Orbis - the original thread

[Ahwaric]

My fault, it should be ok now.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

awesome changes in patch B, thanx a lot!

 

[Kjara]

Just trying it out, overall I like it so far, not sure on the balance of a few things, but I'm sure a lot will be changing as time goes on. I'll have to play a cpl more games before I make any balance suggestions prob.

One thing I would like to comment on(might have been brought up before). The fact that things like castles and towns count as cities for defense purposes means that the barbarians tend to get "stuck" defending them(around their own towns, I tend to play barbarian world). Its decent when its a castle(esp when it's in a choke point), but kinda silly of them to be stuck on one of its towns. Wonder if its worth making it so that castles keep it, but towns don't? On this note, othrus had to wander through the area around the town the red dragon settled in, and it took him quite a while to make it through(he did eventually make it, but by himself, I had thought the ai was setup to gather a few allies for him). I wasn't paying too much attention but I wonder he decided to defend a town for a few turns. Is the code currently setup so that the highest defender of a hut/city/dungeon will sometimes leave if there are enough weaker units there? I notice that with both vanilla ffh and this mod that eventually the archer will leave the goblin fort, but not till there are 2-3 smaller goblins on the tile.

Edit: I was wondering it was intended that the great general was able to be joined to melee but not to recon units?

Also, one minor balance point: I wonder if foresters are too powerful, 2 hammers + 1 com on top of 1 food and 1 hammer from the ancient forest that early in the game is way better than what anyone else can get for a while(even for non elves). Perhaps move the hammer from guardian(which even with just the happy/healthy bonus is really powerful) to Commune with nature?

 

[Ahwaric]

Considering the amount of money you get from a city and time it takes to upgrade it, it is not a bad idea to defend them. Also, you get a nice amount of money from pillage.
I think it is fine, if unexpected, that barbarians defend both their toens and castles. Especially that they should get defense bonuses while inside (archers sat least).

I did not touch the AI, neither Orthus at all. I think it was changed and he now do not gather followers any more. As for defense, he probably leaves the town when other unit arrives bacause it has city attack AI. Goblin forts are set that there have to be 3 defenders inside before anyone will leave. What kind of the defenders - it does not matter.

Great generals can't be joined to recon, animal & beast units. It does not make any sense to add a grat general to a scout party. Recon units are powerfull enough anyway.
I would like to disable general joining heroes & adventurers, but so far unfortunatelly they can. I will also disable it for siege weapons as they moved to support role since I added great generals.
I am not sure about disciple units - I do not want it possible for priests, but for the sake of crusaders, paladins & such, for now they can be lead by general...

I agree that foresters are still too powerfull. What do you think of: +1 food, + 1 commerce with way of forests, + 1 hammer with commune with nature (i think they should provide some food at some point, as it makes sense and will better distinguish them from lumbermills in normal forests)?

 

[Dogfax]

really want to try this mod mod out, but file front is just giving me errors when I try and download it! pls help


ok its working now..

 

[sputnik323]

Started a patch b game and things are going smoothly so far (no CTD or red blobs of death graphics). It is a ton of fun to play and strategize where Im going to put my forts. They make good defenders against barbarian invasions

Not sure about foresters because I haven't played elves recently, but if the +1 hammer for them was moved to a slightly later tech, that seems like an easy quick fix.

After reading another post, I think it would be nice to lower bowyers tech from 12k to 8k... its the second heighest tech on that tier!

Also when connecting with duskwood it would be nice if all the archer units in a city would get the bonus like gaining bronze weapons. I had to delay building my archer defenders until my forester was complete...

and last thing I noticed if Im not by a river it is hard to get food with desert malakim. Im wondering if the Aduar should gain another +1 - maybe even the goum too.. but not completly sure about that yet... still playing

Great job with patch b. I can't go back to vanillia ffh2 anymore!

 

[Kjara]

Any chance/way of making foresters do differently in jungles/ forests/ancient forests? Perhaps keep them at 2 hammers, 1 com for ancient forests(or mabee 1 hammer, 2 com) with max tech, make them 1 food/1 hammer/1 com for both jungles and normal forests(or even 2 food/1com for jungles, 1food/1 hammer/com for forests)? That way you have the same food yield with ancient forests/normal forests with foresters, but gain an additional point of either com or production when it upgrades.

I agree with the duskwood bit for sputnick, sucks when you get your archery hero out before you get duskwood and can never get the bonus. Plus would be nice if adventurers could get the promotion.

Any chance of making marksmen require duskwood rather than mithril?(and i agree, fix that tech cost, or give it some other bonus, like making it strengthen the ranged attack of all archery units?)

On the great generals, if its possible for arcane units, i don't see any reason why it shouldn't be for priests. Of course I could see the reasoning for denying it for both of them.

Not sure if I agree with the aduar giving an additional food, desert tiles should be worse than other tiles.

