Scions documentation

[Tarquelne]

I approve.

Good.

The difficulty-level adjustment is +50% at Settler, -10% each level after that. So +10% at Noble and -30% at Deity.

We'll see what happens.

 

[heisenberg]

oww this is gonna hurt bad playing them on immortal/diety =(

 

[Tarquelne]

Double post! Oh noes!

 

[Tarquelne]

oww this is gonna hurt bad playing them on immortal/diety =(

Thats where I play - I didn't find it so bad in the couple of games I tried. But yeah, if it was balanced there then this won't be. OTOH, I still won...

It's a really easy function to adjust, btw, so if it needs to be changed that won't be a problem. Not like the spawn-chance display, say, which was a total b-word.

 

[xienwolf]

Honestly I do not see why spawning should be linked to difficulty, it ain't that hard people.

The fact that it isn't that hard is WHY it is being linked to difficulty. If the player who is comfortable with Deity is getting settlers just as fast as the player who can barely scrape by on Warlord, then the player on Deity is getting too much of an advantage.

Going by the wording, I would suspect you are picturing the scale working opposite of how it does. The setup now is that if YOU have a HIGHER difficulty and play as the Scions, you spawn SLOWER. But if YOU have a HIGHER difficulty and the AI runs the Scions, they spawn FASTER.

This way, the balance shifts in favor of the AI at higher levels, and the Human at lower ones, as is the base intention of the handicap settings to start with.

 

[deadliver]

I see this is really a fix for the AI.

 

[lordrune]

I'm getting the impression that it might be beneficial to try and run a compact empire with Scions - maybe five or six well-placed cities max - and try and stay in GK for the associated Scion bonuses, and develop vertically.

 

[2manyusernames]

Alcinus - The Mad Thaumaturge:[...] A new death returns him to the Emperor. Though even that's not certain.

So is there a percentage chance that Alcinus does not return from death? Is there a time interval sometimes before he returns?

I just started a game and he didn't return (yet?) after I had to kill him when he went barbarian. This was the first time in this game for him to turn barbarian.

Last experiment with the Scions had him returning immediately after being killed the first time. When I had to kill him again several turns later he didn't return.

If he doesn't return from death, I would assume you can never cast the world spell. Is this correct? Seems extremely restrictive. By the time you have all 4 members you are bound to have lost Alcinus either through bad luck of him being far far away or more likely him never returning to the emperor after death.

Is this correct or am I missing something?

 

[Demus]

he'll always respawn, but not always under your control. He can be revived in the service of another civ, which means you'll have to kill him again to have him return to you.
Another reason i'm now going the recon line with the SoP first, grabbing the other council members before getting alcinus. Don't worry about defence, just get a few velites up to unplacable early game vs barbs, upgrade them to certinus (or whatever the hunter replacement is) and they should be able to stop pretty much everything your opponents throw at you. unplacable + drill 4 = 6-10 first strikes, with +50% heal rates + march

 

[2manyusernames]

he'll always respawn, but not always under your control. He can be revived in the service of another civ, which means you'll have to kill him again to have him return to you.
Another reason i'm now going the recon line with the SoP first, grabbing the other council members before getting alcinus. Don't worry about defence, just get a few velites up to unplacable early game vs barbs, upgrade them to certinus (or whatever the hunter replacement is) and they should be able to stop pretty much everything your opponents throw at you. unplacable + drill 4 = 6-10 first strikes, with +50% heal rates + march

Okay, thanks for the quick answer. So I have to find which civ has him, reach the civ (hoping that by the time I reach him he didn't get revived in yet another civ), kill him off and hope that he comes back to me and not another civ where I'll start all over again. It seems unless this "feature" is changed, getting all 4 members together in one city is highly unlikely unless you get Alcinus last which means postponing the adept line.

 

[Tarquelne]

It seems unless this "feature" is changed, getting all 4 members together in one city is highly unlikely unless you get Alcinus last which means postponing the adept line.

I generally go for Adept first, and just hope he'll come back. He does tend to return - There's 2 checks performed when he's killed:

In the first the Scions have a 1/3 chance of getting him. If they don't there's a second check in which all non-barbarian civs - including the Scions - have an equal chance to get him.

That's the way it is now. (And has been for awhile.) The next patch should include a "spell" for Emperor's Daggers showing them where Alcinus is located. And they'll still be able to attack him without triggering a war via their other special "spell".

