[MOD] MagisterModmod

[Samson]

8) As of turn 306 in my epic speed game I have in my possession 10 magic items, most found while repeatable farming explorable unique features.
First artifact is memorable, few next still make me happy, but a dozen?
Extramodmod Continued lets you explore some of the unique features once every 100 turns, which I personally think is much too long, but maybe change it to 30-50 turns on standard speed? That should balance the magic items creep.

I think in general the great people from unique features are more powerful than the items, except for 2:

• The one that gives shadow affinity. This one is game changing when combined with channeling 3 as it means all your summoner's can sit in or next to a rival and make their summons hidden nationality. The AI can not handle that.
• Katana's ring (?), that gives heralds call to summons? This is game changing, as it allows you to level up your summoner's much quicker. Combined with transferable spellstaves it gives almost limitless experience.

 

[Yerltvachovicic]

Umbra Cloak and Kanna's Ring, yes I have both of them, the only thing lacking is archmage to combine both mwahahahaha ]:->. As a side note on turn 308 you can find me sitting on 11 artifacts @__@
About great people - just get Great Merchant and a Shade for now.
Spiderkin was nice too, especially when the rest of the world couldn't build Axemen yet, unfortunately Luchuirp have their own now too ;s

 

[Dominus the Mentat]

I guess I can give the spell staff a summon perk. I used to have it give March, but decided that was not useful except for Summoning trait civs like the Sheaim whose patron is the opposite of enchantment. I'd consider a Drill promotion, but I already use those for Dimensional promotion summon perks. Strong would probably be too much. Maybe Morale?

What about the Empower effects ? They are only used by summoned units and they would fit well in the Enchantment sphere.

The Sidar are currently just blocked from training Berserkers, having no UU to replace it. I think I may just remove that block

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that wouldn't be against their nature ? The lore says that the Sidar become emotionless after the ritual and the berserkers are all about uncontrolled rage. Do you have some special unit in mind ?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

What would you think if I replaced the Chainbreakers' Dimensional Affinity "Summon Mobius Witch" spell with a new "Loose Planar Bonds" spell that would increase the duration of your summons and decrease the duration of rival summons. (It could be resisted, could only be cast by units without duration, and if miscast would cause the caster to become limited duration.)


What wou think if I changed the tech prereqs of Rage from Fanaticism + Iron Working to Fanaticism + Feral Bond?

What about the Empower effects ? They are only used by summoned units and they would fit well in the Enchantment sphere.

I'm not quite sure what you are asking about the Empower effects.

I could give one of those as a summon perk to the SpellStaff, but it would be no extra benefit for a caster that already has the equivalent Combat promotion as those already give the Empower promotions as perks.

I suppose I could add Enchantment spells to grant Empower promotions to units other than summons I suppose.

I guess I if I wanted to use a PyPerTurn effect instead of using <PromotionRandomApply> then I could make Enchantment Affinity or SpellStaffs gradually give the caster (or some other units) Empower promotions, and if I wanted to either make Break Spellstaff use python instead of XML or add 5 new dummy spells I could use the Empower promotions as a sort of counter where the caster could get one spell per turn per empower promotion. That would probably be too strong though.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that wouldn't be against their nature ? The lore says that the Sidar become emotionless after the ritual and the berserkers are all about uncontrolled rage. Do you have some special unit in mind ?

Yeah, I guess Berserkers do go against the nature of Shades. The Grey do not loose all of their passion at once though. Their Rage, Hate, Love, etc., all fade away over the course of centuries. The way I have it implemented in the game it might make sense for a level 7 Sidar unit to be unable to to become a Berserker, but that would be hard to code.

I could make the Berserk ability remove the Grey racial promotion and make the Berserker ineligible for the Wane ability.

It might be easier just to leave the unit blocked though.

I was thinking I had made the Grey racial promotion grant immunity to Enraged and Burning Blood, but it seems that was not the case. Perhaps it should be. If it is though, then a Sidar Berserker's Berserk ability would do nothing. It would also give the Sidar a huge advantage in the Avatar of Wrath Armageddon event, and mean that Sidar Lunatics or bearers of Buboes's sword War would never get out of control.


In the scenarios the one time we see the Sidar having emotional outbursts like Rage would be at the prospect of having their graveyards defiled by necromancers raising the corpses within. A Berserker UU focused on fighting the undead might make sense, but they already have a lot of anti-undead bonuses.

