price is that they aren't supposed to get the advantages of magic or divine intervention... but they don't lose divine abilities thanks to Adeptus, and much of what they do get in substitute is over compensated enough in other ways. It's like if instead of just one Disciple Unit, the Lunnotar, at the long end of a otherwise useless tech tree, the Grigori had superior not-disciple-in-name units at every stage.

Steampunk has some allurs, sure, but there's steam-punk and steam-:):):):). So I'm glad you're changing that (at least in part: with Mechanos, sounds like same old problem.)





I'd want it to be unique; No priest line whatsoever (Moving Adeptus/Techpriests to Mechanos only). Maybe instead a line of units that buff cities? Science/culture to allied or friendly cities, unhappiness/culture malus to enemy cities... Or better yet, cities with the Machinarum religion and cities without, but that would need DLL work to do right. I'd also like to keep the Siege focus on the military units... Hmm.Here's my toss out: why not make Mechanos a guild, rather than a religion? Nothing you seem to want to keep really requires worship: machines are machine are machines no matter who uses them, and work the same.

Mechanos could be a guild like the Enchanter's circle (from the Enchanter's Enclave wonder): has effects, but also lets you build units. In the Mechanos case, Mechanos units.

Of course, the cultural/gameplay effect might/should be that a city/civ with Mechanos can't build religious units. Civ would be harder (what if someone spreads it to you) while city might be too small (just build religious wonders elsewhere), but for the first you could always have a spell provided by the guild to "Remove Mechanos guild", possibly even giving you a small bonus (beakers?) in the process (example: "We're shutting you down, and confiscating your highly valuable equipment.").


So:

-Guild like Enchanter's Enclave: let's you build Mechanos Units, have religion effects. Guild headquarters could be corporation headquarters, give you extra bonus.
-If have Mechanos in your lands, at all, can not build religious anything, perhaps cause unhappiness if have state religion ("Mechanos upset our cultural values! :mad:"). Gives religious folks reason to hate/drive out Mechanos.
-Anyone can follow 'secular' Mechanos machinery, without religious overtones.




I assume you mean Machinarum and not the Grigori, here?

It would depend on the civ. The Dural, for example, strike me as a secular group... But only because they view all religions as equally valid, they don't favor one over the other. In their case, Machinarum would represent what man has accomplished with the aide of the gods.Dural would be Polytheist by that definition. Secular isn't not putting all gods equal in consideration: it's not putting the gods in consideration at all. As in having no weight at all. With their multitude of (unique!) religious buildings, the Dural can't count as a secular society, merely a non-dominated one.



The Mechanos, on the other hand, are secular because they despise the gods. In their lands, it becomes what man has done DESPITE the gods.... Although they have replaced a faith in gods with a blind faith in machines, some of which are animated by tiny fragments of Mulcarn's spark (Mulcarn gave a small amount of his essence to Barnaxus, Barnaxus attempts to rid himself of the memories of creating Ice Golems, these memories are the machine spirits. All in the pedia if you know where to look. :lol:) So if they could be considered as worshipping ANY god, it is Mulcarn... Though they don't know it.
The only machine Mulcarn animated is Barnexus, nothing else, though. And even Barnexus was just a plain dumb golem like the rest before Mulcarn entered Creation. I wasn't aware Mechanos machines were alive, magical, or non-mechanical in any way.

Unless your talking about Mechanos civlopedia articles, created after the fact? Those all have txt errors on my download, and I'm nut updating till your next patch.

And here I was thinking Mechanos were overpowered for what they were supposed to be. Clocktower, not a difficult building by any means, giving free magic resistance promotions to all units in that city? It might not be much early on, but it can be tremendous later (giving immediate access to the element-resistant), and doesn't seem appropriate for a civ who's drawback is supposed to be, you know, magical incompetence.

Likewise, building an Adeptus as a Grigori (Tolerant trait), I was rather suprised to see it be able to do all sorts of divine priestly actions that really don't seem to have much basis, considering I, the undisputed tech leader in all accounts, hadn't even gotten sanitation yet for Medicos.

As I religion/civ, I have to say: I don't like them much. They scream of one-upmanship, in that the latest of every civ designed just has to be better than the last one. Their price is that they aren't supposed to get the advantages of magic or divine intervention... but they don't lose divine abilities thanks to Adeptus, and much of what they do get in substitute is over compensated enough in other ways. It's like if instead of just one Disciple Unit, the Lunnotar, at the long end of a otherwise useless tech tree, the Grigori had superior not-disciple-in-name units at every stage.

Steampunk has some allurs, sure, but there's steam-punk and steam-:):):):). So I'm glad you're changing that (at least in part: with Mechanos, sounds like same old problem.)

Most of the Adeptus spells focus on Terraforming (Something perfectly valid for a steampunk civ, I just didn't see the need for an entirely different spell serving the same purpose). Repair, Entrench, Revelation? Not magical at all, they're repairing machines, fortifying themselves better, and using technology to see those who try to hide. The only iffy one is Banishment.

The Mechanos, even in Orbis, are fanatical about their technology... Which is what the Adeptus and Techpriest represent. Also, Grigori get the Medic, too. Which, in my mind at least, is the main function of the units.... Any 'magic' is just to fulfill a needed function, ie, terraforming or healing siege. Revealing invisibility. Things ALL other civs do in some way.... And a way to force them to research the magic techs, which are otherwise completely and totally useless for them.


Here's my toss out: why not make Mechanos a guild, rather than a religion? Nothing you seem to want to keep really requires worship: machines are machine are machines no matter who uses them, and work the same.

Mechanos could be a guild like the Enchanter's circle (from the Enchanter's Enclave wonder): has effects, but also lets you build units. In the Mechanos case, Mechanos units.

Of course, the cultural/gameplay effect might/should be that a city/civ with Mechanos can't build religious units. Civ would be harder (what if someone spreads it to you) while city might be too small (just build religious wonders elsewhere), but for the first you could always have a spell provided by the guild to "Remove Mechanos guild", possibly even giving you a small bonus (beakers?) in the process (example: "We're shutting you down, and confiscating your highly valuable equipment.").


So:

-Guild like Enchanter's Enclave: let's you build Mechanos Units, have religion effects. Guild headquarters could be corporation headquarters, give you extra bonus.
-If have Mechanos in your lands, at all, can not build religious anything, perhaps cause unhappiness if have state religion ("Mechanos upset our cultural values! :mad:"). Gives religious folks reason to hate/drive out Mechanos.
-Anyone can follow 'secular' Mechanos machinery, without religious overtones.

You're repeating ideas I've already thought of, actually. :lol:

I've decided NOT to go that route, at the very least until I can control when you can adopt a religion. My issue with Machinarum as a guild is you then are free to follow any religion you wish... Which you shouldn't be able to do. Main incentive (in my mind) for keeping it a religion, in fact.


Dural would be Polytheist by that definition. Secular isn't not putting all gods equal in consideration: it's not putting the gods in consideration at all. As in having no weight at all. With their multitude of (unique!) religious buildings, the Dural can't count as a secular society, merely a non-dominated one.

I'm going to have to disagree with you here, but it's mostly on semantics. When I say secular, I do NOT mean a god-less society. I mean a society in which an individual's religion does not affect his dealings with others, and in which there is no state religion. Essentially, what America SHOULD be. Never did I imply that they wouldn't consider the gods (A person's beliefs will ALWAYS affect how the respond to things, how they lead a society; No getting around that), but that they wouldn't sponsor one particular religion.


The only machine Mulcarn animated is Barnexus, nothing else, though. And even Barnexus was just a plain dumb golem like the rest before Mulcarn entered Creation. I wasn't aware Mechanos machines were alive, magical, or non-mechanical in any way.

Unless your talking about Mechanos civlopedia articles, created after the fact? Those all have txt errors on my download, and I'm nut updating till your next patch.

Not all. Some. Goliath, for one. And no, Mechanos entries don't have errors... The ones you refer to simply don't exist. Quite a few ARE filled in, however... Here are two that refer to Machine Spirits.

What thoughts do you have for the machine? How do you deny the guilt when even your tears stalk the earth crushing those who would oppose its ruin? How cold is the sense of isolation when nature lies dead and frost seizes all in its thrall? But for memories of the world as was, would the world always be white? And what would be worse, to surrender the memories of better times or to discard the error that it might be repeated? When can the pain ever grow numb, when even the escape of dream is denied? Let the memories of all that is hateful, of all the sin and guilt, run through the cracks of the earth, that they might burn in the fires beyond.

When Baranaxus, acting on inscrutable commands that even he did not understand, crafted Ice Golems for the great god Mulcarn, he chose to forget all that he had done, forever cursed to repeat his mistake until Spring dawned upon Erebus. Every regret was ejected in a cascade of sparks, fleeting moments that die upon the wind.

But no sin is truly vanquished without repentance. The shadow thoughts drifted forgotten in dark corners until they found a home they recognised. Settling in the cogs and the camshafts and the gears and the cranks, the first machine spirits were born. Swearing revenge on the gods that had forgotten the world, they sought to bring about new age without gods: the Age of Machines.

All they needed was a body.

The Clock Tower is the most important building in all Mechanos cities. Not only does the great clock regulate the life of all citizens, it is also home to adepts of the Cult of Technology, venerating all machines and the power of the human mind. Moreover, deep within the clock, surrounded by rotating gears and fueled by refined mana, live the machine spirits. New spirits are born here and can be transferred to the newly built machines.

And here I was thinking Mechanos were overpowered for what they were supposed to be. Clocktower, not a difficult building by any means, giving free magic resistance promotions to all units in that city? It might not be much early on, but it can be tremendous later (giving immediate access to the element-resistant)

Who are you fighting when it makes sense to promote Cold, Fire, Lightning or Poison resistance rather than straight Combat n?


Likewise, building an Adeptus as a Grigori (Tolerant trait), I was rather suprised to see it be able to do all sorts of divine priestly actions that really don't seem to have much basis, considering I, the undisputed tech leader in all accounts, hadn't even gotten sanitation yet for Medicos.

Had you been Mechanos those abilities would have been unlocked by researching otherwise useless techs.

And they're not really powerful abilities.

Scorch and Spring are available to all other civs even Khazad, and with Illians, Frozen, D'Tesh and Malakim in the game they are vital. Heck, any civ could go on a permanent pillaging tour through Mechanos lands with sun mana and an adept, unless Mechanos have some way to combat deserts.

Sanctify is another Adept level spell, this time to combat hell. Maybe it will be replaced by having Ordo Machinarum negate hell terrain, the same way White Hand will do.

Destroy Undead reflects the anti-magical nature of Mechanos.

Revelation does seem misplaced. As does Revive Feris, a rebuildable machine seems better.

Dispel Magic is necessary in order for mana to be refined. Incidentally Mechanos aren't magically incompetent, they're anti-magically competent. All the inventiveness and resources that other civs spend on controlling mana and utilizing spells, Mechanos spend on negating mana instead.

Vitalize is really mostly a convenience to replace Scorch and Spring.

In short, Adeptus get a bunch of spells because there are some basic abilities that are necessary in Fall from Heaven.


As I religion/civ, I have to say: I don't like them much. They scream of one-upmanship, in that the latest of every civ designed just has to be better than the last one. Their price is that they aren't supposed to get the advantages of magic or divine intervention... but they don't lose divine abilities thanks to Adeptus, and much of what they do get in substitute is over compensated enough in other ways. It's like if instead of just one Disciple Unit, the Lunnotar, at the long end of a otherwise useless tech tree, the Grigori had superior not-disciple-in-name units at every stage.

Divine abilities like temple happiness, summoned Tigers, 1.5 :food: per pop, Ring of Fire, revolt ending disciples and Hero Archmages? I'm fairly sure they lose those.

Arcane magic, too. No Domination, Aurealis, Fireballs, Flaming Arrows, Poisoned Weapons, Stone Walls or Inspiration.

Here's my toss out: why not make Mechanos a guild, rather than a religion? Nothing you seem to want to keep really requires worship: machines are machine are machines no matter who uses them, and work the same.

Sounds like a good plan.

Most of the Adeptus spells focus on Terraforming (Something perfectly valid for a steampunk civ, I just didn't see the need for an entirely different spell serving the same purpose). Repair, Entrench, Revelation? Not magical at all, they're repairing machines, fortifying themselves better, and using technology to see those who try to hide. The only iffy one is Banishment.


They should probably have the bAbility tag then.

Who are you fighting when it makes sense to promote Cold, Fire, Lightning or Poison resistance rather than straight Combat n?

Had you been Mechanos those abilities would have been unlocked by researching otherwise useless techs.

And they're not really powerful abilities.

Scorch and Spring are available to all other civs even Khazad, and with Illians, Frozen, D'Tesh and Malakim in the game they are vital. Heck, any civ could go on a permanent pillaging tour through Mechanos lands with sun mana and an adept, unless Mechanos have some way to combat deserts.

Sanctify is another Adept level spell, this time to combat hell. Maybe it will be replaced by having Ordo Machinarum negate hell terrain, the same way White Hand will do.

Destroy Undead reflects the anti-magical nature of Mechanos.

Revelation does seem misplaced. As does Revive Feris, a rebuildable machine seems better.

Dispel Magic is necessary in order for mana to be refined. Incidentally Mechanos aren't magically incompetent, they're anti-magically competent. All the inventiveness and resources that other civs spend on controlling mana and utilizing spells, Mechanos spend on negating mana instead.

Vitalize is really mostly a convenience to replace Scorch and Spring.

In short, Adeptus get a bunch of spells because there are some basic abilities that are necessary in Fall from Heaven.

Pretty much my thoughts exactly. :lol:

Few things... I keep intending to allow Mechanos Fort Commanders (And Mobile Forts by extension) to sanctify hell in a wide area, and be the ONLY method for doing so. Haven't got around to it yet though.

Revelation I already explained (Light amplifaction? Infared? Either makes a good explanation, the first is more believable I think)

Revive Feris... I agree, it seems odd. It's a spell in Orbis though, so I chose not to mess with it.


Divine abilities like temple happiness, summoned Tigers, 1.5 :food: per pop, Ring of Fire, revolt ending disciples and Hero Archmages? I'm fairly sure they lose those.

Arcane magic, too. No Domination, Aurealis, Fireballs, Flaming Arrows, Poisoned Weapons, Stone Walls or Inspiration.


Sounds like a good plan.

Again, until/unless I can control when a civ adopts a religion, I won't do that. It's easiest to keep it as a religion, as it's then easy to see you can't follow something else.

Revelation I already explained (Light amplifaction? Infared? Either makes a good explanation, the first is more believable I think)


Light amplification or infra-red gear sounds more like a promotion. And anyway, good cameras and light amplification gear isn't what I think of when I hear steam-tech. Grainy, black and white cameras, if anything.

Also, I don't care how much you amplify light, if I'm invisible, I reflect no light for you to amplify.

Revelation is the only spell they get that definitely is a bonus. The others are just necessary abilities every civ needs, like building farms or having units that attack. Even Banishment is more a nerf to Undead than an advantage for the Mechanos.

Light amplification or infra-red gear sounds more like a promotion. And anyway, good cameras and light amplification gear isn't what I think of when I hear steam-tech. Grainy, black and white cameras, if anything.

Also, I don't care how much you amplify light, if I'm invisible, I reflect no light for you to amplify.

Revelation is the only spell they get that definitely is a bonus. The others are just necessary abilities every civ needs, like building farms or having units that attack. Even Banishment is more a nerf to Undead than an advantage for the Mechanos.

This is very true... A big part of my using it was that I wanted a spell for that mana tech (All 4 have spells, otherwise it's useless) and I really couldn't think of anything else. :lol: Might remove it.

237745

Huzzah what now?

Was rather surprised to hear the Khazad die on turn 15. Was curious, world-buildered a disciple of leaves to peek, and I found...

At turn 6, spawning a unit that can over power most any defensive unit of the time? Really?

This is from the latest update, btw.

Who are you fighting when it makes sense to promote Cold, Fire, Lightning or Poison resistance rather than straight Combat n?

This is a very good point. The special damage types are too few and far between for these sorts of resistances to mean anything. So, I just had an idea:

Units with special damage (Fire, Cold, Unholy, whatever) should generally be slightly stronger than their counterparts. However, their special damage should be a significant part of their strength, up to one-half their strength. So a Resist Fire promo, for example, could knock off one-fourth the strength (-50% fire) from some fire-oriented units. Situational, but could be worth it if you're fighting lots of enemies that use a particular damage type.

Maybe I'll make a module out of it.

237745

Huzzah what now?

Was rather surprised to hear the Khazad die on turn 15. Was curious, world-buildered a disciple of leaves to peek, and I found...

At turn 6, spawning a unit that can over power most any defensive unit of the time? Really?

This is from the latest update, btw.


They aren't a problem for the AI at higher difficulties. All balancing is being done at Diety difficulty...at lower difficulties I'd expect the AI to struggle with the stronger barbarians.

Balancing at Diety? Hm, so for people not playing at diety, we get the crap? :p

Balancing at Diety? Hm, so for people not playing at diety, we get the crap? :p


An excellent summation. :goodjob:


Honestly, the AI is bloody hopeless at lower difficulty levels. Diety is a requirement IMO.

AI work is a requirement IMO ;)

AI work is a requirement IMO ;)


Thanks for volunteering! That is super-sweet of you. :goodjob:

We're supposed to be playing on Deity? That would have been nice to know aside from the fact that I'm just now dipping my toes in the Emperor pool on RoM and still noble here.

We're supposed to be playing on Deity? That would have been nice to know aside from the fact that I'm just now dipping my toes in the Emperor pool on RoM and still noble here.


What raising the difficulty level does is give the AI civs more productive cities and more initial units. This allows them to compete with the RIFE barbarians.

The barbarians don't really scale with difficulty level...so as it stands I can't have them scale up or down to match the AI civs at the various difficulty levels.

Given the above, Diety is the sweet spot for challenging games.

I thought difficulty level increased tech and build costs for the player (and limited happy/healthy). I guess I'll try it, but it's still kind of scary (in my current attempt, I started next to the ruins of Patria, which were on a stone resource, and I was still having trouble cranking out warriors to deal with the cyklops spawning three tiles away-I'm not sure how we're intended to manage that in any tighter of a situation).

I thought difficulty level increased tech and build costs for the player (and limited happy/healthy). I guess I'll try it, but it's still kind of scary.


True...it does some of that as well.


You could always petition Valk for DLL work that allows scaling the barbs. I hear he likes warm cookies and booze.

In base civ, I seem to remember the player got % bonuses against barbarians on the lower settings. Would doing the same for AI players (bigger bonuses and applied at higher settings) do any good?

True...it does some of that as well.


You could always petition Valk for DLL work that allows scaling the barbs. I hear he likes warm cookies and booze.

The code already exists for the most part. XML/GameInfo/HandicapInfos.xml.

Tags you want are along the lines of iAIBarbarianBonus... Currently a flat rate of 25% in all difficulties, could see scaling it from 10% to 30-40% in the various difficulty levels. ;)

I think it would be better to balance for Emperor or Immortal... Closer to the average player. ;)

Edit: The player gets bonuses too (iBarbarianBonus), but they are only for low-level difficulties... I prefer ExMachina's approach there, with improved recon. ;)

And animal and Barb bonuses are seperate tags, btw, so can be configured seperately.

