My custom civ - Project Discussion

Lord of Flames is the Archmage UU. So it gets Channeling 3 giving it access to Fire 3, Blaze 3 and Creation 3.

Keeper of the Flames is stronger in terms of combat but stuck at Channeling 2 thus giving him far less spells (3 spells less). And he can't build nodes.


So it's a trade off between +3 and 1 unique spell vs 3 spells and node building.

I thought they were mostly equal.


PS. Working on real RiFE problems rather than my self is naturally justified. No need to apologize. Really, you make me feel embarrassed. I hope I am not dragging you away from your work.

PPS. Keeper also changes to Unitcombat_Disciple so he can't get any magic related promotions (mobility, twincast etc.) after the upgrade.

Hmm... Can't find out what's wrong with it. What unit specifically did you make it out of?

And I didn't catch the fact that the Keeper doesn't gain Channeling 3. That makes it a valid trade off, I think.

woah, nice concept. seems you really thought about it
one thing i havent understood yet: are all of those guys made of straw ? or a limited number of them supported by former farmers?

if so, adding "this unit is not alive" to the racial promo would make sense (dont know if you have done so already).

second, a proposal for a unique druid/beastmaster, late nature oriented unit:
Weeping Oak :
Creation or blaze instead of nature magic
+1-2affinity for blaze, -4 base strength (there are druids UUs with similiar stats, not imbalanced)
+1 Fire, +1 lightning
Starts with Heavy or monstroues creature (maybe even immobile?) something to show that tree dont just walks around easily. and a movement speed of 1
Unit can use the maelstrom ability ( think of all those old, dead-appearing trees in horror movies, when the rain falls heavy and thunder is heard in the distance)
and maybe that woodland promo I & II

From your story i wouldnt call a unit "lord of the flames". lord implies its somehow master/superior to it. but isnt the fire part of themselves?

yet another question: are they purely good?

i looking forward to play those guys!

It's a standard mage with a straw hat attached via the SceneViewer to the head node.
The straw hat comes from the default Asian worker.

The worst part is that it used to work for me. I tested it back when I started (it was the first model I made) while I was modding 1.2 or what ever the last version was. But I deleted that modifications and started over when I switched to 1.3. And now I can't get the XML right at all.

Say, could you test it in a non modular way? Becouse that is the way I made it work in the old version.

azzedar said:

woah, nice concept. seems you really thought about it
one thing i havent understood yet: are all of those guys made of straw ? or a limited number of them supported by former farmers?

Click to expand...

They are a society made up entirely of straw people. Well, actually it's more like wicker basket people but you get the point.

if so, adding "this unit is not alive" to the racial promo would make sense (dont know if you have done so already).

Click to expand...

Done, see 1st post.

second, a proposal for a unique druid/beastmaster, late nature oriented unit:
Weeping Oak :
Creation or blaze instead of nature magic
+1-2affinity for blaze, -4 base strength (there are druids UUs with similiar stats, not imbalanced)
+1 Fire, +1 lightning
Starts with Heavy or monstroues creature (maybe even immobile?) something to show that tree dont just walks around easily. and a movement speed of 1
Unit can use the maelstrom ability ( think of all those old, dead-appearing trees in horror movies, when the rain falls heavy and thunder is heard in the distance)
and maybe that woodland promo I & II

Click to expand...

I had to drop the plans for blaze mana as the work would require develing in the DLL to make it work like I planed. Now Blaze is just a spell sphere unique to mages with the Wicker ratial promotion and Fire Mana.

Another thing is that they are not in fact nature oriented. They are more craft oriented. They are not exactly FOL at all. They would rather chop down a tree than sit in it.

Also, that sounds similar to my planed primary hero:
Straw Giant
Starts with Monstrous Creature, Hero, Wicker and Homeland
Can devour a plant food resource to gain that promotion that gives you 1 extra life
Can bombard walls.

From your story i wouldnt call a unit "lord of the flames". lord implies its somehow master/superior to it. but isnt the fire part of themselves?

Click to expand...

He is the Archmage, a person who has devoted him/her/it self to knowing all there is to know about the fire sphere. Sort of like a fire version of Kahd.

