Version 1.8 Feedback

[Ahriman]

Financial trait is too powerful, easily the strongest trait in the game.
This is partly because of how cottages next to wells immediately give 2 commerce (bumped to 3) and turbines on graben give 2 commerce (bumped to 3),

This is the main reason that Ecaz and Ordos do so well (and Leto Atreides), along with their free-trading AI leaderheads that will tend to trade techs with just about anyone.

My suggestion is to remove the +1 commerce part of the trait, and give some mix of trade bonus (+50% foreign trade route yield, if thats possible?) and double speed for a lot of trade/mercantile buildings.

* * *
On traits, my original intent was for Political to give double build speed for Imperial/CHOAM buildings, while spiritual did it for Mahdi, Shai-Hulad and Qizarate. But right now spiritual does it for all "religious" buildings

If we think spiritual isn't strong enough, then how about we make it give +1 movement rate (or: suspensors) to missionary units?

We could create a new unit class for rel
* * *

I also think that the late-game Mahdi unit-boosting building isn't that interesting. The distinguishing characteristic of Mahdi is (should be) the hordes of zealots

Problems are that the AI doesn't really build these much (doesn't understand their value), and that these become obsolete before the AI researches all the tech needed for them. We need to figur

I also think Mahdi might be much more interesting if there was a late-game upgrade for the zealot that was still cheap and retained the no upkeep cost but was higher strength (still lower strength than regular units of its tech tier).

* * *
Technocracy is still fairly uninteresting. I think we need to boost its shrine significantly. Maybe give it +1 hammer per city with Technocracy?

 

[Jester Fool]

Financial trait is too powerful, easily the strongest trait in the game. This is partly because of how cottages next to wells immediately give 2 commerce (bumped to 3) and turbines on graben give 2 commerce (bumped to 3), This is the main reason that Ecaz and Ordos do so well (and Leto Atreides), along with their free-trading AI leaderheads that will tend to trade techs with just about anyone.

IMO, this isn't really a problem. I like Ecaz, Ordos and Atriedes being tough AI opponents. RE: see my latest Emperor level screenshots, specifically the 'first lead' screenshot. The overall balance is pretty amazing, although Ix lags a bit. I would sure hate to score even higher than the 117,000+ I got last time.

My suggestion is to remove the +1 commerce part of the trait, and give some mix of trade bonus (+50% foreign trade route yield, if thats possible?) and double speed for a lot of trade/mercantile buildings.

Definite possibility. Sounds pretty intriguing. If you decide to change financial trait.

If we think spiritual isn't strong enough, then how about we make it give +1 movement rate (or: suspensors) to missionary units?

One possibility would be to boost the limit of missionary units by two (e.g. Imperial from 2 to 4, Qizarate from 3 to 5 etc.).

I also think Mahdi might be much more interesting if there was a late-game upgrade for the zealot that was still cheap and retained the no upkeep cost but was higher strength (still lower strength than regular units of its tech tier).

Outstanding idea.

I think we need to boost its shrine significantly. Maybe give it +1 hammer per city with Technocracy?

I like this idea too.

 

[Ahriman]

Btw guys, please also note the last couple of posts on the previous page, QBeamus had some useful feedback.

IMO, this isn't really a problem.

I think its a problem, because its too easy to obtain a runaway lead using a Financial leader as the human player.

One possibility would be to boost the limit of missionary units by two (e.g. Imperial from 2 to 4, Qizarate from 3 to 5 etc.).

This doesn't really help much, because beyond ~2-3 the limit becomes useless.
Also, very hard to use a Civ Trait to change the national limit on a unit.

This isn't that important an issue overall, I just like the idea of Spiritual vs Political supportnig different religions, but we need to avoid spiritual being underpowered.
You can go through the game losing only a handful of turns to anarchy (especially if you use GPs for golden ages to change civics), so the no-anarchy ability alone isn't that powerful.

 

[Jester Fool]

QBeamus,
Thanks very much for the carefully considered feedback (and welcome to the forums!).

