'The exotic vegetable' or the evil AI

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I am currently only on noble difficulty, and hyborem never spawns unless I summon him. I think part of the problem is that I kill all evil civs or convert them to good or neutral, but I believe Hyborem should spawn when the AC gets to a certain level (though with no evil civs, this does not help me...).

 

[KingOfLands]

Until the most recent game I've been playing, I'd never seen Hyborem spawn unless I summoned him myself. Then I made the mistake of putting Charadon in on a custom continents map and taking Mahala myself. I figured I'd found the Order, he wouldn't, and we could have a good old war for the future of the tribe.

I ended up smack in the middle of a continent in the southwest, with Varn my only neighbor and stuck behind a jungle on the east end of the continent. He still managed to found both Runes and Fellowship in the time it took me to kind-of-rush the Order (I covered myself on things like mining and roads first), and since it is impossible to get along with him if you aren't the same religion, war resulted.

Not five turns after I declared on him, Dis appeared in the tundra to my southwest. "This is new," I thought.

It turns out, now that boats have started to show up and Perpentarch (who founded OO on a continent to my east) has been nice enough to trade me his map, that Charadon founded AV, what with all the other religions taken and none on his continent, and is currently winning score-wise. Evidently he got the "holy war" memo and decided to kick it up a notch. Other than Varn, the Luichurip and Lanun were the non-evil civs in this game, and the AV got the latter since they're Charadon's neighbor.

I'm staring down Hyborem as an immediate neighbor in what used to be wolf-infested wilderness, with Charadon, Faeryl and either Falamar or Hannah (haven't met them yet) on a huge continent to the north and Perpentarch / Jonas or Sheelba to the east, with the Luichurip pushed into about two towns on a peninsula by whichever Clan leader it is.

Things do not look good for the Order, let me tell you.

 

[Kolath]

Option 4 - I often see Hyborem but he is completely useless and sits in his one or two cities until someone else wins or he is wiped out by good civs.

I think this has two main causes: first, hyborem gets the dregs of the land. By the time he comes out, almost all land is already claimed so he often gets stuck in a crappy desert corner with no resources. In most of my games I create an area with room for 3-4 cities next to wherever hyborem spawns, just to give him a fighting chance. I remember saying that Kael was going to solve this by giving Hyborem a spell to create his own land to settle, so that cause my be solved.

Second, the way religions work, most civs adopt kilmorph long before AV comes out and since civs are extremely reluctant to change religions, there don't end up being enough evil units to feed hyborem's growth. I think there should be more religious affinity coded into the AI. Civs seem to have a religious affinity for founding religions (e.g. Khazad for runes, Lodjasalfar for Leaves) but don't seem to have any preference of which religion to adopt. They just take whatever comes first and then stick with it come hell or high water.

 

[Polycrates]

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...

AV is so good that I don't think I could justify NOT going to it except for roleplaying purposes (or as elves, and even then...). Sacrifice The Weak is just so amazingly powerful that none of the other religions even remotely compare.

Plus you get temples that also act like extra Elder Councils, Ritualists who are just great all over, a chance at the fantastic hero Rosier, etc.

I often summon Hyborem just because that tech give the Infernal Grimoire, which is very useful for tech leapfrogging. But he's mostly useless, and I find myself often killing him to get the counter down.

 

[Bill Bisco]

The problem with Hyborem is that he sucks as an AI. Not so much that he doesn't get spawned. He doesn't need to get spawned because when he gets spawned; he doesn't do anything.

1. This guy is supposed to be a world destroyer, yet in my games he always chooses to stay inside his city and defend.

2. He doesn't understand that he's a 12 str hero unit and can pack a punch.

3. He has little concept of using a naval ship, to transport Hyborem to a continent, so that he can go rampage.

4. Hyborem doesn't understand what not needing food means; it means you make cities in every nook and cranny and get most of what you need through Religous Discipline

5. Hyborem is content to be at peace. Really, he is. Even when he could go to war and conquer some folks.

Those are some of the things that are wrong with Hyborem. And frankly, rushing for the veil usually cripples your civ in the beginning, so it isn't exactly a bad idea to not rush it.

Secondly, I don't see anything wrong with the AI converting to other religions. That's good. What's bad is the sheer imbalance of Evil and Good Civs, and how Evil Civs get shafted, and Good Civs often do an Evil Civ's job better.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Something that would make Hyborem stronger and the AV weaker: Change the Hell terrain for grasslands. I'd suggest either 1/1 or 1/1. Make it so that the AV doesn't get such massive cities, and gear Hell terrain more towards Hyborem's needs. In fact, you may also want to make obsidian plains give 1/2 or something awesome like that. Basically, the point here is that Hyborem will spend citizens working empty grassland tiles just because of his AI. Remove the useless 2 tiles, remove the problem

Secondly, bar him from adopting Sacrifice the Weak. It is quite useless for him, just giving him a penalty to GPP, and inducing him to sacrifice precious population points on buildings... very harmful, and it doesn't make sense for demons to be using such a thing anyway.

