The Malakim Solution

[to_xp]Gekko;7642339 said:
some great ideas here, I agree that the Malakim would benefit from a couple new tricks to make 'em more interesting. a desert-only spices resource sounds good, as does creating oasis. and since they are supposed to be great traders, I believe they should get a bonus to trade routes, and have a real incentive to adopt foreign trade as a civic.
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If not for the Mazatl already doing it in FF, I'd give them food from trade routes... Don't want to copy a mechanic from other civs too closely. A Malakim-only resource would be good, although I don't care for calling it 'spice'. Too much like Dune, which is a great series but doesn't fit too well with FfH.

I do like the oasis idea though... make them require at least 4 tiles between Oases, and you'd be limited to one per city. Should also make them require desert in at LEAST the ring immediately surrounding it, so you can't create an Oasis and then Spring the desert. I don't know about making it upgrade, as an Oasis will usually dry up if overworked, but it could work nicely with a unique tech and one or two of the other ideas. Have the Malakim tech grant extra food and commerce to Oases, bring them to a total of, say, 6 food? This would be equal to an irrigated grasslands corn farm, but would be limited to one per city. It would allow the Malakim to grow, although not to extremes, and would allow the city to be at least moderately useful to enemies who conquer it. Maybe make it grant health also, to balance the disease from flood plains?
 
This is my tentative plan for the Malakim+ modmod, once the next version of FF is released... figured I'd post it here, get more opinions. ;)


Oasis
Buildable by Adept/Mage?
Delay of 10? turns to build.
Requires 5 tiles of buffer between oases. Only lets you have one per city, even with the Slums.
Ring of tiles surrounding the Oasis must be desert.
Granted +2 food by the Desert People tech, makes it a total of 5.

Beduin Improvements
Require two tiles of buffer space, allows for 4 per city, 5 with the Slums.

Bazaar Need a better name...
(.1?) food per square of unworked desert per trade route.

In a normal city, this is at most 15 squares, assuming all desert and the oasis and beduin improvements are constructed.​

If you reach both Trade and Mercantilism, an inland city can have 5 trade routes. This allows for .1x15x5 food, or 7.5 food. Coastal cities have more trade, less desert, won't change too much. 7.5 food, along with the Oasis and Beduin Villages, is enough for a size 13 city.​

(.2?) food per desert square while running Foreign Trade, allowing for a population of up to 18.
These amounts ignore flood plains, and will likely need to be tweaked.

The Slums would allow for up to 29 tiles of unworked desert, but as that is a relatively late wonder I don't think I should balance for it. If possible, I'd like the Bazaar to only count the first two rings, which would take care of this.
 
The build oasis should have a tech prereq. I'd say Engineering.
If castable, I would suggest a Mage unit the least, if not Archmage, with both water and sun magic spheres.

EDIT: The cast version wouldn't need the tech prereq...
 
I really like most of the ideas that JFSebastian gave, but my favorite is clearly the shepherds.
It makes starting cities viable without flood plains but won't make them too powerful, and the city still gets better when you make the surroundings plains but you don't have to do it as soon as you can.

I don't think that they should get several new bonuses, though: it makes unique abilities less unique. Let's keep some for the dwarves, shall we? ;)
 
I would suggest that the nomad promotion could allow units to 'hide' on desert tiles. Just like the kraken's ability, only castable exclusively in deserts. That would be a fun way to improve the early defense of malakim cities and the defensive approach would be in tune with their neutral/good alignment.
 
Brugarin said:
I would suggest that the nomad promotion could allow units to 'hide' on desert tiles. Just like the kraken's ability, only castable exclusively in deserts. That would be a fun way to improve the early defense of malakim cities and the defensive approach would be in tune with their neutral/good alignment.
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It seems quite a few folks, including myself have thought that some sort of desert invisibility would be appropriate for the Malakim. However, there is a flaw with it that made me think otherwise. For one, if you tie the invisibility to desert terrain, then you could lead a stack of units into enemy lands along a scorched path to camp outside an enemy city and attack without any worry of counterattack. If you want to confine it to a more defensive nature, you could add that it only functions within Malakim boarders, but then you essentially are duplicating something that is already in the game via Council of Esus, Nox Noctis. Perhaps your idea of 'hidden' would work better. You hide in a desert tile and remain hidden until you attack or leave the desert? Like an ambush. Is there any way to turn off a promotion based on what terrain you are on? I think the potential for abuse remains though, by scorching a path into enemy lands though it does at least open you up to counter attack. Perhaps you could have the ability freeze you in place so you could only attack by turning it off first. Essentially, you are hidden in the desert, but held to that location. As soon as you see an opportunity, you turn off the hidden ability and can move again. Oooh, I like that! It would prevent folks from marching into enemy lands using it since turning it off would count as a casting, requiring at least a turn to turn it on again.

