Beogh conversion

[cerebovssquire]

The current system for Nemelex sacrifices, which allows you to select via the ^! screen which items will be sacrificed upon pressing p, is very well-done and saves a lot of tedium. It gave me an idea to improve (in my opinion) Beogh a bit.

Towards late D/V, you have a good collection of knights and a couple warlords, in my experience, perhaps with sorcerers and high priests thrown in. However, there are also a lot of 'low-level' orcs, namely orcs, orc priests, orc wizards. I find it quite undesirable to have these, since all they do is clog up passageways and occasionally steal a kill. Huge armies are not fun in Crawl, usually, while small bands (the collection of knights and warlords) are easily organised with the 't' commands. The difference in strength between a small army and a large army with a few core forces and a lot of rabble isn't too big either.

So I think that a small screen in ^! would be nice:

  Code:

a + orc
b + orc wizard
c + orc sorcerer
d + orc priest
e + orc high priest
f + orc warrior
g + orc knight
h + orc warlord
i + orc unique


Each type of orc orc could be toggled from + to -, which would disable conversion for that particular type of orc. It would simply remain hostile.
It would usually be undesirable to turn off the high-level orcs and probably also priests (smiting!), but I would probably turn off orcs and wizards and even warriors, if not for optimal play, then for fun's sake. Default settings would leave each type convertable, of course.

Critique?

[onton]

Is there any person who would disable orc warlord or hight priest conversion? Probably you could just unjoin any given orc (release follower?) and he would leave the dungeon like pacified monters do?

[cerebovssquire]

I'd much prefer doing this with one keypress in advance than having to release every orc at once. My goal here is to reduce Beogh tedium a bit, and I don't see how a Dismiss Follower ability would help this. In regards to warlords and high priests, probably not, but it seems weird to leave them out just because nobody will. I value consistency over minimalism.

[absolutego]

i'm generally gameplay over flavour, but disabling conversions this way seems just awful flavour-wise. dpeg wanted to restrict your allies to a fixed number ("the apostles") and let the rest of your followers prance around happily, which should be enough. there are other ideas in the dev wiki, and iirc an implementable that also addresses yred. it's probably a bit of a pain and i'm not sure anyone cares too much, though.

[galehar]

I think it would be simpler and more efficient to automatically limit the number of followers to 12. They would still convert, but only the 12 strongests would follow you around and across levels. The others would just wander around until you come back with room for them in your army.

[Sar]

I wanted to suggest that "toggled off" orcs subtypes would still convert, but stay neutral and just wander there until reached with toggle on, but I like the "apostles" idea as well. The only problem with it I see is in automatically determining the balance between warlords, knights, high priests and sorcerers in your band.

[galehar]

The only problem with it I see is in automatically determining the balance between warlords, knights, high priests and sorcerers in your band.

maximum of 2 wizards and 2 priests, fill the rest with melee dudes.

[jejorda2]

If anyone works on the ^! screen, could ^^ be made into an alternate command to get to the same screen? ^^^ should get to the same screen that ^ leads to. I like how I and II toggle back and forth.

[One-Eyed Jack]

I would like the auto-conversion to make them neutral and then some a ability make them followers.

[sardonica]

Please just somebody make conversion not horribly twiddly so everyone can play them...

[rebthor]

I would like the auto-conversion to make them neutral and then some a ability make them followers.

Not neutral, friendly. Like when you kill Pikel and his slaves are friendly so you can move through them. Neutral would stink in the mines since you'd end up just killing them anyhow.

[cerebovssquire]

The only problem with it I see is in automatically determining the balance between warlords, knights, high priests and sorcerers in your band.

maximum of 2 wizards and 2 priests, fill the rest with melee dudes.

So every Beogh game would end in the same way, with 2 high priests, 2 sorcerers and a mix of knights and warlords? That doesn't sound fun to me, and being able to experiment with different balances in your army (ie the majority are casters) increases replayability. In regards to this, my suggestion allows a high degree of control in addition to optional restrictions on army size. However, I also wouldn't oppose tweaking the apostle system to allow more player control. The '2 priests, 2 wizards' suggestion just shoehorns players into a certain army setup.

[absolutego]

manual selection by class (uniques handled separately) would be best, yes. you're keeping track of all the converted dudes anyway.

[dpeg]

Galehar's suggestion of automatic apostle selection is good. I understand that players want to be able to tune the posse a bit from game to game -- but that should be possible, as it's a global decision (not like equipping every friendly orc). So the ^^ screen should allow you to choose the preferred crew, for example like

a: warriors [none, some, any]
b: mages [none, some, any]
c: priests [none, some, any]

By the way, not really on-topic but then again not fully off-topic either: I reiterate someone else's [*] good idea about how to deal with the orcs' equipment: You can see your orcs' inventories (in Ctrl-X), and there'd be a "give" command. You can use this once, for any follower. They'll use what you gave them to the end (it's the most sacred item they ever touch!). And they'll drop the item they used before (so it's also a kind of "take" command). This allows you to improve your army, but not on a fight-by-fight basis (I really want to avoid: "Hey, we're going to Snake, here's the rPois kit for everyone.") but on a global basis.

