1.6 feedback

[davidlallen]

Amazon = being Agg + Atreides linked = + combat 1 free - agg + stilsuit promotion (they wore stilsuit) or just +1 movement
Fish Speakers = march + 1 first strike
Ducal Guard = medic + 1 str?

Your suggestion is to add a UB which is limited both by civilization and trait, and then the only effect of this building is to permit a specific UU. This seems a little complicated. Can we first define one straight UU for Atreides which has a national cap of 4 and is fairly powerful? If "we" can figure out how to limit by LH or trait, we can add that later.

About recources - i think that many of them are too common. I dont know yet which but i see much of them around every game.

This is also easy to adjust. The file is terrain/civ4bonusinfo.xml. For information on the various fields, see this page of the modiki. The main one you would want to adjust is iTilesPer. Be aware, if you make much less of one resource, the game may compensate by adding more of all the other resources; they are all interconnected.

 

[Deliverator]

This is also easy to adjust. The file is terrain/civ4bonusinfo.xml. For information on the various fields, see this page of the modiki. The main one you would want to adjust is iTilesPer. Be aware, if you make much less of one resource, the game may compensate by adding more of all the other resources; they are all interconnected.

I have a spreadsheet at home that I can re-upload that I use when balancing resources to see the impact of changing iTilesPer on the proportion of that resource that appears. The key thing to be aware of is that doubling iTilesPer halves the amount of that bonus, and halving it will double the amount.

At the moment, all the Dew Plants are equally common. I should really update this old thread with the current bonuses.

 

[davidlallen]

for lasgun - get into the duneopedia -look for te lasgun trooper - press on it - you wont get any info and youll have a python error.

This works correctly for me. This unit is new unit art which is added by deliverator in 1.6.5. Is it possible you are working on 1.6.5.2 and you did not copy in this new art?

 

[Ahriman]

What are sand farms anyway? Surely in the harsh windswept deserts of Dune - farming is not really feasible.

I imagine this tech as basically representing superior drip-irrigation techniques and the like. You have greenhouse buildings that increase heat and provide wind protection, and then use drip irrigation from wind-trap captured moisture to grow food.

That will be cool if Duke LEto will be able to build 4 UU limited Ducal Guards, Alia - 4 Amazons, and Leto II - 4 Fish Speakers?

Its an interesting idea, though it does seem quite messy.

As an alternative, we could have religious UUs. Fish speakers or Amazons as a Quizarate UU, House Guard as a Landsraad UU.

 

[Slvynn]

Burro Weed belong to Dew family but i think it is too Common

Diamond is the problematic one - as i edited post before - i launched large map with 9 civs, run 200 turns and found that almost every civ have it in own culture :/

 

[Xaos]

Looks good Guys .

I finally managed to get a terraforming victory, but only by disabling time and diplomatic victory conditions. But it takes a very long time (I was researching Future tech 48 by the time I achieved it).

The Diplomatic victory thing is imo incredibly annoying. It seems that even if you are the one to create the Landsraad building, after some odd turns you lose the ability to even be considered for chancellor or diplomatic victory (even if you are the top score... Not sure what the criteria for being on the list are, but this definately differs from the normal BTS version alot). and on higher difficulty levels, you pretty much have to give away all your technologies to others to prevent another civ from gaining a diplo victory. This seems to be the only way to get them to abstain from voting.

Not sure what you guys would think of this but...

How about giving scout units invisibility to sand worms, or somehow being able to avoid them? Now I have no problems with the worms being unkillable, but they seem to delight in killing your scouts as soon as possible. On higer difficulty levels, I have come to depend on the village plundering at the begining of the game to get the needed edge to hold my own agains the other civs. So my city progression suffers as I have to put all resources into building lots and lots of scouts.

Keep up the good work.

 

[davidlallen]

The Diplomatic victory thing is imo incredibly annoying. It seems that even if you are the one to create the Landsraad building, after some odd turns you lose the ability to even be considered for chancellor or diplomatic victory

We have not changed the effects of this building; it is same as the UN building. However, since you mentioned you were going for a terraforming victory, you must have been following the Arrakis Paradise civic and building Reservoirs of Liet. These give you huge diplomatic penalties against most of the other players. Please look into the diplomacy screen and you will see reactions like, "-8: Your terraforming is threatening the spice!". Clearly, with a bunch of -8 modifiers, they will be voting against you at every opportunity.

