FfH-03: FfH2 Latest Release Teaser

I think we need to move our "good" units down closer and leave our upper cities with just BPs and Archers first. We need some handle on economy, but also a few more kick ass units. :)

She built at least one Hero while I was playing....
 
The pitiful Illians yielded before our vampiric hordes, and the Heir and his retinue approached one of their two remaining cities.

Meanwhile, I decided that some drastic changes were required to improve our economic situation. I made certain alterations in regards to our gubernatorial system, which took effect after a short revolution:



This, along with the many Money Changers and Gambling houses sprouting in our cities, helped greatly to let the gold flow into our coffers again, rather than the other way around.

The Illians did not endure for long and Garduk was taken by one of the Heir's followers after a short siege:



With the speed of the wind, the Heir then rushed across the forests, grasslands and arctic plains, to the last city of the Illians far to the north. As expected, its defenses were pitiful:



The Heir quickly destroyed what was left of the Illian people, and finally our empire embraced peace again, to the great pleasure of our population.

Our new religion has spread further, and a great Prophet of Agares has appeared in one of our cities. He urged us to found a great monument in honour of Agares in the Holy City of The Ashen Veil. There is a small problem with that, however. The city in question lies deep within the heart of the Clan's territory. I expect peace will not last for long, after all.

Our sages had meanwhile discovered the secrets of Arcane Lore, but sadly we learned that another civilization had already completed the fabled Crown of Acarien - most likely the Clan. I asked the sages to study the doctrine of Fanaticism, which they had fully comprehended half a decade later. I then directed them towards the study of Strength of Will, as I hear it will allow our mages to reach their utmost potential. After long years of research, results were yielded:



Now, we prepare for war. Our vampires have taken their positions along the borders of Clan territory while the Bane of Nubia continues to revel in the flesh of its population. I believe he is ready to be ascended to the rank of Archmage now. Oh, and a female vampire, Losha Valas as she likes to call herself, has emerged from the crypts of Prespur. I believe she has great potential as a warrior, and might eventually rival even the Heir's power.

The stage is set for an epic battle, and the next part of the chronichles will surely be writ in blood:

 
Incredible job Corlindale. Now we can have our "General" start in on the Clan.
 
Winter 288

I looked around the borders and was very satisfied. Everywere my Vampire Breathens waited for the Order. I did not hesitate. Befor Sheelba had read the letter to its end four of the clans cities were razed. It was a celebration of blood and Agares smiled upon us. We advanced to the core of the Clans Land but the Enemy was not beaten yet.


He sent an powerfull General to take revenge. Duin Halfmoon was his Name.

In his rage he killed several of our Vampire Lords. The Situation was out of control. Then the Heir arrived, slayed the Minons of the Baron

and than the Creature itself.

Deprived of their greatest General the Clan tried a last ploy. They sent one of their Mages, called Hemah on a boat to our coast. Instanly they burned one of our cities.

But we knew what to do. The Bane of Nubia challenged the mage and with one powerfull Meteorstorm Hema and his small commando were purged from the earth.

Now the Land of the Clans were open an we took the invitation.

Agares saw that we were worthy to be his people and so he sent uns one of his Angels with the mission to capture the Shrine that was built to his honor.

The bloodbath continued, Lizardmen and Orcs were slayen in and all the river run red.

Finally our army stood before the gates of Shazak and Losha Valez and Mardero lead the attack.


The people of Shazak were spared but Sheelba was sacrified on Agares altar.

 
:woohoo:

Nice work Chalid. A pair of level 16 people. Very tough.

It's good to see the AI build the Baron.
 
WiegrafFolles said:
It looks like the Vampires are kind of broken. Is there a balance issue here?
Click to expand...

Yeah, we're discussing it. This SG was a good thing to have happen before the Beta release.

But man were they fun! :p
 
Great teaser,

The epics with the vampire units are very cool, but perhaps it might be a bit unbalanced in its present form.

Is there a specific counter unit for vampire? Is there a unit type for undead? If so, are there counter unit to the undead unit type?

The ability to sacrifice a population point to give xp to a vampire unit is sound (and it makes sense in a weird vampire lore way), but perhaps it should be capped? Only use it to level up to a certain point (for example, it doesn't work after the unit has reached 50xp)?

I fear the human player will maximize this ability but I doubt the AI will ever sacrifice 10 population points to build an uber vampire unit. If that's the case, then this ability is probably unbalanced.

Obviously, more play testing is required, and with such great storytelling you guys provided in this teaser so far, you can be sure there's going to be a lot of players testing the vampire civ next week. For my part, I will test a 'good' civ and play specifically against AI vampire civs to see how the AI uses its potential compared to your story.

Also, is the AI using the new spell system? There is no details about this in the story. In FfH 1.0, I have never seen the AI use summoned creatures against me. I, on the contrary, use it quite a lot.
 
The Vampire definetly need some more balancing. How that will look is to be seen.

There is a Promotion "Undead" and other Promotions give an advantage against units with the Undead Promotion. Right now the Vampire does not get it but that will be revised for sure. So Yes there will be counters for Vampires.

The Ability of the AI to uses Vampires effectivly is correlated to the spell system and lives or dies with the spell system AI.

Right now the AI uses some of the spells quite well (eg. summoning works flawless for the AI) but other parts are used only rudimentary or not. Thats no porblem yest as it as beta release so be prepared to have great advantages compared to the AI. On Problem with the further AI develpment will be that for most spells an extra AI has to be written to use the effectively. We will see how far we can go with this, especially as combinations of spells often are real powerhouses.

