Crowd-sourced Civ: Mauryan Indians

[MishFTW]

Thanks for helping me waste over 45 minutes on YouTube

[gudo]

I don't think making the econ elephant just a dropsite is a good move gameplay wise. Perhaps it might be better to just make them super worker unit. ie they gather wood at a rate of 10x normal, can carry 200 in a full load, have a ton of hitpoints and can help build (can't place foundations though). They'd be expensive and slow though, but I think it's do-able.

[MishFTW]

I don't think making the econ elephant just a dropsite is a good move gameplay wise. Perhaps it might be better to just make them super worker unit. ie they gather wood at a rate of 10x normal, can carry 200 in a full load, have a ton of hitpoints and can help build (can't place foundations though). They'd be expensive and slow though, but I think it's do-able.

Now that is more realistic. But in turn, to counterbalance realism, you would need alot of food to create this unit.

[Moros]

Now that is more realistic. But in turn, to counterbalance realism, you would need alot of food to create this unit.

I think that is realistic in a way as well. Elephants need a lot of care, massive amounts of food and are a big time investment due to their constant needs and need of attention,..

[zoot]

I don't think making the econ elephant just a dropsite is a good move gameplay wise.

This is a bit of hack but I'm just throwing it out there: the elephant UI could have a button that would let you designate a particular point to be an 'elephant shuttle point'. Gatherers in the vicinity of this point would see it as a normal dropsite and stack their gathered resources there as treasure. The elephant will then shuttle back and forth between the shuttle point and the nearest 'real' dropsite to collect the 'treasure' and bring it back home. Obviously, enemy players can try stealing the treasure before the elephant arrives to pick it up.

[Zeta1127]

I like that idea, zoot.

[sankrant.chaubey]

So there will be yet another elephant unit??

[gudo]

It's not set in stone yet, but there might be. For the latest version of the planned profile, see Civ_Mauryans on the trac wiki. So far, there are 4 elephant units planned for the Mauryans. An archer, a siege elephant, and two hero units.

Do you have any idea for an "economic" elephant unit?

[wraitii]

I'm not too sure about the shuffling elephant? It's only interesting if it has a massive carrying capability, an unrealistically massive I mean. It also feels a bit too complicated for my taste.

[Mythos_Ruler]

I'm not too sure about the shuffling elephant? It's only interesting if it has a massive carrying capability, an unrealistically massive I mean. It also feels a bit too complicated for my taste.

Agreed. Starting to get micro-heavy, here guys.

A dropsite unit is not unprecedented in RTS (see: Age of Mythology Ox Cart for Norse).

[zoot]

You're right, it is too complicated Specifically, the scheme would become a mess if the distance back to the dropsite is too great for the elephant to keep up with the gatherers. The stack of resources would just keep growing and growing.

The one problem that could be with letting the elephant be a dropsite is that the resource collection rate might become unrealistically high? Or maybe it wouldn't.

Edited June 27, 2012 by zoot

[Mythos_Ruler]

The one problem that could be with letting the elephant be a dropsite is that the resource collection rate might become unrealistically high? Or maybe it wouldn't.

Didn't seem to be a problem for the Norse in AOM. You would have to manually re-position the econ elephant when necessary, and if you used it to go help build it could be out of position as an effective dropsite.

[Zeta1127]

An elephant that functions like a mobile dropsite seems like the best choice of the ones that have been proposed.

[wraitii]

Yeah, the gathering rate would probably be higher (though that's not even sure, because usually dropsites are fairly close to the gatherers anyway), but not enough to absolutely break the game. Anyway, balancing can be done in a ton of other ways.

And as Mythos said, in AoM there were two instances of "mobile dropsites", the Norse Ox Cart and the Atlanteans.

BTW, to Pureon/artists: I've looked at the demo, looks good!

[Zeta1127]

Repositioning the mobile dropsite will be the handicap that prevents a mobile dropsite from becoming imbalanced.

Sadly, I missed the boat on AoM, having only played the demo.

Edited June 27, 2012 by Zeta1127

[Pureon]

BTW, to Pureon/artists: I've looked at the demo, looks good!

Thanks wraitii

I committed the support elephant unit and added it to the Mauryan Demo map for playtesting (it works, but that's all I've tested )

[gudo]

Nice. I think this will certainly add some uniqueness to the Civ. It could use some special props, to make it very apparent that it's not a normal fighting elephant at a glance. I wonder how AI writers will work the mobile dropsite into their creations...

Apart from having no-where to train them, I haven't found any bugs with the support elephant. (They also need a name.)

[Pureon]

Props will be added onto the elephant's back, so that will help a lot with recognition. You make a good point about AI, would be nice to see computer opponents using the elephants too.

Apart from having no-where to train them, I haven't found any bugs with the support elephant. (They also need a name.)

I made them trainable in the Civ Centre in changeset 12033. This may change when the Elephant Stables building is added.

[Mythos_Ruler]

If they're going to have an "elephant stables" building, then we can go ahead and move Heroes back to the Fortress.

[Zeta1127]

Indeed, no need to flood the Maryaun Civ Centre with units and heroes if there is going an elephant stable. So, the economic elephant that will function as a mobile dropsite will be trained the elephant stable then?

On a side note, the Spartan Battering Ram is missing its specific name from the Spartan civ page, and I am not sure why there needs to be two civ pages for the Roman Republic on Wiki/Trac.

Edited June 28, 2012 by Zeta1127

[Pureon]

If they're going to have an "elephant stables" building, then we can go ahead and move Heroes back to the Fortress.

So if we were to add elephant stables, should all the elephant units including the champion/heroes be built there? Also guys, we need a name for the dropsite support elephant - please provide suggestions

[Shield Bearer]

If we do have a mobile dropsite, what would happen to the mill and the farmstead buildings?

I guess the player should have the option to build them, or at least the farmstead.

[Pureon]

You need the mill and farmstead for researching resource gathering techs, and also they are much cheaper for early-game economy. The support elephant costs a lot of food (it eats a lot ), but does allow resource collection from anywhere on the map, so is a very powerful economic boost mid-late game. If you need metal, and the closest metal resource is on the other side of the map, you can just send the support elephant and some gatherers across the map.

[feneur]

You need the mill and farmstead for researching resource gathering techs, and also they are much cheaper for early-game economy. The support elephant costs a lot of food (it eats a lot ), but does allow resource collection from anywhere on the map, so is a very powerful economic boost mid-late game. If you need metal, and the closest metal resource is on the other side of the map, you can just send the support elephant and some gatherers across the map.

I like how you think And I presume the elephant stables would only be buildable in the the Town Phase? Which would also mean that for the early game the buildings would be more useful (though I guess one strategy could be to rush to the Town Phase to be able to build support elephants quickly, not sure if that would be a viable strategy, but perhaps if you quickly want to exhaust the map of e.g. stone/metal or something ).

[wraitii]

Perhaps the two buildings could be fused into one only, so has not to be too redundant? I think having the support elephant only for the late game would make it rarely appear during gameplay (often enough, the player doesn't bother too much about economy at that point). Perhaps it could be trained in the village phase, but you'd need to unlock a technology from a dropsite.