Esus+ Module

[Sephi]

Major Rework of Esus. The Council of Esus becomes the Cult of Esus

General Mechanic Changes

• It's impossible to have Esus as State Religion (since this is visible to other players)
• When aquiring Deception Tech, an event allows to follow the Cult of Esus (It's more a secret society than a formal religion)
• Deception Tech allows Join the Esus Cult Ritual
• When joining the Cult of Esus, all Player Units with Empyrean Religion are assasinated and many other disciple units.
• Recon Units from the Cult of Esus followers always have Esus Religion
• Following the Cult of Esus prevents to have Empyrean as State Religion (but you can freely follow any other Religion, even Order)
• The only way to see if you follow the Cult of Esus is to check if you can convert to Empyrean, so in MP you might want to make sure Empyrean doesn't spread to any of your cities. On the other hand a high spread of Empyrean allows to detect who follows the Cult of Esus and who does not.

Cult of Esus Advantages

• gain access to Gibbon Goetia, Shadowriders, Shadows, Cult of Esus Enforcer
• gain access to special Equipment (so far Nightshade, Nightgear)
• Bonus Promotions for new Units (like HN, or Poisoned Weapon), mechanic from tweakmod. More Bonus Promotions if the Cult of Esus Hall is build (but be aware that units with investigate ability can detect it in MP)

Cult of Esus disadvantages

• Cannot use 19 Spells (mostly magic tied to Law/Life/spirit mana)
• Cannot Train Mardero, Sphener, Yvain, Hemah, Arthendain
• cannot upgrade Priests to Tier4 units
• can only have a max of two of any disciple unittype

Esus Miracles:

• Heal
• Move in the Shadows (gain HN promotion)

Enforcer of the Cult of Esus Abilities:

• Infiltrate City Guard (increases crime rate and thus makes his other abilites easier to perform)
• Poison Water (adds random amount of unhealth to the city)
• Assasinate City Governour (city goes into revolt for a few turns)

todo:

• add more actions to the Cult of Esus Enforcer
• add more Esus Miracles
• additional abilities for Shadowraiders

 

[Sephi]

reserved

 

[Pazyryk]

Fantastic! Svarts with CoE will finally be a reasonable combo. Also opens up many new roleplaying avenues (a corrupted Bannor with Order and CoE).

I'd like to see Cult of the Dragon return with similar treatment.

todo:

• block Esus from using good aligned mana (still need to figure out a good way to code this)

I'd hate to see Tower of Mastery victory totally blocked for Esus followers.

todo:

• add a Esus only Saboteur unit

Can't you just give this ability to Esus recon units? I never liked the extra "spy" units (e.g., in Orbis) when it fits perfectly to give these mission to scouts, assassins, shadows, etc.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

sounds awesome, but... wait, now we have 6 religions instead of 7?

...time to bring in the White Hand then!








( I'm kidding, but I would actually LOVE to see the white hand in WM )

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

edit: double post

 

[Pazyryk]

I always thought Esus should not have true healing, but some other fix that simulates the use of stimulants or other drugs to (at least temporarily) overcome injury, with some price to pay. Here's an idea for a mechanic: Esus units can cast Deceptive Health miracle. This adds Deceptive Health promotion to unit. This promotion brings a unit to 110% of normal strength regardless of injury. Promotion prevents healing and has ??% chance of wearing off per turn.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

tbh, I REALLY dislike Esus not being a full-fledged religion anymore. we need seven religions and one must be opposite to empyrean!

since making following Esus hidden is a problem ( and it is STILL a problem now, as you described with having Empyrean in your cities ), just drop the concept entirely, let people know that you are Esus, and give 'em spies and saboteurs to wage undercover mischief

eventually, xienwolf will come up with a way to make it hidden anyway

plus, are Shadow only for Esus followers now? that would leave Recon line with only one T4 unit... I'd make Shadows available to anyone, take away their hidden status making them essentially superassassins, then add in Illriggers from Tarquelne's Holy Warriors, make Illriggers Esus followers only and let them be Hidden

couple threads with good ideas for Esus:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=329736

