Does FFH need a Lizardman Civ?

[Wyrmhero]

Personally, I think this is a great idea. I would definately play a Lizardman civilisation. I like the ideas on here, especially that they should be a 'worshiper' of Dragons, and that they should live in Marshland. I do think that the coding for the worm egg would be difficult to put in, and that it is essentially uneeded. After all, why does there need to be one? Couldn't you just add a requirement for the Lizardman hero to be built in its Capital City? It could also be a part of the Cult of the Dragon civilisations, with it also being one of the ones that could ignore the effects, maybe not create it, but be immune to its effects. Just my thoughts.

Wyrmhero

 

[Deon]

This Wise Old Ones Lizardmen look like lizardmen race from the Warhammer. And all these ideas about priests, jungles, aztec theme and cold blood promotions... I mean. do we need a civ from another mod/world to be implemented in the Erebus game?

I like the idea of barbarian civ type as lizardmen, they shouldn't be "ancient barbs" =) they may be like it was said an ancient civilization which fell.
I don't like the idea of the new lizardmen priest ancient civ in the FFH setting, because it looks like borrowing from the Warhammer and it breaks originality. What later, undead with the lich king? Blood elves?

Just my 30 cents =).

P.S. Also KOL.7, why can't you make a modmod by yourself?
There's an idea: you can read the tutorial forums and make your own lizardmen civ modmod (plai, simple), you can take models from Dragonia as it was said... It's VERY simple, just believe me and don't be lazy . It took <day for me to learn how-to. If you need some python help for new spells/events, you can ask me. I'm not great because I learned it just a few days ago, but the spell system implemented in FFH is genious because it's easy to read =). Thanks to the coders.

 

[Ekolite]

Overall, I love the idea that he had with an "Upkeep Cost," So hesitate to lose that function unless it is absolutely impossible.

Yeah it was a good idea but I'm worried it would cause too much micro-management having to sacrifice every turn. We could have it so that the amount of souls or whatever already sacrificed decreases gradually. When they get below a certain limit the ''altar'' or w.e (its really just a marker like the hope or inspiration ''building'') goes down a level and you lose certain abilities, keeping the upkeep cost?

There are some similarities to the warhammer yeah although when I first had this idea I didn't even know there were lizardmen in WH. But that's why we're getting ideas here; to make it unique. I would try myself but I wouldn't even know where to start and I'd end up just giving up on it. Trust me, I'm not a modder. Hopefully someone able to mod will read this and do the actual modding of it.

 

[Deon]

Well, a man isn't born as Teh Modd3R, a man becomes a modder.
I'm new to it but now I'm trying to make a "starter" mod, with 2 dummy civs, dummy tech, dummy unit and all. To make a base for a new total conversion mod. But it's REALLY hard to remove all those links, and often I end with "memory cannot be read" error and need to redo the things again.
I hope someone from the FFH team can say if he has some kind of "clear" mod, because FFH doesn't have any base BTS units/techs/leaders...

 

[Ekolite]

Even still, I have my GCSE's this year and I really dont have time to learn to mod. That's why I was asking about. If i could do it myself I would have done.

 

[Hian the Frog]

Personally, I think this is a great idea. I would definately play a Lizardman civilisation. I like the ideas on here, especially that they should be a 'worshiper' of Dragons, and that they should live in Marshland. I do think that the coding for the worm egg would be difficult to put in, and that it is essentially uneeded. After all, why does there need to be one? Couldn't you just add a requirement for the Lizardman hero to be built in its Capital City? It could also be a part of the Cult of the Dragon civilisations, with it also being one of the ones that could ignore the effects, maybe not create it, but be immune to its effects. Just my thoughts.

Wyrmhero

Hey man,

Coding such a system isn't really difficult. You hust have to take care of what you add in the XML sheets.
Why i suggest such a system with the Worm's Egg ? It's quite easy to understand. A player or AI would lose the ability to create its "hero" if the capital city is took by a foreign civ. It just add some taste to the game.
All in all, it's not an obligatory pre-requisite to create the Worm. What is really important is the tech. I prefer the system i have suggested because it's closer to the particular history of the Lizardmen.


To all:

I have read that some of you dislike the idea of adding a new civ. Ok, it can be understood and it's your feeling. Personnaly, when i first played to FfH 1 and then FfH 2 18 monthes ago, i feel surprised about the choice of adding such a useless civ as the Doviello. That's only MY personnal opinion. What i mean there is that a lizzie civ can be added without problem. More, if it's a patch, feel free to add it or not.
Woodelf and me were and are still waiting for such a civ. As modders, we can tell you that it's not particulary difficult to add if all the needed stuff is already made (ideas, art files,...). The main problem is .... the lack of time to do the job.

Hian the Frog.

 

[Deon]

Doviello? Yes, I have never played them... They're not too fun and all, and we have enough barbarians... I like Illians, but why Doviello? =)

 

[Ringtailed]

As far as when I'd do all of this... well I don't know.

