A mod-mod: "Dune Wars Reduced"

[davidlallen]

Since we have some disagreement about whether there are too many buildings, units, etc, I would like to create a mod-mod. In this mod-mod, I will remove a lot of the buildings and units. If the mod-mod becomes more fun, perhaps we can agree to keep it. If not, we can discard the mod-mod.

I will start with 1.3.9b and do the following:
* Remove all the UU and UB except where they are unique, eg BG Reverend Mother
* Remove a few of the bonuses and tweak the placement amounts of the others
* Remove some of the civs; later when we have enough uniquenesses for these, we can add more
* Having removed the above, the tech tree may seem big and empty; I will see about making it a little smaller and more oriented to the remaining units.

Hopefully I can post something in 48 hours or so.

 

[Ahriman]

I like the idea of simpler, but I hate the idea of factions that don't have a bunch of UUs (though the current UUs don't do a good job of expressing faction strengths).

Interesting to try anyway.

 

[davidlallen]

It depends what you mean by "a bunch" of UU. In BTS, each civ has exactly one UU and one UB. Do you hate that? Suppose the only UU that the Bene Gesserit faction had was the Reverend Mother, and maybe one good UB. Would that be too few? I want to concentrate on a very small number of units with unique mechanics.

I was just replaying FFH, and I played a couple of Grigori games. Basically they have two UU, the adventurer (with unique mechanics) and the dragonslayer, and one UB, the inn. Probably they have some late game stuff too, but in the first 300 turns, that is all I saw, and I did not even use the inn. Still it felt very different from vanilla because of the unique mechanics. That is what I am aiming for.

 

[Ahriman]

In BTS, each civ has exactly one UU and one UB. Do you hate that?

Yes. In vanilla, each faction still plays basically the same. I haven't played vanilla in ~18 months.

I'm somewhat colored by the Warhammer mod design I've created; one of the design goals for that mod is to make each civ play very differently. So Brettonnia has fantastic knights and good cavalry, but weaker peasant infantry. Sylvania has a handful of incredibly powerful vampires to anchor their forces, but generally weak disposable troops. The chaos civs have powerful offensive infantry but weaker defensive troops. Dwarves have very limited mobility (no cavalry) but tough infantry and great siege equipment. Wood elves are mobile in forests and have big combat bonuses in forests and have great archers, but weak siege capability. High elves are good all round but have low population growth and so smaller cities and expensive units. etc. etc.

Obviously this is a very different mod, and you aren't going to go at all in the direction we hope to achieve of *most* units being replaced by UUs.
And the buildings/tech tree in Warhammer will remain much simpler than here.

But I think faction differentiation is a big part of what makes a mod fun, particualarly one based on a universe like Dune. It just feels wrong if Fremen play basically the same as Bene Gesserit who play the same as Harkonnen. If I'm playing Fremen I should be favoring the desert, and trying to launch hit and run pillage raids or attacking enemies while in transit; I should have combat bonuses on desert tiles but less ability to fight a sustained war on land. If I'm playing Harkonnen I should be favoring slow be very heavy troops. If I'm playing BG I should be trying to stay out of wars, using influence and spy missions to expand my territory. If I'm playing the Trade Guild I should have big trader bonuses; lots of extra trade routes and trade yields, trying to have open borders with lots of factions to reap a big trade-based economy. If I'm playing Atreides I should have diplomatic advantages and be able to have most people like me, and use alliances and defensive pacts to my advantage, so I'm never getting dogpiled.

 

[davidlallen]

I'm somewhat colored by the Warhammer mod design I've created; one of the design goals for that mod is to make each civ play very differently.

We agree on the goal.

 

[Deliverator]

I'm an advocate of this approach. It's much easier to take everything out and then have the gate rule "If it doesn't add anything don't add it."

A lot of FFH2's uniqueness comes from the changes to promotions and experience. Also, in magic and other things they have entirely new categories of unit ability over vanilla.

For example, the Grigori mages can cast two spells per turn (IIRC). That is civ differentiation built on top of a new mod mechanic.

If you really want to do a reworking of things from the ground up, I would begin by considering what unit abilities and promotions make sense on Dune. Then you think which civs and units should be stronger or weaker in each area.

