The Kuriotates

[woodelf]

These guys are getting shutout in the favorite civ poll! Is it because:

A - They're good?
B - Eurabatres isn't in the game yet?
C - The color purple?
D - The "boy"-king leader?
E - Any other reasons?

I'm playing a game with them now and I guess they feel almost normal. I'm sure the Dragon will help.

[Chalid]

I remember we have discussed giving them very special Traderoutes (they shall get food and production via traderoutes too) as well as some enhanced improvements (like a better upgraded version of the town or upgradeable farms).

And yes i hope the dragon will help, too.

[loki1232]

Well if we're done with the Luchuirp then why not figure out the Kuriotates. I say that they should be sort of like the doviello in that their units are often animal/human hybrids, but the Kuriotates units are good guys. For example: centaurs, mermaids, eaglemen, treefolk, Goat-riders, etc.

[wilboman]

If the Kuriotates are centered around a "benign" Dragon, I definitely feel we should be going for a Human, Oriental Mystic kind of feel to all this. Maybe give them some interesting gunpowder-based units?

FfH lacks a "generic" human race, as it were, one that doesn't either have an angelic leader or consist of magical creatures.

[loki1232]

what about the malakim?

[woodelf]

Oriental Mystic to me feels like Monks, Ninjas, Samurai, Tibetan wisemen, ect. Hand to hand UUs and super constitution for the units. And obviously wise and dragon worshipping.

[loki1232]

Originally Posted by woodelf

Oriental Mystic to me feels like Monks, Ninjas, Samurai, Tibetan wisemen, ect. Hand to hand UUs and super constitution for the units. And obviously wise and dragon worshipping.

I'm starting to agree with woodelf on this one. Isn't purple a very oriental color? Bow before the power of my uber Kuriotates ninjas!

[woodelf]

Everyone comes to Planet Woodelf eventually. (most leave quickly...)

The Chuck Norris mod will come in handy. I had some Kung Fu/hand to hand ideas floating in my brain back when I was thinking of making a mod. Thankfully I abandoned that idea.

[Kael]

The dragon won't be enough to save them. And art flavor is only a temporary solution, we need a design function. What are their strengths, what are their weaknesses?

The design guide gives us "creation". Birth, renewal, the opposite of destruction.

I like Chalids idea of increased city sizes and a bigger town improvement. Maybe some immobile units that are spawned free in the "upgraded town" tile? Maybe they gain certain benifits at increased city sizes.

They should be the best able to cultivate the land, and the most effected by pillaging.

From a unit perspective I like having the centaurs with them as super archers (archery isnt a strength of any civ right now). But we need more.

I dont really like the asian theme because we havent added human racial differences at any point and it seems weird to now. And everyone who looks at it will think of the asian theme stereotype. Id rather let someone on the art team develop their own style for the units than borrow an earthly one.

[woodelf]

Could we still go highly spiritual and hand to hand combat? That would be unique if they focused on that and didn't bother with axes, maces, and the such. Centaurs are fine, but thrown weaponry would be nifty too.

[Corlindale]

Tibetan wisemen

I sort of imagine Cardith Lorda as a kind of young Dalai Llama

The Creation-thing is definately good, the Kuriotates might well have the best infrastructure of any civ, given time. They might also get a special worker for their unique improvements. Perhaps this worker would only have 1 movement, making placing improvements more time-consuming, and making pillage recovery an even greater problem. This might be a good balancing factor for their powerful improvements.

With Arcane Lore they could get access to a special improvement, something that harnesses innate arcane energy and uses it to vastly increase terrain potential. This improvement can only be build on a mana node, it gives truly massive bonuses to hammers and commerce, but it will eventually suck the mana node dry, leaving a normal tile behind. Kind of similar to the Veil improvement that slowly degenerates terrain we discusssed earlier, but without the evilness.

But we need more...

EDIT: Come to think of it, the mana-improvement might fit the Amurites better.

[Kael]

Originally Posted by Corlindale

I sort of imagine Cardith Lorda as a kind of young Dalai Llama

The Creation-thing is definately good, the Kuriotates might well have the best infrastructure of any civ, given time. They might also get a special worker for their unique improvements. Perhaps this worker would only have 1 movement, making placing improvements more time-consuming, and making pillage recovery an even greater problem. This might be a good balancing factor for their powerful improvements.

