Posted October 04, 2013
Just finished my 7th run through, and was bored again. Looked for a topic suggesting new features, but found nothing quite like this one, so figured I'd suggest it here, and see what everyone thinks. It's something to make the game a bit different, and provides more reason to interact with other Masters, as well maybe a new ending or two that I think might fit the tone of the story.
Anyway, the idea. Astral Bonuses. In this case, you can Ally with Masters on the Astral Plane, or if you so desire, conquer them instead for a different bonus. I see this working with all Masters, as in, you can ally with all of them, or wipe them all off the face of Eador, with no restrictions on it. However, allying with Masters of the various alignments can cause infighting, and is obviously easier with those that are similar to you in morality.
Now then, how would this work? Well, you would be able to talk with other Masters on he Astral about alliances, and can convinces them to join you, with friends just openly offering to join, while those with lower relationship values will need to either be bribed with energy, or you can do a quest for them, which transports you to a shard, with the conditions being different every time, though the mission, rather than being to destroy others, being more to find a certain artifact set, or to help the Master you want to ally with out of a jam.
Of course, with allies comes infighting, as I said above, and sometimes Masters you've allied with will come to you with grievances. You then get to either argue for one of the Masters, or try to convince them that their squabble is petty and beneath Masters. The latter is harder, obviously, with those who are less fond of you, but still possible if you phrase your argument correctly.
As an example, the Storm and the Fairy both bring you an argument, that the Storm has been causing forest fires with his lightning strikes and torrential downpours. You then have to argue with either the Storm that such behavior at random is not the way of true storms, they have patterns and seasons, and are not just about blasting randomly around. You can also argue with the Fairy that such disasters happen, and its not within us to prevent them, only to prepare for them, and to pick up the pieces when they happen.
After you've allied with all Masters, you can then form a Pantheon, a strong alliance of gods to hold back the chaos, and rule over a united Eador(Your powers together being enough to bring all the Shards into alignment without the need for more wars). You then get one of four endings based off this, one where you allied everyone, forming a powerful pantheon with you at the top, and ones where you destroyed certain Masters, with the pantheon's alignment based off yours along with theirs, which means you can indeed have an evil Pantheon with the Wizard and Fairy, or a good one with the Barbarian and Demon. You can also have a neutral one as well, with the three endings only varying slightly based off alignment, while the on in which you allied everyone calls you a true King of the Gods, the central pillar of the new religion.
Okay, that's the mechanics of this out of the way, and obviously they need some refinement, but I mentioned bonuses above as well. You get one bonus for having the other Master as an Ally, and a separate one if you Conquer them. In the former they're providing assistance, and even if you're up against them on a Shard, they still give it to you, even while at war with you. After all, the Alliance on the Astral is more important than a battle over a single Shard. Though if you make them too mad, they'll demand recompense for your transgression, usually either Energy or just helping them assault another Master, or defend themselves from an assault. Also, now when you strike at a home Shard for a Master, they have the option of Surrendering to you, making them your servant, and in an Alliance no matter how you treat them.
Now, what would these bonuses be for each Master. I've given it some thought, and the way it would work narrativily is, if you ally, they provide an assist, either granting you an ability, or just help from their faction, while if you Conquer them, you instead claim their Astral Item, a talismen of great power you can use as you see fit now. The Conquest powers would be their bonuses on Shards, comparable to your into the past power. For each one, I think it would go like this.
The Wizard
Ally: Wizardry Assisted. When allied with him, you now spend half as much to use magic and rituals, with the explanation being that he's now helping you, meaning the things take less power to do than they would on your own.
Conquest: Onior's Staff. This halves the time between rituals. This is calculated before the turns off for certain buildings, so you would indeed now have a few rituals(Fair Wind for example), that have no delay at all, and can be cast as many times as you can use Rituals.
The Necromancer
Ally: The Undead Workforce. Summoned to any province you control, these undead workers are tireless, and will double the income of the Province, while lowering the mood by two.
Conquer: Beleth's Ring. A summoners best friend. All temporary(Read only for this battle) summons double in power, speed, etc, thus becoming that much more dangerous, even without any power ups.
The Barbarian
Ally: Barbarian Horde. You can summon a horde of barbarians to take a single province, spending gold to get them to move, sort of like a ritual, but only costing coins, not gems. This would function similarly to the rituals to summon demons and undead, but would give you the province, with a Barbarian Guard, if they succeed. Can only be summoned once a turn, and if they're defeated, it will take several turns(10-25), before they can be used again.
Conquer: Doh-Gor's Amulet. The amulet gives you the power of War itself, letting you take one turn in combat before it actually begins, which means if you have lower initiative, then you move first regardless, but if you have higher, than you basically get two free turns at combat start.
