lemonjelly
Modding For Ethne
Now trying a converted version
I really think some of the bonuses need to be tuned down though.
I really think some of the bonuses need to be tuned down though.
"central empire with branches at UFs". This is not the way they are in my imagination. You can point at a place on the Earth map and say, "this is Scotland" or "this is the Scottish homeland." You can do that for all other civs in FFH. But the Elohim are different. They are found anywhere, but no one in Erebus can really say where they are from. Their homeland is everywhere and nowhere.
Well, Kael's descriptions ("Keepers of the sacred shrines" and so on...) sounded present tense to me. Not something they only did in the distant past.
I may need to defer to the lore masters here. Do I have any wiggle room at all? Do they have any current affinity for UFs at all?
@DonQuiglleone. I take your balance points very seriously. I have a different objective here on the "flavor" side, however.
"central empire with branches at UFs". This is not the way they are in my imagination. You can point at a place on the Earth map and say, "this is Scotland" or "this is the Scottish homeland." You can do that for all other civs in FFH. But the Elohim are different. They are found anywhere, but no one in Erebus can really say where they are from. Their homeland is everywhere and nowhere.
So the mod will always encourage dispersion over growing a central empire, although I want to leave some flexibility, and getting the right balance is tough (I probably need to eliminate multiplier effects).
I'll definitely be toning down the Pilgrim's Tithe in a coming version. I'll remove the multiplier effect. Here's the idea I'm playing with: You can get food, production and/or commerce from the tithe, but the amount is reduced based on favorable tiles nearby. So a city by Yggsdrasil should get 0 food, and a city by Remnant of Patria should get 0 production. However, a city on total flatland ice can grow (at least a little) and have some production for defence.
Another idea is to let them only make settlers from their capital (or perhaps also cities connected to capital by trade network). This would prevent them from "growing a 2nd empire" somewhere far from the capital.
Edit: posted before I read your post above.
1. I got one settler teleported to an Island near, but in no way able to get Aifon Isle in it's radius. I think perhaps sea features should be omitted, or at least this bug resolved.
It only does this if the UF is not in any city's fat cross. You can usually steal the tile from another civ given the Elohim's high culture generation (even from a capital).2. UFs that are owned by other civs should be deprioritized.
But re-rolling is fun! (OK, I might remove this. It's frustrating though because my favorite map script almost never puts me near a UF.)3. The able to it with your initial settler may be too powerful, it essentially gives you a "reroll" off your start location.
Removing the multiplier effect for UFs should reduce the strong incentive to always transport the settler. You can focus on some close cities first, or not. Your choice.4. Perhaps delaying the ability to establish these outposts until either a certain technology or until you've established a beginning base of 3-4 cities(depending on size) might be better.
I'm loosing at least 1/2 of my new cities. Is this not true for others? This may depend a lot on map configuration. I originally had the Novice at base 4, with the pre-philosophy penalty bringing it to 3. In my experience, this lead to about 80% loss which was just too painful.5. The fact you get a free strength 4 unit (who can be easily brought up to 5 and then to a monk) is very overpowered. You can essentially jut keep pumping out settlers with abandon, gaining cities with abandon, toning this down a bit would be good. Some greater loss would be good.
Maybe, but the general consensus here seems to be that they are overpowered with the current Tithe system. The trade hit is supposed to counter balance the Tithe.6. The losing 80% of gold from trade is pretty big, Trade is a huge segment of mid-to late game income, so Elohim might be fatefully weakened in late game.
No. The no-distance-to-capital costs is applied to ALL Elohim cities (at least currently; I might change this).7. If you just use pilgrimages for all your initial cities you also have far lower maintenance further enabling booming behaviour.
But you suggested above that the failure rate should be higher.8. Perhaps teleporting next to a large stack of barbarians should be de-emphasized?
