[MOD] MagisterModmod

[Samson]

Is it intentional that the crown of astrakhan gives effectively unlimited free promotions? As it can be past from one unit to another as long as they have not casted it seems particularly unbalancing for the arcane units.

 

[FireBlaze]

I got a random event for an adept to go do some trials in the Amurite capital. I thought it was cool, but I thought it was way cooler when this same adept teleported across the world and singlehandedly occupied the capitol of my biggest enemy (the Amurites). Maybe add a check to that event so that it doesnt fire for enemies (I was on a team with another Amurite, which seems like it should've been the target of the training event).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I've been playtesting and modding a bit more this week, after being too busy for Civ for the past few months.

For most of the week I was getting a lot of inexplicable crashes to desktop, but I have not gotten such a crash since making a few changes yesterday. I have no idea how those changes would be relevant and haven't tested long enough to make sure things are now stable, but I hope so.


I gave the Hierophant, the Laeran Cord high priest, the new Share Secrets spell. If the Hierophant is in rival territory and the rival knows some technologies that you do not, this spell allows you to force that player to share a technology with every player he knows who knows all of that technology's prerequisites.

I cannot recall if it was in the last release or if I mentioned it already, but the Sapere Laeran Cord priest spell is Research, which sacrifices all of the unit's XP in order to give you 10x as any research points towards whatever technology is your current research goal.

I added a new special ability for the Circle of Gaelan: Trade Memories.

This allows the unit to get a free promotion pick (without any xp requirement or leveling up) in exchange for loosing one random promotion that it already knows. If miscast (remember that the Circle of Gaelan promotion increases the chance of miscasting) the spell deals psychic damage to the unit and may give it the Charmed, Crazed, Enraged, Mutated, Withered, Fatigued, or Paranoid promotions.

Gaelan himself can cheat in the deal and gets free promotion picks without giving up any promotions, but when he miscasts it can cause a catastrophe. (I'll probably block the AI from using this ability as Gaelan.)

There is a chance of removing the Circle of Gaelan promotion from every unit in the game, giving all the Circle's former members all of the promotions that their miscasting could cause, dealing potentially lethal Psychic damage to each of the Circle's members, dealing a lesser amount of Psychic damage to every other unit in the world, and transforming Gaelan himself into The Burnt Priest. The Burnt Priest will be a barbarian unit, unless you have converted to The Undertow or Stewards of Inequity. If he does stay under your control then the whole world likely take the damage you caused to their units as a declaration of war.

(I previously had a summon Root of Fear ability for Gaelan, which lets the player choose to transform him into the Burnt Priest plus triggered the Hastur's Razor effect. I have no idea why, but the game seemed to become a lot more stable when I deleted that ability.)

Spoiler :

Gaelan Sedracious was a lonely, awkward child. He was most at peace while alone, wandering the rosewood around his village, sometimes getting lost for hours. His village had a small school and shrine to Oghma. Though he loved learning, he suffered horrible bullying from the other children. One morning he came early to study, hoping to avoid the other children, but they caught him. Their bullying escalated to a stoning that left him nearly dead on the school floor.


As an adult Gaelan was the head of a small sect of the Laeran Cord called the Circle of Gaelan. They sought knowledge and were frustrated by the warnings and limitations of the more orthodox Laeran Cord. They ignored these restrictions and began summoning spirits and demons of the Mind in order to increase their power. They summoned and bound Gowlers, Endormillon, Haegtesse, Morphores and worse in their rituals.


Each binding gave them new knowledge, but demons of the mind always had a price. They wanted some thought or memory from their summoner. The members of the Circle were forced to pay it but Gaelan had a way to avoid the cost. He formed a memory palace in Euphoria, a construct that had a copy of every precious thought and memory he had. When the demons consumed his memories, he could recover them.


Gaelan wasn’t satisfied with the lesser demons of Mind. He knew that there were more powerful true angels, created by Mammon himself that were intended to be angels of foresight and prophecy. Tired of just being able to know everything that has been, Gaelan wanted to know everything that was to come.


These avatars were no longer spirits of foresight; they became the Roots of Fear after Mammon’s fall. They no longer had the ability to see the future, instead they only saw horror, terror and panic. And they passed these visions to creation. Their impact on creation was felt by every living thing, but to meet one in person is more than the mortal mind can comprehend.


The last act of the Circle of Gaelan was the summoning of a Root of Fear. The demon drowned them in their own personal terror and stripped their minds of anything close to sanity. But he tortured Gaelan, burning his body and mind until there was little left and then remaking him as the Burnt Priest, a servant of Mammon.


As the demon explored the thoughts of the husk that had been Gaelan he found the secret his mind most closely guarded: the link to his memory palace. The demon followed the link to Euphoria where he was met by Caer.


Caer and the Root of Fear battled in Euphoria. And nightmares spread to dreamers across creation as the battle occurred. The Root of Fear wanted the contents of the memory palace, but Caer shattered the palace rather than allow the demon to take it, allowing the thoughts and memories to spread to all dreamers.


So many dreams were touched by the memories of Gaelan that some places have become fixed in the ethereal world of Euphoria, and continue to echo in dreams from people across Creation. Most prominent are a lonely but peaceful rosewood forest and a dark village schoolhouse haunted by cruel voices.

I added a Embarr, Archangel of Knowledge to the game, but am not sure I'll actually use him for anything, There is a chance I could make him a very late game Laeran Cord or Matronae hero, but I'm not sure I have anything interesting enough for him to do.



Another change I made around the time things seemed to get more stable to changing the Nature III spell to Summon Treant (or Summon Treats Greater fore Nature Affinity + Channeling 3) and making Summon Guardian Vines the High Priest of the Leaves spell. I liked the idea of having a defensive summon but it didn't seem to work out so well with the general pattern of greater and lesser spells based on affinity.

The Guardian Vines are canonically all offshoots of one plant deep beneath the Umbrawood, and in the story of Gower the vines seem to be treated almost like the avatar Sucellus used when he dwelt among the Elves, so it seems like it may have a more Divine flavor. The Bestiary says the Guardian Vines reach is limited by the forest where it lives, so it may make more sense for this spell to be limited to only being cast on Forest or Ancient Forest rather than anywhere. (The elven civs can have forests in their cities so the Guardian Vines would be much more potent defenders for them.)

Before the switch to make them a divine spell, I had already switched Guardian Vines from a Permanent Summon to a limited duration summon whose duration is not 1 (or 2 for summoner trait layers) but is determined by the caster's effective mana divided by the total number of their Guardian Vines. I was handling this through a pyperturn on their Nature affinity promotion, but decided I might not want all the Guardian vines to have nature affinity to I switched it to the Forest Stealth py per turn (which is also a spell prereq) instead.I'm not positive if I'll keep this mechanic.I mostly added it because I don't like how permanent summons start immobilized and unable to use their entangle ability the turn they are summoned.

I'm still debating whether the Treants as a Nature 3 summon should be limited to being summoned on Forests/Ancient Forests or if I should let them be summoned elsewhere, possibly with some different promotions based on the terrain. The Bestiary says that a Treant is usually a tree that has been animated by a forest spirit but the it could be any sort of plant, so perhaps we could have some Nomad Treants that are animated Desert Scrub or some Flood Planes Treants made of Rice. I currently have it so that the death (whether from combat or duration expiring) of a Treant has the effect like Bloom, turning vacant tiles or New Forests, New Forests to Forests, or Forests to Ancient Forests. If I open things up to let them be summoned anywhere I might need to scale back that ability, perhaps tying it to the promotions they are given so a desert Treant could only spread Scrub, etc.

I'm also considering letting Treants gain duration from combat, much like Einherjar and Pit Beasts. It might be nice for the Neutral civs to get that mechanic rather than only good/evil summons.



