In this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8222552&postcount=5) and the surrounding thread we had brief discussions about new mechanics for different civs. This thread will focus on tleilaxu mechanics.

The key concepts are clones and bioweapons. For clones, one option is cloning armies of warriors or farmers; this has been done a lot. In the books it seems that making one clone is an expensive and uncertain proposition, so making an army does not seem to fit the theme. For bioweapons, there are many possibilities, but one good one is tailored plagues.

Cloning

My concept is a unit you can build which is a clone, of *any existing GP* you have encountered. Similar idea, I suppose, to the shades in FFH. A Tleilaxu city would have a lot of clone GP's. Each GP you get, including type and name, goes into a global list which is maintained for your civ. If your spies are in a city with another player's GP, their type and name goes onto the list. This represents stealing a small sample of genetic material. Ideally this should be a superspy mission, but that sdk change is relatively hard.

There would be a UB for the cloning tank, requiring a mid-game tech. Any city with the UB can build a Clone unit in their regular production queue. The AI can be forced to spend some percentage of its production on clones using python. When the unit enters the construction queue, you get a popup which lists the available GP's for which you have genetic material, and you can choose one. When the unit is done in the production queue, you have that GP available.

I am not sure I can implement a popup when the unit enters the queue. An alternate approach is to give the Clone unit an action button; when the unit is created and you push the action button, then the popup appears and the unit gets replaced with your selection. This does not exactly match the concept of growing a specific clone, but it may be close enough.

One other interesting possibility is cloning of other units besides GP. Some units, such as a tank squadron, are not really clone-able. Other units may represent a single highly skilled person; for example there is a Ginaz Swordmaster unit, and maybe some others. These units could go onto the genetic material list as well. However, it may require very careful design and implementation to get this right. Suppose a unit has certain promotions when it is "scanned" and later gets additional promotions. Which ones, if any of these promotions should appear on the cloned copy? This would need some more thought.

Plagues

Gods of Old has one kind of plague, which spreads from city to city and causes disruption of trade routes and other effects. My thought was more personal: a targeted plague which only affects units of certain civilizations. There may be many possible ways to design this; but suppose you have a UB which is a bioweapons lab. A city with this UB can produce a unit called a Plague Vector. This unit has a certain lifespan, say 10 turns, and you can associate a list of civilizations with it. This is a little undefined. For now, think of it as, "all the civs I am currently at war with". But I can see you may want to affect civilizations you aren't at war with ... yet. The limited lifespan represents the ability of other civs to come up with an antidote.

When the PV unit exists, any Tleilaxu spy will "infect" any unit of the targeted civs that it is stacked with. Probably this will happen in an enemy city. This is represented as a promotion with a lifespan and a significant negative effect, such as "-50% strength" or "-1 movement" or "cannot fortify". Any unit in contact with an infected unit also becomes infected. When the timespan of the PV unit runs out, all the promotions are removed, or have a 50% chance per turn to be removed.

Comments? Other biologically inspired havoc?

Buildable GPs could get problematic; I can see you building them and settling them all in one mega-city with terrible balance consequences.

One idea; how about the Balseraph mimic from FFH? The Mimic gains a promotion at random from any unit it kills in combat. Maybe the Facedancer could have this property? Seems in theme, though there are fewer interesting promotions to steal in this mod.

Buildable GPs could get problematic; I can see you building them and settling them all in one mega-city with terrible balance consequences.

I have not played the Sidar in FFH, but whatever is done to maintain play balance with their Shades may be appropriate here.

Shades aren't really buildable with Hammers.

Sidar have two mechanics related to GPs;
1) Their place gives a straight +1 bonus to specialists and settled great people, so they are more inclined to run a specialist economy and generate great people.
2) When a unit reaches level 6, it can cast the fade spell and become a shade, which can then settle in a city as a great person specialist. Note also that with 20% strength bonus from combat and 40% strength bonus from shock/cover etc., a level 6 unit is a very powerful one worth preserving as a combat unit, so you lose a lot by sacrificing it.

There are also a lot of early barbarians in FFH that you can use to level up warriors and such and then fade them into specialists.

I don't think that either 1) or 2) make much sense for the BeneTs.

My point was that Sidar do not appear to unbalance the game by creating too many GP; so if we make the clone unit mid-game and expensive, it should not immediately unbalance the game.

My point is that there is a big difference between extra GP that are limited by a hard-to-satisfy mechanic and those that are spammable with enough hammers.

Plus, the number of +% bonuses you can get in any one city in FFH is fairly low, whereas I think the total +% bonuses you can get here are rather higher.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but that it is hard to balance; if the cost is low enough that its worth building one, then its probably worth spamming them and building 10.

If you did adopt it, I'd do it like shades, where you build a unit that can settle as a GP, but can't do any of the other benfits (bulbing techs, golden ages, academy/wonder boost/culture bomb/shrine foundation/etc.).

One other interesting possibility is cloning of other units besides GP. Some units, such as a tank squadron, are not really clone-able. Other units may represent a single highly skilled person; for example there is a Ginaz Swordmaster unit, and maybe some others. These units could go onto the genetic material list as well. However, it may require very careful design and implementation to get this right. Suppose a unit has certain promotions when it is "scanned" and later gets additional promotions. Which ones, if any of these promotions should appear on the cloned copy? This would need some more thought.

I like this more than the GP cloning. Sounds more fun to me. Especially, if we get a decent implementation of Heroes and Leader units. Ghola is probably a more appropriate Duniverse term for this - but using clone to discuss the mechanics is probably easier. The clones should probably get a fixed number of turns to live and after that a chance of discovery that ramps up to certainty. Discovery means the cloned unit is destroyed.

there are fewer interesting promotions to steal in this mod

This is a good point and something we should perhaps look to address. The question is what makes the FFH2 promotions interesting and can we think of good Dune equivalents. I've tried to start thinking of some Dune unit promotions here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8256973&postcount=70), but these are only very early rough ideas.

I've turned this slaver promotion (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=325513) into a DNa extracting promotion.
It doesn't maybe fit for Dune :dunno:.


Bioweapons: There was a modder, who changed the nuke into a bioweapon, which creates gases and poisoned sea. Maybe an idea.

I've turned this slaver promotion (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=325513) into a DNa extracting promotion.
It doesn't maybe fit for Dune :dunno:.

Thanks for the pointer. I used that concept (not so much the actual code) as the slaver combat result for Harkonnen. For taking genetic material, I think it is more of a spy action than a combat victory action. Still, something to keep in mind.

OK, as of 1.4.2 five of the nine civs have unique abilities. Time to come back to this thread.

