Ring of Flames

[katika]

They should be the exception, not the rule.

That works for me.

I think that giving the Acolytes and Savants an extra strength is fine. The other disciples come too earlier for that to be balanced.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I like the idea of the various strength bonuses for each religions disciples. Perhaps the other religions should get these, but only after upgrading to priests.

 

[eerr]

I like the idea of the various strength bonuses for each religions disciples. Perhaps the other religions should get these, but only after upgrading to priests.

the bonus is only for acolytes and savants

 

[BlazeRedSXT]

I'm not sure your point about Them coming so much later is all that valid. I mean, technically they do, but I find that since the Ways techs are so low in cost, If I wanted to I could commonly research Order or Veil only a few turns after the AI has founded one of the other religions. And just because they come later doesn't mean they become dominant religions. Several civs won't come off of Leaves or Runes unless you threaten them to, so they exist in the late game as much as the Order and the Veil do.

 

[katika]

If you can found the Order/Veil shortly after the AI founds one of the first three religions, you should turn up the difficulty. I usually see the first religion founded around 70-90 on normal speed, and you definitely can't found the Order that fast without several free techs from huts. The founding tech along takes at least 20 turns if you have several cottages (extra tech to research). The earliest I've seen AV or Order founded was turn 150 (normal) and I think that 60-80 turns is fairly significant.

 

[onedreamer]

ring of flames can be used to take out cities with only 1-2 types of units...
something even mages cant do-as fireballs are both attacking units

fundamentally-ring of flames deals a % damage to all adjacent units,
while fireball deals damage limited in 2 ways to a single tile, and deals less damage to units it attacks with a higher strength (you will be left with at least one strong defender, with others merely weakened)

I don't know why you insist in comparing fireballs to ring of flames. Someone said that 10 confessors are unstoppable and I replied that 10 fire-mages are enough to stop them. This is uncontested, so I think we should move on already. Morover, I reiterate that there can be many tactics to stop RoF priests (of course, the AI can't use any of these in a consistent way. The AI wasn't designed to deal with magic, and patches with the SDK won't help much in this sense...). For example if you'll protect your 10 confessors with 2 macemen, your opponent can use assassins to stop them (assassins have 2 movements so they have the initiative again). In particular, it's easier to counter RoF if you are defending, which is good because it's not totally unbalancing.

perhaps if the damage of ring of flames is divided by the units combat strength, using the confessors strength as a base, and some sort of non-magic tech counter for fire damage(aquaeus sucellus?)

Yep, this is the best solution. Also, I think the collateral damage should not be lethal. But I think from the patch notes we have achieved something with this discussion

RoF ready priests are very easy to mass produce. If you lose a mage or conjurer stack it takes a while to wait for new adepts to get back to 10 xp and then you have to pay gold to upgrade.

well yeah, but consider that you can build Adepts before you can build RoF priests, so you can have reserves. Also, it's easier for RoF priests to be attacked because they need to be closer to the front. RoF priests need 1) a religion and 2) a strategic resource to be mass produced. Mages don't need either. This said, it's still true that it's easier to mass produce Priests on a large scale war in the middle game. Requiring Priests to be promoted instead of being built immediatly could be an idea, but the AI is not good at managing this, and in the end I'm afraid we would probably see an even lower usage of magic from the AI. So ... I'm unsure. Perhaps it would be better to increase the rate at which arcane units gain XP until a certain amount of XP.

 

[BlazeRedSXT]

So, I decided to at least try and see if making the Priests an upgrade unit like mages would make things a little more interesting. It does satisfy making RoF harder to get, and makes sense thematically, that lower level religious devotees have to work to become priests. And added Channeling 1 to the initial units, for xp gain.
but , for some reason, I never get the option to upgrade the units. I made sure that the upgrade path was right for the initial disciple units, and set the Priests to iMinLevel to 3. I went over the xml values of the adept/mage relationship, and didn't see anything else different about it. I did a quick serach through some of the py files, but didn't see anything there that would assist this process.
Also, I checked the stats between Pillar and RoF, and decided to swap their level. haven't tested that yet.. since I can't get priests right now!
Anyway, anyone know if there is something I am missing in this process?

Cheers!

EDIT:: Also, katika, you're probably right about going up a level, but I actually get into a little trouble there, as they say, I'd rather be lucky than good. Anyway, even if that is about right for an average time difference between the religions popping(usually its actually quite a bit longer, I usually play on epic so its relative, unless I rush for one of them), My point about the "early" religions hanging around in at least a few civs till the late game is still valid, I think... why handicap them just because they come early? they should still have a chance of being competitive later on.

 

[Sureshot]

did you have incense?

upgrades still require their required resources

 

[BlazeRedSXT]

Haha, sorry, Indeed. That was the issue, but I forgot that, in my case, my first religion was Runes, and Stonewardens require Gems, not incense.

Just rana test and that part does indeed work as expected... durr...

Thanks for that SS... sometimes you just have to check to make sure the power switch is turned on before calling for service!

Cheers!

 

[Sureshot]

it might be worth removing resource requirements on priests since they require upgrading, and then only apply resource requirements to high priests and inquisitors

 

[BlazeRedSXT]

I could go with that, just move requirements to be optional for the upgraded str promotions.
I just ran with it for a bit, but I am thinking of lower the cost on the Priest units, as right now they are pretty expensive. MAybe thats okay, but some civs seem to have more trouble than others collecting cash...

Cheers!

 

[Chandrasekhar]

What if priests could be built without incense, but their rate of xp gain was lower unless they had some.

 

[Sureshot]

id rather see incense adding +1 holy damage to priests and disciples under Runes or Order, and reagents adding +1 unholy under Ashen Veil or OO.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

What about Leaves? Maybe they could get poison damage from it.

 

[BlazeRedSXT]

I like the suggestion of having Mana be the optional bonus to create the damage bonuses. That makes it a little more valuable, and the strategy of making powerful priests from a variety of religions by bouncing from one to the next should be cut down also.
So, to keep that balancing factor, we can't go to the usual mana.lets see..
Mana from Holy Building / Bonus / Bonus Mana req.
Water / +1 Cold / Choas?
Earth / +1 Fire / Fire?(need fire for forges right? thematic?)
Nature / +1 Poison / Mind(inventive use of nature?)
Entropy / +1 Unholy / Death(seems to easy, but?)
Law / +1 Holy / Life(again, easy, but thematically okay, I think).

What do you think? Ultimately, they are mana that would most likely be built by those inclined to those religions anyway, so its not necessarily super restrictive, but it would limit having really powerful priests for multiple religions(I know that has been a concern from some)

Leave Incense prereq for High Priests and Reagents for Inquisitors?

Whats everyones opinion of swapping RoF and Pillar? It seems like ultimately RoF does more damage over more potential targets. seemed to make sense.


Cheers!

 

[MagisterCultuum]

What about switching RoF and Pilar, but letting the spell extensions cause the ring to spread 1 or 2 tiles further, with decreasing effect.

 

[BlazeRedSXT]

Well, I'm pretty sure Priests can't get spell extension, and thats okay... that promotion feels too arcane to port it over to me anyway. nota bad Idea though. maybe just make the spell act that way right out.. but since this thread started with how overpowering that spell is to begin with, extending its capacity may not be in line with the general consensus.

Cheers!

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Maybe the Veil priest should have the option, since there religion was founded my mages. It seems like all the complaints were about Confessors, because holy damage is harder to resist than unholy. Lets give them a reason to hate Ritualists more.