Tentative Early Release of New Civ: The Villalfar

DharmaMcLaren

Warlord
Joined
Dec 18, 2007
Messages
213
Location
Scotland
So, I think this is done. I can't find an image I like for the leadherhead anyway, so it's just a plain old placeholder.

As the first downloaders of this mod, you get the dubious honour of finding all the imbalances it will invariably contain. I just made a civ specialising in the kind of playstyle I enjoy, so I realise that this won't be to everyone's taste.

For those of you who do download it, feedback will be greatly appreciated. There's no world spell yet, and there's room for a few alterations to the caster system, so suggestions about how to balance the mod can be quite easily implemented (that is, if they're easy to implement :p).

Also still to come are some Civilopedia entries, which will probably be in the next version (if I get enough feedback to make a next version).

All (I think) of the information about the Villalfar is in the readme, and a copy of the readme is in this spoiler tag:

Spoiler :
VILLALFAR MOD FOR "FALL FROM HEAVEN 2.032" - Version 1.0
By DharmaMcLaren
_____________________________________________________________________

This mod adds a new civilization, the Villalfar, to Kael's Fall from
Heaven mod.

At present, it is unlikely that the AI will play the Villalfar very
well. This is the first release of my first mod, and as such it is
likely that there will be bugs, and certainly at least imbalances.
If there are any bugs you would like to report, or any suggestions
you would like to make on how I could improve this mod, please post
them in the download thread in the Fall from Heaven Maps and
Scenarios subforum.

At present, the Villalfar have no world spell. This is something you
could make a suggestion about. ;-)

Background:

The Villalfar consist of Ljosalfar who were separated from their
cousins during the Age of Ice. Losing most of their knowledge as they
were forced to survive in the barren wastes, they became little more
than savages. However, in the Age of Rebirth, the wandering bands of
these elves, called "Villalfar" meaning "Wild Elves" by their
cousins, came together to form a civilisation, and founded the city
of Laren, named after their hero, Oreden Laren. They joined the
Fellowship of Leaves, and became fiercely loyal members, devoting
their lives to the prevention of another cataclysm on the scale of
the Age of Ice.
However, shortly after they emerged, the Villalfar realised the
threat posed to them by the other renewed civilisations and adopted
isolationist policies. They are pacifistic - they will avoid going to
war at all costs, and even if they are attacked, they will fight only
defensively (though the same cannot be said for the animals at the
command of their expert hunters, which may sneak behind enemy lines
to fight guerrilla wars without needing to openly declare war). The
Villalfar will join a war only to protect Nature as they see it, or
to help another of the "righteous" civilisations who are devoted to
the preservation of the forests.

Features:


It is recommended that the Villalfar are played with the Fellowship
of Leaves state religion: they are strongly Leaves oriented.

All trained living units start with the "Nature's Guardian"
promotion. This makes them unable to attack, but also adds 1
defensive point. ("No attacking!?" you say - I realise of course that
this isn't to everyone's tastes, but the Villalfar are very much a
defense and guerrilla warfare oriented civ. If you really want to
make war against someone, it's fairly easy to raise an army of animal
units as detailed below). All units with the Nature's Guardian
promotion also capture any animal units they defeat. Units summoned
by a unit with the Nature's Guardian promotion start with Hidden
Nationality.

Unique building: The Villalfar Grove
This becomes available with Hidden Paths, rather than with Feral
Bond. It provides a bonus of 2 happiness (4 with Guardian of Nature
enabled) and 2 health. In additon to these bonuses, there is a chance
whenever a unit is built in the city that an additional wolf, tiger,
bear or gorilla unit will be built alongside it. This, combined with
the Nature's Guardian trait, can be used to raise an army of Hidden
Nationality animals, to prevent potential threats to the forests from
ever fully forming. Combined with Nature's Revolt, this can be
deadly. The Villalfar Grove requires a normal Grove to build, and
costs twice as much, to prevent the player from overrunning their
enemies with animals in the early game.

Unique units: The Wildcat
As its name suggests, this unit is a wild cat. To be precise, a
panther, which stalks the jungles and scouts for the Villalfar. A
replacement for the Scout, the Wildcat has no attack strength but 3
defense strength (4 with the Nature's Guardian promotion). Its
purpose in the early game is to explore, contact new civs, and
convert animals with its superb defensive power in forests and
jungles.

The Preserver:
Replacing the Adept, this unit is like a regular Adept, but without
the ability to build certain types of mana nodes. This is to prevent
the Villalfar from gaining mana types that do not make sense
flavour-wise without trading with the civs who can build them, i.e.
it is purely a flavour-oriented decision. The Preserver may gain
additonal abilities in the future to distinguish it more from the
Adept.

The Warder:

This is similar to the Preserver, but replaces the Mage. As with the
Preserver, it cannot build certain mana nodes. The Warder may gain
additional abilities in the future to distinguish it more from the
Mage.

