Districts

[Psychic_Llamas]

so what does everyone think of the districs in my minimod?

 

[frenzyslave]

Very cool. They rock.

 

[Deon]

I still think that they need a lot of work to be balanced/unique. But the idea is cool =).
The main idea is to implement some "frame" which makes building requirements and other fun city planning stuff.
But it's the problem for AI - it doesn't know how to deal with building prereqs.

 

[Gelvan]

I like them.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

I still think that they need a lot of work to be balanced/unique. But the idea is cool =).
The main idea is to implement some "frame" which makes building requirements and other fun city planning stuff.
But it's the problem for AI - it doesn't know how to deal with building prereqs.

your right deon, there is still a lot that needs to be doen on them. though i must disagree that the AI dosnt understand building prerequesits, i just had a game as woodelves, and Cathay managed to build almost every college of magic, which i intertwined with the districts and other buildings. they also managed to get a LOT of the district buildings out, and didnt have a problem with getting the buildings that are required for units.

on a side not, totally unrelated to districts, i had the AI actually using magic INTELECTUALLY! i just took one of Wu's cities so he sent a bunch of low level druids into my lands and turned it all into marsh! he also used a lot of the benefitial spells to enhance his units, like steed of shadows. i was increadibly impressed when he started using master of the wood on me as well! immagine! humans turning the woods against the woodelves!

 

[deadliver]

so what does everyone think of the districs in my minimod?

Psychic

The district idea is a great one! I like the fact that there are multiple tech requirements for the military based districts (for example needing defense districts as the backbone for the mil ones).

Psychic, I think that you should include a warren's style building for the chaos barbarian civs. Crom's people, the Hung, the beasts of chaos, these groups all have strength in the hordes of raiders they bring to bear in the world. They should rely on numbers while the Good aligned races (i.e the humies, the elves and the dwarves) should rely on quality over quantity to stem the tide. I tried looking through the forums to find out why Weapon promotions aren't being used (something to do with them interefering with magic or something?!?)

Chaos warriors and knights should be the ultimate upgrade (which they are) but I still think these evil chaos warmongers should only have buckets of low quality people. (Maybe their warrior units could start with a promotion that has a small chance of them converting into barbarian units.)

Perhaps you could increase their attack strength at the cost of defense? I donno maybe something like:

Chaos Marauder: +1A/-1D

to simulate the fact that these guys are far more comfortable pillaging than settling down. This would mean that having these guys as your neighbors would actually be a big problem forcing you to either deal with them ASAP or beefing up your defenses.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

thats a good idea about the warrens building, which im assuming your taking from FfH's Clan? eventually i hope to have a relatively unique building line for each racial group (ie old worlders, elves, dwarves, chaos, lizards, eastern humans etc) so these kind of buildings will go in there.

 

[deadliver]

thats a good idea about the warrens building, which im assuming your taking from FfH's Clan? eventually i hope to have a relatively unique building line for each racial group (ie old worlders, elves, dwarves, chaos, lizards, eastern humans etc) so these kind of buildings will go in there.

You mean FFH2 v.30 has something like that? *coughs* I never knew...

Sounds good about the unique building lines. Also I do not know how hard the coding/modding would be but that sounds like a really good way to differentiate the races.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

You mean FFH2 v.30 has something like that? *coughs* I never knew...

yes, and its actually CALLED warrens talk about coincidence

Sounds good about the unique building lines. Also I do not know how hard the coding/modding would be but that sounds like a really good way to differentiate the races.

its fairly easy to add a new building, the biggest problem is finding unique art for everything we want

 

[Gelvan]

its fairly easy to add a new building, the biggest problem is finding unique art for everything we want

I know I get repetitive (and stubborn), but FIRST do the "replace me" pics, before adding flavour buildings for each civ.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

dont worry about that, im working through replace mes now. i think ill release the next patch on friday, that should fix all the TXT_KEY things, then ill get to removing all the replace me's

 

[Deon]

i had the AI actually using magic INTELECTUALLY!

Don't trick yourself, you know, it's all with "if"-"else" in the python code and nothing more. If you have AI in new spells, then it's OK.

And about building prereqs - the AI doesn't know how to use it (well maybe it does, but only if you rehauled the FFH AI behaviour greatly). It's said in the FFH forums that they do build buildings because they're in the building list and have some cultural/military/scientific/economy values set in the raws. But they don't plan their infrastructure too good, thus not always rushing to good avaliable units and having a lot of low-level tiers but few good ones because they need a special building to produce them. Well sometimes the AI manages to do fun and clever things, but it's that "coincidence" when a lot of preset behaviours + randomizer work together.
If the AI uses them someway fine, then let it be. I don't think we have a coder who can think as AI to program it perfectly, so let's leave it alone while it works.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

agreed deon, but im still amazed that cathay played so well in that lat game of mine. they were buildign crossbowmen and had high level wizards all over the show as soon as i invaded. i tell you what, if it wasnt for my massive army (and the creation map that i was playing on) id have lost that war.

 

[Gelvan]

next patch on friday, that should fix all the TXT_KEY

you mean THIS friday? tomorrow?! that's GREAT!

The AI is really though - Malakith is at 2400 points and the orcs at around 1200, the same as my woodelves, and that's on difficulty level warlord. He builds Giants, spellcasters and all the colleges way before me.

 

[rocklikeafool]

I still think that they need a lot of work to be balanced/unique. But the idea is cool =).
The main idea is to implement some "frame" which makes building requirements and other fun city planning stuff.
But it's the problem for AI - it doesn't know how to deal with building prereqs.

I agree with Deon here.

 

[Masada]

Of course it needs balancing but it is really a credit to PL that this new idea seems to work quite well ie. it doesnt crash and/or cause game instability the rest is just polish.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

thanks Masada

 

[Gelvan]

Of course it needs balancing but it is really a credit to PL that this new idea seems to work quite well ie. it doesnt crash and/or cause game instability the rest is just polish.

true!
and it builds them, also the colleges.

 

[rocklikeafool]

I agree with Gelvan and Masada.

But bein critical here...

I think that there are a few things that are kinda unneeded like the City Defense IV, V, and VI and the Magic District III. And a few more that I can't remember. PL, could you please explain to me why those specific buildins are in there?

Jus wonderin, ya know.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

well the reason for the defensive buildings is that each one ony grants a smaller benefit, and seeing as the WH mod is focused primarily on warfare and combat it seemed logical to make the city defences an important strategy. some civs will be without the highertier defences, and some will have more to add flavour. i think ill remove the magic district and replace it with the old library/university. they are a bit silly.