My original proposal for plagues was too complicated. I propose a UU spy, Face Dancer. When it is in a city, owned by a player who is at war with Tleilaxu, it automatically starts a tailored plague. This has a 50% chance to infect any unit owned by that player. Infected units get a "Tleilaxu Plague" promotion, which is -25% strength. Infected units can transmit the plague to other units in the same plot, owned by players at war with Tleilaxu. Perhaps the plague could also cause unhealthiness in cities and even losing a population point. Once you are no longer at war with Tleilaxu then your units/cities recover very quickly.

Regarding cloning, I liked the idea of cloning GP's but clearly others did not. What can we do with cloning, making the assumption that it is expensive so only individuals can be cloned (no armies)? In Children of Dune, they make a big point that most gholas do not have the memory of their "parent", only the appearance. That is why it is a big deal that the Duncan ghola does recall his memories. So stealing promotions and giving memory-based abilities is probably not appropriate. Anybody?

Bioweapons: There was a modder, who changed the nuke into a bioweapon, which creates gases and poisoned sea. Maybe an idea.

its in thomas war, maybe you refer to the planet buster...its too lethal...i think....



i think the tleilax needs to have some cloning abilites, they are experts in it, so i think i will serve right,

how about my idea? a certain % of units (infatry) that gets killed in battle - are cloned in the nearest city as i said, like they cloned the dead idaho.

how about my idea? a certain % of units (infatry) that gets killed in battle - are cloned in the nearest city as i said, like they cloned the dead idaho.

They cloned *one person* and it was very costly. If we can find something interesting that does not imply cheap cloning of a whole army, I would prefer that.

mm, we dont have to make it cheap....

it can be an event triggered by the death of a unit - and it askes you if you wanna do cloning - for a certain price.

i know the pleuge event - its really cool, and can be nice for the tleilax.

Here's one possible UB for Tleilaxu, a Great Person amplifier. The game effect is just + some big percentage on GP points. But it has one special effect, which goes to the name of the GP when the city generates it. Instead of picking a new random name, it looks at all the GP of that type for all the civs in the game, picks one of those names, and puts a number after it, like "Leonardo DaVinci II". Some small amount of tracking these names is needed. It's small, but it gives that feeling of cloning.

Here's another possible UB. My problem with cloning tanks is it makes no sense to build say an artillery or carryall unit in a cloning tank. Suppose the tank just adds promotions to a unit built normally in that city. The special effect is that it may copy a set of promotions from any of your current units of that type. So if you have a level 6 promoted artillery out there somewhere, and you build a new artillery in the city with this building, it comes out of the assembly line with all the same promotions as the level 6 unit. This represents cloning the expertise of the human commander of the unit, while still paying the normal hammer cost for the equipment.

This is obviously more powerful. If the idea is interesting we could put more into it. For example, as you make more copies of the unit, more and more promotions may be missing from it, representing a decrease in quality. It might remember all of your units, not just your live ones, so you could get a clone of a *dead* level 6 artillery unit. It could capture information about promotions from units you have defeated, so if you kill somebody else's level 6 artillery, then you could build clones of that. (Need to be careful about UU and civ-specific promotions.) In case there are several different promotion sets for one unit type, it may be worthwhile to put up a picklist with several choices. That adds a lot of GUI complexity.

Axotltanks in the books where used to "clone" people, but only in the later books they retained their skills of the donor. before that the ghola's had to learn those skills a new.
Maybey a special unit that can steal (defeat in combat) the genes of UU and turn into them, like facedancers? In the books facedancers could steal the memories and skill of their victims.
Or in the late game a "imortal unit" as an UU. Since their leaders where basically the same since the invention of genetic memory.
Axotltanks where also used for production of spice and other drugs. not sure if we can use that for something.

I still think that the FFH mimic promotion (steal a promotion from a unit you defeat in combat) could work well here.

As an alternative; an axolotl tank building could basically be a city building that does nothing except provide great people points. If the point of the gholas is to keep making copies of great leaders, scientists, mentats, warriors etc, that sounds to me like faster GPP production. Maybe +2 great infiltrator points and +1 trader +1 mentat +1noble (=currently ghola) +1 engineer.

I still think that the FFH mimic promotion (steal a promotion from a unit you defeat in combat) could work well here.

That may work well as a Face Dancer ability. But if you take one promotion from one person, and then later you take one promotion from another person, does that mean you lose the first one? If you are mimicking one person, you are no longer mimicking the other.

As an alternative; an axolotl tank building could basically be a city building that does nothing except provide great people points. If the point of the gholas is to keep making copies of great leaders, scientists, mentats, warriors etc, that sounds to me like faster GPP production. Maybe +2 great infiltrator points and +1 trader +1 mentat +1noble (=currently ghola) +1 engineer.

I'd like to give the feeling of "duplicating" things. But I don't suppose there is any way to add more GPP without affecting the existing ratio. That is why I had been thinking about a UB that would directly produce copies of your existing GP.

But if you take one promotion from one person, and then later you take one promotion from another person, does that mean you lose the first one? If you are mimicking one person, you are no longer mimicking the other.


The intention would be not to lose the promotion. The idea would be basically that as you find and kill new people, you are adding their personas to your "repertoire" so to speak. So an experienced facedancer who has encoutered and killed many people is much more powerful because it can always pick an optimal person to mimic at any given point in time.

I'd like to give the feeling of "duplicating" things.

I'm not sure I see the need of requiring the people to duplicate to actually be part of the mechanic.
I think it is easier to imagine that they are duplicating people without needing those specific people to be present as Great People in the civ engine.

As another alternative; is it possible to have something give "neutral" Great people points?
I think I remember seeing this in some mod (don't remember where).
The idea of neutral GPPs is that they speed up the time it takes to get to the next great leader without influencing the mix of what that leader is.
That would be ideal here: have a building that gave +5 neutral GPPs.
As another alternative; you could get basically the same effect by just boosting the GPP output %. So axolotl tanks just give +50% GPPs in the city they're built in, so that city will produce more/faster of whatever great people it is producing.

Yet another alternative: if you really did want it to be duplicating great people, then you could make it literally do that; if a great person is spawned in a city with axolotl tanks, then you get 2 instead of 1.
Or alternatively you could create a Ghola version of each great person type who can only be settled in a city as a specialist (can't be used for academies, golden age, wonder rush, culture bomb). So when you make a great trader, you can use that great person for anything, and also get a free great trader ghola who can be settled as a great trader.

The Sidar Fade thing was basically a ghola like this; it could settle into a city as any type of great person specialist, but couldn't use any of the great person specials (culture bomb etc.).

As another alternative; you could get basically the same effect by just boosting the GPP output %. So axolotl tanks just give +50% GPPs in the city they're built in, so that city will produce more/faster of whatever great people it is producing.

That seems like the right solution.

Yet another alternative: if you really did want it to be duplicating great people, then you could make it literally do that; if a great person is spawned in a city with axolotl tanks, then you get 2 instead of 1.

