Shadow Civ Implementation

[xmen510]

We have decided to go with 1 Shadow Civ. We now need to decide how to implement this in the way of just with Melkor/Morgoth, possible flip to Sauron, that kind of thing.

Here are some of the earlier thoughts on this topic:

Sengir wrote:

I think I like the option offered by T_F about having one shadow civ, that starts as Angband and later goes over in Mordor. The exact workings of that should probably left to a next release and if we decide to it this way a single shadow civ is most wanted for now. Discussion how we want this should probably take place in another thread. That won't stop me from posting my ramblings here though, as it is relevant for this discussion and I can repost it once we start discussing the shadow civ at length.

>> One shadow civ is good, as there ultimately there was always one Valar behind it all. However, after the first age, his direct involvement with the world stopped and his second in command took over. What I would like to propose is a shadow civ that starts with Melkor/Morgoth as a leader which can build Balrogs, Dragons, Werewolves, etc. These would be powerfull units and as long as Melkor is in charge they can be build (some to a limit (Balrogs eg) some indefinately). A hero unit, Sauron, can (must) also be build. However, upon reaching the second age, Melkor leaves this world (his king unit disappears), the Hero Sauron becomes king and there's a leader switch from Melkor to Sauron (with different traits as well). With Sauron as leader, the shadow cannot build the 'Melkor' units anymore, that is, no Dragons no Balorgs etc. The existing Balrogs and Dragons either go barbarian immediately or have a chance to go barbarian every turn(Shadow must be friendly with Barbarian for this to work), to show that Sauron doesn't have the influence over these creatures that Melkor had. With Sauron as a leader, the Shadow has the capability to create/invent new evil creatures and move forth along the techpath in general and some evil techs in specific.
What I like about this, is that it enables the possibility to stay with Melkor throughout the game (don't advance to the next age, his units are quite good and if he stays in the first age, he doesn't have much else to do then build units, so his number should make up for any quality problems). It also enables a Sauron only game through starting in the Second Age of the Stars. And it follows the book quite closely, which, though we want a 'what-if'-Arda, has its merits in this case.

T F wrote:

We should also have it so that if the Shadow is destroyed with Morgoth as its leader, it is popped up somewhere else on the map with Sauron as its leader.
There's an interesting victory condition idea for Good civs: Destroy both Morgoth and Sauron's incarnations of the Shadow civ. (Conversely, for the Shadow you could have remove or convert all non-Evil civs.)

Sengir wrote:

Originally Posted by xmen510
Leader switching is something that would be a good Option (not forced - i.e. a scripted event and you can then choose upon the entering of the Second Age) for future releases.

Making it optional is good: that way people can choose to continue with Melkor (still getting some new stuff, but not as much new units as Sauron, but keep the ability for (some of) the old units) or switch to Sauron for all the new goodies (but loose access to most of the old stuff).

T F wrote:

Obsoleted units sound OK, but there's really no point if you have upgrades. Even if they don't upgrade, there'll at least be no point in building old stuff because the new stuff is better and won't take too much longer to build.
The idea I guess is that Morgoth's units upgrade to Sauron's units.

Though obsoletion implemented on a much wider scale would be interesting. That way battles in the First Age wouldn't be involving anything significantly weaker than Third Age units, and keeping First Age units alive throughout the game might be worth something (which is an odd - and unique - game dynamic). Since technically the First Age involved similarly strong if not significantly stronger units than the Third Age, it would be fairly accurate as well.

Berenthor wrote:

Okay I will cave and go with one shadow civ. I like the colony idea also a lot, so maybe a combination of that with the leaderhead switching would be good in some way. I would then definetly not start with Sauron because I think it will be difficult to make that when you start with Sauron, all other civs are also advanced to the second age.

As for the captain units: I suggested mouth of Sauron as hero for Mordor in the units thread so I like that idea. Also in that thread there is some ideas about the nazgul. Check it out there.

