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

After thinking about it a bit more, I think a priest/prior character could be kinda cool. I wouldn't want to control all the followers going into battle, but controlling one character who in turn commands the other followers could turn out quite cool.

I would imagine the prior starting out quite weak and gradually growing stronger after gaining more and more battle experience. On second thought I would picture them having multiple sorts of stats. When in a combat situation the prior slowly gains experience making him a better strategist and thus a more effective commander in battle. Another stat could be strength which might be determined by the amount of followers are under his command or by the amount of followers in the general population or perhaps a combination of the two. The stronger he is the more capabilities he has. Then there should be a stat for hitpoints/health. The prior should be able to die so that the player has to be careful about what and when to do things with him. If he does die he would be replaced by an under prior who would have to gain experience of his own. There could be several under priors depending on the size of the population. They might spend their time doing menial tasks like gathering belief or giving sermons and perhaps receive training from the main prior.

Man writing posts is a pain when the e key doesn't work. /rant

Some ideas regarding priest/Prior/avatar I came up with while procrastinating:

How do you get one?

It might be cool if these Priors needed to be born into a family unlike soldiers which are trained. And you could only have one at a time. You could perhaps bless a family with a special child that then has to grow up. This way you could also determine the looks of your prior (in case different looking kinds of people aren't out of the picture yet), but maybe not the gender.

How would he or she work in combat?

They only make sense if you intend to put an area of influence around your city like in B&W and they allow you to act outside it. Else they just limit you too much as a god, which isn't fun. They shouldn't cast spells for you but only act as a small mobile "shrine of influence". Maybe just big enough to use some "buffing" spells on your own troops, to protect them if they are attacked or attack really close targets.

In order to make the Prior interesting he or she could have some additional abilities:

• Expanding the area of influence by for example 5-10 times for a few seconds. This ability would come at a cost. When the area is "pushed" outward, everybody hit by the shock wave gets weakened (maybe slowed and have their max HP reduced) for a period of time including your own soldiers and the Prior him/herself. People in the center get affected more than those at the edge. A nice "wooshhh" sound effect and perhaps a slight ground shaking effect would make this even more fun to use.
• Transforming him/her into a powerful soldier. Maybe a large beast or an angel/demon that would be able to turn the tide of battle. But using this ability would remove even the small the spell casting area of influence.
• A passive ability that would act as a repelling skill. The Prior would have a secondary defensive area of influence that's much larger. The player would select one spell (any spell). If that spell is then used inside that defensive AoI by the opponent, it would be absorbed, negated and disabled for a few minutes. All other spells would also go on a (shorter) cooldown. 
  
  Such passive would probably require the creation of other spells that are on par with the meteor in order to prevent everyone just defending against meteors and add another strategic element to god combat. 
  (Another restriction on over using spells might be the introduction of "lingering secondary effects". You can't cast another "highly destructive" spell until the lingering effect wears off. This makes potential cooldowns seem more meaningful and not just as an arbitrary restriction.)
  3 highly destructive spells would probably work if each one achieves a slightly different goal:
  
  • The meteor. It may be the most destructive one, obliterating everything in its impact radius, but the radius isn't very large and the skill isn't easy to aim.
    Lingering effect: The impact area is left burning and damages anything inside over time.
    
  • The lightning bolt. It targets a person and arcs to X number of people close by. It does high amounts of damage to them if not outright killing them.
    Lingering effect: The ground is charged with electricity and periodically stuns anyone standing on it.
  • The (abode sized) tornado. It can be sent along a straight line in a direction, but it moves fairly slow. It doesn't do much damage to people unless they stand directly in its path but it does large amounts of damage to structures. People inside and and surrounding the structure are also damaged. The amount of direct damage done (or number of targets hit) also reduces it's lifespan, so it doesn't raze the entire city in one go.
    Lingering effect: The tornado leaves a trail that drastically slows anyone standing on it.

How resistant is he or she?
The Prior shouldn't be easily killed unless focused or out of position. If killed it could could leave a temporary shrine that retains the passive ability and the small offensive area of influence. The shrine could also be removed by the opponents Prior or some other special unit that isn't a regular soldier or perhaps fingered into the ground.

What else?
The Prior would be admired by everyone in your city. He or she could boost production when near other followers and make them happier.
Some customisation might also be possible. Like different types clothes/armor and type of weapon he or she would use in battle. Maybe the ground on which the Prior stands on for some time could also be affected in some way (a non combat ability).

Some things to consider with this Prior/Avatar/Priest style unit.

