Mazatl: Feedback, and general questions

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Finally, trails do not work for commandos! This is a huge advantage in games against raider civilizations. I have thanked my lucky stars several times as Clan riders barely make it past my borders.

raider trait doesn't give free commando promotion in FF as far as I know..

 

[WarKirby]

Wetlands and marshes shouldn't be combined - or, at least, if they are, marshes should be enhanced for lizardmen. Both lizardmen civs suffer the same -1 food, +25% build time penalty for marshes that every other civ does.

And, to get technical, marshes, wetlands, and swamps are different. From Wikipedia:

I was speaking in game terms, not with regards to real world stuff.

As far as the game's concerned, all these terrain types feel redundant, confusing, and unecessary.

 

[Vehem]

The first thing I noticed, is that they can build in jungles without cutting them down. I discovered this by accident, which is bad, I think. Shouldn't that be mentioned in their civilopedia entry?

Probably should - does anyone know where the elves mention about the same thing with forests? I'll stick it in the same place...

I've noticed there are 3 kinds of "wet" terrain. Marshes, wetlands, and swamps. This is extremely confusing. What's the point of all of those? what are the differences between them? why are 3 needed, wouldn't 1 do?

Marsh is a late addition - and will be merged into Wetlands as soon as the civ-specific yields tag is modified to allow more than one civ to be modified (so that both Mazatl and Cualli can benefit from what would otherwise be a poor terrain type).

Finally, the Mazatl swordsman model, doesn't look very good. 2 reasons.

1. The sword is badly positioned. It's sort of attached to the back of the hand, rather than being held. doesn't look right.

2. The style of sword doesn't seem to fit. I'm thinking something more along the lines of the curved swords used by priests of kalshekk, would be better.

Artwork-wise we've always said that we welcome any "better" models/animations that anyone can offer, but it's not an area that any of the team specializes in. I hadn't noticed a problem with the sword, but will take a look.

I have to disagree here. Because I had no idea what spring would do, due to having new, undocumented functionality.

It really needs an expanded tooltip, that explains what it does to wetlands, and a warning when casting it will destroy an improvement.

Oh, also, it seems spring is still castable when standing on a swamp, but it does nothing. Presumably not checking if the tile already contains a swamp..

The main problem with special tooltips for Spring is that it would display for non-lizard/non-wetland casters as well - so "will destroy <improvement>" is incorrect for the majority of cases. I have been musing on setting the Swamp-creation spell to be a delayed cast spell however, which would involve making it a new spell rather than just using spring (Prereq: Lizard, Water I). In that case, it could be resolved.

Wetlands and marshes shouldn't be combined - or, at least, if they are, marshes should be enhanced for lizardmen. Both lizardmen civs suffer the same -1 food, +25% build time penalty for marshes that every other civ does.

That's the basic plan - and why the tag is needed. Marshes would be returned to be a positive terrain type for the two lizard civs, but remain negative for others. At the moment I can easily make it positive for EITHER the Mazatl OR the Cualli, but not both at once...

Forests on flat terrain have a % of turning into Deep Jungle every turn. This chance is increased by their base terrain and whether the terrain is irrigated via a river/lake or not. Casting Spring allows you to upgrade the tile's base terrain, which affects the chance of the forest to change.

Desert- No chance, shouldn't have a forest on it in the first place.
Plains- low chance. I play marathon, and without casting Spring it can take a few dozen turns
Grassland- middling chance.
Wetlands- high chance.

Trails in Deep Jungle grant a free commerce. As a result, in my games I almost always try to power out an early worker and go on an upgrade spree. Well before cottages become available I'm able to have several high-population cities with middling income powering out workers and settlers for an early expansion rush. Late game, grabbing the +1 food in swamp tech allows you to switch to the civic that uses surplus food for military production and power out a massive army.

Finally, trails do not work for commandos! This is a huge advantage in games against raider civilizations. I have thanked my lucky stars several times as Clan riders barely make it past my borders.

This post covers pretty well the strengths of the Mazatl. Cottage spam doesn't result in massive commerce as with other civs, but there are other sources of commerce available. Swamps and Towns are both good ways to gain more food (swamps are more food, Towns are slightly more commerce) , whilst the Lost Lands civic allows for a decent amount of happiness to grow your cities. You do lose out on foreign trade routes, but if you can develop internal trade sufficiently, you gain extra food and production from that as well.

