Design: Civilizations

[Chandrasekhar]

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.

I've found that the elves seem to be around the middle of the pack nowadays. I suppose making workers cost more means that many of their extra hammers are going toward the extraworkers they need to stay competitive. No doubt there's still some strategies that exploit the forest build ability, but slowing down their workers was a surprisingly effective balance change.

 

[Sureshot]

ive had trouble actually playing out games with the calabim because theres just so little vampirism going on til much later in the game, so i tried to figure out what could be done to give them lesser vampire types earlier on.

a quick google search revealed a nice source of different vampire types, in case ideas for new units are needed.

http://www.lizabets-vault.com/vamptypes.html

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I think the Calabim's hierarchy is pretty nice as it is, flavorwise, but they do seem a bit too bland for the early game. Of course, with Flauros' new traits, I should be complaining. It's not so much an issue of power as it is of flavor. And its not so much an issue of flavor as it is of opinion...

 

[Sureshot]

bland is the opposite of flavoured....

anyways, new unit ideas for lesser type vampires exist in that link, anything to make them more interesting in the early game is good (the only flavour currently before feudalism is pretty much only moroi, and thats copper dependent = bad).

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I meant "bland" in the gameplay sense. I suppose they're not flavorful in the early gameplay, but the overall concept flavor is solid

 

[formless blob]

I admit that I have not read the entire thread, but here is my idea anyway:

How about introducing one or more races who are inherently inferior to the others? They would have weaker units in general, for no reduction in cost or anything like that. They could be goblins or halflings maybe. This would allow the player to pick them for an extra challenge (different than just another difficulty level).

 

[Khai]

Does anyone have the planned design docs for the Svaltflar? (DElves)

 

[Sureshot]

Don't know if they've been fully thought out, but I'm currently modding them for my own uses and will release a 0.16f version a little later (currently have dark elven unique units for every unit pretty much - i think the same number as the light elves).

 

[DarthCycle]

I don't know what the plans are for the currently unplayable civilizations, especially the evil ones but here are a few ideas.

I like the fact that elves and dwarves have their unique improvements. It makes playing them a different game experience. Forest are good for elves. Mines are good for dwarves. Nice and simple.

However, I don't like the fact that the gameplay for evil civs and good civs is basically the same, from a harvesting/improving the land perspective. It would be nice for evil civ like the infernal to actually benefit from destroying or corrupting the land. Their worker would build improvements that are unique to them and only their civilization would benefit from them.

Perhaps their workers could have an action called "corrupt the land" that would transform the terrain into a badland or something similar. Badland would only be beneficial to the infernal races. Allow the badland to spread around like new forest. Long term, if you're a good race and you have the infernal as your neighbor, you would get worried because their badland could migrate into your territory and you wouldn't be able to use those terrain.

This would also open up a lot of nice possibilities with magic. Allow death magic sorcery to alter terrain to badland. Allow life magic sorcery to "heal" badland.

Why stop there? Add a trait where infernal race have bonuses in badland and others races get a penalty.

This is just a few thoughts to play around. Don't know if Kael will consider them but it would be nice to see a few of them. From a gameplay perspective, features that makes a civ radically different from the other ones adds a huge fun factor to the game.

 

[Love]

the "badland" can be hell big deam hole thats spreading.

 

[Khai]

Sounds cool Sureshot, any chance I could take a look at them? Do they keep the same Forest mechanics as the Elves?

 

[Sureshot]

i think i have a previous version from like a week ago on rapidshare, but can't remember what patch that was for.

once 0.16f comes out i'm gonna reintegrate my changes in and upload it after i get it polished.

didnt only work on svartalfar, also did some unique units for the calabim, and some units/spell changes to make terraforming and terrain more interesting and staged, and less of a hassle.

 

[xanaqui42]

Presently, all the non-player controlled units are controlled by a single player, The Barbarian State. This causes some side-effects that would otherwise not be expected; for example, Barbarians can't attack Animals, Hellfire ritual affects player's status relative to Barbarians, and Demons (from Hellfire) can neither attack Animals nor barbarians.

My proposal is to split up The Barbarian State into three such limited players:

The Barbarian State (controls Barbarians, Barbarian Cities, and units from Ruins)
The Legions of Hell (controls units from Hellfire, Sailor's Dirge, and Barrows)
The Animal Kingdom (Controls spawned animals, and any animals that escape, as well as Hill Giants).

The primary advantage is that this allows a finer degree of control as to relationships among these groups, and between and civilization and these groups. Since they could be at war with each other, some of these groups (Animals in particular) may need higher frequencies to remain significant.

The main disadvantage is that this could cause significant early warfare, possibly slowing down the game, with little positive overall effect.

 

[MrUnderhill]

Well, Sureshot (IIRC) suggested in the Dev-Diary thread that the demons spawned by Hellfire (and Infernal Grimoire) be given to the Infernals, rather than the barbarians. I like that idea, and it does cover the Legions of Hell idea without making a whole new civ.

It also means that players who choose to play as Hyborem won't have to worry about demon vs. demon fights if they ever decide to turn on the barbarians.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

The primary advantage is that this allows a finer degree of control as to relationships among these groups, and between and civilization and these groups. Since they could be at war with each other, some of these groups (Animals in particular) may need higher frequencies to remain significant.

I don't think we'd gain anything by making barbarians war with animals; the advantage would be being able to have charadon no allied with hell, clans not allied with animals, etc.

 

[xanaqui42]

I don't think we'd gain anything by making barbarians war with animals; the advantage would be being able to have charadon no allied with hell, clans not allied with animals, etc.

The hypothetical advantage would be to allow some barbarian units to gain XP in this manner (of course, just having a random XP grant might be a better way to give the same end result).

I agree, however, that separating Hell from the Barbarians would be more useful than separating Animals from either; if nothing else, the grant of Hidden Nationality to all Animals gives much of the same game effect (those at peace with the Barbarian state can still attack Animals/Hill Giants).

 

[Chandrasekhar]

The hellfire demons being given to Hyborem would make them distinct, and the HN on animals and giants works to separate them from barbarians, too. On a side note, I do wish that the barbarians would start spawning with free xp as the game progresses. You can get 99% odds against orc spearmen with just a level 4 warrior... after that point, the barbarians probably help you more than they hurt you.

 

[kenken244]

i think the khazadshould have their mines "grow" like cottages into deeper mines with higher production, commerce, chance to discover resources and/ or defense bonouses and a dwarven unit on a mine can travel to another mine that is the "depth" level of the two mines combined away even through mountans and coast (not oceans) these might take a long time to "grow" though and maybe the higher level mines will require metals ( for better picaxes) or blasting powder

 

[kenken244]

maybe you can give them some sort of "defensive complex" that gives huge defence bonouses depending on the stone and metal recources avalable to the city along with requiring LOTS of hammers and the drawback would be any unit entering the city instantly has its movement drained- even your own and there would be fewer trade routes it would eliminate war weariness in the city but have unhappiness and unhealthiness penalties (the citzens cant se the outside world as much and they are closer together so deseise spreads easily)

 

[kenken244]

you could give the malkalim a chance to discover desert recources and oasises when they build roads through a desert and able to build improvements on and next to oasises vampires should not be able to enter malkalim lands and sand lions should randomly be sommoned in their deserts much like treents now