Vampires

[WarKirby]

As always, all numbers posted here are merely ballpark figures, to be discussed and such.

Something that's bugged me about base FFH. the Calabim vampires seem a bit overpowered in some ways, but also a little static in others.

With various snippets of the lore here and there, it's looking like the way kael chose to implement them doesn't quite correlate with his own lore about them. For example, Lugus' sun sphere has no effects on them beyond the norm. This post is particularly informitive: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7856258&postcount=22

I'm thinking, a few adjustments to them would be nice. Not TOO complex, but just to make them more interesting, and also give them a few vulnerabilities.

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Sun Magic

The most obvious sun spell, is Sun II, Blinding Light. It's current effect is to remove all movement from affected units for 2 turns, holding them in place. I think vampires should be more vulnerable to this. I also think the Empyrean Priest's revelation spell should have essentially the same effect, or maybe stronger, since it's divine magic.

Effects I'd like to see:
Approx 20% damage to all affected vampires, to a maximum of 80% damage.
Affected vampires recieve the Daylight promotion

20% damage isn't too powerful, but the 80% cap would allow it to be pretty nasty if used repeatedly. It's specifically stated that sunlight doesn't kill them, so there definitely should be a cap.

The Daylight Promotion would have the following effects
-30% strength
-30% healing per turn in friendly/neutral/enemy terrain
-20% resistance to magic.
Unable to use Feast, Feed or Gift Vampirism
50% chance of wearing off per turn

I think a very high value on the healing penalty, is really needed. Because vampires have so much natural healing ability. combining the Vampire promotion with the Body II spell that they have easy access to. Plus March, priests of any religion, etc. It's not hard to get ridiculous healing rates. Vampires are capable of regenerating horribly fast, so this kind of tactic would have some use for their enemies.

As mentioned, I'd make the Revelation spell have an essentially identical effect. Since Vicars are the priests of Lugus.

As a way around this, I'd add the Daywalker promotion. This promotion would only be learnable by extremely powerful vampires (so no putting it on every single vamp soldier), and would make them immune to the above effects, and perhaps even immune to the normal blinding effect of Sun II.

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Vampire Aging.

Another thing I've always found fascinating about vampire lore, is that older vampires are generally stronger, and they seem to respect age a lot in general. I think it would be nice to reflect this.

With that in mind, I'd replace the "Vampire" promotion with a slightly more complex system, of 4 promotions.

Young Vampire
------------------------
+10% strength
-50% experience from Feasting
Can cast Feast, Feed (cannot gift vampirism)

All new vampires would start with this promotion. Similar to the current one, but weaker. Notably, it has no healing rate enhancement, cannot gift vampirism to others, and gets half experience from Feasting, making rapid levelling harder.

Since the majority of vampires would have this promotion, it would effectively reduce the power of the calabim as a whole, while not hurting their potential.

Mature Vampire
----------------------
+15% strength
+5% healing in friendly/neutral/enemy territory
+5% healing after Combat
Can Cast Feast, Feed, Gift Vampirism

A more powerful one, all vampires would automatically recieve this promotion at Level 8, and it would replace Young Vampire. This is closest to the current implementation, but has the addition of a small amount of healing after combat. I feel it makes sense, given that they would feed on their enemies.
The selection of Level 8 as the requirement, would mean that units newly gifted vampirism would usually still start as Young vampires. If a unit was level 8 or more before it became a vampire, it would start with this instead of young Vampire.


Greater Vampire
----------------------
+25% strength
+10% healing after combat
+10% healing in friendly/neutral/enemy territory
Immune to Fear, Capture
Can Cast Feast, Feed, Gift Vampirism
+20% magic resistance

Similar to the above, this would replace the previous promotion at a given level. In this case, level 14. I would also move the Vampire lord level req up a bit to 14. I know it's already far higher than the normal Immortal requirement of lv6. but vampires level so much faster that it's still not a hard target to achieve.

