I'd like start to by stating one major thing that annoys me in vanilla.

Priests blow

[RANT]
This game is all about gods rising into power by starting a global holy war. There really is no thematic reason for priests to blow so much on a game with that kind of theme. Besides blessing your sacreds, everything that priest can do, can S2 mage a *lot* better (Mind Burn > Smite & Paralyze > Holy Word) and he can research and cast other spells if needed. When was the last time you recruited a priest for non-blessing reason? Have you ever recruited a pure H2 priest for his awesome priestly powers?
[/RANT]

Something has to be done.

There's one bug though, that's especially limitating.
- Pure holy rituals are only castable by mage priests (since pure H priests do not gain the "Cast Ritual" command) and the game crashes when you try to monthly cast a pure H ritual. So if I implemet some pure H rituals, they need to have effects that do not encourage monthly casting.

Here are my personal views on what's wrong with holy magic, priests in general and sacreds. Feel free to question my points or even add your own ones.

1) Most nations have their top-capital only mage also as their best priest. This is a problem as I boost holy magic, I'm also making these mage-beasts even more powerful. Having the cake and eating it too is convenient, but it decreases the amount of stragical choices you have to make when recruiting.

2) Some nations don't have access to any better priests that basic H1 loser. Althought it might thematic for some nations, it's not really fair to exclude them from the benefits of this mod.

3) Most nations have their only sacred unit as pretty medicore and capitol only, which excludes bless stragedy from their pursuitable options.

4) Some nations have really, really powerful sacred troops. Since I'm beefing up priestly magic, some upward changes in the bless stragedies might be experienced, but these units really do not need to get any more stronger.

5) The two artifacts that boost holy power. It's a sort of solution to the problem 2, but only the first player to hit con8 will get them. So, kind of problematic.

6) As the game progresses mages get the ability to nuke the world to oblivion while priests do the same stuff they did in turn 1.

7) S1H1 or B1H1 mage can Communion/Power of the Spheres/Hellpower himself up to higher holy levels, making pure priests even more rebundant.

I'm dividing this mod in three parts, depending on the area I wanto to "fix". The mods are listed in the order of completion.

Holy War: Divine Magic
- Design Goal: Boost Divine magic in general.
Includes:
1) Adds three new holy level 0 spells.
H1: Faith Healing - "Using his divine powers, the priest will heal wounds of some friendly soldiers. This spell won't affect undead or constructs."
Range: 15+, NoE: 1+, Prec:100, Fat:0, Dam:5+(AN), UW+, IA-, UD-

H2: Smite Heretic - "Using his divine powers, the priest will smite his heretical opponent. If the opposing sacred is strong of mind, he might be able to resist the holy power."
Range: 15, Prec:100, NoE:1, Dam:30, Fat:0, MR+, UW+, Against Sacreds only

H3: Chastise - "Using his considerable divine powers, the priest will enfulg one opponent in divine radiance. This show of divine power won't harm the target, but is very frightening none the less. Some targets might see the error of their ways and join the ranks of one true god."
Range: 25, NoE:1, Prec:100, Fat:0, MR negates easily charm, nextspells "Frighten"

2) Boosts some excisting holy spells

- Smite to range 30 and damage 30. Also #nextspells "Smite Heretic"
- Smite Demon to range 30 and damage 30
- Word of Power now AoE 1 and #nextspells "Chastise"

3) Adds 16 new researchable holy spells. 2 for each magic school on level 3 and 7.

4) Adding more holy sites and making them do holy stuff whenever possible. (This part will be incomplete until I actually make the units I'm intending to add as recruits from these sites. Most of these units will feature in Holy War: Sacreds)

Holy War: Priests
- Design Goals: 1)Boost pure priests and make national pure H priests more useful.
2)Allow all nations easier access to strong pure priests
Includes:
1) Juggling of priest levels within the recruitable commanders of the nation.
- If a nation has a H1 pure priest and no mage-priests, the priest will be H2
- If a nation has a H1 priest and a mage-priest with H1, the priest will be changed to level H2
- If a nation has a H2 priest and a mage-priest with H2, the mage priest will be changed to level H1
- If a nation has a H1 priest and a mage-priest with H2, the priest will be changed to level H2 and mage-priest to H1
- If a nation has a H3 priest and a mage-priest with H3, the mage-priest will be changed to level 2

Bad Points: This might cause some thematic issues, but I'll be using this excuse: The weaker the unit, the humbler. The humbler priest -> better priest.

2) Where it is possible, I'll add national holy spells that are only castable by your national priests as an extra carrot to recruit them.