In terms of achieving distinctiveness between civs, I think having a handful of UUs per factions is good, but if these are just vanilla style UUs (more movement/more strength) then that is dull and as Ahriman says doesn't do enough to make civs play differently. So there has to be some new categories of unit ability and promotion available. For example, you could have a reduced fat vesion of the Reverend Mother called Acolyte. Some the more powerful UUs abilities would be reduced and some omitted.

Also key, I think, is to prevent certain factions from building certain units. You can use NONE for a lot of the unit classes in civilization infos. The list of available units for the Fremen should be very different from the Harkonnen. What you prevent civs from building can create as much unique character as what you let them build.

Allowing the tech tree to evolve is important - they are a number of stages that don't make a lot of sense right now.

In summary, I think if you want to get each civ to play differently you have to be prepared to do something more fundamental than just create a single special powered UU for each one.

 

[keldath]

ahh superb idea david!

great approach,

i would be happy to help here, maybe it nice to have two versions, a lite and full.

perhaps indeed later on we will use only one.

great , im looking forward to see what you will come up with.


if you want,
i can also merge in a component that created unique tech trees for each civ.
also, in order to create a unique unit for a civ, that doesnt replace any unit class that the other civs can build,
you need a fictive unit class - see my ficitve tech.

i totally in for re making the units, with giving each nation a totally different tree of units.

where do we start?

 

[davidlallen]

This is harder / more painful than I thought. Today I accomplished:

* Removed Ecaz, Fenring civs (I will keep all the unique bonuses)
* Combined two Fremen civs into one; moved Paul and Leto 2 to Atreides leaders and deleted Ghanima.
* Removed bonuses: cloud, hares, hawks, stillsuit, missionaria, and the other two groundwaters. Made insect bonuses initially visible. Moved art files around to consolidate "bonus" and "imp" directories.
* Removed every UU and UB except Reverend Mother and one or two others. Cleaned up the resulting dozens of unused art directories. (I will keep a separate zip of the directories removed, in case we want to put back some units later.)
* Condensed unitcombats: removed recon (desert scout), rapid strike (cutterpillar, heavy roller)
* Reorganized mech units: kept 4 as Ix UU, deleted the other 6
* For each remaining unitcombat, tried to rationalize the strength range and the rock-paper-scissors aspects.

I need to rationalize the tech requirements for the units. I haven't even touched buildings, except to push all the landing stages into my "contract" format. This means I will need to add the contract picklist for this to be playable.

Tomorrow I will generate a table of all the units and their stats, so you can see the details. It is similar to Ahriman's post in general concept, although all the details are different.

This is a major re-arrangement of the art directories, so it will come with a full fpk file. If keldath feels strongly that the existing huge unit variety is important, I will keep this as a mod-mod; otherwise I will call it 1.4.

 

[Deliverator]

This all sounds good.

I haven't even touched buildings, except to push all the landing stages into my "contract" format.

My only reservation is that I'd still like civs to get their own unique resource before having the option to choose any of the others. I have you on record agreeing.

I still like Stillsuits as a unique resource for the Fremen. The BG unique resource needs a better name, but I still like the idea of giving them that early advantage in trade and diplomacy. These ideas can be developed and added a later stage though.

Maybe you should call the modmod Dune Wars Streamlined...

 

[Lord Tirian]

This is harder / more painful than I thought.

Keep going - I can only say pretty happy that this happens!

Because, in my experience, a full rebuilt at some point, after the basic outlines are laid out, is the best thing that can happen to a mod! Hopefully, seeing this happening relatively early with Dune Wars, it will make it really good as well!

Cheers, LT.

 

[cephalo]

Personally, I would like to see the mod become simpler still. Fremen/Atriedes, Harkonnen. Faction based victory conditions. Make a game out of it.

 

[davidlallen]

Yes, I like it. We can make a cardboard game board with twenty squares on it, and each turn you can roll your six sided die and move that many squares. When you reach the end you win!

(joke, if you could not tell.)

 

[keldath]

well...you really trimmed down the mod.......

i think its too thin for me...

i suggest for start, use it as a mod mod, and when you release it, i will take from it some of the things, like new unit structure and we will see what else.

personally, as i stated, i dont like having a latge mod, but...then again...i dont like a mini mod...

anyway , im eager to see what you come up with,

perhaps ill take you slim version and make a fuller version with added uus and all the stuff we have right no, this way the two version will have a more similar base.



keep up the good work

 

[Ahriman]

I'm trying to not hate the idea of drastically fewer water resources ;-)
Hopefully you include something that will still allow cities to grow significantly.

