I hate Trolls

[OzzyKP]

Trolls seem to be exceptionally good at choking. Yikes, they are all just camping my city, not a one of them has attacked my city, but will swoop in once I complete a farm or plantation and pillage it.

It is very frustrating.

But a sign of a smart AI, so I can't complain. (too much at least...)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It took me a while to realize you meant the unit and not other forum members.

 

[OzzyKP]

...............

 

[Ahwaric]

Trolls are forbidden to attack cities. But I agree, they are annoying. I will tone down their numbers. Or you want some other solution?

 

[Ahwaric]

Have been thinking about it some more.

Trolls are designed to be annoyance. All civs are at war with them (including barbarian trait leaders), they heal as quickly as other barbs (and that means standard rate but also while moving) and are quite common.
Maybe even too common.

I do not want to remove them, nor change the way troll caves work - these are designed to be annoying, too. And as I recently explained in another thread, I want swamps to be dangerous even within your own borders - until you drain them, that is.

So I see two possible solutions (or any combination of the two):

1. Tone down troll numbers
troll caves have spawn at once limit at 3 now. One guards the lair, the other two do the sightburning. It can be easily limited to 2 at once, with only one wandering.
Of course, it is the max cap. If there is active troll killer around, there are less than 3 per lair.

2. Reduce base strength
Trolls are strength 4 unit with double swamp movement, swamp combat bonuses and mountain climbing. Also heal while moving.
So, before you have hunters (which gain +50% against trolls and other beasts/animals) or any good tier 2 attacker, it is quite hard to kill them.
So, maybe I should reduce their stregth to 3, but introduce i.e. mountain troll (bigger, gray coulour ) with base strength 6, but requiring barbrs to have certain tech - thus spawning later. Also, all standard trolls would upgrade for free barbs get that tech. The question is, what tech should in be?
Also, to make them more trollish, I might add a trollkin promotion that allows even captured trolls to heal while moving, grants big healing bonuses and healing after combat.

So, what do you think?
If you prefer to keep it as it is, please voice your opinion too. Or if you have another suggestion.

 

[Kalina]

Trolls are forbidden to attack cities. But I agree, they are annoying. I will tone down their numbers. Or you want some other solution?

Do trolls know about it ? Because, IIRC, they did attack cities, at least in previous patch.
Problem with numer of troll caves is connected with way they are created. I believe every swamp tile have chance to get troll cave at beggining of the game. So, if you're using pregenerated map that already contains caves, instead of a mapscript, you acually get twice the number of trolls. Worse, if map author opened it several times to make some edits and didn't remove troll caves afterwards.

 

[Ahwaric]

Actually, your info is outdated I think.

I have changed the way caves are created in patch i, so j and k should be fine, too. It was done in python before that, but now it is created just as every other lair. So, unless you have that problem with barrows, ruins etc (and I think you should not), it is ok.

All bAnimal units (that includes trolls) controlled by AI are blocked from attacking cities.
They were able some time ago, but that was changed.
I will check it when I am back home though.

 

[Kalina]

Right, I should have checked it before posting Just remembered about python way of creating lairs and thought it might be a reason. Acually, I should have checked both things - just tested it, and trolls aren't attacking cities

 

[Humakty]

I have no bother with trolls, in my current game I was rather surrounded by griffons, whom's lairs are quite hard to take (+50 % or + 75 % defense, can't remember exactly). Those beasties can reach impressive strength ! At least trolls can't always move 2 squares.

But don't change them, on epic/marathon speed it makes the beginning of a game much less boring.

 

[Ahwaric]

I am going to change griffons (working on it now) - they spawn a bit too early.
But should still spawn, contrary to earlier patches.

I think that trolls need some changes. Let's see what other people think...

 

[OzzyKP]

I wasn't necessarily complaining because I thought it needed to be fixed, I was just complaining because it was frustrating (i.e. the trolls were doing their job well). I also didn't know initially that they had two movement in swamp, nor did I know that hunters have a bonus against them. So I don't think they are necessarily broken, I just need to play smarter. In fact after a few reloads (to replace dumb decisions with smart ones) I'm doing quite well in my current game. Now that I know about hunters, I'll be sure to keep some on hand.

Also, as long as we're learning things (this is my first Orbis game)... What's up with Elohim and unique features? I visited three and I got the spiritual trait (yay), but now visiting unique features doesn't give me any pop-up message like the others. Do I have to be the first to visit them or are there no bonuses after I visit the first three?

 

[Humakty]

Make no mistake ! I was pretty much screwed by animals & beasts in my first game too ! Who would expect the 'out of the blue' 7 str griffon / stack of trolls ?

