Éa, Dawn of the Mortal Races (phase 1, pre-alpha code development and discussion)

Pazyryk · Apr 12, 2012

Phase II (alpha) has been released! Please visit the thread here.

—Image by Ruan Jia

You begin knowing only that you are a small tribe, belonging to one of three races, without name, leader or history. Your civilization will soon acquire a name. Its character will develop over time based on achievements, discoveries, 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. The story of Éa is yours to make...

Pre-alpha download: Ea 20120701 Warning!!! This is early development code! It is going to be many months before this mod is ready for testing, let alone a good playable game. I'm posting code now for folks that want to follow development, or for code vultures that want to pick it apart for useful bits. See post#2 for tips if you want to start it and look around at the new mechanics. 11/28 update: alpha official release day is 21 December 2012.

Current build status:

Spoiler :

I am NOT ready for specific bug or balance reports at this time, so there is no reason to post them. However, I welcome and will try to respond to general comments or questions about gameplay mechanics, UI, AI, or really anything else.

Phase 1 will never reach a playable state. Once the Gods & Kings expansion comes out, I'll shift development over to phase 2. We'll reach alpha (ready for testing) sometime during phase 2 and hopefully beta (a real game with multiple interesting victory conditions) during phase 4. I have plans for a total of 12 phases, each focusing on a different area of gameplay and introducing new game mechanics.

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

You begin the game simply as "a tribe of _____" (one of the two races in phase 1) without a real civilization name or 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 and knowledge maintenance. 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 very research-focused). But you won't need more than that. By design, I am making 4 out of the planned 5 victory conditions achievable while illiterate (note that I didn't 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 base in terms of both city sizes and distribution. You will see a few larger cities, but more typically smaller cities. Rule changes make even a permanent size 1 city worthwhile if it is holding a strategic point or valuable resource. Cities can be clustered together very close with only a 1-tile spacing requirement. However, an increased emphasis on resources (especially bonus food resources) forces cities to spread out more, at least on average, leaving a good deal of undeveloped "wildlands" between cities or between civilizations. This will be very important in later mod development.
Extensive AI modding. I spend roughly half my programming effort on the AI [Edit Aug 2012: no, easily 80%]. The mod Lua code controls all tech and policy choices and all great person movement and actions for AI civs. Eventually, it will also influence build queues, war/peace choices, and other things. I have an intense dislike of the base flavor system. In Éa, the AI civ-level (tech and policy) decision process changes with the stage of the game (see here) and should provide optimal choices with a large degree of civ-differentiation. Great person activity uses rational decision making based on action value calculation with time-discounting (see here and here). (Sorry folks, I have no access to tactical AI so I can't do anything about that.)

Source Material
Éa is my own creation and there is no single source. The name "Éa" was used by LeGuin for the first island created in Earthsea and by Tolkien (in the form "Eä") to mean universe. "Ea" was the Babylonian name for Enki, god of water and creation (among other things), so plausibly a source for both LeGuin and Tolkien (that's my theory). A lot of the civilization names that I use come from old Irish myth and history. Others are re-spellings of words from a variety of languages (e.g., nežēlība -> Nezhêlîba for the slavery-founding civ) or names of real historical places, e.g., where earliest bronze or iron working are thought to have occurred. Many of the names for heroes and great people come from The Poetic Edda, the same place Tolkien got names for all but one of the twelve dwarves and many other characters. (Gandálfr was originally a dwarf for those of you who don't know.) I have taken words from the original language of Zoroastrianism, Avesta, to create the names of prophecies and other elements of the theistic religions (coming in phase 2), though Ahriman is a Persian re-naming of Aŋra Mainiuu and Azzandara is an alternate name for Ahura Mazda. Much of the Sídhe related material is from Gaelic mythology. All of these sources have inspired me a great deal, but I'm reinterpreting myths and meanings in whatever way is most useful for Éa.

Credits
Modding:
Kael - for the inspired and inspirational Fall from Heaven (and the Civ5 modding starter tutorial)
DonQuiche - for the excellent Civ5 modding wiki ... Really amazing!
whoward69 - for many fine modding tutorials and bits of code
Gedemon - for the initial "Lua skeleton" used to build this mod (taken and modified from R.E.D. WWII)
Redox - for AStar pathfinding algorithm
Spatzimaus, whoward69, Gedemon, Thalassicus, DonQuiche and PawelS - for answers to modding questions
CivFanatics - for the fabulous forum

2D images:
I have a lot of wonderful 2D art planned for Éa. Browsing the work of many artists at CG Society (in particular) has inspired the flavor of Éa as much as the source material mentioned above. Here are the artists that have allowed me to use one or more of their images. Please give these artists the respect they deserve and don't rip them off. So much training, talent and effort goes into creating these works.

Ruan Jia home cgsociety cghub
David Munoz Velazquez home cgsociety
Rob Chope home cgsociety
Stefan Valkanov cgsociety
Alayna Lemmer home cgsociety
Rochelle Green cgsociety deviantart
Benita Winckler home cgsociety
Jenny Lehmann home cgsociety deviantart
Markus Lovadina home cgsociety
Kristina Gehrmann home cgsociety
Roberto E. Quintero cgsociety
Eve Ventrue home cgsociety
Thomas Pringle home cgsociety
Alon Chou home cgsociety facebook
Eva Soulu home cgsociety
Isis Sousa home cgsociety
Henning Ludvigsen home cgsociety deviantart
Steven Stahlberg home cgsociety
Michel Victor Oliveira cgsociety deviantart
Lubos de Gerardo Surzin home cgsociety
Neville Dsouza cgsociety
Adam Kuczek home cgsociety
Sue Marino cgsociety deviantart
Ehsan Dabbaghi cgsociety
Bruno Cerkvenik home cgsociety
Shahan Zaidi cgsociety
Cole Eastburn home cgsociety
Ilich Henriquez home cgsociety
Tiziano Baracchi cgsociety
John Barry Ballaran home cgsociety
Pawel Brudniak home cgsociety
Lincoln Renall home cgsociety
Martin McKenna home cgsociety
Yang Xueguo cgsociety
Kulbongkot Chutaprutikorn cgsociety deviantart
Alexander Jack cgsociety
Alex Ruiz home cgsociety
Bente Schlick home cgsociety
Stephen Flack home cghub deviantart
Ann-Christin Pogoda home cgsociety
Mariana Vieira home cgsociety
Leonie Jannien Baauw home cgsociety

