lanun

[wig]

A couple quick thoughts on making costal cities (and hence the Lanun) more competitive:

- Change the map scripts to add a larger percentage of resources to water tiles.

- Add a fairly common water tile resource that adds an extra trade route to the city.

Emphasizing the economic aspect of the coast seems like a better route to go, rather than just giving them enough hammers to compete with inland cities.

 

[kenken244]

or just make naval combat better

 

[Chandrasekhar]

or just make naval combat better

People don't fight wars for the fun of it- they fight wars to gain an advantage. How will making naval combat more complex add incentive to fight over the water?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Some people fight was for the fun of it-at least in games they do. Still, I agree that the sea should be more lucrative.

 

[kenken244]

yes if there were better things to do in naval combat ther would be more ways to make lauaun better

 

[ascen]

While it's all fine and dandy to claim that "Lanun actually gets an advantage since they get good coastal cities" you might want to consider the downside - they practically cannot build cities inland, due to farms being useless for them.

Now, I play FfH mainly as multiplayer, so for me this discussion is more about wanting to play a balanced sea-oriented game as Lanun, while still having a decent chance while playing Pangaea or large continents-map.

It's also notable that building merely coastal cities will end up having very large distances between cities which very quickly adds up as enormous upkeep costs.

Yet another issue is that while land-based civilizations keep improving their buildings (Sanitation, Commune with Nature), Lanun gets nothing after Sailing. The +1 food from Lighthouse is more of a deterrent than advantage, since it is a must to build to every city in order to have competitive cities EVEN ON COAST.

So, while others are building up their empire, Lanun gets to spend 20-30 turns on building a lighthouse in every startup city. Now, after Lighthouse is built, the Conquest solves many of the building issues - except that when you compare the outputs to other civs, they are still getting more for that civic with farms.

All in all, Lanun have an advatage over others only in the beginning, and only if they have decent shoreline to build to (decent = at least 6 workable ocean squares). With agriculture, everybody surpasses the lanun in food production, and with sanitation the advantage that Lanun got from their Lighthouses vanishes. In addition to this, Lanun starts some 700rp behind everybody since they had to get Sailing. And yes, they need to get Fishing as well in order to even produce anything on the sea.

What Lanun would need is basically getting that another +1 food from some tech, be it Astronomy, or building -say Pirate Harbor - to keep them at par with the advances of other civilizations.

 

[daladinn]

i got to thinking about a few points.

1 - is it possible to have the lanuns special tech provide bonuses based on civics? say +1 food with agriculture , +1 trade route with trade , +1 gold with republic . this would be a push in the right direction.

2 - the ability to buy techs woudl also be helpful. say a building or something that allows you to buy 100 beakers for 300 gold.

3 - we still need a way to develope the seas since we cant make buildings in the cities that add enough to the water output.

 

[eerr]

People don't fight wars for the fun of it- they fight wars to gain an advantage. How will making naval combat more complex add incentive to fight over the water?

make water based maps more interesting(strategically)

 

[eerr]

i got to thinking about a few points.

1 - is it possible to have the lanuns special tech provide bonuses based on civics? say +1 food with agriculture , +1 trade route with trade , +1 gold with republic . this would be a push in the right direction.

2 - the ability to buy techs woudl also be helpful. say a building or something that allows you to buy 100 beakers for 300 gold.

3 - we still need a way to develope the seas since we cant make buildings in the cities that add enough to the water output.

they sprawl well along the coast, the problem, is that this leaves vast swaths of thier land poorly protected/buffered, not that it's a bad mechanic.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I never really build farms in the first place... it doesn't seem like such a big disadvantage for the Lanun to get -1 food on them, especially with the option of the agriculture civic.

 

[kiaace]

that means archipelago map with tiny islands? Also, what do pirate coves do?

