This is the rough draft of the system that will be used by the Deities games.
Each land tile on the map is controlled by one of the civilizations in the game. The tile is displayed with that civilization's color. Neutral tiles are gray. Desert and water tiles can't be controlled by anyone.
Who controls which tile is important because map tiles generate mana for their owners. To take control of a tile, the civilization must have a unit move onto it. The civilization retains control of the tile until another civilization moves a unit there.
The types of terrain are listed below.
| Name | Defense Bonus | Food Production |
|---|---|---|
| City | 25% (or 50% with City Walls) | 2 |
| Demonic Gateway | 0% | 0 |
| Desert | 0% | 0 |
| Grassland | 0% | 1 |
| Water | 0% | 2 |
* Only air units can move over water terrain.
A demonic gateway is a special terrain type that summons a demon each turn. Demonic gateways can only be closed by units with the Close Demonic Gateway ability.
A military unit has the following statistics:
| Name | Attack/Defense | Heal Rate | Movement | Special |
| Neutral Units | ||||
| Airship | 4/1 | 0 | 5 | Advanced, Bombard, Flying, Sees Stealth Units |
| Archer | 2/1 | 1 | 1 | Ranged Attack |
| Catapult | 6/1 | 0 | 1 | Advanced, Bombard |
| Militia | 1/1 | 1 | 1 | Join City |
| Pikeman | 1/3 | 1 | 1 | |
| Settler | 0/1 | 1 | 1 | Build City |
| Evil Units | ||||
| Assassin | 4/2 | 0 | 2 | Advanced, Assassinate, Stealth |
| Deity (Evil) | 8/4 | 1 | 3 | Faith Manipulation, Flying, Vampiric |
| Demon | 6/3 | 1 | 1 | |
| Dragon | 4/4 | 1 | 5 | Advanced, Flying |
| Giant Bat | 1/1 | 1 | 3 | Flying, Stealth |
| Necromancer | 1/1 | 0 | 1 | Faith Manipulation, Ranged Attack |
| Slave | 0/1 | 0 | 1 | Labor in City |
| Good Units | ||||
| Archon | 3/5 | 1 | 2 | Close Demonic Gateway |
| Blessed Mother | 1/1 | 1 | 2 | Faith Manipulation, Ranged Attack |
| Deity (Good) | 5/5 | 2 | 2 | Close Demonic Gateway, Faith Manipulation |
| Griffon | 3/4 | 2 | 5 | Advanced, Flying |
| Hearth Guard | 0/5 | 1 | 0 | Advanced |
| Holy Virgin | 1/1 | 1 | 2 | Faith Manipulation |
| Knight | 3/3 | 1 | 2 |
Up to 12 units can be stacked into one army. Units in the same army move and fight together. The movement rate of the whole unit is equal to that of the slowest unit in the army.
Land units may only be stacked with other land units, and air units may only be stacked with other air units.
Each civilization has one deity. The deity is much more powerful than any other unit and has the ability to manipulate faith. Moreover, deities can be ressurected by other faith-manipulating units of their civilization.
Necromancers may ressurect their deity by using the "Infest Slave" ability. Holy Virgins may ressurect their deity with their "Virgin Birth" ability, but using this ability causes the Holy Virgins to become Blessed Mothers.
Each grassland tile generates 1 point of mana for its owner.
Each city generates labor equal to the number of citizens in the city. Food is generated by each "worked" tile adjacent to the city. Each citizen in the city can work one tile, and the amount of food it generates depends upon the terrain.
Cities store food each turn, and citizens each eat 1 food per turn. If there's no food for a citizen to eat, the citizen starves. If ten times the amount of food required to support the city's citizens is stored, the city gains 1 citizen and loses half of that food.
Each military unit regains 1 HP if its wounded (HP can never exceed level). Within cities, military units regain an extra 1 HP. Military units that are in armies with Holy Virgins or Blessed Mothers regain an extra 1 HP.
Any city that has enough labor to produce the unit or holding it's constructing constructs it. A new type of production is assigned, but it may be changed by the player.
Demonic gateways produce 1 demon each. If the gateway-creating civilization has a unit on the same tile as the demonic gateway, the demon eats the weakest unit on the tile and joins the civilization. Otherwise, the demon attack randomly. Demonic gateways also randomly convert adjacent tiles to desert (2% of converting any adjacent tile per turn, only grasslands and gardens are affected).
Allied units on the same tile may be combined into armies that move together. Armies can be seperated as well.
Moving an army onto the same tile as an enemy army causes the army to attack the enemy army. Attacking ends the turns of all the attacking units.
Armies may move a distance up to the minimum movement rate of the army's units. If the army moves onto a tile containing an enemy army, combat starts. No more than 12 allied army units may occupy one tile.
Units may also use special abilities during this phase. Using a special ability ends the unit's turn.
During this phase, the player may change what his cities are producing.
Each city contains a number of citizens. When the city is first built, it contains only 1 citizen but can gain more later. The number of citizens in a city determines how much it can produce.
A city contains a number of holdings. Each holding is built using the citizens' labor. Once built, the holding improves the city in some way. Each holding requires 50 points of labor to build.
During combat, the units will be ranked so that bombardment, ranged, and noncombat units are in the back row, and melee and vampiric units are in the front. Melee and vampiric units can only attack the front row, so this protects the other units.
