Consolidated Cuteunit Wants for the First 25%

[Cuteunit]

• Barbarian Undead far far more common, to the point of being seen more than goblins and orcs. Hordes. I've never once promoted a unit to undead slaying. Not ever once. Never had to.
  
• "Ruined city" features similar to Barrows that have a lot more than 1 skeleton guarding them, which when conquered would function like the rewards of the Quest event for the conquering unit. There should be a lot of ruined cities from the age of magic hanging around now that they're not under ice. Some nice adventure/mines of moria play there.
  
• More types of undead abound. Use the Drown model with a purple texture for some generalized zombies. A lot of people must have died in the wilderness when mulcarn was honcho.
  
• Barbarian werewolves please.
  
• Improved resources randomly but frequently going fallow for a few turns or having bad events occur on them. Farms produce -1 or -2 food for x turns at random until Sanitation and Medicine are researched, mines that randomly come up "Your miners have encountered the crypt of a terrible creature deep beneath the surface, forcing them to flee for their lives!" and a monster of some type would pop up and stay on that improvement, preventing that tile from being worked until the monster was killed ( and that part requires no coding, either). Could happen to farms too, with Haunting events. Stuff like that. Some action inside the borders.
  
• Army maintenance costs slashed in half. You need a lot more troops if just controlling your own land is hard enough as it is.
  
• No civs begin with Warriors. Rather, one Recon unit, one Settler, and one Worker. You're instantly safe for the next 50+ turns when you found your first city in most maps even with raging barbarians on. Ought not to be so. The Worker synergizes with changes I detail below.
  
• Non-agressive units like Archers and Recon should be significantly faster and cheaper to build. Why's a scout cost the same as a warrior an archer cost the same as an axeman? It makes no sense.
  
• All early buildings (up to theatre, library, forge) made considerably less hammer expensive. Same reason, you have to spend more time building troopers to get and keep control of things.
  
• Cottages available at ancient chants OR not requiring a technology at all. Honestly the best way I see to equalize the starting locations. However..
  
• Cottages are built by Settlers not Workers. Since Cottages are spiritually the Suburbs of your urban center, I'd rather see Settlers build them, making them dual-purposed as a work unit or a city maker. Settlers would not be consumed by making cottages.
  
• Workers able to build Hamlets (upgraded cottage) once a middle game technology is researched. Construction techiques have improved, and people no longer have to build their own shanties with available materials any more. So workers can build +2 coin hamlets at this point. I say put this at Construction.
  
  
• Workers build improvements much slower at the start of the game but build faster as technologies are improved.
  
• Workers able to clear Forest right at game start. Stone-tooled societies could still bring down trees. Usually they just lashed it and got a few dozen guys to pull the tree down with muscle. Bronze Working ( or preferably Crafting) could speed forest clearing. Again, this helps equalize starting locations faster.
  
• The City States tech shouldnt be available until a latter game technology.
  
• Raider trait needs to lose the free Commando promotion.
  
• Commando should be available as a standard promotion earlier in a unit's promotion cycle/tech tree.
  
• More Mines of Gal-Dur type resource granting wonders need to be available, particularly for reagents and mithril.
  
• Walls, Public Baths, and other clearly "State" structures should increase city maintenance slightly. You need more taxes to maintain all that stuff! This also helps balance out the sooner-to-be cottages.
  
• More Orthus/Acheron type things. You are mildly concerned about barbarians only as long as Orthus lives, then they're just free EXP. Why isnt baron duin halfmorn a latter barb unit for instance?
• Edit added Jan23 : early Scout and Archer units shouldnt be able to attack cities, with exception of Elvish units and Assassin+ recons. Gives meaning to the more expensive melee troops beyond their universally better versatility. Maybe scouts could attack cities if a certain promotion is expended on them ( combat 2 or something).
  