That goes the same for me too.

2. Yes, rapid expansion is favored, particularly compared to vanilla.

One of the many things I personally like about the Dune Wars mod.

The AI does rapid expansion, and does it fairly well now that we've rewritten the AI's city settlement algorithm.

The screen shots prove your assertion.

I'm kinda against rewriting the tech tree again.

I wouldn't vote for that either (dunno if I get one though..)

I think the biggest weakness of the AI in the early game is its tendency to use slavery rather than serfdom, and so it whips away its population (which hurts its long-run growth) and doesn't build improvements (and harvesters) fast enough. We're looking at making slavery Harkonnen only, and then boosting the yields from slavery (they're not big enough now to justify sacrificing the population).

I'll say it again - GREAT idea - hint, hint.

But I'm not wild about any of these.

Me neither.

 

[Jester Fool]

Btw guys, please also note the last couple of posts on the previous page, QBeamus had some useful feedback.

Duly noted (and read). I try to not disagree with someone until they get to know me better.

I think its a problem, because its too easy to obtain a runaway lead using a Financial leader as the human player.

I'll take your word for it since I don't normally play Financial leaders. I personally prefer Religious/Protective/Philosophical.

This doesn't really help much, because beyond ~2-3 the limit becomes useless. Also, very hard to use a Civ Trait to change the national limit on a unit.

Maybe not, but I have played games where I could've used 5 (since I had many conquered cities without my state religion). Now being hard to code is definitely a deal breaker.

I just like the idea of Spiritual vs Political supporting different religions, but we need to avoid spiritual being underpowered.

I would be happy for that to be implemented. Maybe in the next patch?

 

[dammitbiscuit]

Well I've been playing this mod most of the day.

It's fun, it's cool, it's different, it's neat. When I play it single-player, free-for-all against AI, it's rather great. I'm accustomed to being able to hold my cities with 2 of my most modern defensive units apiece, but it looks like defense bonuses are lower so I simply need to up that to 3 or 4. Fremens riding worms are cool, Instructresses are awesome (do they have to sit still for a turn to grant training? I couldn't tell), and the civ social engineering choices are much more interesting.

The music is pretty fun. I especially like to talk to Ix Tleilax, because his music's so funky.

I'll note that, when you're playing the game, factions are mentioned in the bottom right by their faction title. But when it comes time to vote in the landsraad, factions are mentioned by their leader's name. It's easy to remember who Mohaim and Muad'Dib are, but when the other factions are House A, House B, House C, and House D, it's really hard to remember which foreign-sounding name belongs to whom. There were several landsraads where I literally flipped a coin because I couldn't remember which one of the candidates I favored. Maybe if you've read all of the Dune books or watched the movie, it's clear and obvious, but most of the House X guys are just a Scrabble bag full of random letter tiles to me.

It seems to be slightly harder. My roommate and I played a 2v2v2v2 against the AI on Warlord. Just as we were starting to get the... Whatever Thopters, the first kind of thopters that are usable for combat... 2 teams declared war on us after we declined to give them tribute several times.

Part of why I find it more difficult is that civs are very loathe to trade anything. Even when I have good (+4 to +6 or so) relations with another civ, they're stingy about most everything up to and including the world map! "Hi, let's trade!" "Sure, good friend of mine, what do you have to offer?" "How about we trade maps?" "OH HELL NO, YOU THIEVING REVEREND !" "Oh... uh, ok. Sorry."

Stinginess is also part of why they declared war on us so early. We had reasonably neutral relations with most civs, in the -2 to +2 range. And they would call us up, and go "GIVE US YOUR TECHNOLOGY NOW!" After inspecting the trade window, I see that they have several technologies of similar value that they COULD trade... but those are in red text, and the other civ refuses to even discuss trading them. So, reasonably enough, we decline to give them our hard-earned for free, since they're not even willing to DISCUSS an even exchange. This "failing to pay tribute" ultimately cascaded into war with Alia and Tleilax, whose partners of course joined in the war.

