Scions Balance?

[odalrick]

Yep. I hadn't considered early f.t. routes, but I do think starting location is much more important than it is for other civs. Bad starts seem worse, good starts better. I'm not sure if there's much that can be done about it. It may be because of a very fundamental difference between Fallow and non-Fallow civs: The terrain need only offer and rather than , , and . (And maybe all you really need is . Enough of those and you can go take someone else's .)

I'll take a look at that.

One thing that could be done to homogenise starts has been discussed before: Removing the difference between terrain types for scions.

It seems wrong that scions really want everything to be plains. Sand, ice or grass, why would undead care?

And now, as far as I understand it, the infrastructure for such a change is in place.

Make all terrain types yield 1 , like plains. Or, if that's too strong, make plains yield no at all.

EDIT:
Hey, if spawning does need an increase, how about the ability to get "great people" (note the lack of caps) from spawning? Rather than every Awakened being a generic population-unit you sometimes get a unit with some experience, or even - rarely - a Great Person (there are the caps.). These represent Scions who've remembered something useful to the new Age - most likely military experience. This would be based on some fraction of the spawning % and run in parallel - so you'd get these units in addition to Awakened.

Great idea. Then there could be a use for spawn boosters even when you can't get any more Awakened.

 

[Mylon]

Eh, awakened are expensive. In my non-godking game I was only able to churn out one every 10 units at best. To devote my capital to that is a huge cost. And then devoting my top production cities to building reborn... I was only surviving because I was playing on prince level and the AI were pretty far behind in tech so I had phalanxes to their axemen. Otherwise they'd have trashed me with superior numbers.

 

[ICanHasName?]

Would it be possible to make the scions less exponential?
If they get good awakened luck in the beggining they can make a bunch of little size 1-2 cities that exist to build Kylorin/Gift stuff, pushing up the spawn rate so they get even more.
With bad awakened luck (or if they dump them all into the capitol) they cant build enough Kylorin stuff to keep the spawn rate up, and continue to get fewer.

I'm not really sure how, but maybe each shrine or cult could provide less spawn chance then the one before it, or the odds could increase if awakened havent spawned for a while or decrease if you get a bunch.

 

[WarKirby]

It seems wrong that scions really want everything to be plains. Sand, ice or grass, why would undead care?

And now, as far as I understand it, the infrastructure for such a change is in place.

Make all terrain types yield 1 , like plains. Or, if that's too strong, make plains yield no at all.

This is an excellent idea.
There is also the other possibility of giving grassland some extra commerce instead, similar to how the infernals do it. That would keep the differences between terrains, and still make things other than plains useful.

 

[JimMorrison]

...For the most part, I enjoy building in relative isolation until the time comes to crush the world with a horde of T4 units. So generally I like my wars after all my growing is done.

But that's just my preference. My general point is, choice is good.

My roommate and I are in the same boat. We would like to see the naval AI fixed so that doing an islands map doesn't neuter the opposition, but still reduces early wars.


I think I'm going to give the Scions another try here, soon..... Just trying to finish understanding the Svartalfar, I'm still quite a novice here.

 

[WarKirby]

I think the scions need a WorldSpell.

No, the dark council is not a world spell. It's a wonder masquerading as a spell. There's no timing or strategic thought to it's use. You just use it as soon as possible. No benefit in waiting.

Sciuons could do with a real sell, having some good effect, that gets better the longer you wait to use it, encouraging decisions as to it's timing.

Perhaps something that gives a free awakened for every Temple of the Gift, Shrine to Kylorin, Kylorin Cult, every patrian artifacts you have, and for each city. So its potential benefit would grow as your empire does.

 

[Tarquelne]

double post.

 

[Tarquelne]

No, the dark council is not a world spell. It's a wonder masquerading as a spell. There's no timing or strategic thought to it's use. You just use it as soon as possible. No benefit in waiting.

No argument there - I've said as much in the past.

I'm guessing it's possible to link the # of Reborn gained from DC to the world's population. So the longer you wait the more Reborn you're likely to get. But as Reborn were never supposed to be the major part of the effect I doubt that'd really be satisfactory. (May as well be done anyway, though...)

Perhaps "Summons to the Emperor's Presence?" Allows any 1 non-Hero unit to be converted to the Scions - player's choice. (It could work via an invisible "Envoy" unit. Target selection might be tricky, as would be AI use.)

