declaring war on a hammer

i'm sure this must be mentioned somewhere, damn if i can find it though, so my apologies for bringing it up again.

One of the luchirps golden hammers is sitting outside acheron the red's city. its shown as being owned by sabathiel. I've tried to pick it up, but none of the units i have moved onto the tile get the option. when entering the tile, i actually get the option to declare war on sabatheil, apparantly i get i to fight it out with a shiney yellow mallet. That should be an interesting fight, i personally love hitting inanimate objects.

i took the city from acheron and expanded the cultural borders to include the hammer, thinking maybe then i would get the option to snag it. the hammer vanished. it was not pushed outside the borders, but rather completely disappeared from my veiw. maybe teleported to one of his cities, can't tell. It doesn't appear to have been absorbed by my city atleast.

Is this a bug? not being able to swipe loose items? having them teleport away? its not in the known bug lists that i saw. i know the AI has stolen things i looted from dungeons, but this was before i could lay claim to them, having been stuck with the already casted flag from searching the dungeon in the first place, so i assume they were neutral. I'm guessing if i declared war on sabathiel i could pick it up, but that doesn't seem right. seems like it should be finders keepers to me,

"Can't say as i've seen a golden hammer laying around Mr., this yellow hammer i'm carrying, no i bought this from the guild of hammers. "

anyway, any information would be appreciated.

Inkling said:

I'm guessing if i declared war on sabathiel i could pick it up

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Yeah, you got it in one - you could have claimed it if you had declared war on Sabathiel. The same applies to most equipment an opponent's unit drops actually - you need to be at war with them to claim it.

this should be posted in the bug thread imho.

ah, that explain why when I assassinated hyborem with a HN marksman, I couldn't pick up his staff with other units.

If the equipment is lying outside a city and undefended, a hidden-nationality unit should be able to capture it for you. I discovered this accidentally my last game when a Shadow was able to grab Orthus' Axe. You have to actually be able to attack the equipment itself, though.

what do you mean by teleport away? it's counted as a unit, so if you don't have open borders with him it will be moved outside your territory when you expand.

Other than the equipment disappearing (which is probably a bug), I think this is exactly how it should work. You steal my holy hammer of Kilmorph badassness, I get pissed off. The HN thing is cool, too, although I wasn't previously aware of that.

megamanx06 said:

what do you mean by teleport away? it's counted as a unit, so if you don't have open borders with him it will be moved outside your territory when you expand.

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i didn't have open borders with sabathiel who owned the hammer. watching carefully it is sitting on the ground bordering the city tile, noone around but me, i checked the worldbuilder to make sure there were no invisible units as well. there is plenty of unowned space around the tile(the city was barbarian, with the dragon horde, so alot of culture that prevented anyone building near it.) the unrest stops, my borders expand enveloping the hammer, and poof. its gone, atleast if it went somewhere its nowhere i can see. it wasn't pushed to the outskirts of my city, it wasn't absorbed by my city, noone picked it up, and it isn't where it was. guess its off to the bug thread.

Wits said:

Other than the equipment disappearing (which is probably a bug), I think this is exactly how it should work. You steal my holy hammer of Kilmorph badassness, I get pissed off. The HN thing is cool, too, although I wasn't previously aware of that.

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if only i'd known/thought of using a hidden nationality unit sooner, my only hidden nationality unit was killed, and i couldn't build another and get him there before the border expansion caused the hammer to vanish.

but i disagree, a hammer out in the middle of nowhere, if it were within their cultural borders thats one thing, especially since i'd have to have open borders to walk in and steal it from em. but in barbarian or neutral lands, whose gonna know, whose gonna tell them. Fair game i say. Their fault for not protecting the guy who was carrying it.

Inkling said:

but i disagree, a hammer out in the middle of nowhere, if it were within their cultural borders thats one thing, especially since i'd have to have open borders to walk in and steal it from em. but in barbarian or neutral lands, whose gonna know, whose gonna tell them. Fair game i say. Their fault for not protecting the guy who was carrying it.

