Some ideas.

[Gravage]

Hey everyone,

first of all; FfH's awesome. It's the only reason I'm playing Civ IV atm, because the vanilla version lacks the difference between all the civ's. I'm also eagerly awaiting Fire
But anyway. I've got some ideas that I'd like to tell the FfH modders.
I'd really love it if there was some sort of religion (Runes of Kilmorph perhaps?) which, once you've adopted it as state religion, startes elevating the ground on the edge of your borderline (or at least 2 tiles away so it won't negativelly (is that a word?) effect your city), and eventually after so many turns leaves your borders completely surrounded by mountains with one or two holes. This'd be awesome for defending. Perhaps (probably) overpowered though. Runes of Kilmorph would definitly be overpowered if this'd be added to the current religion unless other religions also get a huge boost, but this idea just seemed to fit best with RoK.
Oh, and like other people posted, I really like the ideas of boosting Loki's power in the endgame by allowing him to substract more culture or whatnot, he's rather powerless in a fully civilized world. And I'd really like coastal/water cities/cottages for Lanun.

Hmm.. I was pretty sure I had more ideas and even some questions... Damnit, can't remember em. Ah well, I'll post them/edit em in here when I think of em.

 

[Silverkiss]

Well, we could implement that and also lands go down to water for Octopi, a new "Giant Forest" appears on borders for FoL that is also unpassable, Order a sacred barrier or something, etc

 

[Bringa]

I don't really like that idea. First of all it's a little too drastic when it comes to protection and secondly you make a common mistake: thinking of a player's borders as static. Culture and conquest can and do move the borders in both directions all the time. If you keep this in mind, your feature doesn't make that much sense anymore.

Something I'd like to see for the Khazad and/or the Runes religion would be a way to make use of peaks.

 

[Gravage]

I don't really like that idea. First of all it's a little too drastic when it comes to protection and secondly you make a common mistake: thinking of a player's borders as static. Culture and conquest can and do move the borders in both directions all the time. If you keep this in mind, your feature doesn't make that much sense anymore.

Something I'd like to see for the Khazad and/or the Runes religion would be a way to make use of peaks.

Actually I did think about cultural borders expanding and going backwards, but I have to admit I forgot it again when I typed the original message, sorry ^^'
My original thought was simply to have the mountains move accordingly with the cultural borders but I thought that that might be hard to implement. And as for conquest that if the captor has RoK as state religion (or what other religion might be used for this feature), the mountains simply move along with the cultural borders and if (s)he doesn't have that state religion the mountains will dissapear.

 

[Rod]

Hello,

i do not like the idea at all,because for the same reason that Bringa was mentioning but I was thinking about something different to increase the 'Mountain'-Flavour of Runes of Killmorph and when we are already on the way we also take care for the sea flavor of the Octopii.

Basically only Priests Leaves can bloom new Forests (That turn into Ancient Forests) and only in Fellowship Lands Ancient Forest appear. This makes the tree lovers the far most powerful religions in terms of powerplay.
Forest give nothing but a +1 production. Ancient Forest give nothing but a +1 food and +1 production bonus, so ....

So now the Idea is following :

Runes of Killmorph :

To turn peaks into usable terrain for the Runes is overpowered, besides the Dwarves live UNDER the mountain, not ON the mountain.

But we introduce a new terrain feature 'Mountain' (or 'Dwarven Mountain' or whatever)
From the moment when Runes are spreading then Hills can turn into Mountains on a random bases (just like Forest turn into Ancient Forests).
The Mountains give +1 for commerce.

Also the Earth II promotion is changed in following way. The Divine spell of Earth II will be 'Rise the Land' and is doing nothing but to create a hill on any land (unless it contains a farm) just like 'Bloom' creates forests..

If I am not mistaken then hill is also a feature and not a terrain and besides it also gives just a +1 production bonus. In this way Stonewardens can happily turn their lands into the ultimate Dwarven Home ... (and thanks to the defense bonus of hills we also have included the defense idea of Gravage)

Octopus Overlords :

The same we do with with the Octopii.
There will be a new terrain feature called 'Shallow Water' and a new terrain feature 'Swamp'.

The Coast is turning into 'Shallow Waters' (+1 food, better defense, movement hindering) and the flat land next to rivers and lakes (basically fresh water land) turns into 'Swamps'. Swamps destroy the existing improvements on them except roads and you cannot build anything on them , but they are a feature and give -1 food, -1 production and +5 commerce.
So a plains land that turns into swamps is producing only +5 commerce. A swampy grassland is giving +1 food and +5 commerce.

Why +5 commerce ?

In my interpretation the Octopii are a very dominating , but nerdish religion.
So the Octopii mages are founding secret laboratories and Mage Towers in the Swamps. Hidden from the simple minded public there they are able to do whatever they please to increase knowlegde including the most bizarre and horrifying experiments.
Of course these +5 commerce boni dissapear as soon as Octopus Overlords is replaced with another state religion (they will be bounded to it). As soon as you change religion then the swamps will be nasty stinking things only (like they always have been) and give only -1, -1. God bless your workers can get rid of them as soon as you discover Sanitation.

