Commanding Officers and Broader Alignment

Grey Fox · Apr 4, 2008

Commanding Officers and Broader Alignment

THIS MOD IS NOT RELEASED YET!
I posted this preview because I want your input and help!
Please post. Here comes some information.

Commanding Officers

Commanding Officers is a new layer of Leaders who command your armies.
Basically, think of them as leaders that don't deal with other leaders, give your Main leader (mostly military) Traits, and that can be switched from time to time. (Atm I am thinking 1 turn anarchy and 50 turn period between changes)

For the FfH version of this mod (which I'm making first), the commanders will have a Unit that represents them (and an option to disable commander units) in the battlefield. This unit will be the only unit that can cast the World Spell (unless you turn off the commander units) and if killed you will lose his traits.

Eventually I am hoping to add a system where Commanders can get better, perhaps multiple steps of traits e.g. Aggressive I, II, III, etc. And possibly make the commanders gain great magics and other skills (think General abilities in C&C Generals, only Fantasy).

I am going to be able to make some leaders religion specific, alignment specific, etc. For example, Bambur could be a Commander as well as a Hero unit. I want to make some commanders unlocked by researching techs. Some heroes are first come first served (like the free specialists), etc.

An idea I had was to bring back the Great General mechanism and reward the player with a Commander at every step. Or maybe increase the current commander's potential.

Some Leaders from FfH2 are now only Commanders, and some are both Commanders and Leaders. For example, Amelanchier and Thessa are now only commanders, while Charadon is both a Commander and Leader.

I've also made a new Civilopedia page which you can see in one of the screenshots

Spoiler Screenshots :

Broader Alignment (Only name I could think of during development, please help me come up with a new one if you think needed)

Broader Alignment is a value from -511 to +511, where -511 to -171 is Evil, -170 to +170 is Neutral, 171 to 511 is Good, this makes 341 steps per alignment.

What affects Broader Alignment?, you ask. Well let me tell you;
- Leaders
- Commanders
- Religions
- Civics
- and Events

The Leader alignment modifier is your Base alignment. Your Commander might then modify your alignment a bit, for example Amelanchier will make your alignment as Arendel go from 197 to 150. Thessa won't make you go Neutral currently, cause I wanted Arendel to have the option to stay good and I didn't want to add Arendel as a commander.

Civics and Events will be the main specialization factor. Religions will act almost like they did before, depending on the leader, for example, Falamar won't go evil with OO, but Hannah will (depending on other factors of course).

Spoiler Changelog :

xienwolf · Apr 4, 2008

Way nifty. The Commander Selection screen almost looks like customizing your deck for a CCG

Actually this would be pretty awesome if you also tied it into the Trophy System (when it finally exists) to force you to beat a commander in the field in order to use him in future games. And of course new custom commanders can be made to only appear in the field after you get certain trophies.

(ie - Acheron never appears until after you have defeated Orthus at least once and are then able to use him as a Commander. Barbatos never appears until you have beaten Buboes at least once...)

MagisterCultuum · Apr 4, 2008

Very nice.

I'll probably steal your Broader Alignment changes for my modmod. I'm still ambivalent about the commanding officers. At first I didn't really like it, but I think it is actually growing on me.

I don't really like getting rid of so many real leaders though, and I think if it is included there definitely need to be many more commanders available. I'm not a fan of having the same person be leader and commander, except maybe in regicide games.

Grey Fox · Apr 4, 2008

MagisterCultuum said:
I don't really like getting rid of so many real leaders though, and I think if it is included there definitely need to be many more commanders available. I'm not a fan of having the same person be leader and commander, except maybe in regicide games.

Yeah, there will definitely be more commanders. I could need help with the Lore for what commander would fit for the civs.

I'm thinking a Centaur General as one of Kuriotates starting generals. And at least one other. And leave Cardith as a leader only.

Cassiel definitely needs some commanders. I don't see him as a person leading the armies. But then again, he is Adaptive (which is his Commander trait atm).

I would like at least 2-3 starting commanders for most civs.

And btw, please tell me which should still be leaders. I might have cut too deep here, but I kinda like it. For example Tebryn is only a commander now, good bad?

Should Mahala be only a commander? Charadon seems like a despot here and not a person who would share leadership.

I am going to include a Regicide option as well, in this your leader will be represented by a unit, and if he/she dies, well you lose. (and maybe an option for a different kind of regicide, where you just lose your traits).

And I kinda like it when a leader can be commander as well. For example; Use Hannah as leader and you have a Financial Lanun, use Falamar as Commander and you are Charismatic. (I might split Charismatic into a Leader trait (+happy and something) and a military trait (Less xp needed), good or bad?)

