Design: Wonders

[DMN]

What actually is not a bad thing as it forces the player to specialize...

Well, actually it only forces you to build the unit-enhancing stuff you want to build in one city and all other stuff in all other cities. What I like about specialization is that you can choose which city you specialize in which way. In this case I rather feel that it takes away that choice. When I get to the first unit-enhancing wonder I must check the domestic advisor to find the most productive city and then this city will for all eternity be forced to build units that benefit from the free promotions. I don't see that there's any equally effective alternative, so the mechanic of these wonders limits my choices.

If the wonder effect was global, I could choose my cities' specialization more freely as additional unit-producing cities would improve my military. As it is, more of these cities can even make my military weaker, as you can only build a limited number of the most powerful units. If you build your Eidolons in a city without those wonders, you still can't have more than three, so you have three weaker Eidolons and a couple of barely useful macemen.

This may be caused partially by my game options, though. Due to my limited amount of RAM I play on rather small maps with space for about 3-6 cities for an average player. On those maps one very productive city with Heroic Epic is enough for building archers and melee. On larger maps or with less players this might be different.

 

[Chalid]

One of the reason why i think it is a good thing is that i sympathize with the AI. Whenever i discuss an addition i first think about the AI. Why? Because a good competetive AI makes the game more fun. So i think not how to make it more easy for the player to dominate (this is what you seem to aim at) but how to improve the game without hindering the AI or even so that the AI actually gets advantage from the changes.

You of course want to be maximal efficent, but the AI can't be. So i like it if you are foreced in a kind of inefficency regarding such things. If your citie is concerned with building all the possible unit upgrading wonders it has less time to actually built units. So you have to spread a bit. The AI acutally has to spread a bit as it can not specialize as well as you do (forcing it to really specialize might work, but i fear it would do much more harm than than good as an human player can usually react to specific threats and problems whereas a AI has to react considering more global parameters). So the AI will be more on equal footing as when you are allowed to spread your wonders all over the empire (which additionally enhances your chance to get all of them).
So if a player wants to built the super unit he has to pay the price and stack every wonder in the same city. No one forces him to do it through. And a players unit usually will always be stronger then the AIs units as a human can use them much more focussed then the AI.

 

[DMN]

Maybe you misunderstood me a bit. My general aim isn't to make it easy for the player to dominate, but to allow more different efficient choices. My problem is not that I'm forced into some kind of inefficiency, but rather that I'm forced to employ certain strategies to avoid such inefficiency. As I said, on the maps I play it works to use one ultra-productive city for limited national units (I don't have to spread as you assumed), but I don't like being forced to do so because this is kind of automatic, not one of multiple options. I actually think it would benefit the AI to make those wonders working globally because they cannot specialize their production as much as I can. Therefore, if they build Altar of the Luonnatar, the wonder is 80% wasted, so I think the current system benefits the player more than the AI.

My problem: Choice is one of the things I like most about FhH: You get lots of meaningful choices between different things which are all efficient. You can choose between lots of civilizations which are not the same but nevertheless all useful. You can choose between building a strong economy in few cities, or build a strong military and go on a crusade early. You can choose between lots of different units which are also very different, but are all useful for something. You can choose whether you need one or multiple cities specialized on naval warfare, or whether you build adepts, priests or markets, or whether you build lots of cottages and cripple production locally for faster research.

With this wonder specialization thing I just mean that your choices are kind of limited because spreading out is not an option, and building multiple cities specialized on conventional units is also not efficient, that means one option to develop a city is useless in late game (I'm only talking about the limited national units). So it comes to the choice which enhancing wonders you want in your one city or whether you skip them all. But you have less strategical choices than you'd have if they worked globally. The way it is not it's a bit like in vanilla civ where you can often choose between multiple units, but the one with the most strength is the only useful option anyway.

However, this isn't too important for me. I just wrote this because I don't like being misunderstood. If you think it's better for the balancing to you keep it the way it's now, then that's fine; I have absolutely no experience in creating mods, so I'm sure you know better than I do. I just wanted to mention why I think it would be more fun if it was changed (imho: more choices = more fun).

 

[Chalid]

I think that discussing these things is very important.
One question. If each of the wonders that give promotions (as i have not played the mod since weeks i do actually not even know how much of those wonders are in ) would give them to all your units. How often would you decide not to build them compared to now?

And finally it is also a question of the power of the wonder. For altair of lunnator with its one time effect i think giving it to each new unit would be fine (I actually found it rather week the last time i played). FOr others it might be an entirely different thing.

 

[DMN]

I think that discussing these things is very important.
One question. If each of the wonders that give promotions (as i have not played the mod since weeks i do actually not even know how much of those wonders are in ) would give them to all your units. How often would you decide not to build them compared to now?

