reverend mother mechanics

We have discussed a little in the civ traits thread about the special ability of the bene gesserit civ. Ahriman has suggested a super spy with some additional missions, such as decreasing cultural control in a few ways.

The BG civ should have a new superspecialist type Reverend Mother (RM). I am inspired by FFH Grigori heroes, mixed with Great General, mixed with some spy abilities. It would require a small sub-economy including Little Makers to build RMs.

In the main books, RMs are respected, have combat abilities, the Voice, and prescience. The key thing I am thinking of is that a stack with an RM should have special abilities, such as bonus first strikes from prescience. In addition units which are stacked with RMs for a long time may gain experience and possibly access to special promotions. So RMs would not just stay in cities, they would join stacks as well. As usual getting the AI to understand this will probably be hard.

Perhaps RMs by themselves would have access to certain spy type missions. We discussed briefly in the civ traits thread about super spies. Today there is no opportunity to limit certain missions to certain units, so a unit can access all of the missions or none of them. To distinguish RMs from regular spies, we should either build a different mechanism or enhance the super spies code with a mechanism to limit missions.

We can also build new abillities around "fake buildings" as pointed out by Ahriman. This is one mechanism used by FFH spells, along with "fake promotions" on units.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

I think with both the Spacing Guild and Bene Gesserit we have the problem that it is unlikely that they would try to take over Arrakis by force. They achieve what they want through political engineering and manipulation of other groups.

I like the idea that RMs can be kept in a city and give that city some benefit while they are there - like the Inspiration spell in FFH2, or go out into the field on espionage missions.

I think RMs should be powerful and therefore there should probably be a cap on the number you can have at one time.

One could argue that when playing BG, you aren't actually playing them, but rather some puppet house you are manipulating.

My one problem with Reverend mothers being very separate from everything else is that the Priest specialist (and great priests) are Truth Sayers - who are by definition Reverend Mothers.

Maybe there is some way to build a mechanic around Truth Sayer specialists? Bonuses to this specialist type? Super-wonders created by Great Truth Sayers (a la FFH Altars)?

I wonder also if there is some way to get across the somewhat Grigori-like attitude towards religion; the BGs don't *believe* in the religions they spread, they just use them as tools (opiate of the masses and all that).

Agnostic a la FFH doesn't fit, because the BG are definitely very active in spreading religion around. Maybe the BGs should just prefer more religions, rather a single religion everywhere?

I also don't really think RM's should be combat units. It would just feel wrong for a RM (or a legion of RMs??!?) to be marchnig around the map taking out enemy battalions.

Ahriman said:

My one problem with Reverend mothers being very separate from everything else is that the Priest specialist (and great priests) are Truth Sayers - who are by definition Reverend Mothers.

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Well, I want a UU for the BG, and it may be reasonable to consider TS to be a separate thing from RM. (Could I possibly fit any more abbreviations into that sentence?) It may be possible to have civ-specific actions for GP; I doubt it, but even if that was possible I think they should be different units.

I also don't really think RM's should be combat units. It would just feel wrong for a RM (or a legion of RMs??!?) to be marchnig around the map taking out enemy battalions.

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I agree, I was thinking of them as a Great General more than a standalone combat unit. You attach a GG to a unit or stack and the unit gets benefits. The point is that they teach special skills to the combat troops, not so much that they fight directly. I was not thinking of the exact GG mechanic, since the GG can never leave its main unit. But that may be as close as we can get mechanics-wise.

It may be enough just to have them able to give units combat promotions such as First Strike somehow. That feels more appropriate than Great General to me. Teaching them the wierding way. Are there any more interesting promotions around or that we can think up?

You attach a GG to a unit or stack and the unit gets benefits.

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I like this. The FFH mechanic works well here; attach the GG for +1 strength and +1 xp per combat.