 

[Deliverator]

It can't hurt to read this again. This is from Kael, who knows a bit about modding:

Every new object has a cost, not just in what it takes to create, test and manage, but the player has to keep track of it as well. In general we should only add items because they offer a significant improvement to some aspect of the game, and not just to have more units, more resources, etc.

It sounds good to be able to offer a long list of new objects. That was much of the appeal of the very popular Civ3 Double your Pleasure (DyP) mod. But the success of DyP wasn’t because of all the new objects, but because each one had a distinct functional purpose. Adding buildings is easy, making them truly worthwhile is the hard part.

Is it needed? Would it be missed if it was taken out? Is it functionaly unique? If the answer to these is no, it should be considered for removal.

In other news, if I was doing this cutdown version, I'd get rid of the BG and Guild as playable civs. It feels wrong for both of these to have cities on Arrakis and be taking stuff by force.

I know the RM is one of the few UUs we have that has a proper special ability, but in my opinion it would be better if there were a limited number of these units that any faction can build in certain circumstances, or wandering barbarians that you can recruit in some way. In the books, the Emporer, the Atreides, the Fremen all have their Reverend Mothers (granted the Fremen versions are not proper BG).

That would make the mod capture Dune more for me. The Bene Gesserit having tanks, soldiers, etc, just bothers me.

 

[Ahriman]

In the books, the Emporer, the Atreides, the Fremen all have their Reverend Mothers (granted the Fremen versions are not proper BG).

Well, this was part of why I was arguing for the BG trade good to be "Truthsayer Advisors", so that factions on good terms with the BGs could get truthsayers from them.
And turn the "Truthsayer" city specialist back into a priest (and the Ghola specialist into a Noble).

I think its easy to imagine that the BG faction represents some generic house "favored" by the Bgs, who they choose to use as their puppets.

 

[Deliverator]

I'd support your suggestion.

It could also be interesting to play with making them a religion if we want to go down the making religions different route. Along the lines of the FFH2 religions that change the game quite dramatically. You make some sort of Kwisatz Haderach victory.

 

[keldath]

hey guys,

im thinking about this mod mod all the time,

and im very convinced about making the changes in the units and in the factions.

im thinking of going with your way:

- i will try to create a new unit set and each civ will have its unit brand,
for example - the fremen will mostly have access to infantry types and some rover vehicles.
th atreides will be based mostly on thoptes fire power along with some ground medium powered tanks - like the sonic tank.
harkonnen - heavy tanks.

i will trim down the unit classes, so every civ you play you will have to relly on different unit types to play with.

perhaps ill devide this into 4 unit trees or something like this so lets say every 2-3 civs will have the same unit structure, along with minor differences.
im thinking of using the unique tech tree for every one of those civs, this will allow me to trim down the tech tree as you guys want, and civs will be able to swap these techs among them, but the tech tree it self will be thiner.

i would love to hear your thought about this,
i now await to see davids work before i start.

hope you wont abandon the main version for now...

 

[davidlallen]

I am glad we are thinking in the same direction. I have just finished painfully refolding the entire tech tree ("pain" seems to be the word for this weekend :-(). Let me build some summary tables and tweak it a little, then upload in the next 12 hours.

I will call this an "unofficial 1.4 release". It gets a .4 instead of .3 because it will include a new fpk; but it is unofficial, and pretty much unplaytested, so I will only put it into the patch thread. We should not put it into the main thread until it is more playtested.

 

[davidlallen]

Well, I am getting a CTD in every game, so it is not ready for release. However, here are two spreadsheets I have made.

The first one compares the "dune wars reduced" units against vanilla. The sheet has two lists, one for vanilla and one for DWR. Each list is sorted by the tech level (x position in tech tree) where the unit appears. This shows that vanilla has slightly more units than DWR, but the strengths are basically comparable. The main difference is in the number of ocean units available; DWR does not need a very rich set.

The second one is automatically generated with a script from the XML; it shows the important points of each unit. You may want to hide some columns. The "Notes" column shows my own summary of what the civilopedia help would look like. You can use this to get an overview of the purpose of each unitcombat.

If you have time/interest, feedback on this list would be helpful. It is hard to tell much without the actual mod files, and I will release that as soon as it is working OK.