[MODULE]Esus and Empyrean Revised

[Riot_Starter]

**Esus and Empyrean Revised**
Current Version 1.0: Compatible with FF 051 patch b and Civics Revised

This module is intended to make the Council of Esus and The Empyrean more interesting by adding unique mechanics to each of them. The Empyrean receive the Envoy, a unit who tries to enlighten all the people of Erebus. He spreads his wisdom to all people regardless of differences in culture and in the face of open hostility. The Council of Esus deploy cunning and deadly Saboteurs, who act behind the scenes to harm the enemies of the Council while making a tidy profit, in their efforts to spread the Council's influence all across Erebus. Even though they operate in secret, the Saboteurs must be careful, else they be discovered by the enemies (or allies, as the case may be) of the Council.

New addition: Envoy
Requires Empyrean state religion
Strength: 0/3
Can enter rival lands
Adds +1 untyped GPP, +2 culture to all cities within 1 tile. (This promotion may be stacked)


New addition: Saboteur
Requires Council of Esus state religion
Invisible, Can enter rival lands, can use enemy roads
Can carry out various jobs in enemy (anyone really, as long as they aren't yours) cities: These include stealing gold, spreading propaganda, inciting violence, attacking caravans, and more!
Most jobs cost gold to start and gold per turn. Each job's risk factor of getting discovered is different.
You will feel like a true criminal mastermind as you watch your saboteurs spread across Erebus and carry out dastardly deeds while making you money!

To install:
1) Unzip EER folder into assets/modules/NormalModules/
2) Unzip the Assets folder (will overwrite CvSpellInterface.py)

To uninstall:
Just delete/move the EER folder. The python you can leave and it will not affect your game in any way.

As always I appreciate any feedback, comments, suggestions, or complaints as long as they have some justification.

A few notes on future efforts/things beyond my control:
1)I want the Envoy's Guidance ability to add 1 GPP,culture, and research, but the tag doesn't exist for research, yet, so the 2 culture is a temporary compromise.
2)The Saboteur doesn't actually steal gold from the other player, yet. The tag for gold doesn't work at the moment, so instead petty theft and attack caravans make his maintenance cost negative, which makes you money!

 

[deadliver]

Awesometacular!

 

[Honor]

Spec --- wait for it --- tastic!

 

[xienwolf]

Coolness You could also make the Envy bNeverHostile and increase your diplomacy with the other city owner.

 

[WarKirby]

The Envoy is an incredible idea, I have to say. I've been struggling to think of how to make Empyrean better, but also more peace-oriented. A unit giving great people points sounds like a perfect answer.

I don't think one extra unit is quite enough to bring these religions up to par on the whole, though. I do still think they both need a second hero.

 

[Vehem]

I do still think they both need a second hero.

Was thinking about this myself, though Chalid would be getting hit with a nerf stick in that case...

====

On topic though - some nice additions

The only issue I can see is that the envoy has two conflicting roles - sitting in your city to boost GPP and Culture, or traveling to rival territories. The traveling to other cities however doesn't help the player himself. The tweak Xienwolf suggested though would resolve that - have their boost applied to the other city (as I assume it already is) and get a diplomacy boost in return.

Is the GPP and Culture per envoy limited in some way? Either by limiting the number of envoys allowed or a max allowed benefit? If not, a stack of 30 envoys is going to be cultural juggernaut and more extreme stacks could dramatically boost GPP beyond anything resembling balanced...

 

[WarKirby]

Is the GPP and Culture per envoy limited in some way? Either by limiting the number of envoys allowed or a max allowed benefit? If not, a stack of 30 envoys is going to be cultural juggernaut and more extreme stacks could dramatically boost GPP beyond anything resembling balanced...

I'm thinking an increased maintenance cost for the unit would suffice.

 

[HadesScorn]

Eh, the only issue I see with increasing maintenance is that with the right planned build it's fairly easy to have a gold city that can afford those 30+ units while you pump out great prophets/whatever by the gazillion. For instance: Have the city build the Empy wonder, Bazaar of Mammon, and the various gold increasing buildings. This can give you enough of a base to start powering out Great Merchants to increase the base gold of the city [I believe its +9 base gold a turn? +100% for Bazaard, +25% Money Changer, +25% Tax Office = each unit adding 22.5 gold]. That's more than enough to pay for another few Envoys to continue the cycle. Add in the cultural bonus, and it starts to stack fairly quickly.

Perhaps have a unit tree? The base unit provides +1 Culture, the "Priest" adds +1 culture, +1 research/whatever, the "High Priest" adds +1 GPP, +1 Culture, +1 whatever?

 

[WarKirby]

.....while you pump out great prophets/whatever by the gazillion. ..... and it starts to stack fairly quickly....

Did you forget the part where Great People have diminishing returns, and get harder and harder to make as you go?

I think you'd get a few more great people than most civs, but it wouldn't be so infinite

 

[MrPopov]

but once you have the extra GPs you want, you can disband the envoys and keep their benefits

 

[Riot_Starter]

Coolness You could also make the Envy bNeverHostile and increase your diplomacy with the other city owner.

It actually does that already . Easing tensions and all. I didn't want them to be bNeverHostile because I don't want it to be too easy to end wars. You have to defend your envoys if you want them to get the job done.

I'm still not sure about the balance issues with the Envoy. Guidance does increase maintenance cost, and I'm hoping that will be enough. I could reduce the bonuses that Guidance gives (floats are possible here, folks) to maybe 0.5 GPP, 1 culture or increases his hammer cost. My idea for the unit was to have Empyrean players have something they could invest hammers and gold (maintenance) into for a domestic economic boost. The Envoy doubling as a diplomatic boost with enemies seemed like a natural addition after that.