Mod development timeline (past)
If anyone is interested, here is the original post where I started forming ideas about a new Hero/GP system, which was two years minus one day before this post. I spent the next 6 months writing an exstensive (24 page) mod documentation while browsing (OK, downloading) a lot of 2D art that I might want to use, particularly as GP portraits. That artwork and coming up with great people names (at first random name generator, then Poetic Edda and other old sources) influenced the direction and flavor of Éa. I messed around a bit with modding right after Civ5 release, but mostly just got frustrated. After a bit of a break, I took it back up in August 2011, building a skeleton for the Éa mod (starting from Gedemon's WWII stuff). I knew that I needed to deal with a lot of images (so I wrote ModBBF) and to deal with table data save/load in a generic way or risk going insane (so I wrote TableSaverLoader). I was developing code for Éa through that whole time. In December I lost hope thinking there was no way in heck that I could ever complete anything. I had just bitten off way more than I could chew (I do that). Then I broke it up into 12 parts ordering things by "development phase". I put only the essential core mechanisms (GP and civ name/trait systems) into phase 1 while spreading content and add-on mechanisms over the 11 subsequent phases. That made things so much more managable. In late January I decided that it was likely to amount to something, so I posted the teaser thread.

Mod development timeline (future)
Who the heck knows? (No one is paying so I'm avoiding deadlines and commitments, for the most part...)

Here are some Great People in action:

Spoiler :

Tech tree:

Spoiler :

Pazyryk · Apr 12, 2012

Last prototype build posted: Ea 20120701

I suggest you hang in there for the alpha, to be released on 21 December 2012.

The only reason to play the July prototype build is if you want to see how the first 50 turns play out with the civ naming mechanism (Man only; Heldeofol is currently disabled). Play some turns after naming to get a feel for GP generation. You can then do some stuff with your own GP, like take leadership or do other actions (these are mostly in for Engineers, Merchants and Sages). Most of the actions work and they don't currently have prereqs, so you can see how the interface works (though it is kind of silly that your Sage can make any Tome or your engineer can build any Wonder right away). But AI GPs aren't currently doing anything, so don't bother to play further than that...

Here are some tips to make it work:

Set UseScreenShots = 1 in GraphicsSettingsDX11.ini (to make the leader screens work right; I believe this is not necessary if you use DX9, but I have not tested this myself).
Set SmallUIAssets=1 and AutoUIAssets=0 in UserSettings.ini (or else your unit panel won't work).
Disable all DLC except for Mongolia.

I'd be happy to hear about bugs or issues related to the very early phase of the game. Mostly interested in the naming and initial GP generation, GPs taking leadership (yours and AI), and GP "actions" working (yours, not AI; note that Artist and Warrior actions aren't in yet).

I probably won't bother to "fix" GP AI for the vanilla patch. Phase 1 was never intended to be functional, and I'm eager to start conversion to G&K so I can start adding new stuff: a new race (really two because I never got Heldeofol working), religion, new GPs (Priests and Druids), etc. So we are officially entering phase 2.

Pazyryk · Apr 12, 2012

Here's the full documentation for Phase 1, spread over this post and the next. Everything listed below should be in the mod already or in the process of being put in. Once content is fully in (whenever that happens), we can start some real testing and balancing.

Races

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

Heldeofol is really a composite of races—orcs, goblins, hill giants, ogres, trolls, and the like—that differ in many characteristics but are universally violent, misshapen and short-lived. Though they fight each other as much 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 and sometimes "convert" barb units of their own kind (e.g., orcs, hill giants, ogres and such). Heldeofol civilizations generally only produce Warriors as great people, although Engineers sometimes arise from the orc forges.

Civilization race and city race are not necessarily the same. Civilization race is chosen at game start and is permanent. City race is determined at city founding and is permanent for a city regardless of conquest. In general, a city trains units of its own race, so a Heldeofol city will produce Orc warriors (or infantry) regardless of owner race. In contrast, 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. But a Heldeofol civ 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). A civilization can only build settlers in cities that share the civilization's race, so newly founded cities are always of the civilization race.

Civilizations and Traits
You begin the game simply as “a tribe of Man” or “a tribe of Heldeofol” and your first city will have a similarly generic name (initially). Certain early conditions (listed below) will trigger a “civilization-defining” event that will give you two options: 1) take a name and trait related to the event (this will also name your capital) or 2) decline the name and trait allowing a subsequent and different civilization-defining event to occur. You can only decline the name/trait (2nd option) once. However, you can provide your own civ name at any time by clicking on your civ's current name in the Diplomacy View. Throughout the game, your civilization will acquire additional traits while maintaining its name. Trait-confering events are largely a consequence of your decisions, discoveries and accomplishments. Thus, you can focus your civilization very narrowly in one area, say agriculture or seafaring, or take a broader approach (either is viable by design).

[Technical note: I'm using Civ5 "Civilizations" to specify race. The "civs" I'm speaking of here (and traits too) are entirely new Table/Lua entities. These are the names you will see in the Diplo list and all other UI. They are also central in my own Lua AI which controls all Tech/Policy choices and has other major influences on AI, so they are "civilizations" in every way that matters.]

Civilizations (with triggering condition and associated trait)
Abbreviations should be fairly clear, I think. Triggering conditions are listed in parentheses (race: H=Heldeofol; M=Man; note that some are available to either race). Once a civ takes a name, then it no longer counts against other civs being "first" to something (i.e., you might really be 2nd to build a library, but you are the 1st to do it without already having a civ name). For some civs, I've listed the civ adjective and civ capital name next. Then I list the civ-associated trait effects. This is all a work-in-progress, so details will change and many are blank at this time. In general, I want these to have a fairly big influence on how a player develops his/her civ.

Clan of _______ (H; first kill) All Heldeofol civs gain a Warrior (a Great Person; see post#4 below) after their first non-civilian kill, and take a name from that individual. +15% military land unit production. Note that this is the only civ name / trait that can be replaced. A Heleofol civ that subsequently is first to one of the H-allowed conditions below has the option to drop "Clan of ____" for another name / trait combo (e.g., Ikkos, Âb, Gerzah, Mord, Nezhêlîba, etc.).

