Lair Feedback: The problem with "Or"

[Kael]

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

That would be a better solution than invisible improvements (can you imagine the frustration of being unable to place a farm on a tile and not knowing why).

 

[rezaf]

Wouldn't something like a unit strength requirement have a very similar effect, though?

The player will have to be of a certain level to be able to field a non-summoned unit of a certain strength, and dungeons would be visible, but unenterable.

Just thinking...

Btw., I dug up that Python API, but it seems to be pre-BTS and contains very limited commentary on what functions actually do.
Is there a more recent API available with additional detail?
I saw Kael's thread on how to mod FFH, but it isn't exactly a API reference...
_____
rezaf

 

[PotatoOverdose]

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.

Yea I looked back at the save I was beelining education so I had ancient chants and I pooped mysticism from a goody hut, still...

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I find it really annoying that the Broken Sepulcher, Pyre of the Seraphic, and Aifon's Isle are so easy to destroy. I think that the "Epic Lairs" should be essentially impossible to clear, so you can keep exploring them longer.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I miss the old Pyre and Broken Sepulcher and I miss Barbatos. now they are just lairs like all the others, aside from the fact that they spawn supergood or superbad results only. they used to be truly unique and it was way more fun and flavourful imho.

and yeah, since they are unique features, they should never be destroyed.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

Lairs are AWESOME!!!!! Especially a Command buffed Priest. Knock on a dungeon for you next recruit. (just remember to toss some cheep cannon fodder their way first)

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I miss the old Pyre and Broken Sepulcher and I miss Barbatos. now they are just lairs like all the others, aside from the fact that they spawn supergood or superbad results only. they used to be truly unique and it was way more fun and flavourful imho.

and yeah, since they are unique features, they should never be destroyed.

Don't forget that they still give their mana. Still, might be cool if they had their own unique results added to the pool, good & bad, but the system does have a good deal of variety already.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Okay, how about this for balance: Make all Dungeons have some unit that guards it from turn 0. This can be just a normal lizardman, skeleton, or whatnot, but not allow for that grace period where players can 'risk' snagging an early dungeon.

It also increases the feeling of accomplishment when you 'assault' a dungeon with a group of units. The current play pattern is to send one solitary unit out, while the others defend your cities, because the barbarians by and large ignore units in the field.

If Barrows start with a skeleton, and Ruins start with a Lizardman, you aren't going to use your first scout to try and pop out a quickie. You won't *want* to, so the game won't feel like it is punishing you for trying to experience it.

If we do this, and then shift the odds for good results up on the normal barrows to slightly over 50% then you can feel that pillaging a barrow is now an obvious reward for overcoming the guys there.

Secondly, We can restore some of the flavor of the Epic Dungeons that exist by giving them back their unique defenders, and greatly shifting the 'epic good' chance (to say, 70%). These unique defenders need not be as amazingly strong as Barbatos was, just strong enough that a sizeable force will be needed to pillage them (And please, do not give them all fear).

I think the current system, which simply uses Risk as a balancing factor, is less fun than one where you actually need to accomplish something to get your rewards, as opposed to simply risking a negative.


Am I making any sense here?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Yes. You don't need to shift the chances of an epic good event much, because most rare bad events don't remove the dungeon. I think I'd like to see laird all start with a unit, and dungeons attract them, too.

 

[Kael]

Okay, how about this for balance: Make all Dungeons have some unit that guards it from turn 0. This can be just a normal lizardman, skeleton, or whatnot, but not allow for that grace period where players can 'risk' snagging an early dungeon.

It also increases the feeling of accomplishment when you 'assault' a dungeon with a group of units. The current play pattern is to send one solitary unit out, while the others defend your cities, because the barbarians by and large ignore units in the field.

If Barrows start with a skeleton, and Ruins start with a Lizardman, you aren't going to use your first scout to try and pop out a quickie. You won't *want* to, so the game won't feel like it is punishing you for trying to experience it.

If we do this, and then shift the odds for good results up on the normal barrows to slightly over 50% then you can feel that pillaging a barrow is now an obvious reward for overcoming the guys there.

Secondly, We can restore some of the flavor of the Epic Dungeons that exist by giving them back their unique defenders, and greatly shifting the 'epic good' chance (to say, 70%). These unique defenders need not be as amazingly strong as Barbatos was, just strong enough that a sizeable force will be needed to pillage them (And please, do not give them all fear).

I think the current system, which simply uses Risk as a balancing factor, is less fun than one where you actually need to accomplish something to get your rewards, as opposed to simply risking a negative.

Am I making any sense here?

This would relagate every lair to exactly the same mechanic. They have a defender, you beat him and you take the lair. This is how goblin forts currently work, and it works well, but I prefer variety. Even worse you make the lair that spawns next to your starting settler ruin your starting position. The whole reason barrows and ruins dont start with guards is so that those close to players can be wiped out quickly rather than threaten them. The Ai would be hit hard by starting positions right next to spawning lairs. And it takes away a players incentive to get out and explore, that thrill at finding a barrow or ruin with a scout before they have spawned a monster, or finding a dungeon at all.

Barbatos is still in the game, it is possible to get a lich boss monster spawn while exploring the broken sepulcher. Angry fire elementals can still spawn when destroyign the pyre of the seraphic. The only difference is that instead of those fixed events, there are now many things that could happen.

 

[cabbagemeister]

Even worse you make the lair that spawns next to your starting settler ruin your starting position. The whole reason barrows and ruins dont start with guards is so that those close to players can be wiped out quickly rather than threaten them.

I dunno, I recently had 3 games in a row end because I explored lairs near my starting spot and popped bigbad results (even the henchmen that spawn with a boss can wipe you out when you just settled 3 turns ago). This makes me very hesitant to do any lair exploration until I have a decent military from now on. In that respect, I don't think that the presence of an initial defender on a lair would affect my playstyle at all--I wouldn't explore the lair quickly either way.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

But you could park a guy on it to stop the spawns, which you couldn't if it started guarded.

