Design Contest Overflow

[White Elk]

This thread is for extra Design Contest ideas we may have. All the contests have a limit of one idea per poster. So post your other ideas here. Who knows, maybe they will make it into the game someday. And perhaps they will help others with their ideas, as well as help mod-modders.

 

[Elm]

I don't have a unit proposal at the moment, but a comment on the Balseraph Adept. Since one of the qualities of Balseraphs is mutation or, generally randomness, maybe instead of choosing the promotion when you create, or upgrade an Adept, it should be chosen for you randomly (from the available promotions). Or, maybe you could get 0, 1 or two promotions chosen randomly on creation or upgrade.

 

[Pandemonis]

Here's what I'd love to see in FfH, better system of religion. As it is a city is either from a religion or not, and can be from several religions.

What I would love to see is to actually have religions weighted so that the players would know how religion is affecting them, exactly.

Ie. Innsmouth have a population of 8, 5 of them follow OO, 2 follows RoK, 1 doesn't follow any particular religion.

Religion spread per population point, so it can expand "naturally" in the same city, or spread to a different city.

Religion %age for Religion victory can also be read in raw number of population points (ie. You Founded The Order, 25 pop points out of 250 world pop point follow order, you got 10%)

Religious modifiers are weighted to actual spread of religion, not just state religion. Ie. If you have 10 pop points following AV and follow the Order as state religion with 20 pop points following the Order, Basium will you less than if you had no followers of the AV (Which therefore makes mass murders act as diplomatic tools, but it's a dark fantasy mod after all...).


Civilizations using Theocracy, Religion, Religious Discipline will get a +100% religion diplomatic modifier (after all, you DO expect them to not not treat religion lightly if they adopted all of these civics)

Disciple Units: (Adept, Priest, High Priest, Patriarch)
Instead of converting a city, they can preach their religion to convert x population point of non-followers into followers of their religion, where x is one for adepts, 2 for priests, 3 for high priests, 4 for patriarch
There is a chance the unit will die in the process, 60% for adepts, 40% for priests, 20% for high priests, none for patriarch.

Additionally, a new Promotion would be available, that would allow to remove x point of population following a different religion - therefore removing religion gradually, but also killing population in the process.
There is a chance the unit will die in the process, 100% for adepts, 80% for priests, 40% for high priests, 20% for patriarch.

Population killed in the process will create Manes and Angels if from AV or Order.

Slavery would prompt for which citizens you would like to sacrifice (no followers, religion A, etc.).
Alternatively, Slavery would be remodeled, removing the option of whipping people to get productions. Instead, you have the option to draft/build workers or use existing workers to work an additional tile's food OR production (never gold). The tile would be unworkable by a pop point or a second worker.
The interface would prompt for which city to carry the goods to. Along with the output from the worker, the city gets an additional +1 unhappiness and -1 gold (not commerce).

Inquisitor would be unchanged, as it converts people rather than just exterminate them.

And a stuff I would _looove_ to see, schisms !
If you send a Great Prophet in the Holy city of a religion you have the option to start a schism. The said religion will then be cut in two, one named "The True" and the other named "The Real" (so that you can have a holy war between the True Orders from Heaven and the Real Orders of Heaven).
(I prefer the names True and Real to New and Old, or Reformed, etc. because I think it shows more fanaticism and fits FfH in a better way...)

Between 30 and 50% of the religion followers population points will become True, while 50 to 70% will become Real.
Religious buildings will become of the religion with the most followers in the city.
Units with Religion tags all belong to the larger religion of the two - this is because they have not changed religion, it is the religion that has changed.

Holy Shrines consider both religions to be the religion they are the shrines for.

Thats my 2 cents

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Umm, what do any of those enhanced religion ideas have to do with the design contests? I generally agree with you, but those suggestions would be better in their own thread (or one of the many long dead threads where such ideas have been discussed before) than here.

 

[White Elk]

I don't have a unit proposal at the moment, but a comment on the Balseraph Adept. Since one of the qualities of Balseraphs is mutation or, generally randomness, maybe instead of choosing the promotion when you create, or upgrade an Adept, it should be chosen for you randomly (from the available promotions). Or, maybe you could get 0, 1 or two promotions chosen randomly on creation or upgrade.

I think this is a good basis for a unit proposal.