With regard to that earlier post I made on the subject, I've decided for various reasons that I'm not up to doing any serious modding work at the present time.

---

Personally, I think that the more civs there are as modmods (and the more modmods there are in general), the better. If you don't want to use a particular thing, don't download it.

 

[Hian the Frog]

Hi all,

Now that i have explained my first thought about lizardmen, i give you an idea of what can the units of this civ. Note that woodelf and me are still waiting for another modder to the exact number of available units we can use for the lizzies.

Spoiler :

- A specific promo must be created for the Lizardmen: "Lizardmen". This promo should gives a movement bonus in jungles (double movement would be nice), both an attack and defense bonus (such as +10%) and +25 % poison resistance.

- In my mind, Lizardmen are typically users of Guerilla and Ambush tactics. As you will read in the next lines, all is made to represent such a warfare choice.

- Melee units: They won't be the core of the Lizardmen army. These units will be far weaker than those of the others civs. There are two solutions: either we remove one point to both attack and defense to all units, or one point to attack only.

- Archer units: The core of the lizardmen army. Compared to all others units of the same type, Lizardmen archer will be a bit stronger. Three possibilities: either one more point in attack and defense (to compensate the same malus to melee units), either one more point in attack (to compensate the same malus to melee units) or, the best in my mind, the free promo "Poisoned Blade" or one more attack point but with poison.

- Recon units: Another strengh of the lizardmen. All their units should be as strong as usual, but should cost a bit less (-10% for example).

- Mounted units: About these units, i have two ideas. I'm not yet decided, as it will depend on many factors, such as the available units (art files).
First idea, Lizardmen won't have mounted units but trained animals and beasts. One problem remains: how to allow an upgrade. An animal/beast can't "transform" to another one. This solution is my favourite one. As i have explained in the Lizardmen history, one of the three main caste is the "breeder". Their goal is to train war beasts and animals (read the history).
Second solution: lizardmen will have a very few mounted units. All chariot like units will be removed from their unit line. Then will remain only the really mounted ones.

- Siege units: Lizardmen are weak in siege in my mind. Cannon will be forbidden but catapult allowed.

- Naval units: My idea is to use there both classical ships (such as Galleys or dragonship) but also trained beast (such as the sea serpent). As the for the mounted units, don't forget the role of the "breeder" caste.

More will come later. I have to translate from french before. I will give asap the "magical" units and some UUs.

Feel free to comment.

Hian the Frog.

 

[Ekolite]

Hian, I have to say I really do disagree with a lot of the units .

To my mind the Lizzies should be more like this:

Melee: Like you said, not so much the core of their army - they would be heavilly armoured but slow moving - game terms: +1 defence, -1 attack

Recon: Again not the main emphasis of the lizzies, there's already the svartalfar with the recon emphasis we don't want another civ like that. Their recon should have a large advantge in jungles but apart from that be pretty much the same as other civs' recons. They would maybe be beast trainers of a sort but not really sure.

Archery: Well there's svartalfar for recon and theres the ljosalfar for archery. I would have all their archers have +1 poison but -1 general strength.

Mounted: Here is the main emphasis of the lizzies, BUT: none of their mounted line are in fact, mounted. They are fast moing skirmishers with an even higher speed in jungle +50% against melee, recieve defensive bonuses. This is one way my idea was largely different to the dinosaur riding WH lizzies. The recons would have to be pretty different to avoid any possible over-lap between the two lines but recons are scouts, these aren't really. Maybe they could only get recons up to hunters.


If its not too hard to make a civ, like you say. I really don't see why we can't have both of lizzie civs. If its that easy we could even have a thrid one - not lizzies but something else. That would make a great modmod an it would still tie in with the 3, 7, 21 rule of FFH. 3 new civs that all worship idols or fake gods instead of one of the 21 angels. All we need is to get someone to mod them.

I agree that the dovellio need something new to make them better but I don't think they should be replaced.

 

[woodelf]

So there's a possibility of a melee based lizzie civ and a ranged based one as well. Since this isn't likely to be officially added to the mod we need to have 3 options for people to d/l and add on.

1 - add melee (kol.7 et al)
2 - add ranged (Hian and woodelf)
3 - add both

@Hian - I prefer ranged units to archery for terminology. For any ranged I feel we need a poison dart blowing unit. I loved those in a CivIII game I played. They should still have basic bowmen as well. Anything else they can throw?

I'd rather have trained beasts than mounted lizzie warriors. I don't see them riding when they can run. Large lumbering beasts or tiny komodo dragons.

And we need snakes in some fashion.

I'm not sold on a religion yet, but everything else that both sides are coming up with is solid in it's own way.

 

[Ekolite]

Would someone mind telling me exactly how difficult it is to add a new civ to the game? I know there are tutorials for it but I would have thought that it would be a lot harder/very different adding a civ to FFH, at least for someone whos never modded before. There's a lot more to take into account, let alone any new mechanisms they might need like the sacrifice upkeep thing.

