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Total Members Voted: 69

[WillowLuman]

Yes. Also, it should be noted they don't actually use the paralyzing interaction.

[Halfling]

Of course not. Just colorful language. Making them more rare to encounter or the average adherent less dominatingly godlike (you should not have so many gods) will stop my crying, regardless of how you handle the mechanics.

Note that in adventurer mode visiting fortresses looking for equipment is very commonplace so that would be how you meet your local adherents. Or how I do.

[WillowLuman]

They're not quite godlike. They're impotent against the thoughtless, and (I think) can only use the damage interaction (brain stab) on one thing at a time. As for their attack power, it doesn't matter so much what they're fighting as how many. 4 things they can lock down, but 8 will close the distance. The Gifteds are more powerful, and can throw things around, but if you think about it, even their offensive powers are more in line with talented mages than gods. Assaulting their Monasteries is nigh-impossible, but as far as I can tell, they travel only in groups of 4 or less.

They're very powerful, yes, but also detached from the world. The solution to meet my thematic goal would be to ensure the rarity of their monasteries. Adding more civs would help, since the game tries to add 1 of everything before it goes back around for 2nds. Turning the biome support down a notch could help, too.

[Halfling]

Well, in arena mode testing, a gifted adherent kills 8 storm dragons no problem, while a regular adherent just debuffs many of them and locks all in combat forever. If given a spear such as mine found, they're able to kill so many too, only losing their robe. This should make them megabeasts by the logic used earlier, but I guess...

However, to convey the mood here better, consider that now appealing to the precedent of the adherents that they're in, I could make a race of "supermen". They're a civilization of magical golems from another star. This civilization is never hostile to you, the player, so it doesn't strictly speaking break the game. There's only five thousand of them, a few towns on every continent. They come visit you occasionally. They're made of a modded unbreakable iridium, simply can't be killed and can turn everything hostile on the map into stone (oculentibus interaction, range 100, no LOS, attack).

The adherents obviously have more fluff and work slower, but that's the general idea. Does this contribute to the gaming experience or detract from it? Good or bad ambiance?

Anyway rarity would be good but I don't know. That's just my POV. Would be nice to hear from someone else in this debate too.

[WillowLuman]

Think of them more like the Kung-Fu monks archetype. Incredible power from insight and meditation, but insular and detached. Occasionally comes out to raise awareness about their religion and trade for little things. For them to work thematically, they must be mysterious, powerful, and withdrawn. I intend that those with high Willpower can resist their powers (needs testing). The basic idea is that for one to become an Adherent of the Mind, they must cease to care much about physical world, eventually all but abandoning it (hence the lack of bodies).

I'd intended that the main reason for trading with them would be some nifty cloth they make by telekinetically arranging molecules, but the don't seem to produce it. With Putnam's update, their useful goods will be flax, logs, and hive products.

Right now there's two things (that I know of) that they're vulnerable to:
-Occulentibus
-Each other
-Plus the usual things (crushing, freezing, encasing in obsidian).

Bear in mind that when I introduced them, I said there's currently no convenient way to kill them. I wanted to avoid some "hit with silver bullet" method, so I'd intended to allow Adventurers to learn mind powers and be able to slay them in a mental battle. At some point there should be other creatures who possess mental powers, perhaps not as broad as those of beings of pure thought, but potent enough to allow them to do non-physical battle. I think it would make sense for Formic Queens to have innate Psionic ability, what with the whole hive mind thing.

PS: I have never, EVER seen anyone but the player actually pick up an item in adventure mode, and never seen non-player units in fort mode pick up weapons lying around, so I'm still skeptical of the claim that they're grabbing spears. It's quite odd and puzzling.

Also, try pitting them against Treelords. I've never seen that fight end.

[Halfling]

Yeah, they have fluff. The point above, however, was that the precedent of being able to make incredibly powerful, supermegabeast, invulnerable creatures appear in the thousands and as a frequent gameplay element needs serious consideration and discretion. That's the type of stuff that can ruin your gameplay and your experience. Are you happy with inclusion of the supermen when the raws for those are posted y/n?

Ironically if they could be killed with weapons of a particular material easily this would seem much less ridiculous. I wish I had read the raws before. And I honestly didn't realize all the things that can follow from "a civilization that can't be killed by ordinary means", I imagined they'd be like one monastery of a few people that you explore, admire and don't go challenging, comparable to a vanilla tower and necromancers, not regular players in the game.

