Here's an idea I think could be quite neat. Religions in civs have holy cities, but not leaders. The Pope, or Patriarch, or Caliph in real life have often been distinct from the "Holy City" of a religion.

I think we could add this concept to give impetus to Fire coalitions, acting similar to the UN in modern vanilla civ (without a victory condition, though)

1. Start when a civ researches religious law, or maybe preisthood. This would start the process of choosing which civ (out of all of the civs that share that civ's state religion) gets the Patriarch (or religious head, probably with a special name for each). We could go different directions here, maybe even do each relgion differently.
-Elections, with each civ having votes related to the number to cites with this religion.
-Might require a wonder or ritual (Cannonical council or something)
-Randomly, or semi-randomly based on some factor, such as who has more ancient forrests, or who has moved the Armeggeddon Counter up or down the most, etc.

2. The civ selected would get the Patriarch unit, (one world unit for each religion). Basically a High Priest for that religion, but with str. of only 2 or 3. This may give diplo +/-'s, but most importantly, every 25? or so turns, the civ with the Patriarch would get to make a decree, such as:

-Cancel a previous decree (whether by you or previous player)

-Civilization X is a heretic. Choose a civilization with your state religion. All civs with your state religion would get a choice to declare war on this civ or face the same penalty as above. This would be in effect until the "heretic" civ is destroyed, converts away, or the decree is canceled.

-Call Holy War. Choose a religion. All civs with your state religion would get a choice to declare war on all civs of this religion. :eek: or face a penalty.

?-more?
3. There should be some ways to change ownership of the Patriarch. For one, when ever the unit is killed, a new civ of that faith will be chosen and get a new patriarch unit and the authority he brings. So if you don't like a rival's decrees, try to get an assassain in close (hence the str. 2 or 3)
Other ways? Maybe they have a small random chance to die of old age, or maybe someone else could build the ritual, Council of High priests, to choose a new Patriarch.

This seems like an interesting idea.
I think that the pope should have a city auto-designated as an alternate holy city. It wouldn't give gold, but it still would give spy benefits.

Well one thing is that the summoners of Basium and Hyborem could automatically be the popes for their religions.

I'm not sure if I think that an actual Patriarch unit is necessary. Rather it could just be a diplomatic thing. And then like every 75 turns a vote would go out, and every civ with that religion would get to vote for a new patriarch. Note that preferably the vote would be between the civs of that religion with the high score.
But everything can always change. Such as for the AV, the new patriarch isn't voted on, but chosen by Hyborem.

And of course if one patriarch declares too many civs to be heretic, there is a chance of a schism. This would cause the excommunicated civs to select a leader, and one of his cities would be designated as an alternate religion center. Hmm. Now that I think about it, the various religious centers could actually be based on the temple upgrades. This could create a schism without a whole new religion, and one that could be reunited later (think teh anti-pope).
Perhaps the schismatic religions could be reunited if a different pope later renouned the excommunication, or if both of the faux holy cities were controlled by the same civ. The former would be a peaceful reconciliation with the religions staying separate, and the latter would be the extermination of one branch of the religion.

Another declaration could be to raise relations with a civ of your religion/

This is a great idea. When you consider their exact abilities try to scale their ability by the percentage of cities that hold their religion. It makes sense that the patriarch of a religion that is 90% present would be more powerful than one that is 20% present. That would also give the players additional incentive to spread their religions.

We may also want to consider having high priests promote into these positions. They would still be world unique (and liable to leave your civ for another, so there is some danger) but would an upgrade from a qualified high priest make mroe sense?

I say that a highly quilified high priest could become a patriarch, perhaps as a way of keeping control of the papacy if your current pope dies.

I'm not sure if I think that an actual Patriarch unit is necessaryProbably not, but I like the idea of having to watch for assassains. :evil:

I had thought of having it, say, choose randomly from all the priests/inqs/High priests of the religion in the world and promote one, and that civ gets the powers.

As for scaling abilities, I envision them simply as able to coerce like-faithed civs to join a war or embargo or such, so I don't know where the scaling goes. Perhaps AI civs could be influenced to go along if the patriarch civ is more exclusive to their religion, or such.

We could have them get money from all members of thier organization. Like a holy city but not quite.

Very nice idea.

