On Evolving Into the Paragon
- Thread starter QES
- Start date
QES
Court Jester
Grey Fox said:
While i agree this would be 'the awesome', unfortunately I dont think A) the AI would understand it and B) nothing in the game is particularly "natural".
Everything in Civ is a choice, despite my best efforts to try to curb it elsewise. Rituals offer the closest thing to "natural" progression, as they happen sort of "all at once" - have enough of them, and you get a liniar progression.
Also, since Paragons are powerful, and religion is very important and prevelant, how to prevent everyone from becoming a paragon? Id like paragons to be the ONLY paragon of their particular religion. If it was a "natural" occurance, what would stop other civs of like behavior from becoming paragons?
-Qes
I just want to make certain I am on the same page
Underlying theory and design premise, as it seems to me.
Creates a religion centered win condition to replace/surpass the nearly impossible religious win condition that exists.
Only one civ can complete the path per religion.
Completion of path does not grant an automatic victory, but makes it so that you have access to a power level that should allow you to steamroll the other civs if they don't kill you midstep
Undertaking this path is a big risk, but has a big reward.
The path itself has multiple steps, currently envisioned as a series of rituals (aka projects)
At the beginning portion of the path the civ is substantionally weakened, at the end very powerful and consists (mostly? completely?) of unique units.
The unique units should be focused around the theme and feel of the religion.
Themes of the religions
Fellowship of Leaves: forest, elves, fey, natural world (health)
Runes : mountainous and hilly terrain, underground, dwarves, minerals, (money)
Octopus Overlords: water, insanity, undead, Cthulluesque (culture)
Veil: demonic forces, dark magic (knowledge/science)
Order: angelic forces, holiness, war, inquisition (military production)
Edits: the part in the parenthesis is the game mechanics advantage that each religion's temple gives, OO gives 3 culture for instance.
Corrected typo in the "Order" line, from order to production.
Underlying theory and design premise, as it seems to me.
Creates a religion centered win condition to replace/surpass the nearly impossible religious win condition that exists.
Only one civ can complete the path per religion.
Completion of path does not grant an automatic victory, but makes it so that you have access to a power level that should allow you to steamroll the other civs if they don't kill you midstep
Undertaking this path is a big risk, but has a big reward.
The path itself has multiple steps, currently envisioned as a series of rituals (aka projects)
At the beginning portion of the path the civ is substantionally weakened, at the end very powerful and consists (mostly? completely?) of unique units.
The unique units should be focused around the theme and feel of the religion.
Themes of the religions
Fellowship of Leaves: forest, elves, fey, natural world (health)
Runes : mountainous and hilly terrain, underground, dwarves, minerals, (money)
Octopus Overlords: water, insanity, undead, Cthulluesque (culture)
Veil: demonic forces, dark magic (knowledge/science)
Order: angelic forces, holiness, war, inquisition (military production)
Edits: the part in the parenthesis is the game mechanics advantage that each religion's temple gives, OO gives 3 culture for instance.
Corrected typo in the "Order" line, from order to production.
QES said:
It is possible that you could do both, make it so that there is a choice to _start_ the path, but once you start it it is a natural progression.
for example:
- have a state relegion
- build one or more rituals to begin the path
- over a period of time the civ transforms
- a) from a central city creaping outward
- b)gradually throughout the civ
- at some point the civ looses access to the goodies they had
- a)Mana Nodes
- b)Other improvements
- c)Units
- d)Buildings
- civ builds goodies to replace what they lost
- Final war
QES
Court Jester
puck11b said:
Essentially you got it, though were not reinventing the wheel, were not inventing new religions, just trying to bring a single civ, potentially, per game, into the realm of "becoming" the embodiment (paragon) of the religion they worship.
Otherwise, your pretty much on target.
-Qes
EDIT: I think of the OO as "Mind control" and Slavery more than "culture" but i do see the obvious connection. And the Order I see as "Forced Peace" and "Lawful Anal" as well as "Good"
QES
Court Jester
puck11b said:
Yeah this would be cool, but what would trigger each event? And how would "natural" progress be balanced against other civs with "non-natural" progress?
