Ideas, Requests, and Feedback

[azzedar]

I like this and hope it's possible. With Commander fort-spam being fixed (hopefully) what I envision is a stack of unfortunate slaves, driven by Watchers, building their own tomb (ie: fort) and being sacrificed to populate it. Very flavorful and tweaks D'Teshi in the right sort of ways -- getting a settler for every razed city seemed like a pretty trivial way to get around the city cap.

then they should be able to fasten the improvement of castles as well, at whatsoever cost (possibly again: sacrificing slaves) and/or only needing the first tier of the fortification.

 

[Milaga]

Edit: I just got to thinking I might instead make it take advantage of the death of its owner's living units, and only its owner's units, no matter where they die. The main advantage there is that the code is quite simple:

...

I'm thinking it would also be appropriate for the Forge to consume the souls and prevent them from returning as Angels, Manes, or from being resurrected. (That shouldn't be too hard to do as I have already almost finished moving to a new resurrection system, where the player is not limited to resurrecting one national hero, the hero keeps its promotions from the previous life, and the Netherblade prevents resurrection. It is not the most elegant solution, but resurrection require the dead unit's Sluagh to store its data works and actually fits rather nicely with the lore from the Bestiary.)

While I liked the idea of the original Soul Forge absorbing enemy souls as well, the wonder was never really effective. In all my years of playing FfH, only once was I able to use it well. This is a much more practical and useful version of the wonder. For RiFE I suppose it would prevent Wintered units from returning as Frozen.

Is there a recent version of your mod up? I think the only version I have is many months old.

 

[Tsathoggua]

then they should be able to fasten the improvement of castles as well, at whatsoever cost (possibly again: sacrificing slaves) and/or only needing the first tier of the fortification.

You're forgetting that the D'teshi were *designed* as a civ needing only one city to really be a force to reckon with. The other four that are buildable by Vessels right now were essentially a concession by Valk to people who are used to having to expand with cities.

The slow construction of forts by slaves actually works perfectly for this idea. There's an implicit limit to how sprawling the D'teshi empire can be, because you have to get slaves to a suitable location safely and keep them alive while they build. It also encourages committing a lot of slaves in order to speed up the process -- which also increases the loss if that stack of slaves is not properly defended. It makes the Watcher line pretty critical to the civ as a whole, and I like any change that makes unique units more integral to play.

I'd actually be interested in seeing a change like this paired with something that prevents the D'Teshi from capturing cities at all. It's not like Armageddon bothers them terribly much. That's a rule I can impose on myself though, without affecting how others play.

 

[azzedar]

You're forgetting that the D'teshi were *designed* as a civ needing only one city to really be a force to reckon with. The other four that are buildable by Vessels right now were essentially a concession by Valk to people who are used to having to expand with cities.

... which came hand in hand with the city pop hard limit, something no other fallow civ has.
i have no problem with that (the settler units), yet dont understand why they get additional settlers by razing cities. never understood that move. guess they didnt want to have an undead kurio-version.

The slow construction of forts by slaves actually works perfectly for this idea. There's an implicit limit to how sprawling the D'teshi empire can be, because you have to get slaves to a suitable location safely and keep them alive while they build. It also encourages committing a lot of slaves in order to speed up the process -- which also increases the loss if that stack of slaves is not properly defended. It makes the Watcher line pretty critical to the civ as a whole, and I like any change that makes unique units more integral to play.

the idea itself is okay, except the AI getting screwed.
problem is, you wouldnt be able to speed up the process yourself (talking of the auto-upgrading of forts once constructed). have already given ideas what to against that. read my posts i havent done so already - everything only important if that create city spell would need a fully upgraded fort.
dont know what their original design has to do with that statement. if you dislike what has been made of the legion and want them back as a 1-city civ, tell that valk

I'd actually be interested in seeing a change like this paired with something that prevents the D'Teshi from capturing cities at all. It's not like Armageddon bothers them terribly much. That's a rule I can impose on myself though, without affecting how others play.

making them unable to aquire enemy wonders. even the kurio can do that. yeah... its a cheap counter-argument, but still...
shouldnt armaggeddon affect them? turning their territory hell at 50?

