Civ Terrain Preferences

After finishing my map script for FFH2 and getting some feedback, I have a small feature request. The problem is that according to lore, some of FFH's civilizations prefer kinda bad terrain. The map script places them in the appropriate places, but I really wish that these civs had a reason for their preferred terrain.

I really like how the Lanun start with a tech that allows them to see resources that other civs can't see. I think it would be fun to extend this method to some of the other civs who like strange habitats. Here are a couple of ideas.

Cave Dwelling.(Dwarves)
Reveals "Plump Helmets", a mushroom commonly found on plains hills only. Requires a mine, and adds +2 food in addition to the normal hammers, making a self sustaining plains hill mine. (For those of you who don't know what Plump Helmets are, if you google them you are risking a horrible, life consuming addiction almost as bad as Civ. )

Desert Survival.(Malakim)
Reveals "Dune Scarabs", a giant beetle found on desert flatland that burrows in the sand and stores water under it's carapace. Tastes like chicken. Adds +3 food to a desert flatland. No change on improvement, or maybe require camp.

Hardship.(Doviello and Illians, I currently have them starting in tundra, not sure if that's exactly in line with the fiction)
Requires food to grow, but immune to starvation. So you work food tiles to grow, but can switch to all production tiles without losing population.

I'd give the Doviello/Illians + 1 food on tundra and + 1 hammer + 1 food on ice, maybe even give them a penalty on grassland tiles. You'd also have to add the ability to build improvements on ice/tundra though.

Cave dwelling would just be for the khazad yeah? The Lurchip don't live in caves AFAIK.

Well, Kilmorph taught them to return to caves in the age of ice, but then again most humans, orks, and even elves were living in caves at the time.

Of course, their entry does strongly imply that they haven't abandoned the caves like the other races:

"His [Beeri Bawl's] highest goal is to reclaim a spot on the surface, but that does not mean he intends to make the mistake of his forefathers and neglect the lower reaches of the world."


Still, I'm not sure they need a special terrain bonus. Also, I'd rather give the Khazad a bonus for Peaks than hills.

MagisterCultuum said:

Well, Kilmorph taught them to return to caves in the age of ice, but then again most humans, orks, and even elves were living in caves at the time.

Of course, their entry does strongly imply that they haven't abandoned the caves like the other races:

"His [Beeri Bawl's] highest goal is to reclaim a spot on the surface, but that does not mean he intends to make the mistake of his forefathers and neglect the lower reaches of the world."


Still, I'm not sure they need a special terrain bonus. Also, I'd rather give the Khazad a bonus for Peaks than hills.

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It's a good point to bring up that the Dwarves are fairly powerful as it is, and giving them more bonuses might not be such a great idea. But what could use a boost is plains terrain. It would be nice if all terrain types were useful to someone. In native Civ, all civs are pretty much the same, and bad terrain is there to provide a challenge similar to what all humans must overcome to adapt to their surroundings. With FFH, the civs are very different from one another and even different species in some cases. That creates an opportunity to add interest by changing the function of terrain. If the fiction supports a certain terrain preference by a Civ, their main priority in game terms should not be to escape the prison of their ancestral homelands, but maybe to stay there and prosper. Maybe grasslands should not be so versatile and powerful for every civ as they would be in regular Civ4. With a few minor adjustments, it should be easy to take avantage of the opportunity.

As for dwarves, I insinctively put them up into the plains hills probably because I grew up in Reno, NV, which has loooong mining history and is very hilly and dry with scattered forests. Somebody should want those plains hills and the dwarves seem to fit I think.

Well, Plains/hills is THE ideal city location, as it results in an extra on the city tile. Everything else gives the same exact yield (with a SMALL bonus if you also have a resource on the tile).

Do mines take away the food on a plains hill? Or give the same production as a Grassland hill instead of one more? I never really paid attention to how mines affected them exactly, but it seems like they ought to still be 1 better and 1 less than a Grassland.

If I hit my happy cap, I often wish I could transform a grassland farm into a plains farm so I get less food, but still get some hammer output. That is only if I cannot juggle things to support a massive-hammer, no food tile to be worked and still stagnate my growth though.

But overall, I think that the lower value of Plains compared to Grassland is because of how easy it is to get a LOT of happiness points and how powerful it is to run specialists. That little 1 hammer is not worth a whole 1 food! So maybe plains in general should gain a second hammer (for all civs) to make it worthwhile to keep them (and Scorch should allow you to change a grassland to a plains as well as a plains to desert).

For those of you who don't know what Plump Helmets are, if you google them you are risking a horrible, life consuming addiction almost as bad as Civ

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OMG man you're a killer. I googled ...

xienwolf said:

Well, Plains/hills is THE ideal city location, as it results in an extra on the city tile. Everything else gives the same exact yield (with a SMALL bonus if you also have a resource on the tile).

Do mines take away the food on a plains hill? Or give the same production as a Grassland hill instead of one more? I never really paid attention to how mines affected them exactly, but it seems like they ought to still be 1 better and 1 less than a Grassland.

If I hit my happy cap, I often wish I could transform a grassland farm into a plains farm so I get less food, but still get some hammer output. That is only if I cannot juggle things to support a massive-hammer, no food tile to be worked and still stagnate my growth though.

But overall, I think that the lower value of Plains compared to Grassland is because of how easy it is to get a LOT of happiness points and how powerful it is to run specialists. That little 1 hammer is not worth a whole 1 food! So maybe plains in general should gain a second hammer (for all civs) to make it worthwhile to keep them (and Scorch should allow you to change a grassland to a plains as well as a plains to desert).

