Sidar Plus

well, if ya think about it blur gives immunity to first strikes and defensive strikes. The more I think about it, having Sidar invisibility linked to the mist feature seems alot cooler than the building or the borders idea, although the latter would probably be easier.

Anyways, I stopped by to note that I still think recon further than hunters, meaning rangers and beastmasters, should debatably have stealth like ghosts do.

It would be nice for Sidar Rangers and Beastmasters to gain stealth, although I can understand counterarguments.
Still, I think that all Sidar units should be able to buy the stealth ability at level 6, in some way.


Edit: @ CyrusOrlandeau -> it sounds to me like a good idea for Sidar units beyond level 8 or 10 to be able to buy a one time immortality promotion upon level up. That way, they would have to spend that level granting an extra life, instead of becoming better.

Also .... sometimes you can run away using a divided soul, if its a recon unit.
 
(other stuff, ect) .... leads to the problem of currently implemented hidden armies ... if 2 units are hidden, and one attacks, the other unit must attack to reveal himself, perhaps weakining himself to where he needs protecting too, instead of being able to protect unit 1. I think stealth should be able to let units unhide, aswell, in order to defend their exposed brethren.
 
It wouldn't be hard at all to let the hidden promotion give the ability to remove said promotion.


I just got to thinking, it is probably too much, but what if the Sidar Palace acted like Nox Noctis, making your units in your lands invisible unless choose to reveal them?


I believe it would also not be hard to make the Revelation spell set its victims to pUnit.setIgnoreHide(True), which I think would make units invisible from Nox Noctis or the Sidar Palace visible for the rest of the turn before before becoming hidden again.
 
Leave the Defense Strike/First Strike immunity for invisible units. That way, it won't encourage massive warmongering behavior.

I just got to thinking, it is probably too much, but what if the Sidar Palace acted like Nox Noctis, making your units in your lands invisible unless choose to reveal them?
Click to expand...

I actually tried that, and I have to say, it works very well. I also tooled a second Reveal Spell to work for the Sidar civilization as a whole.
 
I went looking through a little more of their surrounding lore, and they should at the very least have:

Spoiler :

1.) Ability to have units invisible outside their borders and maybe as well as inside.

2.) The dubbed 'hard to kill' effect, whether that be withdrawal chance, immunity to first stikes/defensive strike, or my idea of a tied in ability that reincarnates a killed Shade in their lands but with an experience penalty to prevent over-use

3.) Racial promotion for all their Shades that gives them their accompanying Mist effect (which would probably give the immunity to first strikes and withdrawal chance)

4.) Should not gain happiness by luxury resources or the like (due to their loss of the basic senses such as touch, smell, taste) and instead should gain happiness another way, maybe 1-2 happiness for each Shade that becomes a specialist in the city?


Now, I might be wrong on some of those, because I'm not sure if the entire civilization are Shades or only the elites of society. (Like #5)
Also, half of the ideas originally made by Hammer seem very viable, like the buyable 'Haze' promotion for units of a high enough level. Of course most of those that are good ideas for the Sidar we're already discussing, but I thought I 'd give a small compliment anyways. :D

I'm not sure why, but I always feel like I'm missing something everytime I post. please help me if I did. :crazyeye:

-A9A
 
One thing you could do (well, maybe not YOU, but it'd be possible) is make it so that the Sidar units cause the tile they are on to not be visible to any other units unless that unit is:

a) on the tile
OR
b) Aggressive toward a unit on the tile and within a single tile of it

This gets you the "difficult to find" aspect, and can help with the "hard to kill" aspect as well. Being invaded by the Sidar would mean that suddenly a few tiles in your territory aren't visible any longer, now you have to figure out which ones are just lone scouts to distract you, and which one is the Stack of Death. Additionally, trying to attack the Sidar becomes difficult because they might have a city defended with a single Warrior or a dozen Archers, but you won't know until you are on the tile immediately next to it.
 