When you see an asterisks (*) below, that means that the indicated GP class is more likely to appear for this civ. Additionally, that class of GP has a reduced (-20%) count against appearance of additional GPs.

-- first to tech
Ikkos (M, H; Horseback Rinding) +3c per improved horse; 20% chance / turn for 1 xp (all horse-mounted); *warrior
Âb (M, H; 2 Mounted Elephants) Âb; Âbu; +3c per imp. elephant; +50% research toward all downstream techs
Fir Bolg (M; Domestication) Fir Bolg; Fir Bolg; +1p1g from pastures
Cruithni (M,H; Tracking) Cruithni; Fiach; +1f1p from camps
Galway (M; Archery) Galwians; Galway; +30% str/rng archers; extra nearby Yew; *warrior
Daggoo (M; Harpoons) Daggoo; Hereheretua; +1f1p1g1c from whales
Fomhóire (M; Sailing) Fomorians; Faoi-mhuir; Can enter ocean tiles (receive sea warrior Cíocal?)
Parakhora (M; Milling) Parakhora; Parakh; free Watermill or Windmill in every city
Ninkasi (M; Zymurgy) Ninkasi; free Brewery every city; *artist
Girnar (M; Irrigation) Girnar; marsh drainage always permanent; farms spread fresh water 1 tile
Aldebar (M; Calendar) Aldebaran; +2c from all plantations
Hod (M; Divine Liturgy) +1c1h from all religious buildings
Axagoria (M; Philosophy) Axagorians; Clazomenae; 50% extra happy to research; *sage
Áes dána (M; Drama); 50% extra happiness to culture; *artist
Lagad (M; Mathematics) Lagad; Lagadha -2% Research Maint for Mathematics and all downstream techs; receive sage Lagad as first leader; *sage
Mamonas (M; Coinage) Dispáter; +3g from gold and silver; 5% interest on treasury; *merchant
Sophronia (M; Masonry) Sophronians; Pétra; gain nearby stone; +20%c per wonder; receive engineer Sophroniscus as first leader; *engineer
Vinča (M,H; Bronze W.) Vinchans; Bakar; +50% research toward all downstream techs; *engineer
Úr (M; Deep Mining) block Deep Mining to other Men (Heldeofol already have it as starting tech); learn Knowledge of the Underdark; can build only mines, quarries and plantations; no food from tiles other than hills and mountains; no food/production change from forest or jungle.
Orkahaugr (H; Underdark Lore) Orkahaugr; +1f1p from mines

-- first to policy branch
There will only be 5 policy branches at release. Eventually, there will be 10.
Kaza (M; Agrarianism) Tóppí Ké; +15% f from granery
Nemedia (M; Militerism) Nemedians; Nemed; extra culture from kills; receive warrior Nemed as first leader; *warrior
Mord (H; Militerism) Mord; Bellator; extra gold from kills; *warrior
Theano (M; Tradition); receive Theano as first leader (Theano can be an artist or sage); *artist&sage
Partholón (M; Commerce) ; Partholónians; Inbhear Scéine; +10%g from trade; receive merchant Partholón as first leader; *merchant
Nezhêlîba (M,H; Slavery) Nezhelibian; Orjuu; 50% reduced production and purchase cost for slaves

-- first to construct a building
Ys (M; library) Ysians; Ys. +1s per pop in capital; -1% Research Maintanance per tech; *sage
Mór (M; marketplace) Mór; Týros; free marketplace in every city; *merchant
Gerzah (M, H; forge) Gerzahns; Bigorna; free forge in every city; *engineer
Palare (M; fair) Palari; Parlyaree; +1 h per fair; +1 c per specialist; *artist

-- first to build a unit
Hy-Breasil (M; galleys) Breasilians; Uí Breasail; free harbors and +2f2g from adj natural harbor; *merchant
Sisukas (M; light infantry) free Drill 1 promotion for all infantry; *warrior
Ebor (M; mounted elephants) Eborians; Mang Ont *warrior
? (horsemen)

-- improvement/resource-based
Mayd (M; 2 fishing boats) Maydans; +1f1g per sea resource; Vlænderen
Agartha (M; 2 mined resources) +1p1c per mined resource

-- other (these take priority if simultanious with a condition above)
Eleutherios (M; Zymurgy & 2 nearby wine) +2g3c / winery
Anaphora (M; Divine Liturgy & 2 nearby Incense) free Monasteries all cities
Hippus (M; Horseback R. & Commerce policy) (capital and city names from FFH) gain Mercenaries policy; +30% extra gold from hiring out mercenaries

Subsequent (not civ-naming) traits
OK, to be honest I haven't gotten far here. My imagination has run a little dry. I've built the entire Table/Lua system but not made more than a few entries. The basic idea is that these will be smaller effects than those above (generally) and any civ can gain 3 or 4 more traits as the game progresses. The civ-naming traits above are "tier 1" traits. Then there are tier 2, 3, 4 traits (I'm not going to name these because I don't want to add 100 names that are just ignored/forgotten anyway). Each civ can only have one trait at each tier, so no single civ gets to run away with all the traits. Here is the kind of stuff I'm working on:

--seafaring related
t2. First 4 cities are coastal. +2g per coastal city
t2. 5 improved sea resources. +1c per improved sea resource
t2. ##sea tiles revealed. +1 water vision
t3. circumnavigation. +1 move naval

--horselords (culture revolves around horses; better or more easily supported horse military [these folks might be a little week in culture and gold so a little boost here will help])
t2. 8 pastured horses tiles. +2c per improved horse
t2. 6 horse-mounted units
t2. 3 stables. +2c per stable
t2. victory with horse-mounted. +20% str horse-mounted
t3. 1st to Warhorses. +5xp all horse-mounted units
t3. 6 stables. +2g per stable
t3. 16 pastured horses. +2g per improved horse
t3. 10 horse-mounted units. +5 support-free horse-mounted units

and so on...

