Éa, Dawn of the Mortal Races (phase 1, pre-alpha code development and discussion)

The 200 limit is not really a big deal for me. I've already created my own "EaActions", which aren't actually in the Actions table but act in every way as if they were (they are displayed in the normal Actions or Builds panels along with the base game ones). It's not too hard to do the same with promotions. I need to use "real" promotions for anything that affects unit combat, movement, visibility or similar. But I could have phony "EaPromotions" for all of the GP function since these effects are entirely on the Lua side.

I agree that 2 choices for most combat types is kind of small. To be honest, it's a bit of a rush job for now as I try to get all of the systems working for alpha. As I said above, I can expand this out and use all 200 slots for "unit effects" and then an unlimited set of phony promotions for GP operation. That's a bit of work so I'll leave it for later. For now, however, I do want your 2 or 3 choices to be actually hard choices: if you always pick the same thing (as I do in base) then we can readjust the balance to make it a hard choice again.

It's going to be Níthhögg in the game (a bit of anglicization while leaving accents and umlauts) though you won't see that particular creature for a while...

I'll revisit map visibility much later (I have a whole phase dedicated to world exploration and discovery). For now, I'll throw a couple obstacles in to keep you from exploring the whole map too easily.

You may have noticed that the Sídhe are described as being "ageless", or that the same word happens to appear in the title for phase 2, "the Ageless and the Divine". So what's this business about aging?

Aging
Aging affects Man and the various subraces of Heldeofol (Orcs, Goblins and the like) but not Sídhe. Only individuals—that is, great people—age; military units and workers are comprised of multiple individuals and assumed to undergo constant personnel turnover. Before you ask: yes, your great people will eventually die from it, including your leaders. There are three very specific gameplay motivations for including this mechanic. First, it generates turnover in your great people and leaders to give a sense of time and history. Second, it is intended to encourage you, as Man and especially as Heldeofol, to get your Warriors or other heroes out in the action. These heroes should NOT be waiting for that >99.8% chance of success before performing a potentially fatal combat action (Orc warriors should be smashing skulls!, not calculating odds). Third, it sets the Sídhe apart from other races, since my first two points don't apply to them.

The "nominal" lifespan of Man is 80 years, and of Orc 50 years (1 year = 1 turn at all game speeds). An individual becomes "old", "very old" and "ancient" at 70%, 85% and 100% of their nominal lifespan (age 56, 68 and 80 for Man). This affects a few of the individual modifiers in combination with the Leadership, Combat, Thaumaturgy and Devotion promotions. Specifically,

• leadership is boosted +1, +2 or +2 for an individual that is old, very old or ancient (respectively)
• combat is penalized -1, -3, -5 (respectively)
• thaumaturgy and devotion are boosted +1, +2 and +3 (respectively)

An individual of the race of Man has a 5.5% chance of passing on each year that they are very old and 11% each turn that they are ancient. For an Orc these chances are 9.5% and 19% respectively. If you do the math, you will see that this makes the cumulative chance of living to the nominal lifespan (baring death by violence) almost exactly 50% for both races. If a great person dies while building a Wonder or creating some other Great Work, then someone else will have to pick up where they left off (the individual modifier that applies is from whichever GP contributed the most to completion).

Experience
Most great people arising in or joining your empire are already adults that have acquired some experience, generally enough to advance them to level 2 or 3.
Passive Experience is gained by the passage of time whether the GP is doing anything or nothing. It represents the GP's efforts at training or study (with additional passive xp from managing a city or empire). Passive experience is greatest for the young but continues into advanced age, or potentially forever for the ageless. It is calculated as follows for all races: percent chance of gaining passive xp each turn = 100 - age in years, with a minimum of 20%. The amount of passive xp gained is 4 for a leader or a city resident and 2 for all others (remember that a leader can perform other actions near the capital, gaining active experience in addition to the boosted passive experience).
Active Experience is gained for doing things and having an effect on the world. Here are some example numbers for initial release (likely to be adjusted):

• For a typical spell, the xp will be equal to the mana or divine favor used divided by 4. Note that this is based on actual spell effect rather than a fixed amount per spell. For example, a Heal spell that actually heals 20 hp will use 20 divine favor (or mana) and give the caster 5 xp.
• For most 8 turn actions (establishing a trade route or proselytizing): xp = 25.
• For most 25 turn actions (e.g., building a Wonder or crafting an Epic): xp = 100.
• For making a Prophecy (instant), xp = 100.

