Evil victory condition and other ideas

[Lord Yanaek]

Mhh, since i knew there was a new victory for good players only (Altar) it bugged me there was nothing for evil players. I thought about it and came up with an idea for an evil, armaggedon related victory. I will add some other ideas i have as well. Use them or not, it's your mod. I hope there will be some things that will help you.

Evil Victory : The Three Rituals of Armaggedon
OK, i know you told me there wasn't an armaggedon victory for evil player because you can't track who helped the counter the most, and when AC goes very high Ashen Veil players are nearly assured to win, through military victory. In fact, i fell like a high armaggedon will only really help infernals, also i think there whould be a victory related to armaggedon if only to turn the "Save or Destroy the world" in real possibilities. I imagined a system i called "The Three Rituals of Armaggedon" that would end up in a victory when the last ritual is cast. The rituals would be national wonders, but unrushable (as nature's revolt and other rituals are currently), and they would require both a high AC and presence in the city of high level evil mages-priests. The units would have to stay in the city during all the building time, if they leave, the ritual would stop and have to be restarted. Maybe interrupting the ritual could have some negative effects too! Those rituals would actually replace the current "apocalypse" effect that occurs at 100 AC (there could still be a smaller effect at 100 AC maybe)

1. First ritual : The Ritual of Undeath. It is required for the civilisation to "survive" the later rituals. It would require the presence of 3 level 3 death mages in the city during all the process. Upon completion it would give the "Fallow" trait to the civilization, and the "undead" promotion to all the curent and later units. It would also give a nice diplo boost with Hyborem. Requires AC 100! When a civ start building it, all civs will be notified. Basium and Order civs will dogpile him.
2. Second ritual : The Ritual of Destruction : It will bring destruction to the world, in order to allow hell to enter it later. It would require the presence of 3 level 3 entropy mages and an AC of at least 115. Once built an apocalypse effect would hit the world, destroying many non demon, NON UNDEAD units, and halving the cities of NON FALLOW civs. Thus the rite of undeath would protect a civ that built it. When started basium and all good civs (and possibly neutral once) will dogpile the civ building it.
3. Third ritual : The Ritual of Merging Requires both previous rituals, AC 130 and presence of Entropy level 3 mages and priests. When built the civ is made a permanent ally of infernals, then the civ and Hyborem wins the game! Of course, when started, every non evil civ (possibly every non Ashen Veil civ) will dogpile the civ building it.

Dimentional Spells
As it is currently, the dimentional sphere is hardly implemented with only a level 1 spell. Here are some ideas for level 2 and 3 sorcery spells.

Sorcery 2 : Town Gate. This spell would put a Town Gate building in the city as long as the mage would stay there. This building would act like an obsidian gate without the commerce bonus!
Sorcery 3 : Mass Teleport. This spell would act like an Escape spell, but for the entire stack! Maybe it could allow to teleport to another town than the capital if possible.

Sorcery 2 : Mass Escape (escape for whole stack)
Sorcery 3 : Instant Travel : This spell would bring a stack located somewhere on the map to the tile where the caster is located.

I'm not sure if those would imbalance the game, or whether the AI will be able to use them or not.

Other Ideas
in semi random order

• Forts : they NEED to be improved, they are so underused. I think they could use a better defense bonus (forests give a better bonus than forts currently). Additionally they could give some other benefits :
  - Sentry Tower promotion
  - Fort promotion that would act like a march promotion and increase healing rate. Thus units inside a fort could attack units outside and heal if they can go back in the fort by the end of the turn.
  I also like the ZoC system Maniac used in his mod-mod, but i'm not sure how it would impact the game without the rest of the mod-mod
• Mage's Towers : They would be fort-like improvements, but for Mages. They would give a defensive bonus to arcane units (and maybe a smaller bonus to other units). They would also give those promotions to arcane units inside :
  - Lookout Tower
  - Mage Tower : would act like a spell extension, but be different and thus stack with.
• Spell Extension should work for Spring and Sanctify spells, at least within the players cultural borders
• Some automation for Spring and Sanctify spells would be nice. Either those spells could be automated on normal adept units, or some special units like Sureshot did, or even those spells would auto-cast when a mage inside a tower would notice fires-hell in his spell radius (increased by Spell Extansion). It would make fighting back hell and fires much less tedious without making it an easy task (you would have to build adepts, build towers around your empire and station adepts inside those towers.
• Bloom should make burned forests re-grow to normal forest directly without going to new forest.
• Make a "bodyguard" promotion. This promotion would make the unit fight against assassin type units instead of the weaker unit of the stack.

That's all ... for now

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

I love all the ideas. Hope they will be implemented asap.

 

[Thennorin]

Sorcery 2 : Town Gate. This spell would put a Town Gate building in the city as long as the mage would stay there. This building would act like an obsidian gate without the commerce bonus!

