Faerun

radionin said:

Hey
I have cut of lathander Cleric that dies from attrition when at war in enemy land.

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Well this is the price he pays for being able to spread religion.

FramedArchitect said:

Well this is the price he pays for being able to spread religion.

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Doesn't that make that celeric the worst cleric in the whole game. With all due respect it seems a like broken in my mind.

Anyways I'll move back on a autosave and change religions. And never use lathander again.

v.7 uploaded, fixes a load/save error that was affecting unique hero training. Sorry about that. Also, the Tethyr UU finally makes a debut.... take a bow, Chalice Knight.

Sorry about all the little bugs with this mod. Part of the problem is that I started this project in the summer of 2011 and the database stuff was entirely in xml. I've been moving the content over to sql, and in the transcription process fixing some things and breaking others. Another problem is that I'm just getting a handle on basic lua so I still make silly mistakes!

Hey

Playing cormyr

No sign of embark until late game. Think it shows up in Navigation.

I'm not trying to sound like a broken record. I love your mod!

Playing Waterdeep on Deity, very enjoyable!

Some minor things I spotted:

Treant has an exploit. It respawns not only after death, but also when entering Underdark or switching to embarked mode, at least in my game.

You might want to reshuffle city naming distribution. I was unnerved when at some point the game stopped giving me true location names for cities. I probably discovered why when I entered Underdark and found that dwarves took them. It seems that Mithrall Hall guys are more keen on expanding down there than going up, so giving them Mirabar or Ten Towns high on their list will effect in their underground placement. Also, half-game city spam by Mulhorand and Tethyr is crazy and I spotted several no-name cities, so maybe it's worth to introduce more names.

Some content descriptors for technologies are also not accurate. Seaport comes before Navigation, but is listed under it. And embarkation is hard to spot.

Really liking the mod.

Here are a couple things that I've noticed.

1. When I built a knight as Amn, nothing happened. The unit didn't show up so I'm not sure what happened.
2. Some of the upgrade paths are strange. I noticed that spearmen and pikemen upgrade to lancers, which is not an upgrade path I would expect (nor want) since it reduces the attack power significantly. I haven't retried this with .7, but it was the case with .6.

Guanyin said:

Treant has an exploit. It respawns not only after death, but also when entering Underdark or switching to embarked mode, at least in my game.

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Embarking triggers hero and treant birth/death sequences. This was very unexpected for me, and there isn't a good fix that I can see. In the next version I have a method that will significantly reduce the exploit.

You might want to reshuffle city naming distribution.

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For next version I am adding dynamic city naming for the scenario map. This means that newly founded cities will automatically pick the best available name for their location. Some conquered cities will change names, depending on the conqueror/conquered. This will also entail a much larger list of city names, so this issue should be solved.

Some content descriptors for technologies are also not accurate.

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I'm completely redoing the tech tree, which I will release with future version (probably 10 or 11), so I'm not paying any attention to the current tree. The new tech tree will be more dynamic, meaning that certain tech choices will block off other tech choices. This means that civs will be able to choose an alignment (or none), opening up larger and more interesting trees. Alignment will have a much bigger affect on future games, both in terms of diplomacy, religion and available units and buildings.

Techs will also be more in the vein of GalCiv, in that they don't really indicate your march through time, but rather your specializations. This will have a big impact on basic buildings and units, too. Specializing generally will open up add-ons for basic buildings and grant new promotions or strength for basic units. Generally finishing a specialized branch offers a very good reward, though it is purchased at the price of not specializing in other areas. This allows the mod to have a more consistently medieval feel, while maintaining a sense of progression and reward.

Finally, expanding will be tied to a specialization in the tech tree. Training settlers will now require a kind of "Patent" or permission from the ruler. Most civs will begin with two or three Patents, but in order to expand beyond that they will have to invest in the expansion branch of the tech tree.

mindlar said:

Really liking the mod.
[*]When I built a knight as Amn, nothing happened. The unit didn't show up so I'm not sure what happened.
[*]Some of the upgrade paths are strange. I noticed that spearmen and pikemen upgrade to lancers, which is not an upgrade path I would expect (nor want) since it reduces the attack power significantly.

