Necromancy- dont kill it!

[mrkingkong]

Sorry, just wrote that title for the pun. Even if it was a poor one

Just an idea- the curse of undeath. Would be cool if you could turn your citizens and units into undead by building a specific wonder, kind of like a religion in the way it spreads throughout your lands. What do you think?

The idea came to me as i was playing as the Ljosalfar- would be great if you could build a wonder (perhaps available after you discover Necromancy) which slowly spread the curse of undeath throughout your lands. Undead Elves! Obviously you woud have to be evil, or building the wonder would turn you evil. And all the benefits and disadvantages that come with being undead, generic perhaps but fun. Just think of all the extra gameplay possibilities- undead elves, undead dwarves, undead pirates! Does that excite anyone else? Perhaps i should get out more. Anyway, the idea is out ther!

mrkingkong

PS. Sorry if this idea has already been talked about elsewhere, i couldnt be bothered reading through pages and pages to find it!

 

[ZeepZeep]

Sounds great to me, it would make the game much more juicier, as building the wonder as ljosafar would have different effect than building it as malakim.

 

[MayNilad Man]

Reminds me of Warcraft 3...

 

[JDexter]

Hm not really my kind of idea... I think it's weird. Nobody would want to be undead if they can live (especially NOT wood elves in my fantasy world opionion ).

But for oppressive, evil nations, sure, why not. The tower of necromancy could do that. But what would the gameplay effects be? All units created in affected cities start with the undead promotion, what else? Receiving hate from good civs would be a must...

Any more ideas? If not it would be pretty pointless I guess.

 

[kenken244]

maybe it would halve science and culture but make you a fallow civ and henever you defet a living unit you have a chance of getting a mane- like unit

 

[Grey Fox]

So every unit you got can be destroyed by the spell Destroy Undead, can't be hasted, etc traded for the ability of not getting poisoned?

 

[mrkingkong]

Hm not really my kind of idea... I think it's weird. Nobody would want to be undead if they can live (especially NOT wood elves in my fantasy world opionion ).

My answer to that would be: Do the Calabim want to be bloodpets to the ruling vampire class?
It would benefit the leader because the undead are mindless automatons who are pretty much dead and so are really hard to kill. So it would be to the leaders advantage, rather than the people/elves/whatever.

In my opinion, undead are too weak in FfH. They should have resistances against more types of damage, obviously destroy undead would be a major weakness. But then orcs, elves and dwarves have specific promotions against them and they seem to do alright out of it.

Perhaps some ghouls and "bad-beasties-from-the-wild" would not have the undead unit characteristic, but can only be created whyen you are the undead.

Undead units should be more powerful against most types of damage except perhaps fire (how do you kill an undead, anyway?), but should pay for this at the price of culture and perhaps gold.?

mrkingkong

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I don't think this would exactly fun....
For one, your enemies could easily counter you with order Priests, and two, I don't think that the idea is great. However, i agree that there should be more necromancy. For 1 I think adepts, mages, etc. should be able to convert undead if they have death mana. Two, i think the Ashen Veil should give acess to more undead units. I'm not saying your idea is bad, just that it seems unecessary.

 

[mrtomsmith]

Hm not really my kind of idea... I think it's weird. Nobody would want to be undead if they can live (especially NOT wood elves in my fantasy world opionion ).

Exalted by White Wolf had a nice twist on this - the undead spread undeath and raised others from the dead not because they were evil and taking over the world per se, but because they truly believed that undeath is better than life. You get to live forever, you don't have to eat, you get all these cool powers - who wouldn't want that? To them, undeath was almost a religion.

Not that most fantasy elves would agree, but I thought it was an interesting perspective on the whole post-death status.

 

[Bill Bisco]

Hey, just wanted to pipe in. Could we refrain from saying "I don't think elves would do that"

It doesn't help anything, and it'd be nice to walk away from stereotypes

Also, see Eberron for a good example of Undead Elves and them being cool (and justified I might add)

 

[arcaner]

maybe instead of making all your living units into undead, it would make some (25%?) of the living units that die within your borders into skeletons?

 

[Shadowsong0]

Hm, isn't Undead a race-tag, like Angel, Demon, Dwarf, Elf, Golem, Orc, Summoned and Vampire?
If so it would only be usable by "human" units (read as units without a race-tag), which would be pretty nice balance- AND flavour-wise.

Maybe the wonder should be tied to Veil & Order religion. As both care less about humans than angels (or their fallen equivalent, demons), it would make perfect sense for both religions. Beside Kilmorph & Overlords already have their fleshgolem-exploits and fellowship is pretty powerful on its own. Order & Veil are pretty weak atm, as they come late into the game and go to war quite often. So this would be a pretty neat way to put some meat onto them.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It certainly doesn't remove other race tags when a unit is drowned to become an undead The Drown.

The Order wouldn't want anything to do with the undead.

I like the idea of units dieing in your territory returning as skeletons. These skeletons would have to have their strength modified to be equal to the slain units, since a normal skeleton would be pretty useless later in the game. (I would also really prefer if Mokkas Cauldron did this too. Why would a re-animated corpse be a flesh golem, when a skeleton would fit better and could have its strength changed just as easily?)

Of course, that mechanism might be too similar to the Cauldron. Still, I would prefer a chance (even ~5% or 10%) that slain units would return as undead ones anywhere in my lands to a 100% chance in only one city.

 

[arcaner]

I like the idea of units dieing in your territory returning as skeletons. These skeletons would have to have their strength modified to be equal to the slain units, since a normal skeleton would be pretty useless later in the game.

I don't think that skeletons would need that much of a boost. Based on my reading of the wiki by the time you have the tower of necromancy the skeletons will be strength 5 (2 + 1 death + death affinity 1). IIRC this places them on par with a freshly minted T3 unit, with no build time and no upkeep.

I see these as being bonus cannon (catapult? assassin?) fodder. I do not have a problem with them being weaker than the unit killed. Perhaps a 75% chance of any unit killed being raised as a skeleton, and a 10% chance of that skeleton being some other, more powerful, undead.

 

[Quetz]

2 + 1 + 1 = 4

 

[Grey Fox]

And tower of Necromancy doesn't do that what I know, it increases your skeleton limit by 5. And provides one death mana, but Skeletons don't have death affinity.

 

[xAlephx]

Amurite/Veil are currently the best masters of necromancy, but neither Veil nor Overlords really is ABOUT undeath. I think perhaps the best way to make necromancy a bigger part of the game is to incorporate it as a corporation after BtS comes out.

The Guild of Necromancers might allow the Ghouling of existing units (kill one unit to grant another Undead, +1 Death strength, and Cannibalize... I'm particularly thinking of the movie Ravenous), give a promotion to any unit made in a city with the Guild auto-raise as a non-summoned skeleton when killed, and raise the summoned skeleton cap by 1 per Guild outlet. In exchange they would substantially raise the unhealthiness of any city they hung out it.

 

[Grey Fox]

It would be nice with 7 Religions, 7 Guilds (corporations) and 7 Cults (lesser religions that cant be adopted) - that might be overdoing it... but it could represent all spheres that way.