***Community Design: God Powers in combat--DEV THREAD***

If you do it like the shaman in populous the beginning (PTB) would be great. But you should absolutely only command one at a time. Also if possible he should be able to capture a building, and convert peaceful followers (again PTB had special follower other than the shaman to do this but priest could do that too)! That godly choice everyone wants! (Enemy should be aggressive depending on how unhappy they are) I think the happiness bar should really indicate passiveness/aggressiveness .

I guess if we have this priest the enemy should have something similar to us for balance.

In this scenario we could end up with a win/loss state (great!) but will we have homeworld (as a safe zone?). I guess my question is are we looking at new worlds (understand if you don't want to say).

Here is an example:

1 Rivals send a priest and start converting your followers they stay happy but if converted break down there abode and go join the rivals;

• 1a You squish/kill the rival priest to stop him. goto 2
  
• 1b You send priest who forces priest to return home goto 1
• 1c Go offensive goto 4
  

• 1d do nothing goto 1

2 The rivals become more aggressive, send another priest with protection soldiers and a Belief shield.
Continues converting;

• 2a You send soldier/your own priest and kill them they become more aggressive goto 3
• 2b send just your priest and cast non fatal God power drive them away goto 1
  

• 2c Go offensive goto 4
• 2d do nothing goto 2

3 They send small army this time to destroy. Use powers to;

• 3a kill goto 3 (repeat)
• 3b passive powers make rivals less angry-after conflict goto 2

• 3c do nothing goto 3 (repeat)

.
4 send priest to enemy in depending on their aggression goto reverse corresponding aggression.

Given that you've named the priest and not the other unit type, I'm going to use the term "Heretic" for the purpose of this post. Not a suggestion for a name or anything (given that technically all opposing followers would be heretics), it's just to clarify my following post.

Priest AoE Benefits:

• Restricts the usage of powers in combat, which as has already been established are rather overpowered.
• A new follower type adds flavour to the game, especially if it has uses outside of combat.
• The restrictive nature of the Priest means combat will become more strategic, if the balance is right. This could be seen as both a benefit and a risk, however, given some people may not want to dwell too much on combat.

Priest AoE Risks:

• Restricting power usage to an AoE means that moving your followers will be key. As it is, follower movement is clunky and having to navigate the step-like terrain makes for slow advancement. It's going to be very annoying if the priest doesn't get into position in the way you want/need.
• As mentioned in benefits, the balance of strategy needs to be right. Will adding an AoE effect actually solve the problem of followers being useless in comparison to powers? Or will it just mean people create a screen of warriors and have the priest advance behind them, effectively making them fodder rather than soldiers and still just spamming powers when the priest gets in range?
• I'm assuming priests will be created via a settlement? What can the player do before he/she gets that settlement? If the Astari attack before a priest is created are they screwed? Could be countered by giving the player a priest from the start.
• Creating a settlement purely for the use of powers will use up resources and space, slowing the pace of the game, which is already too slow (but that's arguable, so the slowness itself isn't in question here). Again I'm making the assumption that priests are provided by settlements, so this is an invalid point if that's not the case.

All depends on the definition of small doesn't it? In godus 50ft on the character scale is small. Priest upgrades increase the AoE

The advantage to a special enemy type who can afford some protection in perhaps a medium area of effect is that you can introduce a "real" adversary, possibly a Demi God type character broadly along the lines of Sauron or Morgoth. The enemy tribe could clearly be worshipping this upstart Demi God which would add REAL drama to the Godus world. Something the game is sorely lacking. There could be almost a sense of outrage among players that this upstart is assuming the role of god amongst these bad heathens. Now you really have the beginnings of a real story!! I think this has brilliant potential. But I feel strongly that the protection needs to come from a Demi God type character not just be generated out of thin air or "magic."

Feeble shaman with small areas of effect? I agree that this could be fiddly (above). My hunch is you might regret this solution. You could have players generate more than one feeble priest using large amounts of resources. Still I think it's the weaker choice.

Thanks for narrowing this discussion a bit.

i suppose you could use both but I can see myself getting annoyed with the feeble priest.

It is not really clear from this but if your introducing an AoE for this priest I assuming settlement/abodes will automatically need the same AoE else you could cast everywhere as you do now and priest is therefore worthless.

The only feeble priests or shaman I've ever enjoyed were in The Elder Scrolls and they didn't stay weak or feeble for long, they became much stronger.

