questions (mostly) about scions in orbis

[ricolikesrice]

heya, i really like all the ideas behind the new scions civ and have already played a bit around with them before, but now wanna dig "deeper" so i got some questions that werent covered by the scions info thread / questions where i m not sure if the orbis version of scions matches with whats written in said thread.

but first let me get off my only NON-scions questions...

... ancient forests. If i switch from FOL as a state religion to something else, do ancient forests still keep spawning just less frequent or do they stop spreading at all ? i *think* i remember reading somewhere that a temple of FoL in the city means ancient forests will spread even w/o state religion but i cant find the link anymore / dont know if its true.

ok, thats it. now for the scions in orbis:


1. Leaders.

whats up with the risen emperor ? he s the only agnostic leaderchoice and i dont really see how he makes up for this. both other leaders can chose a religion in addition to the scions-specific doomsayers, augurs & pontifex which imho is a massive advantage. one i cant see the emperor making up, but maybe i m missing something.
in the scions thread it sounded like the risen emperor was the only one with access to certain buildings (temple of the gift) but i can build those just fine either as korinna or the other guy.

2. Heroes.

Is the risen emperor(hero) exclusive to Korinna as leader, or can both the emperor/the other guy also build him once they unlocked the tech/building ?
He seems like a pretty strong hero, especially compared to the rather weak Korinna(hero) so it would be quite an advantage for korinna(leader) if he were exclusive for her. if so, whats the drawbacks ? (see first question, cause unless i m missing something, i really dont know why i should play an agnostic leader (emperor) with a weak hero over a non-agnostic leader (korinna) with a strong hero )

3. Units.

The thread about scions mentions a immortal replacement for the scions called "Abomination", yet i cant find it in the orbis pedia. is it just missing an entry or does the orbis version not have this unit ? and if so, is it regular immortals (with regular immortal graphics?) instead or do scions get no immortals at all ?

Also there s the "Revenants" which in the pedia are said to be "not buildable by any civilization" and show up Order religion as one of their requirements. I already saw that those apparently can be created by the risen emperor in combat ... just wondering whats up with the order requirement or if thats just a typo in the pedia.

4. Tolerance

The third leader whose name escaped me now (quintus?) and isnt covered in the scions threads i.e. seems to be orbis-specific has the tolerant trait.
now i m wondering..... if i capture another civs city with him...... is it also fallow ? or will it have regular food mechanics like its original civilization ?

5. Religions

What religions would you suggest when not playing the risen emperor ?

Octopus overlords seems rather meh considering the tower of complanency doesnt work with scions (according to thread... or does it work in orbis ?) and that water cities dont seem to be that good for scions.

Ashen Veil ? how do Haunted Lands & Hell Terrain work together ? granted, their religion specific civic is kinda useless for scions but otherwise AV has great units and rising the AC wont hurt you at all as all your units will be either undead or demons.

Order ? Bless is kinda useless as it only works on living units so your normal priests d be useless but the highpriests of order have both awesome offensive spells (pillar of fire) and that unlimited happyness buff for cities (if it works with scions, which i m wondering whether it does).

I guess FoL is pretty much out considering haunted lands > ancient forests

Undead dwarves with RoK ? Undead Chalid ?

Esus seems pretty pointless given esus orbis national units are shadows but scions have their own shadow which they can get WITHOUT following esus.

Whats fits lorewise and works well with their gameplay ?

6. Magic.

The scions thread mentioned that scions dont get the regular body spells (haste/regeneration/flesh golem) which of courses makes a lot of sense considering those only affect LIVING targets. but it doesnt really (unless i missed it) explain which spells scions get as replacements / what they do .

It also mentions the Tower of Necromany only affecting skeletons, diseased corpses and bone horde. which i can understand since strong promotion for ALL scions units would be quite ... strong . however what about liches, spectres, wraiths, drowns ... i.e. those undead other civs can get as well / get the strong for with the tower of necromany .... they also still get the strong promotion or not ?

While i mentioned liches.... if i upgrade a scion mage to a lich .... will he still be able to get the necromany promotion by killing living units or not ?