Knowledge Advancement

Two reasons that Civ5 feels so linear to me are that 1) the tech tree is very narrow and 2) you have to complete it (or nearly so) for any victory. Almost everything in Civ5 is valued by how it pushes you down the tree, so (for example) gold's primary value is to be converted to research through RAs. Perhaps that's fitting for a historical game, but total preoccupation with technological advancement is not, in my opinion, a common feature of most fantasy civilizations (and certainly should not be for raging hordes of barbarians). I've put a great deal of effort into changing this. Éa's tech tree is wide but shallow and allows (or really forces) civs to be very different depending on where in the Tech Tree they focus. Not only is where you tech variable between civs, but also how much you tech or whether you bother with active research at all. Tech progress has been demoted to being just one of the means to victory, rather than the only means to victory. In fact, it should be possible to win four of the five planned victory conditions while illiterate (I'm not saying that it will be easy). I've added several mechanisms that generally increase specialization and/or decrease the relative necessity of active research (relative to base Civ5) allowing other viable gameplay approaches.

Active Research is the research you generate through population, buildings, specialists, and so forth (and a few resources) that is directed toward a particular technology. In other words, normal Civ5 research.

Knowledge Maintenance is a research percent deduction you pay each turn (from your active per turn research) to maintain known techs. It is initially 10% per known tech (regardless of tech cost) but can be reduced to 5% per known tech with certain techs and polices, or by a small flat amount per academy built by a sage (currently 3.3%). The first two techs are not counted. Knowledge Maintenance can reduce your total active research to zero, but will never make it negative or cause you to loose a tech. Unless you really pump out a lot of sages, you will be limited to somewhere between 10 - 20 techs altogether (out of 55 total).

Knowledge Diffusion contributes research points to any available tech known by other civs with which you have contact and are not at war. Knowledge diffusion can only "fill" a tech's research requirement to 95% of its total cost. You will always need at lease some active research to "finish" a tech, though you don't need much if you are willing to depend on other's civ's active research. Knowledge diffusion provides n research points per available tech per contacted civ that knows it (not at war), where n = 50 (+100% with mutual open borders; +20% per trade route with that civ) / total number of civs in game. Yes, this can get you to 95% for many of those low tier techs without any effort on your part.

Advancement by Conquest works like knowledge diffusion in that it can only provide up to 95% of a tech's total cost (you must have some active research to finish it). Upon city conquest, you gain 20 research points for each population point conquered toward each available tech known by your opponent.

The Tech Tree It has a vertical scroll bar. If you have a wide screen, the 5 tech tiers can all be seen at once. For smaller screens, I'm building left/right arrows that will toggle everything left or right by one tech (sadly, we can't have vertical and horizontal scroll bars for the same screen in Civ5). There are about 55 techs for phase 1. These aren't all filled in, of course, but all techs have at least 2 or 3 things that they will do. I have about 30 more techs planned for Éa's magic system (the tree has been on paper for more than a year now). The three pinnacle ones take the tree out to the right one more tier. That's pretty far down the road though...

Spoiler :

Notes:

Heldeofol can never research Divine Liturgy.
Man can initially research Deep Mining, but the tech becomes permanently blocked if any other civilization of Man researches it first (these become the Úr) or once a civilization of Man takes another name. (In other words, exactly zero or one civilization of Man will know this in any game. All Heldeofol already have it as a starting tech.)

Cultural Advancement
The number of policies you have is always equal to or greater than your current Cultural Level. There is no "city number punishment" for policy advancement. The only thing you need consider is total culture generated per citizen and time.
Cultural Level = 10 x CC / (CPY + 800), where CC is cumulative cultural points generated from all sources (summed each turn) and CPY is cumulative population-turns (your population points summed each turn). Over time, this number approaches 10 x culture generated / total population. You will gain a policy each time this number reaches the next integer value. Note that your Cultural Level can go down (e.g., if you expand your population without new culture generation), but this will never cause you to loose a policy.

The Policy Branches
There are only five policy branches for phase 1, with no cross-branch exclusions (another 5 are planned, but relate to religion, magic, or other mechanisms not yet implemented). Some policies and one policy branch have tech requirements, indicated in parentheses. Note that "going wide" in policies is not necessarily discouraged. Some AIs will do this, though most will focus on one or two branches. There will never be any "Utopia Victory", so the only reward for finishing whole branches are the finisher policies.

Agrarianism

Code:

Aristocracy	-> Feudalism
Guilds 		-> Trade Unions	 	 -\
Civil Service 	-> Taxation (Currency)	  -\-> Industrialism (Machinery)

Opener: +1 food from farms & pastures
Aristocracy: +1g per population in capital
Feudalism: -33% unhappiness from population
Guilds: +1p from specialists; half unhappiness from specialists
Trade Unions: +1g from specialists; half food support for specialists
Civil Service: +0.5p per population point in capital; can draft militia unit from pop
Taxation: +1g per worked improvement
Industrialization: +1p per worked improvement
Finisher: 1/3 of all culture converted to food, divided among all cities

Slavery

Code:

Debt Slaves (Currency) 	-\		/->	Servi Aeternam
Slave Trade 		-> Slave Castes -> Slave Breeding (Animal Breeding)
Slave Raiders 		-> Slave Armies

Opener: free slave; workers replaced by slaves; can capture slaves from settlers, workers or slaves (other civs can't capture)
Debt Slaves: can convert city population to slaves
Slave Trade: can buy or sell slaves with other civs or city states that have Slavery
Slave Castes: +1p per city; can build settlers regardless of unhappiness
Servi Aeternam: no revolt; 1 production per unhappy, divided among all cities
Slave Breeding: growth penalty while unhappy reduced by half
Slave Raiders: capture slaves from killed military units and city population
Slave Armies: capture units from killed military units (must be land unit killed in melee attack; captured units have "slave" promotion conferring -30% strength and -50% xp gain, but no maintenance cost); slaves unit can upgrade to warriors (with slave promotion)
Finisher: 1/3 of all culture converted to production, divided among all cities

Militarism

Code:

Discipline 	-> Military Tradition 	  -> Professional Army (Coinage)
				   \-> 	     Warrior Code
War Spirit   -> Berserker Rage

Opener: free Warrior; each Warrior counts 20% less against appearance of GPs
Discipline: +20% Combat Strength bonus for units in a tile next to other friendly military units
Military Tradition: No gold support for garrisoned units
Professional Army: Upgrading units requires 50% less Gold
War Spirit: Military Units gain double experience from combat
Berserker Rage: Partial healing from kills
Warrior Code: garrisoned units reduces empire Unhappiness by 1
Finisher: 1/3 of all culture converted to unit experience, divided among all military units

