Features for trimming

[arcticnightwolf]

Or how about creating upgraded versions of workers? Or allowing the corporation units to build certain improvements? A Farmer unit could build farms in half the time of a regular worker, a few other food-related things in 3/4 time, but no mines or quarries.

micromanagement ...

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Hello. I'm going out of lurk mode to answer this thread. I haven't been very active (there is not enough hours per day ) but went here rather frenquently, and i have been playing orbis for some time now. First, let me say this mod-mod is really great. It took me some time to get used to the altered tech tree, but now i find it as natural as the base FFH tree. Also, i've been playing FFH only, and never vanilla civ since FFH1 was released

That being said, there isn't much i think should be removed, but a few features could be either removed or reworked to better suit my tastes. It's only my point of view, but since you asked

• Scions : I don't want them removed, i really like them, they are fun to play, extremely different from the other civs, but hell, yes alcinus needs to be changed. Actually, he's fun the first time you play Scions, boring the second, and a PITA the third. Also i would like to mention something that occured in a game. I was playing with another human player, we were teamed up from the setup, and both wanted to try the Scions. I picked Risen Emperor, my teammate picked Korrina. When Alcinus appeared, i got him, quickly created the keep, and sent him to my teammate, planning to gift him to her so she could create the keep to. He went rogue before he crossed the border, and i had to kill him. He appeared back at both our capitals. We were rather happy to have him both, but things started to go wrong the second time he got killed. As you can imagine, by the end of the game (we didn't finish this one), there were dozens of Alcinus going crazy in every country, slowing the game to a crawl and summoning more OOS than squeletons
  I understand it wasn't very smart to play two scions, but it could happen in any game with random AIs (i never choose AIs, only try to balance the number of good, neutral, evils). Even if only to get more stable games, Alcinus needs to be changed. I think everyone agrees on this, but i still wanted to add that issue to the growing "Alcinus bug thread". Other than that, i think Korrina should either be agnostic like Risen Emperor, or don't have access to the Augurs and Temples of the gift.
• Haunted Lands : I separated this from the scions, as it's a double issue. First, thy might be a bit too strong in the hands of the scions, second, they are too crippling to some civs. Their power have been discussed, i won't add to what was said, i simply agree. On the second topic. HL are a pain to everyone but Scions. Some civs however, can deal with them easily, those with access to life mana. Others are in big trouble should HL grow near their cities. One civ esecially : the mechanos, are forever doomed with useless tiles if they got HL on grasslands, since the only spell they can use to remove them is vitalize, it comes late, and can't be cast on grasslands at all. I think everyone should be able to remove them, or they should simply be taken out of the game (and this might solve the issue of scions being too strong because of their bonus yeild).
• Cult of dragons : Either get rid of it as in base FFH, or make it something interesting. Currently, it's just plain boring, as all it's effects (at least all i've seen) is randomly destroying production in a city (this can be a real pain if you loose all production on a nearly completed wonder, and purely random envents shouldn't be crippling), and preventing an AI from taking a state religion ever. It brings nothing to the game. Also, i want to add that a civ allied (with permanent alliance or setup team) with a Cult founding civ can get the lost production event in their cities, even thought the cult is NOT present in that city, making the "try to remove the cult" option utterly useless.
• Workers XP : not very interseting, too much small increase in work rates, and armored workers are just strange. Either remove it, make it more automatic (like add a promotion automatically after xx turns) or something less intrusive. Please, don't make workers specialised in farming or mining as was suggested, have mercy for the poor AI
• Spies : Well, the passive expionage can be intersting (like knowing what a civ is researching), but the active spies (ratcatchers) are not very fun. Lots of micromanagement for small results. OTOH, they can't have too much of an effect else they would become unbalanced. A real annoyance about them is as they are invisible, when you go to war with are damage spellcasters, you never know where you will be able to cast spells to weaken your enemy while not declaring wars on some unknown civ. In my current game as sheiam, Alexi's ratacatchers (at least i suspect it's hers) nearly made my ritualists useless, each time i want to cast a Ring of Flames, i get the popup telling me it will cause a war without even seeing any non enemy unit
• Hawks : It would be nice if they could add a passive bonus for those who don't want to spend 5 minutes every turn to send them flying in every direction.

 

[Opera]

Nice

So, about CotD: the "AI won't choose a state religion" should be fixed since last patch. The events shouldn't occur in non-CotD religions anymore (unless Ahwaric didn't fix that? But I know what the fix is). I actually intend to create some buildings for it and make it usable as a state religion for a new leader...

 

[Valkrionn]

The Scion issue with multiple Council Members is fixed in FF, might want to import that.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

hawks are definitely annoying the way they're done right now, I agree. I'd rather see them tweaked than axed though.

 

[arcticnightwolf]

[*]Hawks : It would be nice if they could add a passive bonus for those who don't want to spend 5 minutes every turn to send them flying in every direction.

I already proposed this in LENA thread, but Opera seemed not to like it ... ):

 

[Opera]

Hawks are a pain in everybody's a*s. And you don't need them every turn... Do you?

