Ahriman
Tyrant
Actually, it seems like the 1-7-3 installer isn't actually installing at all? It isn't adding the new techs for example.
Version 1.7 feedback
- Thread starter davidlallen
- Start date
davidlallen
Deity
Clearly I should retire from this business of cutting releases, or at least pay more attention to what I am doing. The 1.7.3 installer installs into Mods\Dune Wars\Dune Wars, which is obviously incorrect. I have replaced the installer with a correct one. If you are among the first ten downloaders of 1.7.3, please return to the download database page, refresh the page to get the new link, download again, and install.
I just tried playing 2 games, one with 1.73 installed over 1.7 and one with it installed over 1.726. In the first instance, the Fremen started with Exploration, one scout, and one soldier. In the second, they started with Mysticism and the scout./soldier.
That explains why my two versions played differently. I see now the extra folder in my 1.726 folder.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Ah, yeah I should have noticed that. Thanks David, working fine now.
Though Fremen are now starting with 2 scouts; I thought there was a way to get them to start with 1 scout, 1 soldier.
Though Fremen are now starting with 2 scouts; I thought there was a way to get them to start with 1 scout, 1 soldier.
Jester Fool
Emperor
I have been 'stalking' this forum for the past six months as a guest. I registered BECAUSE of your mod - my first post tried to give Deliverator an idea for why thopters and suspensers could not attack cities. Dune Wars IS the best mod for Civ IV IMO, while BUGs, BULLS, BATS, oh my, runs neck and neck.
I am currently playing Leto II on Emperor level, leading score wise, but behind technologically, and Ix and the Harkonnens are both my main threats. I will crush them of course!
I would like to thank the entire Dune Wars team for their hard work. YOU GUYS ROCK! BTW, I have read (and purchased) the entire Dune series (prequels, Frank's work and the series 2 part finale) and enjoy your adaptation of Frank Herbert's universe to Civ immensly. Can't wait to try 1-7-3, after I win on my current game of course!
P.S. My high scores so far are 98K+ as the Harkonnnens on Emperor and 105K+ as the Fremen on Prince.
P.S.S. NO, Emperor level IS A
! I just have a natural talent for exploiting 'the rules'! I win the same with a good start on vanilla Civ.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Hi Jester,
That's high praise! Thanks very much for the kind words.
Any feedback on things we could do to make the mod even better will be much appreciated.
That's high praise! Thanks very much for the kind words.
Any feedback on things we could do to make the mod even better will be much appreciated.
Ahriman
Tyrant
AHR 200 Fish speaker appears in (Fremen at least) offworld importation. Religious UUs should not appear here. (Nor should any non-combat units.)
Tech eras may also need to be re-examined following the tech tree changes, to prevent getting late-era offworld units too early.
AHR 201 Sardaukar Noukker would be more interesting if it were Corrino only (UU not URU).
I could see an Imperial Levy unit at some point that required Sardaukar cooperation resource, to make the resource more valuable. Maybe a heavy trooper UU with no extra combat abilities that requires no gold upkeep.
AHR 202 Suggest: remove thumper as a selectable promotion, add it as an intrinsic promotion to specialist Fremen units (crysknife fighter, naib's chosen, fedaykin). Don't add it to other Fremen units.
AHR 203 Remove desert combat promotion availability from melee class units (and guardsmen if they can get it), AI wastes it by getting it for non-sandrider units.
AHR 204 Some Wonders are too expensive. Eg: spice orgy. Political center is not worth its cost.
Wonders should partly be a reward for being first to a tech, it shouldnt' be questionable as to whether they're worth the hammer investment at all.
AHR 205 Polar cities are pretty weak. One possibility; increase the yield of the ice driller over time. Eg: +1 commerce at water economy, +1 commerce at refining techniques.
Another: have the ice driller provide fresh water.