Right now I just build them when I have time to do so, that means, when I'm at peace and consider my military strong enough to fend off any surprise attack. If I cannot afford to build wonders in my most productive city because I'm at war all the time I don't build them because, as I said, I don't consider them to be valuable for local unit production in a "normal" city. So right now, I consider the Tower of Eyes to be an average wonder and the Altar of the Luonnatar as something to build when my capital has nothing else to do.

As it's enough to have one unit with great vision range in a stack, I don't think a global effect would make much of a difference for the Tower of Eyes compared to the bonus it grants me now in land wars. If it works with water units, however, a global effect would be a distinct improvement. In that case I would invest some effort to get it, and always try to build it when I can spare the time in any large city.

If the effects were global, I'd rate the Tower of Eyes above-average in strength. I'd still prefer the Crown of Akarien and the Nexus over it, which I consider immensely powerful right now (I always try to get those two, no matter what it costs), but I think it would be better than the Catacomb Libralus and the Form of the Titan, which I both try to get when building them doesn't require too much effort.

The Altar of the Luonnatar, however, is something I rarely build. The first reason is that the bonus lasts only one combat, the second reason is that I'm not sure which units can be blessed at all (afaik it doesn't work on demonic units, and I usually use Veil or Overlords) and the third reason is that I can achieve the same effect with a spell in the late game (not sure whether this is still possible in Phase2, the game always crashed before I got Inquisitors). It can be neat for limited wars mid-game, though. I mean the kind of war where you grab a few cities and make peace. In that case your troops don't fight very often anyway and a one-time bonus is useful. So, if the effect was global, I'd build the altar with every religion for those small-scale wars if I either
1.) planned to start a quick war against one of my neighbors
2.) had spare production time and could not build economy buildings or one of the wonders above

Oh, and I can't write much about the Dragon's Hoard because I don't know what it does in 0.12. I think the Quality Weapons promotion is replaced by enchanted weapons at the moment. That would be a useless effect as human players can enchant weapons with adepts themselves, so I wouldn't care whether this was global or not. It would probably only make a difference for the AI which doesn't use magic very well yet. If the Quality Weapons are still left as a wonder effect, it would be very powerful, though, and would make the wonder very good for building elite troops. Then a global effect would make the Dragon's Hoard a very powerful wonder and might make getting the wonder too important.

 

[Kael]

I can definitly understand where oyu are coming form. In fact making these efects global will actually help the AI who doesnt take the wonders existence into effect when it builds units.

Here are the wonders that give free promotions:

Altar of the Luonnotar- Blessed
Aquae Succelus- Regeneration
Blood of the Phoenix- Medic I
Glory Everlasting- Demon Slaying
Tower of Eyes- Sentry I

Of these I could see switching Altar of the Luonnotar and Glory Everlasting to global effects. The other 3 would be to much of a power boost (in my opinion).

I will change the Altar and Glory and we will see how it works out.

 

[Diminicius]

Id like to pose a question regarding the armageddon spells... Does anyone else here feel that they are not as useful considering all the resourses you put into building them? I mean, since most of them effect all civilisations, including the civ that built them, it kinda doesnt make sense to do so in the first place. I think that the civilisation that builds it should recieve atleast some bonus or protection against it, why would you want to build bane divine if you have a lot of your own priests will get harmed by it?
Secondly i dont know if making the armageddon spells count as wonders is such a good idea, i mean, they are spells right? So i think that they should count as technologies that can only be acessed when you research armaggedon. As an added bonus the first civilisation to research armageddon should get a free tech, to get thing rolling, so to say, by giving that civilisation 1 spell for free, would be interesting to see how it would work out.
Now i dont know what exactly these spells would give when you research them, maybe each tech would give acess to a seperate armaggedon wonder but they would only cost one hammer since since all the production needed for the wonder would be converted to research instead. Or maybe they would allow you to build specific units, like Meshabre... but that is realy for you to decide, i only wish for all the spells to be balanced. As of now you need specific conditions for the building of Apocalypse and Blight to be worth while, and even then it can backfire, whereas building the Meshabre is always usefull and never backfires on you.

Just my 2 cents on the matter.

 

[Maniac]

Well, actually it only forces you to build the unit-enhancing stuff you want to build in one city and all other stuff in all other cities. What I like about specialization is that you can choose which city you specialize in which way. In this case I rather feel that it takes away that choice. When I get to the first unit-enhancing wonder I must check the domestic advisor to find the most productive city and then this city will for all eternity be forced to build units that benefit from the free promotions. I don't see that there's any equally effective alternative, so the mechanic of these wonders limits my choices.

