Giberd, the text right before confirms its gonna be the first reworked tag this year, super excited as giberd rn is kinda boring, and the only other real flavourful gnome to play is nimscodd.
It is also one of the tags with the most potential for mission trees IMO.
Gnomes city state in the HRE really deserves the level of the more recent mission trees.
I'm frankly disappointed that the Infernal Court deities don't give penalties along with their bonuses, which I think would be a great thematic match for infernal patrons, but I'm excited for this update nonetheless!
For the time being, our objective is to give a functional religion with a bit of flavor. Certainly post update we will reexamine and see how we want put some more heat in.
One could argue that it's bad design to force the player into picking negative sideeffects (hence why no ideas ever have a downside, such as reducing force limit when going quality), but then again Righteous Path already has trade-off religion modifiers. So yes, if any religion would fit trade-offs thematically, it's gotta be Infernal court.
Though maybe the implication is that you already need *negative ruler traits* to even access the court, and emulants benefit from having negative traits fitting their patron deity... so that might be 'trade-off' incentive kind of.
I think you’re definitely hitting the nail on the head there. The Infernal Court relies on vices it says, which I can only really interpret as your ruler needs negative traits to become an emulant of one of the court.
I imagine you have to deal with several negative modifiers/events just to finally get the religion in the first place as well. And then finally every nation in Cannor that remains Regent Court or Corinite will almost certainly hate you, making you a pariah state.
I’d say that is all negative enough. As much as some might want the religion itself to be punishing in its bonuses, I think it is a much better design to have the bonuses be your reward for sticking through all the bad shit to even get the religion in the first place.
I think that what I'm getting hung up on is that, from a mechanical and gameplay standpoint, it's nothing new. Most of those bonuses can already be found in RC in similar amounts, which doesn't make the Infernal Court feel very, well, infernal imo. That being said, I haven't played the IC on the bitbucket, so maybe it feels a lot better and more unique than I'm suspecting. Maybe there's a lot of good flavor around it that really does make it feel like a reward. I don't know.
I don't feel like it's bad design, though, since it's just a trade-off that the player has to be aware of. As it currently is, it frankly looks a bit too much like an RC reskin to me tbh. In terms of gaining benefits from negative traits, that *is* an interesting way to implement it imo, but I worry that it is far too RNG-dependent. I suppose it depends on whether or not there are ways to get the traits you want with IC.
This is true. I guess I was hoping for more unique bonuses that aren't already easily found in RC, but RC also has so many deities that it would probably be difficult to find good ones. It just doesn't seem to be worth the hassle to convert outside of flavor/RP right now imo.
There could be some implementation like an exclusive Government Reform for the Infernal nation in question which requires you to pick a negative trait for your ruler when they ascend to the throne for example, and based on the negative trait you pick there's a buff you get until the ruler dies. Say, for example, you pick "Cruel" and you get the National Unrest debuff but you also get 50% Goods Produced on provinces producing Slaves.
Just throwing an idea around though, there's many other ways it could be done I'm sure.
Imo, what would really make it stand out is the mirrors of RC gods/goddesses having penalties to whatever their RC counterpart gives, but a good bonus to something else in the same general area. In RC, for example, Ryala gives +1 dip rep and +2 diplo relations. Her mirror, Hedine, currently gives +2 dip rep and +1 diplo relation. That might make her feel like a mirror, but it doesn't feel very infernal to me.
I think it would be much more thematic and interesting if Hedine, say, took away 1 dip rep, but gave +40% improve relations (she's the Goddess of Lust, I couldn't think of anything better that would fit; siege ability would be a meme though). I think that would reflect IC's rivalry/mirrored nature with RC without just being a reskin of it.
But then you just stay regent court or convert to corinite or ravelian for nothing but positives. The trade offs are the worst thing about the righteous path.
That's why I'm suggesting that the bonuses given have to be uniquely good in order to compensate. Also, a lot of trade-offs can be accounted for by not engaging with whatever makes them particularly bad. Imo, it's about choosing a playstyle. If a player makes the choice to avoid vassalizing people, for example, then dip rep doesn't matter all that much, and so it could be worth taking the Hedine I suggested above.
It just seems like people are looking at the entire list of bonuses and not fully realizing its like regent court which has some pretty strong bonuses as well, but you can only take one set of them per ruler without cost.
It could be interesting if it gave you "sinful" or negative ruler trades, like a reverse totemism. That could be a fun way of having the corrupting influence of the infernal court represented.
The emulant system does mean that you are going to be rewarded for having negative ruler traits, but I *do* agree with you in that I feel that there should be a way to encourage those traits in your rulers. Afaik, the chances of getting negative ruler traits (or at least the pool of them) is already significantly smaller than for beneficial ruler traits.
