Orbis - the original thread

[xienwolf]

Converting Espionage to Culture was a Firaxis design decision, not a strange bug. It is so that the buildings which offer espionage points (and not much else) aren't overpriced for absolutely no reason, or completely useless, when you run a game using the No Espionage gameoption.

 

[Ahwaric]

since you're adding espionage, you might be interested in this modpack:/url]

Thanks for the info, but these will have to wait. I have plenty of work just tweaking and bugfixing right now, so 0.22 is locked on the main features it will contain.
I will have to check if these are worth adding, so it will take time.

Converting Espionage to Culture was a Firaxis design decision, not a strange bug. It is so that the buildings which offer espionage points (and not much else) aren't overpriced for absolutely no reason, or completely useless, when you run a game using the No Espionage gameoption.

I am aware it was a design decision that came with 3.17 no espionage option. The problem is it is broken as it makes cultural victory really easy. I think that simple cutting espionage yield from some buildings would be better for ballance than the current state. But it is how the things are, so we have to get used to it.
I want to reduce espionage from buildings anyway, I do not want it to dominate the game, just be a nice addition.

 

[Wauthan]

Well you could make the espionage buildings actually drain culture. That way the effect would cancel itself out if you played with the "no espionage" function. Since there are so many ways to boost culture in Orbis the drain would be easily manageable.

Will the Eyes and Ears Network boost espionage instead of autostealing popular techs?

 

[Seon]

Well you could make the espionage buildings actually drain culture. That way the effect would cancel itself out if you played with the "no espionage" function. Since there are so many ways to boost culture in Orbis the drain would be easily manageable.

Will the Eyes and Ears Network boost espionage instead of autostealing popular techs?

What about boosting espionage and steal techs?
OR it can do whatever the thing Kremlin did

 

[Tayschrenn]

Great, espionage surely makes it more interesting, I'm also happy to se the return of the ratcatchers. (will we see other old guilds resurfacing ? like Aerons Bounty or the Brotherhood of Wardens ??

 

[arbor]

I really like the the rebalancing, especially population needing 3 food instead of 2!! Now every town needs some farmland and this is logical. However, some issues:

- The AI is giving to little priority to farms. I never had a game (prince, increasing difficulty) where I ended up with 10 times the points of the second strongest player (usually its about 2-5 times ). I built a lot of farms a switched to agriculture. I had 3 cities with 19-24; and some more about 15. The biggest enemy city had 15!! But most only had one about 12 (the rest at 7-9).
It is, with enough health and happiness every farm brings 2+ produktien (engineer, or +3 mith GoEndovers; and science, money respective civics). Next to rivers on plains, with agriculture, you get 5/2/3 - quite okay.

The AI should check that agriculture and servdom is much more vulnerable now as food is the limiting resource now; and it should build enough farms (especially next to rivers; produktion and trade from levee and river port) to reach a certain size - at least when there is the health and happiness.

- I like that the windmill is that strong now (with elementalism; better than forest+forester) as it balances the disadvantage from acnostic races (do not get trade from forester or mines). However, the watermill should be improved, too - especially as you cannot build them everywhere. +1 food would be nice.

- elves became stronger now as they can build farms in forest. Before a forester (1/1/1) was somehow equal to a farm (2/0/1). I almost would like some penalty for their farms (-1 commerce?).

One thing I really liked in Civ2: you could create food-trade-routes. I guess it would be to much work/impossible to introduce this but if you have an idea ... . It would be more realistic and you could produce resouces in rocky regions - with the farm-balancing now almost impossible. (And furthermore imagine Rome or Constantinople where whole Egypt was needet just to feed the only 1-million-city of the world these times). Well, if the AI comes along with it ...

Respectively the Scions:
After the food-balance they are better. However, is it possible raise the avakeneds by turns and not by chance? It depends too much at luck what can be quite anoying.
Furthermore, the are the weakest race it seems. I went directly for Ironworks producing Awakeneds all the time but I could not catchup with the rest (although I was much better than AI Scions ever would have been).
Finally, after conquering the first enemy city the awakened-percentage disappeared and no more came - this is normal?