Maybe you misunderstood me a bit. My general aim isn't to make it easy for the player to dominate, but to allow more different efficient choices. My problem is not that I'm forced into some kind of inefficiency, but rather that I'm forced to employ certain strategies to avoid such inefficiency. As I said, on the maps I play it works to use one ultra-productive city for limited national units (I don't have to spread as you assumed), but I don't like being forced to do so because this is kind of automatic, not one of multiple options. I actually think it would benefit the AI to make those wonders working globally because they cannot specialize their production as much as I can. Therefore, if they build Altar of the Luonnatar, the wonder is 80% wasted, so I think the current system benefits the player more than the AI.

Couldn't say it better. :b:

 

[Kael]

Id like to pose a question regarding the armageddon spells... Does anyone else here feel that they are not as useful considering all the resourses you put into building them? I mean, since most of them effect all civilisations, including the civ that built them, it kinda doesnt make sense to do so in the first place. I think that the civilisation that builds it should recieve atleast some bonus or protection against it, why would you want to build bane divine if you have a lot of your own priests will get harmed by it?
Secondly i dont know if making the armageddon spells count as wonders is such a good idea, i mean, they are spells right? So i think that they should count as technologies that can only be acessed when you research armaggedon. As an added bonus the first civilisation to research armageddon should get a free tech, to get thing rolling, so to say, by giving that civilisation 1 spell for free, would be interesting to see how it would work out.
Now i dont know what exactly these spells would give when you research them, maybe each tech would give acess to a seperate armaggedon wonder but they would only cost one hammer since since all the production needed for the wonder would be converted to research instead. Or maybe they would allow you to build specific units, like Meshabre... but that is realy for you to decide, i only wish for all the spells to be balanced. As of now you need specific conditions for the building of Apocalypse and Blight to be worth while, and even then it can backfire, whereas building the Meshabre is always usefull and never backfires on you.

Just my 2 cents on the matter.

You're right. The whole Armageddon system will be reevaluated in "Fire" (the next phase).

 

[AndrewDJ]

It looks like the Warlords expansion will be bringing back the Great Wall as a wonder that creates a wall around your civ's cultural borders as of the time construction ends, and grants some sort of defensive bonus against units attacking across it.

It strikes me that this type of wonder might be useful/fun in Fall from Heaven. The Runes could use it as-is. Leaves might have Twisted Paths, where the unit trying to cross the barrier is confused and wanders away from the barrier (chance to cross based on strength?), or maybe Entangling Vines which hold units trying to cross in place. The Order could have Holy Wards which damage (or kill?) demonic and undead units trying to cross them. Overlords could have the Mists of Madness: something random, but probably bad, happens to any unit trying to cross the Mists. And the Ashen Veil could have (naturally) the Ashen Veil which damages any non-demon or non-undead attempting to cross.

I'm sure that the Warlords expansion will have other features that might be cool in FfH2, too.

 

[alabrax]

There should be a wonder that works in the Elves favor. One like some of these end game wonders where instead of destroying half of all units or making the land spoiled (turns plains to desert)... but instead covers the world (or a percent of it) to forest.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Now that Dragon's Hoard is harder to get, how about having it provide a mithril and a gems? It still wouldn't be usable til learning mithril working of course, but dragon's are supposed to have a mithril cache stored up.

 

[Xuenay]

There should be a wonder that works in the Elves favor. One like some of these end game wonders where instead of destroying half of all units or making the land spoiled (turns plains to desert)... but instead covers the world (or a percent of it) to forest.

Well... Genesis?

 

[Love]

There should be a wonder that works in the Elves favor. One like some of these end game wonders where instead of destroying half of all units or making the land spoiled (turns plains to desert)... but instead covers the world (or a percent of it) to forest.

Well good idea... but they need a name.
Te first thing i think about is a big central magic tree...

 

[loki1232]

Yggdrasil!

 

[Kael]

Yggdrasil!

Ill get right on adding that.

In all seriousness the nature based armageddon spell is supposed to give all non-fellowship civ units a percentage chance each turn of getting rooted if they are in jungles or forests.

 

[evanb]

Leaves might have Twisted Paths, where the unit trying to cross the barrier is confused and wanders away from the barrier (chance to cross based on strength?), or maybe Entangling Vines which hold units trying to cross in place.

That sounds so much like Doriath... I love it!

 

[leidolf]

What do you think about limiting Form of the Titan further so the level 6 unit must not be a Hero or other unit that gets 'free' xp?

 

[loki1232]

What do you think about limiting Form of the Titan further so the level 6 unit must not be a Hero or other unit that gets 'free' xp?

I agree. So no vampires either?

 

[Brancaleone]

I think this mod needs more end game wonders; there isnt much left in the end for industrial civs. Some ideas: a wonder who increase by 1 the limit of national units; a hogwart-like wonder who spawn mages every x turns ; a wonder who causes a golden age for everyone; etc. Compared to the number of techs, this mod has less W than other mods... Bad, cause i play industrial!