ashen viel

[daladinn]

hello all ,
well i dont read the forums as often as i could and i have never posted until now. I saw the poll below on state religions and about cried. I could not believe how few peopel actually use the ashen viel religion. Let me outline a few things

Temple ,
+2 beaker as opposed to gold or culture ( these are raw beakers before being modified by percentages )

Ritualist,
one of the strongest units in the game for the cost. Having BOTH divine and summoning this unit becomes a staple very fast. ALSO it is capable of using unholy taint for much fster leveling ( insane when playing shiam ). Having access to death 3 summons and fire 3 pillar of fire once upgraded to highpriests is wrong. ( death 2 nightmares are immune to a large stack attack due to fear also )

heros,
-- rosier the fallen ,
pretty vanilla hearo for calvary and an even match for valin

-- mardero ,
Lets jsut say "sick and disgusting" here we come back to having sorcery and summoning on the same here .... AND he is a 15/2

base religious stuff ,
-- holy city +2 beakers
-- stigmata of the unborn ... +1 beaker per city with the viel

Infernal grimiore,
free tech in the mid to high range.... woot

eidolon,
great staple units for the plunder and pillage programs strength 14 with march. if you can get them to combat 5 and get the fear promotion they are almost unstopable.

summary,....

the ashen viel is a great religion for several base reasons,
1-- very high tendency to stay ahead on the tech curve and be able to field stronger units faster.
2-- ability to almost totally ignore the magic magic trees if desired. having summoning available to your priests from an early stage is a huge advantage.
3-- fast leveling rate of priests puts high priests into the field much faster.

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

Infernal Grimoire can be build by everyone and eidolons can also be build by octopus and leaves followers.

The problem with yielding beacers is that the normal money bonus from the other tempels will let you run 100% research without losing money -> this often results in more beacers than the beacers form ashen tempels and holy building.

 

[Bad Player]

What's this about the unholy taint and fast XP?

 

[BCalchet]

Unholy Taint (Entropy II + Divine):
Weakens the caster but increases the rate at which he gains experience.

IIRC, it adds -25% combat strength while boosting experience gain by an unknown amount. Useless if you're planning to have the priest fight in the future, but doesn't really hurt to use for casters who will be protected.

 

[daladinn]

i keep seeing issues where i am running 100% research and still makign a profit even if a small one. Looking in the windows i see the sliders changing my base coin/research based on the coin i get from tiles. jsut building the basic builing that nets me 3 gold for 1 beaker puts me into the positive until my upkeeps start to build up. by then i have had other sources. once research is at 100% teh only way i can increase it is by adding raw beakers. adding raw beakers is often the best route since modifiers are scarce (liibrary, academy , crown).

what i am saying with unholy taint is that combined with summoning you will quickly be making skeltones and nightmares with combat 5 and +2 movement.

looking at nightmares (death2 + summoning) figuring a movement of 4 .... i can typically reach a neighboring city in most cases without stepping out of mine. and combat 5 with fear is fun

if you have arcane and/or summoning its truely broken,
arcane -- level even faster
summoning -- nighmares last 3 turns have a range of 12+ squares and you can field 4 per priest ( casting 1 every turn )

 

[QES]

Infernal Grimoire can be build by everyone and eidolons can also be build by octopus and leaves followers.

The problem with yielding beacers is that the normal money bonus from the other tempels will let you run 100% research without losing money -> this often results in more beacers than the beacers form ashen tempels and holy building.

The more i think on this, the more i think that the Leaves religion should be considered "good".

We have 2 evil reilgions, 2 neutral, and one good. Does this make sense?

Leaves is more "Goody goody/ hippie love forest fest" than anything. IT promotions balance, and sincerity, etc. How are these not good? The concept of balance (Even in morality) is considered a good thing. I vote that Leaves becomes good, and that they lose access to deamonic ventures.

Then youd have leaves (good), runes (neutral), OO (evil), Order (good), Veil (Evil). And i suppose Cult (Other).

-Qes

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

The more i think on this, the more i think that the Leaves religion should be considered "good".

We have 2 evil reilgions, 2 neutral, and one good. Does this make sense?

