Éa III, Sword & Sorcery (early versions) Balance Discussion
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Pazyryk
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@BrokenSky, it's easy to do so I'm adding a CL_RECENCY_BIAS = 0.015 to CL calculation. Basically, this means that each turn counts 1.5% more in average calculation than previous turns. That looks modest but it really means that current turn c/pop is 4.43x more important than one turn 100 turns ago (1.015^100), and almost 20x more important than one turn 200 turns ago.
Keep in mind that averaging over history can both hurt and help:
Keep in mind that averaging over history can both hurt and help:
- Hurts: Late-game building surge to make up for a culturally poor history has very delayed effect (although it will work...just have to wait a while).
- Helps: It "buffers" the effect of sudden population change. If you've kept your culture/pop up consistently, then you can afford sudden growth or expansion without CL suddenly tanking (although it will dwindle if you don't get c/pop back up quickly).
darkedone02
The Suggestor
Sweet... Once this version comes out, I'll test it out...
How many more versions you going to unleash before additional mod support comes? I'll like to play this mod without IGE issues.
How many more versions you going to unleash before additional mod support comes? I'll like to play this mod without IGE issues.
Pazyryk
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There will be many more versions... 
Here's a link to the new EaSettings table. It's going to be a work in progress (probably always) but this allows you to mess around with a lot of balance stuff.
Here's a link to the new EaSettings table. It's going to be a work in progress (probably always) but this allows you to mess around with a lot of balance stuff.
BrokenSky
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One thing I noticed in my previous (v6) game was that around and after turn 250, since the research continued to teeter off and the social policy gain dried up, the game became pretty slow and kinda stagnant in a 'turtle to victory!' kinda way; the pantheistic civs were turtling blessing of Ea, I was mass spamming settlers in my new world colonies and forcing my way to width there and the one fallen civ that existed would probably have been turtling their way to victory too i they hadn't had the misfortune to be a risk to growth in some of my outlying cities. This brings me to the point; The only victory condition which seems to have a dynamic end game is currently military, as far as I've seen. Now obviously I may be wrong here, and I don't have much experience of games where the mana depletion gets bad enough that the Ai care enough to try and stop the apocalypse.
I guess what I'm asking is is this typical? Is this a problem? Should there be more endgame features?
Or am I meant to simply have won by then?
I guess what I'm asking is is this typical? Is this a problem? Should there be more endgame features?
Or am I meant to simply have won by then?
-The Barding branch of Tradition is a bit psychotic if you can get a timely second Artist. I got my first Artist randomly, got the second at Barding and they were giving off 15 culture each at turn 44, with an approach CL around 26 even with one of them working on an Epic. I'm not sure if it's too good or merely extremely good, but I haven't seen my culture skyrocket like that since pre-tweak Pantheism. I never built a single culture building and never needed to, even after the Artists passed away. With civ-enabled policies getting added and the existing trees getting buffed (which is great, by the way), culture will only get more useful later.
-The Science branch is also excellent. If you have a Sage or two you only really need one city with the science buildings to get a lot of mileage out of it, and as the game drags on I never have trouble finding time to build them. Just the first policy can almost match Arcana's discounts, except it's all techs, and then you can take a better version. Twice.
-I played three games to Turn 100 (Quick, Emperor, 6 players) without a single point of mana being consumed or, as near as I could tell, anyone taking downstream Maleficium techs at all. Anra wasn't founded in any of the games. It could be I should play bigger maps, but if this did result in a single player happening to fall as in BrokenSky's game it would be less of an epic battle against evil and more "kill this civ and have someone waiting at the Vault". One way or another, the forces of darkness don't seem very forceful.
-Engineers are the only GP that has a real risk of being unable to do anything. If it's the early game and you're building your first Settler, Engineers will be sitting on their hands for quite a while unless you have wonders available for them to kill time with. This is a minor complaint, but could you give them Worker abilities or such for more flexibility?
-The Science branch is also excellent. If you have a Sage or two you only really need one city with the science buildings to get a lot of mileage out of it, and as the game drags on I never have trouble finding time to build them. Just the first policy can almost match Arcana's discounts, except it's all techs, and then you can take a better version. Twice.
-I played three games to Turn 100 (Quick, Emperor, 6 players) without a single point of mana being consumed or, as near as I could tell, anyone taking downstream Maleficium techs at all. Anra wasn't founded in any of the games. It could be I should play bigger maps, but if this did result in a single player happening to fall as in BrokenSky's game it would be less of an epic battle against evil and more "kill this civ and have someone waiting at the Vault". One way or another, the forces of darkness don't seem very forceful.