For a while I was playing around with an ability to let any Demonic units Possess Ritualists, or even any units with Unholy Taint, giving the Priests of the Veil their promotions. (This was inspired by lore on Lief Lonke and how he taught people how to offer themselves up as hosts for demons in order to gain great power.) That was very overpowered, but I'm thinking of keeping it for Profanes instead.

I was also playing around with letting Imps be a permanent summon, one per Ritualist, which could then go on to be upgraded to Mages (and maybe some other types of Demons) with enough levels. I think I like that a bit better than making them normal 1 turn summons. When your summoned Imps upgrade to Mages though and then Possess a Profane, it can lead to a high priest with a lot of affinities and access to multiple 4th level spells. I had given the high priests channeling 4 for divine spells, but am thinking I may need to go back to using a separate Divine 2 promotion instead. Some of those spells are just too OP.

My current version of Vitalize is a Nature affinity channeling 4 spell that effects a potentially large range (depending on mana) and acts like Genesis plus also strengthens the animals in that range. It seems like a great spell for Herve and maybe Yvain, but probably too much for an ordinary Druid.

I'm still pondering how bets to handle the Druids. They have been an important Neuteral national unit for a long time, but canonically are priests of Sucellus. To fit the lore it seems it would be better to use them as the High Priests of the Leaves or of the Unblemished. The art some civs have for their druids really doesn't seem to fit either of those though, and looks good enough that I'd prefer to keep it.

 

[Nothrazim]

The catastrophe mentioned in relation to Gaelan is the one immediately mentioned below i assume, rather than it being a seperate random event that could occur.

Maybe Embarr could have an ability that 'sacrifices' him for research, in the same vein as a Great person, but instead causes him to respawn in the capital or be disabled for a turn after using it? If that is even possible to add, that is. Otherwise i feel like giving him Govannon's Ethics or an ability very similar to it would be extremely fitting. Would he be buildable as either Laeran Cord or Matronae?

I really like the idea of the Nature/FoL Divine switch, as Nature has always felt a bit meh unless playing as one of the elves (poisoned blade is really only great for elves or sidar, and while Nat II can give free production through chopping i personally found it just tedious when not playing one of the elves). While the Vines are good defenders, it always felt like an archmage had a better option to cast instead. Would Treants summoned with Nature Affinity be increased in number or stronger? I would prefer the latter myself.

The idea of making them summonable from scrubs or burnt forests or flood plains sounds super cool. Maybe the scrub ones have Stoneskin or a Drill promotion to reflect a thornier body while a Treant summoned from a burnt forest has Fire Resistance due to it's less flammable nature. It sounds very flavorful and cool, but may be tedious in implementation and not make a significant change in gameplay however.

Would it be possible to limit an Imp or possessed Profane in how many or which affinities they get? I would think that an imp, even when upgraded to a Mage, would only be able to get affinity for the evil spheres. Maybe the possession lets them purchase an affinity somehow instead of stacking them on a Profane? The only way i can think of at the top of my head would be to make the various affinities exclusive to one another, but that would mess heavily with other mages using Tower of Mastery.
It bears mention a Profane can already get a theoretical 3-4 affinities in the current version, if an affinity Savant upgrades to a Mage (and gets an affinity from it), upgrades to a Profane (and gets dImensional, undeath etc) + Entropy Affinity via Unholy Affinity.

Could a unit have a prereq of alignment or state religion? If so, Druids could be available if you either are neutral, or follow the Unblemished. I imagine the Unblemished would be a good religion? Or would it only flip evil into neutral? If it forces good alignment, an ugly solution would be two versions of the druid unit; one that require neutral alignment and one that requires the state religion. Fitting as it would be for FoL, i don't think they would need an 'added free' priest in the form of a druid, and i personally would be a little bit sad to see them become unavailable through that (as that would for example mean Khazad & Luchuirp are exceedingly unlikely to ever qualify for Druids).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The catastrophe mentioned in relation to Gaelan is the one immediately mentioned below i assume, rather than it being a seperate random event that could occur.

Yes

Maybe Embarr could have an ability that 'sacrifices' him for research, in the same vein as a Great person, but instead causes him to respawn in the capital or be disabled for a turn after using it? If that is even possible to add, that is. Otherwise i feel like giving him Govannon's Ethics or an ability very similar to it would be extremely fitting. Would he be buildable as either Laeran Cord or Matronae?

I'd already given the unit Metamagic Affinity and Channeling 2-4, like the other Archangels, which already lets him use the Awaken Magic spell like Gastrius. Your post reminded me that the other archangels are also innately immortal, so I have him bImmortal too, which I believe means he would get reborn in the capital every time he uses the great sage's research ability if I let him have that too. I guess I could make him available for either religion if I used python instead of XML for that prereq.

Canonically Brigit, Condatis, and Gyra worked together to resurrect Embarr because they needed his counsel on how to survive the wars in their own vaults and the death of magic in Erebus due to the Cricuble. It was Embarr's idea to have them use the Masks of the Council of the Black Candle to help them retrieve the Gems of Creation and to take on the personae of Sarabride, Cliodna, and Morrigan. He is as responsible as anyone for the founding of The Matronae religion, and is the most responsible for the technological advances of the Age of Invention.

I really like the idea of the Nature/FoL Divine switch, as Nature has always felt a bit meh unless playing as one of the elves (poisoned blade is really only great for elves or sidar, and while Nat II can give free production through chopping i personally found it just tedious when not playing one of the elves). While the Vines are good defenders, it always felt like an archmage had a better option to cast instead. Would Treants summoned with Nature Affinity be increased in number or stronger? I would prefer the latter myself.

The idea of making them summonable from scrubs or burnt forests or flood plains sounds super cool. Maybe the scrub ones have Stoneskin or a Drill promotion to reflect a thornier body while a Treant summoned from a burnt forest has Fire Resistance due to it's less flammable nature. It sounds very flavorful and cool, but may be tedious in implementation and not make a significant change in gameplay however.

The XML defines only let me set 2 feature prereqs. I could add a python prereq for more than that, but don't really want to.

I had just made it so that the affinity version created 3 Treants and the Nature 3 version summoned one, just like with the other tier 3 summons, but when reading your post I had another idea.

What if Nature 3 let you summon a Treant only on Forests or Ancient Forests, but Nature Affinity+Channeling 3 lets you summon 3 Treants anywhere, with no feature prereqs? That would also mean that the Nature Affinity Treants could get a wider range of possible buffs based on locale.


It is not too tedious for me to add a few lines to onUnitCreated in CvEventManager.py that grants promotions based on the features/improvements/terrain of the tile where the units originates, so long as it applies to all Treants and not only those summoned by any particular spell. The game doesn't know tat a unit is a summon or who its summoner is at that point, so promotions based on the summoner won't work. I'd have to switch to a python spell the AI wouldn't understand if I wanted to modify the summons based on the summoner (unless I just wanted to use the tag to duplicate all of the summoner's promotions).

Having a Scrub Treant spreading Forests doesn't seem to fit so well. I guess I could keep track of what improvements to spread using promotions, but unless they are promotions that cannot be earned with xp then it could have some odd effects. It might be easier to get rid of the code that automatically terraforms when the unit dies and instead grant Ancient Forest Treants Nature Affinity and Forest Treants Nature 2 so that can use the normal bloom spells, plus add a bit of code that forces them to cast bloom and/or sets the immobile timer to 0 so they can finish their spell when they die.

Would it be too much if Treants summoned on Forests started with Nature 2, Treants Summoned on Ancient Forests started with Nature Affinity, and if their death forced them to cast whatever their best version of Bloom.

If only dealing with this spell I'd say it is fine, as most tier 3 summons have innate affinity anyway, but I have some concerns about large numbers of Treants with affinity from March of the Trees

I was thinking Scrub would grant Nomad and Maybe Sun 1, letting them cause desertification as the scrub pushes out less hardy plants. (I'm not sure I'd want them to cast Scorch automatically upon dying like Nature 2/Nature Affinity Treats though.)