3) I'll add a holy hero for each nation which lacks a hero with at least minimum H3. (So that all nations have at least theoretical access to H4, through prophetizing)

4) National priests will also get other abilities when I deem that is neccessary: #onebattlespells, decreasing unrest, summoning flagnellats, healing.. etc

5) Common independent priests will be made unrecruitable with resourcecost of 800. This will encourage recruiting national priests


Holy War: Sacreds
Design Goals: 1) Allow easier access to generic sacred units to allow nations with poor sacred units to pursuit a bless stragedy if they so wish.
2) "Balancing" sacred troops

Includes:
1) Add one sacred summon to each combination of holy and regular magic. These sacred summons will be low research level 1?H1 and low gem cost, but summon only one unit per month. Thematically, these troops will be former servants of the Pantakrator, that now lack something to worship.

2) Change the Kappa independent poptype to shaolin-esque sacred monks. Hoburgs will be changed into templars.

3) Nerfing of overly powerful sacred troops (probably 10% gold cost increase), weaker sacreds will get 10% cost reduction.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

I'm probably only going to be interested in the lite version of this, so I'm grateful that you're splitting the mod into 3.

May I suggest also boosting Smite to max possible range.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

I love the idea and am looking forward to trying it out. I'm most excited about more priest spells even if they aren't that much more powerful.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Look at updated Jomon of the upcoming patch. You'll probably like the idea behind Monks and Signs of the Fivefold Path.

Independent priests will replace all H1 national priests unless you change them. I suggest giving them base encumberance 6 and new armor, "ornamental robe", prot 3 enc 8. That way they can still preach, but they'll go quickly unconscious.

Different nations have different concepts of the paths, so don't get too caught up in definitions. Instead, consider what nations will have easy access to which spells. It'd be more work, but consider making all cross-path holy spells nation-spesific. Holy/Air, for example, is anything from Pythium to Eriu to Vanheim to Tien Chi to (MA) Mictlan. Mictlan should have holy/air spell, because their god is the sky, others just happen to be air mages that are priests.

Of course, it would be much more work, so here are some thoughts on the matter. First, MA.

MA Arcos: only native priest is Priestess, H2N1, and they heal the wounded, so H2N1 healing spell is pretty self-explanatory.

MA Ermor: all about priests, doesn't need anything more.

MA Pythium: Battle Deacon is the only one that needs the boost. Unfortunately, you can't add a combat buff to Battle Deacons without giving angels access to the same buff. Then again, I guess a nation that can summon angels doesn't need priests that much.

MA Man: priesthood is weak on purpose. If you want to add something, then add something about praying to the dead or calming the dead, since it's in their description. Perhaps just a better Banishment?

MA Ulm: better off than most. If you just give Black Acolytes a chance of E1 and add a H1 buff spell, Ulm player will build some Acolytes to get more Iron Blizzard casters, and use the rest in the frontlines to buff the troops.

Ma Marignon: Change Holy Pyre to fire/holy. Marignon should also have some spells to use against enemy sacreds, and a F1/Holy 4 spell only castable by High Inquisitor prophet, a hero or a HI with an artifact. Also, Fire/Holy version of the Inner Sun ritual.

MA Mictlan
Aspect of the Rain, the life-giver: healing spell
Aspect of the Sun, the watchful face: gives the faithful "strength of heart"
Aspect of the Moon, the dreaming face: since prophetic dreams are hard to do, it could just cause enemies to fall asleep
Aspect of the Sky: "harsh judgement in the form of thunder"
Aspect of the Land: no idea, but Priest Kings already levy Slave Warriors.

MA Tien Chi:
One can have so much fun with them. Think Masters of the Way and national spells. Same applies to MA Shinuyama.

MA Machaka: already has three unique priests, all more or less useful. Ears of the Lord are H1 spies, Eyes of the Lord are H1 okleaders (40) with patrol bonus 15 and Voice of the Lord is H2 and greatleader (80). Is it possible to make spells that only affect animals? Hmm, or give them a custom Blessing that also gives Antimagic to the sacreds.

MA Agartha:
H1E1: Will of the Earth, earth grip + fatigue, fatigue scales with holyness and is MR-negates, number of effects scales with holyness
Waters of the Earth: H1W1, single-person Encase in Ice +cold damage, damage scales with holyness and EiI is MR negates (freezing waters from the depths of the earth spring forth and trap the enemy)
Fires of the Earth: H1F1, combustion and fire damage to single target, minor poison damage on AoE1 (noxious fumes and gas explode from the depts of the earth, burning the victim and poisoning anyone nearby).
There could also be a Holy/Death spell for Oracles, and another high-Holy spell for them and Marble Oracles.

MA Abysia: should share Fire/Holy and Holy/Fire spells from EA Abysia, and get a new Blood/Holy spell for Demonbreds. Description of Anathemant Salamanders speaks about them "feeding the anger inherent in the hearts of all Abysian warriors" -> berserk. Also, consider changing Inner Furnace to Fire 1/Holy 2-3. If it's Holy 3, Salamanders can't cast it with Phoenix Power any more, but on the other hand, it gets extra penetration from extra Fire magic and it's easier to spam since the caster gets less fatigue from it.

