What would you think if I let priests cast their spells without state religion, but with a high chance of miscasting?
I just implemented and am about to start testing a mechanic where the Divine promotion's pyperturn effect (which was already there for letting The Matronae disable divine spells) adds or removes another promotion (currently called "Without Arda") based on whether the unit's religion does matches the state religion or is within national borders of a player with that state religion. The promotion currently does nothing but increase the chance of miscasting.
I like the idea in principle, but it seems like it would need some balancing based on the specific religious spells. For example, Shield of Faith is a permanent buff that only needs to be cast once or twice, so miscast chance isn't that big a deal. Tsunami, on the other hand, is very dependent on timing and positioning to hit the enemy and avoid your own troops and improvements, so miscast chance would cause major difficulties. Under the proposed change I'd still want a Stonewarden in my supply line no matter my religion, but would rarely take the risk on a Cultist.
What would you think if instead for forcing civs running the Sons of Discord state religion to always be at war , I instead made it so that Sons of Discord units will be rebellious only so long as you are not at war? I think it makes sense thematically for such units to need an enemy to fight and to be loyal to you so long as you give them opportunities for such struggle but to view their leaders as their enemy when not given another target for their aggression.
I'm currently running a Balseraph/Discord game and that doesn't quite line up with my experience? Converting to the religion after building the Sanguine Fountain forced the Discord civic on, but when the war ended (by eliminating the enemy civ) I lost the civic but kept the state religion in peacetime. I'm able to build every religious unit except Agonists, and if I do enter a war then Discord kicks back on automatically.
I tend to view Rebellious units as dead men walking since they're more likely to go barbarian than recover, so it certainly wouldn't endear me to the religion if all units effectively suicided when war ended. Granted, I could cast Loyalty to prevent it, but that seems a little out of character. Maybe as an alternative, the religion could cause uprisings in cities when not at war, similar to the Cult of the Dragon?
On a related note, the Balseraph penchant for mutation has let me see a
lot of Aspects of War in one game. Several Freaks started with the promotion, and my pride and joy is the Great Bard Sundered Aspect of War Taneath, who mutated due to his Fire Affinity and will probably be used to unleash some Unraveling for lack of better ideas. I don't know if this possibility will be staying in, but if so I suggest Aspect of War should offer an ability to convert whatever unit it's on to a SoD unit, in the same way Wanderlust allows converting any unit to a Vagrant. The Sons are supposed to try and track them down, so they should have some reward for actually acquiring one.
Also, the Disrupt spell seems to be broken, though it's hard to tell what's wrong since it used to be both an Esus and Undercouncil restricted spell and has all those requirements still listed.
I'm not positive, but I think that if I block the Doviello from building the Catacombs Libralus that it might destroy the wonder permanently if they ever even temporarily conquer a city where it was built. Maybe if I block it in python instead of xml it might get around that.
Should I block them from building both the Catacombs Libralus and the Library of Oghma, since their inability to build the prerequisite mage guilds and libraries respectively would make both available without the normal building prereq?
Considering the Laeran Cord lore, the Doviello burning down the Library of Oghma on sight would be quite appropriate.
I assume if the Doviello were locked out of these wonders, the Clan of Embers would be as well? Since the Cord has two options for founding wonders, it wouldn't ban them from the religion entirely, so I don't see a problem with it. The National Epic also requires a Library though, and that one is more broadly useful and makes less sense to be locked; even orcs and wildmen should have an oral history. Maybe the two barbarian civs could share an alternate national wonder, something that still provides Commander points but without the emphasis on GP farming?