I am not sure if this is implementable, but here is a power that would be cool to play with: invisibility and feints, based on prescience. Suppose there was a UB for the civ, which enabled you to create a fake stack. The stack has no actual attack ability, but it looks real to the other players and AI. So the other players will defend against it. If it appears near the border, you would treat it as an attack and build up against it. But this is a feint, the units cannot actually do anything. You are tricking the other player into sending a defensive stack over *here*, instead of over *there* where the actual attack is coming. The rationalization is that the RMs are directing the units using prescience so the defense may be a little off balance.

The reverse of this is also true, where it would be cool to have a stack made invisible. So you send your feint in one direction, and your actual invisible attack stack another direction.

There are two parts to this, and as I said it may not be implementable at all. The first part is having the AI decide a good location for a "feint stack" and to pick out a stack which should be invisible. The second part is the actual game mechanics for creating a fake stack and an invisible stack. I suspect it may take cloning of units, especially to make the feint units. Invisibility may be possible with a promotion.

Sometimes when I have a way-out idea like this, it turns out some other mod already has it. Any reactions or leads?

It's definitely a cool idea. But I wonder whether it might be more appropriate for the Ordos who are always described as insidious and sneaky. In fact, in Emperor, one of the Ix units was a projector tank that did pretty much what you describe, allows you to create a fake army of units.

"When you target another unit with the projector, you will create a holographic replica of that unit. It is under your control, but has no offensive ability and can be revealed by shooting at it. After a time, the replica will blink out of existence."

I think it would its a bit of leap to get from prescience to having a fake army, but it's a cool idea for one of the other factions maybe.

I think FFH2 has a couple of units which might do something similar but not exactly the same - Divided Soul and/or Alkazan the Assassin who produces an illusion of himself.

fake army?

hummm...this will require a special one....a unit that will be displayed with the power of 40, but will be acctually as power 1

I doubt there is really any good way of making this fool the human player, and the AI that controls such an army is unlikely to feint with it; they'll probably just put it in their main Stack of Doom.

And does the human player really need any further means to exploit weak AI?

For prescience, how about just a recon mission? They can see where the enemy units are, and without roads, calculate their own combat movement much better.
This seems to incorporate most of the strategic military gains of prescience.

deliverator said:

For prescience, how about just a recon mission?

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That is certainly more implementable. Both spacer guild and bene gesserit could have this. Perhaps a UU which is implemented as an air unit with only recon missions, but called something like "Spice Vision".

Or just give the Guild orbital satellites with a recon mission.

Remember that in the book the Fremen are paying off the guild to NOT take survey pictures of their lands from the satellites.

Agree about satellites for the spacer guild. But that's for another thread someday.

I tried modifying an air unit to do something like a "Spice Vision". I can get the xml mostly the way I want it. It shows up as a unit in the city and it has a rebase button, neither of which is quite what I want. The animation would have to be redone; I guess idle should be invisible, and the patrol mission could create some kind of weird glow effect in the target square instead of ships flying by. There doesn't appear to be any way to control the size of the area revealed, it is an 11x11 square, but that may be OK.

The problem is that the AI doesn't seem to use it. I gave myself one of these units at turn 1 and then autoplayed a few turns. I came back and none of the map was explored and the unit was sleeping. I was hoping that the AI would send the unit on recon missions if there was nothing else useful for it to do, but apparently not. I could try setting up a more advanced experiment where the AI is at war, maybe it would recon areas it is planning to attack.

I guess next I will see what can be done with Great General variants. At least an auto first strike for the stack and faster experience seem reasonable.

I think its relatively unimportant that the AI doesn't use it, because the AI has omniscience anyway IIRC. They don't really alter their behavior based on things they can or can't see, and they never used recon mission to explore the map (but they're pretty good map explorers anyway).

Ahriman said:

I think its relatively unimportant that the AI doesn't use it [recon], because the AI has omniscience anyway IIRC.

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Is that true? In game AI design, omniscience is considered a serious "cheat". I don't know one way or the other about civ; if so then the area recon seems like a good ability even if it is player only. I guess it would have to be an action button on a RM unit rather than being built out of an air unit. I will have to learn how to make that large selection area and get a tile selection from the user, and then un-fog the local neighborhood. That may be a large project.