The idea is that once your Mage UU hits level 6 he can make a choice. Does he want to devote the rest of his life to studies of religion becoming the Keeper of the Flames, leading the next generations to the right path. Or does he want to devote it to magic and purely magic and become the Lord of Flames, a caster unparalleled of fire spell gaining access to the probably IMBA Blaze 3. (this will probably be a spell like pillar of fire but that can kill.)

yet another question: are they purely good?

Click to expand...

Well, as the leader's background sais. "One must do what must be done."
So the alignment will be:
Major Leader: Neutral
Minor Leader: Chaotic Evil - Neutral Evil, not sure
Emergent Leader: A surprise for now


Another thing to note about them is the fluff explanation to why they don't use metal weapons. The idea is that they do in fact use them. However, when your blacksmith is made of straw and smithing requires ready access to an open flame it tends to drive quality down so the weapons don't provide the effect they do with other races.

i looking forward to play those guys!

Click to expand...

Thanks, it's nice to have a fan. So stay toned to this thread for more updates.

I hope you finish this sounds very promising.

Also do you know the Scarecrows from one of the Magic TG sets?
Reaper King (the scarecrow boss)
Scarecrows
Your civ reminds me of them.

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.

what is this yellow-golden thing in the mid of his head?
otherwise looks interesting.

It's a magical talisman that keeps the body moving and alive. Now naturally, while the image was an inspiration I will be going a different way.

With the Blaze Spark they don't need need it but I like it so much my models will at times have it as a fashion thing.


Also, what do you think for the Blaze 3 Spell:


Pillar of Fire
Does fire damage equal 10% of the target's health for each fire node you poses to all units in a single tile.
Targets the tile with the most enemy units within range.

So yes, it is a spell that scales with the number of fire mana you have. And it is not capped until 100%.
So with 1 Fire mana it does a flat 10% damage but with 10 Fire mana a flat 100%. No random number included.

PPQ_Purple said:

Also, what do you think for the Blaze 3 Spell:


Pillar of Fire
Does fire damage equal 10% of the target's health for each fire node you poses to all units in a single tile.
Targets the tile with the most enemy units within range.

So yes, it is a spell that scales with the number of fire mana you have. And it is not capped until 100%.
So with 1 Fire mana it does a flat 10% damage but with 10 Fire mana a flat 100%. No random number included.

Click to expand...

thats very strong. even for a 3rd tier spell. i wud definitly cap it. furthermore its not changed by spell damage, which can be both good and bad, but mostly frustrating (what have i taken combat promos for?!-factor that occured with the last spell nerf before)

I don't get what you are talking about?
Yes it would be effected by spell damage like any spell damage is.
At least I think. I have no idea how that part works. I just copied over the code from the standard Pillar of Fire and replaced the numbers with a variable.
But the base effect is 10% per Fire Mana.



And there are plenty of uncaped direct damage spells out there.

And think about it, for the same level of mana and skill (Fire 3 instead of Blaze 3) you can sumon a strenth 16 (6 + 10) Fire Elemental. And that is going to PWN anything either way.

PPQ_Purple said:

I don't get what you are talking about?
Yes it would be effected by spell damage like any spell damage is.
At least I think. I have no idea how that part works. I just copied over the code from the standard Pillar of Fire and replaced the numbers with a variable.
But the base effect is 10% per Fire Mana.



And there are plenty of uncaped direct damage spells out there.

And think about it, for the same level of mana and skill (Fire 3 instead of Blaze 3) you can sumon a strenth 16 (6 + 10) Fire Elemental. And that is going to PWN anything either way.

Click to expand...

fire elementals dont pulverize a whole damn stack of units, aka basically unlimited number of kills in one move. any spell that says "does x to x damage" is effected by spell damage. you wrote 10%(per node) as if it was fixed that made me thought it will not be affected by it.

It does the exact same thing like the original Pillar of Fire (A spell from the Clan of Embers Druid UU). But instead of doing 50% - 70% it does 10% - 100%. 10% if you have 1 Fire mana (the starting state) and 100% if you have 10 Fire mana.

As said, I only copied the code from pillar of fire. This includes the effect in it's entirety (hits the whole stack etc.).

And the X to Y thing has nothing to do with modifiers.

It means that the game draws a random number between X and Y, and does that amount of damage.
So 50%-70% means a random number from 50% to 70%, like say 63%.

In my case, the random number (a mechanic I hate) has been replaced by a fixed modifier that you can regulate.


