The Religious Side
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engage "jetryl" word cannon
(forgive me if I offend anyone in my saying this. I probably shouldn't, because this whole forum will likely attack me en masse, but I think I can make an exception to my new policy of 'not discussing anything' for this. This matters.)
I must say that it bugs me to see what should be the power of a priest given to a wizard. As a religious person, that seems to me to disregard the presence of any supernatural force for good in this game, whilst we quite have a lot of supernatural things which are evil.
I like the white mages, but would like to see them:
1] evolve from acolytes, or some such thing, but not from mages.
2]the idea of holy attacks damaging regular creatures is a bit odd to me. I believe that God would not grant someone the power to smite whatsoever they chose with His power. He would do things only when He chose to. However, for the purposes of gameplay, I think it to be a reasonable concession that He would always grant that when they were set against the undead.
If a priest chose to attack a mortal being - which brings in issues of the priest's credibility and morality before God, I would like to think he could not use heavenly power to smite them.
The issue of course, is whether a priest would fall out of favor with God for having done such a thing.
Shakespeare had a famous line in MacBeth where MacDuff said:
But, gentle heavens,
Cut short all intermission; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too!
Basically, that last line carries an implication that to let a man of great evil escape alive would be a sin (thanks to the word "too"). The idea of carrying judgement in our own hands is an iffy one, but is the basis of such things as crusades and jihad.
So, I believe a reasonable compromise would be to restrict the "holy" attacks to use on units marked as being undeniably evil. And then let priests use only physical attacks against other beings, and scale the scenarios such that they would only be fighting, if ever, on the "good" guy's side.
That's the other thing - in this world, what do people go to if they ever have problems with the supernatural? (he who sayeth Ghostbusters shall recieve a swift kick in the lower quadrant) They go to a priest, regardless of their beliefs.
It is the power of God that is supposed to ward away the unnatural evils of this world, not the power of man. It could also be argued that God would only intervene in earthly affairs when something he had forbidden was taking place (necromancy, for example, or the interference of demons in this world).
Some might consider the very presence of such things as being a mistake on the part of an omniscient God, but some people in the middle ages saw his omniscience as being facilitated by legions of angels which constantly monitored and reported on the doings of this world (I can prove this with a line from St. Benedict's "rule for monasteries", if anyone cares
). I think we could ride with that definition, somewhat, such that if a priest called something to God's attention God would lend him some of His power.
--------------
To my understanding, the current view in the game is that the undead are weakened by the light. A mage of light simply summons a (deliberately ambigous as to whether it is holy or not) light that wounds the creature.
--------------
To a small degree, I think it is somewhat offensive to completely disregard the influence of religion in the game, however, I think that the area where we should be respectful is in the plot, much as we are, right now. Keep it so that the White Mages, or Clerics as I prefer to call them, (moremiru, et al), are on no one's side, or possibly lean a bit toward supporting the anti-Asheviere forces. It's perfect the way it is now - white mages never show up on her side.
Perhaps, after you help moremiru for the first time, or after he returns, you can build acolytes/priests/clerics, but have them be terrible for general combat, such that unless a player is facing undead it would be a burden to have them in the game, and thus the player will not summon them.
Likewise, the player would also probably not use them to engage Asheviere's forces (or much of anything else), which would make them seem rather pacifistic, as they should be.
Perhaps scale their XP to account for them only getting experience during those odd times the player faces undead - perhaps slightly less than a lich takes to level, since they would be an effective counterpart, but would only be effective against the undead, whereas a lich is effective against everything else.
Heck, for that matter, maybe Moremiru could show up later to help Konrad when someone on the queen's side tries to do something involving evil magic. Who knows.
So, there's my 2¢.
I just think that if we include units that are obviously meant to parallel real religious figures, we do a disservice by ignoring their origins, much like thinking that easter is all about some damn rabbit instead of being about the son of god coming back from the dead.
I mean, really. Sad to say, there will, statistically be some people out there who don't get it - there are people out there who have no idea about the actual origin of easter (!!!), at which point I think we have gone too far.
