"Shadow" schedule

[Kael]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

Kael, or any other team member, On Nov. 23rd you brought us details of the Empyrean and the Overcouncil, On Nov. 30th you will bring us details on the Council of Esus and the Undercouncil, and finally on Dec 7th you will talk about the Guilds. My question is when, or if, are we going to get any information on the changes to the Sidar, Svartalfar, Malakim or Balseraphs? Two of these nations have never been playable before and i am dying to know what you have planned for them, but don't see a date scheduled where you are going to talk about them.

Im not sure when they are going to be talked about. I knew the prior dates back when I created the timeline because it aligns with my schedule. Last week was Empyrean week, I spent all week playing different civs with the Emp and getting it working. This week I am busy playing Council games and implmenting their features. Next week Im all about guilds.

Probably the week before release I will start spotlighting a new feature each day. We will see how it goes.

[xienwolf]

True, when you think about which alignments are allowed in the Over/Under councils then my idea is a complete flop. But I would love to see some more options to use in order to shift out from Neutral (though I generally hardline OO or RoK just to become Neut personally).

One-stepping it so that you can move up/down from Neutral or pure, but only move 1 level is a nice idea, fills my desire and keeps the alignment in order with the council. It also means that you can get from Good to Evil without having AV (Use OO or Esus to become Neutral, then switch from OO to Esus to become evil (so if you used Esus to get Neutral you would then have to move to OO/RoK/FoL in order to move back to Esus and get the alignment hit again).


I hope there are some events/quests to discourage switching your religion to affect alignment too often (like if someone tries to stockpile druids, Paladins & Eidolons all in one civ).

[Calavente]

don't druid, paladin and eilodons disappear if you sxitch alignement ?

[onedreamer]

They don't if I remember correctly.

[xienwolf]

Only ever built druids myself, and can't recall if I kept them after going back to good to stave off hell. But I have seen numerous posts by people about doing such a thing.

[Nor'easter]

Originally Posted by Calavente;

don't druid, paladin and eilodons disappear if you sxitch alignement ?

No, they don't, so you can change religions/alignment opportunistically to build all three. The only units you'll lose are any religion-specific heroes and high priests.

[Avahz Darkwood]

I dont know, maybe I see this different, but

Its hard for me to see religions other than the runes, the fellowship and maybe the overlords being able to build druids.

Are not druids nature priests? Why would an Order or Veil civ want to build a priest of another faith?

Or is this the unit removed....

[Silverkiss]

Order always makes you good and Veil always makes you evil, so it's already impossible for them to build druids, a neutral-only unit, isn't it ? If you're talking about building and then adopting one of them to remain with the unit even being Good/Evil, you could explain that by saying that the 'priests of old' or something still remain, even if the religion changed.

[Calavente]

and druids are more of a nature-cult than a religion..

[onedreamer]

Cults are part of a religion.

[zxcvbnm]

And the religions which don't tolerate the nature cult are the Order and Ashen Veil.

[Kael]

The first post has been updated with information on the Council of Esus and Equipment.

[Grillick]

You didn't state explicitly which tech founds the Council...Deception, I presume?

[kidcarson]

new spoilers, pretty cool, looks like it may finally pay to be bad
looks like no more education civics though

[MagisterCultuum]

Since the song uses a double negative, you can take that as me instating that the civic category be brought back at once

I do wish the were more categories, so you could try more combinations of different civic. However, the way they are currently organized does see to make more sense that the old way.

I see you took my advice on adding happiness per military unit to Social Order.

So, when you said that any evil civ can use slavery, does that mean that neutral OO civs now can't? I agree that good civs shouldn't be able to use it, but it seems fitting enough for neutral ones. I didn't see an alignment requirement on the civic screen.


I too noticed that you didn't say what founds the Council of Esus. It has been strongly implied that it is Deception, which would make sense.


What is the giant statue sticking out of the ground in the first pic?


"It can only be joined by Neutral or Evil players, and although they don’t have to worship the Council of Esus to join, they can’t be members of the Overcouncil." - what does this mean? Do you mean that it works just like the AP, where you need the state religion to be a full member but can still vote if you are neutral? Or do you man that No One can be a member unless he founds it (making founding it a lot more important). I'll assume you mean the first one if not corrected.


I hope that both the Empyrean and Council of Esus (we need to decide on the new religions' abbreviations so I don't have to write so much) icons get changed I actually don't mind the council icon on the cities as much, but the icon by the leader's name just doesn't fit (empyrean was worse in both places). Of course, since the Council is hidden religion, I guess this really doesn't matter much!

Oh, is the only thing hidden about it that rival without your religion don't know you've adopted it, or can they not tell if its in a city either. The latter would be much more interesting, but probably to difficult to implement (and it would make it hard to know if you should convert!) Speaking of converting, can Esus civs ask others to convert to their religion? It seems like that would blow their cover.

I was thinking that it could be interesting if each Esus civ/council member got espionage points per turn per non-Esus-civ city with Esus in it against the cities owners (which would work better if they couldn't tell if the religion was present), but you have probably written a better espionage system than that anyway. I was also thinking that giving Empyrean clerics the ability to see though the hidden nature of the religion would be good (preforming counter-espionage, detecting "spies", determining if a city has the religion, and possibly even discovering the true state religion of those following Esus.


Hmm... saying "true state religion" just made me think how great it would be if other civs could be convinced that you followed a different religion, instead of no state religion, especially if that is their real state religion. This would make most sense if you switched from say, FoL to Esus, and other FoL civs though you stayed FoL (although perhaps civs with other religions might still think you were "no state religion"). Perhaps another ability of the council would be to let its members "pass for" followers of other state religions. It would also be great if it could mask their true alignment; thus there could be an Evil Council of Esus civ that appeared to everyone not on the council to still be a Good Order civ. If possible, this would be an amazing ability, and would fit very well thematically. It could also explain what happened to the corrupt Bannor/Order Empire latter on in their existence, when Valin had abandoned them and they were hunting him down (and Valin would abandon them, because they weren't really of his state religion!)



All in all the Council looks very interesting. It will certainly be a much different experience. It hardly seems like a religion at all, more like a secret criminal guild/cult. Of course, I was kinda confused on how it could be implemented as a real religion anyway, so I think it fits.

[Civkid1991]

dwarven warriors have a new ability? (saw a new "spell button" in on of the screenies)

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm guessing that is a "spell" made available by being on the same tile an Equipment. Basically, it id the pick up/drop item ability. (I'm guessing he just dropped it, and the pick up ability is there but greyed out)

[Silaor]

@MCultuum : I think it means that when you're Neutral, you can't be part of both OC and UC Kael said there was no "joining and voting memebers", every member has a vote, maybe more due to councilor(s).

[[NWO]_Valis]

The 'being as a member' thing is done via adopting a civic, very interesting, but why was it at the cost of a whole branch of civicks? I like variety, different combinations.

So far it is all about politics and I do not like politics in RL as in games so I am beginning to worry if there will be anything for me :/ ...but maybe it is time to try something new.

[Nimbus]

looks like there are some pretty cool things coming up, Buuuut, why get rid of the education branch of civics, it was by far the best branch with the most choices out there. How hard would this be to put back in? even if it means in a mod-mod.