[MOD] FFH TweakMod

[akatosh]

Rystic,

Really looking forward to your next release. I looked through your page 1 changelog and I like pretty much all of your changes, especially your buffs to Elohim, Amurites, Esus and Sidar. Can't wait to try Esus/Sidar and your Spi/Def/Tol Einion Logos.

A few thoughts

- Are you removing the 10% withdrawal from Homeland? If so, the change is a nerf, not a buff..which would suck

- Last few games I've played as Illians (I play using Tholal's), I think I have gotten a river commerce on snow. If your next version is going to install on top of Tholal's, you might want to check and make sure that it doesn't result in +2 commerce on river snow.

- Have you thought about making Soldiers of Kilmorph not obsolete once Paramanders are available? I find not being able to use the warrens+SoK trick not fun---avoiding the Paramander tech as Clan is kind of annoying.

- I like your Enclave buff to Kurios giving +1 happiness. If I am reading your change right, it appears your goal is to not require Kurios to go Order every game. The flip side is that unlimited happiness but limited food might instead push them into Veil every game. Something you might want to consider

- What's the reasoning behind the change to Veil temple giving +1 sci +1 culture, Empyrean temple giving +20% GP instead of +10% science, and the reduction in hammer cost for Javelin throwers? I don't necessarily dislike these changes--I'm just curious about the thought process.

- What does Cult of the Dragon do? Is it a religion?

Keep up the great work.

 

[Calavente]

@Rystic:

I like your effort to reflect the idea that, as the 'pedia says (quoting from memory), "the holy war pervades all aspects of Bannor society." I do, however, share the concern akatosh expressed that you're really pushing them to adopt Order. While other civs do have synergies with particular religions (Ljosalfar-FoL, Sheaim-AV), I don't think any civ has its UUs and UBs depend on adopting a single religion.

If you want to nudge them towards adopting the Order, you could instead have the Cathedral give +1 with Social Order and, conversely, have the Basilica and Temple of the Order each give +1 with Crusade.

Also, I would suggest placing Crusade and Social Order in different Civics categories.

As for Bannor Disciple units, I'd like to propose the following for your consideration:

1) The Bannor can build all the standard T1 Disciple units (Acolyte, Thane of Kilmorph, etc.), so they can spread the various religions and build the temples for the cultural and other benefits.

2) The Bannor are blocked from building the standard T2 priest units (Confessor, Priest of Leaves, etc.).

3) Inquisitors (I think that might be a better name than Inquisitioner, incidentally) replace the standard T2 priest units, start with Divine, Channelling II, Medic I, Medic II, Inquisition, and Scourge, and start with the Bannor state religion. Like the standard T2 priest units, Inquisitors can be upgraded to Druids, Paladins, Eidolons, and the Bannor high priest replacement, Patriarchs.

4) Patriarchs have to be upgraded from a Level 6+ Inquisitor, start with Divine, Channelling II, Channelling III, Medic I, Medic II, Medic III, Inquisition, Scourge, and Recruit; all Recruited units have the Bannor state religion. Patriarchs of a given religion will abandon the Bannor if the Bannor switch to a different state religion.

I think this still captures the holy war aspect without requiring them to adopt The Order for their UUs and UBs.


In a related vein, I noticed in the first post of this thread that you wrote "Cathedrals may cause Crusaders, Paramanders, or Ratha to spawn instead of Demagogs if the appropriate religious temple is also present in the city" (I presume you mean when the Bannor cast their world spell). I would suggest instead that you allow Cathedrals a chance to cause any of the equivalent religious units (Stygian Guards, Diseased Corpses, Nightwatches, Fawns) to spawn if the appropriate religious temple is present in the city -- again, to not limit them.

Anyway, just some ideas for you to consider. *I* like them, but it's your mod, of course.

/me thinks this is nice... complicated but oh so nice..

 

[Nor'easter]

@Calavente:

Thanks for the good word. I based my suggestions on Rystic's -- particularly the priest units' names and starting promotions -- but was just trying to move the Bannor UUs away from being replacements specifically for Order units.

@Rystic:

One other thing that occurred to me, to better capture the holy war idea. You mentioned that Crusade seems disconnected from religion. One example of that is that the Bannor world spell, Rally, generates Demagogs. What if, instead of generating Demagogs, Rally produced non-priest units of the Bannor state religion? So depending on your state religion, your cities and towns would produce Crusaders, Rathas, Paramanders, Fawns, Nightwatches, Stygian Guards, or Diseased Corpses. This would help tie Crusade to religion much more so than it is now.

