Mountain yields

[Luckmann]

Mountains:
2 for Khazad, 1 for Luchiurp, +1 from Arete (anyone). No improvements, no city-building, no passage unless flying or otherwise special situation; If there's no passage, there can't be workers there to build improvements. No extra resources, chances to find resources, mines or otherwise.

Earth 3 to turn a target mountain into Hills/Tundra or Hills/Plains.

Those are my demands. Fullfill them or the cat gets it.

 

[jwin]

I don't like cats, so go right ahead.

Your numbers are fine, but I still think tying into the Khazad world spell would be good. Perhaps with the worldspell, a chance to find resources? Would that save the cat?

 

[the_fish]

I don't understand how new mountains appearing would cause pathfinding problems either.

As an example, at the start of a game, send a unit to a random unexplored place, far away. Once it reaches the edge of known lands, the pathfinder just assumes all unexplored tiles as passable, and makes a straight line to the target from there. If the unit finds it's path blocked, it stops and asks for new orders.

doesn't seem problematic.

Well, sure, with a few modifications the game could cope with such changes, but that's not the point. It can easily cause suboptimal paths, which put the AI at a huge disadvantage through no fault of its own.

Imagine the 'peak/hill' as a closed/open door at the end of a long corridor. You start walking towards the door when it's open, but then immediately someone shuts and locks it. Under the current system, you'd keep stupidly walking towards the door anyway until you actually reach it and realise you can't go through, so have to pick a different route. (this is assuming it even checks at each step that the destination tile is still passable, which I doubt - why would it need to?)

The obvious way around this is to check at each step whether your future path remains valid, which in civ terms is a quick check for every tile in the path (O(n)). You can optimise this by checking all unit paths every time a tile changes from impassable/passable, and not otherwise.

The 'problems' aren't insurmountable by any means, just they'd take extra code to get round - you can't just shove in a peak creation spell and expect everything to work optimally.

----

Regardless, I agree with others that say peaks should remain impassable and (initially) low yield. Bad terrain should remain bad.

(I still like the idea of mines developing on worked 1 peaks in a similar way to cottages, though. Feels right.)

 

[Grey Fox]

Oh noes how did you know my weakness?

But no! I won't give in even for the sake of the precious cats!

 

[D-Rockz]

It would be cool if it started out like a cottage with +1 and then after 30 turns of working the mine went deeper and became 2 and so forth to a max or 4 or 5 much later into the game.

You sacrifice some production early for benefits in late game.

 

[Capn Charlie]

Those are my demands. Fullfill them or the cat gets it.

I'd be careful what you say about cats. For some people, caturday never ends.

 

[Ranos]

Snow can become tundra,

Requires a civ that starts with Sun mana to build an adept, promote it with Sun I and waste a casting turn to use Scorch. Repeat the last step for as many tiles as necessary.
Requires a civ that doesn't start with Sun mana to research Divination, build an adept, convert a mana node (that could possibly be used for something better) to a Sun mana node, promote the adept with Sun I and waste a casting turn to use Scorch. Repeat the last step for as many tiles as necessary.
Neither of the above include the time it takes to even research to the point where you can build adepts.

Tundra can become plains.

Requires a civ that is neutral to research quite a ways through the tech tree to get Commune with Nature, build a Grove, train or upgrade to a Druid and waste a casting turn to use Vitalize. Repeat the last step for as many tiles as necessary. This may take extra work for Good or Evil civs so they can turn neutral.
Requires a civ to adopt FoL, research quite a ways through the tech tree to get Commune with Nature, build Yvain and waste a casting turn to use Vitalize. Repeat the last step for as many tiles as necessary.
Requires a civ that starts with Nature mana to build an adept, promote it with Nature I, wait for it to level up enough to upgrade to a Mage, promote it with Nature II, wait for it to level up enough to upgrade to an Archmage promote it with Nature III and waste a casting turn to use Vitalize. Repeat the last step for as many tiles as necessary.
Requires a civ that doesn't start with Nature mana to research Alteration, build an adept, convert a mana node (that could possibly be used for something better) to a Nature mana node, promote the adept with Nature I, wait for it to level up enough to upgrade to a Mage, promote it with Nature II, wait for it to level up enough to upgrade to an Archmage promote it with Nature III and waste a casting turn to use Vitalize. Repeat the last step for as many tiles as necessary.
Neither of the above include the time it takes to even research to the point where you can build adepts. They also don't include the fact that Nature I is only really useful for Elves or civs that waste valuable tiles as forests until the invention of the Lumbermill. They also don't include the fact that Nature II is completely useless for all neutral civs (which as is being discussed in another thread seems to be most of the civs in the game if RoK or OO spread enough). ANd lets not forget that neither of the above include the fact that Nature III is only useful for upgrading these tiles and once you have done that sufficiently, it is now a useless upgrade that you could have used for a more lasting useful spell.

