Lair Feedback: The problem with "Or"

[onedreamer]

You problem is with the RNG, and you absolutely right n stating that to much randomness isnt a good thing, especially in a strategy game.

I disagree. The problem is with the lairs events being too strong or, more clearly, too strong compared to the turn when they happen. Lowering the chances with which they will happen will not fix the problem entirely, the fix is making them happen at the right time.

Since you're a D&D master, this is like saying that a DM won't award a Mithril +5 sword in the treasure chest of a level 1-3 dungeon. Such a reward won't be on the list, not even with a chance of 0.1 on 100.

 

[Kael]

What are the lair explore results that are either make the game impossible to lose or impossible to win early on?

I know they all effect the outcome, so its going to be a fuzzy line. Lets say what explore results have you gotten early on that are better than a free tech?

@onedreamer: You've quoted one line out of a full post. The rest of the post is talking about making the results appropriate to when they were found.

 

[onedreamer]

2 dwarven axemen with copper weapon promotion.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

So what is the "if self.grace() == False:" refering to? A specific game turn?

 

[Marnok]

I think on balance, you don't get anything better than a free tech, nor suffer anything worse than Orthus.

Sounds like some people have ideas for doing things differently, so maybe a modmod could explore whether those ways are better?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I gotta say that I love rezaf's idea of multi-level dungeon, it reminds me of diablo

it would be nice if lairs instead of getting destroyed after exploration would just be "emptied" and would remain on the map, with then a chance to become inhabitated a gain sooner or later... the longer you let them live, the more baddies might go dwelling there and the more levels the dungeon may re-get . to get rid of them 100% you gotta destroy them with workers after they have been cleared AND are into your cultural borders

 

[Kael]

So what is the "if self.grace() == False:" refering to? A specific game turn?

Yes, a game turn modified by game speed and difficulty (you can get earlier blocked good and bad results on higher difficulties).

 

[BillSeurer]

One potential problem with lairs is some bad results are really good results. I mentioned in another thread that I got skeletons which couldn't hurt the guy exploring the lair and leveled him up. I assume that was a "bad" result but maybe it was "neutral"? The lair remained and the next time I got 3 giant spiders which attacked and were captured by the explorer (a lizardman which I had gotten from an earlier lair)! Then I got more skeletons and then a commander before the lair was gone so my lizardman went up 2 levels and got a commander upgrade. It appears 3 of the 4 results were bad but in this particular case they were actually good.

P.S. You might want to take into account the location of the lair. Summoning something nasty isn't so bad if the lair is on a wooded hill (+50% defense) but terrible if it's on a desert (-25% defense).

 

[Psycho_Ivan]

My issue with the lairs is that sometimes you want to save exploring them for later when you aren't too worried about the units untimely demise. This of course, doesn't always work. Only solution to stopping those barbarians from spawning that I can think of is leaving a unit on them, and sometimes that's not a great option either.

 

[onedreamer]

I think on balance, you don't get anything better than a free tech, nor suffer anything worse than Orthus.

two dwarven axemen with strength 5 early in the game are much more unbalanced than a early tech. Dwarves have double movement on hills so you can easily and quickly steamroll stuff around. Same with Lizardmen and their 2 movements (though they have a penalty to attack cities).

 

[Jabie]

Some lairs could be invisible until late end techs were discovered in the same way as some way as some resources might only be visible after you've gotten certain techs. These lairs could then be the Epic dungeons which produced better results.

For instance, "The Eyrie of Inner Sight" might only become visible once you've discovered once you've discovered Divination or the "Mausoleum of Malgash the Malevolent" might only show up once you've gotten Necromancy.

Incidentally, this option also allows you to re-enable Barbatos at a level when players and/or the AI might stand a chance against him.

 

[Blackmantle]

onedreamer:
Depends (on tech gained, difficulty-level, playstyle, mapsize, number of AI for example among quite some other conditions) + its also somewhat balanced by the 3 barb-dwarves / power 5 Lizards (depending on your choice) spawning next door.

Overall i still agree its quite a strong result. (i whouldn't think its strictly always better than a tech though. rather solidly on par and more reliable overall. Unlees its near to your city (with a hill somewhere adjacent. ) and this city is more or less ungarded. In which case it sucks because it might cause insta-death...)
Fine by me as rare good (same as mithril weapons early. That unit can die still in an unlucky battle. As can those dwarves / lizards.) so no toning down wanted from my part, though i can understand very well if someone thinks otherwise in that reagard.