For me it would make most sense if the religious leader emerged in the Holy City and was controlled of the owner of that. Or at least let the owner of the HC get a greater chance of getting him/her.
A high level High Priest might get the option to upgrade(or Ascend, it sounds better) to the position Patriarch when in the Holy City of his religion, perhaps when certain other conditions are met. Perhaps even if you don't own the holy city but have Open Borders with the owner.
Then you get all the nice diplo options, scaling with how great the influence of the religion is. If the Patriarch dies - massive unhappiness for a few turns in cities of that State Rel. civ, and allow for a new Patriarch to Ascend.
Also, minor "God King" effect in whatever city the Patriarch is currently in. Gives the player an incentive to send him to border cities at risk to boost their military production, but provides great oppertunities for the would-be assasins of other civs.

For me it would make most sense if the religious leader emerged in the Holy City and was controlled of the owner of thatA compromise could be that anyone who takes a Great prophet to a holy city of their state religion (after a certain point?) will get the option to promote it to a Patriarch unit.

But then the Holy City owner might just shut their borders (to maintain a monopoly on the leaders); could we make shrine income contingent on having open borders with other civs? i.e., you get one gold per city with your religion that you have open borders with, rather than every city withyour religion.

Actually, that sounds like a good idea. I mean, shrine income is really pilgrimage income, isn't it? No pilgrims when the borders are closed.

But then the Holy City owner might just shut their borders (to maintain a monopoly on the leaders); could we make shrine income contingent on having open borders with other civs? i.e., you get one gold per city with your religion that you have open borders with, rather than every city withyour religion.

I like this idea. And would make it harder for a civ to get lots of gold from their multiple holy cities.
Think the ottoman's trying to get lots of gold from christian pilgrimages to jerusalem.

I checked Patriarches into 0.21. The current mechanics are:

1. There are now 5 seperate high priest units, one for each religion. They will abandon you if you switch away from their religion.

2. Any High Priest can become the patriarch if he is higher level than all other high priests of his religion. If there is already a patriarch, that unit loses the patriarch promotion.

3. If the patriarch has 10 or more experience points he can declare a holy war. There are a few checks here to stop weird stuff, but basically every player that shares your state religion will declare war on anyone you are at war with and doesnt share your state religion. Doing so costs the patriarch 10 experience points.

4. Patriarchs get +2 strength over a normal high priest. I thought about making them old and frail, but I think I prefer having them able to throw down and do some damage. Besides they need to earn that xp somehow.

5. You get +4 in attitude from other players if you have the patriarch of their religion.

Id like to get a special spell for each patriarch, let me know what you guys think.

Great!
Just some comments/Questions:
1. Could we make it so there are also unique inquisitors for each religion--and they too can become patriarchs? Or maybe there would be different inquisitor popes and priest popes.

2. Can we make it so that at a high enough arm counter there can be multiple popes? I'm thinking that past 50 there can be two different patriarchs owned by different civilizations, but the two civs will hate each other (and perhaps be albe to holy war each other)

3. Spells, yum.
Could some of the spells reduce XP, or would that be too hard for the Ai to understand?
And could some of them require a high armeggedon counter, or raise/lower teh counter?
ie: the AV patriarch can sacrifice cities he controls (prince of darkness) in order to get himself some XP, reduce city maintenance, and increase the arm counter.
The order patriarch doesn't get any special spells, but can declare a holy war losing only 5 XP and gets an extra 2 points of holy damage.
The Fellowship Patriarch is basically an uber druid. He can cast any nature spells (sorcery, summoning, or divine), and starts with a special ability to create an ancient forest (instead of a normal forest). Also maybe can summon unicorns? jk jk.
The RoK patriarch--what if he had a spell that lowered his XP some but created a metal resource for you?
OO, what fun. Summoning Cthulhu from the depts of the ocean? No seriously though a spell which "drowned" one of your living units-- +1 unholy strength, water walking, demon.

Calabim Patriarchs are unbeliveable.

Cool!

I like restricting it to High priests, that keeps someone from gunning down all their enemies too early. But AI should be weighted towards the High priest granting tech a bit more so that players have some competition.

I think one or two other abilities each that use experience would be good, meaning if one player used the abilities too much, they had a higher risk of losing the title. Maybe some of the abilities could be tied to unit religioin promotions--like the "Drown anyone" spell Loki suggested might only work if the target unit (or target stack, to make it AI castable) had OO promotion.

If it is tied to a promotion, make sure that it is removed correctly when flesh golemed. Or... maybe the OO would follow a FG Patriarch? :lol:

Perhaps the Altar free XP should be lowered, but we can wait and see how it works with new tech requirements.

As an aside, would it be possible for shrines to increase the rate at which divine units gain xp, if they are in that city? So having the holy city would be a small advantage in gaining a patriarch.

The Fellowship Patriarch is basically an uber druid. He can cast any nature spells Don't forget they'll keep their High Priest spells, so they already should be able too.

Oh i forgot how good fellowship high priests were.