Desert can become plains,

See the above section for a good part of this response.
Requires a civ that starts with Water mana to build an adept, promote it with Water I and waste a casting turn to use Spring. Repeat the last step for as many tiles as necessary.
Requires a civ that doesn't start with Water mana to research Elementalism, build an adept, convert a mana node (that could possibly be used for something better) to a Water mana node, promote the adept with Water I and waste a casting turn to use Spring. Repeat the last step for as many tiles as necessary.
Neither of the above include the time it takes to even research to the point where you can build adepts.

plains can become grasslands.

See serction 2.

Jungle can become forests.

Requires a civ that starts with Fire mana to build an adept, promote it with Fire I, waste a casting turn to use Blaze, wait for the smoke to become a fire, wait for the fire to go out, wait for the Burnt Forest to become a New Forest and then wait for the New Forest to become a Forest. Repeat step 3 as many times as necessary to remove all jungles.
Requires a civ that doesn't start with Fire mana to research Elementalism, build an adept, convert a mana node (that could possibly be used for something better) to a Fire mana node, promote the adept with Fire I, waste a casting turn to use Blaze, wait for the smoke to become a fire, wait for the fire to go out, wait for the Burnt Forest to become a New Forest and then wait for the New Forest to become a Forest. Repeat step 3 as many times as necessary to remove all jungles.
Neither of the above include the time it takes to even research to the point where you can build adepts.

Jungle can become grasslands.

Easier than the rest since it only requires researching Bronze Working but still requires numerous turns for workers to chop the jungle.

Lets also not forget that the Illians can turn useful tiles into Snow. And of course any civ with an adept with Sun I can turn a plains tile into a Desrt tile. While that has the same complications as section 1, it is still possible. Then there is Hell terrain. It doesn't occur in every game, or even most games, but it is another useless tile.

Now granted, all but mountain tiles can become useful tiles in some way, it takes work to do it and I think what many of the people posting favor is allowing this only for the two Dwarven races. Is this really so bad a suggestion?

Illians can use Snow, which is useless to all other civs. Malakim can use Desert, which is useless to all other civs and Infernals, while not actually able to use Hell terrain, find it more useful than all other civs because it doesn't hinder them and does hinder other civs.

I'm not saying that any of the above is a good reason to allow Dwarves to use mountains but to say that mountains are the only useless terrain in the game is a bit far fetched.

 

[WarKirby]

So maybe it should just be somewhat difficult to mine mountains. I like the idea of it requiring engineeering. It would be a hell fo an engineering feat to build the deep mine shafts, and support structures to keep things from collapsing, as well as pulley lifts to transport people around those shafts, careful knowledge of where it's safe to dig that won't cave the roof in over your head, etc.

 

[citizenalex]

I may be misremembering, but I thought Kael's response was that you can't make impassable tiles having a yield? So he would have to make peaks passable for dwarves ot capable of working them?

Actually, I had a game where "a rare breed of edible mushrooms" spawned right on the mountain top, and I clearly remember my city view telling me I could work the tile for 2

So it can be done and the game sometimes does it by itself...

 

[Iceciro]

I'm not opposed to it working with Engineering. That gives that side of the tree more good things, and is something the Luchurip already hit.

I'd say it works something like so.
Mountaintops - always impassable.

Can be worked for 1
Dwarves get +1
Arete gives +1
Engineering gives +1 and +1

Thus it's really only useful above citizen-specialists for dwarves, people under Arete, or at Engineering. It's only useful above say, a mined hill, with Arete/Engineering/Dwarves. Should keep it from throwing balance off kilter.

 

[Grey Fox]

I'm not saying that any of the above is a good reason to allow Dwarves to use mountains but to say that mountains are the only useless terrain in the game is a bit far fetched.

It is is it? Should we settle this with a dictionary?

Any ways. Useless to me means not able to produce anything, in this context.
Snow, Tundra, Jungle, Desert, Plains are just "less useful" than grasslands/forests. This does not make them "useless".

 

[WarKirby]

It is is it? Should we settle this with a dictionary?

Any ways. Useless to me means not able to produce anything, in this context.
Snow, Tundra, Jungle, Desert, Plains are just "less useful" than grasslands/forests. This does not make them "useless".

Jungles penalise you health wise, which outweighs what they give. They're less than useless, unless you're mazatl.

 

[WarKirby]

I'm not opposed to it working with Engineering. That gives that side of the tree more good things, and is something the Luchurip already hit.

I'd say it works something like so.
Mountaintops - always impassable.

Can be worked for 1
Dwarves get +1
Arete gives +1
Engineering gives +1 and +1

Thus it's really only useful above citizen-specialists for dwarves, people under Arete, or at Engineering. It's only useful above say, a mined hill, with Arete/Engineering/Dwarves. Should keep it from throwing balance off kilter.

I'd rather see one of those +1 increased to +2. Maybe instead of the commerce.