Another: reduce the mapscript spawn chance of polar rock outcroppings. The density here is much higher than elsewhere on the map, and these tiles are useless. And/or possibly add a +1 hammer yield to rock outcroppings.
AHR 206 Fremen worker should not change into a worm icon when in desert tiles (should look like normal workers).
AHR 207 Razzia Raider intended to be inferior to roller, used for raids, should be lower strength. Say strength 8, 35% withdraw chance.
AHR 208 Fremen are so dominating in the early game, we do need to add a few limitations to them in the late game. Removing hornets would be a good first step I think, or at least all but the first interceptor, and removing spaceports.
AHR209 If we are keeping the Ginaz Swordmaster unit in addition to the promotions, it should have a very small national cap (~5).
Also: Stilgar (aggressive trait) with Ginaz training resource and Kanly civic totally kicks ass.... not that this is a bad thing.
I think we're getting Fremen feel really good to play, where they are great melee fighters and good at raiding from the desert, but vulnerable to thopters and aircraft. And diplomatically isolated thanks to Arrakis Paradise civic.
This is as it should be.
Tech eras may also need to be re-examined following the tech tree changes, to prevent getting late-era offworld units too early.
AHR 201 Sardaukar Noukker would be more interesting if it were Corrino only (UU not URU).
I could see an Imperial Levy unit at some point that required Sardaukar cooperation resource, to make the resource more valuable. Maybe a heavy trooper UU with no extra combat abilities that requires no gold upkeep.
AHR 202 Suggest: remove thumper as a selectable promotion, add it as an intrinsic promotion to specialist Fremen units (crysknife fighter, naib's chosen, fedaykin). Don't add it to other Fremen units.
AHR 203 Remove desert combat promotion availability from melee class units (and guardsmen if they can get it), AI wastes it by getting it for non-sandrider units.
AHR 204 Some Wonders are too expensive. Eg: spice orgy. Political center is not worth its cost.
Wonders should partly be a reward for being first to a tech, it shouldnt' be questionable as to whether they're worth the hammer investment at all.
AHR 205 Polar cities are pretty weak. One possibility; increase the yield of the ice driller over time. Eg: +1 commerce at water economy, +1 commerce at refining techniques.
Another: have the ice driller provide fresh water.
Another: reduce the mapscript spawn chance of polar rock outcroppings. The density here is much higher than elsewhere on the map, and these tiles are useless. And/or possibly add a +1 hammer yield to rock outcroppings.
AHR 206 Fremen worker should not change into a worm icon when in desert tiles (should look like normal workers).
AHR 207 Razzia Raider intended to be inferior to roller, used for raids, should be lower strength. Say strength 8, 35% withdraw chance.
AHR 208 Fremen are so dominating in the early game, we do need to add a few limitations to them in the late game. Removing hornets would be a good first step I think, or at least all but the first interceptor, and removing spaceports.
AHR209 If we are keeping the Ginaz Swordmaster unit in addition to the promotions, it should have a very small national cap (~5).
Also: Stilgar (aggressive trait) with Ginaz training resource and Kanly civic totally kicks ass.... not that this is a bad thing.
I think we're getting Fremen feel really good to play, where they are great melee fighters and good at raiding from the desert, but vulnerable to thopters and aircraft. And diplomatically isolated thanks to Arrakis Paradise civic.
This is as it should be.
davidlallen
Deity
I haven't kept that issue spreadsheet up to date in the last couple of months. It took a fair amount of time, and I don't think I will be updating it anymore. If you find it helpful to use the numbers, you could use a different abbreviation, or start at 200.
Jester Fool
Emperor
However, don't forget that in Dune, the Harkonnens DID get Corrino troop assistance in attacking House Atreides. IMO, it might make sense for the support cost to be greater for these units if built by any of the other Houses though.
Excellent idea. Razzia Raider should also be included.
Fremen melee units which have sandrider promotions should still be able to get it. Make sandrider a perequisite for melee units to upgrade to desert combat.
