The Malakim Solution

edit:Request
I'm contemplating making a mini mod to introduce this mechanic, but have some questions and could use some help getting pointed in the right directions. See my posts HERE and HERE

Warning, I'm about to talk... a LOT.

Over the time I've been monitoring the FFH2 forums, I've often found myself intently following the threads that discuss the issue of boosting the Malakim's synergy with desert terrain. I like to blame [Wiki=Dune_(novel)]Dune[/wiki] for this. *queue Dune theme music* I think there are a lot of people who really want to role play a desert civ without feeling like they are compromising by not terraforming or relocating to a more lush environment. While roleplaying them as a civ that is emerging out of the desert and trying to find a better greener place to call home is valid, I think its equally valid that they be playable as the crusty desert nomads that are loyal to the desert terrain that they've adapted to.

Before I continue though I should point out that the nomad/desert combat synergy is one of the strongest terrain combat bonuses in the game. A nomadic unit attacking a unit that gains terrain defensive "bonuses" while it is slogging through the desert is a huge combat bonus for the nomad. A much larger bonus than elf, orc or winterborn terrain advantages. I think this fact is often under appreciated. This really should be a big incentive to hold onto desert terrain. I think the drive for better economy can sometimes overshadow military advantage. That said, I still think the Malakim could use a little something extra to spice up the desert theme.

Many of the suggested solutions revolve around food and for good reason. Its primarily food that people are sacrificing their desert for. Surplus food in order to work more production tiles or specialists.

Some have suggested that the Malakim should be able to get food in the desert and that they be able to farm the desert. This would be a simple solution that would be very similar to how the Illians function. However, thematically this solution doesn't quite fit. The Illians are evil. They are essentially mortgaging their soul in order to support their bizarre arctic farming practices. The Malakim appear neutral/good and are thematically more suited to following natures natural order. There just ain't that much food out in the open desert. Another criticism of this approach is that building improvements in the desert would clutter it up and destroy the wide open desolate expanse. The desert wouldn't be the desert any more.

For a while now I've been married to the unfortunately flawed idea of giving the Malakim 1 extra food on desert tiles already producing food and 1 extra commerce on desert tiles already producing commerce. It would give them the extra surplus food needed to work more hills or specialists while keeping their open desert. It would also introduce an interesting terraform option where they could farm a plains and then scorch it into desert without losing food. Unfortunately, this ties the bonus to oasis and flood plain tiles, not so much the open desert. I realized that whatever bonus you give them, it needs to be tied directly to the open, unproductive desert tiles.

Before I go into detail though I need to give credit to Err0l and his comments in his post HERE. It was his mention of specialists that set the gears turning. Also, as I haven't played FF or any other FFH2 mod mods, its possible something similar has already been dreamed up. I also realize that the following idea is far far and away from being a tweak and is a full blown new feature and is most likely impossible to include in the core game at this point, but here goes anyways.

Shepherds (or desert tribe, nomad, goatherd, etc.)

• Introduce a new specialist for the Malakim, the Shepherd.
• A shepherd produces 3 and 2 .
• Number of assignable shepherds is based on the number of unproductive desert tiles in the city radius. (desert tiles - oasis tiles - flood plain tiles)
• One assignable shepherd for every 5 (or maybe 4?) unproductive desert tiles in the BFC.
• Shepherds are not bonus specialists, they are assigned from the normal population pool.

Assuming a city is settled in the middle of a vast desert with the entire BFC filled with empty desert and you get 1 shepherd for every 5 tiles, that would allow you to grow a city to size 7 in a completely desolate waste land and still have 3 of that population working zero food tiles. Not too shabby. You can still terraform for better results, but you at least have the option of having a usefully sized city with some decent production potential. This is of course a worst case scenario, most cities would probably only have half that amount of empty desert.

Thematically it works well too. You essentially have a single population spread out over a vast landscape scraping what they can out of the desert and concentrating it. The shepherd's common appearance in judeo-christian mythology would seem to fit well with FFH's mythological influences as well.

If such a complex mechanic was developed I can imagine some carry over potential for other civs as well. Perhaps a Khazad specialist based on mountain tiles? A Clan specialist based on jungle tiles? A Sheim specialist based on hell tiles? Perhaps even other mods could use it for something.



After reading through some of the discussion below I wanted to include a couple other ideas here that I think have merit and may be easier to implement.

