Regicide FFH Style

[deadliver]

I like the idea that the king-units be able to upgrade adventurer style into a variety of units. I also agree that the AI being dumb would cause issues with wiping them out quickly.

Honestly I do not see why these units should not be at least a game option, we already have Auric, Hyborem, Basium and the Golden Dragon, why not expand and include the other leaders?

edit: to be fair I hate computer graphics art and cannot program so I cannot complain. Oh yeah I think these units should not be immune to assassins either, last nite playing as infernals Hybo got cacked by some calabim assassin after he had finished beating up a coupla units...very embarassing BUT also a pretty cool usage of the assassin.

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

I could see kings actively giving all units in the same tile loyalty and guardsman for example... or maybe all units loyalty, courage and only melee units guardsman.

Its sort of dumb to have your king assassinated but OTOH its realistic that you'd put your best guardsman promoted units defending your king. In many cases, if you're like me and your best units are in your attack force (ie highly promo'd heroes) it may even make sense for your king to travel with your attack force.

In this case, it gives you more options to have a 0 str unit with abilities like medic III to assist the civilization.

It could also be useful to have your king act as a mobile forbidden palace (which may make sense). Maybe the king also gives all units an innate +25% city defense or something in the city he's in. Now you have some options as to whether you want him inspiring the defenders of an important outpost or travelling with the main army without making him "just another hero archmage"

 

[deadliver]

I like the idea of the king rolling around and reducing maintenance like the forbidden palace and/or providing benefits to defending units in a stack.

Being useful for both domestic and military purposes could be cool.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

nice idea about the king acting as a forbidden palace

 

[Imuratep]

The abilities of the king units certainly should not be normal abilities you are able to get by normal units (like fuzzy bunnies said they should not be another hero-archmage). The abilities should be flavorwise connected with the leader. We could consider what these abilities could be, but it's only worth doing it, if we know, that enough people are interested in a such gamemode. Thus I suggest to connect a poll to this thread and if we see that there is a large amount of supporters of our idea, we can start collecting.

 

[Farmer Bobathan]

The stuff that fuzzy bunnies would make an excellent general-type unit that uses the great general spawning mechanic and/or can be upgraded from a high-level unit. Then the king could have enhanced versions of those abilities and the promotion that the kings have could have a huge defense boost. Also, the less amazing leaders could be represented as the king and his royal guard.

 

[jprc]

A new victory option should be added: "Capture the Flag"

The flag can be either:

1. - a specific point on the map, set up for each civilization, such as a landmark randomly placed within cultural border. This landmark should not be immediately visible (for avoiding any rush), but come, say, around the turn 100 for a standard speed, or when at least 3 cities have been created.
2. - an item, representing the Power, like a scepter. it can be carried by any unit, or simply let in a well defended city, or even anywhere on a tile. And if a unit is authorized to go through impassable terrain, ex. mountain, it would give more interest in chasing/capturing griffons for hunting down the "Ring" carriers!!! It can be also a naval unit, making the hunt for October even more "wide world"...
3. -the capital city (the Palace)
4. - a unit itself.

If it is a unit, it should simply be a unique Great Person and designed like a Great Commander.
It is received when the capital is created, but without the ability to

• create a command post
• rise a small army (for avoiding exploits)
• or be added to another unit

Actually, this great person should do like a "Hope" when residing in a city, and have a very low attack (1?) but a fair defense (I suggest 6) for not being too easy for assassins later on (but shadows, yes...).
This would also give more value to the promotion de type "bodyguard" (I forgot the exact name) as such promotion would be unvaluable for units guarding the "Queen/King" (depending on the civ), with his/her name directly after the name of the leader you choose...

 

[Love]

How about the king wont be powerful at all, but can throw these spells. None of the king units is that strong in the lore except basium and hyborem (and, umm decius), and they enter later.

 

[BlankVerse]

I think the regicide option should turn everyone into Minister Koun, for balance and art reasons.

 

[Vrenir]

What if the king "could only defend," but would grant a bonus to all units on the same tile. Would the AI then keep it in fortified positions like cities?

 

[BlankVerse]

The AI wouldn't know when to run away. The King would just stay in the Capitol City as opposed to relocating to another city when a giant army comes over the horizon.

 

[Love]

King would be able to rally.

 

[deadliver]

Instead of having a unit maybe instead do as was suggested above and have the King be attachable just like a great general?

Make the King promotion better than being lead by a gg? That would cut down on these issues with modeling etc.

I do think though that the promotion should be different between civs (or at least split into pro melee and pro magic) promotions.

 

[Imuratep]

Instead of having a unit maybe instead do as was suggested above and have the King be attachable just like a great general?

Make the King promotion better than being lead by a gg? That would cut down on these issues with modeling etc.

I do think though that the promotion should be different between civs (or at least split into pro melee and pro magic) promotions.

Very good idea. This should be quite easy to do and you would not need a new unit model for it. (You could just use the great general model and then add an icon for the Promotion that looks similar to the leader arts). The unit that has the promotion would represent the royal guard, not the unit itself (which can be guarded itself. Usually assassins have to pass other guards till they get to the royal guard). Furthermore the main thoughts from the poll against regicide were that it would 1. destroy the uniqueness of Basium and Hyborem 2. The AI couldn't handle this. The first point I think is covered quite well by deadlivers idea (because there wouldn't be separate units for them but the leaders would only be promotions - you don't actually fight with them, but a royal guard). So we have to think of something that covers the second point: The AI.

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

Well, the AI one is relatively easy... in theory. You could just have a script to make the AI move his king to the city furthest from enemies or to the city with the biggest garrison.

