Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.1!)
 

Serpent dancers are terrible though. You shouldn't feel obliged to balance against them.

Re: EA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (WIP)
 

Wow.

I disagree with a lot of this.
Show me a source please that suggests actual military theory suggests that cavalry is worse at attacking and defending than infantry because of the need to control the horse.

Off the top of my head I'd say this ignores:
A: Superior elevation of the cavalry man.
B: Significant training of war horses, to attack, to stand over, to crowd.
C: Ability to cover distance at speed.
D: Shock effect of calvalry ie., momentum.
E. Superior reach of the typical cavalry.
F. The ability of the horse to be cover (ala american indians)
G. The ability to transport goods and or be food.

No military unit is invulnerable. It certainly is a game of rocks, scissors, and paper, that has been played time and time again.


Cavalry get a defensive bonus because the cost of these units were such that it was foolhardy to deploy them without training - whereas it was common to deploy huge masses of levees (infantry) with no training - and sometimes no weapons.

For example, even in WWII, in many companies, the Russians at Leningrad issued 2 guns for every 5 soldiers. The ones that didn't have guns were expected to pick them up off the ones that did.

The 'troops' had no training - and were shot by their officers at the merest hint of disobedience.

Or the us airforce - our airmen are highly highly trained. Those planes are *expensive*. The more expensive the munition, the easier to justify additional training, equipment, care in deployment etc.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.1!)
 

This is looking pretty cool, can't wait to hear your ideas re: more powerful dijinn.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.1!)
 

Totally.

If you decide to do multiple eras for this nation, a "Caliphate" version could have Mamluk heavy infantry and lancers (high morale, chain or scale armor and half-helms). <a href="http://www.bebo.com/PhotoAlbumBig.jsp?PageNbr=1&MemberId=5088670821&Ph otoAlbumId=6283208225&PhotoId=6344538334">Here's an example.</a>

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.1!)
 

That'd be LA. But yeah, should suit LA much better to have that kind of helmets. It's just that I don't have much clue about LA theme more than heavily armored troops with some Mamluk/Ottoman theme. I personally don't care much about exact historicality, it's not like Dominions 3 is a historical game. Besides, the original human nations are based on relatively many nations when they're based on real life nations at all :)

Regarding djinn in general, I would like to copy summons from an EA mod commanders. But if there won't be one without me, it'll probably be mostly with marids and ifrit, three tiers, lowest being soldiers, middle being weak mages and the highest being very powerful mages.

Both trees would be more or less thuggable, the most powerful djinn might even have SC capability. Ifrit have fire shield and marids have glamour. I think awe doesn't suit out well enough to be in. Awe + glamour would easily make overpowered units anyway. Ifrit are described as strong and cunning while marids are (magically) the most powerful djinn. That'd make ifrits more combat orientated while having marids as more powerful mages.

Then there would be ghul, possibly with some more distinctive name. It's a death summon that can transform to a beautiful seducing lady or some animal form I can't remember, like one of the lanka units. I think the ghul is supposed to have hooves in every form, but that'll just be cool.

I'm also tempted to make a rhino summon, because there if I remember right are some (persian, but whatever) tales about rhinos described as mythical beings. That is if I can be arsed to make a decent rhino sprite or die trying.

Rhino and ghul would proably be summons al-Nadim won't have a good access to though.

I got to look around more about djinns once I get home - too much of a pain with gprs. Currently I don't really see much warranting the air magic in fire/air/astral of viziers. Should be fire/water/astral more likely.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.1!)
 

For your upper level Jinn tiers it could be something like this.

The second tier could be Ifrit and Marid Beys. The Ifrit Bey's would be thugable, with a powerful fire shield and full fire resistance. Its choice in magic could be 2F with 110% for FSD. The Marid Bey would have full ice resistance and weaker stats, but would have much more powerful magic, something like 2W 1S 200% WSA

The third tier could be the Jinn Sultans. The Sultans would be a larger version of their respective Beys. Magic wise an Ifrit Sultan would have 3F 2E 2S 110% FSD. Whereas the Marid Sultan would have something like 3W 3S 2A with 210% WSA.

If you want to take out Air you could probably replace the Air magic with nature.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.1!)
 

First of all is a recolor for marid. Is it better? Personally I prefer the light blue over the far too dark blue. Ifrit's shade of red isn't that bad.

Secondly I tried out what ifrit and marid could look like without the fire/water on feet. Is it good? Should I draw the normal sprites too? I personally am a bit in between. I reckon the new look might be good especially if I add some light clothing (a vest that won't cover whole upper torso and possibly a turban) and possibly make the "feet" go directly downwards instead of that curve.

And then lastly there's my slightly liberal take on ghul. Ghul are said to be able to take form of a hyena and human and to lure travellers from their way.

A specific hyena form felt pretty useless and what's better for luring travellers from their way than a girl? (she's even chaste, she has that cloth part on her mouth!). Well, yeah, partially I made the were-hyena form just since I couldn't make up a decent look for a non were-hyena ghul, but were-hyena will probably be weak enough to not make it too über with the death/fire the ghul has.

Oh yeah, and ghul definately isn't anything like the ghoul in dominions.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.1!)
 

Looking good Elmokki. I think these are a smidge better than your original pics, meaning I liked both of your renders so far, these a little bit more so. :D

Love the Were-hyena! Good idea to go with a Were-form instead of a reg hyena look. Me likey.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.1!)
 

