Éa, a fantasy mod for Civ5 -- teaser thread

[Pazyryk]

Release date for phase 1 pre-alpha: April 13, 2012. (March 30 update)

Pre-alpha code released!!! Please move discussion over to this thread:
Éa, Dawn of the Mortal Races (phase 1, pre-alpha code development and discussion)

Éa
You begin knowing only that you are a small tribe, belonging to one of three races, without leader, name or history. Your civilization will acquire a name and a specific character based on its achievements, discoveries, local geography and other factors. Heroes and other great people will arise from the ranks of armies tested in battle, from places of arcane or divine study, or from the alleyways of your most corrupt cities. Some of these individuals will become leaders. All will pass in time (except perhaps for the ageless). Your small tribe has no lore, no epic tales of heroes or gods from times past. There is no past. But the future of Éa is yours to make.

I plan to develop this mod in 12 "phases," each focusing on a different area of gameplay and introducing major new game mechanics. Phase 1 will be essentially a "pre-alpha code release" showing off many of the new mechanisms. The first real alpha ready for testing will be during phase 2 after G&K. Expect to see beta release during phase 4, when you will finally see a "full game" with multiple victory conditions.

Note: I'm posting detailed info every week or so. You can find these at:

• Races post #6
• Units post #14
• Knowledge Advancement post #26
• Civilizations and Traits post #61
• Heroes and other Great People post #90
• Some very technical modding info about "actions" and spell implementation post #95
• Cultural Advancement post #107
• Preview of some post-G&K stuff: Worldviews, religions, prophecies, new GP classes, 3 victory conditions post #139
  

Phase 1, "Dawn of the Mortal Races" (initial pre-alpha release), will introduce many new mechanisms and major changes that are the foundation for subsequent development. Here are the highlights:

• You begin the game simply as “a tribe of _____” (one of the two races in phase 1) without leader. You will take a civ name (with an associated trait) early in the game and gain several additional traits throughout the game based on your achievements or other specific conditions.
  
  
• Leaders are derived from great people, exist as units on the map, and may be replaced.
  
  
• The Great People system is very different, both in the derivation of GPs and their function. GPs build all wonders, craft epics, establish trade routes and do many other things. GPs don't "disappear" after performing these actions; instead, they are limited by the fact that great accomplishments take time. Any GP can become a leader.
  
  
• Tech advancement is no longer the overarching "measure of progress" that it is in base Civ5, nor necessary for victory. The Tech Tree is wide but shallow (it's more of a Tech "Shrubbery") and used primarily as a civ-specializing system. There is both knowledge diffusion (though you can refuse to learn a tech and there are reasons why you may chose to do so) and knowledge maintenance (slowing and eventually stopping tech progress, though this can be mitigated to some extent). You won't be able to learn more than about a third of all techs in any single game, and only that if you are a very research-focused civilization. But really, you don't need to. By design, I am making 4 out of the planned 5 victory conditions achievable while illiterate (note that I did not say "easily achievable while illiterate").
  
  
• Policy advancement is based on Cultural Level, which is a function of culture generated per population point over your civilization's entire history. There is no city number penalty.
  
  
• Gold has been moved away from tile yield in most cases (e.g., river and sea don't give any, but many resources still do) and shifted more toward population and trade-based generation, which involves several new mechanisms.
  
  
• Forests are not kind to Man. For the most part, you will want to clear these as fast as possible in areas where you are trying to develop. Fortunately, all civs can slash-and-burn from game start (chopping for production requires bronze working). But don't expect this to be easy. The forests of Éa fight back. (And jungles are even nastier...)
  