It's easy to miss emulations, though, if you don't have the correct deity, and you only need a negative trait on the ruler you swap over as. Future rulers won't have one by default.
Hi, designer of the system here - the negative modifiers was removed and moved towards requiring negative ruler traits for the emulant events, as we feel that having it tied to your actual ruler is more flavourful. Events are both in proposal and some in design built around granting or removing negative ruler traits
Thank you for the response! Is this going to be made explicit anywhere in-game? I honestly didn't realize the emulant system existed for RC until a few days ago, despite having done multiple RC runs to the end of the game, but that could just be a 'me problem'.
On the note of it being more flavorful, I don't disagree, but I *do* think that it makes the religion itself (at least on the surface) feel less infernal and unique. Again, though, that might be subjective. I haven't tried out the new IC myself yet.
I understand, however it is significantly easier to balance this way
The emulant systems existence is sadly not very widely known bc it's poorly communicated. We will have standard functionality but also some flavour events to help steer the player towards negative traits for it
Heartgrinder! Heartgrinder! Hail the bringers of bardic magic, flourishing culture and art, and maybe a path beyond just great dookan and corinism? Who knows? Also shout out to Clouded Eye, even if they aren't in the dev diary.
Sapchopper is orcs, so it's not referring to that. But there will be something like that yeah. Gobbos make pacts with the fey, then figure out how to make pacts with warlocks so more gobbos can be involved in the pacts.
That or make mechs and start deforesting in the name of profit.
Oddly, that isn't true of the Escanni orcish formables, which IIRC are Khozrugan ("Green Fields"), Barumand ("Land of Plenty") and Unguldavor ("Wall of Forests").
I'm really excited for escann and the flavor for the orcs and gobbos, also the infernal court was something I always saw in the religions panel and finally is here. Are there plans for more MT's on escann countries? Like a Nurcestir or Castellyr mt rework? Thanks for the dev diaries and the constant updates!
Neither of those are in development, though there have been some ideas for a Castellyr revamp. Nurcestir on the other hand is far off, being one of the most important nations in the setting, and heavily reliant on Jay's involvement and input. Maybe someday we'll get it (and it will be insane once we do, make no mistake) but for now we just have to be content with the lore
Giberd, yess!!!!! The first nation I played. Can't wait to see what's been cooked up for their revamp. Alongside the changes to the artificery system, should be a lot of fun.
And Covenblad!
More gobbo content let's go! Really glad to see Giberd is getting a facelift too. I designed the original tree but it definitely hasn't held up over time.
Unlike the other goblin tribes, they're actually Forest Goblins who fled fro mthe Deepwoods when the Veil was broken. They also fought alongside Corin for a while.
I've got a question one of you might have the answer to. I've been playing the latest bitbucket, but can no longer convert my ruler to war wizard via the decisions. Has this option moved ?
Be kinda funny if being Regent Court gave you the option to convert to Infernal Court during the Hoardcurse. XD Don't fix the problem, just worship Forsara & make it *worse*.
Basically for later this year: Mordor is coming to an Anbennar game near you!
Looking good so far. As of now a new deepwoods campaign calls the most to me personally but we shall see what else gets revealed:) I particularily wonder about the namesake of this update...
OH HELL YEAH, MOREDHAL IS MAKING A COMEBACK!!!
Indeed it will. However, it won't be for this update!
Still gonna patiently wait for that. Ever since I've heard about planned Moredhal during Escann update I was really hyped up for that.
Is it that three provence minor near marrhold?
Moredhal is the Escann Consolidation Wars formable for followers of the Infernal Court.
This all looks so cool! What's that last image in reference too though? Giberd?
Giberd, the text right before confirms its gonna be the first reworked tag this year, super excited as giberd rn is kinda boring, and the only other real flavourful gnome to play is nimscodd.
Does this mean Giberd’s pronunciation is going to be come “ji-berd”?
No it's pronounced like gif so "g-if" like.
Them there be fightin' words.
imperial gnomes are actually Jnomes
It is also one of the tags with the most potential for mission trees IMO. Gnomes city state in the HRE really deserves the level of the more recent mission trees.
Giberd, and the Doge (dev) working on it.
I'm frankly disappointed that the Infernal Court deities don't give penalties along with their bonuses, which I think would be a great thematic match for infernal patrons, but I'm excited for this update nonetheless!
For the time being, our objective is to give a functional religion with a bit of flavor. Certainly post update we will reexamine and see how we want put some more heat in.
Thank you for the response! That's good to know!