I figure this is how the lowest ifrit and marid will look like. I gave them regular scimitars instead of magical weapons and a shield. I prefer having the elemental bases for them for now atleast.

Ghul's were-hyena form had slightly too dark paws so I made them a bit lighter. The shape of paws might get a little improvement later, but I'm happy enough with them for now.

I made first of the three heroes I was promising, Ali Baba, who isn't that special by himself, but will get a free bandit each turn and can summon three bandits per turn (until I find that over or underpowered anyway). Obviously I made his bandit minions too. Bandits are light infantry with two weapons, stealth and good enough skill to use the two weapons without embarashing themselves too much.

Then there's new sprite for assassin as I wanted an assassin with waste survival and more arabic look. The basic sprite wasn't bad for al-Nadim, but I figured out I might make a proper assassin while I'm making sprites that look a bit like an assassin anyway :)

And as last I made Sinbad. He'll prevent bad events, have sailing and a little water magic.

EDIT: Apparently the image with all the sprites has grown too large for attaching as .png. I hate using losful formats so I'll start only attaching partial versions for now.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.2!)
 

0.20
- Ghul added as a summon
- Ifrit and marid now have scimitar and shield instead of the magic weapons
- Marid has glamour
- al-Nadim now gets it's own specific assassin
- Ali Baba added as hero
- Ali Baba got some bandits
- Sinbad added as hero
- Flag and banner created
- Alchemist actually has research bonus of 2 now.
- Mubarizun and Mubarizun commander are capital only
- Vizier, Grand Vizier and Alchemist prices were tuned slightly

First post is updated with pics of the flag (or actually pic of the banner, it contains the flag) and new version.

Re: Offtopic
 

Sorry, that's just fairy tales. My own grandfather fought as "People's Militia" from Moscow to Konigsberg. :) So I can say you that they had both weapons (my grandfather having semiauto rifle even though he probably shouldn't according to textbooks) and training enough for his particular division to be awarded a "Guards" status later. Actually, they were first placed in the field to build field fortifications with parallel training. Then they manned these fortifications. Of course, they were worse initially than guys who trained from before war started... but then, you should recall that Soviet Union had quite an effective institute of pre-service training, too (Germany had such, too, and Italy and France iirc). As for Leningrad it was a city with quite a number of plants both military and converted to military production as fighting got closer. They even developed a brand new SMG while under the siege! :) Of course, artillerists, drivers, scrives and such most often did not had rifles. :)

Returning to cavalry it always had a mobility advantage against infantry but there were periods when it was definitely weaker in straight-out combat. Fortunately, Middle Ages wasn't such a preiod and most Dominions nations live in this period. :) Still, your rationalization is quite weak. One reason I say so is that riders in Dominions 3 get Def bonus above and beyond their own training. This was done as far as I see to make cavalry surviable on battlefield which was not always so in Dom2. (At the same time they almost always have a Precision penalty) What this bonus may represent is a combination of greater tactical mobility and a chance that attack will strike horse or part of a harness instead of a rider.
Finally, you have probably mistaken a thread.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.2!)
 

There's the last hero I promised. I guess I might add some new hero later, but unless I get a really good idea for a hero, I guess this is it for heroes for now.

EDIT: Apparently you need to copystats for both insane and heretic, and I don't know of any unit who is both insane and heretic without side effects, so Alhazred will sadly have to do with being just insane.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.2!)
 

Sorry for being late - those were my hashishiines. ;)
I think they should be sacred, even if they won't probably be blessed often. :) However, it may be fixed through #onebattlespell...
Considering your troops I think that it's better to replace (or add to) militia with bedhouin raiders who come only for loot - a widely used practice which survived until Ottoman times. I made those average quality lightly armed infantry and horsemen which fight only one battle just like Ermor gladiators (using #copystats, of course). They may be used as either attack force in early game, or as chaff later.
(Also, we made many troops using improved robes for armor, adding also turban and turbaned helm). Another thing I did was including both light stealthy troops and corsairs. Light raiders fought on foot but used horses for faster movement - thus Move 3.
Another thing I consider important is particularly good horses providing faster movement - this also giving a better offense to light lancers you seem having some small problem with (these are Arabic horses, so heavy Ghulams do not have them)... ;) As for camels per se I just gave them a supply bonus. Camel troops can be made better if you consider that early Muslim armies used camels to transport their archers up to 4 per camel (I'd made just 2) and arrows for them. So, I propose to include a new "camel bow" (or somesuch) with unit description mentioning additional arrows and give camel archers 2 such attacks. Combined with animal awe, it would be quite good, I think. Another possible summon is cheetah.
As for commanders, I included also "Baghdad thieves" as spies. Another type you seem to forgot is khadi - judge (thus patrol bonus) and low-level priest. Higher level capital-only priest can be named Hoji.
Mystics are good and I also thought that alchemists should be also researchers. I made another mage's type - sorceress with Nature and Air magic, as these are often mentioned in tales. I thought about making some access for Buried in Sand for these nations as it's thematic, but am not sure.
As for genies I think you don't need to go for Marids as "water genies". Actually, the name came from something with sense like "infidel" (actually, various genie names were often used interchangebly, but that's another story). So I decided that while all EA genies are sacred, by MA some choose to follow the Prophet and other choose not to. The former became "faithful jihn" - sacred, including both troops and mage-commanders (male and female, with different magic), while the latter became "marids" - non-sacred, but their commanders are stronger mages (troops would be either absent or easier to summon).
And your ghuls are great!
I can add my opinion on genie races if you want to make a common work, but I must warn you that this is mostly based on Persian sources.
What certainly should be included is a spell summoning genies to build a palace!

