Priest spam

[Gelvan]

I really think the bonus for the priest specialist is the problem of the altar of Luonnotar. why not just skip this bonus?

 

[PapaMonkey]

For a Sage Specialist, allow them to build magical schools that add XP to new Adepts and allow for other magical benefits. Perhaps a free spell extension promotion or allowing an additional archmage.

Engineers could add benefits for building structures. Perhaps build a college of engineering which gives a nation-wide bonus to production when working towards buildings. Additional engineers could add things like opening a promotion that would allow any unit to learn how to build roads or forts. Or a bonus to non-magical constructed units (catapults and ships).

I never end up getting bards, or merchants, so no real thoughts on that...

 

[kenken244]

all that it really needs is some sort of thing for the evil civs that does similar things but to sages or something

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I personally think that libraries should give extra xp for adepts, and possibly also some(not as much) for priests. Xp boosts from academies would also be nice, but academies don't seem that arcane.

 

[onedreamer]

don't know... I think that adding so many "complications" will make the AI even weaker. For now I just disable Altar victory

 

[wig]

For now I just disable Altar victory

I'm been doing the same thing, onedreamer. I still build the altar whenever I'm able to,though; nothing beats Priest Spam

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

I must concur. I play with the altar victory turned off but the problem is not the victory alone, it is the overwhelming priest ubernes.

I tend to avoid any exploits I am aware of. Not using the siege units, not building units that are able to cast RoF, only the proper amount that fit the spirit of the game I play. That was the case with the Lunonaltar. I did not focus on getting any prophets in my Khazad game but finally I got one. Ok, so I will build the first lvl of the altar, it cant hurt me that much, I thought. Then came the second one and another one and they keep comming. Now I have 3 lvls of the altar and were ever I look the computer is changing all my specialists to priests -> so more GGP are for another prophet -> another lvl of the altar is very close. The production from the priests plus my production from dwarwen mines, Khazad treasury, smithy and RoK made my Empire a Steam-engine that is moving faster and faster and only the Armageddon will slow it down....for a turn or two.

 

[eerr]

I must concur. I play with the altar victory turned off but the problem is not the victory alone, it is the overwhelming priest ubernes.

I tend to avoid any exploits I am aware of. Not using the siege units, not building units that are able to cast RoF, only the proper amount that fit the spirit of the game I play. That was the case with the Lunonaltar. I did not focus on getting any prophets in my Khazad game but finally I got one. Ok, so I will build the first lvl of the altar, it cant hurt me that much, I thought. Then came the second one and another one and they keep comming. Now I have 3 lvls of the altar and were ever I look the computer is changing all my specialists to priests -> so more GGP are for another prophet -> another lvl of the altar is very close. The production from the priests plus my production from dwarwen mines, Khazad treasury, smithy and RoK made my Empire a Steam-engine that is moving faster and faster and only the Armageddon will slow it down....for a turn or two.

the boni from the altar have too much of a cumulative effect, any single altar shouldn't give more than +2 xp, +1 happy or +1 hammer on priests, except maybe the final two

 

[cvlowe]

I must concur. I play with the altar victory turned off but the problem is not the victory alone, it is the overwhelming priest ubernes.

I tend to avoid any exploits I am aware of. Not using the siege units, not building units that are able to cast RoF, only the proper amount that fit the spirit of the game I play. That was the case with the Lunonaltar. I did not focus on getting any prophets in my Khazad game but finally I got one. Ok, so I will build the first lvl of the altar, it cant hurt me that much, I thought. Then came the second one and another one and they keep comming. Now I have 3 lvls of the altar and were ever I look the computer is changing all my specialists to priests -> so more GGP are for another prophet -> another lvl of the altar is very close. The production from the priests plus my production from dwarwen mines, Khazad treasury, smithy and RoK made my Empire a Steam-engine that is moving faster and faster and only the Armageddon will slow it down....for a turn or two.

