New civ : Dagda's Tears

[sylvain5477]

Did you change anything with research? far too slow research is their biggest issue, I think

Not really.
You have to considere 2 additional things:
+ Dagda Tear provide science when analysing feature => use to boost science early on
+ you now have the possibility to use Love to hyper-absorb landscape (ocean/moutain basically), providing bonus digesting Tears

v0.1.11 added.

 

[WarKirby]

Ok, some thoughts.

1. You named it 0.1.10 again? This is a really really really bad idea. I strongly suggest you rename the new patch to 0.1.11. Otherwise it's just horribly confusing. I bet you'll get someone complaining here soon that 0.1.10 doesn't work and when are you going to update it.
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2. I still think digesting tears need a lot of boosting. So far the only way I've managed to get any decent research is by turning orcish swarms on. Then I get hundreds of goblins suiciding on me which gives free digesting tears. But that doesn't last, and it drops back to poor research a few turns after the goblin armies are dead.
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3. Why do Love tears (the settlers) have that duration? It's really stupid and annoying. Something with such an obscenely high cost shouldn't be so easy to lose. sometimes you just can't get to the city site in time, or sometimes you stumble into a forest and get stuck eating it for several turns. It's a pointless annoyance. the national limit and high cost are limiting factors enough. please remove the limited duration from Love
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4. I think all tears should get double movement in jungle, forest, ancient forest, floodplains, new forest, etc etc.
Of course, they can't actually get double movement because they eat those features as soon as they enter them. Which is exactly the point!

By giving them double movement in features, the pathfinding engine will send tears through them at every opportunity. and of course they'll just eat them as soon as they enter. Mainly this would help AI. Since AI controlled tears probably aren't smart enough to go eat forests on their own. But more importantly, it would help human players who hate micromanagement, like me. Since you could set tears on autoexplore and they'd pretty much try to walk into every forest they could
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5. The digesting tears promotions are annoying micromanagement, too. Since Held units never call your attention when they need promoting, it means you have to keep an eye on the event log and go manually wake them to promote them, whenever they happen to win a battle. This isn't fun.

A better solution would be to just give digesting tears a pyPostCombatWon which increases their duration. Skip the promotion mechanic entirely, and thusly skip players needing to manually do stuff.

 

[FireBlaze]

Thought they go stronger as well on victory, so a promo was needed.

 

[sylvain5477]

Ok, some thoughts.

1. You named it 0.1.10 again? This is a really really really bad idea. I strongly suggest you rename the new patch to 0.1.11. Otherwise it's just horribly confusing. I bet you'll get someone complaining here soon that 0.1.10 doesn't work and when are you going to update it.

v0.1.11 released anyway the v0.1.10 didn't last long

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2. I still think digesting tears need a lot of boosting. So far the only way I've managed to get any decent research is by turning orcish swarms on. Then I get hundreds of goblins suiciding on me which gives free digesting tears. But that doesn't last, and it drops back to poor research a few turns after the goblin armies are dead.

I'm thinking of an alternative research way.

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3. Why do Love tears (the settlers) have that duration? It's really stupid and annoying. Something with such an obscenely high cost shouldn't be so easy to lose. sometimes you just can't get to the city site in time, or sometimes you stumble into a forest and get stuck eating it for several turns. It's a pointless annoyance. the national limit and high cost are limiting factors enough. please remove the limited duration from Love
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You loose them? Normally they should settle a city when the duration expire.
I may extend a few turns more if other people agree it is too short to settle correctly, but I want to limit the expansion as it does go quickly too fast.

4. I think all tears should get double movement in jungle, forest, ancient forest, floodplains, new forest, etc etc.
Of course, they can't actually get double movement because they eat those features as soon as they enter them. Which is exactly the point!

By giving them double movement in features, the pathfinding engine will send tears through them at every opportunity. and of course they'll just eat them as soon as they enter. Mainly this would help AI. Since AI controlled tears probably aren't smart enough to go eat forests on their own. But more importantly, it would help human players who hate micromanagement, like me. Since you could set tears on autoexplore and they'd pretty much try to walk into every forest they could
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I like this idea. I'll do it
Thanks!

