Malakim+ Brainstorming

[Sephi]

new Malakim:

• Malakim culture automatically transforms terrain to desert over time
• Riverside desert gets floodplain feature
• Other terrain sometimes spawns Oasis or Camels
• roads disappear in Malakim desert after some time
• horses become camels in Malakim desert
• Malakim can trade in desert without roads
• Malakim can't use spell spring
• Malakim have unique camel units (raider, archer, knight)
• Malakim mounted units that start their turn in desert have increased withdraw, recon units are invisible. Effects end if they don't end a turn in desert or after combat
• Malakim get bonus food/hammers from trade
• Malakim have UB Bazaar that gives +1specialist from towns
• Malakim disciple units can use Asceticism spell in desert. requires empty desert (no improvement) and no other unit around. Takes 20 turns and gives unit random amount of expierence
• Malakim Empyrean priests can teach Asceticism to other units. Units needs to be in empty desert, must have a level less than 4, Empyrean priest in stack and not more than 3 units on plot. takes 10 turns to cast and gives unit random amount of experience

 

[Valkrionn]

How'd you get the 'Malakim can trade in desert without roads' thing working? Would like to steal that one if you don't mind.

 

[Sephi]

How do you make them not require roads? I've never even considered that, but it's a perfect idea.

in dunewars this is done via tech that allows to trade on desert.

What would you think of emphasizing the Desert-Fathers-like ascetic aspects of the civ

that sounds great

umh, what would the issue be exactly with boars and the fonts TGA file? O.o

Every bonus resource needs to have a symbol in the tga file. Camels for example have one because I use the tga file from Rife , so they were easy to add

 

[Sephi]

How'd you get the 'Malakim can trade in desert without roads' thing working? Would like to steal that one if you don't mind.

add this to their tech.

			<TerrainTrades>
				<TerrainTrade>
					<TerrainType>TERRAIN_DESERT</TerrainType>
					<bTerrainTrade>1</bTerrainTrade>
				</TerrainTrade>
			</TerrainTrades>

I haven't checked yet though if the AI completly understands it when you block them from building roads in desert.

 

[Valkrionn]

Well, I feel dumb. Should have thought of that code....

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Come to think of it, I think what I tried was making Arete allow trade over Peaks. That probably didn't work because peaks are mostly hard-coded in the game engine.

 

[Valkrionn]

Not as bad in RifE or Orbis. Ahwaric merged the Mountaineer Mod, and I merged it from Orbis. Allows peaks to give yields (to certain civs; set to 0 as default. Khazad, Luchuirp, Jotnar in RifE), become passable without making ALL impassable features passable, and so on.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

great stuff you added for them Sephi, nice work! the only thing I'd still like to see added to them is a assassin UU, since it's kinda sad they get nothing from poisons. if we don't want them to get a unit with marksman, so that they keep one of their drawbacks ( definitely reasonable ) , their assassin UU can very much have other abilities, but no marksman promotion.

about Boars, flavourmod definitely has an icon and 3d art for them, they're pretty good too.

 

[Fafnir13]

Dang, that's some impressive changes there. One question though: How will cities survive away from anything related to a river? Seems like the desert would quickly gobble up any amount of food production rather quickly.
Also, Hell Terrain will destroy the Malakim. Without spring, they wouldn't even be able to navigate their flaming deserts.

Completely different note: Could we ax the trails used by the Mazatl (they look kind of crappy) and replace it with a jungle=trade tech like the Malakim are now getting? That would be super.

 

[Valkrionn]

Dang, that's some impressive changes there. One question though: How will cities survive away from anything related to a river? Seems like the desert would quickly gobble up any amount of food production rather quickly.
Also, Hell Terrain will destroy the Malakim. Without spring, they wouldn't even be able to navigate their flaming deserts.

Completely different note: Could we ax the trails used by the Mazatl (they look kind of crappy) and replace it with a jungle=trade tech like the Malakim are now getting? That would be super.

Ha, trails are being discussed in RifE atm too.


One thing I've always enjoyed about my Malakim is the event they get at the mirror of heaven.

 

[Sephi]

great stuff you added for them Sephi, nice work! the only thing I'd still like to see added to them is a assassin UU, since it's kinda sad they get nothing from poisons. if we don't want them to get a unit with marksman, so that they keep one of their drawbacks ( definitely reasonable ) , their assassin UU can very much have other abilities, but no marksman promotion.

Malakim get Assasins like everyone else. I see no reason to give them a special one. If anything needs a Assasin UU, it is Esus.

 

[Valkrionn]

Maybe he meant Shadow UU?

The Dervish was added before Kael allowed Malakim to gain standard assassins. When he did that, I bumped them up to Shadow... Either Champion or Assassin can upgrade to them, they do not require Esus, are only invisible in desert, have sun affinity rather than poison damage, and (next patch) will target assassins first, rather than have marksman. Defensive assassin.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

ah! you guys are definitely right, I forgot about that! I was still stuck in the "malakim get nothing out of Poisons tech" mindset. thanx for the remind

 

[Lone Wolf]

give them a special "beduin sit" improvement that can be built on a desert tile if there's no beduin sit in the 8 surrounding tiles

Wouldn't that lead to patterns of 9x9 plains squares with a desert tile with a bedouin sit in the middle?

Unless you're going to disable Spring for them.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

spring IS going to be disabled. check post #21 for an overview of what Sephi has checked in for them so far.

 

[Valkrionn]

Sephi, I'd like to thank you for the 'Trade over Desert' idea.

Our testers got it last night (Finished setting up our SVN, so they can download nightly builds if they choose), and one of them has already realized that since lightbringers still have scorch (I added that in Malakim+, when there was no climate system... not needed now, but I like it), you can actually use them to scorch a line of desert towards your neighbors, and get international trade without roads.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

question: is Ascetism ability going to scale with gamespeed? 20 turns would be quite a lot on quick and blink of an eye on epic

 

[Sephi]

spellduration does never scale with gamespeed

 

[Valkrionn]

Sephi, I have a question for you... Our testers are playing with the 'Desert Trade' change for the Malakim, and are reporting that while it works fine for flat terrain, resources on hills don't connect up. Are you getting this issue as well, and if so, have you fixed it?

 

[Sephi]

seems to work fine for me.