If there are no melee or vampiric units, half of the back row units will be placed in the front row and the other half in the back. When there's an odd number of units, the extra unit will be placed in the front row. Ranged units in the front row can't attack.
Each row will be ordered by how powerful the units are. A unit's power is the sum of its attack and defense statistics.
During the first turn of combat, the armies are moving into range of eachother. For this reason, bombardment units can attack, but melee/vampiric units can't. Hence the first combat turn proceeds as follows:
Later combat turns proceed as follows:
When attacking, there is a chance equal to ([Attacker's Attack] + ([Attacker's Morale] - [Defender's Morale]) / 2) / ([Attacker's Attack] + [Defender's Defense]) chance that the attacker wins. If the attacker wins, the defender loses 1 HP. If the attacker loses, the attacker only loses 1 HP if its using a melee or vampiric attack.
Note that the defender's defense value is increased by the terrain's defense bonus (rounded up).
After combat is over, each surviving unit has a 2% chance of gaining a point of morale.
Some units can manipulate faith. Manipulating faith causes something useful to happen, but it also spends some of your civilization's faith. Faith can only be manipulated when the civilization has enough faith to do so.
What effects Faith Manipulation has depends upon two things: the unit's morale and whether the unit is good or evil. The various effects are listed below.
Faith costs (if any) are listed in parentheses after the name of the special ability.
Some abilities are used automatically, while others must be selected.
Animate Skeleton (25) - The character gains a skeleton ally. This can only be used if there are corpses available.
Animate Zombie (35) - The character gains a zombie ally instead of a skeleton. This can only be used if there are corpses available.
Heal (10) - Heals all allied units by 1 point each.
Morale Bonus - All allied units in the same army gain 1 point of morale during combat. Multiple morale bonus effects are not cumulative.
Purify (25) - Causes 1 point of damage to every evil enemy unit.
Assassinate - The unit may attack a specific unit within an army. No other units may intervene. Multiple units with the assassinate ability may attack the unit together.
Bombard - The unit attacks an adjacent army or city. The victims can only attack the bombarding unit if they have the bombard ability as well. Multiple units with the bombard ability may attack together.
Bounty - The map tile the unit is standing on has a 5% chance of being improved. Deserts are improved to grasslands, and grasslands are improved to gardens. Other types of terrain can't be improved.
Build City - Builds a city with a population of 1 and no holdings or units. The builder is living in the city, so the building unit disappears. Cities can't be built next to other cities.
Capture Slave (10) - Captures a citizen in a city, converting it to a slave. This ability can't be used on cities that have City Walls.
Close Demonic Gateway (25) - Closes a demonic gateway in the same map tile as the unit.
Create Demon Gateway (200) - Creates a demon gateway at the character's current position.
Fast Healing - Units in the same army as this unit experience a doubled healing rate.
Free Slaves (35) - Frees all the slaves in the affected city. They join this character's civilization as militia. This ability can't be used against cities with City Walls.
Infect City (75) - Infects an army or city with the plague. City population is reduced by half, and each army unit has a 50% chance of being destroyed. This ability can't be used against cities that have City Walls.
Infest Slave (30) - Converts a slave into the unit's deity. This ability can only be used when the deity is dead.
Join City - The unit joins the city it's in. The unit disappears.
Labor in City - The slave labors in the city it's in instead of being a seperate unit.
Restore Tile - The unit can work on a desert tile for 10 turns to restore it to being a grassland.
Sacrifice Slave - The character sacrifices a slave to gain faith equal to this character's morale tiled.
Stealth - The unit can only be seen by units with the Stealth Sight ability.
Stealth Sight - Allows the unit to see units that have the Stealth ability.
Summon Archon (50) - This unit can summon an archon ally.
Troop Carrier - The unit can carry up to 6 land units.
Virgin Birth (40) - Ressurects the unit's deity. When a Holy Virgin uses this ability, she becomes a Blessed Mother and can no longer use this ability. This ability can only be used when the deity is dead.
The cost of a unit is the sum of the costs of all the unit's abilities. The different unit abilities are listed below. Some abilites can have be varying levels of power, in which case the cost depends upon the ability's level.
| Unit Ability | Cost (in labor or mana) |
| Assassinate | 5 |
| Attack (Bombard) | 2 per level |
| Attack (Melee) | 1 per level |
| Attack (Ranged) | 2 per level |
| Attack (Vampiric) | 2 per level |
| Build City | 5 |
| Close Demonic Gateway | 10 |
| Defense | 2 per level |
| Faith Manipulation | 5 |
| Heal Rate | 1 per level |
| Join City | 2 |
| Labor in City | 3 |
| Movement (1) | 1 |
| Movement (2) | 3 |
| Movement: Air (3) | 5 |
| Movement: Air (5) | 10 |
| Restore Tile | 3 |
| Stealth | 4 |
| Stealth Sight | 2 |
| Troop Carrier | 5 |
The Attack (Bombard), Attack (Melee), Attack (Ranged), Attack (Vampiric), Defense, Hit Points, Heal Rate, and Movement abilities raise the specified statistic. A character may have only 1 of the 4 attack types.
Copyright (C) 2005-2006 Steven Fletcher. All rights reserved.