-Engineers are the only GP that has a real risk of being unable to do anything. If it's the early game and you're building your first Settler, Engineers will be sitting on their hands for quite a while unless you have wonders available for them to kill time with. This is a minor complaint, but could you give them Worker abilities or such for more flexibility?
Pazyryk
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@Doopliss
We'll have to watch for the possibility of blowing out the policy tree. 26 isn't too high. But much past 30 could be a problem. (30 may still be OK when Enabled Policies added.)
What might be good is spreading out some culture effects to branches that don't get it.
In v8 Engineers & Warriors can build Forts (no prereq) so that will be something, at least. Engineers will also build Citadels (w/ Construction and a lot more time).
@BrokenSky,
Part of making the game "open ended" is making it impossible (or close enough) to finish all policies and techs. But ideally a player should be zeroing in on some VC as the tech/policy rush is winding down. But I have no idea what real times are for any of this.
What we need are example turns for:
When does tech progress grind to a crawl (only considering tier < 7)?
When does policy progress grind to a crawl?
When can each of the different VCs be done?
Of course, each of this could very by a great deal. But some example numbers could be useful. Btw all VCs are supposed to "work" now with v7. But getting the pacing right might take a while.
We'll have to watch for the possibility of blowing out the policy tree. 26 isn't too high. But much past 30 could be a problem. (30 may still be OK when Enabled Policies added.)
What might be good is spreading out some culture effects to branches that don't get it.
In v8 Engineers & Warriors can build Forts (no prereq) so that will be something, at least. Engineers will also build Citadels (w/ Construction and a lot more time).
@BrokenSky,
Part of making the game "open ended" is making it impossible (or close enough) to finish all policies and techs. But ideally a player should be zeroing in on some VC as the tech/policy rush is winding down. But I have no idea what real times are for any of this.
What we need are example turns for:
When does tech progress grind to a crawl (only considering tier < 7)?
When does policy progress grind to a crawl?
When can each of the different VCs be done?
Of course, each of this could very by a great deal. But some example numbers could be useful. Btw all VCs are supposed to "work" now with v7. But getting the pacing right might take a while.
My suggestions:
If it possible, please make mutually exclusive civic to be greyed-out. So UI will be easier to understand.
Maybe i looked in wrong places but GP indicator need overhaul so it will represent your mechanics ?
Do you plan to make terrain \ cities more fantasy`ish ?
If it possible, please make mutually exclusive civic to be greyed-out. So UI will be easier to understand.
Maybe i looked in wrong places but GP indicator need overhaul so it will represent your mechanics ?
Do you plan to make terrain \ cities more fantasy`ish ?
I understand that the current formula is an interesting new way of doing policy gains, but it really feels mighty frustrating. The delayed effect is just not good enough because it requires me to nerd it out and do detailed calculations on when and how many +culture I have to build/gain from other means at each given time frame.
I went for the Artist name, and built more culture buildings than usual, but still I get a max 0.05 per turn and after a while it starts to go down even if I felt that I spent actual effort to raise it with Theaters and Opera houses and whatnot (that +25% culture per building is still not displayed anywhere)! Do I really have to build every +1 culture building (Monument/Library) during the very early turns instead of the 2nd warrior and hunters/fishing boats or whatever to get the 'culture ball' rolling and not suffer the penalty of not focusing on those paltry culture points in the very early game??? I really (really times n) don't like the current system.
What if we go back to the base system and just ignore the culture from Artists to CL? They can increase the city culture with their awesome Perform action but not add that culture to the CL calculation? Because that was the only thing that unbalanced the previous system, right?
I went for the Artist name, and built more culture buildings than usual, but still I get a max 0.05 per turn and after a while it starts to go down even if I felt that I spent actual effort to raise it with Theaters and Opera houses and whatnot (that +25% culture per building is still not displayed anywhere)! Do I really have to build every +1 culture building (Monument/Library) during the very early turns instead of the 2nd warrior and hunters/fishing boats or whatever to get the 'culture ball' rolling and not suffer the penalty of not focusing on those paltry culture points in the very early game??? I really (really times n) don't like the current system.
What if we go back to the base system and just ignore the culture from Artists to CL? They can increase the city culture with their awesome Perform action but not add that culture to the CL calculation? Because that was the only thing that unbalanced the previous system, right?
