The Winds of Chaos

[orlanth]

This thread is for discussion of a potential Armageddon Counter-like mechanic to represent the wax and wane of the Winds of Chaos.

Unless/until Ploeperpengel can return to modding, I think we'd be better off starting with a relatively simple mechanic that also won't be overwhelming in terms of gameplay effects until we can get a better idea of balance from some playtesting feedback. Here is a preliminary skeleton for any comments/suggestions. Again once we have a preliminary working system in place it would be easier to add stuff on.

The effects below are for a 0 to 100 scale that starts out at 50 or so (in a default game) and can fluctuate from there. In contrast to FfH where it's a unidirectional march to apocalypse or not, here Chaos exists as an omnipresent force in the world and can significantly weaken or wax from its baseline. I think that Python could handle a scale with negative integers if attempted, but am posting a positive integer scale here just to keep things simple.

Note that the effects on magic do not depend on the alignment of the caster (for even the Lawful gods and their powers are a mere shadow in the Warp cast by the minds of men.. )


Effects of the Winds of Chaos:

0 to 20
text tag (for combat stats etc): "the Winds of Chaos have fallen silent"
-40% strength to Demonic units
-10% strength to other Chaotic units
+40% strength to units with the Scourge of Chaos promotion (mostly Lawful religious units and powerful Lawful heroes)
+10% strength to other Lawful units
+40% to resist the effects of magic
New unit Mutation chance is halved
Alignment bonus/penalty in diplomacy is halved

20 to 40
text tag: "the Winds of Chaos are weak"
-20% strength to Demonic units
+20% strength to units with Scourge of Chaos
+20% to resist the effects of magic

40 to 60
No gameplay effects

60 to 80
text tag : "the Winds of Chaos are strong"
+20% strength to Demonic units
-20% strength to units with Scourge of Chaos
-20% to resist the effects of magic
slight + mutation chance for new Chaotic units

80 to 100
text tag: "the Winds of Chaos are tempestuous"
+40% strength to Demonic units
+10% strength to other Chaotic units
-40% strength to units with the Scourge of Chaos promotion (mostly Lawful religious units and powerful Lawful heroes)
-10% strength to other Lawful units
-40% to resist the effects of magic
New unit Mutation chance is doubled, small + mutation chance for *all* new units
Alignment bonus/penalty in diplomacy is doubled


Wax and wane of the Winds of Chaos:
(for each change on building x, there will also be an equal and opposite change on destroying x)

Random change at the beginning of each turn:
30% chance of +1, 30% chance of -1, and 40% chance of no change

+1 Corruption of Chaos spread in a city
+1 Building a Temple to Chaos (will have unique Temples for each god)
+6 Opening a Great Gate of Chaos (see Ahriman's Awakening post)
+1 Destroying a Lawful City, or expunging all Lawful religions from a city

-1 Lawful religion spread in a city
-1 Building a Temple to a Lawful religion
-3 Building the Great Shrine of a Lawful Religion
-1 Destroying a city with Corruption of Chaos, or expunging Chaos from a city


Other potential tweaks/features:

There is a latitude min and max in the XML for resource bonuses, so it would be easy to have Warpstone found closer to the poles in random maps to represent the proximity of the Realm of Chaos. I'm not aware of any other latitude XML capabilities, but if desired, I think it could be possible to mod in a function using Python that could act as a multiplier on some of the above base effects of the Winds of Chaos the closer you are to the poles. (P_L, does this sound reasonable?)

It should also be possible to implement a Flavor Start for the various civilizations on random maps as has been done with FfH, though this would require some work to complete.

 

[Ahriman]

I like it.
I would really though like to also see that % linked to barbarian spawn rates (including powerful barbarians that can spawn even into cultural territory, and barbarian naval raiding parties that can spawn in oceans).

Building the initial Chaos shrine should definitely also give a noticeable bump.
And maybe building lesser chaos gateways could also add +1.
Building lawful or chaotic heroes could also give it a hit.
I think it would be good to have a slight positive drift towards higher chaos - there is an End Times out there, all the lawful races are really doing is trying to hold on.

