What's the lore behind Braeden the Laconic he seems interesting to me. How come he can follow religions that arent the white hand?
We don't know a whole lot about him personally.
We do know that the Illian nation split in two after Mulcarn's demise. The greater part of them moved on and tried to live like ordinary humans. They maintained some peculiar customs (such as requiring such strict monogamy that one may only marry one's first love and may never divorce or remarry if widowed), but were not particularly devoted to Mulcarn anymore. Auric Ulvin grew up on the outskirts of one such Illian village, near the Ljosalfar border. The only temple there was devoted to Danalin.
The most devout of the Illians stayed close to Mulcarn himself in his palace that rose out of hell with Mount Mulyr. The greatest of them were frozen alive by Mulcarn, kept in Stasis so that they appeared to be mere statues but could be awakened to serve him whenever he wished. More of them died battling to defend their god. Their ghosts continued to linger in the area after the great palace collapsed into a ruin, unable to enter Mulcarn's hell without him and unwilling to pass into the vault of any other god. These are the Hollow Men.
Auric escaped his home along with 2 younger Illian children and a visiting elf, and found their way into the One Elf city of Barathrum within the Well of Shadows. Varn helped them escape from his brother Haerlond and his necromancer Waldrun. One of the children died in the escape. It is not exactly clear what happened next, but Auric continued to wander Erebus and have various adventures for several years before finding Letum Frigus and the Hollow Men. He was not the first outsider to find that ruin, but was the first to emerge alive since Mulcarn's passing. Others were killed by the cold or by the True Illians themselves. Auric proceeded, ignoring the cold, into the deepest and most sacred chambers which only Mulcarn had ever entered and which even the Hollow Men greatly feared. He returned to convince True Illians to worship him, and led them out to reunite the whole Illian nation.
Some of the Illians on the surface rallied to his call, but not everyone liked his plan. Braeden the Laconic was a leader among those who had come to accept that there was no God of Winter anymore, who required some convincing before they would follow a mortal seeking ascension.
I started a new game with the current version, again as Illians, and again Letum Frigus is on the other side of the world, and this time pretty much surrounded by jungle so my Hollow Men have to be left behind by their God.
Is it intentional that new cities now start with 2 population?
Yes. I find the wait for the first population growth too tedious, and don't like how size 1 new cities are automatically razed when captured.
I still think the Illians should only get a single food from Snow, not two.
The BUG options for showing how many cities and relative power ratio other civs have still don't work.
I considered changing it to one food and one hammers, but the city growth just seemed too slow before Agriculture or away from rivers.
I don't think I've touched BUG, so it is an issue for Tholal.
I noticed the size 2 thing as well, seems to be happening with all cities.
Also when do you get a priest on founding a religion? Is it after you research priesthood?
You get a priest of your state religion once you research Priesthood. If you already know Priesthood when you finish researching a religion-founding tech, you get get a priest of that religion.
Personally, I'd say permanent. But I can definitely see the magic slowly return, maybe at half the original speed of its removal? The more "powerful"(lorewise) Unique Features should regain it first, as they would have the most magic centered around them. I agree with you on the Rites of Oghma.
Permanent would be the easiest option to code, and a slow return the hardest.
A slow return of mana from wonders would make it basically impossible to be sure that the code doesn't accidentally give back too much mana, especially with the complication of mana based on state religions. I think I pretty much have to make mana from buildings return instantly or not at all, and the latter option would strangely allow changing religions or moving your capital to grant mana. (I think just building a new palace would leave negative mana in the old capital to counter the positive mana in the new, but losing the city and having the palace automatically moved elsewhere would eliminate the malus.)
One way to handle a slow return of mana on the map would be to use a temp bonus timer, but to stop the mana from reverting while the Crucible is intact we'd have to check every tile of the map every turn and increment the timers. That could get really inefficient so long as the wonder exists, but would be very efficient once it is destroyed.
Another option would be to run some code every turn so long as the wonder has been built but does not currently exist. That would be less efficient when the wonder doesn't exist.
Maybe you could have whichever civ currently controlling the Crown of Akharien get a speed boost to completing the rites of Oghma.
