Why make some civs Neutral when their clearly intended religion drives them to evil?

[Svantotvit]

And Shadows (or Courtesans as I play Balseraph almost exclusively) in combination with the ability to activate Hidden Nationality whenever you like (is it Mask?) is actually quite powerful. I regularily harass "friends" all the time with my three Courtesans that also tend to be extremely high-powered after a short while

 

[Rod]

I think the last posts have proven my point that CoE was quite a valuable addition and found its fans. (Apart from the fact that it is always useful to found it just to build Nox Noctis ... and to get the very nice resolutions online.)

But the same cannot be said about Empyrians. Maybe we should change the Dies Diei in that way that it will work like an Apostolic Palace for FFH. Given boni to the religious buildings and prevent war between Overcouncil members.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Evil is more powerful alright, but power at the cost of sustainability. I believe it's perfectly balanced that evil civs suffer from terrain degredation as the Armageddon counter raises.

 

[zxcvbnm]

I think that Amurites are far from AV. They restrict entropy and death magic, and their powers are envied by the fallen.

Empyrean gives the great crown of brilliance. Chalid Astrakein with it is easily one of the strongest units in the game, all forms of combat counted.

 

[TheJopa]

I think that Amurites are far from AV. They restrict entropy and death magic, and their powers are envied by the fallen.

Indeed but is it too hard to imagine a group of pro-AV seizing power, either through coup or managing to influence the electors/senate that AV is good for Amurites, and that power hungry mages would all agree with such proposal? Certainly much easier than for example Elohim.

 

[zxcvbnm]

Indeed but is it too hard to imagine a group of pro-AV seizing power, either through coup or managing to influence the electors/senate that AV is good for Amurites, and that power hungry mages would all agree with such proposal? Certainly much easier than for example Elohim.

Not necessarily, but some of the power hungry ones could as well oppose it as it would give others more power than them.

 

[Mewtarthio]

Not necessarily, but some of the power hungry ones could as well oppose it as it would give others more power than them.

That's the beauty of this being a video game. If the Amurites adopt AV, then the pro-AV faction wins.

 

[daladinn]

currently as i see it...

the order ...
-- bannor
-- calabim

for the kilmorph...
-- dwarfs
-- gnomes
-- clan

for the trees
-- elves

for the overlords
-- the boy king

for the veil
-- shieam

for esus...
-- sidar
-- dwarfs

for the light
-- elohim

these are the blatant stand outs. the other civs see a lot more flexability in choices.

 

[Mailbox]

I see the Lanun as Octopus Overlords or Council of Esus.

 

[Mewtarthio]

Why Order/Calabim?

 

[daladinn]

calabim and the order...

1st we know that the gov'ners manor is gonna give you and extra happy.

2nd we know that every unit stationed in a city is going to give you an extra happy. this can result in some large cities

3rd flipping to good allows for public healers and more happy and healthy.

4th the units your going to be stationing in these cities to hold the happies are blood pets. if someone attacks you bloodpets have a very nice special ability. whenever a bloodpet is eaten by a unit with vamparism the vampire gains 1 point of movement and is allowed to attack again one more time. ( I have not used it recently enough to verify if it has changed , but you used to be able to do this multiple times a turn until you ran out of blood pets.) This can allow a single vampire to destroy and entire stack of hostile units in a single turn.

5th. the vampires are severely hurt when hell terrain comes through. lack of food, resources disappearing, land degrading ... all this is bad for business. every time the order is spread or gets "stronger" the AC goes down. keeping the status quo keeps the masters well fed.

 

[Slvynn]

i see great idea here to disallow (for Ice) for certain civs adopt certain religions (techs disabled for founding at least)

no AV allowed:
Malakim
Bannor
Mercurians
Elohim

no Empyrean allowed:
Dark Elves
Sidar (empyrean hate all hiding, shadowy)
Sheaim

No Order allowed:
Infernal,
Sheaim
Orcs

No Leaves allowed:
Infernal

No RoK allowed:
none

No OO:
Elohim
Mercurian

no Esus:
Malakim
Elohim

 

[Ekolite]

Hmmm I see civs-religions as this:

Order

-Bannor
-Calabim
-Mercurians

Ashen Veil

-Sheaim
-Infernal
-Clan of Embers (particularly as sheelba) (Bhaal now shares a Hell with Agares)
-Belseraphs under Keelyn

Octopus Overlords

-Lanun under Hannah
-Belseraphs under Perpentach

Runes

-Khazad
-Lurchip
-Hippus

Empyrean

-Malakim
-Elohim

Council of Esus

-Khazad
-Lanun under Falamar
-Svartalfar
-Hippus

Leaves

-Ljosalfar
-Clan of embers
-Svartalfar
-Sidar (the sidar nation is so hypocritical already, why not add another)

 

[Mewtarthio]

calabim and the order...

*snip*

Hmm. I think I'm going to try that on my next game. It makes perfect RP sense, too.

i see great idea here to disallow (for Ice) for certain civs adopt certain religions (techs disabled for founding at least)

I see no reason to disallow religions for certain civs. Just about anything can be justified from an RP standpoint, and from a mechanical standpoint bad options should simply be bad options.

no AV allowed:
Malakim
Bannor
Mercurians
Elohim

People can change. Orders become corrupted. The Bannor have seen Hell personally: Who's to say that a cult couldn't spring up claiming things were better there (obviously, they'd be a generation or so removed from people who've actually experienced Hell, but AV's a late religion)?

