Dune Wars

I haven't played it, and I'm not all that familiar with the Dune series, but this mod looks absolutely gorgeous.

Also in the category of fresh water bonus, what do you think about reducing the water yield of dew collectors from 2 to 1, and giving an irrigation bonus of 1? So it is the same as today as long as it is on fresh water, otherwise it is less.

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I don't really like it. First, I don't think it makes sense. Dew collectors are collecting dew from plants. If there is a windtrap nearby (granting fresh water access), then there would be *less* water in the air to be captured by the dew collectors; windtraps are basically giant dehumidifiers.
Second, dew collectors are built only on resources; you don't have much control over whether or not they get fresh water access - ie whether or not they are next to a hill tile; that just depends on the map generation.
Third, the AI won't understand the little control that you do have through windtrap placement. The AI is bad enough at windtrap placement already without also needing to take account the effects on neighboring tiles based

Whereas the AI *would* understand building cottages next to windtraps, because they would get a higher yield, and you can choose where to build cottages or not (as opposed to dew collectors, where you can't choose).

Finally, water yields are not too high. 2 wind traps + city tile + 1 groundwater + greenhouse = ~11 water early game (size 5), and ~15 water midgame.

Are you sure the low population is due to whipping?

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Not *certain*, but I can't think of any other explanation. Look at the save in post 8; literally all the Ordos cities are size 1, AND unhappy. I guess we could remove whipping from slavery civic and see what happens then, and remove drafting from the draft civic (imperial fealty?) and test.

So there is almost 4x less domestic trade, and almost 5x more foreign trade. Almost half of the total commerce in DW is from foreign trade. I am a little surprised that the corp income is not the majority of the DW income, and I am surprised that foreign trade is such a large percentage of the total.

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Less foreign trade and more domestic trade are obviously related; trade routes are calculated as the highest possible pair, and foreign cities always give a larger bonus than domestic one (there is a ~100% trade route yield bonus for being on a different continent, and then other big bonuses for being with foreign civs that you have been at peace with for a long time). So, whenever possible, your city chooses to trade with a foreign one instead of a domestic one, hence higher foreign trade and lower domestic trade.
The main reason why this is occurring is because
a) trading over ocean comes with an early game tech; its a long way up in vanilla
b) every city on the map is connected in Dunewars. Every city is coastal, and connected to every other city, so the potential number of combinations is higher.
c) AIs seem pretty eager to get open borders.
d) somehow remove the foreign continent trade route yield bonus

Possible means of cutting trade down are:
i) change diplomacy ai somehow so the AI has to like you more in order to have open borders
ii) move deep desert trade higher in the tech tree (or make desert topography more exensive)
iii) cut down the number of buildings that give extra trade routes (like the weather scanner) or foreign trade route yields.

Corp income (from spice) can vary a lot, both between civs, between games, and between turns. The human player also tends to build more workers than the AI, and so controls more spice resources.

Specialists don't give commerce; they give gold or beakers directly.

I've locally changed the Specialist and Great People names to the following:

Specialists
Worker
Priest
Nobleman
Scientist
Merchant
Techman
Spy

I'm all for flavour, but seeing as most of the vanilla professions are entirely appropriate for Dune, I think we need to revert back in most cases.

Great People
Great Prophet
Great Nobleman
Great Scientist
Great Merchant
Great Techman
Great Burseg (Great General)
Spymaster

Burseg is the equivalent rank to Field Marshal in the Duniverse so that seems appropriate.

I'd like to fix these names because the current ones are irritating. Thoughts?

Specialists
Serf (for Citizen)
Priest
Troubadour (for Artist)
Scientist
Merchant
Engineer
Spy

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I prefer Noble for artist. Thats what the noble slots in the buildings in the religion thread are for.
And I prefer techman to engineer. Thats basically their name for any engineer lackey (it doesn't refer specifically to Ix); in Dune Duke Leto asks for them to get a Techman in to fix some stuff or something.
Merchant or trader or whatever is fine.
I think citizen rather than serf, not everyone is practicing serfdom (Fremen sure aren't).
Priest is ok, but Believer might be more generally appropriate - but priest would also be fine (most non-priest "religions" don't actually give priest slots.

Famous seems a bit weird; its more important that they're *good* than that they're famous.
Again, noble and techman replacements.

Techman is OK.

I don't really like either Serf or Citizen to be honest, we could stick with Dweller.

I've decide Great Prophet sounds better too.

OK we'll go with Great - it's what people know - some continuity with vanilla is useful.

Believer doesn't really sound like a specialist - let's go Priest.

Not especially sure about Noble, but if it's part of the religion design we can go with it. Would Nobleman be considered sexist?

Great Lord sounds a bit weird - Great Patrician?

I'll amend the former post.

I don't really like either Serf or Citizen to be honest, we could stick with Dweller.

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That sounds weird too... but I'm relatively indifferent. How about worker?

