Doviello & Wolves

Hello!

First and foremost, this being my first post to civfanatics, I must offer my congratulations and appreciation to the FFH2 team for pulling together a truly phenomenal success. Fall From Heaven II is a testament to good game design and the power of community driven creativity. Its really inspiring.

Anywho, I wanted to share my thoughts on the Doviello world spell and Wolves in general. I've been playing a Doviello game that was posted by Jet in the following thread:

Open game - Charadon, patch n edition

Thinking about if or when I wanted to use the world spell in combination with a surprise I had while reading Xienwolf's fantastic manual was the genesis of the tweaks that soon follow. The surprise I had was in reading the wolf entry where it says that wolves have a 10% chance of upgrading to wolf packs after combat. I really couldn't remember ever seeing a wolf pack in the wild and considering how often a wolf actually wins a combat, its not surprising that this was a surprise... I was also tickled to read that a wolf pack has a 10% chance of spawning a wolf in combat. Both mechanics struck me as being totally awesome, but essentially absent from the game as implemented. I think the following may add a bit of umph to these mechanics and give the Doviello a few interesting options with their world spell.

• Increase the wolf to wolf pack upgrade chance from the current 10% to a much higher 50%-100%
  
  
  reasoning: Makes it far more likely to encounter a wolf pack in the wild​
  
  
• Change the mechanic for how wolf packs are generated. Instead of all wolf packs having a set strength of 3, wolf packs add +1 attack and +1 defense to the values inherited from the wolf its upgrading from.
  
  
  reasoning: Allows wolves generated from the Doviello world spell to retain their superior attack strengths and still benefit from an upgrade to wolf pack.​
  
  
• Remove the Doviello spell "Form Wolf Pack".
  
  
  reasoning: Not so necessary with such a high chance to upgrade after combat and forces the Doviello to spend a little time working for the upgrade. Saves a wolf too.​
• Introduce two new promotions for animals called Fecund I and Fecund II, each adding 10% to the chance of spawning a new animal on combat. Could be implemented for both wolf packs and giant spiders.
  
  
  reasoning: Introduces more promotions for those highly promoted animals that sometimes run out of promotion options. Also provides an interesting choice between raw power or enhanced chances of generating more animals. [wiki]Fecund[/wiki] is also a good vocab word.​
  
  
• Modify the requirements for "Wolf Pen" from Carnival to Carnival OR Doviello.
  
  
  reasoning: The Doviello already have a strong wolf theme and a lot of mechanics based on not having building requirements. This fits with both and introduces an interesting second use for the world spell. Whats more likely in Doviello society, monuments erected to celebrate Doviello achievements or dog fighting? Poor dogies. ​
  
  
• Disable the City Raider promotions for animals.
  
  
  reasoning: Should animals be able to specialize in assaulting fortified cities? Shouldn't they be roaming the hills picking off unwary travelers?
  ​
• Enable the Flanking I, Flanking II and Woodsman II promotions for animals.
  
  
  reasoning: These promotions fit better and make up a bit for the loss of the city raider promos.​

Feedback is appreciated.

I'll add one to this:

Give the player who kills the plethora of Wolves released from Wild Hunt some XP, dammit!

This has been around a long time. I just went to war with Charadon and he created dozens of Wolf Packs with the Spell, I had several Hunters who killed at least 15 in one turn - and didn't get a single XP. You mean to tell me no experience is gained from killing all those tough Wolf Packs???

I know the story - they are animal units or whatever. I am fairly certainly if you kill Tigers summoned by FOL Priests, you get the XP. Why should the Wolf Packs from the Doviello be any different? Other than one are summoned units and the others from a World Spell. You are still killing units carrying the Doviello flag, not the barb flag.

Anyway, aside from my addition I think you have some excellent ideas there. JFS!

Moreover, allow all doviello alive unit combat types to gain "Subdue Animal" promotion.
It's cool (I tested it in Orbi modmod) and fits the theme greatly. In the late game wolves do nothing (and if you consider AI bonus against animals, is it still applied to YOUR animals?)
I even see their horsemen adopting wolves: imagine mounted hunters and their war wolves running aside.

I would like wolf pens to allow the doviello to build a new UU too. Something along the lines of ''War Hound'' which is a tough cavalry-like unit that is a Beast instead of Animal.

JFSebastian said:

[*]Increase the wolf to wolf pack upgrade chance from the current 10% to a much higher 50%-100%

reasoning: Makes it far more likely to encounter a wolf pack in the wild​

Click to expand...

