Elohim Monks

[joseasoler]

Monks are lacking something to make them interesting units to build and use.

[lfgr]

Since you already have CivCounter, why not something like the Purity counter in MoM (and RifE? don't remember)? It could increase from f.e. Religious buildings, spreading (Good?) religions, founding religions; and decrease f.e. Declaring War (while that would certainly be open to discussion...), maybe inquisition, and a general lowering over time. Also maybe certain civics.

This has issues similar to the ones we already discussed about special victory conditions: we don't want a player to be forced into a specific direction. Most obviously a mechanic focusing on peace or at least non-aggreassion strongly opposes the Tolerant Trait (but I actually really liked to see a change to make the Elohim more rewarding for pacifist strategies).

But I think if you leave the monks as they are ATM, maybe with a little nerf, and just give them bonuses if you follow f.e. a religious, peaceful or "good" strategy, it wouldn't be too forcing, since you can also go another strategy and have the (nearly) same old boring monks.

On the contrary, a thing like that counter should really affect more than just one unit, otherwise it would probably never be worth, since I guess in the late game monks don't really matter much. So to circumvent this issue, you could give bonuses in form of promotions and/or experience and give them more upgrade possibilities (atm they only have immortal and paladin, which are both national units). Also maybe slight building changes...

For the things increasing and decraising the counter: I personally think if you want to go AV Elohim, you shouldn't want to build monks, since they are supposed to be strictly anti-demon. If you want them to be useful for all religions (except maybe Esus), you could just make somthing like a "Faith counter", as it exists in several modmods like RFC SoI.

So in the end you would (ideally) have a monk, that is a bit nerfed and therefore will often be useless or at least boring, maybe have some special cases where it can be useful; but you can also follow that good/religions/pacifist or whatever unusual path and get monks that have noticeable military impact and maybe some other bonuses.

But of course a simpler solution would probably more reasonable at the moment :)

[joseasoler]

I like your idea. Instead of implementing yet another counter, your post gave me the idea of reusing the planned "contributions to AC" counter (see issue #103). Monks could then get a unique promotion similar to Stigmata, but it increase their Strength depending on how much did the Elohim reduce the AC (regardless of the actual AC value; faith in their mission is what is important). This would also give the Elohim a reason to build the Hallowing of the Elohim.

This of course has the bad side of not requiring any effort to maintain a certain level of strength, but given that the Sheaim don't face much opposition when raising the AC counter and that the power it gives to them is far greater, IMO it is not a big issue. What do you think?

This could be coupled with new ways of changing the AC. The Monks could be able to seal unexplored unique features to reduce the AC (such as in Unique Features Plus http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=368642). Maybe they could be able to do other actions that reduce the AC and other non-civ specific ways (such as reducing the AC for liberating cities or maybe ending wars) could also be implemented.

I agree that this is not a major restriction to what to do with the Elohim ingame; it is far less restrictive than what happens already with the Sheaim.

To which other units could they upgrade? The only other option I can think of is Druid. Also, what building changes do you mean?

[lfgr]

That's definitely a good idea, I like it much better than a counter. I always wondered why I should really build Hollowing of the Elohim :)

I also think introducing new possibilities to alter the AC is good (I'm also constantly adding AC effects to the events in events enhanced :)), but you should consider to restrict yourself or focus on things the AI can understand or can be modified to understand, because this is a thing a human player playing against the AI would really notice (I mean f.e. playing with Sheaim against Elohim would be certainly more challenging in an interesting way). But I don't know if there is actually any AC AI, so maybe it doesn't matter at all.

About upgrading: I thought about Champions (since they can use weapons), but flavour-wise it's not nice, and maybe also overpowered (you could get massive XP from Altar and then upgrade; I think there is no other way from disciple to melee, isn't it?). Maybe bonus promotions that are available at a specific tech that alter strength? I guess it depends on what you want monks to be, more the common infantry, or hero-like (f.e. giving bonuses just to high-level monks and make them more expensive and maybe make them also stronger)

With building changes I meant if you introduced a new counter, it would be weird if it just affected monks, so it should also buff some buildings like f.e. reliquary giving it's promotion only when the counter is above X. But since the AC also has several other effects, I think it's fine just affecting monks.

Some other random thoughts:

Technically I think this should require you to do two things:

1. Lower the AC yourself
2. Keep the AC low

The first obviously is to ensure you're actually doing something; the second is so you cannot lean back after some time. To avoid another counter (that would combine the two things above in a formula) the requirement to gain, say, a special promotion could be consequently:

1. Contribute at least (-)X to the AC
2. Keep the AC below Y

If the requirements are fulfilled, all monks get the promotion or have a chance each turn of getting it; if they are no longer fulfilled, monks lose the promotion or have a chance each turn losing it.

