Orbis - the original thread

[Ahwaric]

Ok, have found it. Take the attached pill and your generals should be fine.
Castles are still in, but they are the final upgrade of the fort (fort-> keep -> castle). I did not remove any building, there are only two strictly defensive ones - walls & citadel.

Edit: attachement removed. You better do not ask why...

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'm glad to hear that you like the idea about explorable animal dens

btw, nice changes in patch A. thanx

 

[sputnik323]

Im wondering if you would be open to changing the defensive system... if not disreguard this post
personally I think defense has been neglected in civ.. and should have more benifit. this is just a proposed idea, none of the numbers are set in stone... and if anyone else has ideas for buildings and balance they are welcome to...

I think as it stands there are only a few buildings that add defense, and the rest is based on city population... so a large city with walls and a citadel would yeild the highest defense bonus which can be completely torn down with enough seige weapons.

So Im proposing a change to this system...
1. No longer does population add defense percentage... its all based on buildings
2. more buildings are made available to raise defense
3. defensive trait leaders can build defensive buildings and forts in half the time.
4. defensive buildings are not destroyed when a city is captured
Changes =
cities = 10% defense and doesn't change due to bombard
palasade = +10% defense bombards to 0
walls = +40% defense bombards to 0
Portcullis = +5% defense damages attackers 10%
Machicolation = damages attackers 10%
Barbicon = +10% defense, damages attackers 5% and archers get +1 distance to ranged attack
Concentric castle = +20% bombards to 15%
Citadel = same as in orbi bombards to 10%
total defense = 115% and bombards to 35% with concentric castle and Citadel.
Moat and drawbridge = crossing river penalty to attacking units - no penalty for attacking defender units
Postern = +1 first strike to attacking defender units +30% withdrawl chance
Balista towers = gives 3 free ranged siege attack.
possible wonders could be made for more defense ... for example the great wall adding 10% defense on all cultural tiles..

- it would be nice to take away buildings being destroyed when a city is taken and change it to bombardment having a chance to destroy city buildings

-unrelated ideas... other modmodders have changed it so vampires could feast a city to 0 and raze it. I like this idea and think it would be good in orbi. I also think the vampire and werewolf promotions could be given for dungeon exploring. - and raise the werewolf hero's chances of producing werewolves.

I like the extra explorable animal dens... cant wait to try it.

 

[Caradoc]

Something I'd like to see for Dens and Lairs are more decisions for the player (like theones for the portal and lower level). When I come upon a nasty beastie, I'd like the option of trying to run away. Give me some percentage, maybe adjusted by my movement, to escape undamaged.

 

[Ahwaric]

Well, the one with deeper lair is in fact a decision if you want to get anything as you have hit bigbad/biggood result and can decide to risk or get nothing. It is ok, but not a real choice for me - big good/big bad are the most fun, so I always go deeper.
I think of some possible results of lair exploring: geting appropiate animal even without subdue promotion (tame cubs), gain totem, gain shapechange ability to chosen animal (if I expand shapechange), encounter a particulary large and ferocious version of the animal... any more ideas welcomed.

@ sputnik323
You have listed more fortification upgrades that were in stronghold games... and I can hardly imagine something from the siege warfare that you have not listed Unfortunatelly, I think that there are alread a lot of buildings and I do not really want to add more. Maybe one building for the more "offensive" defense.
I also think that combination of cultural & building defense is a great thing - I always missed it in Vanilla & BtS. It makes all fortifications useless after discovering gunpowder, and I have only to take 10-minute walk to prove it wrong (some XIX century fortifications are all over my city).
I imagine highly cultured city with walls as having great walls, with moat and stuff you described (like Constantinople), while small town have just reinforced palisade.
On the yes side, I agree that you should not be able to destroy all of the defences - even breached wall is still a barrier. I tried to limit the maximum possible damage to fortification in the past and will check what can I do.
Also, thanks to Xienwolf's help I was finally able to spice forts a little. They spawn commander while build (who can bombard enemies), also are part of your territory if build in the wild. It is juts the fort tile for start, but at the keep & castle stage you controle tiles around the fort. Currently you have to manually upgrade the commander from fort to keep & castle ones, but I may find a way to autupgrade them
Forts can be captured and the ownership of the area will also change. I want to release it in the next patch.

