Jade Torcs: The new unit of currency in Erebus

[Zechnophobe]

So, I've not looked at the treasure chest odds, but it seems that about 60 or 70% of the chests I open are freaking jade torcs. Not only is it annoying to have to go that extra mile just to get a fairly useless item, but I'm getting to the point where I don't even bother hunting chests down.

In general, they don't give much in the way of good loot. You find a 'bunch of gold' that is what.. 50% more than a goodie hut, but you had to get the map to the treasure first, and then had to trek out to who knows where? Bah I say!

 

[Verdian]

I got 3 (three!) Jade Torcs in the first 50 turns of one game as goodies from two dungeons and one treasure chest. I formed the Jade Knights out of three warriors and had them explore the map, fighting poison wielding goblins. It was pretty fun until they all died.

 

[BeijingCat08]

Could really do with some more interesting treasures from dungeons, come to think of it. Here's a few ideas (I don't know how implementable some of them are, just thoughts) - with an eye to things that are useful/interesting in the early game but not uberpowerful.

Elven Cloak - makes unit invisible while in forest.
Boots of the Aifon - gives water walking, +20% defence on ocean or marsh
Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch - damages everything around unit, one-use only
Clockwork Steed - gives +1 movement, 3% chance of breaking down every turn
Sword of Winter - +40% on Tundra or Ice, immune: Cold.
Stones of Patria - drop in a city for a one-time production boost.

 

[Fafnir13]

I got gold and a Jade torque in the only two chest I've ever opened. Haven't had any spawn in my current game.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Could really do with some more interesting treasures from dungeons, come to think of it. Here's a few ideas (I don't know how implementable some of them are, just thoughts) - with an eye to things that are useful/interesting in the early game but not uberpowerful.

Elven Cloak - makes unit invisible while in forest.
Boots of the Aifon - gives water walking, +20% defence on ocean or marsh
Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch - damages everything around unit, one-use only
Clockwork Steed - gives +1 movement, 3% chance of breaking down every turn
Sword of Winter - +40% on Tundra or Ice, immune: Cold.
Stones of Patria - drop in a city for a one-time production boost.

I 2nd these ideas. It seems a lot better to me than a jade torc. No offense, but that item jus plain sucks. I always thought so. But these proposed new items seem really cool to me. (Except I hope the "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch" is a joke?)

 

[Sarisin]

Amazing. I also have three units with Jade Torches in my army too! Those things have become as common as requests to trade Corn for Earth Mana.

It would be lovely if special items could be unique (one per game) and other nifty items could be added.

Like Z, I have just about given up on Treasure Chests. When you play on a Huge map it is quite an exercise sometimes sending a unit to one, and then getting a Jade Torch or Low Gold makes you less than happy.

PS. What makes a Treasure Chest disappear? I sent a Hunter across the map to get one, and it disappeared before he got there!

 

[Micky Onimusha]

Could really do with some more interesting treasures from dungeons, come to think of it. Here's a few ideas (I don't know how implementable some of them are, just thoughts) - with an eye to things that are useful/interesting in the early game but not uberpowerful.

Elven Cloak - makes unit invisible while in forest.
Boots of the Aifon - gives water walking, +20% defence on ocean or marsh
Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch - damages everything around unit, one-use only
Clockwork Steed - gives +1 movement, 3% chance of breaking down every turn
Sword of Winter - +40% on Tundra or Ice, immune: Cold.
Stones of Patria - drop in a city for a one-time production boost.

Aside from the Holy Hand Grenade (just because Worms has this gimmick covered), I second all of these, or at least similar changes. I find at least one Jade Torc again and it pretty much goes unused, I don't bother making an effort to really move it about because it isn't all that useful.

Stuff like "your unit found a poisoned blade" is significantly more useful than the Jade Torc, but I like these ideas (particularly the cloak and boots), because they really differentiate the unit that holds it from any other unit. To be honest, I think they should all be more along the lines of the Cloak and Boots, as opposed to the Steed which is pretty much the Mobility 1 promotion.

 

[OzzyKP]

Could really do with some more interesting treasures from dungeons, come to think of it. Here's a few ideas (I don't know how implementable some of them are, just thoughts) - with an eye to things that are useful/interesting in the early game but not uberpowerful.

Elven Cloak - makes unit invisible while in forest.
Boots of the Aifon - gives water walking, +20% defence on ocean or marsh
Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch - damages everything around unit, one-use only
Clockwork Steed - gives +1 movement, 3% chance of breaking down every turn
Sword of Winter - +40% on Tundra or Ice, immune: Cold.
Stones of Patria - drop in a city for a one-time production boost.

I third this.

Other ideas:
Tarnhelm - Invisibility
Aegis Shield - +1 defensive strength
Zulfiqar - +50% vs. Unholy
Fragarach - Exposes hidden nationality units within 1 space (if possible)
Crewennan Dagger - Gives user Channeling I and Death I.
Tizona - Gives Fear promotion
Brísingamen - Allows wearer to cast charm.

 

[avalonnn]

More single use items (like the salve) would be good. We want to avoid overloading the CPU with complex things, however.

How about:

Spoiler :

flask of poison -- get +1 or +2 poison for one battle

flask of holy fire -- either use as destroy undead spell or +1 holy for one battle

flask of unholy fire -- either get +40% vs. disciple units or +1 unholy for one battle

The Stake -- +40% vs vampiric for one battle

Quiver of Silver Arrows -- +40% vs. werewolves for one battle, archery line only

Artifiact of Ancient times -- drop in a city for one-time culture or coin or beakers boost

A Really Bad Idea (dynamite) -- dangerous siege weapon: -20% city defense, fire damage to every unit in city and every unit adjacent to city, chance to start fire. fire damage to every unit in stack if carrier of Bad Idea is killed

Dragon Scale -- +20 gold or + 20 beakers when dropped off in city

The Book of the mind -- gives channeling 1 promotion to unit of mage line.

