A Thought About Gibbon Goetia

[Rystic]

I'm playing a Balseraph-Esus game as we speak, and I just built Gibbon. Now it's nice he's around and all, but because he's an Illusionist, he takes a backseat to my other summoners. I also never use impersonate leader, so his biggest ability is lost to me.

So I get to thinking "I wish I could do more with him". You can do a lot with Chalid. I presume that's because he's the only hero for the Empyrean. But Gibbon is pretty useless most of the time. At least Hemah's summons can kill. Then an idea hit me; I was attacking a Sidar city with my Mimics, and Gibbon was there, and... I stopped and thought about it. I realized a buff that could be perfect for him:

Gibbon Goetia, +2 , and the ability to steal promotions. Lorewise, he's already more of a mimic than Mimics. Give him a bit more strength, and you have a great split that can go up the arcane line, but still be decent in combat.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Also ditch impersonate leader

A way to make 2 civs controllable at once (IIRC that was the original plan for the ability) was never found, so IL is a useless novelty, a noob trap, and a failed experiment.

 

[Luckmann]

c) All of the above.

 

[KillerClowns]

c) All of the above.

Seconded.
Once upon a time, I managed to use Gibbon's impersonate to my advantage, but that was only because I was turns away from utter annihilation and needed to borrow somebody else's army and use the "alt-click" glitch to have the impersonated nation declare war on my would-be destroyer and save my ass... seriously, Impersonate is such an awesome idea gone to waste!

 

[Korias]

Also ditch impersonate leader

A way to make 2 civs controllable at once (IIRC that was the original plan for the ability) was never found, so IL is a useless novelty, a noob trap, and a failed experiment.

Why not just shift it so that the game is treated as a Hot Seat game instead of a single player game? That would give multiple Civs being able to be controlled.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Giving Gibbon the same PythonPostCombatWon as mimics sounds nice, simple, and appropriate. I just added it in my version (which I'll unfortunately have no time to test for 2 weeks)


I'd much prefer it if Impersonate Leader made the game play as a hotseat game between your real and feigned civ, but I wouldn't eliminate the spell just because we can't figure out how to implement that.

Impersonate Leader definitely should not require sacrificing Gibbon. I think it would be a good idea to immobilize him for the duration of the switch instead, so the AI doesn't run off and do something stupid with him. This is a very simple change, which I have already made.

 

[Verdian]

It would be nice to give him marksman, too (or able to get it through upgrades). It makes sense, as he can look like other people and sneak in undetected. But it also means he is more likely to target magic users, and steal their spell spheres.

Also, I do not think the fact that Gibbon is an illusionist is a hinderance. If you bring a small stack along with you, it equals free experience for them as the illusions weaken the target and your real units clean up. It is especially nice for assassins, as they will target the weakened units.

 

[zup]

Or if the number of enemies is sufficiently small, Gibbon can just beat them up himself, getting some valuable xp. Not so crucial for Calabim but for the rest, getting all spells for an archmage is almost impossible.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I agree with the OP.

And Gibbon's AI should be changed to AI_Attack, not AI_Reserve then. AI_Reserve is pointless for him - I've seen how badly Faeryl used him in the Splintered Court when I was Volanna. Had him in the backyard casting random spells, none of which made a difference.

 

[Rystic]

Also ditch impersonate leader

A way to make 2 civs controllable at once (IIRC that was the original plan for the ability) was never found, so IL is a useless novelty, a noob trap, and a failed experiment.

I actually had idea with Impersonate Leader, where the other team's leader is actually REPLACED with a Gibbon Goetia leaderhead and is in a team with you for the duration of the replacement. Gibbon as a leader would have Weak and Foolish traits, to slow the other team down.

I wanted to see how the first idea went over before I pitched it. The only thing it needs is a way to disable tech-sharing between teams.

 

[deadliver]

Having Gibbon Goetia take over a rival civ and making it a permanent ally with him as the new leader would make sacrificing him worthwhile.

Or if you don't like the permanent ally idea, make him take over the civ and shift relations to ultra friendly (with the possibility he may still war with you later on).

 

[odalrick]

I like Gibbon Goetia. He's a damned early archmage and Valour, Vitalize or Dominate are unaffected by Illusionist.

More than that, I like Illusionist; it mean that my actual units get the experience rather than a transient summon.

And as Balseraph in particular, puppets allow me to avoid Illusion if I feel the need.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Having Gibbon Goetia take over a rival civ and making it a permanent ally with him as the new leader would make sacrificing him worthwhile.

Him permanently taking over the civ would be too much.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I like Gibbon Goetia. He's a damned early archmage and Valour, Vitalize or Dominate are unaffected by Illusionist.

More than that, I like Illusionist; it mean that my actual units get the experience rather than a transient summon.

And as Balseraph in particular, puppets allow me to avoid Illusion if I feel the need.

If the difference between illusion and not-illusion kicked in, that means the enemy unit was so badly hurt that killing it only gives 1 XP.

I'm tired of seeing this defense for illusionist crop up. It's strictly a nerf for any civ but the Balseraphs, period.

 

[odalrick]

If the difference between illusion and not-illusion kicked in, that means the enemy unit was so badly hurt that killing it only gives 1 XP.

I'm tired of seeing this defense for illusionist crop up. It's strictly a nerf for any civ but the Balseraphs, period.

1 xp is more than 0 xp. So it is not strictly a nerf. Summoning an illusion could kill the caster 50% of the time, cost 500 gold and destroy a random friendly city, and as long as it can give 1 xp to a friendly units some of the time, it wont be strictly a nerf.

But I'll grant you that Illusionist is an overall nerf. The ability to give weak units, like adepts and mages, more experience is a mitigating factor.

edit:

I, like I guess many others, hate "wasting" xp on temporary summons. Even if it's not really efficient, I prefer real units getting the xp.

 

[zup]

True, it is annoying at times. But I hate to waste xp on temporary summons.

 

[odalrick]

Having Gibbon Goetia take over a rival civ and making it a permanent ally with him as the new leader would make sacrificing him worthwhile.

Him permanently taking over the civ would be too much.

What if he stole only part of the civ? Three or four cities, along with units and culture.

 

[Grakor456]

Count me as someone else who likes Gibbon, I suppose. Not that he couldn't be improved, but I like him. The cool thing about him is that he's an archmage that you can start producing the moment you hit Deception, don't even have to know Knowledge of the Ether. A couple times he's managed to be my sole provider of magical back-up when I'm neglecting the arcane techs.

Are comparisons to Chalid actually fair? Honest question. Chalid comes into the game much later, requiring Religious Law. If I'd compare Gibbon to any religious hero, it'd likely be Arthendain, since they come out at roughly the same time.

As for Impersonate Leader...never used it. Killing off a hero archmage always seemed like a bad idea to me.

Actually, something that just struck me...is there a particular reason that Gibbon is the only Archmage Hero that can't build mana nodes?

 

[Lone Wolf]

What if he stole only part of the civ? Three or four cities, along with units and culture.

Still OP. Especially if you could gain control of a huge stack that way.

 

[Azhral]

One thing that annoys me about impersonate leader is if you lose while impersonating, you lose the game. I sacrificed him to compromise the Khazad defenses, and the AI took my golem hoards to victory in about 5 turns, to my demise. But oh well, never used impersonate leader again. Never really had to, to be honest.