Great general mechanism from warlords?

[xienwolf]

Don't even need the altar if you get enough GG in a single city. Ride of the Nine Kings + Form of the Titan + 2 Civics = 18 XP. Toss in 4 GG and you have Wane-on-Build horsemen.

 

[Tlalynet]

That would be deadly... 1 GP per turn...

You really have to kill sidar early game if you play against them...

 

[xienwolf]

Ah, but if you attack them early you give them more GG faster.... So it is unsafe to attack until you are certain of victory Lovely catch 22.

 

[Darkheart]

Just a thought about mechansm. Does surviving a fireball or meteor attack ( summoned unit) count as a victory? If so, should it count towards generating a GG? It may also be that if you can't discriminate between a valid victory and surviving a spell effect then it may skew the idea.

 

[Sarisin]

Yes, I think there would be quite a few questions on whether or not some aspects of FFH2 would generate GG pts. Another example might be when units withdraw/flee from battle - they seem to get XP. Would they get GG pts?

I never played BtS that much so I don't have a whole lot of experience with GGs. However, I normally have plenty of wars in my games (I always use AggAI) so I think I would enjoy generating them.

I have to say I enjoy getting the Great Commanders and try to build the buildings/Wonders that give you pts. for them. I always try to get Military Tradition. I like using one to get a Command Post (not a big deal if you are playing a civ with ORG trait) and I like attaching them to units to exceed the XP cap against barbs (again not an issue if you are playing a civ with the RAI trait). Also, I have to say I always try to stockpile one GC in case of an unexpected invasion so I can quickly recruit some shock troops to defend.

I agree that I would definitely go for the GG if pts could be garnered somehow from killing barbs. I always play with the raging barbs option selected, and, IMO they usually provide more of a challenge (especially in the early going) that the ai civs do. In one of my typical games I kill 100s, if not 1,000 barbs and it would be nice to get some pts. for that.

 

[Tlalynet]

Hmm, surviving a spell is a good question. I think surviving spells or wining with spells does add with the counter now. I should check it sometime.

Very true Xien, the Sidar are always a dangerous foe.

 

[Rod]

At first I need to say, that I also love Great Generals , but as they are implemented in the current BTS version they can not be imported into FFH.

They would be simply broken !

I mean have you noticed how fast you ramp up XP in FFH ?

So there have to be numerous tweaks for the Great Generals and I believe that it is better to leave them out alltogether.
In FFH Great General would just another toy for an already defenseless AI.

One day or the other I will publish a game story. It is ridiculious how you can push the AI from on end to the other already from the early start. The mechanism that makes this possible are (unfortunately) the overpowered Promotions, the quick-accumulating XPs and the broken Heroes...

 

[Darkheart]

Yes Rod it's part of the fun of FFH2 but it it can also have indirect compounding affects that throw out the balance.

Another one to consider (and I don't wanna be the harbinger of Doom here ) :-

There's a problem of game speed scaling:- on quick games you have quite a low unit moves to GPP/turn ratio whereas on epic, and even more so on marathon that ratio changes quite dramatically. Although the number of turns by game speed is linear, I believe (I haven't done a numbers test), that the number of combats would be closer to a square function. Particularly if surviving a fireball (a summoned creature that cannot kill), or as Sarisin points out, a simple withdrawl, counts as 1 GG point.

It means that over the length of a quick game you may see 3 or 4 GG, but on a marathon game that could be as high as 50, 60 or even a 100.

If you put yours to good use whilst the AI sends his of....building forts or something.... you do simply have another mechanism to embarass the AI.

As I originally posted, I think GC function works well, GG mechanism makes more sense, but actual implementation would require very serious consideration, both for scaling and game balance.

 

[Ahwaric]

I agree that great generals shouldn't be just imported directly from BtS. FfH is so different that it needs some tweaking. I do not like the free xp thing - the great commander promotion is better imho. I think the best would be a GC promotion (granted as GG in BtS too) that allows to get a few special promotions, like strength increasing one or granting a few more xp. But not allowing faster xp gain, it is already fast enough in FfH.
It can be even just the same as current GC, just with a different method of generation

Also, the base counter must be increased - to at least twice the BtS required xp. And I believe it scales according to world size and game speed, just as normal great person generation. As for the xp for surviving a spell or withdraw - it is not so big anyway and withdraw grants xp in BtS too.

