PMF's Fire Emblem Civs!

VERY open to suggestions even on the mods here that have been out for a while! I am not the best at balancing my ideas, but I try. Also, unless otherwise noted, the mods should work for all combinations of expansions, including none at all. First up:

(Cordelia - Awakening)

(The Taguel - Awakening)

But here's the current project!
(some FE: A spoilers!)

I don't have any images yet! I should be able to manage myself for most others, but someone's help for the main civ icon would be lovely. (Maybe something incorporating Lucina's mark of the exalt on her eye?)

Anyway, the civ is Future Ylisse, a version of Ylisse from the doomed future timeline.

Led by Lucina, the wielder of the exalted falchion, and the best hope the people have!

Doomed Future: +50% land unit maintenance, but all land units get 15% defense, and units that can get the Medic promotion get it for free.

(I realize 50% is kind of a lot, so I was thinking of toning it down to 30%, I was just worried 30% would barely be noticeable in the long run! I also considered 20+% defense, but that sounded like a lot. Other suggestions/ideas are welcome. It was meant to exemplify a future where the living are rare, strong, and just trying to survive with each other against all those Risen brutes hunting them down, y'know?)

Outrealms Hero: Replaces the Longswordsman. They get separate bonuses to fighting in friendly lands and in foreign lands, making them decent for war and for home defense, but (theoretically) best at helping to defend your friends! Currently both bonuses are 15%.

Outrealm Gate: Replaces... the Heroic Epic. Gives some flat extra Gold and Culture, but more importantly, gives access to and spawns 4 Future Kids units! (What are those? Well...)

Future Kids: Technically a second UU, can only be built in a city with an Outrealm Gate, and only 4 can exist in the world at a time. Their strength is meant to vary, increasing as you get access to stronger infantry units, matching their strength as well. They don't cost any maintenance, either, so treasure them!

While they're possible to build, they (currently) take almost as many hammers as a late-game unit (i.e., 300) so make sure they don't die and you'll be fine.


And that's all I got. For the Future Kids, I could just go with the unit having its own upgrade line, or find some lua that works with unit combat strength. Dunno yet, but the former would be less potentially buggy, I bet.

Anyway, how does Future Ylisse look? Or would it be hard to judge without a test run? (I mean, I'll try to have a download available soon enough, but I wanted to see if anyone felt the civ was objectively crazy or anything!)

This Fire Emblem must be really cool, there are three independent mods in this page alone!
Good luck with your project.

PMF said:

I don't have any images yet! I should be able to manage myself for most others, but someone's help for the main civ icon would be lovely. (Maybe something incorporating Lucina's mark of the exalt on her eye?)

Click to expand...

I would like to volunteer to be the artist for this project. I'd have a civ icon for you already, but I'm away from my main computer at the moments. I'll be back in a few hours with the icon. =)

That said, I'm going to need some colors to work with. I was thinking a deep blue for the background, and either a light red or a light yellow for the icon, taking colors from Lucina's general ensemble, but if you have any specific color ideas, I'm all ears. These two colors are very important, as I use them to create a color palette for the rest of the civ's art. Ah yes, and that reminds me - I'm totally down for doing all of Future Ylisse's art, actually - icons, map, leaderscreen, everything. It's sort of "my thing." I can also help you out with some (very) basic lua, but no promises there.

I had some detailed and awesome comments concerning the Future Kids, but just after I had finished typing it all out, my computer froze, crashed, and deleted my whole post.
...I don't really feel like rewriting any more of it at this time.
But anyway. Future Ylisse. Super psyched. =D

(Poor Chrom, excluded once again... xD)

So, in Japan, character popularity polls are super popular and totally "a thing," especially for video games like Fire Emblem. I say we have a "popularity poll" to decide which of these icon color schemes is the awesomest. =)

http://i.imgur.com/gKL3BXI.png
(It's enormous, so I'm not embedding it)

If you're wondering about the main emblem, I just took the brand and added two extra teardrops. I derived these teardrop-shapes from the negative inside space of Falchion. =3

Anyway, comments/criticism/compliments? If you don't like any of the color schemes, let me know; I was sorta just taking them off of Lucina herself, her clothing, and her sword. Also, sorry I wasn't able to get the eye you wanted - an eye would be fine, and the brand would be fine, but the brand inside the eye is a tad too complicated to make look good, especially at the lower resolution required by the game. But yeah. Icons. Fun stuff.

bane_ said:

This Fire Emblem must be really cool, there are three independent mods in this page alone!
Good luck with your project.

