Battlefield Illuria: Classic Warlords FFH

[Starship]

Kendric

Regarding the minotaur faction. I really wanted them to have giant heroes, but after testing I realized they can't gain xp....so I tried to go ahead and hero them out xp wise. I was actually thinking of a work around. One heroic giant, one veteran giant, one ax hero...That way they get one heroic unit. I'll put that in 1.1. Also Vulgon the giant starts with command a powerful tool if used properly, which no other character can get period, or till much later in the game. Also I kind of intended them to be sort of brutal. No religion, culture blasted by the hated elves, they have two choices, flee to the sea, or crush the elves.

 

[FatTurtle]

Currently playing the first version (d/l a week ago), and enjoying it, great map with a great feel to it. Makes me want to get the original game just to see if it lives up to the expectations

Anyway, question: I am currently striving for a religious victory with Anon, and I have sent acolytes to the other civs and converted a whole bunch of cities. I am having some problems with the undead though, I have converted 3 of his cities, in which there were no other religion already present. However, one of his bigger cities has the ashen viel, and when I try to spread the order my acolyte dissapperar, I get a message that "The Order has been spreak to XX", and then nothing else, no icon on the city, no LOS, nothing. I tried with another acolyte and same result. Is that a bug, or is it on purpouse that I can't convert a city with the "opposite" religion? If it is a feature it's really cool, as I can spread the order to for example the dark elves without problem, but naturally the undead won't be too keen to adopt this.

I haven't done any more extensive testing (on any other cities with ashen veil) as I had to work today, but will try when I get home.

Again, thanks for an excellent scenario!

 

[Landmonitor]

Starship,

I'm playing the second release and its very good. However, as someone else pointed out, it was very easy to expand quickly, particularly with a Ranger as a hero. However, I literally dropped to 0% science from doing this and had to judiciously micromanage and build as many cottages as possibly to get out of this sink.

Another thing, Immaculate (another forum member) and I were talking in real life about this scenario, and he pointed out that if you have access to silver, perhaps you should get a bonus against werewolves. I think this could manifest itself in a "silver weapons" upgrade that is only available with say bronze working and the silver resource. I don't think it should provide a minus against non-werewovles, since it is presumable that they would have normal weapons as well. Just a thought.

Also, good huts/Warlords ruins/towns/towers: You could perhaps make "huts" investigatable only by units with "hero" promotions and they could give:

gold
maps
"Orthus' Axe" style weapon/armour upgrades
allies (interesting but not too powerful types, and not workers)
experience (this one might be a bit of a turkey, the one you're disappointed with)
nothing

That would be in the spirit of the original warlords and althoguh I'm not too familiar with the editor, from what others have done, these don't seem like a stretch.

Also, the majority of these huts should be guarded by "rooted" monsters.

Finally, I know we had Warlords III on CD, which may still be around. If I can find it, I'll send you screens of the map and city names, but I can't make any promises as to when. I'm not sure where that CD could be (there are two possibilities, one next door to me, and the other in a different city!)

Enjoy the weekend!

 

[kendric]

Thanks for the response starship. Btw elves also get command on their priest of the leaves hero. I can look for the game for you, as far as glaring errors, if it was intended to be similar to the heroes 1 map, the undead(who are lord bane if I understand correctly) should be in the north east corner, the orcs south of him, sirans in the south middle/southeast, elves south middle, storm giants south west, dwarves dead center, horselords juse northeast of them and selentiens in the northwest. Ill post anything i can dig up on the map.

As to that other guys comment on silver, there is no silver. Mithril replaced silver.

 

[kendric]

Here is the map. You can see colored squres on some cities, those are their starting places. I will try to find you something better.
Yellow=storm giants,
Green=elves
red=orcs
orange\brown=dwarves
black=lord bane
blue=selentines(blends in with the ocean in the northwest, its the one directly southwest of the island in the northwest corner)
white=sirians
light blue=horselords

 

[kendric]

Here is the map of warlords 1 that is included in warlords 3. I can't really send you that as a)its a whole cd and b)they prob wouldn't approve of that here. But if you can find it, under scenarios, misc is the warlords 1 map. I can get you pics of specific spots if you need. Let me know.

 

[kendric]

Btw I can't get the no settlers thing to work. I downloaded 1.00f, and I added the line to your world builder file that kael shows but I can still build settlers. If anyone knows what I might have done wrong let me know.

 

[Kael]

Btw I can't get the no settlers thing to work. I downloaded 1.00f, and I added the line to your world builder file that kael shows but I can still build settlers. If anyone knows what I might have done wrong let me know.

Sorry, patch f was missing a file. Redownload and reinstall it and you should be all set.

 

[kendric]

great. Works now. Thanks

 

[kendric]

Oh btw starship, I noticed you had forest in the water near elves. This gives the water production. Was this on purpose?

 

[Starship]

Hi Guys,

Kendric, You are the man. Good find, my friend. One note, for the map I created the orientation is scewed. If you take the whole map, my map, and turn it to the right it matches the basics of the map you provided.

