Idea to improve Council of Esus

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My idea is that anyone with council of Esus state religion AND one shadow mana can cast a spell that doubles all diplomatic penalties against one player. For example, instead of the Bannor giving a -1 diplo penalty against the malakim for close borders, they give a -2 diplo penalty. And double all other penalties.

It would have to be applied automatically each turn (maybe through the same mechanism that the constellations work).


This would fit thematically with the council of Esus since it is useful, sneaky and is encouraging others to war. The shadow mana requirement is a slight but thematic nerf.
 
The most interesting implementation of Esus mechanics I've seen is from Rystic's Tweakmod. There, CoE's effects are tied to the crime rate, a mechanic that doesn't do much of anything at the moment. IIRC recon units with Esus religion can start with free assassin-related promotions, like bounty hunter, mobility, sinister, etc., based on how high the crime rate is.
 
Can you get the Esus religion on a unit without actually having CoE as your state religion (ie just having CoE in the city but not your state religion)? That doesn't make CoE any better as a state religion IMO (which is the problem as I see it).
 
1) yes you can
(get the religion on a unit even if not state religion)
2) then you are right.

however I remember a mod (rife? or tweakmod?) where having COE in city had chances to give "poisoned" promotion to units built by city, and damage them on the built-turn.. unless you were of the CoE state religion
further, many mods ask that you have CoE as state religion to build Nightwatch and Shadowriders.
But Shadowriders already need Warmounts .. so you almost never want them.
IMO nightwatch would need a redesign to make CoE worthwhile.
Or shadowriders could be put at stirrups.. so CoE civs could get a tierIV unit when other civs are limited to tierIII... could be worth it. especially if they leave your civilization if you switch religion.
 
I think it was Wildmana / Master of Mana that made that change, Calavente.

My only comment on this suggestion is that it doesn't help CoE in multiplayer, where it really needs help the most.
 
CoE has two interrelated issues:


* It doesn't have very many toys.

* All of its best toys sans-Gibbon don't require you to actually follow the religion.


Your suggestion sounds kind of weak, tbh. Diplo just doesn't matter much with the FFH AI, and is useless against humans.
 
The diplomatic relationship (+/- x) doesn't affect much whether the AI will declare war on another civ in FFH2? I'm asking because I'm not sure - I just made the assumption that diplo penalties in FFH2 increase the risk of war significantly. :confused:

I guess it's sort of the opposite of Trust which is a Tier 3 spell (granting +4 diplo).
 
"Trust" is widely considered to be the weakest spell in the game.


Diplo doesn't matter much for the following reasons:

* AI declare with much greater frequency than their BTS counterparts, due to most personalities being much more aggressive.

* Being declared war on doesn't matter much anyway by the mid-game, because you can halt any and all AI stacks in their place almost indefinitely just by constantly hammering them with some combination of movement-slowing and collateral spells.

* You're going to have to fight every AI sooner or later anyway, unless you're going for cultural victory- they'll automatically declare on you once you start the Tower of Mastery or final Altar piece.

* It's much easier to conquer civs and get captured cities up & productive in FFH than BTS, so there isn't much reason to bother playing nice anyway once you can defend yourself- and by the time you can have Esus toys, you should be able to defend yourself.

* Units the AI wastes attacking other AI are units you aren't getting to slaughter for exp.

* Secret AI peace / war bonuses with each other will mostly invalidate the spell anyway.

* Like half the FFH community now plays MP almost exclusively, where the spell obviously will have no effect.
 
I was thinking about this particular topic again recently, and now thought to look up if someone else had considered it at the forums.

I made a topic about the Nightwatch unit before and how it's kind of useless. But it really applies to Esus altogether. It doesn't have any particular buildings or units worth making for 90% of the game, and its best effect, that you can keep your units within enemy borders on war declaration, is usually not needed anyway.

The good and bad parts:
- Shadowriders are amazing, but you can only have 4 and they come very, very late.
- Keeping units within enemy borders allows for very sneaky moves. Humans will hate you for doing that though, and you will never get open borders as Esus in any later games.
- Gibbon is very powerful and available early. Can feed your other units xp quite nicely with the illusions, especially marksman units.
- Very easy and cheap to spread

The bad:
- No priest with special powers
- No high priest either
- No buildings
- No wonders
- Only 1 hero
- "Steal" ability is nigh-useless
- Nightwatch is useless

Now many of these things are shared by Empyrean, but Empyrean has one of the best high priests, one of the best heroes and both their units have a useful niche of denying stealth and stopping enemies in their tracks.

The best thing related to Esus are Shadows, by a long shot. However, they are available without the state religion. This is unique, since all other religions only allow for temples and acolytes of their religion to be built.

Adressing the easiest thing first, let's compare the Nightwatch with a longbowman. They are available at the same tech (Bowyers) and have the same cost of 120 hammers, but their stats differ greatly.

NightwatchLongbowman
3 attack, +2 poison (5 total vs units it applies to)5/6
+25% city defence
+25% hill defence

Both can use bronze and iron weapons.

At best, the nightwatch has the same attack value as a longbowman. Nothing is weak to poison, but many units are resistant or immune to it. At worst, the longbowman is in a city and has more than double the defensive capability as a city on a hill is being attacked by a unit immune to poison.
I think this is a pretty simple fix: I would give the Nightwatch 4 base attack and +50% city strength, considering they seem to be very familiar with operating in (especially large and criminal) cities. This means that a Nightwatch can have better offensive potential than longbowmen, especially when it comes to assaulting and not just defending cities, and will also be better in defending cities built on flatland.

But after that, I feel it gets a lot harder. Other civs have amazing heroes (especially Chalid, but almost all of them), great unique government options (like Sacrifice the Weak, Arete), unique wonders (e.g. Mines of Gal-Dur, Tower of Complacency), multiple amazing units (like Drown, Diseased Corpse, Stygian Guard, all the priests...), unique buildings (Basilica, Asylum) or even a unique terrain (Ancient Forest). I feel like it's hard to change something about Esus without going into the territory of making up new content, where I would feel uncertain about how to fit it into the original vision.

The easiest single thing would probably be to make Shadows Esus-state-religion-exclusive, since they are just that good. But I assume there is a reason they were kept available to everyone in the original mod.

I have not tried most modmods, and those I tried I must say I have since forgotten what they did to Esus. :/

What do you people think, how should the religion be made more attractive?
 
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