Enjoying CoE! Return of CoD with similar mechanism?

[Pazyryk]

I'm really enjoying the new Cult of Esus implementation. What I like best is that it isn't just "one more religion." Instead, it's an alternative flavor for each of the five you can combine it with. So it’s like 11 combinations now rather than 6 religions. For example, Order has a whole new meaning when combined with Cult of Esus (with much potential for role-playing a corrupted Bannor civilization).

I was wondering if we might see a return of Cult of the Dragon along similar but slightly different lines. Here’s a possible general framework:

• Like CoE, it’s a religion that can never be adopted as state religion.
• Founded by researching Cult of Dragon tech (req: Mystisism + Knowledge of the Ether), which is only available to Kuriotates, Sheaim and Mazatl.
• Founding civ has the option to “join the Cult.”
• Any other civ gets the option to “join the Cult” when/if the religion spreads to a city belonging to that civ (or capturing a city with the religion).

I was trying to retain its original association with Kuriotates and Sheaim (plus Mazatl now), but still open it up a little for other civs. Some benifits could require the tech (hence limited to the 3 possible founding civs) while many or most benefits would be open to all followers. I liked the old implementation where it was a bad thing to have it in your cities, with some minor culture and/or gold penalty. Joining the cult would eliminate the culture and gold penalty, but then introduce whole new issues both good and bad. A civ can follow both CoD and CoE (why not?). There should be some benefit related to all the little dragonlets that appear later in the game.

I think it should be kept as a more minor cult than CoE (Esus is a god after all). So it does not need to be as big, in terms of new units and new game mechanisms, as CoE. It should have a negative effect on your "real" state religion, but less so than CoE.

Anyway, just an outline of an idea. Lots of details to fill in.

 

[tesb]

sounds good, further ideas that come to mind:
if you join the cult you can build a dragon lair in your cities. the lair itself takes -2 Food and lets you train dragon broods (or whatever those young dragons are called in the game). You can then upgrade those dragon broods to a dragon at the cost of population and gold (those dragons would not be on par with hero dragons of others civs but rather on par with the wild dragons that spawn later in the game)

 

[readercolin]

One thing, if there are negative effects to it, it needs to be able to be turned off, or it needs to be easily removed. I can say from past experience that both my GF and I HATE the cult, simply because it was always a bad thing to have, and there was no way to permanently get rid of it.

So as I see it:
Bad effects for not following it - easily gotten rid of
no effects for not following it - don't care, do whatever you want
good effects for not following it - there has to be better effects for following it

Note, it really shouldn't affect religious victory conditions

-Colin

 

[Pazyryk]

readercolin,

CoD was in base FFH a long time ago (0.23?). At the time, you had to build inquisitors to remove religions, so you were stuck with CoD for a long long time. But now, you only need a priest and one promotion to remove. So no big deal, right?

(I forgot whether agnostic civs have a means to remove unwanted religions, but they should.)

 

[readercolin]

IIRC, as of .33, the cult had been... removed, as a religion. It was still there, but only really noticeable by events. It couldn't be removed by inquisition, couldn't be spread except naturally, and the only interaction it had was via events. The events were generally along the lines of - city riots (1-3 turns, depending upon events), loose all production in a city, and similar events to that. They were somewhat rare, but when playing with the more events option, it wasn't terribly uncommon for a city to get the loose production event several times in a row, tripling the build time of that already very slowly building settler. Do note that the cult got axed quite a while ago, so I'm not 100% certain about some of these (but those were definitely the events... I know I remember them right -.-).

As for inquisition by agnostics, the only two agnostics in FFH are the illians and the grigori (aka, I haven't played enough with the agnostics that got added to comment on them). The illians can get inquisition on their priests of winter... of which they only get 3, period (I don't remember if wild mana changed this or not). The grigori can get inquisition on their lunnotar - a national unit with a cap of 4 that is available at strength of will... Even for the non-agnostics however, there are some that I play with very little attention to the priest line, and being forced to research it to get rid of a pesky annoyance is, well, a pesky annoyance (examples of some common ones that I tend to ignore the religious line till late with: the balsferas, the calibam, the lurchip, the kuriotates, the dovollio - some others I'll sometimes ignore it with, sometimes play big with it with).

Basically, if you want the cult, go right ahead. But pretty much all my experience with the cult has been very negative, and I would rather see that little sect go and finally bury itself where it belongs (note: minimum, 6 feet under, preferably deeper... with a reinforced concrete vault to prevent rising). If you want it, and can implement it in such a way that it doesn't annoy the crap out of those like me who hate it/dont care for it, go right ahead. If it is as annoying as it was originally, it had better be in an easily removable module for me to get rid of.

-Colin

 

[Sephi]

Any idea for a minor yet interesting malus for those who follow the Cult of the Dragon?

 

[Pazyryk]

Just having the religion is a minor malus because it interferes with catching other religions.

Here are some ideas though, for both positive and negative effects. Some are from old implementation (as I remember it) and some new. Many of these synergize with the "Dragons" game option (I forgot what it is really called) so maybe the whole CoD religion could be wrapped up in that option.

Units with CoD religion

Applies regardless of "follower" status:

• can be converted by dragons using dragon Roar ability (this almost never mattered in base FFH, but it would have a substantial impact if the later spawning dragons can roar)
• +30% magic resistance
• at level 15 can use "True Self" ability to become a dragon (promos maintained but unit becomes a dragon with new abilities)

Only for cult followers:

• units can use "Subdue Dragon" ability (has to defeat dragon)

Cities with CoD religion

For all:

• events: dragon spawns near city (please no "city revolts for 2 turns...")

Non followers only:

• -1 gold and/or culture in cities with CoD, if you are not a follower (blah... kind of boring but I put it here for consideration)

For the founding three civs only (Kuriotates, Sheaim, Mazatl... these should be in the cult automatically if they research the founding tech):

• build dragon lair (see tesb's idea above). Dragons lair also should provide some cash, or perhaps even a random resource (gold, silver, gems, iron, mithril)