Idea: Mounted Mages for Hippus

[Lemminkäinen]

Would it be a bad idea to give the Hippus, in addition to their normal Mages, an option for fielding Mounted Mages? They would require Sorcery as normal and additionally Stirrups. Stats would be the same as for Mages except for the usual stuff that comes along with being mounted (like speed). Sufficiently advanced adepts could be upgraded to either normal Mages or mounted version, but the latter upgrade would be a lot more costly (twice as expensive might be a good ball-park figure).

A good idea? A bad idea? Anyone have the know-how to do it?

 

[admtanaka]

I like it.

 

[WarKirby]

Making them replace the current arcane units as UUs would be the simplest option.

Making them alternate choices is more difficult, and maybe not worth the effort. Far from impossible though, if it seems necessary

I'm thinking:

Mounted Adept (adept): Requires KotE and Horseback riding. 3 movement, 4 Strength, no defensive bonuses, otherwise unchanged.

Mage Rider (mage):requires Stirrups and Sorcery. 5-6 str, 3 movement, no defensive bonuses, maybe can use some Master Rancher promos. Bonus vs archers/recon, city/forest strength penalty

Eldritch Knight (Archmage): Requires Strength of Will and Armoured Cavalry. 3 movement, no defensive bonus, high strength (6-10) plus Metal Weapons, can use most Rancher equipment. Bonuses vs Melee, Archers, and recon. Large forest/city strength penalty, and is vulnerable to Formation.


All would be able to learn full drill/flanking/mobility promos.
To be honest, I've always felt that the hippus endgame is a bit lacking. Since their specialty leads to a single 4-limit unit, whereas the melee line leads to 3 different national units. This idea would give them a little more fun flavour.

To limit their power a little, all of these units would start with a free promo:

Arcane Rider: Reduces natural xp gain by 0.5 (or whatever amount seems balanced)

Symbolizing that they don't have time to sit at home and study like other mages, since they have to train in the arts of warfare and horsemanship .They'd be expected to learn in the field, by fighting. Maybe also, they wouldn't start with the free promotion that normal arcane units get (mainly to stop them taking Combat II right out of the gate and killing things far too easily)

 

[Lemminkäinen]

A slightly bolder move, but sounds good. Would be a very interesting addition to the Hippus who have a bit of a problem in that their midgame lacks special things a bit (their hero comes in the end game and only two religions have mounted heroes).

Also, Arcane Rider sounds like a perfect way to balance them - much better than the higher upgrade cost I was thinking of!

Now all we'd need is someone to mod this stuff in...

 

[Lone Wolf]

I liked the idea before, but had my reservations because the Hippus aren't supposed to have better mages. But with the Arcane Rider disadnvantage, I like it.

 

[odalrick]

Mounted Adept (adept): Requires KotE and Horseback riding. 3 movement, 4 Strength, no defensive bonuses, otherwise unchanged.

Mage Rider (mage):requires Stirrups and Sorcery. 5-6 str, 3 movement, no defensive bonuses, maybe can use some Master Rancher promos. Bonus vs archers/recon, city/forest strength penalty

Eldritch Knight (Archmage): Requires Strength of Will and Armoured Cavalry. 3 movement, no defensive bonus, high strength (6-10) plus Metal Weapons, can use most Rancher equipment. Bonuses vs Melee, Archers, and recon. Large forest/city strength penalty, and is vulnerable to Formation.

They'd need to be quite a bit more expensive than normal mages as well. A mere training penalty will never begin to balance those advantages.

As presented here, I'd say double the cost, to begin with.

 

[mimic]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=324244

There are mounted mages for the hippus in that modmod, they are called stormriders.

 

[Valkrionn]

Hmmm... If someone *coughcough* makes the art for it, I'd be more than willing to put it in... It's something I've always felt was missing from the Hippus too.

 

[WarKirby]

They'd need to be quite a bit more expensive than normal mages as well. A mere training penalty will never begin to balance those advantages.

As presented here, I'd say double the cost, to begin with.

Well, without the free promotions on creation, too. Adds up to 3 extra promotions that other civs' mages are getting.
Increasing the hammer cost much is a bad idea, I think. Adepts at 90 are already expensive enough (Too expensive, I think)

perhaps a spell damage penalty on Arcane Rider, too.

