I was just thinking, that whenever an acolyte dies he turns into a shade and is no longer a pet of the priestess, he could have the ability to suck the souls of enemies or allies alike to gain more power.
Yea, I don't think you are getting a good idea of the type of faction the path of enlightenment is supposed to be. First off, acolytes are female and, as I envision it, only the priestess' are revered more in their religion (this is a matriarchal society, not a patriarchal one as almost all modern cultures on Earth are today). I was considering giving them the same armor as the priestess in fact, but with less hit points ("divine" is currently the most powerful armor in FPM, taking only 50% damage from piercing, slashing and impact and 75% from disease, fire & cold, but 125% from energy). These aren't the types of people you would find overtly "sucking the soul" from their enemies, that's the path of corruption. The acolyte is supposed to be an essentially "harmless" unit, in that they cannot attack, but are beneficial in other ways. That's the strategy part -- if every unit could attack, it would be boring. But by increasing the powers of the priestess (+damage +targets hit) and giving her the mana regeneration to attack twice as quickly as before, they become very useful. Add to that the ability to spy and I think we have a good unit. That's my view on it.
The other thing is the transferrance of HP from one unit to another...not possible as far as I know (although I don't consider myself a GAE expert. I just read the Glest wiki).
There are actually a few mechanisms. In fact, that is precisely what the necromancer, Lich, skeleton, zombie and ghost armor do now with their attacks. Unfortunately, the wikia is out of date, I'll try to get in there soon and update it. Each of the previously listed units drain life via their attacks. Here is the necromancer's soul puncture attack skill (abbreviated):
<skill>
<type value="attack"/>
<name value="soul_puncture_skill"/>
<ep-cost value="100"/>
.
.
<attack-strenght value="95"/>
<attack-var value="20"/>
<attack-percent-stolen value="85" var="15"/>
.
.
</skill>The <attack-percent-stolen value="85" var="15"/> tag means that between 70% and 100% of the attack damage dealt will heal the attacker.
The Lich's soul steal, the most powerful life drain attack in FPM thus far (and it should remain the most powerful IMO) actually works by two different mechanisms, the normal attack damage and the effect. Each effect can have a recourse. The recourse is an effect that affects the originator of the original effect (say that 3 times fast!). Also notice that the soul_steal_recourse effect below passes the <recourse-ends-with-target/> to the <flags>. This tells the engine that if the original effect expires early, because it was removed (dispelled) or because the unit died, then the recourse effect ends. This enforces the actual contract that the effect is supposed to be stealing the life from the other unit. For the lich, their movement speed is also decreased by 20% for each unit they are draining life from -- this is a minor balancing issue and when a lich hits 4 enemy units with soul steal, they usually don't have to worry about taking any damage unless it's enough to kill them in one shot (like from the priestess).
<effects>
<effect name="soul_steal"
bias="detrimental"
stacking="stack"
target="foe"
chance="100.0"
duration="10"
damage-type="energy">
<static-modifiers>
<hp-regeneration value="-100"/>
<max-hp value="-25"/>
</static-modifiers>
<flags>
<apply-splash-strength/>
</flags>
<recourse-effects>
<effect name="soul_steal_recourse"
bias="beneficial"
stacking="stack"
target="ally"
chance="100.0"
duration="10">
<static-modifiers>
<hp-regeneration value="100"/>
</static-modifiers>
<multipliers>
<move-speed value="0.80"/>
</multipliers>
<flags>
<recourse-ends-with-target/>
</flags>
<recourse-effects/>
</effect>
</recourse-effects>
</effect>
</effects>
EDIT: I forgot to mention that part of why it's the most powerful is that it will affect every unit within a radius of 8 spaces, although the intensity will be halved for every space away from the center the other units are. So if there are 3 units all next to each other and the lich hits the middle unit, it will drain him for 100 hp/second and the other two for 50 each, bringing the total to 200 hit points per second, for 10 seconds, for a grand total of 2000 hit points of damage done & healing to the lich. Toss in withering despair and a pet skeleton or two to hold up your opponents and it's easy to see why they are such mean bastards.
But one final note on the various factions & their themes; reason and corruption are patriarchal where as nature and enlightenment are matriarchal. While RTS games are going to appeal more to males than females, just because they are war strategy games and that's more of a male mode of thinking, I still like to keep design as gender inclusive as possible. The more females we have playing video games, the less girlfriend's we'll have being annoyed when
we're playing them!
