That type of penalty might also work well with other civs too, to create more pressure on civs that drive up the AC.
Wanting to exterminate whoever happens not to be of their kind seems enough for me to consider them evil. Apart from the "I love evil guys" mechanic of rising AC, I don't see much debate here.In Erebus, like most fantasy worlds, "evil" doesn't just mean "out for yourself and to hell with everyone else". It tends to mean a philosophical dedication to spreading misery, chaos and/or destruction, whether the wholesale devastation and consorting with demons of AV or the more subtle injustices of Esus or the domination and slavery of OO. And of course there's the mechanic of getting along better with other evil civs as the AC rises (meaning they would buddy up to the very folks most responsible for trashing the world).
Yeah, Chaotic Neutral may fit. And yeah, multiple leaders equal multiple alignmentsBut that's the whole point of giving them multiple leaders, after all. If you think you want to play the Plant/Fae civ as evil, run an evil leader. If you think they fit better as neutral, run a neutral leader (they should probably have a major and minor leader of each alignment). Personally, I think the best D&D-style alignment fit for these guys would be "chaotic neutral". Of course, FfH/Orbis/LENA doesn't currently track a law/chaos axis...
Dunno how AC contribution are handled. If it's in the DLL, yeah, it would be possible to set it up so a leader hate/love another one spreading hellIf there's a way to penalize relations for AC contribution, say each +5% or +10% (percent, not number) contribution to the AC by that civ creates a -1 "Your destructive ways bring us closer to Armageddon" penalty, that might tend to counterbalance the AC bonus for evil civs and evil Plant/Fae.
Well, they'll simply have a base attitude of -6 or so.They don't have to love the elves, Ngomele, peace-with animals civs and FoL followers, just be more tolerant toward them since they're closer to nature than the other civs. Maybe they could start out with a -10 penalty toward ALL other civs; bonuses would serve to mitigate that penalty and maybe make start out them cautious or annoyed toward those civs rather than furious.
No, I thought about it but definitely no. No permawar.In most fantasy literature, fae and elves tend to get along well. Even a pissed-off-nature civ shouldn't hate them. Unless of course you were looking to make this a civ that is at war with ALL other civs for the entire game (like the starting option you can pick). If you did that, you would need to make the civ powerful enough to possibly fend off attacks from all other players over the whole game. Which would be a huge pain to balance. Also in that case, you wouldn't want them to be able to pick their enemies' abominable humanoid religions; they could have their own cult, special civic, etc.
So they use the soil mostly? Do you have a quote of Kael saying that?Sunlight doesn't help plants in Erebus, there was a time of darkness and Kael explained it that plants don't use sunlight in Erebus, unless Ahwaric or Opera decided to change that
Certainly
I like that. I even have a picture that could fit this patrian mage... Would she be a leader of the civ, in your mind?
Hmm, I don't want something latin. I'm busy quickly creating a language for them to come up with their own name (that they give themselves). Other civilizations could give them other names.
Ahah, nice. Too bad I don't like it
I have an idea already...
If it goes up, they go into "slash and burn" mode (so to speak) and start leveling every artificial structure they see and rendering the inhabitants into mulch. 
This would allow the Plants to be "evil" to everyone more or less equally."Princess Rule"? Please explain.
Oh, btw, LENA is a neat acronym for my mod
What? This system got scrapped in the 4th edition?I don't care about 4th ed. and whatever dumbing-down they've done. Kael probably played 2nd or 3rd ed. when making up what would become Erebus. Besides, you knew what I meant.
I really have to check how this is done ingame.I've never really much liked that mechanic anyway. It makes sense that good civs would stick together as the world went to hell - Order and Empyrean setting aside their philosophical differences to fight evil - but the thing about evil civs is that they're, well, evil! They don't really have any honor and they tend to stab their "friends" in the back as soon as it suits them. Not to mention that Esus and OO civs don't want to destroy the world at all, but to rule it (whether through subterfuge or subjugation) and would thus eventually come into conflict with AV civs - logically this would be right around the time that hell terrain started to propagate across their lands.
So would it be possible for what Opera calls the "I love evil guys" mechanic to be reduced or eliminated, at least for the Plant civ? Maybe even take out the "I hate good guys" part of the equation too. The Plant civ sees ALL other civs as the problem, so maybe they could gain a penalty to ALL other civs as the AC rises. So if the AC is kept down the plants don't get so mad and are less likely to overrun you with killer pixies.
Well put. Here, we don't have anything really fairy tale-esque, so I'm good
Maybe she could be the hero instead of the leader...?
Good idea for the name
Cylnar didn't suggest to remove the alignment-based relations; he suggested to remove the change they undergo when the AC rises. The more the AC, the more the diplomalus between good/evil.
I like him a lot too
Here's a thumbnail; click it to see the full picture:
Oh. So is 4th edition that bad? I heard some nasty things about it
Ideally, I would keep the diplo penalty between good and evil civs, but remove or lessen the diplo bonus between evil civs and other evil civs for rising AC. This represents the fact that while the basic conflict between good and evil gets more intense, the basic nature of evil - "evil turns on itself" - stays the same.
And as has been stated more than once, the only people with a vested interest in raising the AC are the Sheaim (especially when led by Os-Gabella) and, to a lesser extent, other civs following AV. A diplo penalty for ALL non-AV civs against AV followers - increasing as the AC rises - would not be out of line.
I would also change the nature of the mechanic specifically for the Plant civ, so that they would increase their hostility toward ALL other civs as the AV rises, since they believe that all other civs are destructive and "evil" by their standards. They certainly would not prefer evil civs over good ones - they likely can not or choose not to differentiate between them. The easiest way to simulate their contempt for everyone else - and wouldn't require re-coding of the AC mechanic - is simply to make them neutral, aggressive (not necessarily the civ trait, but the behavior) and to have a large starting penalty toward ALL other civs, in addition to other penalties (and bonuses) described above.
A couple of other ideas: I didn't see it mentioned above, but the Plant civ should probably be at peace with animals. They should be able to build various animal units (wolves perhaps as scouts or something, etc.). In that case, they might build the Grand Menagerie from humanoid slaves instead of animals.
They should automatically raze - or at least dramatically reduce the population of - all cities they conquer, perhaps spawning several units that have sprouted from the blood soaked into the soil and composting corpses of the slain - perhaps the number of spawns could depend on the lost population. Maybe even some sort of "plant zombie" controlled by some weird seed or something growing in the corpses that can control them!
Spoiler :
Oh. So is 4th edition that bad? I heard some nasty things about it
