A thread for small ideas

I really think that some kinds of AC shifts need to be scaled with mapsize.

Notably:

Building world units that alter AC on creation
Building World wonders that alter AC on creation
Random events that alter AC

And types that should NOT scale

National or team wonders that alter AC on creation.
Kills with War, or any weapon using <iModifyGlobalCounterOnCombat>
Razing a city
Spreading Ashen Veil
Razing an Ashen Veil City
Sanctifying city ruins
Building a unit at Prophecy of Ragnarok
Hallowing of the Elohim / Elegy of the Sheiam
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The reasons being, that with the possible exception of Prophecy of Ragnarok, all of the things in the latter category, have increased chance to happen, as the map gets bigger. Eg, rituals like Purge the Unfaithful can be done by any nation. The more nations there are, the more they can be used. The 4 things to do with AV and cities, don't need to be scaled because as the map gets bigger, so too does the number of cities. More to burn, more to spread AV to, more ruins to sanctify, etc.


The things in the former category, are one-off events. World wonders and World units can only ever be built once, by one nation. No matter how big the world is, there will never be more than one Sphener or Mardero. So I believe their impact on the AC should be appropriately scaled. Likewise with any world wonders that alter it, such as Pillar of chains. There will never be more than one of it.

Events, I'm not too certain about, but I'd lean towards saying that they should be scaled.
 
For a brief time I started the Khadi and Amurites off with Adepts instead of scouts - and found Floating Eye comparably broken in scouting ability.

Maybe make a special starting adept for them that can't learn Metamagic spells?
 
What's broken about floating eye?

Being able to see everything that's around is just a neat advantage for them. It doesn't allow them to steamroll things, like say... doviello city attack warriors. Or Scions with a size 2 capital off the bat and no food concerns.

I find that it gives a nice flavorsome advantage. Even with floating eye, there's only so far you can see without sending your adept into serious danger, which you generally don't want to do.
 
Guybrush should have the 'Insult Swordfighter' ability, which allows him to use the 'Insult' spell, which would randomly debuff himself or the enemy.
 
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I'd like to see more national wonders. As it stands, bigger is better, and national wonders kinda give a smaller civilization a little more ommph instead of something else to be steamrolled.

Along these lines, how about a one-time national wonder that gives you any two free techs of your choice, which are already known to at least two other civs.

Wouldn't be much use if you're world tech leader, but it would help smaller civs to catch up a bit.
 
Random suggestion

Is it possible to integrate Tarqueline's (sp?) modules into the core game? (especially the one involving the new Calabim UUs)
 
What's broken about floating eye?

Being able to see everything that's around is just a neat advantage for them. It doesn't allow them to steamroll things, like say... doviello city attack warriors. Or Scions with a size 2 capital off the bat and no food concerns.

I find that it gives a nice flavorsome advantage. Even with floating eye, there's only so far you can see without sending your adept into serious danger, which you generally don't want to do.

Mainly it allows you to grab all the tribal villages ASAP with out searching for them, each one you get is one your opponent doesn't. Vastly increasing your chances of pulling out a Tech or GP early.

Add to that grabbing lairs and such before they are defended becasue you are not spending time looking for them.

As for the adept in danger, there is no real danger that early. Barbs don't show up for a while and your scouts will be in the area gobbling up goodies to respond to any animal issues. PLUS the fact you can see any dangers long before they get close there by meaning no real risk to said adept.

Is it the same as starting with Earth III no, but if a tribal villages get you to Bronze Working or even Hunting 30 turns before your neighbors it ends up havin gthe same effect.
 
Mainly it allows you to grab all the tribal villages ASAP with out searching for them, each one you get is one your opponent doesn't. Vastly increasing your chances of pulling out a Tech or GP early.

Add to that grabbing lairs and such before they are defended becasue you are not spending time looking for them.

As for the adept in danger, there is no real danger that early. Barbs don't show up for a while and your scouts will be in the area gobbling up goodies to respond to any animal issues. PLUS the fact you can see any dangers long before they get close there by meaning no real risk to said adept.

Is it the same as starting with Earth III no, but if a tribal villages get you to Bronze Working or even Hunting 30 turns before your neighbors it ends up havin gthe same effect.

Huh? Scouts are not free. Chances of you even getting techs with an adept are kinda slim, also with a move of one I doubt you could run away from any threats that happen see you. Of course you could always get unlucky/dumb and miss the odd spider that is kicking it.
 
I just thought of another one. For the Amurites, reduce the required number of nodes for gifted spells to adepts by 1. eg, normally if you have >=2 law mana, all adepts start with Law I. As the Amurites, if you have >=1 law mana, all adepts start with Law I.

It frees up space to get more combat promotions, so the Amurites would actually have stronger adepts than everyone else. Also, it lightens up the team's dependency on Govannon.
 
