What sort of undead are the Scions?

[Torugu]

BTW, what do you use the Corrupted Quartermaster ability for? The only effect I could see was that it added a promotion with 5% chance/turn to wear off and -1 maintenance which would sound like a decent buff spell, yet it seems like it only effects enemy units.

Is it a simple tooltip error and the promotion gives +1 maintenance or is it something more complicated?

 

[Valkrionn]

The promo gives plus 1 maintenance. As in, the unit costs more.

 

[Morkonan]

..Also, CAN Scions make liches? For some reason I seem to remember not being able to, but it's been a while since I've gotten their archmages out. Does being Undead block the Lich spell?

Yes, Scions can make Liches. Though, I'm not sure it's intended or not. Even Scion Disciple units can become Liches... Though, they don't get the Channeling spell line of promotions afterward.

(Lich as in the secondary Arch-Mage class aka FFH2 normal Liches.)

 

[odalrick]

Yes, Scions can make Liches. Though, I'm not sure it's intended or not.

Intended in as much that it is intended that unliving civilizations should get Liches. In particular, Lichdom is intentionally not blocked for the Infernal.

Even Scion Disciple units can become Liches... Though, they don't get the Channeling spell line of promotions afterward.

I don't know how they'd go about becoming Liches without already having those promotions.

 

[azzedar]

i tend to view liches as some different kind of undead, like a subspecies. therefor it makes sense to me that already undead would like to transform into them as well:
many games involving liches having 'Phylacteries' which allow them to resurrect from anywhere as long as that thing isnt harmed, even with a destroyed corporeal form. i can imagine that for an already undead mage this should be attractive.
i havent used the lich spell for a long while, they arent immortal, are they? well they should be.

 

[Viatos]

i tend to view liches as some different kind of undead, like a subspecies. therefor it makes sense to me that already undead would like to transform into them as well:
many games involving liches having 'Phylacteries' which allow them to resurrect from anywhere as long as that thing isnt harmed, even with a destroyed corporeal form. i can imagine that for an already undead mage this should be attractive.
i havent used the lich spell for a long while, they arent immortal, are they? well they should be.

There's a mod that allows Lich'd Archmages to create Phylacteries, which had their own defensive strength, could cast spells (while the lich was dead I believe) and were generally really annoying to deal with. I think there were plans to link them to dungeons you'd have to explore for the full DnD experience, dunno what happened to the mod...I didn't use it because it was just too much oomph for a single spell, making another player go through all that.

Also, the AI would never figure it out, but I've given up on the AI. My last Emperor game the Dural's capital and only city was size 2 on turn 180. It was their only city. Why? They'd settled in the middle of a massive patch of plains-covered hills and had maybe one workable tile that produced food...

I guess it's all perspective. I think of liches as essentially inferior versions of what every Scion begins as, let alone the horrors they can become. The arcane might of liches allowed their transformation, rather then the other way around.

 

[azzedar]

I guess it's all perspective. I think of liches as essentially inferior versions of what every Scion begins as, let alone the horrors they can become. The arcane might of liches allowed their transformation, rather then the other way around.

in d&d its both. a large amount of 'magic power' is need to prepare the ritual, and in the end the magicians attributes are enhanced as well. makes sense to me that way.
yet i think the most embarrassing thing about erebus liches is not them beeing to weak (although maybe they are...) but large amount of magic units added over the time with very strong values.
neeeevertheless, one mustnt forget that the biggest advantage of liches is the availability of additional channelingIII units.

Also, the AI would never figure it out, but I've given up on the AI. My last Emperor game the Dural's capital and only city was size 2 on turn 180. It was their only city. Why? They'd settled in the middle of a massive patch of plains-covered hills and had maybe one workable tile that produced food...

happed to me in a recent game too, although it was the calabim capital. about 3-4 plots space in all directions (was a peninsula bordered by mountains) till the coast, what did they do? settle in the middle. leaving a thing line of 1-2 plots in all directions unworked and unsettled. they did nothing for the whole game. yay!

 

[Valkrionn]

Lich's will have a high capacity, willpower, and spell discounts after 1.4. I'm not planning to up their strength, but they will be supreme casters.

 

[azzedar]

Lich's will have a high capacity, willpower, and spell discounts after 1.4. I'm not planning to up their strength, but they will be supreme casters.

better, lesser or same as archmages and their replacing counterparts (thinking of scions and legion especially)?

 

[Valkrionn]

Better. As I said, supreme casters.

 

[azzedar]

Better. As I said, supreme casters.

just wanted to be sure
(although i admit 'lesser' wouldnt have made much sense)

 

[legowarrior]

Any alternatives for those sides that don't do Death Magic?

 

[Viatos]

Any alternatives for those sides that don't do Death Magic?

Hopefully, the Amurites. Given the total reconfiguration of the magic system I'd expect to see a total reconfiguration of Arcane units as well, and especially UUs, and especially the Amurites. They've spent way too long as "the best magic civ...after the Calabim, Grigori, D'teshi, Balseraphs, Sheiam..."

 

[Valkrionn]

Possible. Not terribly likely, however.

 

[azzedar]

Hopefully, the Amurites. Given the total reconfiguration of the magic system I'd expect to see a total reconfiguration of Arcane units as well, and especially UUs, and especially the Amurites. They've spent way too long as "the best magic civ...after the Calabim, Grigori, D'teshi, Balseraphs, Sheiam..."

there have always been a several amurite modmods and modulars out there, undoing that problem (guess many people think so). im a big amurite fan myself and think so too, but use the modulars then
and i expect it wont be long after 1.4 that someone does something about it with the new system
i guess the amus are among the most often edited civs.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I just hope the whole magic unit system won't change too dramatically so that I have to make up a whole new UU line.


BTW, the Scions newer really struck me as Undead, more like the Unliving.

 

[Viatos]

BTW, the Scions newer really struck me as Undead, more like the Unliving.

It's interesting, because traditionally undead are corpses returned to a semblance of life, with or without a soul. Dead flesh reanimated. Scions, on the other hand, are souls that have passed from life through death and back into life - for the Awakened, at least (potentially the Reborn as well) their flesh-and-blood forms are newborn, and have never died. It's their souls that came back, not their bodies.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

And to make things more complicated, the current bodies are not even alive. They don't need to eat, and we see they can live without a head, and than there are the flesh sculptors.

So the bodies them self were not only newer dead, they were newer alive in the first place.


The closest thing that comes to describing it would be: Transcended spirits possessing inanimate objects that just happen to be made of the same materials that living creatures are made of.

 

[lemonjelly]

I could see an eccentric Soul coming back in a teacup or something

 

[Viatos]

I could see an eccentric Soul coming back in a teacup or something

Skeptical Bannor: "So what kind of horror have you got for us this time, eh? What unspeakable monstrosity from a flesh-sculptor's nightmares are we here to put down?"
Rahserat: "This teacup."
SB: "What?"
R: "I'm gonna kill you...with my teacup."
Corrupt Order Priest: "You know the doctrine. It's not sin if we thought he was fallen."
*KRRRK*
*RIIIIP*
*SPLORCH*
COP: "Oh god, it's an Abomination! Flee! Flee!"