Better Ecaz

I'm testing some changes for the Ecaz house, maybe someone have opinion about this.

I want to make Ecaz a house of spies, a sort of mafia's house, which prefer extortion and traffics for make money than official war, contrary to the ordos, for make more difference between them, and for make a house which can make really use of spies, civic war of assassin, etc. (not totally useless un the mod, but nearly, because of the small number of spying mission enable for each house. There is actually nearly only the BG which can really win the game with spies). So, for that, I have :

First, I have modified the semuta provider, for it produce also +2 spy point for each semuta den, and give a additional bonus of 10% production for gold and spying point (idea is traffic and money attract traffic and money)
I have modified the semuda den, for give a additional malus of -10% spy point (idea is, infiltrators cause loss a spies efficience, and the malus is proportionnal, so, a city with poor spy point generation is not really affected, but a major spying citie is really affected by the semuta corruption, and with this, Ecaz can have a second effect antispies by reduce the spy generation directly at the source)
Add a new UB, replacement for theatre, a "luxurious hotel", nest of sycophants, smugglers and all sorts of traffics, which give in addition to theatre effect, a bonus of 25% to commercial road, 20% bonus to spy point production, and +1 experience point for new spies produced in this city.
And finally add a new unit "sycophant", which is a spy with ability to convert cities and influence civic. Ecaz can only built 3 of them in the same time, they cost 150, and they are enable by tech law of arrakis. Influence civic consume large amount of spying point, nearly as much as converting cities.
I add also a sabotage mission for narcotics dealer, which give them hability to destroy units of melee or guardman type. A kind of poisoning.

I have modified leaders to make them love of the "war of assassin" civic, and dislike the "imperial fealty" which mean in general liking open war, that Ecaz leader should dislike.

I have also sligthly modified the spies promotions : enable the dexterity promotion for house Ecaz, ordos, tleilax and harkonnen. It seem logical for me those house which use offensif spies can have acces to this, and not only corrino.

And modified the elaccan gladiator for make them not more a replacement of hardened blademen, but a new UU for ecaz, limited to 10 at the same time, and enable by tech offwolrd trade. Not really usefull I think, but it is only for avoid waste eventually promoted blademen in gladiator by upgrading them.

I think with all of this, Ecaz can become a good house of smuggler, able to make power and money as well even in avoidance of real war, which could give them real flavor. What do you think ?

Thanks LeBashar for all your good work on this mod!

As for Ecaz, I kind of like them as they are: which is, all about MONEY! MONEY!

Subterfuge seems like more a Tleilaxu thing, with the face dancers.

Yes, but in my mind it is not uncompatible. I wanted to make two sorts of money followers :
- ordos, which search money at all cost, and make war, pillage, and usage of strenght if it nessecary, but with the strike and withdraw strategy.
- ecaz, which search money at "low" cost, and so avoid costly war, and prefer bribery, traffics, corruption, and in general all sort of mafia operations. But the primal goal IS really money, of course. (and I think it is the better money road, in reallity)

And for the choice to improve spies of ecaz and not those of tleilax, is for gameplay. Tleilax as already many uniques thing, and is already fun and powerful to play. I don't think they have need of more, while ecaz is clearily flavorless. Because Ecaz have already narco dealer and smuggler, it seem logical for me to improve their traffics abilities.

In the game I often think there is a problem with the tleilax, because they are powerful in the beginning, and generally, they crash themself nearly when they choice "war of assassin" civic. And they don't really use their spies, furthermore...
(I don't know if my ecaz house will use them when played by the IA, for now I have only test it myself, and except the cost of influence civic which I should slightly rise, it seem great).

Making money no matter the cost sounds silly, mister Bashar!

I agree that the Ecaz are not the most exciting guys in my book. I think something that would make them more interesting is if they can somehow get a free resource specific to another house or if they could buy a UU specific to another faction from outer space. This will make them more fun without having to add any new units to them.

Another idea would be for them to be able to get access to resources that allow them to build UBs specific to other factions and not UUs, so that the balance factor would not tip too hard to their favor, but they would be more interesting to play.

You're right, I wanted to say "making money at all price" which has more sense in french (but maybe not in english).

I have also think to give them more units but it make a to militaristic house in my mind, and I prefer bribery, intimidation and other things like that, more flavored smuggler and dealer than warriors.

See this thread for previous discussions on faction balance: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=378226
In particular: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=378226&highlight=ecaz&page=3

There isn't much canon on House Ecaz, but what there is makes them sound like traders and intergalactic drug lords.

I agree that they're a bit weak and dull in the mod, but their main benefits come from economy boosts from peaceful trade. Some additional espionage tweaks sound ok, they'd also have decent synergy with a peaceful playstyle.

But an important aspect of flavor is not to cause overlaps with other factions: factions are special when they have things that only they can do. So for example, having Ecaz able to build UBs of other factions makes the other factions less special.

I think it is better if Ecaz don't become more militaristic. An intimidation flavor can overlap with Harkonnens a bit much, but bribery certainly works.