5. The digesting tears promotions are annoying micromanagement, too. Since Held units never call your attention when they need promoting, it means you have to keep an eye on the event log and go manually wake them to promote them, whenever they happen to win a battle. This isn't fun.

A better solution would be to just give digesting tears a pyPostCombatWon which increases their duration. Skip the promotion mechanic entirely, and thusly skip players needing to manually do stuff.

Actually this is only a temporary way as the promotion used to be autopromote but since 0.51 the auto-promote does not work anyore for these in module (I reported in bug thread). Normally until the digesting tear becomes lvl 3 and can then move, nothing you have to do.

I may remove everything from module to main files if it solves problems.

 

[Suuljin]

I'm thinking of an alternative research way.

i happened to stumble upon one. while it is minor and unlikely to happen, i'm pretty sure it was unintended, so here it goes:
one of my wild tears explored a dungeon, found a mind mana deposit and got mind I in the process. free exp gain for the tear, inspiration for my capital (+2 research, +1 GP). the great person that spawned 100 turns later was a sage, founded an acedemy for culture and +50% research boost. really got the research going


about the new lust tear:
i love it^^ exposable unit that combines the goodness of skeleton and flying eye, plus it can be summoned by any tears on roots quite powerful for an early unit.

 

[WarKirby]

The new lust tear has no button art or txt keys, which is kind of annoying. did that get fixed already?

It does feel a bit too powerful for something that can be done with no cost right from the off, though. I think it should probably be attackstr3 to start, and get a free promotion from some early tech that makes it stronger, like mysticism

 

[Suuljin]

imagine the terror you'd unleash with tebryn arbandi leading the tears
even with normal means you could employ an early warfare strategy of getting a stack of wilds and a love tear into the heart of enemy territory, found the city as launching pod for your lusts, blast away and mop up the rest with the wilds

anyway, they should get promotions from techs like any other tears, no?

 

[WarKirby]

Notably, they get empowered by combat promotions of their master. I guess it gives Dagda's tear something to do, since it seems a rather useless hero otherwise.

 

[sylvain5477]

anyway, they should get promotions from techs like any other tears, no?

They should actually do don't they ?

 

[sylvain5477]

The new lust tear has no button art or txt keys, which is kind of annoying. did that get fixed already?

v0.1.11 ?
Normally I included everything. I can check again if you confirm.

It does feel a bit too powerful for something that can be done with no cost right from the off, though. I think it should probably be attackstr3 to start, and get a free promotion from some early tech that makes it stronger, like mysticism

Let's give it a try and we'll adjust.
I feel it actually make rooted tear fearful now. It stays defensive as you need to have the improvement, but offensively defensive.

 

[WarKirby]

with a range of 4, it's not all that defensive. aggressive defense, I guess. but you should probably reduce the range to 2 or 3

 

[sylvain5477]

i happened to stumble upon one. while it is minor and unlikely to happen, i'm pretty sure it was unintended, so here it goes:
one of my wild tears explored a dungeon, found a mind mana deposit and got mind I in the process. free exp gain for the tear, inspiration for my capital (+2 research, +1 GP). the great person that spawned 100 turns later was a sage, founded an acedemy for culture and +50% research boost. really got the research going


about the new lust tear:
i love it^^ exposable unit that combines the goodness of skeleton and flying eye, plus it can be summoned by any tears on roots quite powerful for an early unit.

Actually I haven't been throught event customisation yet, and it seems a hard work for later.
The magic part also is missing beyond the first unit (Joy) which will be upgradable to 4 different units later on.
I'm targeting a 0.1.* version where everyone can reasonnably play and enjoy to have some time working on the v0.2 with new things.

 

[WarKirby]

v0.1.11 ?
Normally I included everything. I can check again if you confirm.

meant the previous one. didn't try this patch yet.

 

[sylvain5477]

My point was to make a <really> squishy unit, but which does have some offensive capacity early on. As you said yourself, attacking with Wilds is bad, but when there are barbs, or even early encountered civs ravaging through my lands, I'd want more firepower besides just camping my own roots.
Without expansion the time to tech to more powerful stuff (tier 3 techs: tier 2 units) can be frustrating really. Yo catch me drift?