Elda King wrote:

Still one last comment about the shadow: I still think that the difference in agest would be enought for Mordor and Angband. But it's just a difference in concept. You'll have a hard time making anything unique for Morgoth after the First Age, thought: you'll have one civ that has more unique units than any other (vampires, werewolves, dragons, balrogs, etc) in one age, and none at all later. Of course you could advance those, but it wouldn't be the same as having Ologs and Nazgul... and Morgoth not having a Sauron unit in the first age simply seems wrong. It was one of his most powerful units!
By the way, a Morgoth king unit wouldn't be unbalanced - Fingolfin battled him. Also, Tolkien said that in the end of the 1st age Sauron was more powerful than Morgoth (because Morgoth "used" his power to corrupt all the world, and empower his servants, and create new monstrosities) - and still used the resources of Morgoth, like Trolls (that he improved to Ologs) and Orcs (to Uruks) and even the corruption of the world ("Morgoth's Ring").

So there we go. I hope I didn't miss anything important. If so, then copy your post in this thread. Now lets discuss this.

Also, I don't think there is a problem with the City Lists. We should just limit them based on the Leader.

 

[Berenthor]

I think I found a (in my opinion perfect) solution to the one shadow civ debate: we will have one shadow civ with Morgoth as discussed before. This civ will mostly focus on first age units etc which are strong but cannot be upgraded to much in later ages. Now I completely forgot a mechanism that FFH2 has namely the ability to add a civilization into the game via a technology or a wonder. In FFH2 the mercurians and the infernals cannot be chosen as starting races but good civs can build the mercurian gate which will bring the mercurian civ into the game and give the city it is build in to the mercurians. Furthermore, the civ will have a permanent alliance (I think) with the building civ. The infernals come into the game when a tech is researched and then take also a city (although I don't know how at this moment since this hasn't occured yet in my games).

Now what I suggest for the shadow is to have Morgoth and Angband as the starting shadow civ. Then with a particular wonder only Morgoth can build, he can bring Sauron (Mordor) into the game as his vassal or with a permanent alliance (I think the last is better since a vassal can break free, but I'm not sure). The wonder can be build as of the second age for example. This way we can have both shadow civs in the game without losing in my opinion the feeling of LotR. As for the AI behaviour, in FFH2 both the infernals and the mercurians are brought into the game almost always when there is a good civ to build the mercurians and an evil civ to research the tech for the infernals so AI behaviour should not be a problem.

Now the best thing is that when a player brings these civs (in our case Sauron/Mordor) into the game, he/she gets the choice to switch to this new civ and take than one over. This way people can choose if they want to keep playing with Morgoth or if they want to continue with Sauron.

What do you guys thing about this idea of implementation? If you want to know more about the mechanics, I can try to clarify it or you can try to play it in FFH2 to see what happens when you bring these civs into the game.

 

[xmen510]

I think that is the perfect compromise for all situations. An amazing idea Berenthor.

This way we can have an "accurate" Arda Game and still have multiple civs for scenarios. We would just have to remove the wonder to then.

Perfect!

 

[Berenthor]

How do you mean remove the wonder till then? Since the wonder is linked to a tech it should only become available when we want it to become available while still giving people the chance to play with both civs (although they have to start with Morgoth). I think this will work better than just switch the leaders of the civ at a certain point in time. If we do this however, we should not make Sauron a hero, or we have to find a way to kill the Sauron unit as soon as you build the wonder and then make another hero available.

 

[xmen510]

I meant for "what if" scenarios type of thing if you want both civs in at the same time. We should let option be available at some point for people.

Also, I agree with the Sauron thing. Glaurung (Dragon) or Gothmog (Lord of the Balrogs) should be the Captain/Hero then perhaps.

Lesser Dragons and Balrogs for National/Unique Units. Orcs and Men for regular Units.

 

[Sengir]

This means however that we will have two shadow civs (though only one is playable from the start). Killing the Sauron Hero unit shouldn't be to problematic, though we might want to go with other heroes instead to keep things clear.
Are we going to eliminate Morgoth after he has completed the creation of Sauron/Mordor? I'm thinking along the lines of having the king unit die (and a couple of others) and have the rest turn barbarian, to signify that Morgoth is leaving this world. An option could be added to allow players to continue with Morgoth, but when the AI plays, or the player chooses Sauron, Morgoth leaves Arda and Angband becomes Barbarian.

 

[xmen510]

That is an idea. You could also have Angband become the vassal/permanent ally (controled by AI) of the player that chooses Sauron. IF we go the Barbarian route, we might want to make the Barbarians at least start out at Peace with Sauron then.

