Malakim Desert Mechanics

[Calavente]

zxcvbnm : ok I think I understand your meaning now.. I like more your 'absent minded sonlution, appearing in the last sentence :

OR then the malakim would just get 0,5 free food to the centre tile per every desert in fat cross, as the nomads live there, and 0,5 extra to a max of 10? from trade routes

Ozcor /White Elk :this seems to be the best solution. (with an autopillage down 1 level when ennemy goes into the tile?)
what if lightbringer only can build those ?
and do :
Nomad Camp - 1/0/1 built only in desert improves as Cottage to:
Caravan - 1/0/2
Bazaar - 2/0/3 (+0/0/1 w/Currency) (+0/1/0 w/trade or machinery)
Grand Bazaar - 2/0/4 (+0/0/1 w/Currency) (+0/1/0 w/trade or machinery)
spring/vitalize is not enabled on nomad camp. (or it may distroy the nomad camp)

 

[smurven]

I think zxcvbnm's idea, or a variation on it is great. What I really don't want is to have citizens work tiles, because that just doesn't make sense. It also makes them VERY vulnerable to invasion and breaking trade routes (which makes sense, a desert city without shipments of food is going to be in trouble). There will have to be some way to get resources though. That might have to be through trade too though. The egyptians shipped stone for their projects for a VERY long way, especially for important things like stone coffins. It would have to be way less than the food though. Otherwise stuff like sandstone or some sort of race specific resource could be good. I also liked the idea of desert spreading for them, thought I don't think it should be very much. Maybe to make new desert viable there should be a small chance of desert specific resources appear. I really like the food and commerce idea because it is so unique, it would really make this race stand out.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Actually, The Malakim usually seem to do better then most AI civs in most of my games, even when I have changed the rules in favor of some of the others. (Sometimes they just seem to have crazy luck, like capturing Losha in several games and using her to wipe out the other vamps. They also always found at least one religion.) Still, it does seem like they need some more flavorful mechanic, plus they seem less impressive when under my control. I see no better time than Shadow to implement it.

At first I was in favor of giving them desert improvements, but the trade route idea has kinda grown on me. Nomad camps and caravans don't seem like terrain improvements to me, and Bazaars sound like they would make a better unique building (perhaps a market replacement without the research penalty, which also adds an extra trade route and allow trade routes to generate food). Also, I think that sheep (and goats if they are added) and horses should be more common in deserts, so pastures can be built there.


Although The Malakim probably don't need more military advantages from deserts, a "Desert Stealth" promotion (like the old forests stealth, which should make a comeback in Shadow, this would make units invisible only while on the appropriate terrain) would be really cool, perhaps requiring the nomad promotion and combat V (sand lions should probably start with this promotion too)


I'm not sure I like the idea of the Malakim spreading deserts passively, but a desert causing "super-spell" ritual would be nice, either for the Malakim or for the Empyresm. (As I've stated earlier, I think there should be several new repeatable rituals that trigger events that let the player target an enemy, and that their should be one unique to each civ, religion, and alignment, plus several that anyonecan do with the proper mana types) This ritual could work like a mini-blight, having the effects of blight but only in a limited area (I would like it if it would let you choose one civ to hit with it, giving a military advantage to the Malakim if they invade said civ, or in defending their own lands if they choose to hit themselves)

 

[smurven]

Yeah, you seem to have articulated what I was thinking well. I feel nomad camps and caravans sound like a better building. Though maybe they could use food to produce to help production low cities get a start. That might not be necessary especially if more specials existed in desert like you said. (perhaps camels to make it more unique?) I don't mean desert spreading very fast, it would be more like creeping forward (or inward, making terraforming a less likely prospect), but also your ritual idea could be cool (instead of or in addition). I'm not sure I like the targeted aspect, but maybe it would just spread around your territory making enemy boarder cities weaker and more susceptible to attack. The possibility of just having my capital slaughtered is a bit much. I suppose if it were something like nature's renewal (i think thats what its called) where only unimproved tiles were affected that might be OK. Otherwise it would seem that ritual would be too powerful, especially if you consider you might build it late game, and your "target" owns half the world, and you own the other. It would decimate him. Whereas a boarder encroachment could be fought off with military action to push back their border.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Well, I meant this to be one of many such rituals, with differing effects (Illians could send AoI style Blizzards at their enemies, etc) . Making the Genesis ritual repeatable as well could help.

 

[xienwolf]

On the idea of repeatable rituals, it would be interesting to give one to the Luichirp or RoK which converted mountains --> Hills --> Plains (all in cultural sphere of city doing ritual only), but spawned a golem on the now demoted square.

 

[smurven]

Yeow, that'd be crazy.

 

[kenken244]

getting food from trade routes dosn't make the malakim like deserts any better as they would still get the food from those trade routes even in grassland. maybe if the nomad camp improvement gave extra trade routes to cities that it is in the fat cross of, then it would make deserts more favorable.then make nomad camps workable but provide sub-optimal yeilds(like 1 commerce) but while they are worked they can upgrade and find resources. Upgraded versions of nomad camps could have larger base commerce and chance of finding resources, and higher upgraded versoins could gather the resources (and actually provide good yeilds) and spawn units when it is pillaged. it might be hard to get the city govenor to work the sub-optimal nomad camps,and the nomad camps would need really short upgrade times to be viable

 

[smurven]

The idea was 1 food per traderoute up to however many desert tiles were in its cross. So if you had 8 desert tiles in your cross you would get up to 8 food if you had 8 commerce (or more) from traderoutes.

 

[Sureshot]

could do repeatable events to achieve something new and interesting using the new mechanics.

i know there are events based on terrain, so perhaps there should be events for malakim that gives their cities bonuses that happen a lot based on the number of deserts a city of theirs has.

