Éa, Dawn of the Mortal Races (phase 1, pre-alpha code development and discussion)

there is one thing I don't like about this:
one may have negative research points.

Further, the negative researchs points generated by a border-city, quite big but designed for offense/defense and not researche would be subtracted from the marginal gain that the big research-oriented cities managed to build.

With your previous/current approach, at least the multiplier is per city. Thus in small (non-science) cities, you could get 0 research gain, and specialize in 1 or 2 cities to have +200% to compensate with the -200% from research maintenance (leaving a net 100 science output in city).
You had to specialize cities in order to get some research output.

However, now, you need to tailor your whole empire ... and creating/annexing a new city is a punishment as it would reduce the ratio of science/pop.

well, I'm not sure I'm completly clear but there is something here.

@Calavente: I don't get your point, why do you think it's a bad thing that a border city with undeveloped science infrastructure increases the knowledge maintenenace? I think it's a good thing to "punish" players for too much conquest or expansion, which can prevent the "snowball effect".

sorry,

I had an answer, but it was too long and it would bother you I think...

so "short" answer :
because 1 pop from capital with multipliers and increased commerce from trade routes due to more pop, will bring more science (while representing much more population) than 1 pop from small city that has no multipliers while bringing the same penalty to your research.

SO this solution do not "limit ReXing or punish for too much expansion"... it is : I increase TALL and shoot with all my might on WIDE... and even on not-so-wide.

Further, this way : any pop not producing science is not "not producing science", it is "costing you science"... bad. and it is worse in small cities than in big ones.

Specializing a city to build units or gold instead of science is not a "opportunity cost" between more science or more units... it is between : [more science and a same or more units (as you'll have some few production)] or [more units and less science].


IF the academies and libraries and wonder-boosting science and all had a empire-wide effect (as had the palace and the winterpalace in cIV), why not ; otherwise, I think it is too unbalanced.


I thought is was better to ask yourself : "do I research this or that because next one will be harder to get" ... than "do I research this, or that... or do I conquer a new city ? (size 10 and being only a strategic place with no special science yield, it will bring my output in science to 0 for the empire"

I have to disagree. The current Pazyryk's idea encourages ReXing/ICSing, because the knowledge maintenance costs depend only on population, so cities with small population don't have a significant effect on it. And there are many benefits of having a city that you get even when the population is small:

• Territory
• Resources
• The fact that your competitors can't found a city there
• Yields from the city hex
• Ranged attack
• Visibility
• Ability to construct buildings - even with small population and production you can construct some buildings, in one bigger city you can't construct multiple copies of these buildings
• Unit supply

In one bigger city you'll probably have more buildings that increase the multiplier of science per population, so you'll get more science from the same amount of population than in a few smaller cities, but the above benefits are important too. Especially when you have more cities and territory you can get more luxury resources, happiness buildings, and more happiness from some policies, so your total population can be much higher.

In the base game, the culture cost of adopting new policies depends on number of cities, and I think the science cost should depend on number of cities too, because in its current state a bigger empire will always be better at science than a small one.

but not with the former proposal of pazyryk...

Indeed, all new cities/small cities could not produce science when the maintenance is superior to 100% (10techs) or 200 (20techs) depending on the policies and buildings.
So a bigger empire would not have a science output so much bigger than the one of a smaller empire, unless it has multiples science-heavy cities.. but then it should be normal.
the small strategic / military heavy cities will not participate to the science race, or with almost no effect.

But a big empire can still be big and tech.

With the pop cost, a big empire will never be tech-savy.
10 techs would mean that 1 pop has a 2commerce/science malus upon creation; so you have to remove that yield from any tile of all cities that do not have multipliers buildings.... and count that a citizen working a tile with no commerce/science is in fact working a tile with -2commerce/science.

big empire with many small cities (with no multipliers) will forgo science even if the capital get much more effort in science than any other city /civ in the world.

and small empire will do BETTER than bigger empire in term of science.... and that is utopic.
in RL, when a small country has better tech... the tech is never enough to compensate for the small size and conquer the rest of its neighbors. the tech would enable to raid and all... but as soon as the small country start expanding, the bigger empires would get their hand on the new techs and replicate.
And as this transfer of tech does not exist in civ (techs being granted through trade and through losing combats; not only when winning), the fact that small tech savy empire can blitzkrieg the world will be allowed ... and I hate that.

EDIT : but for me, linking maintenance cost to cities is not bad by itself... it is linking it to population that is bad.... because building a new city is a choice to make..while growing that wity should not be a choice to make; it should be okay to have all cities grow to their optimal. Linking science maintenance to pop would mean that nurturing and existing city, which should be the aim for each city... will be a cost on you.

(If negative science were applied to a city and not transfered to empire if negative... that would be ok. (or maybe the negative science is converted into gold-dept ..)


Another way would be to have cumulative maintenance effects :
+5% (or 10% per city ; independant on pop)
+10% per tech.
thus, bigger empire will have some % more than smaller empire to get to the value.

another way would be :
-pop and city number increase the COST (in beakers/science) of the tech ; (ex : 1 pop = cost of tech increased by 0.5 science*number of techs : 10 cities with mean of 10 pop and 10 techs means : cost of every tech is increased by 500)
-number of tech reduce the % modifier to research (as current)

thus the pop/empire size make research more costly, (as settlers are more costly by the number of cities you have) but it does not reduce your capacity to produce science.

And thus you can decorrelate the effect of the population and the effect of already having many techs.

