Enhanced hero system

[Maian]

Should we start submitting suggestions for unique items or something?

Go head, but it's probably going to be a while before I start considering them. Special items will likely require quests, and quests aren't in yet.

But you can suggest some special items that would appear in the market, and when they would appear.

 

[QES]

Go head, but it's probably going to be a while before I start considering them. Special items will likely require quests, and quests aren't in yet.

But you can suggest some special items that would appear in the market, and when they would appear.

Is it possible to make world-equipment? Only one civ is able to produce the particular item? As soon as someone makes it, its no longer available? Or National items? One per civ? This would make for interesting items.

"The King's Medalion" - National Item, Unit is favored of King and gives +2 happy while in a city.

or "Soulbane" - Wonder Item, Any unit damaged by soul bane has a 50% chance of turning into an undead, barbarian unit of itself if killed. (Like capturing an animal, only it turns barbarian and is given the undead promotion - not sure how placement would work).

Anyway, that'd be pretty sweet seeing people compete over the developing enough technology and funds to produce "Hellforge Hammer" before another race did. Plus this could potentially create player-created quests for the Shadow phase. Maybe certain alignments, buildings, resources, mana is required to build wonder and national items. Etc.

-Qes

 

[Maian]

Yes the availability of items is easily customizable. The issue is how it would be implemented. Hardcoding it in Python isn't a good design - it would be better for it to be in an XML file, but since I don't have the SDK to work with, it's the only solution.

 

[Jono]

Gloves of Corruption (Leather, Gloves): Once on the market, all of the prices go up by X%. Unit can no longer enter cities, unit gains gold after every kill, units in adjacent tiles have a chance to become barbarians turn on the unit using these gloves.

 

[Maian]

I've been thinking about how the whole proficiency thing will work. I may take a note from D&D and allow every hero to use any item, but those without the proficiency for it will get a penalty, or inversely, those with proficiency in the item will get a bonus for it. This can make the equipment system more flexible and increase overall item usage.

I tinkered with the idea of making hero a seperate unitcombat class so that I can dynamically customize the "class" of each hero, but after looking at the existing xml and code, it would take far too much work (and maintenance) for too little benefit. There are so many things that depend on a unit being melee or archer or whatever. That means archer heroes will be stuck as archers, melee ones must stay melee, and ditto for mounted. This dynamic class feature would be better implemented in the SDK.

I'm open to any ideas regarding how hero "classes", proficiencies, etc. should work.

@Deathling:

Interesting idea. Is the item "cursed" so that the hero cannot take it off? Otherwise, couldn't the hero just take the item off?

 

[Jono]

Errrm... can it be? I mean, wouldn't it just be a normal promotion like that?

 

[QES]

Characteristics vs. Promotions:

I've an idea for heros. Thought I'm not sure what its fullest potential is.

Instead of your basic promotions, including magic ones, could we not have promotions represent the lifespan and story OF that hero.

Weapons and Armor would take the place of the promotions that exist in vanilla FFH.
The promotions that come through gain of experiance could be replaced with "moments" of history for the character.

For example, one promotion might be "charitable", this promotion would represent the hero acting in some glorious way during the course of the game, this promotion would give the hero benefits with the populace at large, perhaps giving a economic bonus to any city he/she is currently in.

Another example could be "ruthless" this promotion would cause fear in the hearts of enemies AND allies. A city with a ruthless hero in it would never revolt, and enemies would cower (Fear promotion clone?) in front of them.

In this, Heroic promotions could always be about the character and story of the hero, as opposed to his/her specilization. IN THIS, you could make all your items REPLACE the former vanilla promotions.

This idea does two cool things: A) It preserves normal promotions into a tangble and exchangeable solution in weapons/items. (Thus also giving your items purpose and meaning). B) It expresses the "story" of the hero, as he/she progresses (gains xp) a story unfolds as to the moral, social and intellectual pursuits OF that hero. Seeing a hero with the promotions: Charitable, Ruthless, War Hero, and Seer would be very intersting indeed. I've no idea what the promotion tree would look like, but I'm sure we could come up with something.

-Qes

 

[Jono]

Ah, I forgot to mention that the item gave a large bonus of some sort (+5 first strike or something).