 

[Niveras]

then they should be able to fasten the improvement of castles as well, at whatsoever cost (possibly again: sacrificing slaves) and/or only needing the first tier of the fortification.

Not quite sure what you meant by 'fasten' but D'tesh can already convert regular forts into their civ-specific kind via the Fort Commander's Corrupt Fort ability.

Edit: oh, I see by your reply. You meant the time it takes for the lesser mausoleum to convert to mausoleum.

 

[azzedar]

yep was speaking of the upgrading to the higher levels of the fort.

 

[Tsathoggua]

... which came hand in hand with the city pop hard limit, something no other fallow civ has.
i have no problem with that (the settler units), yet dont understand why they get additional settlers by razing cities. never understood that move. guess they didnt want to have an undead kurio-version.

Like I said, I'm not a fan of getting settlers by razing cities, either. At least, not 100% of the time. Frankly it gets unmanageable really fast, and the D'Teshi start to lose their flavor.

the idea itself is okay, except the AI getting screwed.
problem is, you wouldnt be able to speed up the process yourself (talking of the auto-upgrading of forts once constructed). have already given ideas what to against that. read my posts i havent done so already - everything only important if that create city spell would need a fully upgraded fort.
dont know what their original design has to do with that statement. if you dislike what has been made of the legion and want them back as a 1-city civ, tell that valk

The AI is already horribly screwed when playing as D'Teshi. They just plain suck at it. I don't know to what degree this will be fixed in future patches, but for now, I think the better way to approach modifying the D'Teshi is by considering what will keep their flavor while also making it more difficult for the player to utterly steamroll everything ever.

I think you do bring up a good point with the fixed upgrade-time of their forts, though. I wonder if the build times can be made unique, so that they are longer than for other civs but still able to be shortened by things like stacking slaves. Then the forts could indeed be given that ability at the first rank without any overall loss of balance.

And I'm telling Valk what I dislike. He reads this thread.

making them unable to aquire enemy wonders. even the kurio can do that. yeah... its a cheap counter-argument, but still...
shouldnt armaggeddon affect them? turning their territory hell at 50?

Unless the coming nerf to D'Teshi tile yields is *really* bad, I don't see it mattering too much if they can't capture wonders.

I've never seen a RiFE game hit full-on Armageddon. I've had it hit 60+ once when I raised a couple of mature (ie: 50+ pop) Frozen cities, but never to the point that Hell terrain began to spread.

I would think that Hell terrain does not override the terrain of terraforming civs like D'Tesh, but I can't say if it's true or not.

 

[Valkrionn]

Thank you for that!

I think one of the problems now with 1.30 is the repetitive nature of events. I realize these are 'random,' however, in my current game I got the event that caused me to lose 1 population 4 times - all in the early going of the game. I never use the option that gives more events.

I think by adding more different events to the mix, it becomes less likely you will get the same event over and over again.

Also, please remember the Hunter's Catch event is still broken and it would be nice to be fixed (so you could purchase an animal), or taken out of the game.

Thank you.

Thank Black_Imperator and Jemon.

BI is the author, and converted it to RifE (and is actively developing it). Jemon took the non-modular version and made it modular.

Oh, and Snarko, for fixing the issue with modular events.

Is there any chance that in 1.4/1.31/1.3? or what ever the next patch is buildings will have an XML tags for N and N per Resource?

It is essential for my project to be complete.

Should be (not a new tag; Just need to have the existing happy/health tags work with bStackable).

For the cauldron... Why not have it buildable by barbs in a barb city just like Dragon Horde? Put a tech requirement on it to make sure it comes later in the game, and have Mokka be summoned in that city just like Dragon horde summons Archon. Make it portable just like the Dragons horde is...

Of course it would be functioning for said Barb town which may make taking it be interesting, especially if its Archon's city that builds it

No. Mokka stays spawning from the ritual.

I will more than likely break down and allow it to be moved, but it will come at a cost. Either it will hurt the city (as in: Cast a spell, new unit is created to carry it, city is damaged somehow) or will require production (same way palaces do, let you move the building around by completing it again).

I realize you already have some plans to help balance D'Tesh, but I had some thoughts in changing their mechanics that might offer more flavor and change how they play. The third change especially may not be relevant with the incoming spell changes.

