Fun idea that needs work - fantasy era in normal game

[Capt_Blondbeard]

I've been working on a little mod, just wondering if anyone else had a similar idea. Basically I am trying to add a short "fantasy era" to a normal game.

What I've been able to do so far, is import a few fantasy units, use them as "animals", then extend the animal era into the classical.

The main problem is how to keep them from overwhelming the game. I wanted them to be tougher than animals, but not wipe everybody out. I have so far been unable to satisfactorily delay them. I tried putting a prereq tech on them, but then they showed up on the build list, as soon as you research that tech, which looks pretty stupid. I also tried to limit them as a world unit, but then you got the message "barbarians have made the unit ogre" when they were created, which I also didn't like. Max team or player instances seem to have no effect (every barb unit is it's own team??).

The ideal way would be to add a whole new class, that could be limited to a specific era, like animals or barbs, but I think there's some pretty hefty programming involved.

The other idea would be to tie them to an event - maybe the founding of a religion - i.e. an "old" religion thereby dies out, and the last followers release a few nasty critters in their final rage..

In the end, to keep the game balanced, I made the fantasy units with a limited max combat (like siege units), and the explanation "ogres are clumsy in combat and tend to leave survivors".

Any thoughts/suggestions?

 

[Tholish]

I had the same problem with my mod, which starts in the industrial and replaces various animals with an array of barbaric types. Even when I had dealt with it they showed up on advanced start, and when I made them not available in advanced start they still showed up in AI Civs. I'll try to remember how I fixed it. For one thing, you can modify GameInfos/EraInfos for which eras have animals. In the little mod below I put in an hill, forest, and arctic dwelling Ogre in place of all other animals, and animals only appear in the Classical and Medieval eras.

Other than that, he simplest way to limit a unit to an era is through prerequisite and upgrade. I think once the second upgrade after a unit is available, the unit no longer shows up in the build offers. So once you have Swordsman and Axeman you still get offers to build Warrior, but once you get Maceman the Warrior is gone and you only get offers to build Swordsman and Axeman. So, maybe you could have the Ogre upgrade to Warrior or something.

I also think you SHOULD let them overwhelm the game, in a balanced way. What you could do is have the whole tech tree branch after the medieval era, into a fantasy tree and a standard tree. Also maybe you could make Minor Civs that start in the medieval era and have only the fantasy branch available, and only have these monster units. Paper scissors rock could get really wild. High tech stuff could be just massively susceptible to the slightest magic, so that a low level wizard unit with like a 5 combat would have various promotions available that could give like a 1000 percent bonus vs armor, or helecopter or aircraft or whatever. But then, a Knight could take the wizard down easily. But then a tank could take out the knight. Magic would have its own bonuses and rels and corporations etc...

If I was doing this I would stick to XML. You are saying simple idea that needs to be done. Right, that means basically XML.

 

[Vrenir]

I've been toying with this idea myself as well. My desire is for a fantasy system that can essentially be incorporated into the normal game and toggled in an option at the beginning of the game. The trick, I think, is to tie it to a single feature or set of features that can be toggled, such as religions and corporations or unique geographic features like in Fall from Heaven. Picture the following:

You discover a unique feature on the map; there are probably only a few across the whole globe. Until taken within your borders, it spawns fantasy barbarian units. Once you take control of it, the feature becomes a source of some type of manna (either generic or specialized). With that resource (unable to be gained in any other fashion), you can then build the headquarters building of a new corporation or guild. This guild is then capable of producing more of the special manna resource in other cities that it is spread to. It also grants magic-based promotions to units built in those cities. Your riflemen might now be able to throw fireballs or summon ghosts! Perhaps, there is even a script that can spawn a new magic-based civ in the guild's capital, similar to Hyborium and Basium in Fall from Heaven. You might be playing as Washington of the fire-wielding Americans who are fiercely battling Ramesses of the water-based Egyptians when your chief magic city suddenly revolts and becomes the headquarters of some fire demon who has used the guild's offer of power to spearhead his own earthly empire. Further craziness ensues.

 

[Tholish]

No need to toggle, the toggle is loading the mod.

Simple way is make this feature where your barb units spawn, just because that's their terrain native, but also this feature is where the new Manna bonus appears. Add a tech, Magic, that requires, say, Aesthetics as a prereq. It reveals basic Manna and is the prereq of the entire parallel tech tree. Maybe make it unresearchable: you have to get it from a goody hut, and the only goody huts left by the time you can research it will be in the dangerous magic barb zone. Maybe also have it granted by a random event. Or add a Great Person type that can bestow it, and is built up only by a few of the standard Wonders. In any given game, maybe nobody will ever get it!

In addition to the Magic guilds producing various flavors of super manna, you could have hill Improvements that struct additional magical resources, using a <iDiscoverRand>1000</iDiscoverRand> tag to make some resource sure to appear after a while, but not necessarily the first one available immediately. Stonehenge or Oracle building art would look good for these. The guild screen from crossroads of the world could give you 11 corporations, maybe even the same art could be used, though keeping the regular corporations for the regular tech tree would involve cutting and pasting and reducing the magical guilds to just 4: air, earth, water and fire obviously.

So, obviously the next step is the alternate tech tree. The magical techs should only be Classical, Medieval and Rennaissance, situated down under the regular tech tree in the advisor, and there should be maybe 20 of them but all much more expensive.

...........................................................Aesthetics (classical)
...........................................................Manna (classical)
....................Elemental Manna (medieval)......................................................Manna Nodes (medieval)
Fire-Magic Water-Magic Earth-Magic Air-Magic (all medieval)..............................Magic Guilds (medieval)
......................................Specific Advanced Spells (rennaissance)
......................................Technology Synergizing Magics (rennaissance)

Best not to make it too derivative from FfH, other than stealing art and as much as possible to use the Age of Ice mod for this so as to minimize upload size.

 

[Kael]

Might be cool to have a few different ethnic varieties of "monsters" in different areas. Dwarves and giants up in northern europe. Goblins and Ogres like monsters in asia. Strange jackel headed men, scorpions and monster crocodiles in africa. Powerful animal creatures with magical ability in the americas. Minotaurs and centaurs in greece.

Make a few unique ones that represent mythological monsters for that region and it could be cool.

If your using an earth map its easy enough to place them. Otherwise you may want to have the type of monsters that spawn be dependant on the player civilizations that are nearby. So the vikings will be fighting dwarves and giants while the greeks have minotaurs and centaurs spawn by them.

 

[Capt_Blondbeard]

I like the ethnic monsters idea. I think a whole new tech tree is going a little more fantasy than I had in mind - I was more thinking of something to add a little spice to the classical era. Is there an easy way to make a unit spawn rarely, or not at all (then I could release them a few at a time during a random event)

 

[frekk]

I tried putting a prereq tech on them, but then they showed up on the build list, as soon as you research that tech, which looks pretty stupid. I also tried to limit them as a world unit, but then you got the message "barbarians have made the unit ogre" when they were created, which I also didn't like. Max team or player instances seem to have no effect (every barb unit is it's own team??).

The ideal way would be to add a whole new class, that could be limited to a specific era, like animals or barbs, but I think there's some pretty hefty programming involved.

Why not just make them UUs for the barbarian civ? I don't know if that's exactly what you had in mind but it would work fine and it's easy.

 

[Tholish]

Yeah, Capt Blondbeard, make me a list of units and where to get them and I can do that for you. I'll do it just the way I did in my future mod, where I gave the barbs Keshik as their unique unit and all the other civs get their unique unit as a replacement for Longbow, except the barbs will have a fantasy unit replacement for each. I can also make the barbs spawn faster if you like.