 

[White Elk]

A Champion emerges

A rare event triggered by an 'against the odds' victory of a Melee unit.

"The exploits of one of our warriors has...

1. Inspired our troops and increased their morale.
   All wounded units in the stack heal 25%, and gain Hasted and Blitz for one turn.
   .
2. Inspired our people and given them confidence in our cause.
   +15% military production and -25% War Weariness in all cities for 20 turns (scaled by game speed).
   .
3. Attracted the attention of our generals.
   Unit granted the Great General promotion."

 

[Pandemonis]

I think this is a good basis for a unit proposal.

Monstrous Freak
Requirement: Freak Show

Cost: Something around 70 (which is Hunter +16%)
RANDOM (0-6)/(0-6)
RANDOM 1-3
RANDOM Unit Class

Promotions:
Mutated, Crazed, 0-3 random promotions available to its Unit Class.
Unit will level accordingly, meaning that a if it draws 3 promotions, it will be level 4 and will not level up so easily.

Spoiler :

Maybe tweak the randomness as in:
strength
0 - 15%
1 - 10%
2 - 20%
3 - 15%
4 - 15%
5 - 15%
6 - 10%

move
1 - 40%
2 - 40%
3 - 20%

promotion
0 - 20%
1 - 30%
2 - 30%
3 - 20 %

Or maybe it could these options could be weighted by civics, etc. Ie, if you are running pacifist, defensive strength is more likely to get higher, but with military offensive strength will get higher,

Special Rules:
Better odds at Arena - Im not quite positive on the game mechanics for Arena, but I would like have the Monstrous Freak to be expected one thing, apart from all things random, and that would be to get more XP/better chances of surviving from the arena.

Unit Model: Not quite sure... Either random or accordingly to random stats or unit class.

 

[xienwolf]

Could just use the air elemental for graphic

 

[Pandemonis]

Umm, what do any of those enhanced religion ideas have to do with the design contests? I generally agree with you, but those suggestions would be better in their own thread (or one of the many long dead threads where such ideas have been discussed before) than here.

Sorry, I wasnt aware it was not the good place to post this.

This is a change I would really like to see, and Id welcome any leads on how to mod it myself.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Personally, I'd rather just make the normal Freaks a little more useful, especially later in the game. I prefer making units more scalable to adding more units (especially since only one unit can win the contest)

First, Freaks should never go obsolete. (This is a very simple xml change that I made a long time ago. Just change one 0 to a 1.)

Second, they should have more impressive random abilities, but which should probably have some tech/resource requirements and be rarer. Random affinity granting promotions could be quite useful (a promotion that grants affinity for a different random resource per turn would be much to difficult to code, but I see no reason why there couldn't be several new affinity granting promotions that are only available through mutation (perhaps with other requirements as well, like Balseraph only, or Freak only, and tech requirements). Regaining the ability to grant flying or waterwalking, but only with the proper tech/mana requirements, would also be very nice. Having freaks start with random amounts of experience/levels might be nice too.

One thing I would like is if, instead of using the heroic strength/heroic defense promotions, Mutation went back to using .changeExtraCombatStrength() so it could randomly add or subtract more strength (say, anywhere from -6 to +6 for both attack and defense, with the larger values (especially the larger positive values) being extremely rare and having tech (and possibly civ) requirements so you wouldn't get too far ahead of the competition), and this bonus/penalty would still carry over to upgraded Freaks. Of course, some way to increase the cost of upgrading freaks with the more powerful mutations might be a good idea, or else some people might complain that +6 strength and flying could become unbalancing (not that I think it is )

p.s. I think that .changeExtraCombatStrength() was a custom function added in Pre BtS FfH but not carried over to BtS FfH. I wrote an enhanced version of the Drown spell for .22 where any melee unit could be sacrificed to produce a drown of its pre-drowning strength +1 death damage. I was pleasently surprised to find that this strength carried over to Stygian Guards and Eidola, making OO a much more potent late game religion. I converted this spell to .25 recently (along with making the cost of the spell scale with the strength and level of the drowned unit and making it unavailable to immortal units) but found I couldn't use the function to give them extra strength. I could use a different function to change their base strength, but this didn't carry over to the upgraded forms. I guess you might think that is only fair, but it does make the high cost of drowned Spartiotoi and Heroes seem like a waste. Plus, I doubt the AI knows that upgrading the units could cut their strength in half.