Also in the "End" id like there to be a non-war supplement for "victory" for some of the religions. Perhaps ashen vale and Order would be war based, but perhaps for the Leaves, OO and Runes, there'd be other alternatives.
Also, Over all, i think that the "order" and "vale" should have their metamorphasis occur more quickly than the other religions. In theory, if 5 different civs aimed at being the 5 different paragons (excluding cult), they might all wind up becoming the "paragons" at the same time. It'd take longer for early religions, shorter for later religions.
Also, the amount of religious spread should have some sort of impact. Cities without the appropriate state religion (while rare later on, are more common early/mid game) would be in the hurt bag for a paragon civ. Also, when paragon civs take over a city without their religion, that city should be VERY useless (until its "taken into the fold", or destroyed).
-Qes
QES
Court Jester
Xuenay said:
I like your Awaken Rituals. And i think they should be included. But because of the way they destroy the potential "victory condition" of the tower of mastery, what would you replace that with. Also, i think these rituals make excellent suplemental rituals, but not the "transformative" rituals.
-Qes
BCalchet
Human, all too human.
Hmm...
Thinking about it, this is a very good idea.
Wrote up something random quickly - is something along these lines what you're envisioning?
(It's in the spoiler to save space.)
Thinking about it, this is a very good idea.
Wrote up something random quickly - is something along these lines what you're envisioning?
(It's in the spoiler to save space.)
Spoiler :
Hmm, how about this:QES said:
Each city in your civ with the state relegion gives you 2 "path" points for the early relegions, 3 "path" points for the late.
or.
For every pop point in a city with the state relegion you get 2 "path" points for the early civs, 3 for the later.
After a certain # of path points the next phase happens.
For every city in your civ without the state relegion, you lose 1 path point.QES said:
or
For every pop point in every city in your civ without the state relegion, you lose 1 path point.
Perhaps at the later phases each city that doesn't have the relegion loses pop and culture (these freaks are scary) as well as causing you a path point.
QES
Court Jester
BCalchet said:
I'm hard pressed to know what that would look like on Epic (which is where I get my standard ideas from.
I like the idea, but i dont feel there is much "effort" on the part of the civ trying to transform. Much like any metamorphasis process, it should be painful and vulnerable, where are the vulnerabilities? Otherwise, it sounds cool. Still, it shouldnt be easy.
-Qes
QES
Court Jester
puck11b said:
While path points sound cool, idealily we'd use compoenents and engine material already in the game. Something simlilar might be to give the Great Prophet some sort of "progression" ability that would push a civilization along the Paragon Path. In this GP would be "path points". and one would have to invest heavily in religion to produce enough of them.
Still, the rituals seem the most "Seemless" at this point. STill, keep the ideas coming, and continue to flesh things out. Eventually we may be able to come up with something that wouldnt take much altercation by the dev team to implement (IF they like it).
-Qes
EDIT: We should think, first, on how we want the Religons to look and feel once the paragon state is in tact, then work backwards on "how did they get there" that might be easiest.
How about this; after you have finished the path other cities that have your religion in them have a chance per turn of defecting over if they have your religion in them and they are on your borders. This chance should be effected by # of other religions in that city. It should be negated by a leader with the agnostic trait, or another civ that has progressed along the path to stage (whatever) .QES said:
T3-4 paragon disciple unit can spread religion, and has the hidden nationality promotion.
These two allow a civ that has finished the path a 'peaceful' way of expanding. Spread your religion to your neighbors and watch the cities on your borders flip to your control. The agnostic or other paragon states are immune to it, and the remaining states can try to kill your missionaries before they get to the city.
Hmm, missionaries are going to have to have the ability to spread the religion from, say, 1 square away, so they don't have to actually conquer a city in order to spread the religion.
QES
Court Jester
puck11b said:
What would be the downside/difficulty?
-Qes
Silverkiss
NekoChan
Gettting shot down before arriving ?
Trying to spread the relegion, for one. Hidden nationality would mean that they could be attacked by anyone, and these guys should not have high strength values.
Second place is that this can be neutered by theocracy, agnostics, the inquisition, and other pathed civs.
