FlavourMod 2

[Jean Elcard]

Version 2.6.0 changelog:

• Add: New Preference: Isolation
• Add: Flavour for the Balseraphs: Dye, Silk, Cotton, Sheep
• Change: Compatibility to Fall from Heaven 0.40x
• Change: Marsh will be only added to maps without Marsh
• Change: Malakim gain a small preference for Plains
• Change: Sidar lose Riverside preference
• Change: Grigori and Sidar lose negative Mobility preference
• Change: Grigori and Sidar gain Isolation preference
• Change: Metals allowed in Jungle and Forest
• Change: Banana and Sugar allowed on Marsh with Jungle
• Change: Rice allowed on Marsh
• Update: Seven05's Erebus Continent map script v2.0
• Update: Cephalo's Perfect World map script v2.0

Download link in the first post.

For most of the changes you will have to thank Gekko instead of me. He is always a great source for ideas. I'm only the one who is coding them.

The most notable change should be the Isolation preference. It favours starting location on different land masses or at the least as far away from the main crowd of civs as possible.

If you have some more ideas for the placing of ressources please tell me. The ones in the change list were the one I thought of first.

What do you think of giving the Orcs the ability to be not affected by jungle unhealthyness?

 

[Valkrionn]

Love the new isolation preference. Should make Sidar starts much more flavourful. Personally, I say go ahead with the Clan change. Suits the background, and would allow them to do better in a flavourful location. Maybe not thrive, but not starve either.

 

[Jules.lt]

It's a good idea but it's a slippery slope... Is this mod's purpose to place the civs in flavourful locations or to change the civs so that they fare better there?

Not that I would mind if it did both, but you might have more requests of this kind coming

 

[Jean Elcard]

You are right, it's a slippery slope and I will try to make it clear (if I decide to work it in), that this change would be an exception. In the beginning this mod was all about flavourful starts, but for some time now it's becoming something more than that, if you think of giant maps, extended end of winter etc. I'm happy I didn't call the mod only FlavourSTARTS.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

awesome job on 2.6

I think the Clan change is a good idea. sure, it gives the orcs a slight advantage, but you gotta consider that they will probably start near jungle i.e. crappy terrain, so it all balances out.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The Against the Grey scenario seems to indicate that the Sidar should probably have a preference for starting in Marshes.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

it could be nice to set marshes to appear even in some grassland-heavy areas instead of just in jungles. around rivers I guess.

I mean, I'm pretty sure marshes exist even in non-jungle climates in the world. we have some of those where I live, and there's definitely no jungle to be seen around

 

[xienwolf]

It may be "beyond the scope" for what you intend to do with FlavourMod, but I have had a LOT of 1 or 2 tile start locations on Erebus script. It would be nice if you could help to fix that with FlavorMod by ensuring that landmass is added to any start which is well below the landmass of the average start location (so that it doesn't artificially expand on an islands type map where you SHOULD start with little land area, but does fix things up in things like Erebus, where it was a freak of nature that put you there).

Not sure if the best solution would be just enough land to allow for a decent city (but keeping the starting tile as a port for the poor "I don't want to move!" AI players), or attempting to connect it to the nearest other landmass.

 

[Valkrionn]

Any chance of including your "Avoid City Unhappiness/Unhealth" buttons with Flavourmod? I love those in FF, and would love to see them available for other mods.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'm just gonna HAVE TO second that

 

[Jean Elcard]

Version 2.6.1 changelog:

• Change: Compatibility to Fall from Heaven 0.40y

Download link in the first post.

Concerncing the latest posts:

One of the next versions will contain the new tag <IgnoreFeatureHealthPercent> or something like this, so the Orcs won't be affected by Unhealth from Jungles any longer.

The Against the Grey scenario seems to indicate that the Sidar should probably have a preference for starting in Marshes.

Thanks for the hint. Forgot to add it to 2.6.1, but it'll be in the next version.

it could be nice to set marshes to appear even in some grassland-heavy areas instead of just in jungles. around rivers I guess.

Can't think of anything speaking against this proposal.

It may be "beyond the scope" for what you intend to do with FlavourMod, but I have had a LOT of 1 or 2 tile start locations on Erebus script.

