Religion / Corporation Paradigm Shift

[xienwolf]

Not sure what the long term plans are for corporations, but I was just thinking about them for a bit and had some ideas that were mildly entertaining.

First idea (not my favorite) was that in any religion, there exists the potential for any alignment. An incredibly oppressive Order Zealot could in fact be quite evil, though he CLAIMS to be good. And someone working under the Ashen Veil could be a "Robin Hood" type who SEEMS to be working evil, but in the end causes good benefit.

So, wouldn't it be interesting to change religion from containing the religions to simply being 3 techs that have no pre-req and allow you to select which religion to found, the options being "Good," "Evil," and "Neutral?" Then leave all current religions where they are, but implement them as Corporations instead of Religions. Then you can choose your alignment, AND still have any religion you want to pursue (and get to of course).


My other idea (my preferred, but not worked out) is that D&D has another aspect to alignment which this game works in for most of the characters fairly well already. Lawful / Chaotic in addition to the Good / Evil.

So, how about Corporations affecting your status as Lawful (Elohim is the best example off the top of my head) or Chaotic (Balseraph of course)? Again, haven't really thought through how to have the exact implementation, but it could be an interesting additional mechanic.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I actually want corporations as guilds. Using them to convert mana into armaggedon points and turning razorblades into recon promotions and faster production. I think we can keep religion and corporations seperate.

 

[Xuenay]

It's been understanding that in FfH, the alignments mostly signal what side you happen to be on, not how good/evil you really are. It's dark fantasy - in the end everybody's rotten, one way or the other.

 

[Calavente]

lol..
and lawfull / chaotic really depends on the leaders personnality.... not anything else...

what about a fighter guild giving +2xp to fighter ? while consumming ... reagants (dopage), cow (leather armor), silk (silk armor==> bullet proof), pig (bowstrings) .. maybe too powerfull a guild...

 

[Demus]

well, in a way corporations are basically advances versions of guilds (expecially given the way they're impleted in BtS) so that would make the most sense. The real question is how to implete them without making them unbalanced, or throwing the gameplay around. For example, you could look at oblivion type guilds (fighter, mage, thief etc.) each boosting the capabilities of your civs even further. Another option would be trade guilds, like in normal BtS, each boosting the effectiveness of a certain type of good. I'm sure there are more options out there, but these two are the most obvious ones i can think of at the moment

 

[zxcvbnm]

The good/evil actually depends on whether the civ's idea is to sacrifice one for many or many for one, and law/chaos depends on what ways are used to achieve that. Bannor is good/law, Calabim is evil/law, Mercurians[?] and Ljosalfar (Arendel) are nearest to good/chaos and Balseraphs is evil/chaos.
Of religions,
Order is law/good,
Empyrianism[?] and RoK are neutral/good,
FoL is neutral/neutral,
OO, AV and Council are chaos/evil
and CotD is chaos/neutral

 

[Scott Alexander]

The Shadow schedule post mentions some interesting use of guilds. I can't imagine that being anything other than corporations. I found corporations kind of boring in normal BTS (they had their uses, but I could never really get into them) but I'm sure the FFH team will figure out some way to improve them.

I just hope they come earlier than the Guilds tech. It comes kind of late for introducing an interesting mechanic. Or maybe I'm just not patient enough to play enough of the late game.

 

[wilboman]

The mechanic for guilds (subsitute something for something else, convey bonuses without requiring religion) is actually extremely versatile. So expect something different than vanilla corporations, indeed.