So I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question (maybe it's a lore question?), but is there a reason why Council of Esus and Empyrean only have one hero each as opposed to the two that the other religions have? It feels like Esus should have some kind of recon hero (maybe a ranger hero?) and Empyrean should have some kind of chariot type hero. Just wondering...
Relgious Heroes for Esus and Empyrean
- Thread starter BiffQJ
- Start date
Empy doesn't get a second one because one hero of Chalid's calibre is more than enough.
Gibbon is no slouch, too, (Archmage-spells early, hm?) but Esus somewhat lacks reasons to convert to... most content can be accessed without having Esus as a state religion.
Gibbon is no slouch, too, (Archmage-spells early, hm?) but Esus somewhat lacks reasons to convert to... most content can be accessed without having Esus as a state religion.
Yashkaf
King of my Castle
True dat, Err0l. All you need to build shadows is one city with CoE, from that point on you can even spread it around for 25$, you don't even have to kill the unit. You get the benefits of Nox Noctis if you have it, whether you converted or not. Same for Undercouncil. The only thing you don't get is Gibbon, but he's much weaker than Chalid for example. His greatest strength if used right in my opinion is the leader impersonation, and once that is finished (and he's buried), there's nothing stopping you from converting back to whatever you fancy. Unlikewise, to build Rathas and Radiants you need a full conversion to Empy, and Chalid doesn't really obsolete until Modern Armor.
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[to_xp]Gekko
QCT junkie
impersonate leader is useless imho, you don't want the AI to ruin your beautiful empire 
now, if it allowed to use both civs hotseat-style, that would be GREAT.
I agree, Esus seems to lack a good reason to adopt it.
@Errol: that is true, and it works. very fun, but not uber.
now, if it allowed to use both civs hotseat-style, that would be GREAT.I agree, Esus seems to lack a good reason to adopt it.
@Errol: that is true, and it works. very fun, but not uber.
Deon
Lt. of Mordor
That's right, so I never sign open borders with civs who have Esus 
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.heisenberg
Lost in Erebus
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2008
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- 337
Well... Gibbon is very possibly the earliest Archmage you could have access to and not to mention you don't have to waste beakers on some "not-so-useful" tech on a separate tech tree from your religion just to build him. Impersonate leader is just some.... additional flavour that I never use lol 
cyther
Lord of the Dance
I was thinking that in my modmod I would add Decius as a hero for both religions. Both religions would use him but there could only ever be one Decius in the world but he would be different for each religion. I'm not so sure about what he could do but I'm sure that I will get a few good ideas from the later scenarios in Decius' path.
That's right, so I never sign open borders with civs who have Esus
Good idea, as Esus, even if I do sign open borders, I still use HN units to kill anything that enters. No civ has seen my capital this game.
WarKirby
Arty person
That's right, so I never sign open borders with civs who have Esus
But how do you know that they have esus? The manual says that it's not shown if Esus is your state religion.
The popups that say they converted to Esus usually gives it away....
Either that or you can figure out that they are shown to have no religion late in the game, so unless they are Agnostic, they are Esus....
The Esus icon also shows up at the upper left-hand corner of the diplo. screen when you contact an Esus-following leader just as the icons for other religions do with a leader following any other religion.
Anyway, Esus is a terrible religion, never use it (at least, never convert). If it were made more interesting, it might be worth using.
Empyrean... Chalid needs an overhaul. Not a weakening, as he's been getting lately, but a complete rethinking. He needs to lose his combat orientation in favor of a more reasoned, Empyrean-like approach. I have a number of suggestions on this, including losing the Law sphere for the Spirit sphere, gaining the Medic promotions so he can cast Heal again, losing Crown of Brilliance and replacing it with some peaceful-ish unique spell, etc. If all of that were done, Empyrean could get another, earlier Hero more oriented towards combat, say a kind of Ratha-variant which was a bit stronger and maybe started with Blitz (7 str./2 sp./Hero/Sun II/Blitz, available with Honor, Mounted).
