White Hand for FFPlus

[WarKirby]

Using that rationale Cassiel should lose population from his cities as people flee to the Illians in such a scenario rather than suddenly compromise one of the civ's basic flavours (or lack of flavour). As I mentioned before why shouldn't he suddenly choose another religion such as one of the ones that would grant his civ good alignment (which is protection enough for now until the AC is changed)

Because going Order might keep hell out of his territory, but it's not going to kill the hordes of demons that simply walk over his borders. Those Demon-slaying crusaders might seem nice, but Combat IV manticores will eat them for breakfast. Hyborem doesn't care what religion you are when he comes for you. Only if you have a big enough army to oppose him, which is often not the case. In a recent game I played, AV was founded early, and hyborem appeared in a vast uncolonised area to the south of the main continent. He had a continent spanning empire and crushed everything around him. Only my Vast tech lead and (probably overpowered) doviello army allowed me to stand against the 40-champion stacks of doom hyborem was sending at me. Every AI between me and him was annhilated quickly.

Adopting white hand is more than just taking on a religion. It's also taking on the protection of the illians. It's relying on Auric Ascended to stand against the forces of hell. No other religion offers a literal god to fight on your side. It's not a "good" option at all. It's choosing the lesser of two evils. It's the last hope when the bannor are crushed, the holy city of Order lies in ruins, when sphener and valin phanuel have been annhilated.

For the case of this to happen in game, the illians are going to have to be powerful enough to vassalise others. As far as I'm aware, AI civs tend to surrender to whoever they feel is most likely to be able to protect them, strongest civ generally. So it would work perfectly in a case where the illians and infernals are the two largest civs, and the infernals are on a warpath (as they frequently do)

 

[Rutee]

It's not about being willing, though. If demons are invading his land, his people WILL serve one god or another. It's a case of choosing between them. Dying isn't an option. Don't nonbelievers go to hell anyway?

Nonbelievers go to Arawn's vault, I'm pretty sure. And the whole point of the Grigori is to say "My Sword is the Sword that will slash the heavens!" You beat Hell down with pure human will.

Another point. Even if cassiel isn't willing to choose, isn't it likely that people would rise up and overthrow him? As far as I'm aware, the grigori trust cassiel for his wise advice. If his advice is just to face certain death, I'm inclined to think they'd ignore it. And if he tries to force them to remain godless, remember that the grigori have a ton of superpowered heroes, and cassiel, though powerful, is not invincible. I think Os-Gabella is the only leader who is actually invincible. The heroes serve the people, not the angels (of which cassiel is one) so I can see Cabal Tenhare striking Cassiel down if he tries to doom his people.

If it gets to the point where it's certain death, he's simple to conquer anyway. Just kill him off.

After all, unswerving obedience is one thing cassiel deliberately avoids instilling in his people, encouraging them to think for themselves instead. Violent revolution seems more likely among the grigori than any other race I can think of.

More likely then among the civs that outright prize violence? Really?

Also, Cassiel may be a highly principled person, but the common man is not. And would gladly worship an evil god to save their own skin. Even if it means abandoning the grigori entirely, and going to the illians as a refugee.

That's not really vassalizing, though.

Because going Order might keep hell out of his territory, but it's not going to kill the hordes of demons that simply walk over his borders. Those Demon-slaying crusaders might seem nice, but Combat IV manticores will eat them for breakfast. Hyborem doesn't care what religion you are when he comes for you. Only if you have a big enough army to oppose him, which is often not the case. In a recent game I played, AV was founded early, and hyborem appeared in a vast uncolonised area to the south of the main continent. He had a continent spanning empire and crushed everything around him. Only my Vast tech lead and (probably overpowered) doviello army allowed me to stand against the 40-champion stacks of doom hyborem was sending at me. Every AI between me and him was annhilated quickly.

I thought you were a better player then me. Even I can take down the hordes of hell.

 

[far_wanderer]

I have to completely disagree. Yes, I'm trying to make gameplay correspond to the pre-existing Flavour, but ONLY because I see a need for it. Right now, the only options with Hell are A) Build massive armies and station them on your borders, along with Sanctity adepts, B) Convert to AV and build Pax Diabolis, which the AI can't do effectively, or C) Play as Sheiam or Infernal. This will add a D) Adopt the White Hand. The Hand will hurt your empire, but not nearly as much as hell terrain, or having demons destroy your empire.

You forgot option E: play as the Elohim. Also, I thought I remembered Ancient Forests being hellproof, that might be an option F. Assuming this religion thing continues to take off and we get to the Scions, Haunted Lands should be made to offer yet another alternative.

Using that rationale Cassiel should lose population from his cities as people flee to the Illians in such a scenario rather than suddenly compromise one of the civ's basic flavours (or lack of flavour). As I mentioned before why shouldn't he suddenly choose another religion such as one of the ones that would grant his civ good alignment (which is protection enough for now until the AC is changed)

You already lose population, it's called having your cities razed . And if that isn't happening, you're probably doing a pretty good job of holding hell at bay.