Tradition

Code:

Folklore				           -\
Folk Art	->		Crafting	-/-> The Arts (Æsthetics)
Scholastisicm (Philosophy)	-> Academic Tradition	-> Rationalism (Logic)

Opener: free Artist or Sage (player choice); each Artist and Sage counts 20% less against appearance of GPs
Folklore: allows several Epics (Völuspá, Hávamál, others)
Folk Art: +1c per Festival; +1c per Fair, Ivory Carver
Crafting: +1c per Winery, Quarry, Brewery, Stoneworks, Textile Mill
The Arts: +2c per Theater, Opera House; +20%c from Wonders
Scholastisicm: -5% Knowledge Maintenance; allows Universities
Academic Tradition: Sages can build Academies
Rationalism: -10% Knowledge Maintenance
Finisher: 1/3 of all culture converted to research, divided among all cities

Commerce (Currency)

Code:

Mercantilism (Coinage)	   -> Free Markets	-> Free Trade
Mercenaries  		 \->  Merchant Navy (Sailing)
Cultural Diplomacy 	-> Patronage

Opener: free Merchant; each Merchant counts 20% less against appearance of GPs
Mercantilism: -25% cost to buy buildings; allows banks
Free Markets: +20%g from domestic trade routes; Merchants can establish Trade Houses
Free Trade: +20%g from foreign trade routes; Merchants can establish Trade Missions
Mercenaries: can hire foreign units as mercenaries, or hire out your own
Merchant Navy: +1m at sea; +1g from all coast-only buildings (harbor, port, shipyard, etc.)
Cultural Diplomacy: influence with city states costs less
Patronage: increases decay of other civ's relations with city states
Finisher: 1/3 of all culture converted to gold, divided among all cities

Policy dependent buildings

Slave Stockade (Slave Trade; 150p) +2p; can put slaves on the "exchange" to sell (see slaves below)
Barracks (Discipline with Bronze Working) +10%p and +5xp all melee
Bank (Mercantilism with Coinage; 300p) +30%g; 1 trader slot
University (Scholastisicm with Logic; 300p) +6s; +20%s; 1 scribe slot
Factory (Industrialization with Machinery; 500p) +25%p; 1 smith slot
Slave Factory (Slave Castes with Machinery; 300p) can sacrifice slaves for 25p

Policy dependent "great works" (made by Great People in 25 turns; *mod = 10 for now)

Academy (Academic Tradition; Sage in city) -mod/3 Research Maintenance
Trade House (Free Markets; Merchant in own city) +mod%g all foreign trade routes with this city
Trade Mission (Free Trade; Merchant in foreign capital) +mod%g all trade routes with this civilization
Völuspá (Folklore; Artist) +mod/10 Cultural Level (i.e., gain one policy)
Hávamál (Folklore; Artist) +mod happiness
Vafthrúthnismál (Folklore; Artist) +mod research per turn
Grímnismál (Folklore; Artist) permanent +mod%/10 boost to all leader effects for this civ
Hymiskvitha (Folklore; Artist) +2 x mod% culture from alcohol (all wineries, breweries, distilleries)

New concepts
Slaves have no support cost and replace Workers for civs that have opened the Slavery policy branch. They can be acquired in a variety of ways that depend on slavery policies. In addition to acting as workers, they can be sold for a base price of 25 g (with Slave Trade), "upgraded" to warriors (with Slave Armies), or sacrificed for 25 production (with Slave Factory building). The 25 value is based on population growth, which always requires a flat 25 food regardless of current city size (Debt Slaves allows population conversion). Slaves available for sale or purchase appear in the trade screen. A slave can be made available for sale by "loading" it into a city with a slave stockade (up to 10 can stack in a city).
Mercenaries can be hired out or hired by civilizations with the Mercenaries policy (in the Commerce branch). Any military unit can be made available for hire at any time by the "hire out" action. The unit will remain under the civ's control until/unless a foreign civ or city state hires the unit. The unit will remain in that civ's control for 30 turns, with total gold cost paid 50% upfront and 50% spread over the 30-turn duration. The player always receives the option to renew before the contract expires, unless the civ is currently at war with the mercenaries' civ of origin. Nearness to a foreign empire, or a focal point of a civ's military efforts, increases both the price and the likelihood that an AI civ will hire a unit. Price is also a function of the unit's production cost and experience. There is no tech requirement to hire any unit of any type. Mercenaries have normal unit cost and resource requirements for the controlling civ (unit penalty for lacking required resources has been reduced to only -20% strength, so it may be practical to hire these units anyway). Note that many city states are able and willing to hire a limited number of mercenaries for their own defence, except for "Mercenary" city states which are reliable providers of mercenaries.

Pazyryk · Apr 12, 2012

Heroes and other Great People
This is the heart of Éa, more important than the "emergent civ" mechanisms described above (or at least it will become so in subsequent mod development). The system starts off modestly in phase 1 with only 5 classes analogous to the 5 GPs from base: Engineer, Merchant, Sage, Artist, Warrior. Eventually, there will be 9 classes that contain about 30 subclasses (everything from Pirates to Prophets to Paladins). The origin of this system goes back to this post in April 2010 (hence the release date of my pre-alpha, exactly two years in development). These aren't supposed to play like characters in a RPG (well, maybe a little). The concept I'm striving for is that a civilization's great people (past and present) provide a key defining flavor for a civ, as important as its buildings and wonders.

GPs do almost everything in Éa. They build wonders, establish trade routes, craft epics, lead armies, and become leaders of your civilization. Each has a name and unique 2D art (and by phase 3, experience, promotions and unique characteristics). There will be ~100 at release, probably expanding to >1000. The term "Great Person" is used in this mod to denote any significant individual (as opposed to multi-individual units like "infantry" or "workers") though in future development you will see great people that aren't really "people" in a strict sense. Although they are represented by units on the map, they are quite different than other units in many ways. For example, they can violate the 1-unit-per-tile rule and can even enter foreign cities. The sections below explain their general operation.