Lump of Gold -- +50 gold when dropped off in city with a forge.

A Forgotten Crown -- + 2 gold per turn for 10 turns or +2 culture per turn for 10 turns when dropped off at city

Pet Food -- temporary subdue animals promotion for one battle

Book: Knowledge of the Ashen Veil -- +5 XP for one AV priest unit, or destroy for -1 AC (mechanic: +1 to AC when found, +1 to AC if used, -2 to AC if destroyed)



Also, for the early game:

Ancient Copper Sword: get copper weapons promotion in early game.

 

[rocklikeafool]

More single use items (like the salve) would be good. We want to avoid overloading the CPU with complex things, however.

How about:

flask of poison -- get +1 or +2 poison for one battle

flask of holy fire -- either use as destroy undead spell or +1 holy for one battle

flask of unholy fire -- either get +40% vs. disciple units or +1 unholy for one battle

The Stake -- +40% vs vampiric for one battle

Quiver of Silver Arrows -- +40% vs. werewolves for one battle, archery line only

Artifiact of Ancient times -- drop in a city for one-time culture or coin or beakers boost

A Really Bad Idea (dynamite) -- dangerous siege weapon: -20% city defense, fire damage to every unit in city and every unit adjacent to city, chance to start fire. fire damage to every unit in stack if carrier of Bad Idea is killed

Dragon Scale -- +20 gold or + 20 beakers when dropped off in city

The Book of the mind -- gives channeling 1 promotion to unit of mage line.

Lump of Gold -- +50 gold when dropped off in city with a forge.

A Forgotten Crown -- + 2 gold per turn for 10 turns or +2 culture per turn for 10 turns when dropped off at city

Pet Food -- temporary subdue animals promotion for one battle

Book: Knowledge of the Ashen Veil -- +5 XP for one AV priest unit, or destroy for -1 AC (mechanic: +1 to AC when found, +1 to AC if used, -2 to AC if destroyed)



Also, for the early game:

Ancient Copper Sword: get copper weapons promotion in early game.

These are all very useful, but we want to avoid having too many items. (I believe that has always been 1 of Kael's comments on this topic, as well.) I think the 1st 4 items are really good. I'd consider adding those (if I were the FfH team, which I'm not.) But the key to this is to have not too many items to make items common, but nough to make it so the items are useful.

 

[Fafnir13]

On a side note, a number of these items out to be "bind on pick-up" as it were. Otherwise people will just stack them on their already uber-buff heroes.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

another thing you could do, instead of making them all equipment, is to make the lesser items just permanent promotions like poisoned blade.

 

[Annex]

On a side note, a number of these items out to be "bind on pick-up" as it were. Otherwise people will just stack them on their already uber-buff heroes.

Better to just have a limit on the # of items one unit can have.

 

[xienwolf]

There are supposed to be 2 Potions possible from the Chests, one which grants 1 shot invis, and another for a single shot restoration of ability to cast (so another spellstaff, in liquid form). The reason they don't exist is just that they weren't included in the Python list of possible rewards. Add the 2 in there and you have cut your Torc chances almost in half (and gotten some nice, usable rewards instead)

 

[rocklikeafool]

Ah, good idea, man! Tyvm.

 

[xienwolf]

The change is really simple. Just change this line (1868) in Assets/Python/CvSpellInterface.py

	lList = ['EMPTY', 'HIGH_GOLD', 'ITEM_HEALING_SALVE', 'ITEM_JADE_TORC', 'ITEM_ROD_OF_WINDS', 'ITEM_TIMOR_MASK', 'TECH']

to

	lList = ['EMPTY', 'HIGH_GOLD', 'ITEM_HEALING_SALVE', 'ITEM_JADE_TORC', 'ITEM_POTION_OF_INVISIBILITY' , 'ITEM_POTION_OF_RESTORATION' , 'ITEM_ROD_OF_WINDS', 'ITEM_TIMOR_MASK', 'TECH']

Or replace your file with the attached one.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

The change is really simple. Just change this line (1868) in Assets/Python/CvSpellInterface.py

it's actually Assets/Python/entrypoints/CvSpellInterface.py

aside from that, thanx for the tip

 

[JDexter]

I seriously would hate it if things like "Handgranades" or "Clockwork Steeds" or other Steampunk / Modern crap made it into FfH.
Sure, we have the killing machine, an airship and a clockwork golem (if it's still in the game), but please, no more than what's already present!

For treasures, remember that Kael wants equipment to be special.

Though I like the idea of one-time use items or small exotic promotions from chests.

 

[orangelex44]

Amazing. I also have three units with Jade Torches in my army too! Those things have become as common as requests to trade Corn for Earth Mana.

It would be lovely if special items could be unique (one per game) and other nifty items could be added.

Like Z, I have just about given up on Treasure Chests. When you play on a Huge map it is quite an exercise sometimes sending a unit to one, and then getting a Jade Torch or Low Gold makes you less than happy.

PS. What makes a Treasure Chest disappear? I sent a Hunter across the map to get one, and it disappeared before he got there!

I'm pretty sure it'll disappear if an enemy's culture expands over it.

 

[hbar]

Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch - damages everything around unit, one-use only

A clarification. Anyone who didn't get this immediately needs to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

...And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy." And the Lord did grin and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats and large chu... [At this point, the friar is urged by Brother Maynard to "skip a bit, brother"]... And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it." Amen.