1.9.6 Feedback

It is a detail, but, don't you think is it weird to have polar city with many solar farm ? in polar region, solar energy should be really low because there not much solar insolation (it is precisely the reason why it is so cold ). I found weird we can found big cities in polar. It don't fit with the lore nor with the reality.

Could be possible to remove the all city settlement in polar but make a new improvement buildable outhere cultural border, like a mix of outpost and ice extractor, sort of fortified ice factory ? this could be built only on ice, and give the ressource benefit, a small bonus defense, and small cultural controle like outpost. So the polar could be only a place were factions fight to gain the control of theses outposts, only for the bonus. And then all the ices tiles still as useless as the deep desert. No more problem of the balance of these city, nor the weird issues of terraforming. (forest in the polar ? even with huge liquid water reservoir, it is not possible due to the lack of... sun. )

It's not clear that there are no cities in the polar area:

There are other cities scattered in the northern regions of the planet (especially near the ice cap, where water is harvested),

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrakis

I don't really have a problem with solar in the polar region; one argument that effective insolation might be higher is that everywhere else there are lots of winds and airborne particulates, which block out the sunlight, whereas the polar area is likely to be calmer and clearer.

From a gameplay perspective, the kind of system you propose is not really possible. The AI does not understand how to attack or defend areas that do not have cities, and it does not know how to build improvements outside its cultural control.

Ahem, if the AI can't handle, it's ok

For the rational fact, a clear sky is not a solution to a deficit of solar energy. If there is energy, there can't be polar ice and there should be have vegetation (but probably not on arrakis). If there is polar ice, so the sun is not as hot to make energy valuable.

But understand me well, I am not annoyed by the current choice for the mod. I'm not necessarily search something with a realistic mechanics or explanation at all cost.
It's just I have notice when I played with fremen the polar area become an forested heaven, with cities biggers than the one in rocky ground, and at this moment I have found this little weird, also with those ice extractor in the middle of temperate forest

It's just I have notice when I played with fremen the polar area become an forested heaven, with cities biggers than the one in rocky ground, and at this moment I have found this little weird, also with those ice extractor in the middle of temperate forest

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Which version are you playing? I thought the most recent couple of versions blocked polar tiles from terraforming. [And also blocked construction of *any* improvements, including cottages, on polar tiles that don't have a resource, which I am opposed to.]

Dune 1.9.1b + patch 1.9.6
I have no screen shot but my last game fremen have terraform the polar area. It is not possible to construct in low places, but the higher can have solar farm or cottage.

Ah, I had it wrong, we do still allow terraforming there, but at a much lower rate. My mistake.

And you can build improvements only once they're terraformed.

This seems fine to me.

This is fine also for me in the gameplay, but still weird in a rational point of view

I am going to introduce a -2 happy penalty for each non-state religion with the forthcoming patch. The Missionaria will negate this penalty - which is actually what you see happening in the screenshot - the 2 unhappy conflict of belief penalty is negated by the +2 happy from the Missionaria. There is no fixed happiness from the building - just the non-state religion bonus.

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I have think to this in my last game (with BG), while it seem interesting to have conflict between religion, I think some are more opposed than other. For exemple, I don't really know why choam believer and imperial should be angry of each other. Shai-hulud seem to be a prerequise to the mahdi belief, and quizarate the result of mahdi jihad. So quizarate or mahdi believer being angry against older step, why not, but the opposite ? For me the current diffculty for mix mutliple religion except choam and shai-hulud already reflect the greater "tolerance" of their believers.

I don't really know why choam believer and imperial should be angry of each other

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Because CHOAM supporters (this religion was previously named Landsraad) are about power belonging to the Great Houses; a decentralized system.
Whereas Imperials are about centralizing power with the Emperor, with a tendency towards absolutism.

They're fundamentally antithetical; they're both "old guard" systems, but they have very different beliefs about who should be in charge.

A big part of the book Dune is that the old system had this tripod of "most powerful" types; the Great Houses had most of the soldiers and the wealth, but they were divided and could be played off against each other; the Emperor had the biggest army and was the toughest noble, but couldn't possibly face all the others united against them; the Spacing Guild controlled all transport and could shut down all traded if they wanted to, but they needed that trade and chose to remain (largely) neutral in politics.

Given that we left the Guild neutral in the mod, the CHOAM vs Imperial religions are about trying to set out the tension inherent in the status quo that exists before the events of Dune.

Think about the rebellion against King John and the signing of the Magna Carta; the tension in feudal societies between the monarch and the nobles is very old.

