Making the Doviello more unique

[xienwolf]

If the Doviello were to get an enhanced Navy, there are only 2 ways I can see it working:

1) Animals. Preferably things more primal than giant tortoises.

2) Like the Reavers in Firefly. Strapped together barges that shouldn't rightly float and no sane man would occupy. Fortunately it isn't crewed by sane men, and they don't mean to get farther than the next ship with it anyhow.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I could see the Doviello getting some weak but extremely cheap ships, so they could overwhelm their enemies with shear numbers. I might be able to see a fireship UU for them too. (Camulos is a god of malicious, pointless arson)

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

2) Like the Reavers in Firefly. Strapped together barges that shouldn't rightly float and no sane man would occupy. Fortunately it isn't crewed by sane men, and they don't mean to get farther than the next ship with it anyhow.

The bigger problem, I think, is the conceptual issue with pairing low tech civ with technology. A ship is definitely technology and relatively high technology. You can argue that a low tech civ could have fierce warriors because that's all based on human training but a low tech civ with ships that are actually more than just crude rafts? That stretches the imagination.

A cobbled together POS raft being able to even catch up to a frigate and/or sink it, even with mass numbers? As a favorite blog said, that would be like watching some orangutans in the Congo hack into Citibank using feces and tree bark.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Hey, not all Doviello are low tech. Dentaro is a technological genius, and could probably retrofit his War Machine as a ship pretty easily if he needed to.


Overall, if the Doviello become a naval civ I think that their advantage should be ships that are available at lower techs, but certainly no better than the normal ships.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

umh, I don't like that viking/doviello overflow idea Lanun are masters of the sea, keep it that way. we want wild, beastmen Doviello!

Dentaro is the exception that confirms the rule of course. and his uniqueness is highlighted by the fact that there is only one war machine

 

[El_Duderino]

i cant really see the doveillio become a naval civ, aside from it intruding on the lanuns theme i cant picture wolves swimming very well (doggie paddle only goes so far) but i do like the idea of animal cages giving added bonuses like:
wolf kennel gives all living units built in city sprint promotion
dancing bear gives all units built in city an added 25% strength
spider pens gives all units built in city +1 poison combat
tiger cage gives all units built in city flanking promotion
gorilla cage gives all units built in city woodsman promotion
lion cage gives all units built in city cover promotion

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

nice idea about cages giving bonuses. it would give them a huge incentive to get out and capture them. but since animals are only a minor thing in FFH, I think this would be a minor thing for Doviello as well. I still like the idea of a beastmen race a lot, xienwolf had a lot of awesome suggestions for that

 

[El_Duderino]

for the most part yes but bears and wolves are all over the tundra so it would be quite easy for the doviello to get faster and stronger units, it might be easier if beast men had the capture animal promotion

 

[Zobo]

What if instead of the normal mechanism their specialists would be "hunter" for food production, "craftsman" for hammers, "shaman" for science, "noble" for gold. Their citizens working tiles would cause their newly built units to have certain upgrades or some other side benefit - no
foods or anything such.

Tiles around the city (unimproved ones) should give you some additional benefits when building units. Say combat promotions for tundra (10% chance for each tundra tile around city), maybe chance of extra strength on ice (5% per tile), chance of getting two units for each grassland tile. (5% per tile) and so on.

They would get more units from good lands and stronger units on the harsh terrain.

How does that sound?

