Version 1.8 Feedback

[AmericanSpirit]

First things first- Deliverator, Ahriman, David- Over the past couple of months i have seen your teamwork and knowledge do awesome things on this and many of the mods out there to play. Hard to balance it all, i suppose. Thanks a great deal! I am not a code guy per se, but i do feel i could benefit you all play test/AI behavior wise to work out any issues. Here is some of the things i have noticed:

Yeah, I'm still not sure about barbarian crysknife fighters. We removed them before for a reason; they were random death to anyone trying to expand; could easily race across the desert and destroy a scout thopter with a settler in it. Not fun.

I have played a few games with the current patch, and i can say this is a major change to the game Emperor and higher levels. I could beeline to Bladesmen and still be about 10-15 turns behind when i start to see those 4str barbs, double moving over everywhere, playing checkers with my soldiers. You are correct, not fun. The play style is really heavy on quick expansion, that really hampers that element.

Came across this and was wondering if its "working as intended": While at war, mid to late game(i might not have No-ships, some of the AI does) against any particular leader,(2 games stand out, once when i was the Fremen and the professor leader, the other Ecaz - Vidal) where i would have a stack of defenders in any town, no visible enemies with attacking range, and my entire town's troops move out of town, to the next tile over. My spy stays, workers would stay, all air units disappear and are lost for good. IF there happens to be a attacker close enough, my town would be taken. It acts like its a feature that AI spys have, i have played with other teams to see this effect except of Bene grissit and have not had the option to do this to the AI's town. I was able to duplicate this effect on a save game, in an attempt to "avoid" an epic battle with my neighbors at the time. After winning against them,i saved over it, so i am sorry i could not give you my save to see this happen in a timely fashion. Happened enough to me(4-5 times a game) so anyone who played a round through could have this happen at least once. When i see this again, i will post my save accordingly. More annoying than Double moving Crys fighters on turn 30, ten fold =)

Check Bene Teliaxs' plan out in terms of troop building. Two games in a row i played, these turkeys would not attack any civ, even if they would have a clear edge to do so (one of 2 civs with crystal for example) They will spam Tropters, and suspensor units- up to 4 each tile in the area, EVERY tile they own. They would only have 2-3 guardsmen tops in each town, but when all you see is purple flying machines everywhere, you could clear that town no problem when you choose to attack them, but of course the sea of purple on the next turn would take that town back with 30 or 40 eagle tropters. No seige just bulk crystal-based advanced units.

If any human player was in that condition, they would have attacked with as less as 20 of them, and cleared every town on any map with little challenge. Seemed like Teliax thinks its a defensive civ, even though with the plague they are better suited for offensive "streaks"

Add something, ANYTHING that would pick up on No-ships. Locust jets after doing a recon mission or something. Garrisoned spies i dont know. AI uses them very well and with 3, 4 in a stack, pose a great risk to lose any town you do not leave 5 or more units in. I was starting to feel that No ships were the reason my units are leaving my towns undefended, when the whole stack gets moved without any particular reason, as mentioned above. Spys or No-ships, unless it is a glitch. The civ that was my enemy that game in particular, was Ecaz(the silver haired leader). I was Fremen(professor)

From 1.7 -> 1.8 these things i have seen with the patch change, i do not see mentioned, other than the early barb Crys fighters.

Thanks for changing spice to a whole civ bonus, having a building sucked. Trying to claim land by building settlers as quick as you can, then get enough workers just to do the key plots upgraded at the same time attempting to defend your towns with just enough guardsmen to survive, you really get left behind if you do not beeline to spice production-key to the storyline. Only thing i see as a negative to this, is that i could ignore most land plot upgrades early on, get workers building on spice and be better off in the long run. 2, 2 pop. towns no wind traps, no mines, 5 or 6 spice plots worked and make enough gold to maintain your civ better than 5 towns with 4 or 5 pop. all the rock tiles worked without any spice tile worked. Maintenance costs aside, those who do not get spice up by lets say turn 50, is very very far behind. Unlike any other civ4 game structure, this is one that the AI is always in a better position to exploit, it feels like, emperor or higher. That said, you live or die on the spice decay, regardless of building on every spice tile available. It would be like a town upgrading in reverse as the game progresses.