The Bazaar

• Introduce a unique building, either a modified market or an auto-building similar to dwarven vaults.
• This building gets a food bonus and perhaps a commerce or wealth bonus based on the number of unproductive desert tiles in the BFC.
• Each unproductive desert tile contributes 0.25 (not sure on commerce/wealth)

One reason I don't like this as much is that it contributes the surplus food in one big lump sum while also restricting the max population more. If the bonus was any bigger though, the surplus might be unbalancing for early growth.

Again, assuming a completely barren desert filling the BFC, the city would gain 5 food. This would provide enough surplus food to work 3.5 foodless tiles or specialists, similar to the shepherds, but with a max population of only 3. 4 if you had a tile with one additional food.

The Nomad Settlement credit to Valkrionn (check out his original ideas he is modding into FF HERE. Good stuff.

• Introduce a desert improvement similar to Lanun Pirate Coves.
• Must be two tiles away from any other improvements.
• Improves tile yield by 3 and some commerce, perhaps improves over time?

Clutters up the desert a bit, but with a minimum distance between them and all other improvements, would require a fair amount of open desert around for them to be built. I suppose mountains, ice, lakes and any other unimproved tiles would help in this case as well.

Again assuming a completely barren desert filled BFC with no nearby improvements (extremely unlikely situation), you could squeeze in 6 of these settlements. Assuming 3 food per settlement, thats 20 food total. Enough for a size 10 city working 4 foodless tiles or specialists. Thats a pretty powerful city in the middle of nothin.

Health Benefits

To help compensate for the flood plains and the potential lack of forests, you could give a Malakim city one extra for every oasis in its BFC.

Alternatively or additionally you could give them a unique feature/resource that only they can see, that only spawns on desert terrain. It could either be a tradable health resource or, if you didn't want to add another health resource to the world economy, it could be a feature that adds health to a city when it is in the city radius.

Good idea!
makes plenty of sense... I guess the only problem is getting a mod modder to add it in. I'm going to bet that coding that won't be fun.

Something that has been obvious for awhile is that the Malakim need some work done.
They do not feel like a complete civilization yet and the reason why this bothers alot of people is because they seem to have lots of potential, and like you've stated, people do want to roleplay a desert civ.

I think this idea is great and adding a unique specialist hasn't been done before, what will also add to the uniqueness of the Malakim.

I've also thought that like the Lanun, the Malakim should have their own unique resource that only they can extract from the desolate desert tiles. This will make them valuable trade partners like the Lanun, and it will make sence thematically because desert societies usually rely heavily on trade to offset their lack of agriculture.

That resource can be called "spice" like in Dune i guess, or something original thats part of the FFH lore.

I like the unique resource idea! probably should get a pretty hefty tile bonus too. It would probably be alot simpler solution to it all. still, the problem remains that desert itself would be useless to them.
Though I guess desert shouldn't be too hospitable.
I think that's the problem. We want to give them an incentive to stay in desert, while not making it as useful as regular terrain. However, spring turns it straight into normal terrain nomatter where it is, making any bonus that doesn't make desert better than plains useless.

Yes, I too have spent some time thinking about a unique resource or something only they could harvest in the desert. Unfortunately, such a mechanic would tie the incentive specifically to those tiles and the rest of the desert could be sacrificed without losing the bonus. The bonus really needs to be tied to a fairly large area of desert in my opinion.

On the other hand, you could use a unique resource to help compensate for the poor health induced by floodplains and no trees. Maybe something like "rock lizards" or some sort of desert creature to expand the lore a bit. Something that only spawns on desert hills or scrub. Lizards on a stick! Yum! Maybe they are both medicinal and hallucinogenic?

They could also get a little food from trade routes, like previously mentioned, most desert societies typically rely on trade

I quite like your specialist idea... Betting it would be a pain to program for FfH, but not nearly so if you base it on FF. As it is, I have a mod (originally by Deon) for FF that gives the Malakim new Caravan Routes instead of roads, making them a harder target for raiders, some new graphics and units, including a worker who can cast Scorch and an assassin UU that is only invisible in deserts, and a new improvement modeled off the town... Grows slower, but yields commerce and 2 food, only buildable on non-floodplain desert tiles. Might make them require a certain amount of distance between themselves, like the Pirate Coves, and then incorporate a specialist like you said... Likely to have less food and more commerce, however. I like the trader theme.

