FfH2 0.34 Change log

[MaxAstro]

61. AI: The Barbarians are way more aggressive (Orthus will come for you rather than wandering around in the wilderness)

I thin this is a bad idea, for Orthus specifically. In my experience, Orthus is VASTLY more dangerous if he has 50-60 turns to build up XP in the wild before he goes all out attack. Back when Orthus rushed you as soon as he spawned, I never had any problem killing him with a single warrior defending a city, or two if I was unlucky. Now that he waits around before attacking... there are times when the only reason I can stop him at all is because he never promotes to March. If you want to make Orthus nasty, leave his current AI, and encourage him to promote to March. For the rest of the barbarians I think this is a great idea, mainly because it will stop them all hitting you at once, and will force you to actually bother to defend your borders in the first hundred turns.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

another small annoyance came to mind, hope it can get solved in 0.34

if you set "disciples automatically spread religion" option ON, they'll go on their way as soon as they are built. which is awesome. problem is, if they are built with enough XP to start with one or more free promotions ( as is often the case ) , they will start wondering around without asking the player what promotions they should take. which is a waste imho, cuz more often than not you could have given them mobility to make them reach their destination sooner.

so it would be nice if when "disciples automatically spread religion" is ON, they either:
1) ask you what promos they should get, THEN go on their religion-spreading mission
2) automatically choose mobility promotions if available. if not, combat will be fine I guess.

I prefer option 2

btw, does enabling this option only result in disciples automatically spreading, or do priests automatically start wondering around as well ( seeing as priests can spread religions) ? I didn't try it out with priests yet IIRC.

 

[Kael]

I thin this is a bad idea, for Orthus specifically. In my experience, Orthus is VASTLY more dangerous if he has 50-60 turns to build up XP in the wild before he goes all out attack. Back when Orthus rushed you as soon as he spawned, I never had any problem killing him with a single warrior defending a city, or two if I was unlucky. Now that he waits around before attacking... there are times when the only reason I can stop him at all is because he never promotes to March. If you want to make Orthus nasty, leave his current AI, and encourage him to promote to March. For the rest of the barbarians I think this is a great idea, mainly because it will stop them all hitting you at once, and will force you to actually bother to defend your borders in the first hundred turns.

I ran the tests. Currently Orthus wanders around in the wilderness. Hes dangerous if you are out exploring and come across him but he rarely enters player controlled areas. Hes most liekly to pass by a goody hut and end up gaurding it until the players get a big enough unit to kill him and take the goody.

Now he dives right into player controlled areas but he doesnt throw himself against cities unless he has a good chance of taking it (from a code level they now use AI_targetCity but without the MOVE_THROUGH_ENEMY flag so they won't suicide.

He is more vulnerable because he will be taking a bigger risk (wandering around in the woods is fairly safe) but he will also be a much more likely to kill civs, which is what he is meant to do. He will pillage, steal workers, force you to withdrawal your workers until he goes away or but up enough warriors to take him en masse.

Either way its a good thing, wandering around waiting to be hunted down is not what Orthus was intended to do. This is also important because we needed the Ai to be more aggressive if you spawn a boss unit out of a dungeon. They won't just wander off. They will harass you.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

That's good, because I suspect some of those boss monsters were just being deleted by the ai.

 

[MaxAstro]

I ran the tests. Currently Orthus wanders around in the wilderness. Hes dangerous if you are out exploring and come across him but he rarely enters player controlled areas. Hes most liekly to pass by a goody hut and end up gaurding it until the players get a big enough unit to kill him and take the goody.

Now he dives right into player controlled areas but he doesnt throw himself against cities unless he has a good chance of taking it (from a code level they now use AI_targetCity but without the MOVE_THROUGH_ENEMY flag so they won't suicide.

He is more vulnerable because he will be taking a bigger risk (wandering around in the woods is fairly safe) but he will also be a much more likely to kill civs, which is what he is meant to do. He will pillage, steal workers, force you to withdrawal your workers until he goes away or but up enough warriors to take him en masse.

