Fairy Tale

[Jennvare]

Highway, LeSage,

Just started a game with Erezon using the new stacklimit HEFT. I just got into the early game and the stack limit is still set for 2 even though thereadme says Five. I attached a saved game for this. If you look in the capital of Palermo (yes, a custom name) Ive got a dragon guard, a light archer, and a warrior. Their respective strengths are 4,4,2. However, if you move the warrior out, the dragon guard and archer strengths go up to 5.

I am not sure if this is a bug or if short stacks receive a bonus to strength? I know when they are all together, the warrior's strength doesnt decrease so I am not sure what to make of this.

While exploring, I saw an Agravina archer with a strength of 8 moving around and their base strength is a 6. Please verify and check out how this is working. This kind of shocked me.

Edit: Added Note: I just also found out that having workers in the stack works against the stack as well. We may want to find out how to adjust this since workers cant defend themselves. I make lots of workers for my empire. I would hate to have to garrison five in the city and have it sap my defenders.

 

[Le Sage]

This does need work still before it works properly. I also noted the weird strength conditions and I tried Stack Limit out in a major battle too. The enemy showed up with one of the usual mega-stacks though and I properly annihilated him, so the AI doesn't quite get it either. It's a shame, and the only way I see that it will work is if we tweak the Better AI, which also includes SDK changes.

EDIT: OK. I was wondering about how workers affect the stack. Thanks for the info. Hoss will be back at teh end of the week. We'll see what he has to say about it; in the meantime, I'll be working on all the other updates I have on my to-do list right now.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

"tweak"? If you want the AI to "get" the stack limits/disadvantages, I imagine you'd need to completely rewrite most code that handles sending units to war (SelectiongroupAI/UnitAI/PlayerAI). Have fun trying.. until then, I advise you not to include it in the mod.

 

[Le Sage]

Yeah. That's what I imagine. Advise taken.

 

[Jennvare]

Hmm..

It's a shame...I kind of like the idea about the stack limit. Of course, if you play the Defense mod, the AI doesnt even follow the stack limit. It's just a limit for the Human Player. if you find someone that can do SDk and Python stuff, see if they can help you work it.

Something else, Ive noticed...after playing several games, I realize that the vast majority of great people I get are Great Prophets. I try to set up for engineers at times, but it seems that there are very few buildings that allow you to select an engineer specialist. There's also a distinct lack of buildings for scientists, merchants, and spies as well. Prophets you can get plenty of with all the religious buildings you can do especially if you have multiple religions.

Perhaps you can do basic inventory and perhaps tweak some buildings to allow you to make a specialist. GP points arent needed, but it would be good if I could get a city to use all merchants, another engineers to get the great people I need.

Question, should I stop playtesting the Stack Limit version if you're removing it or are you and Highway gonna try to tweak it?

Let me know so I can reload the previous version of Faity Tale.

 

[Le Sage]

Yes. We need to remove it now, for as Fuyu relates, it will take too much of an effort at this stage to get it set up properly. It was an experiment that only went out to you, me and Hoss. I think VeBear got Hoss' file too. Hoss and me experimented with another function before too; I think that one gave negative promotions to units that exceeded the max allowed numbers of units in a stack, but that one didn't work out either.

As you said earlier, the stack issue an issue for Civilization IV overall, and I don't think Fairy Tale will solve that age-old problem. As the game works now, it's really easier for the player to move and fight with large stacks too. Limiting it to fewer units per tile would include such changes as having fewer units in the game as well and other large changes, even if the Stack Limit would have worked with the AI. I think controlling all those huge amounts of stacks could actually become boring and be bad for the game as a whole.

I've given it some thought. Fairy Tale as it is now, does supply more good battles out in the terrain than vanilla with its stupid AI did. I have built real battle lines with centres and flanks on more than one occasion and the enemy seems to have countered in a similar way. Another point is that I don't want to see "frontlines" develop in Fairy Tale that span entire continents, but I want pitched medieval battles in the terrain. Also, larger amounts of stacks out in the open, lags the computer. And I think the situation we have right now, with Better AI, is the closest we will get to good, exciting warfare in Civ4. And it's really not half-bad.

