Found it odd that "Summon Demon Lord" could not be cast on the temple of baal. Not sure if this is true for other special temples...

Is it intended to be ancient temples only? If so, the description is incomplete.

Well this is annoying, this means that apparently the "Temples" terrain group doesn't actually contain all temples and I'll have to create a custom one.

The Djinn is a very crunchy addition, adding some much needed texture to a class that is otherwise a pretty straight-forward sequence of summoning this or that.

There's currently a little weirdness between the Djinn's different rituals... You can heal until you do something else, for instance. Wealth, Conquest, Vengeance, and Power all seem quite castable. Knowledge seems pretty meh, I mean heck, other classes have this effect repeatable for cheap. Wonder is a rarer and more expensive effect, but is very likely to wiff with some bad item.

Here's an idea: For knowledge, wonder, and health, as weaker wishes, maybe casting this transforms the djinn into a specialized djinn that only has that ritual, and can repeat it for a sacrifice cost ranging from free for health to expensive for wonder.

Glad to hear you're digging the Djinn! Both Knowledge and Wonder were recent additions with Knowledge being a more situational "if you need to track down that last pesky commander" and Wonder as a gamble if nothing else is currently needed. That being said, no reason that can't be made more appealing/on par with the original 4 on the next pass. Knowledge I think could end up being a, "Djinn of Knowledge" that can scry along with another suitable bonus. Wonder I would like to test a bit, on paper it has a very generous % chance to roll a rare quality item, the highest possible for an item creating ritual. If it turns out even that is still rolling a common quality item too often I think it can be buffed with rolling a diced amount of "gift bearers" so it can be more appealing while still being a 1-time cast/gamble.

About the tier 3 ritual that opens a gate to inferno...

It seems like it wants to have a niche as a "nuclear option" that you cast deep in enemy territory to screw them over. But the way the Inferno faction AI work, it's kind of... not. A big part of it is how they aim for population centers--Demonologist's preferred terrain, while avoiding mines and forests. I experimented with it, cast it RIGHT next the Dwarven city, only to have the demons congo-line away back towards my territory.

Given how futzing with the outer planes is... aspirational in the current build, I'm going to pitch a rework that basically "fakes it" to get a ritual that hits the flavor notes while still being castable as a non-meme option.

It does involve tossing the old mechanics entirely. No more demons pathfinding from inferno. Instead, the tile would spawn new demon units, that would "snake" around randomly like independents. They would belong to the "special monsters" faction, making them effectively hostile to everything.

It would also still be a portal to inferno, except without creating a way back on the other side. One-way, if you will. This is fine for demonologist who already has a dubiously useful return spell taking up a spell slot.

Good observation, that definitely throws a wrench into the intent of the ritual and makes it too niche if the demon's behavior is too focused on specific terrains. I think this may have a simpler fix of adding a behavior tag on demons that makes them very aggressive towards any "player" owned units/tiles, but if that doesn't pan out such a rework could be worth testing. A few thoughts on other subjects:

One adjustment I will be making is restricting "lower tier" units from being capable of creating a "hell pit" manually by digging down through Agartha. This will still be possible through "god" units like King of Earth or Earth Made Flesh, but currently this is doable by a 10 emerald cave grub which makes the demonologist's tier 3 ritual feel rather lackluster.

The "infernal teleporting" rituals I think are decent in concept but could use further tweaking. A 2-turn fast travel back to home base with a 1-turn layover in hell (possibly longer if cast at low resources) and if one really wants to they could try to capture some infernal tiles before returning or wait to rendezvous with a powerful summoned demon that was banished in combat. Currently they are learned separately at levels 1 + 2, This would be more useful if learned as a pair both at level 2. 50 Sacrifices per ritual is also quite expensive for a teleportation effect, so a significant discount is likely needed as well.

Broadly speaking, interaction with outer planes will probably not ever be expanded in a huge way. I think they're fine as sort of these dangerous "extra levels" that are hard to access and don't count towards victory. Certain classes can access certain planes more easily, but as a part of another effect that ultimately ties back to Elysium, and not having interaction with an outer plane as a big focus of the class since it takes place in a zone that other players will not be able to impact.

"Contract with (ickydemonname)"

I've seen these items floating around (new since guildmaster patch?) and it seems like demonologist ought to have a way to consistently produce them.

Perhaps an "infernal advocate" could be recruited for sacrifices, always spawn with one of these bad boys equipped, and have the ritualistic ability to die on command, allowing you to slot it to whoever you want by putting them together on a tile.