New day, new mechanics ideas. Now I am thinking RM should be a regular unit which has a national cap and can be built if you have access to the Little Maker bonus. (We need to do *something* with those whale units out there.)

One easy promotion would be "Sentry II", which gives a two plot visibility bonus. Especially used by an invisible spy unit, this would be pretty valuable to see what the enemy is doing.

In the books there are several mentions of "blank spots" in prescience. I would love to do something like this where a RM can be surrounded by a local "fog of war" which prevents you from seeing what units are in the stack. It is less than invisibility, since you know the blank spot is there. Perhaps if I intercept mouse-over and combat odds on stacks with RM, I can get a similar effect.

I would also like to do something where all the units in a stack with a RM get a super first strike, which still takes effect even when the defender has "immune to first strikes". This is how Jessica bested Stilgar, and it relates to prescience.

If I get a list of prescience related special effects, the unit starts to look like an FFH wizard. Then the challenge will be to have the AI use it effectively.

Lots of ideas to think about and see what can be implemented. Any additional suggestions for cool RM related mechanics?

Wasn't there some talk recently here about a Deviator unit that switches the allegiance of a unit? Instead of nerve gas the RM unit would use it's voice.

koma13 said:

Wasn't there some talk recently here about a Deviator unit that switches the allegiance of a unit? Instead of nerve gas the RM unit would use it's voice.

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Switching allegiances got mixed reviews. But something like a stun effect may fit the Voice. ""Don't move!"" Only on one unit, not on a stack.

Switching allegiances got mixed reviews. But something like a stun effect may fit the Voice. ""Don't move!"" Only on one unit, not on a stack.

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Sounds good. If we use it as the rm attack it should be easy to implement, even for the ai.

Ahriman said:

I think its relatively unimportant that the AI doesn't use it, because the AI has omniscience anyway IIRC.

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AFAIK, not true. They just have a larger sight radius (IIRC, 1 or 2 squares more than humans, but then the AI has no memory, so it effectively simulates remembering the immediate surroundings). And I distinctly remember being annoyed by hordes of recon air ships in BtS.

Cheers, LT.

I guess it would have to be an action button on a RM unit rather than being built out of an air unit.

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I know there were (still are?) spells in FFH and the Warhammer mod on normal land units that duplicate the effect of recon missions.

Sentry promotions and just regular first strikes (how many immune to first strike unit are there anyway?) also do a good job of implementing this.

Only on one unit, not on a stack.

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The problem is this is that the AI often freezes a whole stack if even one unit in it gets stunned, because its combat mechanics tend to encourage stack of doom behavior.

And I distinctly remember being annoyed by hordes of recon air ships in BtS.

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The fact that the AI performs recon run actions doesn't necessarily means it gains anything from doing so.
I may be wrong and I have no particular evidence for this, but I've never noticed the AI changing behavior based on things it can or can't see.

The easiest way to make spell AI work (and I think the way the FFH AIs do it?) is to give each spell a priority rating based on power and effect, and then have the unit check which spells it can cast that have legitimate targets each turn (subject to a few restrictions) and cast the one with the highest value.

For example; enchant blade is a good spell that adds a permanent stack buff to every melee unit in the stack, but because its a permanent effect it should have a low AI rating because you want it cast in peacetime.
Loyalty is a weak permanent buff spell, so it should have a very low AI priority.
In contrast, pillar of flame is a high power combat spell that damages a stack in an adjacent tile, so has a high AI rating.
Summoning spells like fireball are good so have a medium priority, but should check first whether or not there are any enemy units within 2 tiles.
That way, the mage has access to all 4 spells, it will cast pillar of fire if there are are enemies in an adjacent tile over all others. If not, but there are enemies within 2 tiles, it will cast Fireball. If not, but there are melee units in its tile without enchanted blade already, it will cast Enchanted blade.
Otherwise, it will cast loyalty.