My custom civ - Project Discussion

you could also give them a very small amount of collateral damage, at higher tiers of the recon path.
besides, i like the idea.

Update: September the 3rd 2010

The birth of a new era.

Well not really.
So far there are still a few things to iron out but the project is getting along rapidly. Since there are now too many things to post in one place I won't post a comprehensive list. But if anyone is interested about anything just ask.

A question for anyone who cares, does anyone have any idea for the level 3 spell for the High Priest?

Also, should I give their mages fireball or Flaming eye?

Does no one have any input at all? No questions, tips, suggestions?

To be honest, your strange secrecy about the civ name has kept me from following too closely, and the theme of the civ is a little hard for me to grasp - is why I haven't really commented in this thread.

Once there is a downloadable version available to try out, I and probably others will likely have more feedback to give.

Well, the theme is quite simple.
They are a group of former golem creatures made of straw that worship a holy spark of fire that somehow, known not to them why and how came to them and gave them life and sentience.

In fact, it is questionable if even the Angel of flame knew how and why the blaze got into them.


Their priests do not worship Bhall however, they worship the flame inside them.
Hence the whole blaze sphere that is essentially harnessing the inner fire to do great things.


The style theme is French Indochina, so Korea, Vietnam and that region. Expect straw hats and hwanchas. Also a lot of fire spells.



I just got discouraged that no one seemed to care. Since I still need a good idea for the High Priest spell.



Also, their primary hero is a giant that will gain affinity for grain resources.
I will also give him a spell that allows him to gain a 1 shot immortality if he devours a grain resource in your territory. Essentially replacing 1 for an extra life.

But I honestly don't know where to make him available at.

Personally, I am excited to try out what you come up with. But my mind for whatever reason hasn't been great at generating ideas along the lines of your civs themes. I will gladly post something though, if it comes to me.

well, weve given a lot of ideas and feedback. your turn now

Well if you guys want to help out here is a list of stuff I am having troubles with:

1. The name for the Immortal UU
Also, what do you think of it having the same base , no metal weapons and +1 Fire Affinity? Should I drop the base strength some?

2. 1. The name for the Beastmaster UU
Also, what do you think of it having the same base , no metal weapons, same effects (limited combat etc.) like my other skirmishers and +1 Creation Affinity? Should I drop the base strength some? Or maybe get rid of the affinity ( I am leaning toward that)

3. A spell for Divine + Blaze sphere, High Priest level.

4. What do you think of the fallowing Druid UU.
Same base and :movement:
+1 Creation Affinity instead of Nature
Can cast Creation spells (instead of Nature) and Blaze spells, but not fire.
Can cast standard druid spells + Regeneration

Help is appreciated and will be credited if it warrants it.

I would gladly provide help... but I just don't know the focus of your civ...
Honestly, the lack of help maybe caused by that kind of secrecy and low amount of details you provide...
Sure... they're vegetarians, but... what they are? Dwarvs? Elfs? Something else?.

If you perhaps, provide us with more information about your intentions and goal of this civ, more people will brainstorm ideas.
Thanks!...

They are essentially golems. He's said so before.

I even posted an image of a generic one some pages back.

Let me dig it up for you:

PPQ_Purple said:

I know of them, but personally I am going for more like this:


Keep in mind they were made to be servants and laborers and not monsters of evil.

Click to expand...

Google search turned out to be my friend when I found that one.


Also, there is a pedia entry for my leader detailing the race and their birth in this thread as well.
The only real secret is their name.



PS. In other words:
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0PDoX2fW...te-porcelain.co.uk/images/prod/baws01-265.jpg
Meats Golem.

I'm not sure I think giving affinity to your immortal/berserk/beastmaster/druid is a good thing.

For other civs, none of those have affinity save druid. And it is affinity to nature... a mana that is not unwanted... but is clearly not the most wanted. One has to sacrifice other potential mana and spells in order to get that affinity.
But for your civ... you'll only have fire and creation mana.
thus affinity would be really really powerful. And as you'll get affinity for many tierIV units, it'll become overpowered.

plus beastmaster don't have metal weapons. So one UU with same base strength + affinity would be way more powerful than a standard beastmaster.

plus, compared to iron or copper or mithril, fire and creation mana are much easier to get as any mana node can be converted to your needs (+ you already get one of each in your palace).

I'll not even propose you to give your units a +1fire combat with access to fire (non stackable) or creation.... as it means the unit already gets the boni from the start as the mana is given for free in the palace.

Maybe you'll want an affinity that works with another kind of mana.
A way to show that some few, very few of your civ learn to approach some other mana than the one at the core of their life. And taking that choice, many are destroyed, but some, very few, become more powerful :
maybe life or death for immortal.
earth for berserkir
mind for beastmaster
nature for druid
...etc.

and there you'll have a choice to make :
convert some mana to YYY to boost the druid/immortal/beresrkir or keep the mana to fire/creation to boost the spells and all else.... ?

