Amurite Enhancement

[readercolin]

I have switched from using a Fall From Heaven Base to a Fall Further base, and set aside parts 1 and 2 of my enhancement. I may reference this thread in the future, but I will not be using it to release any modmods.

Spoiler :

I have always found the Amurites to be a little ... lacking. You either have to play them like you would a standard civ and ignore magic completely, or you have to garner a tech lead and get to sorcery while everyone else is still at bronze working. On top of that, they end up having to split their hammers alot more between units and buildings (at least, in my opinion).

To solve this, I have decided to... enhance them some. So here is what I have planned.

Stage 1, I plan on adding to the amurites the ability to build buildings magically. There will be a new unit, Amurite Citizen, who will be able to cast the chanting spell. Chanting basically says "I'm ready, once we have enough guys, lets make something". Once enough Amurite Citizens have cast chanting, the ability to build a building through a spell will be unlocked. For example, a monument normally costs 60 hammers. Amurite Citizens right now are planned to cost 30 hammers. For Amurite Citizens to build a monument, they have to get 2 citizens in the city casting chanting. Then a third citizen can cast "create monument". Upon casting this, all three citizens will be destroyed. This effectively makes the monument cost 90 hammers. However, the spell "Create Monument" can also be cast by an adept, as long as two citizens are chanting. This will kill the two chanters, but leave the adept alive, allowing the monument to be constructed for 60 hammers - the same as it would normally take. That is not all however. The spell "Create Monument" can also be cast by a wizard, as long as there is one chanting citizen in the city. This will destroy the citizen, but not the wizard, allowing the building to be built effectively at the cost of 30 hammers, or half what it would normally take. This is balanced out however by other civs being able to build assasins at about the same time as you can build wizards - and Amurite citizens are essentially assasin fodder.

Even with this in place however buildings will be allowed to be constructed normally, both for the AI to be able to use it effectively, to avoid having mass assasin fodder waiting in your cities, and for if you don't care to use the micromanagement required.

Stage 2 I am going to be improving the units and buildings of the amurites. Stage 3 I am changing the current spell system. Stage 4 I am planning on doing an enchantment overhaul. And stage 5 I may add ritual casting to the amurite repertoire (what exactly it will be hasn't even been thought up yet). To find out more, look at the last post on page 2 and the first few on page 3 of this thread.

Feel free to add comments and ideas. Right now I am working on stage 1, and hope to release it before the end of august. At the moment, all I have left to do is create the chanting promotion (which is slightly more difficult than it sounds, as I don't want the construction of a building to delete all the units chanting in the city, only the ones needed to construct the building), and then finish making up spells for each level of unit (amurite citizen, adept, and wizard).

-Colin

Edited to update what I'm doing. This has been significantly changes since it was first proposed, and previous ideas edited out, so the first few posts may not make much sense.

 

[readercolin]

reserved

 

[readercolin]

reserved

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

sounds interesting, rituals definitely fit the amurites better

 

[hbar]

This is interesting, but it seems like it is all reward and no risk. For example, once you have 3 warriors with other civs, you invest your hammers in a monument, and then invest in more warriors to guard your next settler. With this mod, you would continue to build warriors while the ones you have build a monument. Thus, you gain an insane lead in military production by using your military to build your economy.

Another concern - the Amurites would have a problem with the Military State civic (I think that's the one) because they would only be able to build units, and thus would never grow.

In fact, it would be possible (and desirable) to have several cities with no hammers and 100% cottages/aristofarms. Since they could still build markets, libraries, currency exchanges, public baths, etc., they could quickly become economic powerhouses (in addition to their insane military production).

Overall, I see this as hugely overpowered, because it eliminates the tradeoff between hammers and commerce, and between military and builder. I think the concept is a great idea, but there are a lot of balance questions to be answered first.

One idea to balance it - have ritualists be zero upkeep, zero strength units, and have them be required to remain in the city for the building to stay. This is similar to how the Soldiers of Kilmorph work, but they would be vulnerable to assassins (i.e. assassins now target infrastructure, not units). This would be offset by having ritualists be a 1 to 1 hammer conversion (i.e. you'd need 2 30 ritualists to build a 60 monument), and also providing a target for assassins that isn't your wizards. This way, you could still export production from a hammer-strong city to your commerce cities, but there would be a risk involved. Also, you could change your infrastructure on a whim by changing the rituals. Need cash? Turn that library into a market! Got war? Who needs a monument when you can have a training yard! Etc.

EDIT - does not equal

 

[readercolin]

It seems like all reward and no risk. However, at the moment the amurites feel like all risk and no reward. Yay - we have powerful magic!! Oh, wait, while we were wasting so many beakers on getting to sorcery we just got steamrolled by the hippus. Or we got steamrolled by the Elohim . Then lategame, Yay - we have powerful magic, oh wait, 1 assasin just annihalated the 4 archmages we're allowed to have. Or say "Meet Our Fire Elementals", and the vampire shruggs and says "So? Meet our phalinxes/vampire lords/whatever". The only spot that the Amurites can currently excel at is if they reach sorcery while their opponents are still using bronze axmen, and that isn't a situation that lasts long.