I love this idea!! And I fully agree that dimensional mana is currently of little use. A town gate spell (with the same restrictions as an obsidian gate) would be great to speed up reinforcements to border cities while not being unbalancing. There are already spells like inspiration that can give an ongoing indirect military advantage through boosting city output.

[*]Make a "bodyguard" promotion. This promotion would make the unit fight against assassin type units instead of the weaker unit of the stack.

It's in. The guardsman promotion does just this (units will defend first against all attacks), but you'll only see if if you choose the aristocracy civic and build royal guard or if you play as Bannor.

 

[Dark Russell]

The Bodyguard should be similar to the Great Commander but just adds points to the units defencive strength. My reasoning is that if the bodyguard is killed by an assassin, the assassin has a good chance of killing her target too.

So Adepts have 2str normally but with a bodyguard attached they would be 2/5str (or something).

 

[Don Pelayo]

The rituals idea is fabulous. And the idea of the ZoC for forts and magic towers is great. Two thumbs up!

 

[Lord Yanaek]

The Bodyguard should be similar to the Great Commander but just adds points to the units defencive strength.

I thought about this as well, but it has some disadvantages :
- If you attach a bodyguard to an already high str unit, it will become VERY strong
- You won't have to pay maintenance for the bodyguard, so it's quite a no-brainer to attach one to every unit you can.

If such a system is used, it would require at least some additional requirements as to who can attach a bodyguard (no fighters, only mages/priests, maybe settlers ...)

I didn't thought using guardsman units as bodyguards. Anyway, as they have an added benefit of reducing city maintenance, they can't be used to widely. They are currently limited to one civ and (as national units) to one civic, it's nice this way. However i think a system to allow everyone to try and protect his vulnerable units against assassins would be nice. They don't have to be indestructible, just be able to fight back those lizardmen assassins that keep killing your adepts who are out fighting back fires

 

[wig]

I think adding the ritual approach to Armageddon removes some of the uniqueness of the AC counter, Bob, reverting it to more of a space race style victory. However, I could see the Octopus Overlords having access to a powerful dark rituals.

Rather than just a 'build it and you win' ritual, the OO rituals would facilitate a domination victory by sinking the land of your enemies! Completing the ritual would allow you to drown your enemies in the rising waters of the deep (lowering the land level in effective game terms). You could complete the rituals multiple times, with each performance affecting a larger area of land.

I like your fort ideas; the sentry tower promotion would be a real incentive to build a fort or two; as things stand there's really no reason to build one.

 

[Dark Russell]

I thought about this as well, but it has some disadvantages :
- If you attach a bodyguard to an already high str unit, it will become VERY strong
- You won't have to pay maintenance for the bodyguard, so it's quite a no-brainer to attach one to every unit you can.

If such a system is used, it would require at least some additional requirements as to who can attach a bodyguard (no fighters, only mages/priests, maybe settlers ...)

Never thought of it that way, although you could make it so yo could have only 3 at a time. You could call them "Elite Guard" or something so they won't seem too out of place travelling with heros or other high str units.

 

[PapaMonkey]

I like these ideas as well. Especially the fort comments. I have long thought forts needed something to better balance them. This would make tthem much better. And the complementary towers are a real neat idea as well. Perhaps coupled with a slightly higher chance to earn xp if they stay in the tower and take no activity. That simulates studying...

 

[R0GERSHRUBBER]

I like the Bodyguard idea, particularly when implemented as an attachable National Unit. I think the bonus should scale with metal (bronze-->mithril) or techs to prevent early bodyguards from being too powerful.

Another idea is to create a Bodyguard promotion which prevents a unit from attacking, but allows it to be attached (possibly permanently) to another unit. The new unit defends as the attached unit.

Different civs could have unique bodyguard units to accomodate their play styles. For example, the Luchuirp bodyguard might be a golem while the Sheaim bodyguard would be an extraplanar creature.

Monarchy and Guilds strike me as appropriate techs for Bodyguard units, although many more could work.

 

[ZeepZeep]

Normally i am sceptic to new ideas and am afraid of them, but i liked these, specially mage towers and dimensional spell ideas. Also the Evil victory sounds good, as i was kinda disappointed when the counter reached 100 and nothing happened (as the whole world was damned already) These ideas could give FfH some spice i think.

 

[Bad Player]

Rather than just a 'build it and you win' ritual, the OO rituals would facilitate a domination victory by sinking the land of your enemies! Completing the ritual would allow you to drown your enemies in the rising waters of the deep (lowering the land level in effective game terms). You could complete the rituals multiple times, with each performance affecting a larger area of land.

That sounds kinda fun.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

However, I could see the Octopus Overlords having access to a powerful dark rituals.

It could be nice too, but i think something is needed for Ashen Veil too, here is why.