What would you think if I let the Sidar train/upgrade to Angels of Death or Tomb Wardens in place of Berserkers?

edit: For some reason making the Angel of Death the Sidar Berserker UU does work to let their melee units upgrade to Angels of Death, even if I remove Mercurian as a Civilization prereq. I think it may have to to with the units having different racial promotions.

When I instead tried making the Tomb Warden unit the Sidar Berserker UU I found that the Sidar melee units could not upgrade to Tomb Wardens either, but then they could upgrade to Angels of Death. (That is, if I also removed Mercurian as a Civilization prereq of Angel of Death, and remove NONE as the Sidar UU for unitclass Angel of Death, and if the unit is at least level 3.) I guess that when checking units further along the upgrade path the game ignores the racial promotion block. It also seems to ignore the fact that Tomb Wardens have a cost of -1 and so cannot be trained or upgraded to directly.

It might make the civiliopedia a bit confusing, but making the Tomb Warden into the nominal Sidar Berserker UU effectively makes the Angel of Death their real Berserker UU.

Of course, since Angels of Death are not Occis units, nor should they be, this does not help the Sidar found that faith. Their preference for Assassins does give them an advantage in getting the Aeron's chosen event early though, so I may be ok with this.

 

[Ruanek]

Is the world map with all civs still supported? I just reinstalled the mod with the newest update after not playing for a while and it seems to give a game over screen every time.

 

[FireBlaze]

I'd recommend locking the Crown of Akharien as a reward from dungeon exploration to after turn 100 or so (depending on game speed). I had managed to get it at turn ~25 on quick on a Dovello game (before any other religions spawned) and having Laern Cord spreading rapidly across the world gave me a ridiculous tech boom that let me get several hundred beakers a turn at 0% science, which obviously breaks all of the expansion limiting mechanics and leads to a ridiculously powerful snowball.

Also "enter portal" has the same issue that unhide did e.g. has a miscast chance for a repeatable effect. Alternately, could add a miscast of portal that does a random teleport.

 

[Yerltvachovicic]

I'd recommend locking the Crown of Akharien as a reward from dungeon exploration to after turn 100 or so (depending on game speed). I had managed to get it at turn ~25 on quick on a Dovello game (before any other religions spawned) and having Laern Cord spreading rapidly across the world gave me a ridiculous tech boom that let me get several hundred beakers a turn at 0% science, which obviously breaks all of the expansion limiting mechanics and leads to a ridiculously powerful snowball.

I concur, in my game (epic speed) AI got Crown of Akharien ~75 turn

 

[Dominus the Mentat]

What would you think if I replaced the Chainbreakers' Dimensional Affinity "Summon Mobius Witch" spell with a new "Loose Planar Bonds" spell

Its good. The spell combines with the chainbreakers and the dimensional sphere. Also, it appears balanced, since it can only used by a chain breaker and affect their summoned units and the rival ones that are close to the caster.

What wou think if I changed the tech prereqs of Rage from Fanaticism + Iron Working to Fanaticism + Feral Bond?

Its a good idea. Makes sense, since these two techs have a more proximity with rage.

I'm not quite sure what you are asking about the Empower effects.

I was just suggesting that the Empower effects could be a good perk to a unit having a spellstaff and his summoned minions.

What would you think if I let the Sidar train/upgrade to Angels of Death or Tomb Wardens in place of Berserkers?

Its nice, but making angels trainable by mortal civs would be against the compact and make no sense for the Sidar, since Arawn is one of the most neutral of the gods. I have some suggestions that may help:

- Maybe a spell or ability that summons a permanent or summoned Tomb Warden or Angel of Death per number of controled graveyards when casted in a graveyard. This way, the Sidar would rely on the protection of the graveyards to achieve these units to fight on their side, instead of making them trainable. Although making them trainable seems much easier than my suggestion, but I think it would have a better synergy with the civilization and would make cemeteries a little more important for the Sidar.

- Or their training could be attached to the Shrine of Arawn. A summoned Angel of Death would show up if a city with the Shrine of Arawn is under siege. Another idea is, if a city with a Shrine of Arawn is destroyed, it allows the training of permanent Angel of Death, but only per Shrine of Arawn you have built already (this could serve for a situation that cities doesn't need to be destroyed to unlock the unit).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm thinking that having the Schoo of Sadism give Aeron's Chosen to everyone may be too much, especially since the promotion makes every unit who has it count as Evil (even those who would otherwise be destined to return as Angels) and since it blooks the Arawn version of Death magic.