The following are the obvious things that our units are meant to represent, not like anyone doesn't know this (I hope...) . I think the name paladin works just fine, but I think that the white mage should be renamed to what he effectively is.
paladin = crusading knight, knight templar
white mage = priest
one of many possible advancement lines for priests would be:
acolyte, deacon, cleric, priest, cardinal
that's the other nice thing about acquiescing to this, in that we have so many beautiful names to choose from then
I must say that it bugs me to see what should be the power of a priest given to a wizard. As a religious person, that seems to me to disregard the presence of any supernatural force for good in this game, whilst we quite have a lot of supernatural things which are evil.
I like the white mages, but would like to see them:
1] evolve from acolytes, or some such thing, but not from mages.
2]the idea of holy attacks damaging regular creatures is a bit odd to me. I believe that God would not grant someone the power to smite whatsoever they chose with His power. He would do things only when He chose to. However, for the purposes of gameplay, I think it to be a reasonable concession that He would always grant that when they were set against the undead.
If a priest chose to attack a mortal being - which brings in issues of the priest's credibility and morality before God, I would like to think he could not use heavenly power to smite them.
The issue of course, is whether a priest would fall out of favor with God for having done such a thing.
Shakespeare had a famous line in MacBeth where MacDuff said:
But, gentle heavens,
Cut short all intermission; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too!
Basically, that last line carries an implication that to let a man of great evil escape alive would be a sin (thanks to the word "too"). The idea of carrying judgement in our own hands is an iffy one, but is the basis of such things as crusades and jihad.
So, I believe a reasonable compromise would be to restrict the "holy" attacks to use on units marked as being undeniably evil. And then let priests use only physical attacks against other beings, and scale the scenarios such that they would only be fighting, if ever, on the "good" guy's side.
That's the other thing - in this world, what do people go to if they ever have problems with the supernatural? (he who sayeth Ghostbusters shall recieve a swift kick in the lower quadrant) They go to a priest, regardless of their beliefs.
It is the power of God that is supposed to ward away the unnatural evils of this world, not the power of man. It could also be argued that God would only intervene in earthly affairs when something he had forbidden was taking place (necromancy, for example, or the interference of demons in this world).
Some might consider the very presence of such things as being a mistake on the part of an omniscient God, but some people in the middle ages saw his omniscience as being facilitated by legions of angels which constantly monitored and reported on the doings of this world (I can prove this with a line from St. Benedict's "rule for monasteries", if anyone cares
). I think we could ride with that definition, somewhat, such that if a priest called something to God's attention God would lend him some of His power.--------------
To my understanding, the current view in the game is that the undead are weakened by the light. A mage of light simply summons a (deliberately ambigous as to whether it is holy or not) light that wounds the creature.
--------------
To a small degree, I think it is somewhat offensive to completely disregard the influence of religion in the game, however, I think that the area where we should be respectful is in the plot, much as we are, right now. Keep it so that the White Mages, or Clerics as I prefer to call them, (moremiru, et al), are on no one's side, or possibly lean a bit toward supporting the anti-Asheviere forces. It's perfect the way it is now - white mages never show up on her side.
Perhaps, after you help moremiru for the first time, or after he returns, you can build acolytes/priests/clerics, but have them be terrible for general combat, such that unless a player is facing undead it would be a burden to have them in the game, and thus the player will not summon them.
Likewise, the player would also probably not use them to engage Asheviere's forces (or much of anything else), which would make them seem rather pacifistic, as they should be.
Perhaps scale their XP to account for them only getting experience during those odd times the player faces undead - perhaps slightly less than a lich takes to level, since they would be an effective counterpart, but would only be effective against the undead, whereas a lich is effective against everything else.
Heck, for that matter, maybe Moremiru could show up later to help Konrad when someone on the queen's side tries to do something involving evil magic. Who knows.
So, there's my 2¢.
I just think that if we include units that are obviously meant to parallel real religious figures, we do a disservice by ignoring their origins, much like thinking that easter is all about some damn rabbit instead of being about the son of god coming back from the dead.
I mean, really. Sad to say, there will, statistically be some people out there who don't get it - there are people out there who have no idea about the actual origin of easter (!!!), at which point I think we have gone too far.