*edit*
Now we just need to implement some demons, priests and heroes

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

brilliant ideas im liking it a lot, though i admit i have no idea how this one would be implemented

also things like events should affect it to. ie if you have the Vortex Unique feature in your borders you could get an event that asks if you would like to sacrifice a strong spellcaster to reduce the power of the winds of chaos

 

[Ahriman]

Advanced Uprisings.

An addition to the basic idea (that will admittedly require considerable coding). Spawns barbarian raider units into occupied territory, where they will then try to rampage, pillage and take cities.

Design features:

Spoiler :

The purpose is to make the mod more combat oriented, so even during "peacetime" there are still uprisings going all over the place.
The mechanic advantages the AI in some sense (which is good), because the AI naturally keeps sizable garrisons in all of its cities, whereas human players tend to only have decent garrisons on the frontlines, and away from friendly civs. This mechanic forces players to keep larger garrisons.
War is chaotic, so there are more uprisings the higher the chaos counter.
Large empires will get hit more, so this slows expansion a little and makes the late game (where the human player controls a vast empire) a little more interesting.
Most covered tiles will be land tiles, so land uprisings are much more likely to occur than sea uprisings.

The uprisings need to be big enough so they will do considerable pillaging and risk taking a city; otherwise they're just free XP.

* * *
Mechanics:

Spoiler :

Each turn, with probability (Chaoscounter/10)% an uprising will occur.
If the game is earlier than turn (140 - 10*difficulty level) then no uprising occurs.
If an uprising occurs, select a random tile in the world that is inside the cultural border of some civ (any civ).
If the tile contains a city or peak, select a different tile.

Trigger an uprising in that tile, with strength determined by game turn.
Potential issue: what happens if you create barbarian units in a tile that already contains player units?

Game turn < 100:
100% strength 1 uprising

Game turn 100-150
50% strength 1 uprising
50% strength 2 uprising

Game turn 151-200
25% strength 1 uprising
50% strength 2 uprising
25% strength 3 uprising

Game turn 201-300
25% strength 2 uprising
50% strength 3 uprising
25% strength 4 uprising

Game turn 301+
40% strength 3 uprising
50% strength 4 uprising
10% strength 5 uprising

When an uprising occurs, it triggers a warning event message to whoever's culture controls that tile "Warning, a Greenskin warband/Imperial raiding party/Dark Elf slavers/etc. has been sighted." with the event occurring at the targetting tile (so selecting the event message takes you to the uprising tile).

Then, the next turn, barbarian uprising units spawn in the target tile:

Land uprising (subject to balance change):

Spoiler :

Strength 1 uprising = 2 Axeman warband, 1 Spearman warband, with bronze weapons.
Strength 2 uprising = 3 axeman warband, 1 miliitia spearman with bronze weapons, 1 catapult, 1 ancient horseman with bronze weapons.
Strength 3 uprising = 2 militia swordsman with iron weapons, 1 militia spearman with iron weapons, 2 militia swordsman with bronze weapons, 2 light cavalry with bronze weapons, 1 troll/pegasus, 2 catapult
Strength 4 uprising = 1 giant/griffon, 1 pikeman with iron weapons, 3 militia swordsman with iron weapons, 1 militia spearman with iron weapons, 1 crossbowmen with iron weapons, 2 light cavalry with iron weapons, 3 catapult.
Strength 5 uprising = 1 red dragon or demon prince. 1 knight or war chariot with iron weapons. 4 militia swordsman with iron weapons, 2 militia swordsmen with iron weapons, 3 catapult, 1 cannon or trebuchet, 2 pikemen with iron weapons, 2 light cavalry with iron weapons, 1 giant/griffon. Takes 3 turns to arrive after the warning event.

Naval uprising (subject to balance change. Do barbarian land units on transport automatically unload? Can they be scripted to do so when adjacent to land?)

Spoiler :

Strength 1 uprising = 1 trireme, 1 galley, 2 axeman warband with bronze weapons.
Strength 2 uprising = 2 privateers, 2 galleys, 3 axemen warband with bronze weapons, 1 spearman warband with bronze weapons
Strength 3 uprising = 2 frigates, 1 galleon, 4 axeman warband with iron weapons, 1 militia spearman with iron weapons.
Strength 4 uprising = 2 ships of the line, 2 frigates, 2 galleons, 3 militia swordsmen with iron weaopns, 1 pikeman with iron weapons, 1 militia spearman with iron weapons.
Strength 5 uprising = 1 ironclad or black ark, 2 ships of the line, 2 galleons. 4 militia swordsman with iron weapons, 2 pikemen with iron weapons, 1 crossbowmen with iron weapons

Nationality of units in the uprising depends on the faction.