What I am going to do, is come up with better late-game stack-breaking units instead, units that damage multiple ones in a stack in one blow (collateral damage), for example, like the magicians and artillery weapons; maybe give the dragons collateral damage powers. I think that's the way to go from here.

 

[Le Sage]

I have Cannons in there already; and I will make them more dominant. I don't think Cannons are big enough for the Manhattan Project. Some big magic explosive device that takes out entire cities and armies would be though, but I don't know. I think we're walking on the border of modern weapons here.

Right now I need more tactically important strong weapons. Introducing more spells are what I have in mind, and more weapons that indeed do collateral damage and break stacks.

 

[SSgtBaloo]

The key to dealing with this problem IMHO is to neuter The Stack of Doom. How to do this you may ask? I have an idea of adapting some Python code from the Defense mod so that if a stack in a tile exceeds a certain number of units, each unit is gradually weakened in strength until they hit Str1. Result? The Stack of Doom becomes The Stack of the Doomed .

An alternative approach might be to limit a stack's offense by allowing only the five strongest units in the stack* to attack in a given turn. Logically,only so many units can be deployed "shoulder-to-shoulder" before somebody can't reach the defending unit(s). To adapt to this sort limit you would have to deploy more (but smaller) stacks. The main advantage of a stack would then be having your reserves right there to take the place of fallen units.

Perhaps then with such a limit you would add pluses (or multipliers) for having complementary units in the stack, examples:

• Cavalry or archers in support of melee units.
• Scouting units in support of any land-based units, especially (or perhaps only) when in neutral/enemy territory.
• Aerial units (dragons, anyone?) in support of surface-based (sea or land) units
• Anything else that makes military sense without running the mod into a ditch.

One thing I'd be happy to see would be some sort of combat-capable worker (like early sappers or miners) who don't just fold when confronted with hostile barbarians but fight back. These units might not be able to build farms, but roads, forts (and reducing enemy city defenses) would all be part of their primary job description.

*Or some other arbitrary number.

 

[Jennvare]

To be honest, I think we are stuck with the big stacks of troops. As Le Sage says, it's a civ4 complication and to tweak this would throw the AI into a tailspin. If this game could support 18 players all playing together, the stack limits would work all the way around. Hell, you could put anything in then cuz 18 players would know how to use it.

I guess for Civ4, we're stuck with the stacks of doom. *shrug* Not much we can do there.

 

[Le Sage]

Right now I am adding a 20% for all cavalry to attack forested terrain (forest and jungle) and a 20% penalty for defense. Certain types of cavalry won't get the penalty. The Elven, for example and the Viking, and the Principality knights will get a lowered penalty. I'd like opinions, because this change is actually quite important to the game, and I'd like to keep it as realistic as possible too...

 

[Jennvare]

I am not certain I am understanding yer post correctly, LeSage. Are you give a 20% bonus to strength for cavalry to attack forest and a 20% penalty on defense? I would think it would be a 20% penalty both ways since most cavalry rely on charging down their opponents.

The elves should not have any penalty in forests.

As for the Vikings..how about aphibious?Nno penalty attacking across rivers or from sea??

For the Principality...I would give them a bonus when attacking in the open and city attack, defense bonuses. I would keep the full forest penalty on their cavalry.

Also, did we ever come to a decision on recon units;

scouts-->explorers-->rangers ??

I think there was some discussion on getting them some late game love and allowing them to attack. They would also have forest/hills bonuses (attack and defense) last I heard. If we do this, you might also want them to have city attack and defense penalties. Keeps them balanced that way. Great in the outdoors, poor in cities.

Just some thoughts.

