Advanced Religious Temples

[Kael]

Im thinking about removing them entirely, I just havent really seen that they are worth it. There may be some mechanics we keep (i love the shadowed vales boost treant chance), or buildings we keep entirely, some mechanics from them may be moved onto civics. But Im not sure about the either/or nature of them or if they are working out overall.

Do you guys think they should be kept and fixed up, or scrapped and the interesting mechanics form them used elsewhere?

 

[woodelf]

How many are we talking about? I don't usually play long enough to build them and normally don't even when they are offered. Maybe they should be fixed to make them more useful.

Can you list them and what they actually do?

 

[Chalid]

Temple Upgrades-

1. When the first one is built they block access to other temple upgrades for that religion.
2. Initially they will be buildable, ideally these should be created by great prophets (if we can get the AI to do it correctly).

The Order:

+Inquisitional Hall (concept: strict)
Removes all religions but the Order from the city
Keeps religions from spreading to the city (not in yet)
Inquisitioners given +4 xp
Paladins created in this city gain the Command promotion
+10% Maintenance

+Enforcement Office (concept: managed)
-50% war weariness
-50% maintenance
-1 maintenance per happy (not in yet)
-1 maintenance per military unti in city (not in yet)
Doubled effect of great commanders recruit ability

The Ashen Veil:

+Demon's altar (concept: demon worship, dark magic)
All units can be sacrificed for research, the higher the level of the unit, the more research is given
Units created here start with a +40% vs disciples promotion
-2 Happy

Forbidden Library (concept: intellegent)
-20% culture, +10% science
Trade routes yeild science instead of gold.
10% chance of providing a Mind mana resource

The Fellowship of Leaves:

+The Golden Wood (concept: open, elegant)
+25% culture
+1 trade routes
+1 great artist
-25% city defense

+The Shadowed Vale (concept: closed, mystical)
Triple the chance of generating Treants
+1 great sage
-1 trade routes
-25% culture

Runes of Kilmorph:

+Hall of Granite (concept: insular, defensive)
+50% defense
-20% Culture
+10% Production
Non Kilmorph religions give -1 happiness each (not in yet)
-1 Trade route
City is more likely to culture flip away from non-Runes civs (not in yet)
Stone gives +3 hammers

+RuneVault (concept: wise, traditional)
Gems give +1 Happy
-10% production
+2 Prophet GP points
+4 Research per Gems
Allows the Rune Guard unit (rooted, 1 per city, defensive)

Octopus Overlords:

+Overseer's Residence (concept: punishing, controlling)
Doubles effects of slaves sacrificed for production (not in)
+1 Research per Orc, Elf, Human or Dwarf pen.
Population sacrificed for production gives double effects (not in)
-10% gold, culture
-1 Happy

+Theater of Dreams (concept: insane)
25% of the units produced in this city are Crazed
Combat 1 promotion for Lunatics
+1 Culture per animal pen
City is more likely to culture flip away from non-OO civs (not in)

 

[Kael]

And I wouldnt say the mechanics matter. Because we can keep the mechanics we like. The question is, do we like the concept.

For instance we could get rid of them and:

1. Paladins created gain the Command promotion becomes an ability added to the theocracy civic.

2. Demons altar becomes an ashen veil only building.

3. Triple chance of treants becomes a bonus to the guardian of nature civic.

4. 25% chance all units produced in the city are crazed becomes tied to the asylum building.

 

[Chalid]

I think we need to spice them up.
Therfor we should do the following:
a) Add a Pedia enty to buildings that is listed with the tool tipps/special abilities. this way everyone can easily see what they are doing.

b) A bit rebalancing. The founding with Great Prophets sound fine for some of them - we could add a weighting function that Shrines are usually built first by the AI if there is not something like that already in. Some of them should be simply buildable or at least after the first one was created by a GP.
Or how about founding them with priests of level 4 or above?

c) I've very seldom built them. I think we should add some empirewide effects to them as you usually will have only one or two of them before you start really serious conquering - and at this phase you usually do not look anymore what the buildings do.

d) some of the temples should be working empirewide (national woder) some should have to be built delocalized

ok what would i change with them (i marked good bad neutral +/-/0 for me easier evaluating them):

Spoiler :

Order seems good for centralized so the temples would be national wonders

+Inquisitional Hall (concept: strict)
0 Removes all religions but the Order from the city
0 Keeps religions from spreading to the city (not in yet)
+ Inquisitioners given +4 xp
+ Paladins created in this city gain the Command promotion
- +10% Maintenance

the +10% maintaince are unneeded i think as you do not get the -50% maintaince (and 10% dont ususally do much anyway)
the advantages are a bit slim.
We need some more goodies here. How about +3xp for disciple units empirewide when you have the hall.