In a normal game, I'd have cemented a handful of friendships quickly and early with open borders, shared maps, and technology exchanges, but for the most part Dune civs just demand that I give them free stuff, Or Else.

Single player, it's not bad. I can appease a couple of nations with free technology, play dangerously with a couple other nations, and randomly wind up having made a "good first impression" with the rest. But in multiplayer, it wound up being 4 nations and a gaggle of barbarians all dogpiling on my roommate while I desperately tried to pour my war machine into his nation to stem the tides. He ended up ragequittng and telling me that he doesn't like this mod and it's "unbalanced".

I'm pretty sure it's balanced, myself. Gameplay doesn't have any notably overpowered or underpowered elements that I noticed. Defending is harder, OTOH it's nice that you don't need to bring two catapults and 6+ assault units any time you want to capture even the least of cities. Diplomacy's just a little rough. It doesn't feel very awesome to have several factions all giving you the evil eye and demanding your stuff from the outset.

Would also be cool if fremen scouts on autopilot avoided worms instead of seeming to make beelines for sudden death, but that's typical for civ 4 explorers in general, not specific to Dune.

What units do Fremen use to transport defensive units across the deep desert? Because they have foot scouts instead of thopters. It's cool that fremen colony pods can trek across the sand to distant places, but it's (mildly) annoying that the rocket defender squad which I built at the barracks/great general city can't travel along with the settlers.

Hmm, anything else before I post...

We didn't get any errors in our multiplayer game, but we used direct IP which is probably different than most other people. For some reason even though LAN wasn't working for us, we were able to use our internal network IP addresses (192.168.x.x). If it would help, I can post our savefile.

I didn't really know what to do with thumpers, so I didn't upgrade them on Fremen. I purchased it with my Instructresses on the other game, just so that I'd have them on a unit, but didn't end up using them.

It looks kinda odd to see a sandworm fighting a sandworm. In my head, I figure that the riderless sandworm is plucking the rider off his friend, but in the game it just looks like two sandworms are fighting, and one of them is inexplicably way stronger.

The AI seems to be able to find and settle the polar cap way before I even bump into the darn thing. Probably PEBCAK, but just thought I'd mention it, because when I manage to find it, there are already 3-4 civs chillin there.

Cities look incredible, way better than vanilla civ.

If my city produces more hammers than are necessary to build a Zealot, does it all carry over to whatever I build next after popping 4 or 5 zealots, or is there a limit to how much excess you can store?

There seems to be a lot of available water for a desert. Earlygame it can feel slightly (but not very) dry, but pretty soon all my cities are size 7 at worst, maybe as big as size 18.

 

[Ahriman]

Hi biscuit,
Thanks for sharing your experience, glad you're having fun.

Mostly this sounds like "mod is working as intended".

On a few specifics:

and the civ social engineering choices are much more interesting.

Thanks! Glad you like the design.

But when it comes time to vote in the landsraad, factions are mentioned by their leader's name.

Hmm, interesting point. It used to have the faction name on the bottom right too, but we changed it to displayed the Houses, which I much prefer.
I don't know if this is possible; I suspect that the voting call may automatically use the leader's name.

Part of why I find it more difficult is that civs are very loathe to trade anything.

In general, working as intended. We don't want to make it too easy to trade, you need to stack up decent bonuses (mostly from religion) to get reliable trade partners.
Different Leaders have different personalities; some are much more willing to trade, while others are much more suspicious.

And they would call us up, and go "GIVE US YOUR TECHNOLOGY NOW!"

Mostly they're doing this because they perceive you as weak (so they're demanding tribute), or because their leaders have imperious personalities (like Shaddam).
They don't want to trade, they want free stuff.

ultimately cascaded into war with Alia and Tleilax

Alia is kindof a b*tch (think Children of Dune Alia, after the Baron's memories start taking over), and the Tleilaxu hate everyone.

and randomly wind up having made a "good first impression" with the rest.