 

[Le Sage]

Oh God. I forgot the word penalty in the first part of the first sentence. That's the penalty for typing fast in a foreign language.

There will be a 20% penalty for fighting in woods for cavalry and a 10% penalty for defending. There are variations for some units and the Elven don't get any penalties at all.

Amphibious sounds logical for the Viking units too. I will think that through further. I think all their land units should have it, in fact.

Yes. I gave the scouts and explorers attack capability tonight and also changed the explorer's name into The Ranger.

 

[Jennvare]

What attack strengths are you giving the scouts and rangers?

How about a teir 3 recon unit that you can build in the recruitment center. Or maybe make the rogues recon units that can attack and defend and pillaging bonuses.

 

[Le Sage]

Right now all the recon units have their original strength. I haven't given it any thought really how much I might want to increase it. A third recon units is a really good idea! maybe a Mounted Scout; the sort that goes before the great armies and scouts enemy positions and maneuvres. It could be super fast and have a greater area of sight. Yeah. I need that!

I also gave your Great People generators some thought. I was thinking about setting up a specific National Wonder for each Great Person to generate specialists in the city they are built. Great Generals and Prophets, of course excluded. That would help it along, and it would be fun to make all those National Wonders too.

 

[Jennvare]

LeSage,

Just came back from attempting to play the Fall from Heave 2 series and most of the mod mods. It had been a while so I went to see how much they changed. And OH how they changed? So much, they are all now completely unplayable on my machine. More civs (not so bad), but also more unique units per civ. I dont think I got twenty techs into the game when I started getting MAFs on small maps!!!!

Why post this here? To make a request that as you add more civs, you dont go overboard on unique units. As it stands, I can still play this on Huge Maps without a MAF and thats saying alot right there. Lets keep it reasonable. I would hate to lose this mod too while I try to scrape together cash for a new computer.

Peace Out!

 

[Le Sage]

As I have understood it, Kael and his buddies in the Fall from Heaven Team are finished with their mod and are now doing that mythical stand-alone game. Therefore, the stuff that changes FfH2 right now and after Kael finished is made by other people building modmods around Fall from Heaven. Therefore, the development we see now, is out of the Fall from Heaven Team's control. They made a splendid mod and that "vanilla mod" works fine on my old computer as well, but all the later spin-offs by other people wouldn't, I'm sure. This is not to talk down on the later work by other people, because I'm sure it's impressive, it is just stating the facts.

Fairy Tale will eventually get to a standard version as well, when I consider myself personally finished with it. I bet someone else will take over as... hrm... Lead Designer after that (HighwayHoss, I hope!) and continue its development, but that standard version will undoubtedly be playable on even old machines like this one I'm using right now. So don't worry.

As for new civs and units, We're up to the magical number of 18 civs already (19 even), and that's what I initially set out for. All future civs will be modular and indeed optional for the player to add to his own game if he wants!

 

[Highwayhoss]

OK since I have temp access for a few hours I thought I'd comment on the recent posts:

Stacklimit: Well so much for that idea; it was a strictly experimental idea anyway...back to the Text editor...

Anyway some random ideas:

What I am going to do, is come up with better late-game stack-breaking units instead, units that damage multiple ones in a stack in one blow (collateral damage), for example, like the magicians and artillery weapons; maybe give the dragons collateral damage powers. I think that's the way to go from here.

Yeah that would work better; I suggest maybe give the Skysnake spell Collateral Damage of 50% up to say 10 units....a SoD killer right there. Dragons should also get Collateral Damage added.

I'm also looking at OrionVeteran's Mine Warfare mod for the possibility of a trap style spell to decimate units also.

BTW an idea for a new civ: How about the Angleeye kingdom pre-collective: does anyone else think its rather unusual for the Good King Gregory Lyssander to command a HORDE OF DEMONS? For a second leader I suggest his wife as she was befoe she became the Dowager Queen.