How about giving scout units invisibility to sand worms, or somehow being able to avoid them?

There is a promotion called "Thumper". Currently the icon is there, but it doesn't do anything. This promotion is supposed to act like a lightning rod. That is, a unit with this promotion will attract all the worms in the area, but when the worm arrives, it will disappear without doing any damage. So if you have scouts with this promotion, they will never get eaten. Also, units with this promotion would keep a group of nearby workers safe from harm. Do you think this would be helpful?

This is on the list of things to be implemented, but the list keeps growing longer!

 

[Ahriman]

We have not changed the effects of this building; it is same as the UN building.

I can confirm that I have occasionally noticed the diplomatic victory option disappearing. Diplomacy modifiers should have no impact on whether or not the vote shows up in the list of UN proposals you can make.

I have no idea what's causing it; if it happens again I will post a save.

 

[davidlallen]

I have no idea what's causing it; if it happens again I will post a save.

That will be great. We have not done anything to the way the UN building works or any of its internals. If we find a way to make it happen consistently in DW, the next step will be to try the same behavior in vanilla.

 

[God-Emperor]

There is one case that I know of where the diplomacy victory condition doesn't appear in regular BtS: If one civ has a number of votes that is high enough to vote itself the winner without anyone else voting for them, then the option won't appear. So if any civ is huge compared to the others in terms of total population, you won't see this option.

Check the victory condition screen. Each civ's vote total is listed on one of the displays and the number of votes required is listed on another on of them. If one of the individual civ's totals is higher than the number of votes required then you won't see the "win the game" vote.

 

[Ahriman]

There is one case that I know of where the diplomacy victory condition doesn't appear in regular BtS: If one civ has a number of votes that is high enough to vote itself the winner without anyone else voting for them, then the option won't appear.

Interesting. This could well be it. If your civ (and only your civ) goes for Arrakis Paradise and gets a lot of terraforming done, then you can generate really huge populations compared to rivals, even if your economy isn't appreciably bigger because you have less spice.

 

[Xaos]

I can confirm that I have occasionally noticed the diplomatic victory option disappearing. Diplomacy modifiers should have no impact on whether or not the vote shows up in the list of UN proposals you can make.

I have no idea what's causing it; if it happens again I will post a save.

This happens to me every time I play. I may be on the list for a few elections but then I dissappear. and as i stated, I turned the diplomacy victory condition off when I did the terraforming vic so it didnt apply. I dont get on the list even if I am pleased or above with everyone...

There is a promotion called "Thumper". Currently the icon is there, but it doesn't do anything. This promotion is supposed to act like a lightning rod. That is, a unit with this promotion will attract all the worms in the area, but when the worm arrives, it will disappear without doing any damage. So if you have scouts with this promotion, they will never get eaten. Also, units with this promotion would keep a group of nearby workers safe from harm. Do you think this would be helpful?

This would be cool, but will the scouts use this on their own if you set them to auto-explore? Maybe we could give this ability to them by default instead of needing to level them up?

 

[davidlallen]

This would be cool, but will the scouts use this on their own if you set them to auto-explore? Maybe we could give this ability to them by default instead of needing to level them up?

It is a passive ability, you don't need to do anything to use it. It doesn't have any prerequisites, so as soon as a unit levels, it can pick this promotion. It may be too powerful for a first level unit; what do you think?

 

[Ahriman]

Loop detection

I would see no problem with Thumpers starting automatically on Fremen scouts, and maybe a handful of other Fremen units.

 

[Xaos]

Well from a gameplay perspective, I think it would only be fair if all civs had it otherwise freemen would have too big of an early game advantage. And i still think it should be only scout units. Warrior units should have to level to get it. From a theming perspective, you would think those on dune/arrikis would all know how to move scouts around the world without them constantly dieing to worms.

 

[davidlallen]

From a theming perspective, you would think those on dune/arrikis would all know how to move scouts around the world without them constantly dieing to worms.