Here are also Alhazred and Old Man of the Mountain if you want them (maybe magic should be slightly reduced; monsters Hassan summons are assassins and disciples - stealthy sacred raiders which are normally capital-only):

#newmonster 2867
#spr1 ""
#spr2 ""
#copystats 1071
#name "Hassan"
#descr "Old Man of the Mountain himself"
#hp 10
#size 2
#prot 0
#mor 11
#mr 16
#enc 3
#str 10
#att 11
#def 14
#prec 11
#mapmove 2
#ap 13
#gcost 300
#rcost 1
#armor "Turban"
#armor "Desert Garb"
#weapon Poison dagger
#magicskill 8 3 ---2?
#magicskill 7 2
#magicskill 4 2
#magicskill 5 2
#holy
#stealthy 20
#ambidextrous 4
#domsummon 2830
#domsummon20 2837
#wastesurvival
#mountainsurvival
#incunrest 10 ---?
#goodleader
#poormagicleader
#poorundeadleader
#startage 200
#maxage 160
#end


#newmonster 2868
#spr1 ""
#spr2 ""
#copystats 333
#name "Abd al al-Hazred"
#descr "That the man is mad, even himself wouldn't disagree. However, he has
an affinity to summoning and communing with genies of the most unusual kind.
This makes him somewhat useful to rulers and sorcerers, though most times his
answers are understood only by himself. He is said to going to write a book
which would summarize the wisdom he has gleaned, but whether or not it would
be actually useful is not known even by the wisest..."
#clearmagic
#hp 9
#size 2
#prot 0
#mor 13
#mr 19
#enc 3
#str 9
#att 8
#def 9
#prec 10
#mapmove 2
#ap 13
#gcost 0
#rcost 1
#armor "Turban"
#armor "Desert Garb"
#weapon fist
#weapon 367 --- Horror mark
#magicskill 4 3
#magicskill 7 3
#magicskill 1 2
#magicskill 5 2 ---?
#fear
#horrormark
#researchbonus 5
#douse 2
#magicbeing
#wastesurvival
#incunrest 8
#goodmagicleader
#okundeadleader
#end

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.2!)
 

Yeah. I gave a thought for it, but I ended up just having them as pretty much standard assassins (well, they have hauberk instead of cuirass, no leather hood, wasteland survival, and a second poison dagger instead of a short sword)

I might change my mind though, but I feel that this nation has quite a lot of interesting stuff already. If I end up making an LA version, it'll have a hashashin for sure though. I really want to make a version of this nation that can summon ghuls (and nasnas, if I end up making them, though I reckon literal half-humans will mostly be a novelty unit) without problem.

[quote]Considering your troops I think that it's better to replace (or add to) militia with bedhouin raiders who come only for loot - a widely used practice which survived until Ottoman times. I made those average quality lightly armed infantry and horsemen which fight only one battle just like Ermor gladiators (using #copystats, of course). They may be used as either attack force in early game, or as chaff later.[quote]
A pretty good idea actually. I don't really like the militia anyway and was thinking of scrapping it along with the lancer.

I think improved robes would go for EA version of this nation (if even there). I do like the look of light armor anyway :)

I did think of faster horses along with the lower morale for all basic troops. I just came to conclusion that this isn't real life and faster horses isn't THE thing arabs are known for (though I do agree sheikhs who own horses is in top 10 of things that come to mind for me) nor is undisciplined armies. I still have the beduins morale 9 though, since they're supposed to be more undisciplined.

Did they use more than one archer per camel in combat though? Atleast it'd look a bit silly with a dromedar.

Supply bonus is something to think about (though especially with the possible scrapping of lancer the heavier camel cavalry is actually quite a good unit, the archer less so.)

Cheetah is tempting as is rhino, but they'd go to nature and nature isn't a path I'm intending to give to (MA) al-Nadim.

I certainly won't be adding new priests without a really good reason (seeing that the nation already has 3, none of which is a mage with some priestly like with for example Marignon), but if you think khadi and hoji are better names for current mullah and imam (naturally with added patrol bonus) I'll look into it.

As tempted as I am to add new mages, I think I really can't increase the amount of diversity (F3, W3, S2, E2 are currently rather easy to get and A2 and E3 aren't that rare (6.25% for an alchemist) either). Sorceress would probably go to EA or possibly LA.

The information of djinn in the internet seemed to really vary. Along with that Dungeons & Dragons crap - they invented a genie for each element.

I know the djinns aren't very exclusively of a particular element (even though many places do associate ifrit with fire and marid with water) and I'll sure give the more powerful versions of them some magic variance. I do quite like having them both as sacred and somewhat specialized even though having marids non-sacred isn't a bad idea. In any case we could just say that there's no prophet of Islam-equivalent in Dominions universe and keep the djinn as sacred beings of an earlier era :)

A really good idea. I think I read genies lived in a city of brass (I have no clue how "true" that is, but sounds cool as hell), so a "Palace of Brass" would be a pretty cool spell.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.2!)
 

Now that I think of it, I might make Hashashin a multihero for MA.

And for the post to be less useless, here's an LA infantry parts of which I am very tempted to use for more armored mubarizun for MA, but I reckon the mubarizun are armored enough already - they're rather good heavy infantry. And as for a new MA unit, well, I think we got a relatively balanced and large enough selection of units.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.2!)
 

Still need to make one higher up version after these.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.2!)
 