This isn't actually random. This modifier is basically a "misanthrophy" modifier for the leaders; it measures how much they like or hate Other People in general. Leaders in vanilla civ have this modifiers, its just that the game hides this from you; Dune Wars uses the BUG mod which reveals hidden modifiers like this.
So, Duke Leto will have a positive modifier, whereas Beast Rabban will have a negative (and he's also insanely aggressive).

But in multiplayer, it wound up being 4 nations and a gaggle of barbarians all dogpiling on my roommate while I desperately tried to pour my war machine into his nation to stem the tides.

Sounds awesome! Isn't this what team play is about?

I'm pretty sure it's balanced, myself.

Its semi-balanced
For singleplayer at least. For multiplayer, Tleilaxu would be the most powerful by far, because their diplomacy penalties from unique religion don't affect them as much.

Would also be cool if fremen scouts on autopilot avoided worms instead of seeming to make beelines for sudden death, but that's typical for civ 4 explorers in general, not specific to Dune.

Yeah, its pretty hard to avoid. We might have the scout start with the thumper promotion, which makes them immune to works, but they're already pretty powerful (high speed!).

What units do Fremen use to transport defensive units across the deep desert?

Settlers, melee units (get some bladesmen early) and workers can just walk.
For others, you have to use suspensor transports or carryalls at the moment. We're tinkering with some long term plans to change this.

I didn't really know what to do with thumpers, so I didn't upgrade them on Fremen.

Thumpers make you immune to worms, basically.
I'm tempted to make them unselectable as promotions, and just have them start on a few key Fremen units.

It looks kinda odd to see a sandworm fighting a sandworm.

I haven't tried that (I turn the animations off) but yeah, that probably looks pretty funny.
I guess... your worm is smaller than theirs

The AI seems to be able to find and settle the polar cap way before I even bump into the darn thing.

AIs are immune to fog, they basically know the whole map. That's pretty much inevitable.
I am able to get a city or two on the polar cap though when I start near it.

Cities look incredible, way better than vanilla civ.

Thank Deliverator and others for awesome artwork.

If my city produces more hammers than are necessary to build a Zealot, does it all carry over to whatever I build next after popping 4 or 5 zealots, or is there a limit to how much excess you can store?

Hammer spillover is the same as vanilla.

 

[dammitbiscuit]

AIs are immune to fog, they basically know the whole map. That's pretty much inevitable.
I am able to get a city or two on the polar cap though when I start near it.

Hammer spillover is the same as vanilla.

Yeah, I've only been playing vanilla myself for a week or two. For years, I've been comfortably sitting on the soapbox of "Civ is boring, play alpha centauri if you want to see REAL differences between civ leaders!" I mean, contrast the difference between "I'm phi/agg and you're phi/cha, ooh, big whoop" with "I can tame native mind worms and your cities are walled in as well as being half again as populous as my cities are"

I finally broke down and bought Civ 4 when I saw Civ 4 Complete on ebay for ten bucks. So there's a lot I don't know... like the fact that AI are immune to fog, or how hammer spillover works. Zealots represent for me the first time I've seen multiple units produced in a row that need so few hammers.

 

[Ahriman]

What do people think about unit strengths?

I'm a bit worried that the jump from tier 1/1.5 (quad, vulture, gunship, rocket trooper, bladesmen, maula guardsmen / hardened bladesmen, roller) to tier 2 (missile, heavy, shield troopers, falcon, light scorpion) is too large. But I'm also a bit worrying that toning it down will make unit strength differentiations start running into discreteness issues [Another solultion would be to raise tier0/1 unit strengths).

I also think that siege units might be abit too strong, they seem superior to melee units for equiavlent tech for city assault.
Also; has anyone observed the AI using their ranged bombardment attack?
The ranged attack also seems pretty week, often only does a couple of % worth of damage.
I guess we need to decide what the role for these is; support unit or city assault?
Maybe we should emphasize collateral damage but scale back the city attack bonus.