MA Caelum: H2 Seraphines are the only priests, and frost flowers and wing-cutting don't make for combat spells. Could you do a H2 Raven's Feast that killed the casting Seraphine? LA Caelum's Caretaker's description mentions predatory birds devouring dead Caelians.

MA Pangaea: They don't need anything more.

MA C'tis, Jotunheim: no ideas.

MA Vanheim: Vanir are your priests AND your mages. I'm not sure they warrant anything new, but it'd be easy enough to do.

MA Bandar Log: Yogi definitely need all the help they can get, but I'm not sure what one could do with them. Perhaps range 0 Sermon of Courage?

MA Ashdod: they don't need anything more.

MA Atlantis:
Blessing of the Deeps, H3 Friendly Currents.

MA R'lyeh: their priests walk the Void, and that's unique enough.

MA Oceania: Bishop Fish really need something more. Preferably something that would also be useful on land. Perhaps H3 Haste or Quickness.

MA Eriu: Holy/Air illusion would be nice, but they can already cast those. No idea.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Yeah. I know that the independent change might not be liked by some people. I just feel that those medicore capital only sacreds kinda limit your options by making bless a bit rebundant (This especially annoys in the case of Marignon, the most holy nation with *meh* sacreds, what's the idea with that?). I'm actually thinking of scrapping the other big change of limiting mage-priests and making the *cloistered* versions. I figured other ways to get the effect I want without changing them.

But about the lite version. First I thought that I had only two options, either make smite AoE or make it instakill. Thank God I've come to my senses now. I'll probably bump the damage to 30 (enough to kill most basic giants, but not one-shot popular Thug/SC chassis). Max range might also be a good idea, allows for some exotic stragedies. I'll probably make the smite also #nextspell the new "Smite Heretic" spell, so that it's double effective versus opposing sacreds (since it forces two checks).

In Vanilla "Holy Word" is a cruel joke. You go all that trouble to prophetize a H3 priest to get a attack spell that's worse than smite? I'll make that bad boy AoE 1 and nextspell "Smite".

I'm a bit puzzled thought as what to add as a new H3 combat spell. Divine Bless and Smite are pretty good enough. Large AoE Heal spell? I was also pondering on the possibility of mr-negates-easily charm.

The holy monthly casting bug is *really* annoying. I can't make holy summoning rituals since one might understandably want to monthly cast them, but that crashes the game. Free Astral Window is the only idea I have currently. I'll most likely have to scrap the idea of pure-H rituals completely.

Well, the lite version will likely be out soonish since it won't be that big really. If it's done this week or next or at the end of the month depends on how hooked I'll get to "A Vampyre Story" game I'm playing right now. At least today at work most of my mental efforts were put into figuring out possible solutions to a puzzle, so it's looking quite bad.

I gave a bit more thought into the summon thing and figured out a way to wiggle out from the mage-priest change. I'll make the holy summons not that powerful, but low-level and you'll only get like 1 or 2 of them every casting. Those kind of summons that mostly cost mage-time are not really useful to be casted by your monstereous 400+gp 6?H2 mages (they have much more important stuff to do). But that 2pick H1 guy? He'll love them. Now if you really want to, you can complement your cap-only sacred by using your low-tier mages to summon more of them.

And you gave me a way to make the battlefield spell unattractive to them! I'll add few spells on national basis to the guys that really need the help. Sure, the beast-mage-priests might able to use them too, but I'll probably make them non-scaleable and the effects minor but useful.

Oh and one last thing. It seems that the bug of having pure H spells unviewable on the research screen has been fixed! About a year and half ago I remember running into this with Alugra.

So, how do you guys feel about researchable pure holy spells? That's not really "vanillaish", but then I would be able to make much more powerful spells and partially solve issue 7. I'll probably do some but should but them in lite or the regular version..

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

So you can make researchable pure-Holy spells? If so, you have to decide a school, and that affects which nations get to use what priest spells. Why not put a holy spell at each school's levels 4 and 7, or something similar? (3/5 and 7 for construction)

Conjuration:
4 - better Banishment, H2?
7 - a battlefield summon spell for one or few weak creatures/spirits, perhaps 1 per Holy level? perhaps something on Ghost Wolf power level?

Alteration:
4 - better Bless: bless + buff (perhaps luck), self only, H1
7 - unit buff, H2 Legions of Steel, +4 strength or something

Evocation:
4 - H2 damage spell similar in power to a Bolt spell, but not elemental damage (no immunity)
7 - AoE 1 or AoE 1+ damage spell, H2, again non-elemental

Construction:
3 - ???
7 - Summon a sacred Watcher-like construct with gold upkeep. Ranged attack that deals extra damage against demons. or something better. Pity there aren't any Holy items.