It would probably be fair to remove the ability to build farms from the Lizard civilizations - it's a poor option compared to others that they have. I'm also tempted to drop a couple of the "industrial" options as well, though they could arguably be appropriate for the Cualli.

The defining element of the Lizard civilizations is that after a while, their lands are definitely lizard lands. Swamps, jungles and hidden trails all help a defending lizard player and hinder a conqueror even if they succeed in capturing a city. It takes a little patience for the terrain to convert naturally - but it is worthwhile once it does.

The downside of that - certain areas are going to be far less useful to lizard civs. Deserts and hilly-plains won't really ever compare to a grassland forest with a few rivers...

 

[WarKirby]

The main problem with special tooltips for Spring is that it would display for non-lizard/non-wetland casters as well - so "will destroy <improvement>" is incorrect for the majority of cases. I have been musing on setting the Swamp-creation spell to be a delayed cast spell however, which would involve making it a new spell rather than just using spring (Prereq: Lizard, Water I). In that case, it could be resolved.

Are you saying that spring only has this effect for lizardman races? That seems odd.

If you flood an area, it's going to become swampy, regardless of who you are. I'd lean towards the solution of simply allowing this ability to the spring spell, regardless of who the caster is. And then the tooltip showing for everyone would be a non issue.

That's the basic plan - and why the tag is needed. Marshes would be returned to be a positive terrain type for the two lizard civs, but remain negative for others. At the moment I can easily make it positive for EITHER the Mazatl OR the Cualli, but not both at once...

Can't you just add marsh specific bonuses to the unique "Swamp dweller" tech that lizardmen races start with ?

This post covers pretty well the strengths of the Mazatl.

Personally, I would say that post doesn't go into enough depth. "Low chance" and "high chance" aren't particularly informitive. It would be nice to know the actual figures here. Which presumably, only you would know.

This information would be nice in the pedia too. Maybe put an entry in the "Fall From Heaven concepts" section, entitled "Lizard races and jungles"
Also put a link to that page in the pedia entries for jungle, and deep jungle.

 

[Valkrionn]

Can't you just add marsh specific bonuses to the unique "Swamp dweller" tech that lizardmen races start with ?

Relatively sure that it's not CURRENTLY possible to add food to a base terrain with a tech.

Personally, I would say that post doesn't go into enough depth. "Low chance" and "high chance" aren't particularly informitive. It would be nice to know the actual figures here. Which presumably, only you would know.

This information would be nice in the pedia too. Maybe put an entry in the "Fall From Heaven concepts" section, entitled "Lizard races and jungles"
Also put a link to that page in the pedia entries for jungle, and deep jungle.

I'd actually like to see a write up for all civs, but there is already one for the lizards, or rather their terrains. It's in the concepts section, entitled "Deep Jungle, Wetlands, and Swamps". Doesn't have hard numbers, but it IS there...

 

[HadesScorn]

Heh, yeah, I'd include specific numbers if I knew them, WK. However, it is a general guideline and covers one critical component - raised terrain [aka Hills] will not get special benefits. Wasted a few hundred turns waiting for them to change my first game.

As for Commando, yes,

raider trait doesn't give free commando promotion in FF as far as I know..

However, I find that the Clan and others seem to pick up Commando for their Horsemen after working up the Combat tree.

 

[Vehem]

Are you saying that spring only has this effect for lizardman races? That seems odd.

If you flood an area, it's going to become swampy, regardless of who you are. I'd lean towards the solution of simply allowing this ability to the spring spell, regardless of who the caster is. And then the tooltip showing for everyone would be a non issue.

At the moment, anyone can flood a wetland tile to make it a swamp. If I changed it, then only the lizards would be able to cast the spell - because only the lizards would want to. The problem with the tool tips are for cases where you have improvements on other terrain types that spring effects (such as desert). In that case, the "create/replace improvement" effect of spring doesn't occur, but the "change terrain type" effect does. It would still display as "Change tile to Plains. Will destroy improvements." however. Making it a specific spell rather than tagging on the extra functionality makes more sense.

Can't you just add marsh specific bonuses to the unique "Swamp dweller" tech that lizardmen races start with ?

That would require an extra field too. Techs allow yield increases for improvements, but not for terrain types (ie Farms, but not Grassland, Swamps but not Wetland etc). That's the main reason swamp was implemented as it was in the first version.