The overarching idea behind my changes would be that they require souls to do anything. In game terms, this means slaves.

Honestly: That idea is not valid for the D'teshi lore. D'tesh made a deal with Laroth (former Patrian archmage trying to usurp Arawn's throne as God of Death); D'tesh gets the bodies and the Dullahan, Laroth gets the souls.

Therefore, anything to do with souls is out.

First change would be to eliminate the Vessel of D'tesh as a settler unit, and block their ability to build settlers. In order to create new cities, they need to consume one of their upgraded special forts - either a Greater mausoleum, or the regular Mausoleum for balance if the greater is too long an investment. In addition to this, Fort Commanders must be empowered by slaves before they can 'suffuse' the mausoleum into a city. Each empowerment grants 1 death strength to the fort commander, a stacking promotion, and at 10 empowerments allows the Suffuse Mausoleum ability, upgrading the fort to city (which still starts at size 1). The number of slaves is up for balance, but I based the 10 on the amount of slaves I usually get when razing an enemy empire with slavery.

Net effect: D'tesh now require a great deal more time investment before settling new cities, and a great deal more slave investment. Where razing a city would basically give you a size X city off the bat (because you got a Vessel as well), you'll have to wait for a mausoleum to at least upgrade once, and invest slaves, and then more slaves to bump the city's size.

The AI would become incapable of building new cities. Not happening.

Second change: To help offset the above, the Soul Forge allows the production of Vessels of D'tesh. These vessels differ from the current settler unit - they basically act as a batch of slaves. They can either be consumed by fort commanders, granting 5 empowerments outright, or use the Shatter Vessel ability to split into 5 (or perhaps 4?) slaves. Tower of Necromancy might also allow for production of Vessels.

That would both tie them far too strongly to global wonders, and allow them to build pop.

Neither is a good thing.

Third change: Probably the biggest change, and the most questionable: spellcasters no longer rely directly on experience for promotions. Instead they can also consume souls (slaves), and each empowerment grants +10% strength (maximum 5 or 10) and allows the selection of 1 free promotion. Selecting a promotion consumes 1 stack of empowerment. The idea here being that D'tesh spellcasters rely on souls to manipulate magic rather than learning by experience. Because they no longer gain experience at all, the upgrade path would either allow Channelling 2 and 3 at 5 and 10 empowerments, or (if possible) upgrade to a new unit after learning a minimum number of unique spellspheres.

Net effect: you need slaves to power your war machine, which will drastically reduce the number of slaves you have available to create new cities, but the Soul Forge (and possibly the Tower) will still allow the D'tesh an unlimited spread once they get advanced enough. Spellcasters upgrading only after learning unique spellspheres will also encourage a little more diversity with mana nodes.

I leave it to you to decide whether any of this is unnecessary with the incoming balance changes or too complex to implement.

And this would also kill the AI.

Really: Not bad suggestions, but they don't fit the lore of the civ, and the AI could not handle them. Not without some extremely hardcoded AI, which we flat out will not do.

I'm not sure about this idea. To be quite honest I think that human players would just have one super city pumping out whatever they needed(just stick it on the coast and burn some kelp), and the AI would be worse with the legion than they already are. The basic net effect is that it would take me slightly longer to roll over everyone when playing as D'tesh. I'd wager that a lot of players essentially go the super city route to begin with. When I really feel like I need a new city I'd just take the best one from my next door neighbor, raze the rest and divide the slaves between the super city, the new soon to be super city, and my army.

I like the way D'tesh units currently gain exp. I don't think it needs to change.

Also, and I may be wrong about this, but I thought Valk said early that the over powered civs(D'tesh, Illians, I can't remember who else) were pretty much at the intended power level and the weaker civs were going to be buffed.

Civs are meant to be strong, but the D'tesh (and Mazatl, and a few others) are currently too strong.

 

[azzedar]

build times can be made unique

since their fort-improvements are already unique this should be able to be done very easily. just rewriting some numbers - from what i know how it works.

ill just w8 for the next patches and see what is done. valk has already statet considering some of the changes suggested, so lets w8 how horrible it really stays. the creators have realized the prob, im okay with that for the moment.

