Special Characters

[cypher132]

I was speaking with Valkrionn and that bastard demanded that I start a thread here otherwise he'd flay the skin off my body and eat it while I slowed died of blood loss and trauma.

Now that that's out of the way, I had an idea to create special characters for the civs. Kind of like the Scions with Alcinus and whatever the others are. Doviello have Lucian, but he's not their hero. He's just a UU. I was thinking we could add some more and this could be a thread to introduce ideas. If I had to name five characters I have off the top of my head I would say:

High Chief Votakara of the Sidar
Tarkar Merek of the Dural
Jarent Morarr of the Khazad
Ishlar Kafahn of the Clan of Embers
Ra'Jiharr of the Cualli

Just post your thoughts and stuff on here. Valkrionn told me he'd respond so I'm guessing this is your best bet to get your character ideas heard.

 

[Valkrionn]

No, I said you could post your ideas in a central thread so I could respond to them better than on #erebus.

 

[cypher132]

No, I said you could post your ideas in a central thread so I could respond to them better than on #erebus.

Oh well. What's done is done. At least this'll help.

Please don't kill me.
Hamster bites hurt.

 

[Almagafor]

Perhaps some more governors ala Melante?

 

[Treason]

Perhaps a way to add the other leaders for a civ as UUs, but prohibit a leader from having themselves as one? The idea came to me during one of my Svart games, where I had a Great Commander pop up that was named "Rivanna the Wraith Lord"...when my Civ leader was Rivanna the Wraith Lord. It was amusing to think of having an "Avatar" of my leader in the game.

Or, maybe give every civ a UU at the start, as the civilization leader? What was that game that did something like that..there was a fantasy mod included in Civ 2 that did that.

 

[blade117]

I like that idea. But what about the civs with only one leader?

 

[Calavente]

like hyborem or basium ??
it would make them lose a bit of uniqueness if every civ has this feature.
IMO, it is the same for "special characters". It is good for illians and some other civs that already have some secondary heroes that cannot be revived : they are thus not really civ "heroes" but mainly special caracters... (mithril golem...etc + scions)
Those units were created to strengthen some civs, for balance. If every civ get some secondary heroes those "special civs" would lose some uniqueness.

For me it is the same as the adventurer debat that appeared once:
if every civ could easily get an adventurer or frequently get the "hero" promotion on normal units. It "banalises" the special mechanism of the Grigoris, making them less unique and making their sacrifice of any religion related bonus (units/spell/temples/happy) less worthwhile: the player traded all that for mundane units with the hero promotion and now everybody can have it...

As a side-note for grigoris :

could it be possible that every grigori unit with "hero" promotion can revert to adventurer ?
it would then allow grigori to have an unique mechanism for adventurers even when events and dungeons can give some adventurer / "hero promo" for any civ.
==>thus everybody can get some adventurers/mundane heros but grigori gets more and have a special mecanisme.

Spoiler to avoid haigjacking this thread on special characters but please check here Valkrionn: what do you think of it? :

interests :
-linked to the "hero" promotion + grigori civ so that : captured heros from ennemy civs can be converted by Cassiel into being adventurers for the good of the grigoris (they lose their unique abilities that were not promotion related but gives you a new adventurer: the grigori player has a tough choice here ) +grigori "hero" unit captured by ennemy cannot revert to adventurer.
-can optimise your promotion path, transforme your high experienced dragonslayer (but low level as you converted few xp into levels) and allow him to use all his free xp to become an invincible longbowman (Robin hood) with every archery related promotion you can get...that can stop hords of barbarians ; get an high mobility, high evasive action archmage : upgrade throught the mounted line to get mobility II and tactics III then begin anew with the robes of the adept to learn some spells.
-get "some" mundane soldiers that can launche some spells : former mages/adepts that converted into the melee line or archery line.
...etc
-reflects a bit the DD system where in some cases you can get adventurers with mixed specialities...

