Lich not powerfull or am I missing something??

[tuckerthecat]

Does Lich do anything other than turn the caster from a 4 strength arch-mage into a 6 strength lich? I was playing quick games last night ( on warlord setting ) just to get a feel for the different civs/tactics etc & to me it seems a huge waste to make a caster a lich over a fire based caster. When an arch mage gets meteor shower they are extremely powerful & can destroy entire garrisons of troops from range, a 6 strength lich can melee attack a city once per turn & thats it?? By the time your adapts turn from adapt to mage to arch-mage/lich ( & you research the very expensive techs to go with it ) I'm assuming that on a hard setting the AI would be able to research & build level 6+ strength units by then to defend?

I tried searching for this but couldnt find anything on the subject.

thanks

 

[Sureshot]

One benefit of Liches is that it also doubles your "archmage" national amount to 6.

 

[TheJopa]

Dont forget that liches still have their spells, except life sphere. So you can cast 3 meteor swarms with liches and again 3 with archmages.

 

[tuckerthecat]

Ooh I didnt realize that you could have 3 lichs & 3 arch mages, that does make them very handy since you could spec your top exp mages to fire 1st & by the time your other adepts have reached the level to become arch mages you could have turned your other arch mages into lichs. Having a more durable arch-mage ( in lich form ) is also pretty handy, whenever I get an arch-mage I make sure to guard him with my best troops so he cant be killed.

I was really hoping lich form would turn the caster into maybe a 10 strength creature or so with special abilities but lose casting ability.

I think the spell casting needs to be more rounded, I got entropy3 spec'd arch mage last night & his level 3 spell is ( chance to turn one defender into a barbarian ) this is so underpowered compared to a fire spec'd mage that can cast 3, level 5 STR, 2 range meteors ( 6 with twin cast ) that all cause collatoral damage. It seems every spell line is grossly underpowered compared to the fire line.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

You just have to be more careful about how you use them, they can actually be more powerful in the right situation.

 

[AndrewDJ]

Also, while having three extra Archmage-equivalent casters is useful, Liches *used* to get Twin Cast. Back then, 3 Liches + 3 Archmages would equal 27 Meteor Storms, 54 with Spellstaff!

But that was a little too uber, so they took away twincast from the Liches. There's a Hero unit that gets Twincast, Kael Coalbane , but I can't remember what civ/religion you need to be to get him.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I think it be fitting if Liches also got a new summon skeleton spell with a bit higher strength skeleton, say, 5 or 6.

 

[Sureshot]

To make them really lichy, you could make them immortal but have them destroyed if you lose the city they were made in.

 

[vorshlumpf]

That's a cool idea.

 

[Jono]

To make them really lichy, you could make them immortal but have them destroyed if you lose the city they were made in.

This just gave me an idea (for some reason), how about a unit that dies if it enters its hometown? (I'm not sure if the can really know what one's hometown is after it's created)

 

[Silverkiss]

What if it dies (or get terrible bonuses like -80% str) when it enters homeland (your own borders) ? It would be sorta of inversion of Homeland promotion (the one Defensive trait gives), and it could also give a bonus fighting in other people´s borders or in the wild.

 

[QES]

To make them really lichy, you could make them immortal but have them destroyed if you lose the city they were made in.

I think this is the best idea, i mean after all phylacteries(sp?) are designed for that purpose alone. Plus since Lichdom doesnt provide any offensive capabilities (outside of other spheres of spells), it would make sense that it is intended so that you are allowed to use a spell-caster without fear of its death. The Lich could be the spell caster with the immortal promotion (always on) and therefore be the spellcaster SIMPLY TRHOUGH TIME, who will always be the highest level. THis makes sense, fits the theme, etc.

The downside to lichdom? Maybe make them national units and tie them to a city. IF that city is taken/destroyed their immortality vanishes.

Lichs as the "oldest" i.e. "most experieanced" spellcaster makes sense, and immortality provides that option.
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

ya thats what i was thinking, though i didnt want to try to spell "phylacteries(sp?)" lol

 

[Nikis-Knight]

That's interesting, though I believe that it can't currently be tracked what city a unit is from. It would essentially be a forever immortal, though, as I'd then build all my Liche wanna-bes in my capital or most protected city.

 

[Silverkiss]

Them limit it to 1/city (probably too hard anyway...)

 

[Sureshot]

That's interesting, though I believe that it can't currently be tracked what city a unit is from. It would essentially be a forever immortal, though, as I'd then build all my Liche wanna-bes in my capital or most protected city.

Someone never learned the lesson of putting all your eggs in one basket

 

[QES]

That's interesting, though I believe that it can't currently be tracked what city a unit is from. It would essentially be a forever immortal, though, as I'd then build all my Liche wanna-bes in my capital or most protected city.

When I look at National Units names, they're always "of somewhere" usually the city they were produced in. Is that not tracking what city its from? Wherever they promoted? Would be the key.
-Qes

 

[upthorn]

When I look at National Units names, they're always "of somewhere" usually the city they were produced in. Is that not tracking what city its from? Wherever they promoted? Would be the key.
-Qes

If it is truly tracking what city the unit it was from, the unit's name will change when you change the city name.

 

[QES]

If it is truly tracking what city the unit it was from, the unit's name will change when you change the city name.

I never tried that, does it change the name of the unit? All i know is that national units have this "of so-and-so" tag in their titles. IT seems like if this is possible at all, then it should be possible to link units to cities in some fashion...civ 2 did it a long time ago, i hardly believe that in 2 civ games time that we've lost the ability to do this.
-Qes

 

[Kael]

You can definitly track what city a unit is from. Its a bit of a pain because you have to make sure to save and reload the data but it can be done. New attribute on all units, modifiable, saved, applied on create, cheak run on all units each time a city is captured or razed to look for liches, etc.

But in the end its probably not worth it for a flavor feature. Nikis was right in saying that you would probably just make them all in your most defended city so it wouldn't impact 95% of your games anyway, and thats a lot of coding and CPU cycles for something that doesnt make a game difference very often.

And, the killing blow, it has no drool factor. It is a cool flavor mechanic, but no one is going to download the mod for it.