Farmer Bobathan
Sanity is for the weak
That was another issue in the pikeman thread and i agree that the archery line needs to be made better.
An Amurite Manifesto (or DREWids big wish list!)
- Thread starter DREWid
- Start date
That was another issue in the pikeman thread and i agree that the archery line needs to be made better.
I've got to say, I love firebows. I build them like crazy as soon as I can, and make a beeline for Form of the Titan just for them.
With other civs, I tend to try and have Mages in a lot of my border cities to soften up attackers and grow my borders (using Hope), which needless say gets expensive. With Firebows, far fewer mages are needed (paradoxically enough for the Amurites). And an Arquebus or Crossbowman that was upgraded from a Firebow is quite a thing. Fireball-tossing crossbowman make a great gift to ones allies or vassals during a war.
Here's an idea for the Amurites, one that I don't think has made the rounds before:
Replace liches with a weaker, living unit. Their actual strength would be reduced down to something quite low, maybe even lower than the strength of the wizard unit -- to represent the fact that these are truly ancient, venerable wizards. The lore of the Amurites mentions that they ban certain kinds of dark, dangerous magic, and the Lich spell could be it. Instead their Archmages (which would be renamed, since they are no longer "arch") would upgrade normally to another tier of national units.
There's something of a tradition in fantasy literature for magic schools to operate very much like guilds, with apprentices and masters. So, you could have something like:
[PRE]
Adept -> Mage -> Archmage (national unit) -> Lich (national unit)
Becomes
Apprentice -> Wizard -> Master (national unit) -> Great Master (national unit)
(Weak) (Strong) (Stronger) (Old and physically weak again)[/PRE] (I really hope the formatting works properly here...)
Not really very much in the way of extra power, but dripping with flavour. Plus, by remaining alive, these units could continue to benefit from the haste spell they learned from Govannon.
A bit like Great Commanders in BTS, but only applicable to adepts? The value of this would really vary with map size. On large maps with lots of mana nodes, +2 experience just for adepts in one city just doesn't mean much to the Amurites.
Still, I like the direction that's going. I don't think it would be specific to the Amurites though; the addition of an arcane specialist could be a very interesting game mechanic in general.
westamastaflash
Lord Commander
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2007
- Messages
- 933
How about Amurite Great Scientists give +2 xp to adepts and +1 beaker?
I think it would make more sense for it to be -1 beaker. After all, if Amurite sages are spending time training adepts, they're NOT spending that time doing new research. And of course, it can't unbalance things.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I think the team should make it so that civics and specialists can add xp for specific unitcombats, so that civics can alter the free xp from buildings, so that civics can alter the xp from specialists, so so that civics can alter the free research/gold/culture/etc of each type of epecialist seperately, so that buildings can alter the xp from specialists for each unitcombat in their city or all cities, etc. Then we can play around with these options more easily, and decide if any of them fit the Amurites, or any other civ.
That would also provide a chance to give a little bit of extra XP to the Hippus mounted units, and other types of civ-specialty units.
xienwolf
Deity
Just might want to avoid allowing the Sidar to get extra experience from their enhanced specialists. Insta-Shades might become a tad too easy
True enough. Although the Sidar -- at least in my opinion -- can already exploit that to some extent with magic-using units anyway, through their natural process of gaining XP over time as well as the altar of the luonatar. The Sidar and the Calabim don't need any more XP.Just might want to avoid allowing the Sidar to get extra experience from their enhanced specialists. Insta-Shades might become a tad too easy
A mechanism like the one described would need to be fairly civ-specific, perhaps adapted for just a few particular civs. Like Hippus could get bonus XP for mounted units using Great Commander specialists, more so than they would by having their Great Commanders build Command Posts. An arcane specialist could benefit the Adepts of the Amurites and the Sheiam's Portal Gate creatures. The Elohim's Monks could gain XP from Great Prophet specialists, as could one or two of the Bannor's UUs. For the Luichurp and Khazad, Great Engineers specialists granting XP to siege units is a no brainer.
DREWid .... don't disappear back into the lurker world ... 
your proposition are good and all.
for amurites becoming less bland.. I have no more ideas, so much has been proposed...
The only real issue I find now for them is the uniqueness of govannon.
why are amurites bland : summary :
truly, no other civ depends SO much on ONE unit to have their uniqueness...
even the lurchuips can build golems without barnaxus.
The cave and the firebows are good, but not so much and not so unique.
_fireballs are launched by everyone,
_archery line is not interesting save for elves or for a defense only strategy
_if you want to devellop your cities you have to tech everywhere save in the archer and the magic line.... having all your uniqueness in those 2 lines can be crippling for an empire, either you are unique and 'undevelloped' or you develop your empire and you play vanilla...)
1 turn mages -cave of ancestors-
_can (not easily but still) be emulated by any civ : civics : +4, form of the titan : +2, command post : +2, easy xp +2 ... =10 (use xp on combat promo, losen a chaos marauder summon, try to disband him, he becomes barb, launch 1 fireball on him : he is flatened, (if you can, else put him on a desert and attack him, you already have combat IV) kill him with your new adept : +2 xp (at least)
(there are two issues : I'm sure I missed some free xp for the new adept ; amurites don't have 10 free xp every games....)
conclusion
so all the uniqueness relies on govanon : a lot of micromanagement and he can be easily killed.... and the only other good point is the "ranger-lich" path that is called the "druid-exploit"... (well truly an exploit now that govannon teaches fire1 ...)
