New religions

Seventh Star

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 21, 2006
Messages
75
The new religions are missing some key parts at the moment.

They both need a second hero. Esus needs spells for unit types other than recon. At the very least archery, mounted, arcane and disciples (druids / eidolons) need spells just so the religious units get them. It also needs some sort of happyness building or mechanic. Empyrean needs some different spheres. At least swap out law.
 
Esus is totally new, and so different from all the other religions that I don't feel ready to comment on it yet -- I need more playing around with it first.

Empyrean though feels a little too much like The Order to me. Their disciple units are very similar, their temples are identical, and they come very close to each other in the tech tree (in my current game I founded The Order the very next tech after founding Empyrean). The main difference is the free units from Order versus the Overcouncil of Empyrean.
 
We dislike patterns, so needing a 2nd hero because other religions have a 2 heroes doesnt really apply. Or disciples because thats what other religions have.

Our goal is that each religion will play differently than the others, but in the end they will all be equally powerful, though in different ways. Thats a hard goal to achieve at times, but thats what we are shooting for.
 
What I was saying about the Empyrean was that it's disciples were too symetric with the order.

The Esus disciples in question were the generic T4's not actual casters. I just thought that since their shtick with spells is regular units having them, the Nightwatch, Shadowriders, eidolons (if evil) and druids (if neutral) and Gibbon should get unique spells the way their recons get mask and steal. They can get eidolons and druids, right?
 
I would like to try to spread both order and Empryan as the bannor and go on a crusade. Super military bonuses from temples :-)

I tend to think that empreyan temple should probably provide a different sort of bonus instead of military. How about each temple reduce maintenance costs by 10%?
 
When Espionage get implemented, IMO Esus could be the religion which gets more benefit considering its theme.......about Empyrean not yet used
 
Yeah I agree. I'm not sure a military bonus really fits in with the empyrean ''discussion/tollerance'' theme. They're not really religious crusaders are they?
 
What I would do with Empyrean is give the Vicars Life / Spirit / Sun with divine.

Change Sun III divine from Crown of Brilliance to Phoenix Pyre. Kills the caster, gives the highest exp non-hero unit in stack the one shot Immortal promotion.

So Empyrean would only have a weak damage spell, but would be a huge boost to the troops with Healing, Blessing, Spirit Guide and Phoenix Pyre.
 
As empyrean feature is "tolerance" let the temple negate religious unhappiness and low down chances of culture revolts.
 
Now specific temple bonuses:
OO - culture
FoL - health
RoK - gold
AV - science
Order - military production
CoE - no temple
Empyrean - ?

Suggestions (including mentioned above):
- gpp percentage
- building production
- revolt suppression
- religious penalty negation
- even more happyness

I prefer +20% building production, -10% military production from Emp temple.

Going from tolerance, I would like the following system If Emp is state religion:
- no religious unhappiness penalty
- 0% chance to fail spreading any other religion (no matter how many religions are already).
- military units never have any religion or CotD promo.
- -50% diplomatic religious penalty.
- No inquisitors or Purge the unfaithful allowed.
- Spreading the Order automatically removes AV. No AV spreading in city with Order.
- +1 culture for any non-state religion in a city.
 
In my two latest games CoE has been founded by Cassiel, and the Empyrean has never had any effect. (except that the overcouncil was started)
 
I haven't player empyr yet.

I've played Esus a few times and here are my observations:

After I get the religion (and spreading it to all cities without building a temple is a big boost) and guilds (for shadows)...

1 note: Sometimes Esus will not spread to a particular city for awhile. I can go to another city and spread it there, then go back, and by then it will spread to the original one I tried. I have no idea why this is. Could someone explain? Of course, it is my state religion, but sometimes it just will not spread to a city (I do not have the option to do so with my Nightwatch).


Then...

Maybe research summoning just to get Gibbon, but he is just a summoner and 1 pit beast hardly has an impact on my army (or any single summon, for that matter). This makes me want to build adepts early and make conjurers to go with my shadows, which is nice for fodder but not really carrying any 'cool' factor, as stacks of Tier 2 units (conjs), spam summoning 4-6str units is just too stackerific for me. I'm more of an "A-team" kind of guy.

Well, maybe horses since the prereqs are done, it seems logical. That would give me 3 warhorses and some horse archers to bounce around...

Or Rage, to pick up berzerkers...

If you manged them all, you'd have a decent mixed stack of an army, but if you get only 1 or 2 (of the above) you woefully lack variety and strength.

As usual, the best option for bombarding is fire mages (:sad:), because they can promote mobility and be hasted. In quick speed, having a 1 move non-living unit (catapults) is silly. Taking spells (and assassins) each step, as you slowly approach an enemy city, means catapults rarely get to attack (or even bombard). This is because only movement is not scaled, and the production possible while a 1 move army approaches is sufficient to slaughter them in almost all cases. Note, this might not be true in SP - perhaps the AI will let you walk slowly up on cities, but no player will.


Surely I have missed some options. So, what do you guys use for your armies when running Esus?


ps. I still need to explore the slave mechanic (I've been waiting a bit to see if it is tweaked, as people have posted about imbalance).
 
Even on Marathon Catapults are horrible. Fire is really the ONLY way to take down defenses, or high withdraw rate units to weaken your enemies without taking down the defense bonus, but that is generally too costly. It would be nice if catapults upgraded to something with higher Move value. Barring Magic, just hope that you are attacking a coastal city and hit them with ships :(

At the least, the dwarves ought to get something that can bombard with a decent move rate too.
 
It would be nice if catapults upgraded to something with higher Move value.

At the least, the dwarves ought to get something that can bombard with a decent move rate too.

The mongols were very mobile, and they used siege weaponry during many of their conquests. Their siege engines were disassembled and were carried on horses to be rebuilt at the site of the battle.

And Ecofarm, I haven't tried it myself yet, but have you used the Shadowriders or whatever their name is. +1 Shadow Affinity, and Hidden nationality, with a city with ride of the nine kings you could be making quite a force of units that can exp on the enemy in peacetime.
 
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