I know there was already such a proposition (maybe for another civ: shapshifters) and there were issues but I may have some solutions !!:
-to refrain from upgrading in the arcane path many times gaining 1free promo for adept then mage then archmage then back again (or worse : adept then adventurer then adept, cycle again : many free promotion): make it so that the an adventurer with chanelling 1 cannot upgrade into the arcane path. Once you went up to adept/mage/archmage : make the best of it as you may never go into this path if you leave it.
-maybe make it so chanelling 3 forbids going back as an adventurer (to not have über arch-mages that can launch many lvl3 spells but are immortals as you upgraded them into the melee line learning all useful spells.)
-to limit the abuse : "going back to adventurer" costs 1 per xp or 2/xp. It would then be expensive: if you change lines many times it may cost you a lot (a mean of 100 for becoming an adventurer + some gold to go upgrade into units of said line). You could add +5gold per magical related promotion (mana promotion, spell enhancement, twincast) : A mage, on the verge of attaining omniscient power and infinite life by becoming an archmage-lich has to be paid a lot to abandon his studies and learn new tricks as a n00b in another branch.
-instead make it 1 per xp -3gold per level.... each promotion that has been used being a commitment, the adventurer may be more easily convinced that he has learned all the tricks of the trade and should explore something new. It also is a tradeoff for gaining huge amount of xp in attack and not using the xp (ex with an immortal) then going into another trade to get many promotions specific to this trade (recons' sightII/III, subdue animal/beast, ranged's archery promotions + precision, arcan's many mana promotions). If you have spent xp for some promotions before becoming again an adventurer, it is as much xp you won't be able to use for specialisation in the new trade (so I think there should be a compensation for the player : reduced cost)
-if this ability needs movement,you won't be able to convert religious heroes as afer being "commanded" they have no movement and in the interturn they leave you as you have no religion.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Allowing upgraded adventurers to revert back to adventurers is already implemented in my modmod, as the "And Now For Something Completely Different" ability.

I don't think it is possible to limit upgrades like that. You could create a python prereq to stop arcane heroes from reverting to adventurers in the first place though.

 

[VSPavlov]

I never understood, why's this mechanic for Lucian and other "special characters" different from heroes. It just adds complexity without really bringing anything new.... You basically have national heroes with free exp gain and national heroes without free exp gain - just rename them all heroes and move exp gain to some additional promotion

 

[Valkrionn]

Give them Battle-Hardened. Just makes them minor heroes, can gain .5 xp a turn to a limit of 50, and have access to Heroic Strength/Defense 1 but not 2.

Not as powerful as the standard hero, but still nice.

 

[Calavente]

Allowing upgraded adventurers to revert back to adventurers is already implemented in my modmod, as the "And Now For Something Completely Different" ability.

I don't think it is possible to limit upgrades like that. You could create a python prereq to stop arcane heroes from reverting to adventurers in the first place though.

I know you have it (I read one post you spoke about it) but IIRC you have the inherent defect of the first version : too exploitable instead of being a cool but balanced feature.
I could easily exploit your version by getting :
-adept (free promo)=>adventurer=>adept (free promo)...Etc (or can I not in MCmodmod ?)
-an archmage with the lvl1mana spheres I want +twincast reverting him to melee, immortal, or beastmaster/knight for the big and mobility +not targetable by assassin then get tons of xp through combat to get the lvl2-3 of the spheres I want .
It's true that once you have archmages + immortals you should be winning but it's not always the case.

For the python check disallowing adventurer for archmage : good idea.
For disallowing upgrade into the arcane path ... too bad. I have no other Idea than a python check when upgrading from adventurer : has chaneling or not ?.. but I wouldn't have a beginning of an idea on how to do that.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I've tried to remove that exploit, but it hasn't really worked out. I've considered removing the feature from my modmod for that reason (especially now that I allow resurrection to create adventurers).

I've thought of creating Grigori arcane unit UUS without free promotions, but that would hurt their non-adventurers. I've tried to remove the free promotions in python, but that didn't work out very well.

