Civics in FfH2

[apotheoser]

I think instead of posting ideas people, or at least some people, should be posting XML files with their versions of civics first. Thus, they could be tested in game and this thread would stop being a mere ideas recopilation.

That's sort of a backwards vision of game design. Make the game first and then figure out what you want to do later?

In any case I am working on the XML files right now. The problem, of course, is that I've never modded Civ 4 before. In some cases I don't know what's doable in XML and what will require Python/C++. I'm also not a programmer by profession so I tend to make mistakes in the XML, even with NP++ to guide me.

But in short, yes. XMLs to come soon.

 

[apotheoser]

I'm going to go through your comments in a bit, but first I have my own modifications for the second half.

Economy
Decentralization
Low upkeep
Default Economy civic
No bonuses or penalties

Alternatively, Agrarian Society is the default Economy civic and has no tech requirement:

Agrarian Society – Available with Calendar
Medium upkeep
+1 from Farms
-25% in all cities

I think a large penalty as the default civic is a problematic idea. Primarily because you're going to slow the early game down even more (and it's already pretty freaking slow).

Mercantilism – Available with Mercantilism [Kind of late, but the tech is there…]
Medium upkeep
No foreign trade routes
+3 per city

Open Markets – Available with Trade
No upkeep
+1 per city
Additional +1 in coastal cities
+1 from foreign trade routes (not sure if this can be implemented; maybe steal the bonus in Hearth and Home instead)

I don't think you can have multiple traderoutes with the same city, right? You're probably just going to hit the max for your own cities and Mercantilism won't do much unless you really have a ton of cities.

I think the better idea is for Mercantilism to buff your own specialists, since (1) thematically that makes sense (note in Vanilla mercantilism gives you a free specialist) and (2) Open Markets is already the +trade route civic; we don't need a special division for "trade routes but only domestic" and "trade routes including international".

Guardians of Nature – Available with Hidden Paths
Medium upkeep
+5 in all cities
-1 from Watermill, Lumbermill, Mine, Quarry
+2 from Grove
+1 from Forest, Ancient Forest, Jungle
Requires Fellowship of Leaves

Looks kind of weak for a civic that requires a State Religion. This should be really powerful, like Sacrifice the Weak is. The -hammers is really killer and I'm not sure it's appropriate without some kind of super bonus.

Cultural Values
Expediency
No upkeep
Default Cultural Value
No modifiers or penalties

Alternatively, Hearth and Home is the default cultural value and has no tech requirement:

Hearth and Home – Available with Festivals
No upkeep
+10%
+1 per luxury resource
-25% military production

Again, I'm concerned that a mega production penalty kills the early game. Heck, Hearth and Home+Agrarian Society = -50% production penalty = barbarians kill everyone.

Glory – Available with Drama
Low upkeep
+25% production
Free Empower I promotion to new melee, ranged and mounted units

Empower? Refresh me, what does that one do again? I think the GP bonus is good though.

Arete – Available with Arete
Medium upkeep
+1 from Bard, Great Bard
+1 from Scientist, Great Scientist
+1 from Merchant, Great Merchant
+1 from Engineer, Great Engineer
+25%
Requires Runes of Kilmorph

I had an idea about the allocations. What if it were 1 commerce per Merchant and 1 gold per priest? Can't leave out the priests. Or should we, since Arete+Theocracy might be overpowered otherwise?

Justice – Available with Orders from Heaven
High upkeep
+1 per
penalty to civs without Justice
Requires Order

As someone else pointed, +1 hammers per is probably a bit much. Maybe .5. Otherwise we're easily talking about dozens and dozens of hammers.

Diplomacy
Neutrality
No upkeep
Default Diplomacy
No modifiers or penalties

Undercouncil – Available with Deception
No upkeep
Enables the Undercouncil
Requires Neutral or Evil alignment

Overcouncil – Available with Honor
No upkeep
Enables the Overcouncil
Requires Neutral or Good alignment

Crusade – Available with Fanaticism [This makes them unable to be a part of the Overcouncil. Sounds right to me.]
High upkeep
No
No diplomacy while at war
Access to Demagogue unit
Can Draft units
Requires Bannor

Light of Truth – Available with Honor
No upkeep
Enables the Overcouncil
+1 vote in the Overcouncil
Free Perfect Sight promotion to new units
+2 diplomatic modifier with Good and Neutral leaders
Requires Empyrean

Veil of Secrecy – Available with Deception
No upkeep
Enables the Undercouncil
+1 vote in the Undercouncil
[Something else]
Requires Council of Esus

I’m not really sure that the Empyrean and Esus special civics are a good idea, though. Especially since I nixed the OO special civic.