What religious figures from the Lore could become commanders? I'm talking Heroes and people not appearing in the mod (except maybe in the pedia entries).

MagisterCultuum · Apr 4, 2008

Hmm...I was just thinking, maybe all the current national heroes should become commanders.

I was thinking it could be cool if Govannon gave a trait that let all your units get adept promotions, instead of using his train spell. You could make all the spell sphere promotions available to all unitcombats so long as the unit has channeling 1, and make the trait give channeling 1 to essentially every unit.

It might also be good for Religious Heroes to be commanders too. You would still lose them and their trait for converting from their religion. Preferably, this would give another leader of the proper religion a chance to gain the commander, traits and all. For example, Yvain might have a trait that gives all units subdue animal and/or nature 1. Rosier's could give all your units scourge. Valin's could give everyone courage or valor, and Sphenor couls grant a new "anti-HN" promotion. Hemah would have a Dreamer trait that triggers all kinds of random events.

This would require some bonus for Agnostic civs though. What if Cassiel lost his adaptive trait, but each Adventurer let you choose an additional trait? ( I don't think that being adaptive actually fits Cassiels personality, since: "The symbol of Cassiel and his grey king, both as stubborn as the beasts they represent. Such devotion will not serve you here. Wisdom and patience are more suitable traits for a dangerous age.") It could be hard to keep track of what to remove when an adventurer dies though.

A Centaur General would be good for a Kuriotates Commander. I was thinking of adding one as a second leader in my modmod. In my version I claimed that the Centaur had adopted Cardith when he was very young, perhaps even before Eurabatres found him. He is an old, wise, mostly good leader now, but that was not always the case; he took care of Cardith out of guilt over having murdered him parents when he lead a group of centaurs to raid him defenseless home in his wilder past. That fits with well the normal theme of centaurs as liminal beings I think

I'm thinking that the second Hero I added for the Council of Esus would be a better Svartalfar commander. I said that Tsvarlain the Druid bane was the illegitimate son of Kyorlin and Arendel (born shortly before the age of ice began) and the apprentice of Yvain, but he fell desperately in love with Faeryl and converted to Esus to try to win her over. He remembers the teachings of Yvain, but has abandoned them to become the premier assassin and illusionist (he especially excels as casting glamors over himself, which he first learned because he was ashamed of the numerous AoI-type magical birthmarks that cover his body, and the fact that his human lineage makes him less fair than his kindred). He is especially good at posing as Yvain, and had not Cernunnos intervened to free the real Yvain from the trap he left him in, he would probably have succeeded at killing his mother and preventing the body of Sucellus from being reassembled.

Of course, those are just things I made up, and they don't really fit with what lore has been revealed since I wrote them.

Vaghan of Lugus might be a good commander. He is found in the Abashi civilopeida entry, and currently appears in the game as a great prophet. (My modmod had made him a second Empyrean Hero)

scaramouche · Apr 4, 2008

This is probably a thought beyond the scope of the mod but you know what occurs to me, with this system? You could create one Alfar race, and the svart or ljos part would be defined by which of the two leaders you chose - Summer or Winter. Dealing with the unique elements could be tied to commander or trait or something. But honestly, that's probably too wild an idea. It just strikes me as thematically neat. The elves are the elves, but there are two courts. And courts interact interestingly.

At any rate, I'll start thinking on leader/commander setups.

Oh, as a note, I think a key element is thinking about what flavors each civ should have. That's really what the commander dynamic is for, right? How can player choices deeply modify a civ in play. Hsm. Fascinating!

scaramouche · Apr 4, 2008

Here are some thoughts on civ flavors that might be appropriate or interesting. And then commanders could be plugged to those spots.

Amurites: Siege Magic, Arcane Philosophy/Enlightenment
Balseraphs: Army of the Bizarre, Insane Genius
Bannor: Holy War, Corruption of the Church
Calabim: Court of Immortal Hedonism, Plague of Blood, Ancient Wisdom
Clan of Embers: Savage Conquest, Maturing towards Civilization, Spartan Ideals
Doviello: Connection to the Land, Tundra Hordes
Elohim: Peaceful Spirituality, High Theological Court, Corrupted by Vision
Grigori: Secular Humanism, Adventuring Spirit, Self-Sufficiency, Innovation/Adaptation
Hippus: Mongol Horde, Cunning Mercenaries, Free-Spirited Nomads
Khazad: Xenophobic Cave-Dwellers, Greedy Miners, Practical Craftsmen
Kuriotates: Court of Beauty, Pawns of the Dragons, Melting Pot
Lanun: Merchants, Pirates, Explorers, Farmers of the Sea, Adventuring Spirit
Ljosalfar: Summer Court, Connection to the Land, Guerilla Warriors.
Luchiurup: Peerless Craftsmen, Obssessive, Ingenuity without Caution
Malakim: Desert Nomads, Surprisingly Inventive, Religious Zealots
Sheaim: Summoners, Forbidden Knowledge, Pervy Demon Lovers, Sacrifice
Sidar: Ascetic Discipline, Secrets of the Mists, Individual Brilliance, Surgical Warfare
Svartalfar: Winter Court, Connection to the Land, Misdirection and Illusion

