Sidar Feedback

[Cuteunit]

• Solid enough early game
• Too encouraging of specialist economy. So many farms you'd think I was playing Calabim. However...
• Encourages SE but gives no benefits to assigning Priests/Prophets unlike all other specialists. Might fit for lore reasons, but SE needs to assign Priests here and there to keep up in hammers. Possible to give Sidar a way to assign an Engineer in early game instead of priest? Replace Pagan Temple with something to accomplish this? SE isnt working tiles that don't have abundant food, which crushes production.
  
• All that custom art but the units aren't particularly unique in style. Why not make Sidar scouts start with hidden? "We have passed through your lands invisible many times". Lore text not matching up with gameplay here.
  why aren't Sidar non-combat units hidden in general?
  
• Can blow up middle-game due to Shade mechanic if you cranked out a lot of Adepts early game and are willing to burn them, but otherwise this effect is barely useful. Is there no way to calculate the "lifetime" of a unit instead of basing the Shade ability on unit exp? Let's say a unit 200+ turns old and is at least level.. lets say 4 can become a Shade, would that not be better?
  
• World spell - Would be a lot more useful if it hid your cities for X turns. It isnt bad if you burn it early on in the game so your scouts can go exploring without being suddenly eaten by an invisible 8 str spider, though. Doesnt compare well to other world spells just the same.
  
• Writing on Sandalphon's leader background is great and makes me think Roger Zelazny.
  
• Why do Shades not start with Shadow mana?
  
• Racial music is ok but sounds like a soundbyte they'd use in a movie trailer rather than signature sound of an entire race.

 

[Goodgimp]

[*]Too encouraging of specialist economy. So many farms you'd think I was playing Calabim.

That's the whole theme of them, though: uber specialists.

[*] Encourages SE but gives no benefits to assigning Priests/Prophets unlike all other specialists. Might fit for lore reasons, but SE needs to assign Priests here and there to keep up in hammers. Possible to give Sidar a way to assign an Engineer in early game instead of priest? Replace Pagan Temple with something to accomplish this?

Personally I think it's fine the way it is. Priests are still useful, as you see other Civs use them without problem. I like being able to assign a priest, because I have uses for Prophets.

[*] Can blow up middle-game due to Shade mechanic if you cranked out a lot of Adepts early game and are willing to burn them, but otherwise this effect is barely useful. Is there no way to calculate the "lifetime" of a unit instead of basing the Shade ability on unit exp? Let's say a unit 200+ turns old and is at least level.. lets say 4 can become a Shade, would that not be better?

I have to disagree with "barely useful", I think it's incredibly powerful and provides a fun mechanic, really protecting and "growing" your future Shades.

If you just allow any old unit garrisoned in a city for X amount of time turn into a shade, it would be incredibly powerful. Just crank as many warriors as you can at the start, and you're going to be sitting on stacks upon stacks of free specialists. I think it would be very, very overpowered.

As it is currently with requiring L6, I still think it's insanely powerful. I'm barely to the point in my game where I'm getting Smelting, yet my capitol has 6 engineers and a sage or two already. I'm producing wonders in about 7-8 turns with God King, and this is on Epic speed.

Speaking of Epic speed, I wonder if that's why we see differently on the L6 requirement? Seems like it would be much more powerful on Epic/Marathon than on Normal or faster, since you're fighting more.

 

[Cuteunit]

That's why I suggested they should also have a certain level to them along with the age. It was however only a suggestion.

How did you get six level 6+ military units to turn into shades before you even hit smelting?

I tend to play on Normal in ffh opposed to epic in vanilla, since research times are plenty long enough in ffh by default.

 

[Arqane]

Attacking animals/barbs makes it quite easy. I think it's 4xp for a piddly little wolf that anything can kill. Grab a couple promotions, take on a bear, and you've got your L6 scout/warrior. When the barbarians start amassing, it's even easier.

The big key is to attack and not defend, though. You get about double the xp.

 

[Goodgimp]

That's my bad! I was interrupted a few times at work reading your post and somehow missed the L4 requirement you mentioned.

As to how I got my that many level 6's, I play on Epic, raging barbs, barbarian world, Huge map size. I'm in a relatively isolated area, so the barbarians are thick. I generally send out a pair of warriors/axemen from my city into the hinterlands and bash on barbarians up to level 6. The second warrior of the pair is there to help defend the one I'm "grooming" if he gets hurt and jumped by a barbarian, usually gaming some EXP in the process. As one guy gets level six, I send him back to town and replace him with a fresh recruit, who now has the job of wingman

I focus less on expanding my empire with settlers for two reasons: One, a lot of my strength is coming from the specialists, not so much from a multitude of cities. Two, more empty space means more things to fight means more specialists from L6 units.

Again, in retrospect I think this would be far less effective the faster you set the game settings, that alone could be a big difference in your Normal and my Epic games.

 

[Black Whole]

I focus less on expanding my empire with settlers for two reasons: One, a lot of my strength is coming from the specialists, not so much from a multitude of cities. Two, more empty space means more things to fight means more specialists from L6 units.

Not to forget the three essential world wonders for the Sidar! The Great Library for better sages, The Theatre of Dreams for better bards and the Guild of Hammers for better engineers!