To clarify, in case you haven't had a Demonologist game in post-update, there is indeed a new tier 1 ritual that allows a caster to create one these contracts for themselves.

Prior to the new update, I was already planning on Demonlogists gaining a new non-caster commander to replace the generic captain, the "Debauched Noble". A non-caster but lesser ritual user that could only summon imps. The new Soul Contract ritual also seems like a fitting minor ritual for these guys to have access to. I also can't help but mention that I've created a new "Contract with Orcus" that is given to Necromancers when they become reapers.

Aside from that on this topic I do plan on removing them from the pool of items that random units can carry. While it is fun to run into Kings and Emperors that have contracts with demon lords, they disappear on their holders death which does dilute the pool of obtainable treasures with more unusable "stuff". I haven't had a chance to test yet, but if demon lieutenants can cast this ritual I will also update it to be non-demon accessible since that doesn't really make sense.

Had a big ol game, where the only temple I found was the Voice of El's starting site.

Wound up spending a LOT of resources on swords and crossbows. (Would have been better if I'd spent my Djinn on Conquest instead of wealth, but still!) I know this is part of their caster-faction weakness, but I think they could use another option to control their resources besides "Punish Sinners," since I've often found myself without access to Altars.

The Debauched Noble sounds like a good candidate for a ritual idea, castable on trade-yield locations:

Soul Market: Promote to stationary Soul Broker, gaining a +2 trade bonus and "enables recruitment" for large batches of sinners.

Upcoming I have a few ideas that should make the temple/altar mechanics a little more generous while also shifting "punish sinners" to a more reliably available source.

Altars in general are in a bit of a weird spot with their non-leader commander status. They were meant to be a sort of "escort" objective, but independent movement and how I assigned them the punish sinners ritual encourages using them as sort of economy boosting scouts outside their temple interaction.

Upcoming they will become slow, non-commanders, and demonologists will be the ones to cast the ritual to sacrifice them at temples. However, they will be gaining a new alternative role as a sort of demonic siege weapon with their size slimming down to a 1x2 and gaining a free cast of meteor during siege battles. Additionally, their recruitment rates are now boosted by not only temples but by the summoned Scions of Sin, so the benefit of keeping a corrupted temple around will include more Altar recruitments in addition to Sinner freespawn. Punish Sinners will now be freely known by any summoned demon commanders.

A final safety net for an Elysium hit by Atheism and devoid of temples will be a new wish for the Djinn, "Wish for Majesty" which will create a Sheol Temple. This will be the only wish that is once per player and not repeatable on additional Djinn.

I was having a miserable time getting this class off the ground after playing so much Druid and then Dryad. Summoner resource differences can't be a simple matter of "x is worth y gold compared to z". Herbs feel WAY more abundant, getting an Elder Druid at 600 is trivial, to be done in 2 turns depending on the time of the year in a good game, while the T3 Demonologist at 480 blood can be a year long project. However, impact of both casters and rituals seem to reflect that, with a Druid max summon being incremental while the Demonologist strongest summonings being devastating.

Either way, after learning to not lean on ice imps summoning (very positive nerf btw), I finally figured out the tactical uses for each summon and can get fairly reliable games against competent AI on larger maps.

Imps (20) are very nice to spam. Cheap, you either get a bunch of human stats (except bone) chaff to pad your frontline (or be useful, like winged ones for sieges and fire ones for general use), or T1 casters for your backline (the jester confusion, familiar, shadow, and the fan favorite exploding die ice imp, no longer exploitable but still powerful). That is a damn good fundation to make the Demonologist a "magic artillery" class as I like to call them. However, they are not decisive, you will not delete high end armies with imps alone, their casters might be plentiful but t1 magic is not particularly damaging or have long range, and even if you can get a lot of ice imps they are midlines and likely to get themselves killed just after your frontline. They are a fundation and a ritual you will want to cast a lot, specially in "growing" armies, but you will not want to take resources away from forming actual doomstacks away just to pull in this. PS: Messenger is the best dud, fantastic scouting.