Click to expand...

Hahaha, it's the coolest! Thank you!

Kiang said:

I would like to volunteer to be the artist for this project. I'd have a civ icon for you already, but I'm away from my main computer at the moments. I'll be back in a few hours with the icon. =)

That said, I'm going to need some colors to work with. I was thinking a deep blue for the background, and either a light red or a light yellow for the icon, taking colors from Lucina's general ensemble, but if you have any specific color ideas, I'm all ears. These two colors are very important, as I use them to create a color palette for the rest of the civ's art. Ah yes, and that reminds me - I'm totally down for doing all of Future Ylisse's art, actually - icons, map, leaderscreen, everything. It's sort of "my thing." I can also help you out with some (very) basic lua, but no promises there.

I had some detailed and awesome comments concerning the Future Kids, but just after I had finished typing it all out, my computer froze, crashed, and deleted my whole post.
...I don't really feel like rewriting any more of it at this time.
But anyway. Future Ylisse. Super psyched. =D

(Poor Chrom, excluded once again... xD)

Click to expand...

I'd appreciate it a lot! I don't have anything thus far and your art's been looking great, yo!

Oooh, ouch, that happens... I have an addon that holds onto my text in case anything like that happens or I leave the page on accident, I know the pain all too well. It's alright though, another time! Though it'd be helpful if there were any concerns about it being over- or under-powered!

GLAD TO HEAR IT. Poor Chrom. He'll get a mention at least. Somewhere. He didn't live in the scary future, so I don't think I'll be using him, hahaha.

Kiang said:

So, in Japan, character popularity polls are super popular and totally "a thing," especially for video games like Fire Emblem. I say we have a "popularity poll" to decide which of these icon color schemes is the awesomest. =)

http://i.imgur.com/gKL3BXI.png
(It's enormous, so I'm not embedding it)

If you're wondering about the main emblem, I just took the brand and added two extra teardrops. I derived these teardrop-shapes from the negative inside space of Falchion. =3

Anyway, comments/criticism/compliments? If you don't like any of the color schemes, let me know; I was sorta just taking them off of Lucina herself, her clothing, and her sword. Also, sorry I wasn't able to get the eye you wanted - an eye would be fine, and the brand would be fine, but the brand inside the eye is a tad too complicated to make look good, especially at the lower resolution required by the game. But yeah. Icons. Fun stuff.

Click to expand...

Whoa, fast! They look great too!! Oh, should I add a poll for this? I'll have to see... Not sure if many people are watching this and would vote, but hey!

Anyway, I personally like the first and third the most, though I'd totally be down with the first since it's what I would've imagined (dark blue and yellow). Sorry for being a little late on the color suggestions, but it's cool that we had the same ideas anyway!

Nah, those colors are great actually, I could tell they were based on her herself so it's cool. But nahhh, you're right, it would be too tricky to do those icons AND have them look good in-game... So, thanks for coming up with that one! Tear shapes from the falchion, that's fitting. (and sad)

I gave some thought on your Future Ylisse-civ. This is what I came up with.

Doomed Future: +15% defense for land units seems like pretty nice bonus and doesn’t seem to be overpowered, at least according the damage formula table I found (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=170194443). Free Medic promotion is also nice and unique.

I am pretty skeptical about the +50% land unit maintenance cost, however. I fear it would limit players’ options pretty hard, especially in the early game when their economy is pretty strained even with normal maintenance costs. At least this ability would heavily constrain their ability to wage offensive wars since those require pretty large armies: at worst keeping even defensive army would cripple their economy. This in turn could limit their options in all other parts of the game, since money is important for pretty much everything.

