S3rgeus
Emperor
I'll start by pointing out that I actually did a flavor dump post right above your posts. I only mention this because I think we were typing in these posts simultaneously, and you may be unaware of it, as it was buried by your next post. Take a look!
Awesome, thanks for posting all that! (And for reading through the Companion!) I see what you mean about wanting to go for uniques first and then seeing what flavor is left over to be used as "main" units/buildings. I think we might need to skip back and forth a bit on that, but that's something for us to do then!
I think that's a good place for it, even better now that it's called "Advanced Maneuvres"
Agreed, sounds good.
this is really interesting, and i think that added functionality on the editor is super useful in our balancing. good work! I do think we should probably try to mirror this as much as we can.
I'm fine with keeping the belinability of BNW as well.
Awesome, thanks! Agreed, I think Firaxis struck a good balance here.
I don't think we need to go to the actual top. the middle or top-middle should suffice.
Sounds like a plan (for placing melee7).
shadow points for randnuke! Will put that in the LB summary.Also, have updated Chan summary! check em out!
Awesome, looks good!
In the LB summary, it would probably help to compare the Dragon's balefire to nuclear weapons from BNW, since it's more similar to those than our angreal stuff.
I don't think we want to attach the angreal/sa'angreal automatically to a unit within range. There are tons of circumstances there where we'd need to make a decision that the player would want to. (Which one do we pick? What if there aren't any? What if the obvious choice has been killed on the AI's turn?) I think angreal and sa'angreal can be stationed in cities, they just can't be fired from them, only rebased to and from them.
"Whether a channeler is holding an angreal or sa'angreal is detectable for other civs."
It's worth adding here that it's detectable when the other player has active vision on the unit holding it, rather than all the time. (That is the case?)
"Sa'angreal attacks that strike empty hexes will pillage any improvements on that hex."
I'd say sa'angreal attacks should just always pillage.
Also, check what I say about damage - does the strength of the source unit effect the overall damage output, or is it flat based on the item? In other words, is an angreal more powerful on a high-XP Asha'man than a brand new MC?
I think making the combat strength of the unit wielding it a modifier to the damage sounds like a good idea. It adds a layer of coolness to the whole thing ("Oh no, he's given the sa'angreal to that almost-mad Asha'man, he's going to destroy us!").
oh. well do you want to do that, then? That's fine with me.
Awesome sauce, done!
Fine with Happ3 staying where it is.
I... think we should go with Infrastructure! It's kind of the only one that fits perfectly with what we're talking about here. Fits all the unlocks, IMO. It's kind of modern, but not too bad. I think the other ones are all very "close," and when they get closer, they become infrastructure. K?
Done!
there's one more Mounted unit, right? If so, no problem - let's just make sure that one is at least one slot higher in the tree. If there isn't, then yes this might be a problem.
Yes, there's the equivalent to the Modern Armor still remaining on the mount upgrade path! So let's make sure he doesn't end up on the bottom row!
I think with the flavor dump above (roarsticks or whatever they are) we may not even need to go with Aviendha's visions. or, we could use the vision for the final unit and Aludra's one for the penultimate.
Indeed, seems like either could work.
FYI, it's Era of Prophesy
That's the one! (I still like the Fourth Age >.> )
I'm fine with this. Well, truly, I'm fine with whatever you're fine with, as it seems you "get" this bit more than I do.This conceptualization of this stuff is new to me - I'm not sure I grasped the implications of it back then.
It's effect on beelinability and such... I defer to you.
Ok, I think we'll have more concrete decisions to make when we finish Era 8.
Question, though, for clarity's sake - are these era 9 techs *only* Innovations, or is there other stuff there (units, etc.)?
EDIT: another thing is that by having the innovations be in era 9, we aren't letting science-victory players "pace themselves" In BNW, you can produce certain spaceship parts before others. Shouldn't we be staggering the different items they can produce? Maybe we could/should have Era 9 be only 2 (maybe 3) techs, with the other 2 or 3 (the summary says we are supposed to have 5 innovations) be in Era 8. Thoughts?
No, Era 9 wouldn't be only Innovation-techs. As you point out here, we totally want to do what BNW does and make some Innovations available earlier than others. We only need two in Era 9 (as you've picked) to comfortably ensure Science players need the most techs and need to get close to the end of the tree.
They wouldn't only be Science techs in Era 9 though - we probably want out equivalents to The Internet and Globalization (Culture and Diplo endgame techs) there as well. This is for the whole LB triggering thing - we don't want one civ pulling ahead meaning the LB doesn't happen unless they want it to.
so where did you land with this? Are we moving Rng 5 off of Skimming? I see on the editor tree that looking class has a Pol unit. What did you wnat to do with Rng to make it less belinable?
This is a good point, I think I forgot to move this guy. Originally you were suggesting moving Range 5 down to Infrastructure and moving Def4 up to Skimming. The flavor works for that, but we could keep this unit slightly above the bottom of the tree, if we want to, by swapping it with AG1?