And further increasing pop does not REDUCE MY INCOME, but it pushes the target a bit farther... not much per individual... but a lot taken together. The perception of these two action are much much different. Further, you'll get the impression that that small city contributes to your empire's research (+10 science) even if in fact it increased the cost of the tech by 50... (or at least it would produce 0 science...) negative values for science are bad !!! gold is enough for that

In the end, maybe there will be the exact same results using one of my two propositions than the one proposed by pazyryk, but IMO the feeling of it will be different.

@PawelS,

I'm probably going for a different city distribution than you are. In fact, I want distribution to be similar to what you see in base Civ5 (maybe 5 tile average). So if you consider that ReXing/ICSing then ReXing/ICSing is what I want. The difference from base is that the space between won't fill up with improved tiles because the vast majority of cities won't grow very big (although some will).

I understand how ICS works after trying it when Civ5 first came out. It is good for all of the reasons you state. Another reason that I think is under-appreciated is the cost to generate a new citizen in large cities (>100 food) compared to small cities (starting at <20 food). Civ5 counters this with a variety of penalties: the policy arrest (annoying but ineffective), unhappy per city (limits size but not number). The patches did some tweaks in the right direction, but in the end, it all comes down to the hard-limit distance requirement.

In reality, Civ5 gives you two options: either wide (in which case you are limited by the hard-limit) or tall (where those extra cities do hurt you). One nice thing I noticed in G&K is that the AI now seems to understand this "either or" situation, and I see some AI civs going wide (not new) and other AI civs going tall (this is new). But to tell the truth, the whole "Tall vs Wide" thing seems a bit stale to me. Great, I've mastered both. Now I want to move on to something different.

In Éa, I want the player to consider each potential city on its own merits. I don't want them to have to think, "Oh, it would be nice to have a small outpost city holding that pass. But it is going to set me back culturally (or somehow limit growth of my core cities) so I won't do it." I want the player to consider ReXing (think of the Greeks with little cities spread far and wide) though not all players have to do this. There is a kind of joy in planning your city sites, whether you ultimately want to go big or stay small. Civ5 sort of kills this joy with all its niggling little annoying (but ineffective) punishments.

Although I think ReXing is good, real ICS is bad. And I'm taking the training wheels off by removing the hard-limit distance requirement. How am I fighting ICSing? Really two things:

1. A much larger emphasis on resources, especially food resources. In fact, a farmed grassland tile is only barely sustaining for an agrarian civ. You absolutely cannot grow on unimproved/unresourced tiles! If there are no nearby food resources, you are literally looking at a city that will never grow to size 2. Is that worth the cost of a settler? Well, maybe. But it is at least situational and not a definitive yes.
   
   
2. There is a flat 50 food requirement for each new citizen, regardless of city size. With this system, each new citizen in a large city is always unambiguously without doubt a better investment (considering both productivity and cost in food to generate) than a citizen in a small city.

Those are the big ones. There are other things too, like having additional buildings (that get better in value/cost rather than worse) for big cities to build. Of course, we'll have to see how it plays out in testing.

That's a really long answer on why I am looking at research/pop as a limiter rather than research/city number.

@Calavente,

I haven't necessarily given up the currently documented system. Actually, for technical modding reasons, it is easy to deduct a percent and very hard or impossible to deduct points. (Unfortunately, the only way to deduct x points is to do some math to figure out what percent needs to be deducted to achieve -x points.)

I think your main point is that a big civ shouldn't be penalized in science. I agree with this, for the most part. Really, you have to consider two things with the point deduction system:

1. Speed of research early on. Think about civs before Knowledge Maintenance is having much effect (i.e., you have only a few techs). For this, Big is unambiguously better since total research is largely a function of total population points. As Deity players will tell you, early boosts are much bigger in effect than late.
   
   
2. Ultimate ceiling. With the -0.x points per known tech per population point, your ceiling is ultimately a function of research points generated per population point. You can get this high in either a small empire or big empire. It's just a function of your city infrastructure (and other civ-wide things like policies). A big empire might take a bit longer to get those universities up, but they will have the advantage of #1 above.

In the end, the system is likely to evolve with game testing. I'm not married to any particular mechanism. What I'm committed to is the overall effect.

Oh no, I have two walls of text to read

Anyway, I think your system encourages only one city placement strategy: to have several large and well-developed cities in locations where a large amount of food is available, and lots of small cities (even size 1) to grab all possible resources and strategic locations before the other civs will do it. This way your total population is not too high (I assume you still use unhappiness per population as the main source of unhappiness like in the vanilla game), you have some cities that give you a good amount of science, gold, culture, military unit production etc., and the small cities don't contribute too much to the knowledge maintenance, while providing you with resources and preventing other civs from settling there.

I can't see any other viable strategy. If it's OK for you then fine, but you should be aware of it

Here's another way to think about the "-0.1 points per known tech per population point" system.

In the early game, you are getting 1 "free" research point per population point (this is just the BASE_RESEARCH_RATE set in GlobalDefines.xml). Once you have exactly 10 techs, then the free research from population is exactly counteracted by Knowledge Maintenance. It's as if we are tweaking BASE_RESEARCH_RATE so it starts at 1 but reaches 0 when we have 10 techs. As you start to exceed 10 techs, then it is as if BASE_RESEARCH_RATE is becoming negative, reaching -1 with 20 techs.

If you want more than 10 techs, then the only way to do this is to bump your research/pop to something higher than 1. I looked at this in my current Babylon G&K game (a very research-focused game) and the value was 4.8 as I was entering Renaissance era. Values will of course be different in the mod, but that is a good reference point for thinking about Knowledge Maintenance in a very research-focused civ. With that research/pop ratio, the civ would have a "ceiling" of 48 techs (when maintenance totally counteracts research). The ceiling is approached asymptotically, so progress never really stops. And the ceiling keeps raising if they continue to raise that ratio, so it's a soft limit.