It would be impossible to change the cost of the ritual, but python could be used to grant free promotion towards it. I don't particularly like the idea though.
Or maybe if you sacrifice it, twice the normal amount of mana appears in the next use of the Rites of Oghma. I'm not sure how difficult that'd be though
It would not be hard to add a spell which triggers the same Rites of Oghma effect or stronger. It would also be fairly easy to give the production a spell that grants free promotion to the ritual completion. I'm not keen on those ideas either though.
(By the way, did anyone notice that I made wearing the Crown of Akharien increase spellcaster xp gain and also double the odds that a unit with Govannon's Ethics will teach someone magic that turn?)
Would the Crucible remove the free mana from religions?
It does. Religious mana is treated the same as mana from any wonder.
First play through.
EMP on Erebus map with Illians.
Still feel like they are the strongest civ. Auric ascended turn 315. You did manage to slow me down with the temple adjustments.
BIGGEST change in the game for me so far was the power score adjustment for the Soldiers of Kilmorph. First time I can recall a neighbor grabbing that religion and not attacking me.
Yeah, not dealing with Khazad stacks of death is nice.
I have noticed Auric still seems quite strong. The AI Auric seems to be using his Hollow Men really effectively. In a game yesterday he seems to have rushed for the Tower of Necromancy, and the used highly promoted Hollow Men to cast Whiteout to become Hidden Nationality to soften up the defenders in rival cities before declaring war to actually conquer them. They usually declared nationality before I could counter attack. He eliminated my neighbor Capria, and then assassinated my newly trained Govannon and several Wizards before open turning against me.
I'm thinking of dialing back the Tower of Necromancy and Tower of the Elements bonuses somehow.
Maybe instead of 1 free promotion per type of associated mana type that you posess, it should grant the
average of how many you have in all of those mana spheres. Negative mana from state religions would be factored in here too, bringing the average down.
That way you'd get only 1 free promotion if you have only one of each mana type, but could get a whole lot more if you wind up with 25 death mana or something.
I'd probably do the same for the, which would weaken Ice Elementals early in the game and therefore make the Priests of Winter less overwhelming.
I might also make the religious mana for The White Hand state religion reduce Fire as well as Nature mana supplies, although that could actually make Temples of the Hand better as the building causes penalties for those mana types.
So I've been binge playing the scenarios using magister, and I'm wondering how aggressive one needs to be in the Lord of the Balors scenario, because it is bogging down by turn 100 into ten minute AI turns, while the AC goes up and up very quickly. I'm not sure how I can win this if I die of old age before I can send an army up into hell on earth. Do I need to play this in vanilla to keep turn speed up?
I'd recommend using worldbuilder to cheat.
I'd also suggest playing as the Mercurians or Elohim and sending units out to sanctify as much as you can as quick as you can. Sanctifying would reduce the AC slightly, make unowned land impassible to Balors or the Demon Lord avatars themselves, and get rid of lairs that may spawn
In this scenario you have the normal spread of hell terrain, but it cannot pass the mountain range that shields the beachhead. There is also additional increases in the plot counters the further you go into the Fane. (The special spread of hell terrain is one of the main reasons this scenario runs so slowly.) Things that are sanctified will need to be sanctified again before long.
As the Elohim is it essential to found cities on the other side of the mountain range (preferably just in front of the passes) and construct Chancel's of the Guardians in cities connected to sources of Life mana so that the nearby land is sanctified automatically. That would prevent Helfire or Pits from existing or spawning demons near you.
Another thing to remember is that I changed the scenario from elimination to regicide. You do not have to conquer or raze every Infernal city or vanquish every demonic unit. You only need to assassinate the 7 demon lord units themselves. They are immortal, so you may need to kill them twice in a single turn and may have to lay siege to their capital in order to do so. Basium has an extra advantage here though. The Basium unit targets the Demon Lord units in stacks, and his Clava Vindex equipment promotion robs evil units of their immortality.
Note that you get more free units than usual for founding a religion in this scenario. The life mana from the Song of Autumn is nice, but the free Paramanders from the Runes are mcuh mroe useful than the Satyrs from the Leaves. Soldiers of Kilmorph, or units upgraded from them, won't help you pass through fallout but will let you bypass some mountain ranges that would otherwise form mazes.
