Giant and Undead civilization

[odalrick]

As far as unused mechanics, Fallow isn't a primary trait of any civ. Only Infernal have it, but for them it is just a minor trait to remove the builder aspect of gameplay, in favour of war.

Flavourwise, there is no civ that hates gods. Both would fit an undead civ like a glove.

I was thinking about making an Undead civ a while back. The remnants of a huge city from before the Age of Ice. The people died and were interred in the city tombs. The mages enacted a desperate plan to preserve the culture of the city, if not the lives of the inhabitants. A "soul bank" that draws in and preserves the soul, mind, spirit and whatever else makes identity, at the moment of death. As time went on, everyone died in the ice.

As people died, they turned to the gods for help, but no help was forthcoming. When they are awakened they remember this and conclude that the gods don't give a fig about them, and so reject the gods.

The "soul bank" wasn't perfect* though. It is difficult to restore someone fully. While solutions are sought for, most of the actual work is performed by non-sentient undead, overseen by the few that were successfully restored.

* The builders tried to consult the gods for advice, but got none. Yet another way they reveal their parasitic nature.


My plan was to give the civ leaders Agnostic and Fallow in addition to their normal traits. The first city they build gets the "Bottomless Tomb" wonder, the required building to build their unique unit, "Bonewagon"; a mane type unit.

All growth comes from building that unit in the capital, moving it to the city you want to expand and adding it to that city. I think it would be possible to balance that against every city growing independently from food for all other civs.

 

[Tarquelne]

The first city they build gets the "Bottomless Tomb" wonder,...
All growth comes from building that unit in the capital,

I think that's a good idea. Unique, nice background, and - perhaps most important - easy to actually do.

And I agree about balancing it. Though I suspect there might need to be a few limited-build "branch" tombs, or or some other mechanism to adjust the production rate over the course of a game.

 

[xienwolf]

Here's a fun idea for you:

When a unit with Immortal Dies, they lose the first listed Promotion that granted them Immortality, and are "reborn."

For the Mercurians, each time one of their own Living Units dies, they have a good chance of being reborn as an Angel, under Mercurian Control.


If you made it so that the Racial Promotion of the Undead Civilization granted Immortality, and Non-Living Status, then that means when they "Die" they are instead reborn in the Capitol, but are now a Living Unit (re-incarnation. But in a Civ of Undead, that is a bad thing!).



So, your options with this approach would be:

1. To allow an effect similar to the Mercurians where each of your Living Units who die has a chance to be reborn as the basic undead unit of the Civ (thus ensuring that you very rarely actually lose a unit. They just toggle back and forth between living and dead on a regular basis).
   
   Under this case you would want to ensure that it is pretty expensive to upgrade from the newly-undead unit you get when the Living units kick the bucket and return.
2. Allow the Civilization to cast a spell with any Living Unit in a Town that will "Properly Kill" the unit, to ensure re-birth back into the ranks of the dead. This costs a lot of resources in some manner or is hard to do, but re-applies the racial promotion to the unit (which means once again it is non-Living and Immortal flagged).

 

[Nor'easter]

Interesting ideas. I agree with those who say they're probably better for a modmod than the main FfH game.

For the main game what might be interesting would be to have more barbarian undead and barbarian giants, both of which would be able to spawn in players' territory. Not quite the same thing, but a way of getting more undead and giants into the game.

UNDEAD -- barbarian undead should be able to spawn anywhere, since presumably every city in even the most developed empire has graveyards, cemeteries, crypts, mausoleums, etc., from where undead could arise. You could have different strength undead, with the more powerful undead barbs likelier to spawn as the AC rises, or as a player's score rises, just like in D&D you encounter stronger opponents as you rise in XP and level. I roughly remember the undead in D&D from weakest to strongest were as follows: skeleton, zombie, ghoul, ghast, wraith, ghost, spectre, vampire. (I know in FfH vampires are not undead, so that's fine.)

GIANTS -- you could have barbarian giants spawn in mountain tiles. No civ can build improvements in mountains, so even if they're deep in your territory, they always remain wilderness. Someone mentioned the giants in D&D. When I used to play (a LONG time ago) they went from weakest to strongest as follows:

hill giant
stone giant
frost giant
fire giant
cloud giant
storm giant

Anyway, just some thoughts. Might be a way to keep things interesting in the late game, having giants come down from the mountains to wreak havoc, or undead pop up near a city and cause problems.

