Magic Immunity

[Imuratep]

Does magic immunity work as intended? Because you can use special abilities of units that are obviously magic to affect units with magic immunity. In the case of the game of me and my brother I played the Khazad and he played the Ilians. It was a very interesting game, in fact the most interesting game of civ I ever played, since in the end game my brother and me led war against each other and we were about equally strong with slight advantages on my side. In my army I had my mighty main weapon: the Dwarven Druids and the Myconoids, but he had 4 Liches and 3 Archmages, that I couldn't build, and a caught Acheron, which has Magic Immunity. But then one thing decided the War, which surprised us both: Crush does also affect Units with Magic Immunity and so I could weaken Acheron which was a Main defense for his city. Especially in combination with Spores, to which Acheron strangely resisted, though it is like Crush a special ability, his main army was quickly destroyed and my brother conceded because his rather good options - Summoning Drifa or ascending to divinity - would also have this problem (they are both immune to magic). To us both was quite clear, that it was illogical (it is obviously a magic ability) and that they should not receive any damage and it was a pity, because me too would have liked to see Auric as an enemy and to kill him as he should be killed: By a giant stack of units, not by the almighty anti-weapon dwarven druid (because he can also pass impassable terrain, where flying units can hide, and as said has a spell that affects magic immune units).
With magic immunity the game still would have been in my favor, but could have become quite interesting, when my brother had summoned his late-game monsters. Additionally my brother used his worldspell Stasis during war and would have regained it by birthright regained. I would have been luckier if I lost this game by such a cool strategy, than winning this game by an obviously magical victory of my druids.

 

[Blackmantle]

Think of it that way: The big rock falling from heaven is the thing affected by the druids magics not the dragon itself. (Since the damage is physical, i don't know if there is a good way codewise to have him immune from that but also keeping him being able to be damaged from fighting with normal units.)

Congrats to finding basically about the only way to stack-damage him (and other magic-immunes) with a spell (Tsunami and the likes shouldn't work because they dish out elemental damage which magic immunity protects from...)
For Auric it seems quite problematic though. Might be better to heal Auric Ascended at the start of each battle (not as suggested at the end of each one, seems like a sensible suggestion either way to me... Unless of course healing at the start / always fighting with 100% power would be messy codewise.)

A similar topic would be Earth Elementals in comparison to other elemental summons (they still work well vs. Acheron, especially Water Elementals but the affinity-part and elemental-damage part is rather worthless. Save for the one from earthen ones which deal physical damage.).


But I'm not definite on elemental resistance / immunity really working now vs. collateral / in combats. For a time i believe it didn't, but i read somewhere it was fixed right now so i believe what i wrote above is correct. At least it definitely is supposed to be working that way.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

On Magic Immunity ... Make Crush do Earth damage and then have Magic Immunity work against it. Also, it would really be nice if Magic Immunity didn't prevent (at least some) helpful spells from affecting the target. Loyalty especially. Poor confused team switching Dragon beasts.

On healing Auric ... There is a mechanic in place to heal a unit after combat, the Cannibalize promotion. Not thematically appropriate perhaps, but I think that the healing part of it would definitely fit the situation. You absolutely don't want to heal AA completely before/after every combat or else the Godslayer becomes almost a requirement.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I knew this topic would be about Dwarven UUs before I clicked on it

 

[MagisterCultuum]

You absolutely don't want to heal AA completely before/after every combat or else the Godslayer becomes almost a requirement.

Yes you do.

The Godslayer is supposed to be a requirement. How would you propose to kill a god without it?

The first changes I made in 0.34 were to make the Avatar racial promtooon provide Blitz and 100% healing after ever battle.
It should be noted that the healing actually only applies when it kills a living unit, so hordes of catapults and golems could still take him down. He has a <PythonPostCombatWon> function anyway (which makes sure that he dies even if he wins against unit with the Godslayer.), so if you want him to heal after every battle you could place a single line of code here.

