New religions

[MagisterCultuum]

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.

I'm afraid that thematically the Fire sphere is necessary for priests of The Empyren, since a large proportion of Bhalls Angels now serve Lugus. I'm not really sure why Life is needed, but it certainly makes more sense than Law or Earth. I agree that Spirit mana is a must for the Empyrean. I've always considered Lugus and Sirona (the Angels of Truth and Wisdom, in addition to Sun and Spirit, repectively) to be closely related. Plus, the design doc for the Empyrean specifically stated that they value Wisdom.



I'm really don't think that Confessors should have the spirit sphere. The Order isn't a spirit or wisdom valuing religion, it only cares about obiediance. I think the only reason they had spirit magic is explained in the Bannor civilopedia entry where is says the Order tolerates priests of Lugus and Sirona so long as they'll assist in their Crusades ("Lugus and Sirona have some followers and official sanction, but in return are expected to provide priests in the Bannor's martial conflicts"). I'm thinking that Order civs should be able to build Vicars to assist their milatary efforts (in cities with Temples of the Empyrean, of course), and to make up for their priests having fewer spells than most religions'.

Perhaps Vicars should just not have a state religion requirement. I would say they should have an alignment requirement instead, but both Good and Neutral civs can have the Empyrean state religion. (I assume this is just a balance issue, since personally I think of the Emprean as more Good than the Order. I would like it to make Evil civs Neutral and Neutral civs Good, but the way religions effect alignment now is too simple to allow that. I guess I could add some python code instead of jut using the xml) Is it possible to just forbid evil civs from having them (without python, since that wouldn't show up in the unit requirements and would confuse new players)?

Of course, it doesn't seem right for a Priest of Lugus to become an Inquititor in an Order civ, plus I think the Inquisition spell won't work unless the inqisitor has the same religion as the state religioin. Perhaps Inquisitors should become religion specific too? That way the spell could be simplified to remove only specific religions (since we know the Order tolerates the Empyrean, and I'm guessing it might take the scrying powers of a priest of lugus to locate the hiding places of the Council of Esus followers). It probably wouldn't even need python then. On the other hand, not letting Vicars upgrade to Inquisitors might be a simpler solution, since the Empyrean is a tolerant religion.



Oh, and I agree with everyone else that the effects of the Temples of the Empyrean are all wrong and need to be changed. I like the idea of a GPP rate boost, as well as the idea of hurting military production but boosting non-military production.

Although I very much doubt it will be implemented, I think that more BtS-like epsionage should be added. If so, the temples should also add epionage points (for passive effects only, like line of sight in enemy cities and exposing spies/invisibel units/HN units. It would be explained by scrying, not spying.) and increasing the chance of detecting enemy spies. (I think that units with Council of Esus religion should gain the ability to do all the BtS spy missions, which should probably be switched to cost gold rather than "Divination Points" )

 

[Grey Fox]

Perhaps Vicars should just not have a state religion requirement. I would say they should have an alignment requirement instead, but both Good and Neutral civs can have the Empyrean state religion. (I assume this is just a balance issue, since personally I think of the Emprean as more Good than the Order. I would like it to make Evil civs Neutral and Neutral civs Good, but the way religions effect alignment now is too simple to allow that. I guess I could add some python code instead of jut using the xml) Is it possible to just forbid evil civs from having them (without python, since that wouldn't show up in the unit requirements and would confuse new players)?

Well I consider Empyrean as kinda the diplomats (doh) of FfH, the peacekeepers, sure they are good. But in Fall from Heaven, the Good wants to fight the Evil. The neutral wants the gods to stay away from the mortal realm and the neutral even threatens to side with the opposite side of the ones who break the compact. I'm not sure where the Empyrean stands here.

 

[catquiet]

I'm afraid that thematically the Fire sphere is necessary for priests of The Empyren, since a large proportion of Bhalls Angels now serve Lugus. I'm not really sure why Life is needed, but it certainly makes more sense than Law or Earth.
)

I think healing is such a basic human need that any god that cares about his worshipers would provide it. OO and AV consider their followers to be an expendable resource, but any religion that doesn't lean towards evil should provide the life sphere. Even people who generally think religion is silly will pray when their doctor is coming back with test results and they will really, really mean it. Even if they are a bit embarrassed to admit it afterwards.

 

[thealien_83]

Yeah, it'd be cool to get some more special Esus abilities.
But I'm not sure either needs another hero, both are quite strong, and the religions come late anyway.