Anyhow, what do experienced scion users suggest for magic spheres ?

7. Promotions.

The pedia says the undead only "Implacable" promotion is unlocked at fanatism. yet i THINK in that one scions game (been a few weeks ago) where i got fanatism ..... i wasnt able to get this promotion on any of my units despite meeting the requirement of combat V. is the pedia wrong and there s another requirement besides Combat V ?



Thats it for now, hope some scions fan can help me here and explain those things.
They look like a very interesting faction to play with but are a bit overwhelming at the start given their documentation is for another modmod so you dont know which part made it into orbis and which didnt.

 

[Rosetint]

I've played a lot of Scions and I can answer some of your questions:

1)I've often wondered this as well. The Emperor as a leader is certainly a weaker choice. However, religions don't work all that well with the Scions (as I'll discuss below).
2) The Risen Emperor is exclusive to Korrina. I actually find I prefer Korinna as a hero to the emperor because you get her so early and she's flexible to what you want.
5) I tend to go with Esus because I like their hero, civic, Nightwatch and unique promotions. On the way, I often go with RoK so I can get the Mines and some early iron and Stonewardens.

The biggest problem the Scions have with religions is that other heros can't be given the Gift and so they remain alive. This means they are affected by Haunted lands, so you end up having the keep your hero outside your empire.
6) The unique spells for the scions are pretty handy. The body spells are Mend, Infect and Untiring Flesh, I think. They ALSO get the body spells (haste, Graft Flesh) but those aren't very useful. Their Necromancers get Balefire and Reaper... something. Their priests get Mend and Geas. All in all, the scions have a mighty collection of spells.

I tend to like Body, Ice (for the Blizzard), Earth (for elemental and stoneskin), shadow (for shadow walk and mistform) and Enchantment. You want things that beef up your Augurs because they are going to be a major source of Reborn.

Other posts I'm not sure about.

As I've posted elsewhere, my big questions center of Ghostwalkers and how to use Reaching creepers.

 

[ricolikesrice]

played an immortal, normal game as korinna and here s what i thought about it:

-AV seemed like a really damn good religion choice playing as korinna (gameplay-wise, not sure if it fits the lore... )

to get reborn you ll want augurs/pontifex but until those have many promotions you ll have a hard time killing enemy troops to create reborn unless those troops are seriously weakened. by going AV with korinna this problem isnt a problem anymore. at the same time you get your augurs you also get ritualists with ring of fire and not only that...

...keep in mind AV priests can be upgraded from adepts and have nothing to lose by doing so. quite the contrary. remember the traumaturge s keep (and its secondary buildings) which gives 10-15 xp (dont remember exact number) to new arcane units ? now count 1 and 1 together

by the time you research priesthood you get to produce ritualists (upgraded from adepts) that start with:
-combat I (agressive trait)
-around lvl 5(charismatic trait) thx to traumaturge s keep s bonus xp to arcane units
-free promotion (adept)
-any lvl 1 spell you have 2 mana nodes for for free (entropy highly recommended since rust is awesome and you get 1 of it from AV shrine)

yep this means your fresh ritualists can start with combat V as if ring of fire, rust and mend (scions equivalent to heal) werent already good enough reason to build them.

rosier is also a pretty good early hero but you hardly need him with stacks of ritualists & augurs.

also none of AVs drawbacks are drawbacks for scions.

blight ? who cares when you dont need food and 99% of your units are undead.
hell terrain ? i never found out how hell terrain mechanics work when meeting haunted lands but thats because i didnt bother with hyborem until very late in the game (and killed him off the turn he spawned.... ). generally you dont really need to research infernal pact until very late since the AV specific civic is pretty useless to scions.

late game units are pretty awesome to boot (though you already "won" the game by then ).

mardero comes very late but is a powerhouse in orbis since he can learn any spell you have the mana for, i.e. is essentially an archmage with melee stats.

one thing i really liked fooling around with was creating my own 4 riders of the apocalypse.

