Scions documentation

[Arctic Circle]

I really dislike Pelemoc's war chance for using the subversion spell. It makes no sense because people immigrate to the scions all the time and i'm sure that in order to create reborn they must have someone convincing people to join the scions. I'd like it if it simply had a chance of a diplo penalty, a delay, and/or give the city some food back so it can regrow more easily.

As mentioned to Tal, Pelemoc is such an evil bugger that as a player, even seeing him near my borders would be a declaration of war and all my high-movement units set on instant pursuit.

 

[Stonemender]

First awakened/reborn spawned by random event: Turn 87
First awakened spawned regularly: Turn 100

Seriosly - WTH?

How am i expected to compete with the other players in the game with a City of size 2 (actually i had 2 cities with size 1, was my first game with scions) ?

secondly - plz disable the random event, that would reduce the city-size by 1 for Scions. An event thats just a minor nuisance for any other player can be quite devastating for the scions.

plus - its not very logical that a bunch of undead contracts a disease and drops - err - dead?

 

[Demus]

First awakened/reborn spawned by random event: Turn 87
First awakened spawned regularly: Turn 100

Seriosly - WTH?

How am i expected to compete with the other players in the game with a City of size 2 (actually i had 2 cities with size 1, was my first game with scions) ?

seems like you've just gotten pretty unlucky. Did you go for some of the modifiers, boosting the scion's rate? Running god king early game, going for artifacts of patria and luxury items, building the required buildings etc.

 

[Stonemender]

well i did go for god king pretty early but focused on production - and producing my own awakened for the 600 production. Therefore research took quite a while in this game.

As is said - it was my first game with scions and i had no idea of the mechanics, when i started.

Bus i still think, that the mechanics should be changed a little, like raising the likelyhood of getting a new awakened after every turn without a spawn, and resetting the counter every time you got one. Going 100 turns without a spawn is a sure defeat in a multiplayer game.

 

[Tarquelne]

well i did go for god king pretty early but focused on production - and producing my own awakened for the 600 production.

Do you remember the game speed?

 

[Stonemender]

i think it was normal. you might wanna ask jean elcard about these things, he has the savegames.

 

[Jean Elcard]

It was normal speed.

 

[hbar]

I too had bad luck with the Awakened pops last night (maybe ~70 turns), but I got a great prophet from a giant steading so I beelined code of laws while pushing more GPs, and now I have my capital rolling out 1-turn lvl 3 Legates, so I think this game's going to take a quick turn for the better. (I built three Awakened so far, normal speed, turn ~170). Its really not that bad once you get a good defense up, especially if your capital is geared for production.

The way I see it, the Scions are a deep exponential race, like the Cabalim. You'll likely be pretty far behind for the first 200 turns or so, but once you hit that sweet spot, you can steamroll pretty much anything.

 

[Tarquelne]

There is certainly a learning curve with the Scions. It's really pretty simple but very much against the grain: Food isn't important, your population gains aren't very predictable through much of the game, the population you do have needs to be thought of somewhat differently (it's all hammers or commerce producing), and you've got a rather different set of goals/needs in the early game. Certain techs are a lot more important, as are certain resources - most luxuries, for example. Rather than spreading out centralization is heavily rewarded.

And I think you need to be aggressive early game. First about getting a good starting spot. Then about either pursuing spawning bonuses, but pumping out Centeni and taking out some of the competition is an option.

Anyway: I've bumped up the early game spawning bonus, removed the Korrina penalty, and Scions can no longer be hit by the Sickness event. (There is a significant living population in pre-Necropolis Scion cities. But that event seems too common given it's greater effect on Scion cities.)

EDIT: I'm also going to see about adding a difficulty level modifier.

 

[hbar]

What if instead of removing the sickness event, it can spawn an awakened/reborn (perhaps with a cost or tech requirement) a la Pelemoc's new spell. After all, the choice to accept undeath is a lot easier if you're about to die anyway.

 

[heisenberg]

Needing a tech requirement wouldn't really help when it should--in the early game when the -1 pop hurts bad.
Later on the event is still a pin-prick, but nothing you cannot handle.

Btw, anyone else having trouble trying to cast their worldspell?
Alcinius is usually the first council member I get since KoTE is so important now to free Korrina (I play as Emp all the time), and by the time the rest are assembled he's always stuck with someone else--often on another continent altogether.
I understand that Daggers have the ability to kill him without repercussions, but when you play on large/huge maps with only 2 national units that could seek him out (and I often play on custom continents so he's almost always on some other continent altogether), its almost impossible to get him back easily. Not to also mention the fact that Daggers require GK and by the time I assemble the other council members its often into the mid-game where running Arist or City-states is a must to lower maintenance costs.

It would be nice if there would be some easier way to cast their worldspell, like simply having the 4 council members in existence (and the founding of the Keep counting as Alcinius' presence), and even possibly some way of getting Alcinius back.
As of now, it is way too much of a hassle to even bother sending Daggers out to search for Alcinius, since he'll go barb anyway in a few turns and I'd rather just train my own adepts/mages/archmages since he's just a glorified hero mage who has a penchant for defecting.
As much as I enjoy the flavour/mechanic of Alcinius' madness, I find that he has no place in Scion strategies since his only job is to found the Keep and have the slim chance of being there to cast their worldspell. Other than that I'd be more than happy to get him to stay out of my way when he turns barb.


