tesbs further flavored civilizations [development thread]

[tesb]

the biggest gripe i have at the moment is what neomega said. but i don't want to give up the 1 tile radius ...never

anyways i will waste some time on texture replacements and after my head is cleared i will come back.

any balance proposals are very welcome

 

[Tarquelne]

any balance proposals are very welcome

How about making specialists in the city more effective? The justification being that the serene, almost otherworldly nature of the hidden city's atmosphere fosters concentration... or even obsession.

 

[BasilAbdef]

I really don't get it. Why would anyone want to give up 12 tiles of production, and all trade, for a small defensive bonus?

Is this only supposed to be used on cities about to be attacked?

I don't get it either. It sounds like it would be a huge, huge detriment. If I'm running through your Sidar lands and I can't attack one of the cities, I'll just move on and attack the next one. Alternatively, I could simply raze all the surrounding improvements as you huddle in your "hidden" city. It's really not that big of a deal. I feel this is even worse than the Wall of Force spell (which is already almost entirely useless).

 

[Valkrionn]

Been thinking on it, and I believe I have a workable alternative.

1. Make Mist a feature (something I already want to do), which blocks visibility for units within it (Like Mountains do, so not by actually reducing the unit stat.. Just reveals less territory). Make a new tag which allows you to block units from entering said feature unless their 'visibility' (based off the standard visibility stat, but a separate, unique stat of it's own for several reasons discussed below) is high enough. Have Mist start in the city, spread into surrounding tiles within the city's workable radius. Allow certain high level units (or just Shades) to create mist on a tile, so you can manually (at some kind of cost) create mist within your borders but beyond city radii.
   • The visibility used would be a separate stat for several reasons. First off, and most importantly to me, so that we can add/subtract a random amount from it each turn. Gives you some variability, and allows you to occasionally move in units that don't have high enough visibility. I'm thinking +/- 1 here, nothing major. Second, so that you can modify it via promotion. Certain units should be able to see through it better, and this way we can allow that without increasing their standard visibility.
   • End up with 4 ints on the unit; Standard visibility, 'Mist Visibility' from promotions, random visibility done each turn, and the total Mist Visibility. Maintain the promotion variable separate for easy calculation and fewer loops; As is, you'd have one random number each turn and one small calculation.

So you end up with mist throughout your territory (and I'd add mist to other features, so you can have a Mist Forest or Jungle, whatever. Not hard, keeps everything from looking the same) which makes it difficult for invaders to find you, and more difficult for them to attack you.

All in all, it would take:

• One new int on features, iMinVisibilty
• One new int on promotions, iMistVisibility (or whatever)
• 3 new ints on units
  • Int stored to unit from promotion. May as well make it a unit stat as well, so some units can have inherently higher values.
  • Int that stores random value. No tag needed here.
  • Int that stores the total each turn. No tag needed here.
• One new function in CanMove, which does the actual work.

All in all, about an hour. If that.


Additionally, allow Mist to be cleared by Fair Winds, or better yet a new Air1 spell (not visible unless it can be used); Must be adjacent to mist, takes X turns to clear. Keeps it from being instant, but makes Air a useful sphere for more than it's archmagi.

 

[Tarquelne]

I don't get it either. It sounds like it would be a huge, huge detriment.

My take on it is that:

a) The outlined mechanic can be fixed to make it not such a huge detriment. Ideally, I think, it'd be something good for a number of your mature cities, but not every one unless you plan on turtleing. (Maybe bring back the pop-freeze mechanic, so starvation isn't a problem. I think it could be easily justified as the pace of "corporeal" life slowing down drastically. People eat and reproduce far, far less often.) Off the top of my head, I'd say big defense, research, and Specialist-related boni could be easily justified.

b) The idea is not so much to make Sidar teh awesome but rather to fit the in-game civ better with the Lore. It doesn't have to be all about effectiveness. (But throw in Specialist boni and I think it's something the Sidar will find useful.)

*****

Re: Mist feature.

I like the "feel" of a city-based mechanic a lot more. IMO it's both more unique compared to all the terraforming other civs are prone to, and fits the Lore better. (I'd say their "mistiness" outside cities is already well expressed in unit abilities.)

