I have a concern about VoN, in my recent game vaeryl used her worldspell and the next turn 2 of my citys where attacked by her units. It aint funny to have a new village getting attacked by a lvl 7 hunter, and seems a little unbalanced. A player could easily exploit this. I dont know if this is scriptable but heres the idea: Attacking any foreign unit in own or neutral territory has no impact. Attacking in a foreign territory has x% chance of revealing the nationality and may worsen relationships/lead to closed borders or cause war instantly. If the unit attacks a city and is revealed war is declared emediately.
Veil of Night
- Thread starter Aradiel
- Start date
Goodgimp
Warlord
Well, you know it's her, right? So declare war and march on her cities.
If you don't have the military capability to do so, then she beat you fair and square
Not sure what the balance problem is with the spell.
If you don't have the military capability to do so, then she beat you fair and square
Not sure what the balance problem is with the spell.
Marksman77
Aethernaut
I wouldn't say it's imbalanced. If she declared on you instead, the result would be the same, you were not prepared.
OTOH I'm really reluctant to use Veil playing as Faeryl. You're bind to have closed borders to do it, otherwise your friends will be attacking your city defenders at will.
OTOH I'm really reluctant to use Veil playing as Faeryl. You're bind to have closed borders to do it, otherwise your friends will be attacking your city defenders at will.
Mesix
Obergruppenführer
You can declare nationality with any units that you do not want to be hidden. Your city defenders should be safe. My problem is that I always wait wanting to maximize the benefit from casting the spell. Eventually it is just a waste. It is fun to harrass the last few AI civs while going for a domination/conquest victory though. You can take out all of their city defenders before you daclare war!
bluedevil99
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2006
- Messages
- 139
It's actually a lot less powerful against human opponents than against the AI... human opponents know exactly who's doing it and will come after you, while the AI just sits there stupidly. I actually won conquest with the Svaltfar on raging barbs just by sending my HN units to kill off all the other civs' defenders, and letting the barbs take their cities... was kind of funny...
And that is an exploit and exactly the problem
The ai will never know what happend, therefor i hope for a mechanism that prevents massmurdering of ai units.
Well if using hidden nationality against the ai is an exploit becuase they do not understand it, then almost every new ffh mechanic must be an exploit......
Theres a difference between understanding and preventing, the problem is not the ai does not understand, it is that having any unit no matter what can attack freely and rampage without any consequences. If this is not changed id demand hidden nationality trait for the lanun, hippus and clan units also.
I always wondered why there are corsars but the boarding partys are not hidden nationality which would make perfect sense. The orcs could have a similar raiding unit. However each case needs an exeption, if a hidden nationality unit is killed theres X% chance they find evidence and the relations worsen etc. Something like that.
xienwolf
Deity
Well, the AI CAN work against it, in that they do attack the HN units if able to win against them. Hence you could have done as much damage if you went to war as well. Main benefit of doing it through HN if you do it in large numbers is that they do not mobilize troops large-scale, and you don't suffer diplomatic penalties with their allies.
I'd like to see if the scripts for the AI could trigger their defensive war protocol if there are more than some arbitrary number of HN units in their territory (maybe >1 per city that the AI owns). Then at least they would bulk up on defenders to handle the threat.
I'd like to see if the scripts for the AI could trigger their defensive war protocol if there are more than some arbitrary number of HN units in their territory (maybe >1 per city that the AI owns). Then at least they would bulk up on defenders to handle the threat.
Firstly hidden nationality is not a trait, it is either from mercenaries which anyone can get, the council of esus recon units, or the Svartalfar world spell, so if you think Lanun, Hippus or Clan of Embers should get inherent hidden nationality then without losing their world spells it would be overpowered for them, and besides if they had world spells with the same effect then the world spell effect wouldn't be unique anymore.
Secondly, understanding would allow the AI to prepare an army in case of hidden nationality attack, to keep a military presence near any neighbours that may have access to hidden nationality units (such as Svartalfar), or even using hidden nationality in their own tactics to either annoy, hinder, or even weaken before war is officially declared.
There are already minor consequences to it such as maintenance for the unit, of the units death, and for the Svartalfar world spell in particular there is the part about it turning all of your units into hidden nationality, so if you were to forget the city defenders any open borders nation could easily take out your defenders. If the AI were to understand hidden nationality then it would know better to target the hidden nationality units and to use them itself, so any AI that is either Svartalfar or a possible member of the Council of Esus could always be a threat even when at peace.
Hidden nationality should be an effective tactic like it currently is, and should not have any major penalties such as a percent chance of relations worsening. As it is hidden nationality units allow you to scout out an opponents territory and to attempt to weaken them before you actually attack (or before someone else attacks, such as barbs). If this has a chance to worsen relations, and with already bad relations it could trigger war, just to see if you would be able to fight a war against that civilisation, then hidden nationality could become underpowered. One of the major bonuses of the Council of Esus right now, is not having to have a diplomacy penalty based on religion, if hidden nationality units could cause you to lose relations, then this effect would be negated and the Council could cause your relations to be worse than if you had went with a different religion from them in the first place.
Also if death of hidden nationality units could cause relations to drop, then the Svartalfar world spell could be a great hindrance, as nearby enemies could attack your hidden nationality units, before you have a chance to move them or declare nationality, giving you a chance to lose relations with another civilisation. As far as I can see no other world spell has any chance to cause a negative effect to the civilisation, so even a small chance for a negative effect could make the Svartalfar spell weaker than most of the others.
Mesix
Obergruppenführer
The Amurite world spell should cause a negative "You destroyed all my mana nodes" diplomacy penalty. Every time the AI casts this spell, I prepare to mobilize on the those filthy mage scum!
Mewtarthio
Emperor
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2004
- Messages
- 1,930
Experienced filthy mage scum.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
@ Rusty217: Mercenaries no longer have hidden nationality, and no one can build them; only civs with the Guild of the Nine in their cities can get them (although there is a fairly common random event that can provide a mercenary, which can spread the guild...)
SwordofStriker
Prince
Actually, I just discovered that I could hire a mercenary from another civ's city that had Guild of the Nine, so if you have open borders....
I still don't think any world spell should have negative effects for the civilisation that uses it.
Mercenaries not hidden nationality?
Oh well, i don't use them so i wouldn't know.
sylvanllewelyn
Perma-newb
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2006
- Messages
- 2,032
Who cares about experienced filthy mage scum? Best they could do with all that extra experience is turn all those adapts into graft-fleshed meteor-shower casters, big deal.
Veil of Night takes a lot of units to work well, because you need to take out all their defenses and then declare war and hope they don't rebuild a defense. Best use is for a backstab really. When your ally's under attack, attack his cities and let the aggressor conquer your ally. Under anarchy, declare war on the victorous aggressor, with CR axeman. Might as well, because elves can't make siege weapons.
Veil of Night takes a lot of units to work well, because you need to take out all their defenses and then declare war and hope they don't rebuild a defense. Best use is for a backstab really. When your ally's under attack, attack his cities and let the aggressor conquer your ally. Under anarchy, declare war on the victorous aggressor, with CR axeman. Might as well, because elves can't make siege weapons.