The Archdruid:
The Villalfar's replacement for the Archmage is 3 additional druids
which become available with Strength of Will and can be trained in a
city with a Villalfar Grove. The Villalfar's extra druids can learn
spells which ordinary druids cannot, and can promote to tier 3 of a
spell sphere if the Warder it was promoted from had tier 2. Given
that they start with the Divine promotion, this can make them very
potent.
_____________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Kael and the rest of the FfH team, for making the excellent
mod that made this possible, including Woodelf, whose extra-FfH
Tel'Seldarine shrine model is used.


Thanks, and enjoy!
DharmaMcLaren.

This link might work...
 
Sounds nifty. Did you block them from being able to even build a couple various units to help reflect the defender style?

Anyway, main reason for the post is to ask where you linked the actual download at ;)

EDIT: Also, it will become rather difficult to capture animals if you are not even allowed to attack them. Eventually the poor critters get smart enough to walk the other way instead of running head-first into the Str 12, highly promoted druid in front of them.
 
The idea is that by then, even your animals have Subdue Animal. :p
I'll add to the list of changed needed for the next release that summoned units start with Subdue Animals, which should alleviate that problem as well as providing the Archdruid with another use.

And yeah, there were some complications with uploading the file when I tried a little earlier, so I'll go for take 2 now.
 
I wonder if that is actually the case; when I made scouts unable to attack (trying to preserve animals until they could be captured) I found that they could still attack HN units (which includes all the animals, so it became kinda pointless)


The Villafar remind me a lot of the Fyrdwell. Perhaps all the Vilafar mounted line should ride deer.
 
Have you got a national hero? You might consider an animal trainer who is able to provide promotions to animals. Since the Nature's Guardian promotion will hamstring your military, there needs to be some way to make animals competitive with other civilizations' level 2 and 3 units. You might also think about a UU Beastmaster or Conjurer that can Summon animals. Along the same lines, you could disable the animal cages for the Festival, or better yet, replace it.

You already have your worldspell -- Nature's Call.
 
I was thinking of adding a promotion called "Druidism" or something similar to the Preservers, Warders, Druids and Archdruids, maybe enabled through the Villalfar Grove (which could also be the prerequesite building to the caster line) that would grant spells that gave promotions to animals.
Good idea for the worldspell, I'll add that to the list. Their current national hero isn't really all that interesting, so I'll probably add something animal-related there.
Also, the Villalfar Grove's effect should keep animal "recruitment" steady without the need for a summoner. Maybe their beastmaster could summon units they can't otherwise train, though (spiders, gorillas, etc.).
I may replace the carnival animal cages with buildings that give animal units built in the city promotions.
 
Giving the national hero a Barnaxus-like ability to grant City Raider, City Defender, Heroic Strength/Defense or other such enhancements to animals could be quite the winning tweak. Seeing as you can only attack with Animals that means you can never attack with better than a... 5? Bears are the highest I think.

Might be nice if he were able to grant some kind of affinity (probably Nature given the overall theme) to your animals so they can keep up in the late game for strength. Otherwise when your opponents hit T3/T4 military, you will simply stop using Animals since they cannot actually hurt anything and don't defend well.

If you still cannot upload the file, try the UPLOAD option on the top bar (with CHAT), not as small of limits there as you have when making a post.
 
I don't think that their units should be unable to attack as attacking units in your borders is critical to a good defence. You could simply have the nature's guardian give a large strength reduction and have a larger bonus for when you are inside your borders. (like the homeland promotion)
 
Well, my thoughts on the national hero are that it could be an animal unit that can train other animals to give them special abilties, as well as having Barnaxus-like qualities that syncronise promotions with animals. Probably quite late game, Tier 3-4ish so as not to give the player too much of an early advantage. I might also grant their palace -50% production cost for Settlers so they can grab a large area quickly and then hold it, so as to lessen the need for all this animal warfare later on and confine it to the role of preempting against enemy attack, raising the Veil or OO holy city, etc.
A Nature affinity in animals could come as a promotion spell cast by Archdruids with Nature III and Druidism. Nature II and Druidism could enable a +2 attack strength, +25% vs melee units promotion for animals, and Nature I and Druidism a +25% city attack promotion for animals (to alleviate the -25% [I think] they get).
I think the spider's the strongest attacking unit, due to the invisibility and the poison. That can be very fun for picking off workers. Spiders are interesting tactically - I'm thinking an assassin UU.
 
An idea for the hero would be an elf that can morph into other animal types, ie a bear for extra strength, a panther for speed, spider for invisibility etc and/or tie each animal type to a terrain for a def bonus. EG when in gorilla form hero gets a jungle def/attack bonus, wolves get tundra and so on.