The Greater Vampire promotion would be a prerequisite to getting the Daywalker promo. Which would essentially mean that few other than vampire lords would have it.


Antediluvian
--------------------
+40% strength
+30% healing after combat
+20% healing in friendly/neutral/enemy territory
Respawns in capital when killed (immortal, basically)
Immune to Fear, Capture
Immune to Magic
Causes fear
Can Cast Feast, Feed, Gift Vampirism
+2 first strikes

This is, of course, extremely powerful. Antediluvian is a word I've always liked. It means something akin to Ancient one, and has biblical origins. I think it would be suitable to represent a vampire of extreme power and experience.

Similar to the others, it would replace the previous one with a level prereq. The idea here, is to have an extremely high level requirement. Not unattainable, but somethingyou have to really work for, and you're unlikely to ever get more than 1-2 units with it. I'm thinking Level 20. Is that too low?

I want to encourage levelling up individual vampires much more, rather than spamming an army of them everywhere.

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And lastly, I would remove the Death spellsphere from vampires. Because I don't feel it suits them, and is a bit overpowering.

What does everyone think of these ideas?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

sounds nice. I agree that summoning undead doesn't fit FFH vampires very well, and the fact that you can spam them so easily is kinda lame, I think they should be fewer in numbers.

 

[WarKirby]

The thread about vampires not being undead is partially what inspired this. It seems vampires are all about life, in many ways.

I've always felt that it was too powerful, in terms of game mechanics. Death affinity spectres are pretty nasty.

But this quote from MC particularly

Vampires in Erebus are meant to exemplify the sphere of Aeron, The God of Body, Base Emotions, Lusts (of all kinds), Hatred, and Murder. These are very much qualities of the living, not the (un)dead.

Pretty much tells me that it doesn't fit them lorewise, either. They're about life, not death. In fact, Alexis is terrified of death, so it seems that she wouldn't want undead around.

To clarify though, I have no problem with Vampire Lords having death magic. I think that suits them quite well, given that at such an age they're likely to spend more time studying, and learning the arcane arts. My main gripe with the death magic, is just having an army of summoners running around everywhere, on top of the stuff they can already do.

 

[xienwolf]

I'd say if you implement a "young vampire" option, you should limit their ability to feast. Either they are FAR less efficient (1 XP per 4 population or something), or they simply have a limit on how many times they can cast it. That would of course lead you to want an enhanced feast option for the final tier though (better XP rate, or lower population destruction, or just no anger as a result maybe)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

First, removing movement is not how immobility from spells works.


20-80% damage to vampires seems like too much. 5-50% seems more reasonable.



I'm not really opposed to a promotion that does what you say Daylight should do, but I don't like the name. I'd go for something like Culpa Patefacta (guilt revealed).


The Daywalker promotion is a definite no. Lugus would surely be harsher on older vampires who had devoured the victims of more souls.


I'm not really a fan of the complex system of different levels of vampirism at all. It seems too needlessly complex, a bit too similar to the werewolf mechanic, and overpowered.


In prefer having Feast give floor(city pop*2/3) xp instead of city pop -3. I also like letting you raze cities this way, but that is really overpowered unless I can get the diplomatic penalties working, and let other civs raze cities through a spell too.


Antediluvian means before the flood. I know of no particularly noteworthy flood in the history of Erebus, so I don't consider it appropriate.

I do think it could be nice for Vampires to be able to purchase the Cannibalism and Fear promotions.

I also think it would be nice to remove their Body and Death I and instead let them purchase Body, Death, Mind, and Shadow (maybe even all the evil magic types) and Extension promotions like arcane units can, with the appropriate mana.

Also, I'd like Liches to be Immortal.

 

[Niveras]

Try not to think about undead summoning as a skill received for being a vampire, but rather a natural affinity for the Calabim in general, because they have so much refuse left over from feeding the vampires. This is something Kael mentioned in the Vampire thread. It's hard to distinguish the two because the only vampire civilization has leaders who have an affinity for necromancy (read: death magic) as well body. There's nothing to stop another potential vampire civilization being less pragmatic about using the remains of their feeding, and so their second magic sphere being something other than death.