Maybe fellowship patriarch starts with forest invisibility and gets +1 poison strength?

Nikis-Knight, would you move this thread into the public forum please.

This is really a wonderful idea which boosts differences between religions!
I would just give one suggestion if religion aspect would become more structured i think that conversion rules and religion spreading should also have a lot more parameters to take in account.
One thing which i have thought would be to introduce for example a tolerance slider toward unofficial religions.Tolerance slider choices should in any case be limited (if your religion is AV your tolerance choices toward Order should be really limited, same thing for the opposite).These tolerance slider should influence unoficcial religions spreading, happiness if there is unofficial religion in a city, diplomacy modifiers vs civs with other religions.The Pope should have a greater role about a religion tolerance slider.
About religion conversion i think that the 1 turn anarchy should be dropped in favor of something which is more complex, but at the same time AI friendly.

Oooh, shiny.

For those possible unique spells, I'd suggest some form of 'ritual' (thougt in no way related to the current rituals, so it'd need a new name) spells that require multiple casters:

Say, the Patriarch of Runes and two High Priests of Runes in a tile enables "Rite of Shaping", which will let the user change a tile to any of sea/flatland/hill/mountain, as desired.

The Patriarch of the Ashen Veil and twelve Savants in a tile enables "Rite of Desecration", killing all the savants while destroying a city one tile away, hellifying its tile and killing all defenders.

The Patriarch of the Order, two High Priests, and a Confessor might cast "Rite of Sacrifice", killing them all to emulate Corlindale's ability.

I do need 1 special spell for each patriarch.

@BCalchet- trying to get the ai to move the appropriate units together to cast those spells would be to hard.

:(
My dear grigorians will get the end of the pike...

This will make Purge the Unfaithful a much bigger hammer, no? I haven't built that yet, so I don't know for sure. It's Civ wide, rather than Global, I'm sure, but even so there's now another way to reduce your neighbor's relative strength.

I checked Patriarches into 0.21. The current mechanics are:

1. There are now 5 seperate high priest units, one for each religion. They will abandon you if you switch away from their religion.

2. Any High Priest can become the patriarch if he is higher level than all other high priests of his religion. If there is already a patriarch, that unit loses the patriarch promotion.

3. If the patriarch has 10 or more experience points he can declare a holy war. There are a few checks here to stop weird stuff, but basically every player that shares your state religion will declare war on anyone you are at war with and doesnt share your state religion. Doing so costs the patriarch 10 experience points.

4. Patriarchs get +2 strength over a normal high priest. I thought about making them old and frail, but I think I prefer having them able to throw down and do some damage. Besides they need to earn that xp somehow.

5. You get +4 in attitude from other players if you have the patriarch of their religion.

Id like to get a special spell for each patriarch, let me know what you guys think.

Making requirements for a Patriarch more strict would be AI friendly? or the less are req for the Patriarch better is for AI?
10 Experience points for declaring a holy war seems to me too easy to reach.

About your fifth point i think that you should also add some negative diplomacy modifier toward other civs which don't share your religion.Perhaps a -1 in most cases except some like you get -2 dipl. modifier toward AV civs if you have Order's Patriarch; same for the opposite.

Making requirements for a Patriarch more strict would be AI friendly? or the less are req for the Patriarch better is for AI?
10 Experience points for declaring a holy war seems to me too easy to reach.

About your fifth point i think that you should also add some negative diplomacy modifier toward other civs which don't share your religion.Perhaps a -1 in most cases except some like you get -2 dipl. modifier toward AV civs if you have Order's Patriarch; same for the opposite.

10 experience points isn't supposed to be hard to reach. What it does is it makes it harder for the patriarch to get his next level, which makes it all the easier for another priest to pass him and take his title.

Very good idea! Definetely a lot of fun, and will make the religions even more distinct. As it is now, playing as the same civ twice in the same condition can yield two completely different games if you take very different religions. This would make it even more so, which is just great.

But a point has been lifted which I have to agree with. Agnostics and people who just dont want to take a State Religion (hey, it happens!) should get some kind of benefit, so that not taking a religion isnt just a big disadvantage. As it is now, not taking a religions causes:

1- Less happy faces in ALL cities
2- No religion bonuses (Culture for OO, gold for Runes, etc.)
3- No religion techs and all that they allow
4- No religion special units
5- No divine magic

That's a BIG disadvantage. Sure, Cassiel has some very cool abilities (Adventurers are the law) but I'm not sure it completely makes up for it. Being faithless is a HUGE disadvantage, and would become even more so with this new faith-based power!

