Orbis 2 The New Beggining (for civ IV) brainstorming

[Valkrionn]

...........Hopefully Ahwaric won't go in that direction, as that is more or less the main conflict source we plan to use in E'iten

(The use of which has not been mentioned before, of course)

 

[qev]

But I love Orbis and want to show my love by dropping volcanoes on my opponents!

 

[civ_king]

Ahwaric hasn't logged in since January 31st

 

[Vloodemir]

Thanks for all the input guys1 A lot of interesting ideas to be used

Of course, not everything fits my ideas, but it is always this way with any mod. So keep them coming.

And now a quick update to letyou know that I am working on the mod.

1)Tech tree is ready - 123 researchable techs from ancient times to 1900 AD, with quite a few magic and steampunk techs. It will probably be adjusted a bit as I add stuff. I need also set the proper tech costs
2) 7 new religions are in. No pure evil or pure good ones. Most are grey or slightly good (well, on the surface at least)
3) 15 civilizations added. I have general concepts for all of them and will expand the lore and mechanics as the mod matures. For now, you can check Eternal Imperium and Verrata pedia entries below. As you can see, Verrata incorporated some of the ideas posted in this thread. It used to be named Serenissima - thanks a lot for the venetian carnival idea, Shahrazad!
Imperium:

Spoiler :

870 Ab urbe condita
It may appear strange that I still use the old calendar. After all, everything has changed since the gift was brought from the east. East… The land of great wisdom, but they say that there are as many daemons living if those lands as there is grains of sand of the Great Desert. And we will never know what was the real source of the gift.
They say that The Gift, as they write it, is the greatest blessing. Immortality, they say, eternal youth, they add. All that is all true. But they say nothing about the price. The gifted seem quite normal, except that they are barren. But they still can participate in unending orgies of food and fornication. Their “animal” senses might be a bit dulled, but they still have pleasure from it. If you can call pleasure something that you do almost every day for several hundreds of years. It changes the gifted. Also, after a century or two, they no longer see other citizens as equals – not even the living senators. Other people come and go, it is hard to get attached. So they do not. It is hard to become gifted, and this makes the chosen ones even more proud of themselves. The easiest way is to be well born and wealthy. Other common way is through the army – but it requires surviving several wars and becoming great warrior to be admitted. The third way… well, for me, it makes the most sense.
But regardless of it, the gift makes our empire stagnant. Even if the research is done, there are still the same people ruling our nation. There is no change in government nor in the social structure, the laws are still the same. And some discoveries are hard to explain to someone that is over two hundred years old. One hundred sixty one years – that is the time that passed since the republic is no more. They may call it republic, and we still have a senate. But we have the same princeps since the eventful Martius almost two centuries ago. We are an empire, and in truth we have a real, immortal emperor.
Immortal… Yes, that is a nice word – and my reality from tomorrow on. After four decades of scholarly life, I have been granted the “privilege”. Do I think the gift has a bad influence on our nation? I do. Do I plan to reject it? I do not think that many people would be able to do that. Moreover, there is still so much work to be done, and it is always better if there are more educated and wise people among the gifted. We can’t let the military faction rule The Empire unchallenged.
The last written words of Publius Cornelius Tactus before immortification

Verrata:

Spoiler :

Verrata is a misleading name – and as such, a very proper one. Truth? Everything is a theatre here. Masks, real and metaphorical, are used all the time, and you might think it is an Oikumene drama, not a real life. Our merchants play with their fleets. Their money dance, which brings even more money. Our armies dance with their swords, and the fencing is a real show. But with condottieri as generals, the clash of armies is usually almost bloodless and the battles are meaningless. They are pre-decided with money of different merchant cartles anyway, so why should anyone die in these petty wars? Too bad sometimes our armies try the same tactics on external enemies. But there is nothing that some gold can’t fix. Even religious zealots can be persuaded to seek someone that pays less and has less armed men – and despite the condottieri, we have some real soldiers. Or so we (and they) think.
If the above wouldn’t be complicated enough, the great politics is just a small portion of the drama played every day in this city. It is vast and houses unnumbered guilds, troupes, gangs, associations and cults. The twisted streets and small canals make it a maze. And below, carved in the rocks of the hundred islands of Verrata, exists another city. It is a place of shadows, that stage their own plays.
Urbi de Orbis - Verrata

The entries need work, I know. In fact, later I might need help from someone more proficient in english to improve the pedia entries.
I think you can get the general feeling regarding the setting and lore of Orbis world. Plus, the the lack of pure evil/good. Even undead (for a big part) Rifmud has a good justification of their actions. It is the nation of Anubis and Horus, seeking vengance on Set. For them, it is a just fight - even if it involves undead Pharaohs and armies of skeletons and mummies. And sometimes a xenocide...
4) Spell system will work differently. Spells will be enabled by techs rather than by mana. In fact, you can cast spells with no specific mana at all. But mana is still in - and will improve spells and summons.
5) Mana resource can no longer be improved (so it is the other way from doublebakunin's suggestions - but I might use these elsewhere). It starts improved, but not usable - needs to be explored, just as unique features in Orbis 1. There is a fixed number of such places, you can't under the normal circumstances make more
6) spell spheres and mana types reduced. I am sure earth, air, water, fire, life, death and metamagic will be in. I also think blood magic, but not sure yet.
7) the schools will be more diverse, but I have not yet started adding spells.

I hope you like at leat some of the features

I have been playing orbis for years now but I am still new to the forums. I started playing Civ 5 but I didn't like it. It seemed too simple compared to FFH and stuff like that. I read this thread and was wondering about if I could somehow contribute to new civs or ideas (like maybe a civ/race of Cthulu spawns that worship him or expand the Old ones religion). Maybe you could base something off the Mayans? Or have a half human/elemental race (humanoid but have something resembling an element like rough, rocky faces for earth human things) that could follow a code similar to chivalry or bushido. Could traditionalists be a thing? Like instead of having a lot of magic some civs could be traditionalists that do not like technology (similar to alignments tech/trad/magic or religion) I know this is the summer of 2014 when I finally found this, I hope I'm not too late. Maybe try looking at H.P. Lovecraft for some inspirations? A religion that focuses on harnessing the energy of the universe? I really kind of want a civ that is led by someone like the King in Yellow kind of like a cult. I have tons of ideas (but I'm not sure if they are original and would add color to orbis 2).
I hope I didn't ramble too much. I'm sorry if I sound like some 12 year-old who is obsessed about orbis 2. I'm also not sure how often people check this thread, if its not too annoying can someone tell be what they think? Open to any responses.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

unfortunately it's been more than 2 years since Ahwaric visited these forums

 

[Calavente]

(5 char)