On the other hand, being able to summon their buildings means that they can get a solid economy under their feet and be able to build the units that they need to survive. As for the problem with military state, I don't really see a problem with it - if they want to grow a city then they can switch to research instead of units. To reduce the possibility of rushing, after testing I may give them UU in the other lines that have reduced strength - so their warriors would be strength 2 and axmen strength 3 or something like that. Another thing to consider after testing would be for rituals to kill the casters - especially for earlier buildings like monuments and such, maybe stop dying with adepts or wizards.

-Colin

 

[travathian]

However, at the moment the amurites feel like all risk and no reward.

Not hardly.

Yay - we have powerful magic!! Oh, wait, while we were wasting so many beakers on getting to sorcery we just got steamrolled by the hippus. Or we got steamrolled by the Elohim .

You're dumb for rushing Sorcery then. It is a mid game tech, if you don't have a decent defense and economy going by the time you research it then you have no one to blame for getting rolled. What is the point of researching mages if you have no means to protect them?

Then lategame, Yay - we have powerful magic, oh wait, 1 assasin just annihalated the 4 archmages we're allowed to have.

This is different from any other civ that gets archmages how? You protect your assets just like every other civ.

Or say "Meet Our Fire Elementals", and the vampire shruggs and says "So? Meet our phalinxes/vampire lords/whatever".

Or meet my golems, or my flurries, or my whatever. Yeah, every civ is different, what is the point you are trying to make exactly?

The only spot that the Amurites can currently excel at is if they reach sorcery while their opponents are still using bronze axmen, and that isn't a situation that lasts long.

False. Frankly you sound like you barely have played the Amurites and are already complaining about them. Let us take a more critical look at them. Arcane means early adepts with a crapload of spells assuming you have access to mana nodes. Assuming you are smart this means every one of your melee units will have a 20% bonus via Enchantment, your cities will have Walls of Stone for defense, your units will be hasted allowing them to attack and still retreat back to a city, Rust to take out those pesky attackers with upgrades, etc. A few early adepts can easily gain access to a large number of useful spells. Swordsman, a number of civs get swordsmen instead of axemen, nothing special here. Otherwise, they receive no bonuses nor penalties to the early game. They can build catapults, they can build all buildings and all generic units.

Mid game: Firebows. Oh look, a defensive unit that can fireball and attack decently as well, they must suck huh? Chanters. Oh look, an assassin that if it kills a unit and itself just barely survives can teleport back home to safety to regain health and head back to the front line for more easy experience, thanks to all those stacks of opponents getting fireballed. Bleh, who needs that. Cave of Ancestors, what a crappy building. Who care if it means I can potentially build adepts that immediately upgrade to mages. Govannon, pffft, crappy hero. Who cares if I can teach my Chanters haste, rust, summon skeleton; or my Firebows courage, wall of stone, etc. Not to mention letting my adepts use their free XP on things like movement and power abilities, while Govannon teaches them all the actual spells. What good is a Mage with Combat V anyway?

I got a good laugh out of most of your ideas. Archmage Str8? Same as a Champion? lolz Advanced rituals are joke because sacrificing Wizards means nothing to the Amuriates given that by this point in the game they can build adepts that immediately upgrade to wizards. And using them to build mana nodes simply means my new adepts start even more powerful. Building rituals? lol, can you say warrior spam? Balancing it with requiring mana would just cripple the Amurites even more. Who wants to wait until Alteration to build their granary? Frankly the only thing I can agree with is adding some sort of bonus to mana nodes so they aren't so sucky if in the BFC, the rest of your mod needs to be seriously rethought out.

There have been a number of Amurite threads in the strategy forum and the main forum, I would suggest checking them out and investing a lot more play time before continuing with this mod. Between those threads and things that other mods have done you may be able to come up with a much more lore appropriate as well as balanced approach.

 

[mimic]

Thats harsh, if he wants to make this mod like this thats up to him, It looks pretty good so far imo.

 

[Valkrionn]

I agree, a bit harsh there... Although I'm not too terribly fond of it either if just because the AI would have no idea how to handle it. (Oh look, pot calling the kettle black...

 

[hbar]

Hey, make the mod first, worry about the AI second (after all, that's what FF did, right?). I'm really interested to see if this even can be done, and if it can be done in a balanced way. If so, this is a different enough take on the Amurites that I'd certainly play it.

 

[readercolin]

False. Frankly you sound like you barely have played the Amurites and are already complaining about them. Let us take a more critical look at them. Arcane means early adepts with a crapload of spells assuming you have access to mana nodes. Assuming you are smart this means every one of your melee units will have a 20% bonus via Enchantment, your cities will have Walls of Stone for defense, your units will be hasted allowing them to attack and still retreat back to a city, Rust to take out those pesky attackers with upgrades, etc. A few early adepts can easily gain access to a large number of useful spells. Swordsman, a number of civs get swordsmen instead of axemen, nothing special here. Otherwise, they receive no bonuses nor penalties to the early game. They can build catapults, they can build all buildings and all generic units.