  
• Overall, the "civilization landscape" is much more varied than in base Civ5. You will see a few larger cities (and much faster growing than in base) but only in civilizations that have a strong agricultural focus, and even then only in ideal terrain. More typically, you should expect to see a lot of small cities. These can be quite close (there is only a 1-tile spacing requirement) but you will also see large expanses of unworked and unimproved land between cities. The key change that makes this all happen is that unfarmed grass is no longer sustaining. (Really, are we Man or are we Cow?) I have drastically increased the ratio of food consumption to "base"-tile food yield ("base" meaning no resource or improvement). This may sound harsh, but there are benefits to removing the Civ5 "infinite food problem" as I like to call it. The new yield balance allows me to remove many Civ5 punishments against both Tall and Wide development. There is no longer any need for increased food requirement with city growth. I've set food multiplier and exponent to zero, which removes a huge penalty against big cities (it's a flat 25f to go from size 1 to 2 or from 10 to 11; in base Civ5 that would be 15f and 114f, respectively). As indicated above, there is no "policy arrest punishment" for building cities (population matters, but you can distribute that population however you want). There is no unhappiness per city, though there is a small 4 gp maintenance cost per city. The mod encourages the player to evaluate each potential city site on its own merits. For example, you may decide that a site with no growth potential is worthwhile as a military outpost. Is it worth 4 gpt and the cost of a settler? If the answer is yes, then build it! No need to worry about strange indirect effects like social policy arrest.

 

[PawelS]

Most of these features look promising (except no unhappiness per city; I have a completely different approach to this matter), so I'm looking forward to this mod, and perhaps I'll use some ideas in my own mod, if you allow me

Éa sounds similar to Tolkien's Eä, is it intentional?

 

[Pazyryk]

LeGuin also used it (in the same Éa form that I use) though my usage is probably closer to Tolkien's Eä. It's also the name of a Babylonian god. All three sources had some influence.

 

[Ahriman]

A few potential issues to think about; if what you're encouraging is a web of tiny cities:
i) Warfare. Lots of cities 2 tiles apart with ranged bombardment attacks that deal minimum 10% damage per hit could be pretty nasty. I wonder if you want to either globally adjust up hitpoints and damage like VEM (so that minimum of 1 damage is 5% or less of total hitpoints), or limit city ranged attacks (eg they require a particular building, or are only 1 range without a particular building).
ii) Buildings and technology. If you can spam a massive number of cities and build a copy of any given building in every city, then you risk making technologies that enable new buildings not very valuable if buildings give +X bonuses as opposed to +X % bonuses. For example, I might be better off just building a colosseum everywhere than bothering to research a theater or stadium.
One possible fix might be to make sure that higher level buildings are always more efficient in terms of hammers: output and/or maintenance cost: output (where output is happiness, culture, etc.). Though this probably matters less with your "shallow but wide" vision.

Also:
iii) Pillaging will be really really nasty if yields are terrible without improvements, so you might want to make sure that you can get the AI to do a good job of pillaging and to do a good job of rapidly repairing its pillaged improvements, otherwise pillage choking with mobile units might be very powerful.
iv) Am I correct in interpreting the culture mechanic that you can then go backwards in culture if your population growth exceeds your culture growth, eg if you conquer cities rapidly? Do you actually lose policies, or do you just stagnate for a while?

I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Best of luck!

 

[Pazyryk]

A few potential issues to think about; if what you're encouraging is a web of tiny cities:
i) Warfare. Lots of cities 2 tiles apart with ranged bombardment attacks that deal minimum 10% damage per hit could be pretty nasty. I wonder if you want to either globally adjust up hitpoints and damage like VEM (so that minimum of 1 damage is 5% or less of total hitpoints), or limit city ranged attacks (eg they require a particular building, or are only 1 range without a particular building).

This will be in flux right up until release. It's not so much that there are lot's of cities 2 tiles apart. It's just that it's a possibility where useful. Maybe you have an inland city there to work some resources or hills, and a coastal city 2 tiles away to get sea access and work some sea resources. A nice fertile river valley might support one megopolis city (depending on your focus), but you might find that you need a lot of little mining villages to fully exploit a particular hill range. However, the former single large city should be a harder nut to crack than a bunch of little villages. I think I can achieve this by tweaking damage as you suggest and also by adding some meaningful defense buildings that are only practical to build in larger cities.