PS: I have never, EVER seen anyone but the player actually pick up an item in adventure mode, and never seen non-player units in fort mode pick up weapons lying around, so I'm still skeptical of the claim that they're grabbing spears. It's quite odd and puzzling.

Above is the screencap, page 169. Unless the claim is that I hacked, altered the raws or shopped it. The adherent in question may have grabbed it in wrestling. There's plenty of reports of creatures grabbing equipment in fortress mode (the special sock a bronze colossus will kill your military with).


Seriously though, anyone else, let us know what you want. Is the inclusion of invulnerable instant unconsciousness-causing civilizations k/not? These are just our opinions here.

[WillowLuman]

Yeah, the only explaination I can think of is that is wrestled the spear away. I was referring to picking up weapons, though, not wresting them from their wielders. Never seen other units in adventure mode or fort mode pick them up off the ground. Not ever. So they wont arrive with weapons, and won't get them unless they just happen to grapple with a unit, by the weapon itself.

Not accusing you of hacking or photoshopping, because why would you, I was just confused as to what I was seeing.

I imagined they'd be like one monastery of a few people that you explore, admire and don't go challenging, comparable to a vanilla tower and necromancers, not regular players in the game.

This was the intent. I don't know why they're appearing en masse in your worlds, but ideally there should only be 1-2 monasteries in a small world, and 5-10 in a large one.

I'd hardly call them a frequent gameplay element, nor is that the intent. They send a tiny caravan (soon only in the Winter), sell practically nothing, and otherwise can only be encountered by visiting their remote sites. Their only purpose in fort mode right now is so people can see them, and pick on them if they feel like it. They don't even do much in history, just sit there and try to defend themselves against monster rampages.

Even as is, they're not really intrusive to the game experience. They don't even have siege tokens right now, so I'm not sure if you even can pick a fight with them in fort mode.

[WillowLuman]

Sorry for double post

I think I see what's happening. [MAX_POP_NUMBER] is by civ, not by race, so 11000 might be too high. Set it to 2000 to accommodate for hermits and mass deaths, see if that reduces the number of monasteries.

[Halfling]

Yeah, the only explaination I can think of is that is wrestled the spear away. I was referring to picking up weapons, though, not wresting them from their wielders. Never seen other units in adventure mode or fort mode pick them up off the ground. Not ever. So they wont arrive with weapons, and won't get them unless they just happen to grapple with a unit, by the weapon itself.

Not accusing you of hacking or photoshopping, because why would you, I was just confused as to what I was seeing.

I imagined they'd be like one monastery of a few people that you explore, admire and don't go challenging, comparable to a vanilla tower and necromancers, not regular players in the game.

This was the intent. I don't know why they're appearing en masse in your worlds, but ideally there should only be 1-2 monasteries in a small world, and 5-10 in a large one.

I'd hardly call them a frequent gameplay element, nor is that the intent. They send a tiny caravan (soon only in the Winter), sell practically nothing, and otherwise can only be encountered by visiting their remote sites. Their only purpose in fort mode right now is so people can see them, and pick on them if they feel like it. They don't even do much in history, just sit there and try to defend themselves against monster rampages.

Even as is, they're not really intrusive to the game experience. They don't even have siege tokens right now, so I'm not sure if you even can pick a fight with them in fort mode.

Yeah, okay. And honestly, despite all the steam I've blown (I tend to rant and get excited if you didn't notice), the adherents are not that bad at all, as I've experienced. I mean, all you say is true - I wouldn't call them intrusive. They don't pick fights with you. They kill megabeasts in worldgen but if they send one caravan per year, they won't probably help you so much with one (potential for four is excessive but that's agreed). You can hire one, but then you can sneak+throw pebbles too. I'm more worried about what might result here, and principles of design. And that this mod has a huge tendency to leave anything unfixed and later fixing attempts ending in confusion, so if there's something bad that might result, it should be addressed sooner. So it's more nitpicking and theory than omgfixnow...

The 1 season idea is good. If you wanted to make their monasteries more remote, so you don't just stumble into one, they could be located in unusual biomes so they're not right next to regular ones rather than reducing the number.

Let's let it rest waiting more experiences since nobody else seems to mind right now, or maybe they've gone to bed, as will I

[Timeless Bob]

The kung fu master archetypes each had ranks of "students", "acolytes" and a small horde of servants as well.  Perhaps setting up castes of ever more powerful and rare devotees would be a viable solution? Adding multiple types of mental attacks with differing recharge timers would also liven up their repertoire.