Leaves is more "Goody goody/ hippie love forest fest" than anything. IT promotions balance, and sincerity, etc. How are these not good? The concept of balance (Even in morality) is considered a good thing. I vote that Leaves becomes good, and that they lose access to deamonic ventures.

Then youd have leaves (good), runes (neutral), OO (evil), Order (good), Veil (Evil). And i suppose Cult (Other).

-Qes

- Runes is considered good as far as I know

- Leaves is neutral because nature is also neutral (beiing made up by life and death as natural things. kind of like in d&d were druids have to be neutral...)

 

[Chalid]

We have 2 evil reilgions, 2 neutral, and one good. Does this make sense?

veil (evil)
oo (neutral/evil)
leaves (neutral)
runes (neutral/good)
order (good)

 

[daladinn]

sorry , i checked on the infernal grimiore and your right ...
anyone can build it ....
the founder does tend to have an advantage though

also i forgot the advantage of running sacrifice the weak. +10% gold and another source of hurrying production can be big boosts

 

[QES]

- Runes is considered good as far as I know

- Leaves is neutral because nature is also neutral (beiing made up by life and death as natural things. kind of like in d&d were druids have to be neutral...)

I agree that the theme makes sense in theory, but in practicality it doesnt pan out that way in FFH. OO is evil, and agressive. Ashenveil is evil and disturbing. Runes just wants to make money and isolationist. Order is proactively trying to "save the world". So where does leaves fit in? Save nature? Isnt that good? If a religion is in juxtaposition from evil isnt that good? Neutral strikes me as always doing both good and bad things, or neither.

Leaves people treat thier citizens VERY well. They protect, not destroy. And the grow things, not kill. While death is a part of that process, there isnt a lot of emphasis on destruction of enemies, or death, its defensive posturing, and guardianship. Often these are seen as "good qualities". Death doesnt have to be evil, but the behavior of leaves is certainly good.
-Qes

 

[Lord Vermillion]

I personally like to combine the runes (as my state) and then found the veil, to spread for the temple, and the beaker buff (not to mention 10% mil. prod.). I find the combo of the two to be quite unstoppable IMHO.

 

[QES]

I personally like to combine the runes (as my state) and then found the veil, to spread for the temple, and the beaker buff (not to mention 10% mil. prod.). I find the combo of the two to be quite unstoppable IMHO.

Yes but the ashen vale alone is still fairly weak. Beakers be damned, technology isnt useful in a game until it has tangible benefits for conquering, defending, or generating means toward another type of victory. If there was a tech victory, then the ashen vale would be uber indeed. But without it, it needs to lead somewhere.
-Qes

 

[Keldan]

Indeed, any civilisation can build the Infernal Grimoire (even these following Order )

I don't think having science income from temple instead culture or gold is a big problem. I don't know what is the ratio between 1 gold/1 culture/1 science but after playing Ashen Veil, I don't see a lot of difference (well, each game is unique...). And you can adopt the special civic "sacrifice the weak" : no cost, gold boost and science boost.
So you earn less money, but with less money you can have more science.

But the bad point of this religion is the lake of a good special building. Fellowship have the great Yggdrasil (unique and powerful ressource !), Kilmorph the cool Mines of Gal-Dur (+3 iron) and Octopus the useful Tower of Complacency (no unhapiness... with slavery !). Order don't have wonder, but basilica is a good money saver building (-40% maintenance, with Courthouse : -80% !).
Ashen Veil provide the Demon's Altar... "sacrifice your living units for extra research"... spending time to build unit to destroy them... well, I prefer set city production to "science", and I save money from unit maintenance.
But this building give the Scourge promotion to units bulding in the city. I don't really know if this promotion is really useful (I play for fun, not for statistics ), but in theory it should help killing crusader, eidolon, druid and inquisitor (and of course, weaker disciple units).

In my humble opinion, it could be a cool thing if the infernal grimoire was the Ashen Veil wonder. One shot wonder, but altar give a permanent bonus.
And in this case, Order will be the only religion without wonder so... why not something like "purge the unfaithful". After all, The Order is fascism and fanaticism, so it is logical that they kill all unfaithful.

