ashen viel

[QES]

And the fact that Ashen Veil cant spread to a city with the Order, makes it even more a "pick your side" factor.

If Veil would work as proposed, shouldnt the order work in a similar fashion (but with an appropriate negative, could be more negative on evil civs and vice versa)? So that it forces the civ to either pick Order or Veil (to not get the negative effects), or remove those from your cities and keep your early religion. This to balance the fact that they come much later.

I see the Veil as being weak and the Order not really as being such. By implementing the proposed for the veil, you automatically increase the strength of the order through the inability of the order and veil of sharing a city. As the veil is a negative force (entropy anyone?) it makes sense that power then is granted to those immune from the effects. One doesnt need "bonuses" to be powerful if everyone else is suffering. Order becomes important out of need of prevention (like medicine) and the vale alligence becomes important out of corruption. Vale civs arnt adversely affected by vale presence, and order prevents vale presence. These combination of factors make these "late additions" the religion spheres VERY powerful. They're mere presence is either necessary or undesired as opposed to some sort of neutrality. You may be a runes civ, but if Ashen vale starts creeping into your lands, you may VERY QUICKLY want to get the order involved to help preserve your cities, OR you'll be forced to sanction the vale (building of temples etc, which still hurt you, and make you a defacto vassel), OR you convert to the Vale - which allows you independance, but now your forced down a path you may not have wanted.

I REALLY hope something like this gets implemented... as it would make the veil very cool to play, and VERY HARD to play against. I want to Fear the veil, i want to loathe the veil, or, conversely, revel in its corruption.
-Qes

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Yes, very nice ideas here. I see the Veil as the aggressive force and the Order as the reactionary force. The reason the Order is so strict is because they have to root out all evil, otherwise they aren't serving their purpose. I very much like the idea of being forced to (a) Side with the Veil, (b) Side with the Order, (c) Appease the Veil, or (d) Get ready for total war. 'Cause after all, the Veil isn't nearly as much of a threat if its holy city and its followers are all dead. Perhaps the Veil holy city could give +1 for each Veil building automatically, even in other empires? Then the Stigmata on the Unborn would give an additional +1 for each Veil city. Sounds good to me!

 

[daladinn]

i have to totally DISAGREE with halancar and i encourage you to try playing it this way once.

i was playing shiam and rushed for the ashen veil . skip the following tech and head for hgh priests and inquisitors next..

as for troops , you should not have much of an issue defending with jsut warriors until you can get rosier. once you have priesthood (following veil) start pumping out your ritualists. your ritualist shoudl start with 2xp (apprentiship) and take the entropy 2 promotion first and cast unholy taint. combining unholy taint with the arcane promotions means they level fast and will be ready for promotion by the time you get highpriests.

combat tactics,
--ritualists gaurded by nightmares (you can have 3 nightmares in play per ritualist) allow safe movement into conflict.
--ring of flame can tear down most stacks with the nightmares doign clean up

advanced,
once you get highpriests, the other civs are typically only on T3 units and you have yoru first T4's
-- wraiths are used for land clearing and bbalor for city attack
-- pillar of flame for stack busting

note on useign this tactic.....
i still maintained a significant tech lead ... my production was offset by not needing to build many units (relying on summons)

i maintained this lead well into getting my eater of souls and after that it was total victory.

notes.....
i play on quick setting
runes / OO / leaves typically founed around 60
i can get veil around 80 and rosier around 100
first hgih prist shows around turn 150

try this and tell me what you think............

 

[Halancar]

i have to totally DISAGREE with halancar and i encourage you to try playing it this way once.

i was playing shiam and rushed for the ashen veil . skip the following tech and head for hgh priests and inquisitors next..

as for troops , you should not have much of an issue defending with jsut warriors until you can get rosier. once you have priesthood (following veil) start pumping out your ritualists. your ritualist shoudl start with 2xp (apprentiship) and take the entropy 2 promotion first and cast unholy taint. combining unholy taint with the arcane promotions means they level fast and will be ready for promotion by the time you get highpriests.

combat tactics,
--ritualists gaurded by nightmares (you can have 3 nightmares in play per ritualist) allow safe movement into conflict.
--ring of flame can tear down most stacks with the nightmares doign clean up

advanced,
once you get highpriests, the other civs are typically only on T3 units and you have yoru first T4's
-- wraiths are used for land clearing and bbalor for city attack
-- pillar of flame for stack busting

note on useign this tactic.....
i still maintained a significant tech lead ... my production was offset by not needing to build many units (relying on summons)

i maintained this lead well into getting my eater of souls and after that it was total victory.

notes.....
i play on quick setting
runes / OO / leaves typically founed around 60
i can get veil around 80 and rosier around 100
first hgih prist shows around turn 150
try this and tell me what you think............