Spoiler :

Read these as:
Factionownership = Type of uprising unit.
Amazonia = Dark Elf
Beasts of Chaos: = Empire
Brettonnia: = Norsca
Empire = Sylvania (or Greenskin).
Lamia: = Araby.
Estalia: = Araby
Cathay: = Hobgoblin
Araby: = Estalia
Orks: = Empire
Khazukan (dwarf): = Skaven
Ind: = Hung
Nekehara: = Lustria
Kislev: = Kurgan
Lustria: = Nekehara
Nippon: = Dark Elf
Norsca: = Brettonnia
Sylvanian: = Empire
Asrai (wood elf)= ? Lamia?
Asur (high elf):=Dark Elf
Crooked Moon (goblin):=Empire
Dawi Zharr (chaos dwarf): = Dwarf
Druichii (dark elf) = High Elf
Hobgoblin Khans: = Cathay
Hung: = Cathay
Kurgan: = High Elf
Ogres: = Ind
UnderEmpire (skaven): = Dwarf.

Alternatively, just fix them as Greenskins, Empire, Dark Elves or High elves (reduces number of necessary combinations).

 

[Ajidica]

Why do the Hung raid Ind? The Hung are north of Cathay. They would have to go over the 'Himilayas' or go through Cathay. Also, the uprisings for the woodelves would make most sense as the Crooked Moon Tribe or Sylvan. I view the Empire and Brettonia as having fairly good relations with the Woodelves (Enforeced by the Elven Warriors)

 

[Ahriman]

Ogres would probably make more sense for Ind.

I'm pretty indifferent about the nationalities of raiders; at the end of the day they could even all just be orks (or Orks or Empire, depending on alignment), I just thought it would be nicer cosmetically to have opposed-faction raiders showing up in your land.

I'm more curious though about what people think of the mechanic in general.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

excelent idea i love it. though this list is quite wrong: changes/explanations in red

Read these as:
Factionownership = Type of uprising unit.
Amazonia = Lustria
Beasts of Chaos: = Empire (Should be Asrai, Asrai and Beastmen are sworn enemies and both live in the same areas, ie dense forests.)
Brettonnia: = Norsca
Empire = Sylvania (or Greenskin).
Lamia: = Araby. (Should be Khemri, Khemri and Lhamia are also arch enemies, and Araby is too far from Lhamia.)
Estalia: = Araby
Cathay: = Hobgoblin (and/or Beastmen, and/or Hung, and/or Darkelf. Cathay is the most isolated civ and historically has dealt with the worst chaos invasions (next to kislev))
Araby: = Estalia
Orks: = Empire
Khazukan (dwarf): = Skaven (and/or Goblin)
Ind: = Hung (Hung are too far from Ind. Make it ogres and/or Beastmen)
Nekehara: = Lustria (Why Lustria??? Lustria is litterally an Ocean away. change it to Lhamia)
Kislev: = Kurgan (and/or Norsca)
Lustria: = Nekehara ( again Lustria is litterally an Ocean away. change it to Amazonian and/or Tilea (Tilea is known to have been one of the first to invade Lustria))
Nippon: = Dark Elf
Norsca: = Brettonnia (nah not brettonia, Kislev is more likely)
Sylvanian: = Empire
Asrai (wood elf)= ? Lamia? (Beastmen)
Asur (high elf):=Dark Elf
Crooked Moon (goblin):= Empire (Dwarves are more fitting)
Dawi Zharr (chaos dwarf): = Dwarf (and/or Hobgoblins)
Druichii (dark elf) = High Elf
Hobgoblin Khans: = Cathay (And/Or Chaos Dwarf)
Hung: = Cathay
Kurgan: = High Elf (reasoning??? nah, Empire and Kislev here)
Ogres: = Ind
UnderEmpire (skaven): = Dwarf.

other than that its pretty good