/edit:
ah, if they dont react, well just sack em and throw em into the scorpion den.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Should be (not a new tag; Just need to have the existing happy/health tags work with bStackable).

So that means I need to do the same sort of magic that is done with the affinity.
Proxy building + python to stack it.

Got it, should be easy enough.

 

[Torugu]

I've never seen a RiFE game hit full-on Armageddon. I've had it hit 60+ once when I raised a couple of mature (ie: 50+ pop) Frozen cities, but never to the point that Hell terrain began to spread.

I would think that Hell terrain does not override the terrain of terraforming civs like D'Tesh, but I can't say if it's true or not.

I've frequently hit 100 on the Ac in Rife and Hell terrain does override terraformed terrain, however most terraforming civs are immune to those changes:

Malakim and Mazatl would technically be affected but are usually good so hell doesn't spread into their lands at all.

Wasteland turns into Hellish Wasteland which gives the same yields as normal Wasteland.

Same for Ice although I'm not sure about Glacial terrain.

This leaves the Cualli as the only civ to be affected and they'd do well to keep the AC from rising above 50 since they are pretty much dead their ~5 Food swamp/jungle/wetlands turn into 1 Food Hellish Shallows.

 

[Valkrionn]

So that means I need to do the same sort of magic that is done with the affinity.
Proxy building + python to stack it.

Got it, should be easy enough.

Wooops, you meant on a building, not the resource.

In that case, there will be a new bool on buildings.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Well to explain, and avoid confusion.

You know how corporations now add + N // per resource consumed.
I want to do the same with a building, but with and instead.

Like +1 per creation mana present in the city.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

While I liked the idea of the original Soul Forge absorbing enemy souls as well, the wonder was never really effective. In all my years of playing FfH, only once was I able to use it well. This is a much more practical and useful version of the wonder. For RiFE I suppose it would prevent Wintered units from returning as Frozen.

Is there a recent version of your mod up? I think the only version I have is many months old.

Not yet. I didn't really work on it over the summer. After Kael's release of patch o I started up again, and have made rather quick progress. I have plenty of txtkeys to make, but the only serious feature left to be implemented is preventing units killed by the Netherblade from being able to be resurrected. Right now the main thing holding me back is trying to find a way to make units killed by The Netherblade gain a certain promotion before passing though CvEventManager.py's def onUnitKilled(self, argsList) function. In FF and the modmods based thereon this would be trivially easy to do, as promotions have a PythonPostCombatWon function, but with the normal FfH SDK it is challenging.


I should probably be focusing on homework rather than modding right now though.

 

[Valkrionn]

Well to explain, and avoid confusion.

You know how corporations now add + N // per resource consumed.
I want to do the same with a building, but with and instead.

Like +1 per creation mana present in the city.

Yep, I realized what you meant as soon as I reread it.

How it will be handled: New bool on buildings (<bMultiBonus>, or something like that) which causes BonusHappinessChanges, BonusHealthChanges, BonusProductionModifiers, BonusYieldModifiers, etc, to take into account each instance of a resource you possess.

Example:

<BonusHappinessChanges>
    <BonusHappinessChange>
        <BonusType>BONUS_DYE</BonusType>
        <iHappinessChange>1</iHappinessChange>
    </BonusHappinessChange>
</BonusHappinessChanges>

That code block causes the building to grant one happiness if you have Dye, no matter how many dyes you may possess.

<BonusHappinessChanges>
    <BonusHappinessChange>
        <BonusType>BONUS_DYE</BonusType>
        <iHappinessChange>1</iHappinessChange>
    </BonusHappinessChange>
</BonusHappinessChanges>
<bMultiBonusEffect>1</bMultiBonusEffect>

That code would cause the building to grant one happiness for every dye you possess.

So. One new tag, allowing for many new things that were not possible before.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Yay! You are my hero Valkirion.

 

[jacktannery]

I've frequently hit 100 on the Ac in Rife and Hell terrain does override terraformed terrain, however most terraforming civs are immune to those changes:

Malakim and Mazatl would technically be affected but are usually good so hell doesn't spread into their lands at all.

Wasteland turns into Hellish Wasteland which gives the same yields as normal Wasteland.

Same for Ice although I'm not sure about Glacial terrain.

