Sanctify and hell terrain

[Alzara]

Hey guys

In past games I've noticed that sanctify reverts hell terrain back to its original terrain type. I was wondering sanctify can be cast on hell terrain without the presence of a ruin?

Thanks

Al

 

[SwordofStriker]

Although I have yet to install the lastest patch, in patch H ruins are not necessary to sanctify hell terrain.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yes, if the plot counter is greater than 0 then sanctify can be cast.

The plot counter is what determines if a tile is hell or not. It has a range from 0 to 100, and anything over 10 is hell. Infernal lands are set to 100 every turn. Tiles that are eligible (good civs' lands are never eligible, nor or neutral or non-AV evil lands when the AC is low enough) have their plot counter increased by 1 each turn if they are adjacent to a tile with a plot counter greater than 10; otherwise, the counter decreases by 1 each turn.


The main purpose of sanctify is to hold off hell terrain, the ability to remove city ruins and fallout (caused by the entropy spell defile) thing is just an added bonus.

Note that sanctified lands may revert to hell again rather quickly, especially in Infernal lands.

 

[cephalo]

Note that sanctified lands may revert to hell again rather quickly, especially in Infernal lands.

This should be actually kindof a useful spell for Infernals. If you can cast sanctify and then spring, you get rid of those annoying burning sands that prevent your catapults from escaping the desert cities in which they were built. I was really hoping I could cast spring while playing Infernals in 'g', but while it put out the flames temporarily to allow catapults to move, it had to be redone every time with an imp escort.

Ugh, and people wonder why the Infernal AI has so much trouble!

 

[Nimbus]

instead of infernals needing sanctify/spring to move their catipults wouldn't a better solution be an Infernal catapult unit that had the proper promotion that allowed them to walk thru burning sands/fire?

 

[cephalo]

instead of infernals needing sanctify/spring to move their catipults wouldn't a better solution be an Infernal catapult unit that had the proper promotion that allowed them to walk thru burning sands/fire?

Actually I really wanted to just tone down those burning sands to save my eyesight. Ouch. Next time I play Hyborem, life mana and water mana will be my main priority!

 

[BeefontheBone]

A living (well, probably demonic) catapult UU would be nice from both a flavour perspective and to avoid this issue, plus it would have an edge in that it could be hasted along with your other troops. The graphics guys could probably come up with something rather tasty for it - perhaps a squat demon which spits fireballs or something? Could give it 1 fire or unholy damage in place of one of the cat's regular damage too.

Magister?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Well, I'm certainly not a graphics guy. I could handle the xml/python (not that it is likely that it would require any python) parts though.

Flames do get annoying. One think that bothers me is that that the burning sands get no production. I guess technically this is no different than deserts, but it seems like a bigger deal somehow. I think that burning sands and/or flames should have more production and maybe gold for AV (maybe only sacrifice the weak) civs. (That was the idea behind the Altar to Bhall improvement in my modmod, but the I found that they could be built on forests instead of just Flames. I couldn't figure out a way to fix that, so I'm leaving them out.)

 

[cephalo]

Well, I'm certainly not a graphics guy. I could handle the xml/python (not that it is likely that it would require any python) parts though.

Flames do get annoying. One think that bothers me is that that the burning sands get no production. I guess technically this is no different than deserts, but it seems like a bigger deal somehow. I think that burning sands and/or flames should have more production and maybe gold for AV (maybe only sacrifice the weak) civs. (That was the idea behind the Altar to Bhall improvement in my modmod, but the I found that they could be built on forests instead of just Flames. I couldn't figure out a way to fix that, so I'm leaving them out.)

Flames are a 'feature' like floodplains are they not? I think one of the problems is that floodplains go away when the burning sands come, and so you can't build a cottage there like you could have if they weren't hell terrain.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I think that cottages and farms are allowed on flood planes not because of the feature itself, but because of the availability of fresh water. It has been noted that irrigation doesn't work on hell terrain, and I think this means that the team made hell terrain never get access to fresh water. Floodplanes are irrelevant here.

 

[Mesix]

I think there is a hell equavelent of flood plains...fields of predition or something.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It used to have Obsidian Planes, but I think they were removed because they didn't last very long in the game; Burning Sands randomly create the flames feature, which replaces any preexisting feature including Obsidian Planes.

 

[xienwolf]

Obsidian Plains IIRC, but hasn't worked since I started playing.