What would you think if the School of Sadism granted Marksman instead, letting any of the Sadists use Target Weakest?

Marksman would still make those units eligible for the Aeron's Chosen event and let them purchase Aeron's Chosen at a high enough level.

Its good. The spell combines with the chainbreakers and the dimensional sphere. Also, it appears balanced, since it can only used by a chain breaker and affect their summoned units and the rival ones that are close to the caster.


Its a good idea. Makes sense, since these two techs have a more proximity with rage.


I was just suggesting that the Empower effects could be a good perk to a unit having a spellstaff and his summoned minions.


Its nice, but making angels trainable by mortal civs would be against the compact and make no sense for the Sidar, since Arawn is one of the most neutral of the gods. I have some suggestions that may help:

- Maybe a spell or ability that summons a permanent or summoned Tomb Warden or Angel of Death per number of controled graveyards when casted in a graveyard. This way, the Sidar would rely on the protection of the graveyards to achieve these units to fight on their side, instead of making them trainable. Although making them trainable seems much easier than my suggestion, but I think it would have a better synergy with the civilization and would make cemeteries a little more important for the Sidar.

- Or their training could be attached to the Shrine of Arawn. A summoned Angel of Death would show up if a city with the Shrine of Arawn is under siege. Another idea is, if a city with a Shrine of Arawn is destroyed, it allows the training of permanent Angel of Death, but only per Shrine of Arawn you have built already (this could serve for a situation that cities doesn't need to be destroyed to unlock the unit).

For some reason when I made the Loose Planar Bonds spell resistible I found that your own summons resist about 100% of the time and never get the benefit of extra duration. When it changed it to only check whether it is resisted by rival units it always forks for yours and sometimes for others. I currently have it only decrease rival duration when the duration are 2 or more, as reducing a duration from 1 to 0 means making them not temporary. Would it be too much if it instead killed summons whose that only had 1 duration?

A promotion can only have 1 summon perk, not one of 5, and it wouldn't serve much of a purpose as summoners usually have some combat promotions.


Arawn is the most neutral and least involved of the gods, but because of this many Angels of Death have abandoned his service in favor of Laroth or Gyra. The Compact does not stop angels from falling and acting in creation against their god's will. The Sidar have been serving Laroth without knowing it, but Gyra respects their veneration of Arawn and has intervened to protect them from Basium.

Several versions ago I already added an ability for a Shade to summon Gyra and a few Angels of Death from the Mercurian Gate.

I guess you're probably right about letting them train Angels of Death not being a great idea though.

Now I am thinking of instead adding a new UU to replace the Berserker for the Sidar: The Sexton.

This would require a Shrine of Arawn and could be sacrificed to build Shrines of Arawn in other cities.

It would have Undead Slaying and would target and defend first against the Undead, much like a Tomb Warden. I might also give them Demon Slaying and Angel Slaying, as they would try to protect graves from either the Infernal or Mercurians claiming the souls of those whose bodies rest in peace there.

If the AI does not have too much trouble handling it, I'm thinking of letting it Dig Graveyards on arbitrary tiles (the way workers could build mines, farms, workshops, etc.) to make up for the fact that my the late game any graveyards, city ruins, barrows, etc., have already been robbed, explored, or otherwise destroyed. If the AI does have trouble with this I could instead add a spell ability like some animals use to make their lairs.

I was initially thinking of giving it Death Affinity and Life 2, but now I'm thinking I may make it a disciple with a random chance of gaining Life or Death affinity like priests can for various manas associated with their religion.

 

[Cromulus]

I have a repeatable Crash when selecting to build dock of dreams in any city. Attached save file for debugging.

 

[FireBlaze]

Is it possible to get the AI to prioritize expanding overseas to uncolonized/barbarian areas over fighting trans-continental wars against other OPMs? Would be nice to see more migrations/filling out in my games instead of countries collapsing because they sent 80% of their army across the continent only to be ganked by a neighbor with all their army at home.

 

[Dominus the Mentat]

What would you think if the School of Sadism granted Marksman instead, letting any of the Sadists use Target Weakest?

Its good. The proper units would still have a way to achieve Aeron's Gift more easily than others and Marksman would help a lot in giving experience to these units.

Would it be too much if it instead killed summons whose that only had 1 duration?