There is an Advantage the Player will nevertheless always have (even if the Ai would use its spells for maximal efficency): He can promote his Adepts/Mages in a way to maximize the use out of them, while the AI will mostly promote based on civ specific flavours, available mana resources and random numbers.
 
Currently the AI uses some spells relatively well (read decently) - mostly things like fireball. However, the AI has no idea that spell X requires you to be on a forest/plains/city/ship/big stack/whatever, so it won't move there to gain an advantage. In the latest version it will recognize that this spell is now better than it was last turn, but will have no idea why. Also, there is no UNITAI_MAGE or something like that which would keep the mages a bit back from the battle and protect them.
 
Japp Woodelf, i have already written an Unit_AI for mages - kind of - but it will not be in the first beta. It will move the Mages to battles but try to keep him out of Danger. But it will not yet move the mage to the place were it is especially good to cast a specifc spell - for this an extended logic would be needed - i fear - and that could be a lot of trouble as many spells are handled by python - as far as i understand that awfull spell system of talchas and Kael.
 
woodelf said:
:woohoo:

Nice work Chalid. A pair of level 16 people. Very tough.

It's good to see the AI build the Baron.
Click to expand...
On this topic (and speaking of the Baron!) my highest leveled unit ever was a level 15 Baron. It also was built in a city that had the "Give Blessed" wonder and quality armor/weapons buildings. He was Death himself, and the little friends he created were pretty nice. ;)

As for balance with Vampires, at first glance they do look pretty powerful. I just don't want differences between civs to be watered down so I'm nervous about just nerfing them outright. I think there are other things you can change about the Calabim to get a similar effect. Note that these ideas are from someone who hasn't touched Phase 2 yet, so take the comments from the peanut gallery with a grain of salt.

First, Vampires should be expensive. Duh. They're ungodly powerful, and fit with the Aristocratic theme. Second - and more importantly - Calabim cities should grow so slowly that Vampires can't slaughter people en masse for superpowers on a constant basis. Their ability to store food once the population grows should be much smaller, and they should get more buildings that lower health. It's balancing with a lot of the Calabim abilities that boil down to "feed = get stronger" and makes sense from a story standpoint. The stench of death in a Calabim city won't bother the Vamps, but the human slaves are going to be a little unsettled. And who wants to raise a child so that they can be used as a midnight snack later? Finally, cities captured by the Calabim should have an immediate slaughter. Not razed, but with many many casulties. That way a Vamp can't just walk into a captured built up supercity of the happy farmer civ and gain 400 experience.

Just some thoughts.
 
Yeah PoD they are definitely going to need some boosting of cost, a prereq building, and other stuff. But, we do want them to be able to feed off of captured workers. I captured 8 workers in 1 city and was dismayed that I couldn't feed on them!
 
PriestOfDiscord said:
On this topic (and speaking of the Baron!) my highest leveled unit ever was a level 15 Baron. It also was built in a city that had the "Give Blessed" wonder and quality armor/weapons buildings. He was Death himself, and the little friends he created were pretty nice. ;)

As for balance with Vampires, at first glance they do look pretty powerful. I just don't want differences between civs to be watered down so I'm nervous about just nerfing them outright. I think there are other things you can change about the Calabim to get a similar effect. Note that these ideas are from someone who hasn't touched Phase 2 yet, so take the comments from the peanut gallery with a grain of salt.

First, Vampires should be expensive. Duh. They're ungodly powerful, and fit with the Aristocratic theme. Second - and more importantly - Calabim cities should grow so slowly that Vampires can't slaughter people en masse for superpowers on a constant basis. Their ability to store food once the population grows should be much smaller, and they should get more buildings that lower health. It's balancing with a lot of the Calabim abilities that boil down to "feed = get stronger" and makes sense from a story standpoint. The stench of death in a Calabim city won't bother the Vamps, but the human slaves are going to be a little unsettled. And who wants to raise a child so that they can be used as a midnight snack later? Finally, cities captured by the Calabim should have an immediate slaughter. Not razed, but with many many casulties. That way a Vamp can't just walk into a captured built up supercity of the happy farmer civ and gain 400 experience.

Just some thoughts.
Click to expand...


very good comments in my opinion (though of course I haven't played either). The immediate raze solution is good, but I would also try to slow down his feeding. So you captured 8 workers - maybe allow him to feed only on one ever 3 turns or so?

Also - I would consider having their XP decreased - i.e., if they don't feed every 5 turns they lose XP.

What do you think?
 
Wow that XP decrease is a very interesting Idea. An Vampire could have an chance of losing up to 1XP to 2 % of his XP per turn. I think that alone would be enough to balance it - maybe together with some unhappiness for feeding - to prevent misuse by the player.
This would force you to choos carefully when making an unit into an Vampire. On the other hand it would be difficult for the AI and thuth making AI Vampires a bad joke, so we might better look for other solutions that are already in discussion. We will see if there is enough time to slip some more balance into the beta release vampires.
 
What about limiting the vampires to be able to feed only once per turn (or once per several turns)? It wouldn't be possible to make a walking powerhouse by building one and making it almost completely drain several cities during few turns.

Cheers
 
Oh man. Almost had an idea go into the mod:)

I think the turn limit is a good solution.
 
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