When i switch to paradise( i do this most games) I will always be better off- Decay is the same as if i did not, maybe a bit faster after the switch. Making a choice to have X number of spice tiles available to work and 10-12 size max towns vs. Having a small number of spice tiles worked i still get the bonus off of that did not decay yet and size 15+ towns with my water always going up, making towns bigger, regardless of how much health or happiness exists... Unless the decay starts later in general, it feels like more of a benefit for any civ to switch asap and deal with the hate from other civs, than rely on just spice and suffer accordingly. Has been consistent regardless of what patch i have run(1.5 and up i believe) I remember in the movie when Paul and his mom were left in the desert, ran to the rock and encountered a worm, he could smell the spice, the closer the worm came. Could i suggest a possibility- have rock tiles that border spice get +1 commerce, kind of like a spice tile had ranged bombardment, that shot coins within the range of an artilary unit. =) Something like this would allow a positive benefit to stay on spice, but even with this, along with the possibility of it changing every so often, still makes me think why i would not want more water anyways.

I see chats about Mahdi and AI choosing it- Every game i have played, 1.8 and later, someone gets it(Leto or Paul were the ones), spreads well(not as good as Imperial, but i would say 2nd, if i had shai-lalud), shai would spread 2nd best if i was not who founded it.

 

[Ahriman]

Hi spirit, thanks very much for the well-thought out feedback. Much appreciated.

I have played a few games with the current patch, and i can say this is a major change to the game Emperor and higher levels. I could beeline to Bladesmen and still be about 10-15 turns behind when i start to see those 4str barbs, double moving over everywhere, playing checkers with my soldiers. You are correct, not fun.

Somethnig we considered before; make a barbarian-only raider unit which is *similar* to a crysknife fighter, but weaker.
So create a "Water-stealer" unit that is maybe strength 3, melee, 2 moves, sandrider.
Or Strength 4, melee, 1 move, sandrider. Or something similar.

Or even better with the new stuff; we could give them stillsuits, but not sandrider. So we have a barbarian raider unit that can only move slowly in the desert, so its avoidable; you can run from it.

I agree that there needs to be some kind of barbarian unit that can cross desert to make barbarians even a tiny bit interesting.

Came across this and was wondering if its "working as intended":

Its the Bene Gesserit spy ability that annexes a city.
Awesome that the AI is using it...
But I think there is a known bug with it. It should immediately give the AI the city even if they didn't have any military units conquered in it.
Its something to be aware of; you can't ignore espionage in this game. The ability is incredibly expensive (they have to build up thousands of EP) so having some EPs invested against the BG will help protect you from this by increasing their costs out of reach.

However there is another issue; the Sisterhood Covenant isn't giving the intended units. I *think* that atm it allows the Reverend Mother to be built by others, whereas intended function is for the RM to remain BG only.

Speaking of BG UUs, we also really need to tone down the training ability.... its stupidly powerful.
I think the best solution is to have it not give xp or normal promotions at all, and instead to have it a series of weak training abilities. Training 1, Training 2, Training 3 could give 1 first strike chance, 5% combat strength, and +10% city attack, respectively. [Rename them though.]

Check Bene Teliaxs' plan out in terms of troop building

I can't think of any particular parameter that would have them act any differently from others.
I have had them invade me as a player many times (which is a huge PITA because of their plague - which also needs some tweaking).

Seemed like Teliax thinks its a defensive civ

The Tleilaxu aren't super-aggressive, but they're not super-defensive either. They are fairly isolationist builders though, rather than conquerors.

Add something, ANYTHING that would pick up on No-ships.

I don't think anything should be able to pick up no-ships.
However, there should be a very small national limit on them (3?).
I haven't playtested these puppies, but they really *should* be insanely annoying. Which is why they're incredibly late-game. There has to be something to spice up the late-game a little and make it a bit different.

pose a great risk to lose any town you do not leave 5 or more units in

From memory they are pretty low strength, or should be. So 2 lasgun or lascannon city defenders in a city with force shields should be plenty to see off 3-4 no-ships.

I'll take a look at their stats when I get home.
But I don't have a ton of late-game experience, I nearly always become the most powerful player and stop playing before then.

But the problem is; invisible is invisible. Anything that was able to pick up no-ships would *also* be able to pick up spies. So for example you'd be able to hunt down and kill spies when you were at war.

Only thing i see as a negative to this, is that i could ignore most land plot upgrades early on, get workers building on spice and be better off in the long run. 2, 2 pop. towns no wind traps, no mines, 5 or 6 spice plots worked and make enough gold to maintain your civ better than 5 towns with 4 or 5 pop

I'm not sure I agree with this. If you don't build windtraps, your population will be tiny, and you won't be able to build any kind of military.
Commerce from spice is important, but its not the only thing.

When i switch to paradise( i do this most games) I will always be better off- Decay is the same as if i did not, maybe a bit faster after the switch.