 

[Slvynn]

Lanun powerfull as they are now, and i dont think they need some changing/tweakening. Playing archipelago for lanun is same as playing arborea or boreal for elves, and pangaea is "hard case", but rest of maps will go pretty well. We using (MP) to play Lakes maps, they are balanced and contain water tiles too.
And even on Pangaeia - if you start near ocean - you set pretty well.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Pirate Coves act ac cities for defensive purposes (letting ships heal faster), plus after 10 turns they upgrade to Pirate Harbors. Pirate Harbors also act as cities, plus increase the gold yield of the tile by 2, increase the heal rate by 5, increase defenses within 1 tile radius by 5, and upgrade to Pirate Ports after 20 turns. Pirate Ports act as cities, increase food yield by 1, hammer yield by 1, gold yield by 2, and increases the heal rate of friendly units by 20, and increase defenses within 2 tiles by 10.


Pirates Coves are built by a spell available to Lanun workers. It can only be cast on flatlands next to water tiles, without features of improvements. It must be at least 3 tiles away from the nearest cove, but currently their isn't a distance limit between ports of harbors (an exploit I fixed in my modmod). In addition to creating the improvement, the spell turns the tile into a coastal tile.

 

[Bahahotep44]

Maybe someone has already suggested this, but what about a unit upgrade called Boarding Party that would allow enemy ships to be captured the way animals are captured by rangers, hunters, etc with the Subdue Animal upgrade? (Or, to be honest, maybe this is already a feature and I just don't know about it yet...)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

That has been in the game for a very long time. Boarding is a promotion that only Boarding Parties, the Lanun Champion UU (edit: and the Lanun Hero Guybrush), and units upgraded from these have. I believe that Boarding Parties have 1 less str than normal champions though, and until recently changed they required Lanun Harbors to build so landlocked Lanun had no champions.

The promotion also lets land units attack units on water tiles, whether they are ships, water walking units, or flying units. Unfortunately, Kael hasn't figured out how to make the combat odds display for these types of attacks.


(In my version, the UU is gone, the Lanun harbor UB grants Boarding to all melee units built in their cities, and the promotion is available for any civ's melee units, requiring Military Strategy, Amphibious, and Combat V (or is it Drill IV?).)

 

[the343danny]

About boarding, anybody else having problems with capturing the last ship in the stack with a boarding party or Guybrush and having them sent to the closest coastal tile because they are standing on a water tile if they win the battle?

 

[Cyberian]

I hope this is the right thread to ask. I did not play Lanun (although I am intending to do it in my next game) but got quite problems with them. In 5 games I played they ALWAYS managed to become the strongest civ. Even in my latest game (a immortal fantasy world game with crazy ressources and nearly no water in it).

Was this bad luck or does anyone else experience this?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Lanun are pretty horrifying AI opponents on the highest difficulty level. On all difficulty levels they make iron working a high priority because 2 of their unique features are tied to it. With immortal/deity level bonuses they get there FAST, and with upgrade cost reductions they end up with a ton of boarding parties, which gives them a significant power chart boost, which motivates them to go on a rampage and beat the crap out of poor unsuspecting bronze-wielding opponents. If they're your neighbor - watch your ass. It's hard to suck up to them and make them not want to hurt you. If you look weak, you're toast. Below those levels though they're not that hard to deal with.

 

[Cyberian]

Ah thank you that explains it. I usually play on Immortal or flexible difficulty which ends me up on deity.
I currently have big problems with Falamar. He got 30% of world pop (me just 20) and has multiple stacks that look like this:

20 Arquebus
5 Cannons
5 Boarding Party

Often mixed with a highly promoted War Tortoise, Phalanx or Immortal unit on top and some Assassins. I havent got Archmages yet and I got no horses, except that I got nearly all other technologies playing with Perpentach.

 

[Grey Fox]

Both the Lanun leaders are able to build a strong economy. Both have good trait combinations, Hannah's Financial (3 Food, 3 Commerce on regular water tiles) + Raiders make her an economic powerhouse and an enemy to fear being neighbour to. Plus she has a stormy personality, like the raging waters she call her home.

Falamar has nice bonuses with all female leaders in the game, is Charismatic, which I like more than Raiders, and Expansive. Both traits boost cities with the total +1 happy and +3 Health. Cheap Granaries and +100% faster production of Settlers! (Just the hammers though) makes for quick expansion and many trade routes.