Mid game: Firebows. Oh look, a defensive unit that can fireball and attack decently as well, they must suck huh? Chanters. Oh look, an assassin that if it kills a unit and itself just barely survives can teleport back home to safety to regain health and head back to the front line for more easy experience, thanks to all those stacks of opponents getting fireballed. Bleh, who needs that. Cave of Ancestors, what a crappy building. Who care if it means I can potentially build adepts that immediately upgrade to mages. Govannon, pffft, crappy hero. Who cares if I can teach my Chanters haste, rust, summon skeleton; or my Firebows courage, wall of stone, etc. Not to mention letting my adepts use their free XP on things like movement and power abilities, while Govannon teaches them all the actual spells. What good is a Mage with Combat V anyway?

I got a good laugh out of most of your ideas. Archmage Str8? Same as a Champion? lolz Advanced rituals are joke because sacrificing Wizards means nothing to the Amuriates given that by this point in the game they can build adepts that immediately upgrade to wizards. And using them to build mana nodes simply means my new adepts start even more powerful. Building rituals? lol, can you say warrior spam? Balancing it with requiring mana would just cripple the Amurites even more. Who wants to wait until Alteration to build their granary? Frankly the only thing I can agree with is adding some sort of bonus to mana nodes so they aren't so sucky if in the BFC, the rest of your mod needs to be seriously rethought out.

There have been a number of Amurite threads in the strategy forum and the main forum, I would suggest checking them out and investing a lot more play time before continuing with this mod. Between those threads and things that other mods have done you may be able to come up with a much more lore appropriate as well as balanced approach.

Woo hoo - you have pointed out how you can play well with the amurites... ish. On the other hand, while you're messing around with getting firebows, chanters, champions, AND govornnan - your opponent took all those beakers and is now crushing you with phalinxes. Note - the strategy you just listed requres 2 things. First, Govornnan. Second, other units. As for using all those spells with your adepts - how the hell did you get enough mana nodes to do that? On a small map, I am always lucky to get 2 mana nodes - large ones I might (MIGHT!!!) get 3-4. Still not enough to do what you stated in the ways that you stated it.

You're dumb for rushing Sorcery then. It is a mid game tech, if you don't have a decent defense and economy going by the time you research it then you have no one to blame for getting rolled. What is the point of researching mages if you have no means to protect them?

Now to look at your points more in depth. First - dumb for rushing sorcery? Sorcery gives 2 major things that the Amurites need - Wizards, and Cave of the ancestors. These two things are what is needed to get the magical line really rolling, and the only thing that allows them magical supremacy. Now, should you be rushing for sorcery before you have bronze working, archery and the early econ techs? No, but it really should be one of the first techs that you head for after that. If it is actually better to go for another teir 3 unit first, then I have to ask why even play as the amurites. If I am playing as them, I want to focus on MAGIC. Not on rushing axmen and champions around like I was the bannor or something. The whole idea of this mod is to make playing magic actually playing magic.

This is different from any other civ that gets archmages how? You protect your assets just like every other civ.

So what - there is no point in getting archmages now? You have to protect them like you would any other - while DUH. And I have never personally lost an archmage to an assasin - thats what all those wizard lackies are for . Once that is all said and done though, why is an amurite archmage considered to be on the same level as a regular archmage? Wouldn't the amurites field WAR archmages, who are experienced in walking up and annihalating whole units singlehandedly? This shouldn't be considered just summon something and let it do your work for you. The mage himself should be something to fear.

Or meet my golems, or my flurries, or my whatever. Yeah, every civ is different, what is the point you are trying to make exactly?

Specifically this - archmage teir 4's are outmatched in just about every way by every other teir 4. Going for them as your first teir 4 usually just leads to your death. Being able to get 4 summons is strong, ish. But in all honesty the summons aren't strong if you are trying to go the path of the true amurite and get spells from every theater. If you focus on just death or just sun or something, then the summons can be quite scary. But if your trying to walk the path encouraged by govornnan and the cave of the ancestors, your summons are going to be outclassed by mithril champions, much less the teir 4's.

False. Frankly you sound like you barely have played the Amurites and are already complaining about them. Let us take a more critical look at them. Arcane means early adepts with a crapload of spells assuming you have access to mana nodes. Assuming you are smart this means every one of your melee units will have a 20% bonus via Enchantment, your cities will have Walls of Stone for defense, your units will be hasted allowing them to attack and still retreat back to a city, Rust to take out those pesky attackers with upgrades, etc. A few early adepts can easily gain access to a large number of useful spells. Swordsman, a number of civs get swordsmen instead of axemen, nothing special here. Otherwise, they receive no bonuses nor penalties to the early game. They can build catapults, they can build all buildings and all generic units.

The Amurites are one of my favorite civs. I can win on everything up to immortal with them under the main FFH - the better AI mods that I have been playing though have dropped me back down to prince however, but I think that just says good things about those mods. Specifically however, is how they are in multiplayer. Trying to focus on magic in multiplayer is a quick route to suicide, and the ONLY thing that allows it is because I am a significantly better player than those I play with. I play the amurites as an equalizer - if I wanted to steamroll them I would play as the dwarves and introduce them to the power of +90% production in all cities. Playing as the amurites though they have a chance of winning because to use them as I feel they should be used requires that I spend lots of beakers here, more beakers there, and some more beakers over there. In the end, with them focusing mostly on archery or melee, they can match me teir by teir, except that I have more units available to me in each teir. Would this be different if I played with different people? Probably. But there is a reason why we stopped playing against each other.