Respectively the Illians:
The temple of the hand - making all to ice - is giving some nice flare. However, it is everything but not usefull. What is missing:
illians race that gives:
+33% Workrate on Ice, 25% on tundra (or whatever to make it +/-0)
+double movement on Ice

Furthermore, Swamp and deep jungle should be removed with the temple, too (or turned to forest like jungle).

Finally, I really would love to have some special Illian terrain for flood plains and wetlands: Could you introduce something like frozen lakes/ice lakes giving +2 food, -1 production? Its just quite heavy if a wetland city dies from hunger just for building the temple. And this terrain would be nice for Illian flare.
Another thing for Ice flare would be "hot fountains" (+1 food +1 commerce?) next to vulcans!

Respective the Mazatl:
Of course, all their units should be able to use trails as roads. However, but I thing that also the lizardmen promotion should allow to use trails for other races.

Respective Kazad:
It's great that they can use montains now. However, as they can walk on mountains wouldn't it be better allowing their workers to build mines/windmills/watermills (next to river) on mountains instead of giving a fixed bonus?

Finally, a general issue yet before. The AI doesn't use the range combat enough efficiently. I don't know why but even if one archer attacks, not everyone does; never the move and range attack (maybe it should be forbitten for humans, too), etc. Really sad is when they have cannons and do not smash your armies. Any idea how to improve this?
I like that archebusiers and cannons have strong range attack. I even would make it much stronger but let it cost money (if money is out, no range attack; out of ammo).

And now I'm really looking forward to 0.22!! Orbis forever!

 

[arkham4269]

One thing I really liked in Civ2: you could create food-trade-routes. I guess it would be to much work/impossible to introduce this but if you have an idea ... . It would be more realistic and you could produce resources in rocky regions - with the farm-balancing now almost impossible. (And furthermore imagine Rome or Constantinople where whole Egypt was needet just to feed the only 1-million-city of the world these times). Well, if the AI comes along with it ...

I totally agree. On of the nice things about this was you could take food from a city on a plain between rivers which had surplus food and send it to some city stuck in the hills due to resources you need.

Of course when it comes to the AI, it still seems to often times build over mana nodes and then "forget" they are there later on when they have the tech to be able to create a viable mana node.

 

[kyberus]

Great mod(mod), I'm really fond of the implentation of ranged bombardment, and I can't wait to try the mechanos.
Just in reply to the "whoever fires first wins" issue earlier, its hardly unique to orbis or fall from heaven, but I had a small recommendation. I'm sure I have seen this before, but would it be possible to add a "retaliate" mode to units with ranged bombardment (similar to the "intercept" mission available to air units), allowing them to fire back when artillery (within range) bombard their stack? This would reduce the advantage of firing first, and perhaps provide some risk to assaulting with artillery, without requring that they be weakened. Since the units couldn't have attacked on their previous turn, it wouldn't be providing them with extra attacks, either, hopefully. It occurs to me I have not idea how hard this would be to make, but it would be interesting

 

[A Golden Dragon]

Respectively the Scions:
After the food-balance they are better. However, is it possible raise the avakeneds by turns and not by chance? It depends too much at luck what can be quite anoying.
Furthermore, the are the weakest race it seems. I went directly for Ironworks producing Awakeneds all the time but I could not catchup with the rest (although I was much better than AI Scions ever would have been).
Finally, after conquering the first enemy city the awakened-percentage disappeared and no more came - this is normal?

Scions aren't the weakest race, not by far... but they require a unique playing style ! i really like playing as the Scions and each time i play with them it goes better then last time. Better use of my awakends, and stuff like that.

noticed aswell that the awakened-percentage disappeared, so it is not just you... but i find it rather strange aswell

Respectively the Illians:
The temple of the hand - making all to ice - is giving some nice flare. However, it is everything but not usefull. What is missing:
illians race that gives:
+33% Workrate on Ice, 25% on tundra (or whatever to make it +/-0)
+double movement on Ice

well since the illians aren't a seperate race, it can't be a race promotion.. but i agree perhaps same for the malakim in deserts?