With Arcane Lore they could get access to a special improvement, something that harnesses innate arcane energy and uses it to vastly increase terrain potential. This improvement can only be build on a mana node, it gives truly massive bonuses to hammers and commerce, but it will eventually suck the mana node dry, leaving a normal tile behind. Kind of similar to the Veil improvement that slowly degenerates terrain we discusssed earlier, but without the evilness.

But we need more...

EDIT: Come to think of it, the mana-improvement might fit the Amurites better.

Yeah, I dont picture the Kuriotates as having a strong arcane bent, they are the more natural of the civs.

[woodelf]

Natural as in homeopathic meds, multiple god worshipping, and mental prowess instead of magic?

I think they should be peaceful, but have strong enough beliefs that they will war for certain reasons. I have no idea what those beliefs are yet though...

[wilboman]

Originally posted by Loki1232
what about the malakim?

The Malakim are people, sure, but lead by an elf. The Kuriotates are people lead by other people.

Would an extra food on village and town tiles (in addition to common bonuses) vastly overpower them? It could mean huge and rich cities. Is there any way to cap the number of total cities they can have, making them a super-centralised civ? That would be a new playing style for some, and suit turtlers like me pretty well, just like the Hippus suit a conquering playing style...

I'm thinking something along the lines of ivory towers, great cities, totally urbanised areas around the cities, loads of specialists, but probably give them few units with high movement rates, and a lot of immobile (but strong) units. And I still kind of like the idea of a vaguely oriental feel to go with the dragon, it doesn't in any way have to be overpowering, just a slight oriental look to the art.

[Corlindale]

Is there any way to cap the number of total cities they can have, making them a super-centralised civ? That would be a new playing style for some, and suit turtlers like me pretty well, just like the Hippus suit a conquering playing style...

I like the idea of making the Kuriotates focused on super-centralisation, but I still don't think we should literally force players to do it through an artificial city limit. I think it would be better if we decreased the inclination to build many cities by for example:
1)Make their settlers much more expensive
2)Give their settlers just 1 movement
3)Increase Maintenance costs for large empires for the Kuriotates.

To give them some bonuses in the area of super-centralisation, perhaps the 2-per-city restriction on National Wonders could be lifted for them? Of course it might not be that big a deal, as there are relatively few of them in the game at the moment.

[seZereth]

hell, i really love your way to approach everything :P

when you come to a conclusion about what they should do and how they should look like, i would not deny (denie?!) to do the units for them. if no one else wants to do them...
But my next plan is to make hippus units more like the ones on their buttons. next week i hope.

[woodelf]

Originally Posted by Corlindale

I like the idea of making the Kuriotates focused on super-centralisation, but I still don't think we should literally force players to do it through an artificial city limit. I think it would be better if we decreased the inclination to build many cities by for example:
1)Make their settlers much more expensive
2)Give their settlers just 1 movement
3)Increase Maintenance costs for large empires for the Kuriotates.

To give them some bonuses in the area of super-centralisation, perhaps the 2-per-city restriction on National Wonders could be lifted for them? Of course it might not be that big a deal, as there are relatively few of them in the game at the moment.

I like number 3 the best to curb their growth.

A long time ago I talked with Kael about ever increasing the cost of settlers. That would work for these guys. The first costs X, the next 1.2X, then 1.5X, and so on.

Too bad we couldn't somehow include a way that if their empire got too big it simply fractured into 2 separate empires.

@ seZ - It's deny. I can't wait to see more Hippus dudes!

[loki1232]

Well I'm not sure if we want to force them to use cottage improvements. What if all of their terrain improvements gave +1 food, or +1 sheild if it already gave food? I don't think of them as having much use for gold.

For me, they are not urbanized, more natural and natury. So there is nothing wrong with having many large cities. However, that might make them unbalanced. What if they had to pay extra for city maintenance as it got farther from the capital? This would make for more centralization around their "cool" leader and also avoid uber overpowered kuriotates empires.

I think that we should also give them a bunch of UU's. Since Kael doesn't like the oriental feel, what about the man/animal hybrids?

[woodelf]

So Centaurs, satyrs, mermaids, hawkmen, (is there a snake/human mix?).

[Chalid]

As said i would really like them to be something like a bif fat cow that can develop into a powerfull bull or into kind of a milk cow...

How about making most of their improvements upgradeable. So thei get powerfull improvements but are easiely pillged to dust. Centaurs are already planned for them so that will be a good start for the animal man. But we lack of course models at the moment.

The traderoute thing i proposed would work for them but also for the elhohim. As long as they are at goot terms with many neighbors their cities flourish (additional food and production are powerfull) but when trade stops their star goes down.