Patriarchs and Popes

[sixs_monkey]

This will make Purge the Unfaithful a much bigger hammer, no? I haven't built that yet, so I don't know for sure. It's Civ wide, rather than Global, I'm sure, but even so there's now another way to reduce your neighbor's relative strength.

 

[marioflag]

I checked Patriarches into 0.21. The current mechanics are:

1. There are now 5 seperate high priest units, one for each religion. They will abandon you if you switch away from their religion.

2. Any High Priest can become the patriarch if he is higher level than all other high priests of his religion. If there is already a patriarch, that unit loses the patriarch promotion.

3. If the patriarch has 10 or more experience points he can declare a holy war. There are a few checks here to stop weird stuff, but basically every player that shares your state religion will declare war on anyone you are at war with and doesnt share your state religion. Doing so costs the patriarch 10 experience points.

4. Patriarchs get +2 strength over a normal high priest. I thought about making them old and frail, but I think I prefer having them able to throw down and do some damage. Besides they need to earn that xp somehow.

5. You get +4 in attitude from other players if you have the patriarch of their religion.

Id like to get a special spell for each patriarch, let me know what you guys think.

Making requirements for a Patriarch more strict would be AI friendly? or the less are req for the Patriarch better is for AI?
10 Experience points for declaring a holy war seems to me too easy to reach.

About your fifth point i think that you should also add some negative diplomacy modifier toward other civs which don't share your religion.Perhaps a -1 in most cases except some like you get -2 dipl. modifier toward AV civs if you have Order's Patriarch; same for the opposite.

 

[Kael]

Making requirements for a Patriarch more strict would be AI friendly? or the less are req for the Patriarch better is for AI?
10 Experience points for declaring a holy war seems to me too easy to reach.

About your fifth point i think that you should also add some negative diplomacy modifier toward other civs which don't share your religion.Perhaps a -1 in most cases except some like you get -2 dipl. modifier toward AV civs if you have Order's Patriarch; same for the opposite.

10 experience points isn't supposed to be hard to reach. What it does is it makes it harder for the patriarch to get his next level, which makes it all the easier for another priest to pass him and take his title.

 

[driekan]

Very good idea! Definetely a lot of fun, and will make the religions even more distinct. As it is now, playing as the same civ twice in the same condition can yield two completely different games if you take very different religions. This would make it even more so, which is just great.

But a point has been lifted which I have to agree with. Agnostics and people who just dont want to take a State Religion (hey, it happens!) should get some kind of benefit, so that not taking a religion isnt just a big disadvantage. As it is now, not taking a religions causes:

1- Less happy faces in ALL cities
2- No religion bonuses (Culture for OO, gold for Runes, etc.)
3- No religion techs and all that they allow
4- No religion special units
5- No divine magic

That's a BIG disadvantage. Sure, Cassiel has some very cool abilities (Adventurers are the law) but I'm not sure it completely makes up for it. Being faithless is a HUGE disadvantage, and would become even more so with this new faith-based power!

Maybe there should be some way for atheists to get power from their position, too?
Maybe "priest" units who rather than spreading a faith, remove other's faith.
Maybe buildings and units you can only build with advanced technology and no state religion
Eventually some abilities which REALLY hinder religion, like some unit which can move through enemy territory, once placed inside a city it will create unhappy faces as long as the civ has a state religion or something like it.
Maybe some abilities you can only get if you have no state religion and are NOT Grigori (They already get good stuff to compensate for it), so no religion actually becomes a religion choice itself.

Think Athar from Planescape in D&D. They dont just sit there and watch all the religious folk get their gifts. They activelly work against religion, "converting" people, slandering religions, so forth, so forth.

Just some thoughts. Dont know how likely it is that this could be programmed (Really dont know how moddable Civ 4 is)

 

[Morganknight]

Currently the Kuriotates have the Tailor and Jeweler buildings unique to them, I am guessing, to provide a way for them to maintain the happiness levels necessary for the mega cities they create. Why not make these available to be built by all civs, but with the caveat that they have absolutely no effect unless there builders are either Kuriotate or have no state religion? This would represent a decent into materialism as a soucre of happiness instead of faith.

