Playing as the Sidar, it is possible to get instant shades. If you are playing a charismatic leader, it only takes 20 xp to get to level 6 and shade status. Instant shades might not sound like that big a deal, but now that each city can produce multiple units each turn, this gives you have unlimited production, unlimited money, unlimited science, and unlimited culture.

Adopting the following civics give each of your starting units 2xp: Apprenticeship, Conquest, and Theocracy (plus have the state religion in your city). The Form of the Titan wonder gives 2 more xp. Settling a great commander gives you 2 more xp. A great commander is given to the first player to discover Military Strategy. Finally, if you build the Ride of the Nine Kings wonder, your calvary units all start with +10xp. All of which give you a total of 20xp in one city for each mounted unit created.

An alternate way to get there without the Ride of the Nine Kings is to build the Altar of Luonnotar up to level 5 (divine) which gives your disciples +10xp. Disciples cost 60H.

Each great engineer shade you settle provides 4 hammers and 3 science. Each horseman only costs 60 hammers. So 15 great engineers equal 1 new shade, not too abusive, right?

But you also need to figure in production bonuses. Heroic Epic wonder, +100%, great commander +20%, Guild of Hammers, +1 hammer for each great engineer, Apprenticeship -10%. So each GE provides 5H X 2.1 = 10.5 hammers. So it only takes 6 GE to get another GE. This rapidly snowballs out of control.

I have built Sidar super cities with 80+ GE and 50+ GM off of combat. Once you build Ride of the Nine Kings, you don't have to worry about combat anymore, you just win. You can pick cultural victory and plant unlimited GA in 3 cities. You can get unlimited cash off of GM, unlimited research off of GS, and unlimited production off of GE.

The set of circumstances required to set up unlimited shades is pretty late game, so I don't know that a fix is needed. This might still be considered an exploit though.

Excuse me for going on a tangent for a moment, but, multiple units each turn¨caught my attention. I have just started this modmod, could someone elaborate please?

Sephi merged a mod made by Denev - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=326545

Basically, if you have units queued up, and have sufficient hammers, you can build multiple units.

Say, you produce 100 hammers a turn; You queue 4 units at 25 hammers, you'll build them all. 3 units of 40, you'll build 2 and have one half built.

Sephi merged a mod made by Denev - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=326545

Basically, if you have units queued up, and have sufficient hammers, you can build multiple units.

Say, you produce 100 hammers a turn; You queue 4 units at 25 hammers, you'll build them all. 3 units of 40, you'll build 2 and have one half built.

Thanks a lot! Sounds like fun. :)

What? You mean this game isn't balanced? :eek:

Kidding aside, that's a decent strategy there, but it sounds like more of a late mid-game thing where craziness already abounds. If you wanted to change it, bumping up the level where shades can wane would be the quick (and awful :cringe:) fix. My preference would be to do away with the whole idea of waning units and replace it with a mechanic that better represents a society of ghostly immortals.
No idea what that would be though.

Sidar lovers will jump at you now :D

That's a lot of work for unlimited shades. You are winning big time by then anyways.
I've thought of the strategy, but meh, I play to have fun, not meta the hell out of the game.

(I'm a Sidar lover) :P

Producing unlimited shades allows you to wrap up a game much more quickly that you are already dominating. Rather than spend another 100+ turns mopping up, you can cut that time in half.

Most of the pieces do not require really going out of your way to get. You do need to beeline Military Strategy to ensure that you get the great commander, but the AI doesn't prioritze this tech even on Diety level. Form of the Titan is unlocked at Warfare, which is on the way to MS. Also, you should have one or two shades by the time you finish researching Warfare, so the requirement for a level 6 unit is already met.

Theology is somewhat out of the way, but Ride of the Nine Kings requires Warhorses which is a late game tech. These two pieces require some time.

I'm a Sidar lover too!

@Ksi

If you hold down the ALT key while selecting a unit, the city will produce as many of that unit each turn that it is able to. It will keep doing that until you tell it to stop. In the city production screen it will have an asterik in front of the unit.

Unlimited level 6 units

I just realized that you can't get unlimited shades. The number of shades you can have is capped at 4. There is a one turn delay in turning a shade into a super specialist. So you can get unlimited level 6 units, but it's not the same as getting unlimited specialists each turn. You will still get 4 super specialists of your choice each turn until the end of the game, but it's not the power move that I thought it was. So it doesn't look like a nerf is needed.

Still, producing 10-20 level 6 horsearchers a turn is pretty awesome and in short order, militarily overpowering. You can even pay the upkeep by turning some of your shades into great merchants.

A production addendum: I forgot about forges adding +25% to production. Also Temples of Empyrean and Order each add 10% to hammers and military production respectively. So theoretically, with Heroic Epic wonder, +100%, great commander +20%, Guild of Hammers, +1 hammer for each great engineer, Apprenticeship -10% and the additional +45% above. Each GE can provide 5H X 2.55 = 12.75 hammers. So it only takes 5 GE to get another GE.

Or another way to look at it, you can almost produce an additional horseman each turn or an additional horsearcher every 2.5 turns. E.g. 12.75 hammers X 4 GE = 51 hammers.

