Empyrian-Severely Underpowered

[hzf]

Chalid is the best unit in the game, bar none.

It does not matter how big the enemy stack is. Take Chalid, 5 Ratha, and 20 axemen and you will kill every stack and take every city.

At this point in the game, how can he be stopped? He can drop at entire stack (of any size?) to 20% health on the turn he approaches them.

I have now barred myself from using Empyrrean just because mages, priesrs and siege all become irrelevent once you have Chalid. He is a one man army.

 

[BvBPL]

But is it good game design?

 

[Jarrema]

Hmmm...
I believe it is.
It is just unbalanced against AI I think. As many things.
Human player can cope with enemy having Chalid. I would not say that it is easy, but he cannot be at more than 1 place at a time

Without Chalid, Empyrian offers almost nothing for adapting it - you can have a temples and Shrine without adapting it.
In this regard, it is similar to CoE, where almost only reason for adapting it is getting Gibbon (who is less powerfull than Chalid, but more versatile)

 

[A Moon]

It does not matter how big the enemy stack is. Take Chalid, 5 Ratha, and 20 axemen and you will kill every stack and take every city.

One stack at a time. If there are two stacks to worry, Chalid becomes somewhat less useful, and if there are magic resistant/immune units in the mix, he becomes even less so. He struggles a little bit against summons too, especially fire elementals. They can't be blinded either, as they appear at the start of the enemies turn, and are then free to attack you.

 

[BvBPL]

Without Chalid, Empyrian offers almost nothing for adapting it - you can have a temples and Shrine without adapting it.

That’s exactly one of my complaints about Empyrean as it currently stands; it is close to an all or nothing proposition. You either get Chalid or you get the shaft. I do not think that’s good game design. I think it would be much more interesting if Empyrean had greater incentives for late adopters; every other religion has something to offer later adopters who miss the hero and shrine.

I am not thinking about how Chalid mechanically functions, but how the religions offers very, very little to late adopters. Every other religion offers more to late adopters than Empyrean, usually a lot more. I think that makes the religions unbalanced, and is just bad for the game.

 

[Emptiness]

FfH2 is not a game based on the idea of balance through symmetry. Almost every aspect of FfH2 is asymmetrical. This is intentional, and promotes variety of strategies and gameplay. All paths are not equal, and all strategies are not equally functional in all situations. Use what works; don't use what does not work.

If you find that there is little incentive to adopt Empyrean after someone else has gotten Chalid and the shrine, then don't do it. Indeed, there may be some people who will find that for their play style Empyrean (or any other specific religion or game element) isn't worth adopting at any time. Don't make the mistake of assuming that something has no value to anyone because it does not seem valuable to you. Personally, I would argue that adopting Empyrean is worthwhile in any situation where one does not have ready access to Sun mana, because the AI is so completely unable to cope with Blinding Light - to the point that even without Chalid the religion could win the game for you in the right situation.

Irregardless, the window of opportunity to bring about the redesign of fundamental game concepts in FfH2 has passed. Development has ceased, and is very unlikely to ever resume.

 

[Selrahc]

I am not thinking about how Chalid mechanically functions, but how the religions offers very, very little to late adopters. Every other religion offers more to late adopters than Empyrean, usually a lot more. I think that makes the religions unbalanced, and is just bad for the game.

Ratha and Luridus.

Ratha in particular are fantastic units that would be useful in almost any army.

 

[Jarrema]

That’s exactly one of my complaints about Empyrean as it currently stands; it is close to an all or nothing proposition. You either get Chalid or you get the shaft.

Of course he is not the only benefit, as others has shown.
Also, I suppose that Empyrean is ideally paired in this regard with CoE.
This religions cames at the same moment, both offer interesting shrine for founders, and both offer a great hero as a main incentive to adopt.
And IMHO that is rather good design. OTOH, I like mods that add something more to those religions

 

[UncleJJ]

I like to adopt Empyrean for a while to spread the religion to a few cities. The temples are useful giving +10% research. A nice little trick I like to use with Empyrean is to draft Radiant Guards from cities with the temple. They are expensive troops to build with hammers but great value draftees. That gives a unit worth 90 hammers for a single pop that can be upgraded later to a champion for only 60 gold and it retains the Blinding Light spell. That can rapidly assemble a powerful army of spell casting champions on a cost effective basis.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

A question, if the champion goes on to become one of the top tier mele units it keeps the promotions and can keep casting spells right? So like, collateral damage dealing blinding light bersekers? Suddenly Empyrian is starting to sound much more enticing.

 

[Tasunke]

I think you are all forgetting the effectiveness of Blinding Light in Multiplayer.

It is not just the AI that can't cope with Blinding Light ... its anyone.

there is currently NO way to cancel the effects of Blinding Light ... and during Simultaneous turns a stack could be "permanently" blinded. Indeed, several stacks could be "permanently" blinded ... or at least long enough to be decimated.

Lets not forget that a blinded unit cannot even cast spells ... and when you combine it with Chalid ... it becomes VERY difficult to fight against.

