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.