• Edit added Jan 28; Adding to the list of wants: Remove the free Great Sage from Writing. Burning straight to Writing gives a HUGE early research boost to the civ that does it thanks to the free +50% research from the academy, and if they get another GS they can just settle him... at that stage you are likely to have like 25 research per turn, so the result is jumping to over 40 per turn, far higher than everyone else. I've never failed to dominate a game when I've done this.
  
• Edit added January 30: It would be great if Earth sorcery ( at 2 or 3, either way) had a version of Vitalize that when used on flatland would create a hill, and if used on a hill would create a Peak. Likewise it would be great if Water had a spell to create Land tiles out of Coast.
  

Ultimate desired result? Less emphasis on Rexpansion, more interesting scarier world without turning the game into a boring next next next fest.

I'll add more to this via marked edits as thunderclouds tussle the jasmine in my mind.

 

[Woil]

Some ideas here I like:

* Bringing down trees really slow without bronze working. Probably also no production bonus or a very small production bonus.

* Faster improvement building late game. This would help balance out the AC razing improvements.

* Reagents / Mithril are very tough to get, and for some civs are critical. I've had games where there was no Reagents in the entire revealed map. Makes it tough to play arcane races. Perhaps some code to check the entire map for reagents once the first civ researches the needed tech and adds them randomly if there aren't 1 per every 3 civs. (Encouraging wars for resources is great, not having them at all is not.)

Some ideas I don't like:

Archers and scouts should not be cheaper, unless they can't attack cities and workers. As I regularly play multiplayer games if these units can camp the enemy and prevent workers from building improvements it can be devastating.

.02c
-Woil

 

[Cuteunit]

Good point, I'll add that to the list ( defender/recon units not being able to attack cities... except elves and assassins)

 

[xienwolf]

I dunno, I kinda liked being able to attack with all my units finally. Being forced to defend only was quite a pain in the arse with normal Civ. And I know you are saying just "No attacking Cities," but if my recon unit is at 100 XP and everyone else was sitting at home twiddling their thumbs, he is usually the one I use to knock out barbarian cities on my borders. Maybe, Recon/Defender units need a special promotion to be allowed to attack cities? Then few would be able to, but that one who is a powerhouse can be allowed to if you really desire it. That also helps make it a bit easier to make special exceptions for Recon Hero units and Assassins/Elves.


Taking down trees isn't the hard part about clearing a forest, it is getting the land to be worth ANYTHING after you have done so that is the trick. For centuries mankind was practically turning the forests/jungles into desolate wasteland because of improper land management after removal of the trees. So I think that Bronze-working is meant ot imply the understanding of how to make the land viable after the removal of the forest. But I can't think of any practical way to reflect improper land management with the Civ mechanics off the top of my head (well, unless you had tearing down the forest cause the land to 'de-promote' from Grassland --> Plains --> Desert under the tile. But personally I'd love that so I could make Hills/Plains city locations on a whim).

ANYTHING that makes the passive world more savage would be a blessing. But I suppose the MP people might need a way to keep it from happening too much, and the builder type players might get annoyed by it if it gets to the level I'd enjoy (even though I myself am a builder type player).

Not sure about cottages right off the bat. Or will you still require Education in order for them to start growing on their own? I'd love to at least be able to build roads from the start though I like the idea of later workers being able to just directly build Hamlets. Maybe if the cottages CAN grow right away it is balanced if only the settler's can build them before Education. Then you can sacrafice a few turns before placing your first city to improve the area... wait, nm... can't improve outside of your culture, and won't have any while you still have first settler Bummer. Sorta liked that idea, but hadn't decided on it completely till just there

 

[Cuteunit]

Both the immediate deforestation and immediate ( but limited) ability to build cottages ideas are aimed at equalizing starting locations more than anything else. Take two civs and stick them in the game, put one on a river with floodplains and one hill and put the other in assorted forest and the game is almost over as it is, because the forest guy is stuck at 9 research per turn for the next 100+ turns while the floodplains person can easily keep their research volumes almost equal to the turn count! ( hence 50 research at turn 50 etc).