The Fairy
Ally: Fae Festival. Similar to the Horde, this is a ritual like power, which you can use once every twenty turns to do one of three things. Gain a small cache of Gems, raise the mood in your empire by 1 for the next twenty turns, or reduce the cost of guards in your provinces by half.
Conquer: Vianta's Pendant. This artifact gives you the power of the forest, and thus, none of their secrets can be hidden from you. With this in your possession, you now can see every part of all forest provinces, eliminating the need to explore them.
The Cloud
Ally: Astral Storm. Again, like a ritual. Can be used once every three turns to simply remove a province from the game. No one can go in or out of it, but no one gains anything from it either. Can be used to defensively guard your border, or to lock down a single hero so you can go around him. Does no affect Stronghold Provinces, as those are a Master's home base, and thus the focus of their power.
Conquer: Oumm's Cloak. This one's cool, it gives you the power to make your units insubstantial for one turn. In this case, your army gains the power of Ghost units, they take almost no damage from physical attacks, but take double from magical ones. Can be uses once every three turns.
The Lich
Ally: Undead Revival. If you hero falls in the course of combat, you get the option of reviving them for a single turn as an undead, giving you a second shot at the enemy, who would have been weakened by your first assault. Of course, fail and you can't get that hero back ever, as their spirits pass on if they die while undead.
Conquer: L'Anshar's Ring. Any Land of the Dead you come across has no secrets from you. They autojoin when your hero enters them, and more, they come 100% explored, with all Sites revealed. Note that this includes provinces made into lands of the dead via ritual.
The Witch
Ally: Foresight. This is a start of map ability, and lets you see the whole map at the start of the game, and place your stronghold on it wherever you want, allowing you to place yourself in a resource rich area, right by weak opponents, or away from strong ones.
Conquer: Stenriya's Eye. Lets you do a future sight event, which causes all your units, for one turn, to take half damage, and deal double, in every fight.
The Elf
Ally: Sharp Eyes. Lets you see the whole map once every ten turns, similar to if it was your Home Shard that was being attacked. This allows you to know where forces are from enemies, and where to go if you want certain allies.
Conquer: Dariol's Boots. A powerful tool for a Scout or Commander, though useful for anyone, as it allows you to skip one province when moving, letting you bypass heavy defenders, or leap at an enemy stronghold once you're close.
The Engineer
Ally: Ultimate Defense. Bounces enemies out of your way, push defending heroes back if you move forward, or making it so they can't enter your province if they try. Of course, you can't get them to leave a Stronghold, again, since its the center of a Master's power.
Conquer: Ul-Dagan's Wrench. The tool of a great artificer. Doubles the bonus from items you gain, including set bonuses.
Anyway, the idea. Astral Bonuses. In this case, you can Ally with Masters on the Astral Plane, or if you so desire, conquer them instead for a different bonus. I see this working with all Masters, as in, you can ally with all of them, or wipe them all off the face of Eador, with no restrictions on it. However, allying with Masters of the various alignments can cause infighting, and is obviously easier with those that are similar to you in morality.
Now then, how would this work? Well, you would be able to talk with other Masters on he Astral about alliances, and can convinces them to join you, with friends just openly offering to join, while those with lower relationship values will need to either be bribed with energy, or you can do a quest for them, which transports you to a shard, with the conditions being different every time, though the mission, rather than being to destroy others, being more to find a certain artifact set, or to help the Master you want to ally with out of a jam.
Of course, with allies comes infighting, as I said above, and sometimes Masters you've allied with will come to you with grievances. You then get to either argue for one of the Masters, or try to convince them that their squabble is petty and beneath Masters. The latter is harder, obviously, with those who are less fond of you, but still possible if you phrase your argument correctly.
As an example, the Storm and the Fairy both bring you an argument, that the Storm has been causing forest fires with his lightning strikes and torrential downpours. You then have to argue with either the Storm that such behavior at random is not the way of true storms, they have patterns and seasons, and are not just about blasting randomly around. You can also argue with the Fairy that such disasters happen, and its not within us to prevent them, only to prepare for them, and to pick up the pieces when they happen.
After you've allied with all Masters, you can then form a Pantheon, a strong alliance of gods to hold back the chaos, and rule over a united Eador(Your powers together being enough to bring all the Shards into alignment without the need for more wars). You then get one of four endings based off this, one where you allied everyone, forming a powerful pantheon with you at the top, and ones where you destroyed certain Masters, with the pantheon's alignment based off yours along with theirs, which means you can indeed have an evil Pantheon with the Wizard and Fairy, or a good one with the Barbarian and Demon. You can also have a neutral one as well, with the three endings only varying slightly based off alignment, while the on in which you allied everyone calls you a true King of the Gods, the central pillar of the new religion.