Lesser Demons (40) or Fiends are a very situational but useful summon. You can get useful t1 exploding necromancy casters (very interesting thing about demonlogist, how many different magic schools you can get) or 1 geomancy caster, you will be mostly getting an ogre+ statted frontliner. The use, to me, is a punctual counter to something really scary in the enemy lines. They have a knight that will punch through your 20 archers and will certainly instakill your demonologist? Get a serpent fiend, it will intercept him and is fairly likely to win, absolutely certain to delay him to get killed by your backline. A giant? Summon 3 or 4. Not a spammable ritual but an useful one until you can summon a real economic frontline.

Demons (80) is your backbone spell. This is what you will be spamming when you know a real enemy army is nearby and you need to squash it. You get a lot of strong T2 casters that are survivable or exploding die of hellhounds that can take punishment and dish out in flames for your frontline. A very decisive ritual, but it will take a won game to spam.

Horde (150) is your doomstack builder. If you get a demonologist with that ritual (you will probably not want to spam learning T2 rituals, 60* blood is almost* a Summon Demons), making them go around to the battlefields should be your top priority.

I'm still experimenting with other rituals, but it is looking pretty good right now, and no longer absolutely horrifying to face as it was before. Using the right summons for the right things and being smart with your blood make for an engaging game.

I would just like to comment on the role of the apprentices in vanilla, though. Summon Imp default control chance is 70%, so you can do these summons at base cost of 10 blood and get them all 70% of the time. However, Shadow Imp, Familiar, and Harlequim are all at 100%, 3 rolls out of 8, which means at 0 blood you will control a useful summon like 40% of the time and the failures should be reasonably easy to deal with.

Lesser Demons are also default 70%, Greater Demons at 60% (although from this point onward risking a T2 demonologist and wasting their promotion blood would be a shame, unless you rolled Hellbind), Horde at 55, and then at Lieutenants onwards we start to go low, at 45% (except Succubus, at 60%).

So like the Necromancer uses the apprentices sanity to get undead, the Demonologist can gamble their apprentices lives to get underpriced summons. Is that a good design? Gambling the lives of your class ritualist? Do you get enough of them to feasibily do that? I don't really know, but it is a class feature absent from the mod, so that's worth taking in consideration.

Ps: failed to ever get a Djinn so far.

Thanks again for very detailed feedback!

I do agree that the dynamic of herbs and to some extent fungus compared to other resources feels like it's not quite equitable at their *mostly* vanilla values, and I'd say that "abundance" is definitely the keyword there.

I'm trying to temper this a bit by targeting some mechanics that swing this income too far in either direction. On the side of reducing abundance, I'm removing/reworking tiles that have season extending effects, since this gimmick really ends up being a significant % modifier to total yearly income. On the side of ensuring forests aren't destroyed too swiftly, I'm reducing access to forest burning on cheaper summons while also making access to it more reliable on summons where one would expect it but are sometimes lacking due to spell RNG.

In vanilla herb promotions costs are:

Druid: 25 - 150 - 600

Barbarian: 50 - 300 - 1200

Dryad: 50 - 200 - 800

Currently I've chosen the Druid values as the "baseline" cost that I've applied to Dryad Queen as well. It may be more appropriate to increase Druid to the Dryad costs instead.

Fungus on the other hand is priced to be a rarer resource, but is for the most part just as plentiful and has a dynamic where forest income is not impacted by fire/destruction (but jungles oddly are). At any rate I plan on removing fungus income on dead forests and adding a small amount to graveyards so these classes have more of a reason to care about defending their tiles.

Glad to hear that the Demonologist summons rituals are mostly hitting the mark. Not looking to change too much with this dynamic. Maybe give the dud of the Lesser Demons summoning a more distinct role. I do have a few new units planned for Greater Demons since this currently lacks the variety that the other tiers do, but nothing too drastic that will change its function.

One new dynamic that I've previously mentioned is the change from "Punish Sinners" being accessible via altars, to now being accessible via demon commanders. A few developments on this is that "Greater Demons" will now have a decently rare chance for a commander, which will sometimes offer early access to "Punish Sinners" before lieutenants. The ritual itself will now also have a few different effects rather than always terraforming to an oven of sins. One possibility is that one of these results will boost Djinn offers, though these are intended to be quite rare.

Perhaps it is fitting that the Demonlogist would have their own flavor of using their apprentices as a sort of pseudo-resource to some extent, but I definitely don't want to return to the old dynamic of "gamble summons".

I'll be looking forward to it. That said, Djinn. Am I just unlucky?

PS: I find Barbarian promotion costs to actually match the investiment time of the other classes. It is brutal and frustrating. Just like trying to get anyone else besides Druids promoted.