There is an idea here somewhere, but I'd like to find a way where the copy can show up later instead of showing up at the same time. If producing two at the same time seems OK from the play balance standpoint, would it be OK if the copy shows up some random number of turns later?

If producing two at the same time seems OK from the play balance standpoint, would it be OK if the copy shows up some random number of turns later?

Balancewise it would have to be from an expensive building, but yeah I'd be ok with that, as long as all you could do was settle it. Doing this AND giving +50% GPP might be too much though.
As for showing up random number of turns later; I don't like that. It breaks the immediacy of the cause/effect chain. It could feel weird for this great person ghola to just pop up one turn, you might not realize what caused it, particularly for new players. The benefits of an action (getting a GP) should always be apparent, not hidden in something that randomly happens down the line, or it can mess up players' strategic calculus.

You could also use events to create the ghola; when you pop a great person in a city with axolotl tanks, it procs an event with dialogue boxes that either makes you buy the ghola for X gold, or lets you sell the ghola for y gold (so you either get the great person, or gold).

I would still like some elemental of cloning units for the fun factor. There must be some way to identify 'human' units via unit class or the special unit type that lets units be transported by thopter.

Part of the problem is separating "human" units from "equipment" units like scorpions and thopters; but also part of the problem is separating "single" units like a GP or swordmaster, from "army" units like guardsman. I like the idea of cloning the commander to get all the promotions, but maybe it is too complicated. There is some active discussion around now in the heroes thread; clearly if we do a lot with heroes, then cloning of the heroes may be interesting too.

My original proposal for plagues was too complicated. I propose a UU spy, Face Dancer. When it is in a city, owned by a player who is at war with Tleilaxu, it automatically starts a tailored plague. This has a 50% chance to infect any unit owned by that player. Infected units get a "Tleilaxu Plague" promotion, which is -25% strength. Infected units can transmit the plague to other units in the same plot, owned by players at war with Tleilaxu. Perhaps the plague could also cause unhealthiness in cities and even losing a population point. Once you are no longer at war with Tleilaxu then your units/cities recover very quickly.

I have implemented this locally in 1.4.7 (not released yet). I did not create any specific UU; any Tleilaxu unit can start the plague, but spy units are the most likely. Also, an enemy unit which defeats a Tleilaxu unit may contract the plague. (If a Tleilaxu unit defeats an enemy unit, the enemy unit has bigger problems than plague, since it is ... dead.)

I did not implement any negative effect on cities. Perhaps any city containing a unit with plague should have this unhealth.

We can think about UU/UB which make the plague stronger, harder to resist, longer lasting, etc. I suspect Ahriman may not care for the mechanic since the player does not have to "do" anything, but as before, this means the AI does not have to be "taught" anything either. If there are any specific suggestions for how both the player and the AI can be forced to do something, we can certainly discuss.

I still like the idea of applying a set of promotions to a unit produced in a city with an Axlotl Tank. The promotions would be equal to the promotions of your strongest existing unit of the same type, based on cloning that commander. I will try that out next.

What exactly do you have the plague doing? The -25% strength sounds pretty devastating.
What means would you have of *curing* the plague?

You're right that I'm leery about mechanics that require no intervention, including this, but I definitely wouldn't rule this out immediately.

I still like the idea of applying a set of promotions to a unit produced in a city with an Axlotl Tank. The promotions would be equal to the promotions of your strongest existing unit of the same type, based on cloning that commander.

This sounds way too strong. The effect would rapidly spiral out of control. Imagine you're making some unit type, and you have a barracks. The first one you build gets +3xp and so gains second level, and selects the combat 1 promotion. The second one starts with combat 1 free and then gets +3 xp and gains second level and selects combat 2. The third one you build starts with combat 1 and combat 2, gets +3xp and gains second level and selects combat 3, etc.

By the time you have 10 units or so, every unit you produce is like a level 10 unit, which normally takes like 50 experience points. So its like you're getting +50 free experience points on units produced in that city.

And this is all without any xp gain from combat at all.

What exactly do you have the plague doing? The -25% strength sounds pretty devastating. What means would you have of *curing* the plague?

It gives the unit -25% strength. There is no cure, except, making peace with the Tleilaxu. Perhaps we could add something like units in a city with a hospital, or certain other buildings, automatically get rid of the plague.

The effect would rapidly spiral out of control. Imagine you're making some unit type, and you have a barracks. The first one you build gets +3xp and so gains second level, and selects the combat 1 promotion.

Good point. I guess it should be, "a set of free promotions or what you get out of your buildings, whichever is more". So if your best unit is Combat I but you have a bunch of buildings and civics which give new units 5 XP, you would get the 5 XP instead of the one level. But if you get the cloned promotions, then you don't get any starting XP. Does that solve the spiral?

The plague sounds interesting, its hard to tell whether imba without playtesting.

It solves the spiral, but it might still be pretty overpowered. All you have to do is get one decent unit, and then rest of your army (of that type) are combat monsters for free.
And it becomes easier and easier to get super units, because even if you lose your best unit, all the other ones are nearly as good.

This might be feasible if and only if the Bene Tl aren't able to uprgade their units frmo one tier to the next. So if you work on getting an awesome bladesman, that doesn't give you awesome elite bladesmen or awesome melee units for the rest of the game.

Alternatively, a flat free xp or free promotions is likely to offer fewer avenues for crazy exploitation.

Also: I'm not sure that big mass military bonuses are really in-theme for the Bene Tls.

Creating an army of super-soldiers never really seemed like their thing; its very expensive for them to grow gholas, they can only make a handful, not outfit entire regiments.

The idea here is that the promotions are due to the expertise of the commander. So it is not a whole army of clones, just the one clone. It would also make sense for the copies to be "less than perfect" so a promotion may be down one level or missing altogether. If you clone the clone, you may lose another promotion, etc.

I'd still like to clone GP, but we haven't been able to agree on a mechanic. Just giving +50% GPP doesn't sound very "clonish".

It would also make sense for the copies to be "less than perfect" so a promotion may be down one level or missing altogether. If you clone the clone, you may lose another promotion, etc.

This sounds promising. But how do you tell the difference between a unit that is a "clone" and one that is not? Does every new unit produced in the axolotl tank city also get a "Ghola commander" promotion?

But how do you tell the difference between a unit that is a "clone" and one that is not? Does every new unit produced in the axolotl tank city also get a "Ghola commander" promotion?

I have an idea! Perhaps every clone unit should also get a promotion to mark it. We could call it "Ghola commander". :-)

I have an idea that would fit both the lore and the gameplay, although it'd be a nightmare to teach the AI to use it. First, some background:

The Tleilaxu weren't exactly known for creating armies of clones, but they did keep cloned backups of certain important people on hand to replace them should they die. So if you send an important Tleilaxu out to Dune and he manages to get himself killed (Scytale in Dune Messiah) - no problem, you've got a clone of him just waiting to be activated in Bandalong. In fact as it becomes apparent in Heretics of Dune (book 5), they're doing this over and over whenever a Tleilaxu leader dies, so that they became effectively immortal.