You bring up and interesting point and it ties into something I was thinking about.. what if Cities never expanded their borders past the Initial Square, but Cottages did project cultural influence? Kind of like how space stations in afterworld do.

 

[jenks]

• Barbarian Undead far far more common, to the point of being seen more than goblins and orcs. Hordes. I've never once promoted a unit to undead slaying. Not ever once. Never had to.
• "Ruined city" features similar to Barrows that have a lot more than 1 skeleton guarding them, which when conquered would function like the rewards of the Quest event for the conquering unit. There should be a lot of ruined cities from the age of magic hanging around now that they're not under ice. Some nice adventure/mines of moria play there.

I like these, dont agree 100% with tonnes more undead but a razed city ruins spawning undead units same as a barrow is a lovely notion.

• Non-agressive units like Archers and Recon should be significantly faster and cheaper to build. Why's a scout cost the same as a warrior an archer cost the same as an axeman? It makes no sense.

Not so fussed with recon being cheaper as it still has a function atm, Archers are the priority as they are totally undervalued. Reposted suggestions:
1. Reduce the Archery tech cost from 300 to 200
2. Move the requirement for the City Garrison promotion to Archery tech from Warfare tech
3. Improve the Archery Range to be more useful in a city as well as for producing Archer units by increasing to +10% defense, +2XP for Archery units(currently provides +5% and allows archers to be built)
4. Reduce Archer unit build cost from 60 to 50, making them cheaper than the comparative Axeman / Horseman

• Cottages are built by Settlers not Workers. Since Cottages are spiritually the Suburbs of your urban center, I'd rather see Settlers build them, making them dual-purposed as a work unit or a city maker. Settlers would not be consumed by making cottages.

Like this for flavor but think settler / worker dual function is gonna play hell with an already crippled AI.

• Workers able to build Hamlets (upgraded cottage) once a middle game technology is researched. Construction techiques have improved, and people no longer have to build their own shanties with available materials any more. So workers can build +2 coin hamlets at this point. I say put this at Construction.
• Workers build improvements much slower at the start of the game but build faster as technologies are improved.
• Workers able to clear Forest right at game start. Stone-tooled societies could still bring down trees. Usually they just lashed it and got a few dozen guys to pull the tree down with muscle. Bronze Working ( or preferably Crafting) could speed forest clearing. Again, this helps equalize starting locations faster.

This all makes sense imo.
I'd say Feudalism could be a option to take away a workers ability to build cottages and grants them the ability to build straight hamlets instead.
I'd possibly allow Forest Chops at Crafting and Jungle chops at Bronze Working.
Double the base cost of doing either, and allow +25% work rate for chopping forest / jungle at each of the following technologies (Bronze Working, Iron Working, Mathematics, Engineering)

• The City States tech shouldnt be available until a latter game technology.

The civic fits with 'Education' but is overpowered due to the generally high maintainance costs of a FfH civ through city numbers & distance to palace. I could see this dropped a little in value, possibly taking it down a little to -75% cost from distance from palace modifier (from -80%), with a bigger -25% culture hit (from -20%).
I would say what needs addressing is more buildings / civics affecting maintainance (first thing that springs to mind is Decentralisation civic to be - 50% cost from distance to palace, +25% cost from number of cities - is this not obvious based on the flavour?).

• Walls, Public Baths, and other clearly "State" structures should increase city maintenance slightly. You need more taxes to maintain all that stuff! This also helps balance out the sooner-to-be cottages.

I like the concept, but balance wise it will screw everything over unless all building costs are reduced. I could be persuaded by them if modifiers were small and balanced with cost of build and possibly a flat cost on the better buildings (thinking walls could be changed to +25% defense, +1% maintainance, -5 crime; Aqueduct, +2 health, -1 gold)

 

[3141592]

I don't see a problem with starting location deficiencies. The initial settler has a massive amount of movement and sight, so you have a very large range to choose from. If you get stuck in a forest, just move to the plains.

