Design: Features and Terrain

[Sureshot]

Shouldn't peaks have the same movement cost as hills? Right now mountain chains are like highways for rangers (which is definately fun for getting around but seems a little off).

 

[kevjm]

I wasn't sure which thread to put this in, but it could be interesting to add this as a terrain feature:

-Rebelious/Unrest
-Wilderness
-Haunted

For example, perhaps the sabatour could built the improvement 'uprising' in enemy territory (not without risk or expense, of course) which would then have a chance of creating a certain number of barbarian units every turn? Perhaps they could be given the summoned promotion, so they are more like guerrila fighters than noral barbs.

Haunted could sommon a unit within a certain radius every turn.

Tainted could give -1 food for most civs and religions, but +1 commerce for others and no food penalty. And perhaps spreads from cities with the Ashen Veil, only being removable by good and neutral priests.

 

[Kael]

I wasn't sure which thread to put this in, but it could be interesting to add this as a terrain feature:

-Rebelious/Unrest
-Wilderness
-Haunted

For example, perhaps the sabatour could built the improvement 'uprising' in enemy territory (not without risk or expense, of course) which would then have a chance of creating a certain number of barbarian units every turn? Perhaps they could be given the summoned promotion, so they are more like guerrila fighters than noral barbs.

Haunted could sommon a unit within a certain radius every turn.

Tainted could give -1 food for most civs and religions, but +1 commerce for others and no food penalty. And perhaps spreads from cities with the Ashen Veil, only being removable by good and neutral priests.

We have wilderness areas speced for "Shadow". They wont be player generated but will be lands that player culture won't spread into until certain actions are completed. Depending on the type of wilderness (lizardman infested jungles, an undead spawning necropolis, etc) you can have a variety of effects and creature types.

 

[Oldfrt]

Maybe mountain peaks should give units in them a negative healing bonus - this will keep their usefulness as a transit route for rangers etc, but prevents them being so useful for hit and run attacks.. ....

 

[Sureshot]

New forests seem weird at the moment, elves can go double in heavier forests but not in new forests?
I'm thinkin it might be annoying to add New Forests to all those promotions to get them to work, seems like a good idea would be to make new forests have no added movement cost and no defense bonus (they're just seedlings after all, shouldn't have such a great effect). Plus this would stop a variation on the worry of what people could do with mass mountain creation (i.e. enemies are coming so you build a wall of mountains/new-forests to stop/slow them).

 

[MrUnderhill]

We were talking about this in the Svartalfar thread, but what do you guys think about adding a Dark Forest terrain for evil civs that have the Fellowship of Leaves as their state religion, as an alternative to having just Ancient Forests for everyone?

 

[wilboman]

Noone is really saying an Ancient Forest can't be evil... With so many old and grumpy trees hanging around, spreading their dense foilage, I'm sure there must be a bad seed or two

More seriously, it has to do with complexity and resources. The more stuff that gets added to the game, the more artwork resources, space and loading times the mod acquires. And that, in turn, translates into loads of waiting for what really amounts to small tweaks.

 

[Silverkiss]

Just think about Lord of the Rings, the Old Forest near the Shire is kind of evil...

 

[wilboman]

Exactly, Julius. Resources aside, I consider ancient forests to be a form of sentient being - the trees are alive, and they have personalities. If you're lucky, they're nice, but I think they mostly follow their own agenda. And they DON'T LIKE STRANGERS (see: Ents).

 

[Silverkiss]

I would exactly say that, you can see again in the Lord of the Rings (ok, i love Lord of the Rings) when the Ents at first refuse to enter the war against Saruman, they are more interested in their own forests than the rest of the world

 

[Sureshot]

itd be neat if Ice terrain made units invisible by making the terrain always covered in fog, except the tile a unit of yours is on, gave a slight defense bonus, and cost 3 movement to walk through, and maybe applied a very minor negative healing penalty.
atm Ice and Peaks are just quick passage, no yield, highways.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

I think Ancient Forests are good enough. As Wilboman mentioned, improvements can be built in them. So the discussion is not really whether 3 hammers or 1 hammer and 1 food is better, but rather whether 3 hammers or 1 food, 2 hammers and 4 commerce(cottaged ancient forest with Arcane Lore) is better. With the additional defensive capabilities of Treants, I'd most definetely choose the Ancient Forest.

I agree with Colindale and Woodelf. Ancient Forests work very well right now. Thery certainly do not need enhancement.

Instead of comparing AFs only in the end-game, how about looking at the early game too? I have had many a food-starved city start growing because just one forest went Ancient. Cities near tundra, or desert, or hills, or heck even among plains, all often stagnate untll the +1 and irrigation-spreading technologies appear. Not wit Leaves. All your cities will grow steadilly and starting form a much earlier date. All that stuff counts too. It's not just one snapshot of the endgame that counts.

