I spent this morning rearranging the tech tree a little; I'm shrinking the Classical back to 2 columns (vanilla is 1) instead of the previous 3, because with three columns it just felt too "stretched", with too many techs being direct prerequisites for techs two or three columns away. So it'll be two columns of 6, instead of the previous 5/4/3.
I also moved a few techs around, to move the Optics-Compass-Astronomy line down closer to the Physics/Engineering type techs, so the religious techs now occupy the top of the screen. So a few dependencies had to change. I'll upload new pictures of the tech tree when I have time.
Now, today's topic is Myth Units.
The basic idea of a Mythological unit, as mentioned before, is that they're front-loaded with some powerful abilities (at least one of which is unavailable to players) and don't require any resources, but they also don't benefit from any XP-boosting buildings, or any Wonders, Policies, or religious buildings that provide your units a custom promotion. Also, since they don't upgrade to anything, you'll eventually reach a point (say, Rifleman-ish) where they're generally just not worth the costs, except maybe for the powerful level 4 Myth units.
There's one other little catch I came across today. I should say that I CONFIRMED it today, since I'd always kinda known. That is, unit building class prerequisites are an AND, not an OR. This means that, in the current design, when I say a Myth unit unlocks at Animals 2, that means it ONLY unlocks at Animals 2. So a Church (2) of Animals and a Cathedral (3) of Animals will have completely different lists of units; I'm not sure what'll happen if you're in the middle of producing a unit when the city upgrades, though. Since some of your cities will be below others, this isn't much of a problem if you REALLY like one type of unit and your capital outgrows it; somewhere in your empire, there'll be a city that has that level.
As a result, I'm trying to generally make units follow a clear progression, to where you'd nearly always prefer the level 3 units to the level 2 ones. I'm also going to shift things around a bit, so that a level that has two Myth units in a unit-light focus (like Air 2) splits them up to, say, Air 2 for one and Air 3 for the other.
Level 1 Myth units will generally have two abilities, one "Normal" one (meaning a promotion that normal units can take, like Cover I, or that's given by a Wonder) and one "Special" one (an ability that normal units can't take but that many Myth units can have, like the ability to fly/hover, or an inherent boost to movement or strength). Their base strength will be basically the same as mundane units in the Classical/early Medieval eras (10ish), so once you get to the Crossbow/Longsword techs, these'll be obsolete.
Level 2 Myth units will have two Specials, or one Normal and one Unique (pretty much what it sounds like, an ability that ONLY myth units in this Focus have). Their strength will be more like the 13-14 range, so they'll generally be comparable to the Crossbow/Longsword units.
Level 3 Myth units will typically have one Unique, one Special, and one Normal, or three Specials. Base strength is more like 16-17.
Level 4 Myth units are more like 1/3/1 or 2/1/2, usually with strengths of 20+, but you can only ever have one of each type in your empire. (Like the Gravship, they're basically National Wonders.)
So let's look at the Death Focus, for instance. At the moment I have:
Zombie (Death 2): Spawn, Teamwork
Spawn: if it kills a foe, there's a 50% chance of spawning a new copy of the unit. The copy will be the same as a newly-created Zombie, except that it'll lack the Spawn promotion so there won't be as good as one you create yourself.
Teamwork: it's the "+20% when adjacent to an ally" ability I use for Laser Infantry and the Three Gorges Dam.
Mummy (Death 2): Critical Strike, Disease
Critical Strike is the Ranger's "10% chance of dealing 5 damage" ability.
Disease: a unit that survives the Mummy's attack gains the Diseased negative promotion. At the start of each turn, there's a 1 in 3 chance of taking 1 damage, a 1 in 6 chance of being cured, and a 1 in 2 chance of nothing happening. As long as a unit is diseased, its healing rate is also reduced by 1.
Vampire (Death 3): Drain, Spawn, Stun
Drain: Whenever he attacks, a Vampire deals 1 extra damage and heals 1 damage at the start of combat. There is no effect if the Vampire is the defender.
Spawn: same as Zombie
Stun: A unit attacked by a Vampire loses its next turn.
Phoenix (Death 4): Rebirth, Regeneration I, Flight, Loner, Fire I
Rebirth: Whenever a Phoenix takes lethal damage, it is reborn in your capital automatically, keeping all promotions earned.
Regeneration I: same as the Mind Worms
Flight: Hovering unit and 1 MP per hex
Loner: +20% strength when NOT adjacent to an ally, but doesn't benefit from defensive terrain bonuses (nearly all of the level 4 units have this one)
Fire 1: +10% when attacking, doubled vs cities (as the Shrine of Fire effect)
Note that there's no level 1 Death unit; a Shrine of Death provides a promotion to normal units trained there, nothing more. The only Focus with units at every level is Animals, because that's pretty much ALL it does (2-3 units per level, topping out at Sphinx and Dragon at level 4). Quite a few foci have at least one unit, but the only other Myth-heavy foci are Air and Darkness.
So what'd typically happen, if you were a follower of Hades for instance, would be that in the early eras your capital would be able to make Zombies and Mummies, then your capital would get Vampires while your other cities move up to Zombies and Mummies, and finally your capital could create a Phoenix while your other cities have the lower options.
So if you look at the four units I mentioned, you'd notice that they don't really follow any particular source material or match strongly to any one pantheon thematically. Eventually, what I'd like to do is create a UU for each major god, something that'd replace one or two Myth units in his primary focus to shift things a bit more towards his particular style. But for now, I'll stick with mostly generic creatures.
At the moment it looks like I'm going to have about two dozen Myth unit types tied to specific Foci. The question, then, is whether that's enough; most players might only have a couple of Myth units available to them, unless they add an Animals minor god. So survey time: should I
A> Add a more generic set of Myth units that anyone within a Pantheon can build, regardless of which foci they take, so that everyone can make at least one type of Myth unit?
B> Add more Myth units to the existing Foci, to where every focus has at least one unit it can unlock at some point?
C> Leave things as they are, to where certain Focus combinations (like Fire/War) don't provide any Myth units at all, to make up for how much they boost your non-Myth units?
Obviously you can't really answer this without actually playing, and my goal is still to upload v.0.01 this weekend, but I'm a bit busy with Real Life stuff. What I'm trying to get at is, should combat in the ancient eras be all about these sorts of units, or should they be a minority of your armies, with swordsmen and archers still providing the bulk of your military?