Okay, that's the mechanics of this out of the way, and obviously they need some refinement, but I mentioned bonuses above as well. You get one bonus for having the other Master as an Ally, and a separate one if you Conquer them. In the former they're providing assistance, and even if you're up against them on a Shard, they still give it to you, even while at war with you. After all, the Alliance on the Astral is more important than a battle over a single Shard. Though if you make them too mad, they'll demand recompense for your transgression, usually either Energy or just helping them assault another Master, or defend themselves from an assault. Also, now when you strike at a home Shard for a Master, they have the option of Surrendering to you, making them your servant, and in an Alliance no matter how you treat them.
Now, what would these bonuses be for each Master. I've given it some thought, and the way it would work narrativily is, if you ally, they provide an assist, either granting you an ability, or just help from their faction, while if you Conquer them, you instead claim their Astral Item, a talismen of great power you can use as you see fit now. The Conquest powers would be their bonuses on Shards, comparable to your into the past power. For each one, I think it would go like this.
The Wizard
Ally: Wizardry Assisted. When allied with him, you now spend half as much to use magic and rituals, with the explanation being that he's now helping you, meaning the things take less power to do than they would on your own.
Conquest: Onior's Staff. This halves the time between rituals. This is calculated before the turns off for certain buildings, so you would indeed now have a few rituals(Fair Wind for example), that have no delay at all, and can be cast as many times as you can use Rituals.
The Necromancer
Ally: The Undead Workforce. Summoned to any province you control, these undead workers are tireless, and will double the income of the Province, while lowering the mood by two.
Conquer: Beleth's Ring. A summoners best friend. All temporary(Read only for this battle) summons double in power, speed, etc, thus becoming that much more dangerous, even without any power ups.
The Barbarian
Ally: Barbarian Horde. You can summon a horde of barbarians to take a single province, spending gold to get them to move, sort of like a ritual, but only costing coins, not gems. This would function similarly to the rituals to summon demons and undead, but would give you the province, with a Barbarian Guard, if they succeed. Can only be summoned once a turn, and if they're defeated, it will take several turns(10-25), before they can be used again.
Conquer: Doh-Gor's Amulet. The amulet gives you the power of War itself, letting you take one turn in combat before it actually begins, which means if you have lower initiative, then you move first regardless, but if you have higher, than you basically get two free turns at combat start.
The Fairy
Ally: Fae Festival. Similar to the Horde, this is a ritual like power, which you can use once every twenty turns to do one of three things. Gain a small cache of Gems, raise the mood in your empire by 1 for the next twenty turns, or reduce the cost of guards in your provinces by half.
Conquer: Vianta's Pendant. This artifact gives you the power of the forest, and thus, none of their secrets can be hidden from you. With this in your possession, you now can see every part of all forest provinces, eliminating the need to explore them.
The Cloud
Ally: Astral Storm. Again, like a ritual. Can be used once every three turns to simply remove a province from the game. No one can go in or out of it, but no one gains anything from it either. Can be used to defensively guard your border, or to lock down a single hero so you can go around him. Does no affect Stronghold Provinces, as those are a Master's home base, and thus the focus of their power.
Conquer: Oumm's Cloak. This one's cool, it gives you the power to make your units insubstantial for one turn. In this case, your army gains the power of Ghost units, they take almost no damage from physical attacks, but take double from magical ones. Can be uses once every three turns.
The Lich
Ally: Undead Revival. If you hero falls in the course of combat, you get the option of reviving them for a single turn as an undead, giving you a second shot at the enemy, who would have been weakened by your first assault. Of course, fail and you can't get that hero back ever, as their spirits pass on if they die while undead.
Conquer: L'Anshar's Ring. Any Land of the Dead you come across has no secrets from you. They autojoin when your hero enters them, and more, they come 100% explored, with all Sites revealed. Note that this includes provinces made into lands of the dead via ritual.
The Witch
Ally: Foresight. This is a start of map ability, and lets you see the whole map at the start of the game, and place your stronghold on it wherever you want, allowing you to place yourself in a resource rich area, right by weak opponents, or away from strong ones.
Conquer: Stenriya's Eye. Lets you do a future sight event, which causes all your units, for one turn, to take half damage, and deal double, in every fight.
The Elf
Ally: Sharp Eyes. Lets you see the whole map once every ten turns, similar to if it was your Home Shard that was being attacked. This allows you to know where forces are from enemies, and where to go if you want certain allies.
Conquer: Dariol's Boots. A powerful tool for a Scout or Commander, though useful for anyone, as it allows you to skip one province when moving, letting you bypass heavy defenders, or leap at an enemy stronghold once you're close.
The Engineer
Ally: Ultimate Defense. Bounces enemies out of your way, push defending heroes back if you move forward, or making it so they can't enter your province if they try. Of course, you can't get them to leave a Stronghold, again, since its the center of a Master's power.
Conquer: Ul-Dagan's Wrench. The tool of a great artificer. Doubles the bonus from items you gain, including set bonuses.
Post edited October 04, 2013 by Star_Sage