Shai-hulud seem to be a prerequise to the mahdi beliefand quizarate the result of mahdi jihad. So quizarate or mahdi believer being angry against older step, why not, but the opposite

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Shai-hulad is about the old ways on Arrakis, and the desert, and worshiping the worms. It's like the Fremen before the events of Dune. Recall that many Fremen don't believe that Paul is their messiah, it's easy to see how this group could be bitterly opposed to a genocidal war, particularly one that carries them beyond Arrakis.
Mahdi is about the messaianic zealotry.
Qizarate is about the regulated Establishment state religion, and it's institutionalization, and then towards the Golden Path of enforced stagnation.

One of the big themes of Dune is how religions are transformed by religious authorities, and how different these stages in religion are, no matter their common history.

Think about the Reformation; Shai Hulad supporters would oppose those offshoots in a similar manner to how Catholics thought about Protestants, despite the fact that Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism, and institutional catholicism was really a creation of Paul (earth Paul, not Muad'Dib) and was quite different from the variation on Judaism of the early days of Christianity.
Think about how the establish Jewish religion thought about the early Christian heretics.
Think about how the Catholics viewed Islam.

All those religions have the same root, but there were very intense tensions between them.

For me the current diffculty for mix mutliple religion except choam and shai-hulud already reflect the greater "tolerance" of their believers.

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Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying here.

But I don't see any of the various belief systems as being tolerant. They're about power and control, and none of them think things should be run the way the other systems are run.

From a gameplay perspective, it is also far simpler to have a different religions penalty than to try to have separate and different modifiers depending on which religion pair you're talking about. It would be very confusing for the player for A to dislike B but B to not dislike A.

From a gameplay perspective, it is also far simpler to have a different religions penalty than to try to have separate and different modifiers depending on which religion pair you're talking about. It would be very confusing for the player for A to dislike B but B to not dislike A.

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I agree, but maybe a -2 happy could be a bit too much ?

Your explanation give sense, I think it's the choice of the choam name which confuse me, because the choam is blend with great house in the imperium, so this is why I don't see why they must be opposed.

For religions, I understand but it is only the extremist believers of each one which are angry. And they aren't inevitably the more numerous. The majority of jewish, christian or islam don't want eradicate the others followers event if they think they are in a wrong belief, and can coexist peacefully.

For me the current diffculty for mix mutliple religion except choam and shai-hulud already reflect the greater "tolerance" of their believers.

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What I want to say by this is in the mod it is already very difficult to have many religion in the same city. If your are in the way of choam and imperium, you could enought easily combine these two but already with huge work because imperium surely more spread than choam, so you need to spread choam, and respread imperial one by one. You have surely best to do with your production.
Combine shai-hulud and mahdi has similar problems because madhi erase most of shai-hulud when it appear. And if you want to have quizarate and others, the work is event bigger. It is still "possible" but it is not a good way to win, ins't it ?

So for now it is only easy to combine shai-hulud + one other or choam + one other, because these two has a early spread and many missionarie buildable. And what I want to say by the tolerance is choam and shai-hulud maybe more concern about themself than the belief of the others, even if they are unbelievers. I think in these two maybe the extremist part is less important than in madhi or quizarate, for exemple.
It is reflect by the current religion description in the mod : all have a "... think X shall hold supreme power" while shai-hulud and choam seem not defend a particular supreme power holder.

But maybe a slight religion pedia text improvement could make them more match what you explain.

I agree, but maybe a -2 happy could be a bit too much ?

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No, I don't think so. A new religion lets you build a temple building which gives +1 happy for most religions, and -1 unhappy is too small a penalty to really be noticeable. With +1unhappy, you actually have an incentive to spread secondary religions yourself through your own cities. With +2unhappy you have some incentive to actually remove them.

because the choam is blend with great house in the imperium

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Great Houses are opposed to the Emperor. Pretty straightforward I think, they have something of a zero-sum relationship on power.

For religions, I understand but it is only the extremist believers of each one which are angry. And they aren't inevitably the more numerous. The majority of jewish, christian or islam don't want eradicate the others followers event if they think they are in a wrong belief, and can coexist peacefully.

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Today? Sure. But that is not at all true historically.
There was huge animosity between the mainstream of various religious practices especially pre-Enlightenment, and there were massive wars of religion.