What does this suggest, in Civ4 terms? Why, the immortal units in FFH2, which get a promotion such that they respawn in your capital (low on health, and only up to once per turn) if they die. Of course you don't want to give every Tleilaxu unit immortality, that'd be both overpowered and untrue to the source material - gholas were expensive, they didn't make them for just anyone. The problem is then how you choose which units get the immortal promotion - mainly I'm thinking it has to be tied to gold somehow, since making a ghola is, after all, an expensive process. FFH2 has a solution for this, too - specifically Fall Further has the master smith/outfitter/etc buildings, which give units standing in the city the ability to pay gold for a promotion.

So, as the Tleilaxu you would build your "Axlotl Tank" building, move certain units to the city it's in - probably your most experienced, most valuable units - and pay a hefty gold fee to "have a ghola backup made of them", i.e. add the immortality promotion to them. Come to think of it, you'd want it to function less like an immortal in FFH2 and more like the "blood of the phoenix" project in FFH2, which adds a single use immortal promotion to units - so when the unit dies, it respawns at your capital but loses the promotion, so you'll have to pay again to "make another ghola copy", i.e. regain the promotion if you so desire. Of course you wouldn't call it "immortal", you'd name the promotion "Ghola Clone" or somesuch.

Ideally, if at all possible from a coding perspective, you'd want the cost to scale depending on the value of the unit, i.e. it should be more expensive to buy the promotion for a Heavy Trooper than for an Infantry. In fact the cost could be exactly the hammer cost of the unit converted into gold, which makes sense - you're basically paying to make a second copy of said unit. And there's no reason I can see why it shouldn't be available for every unit - sure you can't clone a Scorpion, but if your Scorpion is level 10 and that much better than any other Scorpion, it's because the crew is experienced, there's nothing special about the machine itself. So you could explain the immortal promotion on a Scorpion as having gholas made of the crew.

The only big problem I see is teaching the AI to make intelligent use of this - the AI certainly can't figure out master buildings in FF. Then again the AI's inability to use a mechanic doesn't mean it shouldn't be introduced, I think - FFH2 and FF are full of awesome and fun mechanics for players to use that the AI still hasn't figured out yet, if you took out everything the AI doesn't know how to use (spells, etc) it'd be a boring game indeed. Still it would be nice if the AI could single out more experienced units, send them back to a major city and buy a ghola promotion for them.

I definitely think that linking this to Immortality somehow is an *excellent* idea. The immortality mechanic captures most of what we'd really want: extra promotions must still be earned through battle and so there is a logical cap on what promotions can be attained, but death is impermanent because they can cook up another clone.

A simpler way that the AI could use would be to have a handful of B Tl UUs that had the permanent immortality promotion - though maybe the immortality code could be tweaked to also subtract 50 gold when the unit was regrown.

Alternatively, you could get a measure of the flavor by giving the 1-shot immortality promotion to any unit produced in a city with Axolotl tanks. And make Axolotl tanks a national wonder with limit 1 or 2.

Or these ideas could be combined.

I thought about adding an immortal UU for the Tleilaxu, the problem is it'd only be good at a specific point in tech progression, before that you don't have it and afterwards it'd become obsolete. To make immortals a continuous part of the Tleilaxu gameplay, you'd have to have a bunch of UUs spread through the tech tree - it seems simpler to just add the immortal promotion onto regular units, and fits the lore too. They could make gholas of anyone - Duncan Idaho, Paul Atreides, Scytale, Miles Teg - hell, in book 6 Darwi even made a ghola copy of her personal thopter pilot, an experienced professional with valuable skills, which is exactly what you'd be doing if you tack the ghola promotion onto a Thopter or Scorpion.

Edit: I like the idea of a building adding a oneshot immortal promotion to everything. It doesn't fit the books quite as well as paying gold to promote certain units - the Tleilaxu didn't make one ghola of everyone, they made many, many gholas of certain important people - but it has the advantage of being much simpler and something you don't need to teach the AI to use. Perhaps both is best - a building that gives a oneshot immortal promotion for everyone built in a certain city, and the ability to pay gold to regain the promotion for certain important units. If the AI couldn't figure out the latter ability, at least it would benefit from the former.

Keldath suggested a while ago that perhaps when a unit is killed, you can get a popup which asks, "Do you want to spend N hundred gold to activate a ghola of that?"

Now that we have a homeworld screen and the AI to use it, we could actually do this. A unit which is killed wouldn't necessarily show up in the homeworld *screen*, but the AI to decide whether to buy the unit could pick the killed one also. Inside the homeworld screen somewhere, there is logic to decide the list of available units. So the killed unit could appear on the list for a little while.

To make the AI implementation simpler, could we abstract out the need for an experienced unit to return to the city for "recording"? Maybe all units could just be required to mail back a skin sample every once in a while. If the AI doesn't have to decide to have a unit trek back to the city every time it gets a couple promotions, it will be much simpler.

However, one key point about the immortal approach is that you can only have one copy at a time. If I had ghola technology, I wouldn't limit myself like that. If I have a recording of a veteran tank commander, and I need more tank commanders, wouldn't I make copies now? The fact that the first guy isn't dead yet should not stop me.

I have done a test implementation of the system I described, where a new unit built in the city with an axlotl tank gets the promotions of the best living unit of the same type. I haven't tried it out yet. I have added some code which gives a significant chance that one random promotion will be missing; the copy isn't perfect. Also, based on the "ghola commander" promotion we discussed, it would be possible to have ghola commanders lose promotions over time representing the "disintegration" of the ghola itself. Or, if we want, we could even add negative promotions similar to insanity.

What do you think, one copy at a time or multiple?

the problem is it'd only be good at a specific point in tech progression

I don't see this as a problem. Other factions UUs are only valuable at specific points in the tech tree (Sardaukar, Fedaykin, Worm Riders, etc.)

Plus you can easily have 2 levels of the same UU; a medium and a high, both with permanent immortality, and one can upgrade to the other.

Keldath suggested a while ago that perhaps when a unit is killed, you can get a popup which asks, "Do you want to spend N hundred gold to activate a ghola of that?"

I'd just do it without the popup; you don't want to be procing popups during the enemy turns, and just make it cheap enough so that you (and the AI) would always want to pay the cost.

Merging it with the offworld screen is an interesting idea, if you could get the AI to distinguish the experienced unit from the other ones.

To make the AI implementation simpler, could we abstract out the need for an experienced unit to return to the city for "recording"?

Absolutely, never intended for a unit to have to return, needless micromanagement requirement.

