Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mephansteras]

Reading through some of Toady's dev notes and comments in the FotF thread, I had a thought.

Right now, the elves are at a technological disadvantage due to only using wooden items. But, with the new material code going in, it'd be possible to have special plants that can effectively make metal or metal quality items for them to use. It would make sense, especially if those plants had to be grown in special areas or with special elf-only skills.

That way elves could at least match the iron capabilities of the goblins and humans. Steel, of course, should still be special.

[Granite26]

cause if there's one race that's grossly underpowered in this game, it's the elves

[Mephansteras]

They only win because they breed like crazy and zerg rush everything. I'd like to see them value thier own lives slightly more. I mean, they value every other creature's lives, don't they?

And, actually, I've noticed that the more races you add to the game the less and less powerful the elves end up being. In my worlds, they're usually one of the smaller civilizations, unless they luck out and get a whole giant forest continent to themselves.

[Warlord255]

As far as race modding goes for new races, I continue to find that traders and their role is a little unnecessary after the first few years, with the sole exception of specialty materials.

We'll have to see what provisions exist for entity-specific materials, if any; that would be a prerequisite to the aforementioned elven "tree-metal".

[Tormy]

Right now, the elves are at a technological disadvantage due to only using wooden items. But, with the new material code going in, it'd be possible to have special plants that can effectively make metal or metal quality items for them to use. It would make sense, especially if those plants had to be grown in special areas or with special elf-only skills.

Having very durable, special wooden materials [which are as "strong" as iron] is a good idea. This is a fantasy game afterall, so why not? Elves could do much better that way. [Well of course we will be able to mod these in, I am talking about the vanilla game obviously.. ]

[Warlord255]

Right now, the elves are at a technological disadvantage due to only using wooden items. But, with the new material code going in, it'd be possible to have special plants that can effectively make metal or metal quality items for them to use. It would make sense, especially if those plants had to be grown in special areas or with special elf-only skills.

Having very durable, special wooden materials [which are as "strong" as iron] is a good idea. This is a fantasy game afterall, so why not? Elves could do much better that way. [Well of course we will be able to mod these in, I am talking about the vanilla game obviously.. ]

There might be some new possibilities with modding as far as other ideas; millable stones, rock salt as an ingredient, fun things like that that arguably ought to be in vanilla.

[Granite26]

Right now, the elves are at a technological disadvantage due to only using wooden items. But, with the new material code going in, it'd be possible to have special plants that can effectively make metal or metal quality items for them to use. It would make sense, especially if those plants had to be grown in special areas or with special elf-only skills.

Having very durable, special wooden materials [which are as "strong" as iron] is a good idea. This is a fantasy game afterall, so why not? Elves could do much better that way. [Well of course we will be able to mod these in, I am talking about the vanilla game obviously.. ]

That starts to taste like 'everybody has the same set of abilities and weaknesses, it just plays out differently.'

[Warlord255]

That starts to taste like 'everybody has the same set of abilities and weaknesses, it just plays out differently.'

With the ability to define entity pets, this won't be all to great a problem.

[Granite26]

I could get behind an ironwood that's 110-130 but only useable for bows and arrows...

[Mephansteras]

It's a valid point, though. We don't want to ruin too much flavor.

On the other hand, elves kinda suck one-on-one right now.

Hmmm. One way to balance things would be to make the new plant materials hard but a little more brittle then normal iron. That way it would work really well for things like arrows, but not as much for armor. Hmm, maybe some sort of lamellar armor or something from it to make replacing damaged parts easier.

The idea is to make them more powerful and less zerg-like, while still retaining flavor and differentiation from the other races. Ironreed arrows would be nice, since it fits in with the elves preference for arrows and ranged combat. Maybe they rely on tamed animals for most of their melee fighting? It would also make sense for them to use spears and rapier-type swords, good for stabbing but not much for slashing, since even hardened wood can't hold an edge?

[Granite26]

I hate to mention it, but the Warhammer games might be a good source of balance material... (and Chainmail, and any others) for what makes a good plus and minus.

In my mind elves get their advantages not by being stronger or faster or having better stuff, they get it by having great skills.  (a lot of champions with masterwork wooden weapons vs medium skilled dwarves with steel masterwork weapons and armor vs strong but inexperienced humans with decent iron weapons.)

The most prevelent way this is done is in the ages.  Elves live forever, and thus reach the crazy high skill levels.  (OK, so rank up is so fast that nobody dies before they reach elite, but hey)

Obviously animals will be another level of balance, although goblins and dwarves already have theirs (beak dogs and trolls)

[bjlong]

One thing to remember is that most civilizations didn't have this technology or that technology, and so had to make due with special tactics. Melee could be abhorrent to the elves, so they might be horrific at it, but ranged weaponry would be their specialty. They could force players to bottle up, and wait for them to starve once farming gets harder. This is different from gobbos who would crudely try to break things until they got to the meaty dwarf center on the inside.

Basically, different races need different overall strategies--one should figure out how the culture works, and then base general strategies on that.

[Steely Glint]

I'd rather see elves with a wide variety of fearsome war-trained animals. Bears, elephants, hippos, giant eagles, etc.

[Mephansteras]

Even better, I'd like to see a mix.

One Elf civ might have these special ironreed plants, and therefore rely more on their own military (mostly archers). Another might lack them, and so rely on their animal companions.

[Silverionmox]

If elves are serious about living in harmony with nature, they ought to use the locally available stuff as much as possible.

There should be different cultures within races too of course. There should be carnivorous elves as well as vegetarian ones. There's more than one way to skin a cat.