Phase 1 Implementation
The system and specific classes (and later subclasses) are going to role out in a kind of gradual way. Even in phase 1, you will see mechanisms that you might not have thought possible in Civ5 without dll (for example, a merchant "building" a trade mission in a foreign capital). But much more will come over ongoing mod development. The following sections describe how it works and what you will see in the initial phase 1 alpha release.

How many? Empire size and specialists have no influence on number of great people. You do have some mild influence on this through policies and by crafting the National Epic, but not a lot. A few individuals appear when specific conditions occur (e.g., adopting some policies or "first kill" for Heldeofol). However, most great people will arise from (or offer to join) your civilization on a random basis throughout the game. The number of great people present in a civilization at any time typically will be around 3 - 5 on a standard map. Losing one increases your chance of gaining another, but of course you lose the use of a GP for some time. You will not gain any GPs before your civilization takes a name, though some "naming events" give you a GP simultaneous with your civ's naming. For example, Sophronia takes its name from the great stone mason Sophronisca, who emerges within the first civ of Man to discover Masonry and will likely be this civilization's first leader.

What kind? The player can strongly influence class for randomly appearing great people. Some civs have a specific affinity for a certain class and are more likely to generate that class (see *'s in Civs and Traits). The other two important determinants in phase 1 are experience points (XPs) and specialist points (SPs). All XPs gained by any means (even free xp from unit building bonuses) promote the appearance of Warriors. SPs are acquired by assigning specialists, and are tallied on an empire-wide basis (there are no “great people bars” in city screens). Note that specialists do not influence the number of significant individuals generated, only the type. Specialists, specialist yields, and the classes they promote are:

smith (+4 production) -> Engineer
trader (+4 gold) -> Merchant
scribe (+4 science) -> Sage
artisan (+4 culture) -> Artist

Players accumulate points toward each class which determines the relative probability of appearance for one class over another. The Great Person will offer his/her services to the empire, which the player can accept or decline. In either case, accumulated points toward that class disappear. (This allows marginal effects to accumulate and eventually generate a specific class if the player continues to refuse unwanted GPs.)

What do they do? Well...almost everything. Before we get to that, a few concepts need to be covered:

Cost of Great Works. Many but not all Great Works (including Wonders) have a gold or production cost in addition to the Great Person's time and effort. For production, this works by diverting up to 2/3 production from the nearest city, then 2/3 from the next nearest city, and so on until [total cost / turns to build] is taken. Gold is taken directly from the treasury. If the empire cannot support the cost required on a turn, then build time may be delayed (chance of no progress on a turn is proportional to the shortfall).
Joining. Some Great People can "join" other units. In phase 1, Warriors can join military land units. The GP "disappears" from the map and automatically travels with the unit. The GP unit can be re-selected using GP selection/cycle arrows (right above normal unit cycle arrows) and simply moved off the unit to "unjoin". The GP unit will also appear if there is some action they can perform (see Warrior actions below).

Additional notes:

Everywhere you see "mod" below, substitute the number 10. This is a placeholder for a variable number that will be introduced in phase 2.
Asterisk followed by a resource means that nearby (within 3 tiles) improved resource will reduce production cost by 20%.

All Great People
Take Leadership Any great person can take leadership if your civ has no current leader, but they must be near the capital (within 3 tiles) to do so. This will confer class-specific benefits to your entire civilization as long as the great person stays near the capital (a Warrior leader at war is an exception; see below). Other than this capital area restriction, leaders are free to do any actions allowed by their class. For example, they can always take residence in the capital city (which will provide cummulative "leader" and "resident" effects at this city). In phase 1, the only way to replace a leader is to disband the current leader.

Great Works These include creation of all Wonders, Epics, Academies, Trade Houses and Trade Missions. In general, great works take 25 turns and apply a variable benefit that depends on the creating great person's specific attributes (in phase 1, this is just a fixed value of mod=10). All World Wonders and many Epics are unique. The way this works in Éa is that any GP currently creating the unique great work prevents all other GPs from starting it. Wonders are built by great people in a city (never as a city production). Epics don't "exist" in any particular place, but an Artist must be in a city to create (progress stays with the individual so they can resume later if interrupted, even in a different city).

Minor Works These include creation of foundries, festivals, and trade routes. In general, these take 8 turns and the benefit is not dependent on the Great Person's specific attributes.

Other Actions All Great People can Take Residence in a city, which confers class-associated effects on the city as long as the GP stays in the city and does no other action. Only one GP can be resident in a particular city. There are other actions that are either continuous or immediate. Immediate actions use up movement for the turn.

Engineers

Leader +mod% production in all cities.
Take Residence as above but only in one city.
---- Wonders (25 turns with indicated cost) ----
Stânhencg (200p; *stone; world wonder) +mod culture this city (will change to religious function in phase 2)
Kolossós (300p; Bronze W.; *copper; world wonder) 4c; +mod experience all units built in this city (land and sea).
Megálos Fáros (300p; Masonry, Sailing; *stone; world wonder) 4c; +mod% gold from all trade routes in all cities. Built only on coastal land tile.
Hanging Gardens (300p; Irrigation; world wonder) +mod culture this city; +mod% growth all cities .
Uuc-yabnal (300p; Masonry, Slavery policy; *stone; world wonder) 4c; +mod% p this city; +25% work rate for all slaves (these are a support-free version of workers).
The Long Wall (400p; Construction; *stone; world wonder) 4c; mod x 10% chance that enemies lose one movement point each turn within your borders.
Clog Mór (400p; Machinery; world wonder) 4c; -mod% purchase cost for all buildings.
Da Bao'en Si (400p; Architecture; *marble; world wonder) +mod culture this city; +mod happiness.
Palace (300p; req: Architecture; national wonder built in city) Moves capital to this city. New palace provides +mod appropriate to current Leader. Can build once per civ.
---- Other Great Works (25 turns) ----
Fortress (200p; Construction) Build on owned or unowned tile (the latter becomes owned). Note that this may have diplomatic consequences (possibly dire) depending on proximity to any foreign cities.
---- Minor Works (8 turns) ----
Foundry (200p; Iron Working) +5p this city.