And I worry that air power is a bit too strong. The AI isnt' very good at providing fighter cover, so it can be too easy to abuse the hell out of air superiority with bombers. The 25% interception chance suspensors never really seem to intercept anything.
I wonder if reducing unit strength of fighters/bombers would fix this somewhat (if we reduce the strength of a bomber, will it do less damage to a unit in a single attack?)

Final thought is that too much seems be be anchored on nitrates; the rocket guys *and* the siege units. When these are such key units, I wonder if a better solution would be to incraease their base cost by 50% and then have them build 50% faster with nitrates resource? (Is that possible for units?).

 

[Jester Fool]

I'm a bit worried that the jump from tier 1/1.5 (quad, vulture, gunship, rocket trooper, bladesmen, maula guardsmen / hardened bladesmen, roller) to tier 2 (missile, heavy, shield troopers, falcon, light scorpion) is too large. But I'm also a bit worrying that toning it down will make unit strength differentiations start running into discreteness issues [Another solultion would be to raise tier0/1 unit strengths).

Is there such a thing as perfect balance? I play this mod waaay too much and I really don't think this is a major problem when you also factor in unit promotions and special unit abilities.

I also think that siege units might be abit too strong, they seem superior to melee units for equiavlent tech for city assault.

Somewhat. I would tend to agree that seige units need to be tweaked.

Also; has anyone observed the AI using their ranged bombardment attack?

Never.

The ranged attack also seems pretty week, often only does a couple of % worth of damage.

Yes, pretty lame. I wouldn't mind if it was removed, and since I have yet to see the AI use it, I don't think the AI would either.

I guess we need to decide what the role for these is; support unit or city assault?
Maybe we should emphasize collateral damage but scale back the city attack bonus.

Maybe the city attack bonus for maula mortar should be +30% which would translate into S6.5. Rocket artillery should not attack at S12 when the upgraded unit (missile launcher) attacks at 10S, so the attack bonus for rocket artillery could be removed entirely.

The 25% interception chance suspensors never really seem to intercept anything.

This chance should be 40% if you ask me.

Final thought is that too much seems be be anchored on nitrates; the rocket guys *and* the siege units. When these are such key units, I wonder if a better solution would be to incraease their base cost by 50% and then have them build 50% faster with nitrates resource? (Is that possible for units?).

You're right about nitrates. I am drawing a blank on useful suggestions to fix this problem though.

 

[dammitbiscuit]

Odd pedia entries for the leader traits. They use Dune leader pictures, they speak as if we're playing vanilla civ, but they seem to have been hand-made by a player or modder, not the standard game files.

 

[davidlallen]

There are a number of help files and strategy articles which are included as part of RevDCM. They are not part of vanilla, but not relevant to DW either. I have not taken the time to go and cut them out.

 

[dammitbiscuit]

cottages next to wells immediately give 2 commerce (bumped to 3) and turbines on graben give 2 commerce (bumped to 3)

It only appears to allow me to build turbines on mesa. Is there a technology that later allows one to build them down in the graben?

I also keep wondering what those little tiny white buildings are that are scattered about. I didn't put them there. They must be spies!

It's pretty easy to understand the benefits of Arrakis Spice, but it's hard to tell what's going on with paradise. It allows you to build a building that, at the cost of starving your city now, will eventually convert all nearby graben squares from hammer/coin graben to water/hammer anchor grass or water/water grassland?

 

[Ahriman]

It only appears to allow me to build turbines on mesa. Is there a technology that later allows one to build them down in the graben?

No; typo. Turbine should have been solar farm. Sorry.

I also keep wondering what those little tiny white buildings are that are scattered about. I didn't put them there. They must be spies!

Tiny white buildings? You mean, the ones that indicate you're worknig the particular tile?

but it's hard to tell what's going on with paradise. It allows you to build a building that, at the cost of starving your city now, will eventually convert all nearby graben squares from hammer/coin graben to water/hammer anchor grass or water/water grassland?