The AI wouldn't be able to use the king's active abilities (passive like defense bonus would still work) but on the other hand, it wouldn't know how to use it anyway. Might as well just give it a script to run the king away. I think it makes sense to have the king have the option to give bonuses to attacking armies and as a mobile forbidden palace but if the AI were to use any of those it would just attach the king to the first warrior it makes and attack with it or otherwise get the king killed too fast.

Re: Basium and Hyborem, but difference there would be that those two leaders are actually formidable in combat. The monarchs we'd be talking about here would have passive and active abilities but otherwise not be combat units.

 

[Imuratep]

The AI does not understand many basic strategies in FFH, so if we at least managed to avoid the king getting killed during the first 100 turns by the barbarians it will handle this gamemode much better than many other parts of the game. If we managed to include a script that works like you said, it would be fantastic.
IMHO it's enough if the AI manages to compete in a normal regicide (that is, without the active abilities). The abilities are a gimmick for the human player.

Still I think using the Great General model for all leaders would make this project much easier as we wouldn't need different unit models. Is it possible to link a certain AI-script to an ability (So if you attach the leader to a unit the script of this unit is changed, so that a warrior with the leader attached on it does not attack, explore etc. if it's controlled by an AI)

 

[it-ogo]

I don't believe that AI will ever be able to handle effectively ACTIVE king-unit. But Acheron-like immobile units attached to the palace look like a good idea. Also they can provide an interface to civ actions like world spells (not each worker can cast a world spell). Each of them can have a range of individual abilities, be very tough in defence, maybe gain some upgrades with new techs (individual) and, if killed, all other cities and units of the civ are turned into barbarians.

That will kill early conquest (Well... I don't like early conquest ), early destruction by barbarians (BTW barbs should not attack capital in this case) and can improve political intrigues all along the game especially if vassalization will be slightly rebalanced and reworked. For example we can make a somnium game for independance - play with someone's vassal and if you win, he cancels vassalization.

As for making kings especially vulnerable for assassins/shades... I think it is too exploitable to be ever made properly.

One more idea - if you defeat a king-unit its civ may join your team (on your choice).

 

[Imuratep]

The king-unit should by no means be immobile as it kills all what regicide is about. Your point is nevertheless a good one it-ogo. I would let king units work like hawks. In Vanilla civ the AI also uses bombers and fighters so it should be able to move the king unit too. I don't know if it is possible, because I don't know exactly how AI programming works, but the AI should always put the king into the city the farthest from enemy borders.

The last one is a cool idea. If the king is defeated, the AI offers capitulation (which is kinda realistic). This would give the gamemode a unique playstyle. Perhaps in this gamemode independant realms like in Rhys' and Fall would fit better than all cities turning barbarian (because then all cities would have an orcish culture with orcish citizens, which would be quite strange, unless the cities lose at least half of their population, because they were crushed by the barbarians)

 

[Fafnir13]

I could see some of the leaders acting as more of a Civ bonus then a unit. Ethne the White would certainly not be one you would see on the frontlines, but I could see her existence causing increased happiness in all her cities.

As for immortal Civ leaders, like the Sheaim, making them lose when the person dies wouldn't work out too well lore wise, but leaving the Civ in anarchy for X number of turns until the leader regenerates would do nicely, especially if X increases each time the leader is killed. Takes a bit to come back after dying ya know

Another way to keep leaders in line and to prevent easy conquest with your beefed up unit would be send your nation into anarchy whenever they leave the borders. Wouldn't want it to work this way for every Civ. Or it could be one of those tech requirements, like code of laws or something. Got to have laws before the leader can wander off, else no one's going to know what they should do.

Of course, this mode is one of those that would definitely only work as an option. Probably something we would only ever see as a mod mod really. Would be a fun mode to play, if only to take a break from the norm. Would make for a faster game certainly, if that's what you're looking for.

Hmm...one last thought. The cities of the Civ that lost their leader would be in an interesting state of affairs. Would make sense to divide them up based on nearby cultural influence and the diplomatic status of the Civ in question. They certainly wouldn't be joining up with the people who killed their leader, I would think. As for Civs with the barbarian trait, making them into barbarian cities, with their nationality intact as per the tolerant trait of the Elohim, would make sense.

 

[Imuratep]

I could see some of the leaders acting as more of a Civ bonus then a unit. Ethne the White would certainly not be one you would see on the frontlines, but I could see her existence causing increased happiness in all her cities.

As for immortal Civ leaders, like the Sheaim, making them lose when the person dies wouldn't work out too well lore wise, but leaving the Civ in anarchy for X number of turns until the leader regenerates would do nicely, especially if X increases each time the leader is killed. Takes a bit to come back after dying ya know

Another way to keep leaders in line and to prevent easy conquest with your beefed up unit would be send your nation into anarchy whenever they leave the borders. Wouldn't want it to work this way for every Civ. Or it could be one of those tech requirements, like code of laws or something. Got to have laws before the leader can wander off, else no one's going to know what they should do.

Of course, this mode is one of those that would definitely only work as an option. Probably something we would only ever see as a mod mod really. Would be a fun mode to play, if only to take a break from the norm. Would make for a faster game certainly, if that's what you're looking for.

Hmm...one last thought. The cities of the Civ that lost their leader would be in an interesting state of affairs. Would make sense to divide them up based on nearby cultural influence and the diplomatic status of the Civ in question. They certainly wouldn't be joining up with the people who killed their leader, I would think. As for Civs with the barbarian trait, making them into barbarian cities, with their nationality intact as per the tolerant trait of the Elohim, would make sense.

Your last point is another possibility to solve the problem. I want to add an idea. How about starting a meeting of all leaders the killed civilization knew every time a king is killed, where the leaders decide who should get the remaining cities. You have to have at least one percent culture in the city to make demands. If you don't accept the demands you can declare war on the other fractions and the city rests independent.