So, I'm quite interested about your view on the v0.1.11 Lust Tear

 

[sylvain5477]

meant the previous one. didn't try this patch yet.

yep, mistyping and missing TXT indeed.
v0.1.12 should be better

 

[odalrick]

Line 1552 in CustomFunctions.py :

You have:

newUnit = pPlayer.initUnit(gc.getInfoTypeForString(iStomach), pPlot.getX(), pPlot.getY(), UnitAITypes.NO_UNITAI, DirectionTypes.DIRECTION_SOUTH)

Should be:

newUnit = pPlayer.initUnit(iStomach, pPlot.getX(), pPlot.getY(), UnitAITypes.NO_UNITAI, DirectionTypes.DIRECTION_SOUTH)

I'm guessing this is code that turns captured units, like workers, into Digesting Tears.

 

[Rickie_Rain]

To have a bit more diversity in the building queue and improve teching, how about buildings, each giving 10% of production as research. Need some funky names and placed along a few different techs, but I think it's needed.

Another idea to rework priorities, as most normal civs can, would be to add an ability from a tech to Wilds, "Enhance Root Metabolism", which can be used on rooted tears (in town, to be smart), sacrificing the Wild tear and get a few digesting tears.
Useful if you feel that your military situation is good for the moment but need a bit of research edge.

In response to WarKirby, I think that Love tears should have a limited duration to make the lore idea behind the tears make sense. Its a biomass that spreads, and "Hearts" shouldnt pop up anywhere on the planet, but close to the main mass really. If it vanished without leaving a city, that was a bug.

 

[sylvain5477]

Line 1552 in CustomFunctions.py :

You have:

newUnit = pPlayer.initUnit(gc.getInfoTypeForString(iStomach), pPlot.getX(), pPlot.getY(), UnitAITypes.NO_UNITAI, DirectionTypes.DIRECTION_SOUTH)

Should be:

newUnit = pPlayer.initUnit(iStomach, pPlot.getX(), pPlot.getY(), UnitAITypes.NO_UNITAI, DirectionTypes.DIRECTION_SOUTH)

I'm guessing this is code that turns captured units, like workers, into Digesting Tears.

Thanks !
You're the official python debugger now

 

[sylvain5477]

To have a bit more diversity in the building queue and improve teching, how about buildings, each giving 10% of production as research. Need some funky names and placed along a few different techs, but I think it's needed.

Yes, in v0.2, the buildings will diversify.
But I want to keep the feeling that cities are temporary, not real long term investment, so I'll have to find a way

Another idea to rework priorities, as most normal civs can, would be to add an ability from a tech to Wilds, "Enhance Root Metabolism", which can be used on rooted tears (in town, to be smart), sacrificing the Wild tear and get a few digesting tears.
Useful if you feel that your military situation is good for the moment but need a bit of research edge.

Not really lorewise in my opinion.
I would prefer another way.

In response to WarKirby, I think that Love tears should have a limited duration to make the lore idea behind the tears make sense. Its a biomass that spreads, and "Hearts" shouldnt pop up anywhere on the planet, but close to the main mass really. If it vanished without leaving a city, that was a bug.

 

[Rickie_Rain]

Okay, Lust tears now are WAY overpowered. Even though they're one turn unit, its just too much. Im going to second WarKirby on reducing range to at least 3 but maybe even 2. Their attack strength can be debatable, but to keep em on par with warriors to begin with, however open for upgrade after a short while would make for better scaling IMO.

Update of thought: I also feel I have to iterate my opinion on Digesting Tear strength. While the blobs are all blobs, the digesting tears are munching material and resource, they're not defenders of the realm. Base defense 5, 7 on root is a bit too heavy so early on, would like to see scaling here aswell.

Did I say YAAAAY! for the instant bridges?

Update of concern: Im not getting any dry tear roots on my converted bareland now. Does this require a tech? (Hadnt noticed before if thats the case). Im distressed by reduced movement!

Update of doombug: Not only am I not getting dry tear roots but I can re-root on barelands.

Update of curiosity: Did you increase spawning in the recent patches. I realized that this game around I got like 50% more Wilds.