Oasis Treants might also have Nomad but with Water 1 (or maybe even Water Affinity, which could let them start a new Oasis in a flat dry desert).

Treants from Hills or Peaks could start with Guerilla.

Treants from beside Rivers could have Amphibious.

Treants from coastal tiles (animated Mangroves? or Kelp?) could have Water Walking.

Those from Jungles could have Poisoned Blade/Poison Resistance/Nature 1 to let them cast Poison Blade.

Treants from Burnt Forests could have Fire Resistance instead of Vulnerable to Fire

Treants from tiles with Smoke could have Fire 1 and Enraged.

Treants from tiles with Flames could have Fire Affinity and Enraged.

Treants from the Tomb of Sucellus or Yggdrasil could have Life and Nature affinity

Treants from Herve's Mausoleum could have Air and Nature 2.

Treants from The Whispering Wood or Wode's Oak could have Shadow affinity.

Would it be possible to limit an Imp or possessed Profane in how many or which affinities they get? I would think that an imp, even when upgraded to a Mage, would only be able to get affinity for the evil spheres. Maybe the possession lets them purchase an affinity somehow instead of stacking them on a Profane? The only way i can think of at the top of my head would be to make the various affinities exclusive to one another, but that would mess heavily with other mages using Tower of Mastery.
It bears mention a Profane can already get a theoretical 3-4 affinities in the current version, if an affinity Savant upgrades to a Mage (and gets an affinity from it), upgrades to a Profane (and gets dImensional, undeath etc) + Entropy Affinity via Unholy Affinity.

The easiest way to block affinities would be through a promotion that makes the unit immune to other promotions. Technically Demons are already immune to Life 1 and the Arawn Death promotions. I don't really want demons immune to most good spheres, as most of the demons serving Arawn directly were corrupted from the service of Good gods and still have some access to their original spheres.

With all 21 spheres represented as separate religions, I got to thinking that letting each of the religion's priests get random affinities for multiple spheres was too much. Kael's reddit posts in the last few years seem to indicate the religions as being more singularly devoted to one sphere than before, so I had already changed it so that the random cleric affinities are limited to only the religion's patron sphere (except for the Undertow, which can be either Water or Mind as the Overlords are beings of Danalin corrupted by Hastur).

Maybe I should just make Possession not grant any Affinity promotions, but still allow other spell spheres?
That would be as simple as adding this one single line:
if info.getBonusPrereq() == -1 and info.getPrereqOrPromotion1() ==gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_MASTERY'):continue

Could a unit have a prereq of alignment or state religion? If so, Druids could be available if you either are neutral, or follow the Unblemished. I imagine the Unblemished would be a good religion? Or would it only flip evil into neutral? If it forces good alignment, an ugly solution would be two versions of the druid unit; one that require neutral alignment and one that requires the state religion. Fitting as it would be for FoL, i don't think they would need an 'added free' priest in the form of a druid, and i personally would be a little bit sad to see them become unavailable through that (as that would for example mean Khazad & Luchuirp are exceedingly unlikely to ever qualify for Druids).

I think I could use python to let a unit have an alignment of state religion prereq, but don't really want to. The AI would never understand such a limit and I'd have to document it manually for new players.

I wasn't considering given the FoL an additional priest, but was considering basically eliminating the unit currently called Druid while introducing a new Druid as an Unblemished Priest or changing the name of their high priest to Druid.

 

[Nothrazim]

While Embarr is so heavily tied to the Matronae, i feel like it would be a very rewarding ability for Laeran Cord to get Embarr as a very late game reward too. I for one would prefer it if either religion works for him (though i'm not going to lie, part of it is because i want him leading a stack of Amurite Wizards, all Laeran Cord religion, wrecking the hell out of everyone using a million spells).
In either case, would he be buildable as a religious unit from cities with the faith, or would he require a special means of being brought back? Perhaps a ritual requiring Divine Essence + Strength of Will would let him be resurrected, although i imagine that could be an issue if he's supposed to be available for two religions (which would he spawn with?)

I think the idea of Nature Affinity casters making Treants elsewhere is a great idea. It would help the alvar civs & any FoL followers expand into other terrains, and feels like just the thing that should seperate a good archmage from an excellent one.

It is not too tedious for me to add a few lines to onUnitCreated in CvEventManager.py that grants promotions based on the features/improvements/terrain of the tile where the units originates, so long as it applies to all Treants and not only those summoned by any particular spell. The game doesn't know tat a unit is a summon or who its summoner is at that point, so promotions based on the summoner won't work. I'd have to switch to a python spell the AI wouldn't understand if I wanted to modify the summons based on the summoner (unless I just wanted to use the tag to duplicate all of the summoner's promotions).

Would this mean that Treants would be different from all other summons (afaik) in not getting promotions from the summoner? It would certainly be a detriment to them, but an increase in Strength from Nature Affinity may compensate for that. I seem to recall treants move at double forest speed like elves and satyrs, which would also compensate if they don't get any Spell Extension benefit.

I think changing the (Nature II/Nature Affinity) Treants to cast Bloom instead of spreading forests would be fine. It would definitily make them stronger, but then again it would also be a very appropriate function for them - utilizing treants to help plant new forests and aid in turning Forests to Ancient Forests in your empire.
Would Bloom be instant cast in this case? It could result in some powerful blooming if you have multiple Treants die in a single turn (such as via March of the Trees or Nature Affinity archmage).

but I have some concerns about large numbers of Treants with affinity from March of the Trees

Yes, March of the Trees would cause a big powerspike with this ability. If the World Spell can force them to spawn with the Weak promotion that could help versus too much instant military power, but it would not alleviate the insane forest growth that would result from several dozen Treants using Bloom. I think it may be worth implementing and seeing in practice if it becomes an issue (especially since as a player you can use this to 'move' forests within your borders)

As for the various promotions for Treants on alternative tiles, they all sound very flavorful and most would make an appreciated change making them worth using.

With all 21 spheres represented as separate religions, I got to thinking that letting each of the religion's priests get random affinities for multiple spheres was too much. Kael's reddit posts in the last few years seem to indicate the religions as being more singularly devoted to one sphere than before, so I had already changed it so that the random cleric affinities are limited to only the religion's patron sphere (except for the Undertow, which can be either Water or Mind as the Overlords are beings of Danalin corrupted by Hastur).

A great change. While there are some combos that have proven very enjoyable (like Undeath affinity for Undertow or AV priests), in most cases i find it more of an annoyance when i make a priest and they get affinity in an unexpected sphere, especially when focusing heavily on one mana type (getting Water Affinity priests as Illians or Dimensional on Agents of Esus as Svartalfar comes to mind).

Maybe I should just make Possession not grant any Affinity promotions, but still allow other spell spheres?
That would be as simple as adding this one single line:
if info.getBonusPrereq() == -1 and info.getPrereqOrPromotion1() ==gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_MASTERY'):continue

PROMOTION_MASTERY would be the Tower of Mastery promotion? If i read it right, this would mean that a Possessed Profane would get all the demon's promotions, except for Affinity? If so, that sounds like an ideal solution.

I am not sure what the best solution would be for Druids. On one hand, i would like them to have a looser restriction so they are available to non-FoL/non-Unblemished civs, but on the other it would be the perfect fit for the Unblemished. I don't think merging them with FoL would be the ideal way to go - with the next release featuring so many new religions that needs their own units or buildings to stand out, and with Cernunnos replacing Sucellus as god of Nature it makes more sense to me that now more than ever High Priests of Leaves/Druids ought be split as seperate units.
Making them units that require the presence of Unblemished, but not as a state religion could be one solution to merging them with the religion, but then the Unblemished lacks a high priest (unless a Grigori Medic-like unit takes that role but with a different name). I'm really not sure how best to represent them.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

While Embarr is so heavily tied to the Matronae, i feel like it would be a very rewarding ability for Laeran Cord to get Embarr as a very late game reward too. I for one would prefer it if either religion works for him (though i'm not going to lie, part of it is because i want him leading a stack of Amurite Wizards, all Laeran Cord religion, wrecking the hell out of everyone using a million spells).
In either case, would he be buildable as a religious unit from cities with the faith, or would he require a special means of being brought back? Perhaps a ritual requiring Divine Essence + Strength of Will would let him be resurrected, although i imagine that could be an issue if he's supposed to be available for two religions (which would he spawn with?)