What I want out of this mod is to make the amurites feel less gimped, and allow them to FOCUS on magic, rather than just say "oooh pretty, is magic - now march those champions forward".

-Colin

 

[readercolin]

To address the problem of "Warrior Spam", I have changed how I will be dealing with the building rituals. First, there is going to be a unit, "Ritualist", unlocked at ancient chants. This unit is going to be strength 2, unable to attack, and cost 15 hammers (or so). Gathering together 4 ritualists who chant for 5 turns, will produce a 60 hammer monument, at the end of which all ritualists die. Ritualists are able to build all buildings.

However, to build that same monument, you can instead grave 3 ritualists and 1 adept. They again chant for 5 turns, at the end of which the ritualists die, but the adept doesn't. Or you can grab 2 ritualists and 1 wizard. Chanting for 5 turns, at the end the ritualists die and the wizard lives. This would mean that hammers were still required to build all buildings, but the use of adepts and wizards can reduce the cost of buildings. Further balancing would be required. Generally though I want using wizards to reduce building cost by around 50%, and adepts to reduce cost by about 25%.

Also planned are further rituals available to wizards and archmages to improve the power of the sorcery line, but I'll go more into that once I have started making the rituals work.

-Colin

Edit: Modified post 2 to discuss how to create buildings through chanting.

 

[cabbagemeister]

What I want out of this mod is to make the amurites feel less gimped, and allow them to FOCUS on magic, rather than just say "oooh pretty, is magic - now march those champions forward".

Hmmm, I always thought of the Amurites as focused on magic, but on magic QUANTITY rather than magic QUALITY. So yes, it's true that their archmages are no more powerful than anyone else's, which is very disappointing when you get there. The Summoner archmages are definitely better (and Keelyn's archmages are FAR better). But the Amurites' strength lies in the fact that Arcane + Cave means they can produce mages faster than ANY other civ. They can have 30 mages swarming the battlefield if they're focused about it. And while it's true that a Fireballing mage is a worse unit than a champion in most respects, it's an underappreciated fact that, due to the nature of collateral damage, 30 Fireballing mages are FAR better than 30 champions. Even assassins aren't too much bother when your mages are so easy to replace.

Further, once you get Govannon the "quantity not quality" approach to magic extends even farther. A champion is boring but a champion who hastes himself and summons skeletons is quite strong. A firebow is a decent unit, but a Firebow with Stoneskin is probably the best T3 unit in the game.

But I definitely agree with you that the main problem with Govannon-fueled awesomeness is that it comes SO late. With Gov., the Amurites are well set up to dominate with midgame units, but they just can't GET there unit other civs are entering the endgame. I like the changes Rystic has made in the Tweakmod towards addressing this (making Amurite adepts able to promote to axemen or archers and keep their spell spheres), and I'll be interested to see what you can do about it as well.

To address the problem of "Warrior Spam", I have changed how I will be dealing with the building rituals. First, there is going to be a unit, "Ritualist", unlocked at ancient chants. This unit is going to be strength 2, unable to attack, and cost 15 hammers (or so). Gathering together 4 ritualists who chant for 5 turns, will produce a 60 hammer monument, at the end of which all ritualists die. Ritualists are able to build all buildings.

Sounds like a cool idea. you might want to find a name other than "Ritualist" though, as that one is taken...

 

[hbar]

Hmmm, I always thought of the Amurites as focused on magic, but on magic QUANTITY rather than magic QUALITY ... They can have 30 mages swarming the battlefield if they're focused about it.

One thing I think would help the Amurites greatly is reducing the upgrade cost for their arcane units. If you want 30 mages, you need to spend 30*(~100) = 3000 gold to do so.

Building on the ritual idea, what if you could upgrade adepts->wizards as usual (for gold), or have the adept perform a ritual (requires cave of ancestors) that takes 5 turns and upgrades the adept for free (with a chance of killing the unit - 25%?). Also, make it so you can't do the ritual in that city if another one is going on (so you need several CoA's or 5-turn patience)

You could build on this and do the same for wizards -> archmages, with a longer ritual time and another building req. (maybe an Amurite only UB 'Wizards arena'), with the possibility of gaining random promotions (Heroic strength/defense, twincast, magic resistance, etc) upon success.

If you really want to go nuts, you could create a Casswallan unit (national limit: 1) that gains every spell of your current mana, and maybe a unique promotion that grants magic immunity or increased resistance, etc. and give all sorts of crazy abilities.

Idea: Wizard's Arena (limit 1)

+1 per unique mana
+3 (wizard battles aren't good for the local flora)
Allows accress to "Archmage's trials" spell, which has two wizards enter mortal combat - one wizard dies and one is promoted to archmage
​

 

[readercolin]

Hmmm, I always thought of the Amurites as focused on magic, but on magic QUANTITY rather than magic QUALITY. So yes, it's true that their archmages are no more powerful than anyone else's, which is very disappointing when you get there. The Summoner archmages are definitely better (and Keelyn's archmages are FAR better). But the Amurites' strength lies in the fact that Arcane + Cave means they can produce mages faster than ANY other civ. They can have 30 mages swarming the battlefield if they're focused about it. And while it's true that a Fireballing mage is a worse unit than a champion in most respects, it's an underappreciated fact that, due to the nature of collateral damage, 30 Fireballing mages are FAR better than 30 champions. Even assassins aren't too much bother when your mages are so easy to replace.