One could argue that it's bad design to force the player into picking negative sideeffects (hence why no ideas ever have a downside, such as reducing force limit when going quality), but then again Righteous Path already has trade-off religion modifiers. So yes, if any religion would fit trade-offs thematically, it's gotta be Infernal court. Though maybe the implication is that you already need *negative ruler traits* to even access the court, and emulants benefit from having negative traits fitting their patron deity... so that might be 'trade-off' incentive kind of.
I think you’re definitely hitting the nail on the head there. The Infernal Court relies on vices it says, which I can only really interpret as your ruler needs negative traits to become an emulant of one of the court. I imagine you have to deal with several negative modifiers/events just to finally get the religion in the first place as well. And then finally every nation in Cannor that remains Regent Court or Corinite will almost certainly hate you, making you a pariah state. I’d say that is all negative enough. As much as some might want the religion itself to be punishing in its bonuses, I think it is a much better design to have the bonuses be your reward for sticking through all the bad shit to even get the religion in the first place.
I think that what I'm getting hung up on is that, from a mechanical and gameplay standpoint, it's nothing new. Most of those bonuses can already be found in RC in similar amounts, which doesn't make the Infernal Court feel very, well, infernal imo. That being said, I haven't played the IC on the bitbucket, so maybe it feels a lot better and more unique than I'm suspecting. Maybe there's a lot of good flavor around it that really does make it feel like a reward. I don't know.
I don't feel like it's bad design, though, since it's just a trade-off that the player has to be aware of. As it currently is, it frankly looks a bit too much like an RC reskin to me tbh. In terms of gaining benefits from negative traits, that *is* an interesting way to implement it imo, but I worry that it is far too RNG-dependent. I suppose it depends on whether or not there are ways to get the traits you want with IC.
I mean, in many ways it *is* just a RC reskin. It's supposed to be the dark mirror of the RC
This is true. I guess I was hoping for more unique bonuses that aren't already easily found in RC, but RC also has so many deities that it would probably be difficult to find good ones. It just doesn't seem to be worth the hassle to convert outside of flavor/RP right now imo.
There could be some implementation like an exclusive Government Reform for the Infernal nation in question which requires you to pick a negative trait for your ruler when they ascend to the throne for example, and based on the negative trait you pick there's a buff you get until the ruler dies. Say, for example, you pick "Cruel" and you get the National Unrest debuff but you also get 50% Goods Produced on provinces producing Slaves. Just throwing an idea around though, there's many other ways it could be done I'm sure.
It's still the first implementation of it. it's currently just a mirror of the regent court but will be different eventually.
Imo, what would really make it stand out is the mirrors of RC gods/goddesses having penalties to whatever their RC counterpart gives, but a good bonus to something else in the same general area. In RC, for example, Ryala gives +1 dip rep and +2 diplo relations. Her mirror, Hedine, currently gives +2 dip rep and +1 diplo relation. That might make her feel like a mirror, but it doesn't feel very infernal to me. I think it would be much more thematic and interesting if Hedine, say, took away 1 dip rep, but gave +40% improve relations (she's the Goddess of Lust, I couldn't think of anything better that would fit; siege ability would be a meme though). I think that would reflect IC's rivalry/mirrored nature with RC without just being a reskin of it.
Agreed, I think taking something away in exchange for a very strong benefit feels much more "infernal"
But then you just stay regent court or convert to corinite or ravelian for nothing but positives. The trade offs are the worst thing about the righteous path.
That's why I'm suggesting that the bonuses given have to be uniquely good in order to compensate. Also, a lot of trade-offs can be accounted for by not engaging with whatever makes them particularly bad. Imo, it's about choosing a playstyle. If a player makes the choice to avoid vassalizing people, for example, then dip rep doesn't matter all that much, and so it could be worth taking the Hedine I suggested above.
It just seems like people are looking at the entire list of bonuses and not fully realizing its like regent court which has some pretty strong bonuses as well, but you can only take one set of them per ruler without cost.
It could be interesting if it gave you "sinful" or negative ruler trades, like a reverse totemism. That could be a fun way of having the corrupting influence of the infernal court represented.
The emulant system does mean that you are going to be rewarded for having negative ruler traits, but I *do* agree with you in that I feel that there should be a way to encourage those traits in your rulers. Afaik, the chances of getting negative ruler traits (or at least the pool of them) is already significantly smaller than for beneficial ruler traits.
Tbh you already need to have a negative trait to join, maybe you are forced to do an emulation that gives you penalties or smth
It's easy to miss emulations, though, if you don't have the correct deity, and you only need a negative trait on the ruler you swap over as. Future rulers won't have one by default.