 

[Visage Darkskin]

Dear Ahwaric:
Thanks again for the expediency. A couple of other small glitches I found:
The diplomacy text "sounds like a deal" reads "Soundsdeal".
Some diplomacy text for Mechanos is missing.
"Alert icons" (the circles with a picture of the units that show up where hostile forces are when you press "Toggle enemy unit display") for Barbarian hunters and rangers show the icon for frostlings.
I can build vampires without building Governor's Manor first (maybe it's meant to be that way).
You can promote prospectors (and maybe other) units to guerrilla 2, without having the guerrilla 1 promotion.

Kind regards.

 

[sputnik323]

You are right, more micromanaging of buildings would be more taxing than fun... Im just trying to think of ways to spice up defense a little (which orbi already does pretty well by walls defender, and ect.). Although I do like the idea of moat and drawbridge because it makes river crossing promotion way more useful - instead of just going around the river to attack from another tile.
Defense off of culture is an interesting idea. It would make culture aspects of the game more of a "cultural integrity" rather than "cultural diversity." Which like you said about walls, actually mimics the real world... rich cultural historic nations like Japan, China, and Europe are the ones that created the awsome castles and walls. The more defense the surrounding country side had, the stronger the culture was infused into everyday life. The cultural slider could be adjusted to increase defense and could provide free defensive buildings - This would make culture more useful for domination players.

As for shapechange, it seems druids should be able to do this; however, they are already pretty strong... Ill have to mess around with the ability more to get more ideas.

Sounds like you have done great things with the forts! (can just imagine taking over AI castles deep in their territory and harassing them... muwahahahaaa!!) You mind sharing what the fort comanders abilities will be? Im also wondering if you should be able to purchace/cast commanders in a fort/castle instead of them autobuilding (cause what happens if the commander is killed? does a new one autospawn?) I can see the commanders strong vs melee and weak against assassins - needing units with guardsman to protect them. Will you need to fix the AI to protect their forts and castles as well as their cities? Otherwise it would be to easy to take their forts and bombard their cities to dust and walk right in. which is the idea, but still needs to be a challange in taking the fort.

Also before I forget... have you looked into malakim+ mini Modmod? I think it would be great in Orbi! http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=294155

And lastly... thanks for your hard work! I have a blast playing orbis, and i like how you work with other peoples' ideas in making this mod... so TYVM!

 

[Ahwaric]

Dear Ahwaric:
Thanks again for the expediency. A couple of other small glitches I found:
The diplomacy text "sounds like a deal" reads "Soundsdeal".

Thanks for the info! I really need cosmetic issues too, I suspect many of the icons of the "graphical replacements" may be misplaced.
I can't find "Soundsdeal" text. I have looked in both Orbi & FfH text files and found no such instance. Looks like I have to play a bit to get it.

@sputnik323
Good idea with the malakim. I already added aditional hammer for their desert tiles, but looked for more. Expect many of Deon's additions in 0.14b.

Fort commanders have following abilities:

• generated for free at the fort building
• immobile
• can make ranged attack
• are weak in normal combat (that may need to be changed as AI is not so good at protecting forts)
• when they are killed they are converted rather than killed (in fact it is impossible to kill/delete them)
• when the fort is destroyed, they are killed
• they project owners borders to the fort/keep tile (so it can upgrade even in the wild)
• at castle stage can be upgraded to castle commanders, which are stronger and extend borders to one tile around the castle (so you can build some improvements around or fight better if you have defender trait)
• borders from commanders are not cultural and city borders override them (including the fort tile) - you can really capture only wilderness forts, from other you just get the normal improvement bonuses

Currently my main concern is how to make them the last defender, from both normal units and assasins. If they are not the last line of defence, they can be captured and placed outside the fort. I need to run some tests. Maybe your idea of hiring the commander in unocuppied frots/keeps/castles is a solution for these problems. I fear that AI may have problems with that, but I think/experiment on it.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

wow, great changes coming in patch B it seems. looking forward to that

 

[Elm]

I got the Spider mine event in Patch A, and thought "Great, I could use the silk". Unfortunately, the spider is a beast unit, and I couldn't capture it. Was this a change for this mod?

 

[sputnik323]

@Elm you are right this was changed in the mod where some of the animals like griffons and giant spiders have been changed to beasts, with that... the subdue beast promotion can also be gained by a much, much earlier tech.