Of course the Octopus Priests can spread coasts and lakes with Water II and Divine (at first I was thinking about rivers, because they are more easy to implement but then I realized that this is way to powerful). To spread water is still very powerful, (just think of all the irrigation bonuses) but 'Bloom'ing Forests that are cuttable is also way to good.

Last thoughts :

The AI will not be able to use these things effectivly, that is why the Mountains, Shallow Waters and Swamps appear automatically giving at least shape to the respective lands. The fact that only humans will use the Priests is not too powerful in comparison. The only thing you have to do is to teach the AI to remove Swamps as soon as they do not have Octopus Overlords as religion anymore.
In anyway it will be a nice new strategy. If you plan war against an Octopus Overlord convert him to your religion one turn before the onslaught ... A very Romulan Approach actually. At first you cause turmoil and they are busy with inquisition their suddenly disliked Mages and then you take advantage .. sounds very realistic to be honest...



Give me your input please.

 

[Gravage]

Shame you didn't like the idea. Ah well. As for your idea; don't you think it'd go against the modding team's policy to kind of equalize all (lower) religions by giving them all a special tile?
Oh, and I remembered a question I had, a while ago I was playing as Falamar, and Charadon was in the game. He thought I was charming. Now, is Charadon a female (cleverly hidden), gay, or is this a bug?

 

[Kael]

Oh, and I remembered a question I had, a while ago I was playing as Falamar, and Charadon was in the game. He thought I was charming. Now, is Charadon a female (cleverly hidden), gay, or is this a bug?

No wonder he sends all his women out to scout.

Seriously, I cant reproduce that. Are you sure it wasn't Mahala?

 

[Gravage]

My bad, yes it was Mahala. There's no Civilopedia text and the pictures kinda unclear about it's sex, so I presume it's female (seeing your answer)?

 

[Sureshot]

in my modmod i made a earth 3 spell called Raise Earth that Dwarven Druids and Archmages can get that raises earth, like, water to flatlands desert, flatlands to hills, hills to mountains (and made tsunami work the opposite way). fun for changing the landscape later in the game.

 

[grumpylad]

in my modmod i made a earth 3 spell called Raise Earth that Dwarven Druids and Archmages can get that raises earth, like, water to flatlands desert, flatlands to hills, hills to mountains (and made tsunami work the opposite way). fun for changing the landscape later in the game.

It works as I've used this to build a land brigde to invade various neighbours (I always seem to loose naval vessels on the difficulty I play at) Real fun

 

[Bad Player]

Basically only Priests Leaves can bloom new Forests (That turn into Ancient Forests) and only in Fellowship Lands Ancient Forest appear. This makes the tree lovers the far most powerful religions in terms of powerplay.

Druids can cast any divine, sorcery, or summoning spell from Nature including Bloom.

 

[MrUnderhill]

Plus Mind and Chaos if you're playing Balseraphs. Retained promotions FTW!

 

[Adrogans]

If I recall correctly the reason forests and jungles can do the things they do is because they are not actually a terrain, the code treats them as features. Mountains and hills are terrain. This is the reason the team is having difficulty making the hills combat promotion work like the forest one. I could see that being a difficulty with these ideas, but I do not code just read posts so I might be wrong.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Plus Mind and Chaos if you're playing Balseraphs. Retained promotions FTW!

Do the Balseraphs have a UU Druid? They should if they don't.

 

[GeeJo]

I think the late-game balseraph units are mostly just awaiting new art.

 

[xanaqui42]

If I recall correctly the reason forests and jungles can do the things they do is because they are not actually a terrain, the code treats them as features. Mountains and hills are terrain. This is the reason the team is having difficulty making the hills combat promotion work like the forest one. I could see that being a difficulty with these ideas, but I do not code just read posts so I might be wrong.

Partially correct; Hill and Peak are Terrain Features as well:

List of terrain features :

* Ancient Forest
* Fallout
* Flood Plains
* Forest
* Hill
* Ice
* Jungle
* New Forest
* Oasis
* Peak
* River

 

[Sureshot]

in xml and python hills, water, flatlands and peaks are Plot Types, which are different than features in many ways.

 

[Bad Player]

Plus Mind and Chaos if you're playing Balseraphs. Retained promotions FTW!

Can you keep building acrobats throughout the game or are your Mind+Chaos+Nature druids limited by how many early acrobats you built?

 

[Sureshot]

you can build them all throughout the game

techs dont make units obsolete in ffh, buildings do, so, if you dont build a grove or a hunting lodge in any city, then that city can forever make acrobats if it has a carnival

 

[Bad Player]

Would it be possible for Kael and co. to make it so that some units can still be built rather than being obseleted by buildings thus (e.g. balseraph acrobats, the drown)?