+Enforcement Office (concept: managed)
+ -50% war weariness
+ -50% maintenance
+ -1 maintenance per happy (not in yet)
+ -1 maintenance per military unti in city (not in yet)
+ Doubled effect of great commanders recruit ability

how about acts as governent center (instead of the -50% maintenance)
the additional maintenenace per happy and unit is unneeded its strong enough alone

The Ashen Veil:
here i would say delocalized. small advantages but many can be built
i would say only 3 temples should be needed per building.

+Demon's altar (concept: demon worship, dark magic)
0 All units can be sacrificed for research, the higher the level of the unit, the more research is given
+ Units created here start with a +40% vs disciples promotion
- -2 Happy

Sacrificing units for reasearch must yield big revenues otherwise its not worth it.
-2 happy seems to much. reduceing to -1
maybe +4XP for demons built in the in the city (eidolon, beast of agares)?


Forbidden Library (concept: intellegent)
+ -20% culture, +10% science
+ Trade routes yeild science instead of gold.
+ 10% chance of providing a Mind mana resource

The library is quite good when you can built it in several cities. But again i would say a 10% effect is nearly neglectable
id say +20% research. how does the mana thing work?


The Fellowship of Leaves:
Again decentralized would fit the concept maybe 4 or five temples needed

+The Golden Wood (concept: open, elegant)
+ +25% culture
+ +1 trade routes
+ +1 great artist
- -25% city defense

+The Shadowed Vale (concept: closed, mystical)
+ Triple the chance of generating Treants
+ +1 great sage
+ -1 trade routes
+ -25% culture

id increase the free GPpoints to +2 for both.

Runes of Kilmorph:
here i would use centralized structures/national wonder for the halls and delocalized (3 needed for the runevault)

+Hall of Granite (concept: insular, defensive)
+ +50% defense
- -20% Culture
+ +10% Production
- Non Kilmorph religions give -1 happiness each (not in yet)
- -1 Trade route
- City is more likely to culture flip away from non-Runes civs (not in yet)
Stone gives +3 hammers

the +50% defense should be empirewide
the flipping away.. the state religion is neede to research the techanyway so we can cut that. the happiness penalty seems unneeded, too

+RuneVault (concept: wise, traditional)
+ Gems give +1 Happy
- -10% production
+ +2 Prophet GP points
+ +4 Research per Gems
+ Allows the Rune Guard unit (rooted, 1 per city, defensive)

the production penalty can be canceled as you do not get the production + from the otehr building. Otehrwise ok when more can be built than now.

Octopus Overlords:
again delocalized both maybe here really 5 temples needed?

+Overseer's Residence (concept: punishing, controlling)
+ Doubles effects of slaves sacrificed for production (not in)
+ +1 Research per Orc, Elf, Human or Dwarf pen.
+ Population sacrificed for production gives double effects (not in)
- -10% gold, culture
- -1 Happy

the addtional production for pop is huge! the pens.. you need a freakshow to built then which is only usefull for balseraphs...
so we might want to add another effect here as well

+Theater of Dreams (concept: insane)
+ 25% of the units produced in this city are Crazed
+ Combat 1 promotion for Lunatics
+ +1 Culture per animal pen
- City is more likely to culture flip away from non-OO civs (not in)

Flipping again useless as you had to be oo anyway.
Lunatics are very seldom built so the free combat is not to big an advantage.
maybe some advantage to stygian guards?
Animal pens are seldom used, too

In general many of the effects the temples provide are rathe "specific" so that often there seems no advantage in building them. I tried to porvide some idears to spice them up but i feel i have not gone wiede enough. They should provide even bigger advantages i think (disadvantages within the buildings are not really needed as the big disadvantage should be that you can built only one and that decision should be the difficult one)

 

[woodelf]

Question, can you give generic GP points? Some that aren't tied to a prophet or sage or whatever? I seldom build some buildings because I don't want Great Prophets to be born or Great Bards.

I like:

c) I've very seldom built them. I think we should add some empirewide effects to them as you usually will have only one or two of them before you start really serious conquering - and at this phase you usually do not look anymore what the buildings do.

because I seldom worry about buildings stuff once the conquering part of the game commences. If there was a cumulative effect for these then people would more readily remember to build them.

 

[Chalid]

Just to clarify once mor. i think the idear of the temples was to further decide which way your civ should go. That is not archived if the buildings are similar or the advantages are so small that they do not really matter (as they are now with the advanced temples). If we want to make them special we have to make the advantages big enough that you do not want to miss either of the two buildings.

Simply adding the meachnics to other things that are already really good and have the flavor will make thos simply stronger and take from the players choice as he than has to use the civis, buildings and so on.

Now how i think the temples would become meaninfull (example Veil):
Demons altair should make you demons really more powefull and support the war side of the Veil even more whereas the Forbidden Library should really boost your science. this way the difficulty which one to choose will make the player think.