Thirdly... Hyborem needs to get out more. I'm not sure what you can do about this, but having him wait a few turns to get his empire started, then declaring war and going reaving once he's gained a combat promo or two would be a real nice strategy.

Finally, as an oddball request/question, can we expect Hell terrain for water and cold terrain any time soon?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

If you want to see Hyborem, try starting in the Classical Age. Although three of the religious techs are immediately available and Corruption of spirit is not, the AI code meant to encourage the advent of Infernal usually makes AV the first religion founded. He tends to show up pretty soon.

 

[thapagan]

Maybe Hyborem should take over a high quality (non capital) city and have a big culture burst. Then he could place his two settlers at the edge of the 4th ring, and have a mini empire from the get go.

Or maybe not...?

 

[kenken244]

personally, i think that hyborem should only get one super city. he should be only able to get citizen specialists in his cities and each one of his units he builds costs one population point, has no unhappiness and gets boni from having av in other cities like the holy city wonder does

 

[Grey Fox]

Something that would make Hyborem stronger and the AV weaker: Change the Hell terrain for grasslands. I'd suggest either 1/1 or 1/1. Make it so that the AV doesn't get such massive cities, and gear Hell terrain more towards Hyborem's needs. In fact, you may also want to make obsidian plains give 1/2 or something awesome like that. Basically, the point here is that Hyborem will spend citizens working empty grassland tiles just because of his AI. Remove the useless 2 tiles, remove the problem

Secondly, bar him from adopting Sacrifice the Weak. It is quite useless for him, just giving him a penalty to GPP, and inducing him to sacrifice precious population points on buildings... very harmful, and it doesn't make sense for demons to be using such a thing anyway.

Thirdly... Hyborem needs to get out more. I'm not sure what you can do about this, but having him wait a few turns to get his empire started, then declaring war and going reaving once he's gained a combat promo or two would be a real nice strategy.

Finally, as an oddball request/question, can we expect Hell terrain for water and cold terrain any time soon?

I agree with all you said. When I played as Hyborem I first thought, hmm Sacrifice the Weak is pretty useless with him, but I'll use it cause its free and I can rush production. (But then I havn't got many manes cause I only fight good)

And your first point, true, this would help Hyborem tremendously. But food does have a value for Hyborem; Conquest civic. It would help a bit with Sacrifice the Weak with evil civs close to Hyborem at least. If this is a big problem with the Agriculture change.

I've actually seen Hyborem get spawned a couple of times by the AI. And then followed by Basium. It was really cool!

 

[largedarryl]

I think to offset the hyborem needing to fight evil civs to get stronger, and vica-versa for Basium, when the Hyborem conquers a good or nuetral city, he should raze the city and then Condemn the population to hell, or to the Hyborem in this case.

I think the mechanic should be so that Hyborem auto-razes good cities and Basium auto-razes evil cities. Then you could make this believable by saying the city has been condemned/sanctified.

 

[GeeJo]

Except that Basium doesn't much care if you're good or evil, so long as you don't worship the Veil. He's quite happy working alongside an Overlords-worshipping Perpentach if it'll help his cause.

 

[Bill Bisco]

Basium is fine with the Ashen Veil. He simply automatically declares war against it when he first spawns. Afterwords, he feels fine about declaring peace and remaining peaceful with the Ashen Veil.


Hyborem needs to benefit whenever *anything* is killed or *any city* is razed (both or take your pick). It shouldn't matter whose soul Hyborem is taking. He likes a buffet

edit: And yes, for Hyborem, what Sacrifice the weak does needs to be tweaked. Less food used needs to be changed to something else, and sacrificing citizens for production doesn't work (since Hyborem suffers more than everyone else at losing citizens.)

 

[jwin]

Perhaps if Hyborem automatically got the patriarch of veil promotion. If anyone else was veil, he could get a more steady supply of manes by forcing them to join his wars.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I think leaders get the favourite religion in BtS, so no one is likly to convert now. However civs are less likly to change alignment, so AV is late, however on BtS I hope we'll get the Sheiam etc. so they'll convert ASAP, then summon Hyborem.

 

[Grey Fox]

Just like Ljosalfar are forced to rush to get the leaves, maybe Sheaim should rush towards Infernal Pact?

 

[GeeJo]

Since that'd mean they avoid getting the baseline techs, they'd get ganked before even approaching Corruption of Spirit.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

They do go for it fairly quickly already, though.

 

[Rhymes]

A solution would be (if possible) to lower the speed at which religions spread to other random cities.

Early in the game, RoK often spread to one city of some different civs and they immediately convert to it.

 

[Grey Fox]

Leaves spread very fast as well. I just founded leaves as the elves and the same turn it spread to 2 cities in 2 different civs. They immediately switched. Not much later every civ on the pangea was Leaves, except Auric Ulvin. And later Keelyn founded OO and switched. Amurites founded RoK but didn't change.