One possible fix might be to make sure that higher level buildings are always more efficient in terms of hammersutput and/or maintenance costutput (where output is happiness, culture, etc.).

You hit the nail on the head there. More advanced buildings give substantially better benefits than lesser buildings (in contrast to base Civ5) but are more expensive (not practical to build in spam cities) and have higher tech reqs. So a tall empire can keep up with a wide in all yield areas, but will require more advancement down certain tech branches to do so.

iii) Pillaging will be really really nasty if yields are terrible without improvements, so you might want to make sure that you can get the AI to do a good job of pillaging and to do a good job of rapidly repairing its pillaged improvements, otherwise pillage choking with mobile units might be very powerful.

Good point. Unimproved resources are also quite a bit boosted so it's not all lost with pillaging. Also, I want this to be more like FFH where a player (human or AI) will know to pump out a few military units right away rather than thinking they can get by the whole game with their single starting unit. Another thing to consider is that a large city (size 10) that starves in base Civ5 is "loosing" 140 food. The flat system I have makes that a whole lot less painful (so pop may be more sensitive to pillaging but it rebounds much much faster than in base).

iv) Am I correct in interpreting the culture mechanic that you can then go backwards in culture if your population growth exceeds your culture growth, eg if you conquer cities rapidly? Do you actually lose policies, or do you just stagnate for a while?

Cultural Level could go down, for example if you grow/expand/conquer rapidly (either up or sideways) without building cultural buildings, but you never loose a policy from this. The equation for cultural level is just CL = m * (cumulative culture ever generated) / (d + cumulative population points summed each turn), where m and d are currently 10 and 800 but subject to further tweaking. Your policy number is always greater than or equal to math.floor(CL). You can see that d is a "time" factor and that CL approaches m * culture / pop if culture and pop are unchanging. Note that both tech and policy progress are set up so that they can stagnate.

 

[Pazyryk]

Races

Man is adaptable. The race of Man receives a free technology at game start and can build, research or acquire almost any building, tech or policy. They can produce all of the great people: Engineers, Merchants, Sages, Artists and Warriors.

Heldeofol is really a composite of races—orcs, goblins, hill giants, ogres, and the like—that differ in many characteristics but are universally violent, misshapen and short-lived. Though they are as likely to fight each other as Man, they sometimes band together into cities and nations that can be called (generously speaking) civilization. Heldeofol start with Mining and Deep Mining. They are fecund and have accelerated city growth and settler production. However, their cities are severely limited, producing only buildings that support expansion and conquest. Heldeofol units that achieve victory in battle confer both happiness and culture at their city of origin. Heldeofol great people are mostly Warriors, though Engineers sometimes arise from the orc forges.

Civilization and city race don't necessarily coincide. Civilization race is chosen at game start and is permanent. City race is determined at city founding (based on settler race) and is permanent for a city regardless of conquest, unless that city is razed to the ground. In general, a city trains units of its own race, including military units, workers and settlers. Building construction is limited based on either civ or city race, whichever is more restrictive. For example, Man can build libraries and theaters in a city of race Man, but not in a city they have conquered of race Heldeofol. In contrast, Heldeofol can't build these buildings in any city regardless of city race (furthermore, all such buildings taken by conquest will be pillaged for gold over a number of turns). However, a city of Heldeofol conquered by Man can produce Orcs, Ogres, Hill Giants and so on (quite a treat!).

 

[PawelS]

Only 2 races? Where are the Elves, Dwarves and so on - all the fantasy races we all know and love

 

[Pazyryk]

Yep, only 2 to pick from for phase 1.

However, there are (at this time) 47 different "civilizations" for Man. You don't pick these at game start but gain the civ name early in the game (many are triggered by being 1st to learn a 2nd tier tech or open a policy branch). For example, the Fomhóire (1st to Sailing) can travel over ocean with any ship -- which could be either worthless or a total game changer depending on how you use it. So there will be a lot of diverse approaches to play.

