Mod: Ulm Reborn v.1.7b - Updated 14th June 2009

[llamabeast]

It does seem like research is very difficult. White priests have plenty of other stuff to be getting on with, and their research isn't _that_ good anyway. Black priests are essentially useless in a drain dominion. And you don't have access to owl quills or skull mentors.

How about adding another unit, called perhaps a White Acolyte, or a Monk, or a Librarian? Someone who conducts historical and academic studies in the cloisters of the new kingdom. They could have no magic, or else ?1, but produce a few research (5?), be recruitable anywhere and be drain immune. I think that would make a big difference.

Then you could keep the White Priests as capital only without screwing the nation over in the long term (there's no way you can survive on a largeish map if you can only produce researchers in one place, is there?).

I do think the Anchorites should be cheaper. The die very easily, and the emerging penitent is normally instantly cut down. Maybe when they emerge they could be berserk?

[Sombre]

Unfortunately you can't make a unit start off berserk. I wish you could actually, I'd use it in a couple of mods.

I tried entering morale 99 but no luck.

Black priests are useless for research in drain dominion, yes. Although they aren't generally useless because they're good priests and can produce a /lot/ of penitent if you get them in a high dom province. You also don't /have/ to take drain (although I do). It's another tough choice.

I like the idea of a white librarian/acolyte type unit. I was thinking along the same lines an update or so ago. Maybe astral 1 so you can use them for the search spell, drain immune and with ok research. Not cap only, of course. I'm rather wary of diversifying the magic because hey, this is a xenophobic priest nation.

[llamabeast]

The only trouble with making them astral 1, if they're cheapish, is that you could accidentally become a communion nation. When I see an affordable S1 mage I generally get quite excited and begin plotting big communions.

You could perhaps give them a 50% ES random or something, so that 1 in 4 with have astral (useful for searches) and 1 in 4 would have E (they could help out a bit with forging), but their only reliable use would be research.

Actually if you were going to go down that route I'd be inclined to have 20% S, 20% E, so that there was some small chance of getting both, which I always think is exciting.

[Sombre]

The 20% 20% sounds interesting.

Well they couldn't be communion drones if I made them immobile. I mean if they're just there to research and cast search spells I might as well attach them to a chair and stick a book in front of them. I could also then make them H1 priests (basically useless for an immobile unit but thematically it makes sense) without it overpowering them or forcing me to push the price up.

Whaddya think?

[llamabeast]

Hmm, I'm not sure about making them immobile. I see why it might be effective from a gameplay point of view, but thematically it would be a bit odd.

I was imagining they'd be just useful people to have around. If you needed a temple building but all your (cheaper) black acolytes were busy, you could send a librarian (I like the idea of having them H1, I think). If you needed an E1 mage in a battle for some bizarre reason, there'd be some chance a librarian might be able to help you out. But mostly they'd be inefficient for such tasks, so they wouldn't be overpowered. They'd also be rubbish for communions if not many of them had astral, because you'd never get enough together.

Now, making them immobile would get rid of any of that flexibility, and make them quite unattractive units I think. I don't know why, I just don't like the idea of having a unit that can't move - can't flee if enemies get nearby, and so on. Still, I wouldn't rule it out, I'm just thinking aloud. If you wanted to have them immobile, you could justify it by saying that each librarian takes a vow to never leave his cloister/monastery, and will die rather than abandon it.

[Sombre]

There are a bunch of ways I could explain why they're immobile. They might have all been horribly crippled during the civil war, they might have sworn never to leave their chair or book until the Aufklarung finally consumes the world, etc etc.

Anyway, I'm just putting ideas out. Immobility would solve the communion thing,... well providing we want it solved that is,... and it would help differentiate them from black acolytes and priests, who are like wandering preachers/rabble rousers right now. It would however make them slightly boring and merely functional research units.

[llamabeast]

Yeah, I do think that making them immobile might make them slightly boring (more like research factories and less like units), but on the other hand I do like the idea that they swore never to leave their books until the Aufklarung consumes the world. Well, they'll be good either way, but personally I'd be inclined to let them move. If they did have only random astral, then to the small extent that they were able to help out with communions it would be thematic (since sages etc are also capable of acting as communion slaves) and fun (nice to have another option every now and again), while definitely not overpowered.

I don't think you particularly need to worry about differentiating them from the black priests though. They'll be different just because of the fact you'll use them very differently. A librarian/white acolyte would be a rubbish wandering preacher because he'd be too expensive for his holy level, and also wouldn't generate penitents.