EDIT: One quick thought on Bannor Civics. I suggested above having Crusade and Social Order in different categories: I think the simplest would be to move Social Order to a different Civics category, not sure which one offhand. That would leave Crusade and Sacrifice the Weak in the same Civics category, which would serve to discourage the Bannor from adopting AV as their state religion, since they wouldn't be able to realize the full benefit of doing so.

 

[Rystic]

Woo! Lots of discussion in this thread over the last few days. I think I should clear a few things up, though. First, the changelog on the front page is outdated. I took a number of changes I liked from it, and began reworking the Tweakmod. I posted the new changelog a few pages back (page 20 I think), but until I release it, nothing is definite. Most of the good stuff is coming through, though. Doviello camps, Diverse Trait for the Grigori, invisible Sidar workers, etc. I decided to do this because I felt the Tweakmod needed to be scaled back.

That being said, very often when I do big changes to teams, I propose a whole slate of ideas, then remove the ones that I feel aren't necessary or useful. This is my revised list of Bannor changes:

Evangelical: Trait, all Disciple units get Command I and Inquisition.

UU’s: Vanguard of Junil replaces Crusader. Like Crusader, but can spread Order/remove Ashen Veil in a city once. This is inclusive; if a city has just Ashen Veil, it will lose Veil and gain Order.

UB’s: Cathedral replaces Courthouse. Cathedral gives +10% hammers, can be built during Crusade, reduces the chance for non-State Religions to spread, and automatically spreads State Religion during Crusade. Spreading is retroactive; when Crusade starts, all cities with a Cathedral will be given the State Religion.

New Feature: In cities with the State Religion, Martyrs will occasional spawn instead of Demagogs. Martyrs do collateral damage (25%), always have the State Religion, and cause no war weariness on death.

---

Anyway, I saw a lot of people posting about how the previous set of changes ties the Bannor too much to Order, and you're right. These changes move Martyrs away from Basilica so any religion can experience them. Likewise, any religion should be able to push back enemy religions, so now Inquisition is inherited onto all Disciple units. I kept Vanguard of Junil because I felt Order should have an advantage during a Crusade, albeit a slight one. Considering Cathedral spreads State Religion, it just means Order will spread faster than other faiths.

 

[Nor'easter]

@Rystic:

Nice! Having all Bannor Disciple units start with Inquisition is a simpler solution than an Inquisitor UU to replace the standard priest units -- wish I'd thought of that instead of what I proposed.

 

[akatosh]

Rystic - great ideas, your changes make a lot of sense to me. I'll check your new changelog on page 20.

Also, I saw a suggestion on a different strategy thread: move Crusade into the Diplomacy category. I know you wanted to move Social Order or Crusade so Bannor could use both at the same time. Crusade into diplomacy might work, when the Bannor are on a Crusade they really aren't interested in diplomacy with other civs. They certainly don't want the Overcouncil declaring an end to their war.

 

[akatosh]

Rystic -

Just looked at your latest changelog from page 20. Most everything looks great, except...

I think you should strongly reconsider the Elohim warrior having 2/4 strength. This change absolutely cripples Elohim on higher difficulties because they basically can't do any early warfare with warriors. If you can't attack, you can't get enough land to have a decent empire in the midgame. Any kind of offensive warfare is simply out of the picture until bronze working or horseback riding.

Defenders already build archery ranges at double speed, which provide 3/5 archers. Why do they need a 2/4 warrior in addition to a quick 3/5 archer?

 

[Calavente]

Rystic -

Just looked at your latest changelog from page 20. Most everything looks great, except...

I think you should strongly reconsider the Elohim warrior having 2/4 strength. This change absolutely cripples Elohim on higher difficulties because they basically can't do any early warfare with warriors. If you can't attack, you can't get enough land to have a decent empire in the midgame. Any kind of offensive warfare is simply out of the picture until bronze working or horseback riding.

Defenders already build archery ranges at double speed, which provide 3/5 archers. Why do they need a 2/4 warrior in addition to a quick 3/5 archer?

I don't really care about the Elohim not having a warrior rush ability...
the elohim can proceed peacfully until having swords or bow or horses.
However 2/4 warriors means that you can't protect your own lands... (ie you can't attack the invaders that are pillaging your country.)
maybe the warriors could get 3/4 AND "-25 %str out of territory" (a reversed homeland) (and not as promotion... otherwise it will stack when upgrading) thus they'll be as strong as other warrior it outside defense, stronger in homeland defense, and weaker in outside attack

 

[Tasunke]

I would prefer for Elohim warriors to have a reverse homeland (or hell, even just an extra homeland promo combined with a weakness outside of borders)

IE-> +40% strength inside borders, but -20% strength in general. So a net of +20% in and -20% out.