(the only civ that relies so much on heroes are : mercurian and infernals who are immensely unique even without the hero and lurchuips... who can always build golems and whose heros can be rebuilt !!!!)
I may propose a new option :
_I liked the idea of having amurite lichs becoming UU told before by mdfairch: Dark-wizards or uber-old wizard or Mage-professors or ...whatever... making them alive and weak is also good.
then : take care of the druid exploit :
remove it or nerf it a bit : make lichdom randomly lose the divine or summoner or sorcery promotion.. so they never can have the 3 : amurite can gain 2 domain lichs but not 3 and you can't be sure which ones will be chosen. for other civs it doesn't change.
Finally :
allow those lichs UU to be able to teach, as govannon, but they need lvl 3 in one domain to teach it... and may even be limited to the spheres govannon can already teach.
thus : (4 in 1 bonus)
-uniqueness of the amurite is not lost when govanon dies (teaching)
-less micro as you can have late game potentially 4 teachers
-reducing the druid-exploit as those new lichs are weak and lose a spell familly
-not an increase of powere for the amurites as : those dark-wiazrd need either 'druid exploit' that is nerfed or sacrifying an archmage (+ 2 promo) to obtain a unit that becomes weaker in strenght : more easily killable, and the teaching ability is limited to few spheres as they would need lvl 2 to teach : death ... and fire as mostly your archmages would have fire, and maybe 1 other mana sphere per lich. (even more limited if restricted to the spheres govanon can teach as your archmages may have air3/law3 ..etc thatare not teachable.)
your proposition are good and all.
for amurites becoming less bland.. I have no more ideas, so much has been proposed...
The only real issue I find now for them is the uniqueness of govannon.
why are amurites bland : summary :
truly, no other civ depends SO much on ONE unit to have their uniqueness...
even the lurchuips can build golems without barnaxus.
The cave and the firebows are good, but not so much and not so unique.
_fireballs are launched by everyone,
_archery line is not interesting save for elves or for a defense only strategy
_if you want to devellop your cities you have to tech everywhere save in the archer and the magic line.... having all your uniqueness in those 2 lines can be crippling for an empire, either you are unique and 'undevelloped' or you develop your empire and you play vanilla...)
1 turn mages -cave of ancestors-
_can (not easily but still) be emulated by any civ : civics : +4, form of the titan : +2, command post : +2, easy xp +2 ... =10 (use xp on combat promo, losen a chaos marauder summon, try to disband him, he becomes barb, launch 1 fireball on him : he is flatened, (if you can, else put him on a desert and attack him, you already have combat IV) kill him with your new adept : +2 xp (at least)
(there are two issues : I'm sure I missed some free xp for the new adept ; amurites don't have 10 free xp every games....)
conclusion
so all the uniqueness relies on govanon : a lot of micromanagement and he can be easily killed.... and the only other good point is the "ranger-lich" path that is called the "druid-exploit"... (well truly an exploit now that govannon teaches fire1 ...
)(the only civ that relies so much on heroes are : mercurian and infernals who are immensely unique even without the hero and lurchuips... who can always build golems and whose heros can be rebuilt !!!!)
I may propose a new option :
_I liked the idea of having amurite lichs becoming UU told before by mdfairch: Dark-wizards or uber-old wizard or Mage-professors or ...whatever... making them alive and weak is also good.
then : take care of the druid exploit :
remove it or nerf it a bit : make lichdom randomly lose the divine or summoner or sorcery promotion.. so they never can have the 3 : amurite can gain 2 domain lichs but not 3 and you can't be sure which ones will be chosen. for other civs it doesn't change.
Finally :
allow those lichs UU to be able to teach, as govannon, but they need lvl 3 in one domain to teach it... and may even be limited to the spheres govannon can already teach.
thus : (4 in 1 bonus)
-uniqueness of the amurite is not lost when govanon dies (teaching)
-less micro as you can have late game potentially 4 teachers
-reducing the druid-exploit as those new lichs are weak and lose a spell familly
-not an increase of powere for the amurites as : those dark-wiazrd need either 'druid exploit' that is nerfed or sacrifying an archmage (+ 2 promo) to obtain a unit that becomes weaker in strenght : more easily killable, and the teaching ability is limited to few spheres as they would need lvl 2 to teach : death ... and fire as mostly your archmages would have fire, and maybe 1 other mana sphere per lich. (even more limited if restricted to the spheres govanon can teach as your archmages may have air3/law3 ..etc thatare not teachable.)
