Feature Requests and Discussion

[[to_xp]Gekko]

your idea is cool, but there's no haunted lands in FFH and I don't think it's worth adding them in just for this without the Scions of Patria civilization.

I can't say I *like* hell burning down all the forests , but it's something that gives a good reason to prevent hell from spreading into your lands. hell is not much scary, and I think nerfing it is a bad idea as it makes that game mechanic less meaningful, and sanctify less useful.

a better way of doing it could be using smoke instead: since it's an improvement it would replace lumbermills, and give you a chance to use spring to prevent your forests from becoming flames. an additional benefit of this system is that the chance of smoke becoming flames increases alongside with the AC.

then again, Tholal might have done this because the AI doesn't understand how to use sanctify properly? could be good for the Svartalfar especially, you still lose the GoN happy bonus but maybe they go Esus instead...

 

[Terkhen]

Right now, it seems that Super Forts use the same modifiers to improvement growth rate than normal improvements do. In my opinion, it would make sense to use a separate improvement growth rate modifier for forts/castles/citadels. That way, civics intended to increase the growth rate of cottages (none in vanilla, but this could be added via modding) would not modify the growth rate of forts as an unexpected side effect too. This change would also open up the way to new XML tags for allowing entities such as civics or traits to modify the fort growth rate.

 

[Rystic]

Still, though, IIRC Obsidian Plains had an issue because Hell Terrain nuked features. This is an outstanding bug that makes Veil/StW impossible for Flood Plain-heavy civs (such as the Malakim on a Flavor Map). Besides the food loss (3 to 0 ), Flames block units without fire resistance. A path of Obsidian Plains might be the only way for units to get into or out of cities, without using Spring.

There is a hacky way to fix this, which is to check to see if a Burning Sands tile is riverside and create Obsidian Plains instead, but in the case where a riverside desert tile had no Flood Plains, it creates a new one. Since there's more in-depth modding to change how Hell Terrain converts features, I figure now would be a good time to consider fixing this.

 

[Rystic]

As an addendum, the graphics and the XML feature information for Obsidian Plains already exist. All that needs to be implemented is properly converting Flood Plains.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Rystic, do you think it's a bug or were they removed intentionally to make hell spread more menacing?

Tholal, could you make Divided Souls neverobsolete like you did with Soldiers of Kilmorph? since both they and ghosts require a hunting lodge, they become 100% unbuildable as soon as you tech Poisons :/

 

[Rystic]

Rystic, do you think it's a bug or were they removed intentionally to make hell spread more menacing?

I think it's a bug, and I think the problems were that:

1) Burning Sands is already occupied by Flames.
2) Hell Terrain naturally removes Features.

Forests are just the most common removal, but in actuality Hell Terrain removes forests, flood plains, volcanoes, oases, etc. There was never any Feature-to-Hell conversion implemented, although the existence Obsidian Plains seem to suggest that this idea was in the works then abandon. I agree Hell Terrain is suppose to be menacing, but not outright civilization-ending. You typically lose your resources, but if you're a solid Desert-team that depends on Flood Plains for survival, you're completely screwed.

Fixing 1) is easy enough. Flame placement is done in the Python, so you can skip it if the tile is occupied by an Obsidian Plains. 2) is a bit more tricky, because you have to dig into the hell conversion code to fix features not immediately disappearing. With this Forest -> Burnt Forest thing, it got me thinking that if Tholal fixed that, fixing 2) shouldn't be much harder.

 

[Kiech]

Not sure if you will label this as "out of scope" but the changes I think are needed to really fix the game (now that most of your AI fixes are in):

Nerf warriors (2/3 strength instead of 3)
Nerf REXing (force 3 squares between towns instead of 2)
Nerf Aristograrian (Agrarianism takes 1 hammer from plains and -20% from each city.)

 

[Terkhen]

Why are Great Generals and Great Commanders different units? In my opinion, they should be merged somehow. Having two very similar great people is confusing and a bit counter productive, IMO.

 

[Kiech]

Why are Great Generals and Great Commanders different units? In my opinion, they should be merged somehow. Having two very similar great people is confusing and a bit counter productive, IMO.

I kinda feel the same way, but as great generals are not in vanilla, I think they were meant as some sort of replacement? I personally would like them to merge as well, and to use the BTS method of creating them.

 

[Tholal]

Why are Great Generals and Great Commanders different units? In my opinion, they should be merged somehow. Having two very similar great people is confusing and a bit counter productive, IMO.