Enchantment:
4 - H1 heal spell, nr of effects scales with Holy
7 - banish or control magic being, H2-3

Thaumaturgy:
4 - H3 Panic/Terror-style spell
7 - high-dmg Mind Burn at enemy sacreds only

Blood:
4 - H3 Curse + Horror Mark + Decay + (resistable) stun
7 - H1-2 spell that causes affliction

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

I just managed to finish "A vampyre story" (12 hours well spent, trust me) and I'm now able to fully give my attention to this mod.

To Endo: Good ideas. I'll probably put the researchable holy spells to the regular "Holy War", since I'd like the "lite" version stay as vanilla firendly as possible.

That's a good idea on the gold costing holy summon. That's one way to get past "monthly casting pure H ritual crashes the game"-bug, since you probably don't want to spam them. Actually, I have a fitting graphic somewhere in here (see the attachment).

I was something like this:

Graft Holy Tablet
"The priest will spend a month engraving his gods divine mandates into a huge stone tablet. Once the Tablet is completed, the priest will summon some holy spirits to enchant the Tablet with divine radiance. The tablet will spread the word of god and decrease unrest in the province whence it dwells. It will also smite opponents who come too near it. But the Tablet needs constant maintenance in the form of expensive daily sermons needed to keep the holy spirits inside the tablet.

Those holy spirits are a bit problematic, thought. What kind of spirit could be considered as holy by all of the nations? I'll try to figure something out...

Got it! I'm kind of guessing here, but Pantakrator probably was worshipped and thus he had a priesthood/divine helpers of some sort. Now that Pantakrator has vanished, these servants still do their sacred tasks but lack something to worship. A clever pretender god could perhaps convince them that he is the rightful new Pantakrator and gain their worship.

EDIT: I'll update the first post today to the new desing goals

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

I think the tablet should state exactly how much gold its upkeep is. I don't know what's a reasonable amount, especially if it lowers unrest. Putting few of those into a rich province and increasing taxes would double the income without lowering population (since you don't even need to patrol).

I think Holy War Lite should have all kinds of pure-holy spells, and the bigger version should have more crosspath spells. I was thinking of Lite on my last post, trying to make the spells just holy versions of effects normal mages got access to several research levels earlier. A single-target damage spell at Evocation 4 isn't going to change balance one way or another. The only one I can really envision changing things is the Thaum 7 spell I suggested, because it will target enemy mage-priests if he doesn't bring any sacred units. Perhaps one of the Construction summons should be 20-hp, high-mr moving base that has a magical ranged attack. Anyone could construct one or two of those and use them to draw the spells away from the more vulnerable mage-priests. Or perhaps just make the spell have non-100 range, so that it's possible to position your important mages out of the range of enemy priests.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Burnsaber, I like your idea on Holy War Lite :) If I could add just one more idea for you to ponder:

Make all *national* pure priests (so not those mage-priests or SC chassis "priests") gain one level in Holy. So H1 priests would become H2, H2 would become H3, and H3 would become H4 (and in cases where H3 priests can be recruited everywhere (like the Lizard King for C'tis) change them to Capital only). Of course the price would have to be adjusted accordingly :)

Currently there is really no incentive to buy national priests (except H3 ones, if you have a good bless the possibility to bless them all in one go and then smite smite smite), as indy priests are able to do everything national priests and you can recruit them from non-fort temples.


For Holy sites, maybe monasteries from where you can recruit special priests or sacred troops. Like a warrior-monastery, from where you can recruit crusaders (Heavy cavalry stats but they are sacred), Faith Healers (immovable H2 priests (movement 0/8 for example) who have the Healer attribute; those with afflictions would have to come to them to get a chance on getting healed), a location where you can summon Flagellants ("Temple of Retribution" -> A priest can enter to summon flagellants, and perhaps even a place where you could recruit sacred assassins ("The Lord works in many ways", recruit assasins who are considered to wear the Shroud of the Battle Saint).

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Would you mind it if I incorporate some of these into Magic site Mod?
1) Temple of War (Holy 1, uncommon): units heavy infantry, knight; commanders crusader (H1), high priest
2) Monastery of Healing (H2, uncommon, unique): commander Faith Healer

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

If you find them suitable, please do add them :)

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Hmm. Yeah. I'll have to think about it more. The decreasing unrest is just so thematic that I'm afraid to let go. Perhaps decrease 10 unrest per turn and cost 50 gold of upkeep?

