Vampire counts

Here's my attempt at modding the proposed Hunting Ground effect for Vampires using a FF XML promotion that should avoid any need for creating additional temporary Buildings/spells, etc.

Vampire Feeding effect
When inside a city, units with the Vampire promotion automatically acquire the Feeding promotion. While Feeding, the unit gains 1 XP per turn and exerts -1:), -1:health:, -1 Influence in the city. If attacked while Feeding, the unit cannot use First Strikes. Note: this can also used to feed in enemy or rival territory, where it will still cause unhappiness and health/Influence drain. Feeding automatically ends after leaving the city.

Spoiler :
<PromotionInfo> <!-- Feeding -->
<Type>PROMOTION_FEEDING</Type>
<bNoXP>1</bNoXP>
<bRequireCity>1</bRequireCity>
<bAutoAcquire>1</bAutoAcquire>
<bMustMaintain>1</bMustMaintain>
<PromotionPrereq>PROMOTION_VAMPIRE</PromotionPrereq>
<CityBonuses>
<bApplySelf>1</bApplySelf>
<bApplyRival>1</bApplyRival>
<bApplyTeam>1</bApplyTeam>
<iBonusRange>1</iBonusRange>
<fHappy>-1</fHappy>
<fHealth>-1</fHealth>
<fCulture>-1</fCulture>
<fDecayrate>1</fDecayrate>
</CityBonuses>
<bRemovedByCombat>1</bRemovedByCombat>
<bFirstStrikeVulnerable>1</bFirstStrikeVulnerable>
<iFirstStrikesChange>-1</iFirstStrikesChange>
<iChanceFirstStrikesChange>-1</iChanceFirstStrikesChange>
<iFreeXPperTurn>1</iFreeXPperTurn>
</PromotionInfo>
 
Interesting. But this is very very micromanagement intensive; the human player would have to manually select the feeding promotion every turn for every vampire, which could be hugely annoying.

Can we think of an alternative implementation which would avoid this? Maybe we should reduce the penalties but just make it automatic, like the promotion that archers get in FF if they're in a city with walls.

Is there an easy way to prevent the AI from using it if its city has less than +2 positive food income?

Maybe we should cut the influence loss down too, -3 is very large in this mod with generally low building influence output.

Are the benefits large enough relative to the costs? Being a vampire is supposed to be a large benefit.

Finally, do the penalties stack? This could be devastating do your economy with several vampires.
 
It could be made automatic; there's no clear way to conditionally use it based on current net food. The -2food was from the original design, but maybe just cut out the food change (a single Vampire wouldn't really kill enough people to affect pop growth), could try something like -1:) -1:health: -1 Influence and possibly bump to +1 XP per turn if you want to (that's a lot more than Animosity, but I suppose Vampire promos/XP are different.)
 
It could be made automatic

could try something like -1happy -1health -1 Influence and possibly bump to +1 XP per turn if you want to

This sounds good, why don't we go with this and then playtest.

Do the penalties stack with multiple vampires?
 
Ok, reworked and edited XML above. I'm not completely sure about the stacking without playtesting it, but I think that it probably would. Maybe we could remove the health penalty too if it turns out too troublesome for growth, but having 3 Vampire Lords simultaneously feasting on the populace of a single town should probably make the villagers even more on edge :shifty:
 
nice promotion, lets the leeches walk around and enjoy the night air :)
 
There should be a spell to suppress the feeding effect for if you dont want your vampire to gain EXP and dont want the penalties in the city. perhaps call it 'resist temptation' and it could have a % each turn to start feeding again.(ie succumbing to temptation) especially if you have multiple vampires in a city.
 
Why? Just move your vampire outside the city tile.
It seems perfectly reasonable that you can't really stop your vampires from feeding if they are in a city.
 
Yeah, that's probably the sort of thing the AI couldn't really understand. Alternately, how about having Vampires without the Feeding promo have a 5% per turn chance to gain a Blood Hunger promo granting a -10% penalty to Strength and eliminating per turn healing? Blood Hunger gets automatically removed when Feeding is applied as the Vampire satiates its thirst.. :cool: A sizable healing bonus would be good to tack on to Feeding as well; Vampires can recharge/regenerate pretty quickly by leeching off the herd if they're not completely destroyed by combat.
 
I can see some AI problems with this. If an AI vampire gets damaged outside a city, it would probably sit there forever trying but failing to heal.

I think just have them get the bonus when they're in a city, and then get nothing when they're not in a city.

The penalties are small enough that the AI won't get wrecked by them.
 
Top Bottom