Design: Civilizations

[Sureshot]

i actually did some nicer things with it, like i made it so they started with a hero that cant attack that had high strength, and could create a city. once that hero created a city all the nomads turned into the hippus' regular units.. so basically they could start off nomadic and stay that way for as long as they like, but one day (or even right from the start) skip nomadic and just city build.

page 19 of this thread actually details the thought process behind it and some of what i did

im anxious to redo it once i can build improvements out of borders.. will solve one the problems i wasnt happy with

 

[Quetz]

As far as the elves getting fire, yes I know you can justify about anythign with a good story (having played NWN on RP servers, you wouldnt believe the ridiculous stuff ppl come up with and make a quick story about, to say its all well since it was RP'd, RIGHT??)

But, yeah I was talking about flavor, since this mod is full of it. Why take out elven siege engines if they have to get easy access to fireballs, which imo work much better anyways? Especially considering the HUGE defensive boost they get from building in forests? It just doesnt seem right to imagine the elven legions advancing, flanked by a group of Fireball spamming mages.. IMO air would fit a lot better. Why go halfway on removing their siege ability? Its not like they cant get fire by themselves anyways, just having it for free... meh.

My point about the leader was how can you be expansive, raider, AND defender? Those 3 traits just dont seem to mix...

 

[Sureshot]

personally id rather they had water so they could do spring early on

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Considering that if they don't have at least one mana node in their empire, they probably aren't going to be doing any sieges anyway, I think removing fire mana from their palace wouldn't excatly be crippling.

 

[Kael]

Considering that if they don't have at least one mana node in their empire, they probably aren't going to be doing any sieges anyway, I think removing fire mana from their palace wouldn't excatly be crippling.

You have to remember that we have to design for the AI even more than the player. A talented human player would go for straight off if we didnt provide it and mitigate the shortcoming. But a new player would go randomly through development and find himself without an effective siege ability in the midgame, and without a clear understanding of how to overcome it (ie: a noob trap). Even worse the ai would be without a clear ability to mitigate the weakness and would be particuarly bad at attacks.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Hm... it's clear you've thought this through more than I have. Too bad there isn't another solution, though.

 

[Sureshot]

i figured it was ai based, hadnt considered new players. but as a non-new player id rather have water than fire lol

 

[Halancar]

Elves absolutely need fire mana--they can't build seige engines.

I don't know, I almost never use siege engines (too slow for my style of play) and I don't use fireballs with my elves.

What do I use to take cities ? With the elves, tigers and treants. Tigers may not be strong, but you can accumulate a truly spectacular number of them, and treants are quite good

 

[Alchemistor]

For sea-based Civ, rather than a pirate based theme of Lanun, a trade based civilization would be more attract me more. Something modelled along the lines of medieval Italian city states like Genoa or Venice or else Spain or Portugal. This civ can be given some luxury goods like silk as a palace resource and ability to establish cities in far flung lands with reduced corruption penalty and get bonuses to trade routes. As a trade-off they are penalized more severely for establishing too many cities. I'd love to play a Civ that likes to establish cities in far flung coastal lands and not have to manage too many cities and have tons of money to compensate for smaller population and cities.

 

[Silverkiss]

Well, a civ with less cities and huge money we alredy have, altough not sea-based, the Khazad... But we could use one as you said, with big bonus to trade routes (its a trader civ, after all) and with little (maybe none) distance maintenance... Then we could have less cities, but each could be far from the others... Like colonies.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Originally Posted by Nikis-Knight
Elves absolutely need fire mana--they can't build seige engines

For what it's worth, I retract this as of version .16. I don't have an opinion of what mana they should have, but if there's any oceans on the map, triemes & frigates can function as seige for elves.

 

[Kael]

For what it's worth, I retract this as of version .16. I don't have an opinion of what mana they should have, but if there's any oceans on the map, triemes & frigates can function as seige for elves.

Only against coastal cities.

 

[Hypnotoad]

You have to remember that we have to design for the AI even more than the player. A talented human player would go for straight off if we didnt provide it and mitigate the shortcoming. But a new player would go randomly through development and find himself without an effective siege ability in the midgame, and without a clear understanding of how to overcome it (ie: a noob trap). Even worse the ai would be without a clear ability to mitigate the weakness and would be particuarly bad at attacks.

This makes sense, but I have to say the elves are almost always the top AI civ pointwise, at least in my games. And none of the AIs seem to do much seiging, much to my dismay.

 

[Endovior]

Hmm...

I'd suggest that, if it's merely for balance reasons, that you swap Fire out for Air as soon as it's implemented. Let them use Chain Lightning for sieges instead of Fireball.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

I dont take them personally. FfH has been way more popular then I expected and unfortunatly that means I get a fair amount of loons that are very passionate, but not very realistic (and who seem to have forgotten that this is something they get for free and I do as a hobby).

But it doesn't even begin to compare to all of the nice things that have been posted and said. I've seen a lot of gaming forums that are extremly negative and full of attacks, but the civfanatics community is awesome and FfH wouldnt be what it is without them.

Re: PMS. I've managed to get my Prozac 'scrip upped. Well, I knockod off a pharmacy.

 

[Sureshot]

This makes sense, but I have to say the elves are almost always the top AI civ pointwise, at least in my games. And none of the AIs seem to do much seiging, much to my dismay.

play on higher difficulties and with aggressive AI turned on, ive never had a problem with elves taking the lead because i play games where wars happen often, and elves dont win wars.

 

[evanb]

IIRC, Faeryl got a new picture in 0.16, right? How about updating it in the first post?

 

[Gladi]

snip

Lanun+RoK+City States.

 

[evanb]

Oh, and one more thing: where did you find that picture of Faeryl's? Could you give a site or the name of an author or something?...

 

[Kael]

Oh, and one more thing: where did you find that picture of Faeryl's? Could you give a site or the name of an author or something?...

Its from Chain and Jane http://www.chainandjane.com/ (caution nudity!).