And now I'm really looking forward to 0.22!! Orbis forever!

I TOTALY AGREE

 

[Thunder_Gr]

noticed aswell that the awakened-percentage disappeared, so it is not just you... but i find it rather strange aswell

If the Scions in this mod have anything to do with the FF Scions, the awakened spawning is stopped after the population reaches a specific amount. You have to rely on reborns from this point on. It is a part of the civilization mechanics.

 

[A Golden Dragon]

ok, thnx

 

[Ahwaric]

What about boosting espionage and steal techs?
OR it can do whatever the thing Kremlin did

You get both. But I am tempted to nerf free tech acquirement again. Now you get it if 4 of the civs you have open borders with have this tech. In unmodded FfH it is 3.

Great, espionage surely makes it more interesting, I'm also happy to se the return of the ratcatchers. (will we see other old guilds resurfacing ? like Aerons Bounty or the Brotherhood of Wardens ??

With 11 already (I have removed Stewards in 0.22) I am more tempted to remove them than to add another. In fact, I could do without mercenaries and ratcatchers and just link all stuff to techs. But it adds some flavour this way I hope.
Both Wardens and Aerons Bounty were very limited and I do not plan their return, nor any of the other guilds. In fact, ratcatchers are a new guild, just using old name and symbol.

I really like the the rebalancing, especially population needing 3 food instead of 2!! Now every town needs some farmland and this is logical. However, some issues:
- The AI is giving to little priority to farms.
- the watermill should be improved, too - especially as you cannot build them everywhere. +1 food would be nice.
- elves became stronger now as they can build farms in forest

Well, AI gives me a lot of trouble. I want to start fixing it, but hope notque will release his source code and that would save me a ton of work.
Note that watermill can be build without removing feturse, i.e. forest or ancient forest. So it is quite strong...
I want to give elves -1 food from farms. But it is not possible now. well, not without special tech or civic, but maybe I should give it to them, just to limit these size >20 cities. They have too high natural birth rate
Another option, which I can link to a trait now, is to limit feature yield (-1 food from forest tiles?). But it might make elven players remove forests and that is the last thing I want...

One thing I really liked in Civ2: you could create food-trade-routes.

I liked it too, but no idea on good implementation ATM. Especially AI-friendly one.

Respectively the Scions:
After the food-balance they are better. However, is it possible raise the avakeneds by turns and not by chance?
Finally, after conquering the first enemy city the awakened-percentage disappeared and no more came - this is normal?

If the Scions in this mod have anything to do with the FF Scions, the awakened spawning is stopped after the population reaches a specific amount. You have to rely on reborns from this point on. It is a part of the civilization mechanics.

They are, the changes are minor (some spells mostly). The spawn code was adjusted a bit to take new Orbis resources into account, but otherwise is unchanged. I will update it to FF patch H version before 0.22 release.
And what A Golden Dragon said, Scions are far from being weak, they just need special playstyle, focusing on certain buildings, techs and civics. You get free reborn if you raze a city when running glory civic, or you can keep the city (i removed FF population reduction on Scions conquests - if it does not apply to infernals, orcs or dark elves, why should it to Scions?). Disciples are strong and can create reborn in combat. And you do not have to worry about food and starving...
So, the late game it is a good idea to go and convert the barbarians With sword and gift... or just use pelemoc on unhelthy cities. And in 0.22 unhealthiness can be provided by spies...

Regarding illians, it is not possible to increase build rate on just one terrain (well, with current code). But I will link bouble ice movement to winterborn promotion. It is shared with doviello, but I do not mind.
Deep jungle will turn to forest (ice forest?? ), but swamp stays. I do not think illians should get much food, but will take a look at what can be changed.

Mazatl trail movement is linked to tech and can't be lkinked to promotion right now. Sorry. I would like to get rid of the jungledwelling tech.

Khazad mountain yield comes from deep underground mining/fungal farms, so should not be dependant on the surface inftrastructure... Also, improvements, once build, could be used by other civs, and that is something I dislike.

