I notice that ones you've got to the third level of the Altar, you're more than beholden to make your specialists into priests, unless you really want more Academies. I suppose Kael and Co. are gonna be expanding the specialists soon, so here's my two cents. They work on the same principle of the Altar.

Great Artists: Music of the Spheres- gives culture bonus to great artists and/or theatres, grants exp to recon units

Great Engineer: the Citadel- grants worldwide defense bonii to walls and/or castles, grants exp to siege

Great Merchant: Bazaar of Mammon- grants more trade routes, increased trade income

Great Sage: Philosopher's stone- grants sci bonus, grants health bonii

Feel free to rend apart my ideas, just not the spirit!

Nice thought, but it would seem like using the same system over and over in different ways, which Kael dislikes afaik.

True, but I couldn't think up a way to make the other specialists useful once you've built at least the second/third Altar.

Shouldn't Philosophers Stone also grant a huge gold bonus and require Alchemy?

This is the Age of Rebirth, they might have found out some texts relating to the fabled PS, they make it and only until Alchemy is its full power unveiled. Just an example.

Mmm, the gold bonus was a slight oversight tho'.

I agree. I often build levels of the Altar even if I'm not pursuing that victory type just to improve my Disciple units and later find that my city Governors are using Priests like mad because they are by far the most attractive GP. Before I know it, I'm drowning in Great Prophets with little hope of getting any other sort of GP.

we really need a way to get specialists improved even if its ina different way

like you can build a national. wonder in a city allowing a bunch of specialists of one type but those specialists produce 2 less gpp points but the lost poinjts are allocated toa special pool that when it gets to certan thresholds it will poost those specialists

If it's any consolation, my usual strategy in unmodded civilization involves Angkor Wat combined with large piles of priests. Having said that I also find sages quite useful also - extra research is never unwelcome. Bards are great if you are trying to seize land or resources from an "ally" through cultural spread.

However, I usually do not use engineers or merchants at all.

However, I usually do not use engineers or merchants at all.

I love engineers for rushing key wonders in Vanilla. I tend to play on Huge maps with ~16 civs, so wonders are pretty competitive, and being able to guarantee a wonder with an engineer is great.

I've never been impressed by merchants, except that in Vanilla they are one of the few ways you can improve food production in some desert/mountain cities. (Great Merchants add 1F and 12G, or something like that.) I usually save them for Golden Ages.

one thing i notice that alot of people fail to do is sacrifice their great people for the learning of techs. i highly recomend mapping out what people give you what techs so you knwo what techs you can get for free.

what i would love to see .....

instead of jsut 1 tech that can be gotten , have some choices. i am soo tired of my great sages ALWAYS offering alteration.

What happened in my last game, as the Elohim (Einion Logos, Philosophical and Spiritual), to illustrate the power of priest spam:

Ag->Education->Mysticism
built pagan temples in two cities, ran priests, run God King

->Fishing->Message From The Deep
First prophet finished by this point, built Necronomicon same turn, ran three priests in that city, start building octopus temple, sent zealot to 2nd city, grow both to new higher happiness caps

->Philosophy
assigned extra priests to both cities as soon as octopus temples finished. Started building lots of Zealots.

When Philosophy finished, bulbed Priesthood (all but 2 turns worth of research)

Ran Religious Discipline, set all cities to farms + as many priests as possible while allowing quick growth to the new happiness cap (generally 4+ priests per city).
(Meanwhile with the money from God King, Holy City and priests, I upgraded my best warriors to Drown and wiped out the Clan)

Started building monks everywhere.

->Way of the Wise
Started building the Altar of Luonnotar with every new prophet that pops

Had level 4 altar a couple of turns after Way of the Wise finished

->Mind Stapling
Put some priests back on farms, start whipping out Monks (who start with Mobility I too, for some reason) - str5, mov3 and not countered by Shock (and with 8XP in Altar city, so with Combat I/Shock themselves too). Lunatics too.

Pretty much Game Over.

On Prince level (yeah, I know) this was by turn 150, and I was significantly hampered by being right next to Orthus as well, so I had comparatively few cities. By this point, I'd had SEVEN(!) Great Prophets and was well on the way to masses more (which then became less useful, except to settle). The problem is mainly that Priesthood is very easy to bulb, and that the excessively food-rich farms let you just go nuts with priests, while you're close in tech to lots of nice Altar levels. You've got this reinforcing positive-feedback loop that just makes priests keep going strong (and which, just as importantly, keeps giving you more and more happiness boosts too). Being Philosophical didn't hurt either (by far my pick for best trait in the mod), and Elohim monks just add insult to injury for everyone else.