 

[Azhral]

The above will only happen if they have a really large stack of Blinding units. The biggest problem with the AI is it loves stack cohesion; so even if only 1 or 2 units are blinded, the 200 others will sit tight and not do anything.

A human can get around this by leaving the blinded units be and marching the rest of the stack forward. Still, this helps little if the Malakim player has 20+ Ratha's (with CR3 ) and the Tower of Alteration, which I build as soon as I have 3-4 mana nodes (Metamagic is important).

 

[Tasunke]

well, I was able to win a game solely on the fact that I built ONE Sun 2 mage as the armies of
"evil" were approaching my Capital city (malakim).

Anyways ... unless the enemy has auto 100% odds .... a stack of 5 Sun2 units is all you really need in MP (er ... well in ONE location that is )


But yea, I was able to use Radiant Guards to defend against giant Illian stacks while I was hippus (in MP), while I was outnumbered maybe 3:1 or 4:1 (if not more, its hard to remember). Then, once Chalid was built, a handful of horsearchers + Chalid were able to defeat cities with 20+ units (Iron Champions) in them. (I think I had maybe 2 rathas in that stack).


If we are dealing with Blinding units in MP ... firstly a human is not going to have a 100+ stack, or if he does then the Empyrean player best have at least 20 units at the very least. And hopefully half of those with Sun2.

Point is, once you throw Blinding Light and Chalid into the mix ... the difficulty factor increases exponentially. In an even game (economically), the Empyrean player, or the team with the Empyrean player, would likely win every time ... if Chalid was assassinated, imho, as long as their were enough units casting blind ... I think the end result would still be the same, albeit going from a HUGE empy advantage to a Slight empy advantage. (much less Empyrean offensive Strength ... but just as much in defense)

The only cases where Empyreans lose, imho, is when A) Chalid dies somehow, or B)The Non-Empyrean enemy has a much larger army and/or economy. (preferably with casters of their own)

 

[Bill Bisco]

I would concider CoE weaker than Empy, it has less stomping power and in multiplayer its very few advantages, HN and Invis, are fairly useless.
Acctualy the only reason for me to go CoE is the erly archmage and its shrine, probly the best of all of them.

You don't even need to adopt CoE to get the shrine nor do you have to adopt CoE to build Shadows. CoE is the worst religion to adopt ever.

 

[Goodwill]

Apart from any balance issues in warfare, I always thought that Empyrean could use a lot more flavor to make it more unique. Their strength though I would expect would not be in their military but in their empire, especially their capital. If it were me I would actually remove Chalks and replace him with a strength 2 guy who gets law 1,2,3 and sun 1,2,3 and a unique defensive spell buff that reduces collateral damage with a chance of wearing off each turn. Then I would add an Empyrean only civic that mimics god king in each city with a palace (summer/winter too) and removes the maintenance penalty from the civic in each city with a temple of the empyrean. I would add a ritual that causes all foreign cities with empyrean in them to revolt for ten turns if the civ does not have it as their state religion, as a strong religious movement towards empyrean truth is campaigned. I would add something similar for esus actually too but more powerful, with the chance of destroying city buildings, increase to the crime rate, and temporary unhealthiness from inner city sabotage. Both would reflect a unified overseas effort in their respective religions. Finally, I would give the tier 2 priests a chance to proc lightning sparks in combat, and tier 3 might proc aurealis. Just some thoughts. I know I'd rather play a colorful fleshed out unique religious civ than wield Chalid, personally, I just agree that it would be more satisfying overall and less blah. Edit: another civic change I could see is a 100% increase to person rate.

 

[Aline]

Well about CoE i like what WM/MoM did to it.
I agree on your thoughts about Empy, right now its a realy good warmogging religion and thats about it, it doesent realy fit its theme.

 

[avalonnn]

Well about CoE i like what WM/MoM did to it.
I agree on your thoughts about Empy, right now its a realy good warmogging religion and thats about it, it doesent realy fit its theme.

Like

A happiness bonus when at peace / when trading with every civ.

Trade routes +25 % to both ends of all foriegn trade routes

+1 unhappiness for any city with CoE

Mages cannot learn shadow mana spells (but civ can get shadow mana for tower victory) and all can learn sun mana spells (even if you don't have Sun mana -- but bonuses for multiple sun manas still apply).

Change the hero? Make him a priest of empy with level 1 mind mana to start?

Bonus to effectiveness of libraries and harbors, +1 unhappy for dungeon and courthouse. Increase in trade _and_ crime of taverns and inns.


-----

Bottom line: what are the effects of openness upon a society?

 

[Goodwill]

I like those kinds of ideas too.

 

[Aline]

Maybe an ambassador unit that you can use in other civs citys to improve relations with them (would be useless in MP though)

 

[Jarrema]

There is a spell that improves relation... I do not remember name - so maybe something else?

Good ideas for some modmods
Anyway, I think that Orbis did a good job with Empyrian and CoE