+ you'll have to decide what you'll do when you capture some holy cities with a holy shrine, giving you some mana, or when you capture a unique improvement, giving you body or nature or dimensional... will theses mana bring you nothing or can you create a way to make use of them ?

Hmm... I see what you mean. That is why I need you guys.

Also, before I start, just to note that they can get any mana type they want. They just can't learn any spells outside of Fire and Creation.

Calavente said:

I'm not sure I think giving affinity to your immortal/berserk/beastmaster/druid is a good thing.

Click to expand...

Indeed, turns out it could be OP.
But Mithtil weapons = +4 , Iron weapons = +2 I have to solve that somehow.


I think I got a solution thou.
For my Phalanx unit, I reduced the to 8 but gave him fire affinity. So he is (without fire) at only 50% the strength of a standard Mithril Phalanx (12 + 4).

So he takes a lot of Fire mana just to catch up. (7.407407407 to be exact, although I would round that as 8)
He gets +1 :movement: to balance it in the beginning.

Do you think that works? And if so, do you think something like that could work for the other units as well?

Also, for the Berserker I have special plans.

For other civs, none of those have affinity save druid. And it is affinity to nature... a mana that is not unwanted... but is clearly not the most wanted. One has to sacrifice other potential mana and spells in order to get that affinity.
But for your civ... you'll only have fire and creation mana.
thus affinity would be really really powerful. And as you'll get affinity for many tierIV units, it'll become overpowered.

Click to expand...

The idea was to give them a unit that will get some benifit out of an all builder and non war (lots of creation, little fire) economy.

But I see that it would be OP. Especially since the plan for the unit was made before the 2 Creation mana = 1 Person worth of thing came along.


Although on the plus side, 2 Creation mana = 1 Person worth of will make Fire Mana even more scarce as the ratio will have to shift from about 3:1 to about 5:1 or more in favor of Creation mana if you want to run a good economy with large cities.

I'll not even propose you to give your units a +1fire combat with access to fire (non stackable) or creation.... as it means the unit already gets the boni from the start as the mana is given for free in the palace.

Click to expand...

I have some units with +1 Fire Damage but these tend to have -1 Normal damage. Is that ok?

Maybe you'll want an affinity that works with another kind of mana.
A way to show that some few, very few of your civ learn to approach some other mana than the one at the core of their life. And taking that choice, many are destroyed, but some, very few, become more powerful :

Click to expand...

Not really their thing, except for the druids thou. I can actually see them geting something like that... Hm... will have to think about it.

+ you'll have to decide what you'll do when you capture some holy cities with a holy shrine, giving you some mana, or when you capture a unique improvement, giving you body or nature or dimensional... will theses mana bring you nothing or can you create a way to make use of them ?

Click to expand...

This too is a problem, as most mana types (the ones without a passive benefit) will be useless to them. For a player thou, they might prove to be good trading chips, especially vs an AI.


Also, what do you think of the Druid unit in general (without the affinity issues).

i'll try to answer if I can.One the whole I don't really like affinity to mana (I like druid and tierIII summons but not spectre (deathII) nor other mana affinities) because if you balance it for a normal size map, normal size civ, it can snowball really bad in a big map and/or a big empire... each new node you take gives +1:strength; to the unit. it can become a bid too OP

PPQ_Purple said:

Hmm... I see what you mean. That is why I need you guys.
Also, before I start, just to note that they can get any mana type they want. They just can't learn any spells outside of Fire and Creation.
Indeed, turns out it could be OP.
But Mithtil weapons = +4 , Iron weapons = +2 I have to solve that somehow.
I think I got a solution thou.
For my Phalanx unit, I reduced the to 8 but gave him fire affinity. So he is (without fire) at only 50% the strength of a standard Mithril Phalanx (12 + 4).
So he takes a lot of Fire mana just to catch up. (7.407407407 to be exact, although I would round that as 8)
He gets +1 :movement: to balance it in the beginning.
Do you think that works? And if so, do you think something like that could work for the other units as well?
Also, for the Berserker I have special plans.

Click to expand...