In addition the flipping only takes place on your cultural borders, so terrain can interfere as well.
Second place is that this can be neutered by theocracy, agnostics, the inquisition, and other pathed civs.
In addition the flipping only takes place on your cultural borders, so terrain can interfere as well.
YohanLeafheart
Warlord
If it would be event based (like Orthu's Appearence) I think it should work. As I see, to become a paragon, first and foremost your civilization has to dedicate generations to worshiping their gods. And that relationship would go even more intense after times to the point that the bound makes you fuse together.QES said:
Make some events based on time that would gradually change your civilization. After X ammount of consecutive turns having the civ as your State Religion (and, probably, been on a Theocracy), you start to build a chance to transcend into the next stage and after a while it happens. Or after that X turns, your holy city transcends and it starts to spread the transcedence (another drawback of losing the holy city, you can't spread and transcend anymore).
The ammount of graphical work to implement something like this would be huge, unless, as was discussed in the Enhanced Hero System thread, was possible to make small changes to a texture. So, meanwhile, a set o buildings and promotions to do the evolution would be really cool
Another ideas I have for this:
- In a Paragon city, non-paragon units gives unhappy penalties ("We don't trust those that are not part of our makers.")
- When a city evovels to Paragon status, it gets a building that gives all the units built on it (and has a growing chance of converting the ones in there) a promotion to mark its status and the stage it is in and give the bonuses)
- Paragon cities gets a penalty to Internal Trade Routes with cities that have not evolved yet ("If you can't become one of the Old ones, you are not worth our goodies"). This would make a big impact on the early stages of convertion, when most of your cities have not evolved yet.
- An evolved city have a penalty for each non-state religion on it. ("Infidel!!!!")
- As for restricting the units, every stage evolution would make it impossible for you to build certain units, and would destroy those of its type you have.
- The Path of Paragonhood (I loved the expression) is a distancing away from humanity. As you go down on it, you stop been mere worshippers and become part of your Gods. Therefore, the last stage would make all units of a diferent type (maybe Discipline or Summoned or a new one) no matter the previous one
QES
Court Jester
Ok, so you are all coming up with some good ideas.
I hadnt really considered a "city by city" conversion to paragonhood. Instead I saw it more like the whole of the civilization, chunking along over different "parts" or aspects Of that civliization, but i can see city by city being good too.
I still like the rituals Idea, as it seems the most seemless to implement into the current system, however, Clearly there is something we could perhaps implement that is consistant with the "city-evolution" feel.
As it is now, it seems like were suggesting (over all) that to become a paragon one must:
- Choose the Paragon civic (different slightly than theocrasy), would have to be in the "cultural vlaues" catagory since the Religion catagory hath been eliminated.
- Must build the ritual (Perhaps each of these rituals must be built in each city? At that point it becomes a building, more than a ritual. But what do you all think?)
- We want continous growth starting at about mid-game, but the penalties associated with this choice make it risky.
- A lot of graphical work will have to be done (something that is a last concern).
-Qes
I hadnt really considered a "city by city" conversion to paragonhood. Instead I saw it more like the whole of the civilization, chunking along over different "parts" or aspects Of that civliization, but i can see city by city being good too.
I still like the rituals Idea, as it seems the most seemless to implement into the current system, however, Clearly there is something we could perhaps implement that is consistant with the "city-evolution" feel.
As it is now, it seems like were suggesting (over all) that to become a paragon one must:
- Choose the Paragon civic (different slightly than theocrasy), would have to be in the "cultural vlaues" catagory since the Religion catagory hath been eliminated.
- Must build the ritual (Perhaps each of these rituals must be built in each city? At that point it becomes a building, more than a ritual. But what do you all think?)
- We want continous growth starting at about mid-game, but the penalties associated with this choice make it risky.
- A lot of graphical work will have to be done (something that is a last concern).
-Qes
QES
Court Jester
Hey, could I get you all to provide some possible "templates" like the one i have in my second post? Please Add/subtract/alter what i Have or try to come up with a new one for the other reliegions.
LEts see what it'd look like, then we can again look back on "how to implement" after we know what were looking to get for all the trouble.