Not to mention all the stuff you DON'T have to buy under leaves Health buildings, happiness buildings, farms, mines, etcetera all are built far less often than for non-Leaves realms. If part of the price one has to pay for all that is a lack of lumbermills in AFs, then that's a pretty good deal IMO.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

Pillaging:
What is ancient majestic forests filled with wonderous creatures to the Fellowship of Leaves, may be prime timber or charcoal, inhabited by pelts filled with reagents to many enemies of the forest. While the treants defending it may be huge, so are the looting possibilities. Allowing military units to pillage ancient forest or workers to chop it for great rewards only makes sense. The infernals might even burn them as a ready-made sacrifice to the hells for a boon. The time taken to grow ancient forests means that destroying them would be true defilement, a more devastating loss than towns to the owner, hence why they are so protective of them.

Balance:
Ancient forests with towns/farms on them were unbalancingly powerful. The ability to add another improvement on top of the bonuses of the forest is what is unbalancing, as the ancient forest by itself is not so great with Grassland + Ancient Forest = 3F 1H. As a result, only the elves have a -huge- incentive to go 'Leaves, whereas other races, while welcome to go 'Leaves for the happy/healthy bonus, don't have incentive to grow forests since they can't build improvements on them, making their use of 'Leaves as a nature religion half-hearted at best. One thing I prefered about FfH1 was that your race didn't so directly determine your strategy. Allow other races to build these other custom forest-improvements you've been talking about. Specializing different parts of the forest is good, but uber-town-forests is too much.

The idea of pillaging AFs seems quite promising upon first impressions. That seems like a great route to both flavor and play-balance. Lets keep this idea alive.

I agree that non-Ljo Leaves followers will be drawn by the allure of lumbermills and this is not evactly Leafy. However I do not tink the answer lies in piling yet more production onto what is already a very, very productive religion. I think we need to look back a step.

Right now FfH is rather schitzophrenic. It hasn't really decided where certain power originate. What the **** do I mean? I can't really explain it except by the three obvious examples: Ljosalfar/Leaves, Khazad/Runes, and Lanun/OctoLords.

Leaves is the religion of Nature. It's power is manifested in the game primarilly through forested terrain. The Leaves as state religion grants the civilization with certain enhanced abilities, primailly involving forest. The same comments apply to Rune hills and mining) and OctoLords (sea power).

But there are three civilizations that also derive their benefits from Nature, the Earth, and the Sea. Ljo can build improvements in forests, move fast throught them, fight well in them, and so forth. Likewise for Khazad and hlls, ditto Lanun and the sea. Now, none of these realms are required to follow the "expected" religion. Oh sure, there are powerful synergies to entice each Civ to go down the expected path. But there is no reason they must do so. This leads to situations that don't seem to taste right, in terms of flavor.

Ljosalfar can invent Runes to gain the added religious revenue and the superior hills combat promotions. But even though the Elves in this fantasy word derive their power from the Runes, they wil till retain many LEaves-like abilities: Build improvements in forests, double move and +10% STR in woods come to mind. How does the race that invented the Earth religion continue to derive powerful benefits from the Realm of Leaves? More powerful benefits than Leaves grants to its own state religionists?

Or consider Khazad trading in earth for water and inventing the OO for the culture. Now the shorites pray to their crazed undersa masters, yet they retain some nifty earth-based abilities such as unpillageable mines, fast hills movements, and the increased ability to find special mineable resources. Seapower+landpower=not all that shabby ... but once again why is Kilmorph so generous to adherents of the competition.

Lanun are slated to be FfH's seapower, but nothing but habit stops them from inventing Leaves. Extra food from Ancient Forests plus extra food from every sea tile plus massive happiness bonuses from the Leaves civic and you have the potential for some massive Lanun cities, and/or some serious Conquest production. Which is all well and good, but why do teh sea gods continue to allow Lanun ships to sail so fast, or to extract so much of the ocean's bounty?

I call this situaton schitzophrenic, because it strikes me that Nature Power in FfH does not originate with Leaves, it originates with Ljo and Leaves. And ditto for the other two. When the civilization happens to pick it's "expected" religion, things don't seem so out of whack. But it leads to oddities such as non-Ljo Leaves followers cutting down AFs.

It also leaves other terrain-loving civs looking awfully pale by comparison. Doviello get a combat bonus for fighting in tundra. Pardon my lack of enthusiasm, but whoop-tee-doo. That will help holding off the Ragers, I suppose. but what would help a lot more would be a religion designed to thrive in tundra regions. Likewise the Malakim get a desert bonus. Once again, handy for fighting over rich patches of desert, except, at 0/0/0 production we rarely see wars fought over rich swaths of desert.

My point is, serveral civs have been created with an eye to enjoying a specific terrain. But their "enjoyment" varies dramatically. Doviello and Malakin get some mild combat/movement bonuses in some low-value terrain types. Khazad, Ljo, and Lanun, in contrast, are granted numerous terrain-specific abilites in high-production terrain types.

