Artifacts

[Hydromancerx]

Here is an idea first posted in AND by vincentz. I think it could work well for C2C.

Artifacts
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=363821

One thing I really liked in the old old (but excellent) Warlords II game, was the possibillity of finding artifacts. How about implementing this in AND?

An Artifact would be attached to a unit the same way a promotion would, or they could be attached like Lead as Warlord, but different (able to both attach warlords and artifacts). The later already has a nice graphic (Treasure) and can also be used to build Artifact World Wonders, which then again could be "pillaged" when city was captured.

The effect could be Single Unit/Stack/Area/Empire and with Afforess skills it seems that only the imagination would be the limit

Situations where artifacts could be discovered :

(A) Capturing a Holy City (100% chance)
(B) Capturing cities where enemy had National Wonders (5% chance)
(C) Discovering in Huts (alternative to existing huts but low chance)
(D) Killing high XP units (or Generals) (5-50% chance depending how high level)
(E) Killing units already carrying artifacts (100%)
(F) First to discover a tech (100% chance)
(G) Event
(H) Quest

(1) Ancient
(2) Classical
(3) Medieval
(4) Renaissance
(5) Industrial
(6) Modern

Types of Artifacts :

Weapons

Jewelry

Religious items

Objects

Beer of Jaihu

Mona Lisa

Ark of Covenant

Cup of Jamshid

The Palladium

Lippershey's Spyglass

Olmec Compass

Rosetta Stone

Shroud of Turin

Dead Sea Scrolls

Lucy (Australopithecus) Fossils

Crystal Skull

Holy Grail

Excalibur

The Book of the Dead

The Was Sceptre of Set

IMPORTANT : The Artifacts should NOT be magical but can be mythical or legendary. So no flying or supernuking in classical era, nor should they be overpowering.

Here are some ideas ...

Rosetta Stone

Shroud of Turin

Dead Sea Scrolls

Lucy (Australopithecus) Fossils

Crystal Skull

I like this idea. Maybe the Ark and other treasures could be something that could be attached to a city or unit. Attaching it to a city gives it an empire-wide bonus (small but still nice-sized) while attaching to a unit allows the player to move the treasure around and gives the unit a combat bonus (of course, it would have to be possible to "deattach" the treasure from a city).

If the unit carrying it is killed, then it's either picked up by the unit that destroyed that unit or in the case of being killed by an airstrike, ranged bombard, nuke, etc., it's lost and randomly resurfaces in some barbarian city, unit, or lacking either, some random city. If the city holding the artifact is razed, there's a 50/50 chance that the artifact pops up in the capital of the razing army or is lost for a while to resurface later.

Diplomatically, to prevent possible hoarding, possessing an artifact could cause that civilization to suffer a small diplo penalty with other civs.

Besides, it might be fun if it's implemented well-enough that a new victory condition is created where the civilization to collect all or a certain number of the artifacts wins (unless there's a lot of them, in which this wouldn't be too fun).

Some suggestions:

Rosetta Stone

+1 :science" in every city


Shroud of Turin

State spreads faster or higher chance of missionary success

Dead Sea Scrolls

Allows construction of EVA Units.

Lucy

+1 in every city

Crystal Skull

+1 and in every city (may need tweaking)

Ark of the Covenant

Free Fanatic/Crusader promo for units built in cities with State Religion


And so on.

If we are not limited to "real only", then here are some more ...

Paranormal
- Bigfoot Footprints
- Roswell UFO Wreckage

Buddhist
- Buddha's Footprint
- Buddha's Tooth

Islam
- Muhammad's Footprint
- Muhammad's Cloak

Paleontology
- Frozen Mammoth
- Archaeopteryx Fossil

Space
- Mars Meteorites
- Moon Rocks


Mesoamerican
- Olmec Heads
- Dresden Codex

made quite some sensation here in germany: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebra_skydisk

maybe some well knowns death masks:
Mask of Aganemmnon
Mask of Tutankhamun

or a popular bust:
Nefertiti Bust

if you are looking for further religious reliquaries you can just pick some form Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relic, mostly Christan but you'll find some links to Muslim and Buddist.
most holy for Muslims: Black Stone of Kaaba
for the Jews from their Temple: Menorah

as for the other religions you can use their oldes manuscripts as relics e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daodejing for Taoism
i don't know much about the other religions so i can't be of much help here.

hy all,

Here my artefacts list from france museum:

1 - The Code of Hammurabi. (Louvre Paris)
2 - The Venus of Milo. (Louvre Paris)
3 - The Mona Lisa. (Louvre Paris)
4 - The Victory of Samothrace. (Louvre Paris)
5 - Brennus shield. (won by the best rubgy team in championnship)
6 - Meter Stallion. (Sèvres-France)

Not all the time easy to move, but you can see them, they are all reals.

 

[DRJ]

I also posted some ideas for artifacts, just in case you didn't see ;-)

Artifacts, after being discovered, should then be moved to the city in the empire that is specialized to it (for example the city with most science beakers in the empire would get a scientific artifacts like the Antikythera-Mechanism [possible bonus for owning it: the university in the city it is in gets +1 :science and the museum gets +1 :culture]).

