Design: Units

[Kael]

I was hoping it would give an alternative to land grabbing. Though it would not work for rivers, mountains, gold, gems, etc. Just for food resources mainly. So that they work more like they work in real agriculture.

If civilizations were stuck planting farms and raising cattle only where they found them, we'd all live in Canada, eh?

----

Also upgraded farmers should be able to replicate famers and ranches. These are valid options for real civilizations.

I do see the AI issue of course.

Sure, growing crops in different regions are valid options for real civilizations but the fact that you have access to corn when you have that tile is just flavor.

You could say that the replication you are talking about already exists since one plot of corn is enough to provide corn to all of your cities. But the real answer is that the game isn't trying to simulate realistic crop functions.

Instead the bonus mechanic is just a way to easily simulate the fact that there are special pieces of land that are more productive than others. We could call it a grassland +2, but its more flavorful to say it has corn on it (even though from an agriculture standpoint that doesn't make much sense, what do you think is growing on all the rest of those non-bonus farms anyway?).

So we have the mechanic to make highly desired plots of all sorts, to reward expansion by the player and growth of the empire (as maintenance and the difficulty protecting a larger area punishes expansion and growth) and we wouldn't want to lessen the function of that mechanic.

 

[seZereth]

for hippus (hope you dont mind Keal )

 

[Jono]

for hippus (hope you dont mind Keal )

Those look awesome!! Nothing more to say ...

 

[ChaoticWanderer]

i wonder if anyone has thought of golems to replace archers or crossbowmen

i thought of thorn Golems. they are like archers or crossbowmen as the have city garrison ability upgrades. i thought they would be a good alternative

 

[Kael]

i wonder if anyone has thought of golems to replace archers or crossbowmen

i thought of thorn Golems. they are like archers or crossbowmen as the have city garrison ability upgrades. i thought they would be a good alternative

We havent really, the design only calls for golems to replace the melee tree. We still expect to have dwarven units in other places.

 

[Ploeperpengel]

What about Squigs and Squighoppers(Goblins riding them, or better to say trying not to fall off them)?
They are fun stuff!
Unfortunatly they exceed my skills but if they were in your design I had a hope seeing them if Chalid puts them on his shedule(I'm an egoist I know, sorry Chalid )

http://uk.games-workshop.com/orcsandgoblins/squigs/1/




Don't know if they fit into your design though

 

[feydras]

Kael and others on the design team:

I'm not sure where to put this suggestion so i'll throw it here.

The spell system is very confusing. With each promotion i have to open the Civopedia and go through the promotions list to view each spell sphere and see what would be a good choice. This is very time consuming. I have a couple suggestions...

1. Easy, minor fix - Make Spell spheres a seperate category in the Civopedia - remove them from Promotions so there is less irrelevant choices to weed through.

2. Radical - remove the spell spheres from divine units and grant them 'holy powers' instead to limit the amount of things to remember for each level of spell sphere. The benefit would be instead of choosing a spell sphere and looking to see what spell it grants you instead you could just choose the effect/spell directly. Easier to view directly when making your choice. Less confusion when choosing spells for your Conjurer or Mage as the Divine spells aren't listed as well.

3. Less radical - Make Spirit Guide and Water Walk, a promotion instead of a spell as they both are a one time, permanent effect that effects only the caster. The promotion would require a prerequisite of a sphere or two in the related element.

4. Probably already planned - Is there anyway to get the icons (viewed at promotion time) to display a list of what spells each sphere gives access to on a mouse scroll over?

As always thanks for the awesome mod!

- feydras

 

[Kael]

Kael and others on the design team:

I'm not sure where to put this suggestion so i'll throw it here.

The spell system is very confusing. With each promotion i have to open the Civopedia and go through the promotions list to view each spell sphere and see what would be a good choice. This is very time consuming. I have a couple suggestions...

1. Easy, minor fix - Make Spell spheres a seperate category in the Civopedia - remove them from Promotions so there is less irrelevant choices to weed through.

2. Radical - remove the spell spheres from divine units and grant them 'holy powers' instead to limit the amount of things to remember for each level of spell sphere. The benefit would be instead of choosing a spell sphere and looking to see what spell it grants you instead you could just choose the effect/spell directly. Easier to view directly when making your choice. Less confusion when choosing spells for your Conjurer or Mage as the Divine spells aren't listed as well.

Spells are based on promotions. So if we changed it to spells directly we would need a promotion for each sphere and we would have to add a bunch of promotions for that. Which would be messy.

3. Less radical - Make Spirit Guide and Water Walk, a promotion instead of a spell as they both are a one time, permanent effect that effects only the caster. The promotion would require a prerequisite of a sphere or two in the related element.

This assumes that each unit has his own spell tree, but all the units share the same spell tree. I cant replace water2 with water walking because that will mess up overlord priests and conjurers with access to water.

The spells you have isnt determined only by the spell sphere but by the combo of the spell sphere (fire, spirit, death, etc) and the spell school (sorcery, summoning, divine).

4. Probably already planned - Is there anyway to get the icons (viewed at promotion time) to display a list of what spells each sphere gives access to on a mouse scroll over?