I've also added a camel resource, only visible for the Malakim and only found in deserts.... Would like to find camel rider graphics for a UU mounted line, if possible.

The spice must flow.

give them spice resources in desert. For significant amounts of extra food and commerce. Make it common enough that they can have it in a few cities

Give the Malakim their own tech like the Lanun that they start with and shows the resource on the map for them. This tech could also give them +1 to deserts. Add in the specialist and/or have trade routes produce +1 food for them.

Add another tech that requires the Malakim starting tech and one of the main stream techs. This new tech would allow the Malakim to build Desert caves which could give +1 and maybe +1. This way, they could support a larger population and still get some decent commerce as well.

One of the big problems I see is that in the game deserts don't cause problems, other then being unproductive. I think it would be thematic to have units (other then the recon line) damaged when ending their turn in the desert (5% a turn maybe). Not enough to kill, but defiantly not at full strength. Then simply give the malakim immunity from this damage as they are nomads who have learned to live there. This gives them a reason to stick near deserts, and more of an incentive for other civs to avoid the areas.

Ranos said:

Give the Malakim their own tech like the Lanun that they start with and shows the resource on the map for them. This tech could also give them +1 to deserts. Add in the specialist and/or have trade routes produce +1 food for them.

Add another tech that requires the Malakim starting tech and one of the main stream techs. This new tech would allow the Malakim to build Desert caves which could give +1 and maybe +1. This way, they could support a larger population and still get some decent commerce as well.

Click to expand...

I actually already use a special tech to allow the Malakim to build the special improvements and roads I mentioned. I don't like giving them a free bonus on all desert tiles, however... Or giving them hammers. Deserts are usually resource poor, and instead focus on trade.. Which is why I've tried to give them a strong economy without touching hammers.

Also, you wouldn't need a second Malakim only tech. Just make the improvement require both the tech you want it unlocked at and the Malakim tech.

If anyone's interested, this is the mod I mentioned.... Can't update it atm as my comp died and I can't find a copy of FfH .34, but it'll be updated again as soon as the new FF is released.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=301725

I rethinked my main concept from Malakim+ after hearing your approach to open desert...

And I have an idea. Let them get huge bonus from oasis. Ever better: turn oasis into a feature which grants them unique resource (cocoa nuts?) which are tradeble by them only and give happiness AND health.

With this their cities won't lush in deserts but grow nicely near oasis.
Oasis should be upgradeable when worked. For other civs this upgrades means nothing, but for Malakim it means alot.

So:

Oasis

Current yields.

But it slowly grows, gaining + and + each time it grows. There should be some limit but pretty big, which should be compensated by slow growing time.

Also their units (lightbringers?) should be able to be sacrificed to make an oasis. It should require no oasises in big proximity range (big enough to avoid 2 in a single city ring) and possibly no other terrain but desert in a 2-tile radius (to avoid total terrain exploit). Also it should block "spring" spell in adjacent tiles to avoid building oasis and then turning the desert green.

I haven't played a full game as the Malakim, so I don't know much about the balancing.

However, I will say this- I play games with 19 civs most of the time and the Malakim are like the one civ that NEVER gets eliminated early on, almost always discovers the Order religion, and usually makes a pretty strong showing at the end of the game. So before you make any sweeping balance changes, consider that (at least in my experience) it's one of the civs that the AI plays the best.

But it should be tied to desert still .
Try to play it with flavour start and you'll see the problem.

Flavour start isn't exactly the definition of perfectly balanced though. You can't really base a discussion of civ balance around a mapscript. Look at the erebus mapscript for example. Great mapscript, but it has a tendency to start the Khazad in a food poor plains hill location which makes the game simply not viable for them on many occasions. Does it therefore follow that the Khazad need rebalancing? I'm not saying I'm against a malakim desert bonus (actually, I'm all for it), but using a mapscript isn't a good justification for achieving a balance change.

civ_king said:

They could also get a little food from trade routes, like previously mentioned, most desert societies typically rely on trade

Click to expand...