I'm not really sure yet. To be the most faithful to the lore, you'd have to find the 3 pieces of Embarr and reunite him like you united the pieces of the Godslayer in the AoI scenario. I don't know if it is worth implementing that in the game though.

I think the idea of Nature Affinity casters making Treants elsewhere is a great idea. It would help the alvar civs & any FoL followers expand into other terrains, and feels like just the thing that should seperate a good archmage from an excellent one.

Would this mean that Treants would be different from all other summons (afaik) in not getting promotions from the summoner? It would certainly be a detriment to them, but an increase in Strength from Nature Affinity may compensate for that. I seem to recall treants move at double forest speed like elves and satyrs, which would also compensate if they don't get any Spell Extension benefit.

Treants would still get all of the summon perks based on their summoner's promotions. That is handled in the XML/C++ DLL and would be a major hassle to change.
The XML also lets a spell give the summon one specific promotion, but only one. I was using Nature II as that promotion for the Treants summoned by High Priests of the Leaves. They were also treated as a permanent summon then, but temporary now. (If I kept them as a permanent summon, then the dll would impose a limit on them of one per Nature 3 caster and 3 per nature affnity caster, and I'd probably want to use python to make the limit apply per caster instead of in general.) The way I have it coded now, they only get Nature II if summoned on a Forest and Nature Affinity on an Ancient forest. The various other summon perks based on terrain are in addition to the promotions added in xml based on the summoner.

I think changing the (Nature II/Nature Affinity) Treants to cast Bloom instead of spreading forests would be fine. It would definitely make them stronger, but then again it would also be a very appropriate function for them - utilizing treants to help plant new forests and aid in turning Forests to Ancient Forests in your empire.
Would Bloom be instant cast in this case? It could result in some powerful blooming if you have multiple Treants die in a single turn (such as via March of the Trees or Nature Affinity archmage).

I generally can't make certain units cast the spell faster, as the python code for casting a spell does not run until the delay is over. I was a bit surprised to find that I can easily change the immobile timer to make a spell finish instantly when a unit is killed, however, as that uses a completely different python callback.

Treants would be able to cast bloom at the same speed as ordinary mages, but instead of having the casting interrupted and rendered useless when they die the casting would instead be completed early.

I probably would have done it this way years ago if I realized that I could. At one point I had given all the Treants Nature II, but took it away when I realized that the AI tended to waste their Treants casting bloom rather than in combat even when they would expire before the spell had any results.

Now that I know this is working, I also added a few lines of code to make Djinns finish any delayed casting spells when their duration expires. That would make the Enchantment III Craft Artifact spell actually useful.

It looks like I had already tied to solve that with some code that reduces the immobile timer of summons with duration greater than 1 that are delayed casting, but it didn't seem to be doing anything. It maybe that the DLL decrements the duration to 0 just before killing the unit so those prereqs were never being met. I think my recent change may also have the effect of letting a Djinn finish crafting or blooming when killed in battle, even if not a limited duration summon.

Yes, March of the Trees would cause a big powerspike with this ability. If the World Spell can force them to spawn with the Weak promotion that could help versus too much instant military power, but it would not alleviate the insane forest growth that would result from several dozen Treants using Bloom. I think it may be worth implementing and seeing in practice if it becomes an issue (especially since as a player you can use this to 'move' forests within your borders)

Actually, I'm thinking this change may make Treants less useful for moving forests. It is great for spreading New Forests, but the Bloom spells that turn New Forests to Forests and Forests to Ancient Forest have level prerequisites, while the old code would turn any New Forest to a Forest or Forest to an Ancient Forest when a Treant dies there. Treants with limited duration are not likely to level up enough to make any Ancient Forests or Forests, just New Forests. Treants summoned from tiles without Forests or Ancient forests would also be unable to use Bloom, whereas the old way they'd create New Forests or upgrade them to Forests or Ancient Forests no matter what.

It may be that the best way to limit the March of the Trees from being too powerful would just be to reduce the duration of the Treants it summons. A huge army that only lasts a couple turns may save you in a desperate situation but not let you conquer your enemies like a smaller army that lasts a dozen turns.

Of course, if I keep the other change and let Treants gain duration from combat like Einherjar and Pit Beasts then March of the Trees could still be really powerful.

A great change. While there are some combos that have proven very enjoyable (like Undeath affinity for Undertow or AV priests), in most cases i find it more of an annoyance when i make a priest and they get affinity in an unexpected sphere, especially when focusing heavily on one mana type (getting Water Affinity priests as Illians or Dimensional on Agents of Esus as Svartalfar comes to mind).

I was actually thinking I might go back to letting the Ashen Veil (and maybe other evil religions like the Undertow and Emrys) still get Undeath affinity, as there is no religion associated with the corrupt form of that sphere as since I do have a special AV Death affinity divine spell called Deathphage that would otherwise be inaccessible.

PROMOTION_MASTERY would be the Tower of Mastery promotion? If i read it right, this would mean that a Possessed Profane would get all the demon's promotions, except for Affinity? If so, that sounds like an ideal solution.

Actually there was a typo in that line of code which I only noticed while reading your reply. As written it would let the Profane get Affinities but prevent it from getting a few other promotions like Twincast, Summoner, Arcane.

When I change the == to a != it would however only block affinities.

I am not sure what the best solution would be for Druids. On one hand, i would like them to have a looser restriction so they are available to non-FoL/non-Unblemished civs, but on the other it would be the perfect fit for the Unblemished. I don't think merging them with FoL would be the ideal way to go - with the next release featuring so many new religions that needs their own units or buildings to stand out, and with Cernunnos replacing Sucellus as god of Nature it makes more sense to me that now more than ever High Priests of Leaves/Druids ought be split as seperate units.
Making them units that require the presence of Unblemished, but not as a state religion could be one solution to merging them with the religion, but then the Unblemished lacks a high priest (unless a Grigori Medic-like unit takes that role but with a different name). I'm really not sure how best to represent them.

Currently I have it so that most minor religions all have a priest that can be trained without the state religion (like the basic disciples of the original religions) and a high priest that requires the religion. I suppose I could make the Druid the basic priest of the Unblemished, one that a FoL civ could still train. I might need a better name for their high priest though. Currently their only disciple is one I'm calling the Hospitaller, but that really sounds more fitting for a religious champion (like a Crusader or Paramander that is immune to disease and defends first against units like the Diseased Corpses). I think I remember Kael once referring to the priests of the Unblemished by some name but cannot find where or remember what it was. Maybe the Immaculate? Or the Reborn?

 

[Nothrazim]

Searching through the Kael's Vault and Oghma's Vault lore documents, i find only repeated mentions of them as either Unblemished or as Untouched. Only the druids seem to be mentioned directly as priest. These are all the mentions i could find, mostly Kael but i think one or two of these are from old posts of yours as well:

The Untouched or Unblemished are the faith of the risen Sucellus. They are a very new faith but have spread quickly to most goodly lands and are quite prominent among the Elohim. They are known to the the most powerful healers in Erebus, for they were quick to adopt all the medical practices of the Ordine Medicos (the Grigori Medics) and combine them with prayers to the god mos concerned with healing. Although most of the Unblemished have no supernatural powers and miracles are still fairly rare, a few among them have been know to bring he dead back to life through prayer alone.