Question about fort commanders, they currently get empower promotions based on the combat promotions of the person who "summoned" them, is this intended?(seems silly that it matters who pays for the fort commander to show up). Would instead make sense to me to give them promotions based on various techs in the construction line perhaps.

 

[Ahwaric]

I tried foresters in ancient forests and do not really have an answer. It works fine for me. + 1 hammer might come from levee building, but it still leaves one extra commerce, and none of the elven leades have financial.

I thought about giving aduar another food, but I do not want supercities with only desert around. Currently, malakim can live there, but cities will be limited in size - just like the areas inhabited by nomads and with small villages.
Also, I want them still have some use for farms - and that is the reason no other improvement can get more than +1 food.
Just get an oasis or floodplains and it will allow you to grow the city a bit more

Duskwood is a hard one. I would love it to work as you want, but metal promotions use special system, and it is not really possible to expand it without a big rewrite. Even nightmares in vanilla FfH use resource bonus the way the duskwood works.
I think Xienwolf said sth about weapon promotions system, so I will wait till new FF and see what is in
I have not used marksmen for a long time, but duskwood is certainly better than mithrill (they can't even use it if I recall correctly)
I will look into tech cost.

Adepts able to be lead by generals is plain wrong and only in because I forgot to change it.
I forgot that fort & castle commanders are actually summoned. Will try to find a way to block empower promotions for them. Bonuses from techs are fine idea, but I am not sure on how to implement it, or if I am able to do it at all.

Edit: Are you sure arcane units can get great generals? I do not have such option in the xml files.

Also, for all others. You have to make reinstall using FfH patched to h to make sure patch b is working ok.

 

[Kjara]

Sorry about the confusion on the yields(I was a ****** and had a golden age going). Reinstall fixed one of the issues with displaying, I had just installed over patch a, which of course isn't going to have patch h for base ffh.

In regards to arcane, I was just commenting based on your previous comment, I hadn't actually checked if it worked in game.

 

[Kjara]

In terms of talking about promotions from techs(for the castle guardian), Vehem was talking about how it should be possible to make promotions appear based on tech.

"The inherent magic resistance you suggested would also be possible however through the AutoAcquire mechanic - just given UnitClass, Civilization and TechPrereqs. (from the ff khazad thread)" Prob would just need to use UnitClass and TechPrereqs, might need to make them a new unitClass though(or come up with free promotions you don't mind all siege getting). Might even make sense that as your tech gets better, your existing siege get progressively better, but you don't ever get new siege? Could get rid of the need to give siege free exp as well(or that could instead reflect that the siege has had time to practice).

The same thread Vehem was also talking about how the metal limit would be going away, implying that it should be possible to something with the duskwood then.

 

[sputnik323]

I was wondering if it was intended that fort commanders not recieve xp over time. In my game they are considered seige units and are supposed to gain xp like catapults, but they only gained xp when attacked, and didn't gain any more over time.

Its a shame about the duskwood problem, maybe the FF team will have some suprises comming up with new promotion systems.

 

[xienwolf]

You wouldn't need to invent a new unitclass, since you can also specify any number of unittypes as a prereq for promotions. Just specify these few units you want to be properly promoted and whatnot

Oh, and the metal line limit is already gone. You can invent as many tiers of weaponry as you want. At least I think that change was before patch O...

 

[Dogfax]

fantstic mod mod this! love the den exploration and all the new resources.. no crashes for me yet either..

 

[Ahwaric]

I was wondering if it was intended that fort commanders not recieve xp over time.

Nope. Just missing "1" here and there. Fixed in patch c.

Oh, and the metal line limit is already gone. You can invent as many tiers of weaponry as you want. At least I think that change was before patch O...

Too bad I played up to patch l . Downloading patch O and going to dig through the code. But I guess you had to change sdk for this, so it might take a while...

Magister cultuum in MaxAstro's thread had inspired me to some changes.
I always thought that having crossbows as a final upgrade of the archery line is a bit strange. Some medieval battles had shown that crossbows were inferior to longbows, just easier to train and allowed more armor.
So, the idea is: crossbow no longer is a final upgrade, it is just parallel unit to longbows. I am thinking of a bit weaker and doing much less collateral damage (or none at all), but allowed to use mithril and having more powerfull ranged damage. No hills bonus, too. The final upgrades would be marksman (powerfull ranged attack, can kill at range) and arquebusiers (great collaterall damage, some melee bonuses)
Crossbows will require only machinery and archery, and machinery will be one of the possible routes to blasting powder (to be able to bypass monasticism-education-alchemy route).
It will allow for a bit more diverse armies, also will fill khazad gap in archery line (just upgrade slinger -> crossbow -> arquebus). It will also fill right
Elven flurry and svartalf crossbows (renamed repeater crossbow) would replace arqebusier.

