Dwarves and Gold

[khanjackal]

i'm playing a khazad thorne game now

they're powerful, but balanced, you have to keep ALOT of gold around if you're planning on expanding or going conquest, and early in the game it's a real handicap

plus, no summons or high level arcane spells... ouch

and the dwarves can't get vitalize... a painful realization on my part... double ouch

it's a mechanic that is powerful if done right, but with plenty of balancing drawbacks

 

[chocmushroom]

I'm playing them, and i've got a little chart with me.
I have to wait until I have another 300 gold before I can build another city.
It is powerful, but only if you restrict your expansion.

 

[Samael]

another idea, not to make mine levels, but give coin bonus for all production improvements, may be equal to production bonus (i.e. mine=2p2c, lumbermill=1p1c, etc...) as for me, for dwarves production IS money more production = more money

Why not have something akin to the Financial trait and the alternative Industrious Trait ( +1 hammer on all tiles that have three or more, I think it is) for the Dwarves then? Something like +1 Commerce on all tiles that produce 3 or more hammers? Perhaps having the commerce also going up (with a further +1 for a tile that gives 4 or 5 and so on?).
Or Dwarven Mines could produce, say, +1 commerce aswell as production from the start?

 

[QES]

Yes, it makes sense to me, you can very easily control the cit count.
I was a bit shocked about starting gold and happiness. When you play on higher levels the money is a problem. In the turns when you are building up your treasury, you will be reducing the chance of early buying of troops/buildings. I Think this will make Dwarfs very very slow at the start of the game.
Which, if you think about most fantasy settings, makes sense. The Dwarfs are famed for ther production, but not for their numbers. For their gold but not spending it.
It all makes sense to me

I don't know how you guy's do it, but you seem to just keep on making things better and better

I agree, and the Dwarves Ought NOT be expansive. They ought to stick to a few tight cities with close boarders right in the mountain ranges. But, they need to be able to compete with civilzations that are twice or more their size. And heaven help you if alliances are formed against the dwarves. They need to be Uber Citified. Minimal land. Kind of the opposite of sprawl. Same premise, huge producing cities, but instead of a lot of territory providing to civilian sprawl. Tucked down in the bowls of mines, eating of mushrooms, oafbread and the like, growing in numbers.
-QES

 

[QES]

Why not have something akin to the Financial trait and the alternative Industrious Trait ( +1 hammer on all tiles that have three or more, I think it is) for the Dwarves then? Something like +1 Commerce on all tiles that produce 3 or more hammers? Perhaps having the commerce also going up (with a further +1 for a tile that gives 4 or 5 and so on?).
Or Dwarven Mines could produce, say, +1 commerce aswell as production from the start?

Dwarves dont run low on hammers, its Science funds they run low on. The number and size of cities determines generally a civs GNP. Thusly, science. THe dwarves have an advantage in that they can produce a lot of units, and not have to defend much territory, being spread out (usually) is how weak points are exposed. Pound for pound dwarves are tougher, but they're not the intellectuals of the FFH world.
-QES

 

[drekmonger]

I agree, and the Dwarves Ought NOT be expansive. They ought to stick to a few tight cities with close boarders right in the mountain ranges.
-QES

Compact trait?

Cities would be limited in number, just as the sprawling trait. But instead of the third ring, compact civs would gain 1 free specialist for every 2 or 3 citizens (rounded up, so a city always has at least 1 free specialist). The basic specialist would produce a unit of food on top of his normal hammer.

 

[QES]

Compact trait?

Cities would be limited in number, just as the sprawling trait. But instead of the third ring, compact civs would gain 1 free specialist for every 2 or 3 citizens (rounded up, so a city always has at least 1 free specialist). The basic specialist would produce a unit of food on top of his normal hammer.