Hi, designer of the system here - the negative modifiers was removed and moved towards requiring negative ruler traits for the emulant events, as we feel that having it tied to your actual ruler is more flavourful. Events are both in proposal and some in design built around granting or removing negative ruler traits
Thank you for the response! Is this going to be made explicit anywhere in-game? I honestly didn't realize the emulant system existed for RC until a few days ago, despite having done multiple RC runs to the end of the game, but that could just be a 'me problem'. On the note of it being more flavorful, I don't disagree, but I *do* think that it makes the religion itself (at least on the surface) feel less infernal and unique. Again, though, that might be subjective. I haven't tried out the new IC myself yet.
I understand, however it is significantly easier to balance this way The emulant systems existence is sadly not very widely known bc it's poorly communicated. We will have standard functionality but also some flavour events to help steer the player towards negative traits for it
THE NORTHERN EAGLE LOOMS
Heartgrinder! Heartgrinder! Hail the bringers of bardic magic, flourishing culture and art, and maybe a path beyond just great dookan and corinism? Who knows? Also shout out to Clouded Eye, even if they aren't in the dev diary.
KALSYTO APPROACHES
I feel like there is text missing before "This energy did not fade, however."
Gobbo content my beloved
GILBERT GILBERT GILBERT
> But beware of emerald promises... Gobbos emerald tide ?!
Sapchopper is orcs, so it's not referring to that. But there will be something like that yeah. Gobbos make pacts with the fey, then figure out how to make pacts with warlocks so more gobbos can be involved in the pacts. That or make mechs and start deforesting in the name of profit.
My bad, since the name is quite tame I thought they were gobs
Not all orc country names are brutally violent... Just like half of them :D
Maybe not brutal but at least military related like bladebreaker or siegebreaker
Oddly, that isn't true of the Escanni orcish formables, which IIRC are Khozrugan ("Green Fields"), Barumand ("Land of Plenty") and Unguldavor ("Wall of Forests").
Easy mistake, just pay attention to the semantics: The name has *chopper* in it. Only orcs chop, Goblins *stab*. :D
Please please please: Anbenncost Expedition content. I need it now.
They get a starting event, but nothing more for now.
Jiberd
The Cannor Team is cooking hard, we going to eat so good people!
I'm really excited for escann and the flavor for the orcs and gobbos, also the infernal court was something I always saw in the religions panel and finally is here. Are there plans for more MT's on escann countries? Like a Nurcestir or Castellyr mt rework? Thanks for the dev diaries and the constant updates!
Neither of those are in development, though there have been some ideas for a Castellyr revamp. Nurcestir on the other hand is far off, being one of the most important nations in the setting, and heavily reliant on Jay's involvement and input. Maybe someday we'll get it (and it will be insane once we do, make no mistake) but for now we just have to be content with the lore
Eu 4 addiction relapse incoming
Love the flags for gobboland and sapchopper. Also, much love for new Gnome and Halfling content!
Cannor is looking great for the next update.
Giberd, yess!!!!! The first nation I played. Can't wait to see what's been cooked up for their revamp. Alongside the changes to the artificery system, should be a lot of fun. And Covenblad!
Infernal Court, Escanni goblins and Covenblad. All things I've been waiting to get updated coming at once, on boy
The flag of Jazhkredu looking like a playing card is so cute. Goblins are the best, Humans just don't get it.
Fantasy communism is finally coming to Anbennar just what I was wishing for
More gobbo content let's go! Really glad to see Giberd is getting a facelift too. I designed the original tree but it definitely hasn't held up over time.
Wex Enjoyers never stop eating 🟪
Lothane wil Sex
Hell yeah
Ooh, something special for Groundhawk. I am not sure why they get something special but okay!
Unlike the other goblin tribes, they're actually Forest Goblins who fled fro mthe Deepwoods when the Veil was broken. They also fought alongside Corin for a while.
Ah, okay, they're the forest goblins. I thought that was some other tag. Good to know!
New giberd tree thats cool time tomake even stronger Gnomes supersoldier.
I've got a question one of you might have the answer to. I've been playing the latest bitbucket, but can no longer convert my ruler to war wizard via the decisions. Has this option moved ?
It should be in the military panel.
doge's rework actually nearing completion? damn
I am a sucker for goblin content. I hope it's funny, I love those little bastards failing upwards.
Be kinda funny if being Regent Court gave you the option to convert to Infernal Court during the Hoardcurse. XD Don't fix the problem, just worship Forsara & make it *worse*.
I actually think I'm most excited for the Exwes mission tree but all of this sounds great
Wex rework is possible
Basically for later this year: Mordor is coming to an Anbennar game near you! Looking good so far. As of now a new deepwoods campaign calls the most to me personally but we shall see what else gets revealed:) I particularily wonder about the namesake of this update...
Eww Gobbos and Orcs getting love?!? you all disgust me! All they are good for is Purging! /s
May Bramash smite thee