Maybe there should be some way for atheists to get power from their position, too?
Maybe "priest" units who rather than spreading a faith, remove other's faith.
Maybe buildings and units you can only build with advanced technology and no state religion
Eventually some abilities which REALLY hinder religion, like some unit which can move through enemy territory, once placed inside a city it will create unhappy faces as long as the civ has a state religion or something like it.
Maybe some abilities you can only get if you have no state religion and are NOT Grigori (They already get good stuff to compensate for it), so no religion actually becomes a religion choice itself.

Think Athar from Planescape in D&D. They dont just sit there and watch all the religious folk get their gifts. They activelly work against religion, "converting" people, slandering religions, so forth, so forth.

Just some thoughts. Dont know how likely it is that this could be programmed (Really dont know how moddable Civ 4 is)

Currently the Kuriotates have the Tailor and Jeweler buildings unique to them, I am guessing, to provide a way for them to maintain the happiness levels necessary for the mega cities they create. Why not make these available to be built by all civs, but with the caveat that they have absolutely no effect unless there builders are either Kuriotate or have no state religion? This would represent a decent into materialism as a soucre of happiness instead of faith.

I do need 1 special spell for each patriarch.

@BCalchet- trying to get the ai to move the appropriate units together to cast those spells would be to hard.

Ah, good point, I always forget about the poor little AI. They could be workarounded as long as they were utility spells and not combat spells by letting the AI check if it has the required units anywhere instead of in a stack, but then again, getting the AI to use utility spells is difficult in itself...

Anyway:

Raising the Depths: (Water 3, Chaos 3, Octopus Overlords Patriarch)
Target a water tile. For three turns, the target tile is a land tile for all intents and purposes. Any aquatic creatures in the tile are killed, while any ships are damaged and rendered unable to move until it wears off. At the end of the three turns, it returns to water, killing any non-water-walking units on it and allowing stranded ships to move again. (Special: If the right tile (a random mid-ocean one chosen at map generation) is targetted, Dread R'lyeh rises from the depths with unforseeable consequences.)

Word of Desecration: (Entropy 3, Fire 3, Ashen Veil Patriarch)
All living non-veil units within a few tiles of the caster are lightly damaged by unholy fire and permanently cursed with a -1 strength promotion (removable with sanctify, dispel, heal, etc). The affected tiles are turned to hell, and all improvements except mines and quarries are destroyed. As an additional cost to cast this spell, you lose one to three random veil-worshipping units you own. Savants are preferred, but if none exist, other living units will be claimed. If no others are around, the Patriarch dies.

Symbol of Wrath: (Spirit 3, Law 3, Order Patriarch)
The next demonic or undead unit to enter combat with the caster is permanently destroyed. No exceptions.

Eternity Rune: (Earth 3, Enchantment 3, Runes Patriarch)
Target mechanical unit gains the 'Immortal' promotion.




(Started writing this post hours ago, then forgot about it - I'll just post what I typed thus far.)

Symbol of Wrath: (Spirit 3, Law 3, Order Patriarch)
The next demonic or undead unit to enter combat with the caster is permanently destroyed. No exceptions.I'd call it Symbol of Judgement.
Eternity Rune: (Earth 3, Enchantment 3, Runes Patriarch)
Target mechanical unit gains the 'Immortal' promotion.Sounds good at first, but I don't think I'd want to enable an immortal Mithril golem, and I think it'd lead to multiple Barnaxi.

How about these:

Holy Forest (Nature 3, Enchantment3, Leaves Patriarch)
Creates a 3X3 block of Ancient Forest around the Patriarch.

Metal Rising (Nature 3, Earth 3, Runes Patriarch)
Creates (or rather digs up) a random metal or gems.

Anyway:

Raising the Depths: (Water 3, Chaos 3, Octopus Overlords Patriarch)
Target a water tile. For three turns, the target tile is a land tile for all intents and purposes. Any aquatic creatures in the tile are killed, while any ships are damaged and rendered unable to move until it wears off. At the end of the three turns, it returns to water, killing any non-water-walking units on it and allowing stranded ships to move again. (Special: If the right tile (a random mid-ocean one chosen at map generation) is targetted, Dread R'lyeh rises from the depths with unforseeable consequences.)

I'm afraid that this spell would make the Ai cry.

Symbol of Wrath: (Spirit 3, Law 3, Order Patriarch)
The next demonic or undead unit to enter combat with the caster is permanently destroyed. No exceptions.
Like Niki's-Knight i prefer "symbol of judgement".
And this seems a little to powerful.
What if it could be used to either heavily damage a stack of demon and undead (with holy damage) and any AV or OO worshippers, or to heal any disciple or unit with the Order or RoK.