@PawelS, Yes, sort of. Everyone gets to play the land-grab game. But it isn't fair to say "only one city placement strategy". There is still a lot of variation between civs in how they space cities and grow them (Heldeofol are going to be borderline ICS-viable by design). However, I have no interest in preserving the current Tall vs Wide dichotomy. It's not an "either or" choice as in base. There will be degrees of tall or wide. But a typical civ will have more of a bell-shaped (normal) distribution of city sizes because the land (which is random) has a much bigger impact than in base.

The other slight correction: Yes, I'm still using happiness as a limiter (per pop but not per city). But it is not the only limiter as in base. Food is a big factor. In base, your cities are never limited by food unless you play well past year 2000. In Éa, you will much more rapidly reach "carrying capacity" for a city. This will get bumped up by new techs/policies. But most cities will be at or close to max size (given current techs/policy level) much of the game.

Pazyryk said:

The other slight correction: Yes, I'm still using happiness as a limiter (per pop but not per city). But it is not the only limiter as in base. Food is a big factor. In base, your cities are never limited by food unless you play well past year 2000. In Éa, you will much more rapidly reach "carrying capacity" for a city. This will get bumped up by new techs/policies. But most cities will be at or close to max size (given current techs/policy level) much of the game.

Click to expand...

I like it, it's similar in my mod - I changed the food consumption to 3 per population, and reduced the amount of food needed to grow to higher levels (removed the exponent, but still there is some increase in food cost).

PawelS said:

I like it, it's similar in my mod - I changed the food consumption to 3 per population, and reduced the amount of food needed to grow to higher levels (removed the exponent, but still there is some increase in food cost).

Click to expand...

The Orbis FFH mod used 3f per population, and it worked quite well. I'm bumping it up even more, to either 4 or 5. This gives a lot more room for adding incremental effects from resources and improvements. And it means that you can't grow indefinitely from unimproved grassland or jungle plots, which is good. (The only bad thing is that resource icons in the city screen are less aesthetically pleasing when they get bigger than 5, but this is a minor issue.)

It's also a little weird but I have your food basket starting at 50% and then 50% full after each pop growth. Normally, when a city grows one size too big (so it is now starving), you immediately starve and loose a whole basket's worth of food. The AI does this all the time so it is constantly loosing tons of food. With 50% full basket after growth, you have a lot of turns before you loose that population point. In fact, it may even make the current AI behavior optimal or at least "break even": you get a lot of turns working the extra plot before you finally shrink (loosing the whole basket), then grow again, shrink, etc.

AI debugging is coming along... Got to playing G&K which took a bite out of my modding time. But this is necessary research

I did play around with some new G&K Lua functions for religion. I'm sure now that I can mod more or less everything I said in this post. Religion in G&K is much deeper and more interesting than Civ4. I'm not really talking about customization (that's interesting but not applicable Éa: religions are going to be "preloaded" with beliefs). But the spreading is a much deeper system. You can have a religion that sort of sits dormant in a city, affecting a minority of citizens, that may or may not take hold eventually. I think that practitioners of Sorcery are all going to have a citizen or two following A&#331;ra even if the civ is not religious.

Another random G&K thought: I really like the new 1-radius ranged units (gatling and machine gunners). They work very differently than either "normal" ranged units or melee units. They kind of feel more like melee the way you bring them to the action (they have combat toughness similar to melee of the same level) but then you get the fun of dealing damage without taking it. Also, they make forts and citadels actually work. Without these, you can't really put a ranged unit in a fort unless you protect the fort (which sort of defeats the purpose of a fort). These guys can hold the fort from attack and deal out damage without taking it. After playing with these a bit, I got to thinking that normal 2-tile ranged units and siege units are basically the same thing. Sure, you have the city bonus for the latter but they are still used in almost the same way. I'm strongly considering making range 1 the norm for the archery line units (and mounted archers). Essentially, this adds a third combat type: you have melee, long ballistic, and close ballistic. The combat toughness for archers was something I was considering anyway. I always thought your archers should be able to pull out a sword if they have to (I'm no military expert, but I saw them do that in the LotRs movies).

New build posted: Ea 20120701

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the AI that controls tech and policy choices is now almost fully built. AI civs will pick somewhere between 0 and 3 techs to try to get some initial growth in the capital, and then actively seek a civ name. You'll see AI civs picking up names usually from about turn 30 to 50 (there is a notice when this happens). I still have some troubleshooting to make them responsive after naming (e.g., to prioritize a tech if a new resource becomes available).

The bad news is that something in the new patch has killed movement for AI GPs. For the current build, I have simply disabled GP AI (which is a huge amount of AI). They will still take leadership of a civ when they first appear, but that's all.

The only reason to play this is if you want to see how the first 50 turns play out with civ naming (Man only; Heldeofol is currently disabled). Play some turns after naming to get a feel for GP generation. You can then do some stuff with your own GP, like take leadership or do other actions (these are mostly in for Engineers, Merchants and Sages). Most of the actions work and they don't currently have prereqs, so you can see how the interface works (though it is kind of silly that your Sage can make any Tome or your engineer can build any Wonder right away). But AI GPs aren't currently doing anything, so don't bother to play further than that...

Here are some tips to make it work:

1. Set UseScreenShots = 1 in GraphicsSettingsDX11.ini (to make the leader screens work right; I believe this is not necessary if you use DX9, but I have not tested this myself).
2. Set SmallUIAssets=1 and AutoUIAssets=0 in UserSettings.ini (or else your unit panel won't work).
3. Disable all DLC except for Mongolia.