Pazyryk
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@Iffi, we're not going back to base Civ5 policy system - is that what you mean? I'm not sure whether you are unhappy with the current pacing/settings (which may very well need adjustment) or the system/philosophy per se. [Edit: removed stupid rant about base Civ5 system]
The UI can be improved a great deal so that your cult/pop is prominent and players know to focus on that rather than change/turn. Change/turn is "weakly responsive" because I didn't want low-culture civs to have to wait forever to achieve their ~5 or whatever policies, and, conversely, I didn't want Pantheistic civs shooting up at some crazy rate from their strong early culture boosts. But this can be adjusted for a more "responsive" change/turn. Raising CL_CHANGE_DAMPING_EXPONENT in EaSettings will make your change/turn more sensitive to how far you are from "approach CL" (no matter what you set it to, CL is still asymptotic to "approach CL").
It's not really a hard concept though. CL approaches a value determined by your average culture/pop. We can adjust how much that is affected by "now" versus "history" (CL_RECENCY_BIAS). I've stated reasons above why it shouldn't be 100% "now". But there's room for adjustment.
Edit: We could "erase" the effect of history on CL. If you want to try that as an experiment, it should work by just setting CL_RECENCY_BIAS to some number like 100. There are some considerations:
- Late rush of culture buildings will have immediate positive effect (maybe that's desired)
- Sudden population expansion will have immediate negative effect
- Population loss while keeping city buildings (e.g., caused by Armageddon end times) will have an immediate positive effect
BrokenSky
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I think that to a degree 1. and 2. would be good, but some buffering is probably better than none; the main problem I found is where I would be building culture buildings and specialists as fast and as much as I could, going pretty culture heavy, but still finding that I wasn't going fast enough to keep ahead of the curve. This was in v6, however and v7's tradition buffs have meant that in my most culture heavy game possible I'm playing at the moment I'm gaining on the curve, not losing to it. Aside from the tradition, the main thing I'm doing differently though is not growing my capital past 3 pop for a long time, while working resources giving 2 culture; this is probably the most culture heavy I could be going without pantheonism. As it stands I expect to finish tradition by about turn 100? after that I'll probably get a load of dominionism or militarism policies and then I'll start actually building cities and soldiers and conquering the world...
Pazyryk
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It's not either-or, in any case. We could have some historical buffering but a lot more weighting on "now" than is currently the case. But to avoid #3 situation I'll have to change to consider max pop ever rather than current. (That's a drag if you are being conquered, but there are always trade-offs.)
I don't want Tradition to become a must-have branch however. I'll spread some culture out to branches that are currently lacking.
I'm still not convinced that suppressing population growth ever helps. Yes, it seems to work if you look only at that single equation isolated from everything else. But less pop means less research/production/gold which impacts everything including speed to build new culture buildings. Each pop in Éa is really good with intrinsic yield (1p1g 0.5s[1s w/ lib.]) and then really good plot yields. Growing into unemployed citizens would be a problem, but I haven't heard any accounts of that happening much... But, yes, if you work early culture plots you will have a higher CL. That's intended.
Edit:
What we're not going to do is go to Civ5 system of punishing for city#. Although we're dealing with the same basic problem as base Civ5: we don't want BIG to be the best solution to every problem.
I did think of a way to make early population changes matter very little but still matter on the large scale. Right now your long-term CL (i.e., # of policies) boils down to:
culture/population
but it could be
culture/(population + x) + y
With appropriately sized x, this kind of jiggering can make pop changes from 1-5 not matter much, but from 10 to 50 still matter. (To be totally accurate, the y add factor is already there, and there is a multiplier on culture. But the x factor is new and could dampen the effect of early population changes. ) However, with this system there is no real decision in what plots to work in very early game: food is always best choice and no reason to think about it (but that's what players expect so maybe that's a good thing?).
I don't want Tradition to become a must-have branch however. I'll spread some culture out to branches that are currently lacking.
I'm still not convinced that suppressing population growth ever helps. Yes, it seems to work if you look only at that single equation isolated from everything else. But less pop means less research/production/gold which impacts everything including speed to build new culture buildings. Each pop in Éa is really good with intrinsic yield (1p1g 0.5s[1s w/ lib.]) and then really good plot yields. Growing into unemployed citizens would be a problem, but I haven't heard any accounts of that happening much... But, yes, if you work early culture plots you will have a higher CL. That's intended.
Edit:
What we're not going to do is go to Civ5 system of punishing for city#. Although we're dealing with the same basic problem as base Civ5: we don't want BIG to be the best solution to every problem.