 

[Calavente]

maybe :
malakim, civ wide : 1F per trade route. (base)
+1F per gold from trade route per desert in fat cross
+new terrain feature: nomad camp, buildable only by lightbringers only in desert, cannot spring or vitalize on it.

Nomad camp :

Spoiler :

a feature (as railraod), buildable only [if (desert AND (oasis OR ressource)) = true ]
spring/vitalize impossible.
Build by lightbringer.
yield : +1/1/1

==> same effect as ressource on a plain flatland with standard improvement + 1 commerce ==> malakim won't want to use spring in desert, they will lose 1commerce per ressource
==> can improve any ressource in desert, even one coming from scorched plains.
==> issue : malakim may still want to vitalize their mines and floodplains.

advantages total
==> malakim get food from trade: a bit everywhere, more in desert.
-floodplain / mine without ressource is worth 1F more due to trade routes.
-oasis are worth more if staying as a desert than to spring it (+2/1/1 from NC + trade routes comparison to plain : +1/0/1, comparison to grassland: +0/1/1)
-ressources are worth more if landing on a desert. (+2/1/1 from NC + trade routes comparison to plain : +1/0/1, comparison to grassland: +0/1/1)

==> so for food, production and military, malakim would rather have desert than anything else on ressources.
for other non-ressource plots... less interesting (only 1/0/0 worth, compared to plain + irrigation/workshop/town) so : maybe malakim's scorch has an area effect, razing improvements withour pillaging ?

 

[Calavente]

could do repeatable events to achieve something new and interesting using the new mechanics.

i know there are events based on terrain, so perhaps there should be events for malakim that gives their cities bonuses that happen a lot based on the number of deserts a city of theirs has.

but if you have many desertic cities as malakim, you will have events almost every add turn (positive for sur but thats frequent) ==> a bit game boring...as every turn you have to validate events 2-3 times
if you want it less frequent so as not to be so boring for the game... it would have to be powerful events... and thus may be game saving, ie game breaking.

I'd rather have a continuous, transparent (almost) mechanism.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

plus, it probably wouldn't work if you use the option to disable random events.

 

[zxcvbnm]

maybe :
malakim, civ wide : 1F per trade route. (base)
+1F per gold from trade route per desert in fat cross
+new terrain feature: nomad camp, buildable only by lightbringers only in desert, cannot spring or vitalize on it.

Nomad camp :
a feature (as railraod), buildable only [if (desert AND (oasis OR ressource)) = true ]
spring/vitalize impossible.
Build by lightbringer.
yield : +1/1/1

==> same effect as ressource on a plain flatland with standard improvement + 1 commerce ==> malakim won't want to use spring in desert, they will lose 1commerce per ressource
==> can improve any ressource in desert, even one coming from scorched plains.
==> issue : malakim may still want to vitalize their mines and floodplains.

The problem is that if they get trade food in all cities then they won't love desert so much, and it's quite weird for a city in super-fertile floodplains-grass area to import food
If a rocky desert terrain with 0,1,0 is added and made default for all desert hills and mineable resources there's no longer an issue.

==> so for food, production and military, malakim would rather have desert than anything else on ressources.
for other non-ressource plots... less interesting (only 1/0/0 worth, compared to plain + irrigation/workshop/town) so : maybe malakim's scorch has an area effect, razing improvements withour pillaging ?

But they don't need to work them like the puny peasants in more fertile lands do. Just sit there and do something more useful like buy and sell stuff and food keeps flowing in.
And plains cities with no rivers can never get over size 2 as i have said many times before. Which would you choose? Plains-town with 1,1,4, 2 worked to 2h 8g/s +building bonuses or desert with 0,(0/1),0 no need to work, can get to size 10, max 10 specialists, with 1 engineer, 2 priests, 2 sages and 5 merchants 4h 15g 6s+buildings bonuses?

 

[Demus]

well that makes it easy really, just give them a free specialist for every desert-tile (maibe any non-FP/oasis tile if possible), problem solved!

 

[Sureshot]

a free merchant specialist Slot (as in, the ability to assign one) for each desert would be nice, a free merchant specialist would be too good id think.

unless you balanced it out and gave them -1 food from grasslands

then dry areas would be a necessity heh

 

[smurven]

If you just give them specialists, the cities wont grow so you will have a whole slew of crappy cities with crappy trade routes. If you give them food to grow and THEN get specialists, then they will at least have population increase, and their trade routes will be better (not to mention it just looks crappy to have small cities). Almost forgot, small cities that are good also don't have to worry about health and happiness which is ridiculous. Lastly, food from trade routes just sounds cool.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

How about giving them a building that adds +1 or 2 food per merchant and opens 1 merchant slot per desert tile in the city radius (assuming you can allow specialist based on terrain). That way, assigning the specialist would make the city grow as much as working a tile would.

I wouldn't want it to be a fee specialist, just specialist slot, or else they would have difficulty getting other types of Great people in their desert cities. Hmm, maybe it would be better if it could be something like a free merchant or priest slot.

 

[zxcvbnm]

How about giving them a building that adds +1 or 2 food per merchant and opens 1 merchant slot per desert tile in the city radius (assuming you can allow specialist based on terrain). That way, assigning the specialist would make the city grow as much as working a tile would.

Of if they could assign one merchant/trade route, + bonus merchants from caravans, bazaars etc, but the food would be limited to the number of desert tiles?

 

[Demus]

How about giving them a building that adds +1 or 2 food per merchant and opens 1 merchant slot per desert tile in the city radius (assuming you can allow specialist based on terrain). That way, assigning the specialist would make the city grow as much as working a tile would.

well, the national park in BtS works with additional specialists through certain improvements in the city radius, shouldn't be that hard to copy that mechanism.