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=328929

 

[Sephi]

since making following Esus hidden is a problem ( and it is STILL a problem now, as you described with having Empyrean in your cities ), just drop the concept entirely, let people know that you are Esus, and give 'em spies and saboteurs to wage undercover mischief

It's not a problem. I designed it that way that empyrean helps you to see who follows Esus. I could easily change that but I think it fits Empyrean. Shouldn't be that hard to keep Empyrean off your cities with invisible HN units.

plus, are Shadow only for Esus followers now? that would leave Recon line with only one T4 unit... I'd make Shadows available to anyone, take away their hidden status making them essentially superassassins, then add in Illriggers from Tarquelne's Holy Warriors, make Illriggers Esus followers only and let them be Hidden

Other religions have tier4 priests, Esus has Shadows

 

[Goodwill]

Bonus Promotions for new Esus units, including HN.....does that mean these promotions are for any unit with the Esus religion, and not just Nightwatch and Shadowriders and Shadows and recons?

Can only have a max of two disciple units at any time .... Does this mean all but two disciple units are destroyed upon converting, regardless of their religion? Also, what about Malakim, I think Lightbringers are coded as disciples aren't they? It might be worth tweaking them so they aren't coded as such. Edit: then again, they wouldn't receive all the bonus exp for being disciples. Maybe just make the restriction for 2 disciple units apply only to tier 2 priests?

Block Esus from using good aligned mana....would this disable that ability to cast spells already learned?

And upon discovering Deception, there's an event that allows you to follow the Cult of Esus....is that the only time you can choose to do so, or can it be done later?

 

[Goodwill]

I'd hate to see Tower of Mastery victory totally blocked for Esus followers.

Can't you just give this ability to Esus recon units? I never liked the extra "spy" units (e.g., in Orbis) when it fits perfectly to give these mission to scouts, assassins, shadows, etc.

For Tower of Mastery, that does seem like a good point. Hopefully you could allow access to mana types, but disable specific spells if you wanted to. That might make more sense anyway. Although I can't think of too many "good" mana types. Stuff like Life on the surface sounds "good" but really it's just healthiness, which is for everyone. Spirit maybe "sounds" good, but spirit is spirit, and there's a full range of good to evil. "Hope" as a spell "sounds" good, but evil is famous for offering "hope" to its followers.

Anyway, if "good" mana gets blocked, perhaps it will only be specific spells, allowing the use of mana for Tower building.

Yeah I can't think of a single mana type that I would describe as inherently "good" in nature. It's people who use things for good or evil. Like that great quote, "Guns don't kill people, I kill people."

On the other subject though - giving recon units saboteur abilities rather than invisible spy units - my big question would be, how do they enter the city tile?

 

[Goodwill]

With the Hidden Nationality "promotion" does that mean that arcane units who have Cult of Esus as their religion will be able to go barbarian too? Champions? Horse Archers?

 

[tesb]

the tower of mastery only need the previous towers, so you have to build them frist then turn to esus. what if esus would just negate the effects of those mana types i.e. one life mana gives 1 unhealth.

 

[Goodwill]

the tower of mastery only need the previous towers, so you have to build them frist then turn to esus. what if esus would just negate the effects of those mana types i.e. one life mana gives 1 unhealth.

That can mean delaying Deception for a very unreasonable amount of time.

 

[Pazyryk]

On the other subject though - giving recon units saboteur abilities rather than invisible spy units - my big question would be, how do they enter the city tile?

Give them a "spy" mode that acts exclusive of HN mode. So they can either go spying in any city (acting like that Scion guy, whats-his-name?) or they can attack with HN, but not both at the same time. (OK, maybe some time-delay needs to be added to prevent sneak-and-kill abuse.)

