Fall Further - The Original Thread

[xienwolf]

I kinda like the idea, but the numbers could need tweaking, or a mechanism similar to the Sidar introduced for them to settle specialists into the cities and continue to grow if they get trapped in a small area by landlock or powerful neighbors.

 

[Broken Hawk]

Hi Vehem,

In a recent post you said keep offering suggestion and here is one. I presented it to xienwolf in his Modular FfH thread.

I looked at what MC suggested and it's not what I really had in mind. My idea would involve replacing the AI barbs with a human player. The barbs would have no use for the trappings of civilization or religion as it exists on Erebus and, therefore, no territory to worry about. They would attempt to destroy cities, improvements and even resources (Roasted/raw pig or horse would feed the warriors. Incense, reagents, copper, etc. can only be used against them) in the pursuit of gold. Their god would be Mammon. The barbs would use that gold to purchase more units so they can destroy more of civilization. Besides the usual suspects, Men, Elves, Dwarves, etc. (every civ has malcontents) would be available to join them. The rising AC would have no or little impact on them. While the Sheiam are planning the Apocalypse. The barbs would be bringing about the Apocalypse. If the human player got things going, it would be like a horde of locust swarming across the map. I know the concept needs more fleshing out but that's what I'm generally thinking about. Sorry for hijacking your thread but I could not resist when you mentioned new barb heroes. You and, for that matter, MC know your stuff when it comes to tinkering with FfH. Thanks for listening.

Obviously it is out of context but I think you get the idea. xienwolf was kind enough to offer some ideas on how to make it work but I'm not sure about his interest level. I hope someone finds it interesting because I have no programming skills yet. Thanks for any consideration you might give this.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Hmm...I don't suppose you think that there should be pop caps for everyone, do you? The Expansive trait and Sprawling could raise (or eliminate?) the limit, and of course it wouldn't be relevant to Fallow civs.

 

[woodelf]

I like pop caps until buildings are created as well, ala SMAC.

But an additional trait (or modification of current trait) that changes this would be cool. Sort of like the subterranean trait in the MoO series.

 

[CyberRoadRunner]

an idea for the cualli if possible is that they get a bonus if they have ruins in their borders (maybe have them stop spawning lizardmen if this happens). Also they could have a unit that can build ruins so they can work with the cualli (if in cualli border a bonus and if positioned near an enemy city they can spawn lots of barb lizardmen to attack).

 

[BeefontheBone]

I like pop caps until buildings are created as well, ala SMAC.

But an additional trait (or modification of current trait) that changes this would be cool. Sort of like the subterranean trait in the MoO series.

Was ok-ish in SMAC since the population of bases felt like a less significant factor for a while. In Civ3 though it always led to a boring period of rushing for acqueducts everywhere when you got near 6 population. The health mechanic was clearly put in Civ 4's design doc to replace that mechanism - if you want effective population caps the easiest way I can see would be to reduce the health bonus from difficulty level and/or increase the unhealthiness from pop or other sources. If a particular civ were intended to circumvent it, simply give them extra health bonuses from buildings, palace etc. Traits could add health to buildings for the same effect (+1 from granary, etc etc).

 

[Slvynn]

MMM may be just to make some serious health penalty for their cities, forcing to invest early their science into health adding techs. May be even just tie it to Their Civic, because civic is that original thing , so no need to modify traits. Or, deny them building granary and smokehouse.

 

[Gelvan]

the pedia entry of Danamos lacks it's entry (leader)
also he makes sometimes strange quotes in diplomacy (or no txt at all)

I really LOVE this civ's - I started with Cualli but I *thought* i started with the Mazatl - well so I pushed my first city a bit to much, but after I was aware that I have some nice priests of Agruonn the game rocks. funny is that I have great relationships with Einon Logos and Danamos, while the other evil don't like me that much.

only... theese dinosaur riders... they are a bit big

 

[Vehem]

Was ok-ish in SMAC since the population of bases felt like a less significant factor for a while. In Civ3 though it always led to a boring period of rushing for acqueducts everywhere when you got near 6 population. The health mechanic was clearly put in Civ 4's design doc to replace that mechanism - if you want effective population caps the easiest way I can see would be to reduce the health bonus from difficulty level and/or increase the unhealthiness from pop or other sources. If a particular civ were intended to circumvent it, simply give them extra health bonuses from buildings, palace etc. Traits could add health to buildings for the same effect (+1 from granary, etc etc).

The Health cap never really works out as being particularly "hard" though. Once you reach unhealthiness, all you need to do is produce 3 food per additional population instead of 2. The other factor being that "unhealthiness" implies something about the Civ when you look at it beyond the mechanics.

FfH already has an artificial hard-cap for the Kuriotates (arguably you could just increase the number of cities maintenance to encourage them to not build many - same argument as decreasing health). It wouldn't be a terrible thing in my opinion to include another. I think I will have a play around with it and see if I can balance it.

 

[woodelf]

Let them sprawl with low pop cities and low maintenance costs.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

On an unrelated issue - I'd like some quick feedback on a possible idea for "limiting" the Chislev a little.

Problem
They are correctly building many cities and using the Councils to keep maintenance manageable, but in the late game when happiness is less of an issue, these cities are becoming collectively very powerful.