I disagree with this, strongly.
a) Spice decay is LOWER with Arrakis spice civic than with neutral or Paradise. Significantly.
b) Paradise can lead to big diplomatic penalties and dogpile wars
c) Arrakis spice allows the very powerful spice silo building. 20 spice, 10 cities = +30 gold, which then gets boosted by banks and refineries.

If anything, at high difficulty levels I think Arrakis spice is more powerful than Paradise.

regardless of how much health or happiness exists...

I am planning to redesign health. Not so many buildings will provide health, so it will be harder to have enough health to support really large cities without significant infrastructure investment.

Unless the decay starts later in general

Decay is a % chance per turn. There's no "starting early" or "starting late". So I'm not quite sure what you mean here.
Its faster if you have a harvester on, and its slower if you're Arrakis Paradise civic.

Could i suggest a possibility- have rock tiles that border spice get +1 commerce, kind of like a spice tile had ranged bombardment, that shot coins within the range of an artilary unit. =)

I'm not sure that this would be easy to implement, and I don't think I'd see the benefit from it.

Again, thanks very much for intensive feedback.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

Or even better with the new stuff; we could give them stillsuits, but not sandrider. So we have a barbarian raider unit that can only move slowly in the desert, so its avoidable; you can run from it.

I agree that there needs to be some kind of barbarian unit that can cross desert to make barbarians even a tiny bit interesting.

Having a 1 cost on desert movement would be a happy medium.

Its the Bene Gesserit spy ability that annexes a city.
Awesome that the AI is using it...
But I think there is a known bug with it. It should immediately give the AI the city even if they didn't have any military units conquered in it.
Its something to be aware of; you can't ignore espionage in this game. The ability is incredibly expensive (they have to build up thousands of EP) so having some EPs invested against the BG will help protect you from this by increasing their costs out of reach.

At around turn 350ish should they have 5000 EP to do this 4,5 times like what happens to me, and in addition i was never at war with the Gesserit, and had a green happy face throughout that game, it seemed other AI civs had the option to do this, as i was at war with the same civ as Gesserit a few times. Avoiding or ignoring it is not the issue so much-if it happened 2x's a game to me, that is tolerable, 4-5 cities lost "out of thin air" before turn ~450 is out of balance, in my opinion. Espcially if you are telling me if they are linked to EP. Purhaps the AI's, EP gain is too high?

However there is another issue; the Sisterhood Covenant isn't giving the intended units. I *think* that atm it allows the Reverend Mother to be built by others, whereas intended function is for the RM to remain BG only.

I can trade BG for the Covenant at times, then i could use the Mother spy units as well, and every time a rev mother was caught in my lands, the warning would say they are from Bene Gesserit, never seen any other AI civ use them, of course i would have had to catch them in my land to ever know. So if the intent was for only BG to use them, taking away the ability to trade them would fix it i would think.

I think the best solution is to have it not give xp or normal promotions at all, and instead to have it a series of weak training abilities. Training 1, Training 2, Training 3 could give 1 first strike chance, 5% combat strength, and +10% city attack, respectively. [Rename them though.]

I found BG to be redundant to play because of this alone. I like that idea giving those given upgrades should be weaker and unique. Good idea!

I can't think of any particular parameter that would have them act any differently from others.
I have had them invade me as a player many times (which is a huge PITA because of their plague - which also needs some tweaking).

Pre 1.8, they acted like you would expect the AI to act. Post 1.8 they became stagnant to me- building that many tropters and not doing anything with them.

I don't think anything should be able to pick up no-ships.
However, there should be a very small national limit on them (3?).
I haven't playtested these puppies, but they really *should* be insanely annoying. Which is why they're incredibly late-game.

From memory they are pretty low strength, or should be. So 2 lasgun or lascannon city defenders in a city with force shields should be plenty to see off 3-4 no-ships.

No-ships = 12 STR, 3 movement. A limit would be ideal. AI would have those as i am just hitting lasguns.

I'm not sure I agree with this. If you don't build windtraps, your population will be tiny, and you won't be able to build any kind of military.
Commerce from spice is important, but its not the only thing.

Run a game and beeline to spice, do not build anything but spice with your workers, see where you are at turn 100. Run another game without building on any spice, just on rock etc, and see where you are at turn 100. That was what i was getting at in terms of the 'weight' spice has early, and throughout a game. I am then relying on a great spawn point with little to no AI around me to succeed at this point.

