Amurites - a little plain? - thoughts and ideas

yep but doesnt a command post make it 10?

for the worlds greatest mages i'll say again ... "for the worlds formost mages there not any better than any other civ just quicker ... "

you cant out archer the lioj , you cant out recon the salv, you cant out horse the hippus ... but it is possible (and with the grigori very doable) to out majic the amurites.

esentially most of the amurite uniqueness comes from gio a very killable hero ... if he dies ... well you get back to my point that whist the civ is not weak its just got nothing really unique to offer.

(as an examplei have twice declared war on amurite civs just because gio came in range of a commandoed raider ... noother reason than once thats done the amurites do kinda lose a leg ... and you know what thay say about one legged men and ass kicking contests.

but in summation - they dont need more power... just unique power!
 
ok,...
I agree... but still, get command post + FoT + the 3civics is doable but not really frequent.

But you are right, they lack in uniqueness.. (the free enchantIII for wizard would maybe do it)


I have an other Idea :
create an uber library the University of Magical Arts(UMA) that would need 3 cave of ancestors to be build (ala univeristy or cathedral), and strength of will (or omniscience)... thus only 1 in 3 city. UMA allows building the following buildings and grants 2xp to arcane units and give +2 :science: + grants chanelingI to units build in city (no effect save reducing number of pomo give by course)

-Body course: needs body mana and UMA in the city : grants bodyI to any unit built in city
-Chaos course: needs chaos mana and UMA in the city : grants chaosI to any unit built in city
-Death course: needs Death mana and UMA in the city : grants DeathI to any unit built in city
-Dimensional course: needs Dim mana and UMA in the city : grants DimI to any unit built in city

(maybe add 1 or 2 more courses, or maybe create some courses available for all mana types but each need both UMA and alchemist lab and 2 mana sources to compensate)

UMA is 200 :hammers:, each course building is 50 :hammers:

thus, if govannon dies, amurite still have units with free magical abilities, but it would be less powerful than govannon as you can't teach already build units, and can only teach units build in this city. furthermore it would be a late building, with a medium-heavy cost (400 :hammers: to have the 4 course in a city, limited to max 1 city out of 3. ) and it would limit micromanagement (especially in late game)
If you lose 1 mana, you can't build any new course for this mana school.

Govannon would still be useful for teaching to any units build previously or captured and for teaching units built in other cities. but to compensate his somewhat loss of usefulness give free twincast OR free enchantementIII promotion to govannon or another promotion : affinity to metamgic or spell range I and II or whatever...)

(edit : courses would be available to any civ, and only UMA limited to amurites, thus, as courses need UMA, only amurite may build them and it would save the work of having X unit classes that have to be "noned" in every civ save amurites. maybe add a +1% culture to all those buildings so they are distroyed upon conquest of the city - or maybe they are not destroyed : conquering amurite big cities would be worth it.)

or if too complicated, just give UMA grants body, chaos, death, dim 1 to each unit build in the city if you have the corresponding mana ressource available.
(maybe more complicated to code, but then : only 1 building class to create instead of 5-more and you have to keep sources for this mana in order to get units teached for this)
 
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ok, i grant you that your looking for something to give them more flavor....

is just that everything your talking about giving them is making them soo much stronger. what do you plan on taking away when you give this stuff to the amurites?

personally alot of these ideas would be great if you would do things like block out the alter and the soulforge from the amurites. but with those 2 buildings even available boosting their mages farther is just obscene.
 
Just stop the druid exploits. its counter flavour anyway to have them cast death magic.
 
daladinn :
I do not think our proposal make them stronger.
(typically giving wizard enchantIII is not increasing their power, just getting ride of this 1time spellstaff,
and my proposition was so late game, costly and limited that it is not overpowered but mainly allow a decrease of micromanagement and allow amurite to still be special even if govannon dies- mercurian does not lose angel if basium die !!)