They really should change Ride of the Nine Kings to give several free promotions instead of a large chunk of experience.

Unlimited level 6 units

I just realized that you can't get unlimited shades. The number of shades you can have is capped at 4. There is a one turn delay in turning a shade into a super specialist. So you can get unlimited level 6 units, but it's not the same as getting unlimited specialists each turn. You will still get 4 super specialists of your choice each turn until the end of the game, but it's not the power move that I thought it was. So it doesn't look like a nerf is needed.

Still, producing 10-20 level 6 horsearchers a turn is pretty awesome and in short order, militarily overpowering. You can even pay the upkeep by turning some of your shades into great merchants.

A production addendum: I forgot about forges adding +25% to production. Also Temples of Empyrean and Order each add 10% to hammers and military production respectively. So theoretically, with Heroic Epic wonder, +100%, great commander +20%, Guild of Hammers, +1 hammer for each great engineer, Apprenticeship -10% and the additional +45% above. Each GE can provide 5H X 2.55 = 12.75 hammers. So it only takes 5 GE to get another GE.

Or another way to look at it, you can almost produce an additional horseman each turn or an additional horsearcher every 2.5 turns. E.g. 12.75 hammers X 4 GE = 51 hammers.

Haste :cool:

looks like it is time for a Sidar+ Module :cool:

yay for Sidar+ ! :D

Indeed the time has come. Go Sephi!

Suggestion for Sidar+

A quick fix for the unlimited shades (which I've tried to do and is very achievable) is to remove the Charismatic leader trait and replace it with something else here, like Aggressive, Raider + Emergent for that leader.

Also, could the shade system be reworked to work similarly to how Scions get their Awakened units?

My suggestion in a simple shade generation system:

Access to Death Mana, Shadow Mana, Spirit Mana (x% per Death, Shadow, Spirit Mana divided by # of cities * 0.6)
x% depends on map size (5% for large/huge, 10% for standard, 15% for small and below); capped at 30%.
The "0.6" I played around with so not get the # too small when large.

In the example below, x = 10%

Column (A) = # of Mana (Death, Spirit, Shadow) Row (B) = # of Cities

(B) 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 11
(A)
1 16.7% 8.3% 5.6% 4.2% 3.3% 2.4% 2.1% 1.9% 1.7%
2 30.0% 16.7% 11.1% 8.3% 6.7% 4.8% 4.2% 3.7% 3.3%
3 30.0% 25.0% 16.7% 12.5% 10.0% 7.1% 6.3% 5.6% 5.0%
4 30.0% 30.0% 22.2% 16.7% 13.3% 9.5% 8.3% 7.4% 6.7%
5 30.0% 30.0% 27.8% 20.8% 16.7% 11.9% 10.4% 9.3% 8.3%
6 30.0% 30.0% 30.0% 25.0% 20.0% 14.3% 12.5% 11.1% 10.0%
7 30.0% 30.0% 30.0% 29.2% 23.3% 16.7% 14.6% 13.0% 11.7%

The lvl 6 turn into shade could still be there.

There are a few implications of the above system:

(1) Small Sidar civs = generate more "natural" shades so this encourages small "builder" civs - but being small = not having access to lots of mana - so this is a balance I suppose
(2) Big Sidar civs = generate less "natural" shades but being big = able to support bigger army for war so they can get more "old fashioned" shades

Also, to balance out the shade generation in the early game, the Shade generation system should only be activated once Necromancy is researched by the Sidar (similar to Elohim purity counter being there when Priesthood is researched, afaik).

Thoughts?

Possible Fixes to Ride of the Nine Kings

I actually like the shade system for Sidar, it works fine for the most part, so I don't think a wholesale change is needed for it.

The easiest way to fix instant unlimited shades is to change the Ride of the Nine Kings wonder. Have Ride of the Nine Kings provide +9 experience to mounted units on creation instead of +10 experience and the maximum experience attainable for mounted units is 19, one short of shades for charismatic leaders.

Another way to go is to have Ride of the Nine Kings provide promotions on creation to mounted units instead of 10 experience. For example, +1 strength and the mobility promo. 10 experience is worth about 2-3 promos, so that should be fair.

I love your propositions Econian !

as a quickfix I added 26 experience as requirement to wane ability

that works :)

I have to admit, I hate the quickfix that changes the xp requirement for waning to 26xp. It largely nullifies the Charismatic trait for the Sidar. Admittedly, Charismatic is a bit over-powered for Sidar, but not more OP than many other strategies for other civs. The Sidar still have to survive the early game and get a critical mass of early shades to really get going.

I think the Ride of the Nine Kings wonder is the problem for the Instant Unlimited Shades Exploit. Changing the wonder to provide promotions instead of experience would be the most balanced way to address this problem.

agreed with Econian, Charismatic synergies very well with the Sidar but shouldn't be forbidden, just like elves shouldn't be forbidden from following FoL ;) it's the Ride of the Nine Kings that is the problem.

Thanks for your support Gekko, I was beginning to think I was the only one who liked Charismatic Sidar.