I really like the idea of the Altar etc, but I think this mechanic needs toning down somewhat. Requiring later techs for Altar pieces, changing the priority for Priesthood on the lightbulb preferences (perhaps preferencing the second-tier religion-specific techs instead), and maybe moving Religious Discipline further back are all changes I would suggest (in addition to reining in Agriculture and maybe Philosophical). I feel as though perhaps the Holy City shrine should require the religion's advanced tech too, to prevent being able to pretty much always build the shrine on the same turn you get the religion.

Anyway yeah, I'd love to see some sort of build-up thing for other great people as well, because it's a damn fine idea. Maybe for sages, some tech building that gives a bigger boost the more of your cities you have one in. Or for merchants, some trade guild you build in other friendly-civ capitals, that gives a cumulative boost (or a % boost to trade routes with that civ or something).

polycrates...

good game and good strat.

if you want to try it with a bit of a twist , rush and grab a few monks , then foudn the veil and spam ritualists.

now for where this breaks down.....
-- up the difficulty to monarch and you will start seeing some real fights with your monks just after you get them (even rushing them)
-- in the mid game you will be forced into several choices following your path that you need to be aware of. depending on the state of war and peace and such you need to choose between getting your high priests and/or inquisitors or going for your 5th and 6th altars. also keep in mind that your last alter is down the arcane tree.

polycrates...

good game and good strat.

if you want to try it with a bit of a twist , rush and grab a few monks , then foudn the veil and spam ritualists.

now for where this breaks down.....
-- up the difficulty to monarch and you will start seeing some real fights with your monks just after you get them (even rushing them)
-- in the mid game you will be forced into several choices following your path that you need to be aware of. depending on the state of war and peace and such you need to choose between getting your high priests and/or inquisitors or going for your 5th and 6th altars. also keep in mind that your last alter is down the arcane tree.

Bah, yeah I know I need to get back to emperor, but I'm kinda just still testing everything out a bit at the moment. :p

Anyway, awesome to know about the harder fights on higher levels, all my early attacks just feel massively cheesy at the moment. All I can say is thank god monks can't pillage!
But anyway, my point wasn't so much about the monks as it was about this feedback loop that let me suddenly get an absolutely massive number of Prophets in a very short time (and very early in the game) and have all those Prophets contribute in a very meaningful way to the development of my empire. The happiness boost in particular (religious discipline and the level 4 altar give +4 happiness over the already-excellent religious benefits to give something like +7 total (!!!) ) combines with ultra-productive farms to give either large populations with commensurately high commerce and production, or massive amounts of whippin'. It also helps with running even more massive number of productive specialists in every city, without infrastructure.

That's not something you can do with the other great people in the game, which I think are very nicely balanced out, so that you can only have one per relevant building (I especially like the sage split between library and elder council), with maybe a couple more in one city if you build a particular wonder. And those great people aren't directly contributing to creating more great people every time you build one - it becomes progressively harder to spawn the next great person, whereas for the prophets it becomes easier.

It seems to me that a religion start can easily rival other starts anyway (much more so than in vanilla), but the prophets just add an obscene amount of happiness and production quickly without much of a commensurate penalty. Doesn't even commit you to a priest strategy, really. I'd then go straight for sage buildings, build up the farm techs with aristocracy and more sage specialists and start teching up the other paths instead, myself, since prophets then start to peter out a fair bit in usefulness.

But anyway, my point wasn't so much about the monks as it was about this feedback loop that let me suddenly get an absolutely massive number of Prophets in a very short time (and very early in the game) and have all those Prophets contribute in a very meaningful way to the development of my empire. The happiness boost in particular (religious discipline and the level 4 altar give +4 happiness over the already-excellent religious benefits to give something like +7 total (!!!) ) combines with ultra-productive farms to give either large populations with commensurately high commerce and production, or massive amounts of whippin'. It also helps with running even more massive number of productive specialists in every city, without infrastructure.

I think this is another key factor in why the evil civs usually struggle in the game. They don't have access to the altar, which the AI prizes highly and almost always builds.