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The pieces of equipment units drop in FFH are artifacts, unique items of immense value and power (in lore terms, anyway). Stealing one of those would be hard to conceal, which I think is well reflected by the HN requirement.

DOWing over one of them green amulet thingies is a bit overkill, I have to admit though.

I have a similar problem with the Crown of Command in the 'Lord of the Balors' scenario. Keelyn (AI) killed one of the 4 horsemen and it dropped that item, but Keelyn hasn't picked it up for about 50 turns. I'm gonna try using a HN unit and see what happens (can't declare war). Thanks for the tip

I got the other 3 horsemen and their items already btw They are pretty sweet. Never had them before (not that I can remember anyways).

Wits said:

The pieces of equipment units drop in FFH are artifacts, unique items of immense value and power (in lore terms, anyway). Stealing one of those would be hard to conceal, which I think is well reflected by the HN requirement.

DOWing over one of them green amulet thingies is a bit overkill, I have to admit though.

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I still disagree. Even if hard to conceal, If the item is out of their sight and control, they have no idea how i acquired it. What recourse would they have if, for example, the barbarians took that golden hammer from sabathiel, and i took it from them(heck it was luchirp to begin with).They find me with their hammer, thats what i tell them, let them try to prove its not true. Heck, I can spin any tale i want. i could tell them i bought it off a one legged talking gorilla who was using it as a cane, for a couple bananas and directions to the nearest jungle. They want it back, they can come and get it.(which is actually something i have argued for alot, specificly concerning the luchirp.. who should be agressive in trying to get back the pieces of barnaxus regardless of who has them or how they acquired them)

edit:
whoa, image of a one legged gorilla hoping off towards the jungle cause he sold me his cane, just popped into my head. thats wrong.

1. People don't need proof to get upset because you have their property. That's why it is illegal, in many countries, to own stolen property regardless of how you obtained it.

2. With magic and all-seeing/all-knowing angels in the world, they might have proof.

I would allow you to take it... but as soon as your unit with it came in visual site of one of the original owning units, they would THEn declare war on you...

Avoidable of course by maintaining it on a HN unit.

I want my items. But I don't want a pointless war I cannot end in less than 10 turns. They don't stand a chance and I'd have nothing to gain from destroying them. Just two states, peace and war are too few. We need elaborate treaties of non-aggression and even if we have none, it is not an outright war.

wouldn't making all equipment "able to enter rival territory" kinda solve the issue?

This is working as designed. You can't take another players equipment unless you are at war with them.

Form a design perspective either side can be argued. We opted for this way because I think its bad for a human player to lose a unit with equipment in battle and then have an allied AI or human player grab his equipment and walk away with it. I know that would annoy me.

Secondly we have some ways to take allied units equipment, hidden nationality units can do it, as mentioned. Also the steal spell allows you to take equipment left along in the field as well as right off of an allied unit or from an allied city. So I like having special options around it, rather than incenting players to follow Ai units with equipment around waiting for them to die.

I would have just declared war on Sabbie and gone to grab the hammer with any ole unit I had close by. Sabathiel is always one of my targets because he always makes the most ridiculous demands and won't ever help you. In fact most of the AI make ridiculous demands and they all end up hating me anyways most of the time (side effect of aggressive ai setting I suppose) but his demands really take the cake, 5 turns in a row he asks me to go to war against my best trade partner while my HN units are eating him up trying to assist them against Sabbie's forces, he's just making demands because he wants a bigger negative modifier with me!

In fact I'd probably have better relations with him if I'd just DOW'd him for the entire game...instead of declaring peace.

A bit of toppic, but Varn Gosam is more silly by far in that regard.
He also seems to dislike you turning him off more than almost anyone else. And he's trigger happy to boot.
Good i'm at friendly terms with him most of the time...

+ The bannor leaders also seem to have no problem with you denying some of their demands (at least capria seems to not have some of the modifiers in my experience) so no bad blood with them here (unless that has changed / was or is unintended...)

One could have a shadow (invisible) follow equipment whore Eurabatres around and wait for the lizard to die. I'd do it if I did not whore the equipment first myself.