Edit: The more I think about it, I will probably reduce the bonus given by Guidance. I think I'm going to go with 1/2 GPP, 1 culture, and 1 science (when it works). Until then, I'll go with 1/2 GPP and 1.5 Culture.

 

[readercolin]

Actually, I just thought of the most OP thing this could do. However, it only works for multiplayer games. If one person is playing as the grigori, and has a partner willing to boost them, the partner can follow empyrian, drop a bunch of envoys in/near the grigori city, (preferably the capital with nation epic), and get ALOT of adventurers. You may want to change it so they give bonuses in YOUR cities, and the diplomacy bonuses near rival.

-Colin

 

[xienwolf]

Wait, you allow the Envoy to work in your own cities? That's not what I was expecting at all. I pictured it as being only available in enemy and rival (ie - not Teammates or yourself) cities. Building a unit which enhances your own city through CityBonuses (ie - without limit) and has no drawback is a bad move IMO.


I can see the decision to avoid NeverHostile, the range of 1 also makes it a tad difficult. Will they be able to gain promotions? You could devise a whole line of promotions for them, most of them beneficial (add more to their city for a better Diplomacy bonus), but some of them detrimental (Diplomacy Penalty, but increases your range, or grants NeverHostile). The detrimental would have to be set up so you can never apply a negative modifier in any one area and still gain positive relations, and the detrimental ones would offer faster/more free XP for the purchasing of other promotions. Thus you could accept negatives in as many areas as possible in order to really inflate a single other area (ie - High maintenance cost for the unit, offers nothing but GPP, but offers a LOT of GPP and a real nice Diplo boost)


Of course, that is all probably getting more complicated than one unit deserves

 

[Monkeyfinger]

EDIT: Wait, got a few wires crossed. Rethinking this post.

 

[Furien]

Random suggestions to anyone else looking for ideas for Empy/Esus- expanded options for the council votes would be a pretty neat idea, too. Last I checked (this was in Orbis at least) you had the standard 5- outlaw death mana, outlaw entropy mana, enlist the radiant guard, open trade routes, sign open borders for Empyrean, I've yet to play Esus.

It even used the standard 'What shall he U.N. do today?' dialogue

Plus, enlisting the Radiant Guard is fun but it's unfortunately not repeatable. When Capria was on another island and at war with the Mechanos and being annihilated, all I could really do to risk joining the war effort without killing my diplomacy was gift troops to her and enlist the radiant guard. Unfortunately, further votes on enlisting the guard that passed didn't do anything.

In the end I ended up building a settlement in the corner of my island, naming it 'New Torrolerial' after her capital city that was about to fall and gifting it to her as her old empire fell. She even managed to take down a barbarian city on her own, the militarily-incompetent old cripple <3

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Was thinking about this myself, though Chalid would be getting hit with a nerf stick in that case...

What Chalid (and the high priests he emulates) needs is an overhaul, a change of style, not necessarily a nerf. You got rid of Pillar and that's a great first step. But currently they all still get crown, the strongest direct attack spell available to any religion, and that's still a problem.

Maybe... the highest level of empyrean priesthood shouldn't enable a spell at all. Instead, it works like a drawback-free version of FfH's guardsman promo - totally negates the marksman promo on attackers, becoming the end-all and be-all of foiling assassins. This... is probably harder than it sounds, though, because you get that through a combo of promos (C3 + divine + empyrean religion). Maybe it could unlock a promo which does that, or a spell which grants said promo to the caster.

Chalid could keep his high priest-ness, but it would mean something different, and less powerful. To compensate, he could get a variety of other support bonuses. The full medic line. Sentry 2. Perfect sight (does this promo work in FF?) Summon Lifespark as a free spell. Hell, he could get metal weapons back. Some combo of these, or all of these. Depends if you add the new hero or not, I guess. He'd still be quite useful in combat, but in a more, ah, appropriate way then the current focus on facesmashing and carnage that the empyrean high preisthood currently has.

 

[Kjara]

Assume that a envoy costs 2 gold per unit(+1 cost). Assuming ~6 * 3.65 gold per merchant (100 base, 100 from bazar, 25 from silver circle, 90 from civics(god king + mercintilism), 50 from buildings(tax office + money changer), thats ~22 gold per merchant, that means you can add an additional 11 envoys for each great merchant you settle(ignoring what extra cash you could get out of the point of food). If we really want to abuse this, we would be philosphical, pacifistic and have the heroic epic. Thats 38.5 Gpp/turn per great merchant(ignoring inflation). Gpp cost increases by what, 100 per gp at normal speed? That means you could(assuming you have an empire that can build 11 envoys every 3 turns), sustain a great merchant every 3 turns until you decided that you have enough income, drop the envoys and go with the guild of the nine for mass hordes of mercs. Even if you half this, its every 6 turns that you are pumping out a great person, still really really broken.

If you are going to have a unit that gives gpp growth, it needs to be a national unit. I like the idea of having to choose between boosting your own towns, and a diplomatic boost for others though. Max the number of envoys at 4 or so, keep the 2 culture/1gg point, and make the diplo boost only possible if you get it into their capital(to prevent you sticking it in a worthless town where it doesn't help them).

 

[Iceciro]

I'm wondering if Chalid shouldn't use the new Commander mechanics? Instead of being a combat monster he takes the lead of some troops and makes them into a formidable force - and is also a super-envoy of sorts. That means he's suited for war or peace, as the situation requires - and that he's not a combat monstrosity.

(One of my allies in a MP game is currently killing the Infernals with JUST Chalid protected by some archers. He's kicking more butt than Sphener.)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

cool ideas man. empy really needs something now that Chalid lost pillar of fire

 

[cypher132]

Interesting. I'll try it out. I'm playing a game to decide what's going on in my Mega Story. Someone's going down.