"Fire" Developer Diary

[Kael]

Nice! So what units abandon you when you switch religions? Still just heroes or all religious units?

Just heroes right now. Though its all coded through the SDK now, so there is an attribute called bAbandon. If that is set on a unit then he abandons the civ if his state religion or civic requirement isn't maintained (we also added a prereqCivic attribute). So anyone that wants to play with those on more units will easily be able to use the editor to do so.

 

[Maniac]

In other news, I integrated Sureshots excellent tech tree layout this morning. Whiole I was looking through her changes I also cut the Liberilism and Constitution techs as she had done.

You mean you took over the layout only, or all the changes to prerequisites as well?

 

[Kael]

You mean you took over the layout only, or all the changes to prerequisites as well?

Layout basically. I did make a few modifications based on her prereq's. Golem Mastery requires machinery instead of construction as she had done. Metal Casting is now a peer tech of iron working instead of requiring iron working. But mostly its just her layout.

 

[Yoshi2942]

sweet, I like the abandon feature -- I wonder, if it was applied to EVERY unit out there, how would that affect the AI? Would the AI even consider the impact changing religeons/civics will have upon their strength?

 

[Bad Player]

It would seem that you have a very easy way of determining who contributed most to Armegeddon by means of the counter. Track who contributed the most points and voila, winner.

I like that idea! Perhaps a victory condition could be something like contributing 200 Armageddon points?

 

[Xuenay]

Here is a screenshot of one of the minor improvements. If you go to change a civic or state religion that will cause units to abandon you, you are given a warning.

Good change. Though, I imagine that especially beginners might be a bit confused if the message is as vague as it is ("lose units? does it mean I'll lose a single unit or half of all my units?"). Could it be improved to "changing your state religion will cause these units to desert you (list)"? If that's too complex, simply rewording the static text to "changing your state religion will cause any heroes affiliated with this religion to abandon you" might help.

 

[BeefontheBone]

^ My thoughts exactly - a list (check for any units with the requirement you're about to ditch) would be much better, providing that you can avoid having to check EVERY unit the player owns, as that'd get very time-consuming. Keeping a list somewhere (much easier to add an extra check at onUnitBuilt or something) might work. *shrugs*

 

[Nikis-Knight]

It is probably a *tad* bit late for idea submissions for Fire.. But what the heck, I'll bust that concept up and post an idea..

Actually, it's a tad early
Ideas are certainly welcome to come in as you start playing/testing it!

 

[miracle]

Your right, there will be a node there, but you dont have to improve it.

I again about nodes, that will be created after killing barbarian heroes, created by Armageddon Counter.

Does these mana nodes created at the place where you kill such hero?
In this way it can be not true 'award' for the winner.
For example - some Good nation is at war with evil nation. Goodies are in assault and deeply in the terrytory of evil ones. There Ars come to world. Just near the forces of Good and Evils. But on the territory of Evils. And attack Good ones.
Good-nation kills Ars and Death Node is created.
Later Good nation assault have no success, they retreat and declare truce.

Oh.
With this killing of Ars they just present a fresh Death Node to their enemy

The same if such hero will be killed in any far away land, where to build colony is unreasonable.

May be such mana source can be created as special unit, who can build mana-building in your city, like it is done with Dragon Hoard. In this way it will be a really nice reward!

 

[Kael]

I again about nodes, that will be created after killing barbarian heroes, created by Armageddon Counter.

Does these mana nodes created at the place where you kill such hero?
In this way it can be not true 'award' for the winner.
For example - some Good nation is at war with evil nation. Goodies are in assault and deeply in the terrytory of evil ones. There Ars come to world. Just near the forces of Good and Evils. But on the territory of Evils. And attack Good ones.
Good-nation kills Ars and Death Node is created.
Later Good nation assault have no success, they retreat and declare truce.

Oh.
With this killing of Ars they just present a fresh Death Node to their enemy

The same if such hero will be killed in any far away land, where to build colony is unreasonable.

May be such mana source can be created as special unit, who can build mana-building in your city, like it is done with Dragon Hoard. In this way it will be a really nice reward!

You're right about all of it. The node is a reward most of the time. But there will be times where it ends up being a reward for someone else (or possible that an Ai civs will kill them in your lands).

Speaking of which we are seeing a lot more us against them battles with "Fire". That makes sense, that was what we wanted to do. But Loki and I were both surprised to see something in Vanilla neither of us knew about because we just hadn't been involved in these sorts of conflicts before.

I was playing the Bannor, but I founded the Runes and was generally staying out of the conflict. My Neighbor Falamar adopted the Runes and made a nice insulating barrier between me and the rest of the world. The Grigori were in the one stretch of land that was most appealind and their adventurers were starting to get a little to friendly (and powerful) so I crushed them.