Sort of a variant of the Infernal's spell, but a unit rather than a city.

 

[WarKirby]

Perhaps "Summons to the Emperor's Presence?" Allows any 1 non-Hero unit to be converted to the Scions - player's choice. (It could work via an invisible "Envoy" unit. Target selection might be tricky, as would be AI use.)

Sort of a variant of the Infernal's spell, but a unit rather than a city.

It's an interesting idea, but only one?

Rarely does the AI keep units alive long enough to make "home grown heroes". So I'm not sure how much use it would be.


Unless.... it were allowed to target Acheron

 

[odalrick]

Would probably be too powerful, but...

Heroes of this Age:
Raises all currently dead heroes to the Scions service.

Includes all religious heroes, civilization heroes and miscellaneous world units, except Demons and Angels. Even Orthus and Acheron. Dragons need Beast Mastery to rise.

Obviously some heroes have to die before it could be cast, and the power grows nicely as more heroes die. Religious units abandon the Scions unless they have the right state religion.

 

[WarKirby]

Would probably be too powerful, but...

Heroes of this Age:
Raises all currently dead heroes to the Scions service.

Includes all religious heroes, civilization heroes and miscellaneous world units, except Demons and Angels. Even Orthus and Acheron. Dragons need Beast Mastery to rise.

Obviously some heroes have to die before it could be cast, and the power grows nicely as more heroes die. Religious units abandon the Scions unless they have the right state religion.

I love this idea.


If it's too powerful, maybe not ALL heroes, but perhaps 3-5 randomly selected ones.

 

[Tarquelne]

Rarely does the AI keep units alive long enough to make "home grown heroes".

Would probably be too powerful, but...

Heroes of this Age:
Raises all currently dead heroes to the Scions service.

Good points there. And an interesting symmetry: One spell weakened by the AI's carelessness with units, the other made powerful for the same reason.


I do like odalrick's basic idea.

 

[Earthling]

Well Scions can't have a state religion right? And thematically I don't think the religious heroes fit anyway, but I love the idea of just raising the dead civ heroes.

 

[Hawkwood]

Good points there. And an interesting symmetry: One spell weakened by the AI's carelessness with units, the other made powerful for the same reason.


I do like odalrick's basic idea.

I'm not sure that World Spells are also supposed to strengthen the enemy, but the fact that a civ other than Scions could rebuild any of their religion's religious heroes if they have died could balance the spell (since any religious heroes that leave a civ because it no longer has (or never had) the required religion, can be rebuild by any civ that does have it). I you don't want that to happen you would have to make spell only capable of resurrecting dead civ heroes.

 

[ZeroZeroSix]

Well Scions can't have a state religion right? And thematically I don't think the religious heroes fit anyway, but I love the idea of just raising the dead civ heroes.

For waht I know now about Scion (I play 2 games with them now) if you take the red/black lady Korinna as civ leader then you can have a religion, but there is some builddings and units you cant have like the Doomsayers and Temples of the Gift.

I am still not sure what to do about Haunted lands. This area seem to be still in developement and I notice a bug when an adept casted Sanctify near one such Haunted land.

 

[WarKirby]

I started a scion game earlier tonight. Something amusing I didn't know before, they eat spiders for breakfast

The immunity to poison really takes the edge off a spider. A Velite on a forested hilltop has 50/50 odds defending against one.

 

[ZeroZeroSix]

Those Velites are awsome, particularly once upgraded. They are my main offensive force since most of the other units are forbiden mobility 1-2. I also carry a stack of 6-8 Archers with mobility 1 to soften hard target.

 

[Rutee]

Uh, did my Awakened spawn just arbitrarily die around turn 270? I admit I hadn't been paying careful attention, but it was also sitting on a fairly comfortable 19%.

Also, how does one make an Imperial CEnotaph? ARe they supposed to be Courthouse UBs?

 

[Valkrionn]

The Awakened spawns will cut off once you've reached a certain population level, based on the amount of land on the map.

Imperial Cenotaphs were originally for Korinna only, but have been changed into courthouse UBs in the last patch... Don't think they were defined in the Civ infos though, and I don't know if Tarq is going to revert the change or not.

 

[Rutee]

If they're supposed to be for the Risen Emperor too, then yeah, there's an issue. I definitely only have access to Courthouses as him.