Thoughts about pros/cons: 1. If nobody rises the AC, you simply have bad luck and have to go another strategy. 2. After you lowered the AC to get the f.e. promotion you like, all you have to do is make sure it stays. If you already defeated all evil in the world you can probably lean back. 3. The biggest issue is in my opinion is that could make you want something to rise the AC, so that you can lower it. You cannot rise it yourself, but you can f.e. let the Sheaim stay alive and "farm" the AC increase that they generate.

I think 1 is just perfectly fine. 2 could be an issue, but I believe it could be solved:

• You could make requirements go up after some time. But that could make them unreachable eventually, after you defeated all possible contributors. But maybe that's also OK; something like "monks are only strong as long as they are fighting evil"
• You could punish "misusing" of the monks' power (fignting offensive wars etc...), but that should probably not be bound to the AC and require an extra counter.

3... I really don't know. Maybe it is not that much of a problem as I think (getting players to constantly generating AC points is probably not easy), especially together with the above solution for 2 (requirements go up after time), and maybe also OK flavor-wise (like cultivating an enemy image for your population).

(regarding your anti-stigmata promotion, think of the special promotions I mentioned above as +X% values. So for example +X% strength, while X is the amount of AC score decreased / 2, but not higher than (100-AC))

I don't know if the increasing requirements is really a good idea, but in my opinion, the "Keep the AC below Y" requirement (or measure for a special bonus) should definitely accompany the measure of AC contribution.

[lfgr]

But an issue of "Keep the AC below Y" could be that you don't get the strength bonus for monks when you really need them to fight demons.

[joseasoler]

My idea was to add AC changes to things that each civilization is doing already. The Elohim are more inclined towards peace, and that's why I thought about negotiating peace and liberating cities. I'm also considering adding modifications to the Armageddon Counter to other minor buildings (see #40) that make sense to have them and that they are building anyways. Buildings that to the AI seem to do "nothing" like the Elegy of the Sheaim and the Hallowing of the Elohim could just get higher AI weights. Making the AI understand the AC would be far too complicated for me and it's probably not worth the effort if we can just guide it a bit instead :)

I don't think that they should upgrade to Melee units either. Immortals and Paladins with the Monk buffs we are including are IMO okay because they are limited and it's not like the Elohim are a great civilization to wage wars anyways, but they shouldn't get a way to turn it into their normal combat strategy either.

The AC accounting behind the bonus promotions mechanic you suggest seems quite complicated; I don't think that the AI would manage to use it properly because it would not understand why it should build monks when those benefits are active (the bonus promotions would be hidden from its unit value calculations because they would appear after the unit is built via python) and why it needs to maintain a certain AC value to keep them (it could overvalue the combat strength of a monk that is about to lose its special promotions). I would just make some simple rule for the strength given by the special monk promotion (maybe min[50, contribution to reduce the AC - (current AC / 2)] ), give it a high AIWeight (so that the AI guesses that building Monks is useful) and make it simpler for the AI to reduce the AC in the ways we discussed earlier.

I like the idea of punishing and rewarding the monk depending on how you used it. In a way similar to what the Repentant Angel does, a Monk could get the Blessed promotion if it defeats a demon, undead or a follower of a religion that would convert it into manes after death. If the Monk defeats an angel or a follower of a religion that would convert it into an angel after death, he would get a temporary Penance promotion which would give -1 combat and would last for a number of turns. Defeating a unit that does not fulfill any of these conditions would have no special effects.

I prefer a promotion paths idea for monks. The special Monk promotion we mentioned could open up the door for taking promotions that are not available normally or are available through far more expensive promotions path. They could for example be able to choose Mobility II with Mobility I and Combat I, Blitz with Combat III and Drill I... This would give an ingame presence to the Civilopedia description of how Monks fight and, together with the effect of the special promotion, would make them worth of being built and used without making them far too dominant in the Elohim strategy.

[lfgr]

You're right. I forgot the AI.

"I would just make some simple rule for the strength given by the special monk promotion (maybe min[50, contribution to reduce the AC - (current AC / 2)] ), give it a high AIWeight (so that the AI guesses that building Monks is useful) and make it simpler for the AI to reduce the AC in the ways we discussed earlier."

That sounds good.

I also like the promotion path thing.

Blessed when defeating a demon is good, but the other thing could really cripple a well-planned invasion of the AI or an inexperienced player (but I also doubt the AI understands the Repentant angel).

[joseasoler]

You are right about the punishment for Monks; better to remove it.

[joseasoler]

The merge with Erebus in the Balance 12.1 is going to buff monks:

Monks gain Drill I and Mobility II. Monks lose 2 base moves. Movement decreased from three to one. Monks can now upgrade to all priest types except Ritualists.

I like the new promotions and the reduced movement; it makes more interesting to upgrade from Monks to other units, and I think that it is very nice that the improvements from being a monk stay.

I don't like the second part that much, though. Although mechanically it may be a great option, there is nothing in the Monk lore that indicates that they usually move to spiritual matters after their training. Therefore I am going to leave it out for now.