If you are going to be dealing with such a high AC anyway, you might want to pursue the Runes of Kilmorph and get not only Paramanders but The Mithril Golem.
Early game diplomacy (i.e before currency) is extremely annoying with advanced tactics on. Even for establishing embassies the AI expects to get a tech or resource in return (unless they themselves propose a fair deal, which they do, but not that often). Once you do get currency they usually agree to take 15-20 gold/ 1-2 gpt for such deals, so it's not like the trade was one-sided enough to warrant giving them a tech.
Blame Tholal, not me.
Maybe the AI would do better as Auric if he didn't choose to beeline Samhain everytime
Samhain should probably be coded to be lower on the AI's list and the white hand higher.
I already removed the code that used to push them towards completing that ritual before my last release.
I just noticed that this ritual has no prereqs at all except civilization type. That is probably the reason for the "beeline." The AI does not have to focus on researching any tech before starting it, but will begin at the start of the game once its immediate priories of city defense are met.
I could give the project more prereqs which would make it impossible to use it so early. What do you think would be appropriate? The Elementalism tech? The White Hand State religion?
I've only played the scenarios on vanilla so I don't know about this. Looks like Tholals more aggressive AI goes a bit too far
that scenario anyway had a lot of scope for Infernal unit spamming.
Yeah, check this ss out
http://i.imgur.com/3vjvl9R.jpg
The AC hit 80 around turn 140 and so if you look at the minimap you see not only massive demon factions but on the main screen you see now those demon spawning hell portals or whatever everywhere as well. 10-20 minute ai turns. It's a slog, I dunno if I should restart, abandon, or go vanilla (ugh, ranged units without bombard, kill me now)
You could try loading it as a custom scenario on a different speed or difficulty level too. You could even use the Hallowed Ground option to remove the Armageddon Counter from the game entirely.
I believe this scenario was not available as a custom scenario in base FfH2, but is in Magister Modmod.
All those Hellfire tiles - by Agares, what have you let loose?
You are probably screwed, but i think there's definitiely a shot at making a lategame recovery. Remember to suicide lots of guys to feed the Mercurians.
Also, i can't recall ever seeing infernal cities named after other civ's cities. Is is particular to that map? Was quite a while ago i played it.
Whenever any civilization has completely exhausted its list of city names, it starts using names from other civs. Once every city name for every civ has been used it starts duplicating the names and adding "1, 2, 3, etc" to the end of them. This is normal Civ 4 behavior, but is not seen very often because the city name lists are fairly long. You are very unlikely to finish a list with only a single player from a given civ in the game, or if duplicate players emerge from puppet states or rebels who take over existing cities.
This scenario, however, starts with 7 players of the Infernal civ. They run through the list of Infernal city names fast.
I doubled the size of the Infernal city list, but obviously not enough.
(Other than adding more entries, the only change I made to city naming was some code that randomizes the order of city names used for newly founded cities excluding the capitals.)
I don't think I'm that screwed, yet. I do have Chalid after all. If I die, it will be due to these absurdly lengthy AI turns. As for the named cities thing? I have no idea, its only happened on this scenario, maybe a bug from running it under magisters modmod? Maybe the AI is doing things it shouldn't...
Speaking of the scenarios, I was wondering if it would be possible to implement the random diplomacy from that one (Forgot the name) where Falamar is stuck in a competition for Perpentach's favor as a Custom Game option? 'Cause there's already "Always War" and "Always Peace" and such, so I figure "Random War" would make a nice addition for that extra bit of challenge.
It is called The Momus.
Adding new game options requires changes to the DLL, which are Tholal's territory.
You could try using GAMEOPTION_WB_THE_MOMUS in a regular game. (It is a hidden option, but can still be turned on in worldbuilder.) It might give some unsuitable popups, mutate most units, prevent anyone but Perpentach from training settlers, and treat player #1 (the one who goes just after the human player, #0) differently than the rest, but I don't think it would cause any real python errors.
to 1
). You could also give a free twincast to the taker.