Here are the last sprites I'll probably be making for (MA) al-Nadim in a while. I'll post an updated mod file soonish.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Feature completish, playtest now!)
 

0.80
- Feature completeish. All major stuff is done atleast.
- Ifrit Bey, Marid Bey, Marid Sultan and Ifrit Sultan added as summons
- Lancer removed

I need a lot of playtesters to test and and tell how I'll need to adjust unit stats and prices.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Feature completish, playtest now!)
 

Pro's: great combat mages, strong sacreds, solid infantry, strong summons, fantastic magical diversity,

Con's: horrible province defense, old mages


I did some play testing on mighty. Once again I have to reiterate how powerful Dervishes are with a 9 water bless. They effectively have 4 attacks and a defensive rating of 19. This enables a small group of them to take out virtually any independent province with virtually no losses. I'd recommend removing 1-2 points of defense from them, simply to keep them from simultaneously being both a moving barrier and a murder machine.

Grand Visers are amazingly good combat mages. They can easily cast both high level fire and water evocations, while also giving them access to the rare and under utilized acid branch. Astral allows them to communion and further boost their casting levels. This easily puts them in the top 5 combat mages of the middle era. They can also easily forge rune smashers, and any level 3 visers can with a ring of sorcery and another generic booster forge a staff of elemental mastery. The fact that they are recruit able anywhere makes them even more powerful. Because of this, I'd recommend making them more expensive while dropping their automatic astral.

You need to fix the coding on the Marid portion of the summon tree, as summon marids produces marid sultans, summon marid beys produces an ifrit bey, and summon marid sultan produces a marid bey. I'd probably raise the summoning level of basic Jinns by 1 and of the Jinn sultans to 8 as they are very good mages/thugs and can easily reach the SC level. They are thankfully not quite in the seraph level, although they are still a very good summon.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Feature completish, playtest now!)
 

I'm looking forward to giving this mod a try - I'll post notes afterward, time permitting.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Feature completish, playtest now!)
 

elmokki, will you please replace all backward slashes to forward slashes in .dm file, to let linux/macos playtesters join windoze p[laytesters in playtestin

ps Summary/briefin is jagged and partially unreadable on my computer due to lots of spaces you inserted

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.85, finally.)
 

I finally bothered to make an update. I forgot to fix the nation summary text, but it can wait.

The balance changes should be somewhat drastic.

With scimitars losing a point of defence pretty much all units lose one point of defence and along with their other nerf dervishes are losing a total of 3 defence. This might be a bit drastic, but playtesting will show if dervishes need their base defence 3 back or if the scimitars need their defence back.

Making Grand Viziers capital only fits very well thematically, as the nation should be somewhat centered on the Bejeweled City. From a game balance viewpoint this gave the normal viziers a need for buff, which +1F should do fine. I deemed the gold cost reduction of the mystics a must for anyone to actually recruit them. Still, at 90 gold they might be slightly too cheap, especially as they are not supposed to be communion slaves for the grand viziers. Alchemists should be more interesting now, as a player has to decide if he wants a powerful priest, a powerful battle mage or a powerful researcher/magic diversifier from his capital each turn.

But well, playtest and tell me what you think. My goal is to make al-Nadim balanced enough to be a viable multiplayer nation.
File itself is available at the first post.

In other news, if I bother to make a LA al-Nadim, it will most definately be less Ottoman Empire and more lovecraftian than I first thought.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.85, finally.)
 

Good Mod, just a few things I notices :

- Camel archers seems overpriced : while it's good having access to composite bows, it does not justify a cost 5 times higher that a base archer.
Don't forget that the increased defense that they get from being a mounted unit will usually not be used at all, and their low protection make them easy targets for ennemy archers.

At least you didn't crippled them as archers by giving them poor precision like in vanilla. (too bad one of the few things dominions is bad at is simulating the importance of archer cavalry, if only there were a "fire and move back" order for those units ...)

I think that 30 gold, or maybe 25 would be more appropriate for such units, as even ith good mobility and above average precision, they're still ligh armored archers.

- in the descriotion of the nation and viziers, you mention air magic as somthing they are good at, while it should be water magic from what I can see.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

After quite a break a new version is up at the first post.

Now, the thing is, I was thinking of making an another mod, but that was mostly about my obsession to the coolness of bagpipes and kilts and claymores, and I thought I'd better finish Al-Nadim before I go make a mod about that. British Isles are pretty well covered already anyway ;)

I've got a few questions about the balancedness of this mod and I'd like to hear answers of someone who isn't me.

First of all, the province defence. It was really weak and is still very weak. Should it be stronger? I could scrap the militia unit as a whole and make <20 PD 1 archer 1 spear infantry per point and >20 1-1.5 scimitar infantry 0.5-1 beduin raider per point. Currently it's 2 miltia 1 archer <20 and 1 spear infantry 1 scimitar infantry >20. Personally I like the idea of it being weak, but is it too weak?

Secondly, the commanders. Is there something that's lacking or something that should definately be removed? Of the non-priest or mage commanders I know absolutely none will almost ever be hired apart from assassin and beduin chieftain. All except Mubarizun Commander and Assassin are pretty much essential to the theme of the nation though. I don't feel like they're worthless of existing in the mod. Assassin has it's niche and isn't really something that is making the nation too powerful, so I believe it has earned it's right to exist too. Mubarizun commander on the other hand is capital only and will have to be such, which is also why it'll be never recruited.