 

[jenks]

the thread has already covered most of my own wants now, other than for a greater variety of animals spawning - beyond tonnes of Bears, the odd Giant Spider and the everlasting Elephants.

I would like to see the Giant Spider spawn more kids, and the % chance requirement for victoriuos combat for a baby spider to grow into a Giant Spider removed (it was better the old way - something like a 2% chance per turn of this happening automatically).

I would like to see the wolf pack and lion pride again, along with the odd wolf and lion den.

I want the Elephant to have a corresponding building upon capture (possibly provides Ivory).

I would like to see some tigers and gorillas. They are extinct before anyone even discovered hunting!

 

[Cuteunit]

gorillas do seem very rare dont they.

 

[Aradiel]

There are some nice ideas here indeed. The ability to chop down trees with crafting would be nice, how often it happens that you have a vital resource and cant use it because of a foresttile ? A few stoneaxes are definetly more than a match for most trees, you should have a penalty of about 50% without bronzeworking though. I also agree with the undead, razed citys should spawn masses of them actually, depending on the AC counter the higher the stronger. I would love to see this implemented with a improvement, cursed ruins for example which can only be destroyed by the sanctifying spell or banish undead.

Elephants should also give a goodie on capture, maybe breeding stables, which will cost you some food but add hammers (you dont need to chop a tree when you have a 6 ton caterpillar ;-))and allow to build war elephants later and also add happiness like any other captured animal.

 

[jenks]

• Edit added Jan23 : early Scout and Archer units shouldnt be able to attack cities, with exception of Elvish units and Assassin+ recons. Gives meaning to the more expensive melee troops beyond their universally better versatility.

Nah, honestly think that ones a bit daft.

First, melee units are already by far the most effective way to attack cities until seige weapons.

Second, early Archers are already undervalued and have a lower attack rating already (3 / 5 without any chance of iron / copper bonuses), they are already specialised defenders and if you are attacking a city with them then fool on you.
Plus where is the flavor/realism of archers not physically being able to barrage a city? Of course they can physically attack a city, just fire the damn arrows into the thing, it just wont work quite as well as defending, and again not as well as they would be able to defend their own city, or the top of a hill. This "archers are weak vs cities" feature is already there!

Finally, whats wrong with the recon units having the -ve 20%'s or even -50% city strength (as is currently on the hunter / ranger / assassin)? I personally think the scout / recon vs city line is weak enough as is.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I disagree about slowing down the early game. I would rather things get done faster at least until you have your second city. I hate having to constantly push next turn (but not as much as having my turns ended for me when I'm not done, so wait at end of turn is a must)


If I figure out how to do to split the barbs up into 3 minor civs (Barbarian Horde Orks, Legion of Darkness Demons/undead, and Creatures of Nature animals/beasts) I'll try to make a separate "raging barb" and "no barb" type options for each civ. I normally wouldn't want the world to be full of the undead, but it would be interesting as an occasional option. Both "raging" and "no" options would be good for scenarios. I would add more variety of units and spawning improvements when I add the civs. Werewolves already randomly go barbarian, but I might make them available to the Creature of Nature minor civ. More heroes for each civ would also be added, and different heroes spawnings may give the civ different traits, which would be removed upon the hero's death.


I'll think about lower maintenance, but think that lowering (or eliminating) inflation might be better.

I don't like the "settlers build cottages, workers build hamlets" idea. However, I would be willing to implement it the other way around.
I say a warrior, a scout, a worker, and a settler is better.


I completely disagree about raiders and commando.

I'm already adding resource granting wonders; actually, I'm going further and adding 2 wonders that allow spells that allow buildings that can grant any resource. I plan to make the Mines of Galdur grant Iron, Gems (or copper, or gold), and Mithril.


I am willing to make several techs (bronze working, construction, engineering, guilds, mathematics) increase work rates slightly. I disagree about stone age societies being able to bring down forests with stone tools. They could pull down tiny trees and beat the trunks of large ones to a pulp (when tried in the amazon this can take hundreds of man-hours), but they certainly couldn't bring down forests unless they used something else: Fire. Burning forests down is already in the game. I would be willing to move clearing forests to mining (copper tools would work, just not as quickly). I'll also probably require Iron working to clear Ancient Forests.