I also don’t recommend making restrictive UAs in general. Civ 5 is, for the most part, designed around bonuses and not penalties. Restrictive abilities also don’t really offer any options or satisfaction for players.

Since you want to represent people trying to survive together, I would recommend modifying this ability like this:

“Land units get +15% defense when adjacent to friendly unit. Land units that can get Medic promotion get it for free.”

This wouldn’t limit players’ options and would still keep with the theme of helping fellow survivors.

Outrealm Hero: This unit seems solid upgrade of its base unit, and combined with Ylisse’s general defense bonus it should be able to survive pretty much anything. It just seems strange that you gave it combat bonus inside and outside of friendly lands: wouldn’t general +15% combat strength promotion do basically the same thing?

Outrealms Gate and Future Kids: This UB seems interesting. It works basically like Volunteer Army-policy and could be used for making both general army and quick invasion force. Future Kids themselves also look interesting since they scale for all the parts of the game on their own. Simple and elegant solution.

I assume that Outrealm Gate would still give units Morale-promotion like normal Heroic Epic?

Conclusion: UA seems interesting, though increased maintenance could present some problems. Both UU and UB seem solid and UB gives flexible options.

All in all, good work PMF. I could also give you some feedback on Taguel this weekend if you are interested.

PS: Since Kiang initiated popularity poll, my vote goes for icon number 1.

Two lovely icons to choose from here:

http://i.imgur.com/HnIJkjy.png

and

http://i.imgur.com/9bomP6d.png

...once again, not embedded, because of size.

Also, for future reference (get it?), I'll be putting up all of Future Ylisse's art here: http://imgur.com/a/jm778#0 This way, there's a place to go back and see the original civ icon, for example, without having to search all around the forum pages for it. What do you want for the Future Kids icon? I can take several characters and put them into one token, like I did here...



...or, I can do something entirely different. It's up to you. =)

Oh, and my ideas for said Future kids - I say that we give them all customized names (very easy, with the right XML strings) - your favorite four, perhaps? And if one of said four isn't a sword-user, it'd be pretty easy to make several UU files, name them all "Future Child," and then have them all be different unit types (like, if we wanted a Severe, Noire, and Cynthia, for example). Just thoughts. Anyhow, if you're looking for combat strength scaling, I know that they do it quite well in the Faerun mod, so it might we worthwhile to give it a look.

Anyway. Art. Let me know. If I'm making the map - what are Future Ylisse's borders? What background should I use for the diplo screen? A burning city? Do we want to make any last-minute changes to the UU's and UB's? Just let me know.

@KIdanor
Thanks for the thoughts, very helpful! Yeah, you may be right, a penalty isn't necessarily the right way to go... Hmm, I wonder if there's anything specifically for adjacent defense boosts. Either way, it's a good idea, thanks!

As for the Hero, hmm, WELL, theoretically I figured it would give both bonuses in friendly lands that weren't yours (like, allies) but I honestly haven't tested that, hahaha. I just assumed friendly lands meant allied lands too. But yeah, pretty helpful.

Yup, Morale would be included! Glad it works together well!

Aw, shoot, I missed my chance. Well, I appreciate the offer! If you can spare the time in the future to test it out, I'd appreciate it a whole lot! But if not, that's okay too, your feedback was nice all the same.

@Kiang
Woo yeah! I'd probably go with the first one, but they both look great. Many thanks! :O Hmm, for Future Kids... Yeah, I was thinkin' of a group like that! Also that would be pretty fun, hahaha, I didn't know you could do that with regular units. Technically anyone can be a sword-user anyway, so that works!

Faerun, huh? I'll need to look into that one...