Yeah, me neither. I like the idea of +votes on the respective councils, that would work well.

 

[Honor]

Empower gives +10% str.

 

[Isotope]

You could play with units and spells aswell. Thus, civics could indirectly have buildings effects.
I mean. Let's suppose a civic called "Viceroyship" and it allows you to create "Viceroy" units (like "Aristocracy" and Royal Guards). Theese viceroys can cast a spell called "Govern" on a city that creates "Viceroy residence" building. Thus, you can expand civics effects at buildings and in all this process you only work with XML files.

 

[Sephi]

That's sort of a backwards vision of game design. Make the game first and then figure out what you want to do later?

In any case I am working on the XML files right now. The problem, of course, is that I've never modded Civ 4 before. In some cases I don't know what's doable in XML and what will require Python/C++. I'm also not a programmer by profession so I tend to make mistakes in the XML, even with NP++ to guide me.

But in short, yes. XMLs to come soon.

sounds great. I am looking forward to see your ideas in action

 

[apotheoser]

sounds great. I am looking forward to see your ideas in action

Well, hold that thought. It turns out that even some of the basic stuff I wanted to try involves editing the .dll. So give me a few days to learn enough C++, at least, to avoid breaking everything.

 

[Kyroshill]

Well, hold that thought. It turns out that even some of the basic stuff I wanted to try involves editing the .dll. So give me a few days to learn enough C++, at least, to avoid breaking everything.

If it doesn't work, force it! If it breaks.... it needed fixing anyway!

 

[Calavente]

Just for clarification. In Greek, Arete is the word for Virtue(it is pronounced Areti("e" like in "egg", "i" like in "kill")). I do not know about the Latin "Arista", but I know the Greek "Ariston", which means "the Best". I can assume the Latin word to come from the Greek one.

be very careful... greek and latin have mostly.... nothing in common. neither in semantics nor in alphabet.

Right of the Strong - Available with Warfare
Medium upkeep
+1 :angry: per city
No resistance in captured cities
+100% from pillaging

I like it a lot but : be careful the +100% from pillaging here nerfs a bit the raider trait as it becomes less unique.

church vs academia

again, be careful : you play in erebus, were some gods have avatars walking and some fallen angels are bashing demons or undeads. The churchs can have interest in promoting science. The galileo affair was more a problem of the church being (conservative and more analytical than deductive or experimental) than being anti-science.

For the republic civic :
I like a lot the fact that it becomes like the adaptable trait but : I like it especially if each Xturn you get the choics between 2 traits (oups "political parties") instead of the whole bunch of trait as in adaptative, thus it won't weaken it.
As for loosing the trait when quitting the republic civic... well either you have a new third trait due to republic, that one being changed every Xturn. thus removing it shouldn't be uber-difficult as you were able to add one.
either you don't have a third trait, just modifying your 2nd trait... and thus, why not letting the modified trait in place ?
(I think a penality would be the formation of some barbs units in your territory, in desert or jungle, when you leave republic)


For the rest : apotheoser your analysis are very good and often accurate. Your proposition are nice. and Verily's too.

Be careful : not each religion should have a specific civic : balance, especially in ffh, is not about equality. (oh, and I really like the actual arete, changing it won't be very good imo : it is a civic about loving kilmorph and her mountains and hills, thus being able to work there more efficiently. It is "arete" as in the greek ethymology as perfection for kilmorph is loving/tending the mountains )

as for order and Calabim : The Force of civ and FFH is that you may find lorewise explanation for any civic and any religion in combination with any civ.
such as vampires (not undeads : FFH vampires) that are enrolled in order because they devote themselves to fight demons, demons spoiling the lifeforce of the human cattle, making it demonish. For the safeguard of the source of their longevity, brought by need, the vampirics shadow master of the calabims decided that the human cattle and lesser vampires should embrass the order faith....etc
all is possible, even tree-hugging dwarves..
(I just resent Hyborem summoning the mercurians)

 

[Thunder_Gr]

be very careful... greek and latin have mostly.... nothing in common. neither in semantics nor in alphabet.

Well, I can prove differently, but it would become quite out of topic. In fact, after the post you quoted, I remembered that, in Greek, there is a word "Arista", which is an adverb and means "Perfectly done". It was used extensively in grading tests and semester performances until recently.