Either way its a good thing, wandering around waiting to be hunted down is not what Orthus was intended to do. This is also important because we needed the Ai to be more aggressive if you spawn a boss unit out of a dungeon. They won't just wander off. They will harass you.

Really? From my experience Orthus wanders until roughly turn 130 (normal, prince), then at the same time every other barbarian in the world simultaneously decides to come knocking, he throws himself at your cities. Still, I suppose if he won't suicide against cities any more that's an improvement.

 

[xienwolf]

another small annoyance came to mind, hope it can get solved in 0.34

if you set "disciples automatically spread religion" option ON, they'll go on their way as soon as they are built. which is awesome. problem is, if they are built with enough XP to start with one or more free promotions ( as is often the case ) , they will start wondering around without asking the player what promotions they should take. which is a waste imho, cuz more often than not you could have given them mobility to make them reach their destination sooner.

so it would be nice if when "disciples automatically spread religion" is ON, they either:
1) ask you what promos they should get, THEN go on their religion-spreading mission
2) automatically choose mobility promotions if available. if not, combat will be fine I guess.

I prefer option 2

btw, does enabling this option only result in disciples automatically spreading, or do priests automatically start wondering around as well ( seeing as priests can spread religions) ? I didn't try it out with priests yet IIRC.

That option is base BtS. It only works for the disciples as a result. And if you have free XP for your Disciples to get Mobility with... TURN IT OFF! Then you can select Mobility yourself, and press "R" to set them to automatically spread religion. Alternatively, you could set the option to have your units automatically promote (though they'd probably not take mobility anyway)

 

[Yaotzin]

Does the food from ice for Ilians mean they can build cottages on it (assuming no farms due to no water..)?

Regarding Ancient Forest spread, could you make it speed dependent? 3% on quick is pretty awful..
Also, temples/groves etc should increase it if possible. And finally, for my inner perfectionist, could you give high priests a super-bloom spell or something, that converts regular to ancient? I really hate having spots of regular forest in my empire, plus it really sucks conquering other people as elves. You have to both plant forests and then wait for them to convert. On quicker speeds it's unlikely to happen before you win.

Can't wait to play Ilians!

 

[Fafnir13]

Really? From my experience Orthus wanders until roughly turn 130 (normal, prince), then at the same time every other barbarian in the world simultaneously decides to come knocking, he throws himself at your cities. Still, I suppose if he won't suicide against cities any more that's an improvement.

Used to be around 100 when the barbs came knocking (almost like clockwork in every game), but now it seems I'm seeing the same 130 pattern you are. My recent Ljosalfar game had a major swarm of them plus Orthus come marching in. Best use I've ever had of that world spell...

I do think I like this change. If he wanders in and creates a bother, it can actually be better then the jerk waiting around, becoming incredibly strong, then marching in with all his friends. If you're lucky, you'll know he's coming (hutted hunting, had a hawk constantly keeping an eye on him). If you're not so lucky, you'll be playing in lala builder land with no hope to survive.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

@xienwolf: yep, I know it's a vanilla civ option. I didn't know that "R" hotkey does exactly that. it will be useful, thanx

 

[Aroldo]

Isn´t there sort of a problem with the barbarian AI? In my experience rather than randomly harrassing all players it does basically nothing for a while, then it suddenly attacks the leading one with all it has - skeleton caravan across a continent, for example.

Very annoying and not so flavourful, no?

 

[marioflag]

I ran the tests. Currently Orthus wanders around in the wilderness. Hes dangerous if you are out exploring and come across him but he rarely enters player controlled areas. Hes most liekly to pass by a goody hut and end up gaurding it until the players get a big enough unit to kill him and take the goody.

Now he dives right into player controlled areas but he doesnt throw himself against cities unless he has a good chance of taking it (from a code level they now use AI_targetCity but without the MOVE_THROUGH_ENEMY flag so they won't suicide.