Merchants

Leader +mod% gold in all cities.
Take Residence as above but only in one city.
---- Major Works (25 turns) ----
National Treasury (300 p; Coinage; domestic city; National Wonder) +(mod/2)% gold earned on treasury per turn applied at this city. Can build one per civ.
Trade House (200 g; Mercantilism policy; establish in domestic city) increase all trade route yields to this city by mod% (see Trade Route below).
Trade Mission (200g; Free Trade policy; establish in foreign capital or city state) increase all trade route yields with this civilization by mod% (see Trade Route below).
---- Minor Works (8 turns) ----
Trade Route (160g; Currency; establish in foreign city or city state) Automatically connects a trade route to largest available domestic city. You can have up to one trade route in each foreign city for each of your cities. Base trade route gold yield equals the size of the smaller of the two connected cities (applied at both cities; stopped during war plus 10 turns). +1% for each 10 turns that the trade route is in place. Note that conquest of either city destroys the trade route, which must be re-established from scratch.

Sages

Leader +mod% research in all cities. Note: All percent modifiers (including Knowledge Maintenance) are additive. Therefore, any positive percent modifiers directly counteract the effects of Knowledge Maintenance.
Take Residence As above but this city only.
---- Wonders (25 turns) ----
Great Library (300 p; Writing, Scholasticism policy; World Wonder) 4c; +mod science this city; -(mod/10)% Knowledge Maintenance per tech.
---- Tomes (25 turns to complete with no other cost; all require Writing; create in a city) ----
Tome of Equus (requires improved horse) +mod x 2% research in Horseback Riding and War Horses; +mod/2 xp for all new and existing horse-mounted units
Tome of Beasts (requires improved elephant) +mod x 1.5% research in Mounted Elephants, War Elephants, Domestication, Animal Breeding, Tracking, Animal Mastery and Beast Breeding.
Tome of the Leviathan (requires Whale within cultural borders) +mod x 2% research in Harpoons, Sailing, Shipbuilding and Whaling; +2 research from whales.
Tome of Harvests (requires Agriculture) +mod x 2% research in Milling, Zymurgy, Irrigation, Calendar, Crop Rotation and Forestry; +1 food from improved Wheat, Wine, Sugar.
Tome of Tomes (requires Philosophy) +mod x 2% research in Logic, Metaphysics and Transcendental Thought; gain 1/3 benefit of all other Tomes that exist in the world, regardless of owner (so 133% effect from all other Tomes owned by the Tome of Tomes creator).
Tome of Æsthetics (requires Cultural Level 4) +mod x 2% research in Drama, Literature, Music and Æsthetics; +mod% culture in all cities.
Tome of Axioms (requires 1 acadamy) +mod x 2% research in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, Alchemy and Medicine; +5% research from universities.
Tome of Form (requires 1 quarry) +mod x 2% research in Masonry, Construction, Engineering and Architecture; +mod% construction of all buildings; -mod% cost for all wonders.
Tome of Metallurgy (requires 1 mined metal) +mod x 2% research in Bronze W., Iron W., Metal Casting and Mithril W.; +1p from mined copper, iron, mithril; +1g from mined silver, gold.
---- Other Great Works (25 turns) ----
Academy (Sage in city; 200p; req: Academic Tradition) +mod% research this city.

Artists

Leader +mod% culture in all cities.
Take Residence as above but only in one city.
---- Epics (25 turns with no other cost; can be created anywhere) ----
Völuspá (Tradition Policy) +mod/10 Cultural Level (i.e., gain one policy).
Hávamál (Folklore Policy) +mod happiness.
Vafthrúthnismál (Folklore; Writing) +mod research per turn.
Grímnismál (Folklore Policy; Drama) permanent +mod%/10 boost to all leader effects for this civ.
Hymiskvitha (Folklore Policy; Zymurgy) +2 x mod% culture from alcohol-related improvements and buildings (all wineries, breweries, distilleries).
National Epic (Literature) Increases number of GPs at any time by about mod/20; one per civilization.
Heroic Epic (Drama) +mod/3% str/ranged combat all land units; a civ can make one of these for every Warrior that has passed away (each is named after the hero).
---- Other Great Works (25 turns) ----
Magnum Opus (Aesthetics) +mod c per turn. Each individual Artist can make exactly one of these.
---- Minor Works (8 turns) ----
Festival (100g; Calendar) +4c this city.

Warriors

Leader +mod xp for all new units; mod% chance each unit gains 1 xp per turn. Benefits of a Warrior Leader can still apply if the Warrior leaves the capital area, but only if they are with a military unit and your civilization is at war.
Take Residence as above but only in or nearby one city (only one GP can be resident in a city).
---- minor works (8 turns) ----
Build Fort (joined to infantry-type unit).
Build Battering Ram (joined to infantry-type unit on clear flat land adjacent to forest).
Build Siege Towers (Construction; joined to infantry-type unit on clear flat land adjacent to forest).
---- automatically applied effects ----
Lead (continuous) +mod% attack/defense for all nearby units. This is just the base Civ5 great general effect and runs continuously without using any GP movement.
Train (continuous; joined to military land unit) +1xp / turn for joined unit. This action runs automatically when the GP and joined unit perform no action or movement this turn.
---- other actions ----
Fortify Troops (immediate; joined to infantry unit) +mod% defense to nearby units for one turn.
Rally Troops (immediate; joined to infantry or mounted unit) +mod% attack to nearby units for one turn.
Lead Charge (immediate; joined to infantry or mounted unit) +(mod x 3)% for next attack by joined unit, but 2/mod chance that GP will die.
Break Line (immediate; joined to infantry or mounted unit) Suppresses nearby enemy bonuses (if any) for adjacent units.
Challenge (immediate) Allows one-on-one fight with an enemy great person joined with nearby units. (This won't be in phase 1; just here to give you an idea of future development...)

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Units

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 and trade but Mounted Elephants to actually make a Mounted Elephant; Ivory can be derived from this and whales via a building)
Copper (this & Iron only require mining to see and trade, but you will need Bronze Working and Iron Working to actually make the metal using units [Light and Medium Infantry, respectively])
Blasting Powder (requires Chemistry to see/trade and always some other advanced tech for the unit)
Mithril (requires Alchemy to see and trade but Mithril Working to actually make an Immortal unit)

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)
Great 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:

Warrior-infantry-immortal line are all Orcs and 1 point stronger than their counterparts.
Archer and Recon lines are all Goblins, same strength as counterparts but there is no upgrade to Rangers (hunters->bowmen->marksmen is possible though)
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).
Horse-mounted (non-ranged) armored and non-armored are Hobgoblins, same strength as counterparts (req: horses).
Elephant mounted are same strength as counterparts (Goblins or a mix, I guess)
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. See Barb Camps below for how to produce them.