I'll take a look at the Erebus script instead. Maybe I'll be able to change the starting position completely in cases like this. I wouldn't like to add land tiles.

Any chance of including your "Avoid City Unhappiness/Unhealth" buttons with Flavourmod?

I should never have invented these buttons. Everybody seems to want them.

However I promise to think about adding them to FlavourMod. If there wouldn't be the issue with them occasionally failing in multiplayer games, I would have added them a long time ago, but I couldn't figure out the reason for this in the past. I'll have to take a closer look at simultaneous turns I suppose.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

about the avoid unhappy/unhealthy buttons, I guess you could make them an option or add an option in the .ini file to disable them for multiplayer?

about marshes: having a couple marsh tiles in riverside grassland areas would make those areas a little less uber compared to everything else, which I think would be nice. what would be even nicer is being able to get rid of the penalty for marshes. one possibility is having sanitation give +1 food to marsh tiles. another would be to have scorch able to terraform them, like in FF. however, in FF scorch turns them to plains, I think grassland would be more appropriate. and while I'm at it, I might also mention that imho scorch should also be able to turn tundra into grassland

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

the svartalfar could get a preference for reagents, which would complement well with their love of mana. they could also get a slight preference for tundra, since they are the Winter Court

btw, you could add forest deer from FF, the ljolsafar would be happy to get them for their fyrdwells

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

sorry for the double post

if you choose to add forest deer, there are a couple things you could do: set them back to only give +1 food unimproved ( back to normal ) , and set arctic deer to give +2. I'd also rename arctic to "moose" , since that sounds better imho. I'd set ljolsalfar to only be able to build fyrdwells with deer, not moose. moose are strong bulky animals, quite different from the agile deer the elves would want as mounts I think. that way they could get back the preference for deer they lost a while ago ( I think it was removed because it made them too likely to start in icy places ) .

 

[Verdian]

People are advocating MORE marshes? And for the Sidar? Whenever I play as the Sidar in Erebus Mountains, I always start in swamp jungle. So despite the fact that it may make sense lore wise, I do not think it is balanced to have a civ start in negative terrain type that they cannot improve or benefit from.

 

[notque]

That's my only problem with Flavourmod. It was really cool when the changes were coming together, but the more that negative things are around some, and positive around others, it really unbalances the game.

 

[JDexter]

If I understand the starting plot selection correctly, you two complainers are not fair to FlavourMod.

What happens after map creation is that the BEST spots are selected as starting plots - and only then they are distributed according to flavour considerations.
So out of the pool of starting plots there might be one that has hills close by and dwarves get it. Another one might be around a lot of coast and perls, so the Lanun get it.
And then there might be one that has a swamp or two next to its BigFatCross - now the Sidar would get it and it wouldn't be worse for the city. Just the surrounding area would fit better.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

That's my only problem with Flavourmod. It was really cool when the changes were coming together, but the more that negative things are around some, and positive around others, it really unbalances the game.

not really. this USED TO BE true, but not anymore. now flavourmod has a couple features that will gurantee that all starts are balanced. the food balancing function will make sure that no one gets a start without enough food, and the forest/jungle softening function will make sure that no one starts surrounded by lots and lots of jungle ( worst scenario ) or forests ( too many forests can be bad as you won't be able to improve the lands till you reach mining ) . so as of the latest version of flavourmod, starts are actually more prone to be balanced WITH flavour starts than without it imho. the issues many people have been having with icy/desert/hilly starts are due to Erebus mapscript, NOT flavourmod. last but not least, flavourmod just shuffles around the starting positions that the mapscript provided, in order to make them fit best: it doesn't force its own starting positions. so basically this just means that a certain start will go to the civ which is fittest to exploit it, which is hardly crippling, quite the opposite.

 

[notque]

Oh, then it's been improved quite a bit. I need to try it again! Thanks!

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

a couple suggestions about a few unique features:

the Sheaim could get a slight preference to start near Bradeline's well, seeing as the well is involved with summoning demons

the Lanun could get a slight preference for Maelstrom, it seems like they would be the ones most prone to explore the depths of the swirling seas

and, the Scions could get a preference for the remnants of patria ( if they don't already ) . they could also get a slight preference for the Broken Sepulcher since Barbatos has been caged in there by Kylorin during the age of magic.