I'm making some effort to prevent annoying micromanagement exploits like the ability to gain experience for pushing a button every turn. Yes, you could park a unit by an archer barb and heal it with your Priest every turn, giving you ~5 xp per turn. But hopefully you will come to the conclusion that is is better to send that Priest out to do some conversion or to park him in a city as resident (the xp might be less, but the other benefits should outweigh that).

So the Sidhe Great Persons basically become demi-gods. They obviously have less turnover in their great people, and so getting the ones you want and protecting them from your eventual assassination (you've hinted at at least) mechanics will be key.

Seems that most non-Sidhe great people will only really have one truly "great" act in them.

(I'm not sure, but it seems that 70/80 turns is kinda small...)
2/3 wonders at most (25turns each) (if you have the good techs at the good time AND don't have to wait any turn)

IMO the exploit will go into the other direction :
stage your GP for 10-20 turns in city to get around 70 xp (4*20*90%).
then build 1 improvement for xp, then a wonders (so your wonder-building has a huge modifier). then turn him into leader when very old.

Taking this limited life, I think your GP AI should give much more weight to missions that enable close-by secondary missions.
a 20 turn roundabout travel has not the same weight when the unit has "unlimited" life and when it already has an age of 20 and will then live 'only' 30 more turns after the mission.

second point :
shouldn't the passive xp gain take into account both age AND experience ?

third point.
IMO the "age"/turn relation might need to be adjusted with tech costs and building costs.
depending on the lenght of the game, and the tech-costs, and building costs, a turn might be better represented by :
a year,
a semester (man GP would live 140 turns)
a quarter of a year (the man GP would live 280 turns)
a month (two monthes?). (but then your GP would live 900+turns...

but you could alleviate this by giving a starting age of 20/30 YO.
(and/or possibly adapting "lifespan" closer to medieval life-spans old at 40, very old at 50, ancien at 65 (for man) instead of using modern developped countries lifespans (but then starting age should be closer to 15yo)

(alexander the great started at 16, had his empire at 30, died at 33 (of illness, not war-wounds)
(Julius Caesar lived 66 years, conquered Gaul by 50yo, died assassinated by internal rivals at 66)
(Henry VII of England, lived 52y ; started to fight for the throne at 23-25, crowned at 28, DIED PEACEFULLY (from illness) at 52)
(Richard LionHeart : died from illness in captivity at 42)
(Carolus Magnus (CHarles the Great) : 74yo : became ruler at 31 after death of father and brother; entered in "conquest mode" ; crowned emperor at 60. died peacefully at 70.)

(Michaelangelo is a counter exemple : lived roughly 90 yo)
(leonardo da vinci : 65yo; died peacfully of old age... but made much more than 3 "great works"...)

... I hope I was not too aggressive

In the end, I think it is a very nice idea, but I've got the feeling (that will need to be play-tested for balance) that 70-80 turns for a GP is short (especially considering all that you may do with GP). (and I think I like "grooming" units with xp... and periodically losing my units with the most xp might be heartbreaking... or not..)

I might be wrong though.

The aging sounds interesting.
I'd agree with using medieval rather than modern era life expectancies but that's just cosmetic. (Ea might spin faster so 80 years there could be the equivalent of 50 years here.)
Will any technologies/wonders/policies effect the life expectancies or the % chance of dying?
If changing the number of turns that the GP will live, I wouldn't increase it above a hundred. If they live too long, then the impact of their mortality is lost. Again, this will all come down to balancing.