This is partly to help the AI. Where you land is where the AI would be forced to found a city. That gives me 18 tiles to consider rather than 8, so the AI will get a better city location on average. (The human is free to move farther, which is sometimes a good idea. The Elohim can get to 3 ring culture radius pretty quickly and this counts for UF ownership.)9. Usually you get placed 2 tiles away from the UF, perhaps the spot it chooses should be weighted to be 1 tile away (IE next to the UF, where possible)
If you're going for Order or Emp, you will also pop a priest in your capital. Probably worth sacrificing him to spread in your capital (you should be going for Priesthood anyway.)10. As a religious civ, it would be best to find a way to prevent religions being founded in the far off settlements, maybe favoring more established cities (this is an issue that might also effect the austrin).
I'm not trying to sound obnoxious, but I actually had it the other way around in my first implementation. It's totally random now, which is a good compromise.11. Perhaps UFs closer to home should be prioritized over UFs on the other side of the world.
I think they also have some role related to the "bad" ones. Not sure though.12. Perhaps UFs with higher yields (like Yggdrasil or Remnants of Patria), or "good" unique features(like Tomb of Sucellus as opposed to broken sepulcher) should also be prioritized.
Is this a balancing suggestion or do you think there should be delay for some kind of "realism" reason?13. Perhaps there should be some kind of delay from when you cast the spell and they arrive, maybe 5 -10 turns.
I'll think about it. I'm kind of stuck on the idea that these should be real full fledged cities and not "outposts." I'm not sure why I feel this way.I'll give a few alternative models of my own devising:
1. Cities established at UFs are less powerful: they only work the 1st ring, produce no great people (in many ways a positive) can produce settlers, but not sirona pilgrimages. Perhaps a more limited selection of buildings or culture. Don't produce any maintenance. Can be converted to a normal city if you like. More defensible and less of a burden on central administration, but produces less resources. From a flavour perspective this would also be in keeping with idea of small isolated monasteries all over. Not bustling cities!
2. If the ability to make these convoys is delayed, the exploitability of this will be lessened. However there are different arrangements:
i. All available at X time, simply switches on.
ii. Tied to development of religious buildings. Perhaps you gain 1 convoy for every abbey you own (note a abbey requires 4 shrines of sirona). If a pilgrimage city gets destroyed you get another one.
iii. Staggered by general civ size. Say you start with 1 available, then you get a second at size 4, a third at size 6 a fourth at size 8 and then infinite after that.
iv. You get Free settlements, staggered in some way, this means that you can expand from your initial base AND have no reason not to get settlements at the UFs
3. However if delayed until the early midgame this might result in all the UFs being taken by AI before you get any chance to found one of these. One way to handle this would be for the Unique features to all have guardians, which the Elohim could have an easier time dealing with (perhaps Guardians of UFs could be a barb faction that the Elohim are at peace with), which would make it harder for other civs to nab the unique features, and mean that the Elohim don't need to rush
4. Changing the settler ability to an alternative build might be better (similiar to the austrin), that's a bit more expensive. Perhaps the cost of a settler + that of a monk, which would give 340 hammers, rather then 220. This will balance out the free monk, furthermore shouldn't it cost a bit more effort to settle far away rather then nearby? Or through some kind of trickery have the ability to not give free guards but instead give people you send with it(I imagine this is more difficult to code of course).
5. Maintain that all cities/whatever next to a UF have a free government center, but nothing else. Only the special settlement type above gets the free food/gold (though production is probably more balanced then gold).
6. Perhaps having to work to get a new pilgrimage would be more balanced. It's a powerful ability, and there should be some kind of payment.
My ideal balance this would result in is that there'll be a small nexus of settlement around the starting capital (about 3 or 4 cities), and after that the civ starts to spread out. From a lore perspective, this civ has just emerged from the age of Ice, so I think they'd need to get themselves a bit established before they have the logistics to set out on expeditions. They also shouldn't be as good at being spread out as the Austrin. Currently the Pilgrimage command is a no-brainer as you get a free 5 strength defender, which is pretty much enough to beat most barbarians beside Orthus (and even the 4 strength before philosophy is pretty good).
A good alternative would be to give the special unit 5 Defensive strength only(and maybe not be able to move from the city), which means that all the unit can do is stop the city from being immediately destroyed, not go out and establish control of the surroundings, so that it can be improved. Instead warriors must be used. This makes these cities slightly less potent, and makes it easier to keep the cities in existence, but harder to do more with them. At priesthood the units can still be upgraded to normal monks of course.