In fact I fear that it might be Underpowered as there will rarely be a case when you can grab the 10 Fire nodes as you will need a lot of Creation nodes to keep your population going.

still it bears the possibilty of annihilating a complete stack of units at once. theres a good reason why pillar is capped at 70% and why so many people complained about mr. i-win-the-game Chalid Astrakein

all i can do is to warn you its going to be an "i-win-button" if you leave it this way...

Yeah, but how often have you had 10 mana nodes under your control.
Keep in mind that they get acces to only grain health resources. So at least 50% of your nodes will have to be creation nodes. 1 node = 1 health.

Well, really how many times? I will have to make a poll.


But you bear a good point. I will have to look at it during balance testing.


PS. I always like Chalid.

PPS. The idea, in fact the driving concept for the race is that getting enough Fire Mana can make them into UP monsters that can't be beat.
But they can newer get that much because they have to sacrifice nodes for

So you are stuck in a constant struggle. How many mana do you devote into Fire for the bonus to your units? Do you keep your cities stuck at 4 people? Is it worth it to get another Fire node or do you go for Creation?

yeah, but many people complained his spell was too strong.

btw. i will surely rarely encounter so many notes, i like small maps. but there are many people out playing huge maps and bigger. on those its not that difficult to get 10 nodes.

Well quite honestly there are a lot of things that collapse at the Huge size. Like the memory requirements and CTDs for a start.
But I don't really see it happening unless they go for something silly like Huge Map, 6 Civs.

I mean, a 18 Civs Huge map does not really have that much more space per player than a medium size 8 players (or what ever is the default for medium maps) one does it?


I can't balance it around huge maps. I am balancing around Normal Size 8 Civs. But if all else fails I will make it scall with map size.

it doesnt have more space at the start, but many of them will surely be slaughtered till round 100. it bears potential for much more expansion.

but balancing it for normal size is a good way
when will the test phase start?

Well here is what I have planed in terms of version logs:

Version 0.25 - Current State

Click to expand...

Verson 0.5 - Next Sunday or the one after that

Done:
All UU's and UB's present allong with art,
only 1 leader (the Major one),
all Spells and abilities,
all secondary art (Icons, Flag, etc.),
the unique Fire Affinity Mechanic,
50%-70% of the flavor text.

Missing:
Minor and Emergent leaders,
some flavor text,
unique art for non UU units,
the unique mechanic (can't make those work with 1.3)

Possible beta

Click to expand...

Version 0.8 - When RiFE 1.4 Comes out
Complete mod with only the Leader Art missing. (My artist has a deadline until January the 1st to provide me with the finished drawings.)

Click to expand...

Version 1.0 - Who knows when
0.8 With balance fixes and any bugs ironed out.

Click to expand...

Currently I am only 1 spell, 3 models and some text away from 0.5.




Also, I will need an idea for a World Spell. I have no idea what to do with it except that I have the name picked out.
Sea of Flames.

Concerning the Blaze 3 spell:

1) The problem I see with this spell isn't so much that you can anihilate a hole stack at once - though that alone would probably be op already - but rather that 100% damage is 100% damage no matter the strength of the target. It seems wrong that a lvl. 6 archmage should be able to kill a Combat 5 Drill 5 Achaeron that even Auric Ascended would have a hard time against.

2) Let's say you need 50% of your mana nodes to be creation mana, this doesn't mean that you'd need 20 mana nodes to get the spell to 100%: It would be quite possible to move your stack (archmage + bodyguards) in front of the enemy capital, cast dispel on your 5 creation nodes, upgrade them into fire nodes using 30 adepts (IIRC 1 adept needs 6 turns to build a node), annihilate all defenders in the city with a single spell and to then capture it and turn the nodes back.
And having 30 adepts isn't all that hard if you really want to. A decent capital can build them in 30 turns and you'll get by with 15 adepts if you can live with loosing a bit of food while your adepts are rebuilding your creation nodes.

the world spell should it be economy, mass buff/damage or summoning stuff?
what do you think of
1.) +1 wickerman (or any other unit) per X city pop in all your cities? like a big recruiting spell
or
2.) setting all enemy cities afire, done by a unique building (like 'Burning Houses') for a certain amount of rounds decreasing all values (like productivity, growth) and giving chance for losing buildings? or only decreasing food on a large scale, burning their food amounts