Further, once you get Govannon the "quantity not quality" approach to magic extends even farther. A champion is boring but a champion who hastes himself and summons skeletons is quite strong. A firebow is a decent unit, but a Firebow with Stoneskin is probably the best T3 unit in the game.

But I definitely agree with you that the main problem with Govannon-fueled awesomeness is that it comes SO late. With Gov., the Amurites are well set up to dominate with midgame units, but they just can't GET there unit other civs are entering the endgame. I like the changes Rystic has made in the Tweakmod towards addressing this (making Amurite adepts able to promote to axemen or archers and keep their spell spheres), and I'll be interested to see what you can do about it as well.

I'm not really familiar with Tweakmod. And yes, the Amurites do very much say quantity over quality when it comes to magic. On the other hand, I would think that with greater quantities, it wouldn't be a quantity of people each individually casting the same thing over and over again. I would think that with quantity the large numbers of them would work together to produce something greater.

Right now, any race that grabs arcane trait can match the amurites in most ways - if they also have the summoner trait they can surpass the amurites. This I feel is a shame, because I think that the Amurites should be without doubt the BEST mages.

Sounds like a cool idea. you might want to find a name other than "Ritualist" though, as that one is taken...

I know that ritualist is taken. However, I haven't yet had a surge of brilliance to suggest something better. Ideas are definately welcome though

As for the idea of upgrading through a ritual - I'll think on that one and once I get the building construction up then I'll look at different ways to make upgrading cheaper. Because you're right - a large army of mages can empty even the Khazid's vaults - most people don't have that much.

-Colin

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I tend to think that the Amurites should be more quality rather than just quantity magic. Magical education has a tendency to kill those unqualified for the job, and as Amurite schools are toughest they have the highest casualties. Amurite adepts tend to be at least a decade younger than those of other civs, so they have more time for training and so that it is quicker to replace them when they die. The mage guilds are extremely selective, and only accept children with natural talent higher than that which could be found in most lands. Valledia the Even was rejected. Those who are accepted are taken from their families and never allowed to meet again (or at least no one would know if they do, as tracking bloodlines like this is illegal; ok, Valledia would still know, as she tends to think that such laws are beneath her).

I'd also like to emphasize that while it is common for an Amurite citizen to know at least one very basic spell, the arcane class is still a rather small minority of the population. Most Amurite commoners get along fine without any need for magic. Knowledge of the arcane has in no way made them forget basic construction techniques, and the mages can rarely be bothered for mundane affairs.


This ritual idea has no real basis in lore, plus it seems needlessly complex, micromanagement intensive, impossible to teach the AI, and like it would generally be more annoying than fun. The fact that rituals cannot be rushed in any way often annoys me when I play the Illians, and making the Amurites so dependent on rituals would probably make me never want to play them.







I've never really liked the main mod's Cave of the Ancestors mechanic of giving xp to adepts based on how much mana you have when you build it. I always comment it out, and give the Amurites a Cave Trials spell instead (and made the Cave of the Ancestors provide a free Sage slot.) I fin this much more thematic, more powerful, and more fun.

CvSpellInterface.py

def spellCaveTrials(caster):
	if caster.isHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_CASWALLAWN')):
		CyInterface().addMessage(caster.getOwner(),True,25,CyTranslator().getText("The Caswallawn has already passed every trial; there is nothing left for the Cave to teach him.", ()),'',1,'Art/Interface/Buttons/Buildings/Caveofancestors.dds',ColorTypes(8),caster.getX(),caster.getY(),True,True)
	else:
		if CyGame().getSorenRandNum(10, "Cave Trials") < 8:
			caster.changeFreePromotionPick(1)
			CyInterface().addMessage(caster.getOwner(),True,25,CyTranslator().getText("Your unit has passed this phase of the trials, and emerged more skilled than before.", ()),'',1,'Art/Interface/Buttons/Buildings/Caveofancestors.dds',ColorTypes(8),caster.getX(),caster.getY(),True,True)
			
			if caster.isHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_CHANNELING3')) and CyGame().getSorenRandNum(10, "Arena Battle") < 2:
				for pUnit in (PyPlayer(caster.getOwner())).getUnitList():
					if pUnit.isHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_CHANNELING3')) and pUnit.getUnitCombatType() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('UNITCOMBAT_ADEPT'):
						if caster.getLevel() > pUnit.getLevel():
							if pUnit.isHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_CASWALLAWN')):
								pUnit.kill(True, PlayerTypes.NO_PLAYER)
								CyInterface().addMessage(caster.getOwner(),True,25,CyTranslator().getText("The Old Caswallawn has been slain in Arcane Combat", ()),'',1,'Art/Interface/Buttons/Buildings/Caveofancestors.dds',ColorTypes(7),caster.getX(),caster.getY(),True,True)
						else:
							break
						caster.setHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_CASWALLAWN'), True)
						CyInterface().addMessage(caster.getOwner(),True,25,CyTranslator().getText("This unit has passed every trial, and earned the title Caswallawn", ()),'',1,'Art/Interface/Buttons/Buildings/Caveofancestors.dds',ColorTypes(7),caster.getX(),caster.getY(),True,True)
		else:
			CyInterface().addMessage(caster.getOwner(),True,25,CyTranslator().getText("When the illusions passed, the courpse of the trial candidate was found; it would seem he overestimated his abilities.", ()),'',1,'Art/Interface/Buttons/Buildings/Caveofancestors.dds',ColorTypes(7),caster.getX(),caster.getY(),True,True)
			caster.kill(True, PlayerTypes.NO_PLAYER)

(I don't really care much for text keys, and since this was just for me I didn't use them.)