From the books I get the impression that even people who do know the world still lose scouts and warriors to sandworms. It is a constant threat. So I would rather have no starting units *immune*, except maybe fremen scouts. But fremen scouts are already pretty strong due to 2 movement points doubled on desert; so I would like some more opinions on whether this makes them too strong.

 

[Ahriman]

Well from a gameplay perspective, I think it would only be fair if all civs had it otherwise freemen would have too big of an early game advantage

IIRC thopter class units are also semi-immune to worms. Worms aren't attracted to them like they are to other units, so they are only destroyed if an adjacent worm moves next to them by random chance.

But fremen scouts are already pretty strong due to 2 movement points doubled on desert

An alternative would be to drop them to 1 move.

I don't particularly care either way, but I think that the Thumper promotion as it stands:
a) Shouldn't be available to non-Fremen (it doesn't do any good on non-Fremen units anyway unless they're in transports).
b) Shouldn't be something that Fremen have to waste promotions on; it isn't worth it.
Also, either the AI won't choose to spend a promotion on it with any unit (in which case it advantages the human player), or the Ai will spend a promotion on it for every unit (which are nearly all redudant - which advantages the human player).

I don't mind early scouts dying to worms. I think thats kinda flavorful, plus it means that you can't discover the entire map with just 1 scout. Exploration should have some risks.

So, maybe Fremen melee units should automatically start with Thumper promotion?

 

[davidlallen]

I think that the Thumper promotion as it stands: a) Shouldn't be available to non-Fremen (it doesn't do any good on non-Fremen units anyway unless they're in transports). b) Shouldn't be something that Fremen have to waste promotions on;

Good point about non-fremen. I would rather not make Fremen scouts immune to worms. Apart from that, I'd just suggest merging the thumper effect into the sandrider promo. I'd rather keep Fremen scouts at move 2 so they aren't crippled on land compared to other scouts. So, if we give Fremen scouts free thumper also, will they be too strong?

 

[Deliverator]

Good point about non-fremen. I would rather not make Fremen scouts immune to worms. Apart from that, I'd just suggest merging the thumper effect into the sandrider promo. I'd rather keep Fremen scouts at move 2 so they aren't crippled on land compared to other scouts. So, if we give Fremen scouts free thumper also, will they be too strong?

Perhaps the Thumper promo can be added to Fremen units after they research some tech that is not in the first tier, just to delay the advantage.

I imagine this tech as basically representing superior drip-irrigation techniques and the like. You have greenhouse buildings that increase heat and provide wind protection, and then use drip irrigation from wind-trap captured moisture to grow food.

Perhaps a more general term like Desert Farming or Desert Agriculture then. It's the "Sand" part that I find a bit weird. But then the difference to Desert Plantation gets a bit blurry... to be honest Sand Farms and Desert Plantation have conceptual overlap already in my opinion.

 

[Ahriman]

So, if we give Fremen scouts free thumper also, will they be too strong?

I don't see it being a particular problem if Fremen have much better scouting ability and tag more tribal villages (ie by not having their scouts die to worms).

In the long run, I'd probably suggest tweaking the bonuses available from tribal villages (especially if we turn them into botanical testing stations), so that they don't give entire free techs, which is too much randomness and too much power.

However, there is still some potential value in keeping the effect separate from sandrider.
i) You could put thumpers on melee units, but not guardsmen (if guardsmen eventualyl get sandrider, which they'll need if we eventually take away suspensor and thopter access).
ii) You could put thumpers on melee units and not have it on scouts
iii) You could put thumpers on newly built Fremen infantry, so they'll start on newly created units, but not the initial starting scout
iv) there is still some pure flavor value in having a separate thumper promotion, even if it only applies to units that have sandrider promotion. Slightly messier/redundant design, but possibly worth it for flavor value, and explicitly representing thumpers in the mod.


* * *
Entirely separate issue that I am reminded of; you once posted a list of units that barbarians have access to (or rather, the file where this is located). If you post this again, I'll come up with a set of units that I think barbs should have access to.
I think in this could include a barbarian-only "Desert Raider" unit, that was a 1 movement sandrider crysknife fighter, or from a slightly later tech.