• OO are currently a better religion than AV, and if you don't plan to play infernals, there is nothing to make you want to found AV, or try to increase the AC. Well, Sheiams get a small benefit from increasing it with their planar gates, but they will actually suffer from a high AC more than they will benefit from it (my first fire game was playing the Sheims). Anyone that switches to AV will have hell terrain spreading everywhere quickly, and this is an annoyance to anyone but Hyborem, i think they need something to compensate for this, why not a long term possible victory.
• Fires' subtitle is "Save or Destroy the World", you can currently save it, if you are playing good you can try to kill evil civs, raze AV cities ... to keep the AC low, and you have a good reason to do it, it will hurt you if you don't. Now, you even have a new unique victory : the Alatar. OTOH if you are playing evil, you can't "destroy" the world, unless a plain old boring military victory against everyone including the infernals is considered "destroying" the world. You can of course make the AC rise, but you have no good reason to do it, it will hurt you if you do (might hurt you a little less than the others, but it WILL hurt you). Lastly you don't have any special victory!
• The AC is a really nice system, but as it is now, when it reaches 100, nothing more will happen. Everyone but the infernals will have big troubles but if you manage to survive a possible infernal attack (noone else will attack you, they all lost most of their units), you can just stop worrying about the AC, it won't even grow. I feel like the last armaggedon effect should end the game, and thus be something EVERYONE will want to avoid, well, everyone but those who are bent on destroying the world, for them, and only for them, bringing hell to Erebus should be the ultimate victory.

Now, if you have a better idea than the wonder-system, i would be more than happy to hear it. I don't have a good enough understanding of the game mechanisms to imagine somehting else

Anyway, i don't propose a simple "build that wonder approach", sure you will have to build them, but in order to build them, you first need to make the AC grow high, and prepare some archmages and high priests to coordinate the ritual. It's hardly a mere "space-race" victory. You won't even need a late-game technology, the only techs you need are those that give you archmages and high priests!

It would be nice to know what Kael and the FFH team think of this

Another idea is to create a Bodyguard promotion which prevents a unit from attacking, but allows it to be attached (possibly permanently) to another unit. The new unit defends as the attached unit.

I like it. I wasn't sure if it is possible to prevent entirely a unit from attacking but was thinking of an offensive power of 1 (if not 0). If it is possible to attach it so that it doesn't ADD to the defensive power, but REPLACE it, it would be a nice way to prevent abuse by attaching it to already powerful units.

 

[Bad Player]

Good point bob - we have a way to "save" the world but not a new way to "destroy" the world.



EVIL CIV PLAYERS UNITE TO FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS!!!

 

[driekan]

I liked most of the ideas, but there are some points I have to mention:

On the rituals: There is no way you could get the AI to do that, as far as I know. Adding one more victory condition that only human players can achieve doesnt sound like a good idea to me.

On the Spells: Loved the ideas, but maybe the Town Gate should be 3 and not the other way around? efficiently defending new cities or sending fresh units to a city you just took sounds more useful to me than retreating a whole stack to your cities.

All the other ideas are absolutely great.

Also as others have mentioned, when playing evil, letting AC grow isnt a very good idea unless you are Hyborem. I was playing Calabim just the other day, got Hyborem into the world... And there is nothing I regret more in that game. Fire and hell terrain screwed me up as much as it did the good guys, seeing as how I was doing better than them before, I was hit harder, as they started to catch up, specially after AC 40 (You will lose more if you have more when blight hits).

There should be some way for evil civs or maybe simply AV worshippers to get more substantial benefits from the AC, or simply to "ride out" the negatives with reduced effect.

 

[DMN]

There should be some way for evil civs or maybe simply AV worshippers to get more substantial benefits from the AC, or simply to "ride out" the negatives with reduced effect.

There is a way to reduce the negative effect for Ashen Veil civs: Sacrifice the Weak. It halves the food required per population point, so both Blight and hell terrain don't force your towns into starvation. At least, your enemies should be starving even more than you are, especially for high AC when hell terrain spreads into their lands.

In my experience this works quite well. What I dislike is the Avatar of Wrath which takes away half of my heroes and 300-exp-units - that's really nasty even for AV followers. Apocalypse is much better as it kills only living units and evil players can build demons.

 

[driekan]

Fire still screws you up big time unless you get a bunch of adepts and a water node to run around putting them off... But still, yes, it's true. If you're AV and going with their civic, you probably are better off than the poor goodie suckers.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

How about an Armageddon counter reaching 100 isn't a victory but a defeat condition, for everyone.

 

[Bad Player]

That would defeat the purpose of trying to raise the AC.

 

[driekan]

Just thought about this. Seeing as how map size and speed setting and number of civs, barbarian presence and the presence or not of the Sheaim and Elohim can REALLY affect how much the counter goes up (or down), maybe having victory conditions specifically tied down to it wouldnt be a good idea. They'd be too easy in some games, too tough in others