EitB 0010 Wishlist/Progress

[WarriorKnight]

Hyborems not SPI IIRC.

My bad. Still, Ritualists don't really need the exp to be effective anyway, Ring of Fire is that good.

[gekko64]

one more thing that needs a buff is Shamain, nobody ever builds that since early on there's way more important things to build and it's a gamble anyway. what if winterborn allowed to capture frostlings? also I'd love to see Mokka start with the cauldron, a la crown/lyre.

another missed opportunity is the soul forge imo, would be nice to have it work like the palace i.e. can be rebuilt in a more suitable place if needed.

Veil of Night is useless in MP and Svart are considered worse than Ljos so a slight buff would be nice. what if it also gave +25% city attack to offset recon's penalty?

and of course please fix blinding light so it doesn't have to be outright banned for simturn MP games. pretty please, oh mighty platypus :D

doviello battlemasters current price is outrageous, especially considering boarding parties got a boost in eitb and Lanun are surely a hell of a lot better than Doviello already. and create battering ram would fit them way more than Khazad.

removing prereqs from AH and fishing would allow a bit more flexibility in earlygame teching. changing IW prereq on animal mastery to alteration + higher beaker cost would also prevent overreliance on the metal techline.

I think I might have posted some of these already, but worth repeating I guess :D

what's the current tech prereq for over/under council in eitb? honor/deception are too high and prevent agnostics from joining, way of the wicked/wise would be ideal but they're axed in eitb so I guess philo prereq for both?

another thing I'd like to see to encourage Illians building their temples is giving winterborn a workrate buff on snow, to offset the horrible -50% workrate modifier their preferred terrain gives ( river commerce on snow is already in I guess? I think it's also in MNAI )

[WarriorKnight]

one more thing that needs a buff is Shamain, nobody ever builds that since early on there's way more important things to build and it's a gamble anyway. what if winterborn allowed to capture frostlings? also I'd love to see Mokka start with the cauldron, a la crown/lyre.

I don't know why Illians would ever build Samhain over the White Hand early on, considering the Priests are pretty much what makes the Illians worth picking.

Veil of Night is useless in MP and Svart are considered worse than Ljos so a slight buff would be nice. what if it also gave +25% city attack to offset recon's penalty?

Maybe but that's kinda boring (just cast before declaring and then forget). It's still better then anything I can come up with though.

removing prereqs from AH and fishing would allow a bit more flexibility in earlygame teching. changing IW prereq on animal mastery to alteration + higher beaker cost would also prevent overreliance on the metal techline.

Is there some sort of problem with AH and Fishing having pre-req's? Just because they allow resources isn't a good enough reason to justify moving them on the tech tree. (I might be able to see an argument for Fishing on archipelago maps, but that isn't a typical FFH map since Lanun and OO are so powerful there)

Also Animal Mastery doesn't need IW in EitB. Please don't suggest something which has already been fixed.

what's the current tech prereq for over/under council in eitb? honor/deception are too high and prevent agnostics from joining, way of the wicked/wise would be ideal but they're axed in eitb so I guess philo prereq for both?

Over/undercouncil needs Trade in EitB, so agnostics can join. See above comment.

another thing I'd like to see to encourage Illians building their temples is giving winterborn a workrate buff on snow, to offset the horrible -50% workrate modifier their preferred terrain gives ( river commerce on snow is already in I guess? I think it's also in MNAI )

Why is this important for a balance mod? TotH is a decent, balanced building with upsides (effective grassland on every tile, turns jungle to forests, useless land to everyone else) and downsides (no river commerce, lower worker rate). Build it if you want to but it's by no means a necessary building, not should it be without a good reason.

I think I might have posted some of these already, but worth repeating I guess :D

No it's not. Suggestions are welcome, but unless it hasn't been addressed already all it does is spam up the thread. Also do make sure that the suggestions haven't been fixed already (it's not too hard to look in the civilopedia/changelog right?).