[/QUOTE]

I did mention that I thought the late game was fine. And to me, inquisitors and high priests belong in the late game.

And I usually play epic. Which means even after I found the veil (around turn 250 if I hurry), I still have a long time to wait for ritualists. Meanwhile, at least one of my neighbours has discovered a t3 unit, and all of them have at least t2. And high priests are at least another 250 turns away...

It takes all my skill to stay alive long enough to reach the late game. I fare much better if I adopt Runes/Leaves/OO, found the Veil, but don't switch until much later. I suspect that playing quick, you just rush past the difficult period quickly enough not to notice. Whereas I have 200 turns of everyone having a better religion than me AND hating me to look forward to.

 

[daladinn]

waht are the specs that you set the game up as? i agree late game as the veil si so easy its funny , i was talkign about mid game really .... i would like to try what i am talking about on your settings.

 

[Halancar]

I play Emperor / Epic / Huge.

 

[QES]

I did mention that I thought the late game was fine. And to me, inquisitors and high priests belong in the late game.

And I usually play epic. Which means even after I found the veil (around turn 250 if I hurry), I still have a long time to wait for ritualists. Meanwhile, at least one of my neighbours has discovered a t3 unit, and all of them have at least t2. And high priests are at least another 250 turns away...

It takes all my skill to stay alive long enough to reach the late game. I fare much better if I adopt Runes/Leaves/OO, found the Veil, but don't switch until much later. I suspect that playing quick, you just rush past the difficult period quickly enough not to notice. Whereas I have 200 turns of everyone having a better religion than me AND hating me to look forward to.

If I'm going to wait to get veil, i'd like there to be some reward waiting for my efforts when i get there. I still say Chand and I's idea works best, a slow corrupting force that forces you to either side with order or veil.
-Qes

 

[vorshlumpf]

Very thoughtful post, Halancar. I agree with most of what you say.
Specific feedback:

- Possible access to Sacrifice the Weak (from the Grimoire, if you choose that tech). In the early game, this is not a useful civic. Your cities are just too small to make sacrificing population useful, particularly since you are in the middle of the "raising happycap" process.

Agreed. In the two games I've played with Ashen Veil, I never considered this Civic for more than a second.

- Possible access to the Demon Altar. Free scourge promotion was it, for -1 happiness ? Can I laugh ?

Yup. Plus the scourge promotion is only given to two types of units: melee and beast.

And you know what else you get ?
- Diplomatic penalties every possible way

Yes, my first game I actually got wiped out by an alliance of Veil-haters, including Hyborem! The second time I waited until I had a distinct defensive infrastructure before switching.

-> Entropy use penalty, from the holy city. And what's the point of founding a religion if you then have to restrain from building it ?

By the way, though you may know of this, there is currently an exploit for such things. Trade your Entropy and Death mana away as soon as you get it. Most others are happy to take them, they get the diplo-penalties, and you can still get the spell options for your adepts (simply cancel the deal when some adepts are ready to choose, then re-negotiate in the same turn). This exploit is one I hope is addressed, but I haven't had a chance to mention it yet (assuming no one else has).

As for your suggestions, I agree with the tweak for Savants and really like the idea for the Demon Alter (the most useless building in the game, as far as I'm concerned). I was thinking that it would be good incentive to have a AV wonder (such as the one you proposed) that requires a certain number of Demon Alters.

============================================

i was playing shiam and rushed for the ashen veil . skip the following tech and head for hgh priests and inquisitors next..

as for troops , you should not have much of an issue defending with jsut warriors until you can get rosier.

What difficulty setting is this on? What style of barbarians? I always go with raging barbs, and play either Monarch or Emperor, and the above game plan would lead to my ruin every time.

combining unholy taint with the arcane promotions means they level fast and will be ready for promotion by the time you get highpriests.

Does the Arcane trait work on disciple units? I've always assumed (naturally), no.

--ring of flame can tear down most stacks with the nightmares doign clean up

Do you actually 'tear down most stacks' with Ring of Flame? And not using the RoF exploit? In my experience, it does very little damage, and I only use it if I have nothing else for my caster to do.

- Niilo

 

[Halancar]

Do you actually 'tear down most stacks' with Ring of Flame? And not using the RoF exploit? In my experience, it does very little damage, and I only use it if I have nothing else for my caster to do.