-Qes
LEts see what it'd look like, then we can again look back on "how to implement" after we know what were looking to get for all the trouble.
-Qes
YohanLeafheart
Warlord
Losuf looked into the mirror. His blessings were getting more and more noticed across the years. All of his city praised the Gods for such wonders. No light were lit to cover the stars, because darkness were not a problem anymore. No animal would die to make them clothes, because their furs were enough protection. They were a true blessed people, whose peace was only broken by those ungrateful and unchoosing outsiders.
Losuf looked around in the shrine, the same shrine were he was the first choosen years ago. He remembers the Leaves chant, calling him to be part of them. The trees embrace were peaceful, enlightfull. He was not the same after that day. Nor were his peers. They were no longer human, they were Gods.
These summary talks about my ideas inside the Path of Paragonhood. I hope you like them Qes. I will first state how I think it should work, and them quirks and caveats.
[*]The Second Stage
With all of your civilization starting down the path, the leaders change in their new ways, and that change is completely. Another set of things will happen here:
Going to continue after I think better on the other stages of the transformation, although I think only one other should be enough. And, I will after write will I like this idea.
Losuf looked around in the shrine, the same shrine were he was the first choosen years ago. He remembers the Leaves chant, calling him to be part of them. The trees embrace were peaceful, enlightfull. He was not the same after that day. Nor were his peers. They were no longer human, they were Gods.
These summary talks about my ideas inside the Path of Paragonhood. I hope you like them Qes. I will first state how I think it should work, and them quirks and caveats.
- Beggining the process
The transformation would happen in stages. Four sounds like a good number. To start the process toward a religion, the following criteria should be met:
- The desired religion must be your state religion.
- You must have the Shrine of the religion.
- You need a disciple unit of that religion at least level 10 stationed on your Holy City.
- You cannot have another religion on the Holy City.
- You cannot have founded another religion.
When the counter gets to 100% the first stage starts. The Holy City converts to a Paragon State. And a number of changes starts to happen in your civilization.
- The First Stage
The convertion is not automatically and civilization wide. You need to be a true devote to receive this blessing, and on the first moment, only the Holy City, the original worshippers, have that faith. And when you start to change, while the rest of your civilization does not, you will start to look suspicous of them "How can we trust such lowly beings? We are the Gods favorites, not them."
Many things happens on this stage, most of them not good ones. The convertion is not smooth, in the same as will be untrouble.
- An Avatar will appear on your civilization. That level 10 disciple unit will be elevated to Immortal status (gaining the promotion). He is the choosen one of your Gods to convert your civilization, and he needs the time to carry his job.
- Every unit on the city will have a cumulative chance of evolving in to the next stage. This evolution would give him a promotion, Paragon Level 1 (or something much better) and would change a little its skin. This bonus of the promotion will be dependant on the choosen religion.
- Every unit built on the city gets the promotion automatically.
- A Paragon city does not trust the non-choosen. As such, every non-converted unit on the city gives a -1 Unhappy.
- For the same above reason, the city will get a negative Internal Trade Routes penalty with cities that are not converted.
- But you trust the choosen ones, so they give you +1 Happy. And more important, the Avatar is what everyone wants to be, and when on a converted city, he takes away all unhappiness.
- Converting to the Second Stage
One can only hope to be listen by the Gods again, if it manages to fullfill his mission. The Avatar mission is to convert all of his civilization. The Paragon State would spread like a religion to the closest coties to your Holy City. The Avatar would work as a another Holy, creating another point of spread. After every city is converted, the Second Stage begins.
[*]The Second Stage
With all of your civilization starting down the path, the leaders change in their new ways, and that change is completely. Another set of things will happen here:
- Your government civic changes for Theocracy and cannot be changed back.
- You can no longer change your State Religion.
- No other religion can spread in your territory.
- You get a great negative diplomacy modifier with nations with State Religions diferent them yours.
- You get a bonus Diplomacy and bonus culture for every civ worshiping your religion, because they are now worshiping you.
- Another promotion is unlocked, changing even more your units.
Going to continue after I think better on the other stages of the transformation, although I think only one other should be enough. And, I will after write will I like this idea.
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