Mages and priests are always a huge problem. Are the mages and priests too expensive or too cheap? Is there too much magic diversity? I personally am unsure about Mystic - 1S1H stealthy (+25 once I fix it) spy at 90g. It feels a bit cheap compared to 1S stealthy LA Ulm Illuminated one at 70g, but I doubt it'd really be hired much if it was considerably more expensive. Magic diversity bugs me too. While I'm pretty happy with only Mystics (1S1H) and Viziers (2F1W and 110% FWES) being available outside the capital and Grand Vizier (2F2W1S 110% FWES) being available in capital, capital only Alchemist (1E 210% FAES) bothers me a bit. It gives you a somewhat realible access to 3E, 2A and 2W. I don't really know if that's too much. One thing which I'm thinking is removing the guaranteed 1E from the Alchemist, but it'll still leave Al-Nadim with quite decent access to all elemental magic.

I'm quite happy with the non-commander units. Everything has it's niche atleast thematically if not game technically. Mubarizuns are a kick-*** but capital only heavy infantry. I'm tempted to tone them down slightly (attack and defence 13 to 12), but in general they feel pretty fine as long as they are capital only. I don't feel like there's anything I should definately remove except maybe militia, nor that there's anything I should definately add. I still do have the graphics for a heavier lance armed cavalry for Al-Nadim (supplied with the mod and defined in the mod by the way), but I think it's cooler of the camels fill the cavalry slot. In general I find the non-sacred troops solid but nothing really spectacular. Camel Cavalry price might need tuning though. It doesn't feel like it's a very strong unit.

Even after a nerf Dervish still makes me wonder. It's recruitable everywhere and with a bless a swarm of them can be really devastating. On the other hand they'll drop like flies to any missile troops or anything that can actually outnumber them enough to punch through their defence even after the massive losses they're likely to take. They will definately stay as recruit everywhere, but do they need a cost increase or nerf?

Also, in general, is Al-Nadim missing something or is something wrong? I do want to make this nation balanced and interesting. I personally like the heroes very much.

I do know Al-Nadim only has the skeleton supply of pretender chassises available. How do I add more of the existing ones to the list? Atleast some of the fire orientated pretenders need to be there.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (Now version 0.2!)
 

[/quote]
Did they use more than one archer per camel in combat though? Atleast it'd look a bit silly with a dromedar.
Supply bonus is something to think about (though especially with the possible scrapping of lancer the heavier camel cavalry is actually quite a good unit, the archer less so.)
[/quote]

Again sorry for long time before answering, but still: in combat, they mostly shoot dismounted (I think about action picture as including 1 archer still monuted and the other dismounted standing beside). But: actually in later period Iran and India they used double shooters from camel-back: armed with special "camel-guns"! (mentioned in Osprey's "War Elephants")! IIUC, these were something more like petronelles or "hook arquebuse", but still... These soldiers sat in a special big basket on the animal's back.
I'll probably add something more later - possibly even picture! ;)

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

I'd definitely remove militia as such. While Middle East states often levied common citizens as defensive troops, they were not completely untrained and often got some moderate to good equipment - I'd say something more like Bogarus lesser troops than common militia. I'd still think raiders would be more thematic.
As for other comments I'll try to test it in a few days,
Keep up the good work! ;)

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

I personally think the gladiator like raiders would suit a lot better to an EA version of this nation which would probably be filled with stealthy cavalry and recruitable djinns. Sadly if I ever want to make the same loosely arabic theme for an another era, it'll most definately be LA.

I was thinking of a loosely Ottoman empire based highly bureucratic one where magic is highly institutionalized and an underground Abdul Alhazred cult with something like fire/death/blood/astral-mages (probably really low level and/or random paths though) along with the official state sanctioned fire/water scholarly ones. Fire because I want to give some era a possibility to actually summon ghul (edit: actually an ifrit bey with a death random can do it) and the idea of corrupted/dead/whatever djinns sounds kind of cool too. If djinns are beings of smokeless fire, they could be beings of smokeless banefire ;P

I think two riders on a dromedar would not work without making that basket, and I believe the camel riders just simply are cooler this way. I personally like my mods as streamlined and smooth as possible and somewhat detest having multiple units on the same sprite. Technically I could make camel archers summon a foot archer unit for every battle, but that kind of feels like a non-smooth hack solution too.

Also, for me historicity doesn't really matter much as Dominions isn't a very historical game. Personally I think al-Nadim is quite historical enough when compared to other human nations in the game. It feels arabic to me atleast and that's enough for me :)

EDIT: Oh yeah, regarding militia. I reckon I'll make a leather armored version of the spear infantry next time I can be arsed to. That should serve as a weak but not as terrible militia unit.

Also, I did just realize that the shortbow archers aren't there just for the theme. There's plenty of fire to access flaming arrows and that should warrant archers in some cases.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

Here's actually an older heavy infantry sprite I'd use for LA al-Nadim and I just wanted to do some drawing to see if I can make a decent looking janissary uniform. I don't really know what janissaries should be armed with in dom3 as firearms are out of question and just making them kickass crossbowmen feels a bit boring. Crossbowman with shield and scimitar seems a bit hard to draw (shield on back and seathed scimitar and crossbow?) but would sound like a sensible option. And yeah, I know, the janissary hat should not be a cone. I'll look into it later.