It is rather logical to me that someone obsessed with avoiding death would research its mechanics, and that would naturally (or, I guess, unnaturally) lead to ways on creating or sustaining functions beyond the natural process. Even though Alexis is focused on sustaining (her) life, and has found a solution to that effect, doesn't mean she isn't interested in other ways of maintaining her 'life' (or unlife, if she had to resort to traditional necromancy).

That said, while raising skeletons from the remains of sacrifices is fitting, spectres and wraiths are presumably related to the soul of a creature. The remains of a vampire feeding wouldn't really leave anything to raise one of these, but I suppose on the other hand the affinity vampires have for the souls of other beings would give them some knowledge of spectral dead, allowing them to summon or control beings who weren't victims of their feeding.

 

[WarKirby]

I'd say if you implement a "young vampire" option, you should limit their ability to feast. Either they are FAR less efficient (1 XP per 4 population or something), or they simply have a limit on how many times they can cast it. That would of course lead you to want an enhanced feast option for the final tier though (better XP rate, or lower population destruction, or just no anger as a result maybe)

Did you miss the -50% feast XP I put in there on the Young vampire promo? Or do you feel that's insufficient. Of course, numbers can easily be modified. It could be -75%, or -90%

I'm not really a fan of the complex system of different levels of vampirism at all. It seems too needlessly complex, a bit too similar to the werewolf mechanic, and overpowered.

The werewolf mechanics are limited to one lategame unit that you rarely need, though. And rely on random chance from there, first to get wolves, and then, for them to actually survive their first battle and become useable (which isn't very often)

To be honest, I feel they're kind of a waste of effort. I've never even seen a greater werewolf.

Having a similar mechanic for a whole civ would allow it to see much more use.

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I'm not really opposed to a promotion that does what you say Daylight should do, but I don't like the name. I'd go for something like Culpa Patefacta (guilt revealed).

I mainly picked Daylight because it would be simple and obvious to the player, why their vampires are suffering horrible weakness. It's pretty self explanatory if you've ever had any interest in vampire lore at all.

Guilt Revealed is more "correct", lorewise. but somewhat less obvious what it means. Culpa Patefacta might as well read "Gobbledegook" unless you speak latin (assuming that's latin), those words have almost no meaning for most people, so it would be hard to understand.

The Daywalker promotion is a definite no. Lugus would surely be harsher on older vampires who had devoured the victims of more souls.

It's intended to represent that older vampires, would also be much stronger, and more capable of resisting the effects. And also have more favor from whatever gods they choose, to shield from Lugus' curse.

In prefer having Feast give floor(city pop*2/3) xp instead of city pop -3. I also like letting you raze cities this way, but that is really overpowered unless I can get the diplomatic penalties working, and let other civs raze cities through a spell too.

That's something I was planning to mention at some point, too. The lack of any ability to raze a city, post capture, is pretty frustrating, and seems a regression of functionality considering that the Alpha Centaurii engine had that feature.
I agree that calabim should definitely be able to raze a city through feeding. And other civs through some slightly more mundane way, like putting the people to the sword.

Antediluvian means before the flood. I know of no particularly noteworthy flood in the history of Erebus, so I don't consider it appropriate.

You have a point. Perhaps "Ancient Vampire" would be more appropriate then. although I like Antediluvian "just because".

I also think it would be nice to remove their Body and Death I and instead let them purchase Body, Death, Mind, and Shadow (maybe even all the evil magic types) and Extension promotions like arcane units can, with the appropriate mana.

I really like the body spells, though. I never even thought of them as spells, more like just a simple way to represent general vampiric supernatural abilities.

Perhaps only Mature vampires could get the body sphere free, and not the young ones.
I'm not sure about letting them learn all those other spell types, though. Seems like it would farther detract from the usefulness of their arcane line, and make there be pretty much no need to go down the arcane path at all once you hit Feudalism.

