just gotta vent little...

[blueparrot1966]

One of my biggest petty aggravations about Civ 4 is that early game Savage Juggernaut Of Death (drum roll please)- the bear. And in FFH, ya beefed em up, lol!

It's just always irked me that a bear (a BEAR!) routinely slaughters starting military units with anything less than several promotions. Lions, wolves, seems to me about like how a stone age war party would handle animals. Dangerous, but not usually enough to wipe out the whole bunch. Tigers, even more dangerous, but still, an experienced group can take 'em. But Bears? run for your lives! A BEAR!

Granted, I wouldn't like to face a 10 foot grizzly with a bowie knife. But even with a group of cavemen SOME of em oughta live to tell about it. Sheesh.

End of rant.

 

[lostkitten13]

well, I hope you don't mind if I throw my 2cents of vent into the thread?

I hate worldbuilder at 3 in the morning, drunk, because it gives me the ability to overload a tiger with promotions to make it invulnerable. Especially when I didn't capture the tiger yet. Killed my freaking Balor...hehe, just kidding(about the drunk in the morning part anyway).

but yeah, bears give me a hard time too, especially when I eat their porridge...but it's always fun to capture one and turn him into a dancer!

 

[Oldfrt]

I guess its just one of those things that are meant to aggrevate... same as spiders.... I mean..... spiders of strength 4??? Well... its not as if the game is set in Australia or something.... although then I guess they would have strength 10!

 

[Brand]

you think the bears bad.. the gigantanormus spider of Doom is worse.. can't even see it unless you ahve a scout next to it.. whcih, generally when If ind them, means I stopped moving in a forest square and I no longer have to worry abotu wehre that scout is going :Z

 

[xanaqui42]

Granted, I wouldn't like to face a 10 foot grizzly with a bowie knife. But even with a group of cavemen SOME of em oughta live to tell about it. Sheesh.
.

I'm not certain that I follow. Here's my source, and the current version appears to have no changes to this unit since 15k. 2 Warriors should have a good shot at a bear, except at high difficulty levels; 3-4 should nearly always take one out. A single Hunter has a very good chance.
Or do you consider a single Warrior a group?

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I'm pretty sure a single warrior is meant to represent a group. Firstly, if you have the default option checked, a warrior unit appears as three warriors (less if it's wounded). Second, I think you would need more than 1-3 warriors to keep the peace in a city.

Let's look at the flipside, though. I think that one bear unit probably represents a pack of ferocious, 10 foot grizzly bears, thirsting for human (elf, dwarf... golem) flesh. Same thing for the spiders.

Personally, I think grizzlies could be toned down to strength 3. Giant spiders are common enough in fantasy lore, but giant bears? Well, that's just my opinion.

 

[Kael]

Just my own 2 cents. It depends on what level of abstraction you choose to view the game with. Either the unit numbers are set and the 3 warriors represent 3 warriors, and the 3 bears represent 3 bears. Or the 3 warriors represent a group of early military units and the 3 bears represent the dangers of the wild. Either way the comparison is valid, especially in the savage world.

I know that Firaxis assumes a high level of abstraction, that animal represents the dangers of nature. Heck, it could represent the danger of diseased mosquitoes (they probably killed more people than lions anyway). The units aren't intended to be literal.

In FfH we move more toward the literal, mostly because of our focus on heroes and single units instead of armies. But still its important to remember that we abstract concepts in order to build a game (or more correctly we build a game and then apply concepts to make the game easier to understand).

Other abstractions like corn (why do I only have corn in that tile, what is growing on all of my farms?) are other examples of abstractions just meant to denote something complex in an easy to understand and manipulate fashion. That corn isnt really the only place corn grows but denotes an amazing fetile region and an agricultural nirvana. But farm +2 is boring, so we say there is corn there.

The only real contexual problem comes up when different components are viewed with different abstractions. So the warrior represents a band of early military units but the bear is still just a bear wandering around in the woods. But thats just viewing it in the wrong context.

Or it could be just that we design based on whats fun instead of an attempt to simulate reality anyway.

 

[blueparrot1966]

Yeah, I figure most regular units represent "a group", though of course heroes and arcane units, as well as stuff like hunters, are a big exception in FFH. As for one warriour being overcome by a basic mark I mod 0 bear, that just doesn't cut it for me.

The spiders and hill giants, though a shocking adjustment from vanilla civ, do kind of fit the setting, as others have pointed out. But justa bear?