=====

It's important to remember that a lot of what may be considered "undocumented" or odd now was added a long time before modding FfH took off the way it has in recent months. The original 3 civs (Chislev, Archos and Dural) were the first civs I'd implemented from scratch and the following 2 (Mazatl and Cualli) were somewhat significant in that they had a whole new terrain system dedicated to them. All the features of that system and how everything worked was discussed extensively at the time, but obviously it was a long time ago now and the playerbase has changed/grown.

Documentation is a "must do" in the near future, it just never seems quite as much fun as refining, reworking or adding features. Even debugging tends to be more interesting (and more urgent).

I am however tempted to setup the skeleton of a FF-content wiki that can be added to by anyone who wishes.

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Regarding the lizard terrain-changing mechanic...

Each turn, standard speed...

20% chance for any Road in lizard owned land to become a trail.
100% chance for any Jungle to become Deep Jungle (all Lizard Jungle is deep).
2.5% of any lizard owned flat-grassland next to a river becoming wetland.
0.5% chance of any other flat-grassland tile in lizard owned land becoming wetland.
0.2% chance of any lizard owned flatland plains becoming wetland.
2.5% chance of any unimproved, non-city wetland developing a swamp (x2 for AI - they don't tend to create them on their own)
5% chance for Forest/Ancient forest in Wetland to become Deep Jungle
1% chance for featureless Wetland tile to gain Deep Jungle.​

 

[Zurai]

The marsh/wetlands stuff sounds good.

Also want to say that I really like the Lizardman civs. They're quite flavorful and very well-done. I think that the Mazatl might be just a tiny bit on the powerful side (Lost Lands is a VERY strong civic if you dedicate the time to it), but that's ignoring leaders like Keelyn.

 

[Zurai]

Oh, and the Lizardmen War "Elephants" rock. I dunno where you got that model from (Warhammer mod?), but I find myself tracking down Elephants halfway across the continent just to have more dinosaurs rampaging around. The other lizard cavalry are nice too, but there's something about big green styracosaurs that I love.

 

[JeffSteel]

If yall are really gonna follow through with the march-wetland merge, consider using the current marsh graphics. They look more distinctive than the slight color change of wetlands, in my humble opinion.

 

[Zurai]

I disagree. Marsh is closer to grasslands in both saturation and hue than wetlands is. I can always spot wetlands tiles, even with forests or jungles on top of them, but I can generally only spot marshes when they're in the open and right next to a grasslands for comparison.

 

[Anathema]

I am, like some others, rather confused by the whole swamp/jungle/etc thing. If I understand it right, swamps are a replacement for farms, except.. they're just about the same as farms, so what really is the point? Ok, they get a free commerce from trails, and an extra food from tracking, but farms get an extra food from sanitation, and the option of losing production for more food from agrarianism. If lizardmen lose the ability to build farms for simplicity's sake (great idea!) perhaps swamps should get an extra boost somewhere, like allowing them to be affected by agrarianism just like farms. Swamps don't seem necessarily better or worse than farms, in fact for any tile without jungle (remember the lizardmen can't create jungle, just hope for it to spread) I'd much prefer an agrarianism farm - keep in mind that lost lands comes pretty late in the game for those of us that start in the ancient age. This leads to another problem, elves can spread their forests manually but not lizardmen with their jungles, perhaps they should get a jungle version of bloom castable by.. say wyvern guardians for Mazatl, and some unit at a similar point in the tech tree for Cualli (I don't know them as well, have only played Mazatl).

And then there are wetlands, which are.. grasslands? Grasslands with a slightly higher chance of jungles and swamps forming, if I understand the civlopedia correctly. So my grasslands have a small chance of developing jungles, and they also have a small chance of turning into wetlands, and once they're wetlands they have a slightly increased chance of developing jungles and can also create swamps - so, why on Erebus do we need wetlands? Why not just give grasslands within lizardman territory all the abilities of wetlands and do away with wetlands? If you really want wetlands for flavor, just to make lizardman territory appear different, then have them automatically replace grasslands just like deep jungle replaces normal jungle, because right now it's needlessly confusing to give lizardmen two almost-identical base terrains. And then there's marsh, equally useless to any civ, but I won't complain because it sounds like you'll be replacing marshes with more wetlands for the lizardmen as soon as it's technically possible.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, although documentation would be nice, that's not the key problem here - other civs do not need documentation to help them understand the pros and cons of cottages vs. farms or grasslands vs. plains, these choices are simple and self-explanatory. The wetland/grassland and swamp/farm and jungle mechanics are not simple or self-explanatory, they need some redundancy removed, then they won't require much explanation.

