I was going to make a new thread with some thoughts on Ashen Veil, and I find one already there !
Alright, I just played two Ashen Veils games, one with the Calabim, one with the Sheaim. My conclusions :
As far as the late game is concerned, Ashen Veil has no problem. They have powerful military units, a powerful hero, and their ritualists (and high priests and inquisitors) have access to some very powerful spells (summon Balor, Ring of Fire, Pillar of Fire, Banish...)
But Ashen Veil lacks much in the early and middle game. Let me explain
Early game : well, obviously this is not an early religion. Still, it is possible to research them early, since the research branch is also the one that give all the research bonus. I did just that in my second game, and founded the Veil around turn 250 with the Sheaim (Emperor/Huge). What do you get ?
- A hero that is quite nice this early. Bambur had just been built, so no complaint there.
- Diseased Corpse. Yes, they are 6 strength, but their disease mean they get a -10% right out of the box, making it 5.4. And they spread disease, but you have no way to remove it, and they don't make citizens happy, so they must be used carefully. And by now other civs are close to their first t3 unit...
- Infernal Grimoire. Since you founded the Veil, you can start building it first, and it is cheap enough to give you a good chance at getting it. You get one free tech, but you also get one free barbarian Balor (Str 12)where you built it. In my Sheaim game I had only warriors to defend (I did have Bronze Working, but no copper). I took the Ashen-only tech, got one free ritualist, and he defeated the Balor in a 50% chance fight when the Balor attacked my capital. That's right, if the Balor had won, I'd probably have lost my capital (only warriors in defense, the Balor start getting xp -> promotions -> healing from promotions and he gets even stronger). Even if you do build some Disease Corpse beforehand, this is still a ugly situation, and you'll disease all you living units in the fights...
- 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.
- Possible access to the Demon Altar. Free scourge promotion was it, for -1 happiness ? Can I laugh ?
- Oh, and that "sacrifice unit to get research" is a joke, as is the "get research instead of culture" from savants. Please, I can build research if I need some way to turn production to more research, by now I have Writing ! This is a far better way to do it. And it's not like I could capture and then sacrifice defeated units...
And you know what else you get ?
- Diplomatic penalties every possible way
-> Heathen religion penalties, since by now almost everyone else pretty much has adopted one of the three early religions. And almost no-one will ever want to switch to yours (except the Infernal, who do it as soon as they can)
-> 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 ?
-> You treat your people badly penalties
-> You're evil penalties
Granted, the last two can also be positive if you meet another evil civ. In my experience, one or two of them will have turned neutral from Runes, and the other will be weak as the neutral and the good tend to fare better.
In other words, you kust made the whole world hate you with a passion... It seems far better to adopt one of the three early religions even if you didn't manage to found them.
As for the middle game, you still get the diplomatic penalties (I spend 200 turns as the Calabim fighting war after war, the next one starting before the previous ended, just because people did not like me). Hello war weariness... Diseased Corpse are more a liability than anything once you have t3 units (they are not even cheap), ritualists are nice for combat, but priests from other religions have they own cool abilities (bloom) or are also good in combat...
So what could be done :
- If savants can be sacrificed for science rather than culture, let it at least be something more than half their building cost (because building research directly can do that, and is further modified by city improvments), not 25% ! Right now they cost 60 hammers and bring 15 science, bring that up to 45 science. Now the Ashen Veil gets a real mean to increase science.
- Infernal Grimoire should be made better. Keep it cheap, which will ensure that the Ashen Veil founder gets first crack at it, keep the free tech and the Balor (do put some form of enigmatic warning in the description), and perhaps give the builder a few (non-summoned) imps ? Either at once or over time, with random magic promotions ? Since access to mana spheres is now severely restricted, that would be a nice benefit, and since imps won't upgrade, they will be restricted to level one spells, which is not unbalancing for the end game.
- Entropy in the holy city fits the theme, but brings strong diplomatic penalties, potentially crippling in the early game. Here is what I suggest : when it is built, give the player a choice between fire mana, entropy and fire, or entropy and death. To balance this, the order should also get two mana types in their holy city (with or without choice). This would mean
1) that a player can choose fire, and not have the diplomatic problems
2) that he can also choose entropy and fire, or entropy and death (full diplomatic problems) if he is ready to spit in the eye of the world.
3) Founding the Order and/or the Veil, if they bring two mana resource each, is now more attractive.
- Demon Altar : there are already plenty of means to change production to science, and why make it a building when you only need one anyway (units can move to the right city ?). What if, instead, demon altars allowed you to sacrifice population for science ? Better yet, whenever you sacrifice population with the sacrifice the weak, the demon altar also processes this into more science ? A decent amount, of course, maybe 100 per population... This would also fix the Sacrifice the Weak civic at one stroke (right now, it pales in comparison to other religion-specific civics). After all, when you kill off your own people, you might as well sell their souls while you are at it
- Add a Ashen Veil wonder, the Demon Shrine. Adds 1 beaker to every Ashen Veil building (similar to Twisted Spire, but with beakers).
- Drop the Diseased Corpse to Str 3 and give him collateral damage (making it an ugly special weapon team). Add Reanimated Corpse, Str 6 , undead, but not diseased. The reanimated corpse makes a good unit when you get the Veil early, the diseased corpse stays useful to weaken a city or large stack.
These changes, I think, would go a long way to making the Ashen Veil the science powerhouse it should be (and is unfortunately not) and making it more attractive in the early game.