I'd be happy to hear about bugs or issues related to the very early phase of the game. Mostly interested in the naming and initial GP generation, GPs taking leadership (yours and AI), and GP "actions" working (yours, not AI; note that Artist and Warrior actions aren't in yet). The loading screen and the civ and leader popups use a "dynamic scaling" script that should adjust perfectly to your screen size, so let me know if that is not working.

Official change log for 20120701 (but there is a ton of undocumented stuff):

• Added popup when a civ takes a name (will be civ-specific image later but for now it is just a placeholder image).
• Added a generic "time-discount" system for the AI to understand and compare future or per turn payoffs vs costs. See here and here.
• Merchant unit AI is now working.
• Added National Treasury (merchant city build). Requires Coinage and gives 5% interest on treasury.
• GPs now gain a title as part of their name when they become leader. For now, it is just King _<name>_ or Queen _<name>_. Any GP can be given a special (override) title via a simple edit of the EaPeople table.
• Added Tomes
• Sage AI now working
• Added wonders with effects (all are built in city by Engineer or Sage)
• Engineer AI now working
• Collected ~300 images for GP portraits and Civ-naming popups (see Credits section below)
• The Civ AI that picks techs and policies is now working. Some description in this post. It initially picks from 0 - 3 techs to get some capital growth, then actively and aggressively goes for a civ name.
• You cannot have diplo interactions with a civ unless both you and they have a leader. (You can still declare war by attacking or violating borders with a unit. But you will then be stuck at war until you can initiate diplo interactions.)
• You do not even see a civ in the diplo list until it takes a civ name.
• Changed GP generation spawning function. You now need some GP points to have any chance of spawning. You'll get 20 imediately after gaining a name, which brings your spawning chance to about 10% (or higher if you already earned points fighting barbs).
• Ouch! The new patch has broken AI GP movement! For the current build, I have disabled all GP AI (except that they will still take leadership).

I probably won't bother to "fix" GP AI for the vanilla patch. Phase 1 was never intended to be functional, and I'm eager to start conversion to G&K so I can start adding new stuff: a new race (really two because I never got Heldeofol working), religion, new GPs (Priests and Druids), etc. So we are officially entering phase 2.

I'll be away (camping) the next two weeks, off-line so I can't answer any questions. Here's the teaser for phase 2. It's partly rehash of an old post, but with changes and added detail based on what I now know I can do with religion. It also introduces spells.

Éa, the Ageless and the Divine (phase 2, working toward alpha...)

The Aos Sídhe (new race)
Aos Sídhe (or just Sídhe) are similar in stature to Man, but ageless and more beautiful. Sídhe start with Hunting, Writing and Thaumaturgy. They have low birth rates, resulting in slower and more restricted settler production. However, small populations of the almost-immortal Sídhe generate substantial levels of research and culture. Great people of the Sídhe may become ancient, wise and utterly powerful, but their number will be few.

Thaumaturgy, Maleficium, and Divine Liturgy (new "gateway" techs)
All three of the gateway magic techs are 2nd tier and have writing as sole prerequisite. Thaumaturgy is broadly necessary for deep pursuit of arcane magic of all different sorts, including both Sorcery and other (non consumptive) forms of arcane magic. Maleficium specifically deals with Sorcery, the form of magic that consumes Mana (other forms manipulate or channel Mana without consuming it). Divine Liturgy is the gateway to higher levels of celestial knowledge for followers of Azzandara, and can only be learned by civilizations of Man.

Religion Overview
There are two broad worldviews in Éa, Theism and Pantheism, each associated with a policy branch and more than one religion. Each religion has its own founding mechanism involving particular prophecies or rituals. Religions are not "blank slate" as in base, but develop in specific ways with beliefs either set at founding or given with particular polices in the Theism or Pantheism branches. A civilization’s religion determines its use of Divine Favor or Mana.