I thought that the Lite, normal, uber divide might not be best solution. I'll now divide the mod into these 3 parts (I've put the exact list of changes into the first post):

Holy War: Divine Magic - bumps divine magic
Holy War: Priests - bumps pure H priests and adds specially grafted national holy spells to encourage use of the national pure priests
Holy War: Sacreds - adds easier access to sacred units

You are on the right track. I now have 2 options about how I'm going to make pure national priests more useful

1a)Pure puff version:
- If a nation has a pure priest, it's magic will be boosted by one. H1 to H2, H2 to H3 and H3 to H4
Good Points: No need to nerf anything, everyone is happy
Bad Points: A lot easier acceess to H3 and H4 and to Fanatisicm and Divine Bless. Possible balance problems?

1b)
- If a nation has a H1 pure priest and no mage-priests, the priest will be H2
- If a nation has a H1 priest and a mage-priest with H1, the priest will be changed to level H2
- If a nation has a H2 priest and a mage-priest with H2, the mage priest will be changed to level H1
- If a nation has a H1 priest and a mage-priest with H2, the priest will be changed to level H2 and mage-priest to H1
- If a nation has a H3 priest and a mage-priest with H3, the mage-priest will be changed to level 2
Good Points: This means that if the nation has a pure priest in its roster, that priest will be the strongest holy magic user in the nation.
Bad Points: This might cause some thematic issues, but I'll be using this excuse: The weaker the unit, the humbler. The humbler priest -> better priest

Yeah, I'm kinda trying to fix that.

Way ahead of you. I'm going to make a whole bunch of sacred troops and units and add them as recruits from sites. All of the 8 holy crosspath summons & Templars & Shaolin Monks from "Holy war: Sacreds" will be added as holy site recruitables. The idea of shrouded assasins is cool thought. I probably can't make them be blessed all the time, but making them #onebattlespell "Bless" is probably enough.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

This mod could make LA C'tis tomb kings much more interesting as thugs :)

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

I suggest adding some ranged sacreds. There just are not very many of those in the game.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Well, the summonable N1H1 summon in "Holy War: Sacreds" Will essentially be a classic D&D ranger. I might make them be Firbolg, sorta like the "Sleeper" summon.

The D1H1 summon will likely be archers too. Black Knights. They're a templar order that Pantakrator assigned with the task of guarding burial grounds. I'm modeling them after "Raven Knights" In warhammer. They will heavily armored knights with silvered longbows and swords (that'll be extra powerfull vs undead)

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Works for me :)

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

The idea of jiggling all the national holy paths sounds messy. I have an alternative solution: Make it impossible to recruit indy priests. Just set them to resources 800 or something.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

That is an option. But it would still leave the "Your best mage is also your best priest" - problem. Why ever recruit a national H2 priest when you can recruit a H2 priest that also has magical picks? It is not my intention to make these beasts of a unit any more powerful.

I failed to mention thought that "solution" 1b isn't set in stone. The changes will likely differ from nation to nation. Pythium for example. The divine power of the Arch Theurgs is so crucial part of nation's theme that I really can't touch that. Usually the mage-priest is cap-only so depending on the case, I might get the effect I wan't by just slightly beefing the national pure priest so that maybe he'll get recruited in your secondary forts.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Regarding recruitable H4 priests. If the price would be high enough and they would be capital only, there wouldn't perhaps be such a balance problem (I believe Fanaticism is at its highest value in the early phases of the game).

IIRC in CBM C'tis priests cost currently H1 $35, H2 $100, H3 $260 and they all are recruitable everywhere. If the "new" paths and costs could be for example H2 $80, H3 $260, H4 $600 and make the H4 one capital only, then I don't believe there would be at least a very massive balance issue :)

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Hmm, well how about a combination of non-recruitable indy priests and jiggled national holy levels (mostly swapping holy strengths between mage-priests and pure priests)? I'm just uncomfortable with (a) not having a national H1 priest, and (b) including recruitable H4 priests. H4 feels so special to me that it seems wrong to have it recruitable. Also the presence of such high level priests will render Ermor and Carrion Woods Pangaea pretty doomed - have you seen the banish effect from a high level priest?

This isn't a desperately strong opinion by the way, just giving my thoughts.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

You mean independent priests would only be available through random events (and possibly special sites which first would have to be searched for)? Sounds interesting, and quite thematic in fact (at least to me :) ). I don't personally ever recruit pure H1 national priests (and practically never H2 priests either) unless under spesific conditions, because indy priests can do everything and don't take a slot from a mage.

Have I seen H4 priests at use? I certainly have. I've used three communed Marignon mage-priests (who were H6 after communion) against an undead heavy MA Ermor, and *that* was quite spectacular. Incidently, three such H6 priests, considering communion-slave costs and all, still would cost less than 3 x $600 (which was the price for H4 priest I suggested above). True, it wouldn't be as cheap LA where Ashen Empire is, but with communions and mage-priests it is still quite easy to reach H4. The question is then why should mages be better priests than pure priests?