He is more vulnerable because he will be taking a bigger risk (wandering around in the woods is fairly safe) but he will also be a much more likely to kill civs, which is what he is meant to do. He will pillage, steal workers, force you to withdrawal your workers until he goes away or but up enough warriors to take him en masse.

Either way its a good thing, wandering around waiting to be hunted down is not what Orthus was intended to do. This is also important because we needed the Ai to be more aggressive if you spawn a boss unit out of a dungeon. They won't just wander off. They will harass you.

I had the same experience of Max Astro with Orthus, infact he was usually killed by me or AI the first turns he appeared.It's probably due to the fact that i usually play on Monarch so AI is more able to defend itself.I don't know if this suggestion would make him too strong for ai civs but what about giving him the support of an Orc Spearman or a Goblin so that he is not killed the first turn he attacks a city?Because attacking alone make him a too easy target to destroy.

Perhaps there could be barbarian units to support Orthus only on Raging barbarians?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

one last empire-management issue: could the city governor be changed so that it stops city growth before the city becomes unhappy/unhealthy? currently it's a pain to keep track of the status of all your cities if you have a large empire, and the governor seems to like having one unhappy face before it decides to stop growing :\

speaking of which, why no Civ4lerts in 0.34? they make the life of a civ player so much easier, I'm pretty sure everyone would love that

 

[TheJopa]

Could you increase chance that forest will burn if under fire? Currently forest fires last for dozens of turns, which is wierd.

 

[TheJopa]

speaking of which, why no Civ4lerts in 0.34? they make the life of a civ player so much easier, I'm pretty sure everyone would love that

I for one don't like them. Constant popups about 'this city is about to grow to 6' 'this just grew to 10' 'this is about to go unhappy' reduce the game for me from good feeling of running a magnificent empire to game for TEH R4Z0R P4WN micromanagement and maximizing efficiency.
But then again I'm a roleplayer at my heart. I prefer a good story and 'feel' over winning. I think that CIV is supposed to be a game of diplomacy, economy, wits and strategy, not the game of tweaking cities. Micromanagement is not bad, but it should not be prior to those four elements. You should be expected to have a rebellion or two, as all kingdoms always did, and CIV charm is in dealing with that (more luxury, suppressing with army, building entertainment, religion?) not in micromanaging so that city never grows big enough to rebel.


"Caesar! Rome is growing too big! We will soon be unable to control the citizens!"

"Very well. Order all peasants and slaves away from wheat fields from the north, forbid all excessive farming, and order those who worked fields into mines. Now Rome will never grow big enough to revolt, and problem solved!"

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

you have a point there TheJopa. but it's incredibly easy to just turn all the alerts off if you don't like them. or just those that annoy you of course. so for example you could get rid of those you just mentioned, and keep the ones that tell you when the other leaders are willing to trade a tech. unless you don't like those either

 

[sailors dirge]

i wish you wouldn't remove the guilds

 

[Skitters]

63. Forbidden Place and Winter Palace now negates colony maintenance on the continent they are on.

oooh...very handy for the Lanun in particular (...assuming they can get an Engineer in)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm thinking that Magnadine should regain his pre-BtS ability to capture defeated living barbarian units.

<PythonPostCombatWon>postCombatMagnadine(pCaster, pOpponent)</PythonPostCombatWon>

-----------------------------------

def postCombatMagnadine(pCaster, pOpponent):
	if pOpponent.getOwner() == gc.getBARBARIAN_PLAYER() and pOpponent.isAlive():
		pPlayer = gc.getPlayer(pCaster.getOwner())
		newUnit = pPlayer.initUnit(pOpponent.getUnitType(), pCaster.getX(), pCaster.getY(), UnitAITypes.NO_UNITAI, DirectionTypes.DIRECTION_SOUTH)
		newUnit.convert(pOpponent)

 

[jimi12]

i agree with MC. I have always missed old magnadine.

 

[orangelex44]

Yeah - until Magnadine beats on one of the Horsemen, or Orthus, or any Orc, really. That just doesn't make sense.