Need Altar advice

[Azhral]

+5 of every mana!? No wonder nobody took it seriously
+1 of every mana would be a decent buff methinks, since you've needed access to every mana at some stage to build the damn thing.
Or, +1 to every mana of which you already have.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

+5 of every mana!? No wonder nobody took it seriously
+1 of every mana would be a decent buff methinks, since you've needed access to every mana at some stage to build the damn thing.

If you have ToM victory on, it hands you the game. If it is off, it should hand you magic.
I find it reasonable to give you +5 of each mana and prevent all other civs from using their mana to cast spells. If you manage to build the ToM, the others should resort to Divine or Metal solutions, IMO.

 

[Jules.lt]

Do you still get everybody at war with you when you build the last altar/tower without the victory condition on?

+5 of every mana!? No wonder nobody took it seriously
+1 of every mana would be a decent buff methinks, since you've needed access to every mana at some stage to build the damn thing.
Or, +1 to every mana of which you already have.

Well, if you want to represent one civ getting total control on magic, the 5 manas of each fit...
But if the victory condition has been turned off, it's probably because the player didn't want this to hand you victory
(it's a weaker version of the one that gives you instant victory, for whatever lore-fitting reason you can find)

Serious proposition:
What about +1 of each mana type and destroys half of the mana nodes in the world? (possibly only outside your territory) This explains why everyone would want to stop you.
With +2 of each mana you get every single spell on upgrade/production. At this stage of the game, this will probably be more annoying than useful because it crowds your units' panels and you have specialised your mages one way or the other already.

Less serious, but could be considered not that overpowered:
Trait gifting could be fun, too... Arcane/Summoner for ToM and Spiritual/Philosophical for the altar?

 

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

+5 of every mana!? No wonder nobody took it seriously
+1 of every mana would be a decent buff methinks, since you've needed access to every mana at some stage to build the damn thing.
Or, +1 to every mana of which you already have.

Word of Kael once basically said that the Tower of Mastery was supposed to be the Spell of Mastery from the old Master of Magic game, or an erebus equivalent. In Master of Magic, the Spell of Mastery granted you total control of all magical forces on the worlds of Arcanus and Myrror. It also won the game instantly, with an implication that Wizards use spells to constantly keep themselves alive, which meant that your rivals would drop dead without their magic to sustain themselves.


Allowing your own mages to cast any spell that they had the skill for and to deny your opponents from magic, except perhaps divine magic, (which only faintly exists in Master of Magic) seemed to be in line with the inspiration.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Having the Tower of Mastery give more than 3 different types of mana would require SDK changes. Well, unless building it actually just triggered (in python) the creation of several other mana-producing buildings.

In my version, the Tower of Mastery provides 1 Metamagic Mana and grants Channeling III to any arcane unit in the city, making Adepts gain xp faster and Mages have all the abilities of Archmages.

 

[Jules.lt]

Re-reading the civilopedia entries for the two wonders, and in light of the recent thread on the relative weakness of Luonnotars, what was the reasoning behind stopping them from building the altar?
It's not that huge an advantage, since you still have to be tech leader by a vast amount to make the final altar.
The Grigoris need their GPs for Heroes and will have to go to a lot of trouble to get even a few priest slots (which both makes it hard to get Great Prophets and limits the benefit from the altars)

 

[Azhral]

Re-reading the civilopedia entries for the two wonders, and in light of the recent thread on the relative weakness of Luonnotars, what was the reasoning behind stopping them from building the altar?
It's not that huge an advantage, since you still have to be tech leader by a vast amount to make the final altar.
The Grigoris need their GPs for Heroes and will have to go to a lot of trouble to get even a few priest slots (which both makes it hard to get Great Prophets and limits the benefit from the altars)

How about having the number of Lunnotars needed to build the Altar increase, like a GP making a Golden Age.

Since you can only have four Lunnotars, altar 7 would need to consume all of them. So Altar 1 and 2 needs 1, 3 and 4 needs 2, 5 and 6 needs 3, and 7 needs four. Would be fairly expensive for the Grigori, considering they'll need to progress a long way down the Religious path on the tech tree, which they would normally ignore. Still, even 4 Lunnotars are much cheaper than a GP, but whereas other civs could start early, the Grigori would need Strength of Will to even begin building the altar. And also having the altar will dilute that cities GP pool, making adventurers rarer.

Even so, it still seems like an altar victory using Lunnotars would be easy and a pretty sure thing...

 

[Jules.lt]

The real blocker for Altar victories is the research, and the Grigori get hit hard on that since a lot of the research needed has no other use for them.
Making the other requirement easier on them doesn't seem that overpowered to me, I don't see why it couldn't be 1 Luonnotar per level...

 

[cIV_khanh93]

Or! We could force them to spend 10 luonnators (as per te GA method) and 3 GP. It'd be funny to watch the grig produce GP with one priest specialist (they dont actuall have pagan templesdo they?)

 

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

If you want great prophets while Agnostic, Running theocracy sounds like the way to go.

 

[loffenx]

Anyone has any idea of how many Great Engineers it's take to rush the final Alatar on normal speed?

 

[Azhral]

If you want great prophets while Agnostic, Running theocracy sounds like the way to go.

Great Prophets while Agnostic isn't the issue. Its popping Great People as the Grigori, instead of adventurers.

IIRC its about 4 GE's needed to pop the last altar. Or a few thousand gold worth of in Slaves.

 

[hbar]

One thing to note, which I found the hard way - if you switch to Basium, you lose all the altars you've built. Poof!

 

[JFSebastian]

Anyone has any idea of how many Great Engineers it's take to rush the final Alatar on normal speed?

In regular civ4 a Great Engineer contributes 500 + 20 per population point of the city he's rushing production in. I'm assuming it is the same for FfH2. Therefore, how many Great Engineers will depend a bit on how large your altar city is. The final Altar cost is 4000.

Slave: 10 for 30
Soldier of Kilmorph: 45 for 90 (or 45 for 45 with Heroic Epic; or 90 for 45 with Heroic Epic & Warrens; etc.)

 

[Azhral]

One thing to note, which I found the hard way - if you switch to Basium, you lose all the altars you've built. Poof!

Pretty sure when I played as Bazza once, the city I settled kept the altars I'd already built...

 

[hbar]

Well, I was basing my strategy around those altars, so I remember it pretty clearly. Patch 'k', I believe. Elohim -> Basium. I would guess it was changed because your GP counter resets, so it can be exploited by settling prophets en masse in the altar city and cranking out suicide disciples for high-XP angels. At least that's what I was hoping to do...

 

[Azhral]

Perhaps. My experience was ages ago, before 040.

 

[cIV_khanh93]

Well, I was basing my strategy around those altars, so I remember it pretty clearly. Patch 'k', I believe. Elohim -> Basium. I would guess it was changed because your GP counter resets, so it can be exploited by settling prophets en masse in the altar city and cranking out suicide disciples for high-XP angels. At least that's what I was hoping to do...

It hit me harder as Kurio to Basium. Specially wehn the city was starving upon the switch