Making Doviello (and maybe Clan of Embers) more fun to play

[Mavy]

I was playing the Doviello the other day, well nice to play but nothing special.
They reminded me a bit of the Barbarians of "Magic the Gathering", the Keldons.

That made me come up with several ideas for them.
I started modding a bit (finally those programming classes paid off) and created a new civic for them, which i called "Witch King".

the idea behind this goverment civic was to be an all out war civic, with boost for production, no war weariness (the first thought was to reverse War Weariness, making them happy when at War, but i didn't know if that is even possible), a malus to health less culture and almost no research at all. ( i added less gold for balance).

may need a little balance but worked out better than expected.

then i wanted to add a special promotion for that civic, called "Witch King".
the idea was to make your most experienced unit The Witch King, or if a unit with at least lv6 could get that promotion, when no unit else already had it.
That unit would represent the Leader of your civilization, so if he dies there would be some unhappiness for some turns.
or if you have stronger unit you can challenge him, which might be a spell that makes the strongest unit on the plot the Witch King.
Well the problem is, i have no idea how to add this, if someone has an idea how i can add this, i would really appreciate it.

I'm trying to figure this out myself, but this could take a while, since i have no experience in xml or python.

mfg
Timo

PS: I'm happy to upload my results when i have something worth sharing

 

[MrUnderhill]

Sounds a lot like how the Mercurians and Infernals are being handled (leaders as units), but in civic form? Sounds interesting. But how about: if your leader unit dies (to an enemy unit, I should say), you could get dumped back into despotism with 5 turns of anarchy.

And could you call the civic "Warlordship" and the promotion "Leader"? Witch-King reminds me too much of LOTR

 

[Mavy]

yeah, the name probably isn't very good, creativity isn't one of my strenghts.

some rounds of anarchy with a killded leader sound good.

mfg
Timo

 

[QES]

My thoughts on Frosty Raiders (Essentially viking type civ here) is that they should either be heavily invested in the sea (as ice is not very useful) and that they should earn most of their resources and production from raids (not territory capture).

In this, I think that they (the Doviello) should revolve around a concept of "growth" that is attached to military action. In this, i think that they could have a unique set of buildings and other options that are directly tied to wealth. This is disimilar to the khazad in that where the khazad actually produce their wealth, the dovilleo will be forced to steal it. I think that the first thing that could be done is that every time the doviello kill a unit they gain some gold, Perhaps they would gain an amount of gold equal to the experiance of the unit and/or the strength of the unit. This would provide a small influx of gold. Also, I think that the doviello should have a "different style" of pillaging. In this, if they pillage a resource, they would gain access to that resource for x amount of turns. You pillaged gold? Your civ gets gold as a resource for 10 turns. I also think that the Doviello should/coulg gain technology progress (not techs themselves but perhaps beakers IN some techs) every time they killed an appropriate unit or sacked a city. The doviello should have a third option for citys. "Sacking". You can capture, Raze, or Sack a city. Sacking a city would differ because it would kill half the population (not all), it would destroy half the buildings (not all), and would provide twice the gold, and half THAT amount in beakers. The only problem is, that the invading unit would be instantly returned to the capital (To laud its glory) and this would stifle constant invasion. Perhaps all units within 1 square of the city would be forceably moved back to the capital. (IN this it would encourage spread out attacks to multiple cities, instead of concentrated forces - as the concentrated force would always be returned to the capital.) The Cultural Garison of the sacked city should perhaps also be halved. But ownership remains the same.

To balance this, i think that the production of the doviello should be ******** a bit. Perhaps dont give them access to windmills, workshops or any "higher level" improvements. Just the lower level improvements.

On that note, there should be more of a difference in quality between lower level improvements and higher level improvements. With notable exceptions for race-specific improvemnts like the dwarven mine, which will always be high quality.

Also, I think that like desert, ICE should carry with it some penalty. I'm thinking that instead of movement penalties and indefenseability, that perhaps it should be a slow drain on health and a % promotion that gives all units stuck in ice an 50% chance of -1 movement. (this would mean occasionally units would be "stuck" in ice, and the ice would be eating away their strength). THe doviello and any other "cold types" would be immune to this effect.
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

itd be neat if Ice terrain made units invisible by making the terrain always covered in fog, except the tile a unit of yours is on, gave a slight defense bonus, and cost 3 movement to walk through, and maybe applied a very minor negative healing penalty.
atm Ice and Peaks are just quick passage, no yield, highways.

i just posted that in design terrain thread... ice really needs to be scarier

 

[QES]

IT IS Scarier. I live in Minnesota. Were Viking decendants and we Know what our ancestors liked and what they liked to do. Ya live in ice, but you pillage the "warmies". Then you move to the midwest of another continant and lament "The olden times".