Heldeofol are a bit more 1-dimensional. Most have names like Clan of Yrd (named after their first Great Warrior) but they have other civilization names for being first to war- or expansion-related techs and policies.

 

[Sneaks]

I am very excited to get my hands on an alpha of this sucker.

 

[landlubber]

Sounds like it could be the next Fall from Heaven. I'll be watching development of this.

 

[Pouakai]

So this is the source of all these mod techniques? Can't wait to see some mroe!

 

[texdionis]

I'm excited about any kind of fantasy mod, so I'm eager to test this!

But what about unit design?
Are you forced to stick with vanilla/DLC equivalents or did you manage to create some new like Warhammer 40k modder teaser just did?

I will be playing anyway, though

 

[Pazyryk]

But what about unit design?
Are you forced to stick with vanilla/DLC equivalents or did you manage to create some new like Warhammer 40k modder teaser just did?

Aghhh... Unit Art! This is the area where I desperately need help.

I'm completely dependent on others for this. I haven't downloaded Skajaquada's WH mod yet but the units look awesome from what I see in the thread. Perhaps some of the orc (or is it ork?) units would work for Éa? (No use for orcs with machine guns though) I'll ask but I'm guessing that he won't mind.

I'll post the whole unit lineup soon. Hopefully someone will be inspired to contribute...

 

[Pazyryk]

Units

I'm putting this out a little earlier than I wanted (in hope of attracting an artist or two). Most of the numbers are pretty tentative. There is a lot of difficult behind-the-scenes balancing going on here. One thing I'm trying to do is make most of the advanced units a "complement" to your base Warriors, which may (or may not) make up a significant part of your army even into late game. I.e., I want "swarm of warriors" to be somewhat viable, but not too viable. The tech system is going to "channel" you a bit, making combined arms tough to do (which is why the archery line has some melee toughness).

Tech reqs are in italics. I'm not showing the tech tree yet, but many of the branches follow the units upgrades here (e.g., Hunting -> Tracking -> Animal Mastery; or Animal Husbandry -> Horseback Riding -> War Horses. The tree is shallow without too many cross-branches, so you can get to (for example) Heavy Infantry in 4 techs without any others (though you would be an underfed civ if you did that). However, the real pinnacle units are hard to get to: Mithril Working does have some difficult cross-branch reqs; Beast Breading requires completion of many Animal Husbandry & Hunting branch techs; and the triple Ship Building-Iron-&-Blasting-Powder requirement requires significant progress down 3 branches.

Movement and production cost are indicated by "m" and "p". "12" means 12 combat str with no ranged attack; "12/12" means 12 str and 12 ranged (ranged units cannot do melee attacks except for elephant line). Some important info is indicated for each line below.

Many units require 2 or even 3 resources. Here is some info for the new ones:
Timber (not a map resource but you get 0.5 per sawmill plus 1 per chop for 30 turns)
Yew (requires Archery to see and use)
Elephant (it's a strategic resource now but keeps it's "luxury"-like patchy distribution; requires Hunting to improve but Mounted Elephants to use/trade, which makes it a bit challenging at game start; Ivory can be derived from this and whales via a building)
Copper (this & Iron are visible with mining but only tradable with Bronze Working & Iron Working, respectively)
Blasting Powder (requires Chemistry to see/trade and always some other advanced tech for the unit)
Mithril (requires Alchemy to see and Mithril Working to use...basically completion of two branches which is very hard to do)

Generic and Man

--Naval (All except Ironclad require Timber. Caravels, Carracks and Galleons are ocean-going. Galleys and Triremes only have "melee" not ranged attack)--
Galleys (150p; 3m; 10; Sailing) -> Dromons (250p; 4m; 12/12; Ship Building) -> Caravels (250p; 5m; 12/12, Ship Building & Astr.)
\-> Triremes (200p; 3m; 12; Sailing; Copper) -/
-> Carracks (300p; 4m; 15/15; Ship Building & Astr.; Iron, Blasting P.) -> Galleons (350p; 4m; 18/18; Navigation; Iron, Blasting P.)
Ironclads (300p; 18/18; Steam Power; Iron; Blasting P.)