I would like to cut final mounted line a bit, too. Namely war chariot. Currrently in Orbi chariot -> horseman -> horse archer -> war chariot. Vanilla have it even more funny way: horseman -> chariot -> horse archer -> war chariot
So, war chariot will no longer be final upgrade. It will be upgradeable from normal chariot, have strength between horseman and horse archer, and have some anti-melee bonus, possibly with ranged attack. They would upgrade to war elephants and horse archer/knight.
It may also be civ-specific replacement for either horseman/horse archer.

So, I am waiting for feedback on the proposed changes.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

the proposed changes sound good, I guess the upcoming upgrade paths make more sense than the current ones

 

[Nor'easter]

I decided to give this mod a try, mainly to see what you've done with corporations/guilds -- nice job! Very interesting stuff.

I did want to report one problem, though: I'm unable to do any Rituals, they don't show up in my city screen or in the drop-down list asking what I'd like to build next. I'm playing as the Illians, so it's kind of significant, since Rituals are an integral part of their game.

Also, one typo: "rafined mana" and "rafinery" should be "refined mana" and "refinery," respectively.

 

[Ahwaric]

I'm unable to do any Rituals, they don't show up in my city screen or in the drop-down list asking what I'd like to build next.

I just checked and all are buildable for me. Also, I did not change anything in rituals, projectinfos.xml is not even included in the modmod or patches. Are you sure you applied Orbi on top of 0.34h? There can be some problems if you had Orbi for 034g, as Kael's patch only updates unmodded directory, and I do not include all files from his patch in mine, just the ones I change.
By the way, I thought of making the white hand repeteable. Any votes against?

Also, one typo: "rafined mana" and "rafinery" should be "refined mana" and "refinery," respectively.

Thanks for info... My english is far from perfect, so I apologize for any bad spelling/grammar, both here and in the mod itself.
If you have any corrections, please post them here or PM me. I have also a lot of pedia entries to write , so if any of you want to write something, I will be glad to add it (with some changes perhaps )

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I vote YES to repeatable white hand ritual. even some others could be repeatable btw: samhain and the deepening come to mind

 

[Nor'easter]

@Ahwaric:

Thanks for your quick reply.

I found the problem, I think. I checked my game settings and under "Options," one of them read TXT_KEY_GAME_OPTION_NO_PROJECTS. (The other game options were written normally, e.g,. "Blessings of Amathaon," "End of Winter," etc., this was the only one written this way, starting with TXT_KEY.) I didn't know there was a "No Projects" option, I must have accidentally checked it when setting up a custom game.

Sorry to bother you.

 

[sputnik323]

I was going to suggest that you read MC's post in MaxAstro's thread but you beat me to it. Here are some things that you didn't mention that I really liked, I wont post more because you already read it.

5. I might change Caves of the Ancestors to sometime randomly give out channeling 1 or 2 (and maybe Arcane) to units built there.
7. The Towers will get some sort of bonus, perhaps access to level 4 spells (one for each tower?) an a little free arcane xp. The Tower of Mastery (should no longer be a victory condition) will give out channeling III on move, which could make most Amurite units essentially archmages. ideas for spells -> http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=293748

I really like the idea of changing mounted and archery lines. They did seem kind of strange from vanillia. I like the archery changes the way you have it, and have a suggestion for the mounted line.

chariot -> horseman -> specialized mount -> Armored mounts
or
chariot -> horseman -> horsearcher -> specialized mounts (probably this one... it fits better)

1. specialized mounts can be war elephants, horse archers, and new mounts like bore riders, griffon riders, drake riders, cammel riders, knights, Lancers, pegasi, raptors(dinosaur/lizard mount), ram riders, deer riders(elves), and others, if you go with this idea, then ill expand this more.
2 depending on where in the line you put these, armored mounts can give national units and added defense.
3 mounted line could get flanking ability against all ranged (archer)units when out in the open (not in city) - maybe at the 3rd or 4th tier on the line - (this would actually make spearman a critical part of an army)

Aside from the new stuff, I have some feedback on patch b. Im playing an marathon game so i know its my fault if im impatient, but with comparison to tech expansion and fort upgrades I think they are too slow. I think keeps should grant cultural borders and castle commanders should get special abilities. Waiting for the expansion of borders for castles is painfully slow if you are trying to collect resources. often if Im trying to get copper that appears out of my border (waiting for fort/keeps to upgrade) I am already collecting iron and on my way to mithril by the time it becomes a castle. So if the upgrade speed could be increased a bit and if keeps grant borders that would be helpful.
Fixing the xp will help fort commanders, but I still think as they upgrade they should get more special abilities (if you agree I have made some suggestions in the past and I could make more)

EDIT: one quick last thing cause I keep forgetting... could you make blizzards castable for illians, so you dont have to always hunt them down?