@Lplate:
my mentioning the "medieval" is not purely cosmetics... it's more a way to have time passing be coherent through the game.
It would enable an increase GP duration (in turns) without doubling or quadrupling it.
(70 turns is not enough IMO.. while 140(turn=semester) or 280 turns(turn=trimester) might be too much.
so going to trimesters/turns but from 15 to 60yo ... makes it 180 turns instead of 280 (or 90turns if semester).

Further, if the lifespan of a GP is 70 turns, but a granary needs 20turns to be built in a new city the coherence falls down : in 1turn (1 year) you are able to build houses for 100+ people (city creation)... but you need 20 years to dedicate one of those buildings for stocking grains ? WTF ? (at least 5years seems more coherent if you live in harsh condition and have not much free time to work on public buildings ... but still.

Calavente said:

... I hope I was not too aggressive

Click to expand...

No problem there. Just so you know, I do look back on these threads as I work on different systems. PowelS and Ahriman (aka, the Nemesis) had something to do with changes in knowledge maintenance many months after their comments.

It would be easy to justify a 120 yr (or longer) lifespan for Man at the beginning of the world based on many mythical and religious sources: LOTR, the Bible, etc. Or shorter based on the reality of living in ancient/medieval times. So I feel free to set it to whatever I think is useful for gameplay. I'm most worried about it being too short in the early game, when the years really fly by. But we'll just have to see.

I thought of making turns something other than years, but I want the game to encompass a real span of history: hundreds of years. You're going to get a GP at age 15 - 25 (usually) with passive xp already added for years after 10 (about 9 - 22). That gives you 43 - 53 years until very old, when that 5.5% death chance/year kicks in. Most likely you will get some more years: there is a cumulative 50% chance that they will live to 80 (giving you 55 - 65 years) and ~15% chance they will live to 100 (giving you 75 - 85 years). For GPs that work mostly or entirely in your borders (Engineers, Sages, Artists), that gives you enough time for 5 - 6 minor works (Foundry, Academy and Festival are all 8 turn minor works now) or 1 - 2 great works (Wonders, etc.). A Priest proselytizing or a Merchant establishing trade routes outside of your borders may be able to get to 4 - 6 cities, assuming 6 - 4 turn average travel turns (may not sound like a lot but that has a big impact). A Warrior, especially a Heldeofol Warrior, is going to "burn bright" with some high-risk, high-xp combat actions (Heldeofol get culture for Warriors dying in battle based on their level; Artists from other races may be able to craft specific Heroic Epics for each of these fallen Warriors). Is this enough accomplishment for a lifetime? I don't know. We'll just have to see.

Keep in mind that a Level 5 Engineer is not really 5x better than a Level 1 Engineer. mod = (5 + level/3) + applicable promotion bonues. So, assuming an Engineer puts all of their promotions toward Wonders, then the Level 5 Engineer (with Wonders 4) has mod = 10, twice as good as the Level 1 Engineer (mod = 5) for building Wonders. Sure, it would be better to build that wonder with a more advanced Engineer, but you should probably just get the dang thing started before someone else does.

I'll adjust the percent death chance a bit with Medicine, a little life extension for the elderly but not a lot. There will be . . . other ways . . . objects that I have already mentioned.

well actually I have no issue with the number of "years"... but with the number of "turns"

but I see you have understood this.

however, it really means that you can't let your GP rest. that might be hard on the system ...
it also means that you have to get that GP/GE/GM working real fast and you can't/mustn't wait for the result of your far-away exploration/or tech research (like wait for the tech that will come in 20 turns) to see if there is better deal to make.

Might be really interesting strategically.. I'll wait hungrily for this

It is fantasy world so a lifespan as long as gameplay requires would be fine of course, as long as there's a brief nod in the background to why people live the length of time they do.

Personally I believe that in the early game life should be brutal and short, which seems to match the rather hostile environment you're setting up in other aspects of the game. IMO Great People should rarely making it to 50, with a maximum of one Great Work in them. However I'd be disappointed in a game that didn't give me plenty of mechanisms to extend that. Whether it's by science focus, policy adjustments, life magic, death magic, sacrificing a cities population, building healthy improvements in my cities, finding food resources to make my populations diet healthier etc.. A lifespan ranging from 50ish at the beginning of the game to 100ish at the end would seem appropriate, though the more warlike, brutal kingdoms may not advance so far.