--Recon (all have normal movement [no free terrain move!] but are invisible beyond 1 tile)--
Scouts (100p; 6; Hunting) -> Hunters (200p; 12; Tracking) -> Rangers (250p; 15; Animal Mastery; upgrade only from level 9)

--Melee (warrior-infantry-immortal line are all +30% city attack; arquebussmen are +30% vs. bronze- and iron-armored units)--
Warriors (150p; 11) -> Light Infantry (200p; 14; Bronze W.; Copper) -> Medium Inf. (250p; 17; Iron W.; Iron)
-> Heavy Inf. (300p; 20; Metal Casting; Iron) -> Immortals (350p; 23; Mithril W.; Mithril)
Arquebussmen (300p; 20; Machinery; Iron, Blasting P.)

--Ranged (+30% attack from city, fort or fortress)--
Archers (200p; 9/12; Archery) -> Bowmen (250p; 12/15; Bowyers; Yew) -> Marksmen (300p; 15/18; Yew; upgrade from level 9 only)
\-> Crossbowmen (250p; 12/15; Machinery)

--Horse-mounted ranged (4m; all can move after attack; all require horses)--
Horse Archers (250p; 9/12; Horseback Riding & Archery) -> Bowed Cavalry (300p; 12/15; War Horses & Bowyers; Yew)
-> Sagitarii (350p; 15/18; Yew; upgrade from level 9 only)

--Horse-mounted (non-armored: 4m; armored: 3m; all can move after attack; all require horses)--
Horsemen (250p; 12; H. Riding) -> Equites (300p; 15; War Horses)
Armored Cavalry (300p; 15; H. Riding; Iron) -> Cataphracts (350p; 18; W. Horses; Iron) -> Clibanarii (400p; 21; W. Horses; Mithril)

--Elephant-mounted (2m; all have both a melee and a 1-tile ranged attack; all require Elephant) --
Mounted Elephants (300p; 15/12; Mounted Eleph.) -> War Eleph. (350p; 18/15; War Eleph.) -> Mûmakil (450p; 24/21; Beast Breeding)

--Siege (+50% city attack except where indicated; all must set up; "wooden" siege require Timber) --
Catapults (250p; 6/12; Mathematics) -> Trebuchets (300p; 8/16; Physics) -> Cannons (350p; 10/21; Metal Casting; Iron, Blasting P.)
Ballistae (250p; 10/13; +30% city attack; Archery)
Bombarde (450; 1m; 10/21; +100% city attack; Iron W.; Iron, Blasting P.; no xp gain; can be captured)

--“Nonlinear” upgrades (implemented as extra action, but the UI should look like an ordinary upgrade)--
Galleys -> Triremes -> Dromons
Archers -> Horse Archers, Crossbowmen
Hunters -> Bowmen
Rangers -> Marksmen, Heavy Inf., Immortals, Cataphracts, Clibanarii (yes, very versatile)
Warriors, Light & Medium Inf. -> Arquebussmen
Horsemen -> Armored Cavalry
Equites -> Cataphracts, Clibanarii
Ballistae -> Trebuchets
Warrior, Light Inf. -> Immortals --bypasses need for Iron

Heldeofol

The basic lineup is similar to Man with some differences and additions (and some but not all renamed). For technical reasons, all of the "living units" are implemented as a parallel set of Units and UnitClasses even when they share the same name and stats. This allows Man to build Heldeofol units in a Heldeofol city, and keeps race stable through upgrades regardless of civ race. The Pedia sorts units by race instead of Era, so it is OK that there are two units called "Warriors", two units called "Light Infantry", and so on (and one city can never build both). The basic differences from Man are:

