Some proposals

[c.fe]

I really like this mod, the amount of new game mechanics and polish amazes me. But (that was inevitable...) I still have some proposals:

• Summons
  I don't use them. Not because they're not powerful but because I would loose experience. I just like to have a few strong units than a lot (productionwise) cheap and mediocre ones. And without the ability to effectivly gain promotions summons (except for the few permanent ones) can never get as strong as normal units. Possible solutions:
  • None: If most people are happy with the current model why change it?
  • Make a promotion for summoners that allows them to permanently summon every [level X?] summon. Perhaps with a similiar mechanic as skeletons to limit their numbers.
  • Make all summons permanent but limit them by having them cost a certain price per turn. This price could be gold but also science or even a new resource. Well, I'm of course thinking (again) of Master of Magic...
  
  
• Fame
  Here again an idea from MoM: Every time you do something spectacular like building a wonder/hero, winning lots of battles or perhaps havin a "we love the ... day" you get some fame. At the beginning of each turn the game checks if you have enough fame and rolls a dice. If both are successful you get some goody: People erect a statue (+X culture/turn), you get some free recruits, some free improvement at an unimproved tile, things like that.
  
  
• Cities traits
  A mechanism to differentiate cities: Each cities has a certain chance upon founding to get a trait this would give it some advantages but also disadvantages like
  • Metropolis: +10% food; -30% gold
  • Trading city: +1 trade route; +10% gold; +2 unhappiness
  • Astral gateway: +20% science; +2 unhealthiness
  • Wilderness Outpost: +30% unit production; at a X% chance per turn forest or jungle grows in the city radius (if there is an improvement it gets destroyed).
  Perhaps one could even make buildings that are specific to these town types.
  
  
• Elves, dwarfes and orcs
  I have a problem with the huge cities that elves and dwarfes can get. I always imagine elves and dwarfes as superior to humans but much less in number. So you could make the elves/dwarfes take (at least) double the time to grow their cities but give them X free specialists where X is the population of the city. Certainly not a minor change and it perhaps has to be tweaked but it could be interesting.
  
  It's the other way around with orcs. I imagine them growing faster than humans but being less organized/cultured. Perhaps give them a building that gives: +20% food stored, +1 unhappiness, -10% culture
  
  
• Individual MP
  I suggested this two times before and it never got accepted so I just include it for completeness . The proposal is to give every caster individual mana points from which they cast their spells. This mana points would not regenerate completely each turn. So you would have a mechanism to do spells that just can be cast every X turns. It also gives you some nice possibilities to fine tune who can cast which spell how often if you introduce promotions that raise max MP or MP regeneration.
  

 

[snarko]

Summons

I find that using summons as suicide troops to soften up defenders and sometimes kill lone wanderers works well. That said, there are better options for hurting defenders (pillar of fire etc) so I'll agree with you that summons should be made more useful. Unless there's some use for them I've missed.

Fame

Don't like this idea, it sounds like it rewards people for doing well. But doing well is already a reward in itself, so chances are you're just giving the top players a boost making it even more difficult for the rest to catch up.

Cities traits

Don't like it because often when I make a city I do it for a specific purpose. I might be making a city to focus on science, or training troops, or whatever. Don't want the game telling me "no, you shouldn't build troops in [troop building city], it's for gold making!" Maybe if you could choose the type, but then who's going to teach the AI?

Individual MP

Just a question: why? You've explained what can be done if you do this, but not why to do it. I don't mind the idea, I just don't see how it makes the game better.

 

[Black Attila]

I love the Elves, Dwarves , and Orc idea

 

[OctopusOverload]

I dont like the elves, dwarves, orc idea because, hey, these fantasy races doesnt really exist, or rather, no confirmed population birth rate statistics can be found anywhere.
If the kid-mortality rate is big, families tend to get big to compensate, and if the mortality rate is low its the other way around. Now, I dont see why elven/dwarven/orc child mortality rate should be any higher or lower than the human rate.

And cities manage to grow pretty slowly even in Quick speed settings. Why prolong the end turn-button abuse?

 

[feydras]

Some interesting ideas.

Summons
I agree with Snarko that they are very useful as suicide troops. I too love to raise up the XP of my troops. The suicidal summons make that possible while minimizing the risk of killing off my good troops. Summons is a useful tactic for everyone (well, except the Khazad) but a killer option for Summoning trait leaders which is as it should be. Plus the AI seems to actually use them. I'd say leave it alone.

