Svartalfar Workers not Tree-friendly? Aww.

[brainpan]

Playing a game as Luchuirp, I was pleasantly surprised to come across the dark elves on turn eight. I saw it as an opportunity to capture a worker, which is quite an early game boost, especially while playing as Luchuirp; their mud golems take so long to build at first.

So I invaded Faeryl straight away and got my very own elf slave. I thought: "goodie, not only do I get a worker very early, but now I can build tree cottages." That was stinkin' thinkin' cause apparently those dark elves aint into trees like their fair-skinned cousins. My slave doesn't seem to have the elf trait and can't build in forests or even run through them quickly.

Flavor wise, I can understand having dark elves not working in trees. I'm just surprised I haven't noticed this before. Either I haven't been paying attention or something is messed up with my game. Can anyone enlighten me?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm pretty sure elven slaves captured from the Svartalfar with taskmasters or the slavery civic can still work forests. What assume you are calling slaves are just captured workers, and they cannot. For some reason, the Svartalfar get the regular "human" workers, plus the elven racial promotion. I have found this rather irritating for quite some time, so I usually edit the xml files to give them real elven workers instead.

Aren't the dark elves actually the fair-skinned (but dark haired) ones? From the leader pics it certainly seems so. Also, Kael has said that the dark hair and fair skin of the "once elves" (such as Varn Gossam) made people often confuse them with the dark elves, although they actually split off from the other elves before they split in two.

p.s., in the BtS beta, you can place plantations and cottages on forests without clearing them or requiring the tech to clear them with advanced start using any civ. I think this may be because the elven improvements are technically the same as the normal ones. I usually take advantage of this and start the game with valuable cottage-covered forests that would otherwise be unattainable.

 

[brainpan]

You're right, my "slaves" were just captured Svaltalfar workers. And they didn't even have the elvish promotion. :/

I assumed the dark elves in ffh have black skin like they do in Dungeons and Dragons and RA Salvators novels, but I could be wrong. Viconia is dark-skinned elf in Salvatar's writing (I've recently learned that a Faeyrl also appears in his writing but I don't know her color). Not that any of this means anything, but it's the basis of my assumption.

Anyway, thanks for the info. I was pretty surprised to get "vanilla" workers from Viconia's ranks, but it didn't seem like a bug.

Drizzt's evil older sister, Viconia

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Their old leader looked something like that, then it was decided to change the colorings around. I'm don't really remember why, though I approve of them looking fairly similar to Ljo elves from a logic stand-point; they broke away only a few generations ago.

 

[R0GERSHRUBBER]

I assumed the dark elves in ffh have black skin like they do in Dungeons and Dragons and RA Salvators novels, but I could be wrong. Viconia is dark-skinned elf in Salvatar's writing (I've recently learned that a Faeyrl also appears in his writing but I don't know her color). Not that any of this means anything, but it's the basis of my assumption.

Viconia is also the name of a Drow (Dark Elf) Cleric in the Baldur's Gate ADnD RPG for PC. The series won quite a few awards and is worth a play if you like RPGs.

Short review:

Spoiler :

The first game had a few too many "fedex" quests, but it was very open-ended; you can spend many, many hours exploring wildnerness and dungeon encounters. It was a bit more challenging, IMO. The second has a fantastic plot, incredibly amusing NPC dialogue, and fantastic gameplay. If you play the second, I definitely recommend recruiting NPCs rather than making all six characters for the dialogue alone. If you play a male human/elf/half-elf PC, you can have a romance with Viconia, although the dialogue options to achieve this are phenomenally difficult. There are two other romance options for male PCs and one romance option for female PCs.

Baldur's Gate 2 Viconia image:

Spoiler :

 

[Nameless One]

I think the Svartalfar are not yet complete in 0.23, just like Sidar and Illians. You can't choose to play them unless you modify the xml files, but you can get them as rivals if you assign random civs to AI in Custom Game.

 

[Caradoc]

I think it would be fun to occasionally find an Elf or Dwarf worker in a Goodie Hut -- for instance a 10% chance from huts that are on forests or hills.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Good idea. I assume that you mean a chance that a dwarven or elven worker would replace the worker you would otherwise get, not a 10% chance overall. Also,it would probably be nice if the other free units (scouts, warriors), would sometimes be replaced by their Elven, Dwarven or Orkish equivalents as well.

 

[Bad Player]

I think it would be fun to occasionally find an Elf or Dwarf worker in a Goodie Hut -- for instance a 10% chance from huts that are on forests or hills.

I think this would devalue elvish and dwarven workers far too much. That is one of the best things about choosing those races and the difficulty in snatching some for yourself is the way it should be IMO.

 

[Nameless One]

I don't think 10% chance would debalance the game too much, and it would add a lot of realism as it would mean that not all tribal villages are human.

 

[Calavente]

I agree.. and bump the chance a bit...

as in prince or higher level, you won't ever have any worker !!

maybe make the offered (scoiut, warrior, worker..Etc) unit a 1/21 chance of being of any one of the 21 civ ? (2/21 elve, 2/21 dwarf, ...etc)
ex

 

[Sureshot]

itd be 1/21 dwarf and 1/21 golem heh

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Really, I think you should be making the numbers out of 22 (including barbarians). Since it is barbarians who sometimes spring up to defend the goody huts, and since the barbs are orkish, I really think that the chances of getting orkish units should be higher than getting units of the other races.

 

[Caradoc]

Perhaps something could be done to give Goblin Workers some special ability. Not too much since they will be found in Barb towns -- maybe faster construction speeds on their mines and farms.

 

[Bad Player]

Or why even a positive special ability?

 

[brainpan]

Viconia is also the name of a Drow (Dark Elf) Cleric in the Baldur's Gate ADnD RPG for PC. The series won quite a few awards and is worth a play if you like RPGs.

Thanks for the tip. I'm lucky in this rare instance to know what you're talking about. Baldur's Gate, and Baldur's Gate II are part of a very small library of games I've actually played. I loved them both. Anyway, while attending a lecture by RA Salvatore (the author who created Viconia) a few years back, he spoke of playing BGII and meeting up with Viconia and Drizzt. He said he killed Drizzt to steal his scimitars. He's a fun guy.

 

[SwordofStriker]

The thing is, Kael has mentioned that a lot of the ideas for FfH came from his days of playing Dungeons and Dragons. That being said, if you're familiar with the dark elves of Dungeons and Dragons, you'd know that they are definitely not like their tree hugging kinfolk. Certainly not everyone will be aware of this. Just as an FYI, the dark elves that I'm assuming these were modeled from typically live underground like the dwarves and gnomes, so the elvish promotion wouldn't really fit for them even though they are in fact elves, just not elves of the forests.

 

[Sureshot]

pretty sure they're connected with forests too, faeryl mentions owning the forests in her dialogues.

they're more like tolkiens dark elves, not drow from what ive seen. tolkiens dark elves lived in dark forests and sometimes in caverns. the svartalfar aren't dark skinned, they're pale.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Actually, I think that Tolkein's Dark Elves (and certainly his twilight elves) were more connected to the forests than his High Elves (they were more connected to the sea, and the Immortal Lands beyond)

I think that the Dark Elves in FfH were originally more like the D&D version, but that was changed quite a while back and they are certainly more Tolkeinesque now. The split between the two races doesn't go back very far (in relation to their lifespan, not ours), and there are still elves (like Yvain the Woodelf) around who lived before the split.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Tolkein's dark elves stayed behind on one of the migration, and are considered "wilder" than their "high" cousins