1. Warrior-infantry-immortal line are all Orcs and 1 point stronger than their counterparts.
2. Archer and Recon lines are all Goblins, same strength as counterparts but there is no upgrade to Rangers (hunters->bowmen->marksmen is possible though)
3. Horse-mounted-ranged line are replaced by Wolf Riders and Worg Riders (both Goblins), which are similar to Horse Archers and Bowed Cavalry except there is no Horse requirement and tech prereqs are Tracking and Animal Mastery (respectively, plus Archery).
4. Horse-mounted (non-ranged) armored and non-armored are Hobgoblins, same strength as counterparts (req: horses).
5. Elephant mounted are same strength as counterparts (Goblins or a mix, I guess)
6. Hill Giants, Ogres and the like will be added as art becomes available. In general, these will be tough units that have no upgrade potential, and will require techs down the mining/melee (Bronze W. Iron W., etc.), hunting (Tracking, Animal Mastery) or animal husbandry (Domestication, Animal Breeding) branches. I might limit these by linking them to some special map feature ("hill giant settlement"). Or something else. I don't want to set any hard number limits.

Art notes (please help!):

• Everything now is just placeholder art from base (Keshek is used but no pay DLC). Heldeofol use Barb art where it exists. It's pretty lame, but functional for mod testing.
• I will be shrinking unit elements and increasing numbers in the formation for most "units." This is to make them contrast more with great people (individuals) and a few military units that need to be BIG by comparison, specifically Mûmakil and the Bombarde (the latter being the only military unit in the singular form). All ships will be represented as "fleets" as well.
• At least as a temporary solution, I'll be grabbing art from other mods where the authors allow. I may not be aware of all that's out there so let me know if something seems appropriate.
• I can probably use almost any conversion from FFH. Units, animals, monsters and magic effects. If they don't fit in the main line units they may work as a civ-specific unit.
• I'll be overjoyed if anyone wants to make unit art for Éa. I'm not very good at icons either. I'm guessing that there won't be 100 folks out there so I think we can handle it informally in this thread, if there is any interest. This post pretty much describes my needs for phase 1 -- i.e., for the next several months. If someone makes some nice (well, not really "nice") art for Heldeofol, I might reveal secrets of phase 2 and subsequent needs.

 

[texdionis]

Very much interesting teaser

I suggest the name "Paladin" instead of "Knight Immortal", if you like or if you haven't just planned to have some other unit to be named after like this.

 

[Pazyryk]

Paladin is needed elsewhere. Anyway, the term has to fit any civ regardless of their Godliness of lack of it. Immortals and Knights Immortal are just mithril-equipped infantry and knights. Of course the term is inaccurate (they aren't immortal), but names aren't always reliable.

 

[Sneaks]

I've always been a fan of Cataphract when needed a good term for super-knights

 

[Pazyryk]

I've always been a fan of Cataphract when needed a good term for super-knights

I like that. I think I might use it in place of Knights though (I have another use for "Knight") and then Clibanarii as the pinnacle armored horseman. I also added Sagitarii as the pinnacle horse archer unit. Made changes above.

Not too happy with "horsemen elite" if someone can think of a better name. These are the strongest non-armored horsemen, as strong as armored cavalry and a bit faster than any armored.

 

[Pouakai]

I was going to suggest Hetairoi, but turns out that's the Companion Cavalry

 

[Sneaks]

I like that. I think I might use it in place of Knights though (I have another use for "Knight") and then Clibanarii as the pinnacle armored horseman. I also added Sagitarii as the pinnacle horse archer unit. Made changes above.

Not too happy with "horsemen elite" if someone can think of a better name. These are the strongest non-armored horsemen, as strong as armored cavalry and a bit faster than any armored.

Keep with the latin route?

Equites for elite horsemen?