Fame
Neat idea, i was excited about it until i read Snarko's comment and i have to agree with him. Generally you don't want to add things that help the players that are already doing well as increase the power disparity.

City Traits
Nice idea. This could be done easily by building a National Wonder that marks the city. The problem of training the AI is valid but also true for anything in the mod. I am no programer but in this case it doesn't seem that hard as you could have the AI look at the city and make choices based on terrain. Ex. coastal city on a river = build Trading Post.
One thing i think is backwards about you suggestions is the Metropolis +food, - gold. Should be reversed. I think of a Metropolis as having more access to income but draining food. Of course this would make it overlap with the Trading post so maybe something different would need to be done like Met: - food and + happiness.

Elves, dwarves, orcs
I think your arguments flavorwise are valid. It always seems odd to me when my elven cities rival the Kurioates in size but the problem is tied into the Vanilla Civ mechanic of Health determining city growth potential. Your slowed growth with bonus specialists fits nicely flavorwise IMO but would make the FoL religion which grants bonuses to Health somewhat useless unless to them.

Individual Magic Points
Like the idea, love the possibities it opens up for more depth in spells and especially magic user promotions. However, on this one i think it is very valid to ask how the AI will manage to use it correctly. As it is the AI cannot yet cast targeted spells.

- feydras

 

[c.fe]

Don't like this idea, it sounds like it rewards people for doing well. But doing well is already a reward in itself, so chances are you're just giving the top players a boost making it even more difficult for the rest to catch up.

You are right, but it's always a balance issue. You don't want to give the good player a lot of goodies but there should be some response that you did something right/impressive. Wonders and won battles are indeed a reward in theirself but we love the king days hardly are. Are there perhaps other things that are a little undervalued?

Don't like it because often when I make a city I do it for a specific purpose. I might be making a city to focus on science, or training troops, or whatever. Don't want the game telling me "no, you shouldn't build troops in [troop building city], it's for gold making!" Maybe if you could choose the type, but then who's going to teach the AI?

Yeah, that would be an element of chance, it would force you to adopt to the circumstances. And these city-traits wouldn't keep you from building units in any city it just not as efficient. Perhaps you could hand these traits just to 25% of all founded cities?

Just a question: why? You've explained what can be done if you do this, but not why to do it. I don't mind the idea, I just don't see how it makes the game better.

Reasons:

• More finetuning. You could make spells that are really hard to cast and then it takes (e.g.) 15 turns to cast them again but they could haven might(=fun?) effects.
• Strategic choice: Do I want access to mightier spells or do I want to be able to cast lesser spells more often?

 

[TheBoatman]

Summons

Combat promotions give Empower promotions to summons. That's quite a lot. Summoning specialized civs can tear a city apart at almost no cost (having up to 27 empowered5 L3 summons (effective strength ~15) as sheaim is really strong)

Fame

Interesting idea. Armaggedon counter works like that for evil civs. Fame could equalize armaggedon counter for good civs a bit. BTW Bannor hero Donal Lugh has a similar mechanism.

Cities traits

This is reduntant to building improvements. Players should decide specializations of their cities themselves.

Elves, dwarfes and orcs

You can imagine that those numbers mean different populations for different species without complicating mechanisms of game anymore. Orcs have barbarian trait that represents their low civilization level.

Individual MP

There has been an attempt for mana points (silent at the moment): http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4349109&postcount=2
I think this was mentioned as a possibility for shadow phase of FFH2 together with equipment (? really not sure).

 

[c.fe]

Combat promotions give Empower promotions to summons. That's quite a lot. Summoning specialized civs can tear a city apart at almost no cost (having up to 27 empowered5 L3 summons (effective strength ~15) as sheaim is really strong)

It's not about power. It's about the "Hey, I got a cool unit. Let's play with it!" effect. With summoning i get some cool units but I just use them to let them die because their survival doesn't benefit me.

This is reduntant to building improvements. Players should decide specializations of their cities themselves.

I think of it as an addition to terrain. You can't choose it you can just try to make the best of it (granted the analogy isn't perfect but it isn't completely incorrect either).

You can imagine that those numbers mean different populations for different species without complicating mechanisms of game anymore. Orcs have barbarian trait that represents their low civilization level.

It would also have influence on the GPP and the synergie with whipping. Also they would start out a bit worse than human but if you let them build their numbers they would surpass them.

There has been an attempt for mana points (silent at the moment): http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4349109&postcount=2
I think this was mentioned as a possibility for shadow phase of FFH2 together with equipment (? really not sure).