CyrusOrlandeau said:
1.) Ability to have units invisible outside their borders and maybe as well as inside.
Click to expand...

I think that'd be going overboard with invisibility. Even if truer to the lore, we have to consider game balance. Marching invisible units everywhere is insanely strong. At most, units could be born with Hidden, but even that's stretching it. Having their units invisible within their borders establishes them as a builder civ and doesn't result in massive warmongering behavior.

2.) The dubbed 'hard to kill' effect, whether that be withdrawal chance, immunity to first stikes/defensive strike, or my idea of a tied in ability that reincarnates a killed Shade in their lands but with an experience penalty to prevent over-use
Click to expand...

A withdrawal effect is probably the best. I don't know how well an entire civ immune to first strike/defensive strike would work.

3.) Racial promotion for all their Shades that gives them their accompanying Mist effect (which would probably give the immunity to first strikes and withdrawal chance)
Click to expand...

The racial promotion for Shades is a good idea. It's something that helps define them more as a civilization.

4.) Should not gain happiness by luxury resources or the like (due to their loss of the basic senses such as touch, smell, taste) and instead should gain happiness another way, maybe 1-2 happiness for each Shade that becomes a specialist in the city?
Click to expand...

I don't like this idea. There aren't enough Shades to make up for this, and even if there were, it would be unnecessary micromanagement the computer doesn't understand. This is one of those cases of Gameplay > Lore.
 
Yeah, I noticed we couldn't do everything that was in the lore anyways, those were my initial observations by combing through their lore.

For 1. I already knew we couldn't have them invisible everywhere, what I meant was for only certain units like the idea (xienwolf's...?) where scouts could be invisible outside your borders. Although I think the idea he just said would be best to have in-game, even if it is harder to code. Really good thinking xienwolf! :goodjob:

2. and 3. should be together, with probably just the increased withdrawal chance, and then maybe Hammer's original idea of a buyable Haze promotion when the unit is experienced enough and that gives the immunity to first strikes. although that might be a bit to powerful as well.

4. I agree is too much complication, I just thought I'd throw out the concept anyways. :crazyeye:

Also, since only one person has acknowledged it so far, what do you guys think of my original idea to give high level Shades that die by physical means (or just by any means) an Immortal-type effect where they are reborn in the capitol, BUT they must take an experience penalty. When they drop below a certain level or when they die a certain number of times, they can no longer reincarnate and will die permanently. It seems like it could work to me, and I don't believe it would take much extra work to add a piece of code to decrease their experience/stop them from reincarnating when they've reached the limit they can lose. In addition, nothing has to be done to the AI because it will happen automatically.

My brain works like the process swords are made. Gather all the material possible in one area, then weed out the impurities until only the good quality material is left to forge a great item. Something like that anyways. :crazyeye:

-A9A
 
CyrusOrlandeau said:
Also, since only one person has acknowledged it so far, what do you guys think of my original idea to give high level Shades that die by physical means (or just by any means) an Immortal-type effect where they are reborn in the capitol, BUT they must take an experience penalty. When they drop below a certain level or when they die a certain number of times, they can no longer reincarnate and will die permanently. It seems like it could work to me, and I don't believe it would take much extra work to add a piece of code to decrease their experience/stop them from reincarnating when they've reached the limit they can lose. In addition, nothing has to be done to the AI because it will happen automatically.
Click to expand...


Why only high level shades, and why an xp penalty? Shades are only around for a little while before you add them to a city anyways. And if something's goign to be a shade, you usually do so as soon as it hits lv6 and gets back to safety.

I'm thinking, rather than the immortal effect, give shades a massive withdrawal chance. 85% or so, making them.....hard to kill. This is of course assuming that shades stay non combat units whose only purpose is to add to cities. If you want to do something else with them, that might be a bit overpowered.
 