If the barbarians are currently balanced on Deity, and that bonus is already 25% at all levels, wouldn't it have to be 25% and up?

The code already exists for the most part. XML/GameInfo/HandicapInfos.xml.

Tags you want are along the lines of iAIBarbarianBonus... Currently a flat rate of 25% in all difficulties, could see scaling it from 10% to 30-40% in the various difficulty levels. ;)

I think it would be better to balance for Emperor or Immortal... Closer to the average player. ;)

Edit: The player gets bonuses too (iBarbarianBonus), but they are only for low-level difficulties... I prefer ExMachina's approach there, with improved recon. ;)

And animal and Barb bonuses are seperate tags, btw, so can be configured seperately.

Cool. I'll play with that for the next patch.

Sadly, this means no cookies and booze for you.

So, um, when's the next patch?

<ducks, runs>

I really love the new weather/climate system. It adds some dynamics and it looks like it's not very processor-heavy, at least I didn't notice a major slowdown in comparison to the previous versions.

What do the arrows mean which are next to AI? It's green near me and purple near other AI, and it doesn't matter if AI is lawful, chaotic or good/evil, they are always purple.

I really love the new weather/climate system. It adds some dynamics and it looks like it's not very processor-heavy, at least I didn't notice a major slowdown in comparison to the previous versions.

What do the arrows mean which are next to AI? It's green near me and purple near other AI, and it doesn't matter if AI is lawful, chaotic or good/evil, they are always purple.

Glad you like it, thank Jean for coding it. ;)

Those are Chevrons, not Arrows. Rank, basically. ;)

1 Chevron (Blue) - Emergent Leader Status - All Emergent leaders start with this, becomes Major after they gain a trait.
1 Chevron, 1 Star (Green) - Minor Leader Status - All Minor leaders start with this, becomes Major after founding 4 cities.
2 Chevrons, 1 Star (Purple) - Major Leader Status

Thank you, I thought it was alignment-related :D.

Uh, I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but I haven't found anything about it anywhere else.
I just download the mod and I am playing my first game as the Mechanus. Well, I have just trained my first adeptus, and apparently it has 8 strength instead of the 4 the pedia says it should have, has a dozen promotions, is faster than a motorcycle, spawns treasure chests randomly and I have no control over it at all, so it just keeps circling my culture like a turn after turn.
Is this normal?

Uh, I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but I haven't found anything about it anywhere else.
I just download the mod and I am playing my first game as the Mechanus. Well, I have just trained my first adeptus, and apparently it has 8 strength instead of the 4 the pedia says it should have, has a dozen promotions, is faster than a motorcycle, spawns treasure chests randomly and I have no control over it at all, so it just keeps circling my culture like a turn after turn.
Is this normal?

That is rather interesting.... Definitely not normal.

Could you post a save of it, please?

Save (http://www.mediafire.com/?liz2qyhhged)
Here it is.

It's easy. Your adeptus was mutated and gained "crazed" promotion.

I am not sure about treasure chests though, haven't seen one in your save.

Also, considering your game, you should link that gold ASAP.

And I've just finished a Deity game as illians. Endless frostling summons are broken, Valkirionn.

It's easy. Your adeptus was mutated and gained "crazed" promotion.

I am not sure about treasure chests though, haven't seen one in your save.

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t308/ShadowTurkey/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

The adeptus is sitting on top of one.
I've also been meaning to link that gold for a while, but it's kind of hard with the constant minotaurs and hill giants attacks, can hardly keep my second city intact.

Also, considering your game, you should link that gold ASAP.

And I've just finished a Deity game as illians. Endless frostling summons are broken, Valkirionn.

Yes, thought of Mutation after I posted. ;)

Refined Mana (Which they start with) is able to mutate units, though not as often as Chaos mana. Sounds like you got a unit with some extra strength promos (Heroic Strength, Strong, so on), but also had the Crazed promo. Mainly want the save as you said it was spawning treasure chests.

As for endless Frostlings... I was unaware it functioned that way. Honestly, I didn't even notice in my play as the Illians; So used to having just one permanent summon that I didn't even consider it. :eek: Will be fixed next patch.


Edit: Yes, he's mutated. Would be a great mutation, if not for the Crazed promo. Will load up the game to check out the treasure chest, though.

Yeah, for now I had stacks of priests of winter which added that many frostlings to my army each turn. I owned doviello, then calabim, then hippus without losing any permanent unit :D.

P.S. Maybe you should make frostling unable to attack the same turn it's spawned, like with skeletons.

Frostlings are technically temporary summons, it's just that their duration doesn't count down in Snow.


Speaking of Illians, they don't need a benefit from tundra. Obviously it doesn't hurt, but it seems weird that sometimes you might want to keep tundra around. Armies of Adepts moving around, Scorching their little ten tiles patch, just to keep cities fed with :hammers:.

Hi

I was wondering if there is any indication in the further patches to improve some of the civilizations that could use abit of.. loving :). Mainly like Hippus and Sidar? They do seem alittle pale compared to the rest of the civs

Hi

I was wondering if there is any indication in the further patches to improve some of the civilizations that could use abit of.. loving :). Mainly like Hippus and Sidar? They do seem alittle pale compared to the rest of the civs
Civs don't need fancy (and programming-labor intensive) mechanics. Just get yourself those move 10+ hippus with Commando.

(Not that these civs couldn't use something, just that I'm personally against having elaborate mechanics for each civ. It's not necessary, and will bog the game down even more. e.g., Hippus don't have to be like Jotnar or Scions. With free promotion, a cool building, and whatnot, they have plenty of flavor and are very powerful.)

Frostlings are technically temporary summons, it's just that their duration doesn't count down in Snow.


Speaking of Illians, they don't need a benefit from tundra. Obviously it doesn't hurt, but it seems weird that sometimes you might want to keep tundra around. Armies of Adepts moving around, Scorching their little ten tiles patch, just to keep cities fed with :hammers:.

Ah, so it's the issue. It means that you can defend all the cities with as many as you want, and also you can spread snow -> no problems with the counter.

I don't see the reason why Ice I is 100 times better than any other tier 1 spell. If it was tier 3 then maybe...

Frostlings are technically temporary summons, it's just that their duration doesn't count down in Snow.


Speaking of Illians, they don't need a benefit from tundra. Obviously it doesn't hurt, but it seems weird that sometimes you might want to keep tundra around. Armies of Adepts moving around, Scorching their little ten tiles patch, just to keep cities fed with :hammers:.

I'll make them permanent, but have them die in Desert.

And yes, I'll be removing the hammer from tundra. Merged it from FlavourMod when I grabbed the ClimateSystem. Wasn't thinking about how it would interact with the system.

Hi

I was wondering if there is any indication in the further patches to improve some of the civilizations that could use abit of.. loving :). Mainly like Hippus and Sidar? They do seem alittle pale compared to the rest of the civs

If I do anything it would be along the lines of the Malakim; Small things that improve the flavour, nothing really flashy.

Civs don't need fancy (and programming-labor intensive) mechanics. Just get yourself those move 10+ hippus with Commando.

(Not that these civs couldn't use something, just that I'm personally against having elaborate mechanics for each civ. It's not necessary, and will bog the game down even more. e.g., Hippus don't have to be like Jotnar or Scions. With free promotion, a cool building, and whatnot, they have plenty of flavor and are very powerful.)

I agree. The Hippus are already strong, but I could see mounted Mages. That's about the most I'd do there. ;)

I think that it would be amasing to integrate the trading of units from Rise of Mankind if possible.

Why do most Mechanos units start mutated and feral?

Why do most Mechanos units start mutated and feral?

Vermicious upped the base mutation chance so that Chaos mana would mutate more Orcs... It also applied to Refined Mana. I'll drop the base chance and increase the mana-specific one.

Bright day
I have a question- is it possible to match animal combat upgrades to technologies? I just started an early war in which I had a lizard pack and well... I now have giant lizard pack - while evverybody is busy getting tier 2 units. I am going to park that lizard in a city for long time, but somehow I do not feel that is really the best solution. Thank you for your modmodmod.

The code already exists for the most part. XML/GameInfo/HandicapInfos.xml.

Tags you want are along the lines of iAIBarbarianBonus... Currently a flat rate of 25% in all difficulties, could see scaling it from 10% to 30-40% in the various difficulty levels. ;)

I think it would be better to balance for Emperor or Immortal... Closer to the average player. ;)

Edit: The player gets bonuses too (iBarbarianBonus), but they are only for low-level difficulties... I prefer ExMachina's approach there, with improved recon. ;)

And animal and Barb bonuses are seperate tags, btw, so can be configured seperately.

Just a thought, instead of messing around with the bonuses the AI gets against barbarians, maybe you could look into giving the barbarians bonuses with higher difficulty and scale back the base stats on the barbarian units. Or maybe even just give human players a negative bonus against barbarians at higher difficulty.

Well if you are really worried about surviving AIs, start with more AIs. I start with double amount of AIs on map (ie 16 AIs for Large map) and plenty of AIs tend survive.

Shouldn't slaves start with the Free Unit promotions? Seems like a pain to have to pay upkeep on them (especially starting as the Legions of D'tesh).

Shouldn't slaves start with the Free Unit promotions? Seems like a pain to have to pay upkeep on them (especially starting as the Legions of D'tesh).

That would probably be a good thing to add, yes. ;)

Why would they be free? You look at the history of profit-driven or labor-driven slavery, and slaves are an investment. An expensive investment: you have to feed them, shelter them, provide basic medical care, and more just to keep them able to work, and that isn't starting with the costs of keeping them in line. Slaves are expensive: profitable, perhaps, but expensive none the less. That's why slaves always belong to richer people, and not the poor: only the rich can afford unpaid laborers.

If you have to many slaves, sacrifice some for production.

Well if you are really worried about surviving AIs, start with more AIs. I start with double amount of AIs on map (ie 16 AIs for Large map) and plenty of AIs tend survive.

Game begins to crash far more frequently, then. I hear that most people see game-ending crashes at around .5 MB.

Why would they be free? You look at the history of profit-driven or labor-driven slavery, and slaves are an investment. An expensive investment: you have to feed them, shelter them, provide basic medical care, and more just to keep them able to work, and that isn't starting with the costs of keeping them in line. Slaves are expensive: profitable, perhaps, but expensive none the less. That's why slaves always belong to richer people, and not the poor: only the rich can afford unpaid laborers.

If you have to many slaves, sacrifice some for production.

The only people I meant it would be good for are the D'tesh, as for them Slaves are not workers; They are population. Mindless, shambling population.

The only other truly slave-centric leaders are Athel, who you want to sell them with anyway, and the Cualli, who are fine.

Game begins to crash far more frequently, then. I hear that most people see game-ending crashes at around .5 MB.

Actually, there have been two posts to that effect. One said 1 MB, another said .5 MB. I don't think that's 'most people' yet. ;)

Also Jotnar are goddamn slavers too :D.

Also Jotnar are goddamn slavers too :D.

Ah, yes. Forgot about them. :lol: They have other bonuses for slaves though, don't need them to be free. Though honestly, neither do the D'tesh really.

Jotnar Slaves for D'Tesh are awesome. They build fast, they can make usual improvements (if you need them for corporations for example) and they become stronger with time, becoming better defenders than your warriors. Also they can walk the mountains.

Do you plan to remove marsh/wetland from peaks? It looks weird.

This one of those times I'm unsure about whether to post this here on in the bugs forum. Anyway,

In my first three games I noted at least 2 of the 6 AI civs went down early. In one game 4 were wiped out early and I was able to take out the other two quickly for a Conquest Victory.

In my 4th game I think I discovered one of the main reasons for this: Minotaurs.

I was playing the Elves and had 2 Warrior defenders. I was just a few turns away from a Palisades when the Minotaur showed up - Turn 42, Epic speed. Well, he easily killed the 2 Warriors sending me to an early defeat. I think this is what is happening to the AI civs as well, and I have to bring up the points that have been brought up in prior versions:

1. Bad luck? Of course, the AI had it in my previous games, and I got it in my 4th one. However,

2. I really think turn 40 or thereabouts for a powerful Minotaur IN EPIC GAME SPEED is too early to deal with. Building those first two defenders took me almost all of the 40 turns. Yes, I could have left my two Scouts at home to defend, but they would not have been much help and that would kill one of the most fun elements of the game - exploration.

3. These guys are strong enough controlling territory WITHOUT letting them cross into borders and attack. Can you stop this by shutting off the Animal Invasion selection? If so, problem solved, I think. I also had a Wild Boar attack and be killed, but I never saw that one.

4. Once again, all of the spawns, lair creatures, etc. should be tied into game speed, if possible. If you have the time to build the defenders and don't, then you deserve to get wiped out. However, at epic and marathon speed, it is pretty impossible to have more than 2 defenders when Minotaurs come knocking.

Suggestions:

1. Have the really strong spawns, etc. appear when Orthus does. In epic speed, that is usually around turn 114. That gives the player enough time to prepare for them, and, more importantly, the AI as well. Bring on the Skeletons, Warriors, Goblins, etc., but save the strong bad guys for a little later.

2. If programming this is impossible, then just nerf these bad guys a bit. Bring down the strength of the Minotaurs. I appreciate what you did with the Stygian Guards giving way to Drowns now from Rinwell, but please look at the Minotaurs. I don't think the Cyclops can enter your borders early, but if they can, they are also a problem.

3. Again, please note, I am bringing this up for the AI survival more than my own...although I did get killed in that Monarch difficulty game. The AI just can't handle early bad guys, and I am guessing the Minotaur is the chief culprit. :)

This one of those times I'm unsure about whether to post this here on in the bugs forum. Anyway,

In my first three games I noted at least 2 of the 6 AI civs went down early. In one game 4 were wiped out early and I was able to take out the other two quickly for a Conquest Victory.

In my 4th game I think I discovered one of the main reasons for this: Minotaurs.

I was playing the Elves and had 2 Warrior defenders. I was just a few turns away from a Palisades when the Minotaur showed up - Turn 42, Epic speed. Well, he easily killed the 2 Warriors sending me to an early defeat. I think this is what is happening to the AI civs as well, and I have to bring up the points that have been brought up in prior versions:

1. Bad luck? Of course, the AI had it in my previous games, and I got it in my 4th one. However,

2. I really think turn 40 or thereabouts for a powerful Minotaur IN EPIC GAME SPEED is too early to deal with. Building those first two defenders took me almost all of the 40 turns. Yes, I could have left my two Scouts at home to defend, but they would not have been much help and that would kill one of the most fun elements of the game - exploration.

3. These guys are strong enough controlling territory WITHOUT letting them cross into borders and attack. Can you stop this by shutting off the Animal Invasion selection? If so, problem solved, I think. I also had a Wild Boar attack and be killed, but I never saw that one.

4. Once again, all of the spawns, lair creatures, etc. should be tied into game speed, if possible. If you have the time to build the defenders and don't, then you deserve to get wiped out. However, at epic and marathon speed, it is pretty impossible to have more than 2 defenders when Minotaurs come knocking.

Suggestions:

1. Have the really strong spawns, etc. appear when Orthus does. In epic speed, that is usually around turn 114. That gives the player enough time to prepare for them, and, more importantly, the AI as well. Bring on the Skeletons, Warriors, Goblins, etc., but save the strong bad guys for a little later.

2. If programming this is impossible, then just nerf these bad guys a bit. Bring down the strength of the Minotaurs. I appreciate what you did with the Stygian Guards giving way to Drowns now from Rinwell, but please look at the Minotaurs. I don't think the Cyclops can enter your borders early, but if they can, they are also a problem.

3. Again, please note, I am bringing this up for the AI survival more than my own...although I did get killed in that Monarch difficulty game. The AI just can't handle early bad guys, and I am guessing the Minotaur is the chief culprit. :)

I'm already planning to make them spawn after a grace period. ;)

I'm not sure if it is just the 4 games I have started, but I am wondering if anyone else noticed the following:

1. An overabundance of Great Prophets being created. In the early going I think the only ways to get them is being very lucky with a lair/epic lair, or, more commonly, the event that lets you buy one. Well, if the latter, i am wondering if the AI even has enough Gold to buy one -I often don't.

Also, when you see that event that a Good civ can buy one, is that for all the Good civs in the game, or just you if you happen to be a Good civ?

Along with this, I think religions are getting founded way too early in the game. I mentioned FOL getting founded around turn 40 at epic speed. ROK too. I think the overabundance of Great Prophets is contributing to this.

Anyone else seeing a lot of Great Prophets in their games?

2. In each game I have gotten the Goblins' dumping event. What's up with that particular event? Which brings up the third point I have brought up before...

3. The variety in lair/dungeon results. Everyone knows you have a great chance of getting Orcs or Gold in these. Like the same events seeming to come up all the time. Is there a problem with the way lair results are chosen, or just a lack of options? I can't believe it is the latter as some really fun lair results, like the one where you choose between the lizardmen and the dwarven axemen, never comes up for me in my games. Are the results somehow tied into where you are in a game (start, middle, etc.)?

If there is a problem with lack of variety in events or lair results, maybe suggestions from posters here could be solicited and implemented if they are too difficult to do. Or just bring back some that have gone missing.

Thanks for reading. :p

Yes, I agree with Sarisin. I begun three games with different Civs and always got killed by that bad guys, too :sad: They should come later as Sarisin said....

I peronally like early religions. It's much better than no religions at all or a single religion like it was in previous games.

Lesser Minotaur and Cyklops were both first drafts. I plan to change both of them based on feedback...Cyklops will be a 4/6 speed 2, for example.

Lair results will be much changed in the next patch. You won't be seeing bears and orcs nearly as often. You will be seeing the more extreme results more often...so use caution. :p

Bears are losing their swimming trunks by popular demand. The oceans will be clear, but prepare to stare at bear junk.

I'm sure there will be something else in the water for us to complain about, right?

<cue Jaws theme>

Or smaller octopi :).

I'm currently playing my first game using this mod, so I don't know if my results are unusual but I thought I would share them anyway for the sake of progress!
I'm currently at turn 304 using epic time.

The D'tesh have one city with two population, they seem to have built an endless supply of work boats but haven't made use of any of them, they're terribly behind in technology and are just pathetic really.

The Mechanos civilisation (forgotten the name, the technology based one) were until recently in the same boat, they've only recently founded their second city but they're doing fine technologically.

Weird civilisations are lowering the Armageddon counter such as the Sheim and the Amurites while the Elohim and the Luchuirp seem to be the highest producers. This should be the other way around surely!

No civilisations seem to be interested in any religion than my own... I'm at 50% and the only other religions which have been founded are the Mechanos religion and the Way of the Earthmother which has only been founded recently and has very few followers.

The Frozen civilisation spawned at the start of the game! I may have accidentally unchecked their 'locked' status though, so perhaps this is a non-issue. I realise that they spread snow tiles but they currently have quite a few snow tiles in another civilisation's borders, is the snow not meant to melt?

Even though they were shoddy in the original FFH, the Doviello were always my favourite civilisation! Though I don't like the new art for Mahala, she now looks like a tart. :( I realise this argument probably isn't enough to change your mind, so how can I change it?
I'm having a fantastic time with the Doviello using this mod, Lucian is powerful and the animals are unbelievable! Perhaps they are a bit overpowered? Nothing seems to be stopping my gryphon destruction (and I've only got three)!

