First impression Based mainly on version 0.14a. Sadly I've lost my savegames during reinstall so my "feedback" is not very precise. I'll try to do better next time.
Overall I like your mod and I think it's an improvement over standard FFH because:
more diverse combat units (archer are useful, pikes are back)
guilds
new resources
There are some things I don't like so much, or I have serious doubt about.
I. Bugs???
- A.I. tends to build 'Refined mana nodes' even when not playing mechanos. (but I've seen normal nodes as well, at least in 0.14b)
- Sometimes A.I. tends to ignore mana nodes and builds other improvements on them (I'm sure A.I has technology required to build at least some type of nodes).
- Strange names of certain Mechanos cities - KEY_TXT sth
II.Possible Balance Issues
1.Elohim
In 'vanilla' FFH they are very similar to your version, but also have tolerant trait, that allows them to build other civ's units, buildings and even a second palace.
In Fall Further according to changelogs they are quite different - improved monks / pacifism / ability to gain additional traits for visiting certain Unique Features. I really like it
That way Elohim are imho more unique and flavorful...
Your version of Elohim seems to be normal FFH sans tolerant trait. I think that coupled with their leader traits Cre/def and phi/def makes them one of the weakest civilizations. Maybe I'm biased but defensive is the weakest of military traits - I'd take raiders or aggressive over it any time.
2.Guilds
Nice idea, nice implementation, nice variety, not so sure about balance.
a )Circle of 8
- acolytes are very effective way of conducting research. My whole empire (Sidar, Epic, Immortal) produced circa 5000 research per turn. Each acolyte was lightbulbed for about 4000 research points. So it was possible for me to make 5000+4x4000=21000 research per turn
- Potency promotion might be ok, but doesn't that make arcane trait useless?
If so. perhaps free metamagic 2 promotion for acolytes that are upgradeable to mages is bonus enough? or you could add small xp bonus for acolytes (1XP + number of metamagic nodes/2 rounded down).
b) Prospectors & 3 Field order
- it takes some time and patience, but if you have both guilds you can make supercities easily... 2 groups of 4 prospectors and 4 millers start looking for resources near my capital. If they succeed I move them to other plots, if not they keep searching till success or death (they are easy to replace anyway). Some turns later (100+) my capital is supercity, especially if I was able to construct 1000 slumslol: and I thought slums was something bad...)
3. Supercities and difficulty 'issue'
It's partially 'fault' of FFH, but your mod makes it much worse. Compared to normal BTS cities are really huge, size 40 or even 50 with positive health and happiness (no unyielding order, no religion specific civic or building, no gambling house) is very possible, along with great research, production and sometimes great GP generation.
Player is much better in creating/managing supercities then ai, so it's a huge advantage.
Supercities are possible mainly because:
a) happiness
It'ss not an issue, even in early-mid game.
- early religion civic is usually enough to solve most of happiness problems especially if you have incense. I dont see a reason to avoid having 6 or 5 temples (if I'm good and don't want to raise armageddon counter) in my cities.
- there are many types of resources that add happiness directly, or after city has certain buildings (brewery, etc..). Thanks to 3 field order, prospector guild, expansion, conquest and trade you'll get most of them if not all.
- the gambling house
- not many buildings or civics cause unhappiness
b) Health
Is usually harder to provide then, but also much less important factor limiting city growth.
- there are many health resources, you'll get sooner or later
- forests give health (it's ok), but do not limit your growth as much as in normal civilization, and additionally you can keep them after building mine. You loose 1 hammer, but gain 0,5 health that way. Good deal if you ask me, especially if your religion is FoL.
- not many buildings cause sickness
- food yields are often so high, that it doesn't matter even if you loose 10 food due unhealthiness
c) Food yields & city growth
- flood plains/oasis can be vitalized (3+2 food + eventually +2/3 from farm)
- grassland + farm + resource = 6+
- forests can be turned in ancient forests
- seas + kelp + lighthouse = 3 food and 2 commerce + eventually fish/crab/calm, freshwater lake + kelp + lighthouse = 4 food and 2 commerce
- druids/archmages can transform almost anything into grassland
- buildings (warehouse, market) and civics (serfdom) that add +% of food.