 

[Sephi]

Well, and the latin word "Arista" has something to do with wheat as in "instare aristis"

 

[apotheoser]

You could play with units and spells aswell. Thus, civics could indirectly have buildings effects.
I mean. Let's suppose a civic called "Viceroyship" and it allows you to create "Viceroy" units (like "Aristocracy" and Royal Guards). Theese viceroys can cast a spell called "Govern" on a city that creates "Viceroy residence" building. Thus, you can expand civics effects at buildings and in all this process you only work with XML files.

I always thought spells that affected cities were a little lacking in FfH2. In MoM, spells cast on cities were incredibly powerful and important. It could be interesting to expand that element in FfH2 (though probably not to MoM levels).

I'm surprised this can be done solely with the XML.

 

[Calavente]

http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/arête
"Du latin arista, « épi »"
épi /epi/ masculine noun
1. (of corn) ear;
(of flower) spike;

grrrr...
I'm french and I can assure you, that nouns whose etymology comes from latin, are different than those whose etymology comes from greek.

Some latin word are issued froom greek, but mostly they are different and have different sémantic roots for close meanings.

 

[apotheoser]

http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/arête
"Du latin arista, « épi »"
épi /epi/ masculine noun
1. (of corn) ear;
(of flower) spike;

grrrr...
I'm french and I can assure you, that nouns whose etymology comes from latin, are different than those whose etymology comes from greek.

Some latin word are issued froom greek, but mostly they are different and have different sémantic roots for close meanings.

arête is not the same word as arete.

Arête is the Latin->French word having to do with beards of wheat (not sure why corn is in the definition, corn didn't exist in Europe until the 16th century AD).

Arete is the Greek for "best", "virtuous", etc, that makes the root for "aristo-".

 

[Nor'easter]

arête is not the same word as arete.

Arête is the Latin->French word having to do with beards of wheat (not sure why corn is in the definition, corn didn't exist in Europe until the 16th century AD).

Arete is the Greek for "best", "virtuous", etc, that makes the root for "aristo-".

"Corn" is probably in the definition because it's British English, where "corn" is the term for what we in the US call wheat. What we call "corn," the British call "maize."

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The word Corn has been used much longer than that. Until recently, Corn was a general term for a cereal grain, especially whatever the most commonly consumed grain of the local region might be. Wheat, Rye, Barley, and Maize can all be called corn.

 

[Honor]

"Corn" is probably in the definition because it's British English, where "corn" is the term for what we in the US call wheat. What we call "corn," the British call "maize."

what?? british call "wheat", "corn"? that's news for me.

 

[Nor'easter]

what?? british call "wheat", "corn"? that's news for me.

See #4 in the definition below.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/corn

 

[Calavente]

arête is not the same word as arete.

Arête is the Latin->French word having to do with beards of wheat (not sure why corn is in the definition, corn didn't exist in Europe until the 16th century AD).

Arete is the Greek for "best", "virtuous", etc, that makes the root for "aristo-".

sorry guy, I was just responding to Thunder_Gr that said that :

Well, I can prove differently, but it would become quite out of topic. In fact, after the post you quoted, I remembered that, in Greek, there is a word "Arista", which is an adverb and means "Perfectly done". It was used extensively in grading tests and semester performances until recently.

and

Just for clarification. In Greek, Arete is the word for Virtue(it is pronounced Areti("e" like in "egg", "i" like in "kill")). I do not know about the Latin "Arista", but I know the Greek "Ariston", which means "the Best". I can assume the Latin word to come from the Greek one.

thus telling him that words having similar consonnance can be of different sources and different etymologies.
That means that "arete" being a pun on two words sounding almost alike and coming form two differents source language : greek (perfection/best/excellence...Etc) and latin/french : arete/arête : ridge (of mountain) is totally worthwhile and fun. Thus the current civic arete is fun and correspond to its name : it is perfection in regard to the mountain or in comprehension of kilmorph and not, as you stated it, in term of personnal excellence.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

That means that "arete" being a pun on two words sounding almost alike and coming form two differents source language : greek (perfection/best/excellence...Etc)

My main purpose from the beggining was to point out that Arete in Greek means Virtue. Not the rest of the mentioned meanings. I never said that Ariston/Arista derive from Arete.

and latin/french : arete/arête : ridge (of mountain) is totally worthwhile and fun. Thus the current civic arete is fun and correspond to its name : it is perfection in regard to the mountain or in comprehension of kilmorph and not, as you stated it, in term of personnal excellence.

I never had any objection on this.

 

[Calavente]

ok, so all is good.
I agree that arete means excellence/virtue in greek.
but you said the latin word might come from greek. that's wrong. and that was my whole point.
I'm sorry I misunderstood your intentions.

this said...some of those ideas of civics rocks !