Theism and the Theistic Religions
The theistic worldview holds that there is a Creator that exists entirely outside of Éa and that is, Himself, Uncreated. Most civilizations of Man worship Azzandara (Man's name for the Creator) to one degree or another, and only civilizations of Man can open the Theism policy branch. Opening this branch results in the appearance of a Priest, whose first action is likely to be the making of the Prophecy of Ahuradhâta, thus founding the Azzandarayasna religion. The Theism policy branch acts synergistically with Divine Liturgy and downstream techs to enhance Azzandarayasna, increasing power, culture and divine favor of founder and follower civilizations. Though theists insist that there is only one God, their religious texts (or "yasna") describe a second being in eternal opposition to the Creator. This being is called Ahriman, the Destroyer, or sometimes the Anti-Creator. Overt followers of Ahriman are rarely seen, though their religion (A&#331;ra) is likely to be present at a low level in any civilization that knows Maleficium. This religion can be founded in two ways that involve either the Prophecy of A&#331;ra or the Prophecy of Vâ (see Prophecies below). Ahriman is said to be the instigator of all Sorcery, though most practitioners deny this link.
Azzandarayasna is the religion of those that follow Azzandara, founded by the Prophecy of Ahuradhâta and associated with Theism policies and Divine Liturgy techs. Beliefs are added with the adoption of additional Theism policies and generally include strong founder and follower bonuses for divine favor, gold, culture and military might, though they also receive penalties for the presence of other religions in their cities. Azzandara followers are generally not tolerant of other civilizations that lack faith or hold Pantheistic views, but always have a strong hatred for any fallen civilization. Divine Liturgy and downstream techs open a variety of divine spells that Priests can learn (a spellcaster can always learn a spell in lieu of gaining a promotion). This is the only religion whose spellcasters use Divine Favor rather than Mana. Divine Favor is accumulated at the civilization level from a variety of sources, especially religious buildings, and is "tapped" by follower priests to cast spells related to healing, protection or the banishment of A&#331;ra and Sorcery.
A&#331;ra is founded by the Prophecy of A&#331;ra or the Prophecy of Vâ and is the religion of those that worship Ahriman the Destroyer. A&#331;ra is associated with Maleficium, the "gateway" to Sorcery and related forbidden knowledge. However, most practitioners of Sorcery are not explicit followers of A&#331;ra and would deny any link to Ahriman or A&#331;ra. Cities that have A&#331;ra as dominant religion have slowed growth, increased unhappiness and a mild boost to research. The founder of A&#331;ra receives large boosts to mana and research based on the number of worldwide followers. Civilizations that follow A&#331;ra are considered "Fallen", as is any civilization that knows Maleficium after the Prophecy of Vâ has been made, and these civilizations suffer diplomatic penalties with other civilizations. Once a civilization falls, it can no longer make progress in Theism policies or Divine Liturgy-branch techs. Already adopted Theism policies become shifted in effect (generally toward mana and knowledge rather than divine favor and culture). All Devout spellcasters become "mana eaters" and are effectively Sorcerers (see The Fallen under subclasses below). Maleficium and downstream techs open a variety of spells available for Fallen Priests or Sorcerers generally focused on destruction or corruption. Practitioners of Sorcery (whether they be explicit followers of A&#331;ra or not) consume Éa’s Mana in the process of spellcasting in a way that can never be replenished. Although the Sum of all Mana is large, it is not infinite.

Pantheism and the Pantheistic Religions
The pantheistic worldview holds that all things are part of divine existence. There is no separation between physical and spiritual and no Creator apart from Éa. All things—the trees, rivers, and mountains; the Sun, Moon and stars; the elements; even a plague—have divine spirit and are gods in their own right. The Pantheism policy branch allows civilizations to interact with these spirits (and the land itself) in ways not otherwise possible and is exclusive with both the Theism and Agrarianism branches. Opening the Pantheism policy branch results in the appearance of a Druid who can cast both divine and arcane spells. The Druid may join a particular cult (by performing its founding/spreading ritual) to gain specific additional abilities. All pantheistic societies follow The Weave of Éa, honoring all incarnations of Éa, though some focus worship on a specific set of incarnations becoming a cult within The Weave. These cults are narrowly focused and not always harmonious with each other. (Note: I use "cult" here in its older original meaning rather than its modern one.)
The Weave of Éa. This is the overarching religion of all pantheistic societies that honors all of the spirits and incarnations of Éa. It arises spontaneously in civilizations that have adopted Pantheism and has no founder nor holy city. Beliefs are gained by adopting additional policies in the Pantheism branch, and these generally enhance a follower’s ability to subsist and thrive on Éa’s wildlands (unimproved plots of any type) without need to "improve" the land. Although they appear as separate religions, all of the "cults" below are really sects within The Weave of Éa and retain all follower effects of the mother religion in addition to cult-specific effects.
Cult of Leaves. Followers of Fagus, Abellio, Buxenus, Robor, Abnoab and other incarnations of the trees, forests and jungles of Éa, this cult is founded or spread by the Ritual of Leaves (city must own at least 15 plots, at least 80% of which must be unimproved forest). Founder effect: receive 1 mana for each 1% coverage of all world land plots by forest or jungle. Follower effects: increased food based on percent forest/jungle coverage owned by city (1% growth for each 10% coverage); increased forest and jungle spread within borders; city borders expand into adjacent forest and jungle plots. Allowed spell: Bloom (8 turns; 40 mana), grows a forest or jungle (which one depending on nearby plots) on any unimproved land plot that is not desert, mountain or ice.
Cult of Epona. Followers of Epona (the Great Mare), Atepomarus, Sabazios and other incarnations of horses. Founded by the Ritual of Horses (city must own 3 horse plots, or 2 horse plots and at least 15 plots that are 60% flatland without forest, jungle or marsh). Founder effect: gain 1 mana for every horse plot worked by follower cities. Follower effect: +4 culture from horse plots; horse-mounted units gain +1 movement. Allowed spell: Ride Like the Wind (instant; 10 mana per affected unit), adjacent horse-mounted units gain 2 movement for this turn.
Cult of Pure Waters. Followers of Aveta, Condatis, Abandinus, Adsullata, Icaunus, Belisama, Clota, Sabrina, Sequana, Verbeia, Borvo and other incarnations of rivers, lakes and springs, this cult is founded by the Ritual of Cleansing (city must own at least 15 plots, 50% of which must be river, lake or oasis plots). Founder effect: flat unfeatured and unimproved plots may occasionally become oasis or floodplains. Follower effect: +2 food from lakes; +1 gold for all river tiles. Allowed spell: Purify (instant; 10 mana), removes all bad spell effects.
Cult of Ægir. Followers of Ægir (the Great Ocean), Barinthus, Fand, Lí Ban, Fimafeng, Eldir, Ritona and other incarnations of the seas, coastlands and fjords. Founded by the Ritual of Ægir (city must have 70% sea plots in its 3-tile radius). Founder effect: gain 2 mana for every coastal follower city; Follower effect: +1 culture and gold from all sea plots; +1 production from all sea resources. Allowed spell: Tsunami (8 turns; 100 mana), damages units and reduces city defences on nearby coastal plots (caster is protected).
Cult of Bakkheia. Followers of Bakkhos, Pan, Silenus and other incarnations of wine, ale and drunkenness. Founded by the Ritual of Bakkheia. Founder effect: gain 1 mana for every Grapes resource and every “spirits building” (brewery; winery; distillery) in follower cities. Follower effects: +2 culture from each Grapes resource and each spirits buildings; +1 happiness per 5 followers; -10% production and -10% unit strength. Allowed spell: Bakkheia (8 turns; 40 mana), +10 happiness for the 8 turn casting time; +3 unhappiness for 8 turns thereafter.