Huh? Scouts are not free. Chances of you even getting techs with an adept are kinda slim, also with a move of one I doubt you could run away from any threats that happen see you. Of course you could always get unlucky/dumb and miss the odd spider that is kicking it.

I am not suggesting you use the ADEPT to run around getting them, you build 1 or 2 scouts (cheap and quick to get) and THEY run around at speed 2 gobbling up what the adept reveals.

Speed one is EASY to run away from stuff you see that is 10 tiles away. 95% of early stuff out there is speed one also. Until Wolf Riders show up nothing can catch you are speed one.

Also don't forget starting with an adept COULD give you access to Haste as soon as they leveled up using their passive EXP if you were lucky enough to start near Odin's prison. Matter of fact if you started near any of the Unique features you could have Any one (or 2 or 3) of the 1st level spells. What mana types do the Amurites get from their Palace? Your adept could have level one of each of those long before your opponents even think about researching Adepts at all. Sure you couldn't get level 2 spells to get REAL abusive but still, could make a big difference.
 
What mana types do the Amurites get from their Palace?

Body, Metamagic, Fire

Yes, you can cast haste too. It's not really all that useful, though. Since it's massively changed from how it used to work in FFH. Unless you keep the caster in the stack, it wears off after 1 turn, and causes a significant strength penalty for a while due to fatigue.

It'd be fairly useful for the adept himself, but that's about it.

Also, annoyingly, haste doesn't work on settlers.
 
True, but it WOULD give the adept speed 2 to run away from danger while out scouting AND let him keep up with scouts for protection.
 
What's broken about floating eye?

Being able to see everything that's around is just a neat advantage for them. It doesn't allow them to steamroll things, like say... doviello city attack warriors. Or Scions with a size 2 capital off the bat and no food concerns.

I find that it gives a nice flavorsome advantage. Even with floating eye, there's only so far you can see without sending your adept into serious danger, which you generally don't want to do.


I think this is another case where it easier to just change a line of XML then try to convince everyone else. I know Amurites are starting with an adept in all of my games. :)
 
I am not suggesting you use the ADEPT to run around getting them, you build 1 or 2 scouts (cheap and quick to get) and THEY run around at speed 2 gobbling up what the adept reveals.

Speed one is EASY to run away from stuff you see that is 10 tiles away. 95% of early stuff out there is speed one also. Until Wolf Riders show up nothing can catch you are speed one.

Also don't forget starting with an adept COULD give you access to Haste as soon as they leveled up using their passive EXP if you were lucky enough to start near Odin's prison. Matter of fact if you started near any of the Unique features you could have Any one (or 2 or 3) of the 1st level spells. What mana types do the Amurites get from their Palace? Your adept could have level one of each of those long before your opponents even think about researching Adepts at all. Sure you couldn't get level 2 spells to get REAL abusive but still, could make a big difference.

Donno, you'd still need to BUILD those two scouts at the expense of other early building. Also i'd be more worried about starting with Chaos mana than body for the Dance of Blades. Good for you if you start down/up stream from Odio's prison, otherwise you got that worker in the queue waiting for your two scouts to be built.
 
I really think that some kinds of AC shifts need to be scaled with mapsize.

Notably:

Random events that alter AC

I just finished a marathon/giant/48-civ game that resulted in a gone to hell victory on turn 527, with 60 turns spent in stasis early on. I was playing with Last Days enabled, but the AC rose high enough to pop the first horseman when random events were the only things contributing. I beelined for AV, but hell terrain started spreading from bradeline's well way before I finished researching corruption of spirit.

If that can be done as the game currently is, I can only imagine that the same will happen for regular games if random events scaled for map size/game speed. I think they should stay the way they are, since, as you say:

The reasons being, that with the possible exception of Prophecy of Ragnarok, all of the things in the latter category, have increased chance to happen, as the map gets bigger.
 
otherwise you got that worker in the queue waiting for your two scouts to be built.

Meh I need to build SOMETHING before worker to not stunt my cities growth anyway :)

With Body from thier palace they don't even need Odins Prison Could get One of the other mana sources real early... say Death and be summoning skeletons REAL early in the game.

My point is, an adept is VERY powerful Turn 1 unit far beyond what many of you are willing to admit.

Make a change to your suggestion... what if they started with a settler and 2 warriors. ONE of which was a special unit (mini hero if you would) that could use Floating eye but was not, nor ever would be a mage.

Their starting scout was simply replaced with a one :move: unit with floating eye. Would that still be beneficial to you? Would get you the eye, without the other borderline abusive upgrades, and while you could see goody huts, the 1 :move: would slow you down trying to get to them.

meh it doesn't really matter, I am just trying to point out that a "small" change can have huge implications.
 
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