Thoughts on Cult of the Dragon?

[Bad Player]

I think having CotD in your (non-Sheiam/Kuriotates) city should be a definite annoyance.

I like Wrymhold - it's your typical religion capital and is nice to have (+1 chaos mana, GPPs, specialist slots, culture). However I think non-Sheiam/Kurio. cities get too low a penalty for having CotD in them. As a side point has anyone seen a city razed due to negative culture (e.g. from having CotD in it). Ages ago in light phase a city had negative culure and only had CotD in it but was not destroyed - dunno if that's been fixed/changed.


Ideas for improvement:
- having CotD in a non-Sheiam/Kuriot. city subtracts (1 + 10% of base culture) per turn. That is annoying but not dangerous in that city unless you have no culture in which case it should raze the city.

 

[woodelf]

How about a % chance that each turn every city that has CotD a pop point will leave to live with whoever founded the CotD? Sort of a permanent pilgrimage?

 

[onedreamer]

I think the penalty is ok, although I like Woodelf's idea.
Cities with negative culture don't crumble, and I don't think they should, it wouldn't make sense and having negative culture is already quite bad.

 

[Bad Player]

Yeah woodelf that idea sounds like it would make it annoying to have CotD in your city.

I think CotD needs to be annoying enough to make the player willing to build purge the unfaithful or use an inquisitor - even with their negative side effects.

 

[Quetz]

I agree, I'd really like to see the Cult be a little more dangerous

 

[vyapti]

I agree with above comments.

Also, The Dragon Heroes come way too late. I've never even researched the techs required. Maybe a unique tier 4 unit (something earlier on the tech tree) could have the roar function.

The dragon heroes are neat, but the only time I've ever seen one in the game is once when I took the Dragon's Hoard city with an inquistor.

 

[BCalchet]

Some random events popping up in infected cities might be interesting and increase the worth of religion-reming effects - not to mention

Say...

If a player is not the Sheaim or the Kuriorates, and controls no dragon units, there is a ~0.5% chance of a negative effect in each infected city each turn, and a ~0.1% chance of a positive/neutral effect.

If the player is playing as the Sheaim or the Kuriorates, or has captured one of the three dragons somehow, there is instead a ~0.5% chance of a positive/neutral effect.


Negatives:

Randomly lose non-cult disciple units when they're fortified in culted cities:
"Dragon Cult fanatics cornered our Acolyte(/Savant/etc) and burned him as a sacrifice to their scaled dieties!"

Randomly lose temple buildings in culted cities:
"Dragon Cult fanatics destroyed our Temple of Leaves!"

Randomly have units fortified in culted cities lose any previous religion and replace it with the Cult promotion:
"Our Maceman joined the Dragon Cult!"

Randomly get a turn of unrest.
"The Dragon Cult is coordinating large-scale protests in <city>!"

Randomly lose a sizeable chunk of hammers from the current building project.
"The Dragon Cult in <city> are interfering with our training/construction efforts!"

If total culture in city is sub-zero, randomly have the city defect to the owner of the Cult holy city.



To balance these out, some more rare positive/neutral effects (these being the only events possible for Kuriorate, Sheaim and other dragon-owners' cities) could be added

Get a Fanatic unit (Cult version of the Savant/Acolyte/Thane/etc)
"A Dragon Cult Fanatic joined our cause!"
(2 strength, 1 move, can spread Cult of the Dragon)

Have a prophet or basic disciple unit converted to a Cult Fanatic.
"Our Savant(/Thane/etc) abandoned his faith and joined the Dragon Cult!"

Get a Talon (Cult version of the Confessor/Priest/etc)
"A Dragon Cult Talon joined our cause!"
(4 strength, 1 move, divine, sorcery, fire II, chaos II, can explore rival territory, can found temple*)
(*Wyrmhall: -3 culture(0 for dragon-owners/sheaim/kuriorates), -1 gold from priest specialists in this city(0 for dragon-owners/etc), -1 happiness(0 for dragon-owners/etc), the Cult has a 10% chance of reappearing each turn if no longer present.)

Have a priest unit converted to a Cult Talon.
"Our Confessor(/Priest of Leaves/etc) abandoned his faith and joined the Dragon Cult!"

Instantly finish non-hero unit construction, but the new unit has the cult promotion.
"The Dragon Cult assisted in the training of <unit>."

 

[drekmonger]

Does the cult have to be super annoying? Shouldn't it have something to do with the dragons?

How about this: Each city with the Dragon Cult has a 10% chance per turn of giving every active dragon on the map 1 xp. Or something like that. The stronger the cult, the stronger the dragons are. So, a player without a dragon UU would have incentive to wipe out the cult.