I did think of a way to make early population changes matter very little but still matter on the large scale. Right now your long-term CL (i.e., # of policies) boils down to:
culture/population
but it could be
culture/(population + x) + y
With appropriately sized x, this kind of jiggering can make pop changes from 1-5 not matter much, but from 10 to 50 still matter. (To be totally accurate, the y add factor is already there, and there is a multiplier on culture. But the x factor is new and could dampen the effect of early population changes. ) However, with this system there is no real decision in what plots to work in very early game: food is always best choice and no reason to think about it (but that's what players expect so maybe that's a good thing?).
Yeah, I agree that straight culture/population is not the best. I recently did a sidhe marathon game where I did not grow my capital past one, using the immortal great people to make up for my lack of population. During the end, I literally ran out of policies to take and had an approach CL of over 200. I like the idea, but it could use some tweaking.
BrokenSky
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Yes but less pop also means less research cost, once you have more than about 3 techs. With the tradition finisher giving science from culture, and a load of high power artists (like any sane person who's doing tradition has), combined with the +80% bonus science (assuming you build libruary, uni, labs) unlocked by the tree, as well as the paper maker for another +5% (does printing press also require paper maker or something?), you can really get a large bonus science and be really efficient at it. The culture plots in question in my last game were jade mines so was getting adequate gold and production for the early game from them. Given also that gold can be substituted for production, having a single merchant open a load of trade routes should also give a load of science and gold, though I think the gold is based partially of city size?
I'm not really sure if it would work, But I might try going for a single city with low population and win probably one with nature or Armageddon? As sidhe obviously. I get the feeling this wouldn't work as man as well...
I'm not really sure if it would work, But I might try going for a single city with low population and win probably one with nature or Armageddon? As sidhe obviously. I get the feeling this wouldn't work as man as well...
Pazyryk
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Yeah, I knew that was a possibility with CL. Didn't think anyone would actually try it. But what did you get for it besides a super high CL? I'd call it an "exploit" but that implies some benefit to the player and I'm not sure what that is here. But it's definitely a flaw in the system. The problem is dividing by unmodified population, specifically when that number is very small. So pop 1 is 5x better than pop 5 if you are generating all culture via GPs. I'll put a +x on the denominator in that equation so that pop 5 isn't 5x worse than pop 1. However, it should still be the case that pop 100 needs almost 2x as much culture as pop 50 to have same CL.
It's true that One with Nature is possible in that game, but that's really showing a flaw in that particular VC: specifically, that it only depends on GP actions. Armageddon depends on research and the other's on military or growth.
Tech progress is different because you need, well, 9000 research points to get to a tier 6 tech. OK, likely reduced by this and that, but still a lot of points that need to be generated. I'm not sure what good it does to keep KM near 0 if your total research generation is poor. Yeah, I know the GPs are powerhouses (as good as cities) but it's hard to imagine them getting you to those expensive techs alone. Well, they can. But the question is can they do it faster than a large civ putting out 300s/turn. The large civ may have 50% or even 100% higher tech cost due to population, but also might be generating 5x or 10x more research.
It's intentional that research and culture work differently this way. Even though pop is a factor in both, it doesn't act in the same way. You need pop to advance technologically (or to do it quickly, anyway). But tiny civs should be able to have as high a CL as giant ones. (But not that much higher.)
It's true that One with Nature is possible in that game, but that's really showing a flaw in that particular VC: specifically, that it only depends on GP actions. Armageddon depends on research and the other's on military or growth.
Tech progress is different because you need, well, 9000 research points to get to a tier 6 tech. OK, likely reduced by this and that, but still a lot of points that need to be generated. I'm not sure what good it does to keep KM near 0 if your total research generation is poor. Yeah, I know the GPs are powerhouses (as good as cities) but it's hard to imagine them getting you to those expensive techs alone. Well, they can. But the question is can they do it faster than a large civ putting out 300s/turn. The large civ may have 50% or even 100% higher tech cost due to population, but also might be generating 5x or 10x more research.
It's intentional that research and culture work differently this way. Even though pop is a factor in both, it doesn't act in the same way. You need pop to advance technologically (or to do it quickly, anyway). But tiny civs should be able to have as high a CL as giant ones. (But not that much higher.)