TravellingHat
Warlord
Love the "tutor" idea for the lich.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I think that Lichdom shouldn't be a death III spell, but a spell availible to any arcane unit either on the Broken Sepulcher's Tile or with the Staff of Souls (or whatever Barbatos's staff is called). Since an arcane unit doesn't gain the ability to cast or learn any more spells, I don't see why the number of liches should be limited. I'm thinking it might also be good for them to start with death I and Unholy Taint, or at least the combat and extension I promotions that the civilopedia claims thay have (which they did have before BtS)
The Abashi Civilopedia entry makes be think think of a better death III spell: "Accursed Ground" (or a better name). This would change the tile below it (probably adding a feature, so it can exist on top of hell terrain. It would be removed by sancifying) so that any living unit that dis there would be raised again as an undead unit with similar strength (sorta like a mobile mokka's cauldron, but it should be an undead unit, not a flesh golem. Actually, Mokka's Cauldron should really go back to using skeletons instead of flesh golems, although everything else about it could remain the same. Also, it might be appropriate for Blessed units not to rise as undead) Of course, it might be hard to know who should own the undead units. Perhaps they should be barbarian instead (making this much more powerful for barb trait civs), or belong to the nearest unit with Death III and the barbs otherwise.
I definitely don't like the idea of Liches teaching spells, although I'm not sure teaching should be limited to Govannon. Maybe Govannon should also be able to teach units to teach other units. I think that Govannon should be able to teach all sphere spells, but not necessarilt the current way. He should require a hingher level and/or (as I might preferas it fits his personality and reduced micromanagement) for the player to have no control over whom and what he teaches. He would probably prefer to teach weaker, lower level units with fewer promotions (prefering workiers, and not liking to teach arcane units, sine they already have someone to teach them). That way, it might even be appropriate for him to be able to train sorcery and channeling II, and rarely maybe even channeling II and Tutor (or whatever you think a promotion that allow other arcane units to train spells should be called)
The Abashi Civilopedia entry makes be think think of a better death III spell: "Accursed Ground" (or a better name). This would change the tile below it (probably adding a feature, so it can exist on top of hell terrain. It would be removed by sancifying) so that any living unit that dis there would be raised again as an undead unit with similar strength (sorta like a mobile mokka's cauldron, but it should be an undead unit, not a flesh golem. Actually, Mokka's Cauldron should really go back to using skeletons instead of flesh golems, although everything else about it could remain the same. Also, it might be appropriate for Blessed units not to rise as undead) Of course, it might be hard to know who should own the undead units. Perhaps they should be barbarian instead (making this much more powerful for barb trait civs), or belong to the nearest unit with Death III and the barbs otherwise.
I definitely don't like the idea of Liches teaching spells, although I'm not sure teaching should be limited to Govannon. Maybe Govannon should also be able to teach units to teach other units. I think that Govannon should be able to teach all sphere spells, but not necessarilt the current way. He should require a hingher level and/or (as I might preferas it fits his personality and reduced micromanagement) for the player to have no control over whom and what he teaches. He would probably prefer to teach weaker, lower level units with fewer promotions (prefering workiers, and not liking to teach arcane units, sine they already have someone to teach them). That way, it might even be appropriate for him to be able to train sorcery and channeling II, and rarely maybe even channeling II and Tutor (or whatever you think a promotion that allow other arcane units to train spells should be called)
Actually, this is one thing that's very interesting with the Amurites -- they can get a lot of mana if they really want to ... by forming colonies.
When you settle a new continent, it probably only adds one or two mana nodes. Spawn it off as a colony, and you can immediately demand that mana back, as well as that new civs three additional mana types. Spawn two colonies and find one mana node, and you're already at +10 xp from the cave of ancestors. And how often do you find just one mana node? Add a holy city and the tower of necromancy, and you're talking about some tough Wizards.
I've settled islands with a couple of cities JUST for the mana. It's a compelling advantage for the Amurites. And it fits well with their character -- they aren't empire builders, so they're happy to let distant cities form their own colonies so long as they give up their mana.
xienwolf
Deity
I'd love it if anyone taught by Govanon was able to teach others the same. Fits thematically as well
Easiest way to implement: new promotion "Magic Liberal." And the "teach" spells require that promotion (which Govannon starts with and spreads) instead of requiring unitclass_govannon
Easiest way to implement: new promotion "Magic Liberal." And the "teach" spells require that promotion (which Govannon starts with and spreads) instead of requiring unitclass_govannon
mdfairch : you're right
But I have not BTS so I'm rnever really think about colonies
and you need mana Type so if the spawned civ has in it's palace some mana you already have.. you're toasted
ut I will keep the idea in mind for when I will have bts
But I have not BTS so I'm rnever really think about colonies
and you need mana Type so if the spawned civ has in it's palace some mana you already have.. you're toasted
ut I will keep the idea in mind for when I will have btswestamastaflash
Lord Commander
- Joined
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- 933
Great idea - I love that you can demand the palace's mana. Just hope you get a civ that doesn't like you because you're netural.
it-ogo
Hedgehog
- Joined
- May 23, 2007
- Messages
- 589
Nice to have specific teaching specialists. In my mind it is like Sidar do: sacrifice lvl 6 unit in a city to have +1xp for all new units of that type built in that city and maybe +% production for them. So specialists are: melee trainer, archery trainer, recon trainer etc. Good for specialization strategies.
Spreading your religion there first helps a lot.
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