 

[MaxAstro]

Personally I've always felt that the idea that was mentioned at some point of letting Doviello melee units steal weapons from defeated foes was a great one, enough so that I implemented it in my personal mod. The changes I made to the Doviello are these (not saying these are all good/balanced, or fix the problem, these are just what I came up with):

-Axeman replaced with a new UU, Warmonger, that can only use Bronze weapons but has +10% vs melee units and +10% city attack
-Beastman, Warmonger, Battlemaster, and Lucian can scavenge weapons promotions from defeated foes (even weapons they normally can't use)
-Arena made a Doviello UU instead of a Balseraph one, with a slight price reduction (since all it does is allow arena battles; it's not needed to train troops. Does still give +1 happy from nationhood, though)
-Charadon gains the Charismatic trait (Because, let's face it, Charadon has the worst traits of any leader in the game. At least this way there is some semblance of a choice between him and Mahala)

I wouldn't say these changes totally fix the problem (does nothing about tundra being a bad tile for them, for example), but it at least makes the Doviello - especially Charadon, who was previously on my "leaders I'll never play" list next to Alexis and Os-Gabella - a playable civ for me.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

cool touch about the weapon-scavenging MaxAstro, nice idea

 

[MagisterCultuum]

He stole it from me.

 

[xienwolf]

Bah, all your ideas are hereby declared public domain till you release an update

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

In fact until you drop -three- classes and get your mod mod updated I declare ALL your ideas mine.... (including your libertarian ones in the opinion thread)

 

[MaxAstro]

Well I tried to give credit, I did say it was mentioned by someone other than me, didn't remember who.

Anyway, full credit to Magister for that idea, then.

 

[MiKa523]

I've had another idea for the Doviello, which hopefully didn't came up already.
After Kael's latest essays it is pretty obvious that he wants unique and fun stuff and not just another ice-civ or barbarian civ so let's get started:

With the new shaman UU for them (adept) I think it would be fun to give the Doviello Adepts/(Arch-)Mages the ability to transform into an animal and back.
Wolves would fit the theme obviously (werwolves?, polarbear?), but they need to be stronger.
-An adept should transform into a wolf with a basestrength of 4, and then gets Hero Att. and Def. lvl I as a mage and lvl II as an archmage.
(Alternativly one could choose different animals for each kind of sorcery unit, which is always one point stronger, e.g. adept->wolf, mage->bear, archmage->polarbear)
-You can only transform, when you have all movement points left and it takes all movement points, so it basicly takes one round to transform into a wolf or back.
-The wolf keeps all the promotions except those related to magic. When switching back you keep your xp, get your magic promotions back and can pick new promotions after leveling up as wolf before (This might be tricky to code?).

The point is to add a fun and unique way to level up your sorcery units as Doviello.

 

[marioflag]

Personally i would like to see the Doviello Palace give access to some equipment instead of mana. It would be really fitting for them considering they are mostly a warrior civ.

Perhaps one could be a combat related item like an axe, or a sword which Lucian can equip.
Another equipment could be an horn which when used could boost the stats of units in a stack.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

shapeshifting shamans? not that's cool, nice idea Mika

 

[Visage Darkskin]

I really like the shapeshifting idea too. Fits nicely their beastly nature.
Some ideas:
What if their animal cages are able to spawn or breed animals too?
Variation on a theme: Doviello's units being able to add unique promotions from animals to warriors (limit of one?), much like adding great commanders. E.g. bears give +1 strength, tigers +1 mobility, etc.

 

[Ksi]

umh, I don't like that viking/doviello overflow idea Lanun are masters of the sea, keep it that way. we want wild, beastmen Doviello!

Dentaro is the exception that confirms the rule of course. and his uniqueness is highlighted by the fact that there is only one war machine

Why do people say "exception that proves the rule"? I never understood that. It's such a huge logical fallacy. Exceptions at best weaken rules. Ugh, I just really hate that expression.

That aside, as Gekko said, something highlighting their savagery would be best. Equipment instead of mana sounds fun. My ideas are either make it easy for them to enslave people or allow them a building the spawns wolves which can then join warrior line units which would add some vision and strength. Additionally, giving them the great general mechanic might be interesting.

Another possibility I think would fit them is making their raze mechanic different. Perhaps give them a significant chunk of money and perhaps some slaves (or people that can be added to cities) which would symbolize rape and pillage since this is a dark mod. It seems likely the Doveillo after conquering would take not only property and riches to use as they please, but people too.