Eternity Rune: (Earth 3, Enchantment 3, Runes Patriarch)
Target mechanical unit gains the 'Immortal' promotion.
Once again, great name but i have the same objection as Niki's-Night. What if instead it could be used to summon a golem (permanent) based on the terrain overlays? Ie hill, resources, woods, oasis.

(Started writing this post hours ago, then forgot about it - I'll just post what I typed thus far.)
heh i do that kind of thing too.

http://www.superdickery.com/images/dick/97_4_0000311.jpg[/spam]

Sounds like a cool idea. I'm eager to see how it works out.

What about that one for OO:
Chaotic sea: Every waterunit gets heavy damage and has halved movement for 2turns.

For AV:
Unholy darkness: The world is covered in darkness for 2turns and every AV-unit gets +1unholy for the duration.

For runes:
Kilmorphs blessing:
For the next 10 turns you get acess to every metall and all mines produce +3hammers.

Some really strong spells which could be limited either by only allowing them every x turns (maybe even dependend from AC) or by reducing the strenght of the priest every time he casts it by one(till he is dead, or stop at 1strenght but disable casting).

A compromise could be that anyone who takes a Great prophet to a holy city of their state religion (after a certain point?) will get the option to promote it to a Patriarch unit.

But then the Holy City owner might just shut their borders (to maintain a monopoly on the leaders); could we make shrine income contingent on having open borders with other civs? i.e., you get one gold per city with your religion that you have open borders with, rather than every city withyour religion.

Perhaps high preiests could have the ability to travel in rival territory. They could be barred from attacking the holy city (unless its owner has a different state religion). That way the high preist could travel freely and spread the word as well as making a pilgrimage to the holy city. Any player that kills a high priest would get a negative to players of that state religion.

here's an idea for the order spell:
judgement ray: only castable on evil civs. does damage to demons in a stack as long as there are no units between the caster and the stack, damage done is greater the higher the arm counter is then lowers the arm counter by this formula: (precent damage done) of (demons level). caster gains a promotion that keeps him from casting, roots him and lowers his strength for a few turns

an example would be: if it did 20% damage to a level 10 demon the arm counter would go down by 2

i think this might need some balancing but it is sort of balanced because its strength is dependent on the strength of the evil civs (as it is a reletive measurement on how strong the evil is over the good) and it gets weaker every time along with making the caster very weak and able to be killed easily

Maybe the pope unit could get a combat precent bonous equal to the number of cities with his religion or maybe like 3% per temple of the religion and +1 strength if it is in its holy city

or maybe if the patriarch is it the holy city with the shrine for its religion then it can spread its religion to a random city or unit on the map with a spell

order:
spell blocking defeatet enemies becoming manes/angels. partial uselessness for basium intended

runes:
i would like to see some terraforming action, on the other side i honestly dont know how hard this would be to implement right (including ai, etc..)

leaves:
summon tiger :lol:

veil:
how about giving hyborem permanently the patriach promotion and skip the spell? i dont see a need for an substitute when the real thing is walking on earth

oo:
resistable spell removing one random promotion (from all non racial-promos, exept immortal?)

cotd:
resistable spell changing targets religion to cotd, as i see not much of cotd spread.

cheers

These spells are all really powerful but they reduce the patriarch's XP by 5, and reduce his strength by two until the turn after the spell is over.

Marks of Judgement (order)
Bonus to all good units around, penalty to all evil units around. All other units have a chance of getting either the bonus or the penalty (or staying the same). This wears off after one battle like blessing.

Runes of Plenty (runes)
Cast in a city. That city gets +1 food, +1 shield, and +1 gold from each tile until the caster leaves or he loses the patriarch ability.

Ritual of Blood (Veil)
Sacrifice the patriarch. For every 2 of his levels (rounded up), a permanent balor is summoned. Also for each of his levels, the arm counter goes up by one.

Sigel of the Hunt (fellowship)
Summons the Great Hunter ie super beastmaster hero dude. When summoned he comes with one animal of each type. He dissapears if the patriarch dies or is replaced.

Actually I don't have any ideas for the overlords one yet. I'm thinking something like take control of target sea unit and it becomes insane (crazed or whatever gives +40% attack)

How about a less easilly resisted/more powerful version of Dominate for OO Patriarch?

EEERRRGGG, wish AI understood teraforming better...

Just wondering, when will 0.21 come out???

EEERRRGGG, wish AI understood teraforming better...

Just wondering, when will 0.21 come out???

No ETA yet.

Runes: "Collection of Tithes":
- Caster receives n gold per city with Runes, the owner of each city looses the same value of gold.