 

[Sephi]

Is the tooltip for wall of force wrong then? Does it 'only' give +50% defense? And i thought my cities were safe

tooltip was wrong. Wall of Force also reduces bombardment damage by 50%. Slows enemy invasion down and gives you more time to organize a counterattack on them.

so you would drop the working tile radius penalty? to be honest i rather like it. especially since you can still get a very good economy with shading great persons, in fact it would emphasize it even more.

I would create a second building for it. Increases the mist around the city, maybe also give bonus to specialists like Tarq suggested and reduces city radius.

As of now the buildings require the caster to stay in the city, what i could do is:
1) Drop that penalty. So it does not require a caster to stay present in the city.
2) The worldspell hides all cities, this can be cast very early in the game.
3) If the worldspell is already cast the only way to hide additional cities is through archmages. Since it takes 10 turns to cast and you can have only 4 archmages it is not spamable.

that is what I had in mind. The tag in buildinginfos is iMistDensity, you can give it to as many buildings as you want, it adds up, negative values also work. Current formula for lost in Mist effect is %chance = MistDensity/2 -4*attackerLevel. Could be changed of course.

 

[Valkrionn]

Re: Mist feature.

I like the "feel" of a city-based mechanic a lot more. IMO it's both more unique compared to all the terraforming other civs are prone to, and fits the Lore better. (I'd say their "mistiness" outside cities is already well expressed in unit abilities.)

I agree that it's more unique, but it also seriously limits what you are able to do. Basically, with it as a feature of the city you are only able to make the city itself hard to assault. With it as a feature, the territory becomes difficult to assault. It's harder to pillage, it's harder to assault, it's harder just to see.

I'm not sure it fits the lore better. Honestly, I think both work. No real specifics I know of that would cover either mechanic.

The way I'm picturing a Sidar empire with the mechanic is the core cities being normal, and productive, with the edge cities being 'Hidden', and engulfed in Mists. This lets you use the edge cities as a wall, of sorts, protecting your empire from easy invasion.

 

[Till]

I like Valkrionn's idea, and would make the hidden cities cheaper on maintenance, too.

 

[Tarquelne]

The tag in buildinginfos is iMistDensity,

Does it hinder only another civ's units? It sounds very appropriate to a Doomgiver/sayer effect*... or maybe Melante's Residence. (I've been looking for a way to make her more interesting. Making her Residence would be a step toward that, but an Epic Destiny tie-in would be far better...)

*A cumulative effect could be neat: More Doomsayers = more defense, but the more it throttles the city.

 

[Sephi]

Does it hinder only another civ's units? It sounds very appropriate to a Doomgiver/sayer effect*... or maybe Melante's Residence. (I've been looking for a way to make her more interesting. Making her Residence would be a step toward that, but an Epic Destiny tie-in would be far better...)

*A cumulative effect could be neat: More Doomsayers = more defense, but the more it throttles the city.

it is only triggered in combat, so only enemy units.

 

[Valkrionn]

I like Valkrionn's idea, and would make the hidden cities cheaper on maintenance, too.

Part of the reasoning for my method is honestly balance. With it done in the city, everything must be balanced for that city. Any sacrifice must be made up for by an equal or greater amount of benefit, to make it worthwhile. As a feature, though, it suddenly becomes balanced for the empire. This means you can have some cities take a hit, and become less productive, in return for your other cities being safer and better able to focus on economy.

So basically, with the city method you've got a city that is hard to attack, but does absolutely nothing for the rest of the empire; Armies can go around and attack the non-hidden cities the same as always. With the feature method, you have an empire that is harder to attack, as a well placed Mist-city can block entry to the empire. Makes me much more willing to accept massive hits like no trade.

 

[Sephi]

temporary blocks in CanMove functions will really screw up the AI. Only human understands that the blocks may go away in a few turns.

And when you want to move 50 units through the mist and you are forced to seperate them all the time because some can move this turn and others not, it doesn't sound like fun just lots of micromanagement.

 

[Valkrionn]

Yes, we're discussing it on #erebus now. That exact point was brought up for the rand value; Either it will be removed, or moved to the initialization of the unit and only ever run once.

Obviously, there needs to be some AI work to account for it as well.

 

[tesb]

that is what I had in mind. The tag in buildinginfos is iMistDensity, you can give it to as many buildings as you want, it adds up, negative values also work. Current formula for lost in Mist effect is %chance = MistDensity/2 -4*attackerLevel. Could be changed of course.

this is perfect

just one question what happens if the overall chance is negative for example:
I guess the chance has to be positive to hinder the unit from attacking and if it is 0 or negative the unit can attack?