OOO, thats one of the most attractive suggestions i've seen in a while, truly different play style. What a sexy Notion.
<Takes notion out for drinks...gets it alone.....>
<Comes back to forum with a hand slap mark on face>

What about adding to the trait (each specialist gives one food). This would effectively pay for half the population. A size 8 city would use every square around it, and have 3 specialists, being size 11. Thing is, I'm not sure if they require sustinance? Do free specialists count for food consumption? If so, then maybe the trait also gives one food per specialist, thereby cutting the cost in half for specialists to survive in the city. 8 (9 with city square) Squares isnt much, but i DO like it.

Is it possible to upgrade the amount of income generated by the city square itself? That'd also be a nice add for "compact" civs.
-Qes

 

[darkedone02]

Nice, but i wish this was effected with other races, but make it a little different then the dwarfs. That way it be more of a challange and advantage as well.

 

[QES]

Nice, but i wish this was effected with other races, but make it a little different then the dwarfs. That way it be more of a challange and advantage as well.

Maybe the advantage is solely the specialists for the trait. Each civ with the Compact trait would have to find other ways to compensate for the loss of 12 squares per city. (More cities is on option, buildings that generate resources is another....civs would differentiate in how they dilleniate the problems of being compact)
-Qes

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I don't believe there was anything said about losing the second ring...

 

[QES]

I don't believe there was anything said about losing the second ring...

Youre right? I wonder how i infered it from what he said? Huh. My eyes have reached the point where they are now glazing over the screen, its bedtime.

Still its a neat idea. Plus with the buildings we were discussing in the "Building section" The dwarves could have access to 3 building types, each would provide about 4 food, but shrink Or hinder culture.
Mushroom Farmer - +4 Food -2 Culture
Dwarven Brewery (Replaces brewery) - +4 Food +2 Happiness per corn, wheat, etc. -2 Culture
Dwarven Keep - +4 Food, +50% defence (replaces walls, and is way more expensive) -2 Culture

Thats 12 food, a far sight less than if you had that 2nd ring as an option. The "tightness" of the Dwarven Lifestyle, Plus the punishment on culture reflects their isolationism.
-Qes

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Actually, I thought I saw something about losing the second ring the first time I saw it, too...

Anyway, how about -20% instead of -2? With -2 , we'd be having players build a bunch of cultural stuff to counter the big minuses, not good for flavor. With -20%, we'd have the borders just expanding more slowly, and not overwhelming other Civs as easily... good flavor!

 

[QES]

Actually, I thought I saw something about losing the second ring the first time I saw it, too...

Anyway, how about -20% instead of -2? With -2 , we'd be having players build a bunch of cultural stuff to counter the big minuses, not good for flavor. With -20%, we'd have the borders just expanding more slowly, and not overwhelming other Civs as easily... good flavor!

Yea, i like that better, but i figured the %er's werent much of a deterant early game, they only hurt later, where as food is a major resource during all points, especially early game. The culture burn forces you to wait and biuld those culture things before your able to establish the might of the city. IF its percentage, and the city is producing 0...who cares if its -60-75% culture? its still getting its 12 food and growing like a madman on crack.

The suggestion someone else had was -20% and -1 culture. Painful in both ways, so you cant ignore it at all. Maybe add a 4th building a national wonder (Limit 3)building that comes as fourth tier, another 4 food, and +10% Gold. -20% culture - 1 culture. Called "grandfathers hall" or something.

-Qes

EDIT: Maybe The cheapest is Mushroom farm you can get with agriculture, more expensive is Dwarven Brewery as normal (some will have it to begin with), very expensive would be the Dwarven Keep, which would replace walls at masonry. And the National Wonder buildings could be built after Arete, or something.

 

[Silverkiss]

But whit -20%, the risk of loosing the city from culture is non-existant (I mean the city autorazing) as 0 - 20% = 0, they can&#180;t loose culture. It coulb be a combination, like -20% AND -1 culture, so it grows slowy and has the risk of culture implosion (this word is correct?).