 

[Cuteunit]

It's a balance thing. I already explained the crippling problems that come with starting in woods vs starting on plains or floodplain.

If everything I suggested were implemented the beginner game would actually be more interesting, as you'd have to manage more inside your borders rather than just hitting End Turn waiting for that 50 turn settler. Dealing with fallow crops, random monster uprisings, etc. You could even plan ahead for it, like stationing a warrior with Undead slaying near your mines in case some creeping horror came out. Of course if it's a giant spider that comes out instead, them's the breaks.

You could also take your army and quest to clear those ruined cities on the map. Wouldnt it be neat if that had a chance to give you free technologies along with the other stuff you get from the Quest event? ( exp or random magic item).
Thatwould be a goodie hut mechanic I could get behind.

So far it seems most agree with me that you should be able to clear forest before bronze, just do it slower until you have that technology.

If the barbarian state became tripartite wouldnt they just spend all their time fighting eachother? If you turn on raging barbs AND wildlands, the barbarians spend more time fighting animals for the first part of the game than they do you.

 

[xienwolf]

Actually if he removes the HN promotion from all the animals, he can just set the 3 alignments at permanent peace with each other and they'd never fight one another. Not sure if he could design it so that they do a paper/rock/scissors thing so there is an option for free/easy exp for each of them, but still not a complete depopulation of any area.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yeah, but thats a good thing. I'd drastically raise the spawn rates, so infighting would mean that they gain more xp and more more of a threat.

Also, I'm removing the max barb and max animal xp.

 

[xienwolf]

Please also remove the limits on max population for each of the 3 alignments, or at least make them independant and seperate. Then if there is even 1 tile in Fog of War, you can see Barb spawns still. Actually if the spawn rate stays the same, it means you see more stacks spawning as more of the world is exposed to visibility.

Might also want to add in some new Barbarian Transport units for getting them across the oceans easily, then if there is a tiny island it can still make the entirely settled world dangerous.

 

[Quetz]

definately agree on moving city states.

 

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

I like keeping City states where it is, given it's a sort of low centralized form of government, something a civilization likely coming out of barbarism would adhere to, at least until some sort of centralized power comes about.



I would rather nerf it..............

 

[Roghar]

My thoughts- in general I think these add complexity for no real gain, but some are good:

Barbarian Undead far far more common, to the point of being seen more than goblins and orcs. Hordes. I've never once promoted a unit to undead slaying. Not ever once. Never had to.
Indifferent, doesnt really fuss me what type they are

"Ruined city" features similar to Barrows that have a lot more than 1 skeleton guarding them, which when conquered would function like the rewards of the Quest event for the conquering unit. There should be a lot of ruined cities from the age of magic hanging around now that they're not under ice. Some nice adventure/mines of moria play there.
Some nice added flavour

More types of undead abound. Use the Drown model with a purple texture for some generalized zombies. A lot of people must have died in the wilderness when mulcarn was honcho.
The game has a lot of variety. Sure more is always nice, but I really don't see it as a development priority at all

Barbarian werewolves please.
As previous comment

Improved resources randomly but frequently going fallow for a few turns or having bad events occur on them. Farms produce -1 or -2 food for x turns at random until Sanitation and Medicine are researched, mines that randomly come up "Your miners have encountered the crypt of a terrible creature deep beneath the surface, forcing them to flee for their lives!" and a monster of some type would pop up and stay on that improvement, preventing that tile from being worked until the monster was killed ( and that part requires no coding, either). Could happen to farms too, with Haunting events. Stuff like that. Some action inside the borders.
I don't see this as really adding much to the game, just some more micromanagement

Army maintenance costs slashed in half. You need a lot more troops if just controlling your own land is hard enough as it is.
No - In the early game when extra critters would really matter army maintenance is cheap anyway, later it would aid huge armies too much