However, one key point about the immortal approach is that you can only have one copy at a time. If I had ghola technology, I wouldn't limit myself like that.

I don't see this as a problem; in the books there is never any mention that I recall of multiple copies of the same person existing at the same time. It may seem logical to use, but they never seemed to do it.
Maybe this is against the Bene Tl's religious beliefs, or maybe if 2 copies exist they have an irresistable urge to hunt each other down, Highlander style ("there can be only one!").

I'd vote one copy at a time, and I think immortality provides an excellent means of doing this.

Logically, if I had gholas, hell yes I'd make clone armies of my best soldier - exactly like they did in the newer Star Wars. But Dune isn't always logical and that's not what the Tleilaxu did, they only ever have one copy of say Duncan Idaho active at a time. So he dies, they have another clone on hand to send out to replace him, and when that one dies they have another, etc - they made dozens and dozens of him, but for whatever unexplained reason only one was ever active at a given time. So personally I'd limit it to one copy at a time, if only because that's the way it actually happened in Dune.

Also I like your idea about removing the need to return a unit to the city - you're right, all they need is a DNA sample, there's no need for the guy to actually visit the Axlotl tank. In fact they made copies of Paul without him even knowing it, presumably by stealing skin scrapings or hair or whatever. So you could just add a button to any Tleilaxu unit, anywhere, to pay x gold to add the "ghola clone" promotion? That does make things simpler for the AI and the player both. You'd just have to program it in such a way that the button is only available after the Tleilaxu research the appropriate technology and build their Axlotl tank building somewhere, and teach the AI to figure out which units are worth paying the gold to clone.

Edit: Ahriman, I guess you're right, making several UUs just like the Fremen have wouldn't be a practical problem. I guess I just dislike it because it'd be such a departure from the source - gholas are, by definition, made to be a copy of a real person, not something different altogether like Face Dancers. It seems to fit the Dune theme better to "copy" an existing normal unit than to create a whole new kind of unit and call it a ghola.

Let's consider the "one copy at a time" path. I have a veteran scorpion unit off somewhere, faithfully mailing back skin samples. It gets killed. Using the homeworld screen, I could buy a new, novice scorpion for say 100 gold, which represents the hardware cost. To use a ghola, I have to have a city with the tank, and I have to pay a premium above the 100, say 150 total.

Why do I need to pay money in advance to mark this unit as available for cloning? If it dies, I can decide then whether to clone it. So there would be no actual "immortal promotion". Does that sound reasonable?

Also a great idea, the only thing that stopped me from suggesting it was my lack of any understanding of the programming itself - is such a thing possible? I know it's possible to give a unit a promotion so that it respawns once killed like in FFH2, but can you instead have an identical unit with the same promotions appear on this homeworld screen? If yes then by all means, that works better than bothering with a promotion.

Edit: Of course you still need a way to choose which Tleilaxu units appear on this homeworld screen, you don't want to spam it with every single unit that dies. If the game can choose units based on their experience, i.e. only recycle level 4+ units, or recycle all units but replace the lower level ones with higher level ones if the pool hits its maximum, then it'd work.

As long as you can work out a way for the AI to sensibly purchase units from the offworld screen, and for them to sensibly evaluate clones relative to new units (harder than it might seem; which is better?; a level 3 bladesman for 150 gold that can upgrade to an elite bladesman for another 50 gold, or a level 1 elite bladesman for 100 gold) then it seems reasonable to do it that way.

The advantage of the immortal promotion is for ease of AI use, micromanagement minimization, and a more direct linkage between the old unit and the new one; will it really feel like cloning if the B Tl's just have an opportunity to buy veteran units in their offworold screen?

If the game can choose units based on their experience, i.e. only recycle level 4+ units, or recycle all units but replace the lower level ones with higher level ones if the pool hits its maximum, then it'd work.

This is a good point. Maybe the Bank holds the 10 "best" units at any given time? Or hold them all but displays only the 10 "best"? For some definition of best (same as the definition used for AI evaluation, as above?).

Yeah, the advantage of a promotion is you don't have to have extra code to determine which units get sent to the homeworld screen, how many it decides to display, which units in a full pool it decides to replace if a new high level unit dies, etc., you can cut out the homeworld screen and simply respawn anything that has the promotion. The disadvantage is you have to teach the AI to intelligently choose in advance which units are worth giving the promotion. I'd be happy with whichever alternative is simpler from a programming perspective, both would have the right effect in the end.

To be more clear, I do not think the cloned units should show up in the homeworld screen. That implies the spacer guild is involved with delivering them, which is wrong. My only point was that the AI which decides to buy units off the homeworld screen can also decide whether to buy cloned units.

We need to decide how and when the selection of cloned units happens, since it will be somewhere else. In FFH, world spells appear as an action button on any unit; spells which can only be cast on a city show up as an action button on any unit in that city. So perhaps the ghola action shows up as an action button on any unit, in a city with an axlotl tank? Clicking that button gives you some popup, where you can select the unit to work on.

We also need to think about where this shows up in the tech tree. The logical tech that I had reserved for lots of biological stuff is Genetic Manipulation, but this comes fairly late in the tech tree.

Certainly I intended this as a tech for the Facedancer UU.

Yeah, if you go with the "homeworld screen" approach you wouldn't want the unit actually showing up on the homeworld screen, you'd instead have an "Axlotl tank" screen, functionally the same thing just with different lore explaining it. Positioning in the tech tree should depend on other Tleilaxu unique features, such as Face Dancers - generally you want these things spread out, so that at any given point in the game, a Tleilaxu player has something unique to use/look forward to. I know one of the things I hate in FFH2 is when a certain civ is "only" good at the late game because all their unique units/buildings/heroes are way up the tech tree, or "only" good at the early game because all their UUs/UBs/etc are available right from the start.

Personally I'd prefer Axlotl tanks to be relatively early in the game, since it's an ability that - unlike a specific UU - continues to be useful throughout the game, so the earlier you start using it the more mileage you get out of it. Especially if you're going through the trouble to have an entirely separate interface for it, an "Axlotl tank screen", it'd be a shame if it was something so late in the tech tree that you didn't even use it every game.

Maybe this should be a *replacement* mecahnic for the offworld trade?

The Guild doesn't really like the Bene Tl any more than anyone else does.

So maybe instead of being able to import troops through the Guild, BTl get to buy gholas from a Gene Bank screen that functions similarly to a Guild Transport screen but has different graphics.

So put an axolotl tank at offworld trade tech.

Makes sense, so the Tleilaxu can start buying units at the same point any other civ can, they just have more experienced units to pick from - gives them an edge in that area without giving them an entirely new mechanic that other civs can't access. Removing the whole offworld trade option for the Tleilaxu should also simplify the AI work greatly, since the AI won't have to choose whether to buy a ghola or buy a new unit from offworld trade, I imagine the experienced ghola will generally be the better choice anyway even if it's a little more expensive. Although - you may as well not make it more expensive, this is supposed to be an advantage for the Tleilaxu after all, presumably other civs will have their own unique units/buildings that are better than the Tleilaxu equivalent.