build 4 diseased corpses, give them city raider 1-3, use a ritualist to cure their disease. with the tower of necromancy diseased corpses also get the "Strong" promotion. now upgrade them to eidolons. send the eidolons to your city with the knightly order turning them into death knights. they ll keep CR 1-3 (despite not being melee anymore) and strong (despite no longer being undeads) making them fantastic, highly mobile city busters.

anyhow, this game felt like cheating, gotta try it on deity some time.

i originally planned to go magic heavy, collecting death mana (since both the risen emperor and those scion druid replacements have affinity with it) but while i did get the emperor (and he s great) i already "won" by then .... never got around to play with the druid replacements.

btw. there is a way to make your religious heroes haunted-lands immune, its AV exclusive though and not risk free: reading the infernal grimoire


i think the emperor (as a leader) either needs agnostic removed or made up for it with something really,really good. he stands no chance vs korinna thanks to religion.

the other leader is fine too i guess. as soon as you research AV take the spiritual as minor trait and while your ritualists will have 2 promotions less without charismatic & aggressive, i think potency and mobility make up for that.

scions need to focus on religious techs anyhow in order to get more reborn so getting additional troops/priests/spells/heroes along the route is a massive advantage... and flatout broken (but tons of fun) if you re chosing AV

 

[ScrubbyTheKid]

First of all I really like this modmod
played several games with the mechanos.. which seem a little overpowered because they can use the scholar civic right from the beginning. but thats not the topic here...

Can someone point me in a direction where the gamemechanics of this civ are explained?
f. e. how do I influence how many rebornes I get?

sry for the necromancy

 

[Apeiron]

You can search a piece of information in the topic "New civilization development" or "Question and suggestion".

For the Gift, like for the Ordo Machinarum, I think it should become an entiere religion, so Korinna and the Risen Emperor may lost the cultist trait.

 

[Fluesterwitz]

Concerning the difference between cult and (state-)religion. A cult is a religion present in less than half of your cities. Only religions that have temples in more than half of your cities are eligible to become your state-religion. Remove the cult mechanic, make The Hand, Ordo, The Gift adoptable for everyone but with a slight advantage for their parent-civs. Also, let those proselytizers gang-up on each other. If you are not running Universalism/Free Religion, the spread of additional cults should increase public dissatisfaction ("Heathen and unbelievers desecrate our holy sites"). Make agnostic (apostate would really be a better term) civs immune to this dissatisfaction. Oh, and please, do not enable surgical inquisition, we'll have much more interessting times if religious cleansing remains a blunt instrument with pointy applications.

 

[Kalina]

Can someone point me in a direction where the gamemechanics of this civ are explained?
f. e. how do I influence how many rebornes I get?
y

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=300307 here you can find documentation for 'basic' Scions. Some things are different in Orbis - for example, awakened spawn rate is modified by god-king civic not aristocracy, some units are different, worldspell in Orbis is different and there is no Dark Council/Malente but it is still useful. I played a lot with Orbis-Scions so if you have any questions, please ask

 

[Jarrema]

Kalina, please, tell us: Are informations in this thread current?
Is Rien Emperor definetly worse leader than Korrina?
Maybe You can write a small strateg guide for scions? It would be really apreciated
I always wanted to play a game with them, but I totally dont understand their mechanic

 

[ScrubbyTheKid]

Triari are supposed to be the best of the best in the Scion ranks, wouldnt it be a good idea to buff them, and move them to replace the spartatoi?
What do you people think?

btw why is it always risen emperor vs. korinna? I think quintillus ability to get philosophical makes him stronger then both of them... (if domination fails you can go for an altar victory so quickly it makes your head spin )the only thing i dislike about him is the tolerant ability... not gameplay wise... but fluffwise: how on earth can an undead race, that thinks everyone else but them is a barbarian can be tolerant?

 

[Bullockist]

Quintilus is ever my only choice for scions, it's his bonus he gives rather than his ability to gain other civ units. Ive never used the emperor, who needs him, korinna with immortal, is omg crazy good.I find with the new orbis ic ant get a religion, which is good as i always felt that getting the cash religion was cheating(good change that!).