Barbarian and Humanoid Settlements
These will come in a variety of flavors, including Barbarian Settlements that produce barbarians of the race of Man and act exactly as base Civ5 Barb Camps. There will also be Orc Settlements, Hill Giant Settlements, Ogre Settlements, and so on (as unit art becomes available) that produce various humanoids of other races, many of which are quite tough. Units produced by these settlements are "barbs" and hostile to all civs, including Heldeofol. But:

Heldeofol civs "convert" these units when they beat them in combat.
If the feature is within 3-tiles of a Heldeofol city, then that city is enabled to produce the "special" unit types (Ogre, Hill Giant, etc.) if they also have the appropriate tech (these will mostly be techs down the mining, hunting or animal husbandry branches). This works by "city race" rather than "civ race", so it is possible in a Heldeofol city conquered by Man.
Heldeofol civs can't destroy these features. They get the normal 25 gold the first time they enter the tile, but no more for doing it again. Also, if the feature is within 3 tiles of a Heldeofol city, then the feature is "protected" from Man (who can get 25 gold from it once, but don't destroy the feature).

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Much more to come in Phase 2...

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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.

Lplate · Apr 13, 2012

Subscribing (but its nice to be first

)

Ahriman · Apr 13, 2012

Keep up the good work. Not sure that I will have anything useful to add on this version, but its excellent that you have something that actually runs.

Sengir · Apr 13, 2012

Subscribed (I seldom visit the modpacks forum, so I'm going to forget about it otherwise).

About the mod: looks very impressive, I'm really wondering how a lot of things, especially the GP, will turn out.

landlubber · Apr 13, 2012

Novice question; where does one extract the mod to? I've always used the mod browser instead of just downloading and extracting the mod.

landlubber · Apr 13, 2012

Never mind, I found it. I'll start the mod up now.

rocklikeafool · Apr 13, 2012

Maybe you should include the ideas from this post somewhere.

Pazyryk · Apr 13, 2012

rocklikeafool said:
Maybe you should include the ideas from this post somewhere.

That's all phase 2 & 3 stuff, which I'm not even going to start until after G&K. I didn't want to clutter the documentation above. Basically, post #3 documents phase 1 with everything that is already in the mod code or being added now.

Gilgamesch · Apr 13, 2012

Best wishes for you mod, its sounds very promising
:beer:

rocklikeafool · Apr 13, 2012

Pazyryk said:
That's all phase 2 & 3 stuff, which I'm not even going to start until after G&K. I didn't want to clutter the documentation above. Basically, post #3 documents phase 1 with everything that is already in the mod code or being added now.

Fair enough.

JtW · Apr 14, 2012

Subscribing!

Pazyryk · Apr 16, 2012

Uploaded new version Ea 20120416. Here are the main additions/fixes:

Hooked up civ naming traits to actual effects. About 80% complete.
Added Academy and Trade House (still need foreign trade UI)
GP spawning chance now accounts for Civs with "favored GP class" (see * in post 3) and the 3 policy openers that affect GP spawning
Added code debugging feature that verifies that all SQL files read to end-of-file
Three policy openers spawn GP now (Militarism, Commerce, Tradition). If this is your civ's naming event, then you get a specific GP (Nemed, Partholón, or Theano) as initial leader and your civ's namesake.
First to Mathematics or Masonry spawn specific GP (Lagad or Sophroniscus) as initial leader and civ namesake.
Randomly spawning GPs are now of the appropriate race.
Heldeofol now spawn a Warrior GP upon their first kill. This GP is automatically made leader and the civ takes an associated name (all are now "Clan of <leader name>"; perhaps we can get more creative later).

albie_123 · Apr 16, 2012

This looks really great! Can I ask if there's some piece of fiction you've based the mythos on? If not, wow, you've done a very decent job.

esvath · Apr 16, 2012

subscribing! this is one big reason to get G&K! :cheers:

Pazyryk · Apr 16, 2012

albie_123 said:
This looks really great! Can I ask if there's some piece of fiction you've based the mythos on? If not, wow, you've done a very decent job.

No specific source. The name Éa was used by LeGuin (the first island created in Earthsea) and the name has been stuck in my head for many years for some reason. Tolkien also uses the word Eä as "universe", and the Babylonians used Ea as a re-naming of Enki (god of water and creation, among other things, so plausibly a source for both LeGuin and Tolkien). A lot of the civ names come from old Irish myth and history. Others are re-spellings of words from a variety of languages (e.g., nežēlība) or names of real historical places (e.g., where earliest bronze or iron working occurred). Almost all of the great people names for Man and Heldeofol are from The Poetic Edda (the same place Tolkien got his dwarf names and "Gandalf", who was also a dwarf). The Theistic religions I talk about here derive most names from the original language of Zoroastrianism, Avesta, except Azzandara and Ahriman are Persion re-namings (the latter from Aŋra Mainiuu or "destructive spirit"). Most of the Sídhe related material (which I haven't talked about yet) is from Gaelic mythology. I'm getting a lot of inspiration from these different sources, but reinterpreting myths and meanings in whatever way is most useful for Éa.

albie_123 · Apr 16, 2012

Alright, well, consider me extremely impressed!

I have always loved seeing people create mythos based on ancient myths, in the same vein as Tolkien or Wagner.

I think I'll hold off on playing this until it's more developed, simply because I don't want to ruin the experience of playing it completed.

Calavente · Apr 16, 2012

subscribing for when I'll get ciV.

Éa, Dawn of the Mortal Races (phase 1, pre-alpha code development and discussion)

Deity

Attachments

Deity

Deity

Deity

Esus (Allegedly)

Tyrant

Deity

Scottish Nationalist

Scottish Nationalist

Warmaster

Deity

Ancient Alien

Warmaster

Prince

Deity

Modding In Secret

Apprentice of Erebus

Deity

Modding In Secret

Richard's voice

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