Using art from the Dune CCG

[db0]

Hey everyone, new player here and I'm delightfully surprised from the quality of this mod.

I wanted to point out that there's an old (sadly defunct) collectible card game based on the Dune universe which has quite an amount of art that can be reused for this mod for purposes of finding perhaps distinct art for the civilopedia, icons and leaders.

Unfortunately I don't have the cards any more but there's a lot of people online who still have them. I noticed that this was mentioned in the past here but nothing seems to have come out of it. However a quick search led me to find some of the artwork of the first set here: http://www.chrisvos.com/meuk/lackey/dune/sets/setimages/eots/

Unfortunately most of the scans there are of relatively low quality (they seem to have been ripped out of the Gatling Engine) but hopefully the developers of this mod can find stuff to use. Possibly even new ideas for game mechanics (I wanna see duels! ).

Some of my favourites are:

Duke Leto

Dune Smuggler

Baron Harkonnen

And more

http://www.chrisvos.com/meuk/lackey/dune/sets/setimages/eots/EOTS090.jpg

http://www.chrisvos.com/meuk/lackey/dune/sets/setimages/eots/EOTS092.jpg

 

[Deliverator]

Hi db0. Thanks for the suggestion, we have discussed this a little bit before as you noted. There are one or two bits and pieces taken from the CCG around the mod, various icons for the Harkonnen Slave Pit, Landing Stage, etc. Obviously icons in Civ 4 are 64x64 pixels which is not very big, but it still helps to have these source images - downsizing is much more forgiving than upscaling and the sharpness and saturation can be tweaked, etc.

For the leaderheads, as you can we have gone mostly with photographic images taken from the movie and the miniseries. This is mostly because it is possible to get high quality images by doing DVD screen grabs. I think I would prefer to keep that. Provided you can get the source images making a modmod that replaces the leaderhead images with stuff from the CCG would be pretty easy.

Another possible use could be random events. At the moment Dune Wars doesn't have any random events (they would really be icing on the cake once the mod is close to a finalized state) which is something else to think about. We have the ability to show images with events already in the mod, but it is not really being used yet except for the tiny Mentat logo when you pick the Mentat specialty.

 

[Ahriman]

At the moment Dune Wars doesn't have any random events (they would really be icing on the cake once the mod is close to a finalized state) which is something else to think about.

I toyed with this a while ago. When I get some time, I'll do some more brainstorming for event ideas.

 

[db0]

I toyed with this a while ago. When I get some time, I'll do some more brainstorming for event ideas.

I'd love to help with that if you'd have me. What kind of effect should events be having? Can you give me some examples?

Also, I haven't checked the whole Dune Civilopedia entries, but if any are still using images from Civ4 that could be replaced, that could also be an option. I'll take a look when I get home and provide some suggestions.

 

[Supa]

I have a bunch of cards from Judge of the Change expansion, if the need arises.

 

[db0]

I have a bunch of cards from Judge of the Change expansion, if the need arises.

This is one of those things that you'll never know if the need arises unless you have the artwork in front of you to inspire

If you can scan and post them, that would be best. I'm going to look around the netz a bit more today in case I can find the artwork from the expansion but I doubt it.

 

[Ahriman]

I'd love to help with that if you'd have me. What kind of effect should events be having? Can you give me some examples?

Absolutely. I think this is the kind of area where we can include a lot of flavorful things that don't fit well into main-game mechanics.

The structure of an event needs to include:

i) Event name
ii) Requirement
The event can acquire a particular tech be discovered (to prevent it happening too early) or not be discovered (to prevent it happening too late) or a particular situation (eg: city has the Force Shield building
iii) Main event text description
iv) Choices for the player (not required), with outcomes.
Always make sure that at least one of these is a basic "default" option that the AI can safely pick, and that doesn't require any gold expenditure or similar.

I think the best events are those that allow some kind of strategic and roleplay choice.
Take a thematic occurrence, and then think about some flavorful ways in which different factions might respond.

For example:

Unhappy spice workers
Requires: spice industry tech
"A group of skilled spice workers in <cityname> are unhappy with their conditions, and are threatening to leave Arrakis."
a) "So be it, let them leave." No effect.
b) "Offer to double their salaries and improve their working conditions." -100 gold. create three spice resources with harvesters improvements built on them within your territory.
c) "Round up the ringleaders and kill them. The rest will fall into line." +3 unhappy in <cityname> for the next 20 turns. Create three spice resources with harvesters improvements built on them within your territory.

Not the most interesting event, and the effects could probably be made to work better (maybe make doing nothing destroy spice resource and harvesters, while the others just cost you gold or unhappy), but it serves as an example.

But we'd need a *lot* of these if we were going to implement an event system.

One of the things that works really well from the Warhammer mod is what we called "Advanced Uprisings". Basically, flavorful events that created a small army of barbarian units in your territory. These were perhaps more suited to Warhammer, where the units were more different (and so it was really flavorful to have an elvish prince, or a necromancer with an army of undead, or barbarian raiders why you could buy off, and so forth).
But this would be one way of making barbarian raiders more interesting.
Eg: an event that created three barbarian Fremen Raider units, that will go around messing up your stuff.

Some other themes that might work:
In the early game: discovering technological remnants that give you a single more advanced unit (possibly that starts with the Poorly Maintained promotion).
Getting a contingent of soldiers from an allied house from offworld.
Having an assassin offer their services (create a Sardaukar Operative unit).
Having CHOAM audit your spice operation.
A wandering preacher from the desert arrives (do you let him speak, have him killed, offer him a position in your service?)
Water raiders (create the -water building in city X for Y turns)
Finding a water cache, or spice cache.
A mass of sandworms showing up in a big spice patch (create 4 sandworm units).
A sandstorm that destroys some improvements (sink tiles immune).
A new source of groundwater discovered.
An offworld ally requests assistance: give money or lose culture/influence.
The Houses Minor.
etc.