For theme I reckon secret cult would be too LA Ulmish, so maybe it's either nasty al-Nadim with something like 2D 1F 1W 100% FW 10% DFWS mages or a less nasty al-Nadim that has forsaken it's past and centered itself more on astrology with 2S 1F 1W 100% FW 10% FWSE mages. Those are the two choices of main mages I find the most interesting. There should probably be some other mage too though.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

Actually it's not. Just "copy-paste" the crossbow sprite from the LA Man "Tower Defender" unit to the units back and that's about it.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

New version at first post.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

I see your point of view. :) Maybe more on that later.
For now - results of playtests:
0. A list of Arabian names is required. Actually, I had one made for my own attempt and you may use it (link was here somewhere, or just ask and I'll repost it soon).
1. Scouts & Spies require higher Stealth than +0. Currently, even independent Scouts have Stealth +10. And Spies with Stealth +0 are just unusable.
2. Dervishes die in droves. It's probably possible to prevent it with large masses and W9 bless, but even so it won't be so good a unit - though certainly able to cause much damage with F bless. I didn't test possible tweaks but currently they aren't so good.
3. Why so big Water? And almost no Air. Especially on Jinn it would be more thematic, I think.
4. Mullah is described as being judge, while having no such ability - or any other which would make him preferable to Mystic.
5. Vizier is described as mage of Air - and has no Air access.
6. Why Str 11 on beduin troops? I agree with Enc 3 for their cavalry - but this?
7. Marid Bei has no paths to summon lesser Marids. On the other hand, Ifrit Bei is very hard to summon without using Pretender.
8. Considering Pretenders - I don't think Fountains appropriate here. But Monolith and Divine Glyph would be. Some Middle-East-themed Pretenders also (Morning Star, Lords of Desert..., maybe even Shedu), as well as Virtue.
9. Considering Alhazred - I'd give him at least Summoning skill.

And yes, archers are quite usable - and would be even better with more access to Air! I don't see what do you mean by capital-only infantry, but they should probably get some weapon other than scimitar...

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

0 - Isn't the amount of custom name lists limited? Oh well, I reckon I could make specific version with a name list at some point for people who don't want to mix a dozen mods. I do agree that arabic names would be far more thematic.
1 - It's a known issue. Fixed in 0.87, though scouts are +25 and should be +10.
2 - Yeah, I tested them a bit in single player. They aren't too awesome, but then again lesser ifrit and lesser marid are very usable with a water bless too, so I reckon they have their use if you have a water or fire bless as they're very easily massable with low resource cost and recruit everywhere. They're definately supposed to be flagellants on steroids, which is pretty much the role they are filling now.
3 - The water used to be air, which is why the descriptions were borked. I don't really know why I thought air was so good along the obvious fire. Water fits marids better, and it also has far more interesting synergy with fire. I do agree that the djinn themselves could have air, but I'm afraid about giving the nation more magic diversity. Air would give more power to dervishes with arrow fend and storm to shield them from arrows, but that's not a reason to add arrows. I've already once weakened dervishes for being too good anyway.
4 - He's considerably cheaper and doesn't need a temple to build. That said recruiting them is somewhat wasteful as you could spend your castle commander slot to recruiting a mystic or a vizier. That, however, is the issue with any national basic priest or commander in any nation. The description actually says "clerics and attourneys", so no judges there. I gave them 40 leadership and made them PD commanders to show of their somewhat adminstrative nature though. Imams, who actually have the judge thing in their description, might get patrol bonus, but the description is there primarily to tell that they have an adminstrative role along with their religious role.
5 - see answer to question 3
6 - Sauromatian light cavalry has str 11. That's where I took that from iirc. I reckon they could have str 10 as well.
7 - Yeah, I just thought about those today. I reckon I'll make marids pure water summons which would fix both but would also forget the smokeless fire-thingie.
8 - I don't think you can remove any of the current ones from the selection. The ones you suggested should definately be added there though.
9 - I don't think you can give it without #copystats, and I already need to #copystats for insanity, which I find more essential than summoning skill.

Some other weapon than scimitar for mubarizun would look good as currently they're scimitar infantry with different colors, but I really have no clue what weapon would be somewhat historical, balanced and look cool.

Air would surely make archers better, but then again it'd make the mages worse. Having both fire and air on one mage is rather useless, but having fire and water is good for acid spells ;)

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

elmokki

Arabian Weapons that might fit the bill:
Falchion
Acinaces (short sword)
Saif (scimitar with a normal curve)
Shamshir (scimitar with a dramatic curve)
Tabar Zin (short- or long-shafted, crescent-bladed battle-axe)
Sagaris (long-shafted battle-axe, pick-axe or hammer)

Cool fact: The Tabar Zin is sometimes carried as a ceremonial weapon by modern-day wandering dervishes.

I like this nation pretty well; not too strong, not too weak. Is the camel commander supposed to have 'bite' instead of 'camel bite'?

My bro liked it, too. He had a strange problem with the scimitars: they were all 7-1-1-2 and magic - must have been a conflict with another mod.

Also, your maps are my favorites.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

Thanks. Good to hear you like the nation (and my maps for that matter) and good to hear that you think it's not over or underpowered :)

Camel Commanders should definately have camel bite. I forgot to change it for them apparently.

The swords would look pretty much like the scimitar anyway and the axes seem to be a bit persian. Then again the dervishes are pretty persian too, so I'll have to think about it.

On other news, I just noticed the castles for most terrains are "Simple Hillfort" or something like that. What castles should I get to what terrains?

Plains is obviously fortified city. If I get no better input for others I'll make other terrains have generic 800 gold fortresses that have better adm than the 5 the "Simple Hillfort" has.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

elmokki

You're welcome, but I'm not a good judge.