Spice Orgy, not really, but Political Center is definitely too expensive.
I like ice driller providing fresh water. That makes perfect sense to me.
The Fremen AI might be severely weakened by doing so. Every game I play, rollers are built in mass quantities by all the other AIs. Just something to keep in mind.
Not advisable. Later in the game they become much weaker when compared to Corrino, Ix and the Harkonnens. The only time I have ever seen them doing well later in the game is when I played them. Normally, Ix or the Harkonnens conquer them without much of a fuss.
House Corrino gets 10 Sardaukar Legionary (14 STR) units. Ginaz Swordmaster (12 STR) units seem to me as meant to counter the Corrino unit. I think an equivalent cap of 10 would be appropriate.
I am in agreement on that.
Ahriman
Tyrant
joker, thanks very much for the design feedback, its very helpful to be able to bounce ideas off people.
Yes, this is why we have the Sardaukar cooperation resource, so that other troops can get some Sardaukar. However, they're also the flavorful aspect of the Corrinos. So what I'm suggesting is that the Sardaukar cooperation resource allow Sardaukar Legionaries to be produced as normal, but that the Sardaukar Noukkers get saved for just Corrino.
So Fremen getting the desert promtions can make it too hard for anyone else to fight them in the desert, even with the proscribed counters (thopters).
Fremen are already easily able to defend against invaders, by sending their melee units out into the desert to engage incoming suspensor/transport stacks before they unload.
Not that big a deal though I guess. I can still see it be ok either way.
The Razzia raider was designed to be a sop for Fremen because they can't built the vehicle units, but currently it is superior to the Roller.
I like the idea of it as a skirmisher unit you throw at the enemy to soften it and hope you can withdraw, or as a raider.
Another balancing mechanism would be to give the Razzia raider a city attack penalty, but that mimics the vehicles a bit much.
Or another would be to make it even lower strength, but give it 3 moves, so that it can move-pillage-move.
Or another would be to keep it at 2 move and low strength, but give it Fall-Further style "pillage" promotion, so that it automatically pillage any tile it moves into (when you're at war with them).
The point is, these shouldn't be mainline combat units that can compete with heavy troopers or rollers. They should be niche.
They're a bit weak late-game because of Arrakis Paradise issues, but if we reduce the water cost of the catchbasin that will be a big boost.
The ideal "end-goal" we'd like is to remove almost everything technological from them, including suspenors, thopters, hornets, siege units (past mortars) and vehicles, but that will require a lot of AI work that we don't have yet.
In my current game I had a war vs Ix, and the vehicle capture made it kindof a joke.
Fremen really have no weakness atm, but have a bunch of huge intrinsic benefits; sandrider on their melee, plus superior melee units, plus vehicle capture, plus extra water in the early game, plus settlers that can cross desert quickly and without a transport.
That's way more than anyone else gets.
I agree they're not nearly as powerful in the hands of the AI, and we need to work on that.
The main benefit of Ginaz Training resource is that it enables superior promotions for your melee units. Having a unit provided by it is just a small benefit.
It *shouldn't* be easy to counter Sardaukar; they should be bad-ass.
Yes, this is why we have the Sardaukar cooperation resource, so that other troops can get some Sardaukar. However, they're also the flavorful aspect of the Corrinos. So what I'm suggesting is that the Sardaukar cooperation resource allow Sardaukar Legionaries to be produced as normal, but that the Sardaukar Noukkers get saved for just Corrino.
This was my original design, but I've since changed my mind. The problem comes from the fact that the Fremen melee units have high strength, to be able to compete with other land units. Whereas suspensors and thopters (the only desert units that other factions get) are considerably lower strength.
So Fremen getting the desert promtions can make it too hard for anyone else to fight them in the desert, even with the proscribed counters (thopters).
Fremen are already easily able to defend against invaders, by sending their melee units out into the desert to engage incoming suspensor/transport stacks before they unload.
Not that big a deal though I guess. I can still see it be ok either way.