Also: maybe a player who controls both a dragon and the Wormhold can build Dragon Cult disciples at the Dragon Cult holy city. They could be hidden units able to cross unfriendly border, with the ability to sacrifice themselves to both spread the cult and attack the culture of the target city. And/or they could sacrifice themselves to heal a wounded dragon.

 

[DMN]

Some random events popping up in infected cities might be interesting and increase the worth of religion-reming effects

I love that idea, and I also love your examples for what kind of random effects might occur. No major disasters, just slightly annoying and flavorful side effects, and minor bonuses for Sheaim/Kuriotates.

 

[Yoshi2942]

I like the random negative effects. The positives actually seem too powerful to me though. The positives all, pretty much, increase the likelihood of the next event.

One thing about the cult though - it counts as a religion, right? so if you decide to use the religion civic - your city automatically gets a negative; which is something I've never really liked.

 

[gravitygroove]

im still not completely clear on how you even aid in the spread of the dragon cult, let alone ever possess more then 1 dragon (the hero gold or black)

 

[Arpymaster]

im still not completely clear on how you even aid in the spread of the dragon cult, let alone ever possess more then 1 dragon (the hero gold or black)

Inquisitors have the command promotion (I think this is the name). Units they defeat join your army. If your inquisitor defeats an enemy dragon (you don't even need one to start) the dragon will be part of your army.

Just an idea pop in my head-new victory condition, take the 3 dragons!

Silly idea if no Sheaim or Kuriotates are in the game...

 

[Bad Player]

Does the cult have to be super annoying?

I don't know about super-annoying but it needs to be bad enough that you would be willing to use an inquisitor/purge the unfaithful on that city.

 

[Bad Player]

I like the random negative effects. The positives actually seem too powerful to me though. The positives all, pretty much, increase the likelihood of the next event.

One thing about the cult though - it counts as a religion, right? so if you decide to use the religion civic - your city automatically gets a negative; which is something I've never really liked.

Does it actually count as another religion in regards to the religion civic? If it does (can anyone confirm/deny this?) then it shouldn't because the Sheiam/Kuriotates would be harmed by having the CotD as well as a regular religion.

 

[Bad Player]

im still not completely clear on how you even aid in the spread of the dragon cult, let alone ever possess more then 1 dragon (the hero gold or black)

I don't think you can aid in the spread of the CotD - building Wyrmhold with a great prophet is the best you can do for this.

The gold dragon is the Kuriotates' dragon and the Black dragon is the Sheiam's dragon.

 

[Halancar]

Don't forget that units built in a city with CoTD might get the CoTD promotion, and if they do, they have a chance to defect when they enter the cultural boundaries of the founder of the cult. And the dragons can also make them defect.

Not much, but it can be annoying. And the negative culture can also be very annoying early in the game, it really slows down the growth of the city.

I recently (.20c) saw the elves reduced to one city that had the CoTD religion (I was responsible both for the reduction and the CoTD, actually). They stayed at negative culture for quite a few turns (I'd say around 30), before I put them out of their misery. So apparently cities still don't disappear.

 

[Bad Player]

I've personally never seen a conversion due to the CotD promotion - I think it is too low.

The chance of getting just 1 unit to convert (assuming the AI ignores CotD promotions and sends all units in regardless) = number of units sent x &#37; chance of a unit getting CotD promotion x % chance of conversion.

IIRC the chance of getting CotD promotion and the chance of conversion are low and when multiplied together they become very low. Perhaps these %s could be upped a bit?

 

[zyrev]

I think the cult is more like a religion that compliments other religions; I mean you found it and then spread it to your neighbors and then you found another religion and adopt it as a state religion; if you found it early on, it really messes up with your neighbors' cities.

 

[Dark Russell]

You could work the cult of the Dragon like Hyborem/Basium in a manner such as this:

Once Cult of the Dragon is founded the religion functions as it normally would. When "X" amount of units with Cult of Dragon are created, a very large and powerful dragon emerges and all those units immediately join him. The Dragon is freindly towards the Barbs and maybe to the founder of the cult but that is it. The potential loss of units alone is enough to want to purge the cult from your cities.

 

[Lord Bayushi]

I would love to see a unit that can spread the CotD with the explore rival territory ability. These cultists should be able to be built by anyone with CotD present in a city, so they can help anyone in a culture war on the boarder (accept for the Sheiam or the Kuriorates, of course). I don't think it is over-powered because of the inquisitors, and the cult rarely seems to spread even once Wyrmhold is built under current circumstances.