Fun with Zombies!

[Fafnir13]

The Barnaxus thread inspired me.
Ya know how in horror films zombie parts chopped off tend to stay mobile? What if, whenever an undead is killed, it has a small chance of spawning 1-2 STR unit with 1 move? I'd imagine that Pyre Zombies would be the exception, given that they go "Kablooie!" and don't leave many big, active chunks lying around.
While we're at it, many of the zombie unit types could be given a chance to spawn a weaker form of zombie when kill a unit, much like werewolves and the like.
Okay, kind of silly, but it would make zombie units a bit more interesting. Currently they tend to just be melee units with some minor special effects. All right, exploding isn't that minor, so that one's working out fine. Diseased corpses could use a bit more spice though.

 

[smusebaer]

That sounds great.
Perhaps a krippled promotion if they are hurt very badly?

 

[marioflag]

While i agree it could be fun, it is not necessary to create new art just for that, and there is also the problem of animations, which artists have said that take more time than to create new units

 

[Willgar]

How about a spell (level 2 - death) cast on living units that when they die, they are reborn as skeletons. Maybe add a -20% str. A suggestion just for flavour although would make an intersting strategy for masses of low level defenders in a siege situation...

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

nice idea, would be even better imho to have the str of the resulting skeleton depending on the str of the unit killed and turned into an undead , similar to the way the wolves from the wild hunt work.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

How about a spell (level 2 - death) cast on living units that when they die, they are reborn as skeletons. Maybe add a -20% str. A suggestion just for flavour although would make an intersting strategy for masses of low level defenders in a siege situation...

nice idea, would be even better imho to have the str of the resulting skeleton depending on the str of the unit killed and turned into an undead , similar to the way the wolves from the wild hunt work.

That would be very easy to implement though a promotion in FF or an FF-based modmod, but is impossible in normal FfH (where the <PythonPostCombatLost> tag exists only for units, not promotions). Edit: Wait, now that I think of Mokka's cauldron still relies on a section of python in CvEventManager.py that I was thinking had been disabled. That means you could do it in normal FfH, but the code would be less efficient.

Of course, I'm not sure Death needs any more spells, as it already has more than most spheres, and these spells are generally liked enough not to remove any. There are weaker spheres that should get a boost first. When I get time to work on my modmod again I may add this as a Death/Body cross-sphere spell.


So, what should we call this spell?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

"reanimate" ?

 

[Elm]

How about... When a highly promoted unit or hero dies, it leaves behind a "corpse" that is invisible (like the Sidar divided soul thingy in FF) and 0 movement. Corpse is basically a 3 turn summon. If you get a unit there fast enough you can "reanimate" as a zombie/skeleton/flesh golem, or whatever. Of course, the AI would have no clue how to deal with that.

Or, maybe you could pick up the corpse with another unit, which becomes a promotion with a duration, and if you get to a city before it expires, you can reanimate it. But that would require the creation of promotions linked to possible corpses, which would be to much work... Basically, it would be a Barnaxus where the pieces have a chance to expire.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

That would probably be a lot more work that it is worth, and wouldn't be nice on the machine. How do you decide if a unit leaves a corpse? Would all corpses be the same, or would we need to essentially double the number of units in the game so reanimated corpses could be stronger based on what kind of unit they were in life?

If you want the unit to have limited duration it will need to be added in python (well, in FF you might just be able to make them start with a promotion that gives duration), which would slow things down. Who would they belong to, the one who they served in life? the enemy?

Promotions can't have a duration, only a chance to randomly wear off.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

@Elm: well that could be cool, but only if there is a way to make the AI understand that as well but I agree with magistercuultum that it does sound very complicated to code in :\

 

[deadliver]

How about a spell (level 2 - death) cast on living units that when they die, they are reborn as skeletons. Maybe add a -20% str. A suggestion just for flavour although would make an intersting strategy for masses of low level defenders in a siege situation...

Good idea.

 

[Fafnir13]

I'd rather not add spells, actually. Just some passive stuff for zombie type units. Otherwise it's just more magic and we've already got lot's of that.