There's always the old standby: spears.

The 'simple hillforts' give them a more nomadic, Bedouin-type feel. I think 'ramparts', 'motte-and-baileys' and even 'simple fortresses' could give the same feel with a better admin value, if that's your goal.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

Hey elmokki! I was just wondering - are you still maintaining this mod? I had another look at it and it is LOVELY, but also I found a few bugs. The most noticeable one was that the Viziers had fire and air magic, where they're described as having fire and water magic. Is this deliberate? I have a few other comments as well if you're still interested in updating it.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

I noticed a few minor issues with what is quickly becoming one of my favorite mod nations.

1- Marid/Ifrit Beys and Sultans are not magic leaders. Perhaps the Beys should gain the #okmagicleader tag, and the Sultans the #goodmagicleader or #expertmagicleader tag.

2- None of the Marid/Ifrit Beys or Sultans are priests. Making the Beys a level 1-2 priest and the Sultans a level 2-3 priest would open up some middle-late game strategies that synergise well with the early game. As it is I need to put flying boots on a pack of Viziers (due to #1) and an Imam (due to #2) to link up with my Marid Sultans and Ifrits.

I went ahead and implemented your suggested changes for fort creation and Marids summoned using water only (so a Marid Bey/Sultan can summon helpers - it is much more thematic). I have them making Simple Fortress (1000 gold, 20 adm, 4 turns) by default, with a Forest Fortress (1000 gold, 15 adm, 4 turns) in the forest, a Simple Hillfort (800 gold, 5 adm, 3 turns) in the mountains, and a Swamp Fort (800 gold, 0 adm, 3 turns) in the swamp. This seems to balance well in my test games. They don't need a lot of administration for the triple bless strategy I went with.

...

On another note, Water-9, Fire-9, Astral-9 Dervishes are pretty fantastic! The dual scimitars pack a punch. The price/resource point seems about right, on par with Vanheim Skinshifters and Mictlan Jaguar Warriors. Of course, Dervishes die more often (so use Arrow Catcher shield-infantry)!

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

I haven't been playing Dominions 3 much in the last four months or so, and I can't really say I'm actively maintaning the mod. Anyone willing is free to pick it up for sure. Though I expect anyone who picks it up to keep the unit selection and stats in similiar enough so that it still is al-Nadim - new mods need new names ;)

But yeah, I'll probably get interested enough to update the mod now that I started a MP game again anyway.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.86)
 

That's definately a bug. Being magic beings who are leaders to lesser magic beings they definately should be better leaders.

There's game balance to consider too and I really don't have much clue about that - though it isn't like getting one flying imam should be that huge problem anyway so it shouldn't matter much. In terms of plausibility I reckon that in the general theme of al-Nadim it'd make sense that the djinni are devout followers of the new god and could well have some priestly powers.

Besides, in a more djinni orientated EA version atleast the marids would definately have priestly powers.

By the looks of it there's a version I released that I didn't bother to release on these forums. It's available at http://nikita.tnnet.fi/~elmokki/alnadim090.zip and the patch notes are as follows:

Now, I seriously can't understand the reasoning for the magic path changes and I would now reconsider the removal of the most powerful summons, so I'll probably have to make a 0.91 that fixes that soon.

Regarding the fort changes, I don't remember the fort stats for those, but I believe that they are apart from Swamp Fort relatively big forts. I think it'd suit to make them smaller, more like what you suggested.

Sounds like they are filling the exact role they are supposed to be filling. I just hope that they aren't too powerful in comparison to the alternatives since what I wanted was to have a sacred that is atleast somewhat viable with a bless BUT that isn't so overpowering that the only competitive way to play the nation is to go for a bless. Al-Nadim just has a good pile of other tools too.

Besides I still think the camels look very damn cool and should have some use :D

Also, I'm tempted to add some sort of a mounted beduin magician that has enough magic to be an useful addition to a stealthy beduin raiding party.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.91)
 

Instead of studying I actually updated the mod: http://nikita.tnnet.fi/~elmokki/alnadim091.zip

I'd really like some input on things.

First of all, the sacred unit should either be niche or useful but not dominating all other strategies. I do believe it's either one of those (they may kill a lot, but they also drop like flies), but am I correct in that regard?

Secondly, are the beduins useful? What should be done if they're not useful enough as stealthy raider cavalry?

Thirdly, is Mystic an useful unit? If it isn't, would it be as a possibly mounted (doesn't matter much though since inside enemy territory it's one province per turn anyway) mage with 1H1S1F 110% FS instead of the current 1H1S? That might solve some problems if beduins aren't viable too. At 90 gold mystics probably are cheap enough to be used as communion slaves for Grand Viziers though - which is a thing I'm not really sure what I should think of.

And lastly, should the camels be buffed? I really would like to see them in action if I ever stumble into a multiplayer game with al-Nadim.

Forts are still something to update later.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.91)
 

There'll be a patch to fix summon path requirements tomorrow.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.92)
 

I had a chance to have a nice long play with the nation this evening, so I have a number of comments.

Firstly, once again I really like this nation, it's one of my favourites. You've given it a really nice feel.

I think the overall power level is slightly below average. Everything is okay but you have no standout strong points. With that in mind I think you can afford buffs where you fancy them.

To start with your first question, I think dervishes are great. I actually think they are slightly overpriced - 20 gold might be better. As you say they are potentially powerful but will always be niche, as you simply can't stop them from dying like flies. E9 doesn't help at all, and S9 will help but they'll still be short-lived.