Not especially sure about Noble, but if it's part of the religion design we can go with it. Would Nobleman be considered sexist?

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Part of the idea is that culture is also political influence. Nobleman sounds fine; all the nobles in the books are male; Dune is a very patriarchal society. Noblemen with their wives and official "bound" Concubines, who can basically be purchased.

Here's the updated Specialists xml - goes in assets/xml/gameinfo/

Ahriman said:

The main reason why this is occurring is because
a) trading over ocean comes with an early game tech; its a long way up in vanilla
b) every city on the map is connected in Dunewars. Every city is coastal, and connected to every other city, so the potential number of combinations is higher.

Possible means of cutting trade down are:
i) change diplomacy ai somehow so the AI has to like you more in order to have open borders
ii) move deep desert trade higher in the tech tree (or make desert topography more exensive)
iii) cut down the number of buildings that give extra trade routes (like the weather scanner) or foreign trade route yields.
d) somehow remove the foreign continent trade route yield bonus

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I investigated a little more. There is one point I am missing somehow; it seems every civ has 1-2 more trade routes than it should, by the midgame (turn 250). I compared vanilla civ archipelago against DW.

1. In vanilla, civs don't have astronomy by turn 250, so ocean trade is limited. I am a little confused by this, because surely most civs are connected by coast. Still, by turn 250, most vanilla civs have zero foreign trade.

2. In vanilla, most cities have 2-3 trade routes, in DW most have already hit the limit of 6 trade routes by turn 250. In DW, there are four buildings that give +1 route: force shield, weather scanner, spaceport, and desert airfield; one tech (Protected Trade) and one civic (Free Trade). When I count up the number of trade routes actually in a DW city, vs the number of buildings+techs+civics, I am usually off by one; there must be something else adding a route.

3. In vanilla, most trade is still local instead of foreign. A foreign trade route gets +100% for intercontinental, +100 for foreign, and +150% for long term peace. So one vanilla route usually yields 2-3 gold, where one DW route usually yields 6-7 gold.

Apart from one missing trade route, these three factors account for the huge foreign trade yield. Now, what to do about it?

1. We need ocean trade in order to let civs get the corporation bonus for working spice. If we move this later, then spice commerce gets much less. This is why we moved it earlier. So I am not sure we should change this.

2. We could certainly remove one or two building trade route bonuses. The force shield is commonly built, and there is no particular reason for it to give a bonus trade route. The space port should probably keep the bonus route. The desert airfield could lose it; perhaps the airfield should be removed altogether. Also, it is curious that most civs immediately switch to Free Trade as soon as they can; perhaps we should move this civic later in the tech tree. Any suggestions on where it should go?

3. Fortunately, all three of these bonuses, intercontinental, foreign and peace are controlled by parameters in the XML. I could drop all of them to zero, or at least make them smaller. This will not affect anything else. Does anybody vote against making them zero?

it seems every civ has 1-2 more trade routes than it should, by the midgame (turn 250).

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Well, every city can build the weather scanner (+1 trade) vs only some cities get lighthouses in vanilla.

1. In vanilla, civs don't have astronomy by turn 250, so ocean trade is limited. I am a little confused by this, because surely most civs are connected by coast.

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To trade by coast I *think* you have to be able to trace a path through civs that you have open borders with. So imagine 3 civs on a coast, ABC, but A is connected to C only through A. With open borders they could all trade with each other, but if A or C doesn't have open borders with B, then A and C can't trade until Astronomy.

In DW, there are four buildings that give +1 route

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Consider dropping trade routes from force shield and desert airfield? These are military buildings, they don't need to give trade bonuses (the force shield one is particularly weird; it kinda made sense that a castle in vanilla was protecting merchants and so encouraging trade, but that doesn't happen here.

If we move this later, then spice commerce gets much less. This is why we moved it earlier. So I am not sure we should change this.

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Good point. Agreed.

Also, it is curious that most civs immediately switch to Free Trade as soon as they can; perhaps we should move this civic later in the tech tree. Any suggestions on where it should go?

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Weird, I think its a fairly weak civic.

This will not affect anything else. Does anybody vote against making them zero?

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I vote for making intercontinental zero (it doesn't make much sense in this setting, they aren't really different continents with different resources), but against making peace zero (you should want to trade with your friends, and war should disrupt your trade) and against making foreign zero (you should want to get open borders with other civs to increase your trade income).

Well the thumper button is all pinked, can you fix that up?

also something funny happen as well, i built one of those blue shield and it look like it could cover up 4 cities...

@darkedone02: Wow. That is one big force shield. Could you post a savegame so that we can investigate?

@david: You could set the intercontinental bonus to zero and halve the other two.

Just a thought: Vladimir Harkonnen (currently aggressive, charismatic) and Feyd-Rautha (currently agressive, organized) should have their traits swapped.