I just think it would be more fun to go sabotaging with your favorite promoted assassin (even a hero), rather than some single-function "spy" unit that can't attack (and for which you have no emotional investment). It's not much of a stretch flavor-wise that assassins (maybe rangers too) should be able to snoop around and cause trouble in enemy cities, in addition to the army support function that they already have.

That can mean delaying Deception for a very unreasonable amount of time.

Too much delay. If I'm going to play CoE Svarts, I want to get into the Esus stuff early. I don't want to wait till after I've conquered 4 nodes to build that tower.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

some reasons why I don't like it not being a religion:

main one, why should I NOT join it? it seems like it gives many advantages and the only disadvantage is not getting many priests and no high priests. I'll take Gibbon over those any day

I share a couple questions like "can you join anytime?" and "can you then get out of the cult?" with others...

also, the "cannot use good aligned mana" thing sounds painful. think of Svartalfar for example, who love CoE but need Sanctify to protect forests from hell terrain. would they have to betray Esus? would that be possible? does it even make sense?

 

[Pazyryk]

@Geko, It's not clear to me from Selphi's post that CoE is not a religion. He just says that it can't be adopted as a state religion.

So what if CoE isn't your official "state" religion? That's just a facade. That's what the masses believe, what a crippled and diminished church tell them to believe. Even if everyone thinks you are good (e.g., a follower of the Order) you know it is a lie. The true masters are hidden.

Or I could be misunderstanding Selphi's intention entirely and believing it the way I want it to work.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I guess I need to ask if you can still get the special benefits from your state religion... having 2 religions seems too powerful. I think you should be able to build priests, but not heroes and wonders, and should be forbidden from using religion-unique civics like Arete and Guardians of Nature.

 

[Neomega]

I'd hate to see Tower of Mastery victory totally blocked for Esus followers.

+1

Also, wouldn't sidar lose spirit mana?

This is the only thing I strongly object to, esp since Ashen Veil can still use good mana.

Re: hidden for shadows

Hidden really sucks, because a spell can remove it, and you can never get it back, yet stealth invisibility can be removed by the spell, but you can just get it back by casting invisible.

I think only hawks with Empyrean should be allowed to see invisible.

 

[Pazyryk]

I was just thinking about two things at once: 1) I hate the typical method where spies, when caught, result in automatic immediate DoW. Seems excessive as spies (doing very bad things like poisoning) are caught from time to time in the real world and never result in immediate war declaration. 2) I don't think it should be easy, but there should be some possibility (even for non-Emperyan and even for the AI) to distinguish uncorrupted Bannor (following Order) from corrupted Bannor (following Order and CoE).

So putting the two thoughts together: what if spy discovery resulted in "Esus follower revealed" and a diplomatic penalty. The diplo penalty might be the normal "follows-other-religion" penalty plus penalty (if any) that would be given for being evil (so no sweat if Tebryn finds out you are CoE, but very problematic for those "good" allies).

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I guess I need to ask if you can still get the special benefits from your state religion... having 2 religions seems too powerful. I think you should be able to build priests, but not heroes and wonders, and should be forbidden from using religion-unique civics like Arete and Guardians of Nature.

wait, if your state religion is just a facade, then why can't you use Empyrean for that?

although I agree that you shouldn't be allowed to have any ratha, radiant guards, disciples and priests.

regarding other religions, I think the best thing would be to not let them build units ( drowns, paramanders, etc. ) and priests, but let them keep those that they have built previous to joining Esus. disciples and temples should always be buildable ( aside from empy of course ) , and you should get the happiness from your state religion ( even if it's empy )

also, I second Neomega about hawks, they should be able to see invisible animals but not hidden units. that has to be Empyrean's special feature ( plus yes, units with hidden should be allowed to recast hide if they lost it due to revelation... it sucks to have a shadow be made PERMANENTLY visible )