Furthermore, it can be said the civilization-specific bonues given Lanun, Ljo, and Khazad dwarf the abilities for given for state worshippers of the cooresponding religion. Ljo can build improvements in forest ... the single most powerful specialability in the game, bar none, IMO ... shouldn't that be Leaves state-religionists? Shouldn't unpillageable mines be a boon granted by Kilmorph? Are not the OctoLords the ones who bestow the bounties from the sea?

Sure, dwarves are traditionally miners ... and if they follow tradition, if they follow Kilmorph, they will act as traditional dwarves. But FfH allows the non-traditional path to be trod. If the dwarves choose a non-traditional path, if they choose to hug every tree they see ... why do they still act like traditional dwarves? Shouldn't a non-traditional path taken in the early game result in non-traditional mannerisms during the endgame?

Well, that's just something that's bugged be a bit. If it was just a matter of flavor, i wouldn't care. But I think there are play-balance / gameplay fun aspects here. As in other threads, I beleive the tech tree needs a bit of reshuffling. If that day ever comes to pass, I hope some thought is given to the 'schitzophrenia' situation I've described.

That's just my take on the matter. I am guessing I will find myself holding the minority opinion once again.

 

[Hypnotoad]

I like the ideas brought up earlier in this thread about giving the dwarves some special things to build on mountains/hills. Heck, I think dwarves should be able to build cities on mountains and certainly mine them and put towns in them. That would be really cool. That would draw dwarves towards the mountains in a special way -- right now I avoid them like with any other Civ (rather sad). People could attack and take these mountain cities and work mountains that had dwarven mines built in them, but couldn't construct them themselves.

There should also be some way to produce food in hills and perhaps mountains as well. Who knows how this works in Fantasy worlds, but dwarves definitely live underground. They should have some way of producing food underground.

What if Arete gave +1 food on every hill/mountain instead of +production/commerce?

 

[Sureshot]

dwarven farms that can be built on hills

 

[Hypnotoad]

Also, five pages back there is a nice thread on hills and mountains. Lots of good ideas.

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

How about using the cottage mechanism again?

Mountain Mines

Do not require construction. This is so the workers will stay blocked bty mountains like everyone else.

Mountain tiles automatically provide a small yield to the dwarves.
The mine grows like a cottage and provides more yield as time goes by.
It should, as fully grown, be comprable to hill+mine or a plains town

Unpillageable of course.

for yields:
Mountain Mine: (should be comprable to unimproved terrain, 2 yield)
2

Extensive Mine
3

Great Mine
3 , 1

Mountain Town
2 , 2 , 1

+1 with Sanitation to Great Mine, Mountain Town
+1 with Arete to Extensive Mine, Great Mine, Mountain Town


Why the food? The areas that were mined initially, are now great halls and passages. They are now used for living quarters and as mushroom farms.
Living quarters add the trade, as cottages do, and the mushroom farms provide food.
With no room for the farms initially, the tiles are not self sufficient.
But with enough time and proper Sanitation, they become completly self sufficient.
The drop in hammers is because you've dug out the usefull things already, and too much of the space is devoted to living now.

The dwarves, with enough time, could fill entire mountain ranges with tunnels and homes.

The growth should be slower than cottage growth because its harder to dig then just build, even if you are a dwarve.

Could give a chance to discover preceious metals/gems there as well. Just during the extensive mine and great mine stages though.

 

[Hypnotoad]

This is a nice idea but I don't know if it could be easily implemented in the Civ engine. I suspect that something like this is much easier with an improvement. Also, I don't like the idea of the hammers going down. That might create an obnoxious situation where you are selective about your use of the mountain tile because sometimes you really need the three hammers sometime.

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

The tile yields I proposed are entirely changeable.

I proposed the automatic start of the mine to prevent any idea of giving dwarven workers the ability to cross mountains. An early unit capable of entering mountains would be unbalancing and annoying. (haha, my workers on a mountain and you can't kill him)

I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to code. Something like the formula for anchient forests should work. Automatically create a "Mountain Mine" in every Kazad mountain tile and destroy it if it leaves Kazad control.

If the mine has expanded at all I would leave it there even if others take over the city, it just shouldn't be able to expand any more.

 

[Hypnotoad]

What if Dwarfs couldn't build regular farms except on wheat/rice/corn? But instead they could build mushroom farms (or whatever) on hills and, perhaps, mountains.

Proposal for Mushroom farms: These would start out providing 2 food but wouldn't get the river gold bonus. That way you could expand your population enough (one food wouldn't be enough if you couldn't build regular farms). They could get some bonus later like the sanitation bonus.

Glad to hear your proposal wouldn't be hard to code, Alazkan. I don't really understand these things...