I disagree with this, strongly.
a) Spice decay is LOWER with Arrakis spice civic than with neutral or Paradise. Significantly.
b) Paradise can lead to big diplomatic penalties and dogpile wars
c) Arrakis spice allows the very powerful spice silo building. 20 spice, 10 cities = +30 gold, which then gets boosted by banks and refineries.

If anything, at high difficulty levels I think Arrakis spice is more powerful than Paradise.

a) you start at neutral and cant switch for quite some time. So decay occurs faster, and right away is what you are telling me? Thinking in terms of the planet itself, if we all just landed and nothing was touched, where did it go is what it tells me. Zero decay on unbuilt tiles and whatever % the spread of it is at should stay stagnant til like turn 75 or something, on spice neutral is ideal, but i do see where you are coming from. I play games no weaker than Emperor-having bigger cities, producing units faster is what gets me wins, I would have to have the civic like Universal Sufferage full time to equal that same level of production, i was always under the impression to not to have to be "stuck" on one or two civics, mid game onward. Swapping back and forth from free speech when peaceful, and nationhood when at war, provides a realistic change of my countries policies when those events occur.

b, c) It sure does! Switching to paradise, i can get the bonus to having harvesters, until they disappear, along with the benefit of water coming out my ears. Staying at neutral or going to spice grants smaller towns(less great people) but more commerce- i could, in theory, place all of my towns 3 tiles apart, all but ignore the growth of my towns, build all spice and the bonus buildings thrive or be hosed when and if the spice disappears is what solely i would be depending on. Losing 60+ gold on just one spice disappearing, then not having any new spice pop in my territory for even 5 turns, puts a major strain on those who run that civic. I really have not switched enough to Arrakis spice to see how well the 'regrowth' is, it just seems limiting enough at the point i gain the ability to change, to not even force the issue to hope i get more spice to build on, when i can almost double the size of my towns by taking the paradise route. If i was the one who had found, or was on a religion that the majority of the AI likes to run, It all but negates the fear of constant war with every Ai civ. Would making Arrakis spice sooner in the tech tree "fix" what my worry is?

Decay is a % chance per turn. There's no "starting early" or "starting late". So I'm not quite sure what you mean here.
Its faster if you have a harvester on, and its slower if you're Arrakis Paradise civic.

I addressed that above, in more detail i believe.

Thanks for the quick response! I hope the things i brought up, gives the devil's advocate, other side of the coin approach to finding and fixing potential hang ups to a great(and fast moving!!) mod that some of the other ones fall behind on.

 

[Ahriman]

Espcially if you are telling me if they are linked to EP. Purhaps the AI's, EP gain is too high?

Maybe, or perhaps your EP gain is too low (how many EP buildings did you have up), or you have not been focusing EP investment vs the BG player?

There are lots of ways you can gain major EPs; lots of expensive buildings that boost EPs, and War of Assassins's civic that requires you to give up +100% culture or +4 free XP for new units.
And you can divert commerce into EPs.

It is not at all impossible for a player to have an income of hundreds of EPs per turn in the late game. 10 cities with tribunal, internment camp, assassin's bureau, hunter-seeker, poison snooper, then add in War of Assassins.

Pre 1.8, they acted like you would expect the AI to act. Post 1.8 they became stagnant to me- building that many tropters and not doing anything with them.

I can't think of any 1.8 change that would have particular impact on Tleilaxu.

No-ships = 12 STR, 3 movement. A limit would be ideal. AI would have those as i am just hitting lasguns.

12 strength, yeah that's intended, even heavy troopers should be able to fend those off. If you're just hitting lasguns when they have no-ships, then you're almost an entire era behind in tech.
Thats like just hitting 20th century infantry when your opponent is getting stealth bombers.
The idea behind no-ships is to make them for attack weaker units, or hunt down workers.
[Also; we should make sure they can't pillage; *that* would be broken.]

beeline to spice

I am not sure what you mean by this. You mean beeline to the ~tier2 tech that allows you to construct harvesters?

do not build anything but spice with your workers, see where you are at turn 100. Run another game without building on any spice, just on rock etc, and see where you are at turn 100

In the former case, you would be in a terrible situation, with reasonable tech but no population and no army, and the first person to invade you would easily take your cities.
And why would you ever do only one or the other?
The best is a mix.
And if you want to concentrate on building workers, then you can build fewer settlers. If your workers build harvesters, you get less water and no population growth an few hammers.

So decay occurs faster, and right away is what you are telling me?