I will make the following changes:
- Hidden City: reduces the worktile radius to 1, increases defense, decreases damage to the city defenses, mediocre bonus to mist, bonus to specialists in the city, increased food income.
- Mist (can have more then one): increases the mistdensity, reduces the trade routes by 1, decreases the food income by a small amount.

If you cast the spell once you will have city with worktile radius of one, nearly full trade capacity, better specialists and a better food income.

If you cast the spell more then once the trade routes will disappear, the food income will be reduced but the city gets more and more protected.

I will also add a spell that lifts the mist, but for that i would need a reversed <CreateBuildingType> ==> <RemoveBuildingType>

So a player can choose how much economy he wants to sacrifice to additional protection. The spells themselves will have a considerable cast time so you have to plan in advance.

how does this sound?

 

[Valkrionn]

That sounds like a worthwhile trade off.

Personally, I'll still be going with the method I described, but I know you want to keep it as a city-specific thing; I think your method does a very good job of that.

 

[Tarquelne]

I will also add a spell that lifts the mist, but for that i would need a reversed <CreateBuildingType> ==> <RemoveBuildingType>

That can easily be done via python. Example:

Spoiler :

/snip/
	pPlot = caster.plot()
	pCity = pPlot.getPlotCity()

/snip/

# Scions start - Allows Inqusition to remove  Poisioned Words, Corrupt Guild.					
	if pCity.getNumRealBuilding(gc.getInfoTypeForString('BUILDING_POISON_WORDS')) > 0:		
		pCity.setNumRealBuilding(gc.getInfoTypeForString('BUILDING_POISON_WORDS'), 0)

	if pCity.getNumRealBuilding(gc.getInfoTypeForString('BUILDING_CORRUPT_GUILD')) > 0:		
		pCity.setNumRealBuilding(gc.getInfoTypeForString('BUILDING_CORRUPT_GUILD'), 0)
# Scions end

It's from the Inquisition spell in FF. And I need to check on WM balance vis a vis that Scion stuff...

 

[Neomega]

If I could rework the Sidar (the only civ I ever play) any way I wished, here is what I would do

-Make it so they couldn't build cottages
I rarely build cottages myself, because I try to play the lore of an unseen empire.

-make forests, jungle, ancient forest and haunted lands spread faster within cultural borders, (i just feel they are spookier/ghostlier), have ruins, ancient towers and forts/castles/citadels give a food bonus (might make fort spam a problem). Again, they have that more spooky feel to me.

-Maybe make the razing of an enemy city provide some mane like units to add to population of Sidar cities, although I am not sure how lore accurate it would be to make the Sidar a city razing civ.

-I would suggest for the hidden city, leave the radius to 2, just forbid foreign trade for the city, and give maybe a 50% trade penalty. Internal trade isn't that great as it is. I see the hidden city more like a mirage city, hard to target, perhaps even part ethereal like ghosts. All units inside have blur, ranged units attack at -25% str., regular units at -10%, BUT magical weapons attack at 50% (enchanted blade is +30% str, flaming arrows, poison are +1.5 str, fireballs are double str, etc... basically any magic attack is +50% str.

-I like the idea of mist limiting visibility. I remember being so bummed when I found out units simply ran over my ghosts hidden in forests, instead of being "ambushed" by them. I am not sure the AI could handle moving forward in a tile with an unknown defender or defenders, while I am at it, I wish the blind spell did the same thing, like when units are held, their sight range is 0.

-it might also be interesting to make the Sidar not able to build workers or any improvements at all, except roads and those on resources.



probably a coding nightmare.... but if I could code, that's how I would do it.

 

[jacktannery]

tesbs - I am using your mod for the Sheaim, and really enjoying it, however it is not working as I expected. All of my units (including mages, recon, etc) are affected by Demonic Empowerment, and the AI controls all of them. Only naval and animal units are unaffected. This means that I cannot cast the Demonic Citizens spell (as I do not control my arcane units) and I cannot defend any of my cities. Is it possible that I installed it wrong?

 

[tesb]

uh oh yes, the tag for the promotion is not done yet. this is a development thread. you installed it correctly, but those files are not release files (more like beta versions )

i will make a separate post for completed versions.

 

[jacktannery]

That explains it.