Many more pantheistic cults to come...

Devouts (new Great People class) and Devout subclasses
Devouts are divine spellcasters and occur in a variety of subclasses. Like other GPs, any Devout can take residence in a city or become leader. These actions will contribute Divine Favor or Mana to the GP's civilization, depending on civilization religion. They can also make prophecies or perform rituals when specific conditions are met.
Priests are the primary spellcasters for civilizations that follow Azzandara. They use Divine Favor and cast divine spells that are primarily concerned with healing, protection or banishment of A&#331;ra and Sorcery.
Paladins are also found in civilizations that follow Azzandara. Paladin is a subclass of both the Devout and the Warrior GP classes. They have aspects of both, acting as generals while being able to cast divine spells or make prophecies.
Druids are the Pantheistic counterpart to Priests. Druid is a subclass of both the Devout and the Arcane Practitioner GP classes, allowing them to cast both divine and arcane spells (other Arcane Practitioner subclasses will be introduced later). Their spellcasting involves the manipulation of Mana "borrowed" from the various Spirits of Éa. All Druids are initially members of the mother religion (The Weave of Éa) but become committed to a particular cult after performing its specific founding or spreading ritual. Thereafter, they gain access to that cult’s special abilities but can no longer join (or found or spread) other cults.
Shamans are the Heldeofol version of Druids. They work exactly as Druids except that they can found only a limited subset of the pantheistic cults (for now, Cult of Leaves and Cult of Bakkheia).
Prophets are derived from the other three subclasses. Any Devout who makes a prophecy becomes a "Prophet", gaining extra Divine Favor or Mana and additional abilities while keeping all prior abilities.
The Fallen are altered forms of the subclasses above that occur when a civilization falls. Priests, Druids and Prophets retain their original subclass “title” even though they are now corrupted. Priests become "dual class" devout and arcane practitioner, now having access to both divine and arcane spells. Paladins become Eidolons, who are still effective Warriors that can cast divine spells. Note that many divine spells have an altered effect for the fallen.

Prophecies and Rituals
These are actions of the Devout great person class. Prophecies are instant, one-time events that change the course of history in some significant way. Rituals require time but most can be performed repeatedly. Neither prophecies nor rituals need to be learned as do spells. Instead, they can be made or performed by any devout when conditions allow.
Prophecy of Ahuradhâta is the founding prophecy for Azzandarayasna, the religion of those that worship the Creator Azzandara. It can be made by a Devout of any civilization that has adopted Theism and does not know Maleficium (the Theism policy branch can only be opened by civilizations of the race of Man).
Prophecy of Mithra can be made by a Devout of a civilization if Azzandarayasna is its dominant religion and it has acquired the Azzandarayasna holy city (but was not its original founder). The Devout's civilization will become the new Azzandarayasna founder and all of its A&#331;ra followers will become Azzandarayasna followers.
Prophecy of Mâ can be made by any non-fallen Devout after any civilization has learned a 4rd tier tech downstream of Maleficium. It prevents any civilization that does not know Maleficium from learning it. It must be made (by anyone) for the Protector of Éa victory condition to be enabled.
Prophecy of Vâ can be made by any Devout after any civ has learned Maleficium. The making of this prophecy is neither good nor evil, but is prerequisite in determining Éa's fate: either destruction in fiery Armageddon or an everlasting protection from that end (two victory conditions). The making of the Prophecy of Vâ causes all civilizations that know or subsequently learn Maleficium to "fall". When a civilization falls, all Azzandarayasna cities become A&#331;ra cities and all spellcasters gain the Sorcery promotion, becoming "mana eaters". This prophecy may or may not result in the founding of the A&#331;ra religion. If A&#331;ra has not already been founded, then one of the cities that converts from Azzandarayasna to A&#331;ra will become the A&#331;ra holy city (with priority given to the Azzandarayasna founder if they fall, but the original Azzandarayasna will never become the A&#331;ra holy city). However, if no Azzandarayasna majority cities exist in fallen civilizations, then this prophecy will not result in the founding A&#331;ra. The Prophecy of Vâ must be made before any civ can research 4th or higher tier techs downstream of Maleficium.
Prophecy of A&#331;ra is the founding prophecy for A&#331;ra, the religion of those that worship Ahriman the Destroyer. It can be made by a Devout of any civilization that knows Maleficium. This prophecy is no longer available if A&#331;ra becomes founded as a result of the Prophecy of Vâ.
Prophecy of Aeshema can be made by any Devout or Arcane Practitioner of a civilization if it is currently the only Fallen civilization. This prophecy results in the annihilation of all player cities and units, plus the world-wide annihilation of all A&#331;ra-dominant cities, all citizens that follow A&#331;ra, all sorcerers, and all sorcerous artifacts (phylacteries and the like). The sum of all that is destroyed is conferred as power in a single summoned demon (under player control), Aeshema.
Cult Founding Rituals are performed by Druids to establish specific cults within The Weave of Éa. All require 200 mana and 25 turns to perform. These are described under each of the pantheistic cults above. Note that the first Druid to perform a particular ritual founds the cult. The ritual can later be performed in any qualified city, but this only converts population into followers without changing the founder.