 

[Grey Fox]

In my first game as Calabim I went for the Veil. And I made my priests vampires, and later upgraded them into Inquisitors and High priests, 300 Exp Summoner/Sorcerers! With pillar of fire and lots of summons and stuff. Combining this with vampires at 200-300+ Exp and 2-3 cities at 17-22 in Size (could get 40~ exp every 2-4 turns without gimping the cities too much).

But in the end I find Leaves to be a better combo with the vampires, atleast in the early game until there are other ways to keep the civilization happy and healthy, and the cities large.

 

[QES]

veil (evil)
oo (neutral/evil)
leaves (neutral)
runes (neutral/good)
order (good)

How is there 'Neutral good" or "Neutral evil" in civ? I understand how it works in D&D, but either something is giving you good points or evil points or neither right? Alignment shifts come at a point consideration, and there arnt "neutral points" are there?
-Qes

 

[Grey Fox]

How is there 'Neutral good" or "Neutral evil" in civ? I understand how it works in D&D, but either something is giving you good points or evil points or neither right? Alignment shifts come at a point consideration, and there arnt "neutral points" are there?
-Qes

I would consider them like Chalid put it aswell. Especially in this dark fantasy setting.

 

[Lord Vermillion]

Yes but the ashen vale alone is still fairly weak. Beakers be damned, technology isnt useful in a game until it has tangible benefits for conquering, defending, or generating means toward another type of victory. If there was a tech victory, then the ashen vale would be uber indeed. But without it, it needs to lead somewhere.
-Qes

Heh, precisely why I said AFTER getting the runes I get the veil, I would never get it solo, unless I was forced too. About tech..... How do u think u get the better military units? The better (farther advanced) tech, the better (farther advanced) units that are far better suited for conquest

 

[QES]

Aside from alignment issues. I want to see the Ashen Vale be feared as the OO is feared. The ashen vale should be DANGEROUS to allow to grow to your city if your not ashen vale in nature. Perhaps their sinister workings HURT a civ that has ashen vale religion in their cities, but does NOT have it as the prime religion. I think agnostic (but not free religion) should be immune to this effect.

The ashen vale should be seen by other religions - even the OO as something to be expunged, because it is TOO dangerous to allow to continue. I'd like it to be some sort of creeping doom, spreading throughout the world. The order, naturally, is the best defense, as the ashen vale wont spread to order cities. And vice versa.

I'm thinking this: Ashen Vale Provides normal benefits if you've the ashen vale as a state religion. If you do not, the cities with ashen vale recieve - 2 happy AND - 10% production. Pretty nasty no? Ashen vale temples do normal things for ashen vale civs, but for non-state religion peoples, it provides +2 happy, +10% Production (to reduce previous effects) BUT it also adds a promotion to all units built in that city. "Vale" Vale gives -30% str against a civ with ashen vale as a state religion, AND -70% strength against Vale Disciple units.

How about them apples?

EDIT: This affect would be less about the constructive efforts of Vale civilizations, and more about theor corrupting nature. Using tactics to get veil out of a city would be the best way of combating them, since the Veil itself isnt that uber. But if the veil spread... Then suddenly your units might be very hampered against them in a war, and very hampered against them if they use disciple units. (Note that a total of -100% doesnt mean 0, as any bonuses are added to the base number, if youve a 7 str unit, +70% total -100% total, it'll equal out to -30%, not 0)
-Qes

 

[Grillick]

You cannot be evil and have Runes of Kilmorph.

You cannot be good and have Octopus Overlords.

That is what is meant by neutral/good and neutral/evil.

 

[Kael]

How is there 'Neutral good" or "Neutral evil" in civ? I understand how it works in D&D, but either something is giving you good points or evil points or neither right? Alignment shifts come at a point consideration, and there arnt "neutral points" are there?
-Qes

The runes are neutral or good because you can be either alignment and have them as a state religion. If you are evil and adopt the Runes you become neutral.

The Overlords are the same in the other way, you can be Neutral or Evil and follow them. If you are good and adopt the Overlords you become neutral.

And alignment can be the followship.

edit: Drat, Grillick beat me.