(How do altar and soul-forge synergise with amurites and boost them??? -it is a genuine perplexed question)

Hoerks :
why not the druid combo??? it is the only thing currently making the amurite worth something in late game. Without them grigori or calabim are easily more powerful as magic-user civs. (that is strange for a the childs of Kilorin not to be the best at magic)
why not using death magic ?? you pay it as any other death magic use, and compared to arcane coming lich you lose : free mana (due to 2nodes or more amurite aims for 3fire : 2 free promo), + 3 free promotions !! that means you lose at least 5 promo and maybe more. you gain 3 nature promo : difference in total promo at the same level is at least 2 (depending on the number of 2-3 mana you have). + the lich from the mage path gained free xp coming from the cave of ancestor : 10-12.
so to compet with a lvl 8 mage path lich (65-12 xp) you need a druid path lich with lvl 10 or more : 101xp or more) thus needing 50xp !!! IMO that is a cost comparable (maybe) with having a lich using all domains of mana spheres.

for just druids ? why not, calabim's way of gaining experience and uber archmages is overpowered in itself but nobody raise a fit about it...? the grigori world spell add and about lore...? why not... elohim archmage studying death and becoming lich is no more in flavour.
 
OK, a few off teh cuff ideas:

Give the Amurites a UB replacement for the mage guild which gives some bonus to arcane units fortified in the city. Possible bonuses could be additional spell range and/or damage, longer summons (as per summoner trait), or perhaps even twincast (though my gut feel is that may be going too far). Such a city could be a tough nut to crack. This would also make the Catacomb supremely desirable.

Or, allow mage guilds to act as teleport gates once the tech has been researched, so no need for obsidian gates or the Nexus.

Or, and this one may just be too powerful, allow archmages to perform level 2summoning spells, and summoners to perform level 2 sorcery spells. However, this may not be do-able, as I think the level of castable spells depends solely on Chanelling.

Or, grant Immortals Channelling II and randomly Summoning and/or Sorcery so they can begin to gain spells beyond what they may have learned from Govannon.

Or, allow archmages, summoners and liches access to twincast.

Anyway, just a few thoughts, some better than others I'll admit. I wouldn't for a moment propose adopting all of them.
 
I have to disagree that the Amurites are in any way "plain", though I must admit to wondering why their "hero" doesn't have the Hero promotion and thereby access to twincast. These people are the most powerful wizards in Erebus, so why can't Govannon learn twincast? Enough ranting, though.

Instant wizards and firebows are the defining strengths of the Amurites. I recall several games where Govannon hopped merrily among my cities, teaching even workers to cast haste and summon skeletons. Firebows turned out to be the bulk of my military, as they are a siege unit/defender/shock troop all in one, and they needn't even take damage to bring any city to its knees by way of constant flaming bombardment. I recall gifting haste-casting hawks to my friend during a hotseat game and watching his many units with blitz overrun our enemies. I recall having a city that through various buildings and other boni was churning out firebows who started with a dozen or so xp. I think that was all the city built after a certain point in the game.

A thought for Chanters in Shadow: Perhaps instead of access to Dimensional I (which Govannon could teach them anyhow), they start with access to Shadow I. Just a random thought, there.

We'll see how my favorite spell-slinging civilization fares in Shadow and its coming revisions. To all the Sheaim/Keelyn fans out there: I just built a level 4 firebow and a level 4 wizard. Now where should I put them? Summon that! hehe Have fun, all.
 
when i talk about the alter / soulforge combo....

when you sacrifice a unit you gain 2 things and i may or may not have them reversed...
1 - hammers = level ^ 2
2 - beakers = experience

anything that is going to add more xp to this equation and allow another level level is pushing the broken point.

as to the amurites power with t4 casters... its the fact that your going to have 9 of them. and the losses wont hurt. at any point you will ahve more mages ready to step up and fill the gap.

you already have a building that summons a fireball when an enemy comes close.

with 2 firebows and 2 mages in each city as a standard garrison your looking at a possible 7 fireballs into an attacking army. and they still have to deal with your defenses and 5 fireballs every turn. mix into this your workers and and other misc units casting skeletons. all of your workers having the ability to run to your capital when invaded....

have you ever tried to take cities from marksmen and flurries? especially when they can cast fireball and attack multiple times a turn (3+).

i am all for adding flavor to a civ. but the amurites do NOT need anything granting thier mages more xp or giving them more research.