I would have to say that both coming in late and only having one hero available to them are neither strong cases for them being strong. Both work against them rather a lot.

Now I can, and do, respect Kael's wish to avoid symmetry. But I think that should serve a purpose and not just be an abritrarily enforced mantra. I've not really had a chance to try the religions out so much that I can say for certain if I feel they make up for the loss or not, but having access to fewer heroes is a huge blow to their utility, that can hardly be argued against.

On an unrelated side-note it is really hard to get Great Prophets with Esus, I've noticed. There are few enough Wonders that give GPP's towards Prophets, and with no temple of their own they are highly limited in how many Priest specialists they can put into their cities. Having the Guilds Civic of course doesn't help either. So like.. You get 1 from Pagan Temples and then what? Maybe some other building I'm not remembering, but I dunno.

Makes it awful hard to go for an Altar victory for one. But I guess that's not "their thing", huh? *s*

 

[xienwolf]

Most people seeking Altar victory wind up using a civic to get unlimited priests. But before you reach that civic I see your point. However, by the time you hit Esus you can probably just about swap over to it...

And these two religions get the councils. That is more than enough to make them strong of itself. True, other people get to join in on the council with you, but you start it, and most likely if you wanted it you have the great person standing by and are the only one with the tech, so you can probably vote in a few resolutions before anyone else is able to join.

Also, the HN and assassin aspects of the Esus are flat out amazing. So same arguement for the Grigori not getting a hero nearly applies here. Just ain't needed because of the overall insane power spread across the units. Sadly I can't make too many arguements for why the Empyrean might be considered very strong beyond the council and some resolutions, none of which are really able to be used on the same level as the Esus resolutions. However, they do come in nice for a builder style who doesn't like open borders (can get an extra trade route and access to trade routes with all other members -- well, wording says everyone in the world... I assume it means only members though -- without open borders).

 

[Grey Fox]

Esus don't need another hero, they got some of the best units available.

 

[TravellingHat]

I've played the Svartalfar with Esus quite a bit (keep restarting because you guys produce those patches so quick!), and by and large it's a great religion, but of course it has it's weaknesses (as indeed it should).

For the lack of temples, you can still get priest specialists and some happiness from other temples. I like to bag FoL if possible, as this also has good synergy with the Svartalfar. Of course, other religions might be better for other civs.

Gibbon is by no means just another summoner. With Combat V, Twincast and Extension II, plus hopefully a few extra shadow nodes for the affinity, his two phantasms per round are not to be sniffed at. I've yet to use his impersonate ability, because I'm not prepared to lose him!

Hidden Nationality units can become immensely powerful as they sharpen their skills on your neighbours without the inconvenience of actually declaring war. This is particularly true of recon units with mask, who can declare nationality when things get too hot and happily deny everything, only to go covert again the next round. Actually, I could see an argument for a chance of a diplomatic penalty here, along the lines of "your spy has been causing trouble", or some other limitation (e.g. can't cast Mask within other civ's borders). Non-recon units, such as the Nightwatch, also make great raiders as they can pillage. This can be a good little money spinner as well as crippling your neighbours.

With enough Hidden Nationality units, you can obliterate a neighbour. Send in your raiders and take out their strategic resources, workers, defending units and intercept any outgoing settlers, then declare war, send in fast units to take those virtually undefended cities, and hey presto, the war is over before you can say "oh, I say, is that a knife in your back?"

My only gripe would be that the chance of new units getting the religion seems a bit low. This doesn't matter so much with most units, but frankly a recon unit without mask/steal/found CoE is useless to me. I now check new recon units and delete them if they don't have the CoE abilities, and I'm probably dumping 3 in 4 or so. This hits production quite a bit, but I'm not using recon units to defend my borders - they should be out causing trouble! Also, those that do get the Esus abilities seem to lose them when upgraded, so I tend to not bother now until I can build assassins. Ideally, I'd like at all recon units built in a city with the Nox Noctis (while CoE is the state religion) get the CoE abilities, and for these to sustain through upgrading. In other cities, a lower chance matters less, as you'll want to be getting the xp bonus from the Nox Noctis anyway.

Of all the CoE abilities, steal has to rate as by far the best. I've swiped Hyborem's trident, the Luchiurp's golden hammers, and I pay particular attention to whoever build suitably mobile wonders. After all, why build the Crown, Lyre etc, when you can let someone else put all the effort in and just go and lift them? Of course, there is a risk of war, but if that happens it's because you broke the Esus code: you got caught!