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

This is a good idea. I'll do something akin to that. I'll probably leave amazon priestess' and that hoburg priest as they are, but the rest will get the resourcecost 800 treatment.

a) Of course I'll make sure that all nations have access to priests. If the nation has no pure-priests (only mage-priests) I'll probably leave it unchanged.

b) Yeah, I'm also kinda against H4 priests for thematic reasons. Besides, they'd overshadow my new H4 heroes.

EDIT: I've now really started working on the Holy Word: Divine. I've already done 4 spells from the 20 I'm going to add. You can see the stats and changes to the spells in the first post, if you're intrested how is the mod coming together.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Looking good, looking good.

I'm looking forward to experimenting with the divine magic.

Also, if you're worried about magepriests communioning themselves up to really high priest levels, you could always make a pure-holy communion spell. I mean, it's quite thematic for dozens of lesser priests to boost each other's powers until they can cast massive demon smiting bolts of light, is it not? I think so, anyway.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

It does sound like a nice idea, but I fear the balance changes caused by non-astral magepriests gaining communion are a little much.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

I haven't read the whole thing, Im just catching up on a lot of this.

Well reasoned and thought out.

Spells I have made for other mods include:

A. Priestly version of Charm - based on apostacy, removing the sacred only.

B. National spell for Oceania that boosted movement.

C. National spell for oceania that Remotely increased dominion (still working out the kinks on that one).


Some quick comments:

I would love to see items that allowed healing. Or increased the area of a banishment.

However, if you do a lot of the things you mention here, you are radically screwing with game balance. Even things like healing (screw arco).

I made a similar argument in a different thread, that only rarely is dominion death an effective tool. I'd like to see a mod that made that more possible.

(Note to self: BalancePriest - every H3 spreads Dominion).

Would also be interesting to see things like Bishops Mitres; items etc that when worn by a priest spread dominion.

Would be nice to see priests have a "pray for miracle order"
Which when given might heal disease, give supplies etc."

Can't do it in this game but in my mind I've got it charted out....

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Imo, the problem with dominion death is that while it is easy to arbitrarily spread your dominion, it is *very* difficult to take out those last 3 candles, especially if you don't have military superiority. And if you are superior militarily, that means that death was just a matter of time anyway.

What I see happening with dominion attacks is that the opponent notices eventually (normally a little before they die) and recruit an army of priests to defend their dominion. Then both nations go back to fighting the old fashioned way.

Now consider that if both nations *already* have priests because they have been recruiting them all game (because priests are now effective in battle), that means you don't even have the 1-2 turns between when you opponent notices and when they manage to field a defensive priesthood.

To sum up, I think that by giving everyone more dom-pushing units that double as good battle units (a win-win) you are, in fact, reducing the chance of a dom-kill.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Darloth: That would be quite thematic, but as Llamabeast said, problematic on the balance front. I could perhaps make a researchable H2 or H3 "Communion Master" thought.

Chrispedersen: Yeah, like you said those items really can't be done. As for your concerns on the healing Arco has 100% healers. I'm currently playing MA T'ien C'hi and soon noticed that when facing massive infliction gain (MA C'tis dominion in this case) healers 20-30% aren't really going to cut it unless in large groups. If I give healing acceess, it will be of 10% or below. A true miracle when it actually heals something..

Fate: Actually, that's the direction I'm going for. Dom-killing has some niche uses (defeat a foe who has castled up with considerable defences in his capital), large scale dom-kill is hard to accomplish in vanilla and will be hard in Holy War. Why? It is quite a boring way to defeat someone. They get a message "Sorry, you're dead!", that's a bit anit-climatic, don't you think? It's okay now as it is because dom-killing requies using a lot of resources to work. If it would be easy (or easier) it would result in more boring games. This game is about pretender gods smashing each other into the face, not logistics.

But anyways, I've now done 10 of the 20 spells I'm going to add. See the first page on details. Endoperez gave me a bunch of good ideas, but I'm still kinda unsure about what I'm going to add as level 7 researchable holy spells. Evocation will be a "holy bolt" and construction the "Holy Tablet" summon, but I've got no clue on others. Feel free to suggest something if you got ideas.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Damn. This day wasn't too hot for this mod. First I learned of the limitation on #nextspells and then I noticed that pure holy summoning rituals don't work! I made two units for nothing!

If I can't make holy items nor holy summons for construction, what can I do? Well, nothing probably.

There's a silver lining thought, the fewer spells to make, the less time will the rest take. Well, I can probably release Holy War: Divine by the end of the month.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

What was the limitation on #nextspells?

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

I was wondering how much damage my dominion was causing. Not that it helped me that much. :(

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Ugh, I really shouldn't post right before sleepy-time. I meant the harcoded limit of newspells (It was 136 now, IIRC). That's not too much. CPCS uses these slots like mad (I didn't know of the limit when I was making it) which restricts its compactibility with other mods.