BrokenSky
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In my v6 large game the knowledge maintanece reached around 300% due to my very large population and wide research (large empires have many needs!) but this is the other extream and I wouldn't be surprised if the best situation was in the middle ground.
ideas to boost slavers:
maybe slavers raiders (from CS only) could get slaves by pillaging improvements? (lower odds)
maybe slaves could be added to city as "slave specialists", or "better", be sent to work on improvements :
slave can take action on top of basic worker actions :
only one per improvement: "work mine" on mine : +2p/turn to nearest city, "work farm" on farm : +2f to nearest city... etc,
can be "sold to citizenry " in city : slave specialist: -1f+1g+1p+1c (total +2yield...),
can "amuse the citizenry" : (fake building with +1 happiness)
...Etc
can turn feral (weak barbarian warrior) or disband if no nearby military unit.
tradition's science policies seems strong... compared to other policies and traits
idea for engineers early/late actions:
-build bridge (over 1 tile of water/ over river: increase commerce/ movement...?)
-build podler (for civs that don't have that possibility/tech)
-build improvements in place of worker but much quicker
-build some buildings in the city in x turns (depending on mod, minimum 3turns) (so the city can build settlers/units, and the engineer build the walls ...etc)
-build improvement without adequat techs but at slower pace than worker ? can only be done once per Eng per improvement? (eg: deep mine without the tech or plantation ...Etc)
-Magic: I agree that it would be nice to have some spells targetted toward replacing normal acitivities by magic, or sustaining civilian magic:
I don't think it'll enable magic line to be more powerfull than a production focused or culture focused:
example : illusionnists can cast a spell (can be automated): Illusion show: +mod/2 c, +mod/2g or increase happiness
Conjuration enable "magic forge" : +2p-2mana, and conjurer can "work the magic forge" +mod/2p, +mod/2c
summoners can "summon workforce : +mod/2 p" (in exchange mod mana)
...etc
you could have "magical preserves" that are improved granaries but cost mana/turn, and are insta-built by mages using mana or that give more health.
a diviner could "help the local autorities" and decrease discontents, decrease maintenance,
a sorcerer could "sell crux and maledictions" : +mod/2 g, decrease discontents, increases maintenance
a type of witch could heal the livestock : fake building: +1f+1p per local cattle/horses/elephant, -3mana
If it is done correctly it will not enable an arcane civ to overwhelm a non-magic civ on their specific area... but it will bring diversity to the arcane line (techs AND Units) by enabling applications that are not dedicated to war (damage, unit support or ennemy vision...etc)
maybe slavers raiders (from CS only) could get slaves by pillaging improvements? (lower odds)
maybe slaves could be added to city as "slave specialists", or "better", be sent to work on improvements :
slave can take action on top of basic worker actions :
only one per improvement: "work mine" on mine : +2p/turn to nearest city, "work farm" on farm : +2f to nearest city... etc,
can be "sold to citizenry " in city : slave specialist: -1f+1g+1p+1c (total +2yield...),
can "amuse the citizenry" : (fake building with +1 happiness)
...Etc
can turn feral (weak barbarian warrior) or disband if no nearby military unit.
tradition's science policies seems strong... compared to other policies and traits
idea for engineers early/late actions:
-build bridge (over 1 tile of water/ over river: increase commerce/ movement...?)
-build podler (for civs that don't have that possibility/tech)
-build improvements in place of worker but much quicker
-build some buildings in the city in x turns (depending on mod, minimum 3turns) (so the city can build settlers/units, and the engineer build the walls ...etc)
-build improvement without adequat techs but at slower pace than worker ? can only be done once per Eng per improvement? (eg: deep mine without the tech or plantation ...Etc)
-Magic: I agree that it would be nice to have some spells targetted toward replacing normal acitivities by magic, or sustaining civilian magic:
I don't think it'll enable magic line to be more powerfull than a production focused or culture focused:
example : illusionnists can cast a spell (can be automated): Illusion show: +mod/2 c, +mod/2g or increase happiness
Conjuration enable "magic forge" : +2p-2mana, and conjurer can "work the magic forge" +mod/2p, +mod/2c
summoners can "summon workforce : +mod/2 p" (in exchange mod mana)
...etc
you could have "magical preserves" that are improved granaries but cost mana/turn, and are insta-built by mages using mana or that give more health.
a diviner could "help the local autorities" and decrease discontents, decrease maintenance,
a sorcerer could "sell crux and maledictions" : +mod/2 g, decrease discontents, increases maintenance
a type of witch could heal the livestock : fake building: +1f+1p per local cattle/horses/elephant, -3mana
If it is done correctly it will not enable an arcane civ to overwhelm a non-magic civ on their specific area... but it will bring diversity to the arcane line (techs AND Units) by enabling applications that are not dedicated to war (damage, unit support or ennemy vision...etc)
Civitar
Adventurer
Can the spell Become Lich please be scaled down? It seems absurd that one person making himself undead and unkillable would cause blight and breach to cover like half the world and cause a zombie apocalypse (or worse). Even worse than that to my mind is that he gets so much XP from that - I think he should just get a boost of 100 XP max, since making yourself an undead monster doesn't mean that you automatically learn every spell in the world - it just gives you more time to learn them.