 

[BCalchet]

I do need 1 special spell for each patriarch.

@BCalchet- trying to get the ai to move the appropriate units together to cast those spells would be to hard.

Ah, good point, I always forget about the poor little AI. They could be workarounded as long as they were utility spells and not combat spells by letting the AI check if it has the required units anywhere instead of in a stack, but then again, getting the AI to use utility spells is difficult in itself...

Anyway:

Raising the Depths: (Water 3, Chaos 3, Octopus Overlords Patriarch)
Target a water tile. For three turns, the target tile is a land tile for all intents and purposes. Any aquatic creatures in the tile are killed, while any ships are damaged and rendered unable to move until it wears off. At the end of the three turns, it returns to water, killing any non-water-walking units on it and allowing stranded ships to move again. (Special: If the right tile (a random mid-ocean one chosen at map generation) is targetted, Dread R'lyeh rises from the depths with unforseeable consequences.)

Word of Desecration: (Entropy 3, Fire 3, Ashen Veil Patriarch)
All living non-veil units within a few tiles of the caster are lightly damaged by unholy fire and permanently cursed with a -1 strength promotion (removable with sanctify, dispel, heal, etc). The affected tiles are turned to hell, and all improvements except mines and quarries are destroyed. As an additional cost to cast this spell, you lose one to three random veil-worshipping units you own. Savants are preferred, but if none exist, other living units will be claimed. If no others are around, the Patriarch dies.

Symbol of Wrath: (Spirit 3, Law 3, Order Patriarch)
The next demonic or undead unit to enter combat with the caster is permanently destroyed. No exceptions.

Eternity Rune: (Earth 3, Enchantment 3, Runes Patriarch)
Target mechanical unit gains the 'Immortal' promotion.




(Started writing this post hours ago, then forgot about it - I'll just post what I typed thus far.)

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Symbol of Wrath: (Spirit 3, Law 3, Order Patriarch)
The next demonic or undead unit to enter combat with the caster is permanently destroyed. No exceptions.

I'd call it Symbol of Judgement.

Eternity Rune: (Earth 3, Enchantment 3, Runes Patriarch)
Target mechanical unit gains the 'Immortal' promotion.

Sounds good at first, but I don't think I'd want to enable an immortal Mithril golem, and I think it'd lead to multiple Barnaxi.

 

[Switchblock]

How about these:

Holy Forest (Nature 3, Enchantment3, Leaves Patriarch)
Creates a 3X3 block of Ancient Forest around the Patriarch.

Metal Rising (Nature 3, Earth 3, Runes Patriarch)
Creates (or rather digs up) a random metal or gems.

 

[loki1232]

Anyway:

Raising the Depths: (Water 3, Chaos 3, Octopus Overlords Patriarch)
Target a water tile. For three turns, the target tile is a land tile for all intents and purposes. Any aquatic creatures in the tile are killed, while any ships are damaged and rendered unable to move until it wears off. At the end of the three turns, it returns to water, killing any non-water-walking units on it and allowing stranded ships to move again. (Special: If the right tile (a random mid-ocean one chosen at map generation) is targetted, Dread R'lyeh rises from the depths with unforseeable consequences.)

I'm afraid that this spell would make the Ai cry.

Symbol of Wrath: (Spirit 3, Law 3, Order Patriarch)
The next demonic or undead unit to enter combat with the caster is permanently destroyed. No exceptions.

Like Niki's-Knight i prefer "symbol of judgement".
And this seems a little to powerful.
What if it could be used to either heavily damage a stack of demon and undead (with holy damage) and any AV or OO worshippers, or to heal any disciple or unit with the Order or RoK.

Eternity Rune: (Earth 3, Enchantment 3, Runes Patriarch)
Target mechanical unit gains the 'Immortal' promotion.

Once again, great name but i have the same objection as Niki's-Night. What if instead it could be used to summon a golem (permanent) based on the terrain overlays? Ie hill, resources, woods, oasis.

(Started writing this post hours ago, then forgot about it - I'll just post what I typed thus far.)

heh i do that kind of thing too.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Spoiler :

[/spam]

Sounds like a cool idea. I'm eager to see how it works out.