Spell Overview (just a few spells here to get us started...)
Spellcasters can always learn a new spell in lieu of taking a promotion on level gain. Some spells are restricted by religion, including the cult-specific spells for Druids listed above. However, all spells listed below can be learned by any spellcaster as long as they can cast the overarching type: divine or arcane. Many divine spells have an altered form for casters that are fallen. The cost of a spell is always either mana or divine favor depending on civilization religion or status.

Divine Spells
Heal (instant; cost: 1 point per point healed; req: Divine Liturgy): heals up to 50 hp for same-tile unit, depending on current damage and the caster's ability. Altered form is Hurt, which damages the weakest adjacent enemy unit by the same amount.

Arcane Spells
Magic Missile (instant; cost: 1 point per point damage inflicted; req: Thaumaturgy): damages another unit as a ranged attack with a range of 2-plots.
Hex (instant with 8 turn duration; cost: 1 point per point of healing prevented; req: Maleficium): adds the Hex promotion to adjacent enemy units which prevents all natural healing.

On Divine Favor and Mana
Only followers of Azzandara use Divine Favor. All others use Mana (you will never see both in the same empire at the same time). Both act as "currency" for spellcasting, though they are accumulated and used in very different ways. Divine Favor is accumulated at the civilization level and used by Priests of Azzandara in holy spell casting. There is no limit to the amount of Divine Favor that can be accumulated, although individual spellcasters are limited in how much they can use. Mana is generated as a yield, but immediately channeled to some sort of receptacle where it must be stored (or else it is lost). The receptacle could be some physical artifact, like a phylactery or some other magical object, or a person such as a Wizard, Sorcerer, Druid or Fallen Priest. Each receptacle has its own capacity for Mana storage and limits for "discharge" and "recharge". For most forms of magic, the Mana used by a spellcaster is returned to wherever it came from, perhaps the "little gods" for a pantheistic society. However, a Fallen spellcaster burns mana in a way that is irreversible (they are sometimes called “Mana Eaters” by other practitioners). Mana thus depleted from the Sum of all Mana can never be replenished. Although this quantity is quite large, it is ultimately finite. When depleted too far, Éa starts to "come apart at the seams" and eventually unravels entirely (with some interesting fireworks).

Victory Conditions (these are three of the five total)
Conqueror Conquer or raze all cities.
Destroyer Destroy Éa by the practice of Sorcery, consuming the Sum of all Mana.
Protector Protect Éa from the menace of Sorcery: destroy all sorcerers, phylacteries, and other artifacts associated with the practice. Civilizations that know Maleficium must be destroyed or compelled to renounce it.

nice to re-read all this... especially the updates
and have good holydays!

Just want to say keep up the good work - I'm watching progress on this mod with interest. I've been holding off on buying Civ5 until a suitably awesome mod comes along, and it looks like this might be a winner!

Really excited about this, keep it up.

I bought CiV5 just to play around with your alpha code. You have my full attention here, your mod mechanics are very unique and a great way to solve the issue of civs starting with traits that are supposed to represent the way their culture has developed... despite you starting at the dawn of their culture on turn 1.

Yeah, this mod is going to be great, I believe

I'm back and working on G&K conversion. I just added this prophecy to the post above:

Prophecy of Aeshema can be made by any Devout or Arcane Practitioner of a civilization if it is currently the only Fallen civilization. This prophecy results in the annihilation of all player cities and units, plus the world-wide annihilation of all A&#331;ra-dominant cities, all citizens that follow A&#331;ra, all sorcerers, and all sorcerous artifacts (phylacteries and the like). The sum of all that is destroyed is conferred as power in a single summoned demon (under player control): Aeshema.

An AI of evil nature will do this as a sort of last resort if it thinks it it going to be rolled over. The idea is to make the Protector victory a little more climactic, with a good boss fight at the end rather than a long drawn out mop-up process. It also offers an alternate endgame for the Destroyer victory (Aeshema is basically a super-charged sorcerer that burns a lot of mana).

I have several questions on lore and game mechanic, I hope you don't mind

1) So, there are three branches of magic : Thaumaturgy, Maleficarum and Divine Liturgy, right? This means, I can play as "Neutral" civs by keeping myself from researching Maleficarum and Divine Liturgy? Do Thaumaturgy give access to spells powerful enough to compete with Maleficarum and Divine Liturgy branches?

2) Do Prophecy of Aeshma require Prophecy of Ma? OR, can I as an evil player keep Maleficarum for myself and make Prophecy of Aeshma to reach (easier?) Destroyer victory?

3) I don't understand the role of Prophecy of Va, both in game play mechanic or in lore. Why would someone make it? If someone is evil enough to destroy Ea, s/he should make Prophecy of A&#331;ra. No need to make Prophecy of Va. Furthermore, by making Prophecy of Va, an evil player essentially delay his opportunity to make Prophecy of Aeshma.

esvath said:

1) So, there are three branches of magic : Thaumaturgy, Maleficarum and Divine Liturgy, right? This means, I can play as "Neutral" civs by keeping myself from researching Maleficarum and Divine Liturgy? Do Thaumaturgy give access to spells powerful enough to compete with Maleficarum and Divine Liturgy branches?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately most of the arcane stuff is down the road a bit. G&K made me move religion up (originally came after arcane magic) so my roll out plan is a little messy now. And with 30 pages of documentation the system was always intended to be...well...a little arcane.