Edit: QES beat me into it o_0

 

[Chandrasekhar]

-20% and -1 sound good to me!

 

[QES]

-20% and -1 sound good to me!

Ok so we agree.....now the question is will anyone with any say actually see this?
-Qes

 

[vorshlumpf]

and the dwarves can't get vitalize... a painful realization on my part... double ouch

Really?! Nooooo!

I haven't gotten that far in the game, yet (I love marathon games . . .), and I've been looking forward to some Vitalization Action. Especially since I use Fantasy Realm maps.

Oh well, the game's still uber fun.

In my game (Khazad-Thorne, Monarch) I've also managed to produce most of the World Wonders despite being out-teched by several civs.

- Niilo

 

[chocmushroom]

Compact trait?

Cities would be limited in number, just as the sprawling trait. But instead of the third ring, compact civs would gain 1 free specialist for every 2 or 3 citizens (rounded up, so a city always has at least 1 free specialist). The basic specialist would produce a unit of food on top of his normal hammer.

I'm not sure that it's a good idea to add another trait. The simple fact is that Dwarves have this trait already.
They get more hammers for having more money, and they get better GPP for having more money.
And this is money per city, so they already have the compact trait in another way. They are not limited to a compact civ, but if they do spread-out to much, then they will not gain the benifit.

 

[H.GrenadeFrenzy]

Youre right? I wonder how i infered it from what he said? Huh. My eyes have reached the point where they are now glazing over the screen, its bedtime.

Still its a neat idea. Plus with the buildings we were discussing in the "Building section" The dwarves could have access to 3 building types, each would provide about 4 food, but shrink Or hinder culture.
Mushroom Farmer - +4 Food -2 Culture
Dwarven Brewery (Replaces brewery) - +4 Food +2 Happiness per corn, wheat, etc. -2 Culture
Dwarven Keep - +4 Food, +50% defence (replaces walls, and is way more expensive) -2 Culture

Thats 12 food, a far sight less than if you had that 2nd ring as an option. The "tightness" of the Dwarven Lifestyle, Plus the punishment on culture reflects their isolationism.
-Qes

Yeah maybe this kind of stuff would word but you guys realize that dwarves already dont expand that much anyway....and if to many things bring culture down you at least will need some kind of extra thing that they can build to bring it back up..........not expanding at all or shrinking all the time is a bad idea........one more thing the Mushroom Farmer should be called Dwarven Farmer in my opinion because there are alot of things other than just mushrooms that Dwarves could eat this was discussed on the What Do Dwarves Eat thread..... .but Dwarves might specialize into different kinds of Farmers I dunno........ask Wilboman and Chalid the mighty black dragon.
Mushrooms are kind of a given but there are plenty of other things dwarves might eat....howabout..Dwarven Horticulturalist......or Dwarven Rancher....It might be different if it was simpler and more plausible to have an underground system but it doesn't look like that will happen.....but some of the Team have been working on other things that will come out later so maybe they'll have something to say about it.
....How about since this is a Dwarves and Gold thread........a Dwarven Mint of Foreign Currency Building....where other civs can get the dwarven expertise to mint better coins for them an excellent way for Dwarves to make a cut into others Gold without costing them anything but work and the quality would be better so the other civs wouldn't be out anything either.......it happens alot in RPGs and fantasy novels.

 

[vorshlumpf]

In my time playing as the dwarves, I was thinking that it would be interesting to have some reward for hoarding certain resources, as well. For instance, a bonus for having 3 gem resources.

Speaking of gems, dwarven priests (stonewardens) can be harder to get than other civ's priests. In my experience, incense seems more spread out and available than gems are. In my latest multi-player game with my girlfriend, in fact, there were no gems on the entire map! (my goal then became to destroy as many civs as possible to leave room for Acheron to appear)
I don't know if this is true (or a scewed perception on my part), and if it's been considered by the design team as an acceptable balance issue.

- Niilo