And now I'm really looking forward to 0.22!! Orbis forever!

Thanks!
I hope to get it ready tonight, but exact time cannot be predicted...

Regarding ranged combat, I would like AI to use it more. Ranged counterstrike is a nice idea, but not something I I have a way to implement now.
I hope that part of the problem will fix itself in 0.22. Collateral damage will be limited the way I posted responding Mylon's questions, plus I adopted Vehem's changes to ranged damage. It will now be much more dependant on the strength of the defending unit, plus it will grant xp if the inflicted damage is big.
It will need some adjusting, but hope it is a step in the right direction.

 

[Isotope]

One thing I really liked in Civ2: you could create food-trade-routes. I guess it would be to much work/impossible to introduce this but if you have an idea ... . It would be more realistic and you could produce resources in rocky regions - with the farm-balancing now almost impossible. (And furthermore imagine Rome or Constantinople where whole Egypt was needet just to feed the only 1-million-city of the world these times). Well, if the AI comes along with it ...

Maybe it could be partly added with a building that would convert 50% of trade wealth to food but drain 75% of wealth from trade. (like "TradeYieldModifiers" from civics XML schema but for buildings). Since it would be a building, you could decide in which city you want it.
Combining this with the ideas below, there could be "Commerce policies" buildings created by "Economy representatives" which would vary according your economy civic. For example, "Agrariarism" representative would create the building mentioned above but "Free Market" representative would grant a buidling that boosts foreign wealth trade by 50%. Another hypotetic civic would grant 50% yield but drain 75% wealth trade.

Well you could make the espionage buildings actually drain culture. That way the effect would cancel itself out if you played with the "no espionage" function. Since there are so many ways to boost culture in Orbis the drain would be easily manageable.

This has given me the following idea: Implement several buildings like "City government policies", there could be even a civic that would allow them to be built (Offtopic: or it's "being built"?) ("City states"/"Republic"...). If one of them is built, the previous is destroyed. One would grant +20% food production but drain 30% wealth, commerce or culture; another, for exampe, grant 20% building production but drain 30% unit production; 20% unit production but -30% building production; +20% wealth but -30% culture or yield, etc...

Another way of implementing this would be with "Government representatives" that would vary with each government civic and would be capable of creating in the city their respective building that would be destroyed if they leave the city (like Melante's residence, Scions) . If you change civics, they would abandon you (like royal guards).
There are ways to flavourize theese "Government representatives" like limiting them in numbers but allow their respective building to have more benefits or make them unlimited (for some expansionist civic) but with a very specific benefit and with high handicap (something like halving maintenance/give happines but doubling war wearliness, etc...)

 

[Tarquelne]

Re: Food trade-route mechanics.

Perhaps a building that subtracts X food, and another building that adds Y food.

Like Cathedrals can require a certain # of temples for each built, each "Adds food" building requires one "Subtracts food" building somewhere.

A simple scheme... My guess is the AI could find that relatively easy to understand.

 

[Valkrionn]

Regarding illians, it is not possible to increase build rate on just one terrain (well, with current code). But I will link bouble ice movement to winterborn promotion. It is shared with doviello, but I do not mind.
Deep jungle will turn to forest (ice forest?? ), but swamp stays. I do not think illians should get much food, but will take a look at what can be changed.

Sure it is. Have a second promotion, autoacquire, mustmaintain, requires ice and Winterborn, that increases build rate. Then when the worker leaves ice he loses the build rate increase. Not as clean as doing it from one promotion, but certainly possible.

 

[arkham4269]

Re: Food trade-route mechanics.

Perhaps a building that subtracts X food, and another building that adds Y food.

Like Cathedrals can require a certain # of temples for each built, each "Adds food" building requires one "Subtracts food" building somewhere.

A simple scheme... My guess is the AI could find that relatively easy to understand.

I like this idea. Although it does bring up the point that Obsidian Gates would be used for a lot more than just moving troops around. You'd think you could move food and not just trade.