It doesn't work if you try to compartmentalize it into "branches". There are arcane spells and divine spells, which can be learned and cast by Arcane Practitioners and Devouts, respectively. The trick here is that Druid is really a subclass of both Arcane Practitioner and Devout, so can cast both types. There is a whole slew of Arcane Practitioner subclasses (Wizards, etc.) but you won't see these in phase 2.

You will see when the new tech tree comes out that Thaumaturgy is broadly necessary for all kinds of arcane techs (that open up new arcane spells). Any civ using arcane magic will have this tech, whether or not they are pursuing Sorcery.

"Sorcery" is sort of a broad label applied to a certain practice of magic associated with Maleficarum and downstream techs. Strictly speaking, it is the practice of magic that consumes mana (rather than manipulating it in a non-consumptive way) and can involve either arcane or divine spells, or processes that are not really spells at all. When a civilization Falls (see rules above) then all of their spellcasters (both Devouts and Arcane Practitioners) gain the Sorcerer promotion. They gain the ability to learn and cast arcane spells if they did not have this ability already (e.g., if they were a Priest) but retain their previous abilities and title (Priest, Druid, Wizard, etc.; exception: Paladins become Eidolins). More importantly, they become "mana eaters". That is, all spells they cast, both divine and arcane, consume mana (irreversibly) from Éa's total.

(To confuse matters more, there is a subclass of Arcane Practitioner that is called Sorcerer. But don't mix that up with the Sorcery promotion. Any spellcaster could have the Sorcerer promotion, even a dragon...)

Also, there aren't explicit alignments. Everyone knows that A&#331;ra is evil and will act accordingly. Otherwise, civilizations have their own agendas and prejudices. Some civs will be ignorant and consider all arcane magic Sorcery (which is incorrect but correctness doesn't matter for diplomacy). Other civs will recognize A&#331;ra (the religion) as wholly evil, but don't know or believe that Sorcery has any relationship to Ahriman or A&#331;ra and will be neutral toward the practice of Sorcery. All of these diplo modifiers will be transparent (you will see them in the UI) but they won't necessarily be fair.

esvath said:

2) Do Prophecy of Aeshema require Prophecy of Ma? OR, can I as an evil player keep Maleficarum for myself and make Prophecy of Aeshema to reach (easier?) Destroyer victory?

Click to expand...

No, it doesn't require it. The idea here is that someone is wiping out Sorcery-practicing civs, and has whittled it down to one civ and they are probably going to take it. That is when the AI (as a Fallen civ about to be wiped out) will fire the Prophecy of Aeshema. From the player perspective, you could use the Prophecy of Mâ as you say to lock out all other players from Maleficarum, reserving the ability to make the Prophecy of Aeshema yourself. It's an interesting idea (that I hadn't thought of, to be honest) but there are a couple things to consider. First, most civs will either take Maleficarum early or never, so if you don't do it very early, then it won't matter anyway. However, if you make this prophecy too early, you will just have a weak Aeshema that certainly can't burn enough mana for the Destroyer victory and probably will be too weak to go for Conquest (remember that his power is proportional to the power of the civ that "self-immolates" itself in his summoning). You could do much better by conquering all other Fallen civs...then Aeshema will be that much more powerful. Keep in mind that, although Aeshema is very powerful mana eater, he probably can't consume as much mana as a large and fully functioning Fallen civilization with all of its cities and spellcasters. Perhaps it will be a nice finish before the very end, a sudden surge of mana to shave off the last few turns. But mostly, it is intended as a last ditch effort by the last Fallen civilization when it is in danger of extinction. (For those interested, "aeshema" means rage, wrath, fury in Avestan.)

esvath said:

3) I don't understand the role of Prophecy of Va, both in game play mechanic or in lore. Why would someone make it? If someone is evil enough to destroy Ea, s/he should make Prophecy of A&#331;ra. No need to make Prophecy of Va. Furthermore, by making Prophecy of Va, an evil player essentially delay his opportunity to make Prophecy of Aeshema.

Click to expand...

This is certainly the most complicated one. "Vâ" means choice in Avestan. Think of it a bit as a loss of innocence. Before this prophecy, any number of civs can learn Maleficarum without ill effect (this won't make them Fallen until the Prophesy of Vâ). They can have Sorcerers alongside Priests of Azzandara (or Druids or whatever) all living happily together. The reason for an evil civ to make it is that this is prerequisit to open 4th tier techs downstream of Maleficarum (which open up high level spells and rituals that burn a lot of mana, which is necessary to achieve the Destroyer victory). It will be prereq for other things (Prophecy of Mâ and probably others) that are needed for the Protector victory too.

Keep in mind that you can pursue the Destroyer victory with or without religion. There is no need to ever make the Prophecy of A&#331;ra or to have A&#331;ra in your cities at all. What you need is high tier techs downstream of Maleficarum, which open up all kinds of new ways to burn mana (including but not limited to enabling high level spells for your Sorcerers). A&#331;ra is sort of an optional approach. (Well, to be honest, what I'm saying is true after I've developed arcane magic. Probably with phase 2 you will need A&#331;ra to have a shot an Destroyer.)

Probably created more questions than I answered. But that's the fun...

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Edit: Fixed my spelling here and above to "aeshema". There are different spellings out there but this is in line with my efforts to get closer to original texts or sounds. Also tried to clarify my answers a little.

Edit 2: I clarified the text a bit on Prophecies in post 193 above. On important point of clarification: Prophecies are one-time history changing events. So when you read the (sometimes complicated) rules for these, realize that each one can only happen once in a game.