I dont know, I've killed ships with it. It took 5 or 6 RoF, but they went down, so I guess the same thing is true for troops. Even without the exploit, put enough ritualists together and you can do something. As long as the enemy doesn't counterattack, that is...

 

[daladinn]

well , i have noticeda few things...

tended to play custom maps with more civs and that meant less barbs running amok. playing a straight game under your conditions i had to change tactics a bit and grab hunting for survival early on (the 3/2 hunters helped)

I learned that i cant really play on epic (mostly boredom related)

as far as wether the arcane trait works on disciple units.... my tests when playing thessa and useing priests vs useing armalachair(sp) showed them leveling faster. also playing shiam with arcane i find my ritualists(with taint) level significantly faster then my adpets ( guess about 2x the rate)

as far as dealing with stacks ... yes i tend to run 6-8 ritualist in a semi loose formation of 2-3 per stack which i can manuver as nessessary. the only unit i have found capable of killing a stack on its own is an "eater of souls" ( typically the uniti push for after highpriests)

i have found on monarch and above my ritualists can handle anything coming thier way once i have them (the AI tends to play the order poorly). the only difficulty i found was getting there when i had a decent amount of barbarians to deal with (again hunters were effective here)

even given the penalty for death and entopy mana i still wish certain evil civs started with death , namely the shiam and calabim. for both of them i see it as a matter of survival in their specific fields of interest. as the shiam i often am getting arcane lore and adepts early .... and the 3/1 skeletons would be a big help and still fit the flavor.

the friend i play with (hotseat games normally) feel my use of the shiam and ritualists are patently broken. again though ....no one argues teh mid to late game power of the ashen viel.

halancar ... as far as the point of useing the RoF and being afraid of the counterattack. I have found that when keeping a nightmare or three in the stack that they are typically going to fight the nightmare. the fact that a nightmare has fear means i have little to fear for being attacked (mostly due to the AI not useing courage)

ohh and i agree with you aobut sacrificing troops for science

 

[rief_s]

Hello,

I try to make Demon Altar more usefull. But I have no success yet . My idea is to make high priest sacrificable to create a priest soul (building). This building will grant immune to disease to unit that created in the city with this soul. Another idea is to make inquisitor sacrificable to grant taskmaster promotion (slave, balseraph unique unit).


rief_s

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

In the vein of evilness, here's a necromantic spell I thought of that would go nicely in any veil civ.

Sacrifice City

Sacrifices the city the caster is in. (city is destroyed)
(city must be owned by caster)
Generates one skeliten per population point of the city.
And one "Flesh Demon" with strength = some portion of the city size(60-80%)
City square and a large area around the city are defiled
(perhaps one square per population of the city?)


I think this would give us something to do with all of our useless late game city captures. And with it poisoning large areas of land it should restrict the rebuilding of the area by annoyingly opertunistic civs.
I would go with flesh demon strenth = city size but i've seen some big citys and it might become a little bit overpowered. Or maybe cap the strength at 16?

A mechanism to rid yourself of an unwanted city could of course by misused, but i think the defilement of surrounding terain should make it harder to abuse.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

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.

This is true and I think it has something to do with lack of "Universities" and "Research Labs" in FfH. There is only one common building available that multiplies beaker productions. (Library). But there are two common Gold multipliers, Money Changers and Tax Offices. If you can convert 4 Commerce into 5 Beakers or into 6 Gold, which is the more efficient?

For Specialists, or additive buildings like Elder Councils or Markets, their output is multiplied by the above mentioned buildings.

Consider a developed nation under Runes: +1 Gold / city from having Runes at State Religion +3 Gold/city for the Runes temple = +4 Gold x 1.50% (buildings) = +6 Gold / city religion benefit.

Consider a nation under Veil +2 beakers from the temple x 1.25% Library = +2 or +3 extra Beakers (depending on rounding) / city religion benefit.

The same thing applies if you can use a Specialist. It's often more efficient to generate money, then move the slider up some.

I am sorry if this has all be discussed. I really should read these threads back to front. But no, I am on page one still.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

Very thoughtful post, Halancar. I agree with most of what you say.
Specific feedback:

By the way, though you may know of this, there is currently an exploit for such things. Trade your Entropy and Death mana away as soon as you get it. Most others are happy to take them, they get the diplo-penalties, and you can still get the spell options for your adepts (simply cancel the deal when some adepts are ready to choose, then re-negotiate in the same turn). This exploit is one I hope is addressed, but I haven't had a chance to mention it yet (assuming no one else has).