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I dunno on the knights....this happens when you lose access to a strategic. Yes the unit upgrades are awful. In general I hate unit upgrades anyhow. I find it cheap that a unit is basically immortal inheriting all its forbears skills.

radionin said:

No sign of embark until late game. Think it shows up in Navigation.

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Yes embark is currently hidden on the tech tree because I have too much on that particular tech. I'm not changing this now. See above explanation.

This is a great mod FramedArchitect I've been enjoying it a lot, especially the Underdark travel feature which hearkens back to Master of Magic etc. I'm glad you're still developing it too.

Techs will also be more in the vein of GalCiv, in that they don't really indicate your march through time, but rather your specializations. This will have a big impact on basic buildings and units, too. Specializing generally will open up add-ons for basic buildings and grant new promotions or strength for basic units. Generally finishing a specialized branch offers a very good reward, though it is purchased at the price of not specializing in other areas. This allows the mod to have a more consistently medieval feel, while maintaining a sense of progression and reward.

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That sounds good. I would guess tech trading by diplomacy would have to be limited for this to work though. Will there be some form of research "maintenance" cost for owning many techs/cities a la Pazyryk's mod?

Finally, expanding will be tied to a specialization in the tech tree. Training settlers will now require a kind of "Patent" or permission from the ruler. Most civs will begin with two or three Patents, but in order to expand beyond that they will have to invest in the expansion branch of the tech tree.

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Hmm I like that, an interesting tradeoff between "wide" and "tall" empires. But "Patent" sounds like something from the patent office, maybe a "Charter" or something else?

Especially if investing in expansion is already a big tradeoff, it seems like the Weave Energy needed to learn schools/spells shouldn't necessarily have to scale with # of cities. But it could be reasonable to have casting a spell consume a small amount from your Weave Energy stockpile.

BTW I kind of missed being able to build Farms, or at least have a variety of Improvement choices other than Village, being able to influence production toward specific yields. Also was a bit frustrating not to be able to develop tiles like Wheat; I realized Wheat can be a drawback since yields can be worse than a Village with river+tech bonuses. I liked having some of the Magic branches give small bonuses to an Improvement type, and really liked local buildings that interact with specific local bonus resources.

I agree, this mod could easily be the FFH of CiV. I have a feeling farms might come back on a per civ basis. I get that Elves and Dwarves probably arn't gunna farm.

Thanks for heads-up, all looks good, I am looking forward to the updates. Any ETA for them?

orlanth said:

Will there be some form of research "maintenance" cost for owning many techs/cities a la Pazyryk's mod?

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I'm not sure how he (she?) is dealing with curbing expansion, though I'm sure it's brilliant! For my simple purposes, I plan on having a Governor's house in all cities outside the capital that will require maintenance in the form of gold and food. I'm hoping to balance this such that, like GalCiv, new cities are a drain on the economy until they reach a target pop.... like 4 or 5. Most of the upper echelon buildings (and the only buildings that will have specialist slots) will also require a minimum population. Some of the expansion techs will open up new government types that will reduce the cost of expanding. Evil aligned civs will have a much easier time expanding.

I plan on removing the concept of "science" as much as possible, including Great Scientists, and there will not be a research oriented tech branch with libraries, universities, etc. The only way to generate additional research will be through specialists (all will generate some research) and possibly conversion of excess happiness.

maybe a "Charter" or something else?

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Sounds good!

BTW I kind of missed being able to build Farms, or at least have a variety of Improvement choices other than Village, being able to influence production toward specific yields.

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Yeah, I'd much rather have farms in the mod, but I think this is the best workaround for the farm replace crash. Also I plan on introducing two new map resources, so there will be more variety in the look of the map.

Guanyin said:

Thanks for heads-up, all looks good, I am looking forward to the updates. Any ETA for them?

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I think I will have version 8 out today or tomorrow. It provides fixes for lots of problems including the spell effect crash I introduced with v.7. It will also include dynamic city names for several civs.