I like the silver idea. I like the idea of alloys as well. If you have copper, and tin available = Bronze warriors, and so forth as well. These kinds of changes are beyond my capacity at the moment however. Kael is doing some amazing things with ffh 2.0, so those amazing things are the direction this scenario is headed. Quests, new units, etc...

On the balance issue. Yeah 1.0 swung the other way on difficulty. I have spent all week rebalancing, and putting in a tier system for the cities.

Major cities - 5 resources, castle & wall, 2 str 6 defenders, 1 animal, 2 str 3 attackers

Avg cities - 3 resources, walls, 1 str 6 def 1 str 3 def, 1 animal

small cities - 2 resources, 1 str 6 def, 1 animal

This tiering system has really cleaned up the mechanics of the spread, and balance. I've also pretty much gotten the ai to not death rush his heroes so that they survive, and become the heroes they should be.

I've made a host of changes for 1.1....
Lots of goodie huts (guarded as appropriate), towers, and forts. I've found these are really more for multi player. If I set the unit ai to explore they will run off and die... So the AI does get goody huts, but only b/c of culture expansion. Also the AI really doesn't know what to do with castles, towers, and choke points. It can't be helped. It's just a matter of the scenario being slightly better for multiplayer.

A lot of map tweaks...

opened alot of strategic locks for multiple points of entry. The feel is much more flowing...

Lord Bane's start strength has been curtailed, as he is surrounded by undead, not diseasable human units, among other things.

The dwarven gold has been both replaced for production resources, and moved toward more conflict prone areas.

Elvallie river connected by locks to the channel

Citadels of Fire and Ice incorporated...very fun

Added one city near Elf/Storm Lord border, added city on lake near dwarves.
elven command taken away

both elven factions gain a mage, and lose a vet elf warrior.

all rival factions start with contact, and are at war...you will immediately asked to side in most cases by involved parties....but the ai actually does a good job here in trying to expand before fighting the rival

Werewolves have a home, they are guarding cities...open pandora's box? They are also on isolated islands w/goody huts, and in some impassable places they can't get out of, tread at your leisure.

...and a lot of lesser tweaks like taking out unused resources, in case you play it with settlers. You could settle there, but it's not going to be worth a whole lot.

All the above is done. I just want to play test it a couple of times with no settlers, for last minute alignments. 1.1 will be out this afternoon.

Thanks for all the feedback, and suggestions. And that beautiful map. And god knows I love Kael, the man with the strings.

Starship

 

[Starship]

Ok. I need some help. I am sad. I know. Does anyone know how to take a screen shot? I would like to put a few up.

One other thing. It's a no go with the names for 1.1....I cannot do it, I do not have the power. Seriously I've tried everything. Saving in everyway imaginable. The only way I found, which isn't really a way....Hotseat game...all human...change the names...save the game for each player on the same game....then open the worldbuilder on the last player..., but it won't let you open the world builder as far as I can see.

So, long live creativity. Please name your heroes whatever your heart desires. I've found it's kind of fun, and helps build an RPG value anyway. Eventually I'll find someone who can make models, and/or make my own, create the unit in XML, and be done with it. It's the only way to do it right.

Also Kendric, nope I didn't notice the production. I just liked the pretty tree lines it made. I'll try to clear all waters of forest. for 1.1 as well.

 

[kendric]

For screenshots its just printscreen and then look in
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\ScreenShots

 

[Starship]

1.1 is released! Including all the changes noted above. It's the best balanced yet, and is a lot of fun. Let me know what you think.

 

[Starship]

Fat Turtle. I'm glad you are enjoying it, and any feedback you have is great.
To your question. As far as I know AV and TO are diametrically opposed, and cannot coexist. So trying to spread TO into Bane's heartland will be pointless. From following Kael's thread I think it is possible to inquisition one out, and then spread your religion in. Not 100% on that. I've never actually tried for a religious victory. I'm curious to see if you can do it with all the religions starting at once. With the unaligned, and a determined strategy...it could happen, but should be difficult.

LM. You know what your idea had me thinking. I would really like to create or be part of a werewolf scenario. Maybe like three civs, one human, and two rival werewolf packs. The humans can win by either killing both the werewolf pack leaders (aka Baron halfmoon types), or reaching a certain level of tech. The wolves win by reaching a certain number of werewolves on the board, or wiping out the humans totally. I was imagining really cool hunter units, and a sort of Black Forest kind of thing. That's what your silver idea made me think of. All pointless till I get a little better with the tools that are out there though.

I like the idea with restricted goodie hut searching, and would love magic items similar to Orthus's. I think some of that is coming though, so I'm gonna sit tight for 2.0. One thing I can work on is finding a way to assign what's in the goody huts. I would prefer them to be beneficial if you have to fight to get them.

You know I would like to see a generic hero unit though, that has the ability to access all known promotions. That would smooth a few things out. The giant and golem experience issue for one, and some units won't respond with promotions even with them preassigned. (I found that out the hard way.) Thankfully the giants can accept all promotions, but just don't gain experience.