 

[Valkrionn]

Cassiel will never be allowed to adopt a religion. That's one thing I'm not going to change.

Do the Elohim get special protection from Hell? If so, I was unaware of it... The Cult of the Emperor and the Lizard religions will probably be done via corporations. I don't see many people worshiping the Emperor unless they've been given the gift....

 

[WarKirby]

Ancient forests are not hellproof

 

[far_wanderer]

Cassiel will never be allowed to adopt a religion. That's one thing I'm not going to change.

Do the Elohim get special protection from Hell? If so, I was unaware of it... The Cult of the Emperor and the Lizard religions will probably be done via corporations. I don't see many people worshiping the Emperor unless they've been given the gift....

Devouts start with Life 1, and can upgrade into Paladins, Priests, and Shadows. It makes a HUGE difference when your entire army is auto-sanctifying everywhere. Also, Shadows whose entire purpose is to sneak behind enemy lines and remove hell always amuses me. Sanctuary is also a really good spell for when the horsemen start to show up.

When it comes time for the Lizard religions, I'd suggest something a lot like what Orbis has: give them the normal religions but with unique units and buildings. They're technically worshiping the same gods, just under different names.

The Cult of the Emperor, whether as a religion or a corporation, is not something I see anyone wanting to adopt. It would mainly be an internal thing and an offensive tool, something that you can spread to mess with your opponents.

 

[Valkrionn]

That's what I have planned for the cult. The lizards, I'm leaving Agnostic..... when they were rebalanced so they were no longer agnostic too much had to be removed, and I don't like the loss of flavour there.

 

[deadliver]

Cassiel, like other agnostic leaders, should be a pain in your arse when it comes to religion.

In many games (mostly evil...wait that includes Auric!) I have spread religion in his cities as a prelude to conquering his arse.

Even the mighty WarKirby has done the same. Guess what... Cassiel is a stubborn leader who refuses to adopt a religion regardless of the consequences.

The Consequences=I invade and completely obliterate you because you refuse to adopt a religion (MINE).

 

[Rutee]

If you do something with the Cult of the Emperor, I suggest adding Agnostic to Korinna too. I mean really, she's got to be at least as devoted to THE EMPRAH as THE EMPRAH himself. No sense in /not/ doing so.

 

[Iceciro]

I did that for Fall Flat and people jumped down my throat. I'm not sure you can push a agnostic Korinna down the throats of the masses ;-)

 

[Valkrionn]

Yeah, that's one thing I won't change. It's an essential part of the civ, that one is agnostic and another is not.

 

[Quetz]

I disagree. The white hand is essentially worshipping the illian leader. he may not technically be a god yet, but he;s a powerful mage

I honestly never thought of Auric as a mage. His leaderhead totally does not resemble one.

Suggestions for replacement:

http://static.squidoo.com/resize/sq...444photo_1224579084ice_wizard_fantasy_art.gif (too old)
http://www.lauragivens-artist.com/images/snow-wizard-ice-dragon-s_gibt.gif (meh.. kinda stupid... but he does have a white dragon.
http://diablo3x.com/wp-content/gallery/wizard/ss72-hires.jpg (pretty cool!)

 

[Valkrionn]

Eh. I like what he has..... I've always seen him as a mage, but that's because I read through the pedia. Have to be a powerful mage to pull sun magic into the shadowed vale, after all.....

 

[KillerClowns]

A suggestion to go along with my donation to this whole thing. A ritual, fairly expensive and only available at exceedingly high AC, that pushes Auric up to neutral and gives him a hefty diplo bonus with non-AV civs, to deal with Hell Terrain and lessen the worry of a Gone To Hell victory. As a name, I suggest "Desperate Hope." If you want to force the AI to use the White Hand as a religion of last resort, you could make the Illians completing Desperate Hope be required for anyone other than the Illians and Doviello to adopt the White Hand (with the same alignment effects as the OO or CoE).
As for following the White Hand and relations with Illians: if it is to be adoptable by anyone at any time, than so long as Auric is mortal, other civs should be able to decide that Auric is just a pretender who will be swept aside when Mulcarn returns. They should suffer penalties for outright war (e.g. unhappiness, bad events), though. Once Auric at least completes the Draw, however, forcing all White Hand civs to either become vassals or lose their religion (and join in the war against him) makes sense.
EDIT: Personally, I like Auric's leaderhead the way it is. It's more of a Fighter/Mage than flat out Mage, but that's how I've always seen Auric anyways, especially as the Illians would be wary of a squishy wizard who couldn't at least hold his own in a fight.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Mages don't always have to fit our stereotype of mages. Some, like Auric, can be warriors who just happen to have a natural skill for sorcery as well. Auric has immense natural talent for Ice magic, but most of his fighting is done the old fashioned way, with a bloody sword. He wears battle armor, not the scholarly robes of an archmage who rarely leaves his ivory tower.