Faster than what?
I forget the exact numbers, but it works something like this:
Every spice tile in the world without harvesters has a 1% chance per turn to disappear.
If you build a harvester on it, it has a 4% chance per turn to disappear. If you're neutral or Arrakis paradise, no change. If you're Arrakis spice civic, it has a 2.5% chance per turn to disappear.

Thinking in terms of the planet itself, if we all just landed and nothing was touched, where did it go

It gets buried in sand, thanks to Arrakis's winds.
Melange is a renewable but temporary resource. It shows up on the surface after a spice blow. It then either gets harvested, or blows away or is buried by sand.
[Actually that would be an interesting mechanic, if sandstorms destroyed Spice resource, not just the harvesters. Maybe too much randomness though.]

I play games no weaker than Emperor-having bigger cities, producing units faster is what gets me wins

If you're Paradise, you will have less spice, so you have to divert some of your population to working cottages.
Whereas with Spice, I can get almost all the gold/commerce I need from spice and spice silos (and specialists), and run a specialist economy with Meritocracy/Faufreluches where I work only water-yielding tiles and have everyone else as specialists (mostly engineers).

Paradise used to be much more powerful in earlier versions of the mod. I don't think that's true anymore, particularly given the diplomacy penalties.

Switching to paradise, i can get the bonus to having harvesters, until they disappear, along with the benefit of water coming out my ears.

If you switch from Spice to Paradise, all of your spice silos will disappear (or at least, they're supposed to - I haven't tested for a while). And it will take quite some time for you to start getting significantly higher water income from Paradise. Terraforming happens slowly.
During which time you will lose many of your harvesters.

If spice silos aren't disappearing when you switch out of Spice, then that's a bug that should be corrected.

If you switch from Paradise to Spice, all your catchbasins will disappear, much of your terraforming will lose fresh water and revert to rock. Or at least its supposed to.

So I don't think there are strong gains from switching between one to the other; better to pick one and stick with it.

i could, in theory, place all of my towns 3 tiles apart, all but ignore the growth of my towns,

This would leave you with no hammer income, and no army.

Losing 60+ gold on just one spice disappearing

Sorry, how could this happen? Assuming +50% gold per city, you would have to have ~250 cities for this to occur (from spice silos, 250*1*0.15*1.5 + 3*4.5 from palace).
I don't think I understand you here, sorry.

then not having any new spice pop in my territory for even 5 turns, puts a major strain on those who run that civic

Why do you have to ICS in order to use the Spice civic? You don't. You can still develop a regular economy too. I'm confused.

Would making Arrakis spice sooner in the tech tree "fix" what my worry is?

I still don't really understand your worry, so.... maybe?

But I don't really think this is an issue. Either civic is available by the early midgame.

Let me put it this way.
In the midgame with 10 cities, being Arrakis Spice rather than Arrakis paradise gives you something like 50% more spice tiles due to slower decay rate, and gives you something like 50% higher income per spice tile due to spice silos (10 cities *0.15 relative to 3 from the palace)
[Building catchbasins and reservoirs also reduces spice even further, since spice can't spawn in tiles with moisture.]

Being Arrakis paradise might let you have ~50% bigger cities - in the long run. But that will take a long time, because of the short-run water cost and the time taken to develop terraforming.

So Paradise is better in the very long run. But Spice is better in the medium-term - and won't get you dogpiled by 5 civs at once.

I'm completely open to the possibility that Spice vs Paradise civics still aren't even roughly balanced, and might need some changes.
But I think its important to consider all of the impacts, and to be very clear about what we think the problem (if any) is and thus what solutions might work.

I think its great to have feedback playing Devil's Advocate. I just don't understand what your argument is yet. Sorry.

 

[sandtrout]

This is my first post and I want to thank everybody who working on the Dune Wars mod for their effort. I've always loved the Dune universe and I'm having big fun with the mod. The factions and units and game mechanics are really nice and the music creates a great dune feel.

The only trouble I've run in so far:
Using a Reverend Mother to annex a city crashes the game.

Thanks again!

 

[fjordan]

It's quiet on the forum. A good time for me to give some more feedback after playing a few games (1.8.0.2, Emperor, Standard Arrakis map).

Minor bugs:
- The Bene Gesserit instructress doew weird things. Besides adding combat/drill it gives the unit a lot of extra XP. Some of it seems used by the new promotions but often you can choose an extra promotion to.
- In my last game from a certain point on my new units started auto-promoted allthough the option was not selected. I am not sure what caused it, but it was quite late game. Also some did not get enough promo's, I had 9 XP units with combat 1 only. This was not consistent though.
- The missing Sapho Juice bonus I reported earlier suddenly showed up in my Tleilax game. Not sure it is the faction or the Slig I got from space.