- guild effect (three field order and hansa to much lesser degree)
- additional food resources discovered by millers
The abundance of food usually allows cities placed on good terrain to grow quickly since midgame, largely ignore negative penalty of unhealthiness and/or support some specialists. Later in game when you have access to more health resources/buildings, terraforming, and spells/civics cities grow even bigger and able to support dozens of specialists.
d) No limit on national wonders in city
You can build them all in one city. You don't have to choose, don't really have to specialize your capital any more. You can have ironworks, heron throne, national epic and anything other you wish.
4. Experience and promotions
Units lvl quicker and promotions are stronger. Coupled with military instructors (settled generals), buildings like ride of 9 kings, civics and barracks and alike player can train very experienced troops (4+ promotions). 4 promotions in FFH are more like 8 promotions in normal BTS, unit with 4 promotions is twice as good as non promoted one. I think it works against ai, because player can gain/preserve experienced units much better (i.e. doesn't risk them, supports them with magic, etc.)
Xp potential:
Theocracy + Apprenticeship+Conquest= 8 free xp
Stables + 2 xp
Hippodrome + 2 xp
Ride of Nine Kings + 10xp
Form of the Titan + 2xp (ok it's not easy to get this one)
= 24xp + 2 per military instructor
That's simply scary. Units with so many stars easily kill weaker ones gaining additional promotions etc.
Settled military instructors + xp civics allow player to mass produce adepts and promote them to useful mages right away.
Suggestions&loose thoughts
II.1 Elohim - not sure how hard is to change them. I like Fall Further version much better then vanilla one.
Perhaps it's not just a problem with Elohim but with defensive trait. ?
II.2.a) Acolytes - their lightbulbing capability needs to be nerfed... a lot...
II.2.b) Prospectors&Millers - ideally if they don't find anything usefull in a square, they should not be able to search again (or at least they should not be able to find anything after first try). Or their chances of success should be lower then now (2% perhaps?)
Group of 4 millers x each one with 2% chance of success = 2 finds per 25 turns in average.
Fair enough for me.
II.3.) Supercities. I think they should be much harder to create.
- there should be more
to counter all
Perhaps more tension between religions. I doubt that followers of order would coexist with octupus overlords etc.
Some buildings should cause
- influence of resources on happiness and health could be lower. I don't know if it's possible or easy to code but factional effect would be welcome.
Example:
Gold, no forge.
- 1 source - 0,5 happiness
- 2 sources - 0,5 + 0,25 happiness
- 3 sources - 0,5 + 0,25 + 0,125 happiness
etc.
Happiness and health bonus form resources could be added then rounded up or down or normally.
Example:
2 Gold, 1 fur, 3 silver = 0,75 + 0,5 + 0,875 = 2,125 So 2 or 3 depending on method of rounding.
It cuts easy health/happy bonus, adds some value to surplus resources and to trade with other civilizations.
No idea what how to solve big food surplus.
- market and warehouse combined give +20% to food, +5% each is still a lot
- making harder for millers to find food resources
- health bonus should be harder to get
- city of 1000 slums should have really big (-5?) health penalty
- making health penalties after 5th green face bigger, like - 2 food for 6th to 10th face, -3 food for 11th+
II.4.) Experience.
Slower XP gain is needed. I've seen this option in normal FFH, but can't see this option in your mod.
- easy, free XP should be somewhat reduced.
Great generals as military instructors could give bonus to all newly produced units sans arcane. (What does general knows about spellcasting?)
All others units would get +1XP, and perhaps 1 basic promotion with 10% chance (randomly drill I. combat I, sentry, mobility I, woodsman I, guerilla I, orc/elf/dwarf slayer etc) per each instructor. So in city with 3 instructors new warrior would get for example woodsman I with 27% chance. Nothing gamebreaking...
Alternative - in cities with settled general each produced unit gets new custom promotion "trained" - +5% combat, +5% withdraw
- promotions themselves could be little weaker. Something between standard BTS and FFH.