To be honest, I hadn't considered making a map, 'tisn't my forte. A background? Hmmm... Well, it could beee... blast, I thought there was a picture of a Ylisstol in the future, but no dice. It's in videos of the Future Past DLC, but that's just the inside... A burning city could work too! Or just a bit desolate. And nah, no changes, I believe that those are all set!

I've gotta check in more.

My offer still stands so here it is, my views on Taguel.

Taguel Pride: I really like this unique ability. The culture and happiness boost come at the right time to help with the early expansion, while also being delayed enough that early policies cannot be picked to fast. This translates to smooth early expansion, steady economy and solid foundation for rest of the game.

I didn’t try this in my test game, but I feel that this ability could also wide playstyle much needed buff. The extra happiness would help mitigate initial happiness penalties while the extra culture would help to fill first policy tree despite the extra cities. Meanwhile the 5 citizen requirement would stop mindless city spam. Therefore this is another reason to praise this UA: it really helps with all kinds of playstyles.

The unique promotion (Beastly Agility) is also interesting. I like it a lot better than Inca’s ability to ignore hills since getting this promotion actually requires some effort from player and isn’t flat out given for free. Now there is a real choice to whether to pursue other advanced promotions or make a detour for this. And the extra mobility this promotion gives is strong enough tool that this choice is not trivial. With 1UPT positioning is key, and anything that helps with it is valuable.

In conclusion, great ability that helps with both economy and warfare.

Foragen Warren: This unique building is great, since it gives a strong effect that also requires, yet again, making choices. Normally forests are pretty poor tiles, even with limber mills, since they give too little amount of production or food. Therefore it is normally better just chop them and make farms/mines in their place.

With this building, however, forests can now be turned into tiles that produce 22 in the early game. They are therefore basically farmed hills (after Civil Service), which are perfectly reasonable tiles to work. Therefore this building gives players more good tiles to choose from, provided that they are willing to give up the fast production boost from chopping their forests.

This building, in my opinion, embodies good design: it gives reasonable boost for otherwise poor game element, is big enough to have impact but doesn’t imbalance the game and has also meaningful trade off. You did much better work making me to consider what to do with my forests than Iroquois ever did with their UA and UB combined.

Taguel Fighter: What I like most about this unit that you made it upgrade to Musketman. With its unique upgrade path, it can be used for the same role for all game, expendable front line soldier. Normally upgrading to Lancer hinders the usage of this unit by changing its unit type and making it to require horses, which most people would like to use for Cavarly.

I, however, think that you made this unit too mobile by giving it both extra movement and Beastly Agility for free. Right now they are automatically unhindered by most rough terrain, so they naturally the fastest units in forests and hills. They are, however, almost as fast as mounted units also on flat land, which makes mounted units automatically pretty much obsolete.

Like I said earlier in this review, mobility is key with 1UPT. These units are so mobile that I was able to maneuver around my enemies and use hit-and-run tactics to wear out them out with ease and little risk. Even against bigger armies I could just back off and attack when I wanted, all thanks this units extra mobility. I think this promotion is too strong when combined with extra movement

I also think that giving this Taguel’s unique promotion for free cheapens the element of choice that the UA originally offered. By giving this promotion for free, you have removed any opportunity cost players had to pay earlier to have extra mobility on their units. I think this is a shame, since meaningful choices make this game more interesting.

I could have an idea how to fix this unit:

Remove Beastly Agility and extra movement point, give this unit 18 combat strength instead.

Like I said, extra movement is probably overpowered when combined with Taguel’s unique promotion. I think it could be replaced with extra combat strength: this solution is used with many other UUs and it should be balanced. And for what I understand, taguels are also known for their strength so giving them extra combat strength should also work thematically.

I also think that Taguel’s unique promotion should not be given for free since it this would cheapen the element of choice that is otherwise combined with it. Besides you already gave Taguel Fighters Drill I, which should hasten their acquisition of this promotion anyway.

Conclusion: Both UA and UB give players genuine choices and UA could also potentially promote wide play style. UU is too mobile at the moment, however.

All in all, great work with this civ and keep it up.