I hope I am not seen as negative providing this list as I am enjoying myself, it's just a couple of flaws bugging me. ;)

I'm currently playing my first game using this mod, so I don't know if my results are unusual but I thought I would share them anyway for the sake of progress!
I'm currently at turn 304 using epic time.

The D'tesh have one city with two population, they seem to have built an endless supply of work boats but haven't made use of any of them, they're terribly behind in technology and are just pathetic really.

The Mechanos civilisation (forgotten the name, the technology based one) were until recently in the same boat, they've only recently founded their second city but they're doing fine technologically.

Weird civilisations are lowering the Armageddon counter such as the Sheim and the Amurites while the Elohim and the Luchuirp seem to be the highest producers. This should be the other way around surely!

No civilisations seem to be interested in any religion than my own... I'm at 50% and the only other religions which have been founded are the Mechanos religion and the Way of the Earthmother which has only been founded recently and has very few followers.

The Frozen civilisation spawned at the start of the game! I may have accidentally unchecked their 'locked' status though, so perhaps this is a non-issue. I realise that they spread snow tiles but they currently have quite a few snow tiles in another civilisation's borders, is the snow not meant to melt?

Even though they were shoddy in the original FFH, the Doviello were always my favourite civilisation! Though I don't like the new art for Mahala, she now looks like a tart. :( I realise this argument probably isn't enough to change your mind, so how can I change it?
I'm having a fantastic time with the Doviello using this mod, Lucian is powerful and the animals are unbelievable! Perhaps they are a bit overpowered? Nothing seems to be stopping my gryphon destruction (and I've only got three)!

I hope I am not seen as negative providing this list as I am enjoying myself, it's just a couple of flaws bugging me. ;)

Will answer the rest later (Busy with XML cleanup atm), but wanted to reply to the Doviello parts... I changed the art because I really disliked the original. I don't particularly like the new art, it's just better than it was; If you could find art for a female barbarian that is NOT revealing, and fits in with the rest of the art, I'd use it. :lol:

They are rather OP atm, as their animal spawns haven't been changed to match the new animals. That's one thing that will be fixed during the cleanup.

Lesser Minotaur and Cyklops were both first drafts. I plan to change both of them based on feedback...Cyklops will be a 4/6 speed 2, for example.

Lair results will be much changed in the next patch. You won't be seeing bears and orcs nearly as often. You will be seeing the more extreme results more often...so use caution. :p

Bears are losing their swimming trunks by popular demand. The oceans will be clear, but prepare to stare at bear junk.

Thank you for considering player feedback. Between V causing them to spawn later, and nerfing them a bit, I think the AI civs (and human players, for that matter) will survive longer. Again, if possible, it would be good to align spawning with game speed. If not, it's OK as I know the game is usually programmed for Normal speed.

I'm very anxious to see how the new lairs are. I really never saw many Bears from them...just Orc Warriors and Gold.

Another thing you might want to consider is the whole 'swarm/pack mechanism.' My last few games I have managed to get Spider Swarms, Scorpion Swarms, and many Lizard and Raptor Packs. You don't see the AI with any of these, and they seem fairly easy to get. Once you get a few of them, you can easily steamroller AI Tier 1 and 2 units. It IS fun doing that, by the way, but it is probably a balance issue.

Thank you for considering player feedback. Between V causing them to spawn later, and nerfing them a bit, I think the AI civs (and human players, for that matter) will survive longer. Again, if possible, it would be good to align spawning with game speed. If not, it's OK as I know the game is usually programmed for Normal speed.

I'm very anxious to see how the new lairs are. I really never saw many Bears from them...just Orc Warriors and Gold.

Another thing you might want to consider is the whole 'swarm/pack mechanism.' My last few games I have managed to get Spider Swarms, Scorpion Swarms, and many Lizard and Raptor Packs. You don't see the AI with any of these, and they seem fairly easy to get. Once you get a few of them, you can easily steamroller AI Tier 1 and 2 units. It IS fun doing that, by the way, but it is probably a balance issue.

The upgrade from combat mechanic was dialed back to a minimum...even that seems to be too much. Expect to see it gone next patch.

Have you guys considered giving captured animals/beasts any kind of stat penalty? I generally just steer clear of them, but it sounds like several people who capture them think they make the game too easy.

Have you guys considered giving captured animals/beasts any kind of stat penalty? I generally just steer clear of them, but it sounds like several people who capture them think they make the game too easy.


A chance to revert to barbarian control has been floated as an idea. I'll look at that.

A chance to revert to barbarian control has been floated as an idea. I'll look at that.

Yes, either that, or give all the captured animals the crazed promotion that would send them off every few turns on their own. It seems to fit in the case of these wild creatures.

BTW, I would love to see some sort of way to lose the crazed promotion once you get it. Not so much for the animals if they get it, but I often get the crazed promotion when my unit is mutated after exploring a lair. I had a very strong Hunter get crazed and he just kept going away every 10 turns or so on his own. He would kill a unit, usually an animal and I would get him back. However, after a dozen of these events, he had the stupidity of attacking Acheron and that was that...

Honestly, when your unit gets crazed, you might as well delete as it will die eventually. Unless there is something I am missing that can cause the crazed promotion to be lost.

Yes, either that, or give all the captured animals the crazed promotion that would send them off every few turns on their own. It seems to fit in the case of these wild creatures.

BTW, I would love to see some sort of way to lose the crazed promotion once you get it. Not so much for the animals if they get it, but I often get the crazed promotion when my unit is mutated after exploring a lair. I had a very strong Hunter get crazed and he just kept going away every 10 turns or so on his own. He would kill a unit, usually an animal and I would get him back. However, after a dozen of these events, he had the stupidity of attacking Acheron and that was that...

Honestly, when your unit gets crazed, you might as well delete as it will die eventually. Unless there is something I am missing that can cause the crazed promotion to be lost.


Well...loyalty prevents them going nuts, I believe. Hardly a good long-term solution though.

A promotion that has crazed as a prereq and overwrites crazed would be the best fix, I think. Make you spend a promotion on getting rid of it. Something that lets you rage in a more controlled fashion, perhaps?

I would rather the crazed promotion also over a straight barb chance. Even if it is a much higher chance then the current crazed. 10% or whatever.

The D'tesh have one city with two population, they seem to have built an endless supply of work boats but haven't made use of any of them, they're terribly behind in technology and are just pathetic really.
I saw this same thing with the malakim, They were on a peninsula and had zero workers and just a few troops. They were making work boat after work boat turn after turn but no work boats left the town and none stayed in town. it was almost like they were canceling the build.

I went into World Builder and added 4 workers to them, suddenly they are operating more normally.

I would rather the crazed promotion also over a straight barb chance. Even if it is a much higher chance then the current crazed. 10% or whatever.

PROMOTION_FERAL does this. Chance to become enraged, small barbarian chance.

I can modify feral slightly, have it added to all captured critters, and we are set. :)

Yeah I just hate the barb chance on it. Not having control over an asset is ok for me... having that asset be a detriment to me is another thing entirely.

Loyalty is a long way off when you get your unit Crazed during early exploration.

Also, unless I'm mistaken, doesn't Loyalty wear off now after a period of time?

I don't like my unit going barbarian either, but if you get Crazed, the unit will keep going off on its own until killed. You do get some use out of it, but suiciding oneself against the Red Dragon is not the way it should end up IMO. :p

In my version I like to add a second Spirit 3 spell ("Assuage") that can remove Crazed, Enraged, and Burning blood from units (friendly, neutral, and enemy) within a 1 tile range (if not resisted). (Sometimes I also make it deal considerable holy damage to Iras, Chaos Marauders, the Avatar of Wrath, and Odio, and sometimes even to Berserkers.) Comforting those who have suffered from psychological wounds is very much in keeping with Sirona's precept. Also, I consider a second Spirit 3 spell necessary to make the promotion ever worth getting (except by a Corindale you're planning to sacrifice for Peace soon) as its current spell can only be used once per game.


I also tend to make Berserkers start Crazed, let Brujah's cast Rage, and am considering a second Mind III spell that gives Crazed to enemy stacks, whcih akes Assuage more important.


I often give the Elohim a "Paraclete" of "Counselor" unit, a Berserker UU that basically a Monk with all the spirit spell sphere and sometimes medic promotions. This of course makes them serve a very different purpose than the Berserkers of other civs. In some versions, I even make the unable to attack or unable to kill on the offense. It seems clear to me that the teachings of Sirona would not permit the use of Rage in battle, but would encourage people to study anger enough to help people understand the roots of and thus equip them to overcome their negative emotions.

I went into World Builder and added 4 workers to them, suddenly they are operating more normally.

It's good to know this, though it is perhaps too late for the D'tesh who are now involved in a war against the Amurite Empire,I don't think they'll last for much longer. I shall remember this information though if I spot the problem again, thanks!
It unfortunately means that I will have to discover the civilisation with the problem quickly or cheat and reveal the world map before I know what's on it. :(

I could not find the rules regarding the posting of images from websites unowned by oneself, so I hope I am not in breach! I found two decent pictures of a potential Mahala if you would care to look. Picture one (http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs51/i/2009/326/c/1/Loki_Looking_at_his_meal_by_MayYeo.jpg) is perhaps a bit manly, as it supposed to depict a man, but it could easily pass for a woman. Picture two (http://www.glogster.com/media/2/5/73/18/5731895.jpg) is perhaps a bit girly. Both look fine zoomed in if size is an issue.
You're right, searching for images of non-sexual barbarians is extremely difficult. :eek2:

The first one is rather manly, like you said.... Whole reason I changed it was the original was manly. :lol:

The second could be a good leader, but is more elven than Doviello.

It unfortunately means that I will have to discover the civilisation with the problem quickly or cheat and reveal the world map before I know what's on it. :(

:

I used to consider opening the World Builder to see what is going on cheating, but no longer. After discovering the AI can see the whole map at any time during the game and moves its units accordingly, I sometimes will have a look at the WB.

Maybe the game should just remove the 'fog of war' for both sides anyway?

Three unrelated items:

1. Would it be possible to let animals enter friendly cities no matter the type of terrain in the city? It is not fun to go to great lengths to capture a bear for a Dancing Bear in your city and bring him all the way there only to remember your city is built on a desert and he cannot enter the city. Same for Lizards on Tundra/Ice, etc.

2. I was wondering about Lightning damage from Lizards. I don't get the connection there, but even more so with the amazing form of halitosis in RiFE - Lightning Breath, which I have had a few times by the way after a night in the Bangkok bars. :D

I captured a couple of Giant Lizards and that Lightning Breath is really devastating with the damage it causes, when it works. However, like most of the laughable odds in Civ 4, etc. this one seems way off. It says 10% chance of being resisted, while it is more like 100% - even for units with no magic resistance.

So maybe just say there is a high chance of it not working, but when it does, look out. I have had it even kill some units. It reminds me of the old Pillar of Fire in FFH.

3. Speaking of odds, I have brought this up before and will again here. Has anyone been getting the Great Person that the odds favor? I would say 90-95% of the time I get the one with the lower or lowest odds. I don't mind if it is 55-45 or something like that, but to often get one at 3% or 5% it seems like something is wrong. Of course there is a trick way of manipulating this: just save and reload and you are likely to get the GP you were supposed to in the first place. However, why do you get the lower odds one the first time?

I try to plan my GPs for each city (one for Prophets, one for Sages, etc.) however this wonky way of getting GPs really throws the planning out the window IMO.

Sorry, wrong thread

Loyalty is a long way off when you get your unit Crazed during early exploration.

Also, unless I'm mistaken, doesn't Loyalty wear off now after a period of time?

I don't like my unit going barbarian either, but if you get Crazed, the unit will keep going off on its own until killed. You do get some use out of it, but suiciding oneself against the Red Dragon is not the way it should end up IMO. :p

Yeah Loyalty can be a ways off and it only lasts one turn (should auto recast if you stay in caster stack like haste does)

Crazed SHOULD occasionally go to enraged. Enraged makes the unit take off and attack on its own, however I find it typically has at least a 25% chance to win any fight it gets into. They rarely suicide on a no win fight.

After a win you should get control back as they lose the Enraged promo but they will still have crazed thus always having a 3% chance to go enraged again in the future.

I think using Loyalty to managed Crazed units is another micromanagement nightmare. Also, having adepts accompany the crazed units doesn't work because of sniping Marksmen units.

Also, I'm not sure how the AI works when selecting targets when your unit is under its control. I saw my crazed Scouts/Hunters pass up easy targets like a lone Lizard in favor of attacking a group of five Frostling Archers. Then, there was the attack on Acheron...

Yes, I found my units kept winning battles, but also kept going off on their own - this happened at least a dozen times until the crazed units were eventually killed. I did get some usage out of the units, but it didn't end well.

I will be weakening the strategy of capturing animals and riding them to the win. Still up in the air how I do it. :mischief:

Feedback (which may have been made by someone already!)

I haven't played yet much, except with the shiny new Illians.

1) The new Auric unit, could he start with Winterborn? Poor guy gets damaged by Blizzards though none of his troops do.

2) Wilboman - he seems the same as in vanilla FFH. With all the wacky "gianty stuff" the Jotnar enjoy, and which the Nilhorn stooges enjoy as well, oughtn't he tap into that system? Get the giant racial type, the associated aging bonus, maybe even "Frostkin"? If all those specials mean he becomes a little unbalanced, knock off some strength, jack up the hammers requirement or something else could be done in compensation.

Additionally, just to check that I wasn't crazy or missing something about Wilboman, I did check out the 'pedia entry to him, it's a pretty good one, but makes me think Wilboman is a bit of a crazy berserker, mind's half gone and constantly surrounded by spellcasting handlers. I do not know what, if anything, could take place in terms of INTERESTING promotions to reflect this. An uninteresting one would be Crazed, since it just means a Law I adept or two always cruising along with the stack (have Law palace mana so that's easy). Anyhow, take a read of the 'pedia entry and see what you think on that point.

3) Frost Giants - they're Ice Demons? I guess I get it from the pedia entry, into and out of Mulcarn's hell and whatnot. I guess I was expecting the Giant race. Maybe this is the right balance, maybe not, but I guess it was just a surprise, I'd hoped for the whole Giant deal of crossing mountains and other ignoring of terrain costs. Frostkin at least has a lot of the same bonus/malus as Ice Demon, so that + giant race may just be an idea, unless you need Frost Giants to be subject to some kind of anti-demon measures (banishment?).

4) Illian workers and their funny snow stealth - I am not clear if it works on glaciers, which you eventually have plenty of. (which just seems sad to lose the benefit in late game)

I will be weakening the strategy of capturing animals and riding them to the win. Still up in the air how I do it. :mischief:

Good idea as it is almost too easy now.

I have a Giant Lizard Pack that produces new Giant Lizards after almost every combat. I have a half dozen Giant Lizards now all with that delightful Lightning Breath. Despite the broken odds that it will work, it is simple to demolish stacks, cities, whatever.

Oh well, another exploit gone. :p

Another Illian point, re: glaciers. I am pretty sure Frostlings aren't too happy on glacier turf, their bonus strength is on Tundra and Ice. This new "Glacier" business may be unaccounted for, for several races. Winterborn, Frostling, Ice Demon, Frostkin... maybe a glacier is simply inhospitable to everyone, or maybe this is an oversight. Balance wise though if you've got glacial lands, you may not want cheap frostlings to necessarily be the ultimate cheap soldier.

Feedback (which may have been made by someone already!)

I haven't played yet much, except with the shiny new Illians.

1) The new Auric unit, could he start with Winterborn? Poor guy gets damaged by Blizzards though none of his troops do.

2) Wilboman - he seems the same as in vanilla FFH. With all the wacky "gianty stuff" the Jotnar enjoy, and which the Nilhorn stooges enjoy as well, oughtn't he tap into that system? Get the giant racial type, the associated aging bonus, maybe even "Frostkin"? If all those specials mean he becomes a little unbalanced, knock off some strength, jack up the hammers requirement or something else could be done in compensation.

Additionally, just to check that I wasn't crazy or missing something about Wilboman, I did check out the 'pedia entry to him, it's a pretty good one, but makes me think Wilboman is a bit of a crazy berserker, mind's half gone and constantly surrounded by spellcasting handlers. I do not know what, if anything, could take place in terms of INTERESTING promotions to reflect this. An uninteresting one would be Crazed, since it just means a Law I adept or two always cruising along with the stack (have Law palace mana so that's easy). Anyhow, take a read of the 'pedia entry and see what you think on that point.

3) Frost Giants - they're Ice Demons? I guess I get it from the pedia entry, into and out of Mulcarn's hell and whatnot. I guess I was expecting the Giant race. Maybe this is the right balance, maybe not, but I guess it was just a surprise, I'd hoped for the whole Giant deal of crossing mountains and other ignoring of terrain costs. Frostkin at least has a lot of the same bonus/malus as Ice Demon, so that + giant race may just be an idea, unless you need Frost Giants to be subject to some kind of anti-demon measures (banishment?).

4) Illian workers and their funny snow stealth - I am not clear if it works on glaciers, which you eventually have plenty of. (which just seems sad to lose the benefit in late game)



Oversight, forgot that he wouldn't as he's spawned via event. Will fix it.
We can buff Wilbowman, as we've removed Drifa as an Illian hero (Well, Illian/Frozen). The Giant racial and Frostkin sounds good. As for an interesting way to reflect his pedia entry (I've read just about all of them already :p), I have an idea.... Just can't say anything about it here yet. :lol:
I cloned the Frozen unit, forgot to change that. Not sure if I should... Main difference is that Ice Demon means the Frozen get it once it dies. Which makes sense for the White Hand military unit, but could be too strong.
Their snow stealth is actually being removed. Before, it was useful to encourage people to build the Temples, but now it's not needed at all.


Another Illian point, re: glaciers. I am pretty sure Frostlings aren't too happy on glacier turf, their bonus strength is on Tundra and Ice. This new "Glacier" business may be unaccounted for, for several races. Winterborn, Frostling, Ice Demon, Frostkin... maybe a glacier is simply inhospitable to everyone, or maybe this is an oversight. Balance wise though if you've got glacial lands, you may not want cheap frostlings to necessarily be the ultimate cheap soldier.

Yeah, I need to add the Glacial terrain to a few promotions. Probably Crystal Plains as well.

Jotnar forts has a soecial unit, Herredcarl or something. Once this fort commander is a certain level, it can be upgraded for 200g to Hurler, provided the Jotnar has the tech allowing it. The special and possibly OP thing with this Hurler is that he keeps the no-maintenance promotion. This means a player can spam forts and over time build a huge army of Hurlers assuming gold isnt a limit. This is a way for Jotnar to bypass the few-but-strong drawback of the civ, as long as the economy allows it.

Is this intended?

Jotnar forts has a soecial unit, Herredcarl or something. Once this fort commander is a certain level, it can be upgraded for 200g to Hurler, provided the Jotnar has the tech allowing it. The special and possibly OP thing with this Hurler is that he keeps the no-maintenance promotion. This means a player can spam forts and over time build a huge army of Hurlers assuming gold isnt a limit. This is a way for Jotnar to bypass the few-but-strong drawback of the civ, as long as the economy allows it.