The catchbasin/reservoir buildings provide moisture in radius 1/3 respectively.
Moisture gives cottages the +1c irrigation bonus, and allows that tile to be terraformed if you are Paradise civic. The number of catchbasin/reservoirs you control increases the probability that any single tile will change.
Graben, saltpan, rock and rugged can turn into anchor grass (1w1h) and then grassland (2w) and then can get a lake-feature on them (+1w) or a forest feature on them (+1h, only in Sink tiles).

So, terraforming allows you to build super-cities with very high population and run fantastic cottage or specialist economies. Remember that 2w from a grassland tile can be increased 30% with the moisture seal and qanat buildings.

 

[Deliverator]

and then can get a lake-feature on them (+1w)

Minor point - this was disabled in 1.8, but I will re-add at some point.

 

[Deliverator]

From Strategy thread:

After playing the mammoth and nearly researching almost everything, and playing as liet-kyne as the freman, I find this game a bit boring because nobody was starting wars, even after they all got about 4-5 cities, none of them do not start wars, I've even place each leader out there with a religion, and they still don't start wars. I even have my aggressive leader option turned on... the Ai need's improvement and need to start wars with one another... like a 25 or 45% chance that they will start a war on one of their worst enemies out there, and 65% when they are furious. I was even terraforming almost everything out there too and none of them started wars on me. I also see terraforming need more things but that might be a bit not-on-the-book/movie thing.

I realised recently that at some point before 1.8 the Hated Civic stuff got lost from the XML. The code is still there in the SDK but there is no use of it in the LeaderheadInfos.xml file. This means that the AI doesn't get annoyed with you for running Arrakis Paradise or Arrrakis Spice at the moment.

In the next patch, as well as fixing the Hated Civics I have also added FavoriteCivilization and HatedCivilization to the Leaderheads, with corresponding Attitude adjustment fields. I really want the vendettas and animosities of the books to be represented. I can't really imagine the Harkonnen and Atreides being true friends, so I'll give them both a reasonably high Hated Civilization weight against each other. Also, I'm going to give a mild affinity between the Atreides and Fremen so that the Atreides have a better chance of obtaining Fremen Water Debt. Hopefully these two things will help turn the Dune Love-In back into Dune Wars.

I'm also fixing the Power ratings of units, so that Mahdi Zealots won't be worth zero Power anymore for example. Might be a subtle help for AI decision making.

 

[Ahriman]

This means that the AI doesn't get annoyed with you for running Arrakis Paradise

They still seem to be getting the penalties for catchbasins/reservoirs - or from breaching 1% terraforming. In a recent game I was definitely getting a -8 "you are destroying the spice" penalty.

Might be a subtle help for AI decision making.

Never seen the AI build them.

 

[Deliverator]

They still seem to be getting the penalties for catchbasins/reservoirs - or from breaching 1% terraforming. In a recent game I was definitely getting a -8 "you are destroying the spice" penalty.

Perhaps I got mixed up then.

Never seen the AI build them.

Could be because of the zero iPower rating - it thinks they have no military value. Also, Mahdi seems to be the rarest state religion from what I've seen.

 

[Ahriman]

Perhaps I got mixed up then.

Not necessarily; IIRC there are separate mechanics for hated civic issues and the extra penalties for the buildings.

I'm unsure whether or not the standard penalty that Spice users have for Paradise users and vice versa are working or not.

Could be because of the zero iPower rating - it thinks they have no military value. Also, Mahdi seems to be the rarest state religion from what I've seen.

Yeah, its pretty rare - partly I think because the techs are pretty weak. If we boosted up the Religious Mandate and Jihad techs, we'd see a bit more interest in that part of the tree.

What else could we put there that would make these techs more valuable? It stinks that they're useless to non-mahdi factions.

 

[davidlallen]

They still seem to be getting the penalties for catchbasins/reservoirs - or from breaching 1% terraforming. In a recent game I was definitely getting a -8 "you are destroying the spice" penalty.

That is not related to HatedCivic. These reaction penalties are directly due to opposing civics, anybody following arrakis spice will have this penalty. The main effect of HatedCivic was to prevent Corrino, etc from adopting arrakis paradise.