Mounted in forests and Jungles: I suggest a 25% penalty for Forest and a 50% in jungle for Mounted units as a base....modified by race and or civ (Elves get no penalty in Forest for example).

BTW what does everyone think of adding ranged combat capability to archers and other similar units.....basically 1 tile range,half strength with a 50% max damage...make archers more useful in the field.

I also have the idea of replacing the model for the Ivory Resource from Elephants to Dragons and requiring Ivory for making Dragons....what do you think?

 

[Le Sage]

Hey!

Yes. I think we'll have to make the Skysnake more useable. As it is now, it doesn't really have any good, strong use. I will look into it at once. Dragons should have collateral and/or ranged bombardment. However, I don't like the idea of giving ranged to archers; that's the main role of the magician, making him an interesting and useful character. However, we can always add more Magician-like units. Like for an example mounted Battle Mages; fast, light units with ranged bombardment capability.

I think the idea to make a Dragon Resource is very good. I don't know yet what to call it though.

Edit: Yeah. It's weird for Gregory Lyssander to lead teh Collective. I should make him an own scenario or something, but adding an whole civ could be hard. What would happen if Gregory's civ and the Collective would meet in a random map game?

Edit2: I will do an experiment. I will place the Skysnake way earlier and make one more powerful spell to appear later on as well. Experimentation is, as always, encouraged.

 

[Highwayhoss]

Hey!

Yes. I think we'll have to make the Skysnake more useable. As it is now, it doesn't really have any good, strong use. I will look into it at once. Dragons should have collateral and/or ranged bombardment. However, I don't like the idea of giving ranged to archers; that's the main role of the magician, making him an interesting and useful character. However, we can always add more Magician-like units. Like for an example mounted Battle Mages; fast, light units with ranged bombardment capability.

I don't really like the idea of mounted mages; magic to me should require a steady stance to perform the motions properly; also mounted mages strike me as potentially unbalancing.

I think the idea to make a Dragon Resource is very good. I don't know yet what to call it though.

I suggest keeping Ivory and just replace the Graphic; Dragons DO have tusks too, you know...

Yeah. It's weird for Gregory Lyssander to lead teh Collective. I should make him an own scenario or something, but adding an whole civ could be hard. What would happen if Gregory's civ and the Collective would meet in a random map game?

Here's what would happen:

1. Gregory to Dowager Queen: "Honey what's with the Goth makeover? I know you missed me but...."
2. Greogry to Prince Heir: "I am REALLY disappointed in you, and NO you are NOT marrying CHARZANA!!"

I will do an experiment. I will place the Skysnake way earlier and make one more powerful spell to appear later on as well. Experimentation is, as always, encouraged.

How about borrowing an idea from Final Frontier? Have Skysnake I, then II, than III each successively more powerful? Then a nuclear style Skysnake...and maybe some form of city defense against these spells.

Time to hit the road...later.

 

[Le Sage]

Prince Heir to Gregory Lyssander: Sob. Daddy! You should have been around more! Mummy made me do it! She made me lead the legions to the east and burn villages and kill a hundred thousand men, women and children, lay siege to cities and burn, pillage and destroy. She made me do it, when all I ever wanted to do was to be on "So You Think You Can Dance" and play with my little Chihuahua. You should have been around more daddy! Sob sob.

You don't like the idea of mounted mages? I was thinking type Gandalf riding into battle with his arrows of lightning and that sort of stuff. But Battle Mages then, if they're not mounted?

I don't think Ivory will be good enough. We could make small "dragon caves" to replace the elephant though. These caves would represent where dragons live and where Dragon Eggs are collected for raising Dragons. Or why not, a Dragon Egg resource straight off.

Yeah! Easy enough to make Skysnake one, two and three too. But I need to call them something else; like Minor Skysnake Spell, Major Skysnake Spell and Superior Skysnake Spell. Nuclear spell is good; but we need another animation. I can't live with the usual nuclear explosion. And maybe get rid of the fallout too.