Is this intended?

Everything but the fact that the no-maintenance promo is preserved is intended. ;)

Jotnar forts has a soecial unit, Herredcarl or something. Once this fort commander is a certain level, it can be upgraded for 200g to Hurler, provided the Jotnar has the tech allowing it. The special and possibly OP thing with this Hurler is that he keeps the no-maintenance promotion. This means a player can spam forts and over time build a huge army of Hurlers assuming gold isnt a limit. This is a way for Jotnar to bypass the few-but-strong drawback of the civ, as long as the economy allows it.

Is this intended?


Influence should go away...it isn't?

Influence promo goes away but the free unit promo doesnt.

Influence promo goes away but the free unit promo doesnt.


OIC. The free unit promo is an artifact from before I moved that functionality to the influence promo itself.

Easy fix, will remove.

Is the spider spawn (the upgraded one from giant spider) really suppose to have that kind of absurd number of strength (12)?. With that number at turn 20, you can easilly go and kill any AI civilization you can possibly find.

With the new White Hand religion...isn't the ritual of the white hand little too much..? Illians were given 3 hyper priests because of lack of normal religion and priests... now they have both. I tried them and I think those 3 unique priests should be removed. Let the ritual only found religion.

With the new White Hand religion...isn't the ritual of the white hand little too much..? Illians were given 3 hyper priests because of lack of normal religion and priests... now they have both. I tried them and I think those 3 unique priests should be removed. Let the ritual only found religion.

I may end up weakening them back down, but remember, the ritual is just a shortcut to the religion. Others can beat them to it, in which case they still get something from it in the form of the priests.

I may end up weakening them back down, but remember, the ritual is just a shortcut to the religion. Others can beat them to it, in which case they still get something from it in the form of the priests.

Yeah, this shortcut is obvious and I think let it only for religion. Do you want this religion early? Ok, build ritual. You may end with religion, or nothing...but you have your advantage. It's really an advantage...or for example Khazad should have ritual for RoK...:)
Idea- Move those priests to 2nd religious tech!

Is the spider spawn (the upgraded one from giant spider) really suppose to have that kind of absurd number of strength (12)?. With that number at turn 20, you can easilly go and kill any AI civilization you can possibly find.


Two things are gonna happen next patch:

1. The animals are getting the benefit of another round of testing and feedback. Some will be nerfed. Others will be stronger.

2. The pokemon strategy will be heavily nerfed. Captured animals will have their uses, but they will not be replacements for normal units.

Two things are gonna happen next patch:

1. The animals are getting the benefit of another round of testing and feedback. Some will be nerfed. Others will be stronger.

2. The pokemon strategy will be heavily nerfed. Captured animals will have their uses, but they will not be replacements for normal units.

Rats, I had TWO gimendous Thunder Lizards in my last game and they were the only thing that let me survive against the stacks of doom sent over and over again by the Archos.

Maybe there should be a civ that COULD capture and use Animals as their main units?

Maybe it is a little over the top with the Spider Swarms and Raptor Packs you can get early on, but as I have said before, AI expansion is a lot slower in my games now, and I really enjoyed the ride.

Take your time on that patch...never thought I would write that!:D

The fort mechanics that allows a lvl 5 fort commander to build a city for 100g enables the AI (and the player) to place cities next to each other, and the AI does it.

The fort mechanics that allows a lvl 5 fort commander to build a city for 100g enables the AI (and the player) to place cities next to each other, and the AI does it.

That should be blocked for all but the Jotnar... But I'll be adding a pyReq to it which checks for a city within 3 plots (3 as, like I said, it's for the Jotnar. Bigger radiuses)

Rats, I had TWO gimendous Thunder Lizards in my last game and they were the only thing that let me survive against the stacks of doom sent over and over again by the Archos.

Maybe there should be a civ that COULD capture and use Animals as their main units?

Maybe it is a little over the top with the Spider Swarms and Raptor Packs you can get early on, but as I have said before, AI expansion is a lot slower in my games now, and I really enjoyed the ride.

Take your time on that patch...never thought I would write that!:D

What we're thinking is that captured animals will be weaker, standard ones are fine. Animals owned by the Doviello and the Archos (The two beast races) will be immune to the nerf, as it's done via a promotion we can quite easily block for them.

May or may not block it for just certain types of animals... Spiders/Scorpions for Archos, any animals the Doviello get to spawn for them. Easier to just make all animals immune, though. :lol:

Please, please, please nerf the sabertooths. 24 strength, 6-10 first strikes, invisible, and that's without promotions! I don't mind strong animals, but that's better than most heroes.

Wergs or Wargs might need adjustment too.

Hi,

I upgraded Tears to 1.20 and found some behavior which I do not know how to react to.

When Tears "absorb" a tile, its terraintype should change to bareland, which I do by using the setterraintype function from python.

It was working in 1.12, but now in 1.20, with the introduction of climate, the tile goes to frost/ice instead of bareland.
I created a new terrain class and climate zone, but to no apparent effect.

Where should I look so that my "absorbed" tiles stay the way they are ?

This is more of a question than a comment, but is there a way to remove wintered?

Also, if a unit is wintered and has a religion, I think it is being reborn multiple times, although this might be intended.

Hi,

I upgraded Tears to 1.20 and found some behavior which I do not know how to react to.

When Tears "absorb" a tile, its terraintype should change to bareland, which I do by using the setterraintype function from python.

It was working in 1.12, but now in 1.20, with the introduction of climate, the tile goes to frost/ice instead of bareland.
I created a new terrain class and climate zone, but to no apparent effect.

Where should I look so that my "absorbed" tiles stay the way they are ?

I'm not sure. I'll try to add a 'setClimateType' and 'changeClimateType' function to the DLL for the next version, though. The first would be a permanent change (And would be used in place of setTerrainType from here on out, I think. Climate change should update the correct terrain automatically.). The second would be a temporary change, and would start counting back to the original. I think the low-level terraforms would use this.... Upgrade the spell at Sun2 or Water2 to make it use the first call.

This is more of a question than a comment, but is there a way to remove wintered?

Also, if a unit is wintered and has a religion, I think it is being reborn multiple times, although this might be intended.

I believe dispel magic, or a priest heal.

I think they can get 2 units from one with Frozen Soul, as do Infernals. Need to move it to 1:1, like the Mercs.

I think they can get 2 units from one with Frozen Soul, as do Infernals. Need to move it to 1:1, like the Mercs.

Also, different players can get souls from each unit. If there somehow are two Mercurians in the game, a single Good unit dying will give both players Angels. I think it is the same with a Good-religion, Evil-Magic unit; both Mercurians and Infernal will get souls from a single such unit.

I think we need to rewrite that whole function, so it goes to just ONE player.

I'm not sure. I'll try to add a 'setClimateType' and 'changeClimateType' function to the DLL for the next version, though. The first would be a permanent change (And would be used in place of setTerrainType from here on out, I think. Climate change should update the correct terrain automatically.).

OK, more info for you:

in TerrainInfos.xml


<TerrainInfo>
<TerrainClass>TERRAINCLASS_RAW</TerrainClass>
<Type>TERRAIN_RAW</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_TERRAIN_RAW</Description>
<Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_TERRAIN_RAW_PEDIA</Civilopedia>
<ArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_TERRAIN_RAW</ArtDefineTag>
<Yields>
<iYield>0</iYield>
<iYield>0</iYield>
<iYield>0</iYield>
</Yields>
<RiverYieldChange>
<iYield>0</iYield>
<iYield>0</iYield>
<iYield>0</iYield>
</RiverYieldChange>
<HillsYieldChange/>
<bWater>0</bWater>
<bImpassable>0</bImpassable>
<bFound>0</bFound>
<bFoundCoast>0</bFoundCoast>
<bFoundFreshWater>0</bFoundFreshWater>
<iMovement>2</iMovement>
<iSeeFrom>1</iSeeFrom>
<iSeeThrough>1</iSeeThrough>
<iBuildModifier>100</iBuildModifier>
<iDefense>-50</iDefense>
<Button>Art/Interface\Buttons\WorldBuilder\Terrain_Desert.dds</Button>
<bGraphicalOnly>0</bGraphicalOnly>
<ArtDefineTag2>ART_DEF_TERRAIN_RAW</ArtDefineTag2>
<bNormalize>1</bNormalize>
<iPlotCounterDown>0</iPlotCounterDown>
<TerrainDown>NONE</TerrainDown>
<iPlotCounterUp>100</iPlotCounterUp>
<TerrainUp>NONE</TerrainUp>
</TerrainInfo>



in TerrainsClassInfos.xml:


<TerrainClassInfo>
<Type>TERRAINCLASS_RAW</Type>
<iDefaultTemperature>0</iDefaultTemperature>
<iDefaultHumidity>0</iDefaultHumidity>
<NaturalTerrain>TERRAIN_RAW</NaturalTerrain>
<HellTerrain>TERRAIN_RAW</HellTerrain>
</TerrainClassInfo>


in ClimateZonesInfos.xml:



<ClimateZoneInfo>
<Type>CLIMATEZONE_FROST</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_CLIMATEZONE_FROST</Description>
<iMinTemperature>-4</iMinTemperature>
<iMaxTemperature>0</iMaxTemperature>
<iMinHumidity>1</iMinHumidity>
<TerrainClass>TERRAINCLASS_SNOW</TerrainClass>
</ClimateZoneInfo>
<ClimateZoneInfo>
<Type>CLIMATEZONE_RAW</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_CLIMATEZONE_RAW</Description>
<iMaxTemperature>0</iMaxTemperature>
<iMaxHumidity>0</iMaxHumidity>
<TerrainClass>TERRAINCLASS_RAW</TerrainClass>
</ClimateZoneInfo>



The python changing to Bareland in CvEventManager.py


if iImprovement == gc.getInfoTypeForString('IMPROVEMENT_TEAR_3'):
iPlayer = pPlot.getImprovementOwner()
pPlayer = gc.getPlayer(iPlayer)
pPlot.setTerrainType(gc.getInfoTypeForString('TERR AIN_RAW'),True,True)


Before the tile is Temperate/Grassland and after it is Frost/Ice...
It was working as expected in 1.12 of course :p

EDIT : the zone repartition depending on humidity and temperature after my changes:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=238955&stc=1&d=1262374998

EDIT : ok I went around the problem by duplicating the setTerrainType command:


if iImprovement == gc.getInfoTypeForString('IMPROVEMENT_TEAR_3'):
iPlayer = pPlot.getImprovementOwner()
pPlayer = gc.getPlayer(iPlayer)
pPlot.setTerrainType(gc.getInfoTypeForString('TERR AIN_RAW'),True,True)
pPlot.setTerrainType(gc.getInfoTypeForString('TERR AIN_RAW'),True,True)
pPlot.setTerrainType(gc.getInfoTypeForString('TERR AIN_RAW'),True,True)
pPlot.setTerrainType(gc.getInfoTypeForString('TERR AIN_RAW'),True,True)


It works now :)

By the way, the bMonstrous tag works perfectly. I just implemented its use for Tears and the effect is wonderful. It now behaves like civ with cities.

Thank you very much !!

I'll have to check the DLL, but I think I'll go ahead and add the two python commands I mentioned last post. Will be useful.

Glad you like the Monstrous tag. Let me know if it's display is wonky or you'd like something else, it shouldn't be hard. :goodjob:

Glad you like the Monstrous tag. Let me know if it's display is wonky or you'd like something else, it shouldn't be hard. :goodjob:

To tell you the truth, after reflection I think it would be better as part of Trait rather than Civ, and renamed "unsettled" or something similar. I was thinking of making a version of kuriokate leader without cities relaying on spread camp only, representing refugees civ.

(give the hand I ask the arm).

EDIT : I'm trying to add a ressource icon in GameFonts.tga. I edited the file, added the icon size 20x20 and saved it (uncompressed, origin up/left).
Now th gam crashhes on start-up :)

I was thinking that it is a little strange to have a fantasy mod with dragons that don't fly. Personally I think it would be awesome if you could build dragon units that act like fighters and bombers.....that is to say that they can guard your city from the air and launch bombing and strafing raids. Can anyone tell me why this has not been done by anyone yet or for that matter why the FFH2 team didn't do it? These giant walking dragons with wings just looks ridiculous and takes away from the fantasy feel because they are....well....walking.

Anyway that is my dream and request.

I was thinking that it is a little strange to have a fantasy mod with dragons that don't fly. Personally I think it would be awesome if you could build dragon units that act like fighters and bombers.....that is to say that they can guard your city from the air and launch bombing and strafing raids. Can anyone tell me why this has not been done by anyone yet or for that matter why the FFH2 team didn't do it? These giant walking dragons with wings just looks ridiculous and takes away from the fantasy feel because they are....well....walking.

Anyway that is my dream and request.

Urm... One, Dragons were intelligent creatures, incredibly rare, and made by the Gods during the first age. This means that they have slowly died, so there aren't a lot of them left.

Two, they do have the flying promo. :p

There was a Third point, but I forgot... :crazyeye:

A while ago i was thinking about adding "bombers", in the form of Ornithopters (borrowed from Dunewars) for the Mechanos. I was even thinking of adding drakes, harpies etc. to serve a similar role for other civs. It kind of fell trough, as I'm not even a halfway competent moder. Still like the idea, though.

If you post a thread with your ideas, somebody could point you to a good tutorial to help you learn how to mod?

It sounds really interesting. :)

To tell you the truth, after reflection I think it would be better as part of Trait rather than Civ, and renamed "unsettled" or something similar. I was thinking of making a version of kuriokate leader without cities relaying on spread camp only, representing refugees civ.

(give the hand I ask the arm).

EDIT : I'm trying to add a ressource icon in GameFonts.tga. I edited the file, added the icon size 20x20 and saved it (uncompressed, origin up/left).
Now th gam crashhes on start-up :)

Hehe, I can try to attach it to traits. Never done it before, but should be possible.

As for the TGA file, maybe upload it so I can check what's wrong?

:DUrm... One, Dragons were intelligent creatures, incredibly rare, and made by the Gods during the first age. This means that they have slowly died, so there aren't a lot of them left.

Two, they do have the flying promo. :p

There was a Third point, but I forgot... :crazyeye:


1. Introduce a new storyline plot whereby a rogue god creates a new lesser race of dragons that can be controlled by the factions of Erebus.

2. A promotion just doesn't cut it with me. I wan't the dragons to be akin to aircraft. You could make them incredibly powerful, lethal, and difficult to acquire so that it would be like you built one dragon and that is the one you have for the game. They could even act something like a nuclear weapon only that they are not destroyed.

3. You could even make something that isn't a dragon yet is similar like the flying worm/dragons in Lord of The Rings.:D

:D


1. Introduce a new storyline plot whereby a rogue god creates a new lesser race of dragons that can be controlled by the factions of Erebus.

2. A promotion just doesn't cut it with me. I wan't the dragons to be akin to aircraft. You could make them incredibly powerful, lethal, and difficult to acquire so that it would be like you built one dragon and that is the one you have for the game. They could even act something like a nuclear weapon only that they are not destroyed.

3. You could even make something that isn't a dragon yet is similar like the flying worm/dragons in Lord of The Rings.:D

Sounds interesting, but not something I would really do.

It IS perfect fodder for a module, however, as everything needed (Art, text, units, so on) could be done via XML. Just look at how the Chislev Rock Raven works.



Also, I'd say use things like Griffins, Hippogriffs, Harpies, Eagles, etc, rather than Dragons. If you MUST have dragons, use Drakes. ;)

Sounds interesting, but not something I would really do.

It IS perfect fodder for a module, however, as everything needed (Art, text, units, so on) could be done via XML. Just look at how the Chislev Rock Raven works.



Also, I'd say use things like Griffins, Hippogriffs, Harpies, Eagles, etc, rather than Dragons. If you MUST have dragons, use Drakes. ;)


How come you wouldn't be interested? I can't do it now because I don't know how to program yet ( however I am working on that ).? It would be great if someone would do it but, if no one else will I guess I'll give it a try whenever I learn the neccessary skills.....could take a year or more.

Um, on minotaurs... can you please, please, please, please make them spawn later? As it is I often lose one or two civs in the beginning due to these damn barbarians and I have had to restart many games due to the fact that I've been swamped by them. So, in the future, could you push the minotaurs back just a little? Either that or give more starting warriors so that the AI has a fighting chance. :\

Um, on minotaurs... can you please, please, please, please make them spawn later? As it is I often lose one or two civs in the beginning due to these damn barbarians and I have had to restart many games due to the fact that I've been swamped by them. So, in the future, could you push the minotaurs back just a little? Either that or give more starting warriors so that the AI has a fighting chance. :\

Already being done for both Minotaurs and Cyklops, same method as Rinwell; Will have an initial improvement which does not spawn anything, which upgrades into one that does.

Thank you so much.

not shure why, but in 80 turns over half the civilizations are gone, im playing with scaling difficulty, so its gone from prince to deity, and i still see civilizations being wiped off the map O.o

this is going to be an epic game, i wonder whats killing them. are they killing each other?

edit: i guess it would help if i mentioned the custom settings i have....i have orchish swarms, wildlands, animal invasions, blessing of amathon, living world, wild mana, feral mana, flexible difficulty, flavor start, and well known faces active

AI is not so good at coping with the masses of barbarians and animals, especially in the early game. Most of the AI deaths have probably been from either barb or animal attack, lairs, or Rinwell.

To give a 'hint' as to what I'm doing at this point in the rebuild:

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc310/Valkrionn/Civilization/ImprovementNiches.jpg

Wonder who can decide exactly what this means first? Beyond the obvious, of course. :mischief:

im probably wrong, but it looks like your making a list of all the tile improvements to get an idea of what ones are redundant or needs improving to get them in line with more productive ones.

also now that i noticed, the jpg name seems to imply that your trying to make different tile improvments have more unique roles

Well, that's the obvious part of it. Each improvement type will have a specific role to play, so we don't have multiple improvements doing nearly the same thing (Mines/Quarries now, for example).

The part I was wondering about is more an implication of it. Mostly concerning the three mills. :lol:

Edit: To be clear, the chart shows the probably improvement 'niche' AFTER going through and cleaning them all, not their current yields.

well, i always thought that quarries/mines/workshops were all sorta redundant, but mines were always the best choice for hills. quarries i liked better than workshops, im not shure why, they just seemed more exciting, maby its their ability to find stuff?

ive always liked building 3/3/3 windmil/watermil citys, that was one of my primary strats with mecanos back in the day. are you taking their hybrid style and changing them to be sort of end game buildings with greater yields?

lol im still guessing

Hehe, I can try to attach it to traits. Never done it before, but should be possible.

Nothing urgent, but I'm sure you can do it ;)

As for the TGA file, maybe upload it so I can check what's wrong?

Here it is :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=239117&stc=1&d=1262517430

These files should work. I only saw the one new icon, so it's all that I added. ;)

Edit: Left off a needed pixel, here's the fixed version.

well, i always thought that quarries/mines/workshops were all sorta redundant, but mines were always the best choice for hills. quarries i liked better than workshops, im not shure why, they just seemed more exciting, maby its their ability to find stuff?

ive always liked building 3/3/3 windmil/watermil citys, that was one of my primary strats with mecanos back in the day. are you taking their hybrid style and changing them to be sort of end game buildings with greater yields?

lol im still guessing

Actually, that's pretty much correct. :lol:

sweet, what do i win? :D

How about this new chart?