Some input.

1. You should include Mirabar as a city state, from what i've read on the forgottens realms wiki it is a important mining city and they are exporting lots of stones. So maybe give them alot of stones and marble resources.

2. I know that religions are limited to the 12 ones that are researchable. But what about pantheons, could'nt you make it so that some city states have their own pantheons and just rename the pantheons. So for example Zhentil Keep will have 'a Bane' pantheon(and some relevant bonus), but that would'nt interfer with your already set system of only 12 religions, as they will will/could just converse the followers of the pantheons mentioned.

S.O.T MAHak said:

So for example Zhentil Keep will have 'a Bane' pantheon(and some relevant bonus), but that would'nt interfer with your already set system of only 12 religions, as they will will/could just converse the followers of the pantheons mentioned.

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I'm not sure, technically, how to extend the religious system for CS. Right now that just doesn't exist. That said, I don't think it would add much for human players if CS had their own pantheons.

What you seem to want is a playable Zhentil Keep civilization, and this has been suggested a few times. But given the scenario map layout, you'd have to decide between having Cormanthor or Zhentil Keep in the scenario.

Right now I only plan on adding one more civilization, the goblins which will inhabit the Underdark section of the scenario map. I will give them an unusual kind of UA as well a new Underdark exclusive resource.

Also, version 8 out today solves a bunch of flaws, including the treant exploit and a mid-game crash I introduced in version 7.

Great, downloading v8 now

For my simple purposes, I plan on having a Governor's house in all cities outside the capital that will require maintenance in the form of gold and food. I'm hoping to balance this such that, like GalCiv, new cities are a drain on the economy until they reach a target pop.... like 4 or 5.

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Gold maintenance per city could do that, but local food maintenance per city would just make cities grow much slower early on rather than creating a general drain on the economy. Actually, maybe paying some form of research "maintenance" cost per city could help, so for knowledge to advance you'd have to balance having enough larger developed cities with buildings/specialists, to support your "backwater" cities that are a drain on progress until they mature.

If alignment is going to open up special arms of the techtrees, it could add a lot of interest and replayability to allow at least some limited player choice, ie a stereotypic "Good" civ being able to choose an either Good or Neutral path. Even if most people don't choose this it could allow some interesting variations in how things play out. Why would evil aligned civs have easier expansion? I'd think they'd perhaps just get less happiness penalty for conquered/puppet cities?

I plan on removing the concept of "science" as much as possible, including Great Scientists, and there will not be a research oriented tech branch with libraries, universities, etc. The only way to generate additional research will be through specialists (all will generate some research) and possibly conversion of excess happiness.

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Well, be careful with removing too many of the alternate ways to advance your knowledge. I can see the AI (or human players!) might get really stuck if they wind up with too many cities that can't grow large enough to support many specialists; there needs to be some way to counterbalance that. It was actually quite a while before I could afford to have many specialists at all, especially without being able to build Farms to support them. Also it's nice if each specialist keeps somewhat of a unique role rather than all adding to research. So I agree there shouldn't necessarily be something called "science", but it could still be appropriate to have some role for Knowledge production by a Sage, Great Sage, Library, etc so you have some ways to try to focus on this if you're falling behind and can't support many specialists. I do agree its best to avoid a research-oriented tech branch, that could become a no-brainer as the first to invest in. BTW I love the ability to find certain knowledge-generating features like Fire Lichen and Natural Wonders.

Conversion of excess happiness to something useful is definitely a huge plus in my book , though IIRC it does already help with Golden Ages. The sudden binary cutoff between "happy"/"unhappy" conditions is a huge pet peeve with vanilla Civ5 - I would love it if rather than suddenly plunging into an "unhappy" state going from 0 to -1 happiness, there was an incremental penalty and incremental bonus based on the amount you vary from 0.

Yeah, I'd much rather have farms in the mod, but I think this is the best workaround for the farm replace crash. Also I plan on introducing two new map resources, so there will be more variety in the look of the map.