My thought here is that various Commanders could create traits/abilities/whatnot that would highlight specific themes of a given civilization. These Commanders would also slide their respective civs up and down the alignment scale. A Svartalfar Commander who represented their proper connection to the Winter Court, for instance, might slide them closer to the good side of things. While the one who focused on subtlety and illusion would keep them on the evil side of the meter.

Rex rgis of Ter · Apr 5, 2008

I like the above ideas. Have you considered a Lamia mage for the Kuriorates? I really like your commanders, they really add a new depth to the game. Great Job!

Grey Fox · Apr 5, 2008

Sure I can see that. More ideas please!

(and if you got nice pictures to go with your ideas, please post them or links to them)

xienwolf · Apr 5, 2008

Well craps, I had a bunch of links to specific art pieces I thought worked well including an idea for which Civ and what kind of unit it would be, then I closed the wrong browser and lost the write-up

So here are some of the galleries I was able to find again.

Saimain
Mikhalid
soys
feliciano
jarling
ironhenry
njoo
genzoman
Guro
namesjames
JasonEngle (duH!)
kerembeyit

And unfortunately I never found the big green troll in a tutu that I used for the Insane Trait in my manual. Really wanted to recommend him for the Balseraphs

But follow the links from each artists friends/favorites and you'll find FAR more art than you know what to do with

TheJopa · Apr 5, 2008

Wow, great idea. May I suggest a bit of tweak if its not too late:

1) Leave all current civ leaders as-is.
2) Come up with at least 3-4 commanders per civ, these can be generic ones until Kael suggests ones that can fit the lore better. For example, Centaur and Lamia for the Kuriotates, random elf for Ljosalfar, whatever commander for Bannor...
3) Commanders shouldn't have the same traits as the leaders. So I suggest you make 10 or so new traits, call em doctrines if you want (Frontal charge, massive wave, ambush and surprise, defensive doctrine, supply...) Raider trait could be removed from the leaders and given to commanders only.
Then fit the new traits to the commanders. Centaur commander would have a trait that gives combat 1 to all cavalry, while Lamia would give arcane to all adepts and small chance to give magic resistant or fire resistant or cold resistant to newly built units.
Massive wave would let you build units faster, supply would cut maintenance cost of troops and also let them heal faster, some trait would give flanking and/or mobility to your troops while other strength bonus, allowing different playstyles.
4) To make things even more interesting, let the foreign commanders join random civ's court if their civilization is destroyed. So you play the Malakim, orcs destroy the Hippus and you maybe get their cool commander that can teach your troops to move faster.

Grey Fox · Apr 5, 2008

Good ideas. I have been considering keeping all the leaders as is. But some leaders just feel better as commanders (Amelanchier and Tasunke for example, but what do you guys think?)

I guess you wouldn't want some leaders to be commanders as well right? (Basium for example)

I was actually going to add the ability for Hippus to rent out their commanders to other civs (together with a few units) for X turns.

it-ogo · Apr 5, 2008

Impressed. Well, I remember the thread where leader units have been discussed.

And I still feel that division into commanders and leaders is an unnecessary complification. I believe it is better to make all of leaders commanders. One is preselected and gained at first turn, others are gained with techs, religion etc. as you plan. (Actually you even can join it with hero mechanism: "Duin Halfmorn of Elohim") Traits can be divided into civ specific and leader specific. The leader hero can be attached to the capital, immobile and, maybe, empowered in some way: e.g. can be attacked only if nobody else is in capital. It is important because I think AI will not be able to handle these new units and will easily lose them so new mechanism will weaken AI strongly which is already a great problem.

scaramouche · Apr 5, 2008

Grey Fox said:
Good ideas. I have been considering keeping all the leaders as is. But some leaders just feel better as commanders (Amelanchier and Tasunke for example, but what do you guys think?)