No civs begin with Warriors. Rather, one Recon unit, one Settler, and one Worker. You're instantly safe for the next 50+ turns when you found your first city in most maps even with raging barbarians on. Ought not to be so. The Worker synergizes with changes I detail below.
That's an issue with raging barbs that needs to be solved, i really don't see a warrior as the problem

Non-agressive units like Archers and Recon should be significantly faster and cheaper to build. Why's a scout cost the same as a warrior an archer cost the same as an axeman? It makes no sense.
Agree with archers, recon are fine as is

All early buildings (up to theatre, library, forge) made considerably less hammer expensive. Same reason, you have to spend more time building troopers to get and keep control of things.
Agreed, not due to unit production but just because these are too slow at present

Cottages available at ancient chants OR not requiring a technology at all. Honestly the best way I see to equalize the starting locations. However..
I don't see this as necessary, Education is not hard to get to if you really want cottages early on.

Cottages are built by Settlers not Workers. Since Cottages are spiritually the Suburbs of your urban center, I'd rather see Settlers build them, making them dual-purposed as a work unit or a city maker. Settlers would not be consumed by making cottages.
This would make it harder to get cottages going earlier than it is now, even in combination with remvoed cottage tech requirement

Workers able to build Hamlets (upgraded cottage) once a middle game technology is researched. Construction techiques have improved, and people no longer have to build their own shanties with available materials any more. So workers can build +2 coin hamlets at this point. I say put this at Construction.
As above, i think workers should be left building these

Workers build improvements much slower at the start of the game but build faster as technologies are improved.
Seems ok to me at present, possible exception forest clearing

Workers able to clear Forest right at game start. Stone-tooled societies could still bring down trees. Usually they just lashed it and got a few dozen guys to pull the tree down with muscle. Bronze Working ( or preferably Crafting) could speed forest clearing. Again, this helps equalize starting locations faster.
Agree with this if at a slower rate - bronze working is expensive enough that this can really hurt a starting civ. Same for jungles

The City States tech shouldnt be available until a latter game technology.
Agreed. Don't think it would matter much as God King is so popular early, but this really should be Philosopy at least

Raider trait needs to lose the free Commando promotion.
I think that weakens it a bit too much, maybe compensate by giving access to mobility straight away

Commando should be available as a standard promotion earlier in a unit's promotion cycle/tech tree.
agree

More Mines of Gal-Dur type resource granting wonders need to be available, particularly for reagents and mithril.
Undecided - yes lacking these, especially reagents, can hurt, but it makes hunting for and acquiring them an interesting mission. If it forces you off of yuor favoured development path for that civ, I'm ok with it

Walls, Public Baths, and other clearly "State" structures should increase city maintenance slightly. You need more taxes to maintain all that stuff! This also helps balance out the sooner-to-be cottages.
That just overcomplicates things. Maintenance incerases with pop anyway, and higher pop cities have more buildings

More Orthus/Acheron type things. You are mildly concerned about barbarians only as long as Orthus lives, then they're just free EXP. Why isnt baron duin halfmorn a latter barb unit for instance?
Again, nice but not a priority. Until Orthus and Acheron play smarter why introduce new ones? As it is having orthus or acheron nearby is normally an advantage rather than a disadvantage. Orthus especiialy, he suicides on your city and gives you heaps of xp and a great item

early Scout and Archer units shouldnt be able to attack cities, with exception of Elvish units and Assassin+ recons. Gives meaning to the more expensive melee troops beyond their universally better versatility.
They already suck attacking cities, I don't see a need for a prohibition per se. Why can't a unit of archers attack a primitive city?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

@ Roghar: you should seperate the quotes from your comments, preferabely using [QUOTE] [/QUOTE] tags, although conventional quotation marks would be ok too. Your post was very hard to read through.

In generally agree with you, although on a few points I have different mechanics/alterations of his proposals in mind that I think would work better.