A question that may or may not useful - how long is a year on Ea? 365 days, and 4 seasons? Or is it significantly different to our world in terms of how it travels around the sun? A shorter year would easily justify a lifespan of more years at the start of the game. A longer year would justify perhaps incorporating seasons into the game rather than just years, which I always think makes a fantasy game more engrossing.

Just random thoughts, hope one of them might be useful.

Years and seasons are the same as ours, and the Moon looks much the same with the same phases and period. The constellations are different though.

With Calendar, most civilizations develop the concept of named months that exactly follow the synodic period: New Moon to New Moon with the Full Moon always in the middle of the month. Full months (30 days) alternate with hollow months (29 days). Followers of Azzandara usually keep a 12 month calendar with an extra 13th month added every few years to keep months aligned with seasons. Sages decide when to do this and whether the 13th month needs to be full or hollow to keep months exactly aligned with Moon phase. The Sídhe keep a 10 month calendar that does not even attempt to follow seasons (though they would know exactly the day of winter or summer solstice on their calendar). A lunar year is about 295.3 days. An individual Sídhe might say she is 200 years of age or 247 years of age depending on how she feels that day.




.

That's pretty thorough! Down to play-testing then to establish what creates the best challenge.

I suspect this may come down to personal preference. With the DLL perhaps it could become a start-up option:
'Decendents of the Immortals' - Great People starting life expectancy 120 years.
'Brutal Life' - Great People starting life expectancy 40 years.

With a default around 80.

Keroro said:

That's pretty thorough! Down to play-testing then to establish what creates the best challenge.

I suspect this may come down to personal preference. With the DLL perhaps it could become a start-up option:
'Decendents of the Immortals' - Great People starting life expectancy 120 years.
'Brutal Life' - Great People starting life expectancy 40 years.

With a default around 80.

Click to expand...

Hey, I really like that idea. "Brutal Life" could include increased barbs.

Do you plan to include magic rituals to increase live spans? That would be great, imho. You can make the ritual burns divine favor per turn, or burns mana, or increases unhappiness...

I've already indicated one way to escape mortality . . . by name.

Phylactery

tssk....

How about making that screen as a destroyer victory screen? You know, when world shatters, the Weave collaps in a many colors light, and demonic horses with wings and horns rule the world?

Added a new UI screen: "Wonders, Epics & Artifacts". It has 3 tabs that cover these 3 things. You can find it in the diplo corner with Religious Overview, Victory Conditions, etc...

The Description text is "smart". It knows the actual modifier that is applied based on the great person who built or created the item (this is a staged screenshot where the great person mod is just 12 for everything). Wonders are also visible in city screen, but Epics don't have a location so they only appear here. Artifacts include anything that can be picked up such as Tomes...





I still need to scoot things around a bit. I also want to add a mouseover that shows you the full description, since some will be truncated in the fixed text (as The Long Wall above). Eventually, clicking the "Location" will take you there.

Also, I'm kind of lazy about icons: a lot of these will need to be added after alpha release (any help here would be appreciated).

Here's a screenshot of the great person "character sheet". This appears when a new great person arises in your civilization or when you click the GP's name in the unit panel. The "Image used by permission..." box is actually a mouse-over window that appears when you mouse over the image. I wanted to give artists credit in game since this is such an important part of the mod. The Credits section in the OP has links to the artists' homepages and/or galleries so you can browse the work of artists you like...

The popup here is dynamically scaled. It preserves the exact aspect ratio of the original image (as created by the artist) and tries to make it as big as possible based on your screen resolution (which the mod knows). The 2D art files are all about 800,000 pixel resolution (e.g., 800 x 1000) and they will expand up to that size or shrink if needed based on your horizontal or vertical screen size. The example here is limited by vertical screen height due to the small window I use during development/debugging.



(Note: the fonts here are a bit ugly because I'm experimenting around with different sets that aren't so Art Deco. I don't quite understand the "font mapping" system yet.)