Also, I'd like Liches to be Immortal.

That sounds fun. I see no reason why not

 

[xienwolf]

Aye, I had missed the -50% mod for XP from feast.

 

[Iceciro]

I like the idea of giving the werewolf mechanics to Dovellio ala orbi's modmod.

I think the only thing that needs to be done for standard vampires is to remove the death sphere from them. Then they're not so abusive. The necromancy thing can still come into play with their death starting mana so pretty much every adept can call up a skeleton. Then those adepts can become vampires, working things in a different but slightly more balanced way.

I still think overall the way to go is not to nerf Calabim but to buff everyone else. Overpowered = fun. Underpowered = Bannor.

 

[WarKirby]

The necromancy thing can still come into play with their death starting mana so pretty much every adept can call up a skeleton. Then those adepts can become vampires, working things in a different but slightly more balanced way.

Calabim start with Body, Law, and Shadow mana. no death. (I've played them waay too many times)

I still think overall the way to go is not to nerf Calabim but to buff everyone else. Overpowered = fun. Underpowered = Bannor.

Well, if you have a look at the vampire age levels, this isn't entirely nerfing them.
The point of the vampire aging idea, is to differentiate between levels of experience, and make the concept deeper. Young vampire is weaker than the normal vampires now, but Mature vampire and the levels above are stronger than the current vampire promo. significantly so, with the addition of some healing after combat.

 

[Vehem]

Well, if you have a look at the vampire age levels, this isn't entirely nerfing them.
The point of the vampire aging idea, is to differentiate between levels of experience, and make the concept deeper. Young vampire is weaker than the normal vampires now, but Mature vampire and the levels above are stronger than the current vampire promo. significantly so, with the addition of some healing after combat.

If we were to look at promotions for "vampires of a certain age" - I think we'd want to tie it to the UnitAge, rather than UnitLevel. That way, the young 'uns can go on a bloody rampage in the streets as much as they like - they're still not going to become an Elder any quicker. Only time would allow such an honour...

 

[Iceciro]

Hmm. Can we do stuff promotion-wise with Unit Age? I've thought of giving out some like, battle-hardened type promos to units that survive a certain length of time.

 

[Iceciro]

Calabim start with Body, Law, and Shadow mana. no death. (I've played them waay too many times)

No, you're right and I'm wrong on that. Crud.

I still think their current level of "HOLY CRAP IT'S GOING TO KILL ME WITH ONE GUY" is because of the death magic they get for free. Come to think of it, that makes it worse, the vamps get free skills in a mana type your adepts may not even be able to use!

 

[Vehem]

Hmm. Can we do stuff promotion-wise with Unit Age? I've thought of giving out some like, battle-hardened type promos to units that survive a certain length of time.

Check out Arctic Circle's Jotnar - they pretty much centre around the concept of Unit Aging. It's one that has been in the XML Fields since an early version of Xienwolf's mod (when it was still a separate entity) but we haven't used much yet...

I believe you have both "MinAge" and "MaxAge" to play with - meaning you could do the "battle hardened promotions" easily, but also say that a young Hippus horseman is "Impetuous" and charges off into battle without a worry, but has less chance to withdraw (+20% combat, -10% withdrawal chance), until he reaches the age of 30 turns...

 

[Iceciro]

Fantastic! I'm off to add more complication to my mod ;-)

 

[Honor]

How about having both unit age and level prerequisite for the promotions?

BTW, nice suggestions, like them a lot.

 

[WarKirby]

If we were to look at promotions for "vampires of a certain age" - I think we'd want to tie it to the UnitAge, rather than UnitLevel. That way, the young 'uns can go on a bloody rampage in the streets as much as they like - they're still not going to become an Elder any quicker. Only time would allow such an honour...

I thought of this, but while it makes sense logically, it's not going to be fun as a gameplay mechanic.