Keep in mind, these yields aren't finalized. Already changed a bit since I made it, actually. :lol:

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc310/Valkrionn/Civilization/ImprovementYields-1.jpg

How can I disable a Unit from placed as Mana Guardians at Mapsetup?

uncheck the "mana guardians" option

No I wont do that, because I whant to have the guardians. But there is one Endgame unit that I added via a Mod Mod that soulded placed as Guardian.

if i am playing scions, and a friend is on my team, what happens if i spread haunted lands to his territory? does he just gain the cool 2 coin per plot, or does something bad happen, since he is not scion?

Well, that's the obvious part of it. Each improvement type will have a specific role to play, so we don't have multiple improvements doing nearly the same thing (Mines/Quarries now, for example).

The part I was wondering about is more an implication of it. Mostly concerning the three mills. :lol:

Edit: To be clear, the chart shows the probably improvement 'niche' AFTER going through and cleaning them all, not their current yields.

I have problems with the combination of the mills being late game improvements and towns. Towns, by taking forever to develop, are inherently late game improvements as well... and there isn't really room for that many such improvements.

Go the dwarven mine/pirate bay route for towns (I would suggest this in some fashion)? Add GPPs to towns? Let towns develop specialties based on buildings in the city (so a mage guild might let a town become a university town, which in turn spawns a building in the city that adds +2xp to arcane)?

Please, please, please nerf the sabertooths. 24 strength, 6-10 first strikes, invisible, and that's without promotions! I don't mind strong animals, but that's better than most heroes.

Wergs or Wargs might need adjustment too.

Ditto with bells on :goodjob:

But this is RiFE! Animals are supposed to be stronger than anything else! Go back to your sissy regular games of civilization and Fall From Heaven, where men with fire and metal weapons drove animals to near extinction! [/sarcasm]

I have problems with the combination of the mills being late game improvements and towns. Towns, by taking forever to develop, are inherently late game improvements as well... and there isn't really room for that many such improvements.

Go the dwarven mine/pirate bay route for towns (I would suggest this in some fashion)? Add GPPs to towns? Let towns develop specialties based on buildings in the city (so a mage guild might let a town become a university town, which in turn spawns a building in the city that adds +2xp to arcane)?

While I do agree that towns are somewhat unappealing with this scheme (since they have no resources and it takes so long to get them that you're likely much better off building one of the resource improvements), I'd think that this idea, however interesting, might just end up being messy.

Was it really such a bad idea to add hammers to the cottage line?

How can I disable a Unit from placed as Mana Guardians at Mapsetup?

No I wont do that, because I whant to have the guardians. But there is one Endgame unit that I added via a Mod Mod that soulded placed as Guardian.

So you want to change which Guardian spawns? It's in python; Open up CvEventManager.py, search for '# WILD MANA'. That will bring you to the correct location. Just scroll down a bit to where you see the code checking the type of bonus, and placing a unit. ;)

if i am playing scions, and a friend is on my team, what happens if i spread haunted lands to his territory? does he just gain the cool 2 coin per plot, or does something bad happen, since he is not scion?

For one thing, lots of unhealth. More seriously though, any living unit to end a turn in haunted lands suffers some bad effects.

I have problems with the combination of the mills being late game improvements and towns. Towns, by taking forever to develop, are inherently late game improvements as well... and there isn't really room for that many such improvements.

Go the dwarven mine/pirate bay route for towns (I would suggest this in some fashion)? Add GPPs to towns? Let towns develop specialties based on buildings in the city (so a mage guild might let a town become a university town, which in turn spawns a building in the city that adds +2xp to arcane)?

Towns also end up being 5 commerce, and thus have the same total yield as any of the mills. My view, towns would be the one improvement that I would not replace with Mills. And it was either have Mills moved to late game, or get rid of them completely as they added clutter. :lol:

I assume you mean require a distance between them? Could work, but would be a large nerf; Not sure I'd want to do that.

As for the other ideas, it would be interesting but cumbersome without some DLL work. Ideally, we'd make ImprovementClasses, allowing Unique Improvements replacing others. So Amurites could have a unique Town, and so on.

While I do agree that towns are somewhat unappealing with this scheme (since they have no resources and it takes so long to get them that you're likely much better off building one of the resource improvements), I'd think that this idea, however interesting, might just end up being messy.

Was it really such a bad idea to add hammers to the cottage line?

No, not at all. Honestly, I liked it too. :lol: The main thing is, you need commerce for both gold and research; It is a yield you need quite a bit of. Relying on Plantations for commerce didn't work because it wouldn't get you to the same amount in the end.

Hopefully that makes sense. :lol:

I assume you mean require a distance between them? Could work, but would be a large nerf; Not sure I'd want to do that.

He's not asking for towns to be nerfed. He wants them to sort of act like dwarvern fortresses, in the sense that they require distance between them but they become more powerful.

Go the dwarven mine/pirate bay route for towns (I would suggest this in some fashion)? Add GPPs to towns? Let towns develop specialties based on buildings in the city (so a mage guild might let a town become a university town, which in turn spawns a building in the city that adds +2xp to arcane)?

I think this idea makes a lot of sense. I first thought that perhaps it shouldn't be random what the town evolves into. For example: if you want it to be a university town, you have to have a mage or better stand in the town and active the ability "University Town" or something.

But then I started to think about it, and this kind of idea would promote min-maxing. Build as many university towns as you can around one city, and build all you mages there. The randomness will help make each town feel more unique.

There are lots of potential specialty towns that could exist.

I have an idea about how this could work. I don't know how easy this would be to program, so maybe this is ridicules. There are a list of requirements for each specialty town to happen. However, only one of the requirements has to be met for the town to upgrade to that specialty town type. Having more then one requirement will make it more likely that that specialty town will be the one the town evolves into.

Each town could have say, a 5% chance of upgrading into a specialty town provided at least one requirement for each town is met. Not all requirements need to be equal. Having one requirement for one type of specialty town might count as much as two requirements for another type of town depending on exactly how hard the requirements are to meet ect. Balance is important of course, so each town could function like dwarvern fortress in the way that they need space between them.

Some sample town with the requirements follow.

And yes I know, I have horribly messed up the spelling of the different civilization names.

Mining Town
+1 production
+1 production to all surrounding mines

Requirements
Are Khazad or Lurchurp
Have blasting powder
Have 1 mine next to town
Have 2 mines next to town
...
Have 8 mines next to town


Farming Community
+1 food
+1 food to all surrounding farms

Requirements
Have sanitation
Have 1 farm next to town
Have 2 farms next to town
...
Have 8 farms next to town


University Town
+10 research
+20% research bonus in nearest city

Requirements
Are Dural
(is there some sort of late game educational tech? I'd rather avoid an early game one since it would drastically take away from the Dural uniqueness)


Wizard Community
+2 gold (from sale of potions and other wizardy things)
some sort of exp bonus for arcane units, either on creation, or a small amount per turn until they hit the cap

Requirements
Are Amurite
Have pass through the aether
Have 1 arcane unit standing in the town
Have 2 arcane units standing in the town
...
Have (the cap) arcane units standing in the town



There could be lots of different town upgrades like these. As far as the requirements not all being equal, I think the civ based requirements should count for much more then any of the other. It helps create more flavor for different civs. For the wizard community, I like the idea of arcane units in the town helping. Even for societies that aren't big on sharing magical knowledge, I think makes sense. If my lore is wrong here, correct me. Wizards, mages, ect, still have families, and the wizard community could represent that has a higher then usual amount of wizard offspring who are more magical then normal. The percentage might still be very small, but it is enough the define the town as being a wizard town.

For the mining and farming towns, if +1 food or production is overpowered, can we do fractions? Like, +.5 food or production to the surrounding farms or mines? I would rather not just make the bonus a large bonus just for the town, I like the idea of a farming center that all the farms are around. Isn't that one of the points for a medieval type town? It is a center for the surrounding peasants to come and trade at.


Does anyone like these ideas? Specifically, do you, Valkrionn, like these ideas? You are really the person I am trying to convince the most, for obvious reasons.:D


Edit: Another idea. Would it be possible to make it when a town was built, it got a name in the form of a tag like the ones used on the unique features? This would just be cosmetic, but combined with the increased rareness of towns, and more unique effects, would make each town truly different. It would make towns the player really wants to hold onto.

In addition, if this system were used, the base gold from towns should probably be increased. These extra effects are very nice, but they don't make gold (usually).

Perhaps instead of +1/+2/+3/+4 we could add maybe 2 extra gold to each level. Or anything else which would increase total gold to make up for less gold making towns.

I doubt the AI would be able to use this effectively.

I doubt the AI would be able to use this effectively.

First off, since the upgrade would come automatically if you meet the requirements, the odds of the computer using the specialty towns to some extant is very good. Even if it is totally not on purpose, the AI will stumble into having specialty towns.

Secondly, will they be able to use them as well as a human player can? Of course not. But what aspect of the game is the computer as good as the human player? Look at the massive bonuses the AI already get at the higher difficulty levels. Even with all these bonuses, good players can trump the AI all the time. Humans are smarter then the computer, and likely will be for a very long time to come. This is not the straw which breaks the camel's back.

Edit:

I have another comment on the ability of the AI to use the specialty town mechanic. Look at the magic system. If you think the computer can't use it, then it would help the player more then the AI infinitely more then this system would help the human more then the AI. If you think the AI can use the magic system, the magic system is significantly more complex then this system, and the computer could be taught to use this as well.

Valk, I really like the idea of improvement classes. Personally I think it would come in most handy for forts. I already have two makeshift Unique Improvements for forts in my Clan fort commander and Luchuirp Sculptor modules. I can see all sorts of possibilities here.

Edit: In fact, unique improvements for forts could in some cases do away with fort commanders altogether. I know this might be a pain in the ass to change after all the work to add them, but a unique improvement could pass special abilities to any unit in the fort, it could also carry other unique abilities that would not require a Fort Commander.

I like smithroadtrip's idea for specialty towns, I'd just prefer to go about it a little differently. I don't want to prevent towns from being adjacent (very bad for the Bannor-and the specialty towns would have to all spawn demagogues under Crusade, or the Bannor would need their own town upgrade). I'd have towns upgrade as they would towards enclaves, but at the moment of upgrade (so the time to upgrade would be non-random) the form is selected from a weighted list, in a manner similar to events as follows:

Enclave I'd give another commerce, actually (always, if Kuriotates)
Mining Town +1:hammers: (weight 1 per adjacent mine and, if that is nonzero, 1 per building that improves production output)
Farming Town +1:food: and carries fresh water (weight 1 per adjacent farm plus 1 for having a granary or stockhouse (or the Calabim UB, not that they've any business building cottages))
Party Town +1:) (weight 1 if adjacent to unique feature that grants :) )
Outpost Town <gets a little wall> +25% Tile Defense (weight 1 per defensive building, 1 per undeveloped adjacent tile and 1 per level of forts adjacent)
Filler Town +1:culture: (high weight if other specialty towns exist within some radius-though one could probably pillage repeatedly to get around this)
Trade Town +1:commerce: (weight on other cottage/town/etc adjacent, increasing with development, 1 per any improvement that's not already considered, maybe some weight with the number or size of the owning city'e trade routes)
University Town +1:science: and +1xp to adepts trained in owning city (weight 1 per building that provides training for arcane units or increases :science: output)
Military Town +1xp to melee/archer/mounted/recon units built in owning city (weight 1 per building that provides training for any of those units)

I think I would make towns that instead give extra GPP dependant on the presence of correlating GP settled in the owning city (and probably just +1 GPP each).

Super Duper Town <roll again and double this second result, if super duper results twice, something really nifty, like providing a random mana, happens> (weight 1 if the total other weights exceed 10 and if no other super duper town is within some specified radius).

Just brainstorming here.

So you want to change which Guardian spawns? It's in python; Open up CvEventManager.py, search for '# WILD MANA'. That will bring you to the correct location. Just scroll down a bit to where you see the code checking the type of bonus, and placing a unit. ;)

Thanks, so its curently not Posible to do it Modular.

Why I asked is because I whanted to use the Module Reformed Liches from FF
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=337689
but sadly the Phylactery Guards are placed as Mana Guards but the realy problem is that the Guard summons the Lich (with Hold Promo) also :eek: and the lich summons up to 3 Skelletons and this together is to much.

...



-snip-

Mining Town
+1 production
+1 production to all surrounding mines

-snip-

As I mentioned in my last post, I think this could get incredibly messy, especially if it's random (and I'm not even sure you can have an improvement be able to upgrade to more than one improvement type), but I must say that I do like this idea of towns improving the output of improvements on nearby tiles. It would give a reason to both use the cottage line as well as mix it up with other improvements.

How about something that you have a bit more control over, though? As an example: you could tie it to a spell/ability (requiring a town in the tile, and that there's a minimum of 1 tile between the tile and any other 'upgraded' town), allowing you to make a decision to actually upgrade the town, and letting you choose what specialty the town will have.

Farming Town - +1:food: to adjacent farms; +1:commerce: (possibly +2:commerce:) to adjacent plantations; carries fresh water
Mining Town - +1:hammers: to adjacent mines and quarries
Garrison Town - +25% defence to tile; culture control over it's own tile*; and the ability to quickly recruit weak, 'militia'-type units*
University Town - +1:science: in the city, and +1:hammers: to adjacent workshops

*So that you won't lose the tile, even if a neighbour's border is pressing against it.
**For quick defence; I might be stepping on Bannor toes again, though, so ignore this one if you want

XP and Culture seem (to me, anyway) like they wouldn't really fit that well; XP feels like it could end up a bit too powerful, while I think culture wouldn't really be all that useful.

How does that sound?

Thanks, so its curently not Posible to do it Modular.

Why I asked is because I whanted to use the Module Reformed Liches from FF
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=337689
but sadly the Phylactery Guards are placed as Mana Guards but the realy problem is that the Guard summons the Lich (with Hold Promo) also :eek: and the lich summons up to 3 Skelletons and this together is to much.

It might be possible to do something with a spell that requires the Held promotion that transforms the Phylactery Guard after they are placed. I'll see what I can do.

Keeping this in mind, if you change the Mana Guardians to using a leach instead of the Held promotion, please add a new promotion, Mana Guardian. It doesn't have to do anything, just mark the unit as being one.

It might be possible to do something with a spell that requires the Held promotion that transforms the Phylactery Guard after they are placed. I'll see what I can do.

Keeping this in mind, if you change the Mana Guardians to using a leach instead of the Held promotion, please add a new promotion, Mana Guardian. It doesn't have to do anything, just mark the unit as being one.

Planning on it. ;)

I'd prefer to move the leash system into XML, but until I do that I'll stick a dummy promo on them. I'm thinking a leash of 1 tile would work best.

It might be possible to do something with a spell that requires the Held promotion that transforms the Phylactery Guard after they are placed. I'll see what I can do.

Keeping this in mind, if you change the Mana Guardians to using a leach instead of the Held promotion, please add a new promotion, Mana Guardian. It doesn't have to do anything, just mark the unit as being one.

That would be Amazing if you as the orginal Autor of this Module would port ist to RiFE :)

Jheral, the way I suggest allowing special towns that give xp boosts pretty much means that you have training facilities of some kind already built so that's really just to save some time on training. Also, if it's not possible to have improvements upgrade to different things, my idea could also be implemented directly through the event system (you'd see a lot fewer special towns that way, probably). None of that's anything I have my heart set on, I just think giving bonuses to all surrounding improvements of a given type is going to be overpowered.

I would like to know if this is possible to have a terrain which can be entered both by a land and naval unit? This would be very handy to have continents linked together while allowing ships to move everywhere (I'm thinking of the AI mainly here, anything which can help it is good)

Jheral, the way I suggest allowing special towns that give xp boosts pretty much means that you have training facilities of some kind already built so that's really just to save some time on training.

Ah, right. Yeah, that doesn't sound that bad, I guess. I was mainly thinking about the effects of stacking those bonuses (the effects it could have on the Sidar, in particular), but I guess with limited numbers of these upgraded towns, it wouldn't really be a problem.

I just think giving bonuses to all surrounding improvements of a given type is going to be overpowered.

Yeah, I suppose so, it most likely would be OP. I just liked the idea; it would make them useful (even powerful), and distinct from other improvements, while at the same time encourage you to use the others, as well.

Cyrusfan, I see your point about needing to re-balance certain things if towns can't be adjacent. I completely agree. For one thing, they should probably generate much more gold. An extra +2, or perhaps outright doubling the +4 to a +8 would be in order. However, I definitely think if this system were implemented, that towns should require some amount of space in between them. Let me explain my reasoning.

What is a city in civ 4? A large collection of people who work the nearby area (the fat cross), and who exert their influence over an ever larger area (all the cultural area surrounding the city).

What is an improvement? Some sort of man-made (sometimes not man-made in the form of unique features) feature which improves the output of the land. Farms allow the land to produce more food, mines allow the land to produce more metals and stone which can be used for building things.

Towns though, stand out as seeming different. Unlike other improvements, like a city, a town also represents a large collection of people. Not as many people as a city, but many nevertheless. A town, which takes many turns to reach, probably has almost the population of a size 1 city.

Yet in civ 4, as in RifE, towns are just money making improvements. I could surround all 20 workable squares of a city with towns in this game. Yet, you would never see so many cities so close to each other, not even size one cities.

This idea would help more accurately represent how towns and cities work. Cities represent the center of government for a certain area. Not everyone lives in the city, but it is the center of government that controls how the surrounding lands are used. Towns, with this system, would act more like smaller population centers rather then just places where money is minted.

A farming town, which improves surrounding farms, represents a town where there is much knowledge on how to farm. Where farmers can come together and share ideas about weather, and crops, and animals ect. The effect is very local. Only the surrounding farms are effected.

Not all towns would act like this though. Take the university town for example. It represents a town where knowledge is highly valued. Perhaps it is the site where a famous university is located. As such, the bonus is not so local. An increase in the research of the nearest city. It could also have a significantly smaller research increase in the entire country in which it is located. This would be because the population on average is capable of learning more, and learning faster, when there are many universities in the country.

Similar lines of thought could be used to explain many different types of towns.



Jheral, your post has several things which have given me food for thought. I would rather what the town evolves into be semi-random. Perhaps use the great person system. Except different things would give your towns specialty town points (STP)

Say, a ST took 200 STP to evolve. The Amurites gain 5 wizard town points per turn just for being the Amurites. The town is also next to 2 farms and 1 mine, giving them 2 farming town STP and 1 mining town STP per turn. After 25 turns, the town evolves into a specialty town. It has a 5/8 chance of becoming a wizard town, a 2/8 chance in becoming a farming town, and a 1/8 chance in becoming a mining town.

The player would be able to somewhat control what the town becomes, while the town still evolves randomly. I think doing this has a few advantages over choosing what the town becomes via ability or spell.

Number 1, as nutranurse mentions, we want the AI to be able to use this system. If a town becomes a farming town primarily because there are farms around it, the AI will get the extra food even if it wasn't trying to get a farming town. The same goes for the other town types.