Yes, Rollers are built a lot because they're the first tier 2 unit; the only thing between strength 7 hardened bladesmen and strength 10 heavy troopers and strength 12 shield troopers.
The Razzia raider was designed to be a sop for Fremen because they can't built the vehicle units, but currently it is superior to the Roller.
I like the idea of it as a skirmisher unit you throw at the enemy to soften it and hope you can withdraw, or as a raider.
Another balancing mechanism would be to give the Razzia raider a city attack penalty, but that mimics the vehicles a bit much.
Or another would be to make it even lower strength, but give it 3 moves, so that it can move-pillage-move.
Or another would be to keep it at 2 move and low strength, but give it Fall-Further style "pillage" promotion, so that it automatically pillage any tile it moves into (when you're at war with them).
The point is, these shouldn't be mainline combat units that can compete with heavy troopers or rollers. They should be niche.
They should be weaker late game, but really atm they aren't. Relative to Corrino, the only thing they lack are vehicles (which aren't really needed - and they can capture them), and Fedaykin and Naib's Chosen are just as good as the Sardaukar troops.
They're a bit weak late-game because of Arrakis Paradise issues, but if we reduce the water cost of the catchbasin that will be a big boost.
The ideal "end-goal" we'd like is to remove almost everything technological from them, including suspenors, thopters, hornets, siege units (past mortars) and vehicles, but that will require a lot of AI work that we don't have yet.
In my current game I had a war vs Ix, and the vehicle capture made it kindof a joke.
Fremen really have no weakness atm, but have a bunch of huge intrinsic benefits; sandrider on their melee, plus superior melee units, plus vehicle capture, plus extra water in the early game, plus settlers that can cross desert quickly and without a transport.
That's way more than anyone else gets.
I agree they're not nearly as powerful in the hands of the AI, and we need to work on that.
Yes, but Sardaukar are a faction speciality.
The main benefit of Ginaz Training resource is that it enables superior promotions for your melee units. Having a unit provided by it is just a small benefit.
It *shouldn't* be easy to counter Sardaukar; they should be bad-ass.
Ahriman
Tyrant
AHR210
Vehicle capture should either have lower probability or should exclude some more types; eg no suspensors and mechs.
For suspensors; Fremen don't like them (they bring worms) and the Fremen don't need them, and currently its too easy to build up a big free army of them.
For Mechs; its too much of a hard-counter vs Ix. One faction shouldn't intrinsically be a hard-counter to another.
AHR211
Sandrider should not give double moves in polar desert waste, and the icon should stay normal, not change to the worm-rider icon.
No worms in the pole, too much water.
AHR212
Palmery building should require Shai-Hulad religion. Currently it has no religious requirement.
AHR213
When we tweaked unit stats at the high end, I forgot to change the Medium scorpion. This unit should drop strength from 22 down to 19. Even that might be too high.
AHR214
Harkonnen Devastator is supposed to be only 1 move.
Vehicle capture should either have lower probability or should exclude some more types; eg no suspensors and mechs.
For suspensors; Fremen don't like them (they bring worms) and the Fremen don't need them, and currently its too easy to build up a big free army of them.
For Mechs; its too much of a hard-counter vs Ix. One faction shouldn't intrinsically be a hard-counter to another.
AHR211
Sandrider should not give double moves in polar desert waste, and the icon should stay normal, not change to the worm-rider icon.
No worms in the pole, too much water.
AHR212
Palmery building should require Shai-Hulad religion. Currently it has no religious requirement.
AHR213
When we tweaked unit stats at the high end, I forgot to change the Medium scorpion. This unit should drop strength from 22 down to 19. Even that might be too high.
AHR214
Harkonnen Devastator is supposed to be only 1 move.
Deliverator
Graphical Hackificator
Good feedback guys.
I'd quite like to have a new Melting Lens improvement to do this. I've wanted Melting Lenses at the pole for a while.