[gekko64]

umh, I've read the eitb changelog multiple times but didn't notice the council civics and animal mastery tech prereq changes. good stuff then.

the rationale for removing tech prereqs from AH and fishing is to allow a bit more flexibility and balance to the start of the game. as it stands, agriculture -> calendar usually trumps other choices, since it provides plenty of food and commerce. this makes starts with grains and calendar resources a hell of a lot better than starts with livestock and seafood, because AH/fishing are a lot less useful ( unless you're lanun/kurio/hippus ) than agri+calendar or even AC+mysticism. making AH+fish more readily available would make seafood+livestock starts compare a lot more favourably to grains+plantations, and make the initial choice of techs to grab ASAP much more interesting.

I guess you agree with me about Shamain being useless? I think the unique assets should be worthwhile, otherwise why even have them in the game at all, just to add some noobtraps? I'd also love to see some Illians rituals be repeatable, with The Deepening and Shamain being prime examples. I'd also make The White Hand repeatable, provided you lost one or more priests ( if you lost one priest and repeat the ritual, you'll get one priest for the price of three ) . this would make playing Illians a lot less prone to frustration, as irreplaceable units doesn't work well with the crappy RNG based civ4 combat system where your uber units can always lose at outrageous odds. alternatively, possibly Illians could upgrade their great prophets to priests of winter if they lost one or more of em ( and Luonnatars could build the altar? they're kinda useless right now. also inquisitor promo would fit them )

the reasoning for the workrate buff on snow is similar, I think Illian playstyle should be about freezing the world over, not freezing only subpar areas. remember the building still costs hammers, so building it in lush areas is not so great anyway, but at least it wouldn't be outright damaging. if anything, probably the snow terrain should revert to temporary instead of permanent if the Illians lose control of the city, so the terrain slowly melts back to normal. it's great that Illian lands are less desireable for others to counter, but ruined forever as soon as a cheap building gets completed? that seems a bit excessive.

[WarriorKnight]

umh, I've read the eitb changelog multiple times but didn't notice the council civics and animal mastery tech prereq changes. good stuff then.

Oh, well I guess most changes to the tech tree missed the log since they were quite extensive (especially the divine section). I'd still double check in-game though.

the rationale for removing tech prereqs from AH and fishing is to allow a bit more flexibility and balance to the start of the game. as it stands, agriculture -> calendar usually trumps other choices, since it provides plenty of food and commerce. this makes starts with grains and calendar resources a hell of a lot better than starts with livestock and seafood, because AH/fishing are a lot less useful ( unless you're lanun/kurio/hippus ) than agri+calendar or even AC+mysticism. making AH+fish more readily available would make seafood+livestock starts compare a lot more favourably to grains+plantations, and make the initial choice of techs to grab ASAP much more interesting.

I'd agree with most of that. However just making AH/Fishing first tier techs won't make them viable. AH has the problem of not giving any commerce and not leading to anything good early on, while Fishing is a poor choice since coastal cities are generally undesirable. Mysticism is also a option to tech first, however it also is inferior to Agriculture -> Calendar.

I guess you agree with me about Shamain being useless? I think the unique assets should be worthwhile, otherwise why even have them in the game at all, just to add some noobtraps?

What I mean is, the White Hand makes the Illians the rush civ they are. Since Samhain comes before the White Hand, it would take a substantial amount of tweaking to make Samhain worth building before the White Hand, which would probably result in a massive change of the Illian civ. Not saying making Samhain usable isn't the goal, just that it'll take a lot before it gets there, possibly drastically changing Illian play style in the process which is undesirable.

I'd also love to see some Illians rituals be repeatable, with The Deepening and Shamain being prime examples. I'd also make The White Hand repeatable, provided you lost one or more priests ( if you lost one priest and repeat the ritual, you'll get one priest for the price of three ) . this would make playing Illians a lot less prone to frustration, as irreplaceable units doesn't work well with the crappy RNG based civ4 combat system where your uber units can always lose at outrageous odds. alternatively, possibly Illians could upgrade their great prophets to priests of winter if they lost one or more of em

I don't think I could agree to repeatable rituals, as it would be quite a large boost. Do the Illian's need to be boosted in some way to compensate for something? They already have Statis in addition to their rushing ability to make up for Agnostic. I don't think repeatable Deepening should ever be allowed (it cripples everyone else too easily). The White Hand would make the Illian rush a lot stronger, as you can afford to take risks with no longer irreplaceable Priests. I could agree with repeatable Samhain, but mainly because it sucks so much.