I personally thank god that their hero does not have the hero promotion. another hero on the level of hemah would be broken. thats not counting the fact that he trains units.

as far as the recon line. they are intended to be different. rejoice in it and enjoy.

please look more into the way the synergies work before adding more things. if your going to add more things please look for something to take away.
 
it-ogo said:
2.As a variant, we can take off from Amurites adepts-mages and archmages at all. Instead EACH unit (maybe exept disciples and religious heroes) is considered as arcane in addition to its main specialization. So, at level 2 they CAN get promo sourcery 1, at level 5 - sourcery 2, at level 9 - sourcery 3 (and it is unlimited) as well as accordind mana promotion. And all of them gains XP with time (after Knowledge of the ether and gaining sourcery 1). It looks overpowered but remember that (a) each of sourcery 1,2,3 promo is not for free but cost a level; (b) it is accessible at higher levels which can be adjusted; (c) for s2 you must have s1, for s3 - s2 and s1. And we can balance them in other ways, e.g. take off metal weapon promos.
Crazy idea. ;)
Click to expand...

Just FYI, I really love the flaovr of this idea. And its actually incrediably easy to implment. You just create an Adept promotion, give that to all the adept units and allow all Amurite units to start with it. Then you open up all the rank 1 spell spheres to all unit combats (right now they are just limited to spellcaster unit combats) and make them all require the new Adept promotion.

"Free XP" isnt a problem because free spellcaster xp is only given to units with the bFreeXP attribute set (in the vanilla version it applied to anyone with the spell promotions, but not anymore).

I actually started to implement this idea before I thought it all the way through and realized what it would do to the Amurites. Their spellcasters would become their least useful units (definitly not the intent) and they would be way to powerful.

Of course there are a ton of ways to try to balance this, but in the end I don't think any of them capture the origional flavor that I liked so much about this idea.

Anyway, no plans to add this. But I just wanted to comment that it was a really cool idea (I enjoyed reading your ideas in you crazy ideas thread too).

@ZhugeTien: No idea why Govannon doesnt have the hero promotion, I will add it (sorry daladinn).
 
woo hoo i feel honored ... he might not have commented on my ideas ... but my thread ot a keal post in it! that means the ffh god took time away from getting shadow ready to read and post on my thread ... (looks around at all the people waiting for shadow who are now planning to kill me for taking up keals time ... gulp)

seriouslly it is nice to know that the team do look at these threads we start ... it makes us all feel like the team in a way ...

thanks guys
 
Kael said:
@ZhugeTien: No idea why Govannon doesnt have the hero promotion, I will add it (sorry daladinn).
Click to expand...

ok i made a comment in the sidar thread about how they could easily cripple the amurites by hunting down gio with there hero ... magistarcullen (sorry if i have mis-remembered your name) stated that as gio didnt have the hero trait he would be safer from him (re netherblade) ... guess thats not going to be the case!

but with the addition of the amazing sidar mechanic ... its actually starting to feel like the amurites do have a unique mechanic and feel ... there close to being the only one left thats normal :-P
 
DREWid said:
woo hoo i feel honored he might not have commented on my ideas but my thread ot a keal post in it! that means the ffh god took time away from getting shadow ready to read and post on my thread ... (looks around at all the people waiting for shadow who are now planning to kill me for taking up keals time ... gulp)

no it is nice to know that the team do look at these threads we start ... it makes us all feel like the team in a way ...

thanks guys
Click to expand...

You heard him. If "Shadow" is delayed its all DREWid's fault. ;)
 
Personally, I totally dig playing as the Amurites. I agree that they need something to make them more unique though. My thoughts:

It would be very thematically-consistent if the Amurites began the game with a unit capable of casting some spell. For that matter, the Hippus could begin with a mounted unit, etc. Some civs are defined by how they wage war, so having the appropriate unit type right from the start (instead of a warrior) would be damn cool.

Casting "Escape" is fairly useless for Chanters. I wouldn't care if the unit had its strength decreased or whatever, so long as it had a useful power. It's such a cool unit in every other respect.