 

[xienwolf]

Actually, if freaks were to have random affinity at birth, it really needs to be ANY affinity. Not just magic, but All resources.

Then if the Balseraph happen to pop 3 Freaks in a row with Cotton affinity, they start in on a VERY bizarre expansion pattern

 

[smurven]

"Oh man, i just LOVE cotton, makes me want to tear some heads off!"

 

[Arqane]

Actually, if freaks were to have random affinity at birth, it really needs to be ANY affinity. Not just magic, but All resources.

Then if the Balseraph happen to pop 3 Freaks in a row with Cotton affinity, they start in on a VERY bizarre expansion pattern

Yeah, I had already posted the Mana Freak unit before the Monstrous Freak. Seems pretty close to the same idea. What you mentioned would be very funny, but I don't know exactly where it would fit.

All 3 types could work, and it comes down to a slight flaw I see with this contest. What if there are two (or more) really good ideas? And what if they're simple to put in? Why drop the idea just because it's a contest?

 

[southxii]

Then if the Balseraph happen to pop 3 Freaks in a row with Cotton affinity, they start in on a VERY bizarre expansion pattern.

Well, why limit this to just the crazy race? What if Hippus mounted units get a +1 STR bonus if the civ has access to cotton? That way if i'm Hippus and my neighbor has cotton and won't share it, i'll either work to become his best friend, try to out culture one of his cities, or take it.

You can create further natural (no pun intented) conflict this way by making both eleven civs get a +1 to their archer units if they have reagents (apply appropriate lore here.) Or similarly to both dwarven civs with gold, gems, or marble for their melee units.

This sort of done with religon, but not all the way. This will make the early game much more intense with the, "oh god! There's dye (or cotton or cows) there! I must have that!" feeling. Even just to sit on a resource so your rival can't have it especially since it means much less to you.

 

[xienwolf]

Yes, you could do it with any race. But with Balseraph it is actually fitting to do something like that, and it helps to encourage completely insane behavior from the human player ("I'll trade you my 2 reagents and a mithril for your 1 cotton. I'll even throw in 500 gold! PLEASE?!?!?)


And as for the contest producing many viable options... well... I don't think that anyone would be upset to allow their idea to be used in the game even if they do not happen to win.

I think that the actual prize of winning is that YOUR IDEA (completely yours, not altered by the team any more than absolutely needed to be something which is possible to code) is what goes into the game (so for instance, you could have the name of your winning unit be your board ID, then everyone who plays the game plays with you in it). Any other good ideas could become the basis for something that the team works on, tunes and modifies to fit the game in their image (gives it a name they like and whatnot).


At least, I would like to think they will not limit themselves to avoiding anything that was a non-winning contest entry (Afterall, it could easily be the case that we are coming up with ideas they have already implemented into the game but not released. Happened before when I suggested a "thaw" mechanic which I guess is being worked out for Ice) I'll have to look up the old contests sometime and see how many of the ideas did finally make it into the game.

 

[zxcvbnm]

The Eyes and Ears Network was implemented along with The Shrine of the Champion in earlier contest.

 

[xienwolf]

Looked up a couple of them finally. In one of them they implemented the top 2 (second place was 1 vote shy. Of course, third was 1 more down, and didn't get it, so being close isn't what did it, just being good probably ). And in another one I noticed that the almost last place (1 vote from tied for last) has been implemented


So, ideas that do not make the cut will still make the game if they rock (and can be done)

 

[GoodGame]

An Auction House wonder that mirrors the AH in the WoW mmorpg.

On it, you of course trade all the implemented items (think Orthus's axes) that are hinted to be coming. Trade is through a third party representative (Goblin barbarian auctioneers of course!!), so anything can be bought and sold to any civ, regardless of diplo, and without fear of diplo reactions.

And of course recipes to make items. Some recipes will be found on the tech tree, some may be civ specific, and some can only be popped from a goodie hut, or when capturing a barb city. In effect recipes are techs that enable crafting an item, assuming you have the hammers and specific resources/nodes required.

 

[Demus]

poor liuchirp having to buy their peaces of barnaxus back, then finding their opponents betting against them, in an attempt NOT to let them rebuild their golem hero.

i like it

 

[zxcvbnm]

"Could we please get our hero's neck back, please, we don't have so much money but he is important to us, please..."