Maybe in the early game it could be a little strong, since adepts and mages that can summon units would be in a disadvantage during a fight. But I think it would be interesting and combines well with the Dimensional affinity. But how this spell would work ? It would affect summoned units 1 tile close to the caster or it would be something else ?

Also, I would like to suggest some things:
- I think that sacrificing units to instantly create temples is a powerful ability in its state. Basically after research Priesthood it becomes cheapy to access the temple's beneficts and spread a faith without risk of fail. Just train a priest and bring it to a city. What do you think if a cost for building a temple instantly is created ? The money cost could be based in the number of required to build the temple. Or instead of a gold based cost, it could need some turns to be finished, like the turns you need to explore a dungeon. I think that this can turn things a bit difficult to the religious victory and would give more use to gold.

- Instead of the -1 from farms and homestead, the Aristocracy civic could increase the time for hamlets, villages, towns, enclaves, pirate harbors and pirate ports to grow. In the present version of the game, a combination with Agrarianism should be more powerful, but actually don't not make much diference, since it only exchanged the lost food of Aristocracy for a hammer in the farms. I suggested this because cities take a lot of time to grown and be productive with this civic, when they shouldn't be so much. If Aristocracy represents the feudal system, I think that discouraging the construction of cottages and their growth represents that better.

I know that the improvements you are doing have no relation to these suggestions, but I think they could improve a bit more the game. Let me know what you think about this.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm thinking of adding some new Unique Features in the next release. Most types of mana can be provided by at least one unique feature (several have two), but there is currently nothing for Law, Chaos, or Creation.

For Law I am thinking about using the Temple of Atonement, which was the center of the Order religion in the Age of Magic. Soqed Hozi and her sister ruled from the Heron Thone when it was located here. Soqued is said to have lost her Law affinity when she murdered her mute twin, but I'm thinking the site itself might still remain strong in her sphere. The Apostolic Palace wonder art from BtS looks better than I expected for this improvement.

For Chaos my first thought was Cernivaen's Cairn, a grave of the Imprimatur Council member who mastered Chaos. (I'm assuming he is dead, but Kael did not confirm it. Kael recent reveal about an unwilling Aspect of War named Surder made me think of using Surder's Cell instead, but then Kael revealed Surder lived after the events of the game and that he eventually left his cell, tried to live as a strict pacifist, but then got drawn into wars anyway.) I'm thinking this would be a lair that your units might accidentally explore whenever they enter the tile rather than giving you any choice to do so. I'm still undecided about what art to use. My first thought was to use the Balseraph Arena art, but it is low resolution and combined with chaos mana art it looks terrible. (I liked the BtS Bunker art for Surder's Cell.) The Burial Mound from AoI could work, but I don't love it. I've thought about using a levee or dike art, which looks ok when I make it way bigger than it should but doesn't look right with the mana when at a reasonable scale. I could use the Gate to the Underdark art from Orbis if I change the name to Carnivean's Cavern. (If I knew he was still alive in the Age of Rebirth I'd seriously consider making it Cernivaen's Camp or Carnival, and make this unique feature chaotically move around, as the Freakshow tent art scales up beautifully.)

For Creation I'm thinking of using Majen's Workshop. In the picture its art is just a larger version of the normal Workshop improvement.


What would you think if I placed a Sluagh of each Imprimatur Council member on their respective Unique Features, allowing a Life Affinity Archmage (or for Barbatos, a Death Affinity Channeling 4 caster like a Lich) to revive the greatest masters of those spheres?

I've also been playing around a little with changing art of existing improvements.

For the Ring of Carcer I just included the Brigit model within the ring, but not the ice cage part from Orbis.

For the Pit (hell terrain improvement that can spawn pit beasts) I switched from using a Cave of the Ancestors skull cave to using a copy of the Ashen Veil Mine art with the more industrial components made invisible).

I'm thinking of using different art for Pirates Coves/Harbors/Ports, borrowing from Orbis except I'm thinking of switching its cove and harbor.

For Tapestry House Door, instead of using the same art as ordinary Portals, I first played around a bit with using the Door feature art from the scenarios. It looked alright, but not especially Dimensional oriented. In ended up modifying the Mercurian Gate graphics (inverting light and dark, making the glowing portal/pillars pink instead of blue, and deleting the humanoid statues since I couldn't figure out how to change those men to Succubi) to make a more appropriate portal to the most pleasant part of hell. What you think of it?