Yeah, this is what I want. When you mouse over a promotions I want it to display the spells it would give you access to. I think thats the best idea because it allows us to stay flexible (right now I can move spells around, between spheres, change their rank without breaking anything) and still give the player all the info he needs without having to dig for it.

 

[Chalid]

@Nr 4:
I'm actually dooing some work on this as i want it for the AI mages to properly promote accordingly to their tasks.

 

[Sureshot]

I was wondering about Ljosalfars settlers, they don't get the Elven promotion like the workers so they're usually a hassle to move around (couple them with an elven archer and though they both potentially could get to their destination at same time, assuming forests around, they choose odd paths that take twice the time).

 

[Ploeperpengel]

Ok you don't like squighoppers I suppose
Ah well...

 

[Kael]

Ok you don't like squighoppers I suppose
Ah well...

Nope, no plans. Sorry.

 

[Starship]

Hello,

I like your stance on dragons. I can't remember which thread it was on. Three god like dragons, old remnants of a god war, that have become gods themselves....

Here is an idea for you...which would keep the feel that you want, but also add more dragons.

Maybe a new god war, or dragon war, near the end of the armageddon clock?
Nothing more fun than a barbarian dragons coming out of nowhere. (Maybe they were sleeping, and there already.) Maybe the gods are upset and want to cleanse the planet, maybe they are angry that their dragon children rose to rival them and sent a host of dragons to destroy the rebellious ones...

Under a late game armageddon clock type structure...I think more dragons would be fun, and more importantly, fit into your world structure.

 

[McGlocklinMA]

Well im New to the forums and not sure where to place my ideas, but ill put them here. I love playing as the Calabim, its just a shame they only have 2 unique units. Wish they had some more units but what id really like to see is the toon for the vampire revamped. Though i really can't complain lol its more then i could ever do but i did have an idea, What if you took the great merchant and got rid of the camal and changed the red robe to black and turn the skin grey and maybe put a feather on his hat lol anyways i think that would look more vampirish yet still have the Aristocratic feeling to them. Some ideas on units for the calabim might be dark versons of the Elf paladins and what not kinda like the Vampire Knights in Underworld 2.

Just a thought

 

[Khadil Okharim]

Perhaps it was discussed somewhere:

I think it would be cool to make the dragons even more powerful - not in terms of strenght but of effects. When two dragons fight each other, the whole surrounding should be effected. When two of the mightiest creatures battle, there isn't much respect for other things. Therefore I propose to give the battle of dragon against dragon a similiar effect like the Meshabber of Dis. Surrounding units should suffer collateral damage an perhaps even surrounding tile improvements should be damaged at a specific chance.

 

[kevjm]

That would be cool; every hit having a chance to affect the surroundings somehow.

 

[soibean]

I've got quite a list of ideas here so I apologize if any of them have been mentioned or are just stupid but here goes: By Civs

Thrasher (restriced to dwarven civs, comes from siege workshop) - Siege weapon used again melee and possibly cavalry units, but weak against range or other siege craft. Stronger than an axe man but not a maceman, less shields than both because of weaknesses. Receives 50% bonus against melee and cavalry, 100% weakness against ranged and siege. Basically a unit you want to use against barbarians or to clear the way for your own units if the enemy is using axemen or some such.
Juggernaut (restricted to dwarven civ, replaces beserker or dwarven beer warrior) - stronger version of the prior units
Dwarven Riflemen (restricted to dwarven civ, requires gunpowder, replaces later archery units and arquebus) - stronger version of prior archery units
Submersible (restricted to dwarven civs, requires iron working and optics) - power house ship but less movement

Lesser Vampire (restricted to Calabim, 1st lvl cavalry) - Having not quite attained enough influence to join the vampire aristocracy, these vampires are trying to gain prestige through the battlefield. <- my attempt at a description
Halfbreed (restricted to Calabim, replaces hunter for vampires) - A result of some dallying with the lower species.
Devourer (restricted to Calabim, medium infantry)

Carnie (restriced to Balseraphs, replaces worker)
Seductress (restricted to Balseraphs, world unit 1) - unit cant attack only defend, dont know if its possible but has the ability to convert a unit from one civ to Balseraphs once per turn. cant do it to hero units, weak defence.

Troll (restricted to Clan of Embers, heavy infantry with regen promotion at start, requires earth mana and breeding pit)
Breeding Pit (Unique building for Clan of Embers) - 25% faster build for orc and golbin units, required for troll
Sapper (restricted to Clan of Embers, goblin siege unit) - low strength but higher movement than catapult

 

[kevjm]

Unit Mechanic:

The unit starts with a high base strength which decreases with every battle, movement and/or turn.

Could apply to a golom, summon or world unit in my opinion

 

[Kael]

Unit Mechanic:

The unit starts with a high base strength which decreases with every battle, movement and/or turn.

Could apply to a golom, summon or world unit in my opinion

I like this idea, I just havent found the perfect unit for it yet. We discussed having the Avatar of Wrath start at 100 power and get a little smaller after each battle, but Im not sure if we are going to do that or not.

 

[Silverkiss]

Maybe if you make another avatar... like Avatar of Power or something, that uses this mechanic...