Possible solution
City-size caps. Earlier versions of civ would require a specific building or tech to allow cities to grow above a given size. It's relatively simple (using the modified DLL) to apply a similar cap to the Chislev specifically.

Base - Size 6
Sanitation - Size 8
Sanitation + Medicine - Size 10
etc...

A Size 10 settlement would represent a very large tribe indeed.

id like this. i was thinking for a similar thing in Warhammer

 

[Gelvan]

I don't like the idea of caps. You see, the (un-)healthiness of the city is what should hinder extravagant growth. maybe it's nescessary to make health more difficult to handle, forcing the player to get the resources and buildings like an Aqueduct to increase growth further. IMO don't mess with the civ 4 mechanics but make them even stronger. Also it's still a fact that 25+ cities have a HUGE upkeep along with some unhappy people. sometimes it's better not to increase the size any further (there's an option on the city screen to do that, even though that's a bit to much micromanagement) if you're not able to make them happy. The Lizardmen Cualli are a Civ which needs the people to sacrifice them. That's what they are designed for, because it's not the idea to build mines everywhere in jungle. maybe they should not be able to build mines, but instead can "build" New Jungle Tiles with their priests? the civic lost lands from Muztacl seems overpowered regarding food, but it also creates a huge hole in your economy...

 

[Demus]

the civic lost lands from Muztacl seems overpowered regarding food, but it also creates a huge hole in your economy...

well, actually the sinergy with the financial trait and the additional commerce from lost lands and trails (1+1 = 3) makes the mazatl quite the scientific giant. It's basically an improved version of the aristocracy + agriculture combo, giving you +1 hammer and +1 food in exchange for -1 commerce, allowing you to run plenty of specialists on the side. They're not as overpowered as they used to be (with the happiness from LL nerfed), but still damn strong economically (just a bit less on the production part)

 

[Slvynn]

I don't like the idea of caps. You see, the (un-)healthiness of the city is what should hinder extravagant growth. maybe it's nescessary to make health more difficult to handle, forcing the player to get the resources and buildings like an Aqueduct to increase growth further. IMO don't mess with the civ 4 mechanics but make them even stronger. Also it's still a fact that 25+ cities have a HUGE upkeep along with some unhappy people. sometimes it's better not to increase the size any further (there's an option on the city screen to do that, even though that's a bit to much micromanagement) if you're not able to make them happy. The Lizardmen Cualli are a Civ which needs the people to sacrifice them. That's what they are designed for, because it's not the idea to build mines everywhere in jungle. maybe they should not be able to build mines, but instead can "build" New Jungle Tiles with their priests? the civic lost lands from Muztacl seems overpowered regarding food, but it also creates a huge hole in your economy...

second this

 

[Good Sauce]

On an unrelated issue - I'd like some quick feedback on a possible idea for "limiting" the Chislev a little.

Problem
They are correctly building many cities and using the Councils to keep maintenance manageable, but in the late game when happiness is less of an issue, these cities are becoming collectively very powerful.

Possible solution
City-size caps. Earlier versions of civ would require a specific building or tech to allow cities to grow above a given size. It's relatively simple (using the modified DLL) to apply a similar cap to the Chislev specifically.

Base - Size 6
Sanitation - Size 8
Sanitation + Medicine - Size 10
etc...

A Size 10 settlement would represent a very large tribe indeed.

Another idea I had awhile back (great minds think alike?) I like the idea of allowing them to increase the cap with technology. However, I think the raises should be pushed back even further. perhaps 8 with sanitation and medicine, and 10 with some very late tech.

 

[Vehem]

I just ran a couple of AI only games using the population cap (simple cap of 8, unaffected by techs - purely for initial testing) - amusingly in neither game did Absaroke get close to the cap in most of his cities.

In the first game, he was killed off early on by a combination of Daracaat and Mahala (by the time he'd built 3 cities - Daracaat took 2 including the capital and Mahala stole the other).

In the second game he survived well enough, but both he in the south and the Mazatl(!) in the north were getting crushed by the vastly superior Calabim in the centre of the continent, despite the Calabim's jungle start. The Mazatl actually had a terrible game there and were killed by the Calabim in around turn 250, their score never reaching 500. Only 1 of Absaroke's cities ever reached size 8 so the impact of the cap in that case was minimal.

===

As much fun as watching the AI civs kill each other was - I don't think it helped decide on the balance much. I'll try a few more and see what happens.

===

EDIT: Game immediately after that, guess who started adjacent to Barbatos... Guess how long that game lasted...

 

[woodelf]

Hehe. Too bad he couldn't enter the WB to remove Barbatos....

 

[Vehem]

Hehe. Too bad he couldn't enter the WB to remove Barbatos....

Ah - that's for FF 030 - AI's that can actually use the WB against *you* for a change... *cough*

 

[Gelvan]

i still don't like cap's because everything which stops a human player from smooth gameplay will even more so stop a smooth gameplay for an AI. Instead make the cities more unhealthy * pop point. for example: city size 1 = 0 unhealth / 2 = 1 / 3 = 4 / 4 = 9 etc. - that would generate that much unhealthiness, that you had to build aqueducts (etc) but of course had also other possibilities (Aqua Seccullus, Diplomacy, a far flung war to gain that banana). this is more fun IMO.

 

[Algeroth]

Slvynn already established non-integer happines right? So, why just don't give Chislev +1.5, 1.8 or 2 unhappy per population?