There can be only one - Highlander

[kingjoshi]

This might be the wrong forum to ask in, but it doesn't seem like the ideas forum gets as many views/replies. Does anyone know of a mod so that we can have "Highlander" units (like the movie/tv show/cartoon). So when the unit kills another unit, it takes its experience points. This can become a very powerful unit with all the promotions!

Maybe you start with it and if it dies, your next military build will be your Highlander UNLESS you get killed by another Highlander, in which case you're done. Because of course, in the end, "There can be only one!"

If there isn't a mod like this, what do others think of such an idea? I might create it.

 

[White_Knight]

At one point I was actually playing around with making a Civ3 mod along the same lines. It was really just a modified regicide mode, and each civ would have an "immortal" king unit that could use the "enslave" ability to simulate the discovery of new immortals among fallen enemy forces. Unfortunately the AI didn't really know how to use these units properly, and just kept them in their cities, kind of like the Shoguns in the Sengoku conquest.

I was also thinking of having upgradeable immortals that would gain new skills like the shoguns as new technologies were discovered, but that never really worked out. It would be entirely possible to gain a new immortal through combat and then instantly upgrade him to the highest level, given enough cash. That didn't make much sense to me. I agree that Civ4's promotions system makes for a much more realistic way of doing this.

I do disagree on a couple of points. You should not be able to build immortals explicitly, but either discover them with existing immortal(s) or have them appear spontaneously, kind of like Great People. I would also argue for the transferral of promotions, not experience points, to the victor in combat, though I haven't really thought through all the mechanics of this. It just seems to me that transferring all of a unit's experience points to the immortal would make for highly over-powered units.

I would also want to get some more Civ4 gaming experience under my belt before having a stab at this myself, since due to a lack of free time I've only really finished one game so far. But if you are going to attempt such a mod I'd be glad to share ideas. (I have a list somewhere of a bunch of immortal names from the TV show along with nationalities, for instance, so that each civ can have its own immortal or two.)