 

[JeffSteel]

I disagree. Marsh is closer to grasslands in both saturation and hue than wetlands is. I can always spot wetlands tiles, even with forests or jungles on top of them, but I can generally only spot marshes when they're in the open and right next to a grasslands for comparison.

That's basically how it is with me and wetlands. Marches have the distinct look of ponds and bogs breaking up its surface, whereas wetlands just looks slightly different in color. I usually don't see any difference between them and grasslands unless it stop and examine the two for a second.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

personally I think wetlands are easier to spot than marshes. anyway, when they are merged I think they should keep the name "marsh" , but should be recolored so that they are easier to spot. even if they are orange it's still better than not being able to see them at a glance.

 

[Sephi]

I like it that you can see how your land slowly transforms into deep jungle. First you see some grassland that transforms into wetlands and swamps, then some of it turns into deep jungle.

 

[Valkrionn]

For me, it's easier to spot wetlands under the jungle, while marsh are easier without tree cover.

 

[Sephi]

I play on maps where something called marsh doesn't exist *g*

 

[Valkrionn]

It would probably be fair to remove the ability to build farms from the Lizard civilizations - it's a poor option compared to others that they have. I'm also tempted to drop a couple of the "industrial" options as well, though they could arguably be appropriate for the Cualli.

If that's done, I'd suggest allowing Lizards to spring grassland to wetlands, so they can 'build' swamps where they are needed rather than relying on random chance.

 

[Greeney]

I played as Mazatl, and as I didn't know how to get swamps I started over, alone, passing turns as fast as I could, to see my lands change to wetlands. My starting position was full of rivers, many plains and some grassland.

The change rate is very low. By turn 500 on quick speed, only around 50% of the tiles around my city changed to wetlands. Of the 5 or 6 tiles I worked for the test, only one with a cottage became wetlands. Is that a coincidence or is it harder for improved tiles to become wetlands? Then, jungles don't grow on improved lands. So, is the player supposed to leave all the tiles unimproved to be able to be surrounded by jungle?

If I had played normally, building improvements on all the tiles, there wouldn't be a single jungle tile around me. So, if the lizardmen are supposed to be a light jungle version of the woods with the Ljos or Svarts... well, they are not. Unless you start in an area already full of jungles (which is unlikely).

The main difference between lizards and elves is the possibility to create forests. With the elves, you can even use "bloom" on already improved tiles with mines, farms and so on (cotagges is the only improvement that doesnt allow blooming). With the lizards you have to wait until woods become jungle, and then build the improvement (and well, you don't probably want to do that if you plan to survive).

So basically, you want wetlands and you want jungle, and both of them are very hard to get. I'd say, no "spring" for the lizards, but a different spell that turns anything (but ice) to wetlands. Why do they have the possibility to get plains from desert? They don't need that. And no "scorch". If you turn a tile into wetlands, you'll have to live with it until you get a sun adept.

Then, as someone suggested, some unit with a jungle version of "bloom" would be appreciated. Maybe "bloom" could create forests on tundra, grassland and plains, but jungle on wetlands and marshes?

Also, we have to take into account that deep jungles are not as good as ancient forests, so no matter how much you help the lizards, they won't get as good in production as the elves.

 

[Breez]

The main difference between lizards and elves is the possibility to create forests. With the elves, you can even use "bloom" on already improved tiles with mines, farms and so on (cotagges is the only improvement that doesnt allow blooming). With the lizards you have to wait until woods become jungle, and then build the improvement (and well, you don't probably want to do that if you plan to survive).

So basically, you want wetlands and you want jungle, and both of them are very hard to get. I'd say, no "spring" for the lizards, but a different spell that turns anything (but ice) to wetlands. Why do they have the possibility to get plains from desert? They don't need that. And no "scorch". If you turn a tile into wetlands, you'll have to live with it until you get a sun adept.

Then, as someone suggested, some unit with a jungle version of "bloom" would be appreciated. Maybe "bloom" could create forests on tundra, grassland and plains, but jungle on wetlands and marshes?

Good point. I love to see a jungle version of bloom on a Lizard Priest UU... as well as a level 6 Priest UU available at the same time as High Preists.

Also, we have to take into account that deep jungles are not as good as ancient forests, so no matter how much you help the lizards, they won't get as good in production as the elves.

True, not to mention no spawning defenders.

However I think the Elves are one of the most powerful races. The Mazatl are not far behind already.