The following are the obvious things that our units are meant to represent, not like anyone doesn't know this (I hope...) . I think the name paladin works just fine, but I think that the white mage should be renamed to what he effectively is.
paladin = crusading knight, knight templar
white mage = priest
one of many possible advancement lines for priests would be:
acolyte, deacon, cleric, priest, cardinal
that's the other nice thing about acquiescing to this, in that we have so many beautiful names to choose from then
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Elvish_Pillager
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Re: engage "jetryl" word cannon
I argee with your whole post, especially this. This is where the scenarios for the religious campaign come from.Jetryl wrote:It is the power of God that is supposed to ward away the unnatural evils of this world, not the power of man. It could also be argued that God would only intervene in earthly affairs when something he had forbidden was taking place (necromancy, for example, or the interference of demons in this world).
About Mika's Fanatics idea: Good idea, but won't they then become warriors of choice? Fast attacks are quite effective.
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
uhhhh ... I really think the idea I was trying to posit was that we help to respect religion by acknowledging it but do not make it a overbearing facet of the game.
The idea is we avoid potential misrepresentation of it by not having it be too active a "player" on the stage of our game. I shudder at the thought of a "religiously oriented" campaign, with people fighting holy wars against each other.
The only way one should involve the clergy is if some evil force comes boiling out of the woodwork to harm humanity (*cough* - turin, eastern invasion). Otherwise, keep them out of this, really.
What I just said - those are the only times they should have any involvement in the fighting in HttT. White mages attacking fellow men seems just bonk if you ask me.
The idea is we avoid potential misrepresentation of it by not having it be too active a "player" on the stage of our game. I shudder at the thought of a "religiously oriented" campaign, with people fighting holy wars against each other.
The only way one should involve the clergy is if some evil force comes boiling out of the woodwork to harm humanity (*cough* - turin, eastern invasion). Otherwise, keep them out of this, really.
What I just said - those are the only times they should have any involvement in the fighting in HttT. White mages attacking fellow men seems just bonk if you ask me.
I mean, one thing you could do would be to either add your units into turin's campaign - "the brave soldiers find that the evil forces of the undead are too great and terrible for them to counter, and call on the aid of the devout monks of suchAndSuch abbey," or something crass like that.
Which might help his scenario to resolve better, plotwise...
Or make your own scenario where the monks start out the game battling the undead.
but .... echh..
The changes to the units that I proposed above would effectively prevent a "good" cleric from doing bad things, like killing his fellow man. Sure, someone could do it, but it would be strategic idiocy. I mean, hey, some people get off by trying to make their "Sims" get naked, and I'm sure some freak would love to go around killing people with a priest, heck, they could already, as there's not much keeping the white mage from being renamed to priest, - but what I suggest is a change so that it will not happen casually, and thus, not cause a moral dilemma.
There is a bit of one right now, as nearly anyone does subconsiously (at some level) think of those guys as priests right now, and they can currently go around effectively wasting melee units with their attack. Even 5x4 w/ magic is pretty dangerous.
I mean, we label that attack as being Holy, after all. Let's just be consistent.
Which might help his scenario to resolve better, plotwise...
Or make your own scenario where the monks start out the game battling the undead.
but .... echh..
The changes to the units that I proposed above would effectively prevent a "good" cleric from doing bad things, like killing his fellow man. Sure, someone could do it, but it would be strategic idiocy. I mean, hey, some people get off by trying to make their "Sims" get naked, and I'm sure some freak would love to go around killing people with a priest, heck, they could already, as there's not much keeping the white mage from being renamed to priest, - but what I suggest is a change so that it will not happen casually, and thus, not cause a moral dilemma.
There is a bit of one right now, as nearly anyone does subconsiously (at some level) think of those guys as priests right now, and they can currently go around effectively wasting melee units with their attack. Even 5x4 w/ magic is pretty dangerous.
I mean, we label that attack as being Holy, after all. Let's just be consistent.
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zinder
Ive always thought of the holy attack as of a black hole. You know, it burns mana(or whatever you wanna call it) of the target and lessens its energy. A holy attack targets the, for lack of better word, soul.
Since undead have only a small amount of energy which makes alive, they are hit much harder than a real living being.
For the religious side, i think we should avoid a religion.
Regarding the units of you proposed: I think the Mages of Light are the closet we should get to a priest. For fanatics and monks, i think they are OK. Fanatics arent only religious. And monks are simply people, who decided to concentrate their living on a single subject/object. For martyrs its the same as for fanatics, but i think they should very bad fighter, but have leadership.
Since undead have only a small amount of energy which makes alive, they are hit much harder than a real living being.
For the religious side, i think we should avoid a religion.