How far are you into a game usually, by the time you get Feudalism? On normal speed, it's likely to be over the 200 turn mark. And the average game for me lasts about 350-450 turns.

The latter half takes about 10 times as long as the former. Because at the start, turns are little more than pressing enter repeatedly, and occasionally giving new orders to your 1 scout while you desperately try to research education/mysticism.

As the game progresses, your empire grows, there's more to micromanage, and the time between turns naturally increases. I don't mean the loading time, I mean the time that you, as a player, spend doing things. It takes so much longer to progress because you have a big empire to micromanage, more decisions to make, more orders to give, etc. Waiting at that stage of the game is very tedious.

Despite that research turn times drop dramatically as your economy takes off, the actual amount of real world time between gaining new techs grows steadily as the game goes on, because there's so much more to do every turn. In hotseat games especially, I've managed to progress a sum total of 3-4 turns in the space of an hour, with all the time spent planning, deciding tactical moves, etc.

I think tying things to the age of the unit, would be rather un-fun because of that. There's also the fact that it takes control away from the player. All you can do to power up your troops, is.... wait. It's frustrating when you can't do anything. It's one of the main reasons the illian worldspell is so hated.

 

[Breez]

b
Sun Magic

Effects I'd like to see:
Approx XX% damage to all affected vampires, to a maximum of XX% damage.
Affected vampires recieve the Daylight promotion

The Daylight Promotion would have the following effects
-30% strength
-30% healing per turn in friendly/neutral/enemy terrain
-20% resistance to magic.
Unable to use Feast, Feed or Gift Vampirism
50% chance of wearing off per turn

I love those ideas

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Vampire Aging.

Neat Ideas. I immediately jumped to worried about the Ancient Vampires being TOO much more powerful, but then I realized you were thinking this was in place of the current Vampire race promo and I have no idea what it's stats are.

If you use the UnitAge tag is it possible to (or even needed) to make the strongest, oldest ones a national unit? Can only have, say, 5 Ancient Vamps. If you lose one, then the next oldest Greater auto promotes to Ancient nest turn assuming he meets the requirements.

Could/should you use the same promo system for their Vampire hero as she ages?

I like the thought line tho.

 

[odalrick]

I thought of this, but while it makes sense logically, it's not going to be fun as a gameplay mechanic.

I think tying things to the age of the unit, would be rather un-fun because of that. There's also the fact that it takes control away from the player. All you can do to power up your troops, is.... wait. It's frustrating when you can't do anything. It's one of the main reasons the illian worldspell is so hated.

Lack of control is certainly frustrating, but I don't think age should be dismissed wholesale because of it.

I'd say the first level could be entirely dependant of time, 10 to 20 turns. Then gradually move to a more accomplishment based upgrade system.

And as long as the later promotions are not much better than earlier ones, they become more of a bonus for your pet units rather than vital part of the strategy.

I had meant to write a short suggestion, but it was so fun that it became not-so-short.

Spoiler :

Vampirism
Fledgling Vampire
+10% strength
+10% healing from combat
half experience from feeding
Can cast Feed, Feast
15 turns duration (modified by game speed)
Degrades to Neonate Vampire

Neonate Vampire
+10% strength
+5% healing
Can cast Feed, Feast
Can promote to Cannibalize
Replaced by Neophyte Vampire

Neophyte Vampire
+10% strength
+5% healing
Can cast Feed, Feast
Can promote to Cannibalize, Body I & II
Gained automatically when requirements are met. No experience cost.
Requires Neonate Vampire
Minimum level 6
Min unit age 40
Replaced by Vampire Master

Vampire Master
+15% strength
+5% healing
Can cast Feed, Feast, Gift Vampirism
Can promote to Cannibalize, Body I & II, Death I & II
Gained automatically when requirements are met. No experience cost.
Requires Neophyte Vampire
Minimum level 9
Replaced by Vampire Count