A greath person i like even more though (especially engineer, merchant or prophet). (since its a free tech you can chose better than a random one from a hut+ has plenty of other powerful applications as well.).
And an early disciple can be on par as well if it is of the religion you wanted to go for anyways and has larger benefits even without the tech in question (like FoL for Elves and the likes...).


On toppic: More lairs, more bosses, more evil earlier + more random stuff out of the blue (I miss those CR3 Water Elementals coming for my capital on ~ Turn90 . Good fun.). Nuff said. .
But i understand what speaks against it in the main-game + why lairs shouldn't be an all encompassing-feature... (I still whould very much like if city-ruins whould be turned into low-result lairs like Zechnophobe has proposed in another thread and sure whouldn't be unhappy if an option for more lairs whould make its way into the main-game.)

Guess ill just wait on the new Marnok's modmod and meanwhile enjoy FFH2 the way it is.
So everyone wanting more just needs to wait for Marnok doing his work for us... According to him, that won't be long. Just take a peak at his thread in the scenarioes and mods subforum.

Jabie: Like this idea much. Maybe Marnok will borrow this idea...

 

[PotatoOverdose]

First off, I love the new lairs and whatnot. A few turns in, a lair spawned a bunch of wolfriders and and ogre (pre turn 50) and gave my civ a serious run for its money. Lateley, I've been playing underpopulated games just to have more conflict with barbarians and lair encounters and general exploration.
However, I've had one major concerns with lairs. It is possible to acquire units that can spread religions through said lairs. While thematically this may be very cool (Rescuing an old sage from a dank muddy cave to lead your people to salvation is pretty neat thematically), it poses a significant balance issue. Within the first twenty turns in my balseraph game I had gotten a zealot and spread oo to my capital to make it the holy city. I have seen similar accounts from oher posters on these forums where they end up with a capital that is a holy city for multiple religions before acquiring the necessary techs. Is this balanced?

 

[Kael]

First off, I love the new lairs and whatnot. A few turns in, a lair spawned a bunch of wolfriders and and ogre (pre turn 50) and gave my civ a serious run for its money. Lateley, I've been playing underpopulated games just to have more conflict with barbarians and lair encounters and general exploration.
However, I've had one major concerns with lairs. It is possible to acquire units that can spread religions through said lairs. While thematically this may be very cool (Rescuing an old sage from a dank muddy cave to lead your people to salvation is pretty neat thematically), it poses a significant balance issue. Within the first twenty turns in my balseraph game I had gotten a zealot and spread oo to my capital to make it the holy city. I have seen similar accounts from oher posters on these forums where they end up with a capital that is a holy city for multiple religions before acquiring the necessary techs. Is this balanced?

You have to have researched mysticism before you can rescue a disciple from a lair. So it shouldnt be possible in the first 20 turns, and although it is possible to get a disciple early, it shouldnt be to much ahead of the religion.

 

[Turinturambar]

two dwarven axemen with strength 5 early in the game are much more unbalanced than a early tech. Dwarves have double movement on hills so you can easily and quickly steamroll stuff around. Same with Lizardmen and their 2 movements (though they have a penalty to attack cities).

I thinkt the imbalance has more to do with the power of copper axemen rather than the lair. Gaining two tier2 units a bit earlier should not be gamebreaking. You get pretty much the same result when you pop bronzeworking from a hut.
Right now getting access to copper axemen early is always an "impossible to lose" result, regardless where they come from.

If copper would not have such a strong effect (and the lizards wouldn't have poisonblades), the event would be pretty balanced.

 

[BillSeurer]

...If copper would not have such a strong effect (and the lizards wouldn't have poisonblades), the event would be pretty balanced.

The lizards are also the equivalent of hunters, though. That lets you grab the better animals with almost no risk.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I like Jabie's idea about some lairs being invisible until certain techs are discovered

 

[Kael]

I like Jabie's idea about some lairs being invisible until certain techs are discovered

We already have it in effect (events that spawn dungeons). Thats a much easier way to go about it than writing a system to make improvements invisible.

Though the events are rather rare, you guys are probably thinking of a tech/ritual that would spawn more dungeons later in the game.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

You have to have researched mysticism before you can rescue a disciple from a lair. So it shouldnt be possible in the first 20 turns, and although it is possible to get a disciple early, it shouldnt be to much ahead of the religion.

Maybe if there was block to prevent this result more than once for a civ. Then if you get a religion early, goody for you but you can't won't get them all that way. I think that, from a story point of view, getting a religion from a rescued disciple is perfect and much better than the normal method of researching one (science discovering religion ). But I agree that getting more than one religion so easily isn't good for balance.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

a ritual that spawns dungeons all over the map... *drools* now THAT's awesome!