Heh, thanks a lot, glad you like it! I feel more proud now! Yeah, it's definitely one of the more flexible ideas I've had, especially with it allowing a wider playstyle for free. Thanks a ton for trying it and giving your thoughts!

Yeah, they've got a lot of natural strength going for them, it would make sense... I see your point though, it feels a little cheap to just get it for free like that. As much as they probably don't care for using horses (in-universe) it does lower the meaningful choices for the player...

Hard choice, though! Do a couple points of strength do a lot? Then again, they do still get Drill, eh? More CS would mean promotions add a little more, at least while the extra strength is applicable... Alright, that's fair, I may have to try that +2 CS replacement out!

Edit: Update's done! I also added some Civilopedia text for the Taguel page. Aw yeah.

Hey there, two quick questions:

1. Which children might you want for the icon?

and

2. Any reference pics for the Outrealm Warrior? I was just thinking of the standard NPC hero avatar thing, but it's a little blurred.

Thanks! =)

1. Goood question! Uhh, man, that's tough. Owain and Cynthia and Morgan? They're all justicey anyway! I was gonna say Yarne instead for one of them but I dunno if it'd look good. If none of those ideas work out, I don't mind if you go ahead and choose yourself!

2. YEAH I was thinking of the NPC Hero. Blurry, though? Hmm, well, it's gonna get sized down for the game anyway, it might not be too noticeable in-game. Would you rather have something else to work with?

Heck, thank you! Also nice avatar.

Oh, and, I did take a look at Faerun! It's, uh... heavy on SQL and the Lua folder has subfolders and stuff. I can't really figure it out... Oh well!

Whoa, it's been awhile! Sorry about the delay, but here's the Hero icon. Let me know what you think, and which version you prefer! The Cynthia/Morgan/Owain one is practically done, but I have an event to go to right now, so that one'll be up sometime later tonight.





Let's get back to work on this project! =)

Ta-daaa~~!



A fully-completed atlas for future Ylisse!
More good news; I finally found some awesome, his-res burning city art for Lucina's diplo screen! More on that soon. =)

Oh, and don't forget - you can always find all of the art right here.

We have a diplo screen now!
Still not too sure what I'm going to do for the map, but I'll figure something out. =)

So I see this thread/project has kinda slowed down, just posting to tell you guys how excited I am to play this mod once It's finished and to keep going! That diplo screen just made me realize how much I want this in game! Also first post on Civfanatics you may know me as the one who created the Ylisse Map on the workshop as well as Pokemon maps

Hi Zuko!
Welcome to CivFanatics. =)

You're right, the thread has definitely slowed down. I have all of the art done; I'm just waiting to see if PMF wants me to do the XML, or if we need Lua, or what. No pressure, though! =)
There's university and work and stuff, so no worries for being busy.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I've done all I can for the time being; I'm glad to hear that you're excited about the mod, though! In the meantime, I'll just work on Gallia and the other Telius Civs 'cuz can. I'd love any feedback!

Got bored. Made a better icon with this awesome-looking symbol I found.
I, er, forget where exactly I found it, though...

Whoa whoa! Fantastic work there! Did you have to slay a fell dragon for it? Thanks a lot!

Also hey, thank you, hearing stuff like that makes me wanna work on it even more! But yeah, been inactive due to classwork, working on it is more possible now. I will update with more substantial news in a while, surely, but just letting people know I'm alive and willing and stuff.

Also, I do remember those maps, they looked great! Gosh, I'm honored you made your first post here.

(Less exciting news: I figured out how to, once again, have firetuner and modbuddy open. That'll certainly speed things up)

Oh yeah, some people have successfully ripped sprites from Awakening somewhat recently. I was gonna see if I could upsize them for use with diplomacy screens, but it looked a lot worse. It was worth a try?

Thanks!

I totally totally get you there. I've been busy with schoolwork as of late, too, to be honest.

While the sprites are too small for the diplomacy screens, which are huge, they're an excellent size for the leader icons, so I'll be keeping that link handy. Thanks!