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as a side note for future versions... I dont know if this would be too hard to impliment but some of snarko's mod is awsome.
Especially: Improved AI diplomacy. The AI will make demands/request for help etc to other AIs, not just the human.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=226635
and
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290161

 

[Ahwaric]

changing great spiders to beasts was a though decision, but I think it is better noiw - they are really powerfull.
Subdue beast actually comes at the same tech that spider pen, so there is no delay. The only problem is that it requires combat 3 and subdue animal first. Anyway, the spiders from mines do not actually go anywhere (they can not move in your territory as they are animals) and do not cause problems, so just let them wait

@sputnik323
Snarko mod is great, but it requires custom dll. I plan to begin to use dll soon (xienwolf's additions are great), but I am not sure what will I add to it (or be able to...).

Recently I did some changes how the improvements work. Before I release the patch b, I decided to let you voice your opinions to save myself making fixes later.
The main idea for the changes was to make malakim actually like deserts, and to limit plains farming/cottage spam. I would like to create a bit of endless steppe feeling. With nomads & herds of animals, but no towns/farmlands. In our world until recently (200-300 years back) steppes lacked many permanent settlements & farms, except near freshwater. Just nomadic tribes with a few permanent cities (like tatars at Crimea)
For now I have not decided how much I want to go for it. My main goal is to have fun playing and make improvements more diverse, not the same one all over no matter the terrain.
The main changes are:

• cottages can be build only on grassland and other tiles with fresh water. If you are illian, you can do it on any snow tile. That will limit town economy a bit, but I hope to see different improvements instead
• Added yurt & goum improvements - upgrading tent improvements. Can be build on deserts & plains. Require 1 hammer of base yeld, so only malakim can build yurts on normal deserts (including floodplains), other civs are restricted to hills.
• I think of adding this ability to tundra. That change will only affect doviello, as they get + 1 hammer from every tundra tile. Other will not be able to build yurts on tundra anyway
• Malakim have special upgrade to goum - aduar. It is fortified village, doubles bonuses of goum
• I think of adding some hippus-only bonus for yurts&goum (extra food or something)
• Malakim get +1 hammer and + 2 commerce from desert tiles to discourage casting spring on a tile just after building yurt

Other things I am thinking of:

• lower base oasis yeld, but allow to build improvements on it (without removing the oasis). So far, I think of Farm, cottage (and thus town) and yurt
• Disable ability to build farms & workshops on plains if they lack freshwater. That will limit them to river & lake sides only (irrigation is a different thing). That might be too severe and not fun.

I am at the point I am not sure if to go for it - and I really need your opinion.
Attached are two screenshot showing how does it look like (new fort mechanics can be seen there too). It is before sanitation & taxation, so the farms will be better in later game. New improvements will not. One brown yurt is well, yurt, 2 red yurts are goum and walled malakim art village is aduar.
(by the way, how do you like the names? goum is beduin term for a group of tents, aduar is berber word for village - I picture them like villages deep in the mountains or near some water source...)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

interesting changes and very cool-looking screenshots, definitely go for it, it seems like it will bring a lot more variety to the game

 

[Visage Darkskin]

Dear Ahwaric:
Looking forward to the new forts to play around with, not so sure (yet) about the yort and goum, although they do look great.
What's their yield and upgrade time? [EDIT: Sorry, I just saw the first post describing this]
If a grassland has no access to fresh water, you can't build anything in it?
Once you can spread irrigation, can you build cottages in places now connected with a fresh water source through irrigation?
I was thinking this might not work so well for Kurios, given the importance of Enclaves in their playstyle, although I like the civ specific yields you are thinking about.
Kind regards.

EDIT:
Two separate games have crashed after the AI summons the Mercurials. I tried summoning them and had no problems. I think it has to do with them taking over an AI city, as the first turn they appear they do not control the city with the Mercurial gate yet, but I can see them already with 0 points. And the following game it crashes. In one of them the game crashed and in the other game it rebooted windows. If you'd like additional info let me know.
Oh, and the generals pill didn't quite do the trick. Great placebo, though. Will be waiting for patch b
Kind Regards.