Yes, I liked that idea. Unfortunately, food from trade routes doesn't really encourage retention of desert, it just encourages trade routes. You can still ditch the desert and keep the bonus. Now if you could tie the food bonus from trade routes to the empty desert tiles... Or perhaps just have a unique building that provides a food bonus depending on the number of unproductive desert tiles. You could make a unique market, call it a bazaar, and have it produce food. Each unproductive tile contributes 0.25 food? That would provide 5 food in a completely barren BFC. The only problem I have with that is how the food is contributed all in one big chunk regardless of population, but its not a bad alternative to the shepherds. Or if you wanted to avoid the hassle of building it you could give every Malakim city a building automatically, similar to the Khazad that provides the desert food bonus. The important part of the mechanic is that it ties directly to the unproductive desert tiles. The more useless unproductive desert, the bigger the bonus.

Valkrionn said:

I quite like your specialist idea... Betting it would be a pain to program for FfH, but not nearly so if you base it on FF. As it is, I have a mod (originally by Deon) for FF that gives the Malakim new Caravan Routes instead of roads, making them a harder target for raiders, some new graphics and units, including a worker who can cast Scorch and an assassin UU that is only invisible in deserts, and a new improvement modeled off the town... Grows slower, but yields commerce and 2 food, only buildable on non-floodplain desert tiles. Might make them require a certain amount of distance between themselves, like the Pirate Coves, and then incorporate a specialist like you said... Likely to have less food and more commerce, however. I like the trader theme.

I've also added a camel resource, only visible for the Malakim and only found in deserts.... Would like to find camel rider graphics for a UU mounted line, if possible.

Click to expand...

I guess I'm going to have to get busy and start playing some FF to see some of this stuff. I was also contemplating some sort of promotion to enhance the desert combat bonus to encourage desert retention, including some desert invisibility, but I started to think it might overlap too much with what CoE provides and seems a bit anti Malakim. Desert improvements similar to pirate coves, I like that. Perhaps you could keep the distance between them short, 2 tiles, but add a requirement that they be surrounded by desert tiles on all sides? Perhaps that would be too restrictive. Maybe a certain minimum number of bordering desert tiles? Not sure how hard that would be to code, sounds difficult.

WarKirby said:

The spice must flow.

give them spice resources in desert. For significant amounts of extra food and commerce. Make it common enough that they can have it in a few cities

Click to expand...

Aye, it allows more growth in the desert, but the bonus could be retained after terraforming the surrounding unproductive desert tiles so I'm not seeing these types of tile bonus mechanics being an ideal solution.

Think I'll edit the first post to include a couple of the ideas here.

Look at the erebus mapscript. Great mapscript, but it has a tendency to start the Khazad in a food poor plains hill location which makes the game simply not viable for them on many occasions. Does it therefore follow that the Khazad need rebalancing?

Click to expand...

The guy who wrote flavour start sure thinks so. He intentionally made things hell for civs that aren't that good in locations that (he thinks are) flavorful for those civs, because he wanted Kael to alter those civs so they'd want to be in such terrain.

Personally, I think civs like the doviello, khazad, and malakim should be better than a normal civ in the terrain they come from in the lore, but not better than they are in standard "good" terrain, which is how things currently are. Food-rich grassland is flat out better for growth than deserts, hills, or tundra, and there's only so much a group of people can do to close that gap. The Illians get to be an exception because they have the knowledge of the GOD OF WINTER on their side when it comes to making the most out of ice terrain. The malakim don't have that kind of help, just their own ingenuity.

Why did Kandros Fir venture out to the outside world in the first place? Because living in hills neutered the Khazad's ability to grow and thrive and Kandros knew that.

JFSebastian said:

Or perhaps just have a unique building that provides a food bonus depending on the number of unproductive desert tiles. You could make a unique market, call it a bazaar, and have it produce food. Each unproductive tile contributes 0.25 food? That would provide 5 food in a completely barren BFC. The only problem I have with that is how the food is contributed all in one big chunk regardless of population, but its not a bad alternative to the shepherds.

Click to expand...

Could also make it a certain amount of food per desert tile per trade route, while also cutting the amount of commerce yielded by trade routes.... Would allow the food bonus to start small, but grow large in well-developed cities.

PotatoOverdose said:

Look at the erebus mapscript for example. Great mapscript, ...

Click to expand...

I disagree . It's beautiful and nice but when it comes to tactics it's chokepoints are tactics-killers (and AI killers if we speak of it). I'm looking forward for a MountainCoast script to be developed into something more natural with base principles of Erebus.

A bit of Offtopic Discussion here, sorry .

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.