I think it might work.
+ it takes into account that mithril is rare ... so +4 is rare.
You may even make it 9 +fire affinity = minimum 10 (1fire in the capital)...and then any other fire is bonus. a typical phalanx will be 14 but sometimes 16.
Your Phalanx can become stronger but on the other hand their affinity strength can be countered a bit if the ennemy has magic resistance and resiste fire so IMO it might be a good compromise (take into account that magic resistance is only worth an extra combat promotion and only resist fire is good... and both promotion affect only the affinity and not the base strength)
Or can you give them 12 +0.5 fire affinity, meaning 3 nodes for iron weapon strength (as easy for a standard kingdom than getting iron), 7 nodes for mithril strength.... I know that affinity can be 1-2-3 ... but don't know for non-whole numbers

The idea was to give them a unit that will get some benifit out of an all builder and non war (lots of creation, little fire) economy.
But I see that it would be OP. Especially since the plan for the unit was made before the 2 Creation mana = 1 Person worth of thing came along.
Although on the plus side, 2 Creation mana = 1 Person worth of will make Fire Mana even more scarce as the ratio will have to shift from about 3:1 to about 5:1 or more in favor of Creation mana if you want to run a good economy with large cities.

Click to expand...

For me druids are compatible with a war-driven economy. but why not. You know better than me the mechanisme of your civ so maybe why not

I have some units with +1 Fire Damage but these tend to have -1 Normal damage. Is that ok?

Click to expand...

I was speaking of the "mana ability" that is allowed in WM.
Water ability means if you get 1-2-3-4 water mana, the unit only get 1 cold damage bonus. But as you have the fire and creation mana already in the palace, giving fire ability to your units would be like not giving it to them and add +1fire damage

Not really their thing, except for the druids thou. I can actually see them geting something like that... Hm... will have to think about it.

Click to expand...

for druid, nature would be standard but maybe for immortal you might want to try it, life/death/enchantement.. Idon't know which one is the less strange lore-wise

This too is a problem, as most mana types (the ones without a passive benefit) will be useless to them. For a player thou, they might prove to be good trading chips, especially vs an AI.

Click to expand...

you are right.

Also, what do you think of the Druid unit in general (without the affinity issues).

Click to expand...

Well for the druid in general, as he is the same as a normal druid I think he is ok.
Him having creation AND blaze spells AND druid spell (tangle) instead of nature AND Druid might be a bit strong... BUt a way to balance that would be to not allow their druids to get the command promotion (but maybe allow them to get subdue beast). And it would fit lore-wise as I don't think they can realisticly convince flesh and blood people to join them. but beasts... why not.

Calavente said:

i'll try to answer if I can.One the whole I don't really like affinity to mana (I like druid and tierIII summons but not spectre (deathII) nor other mana affinities) because if you balance it for a normal size map, normal size civ, it can snowball really bad in a big map and/or a big empire... each new node you take gives +1:strength; to the unit. it can become a bid too OPI think it might work.

Click to expand...

On the other hand, my civ is specifically designed to have their core mechanic directed at causing said snowballing. With the +10 per fire node for all units and all.

And the whole Creation mana thing is a way to make that hard to achieve.

+ it takes into account that mithril is rare ... so +4 is rare.
You may even make it 9 +fire affinity = minimum 10 (1fire in the capital)...and then any other fire is bonus. a typical phalanx will be 14 but sometimes 16.

Click to expand...

And a tipical empire on a normal map will probably not have 8 Fire nodes. Because at the rate of 3-4 Creation per 1 Fire you will have to get 20 Creation nodes for 5 fire ones making a 25 total. That is a lot.

But yes, the actual will have to be finely balanced later on.

Your Phalanx can become stronger but on the other hand their affinity strength can be countered a bit if the ennemy has magic resistance and resiste fire so IMO it might be a good compromise (take into account that magic resistance is only worth an extra combat promotion and only resist fire is good... and both promotion affect only the affinity and not the base strength)

Click to expand...

Indeed, did not think of this. But I like it.

Or can you give them 12 +0.5 fire affinity, meaning 3 nodes for iron weapon strength (as easy for a standard kingdom than getting iron), 7 nodes for mithril strength.... I know that affinity can be 1-2-3 ... but don't know for non-whole numbersFor me druids are compatible with a war-driven economy. but why not. You know better than me the mechanisme of your civ so maybe why notI was speaking of the "mana ability" that is allowed in WM.

Water ability means if you get 1-2-3-4 water mana, the unit only get 1 cold damage bonus. But as you have the fire and creation mana already in the palace, giving fire ability to your units would be like not giving it to them and add +1fire damagefor druid, nature would be standard but maybe for immortal you might want to try it, life/death/enchantement..

Click to expand...

Quite honestly I can't understand how all this works, having newer plaid or liked WM.

But RiFE does not allow for partial affinity (like 0.1 or 0.5) in the XML, I tried.
And I don't want to have to define even more automatic python functions.

Him having creation AND blaze spells AND druid spell (tangle) instead of nature AND Druid might be a bit strong... BUt a way to balance that would be to not allow their druids to get the command promotion (but maybe allow them to get subdue beast). And it would fit lore-wise as I don't think they can realisticly convince flesh and blood people to join them. but beasts... why not.

Click to expand...

