There are some fantastic ideas in this thread
Previously, as I said that the ruins of a cave of ancients, i meant it just as plain text in a pop-up, but now that the implementation of such buildings as unique features was suggested, i really like that idea. Would definitely provide a more flavourful way to provide various types of mana. And flavourwise, the mechanic to provide 1 unit of mana seems good... Those are ruins, so probably only the strongest one would prevail. E.g. i can imagine the Amurite ruins would only provide mind mana for the boost to research, rather than fire(which will probably be infernal only in the scenario) or body (i cant imagine the amurite ruins of a magocracy society provide body mana flavourwise...
As for the "lesser evil" thing, im starting to get convinced that if complete, this will be probably playable only on custom made maps. So rather a scenario than a modmod.
As for the flavour of it, right now id like Hyborem to start overpowered, but limited in movement. If played on a regular map, that would mean
a) hes gonna waste everyone sharing the same continent (Remember how Barbatos started?)
b) everyone is soon gonna start turtling (Hyborems problem right now)
Also the quests would be harder to implement, even thought the though of the Unique ruins feature having a random chance to appear, kindof like the 25% for each unique feature of the current mod would be awesome (each time you play, you find other surviving ruins)
As for the civs, since this would be a scenario that focuses more on role play, i would rather want the good and neutral civs to strive to bring back peace to erebus, rather than have other evil civs want to conquer it themselves.
Another brilliant idea of this thread was the idea of bringing back Auric Ulvin back as Mulcarn, probably fighting Hyborem. Flavourwise One wants to scorch the world, the other wants to freeze it. By keeping this fight up, they make the world suitable for life, basicly they cancel each other out. Also that may be one of the reasons why Hyborem hasnt destroyed Erebus already and why he is trying to bring in reinforcements.
As for the playable races, the evil ones would remain canon Erebus, while the good and playable ones would be survivors. Basicly the good ones lost their leadership, coz they were prime targets.
Now the civs that would be playable, would be survivors defined by their predominant civilisation, that would have other civs units too. This means i would need to reintroduce the way civ-specific units were handled in vanilla.
So that if you play an Elven survivors race, you dont get a mage unit that has dwarven tag instead of elven and uses elven model, but really use the khazad adept unit that Sez has brought us recently. So back to literaly unique units. Most would be only gainable by events or by aiding/finding them on the map.
The problem here would be following:
If i want to set the Palace to give the units random chance of giving out racial promotions, I would need to set the build order not to build a unit, but a unitclass instead which i cant imagine how hard would that be. After implementing into BTS, the game command function just uses unitclass and makes unit retain former promotions. I once captured an orc archer with an inquisitor, and to my surprise, it had the default archer skin, but orc racial promotion. Probably could bypass this problem by having the racial promotion affect the unit looks (see Hero promotion), but that would mean i would need to set the racial promotions to be civilisation-like promotions and so alter the unit. Meaning you dont build a human adept, but a lanun adept. Not a Elven horseman, but a Ljosalfar horseman.
Another way to handle this would be to define the race-specific units as build orders. E.g. At first you can only build human archer, (that would give random human race promotion/or maybe not) but after researching/making contact with elven survivors near Yggdrasil, you can get/research a tech for building an elven archer (that would again have Ljosalfar/Svartalfar racial promotions). I certainly would like to rework the techtree and this way seem f(l)avorable enough at the time.
But back to the original civs question.
Right now i have defined the following civs:
Infernals (powerful, dominant), AV
Sheaim... would remain as in FFH, but would be ally/vassal of Hyborem, AV
Auric Ulvin/Mulcarn of Illians... Would be the equalizer/main target of Hyborem, OO or White hand religion.
Maybe some corrupt OO Lanun faction
Other civs would have been destroyed, therefore made into surviving civilisations.
Those that flavourwise were CoE, were defeated along the good and neutral civs. And always remember, that although There are 7 evil civs in the canon FFH, only the Sheaim want to destroy the world. And only Sheaim and Infernals give diplo bonus for raising the AC.
Imagine the Calabim: No humans = No food
One thing is destroying the world, another thing is conquering it.
All the civs would be defined for the purposes of this scenario, but only newly defined survivors would be playable...
@Kol.7 : The sheaim brough Hyborem into the world. But i dont think they regret it. I think they are constantly drunk from the victory after finally (almost) destroying the world
Id like the player to bring back the good old times and make some of the evil civs defeated...
Kyleen: Giggles told me to help you mister Hyborem.
Hyborem: WTH? Why you calling Ishn'trel, the commander of the 5th legion of Balors, a trusted luitenant that served me for five centuries Giggles? I have no use for imbeciles.
On the battle field:
Perpentach:
A little meteor I shoot to the air.
What it hits, I do not care.
Hyborem: Another dimwit. - whispers to a nearby ruhin archer -
When he makes another of those non-sense speeches on one of his cattle-pults, see to it, that someone accidentally pulls the lever, is that clear?
...others seeking redemption and survival... like the Calabim
So playing as the evil civs, would probably be hard if your goal would be to get hell where it came from, only to get yourself be proclaimed the next unquestionable ruler.
Another reason for the premade map(s) would be that i would need, that the game would not only run script for making unique features, but also for certain game scripts.
Maybe some of you heard that Kael and co. want to bring back Bhaals 2nd in command angel who refused to fall with her, but need to start some mechanic.
I on the other hand would like a quest where on an impassable area/island surrounded by volcanoes (near the ruins of Barduk the Burning) you find Bhaal and his Angel fighing out (dunno how to make it impassable to other units, maybe make it on a desserted island surrounded by volcanoes, both Bhaal and her unfallen angel would use the catapult mechanic as to not kill each other, they could fight each turn, been given a powered march promotion) where you could help the Angel finally kill Bhaal and then get her as a hero unit to help you, maybe even remove the damage limit by applying some promotion/spell. (Absolutely no idea how to make this possible, would probably need to assign the Angel to a different civ, if i want the Infernals not make fight with the Barbs)
Reasons why i wanted to make the OO barbarian allied to Hyborem was rather from not knowing whom to assign the OO religion otherwise. But if I make a corrupt Lanun nation, that might be a better target for the OO religion.
This concept is still in phase of brainstorming, I will certainly add new civics if i get that far. The council membership would be very much pointless now. Since the war with Hyborem would be permanent, in order to lower the war weariness, i would either make some way of getting it lower, or making a civicclass similar to the mechanic in the Alexander the Great scenario, that means applying it here would mean id need probably a city counter, that would allow a constantly better civic, that would help lower the weariness (5 civics, the first would not alter the weariness, the last one would eliminate it) Or the civs capital ruins would provide a stockable -10% to weariness option along with the mana.
But this way i would probably need to reconsider the way of building the cities, if i would have the civ specific buildings act as unique features. Maybe have the "regular" ruins near "unique ruins" and make the unique ruins along with the lost palaces a regular harvestable resource.
Its fantastic to see how many people got interested in this idea of mine and how many people would be willing to help. Thomas.berubeg and Vehem, when i get that far, i will definitely remember you offering to help