-Qes

 

[Mavy]

yeah, there indeed need to be some more advantages for Doviello on Ice.

getting extra research points from capturing cities is something i was thinking about, too.
I just don't know how to implement this.
as far as i know i would have to add it to CvEventManager.py .

well, i'm trying right now, but to be honest i've no idea what i am doing, if somebody with experience in this could give me a hint this would be really cool.


mfg
Timo

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Isn't there already a mod that does that?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Or maybe the promotion Warrior King (I don't know about witch king, sounds magic based) is availible to them any time, only givable to one unit at a time who must be level 6 or something. Only when they already have one such unit can they adopt the civic, Warrior/Witch King, which would have benifits like you describe. Then if he dies, it's back to anarchy til you promote another.
This would be easier to balance, since their hero comes late, though of course they could get a religious hero to jump start their conquest.

Oh, and Dovellio will probably get a bit more fun when some of the v16 unit models come in.

 

[Maniac]

How about a Doviello Nomad unit that can spawn units when residing on Tundra? Like in the Warlords Mongol scenario?

 

[khanjackal]

nothing special about the doviello?

that's crazy!

i have yet to play a game with the doviello in which i've gotten immortals, or any other tier4 unit

because i've won by then!

they get cheap units, have no need for many buildings, and so you spend your time creating lots of axemen, or BATTLEMASTERS, and crushing your opponents... those units are so cheap!

the doviello already play, quite well, like a barbarian horde...

a few bonuses in ice, and a viking ship UU might work, but they're already pretty flavorful to me

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

how about:

A civic that, when converted to gives your highest xp unit the hero promotion. (and perhaps a unique tracking promotion "Warlord")
If this unit dies you go into anarchy and revert your government civic to the default. After the anarchy and 10 turn waiting period between civic changes you can switch back and a new unit is promoted to leader.

Give the civic a few other abilitys too,
+ 10% military production
- 20% war wearyness
+ 2 unit xp mele/archer
medium upkeep

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

how about:

A civic that, when converted to gives your highest xp unit the hero promotion. (and perhaps a unique tracking promotion "Warlord")
If this unit dies you go into anarchy and revert your government civic to the default. After the anarchy and 10 turn waiting period between civic changes you can switch back and a new unit is promoted to leader.

Give the civic a few other abilitys too,
+ 10% military production
- 20% war wearyness
+ 2 unit xp mele/archer
medium upkeep

Nice idea - but in most cases your most experianced unit will already have more than 100xp. So not much point in giving him the hero promotion.

 

[Sarisin]

I think Doviello and the Clan are tough to play with the raging barb option. This is because you really have to manage your score or you can get the nasty surprise of the barbs declaring war on you while you are building up your civ.

I have never tried Doviello, but every time I have played Sheelba or Jonas, this has happened to me no matter what I did. Then, it is tough because your civ is not built to defend against the raging barbs.

 

[Halancar]

I think Doviello and the Clan are tough to play with the raging barb option. This is because you really have to manage your score or you can get the nasty surprise of the barbs declaring war on you while you are building up your civ.

I have never tried Doviello, but every time I have played Sheelba or Jonas, this has happened to me no matter what I did. Then, it is tough because your civ is not built to defend against the raging barbs.

You could try raising the difficulty level, that should fix your problem

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

the hero promotion also gives access to heroic strength 1&2 and twincast.

 

[Sureshot]

one thing that would add flavour to the more barbaric civs would be to allow their axemen to chop down forests, offering them a utility like the way dwarven soldiers can build mines.

 

[QES]

one thing that would add flavour to the more barbaric civs would be to allow their axemen to chop down forests, offering them a utility like the way dwarven soldiers can build mines.

Hey this is a good idea. But of course ONLY for barbarian civs. Perhaps they'd get a free fort out of it "on the formerly forested tile" For their efforts?
-Qes

 

[Kael]

one thing that would add flavour to the more barbaric civs would be to allow their axemen to chop down forests, offering them a utility like the way dwarven soldiers can build mines.

K, added. Doviello and Orc Axemen can chop forests and jungles (with the right techs).

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

K, added. Doviello and Orc Axemen can chop forests and jungles (with the right techs).

Sweet ... how about them getting pillage from chopping down
Ancient Forests outside their cultural boundries? That'll add a nice new hostility vector (Ljo -> kill -> Barbarian civs) ?