'The exotic vegetable' or the evil AI

[Black Whole]

(At the developper team: Sorry, it's again me picking on this matter. )

Please choose honestly: No manipulation through the worldbuilder or similar.

In my last six or seven games, I never saw Hyborem. He just haven´t got any chance to appear. This made me think and I wanted to force him spawning. So I started a experiment with eight civs:
Garrim Gyr(me) -- Good
Sabathiel -- Good
Einion Logos -- Good
Varn Gosam -- Good
Tebryn Arbandi -- Evil
Mahala -- Evil
Flauros -- Evil
Faeryl Viconia -- Evil

With these settings: Pangaea, Large, Epic, Low Sealevel, Natural Shoreline

It ended like this:
Garrim Gyr(me) -- Good -- Runes of Kilmorph(founder)
Sabathiel: -- Good -- Fellowship of Leaves
Einion Logos: -- Good -- Fellowship of Leaves
Varn Gosam -- Good -- Runes of Kilmorph
Tebryn Arbandi -- Neutral -- Runes of Kilmorph
Mahala -- Neutral -- Runes of Kilmorph
Flauros -- Evil -- Fellowship of Leaves(founder)
Faeryl Viconia -- Neutral -- Octopus Overlords(founder)

(I didn't spread my faith, it spread from its own)

Here are my reasons for the rare spawning of Hyborem:
1.Civs don't care much about their alignment.
Faeryl was the first to convert to the Runes. 3 of 8 had this faith. Three rounds, she founded Octopus Overlords and converted. She lost all their friends including me.
Mahala was the second. She hated me like nobody else before. 1 Runes city and 1 OO city of five.
Tebryn was the next. He also hated me. 1 Runes city of 9.

2.Evil civs don't rush the Ashen Veil.
I know, that this should be solved, but in no game the evil civs rushed fo this religion, at least for me. They prefer FoL or OO. After founding it, they spread it to other evil civs, which convert. This leads to my next point:

3.Evil civs don't prefer the Ashen Veil.
The problem isn't the founding of the AV, but its popularity among the evil isn't very big, since they mostly adopted one of those mentioned above. So the cult lives, but it remains a cult.

I am aware that most of the issues should already be solved, and I know that not evey game should be the same, but Hyborem became so rare that his name sounds more like an exotic vegetable than a demonic ruler.

Other opinions are also welcome.

 

[Rando]

Hi,

I have the same feedback. I most of my games, the evil civs tend to adopt Runes or Fellowship of Leaves. Even once Ashen Veil is founded, few convert. I normally play on Pangea as well, with a mixture of good, evil, neutral civs.

I am wondering if there are other game settings where Hyborem is more likely to spawn?

 

[MacGyverInSpace]

Perhaps the Pact could be made with other religions? I mean, anyone can foolishly summon Hyborem, quest four power, maybe a free tech?

 

[Seont]

well, Vegetables are evil, exotic or not...

My question, do any players found the viel, much less adopt it, without the express purpose of playing hyborem(or the other guy, the good guy)? And if so, why?

Other than being evil, why should the AI want to convert to viel? I know, as evil, i go for OO, cause i consider AV to be shooting myself in the foot. I may be missing something(okay, i'm probably missing something) but i don't see enough good to justify the bad for switching to viel.
That said, i'd hate to see the AI hard coded to go for it. Maybe if the AI knew it was going to loose, getting its butt kicked and wanted a scorched earth policy...

 

[Nikis-Knight]

My question, do any players found the viel, much less adopt it, without the express purpose of playing hyborem(or the other guy, the good guy)? And if so, why?

Flavor, Ritualist especially if playing a summoner race, and a good excuse to cackle maniacally. Oh yeah, and sacrifice the weak.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

AV makes sense for Calabim, because of the unique civic. However, they would not want to raise the AC and lose their food resources. Also, you need Infernal Pact for the Demon's Altar in order to make Mokka's cauldron worthwhile (this was much more valuable back when you could use the Infernal Lords exploit. I haven't been AV since).

As Alexis I have founded the Veil and rushed for the Pact and destroyed Hyborem asap, before Basium could be summoned. This kept the AC from getting too high, boosted my food supply, and stopped the AI players from bringing out a new permanent ally.

(Actually, I only planned to do this. This was on a very high difficulty level, so Hyborem was a little stronger than expected. My plan failed.)