Are they permanent? Once you make them they remain free of further charge?
Is there a cost involved in retaining them? (I.E. they remain special by a constant stream of belief heading their way)
Are there other restrictions?

Are these one-size-fits-all special units or do you get specialized versions for different powers (adding a strategic element of placement, you need to get the right guy for the job in place).

That kinda stuff.

Maybe the priest/prior should be drawn to conflict. Then you protect him or let him get on with it.

Okay, so a lot has been said about the Prior ( weak "priest" type follower ) but not a heck of a lot about a "special enemy type that generates an anti-power area of effect." My biggest reaction here is that just as the "Prior" was referred to in the singular by FuriousMoo the special enemy type should be a singular character. This seems right to me in terms of both game play and storyline. This would give the player a big focus point emotionally. As in, " I can't wait until I completely defeat this tribe and get that god wannabe upstart." Even before or between battles this upstart Demi God could be seen stalking through the enemy's realm with the enemy bowing down to him as he passed. It would be great fun disliking this character and working toward eliminating him. For this reason and for added drama in battle I see him as being dark and formidable looking, towering over the others in height. I believe there could be game play and strategy advantages also to having the anti-power area of effect generated from a central, single source. Generally, although there may be way points etc. involved, one goal might be to attempt to knock out or endanger the upstart Demi God character so that he flees thus leaving the enemy devoid of special protection and a commander at the same time. Or, I suppose, the player could choose to eat away at the edges where the enemy is unprotected until at a certain level the anti-power/commander character flees due to insufficient forces. But whatever the game play mechanics or strategies involved it would make more sense with the enemy having a perceived, locatable leader and power source. Plus it just feels right.

If a decision is made to have both a Prior type character generating powers on the Follower side AND an enemy type that generates an anti-power area of influence on the other side it would, I think, be elegant and balanced and have a degree of symmetry. If this is the case you would then have a commander/power generator on one side and a commander/anti-power character on the other. In this way it could be established that the enemy itself is no more powerful than the Followers without their false god leader. That they are in fact arrogant, warlike and obnoxious only because they have his protection.

Any input here would be appreciated.

Yeah, I know I'm doing a lot of posting here but we were asked to "discuss" and I'm attempting to throw enough out there to get it moving.

Having made some comments on the anti-power source it occurred to me that I've nearly switched from my initial position regarding a solution. The Prior/Priest solution seems better to me and more in keeping with the merits of the core game. Furthermore I see no need for an anti-power source in the enemy camp if the Prior/Priest solution is implemented. The limited powers of the Prior could more easily be balanced by making the enemy slightly stronger and/or the enemy's forces larger such that if the player does not use the Prior, defeat is virtually inevitable. If that is the case it would be a negative adding an ant-power element. Why add anything which merely complicates and doesn't improve?

At this point I'm thinking either/or but not both.

Anybody for using both? I would be curious as to why.

What if you replace the "priest" with the "object of faith"? In Shinto, that would be Goshintai. In Greek, that would be sacred relic, a part of a sacred tree, perhaps? As these don't come easily, they would be much more precious than a man you can promote, right? And it can be a core of the altar, together with sacral fire. Don't you think that would be interesting?

It would also draw power from main belief pool to sustain and charge itself and you would use the power from that charge while using special influence. And the same charge would be used to negate enemy power if the altar is used for protection prayers.

Or even better: The influence around the altar increases in radius as the charge increases (of course, it would have a cap, but that cap is a matter of balancing) and this influence radius also serves as anti-influence barrier for other supernatural influences (The divine territory of the god is not easy to trespass, you know?). While this passive protection does give advantage, it still costs belief calculated from the cost of the power deflected by the barrier. Meanwhile, the same artifact charge belief pool fuels active divine powers inside this influence. This way the belief inside the influence is not drawn from global pool directly, but throttled through the altar and therefore becomes both time-dependent and tactically dilemmatic.

An enemy fake AI only has to be attracted by a certain set of occurrences to appear to be intelligent. For example 20 enemy + 20 military making a hotspot, would attract enemy prior or whatever to cast in that direction. Intelligence is easily faked by any number of rules. All games follow rules just the more complicated the get the more real or sometimes erratic they seem.

The kind of battles we are talking about sound kind of RTS like, most RTS games I played have balance between either sides units. Regardless of numbers there should be balance young Jedi ?
The reasoning I am advocating an opposing power is just to add additional points of interest in battles. They may well just achieve that with more unit types too. What appears to be an enemy God playing against you is better than just a tribe IMHO.