Enhancing the tactical value of the desert is definitely worth thinking about, especially if you could tie it to the nomad promotion directly. That way other folks could on rare occasions benefit if they somehow got ahold of nomadic troops through an event or something.
 
JFSebastian said:
Is there any way to turn off a promotion based on what terrain you are on?
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It's possible to do in FF, not so sure about FfH. As it is, my FF mod already had an assassin UU meant to be used defensively, only invisible in desert. Can still send an army of adepts scorching their way up to the city, but I might tie it to your boarders as well to fix that.
 
I like the Health from oasis idea, but about the special Malakim resourse , how about having a building, that generates resource x (dates, palm oil, whatever) that way you could have one for every city?
 
Valkrionn said:
I do like the oasis idea though... make them require at least 4 tiles between Oases, and you'd be limited to one per city. Should also make them require desert in at LEAST the ring immediately surrounding it, so you can't create an Oasis and then Spring the desert. I don't know about making it upgrade, as an Oasis will usually dry up if overworked
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well uf you have water mana then you can work around the oasis drying up when overworked hehe also about it being a spell... i think it would fit more to a light bringer or other Malakim uu
 
Standiball said:
well uf you have water mana then you can work around the oasis drying up when overworked hehe also about it being a spell... i think it would fit more to a light bringer or other Malakim uu
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I thought about the lightbringer, but it comes too soon in the game. Other UU's come too late for the oasis, I think, otherwise I would. Always able to make a new upgrade to the Lightbringer, but easier to just let adepts or mages do it.
 
Here was my idea, I haven't scanned the whole thread so sorry if this or something similar has been said before.

To me, a civilization residing in the desert would make up for the lack of productive areas by the fact that there are things you can not find anywhere else in the desert. Now the Malakim being used to the environment and flourishing in it would find ways to make very valuable goods out of the rare resorces which would be near impossible for others to 1.) Find and 2.) Actually make usefull.

Such things could be plants that can be made into very valuable incence and indigenous animals that the malakim are able to tame and sell. Not to mention the very rich inks to be harvested.

The way I see it, while the Malakim may not have great use with these special resorces, and would much rather have more food to make up for the lack of farming areas due to the vast deserts; they would end up trading these resorces with others civs, asking increased commerce for the goods and also a food return.

So my idea as far as the game goes would be to make each worked desert tile give a approximate .1 commerce per trade route and .05 food, which would be increased by trade bonuses. So for example if you have 5 trade routes with one civ each worth 4 (400% increase) gold, and also have 10 unworked desert tiles, you would get. .1 Gold x10 (unworked desert tiles) =1 gold x4 (Because you and the trade civ get a 400% bonuses)4 gold, and .05 food x10(unworked desert tiles) =.5 food x4 (400% trade bonuses)= 2 food per trade route. Which would mean 20 gold and 10 food.

This is just an idea and can of course be tweeked, but like many others I see the Malakim as traders, this would make trading so valuable for them and also encourages having and keeping friends. Again im not sure on the numbers but it seemed to work for my purposes.
 
hiphopin said:
Here was my idea, I haven't scanned the whole thread so sorry if this or something similar has been said before.

To me, a civilization residing in the desert would make up for the lack of productive areas by the fact that there are things you can not find anywhere else in the desert. Now the Malakim being used to the environment and flourishing in it would find ways to make very valuable goods out of the rare resorces which would be near impossible for others to 1.) Find and 2.) Actually make usefull.

Such things could be plants that can be made into very valuable incence and indigenous animals that the malakim are able to tame and sell. Not to mention the very rich inks to be harvested.

The way I see it, while the Malakim may not have great use with these special resorces, and would much rather have more food to make up for the lack of farming areas due to the vast deserts; they would end up trading these resorces with others civs, asking increased commerce for the goods and also a food return.

So my idea as far as the game goes would be to make each worked desert tile give a approximate .1 commerce per trade route and .05 food, which would be increased by trade bonuses. So for example if you have 5 trade routes with one civ each worth 4 (400% increase) gold, and also have 10 unworked desert tiles, you would get. .1 Gold x10 (unworked desert tiles) =1 gold x4 (Because you and the trade civ get a 400% bonuses)4 gold, and .05 food x10(unworked desert tiles) =.5 food x4 (400% trade bonuses)= 2 food per trade route. Which would mean 20 gold and 10 food.