 

[Rystic]

Woo! Finally back after a week long vacation. Anyway, where to begin?

I think off the bat, I should say that all changes in the Tweakmod are made with an Erebus map in mind (all testing is done on Erebus maps). That being said, the Elohim 2/4 Warrior is a great asset to block chokepoints early on. Since I started this modmod, I've been trying to come up with a way to make dealing with barbarians easier for the Elohim. They are, after all, the guardians of sacred ground.

The first Tweakmod did this thing where Monks got more powerful if you controlled unique features, and enough Unique features blocked barbarians from your territory. That was painfully convoluted and not really the 'turtling builder civ' style I was going for, since it meant founding bases all over the map. In the new Tweakmod, I toyed with the idea of making the Elohim Palace block barbarians from entering borders. That, however, had the same problem that 'Sidar Palace Invisibility' had; it was too damn powerful. So I backed up, and got the idea for Guardians.

Now, I've already mentioned that Guardians are good at holding chokepoints, but they do something else. It's true, the Elohim can't do a proper warrior rush, but they also can't be warrior rushed. At least, not without a massive early invasion force and overwhelming casualties. Breaking an Elohim city means your 3 units versus their 4 units, and they have Homeland (now +20% strength, so effectively a combat promotion) and all their city defense bonuses. I've tried busting through the walls of the Elohim as the Clan of Embers with Axemen, and it's still very tough.

In a way, Guardians make the Elohim are the opposite of the Doviello; very fast turtling.

 

[Rystic]

On a seperate note, I'm really considering introducing Force Mana, Creation Mana, and Dimensional Mana to the Tweakmod. I can come up with something for Force and Creation, but what kind of things does Force Mana cover?

 

[akatosh]

@Rystic--a fair point, to emphasize the Elohim's defensive nature. My question is, does this leave Elohim any viable strategy to win on Deity?

 

[Rystic]

@Rystic--a fair point, to emphasize the Elohim's defensive nature. My question is, does this leave Elohim any viable strategy to win on Deity?

Altar of the Luonnatar would be your best bet, I suppose. I don't play on Deity enough to know.

 

[Tasunke]

Dimension ... Escape, Paradrop, phase shift

(phase shift is removed after combat, gives +100% withdrawal, applies to caster only)


Force ... a different kind of magic, I should think.

Force 1 ... a type of fear spell I think (like Dragon's Roar), but less powerful (aka can't remove units from a city). Call it route humanoid or something, I dunno.

Force 2 ... if Good alignment, a damage spell against Angels, if Evil, a damage spell against demons. If Neutral, a weaker damage spell against both.

Force 3 ... gives 'Homeland' or other equivalent promotion to the stack (+20% strength within borders). Maybe can sacrifice the unit for 10 turns enforced peace. Perhaps something else about enforcing deals, not sure what though.

Perhaps ... could also sacrifice the unit to force 10 turns war on those you are at war with (perhaps only affects civs of your alignment (to come to your aid at least)

---> Aka, you are neutral, and at war with an evil civ. You sacrifice the caster and all other neutral civs are locked into at least 10 turns of war with the opposing civ.

(or if at war with neutral, all 'other' neutral civs dow them)

 

[Calavente]

without quoting Magister: Firce is about balance, "anti-magic" and equilibrium.
so :
magical protections : magic-resist, increased protection against magic-type/poison
wards: magical walls ?
anti-summons?
anti-angels AND demons ?
resistance to holy/unholy damage ?
a spell that boost a bit ennemies and boost your unit/stack a lot
a equity-related spell ?
-enforcing peace while sacrifying the unit?
-happy vs maintenance in city ?

I see it as "you can gain something if you lose somewhere else"...
or "I will make you respect the compact even if the price is my life"

 

[Tasunke]

yep, I agree with what Calavante says ... I completely forgot the Magic Resist part.

Having some sort of combo of Homeland + magic resist (but maybe also making the unit weaker outside of borders?) would be a great Stack buff for Force III I think.


other than that, keeping summons, angels, and demons out of Erebus would be another aspect of force (either Force II or Force III I think)

 

[scutarii]

yep, I agree with what Calavante says ... I completely forgot the Magic Resist part.