Balance feedback, not meant as criticism but to hopefully point you guys at possible ways to improve the game (some were mentioned before):
- The crys-knife unit is way too powerfull for its era. I haved never used World builder in my years of CIV but now I do because there is simply nothing you can do about them.
- The Axolotl tanks were a big disappointment. By the time I could build them they were useless, I had already farmed lots of specialists. In the books the tanks are huge, I think they should have a more significant effect. For example a tradeable Ghola Duncan Idaho resource that gives +2XP to all land units.
- Mentats are unbalanced. One could argue for the XP bonus, I usually take the hammer bonus. The others are useless compared.
- Sapho Juice is underpowered. Being a resource that can be used in max 3 cities it should be much better than civ wide effects. It is not atm. It does not help that you cannot trade it for other resources like the happy resources.
- Non happy/health resources like Ginaz training (underpowered also because of the 2 combat prerequisite) should get some value for the AI. I cannot sell them but if I can buy they give them away for free.
- Air power is too dominant. Maybe the AI should build more Interceptors but late game the collateral damage can sweep away whole attacking stacks that have little protection against it. I don't like it either that units get completely killed by collateral.

Just my opinion, hope you will take it into account with your next release.

 

[Ahriman]

Thanks for the feedback, useful as always.

The Bene Gesserit instructress doew weird things.

Yeah, known issue.

The crys-knife unit is way too powerfull for its era.

You mean for the barbarians? Agreed.

The Axolotl tanks were a big disappointment.

Agreed they're boring for now. We've had design discussions where we use them to introduce a FFH-style Immortality effect.

The others are useless compared.

Agreed, but partly because health is too easy.
Maybe an ecologist one who gives a water bonus?

but if I can buy they give them away for free.

Interesting, sounds like a bug. I thought they actually had a higher rating.

Non happy/health resources like Ginaz training (underpowered also because of the 2 combat prerequisite

I don't think I agree. Remember the comparison it to ~+1happy. Its very powerful especially for Fremen.

Air power is too dominant.

Strongly agreed. It is probably easier to reduce aircraft strength (or reduce the stacking limit?) rather than somehow finding a way to change AI build priorities.

 

[Random Walker]

(using latest downloaded-from-main-announcement-thread-not-any-beta-patches on 3.19 on an Thinkpad T60 running XP SP3)

- Quite fun, at least at lower levels; haven't tried the more fair difficulty settings.

- Agree that Bene Gesserit Instructresses are OP w/ XP granting. Perhaps more so if combined with Ginaz, as the Combat 2 ain't hard to get in such a case and the Ginaz means even more experience.

- AI perhaps places too low value on certain off-world resources -- in particular, House Corrino's is fairly nasty, and is slightly odd in how already-recruited legions will continue to serve you even if you then betray them.

- Crashed a few times for me. Each time it was caused by attempting to use Annex. Annex does not, however, always crash (even in the same game, reload, annex same city on a later turn).

- As a fully-teched BG w/ the Corrino-special resource and just about every on-map resource, I could produce Sard. legions but not the higher-level Sard. N-something.
Fremen Fedyakeen OTOH are producible by non-Fremen with the water debt. Deliberate asymmetry with the top-level being a national unit (and undocumented as such)?

- Kwisatz Haderach is replaced by a lower-level KH according to Civlopedia. Is there a way for Atreides and BG to compete on this rather than having it be a BG monopoly?

- Managed to destroy a World Wonder (the Great Keep) on city capture. Deliberate exception, in so far as it's a fortification that is reasonable to trash during conquest? Or is this a broader rule change vs. vanilla in that wonders in general are now destructible?

- Inquisitors: haven't gotten them to have any action buttons even in presence of heresy (IIRC, was theocratic Ixian Technocracy, trying to kick out CHOAM).

- Monitor Warship-related projects perhaps should be briefly mentioned in the set of concepts as this is a non-vanilla mechanic.

- Occasionally have seen multiple theoretically identical units with different prices listed in the off-world reinforcements page. XP variation?

- Also on off-world reinforcements, does the list of destinations ever have an option to scroll? Haven't noticed it yet, have seen cities not be listed.

Oh, and on the no-ships -- they can pillage and thus have the potential to be extremely obnoxious, at least in the version that was linked to by the main forum's thread. As noted above, haven't DL'd any additional patches.

One other Q: do Zealots give XP when killed? If they were to autospawn, and gave XP, that might allow XP farming in a multiplayer game. *shrug*

 

[Ahriman]

slightly odd in how already-recruited legions will continue to serve you even if you then betray them.

