Suggestion Thread!

[ono-neko]

I guess I'll start a suggestion thread for brainstorming general ideas to improve our gameplay experience of this wonderful mod.

Since Fairy Tale is the theme, which includes all of that mythological stuff, I think we can incorporate more of the stereotypical concept of what a fairy tale/mythological world could/would be. There are almost limitless possibilities (human creativity is amazing) to what can be added, though, wisdom is needed to consider what should be added.

In the real world (huh? who needs it?), natural disaster occurs in different form at different places. Civ4 has random events of tornadoes destroying plains, volcanoes blast of to recreate the event of Pompeii, and so on. In the fairy tale world, we may have the similar things happening, but, with a cool addition to give a hot-n-spicy taste. Dragon and Kraken come to mind.

I know we already have dragon as units for certain Civs. However, dragons are not known to be beasts that would follow order, especially from human. They have strange set of moral codes, their arrogance dictates their behavior, and they do things only based on their whim. So, this does not close the possibilities of non-aligned dragons roaming the realms. Some dragons may enjoy destroying farms/towns for amusement, while others attacking armies for no other reason than just because they can do so.

Kraken, on the other hand, is a different kind of monster, although it is a monster, nonetheless. No one know why kraken attacks ships in the seas, which over time has become a legend that is feared among the sailors. Stories of kraken is used to scared disobedient brats causing them having countless nightmares.

So, there are two ways of doing this. First we can add random barbarian dragons and krakens pops up randomly on the map roaming the realms (be it inside or outside of cultural border). We will have to be careful choosing our path to travel in case we ran into either one of them on land or sea. The limitation is, they can easily driven off, if we have enough veteran units, without any damage caused to the realm.

The second option is to add them as part of the random events. There won't be anyway to avoid them just like you cannot avoid tornado destroying farms. This is less fun because we won't be able to send of our mightiest, handsomest, fearless, sparklest knight in shining armor to kill the dragon or kraken.

ok, this post has gotten long enough. So, what you all think?

 

[Le Sage]

Good idea for a thread. And good ideas for features as well.

The Barbarians actually occasionally show up with the Dragon, but I think they're being too rare. I'll see what can be done to increase Barbarian Dragon frequency.

The Kraken unit is of interest. It could be added as a Barbarian unit to pop up occasionally as well. I'd need to have a good model for it, and it's easily added then.

 

[Highwayhoss]

There is a mod to enable animals to spawn in the water that was made by TheLopez; it is located here: Water Animals Mod The problem is it would require SDK changes.

 

[ono-neko]

That's strange that you would need to do SDK changes. Civ4 by default already pops barbs in the unwatched tiles (dimmed or undiscovered). Shouldn't it be adjusted to pops different barbs without changing the SDK? Not that I know how to do this (I should probably learn and check on the .py files).

 

[Le Sage]

The mod Lopez designed does require SDK. However, I do not think it's any harder in our case than to just put in the Kraken and make it spawn like regular Barbarian ships. Like Galleys. Or rather, I would like to make it NOT be able to enter Coastal waters at all. That way early Galleys and other weak naval units can get away, while the Kraken still threatens shipping on the High Seas.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

It's probably just one new unitai (animal_sea), should be easy to merge.
If you do it with the standard attack_sea ai, the kraken could enter cultural borders even though animals are not supposed to..

 

[Highwayhoss]

If you do it with the standard attack_sea ai, the kraken could enter cultural borders even though animals are not supposed to..

True, but I suspect though that Kraken would not really care much about cultural borders....it would give coastal cities incentive to keep some ships on patrol (especially if the city depends on Fish or Clam!)

 

[Le Sage]

We can make a seamonster that uses the submarine's XML as a foundation. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that, and then just assign it to the Barbarians and noone else. The Dragon is actually a mounted unit. It's not an animal.

 

[ono-neko]

Some mods have the option "Limited Religion" when starting a custom game/scenario, or perhaps the option is incorporated into BUG (I can't really remember if it's the former or the latter). Anyway, this option is so that a Civ can only discover one Religion. If it has discover a religion, it cannot discover another one even when it is the first one to discover the tech for a new religion. You can get other religions's holy cities only by conquest.