But I would argue against an ability to convert cities - that overlaps too much with the Bene Gesserit. The syncophant spy unit in general sounds too much like a Reverend Mother. We already have a faction that can use espionage to steal cities. Changing civics isn't really a good espionage mission IMO, it doesn't make much logical sense, and it doesn't really fit the drug lord flavor for Ecaz.

A "luxurious hotel" doesn't really seem like it has very good Dune Universe flavor. The wealth is held by houses, not by a commercial private sector, I don't really see a lot of "business travelers" in the present day sense.

In french we say "palace" and the traduction give me "luxurious hotel" or "luxury hotel", but I don't know if it say exactly the same (because we also can say "un hotel de luxe", and "un palace" is more than that). I my mind this place should be used mainly by aristocracy, so it isn't uncompatible with the fact that it's houses which held wealth. And, there is the lore, and the game. We have already something like ordos who are nothing to do in the lore, so minor twisting with an house which is mostly undescribed sound ok for me as long as it's make something coherent and fun to play.

I understand your reluctance to give the capture city mission, but without this, a only peaceful spies strategy can't really match a war one. If there were trading destruction or stealing mission, I use them, but ther is not ad I can't create this myself :s

So in the usable spy mission, there is only the change civic and religion which are not used. Change religion has really no sense in dunewars (and specially for ecaz), but influence civic make interesting effects. You can force someone to choose yours, so if you have trading civics, it can be really usefull to erase those poor mercantilists to bring them in free trade, and eventually gain diplomatic bonus effect by having same civics, which help you to maintain peace. It is also extraordinarily powerful if you use this to force someone to leave a spice or arrakis paradize choice, and lost his bonus. It's why I have rise the cost and the difficulty of theses missions.

I also always think BG is nearly "too much", because with kwisatz army you don't really need to have the converting citie ability. This mission is powerful, and reverend mother are powerful, but what is the lore sense of capturing cities with reverend mother ? In my mind, even if sycophant could do same work, it is with different ways. reverend mother persuade, sycophant bribe (but I can't make the spie mission consume money for ecaz...).

Ordos have some non-canon lore from the Westwood games.

what is the lore sense of capturing cities with reverend mother

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Basically, the Bene Gesserit are the masters of political manipulation. The idea is that they're encouraging the local nobles to overthrow their Great House allegiance and to ally with the BG instead.

We never got espionage working perfectly, but a key element of the design was to make the espionage of each house distinct by giving them different spy missions. So one faction with the ability to directly steal cities (at huge expense) is sufficient.

It is also extraordinarily powerful if you use this to force someone to leave a spice or arrakis paradize choice, and lost his bonus

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But that just seems gamey. The "lose your bonuses if you convert out of the civic" effect only works because there is nothing in the game that can force you to convert out of the civic involuntarily.
Changing civics is also a very narrow ability that is only useful in rare circumstances.

Some kind of gold bribery ability for units, not cities, (a la SMAC probe teams) sounds valuable and in-flavor though.

*edit*
I should add though, if you want to make a patch that has the changes you like and post it here, please do so. And more power to you. It's great that you're still enjoying the mod years later and are enthusiastic enough to add some tweaks.

Changing civics is also a very narrow ability that is only useful in rare circumstances.

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I disagree, because with that you can :
- reduce culture (force leave the +100% culture civic)
- break havoc in ennemy strategy by force them to take inadapted civic (peaceful one for warmonger, etc.)
- break or gain some diplo bonus, and there is some much powerful than the one you can gain with other spies missions (cause incident, political mariage and so on)

So I don't think this mission is useless : you can do many thing other can do. But it is more difficult to use, because you have to use yourself the civic you want to force someone to take.

For the spice/paradise, in my test I have only succeful one time, I don't know yet if there is a greater cost for this one, or if some houses can't change even with the mission (if it is notified in flavored civic ? ). For whatever reason, it has not unbalance the test-game. But I will play with Ecaz by AI, and see what coming.

Buying enemy units sounds like a great idea.

Another idea that comes to mind that would make this faction unique is hidden nationality units. That would probably make sense for a wealthy faction to employ mercenaries to sabotage their enemies. Because of the trade bonuses they get during peace time they would mostly be used in order to thin out the troops of a dangerous neighbor who is amassing them for an invasion. And if you want to use them to clear the way for a blitz-krieg, more power to you, choices are great!

There are 2 ways to do this as I see it: either simply give their UU hidden nationality OR give their spies an action similar to the 'join commander' in FFH to permanently 'attach' the spy unit to another regular one. The units that their spies are attached to get the hidden nationality promotion and are free to go steal their enemies water FTW!!!

P.S.: Come to think of it, that sounds so much more in line with the Ordos faction...!

P.P.S: Whoever would use this, I think that the biggest challenge would be to make the AI understand and use this system properly.

AI don't make a good use of this in general. In FFH or in other mods which use hidden nationality, I have always see this units being destroyed quickly by anyone. For sea unit it is more usable, because sea is large and there is less units. But for ground unit, if you don't create a very huge stack of hidden unit, you can't do anything before they are destroyed (and AI will use the open frontier for going kill this units in your territory if they see them).