Again I appreciate that and yes Kreposts I love using for all Civs and Fortresses, WHAT A WASTE! And by ‘waste’ I don’t mean they themselves are useless, but like so many buildings from the custom map editor that are ‘wasted’ because they look like they have so much fun and potential for regular gameplay.
It was over a year ago but if I remember correctly I was able to successfully set up my Fortresses to launch cannon-balls instead of arrows, thus setting them apart and making them unique from Castles. And don’t cannon-balls make more logical sense for a ‘Fortress’ anyways? How appropriate!
And if I remember correctly I bulked their defensive health by about twice that of Castles, while also increasing their costs significantly in stone and gold like 3 times I think to add a little balance. You want these bad-a** defensive buildings? You gotta have the sustainable empire and resources to afford them!
But if I remember correctly I also made them so they launched a few tiles further so that siege units like Trebs and Bombadiers couldn’t just take them out so easily with their own reach and without any risk. See? I’m always thinking in the ‘cost vs benefit’ mindset to try and bring some kind of balance.
I think I did it successfully and then got distracted with these other mods I’m asking about here and like you said, gave up somewhere.
But that’s what I mean when I say I want to be able to use all these cool and unused buildings from the map editor for unique ideas and modifications that as of now are not at all being used with any potential and sitting in those map editors wasted!
How fun would it be to use other big ‘religious’ buildings like Cathedrals (or so many other unused structures from the map editor) that are heavily fortified and tucked away in the enemy’s corner of the map, that have to be knocked down to win at the end of the game? How cool if they could store a much larger amount of relics as well as being able to produce units!
I really think with all my heart the Devs need to go through all these buildings and open them up for use in the game itself without having to mod them for one of their new upgrades and DLCs in the game! I think there should be new options and units added to the gameplay especially from buildings already existing in map editor but not being used!
Are there ‘engineers’ or something like them? I can’t quite remember I think it’s just siege engineers right? But what if we had ‘civil engineers’ that acted like an advanced villagers who gave us additional build options for more advanced or these unused buildings from the Map Editor? And now that I’m talking about it I’ll look into designing my own unit like this based on Villies to give me more build options and pages like I was hoping. Again we’ll see how far I can get with this as I’ve never tried to create my own unit.
But as another idea for gameplay what if the Devs made it so that any buildings or units we don’t have in our selected Civ by default can eventually have the tech researched through something like spying and espionage or ‘reverse engineering’? Or have it so those particular units can be purchased, only for much more the cost to again add balance?
To use one example, some Civs can’t build certain things and in this case let’s say ‘Siege Onagers’. That’s fine for balance and uniqueness of Civs. But how cool if there was an option between default Techs and All Techs at game set up that allowed in-game technology and research for trading that allowed us to purchase these units from some neutral entity or building? (Like a Gaia player and its buildings we set up on the map maybe?) Or just from allies who have those techs and units available?
Our allies would be able to choose to give them to us for whatever cost they want and that we agreed to pay. Or we can buy them up from some invisible entity (like an imaginary in-game store or trader that pops up on a splash screen when we click it) The thing is we’d have to have something like ‘reverse engineering’ researched for that particular unit while perhaps the stipulation would also be that some player, even an enemy, has to be a Civ on the map that has them available as a default technology. In other words if no other players have ‘Siege Onagers’ in that particular game, we can’t make them. Who knows except the Devs what the stips would be?
But maybe they could make a ‘Universal Discovery’ Tech (similar to ‘Spies’) that costs a lot but opens up all tech and units for research with the idea being that some from our Civs went out into the world and researched other existing technologies out there and brought these other technologies back.
From there we could maybe pay something like 3 times as much in default costs and resources and especially gold for a Siege Onager if we really wanted one. For instance even if a unit only costs wood and food by default, purchasing this way costs significant amount of gold as well. At least we could have them in a fun and unique way though and it’s a good idea for something between the default Techs of each Civ and the ‘All Techs’ option!
Now as mentioned I know there’s ‘All Techs’ option in the game setup. But I think something in between this would be awesome where by default your Civ might not have those units, but you could still purchase them from an Allie, Gaia, or some kind of invisible in-game store. It would just add something between the two options that would make the game a little more clever and ‘real’ to our world.
Hell, maybe the Devs could make some kind of ‘Civil Engineer’s Building’ we can make in our own Civs that research the tech to steal this knowledge and researches each of these desired units ourselves. Of course making each one would still cost significantly more if our Civs don’t have them by default!
Maybe these Civil Engineers can ‘capture’ enemy units instead of destroying them, let’s say five for example, and after successfully bringing them back to our Civ Eng Buildings it opens up the ability to ‘Reverse Engineer’ them and make them ourselves. The sky is the limit for the Devs, providing they have the time and resources to design these things of course. Still how much more fun and interesting the gameplay!
Finally let me use one more example of something I remember working on but again don’t remember how far I got. Just another fun idea I had:
I know we have farms. But what if instead of having only farms we used those ‘Storage’ buildings (again found in map editor and I’m hoping by memory that’s what they were called) to research some kind of technology to produce more sheep as an additional form of food? Of course it would cost the appropriate amount of money for game balance but the benefits would be less farms necessary to sustain your Civ.
I remember I started working on this but the idea is that you make a fenced in area, have a ‘Storage’ built. And with the proper technology (has to be created and added) your Civ can produce sheep that keep producing more sheep as food. Maybe research domestication of other animals and cows for meat or ‘milking’ (additional tech from these buildings) and what not.
Perhaps the technology is costly and requires X amount (17 maybe) min. of farms, but produces food twice as fast as sheep keep producing from these Storages. (Man I hope that’s what they were called but they looked perfect for a little shelter that sheep could be bred out from)
In other words not only farms can be re-seeded, but animals can be domesticated and raised for food since that’s very logical to a real world. (Not that hammering at the bottom of buildings to put out fires that have been burning for years on a house is in any way real lol) But still, it improves the overall gameplay.
I’ve had all kinds of fun ideas like this but I think there is so much wasted potential and either way I think the Devs really need to start making use of these buildings that are being wasted in their coming DLCs and game-upgrades!
Cathedrals that hold twice as many relics as Monasteries and produce special units. Warrior Monk/Knights (like Hospitallers or Templars of history to sell the in-game concept perhaps?) that not only heal and collect relics but can move fast and fight perhaps?
Or Fortresses that act like cannon-galleons with longer ranges and that are harder to bring down than Castles! Storages that bring us new food techs. Other unique or religious buildings from the map editor with their own unique uses. Like I said so much potential to do so much more just sitting there when they can be added to the DLC’s as additional perks and incentives to buy them!
But while I know things like Genie Editors were designed by those outside the game (as I understand it and damn we’re grateful for all your hard work) I’d love to see the Devs do what they could so we could have more customization when it comes to modding, so we could do more things like make other buildings we want hold relics or whatever!
I’ll be posting this long-a** reply as its own thread in hopes the Devs might consider some of these ideas and at the very least start making use of these ‘wasted’ buildings sitting in the map editor that have so much potential. But yeah thanks to anyone who read all this lol.
And while some of these things don’t change the overall strategy too much and some might find them as unnecessary (some just want the hard-core running and building and fighting and destroying approach to their game-play) for those of us who like longer lasting game-play and Civs I think some of these things could really add to the overall experience!