I'll have to be alot more conservative with spells in this mod. Shame, really. I had this cool flagnellation spell thought out for Blood. It would have given awesome buffs, but forced a lot mr-easily-negates affliction checks. It would have require like 6-7 spell slots thought, so it's a "no can do" at the moment.

Well, it was annoying. I orginally had a Apothecary (Healer 20) in both of armies and thought that would be enough. Eventually, I had to put my all Alchemists of the Five Elements to heal, which was kind of non-efficient use 300gp mages. I lost one W3 Celestial Master to disease though.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Now that Divine is sort of done, I've moved my efforts to the Priests. I'll probably start with the graphical works, since Divine was mostly code typing. I thought that I might just as well do graphics for the guys I'm going to add as magic site recruitables (I really don't like that most holy sites just give some random gem, they should do holy stuff).

So I did a bit of brainstorming and here's the results. Feel free to comment and contribute your ideas.

Independents:
Templars:
Hoburg Milita 483/ Pilgrim - cheap, militia grade unit with a bit higher morale, afflictions
Burgmeister Guard 271/ Templar Knight - Sacred Knights
Hoburg Crossbows 273/ Templars - Sacred elite heavy infantry
Hog Knight 1196/ Crusader - very elite but expensive sacreds, also a commander!!
com
Hoburg Champion 272/ Templar Commander, sacred thug
Hoburg Priest 1195/ Warrior Monk, H1
Horticulturist 1198/Templar Abbot H2 - expensive, old




Units from holy sites:

- the 8 crosspath guys
- Follower - cheap religious minded troops
- Pilgrims
- Warrior Monks - sacreds, high def & att, but extremely vulnerable to arrows
- Scourges - Uber flagnellants
- Penitents - come in many flavours, former mercenaries that want to get their sins forgiven
- Tomb Wardens - soldiers with some anti-undead gear, lanters?
- Vanilla Flagnellants
- Temple Guardians - sacred infantry, get "homesick"
- Demon hunter - sacred anti-demon troops
- war Cleric - sacred cavalry. Spread faith by smashing skulls

Holy Commanders

- Mystic - 1?H1
- Mysticist - 1?H2 - old
- Rabble Rouser - F10%H1, summons followers
- Zealot - H1 commander flagnellat, summons flagnellants but causes unrest
- Preacher - H1 with inquistor
- Battle Pilgrim - summons pilgrims, standard?
- Wise Man - "Guru" rare, old, H3
- Warrior Priest - H1 priest that can fight
- Choirboy - Communion slave
- Choir leader - H1 auto communion master

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

http://xs537.xs.to/xs537/09130/holypreview639.gif


I decided to give everyone a sneak peek on the artwork I'll produce for these mods. I'll also shed some light on the methods I use to create these, in the case that someone is intrested.

The first thing to make clear is that I'm no artist. I can figure out how to basic shading (what areas of the picture are lighter/darker depending on where the "light" is coming from), but that's about it. I can't create anything from scratch (I've tried, but the poses are simply crimes versus geometry & anatomy and all proportions are wrong).

My method involves simply recoloring excisting KO's excellent base vanilla sprites and combining them to make new poses for the units. To show this, I've added images of the "base" sprites I used to the preview pic above.

I'll go over these pics one by one.

a) Pilgrim. I really like how he turned out. I just basically recolored the Mictlan Slave pic and widened him a bit to give the expression of wearing a thick robe.

b) Templar Knight. I just basically mixed & matched parts of several vanilla cavalry units and recolored the shield and cape. I originally had the Hospitaller Knight cross in the shield, but I decided not to include any real world symbols in the units. Templars are basically a knightly order dedicated to protecting Pilgrims on their joyrneys.

c) Templar. Well, you can't always win. I used Man's Warden as a base. I don't like the way he seems to be crouching, but it's working well enough. If I try make every pic perfect this mod will never be completed.

d) Crusader. Pretty much the same as Templar Knight.

e) Templar Commander. Ditto.

f) Templar Monk. Here I used a sprite I already made as a base. Just add some blingbling to a regular unit and you have a commander.

g) Templar Abbot. This is basically a recolor of "Augur" in Sombre's Arga Dis mod.

h) Battle Relic. I recolored the wooden telestic animate to marble and drew a simple golden box for it to hold. This unit was originally intented for HW: Divine as construction summon, but the new patch completely broke holy rituals, so I had to scrap it. The idea is that the box holds remains of some long dead saint and thus the statue is possessed by the saint's spirit. Currently I don't really know what to do with this pic. Perhaps a Earth/holy construct summon?

i) Stone Tablet. I basically copy-pasted parts of the monolith and used them to expand the orginal. The writing was a piece of cake. Currently I don't really know what to do with this pic. Perhaps a Earth/holy construct summon?