 

[Tathain]

I noticed that FF.34 is at patch "h" right now. Will this mod work with it, or is there a place I can still get the old "g" patch? At the moment I'm not having a lot of luck but I would really like to try this mod

-

bother, definately doesn't work with patch "h"

 

[sputnik323]

@Tathain the mod only works for patch g. The new version of orbis .14b (probably comming pretty soon) will probably be compatible with patch h. So I would wait for the new version because there is a lot of cool new stuff.

 

[Ahwaric]

Oh, and the generals pill didn't quite do the trick. Great placebo, though. Will be waiting for patch b

Well, that is because I have put wrong file inside . Use the included file instead... Placebo... I wonder if the old file worked for someone?

If a grassland has no access to fresh water, you can't build anything in it?
Once you can spread irrigation, can you build cottages in places now connected with a fresh water source through irrigation?

You can always build towns on grassland, no matter if there is freshwater or not. I treat grassland as the standard terrain for civilizations, a climate like the one in western & central europe, eastern US and so on. I do not plan any changes on the possible improvements there. I just limit the possibility to build on plains, which I see as steppes/praires.
Irrigation has nothing to do with enabling/disabling building. It is just for farms. Freshwater requires river/freshwater lake/oasis in the adjacent tile. So, if I block farms from being built on plains if no freshwater is nearby, it is for good (unless there is a farm resource there). That is why I am not sure if to do it.

I did not touch Mercurians that much, so I have no idea what is wrong. Anyway, I would like to check that. Do you have a save?

@Tathain
Orbi is for 0.34g only. I have yet to update my files to h, I also plan to tweak some of the 14b stuff. I hope it will be ok and I will be able to release 0.14b tomorrow evening (CET)

Edit: More bugs found... So make release time saturday

 

[sputnik323]

I am really looking forward to the new version. I am a little worried that the changes to the improvements will make riverside cities the only place people want to expand... but will have to see how it plays out in the game. can yurts be built in forests while still getting the bonus from forests?(may reduce the penalty for plains not being by river for other civs) Diversified improvements is a briliant idea! It definatly brings out a difference than just a cottage spam play - so I really like that.

Didn't notice the general.zip file was wrong because I 'spent' them on their special building when it wasn't working

I know I haven't seen what the fort commanders do in .14b but here is an idea for .14c...
In an old post I was thinking of special abilities for fort and castle commanders... and have thought of a solution for making them annoying to attacking forces who want to bypass without attacking them and taking the fort. The new ability would be for commanders to summon trapts. A simplified version of this would be that fort commanders summon a weak version of grasping vines on all adjacent unocupied squares that lasts ~3 turns. That way the army has to battle through the territory, eating up movement spaces and losing weak almost dead units. Something else other than vines could be used because they are basically traps to slow down the enemy - however vines seemed to fit because they dont move. It would also be cool if the traps had the guardian promotion as a bonus protection for workers or other units in the land because they know the territory and can escape. They could only have a strength of 1 at first and castle commanders can summon ones with strength of 2 - (is there a way that these traps wouldn't give xp?). so basically it is a way to have wild forts and castles control enemy movement without major changes to the system (like python hooks and stuff) and gives the commanders more abilities. Maybe amurite fort commanders could summon immovable weaker fireballs for their traps and leaders with defender trait have trapts with the homeland promotion. - other ideas for this ability would be appreciated.

the upgrades could work this way...
fort commander gains ranged attack - or what you already have planned
keep commander gains more powerful ranged attack - casts strength 1 trapts
castle commander gains more powerful ranged attack - casts strength 2 trapts - extends borders

a couple more ideas:

1) I've been playing with the hidden gameoption that makes it so that buildings don't get destroyed when you capture a city and it's great. I'd love for this to be normal, and have a chance to destroy buildings tied to siege bombardment instead ( i.e. you take down fortifications, but you damage the city a bit - makes sense to me )

looks like another vote for saving buildings!

I like the names of the new improvements! origional, and seem to work well with the idea of praries and steppes.

 

[Ahwaric]

Patch b is ready. You can get it here

A lot of stuff added, some fixes too. Full changelog in the second post.

I am waiting for feedback

 

[Kjara]

Patch b is ready. You can get it here

A lot of stuff added, some fixes too. Full changelog in the second post.

I am waiting for feedback

Not sure if its just me, but that link and the link on the first page still take me to patch a .

Edit: or I'm in a different timezone than the servers(was mentally translating time wrong), It might not just be up yet?