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Plains are useful when combined with some grassland, but if the plains areas are too large you run into the main problem which is they don't support themselves. All you can do with a farm, (unless you are running agriculture civic) is support that one tile, one hammer and maybe a coin if it's near a river. Pretty much any specialist is better than that. Plains hills have no food at all, so to use them you do need two tiles with grassland or a food bonus. For someone to be at home there, they need some way to work those hills.

Deserts don't have as much of a problem because of floodplains, but without floodplains, they are totally useless. I wouldn't mind seeing a Malakim city in some distant corner of a bleak desert with no river in sight. For someone else to conquer that city, they would have no choice but to raze it.

Hadn't contemplated a PURE plains patch. That would be brutal.

xienwolf said:

Hadn't contemplated a PURE plains patch. That would be brutal.

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For the dwarves, I would imagine a plains area with 4 hills. One has sheep, two have mushrooms. You pasture the sheep to work the one hill, and the two with mushrooms are plains mines you wouldn't otherwise get to use. So instead of the area being almost useless, you can make a small but highly productive little town. For a penalty, maybe grassland could be -1 hammers due to the discomfort of damp surroundings with lot's of bugs getting tangled in our beards. So the dwarves still use grassland for economic reasons, but need a foothold in the plains to remain productive.

cephalo what have you done to me with your cursed Plump Helmets and "googling" suggestion?! The dwarf fortress is just great! My time!......

PS THANKS THANKS THANKS. I'm teh nighty ADOM lover stand on my knees before you and say sincere words thanking you for pointing at these beautiful creation, DA MIGHTY DWARF FORTRESS FOR YA!

Mailbox said:

I'd give the Doviello/Illians + 1 food on tundra and + 1 hammer + 1 food on ice, maybe even give them a penalty on grassland tiles. You'd also have to add the ability to build improvements on ice/tundra though.

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The problem with giving them bonuses to the cold lands is that it implies some sort of ingenuity and civilised cooperation. Being conquerers and raiders, these guys should want to expand out from their homeland and take full advantage of what's out there. The lack of starving would be interesting from a fictional point of view I think. The one's who can't hang just get barbecued to help the rest make it through the lean times.

This implies savage toughness. You can besiege them, destroy their farms and if they can't stop you they'll just sit back and churn out units with their generic +1 hammer specialists until they can knock you off their turf. They can make use of their origional territory by maxing out their growth with deer or whatever, then switch to the mines when additional food will only make them fat and weak.

Deon said:

cephalo what have you done to me with your cursed Plump Helmets and "googling" suggestion?! The dwarf fortress is just great! My time!......

PS THANKS THANKS THANKS. I'm teh nighty ADOM lover stand on my knees before you and say sincere words thanking you for pointing at these beautiful creation, DA MIGHTY DWARF FORTRESS FOR YA!

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Come back someday!... Don't step in the magma! it burns... it buuurns...

cephalo said:

The problem with giving them bonuses to the cold lands is that it implies some sort of ingenuity and civilised cooperation. Being conquerers and raiders, these guys should want to expand out from their homeland and take full advantage of what's out there. The lack of starving would be interesting from a fictional point of view I think. The one's who can't hang just get barbecued to help the rest make it through the lean times.

This implies savage toughness. You can besiege them, destroy their farms and if they can't stop you they'll just sit back and churn out units with their generic +1 hammer specialists until they can knock you off their turf. They can make use of their origional territory by maxing out their growth with deer or whatever, then switch to the mines when additional food will only make them fat and weak.

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But the Illians aren't savage (at least in comparison to the other civilizations at the beginning of the Age of Rebirth). They are remnants of the great civilization that flourished under the priests of the god of winter. In the AoI scenario, the Illians recieved a bonus to ice/tundra tiles as well as the blizzard terrain features. They wish to rebuild that great civilization, as well as resurrect their god, and it would make sense for them to get bonuses from cold tiles as well as having a reason to stick to the northlands.

To quote Auric himself: "Once you had been the greatest of scholars and priests, tributes were paid to you by all nations."

I do like the mechanic for the Doviello though.

with my all-improvements-everywhere mod those starts arent too bad, since you can do things like Pasture plains, which turns a plains from 1f/1h to 2f/2h, or you can turn a river tundra from 1f/1c to 2f/2c with wineries (ice wine woot).. it makes any terrain competitive since it allows nearly any given tile to become self-sustainable with the chance of getting even better if they find a resource (i managed to turn an all hill start into a decent sized city doing that)

Yeah, it's an excellent idea for the Doviello.

Mailbox said:

But the Illians aren't savage (at least in comparison to the other civilizations at the beginning of the Age of Rebirth). They are remnants of the great civilization that flourished under the priests of the god of winter. In the AoI scenario, the Illians recieved a bonus to ice/tundra tiles as well as the blizzard terrain features. They wish to rebuild that great civilization, as well as resurrect their god, and it would make sense for them to get bonuses from cold tiles as well as having a reason to stick to the northlands.

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Ok, that makes sense. I guess I thought because they were buds that they might share the same personality. Hopefully when they are more fleshed out they can actually do some snowy terraforming and benefit.

The dwarf fortress is just great... Do you love it too? XD

If this game gets Plump Helmets the game also must have killer Carps.

The Illians could have a lost city resource. They could give a large commerce bonus, repressenting the artifacts found in the ruins, and sold. The Illians alone could find these in an endless expanse of ice. Adding in a few events tied to these ancient lands of civilization would be fun.