 

[Jules.lt]

Men have adjusted to the most extreme situations on Earth.
In a fantasy world where various sentient species have adapted even further to different environments I really don't understand why some terrains should be totally impossible to take advantage of by anyone...

You may argue that it's unbalancing, that it adds too much complexity or that the AI can't handle it, but "we NEED unusable terrain" seems... groundless?

 

[Honor]

I'm not opposed to it working with Engineering. That gives that side of the tree more good things, and is something the Luchurip already hit.

I'd say it works something like so.
Mountaintops - always impassable.

Can be worked for 1
Dwarves get +1
Arete gives +1
Engineering gives +1 and +1

Thus it's really only useful above citizen-specialists for dwarves, people under Arete, or at Engineering. It's only useful above say, a mined hill, with Arete/Engineering/Dwarves. Should keep it from throwing balance off kilter.

I'd give the dwarves +2 , and everyone else nothing (unless using Arete). Engineering tech will not give any yields, only allowing the mountains to be mined and only by the dwarves, and before that even the dwarves will not be able to get any yields from them (again, unless using Arete).

So,

* Arete allows peaks to be worked by the civ that adopts it, yielding 1
* Engineering allows peaks to be worked by the dwarves only, yielding +2
* Blasting Powder could further boost peak production by +1 (or +3 if you want something dramatic, and aren't afraid you'll screw up game balance, which is way too overrated) for the dwarves

And I still want my Earth III spell. I even found a name for it: "Sokka's Dozer". Turns peaks into hills, and hills into smooth land tiles. We could even have another Earth III spell to raise terrain, but smooth land to hills only (no peak creation to block enemy routes).

Sokka's Dozer would especially be useful in "Erebus" games.

 

[WarKirby]

I'd give the dwarves +2 , and everyone else nothing (unless using Arete). Engineering tech will not give any yields, only allowing the mountains to be mined and only by the dwarves, and before that even the dwarves will not be able to get any yields from them (again, unless using Arete).

So,

* Arete allows peaks to be worked by the civ that adopts it, yielding 1
* Engineering allows peaks to be worked by the dwarves only, yielding +2
* Blasting Powder could further boost peak production by +1 (or +3 if you want something dramatic, and aren't afraid you'll screw up game balance, which is way too overrated) for the dwarves

And I still want my Earth III spell. I even found a name for it: "Sokka's Dozer". Turns peaks into hills, and hills into smooth land tiles. We could even have another Earth III spell to raise terrain, but smooth land to hills only (no peak creation to block enemy routes).

Sokka's Dozer would especially be useful in "Erebus" games.

Allowing other people to use it at Arete would be strange and illogical.
I would either allow everyone, or ownly the dwarves, to use it at Engineering. Arete should just give a +1 bonus, same as with hill mines. Or maybe a +2 for the awesomeness of it.

How about:

Base production from hills: 0. Nothing. They would remain useless until you get engineering, which is a mid game tech.
Engineering allows the Deep Mine improvement to be built there, by a special dwarven UU (or maybe even make normal dwarven workers able to enter peaks.). Deep Mines give +3 and can only be built in peaks.

Using Arete Civic gives a farther +2 , and blasting powder another +1

making them more productive than hills, to offset the complete lack of food/commerce, and also the early game handicap of having unworkable tiles. A total of +6 from peaks (with blasting powder, which is kind of a late game thing)

 

[Honor]

I find Arete to be underpowered as is. This would have been a nice boost. Gameplay trumps realism/logic, after all, no?

Edit: BTW I just noticed giving only 1 at Arete is silly. Plain citizens give 1 anyway. So yeah, Arete could also give a dwarf-only bonus. Wouldn't matter.

 

[Karnja]

i like the idea that mines on mountains should work like cottages most. arete is good the way it is, i think it doesnt need any more upgrades.

bonus for dwarfs is ok, but every civ should be able to mine them at all. or give the dwarfs an unique tech at the beginning like lanun has to fish for pearls (dwarfs for mountains), but otherwise i dont see why dwarfs should have this big advantage.

 

[WarKirby]

i dont see why dwarfs should have this big advantage.

Because mountains are their natural home. Commonly shared lore has the archetypal dwarves generally living in vast underground cities, where they can be close to the good metals. And their short stature allows them to more easily clamber through tunnels where larger humans could not.

As I understand in FFH, the Khazad are the dwarven settlers who decided to venture out of their mountain homes, and into the big wide world. But it doesn't make sense that they would lose all ability to do anything with mountains.

If I had things my way, all dwarven units would be able to move through peaks (albeit slowly, like taking multiple turns to pass through one
Oh, and I'd also add a unique feature called The Underhome on the map, that random dwarven units would pop out of periodically, drawn by stories of the new world on the surface.

 

[Iceciro]

If I destroy the underhome with my Cabalim can I feast off the indefinite numbers of dwarves inside?