I guess you wouldn't want some leaders to be commanders as well right? (Basium for example)

I was actually going to add the ability for Hippus to rent out their commanders to other civs (together with a few units) for X turns.

My personal preference would be that the Leaders are left basically untouched (except potentially for one of their traits to get moved to a Commander). This makes the mod very portable, after all. You get the very cool Commander dynamic without as massive an impact to the world you believed you knew!

For instance, with the Amurites, I'd keep Dain and Valledia. But I would add Dain's old field commander (Dain was a siege mage, if I recall) as an Aggressive or Raider Commander. And I might make Govanon's most promising student the 'golden age of magic' type commander.

It might be interesting if the additional trait the Commander gave you came at some kind of price. Like if Amairgen (making up a name for Dain's commander dude) gives you Raider, but makes your arcane units cost more or something like that. Or if, instead of Raider, he gives wizards the ability to bombard but raises the cost or weakens their summons. Maybe Govanon's student provides Industrious or makes city-building-spells (hope, inspiration, etc) last 3 turns instead of 1 if there isn't a mage in the city. Or creates summonable workers. But he drastically increases war weariness or the cost of non-magical troops.

xienwolf · Apr 5, 2008

Lots of suggestions for the Commander Traits are saying to have them apply promotions, but remember that the promotions will stick around when the commander is dead and gone (of course no new units would get them). Not overly vital, but good to keep in mind for balance IMO.

I do think you ought to keep all of the current leaders that you can. Never know which one was somebodies favorite until you cut it

And you shouldn't have to remove the current traits if you figure out a way to make the traits stack when your commander has the same one (so double raiders means 2 extra XP per combat, 200% Gold from pillaging, and maybe Commando + Mobility 1.)

The other nice thing about making traits stack is then it is still worthwhile to go after a new commander that shares the trait of one you currently have. Though it can probably get a bit tricky to decide precisely how to have some of them stack after a certain point (like do you have Raider do Commando, Mobility, Mobility, Blitz? What after that? And at what point does Charismatic make you just pay 1 XP per level through to level 20?)

Grey Fox · Apr 5, 2008

Good good. Keep it coming (I'm 26 today and I feel like I'm losing more and more of my stubbornness every year. If this was 10 years ago I don't think I would have budged as much from my original idea as I think I am going to).

Ok, I will probably keep all leaders as is, I will try to make basically only new commanders with perhaps some exceptions (not sure though).

The commander will be a 2nd in command style character, rather than a leading-role kind of character.

I like the idea of negative traits, but we can't overdo it in this regard, cause many civs already has penalties (e.g. Ljosalfar can't build siege units). So some Traits come with negatives to balance their strong positive boost.

The ways to get a Commander should be as follow:

Some starting Commanders for every civ
Techs
Religions (at techs I guess)
Heroes (not everyone)
etc

Questions:

How should the Commanders be rewarded from techs? First come, first served (like Holy Cities) or like Heroes, first to build the unit?
Should you get to keep Commander units even if you aren't using that particular commander as your Commanding Officer atm?
How should commanders improve? Through the Great Generals XP bar, or from it's own experience, or... what?
Should we make each random Great Commander (the Great Person unit) give you a random Commanding Officer? Or should we bring back the Great Generals so we have 2 kinds of military style Great people, or none of the above.

I need help with finding fitting commander personalities from the Lore. (Kael come back from Vegas!) If you want, please post snippets from some of the Lore if you find any that is useful. Can be from the Civilopedia or from some forum post by one of the team members.
I'd also like continued help with coming up with fitting Commanders which we design ourselves. These should fit in with the rest of the lore, work with the civ/religion/etc they are designed for, and be well-thought-out. A name suggestion is good, history and other lore about them are always welcome. Pictures are great.

New trait ideas are also welcomed.

it-ogo · Apr 5, 2008

Traits:
Conqueror: No war weariness, always at war with all other civs, no diplomacy, new military units start with +X XP, +X*5% military production, where X is a number of rival civs.
Xenophobic: -25% war weariness, -1 attitude from all leaders.
Expeditionary: All units can explore rival territory, +10% healing rate at neutral and enemy land.

Ekolite · Apr 5, 2008

-deleted-

Grey Fox · Apr 5, 2008

Of course.

(And I'm probably not removing any leaders anymore)

Rex rgis of Ter · Apr 5, 2008

I made a list of some potentail commanders-

Grigori- Carrow the Hunted

Spoiler :

Infernals- Desolation

Spoiler :

Malakim- Prince Al-Hazrad

Spoiler :

Svartalfar- Taria

Spoiler :

Commanding Officers and Broader Alignment

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