Gibbon Goetia

[Leon Kemai]

Hi all, been playing since v1 and FFH is offically my favourite mode ever.

Now the obligatory first post praise is out the way it is time to get on with what has caused me to finally comment after all this time. Its a long story but bare with me

As soon as the v3 came out I decided to give everything new and sneaky at go. Playing Svartalfar and founding Esus on a lake map (so I had borders with everyone) I had manage to sneak my way in everyone's good books while simultanously organising wars between all my neighbours (leaving myself out the fighting to expand into the wake of the carnage).

Unfortunantely eventually everyone went hippy on me; everyone vassle stated and defencive pacted each other. My nation's position in the rankings dropped to 3rd. To rectify this horrific "peace" would require the Horselords, who currently dominated the world and made it a hippy commune, to make some grave, almost suicidal decisions. Gibbon Goetia was dispached to do his best impression of the horselord.

My first turn as my bitter rival was joyfully destructive: I crippled his production, declared war on his friends (other than myself of course) and also dragging his vassle to war too (who were the elves who were the only nation that suspected I was up to no good). All my troops (including those usually guarding cities) charged mindlessly across the globe to their slaughter. The mayhem was delightful and the mighty empire was crumbling.

Now I was under the impression that this impersination would last 2 or 3 turns tops. However, I was a horselord for almost 20 turns and by the end of it I was starting to worry about how my own empire was getting on. When Gibbon Goetia's power finally finished and I regained control of my empire I had found that the computer player in control of my own empire in my absence had been causing similar destruction. They had used my world spell, managed to kill my hero and sent ALL my troops (now with hidden nationality) into the neighboring lands and got them all killed. Finally I descovered that (as the amagedon counter was dangerously high) the avatar had decided to have a merry stroll through my lands and set up shop in on of my (now unguarded) cities.

So summary then:
Gibbon Goetia's ability is amazingly powerful but suicidal currently. The computer player controlling your empire is just as deadly. I do have a couple of suggestions that people may like:

-Players continue to control their home nation. They do one turn as their impersonation target and then switch back to their own empire to do a turn with them too. Then the rest of the nations take their turns and then it all loops around again until Gibbon's power wears off.

-The ability spawns a "fake leader" unit in the target civ's capital that has the abilities to end the ability prematurely (with possibly a 25% chance of Gibbon Goetia coming back alive) and/or the ability to temporaryly switch back to your original civ.

-Limit the max number of turns the ability lasts for (the boring, tame idea).

-Give some bonuses to your home nation while the ability is in effect so not even the computer player can screw it all up in your absence.


Anyone like any of these ideas? Discuss

 

[princecharles]

I do like the idea of playing as both. You could put whatever script their using to switch your civ and make it activate everytime either civ ends theri turn, switching your control to the next one. If you tried trading with the other civ, the comp would be controlling them until you ended your turn, at which point it'd control the other civ.

It just doesn't make much sence that suddenly instead of being whichever ruler your chose, you have to become Gibbon for 20 turns w/o looking back.

 

[it-ogo]

I believe 20 turns is too much. 3 is enough. In 20 turns you can satrve out all population. Even 3 is overpowered: with spells like ring of flame you can make war without diplomacy. Etc.

And yes, the best decision is to perform each turn for both civs. If it is not possible - to freeze up all units and give something like sanctuary for Gibbon's owner.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

We'll be going with the boring idea for the next patch, but please continue to give feedback.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

after this review im definately giving the Evil Monkey a shot. i never thought id try him, purely because of the name.

i like the idea of controlling both empires, but the Fake leader one is also good.

Another idea is that all of the enemy civs stuff converts to your civ for the duration of the spell, and then it converts back at the end of the Monkey Madness. that way you controll your own citie and the enemy cities stuff at the same time, in the same turn. the problem with this though is that it will be difficult to destinguish your troops from their troops.

 

[Dark Russell]

Rather than limiting the number of turns, give an option to end the control every turn. This way, you can decide how long your willing to give control of you empire to the AI while you try to sabotage your opponent. You could also leave the cap at 10 turns or so (based on game speed).

 

[kumquatelvis]

I seems like even one turn in charge of an opponent would be enough to ruin them (what with all the war declarations and the like).

 

[Seventh Star]

Can impersonate be used on other players in multiplayer? It seems like a nightmare to code, horrifyingly unfair, and completely unfun.

 

[vorshlumpf]

This mechanic does seem rather ambitious.
For what it's worth, I'd never use this if it meant allowing the computer to control my own empire, even for one turn.