My suggestion: Becoming a Lich should automatically give the caster 100 XP and consume an amount of mana equal to 100 times his Necromancy modifier - so instead of a Level 9 Mage consuming 9,000 mana he consumes 900, a much more reasonable number that is less likely to cause all the "mana depletion percentages" to happen at once, which is really unpleasant and dumb to me. I mean, I'd expect to see other civs get uneasy after a while, then much later start getting upset, then much later blight starts spreading fast, etc...
These are just ideas, but they are pretty close to what I'd expected Becoming a Lich to do, rather than the explosion that always happens instead. You know, I (and I believe many other players) want a long time in which to enjoy my new immortal demigod, rather than having him end the game or ruin it by his very appearance.
My suggestion: Becoming a Lich should automatically give the caster 100 XP and consume an amount of mana equal to 100 times his Necromancy modifier - so instead of a Level 9 Mage consuming 9,000 mana he consumes 900, a much more reasonable number that is less likely to cause all the "mana depletion percentages" to happen at once, which is really unpleasant and dumb to me. I mean, I'd expect to see other civs get uneasy after a while, then much later start getting upset, then much later blight starts spreading fast, etc...
These are just ideas, but they are pretty close to what I'd expected Becoming a Lich to do, rather than the explosion that always happens instead. You know, I (and I believe many other players) want a long time in which to enjoy my new immortal demigod, rather than having him end the game or ruin it by his very appearance.
Pazyryk
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Level 9 Mage is supposed to consume 900. The bug made it 90,000. See manual fix in bugs thread (until I get next version out).
Just to lay out the "overview" for balancing mana consumption, the idea is that there are two alternative paths to Armageddon: arcane or religious. Or you can do a little of both. But each should work alone if player chooses.
Just to lay out the "overview" for balancing mana consumption, the idea is that there are two alternative paths to Armageddon: arcane or religious. Or you can do a little of both. But each should work alone if player chooses.
- "Arcane/tech" approach: Use Arcana policy branch as leverage to get up to tier 6/7 evil arcane techs. There's variation in whether to go Necromancy or Sorcery/Summoning branch (or other arcane or knowledge branch) first. The main tool for winning are your Thaumaturges blighting/breaching and becoming Liches. And possibly Archmages to get you to Armageddon Rituals to finish it off.
- "Religious/anit-theism" approach: You'll still be going up the evil arcane techs, but maybe you don't get as far without Arcana boosts (or pick up other techs instead). The main focus here is on Fallen Priests and Eidolons. Burn mana via Anra religion and Temples primarily, though spellcasting still helps. You can do this either directly or after pursuing an Azzandarayasna game for a while (little Fall or great Fall), or even from a Pantheistic start (seems strange, but you get the benefit of strong forests to protect you from the blight you are causing, at least for a while).
Llednar Twem
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I tried a fallen pantheism/arcana build a while ago. It had some very nice flavor from spells like bloom and ea's blessing consuming mana when used by a fallen civ. Gave the build a very self-serving feel the other Armageddon routs lack because you bring the end of the world for everyone else while making sure to protect only yourself.
Unfortunately from an actual gameplay perspective it seems to stall out before you can actually get what you need. Druids can't seem to build the temples of destruction and splitting policies between pantheism and arcana meant I wasn't quite able to reach mages and archmages before policy gain slowed to a crawl. That was probably in part due to bad luck though; never got a single artist despite heavy specialist allocation. If I try the build again I'll probably also dip into tradition, if only for the free artist and ability to build epics.
Unfortunately from an actual gameplay perspective it seems to stall out before you can actually get what you need. Druids can't seem to build the temples of destruction and splitting policies between pantheism and arcana meant I wasn't quite able to reach mages and archmages before policy gain slowed to a crawl. That was probably in part due to bad luck though; never got a single artist despite heavy specialist allocation. If I try the build again I'll probably also dip into tradition, if only for the free artist and ability to build epics.