As of now, my civ in my current game pretty much discovers almost all of the religions. As much as it is good for me for controlling every religions, it's not as balance though IMHO.

 

[Le Sage]

Thanks. That deserves to be looked into. I'll see what can be done about limiting religions.

 

[ono-neko]

Do you have any plan to utilize Corporation? If not, or you don't have idea yet, what about making merchant/guilds, such as stonemason guild, blacksmith guild, farmer's trader, etc.

 

[Le Sage]

We actually have that in the game already. Right now, only one Guild is foundable, and that is the Miners' Guild, but I have long had plans for more. These Guilds will be the corporations in Fairy Tale. I just need to make them more useful.

 

[ono-neko]

In some mod, when your unit win a battle against your enemy's unit, your culture is influencing/affecting the surrounding tiles's culture. So, if you kill enough enemy units, you may flip some tiles to your culture. That will give tactical advantage to you (disadvantage to your enemy). Do you think this will be useful in your mod?

 

[Le Sage]

Yeah. I've thought about it. It's included in DCM (Dale's Combat Mod), but I am reluctant to do the merge as it also would bring SDK changes and possibly also demand functions that I really don't want in this mod. I'm not sure it would fit a Medieval setting either.

Overall I think the Civ4 system of culture works really bad. I think it will be better in Civ5 where you indeed claim space by buying tiles and not just by flipping them over by having the stronger culture in the area.

 

[ono-neko]

I guess it's not quite possible to pick and choose what to port over from DCM, and of course if it requires SDK change, probably that's something you want to avoid.

In medieval time, borders doesn't work like modern time. Often times, armies marching passing through someone else's territory, without declaring war to the owner, to attack another nation. Winning battles usually also influence the surrounding's population as there wasn't strong enough feeling of nationhood/citizenship among the population at the time.

 

[Le Sage]

The only SDK merge I ever did was the Better AI (which is also th ebest thing to ever happen this mod!). I don't even have an interest in merging the SDK changes that makes it possible to place 50 civs on the map, although I've seen that there's a new file out there now which merges both the 50+ civs with Better AI.

I thought about Revolution once. Revolution makes the game give birth to new states and other states fall apart in civil wars and so on, but decided against that too. I think Revolution also includes DCM. I think the addition you're talking about is called Influence Driven War.

That's right. Medieval borders weren't precisely static either. Nationhood and the loyalty among the population towards the King rather than towards the landowner developed during the Late Medieval Age.

 

[charlesb96]

In the Neoteric world mod, the spys can get experience and promotions, eventually becoming a "James Bond" if you will. They can bribe away workers, get bonuses for unrest and unhealthyness. Make the spys more active.

 

[Le Sage]

That's not a bad idea! After all, the spies in Fairy Tale are called Witches. They should have more good powers. I'll see what can be done about it.

 

[ono-neko]

Truth be told, I find that spies in Civ4 are mere annoyance that I simply ignore. The AI loves to poison my water, try to sabotage my production, and I tolerate it as much as a next person who is trying to bully me. I never conduct espionage mission myself, which for me a bother and waste of hammer/coin that I could have spent for larger army. So, I use spies mostly for counter-intelligence, that is to create "wall of spies" at my borders, basically put a spy at every 2 tiles, and in border cities. That works like a charm to stop almost all of the spies.

Of course if spies can do more than just annoying your opponent, that may have better usefulness. Though, I am not sure if I want the AI to be more than just annoyance to me. I'd probably just attack whoever annoy me the most anyway

 

[charlesb96]

In Neoteric World Mod, spys can become a major force and can devastate your opponent. You steal all his workers and he has to keep making more, instead of building troops. You destroy his improvements, and with no workers, they don't get rebuilt. Plus you get all those workers for yourself and can build troops, not workers. By the time you declare war, he is so weak it is an easy victory.

Another suggestion is to allow Inquisitors to remove unwanted religions from you cities. Especially useful with religious victory and the civic that gives you a negative unhappiness for every religion other than state religion.