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Ah I hadn't heard about that crash.. damn Civ5 modding engine lol Would it be possible to allow "Plantation" or something as a pseudo-Farm, so there would be some alternate choice to mass Villages if you want to prioritize Food over Gold, and something to put on on top of Wheat etc? I'm always glad to have more resources in any case. I can't emphasize enough how cool it is to have a decent selection of buildings that are only buildable in certain environments (near river/ mountain) or can interact with the local resources (eg Stone Works in a Marble-rich area). That adds flavor to the micromanagement and keeps every city's building chain from being the same.

What you seem to want is a playable Zhentil Keep civilization, and this has been suggested a few times. But given the scenario map layout, you'd have to decide between having Cormanthor or Zhentil Keep in the scenario.

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What i meant is that in the vanilla game you can get a pantheon, and keep it even when 'all religions' was been establish. Given that there are an almost unlimited number of deities in the forgotten realms, I thought that if it was possible to introduce some minor deities(modded pantheons) to the game it would add to flavor!

Still in my Deity Drow game on v.8. Things I noticed:

- Game sometimes gets stalled for me and only restart helps. It's random and when run again through given turn it goes on. Probably something with the power of my machine.

- Some city names pop up with _TXT_-something something (Amn). I've also seen several city duos sharing names even if distant by several hexes (Riatavin).

- Baldur's Gate gets rolled over by Amn/Cormyr third game in a row for me. Maybe it needs a boost.

- Cacofiend teleportation shows parachuting plane. Might need a change.

- Underdark is a free ride. It really needs to be denser or surface civs encouraged to descend to make it more competitive.

S.O.T MAHak said:

What i meant is that in the vanilla game you can get a pantheon, and keep it even when 'all religions' was been establish. Given that there are an almost unlimited number of deities in the forgotten realms, I thought that if it was possible to introduce some minor deities(modded pantheons) to the game it would add to flavor!

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Okay, my misunderstanding. Actually I would much prefer your idea to the way I have developed "religion", and in fact was the way I had designed the pantheons originally. Turns out that I wasn't technically capable enough to make that kind of system work.

Guanyin said:

Still in my Deity Drow game on v.8. Things I noticed:
- Some city names pop up with _TXT_-something something (Amn). I've also seen several city duos sharing names even if distant by several hexes (Riatavin).

- Baldur's Gate gets rolled over by Amn/Cormyr third game in a row for me. Maybe it needs a boost.
...
- Underdark is a free ride. It really needs to be denser or surface civs encouraged to descend to make it more competitive.

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Thanks for the report. On the first, these problems will disappear as I add more to the dynamic city naming system and transition away from the civ city lists. Dynamic naming will automatically name cities by their geography, no matter who founds them. Right now only sword coast civs use dynamic naming, and there are some holes and conflicts in their geographic city names list.

On the second, I've also heard that Baldur's always dominates games... Through lots of autoplay sessions, I've seen the sword coast end up in lots of different configurations!

On the third, the problem here is the AI does not know about the underdark portals, much less how to use them. I have seen civs accidentally found cities in alternate realm but they cannot reinforce them. I don't know how to do AI programming that might overcome this limitation. However, I do plan on releasing another underdark civ, the Goblins. That realm will be more competitive with them in the picture.

I'd rather see an expanded surface map and the underdark dropped altogether.

I like it, but it seems to be the cause of a lot of bugs and, to me anyway, doesn't offer enough compared to the amount of map space it uses. You can ignore it if you want to and not have it negatively affect your game..

A separate underdark map/scenario instead would be cool. I understand that that would be a really huge endeavor.

I also understand that dropping the underdark would require a map rewrite, so it is a pretty unreasonable request.

Kolvir said:

I'd rather see an expanded surface map and the underdark dropped altogether.

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You could play the mod on one of the Faerun maps I uploaded on this site. There are three sizes, and none include the underdark.

I'm postponing all updates on this mod until the new expansion is released. I expect there will be many mod-killing changes that will need to be worked through!

Had a go at this mod today. Fabulous piece of work so far. Look forward to playing some more and seeing it develop.