[*] I am really bad at recalling who came up with good ideas.

[Sar]

They would still convert, but only the 12 strongests would follow you around and across levels.

HOPr is a bit of a new player's choice (it was my first character to see a rune and Zot), and a lot of people play it for flavor. What I want to say is that those people would prefer a named orc warrior they have since D:5 (let's say he's managed not to get his knight promotion yet) to an obviously more powerful orc warlord they just converted on O:4.

how to deal with the orcs' equipment

I like that idea.

[njvack]

I reiterate someone else's [*] good idea about how to deal with the orcs' equipment

I still like the idea of: Beogh gives your party gear and blesses it with enchantments. It's temporary; when they die, they drop their original gear (or nothing). Keep your warlords alive long enough, and they'll end up with enchanted orcish 2-handers and crossbows.

[Eji1700]

On dissmissing orcs-
I always thought a "sacrifice follower" spell might be interesting. Takes a few in game turns and then all allied orcs gain a buff. Stronger the sacrifice the stronger the buff.

[graffen69]

Maybe max # of followers depending on piety stars? Like max 1 or 2 followers per star?
Very much in favor of this thread as I love playing Polearm wielding HoPr of Beogh and also would like to see a reduction on # of followers & optimizing the few you have. Would make it tons easier equipping your followers. Problem i have is keeping those Warlords alive beyond mid game cuz their resistances are to low. I´m not even sure how it´s handled now, but maybe an increase or flexibility in what resists Beogh would grant? rP+ and rE+ would be a good start.

//Judas the HoPr: ”Wield those polearms all of you pansy Orc followers, goddamit!”

[Petro]

I think the bigger problem by far is gear micromanagement over follower camp size. Its a horrible mechanic that sucks the fun right out of the class, but the benefits are so huge that people will do it every time and hate themselves for it. The problem is breaking it down while still maintaining the feel of Orc followers as intelligent, valuable followers. I guess I support the phantom gear idea in lieu of anything else.

As a separate idea, how about giving abilities that are tied to the number/strength of followers you have. Currently the invocations skill is of dubious use with only smite. Maybe make a smite that stacks in power with priest followers, a warcry for soldiers, and.... something else for casters.

[The Mantis]

What's wrong with the suggestion? It lets you make bands of your own selection via micromanagement, or simply forbid normal orc follower conversion.

[galehar]

It lets you make bands of your own selection

Not really, it allows you to control conversion. I think it would be better to let conversion happens automatically like it does, but give the player some control over the band composition. Maybe just a menu with fighters, casters and priests. For each category, you can control if it's open for new recruits or not, and dismiss the weakest member.

I'm all for giving more control to Beoghites, but I really think it's important to give the player only macro-commands, and avoid having to select individuals as much as possible.

[graffen69]

I just had one of the most fun runs (although no win) with a HOPr L19 but the mid HOPr game became as always a sheer exercise in micro- and anger-management. It became so clear to me that if I could have sticked to a fixed # of Orc Followers I would have had even better troops (for most of my game I had 1 warlord and 4-5 knights). I think what Galehar wrote about band composition sounds brilliant /Signed

Giving all followers Polearms (0.10+) will make it so much easier for them to level and so some way of controlling what weapons they use, maybe restrict them from dropping a weapon once they have it? Or a command to tell (F)ighters, (M)ages, (P)riests or (A)ll to pick up a certain type of weapons (in this case polearms) (PA) and only upgrade those, no other weapons. Was another mini game in itself running back and forth to deep water, dumping all Elec weapons and non polearms. In the end I couldn´t bear it anymore and let them take whatever they wanted. From there on we (as a unit) did a lot less damage than when everyone had polearms.
Another thing occurred to me, my orc followers refused to upgrade certain armour although they were both orcish and better (AC Wise and Tier wise). Nergalle was the worst in that regard he simply refused to upgrade to anything better than a non-enchanted Mold Dragon Hide. Those Wizard Orc Followers never last long, always having Hubris and ofc he died with that AC, but man having him around made a difference while he lasted. Do named Orc Uniques act differently as followers in that regard?
I read some HOPr guides and they mention leaving your Warlords behind since they steal all the kills, but they don’t mention how. If I tell them to wait they all wander around, and if I tell them to follow they all follow. How do I single out a follower to leave behind (like in the Temple or Lair 1)?