Nah, I was thinking normal units of Sidar able to buy immortality promo at 10th or beyond.
 
when do Sidar ever get to level 10? :confused:

I think that would create an annoying conflicr of interest. One primary point of the Sidar is that they have very few powerful units, because they have economic uses for them as a builder civ. Discouraging that doesn't seem like a good idea
 
eh, I figured it would be a nice treat for the few units that do go past the 6 level mark
 
WarKirby said:
Why only high level shades, and why an xp penalty? Shades are only around for a little while before you add them to a city anyways. And if something's goign to be a shade, you usually do so as soon as it hits lv6 and gets back to safety.

I'm thinking, rather than the immortal effect, give shades a massive withdrawal chance. 85% or so, making them.....hard to kill. This is of course assuming that shades stay non combat units whose only purpose is to add to cities. If you want to do something else with them, that might be a bit overpowered.
Click to expand...

To help prevent creating a wall of text, here's why:

Spoiler :
I know where you're coming from, but the Sidar aren't necessarily supposed to wane every unit they can. The majority, yes, but they will still need a good standing army of sorts to help them defend from incursion. You should still have some high level units that can gain bonuses. I know we don't want to turn a good builder civ into a warmonger civ, but if you have to wane every high level unit you have, then you're forced to build tons of standby units with regular stats just to defend from an enemy. That doesn't feel entirely right to me. Sidar seem to value quality over quantity, and I see them becoming more quantity if they wane all their quality on cities alone.

The reason I had it set for high level units is partly for the same reason it takes units at lv 6 or higher to be able to wane. It's unofficially the level that they learn how to control their ethereal-ness better than the regular person. So you have a choice, the unit can become part of the economy or part of the defense.

As for the reason behind the xp drop, think about the reincarnate ability a sec. Any player will immediately see a permanent Immortal effect that can happen from the early-game on up as something VERY over-powered. The xp drop, while not preventing it entirely, helps mitigate the possibility of abuse because if you use your newly lv 6+ Shade poorly on the field and he dies, the xp drop will take him below the level that allows him to reincarnate, and in order for the effect to work you have to be at a certain level or higher. When you fall below it, it doesn't work, and if the unit dies again before regaining the lost xp, they'll die permanently.
The lore behind it, is that Shades, unlike regular beings, gave up their physical form to live as a spirit eternally. While they can coalesce time to time when they need to, for the most part they don't interact in the mortal plane the same way regular beings do. When they 'die' in battle, because they don't rely on a physical body, their spirit merely 'retreats' to the areas that holds a connection to them (Sidar territory). As for the xp penalty, explaining it lore-wise would go something along the lines that they are still partially connected to the mortal world, and when their spirit 'retreats' they lose a fraction of themselves, typically not anything major, normally just the most recent occurrences or memories and thoughts that aren't deeply connected to their conscious. it can even include recently learned abilities, like spiritual connection. That's why when they lose that ability, they can't find their way back to their spiritual connection, because they have to guide themselves there and when they lose that ability to guide themselves... they become lost in the ether. Does that make any sense?

If an additional need to balance this comes up, I'm pretty sure it could be set up so it only activates if Shades die in Sidar territory, and maybe extremely high level Shades could get that ability outside their territory as well.

Hope that helps any. I like to give my all to any concept that's worth it. :p

Oh and Tasunke, first off, I just want to say thank you for agreeing with me, it happens too rarely fro me not to notice. And second, your way of doing it might very likely be more balanced than my way of doing it, I just go off of what I know from theory. Although I will test this out in my mod to the best of my ability to see how the result comes out.

one other thing. I agree with you Warkirby, the Sidar should be a builder civ and shouldn't have the raw power that could easily turn them to warmongers. I agree whole-heartedly. But it's also to the choice of the player. the AI will follow a set flavor, but players are radically different in their ideals. They might want to conquer the world as The Grey, and make every faction in Erebus fear the Mist. Or they could draw the distinction and create their own mythic realm in Erebus which is a mystery to every civilization, for any unit to explore the Mist has never returned. I personally just want the Sidar to be as epic as their theme in whatever itinerary they choose to follow. but I still agree they should be far more intrinsic and focused on their own civilization than others.