True, but the alternative of instantly losing your armies if the trade was cancelled could be easily exploited by the human player (waste AI production on building units by trading it to them and then cancelling), or having Not Fun effects happen to you as the human player if your units evaporate.

I could produce Sard. legions but not the higher-level Sard. N-something.

Intended. Sardaular Noukker are Corrino only. You don't really think the Emperor would lend his *finest* to some rabble do you?
If anyone can get them, then Corrino loses too much of its uniqueness.

Fremen Fedyakeen OTOH are producible by non-Fremen with the water debt.

We could consider disabling this for non-Fremen. But its hard to get Fremen to trade, and you can only normally do it by going Paradise, and I think its reasonably canon for Atredies to get them. And Fremen uniqueness isn't weakened much, since they get sandrider for all melee units.

Is there a way for Atreides and BG to compete on this rather than having it be a BG monopoly?

I can't think of a good way that would retain BG uniqueness (its their breeding program; the Atreides aren't running a breeding program, Paul is a mistake) and not mess with Atreides. Suggestions welcome.

Or is this a broader rule change vs. vanilla in that wonders in general are now destructible?

Probably an unintended tag issue. Wonders should never be destroyed on city conquest. [Except, maybe, the Tleilaxu shrine??]

- Inquisitors: haven't gotten them to have any action buttons even in presence of heresy (IIRC, was theocratic Ixian Technocracy, trying to kick out CHOAM).

- Monitor Warship-related projects perhaps should be briefly mentioned in the set of concepts as this is a non-vanilla mechanic.

Good point, we haven't updated this section with the latest new mechanics.
If someone mentions where these text sections are stored, I'll try to add a few new updates.

- Occasionally have seen multiple theoretically identical units with different prices listed in the off-world reinforcements page. XP variation?

Some units are normal, some are elite - more expensive, but start with ~8XP. [They aren't able to get promotions until the turn after purchase though, for some reason]

Oh, and on the no-ships -- they can pillage and thus have the potential to be extremely obnoxious, at least in the version that was linked to by the main forum's thread

If so, should be fixed. No-ships shouldn't be able to pillage.

do Zealots give XP when killed?

Yes, as they should I think.
They don't autospawn yet, but I still like the idea.

that might allow XP farming in a multiplayer game

Not sure this is such a big problem; is it really any worse than leaving an enemy city alive to build units to throw at you and farming those? not very productive, normally better to just conquer them.

 

[davidlallen]

Good point, we haven't updated this section with the latest new mechanics. If someone mentions where these text sections are stored, I'll try to add a few new updates.

The text itself is most conveniently found in assets/xml/text/dunewarstext.txt. You can edit that, but it won't immediately show up in the game. If you want to change text in existing sections, I recommend you edit this file and then post it, zipped, to the improving pedia content thread. There is a step which I explained to deliverator before, to convert that text file into the xml file with all the data for multiple languages.

If you want to add sections, it is probably best to just post instructions for what you would like done, into the same thread.

In related news, filling in the strategy text would be great. New players turn on "Sid's Tips", which displays the strategy text for all units or buildings. Several new players have complained that the mod looks "unfinished" because of this missing text. It would be helpful to search in the dunewarstext.txt file to find entries like "Stub something strategy" and just put one simple line, aimed at players who are brand new to the mod.

I am sure deliverator can take the updated dunewarstext.txt file and put the new xml into the next patch.

 

[Vorpal+5]

I find the Spice Depot a bit weak. 0.15 gold seems a bit low, I mean 7 harvested spices mean only +1 gold ... Ok it can be built in each city, but still, +1 gold per 7 Spices... ?

I'm playing on Immortal and have 9 spices harvesters right now.

 

[Ahriman]

If you want to change text in existing sections, I recommend you edit this file and then post it, zipped, to the improving pedia content thread.

Ok, I'll see if I can find some time this weekend. Depends on how much work I get done by then though.

David, I'd be great if you could provide some feedback on some of the most recent design issues (eg health system, air units, etc.)

I find the Spice Depot a bit weak.

You'll find that, over time, it is very strong, especially for its cheap cost. The Arrakis spice civic reduces the rate at which spice is depleted, so increases the number of spice tiles you have under management.

With a decent sized empire in the midgame, you can easily have 25+ spice, which with 10cities with a spice silo each is +38gold per turn (modified upwards by refineries, banks, etc.)