 

[Ksi]

Tarquelne, what do you think of letting him always return to the Scion Capital if he is killed by an Emperor's Dagger? Or at least a much higher chance? Surely they're equipped with some kind of binding enchantment if they're hunting down such a powerful mage. This does get quite tedious when you play with 16+ civs and want to found to dark council. I am sure you realize how dangerous Feudalism before KotE every game is on immortal +.

I generally go for Adept first, and just hope he'll come back. He does tend to return - There's 2 checks performed when he's killed:

In the first the Scions have a 1/3 chance of getting him. If they don't there's a second check in which all non-barbarian civs - including the Scions - have an equal chance to get him.

That's the way it is now. (And has been for awhile.) The next patch should include a "spell" for Emperor's Daggers showing them where Alcinus is located. And they'll still be able to attack him without triggering a war via their other special "spell".

 

[2manyusernames]

Thanks for the clarification, Tarquelne. That makes me feel better knowing the likelihood of him returning is very decent even without having to resort to the Emperor's Daggers.

 

[Tarquelne]

Tarquelne, what do you think of letting him always return to the Scion Capital if he is killed by an Emperor's Dagger? Or at least a much higher chance?

That's a good idea. I'm not sure I can do it, but it's certainly a good idea.

I do generally play on smaller maps - or at least fewer civs. The map type can indeed make a big difference. Some Erebus maps, for example, seem to generate large areas that stay Barbarian most of the game. Alcinus can wander into one and never come out.

 

[hbar]

he'll always respawn, but not always under your control. He can be revived in the service of another civ, which means you'll have to kill him again to have him return to you.
Another reason i'm now going the recon line with the SoP first, grabbing the other council members before getting alcinus. Don't worry about defence, just get a few velites up to unplacable early game vs barbs, upgrade them to certinus (or whatever the hunter replacement is) and they should be able to stop pretty much everything your opponents throw at you. unplacable + drill 4 = 6-10 first strikes, with +50% heal rates + march

One nice thing about other civs getting him - often he'll come back with new spells from your neighbor's spheres when resurrected. Its a good way to collect spells that you only want one of.

 

[Ksi]

That's a good idea. I'm not sure I can do it, but it's certainly a good idea.

I do generally play on smaller maps - or at least fewer civs. The map type can indeed make a big difference. Some Erebus maps, for example, seem to generate large areas that stay Barbarian most of the game. Alcinus can wander into one and never come out.

Thanks. I honestly know nothing about coding but I think I know a way to do it. You know how promotions like diseased get passed onto certain creatures (living) after combat? Diseased, for example, would check if the unit is living and then have a chance of passing it on to them after combat. I think poison is similarly related to if you're immune to poison or not.

Why not make a dagger transfer some kind of promotion that makes units resurrect in capital when it kills the unit if the unit has the "mad" promotion? It would have to somehow overide the python/sdk or whever is used though. Again I'm shooting in the dark but hope that sparks some ideas.

 

[hbar]

...Some Erebus maps, for example, seem to generate large areas that stay Barbarian most of the game. Alcinus can wander into one and never come out.

One way to change this is give him a chance to randomly go un-barbarian (maybe only if he is in unowned/barbarian territory). Then he would join a random civ, kill a few barbs if he's lucky, and then die and be reborn somewhere.

 

[Tarquelne]

Why not make a dagger transfer some kind of promotion that makes units resurrect in capital when it kills the unit if the unit has the "mad" promotion?

There's already some python that runs when Alcinus is killed - Xienwolf made a big improvement to the code there, btw - I believe I can do this: Check for the presence of an Emperor's Dagger in a plot adjacent to Alcinus. If there is one - automatic return to the Scions.

I figure snatching the body is well within a Dagger's abilities, whether she kills him or not.

 

[odalrick]

Or you could check for PROMOTION_ALCINUS_HOSTILE if you want to make it a little harder. Assume the bribes include misplacing the corpse.

There is something I wonder about the Daggers though. They need to be level 3 of a unit type that is hard to level, since they die spontaneously. However, with the new experience system all you have to do is park them in a city with a Hunting guild for a while. Is that intended behaviour?

 

[Tarquelne]

Or you could check for PROMOTION_ALCINUS_HOSTILE if you want to make it a little harder. Assume the bribes include misplacing the corpse.

Harder? Oh, you mean for the player, not for me to put into python. I'm more concerned with me. Very good idea.

However, with the new experience system all you have to do is park them in a city with a Hunting guild for a while. Is that intended behaviour?

Nope - thanks. I'll bump up the minimum level.

GAMW, when E comes out I'm going to spend a goodly amount of time playing.