Great merchants can be very lucrative if they are used in the cities that give bonuses to gold. For example the Bazar wonder gives +50% gold so the Great Merchant becomes +18 gold. Bonuses for wonders and building stack so if you plan one financial capital where all the gold bonus wonders will be, adding Great Merchants to that city can be very beneficial to your ecomomy.

Actually the Bazaar provides +100% gold, doesn't it ?

Actually the Bazaar provides +100% gold, doesn't it ?

Now that you mention it...I think you're right.

Aye, it does. But I wanted to raise it's stakes by providing another bonus to make worthwhile to get using a Great Merchant.

->Mind Stapling
Put some priests back on farms, start whipping out Monks (who start with Mobility I too, for some reason) - str5, mov3 and not countered by Shock (and with 8XP in Altar city, so with Combat I/Shock themselves too). Lunatics too.


Mobility I for all Disciple units is a side effect of Spiritual.

allow great engineer to upgrade mineral rescources
(stone-gold-gems)
(copper-iron-mithril)
allow a great commander to add 26 xp to a target unit
allow great artists to, um, add the flagbearer promotion to a unit(gives +2 combat but the unit cannot attack)

I really think the bonus for the priest specialist is the problem of the altar of Luonnotar. why not just skip this bonus?

For a Sage Specialist, allow them to build magical schools that add XP to new Adepts and allow for other magical benefits. Perhaps a free spell extension promotion or allowing an additional archmage.

Engineers could add benefits for building structures. Perhaps build a college of engineering which gives a nation-wide bonus to production when working towards buildings. Additional engineers could add things like opening a promotion that would allow any unit to learn how to build roads or forts. Or a bonus to non-magical constructed units (catapults and ships).

I never end up getting bards, or merchants, so no real thoughts on that...

all that it really needs is some sort of thing for the evil civs that does similar things but to sages or something

I personally think that libraries should give extra xp for adepts, and possibly also some(not as much) for priests. Xp boosts from academies would also be nice, but academies don't seem that arcane.

don't know... I think that adding so many "complications" will make the AI even weaker. For now I just disable Altar victory ;)

For now I just disable Altar victory ;)

I'm been doing the same thing, onedreamer. I still build the altar whenever I'm able to,though; nothing beats Priest Spam :goodjob:

I must concur. I play with the altar victory turned off but the problem is not the victory alone, it is the overwhelming priest ubernes.

I tend to avoid any exploits I am aware of. Not using the siege units, not building units that are able to cast RoF, only the proper amount that fit the spirit of the game I play. That was the case with the Lunonaltar. I did not focus on getting any prophets in my Khazad game but finally I got one. Ok, so I will build the first lvl of the altar, it cant hurt me that much, I thought. Then came the second one and another one and they keep comming. Now I have 3 lvls of the altar and were ever I look the computer is changing all my specialists to priests -> so more GGP are for another prophet -> another lvl of the altar is very close. The production from the priests plus my production from dwarwen mines, Khazad treasury, smithy and RoK made my Empire a Steam-engine that is moving faster and faster and only the Armageddon will slow it down....for a turn or two.

_Valis;5348369']I must concur. I play with the altar victory turned off but the problem is not the victory alone, it is the overwhelming priest ubernes.

I tend to avoid any exploits I am aware of. Not using the siege units, not building units that are able to cast RoF, only the proper amount that fit the spirit of the game I play. That was the case with the Lunonaltar. I did not focus on getting any prophets in my Khazad game but finally I got one. Ok, so I will build the first lvl of the altar, it cant hurt me that much, I thought. Then came the second one and another one and they keep comming. Now I have 3 lvls of the altar and were ever I look the computer is changing all my specialists to priests -> so more GGP are for another prophet -> another lvl of the altar is very close. The production from the priests plus my production from dwarwen mines, Khazad treasury, smithy and RoK made my Empire a Steam-engine that is moving faster and faster and only the Armageddon will slow it down....for a turn or two.

the boni from the altar have too much of a cumulative effect, any single altar shouldn't give more than +2 xp, +1 happy or +1 hammer on priests, except maybe the final two

_Valis;5348369']I must concur. I play with the altar victory turned off but the problem is not the victory alone, it is the overwhelming priest ubernes.