 

[Vorpal+5]

ok, I'll trust you on that

 

[Ahriman]

The other nice thing is that its Gold, not commerce, so you can use it to pay your unit, city and civic maintenance costs while still running a high science slider.

 

[Slvynn]

Hello all
Seems i got some desire to de-lurk, the thing i am went deep into rL and wasn't been able or didn't had desire to do anything that wont improve my RL course for certain moment. :-V
Hope no-one offended by my sudden disappearance, just RL went intense, and i didn't had energy/desire/time etc etc to mod and participate actively... Needed to do something real, push out fun stuff and then was held by conscience about my rapid disappearance
I'll lurk here, i not playing civ lately... but... hrhrhm perhaps i will install it and.... for sure - will be glad to continue modding with you for incoming Civ 5, wont break ties, you know...

 

[keldath]

hey slvynn!

welcome back.

im planing on making dune wars for civ5, very soon after it will come out! we can unite again!

 

[Slvynn]

I do plan to mod seriously and free more time and heart for it (with you) when Civ5 comes
I hope we do this together for Civ5.
Civ4 Dune is great atm but since Civ5 coming i do want invest my time in it... and later, i do have some targets in RL till September actually
Btw Guys awesome job esp. Deliverator with all that cool art!

I do plan to work on Dune for Civ5 with you and perhaps another project you know about, keldath, called "The Ascension", and i do some brainstorm and sketches at my free time.

 

[Random Walker]

True, but the alternative of instantly losing your armies if the trade was cancelled could be easily exploited by the human player (waste AI production on building units by trading it to them and then cancelling), or having Not Fun effects happen to you as the human player if your units evaporate.

I suppose one could also implement a middle-ground, like a promotion 'Split Loyalties', neg. strength modifier for Sard. fighting against House Corrino or the like. Less brutal than instant desertion or defection, reasonably explicable, and allows the survivors to continue to exist at effectively full strength against other enemies (provided that the code that interprets promotions isn't so structured that this is impractical).

Intended. Sardaular Noukker are Corrino only. You don't really think the Emperor would lend his *finest* to some rabble do you?
If anyone can get them, then Corrino loses too much of its uniqueness.

It seemed logical. Didn't see an expected mention of this in the Civlopedia on the per-faction page -- is 'unique unit for this civ' not autogenerated? Haven't looked into how that works.

I can't think of a good way that would retain BG uniqueness (its their breeding program; the Atreides aren't running a breeding program, Paul is a mistake) and not mess with Atreides. Suggestions welcome.

Not an Atreides breeding program per se, but they benefit... hm. It somehow seems like it'd be closer to canon if there were a chance that a KH would actually go to the Atreides faction, but that could only happen once the breeding program was nearly complete.

Of course, canon would also result in an Atreides/Fremen guaranteed victory, so some departures are mandatory.

Some units are normal, some are elite - more expensive, but start with ~8XP. [They aren't able to get promotions until the turn after purchase though, for some reason]

Fair enough. I'd also considered the possibility that it was to perhaps reflect possible shortages of one unit type -- e.g. if you need a number of them suddenly, you might be able to get them, but you'll pay more and more.

Not sure this is such a big problem; is it really any worse than leaving an enemy city alive to build units to throw at you and farming those? not very productive, normally better to just conquer them.

*shrug* Might be useful in certain cases, like to make better use of ghola tanks? Haven't yet tried Tleilaxlu, so haven't experienced how well/poorly that would work.

 

[Ahriman]

like a promotion 'Split Loyalties', neg. strength modifier for Sard. fighting against House Corrino or the like.

Hmm. Interesting. This might be possible. If you're fighting against Corrino, you get the "split loyalties -20% strength" promotion on your Sardaukar; it evaporates when you make peace (just like Tleilaxu plague).

It seemed logical.

Oh totally, this might be a documentation failure. I'll look into it.

t somehow seems like it'd be closer to canon if there were a chance that a KH would actually go to the Atreides faction, but that could only happen once the breeding program was nearly complete.

I see what you're going for, but its tough in a gameplay sense; if BG invest a bunch of resources in something, it would be bad gameplay to have it randomly benefit an enemy instead.
Perhaps the simplest way; we could make final project (but not the intermediate ones) buildable by both Bene Gesserit and Atreides. Either in a World Project sense (only one faction can get it) or a National Project sense (both could build it simultaneously or sequentially and get their own QH).

 

[Little Faith]

Another question here is how much focus we should have on enacting the plot from the books. And remember, the Kwitsach Haderach ended up leading the Fremen rather than house Atreidis.

After all the original Civilization cannot really emulate the course of actual history either.