A thread for small ideas

[Dean_the_Young]

A new game-option of "All Unique Creatures"? Sort of like All Unique Features, but guarantees that all the unique creatures (Acheron, Gurid/Margalard, Leviathan, Sailor's Dirge, etc.) at least have a chance to show up when conditions are right.

It could also greatly boost the likelyhood of various event-spawned heroes and creatures, like Mary, Galean, or Nich-whatever the Bandit Lord. Not necessarily scripted so that first person to reach requirements gets it, but rather that they won't ever be excluded from the game during the initial creation.

 

[Solanus]

Example: You're playing as one of the Elven races, which get Swordsmen as their T2 mêlée unit, but you acquire a Dwarven Warrior that you would like to upgrade along the mêlée line. Because your Barracks are able to produce Elven Swordsmen, your Dwarven Warrior would normally only be able to upgrade to a Swordsman, which is a Human Swordsman in appearance, although they retain the Dwarf racial promotion. They can then be promoted to Champion, which does switch over to a Dwarven Champion appearance (very sweet look, BTW).

What I would like to see is if units that are of a different race than the owning Civ, are upgraded in the Civ's cities, they upgrade into a form that retains their racial appearance. Where this gets tricky is when:

• You have a Civ that would have a (not normally racially variegated) UU or variant (Swordsman/Axeman) on that upgrade path,
• Your Civ doesn't normally upgrade units of that type (or the reverse, like Clan Warriors can't upgrade to Champions, but I had a captured Orc Warrior become a Champion with my Elven Civ),
• The acquired unit would normally upgrade into a UU or variant on its original upgrade path, or
• The acquired unit is already a UU.

The first is an art asset nightmare, but would of course be fun to have. The second point (first part) is tricky if the Civ can't build the particular upgrade building (unless it would default to either a different building or just be territorially available, like some existing upgrades). The other part has obviously been done in the past, but I don't know how completely it's been implemented.

The third point is a little more of a "too bad" issue for UU's only, because if the unit doesn't have access to the old Civ's resources, it probably shouldn't be able to upgrade to the old Civ's UU's. Variants are a different matter, more in line with the reverse of point #2.

And the fourth point is more a question of making sure it doesn't lose its previous "uniqueness" if you upgrade it. This might not be possible to carry everything that was special about the previous unit, especially if it is different in a core ability (Strength, Movement), unless they are set up as promotions versus core changes. But again that may just be the cost of having a unit that is not of your Civ.

Civ to Civ upgrade changes are handy, but it would also be nice to be able to upgrade Goblin Archers and other such Civ-less units. I know I'm able to upgrade Barbarian Lizardmen into Rangers and such, but they of course switch over to Human graphics usually.

All told, it's a lot to ask for, but some of the individual items may be small enough to qualify for this thread.

 

[Solanus]

Was playing a game with the Elohim against a no-Good-opponent field (4 Neutrals, 6 Evil), on a Tectonics map, Epic Speed. Came across the Khazad who had a small continent all to themselves, but they were stuck on one side of a shield wall and had not developed Sailing yet apparently. Two thirds of the continent was unused and the Dwarves were stuck with maybe 3 cities, over 400 turns in.

That made me think about a grand improvement that could be built by Civs with Way of the Earthmother, or maybe even require Arete -- a Mountain Tunnel. This would encompass a Tunnel Gate sitting directly next to a Peak, and another Tunnel Gate directly across the Peak from the first, with each Tunnel Gate shown as a stone doorway at the base of the Peak for the visible sides. This cannot be built across multiple adjacent Peaks (or if so would require much more build time), and it cannot be built from one Peak to a distant Peak. Both ends of the Mountain Tunnel must be within the building Civ's borders or unclaimed territory during construction (maybe Open Borders?).

Because this is no simple improvement, the Mountain Tunnel would require a significant number of turns to build, usually requiring multiple Workers 10's of turns to complete (maybe set the base build time around 100 turns, IDK). The Mountain Tunnel would count as a commerce route, and the building of each Tunnel Gate also places Roads (or Trails) in those tiles, but would not necessarily remove forest or jungle at either end. Tunnel Gates count as improvements, and would normally block future improvements and would destroy existing improvements during their construction (or be blocked by improvements that have priority, like World Improvements). Mountain Tunnels can be constructed in multiple directions through the same Peak, and Tunnel Gates can be part of multiple Mountain Tunnels, reducing the construction time appropriately (maybe 20% for common Tunnels and 10% for common Gates).

To use the Mountain Tunnel, units would approach one Tunnel Gate and then right-click the other Tunnel Gate to move through, using up their remaining movement points, and being deposited at the far end. Pathfinding for distant moves would consider the Mountain Tunnel, keeping in mind the ending of a turn's movement at the ending Tunnel Gate. If a defender is at the ending Tunnel Gate, they would defend the tile as normal, with a unit attacking through the Mountain Tunnel taking a penalty for fighting in a confined space. Units that attack through a Mountain Tunnel and that are either successful against part of a large stack or withdraw from combat, would return to the origin Tunnel Gate (this would prevent Blitz from working, unfortunately). Because there is a Peak in the way, ranged attacks and bombardment cannot take place through a Mountain Tunnel.

Units could attempt to raze the improvement (cave in the tunnel to prevent enemy entry), but this would require multiple applications to be successful (too big for a single unit in a single turn to raze). A Tunnel Gate so razed can be reconstructed in the same direction in maybe a third of the usual build time. Razing a Tunnel Gate servicing multiple Mountain Tunnels would either bring up a dialog box to choose which direction to raze (in which case the Tunnel Gate still exists for the other direction(s)), or would destroy the Tunnel Gate for all directions, and may require more time to raze.

Because the Tunnel Gates are improvements, they cannot be built directly into a city. Depending on balance reasons, either no additional upgrades can be made to the Tunnel Gates or they could allow a Worker to cast an upgrade "spell" with a time and/or gold cost, to allow for it to count as a Fort, Castle, or Citadel to outside attackers (and improve the attacking penalty through the Mountain Tunnel when defended). (This would have the added benefit of making it more visible on the "North" side of a Peak.)

From a game abuse standpoint, I could see a player or even AI Civ founding an important city in a 1x2 set of tiles surrounded by Peaks (enough room for the city and a single Tunnel Gate) and then use just the outer city tiles for food and production. This would make it very hard to besiege, although defending archers and siege weapons would be about useless, unless you rule that there are large battle caverns that make arcing projectiles viable (I wouldn't).

I also don't know if you would want to say that these Fort-like structures work like Forts in the Fort Commander module sense. I could see pre-existing Mountain Tunnels (from before the Age of Ice) being occupied by Goblins or other such units, and I could definitely see pre-existing Tunnels leading to otherwise blocked World Improvements.

 

[nizanthor]

want, need ATLANTIS MOD