Suggestion for Infernals

[WCH]

I love the flavour of the Infernals, but it bugs me that pretty much the only way to get their cities to grow is to burn evil cities, meaning there's no incentive to invade the Good civilizations, and a very, very strong incentive to immediately attack the summoning civilization -- not much of an Infernal "Pact," is it?

Also, conquest is kind of strange for them, as the only cities worth having are cities they found themselves -- so not only does razing that Bannor city do nothing, keeping it is also useless. So why bother invading at all? This gets even worse if the Mercurians are in the game, and all killing Good units does is to make your enemies stronger.

So... here's what I suggest: a promotion, Soul Eater, available to Demonic units only, requires the Scourge promotion, which has a 25% chance of turning a defeated living unit into a Mane, ala Conversion and the slave taking mechanic.

If that's too strong, make the pre-req a little steeper or something.

Alternatively, it could function like Feast... so instead of razing the city immediately, the Infernals could come in and feast upon the remaining population, turning them into Manes, and ultimately destroying the city: that is, the mechanic would allow you to reduce a city to size zero.

This, I think, would add great flavour... give cause for the Good civs to intervene and get the crusade underway. Much more terrifying from an RP perspective... if the Infernals are allowed into our lands, not only will we lose the city, they'll actually consume the souls of all our citizens: they won't simply be dead, they'll also be bound in slavery for eternity. Right now it's just not that big a deal.

Considerations:
1) If it functions like Conversion, Veil/OO units spawning manes on their death should probably be disabled, or the Soul Eater promotion could simply be made to not function on Veil/OO units? Is that possible?

2) Going with the second idea and making it work like Feast would slow down the Infernal blitz, which I think would be good. Give it a creeping doom kind of feel, not unlike the spread of the Hell terrain itself, rather than the one city every other turn kind of war that most civs wage. So... Infernals capture a city, and then sit in it, devouring its citizens until there are none left before moving on... probably about 5 turns later. So instead of a city every other turn, it'd be a city every ~7 turns, giving plenty of time for both sides to bring in reinforcements, which I expect would lead to some pretty epic engagements as the civ in question tries desperately to save the city before it's completely destroyed.

Mmm... more I think about this, more I like it... chance to save your city prior to razing? Excellent...

 

[Charybdis]

I like it.

 

[Switchblock]

I totally agree with this, I know I hate bringing the Infernals in, just because I'm afraid of this (though the AI probably dosn't think that hard)

 

[Fenboy]

I totally agree that an Infernal player needs more incentive to invade Good/Neutral lands, and this "soul eater" think could be a very interesting mechanic for it.

 

[abculatter2]

Also, conquest is kind of strange for them, as the only cities worth having are cities they found themselves

not true, the AV holy city is the only city that can summon Meshabber.

also, I like this idea, I like it a lot.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

Very interesting and on top a needed change. Same with mercurians, they have all the reasons to fight all the good civs and pretty none to fight the evil ones.

 

[WCH]

not true, the AV holy city is the only city that can summon Meshabber.

also, I like this idea, I like it a lot.

Yes, but that's what their world spell is for. The point stands that there's no reason to ever conquer a city.

 

[icantcmyeye]

not true, the AV holy city is the only city that can summon Meshabber.

also, I like this idea, I like it a lot.

the point he was getting at is that cities founded by a settler give you all the buildings of the infernal (such as demonic citizenry), where as conquering a city gives you those pesky human citizens to deal with, what with their free will and all...

 

[GePap]

Very nice idea for this civ.

 

[WCH]

the point he was getting at is that cities founded by a settler give you all the buildings of the infernal (such as demonic citizenry), where as conquering a city gives you those pesky human citizens to deal with, what with their free will and all...

Kael has said since I posted this that 0.33 will have them getting the buildings in conquered cities, but that does not solve the problems with growing their cities.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Edit: Never mind. I reread Kael's post, and found my correction of WCH was in fact an incorrection.

 

[Ekolite]

I think that if this mechanic was added it should only be able to shrink the city to size 1, however when the city reaches size one it gains the Demonic citizens building. Allowing you to keep the city and grow it back up. It would just save a little micro-management not having to resettle all the land they take.

 

[Natures_Wrath]

So, I decided to take these suggestions and run with them an make a promotion available only to demon units which gave a 25% chance to convert a defeated living unit to a manes. I made the promotion and it functioned in-game just fine.

The problem here is that I need to add a method into my mod to convert a defeated unit into a manes, because it seems the only way to do it as of yet is to make it a slave. I've looked for where enslavement is defined, but I can't find it, so I have nothing for reference.

I also really like the idea for the spell, so I'll try to work that in and let everyone know how that goes.

 

[JayThomas]

Also, using Hyborem's Whisper is a pain. I claimed the city and no culture, PO'd people. Joining manes makes more PO'd people. Might as well not used the spell.

Perhaps the demon people improvement needs to be implemented here as well.

 

[Natures_Wrath]

Also, I decided that although it may not be the best thing to do from a balance perspective, I decided to go ahead and make the conquest probability on Demonic Citizens 100. This will at least end the "I lost a city, took it back a turn later and lost my citizens! AAAH!" posts. It's also a bit more realistic, I mean, why would your city full of demons become completely human in 1 turn? I'd like to also try and make the anarchy period of conquered Infernal cities more violent to make up for the balance issue, and give a feel of forcing the demonic citizenry into submission and in turn compliance, no matter what alignment you are.

Of course, this conflicts with the ideals of at least the Bannor, so the AI for that civ (and potentially others) would need to be set to raze Infernal cities with demonic citizens.