A sidenote just for laughs...
Somebody gotta change the promotion name for the Centeni... They are the EXACT opposite of being unreliable. They are perfectly RELIABLE in getting an overall +5% str bonus when the situation demands it =)

 

[heisenberg]

I too had bad luck with the Awakened pops last night (maybe ~70 turns), but I got a great prophet from a giant steading so I beelined code of laws while pushing more GPs, and now I have my capital rolling out 1-turn lvl 3 Legates, so I think this game's going to take a quick turn for the better. (I built three Awakened so far, normal speed, turn ~170). Its really not that bad once you get a good defense up, especially if your capital is geared for production.

The way I see it, the Scions are a deep exponential race, like the Cabalim. You'll likely be pretty far behind for the first 200 turns or so, but once you hit that sweet spot, you can steamroll pretty much anything.

Scions aren't really that weak early on... As long as you aren't that unlucky with awakened pops
They are in fact one of the stronger civs in the early game, being able to found 2 cities right one turn 1, and having free settlers pop out relatively frequently early on--I mean for a regular civ a size 5ish capital would take ~25 turns just to build a settler you get for "free".

 

[BeefontheBone]

I've found I tend to have a score lead for a bit actually, since my pop is all producing commerce and hammers and I can found a second or even third city before the AI's started building a settler, I'm not sacrificing anything by building a worker, etc. Have to balance resource grabs (except when it's a pair of Patrian Artifacts like in my current game!) against keeping your spawn rate up but it seems doable to me.

As a possibility for an alternative mechanic, hows about having an Awakened spawn when a meter fills up? The things which currently affect spawn rates would all provide (or reduce) points towards it, the amount being partly random and a bit fixed, thereby giving a minimum time to get an Awakened. Displaying it would give the player more information about when they can expect a spawn, as well as better feedback on whether their actions were affecting it positively or negatively without having to memorise all the factors. And if the number of points needed increased with each spawn in the same way GPs do, you could reduce or eliminate the decrease in rate over time, which would be helpful - the current system produces a bit of a vicious circle if you're unlucky and don't pop awakened early, since your chance per turn is in fact decreasing, plus you're less well-equipped to build buildings and grab resources which will push it back the other way than someone who got lucky and popped a couple early.

 

[Tarquelne]

Btw, anyone else having trouble trying to cast their worldspell?

I hope so.

He'll be easier to find next version (Daggers get a spell), and a (hopefully near) future version will give you more reasons to want him around.

Not to also mention the fact that Daggers require GK

In the next patch or so Emperor's Daggers will become easier to obtain, and Praetorians will be the only Scion GK units to abandon you if you switch civics. (If they aren't already.)

 

[MaxAstro]

I've found I tend to have a score lead for a bit actually, since my pop is all producing commerce and hammers and I can found a second or even third city before the AI's started building a settler, I'm not sacrificing anything by building a worker, etc. Have to balance resource grabs (except when it's a pair of Patrian Artifacts like in my current game!) against keeping your spawn rate up but it seems doable to me.

I don't know how common this strategy is, but I know that personally my score early game as the Scions is HUGE because rather than start with a 2-pop capital, I always choose to start with 2 cities. This gives you a lot more resources to grab, better chance of upping your spawn rate early, Korinna can defend the capital while your starting warrior defends the other city, and one city can produce warriors while the other makes a worker. Admittedly I'd only do this with the Emperor, but I generally only play the Emperor.

I am curious, though, how many others go for two cities instead of a pop 2 capital?

 

[heisenberg]

@Tarq: Thanks~ finally i get to try their worldspell~

@Max: I always found 2 cities, and often grab a third with the first awakened pop.
Yea you could leave Korrina to secure your capital while your warrior garrisons the next.
I find that spamming out size 1-2 cities while all building markets+elders can work pretty well running Arist later on to defray maint costs. Then maybe filling up the resource-rich cities with tiles with high outputs when you start getting legates to "harvest" population.

 

[Tarquelne]

Next version will have difficulty level adjustments for spawning - that lack may have been causing significant problems, especially among new players at lower levels.

I also got around to sweetening God King - It's still Aristoc *1.4 vs. *1.2 for God King, but now God King offers:

1 more Reborn is gained when razing cities, assuming you'd get any at all.
Fewer people are lost when taking cities.
Reborn are ~15-30% cheaper.

 

[MaxAstro]

That certainly helps make up for the huge cut in maintenance Aristocracy gets you, and fairly well brings it back to Aristo for Korinna and God King for Emperor. I approve.

 

[deadliver]

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

 

[MaxAstro]

Not everyone can be a civilization god like you, deadliver; your comments should really take into account us mere mortals.

That said, spawning influenced by difficulty is fine as long as it isn't a huge difference.