Overall I like your mod and I think it's an improvement over standard FFH because:
more diverse combat units (archer are useful, pikes are back)
guilds
new resources
There are some things I don't like so much, or I have serious doubt about.
I. Bugs???
- A.I. tends to build 'Refined mana nodes' even when not playing mechanos. (but I've seen normal nodes as well, at least in 0.14b)
- Sometimes A.I. tends to ignore mana nodes and builds other improvements on them (I'm sure A.I has technology required to build at least some type of nodes).
- Strange names of certain Mechanos cities - KEY_TXT sth
II.Possible Balance Issues
1.Elohim
In 'vanilla' FFH they are very similar to your version, but also have tolerant trait, that allows them to build other civ's units, buildings and even a second palace.
In Fall Further according to changelogs they are quite different - improved monks / pacifism / ability to gain additional traits for visiting certain Unique Features. I really like it
That way Elohim are imho more unique and flavorful...Your version of Elohim seems to be normal FFH sans tolerant trait. I think that coupled with their leader traits Cre/def and phi/def makes them one of the weakest civilizations. Maybe I'm biased but defensive is the weakest of military traits - I'd take raiders or aggressive over it any time.
2.Guilds
Nice idea, nice implementation, nice variety, not so sure about balance.
a )Circle of 8
- acolytes are very effective way of conducting research. My whole empire (Sidar, Epic, Immortal) produced circa 5000 research per turn. Each acolyte was lightbulbed for about 4000 research points. So it was possible for me to make 5000+4x4000=21000 research per turn
- Potency promotion might be ok, but doesn't that make arcane trait useless?
If so. perhaps free metamagic 2 promotion for acolytes that are upgradeable to mages is bonus enough? or you could add small xp bonus for acolytes (1XP + number of metamagic nodes/2 rounded down).
b) Prospectors & 3 Field order
- it takes some time and patience, but if you have both guilds you can make supercities easily... 2 groups of 4 prospectors and 4 millers start looking for resources near my capital. If they succeed I move them to other plots, if not they keep searching till success or death (they are easy to replace anyway). Some turns later (100+) my capital is supercity, especially if I was able to construct 1000 slums
lol: and I thought slums was something bad...)3. Supercities and difficulty 'issue'
It's partially 'fault' of FFH, but your mod makes it much worse. Compared to normal BTS cities are really huge, size 40 or even 50 with positive health and happiness (no unyielding order, no religion specific civic or building, no gambling house) is very possible, along with great research, production and sometimes great GP generation.
Player is much better in creating/managing supercities then ai, so it's a huge advantage.
Supercities are possible mainly because:
a) happiness
It'ss not an issue, even in early-mid game.
- early religion civic is usually enough to solve most of happiness problems especially if you have incense. I dont see a reason to avoid having 6 or 5 temples (if I'm good and don't want to raise armageddon counter) in my cities.
- there are many types of resources that add happiness directly, or after city has certain buildings (brewery, etc..). Thanks to 3 field order, prospector guild, expansion, conquest and trade you'll get most of them if not all.
- the gambling house
- not many buildings or civics cause unhappiness
b) Health
Is usually harder to provide then
, but also much less important factor limiting city growth. - there are many health resources, you'll get sooner or later
- forests give health (it's ok), but do not limit your growth as much as in normal civilization, and additionally you can keep them after building mine. You loose 1 hammer, but gain 0,5 health that way. Good deal if you ask me, especially if your religion is FoL.
- not many buildings cause sickness
- food yields are often so high, that it doesn't matter even if you loose 10 food due unhealthiness
c) Food yields & city growth
- flood plains/oasis can be vitalized (3+2 food + eventually +2/3 from farm)
- grassland + farm + resource = 6+
- forests can be turned in ancient forests
- seas + kelp + lighthouse = 3 food and 2 commerce + eventually fish/crab/calm, freshwater lake + kelp + lighthouse = 4 food and 2 commerce
- druids/archmages can transform almost anything into grassland
- buildings (warehouse, market) and civics (serfdom) that add +% of food.