Here's an idea- most gamers and fantasy geeks would agree that a Worg is not your average everyday wolf, and that a human who'd take on a wolf might quake in fear at the sight of a Worg. How about making them Ur-Bears, bugbears or some such? Grow a single bear icon to something halfway to giant size. That'd satisfy my sense of aesthetics and balance by taking them out of the realm of just critters, and making them more like the to spiders or giants...

 

[blueparrot1966]

Kael, I was typing up my post when you posted yours, so here's a more direct reply to what you just said-

I'm over the fact that there are animals and barbarians that can just plain whip an early unit. That's just tough.

But as I indicated, it just nags at me to see the bear unit tromping all over every other early game unit. It's like it goes against my instincts for the logic of a game's play and balance. If the stats were unchanged, but what I saw roaming around was a single +1 1/2 size bear icon named "bloodbear" or something, it'd cue me in that this is not just an animal, this is not something I oughta mess with. "normal" bears should be as tough as the lions or even the tigers, imho, but no worse.

Mebbe it's just aesthetics, and maybe I'm just picking nits. As I said, I've had a hard spot with this whole bear thing since Civ IV came out.

 

[lostkitten13]

Or it could be just that we design based on whats fun instead of an attempt to simulate reality anyway.

I guess the bear is just a obstacle in the beautiful world of Erebus. I would, from now on, pretend that the bear has a brain, i mean a like-human-thinkability kinda brain. You know, where they can develop tactics on how to defeat their foes when they enter their domains, and have family get togethers, and have marriages. Then when they come up with technology they can create games and mods for 'em like "Kicked out of the Forest 2". Start forums so they can rant about how much us humans suck for cutting down their homes and killing their relatives. hmm...Qqwha-ever.

 

[DieselBiscuit]

If the stats were unchanged, but what I saw roaming around was a single +1 1/2 size bear icon named "bloodbear" or something,

Trust me, you do not want to call it a "bloodbear". A direct translation of that to Norwegian is slang for something entirely different. Entirely.

 

[lostkitten13]

Trust me, you do not want to call it a "bloodbear". A direct translation of that to Norwegian is slang for something entirely different. Entirely.

4 letter word that starts with a C?

 

[DieselBiscuit]

4 letter word that starts with a C?

Let's just not go there.

 

[blueparrot1966]

Well, not speaking Norweigan, it ain't really a problem for me lol. I was just coming up with something a little more threatening that "bear". "10 foot tall bloodthirsty grizzly on the warpath that WILL kill ALL of your warriors EVERY time" is a bit much for a name.

In the 1996 presidential election, I heard that Bob Dole's name was a problem in the Middle East, that "Dole" sounded like something very rude in Arabic. Hey, that's just the way it goes with languages...

 

[marioflag]

i like how bear,lion and so on are implemented. I find anyway tiger most powerful animals due to their movement.
Instead of having uberanimals which have a lot of strenght i would like something different for example introduce locusts which are different from other animals because they can attack inside your territory.Instead of attacking your city they can just destroy your farms.They should have 4-5 movement and 1 strenght, so they can be easily destroyable,but their movement allow them to be of great damage for your newly built farms.I remember still Locusts of Chiron of the old Alpha Centauri.

 

[Darkkender]

I would like something different for example introduce locusts which are different from other animals because they can attack inside your territory.Instead of attacking your city they can just destroy your farms.They should have 4-5 movement and 1 strenght, so they can be easily destroyable,but their movement allow them to be of great damage for your newly built farms.I remember still Locusts of Chiron of the old Alpha Centauri.

That would be an awesome element to this mod much less civ 4 in general. A swarm of locusts that pillage the land. They would have a 50% chance of spreading a disease to a unit that attacks them. Or they maybe cause one tiles worth of fallout to represent the long term blight upon the land. But it would have to definetely stick to your agriculture resources and not your production resources like mines and the sort. maybe have a 25% chance of effecting pigs, cows, sheep, horses, & deer. This could represent the fact that even the pasture grazing lands for these animals is attacked.

 

[wilboman]

Let's just not go there.

How is blodbjørn a eufemism for anything at all? Must be a dialectical variation...

 

[Mithrus]

Interesting idea, locusts. I think they should be more like Loki in that they are hard as hell to kill via melee (make em vunerable to fire so magic will work well enuf). Have them basically defend only, but able to pillage improvements. Then add Summon Locusts to the divine summon perhaps...

 

[TheJopa]

Would you believe me I though about SAME thing week ago (even that loki thin on them!) But they would be better as Air summon than wild animal IMO.

 

[DieselBiscuit]

How is blodbjørn a eufemism for anything at all? Must be a dialectical variation...

More like blodbamse, but it's likely dependent on context, e.g. "så smalt han blodbamsen i smertekrysset." I will never speak of this again...