 

[Jabie]

How about giving Hawks a sacrifice ability to grant Recon units Sentry I? Each additional Hawk increases the Sentry level up to, say Sentry V.

 

[Plopp]

How about giving Hawks a sacrifice ability to grant Recon units Sentry I? Each additional Hawk increases the Sentry level up to, say Sentry V.

5+ view distance would be a tad bit much dont you think? I like the idea though, if you could do this to recon units only and say only beastmasters could get sentry II and the rest only sentry I for example (from hawks sacrifice, otherwise they can promo up as usual to additional sentry). Maybe even make fortcommanders be able to get it aswell and allow them sentry III or more as they're immobile units.

 

[Opera]

I say: remove Hawks, lower how many base tiles away a unit see; it will make Sentry and Recon units much more interesting

 

[Plopp]

I say: remove Hawks, lower how many base tiles away a unit see; it will make Sentry and Recon units much more interesting

Or this heh, I dont ever bother building hawks anyway since its such a hazzle to attend them all over the place.

 

[Ahwaric]

Yeah, hawks are boring and overpowered...

Cut cut cut

I do not thin they shoul be used as promotion. So Sentry V unit is using 5 hawks at once to scout?
I just hope all these birds don't get hungry at the same time...

But seriously. Scouting with hawks is pain. Also, to keep unexplored unexplored a bit longer, we should remove them. Recon units with sentry are good enough in exploring.
Unless someone will come with a good idea for a new functions for them...

CUT!

Regarding workers, as people are divided in opinions and both Opera and I like it, I will probably add an option to disable it.
Also, how about allowing workers mountaineer promotion? That would make a change...
Also, I think mobility is better than skilled/hard - and both are fine, too. Also, woodsman & guerilla are helpfull.

 

[Valkrionn]

That would be interesting.... And an option like that is already in FF, so it should be an easy job to copy it.

 

[Opera]

I'm fine with the gameoption. Default or not?

And just remove Flanking or whatever is named the promotion increasing withdrawal rate that workers can take. I don't know why but I don't want it! (And I think Hardy gives some neat withdrawal [this word is a pain to write] percent).

CUT HAWKS
(this smilie is so fun! like )

 

[xienwolf]

Adding the ability to have promotions grant build orders wouldn't take too much work, and may make the concept of worker XP interesting enough for people to enjoy. Overall though, you need the Aspect system for the concept to FULLY flesh out (then a properly promoted unit could build better tiles than his less skilled companions).

You could make a promotion which requires the highest ranking of workrate enhancements that enables a worker to build villages instead of cottages, or enable some other growing improvements to make it possible to have a choice required (advance down the defense line to build upgraded mines, advance down workrate line to build better cottages, advance down another line to build enhanced farms), or you can enable the ability to construct improvements with a chance to discover resources. Or at a sufficient level even have improvements buildable which FORCE resources (so as soon as finished you have that resource available on the tile, like making a mana node)

 

[Opera]

You could make a promotion which requires the highest ranking of workrate enhancements that enables a worker to build villages instead of cottages, or enable some other growing improvements to make it possible to have a choice required (advance down the defense line to build upgraded mines, advance down workrate line to build better cottages, advance down another line to build enhanced farms), or you can enable the ability to construct improvements with a chance to discover resources. Or at a sufficient level even have improvements buildable which FORCE resources (so as soon as finished you have that resource available on the tile, like making a mana node)

I like this

 

[Valkrionn]

So do I... We need to allow promotions to add buildorders.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I think that the ability to make promotions grant build orders and also block some build orders (mostly ones that would be made obsolete by the new build orders) would be very useful. It could also be nice if certain promotions could boost the work rate of specific build orders.

Would it be possible to let build orders have a python result? It could be interesting to change some spells to work though build orders, so that they would be delayed but could be made faster by using more casters.


I've never cared for the ability to give workers defensive strength. I always forget enemy workers have it, and so loose really stupid battles.

It could be interesting if workers could get promotions that let them act as siege engineers, making battering rams in the field, repairing ships/siege/golems, acting as sappers, etc.



Could it be made so that land units could perform air reconnaissance, maybe without the animation? That seems like a good way to represent the Divination ability that Lightbringers are canonically described as having.


Could the cargo system be changed to allow cargo of multiple domains, SpecialUnits, etc? I'd like to make it so that recon units can carry animals as cargo, and make Birds be a type of animal. It is also annoying that ships cannot carry units carrying birds.

 

[scutarii]

guilds need some trimming, especially agricultural guild: food is essential and having huge advantage in this area means so much...

less essential but still important because of it dictates producing capacity, is prospectors guild

So I think, reduce bonuses for those two. Rest of the guilds ain't so overpowering.

Another solution would be: let agricultural ( 3 field order) and prospectors guild to compete with eachother...

 

[arstal]

Things I want gone

Worker XP
Ranged attack for bow units/gargoyles- keep it for siege/naval
minor trait
fort commanders
hawks