Its theoretically possible to have chained events, but these get very buggy and often crash, so I think we're better to stick to events that are instantly resolved.

Also, I haven't checked the whole Dune Civilopedia entries, but if any are still using images from Civ4 that could be replaced, that could also be an option. I'll take a look when I get home and provide some suggestions.

I don't think there are any using vanilla Civ4 entries, but there are many that are blank.

Tech quotes, and flavor text descriptions for Civilopedia entries would be fantastic.

 

[Ahriman]

Events might also be a good place to incorporate some of your Duelling ideas, rather than making this a major gameplay mechanic.
For example, I could see:

Cassus Belli
"A dispute with <civilization X> threatens to cause war."
a) "We will settle this dispute with a duel, as the strictures of Kanly require." 50% chance no effect (you win the duel), 50% chance -50% culture in all your cities for 10 turns.
b) "Launch a war of assassin's, we will strike from the shadows." Lose 30% of current espionage points accumulated with <civ X>
c) "Only war will satisfy our honor." Declare war on civ X.


The other point to note for making events interesting is to have some options that can only be chosen by particular factions. Eg: Bene Gesserit might have an extra, superior option available in political intrigue events. Ix might do better in industrial/technological events. And so forth.

 

[db0]

Can you have more than 3 options? Or should one option change when the "special civ" is active?

I would prefer to see dueling as a proper mechanic, but lacking that, this is a good alternative. However an idea might be to have some kind of a dueling related tech tree that does not give any significant benefits (perhaps some small culture or hapiness) but provides powerful options in some events.

For example, in the Casus Beli event you described, if hypothetical tech of "Kanly rennaisance" has been researched, option (a) might become:

"We will settle this dispute with a duel, as the strictures of Kanly require. Send forth the House Blademaster!" 50% chance <civ X> loses a random great person and you gain +50% culture in all your cities for 10 turns (Your blademaster defeated the challenger), 50% chance -20% culture in all your cities for 10 turns (Your blademaster lost the duel and shamed your house).

Thus, with the proper tech, one option becomes far more powerful, which might give people an incentive to choose an otherwise weak tech.

 

[Ahriman]

Can you have more than 3 options?

Yes, but more than 3-4 becomes cluttered.

I would prefer to see dueling as a proper mechanic

I think the problem with a fullblown mechanic is that these really aren't that central to Dune.
There's really only the one duel that matters (Paul v Feyd). And some gladiatorial fights I guess, that Harkonnen do. They're not really the thing on which Houses rise and fall.

if hypothetical tech of "Kanly rennaisance" has been researched

There is a Vendettas tech in the mod, which allows the Kanly civic.

"We will settle this dispute with a duel, as the strictures of Kanly require. Send forth the House Blademaster!"

Sounds good.

loses a random great person

This kind of thing is hard. What if they don't have a great person? A great person unit, or a settled great person? And why would a duel lead to the death of a Techman, or a Priest?

which might give people an incentive to choose an otherwise weak tech

I don't think this works. We shouldn't be using events to try to shift balance; these should be for flavor, not balance.
Events are going to be rare; a particular event should only happen to you once every few games. So events should never be important enough that they shift which techs you research. And we should never have a tech that is weak except for its interaction with a particular event.

* * *
Another thought:
We also need to make the events inoffensive, because there is no way that players can turn events off if they don't like them without messing up existing mechanics (eg: the Landing Stages).

 

[db0]

Events are going to be rare; a particular event should only happen to you once every few games. So events should never be important enough that they shift which techs you research. And we should never have a tech that is weak except for its interaction with a particular event.

I was inspired by the event idea and made a possible suggestion in my other thread.. Think triggered events.

They're not really the thing on which Houses rise and fall.

I'm sure that if Paul had died there, that would have probably been the end of Atreides

I think duels haven't been given a lot of weight in the canon, but it does seem that they happen and that they can cause significant headaches to those not prepared for them.

This kind of thing is hard. What if they don't have a great person? A great person unit, or a settled great person? And why would a duel lead to the death of a Techman, or a Priest?

Well, if they have no great person, this doesn't happen of course (this is why I gave another detriment - a nobody is killed). You lose a great person because obviously they challenged someone famous (that he doesn't know which way to hold a sword is irrelevant )

 

[Deliverator]

What kind of effect should events be having? Can you give me some examples?

This thread was used to gather ideas for events for Fall From Heaven II - reading some of that should give a feel of type of thing that we are looking for.

This thread is a bit off topic perhaps we should move this to a new Event Ideas thread?

 

[db0]

This thread was used to gather ideas for events for Fall From Heaven II - reading some of that should give a feel of type of thing that we are looking for.

Perfect, I'll take a look. Once I have some initial ideas, I'll create a new Events Ideas thread.

This thread is a bit off topic perhaps we should move this to a new Event Ideas thread?

Well, unless we have something more to discuss on the uses of the CCG artwork I think it has run its course. I will post here in the future stuff I discover (civilopedia articles, icon etc) that could use the artwork of one of these cards (and which artwork to use of course) and you can then decide to implement it or not

 

[db0]

Finally found a full card list. We can use this to get ideas and flavor text

http://www.drack.info/sherlockazulu/card_library_all.htm