Maybe the extra strength they get could be attack only, no extra defence. Plus they have no defensive bonuses, and forest/city strength penalties. So they wouldn't be able to hide in cities to be safe from assassins like normal mages.

exact values on those to be discussed

 

[odalrick]

Well, without the free promotions on creation, too. Adds up to 3 extra promotions that other civs' mages are getting.
Increasing the hammer cost much is a bad idea, I think. Adepts at 90 are already expensive enough (Too expensive, I think)

But Mounted Adepts have +1 strength and +2 movement. That's three promotions right there, most of them unavailable to adepts.

The Mage Rider and Eldritch Knight are even more powerful, with master rancher promotions and weapons and bonuses against all units.

perhaps a spell damage penalty on Arcane Rider, too.

Maybe the extra strength they get could be attack only, no extra defence. Plus they have no defensive bonuses, and forest/city strength penalties. So they wouldn't be able to hide in cities to be safe from assassins like normal mages.

exact values on those to be discussed

You'd really need to pile on the penalties on Arcane Rider. Training penalties are pointless for mages and up; and how many spells use spell damage anyway?

Miscast chance, maybe. Would that be fun? Less experience from combat...

Not being able to hide in cities is a penalty, but with three movement you shouldn't need to be in range of assassins anyway.

They look like two units in one, Horseman and Adept, doubling cost would reflect that.

One possibility that would make them unique, is making Mage Rider and Eldritch Knight Mounted units, not Arcane. They wouldn't benefit much from stacking mana, access to rancher promotions would be automatic and they couldn't broaden their magical training after the adept stage. All of which reflect their preference for sitting on unprocessed dog-food over reading magical tomes.

 

[WarKirby]

You'd really need to pile on the penalties on Arcane Rider. Training penalties are pointless for mages and up; and how many spells use spell damage anyway?

Miscast chance, maybe. Would that be fun? Less experience from combat...

Not being able to hide in cities is a penalty, but with three movement you shouldn't need to be in range of assassins anyway.

They look like two units in one, Horseman and Adept, doubling cost would reflect that.

One possibility that would make them unique, is making Mage Rider and Eldritch Knight Mounted units, not Arcane. They wouldn't benefit much from stacking mana, access to rancher promotions would be automatic and they couldn't broaden their magical training after the adept stage. All of which reflect their preference for sitting on unprocessed dog-food over reading magical tomes.

doubling the cost would make them pointlessly expensive to build though.
I am thinking in terms of fun, here. Building adepts is annoying because of the time it takes to make them. Twice that is going to be at least twice as annoying.

Yes, it's two units in one. But if the hammer cost is doubled, why wouldn't you just build one of each unit instead? It has to be more than the sum of it's parts if it's going to add something unique to the civ. I do agree there should probably be some increase in hammer cost, but I think on the order of 25-40% would be best, not 100% But I thinkadepts should be cheaper in general, the present 90 is really frustrating when you're trying to play a magically oriented civ like the amurites

I'd like to see adepts in general reduced to 75, and the Mounted adept at 100


Making the upper tiers mountd rather than arcane, seems like a good idea, but with some annoying drawbacks. it wouldn't be fun holding your unit at adept level until it had learned every spellsphere you wanted, or until it hits lv10 for twincast.

I like that idea mostly, but I'm thinking they'd need an explicit allowance to aquire the first promotion of every spellsphere. And possibly be blocked from twincast, and spell extension, to curb annoying micromanagement. That helps with a little balance as well, since without twincast they'd never be quite as good as dedicated archmages.

 

[odalrick]

doubling the cost would make them pointlessly expensive to build though.

Yes, on second thought, doubling is probably excessive. Mostly motivated by the suggested archmage that triples strength and move and gets master equipment.

I do agree there should probably be some increase in hammer cost, but I think on the order of 25-40% would be best, not 100% But I thinkadepts should be cheaper in general, the present 90 is really frustrating when you're trying to play a magically oriented civ like the amurites

25-40% increase is probably good, as long as the units aren't too strong.

For me, 90 adepts is ok. It's the same as other specialist tier 2 units.

Making the upper tiers mountd rather than arcane, seems like a good idea, but with some annoying drawbacks. it wouldn't be fun holding your unit at adept level until it had learned every spellsphere you wanted, or until it hits lv10 for twincast.

But the drawbacks are the entire point. You need to select your specializations as an adept, then you can master only them as a mage and archmage.