Regarding the units of you proposed: I think the Mages of Light are the closet we should get to a priest. For fanatics and monks, i think they are OK. Fanatics arent only religious. And monks are simply people, who decided to concentrate their living on a single subject/object. For martyrs its the same as for fanatics, but i think they should very bad fighter, but have leadership.
Personally, my preference would be to have very little supernatural in the game -- some mages, yes, but no undead, or other such beings. However, I respect that others have a mindshare in the game too.
The concept for white mages in the game actually preceeds there being undead. The primary original purpose for white mages was to offer healing, as opposed to red mages, who would be best suited in combat. White mages now are good against undead, and good at healing, which I do think is strategically interesting.
Priests, clerics, etc, might be people in a storyline sequence who you go to for counsel, but they don't fight in battles imo.
David
The concept for white mages in the game actually preceeds there being undead. The primary original purpose for white mages was to offer healing, as opposed to red mages, who would be best suited in combat. White mages now are good against undead, and good at healing, which I do think is strategically interesting.
Priests, clerics, etc, might be people in a storyline sequence who you go to for counsel, but they don't fight in battles imo.
David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
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Neoriceisgood
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Tenenenenen, if there's something wrong in the neighbourhood, who you gonna call? GHOST BUSTERS! if there's something strange...and it don't look good, who you gonna call? GHOST BUSTERS! Tenenenenene!That's the other thing - in this world, what do people go to if they ever have problems with the supernatural? (he who sayeth Ghostbusters shall recieve a swift kick in the lower quadrant) They go to a priest, regardless of their beliefs.
::cough::
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Elvish_Pillager
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Oh, no. Now it's "Keep the martyrs in the second rank and make sure they don't die."zinder wrote:For martyrs its the same as for fanatics, but i think they should very bad fighter, but have leadership.
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
Martyrs should not be units. After all, you can onl become a martyr when you are, well, killed, and when you're dead you can't fight.
I think it is fine for mages to advance to white mages, and i will explain why:
I think of mages as people of learning. As they are 1st level, they are still 'learning', still deciding what to become (white or red mage?), etc. So when they graduate, or, as it is called, 'advance', they can choose to become a priest, called a 'white mage', which, IMHO, can be though of as "holy man of learning". However, they can also choose not to become a priest, in which case they become just a normal red mage.
also, i think white mages should be allowed to fight, and, yes, do a lot of damage to enemies, because the enemy is always evil. It is OK to kill another human if you are in a just war against them, and i think God would probably allow them to use their power against those who they are in a just war against.
As to what was said about my campaign, here is my view. Dacyn is like a priest, he is Gweddry's advisor. (I actually plan to turn him into a different unit that is even more like a priest). You can get priests (white mages), but you have to guide them through from their days of learning to where they are ready to recieve their vocation. However, i don't want to explain this explicitly in the game.
I think it is fine for mages to advance to white mages, and i will explain why:
I think of mages as people of learning. As they are 1st level, they are still 'learning', still deciding what to become (white or red mage?), etc. So when they graduate, or, as it is called, 'advance', they can choose to become a priest, called a 'white mage', which, IMHO, can be though of as "holy man of learning". However, they can also choose not to become a priest, in which case they become just a normal red mage.
also, i think white mages should be allowed to fight, and, yes, do a lot of damage to enemies, because the enemy is always evil. It is OK to kill another human if you are in a just war against them, and i think God would probably allow them to use their power against those who they are in a just war against.
As to what was said about my campaign, here is my view. Dacyn is like a priest, he is Gweddry's advisor. (I actually plan to turn him into a different unit that is even more like a priest). You can get priests (white mages), but you have to guide them through from their days of learning to where they are ready to recieve their vocation. However, i don't want to explain this explicitly in the game.
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Elvish_Pillager
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Mages are lawful? I forgot about that...they really shouldn't be, IMHO. It makes sense for a neutral unit to advance to a lawful one, since it is gaining something, but not vv, since it would be losing something.Elvish Pillager wrote:If so, why are Mages lawful when Red Mages are not?
For I am Turin Turambar - Master of Doom, by doom mastered. On permanent Wesbreak. Will not respond to private messages. Sorry!
And I hate stupid people.
The World of Orbivm
And I hate stupid people.
The World of Orbivm
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Elvish_Pillager
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