A new idea (Lineage)

[Shadow World]

I have been playing FFH2 for some time now. One of my guilty little pleasures is making an avatar via world builder as a ruler for my race. I was thinking about how fun it would be if each race had a ruler that was an actual unit in the game, and even having events around that unit that would inspire the race. Example being marriage or birth of a child (new unit.)

Maybe have at start each race with its chosen leader being a great prophet or commander, or what ever, named after the ruler. Depending on race and population growth have it last between 80-200 turns, and its off spring being the next in line to lead. When the unit dies at the end of X amount of turns have the cities respond as to how well the civ did during the duration of its existence.

One reason I though of this is the class of assassin which doesn't actually assassinate anything in the game ever, but behaves more like a martial warrior. I was thinking how fun it would be to be able to have assassins that have a percentage chance to kill a leader, and effectively change the culture of an enemy race. The percentage should be based on how the race views you and how friendly they are to you. The out come should include percentage of them declaring war on you for successes or failure of an assassination attempt.

This lead me to think of spies. Shadows are the spies now and tend to be a very useful unit. I was thinking of how spies work in the real world and how there could be an earlier version of the unit that would be based on recruiting. Example, you have a city that borders on enemy territory where in one tile you only have 52% population, which means 48% is another race. This would make for an excellent place to recruit spies against that race. Have the recruiting unit (assassin) have a percentage chance to recruit from that population with the out come being a new unit that is marked as this race and can roam freely about its borders.

Now back to leader dying. I was thinking that if the leader is assassinated this should have a chance to cause a revolt and change the civics with out the Ai/player's consent. Because thats kind of how it works in real life. Or even just a few turns of anarchy that would make it impossible for that player to change civics for a number of turns. Also if for example the race is an evil race or just treats its people poorly they may celebrate the fact that the leader has died, and it may have a positive effect, which leads me to the thought of being able to assassinate your own leaders if the people do not like them. This would mean that in happiness would now have a check on how much each city likes it's leader.

This is just a summery of the idea I had, there is quite a bit more that I didn't add. I wanted to get the thought out there to other ffh2 players, see what responses come from this post.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

What would stop you from simply hiding the unit on a 1 tile tundra at the north pole? I think they should have abilities relating to their civilization. e.g. Having the Lanun leader in a city increases the production of ships by 50%. Having a Khazak leader in a city increases it's commerce by 50%. Not only would thi sbe an incentive to keep them in your core cities, it would make them easier to find by assasins. e.g. Khazak's leader increases gold so he'll probably be in the top commerce city.

 

[Bad Player]

While this may be an interesting idea for something novel we could play, remember that Hyborem and Basium are in the game already and are fighters in the game (whereas it sounds like the other leaders would take a passive role).

 

[MrUnderhill]

TheLopez was working on a Dynasty Mod for vanilla that does a little of what Shadow World is describing (leaders as units, new leaders being born and such). If he's finished it since then, it could be merged with FFH as part of a mini-mod. That would be interesting.

 

[Dark Russell]

I am currently working on a mod that has a leader who is buildable from the beginning of the game. He is a strength 0 unit that has the Hero promotion and is a trainer for a specific promotion only available to certain units. I think any leaders in game should have some other specific use other than being a protected figurehead.

 

[giddion]

its funny you mention this... as I was thinking about it the other day...

In civ 3 there was "regicide"... Having a similar game type with the avatar would be great.
But I was only thinking that the avatar would be something like...
0 attack
3 defence
With only defensive promotions allowed. ie. non offensive unit. (A leader should stay in the capital)
I was also thinking it should provide a bonus when fortified in your capital.
+2 Happy
+2 health
and maybe +2 gold but I'm not sure on this one...

 

[MrUnderhill]

That sounds good for a generic leader, but I don't think all leaders should be defense-only. Simply losing your traits should be incentive enough to keep your leader close-by, and some leaders (Jonas, Capria, etc.) are at least competent fighters, if not professionals.

I also think each leader should have unique abilities (Cassiel would be able to Inquisition, Einion could cast Peace, Perpentach would start with Reversal of Fortune, etc.). This would give them even more flavor than simple traits would, and give you a reason to actively manage your leaders rather than sitting them in your capital the whole game. The problem would be balancing each leader so they don't overpower one another, but with a little work it could add a lot.

 

[Shadow World]

I like the idea of Leaders having specific abilities and passive bonus, I was also thinking if they started with 0 attack then they should be able to link up to another unit like a great commander. Maybe even give a bonus to units like royal guard.

 

[Shadius]

Not to mention that some leaders would be powerful mages.

To be honest, I already rename my first two adepts "Valledia" and "Dain" when playing the Amurites.