I have to agree with KenKen though about not being able to attack at all..... means your gonna need a lot of units at home to cover your improvements or you'll get pillaged horribly, particularly when pillaging unit is protected by Rangers/Beastmasters. You may need to counter with something other than animals.
 
Have you got a national hero? You might consider an animal trainer who is able to provide promotions to animals. Since the Nature's Guardian promotion will hamstring your military, there needs to be some way to make animals competitive with other civilizations' level 2 and 3 units. You might also think about a UU Beastmaster or Conjurer that can Summon animals. Along the same lines, you could disable the animal cages for the Festival, or better yet, replace it.

You already have your worldspell -- Nature's Call.

What's that do...cause all your opponents to take a break and run for the toilet?
 
An idea for the hero would be an elf that can morph into other animal types, ie a bear for extra strength, a panther for speed, spider for invisibility etc and/or tie each animal type to a terrain for a def bonus. EG when in gorilla form hero gets a jungle def/attack bonus, wolves get tundra and so on.

I have to agree with KenKen though about not being able to attack at all..... means your gonna need a lot of units at home to cover your improvements or you'll get pillaged horribly, particularly when pillaging unit is protected by Rangers/Beastmasters. You may need to counter with something other than animals.

Summons. The Forestlord National Unit (which is a sort of demi-hero) can also summon a gorilla or spider, and attack itself.
Additionally, the national hero I plan to implement, which is summoned with the world spell, can attack; as well as syncrhonising its promotions with all the player's animal units, and starts Hidden Nationality.
There's also going to be a replacement for the animal cages at the carnival in the form of totems, which require a Temple of Leaves. Each animal type will have its own totem, and each totem will grant will grant a +5% attack strength bonus to animals of that type. The wonder that becomes available with all totems built, currently under the working name "Stonehenge", will grant Nature Affinity to all animals.
Archdruids will be able to take Bear Form to attack enemy units, Warders will be able to train them to have +25% city attack, +20% vs. melee units and +1 attack power; and Preservers will be able to train +40% withdrawal chance and +1 movement speed.
The Call of Nature national spell summons their hero, the Great Bear Spirit, and converts at least 20 animal units to the player's team.
I'm quite adamant about them not being able to attack with normal units. This would be quite unbalancing, given the planned changes to animal units.
 
Your talking about really high level units though.

The HN spiders I use can easily achieve 170xp... all the promos. That's Combat 5, city attack 3. Their city attack against warriors is >99.9% but a simple hunter on flat (no woodsman atk bonus) is 75%. and that's only a tier 2 unit against a maxed out spider.

Against an AI you could do it, coz the Ai isn't strong against animals, they don't build hunters, even scouts, to replace a warrior killed by a spider, they build another warrior..... 170xp is really easy that way.

But against a human player.....You're gonna get eaten. I don't think you'll ever so those tier 4 units.

I'm not trying to trash your idea, it's actually quite novel. But there is a reason why, by year 200, there's no animals left in the game.

If you wanna stay with the animal thread, you'll need to make much more powerful ones, ones with a much higher base strength. Beasts rather than animals, coz as animals they're too easy to to turn back against you. And you'll need at least something to bring down a city, otherwise you'll be playing a race that you simply cannot win.

It's your call mate... your civ.... I do genuinely wish you luck. I just don't wanna see you wasting your time.
 
The mod wasn't really made with multiplayer in mind, to be honest, and I think it takes a player to play them properly - in games where they end up being played by the AI, the best they'll be able to do is build enough units to survive to the end of the game - maybe I'm wrong, though.
I will probably make some Tier 4 beast units for late game, and maybe increase the number of Archdruids and Druids allowed to 6 (they can attack in bear form and cat form). Additionally, the cumulative effect of the buffs should make regular animals a strong competitor - a bear with all buffs as designed at the moment, if the player has 15 cities and 5 nature nodes, will have 38.5 attack power - that might be a little too strong, considering the ready availability of bears through the Villalfar Grove.
 
I have an idea for a National Hero for you:

Fenris the Dire Wolf
:move: 3
:strength: 6

Hidden Nationality. Sentry I & II. Subdue Animal. Every time you successfully subdue a wolf with him, it produces two extra wolf units. He, uhh. . . knows the wolf in a biblical sense and it produces a litter of wolves.
 
I've got the national unit all but finished, but I might include Dire Wolves as a trainable unit that can attack, and the mechanic for producing wolf packs might also be interesting. Perhaps a promotion for all wolves the dire wolf captures that makes them synchronise promotions with him. Though I don't know if that's possible.
 
He, uhh. . . knows the wolf in a biblical sense and it produces a litter of wolves.
I always pictured the wolves as male. Thus, my mind asplode.
 
I always assume an animal unit is female. Almost without exception the female mammal is the more aggressive and territorial.
 
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