Auric isn't really a mage in the usual since, as he was never recruited by a Mage guild or mane into an apprentice of a real mage of archmage. He was a bit of an outcast as a child who happened to be a very thoughtful young boy who taught himself all manner of lore, especially herb lore. He is a magical prodigy like Perpentach or Laroth who probably began using his powers long before he came to understand them, but unlike those masters of the Age of Magic he did not receive extensive training at the hands of a master like Kyloin. He may have gotten his hands on a few books of magic and trained himself in their use (in fact, his leaderhead pic and his unit graphics show him carrying such a book in one hand), but I believe the only "formal training" he received was from Talia Gossam (who was a witch as well as a druidess, but probably not a particularly powerful sorceress as her powers don't seem to have been much use the the Malakim or to herself when attacked by vampires) while imprisoned in the Shadowed Vale. This probably only lasted a couple weeks at most and might have only been a couple hours.




Auric was a teenager when Talia taught him magic, but it was probably years later when he came near to godhood. I'm not really sure how long a time frame the scenarios are supposed to cover, but I'd guess that he would be in his early to mid 20s when he finds the Illians and mid to late 30s when he falls to the Netherblade, even though his spirit appears to be a very old man when Ethne meets him in the Underworld. The sphere of Ice is all about nostalgia and wishing things would return to how they used to be, so the stress of bearing the sphere would prematurely turn him into a curmudgeon. I'm not sure whether this would apply only to the manifestation of his spirit or to his physical form as well, but if the later then there is no problem with the age of the first pic. The second two don't seem right for him all all imho, especially the last one. We know that when he was younger his hair was much shorter than that, was a lighter brown, and could not be made to lie down like that. He had a lot of cowlicks, and his hair was quite frizzy.

I don't see a problem with his current pic.

 

[Valkrionn]

A suggestion to go along with my donation to this whole thing. A ritual, fairly expensive and only available at exceedingly high AC, that pushes Auric up to neutral and gives him a hefty diplo bonus with non-AV civs, to deal with Hell Terrain and lessen the worry of a Gone To Hell victory. As a name, I suggest "Desperate Hope." If you want to force the AI to use the White Hand as a religion of last resort, you could make the Illians completing Desperate Hope be required for anyone other than the Illians and Doviello to adopt the White Hand (with the same alignment effects as the OO or CoE).
As for following the White Hand and relations with Illians: if it is to be adoptable by anyone at any time, than so long as Auric is mortal, other civs should be able to decide that Auric is just a pretender who will be swept aside when Mulcarn returns. They should suffer penalties for outright war (e.g. unhappiness, bad events), though. Once Auric at least completes the Draw, however, forcing all White Hand civs to either become vassals or lose their religion (and join in the war against him) makes sense.
EDIT: Personally, I like Auric's leaderhead the way it is. It's more of a Fighter/Mage than flat out Mage, but that's how I've always seen Auric anyways, especially as the Illians would be wary of a squishy wizard who couldn't at least hold his own in a fight.

I like that..... Was actually planning on having it make people Evil, but reduce the AC at the same time.

 

[Earthling]

I love the idea and story behind it, hadn't heard it before, but very good by KillerClowns. It also seems to really add to the Illian civ as a whole, given that they don't have a unique victory condition with Ascension, and that there is the "Gone to Hell" victory, this adds an interesting new element. ( I haven't tried Monstrous Creatures yet, but this seems fine with or without).

About agnostic civs - I don't really know the best solution for the Grigori, the first thing I thought was that it's not just Cassiel though. Certainly a civ like the Cualli would end up rather screwed if they couldn't adopt the White Hand and no other religion either.

 

[deadliver]

I honestly never thought of Auric as a mage. His leaderhead totally does not resemble one.

Suggestions for replacement:

http://static.squidoo.com/resize/sq...444photo_1224579084ice_wizard_fantasy_art.gif (too old)
http://www.lauragivens-artist.com/images/snow-wizard-ice-dragon-s_gibt.gif (meh.. kinda stupid... but he does have a white dragon.
http://diablo3x.com/wp-content/gallery/wizard/ss72-hires.jpg (pretty cool!)

What is it with bare chested ice dwellers? His current pic looks fine. I think the book adds to it.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

While for most people being scantily clad out on the ice would not be comfortable, when Auric was possessed by the precept of Ice and on his way towards godhood he felt no ill effects of the cold despite wearing very little clothing. In fact, he seems to have found frozen tundras too warm for his tastes during much of the campaign.

 

[deadliver]

Lol, presumably he found arrows slicing throw his bare rib cage even more uncomfortable.