Yeah, it is possible, I started an attempt once, too. That went quite well but I got lazy and now it's silent, too...

 

[c.fe]

I dont like the elves, dwarves, orc idea because, hey, these fantasy races doesnt really exist, or rather, no confirmed population birth rate statistics can be found anywhere.
If the kid-mortality rate is big, families tend to get big to compensate, and if the mortality rate is low its the other way around. Now, I dont see why elven/dwarven/orc child mortality rate should be any higher or lower than the human rate.

Well it's fantasy so birth rates can be set as it seems fitting. I just refered to common clichés about elves and dwarves probably influenced by Tolkien - but just being clichés doesn't make them bad as game mechanic templates.

And cities manage to grow pretty slowly even in Quick speed settings. Why prolong the end turn-button abuse?

Well, elves and dwarves would have to be compensated for their slow growth rate, I suggested free specialist proportional to their city size.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Real cities tend to change their function over time. If city traits are to be adopted, they should also change. A city should need to be isolated in the wilderness to remain an outpost, and a city should never become a metropolis unless it has large cultural borders and plenty of towns and villages around it. Overall, I'm not a big fan of the idea, but would like it if fronter towns could build defenders more quickly.

Elves (and maybe also dwarves) are usually taught of as very long lived, but not reproducing until much later in life. (Thessa didn't meet her husband until age 40, right?) I would like it if their cities took longer to grow, but only if they also shrank more slowly.

 

[c.fe]

Real cities tend to change their function over time. If city traits are to be adopted, they should also change. A city should need to be isolated in the wilderness to remain an outpost, and a city should never become a metropolis unless it has large cultural borders and plenty of towns and villages around it. Overall, I'm not a big fan of the idea, but would like it if fronter towns could build defenders more quickly.

Real cities yes but what about cities from legends and fairy tales? Well, I'm not too sure about the idea, either, I just want more diversity without making some cities useless. I know that we can have some degree of diversity by choosing the improvements around them but they nevertheless look often quite the same.

 

[daladinn]

ok , i need to chime in since i "think" c.fe has not been playing very long.

1- your comment on summons , i understand your point here but its already addressed in game. have you tried playing the grigori yet?

2- the fame issue , this is a balance thing. rewarding someone for gaining an advantage woudl be bad. if it was pure flavor that wouldbe different , but i doubt they have time for pure flavor. i would like to point to the opposite thought , they added a shrine for fallen heroes.

3- you have the FFH races completel wrong. the dwarves typically have lower pop cities due to the heavy tendency to build in hills. the elves tend toward very LARGE cities due to the high happy and healthy that they have. humans vary greatly depending on the civ. the kuriotates are a poor example because they have 3+ super cities instead of a sprawling civilization.

4- as far as magic ... you already have permenent effects , 1 turn effects , semi-perm effects , and high rituals ... MP would complicate things even more.

 

[TheBoatman]

It's not about power. It's about the "Hey, I got a cool unit. Let's play with it!" effect. With summoning i get some cool units but I just use them to let them die because their survival doesn't benefit me.

I think this is the flavour of summons. As a summoner, why should you care about creatures from other dimensions. Cannon fodder waves are the strategy connected with summoning. If you like elite units play as Calabim or Grigori. Not every strategy or civ has to suit you. Myself, I like taking care about summoners and not about summons.

PS: Nevertheless, I like Keelyn's pedia entry. I wish balors summoned while playing as her were named Giggles

 

[c.fe]

ok , i need to chime in since i "think" c.fe has not been playing very long.

That's not a good reason. A good reason to offer an opinion is because you have a different opinion and have (good) arguments for it.

1- your comment on summons , i understand your point here but its already addressed in game. have you tried playing the grigori yet?

No, I haven't but I don't see the connection...

2- the fame issue , this is a balance thing. rewarding someone for gaining an advantage woudl be bad. if it was pure flavor that wouldbe different , but i doubt they have time for pure flavor. i would like to point to the opposite thought , they added a shrine for fallen heroes.

As I already said, I agree that there shouldn't be only advantages for the already mighty. But on the other hand we don't want to give the loosing factions all the goodies?

3- you have the FFH races completel wrong. the dwarves typically have lower pop cities due to the heavy tendency to build in hills. the elves tend toward very LARGE cities due to the high happy and healthy that they have. humans vary greatly depending on the civ. the kuriotates are a poor example because they have 3+ super cities instead of a sprawling civilization.

