In the game as currently formulated, rituals only show up late in the game and are essentially no different than wonders (with a couple differences to how they gain production bonuses, which, really, don't matter very much). To a new player they seem kind of tacked on and pointless... and I don't think they need to be, as they could be differentiated from wonders and spread out throughout the game, rather than just all be near the end.
1) I think rituals should operate from a "production pool" so that you can essentially have more than one city working on them. One thing this would accomplish is giving you something to do in cities lategame when you're running out of things to build and thinking "do I really need all these new Champions?" Instead, you can just set a whole bunch of small cities working on some ludicrously expensive ritual and just let them go. To balance this, just increase costs a bit.
2) It seems that a higher ratio of rituals should be repeatable... maybe at a higher cost each time. Genesis, for instance... repeating it wouldn't be at all broken if you were the one who cast it the first time because it simply wouldn't do much, and letting others cast it would serve as a way they could "fix" Auric's damage to the world. Maybe increase the cost by 50% every time a ritual is used?
3) Maybe Malakim could get +50% ritual production to keep in line with their flavour as religious leaders?
Adding a bunch of new (minor) rituals would also be a plus. Currently they only show up late in the game, and it'd be nice to have some there from near the beginning. Rituals would be appropriate for such things as:
1) Granting a temporary food/health/production/commerce/whatever bonus to all cities. One ritual for each I think would be reasonable. Call them something like Pray for Health, Pray for Food, etc.
2) Discovering new resources. We already have Rites of Oghma... would it be possible to have a "smaller" version that only creates one mana node, but guarantees it'll be somewhere in your territory? Or maybe even create a random resource somewhere in your territory
3) Diplomacy bonus with other civs. Could be one ritual which gives +1 diplomacy with everyone, or maybe more specific, like only for those who share religion with you, or only with Good, or only with Evil, etc. Ritual could be called Strengthen Ties.
4) As a flipside to #3 above, have one, call it Sow Discord, that gives a diplomacy penalty between everyone but you. Sort of a Balseraph or maybe Council of Esus type of thing.
5) Add experience to all units, or just to hero units if that's overpowered. Sometimes when I'm playing as Grigori I almost feel like my cities don't really matter, as the heroes are doing all the work and don't really need much of an army to support them, so being able to dedicate cities to boosting heroes would be nice.
One last idea that's really just a flavour tweak: replace the current "build research/gold/culture" option with a ritual that does exactly the same thing. Anyone else have any ideas?
1) I think rituals should operate from a "production pool" so that you can essentially have more than one city working on them. One thing this would accomplish is giving you something to do in cities lategame when you're running out of things to build and thinking "do I really need all these new Champions?" Instead, you can just set a whole bunch of small cities working on some ludicrously expensive ritual and just let them go. To balance this, just increase costs a bit.
2) It seems that a higher ratio of rituals should be repeatable... maybe at a higher cost each time. Genesis, for instance... repeating it wouldn't be at all broken if you were the one who cast it the first time because it simply wouldn't do much, and letting others cast it would serve as a way they could "fix" Auric's damage to the world. Maybe increase the cost by 50% every time a ritual is used?
3) Maybe Malakim could get +50% ritual production to keep in line with their flavour as religious leaders?
Adding a bunch of new (minor) rituals would also be a plus. Currently they only show up late in the game, and it'd be nice to have some there from near the beginning. Rituals would be appropriate for such things as:
1) Granting a temporary food/health/production/commerce/whatever bonus to all cities. One ritual for each I think would be reasonable. Call them something like Pray for Health, Pray for Food, etc.
2) Discovering new resources. We already have Rites of Oghma... would it be possible to have a "smaller" version that only creates one mana node, but guarantees it'll be somewhere in your territory? Or maybe even create a random resource somewhere in your territory
3) Diplomacy bonus with other civs. Could be one ritual which gives +1 diplomacy with everyone, or maybe more specific, like only for those who share religion with you, or only with Good, or only with Evil, etc. Ritual could be called Strengthen Ties.
4) As a flipside to #3 above, have one, call it Sow Discord, that gives a diplomacy penalty between everyone but you. Sort of a Balseraph or maybe Council of Esus type of thing.
5) Add experience to all units, or just to hero units if that's overpowered. Sometimes when I'm playing as Grigori I almost feel like my cities don't really matter, as the heroes are doing all the work and don't really need much of an army to support them, so being able to dedicate cities to boosting heroes would be nice.
One last idea that's really just a flavour tweak: replace the current "build research/gold/culture" option with a ritual that does exactly the same thing. Anyone else have any ideas?
Already made a few notes for things to add to the code capability.