 

[Annex]

The assasination of a leader could also change the armageddon counter, depending on the situation.

 

[giddion]

I played a great Civ3 mod which was based in Japan during the feudal era. You have a shogun, that had is own promotion set that was unlocked by the tech tree. Similar to "regicide" if you loose the Shogun you loose your empire (ie. game).

What happened to Regicide, I really liked this game type???

But I didn't like the way all the cities would be destroyed after the death of a leader. I think they should become independent states (barbarian cities), after the fall of the leader.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I concur.

Actually, I don't like the idea of them joining the barbarian state, but turning Independent the way independent "minor civs" are implemented in Rhye's would be great. It would also be nice if these minor civs could build the unique units for leaders that have not been in the game, which would let the city that builds it and possibly a few others nearby to emerge as that leaders civ.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

Well that would take up civ spaces, just like the indepenndents do in RFC. MAking them barbarians would be easier, but give the barbarians the ability to build the unit, only under certain circumstances. I imagine different leaders make some leaders more likley to occur. For instance. Dain the Caswallan makes your leaders more likely to have have magic abilities, while Capria makes your leader much stronger. Maybe lanun ones can capture ships. In addition to this they have a passive affect for the city. A lanun leader makes ships built in the city they are in start with navigation 1 & 2. A Ljosalfar leader causes forests in the city radius to spread more, and rareley can cause a desert to change to plain. Obviously, leaders would have to be made very balanced. An elohim leader grants demon slaying and evangelist promotions to all units in their city. A Khazak leader makes another trade route and increase commerce in his city. Also, Hyborem and Basium are permanent leaders, because they live forever. They should also be the most powerful because the Infernals and Mercurians are already handicapped.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I still don't think that the civs should join the barbarian state when their "king unit" is destroyed. This is partially because it makes little sense for these leaderless citizens of multiple civs to all suddenly make peace with and join the barbarians, but mostly because I don't like the idea of humans, elves, and dwarves suddenly turning to orcs. I'm fine with the Clan of Embers (and maybe the Doviello under their barb trait leader) joining the barbarians when their leader dies, but not the elves. Personally, I would like 1 "independent civ" per race, plus perhaps one or two extra for the humans (so adjacent kingdoms won't automatically merge if their leaders both die). Actually, it might be nice if these independent civs existed anyway, if only to represent the non-orkish barbarians.

Now that FfH has been moved to BtS independent civs can be added, since there is not a problem with increasing the maximum number of civilizations (except that the map scripts would have to be updated to handle the extra civs). Personally, I think that the limit needs to be increased to at least 22 (all 21 civs and the barbarian state), if not more (to allow for independent states and colonies)

 

[Sureshot]

why do you need special new civilizations for leaderless civs? just remove traits, and if necessary, sub in a featureless leader.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

That was only for the special circumstance of a regicide game. If you left the civ around, even if they lost their traits, then they would not be defeated and you would not win the game just by taking out all the "Kings." (I assumed that, since you don't have to wipe out the barbarian state to win a conquest victory, you wouldn't need to conquer the independent civs either) I wouldn't have a problem with the trait losing penalty for a normal game.

 

[MrUnderhill]

Now that FFH is moving to BTS, it could be set it up so that killing a leader (or leaders) with regicide turned on automatically makes the enemy nation capitulate to you. That would let you keep them around without hurting your chances at a Conquest victory or having to double the number of civs.

 

[Shadow World]

I still don't think that the civs should join the barbarian state when their "king unit" is destroyed. This is partially because it makes little sense for these leaderless citizens of multiple civs to all suddenly make peace with and join the barbarians, but mostly because I don't like the idea of humans, elves, and dwarves suddenly turning to orcs. I'm fine with the Clan of Embers (and maybe the Doviello under their barb trait leader) joining the barbarians when their leader dies, but not the elves. Personally, I would like 1 "independent civ" per race, plus perhaps one or two extra for the humans (so adjacent kingdoms won't automatically merge if their leaders both die). Actually, it might be nice if these independent civs existed anyway, if only to represent the non-orkish barbarians.

Now that FfH has been moved to BtS independent civs can be added, since there is not a problem with increasing the maximum number of civilizations (except that the map scripts would have to be updated to handle the extra civs). Personally, I think that the limit needs to be increased to at least 22 (all 21 civs and the barbarian state), if not more (to allow for independent states and colonies)

Why not have non-orc barbarians? Why can't there be dwarf and elf barbarians? If this type of revolt takes place it should be based on distance of area of kingdom to capital and religion. This would give incentive to both move the leader around to each city and spread state religion.

In reality in china there is a saying "the mountain is large and very far away," which means yeah we are communist but no one really governs us.