 

[Saien]

Unmodified, 21d will not rush the summoning of Hyborem. The AI has a lot of trouble going into the second tier religious tech (Arete/Hidden Paths/etc) based on simple tech weighting so it can take a tremendous amount of time for it to bother. Good bad or indifferent, it is how it currently is.

Also, in my most recent game I spent a lot of turns after I "won" (i.e. when a win was clear, but without going through the cleanup to make it official) in the Control-Z cheat mode watching what the AI was researching. Good and Evil civs both were not researching anything for a long period of time. Neutral civs were all researching fine. This is after both Hyb and Basium were in game and all religions were founded. I believe something in AI_chooseTech is causing this, but I haven't pinpointed it.

 

[cvlowe]

well, Vegetables are evil, exotic or not...

My question, do any players found the viel, much less adopt it, without the express purpose of playing hyborem(or the other guy, the good guy)? And if so, why?

Other than being evil, why should the AI want to convert to viel? I know, as evil, i go for OO, cause i consider AV to be shooting myself in the foot. I may be missing something(okay, i'm probably missing something) but i don't see enough good to justify the bad for switching to viel.
That said, i'd hate to see the AI hard coded to go for it. Maybe if the AI knew it was going to loose, getting its butt kicked and wanted a scorched earth policy...

I summoned Hyborem specifically so I could then build the gate and bring out Basium. Then I decided I was way too kicking but to switch, so I stayed as Calabim!

But still, thats the only way I've been able to get him to come out. Only one other game I played that he was summoned, and there he got his butt kicked before he could even found a city.

 

[salaminizer]

with patch C I had to bring him to the game, playing as the Sheaim, Noble... the others converted to RoK though and became my enemies. soon after I summoned Hyborem a dwarf brought Basium (I didn't switch to Hyborem... the terrain was a ****). I wiped out the Calabim and gifted Hyborem with one city I took. Soon later he betrayed me, I was at war with the elves so I had to take a city quickly and sign peace. then I got bored...

I want to naturally summon Basium (waiting for an AI to bring Hyborem), so I'm still waiting for a game where I can do it...

 

[Blakmane]

Last game I played ended up as:

me: Sheiam- Ashen Veil
Hyborem- Ashen Veil, allied to me
Svartalfar- Ashen Veil
Sidar- Ashen Veil
Clan- Ashen Veil
Grigori -none
Illians- none
Cardith Lorda- destroyed before he converted to a religion

Ashen Veil is an awesome religion, as it gives one of the best civics in the game, creepy music, a huge research/magic bonus and the ritualist (being one of the best units in the game). However it also has major setbacks, being a) if hyborem is around you have to deal with hell which is extremely annoying and b) the counter rises quickly, and that's not good not matter what race/religion you are.

 

[Love]

Shouldnt that be fixed in the next patch?

 

[Bad Player]

Last game I played ended up as:

me: Sheiam- Ashen Veil
Hyborem- Ashen Veil, allied to me
Svartalfar- Ashen Veil
Sidar- Ashen Veil
Clan- Ashen Veil
Grigori -none
Illians- none
Cardith Lorda- destroyed before he converted to a religion

Ashen Veil is an awesome religion, as it gives one of the best civics in the game, creepy music, a huge research/magic bonus and the ritualist (being one of the best units in the game). However it also has major setbacks, being a) if hyborem is around you have to deal with hell which is extremely annoying and b) the counter rises quickly, and that's not good not matter what race/religion you are.

Well getting the counter high is good for 2 things:
- Meshabbur of Dis for AV holy city owner
- If you are Hyborem and you get the counter high fast then the horsemen of the apocalypse will do a lot of damage to other civs but not to you (assuming you remain at peace with barbarians).

 

[Broken Hawk]

Shouldnt that be fixed in the next patch?

One can hope. I've found it harder with each patch to get the Infernals in the game.

 

[Seont]

Ashen Veil is an awesome religion, as it gives one of the best civics in the game, creepy music, a huge research/magic bonus and the ritualist (being one of the best units in the game). However it also has major setbacks, being a) if hyborem is around you have to deal with hell which is extremely annoying and b) the counter rises quickly, and that's not good not matter what race/religion you are.

best civic? really only for calabim, since anyone else is going to have serious happiness problems(they will too, they just won't care).