 

[Landmonitor]

Starship,

The restricted goodie hut searching would be cool, because that was really one of the main roles of heroes in Warlords (to me, it was too much of a risk to attack well-defended cities with them before they had weapons)... also magic items to improve heroes would be awesome. Its too bad they can't move these items around. I'm not convinced you need to assign items. First off that would mean you'd know where they'd be the second time, and second, in Warlords sometimes you killed dragons for nothing. I think it should stay random, personally.

Why can't giants gain experience?! That seems really weird to me, maybe that's something you can unflag, unless that can't be done without modified FFH itself as opposed to the scenario, I don't know.

Also, the werewolves scenario sounds cool. I barely have time to play and can't make any promises, but if you want to move on that, I'd be interested in working with map making or something. In such a scenario I think putting choke points (mountain passes probably) would be essential for the humans. Also put silver mines in contested areas (maybe areas with a strong barbarian presence, maybe undead for atmosphere). Would the werewolves be a barbarian kingdom, or would you actually be able to enter diplomacy?... there's a lot that could be done there.

Anyway, I'll DL the 1.1 game as soon as I'm done this elves game. Its just getting good and I don't want to restart right now. Perhaps there will be an even more tweaked version by the time I finish.

 

[kendric]

Some more comments and a question
Sirians seem to need a bit of help. Not too much since they get valin, but they don't get immediate access to a special unit like everybody else. On top of that they are scrunched in pretty tight with elf and to the north is werewolves and lots of giants.

Dwarves still appear to be "easy mode" with their religon economy on hard difficulties which have high upkeep(2 hardest). Maybe they need to have their golem downgraded to make it harder to expand or something.

I haven't played undead much but at first glance they also seem to be too strong since they get the diseased corpses and an extra hero out of the box.

Another thing I noticed is that the rival enemy, the -100 one, usually asks for peace fairly soon into the game.

There is a lake with forest in it next to the syrian 2nd town.

And then my question is do you still need the warlords 1 map town names?
(Edit)I was gonna get them for you but warlords 3 crashes after about 15 seconds of being up.. Sucky.
(Edit2) I found this. What a find. http://www.heeter.net/warlords/scenarios/Illuria-Original-Map.jpg

 

[Starship]

Hi Kendric,

Thanks for the screenshot tip. I posted some on the first page.

I'll be tweaking here and there over the next week or so.

Dwarves - You may be right. They're hard to peg down. I will consider downgrading the stone golem into a super defender only, and maybe replacing with a slayer if that isn't enough to slow them down. I've also been considering switching gold and stone map wide. That would make stone a dwarf thing, and gold an intersection resource....

Sirians - They playtest well, and I am hesitant to change them up much since they do well, and are intended to be scrunched up. What do you think of one mercenary instead of two horsemen?

Undead are more difficult than they appear. I assure you. The only thing that saves them sometimes is the immoral wizard Bane. It can take them a long time to get out of their hole. Try them out a couple of times, and let me know any specifics you think might need to be nailed down.

I'll clear up the forest/lake issue.

Thanks again for the map. I like my map for now, but I will be going to a huge map that is a little more accurate to the original when/if we get quest sites.
I will also be using the info you provided to rename the cities in the next update.

Diplomacy. I don't want to set always war. I am ok with them suing for peace quickly...at least the history is there to hopefully set up the next war. Faction rivals, in playtesting, do in fact seem to go after each other with regularity. I've even seen the elves and giants stay at war early on till dominance is decided.

 

[Bheleu21]

HI Ppl

We tested the map in Multiplayer (new and old one).

The new one got a bit unbalanced. The main problem are the very strong beginning Units. As the AI is thumb like a nut, you just have to kill his 2-3 beginning "heros" and after that he is absolutly helpless. We dominated the World with 2 or 3 heros Units ...

On the other hand, if someone looses his 2 beginning hero Units, he is absolutly chancles to ever get a city (warrior/drown/elvenarcher against x-bow and longbowman).

So our conclusion is, if you take care on your beginning Units it is ultra easy to destroy 3-5 Civis with 2 UNits. If you loose them, you wont get more than 2 Citys at all.

Suggestion, downgrade barbarian Defenders to Archers and the beginning Herounits to Something with Str3-4 (with all the Boni they will becomme Strong enough!)
So, even if you loose your heros, you have a chance to get Axeman and are not out of game / you wont dominate the world with 2 Units.

Best regards
Bheleu

/we played at Prince level

 

[Starship]

Hi Bheleu - Thanks for the very useful feedback. I am close to a release of a new update in the next day or so, and I will incorporate your suggestions.

So far I've renamed all cities per the map supplied by Kendric. Some were difficult to read, and my map is slightly different, but the names are there.

I've downgraded the dwarves another notch, and switched their resource to stone, and all world gold to where stone was.

I've cleaned up the Sirian water/tree issue.

I've also given the Sirians a settler, the only settler in the game, to help them a little. Also provided a good location, but that's up to the player.

The last thing left is a rebalance along the lines that Bheleu suggested.

I'm also considering taking away the starting war for elves and giants bc it seems that one dominates too early leaving a power void. The juggernaut that comes out is too powerful too early.

Looking forward to 2.0, which I think will really make this scenario something special.