Number 2, it prevents certain types of bonuses, such as xp gain, from being stacked and becoming overpowered. Players would definitely build 4 wizard towns around 1 city, and have that city produce the entirety of the country's arcane force. An xp bonus, or any other type of bonus, can much more easily become overpowered if it is stacked then by itself.



Cyrusfan, to your most recent post where you say and I quote

I just think giving bonuses to all surrounding improvements of a given type is going to be overpowered.

I have several comments.

Number 1, if we give the bonuses to everyone, and if we make the other types of bonuses like the wizard town strong enough, then I don't think it would be overpowered.

The university town could have a bonus of +1000% beaker generation in the nearest city. To all who have a basic understanding of the mechanics of civ 4, this is better then +1 food to all surrounding farms. Likewise, if the bonus was +1% beaker generation in the nearest city, it would be obvious that it is worse then +1 food to all surrounding farms.

The trick here is to find the middle ground where the bonuses are about equal. Where you have to ask yourself which type of specialty town you would rather get.


To anyone who actually read all this wall of text, I congratulate you. Feel proud knowing you have at least 10,000 hp, since that's what I crit for.

What is a city in civ 4? A large collection of people who work the nearby area (the fat cross), and who exert their influence over an ever larger area (all the cultural area surrounding the city).

...

Towns though, stand out as seeming different. Unlike other improvements, like a city, a town also represents a large collection of people. Not as many people as a city, but many nevertheless. A town, which takes many turns to reach, probably has almost the population of a size 1 city.

...

This idea would help more accurately represent how towns and cities work. Cities represent the center of government for a certain area. Not everyone lives in the city, but it is the center of government that controls how the surrounding lands are used. Towns, with this system, would act more like smaller population centers rather then just places where money is minted.


I like your thinking, and I agree; it makes much more sense than them just giving :commerce: (the :hammers: bonus I saw as a bit of the same kind of thinking; more people giving a larger workforce, allowing you to build more, but this works out even better). I don't think the :commerce: bonus from the town itself should go much higher than it is, though.

Jheral, your post has several things which have given me food for thought. I would rather what the town evolves into be semi-random. Perhaps use the great person system. Except different things would give your towns specialty town points (STP)

I suppose there is logic in that, yes; that sort of natural growth of the town would make more sense. I guess I just instinctively recoil from randomness, control freak that I am. :p

By the way, a bit of a random thought: if these are going to be mini-cities; should they all, perhaps, generate culture/territory control (on their own, that is; not in the cities they are attached to)?

By the way, a bit of a random thought: if these are going to be mini-cities; should they all, perhaps, generate culture/territory control (on their own, that is; not in the cities they are attached to)?

Sure, that sounds cool. Over time, they could spread your culture over the surrounding 8 squares, and maybe even the fat cross. Anything more then that though probably gets to big for a town which is at most the size of a size 1 city.

To be perfectly honest, I dislike the idea. It's too complex, and for (in my opinion) little gain.

I like some of the improvement ideas, but would instead use them as unique improvements for certain civilizations.... University Town for the Dural, for example.

As for town culture... Technically, they already have it. They just don't apply it to a plot. :lol: If you set an improvement to produce culture, but with a range of -1, then on mouse over it will read "Bannor Town", for example. Currently, Enclaves produce one ring of culture, as do (I think) Bedouin Villages.

Yeah, I kind of figured the answer would be no. If you do end up implementing any of these ideas partially though, such as university town, it will be nice to have helped contribute.

What if any plot adjacent to a Town got +1:commerce:? It would get rid of the different, random effect micromanagement hell and retain the role of Towns as :commerce:improvements.

Ok, here's my take on this "specialized town" idea:

I agree the BtS implementation of cottage improvements doesn't make a lot of sense flavor-wise (people in houses = commerce?).
Some of these ideas for improvement bonuses (:culture:, :science:, XP, :gp: points) look interesting, though they might be hell to code for.

However, I can imagine this idea being a nightmare to play with for several reasons:
It's extremely complicated. Especially the bit about having to earn points to upgrade a town a certain way.
The randomness factor of which type of town pops up basically fulfills the same function as the resource popping mechanic. Having certain resources/towns pop up can make you change your plans for how you want to specialize a city (I once had a production city that popped several commerce resources within its BFC, so I converted it to a commerce city). And this can be fun. Except this particular case would involve a lot of new code for the modders to create, and a lot of new game mechanics for players to figure out.

As I see it, developing a city's tiles with improvements works like this:
You look at the available terrain and resources to decide what type of city would work best in this spot (and while considering the particular needs of your empire).
You build improvements to harvest resources, and you may build some food improvements to make sure you can sustain enough of a population to work all the tiles (farms if there's fresh water, pastures if you want a little production, wineries if you want a little commerce). You then build improvements that support the specialty you've chosen for the city:
For a GP farm city, you build lots of farms (and windmills/pastures/wineries where you can't build farms).
For a production city, you build lots of mines and workshops (probably along with pastures and farms to offset the food penalty, and maybe some quarries).
For a commerce city, you build whatever gives you lots of commerce.

RifE's multitude of buildable improvements allow more flexibility in city specialization (especially with the addition of +:food: improvements that don't require irrigation, and +:hammers: improvements that don't cause your city to starve), but they don't really change this model.

Cottages with hammers only make non-resource plantations and quarries look like crap. Cottages with hammers that then upgrade into randomly specialized towns would make plantations/quarries look like crap AND make city specialization more random and confusing. I don't see how this would have a positive effect on gameplay.

I suspect any attempt to make the town improvements more "town-like" would collide head-on with the process of city development I outlined above. As much as the flavor irritates me, cottage improvements in BtS serve a vital function: they limit commerce early on while expanding it as the game progresses. This allows late-game cities to generate enough commerce to pay the increasing maintenance and tech costs, while at the same time keeping early-game tech progression from getting out of hand. The demand for commerce works differently from the demand for food or production, so commerce improvements work differently from food/production improvements.

This is why RifE is moving to combine plantations/wineries into a single +1:food: +1:commerce: improvement, and the cottage line will go back to being the primary commerce improvement.

Well said. ;)

Yes, I'll concede you this point as well. Those are some very good reasons against this system.

To be perfectly honest, I dislike the idea. It's too complex, and for (in my opinion) little gain.

I like some of the improvement ideas, but would instead use them as unique improvements for certain civilizations.... University Town for the Dural, for example.

As for town culture... Technically, they already have it. They just don't apply it to a plot. :lol: If you set an improvement to produce culture, but with a range of -1, then on mouse over it will read "Bannor Town", for example. Currently, Enclaves produce one ring of culture, as do (I think) Bedouin Villages.

At a minimum, I think the town growth timescale will need to be adjusted, and adjusted somewhat dynamically: 40 odd turns early game is a very different thing than 40 turns late game. I would suggest something like all (cottages, dwarven mines, pirate bays, forts etc...) growing improvements getting:
+20% growth rate/adjacent friendly improvement. This means that the fort out in the middle of nowhere will grow very slowly, but the fort surrounded by a friendly work force will grow rapidly.
+10% growth rate/nearby city population. Bigger cities should develop faster.
Maybe some buildings would have an effect as well. The numbers might need to be significantly bigger, mind.

I still think that even then there isn't really room for both towns and mills if the towns are just commerce improvements. I would like (conceptually at least) towns discovering "artificial" resources, based on available resources/city buildings/techs. A town next to a friendly pasture w/animal husbandry could then discover "fine cheese", +1 food w/town.

Adding a full set of happiness/health resources might be overkill given how many are already in game, but as just production bonuses it shouldn't pose any problems. On the other hand, as just production bonuses the mill/town difference becomes minimized, while as the sole route to a range of bonuses, towns gain their own incentive.

If you give cottage/hamlet/village/towns a .25/.5/.75/1*normal base chance of discovering a resource, checking for each adjacent friendly improvement then they will discover resources reasonably rapidly. Towns could even go through multiple bonus resources as one goes up through the tech tree, allowing them to keep any arbitrary productivity pace. So a farm could let a cottage discover "beer, +1 food" at agriculture which would upgrade to "beer and spirits, +1 food/+1 commerce" at alchemy.

I CAN handle animals and barbs, but AI can't: it is not fun to play when 3 civs are dead by turn75 - normal speed, tectonics, small map 9 civs. All they were victims of barbs, of course. all those " more barb/animal" options disabled.Immortal diff.

An earlier post mentions that in the upcoming patch there'll be a time limit placed on some of the main perpetrators of early civ death. Also, play custom games and turn off animal invasion. It's on by default I believe.

Cottage/Town improvements are not just "people in houses". A town in a mini city, complete with shops, farmer's markets, vendors, and craftsmen.

The situation where a "suburb" is simply a bunch of houses occurs in real life, so I can see how people might associate that to RifE, but even there we have at least some businesses, grocery stores and such. But the only reason the businesses are limited in real life is that we have mass and long distance transportation (cars, buses, light rail). In RifE such do not exist, so the more appropriate analogue is a small rural town (not a suburb) or go back in time 200 years. In 1700, both independent town as well as suburbs (what there were) truly had just about everything you could find in a city.

So I guess I'm saying the Town=commerce model doesn't bother me all that much.

At a minimum, I think the town growth timescale will need to be adjusted, and adjusted somewhat dynamically: 40 odd turns early game is a very different thing than 40 turns late game. I would suggest something like all (cottages, dwarven mines, pirate bays, forts etc...) growing improvements getting:
+20% growth rate/adjacent friendly improvement. This means that the fort out in the middle of nowhere will grow very slowly, but the fort surrounded by a friendly work force will grow rapidly.
+10% growth rate/nearby city population. Bigger cities should develop faster.
Maybe some buildings would have an effect as well. The numbers might need to be significantly bigger, mind.

That's not the implementation I would go with, but I agree on there being boosts to the cottage/etc. upgrade times as the game goes along. I was thinking on bonuses to upgrade speed being attached to certain technologies. I think there will probably be a civic that speeds up the upgrades, at the very least.

Cottage/Town improvements are not just "people in houses". A town in a mini city, complete with shops, farmer's markets, vendors, and craftsmen.

The situation where a "suburb" is simply a bunch of houses occurs in real life, so I can see how people might associate that to RifE, but even there we have at least some businesses, grocery stores and such. But the only reason the businesses are limited in real life is that we have mass and long distance transportation (cars, buses, light rail). In RifE such do not exist, so the more appropriate analogue is a small rural town (not a suburb) or go back in time 200 years. In 1700, both independent town as well as suburbs (what there were) truly had just about everything you could find in a city.

So I guess I'm saying the Town=commerce model doesn't bother me all that much.

That's a good point.

Actually, given some of Grey Fox's work with the Field Marshals, expect a few traits to boost specific improvement growth rates.

So Merchant could (won't, as it would be pointless; Only leaders with Merchant can build them anyway) make Bedouin improvements grow faster.

Cottage/Town improvements are not just "people in houses". A town in a mini city, complete with shops, farmer's markets, vendors, and craftsmen.

The situation where a "suburb" is simply a bunch of houses occurs in real life, so I can see how people might associate that to RifE, but even there we have at least some businesses, grocery stores and such. But the only reason the businesses are limited in real life is that we have mass and long distance transportation (cars, buses, light rail). In RifE such do not exist, so the more appropriate analogue is a small rural town (not a suburb) or go back in time 200 years. In 1700, both independent town as well as suburbs (what there were) truly had just about everything you could find in a city.

So I guess I'm saying the Town=commerce model doesn't bother me all that much.

What bothers me is that the difference between a small city and a large town in real life is pretty small. They are both large centers of people, that especially depending on the time period, exert considerable influence on the surroundings. I like the way cities work in civ 4 and RifE, I have no problem with that. The problem is the towns. Towns are large population centers, yet in civ 4 and RifE, they just make money.

It would make more sense to replace hamlets/cottages/villages/towns with small coin minting facility/coin minting facility/large coin minting facility/industrial sized coin minting facility.

We would need new art, but the effect would remain exactly the same.

Towns are fundamentally different then other types of improvements. They should act different as well.

It would make more sense to replace hamlets/cottages/villages/towns with small coin minting facility/coin minting facility/large coin minting facility/industrial sized coin minting facility.

We would need new art, but the effect would remain exactly the same.

Aren't you confusing :commerce: with :gold:?

Aren't you confusing :commerce: with :gold:?

He said it would make "more sense", not "actual sense". That is: it's still silly, just not as silly as before.

I think the upgrading mechanic should be reserved for special improvements, like Pirate Ports, Forts and Dwarven Halls. Not regular improvements that can be built right next to each other. By that logic; Cottages should either not upgrade, or be special.

Here's a suggesting: Get rid of the Muris Goblin clan event. It does nothing but hurt the player it fires for and I see no point to that as 1) We have enough black/white events like that, 2) Your barbs and animals hurt us enough already.

Aren't you confusing :commerce: with :gold:?

No, not quite. What I am saying, is that cities in RifE can do all sorts of things. Even size 1 cities. They can control the surrounding land, they can build units and buildings. They can be the birthplace of great people and mighty heroes. Towns however, which are just moderately smaller versions of cities, only make gold. They do nothing else. I'm saying I think it would make more sense to implement my idea then have towns do what they keep doing.

My comment about the money minting line of upgrades is kind of sarcastic. It will of course never be implementing; I'm just poking fun at the fact that towns, large collections of people, only make money. Nothing else. Just money.

I think the upgrading mechanic should be reserved for special improvements, like Pirate Ports, Forts and Dwarven Halls. Not regular improvements that can be built right next to each other. By that logic; Cottages should either not upgrade, or be special.

One of the aspect's of my suggestion was to make towns like dwarvern mines in the sense that they are more powerful, but can't be built next to each other.

My thinking for this is that in real life, a small city and a large town are pretty similar. If we can't build cities in RifE to close to each other (something I think makes sense), then we shouldn't be able to make towns to close to each other either.

We would need to rebalanced some things, like the exact yields towns give, but I think that a system like the one I proposed in my above posts would make more sense then the way towns are currently implemented.

I have several sizable posts on the previous page outlining how I think it would be cool if towns worked.

This whole discussion though is now a moot point though, as Valkrionn has already said that he dislikes the system because it would be too complex.

No, I dislike the multiple different improvements. Changing the way towns work is fine if we get good ideas. ;)

Honestly, having an improvement grant higher yields to the plots around it will be possible with Xienwolf's aspect system, so that may happen eventually. For now, higher yields and a distance between them would work.

Is it intended that tolerant (usurper in my chase) Civs build the non Relgion Spreading Adeptus when building them in a Mechanos City that have the Religion?

Pretty much, given that it's a Mechanos UU; All Machinarum cities can build an adeptus, the Mechanos just get a stronger version.

Yes but usual Tolerant Civs can build UUs of other Civs in the captuerd citys (except World Units) thats why I was wondering that the Adeptus that can spread Ordo Machinarium couldend build in a captured Mechanos city.

He said it would make "more sense", not "actual sense". That is: it's still silly, just not as silly as before.
I guess, but given that Commerce can be transformed to science, gold, or culture, I don't really buy the argument.

I think the upgrading mechanic should be reserved for special improvements, like Pirate Ports, Forts and Dwarven Halls. Not regular improvements that can be built right next to each other. By that logic; Cottages should either not upgrade, or be special.
May I ask the rationale behind your opinion?

Towns however, which are just moderately smaller versions of cities, only make gold.
You mean Commerce.

The fact that you say "gold" tells me you probably ARE indeed confusing :commerce: and :gold:.

I'm just poking fun at the fact that towns, large collections of people, only make money. Nothing else. Just money.
Again, they make commerce, not money.

(The commerce can be transformed to Money, depending on your sliders, but it can also be transformed to beakers or culture.)

My thinking for this is that in real life, a small city and a large town are pretty similar. If we can't build cities in RifE to close to each other (something I think makes sense), then we shouldn't be able to make towns to close to each other either.
Frankly, I'm not sure that not being able to build cities next to each other does make sense.

No, I dislike the multiple different improvements. Changing the way towns work is fine if we get good ideas. ;)

Honestly, having an improvement grant higher yields to the plots around it will be possible with Xienwolf's aspect system, so that may happen eventually. For now, higher yields and a distance between them would work.

Random idea number something (too complicated, unfortunately): cottages (like cities) set the base yield of their plot to something flat and lowish, probably nil. This yield would scale upwards in some combination of hammers/commerce/GPP along the development. A used cottage provides 1 free (freely settable) specialist.

I think the upgrading mechanic should be reserved for special improvements, like Pirate Ports, Forts and Dwarven Halls. Not regular improvements that can be built right next to each other. By that logic; Cottages should either not upgrade, or be special.
May I ask the rationale behind your opinion?

Expensive things should be important, important things should be rare.

Upgrading improvements are expensive in time to upgrade, protection against pillagers, opportunity cost while they upgrade and locking the tile to a single improvement.

Important things should be rare so that I can give each thing the attention it requires.

Cottages are currently expensive, but not very important.

Random idea number something (too complicated, unfortunately): cottages (like cities) set the base yield of their plot to something flat and lowish, probably nil. This yield would scale upwards in some combination of hammers/commerce/GPP along the development. A used cottage provides 1 free (freely settable) specialist.

A slight modification of this idea should be possible to do now, even in a module.

Improvements can upgrade unconditionally, like forts; and improvements can give free specialists in nearby cities, like the National Park wonder from Beyond the Sword.

So make the Cottage-line upgrade unconditionally and let them give a free specialist. Probably from Hamlet and upwards. The Cottage would reduce yields, at least -2:food:, the Town would be a marginal improvement, :hammers::commerce::commerce: maybe.

This would move Cottages from a :commerce: improvement to a way to evade happy caps or :yuck:. They represent mini-cities growing on their own, their population is assigned as a specialist in the nearby city.

Expensive things should be important, important things should be rare.

Upgrading improvements are expensive in time to upgrade, protection against pillagers, opportunity cost while they upgrade and locking the tile to a single improvement.

Important things should be rare so that I can give each thing the attention it requires.

Cottages are currently expensive, but not very important.
Hrmm, I guess that makes sense.

Cottages serve a pretty vital game function, scaling commerce income with game progression. If we got rid of them without a comparable replacement, then we probably should go through the entire tech tree and reduce research costs.

But a comparable replacement, using a terrain improvement mechanism, would suffer from the same problem as cottages (or it wouldn't be comprable in terms of commerce generated; unless it got really wacky like a progression such as 1/3/7/15).

So that leaves some other mechanism. Such as more buildings which generate commerce.

So make the Cottage-line upgrade unconditionally and let them give a free specialist. Probably from Hamlet and upwards. The Cottage would reduce yields, at least -2:food:, the Town would be a marginal improvement, :hammers::commerce::commerce: maybe.

This would move Cottages from a :commerce: improvement to a way to evade happy caps or :yuck:. They represent mini-cities growing on their own, their population is assigned as a specialist in the nearby city.
That seems interesting. But could get out of hand. You could pretty easily have 50 or more specialists in a city. You'd generate GPP out the wazoo. Probably we would have to put a distance limit on them like pirate coves have (can't build within 2 or 3 tiles of each other).

Expensive things should be important, important things should be rare.