The only drawback, after a few games, is the AIs tend not to develop too well if there are too many of them in its surroundings.
In several games, I've seen AI civs being literally under siege : animals kill whatever cames out, and the barbarians go on pillaging and attacking cities. And that can continue untill someone infuses them with techs/ sends relief troops. This is with standard options, I tried once with increased barbarians, it was really a tad too much for the AIs in the middle of wilderness regions

If I'm enthusiastic about it, it's because it gives a lot more intensity to the first 200 turns, which tend to be quite dull at epic speed. But maybe AI competitivity should prime.

 

[Ahwaric]

I wasn't necessarily complaining because I thought it needed to be fixed, I was just complaining because it was frustrating (i.e. the trolls were doing their job well).

I know. But I have some doubts myself. In my AI testing, it seems that trolls are hard hit for AI economy. Together with giants, but they are quite rare and will be even more in next version.

Edit:
Looks like Humakty agrees with me here.
I am going to give yet another try to Xienwolf's 'forlife' tweak.

So, I decided to write some of my ideas here.What's up with Elohim and unique features? I visited three and I got the spiritual trait (yay), but now visiting unique features doesn't give me any pop-up message like the others. Do I have to be the first to visit them or are there no bonuses after I visit the first three?

The feature is Elohim pilgrimage. After visiting 2 to 5 unique features (only non-explorable ones count I think) you get spiritual trait. Then, you get nothing.
It is a rewritten version of FF feature - there you get several traits for visiting set features.
I thought it both overpowered and not enough pilgrimage like. Hope my own is better in that regard.

Also, there is "Elohim, guardians of the holy places" modmod by Pazyryk that changes Elohim even more. And there are rumours that it will be up-to-date soon.

 

[OzzyKP]

The feature is Elohim pilgrimage. After visiting 2 to 5 unique features (only non-explorable ones count I think) you get spiritual trait. Then, you get nothing.
It is a rewritten version of FF feature - there you get several traits for visiting set features.
I thought it both overpowered and not enough pilgrimage like. Hope my own is better in that regard.

Ah, thanks for the info. The concept in general that both your mods have though is awesome. I'm always worried about mods adding too many features and having things be too powerful and unbalancing, so I think your implementation is ideal. I just didn't know how it worked.

I am enjoying the mod so far.

 

[OzzyKP]

Trolls are forbidden to attack cities. But I agree, they are annoying. I will tone down their numbers. Or you want some other solution?

Have been thinking about it some more.

Trolls are designed to be annoyance. All civs are at war with them (including barbarian trait leaders), they heal as quickly as other barbs (and that means standard rate but also while moving) and are quite common.
Maybe even too common.

I do not want to remove them, nor change the way troll caves work - these are designed to be annoying, too. And as I recently explained in another thread, I want swamps to be dangerous even within your own borders - until you drain them, that is.

As I was rereading your statement about making swamps dangerous I thought up a potential nerf for trolls. What about limiting them to swamp/jungle tiles?

Just a random brainstorm, and might actually be too much of a nerf, but it would stop them from mercilessly choking civs without toning down their strength or numbers. Could give some added danger to swamps/jungles (though spiders already make me wary of jungles). Would be a different mechanic than other barbarians. If it is too much of a nerf, perhaps boost their strength or terrain bonus. Would be an added incentive to drain swamps & cut jungles.

Though perhaps it would have an unbalanced impact on the lizard civ.

 

[Cloner4000]

I think toning down strength in the beginning and later upgrade sounds like good idea, because once you get rangers and the equivalent, the troll stop being dangerous and the 4 attack didn't really matter by the time you can get subdue beast and stuff so having an upgrade version sounds like a better idea to me.

You could probably put in in once of the techs around the times they can get swordsman or such maybe by turn 80 or 90. As to give time for AI and human player to build adequate defense, and have one or two tier two units Sowrdsman, hunters, archers, etc. And it's up to the humans to swamp the troll with units to defeat them

The swamps land might limit too much because swamp land usually don't connect so it might limit too much of the moments.

 

[OzzyKP]

The swamps land might limit too much because swamp land usually don't connect so it might limit too much of the moments.

Yea, that's why I figured it should be both swamp & jungle. If it were done at all.

 

[edwin562]

Yea so trolls suck, but i do think they make the first 200 turns or so more interesting. What about making it instead of killing everything you try to send out they can only damage your unit a certin % sorta like the spectre. And maybe they could spread disease. That doesnt help with the pillaging but it might make it a bit easier to get rid of them.

 

[Bootsiuv]

I would prefer if the earlier swamp trolls didn't upgrade into mountain trolls, at the very least for flavor reasons.

Swamps and mountains are two different things really. Although it's a minor thing.

I would like to see some more "fantasy" types of creatures though. More like FF+ seems to have done recently. Having wyrms (smaller dragons), wyverns, and different sea monsters would add to the fantasy setting IMO (of course, they should be extremely rare and/or come later in the game).

Is such a thing possible?

 

[Opera]

Of course it's possible. I plan on doing it for LENA, even though they won't particularly be late creatures.