At this point I really have double the normal starting area, since I claimed all of the Grigori's and significant borders only with Falamar (who loves me) and the Elohim (who to this point were good neighbors).

Then Hyborem enters the game, summoned by the Sheaim (who I hadn't met yet). That is followed closely behind by the arrival of the Mercurians, summoned by Amelanchier. That was bad news for Falamar who had been squabbling with Amelanchier for the whole game. Amelanchier and Basium quickly go to war with the Sheaim and the Infernals. Then both sides go looking for help, the Elohim jump in on Amelanchiers side and Falamar jumps in on the Sheaims (because he hates Amelanchier).

I would have sat out expect that my friend Falamar is a lot of talk but no actual bite. His score starts droping quickly. Unable to sit back and watch my fellow Runes civ get taken out (and seeing some prime Elohim land drained of guards) I declare war against the Elohim and jump in. I really just wanted a decent place to stage attacks on Amelanchier but when I hit the place I was planning on running operations out of I see Basiums angels flooding out Amelachiers lands and into Falamars.

I setup some high level troops in a defensible location and started trying to keep them from going into Falamars lands. It wasn't working, there were to many. Then the Mercurians took Falamars capital.

My location was close to Falamars capital so I saw it captured. Realizing only a few injured angels survived the assult I moved my troops in to kill them. Thats when I saw the option "Do you want to return control of the city to the Lanun?"

I had never seen it before, I had never fought to defned one of my allies cities, I had never been in a war where we were really fighting as one side against the other. All very good things and made me really enjoy the changes in "Fire".

 

[Sureshot]

What do you mean? The first public version will be available on the 16th.

In other news, I integrated Sureshots excellent tech tree layout this morning. Whiole I was looking through her changes I also cut the Liberilism and Constitution techs as she had done.

I will probably also be cutting the Armageddon tech (and changing units/rituals that needed it to a armagedddon count requirement instead). So instead of requiring the Armageddon and Golem Mastery techs to build the mithril golem he will probably only require the Golem Mastery tech and a minimum Armageddon Count.

nice, tho wondering if you used the Tech Tree only mod or the most recent version of my main modmods tech tree? the difference is very minor and non-game effecting, just moves a few techs down 1 y-wise under guilds to make room for guilds and mercentilism to be on the same x position... doesnt affect anything but looks prettier than my tech tree only version, thats prolly the only thing about the Tech Tree only mod that i still found ugly heh (might be another change or two im not thinking of, but if so minor).

 

[TheJopa]

Nice, Kael, I love to hear stories like that! Plus, we learned that Basium is summoned, and probably through Basium Gate wonder
Indeed, it would be nice if warning showed list of units which will abandon you, or at least change text to 'some units' so that it wont confuse new players. And I would definitely set priests to abandon you. In my opinion it is exploit to follow leaves for 10 turns just to get priests and then retun to say runes. It is also not 'realistic', and AI can't do that. But perhaps it is just my opinion.

 

[Kael]

Nice, Kael, I love to hear stories like that! Plus, we learned that Basium is summoned, and probably through Basium Gate wonder
Indeed, it would be nice if warning showed list of units which will abandon you, or at least change text to 'some units' so that it wont confuse new players. And I would definitely set priests to abandon you. In my opinion it is exploit to follow leaves for 10 turns just to get priests and then retun to say runes. It is also not 'realistic', and AI can't do that. But perhaps it is just my opinion.

Trying to find a good balance on that. The real reason heroes abandon you isnt because its "realistic" but because we didnt want to make religion swapping a overly efficient strategy. If you get a few priests of different religions thats not a huge deal, if you grab up all the heroes from 3 of the religions thats a problem.

 

[Sureshot]

would be nice if heroes lost on religious swappings were made buildable again

 

[Love]

Or go to another civ... Maybe those whith most religous influence...

 

[Quetz]

Everything so far sounds great, but what I REALLY want to know is... is that annoying info screen sticking fixed yet?

 

[Sureshot]

think they removed the sticking part..

also, about religions, it might be nice if on the religions screen the religions were ordered, Order, then Runes, then Leaves, then OO, then Ashen, then Cult, to go along with the alignment scheme

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

would be nice if heroes lost on religious swappings were made buildable again

Maybe with all their promotions and a increased hammer cost per exp. point. So the here just moves to a civ that follows his believe and the increased cost to balance things. (About 2 hammers per xp would be fine.)

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Maybe with all their promotions and a increased hammer cost per exp. point. So the here just moves to a civ that follows his believe and the increased cost to balance things. (About 2 hammers per xp would be fine.)

Yeah, this would be good, though I doubt it could be easily implemented.

 

[Sureshot]

ya, where as im hoping its an easy matter to just set the unit to "unbuilt" again like it was before it was built