Especially when a 2 wolf is so unlikely to ever win a fight.
It should probably be 100% for wolves and 50% for lions.

Your idea with the 100% upgrade chance is very cool, but I think the wolves would still not be strong enough to make the world spell good. I think we should have several upgrading levels of wolf packs similar to the werewolf upgrading levels (Ravenous --> Blooded --> Greater Werewolf).

I liked the hunting dogs in the Fall of Cuantine scenario. I really think that wolves should have Marksman and the ability to take flanking promotions, maybe some Withdrawal too. Since that's how I see the wolves hunting, picking out the weak in a flock of animals (or humans).

some great ideas in here. animals definitely need to lose the ability to gain city raider and get access to flanking. city raiding animals are just absurd

JFSebastian said:

• Increase the wolf to wolf pack upgrade chance from the current 10% to a much higher 50%-100%
  
  
  reasoning: Makes it far more likely to encounter a wolf pack in the wild​

Click to expand...

Definately agree with this and Jules.It's post. Would like to see more of a likelyhood of these animals getting their boost. Bears can decide to make a Bear Den at any point without any victory requirements at all. It would be nice to see more wolf and lion dens as a result of packs and prides being created.

JFSebastian said:

• Change the mechanic for how wolf packs are generated. Instead of all wolf packs having a set strength of 3, wolf packs add +1 attack and +1 defense to the values inherited from the wolf its upgrading from.
  
  
  reasoning: Allows wolves generated from the Doviello world spell to retain their superior attack strengths and still benefit from an upgrade to wolf pack.​

Click to expand...

If Wolf Packs and Lion Prides work the same as Werewolves, this isn't necessary. The Pack or Pride would recieve all of the promotions the Wolf or Lion had.

JFSebastian said:

• Introduce two new promotions for animals called Fecund I and Fecund II, each adding 10% to the chance of spawning a new animal on combat. Could be implemented for both wolf packs and giant spiders.
  
  
  reasoning: Introduces more promotions for those highly promoted animals that sometimes run out of promotion options. Also provides an interesting choice between raw power or enhanced chances of generating more animals. [wiki]Fecund[/wiki] is also a good vocab word.​
• Disable the City Raider promotions for animals.
  
  
  reasoning: Should animals be able to specialize in assaulting fortified cities? Shouldn't they be roaming the hills picking off unwary travelers?​
• Enable the Flanking I, Flanking II and Woodsman II promotions for animals.
  
  
  reasoning: These promotions fit better and make up a bit for the loss of the city raider promos.​

Click to expand...

I like these ideas too up to a point. Definately get rid of the City Raider promos as these are a bit ridiculous. I think they should only be replaced by three new promos though or animals could get to be a bit strong. I like Flanking I & II and Fecund I (or Fertility I might be better). Possibly switch Flanking II with Fecund II.

JFSebastian said:

• Modify the requirements for "Wolf Pen" from Carnival to Carnival OR Doviello.
  
  
  reasoning: The Doviello already have a strong wolf theme and a lot of mechanics based on not having building requirements. This fits with both and introduces an interesting second use for the world spell. Whats more likely in Doviello society, monuments erected to celebrate Doviello achievements or dog fighting? Poor dogies. ​

Click to expand...

This I also like.

I normally don't play the Doviello, just happened to play them in the scenario Fall of Angels.

What I don't like about the wolves is, my high strength units creates more powerful wolves, either 4/2, 5/2, 7/2, etc, but in create wolf pack, no matter the strength of the wolf, the wolf pack was strength 3. So it didn't make sense to create wolf packs at all.

And another odd thing was, I think non-alive units could create wolves too, because my a wolf was spawned from my ships, and were like 9/2 or something.

I think the ideas in FF 0.44 (currently not released) are quite cool. I wonder how they will play.

Vehem said:

12. Bonus strength from the Doviello Worldspell will be maintained when a wolf becomes a wolf-pack (through battle or Wolf Mechanics).
13. Wolf-Packs can merge together (combines both empower levels and adds 2).
14. A Wolf Pack that exceeds Empower 5 gains 2 strength and resets back down to no Empower promotions.

Click to expand...

Orbi modmod had some really interesting spin on the idea of "totem" animals for the Doviello, where if I recall, any unit could end up sort of using up a captured animal to get a "Mark of the ______" promotion, whether related to tigers, bears, wolves, whatever, each with distinct benefits. Also their shaman units getting a shapechange type ability. Anyhow, a lot of neat flavor, this thread just sort of reminded me of other ways to experiment (again, at a modmod level) with this animal-flavor worldspell and related themes.