(Hmm, I could have sworn I'd written it to make the spell riskier for mages than adepts and archmages than mages, but it doesn't look that way here.)


(What the Casswallawn promotion does varies in different versions of mine. Sometimes it allows a spell to restore the casting ability, sometimes it grants +1 affinity for all mana types, and sometimes it just increases the xp gain rate, spell damage rate, and spell resist rates slightly.)

CIV4SpellInfos.xml:

        <SpellInfo>
            <Type>SPELL_CAVE_TRIALS</Type>
            <Description>TXT_KEY_SPELL_CAVE_TRIALS</Description>
            <Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_SPELL_PLACEHOLDER_PEDIA</Civilopedia>
            <Help>TXT_KEY_SPELL_ARENA_BATTLE_HELP</Help>
            <UnitCombatPrereq>UNITCOMBAT_ADEPT</UnitCombatPrereq>
            <BuildingPrereq>BUILDING_CAVE_OF_ANCESTORS</BuildingPrereq>
            <bCasterMustBeAlive>1</bCasterMustBeAlive>
            <bCasterNoDuration>1</bCasterNoDuration>
            <bInBordersOnly>1</bInBordersOnly>
            <bInCityOnly>1</bInCityOnly>
            <iAIWeight>10</iAIWeight>
            <bHasCasted>1</bHasCasted>
            <PyResult>spellCaveTrials(pCaster)</PyResult>
            <Effect>EFFECT_SPELL1</Effect>
            <Sound>AS3D_SPELL_CHARM_PERSON</Sound>
            <Button>Art/Interface/Buttons/Buildings/Caveofancestors.dds</Button>
        </SpellInfo>

(I limited it to living units because I made Liches inherently immortal, along with making them just be unitclass_archmage so they no longer let you get around the limit on how many archamges you can have and making them require the Tower of Necromancy. An immortal unit can lose the trials and survive to try again, which makes true immortal casters taking the trial be a major exploit.)

I also make Spellstaffs a piece of equipment, so your archmages can just borrow your wizards' rather than all needing to learn to make their own.

 

[travathian]

Woo hoo - you have pointed out how you can play well with the amurites... ish. On the other hand, while you're messing around with getting firebows, chanters, champions, AND govornnan - your opponent took all those beakers and is now crushing you with phalinxes.

lol, wut? What games are you playing that your opponent is 'rushing' end game national units, and why didn't you go whoop their ass before they got there? And yeah, phalanxes are pretty buff, but so is a firebow with iron, flaming arrows, wall of stone, on a hill, in a city, fortified. And I can get one of those a helluva lot sooner than the other.

Note - the strategy you just listed requres 2 things. First, Govornnan. Second, other units. As for using all those spells with your adepts - how the hell did you get enough mana nodes to do that? On a small map, I am always lucky to get 2 mana nodes - large ones I might (MIGHT!!!) get 3-4. Still not enough to do what you stated in the ways that you stated it.

3-4 plus the three you start with gives you a total of 6-7, which should be more than enough to get all the really good ones. Heck, you start with body and fire, two of the most useful early on.

Now to look at your points more in depth. First - dumb for rushing sorcery? Sorcery gives 2 major things that the Amurites need - Wizards, and Cave of the ancestors. These two things are what is needed to get the magical line really rolling, and the only thing that allows them magical supremacy. Now, should you be rushing for sorcery before you have bronze working, archery and the early econ techs? No, but it really should be one of the first techs that you head for after that. If it is actually better to go for another teir 3 unit first, then I have to ask why even play as the amurites.

Because, as the Amurites, I can build my adepts/mages later on and they are just as good, and usually better, than what my opponents will be fielding. Grab your 3-4 mana nodes, and now with CoA my adepts will start with a minimum of 6xp, enough for 2 additional upgrades besides the free one. Not to mention that with wonders/civics I can potentially skip adepts and go right to mages. No other civ can even come close to that. Mid game your primary combat unit producing city should be able to crank out an adept every turn or two. One turn to upgrade and hey look, a fireball wielding mage ready to go. Thus I can spend my time focusing on building other units earlier in the game knowing that I don't have to waste precious hammers building adepts. My opponents are forced to build a bunch of adepts early, and hide them, in order for them to gain enough freebie xp to upgrade to mages at some point. While they are wasting hammers and paying maintenance on these units, I can be spending those hammers on swordsmen and catapults. Hmmm, what can I do with swordsmen and catapults . . . .

Once that is all said and done though, why is an amurite archmage considered to be on the same level as a regular archmage? Wouldn't the amurites field WAR archmages, who are experienced in walking up and annihalating whole units singlehandedly?

