Dwarves and Gold

Kael

Kael

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We aren't done with the Khazad yet, we will be adding some UU's to them. But I thought I would talk a little about the changes that are being added to them in 0.14.

Non-magical:

The Khazad's greatest handicap, they cannot build Conjurers, Mages, Archmages or Summoners. They can still make Adepts and their Druids learn Earth Sorcery and Summoning spells instead of Nature Magic.

Ingenuity:

All upgrades cost the Khazad half as much as the other Civs.

The Dwarven Vault:

The Khazad judge their leaders by the amount of gold they are able to amass. The Dwarven Vault represents this amount. It will be upgraded automatically depending on the amount of Gold per City (GpC).

000-049 GpC: Dwarven Vault (Empty): -2 Happy
050-099 GpC: Dwarven Vault (Low): -1 Happy
100-149 GpC: Dwarven Vault: No effect
150-199 GpC: Dwarven Vault (Stocked): +1 Happy
200-299 GpC: Dwarven Vault (Abundant): +10% Hammers, +2 Happy
300-499 GpC: Dwarven Vault (Full): +25% Hammers, +2 Happy
500 or more GpC: Dwarven Vault (Overflowing): +25% Great People, +3 Happy, +40% Hammers

So if a Khazad player has 2000 gold and 10 cities he would have 200 Gold per City (GpC) which would earn him a free Dwarven Vault (Abundant) in each of his cities.
 
I should mention Woodelf came up with the mechanic (they get bonus's the more money they have) and Chalid suggested it be scaled according to the amount of cities they have. It is a very interesting play mechanic and I tend to undertech them to build up cash and keep the production strong. It also influences your city growth since you want to make sure not to outgrow your bank account.

So Im really happy how it turned out, I believe it accomplishes the goal of being a viable civ that requires a different strategy to play well.
 
Funny. I'm playing them right now and doing it pretty much the opposite way of what you're saying they will be like (plenty magic, avoid upgrades and have as little money as possible saved). Guess I can throw this strategy out the window if I play them again after the patch ;)
 
I really like the sound of this. I can't wait to try them out in the new patch. This is the one of things that makes this mod so fun: civs that each have distinct characteristics making them very different to play, and then the characteristics match perfectly with the lore and flavor of the civ. Well done.
 
my concern is early in the game seemingly having to go straight into festivals, and the dwarven smithy

it's only a fair trade if they still get that sweet, sweet smithy

lots of production, no magic, makes sense to me
 
Ooh, very nice, very ingenuitive. I'd appreciate it being later re-scaled based on both city population and era, but right now I think it's plenty good. I might even give them a try. Can the AI handle it? Seems to me that they already amass lots of gold, but I'm not entirely sure.
 
The way ive been playing, limiting magic in this way could be a severe handicap. Will these benefits balance it?

Another thought is that the khazad are described as primarily 'warriors and priests'. Maybe increasing the power of priests build by the dwarves (ie either higher strength to make them 'battle priests' or acess to other spells) might be a good alternative if balance is needed. It would also focus the dwarves to be making lots of priests and warriors, priests fulfilling roles that mages might play in other civs.
 
Chandrasekhar said:
Ooh, very nice, very ingenuitive. I'd appreciate it being later re-scaled based on both city population and era, but right now I think it's plenty good. I might even give them a try. Can the AI handle it? Seems to me that they already amass lots of gold, but I'm not entirely sure.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind this is a playtest. So the first thing we do is we make a change and then we submit it to you guys to try out. After we have feedback from you we do whatever tweaking is nessesary and then when we have it in a place that we consider a final version we add whatever AI optimizations are nessesary.

So we can do a few things to incent the AI correctly, flavor the Khazad leaders toward an econmy based approach, reduce the amount of gold they are willing to trade away, etc. But we assume that once it all plays out we will need to do some AI tweaking to make it better.
 
Kael and Co,

Great idea ! The Dwarven Vault is a very well thinking mechanic. All your strategy will depend on it... Great !
What about ogredpowell idea to make Dwarven priests a kind of "battle priests". I agree with him as you describe them as primarily warriors and priests. They could be either improved with 1 or 2 strength point(s) or a promo such as Heavy, Combat I,...

The Frog.
 
Chandrasekhar said:
Ooh, very nice, very ingenuitive. I'd appreciate it being later re-scaled based on both city population and era, but right now I think it's plenty good.
Click to expand...

They give percentual hammer and GP bonuses, so it's already scaled indirectly to city size.
 
Ooh, fun mechanic. I second ogredpowell's question, though - losing the spellcasting power is a huge drawback, what's there to make up for it?

Also, I'm a bit worried about the need for having lots of gold eating up a player's willingness to actually use it. I suppose that just hoarding lots of money and never really using it does fit the dwarven character, but at the same time I'm finding it a bit counter-intuitive that a money-centered civilization will suffer as they become unable to spend their money...

Have you ran any tests with them yet, how easy are the different amounts of money to achieve?
 
Well, I don't know about you, but I tend to have around 5-7 cities before going a-conquerin', and I'd have no problem leaving 3500 gold hanging around in my treasury in exchange for 40% extra hammers in every city.
 
I honestly forgot about this. :blush: Now I can't wait to play the Khazad.

Now to find more time...
 
You can just sell some technologies and get free +3 happy and +40% hammers (omg). I usually play with 3-5 large powerful cities, and even 5000 gold in treasury isn't a problem for me (just lower research up to zero for several turns)
 
My only concern is the beginning of the game at higher difficulty levels. As it is I typically play at Prince/Monarch and have 5 happy people by default in my capital (4 in other cities).

Starting with a -2 happy could be rather painful in the very early game. If the vaults all get built based on something happening (i.e. reaching 125 gold or building your third city or researching a tech).

Alternatively if they start with 100 gold it would offset the early penalty without giving a significant bonus.
 
I guess we'll have to see how it turns up... I usually get much gold pretty fast due to early scouting and intensive hut-popping, but I usually play at Prince level so I'm not sure how this would work for the above diff levels.
 
I like this! And I see that Khazads will greatly benefit from being Runes of Kilmorph, just as Ljosafars with FotL.

Maybe giving Khazads extra 100 starting gold to fill valut with neutral value?

But no magic is heavy penalty, but since they rely on priests, maybe some of them would be able to cast some sorcery magics? But it is trouble because priests are religion and not race specific...
 
I am looking forward to playing the Khazad. I've avoided them up to this point because they seemed very raw.

I like the gold hoarding effects. Do gems also play a similar role? Maybe the system could count each gem source as x gold to the average. They would hoard these too? Maybe as a penalty the Khazad won't/can't trade gems or gold?

Non-magical:

The Khazad's greatest handicap, they cannot build Conjurers, Mages, Archmages or Summoners. They can still make Adepts and their Druids learn Earth Sorcery and Summoning spells instead of Nature Magic.

I dislike the term Druid of the Earth. Can they be called Rune Breakers, or Rune Priests? Maybe their magic requires stone resource, and earth mana?
Maybe a special brand of Khazad Earth Druid (shudder), for the Runes? As a way to encourage the religion, but not penalize others.
 
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