I'm also playing around with using different art for Wode's Oak than Yggdrasil, to make it easier to tell them apart. This is the Council Tree building from Orbis with the leaves made darker green.


I'm thinking of changing the Cave of the Ancestors from a Building (it is currently an Amurite-only National Wonder instead of a regular unique building) to a Unique Feature. It would be a source of Metamagic mana and special lair that only UNITCOMBAT_ADEPT can explore, and/or which can add channeling promotions, spell spheres, and affinities. It might have the Sluagh of Gastrius the great commander there, so he can be resurrected but still needs to be attached to a host to do much.

 

[Nothrazim]

Adding those last unique features sounds like a great idea. It's incredibly frustrating when an AI snags a mana-wonder or a critical resource, so more sources to go around is always appreciated.

The Sluagh idea sounds very interesting. Would these be "regular" archmages with their respective sphere affinity, or seperate creatures? i assume in the first case they would count against your national archmage limit,which would limit their usefulness (as you probably used an archmage of life already to ress one), but it would be extremely useful in allowing you the option of seeking out an archmage of a sphere you cannot access (snagging Majen and parking him in a city sounds like something i absolutely will attempt to do).

If the Cave is removed as a unique amurite feature, would they still be able to interface with the cave in a unique manner or have a mini version of it accessible?

 

[Samson]

If you have a unit that captures naval units, such a Guybrush Threepwood, and you miscast the dimensional summons (rift gate?) then you can capture it, and the captured one is not limited duration. This is very powerful.

 

[Nothrazim]

Why does Reagents cause mages to be built 50% faster, when mages cant be built?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Adding those last unique features sounds like a great idea. It's incredibly frustrating when an AI snags a mana-wonder or a critical resource, so more sources to go around is always appreciated.

The Sluagh idea sounds very interesting. Would these be "regular" archmages with their respective sphere affinity, or seperate creatures? i assume in the first case they would count against your national archmage limit,which would limit their usefulness (as you probably used an archmage of life already to ress one), but it would be extremely useful in allowing you the option of seeking out an archmage of a sphere you cannot access (snagging Majen and parking him in a city sounds like something i absolutely will attempt to do).

If the Cave is removed as a unique amurite feature, would they still be able to interface with the cave in a unique manner or have a mini version of it accessible?

I'll consider making them each new unique heroes. Barbatos the Lich has been a UU hero in my modmod since before Kael deleted him from the main mod. His Sliagh has been placed on the Broken Sepulchur for a while, but I just recently realized that the current code for Mass Resurrection, Call of the Grave, and Dominate Undead were not configured in ways that would work on him.

I currently have it set up to use a Prior for Soqud Hozi, a Druid for Herve, a Whisperer for Wode, a Profane for Asmoday, a Grigori Medic for Majen, and a Great Commander for Gastrius. They all have affinity and Channeling 4, placing them above the mere Archmage level. Soqud also has Metamagic 2 promotions and Herve has Air 1-3. Barbatos has long had Earth 1-3 as well as Death affinity and channeling 1-4.

Do you think Trenton Majosi should have a sluagh placed on the Aifon Isle, or would that be inappropriate as not even the gods know what happened to the souls of all the Aifons who died there with him?

I'm still thinking of different advantages I could give the Amurites if I remove the Cave of the Ancestor's promotions.

One option is to let Amurite units use the Cave Trials ability in any city if they control the site of the original Cave of Ancestors.

One option would be to make exploring the cave require the Arcane promotion instead of (or as an alternate to) unitcombat_adept, which would let all of their units explore the cave while other civs would only be able to explore the cave with Saperes or Laeron Cord units who purchases Arcane or with their adepts only if they have the Arcane trait (like Thessa).

One option would be to make exploring the Cave require a Spellstaff, so any Wizard could explore it as soon as it upgrades but other civs would have to wait for an Enchantment Archmage to equip them for the trials. (Canonically it was a tradition for anyone undergoing the Cave Trials to take both a Spellstaff and a Healing Potion.)

I'm also considering letting Wizards start with a Healing Salve as well as a Spellstaff, and making both of those increase the odds of surviving the Cave Trials. (A Potion of Invisibility might help too, as it features in the Cave of Ancestors scenario as a bonus Dain can get from helping Shekinah. A Potion of Restoration could also help.) Amurite Wizards would thus have very good chances of surviving, while for other civ's adepts the trials mean almost certain death.