I still like the idea of applying a set of promotions to a unit produced in a city with an Axlotl Tank. The promotions would be equal to the promotions of your strongest existing unit of the same type, based on cloning that commander. I will try that out next.

This is working. When you build a unit in a city with a tank, the python code searches for the best living unit (most XP) of the same type. It applies all that unit's promotions and current level and XP number to the new unit. There is a high percent chance of losing one promotion. If the best living unit has fewer XP than the unit would get normally due to barracks, etc, then no promotions are transferred.

However, the last 20 posts or so have suggested applying the promotions of the best *dead* unit, so that only one copy of a unit is ever active at a time. I can do this by storing the best dead unit of each type and using that, instead of searching the map for a living unit. That should be a relatively easy change.

It opens up an interesting possibility. Suppose a Tleilaxu unit kills a veteran unit of another player. Shouldn't it be possible to get a DNA sample from the dead commander, and use that DNA for future Tleilax units? Maybe there is less than a 100% chance of this.

EDIT: Keeping one best unit of each type will not quite work. Since the goal is to have only one copy at a time, the dead unit must be deleted from the DNA Bank when a new unit is built from it. Suppose for a given unit type, one is killed and then two in a row are built. The second one will never have a clone available. So the composition of the units in the bank needs a little more thought. Perhaps a fixed number can be kept, of the highest XP unit regardless of unit type. Then if you have two senior units of one type, they would both be kept. Perhaps the fixed number could be, two for every tank which is built.

Hmm. I'm unsure about tying this to units constructed in the city, rather than specifically buying gholas.

I worry that the connection between the dead unit and the new one is too weak. I think it could easily just seem like you happened to get some random promotions on a new unit, and not that this was occurring because the commander of the new unit was a ghola clone of an older unit.

The mechanic does not seem very transparent without an explicit "Gene Bank" that you can look at to see what units are there.

It also seems complex with unit obsolesence; if you have a really high level of one type that dies, and then you research the tech that makes it obsolete, you can never get it back again. Whereas with the purchase-from-gene-bank mechanic you could still buy the older unit and then upgrade it.

I understand that linking it to units built in the city can help the AI's decision of choosing which unit to get, but there will already have to be some kind of AI script to determine AI purchase decisions with the offworld trade screen.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do it that way, merely highlighting some potential problems.

Redirecting from UU thread:

Suppose I attach the promotion to a thopter unit, and the unit gets killed. Now a full new set of thopters flies out of the axlotl tank? Even if you limit it to foot units, where do all the new rifles and ammunition come from?

I don't think anyone is suggestion it should apply to vehicles and thopters anyway. Equipment is a small investment compared to the well trained and experience soldier to wield it.

I would be in favour of this ability being given to only a few units. If we create a selection of Single Units as you suggested elsewhere, Ginaz Swordmaster, Infiltrator, new Facedancer unit, some others - then these can be the units eligible for being ghola-ed back to life.

This represents the experience of the single commander, who is the actual ghola.

I know what you're trying to represent, but I still think it's too abstract. It doesn't make me feel - "this unit is a ghola" or "this unit has a ghola commander", so it doesn't really give the Tleilaxu flavour. If we had single powerful units differentiated then their rebirth would be something you'd care more about.

I know what you're trying to represent, but I still think it's too abstract. It doesn't make me feel - "this unit is a ghola" or "this unit has a ghola commander", so it doesn't really give the Tleilaxu flavour. If we had single powerful units differentiated then their rebirth would be something you'd care more about.

I can add a promotion "ghola" to these units, and give a popup the first time one appears, and move the axlotl tank earlier in the tech tree. Would that help?

Logically, if I had gholas, hell yes I'd make clone armies of my best soldier - exactly like they did in the newer Star Wars. But Dune isn't always logical and that's not what the Tleilaxu did, they only ever have one copy of say Duncan Idaho active at a time. So he dies, they have another clone on hand to send out to replace him, and when that one dies they have another, etc - they made dozens and dozens of him, but for whatever unexplained reason only one was ever active at a given time. So personally I'd limit it to one copy at a time, if only because that's the way it actually happened in Dune.

Also I like your idea about removing the need to return a unit to the city - you're right, all they need is a DNA sample, there's no need for the guy to actually visit the Axlotl tank. In fact they made copies of Paul without him even knowing it, presumably by stealing skin scrapings or hair or whatever. So you could just add a button to any Tleilaxu unit, anywhere, to pay x gold to add the "ghola clone" promotion? That does make things simpler for the AI and the player both. You'd just have to program it in such a way that the button is only available after the Tleilaxu research the appropriate technology and build their Axlotl tank building somewhere, and teach the AI to figure out which units are worth paying the gold to clone.

Edit: Ahriman, I guess you're right, making several UUs just like the Fremen have wouldn't be a practical problem. I guess I just dislike it because it'd be such a departure from the source - gholas are, by definition, made to be a copy of a real person, not something different altogether like Face Dancers. It seems to fit the Dune theme better to "copy" an existing normal unit than to create a whole new kind of unit and call it a ghola.

Gholas and clones are not the same thing. A clone is a recreation of someone or something based on copies of the DNA. A ghola is the actual body with regrown tissue and reanimated. There can only be one ghola at a time because there is only one person at a time, whereas you can make clones as fast as the technology allows you to "grow" them. I suppose you could make a ghola of a clone, but again you would only be able to make one.

Are facedancers in this game? I just started a Tleilaxu game and can't find them on the tech tree or the Dune-o-pedia.

Gholas and clones are not the same thing. A clone is a recreation of someone or something based on copies of the DNA. A ghola is the actual body with regrown tissue and reanimated.

I am not sure I understand the distinction you are making. It is not "canon", but there is a scene in the new book "Paul of Dune" in which there are a roomful of gholas of the same person.

Are facedancers in this game? I just started a Tleilaxu game and can't find them on the tech tree or the Dune-o-pedia.

Not yet. It has been suggested that they should have an ability like the "mimic" of FFH. If it wins a combat, it can copy one promotion from the loser. Does this seem reasonable? One challenge is where to fit it into the tech tree, and what its base strength should be. What do you think?

I am not sure I understand the distinction you are making. It is not "canon", but there is a scene in the new book "Paul of Dune" in which there are a roomful of gholas of the same person.



Not yet. It has been suggested that they should have an ability like the "mimic" of FFH. If it wins a combat, it can copy one promotion from the loser. Does this seem reasonable? One challenge is where to fit it into the tech tree, and what its base strength should be. What do you think?