 

[Imuratep]

Concerning automated healing, has anyone played Civ Rev? Haven't the Aztecs in Civ Rev this special ability? How does it play?
I absolutely assist Magister Cultuum's suggestions concerning Auric. It's a fricking god, and you should recognize it by his abilities. In this state of game you can effort enough non-living units to be able to kill him, it should definitely be a phyrric victory with lots of losses.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

That's my point. Make him tougher, give him some healing after battles, but if you heal AA 100% after every battle then you are going to have to get the Godslayer. Having made extensive use of cannibalize (mutated, blitzing Valin ) in my last game, I can safely say that it makes a huge difference to unit survival without making the unit invincible.

As for why requiring the Godslayer is bad -- isn't it currently only available to a single civ? What if that civ isn't the player? We all know that the AI isn't going to go kill AA.

 

[odalrick]

Although I really think he should be possible to kill Auric without the Godslayer:

Regardless of how invincible the Auric unit is, couldn't you still kill him by razing all Illian cities?

 

[Blackmantle]

Keeper_GFA: Hardly, A highly promoted Tier 4 Unit might do with some luck without the Godslayer (Str 30 is not that hard to reach with promotions in this Mod. As are quite an impressive number of first-strikes with some buffs.
With some Dragons or other captured beasts even equal Strength / odds might! be possible with a lot of experience.).
That's problematic enough lorewise as is... (Auric won't surpass Power 60 and that is far from invincible even without! the Godslayer.) but i agree that because of Gameplay a minor to small chance needs to be there without the Godslayer even if it seems a bit unflavorful.
(Single titanic battle vs. swarm still sounds more fun / in line with background / flavor.)

It just prevents him from being swarm-killed by medium-powered Tier 3s-early Tier4s (or completely prevents mass-swarmed of Tier2s like its possible now...)

A 50% heal before combat (but not limited to living opponents like Aneron's bounty or Cannibalize) might still be sufficient, i agree. (Best might be to implement that as part of the Avatar racial promotion like MagisterCultuum suggested) After Combat presents more problems than heal before combat (if its not a problem codewise that is...) But at least something should be done.
And i think the Avatar of Wrath + other possible Avatars might just do fine with this beef-up as well.

Would still offer some millage from throwing high-powered units his way (Damage from 50-99% is quite common even with relatively low-odds battles so 3 or 4 of those still might take him down even without all to much luck under those circumstances).
A few Mithril-Immortals just might be what is needed and whould perhaps be a good choice anyways... With checking no AI-level-requirements they should be able to get those...


If power is increased it would have to be to about power 240 (yep, i mean it!) to make sure that even with Crush/ other sources of Stack damage like marksmen + collateral (which is higly situational anyways.) or utter mass-swarm about Power 60 is the relative minimum from spells and the likes so high-end units are still needed to dispose of him. That change whould still favor swarm to epic battle. Which sounds not so much fun in my book. So my vote clearly goes to heal before / after battle.

And implementing Earth-Damage just for this one unit and some highly situational circumstances might be to much hassle in my book (given the other 2 quite sufficient possibilities mentioned above which also adress other 'issues'.).

All in all standard non-improvable Power 60 without heal just sounds to meek for the Avatar of a God (In the lore even the highest Archangels couldn't do much more than hope to touch them... See the pedia for Brigit < Bhall or Cerrunos < Agares as a small indications.).

And the price the Illians pay (no matter if AI- or player-controlled) is quite considerable (half their pop + locked in war with everyone for the rest of the game.).


In AoI the white Dragon had Power 80! and people bragged about how easy it was to take him down. Auric shouldn't be so wimpy really...
And somewhere in those forums i believe someone from the Dev-Team (might have been Kael himself) explicitly stated that it wasn't intended to be invincible in AoI outright (also isn't in the lore if i remember rightly). Unlike gods seem to be via the lore.

+ what odalrick said (and even the AI is able to get that done. It might in fact do so easier even now than killing Auric).