The Priests of Sucellus are Druids. You know the spells they have in the game. While they still seem associated with his old sphere, they also are concerned with healing.

The Untouched (the followers of Sucellus's post-resurrection religion) are known for a healing ability surpassing even that of the Ordine Medicos. They often study non-supernatural healing techniques developed by the Grigori Medics, but then combine this with the power of prayer. I think they probably dominate the Elohim hospitals, which are the most advanced in Erebus. It is unclear how much of their healing ability is natural and how much is supernatural, as their mundane medical treatments could fully explain most recoveries but they seem really lucky as choosing the right treatments. Their prayers are seen as powerful, and a tiny minority of them can even revive and fully heal the dead by prayer alone. Cassiel does not allow religious discrimination, so I would not be surprised if many Grigori Medics were also among the Untouched despite the general Grigori prejudice against the religious.

The Druids were the original Priests of Sucellus. Where exactly they fall now that he has changed spheres and the new god Cernunnos has altered the nature of Nature is unclear.

The unblemished are powerful healers. Those with divine power are rare, but many that revere Succellus can speed the healing process of those they tend. They would man infirmaries and may even be scientific men investigating the science of disease and healing.

The Druids are the priests of Sucellus, and are often but not always associated with the Fellowship of the Leaves. Followers of Sucellus in general are called The Untouched, and are known to be very powerful healers.

Sucellus is still greatly revered by the Fellowship of the Leaves. The Druids are his original Priesthood. The religion devoted to The Risen Sucellus is called the Unblemished in some sources, or the Untouched in others. They are best known for being the best healers in Erebus, sometimes great enough to revive the dead. Most of them have no supernatural powers and overt healing miracles are fairly rare, but their practice of combining the scientific medical knowledge of the Ordine Medicos (the Grigori Medics) with the power of prayer tends to be more effective than either would be alone.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I was thinking Kael had made a reference to the Unblemished clerics as "The Reborn" in a private message or a comment on one of the documents he privately asked me to help him edit, but I cannot find any evidence of it. The only references to "The Reborn" seem to denote the risen Sucellus himself.

Regardless, "Reborn" seems likes a great name for the Umblemished's high priests. It also got me thinking that it would be quite appropriate for these high priests to have natural immortality, perhaps in lieu on needing to give them a brand new high priest spell.

I did consider moving Fertility to be an Unblemished spell, but I don't have a good replacement for Creation Mages, it would be a lot less useful if it had to wait for the Reborn high priests, and it would not be fitting for the Druids who canonically still favor the wilderness and eschew urban areas.

I could let them force buildings, create culture, etc, like lower level disciples and priests without worrying about sacrificing such a high level unit if they would always be Reborn anyway.

They would already be the best healers in the game and could get either Life or Nature affinity so they can access more spells than most high priests. More spells would probably be overkill. I think I'll also give them 2 affinity for Fruit of the Yggdrasil (the world tree that links Erebus to both the vaults of nature and of life), since it is hard to get too much of that anyway.

I moved the old Vitalize spell to be the Unblemished's Divine priest spell for Druids, and have the far stronger improved version I made the Nature Affinity channeling IV spell. (It is like a super powerful form of Bloom that can create new forests, promote new forests to forests, and promote forests to ancient forests across a wide area, the exact range depending on your effective supply of nature mana. It also strengthens animals in that area.) For now I'm calling it Genesis, the same as the ritual, although I might change it to something like Overgrowth.


I'm making the Druids a lot weaker to keep them more in line with other Priests, but since the Unblemished are the best healers they are keeping Medic III (which in other religions is only available for High Priests.)

I think I'll make the Grigori Medics cheaper to compete with the Druids.

What do you think about these reskins for the Umblemished art?

The middle row are the Druids as they already existed. I might add the Unblemished icon halo to them to make it clear that they are priests, but I don't really feel like making any major changes. I don't want to make the download too much bigger for new art.

No other religion has so many or such detailed art for their priests or high priests, but it seemed wrong for those to upgrade to human high priests so instead I reskinned them a bit to make the back row to represent the different races of the Reborn.

In the front row you can see Hospitallers belonging to different civs, so that I can show off that I managed to get the fields of their shields to show their player color behind their religious emblem. (I did not intend to make the spear shaft striped like that. That was an accident when I was trying to prevent the head of the sphere from using the color of the shield. It is kind of growing on me though, especially with the Calabim color scheme where it resembles the red and white poll used to advertise the services of a Barber-Surgeon.)



I did not include the Dryad as the Kuriotate UU really doesn't seem to fit the Unblemished theme. There is no canonical reference to any Dryad either. The existence of Pixies, however, is canon, so I'm thinking I'll change the Dryad into a Pixie and make it the religious champion of Amathaon's faith.

 

[FireBlaze]

How did an AI get a siege dragon during the swordsman era in my game? Is there some new random event

 

[Nothrazim]

The druids and hospitallers both look excellent. I'm not sure what the cost is already for Medics vs Druids (i assume in the public version Druids are more expensive, being a higher tiered unit) but it feels appropriate if the Grigori Medic has the same cost or is even slightly cheaper to compensate for the lack of +strength affinities and spells they won't have access to. I assume Druids+Hospitallers would require a Perennial Garden to be constructed, just like other religious priests & champions.

The transformance of Dryads into Pixies is interesting. Would they still retain the same functionality of high-strength terraformers with creation affinity, or become weaker? I don't know anything about pixies in FFH lore, but in D&D for example they are certainly lower on the fey totem pole.

You mentioned earlier the Discord civic and how it ties into the Sons of Discord. Could you go into more detail what it does? You alluded to it being a Cultural or Membership civic; i would think the latter more appropriate as it sounds like a civic that would clash with the councils.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The druids and hospitallers both look excellent. I'm not sure what the cost is already for Medics vs Druids (i assume in the public version Druids are more expensive, being a higher tiered unit) but it feels appropriate if the Grigori Medic has the same cost or is even slightly cheaper to compensate for the lack of +strength affinities and spells they won't have access to. I assume Druids+Hospitallers would require a Perennial Garden to be constructed, just like other religious priests & champions.

The transformance of Dryads into Pixies is interesting. Would they still retain the same functionality of high-strength terraformers with creation affinity, or become weaker? I don't know anything about pixies in FFH lore, but in D&D for example they are certainly lower on the fey totem pole.

You mentioned earlier the Discord civic and how it ties into the Sons of Discord. Could you go into more detail what it does? You alluded to it being a Cultural or Membership civic; i would think the latter more appropriate as it sounds like a civic that would clash with the councils.

I assume you mean the Reborn and the Hospitallers? I had nothing to do with the Druid art. The top row art is for what I'm calling the Reborn, wh would be Unblemished High Priests, while the Druids would be the Priests that require the religion be present in their city but not necessarily as a state religion.

I'm still deciding on the proper building prerequisites. So far I have the buildings of the new faiths require the State Religion while their basic priests do not, so the basic priest needs to have a different building prereq is any. I have not changed the Druid building prereq away from the Grove yet. When the Hospitaller was the priest instead of a champion, I had it require and Infirmary and have not changed that yet either. I may just require the Perennial Garden for the Reborn. The Hospitaller is likely to gain a state religion prereq too so I could change its building prereq too, but thematically the name Hospitaller is close enough to Hospitalist that I associate it more with a medical facility than a sacred garden.



All we know about Pixies in canon is this entry from an old version of the bestiary, many entries in which have since been reconned.

Pixie- Pixies were created by Amathaon to tend to his gardens. Since Amathaon has retreated from creation they have been left behind and have spread
out to any place that features beautiful flowers. Pixies have some magical powers but they mostly relate to simple illusions or the health of plants. They
tend to distrust humans except for small children, who they sometimes protect or play with. One or two pixies sometimes abandon their gardens and
move into more populated areas, preferring to live in the homes of artists or inventors. They are fascinated by new creations and are known to help with
designs and projects when the artist is away or sleeping.