Now of course all this is up to yourself and how you want it to work. I'll play it a few more times and try to give more feedback. All this is a move in the right direction
Also I think it may be better for the Elohim to be more of a "central empire with branches at UFs" rather then entirely spread out, so perhaps a mechanism whereby you need a certain number of cities to get a pilgrimage would work out well.
Obviously different ways work differently, what I'd like to see, that would be interesting would be perhaps instead of cities everywhere, many nodes of cities, IE the city at the UF at the center with satellite cities. This would make for interesting gameplay, I think.
Another way to get such cities to prosper would be to mod all the unique features to provide bonus resources on the tile, or perhaps only to the Elohim.
Yggdrassil or Remnants of Patria would be the same, but something like Letum Frigus, or the Mirror of heaven could be given +4 food and +3 hammers
5. The fact you get a free strength 4 unit (who can be easily brought up to 5 and then to a monk) is very overpowered. You can essentially just keep pumping out settlers with abandon, gaining cities without doling out any military support, toning this down a bit would be good.
4. Changing the settler ability to an alternative build might be better (similiar to the austrin), that's a bit more expensive. Perhaps the cost of a settler + that of a monk, which would give 340 hammers, rather then 220. This will balance out the free monk, furthermore shouldn't it cost a bit more effort to settle far away rather then nearby?
It probably transported you to a place that "should" be in your 500 ring (4 tile radius). I'll reduce that to 3, which is pretty easy for the high-cultured Elohim to generate. (you only need the UF in your cultural borders, not fat cross, to get benefits)
I don't think the Elohim are significantly more able then other civs at gaining culture. Also I think it would be more appropriate for Unique features in unoccupied regions to be more of a priority, in addition the tithe is directly tied to having the UF in it's borders, and so you won't even get the tithe to help you off the ground, also the ability of a city to catch up with another player's capital is quite low. Stealing territory doesn't really fit the Elohim to me.It only does this if the UF is not in any city's fat cross. You can usually steal the tile from another civ given the Elohim's high culture generation (even from a capital).
I usually use ErebusContinent and get a good location, however it all varies. However a free reroll is very difficult to balance, especially in MP.But re-rolling is fun! (OK, I might remove this. It's frustrating though because my favorite map script almost never puts me near a UF.)
The free defender is a much bigger buff. You don't get that when founding a normal city...Removing the multiplier effect for UFs should reduce the strong incentive to always transport the settler. You can focus on some close cities first, or not. Your choice.
I'm loosing at least 1/2 of my new cities. Is this not true for others? This may depend a lot on map configuration. I originally had the Novice at base 4, with the pre-philosophy penalty bringing it to 3. In my experience, this lead to about 80% loss which was just too painful.
Perhaps so, but I think messing too much with the existing balance will make things too complicated. Better to maintain the existing trade relationships (these cities should be able to trade with neighbouring foreign cities, after all, and they can get their gold from there).Maybe, but the general consensus here seems to be that they are overpowered with the current Tithe system. The trade hit is supposed to counter balance the Tithe.
I agree it should be changed. For one thing the Austrin already have this, and we don't want the Elohim to be another version of them.No. The no-distance-to-capital costs is applied to ALL Elohim cities (at least currently; I might change this).
Not so, Personally I never like losing cities so a lower failure rate would be fine by me. I think higher costs, less potency, combined with a lower failure rate would be better.But you suggested above that the failure rate should be higher.
True, but keeping the city closer to the UF might be better, even more so for the AI who often leave off on culture generation (and will need the tithe more)This is partly to help the AI. Where you land is where the AI would be forced to found a city. That gives me 18 tiles to consider rather than 8, so the AI will get a better city location on average. (The human is free to move farther, which is sometimes a good idea. The Elohim can get to 3 ring culture radius pretty quickly and this counts for UF ownership.)
If you're going for Order or Emp, you will also pop a priest in your capital. Probably worth sacrificing him to spread in your capital (you should be going for Priesthood anyway.)
Is this a balancing suggestion or do you think there should be delay for some kind of "realism" reason?
I'll think about it. I'm kind of stuck on the idea that these should be real full fledged cities and not "outposts." I'm not sure why I feel this way.