( and Luonnatars could build the altar? they're kinda useless right now. also inquisitor promo would fit them )

Luonnatar's do have use in the form of Magic Immunity, which can make them serve as stack defenders against magic collateral. They also already have Inquisitor.

the reasoning for the workrate buff on snow is similar, I think Illian playstyle should be about freezing the world over, not freezing only subpar areas.

And here's the problem. EitB is primarily a balance mod. We shouldn't completely ignore the lore, but changes for the sake of the lore or your interpretation of it are not what this mod is about.

Ice can be scorched into tundra, and can actually be restored with vitalize (even though that's a end game spell) so TotH freezing isn't permanent.

[DaveV]

I could agree with repeatable Samhain, but mainly because it sucks so much.

And the later in the game you cast it, the more it sucks. At some point (not too long after Bronze Working, usually), the Frostlings are just free XP. I think the usual solution to "Samhain sux" is to make the Frostlings a new type of barbarian who are at war with all civs *except* the Illians. I'm not sure how hard that would be to implement.

As things currently stand, the Frostlings are at their most dangerous on their first turn. If the Illians move after your civ, the Frostlings are placed on the map, then they get to move at end of turn. This means frostling wolf riders get a free move to snipe your workers before you get a chance to react.

[Tasunke]

Why not just have Averax be Aggressive + Expansive?

and why was Hyborem changed from Spi to Agg?

[gekko64]

re: repetable rituals, a possible solution would be having the cost increase for each use.

re: temple of the hand, I'm actually not concerned with lore, but mechanics. I think the Illian gameplay should revolve around spreading snow terrain far and wide. don't even get me started on how crappy the current implementation of the godslayer mechanic is... I'd love to see the godslayer as an epic good lair exploration result.

re: frostlings, having them be an illian-friendly faction would be possible but probably quite a bit of work ( the major modmods have this ) . it would be awesome, allowing distinct animals/demons/savages factions, but allowing winterborn units to capture frostlings seems like a decent alternative that requires a lot less editing.

@Tas: hybo got changed because osgabella is now spi/sum, but actually I agree AGG/SUM fit him better.

I'll suggest PHI/SPI for Einion and SPI/CRE for Ethne, ORG/CHA don't fit the elohim imho while spi REALLY does.

I also have another issue with the Elohim atm ( well, aside from the fact that Tolerant doesn't fit them AT ALL of course... ) , monks were never too hot but now they just pale in comparison to paramanders. what if elohim monks were produced with +1xp for each unique feature in Elohim borders and/or unique feature explored ( or just moved on a la letum frigus for amurites/illians ) by Elohim? that would give some decent utility to their "know UFs locations from turn 0" thingie, allowing them to plan their expansion/exploration accordingly. they really need something, even with tolerant and sanctuary people are still yawning while playing them

[DaveV]

allowing winterborn units to capture frostlings seems like a decent alternative that requires a lot less editing.

That's a pretty cool idea. No pun intended.

[gekko64]

what do others think about the "lose peace with barbs" mechanic of the BAR trait?

I've always hated it with a passion, it leads to all kinds of gamey behaviour to keep score artificially low when you're playing as intended.

I'd just remove that alright, but just making it require 2x instead of 1.5x could be enough... or maybe link it to culture or alignment instead

also, could Moroi and soldiers of Kilmorph be neverobsolete since their unique abilities are always useful?

btw, should the Nox Noctis effect affect the whole team?

I'd also recommend a nerf to gambling houses, like 1 happy per 20% gold, and one for public baths, like 2 hapy 2 unhealthy. they're both very good compared to others.