Feel free to use these as an example:

"Acolyte"          9:10 - 10% chance of mind effects with a long duration recharge timer
"Initiate"          9:100 - 30% chance of mind effects with a long duration recharge timer
                               or 10% chance of mind effects with a medium duration recharge timer
"Adept"            9:1,000 - 60% chance of mind effects with a long duration recharge timer
                                  or 30% chance of mind effects with a medium duration recharge timer
                                  or 10% chance of mind effects with a short duration recharge timer
"Master"           9:10,000 - 100% chance of mind effects with a long duration recharge timer
                                     or 60% chance of mind effects with a medium duration recharge timer
                                     or 30% chance of mind effects with a short duration recharge timer
                                     or 10% chance of mind effects with an instant recharge timer
"Grandmaster"  1:10,000 - 100% chance of mind effects with a medium duration recharge timer
                                     or 60% chance of mind effects with a short duration recharge timer
                                     or 30% chance of mind effects with an instant duration recharge timer


As to "common metals", You guys already have lots of big bugs in your world, why not set up a workshop to boil chitin into resin ingots, then do "resin molding" using numbers of remelted ingots poured into whatever mold you want to make out of sand or dirt or clay?  Shields, armors, furniture and mechanisms could be made this way quite well without having to dig it out of the ground.

[Cain12]

By the way, has someone made a civilization for the dragonkin, yet?  I gave permission for anyone to do so, but I don't know if anyone has.

Well it's not on the latest version, I haven't seen it mentioned, and no one else replied so I assume they either PMed you (based on the last few days that ain't likely) or are waiting to see if someone did make it and didn't mention it/was forgotten to crop up. So I assume no one has.

Edit: In regards to an adherent, they sound over powered, cool fluff or not. Like Bob's idea, would make them less over powered.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Hey, Hugo and Halfling, you're forgetting something when you say they are non-hostile: because of a tag for civilization fluff, Lizardfolk have everyone hostile to them (I had added that to simulate other civilizations snatching lizardfolk children to raise the proud warriors for their army).   You cannot say "This civilization is never hostile to you, the player" because the Lizardfolk break that paradigm.

[kero42]

I agree with the general sentiment that adherents are a tad overpowered and too numerous, at least for my tastes, and agree that they should be split into ranks or such. After all, a master of the arts would be much more powerful than lesser practitioners, yes? I could imagine grand masters being able make brains bleed with a thought, but most of the others learning in the monastery would probably be much, much weaker, barely able to use their powers at all, or at least not nearly a well. Then again, I wouldn't know how to organise or implement the change, so I suppose theres not much else for me to say in the matter.

[WillowLuman]

Hey, Hugo and Halfling, you're forgetting something when you say they are non-hostile: because of a tag for civilization fluff, Lizardfolk have everyone hostile to them (I had added that to simulate other civilizations snatching lizardfolk children to raise the proud warriors for their army).   You cannot say "This civilization is never hostile to you, the player" because the Lizardfolk break that paradigm.

Although, they have no siege tags, and ethics that prevent them from starting wars in worldgen. I am confident that if you're playing as lizardfolk, the Adherents will not attack.

Fun fact, the Adherents are already split into 3 ranks: Acolytes, who are identical to Hobbits; Adherents, the standard caste; and Gifted Adherents, who are rare but have more powerful attacks.

Here's the thing: We don't actually know if any of the things we're saying are actually happening. We have a lot of speculation but not much test data, especially for Fort mode. Therefore, we ought to play the game and see if there is actually a problem before we start nerfing things.

As to "common metals", You guys already have lots of big bugs in your world, why not set up a workshop to boil chitin into resin ingots, then do "resin molding" using numbers of remelted ingots poured into whatever mold you want to make out of sand or dirt or clay?  Shields, armors, furniture and mechanisms could be made this way quite well without having to dig it out of the ground.

Why not have both? "Chitin ingots" are still a bizarre fantasy material, and could use a standard point of comparison, but are also cool. Chitin is not a resin, though, it's a protein, similar to keratin. It burns rather than melts. I think we already have something like this, with "prepared chitin" stuff.

[Putnam]

Lizardfolk are built in such a way that Adherents are at war with them regardless of ethics.

The lack of siege tags doesn't mean they can't send ambushes if they have any other pop triggers.