How about we split the Desert promos into two. You could have a weaker one that follows on from Sandrider for Fremen units, call it Sandwarrior or something like that. Then make the existing one only available to suspensors and thopters.
There's a modcomp around that allows this pillage on move promotion. With my new found SDK compiling ability, I can see if I can merge this in.
I'd quite like to have a new Melting Lens improvement to do this. I've wanted Melting Lenses at the pole for a while.
How about we split the Desert promos into two. You could have a weaker one that follows on from Sandrider for Fremen units, call it Sandwarrior or something like that. Then make the existing one only available to suspensors and thopters.
There's a modcomp around that allows this pillage on move promotion. With my new found SDK compiling ability, I can see if I can merge this in.
Ahriman
Tyrant
I was thinking about this, and it gave me a great idea.
Have a "Melting lens" improvement at some tech (refining techniques?) that acts as an ice driller, but with superior tile yield (so the AI builds it on top of a driller) that still gives the ice resource but also provides fresh water.
Then, add polar terrain into the list of terrain types that can be terraformed. So that polar terrain goes straight to grassland. That way we'll see some transformation of the poles too.
Change the polar area in the mapscript so that it is at Sink height, not Flat type - in the book it is a polar Sink.
Finally, change terraforming so that forests can spawn (+1 hammer) on Grassland tiles at Sink height, so that polar terrain and Graben terrain stays superior even after terraforming (protection from the wind is still valuable).
I guess we could do that. But one promotion that is +20% desert strength for thopters and suspensors and another one that is +15% desert strength for melee (and requiring sandrider) feels a bit weird.
I can update the building and unit files with some of the easier changes above if people concur.
Jester Fool
Emperor
Yes, that makes perfect sense.
You posted 8 STR, 35% chance to withdraw earlier. Coupled with 3 moves to allow move-pillage-move would be an improvement. I think that is a good idea.
In the book, the Fremen did use 'thopters captured from the Harkonnens if I am remembering correctly. Maybe you could disallow the Fremen to build 'thopters, but give them a small chance to capture 'thopters just like vehicles.
IMO, the % chance to capture needs to be lowered. I had noticed that problem before.
Ahriman
Tyrant
I think it probably needs to be strength 8 and have one and only one of:
a) 3 moves
b) 35% withdraw chance
c) auto-pillage.
Two of them would probably make it too strong.
I'd lean towards c), since I think the AI would make the best use of this (AI doesn't know how to move-pillage-move).
HOWEVER, we need to fix the problem where spice tiles still take a full movement point for sandriders, otherwise the pathing will always divert them around the harvesters that we want them to be pillaging.
They have this already AFAIK. This was the what the vehicle capture mechanic was designed to mimic.
I think we should probably go with thopter and vehicle capture, but not suspensors or mechs, and probably ~20% capture chance.
Jester Fool
Emperor
I see your point. Since they are raider type units, auto-pillage does make the most sense.
Seems reasonable. The Fremen don't really need suspensors, and it doesn't make sense for them to use mechs anyway IMO.
Ahriman
Tyrant
AHR215
Perhaps crystals should be revealed at mining. Mining is a pretty weak tech now given that mines are made obsolete by turbines, so there isn't much incentive to pursue it early game.
AHR216
Tleilaxu plague should be limited to guardsmen/melee units. Hard to spread the plague to a vehicle or supensor tank.
Perhaps crystals should be revealed at mining. Mining is a pretty weak tech now given that mines are made obsolete by turbines, so there isn't much incentive to pursue it early game.
AHR216
Tleilaxu plague should be limited to guardsmen/melee units. Hard to spread the plague to a vehicle or supensor tank.
Deliverator
Graphical Hackificator
Razzia Raider should probably upgrade to Naib's Chosen rather than Fedaykin.
Deliverator
Graphical Hackificator
I concur.
The more simple XML changes you do, the more I can focus on art and code related stuff.
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