 

[Kael]

I dunno, I recently had 3 games in a row end because I explored lairs near my starting spot and popped bigbad results (even the henchmen that spawn with a boss can wipe you out when you just settled 3 turns ago). This makes me very hesitant to do any lair exploration until I have a decent military from now on. In that respect, I don't think that the presence of an initial defender on a lair would affect my playstyle at all--I wouldn't explore the lair quickly either way.

As NK stated, nobody is suggesting that you should explore the lair until your ready for the result.

 

[Zechnophobe]

If you don't explore it though, it'll spawn a skeleton, just as if it started there, so I don't see the difference. Also, I disagree that a lair with a skeleton spawning 'next to' your starting location ruins it. I mean, it's one square you can't use, and you kinda have to worry about the occasional spawn from it, but that isn't much different than a lair another 5 squares away. Either having early lairs popped is too big of a risk, or it isn't, we can't argue both ways depending on which point we are trying to get.

The thrill of exploration factor... we already have goodie huts, and graveyards, and bonus resources, and world improvements... and wild life that kills our scouts making them inefficient units for the most part.

I'm not sure if it's possible, but another thought would be to attach the animal AI on to a unit as it spawns (I'm not sure if that's modifiable at run time) so that you can have early 'bad' things that won't track you to your cities (But can still have ones a little later on that do).

 

[rezaf]

But you could park a guy on it to stop the spawns, which you couldn't if it started guarded.

In a recent game I had some guarded ruins 3 tiles away from my home city.
They must've started guarded, because I discovered them VERY early and there was a Lizardman sitting on top of it.
Was quite thrilling for a while, because it would spawn another Lizardman every now and then which would move over to the city and attack it.
Thankfully, the starting warrior parked there always managed to expose of those.
I finally took the ruins with two warriors which had levelled up defending the capital quite a while later.
_____
rezaf

 

[onedreamer]

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.

Well I wrote early in the game. Early techs are not as valuable as 2 strength 5 units with which you can easily eliminate at least one neighbor. Plus, techs can be gained by huts as well, so I really can't say they are unbalancing if popped by a dungeon instead.

I think 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.

Well, however you want to put it, the units you spawn from the lair do have a total of 5 strength which is unbalancing if too early. And no, it's not the same thing as a copper promotion. Double movement on hills and a bonus to attack cities IIRC for dwarves and Hunter abilities for Lizardmen, plus one strength... that's definitely not pretty much the same as a warrior with bronze weapons in my book.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I agree with Zechnophobe, lairs starting guarded wouldn't be that much of a difference but personally I would like that, it's more rewarding to get rid of the defender. maybe it could be made so that not ALL lairs start guarded, just some of them. or even better, set the code up so that lairs very near to a starting location start unguarded ( not sure if this is possible but I guess so ) . setting the spawns to have ANIMAL-AI for a while is another possible nice solution imho.

btw, can anyone confirm that if you park a unit on a lair it will not spawn anymore? cuz I'm used to FF lairs and that didn't work there, the unit would get kicked out of the tile

 

[rezaf]

Well I wrote early in the game. Early techs are not as valuable as 2 strength 5 units with which you can easily eliminate at least one neighbor. Plus, techs can be gained by huts as well, so I really can't say they are unbalancing if popped by a dungeon instead.

I don't consider the dwarven axemen REMOTELY as powerful as you paint them to be. Granted, on a reasonably small map you could get to a neighbor fast and your Axemen would be quite the asset, but unless you're playing Duel, is it really THAT unbalancing?
I got the dwarven battle result twice or thrice so far. One time I hacked two of the lizardmen to pieces, but the third one counter-attacked the next turn and one of the dwarves fell.
Second time I killed one of the lizards and fortrified the second dwarf, the Lizardmen then scurried off into the wilderness.
The dungeon had been quite far away from home, so I sent the dwarves on their long march.
One fell to a Bear a little later, and the other ran into Orthus. To my surprise, he wasn't attacked, though, but Orthus retreated into the wilderness.
(How somewhat later it turned out Orthus wasn't retreating, he was beelinging to my capital is another story)
I think the Dwarf fell later investigating a spider-infested cave near one of my bordertowns when he finally had made it home.
So, those dwarfs were not really that much of an asset to me.

Also, negative things like a spawned Hill Giant roaming just outside your borders or just something mundane like having your first scout disappear without a trace very early on can have quite some impact.
It's nice to see there are a few things that can tip the scale somewhat in your favor.

I have to say, some of the "Legendary" rewards are quite underwhelming, though (I'm looking at you, Jade Torc).
_____
rezaf

 

[onedreamer]

I don't consider the dwarven axemen REMOTELY as powerful as you paint them to be. Granted, on a reasonably small map you could get to a neighbor fast and your Axemen would be quite the asset, but unless you're playing Duel, is it really THAT unbalancing?

I don't paint anything, I speak on experiences when I make such considerations. I had this event happening twice, the Lizardmen didn't even try to attack me, and the second time in a sort of testing mood I decided to try and use them to wreak some avoc on other civs and I have been quite successful at it. Of course you don't just conquer the world with only 2 units (although you can with the closest neighbor if it isn't already all set up for war), but these 2 units escorted by your regular early warriors become unstoppable if awarded early enough: they can be a real tool for victory, but you can't say the same about a free tech which you don't even get to choose. Btw the last patch seems to deal with this issue in a reasonable way.

 

[Caradoc]

I am less than overwhelmed by Shipwrecks. The range of outcomes is pretty limited and it seems to me that the units on your ship ought to have something to do with it.