And how are thumpers supposed to work?
Most infantry can't move onto desert tiles, and even if you put one in a transport and drop a thumper, the thumper then gets moved automatically onto a land tile in the next turn.
Maybe thumpers need to be made into 0 move naval units?

Thumpers do "something", but probably the whole thumper mechanism needs to be rethought from scratch.

The original design is: the ability to drop a thumper is a promotion, which guardsmen and melee units can get. Units with the promotion get an action button except when on hills or peaks. Pressing the action button creates a thumper unit in that plot. Some units such as Fremen can move on desert, so they can drop thumpers. When a sandworm is within two plots of a thumper, it ignores everything else and attacks the thumper. The thumper unit lasts for four turns. If no sandworm has been attracted by the fourth turn, it creates one, which attacks the thumper.

Ahriman and darkdone02 have pointed out several bugs; there are several known problems; and even as I type this I can see more things wrong.

a. The big problem is that the AI will never use this action button.
b. The action button should only be available on deep desert / desert waste terrain
c. The action button should not be available to units loaded in a transport
d. The icon for the thumper action button in the main interface is missing
e. The thumper unit is DOMAIN_LAND, so the game moves it to land
f. Attracting a worm in the last turn is nice, but since worms now kamikaze, it is kind of pointless; the worm appears and then disappears after attacking.
g. Only a very few units -- infantry/melee which can move on desert -- can use the thumper. (This may actually be OK, although scout thopters might fit also.)

Thumpers are an important theme element of Dune, and the current implementation is one I threw together in version 1.1, I think. It has not gotten much use, and as you can see it is not working well. Points (b,c,d,e) are each one line changes, but (a) is a problem with the whole approach.

How should we implement thumpers in the game?

Deliverator said:

@darkedone02: Wow. That is one big force shield. Could you post a savegame so that we can investigate?

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I have seen this also. I assumed that it was the "Great Wall" wonder, which reuses the same graphics as the wall, but I tried that with WB and that is not the cause. It may be a random display problem. I have locally made the force shield less "interesting" by removing its free trade route, but if I see it again I will post the game.

I'm not sure when you'd want to use them in practice. If you constantly have to drop thumpers to stop worms attacking your improvements or units crossing the sand then that quickly turns into tedious micro-management. Thumpers are not an especially key theme element to have in the mod IMO. They are at the level of personal equipment which Civ 4 does not generally represent. Continuing to make our civs more distinctive and getting religions implemented seem more important. Perhaps we should just remove them and perhaps revisit later.

You don't *have* to drop thumpers; but if you have a thumper capable unit, using the thumper makes your improvements and other units safer. Sort of along the lines of a fogbuster, except you have to take some action.

... Actually, that may be the solution. I recall we thought of this before, but it wasn't a key problem then either. Perhaps the unit with the thumper promotion should itself act as a thumper, from the standpoint of safely attracting and dispersing worms. Then posting a thumper unit near a big stack of harvesters would keep them safe.

g. Only a very few units -- infantry/melee which can move on desert -- can use the thumper. (This may actually be OK, although scout thopters might fit also.)

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Maybe you should require the Sandrider promotion as a pre-req? This would solve a lot of problems.
And maybe you could create an AI script so that a unit with the thumper promotion on desert or desert waste checks a 2 tiles radius in each direction; if there is a sandworm in the radius AND there is not already a thumper, it drops a thumper. Otherwise no effect.

Thats likely the best the AI could ever do; it would never intelligently realize that it could move an infantry into the desert and drop a thumper to pull a worm away from spice mining operations, but it *would* at least let them drop the thumper as a distraction to protect infantry units crossing the desert from worms.

The human player can use thumpers to protect themselves from worms, either when crossing the desert or to stop their harvesters from being attacked.
I see no reason to disable them from units in transports.

But the AI is never likely to even select the promotion as an upgrade, since it doesn't seem to do anything.

Another possibility; have certain units (Fremen scouts, worm riders, fedaykin) start with the thumper promotion, and remove it as a purchasable level-up promotion.

I investigated a little more. There is one point I am missing somehow; it seems every civ has 1-2 more trade routes than it should, by the midgame (turn 250). I compared vanilla civ archipelago against DW.

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Possible source: the United nations trade route resolution?

The UN comes much earlier in Dunewars than it does in Vanilla.

Perhaps the unit with the thumper promotion should itself act as a thumper, from the standpoint of safely attracting and dispersing worms. Then posting a thumper unit near a big stack of harvesters would keep them safe.

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I think I prefer this. The current system is overly fussy I think.

That's a good call on the UN trade resolution, Ahriman. What are we going to do with the UN anyway? Turn it into the Landsraad?

Perhaps the unit with the thumper promotion should itself act as a thumper

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This doesn't do any good though. The point of the thumper is to make the worm go away by eating the thumper, without having to sacrifice a unit to feed the worm.

What are we going to do with the UN anyway? Turn it into the Landsraad?

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Yes, this makes the most sense.