Houses of Erebus

[wapamingo]

Firstly I have to say that this mod had brought me back to playing Civ. Thank you for making it.

When the Houses of Erebus were first introduced in Wild Mana I played with them but noted that the penalty in gold per house in each city was -10. The AI just spread all of his house in all my cities effectively crippling my economy. I founded my own but still also saw the same penalty in every city it spread.

I had not played with the Houses of Erebus option since then, since I really do not know how it works.

So, how do they work? Is the penalty supposed to be there? As it appeared, the penalty was larger than the bonus...

Thank you for providing some guidance here.

 

[arstal]

Yeah , the benefits aren't worth it right now. I think this will need to be rebalanced for people to want to use it.

 

[Fafnir13]

I poked at in the last game. Had a similar experience. Even though I'm getting bonus money in the founding city I'm just not seeing enough of a benefit to play with it.
As implemented, I don't think it really meshes with the FFH world. Guilds, certainly, but a noble house? Doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[Cadaveres]

Futhermore, I have been playing with them latelly (WildMana 7.01) and they are mixed up (the one that should come with Righteousness is the one that comes actually with Malevolent Designs, as far as I've found...)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

that has been fixed in the latest version already.

 

[Neomega]

I am just going to chime in to say... thank god for nightwatch, to kill all those pesky dorks trying to spread their corporations. Thanks, but no thanks. I don't want to trade 10 gold for 3 culture and 2 beakers.

Alos, I do not seem to see/understand. The headquarter cities do not get an icon, so it is hard to tell they are headquartered there. Also, it seems like you are allowed to have a headquarters for a house, even if someone else already discovered the prereq tech.

 

[Doug Piranha]

I just accepted House Ghallanda in my current game. The message said it was founded in Prespur, but the building is in Morr'ta'nar. Only Prespur can build the Ghallanda agents, though.

 

[Doug Piranha]

Oops, forgot to attach the save file.

 

[Sephi]

yeah, the houses will need a lot of development in the future. They don't have headquarters like BTS corporations do, instead every house can have up to three "headquarters" (fixed the display of icons for them)

 

[Doug Piranha]

Another possibly unbalanced thing: the Noble of House Ghallanda is a recon unit, which means he can take the animal mastery promotion. He doesn't have the +50% strength against animals like a hunter, but with strength 5 and animal mastery, he does a pretty good job capturing animals. And I didn't have to research hunting or build a hunting lodge.

 

[Neomega]

Yeah, I really don't like the nobles being so powerful. Either they need graphics with bodyguard units, (like a noble with 2 pikemen), or they should only have strength of 1 or 2. I mean, they're nobles, seems it would be more fun if you had to escort them through the wildlands, instead of them just being able to fend for themselves.

 

[Kalina]

Another possibly unbalanced thing: the Noble of House Ghallanda is a recon unit, which means he can take the animal mastery promotion. He doesn't have the +50% strength against animals like a hunter, but with strength 5 and animal mastery, he does a pretty good job capturing animals. And I didn't have to research hunting or build a hunting lodge.

Ghallanda ? Are they inspired by Eberron dragonmarked houses or just names are taken ?

 

[Sephi]

yeah, many are inspired. Although right now only the very basic functions have been added.

 

[Ri-Hatz]

I would like to share my view on how a noble house could work.

Founding
Founding the House is done like corporations with a GP. It gives one Headquarters.

Support and Benefits
There are 5 levels of support. Each having certain requirements and benefits.

Level 1: Founding the noble house.
Gives a headquarter. Nobleman unit enabled, but limited to max. 3 units.

Level 2: Spread the house to more cities.
The nobleman gains a second ability. A new building option.

Level 3 and 4: more requirements. more benefits.
the nobleman unit limit can be raised. they gain additional abilities.

Level 5: GP needed. Building, tech and gold requirements.
Upon reaching level 5 support you get to take control of the house!

The advancing in support levels is done with a nobleman in the hq city via an ability.

Maintenance, etc.
Maintenance costs rise slightly for each level of support.
The headquarters produce some gold for each city the house spreads to.
Different noble houses give an attitude bonus or penalty when spread to other nations.

Taking control of the noble house
Here I have something interesting in mind:
Once you reach level 5 support and decide to take control of the house EVERY city, with the house present, in ALL the nations have a chance to revolt and join the house! (except capitals)
So, one could almost instantaniously rule over an empire spread out through all the different nations.
Now the leader of the house needs the tolerant trait and the fun begins!
In addition city distance mainenance costs will be reduced for noble house leaders.

Getting rid of a noble hous
The easiest way, i think, would be to add a "building", that when build removes the house. This way can be balanced by the "buildings" hammer cost.

Random ideas for the noblemen
Support city
stay in a foreign city
bribe, assasinate unit
move through closed borders (costs gold per turn, chance of dying)
diplomatic missions
pay the support of military units in enemy lands (if on the same tile and limited to 5 to 10 units)
give a unique ressource if "placed" in the fat cross of a city (he would have to stay there to obtain the ressource)

Because the nobleman is a national unit and therefore limited, i think its gameplay wise interesting to have abilities for the noblemen that need them to stay in a certain place. This makes it more benefitial for a player to raise the max allowed number of noblemen.

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Great Mod by the way. Thx for all the work!