Flavour-wise, I think this would be ideal:
- Gibbon uses this ability to impersonate any leader
- The impersonation can be ended by Gibbon at any time (Gibbon remains alive)
- At the end of each turn of impersonation, there is a chance of the imposter being discovered
- This chance of discovery would be increased by engaging in activity unbecoming of the true leader (e.g., declaring war if the nation had been peaceful for decades; breaking alliances; starving cities; ...)
- This chance could also be affected by other factors (e.g., state religion is Empyrean; the leader has been a victim of Gibbon before; ...)

 

[Leon Kemai]

We'll be going with the boring idea for the next patch, but please continue to give feedback.

So is it the official position that a lower limit is as only a partial solution and are still considering and discussing other ways to improve it (which may or may not come close to what I suggested) or as far as you are willing to go on the issue (for the time being), either because you think that the lower limit should cover it or you just have bigger proverbial fish to fry at the moment?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

There isn't an official position at the moment; it's an experimental effect that sounds cool on paper, but we need feedback on how it is in play.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I definately think you should still be in control of your old civ, controlling one then the other like in a hot seat game.

I would like it if you actual actions (like declaring war, leaving cities unguarded, using world spells, etc) effected your chance of being detected. If you didn't do anything unusual, you should be able able to avoid detection indefinitely.

I really wish that you could conduct diplomacy while controlling the other civ, but doing so should make being discovered very likely. The ability to disband or gift units (with a very good chance it would mean being discovered) would be nice too.

It seems a little unfair that you can't disband/gift units, but you can use spells like Sacrifice (in a city with a Demon's Altar), Arena Battle (in a Balseraph city with an arena), or burnign blood, or send boatloads of units into the Maelstrom unique feature without penalty.

Being caught impersonating a leader should cause a big diplomatic penalty with the civ leader you were impersonating, and a smaller but still significant malus with his friends.

I would like it if you had the ability to give up control voluntarily, without getting caught. Perhaps Gibbon himself should (instead of dieing) be switched to the control of the civ whose leader he is impersonating , located in that civ's capital. If you can move him back into your old civ's territory and gift him to "yourself" then you could give up control of that civ and have the ability to use his spell again. However, each time you move Gibbon there would be a pretty good chance of getting caught, which would mean losing the unit and getting the diplomatic penalties.

 

[Brokenbone]

The leaders of all the FFH civs have all these completely glorious backstories, but I wonder what happens to 'em when Gibbon strolls in to use his power?

...

Anyhow, wonder if a less ambitious mechanic might be just be impersonating the nationality of other units, or conferring (temp or permanent) the same on other units? I.e., dress up your troops in someone else's uniforms, tweak the nose of a third party, and see if that third party will attack whichever nation you framed? Could be a ton of spells though (Impersonate Amurites, Impersonate Calabim, Impersonate x, y, z). Not saying I don't like the flavor, it's a neat implementation, but still, I have a hard time picturing Cassiel or really any FFH leader bursting out of a closet after X turns and hollering to be untied.

 

[Mewtarthio]

Not saying I don't like the flavor, it's a neat implementation, but still, I have a hard time picturing Cassiel or really any FFH leader bursting out of a closet after X turns and hollering to be untied.

Great. Now I've got this image of an enraged Sabathiel trying to clean up the mess Gibbon Goetia made:

"What do you mean, you thought he was me? He launched an unprovoked attack on the Elohim, withdrew all our troops from the Infernal front, baked the Svartlafar a welcome cake in our capital, and officially declared that every Sunday would be "Make Jokes About How Stupid Sabathiel Is" Day!"

"Well, we figured, you know, angels work in mysterious ways, so maybe you had a plan?"

 

[Celeborn]

Great. Now I've got this image of an enraged Sabathiel trying to clean up the mess Gibbon Goetia made:

"What do you mean, you thought he was me? He launched an unprovoked attack on the Elohim, withdrew all our troops from the Infernal front, baked the Svartlafar a welcome cake in our capital, and officially declared that every Sunday would be "Make Jokes About How Stupid Sabathiel Is" Day!"

"Well, we figured, you know, angels work in mysterious ways, so maybe you had a plan?"

... Now THAT made me laugh.

And it also put in my mind a slightly different scenario, one where Hyborium makes peace with everybody, hugs tiny animals and sings Kumbaya...

 

[Larklight]

This isn't directly limited to this ability, but to soemthing else. What ifg there was a lesser ability that would allow your sleeper cell to become their minister for war, or trade?