Not sure which I prefer. Having some units on the bottom of the tree isn't in itself a problem as long as there's a good distribution otherwise from here on. And AG1 being on the tech after Skimming seems good. Any strong feeling either way?
I'm leaning towards swapping it with Def4.
don't feel strongly. you make the call.
Let's leave Kin on High Chant for now then.
I think we should go with Exchange Rates. Personally, I like the sound of Exchange better, but that does leave some clarity to be desired.... Exchange rates is just kind of tedious. There's also Currency Exchange. There's also a weird way of doing it like Tar Valon Standard Mark or something. You choose.
Hmmm, Exchange Rates vs Manifests. I feel like the Tar Valon Mark is really close to a very good flavor match up. I can't seem to compress it down more succinctly though. Exchange Rates for now then!
What if we do something like Shared Bloodlines? What do you think of that? Kind of mixes all of it together.
Otherwise, National Pride or something....
Bingo, Shared Bloodlines!
yeah, we've already fixed the flavor weirdness of lancer->ATG (by not having tanks!), but the distance is also way too long.
I'm flexible. I'd say let's not put it as far as Rule of Medians, and also not put it as low as Cobbles. I think Fireworks or Concoctions is probably far enough. What do you think? FW is a little "lighter" of a tech at this point.
Now that we've moved the trade route from Concoctions up to Letters of Rights they seem a bit more comparable. Fireworks is closer (vertically) to Formations, so let's go with that. I've moved Pol 4, which means Looking Glass, like its BNW counterpart, is two naval units (though not the same two).
I like this tech. i like the name, too.
Awesome, this one was the very first one I came up with! It's nice when the flavor co-operates so well!
I think "yes," we probably want the Man Pr equivalent. Mostly because of the last parenthetical you wrote.
As far as the flavor, I'd say the project is "Research Angreal" or "Search for Angreal". "Learn to build" doesn't work unless it was ter'angreal. Which do you prefer?
A search for angreal sounds like good flavor to me. Is there an angreal cache from the books or a specific search for some angreal that we can take the name of, like Firaxis did with the Manhattan Project?
I like this tech and what it unlocks. However, there are some problems here.
1) Range 7? Where's Rng 6? Isn't the one back on Skimming (which we may move) actually range 5?
Woops, this is an error, the Bazooka is Range 6. I incorrectly labelled Rocket Artillery as Range 6 when renaming all the units. I corrected that to Siege 5 when doing Era 7, but forgot to also change the Bazooka!
2) The prereqs here are weird. I like the super long line from skimming to traveling. However, it also requires advanced maneuvres. Since A.M. requires Skimming in the first place, that makes the prereq on Skimming completely redundant. In any case, it should have Looking glass and either A.M. or skimming, not both. I like the skimming prereq, it feels unique - is there a reason we definitely want the "line" from AM though?
Hrm yes, the Advanced Maneuvers prereq is quite important. Removing it brings Traveling's prereq count down from 49 to 37, which is a big drop. We also don't really have a chance to re-introduce the dependency from Advanced Maneuvers (and everything it pulls in back to Alloys) to the middle of the tree until Era 8, column 1, which would make the middle of Era 7 much cheaper than the top or bottom of the tree.
However, this has drawn my attention to the fact that Rediscovery only has 36 prereqs. Making me think it should require Rule of Medians (which brings it up to 46). That means Wells needs 61, which is a lot, but perhaps still a better arrangement overall. (Unless we want crazy people to be able to start searching for Seals way early.)
Related to the line from Skimming again, very good point. Perhaps we're better off removing that one, even though it does look nice? Or we could just leave there, even if it is a bit redundant?
I'd say yes. Even if it doesn't permit easy rebase (in fact, maybe it shouldn't!), we want it for the prestige bonus, and for the extra-units stacking thing.
Awesome, we can come up with flavor for it later then.
I think the logic here was that it takes some time for somebody to actually build the B.T. wonder, so if it was 8.1 then it'd take until 8.2 or even 9 in some games for Ashas to be available. So, yeah, that does make sense to me, as long as we're ok witht he possibility of some people belining this with a Ogier Mason and getting Asha'man early.
actually, though... the B.T. could unlock here and we could have the actual unit unlock later (perhaps even on Cleansing. The B.T. presumably does other things besides unlock A'M.
Also, I don't think we need to be married to Cleansing unlocking in 8.1. Could do 8.2 if it helped.
I could see us unlocking the Black Tower before the Asha'man unit, but I think the Asha'man unit should come before the Cleansing tech. Mostly because even though we've shifted the timeline back, I think we're still keeping to its general chronology, and the events of the books put significant reader time between the creation of the Asha'man and the Cleansing.
I could probably be convinced to put these together though, since the books cover a short period of time in the general history sense.
Would it be weird if the Asha'man units couldn't be built until someone built the Black Tower?
looking at my flavor dump above, I think we could use Flame and the Void or Oneness here. Those seem to be the most fitting I can think of.
Flame and the Void is awesome if we're keeping the Asha'man. It's even tempting to leave them back here just to keep that flavor!