Of course in some respects there is a bit of a mechanic in place by having the farmer created his building in a city as well as the boost from having food related corporations in your city.

 

[arbor]

Deep jungle will turn to forest (ice forest?? ), but swamp stays. I do not think illians should get much food, but will take a look at what can be changed.

I do not see a problem in the bonus. It is I just did not build the temple in wetland/flood plain cities as it is just wasting toooo much (the AI cannot handle this). +3 food might be a lot but it just would leave it like is was making the temple of the hand

Ah yes, one more to Illians with Three-Field-Order: Farmers cannot breed on ice but farms itself can find resources. Maybe breeding should be possible everywhere where there is a farm (or an exception for illians on ice). Breeding on tundra could be allowed for everybody.

Khazad mountain yield comes from deep underground mining/fungal farms, so should not be dependant on the surface inftrastructure... Also, improvements, once build, could be used by other civs, and that is something I dislike.

Oh, that was exactly what I liked. After beeing conquered the people could go on to use the mines (but not build new ones). Maybe with one production less for non-Kazads. And it would give some more map variety (mine entries to be seen on the surface or better on the foot of the mountain) - especially on Erebus where there are so many mountains. Finally, blasting power and slavery could apply.
However, I would connect it at least to a building (deep mines) as mountains now are a really good terrain from the beginning without effort. Another building in the end-game to improve the bonus (+1 prod +1 com)

@Scions
Well, I don't know but they use to be the weakest in an AI game (a part from those who start in rocky areas without food). If I play them I hardly catch up with the strongest (usual is having 3-5 times his points in turn 200). In a multi-player-game it seems you do not have any chance at all.
Maybe I miss something - but please, how do you play them then? How to get your 5 almost 20-size-cities to be equal in a multi-player-game? Okay, you can conquer but you lack the production to have a chance.
I like them as they are a challenge. However, I do not see them as multi-player fit.

Sure it is. Have a second promotion, autoacquire, mustmaintain, requires ice and Winterborn, that increases build rate. Then when the worker leaves ice he loses the build rate increase. Not as clean as doing it from one promotion, but certainly possible.

sounds good.

 

[arkham4269]

Waaah! It's Friday and no 'promised' patch!

Just kidding; take your time! -

Although I must say that I think I'm going to write to PC Gamer; I found out about FfH thru an article they had about Civ Mods, but I don't think they spend enough ink pointing out how many (and varied) mods there are for Civ or how devoted the modders are. I mean I'm not much for most games, especially FPS (although I do like Left 4 Dead) because once you've gone through all the levels the game where is the replay value. With Ffh/FF/Orbis, I've often haven't even gotten through a game before an update comes along that will break that game. Now THAT is customer service!

 

[Ahwaric]

Waaah! It's Friday and no 'promised' patch!

Just kidding; take your time! -

Really? Thanks
I wanted to release it this evening, but it might be better to give me a few more hours. I got convinced on proposed changes to the illians, so I will try to incorporate them. Plus spend some time to catch more bugs...

Thanks for the nice words, sometimes I think I am too dedicated. Well, my gf certainly sometimes thinks so...

Anyway, tomorrow this time it will be out. I promise.

@Valkrionn
Thanks for reminding me. I keep forgeting how much can be done with Xienwolf's modcomp.

 

[Valkrionn]

Yeah, I use autoacquire constantly... I'd prefer to be able to have just one main promotion allowing all of the effects, but it lets you get around things that would be impossible in base FfH.

@Scions
Well, I don't know but they use to be the weakest in an AI game (a part from those who start in rocky areas without food). If I play them I hardly catch up with the strongest (usual is having 3-5 times his points in turn 200). In a multi-player-game it seems you do not have any chance at all.
Maybe I miss something - but please, how do you play them then? How to get your 5 almost 20-size-cities to be equal in a multi-player-game? Okay, you can conquer but you lack the production to have a chance.
I like them as they are a challenge. However, I do not see them as multi-player fit.

I'd recommend you go to these two threads. The first describes them in great detail, and was posted by Tarquelne, creator of the Scions. The second is a strategy thread.