I tend to avoid any exploits I am aware of. Not using the siege units, not building units that are able to cast RoF, only the proper amount that fit the spirit of the game I play. That was the case with the Lunonaltar. I did not focus on getting any prophets in my Khazad game but finally I got one. Ok, so I will build the first lvl of the altar, it cant hurt me that much, I thought. Then came the second one and another one and they keep comming. Now I have 3 lvls of the altar and were ever I look the computer is changing all my specialists to priests -> so more GGP are for another prophet -> another lvl of the altar is very close. The production from the priests plus my production from dwarwen mines, Khazad treasury, smithy and RoK made my Empire a Steam-engine that is moving faster and faster and only the Armageddon will slow it down....for a turn or two.

HOW do you get the computer to automatically select priest specialists? It ALWAYS defaults to engineers for me, I have to manually move them in EVERY single city down to priests.

the boni from the altar have too much of a cumulative effect, any single altar shouldn't give more than +2 xp, +1 happy or +1 hammer on priests, except maybe the final two

There is only one altar, when you build the next level, it deletes the previous one so there is no cumulative effect, only the effect listed in the current level.

cvlowe, the AI defaults to engeneer when it can because the default focus of the governor is production. But when you build a certain level of the altar (can't remember which) all priests specialists will get +1 hammer, hence the AI will switch to them because they would be the same of engeneer +1 gold.

You can have multiple altars at once, so the effect can be cumulative, but this involves cheating through map editor.

You can have multiple altars at once, so the effect can be cumulative, but this involves cheating through map editor.

Well I wasn't considering cheating in my reply...

I try and limit my use of worldbuilder to keeping myself and the AI alive through turn 100 (ie deleting skeletons knocking on city doors) and sometimes tweaking my start location a little if it's particularly bad and I don't want to go back to the main menu and start over!

cvlowe, the AI defaults to engeneer when it can because the default focus of the governor is production. But when you build a certain level of the altar (can't remember which) all priests specialists will get +1 hammer, hence the AI will switch to them because they would be the same of engeneer +1 gold.

is it possible to turn this off?

it's sometimes a bit difficult to get something else than a great prophet with altar of luo.. lano.. - er with this national wonder. I'd prefer to have not only priest specialists in a city.. even if an engineer is not as good as a priest specialist - a great engineer is much better (imho) and the AI should maybe consider this as well.

Well, you can set your city to focus on science. It's the button one to the left of setting your city for GPP, and two buttons to the left of setting your city not to grow.

Well, you can set your city to focus on science. It's the button one to the left of setting your city for GPP, and two buttons to the left of setting your city not to grow.

I agree that the bonuses to production from the altar are the problem. Perhaps, if we need better specialists as the game goes on, the answer is in the Alpha Centauri approach of unlocking new specialist types at higher tech levels (Empaths, Transcendents) rather than giving massive bonuses to a single kind. I certainly think the best answer is toning priests down, rather than giving extra bonuses to all others to bring them up to priests level. I'd slash the XP bonuses in half and limit priest production bonuses to the affected city (if possible, I'm not a coder).

Also, firm disagreement on libraries/sages giving starting adept XP bonuses. That's the Amurites turf, and it's one of their main bennies. Giving a lesser version to everyone really cuts into the uniqueness of the faction - while they would obviously benefit as well from whatever, the percentage gain would be dramatically less.

I would like a way to lock out certain specialists, lock some in place and set a preference. I don't see how to do that without cluttering up the interface horribly though.

Put a little button next to the +,- buttons?

is it possible to turn this off?

it's sometimes a bit difficult to get something else than a great prophet with altar of luo.. lano.. - er with this national wonder. I'd prefer to have not only priest specialists in a city.. even if an engineer is not as good as a priest specialist - a great engineer is much better (imho) and the AI should maybe consider this as well.

Well to be honest in FFH there aren't so many wonders to build (and not all useful to YOUR civ), which makes G.E. less important. Considering I always liked more G.P. even in vanilla.... (+2 hammers and +5 raw gold, that's a superb bonus). But yes the problem still remains. The only answer I found sadly is micromanagement. But there should really be an option to turn off auto-assignement of specialists by the AI. The only help I see you could get for this is an interface mod I've seen much time ago that greatly improves domestic (F1) screen and lets you manage/see specialists from there quite well. I of course can't remember the name of that mod, but it was included in the Ultimate Strategy mod.