I made the Pixie weaker than the Dryad but it keeps Creation affinity (it should definitely be able to cast Muse, but probably not Fertility or Abundance), Winged/Flying, and gains the Nature 2 (so it can use he basic Bloom spell, enough to plant a garden but not an ancient forest) and Illusionist promotions.



I had Discord under Cultural Values, but maybe it would work better for Membership so it could be run together with civics like Sacrifice the Weak. The civic works a lot like Crusade, preventing diplomacy with enemies. It has no upkeep, it reduces great person point generation rate, significantly increases great general point generation from combat, doubles combat experience, causes instability with the revolutions option, eliminates war weariness, causes enemies more war weariness, prevents foreign trade, improves the yields of camps and some hellish improvements, and lets you sacrifice population to finish production. When you run the Sons of Discord religion or construct the Sanguine Fountain you are forced into this civic. You have to remain at war to keep running the civic. Ending a war (even by defeating all your enemies) causes the Sanguine Fountain to disappear and makes you drop the civic unless you are also running the Sons of Discord State religion, in which case it will force you to start a new war if you can. (The Sanguine Fountain is the Sons of Discord religious holy city shrine, but unlike other holy shrines it is a national wonder instead of a world wonder. It can be built over and over again by any player in any city, so long as the player is at war. Building it in a new city removes it from the previous ciy and switches which city is the holy city of that religion. Camulos would want his followers to fight over who gets his fleeting blessings.)


---
I'm thinking of giving the Sons of Discord a new disciple, called the Agonist. This is such a combative religion that the role of priest and religious champion are blurred. I gave him a halo at first but then decided that the religious emblem on a shield looks better as the great prophet glow makes the icon a pastel pink instead of a bloody red.

I'm planning on making Provoke be the Agonist divine spell instead of the Body 3 spell. I rarely find that spell worth an archmage's spell slots.

I'm thinking of making Strengthen (currently a Body Affinity Channeling 4 spell) into the Body 3 spell. The Greater version may also remove Weak, Fatigued, or even Ravenous (for some major Vampirism synergy) and maybe also act like a lesser version of Heal.

I don't have a better idea for the Body Affinity channeling 4 spell yet than Graft Flesh, the Flesh Golem summoning spell. Currently I have that as the divine spell for the Annointed's Carnifices. I may need to come up with a new spell for them,although I could leave them with Channeling 4 so those with affinity can still cast it.

I'm thinking I may also make Flesh Golems have UNITCOMBAT_BEAST so they can gain xp and level up aside from just having more units grafted into them. I might also let them carry a unit as cargo, since in the Hamish the Candyman story it seems like the occisor is wearing a flesh golem like a suit of armor to augment his own strength but not actually grafting himself into it.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

After considering Pixies some more, I think I am leaning towards making them a Creation Affinity+Channeling II summon instead of a House of Plenty religious champion.

I don't like that the sphere's spells are all currently just maintaining buildings in friendly cities. If you have one caster per city already, there is no use in having any more (apart from the strength from affinity or the random potions of restoration). It would be nice to have some variety instead of just a lesser version of the Creation Channeling 3 spell Abundance.

I don't see Pixies having much combat ability, perhaps not being able to attack at all, but it might be nice for them to be a defensive summon that is more likely to defend first and sacrifice themselves to protect more valuable units.

I'd still let them cast Muse, Illusion and Bloom, but I'm thinking an even more fitting use might be to sacrifice the units to provide Culture, Production, and/or Research, like a lesser version of a Great Bard, Great Engineer, and Great Sage combined (but not with the ability to settle in cities like Shades). I might also give them Worker abilities.

Edit: In my first quick test I found that a summon that can act as a worker and can be sacrificed for production or culture is super powerful. It doesn't really need the Muse and Bloom spells. The creation affinity on the summon leads to way too many potions of restoration being produced, and muse isn't that useful with limited duration, so I'm changing that promotion to 1 innate affinity with no spells. I'm thinking woodsman I and II may be good enough to represent its plant based magic.

I know sacrificing basic disciples for culture (which can end ciy revolts) has been a part of FfH2 for a very long time, but I wonder if that might be OP or take away from the specialness of Great Bards and now Pixies. I have not convinced myself to take away that ability yet, but I am considering it.


Fertility really does make more sense as a Life spell than a Creation spell, so I probably will move it to Life 2. I considered making it an Unblemished spell, but it does not fit with Druids who canonically prefer the deep wilderness and avoid spending any more time than necessary in cities.


That means I need to do something else with the Tomb Wardens. I may make Summon Tomb Warden an Eternal Cabal spell, as they were made by Arawn and do share his hatred for the Undead, even though they are angels of Life who accepted Sucellus as their new god and serve him despite his theft of the Font of Life leaving Arawn in a powerless state.


I'm wondering is maybe the Grove ought to be made into a temple of the Unblemished. With Fertility in the Life sphere, the benefits I currently give the Perennial Garden may be too much, and not valuable enough to require the state religion. Maybe the Grove should just get buffed a bit and the Beastmasters made to require a Hunting Lodge instead of a Grove.

 

[Nothrazim]

I don't think switching the core functionality of Creation '2' and Life 2 will change the core role of a Creation affinity caster being a city caster. At least in my case, i would see this resulting in also ensuring any mage or archmage i garrison would also be required to get Life II. That said, it would give such casters more spheres they need to invest in to become ideal city supporters, which would be a good thing - currently once you get Earth I, Mind I, Force II, Spirit II on a Creation caster they're set for life, unless you want to later get Dimensional III or something for mobility utility. On that note, would Fertility then be different in any way for a Life affinity caster? I don't feel like it needs a Greater version of it, unless the base Fertility is nerfed and the Greater one retains the current stats.

So pixies lose the spellcasting aspect, but retain the ability for production/culture/research sacrifice? While interesting and appropriate as an alternative to the Muse ability, it would also result in a notable increase in micromanagement since you'd really want your Creation mages to summon a pixie every turn to maximize their value.

As for removing culture sacrifice on disciples, i for one would dislike that. I try to avoid abusing it to end revolts, but do usually ensure any new city i build (unless playing a Creative leader) also gets a disciple sent with it to instantly expand the cultural borders.


If the Grove is merged with the Perennial Garden, Beastmasters should absolutely be shifted to Hunting Lodges instead, if nothing else because the Grigori, Infernals and Illians would lose the ability to make them. I do like the idea of groves being available earlier, but it would definitely make Commune With Nature worth a bit less, and make Unblemished more attractive to those who have a lot of Deer or Fur (both alvar come to mind, as well as the Doviello).
I was thinking the Perennial Garden could be interesting as the religious wonder, able to purge Plagued and/or provide food, but i realized you already tied the Aquae Sucellus to the Unblemished. It would probably be too much for the Unblemished to have both a 'normal' religious wonder (akin to Stigmata, Code of Junil, Martyrs etc). and one that when built would found the religion (especially since one city would then inevitably host both wonders).


I feel like there is going to be a lot of competition for state religion for certain civs. I think civs like the Elohim and Kuriotates, and whoever Decius leads, would be the most likely to adopt the Unblemished unless they already have another faith that sticks out obviously. Could a temple give other benefits beyond happiness when you run their associated state religion? Extra research, food or some other benefit could help entice a player to pick up one of the new faiths.

Even so, it may be that the Hospitallers and Reborn alone make the Unblemished worth running as state religion. I think it would ultimately depend on the strength and cost of the Hospitallers, as they would seemingly function very similarly to Crusaders, perhaps without the bonuses versus demons and instead have Defensive or bonus defensive strength?