Vampire Count
+20% strength
+10% healing
Immune to Capture
Can cast Feed, Feast, Gift Vampirism
Can promote to Cannibalize, Body I & II, Death I & II, Shadow I & II, Law I & II, Mind I & II
Gained automatically when requirements are met. No experience cost.
Requires Vampire Master
Minimum level 12
Min unit age 100
Replaced by Vampire Duke

Vampire Duke
+25% strength
+10% healing
Immune to Fear, Capture
Double strength Feast ( both experience and pop cost )
Can cast Feast, Gift Vampirism, Gift the Lessers
Can promote to Body I & II, Death I & II, Shadow I & II, Law I & II, Mind I & II
Removes Cannibalize when gained
No experience cost.
Costs 400
Requires Vampire Count
Replaced by Vampire Prince

Vampire Prince
+1 strength
+25% strength
+10% healing
Immune to Fear, Capture
Triple strength Feast ( both experience and pop cost )
Can cast Feast, Gift Vampirism, Gift the Lessers, Delve into the Arts
Can promote to Body I & II, Death I & II, Shadow I & II, Law I & II, Mind I & II
Removes Cannibalize when gained
Gained automatically when requirements are met. No experience cost.
Min unit age 200
Requires Vampire Count

Vampire Spells
Spell: Feed
Kills the lowerst level slave in the units square, for some healing and ablility to attack again. If there is no slave, or the caster is a Vampire Count, kill a Bloodpet instead.

Note that as vampires rise thorugh the ranks, they get pickier about what they eat. A complete newborn will drain their enemies in combat, later ranks have to promote to Cannibalize to do that. Dukes won't benefit from eating units at all, enemy or friendly.

Spell: Gift Vampirism

Grants Fledgling Vampire to living units at level 6 or higher, or level 4 for Moroi. Vampire Counts grant Neonate Vampire instead; Vampire Dukes and Princes grant Neophyte Vampire. Vampire Princes grant Fledgling Vampire to level 5 units as well.
Each Vampire created costs the caster 5 experience.

Spell: Delve into the Arts
Requires Strength of Will, kills 10 pop in the city. Grants Channeling I, II & III to the caster.

Spell: Gift the Lessers

Grants Blood Servant to all living non-Vampires or Starved Servants in the casters tile. Each Blood Servant granted costs 1 experience. ( Note that Blood Servants that become Vampires remain Blood Servants. )

Blood Servant
+10% strength
+10% healing
Immune to Fear
Can cast My Life for the Master
Removes Starved Servant when gained
3 turns duration
Degrades to Starved Servant

Starved Servant
-30% strength
-10% healing
Cannot attack
Can cast My Life for the Master

Spell: My Life for the Master
Kills the caster. The most damaged, highest level Vampire in the casters tile is healed and gains the casters experience.

I'd probably add a few more vampire spells, enabled by various techs. For instance, a Feast-style spell that grants the Immortality promotion enabled at Divine Essence.

Vampire Units
Finally, the Vampire units start with Fledgling Vampire and no spell promotions. Losha starts with Vampire Master. The Vampire Lord automatically gains at least Vampire Count.

Summary
The boost in power at Feudalism is softer, since a vampire needs to be 40 turns to spread vampirism, and new vampires have a weaker Feast. Losha can spread Vampirism from her beginning, and late game powerful vampires skip the first levels of Vampirism.

Higher levels of vampirism don't provide much extra direct power, rather they diversify power.

Your first Vampire Count will probably be your starting Warrior. He will probably also be one of your few Princes. They're meant to be rewards for your pet units, rather that standard issue.

The short version is: A vampire is weak the first 15 turns and can't spread vampirism until it's 40 turns old. (Losha avoids that.) Higher levels of vampirism don't boost strength a lot, but provide diversity, and are mostly intended as rewards for your pet units.

 

[Iceciro]

I dunno. I'd like a short, simple thing. I can see maybe wanting to lock off feeding in maximum glory for a bit, but don't over complicate the Calabim with six or seven levels.