There could be religious (bogus/"psychological") bonuses for artifacts as well as economic and scientific ones.

Also, a spy could try to "steal an artifact" as well as it already can assasinate big persons (if you enable this BUG-option)

Important is, I think, that artifacts would have not to be too opverpowered, like you really would fight wars about it.

A few beakers in the city where it is placed should be sufficient. Military/Morale bonuses like for the holy lance or the mummies in the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo could also be interesting.

This idea would make the gameplay much broader and if artifacts also could be traded (like pictures in museums) it would also be fun. (A traded artifact should get into the respective military/holy/scientific/commerce/gold city, not always headquaters like with units being traded right now!)

I would use this mod, definately - but only if it has real historic value, meaning that I don't mind about bogus religious artifacts as long as they represent the effects they really had on society.

 

[EldrinFal]

A lot of neat ideas there. I've seen the "attach" concept in action in FFH with the magical items. But I think the relic as it's own unit might provide the more accurate (realistic) and also easier method to implement in C2C. If the Holy Grail were discovered, for example, I'd assume it would have its own retinue transporting it, versus handing it off to a unit of Cavalry. Certainly it could be guarded by a military unit though.

I would see them as Holy Relics, and operating like Leader units, granting overall benefits to the stack, or to the city they are located in. Kept in limited number, I think they should be powerful, and give reason for other nations to want to acquire them.

The Holy Grail (Christian), as an example, could fully heal 1 unit in a stack each turn, or provide a single city with -50% Unhealthiness, while present.

The Ark of the Covenant (Jewish) inspires and could boost XP gained by a stack of units by +100%, or reduce Unhappiness in a city by 50% & maybe add a +10% Science bonus to that city as well.

So maybe 1 per religion, and created when the Holy City is founded? As units they have no defense, cannot attack, but are instead always captured. If they could somehow be stolen or "bribed" by a Spy type unit that would add some interesting flavor as well.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Bumping for Thunderbrd to see.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Very cool! I'll take a deeper look at it tomorrow. Thanks for the bump Hydro

 

[Hydromancerx]

In the "Swords of Islam" mod they had some cool relic stuff. Perhaps we could add them along with this Artifact idea (which has since been burred in the forum).

 

[Hydromancerx]

Bumping for MrAzure.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Like Eldrin, I too have seen objects in use in FFH2 and I think, especially now that we have heroes in action, this could be a great front for development. All my thoughts beyond that would tend to zoom in on the given artifacts and their potential effects (both troop benefits and benefits to the cities they are harbored in.)

 

[Hydromancerx]

This is also a cool idea I think we should revisit.

 

[LumenAngel]

I like the idea..

(A) Capturing a Holy City (100% chance)
(B) Capturing cities where enemy had National Wonders (5% chance)
(C) Discovering in Huts (alternative to existing huts but low chance)
(D) Killing high XP units (or Generals) (5-50% chance depending how high level)
(E) Killing units already carrying artifacts (100%)
(F) First to discover a tech (100% chance)
(G) Event
(H) Quest

Disagree with A and B : you already captuer a wonder, no need to add a artifact
E would be only a 95% chance because you can destroy the artifact in combat.
Disagree with F too, i dont see why a tech would give a artifact...
I would add of course
(I) Capture a city with an artefact (95% chance)
(J) Espionnage action : Steal artefact (low chance of success)

 

[Thunderbrd]

Was planning to look into enabling this during work on the second phase of the Combat Mod (once phase one is completely integrated.) It would entail fully understanding the way leader units attach to other units and I find the coding on that rather baffling to me at the moment.

 

[Nimek]

So artifacts can be a equipment promotion that will have impact on every unit standing on the same plot as artifact.

 

[LumenAngel]

So artifacts can be a equipment promotion that will have impact on every unit standing on the same plot as artifact.

or just like the Hoard or some others in FfH : equipment just to put it in a city.
Trease can be tweaked like this too.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Something like that is possible, except the difference would be that you should be able to detach (as in FFH) your carried artifacts and they should act, otherwise, as immobile units with special abiities.

 

[LumenAngel]

Something like that is possible, except the difference would be that you should be able to detach (as in FFH) your carried artifacts and they should act, otherwise, as immobile units with special abiities.

Or like a "spell" : "Put the artifact in the city". Long time I dont play this mod, so I can't remember well how that worked.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Bumping for SO.

 

[strategyonly]

What has ever happened to this? Maybe the new guy can work on this stuff??

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'd admittedly forgot about this project. I liked how FFH2 went about it and it was very similar to the way other units attach to units.

I wonder if all it would take is making them as units (no move or strength) that can attach to other units. The trick from there for the coding side of things is to enable units to DEtach. That's the tough part. I will keep my eyes open for those portions of the code from here and see if I can get a bead on how that's really to be done. I have a feeling I'd understand it better now than I would've when this conversation took place originally.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I had a quick look at this (or one like it) a few months ago. It was fairly trivial python to get the artifact picked up and dropped on death of the unit having it.

 

[stolenrays]

Very cool idea. Can easily be modded for scenerios.