 

[Jono]

Gloves of Corruption (Leather, Gloves): Once on the market, all of the prices go up by X%. Unit gains state religion promotion, unit can no longer enter cities, unit gains gold after every kill, unit can gain the "Fear" and "Evangelist" promotions, living units in adjacent tiles have a chance to become barbarians turn on the unit using these gloves and 3 extra first strike chance. Is it worth it now?

 

[Maian]

@QES:

An interesting idea that could be implemented in the future. This would require 2 steps to implement: first is to create a new combatunit type for heroes so they don't get the normal promotions and make sure everything works with this change, and second, code in the specifics of each event. As I said before, I'm not going to do step 1 in a while, since it takes too long to do and would make it a much larger hassle to sync with the official versions (unless someone can tell me of a better way to do it). Well, I'll mull on it a bit more and maybe I can find a solution in a burst of inspiration...

On the design aspect of it, I'm not sure if removing promotions is a good thing. In most typical RPGs, heroes become more powerful in two ways: items and skills. I'd like to retain that aspect here, with the skill aspect represented by promotions. I would also like to stick as much as possible to the current promotions for consistency and learning curve reasons. On the other hand, it would be nice to customize which promotions a hero can get, to make them more "skill"-like.

Your idea also sounds a bit Total War-ish, with the governor/mayor aspect. If there were more heroes available, I think it would be a good idea. Otherwise, I'd prefer for the limited amount of heroes to be actively engaged in something - battle or adventure, just not sitting at home dawdling around.

@Deathling:

What's the purpose of the state religion promotion and what does it have to do with the gloves? Once the gloves are bought, do prices return to normal? Can the gloves simply be destroyed? What happens when they're unequipped? That "living units in adjacent tiles have a chance to become barbarians turn on the unit" is really big negative unless the chance is really really small.

 

[Jono]

@Deathling:

What's the purpose of the state religion promotion and what does it have to do with the gloves? Once the gloves are bought, do prices return to normal? Can the gloves simply be destroyed? What happens when they're unequipped? That "living units in adjacent tiles have a chance to become barbarians turn on the unit" is really big negative unless the chance is really really small.

The purpose of the state religion the use of the "Evangelist" promotion (I just wanted to add some sort of bonus). And the gloves can't be destroyed... well, there could be a massive negative effect on the surroundings of the area in which it was destroyed, the unit would be killed and so on... The barbarian thing doesn't only affect your units, it kindof an anti-stack thing. Once the glvoes are bought, well, what's easier for you to do, I'd rather the prices go back to normal, but whatever. When the gloves are unequiped they are kept in backpacks (not vaults), and the unit still can't enter cities for like 5 turns or so.

 

[Maian]

Look like I'm going to have to take a week long break or so, since something's urgent come up in my RL job. I'll try working on this some more when I have time.

 

[Kael]

Look like I'm going to have to take a week long break or so, since something's urgent come up in my RL job. I'll try working on this some more when I have time.

Definitly take care of RL first, but dont dissapear on us. I want to try out your changes to much.

 

[Maian]

I'll try to come up with a proof-of-concept patch in the meantime. Unfortunately, I was making some big changes when I got that call, so it's not working right now. I was experimenting with using Python to load XML files.

 

[Maian]

Okay, POC patch up.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Bump. This should be seen by more people.

 

[Maian]

Heh, thanks for the bump, but you're making me feel guilty about not being able to work on this right now

I'm busy making an IE plugin, and given my total newbieness to MS-specific programming, it's taking a while. Also have to make a Firefox extension, but that's a lot easier.

 

[Grey Fox]

The item and equipment system sounds similar to what I'm doing in cIVRPG (currently on hold), which is based on the FfH dll. Although it isnt FfH anymore, but a new game.

 

[Maian]

Well, I'm back. Had some net connection issues recently (long story). I'll get started on this again tmrw - right now I'm dead tired...

 

[Kael]

Well, I'm back. Had some net connection issues recently (long story). I'll get started on this again tmrw - right now I'm dead tired...

Good to have you back! Im interested to see what kind of new stuff youve dreamed up.