I roughly know how the elven/dwarven cities look in game, it just didn't fit the common image of them. That isn't in itself bad - but one could differentiate them even more and I made a proposal that does this and makes them more in line with the common view of these races and perhaps offers a interesting game mechanic. And that's the main point: Would it be fun to play with a race that grows quite slowly but gains more benefit from every population point?

4- as far as magic ... you already have permenent effects , 1 turn effects , semi-perm effects , and high rituals ... MP would complicate things even more.

Are you sure? Perhaps it would streamline things and make them more consistent? I don't know but it could be...

 

[c.fe]

I think this is the flavour of summons. As a summoner, why should you care about creatures from other dimensions. Cannon fodder waves are the strategy connected with summoning. If you like elite units play as Calabim or Grigori. Not every strategy or civ has to suit you. Myself, I like taking care about summoners and not about summons.

Ok, that is a valid point. And if most people like it that way it should stay as it is. I just sometimes think they are too cool to send them to death...

 

[daladinn]

umm .....

"Summons
I don't use them. Not because they're not powerful but because I would loose experience. I just like to have a few strong units than a lot (productionwise) cheap and mediocre ones."

the grigori are the only civilization that gets adventurers. these are heros that you can upgrade into any base unit in the game and gain xp every round just like other heros.

"I roughly know how the elven/dwarven cities look in game, it just didn't fit the common image of them."

the races are not meant to follow the common conceptions of the races. they are unique in many ways to the FFH world.

"Would it be fun to play with a race that grows quite slowly but gains more benefit from every population point?"

have you looked into the calabim? they tend to grow very slowly (sometimes in reverse) and also tend toward fewer and more powerful units.

and ....
when i made the comment about not playing much i in no way meant it as any kind of insult. rather that instead of asking to change things in a specific way , a good idea would be to ask if its possible inside the mold that exists and if there is anything your missing in the way of synergies and tactics.

sorry if i ruffled the feathers a bit much.

 

[MayNilad Man]

Actually, a way to implement the specialized city scheme is to make them into rebuildables, allowing one to customize cities even more...for a trade off.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Some of your fame and city trait ideas could be tied to the Shadow phase quests systems.

 

[c.fe]

"Summons
I don't use them. Not because they're not powerful but because I would loose experience. I just like to have a few strong units than a lot (productionwise) cheap and mediocre ones."

the grigori are the only civilization that gets adventurers. these are heros that you can upgrade into any base unit in the game and gain xp every round just like other heros.

You are right, I see. I wonder why I never even thought about playing them. They just didn't appeal to me.

the races are not meant to follow the common conceptions of the races. they are unique in many ways to the FFH world.

Are they really unique in many ways? And if they are, that still is no point against following the common conceptions in some ways.

have you looked into the calabim? they tend to grow very slowly (sometimes in reverse) and also tend toward fewer and more powerful units.

That advantage is a purely military one. So there is a difference between their mechanic and the one I proposed for elves/dwarves.

when i made the comment about not playing much i in no way meant it as any kind of insult.

Good, I wasn't really insulted anyway . I'm not much of an hardcore player. I still haven't played every civ, rarely really completed a game and never did any multiplayer. But I played the mod since the times where mages could not get levels because spells where implemented as promotions and followed the development of new features quite closely so I think I'm not completely uninformed either.

rather that instead of asking to change things in a specific way , a good idea would be to ask if its possible inside the mold that exists and if there is anything your missing in the way of synergies and tactics.

I don't think there is a point in being overly humble. I called them proposals, that implies that I don't demand these to implement. It just would be nice if people (especially the team) would consider them.
This is a public forum I kinda expect that people tell me if I'm missing things without my permission

sorry if i ruffled the feathers a bit much.

No harm done

 

[Red Boxer]

I am currently playing the Calabim, and have noticed a few things...

Did we have at one point as thread for stuff like this?

The most odd is that I've turned off the Altar victory, yet nations still get to build it, evident in popup messages, and a +1 holy bonus, unless I (quite possibly) have some aspects of it mixed up.

Also something I've noticed is the incredible amount of strength that Vampires (and vampiric units) get from their Feasting, I'd recommend one or both of the following:
Limit the number of time Vampiric units can feast per turn (perhaps to 1?). Just consider how many people a Vampire can feast upon per turn... it should have some limit.
Limit the number of times a city can be feasted upon, or cause heavy feasting to have severe ramifications; perhaps unless the city is Calabim or has a governor's mansion (or some other indicator of Calabim-ness). Reason being, that an Elohim or Malakim city isn't going to take well to getting used as food.

Having an army of units well in excess of 10th level is a site to behold.