That is a big part of the problem with the new books. The authors apparently either failed to read the originals, or else just decided to do whatever they wanted anyway. I honestly think they just aren't smart enough to understand what they read.

I haven't played FFH yet, so I don't know what a mimic would be. I figure the facedancer would be akin to a spy unit, that appeared to the opposing faction as one of their units, save for perhaps a reverend mother. So more difficult to detect, but really not all that powerful.

The Mimic in FFH2 is a unit that steals a random promotion from any enemy unit they defeat. For a Facedancer unit this would represent taking on the guise/abilities of someone they have just killed.

The Mimic in FFH2 is a unit that steals a random promotion from any enemy unit they defeat. For a Facedancer unit this would represent taking on the guise/abilities of someone they have just killed.

I don't know anything about development, so I just throw ideas out there let you guys decide if it can be done or not. Is there anyway that a face dancer could kill a unit without the other faction knowing, and then appear like that unit? Say if you have a guard or vehicle unit stationed somewhere and the face dancer uses his special abilities to kill that unit, but you wouldn't know it happened until you tried to use that unit, but nothing happens when you click on it? My reasoning is just that when a face dancer kills someone and takes their place, no one knows the person is dead or missing. In the final Frank book, he alluded to the new enemy being an army of face dancers (not some weird machines like the new authors created). Imagine getting ready to defend you land from an oncoming army, only to realize too late that your units are actually their units.

Is there anyway that a face dancer could kill a unit without the other faction knowing, and then appear like that unit?

That sounds cool! It would definitely be creepy for other players to know that some of their units might turn against them. I have no idea how to implement it. The owning player would have to keep control of the unit; but somehow the tleilaxu player would need to be able to "override" the owning player's actions during their turn. It is definitely worthwhile to think about, but I have never heard of another mod doing something like this. Does anybody have any cool ideas about how it could be implemented?

thats a great idea and direction, but I dont think its implementable as it proposed.
1st in SP player and AI turn at different times. that reveal bunch of problems.
2nd in simultaneous moves games its better but still have problems with goto directives.

It can be simplier.
Facedancer can be promotion. The unit should be able to transform at will (as action) itself to any other melee unit. (ranged ability, lets say 2 square range), copying his promotions and all things alike. As option it can bear copied unit's flag, but i think thats hard. And it may be invisible unit. Sure, with hight cost and strict limit to quantity.

So mechanics will be simple - those national units infiltrators sneak to enemy lands, and then copying best nemy units and attack from any place.

I kind of figured it wouldn't be possible to do, but it sure would be cool. I like the idea of the player still being able to control it until the face dancer "activates" the unit. I suppose it would work better in simultaneous play as opposed to turn based. Still is fun to imagine though. Just for the record, this game is incredible as it is.

I think it would be incredibly frustrating and un-fun for your own units to start attacking you.

I think we might have more luck with making Facedancers a moderate strength Mimic + Marksmen.

im with Ahri here. it would be irritating if you were figthing T. id stick with mimic+marksman.

EDIT: possibly add in invisibility and can eneter rival borders.

EDIT: possibly add in invisibility and can eneter rival borders.

Agree, having Facedancers as dual use scouts and combatants seems like a good way to go.

Invisibility is *very* dangerous, particularly when we don't have any units that can spot invisible, and given that the AI is very incompetent at spotting invisible units.
I suggest that Marksmen and invisible together is way too much.
If you have Marksmen, then that is how their blending/tactical invisibility is represented; they can change forces to slip past guards. And Marksmen is already an incredibly powerful ability.

They don't really have strategic invisibility; you can still see that there are people there.
If you did give them invisibility, then you'd need to have some unit types (thopters for eg) able to spot invisible.

Invisibility is *very* dangerous, particularly when we don't have any units that can spot invisible, and given that the AI is very incompetent at spotting invisible units.
.

agree completely here

good point on invis. though is till think they should be able to enter rival borders.

also, why cant espionage units see invisible?

good point on invis. though is till think they should be able to enter rival borders.

also, why cant espionage units see invisible?

because it ruins bts spy mechanics.
IMO noone should be able to see invisile units and no unit may be invisible except spies.

May be also Ixian spying eyes - there were mention about them. (just scout with no combat or transport ability, flying)

The point is well made.
To clarify: if there are units that can spot invisible units, then spies during wartime can be spotted and killed.
If there are NOT units that can spot invisible units, then invisible combat units become far too strong.

IIRC, the Ordos Infiltrator UU at least used to be an invisible combat unit, which really needs to go; make it just an espionage unit (with more abilities and greater movement?) or a non-invisible combat unit. I had one of these in my borders running around destroying all my workers. Incredibly frustrating.

IIRC, the Ordos Infiltrator UU at least used to be an invisible combat unit, which really needs to go

Fortunately this unit was deleted along with all the other UU back in 1.4.

Yes, thats what I thought (hence "used to be"), but when we add UUs back in they should keep this issue in mind.

An Ordos Saboteur could be a non-invisible moderate strength combat unit who can enter without open borders and can use espionage missions and has 2 movement points.

Or it could be just a spy that rapidly accumulates XP by itself, and maybe has access to some superior sabotage missions, of improvements or buildings.

Or it could be just a spy that rapidly accumulates XP by itself, and maybe has access to some superior sabotage missions, of improvements or buildings.

This is the way the ordos spy has worked since 1.3. I have not tried to add civ-specific missions to the espionage list yet, but the ordos spy accumulates 1 xp per turn.

Ideas from late-game resdesign thread:

[Keep in mind reading this thread that we settled on Facedancers as spy UUs.]

Also, I had another idea for Tleilaxu ghola implementation.

Is it possible to adapt Great General mechanics for Tleilaxu?

I would implement it as follows:
1) Replace Great Generals with Gholas for Tleilaxu civ.
2) A Ghola has two abilities; add to city (same as for a regular GG, permanent XP bonus for units) or add to unit. The add to unit function adds the "Ghola commander" promotion to the unit (instead of giving XP). "Ghola commander" functions the same as the FFH Immortality promotion; when the unit is killed, it reappears in the capital city (damaged) instead of dying.
3) The Axolotl tank building increases the faction-wide great general production (is this possible?) by 10% per Tank (so, 10 cities means 100% increase), and gives +25% GPP in the city.
4) The Nullentropy Sphere building (which could have a cap of 5) gives a further +15% great general production, and creates (by Event) a free Ghola unit in your capital when created.

Buildings do have an iGreatGeneralRateModifier and also an iDomesticGreatGeneralRateModifier (for only increasing the number of points earned within your own borders).

It is also possible to assign a building to give GPP towards great generals (in fact it is possible to give "great people" points towards any unit, not just great people).