 

[Darksaber1]

That is not dead (or alive) which can eternal lie.
And with strange æons even death (or life) may die.
The undead have an eternity to make their Choices. Art is meaningless. What value in mastering anything, when all competition is dead. Art is a way to pass the aeons. Such value in creating things that take so long, impossible without these countless aeons, create such works that mortals and undying alike will be awed by it. What value in invention, when you have eternity to do all tasks. Such value in invention, which you can give to mortals, to ease their short span. For with eternity, anything is possible.-Musing on the Duality of the Undead.
Give one monkey a typewriter and eternity, and eventually it will write Hamlet.
And yes, I know their are undead civs now.

 

[Arctic Circle]

Well. Let me just point out that Jotnar development is an ongoing project (giant civ) and so I think is the Undead Civ(s). If anyone have ideas, graphics or anything they'd think fit the projects I am very easy to influence, and I think so is Tal.

 

[rocklikeafool]

I don't really care if someone posted this already. But if y'll will look in the Mods and Scenarios section, there are 2 undead civs and 1 giant civ. The Undead civs are called "The Legion of D'Tesh" (who need to be updated to patch J or L badly or at the very least to BTS Patch 3.17) and "The Scions of Patria". The Giant civ is called "The Jotnar".
I've played both undead civs and the giant civ. I found that "The Legion of D'Tesh" (a.k.a. the Legion) needs to be updated as it causes a CTD atm due to not bein patched right by the creator. However, they are sposed to be evil and are rule by the evil Lord D'Tesh. Think of them as Sauron's armies but smaller.
"The Scions of Patria" (a.k.a. Scions) are a nice civ, neutral and misunnerstood. They basically wanna rebuild the glory of Patria and are all sentient. They also consider the state of undeath to be a settin free process as the undead don't require food or drink (and several other things). Do the Undead still have sex? Sorry, had to ask.
"The Jotnar" are a very well done civ and are also neutral. They are, well, giants. They have very high powered units (str 9 for a Champion UU) like the Luchiurp. But to counter this overpowered state, many of their units have lil negative promotions like Enraged or Charmed upon build.
I enjoyed all 3 civs and reccomend everyone try them at least. Granted, the creator of the Legion needs to be pressured into updatin his civ. And the maker of the Scions has attached his civ to the wonderful Fall Further modmod (which has lots of new civs), so we have to wait til Fall Further is updated. But the wait, for at least the Scions, shouldn't be long. You can play the Jotnar is regular FfH, and I've found em no trouble in Fall Further either. Hope this helped.

 

[Arctic Circle]

Thank you for that Rocklikeafool..

Briefly. Also, Giants (Jotnar) have many small cities (only uses one grid square, not two) and their tier 3 and 4 units cost more gold in upkeep then normal. The next version of Jotnar you will also have Giants spawning (not production) witch will help balance the (only somewhat) more powerful units out. And yes there are hill giants, fire giants, trolls, tritons (sea giants), sea monsters and titans in the mod. Future versions will also include usage of Mountains in some way. They do not have a worldspell, but a unique wonder that more or less works like the great wall in vanilla civ (with the same wonderful graphics). Once it built, you need no longer worry about barbarians and other players with hidden nationality units.

 

[Tarquelne]

Once it built, you need no longer worry about barbarians and other players with hidden nationality units.

"Papers, please."
"ARRRRRRGH! ROWARGAHAHAH!"
"Sorry, sir. Papers, please."

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

I just downloaded this mod 2 days ago, and I was very disappoined by the lack of undead. Vampires are nice, but I was hoping for a completely undead faction. (I'm a fan of HoMM)

 

[Tarquelne]

I just downloaded this mod 2 days ago, and I was very disappoined by the lack of undead. Vampires are nice, but I was hoping for a completely undead faction. (I'm a fan of HoMM)

The FFH2 mods sub-forum has a couple of undead civ mods.

I don't know if you saw mention of that a few posts up and wanted to commant on the mod as a whole, or not. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't - threads can be a pain to read though, especially when you know they're largely moot. So:

Hey, Arctic Circle, how about editing the first post and adding some info on the Giant/Undead mods?