Virtues of the Avatar mod

[heroes182]

Hullo!
Well, I'm an enormous Ultima nerd, and have just been thinking how cool it would be to make a mod that gives Civ4 the feel of Ultima, without just making a map of Britannia and renaming a few units. What I've come up with would constitute a major overhaul of the religion system, and a few corresponding untis to go with it... Sadly, I have no idea how to even start modding, so this'll probably never become an actual, playable mod but I wanted to post it anyway.

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8 "Religions" (is it possible to replace all instances of "religion" to "virtue"?)

Although the virtues' base effect is the same as the basic effects of religion, each virtue's temple/monastery have different effects that represent that virtue, and help towards a specific Civ strategy. It goes as follows:
Compassion helps with Culture
Valour improves your offensive capabilities
Honour increases your defenses
Honesty aids toward research
Spirituality is good at spreading Virtue
Humility enhances growth/food production
Justice decreases maintenance and war weariness
Sacrifice aids production

Since in ultima, each Virtue is tied to a specific character class, the "missionary" units for each virtue are also different.

When you build the Religious Wonder for a Virtue, a Great Person type unit is spawned. These units are meant to represent the 8 companions of the Avatar, and all have abilities to reflect those characters.

The first city with all 8 virtues spawns The Avatar, a Great Prophet with some sort of awesome ability... maybe he's got really good combat values? maybe he spreads a random virtue whenever he enters a city? maybe he generates culture wherever he goes? the possibilities are endless!

The Virtues would be as follows...
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Compassion
req: Music

Shrine of Compassion: +10% culture

Church of Compassion: Produces three culture and can train Bards. (Missionary)

Empath Abbey (religious wonder): Produces 6culture; Produces Wine (luxury); spawns Iolo the Bard

Bard (UU): +2 Culture to any city they are in; can be consumed for 20 culture; can be consumed to spread Compassion.

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Valor
req: Civil Service

Shrine of Valor: +10% to city defenses

War Academy: Acts as (and is cumulative with) Barracks. Can train Fighter (missionary)

The Library of Scars: (religious wonder): Produces 4 culture; new and visiting military units get a promotion (cummulative with barracks, but only works once per unit); spawns Sir Geoffrey the Fighter

Fighter (UU): Equivalent stats to a Maceman, but they come with the Combat I promotion; consume to spread Valour.
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Honesty
req. Philosophy

Shrine of Honesty: +10% Research

School of Magic: +25% research; Can train Mages (missionaries)

The Lycaeum: (Religious Wonder) +4 Culture; +50% research here, and +10% in other cities with Honesty; spawns Mariah the Mage

Mage (UU): +2 research to any city they are in; Consume to produce 20 research; consume to spread Honesty.
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Sacrifice
req. Engineering

Shrine of Sacrifice: +5% city defenses, +1 culture

Gearworks: +10% hammers, can train Tinkers (missionaries)

Artificer's Guild: (Religious Wonder) +4 culture; +50% hammers, can train Julia the Tinker

Tinker (UU): +2 hammers in any city they are in; consume to hurry production (20 hammers); consume to spread Sacrifice.
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Honour
req. Monarchy

Shrine of Honour: +5% city defenses; +5% research

Guardhouse: If city is attacked and has no defenders, a Pikeman is spawned. This unit is disbanded at the end of the turn; (or, perhaps easier: if city is undefended, may draft once with no penalty can train Paladins (missionaries)

Serpent's Hold: (religious wonder) +4 culture; Counts as a Castle; puts Walls in every city with Honour; spawns Sir Dupre the Paladin.

Paladin (UU): 5.1, comes with the City Defense I promotion; consume to spread Honour.
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Justice
req. Code of Laws

Shrine of Justice: +5% research; +5% culture

Seat of Justice: Doubles effects of Courthouse; can train Druids (missionary)

The Great Yew Tree: (religious wonder) +4 culture; allows the Police State civic; spawns Jaana the Druid

Druid: -10% maintenance in the city they are at; consume to spread Justice.
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Spirituality
req. Meditation

Shrine of Spirituality: +2 Great Person

Circle of Stones: Increases chance of spreading Spirituality by 2% (cumulative with all other Circles of Stones); can train Rangers (missionary)

The Well of Souls (religious wonder): +4 Culture; puts an Obelisk in every city with Spirituality; spawns Shamino the Ranger

Ranger (UU): 0.2, invisible to other units, ignores Closed Borders; consume to spread Spirituality.
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Humility
req. Animal Husbandry

Shrine of Humility: +2 Food

Pastoral Field: +2 Health, +2 Food; can train Shepherd (missionary)

The Ruins of Magincia (religious wonder): +4 Culture; +20% food; puts a granary in every city with Humility; spawns Katrina the Shepherd

Shepherd (UU): +1 food at the city they are at; consume to "fill the granary"; consume to spread Humility.
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The reasoning behind the effects of the shrines is based on Ultima fluff; the 8 virtues are the results of combinations of the 3 Principles of Love, Truth and Courage... I assigned Courage to be 5% city defenses, Truth 5% research, and Love 5% Culture. By working out what combination each Virtue is, I coudl assign an appropriate bonus. (Spirituality and Humility are different, which is why they have completely different boni).

I haven't worked out what the Companions or the Avatar should be able to do... any comments/suggestions? If any numbers I've used are ridiculously high or low, it's because I haven't played enough times to really work out what's balanced yet... they're just numbers that felt "right" as I typed them.

And more importanlty, are there people who know how to mod who would be interested in helping me out on this? I'd really love to make a fully fledged entire world mod for Ultima, with new techs, units, wonders, etc... This would be an excellent start though!

Anyway... what do people think?

 

[tdb]

That would be an interesting variation... I like the idea of units giving bonuses without consuming them. There should be some kind of cap for them though... Like only one UU per type in each city matters. Otherwise you could put like 20 Tinkers in one city and give it a huge production boost.

The one-time culture, research and production boosts might also be exploited. Particularly culture. Imagine building a stock of 100's of Bards, and later in the game when the enemy snatches an important resource from under your nose, you can found a city next to it and put all those bards there. Or use them to get a tighter grip of newly-captured cities. I'm not saying these abilities shouldn't be implemented at all, just bringing up a possible caveat with them.

Why does Sacrifice give +1 culture while all others have percentual bonuses?

Is the +20% food in The Ruins of Magincia applied to the whole food production or only to the leftover part? I suppose the leftover part, since by applying that to the whole production, you could create a citi which grows without bounds.

I'm also wondering how well the game can handle more than seven "religions"? Or any other number for that matter. Particularly in the city screen.

Edit: Oh, and the Shepherd's "Fill the granary" ability seems rather exploitable too... But maybe all these UUs have a similar restriction as missionaries, that you can only have 3 of them at any one time. That doesn't completely remove the exploitability though, particularly in the Shepherd's case.