I don't know, should they? What is the basis for this? And isn't the fact that they'll have more XP, and thus more upgrades, than their archmage bretheren something to take into account as well? Again I will bring up govannon, your archmages could quite easily have Mobility and Combat V, (spells do 25% more damage, summons are 50% more buff, and the archmage has a base str of 10!) along with a whole crapload of first tier spells. I'd say that makes them a helluva lot more war magey than the archmages fielded by your opponents. Oh hey, meet Mr Fire Elemental, he attacks at 15, does collateral damage, and I can summon him every turn. And I don't even need to send them in first, my stack of fireball and maelstrom wielding mages can start the attack to soften things up first.

Specifically this - archmage teir 4's are outmatched in just about every way by every other teir 4.

Using attack power as the sole means to judge a unit seems quite flawed to me. Domination, Resurrection, Snowfall, Vitalize, Valor, and Trust are all things other Tier 4 units can't do. I'll also bring up the fact that not all civs can build all tier 4 units, Amurites can. Your vaunted dwarves can't build horse archers or longbowmen, or even mages for that matter! I'll again bring up the fact that you can delay going far down the magic path and pick it up later and lose nothing, as the Amurites, by doing that.

Trying to focus on magic in multiplayer is a quick route to suicide,

I believe you are making a failed assumption. Magic users are not a replacement for other units, they are a supporting class, part of a mixed army. If the Amurites could fully ignore an entire quarter of the tech tree and still kick ass I would be concerned about balance. And I am quite sure that you will counter with, "but but other civs can ignore the magic path and still kick ass!" Yes, you are right, but so can the Amurites. Nothing forces you down the magic path. Heck, I've had entire games as the elves where I ignored the religious path. Every game is different.

What I want out of this mod is to make the amurites feel less gimped, and allow them to FOCUS on magic, rather than just say "oooh pretty, is magic - now march those champions forward".

Again, flawed assumption. Amurites may be the best magicians around, but mages don't replace a standing army. The root of your problem is that you seem to think that if the Amurites go down the magic path of the tech tree that it should automagically mean a win for them. It should not. Again I will bring up the fact that the Amurites have access to the entire tech tree and all units, there is nothing stopping you from fielding Champions just as fast as any of your opponents.

Take a look at hbar's suggestions, those are excellent and address a true problem the Amurites have, coming up with the huge wads of cash necessary to upgrade all those arcane units. With those tweaks in place I can spend that cash upgrading my other units, while sacrificing the time (and possibly the lives) of my arcane units. Thus I have a better chance of having a well rounded, and upgraded, army to march forth. That is the kind of balancing and tweaking the Amurites need, not an "I have magic, I win" upgrade.

Generally though I want using wizards to reduce building cost by around 50%, and adepts to reduce cost by about 25%.

Might want to think this through a bit more. Because the more you reduce these costs the more they build on each other. ie I can build this building faster, thus I can build more mages, thus I can build other buildings faster, which means I can build more mages. This is especially problematic given that once I drop down a CoA I have near instant mages. Now if this is a replacement, not an alternative, to gaining building the traditional way, then it may be balanced. But as already mentioned, the AI will crap itself trying to do it, and most human players won't enjoy the excessive micromanagement required. Also keep in mind the moment I get masked Shadows/Assassins you are totally and utterly . .. .. .. .ed. Those little ritualists with their 2 attack power are going to get boned left and right, all the while giving me free and easy xp to make it even easier to screw you over. All that easy xp just means I get blitz faster which means I can clear out a whole city of ritualists/adepts in one turn with a pair of assassins. Now your means of production are totally shut down. Where as with archmages, you may need a few units with guardsmen to protect them from snipers, in your mod I'll need a guardsmen unit in every city to protect my ability to produce buildings by mid game. Not to mention that if I am building ritualists in my core cities to send them out to the periphery to summon buildings, I need to guard them on the journey there. More micromanagement and more chances of them getting sniped.

So what happens when one of the four ritualists dies mid summon? Is the whole thing canceled? Do they have backups that can fill in? Can the other three complete it, while taking longer?

 

[readercolin]

travathian - you and I are coming at this from two totally different points of view. You are arguing how the Amurites can be played well now. I feel that this isn't how the amurites should be played. Can you win with the amurites right now? Yes. On the other hand, if you're playing with a race of mages, I feel that the mages should mean more for them than they do for any other race.

Back to the quantity vs. quality - I feel that the amurites should have the best mages. They shouldn't just have the most mages. As it is right now, you can have wizards out the wazzo, but aside from getting a single use spellstaff, they are no different from another races mages. Further changes that I haven't proposed yet will change this. And once those changes are made, I will also probably be nerfing the rest of the lines. As to assassins mowing down all the ritualists - I will probably make 1 unit availble to them that starts with guardsman - I am not sure what unit it will be yet, or when it will be available, but it will be there. It will not however be firebows or an arcane unit.

@MagisterCultuum - The buildings will not be rituals like the illians ones. What they will be is you build units (for now, named ritualists) who can cast chanting. With a certain number of ritualists all chanting (varying depending upon building), a ritualist then casts "Build building" (building being the specific building built). Then, several turns later, the building is built. Most likely, buildings are going to take less than 10 turns - I may just make all buildings take 5 because of the time needed to build the ritualists. Once the building is constructed, then the ritualists die. This way buildings aren't being built for free. All buildings will be built this way - Amurite cities will be unable to build buildings normally, though they would be able to build wonders normally. And as for the AI - well, once I get it working how I want it to, then I will teach the AI how to use it. I don't feel too much urgency as long as the only changes in this mod are to the amurites, as there is no real reason for anyone to play this if they aren't playing as the amurites.