- guild effect (three field order and hansa to much lesser degree)
- additional food resources discovered by millers
The abundance of food usually allows cities placed on good terrain to grow quickly since midgame, largely ignore negative penalty of unhealthiness and/or support some specialists. Later in game when you have access to more health resources/buildings, terraforming, and spells/civics cities grow even bigger and able to support dozens of specialists.
d) No limit on national wonders in city
You can build them all in one city. You don't have to choose, don't really have to specialize your capital any more. You can have ironworks, heron throne, national epic and anything other you wish.
4. Experience and promotions
Units lvl quicker and promotions are stronger. Coupled with military instructors (settled generals), buildings like ride of 9 kings, civics and barracks and alike player can train very experienced troops (4+ promotions). 4 promotions in FFH are more like 8 promotions in normal BTS, unit with 4 promotions is twice as good as non promoted one. I think it works against ai, because player can gain/preserve experienced units much better (i.e. doesn't risk them, supports them with magic, etc.)
Xp potential:
Theocracy + Apprenticeship+Conquest= 8 free xp
Stables + 2 xp
Hippodrome + 2 xp
Ride of Nine Kings + 10xp
Form of the Titan + 2xp (ok it's not easy to get this one)
= 24xp + 2 per military instructor
That's simply scary. Units with so many stars easily kill weaker ones gaining additional promotions etc.
Settled military instructors + xp civics allow player to mass produce adepts and promote them to useful mages right away.
Suggestions&loose thoughts
II.1 Elohim - not sure how hard is to change them. I like Fall Further version much better then vanilla one.
Perhaps it's not just a problem with Elohim but with defensive trait. ?
II.2.a) Acolytes - their lightbulbing capability needs to be nerfed... a lot...
II.2.b) Prospectors&Millers - ideally if they don't find anything usefull in a square, they should not be able to search again (or at least they should not be able to find anything after first try). Or their chances of success should be lower then now (2% perhaps?)
Group of 4 millers x each one with 2% chance of success = 2 finds per 25 turns in average.
Fair enough for me.
II.3.) Supercities. I think they should be much harder to create.
- there should be more
to counter all Perhaps more tension between religions. I doubt that followers of order would coexist with octupus overlords etc.
Some buildings should cause
- influence of resources on happiness and health could be lower. I don't know if it's possible or easy to code but factional effect would be welcome.
Example:
Gold, no forge.
- 1 source - 0,5 happiness
- 2 sources - 0,5 + 0,25 happiness
- 3 sources - 0,5 + 0,25 + 0,125 happiness
etc.
Happiness and health bonus form resources could be added then rounded up or down or normally.
Example:
2 Gold, 1 fur, 3 silver = 0,75 + 0,5 + 0,875 = 2,125 So 2 or 3 depending on method of rounding.
It cuts easy health/happy bonus, adds some value to surplus resources and to trade with other civilizations.
No idea what how to solve big food surplus.
- market and warehouse combined give +20% to food, +5% each is still a lot
- making harder for millers to find food resources
- health bonus should be harder to get
- city of 1000 slums should have really big (-5?) health penalty
- making health penalties after 5th green face bigger, like - 2 food for 6th to 10th face, -3 food for 11th+
II.4.) Experience.
Slower XP gain is needed. I've seen this option in normal FFH, but can't see this option in your mod.
- easy, free XP should be somewhat reduced.
Great generals as military instructors could give bonus to all newly produced units sans arcane. (What does general knows about spellcasting?)
All others units would get +1XP, and perhaps 1 basic promotion with 10% chance (randomly drill I. combat I, sentry, mobility I, woodsman I, guerilla I, orc/elf/dwarf slayer etc) per each instructor. So in city with 3 instructors new warrior would get for example woodsman I with 27% chance. Nothing gamebreaking...
Alternative - in cities with settled general each produced unit gets new custom promotion "trained" - +5% combat, +5% withdraw
- promotions themselves could be little weaker. Something between standard BTS and FFH.
But AI probably do not know how to really use them. Same can be said for sidar specialist - it is just for players, AI has that mechanics disabled.
) I've seen no harm in posting my suggestions.