This is just an idea and can of course be tweeked, but like many others I see the Malakim as traders, this would make trading so valuable for them and also encourages having and keeping friends. Again im not sure on the numbers but it seemed to work for my purposes.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much the mechanic I'm going to try and introduce. The idea I'm working with now is a certain amount of food per unworked desert tile, per trade route. Not increasing commerce as my mod already gives them better commerce.

Post #22 shows exactly what I'm planning. Only problem conceptually is I have no idea how to count the desert tiles, but I'll figure something out... If not, I can always beg help from Xienwolf, or any other modder who knows what they're doing... I know some of it, but not nearly enough lol.
 
Valkrionn said:
This is pretty much the mechanic I'm going to try and introduce. The idea I'm working with now is a certain amount of food per unworked desert tile, per trade route. Not increasing commerce as my mod already gives them better commerce.

Post #22 shows exactly what I'm planning. Only problem conceptually is I have no idea how to count the desert tiles, but I'll figure something out... If not, I can always beg help from Xienwolf, or any other modder who knows what they're doing... I know some of it, but not nearly enough lol.
Click to expand...

Oh wow, I should have read the whole thread. Anyways great ideas, can't wait to see it all finished.
 
back in the day I suggested a malakim unit that would go out in the world, find livestock resources, and steal them, and later redeploy them back home on a tile of your choosing, preferably a desert tile. So you'd go off exploring with your shephard, find horses, steal em, and bring em back to drop on those desert hills by your city, or whatever.
 
A bit of a request. Could a coder give me a bit of a roadmap for information I would need to digest in order to try modding my shepherd idea as a mini mod for FFH2? Assume I'm a complete modding newb, but comfortable with technical reading and a fast learner. How much easier would it be to implement it in FF than FFH2? I haven't played FF and would prefer to stick to just the core FFH2 for now.

Assuming the new specialist could be implemented, would the AI city governors be able to use them without difficulty?

Stuff I've found that might help me:
A mini mod that adds a doctor specialist (not FFH2), so if I can figure this out I should be part way there.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=156186
 
You know, in my recent Malakim game it was not difficult at all to get them way ahead of all the other civs. My initial city had 3 floodplains and 2 gold. My 2nd city had 2 gold, 1 sheep, and 1 fish. I was generating some mad research very early in the game. It was difficult to get many specialiists out of either of those cities, but that was easy to fix after conquering 1/2 the world. The adaptive trait really helped out. The biggest hinderance was that being Good I could not build Druids. I had no way to Vitalize my desert and plains tiles.
 
Mesix said:
You know, in my recent Malakim game it was not difficult at all to get them way ahead of all the other civs. My initial city had 3 floodplains and 2 gold. My 2nd city had 2 gold, 1 sheep, and 1 fish. I was generating some mad research very early in the game. It was difficult to get many specialiists out of either of those cities, but that was easy to fix after conquering 1/2 the world. The adaptive trait really helped out. The biggest hinderance was that being Good I could not build Druids. I had no way to Vitalize my desert and plains tiles.
Click to expand...

With those starting city location, any civ could dominate. I think Zechnophobe posted something a while back about being able to play games under the same starting locations and the same opponents by editing world builder files or something to that effect. I don't recall what the thread was called unfortunately. If you could dig it up, and play the exact same game as a different civ, it would be pretty clear that the amazing game was because of an amazing start, not any particular malakim advantage.
 
The Malakim do get a pretty huge boost over other civs in areas that have plenty of flood plains but lack commerce boosting resources, though, and those aren't too uncommon.

I just wish they still started with financial.
 
Mesix said:
You know, in my recent Malakim game it was not difficult at all to get them way ahead of all the other civs. My initial city had 3 floodplains and 2 gold. My 2nd city had 2 gold, 1 sheep, and 1 fish. I was generating some mad research very early in the game. It was difficult to get many specialiists out of either of those cities, but that was easy to fix after conquering 1/2 the world. The adaptive trait really helped out. The biggest hinderance was that being Good I could not build Druids. I had no way to Vitalize my desert and plains tiles.
Click to expand...
I've found that just having 1 gold in a starting city BFC is almost a guarantee for success due to the major early tech boost it can give. I definitely get a little giddy when I see gold or gems in range of my starting settler.

Remember that the changes I'm suggesting aren't intended to boost Malakim game play, but to boost Malakim game play in the desert, primarily empty desert. I'd like to be able to play them in such a way that they could take advantage of certain city locations that for other civs wouldn't be very attractive. I'm specifically trying to avoid giving them any boosts that could be carried over to a non-desert environment.

In the end I suppose it does help their game play though since it lets them get more potential mileage out of their nomadic promotion. I don't see that as a bad thing though.
 
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