To give an impression what would really make a difference would be eg:

Demos Altair:
Local effect:
+6 XP to demons built in the city.
+1 Eidolon allowed per altair
Required to built Beast of Agares
Empirewide efects:
Entopy summons gain +2 Str (imp) and +4Str (balor) (not stacking)
Entropy spells have a much higher chace to break resistances. (stacking)

Forbidden library:
Local:
+30 % resaerch (maybe even 50%)
+1 free sage
Empirewide:
+1 Research per sage (stacking)

You can built one per 5 temples

 

[Kael]

Just to clarify once mor. i think the idear of the temples was to further decide which way your civ should go.

Yeah, I just don't think that the distinction is needed (these were deisgned in FfH2 brainstorming before we had any of the distinct civs or unique buildings). If we had an idea for 2 good advanced temples that would distinguish the religion in a meaningful way I would go for it. But I don't think this do a very good job for it, and I dont see a design need to keep them.

More is worse, if we can cut 10 buildings without effecting much that is an awesome improvement. We shouldn't feel pressured to make themn work unless we fell like having them will make a significant improvement in gameplay.

 

[Chalid]

To be honest I'd like that ability to choose between two sides of one coin.
But we do not need to keep it for all religions.

Its a means to further differentiate between religions when we use it wisely.

For example the two buildings i listed for the Veil. If i had teh choice between those two i would have to think very deeply each time which one to choose (even if we tone them down a bit that they come into realistical limits - that means a bit more powerfull than a normal national wonder)

For other religions it might be more difficult to come up with something special.

Btw. I think we should make some lists. One for the religions and one for teh civilizations. Those lists should incorporate all teh advanatges and disadvantages a civ/religion has.

This should be usefull to find out where we should add and where we should take something to make teh things balanced. (and for example which religion would need something like those advanced temples)

 

[Kael]

This is what I can think of, Im sure Im missing a few things but this should be the major stuff. In my opinion it is to much and Im ready to do some cutting as we look to close light.

I would rather have fewer more impacting options than the bulk we have now. And that goes in general, as we start to close Light we should consider what worked and what didn't work, and remove all of the things form the mod that we arent passionate about.

Religions:

The Ashen Veil:
[TAB]Demons Altar (building)
[TAB]Diseased Corpse (unit)
[TAB]Ritualist (unit)
[TAB]Beast of Agares (national unit)
[TAB]Rosier the Fallen (world unit)
[TAB]Mardero (world unit)
[TAB]Sacrifice the Weak (civic)
[TAB]Corruption of Spirit (technology)
[tab]Stigmata on the Unborn (wonder)

Denies access to:
[TAB]Paladin (national unit)


Fellowship of Leaves:
[TAB]The Golden Wood (building)
[TAB]The Shadowed Vale (building)
[TAB]Archer of Leaves (unit)
[TAB]Priest of Leaves (unit)
[TAB]Yvain the Wood Elf (world unit)
[TAB]Kithra Kyriel (world unit)
[TAB]Guradian of Nature (civic)
[TAB]Hidden Paths (technology)
[tab]Song of Autumn (wonder)
[tab]Yggdrasil (wonder)


Octopus Overlords
[TAB]Overseers Residence (building)
[TAB]Theater of Dreams (building)
[TAB]Asylum (building)
[TAB]Cultist (unit)
[TAB]Stygian Guard (unit)
[TAB]The Drown (unit)
[TAB]Saverous (world unit)
[TAB]Hemah (world unit)
[TAB]Slavery (civic)
[TAB]Mind Stapling (technology)
[tab]The Necronomicon (wonder)

Denies access to:
[TAB]Paladin (national unit)


The Order:
[TAB]Inquisitional Hall (building)
[TAB]Enforcement Office (building)
[TAB]Basilica (building)
[TAB]Confessor (unit)
[TAB]Crusader (unit)
[TAB]Valen Phanuel (world unit)
[TAB]Sphener (world unit)
[TAB]Social Order (civic)
[TAB]Unquestioning Obedience (technology)
[tab]Winter Palace (wonder)
[tab]Glory Everlasting (wonder/armagedon spell)
[tab]Code of Junil (wonder)

Denies access to:
[TAB]Eidolon (national unit)


Runes of Kilmorph
[TAB]Hall of Granite (building)
[TAB]RuneVault (building)
[TAB]Soldier of Kilmorph (unit)
[TAB]Paramander (unit)
[TAB]Stonewarden (unit)
[TAB]Bambur (world unit)
[TAB]Arthendain (world unit)
[TAB]Arete (civic)
[TAB]Arete (technology)
[tab]Tablets of Bambur (wonder)

Denies access to:
[TAB]Eidolon (national unit)

 

[Chalid]

We should not forget teh Ancient forests with it treants and such thing. I'm not sure if tehre is something in except that one. And the Spread rates and Alignments have to be taken into account as well for religon / values.

I'll do some weighting these days. Probably next week.