If you are determined to create a weak priest at least develop a story whereby god (the player) was able to grant him/her an extremely powerful personal force field to protect him and maybe give him/her the ability to become more powerful as he gains battle experience. Hate to go back to Tolkien again but Gandalph frequently uses his white light force field protection thingee and it can even hold back Sauron for awhile (witness the somewhat lame Hobbit movie).

And please make it a shaman or wizard rather than a "priest."

Whatever.

Advantages of the priest:

1: A follower to grow more of a connection to because he's very important.

2: Integrating care for followers with prowess as a god may lead to a more coherent game.

3: 'where are the priests?' becomes a strong motivation for looking more closely at your world.

Disadvantages of the priest:

1: It may feel as though too much of your power depends on a mere follower, making you feel less powerful.

2: May be considered frustrating when the priest gets killed because of it's A.I. 'behavior'.

3: The player could become more like the priest's babysitter, rather than to be the source of great divine power.

Using "avatar" type units is definitely one way to go about it. But it would not solve the problem of inflated belief.
We're already seeing costs going up by zeroes each 'generation' and the higher up the game would develop, the more belief costs would inflate to keep the balance between powers. So this avatar unit wouldn't directly "solve" that problem.

In that sense, you would probably have to tie that avatar - your priest if you will. To a temple or other structure which will siphon off belief and store it seperately. Then once it reaches a critical point that avatar/priest can use his dedicated spell/miracle/power. He becomes a channel or focus that needs to be recharged or, if you don't allow him to recover (effectively the channelled belief serves as a buffer to protect him) he will be burned out in the process. Which immediately sets a choice. Do you preserve your specialist units or do you expend them.

This would have to be counterbalanced by the fact that you can't turn every unit into such an avatar/priest - either through a high cost or through another limitation. I'm imagining that the "good" way would have the priest needing to rest (let the belief siphon recover through the temple-type structure) and the "evil" way would expend the priest giving a negative visual outlet to your civilization and then forces you to expend energy/belief/gems or whatnot on creating a new avatar/priest unit. With the advantage that you can pay your way forward. (Keeping in mind that I'm still strongly of the opinion that the mobile-currency gem needs to be altered to a more PC-oriented skin.)


The added advantage of doing it this way is that you enable the players and their followers to build large temples to devote to the gods. Which helps set apart from other players. No pre-made ruins dug up from the ground but something that your followers MADE.



Getting a special enemy type or other anti-AoE field does serve some purposes. But should be used sparingly.
I'm imagining this as sort of a "the forcefield remains in place untill you knock out its powersource" type mechanic that is used in a lot of other games.
Which would prevent you from killing off the opponent with one well-placed nuclear strike on their home-base.
The downside I see here is that it is very much a pre-made level type mechanic. If you ever want to make some form of generated maps or such then that wouldn't work.

It would work like a charm for the more voyage like puzzle maps however. I'm thinking of giving the player a choice. Either you let your followers go through the shielded area (where you can't protect them) - or you guide them around.
Alternately you spend some time and energy in knocking out the shield and go the fast way.
This would give the levels 3 possible paths. A fast and risky path (straight through the shield). A slightly slower, but difficult way by knocking out the shield. And a slow but "safe" way by leading your dudes around.

Ofcourse such a mechanic could be implemented for other mini-game style modes aswell.
But for a main balance it would not serve much purpose other than to annoy the player.


I do also promote that this special power/unit become available to the player if Multiplayer is still in the cards for Godus (I don't know if it is) - because a power like this is FAR MORE suited for a player vs player style encounter where you can shield your core base, than it is for a more open player-vs-PC encounter.

The downside of crafted maps being that every map you spend a long time making only takes the player a limited amount of time to complete. So may not be the best resource investment considering you guys are low on manpower and the game is suffering from many mechanical limitations.

Another thing to consider is how would you "control" this AoE field. Is the special unit in the center of the radius? Do you need to send in your followers to "neutralize" it? Or do you put the units on the corners, effectively having them act as pilons on the boundary of the field?


And as always - naming convention is important.
Consider not naming it "priest" or something else if you want to avoid pre-made assumptions.
Its the downfall of gems in their current form. They are at their core a cash currency and need a make-over to remove that feeling.

Yup, pretty good lore about them. Cast out ascended? Been a while since I watched it. May start over on it again.