That gives me another idea. Should the Sidar have a passive ability that reduces enemy LoS within their culture border (the Mist)? If stacked with the other ideas here, I know it's breaking the rule Fun > Lore, I'm just offering it for consideration.
Wow, I didn't realize just how committed I am to these ideas until now. My hands are tired from typing now. :lol:

-A9A
 
Valkrionn said:
One issue with the xp penalty... A unit's xp dropping below that required for the level does not drop the level, as far as I am aware. What it WOULD do, is require that much more xp before the unit is able to advance again... which is still a large penalty.
Click to expand...

hmm, thanks for pointing that out. I thought it might be that way, at least now I know it's confirmed.
Alright, you know way more than I do on this, I admit that freely, so how can we get it to work the way it should? Would it be too complicated to setup? I really like this concept for the Sidar, but I want to make sure it is feasible and balanced in gameplay.

-A9A
 
Well, level can be changed just as easily as the xp... So maybe make a function that reduces xp by a set amount, determines the level that unit should then have, and then reduces it to that level. The main issue with this, is it's NOT a penalty... You lose immortality, but gain extra promotions, at easier to reach levels. I'd honestly just reduce the xp by a large amount, so while it may still be immortal, it won't gain new promotions for quite some time.
 
Originally Posted by Valkrionn
Well, level can be changed just as easily as the xp... So maybe make a function that reduces xp by a set amount, determines the level that unit should then have, and then reduces it to that level. The main issue with this, is it's NOT a penalty... You lose immortality, but gain extra promotions, at easier to reach levels. I'd honestly just reduce the xp by a large amount, so while it may still be immortal, it won't gain new promotions for quite some time.
Click to expand...

You know, I think that can still work the way I intended. Even if a unit stays immortal, the fact that the promotions would take longer to reach would keep the unit weaker as time goes by and the enemy gets stronger, so it will come to the point where your unit may not be able to compete anymore and you'll be forced to wane him.
It's not perfect, but it sounds feasible. I thought that the system wouldn't allow a level drop the way I imagined, I was right. I wonder how the Stasis worldspell would effect something like this....
What if a code could be set up that everytime a unit 'died' and reincarnated, that they would lose an amount of experience, drop a level depending on if the xp lost went over the xp required for the level, and then a random promotion/last acquired promotion would be lost as well but only within certain parameters (such as taken off Combat III before Combat II, and not getting rid of special promotions acquired through other means(Loyalty, Courage))? I know that's probably too much work, but is it possible?
If I could do it, i would, but I'm still just learning how python and coding works in general.

-A9A
 
The problem with this whole thing is that rebirth doesn't fit the Sidar. Their immortality only protects them from dying naturally. Otherwise, the 'hard to kill' quality comes from being difficult to identify in the mist. The best way to implement that would be a withdrawal chance.
 
ok, I believe you're right, I just like the idea for my own impression of the Sidar. i think i'll use that for my mod, where i know I can make it fit lore and gameplay. ;)

Maybe it's just me, but the withdrawal chance just doesn't sit right with the Sidar. It's probably the closest function we have to get our desired effect, but it doesn't feel right. I don't really think of the Sidar as those who get into a fight and then run away....
You know what, never mind, I don't know what I'm saying. Withdrawal chance is best for them.

<sigh> I just want to contribute. I admire everyone here for what they do, but I can never seem to focus on anything I start. Stick Soldiers 2, Age of Mythology, Warcraft 3, and more I don't remember, I've never finished any mod idea I've started with them, even when on the rare occurrence I do know what to do to finish, but I don't. it's frustrating, life's always in the way.
I'm sorry, no one wants to hear me have a pity party, I'm going to go try and create something unique in my game, even if it's something pathetically easy. Maybe that will inspire me.
Good luck everybody, I know the Sidar will be even better than before.

-A9A
 
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