Regarding GG points from barbarian combat - I personally like the idea as I like to have many GG , but with hordes of not so well organized barbarians in FfH it would be simple overpowering. I get most of the xp this way and GG should be something special, so better restrict it to wars with civs only. But I still think it will balance things a bit, as currently it is easier to get great commander as Elohim (especially as Einion) than as Bannor, Clan or Doviello.

As for the mechanism waiting to be used in Ice - I doubt it. It would be nice to have it used for anything. But I remeber there was a disscusion regarding generating heroes this way but it didn't make it (which I think is a good think). Well, but we can have hopes - The Team is full of suprises I just hope if they do not plan to do something nice using combat xp, that we will get Generals instead.

 

[bc1]

I also prefer *no* GG points from barbarian combat: peace with barbs trait is enough of a drawback with the loss of xp farming as it is.

 

[xienwolf]

Aye, the points per General would have to increase, and they will scale with gamespeed as normal: Quick = 67%, Normal = 100%, Epic = 150%, Marathon = 300%.

I think that if attaching them allowed access to more promotions it ought to allow access to everything that Hero allows access to. But that would mean you have to make it impossible to remove them. As it is now, I generally attach them to my Adepts so that I can get some XP in battles, and once they have Combat 5, I swap the GC to a new adept, very useful.

 

[Tarquelne]

The poll is tending rather decisively toward Great Generals or Both. That could just be because of self-selecting responses, though: The people dissatisfied with the present mechanic could be more likely to vote.

So we need to draw out the Great Commander fans somehow.

Maybe a new poll:
"Great Commanders are for noobs"?
or
"Are any Great Commander fans NOT terrorists"?
or
"The link between using Great Commanders and sexual dysfunction is exaggerated"?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I agree that great commanders should require more great general points than in BtS, but would still like to get these points though fighting barbs. I also they should probably be impossible to split and rejoin, but I don't think they should allow the same promotions as Hero. They should really allow different promotions that Hero does, so you could make a hero also be a commander and get both. I was just thining, it could be quite interesting to implement great commanders as uncapturable equipment; if the unit with the commander joined dies defending a stack which survives because of his heroism then you can join him again to another unit, but if he fails completely he is gone.


I had some fun a while back making Command (the promotion that allow inquisitors to capture rival units) available to units with the great commander promotion (also requiring combat V). That was really fun, although still having the ability to split and join a commander to another unit afterwards was definitely too exploitive (especially since I was cheating heavily and had all 7 levels of the altar, several other xp granting buildings, and a reliquary in my (Mercurian) capital. Also, I made Basium and Hyborem start with the promotion, so I really didn't have to do much to build a huge army. I especially loved capturing enemy Ritualists, which wouldn't give manes when captured but would give both manes and angels when later killed)

 

[Tlalynet]

The GG promotion scaleing works fine per game speed. I tend to get a simalar number on quick as marathon in BTS, FFH wouldnt change that.

Great Commanders poping with GG combat exp, that would be great.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

Barbarians do not provide xp towards GGs in vanilla BtS.

 

[Mesix]

Maybe attaching a Great General to a unit could allow the sme promotions as a hero without the free exp from the hero promotion. That would be a nice way to reward hardened combat veterans.

The Great General point generation from BTS could be implements, but when the GG is generated, he could have options more in line with FFH. Maybe some civ unique options as has been suggested earlier in the thread.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I do not want any bonus for the great commander promotion that would not help a unit that already has hero just as much. I wouldn't mind similar promotions if a hero with the promotion could benefit fro both, but I would rather see more unique promotions (getting command after commander is awfully fun...)

 

[Mesix]

Attaching a Great General to a hero seems odd anyway. Who is the general leading into battle?...his sidekick?

Great generals should be a way to improve a military unit, not to buff a hero IMHO.

 

[Von Wibble]

I quite like the great commander. Its a free army every time!

I remember having 2 stockpiled in my capital when I was attacked by Jonas. He bought along an army that would have completely wiped me out - but for me suddenly producing 2 giant armies of my own to counter it.

However, I can't recall ever using a great commander in a different way to recruit or golden age - attachment only seems good as a temp measure to provide a little bonus to exp speed before then using recruit.

It would be nice if the units recruited cuold be affected by what buildings are in the cities as atm I often get units I haven't even researched yet (and often with good reason)

It is not so good that great commanders are generated by points as this stops other GPs. But other than that I think they're fine.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I'd like to keep Great Commanders, but have them spawn like great generals. They really mess up my Perfect SE.