Obnoxious world spells and rituals

[autopsy-turvey]

If you dont mind, let me suggest something.


Play a game as the Illians.

I have?

They're fun, their world spell is poorly designed and makes playing against them a boring 20 turn chore, it should be optional.

 

[WarKirby]

That's like saying there should be an ability to turn off the Sheiam planar gates, or disable the Bannor crusade civic. Ripping out parts of a civ weakens them. They were designed as they are for a reason

 

[autopsy-turvey]

That's like saying there should be an ability to turn off the Sheiam planar gates, or disable the Bannor crusade civic. Ripping out parts of a civ weakens them. They were designed as they are for a reason

And in this specific case that reason is not a good reason, the unfortunate result is a poorly designed spell that makes the game especially tedious and unfun when its cast, and because of this it should be optional.

<deleted>

Or maybe you'd rather just keep making really bad, really stupid posts?

Moderator Action: Warned - flaming. Please refrain from the personal attacks.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[PanzerWolf]

I don't think it's poorly designed In fact, the Illians seems to have a slow start anyway, and this is a good way for them to follow the rat race better.

I have a suggestion for you: make a poll about this and see how many agree. If "everyone" want this option or the Statis changed, I'm sure Kael & co will think about it. But I'm afraid you won't have too many followers...

 

[WarKirby]

You're the only one that keeps insisting it's poorly designed. And I've reported your post for flaming. Your attitude is uncalled for, and I'm not going to debate this farther if you can't go two posts without spewing insults

 

[Diamondeye]

... It works fine as is. Both Samhain, Stasis and River of Blood. None of them are overpowered, and none of them are gamebreaking. Perhaps if you've tried being hit by them all three at once, you'll have a hard time. But so will you if you're attacked by Orthus and the guards of Pristin Pass on the same turn. That doesn't mean they're gamebreaking everytime.

Oh, and keep a civil tone. Coming in here and flaming anyone who does not agree on your opinions (WarKirby, in this case) is not nice.

 

[MiKa523]

You're the only one that keeps insisting it's poorly designed. And I've reported your post for flaming. Your attitude is uncalled for, and I'm not going to debate this farther if you can't go two posts without spewing insults

I've reported him for obnoxiously abusing "obnoxious"

 

[Imuratep]

Samhain IMHO even is more underpowered than anything. It's only free experience for your units not more.
I say it in other threads and I say it here too: Consider all spells or better all elements in the game that annoy you as a challenge. Prepare well for them as you know that they could happen anytime for example by building many troops for Stasis. You can even use the worldspell to profit from the inability of your opponents to defend. In this way you have made an advantage out of something that you always considered as a disadvantage.

And I have to agree to the former posts. You won't get a feature implemented if you flame everybody who doesn't agree with you. The mod is not just made for you, but everyone enjoys it differently. I even had a game that became more interesting BECAUSE the Ilians casted Stasis after I attacked them, what made me think it as a very good design though before for me it was just "obnoxious". In the early game it is surely an annoyance but 20 turns of enter that's 1-2 minutes, no reason to quit the game. Pekkar's suggestion has a point that would probably solve it, that is a tech requirement that's not to harsh. If you want something to be improved, think of constructive criticism similar to his post, no general warping of a whole concept.

 

[LDiCesare]

I certainly support everyone giving it a try or several themselves, but I'd support some change or even removal of Samhain still. My primary worry is that computer actually hurts itself by casting/building it. Mainly by losing production early on. Illians generally do badly or very badly in my experience.

If the Illians are on an island, they won't suffer from Samhain at all, which means scenarios can make good use of it. Otherwise, getting the frostlings generated at least X plots(map-size dependant) away from Illians cultural borders could help them a bit, but I'm not sure it's worthwhile. The spell as is provides flavor but little strategy. As for wolf riders taking out workers, I think it is not much micro management to avoid that.

 

[lordrune]

Statis is just like the other spells (except Amurites' which is more mid to late game) - it's affecting more stuff later in the game, but running it early can give you a head start. In fact, in my current game as the Doviello, statis was a saving for me as my huge army and my Elven "colony" on the other side of the continent suddenly caused my economy to be balanced rather than a constant loss. That poor Elf lost his remaining land a few turns later

The Doviello are a rather unusual case though, as the natural way to play them is as a raider/razer civ, rather than a builder. Statis is incredibly frustrating if you're playing a builder-style game.

 

[TheJopa]

I've reported him for obnoxiously abusing "obnoxious"

Hehe, I agree. Someone in this thread is getting dangerously obnoxious.

In any case, most agree that spells are fine as-is. I like them as well. If you don't like it, mod it out. If not, no one forces you to play. Do you have any idea where would mod be if every single idea ever brought up was implemented?

 

[Lone Wolf]

River Of Blood isn't obnoxious for me at all, I just stop building Settlers/Workers and build improvements or units before my cities regrow, and, since their terrain is already improved, it doesn't take much time.

 

[mahazel]

if you think Stasis or Rivers of Blood are obnoxious, think about Sheaim, Lanum or Ljosalfar world spells... or even Elohim. Almost all world spells can be call obnoxious by some people, and it is the reason we have option to block all of them.