Great Commanders are generated via Great People points and can start Golden Ages, found Command Posts or join a unit.

Great Generals are generated via combat and are only allowed to join units. This feature is not part of FFH and was added as part of the Advanced Tactics option.


Re: Hell Terrain - Hell terrain conversion is all done in python. Previous to this last patch, Hell Terrain simply nuked forests entirely. I'll look into the Obsidian Plains thing.

 

[Terkhen]

Great Commanders are generated via Great People points and can start Golden Ages, found Command Posts or join a unit.

Great Generals are generated via combat and are only allowed to join units. This feature is not part of FFH and was added as part of the Advanced Tactics option.

If Great Generals are not present in vanilla games I can understand why they are not being merged

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Kael added Great Commanders to FfH2 before Firaxis released the Warlords expansion pack, which added the Great General person. Kael never implemented Great Generals the way they work in vanilla Warlords/BtS Civ IV. The Advanced Tactics option activates of MNAI them the way they would work without the FfH2 mod, while keeping Great Generals too.

Magister Modmod merges the two great people types together.

 

[Calavente]

Not sure if you will label this as "out of scope" but the changes I think are needed to really fix the game (now that most of your AI fixes are in):

Nerf warriors (2/3 strength instead of 3)
Nerf REXing (force 3 squares between towns instead of 2)
Nerf Aristograrian (Agrarianism takes 1 hammer from plains and -20% from each city.)

@Kiech

re warrior : it is easy to nerf warrior without that : three ways :
-make them unable to get iron weapons
-make them unable to take any weapons
-allow archers to get bronze weapons (like LB can get bronze and iron but not mithril while champs get bronze-iron and mithril, allow archer to get bronze if axes get bronze and iron (and hopefully not mithril) (this one would have the nice advantage of nerfing warrior vs archer AND redeem archers a bit... a 4/6 unit with bronze can be useful IMO)

REXing : why not.... and again : why ?
Aristograrian : -20% hammers instead of -1hammers on plains would be best. or change agrarian to +20% food instead of +1F for farms )

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

preventing warriors from using bronze weapons would be good, but it's really something for the Extramodmod rather than MNAI. overreliance on warriors makes the game boring.

 

[Terkhen]

Tholal already mentioned twice that balance changes are out of the scope of MNAI. A separate thread to discuss balance issues should be a better option IMO, as it would keep the topic in both the new thread and in this one.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Ignoring balance requests (vast majority of which I disagree with but that's by the by), I feel that the nerf that hell provides to features is necessary, as it gives hell an actual cost.
Empire wide the cost of hell is the loss of strong tiles (floodplains/ancient forests) and resources in return for greater strategic gain.
These costs -like most associated with AV - can be easily circumvented with intelligent use of sanctity, but that doesn't mean the cost of hell should be nerfed as you suggest.

The nerf BTW is significant in FFH because of the elevated importance of floodplains as alternatives to resources.


As a prospective(/failed) mapmaker, id be interested in a way to alter a tiles AC in worldbuilder, or place hell resources.
Such changes would be beneficial to few though.

 

[Rystic]

The nerf BTW is significant in FFH because of the elevated importance of floodplains as alternatives to resources.

As a prospective(/failed) mapmaker, id be interested in a way to alter a tiles AC in worldbuilder, or place hell resources.
Such changes would be beneficial to few though.

Are you talking about Obsidian Plains replacing Flood Plains? I agree, losing Ancient Forest is a bad hit, but it's no where near as bad as losing Flood Plains. It tile goes from 3 to 0 and gets Flames, so nothing can pass through it. Without Ancient forest, you can still move and build improvements, and salvage your bases.

Trust me, having Flames on every desert is quite a drawback. It limits your civilization to tiny pockets in the desert. Obsidian Plains are critical for Desert-civilization survival, if they choose AV.

 

[scutarii]

preventing warriors from using bronze weapons would be good, but it's really something for the Extramodmod rather than MNAI. overreliance on warriors makes the game boring.

exactly. in MP its either warrior spamming or you're gone

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

would it be possible to prevent lairs from appearing on top of resources? it's so damn annoying when playing with the barbarian trait

 

[Kiech]

would it be possible to prevent lairs from appearing on top of resources? it's so damn annoying when playing with the barbarian trait

Can't you still "explore" the lair, or does that break the peace? Haven't played as the Clan yet, but that does sound annoying.