I would be curious to compare them to other faiths, such as the benefits of having Brotherhood of Wardens compared to the Unblemished or Ring-Givers. But i feel like that is something only truly discoverable through playtesting and seeing synergies between civs and faiths (even if most civs have one faith they would always naturally gravitate towards).

 

[FireBlaze]

I have an unlimited amount of Ogre Warchief changlings from the Whisperer summon having them resurrect as non-temporary in my capitol. Probably a bug and OP, but very fun having 18str super units that steal promotions and are loki level evasive.

edit: also had a ship blinded, maybe because it had a great general attached?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I went ahead and added the Unblemished religion halos to all of the existing Druids. I even did so for the Satyr Druid and made a Satyr Reborn while I was at it, before I remembered that with Satyrs having Fellowship of the Leaves as their religion prereq that the game engine would not block them from upgrading to a unit with the Unblemished religion prerequisite.

-----

I find that the sluagh of Babd often gets left behind when Babd's Blizzard moves around, so I decided to change it so that the Imprimatur Council members no longer clutter the map at the start of the game with sluaghs left behind on their lore appropriate sites. Instead, I'm just having a resurrection spell check for the improvement and for whether or not the council member has ever been created. It is a much simpler implementation, especially if I leave it as a separate spell. By the way, I decided that resurrecting the council members with only Strength of Will let you get really OP, so I am thinking of switching it to either Omniscience of Divine Essence.
-----

Since I cannot just have the Masks of the Coven as promotions on the imprimatur council member's Sluaghs, I went ahead and instead placed some on the map as invisible barbarian units. Most units cannot see them much less capture of pick them up. Right now they just have the ordinary invisible promotion, which means they can be seen by floating eyes, Aureales, and any other unit with the Perfect Sight promotion and then captured. I am debating whether to switch them to the sort of invisibility used by Sluaghs or even make a whole new sort of invisibility for them.
Regardless, I would let Embarr see them, as canonically he is the one who told Gyra, Brigit, and Condatis were to find them.

The Mask of Alexis is placed on the Remnants of Patria, as canonically Wode stole it from Alesis after the ritual of endless night and hid it somewhere in Patria's ruins. If you miscast picking it up, you summon a bunch of giant spiders with Shadow Affinity. (The Wode unit himself would have no effects from miscasting.)

The Mask of Asmoday is placed on the site of Asmoday's Grave. There is a high chance of miscasting picking it up, in which case you spawn a bunch of barbarian Succubi with the Pact with Sallos promotion. The Mask was canonically claimed by the Daughters of Saleos, a cult made of inbred women, cambions, and succubi descended from Asmoday through his son Sallos. (The Asmoday unit himself would have no effects from miscasting.)

The Mask of Barbatos is placed on the Broken Sepulchur. If you miscast picking it up, it will spawn a barbarian Barbatos the Lich himself to defend it. (The Barbatos unit himself would have no effects from miscasting.)

The Mask of Kylorin is placed on the Seven Pines, where Kylorin canonically locked it away guarded by Elder Dragons. If you miscast picking it up, you summon a barbarian Elder Dragon. (The Kylorin unit himself would have no effects from miscasting.)

The Mask of Os-Gabella is placed on the site of the Tapestry House, where she canonically left it ages ago and from which she will retrieve it just before doing battle with Belphegor. If you miscast picking it up, it will spawn a bunch of barbarian Warp Bubbles. (Neither the Os-Gabella unit herself nor any unit owned by her as a leader would have any effects from miscasting.)

Faeryl Viconia canonically still has her mask, so it didn't make sense to leave it anywhere on the map. I considered possibly letting the Svartalfar under Faeryl train this piece of equipment like a hero (and maybe letting them under Rivanna instead train up the Aphelion Amulet) but making it their UU for the Mask of the Coven of the Black Candle would likely make all of the masks default to that mask type for them.

The Mask of Esus (which he wore while pretending to be Wode) is canonically still used by Esus to violate the compact and act in Creation directly, although he also often lends it out to others. It is the version you could randomly discover from a lair. All the masks should default to this version as I only make one promotion to represent any of the masks.

-----
I am thinking about switching the Dimensional 2 spell Sever Soul (which I had already renamed Astral Projection) with the Dimensional Affinity + Coven religion's Planar Binding spell.

Extending the duration of your summons and reducing the duration of enemy summons is super useful, so of course it would have to be resistible (and easier to resist with the Dimensional 2 version than the Dimensional Affinity greater version). I do wonder if it undermines the Summoner trait a bit though.


Sever Soul seems like a better fit for the sorceresses of the Coven, since what we know canonically about them is:

Masked Coven (Ceridwen)- The “between”. A small religion of mostly sorceresses whose spirits, minds and occasionally bodies explore worlds beyond Erebus. Many are driven mad by the experience, they often refer to her as the Maiden of the Mask."

This may mean either eliminating the Sidar's Divided Soul unit or else giving them a separate version of the spell.

(To be honest I was never terribly fond of the Divided Soul UU winning the unit design contest, and probably would have removed it were it not for Kael writing it into the canon with the Decius scenarios.)

When I first decided to give them Dimensional 2 I was loathe to create duplicates of the same spell, but I basically have 3 different versions of the ability right now (one for Dimensional 2, one for a caster with Dimensional Affinity+Channeling 2, plus one for other units in the same stack as a caster with Dimensional Affinity+Channeling 2.)


The facilitated version of Astral Projection sounds like it might be a better ability for a Coven High Priest unit, and its code would be much simpler if I only had to check for a high priest unit type in the caster's stack, except I have not made up any such unit. I currently just let Mobius Witches upgrade to Eaters of Dreams (even for non-Sheaim civs), taking up Archmage slots.

What would you think if the Eater of Dreams became the Coven high priest unit with a separate unitclass? The Sheaim would loose their Archmage UU and left with only the ordinary Archmage. That could be considered a major nerf, but maybe less so than having anyone able to upgrade Mobius Witches to their UU. On the plus side, if the Sheaim do run the Coven (which is easier for them to found as they get free Mobius Witches from their gates and their gates become cheaper with the Coven) then they would effectively be doubling the number of channeling 3 castsers they can access.

In vanilla FfH2 the Eater of Dreams if their only real UU (aside from planar gate summons), they have no hero until the very late game dragon, and they cannot train any melee units past warriors. In my version they get an early hero in Averax the Cambion, they have Axemen, their Pyre Zombies are stronger, and they have a new UU (replacing the Coven's Chainbreakers) called the Emrys, which can move through rival territory and use its Seduce Sorcerers ability to steal arcane units from your rivals. Being able to upgrade more of those arcane units to archmages might be more useful than all your archmages having the Consume Soul ability.

The main disadvantage that the Sheaim still have compared to other civs is that they still lack an Immortal unit (I made Consume Soul grant immortality in order to balance that out), but I could easily change that. It may be harder for them to level up melee units enough to upgrade them to an Immortal, but there is no reason I couldn't let a unit from another unitcombat become an immortal. The first option to come to mind is the Emrys itself, since its name is the Welsh form of a Greek name that means Immortal.

That could leave them even more dependent on the Coven faith though, unless I remove the state religion or even religion prereq from the unit. (Canonically the Emrys, the Chainbreakers, and the Masked Coven were 3 completely separate cults even though they all worshiped Ceridwen.)

I have an unlimited amount of Ogre Warchief changlings from the Whisperer summon having them resurrect as non-temporary in my capitol. Probably a bug and OP, but very fun having 18str super units that steal promotions and are loki level evasive.

edit: also had a ship blinded, maybe because it had a great general attached?

I believe the immortal units with limited duration being resurrected without duration is a bug that was fixed in the last MNAI update. I've been modding using that DLL for months but am not yet quite stable enough for my next release.