This leaves the Cualli as the only civ to be affected and they'd do well to keep the AC from rising above 50 since they are pretty much dead their ~5 Food swamp/jungle/wetlands turn into 1 Food Hellish Shallows.

This is really one of the biggest problems about Fall from Heaven, and needs to be changed. Hell terrain must stop destroying (oddly specific) evil civs, leaving good civs relatively better off.

Do you have any plans to deal with this Valk? For a start, it should begin by spreading only to Neutral civs, thus forcing every civ into either good or evil for the real battle of armageddon. It should spread in good and evil lands at the same rate afterwards, after all the goods always have life mana. Finally, there should be a hellish version of forest/jungle so that the Cualli/Svaeltafar are not totally gimped when the AC rises high.

 

[azzedar]

Do you have any plans to deal with this Valk? For a start, it should begin by spreading only to Neutral civs, thus forcing every civ into either good or evil for the real battle of armageddon. It should spread in good and evil lands at the same rate afterwards, after all the goods always have life mana. Finally, there should be a hellish version of forest/jungle so that the Cualli/Svaeltafar are not totally gimped when the AC rises high.

i agree with that. i dislike that the more near armageddon comes its mostly the evil civs that become all the same while the good civs can just stay out of the affair, ignoring all the bad effects as long as they take care of their borders and cities at the fixed events.
hell-counterparts for jungle/forest is possibly the most elegant way to handle this. (and i like the idea of cualli stalking and preying through deadly jungles turned into some wierd darkness)

 

[Valkrionn]

This is really one of the biggest problems about Fall from Heaven, and needs to be changed. Hell terrain must stop destroying (oddly specific) evil civs, leaving good civs relatively better off.

Do you have any plans to deal with this Valk? For a start, it should begin by spreading only to Neutral civs, thus forcing every civ into either good or evil for the real battle of armageddon. It should spread in good and evil lands at the same rate afterwards, after all the goods always have life mana. Finally, there should be a hellish version of forest/jungle so that the Cualli/Svaeltafar are not totally gimped when the AC rises high.

Not in that way, no. Hell spreads to Evil first because it is their actions that cause it.

However... How about this.

• Hell terrain rebalanced to become an actual malus.
  • Currently, it really is not. It spawns demons, but that's easily countered; Only real negative is that your resources change, unless you are Cualli or Svart in which case you're screwed.
• Hell may always spread into AV lands. Sacrifice the Weak nullifies some negative effects of the terrain.
  • Ashen Veil should be a way of dealing with it, but it also makes you more vulnerable; Play with fire, you might get burned.
• Relative AC values for Hell spread:
  • AC 0 - AV
  • AC 10 - Unowned
  • AC 30 - Evil
  • AC 50 - Neutral
  • AC 70 - Good
• Law/Chaos axis factored into Hell terrain spread.
  • This is mostly to create a difference between Lawful Evil (take over the world) and Chaotic Evil (destroy the world).
  • Ethical Alignment Effects:
    • Lawful - +10 AC required to spread in your lands.
    • Neutral - Nothing
    • Chaotic - -10 AC required to spread in your lands.
  • Net effect: While Hell spread is still mostly reliant on Moral Alignment, Ethical Alignment is factored in to create differences within each Moral Alignment block. For example, Hell will spread at the same speed to Lawful Evil lands as it does Chaotic lands. Hell will spread faster to FoL than RoK, to Empy than Order.
  • Note that the main Cualli leader is already Lawful Evil.
• Hell Features added.
  • Hellish Forests, Jungles, Kelp, etc.
  • Not only do they keep civs such as Svarts and Cualli from being screwed, they provide visual indicators of hell's spread through terrains that otherwise do not change.

This was mostly planned already, though I just thought of the Law/Chaos effect.

Overall, this means that eventually EVERYONE has to deal with Hell.

Actual list for hell spread:

• Lawful Good - 80
• Good - 70
• Chaotic Good - 60
• Lawful - 60
• Neutral - 50
• Chaotic - 40
• Lawful Evil - 40
• Evil - 30
• Chaotic Evil - 20
• Ashen Veil - 0

 

[azzedar]

all hail the hamster.
in normal ffh hell doesnt spawn in good territory, right? this will force good civs to do something about argmageddon finally.