 

[Chip56]

What about that one for OO:
Chaotic sea: Every waterunit gets heavy damage and has halved movement for 2turns.

For AV:
Unholy darkness: The world is covered in darkness for 2turns and every AV-unit gets +1unholy for the duration.

For runes:
Kilmorphs blessing:
For the next 10 turns you get acess to every metall and all mines produce +3hammers.

Some really strong spells which could be limited either by only allowing them every x turns (maybe even dependend from AC) or by reducing the strenght of the priest every time he casts it by one(till he is dead, or stop at 1strenght but disable casting).

 

[Mesix]

A compromise could be that anyone who takes a Great prophet to a holy city of their state religion (after a certain point?) will get the option to promote it to a Patriarch unit.

But then the Holy City owner might just shut their borders (to maintain a monopoly on the leaders); could we make shrine income contingent on having open borders with other civs? i.e., you get one gold per city with your religion that you have open borders with, rather than every city withyour religion.

Perhaps high preiests could have the ability to travel in rival territory. They could be barred from attacking the holy city (unless its owner has a different state religion). That way the high preist could travel freely and spread the word as well as making a pilgrimage to the holy city. Any player that kills a high priest would get a negative to players of that state religion.

 

[kenken244]

here's an idea for the order spell:
judgement ray: only castable on evil civs. does damage to demons in a stack as long as there are no units between the caster and the stack, damage done is greater the higher the arm counter is then lowers the arm counter by this formula: (precent damage done) of (demons level). caster gains a promotion that keeps him from casting, roots him and lowers his strength for a few turns

an example would be: if it did 20% damage to a level 10 demon the arm counter would go down by 2

i think this might need some balancing but it is sort of balanced because its strength is dependent on the strength of the evil civs (as it is a reletive measurement on how strong the evil is over the good) and it gets weaker every time along with making the caster very weak and able to be killed easily

 

[kenken244]

Maybe the pope unit could get a combat precent bonous equal to the number of cities with his religion or maybe like 3% per temple of the religion and +1 strength if it is in its holy city

 

[kenken244]

or maybe if the patriarch is it the holy city with the shrine for its religion then it can spread its religion to a random city or unit on the map with a spell

 

[AlterMann]

order:
spell blocking defeatet enemies becoming manes/angels. partial uselessness for basium intended

runes:
i would like to see some terraforming action, on the other side i honestly dont know how hard this would be to implement right (including ai, etc..)

leaves:
summon tiger

veil:
how about giving hyborem permanently the patriach promotion and skip the spell? i dont see a need for an substitute when the real thing is walking on earth

oo:
resistable spell removing one random promotion (from all non racial-promos, exept immortal?)

cotd:
resistable spell changing targets religion to cotd, as i see not much of cotd spread.

cheers

 

[loki1232]

These spells are all really powerful but they reduce the patriarch's XP by 5, and reduce his strength by two until the turn after the spell is over.

Marks of Judgement (order)
Bonus to all good units around, penalty to all evil units around. All other units have a chance of getting either the bonus or the penalty (or staying the same). This wears off after one battle like blessing.

Runes of Plenty (runes)
Cast in a city. That city gets +1 food, +1 shield, and +1 gold from each tile until the caster leaves or he loses the patriarch ability.

Ritual of Blood (Veil)
Sacrifice the patriarch. For every 2 of his levels (rounded up), a permanent balor is summoned. Also for each of his levels, the arm counter goes up by one.

Sigel of the Hunt (fellowship)
Summons the Great Hunter ie super beastmaster hero dude. When summoned he comes with one animal of each type. He dissapears if the patriarch dies or is replaced.

Actually I don't have any ideas for the overlords one yet. I'm thinking something like take control of target sea unit and it becomes insane (crazed or whatever gives +40% attack)

 

[Morganknight]

How about a less easilly resisted/more powerful version of Dominate for OO Patriarch?

 

[Switchblock]

EEERRRGGG, wish AI understood teraforming better...

Just wondering, when will 0.21 come out???

 

[Kael]

EEERRRGGG, wish AI understood teraforming better...

Just wondering, when will 0.21 come out???

No ETA yet.