 

[woodelf]

I think adding a civ to FfH2 will be harder than adding to most other mods and especially to the core game.

I haven't even really thought about where to start when Hian and I try.

 

[Hian the Frog]

So there's a possibility of a melee based lizzie civ and a ranged based one as well. Since this isn't likely to be officially added to the mod we need to have 3 options for people to d/l and add on.

1 - add melee (kol.7 et al)
2 - add ranged (Hian and woodelf)
3 - add both

I never said that i disagree, i said i usually prefer adding one civ. But why not two ? It's not a problem at all..... unsless more work to do.

@Hian - I prefer ranged units to archery for terminology. For any ranged I feel we need a poison dart blowing unit. I loved those in a CivIII game I played. They should still have basic bowmen as well. Anything else they can throw?

I'd rather have trained beasts than mounted lizzie warriors. I don't see them riding when they can run. Large lumbering beasts or tiny komodo dragons.

And we need snakes in some fashion.

I'm not sold on a religion yet, but everything else that both sides are coming up with is solid in it's own way.

Ok. No problem about the terminology. It's only a lack of english vocabulary. I also played a Civ III game a loooooong time ago that used those kind of weapons. About a new kind of weapons, there are bolas, slings, javelins, boomerang and this incredible weapon Hunga Munga http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunga_Munga

You made a good sum-up of my thought about mounted units. That's exactly what i look for: Large lumbering beasts or tiny komodo dragons....

One naval unit could also be a trained Sea Serpent.

Religion: i'm still not sure of what i look for. I don't see them using one of the basic religion of FfH 2. As creating a religion is both useless, boring, (a bit more) difficult and that their number is limited, i hesitate between Agnostic, free to pick up the first one they create/encounter (not the best choice) and why not the Cult of the Dragon. But if i well remember, this one was created for Sheaim and Kuriotates at first. My choices are more Agnostic or Cult of the Dragon.

All in all, nothing is yet decided. And you stay the projet manager.

Hian the Frog.

 

[Ringtailed]

I don't like the idea of the new lizardmen priest ancient civ in the FFH setting, because it looks like borrowing from the Warhammer and it breaks originality. What later, undead with the lich king? Blood elves?

For posterity's sake, I'd like to point out that none of what I posted came from Warhammer; my only exposure to WH is from Ploeperengel's civ4 mod and that's been a while ago.

One other thing: with this talk of giving food bonuses to lizards in jungles and giving them stronger archers and recon units... I'm concerned that all you're going to end up with are elves with scales. As it stands, FoL will probably be the best religion for them since guardian of nature gives happy faces for jungles.

 

[Ekolite]

Yeah thats what I was saying, giving them strength in recon or archery will effectively turn them into elves with scales. I think they should both get religion-like effects but still be technically agnostic. They would be unable (probs) to adopt a real religion. Mine worship the snake god, hian's their dragon. They could have UBs that give them happiness etc and UUs that are effectively their religious units. Units that dont replace anything (like Belseraphs freak) but are unique to that civ. Also, making them worship their own god would be less intrusive to the whole 21 civs and 21 gods thing, each civ has a patron god, one of the 21. But they are bound by the compact. These are perhaps not so bound , seing as they're not technically gods.

 

[it-ogo]

We have enough conventional civs with melee, disciples, recons, archers. Plus we have demons and angels, half-magic half-engineering creatures (Luchuirp golems), necromancy(some here and there), pure magic summoned creatures. We have no pure robots (-transformers ) but they are out of style and we have no biotechnology which is monster-breeding. There are barbarian monsters, few individual dragons, beasts of Agares (which are also demons) and that is all. No specific civ.

Make their accent on beasts. Let them use biotechnology (genetic engineering) and breed horrible monsters in their marsh. Not summon but breed.

 

[woodelf]

Slings and boomerangs would be cool Hian.

I completely agree with Kol.7 about the inability to adopt a real religion. That doesn't mean that storywise they have no religion or belief, but I don't want to go through the headache of adding a new religion into this massive mod. Agnostic also works.

Plus (and this is purely selfish ), if they stay no religion I think we can set them up to use the cityset that winddelay and I made for the Dragonia II lizzies. If they did religion waffling I don't know enough how to handle that.

 

[woodelf]

Forgive me for covering old ground, but this just popped into my head about the need for woodsman to have the jungle bonus removed as well as the need for a new trait or two for the lizzies that takes advantage of their affinity for jungle. Agnostic has to be one of the traits I think.

Also, for right now copying the worker files that elves use seems like a good idea if we can switch forest to jungle.

 

[xienwolf]

Don't forget to re-enable cutting down forests when you copy over the elven worker.

Actually, it is python or higher that lets the elven worker build in forests now, and it is actually the elven civilization that is able to, not the worker specifically. Only notable things about the Elven worker are 80% work rate, and inability to chop forests (Captured elven worker no longer allows anyone to build in forests).