I think I found the solution for the druid.
Since the lore implies my druids are Elders, sort of like scolars.

So they will get no mana affinity (making them inherently weaker than regular druids), maybe shrink their a little and I will take your idea to stop them from having command promotions. (Can this be done with XML or do I have to make a custom promotion for it?

I think that should balance the druid.

For the Immortal I will probably just have the unit have +1 or +2 Fire Damage or even regular flat out and no affinity. How does that sound?

for druid I don't understand :
-no affinity,
-lower strength
-no command promotion
... but blaze and fire... it means they are stronger archmages ?
or maybe you have another mechanism in mind...

for Immortal :
-normal is 9 ... so 11 with iron, 13 with mithril.
why not give them 9:strengh: +3:fire: should be a good balance, more powerful than iron weapons but the extra damage limited by "magic resistance".
Less powerful than mithril, but see below :

-give them an extra mechanics :
"force I" kind of spell (accelerate) (they alive or not?), or A Heal Mechanism (like the druid's one), or a weaker version of canibalize... something to compensate for having less than mithril and the magic resistance effect and compatible lorewise for semi-immortal units.

-or give them a 12 but no special effect.

Or maybe just give them a 7 +6fire. total is 13 ; equivalent to mithril weapons so better than most immortal ; but compensation is that fire is one of the damage type that is the most commonly resisted (orcs, amurites with the kylorin promotion, magic resistance, magic immune dragons...Etc)

Calavente said:

for druid I don't understand :
-no affinity,
-lower strength
-no command promotion
... but blaze and fire... it means they are stronger archmages ?
or maybe you have another mechanism in mind...

Click to expand...

Yea, now they make no sense again.
Blaze goes like this:

Lvl 1, Burning Spirit - Gives all your units in the stack (mele and archery only) below level 3 +1 Fire affinity but they die after their next combat. Is automatically dispelled in the next turn.

Lvl 2, Cleansing Blaze - Acts as a replacement for sanctify and transforms mana resources into Fire Mana. Destroys any improvements while doing the later.

Lvl 3, Pillar of Fire - Self explanatory
----------------------------------

In other words, the difference between a druid and an archmage would be that the archmage can get Fireball and Summon Fire Elemental while the druid can't.

Also, the druid gets Creation instead of nature.
----------------------------------
So how does this sound (a revised version):

- no affinity,
- same
- no command promotion
- Can learn Creation instead of nature
- Can learn Blaze spells
- Can cast Regenerate and standard druid spells (I think this is a good trade of for not having affinity)

for Immortal :
-normal is 9 ... so 11 with iron, 13 with mithril.
why not give them 9:strengh: +3:fire: should be a good balance, more powerful than iron weapons but the extra damage limited by "magic resistance".

Click to expand...

I will probably end up doing that.

This is the same type of balance that I am planing to use on the beastmaster UU.
And it is already used on the Ranger UU.

Less powerful than mithril, but see below :

-give them an extra mechanics :
"force I" kind of spell (accelerate) (they alive or not?), or A Heal Mechanism (like the druid's one), or a weaker version of canibalize... something to compensate for having less than mithril and the magic resistance effect and compatible lorewise for semi-immortal units.

Click to expand...

How about some collateral damage? Although that would infringe on the awesome berserker I have planed.

Or +1 :movement:? On the other hand that might turn out op combined with the +1 :movement: gained by the Phalanx.

-or give them a 12 but no special effect.

Click to expand...

This is also an option. I have to think. It's either this or the +3 Fire thing.
Essentially, if you see this know that it is because I could not think of any fun ability for them.

Or maybe just give them a 7 +6fire. total is 13 ; equivalent to mithril weapons so better than most immortal ; but compensation is that fire is one of the damage type that is the most commonly resisted (orcs, amurites with the kylorin promotion, magic resistance, magic immune dragons...Etc)

Click to expand...

Would make them too UP considering that the Phalanx has the same thing going already.

You are truly helpful. Keep it up and I will actually manage to finish this.

Also, any idea for a name for the Immortal and Beastmaster?

no ideaas for names...
I'm not good with naming. (and I don't even know the kind of name you unse for other units)
for druid : why not
for immortal : (9-3fire) + I really think a +5% cannibalize-like promotion/effect would be nice. Showing that warriors made of straw and iron bits can be repaired easily.

For beastmaster I don't really understand :
beastmasters are : 14 (+poison weapons with a nature mage, + 1 poison with spider blood)
so i don't understand why you would change their strength to give them fire damage to compensate for weapons they don't have....

Phalanx are 12+ (2/4) +25%city attack. they have 3 more than immortal. so why couldn't they have the same base /fire damage ratio than immortals ? In effect, immortal are phalanx that sacrifice a bit of strength in order to be able to revive...