Also, if Sauron/Mordor gets created elsewhere, they will need to start with all Techs of the first 2 Ages and have a binus number of starting units/settlers/workers like in RFC. Otherwise Mordor could get bowled over fairly easily.

 

[Sengir]

Yeah, I still have that in my head for the Shadow (peace with barbarians), even though we haven't decided on these specific things yet.

Sauron/Mordor should probably get all techs Angband has (like a colony you spin off in regular civ). A relatively big number of starting units as well (and gold to be able to pay the upkeep I think).

 

[xmen510]

All good ideas there.

 

[Berenthor]

I agree with the techs, we should see if we just give Sauron the techs angband has or just a fixed number of techs we think balances well. I personnally don't feel much for killing Morgoth or making Angband become barbarian. I would really keep them as permanent allies. In FFH, the city you produce the wonder in becomes the city that in our case Sauron would receive as his first city. We could make it spawn somewhere else, but this way it really gives the impression of two civs who together represent the shadow. I think the AI knows pretty well how to handle this in FFH.
For me personnally, not removing Morgoth is the best option. This way we really have the progress through the ages and if someone destroys Morgoth after the spawning, Sauron is still there. I agree that scenario-wise (LotR-wise), when Angband is destroyed before spawning Mordor, maybe we should see if we can still bring then in, but I'm not sure about that to be honest. Killing the Morgoth unit when Sauron spawns is something I wouldn't do because nothing in the coming of Sauron causes Sauron to die. It was history that played out that way when the Valar attacked.
Maybe we can have a similar mechanism for having a Valar civ spawn at a certain point for good civs to help them battle Morgoth, but maybe this will become to unbalanced. It is something to think about though.

 

[xmen510]

Great ideas all. I think I like the Permanent Alliance better myself. Also, I think I prefer that Sauron would spawn elsewhere and establish Barad-Dur as his first "City".

 

[Berenthor]

That's a nice idea. I would have to look through how we can actually "build" a city just somewhere. Maybe take randomly one of the barb cities, but I don't like that idea to much.

 

[xmen510]

I figured it would work sort of like RFC. Sauron could spawn with a number of Settlers/Slaves/Units and can Build his own first city.

 

[Sengir]

I'm going to try out FFH a bit more to see how this works. Any tips on who to play to make it easiest to get the mercurians/infernals?

 

[T_F]

We could just combine both the Mercurians' (Permanent Alliance) and Infernals' (random spot on map) spawn characteristics. I know both start with a good amount of units and at least one settler along with their original city.

 

[xmen510]

That is something I think we don't want. That original City. That would defeat the purpose of Mordor being in a different place than Angband.

 

[T_F]

No, I get that. I think the Infernals get their city already founded (I haven't played them so IDK for sure, that's just what it looks like to me). My point with them is that they don't use the city of a wonder, they pop up somewhere random (and after a tech).

They once popped up almost within my empire, and I was playing Good. It was weird.

 

[xmen510]

Got you. Sorry about that.

 

[Berenthor]

For the mercurians you have to play a good civ. Maybe the bannor would be helpfull. The infernals have to be an evil civ, maybe someone who can get ashen veil (which is required first). I think the mercurians are easiest to reach by anyone good or neutral. Ashen Veil religion is required for infernals and the tech that spawns them. I didn't know the Infernals spawned randomly on the map. Maybe we can use that and combine it with a wonder or something for the mercurians. I like that better than just the tech. That way we can also make it a normal tech but the wonder unique for Morgoth. For the infernals I would suggest to play Shaeims (pardon the spelling if it is wrong ).

Just as a question, would this suggestion for the 1 (and later on two allied) civs be acceptable or even seen as a good representation by most people?

 

[T_F]

I like it, it seems pretty good. We'll have to figure out when to get the AI to use it, it seems like it would be most reasonable for Morgoth to build the wonder when he's either nearing the end of his usable units (i.e. the end of the First Age).

The obsoletion idea might prove slightly problematic for this - Morgoth will lose most of his useful units by the Second Age if he doesn't get any exemptions. Maybe it's a good thing though - it signals Morgoth's fall from the world stage and Sauron's rise (since Morgoth will die soon if he can't build any more good units).