Or there's less saidin-linked - Inverted Weaves or something.
Also a possibility if we move the Asha'man.
yeah, thiis is good. So, the attack-into-steddings functionality, that's stil a thing? I'd prefer it not to be complicated. So, does this just allow that privilege for anyone, then? I don't want a situation where it's another "flag" to keep track of on units. i guess the big question we should ask is whether we want the mechanical reality of steddings (and Far Madding, or, if the Guardian is a Wonder civs build, then all civs) to be suddenly fair game for channelers in the late game. Probably fine, but it's certainly a significant decision.
when we decide, I'll add into channeling summary.
I think it's a good thing to keep around. It's a good flavor call out and also works towards the general mechanical goals of giving players game-ending tools at this part of the game. This tech breaks down one of the major barriers for Domination-leaning channeling civs, and will probably help most warmongers in some way.
great. I think I'm find with this. I could also have imagined this not as the name of a tech, but us having a Bellfoundry building. No such building is here, so this is fine.
This is a very good point. There's no particular flavor to the Production (Desert) and Production (Angreal Cache) buildings at this point. (They could even be different - making production from Plains, or Hills, or Mountains, or whatever.) One of them could be the Bellfoundry and moved down onto Bellfounding. Leave the other on Flame and Void and move the Apollo Program up onto Wells. I didn't like the Apollo Program being on the bottom of the tree anyway - and based on our changes elsewhere, this actually puts the Apollo Program (or whatever Innovation we replace it with) on the tech that has the most prereqs in this era.
well, I think that depends. Apollo is meant to slow down science people, right? We've already done that by requiring all these innovations be produced, AND brought to other civs, AND potentially some "extra" techs be researched anyways. I'm fine with this, in theory, but it's likely overkill. Thoughts?
EDIT: of course, there is the whole "notify other players" bit - is there a way to do this without such a project? Would we want to be notifying players every time a civ builds an Innovation, instead?
We definitely want to notify other players when an Exhibition takes place, much like everyone gets notified by each spaceship part in BNW. I don't know if the Apollo Program is specifically meant to slow Science players down, it's just the first step toward that victory, so completing it tells everyone else you're aiming for that. We could equally just have another Innovation?
yeah, can't do herbalism. Maybe this is where we stick Keeping? I know that's supposed to be much later, but... we did unlock Traveling and skimming a few hundred years earlier than in the books.
Treesong or Seed Singing?
Keeping lives! Treesong is good, but since it doesn't connect with Stedding or Sung Wood, it doesn't feel like the right place.
I think Traveling has enough unit unlocks. we should leave it alone, I think. I could see us moving one of the units from Unnamed 3, 8, or Bellfounding up to Wells, and pulling the Production building down as compensation. Up to you, I think.
As far as names.... Maybe we're stuck with gneeric military stuff here? The flavor is rather general because of the unit+ambiguous wonder thing.
Are we too early for Power-Wrought Weapons? That should be really late game, right? Do we have enough subsequent military techs? That might be our Fusion tech or something.
In the flavor dig, we can see Law of War there, though that's a little weird.
Otherwise, Counter-offensive, Attrition, Shock and Awe, that kind of thing.
As far as real "technology," it's hard without having actual units here. Metals and industry stuff could work. Machine Tools, Plated Mail, Horse Armor, those kinds of things...
I agree, I think we're a little early for Power-Wrought Weapons.
Law of War sounds like a good one - I've put that in. Machine Tools could work as well. There's that crossbow formation stuff that Mat re-introduced for the Band of the Red Hand, right?
*goes to look up*
Apparently it's a cranking mechanism for the crossbows, instead of the archer needing to set the drawstring themselves. Bow Cranks? Just Cranks too generic? Alternating Fire?
Also, do we want to move Pol 5 back, seeing as Pol 4 is back on Fireworks? We could swap it with Range6 on Traveling and then use the crossbow flavor (the name for which I will need to find) for "Unnamed Tech 8"?
Actually, Horse 4 and Horse 5 are right next to each other (Fancloth and "Unnamed Tech 3"). How about: Pol 5 on Skimming, Range 6 on "Unnamed Tech 3" (now named after that crossbow flavor, candidates above), and Horse 5 on "Unnamed Tech 8" (now called Law of War)?
Just to be clear, what you changed were the techs leading from LoR and Conc, not *to* them, right? LoR used to split into Exchange Rates and High Chant (former Manifests and Treatises), with nothing else going into it. Conc used to lead directly to only festivals, which also required Fireworks. Nothing else.
Now, LoR leads only to Manifests/Exchange Rates, which also requires Concoctions. High Chant (former Treatises) now requires Concoctions instead of LoR. Festivals still requires Concoctions and Fireworks. Is this correct?
I think that is probably a fine solution. I'll have to check the excel sheet's prereqs against yours at the end of all of this (before the Summary goes up).
Exactly, you've got that all right.
Indeed, we should make sure we've synced up all of the decisions so we didn't make any by accident!
cool. I've attached a new version of the Excel sheet as well!
Brandon and Harriet have viewed this one too!