Now, that I read this again... how insanely powerful are the Sidar specialists if you manage to build all three wonders...

 

[Cuteunit]

Isnt there level/EXP cap from killing barbarians?

 

[rusty217]

Isnt there level/EXP cap from killing barbarians?

Yes, it is 100xp, about enough for level 9 or 10

 

[Cuteunit]

Still seems to me that a mechanic based on combat EXP doesnt fit for a society of quasi-undead pacifist bookworm ghosts.

 

[Goodgimp]

Thematically yea, it might not coincide all that well. I do like the gameplay mechanics, though. Sending your "oldest", most experienced units off into Shade-land to add to your city is cool in the sense that, while powerful, it limits the Sidar military. Promotions are so important in FFH2, and units that have the most promotions leave, effectively leaving the Sidar with a less-experienced military. That I think fits in well with a bookworm civ

 

[thealien_83]

Still seems to me that a mechanic based on combat EXP doesnt fit for a society of quasi-undead pacifist bookworm ghosts.

So, build lots of Adepts, let your Shades accumulate over time from the arcane scholars of your quasi-undead pacifist bookworm ghost society. Should fit like peas in a pod, sounds like to me.

 

[thealien_83]

Not to forget the three essential world wonders for the Sidar! The Great Library for better sages, The Theatre of Dreams for better bards and the Guild of Hammers for better engineers!

Now, that I read this again... how insanely powerful are the Sidar specialists if you manage to build all three wonders...

Quite insanely powerful in fact, I can attest to. >.>

Though personally I consider the Catacomb Libralus to be a must-have for them as well, because I like to use Adepts to gain Shades personally, so it helps to be able to build them willy-nilly wherever I like, whenever I like.

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Actually the Sidar have 4 perfect wonders: the three already named and the Altar of Luonotar. If you disable altar victory any piece of the altar (preferably build in your holy city) means +2 exp for disciples. There are one or two other buildings that give +xp to disciples, so you can crank out lvl 5 adepts late in the game. Combined with barb farming this can be an EXTREME boost to shade production.

So best setup for Sidar is a huge map with very little AIs, raging barbs, barb world. Stay small till you have your main cities running, use the warrior barb milking for the start, once you've got a few Luonotar pieces running switch to adepts.

 

[Von Wibble]

What I don't understand is why they don't start with Death Mana. Thay are the only civ who doesn't start with the mana they are aligned to (well, Ilians don't have winter and grigori don't have force for example but those are'nt implemented)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It is because the Angel they revere abhors the use of magic in his spheres, as do those that revere him. Death magic is really UNdeath magic, the usurpation of the authority of Arawn, the God of Natural Death. None of the Death magic currently in Creation is drown from Arawn (although in the age of magic evil magicians channeled his power--which is why he withdrew o the netherworld and refuses to enter creation), but from the from one of Agares's Gems of Creation, the Gem of Death which was stolen by Tuoni.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

^Plus death mana gives a diplomatic penalty with many civs. Thus it is bad to have without a choice. Sandalphon himself has a -8 penalty if you use death mana.

 

[OzzyKP]

So best setup for Sidar is a huge map with very little AIs, raging barbs, barb world. Stay small till you have your main cities running, use the warrior barb milking for the start, once you've got a few Luonotar pieces running switch to adepts.

I'm in a normal map with one more AI than default, pangea, raging barbs, not barb world and I'm cranking out the shades. I (and everyone around me) expanded pretty quick and while I didn't have much time with the barbs I made use of them best I could to get a few shades. That gave me a nice head start early on.

Then two civs declared war on me (Bannor and Grigori). I took out Grigori's stack and he never sent anymore, we eventually went to peace. Bannor I had bottled up to my west. I expanded in that direction (to avoid that barbarian summoner guy to my east) and denied him a lot of land, so he only had a few cities and was last in score.

For the rest of the game so far we've been at war. Tireless crusader that he is, he just keeps sending wave after wave of units to be cut down by me. I could have easily wiped him out long ago, but I've gotten lots of shades off of his waves of troops. So I'm farming him to great effect.

I recommend it.

 

[Cuteunit]

I personally don't see why Sidar don't have Shadow mana. "We have passed through your lands invisibly many times" natch? I dont think so. More like " You did well to see us, we were practicing how to cast Haste".

The music for Sidar really could use some upgrades. They're not cultureless or anything. I'd have thought they would have some very old-timey sounding music boxish sound.. like the black dress scene in Labyrinth...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PfxbbfhYEI
That seems far more appropriate to a civilization of shades than the variation of the halo 2 building-wail that serves as current)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Well, their UU has shadow magic anyway, so giving them another source of shadow mana wouldn't help out as much. I too think that shadow mana would be appropriate, but that their current spheres are perhaps more so. (Shades were created from a magical tome by Laroth, a master of Spirit and Enchantment magic, and they did so t preserve their bodies indefinitely)

I would personally like it better if you could let buildings any amount of any resource (amounts separate per resource), so that the Sidar (an maybe also the Amurites) could have have more mana types than other civs, and so that each civ could get 2 of its representative sphere's mana and one of their other spheres (possibly requiring raising the amount of mana needed for free promotions, or makin them be appiled randomly instead of every time)

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Would it also pay off for the Sidar to use agriculture, caste system and sacrifice the weak?