 

[Lone Wolf]

The Lanun's word spell sure was obnoxious for Perpentach (I still haven't received the answer to the question of does he like when people call him "Perpy"), when I, as Hannah, used it, and then used my Raiders ability to swoop in and his capital, which was perfectly well-defended the turn before.

 

[Aroldo]

I agree that a few worldspells have an obnoxious mechanics - stasis, arcane lacuna, rivers of blood. Rather than helping the caster directly they create a pain in the ass for the other players, and don't even cause a negative diplo modifier. At least for rivers of blood this would seem appropriate.

On the other hand I also agree with WarKirby that, compared to some posts from autopsy-turvey, world spells are actually great fun.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

A tech requirement would be nice. The game would stay more fun if you'd be more likely to have many units by the time Stasis happens. Not allowing it on turn 1 of multiplayer games is probably a good idea anyway although I haven't experienced it. Priesthood or a step earlier sounds about right but I'm not sure if that's the right tech path to put it for Illians. There is some inclination currently for them to stop (temporarily?) at Philosophy for The White Hand ritual, which gives the 3 priests that are relatively very strong for a while.

This is a good point. Allowing time to have more units to fight/explore with would take some of the suck out of being on the recieving end. Philosophy sounds good to me too.

 

[Jules.lt]

As for Samhain, as has already been said, the AI hurts itself building it.
Maybe make it a second effect of the White Hand ritual, rather than a different ritual?
This would probably make it happen slightly later, but not so much as to make it unthreatening to the player and other AIs.
And at least the Illians would always have something to defend themselves with, rather than being killed by their own ritual...

 

[Valkrionn]

As for Samhain, as has already been said, the AI hurts itself building it.
Maybe make it a second effect of the White Hand ritual, rather than a different ritual?
This would probably make it happen slightly later, but not so much as to make it unthreatening to the player and other AIs.
And at least the Illians would always have something to defend themselves with, rather than being killed by their own ritual...

My main issue with Samhain is the hammers the AI spends on it, which could be better used developing an army. I tend to find the Illians very weak in the early game as a result.

 

[Neomega]

The Lanun's word spell sure was obnoxious for Perpentach (I still haven't received the answer to the question of does he like when people call him "Perpy"), when I, as Hannah, used it, and then used my Raiders ability to swoop in and his capital, which was perfectly well-defended the turn before.

Lanun is the only one i cant stand. It kills units, blows up improvement, and its ridiculously overpowered, and causes unfun micromanagement (always end your units 2 tiles away from the sea... ).... plus, storms should only hit coastal tiles, they shouldn't hit anything that does not touch the ocean in some way (including freshwater lakes).

Saying river of blood is terrible is laughable. It hurts, but its no big deal, everyone else except the calabim get it.

Stasis is admittedly annoying, but again, not a big deal.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Honestly, stasis isn't that great/powerful. It gives you a 20 turn window to attack/build where your opponents cannot do the same, and is only really useful in the very early game.

A 20 turn window on turn 100, for example, is really meh. Your opponents already have vast armies, so either your army is strong enough to take em on (in which case you don't need stasis) or the enemy will not need additional troops (blocked by stasis) to repel your forces because they have a massive army anyway.

A 20 turn window in the first 30 turns can allow you to build a few extra warriors which are still pretty meh if you consider that you usually need more than a 2:1 attacker:defender ratio when attempting to warrior rush without aggressive or some other early war mongered ability (like the hippus worldspell which is simply beastly).

From my experience, Stasis is best used to build a settler and research an extra tech, making your start up to par with a high difficulty AI start, which is a good thing in and of itself, but not amazing.

As for Samhain, that ritual is one of two things, either:
a) You shoot yourself in the foot by building it early, wasting valuable early that could be used on warriors/workers/settlers, and once you do build it, your defenses are undermanned because you built it and your position overall is significantly weaker agianst your own frostlings, to say nothing of your neighbors.
-or-
b) You toss a bunch of into the trash can because you didn't build it early, seeing as at anytime past the early game, frostlings are nothing but free xp for all of your enemies since they will have large armies easily capable of routing said frostlings.
Edit: Why is this ritual in the game in the first place? It seems like a waste of space that does nothing but hold the AI back.

To be honest, none of the above seems annoying for a non-illians player. Stasis early=30 seconds of pressing enters and grabbing lairs/goody huts with scouts. Stasis later=either 5 minutes of building improvements or 10 minutes of war mongering. Meh, not that bad. Samhain early=crippled Illians. Samhain later=Illians wasted a bunch of hammers. Again: meh?

There is one important caveat to the above, that is if you are playing on marathon (or maybe epic) speed, in which case stasis/samhain can be annoying. However, I am of the opinion that given FFH's already reduced speed, playing marathon is like playing an entire game with stasis on anyway. Or quasi-stasis if you prefer.

My point is, if a tech requirement is introduced, stasis needs to be doubled in length because honestly, when compared to other worldspells (such as the ones held by the hippus, lanun, elohim, grigori or even the balseraphs to name a few), stasis is not that good.