Make the Amurite archmages into a unique unit. Maybe give archmages Enchantment 3 as a free promotion? That would fit well thematically with the way that Wizards get a free Spellstaff. I'm not sure really... frankly, it probably would be enough just to give the Amurite archmage a distinctive appearance. You know, like the chanter.
 
How about just giving the amurites 3 additional archmage slots? So you could have a total of 11 channeling 3 casters - 6 archmages, 3 liches, Govannon, Hemah.
 
been having a think about this ... and perhapes i havent made it clear what i was thinking with this thread ... i was trying to look at mechanics that make civs unique ... not what you can choose to do in an individual game (ie the amurite gov/druid trick)... but thinks that are part of the civ on a fundametal level that giv them there unique feel ... so im going to go through each civ and list the type of things that im talking about ... hope this will show people what i mean!

Grigori -- there heros and agnostic - these combine to give the grigori a very unique, very adaptable feel

Khazad -- the vault mechanic - no one else has anything like it, and it very much alters the way you play them compared to any other civ, no mages and awsome war machines

Lurchip - the golums - again a fundimental difference between them and any one else

Hippus - the horselord trait(permotion) - yes this comes from a building ( i beleve it was moved from being a leader trait for coding reasons) but really gives flavour to to them as a horse civ ... plus cheap mercs

Lioj - an amazing synergy with one of the religions, ability to build in trees ... +1 str to all archer units ... well its a rare day when someone doesnt let all this lot turn the civ into a forested archer filled haven for fol ...

Sav -- recon boost and synergy with sneakyness

sidar -- invisibility and the shade mechanic

Bannor -- crusades and demogos(sp?) plus all mele units having guardsman

The clan -- peaceful barbs pretty much rules the way you play

Sheam -- the whole gate mechanic

Luan - seafearing tech (ok boats are kinda pointless but the luan make the best of it!)

Balap -- the shear nutty randomness and crazyness of these guys (insane trait and the random effect of a few of there basic buildings)

malakim -- a desert mechanic that i'm sure will get improved (but yeah i'll grant you there a little plain to (hopefully till tomorrow!))

dollivero -- now heres an interesting one because at the mo they do have a very simlar feel to the clan... and in my experiance tend to play in a simaller way ... both myself and the uys that have played mp with me have experianced this)

now compared to this the amurites get one good uu (firebows) a reskined assasin (if anybody tells me there whole game style is influenced by the escape spell on this unit ... i will shout liar at them!) some bonus exp for there mages (and as i've shown above ... it is possible for other civs to go fireball mage out of the box) and a civ boosting killable hero ... which in mp is very possible, unless you micromanage bringing all units to gov way away from your borders, i tend to find people try to spot when hes in range and kill him.

now it might just be me but what that boils down to, if govanno is killed, as being totally unique to the amurites is -

1)fireballs on longbows

now i know i'm going to have people disagree ... but i hope ive shown enough to at least make people think ... every other civ that gets a boost to units does it off an unkillable building (archery range/ bannor training yard) or an easily replaced unit (battlemasters)

so i hope i've made my point!

(p.s. come on keal get shadow out on time ... i dont want the community to linch me!)
 
was talking with one of the other people i play alot with and he pointed out the one weakness to the amurite mages that i failed to make a note of. imho this if done in moderation would not overpower them but assist in the general feel thats already present.

sorcery ... mage school .... reduces upgrade cost of arcane units by 15%
conjurors ... school of summoning ... another 15% reduction
archamges ... metamagic tower .... another 15% reduction
summoners ... ethereal portal .... another 15% reduction

the biggest problem with having all of these highly skilled adepts coming into play was the lack of being able to upgrade them (cash issues) , this would solve that.

i always felt the feel of the amurites is to have magic in the hands of the populace , hence a higher number of adepts and mages. i dont see giving them more archamges as a good solution , however making the jump from adept to mags easier does feel right.


keal ? are you sure making govanon the most powerful hero in the game is a good solution? atm hemah is uncontested with our peaceful mage a close second (forgetting name atm).

ok , my 2 coppers for the day ... take care all
 
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