MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I had a similar problem myself in one game before merging in lfgr's latest update. I never discovered the cause, because the problem disappeared when I closed and reloaded the program and never happened again.
I do recall that I had before this point noticed some differences in the pedia python files in lfgr's version and mine. I think I started merging in his versions before having that bug, but then for some reason stopped. I think it was because the upgrade chart page was an even bigger mess with his code.
Edit: I guess lfgr found the answer to this one.
I'm afraid I don't know what is going on here either. Are you sure it is Granary related? You didn't accidentally add the religion in worldbuilder? No one had an event trigger which gave the option to spread their state religion in their own and rival cities?
The first way that comes to mind for an angel to turn into a demon is for it to somehow get the Demon Possessed promotion. Its python effect removes that promotion from non-living units, but first transforms Angels into Demons. (It also changes Life and Arawn's Death promotions to Undeath.)
At one point I had Unholy Taint turn all summons into Demons, but decided that was not right for a necromancer to summon a bunch of demonic Spectres and Wraiths that were invulnerable to Destroy Undead. I thought about having Unholy Taint pass on Unholy Taint, but with it allowing access to evil spell spheres in older versions or granting affinities with Demonic Pacts that seemed too much. I still did not want Profanes summoning a bunch of holy Einherjar angels instead of corrupted fallen angels (i.e., Demons).
Brigit is created in Python though, not a summon who would get any summon perks from its summoner's promotions. As Angels are non-living, she should also be immune from the lair exploration result that adds Possession
The only way I can think of for Brigit to become Demon Possessed is through reading the Infernal Grimoire. If you had your archangel seek such evil knowledge, I think it is appropriate that she would fall.
It is also possible for an Angel to become a Demon if you had a Pact with Statius at the time the unit was first created.
MagisterCultuum does not turn barbarian because you are Calabim, but because his Children of the One religion makes his disloyal to anyone with any State Religion. You could have held on to this great sage and potentially even had him pass on Govanon's Ethics to your units if you had no state religion.(If you wait until after learning Theology to convert, you could make MagisterCultuum into a Profane, or a Luminary if you were not Calabim. That would change his religion and make him no longer rebel. If you then got an Infernal pact with Hyborem, your MagisterCultuum profane would have all of the abilities of an Archmage and could spread magical knowledge to anyone.)
It is kind of annoying that great persons change to different great persons when they are captured, but that is a vanilla BtS thing I don't know how to change.
When I introduced Affinity I decided that it made much more sense for Creation to be a sphere with only affinity, without the ability to learn any spell sphere promotions with experience, rather than placing any limits on building Creation mana nodes. It still depends on chance, but in a less annoying way that does not push people so hard into trying to get the Dies Diei or Museum of Maponos every game.With my sessions all showcased, I'll move on to my observations/suggestions/pipe dreams.
Spoiler :
If you play the scenario The Splintered Court, you will find that defeating either Thessa or Rivanna will lead to Alexis asking the favor of turning them over to her. If you agree, then they will appear as Calabim leaders in the Mulcarn Reborn scenario. (Volanna and Amelanchier can similarly be given to Baron Duin Halfmorn to return as Doviello werewolves.) Canonically, Thessa is an archmage who in her youth acquired forbidden knowledge from a grimoire of necromancy which had been stolen from the Calabim. On her wedding night she killed her husband in a ritual where she absorbed his spirit in order to make herself strong enough to purge the forest of the corruption that was destroying it. Her actions sound a lot like what a vampire does when it feeds. She was practically a vampire already, even if she learned from Calabim books rather than being turned by a vampire Sire the traditional way. Alexis would not want this knowledge spreading, but would surely recognize Thessa as the sort of talent that could rise high in her empire and should be given the dark gift in such a way that would bind her to her service. I often like to play Thessa as a reluctant vampire, who resists her desire to feast because she does not want to be evil yet at times must feed to serve a higher purpose. She is True Neutral and embodies the ethos of an Archmage as described by Malchavic. She is not needlessly cruel or malicious, but has the strength of will to pursue her goals and make herself commit any act, no matter how heinous, that she believes is necessary to achieve a worthy end. All we know about Rivanna canonically is that she often plots to depose Faeryl and is the one subordinate that the Winter Queen fears yet finds to useful to have assassinated. (If the Svartalfar were The North and Faeryl was Ned or Robb Stark, then Rivanna would be Roose Bolton.) I usually assume she is an archmage with affinity for Shadow and Death, or maybe even a Lich that maintains a convincing illusion of life. Given that her title is "Wraith Lord," not "Wraith Lady," I am not at all sure that she is female but may choose to present her gender differently at different times to different people.