Fafnir13
King
I actually went to the trouble of running it recently. About all I got from it was Shadow riders. One thing I'm not sure of is that I got to see enemy/neutral cities where the religion spread. I don't know if you get that without having it as your state.
Things I really found myself missing was a front line cure disease (Built the pool, but it was a bit of a pain hauling them back there), temples with benefits, and priest/acolyte units of some sort to aid my army. Nothing the religion gives you really makes up for it.
Things I really found myself missing was a front line cure disease (Built the pool, but it was a bit of a pain hauling them back there), temples with benefits, and priest/acolyte units of some sort to aid my army. Nothing the religion gives you really makes up for it.
Wich somewhat breaks the point for the Council of being a religion and not some guild or something like that.
What to you gain through choosing CoE while running FoL alongside it wich you won't get when you take FoL and let CoE run alongside it?
Story-wise the first would be that the Council is hiding behind the face of another religion, the second means that the Fellower are allowing a few Council members to operate in their cities.
Just a few ideas wich could be added for a 'little' stronger CoE (i'm not sure if it should get any stronger... but yeah):
-People who choose CoE can also choose between the civic options of the other religion, making this option/religion up as a facade and giving some bonuses for CoE followers (Svartalfar would for example be CoE followers, but could still use Guardian of Nature wich would fit their theme i think).
Therefore it would also be nice if instead of CoE the player/computer would choose this facade and only this facade gets shown in the diplomatic screens and such.
-Maybe a bonus for CoE-Units (units with the religion, not the special religous one) to attack cities with a high crime rating (or is this rating now gone?). Or the crime rate adding up as defence bonus for CoE-Units defending a CoE-city.
-A high citry crime rating could also lift the fog of war for CoE-civs instead of CoE existing in this city.
-Remove the disply of what units are in cities and only open it up through intelligence, wherefore CoE could open up a few extra options.
-Espionage/Sabotage options without having to send a unit to a city.
-If a CoE City gets captured from a player who has the CoE-religion some Nightwatch/Thieves or whatever could be spawned (but i don't really like this idea
).Monkeyfinger
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2006
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- 2,002
Chalid is never obsoleted. Even when he becomes too weak to hold his own in direct combat (this happens if you don't load up on sun mana), he still weakens the hell out of enemy stacks. Eventually, you have to be very careful to watch out for highly promoted marksmen or shadows, since one of those can ignore Chalid's guard and beat him in a fight if unhurt, but he's still very useful as long as you make sure to either keep him away from those units or pillar of fire them so they can't beat anything.
KillerClowns
Emperor
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- Oct 6, 2007
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- 1,139
And if you DO have one metamagic node for Dispel Magic, and your magi turning every drop of mana you find into Sun Mana... well, Chalid becomes quite impressive.
Skitters
Prince
I suggested in a different thread that it'd be nice if Esus had a "Surgery" building, as their alternative to a temple.
This would allow units to pay to be healed quicker or remove diseases. Another bonus could be that a unit would be able to purchase Healing Salves. Perhaps this route could be taken further and units could purchase mutations. I thought that this would fit into the lore of CoE members having to pay for favours, and would also keep CoE different in that it that your units have to go to the healer rather than the healer tag along.
On reflection though, all these abilities would presumably still be available with CoE as a secondary religion so wouldn't neccessarily be a benefit to just CoE.
This would allow units to pay to be healed quicker or remove diseases. Another bonus could be that a unit would be able to purchase Healing Salves. Perhaps this route could be taken further and units could purchase mutations. I thought that this would fit into the lore of CoE members having to pay for favours, and would also keep CoE different in that it that your units have to go to the healer rather than the healer tag along.
On reflection though, all these abilities would presumably still be available with CoE as a secondary religion so wouldn't neccessarily be a benefit to just CoE.
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