Having some sort of combo of Homeland + magic resist (but maybe also making the unit weaker outside of borders?) would be a great Stack buff for Force III I think.


other than that, keeping summons, angels, and demons out of Erebus would be another aspect of force (either Force II or Force III I think)

unsummon from Magister's mod is pretty useless, although intention was reasonable. Usually summons attack at the same turn, so unsummon is only useful vs +X turns summons. Read: not worth of it. AND unsummon delets BOTH your and enemy summons. Nah.

force I and II are good from MC mod, force III is ....situational...

My idea for force III - hold enemy siege engines for X turns(can't move and attack). maybe 6 per caster( only 4 archmages, remember!) and for 2 turns and 15% chance failure per unit. Nah, slow is already better... maybe -X% collateral/ranged dmg from force III ? drill IV only helps one unit but this spell is for everyone at the same stack ? And this spell stacks with Drill IV?

IMO catapults are gamebreaking units: collateral dmg breaks practically everything, and with exception of drill IV, is irresisteable.

 

[Rystic]

I like the idea of Force being the anti-Angel/anti-Demon sphere. If introduced as mana, it will be unique to the Grigori Palace, and unbuildable by any civilizations.

For now, I'm thinking that Force I (Spell name: Ward) will add a +50% Holy/Unholy resistance promotion to all units in the stack. I like Tasunke's idea for Force II (damage to Angels/Demons), but instead of it being based on civ-alignment, it will be like Destroy Undead (Spell name: Smite), except weaker damage and affecting both Angels and Demons. Force III is up for debate.

Creation mana will be unique to the Kuriotates, and all the spells will be tied into food and population. Like Force mana, this mana will be unbuildable, although I might make a way for the Kuriotates to get more of it. Creation I (Spell name: Growth) will convert Tundra to Plains. Creation II (Spell name: Fertility) will create a building that adds 4 to the city, as well as storing +20% after growth. Creation III is still up for debate.

Dimensional Mana will be unique to the Sheaim, and be unbuildable like the rest. Dimension I is Escape. Dimension II (Spell name: Gate) will create a building that functions like an Obsidian Gate, letting you teleport units. However, only one such Gate can exist at a time, and creating one will take several turns. Dimension III might be phase shift, that gives units +100% withdrawal until the end of turn. Still thinking about it

My intent is that every school of magic has one unbuildable type of node (Elementalism: Ice, Alteration: Creation, Divination: Force, Necromancy: Dimensional). In the end, I might not even make them resources, but rather a line of spell promotions only those three teams can upgrade on. If anyone can point me in the right direction to get the graphics for such resources/promotions, that'd be great.

Quick Edit: I might introduce Abnoba (sp?) as a Sheaim Mage-hero. She will have the Hero promotion and the unique ability to construct Dimensional Mana nodes.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Force is about balance, fairness, consensus, and both the making and enforcing of contracts. Magic generally deals with bending the natural laws that men and gods generally agree ought to govern the world. (The reality of Erebus is more inter-subjective than it is objective.) Force prefers to enforce the rules, and thus counter magic.

The only beings that we know serve Dagda are the Runewyns and the Cipi. The Runewyns are winged angels that are immune to all magic, and can drain away most magic with a single touch. They are typically given the duties of crossing magical boundaries and assassinating powerful wizards who threaten to upset the balance of the world. The Cipi, also called the "Pillars of Creation," are seven giant true angels who guard the boundaries of Erebus against intruders from other planes and are responsible for enforcing the laws of physics.

Kael did at one point state that a good example of a Force spell is creating an impassible wall of force, which he said becomes impassible because of a consensus that the boundary should not be crossed. The Elohim world spell Sanctuary would fit this sphere well, although it is probably too powerful for a regular spell. Perhaps a version of that spell with a shorter duration would make a good Force III spell though, if it required sacrificing the caster or at least the prerequisite Force III promotion. (It would be far too powerful if it could be used every turn.)


One thing I think would be quite nice as a force spell is preventing other players from withdrawing from or renegotiating diplomatic agreements. I don't think that the code really allows that though. Forcing enemies to negotiate would also be quite nice, but just as hard to code. Moving Cordindale's Peace spell to Force III is probably as close as we could get.

Generally I think that as far as game mechanics go this sphere is better implemented as a counter against other sorts of magic.



You are welcome to borrow my modmod's spells if you like:

Force I: Temperance: Grants living units in the same stack the Temperance promotion, which provides resistance to both Holy and Unholy Damage.