Upgrading improvements are expensive in time to upgrade, protection against pillagers, opportunity cost while they upgrade and locking the tile to a single improvement.

Important things should be rare so that I can give each thing the attention it requires.

Cottages are currently expensive, but not very important.



A slight modification of this idea should be possible to do now, even in a module.

Improvements can upgrade unconditionally, like forts; and improvements can give free specialists in nearby cities, like the National Park wonder from Beyond the Sword.

So make the Cottage-line upgrade unconditionally and let them give a free specialist. Probably from Hamlet and upwards. The Cottage would reduce yields, at least -2:food:, the Town would be a marginal improvement, :hammers::commerce::commerce: maybe.

This would move Cottages from a :commerce: improvement to a way to evade happy caps or :yuck:. They represent mini-cities growing on their own, their population is assigned as a specialist in the nearby city.

That idea would also pretty well prevent the AI from building it I think, unless there is AI for the specialist tag and the AI only considers the final form of the improvement. In which case they could be hurting themselves by building it too often.

Cottages serve a pretty vital game function, scaling commerce income with game progression. If we got rid of them without a comparable replacement, then we probably should go through the entire tech tree and reduce research costs.


I disagree. Cottages have a vital game function, but that function is giving commerce when there aren't any commerce resources around.

Aristogracy doesn't use Cottages as the main :commerce: income, nor does specialist economies. If Cottages had a vital effect on the entire game, those economies would ruin it or be uncompetitive.

In fact, I think cottages are the thing you build when you have no other choice. If you have a resource, build something to harvest that. If you can grow, build a :food:-improvement. If it is a production city, build a :hammers:-improvement. Only if you have nothing better to build, waste time on a Cottage.

Even if I accept that Cottages work to scale :commerce: over time, the same effect could easily be replaced by giving a static improvement a few +:commerce: with some key techs.


That seems interesting. But could get out of hand. You could pretty easily have 50 or more specialists in a city. You'd generate GPP out the wazoo. Probably we would have to put a distance limit on them like pirate coves have (can't build within 2 or 3 tiles of each other).

Where do you get 50 specialists from? A normal city could have 20 free specialists from improvements, a three tier city 36. But then the entire surrounding area would be covered in cottages, so there wouldn't be much :food: left for population in the city. Not that different from a surrounding area covered with farms.

20 free specialists does sound excessive, especially since it should be available early. At one tile separation, I can get 6 cottages into a fat cross which sound more reasonable. I think Enclaves should get a little bonus then. They could easily give two or more free specialists.

The idea is that the Cottage line is an improvement that you'd rather not work. As it upgrades to a Town it manages just enough yield that you'll think twice about replacing it when you have the happycap to support a regular improvement. (Obviously the yields I suggested would be subject to balancing.)

The one issue I can see is that you could seed an area with Cottages ahead of time, plop down a city and instantly have dozens of specialists. Even just citizens would be pretty neat. But then again, each Cottage-upgrade actually represents people in this plan. Why wouldn't you get something for settling in an already inhabited area?

That idea would also pretty well prevent the AI from building it I think, unless there is AI for the specialist tag and the AI only considers the final form of the improvement. In which case they could be hurting themselves by building it too often.

I know the AI considers the final form of the improvement. I recall governors being reluctant to work Bradeline's Well, since the final form yields nothing. Also, the National Park wonder is from Beyond the Sword, so I can't imagine there isn't some code for building Forest Preserves in the fat cross of the National Park city and at 1 tile distance between them, it would be pretty impossible to build it too often.

The one issue I can see is that you could seed an area with Cottages ahead of time, plop down a city and instantly have dozens of specialists. Even just citizens would be pretty neat. But then again, each Cottage-upgrade actually represents people in this plan. Why wouldn't you get something for settling in an already inhabited area?

Build fort, allow to become Citadel, seed area with cottages, allow to become towns, then pillage fort and settle. :p


I know the AI considers the final form of the improvement. I recall governors being reluctant to work Bradeline's Well, since the final form yields nothing. Also, the National Park wonder is from Beyond the Sword, so I can't imagine there isn't some code for building Forest Preserves in the fat cross of the National Park city and at 1 tile distance between them, it would be pretty impossible to build it too often.

Not sure why I typed too often, meant too early. I was thinking the first but then remembered the spacing, like you said. :lol:

It's an interesting idea, but should probably be done via module first so it can be tested out.

I disagree. Cottages have a vital game function, but that function is giving commerce when there aren't any commerce resources around.
Cottages are a commerce resource. You're arguing chicken/egg.

Aristogracy doesn't use Cottages as the main :commerce: income, nor does specialist economies. If Cottages had a vital effect on the entire game, those economies would ruin it or be uncompetitive.
Two things:
1) If you're correct, then isn't it equally true that if cottages have a vital effect on a part of the game (to wit: one of the most commonly used game strategies), then removing them would ruin those strategies and make them uncompetitive.
2) Frequently, Aristocracy, SE, and other game strategies rely upon a single cottage/commerce specialized city to generate a great deal of the commerce for the entire empire.

In fact, I think cottages are the thing you build when you have no other choice. If you have a resource, build something to harvest that. If you can grow, build a :food:-improvement. If it is a production city, build a :hammers:-improvement. Only if you have nothing better to build, waste time on a Cottage.
I rather think it's the other way around. Build a cottage whenever you can (special resources aside... obviously I don't advocate building a cottage on a wheat; that's moronic). Build a farm only when required. Build a hammer improvement only as needed to get enough hammers.

Clearly, these are generalizations and city specializations over-ride this kind of thing much of the time (both for you and me, I imagine, unless you don't specialize your cities).

The reason I hold a high opinion of cottages (as well as other generators of commerce and science) is that Tech and research rate is so important to game success.

Even if I accept that Cottages work to scale :commerce: over time, the same effect could easily be replaced by giving a static improvement a few +:commerce: with some key techs.
Depends on how your suggested change would interact with the different game strategies. If your suggestions would change SE strategies to be more like some common medium, and change CE strategies to be more like that same common medium, then I think your changes reduce game variety (=enjoyment) and thus would be bad for the game.

I may be doing you a disservice but clearly this kind of tweaking of the system can have drastic and not necessarily obvious impact upon the game.

Where do you get 50 specialists from? A normal city could have 20 free specialists from improvements, a three tier city 36. But then the entire surrounding area would be covered in cottages, so there wouldn't be much :food: left for population in the city. Not that different from a surrounding area covered with farms.
Farms aren't the only way to have more specialists.

All this other debate aside, I feel very strongly about the following.

If your suggestions would change SE strategies to be more like some common medium, and change CE strategies to be more like that same common medium, then I think your changes reduce game variety (=enjoyment) and thus would be bad for the game.

I may be doing you a disservice but clearly this kind of tweaking of the system can have drastic and not necessarily obvious impact upon the game.

I want more different ways to play, not less.

Any chance of having the "remove X religion" custom game option? Sometimes I just want to have a big Order/AV brawl, and then Runes comes in and takes over everything. :rolleyes:

The Option to seperat disable Religions are Hiden Game Options but dont know if it they work in RiFE. (Assets\XML\Gameinfo\CIV4GameOptionInfos.xml)

Those options work perfectly well, I just dislike them. Don't have one for Machinarum or White Hand either. :mischief:

To use them, go into GameOptionInfos, search for the options, and change bHidden to 0.

Has anybody mentioned Wild Trolls yet?

I tried a variety of 1.2 games and they all (except for the Jotnar with their +90% defense capital and their Defense 4 citizenry) ended more or less identically. My last before giving up and changing the gameinfos to make Minotaurs 4/2 and Wild Trolls 2/3 with Movespeed 1:

Kuriotates, Turn 12, Deity, Normal speed, killed by a minotaur. Reloaded from the last autosave and managed to get my mutated Stoneskin scout back to the capital (where previously exploring dungeons near your base was a bad idea, it is now an excellent one because it's not like you can spawn worse then an Enraged minotaur and you just might pick up something you can use defensively). Killed the minotaur, lost Stoneskin, picked up Guerilla 1 as we were on a hill (guarded by rivers from 4 approaches).

Turn 15, killed by 4 Wild Trolls and an enraged minotaur. Reloaded, tried to draw some aggro with my Scout, which apparently caused only 1 troll to spawn and the minotaur wasn't enraged. My second warrior had finished, so I killed both without incident and now had three Guerilla 1 units in my capital (the Scout failed to draw the aggro, so the warriors did the killing).

Turn 18, hit simultaneously by 4 Wild Trolls, 4 Orc Warriors, and a Hill Giant - which attacks first, causing collateral damage. The fact that the trolls are spawning in orc-sized groups and can't be picked off due to their defensive straight is rough, but the real killer is that they can beeline you at two squares a turn straight over hills - or mountains. There's no time to prepare and they can't be drawn off or reasoned with.

About this time I went into the WB, spawned Eurabatres, and tried to rampage angrily only to be utterly humiliated when as soon as he was out of range of my base another 5 trolls (in two groups) showed up with a wave of orcs behind them. The orcs were just out of breath range when they crashed my broken-spirited defenders.

About this time I went into the WB and spawned barbarian Abashis near everyone else's capitals. She was beaten to two of them by extant barbs. I wept.

Those options work perfectly well, I just dislike them. Don't have one for Machinarum or White Hand either. :mischief:

To use them, go into GameOptionInfos, search for the options, and change bHidden to 0.

Beautiful. Thanks!

Cottages are a commerce resource. You're arguing chicken/egg.

Not really. If there already are Cottages around, you won't be building them will you?

If there already are :commerce:-resources around, whether they are Gold, Dyes or Towns, you don't need to build Cottages.


Two things:
1) If you're correct, then isn't it equally true that if cottages have a vital effect on a part of the game (to wit: one of the most commonly used game strategies), then removing them would ruin those strategies and make them uncompetitive.

Sure. I was arguing that the scaling they do doesn't have a vital effect on the game. Replace them with a flat-rate improvement that has the same average yield and you won't notice a difference on the empire level.

My point was that if Cottages scale the :commerce: available over time, then any strategy that doesn't scale :commerce: will either be over or underpowered.


2) Frequently, Aristocracy, SE, and other game strategies rely upon a single cottage/commerce specialized city to generate a great deal of the commerce for the entire empire.

Only because Aristocracy and SE are later than Cottages. By the time you make the transition you already have several Cottage-economy towns and there is no need to change them.

I rather think it's the other way around. Build a cottage whenever you can (special resources aside... obviously I don't advocate building a cottage on a wheat; that's moronic). Build a farm only when required. Build a hammer improvement only as needed to get enough hammers.


That seems like the exact order I gave.


Harvest resource, obviously.
Build farm. When you can grow, it is required.
Build mine. If you need the production.
Build cottage. No other pressing issues.


Cottages are the default improvement built when nothing in particular is good.


Clearly, these are generalizations and city specializations over-ride this kind of thing much of the time (both for you and me, I imagine, unless you don't specialize your cities).

I do some specialization, but don't have the patience for extreme measures. Besides, it's not as useful in Fall from Heaven as in Beyond the Sword.

The reason I hold a high opinion of cottages (as well as other generators of commerce and science) is that Tech and research rate is so important to game success.


I like :commerce: as much as the next guy. I only dislike Cottages and the reason is that they are so expensive.

First you have to build them, then a pop needs to spend 30 turns working a sub-par improvement. Finally you get to reap the rewards. Unfortunately they're not very good, and you have permanently locked the tile into a low powered :commerce: improvement.


Farms aren't the only way to have more specialists.

Aren't they the best? Civics can give two, a few buildings give another.

How are you going to get 30 more specialists when the entire fat cross is covered with weak improvements? 60 settled Great Merchants?

I really want to know, is there some better way to get specialists than farms that I haven't though about?


Depends on how your suggested change would interact with the different game strategies. If your suggestions would change SE strategies to be more like some common medium, and change CE strategies to be more like that same common medium, then I think your changes reduce game variety (=enjoyment) and thus would be bad for the game.

I may be doing you a disservice but clearly this kind of tweaking of the system can have drastic and not necessarily obvious impact upon the game.


The only way to know is trying it out, I'll make a module.

I'm not particularly worried about disabling Cottage economies, because I think they are weak anyway. I may replace them with Plantation economies.

The thing that worries me is the early game. An extra six population unaffected by health and happy could really break things early.

Has anybody mentioned Wild Trolls yet?

I tried a variety of 1.2 games and they all (except for the Jotnar with their +90% defense capital and their Defense 4 citizenry) ended more or less identically. My last before giving up and changing the gameinfos to make Minotaurs 4/2 and Wild Trolls 2/3 with Movespeed 1:

Kuriotates, Turn 12, Deity, Normal speed, killed by a minotaur. Reloaded from the last autosave and managed to get my mutated Stoneskin scout back to the capital (where previously exploring dungeons near your base was a bad idea, it is now an excellent one because it's not like you can spawn worse then an Enraged minotaur and you just might pick up something you can use defensively). Killed the minotaur, lost Stoneskin, picked up Guerilla 1 as we were on a hill (guarded by rivers from 4 approaches).

Turn 15, killed by 4 Wild Trolls and an enraged minotaur. Reloaded, tried to draw some aggro with my Scout, which apparently caused only 1 troll to spawn and the minotaur wasn't enraged. My second warrior had finished, so I killed both without incident and now had three Guerilla 1 units in my capital (the Scout failed to draw the aggro, so the warriors did the killing).

Turn 18, hit simultaneously by 4 Wild Trolls, 4 Orc Warriors, and a Hill Giant - which attacks first, causing collateral damage. The fact that the trolls are spawning in orc-sized groups and can't be picked off due to their defensive straight is rough, but the real killer is that they can beeline you at two squares a turn straight over hills - or mountains. There's no time to prepare and they can't be drawn off or reasoned with.

About this time I went into the WB, spawned Eurabatres, and tried to rampage angrily only to be utterly humiliated when as soon as he was out of range of my base another 5 trolls (in two groups) showed up with a wave of orcs behind them. The orcs were just out of breath range when they crashed my broken-spirited defenders.

About this time I went into the WB and spawned barbarian Abashis near everyone else's capitals. She was beaten to two of them by extant barbs. I wept.


Troll speed is going to be reduced to 1. That should help.

If that is insufficient I can move their spawning back a touch.

The thing that worries me is the early game. An extra six population unaffected by health and happy could really break things early.


Not sure how you are going to go about this...but if you start these cottages as providing citizens only and phase the other specialist options in later it shouldn't be a problem.

ive played two games now to about 150 turns and i havent had too much of an issue with the spawns, they do a great job keeping me from expanding, and they will raze improvements, but as far as taking my citys they have not, i have gotten many of the 6/4 guys and the fast moving trolls many times, and they havent taken my citys yet. its possible that its because i rush for archery tho

ive played two games now to about 150 turns and i havent had too much of an issue with the spawns, they do a great job keeping me from expanding, and they will raze improvements, but as far as taking my citys they have not, i have gotten many of the 6/4 guys and the fast moving trolls many times, and they havent taken my citys yet. its possible that its because i rush for archery tho


Honestly I haven't had any problems with the early spawns...but I'm pretty conservative in the early game.

maby there could be an option added in the next patch to keep the spawns like they are, something like animal invasions X-treme or something

maby there could be an option added in the next patch to keep the spawns like they are, something like animal invasions X-treme or something


That would be tricky.


I could make the top couple of difficulty settings just ridiculous though. That would be easy enough.

sounds good :D

The only way to know is trying it out, I'll make a module.

If you make a module of this, I'd be more then happy to try it out.

That would be tricky.


I could make the top couple of difficulty settings just ridiculous though. That would be easy enough.

How about not? I often play these difficulties and still find it annoying to see civs fall due to minotaurs and not each other/me.

Vermicious, you mentioned you start conservatively, and previously that the spawns are balanced for the AIs on Diety. I was wondering what you consider a reasonable early city defense, since many of us don't seem to be doing an adequate job of it.

Not really. If there already are Cottages around, you won't be building them will you?
Explain, please.

If there already are :commerce:-resources around, whether they are Gold, Dyes or Towns, you don't need to build Cottages.
If I have a commerce-specialized city, I want as much commerce as I can get there (with hammers and food as necessary to support the maximum commerce generation).

Sure. I was arguing that the scaling they do doesn't have a vital effect on the game. Replace them with a flat-rate improvement that has the same average yield and you won't notice a difference on the empire level.
Of course it will be noticeable. Late game commerce will be much less.

My point was that if Cottages scale the :commerce: available over time, then any strategy that doesn't scale :commerce: will either be over or underpowered.
What's your basis for that conclusion?

You're exactly wrong anyway: Currently, cottages do scale over time. The mere fact of an income being scaled over time should be balanced against the required expenditure over time. And, the required expenditure over time does scale, and we have not discussed changing that fact. Thus, they match.

If we change cottages to not scale, then they will not match against the expenditure which scales. So, the non-scaled cottages will either be overpowered early game (because we change them to a flat rate which is higher than the current level early game), or underpowered late game (because we change them to a flat rate which is lower than the current level late game).

Only because Aristocracy and SE are later than Cottages. By the time you make the transition you already have several Cottage-economy towns and there is no need to change them.
Even if they were available early game, it would still be good strategy to do it, so your argument doesn't hold.

That seems like the exact order I gave.

Harvest resource, obviously.
Build farm. When you can grow, it is required.
Build mine. If you need the production.
Build cottage. No other pressing issues.

Cottages are the default improvement built when nothing in particular is good.
The difference is that you define all food as good. But, food is not always good. The best player wouldn't want city growth to outpace happy/health. Once the city is at max size, food is worthless. Same with hammers. While it's one thing to say we can always use more hammers, a city specialized to produce commerce wants to maximize those commerce multipliers and hammers are a necessary evil to be minimized.

Bottom line, food is a means to an end. The end is to have the city generate research/gold.

City specialization means some cities are desired to maximize commerce output. So, only enough food to enable citizens to work commerce tiles or run commerce specialists would be warranted. And, only enough hammers to generate any desired buildings would be warranted.

Your list would maximize both food and hammers when my list minimizes them.

I think your proposed changes suit your game style. But there are plenty of other players the game caters to, each with their own game style. Would you spite all of them to suit yourself?

I do some specialization, but don't have the patience for extreme measures. Besides, it's not as useful in Fall from Heaven as in Beyond the Sword.
Maybe because you don't do it, you see it as not as useful?

I like :commerce: as much as the next guy. I only dislike Cottages and the reason is that they are so expensive.

First you have to build them, then a pop needs to spend 30 turns working a sub-par improvement. Finally you get to reap the rewards. Unfortunately they're not very good, and you have permanently locked the tile into a low powered :commerce: improvement.
Let's make them better then. How about a double-speed civic, like we have in BtS?

Aren't they the best? Civics can give two, a few buildings give another.

How are you going to get 30 more specialists when the entire fat cross is covered with weak improvements? 60 settled Great Merchants?
30 is too high a number. Some tile improvements enable more than the 1 specialist a cottage would give you. And, as you say, some civics give some, some buildings give some, some wonders give some.

I'm not particularly worried about disabling Cottage economies, because I think they are weak anyway. I may replace them with Plantation economies.