- I'm not really familiar with Ashes of Erebus, or what is involved in making a new Era. I guess I can look into it.
- Reducing the strength all the way to 1 may have been too much, but I don't like the idea of them being any stronger physically than Mages/Wizards in their prime when deprived of enough mana for which they have affinity. Strength 2 or 3 may be better. Body 3 already can be used to increase their strength, and Body affinity randomly grants Strong, but canonically those who use Body magic actually end to die young as it puts too much strain on their bodies. It is like using high doses of anabolis steroids for years.
[*]For some reason, I can stack Inspiration and Greater Inspiration together, getting the benefits of both, and I'm pretty sure this shouldn't be a thing. I also have the sneaking suspicion I can do the same with Diligence and Hope. Instead of effect buildings like Inspiration, Diligence, and Hope having only one building, why not split the effects? Like, have the normal effect buildings, and any additional effects are only added to the Greater version of the building. Then, you have the say, Greater Inspiration spell, and this puts down 2 "buildings": the normal inspiration, and its Greater cousin.
[*]While we're on the "Greater xyz" topic, why not try to differentiate the effects between each Greater xyz "building"? For example, Diligence gives +10% bonus to
, while Inspiration gives +10% bonus to 
. This would make each effect stand out more compared to its peers. Also, this is more for UI sorting, but instead of having the "(Greater)" text as a prefix, it would be better as a suffix. It'd make sorting much more intuitive, and the lookup of things much less painful.
I suppose I could make it a readable Grimoire, but don't think I will. It seems rather unbalanced for only one religion's holy city to have such an extra ability.
There are already a lot of promotions in the game, way more than in the base game, which have to be cycled through many times per turn for every unit or spell prereq check. I don't feel like adding 21+ more just now without a very good reason. The once in a generation casters would all seem to be heroes anyway, which can have affinity in their unit defines without needing special promotions for that. I have considered making the 3rd level spell sphere promotions grant affinity (in the extra strength sense, not granting extra spells) which could boost Archmages in spheres for which they are not innately gifted.
- At one point I intended to add a lot more spells, expecially cross sphere spells, but there are only so many unique flavorful and easily coded ideas. If you have have suggestions that work with existing game mechanics, not requiring DLL changes or insanely ineffiecient python, then I am willing to consider them but am making no promises.
What sort of in game effects are you thinking of? Making Brigit an Avatar, with complete healing like Auric Ascended and the ability to dominate every user of Fire magic? Removing access to Fire mana from all your enemies? Providing a Heart of Fire (the Gem of Creation still found in Bhall's broken vault) building that provides something like +100 Fire mana? Just a flavorful text popup/image? I may consider it, but doubt the game mechanics would make it easy enough to impliment an epic enough effect. At once point I did include a Rise of Laroth ritual, but ended up cutting it as I just could not think of a way to handle it in the game was was epic enough. I think this is a similar situation.
I don't intend to do this.
Any DLL stuff is up to lfgr, unless Tholal comes back.
I am not compleetly opposed to adding Cults that canonically exist, like the Emrys, Foxmen, Occis, and Stewards of Inequity, but I'd have to have good effects for them all worked out first. I don't plan to demote the Council of Esus to a cult/corporation.
As I said, I always have the audio off and consider it a very low priority. I would not mind reassigning the voices for different units or civs if someone else does most of the work of deciding what fits best together and all I have to do is some minor xml tweaks, but I don't intend to go finding new audiofiles to include in every download.
If it was not for the existence of Gaelan, I think I would have long ago tried changing Hemah to be a Mage (rather than archmage) level caster with the ability to cast Wonder or something similar. The pedia never says "Some say Hemah isn't a mage (not Archmage), he only dreamt he was once and he hasn't forgotten the dream.
I'm a bit reluctant to add a new promotion just for one unit's PyPerTurn effect. (I would much prefer it is units could have <PyPerTurn> effects and promotions could grant <PythonPostCombatWon> and <PythonPostCombatLost> effects.) I guess I could make a random event that requires the unit and recurs frequently, but it would be a lot of work and I imagine it could easily get to be more annoying than fun.
p.s. Using lists, especially numbered lists, makes posts very hard to quote when trying to address things point by point as the forum keep trying to reformat and renumber everything.
.