Force II: Magic Resistance: Grants living units in the same stack the Magi Resistance promotion.

(I had made it so that Magic Resistance could no longer purchase this through xp. For my next release I decided to get rid of that spell, go back to the old way of getting this promotion, and introduce the following replacement)

Force II: Ring of Warding: Creates a Ring of Warding building in the caster's city. (As with spells like Hope, the caster needs to stay in the city to maintain the building. The building uses the same graphics as the Ring of Carcer improvement, but is made bigger to encircle the whole city.) This provides +25% defense (like Wall of Stone, which I am removing and replacing with Diligence, a building which boosts the % and % ), +25% magic resistance to units in the city, and (through an effect that uses the python prerequisite of a dummy spell) prevents any hostile summons nearby from being able to attack. (At first I made it kill said summons, but some thought that was too powerful. Now it gives them the Charm promotion, so that even summons with Blitz cannot attack. It also deals damage to them, with a cap based on how much mana you control.)

Force III: Summon Runewyn: A Runewyn is an Angel with the Flying and Magic Immune promotions, as well as both Demon Slaying and Angel Slaying (a promotion my modmod introduces). They also use the BtS ability (this does not work in cities) to target UNITCOMBAT_ADEPT and UNITCLASS_ARCHMAGE (as well as the various arcane heroes) in stacks of stronger units , and have a PythonPostCombat call that removes all of the spell sphere promotions from their targets whether they win or loose. Their art is that of a monochromatic re-skinned Angel of Death, with the symbol of Scales on its chest, the back of is robes, and seven times on the blade of its sword. (In my next release, this call also makes them cast Dispel Magic and when they are attacking a city removes any spell buildings it might contain. ) I gave the unit a base strength of 7 and 3 affinity for Force Mana originally, although for my next release I reduce the affinity to 1. I also made it so that the Ring of Warding does not effect them.



Dimensional I: Escape

Dimensional II: Unsummon: kills all hostile summons nearby
(This was deemed generally not useful, as summons generally have only one turn of duration anyway. In the next version replaced it with: )

Dimensional II: Sever Soul: Creates an invisible Severed Soul unit, which can explore on its own and can be sacrificed to call its summoner to its current position. (The spell was of course formerly unique to the Divided Soul unit, and in previous versions of my modmod instead dependent on the Soul Spillter I gave said UU so that the ability could be retained by upgrades. Now I just give Divided Souls Dimensional II.) Unlike the Base FfH2 versions, my severed souls are permanent summons. I switched to creating them through python so that they do not start out immobile. They are not flying, but can move through impassible terrain as well as rival territory. They can investigate cities. They get certain promotions from their summoner, like Mobility and Sentry. They are given unique names ("Soul of ___") to identify what unit summoned them. I recently gave them some combat strength as it seems necessary in order for them to have the command to explore automatically, but they are still defensive only.

Dimensional III: Summon Rift: This summons a unit which is like an ICBM from vanilla civ, but can also carry other units as cargo. It can deliver whole armies almost anywhere on the map (just not too close to units or territory of units of rivals with whom you are at peace) in a single turn.

(Since the AI never seems to use them as transports, I also included: )

Dimensional III: Rift Gate: creates a requires-caster building that functions as an obsidian gate.


Creation I: Muse: Creates a requires-caster building that adds culture, specialist slots, and boosts the gpp rate.

Creation II: Fertility: Creates a requires-caster building that provides free food and health.

Creation III: Abundance: Creates a requires-caster building that eliminates unhealthiness from both population and buildings.

I don't let this be built on raw mana, only on creation mana. Creation mana is added to a random tile on the map during the Amathaon constellation event.

Anyone can build Ice nodes in recent versions, but doing so is very slow.



I was just about ready to release a new version with the new spells, but since Tholal released More Naval AI version 2.4 today I intended to merge my modmod with that first. I'm thinking that Christmas Eve is my most likely release date now. If you wish to borrow my spells before that I could send you the code.

 

[Rystic]

The way I'm picturing it now, the Grigori will be able to construct Force nodes with Luonnatar (who will be reworked to be more available to the Grigori, possibly even being nerfed a bit and brought down to Philosophy), the Sheaim will be able to create Dimensional nodes with Abnoba (Wraiths, Spectres and any summon with an elemental affinity will gain an affinity for Dimensional), and the Kuriotates will be able to construct buildings that gives them Creation Mana (similar to how Tailor and Jeweler work).