- Niilo

I agree that Halencar and several others have made some very fine suggestions. I don't have any opinions, as my Veil experience is limited to my 2nd game of Ver I, not II. I will say, though, that fighting with Diseased Corpses and no ability to cure disease is one odd situation. I had no choice. Veil was the last religion, I needed one, so I took it. I had to build Corpses and launch them at the enemies as fast as I could build them. That bought me enough time, but at a cost. Virtually every unit in my army was diseased. Just about every unit in the region was diseased, thus essentially, removing the disease effect. You'd just keep a few Corpses in reserve to disease-up the enemy's new healthy units. Then your highly-trained but easilly-winded army would engage THEIR lesser-trained but esilly-winded army, and you'd prevail. Eventually. It was one odd way to fight, but sparked great role-playing story material.

Annnnnnnnnnnnyway.

What I wanted to say was, I agree with your comments on mana trading. Yesterday I came to the conclusion mana trading should be disallowed. I had read your earlier posting about this exploit, and that had me thinking. I agree, and I will add that there is another problem. It applies to any magic node.

Let's say you have constructed a bunch of mana nodes. You turn out a bunch of adepts who benefit from the nodes. Then you turn off production of Adepts, and trade away you mana nodes. AI civs will pay throught the nose for them. You rake in the gold as long as you feel it is to your advantage. Then you cancel the deal whenever or if ever you need to actively use the nodes again. You are trading away "nothing" ... the nodes contribute nothing to your realm during the idle times ... in exchange for every spare gold the AI civs can scrape together. Then if you need to Node Up again, you simply cancel the deal.

If nodes were simply impossible to trade, none of these exploits would be possible. The new magic system sort of assumes the nodes are out there pumping energy to the realm's casters. That concept is sort of undermined if it is possible to trade away all that magic power without repercussion. Doncha think?

 

[Lord Vermillion]

Yes, very nice ideas here. I see the Veil as the aggressive force and the Order as the reactionary force. The reason the Order is so strict is because they have to root out all evil, otherwise they aren't serving their purpose. I very much like the idea of being forced to (a) Side with the Veil, (b) Side with the Order, (c) Appease the Veil, or (d) Get ready for total war. 'Cause after all, the Veil isn't nearly as much of a threat if its holy city and its followers are all dead. Perhaps the Veil holy city could give +1 for each Veil building automatically, even in other empires? Then the Stigmata on the Unborn would give an additional +1 for each Veil city. Sounds good to me!

I agree 100% with this idea here

 

[vorshlumpf]

If nodes were simply impossible to trade, none of these exploits would be possible. The new magic system sort of assumes the nodes are out there pumping energy to the realm's casters. That concept is sort of undermined if it is possible to trade away all that magic power without repercussion. Doncha think?

Yes. Well put.

- Niilo

 

[Sureshot]

In the vein of evilness, here's a necromantic spell I thought of that would go nicely in any veil civ.

Sacrifice City

Sacrifices the city the caster is in. (city is destroyed)
(city must be owned by caster)
Generates one skeliten per population point of the city.
And one "Flesh Demon" with strength = some portion of the city size(60-80%)
City square and a large area around the city are defiled
(perhaps one square per population of the city?)


I think this would give us something to do with all of our useless late game city captures. And with it poisoning large areas of land it should restrict the rebuilding of the area by annoyingly opertunistic civs.
I would go with flesh demon strenth = city size but i've seen some big citys and it might become a little bit overpowered. Or maybe cap the strength at 16?

A mechanism to rid yourself of an unwanted city could of course by misused, but i think the defilement of surrounding terain should make it harder to abuse.

that would be neat, i dislike how if i raze all an enemies cities im usualyl just helping someone else out. would be nice to be evil and ruin the land for anyone else, and get armies out of it. though maybe only allow it in cities with demonic altars so you had to invest some time on it.

personally i think having the demon strength uncapped isnt too bad an idea, since then the veil would have access to potentially limitless power is they were willing to give up enough souls. though maybe do the strength as half the population so that theres a soft cap of like 10 (i dont often see cities more powerful than 20).

 

[Silverkiss]

I alredy had a game whit kuritotates that my city had grow over 50

And could grow even more if I didnt had win....

 

[Sureshot]

thats a pretty special case tho lol

and thatd deserve a 25 strength demon

 

[Chandrasekhar]

If you want to destroy one of your super-cities, create fifty tiles of fallout, destroy the prime land that the city was on... sure, go ahead. Your 30 strength demon or whatever might be strong enough to justify this, maybe it isn't. It's still a reasonable trade-off (in my opinion).