Overlords:
- Target gains 'Master of the Seas' promotion allowing for water walking. Only one unit can have this promotion at a time.

Leaves:
- All units in the tile get Treetop defense and Forest Stealth ability (may need to be renamed for coding sake) that has a x% chance per turn to wear off.

Veil:
- City gains +x% science while the patriach is in the city. Sacrificed units in the city provide science bonus.

Order: Mark of heaven
- Unit gains 'heaven's mark' promotion. If the unit dies, it has a better chance to return as an angel. In the meantime, it gets 20% resistance to un-holy damage.

What all these do is keep the Partiach out of combat, allowing other high priests the chance to gain XP and overtake him.

maybe when the patriarch is in the holy city there can be a small bonous for all cities with its religion
leaves gets health
AV gets science
Order gets less matenence
OO gets hurry costs
and RoK gets money

Veil: Demonic infusion
- all living Veil units on the same tile receive the demon promotion. 10% also receive the prophecy mark promotion.

Order: Blessing of Junil
- all Order units on the same tile receive the Blessing of Junil promotion. Grants +10% vs Unholy, +10% vs Death, and +10% vs demons.

Overlords: Call Cthulu
- All units in tiles bordering the priest suffer 25% cold damage (like ring of fire) and gain the crazed and mutated promotions. Mutated units slightly more likely to get negative promotions.

Leaves: Enrich Forest
- Upgrades forests: none -> new -> forest -> ancient forest

Runes: Arms of Kilmorph
- All runes units in the same tile get +1 strength and are immune to rust.

maybe a patriarch can upgrade deciple units without having to pay gold? or maybe when its on the tile they can upgrade at level 4 but at twice the cost?

Kudos for the patriarch idea. This will be really fun once implemented.

How about doing something similar with mages? Whichever Archmage is most experienced could be given "The Magister" promotion (with apologies to Forgotten realms, lol). "The Magister" blessed by whatever God/Power is the patron of the Arcane Arts, would be able to cast any sorcery spell, with the caveat, that if it wasn't a spell that he normally had access to, it would cost experience in much the same way Patriarch spells will.

BTW, isn't Bambur already the Runes patriarch?:mischief:

or maybe there could be a terrain improvement that only the patriarch can build that costs a couple exps to build along with requiring a lot of turns and are automaticly destroyed when the civ stops owning the patriarch.

for leaves there could be some kind of grove that can only be buildt in ancient forests that slowly grows from providing 1 commerce to 2 then to 2 commerce and 1 production

for order you build some kind oftemple thing that randomly spaws crusaders and order preists and stuff (much like barrows) and randomly gives some units int he tile the blessed promotion

for OO there could be some "land dececrater" that starts with huge bonuses to everything and upgrades like a cottage to lesser and lesser bonuses and eventually the tile produces nothing at all

for AV there could be some kind of unholy lab thing that will produce 1 commerce for every 10% you dedicate to research and has a small chance of discovering mana

and for runes thers some kind of enchanted mine that provides extra production and commerce a increased chance of finding metals and an extra 1 food

BTW, isn't Bambur already the Runes patriarch?:mischief:

well if we were to say that we could say that all the religious heroes are the patriarch

the patriarch should be able to inquisition, travel in territory without open borders and spread its religion (for maybe 1 exp or something) without destroying it

spirit form-for one turn, target ally has +50% vs physical damage and cannot be killed by a foe that deals only physical damage.
(this could be changed to mist form and altered slightly)

earth blessing-for 10 gold per unit, each nonsummoned allied unit in the casters tile and adjacent tiles"gain+2 earth strength untill end of turn". Golems in those tiles lose the rusted promotion and are fully healed.

natures blessing- all burning tiles within adjacent range(city plot if the priest is above 50 xp) are put out. this tile is vitalized twice, and begins growing a new forest.

call of cuthulu-all nonsummoned, units in the tile gain +2 unholy damage untill end of turn, and all other units in that tile and adjacent tiles become insane
(foes may resist with a lower base average than normal)

Perhaps instead of (or in addition to) active spells, how about passive effects?

Fellowship: Whenever the patriarch ends its turn in a forest section, it has a xx% chance of becoming either Ancient Forest for self owned or Open Borders ally, or becomes a Haunted Forest (0f 0h 0g, destroys any improvements) until cut down.

RoK: Same, but with mines. Pillage to remove and rebuild.

RoK should get a Matriarch. Kilmorph is a lady anyways, youd think shed want a lady priest instead.

Ideas for spells:

Order: Blessed Intercession: Reveals caster's location to all players, and drops his strength to 1. Prevents caster from acting for three turns. At the end of this time, reduces Armageddon Count by 1.