I think the beduins are greatly overpriced. For comparison, Sauromatian light cavalry cost around 20 gold (in CBM; vanilla light cavalry are horribly overpriced). I'd suggest 20 gold would be a good price point for the beduins as well (perhaps 18 for the archer one?). Incidentally why do they have 12 hit points?

The camels similarly are very overpriced. I'd suggest maybe 25 gold for the heavily armoured one and 20 for the archer. I'd love to think of some special ability to make them stand out but it's hard to think of one. I think the animal awe and "long" camel bite are good moves, as is putting elite troops on their backs. I think with a reduced price they would see usage.

Also with the camels, I think they would look better if you added a little shadowing on the camelskin under the legs, to make them look more like the legs are actually on the camel's back rather than superimposed on it.

I also reckon the Mubarizun is a tad expensive. Maybe 15 gold?

I like all the mages. The Mystic is definitely useful - please leave him in! A cheap communion slave alongside all your astral-bearing Viziers is a fun unit. Also the fact that he's sacred allows you to put together big holy communions to get H3 or H4 casters in battle if you're facing lots of undead.

An additional beduin mage would be cool. Leave the mystic in, but the beduin mage you suggest sounds fun.

I tried out almost all the djinns (couldn't summon the high level fire one due to lack of suitable mages). I think you've got them about right. The little ones are powerful but easily killed (although it bugs me slightly that the ifrit are more powerful in pretty much every way than the marids - fire shield, better stats etc). The Beys are nice and this time there is a clear differentiation with the Marid being the "magicky" one, and the Ifrit being the "fighty" one. I didn't like the Sultan so much - I don't think the sprite is quite up to the standards of the rest of the mod, and it bothered me slightly that the Sultan had less magic overall than the Bey, but was suddenly very good at astral. I also tried the Ghul - seems cool. She will give the nation death access but I think that's fine, it will only be on a relatively small scale and it takes some effort to get there. Plus she allows Skulls of Fire to give you a handy fire booster. Anyway overall I think the djinns are good.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.92)
 

New version up at the first post.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.92)
 

These are very good changes. In test games I never built a single of any of these units due to the high gold prices combined with lack of a lance. I'll start a new non-bless game with a rainbow pretender and report back on how that goes.

Currently my test game with 0.91/0.92 using an Astral 9 / Water 9 / Fire 9 blessing is going quite well. The addition of Priest 2 to the Sultans makes a late game bless strategy effective. A crystal shield on a Sultan allows for a sacred flying divine bless force of Maridi or Ifriti. The summons make for spectacular siege troops due to the flying. Going misfortune combined with the fairly terrible provincial defense means that patrol forces (Dervishes based out of forts) are used instead of buying PD.

In my next game I shall likely go with better scales and a rainbow pretender with a minor blessing (Fire 4 / Water 4 perhaps, which should help with summons).

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.93)
 

I'm tempted to give Beduin Raiders a lance. It's doubtful that it'd make them too powerful anyway.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.93)
 

I like the changes! :D

Would giving raiders a lance be thematic? It's not something I'd visualise them using.

It's possible that the cost reductions may still have been too conservative (i.e. the cavalry should be even cheaper), but some more playtesting is needed really I think.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.93)
 

Historically it's probably more or less thematic to give them atleast light lance, but for the mod? I don't know. The biggest issue isn't really if they have a lance or not but that if they have a lance they need to have it in the model too instead of the scimitar.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.93)
 

Hey elmokki,

I don't know whether you've been following the development of Sombre's Mod Catalogue. It's a sticky on the other forum. Anyway he's been putting together a list of mods which are all mutually compatible. Using a big spreadsheet of ID numbers, we're trying to get a large number of the best mods to be compatible with each other (and CBM) so they can be used without worrying. It will also be very helpful for me as I have plans to release a big mod compilation with many of the best nation mods in it.

Anyway, since I really like this mod I'd like it to be added to the list of compatible nations, so I just went through it and moved a couple of ID numbers around (as it happened there wasn't much to do, just weapons and site numbers). I decided I might as well do a proofreading run too, so I did that - for the most part there were just a very small number of typos, although some of the descriptions for the djinn summons had got slightly jumbled.

Anyway it would be really great if you were happy to use the attached mod as the basis of future versions of the mod, so we can more easily keep everything compatible.

On the subject of the mod contents itself, I noticed that djinni have quite hefty upkeep costs. This is a bit unusual for summons (I think only trolls have upkeep in vanilla dominions) - I wonder if it would make sense to either remove them or, if you like them, mention them in the djinni descriptions (greedy for gold!).

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.93)
 

It's work I've been avoiding (even though I think I remember the mod being mostly in correct ranges last I checked) and I'll definately include it. Thank you.

Those are rough drafts for earlier age costs for the units, but I do guess they might as well be removed as if I happen to make EA al-Nadim it'll be a different .dm file anyway.

Re: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights (0.93)
 

Hey elmokki,

I'm planning to release the Expanded Nations Packs mod compendiums in a few days' time, and I'd like to include this mod if I may. Is that okay, and are there any imminent changes that you'd like me to wait for?

Seems to me the mod's pretty polished and good to go. The only things I can think of are the gcosts for the djinni, and also I just noticed a comment earlier in the thread about a nametype for the nation. I haven't even checked whether you've included one (it's tricky at work), but since the latest patch there are quite a few spare nametypes to work with if you'd like to.