(When I first wrote that last part I confused the Healing Salve with the Potion of Restoration. I'd forgotten that a Potion of Restoration is basically a duplicate of the Spellstaff, as using it up just restores one's casting ability. I'm thinking I'd like to change it somehow, perhaps making it remove negative promotions like Withered, Fatigued, Weak, Diseased, Charmed, etc. I can only choose two promotion to remove (in addition to the Potion itself) if it remains an XML-only spell, but with python I could of course add all sorts of effects. With python I could make it restore any promotions from the unit's xml defines it might have lost, such as restoring Channeling promotions that had been removed by Force Affinity 4 Purge Magic. I could make it lower the unit's level to make future promotions easier to earn, etc.

The name Potion of Restoration makes me think it would be a better than Blessed as the random bonus to be granted by Creation Affinity. Restoration sounds like being made young again which sounds very Creationish, and it is canon that Creation "is so rare that practitioners often don’t ever realize they are mages. Instead they are frequently alchemists or herbalists that believe their creations are the result of the ingredients and preparation, when it is their magical ability that is producing the effect.")

If you have a unit that captures naval units, such a Guybrush Threepwood, and you miscast the dimensional summons (rift gate?) then you can capture it, and the captured one is not limited duration. This is very powerful.

Are you sure this is true? I have not been able to reproduce it in my tests. Maybe it was the case in old versions but a while back I gave them not only <bNoCapture>1</bNoCapture> but also <Special>SPECIALUNIT_SPELL</Special> which should make them expire at the end of a turn regardless of duration even if they could be captured.

Why does Reagents cause mages to be built 50% faster, when mages cant be built?

I thought that the production bonuses would also apply to reducing upgrade costs, but it seems that it does not. Maybe I should see if lfgr thinks it should in his next DLL update?

 

[Nothrazim]

I like the idea of Trenton getting some love, too. He can be reunited with his staff! That might even be a super cool way for the Illians to speed up a ritual, although i don't think they need it right now (at least as a player - the AI is never ready for some glaciers).

I think limiting it to Arcane units is a good idea, as it would help imply that only those deeply interested or attuned to magic would be interested in attempting the trials. It could otherwise give an increased success chance like the spellstaff.

The Bless to Potion change sounds amazing, it fits the sphere much better, and it also cements a creation mage as an ideal city booster. I don't know how frequently the effect procs, but i suppose what effects the potion will have should be balanced around that; how frequently it can be given to other units you train much like when 'distributing' spellstaves. Personally i think healing or curing disease-type promotions are ideal, but it sounds like other possibilities are open as well.

 

[Samson]

Are you sure this is true? I have not been able to reproduce it in my tests. Maybe it was the case in old versions but a while back I gave them not only <bNoCapture>1</bNoCapture> but also <Special>SPECIALUNIT_SPELL</Special> which should make them expire at the end of a turn regardless of duration even if they could be captured.

If it did not happen, I am going mad. This was with the mod as it was a month or 2 ago, in the scenario where you play Falmer and the AI decides who is at war with whom. I have updated since, and I cannot load the old save games from then. I will let you know if I can recreate it.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Kezef

If it did not happen, I am going mad. This was with the mod as it was a month or 2 ago, in the scenario where you play Falmer and the AI decides who is at war with whom. I have updated since, and I cannot load the old save games from then. I will let you know if I can recreate it.

I believe the bug you mention was a problem at one point, but was fixed before the last release. Your saved game might have been from just before it was fixed.

I like the idea of Trenton getting some love, too. He can be reunited with his staff! That might even be a super cool way for the Illians to speed up a ritual, although i don't think they need it right now (at least as a player - the AI is never ready for some glaciers).

I think limiting it to Arcane units is a good idea, as it would help imply that only those deeply interested or attuned to magic would be interested in attempting the trials. It could otherwise give an increased success chance like the spellstaff.

The Bless to Potion change sounds amazing, it fits the sphere much better, and it also cements a creation mage as an ideal city booster. I don't know how frequently the effect procs, but i suppose what effects the potion will have should be balanced around that; how frequently it can be given to other units you train much like when 'distributing' spellstaves. Personally i think healing or curing disease-type promotions are ideal, but it sounds like other possibilities are open as well.