Runes: Supreme Wall: Cast on a non-city land tile, turns the tile into a mountain, destroying any terrain improvements that were there. Subsequent castings each have a 50% chance of undoing each previous casting; Mountains thus undone are reduced to hills (with a chance of having minerals within).

Leaves: Verdant Growth: Cast on all surrounding tiles, it upgrades all terrain in a circle around the Patriarch. Hell terrain becomes non-Hell terrain. Non-hell terrain is Vitalized. Non-hell terrain without a forest has a New Forest added. Existing Forests age one category.

Overlords: Wave of Madness: All units within 2 squares (including the Patriarch) have a random chance of Mutating (as the spell) and/or becoming Barbarians.

Veil: Rite of Doom: Cast on a city the Patriarch is in, destroys the city, along with any units within (except the Patriarch). Increases the Armageddon count by twice normal for this act, even if the Veil is present. Spawns Manes regardless of the population of the city, or twice as many as normal, if the Veil was present. Any units destroyed become Manes automatically, regardless of whether they would normally have been.

RoK should get a Matriarch. Kilmorph is a lady anyways, youd think shed want a lady priest instead.
For dwarves, it is very hard to see the difference under all that beard and chain mail:lol:

I didnt say she had to be a smokin pile of hotness

I think thats one of those "leave to the player's discretion" things. :lol:

i wonder why no one has ever reacted to one of my posts or tried to improve my ideas

i wonder why no one has ever reacted to one of my posts or tried to improve my ideas

Not sure. Maybe you're posting too many times in a row (which might make you look you're trolling even though you might not be)? Maybe everyone is busy with something else? Maybe only you notice that you are being mostly ignored? Lots of reasons possible but don't let them bother you too much. Just because no had really responded doesn't mean that no one had read what you wrote.

I think the Order patriarch shouldn't get any special spells, but should be able to operate as an additional inquisitor.

Veil, maybe just get fear and additional unholy damage.

Overlord, something where defeated units become Lunatics, or something to grant a special promotion to lunatics.

Fellowship, turning forests into ancient forests could be useful when expanding/conquering, and stays with the whole druid archetype quite well. (Personally, I wish the Fellowship priests were a bit more than druids, though.)

Runes, a targeted disintegration spell that can destroy an enemy non living unit (like a copper golem, catapult, cannon) or weapons promotions. (could be a big threat to the lucuirp)

I think that the pope should have a city auto-designated as an alternate holy city. It wouldn't give gold, but it still would give spy benefits.


I think this is a great idea that no one has elaborated on. The Holy City has a static placement, but there's no reason that a religion's epicenter shouldn't change as it spreads and develops. If the Luchuirp civ containing the Runes Holy City is overrun by Evil forces, should the religion itself stagnate despite the fact that the thriving Khazad have adopted it on the other site of the continent? Should the Balseraphs, who have tumbled into Ashen Veil worship, receive the bulk of the benefits from their creaky old OO shrine while the Overlords still rule the Lanun?

Circumstances like these point towards the creation of religious capitals. They make sense both in games terms and for the role playing element. And of course the patriarch should be inexorably tied with the religious capital.

Here are my ideas on religious capitals. I'm new to FfH2, so forgive me if some of these ideas are duplicates and already implemented.

1. For each religion, the most devout civ (ie, has adopted it as state religion , has most cities with the religion and/or most religious buildings) can promote any Level 2 or higher Divine unit to Patriarch. If the patriarch is present in a city, then that city can build the religious capital of the state religion. (The Patriarch/Captial are a chicken/egg scenario, and could easily be flipped if it made it easier to implement). The Patriarch would also be able to spread religion, but of course he can't do that if he's busy building the religious capital, a choice to make early on.

2. The Religious Capital would vary between religions. Some would give bonuses to building religious buildings or troops, another might give free promotions to religious troops. One might give gold per city with the religion, another might give beakers. The capitol would definitely give a diplomatic bonus to other civs with the state religion.

3. If another Civ becomes most devout, they can immediately promote a unit to become the new Patriarch, who can commence building the religious capital in one of his cities. The new capitol would replace the old one when completed. The previous Patriarch becomes the Anti-Patriarch, and relations between the two civs begin to sour. There could theoretically be multiple Anti-Patriarchs running around. :)

I like this idea because it can potentially build tension in an end-game if, for example, the Order forces have wiped out all the bad guys and things are a little too peaceful. That, and the fact that the idea of an Anti-Patriarch is just way too much fun :D

Thanks for the amazing amount of hard work you're putting into this project. I downloaded version 2.20 blind a couple weeks ago, having no idea what I was getting into. I have rarely been as genuinely excited playing a computer game as when Hyborem manifested right beside my Grigorians and set up shop. :eek: Luckily I had my two hardened Dragon Slayer adventurers close by and cut him down before he had a chance to spread. :goodjob:

I fully support the idea. I want to add that it would be great for other mods too.