What I want to say by this is in the mod it is already very difficult to have many religion in the same city

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It's not *that* difficult, and it certainly happens "by accident" with the AI using missionaries. And I want a game where you don't *want* to have many religions in a city, not just where that is difficult to accomplish.

nd what I want to say by the tolerance is choam and shai-hulud maybe more concern about themself than the belief of the others, even if they are unbelievers

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I still don't really follow this.
A follower of Great Houses would think of Shai-Hulad rather like 16th-19th Christian colonists/imperialists would have thought about the animist religions of Africans or indigenous Americans or others.
Remember; the traditional Fremen involve things like killing and taking the water of anyone they capture - things that seem utterly barbaric to outsiders. It is no difficulty at all seeing how off-worlders would try to stamp out those practices.

shai-hulud and choam seem not defend a particular supreme power holder

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Shai-hulad is about tradition, it would be very intolerant to outsiders.
CHOAM is about protecting the rights and privileges of the Great Houses, and about power being held by the Landsraad. CHOAM followers might be ok with an Emperor, but they would want him a weak, symbolic figurehead, with the real power devolved to the nobles.

For the wars of religion, I don't want to make a debate on this, but I think the main raison of any war is the lack of space and/or ressource, and not the historical reason given were only the pretext was put ahead. Religion's animosity seem more be the powder than the spark.

It's not *that* difficult, and it certainly happens "by accident" with the AI using missionaries. And I want a game where you don't *want* to have many religions in a city, not just where that is difficult to accomplish.

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In this case it's ok, I agree with you. It's right I have never use inquisitor for now and I have always try to not remove many religion in city if I have them. Otherwise, I have think it is maybe possible to make a biggest malus with some civics ? but I don't found anyone seem match this idea.

Maybe there should be a civic (like religious freedom) which decreases the penalty to -1 unhappy per non-state-religion. Or even to zero or to a flat rate, it depends on the cost of the civic and of the other (alternative) civics you can't pick then.

Maybe there should be a civic (like religious freedom)

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Tolerance and freedom are not really in the thematic spirit of the Dune universe. Rather the opposite.

Ahriman said:

Tolerance and freedom are not really in the thematic spirit of the Dune universe. Rather the opposite.

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I don't agree to that to full extent:
- IMHO til now, Dune Wars always weighened gameability against flavor and tried to unite those two, but whenever this was not entirely possible, gameability got the lead.
- I didn't say the civic shall be named "religious freedom". The lore of the Bene Gesserit alone contains already enough content which aims for some kind of coexistence or unification of religions, so a proper name could be taken there from.
- The best example is the Orange-Catholic Bible, which was explicitly and purposedly MADE by a conglomerate of religions to unite and share some kind of common belief.
- Even the isolationistic Bene Tleilax have a religion which is named "zensufism." This is because they have combined zensunni AND sufi elements.
- Most leaders of the old Great Houses show some kind of opportunistic religious tolerance, as long as their goals are not concerned or (better) they can draw some kind of support out of these beliefs". This would be reflected by this civic: Tensions don't go away (as they would with real tolerance) but are reduced to some extent since their leaders try to arrange themselves (openly or secretly) with others. It's like "if you can't beat them, join them", and this motto is very well known and exercised in the Dune universe.

I see flavor and gameplay as unified on this front; I think the game is better in both senses if secondary religions hurt you.
I also think the game is more interesting if the ability to have and use multiple religions is a faction-specific benefit for the Bene Gesserit, as it is strongly in-theme for them. I can't see any other faction being able to manipulate belief systems in the same way.
I also think the existing civics work pretty well.

Yes, the Dune universe has had religious mergers in the past, but that doesn't mean that members of the different belief systems now are somehow tolerant of other belief systems. And recall again that in the mod, religions are as much political positions as they are faith-based or spiritual.

I won't argue against that. Having multiple "religions" / political beliefs / whatever SHOULD hurt you. I just wanted to propose an additional civic that lets you REDUCE (not eliminate) this penalty. And I don't see this has to be anti-canonical under all circumstances. And of course this reduction would have its price: You can't choose one of the other civics in this section.

I have some game crash if I try to begun a new game with "custom game", arrakis map (with defauts), and "advanced start" choice. The game always crash if I choose a start era which is not the first.

This is a small issue, but I have a game where one of the AIs is the Benne Gesserit. They just performed a Political Marriage espionage mission on me. I would think this would be a waste of EP for the AI since it gives +1 diplomatic modifier, making the target civ like the Benne Gesserit more (but since I'm a human, diplo modifiers have no effect on me).

(edit) While I'm at it: it seems that cities built on sink/salt terrain don't have any access to my resources or any trade routes, even into the mid/late game. Is this intended?

So I am back playing Dune Wars again. Such a great mod

Anyhow, I was wondering whether Chris and/or Ahriman could make a final 2.0 patch to fix the spice victory based on what was discussed in the "Some concerns..." thread. Primarily calculating it based only on enemy spice production to show the true goal (and consider lowering the goal to 60% / 150% of enemy production).

I would really like to see that victory type viable and fun to achieve. It still seems to be based on the old way, so I guess real life just got in the way

In the meantime, I am having great fun turning Arrakis green as Paul Muad'Dib !