j) True Believer. I don't know who the base pic guy is. I just found him in a sprite dump picture. His pose intrigued me and I just drew him a robe, gave some stuff to hold to and a halo. Voila', now we have a generic human holy hero. I'll give him to each human nation which already doesn't have a hero with H3.

k) White Bandar. I did this over a year ago as a monkey hero. He is basically a recolor of basic bandar.

l) Earth Keeper. He's a Earth/holy sacred troop summon. he'll also be recruitable from an uncommon holy site. Giving the stoneguy the torso of a Ulmish flaildude worked pretty well after some recoloring.

m) Fire Keeper. He's a Fire/holy sacred troop summon. he'll also be recruitable from an uncommon holy site. I originally had the whole halberd be bronze but it didn't look good. The black shaft really makes the weapon look badass.

n) Water Keeper. He's a water/holy sacred troop summon. he'll also be recruitable from an uncommon holy site. I'm also quite happy how this turned out, although I had to redo the kelp hair like 3 times before it looked good.

o) Air Keeper. He's a Air/holy sacred troop summon. he'll also be recruitable from an uncommon holy site. I just attached the torso of a valkyrie with a tiny air elemental and did some recoloring. I'm not happy with the shield though. I might get back to this and remove the shield.

p) Scourge. This guy will feature in few magic sites. Basically a beefed up flagnellant. He's just a simple recolor of the flail ulm infantry. The graphic looks quite sweet on the battlefield.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

That almost counts as a sprite-making tutorial! Could you post that somewhere like the modding tips thread, and upload the image to a post?

While I'm not sure I agree with all of your choices (mostly thematic reasons), this is starting to look pretty good.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

I took heed of this and put a link to the post in Modding Tips thread.
If people are intrested, I could probably whip up a "tutorial" of sorts where I go over the process step-by-step with several screenies and stuff.

Would you mind to elaborate? I'm always for increasing "thematicness".

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Generic human hero for all human nations overlaps with prophet. Not a big problem.


Your changes to priests (as outlined in the first post, I hope it's not outdated) are worse:

Increasing priest levels. National priests aren't used, but neither are national military commanders. I wouldn't mind +1 holy to all priests and +1 holy to all holy spells, similar to DomII, only effect being increased preaching. It would hurt prophets, though, so you probably won't do that.

Totally banning indy priests. This one isn't a problem with the theme, but with gameplay, since it will affect many nations' preaching capability. Nations without mage-priests will have lots of trouble against armies supported by mage-priests, even if the mage-priests aren't improved as much.

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

I'd like to see a tutorial with in depth editing.

Jazzepi

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

Well, to admit, that info was outdated. I gave the orginal H4 hero idea some thought and noticed it was pretty.. extreme. My orginal idea was that all nations should have at least theoretical access to H4 (without the Sword of Justice). A H3 hero is enough and I won't add a second one to nations that already have H3 on a hero. I really haven't studied yet which nations lack at least H3 hero, but at least monkeys are in this binge.

Well yeah, military commanders are quite hopeless. There is simply no way to redeem them. But priests have hope. The new divine spells from HWD* are a sizeable carrot to recruit them, especially when combined with the decrease of holy levels on mage-priests. Yeah, mages will still rule supreme, but I'm no miracle worker. The best effect I can hope for is that from time to time the player will recruit a national priest to offer some combat support and to do some preaching.


In my experience, dominion really isn't *that* important. The morale swing can be nasty, but it's not that big of a deal if you prepare for it. Besides, if your opponent is using his mage-priests to preach, it's probably not the most cost effective use of themand you'll trumph over him since your mages actually have researched some useful spells instead of preaching.

Besides, there will be lots of indy priests if you bother to look for them. Many of the new common holy sites* will allow recruitment of Priests in many varieties (Rabble Rousers, Preachers, Warrior Priests, Zealots, Templar Monks,... etc). However if this proves to be a problem, I could just allow some of the rarer indy priests (like Hoburg & Amazons).

*I haven't decided yet on how many holy sites there will be with HW on. Remember that I'll be overwriting many of the old ones in the process. Perhaps 15 common sites, 15 uncommon ones and 5 rare? I'll have to run a lot of test with this until I find the number which will make the holy sites *sorta* common (I know that because holy lacks a radar it's a but micro to have sites that must be manual-searched, so I won't be making them that common)

Then you'll get one. In the next weekend, probably. I'll just have to figure out which unit will a good example. It will probably be the rabble-rouser. He will require recoloring, parts from 2 base sprites and the creation of a torch!

Re: Mod in Progress: Holy War
 

WOW! Those sprites are absolutely top-notch. I'm very much looking forward to playing with this (which may be after release unfortunately, depending on thesis woes).