A FFH Colony Idea

[Ekolite]

One thing that really annoys me in FFH is making a colony and getting a random other civ pop up. It was alright in vanilla bts because the civs were all essentially the same anyway, but, I have serious issues with for eg. the elohim creating a Sheaim colony. Would it be possible to make it so that you can choose what civ you want to make as your colony, just for flavour's sake. Also, it would be nice if you could choose to play as your colony when you found them - like you can when you summon Hyborem or basium.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I concur. It would be great for it to trigger an event that gives you several choices of what civ to create, and if you want to switch or not.


Also, I really think that you need to get rid of the "2 cities on the same continent, not the same landmass as the capital" requirement. That never made sense to me, and certainly isn't good for certain civs (Khazad, Lanun, etc). I would rather you be able to liberate any single city (perhaps require it not be contiguous with your capitals cultural borders or something like that), and then liberate/gift other individual cites to that new civ.

Oh, you should also really be able to gift cites to vassals, instead of only haveing the ability to liberate them.

 

[nealhunt]

I like the idea, but if you can pick your colony then there would be the possibility of exploiting palace mana.

 

[Cornishman]

I like this idea. It fits in with the way there can be vast differences between FFH2 civs, both in theme, and abilities. It seems wrong that either of the Elven Civs would spawn a Dwarven civ as a colony (or vise-versa).

Would it be possible to create a list of possible 'colony' civs based on the orginal civ and the current alignment? This way ordinarily the Elohim won't create a Sheaim colony, but if the Elohim had become evil in alignment then this would be possible, and in my opinion reasonable.

Which raises the question; How hard would this be to implement?

 

[kumquatelvis]

In a previous thread on the same topic someone suggested that colonies should be the same civ, but with a different leader. Of course that causes problems for one leader civs, but I'm sure something could be worked out.

 

[Ekolite]

I like the idea, but if you can pick your colony then there would be the possibility of exploiting palace mana.

True. But TBH, Ive always thought trading mana is a bit exploitive. I mean how do you physically, actually trade mana?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'd prefer they be the same civ if there is an unused leader for that civ, followed by their derivative civ (thematic, like a split between light and dark elves or between the two Dwarven races, or letting those of the Malakim who held on to the Books of Laroth that Varn brought out of the Vale form the Sidar, ect.), followed by leaders of the same alignment, (followed by neutral civs if a good/evil leader is out of leaders that start with the same alignment), follwed by everyone else.

It could also be cool if the schema were changed to give every civ/leader a different chance to spawn each other civ/leader, or to set derivative civ rankings so each civ will spawn other civs in a specific order.



I already changed the SDK to allow (human civs) to liberate any single (non-capital) cites as colonies (borrowing the code found here), plus made it so that you could gift cities to vassals and choose to become the vassal of an AI. I've been too busy to test it.


I think that the Overcouncil should have resolutions asking a member to liberate a specific city, either to a fellow council member or as a colony. I also think that they should have resolutions that can peacefully end vassalage agreements.

 

[Nicholzation]

If choosing the colony of your civ is too broken, maybe there is a way to script it the Game chooses civs in an order descending priority. Or at least a way to limit colony's to civs/leaders with same alignment.

 

[El_Duderino]

would it be possible to make all colonies the same nation as you are to prevent the palace mana exploit but rather than have the other leader of the nation it has a randomly named leader who only has 1 trait, but you can gift cities. I think it would fit thematically - (one of your generals, administrators, ect. is running you colony) as well as prevent any strange sheaim elohim team. and it would allow any number of colonies on very large maps so your farflung empire can run sort of like feudalism

 

[xienwolf]

I think that you would have to create completely new leader defines for each civ to have a "Generic Leader" whose Leaderhead is just the National Flag. But otherwise it shouldn't be too hard to accomplish. Only trick I can see is if setting the <bAIPlayable> and <bHumanPlayable> tags to 0 also meant it cannot be selected for leading a Colony

 

[Mortenart]

I agree that it should be the same Civ as the one that founded the colony, but over time perhaps the colony could become a Civ in its own right (cue a bloody war of Independence). Would have to create various new `colonial` Civs based on each race for this, but it would be the ideal solution if it were possible, I think.

 

[Ekolite]

I agree with just using a flag as a LH. I think it'd be cool if you could name the colony too. The AI can just pick one out of a hat.

 

[Tarquelne]

The Revolution mod has code for that sort of thing that might be useful.

link

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Not a fan of the idea of "generic leaders." It should chose an alternate leader of the same civ if possible (I may add more alternate leaders in my modmod), and then go to civs that are are of similar races and ideologies. I think that vassals who enter late are behind enough already, and don't need to be weakened by having fewer or no traits.


I do think that colonies should be more likely to assert their independence though. The "liberation" diplo bonuses (both for giving the civ its freedom and for giving them cities) should be only temporary.

 

[Mewtarthio]

I'd just be satisfied if they at least kept the colonies within one alignment step of their founders. Good civs won't spawn Evil civs, and vice versa, but everything else works out fine.

I'd also like it if the "You have granted us our indepence" bonus dropped as the AC rose. It would really help give the feeling that the world was breaking apart. Perhaps the requirements to declare independence could also be decreased as the AC rose.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yeah, one alignment step if fine, but it might be better to have those of the same alignment chosen first. (Of course, it could still be nice to have the Ljosalfar and the Svartalfar split, and be likely to go to war)

I don't think the diplo boni should be related to the AC, they should just wear off after a while.

Having the requirements for independence depend on the AC seems like a good idea.

 

[Verdian]

t should chose an alternate leader of the same civ if possible (I may add more alternate leaders in my modmod), and then go to civs that are are of similar races and ideologies.

I absolutely love that idea. From a roleplay perspective (which is how I like to play), it has many possibilities. I like to randomly protect a civilization when I play a good civ anyway, and this just makes it even more enjoyable. I do have one stupid question, though. How do you create a colony? I almost always play on Pangaea, so maybe that is why I seldom see that mechanic.

 

[El_Duderino]

i think the current rules are that it cannot be on the same landmass so that would explain why you cant use it, but to use it you go to the domestic button and you see the fist icon you then select a city and click fist and it tells you that you can make that city and the others on that land mass a colony

 

[MagisterCultuum]

El_Duderino is correct. However, these rules can be changed in the SDK without too much trouble. I haven't had time to test it, but I already included the change found here into the last released uncompiled FfH .dll (patch h). I also went ahead and removed the block that only lets you liberate cities to vassals, instead of being able to gist them. I'm hoping that Kael will release the source for patch n quickly, so I can include these in my modmod. I may look into adding that level of priority for colony leader choices too.

 

[bc1]

Appologies for the off topic question, but where do you find the uncompiled (source code) FfH.dll ?