I went ahead and made Creation affinity randomly grant a Potion of Restoration, and also improved the Potion so that it fully heals the unit, lets it cast and attack again, removed any negative effect promotions(included Diseased, Plagued, Rusted, etc), and restores any positive promotions (except equipment) from the unit's xml defined in case they have been lost. (The Potion can thus undo The Crucible or the Force IV Purge Magic spell's removal of Channeling promotions.) The Potion promotions however now may randomly expire. Such powerful medicine has a shorter expiration date than a Healing Salve, Potion of Invisibility, etc.

I went ahead and let any arcane unit use the Cave Trials, but Arcane helps survive it. So to Spellstaves, potions, etc, although those items are lost in cases where the unit might otherwise have been killed.


I guess if I'm sticking most closely to lore none of Kylorin's Students should be available for resurrection, as their deaths should have all been long ago for their Sluaghs to leave Erebus for a heaven, hell, or neutral vault and be processed into angels or demons. I guess resurrecting Trenton shouldn't be too much harder than that. The trauma of seeing whatever killed his people should definitely make Trenton Crazed though.

I've decided to go ahead and make the Imprimatur council members their own heroes rather than sharing a unitclass. I've made some custom art for Herve (a Svartalfar Druid but in more Ljosalfar colors), Carnivean (a Lanun Ranger with darker pants and shirt and glowing eyes), Asmoday (a Profane but with the same devilish mask as Sarabride), Trenton Majosi (a Charlemagne scenario Light Spearman with bluish skin and gills slts), Soqed Hozi (an Elohim Adept with the trim of her dress changed to red, longer sleeves, and the Order symbol printed on her book and as a necklace). For now I'm just using the normal Whisperer art for Wode, Ljosalfar Worker art for Majen, and Djinn art for Gastrius. I'm not sure if I'll end up using the Gatrius unit anyway instead of keeping it a Great Commander, as it should canonically only be able to use its abilities when attached to another unit that it makes become the Casswallawn. .

That got me thinking about some other Imprimatur Council members. I was first thinking Tamesis's sluagh could rest at the Mirror of Heaven, but canonically he did not actually die there. He was broken for the Ritual of Endless Night but survived with his powers intact but uncontrollable. He then spent the rest of his days in the Spire of the Sun, a shrine where he confined himself to protect people from his overwhelming power yet let them visit him to give him worship as a living god. I was thinking that the Spiral Minaret art could work well for the Spire of the Sun, but when searching for it found that BtS's Shwedagon Paya works even better. Thus, I think I'll be including another Unique Feature that is a source of Sun mana too.

I changed the effect of Crown of Brilliance so that in Tamesis's case specifically, it damages friend and foe alike. Tamesis's uncontrolled power also auto-razes like the War Machine. I just made a reskin of the Malakim Immortal with light yellow skin to be Tamesis.

I'm also thinking of adding Velgyr's sluagh on a new unique feature, but am still deciding on the name and art. Velgyr himself may just use Luchuirp archmage art. My first thought was to use the Celestial Compass art for the unique feature, as it sounds like his mysterious Astrolabe, but it does not look right in the game on its own. I think it might be great as part of a larger model, but I don't know how to combine nif files. I might use the Observatory but am leaning towards the Public Transit art from BtS. We know Velgyr is severely autistic and avoids people but built himself a model city with some very realistic golems (some which pass for human, some for butterflies, some for dragons). It might be appropriate to make his Unique Feature a Clockwork City with moving model trains.



As far as the other students of Kylorin go:
It probably does not make sense to place a sluagh of Leucetios anywhere and she is eternally young and probably immortal. (My headcannon is that the quick drop in life expectancy after the Age of Magic is due to Os-Gabella capturing the Mother of Nations in a cell near Nemed's in order to prevent her heroic long lived children from enriching the human genepool.)

Os-Gabella and Perpentach are of course leaders in the game. If could give them avatar units (The Red Jester sort of already is one), but those would probably be limited to scenarios, not linked to improvements.

Paimon is already a Grigori hero.

I don't know what kind of improvement could be linked to Kezef or Mikel Dylantyr.

Jenkin's race is immune to time, he is probably not dead in order to be resurrected, but I think he returned to his own world.

I could consider adding Badb's Blizzard, but that feature would have to move around at random and Badb himself is said to be still alive but trapped within it so resurrecting him wouldn't make much sense.

I could place Laroth's sluagh on Bradeline's Well, but I'm thinking he is much too important to let us simply resurrect him like that. He is not dead anyway, just biding him time in the realm of the dead until he can gather the forces to become its new god.