The thing that worries me is the early game. An extra six population unaffected by health and happy could really break things early.
The former doesn't "worry" me so much as "meh". You're taking something away with one hand and say you'll add something else with the other hand. Assuming you can enable as good or better of a game strategy, I suppose it might be a slight improvement.

For the latter, I brought it up first. :p

If I have a commerce-specialized city, I want as much commerce as I can get there (with hammers and food as necessary to support the maximum commerce generation).

And you won't be replacing :commerce: generating improvements with cottages. You only build cottages when there isn't already a :commerce: generating improvement.

Of course it will be noticeable. Late game commerce will be much less.

By flat-rate I meant an improvement that doesn't grow, like a Plantation. It can still get tech dependent boosts, at each stage in the game matching the average expected income from cottages.

You're exactly wrong anyway: Currently, cottages do scale over time. The mere fact of an income being scaled over time should be balanced against the required expenditure over time. And, the required expenditure over time does scale, and we have not discussed changing that fact. Thus, they match.

If we change cottages to not scale, then they will not match against the expenditure which scales. So, the non-scaled cottages will either be overpowered early game (because we change them to a flat rate which is higher than the current level early game), or underpowered late game (because we change them to a flat rate which is lower than the current level late game).

Come to think about it, I'm not convinced cottages grow in :commerce: output if taken as an average. They have a maximum output and as they reach that, population growth requires new cottages. On average, beyond the first few Towns, they might generate about 3:commerce: each. The only benefit you get from growing cottages is increased vulnerability to pillagers.

Even if they were available early game, it would still be good strategy to do it, so your argument doesn't hold.

No, it wouldn't.

You set your civics and research priorities to benefit your main strategy. Ideally all cities follow that mainline, because that is where you have the most advantage. Only if you already have cities committed to another strategy does it make sense to diverge.

The difference is that you define all food as good. But, food is not always good. The best player wouldn't want city growth to outpace happy/health. Once the city is at max size, food is worthless.

No I said "if you can grow". It's not a list where you should build the first improvement that can be built. It's the order you evaluate if you need the improvements in. If cottages were first on the list, one would only ever build cottages, because one always need more :commerce:.

As a side note, I think there is rarely any reason to avoid :yuck: by limiting growth. Combat that with resources or buildings, but keep your population at the happy cap. If the governor could be set to "work or starve" management, I wouldn't even care about the happy cap, unhappy citizens mean faster growth when I get more happy.

Your list would maximize both food and hammers when my list minimizes them.

No, my list sets :food: and :hammers: to the desired levels and shunts the rest into :commerce:. It works equally well with Scions and Calabim.

Minimizing :food: and :hammers: is insane. That means (:food: = 2*population + :yuck:); +1 when growing and 1:hammers:.


Maybe because you don't do it, you see it as not as useful?

I know that it is useful. Just not as useful as in Beyond the Sword. It's because buildings are less powerful in Fall from Heaven.


Let's make them better then. How about a double-speed civic, like we have in BtS?


Doesn't Beyond the Sword have three cottage civics?

Yes, cottages could be boosted to the point where they aren't too expensive for their effort. I doubt the AI could be programmed to use and abuse them though.

And you won't be replacing :commerce: generating improvements with cottages. You only build cottages when there isn't already a :commerce: generating improvement.
Are you using the game term "improvement" to describe "resource"? Because otherwise I'm increasingly thinking you and I aren't talking about the same thing.

By flat-rate I meant an improvement that doesn't grow, like a Plantation.
That's what I meant, too.

It can still get tech dependent boosts, at each stage in the game matching the average expected income from cottages.
Ah, good point. I had forgotten about that. Hrmm. I'll have to rethink everything I've said.

Come to think about it, I'm not convinced cottages grow in :commerce: output if taken as an average. They have a maximum output and as they reach that, population growth requires new cottages.
That doesn't make sense. Don't you mean "more cottages growth requires more population"?

No, it wouldn't.

You set your civics and research priorities to benefit your main strategy. Ideally all cities follow that mainline, because that is where you have the most advantage. Only if you already have cities committed to another strategy does it make sense to diverge.
Civics are empire wide bonuses, correct. And to max leverage civics, you want all your cities to be homogenous.

Running counter to that are city-specific bonuses, some of which are limited in number of cities (wonders, settled great people, GPP generation, etc.) Even ones that don't have an overt limit (buildings) are limited in that they require generation of hammers to produce, so they are limited both in time (time because you don't realize the benefit until you have invested X turns) and by the hammers. To maximize the single city bonus, it is necessary to specialize each city to most leverage the bonuses available to that city.

The player must balance these two trends against each other. And also take into account that, empire wide, the player has certain needs... a certain amount of production of units/wonders, a certain amount of generation of research, etc.

So, when looking at a city and deciding if that city should over-ride the empire-wide bonuses, the player must balance all those factors. Quite often, it is good to have a GP farm, for example. Despite the fact that the empire may be running civics that do not encourage this, it nevertheless is more beneficial to have a single city which is specialized to generate GP, even if that city has non-optimal leverage of civics.

Same is true of money generation, or research, or units. It often is good to have a single city or couple of cities which are optimized to generate one of those things. Even if that city does not leverage the empire's chosen civics.

Back to your statement. Yes, "ideally" you want all cities to be homogenous, to max leverage your empire's chosen civics. However, ideally you ALSO want to maximize single-city benefits. And, this is true whether you already have such cities, or are starting them from scratch. So I am of different opinion on both those statements.

Are you using the game term "improvement" to describe "resource"? Because otherwise I'm increasingly thinking you and I aren't talking about the same thing.

You said cottages were a :commerce:resource. Tiles in general have pitiful output unless there is an improvement there.

But regardless of what is actually in the tile, the only time you build Cottages is when the tile isn't generating enough :commerce:. The function of cottages is to give :commerce: where there is none.

That doesn't make sense. Don't you mean "more cottages growth requires more population"?

No, when your population grows (higher happycap) you need more cottages.

Because cottages upgrades are limited*, they don't scale :commerce: growth. It is population that grows to harvest more :commerce:, the fact that cottages upgrade is immaterial. They could be replaced by a flat-rate improvement that has the same average output. All the upgrade mechanic does is make you more vulnerable to pillagers.

* Limited in this context means that they reach maximum potential within a short time compared to the time considered. Since it's early game compared to late game, I think they do. Cottages become Towns in 100 turns, I think. That's short compared to the time between early and late game, which means that Cottages don't scale available :commerce: between early and late game.

This is broad strokes of course and to some extent they do grow :commerce: output. I'm not convinced it is to a great extent, and the fact that fixed income/pop strategies are viable supports my position.

Civics are empire wide bonuses, correct. And to max leverage civics, you want all your cities to be homogenous.

Running counter to that are city-specific bonuses, some of which are limited in number of cities (wonders, settled great people, GPP generation, etc.)

But city-specific bonuses are also empire wide, in that they require techs to build.

To maximize the single city bonus, it is necessary to specialize each city to most leverage the bonuses available to that city.

But how could the map make a cottage city better than a specialist city when everything else is set up for the specialist city?

Low food potential? To me that would suggest a production city or the settler should settle somewhere else. No other space left -> late game, the cottages wont mature. The one scenario that makes sense is strategically important spot. In that case I could see cottaging, not because it is good; only least bad.

Other reasons?


Quite often, it is good to have a GP farm, for example. Despite the fact that the empire may be running civics that do not encourage this, it nevertheless is more beneficial to have a single city which is specialized to generate GP, even if that city has non-optimal leverage of civics.

I'm not questioning a GP-farm, in a cottage economy, specialist economy or aristograrian. Nor military production centres.

I question that it is a good strategy to make a cottage city when you are already set up for some other dominant strategy, for instance aristograrian. Legacy cities get a pass because they are already "done". You claimed that even if aristogracy was available from the beginning, some cities would still be cottaged.

Considering how the base BtS players usually swoon over cottages, with Attacko being the only one who opposes them, suck dislike for FfH/RiFE cottages is noticeable.

Maybe Agristocracy just needs nerfing or something.

Might be time to discuss this in it's own thread, rather than the ever-larger stickied thread... :mischief:

You said cottages were a :commerce:resource.
Yeah, you're right. Sorry. I should have said ":commerce: generator" or something.

But regardless of what is actually in the tile, the only time you build Cottages is when the tile isn't generating enough :commerce:. The function of cottages is to give :commerce: where there is none.
The former only really applies on resources, right? And hte latter is hardly true. Rivers, for example. Don't you mean "the only time you build Cottages is when the tile doesn't have a resource of some kind"?

No, when your population grows (higher happycap) you need more cottages.

Because cottages upgrades are limited*, they don't scale :commerce: growth. It is population that grows to harvest more :commerce:, the fact that cottages upgrade is immaterial. They could be replaced by a flat-rate improvement that has the same average output. All the upgrade mechanic does is make you more vulnerable to pillagers.

* Limited in this context means that they reach maximum potential within a short time compared to the time considered. Since it's early game compared to late game, I think they do. Cottages become Towns in 100 turns, I think. That's short compared to the time between early and late game, which means that Cottages don't scale available :commerce: between early and late game.

This is broad strokes of course and to some extent they do grow :commerce: output. I'm not convinced it is to a great extent, and the fact that fixed income/pop strategies are viable supports my position.
Again, have to think on this some. Thanks for your thoughts.

But city-specific bonuses are also empire wide, in that they require techs to build.
Not always. GPP generation for example, or settled GP.

But how could the map make a cottage city better than a specialist city when everything else is set up for the specialist city?

Low food potential? To me that would suggest a production city or the settler should settle somewhere else. No other space left -> late game, the cottages wont mature. The one scenario that makes sense is strategically important spot. In that case I could see cottaging, not because it is good; only least bad.

Other reasons?
Because the city in question may have single-city bonuses. Because the empire-wide bonuses are biased toward a specific end, and it is necessary to generate other things too (i.e., the reason city specialization is a good idea is because the empire needs at least some units, some research, some gold, some GP, etc. City-specific bonuses and multipliers make it most efficient to have those things concentrated in one city for each item.)

I'm not questioning a GP-farm, in a cottage economy, specialist economy or aristograrian. Nor military production centres.

I question that it is a good strategy to make a cottage city when you are already set up for some other dominant strategy, for instance aristograrian. Legacy cities get a pass because they are already "done". You claimed that even if aristogracy was available from the beginning, some cities would still be cottaged.
Sure. The basis of Aristocracy is farms.
You need fresh water. No water = cottages are your only option unless you're going to make it a production city or something.
Farms get a food hit under Aristocracy. So if there are not enough food specials, then farms won't cut it. If they are grassland, then cottages are still viable.
Farms still have a 2 commerce limit. That's inferior to Towns. (I know you argued that "on average" they may be closer to equivalent. But even on average I think the cottages will provide more raw commerce, even if not the maximum if all the Towns were mature.)
Farms don't provide hammers.

Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this.

ive always thought it pointless to build cottages, the market and the gambling house produces sooo much coin that it will do more than any cottage strategy could have in my last game, i was playing mechanos, and i had 40% research speed, i got market, and then gambling houses, and that shot up to 100% with coin to spare! to me its all about the hammers, max those hammers, there are so many buildings that need to be built.

max hammers, build a few farms in some good food tiles, bam, your set

Farms get a food hit under Aristocracy. So if there are not enough food specials, then farms won't cut it. If they are grassland, then cottages are still viable.

That's why it's usually Agristocracy. Also, Sanitation.

Farms still have a 2 commerce limit. That's inferior to Towns. (I know you argued that "on average" they may be closer to equivalent. But even on average I think the cottages will provide more raw commerce, even if not the maximum if all the Towns were mature.)

But remember that Agristo farms produce 2 :commerce: + food to boot, which enables working more 2 :commerce: farms, as opposed to cottages, which don't allow for more growth.

Farms don't provide hammers.

Relevant only with a lot of plains in your land and for the Elves.

Obtaining fresh water is usually easy, so it's only plains where Agristo can be suboptimal.

I think that Agristo is usually stronger then cottages, unless RiFE had been changing something. In regards to base FfH, I think that agristo needs to be nerfed somehow.

i was playing mechanos, and i had 40% research speed, i got market, and then gambling houses, and that shot up to 100% with coin to spare!

Mind you, 20% of 1000 is bigger then 100% of 100, so it's not always all about the %.

Fully developed cottages give +2 hammers now, though, in addition to commerce bonuses. That ends up being quite considerable.
Agristocracy is even stronger in RiFe as farms have a +1 base bonus to food.
But pretty much everything's beefed up in RiFe as it is *shrug*.

Might be time to discuss this in it's own thread, rather than the ever-larger stickied thread... :mischief:

Self-quote time. :lol:

I like the discussion, but it's making the thread even more bloated than it was (You guys have added nearly 4 pages with it! :eek:) Seeing as I can not replace this thread without bugging a moderator, I'd appreciate it if you moved the discussion to a different location... Either a new thread, or the Module thread, here. ;)

Nah, we've beat it to death. :)

Moving back to the feedback thing...

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but can minotaurs could be toned down?
They're taking out civs early as things stand... maybe they could be held around their starting lair, similar to the way Acheron works?

at a other Place ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=348959 ) it is already Mentioned that Minor Minotaur will get 4/4 (instead 6/4 now) and if I undestand it corect crazed will removed in the next Version.

They found one of the RifE bears in real life (http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4922672).

They found one of the RifE bears in real life (http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4922672).

Those poor bastards....

This is an issue carried over from base FfH, but has anyone tried to normalize the audio tracks? Some are quite loud in comparison to the others.

This is an issue carried over from base FfH, but has anyone tried to normalize the audio tracks? Some are quite loud in comparison to the others.

Honestly - whichever Civ 4 designer made the call to have volume scale with number of casters without a maximum limit deserves a serious wedgie.

Honestly - whichever Civ 4 designer made the call to have volume scale with number of casters without a maximum limit deserves a serious wedgie.

Another questionable decision -especially annoying when you win 50 combats in between turns.

Is it intentional that Fallen Angels (Thanatos and Dullahans of the Legion) cannot acquire Flying at Combat 5? It was a nice feature.

No, forgot to make it an alternate prereq. Will do so.

Edit: Also, it's not just for the D'tesh; Mercurians get it too, assuming you're able to get them down to evil. :lol:

There should be an evil Mercurian leader, just for that purpose.

The question then is how we allow them to spawn; Had lots of issues with that originally. Have an idea, though.... Need to talk to Opera about it, as it's related to one of hers. ;)

Just wanted to say, Nice Work!

Verminicous have you found a way to prefent Wild Troll (scout Replacement of the Jotnar) to be able to upgrade to a other Hunter Typ or is this some strange bug I encounter because of the Modules I use?´
If this prefenetion is from you then finaly Archmage and other limited units can prefented from having full Jotnar + full normal Unit limit.

Verminicous have you found a way to prefent Wild Troll (scout Replacement of the Jotnar) to be able to upgrade to a other Hunter Typ or is this some strange bug I encounter because of the Modules I use?´
If this prefenetion is from you then finaly Archmage and other limited units can prefented from having full Jotnar + full normal Unit limit.

That sounds like a bug - Wild Trolls should upgrade to Troll Goblincatchers, unless maybe you're capturing them with Command?

D'tesh: swap some button art around, perhaps. There are lots of evil/undead looking buttons...and I have confused Gift Essence with Flay Flesh no less then three times now. :crazyeye:

Also, update some events to check for D'tesh civilization - they are particularly vulnerable to getting the Body Mana sickness event, for instance, which the Scions are immune to.

That sounds like a bug - Wild Trolls should upgrade to Troll Goblincatchers, unless maybe you're capturing them with Command?

You got it wrong its about Tolerant Civs who usualy can crossupdate but not so with the Wild Troll that only is able to update to Troll Goblincatcher and not to a other Hunter Unit like Divided Soul.
Tolerant Civs was/is also the reason why the Jotnar Citysen Update lines have theyr own Unit Classes so that the crossupdate is not possible even when this means its theoretical possible to have 8 Archmage Units (4 Jotnar + 4 Normal). Maybe now you see my reason to ask if they have found a other way to prefent this crossupdating instead of making a new Unit Class.

That's because it is a different unitclass. Which means it is entirely unique, not a replacement... And was done JUST so that they could have a conqueror leader without being completely broken. ;)

Ah thanks Valkiron so the Pedia is wrong because in the Pedia the Troll Goblincatcher is still a Hunter Class

Ah, wait, no. I"M wrong. They were unique unitclasses last version, but now that trolls are freely buildable they are not. The recon line (trolls) ARE UU's. :blush:

So Verminicous found a way to prefent the crossupdating without changing the Unit Class? because 1.12 it was still posible to update a Wild Troll to a Divided Soul but with 1.20 it dont works any more at last for me.

So Verminicous found a way to prefent the crossupdating without changing the Unit Class? because 1.12 it was still posible to update a Wild Troll to a Divided Soul but with 1.20 it dont works any more at last for me.


There is a way. Same method the Centaurs use. I will take another pass at it.

By the way, Valkrionn, I thought you had plans on implementing fantastic Freya's Citystyle ModMod into RifE (some of the styles there are plain fantastic). Is this idea still up?

One more request: in some mod for vanilla, I've seen specialist pitures stacking (5 priests were replaced by a pic of priest with a tick, 10 priests - by a pic of priest with two ticks, etc), which made city interface much neater (when I went for Luonnotar Victory, I had about 15 priests in single city). Is it possible to implement this feature?

I never had plans to do it, just said I would look into it. :lol:

If I have time between other things I will probably get to it, though. Working on something new atm. ;)

And what about stacking specialists? :)

They already do? That's just a display thing.

Care to post another screenie of the desktop, so I can spy the "to do" list...:mischief:

It's empty. ;)

I'm actually testing it now, and then I may or may not post a screenshot. Wouldn't be able to tell who's GETTING the new mechanic from it, after all. :mischief:

It's actually something Wild Mana already incorporated, which rather surprised me as we'd been planning it for a while. Hadn't thought another FfH mod would grab it first. :lol: Although in Wild Mana it's a general mechanic, not a trait... Would be ridiculously strong as a general mechanic in RifE for certain civs.

Hint please Valk. (mabye... but at the same time, not)

Not really supposed to post anything, but this one picture shouldn't hurt. Keep in mind it's from a test, where I made sure it worked... Trait was cloned from Sprawling, and the civ was picked pretty much at random. :lol:

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc310/Valkrionn/Civilization/Civ4ScreenShot0047.jpg

So you implemented this modcomp (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=326545)?

EDIT: I see your post in that thread saying you are, so yes, I guess that's what you're adding.

Not what I am, but what I have. :lol:

It's completely done, and working great. Lots of other stuff to do before a release, though. ;)

Also, I'd like to see who you all think will be getting this tag. We have pretty firm plans already (and those of you who know, not a word! :lol:), but sometimes we get good ideas from all of you so I want to see what you come up with. ;)

Careful, just like when I teased with the Great Generals someone is liable to guess precisely what you did and point out that it is already done somewhere else :p (though that is quite unlikely in this case...)

Yeah, in this case I don't think anyone will guess it (At the least not the full extent, may get one or two) unless someone who knows the plans drops a hint. Which would displease me greatly. :lol:

They already do? That's just a display thing.

Of course it is. That's why I think, that implementing it shouldn't be much pain in the ass, while the city interface will become much more readable.