Adepts, sans free promotion, need three promotions before the can even become mages. So you can select three spheres to master, or get some spell extension or something. If there is a sphere that's really important you should probably drop an extra mana-node on it anyway.

Besides, when was the last time you picked up a new sphere with a mage? For me at least, pretty much only adepts get first level spells. As mages and archmages they either advance to second and third level, or they get Combat n.

Getting an adept to level 10 sounds like an epic quest. I don't see any reason to prevent it. Had it been a lower requirement there might have been a balance issue.

On another note, I think removing the free promotion from mages and archmages would be a mistake. Imagine upgrading to a mage after researching Sorcery, Stirrups and paying lots of gold expecting to finally be able to throw fireballs at Amurites and Luichirup. Only to find out you have to wait another 100 turns for your mage to gain another promotion.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm not a big fan of the idea. Nowhere in the lore does it say that their mages are mounted or fight on horseback like non arcane troops.


On the other hand, when I fist started playing FfH, they had a Knight UU, the Wind Knight, that could summon Air Elementals. (IIrc, the Air sphere hadn't been fully implemented yet, only Air III existed and it couldn't be bought but was a Wind Knight starting promotion.) What would people think of bringing those back? (Summoning Air Elementals seems a bit much, what what about giving them Air II instead so they can cast Maelstrom?)


Now that I think of it, it could be nice for Hippus arcane units to look mounted and be a little faster than most civs', but I don't think there is any need for giving them unique units. I'd lean towards making the Horselord trait give its eponymous promotion to unitcombat_adept instead, and making this promotion control their art.

(Not really related, but I think it could also be nice to give them Mounted Settlers again, possibly also though making them have Horselord but maybe not as the lack of a unitcombat would necessitate python for that and a UU could be easier. The Hippus settlers appeared mounted a long time ago, and although I lost my old versions when my hard drive crashed the December before last someone around here srely still has that art on his computer.

I also like the idea of giving the Hippus Mounted Immortals, though for practical reasons you'd still have to uprade them from melee rather than mounted units.)

 

[far_wanderer]

This is an absolutely wonderful idea, but my standard gripe applies: why just the Hippus? Why can't nearly everyone be trained to ride horses? The Hippus should get better and cheaper horses, but if mounted version of units are going to start showing up, why shouldn't they be available to everyone?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

If the AI could be taught to use it, I would much prefer to instead change the function of Chariots so that they can carry Melee, Archer, Arcane, and Disciple units.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Why can't nearly everyone be trained to ride horses?

Sure, but you can say that the ability to cast complicated spells on horseback is an ability that can be available only to people who have a certain bond with the horses.

Wind Knights sound cool, too.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Not that it need be incorporated into the game in any way, but I'd tend to think that many spells require physical acts to perform which might be impossible while riding but more importantly require the caster to be in a certain mood. I imagine that Earth spells require (or are greatly helped by) close contact to the earth below, standing very still, and maintaining a calm and somber mood while casting. By contrast, Air spells probably benefit from moving about wildly and being really exited, and so be much easier on horseback especially if the horse was wild.

 

[Iceciro]

MC's love for lore aside (which is impressive) I like the idea of giving the Hippus mounted mages just because otherwise the Hippus don't get as much use out of mages. And then they can have some sort of city attack weapon (mages with maelstrom/fireballs) that moves along with their horses, keeping them on the warpath as I've felt Hippus generally need.

Option: Instead of making two different units, etc, why not just a Hippus-only promotion, requiring a city with access to Horses and a Stable, that when given changes the art and gives them the movement speed buff and changes their graphic? The promotion can either cost gold or just be a regular promotion, forcing an opportunity cost either way, without increasing hammers.

Of course, this promotion doesn't have to limit itself to the Hippus, either.

 

[xienwolf]

Looks like someone just got done watching an Avatar Marathon

EDIT: Crosspost with Ice. You could have an Air II (or somewhere else) spell along the lines of "Phantom Steed" which grants +2 Movement, Cannot Cast. Then you enable a bAbility bIgnoreHasCasted (NOT bSetHasCasted or whatever it is called) "Dismount" spell. Then the mages who know this spell can become highly mobile, as long as they didn't cast some other spell that turn (so you can cast the same turn you dismount, but without Twincast, cannot mount the same turn you cast)

 

[Tasunke]

yea, I like Xienwolf's idea. Allow them to use a phantom steed to ride to an area, and then concentrate/cast/commence battre!