Balseraph Freaks

[Ajidica]

Is there any reason why I can't build freaks when I am in the 'Classical Era'? I had built them before, but now I can't. That is really annoying considering I was basing my stratagy off building freaks, and cherry-picking the ones with the best promos. The rest get sent to the Arena.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

You cannot build any unit (excluding those with <bNeverObsolete>1</bNeverObsolete>) if you can build every unit to which it can upgrade. Having a Training Yard and Hunting Lodge (or UB of these) in the same city will make said city unable to build them, but other cities still can.

I personally always change the bNeverObsolete tag to 1, since this is annoying.

 

[Kael]

I'll set freaks to never expire as MC suggests.

 

[loki1232]

On a related note, I really think that freaks should be upgradeable to drowns.

 

[Polycrates]

I totally want to love Freaks - they are incredibly cool (especially the amazing unit art, possibly the best in the whole game), but I can't really justify ever building them. You need a big tech deviation, a building (that pollutes the GPP pool) and then you're still paying as much as for a swordsman. Upgrading the good ones to super-swordsmen on the cheap was always the best strategy, but that seems like such a waste of an awesome concept and awesome art.

And now that Loki has Mutate, there's no real point building them at all, since you might as well just mutate up a bunch of 25-hammer warriors or the swordsmen themselves.

I'd love to see freaks get a better niche - maybe removing Loki's Mutate spell (the guy is uber-powerful even without it), making Festivals a more attractive early beeline target for the Balseraphs, and making the freaks themselves considerably cheaper (maybe even as low as 25 hammers once the building is up). The idea being that you could delay the bronze working and other military paths in favour of Festivals and a big army of cheap, eclectic weirdos.

 

[Ajidica]

The mutate spell is cool. One of my freaks got heroic strength 1, strong, and a bonus move. That was fun.
What is the current patch? I would like to update my game. I think I have .30.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Freaks being mutated has nothing to do with the spell. If anything, the spell detracts from its uniqueness. Note that Mutate was moved from Chaos II Divine (OO) to Chaos II. Priests spells are no longer tied to spell spheres in .31, and the distinction between sorcery and summoning has been eliminated too.

We're up to 0.31e now.

 

[Ecofarm]

Semi-tangentally on-topic:

I recently started a medieval game, and could not build harlequins until I had 4 druids, then I suddenly could. (OCC)

To get proper druids, I: built a harlequin, deleted a druid, upgrade harl to druid, repeat.

No idea how/why this happened. I had a carnival when I started (advanced start), so it's not that.

EDIT: Maybe it wasn't OCC, but I checked every possible reason that I could not build harlequins and there was no reason I could see. I gave up and made 4 druids, then I could build harlequins. I did build the freak show after game start (didn't want GS GPPs contaminated, ruining my academy), but I can't see how that could matter.

 

[thewyrm]

Well I love the Freak and build them even though it is actually better in the long run to just have Loki mutate your warriors/swordsmen/acrobats for you. I know it handicaps me, but I would rather role play the Balseraph, and freaks are just so much fun.

 

[xienwolf]

Semi-tangentally on-topic:

I recently started a medieval game, and could not build harlequins until I had 4 druids, then I suddenly could. (OCC)

To get proper druids, I: built a harlequin, deleted a druid, upgrade harl to druid, repeat.

No idea how/why this happened. I had a carnival when I started (advanced start), so it's not that.

EDIT: Maybe it wasn't OCC, but I checked every possible reason that I could not build harlequins and there was no reason I could see. I gave up and made 4 druids, then I could build harlequins. I did build the freak show after game start (didn't want GS GPPs contaminated, ruining my academy), but I can't see how that could matter.

Your problem is the same as that stated for the Freaks: Harlequin went Obsolete because you were capable of building the upgraded form (druids). If you didn't have a Grove you would have been able to build the Harlequins. Then you could have built the Grove and upgraded them all.

But in your case, fortunately you reach a point where you cannot build druids anymore, so the Harlequin became available again.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm thinking that all units that upgrade only to national units and/or all UUs should have <bNeverObsolete>1</bNeverObsolete>

 

[loki1232]

Well in this case i think the solution would be just to give balseraph druids the same spells normally as they would have if they were upgraded from harlequins. (also maybe rename them to lobotomists and give them one unique spell that "lobotomizes" one of your units, making it no longer living but doubling its attack strength).

 

[thewyrm]

I really dislike the idea of giving them such an interesting UU that they could only get by taking an out of character move in alignment to nuetral.

 

[loki1232]

Oh i forgot about the alignment requirement for druids. damn. or maybe we could scrap the alignment restriction on unique units?

 

[Ajidica]

To get my game to .31e, I have to download .31, then download patch e? (Sorry for a noob question, I have never patched a copy of FFH)
Edit: Didn't Kael change how magic works in .31 by removing something? If that is true, where is there more info about this?

 

[Mewtarthio]

Edit: Didn't Kael change how magic works in .31 by removing something? If that is true, where is there more info about this?

Yes. He merged the Sorcery and Summoning lines. See the "Merge Sorcery and Summoning" thread for details.

 

[Bad Player]

To get my game to .31e, I have to download .31, then download patch e? (Sorry for a noob question, I have never patched a copy of FFH)

Yes. Check the pathway too when installing...

 

[Zechnophobe]

Well, in my games, Loki is generally sitting in some important enemy city, or subverting little ones. Not having to pull him back to mutate is at least *some* benefit.

 

[Kasdar]

would it break the game if I just replaced every <bNeverObsolete>0</bNeverObsolete> with <bNeverObsolete>1</bNeverObsolete> in the CIV4unitinfos.xml file?

 

[Arctem]

would it break the game if I just replaced every <bNeverObsolete>0</bNeverObsolete> with <bNeverObsolete>1</bNeverObsolete> in the CIV4unitinfos.xml file?

I don't think so, but you would end up having such a huge list of buildable units that you would likely end up changing it back anyway (I'm assuming that was why it was added originally).