HOW do you get the computer to automatically select priest specialists? It ALWAYS defaults to engineers for me, I have to manually move them in EVERY single city down to priests.

the boni from the altar have too much of a cumulative effect, any single altar shouldn't give more than +2 xp, +1 happy or +1 hammer on priests, except maybe the final two

There is only one altar, when you build the next level, it deletes the previous one so there is no cumulative effect, only the effect listed in the current level.

 

[onedreamer]

cvlowe, the AI defaults to engeneer when it can because the default focus of the governor is production. But when you build a certain level of the altar (can't remember which) all priests specialists will get +1 hammer, hence the AI will switch to them because they would be the same of engeneer +1 gold.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

You can have multiple altars at once, so the effect can be cumulative, but this involves cheating through map editor.

 

[cvlowe]

You can have multiple altars at once, so the effect can be cumulative, but this involves cheating through map editor.

Well I wasn't considering cheating in my reply...

I try and limit my use of worldbuilder to keeping myself and the AI alive through turn 100 (ie deleting skeletons knocking on city doors) and sometimes tweaking my start location a little if it's particularly bad and I don't want to go back to the main menu and start over!

 

[Gelvan]

cvlowe, the AI defaults to engeneer when it can because the default focus of the governor is production. But when you build a certain level of the altar (can't remember which) all priests specialists will get +1 hammer, hence the AI will switch to them because they would be the same of engeneer +1 gold.

is it possible to turn this off?

it's sometimes a bit difficult to get something else than a great prophet with altar of luo.. lano.. - er with this national wonder. I'd prefer to have not only priest specialists in a city.. even if an engineer is not as good as a priest specialist - a great engineer is much better (imho) and the AI should maybe consider this as well.

 

[monolith94]

Well, you can set your city to focus on science. It's the button one to the left of setting your city for GPP, and two buttons to the left of setting your city not to grow.

 

[xAlephx]

Well, you can set your city to focus on science. It's the button one to the left of setting your city for GPP, and two buttons to the left of setting your city not to grow.

I agree that the bonuses to production from the altar are the problem. Perhaps, if we need better specialists as the game goes on, the answer is in the Alpha Centauri approach of unlocking new specialist types at higher tech levels (Empaths, Transcendents) rather than giving massive bonuses to a single kind. I certainly think the best answer is toning priests down, rather than giving extra bonuses to all others to bring them up to priests level. I'd slash the XP bonuses in half and limit priest production bonuses to the affected city (if possible, I'm not a coder).

Also, firm disagreement on libraries/sages giving starting adept XP bonuses. That's the Amurites turf, and it's one of their main bennies. Giving a lesser version to everyone really cuts into the uniqueness of the faction - while they would obviously benefit as well from whatever, the percentage gain would be dramatically less.

 

[cvlowe]

I would like a way to lock out certain specialists, lock some in place and set a preference. I don't see how to do that without cluttering up the interface horribly though.

 

[MayNilad Man]

Put a little button next to the +,- buttons?

 

[onedreamer]

is it possible to turn this off?

it's sometimes a bit difficult to get something else than a great prophet with altar of luo.. lano.. - er with this national wonder. I'd prefer to have not only priest specialists in a city.. even if an engineer is not as good as a priest specialist - a great engineer is much better (imho) and the AI should maybe consider this as well.

Well to be honest in FFH there aren't so many wonders to build (and not all useful to YOUR civ), which makes G.E. less important. Considering I always liked more G.P. even in vanilla.... (+2 hammers and +5 raw gold, that's a superb bonus). But yes the problem still remains. The only answer I found sadly is micromanagement. But there should really be an option to turn off auto-assignement of specialists by the AI. The only help I see you could get for this is an interface mod I've seen much time ago that greatly improves domestic (F1) screen and lets you manage/see specialists from there quite well. I of course can't remember the name of that mod, but it was included in the Ultimate Strategy mod.