Naval unit can be victims of Blinding Light, but it could also have been blinded if Haerlond Gossam was the great general you attached to it. He and most of the Once Elves were blinded in the light a young Auric channeled into the Shadow Vale, the light in which his brother Varn saw a vision from Lugus leading him to become the first priest of the Son God since the vampires hunted them to extinction in he age of magic.

 

[Nothrazim]

If the Imprimatur Council members are to require another tech (either switching Strength of Will or having both as prereq) i would think Divine Essence would be a good fit. Omniscence is so lategame that at least in my case the few times i research it i have almost assuredly won the game already. It would be neat if different members required different techs, but i think that's too much of a hassle and most wouldn't have an appropriate late game tech associated with them.



With the new functionality for the Masks, would Agents of Esus still be able to steal the equipment? Currently they can steal them from the slaugh, despite not being able to see the masks.
The Elder Dragon miscast also seems terrifying, unless you have a beastmaster - in which case free dragon!



An alternative for a new spell, though it wouldn't fit as well with the Decius' story, would be to represent the Divided Soul's abilities via very high retreat chance, first strikes and increased line of sight (like a free Sentry II promotion). I sometimes just keep the Divided Souls in my territory and let the souls scout, depending on how accessible the terrain is or if there are dangerous barbarians that the souls just ignore, which such a change would discourage.

Dimensional II miscast would mean the caster becomes temporary, right? Would repeated casting prolong the mage's lifespan? I might be too protective of my precious mages, but i would definitely be more cautious about using them recklessly; i feel like it's not a big deal with extra duration until you get summons you expect to routinely massacre enemies (as in Channeling III summons usually) and you want to keep the summoning ball rolling.



if the Sheiam lose Eater of Dreams, they'd basically be choosing between Coven Eaters or AV Profanes. I think this would be a good change; Coven would offer you better summons and more Channelling III casters while AV would give you stronger direct units like the Diseased Corpses, Beasts and it's heroes. I am eager to see what differences they would have under a new state religion (currently it feels practically mandatory to go for AV).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I really didn't like the way the default Archmage looked for the Sheaim if they loose the Eater of Dreams, or how the default Immortal looks either, so I just made up these new models.

Much like I did with the Svartalfar Archmage, I copied the texture from the shirt over the torso to make it a full length gown instead of leaving the unit shirtless. I tried using the same crown I gave the Svartalfar archmage, but decided I liked using the Amurite Wizard hood (recolored to match the cape) instead. (I wasn't a big fan of the shoulder armor's green tint so I had recolored it to match the crown before removing the crown though.) Lastly I gave them the purple magic glow from the lich.

For the Immortal I took the Amurite Immortal and added the Sheaim Mage's cape. I copied the Sheaim Mage's head over the Amurite Immortal's face, and recolored the Immortal's texture to fit the cape better. I tried using the lich purple glow instead of the normal flames for its hands and weapons, but some of the glow textures on the weapon didn't have a perfect match so I left them the same. The result is that the weapon glow alternates between just purple and flares of a mixed purple and golden flame, which frankly looks cooler.

(When I had a reference to the wrong texture for an effect I got a crash without warning just like the ones still plaguing this mod except with a clearer cause. Maybe I need to try out adding every unit to the game and see if a graphical issue with one of them is causing the other crashes.)

I included the unaltered Sheaim adept and mage for comparison, and the Mobius Witch and Eater of Dreams that simply have the Coven icon halo added to them. (I thought about added the halo to the Eater of Dreams that another player uploaded here instead, but I don't think its increased file size is justified and the change to make the face march the other Sheaim arcane units makes less sense if it is no longer a Sheaim unit.)

If the Imprimatur Council members are to require another tech (either switching Strength of Will or having both as prereq) i would think Divine Essence would be a good fit. Omniscence is so lategame that at least in my case the few times i research it i have almost assuredly won the game already. It would be neat if different members required different techs, but i think that's too much of a hassle and most wouldn't have an appropriate late game tech associated with them.

I had put them at Omniscience a few weeks ago but changed it to Divine Essence a couple days ago when I realized how fitting the tech's quote seems;

Every object retains a part of its creator's influence. Are we to expect that there is no part of the gods in us?-Cellion Jarl, spoken just before leaping off the Tower of Prisms

With the new functionality for the Masks, would Agents of Esus still be able to steal the equipment? Currently they can steal them from the slaugh, despite not being able to see the masks.
The Elder Dragon miscast also seems terrifying, unless you have a beastmaster - in which case free dragon!

I was thinking they would be able to but found they never could when I tested it. I just realized the reason is that the spell still requires UNITCOMBAT_RECON, and Agents of Esus are UNITCOMBAT_DISCIPLE.

When I tried with an Unseelie Shadow instead, then they stole the mask easily.

I may need to modify the Steal spell so that it triggers the same bad results from picking up the various masks, and/or preventing them from stealing items that are invisible.

I'm thinking I may not actually use the miscast mechanic, as it is annoying to have the spell just fail so many times, but rather make the bad results a likely element of the normal spell results. Note of course than the default Mask of Esus has no such result and all the masks default that that time after being picked up so if you drop (such as if an Elder Dragon kills the unit that takes Kylorin's mask) it you won't have to deal with more dragons every time you pick it up.

In my first test game I found about 100 Succubi near Asmoday's Grave. I think the Succubi spawned from one unit miscasting the spell were all trying to pick up the masks themselves and miscasting again. (The Pact with Sallos promotion could also let them summon more Succubi, but if that were the case then the summons would have limited duration and the dll prevents limited duration units from summoning more units of the same unit type.) I decided to limit it so that the units generated to guard the masks have limited duration (except Barbatos himself), and may make it so they immediate;y attack the caster. I also added Arcane Lore as the tech prereq for picking up those masks. It seemed fitting that you need some rare knowledge to understand the importance of each of those masks and maybe to try to dispel wards the last wearer may have put on them.

Dimensional II miscast would mean the caster becomes temporary, right?

I'd forgotten about that, but yes.

Would repeated casting prolong the mage's lifespan? I might be too protective of my precious mages, but i would definitely be more cautious about using them recklessly; i feel like it's not a big deal with extra duration until you get summons you expect to routinely massacre enemies (as in Channeling III summons usually) and you want to keep the summoning ball rolling.

The way the code is currently written, it cannot effect living units. (I did not want you using the spell to get rid of the Grigori militia units that appear to defend their homesteads, or keep the around indefinitely.) A Demonic Mage could use the spell to extend its own duration after miscasting, but a mortal mage could not.
(I was about to say that a Djinn could extend its own duration this way, but then remembered that the line if pUnit.isImmuneToSpell(pCaster, eSpell):continue means it cannot effect units with Magic Immune like Djinns and Runewyns.)

 

[Nothrazim]

Ah, the archmage and immortal looks sick. Can't wait to get my hands on them!

I noticed in my games also that the Grave seems to have an unusual amount of succubi spawning. Had a Malakim game where i was expanding towards it, and over the course of 20+ turns it spawned a succubi every single turn. I had Chalid nearby so he was regularly killing a succubi every turn, so it may be associated with that.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Ah, the archmage and immortal looks sick. Can't wait to get my hands on them!

I noticed in my games also that the Grave seems to have an unusual amount of succubi spawning. Had a Malakim game where i was expanding towards it, and over the course of 20+ turns it spawned a succubi every single turn. I had Chalid nearby so he was regularly killing a succubi every turn, so it may be associated with that.

That is not unusual. The improvement is set to spawn Scorpions with the Pact of Sallos promotion, which lets those scorpions summon Succubi.


I just made a minor update to the Sheaim Immortal art, when I realized I could copy the head of the sheaim adept (which had been separated a made a part of the Eater of Dreams candidate) over the Amurite Immortal model rather than trying to map the face to a texture from which I'd copied and pasted the mage face texture. You probably would not notice any difference in game unless you are zoomed in a lot and have a large monitor, but the face looks a whole lot better in Nifscope now.