Magic bonus? i'm not sure what you mean since you mention the ritualist seperately.(argh, the wiki links are dead, i can't even try to look it up and figure it out)

for science, and i've never tried this, but wouldn't you do better going kilmorph, use the extra gold to cover your expenses and push the tax rate to 100 percent science(or atleast close to it), build libraries(+25percent), and do better than viel since that bonus, i believe, doesn't go through libraries. The temple of the viel only gets you 2 science right, should be easy to make that up or better i would think, especially since spreading the viel to get that +2 will raise the counter and trip blight, cutting your population and food resources(as well as a few happiness resources).

 

[katika]

Don't forget that Sacrifice the Weak allows you to rush production with population. Combined with Agriculture and several farms (throw in Aristocracy if you don't have enough towns) you have awesome growth, production, and science. OO has earlier slavery which is great, but it doesn't (effectively) double your food.

For Science, AV shrine gives +1 beaker per city with AV instead of gold, and gold would only be better if you had to turn down your research spending. I think that OO is probably better for science with the Asylum (+15% research) and the shrine will keep your research at 100%. Try switching from OO to AV after building several Asylums for even better results.

 

[kenken244]

part of the problem is that no one rushes the OO so everyone converts to runes and so the hole world turns good or neutral

 

[Blakmane]

part of the problem is that no one rushes the OO so everyone converts to runes and so the hole world turns good or neutral

yeah it's true. If khazad are in the game, 90% of the world will be neutral before axemen come out

 

[Bad Player]

best civic? really only for calabim, since anyone else is going to have serious happiness problems(they will too, they just won't care).

Magic bonus? i'm not sure what you mean since you mention the ritualist seperately.(argh, the wiki links are dead, i can't even try to look it up and figure it out)

for science, and i've never tried this, but wouldn't you do better going kilmorph, use the extra gold to cover your expenses and push the tax rate to 100 percent science(or atleast close to it), build libraries(+25percent), and do better than viel since that bonus, i believe, doesn't go through libraries. The temple of the viel only gets you 2 science right, should be easy to make that up or better i would think, especially since spreading the viel to get that +2 will raise the counter and trip blight, cutting your population and food resources(as well as a few happiness resources).

I agree - I don't think 1 = 1 and therefore AV temples and holy city should probably get another +1

 

[salaminizer]

i've started a game as the I-won't-give-anything-Gosam, now around yr. 280, AV has already been founded, but i am quite a "homelander" and haven't met the civ that founded it (and I don't have open borders with anyone. right now the only evil leader i have contact with is keelyn, who founded OO. charadon is my southern neighbour but he converted to runes (i'm the only Order). i think hyborem hasn't come out yet (dunno if a popup appears even though i haven't met the AV civ) so i'm waiting...
but as kenken and blakmane mentioned, most civs convert to rune.
in my game I'm the Order, valledia & sidar are fellowship, beeri & charadon runes and keelyn OO. someone else is AV and cardith is DEAD MEAT.

btw, I've got VERY surprised when charadon wanted Mysticism wayyyy after year 100 and of course, as Varn, I refused to give him. I think i missed a chance to raze him, but I'm avoiding wars this time

 

[onedreamer]

for science, and i've never tried this, but wouldn't you do better going kilmorph, use the extra gold to cover your expenses and push the tax rate to 100 percent science(or atleast close to it), build libraries(+25percent), and do better than viel since that bonus, i believe, doesn't go through libraries. The temple of the viel only gets you 2 science right, should be easy to make that up or better i would think, especially since spreading the viel to get that +2 will raise the counter and trip blight, cutting your population and food resources(as well as a few happiness resources).

Depends, if the AV Holy City is in a good city commerce wise, and you spread it much and plan buildings well in that city (GL, Crown of Akharien, etc), then you would get so much science income from that city that it would be better than having a RoK as a state religion and its holy wonder (since you won't move the slider towards gold as much as you do with science). In fact, that would "only" provide you (gold wise) +1 gold per city. Not really that much. You can still get the +2 gold per temple of kilmorph without having it as a state religion, and it's SO MUCH EASIER now to adopt this strategy since you get a Thane if you just research the tech -no matter if you're first or not-. The religious civic is better IMO... "de gustibus" perhaps but if you move the research slider to 100% with RoK then you won't have that much gold to hurry production thanks to Arete, while with Sacrifice the Weak you can do it no problem. And the +1 hammer per mine is countered by the fact that you will happily adopt Serfdom without having food and growth problems, and you can even choose to hurry with gold, not to mention the awesome combos with Conquest and Aristocracy. In fact, the only problem with all these civics is probably health, but it isn't much more than a nuisance in most cases.