As for the Mercurians: They auto-purge the Ashen Veil from all their cities every turn. They lose access to a lot of state religion goodies that way.

no Empyrean allowed:
Dark Elves
Sidar (empyrean hate all hiding, shadowy)
Sheaim

Really? The Sidar? The Empyrean's about wisdom and judgement, and the Sidar have all eternity to accumulate experience. I can also see Faeryl adopting Empyrean, if only to better manipulate the Overcouncil. As for the Sheaim: If they're changing their alignment to Neutral so late in the game, I'd say it's likely they've forgotten the whole "end of the world" idea. Maybe they'll conveniently remember it later, once they get Corruption of Spirit.

No Order allowed:
Infernal,
Sheaim
Orcs

So the Sheaim are irredeemable? Tebryn couldn't decide it's better to try and cheat Hell by joining the forces of Heaven than fulfill his bargain? I can see no reason to restrict the Clan of Embers at all: There's already a mechanic for them becoming more civilized and less barbaric (breaking the barbarian truce). Order/Hyborem has the same problems as AV/Basium, except it's an even less logical decision.

No Leaves allowed:
Infernal

It's not a very mechanically sound decision. FoL Hyborem would be the most hilariously angsty combination in FfH.

No OO:
Elohim
Mercurian

Fools! Nothing can protect your sanity! The will of the Overlords is manifest!

...I mean, OO is fairly easy to justify. Just have a few key people go insane and have dreams that indicate the Overlords will further their goals. Basium's pretty unstable to begin with, and I could see a sect arising within the Elohim claiming that only the Overlords have the power to defend the world from a much greater Evil (and if anyone objects, Hemah can just dream about them being flayed alive or something).

no Esus:
Malakim
Elohim

Esus is also easy to justify. It's a lot like your run-of-the-mill mundane corruption.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

i see great idea here to disallow (for Ice) for certain civs adopt certain religions (techs disabled for founding at least)

I don't think that civs should be made unable to adopt or found religions, but leaders should (or at least have stronger weightings). It is already programmed so that if a leader has a -100 weighting towards a religion that he cannot adopt it, even under human control (thats why Auric Ulvin never adopts one, even though he doesn't have the agnostic trait. Also, curently Hyborem is unable to adopt any religion but AV, and his +100 towards that makes the AI always chose it even if he was allowed to pick OO or Esus). Some of the leaders might warrant a -100 to one or two religions, but most shouldn't be restricted so much. A weighting of -99 might be good in some cases too, so the AI would pretty much never adopt but a human could.

I don't think that civs should be made unable to research any religion founding techs; I think they should not want to. They should really get rid of the blocks that prevent AI civs from researching (or even trading for) the techs that would give them disciples of religions of different alignments, but change how much they value them. A good civ should put no value on Corruption of Spirit, Deception, Necromancy, or Malevolent Designs, and should in fact not even accept them as gifts. They should consider them to have negative value, so they wouldave to be bribed into taking them. (I have always hated it when Einion Logos demands or requests Malevolent Designs.) Neutral civs should put little value on either good or evil themed techs, but still research them or accept them as gifts. Religions should also play a big part determinign the weighting for each tech, making those particularly useful/thematically appropriate for the religion be considered more valuable and those techs ideologically/thematically opposed be unwanted. Lastly, civs and leaders should have different tech preferences to match their heroes/UUs/UBs/traits/personality/theme. (They need to get rid of the code forcing certain AI civs to always research a certain tech if it is possible. Civs need more flexibility to adapt to their environment, and can often actually reach these techs faster if they start with other techs to improve research/economy. Plus, the current way makes for rather scripted and uninteresting gameplay.)

 

[Monkeyfinger]

currently as i see it...

the order ...
-- bannor
-- calabim

for the kilmorph...
-- dwarfs
-- gnomes
-- clan

for the trees
-- elves

for the overlords
-- the boy king

for the veil
-- shieam

for esus...
-- sidar
-- dwarfs

for the light
-- elohim

these are the blatant stand outs. the other civs see a lot more flexability in choices.

Needs moar Hippus under Empyreans, especially Tasunke.

Horselord Rathas with commando = enemy army never gets to move.

 

[Darkheart]

Im actually working on developing a strat for Empyrean Hippus, I quite like the idea of horselorded Raiding Rathas......They'll never see them comming.



Edit: Sorry Monkeyfinger didn't see the last line of your post.... LOL the Rathas got me

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Horselord rathas... not particularly powerful, but definitely more than an annoyance on your borders.

As for the Amurites: their magical powers are the envy of all civs, good or evil. When the power that AV offers you in exchange for your soul is not that much better than the stuff in your textbooks, there isn't an incentive to turn AV. In fact I'd imagine they'd run the scholarship civic, AKA no state religion.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Scholarship doesn't require no state religion. It did briefly several patches back, but that was a typo in the xml, iirc.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I see no reason to disallow religions for certain civs. Just about anything can be justified from an RP standpoint, and from a mechanical standpoint bad options should simply be bad options.

Nah, bad options should be improved. Kael doesn't want "noob traps", or options that look good but you find out later suck.
That said, every option doesn't need to be as good as every other to be viable, for instance elves with the order is sub-optimal, but not terrible. (Well, that example might be stretching, since elves do love them their leaves, but you get the point.)

edit: We raised the religion weight in Shadow, but kept it pretty light in general; as flavorful as the background is, more importantly is to have every game play different, including those odd combo ones. (But, I'm not entirely convinced the weights are working as intended, personally.)

Horselord Rathas with commando = enemy army never gets to move.

"Hey! You got your imoblilize spell in my High-mobility army!"