As to what I feel the amurites SHOULD be, I don't imagine them to be a large sprawling empire fueled by mages everywhere, which is how it currently runs if you are playing them well. And you have to have that large empire if you want to have enough mana to use those mages. What I imagine for a true amurite empire is a single massive city of learning and commerce, powered by a specialist economy, with far flung colonies and minor cities to grab resources and commerce. The core cities may eventually grow to rise and challenge the capital as centers of learning and commerce, but they shouldn't be an empire of lots of minor cities that are banded together in a loose alliance, without any one great center, as it is in my usual games.

-Colin

Edit: Will rearrange post later to possibly make more sense. I have a test in half an hour though, so that will have to wait.

 

[travathian]

Maybe you should explain how this is going to make the Amurites more fun to play or more balanced.

If I want to build a granary in my capitol I need to do the following:
Research required tech
Build 4 Ritualists at a turn cost of 4x(time to build)
While I am waiting for the forth to be built I am paying maintenance on the other 3
4th is built, so I start the granary summoning, which takes 5 turns, during which I am paying unit maintenance on 4 additional units now.
Granary magically appears, ritualists die, maintenance on those units ends.

Net result, 1 granary for the same number of hammers as traditional buildings, while taking at least 5 turns longer, and costing me unit maintenance from the moment the first ritualist is built.

This is a lot of work compared to: click granary, ignore city for X turns. And this was only for one city, what happens when my core cities number 5? And these far flung colonies, will they be spending countless turns building ritualists or will you be ferrying adepts and mages out to every city to reduce costs? You said you wanted few powerful mages, not mages out the wazzo. Well if you don't have a mage in every city then in your system I am punished for having to summon my buildings. Doesn't sound like fun to me, sounds like work.

I'd also be punished for running a strong economy, because I have no way to rush build buildings if I have the available cash. Can multiple groups of ritualists summon multiple buildings simultaneously? If not, then when I conquer a city that has well developed infrastructure, capable of high hammer output, I am being punished because it will take longer for each group of ritualists to summon a building in turn, than it would for a city with that many hammers to just build them normally. Not to mention that I then have to carry around a bunch of ritualists in my army, adding to support costs. If you allow simultaneous summoning then you open up the possibility that with enough ritualists I can conquer a city and 5 turns later have it fully equipped with every available building. Granted support costs for that many units would be high, but with the right civic choices it is doable.

And providing the Amurites a special guardsmen unit is fundamentally changing things. Guardsmen units aren't just there to protect adepts/ritualists, they are also useful to keep injured units from being sniped. Providing them with an easier to acquire guardsmen unit is asking for abuse because you can take more risks knowing that heavily injured units will survive to fight another day.


How about taking an entirely different route than totally mucking with a core game mechanic. I agree that adepts and mages and such would be contributing to the advancement of their city, I just don't think that 'summoning' is the way to do it.

How about this instead:

Each building in the game is keyed to a certain type of mana: Walls:Earth, Forge:Fire, Grove:Nature, Courthouse:Law, etc etc etc. Having access to the particular type of mana provides a bonus to hammer production of said building, assuming a magic user is present in the city. Adepts provide a 5% bonus, Wizards 10%, and Archmages 20%. (ie city produces 10 hammers a turn normally, with earth mana and a wizard it produces 11/turn while working on Walls) No stacking, highest available magic user counts only (too many cooks in the kitchen syndrome). Higher tiered buildings might have multiple mana requirements in order to get the bonus and/or require a Wizard/Archamage to get any bonus at all (any lowly Earth mage can create a wall, but building an Obsidian Gate:Earth&Shadow requires a magic user with advanced skills). I wouldn't necessarily require that the magic user in that town know spells from that sphere in order to provide the bonus, but that could be a further restriction. Multiple mana sources might also provide a smaller additional bonus. You could also add an Amurite only wonder/ritual at Arcane Lore, that removes the requirement of having a unit in a city, and provides all cities with the adept bonus even if it is empty.

This provides a bit more passive bonus. Enough hammers to help them build certain buildings faster, giving them additional turns to build units. No cumbersome micromanagement (chances are you'll have some sort of magic user in most cities), but does offer additional strategy when deciding what type of mana node to create. Do I plop down a second fire node to get a free spell to all my adepts, or do I make it an Earth node to gain another spell sphere as well as cheaper walls, training yards, and dungeons? It also has stronger leanings towards the flavor of the civ. There are still plenty of normal laborers doing what they do in order to get the city built, it is just that magic users can swing by and help things along, some. Not to mention the AI should be able to handle it with any/much tweaking. This, along with hbar's free, but delayed, magic user upgrades might help ease your concerns of hammer juggling between units and buildings.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

travathian's suggestions sounds good, it's nice to see you guys are having a depate while keeping it friendly I have to agree that the ritualist system sounds way too much micromanagement intensive to actually be fun to play, and you can save the time that would be spent on maybe one day having the AI capable of understanding that on more useful tweaks and improvements