There is one solution we could try: remove the adventurer's upgrade path (at least on the arcane line) but allow it to upgrade through a spell (ability) instead. Now that I think of it, the AI seems to do fine with this for the Doviello and in my modmod also angel upgrades. You could have the spell that converts the adventurer to an adept make the change in python and then remove a free promotion, but then it would still get free promotions when upgraded to a mage or archmage. It would probably be better to create UUs of adepts, mages, and archmages that differ only in the lack of free promotions, and which can only be attained though the spells. You'd then give this dummy adept a spell to upgrade to the dummy mage and the dummy mage a spell to upgrade to a dummy archmage.

If you went with the spell upgrades approach, you could create any python prereq for any upgrade you want and wouldn't actually need to even use the added step of reverting to an adventurer unit between each upgrade. A downside is that you could not skip any phases in the upgrades; a spell allowing an upgrade to a warrior would not let you bypass that phase to get an archer, axeman, champion, knight, longbowman, crossbowman, etc. You could still upgrade later, but it would be a wasted turn unless you make a seperate spell for each upgrade. Also, the upgrade cost would be independent of the cost of the unit, so it would cost as much for a champion to upgrade to an immortal as for a warrior.



It might be a good idea to block the spells for all tier 4 units. By that phase in their advancement they probably need to learn to specialize more rather than switching unitcombats all willy nilly.



Edit: I just added the dummy units and changed adventurers to upgrade to adepts though a spell. I haven't put any python blocks in yet, and so far only that one upgrade uses a spell. It looks quite odd that way, as that one upgrade icon is on the other side of the automation buttons and the old fashioned upgrades. The really odd thing I found though is that when it upgrades though a spell the unit keeps its whole name in addition to having its new unit type in parenthesis. When I upgraded Branding to an adept, he became "Branding (Adventurer) (Adept)." When I cast And Now for Something Completely Different he became "Branding (Adventurer) (Adventurer)." when I then updraged him to a warrior he became "Branding (Adventurer) (Ad (Warrior)." I'm afraid that in order to fix their names I may need to make the upgrade work though python, which could hurt the ability of the AI to know how to use the spell.


Edit2: I just noticed this strange naming behavior with regular upgrades too. What could be causing this?\

Edit 3: OK, it seems the odd naming behavior was caused by making Adventurers count as world units.

 

[Calavente]

MC : could you have something different :

Spoiler no thread highjacking :

-adventurers upgrades to anything as usual
-create a new unit/unitclass : "dummy adventurer" : same name as adventurer : no external difference ; can upgrade into all paths as for the adventurer, but not into the arcane line.
-any grigori+ hero => spell "begin a new adventure"
1) if chanelling I : 100% chance becomes "dummy adventurer", 0% chance becomes "adventurer"
2) if NO chanelling I : 100% chance becomes "adventurer", 0% chance becomes "dummy adventurer"

it should be easier to create this than do what you proposed ... no ?
-1 dummy unit + allow for some but not all upgrades than creat a whole range of spells for upgrading in the arcane line ?
-1 spell with 2 options, depending on a promotion ? +cost in gold depending on xp ?
it would work for any unit_class : going from horseman => adventurer => mage => dummy adv => champion => dummy adv as the champion would have retained the chanelling 1 promotion.

my 0.2

as for the OP subject : I really think there should not be many such special units. but maybe for some civs, if those units have mostly a special effect and no real ... giving them a semi-hero promotion would really make the grigori lose in term of heros : no religious heros, no civ heros, no secondary heros, no special character + no religious units + no temples + no religious civics + no religion (+ limiting your GP growth to get adv.. but that's gonna change no?) and all that for some meager adventurers that do not have special abilities a are no more powerful than the ordinary soldier save that they have much xp...
The bargain for grigori becomes less and less attractive. (well At least I like 1 of their leaders being tolerant)