Option A: Ghola unit represents the "military" side of ghola technology, civilian side is left with normal great people
1) Replace Great Generals with Gholas for Tleilaxu civ.
2) A Ghola has two abilities; add to city (same as for a regular GG, permanent XP bonus for units) or add to unit. The add to unit function adds the "Ghola commander" promotion to the unit (instead of giving XP). "Ghola commander" functions the same as the FFH Immortality promotion; when the unit is killed, it reappears in the capital city (damaged) instead of dying.
3) The Axolotl tank building increases the faction-wide great general production (using iGreatGeneralRateModifier) by 10% per Tank (so, 10 cities means 100% increase), and gives +20% GPP in the city.
4) The Nullentropy Sphere building (which could have a cap of 5) gives a further +10% great general production, +30% GPPs, and creates (by Event) a free Ghola unit in your capital when created.

Option B: Ghola unit represents both military and civilian side of ghola technology.
1) Replace Great Generals with Gholas for Tleilaxu civ.
2) Ghola has 5 abilities: Attach to unit, Settle as Trader, Settle as Techman, Settle as Scientist, Settle as Priest.
The first adds the Ghola Commander promotion as above.
The others create regular permanent great people, like a Sidar shade.
3) The Axolotl Tank building gives +3 Ghola great people points.
4) The Nullentropy Sphere building gives a further +3 ghola great people points, and creates a Ghola by Event when constructed.


The disadvantage of A) is that it could arguably feel weird to have a Ghola unit that was *only* a military commander.
The disadvantages of B) is that it could feel weird to have successes on the battlefield leading to civilian specialists [I'd make the argument that they're collecting genetic samples from defeated enemies], and that the AI would likely always choose to settle their gholas as specialists rather than make immortal units (since it wouldn't understand the benfits from immortality).

Basically, the design intention was to capture that gholas are in a sense a way of making a particular historic figure "immortal". This means that some great military tactician or leader, or a great thinker or mentat or whatever can be perpetually recreated from their stored DNA. Tleilaxu Masters also use this technique to make *themselves* immortal. The Master's are those who run society, and it is really the Masters we are trying to represent with the Tleilaxu "priest"/"great priest" economy.

It seems logical then that ghola technology should be able to increase the access to great people, both on the military side and the civilian side.

Axolotl tanks are used to grow gholas in, and Nullentropy spheres are used to preserve the DNA of large numbers of people; basically like a tiny data storage facility for DNA code.

Immortality is a very powerful mechanic however, so it has to be very limited for balance purposes,

We could also tweak the mechanics somewhat, so for example each time the unit died and resurrected, its level increased, which weakens the unit by requiring ever greater amounts of XP needed to gain another level. (Eg a level 3 Immortal unit with 8 XP dies. It used to need 2 more XP (total 10XP) to gain level 4 and get a new promotion, but now it comes back as a level 4 unit already, and so needs 8 more XP (total 16XP) in order to gain level 5 and get a new promotion.

Might Gholas just be done as a separate unit than great generals? I could imagine Ghola production being similar to Grigori adventurers, where they are another type of great person. when generated, they could have any of the mechanics listed above, or some others that you may think of. Ghola great points would than come from Axlotl tanks and possibly nullentropy spheres.

(Admittedly, this might not produce many Gholas thanks to the limited great people points, and I might have remembered the grigori mechanics wrong.)

Admittedly, this might not produce many Gholas thanks to the limited great people points

You're right about how Grigori worked, they came from a separate GPP type.
All Adventurers were produced in the early game and carefully shepherded, because eventually the Adventurer GP points were crowded out by those from Wonders or specialists, and so it became too difficult to get any further Adventurers.

I don't think that's ideal for our purposes; I think we want gholas to mostly be a mid-game/late-game thing, and for there not to be a random tradeoff between getting priests (or other specialists) vs getting gholas.

I didn't read 2 & 3 pages (sorry) but the idea about GP increasing building (axlotl tanks) can be done this way: it should grant no GP ponts and gain GP boni based on already born great persons.

I.e., someone creates a Great Engineer. Axlotl tanks gain +0.5 GE bonus. So with 2 GE you get +1 GE point. And more nations exist (and more GP are born), more bonus you have.

Probably you have to cap this bonus at some point though, and further just shift the ratio of GP types based on the whole born GP. Also it probably should be unaffected by YOUR gp.

I'm not quite sure I understand. You're suggesting that the GPP yields of the Axoltl tank building is dependent on the number of GPs produced by other factions?

These feels problematic to me.
a) The income from buildings and the like should depend on actions by the player, which they can control, not on the actions of other players (which the player cannot control).
Also, the mechanic is non-transparent, you it depends on actions that you don't easily observe.
b) Scaling issues; mapsize, number of AIs, etc., would lead to this having very different yields
c) Timing issue. Most GPPs are produced in the early-midgame, because of the increasing cost in GPPs for each extra GP, so not that many GPs are produced after Axolotl tanks start getting built.

It was along the line of cloning existing GP, and there can be a counter instead of adding after axlotl tanks are built. And they were used to clone other important people, so I think that they SHOULD depend on other nation's great persons. Map size/speed scaling can be done via python.

Its an interesting idea, but I personally think basic tenets of gameplay (the player can control their own fate) are more important than realism. Atanks as GPP boosters make sense, but I think its more fun if the player can still control what kinds of great people they get through specialist selection.

We can see what other people think.

Sure, I was just thinking about already existing code for a wonder which "inspired different people" and had its GP type switching via event. It's somewhere in the database (maybe it was made by Gyr or another famous modder) so it would be easy to adopt the code. I don't mean that this is the only mechanic I want, I just propose one idea of many :). I honestly liked Davidlallen's idea about "building" famous units' clones, but I would rather see heroes and national characters (when they appear... I saw Deliverator's post with various possible "nation heroes") rather than great people.

Another possible idea: the planetfall mod has a technology that combines all the great person points into a single counter. Depending on the coding difficulties, I could see something similar to this for Axlotl tanks, where the great person points for axlotl tanks (or possibly nullentropy spheres) are combined into a faction wide pool. For balance reasons, this might remove all individual city points (Planetfall doesn't do this, but its balance will likely be different than this mod's.) I am not sure of how easy this would actually be to code, though. (this of course could be combined with other mechanics as desired)


Out of the two ideas suggested by Ahriman in his earlier big post, I prefer option A, as it seems to make more gameplay sense, and somewhat gets the flavor across of what these things are supposed to be.

(It will be good to get a different mechanic then the current axlotl mechanic, which was a neat idea, bit in practice often becomes somewhat of a mess.)

Its an interesting idea, but I personally think basic tenets of gameplay (the player can control their own fate) are more important than realism. Atanks as GPP boosters make sense, but I think its more fun if the player can still control what kinds of great people they get through specialist selection.

We can see what other people think.

The simpliest idea is a "free specialist" :). Then you can assign him to anything. But it may be TOO simple hehe.