How about this: if the owner of a holy city doesn't follow that holy city's religion, the patriarch of that religion (which must necessarily be of another Civ) can sacrifice himself to "steal" the holy city. The new patriarch (which may or may not be part of another Civ) wouldn't be able to steal it again, as the owner of the previous patriarch would have to necessarily follow that holy city's religion.

Just another change that would fit my philosophy of "If one Civ has more than one holy city, the game isn't as interesting."

I like the Patriarch Idea, but it is terrible for Gregori. The Luonnotar (or an upgraded version thereof, maybe requiring a certain level of the Altar of the Luonnotar?) need improvements to balance this. What if their Inquisition ability were made to work in other civ's cities. They should also be able to move in rival territory like their Medics can, or else only those stupid enough to make open border agreements would suffer. I don't think "inquisition" is the right term for their teachings on The One . Perhaps it should be called "Enlighten." It might also help if adventurers could upgrade to Medics and Luonnotar. This doesn't really help the Agnostic Auric Ulvin, but I never liked him anyway.

I'm not sure if it will hurt the Grigori, myself. Without a "heathen religion" penalty, they are unlikely to be anyone's worst enemy, and they still have all the other ways to get people on their side.
It might make things harder for them, but I think we'll have to wait and see. I really like Cassiel and I know Kael does too, so we'll make sure they are competitive.
What if their Inquisition ability were made to work in other civ's cities. This might be an idea to do so. :)

or maybe there could be a terrain improvement that only the patriarch can build <snip> for OO there could be some "land dececrater" that starts with huge bonuses to everything and upgrades like a cottage to lesser and lesser bonuses and eventually the tile produces nothing at all

Hmm. Sounds like some sort of "Colour from Space" or something. Personally, I can't easily see the point in doing it, but I'm very unlikely to pursue the ability anyway as I view OO to be vile as well as evil. :)

Some sugestions to the Patriarch spell:


Overlords: Dreams of the Unthinkable.

When a magic-user casts a spell there is a chance that he gains the Madness promotion. This chance is proportional to the number of overlord cities in the mapand the size of the map. A unit with the Madness promotion can start the turn without any movement point and is automatically converted by Overlord Inquisitors. A unit with the mind, spirit or overlords promotion are immuneto this effect. It costs 10 XP to the Patriarch.
This effect ceases when the Patriarch moves, dies or lose the Patriarch title. As long as the ritual is in effect the Patriarch receives a big defense penalty, -40%, for example. A metamagic spell, probally the Sorcery 3 could dispell these type of "Global Enchantment" for a experience cost equal to the used to cast.
These spell type is a good template to other spells. As a Patriarch Spell it is interesting why it forces the Patriarch to remain inactive, relying in it's assassins to eliminate the competition. The problem with this suggestion is the AI, which I believe is not very good to measure the right time to use these type of big and more or less simmetric effect.


Leaves: Tarrasque.

The Leaves Patriarch gives the ability to all your units to heal in any forest as he was in your cultural borders.
You can sacrifice the Patriarch to Summon a permanent Tarrasque. The Tarrasque starts with so many levels in the nature wrath promotion as there is nature nodes in the map, not counting the nature mana from palaces,and the level of the sacrificed Patriarch. When the Tarrasque attacks it gains power proportional to the number of Nature Wrath promotions it has. Each time he is destroyed it loses a Nature Wrath promotion and is respawned fully healed in the nearest Ancient Forest in your cultural borders. As longthe Tarrasque lives there is no forest grown in the map. Only a Tarrasque can exist each moment. Each time the Tarrasque dies a young forest spawns on the square he died.
With this mechanic the Patriarch keep his mobility, so it is easier to him to keep his Patriarch status and use more easily the Holy War spell. There is a tension between the good bonus of the Patriarch Life and Death. A powerful Patriarch and the powerful Tarrasque.


Veil: I support Wood Elf suggestion, but I think the Patriarch should not die. It could be balanced reducing the number of Balrogs and Armaggedon Counter increase.


I think also each Patriarch should have a different name, for example the Leaves Patriarch should be called Hierophant, and the Order Morning Lord.

to solve the holy-city-held-by-person-with-other-state-religion problem we could make the patriarch able to sacrifice itself to transfer the holy city of its religion to the city its in but only if they are following the religion and the holy city owner is not