Black Moon Armies
 

S Sube's Black Moon Armies has been updated. T'ien Ch'i is replaced by the Black Moon.

Sounds ominious.


http://www.illwinter.com

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

the link seems to be the same, there is no Black moon if you download it, and the banner have only three nation? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Greats thanks to sube for his awesome mod, hope that I will aquire the next Version today

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

A great Christmas present! A patch, a new nation and the Black Moon Armies ... I think I'll have a lotto do during this holidays!

Thank you to all and I hope Kristoffer could soon upload the right file!

good play
Liga

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

I'll take a look

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

Should work now.

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

I have just downloaded it but I still have only

empire, light and justice in the zip file!

good play
Liga

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

Hi!

(thanks Kristoffer for uploading the mod)
I just tried downloading it, it works fine for me - at least, the black moon seems to be in the zip file.

Just a small thing: I had prepared a different banner for the mod (blackmoonarmies.tga) to be put on the mod webpage, can it be uploaded as well? Do you have it? (should be in the zip).

About the mod... it's maybe not finished but playable, I think. There are several units that I would like to be capitol only, I'll change that if/when this option will be moddable (I don't really fancy using pre-existing sites + modding pre-existing units). Game balance: a few doubts about the magic part. According to the comics, I gave the black moon death and blood mages, and a little of random picks. I'm not very familiar with blood magic, so maybe I overpowered it. But on the other hand, in the book the black moon is summoning millions of demons every 2-3 pages, so...

Well, let me know what you think about it

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

I'm still not able to get the right mod file ... I don't know what happens but I got a 146KB file with only empire, justice and chalice ... someone else has my problems ? Sube, can you please send me (liga(AT)treemme(DOT)org) the modpack ?

good play
Liga

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

The one on the illwinter web page is a jpg Version of the blackmoonarmies.tga you sent me. Four icons on the green background (Last one a black moon).

Is this banner supposed to be in the game as well? Every nation is a mod on its own and you enable them individually and they each got their own banner.

Reload the mod page and see if it helps.

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

I got it! I don't know if it is well tested but the graphic is wonderfull ... thank you Sube!

good play!
Liga

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

Thanks Kristoffer - now it looks fine (maybe I just had a problem with my browser)

bye!

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

Sube, a few questions:
will rhere be some Negation troops once site modding is available?
IIRC, the Negation troops had some kind of etheralness, remember some sword puttig in them without effect, why haven't you give them some?
for the rest this mod is as great as the other.

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

That could be done, of course. But I do not remember ethereal troops in the books... mmmhhh maybe I should read them again, it has been a while since Last time I checked. By the way, can you make a troop ethereal, is that moddable? (probably - I should check again the modding manual, too!)

What I was planning to do, if/when site modding will be on, is to make the Grand Priest, Lord of Negation, Black Guards/Captain, and Moork Guards recruitable only in the capitol. Maybe Dark Priests too.

Having heroes could be cool as well.

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

While, I make proposal, may I ask a few more things...
I remember to that the Black guard, whismerhill were flying on some sort of things, if you could make them, you wouldn't need Black guard, I have a feeling, that in a game play optic, some troops are redundant, mostly BG and MG.
It would be great to have some Heroes, but on the other side it may be fixed in the map that you have annouced at the end of the mod.
hum it would be cool if you could make some event that occurs in a given turn, but that is a matter for IW, I don't know if it is makeable, but it would be nice for scenario makers.
One Last point I haven't read all the books, (wasn't in france since a long time) but there was a draken kingdom to in the first three or four books, I think they would be realy nice to have to.

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

You could have capitol-only troops at the moment, depending on the nation you have "hijacked", or if you are willing to cripple other themes. For example, if your nation uses Arcoscephale's slot, you could use the Akademia (two capitol-only units and no gem) for two of your own units, and make the new Akademia one of the starting sites of your nation.

If you are willing to make Golden Era unusuable in your mod, you could use their site even if your nation is modded over another (Golden Era isn't the most popular theme). There are quite a few other sites along the same lines, though most of them give gems as well.

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image.../beerglass.gif
I was waiting for this one !

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

Thanks guys - I'm glad you're interested in this mod!

I'm planning to add new races, but it takes time, mostly for the graphics

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

Very nice mod... From a balance point of view, though, it would seem to me that
two of the nations are powerhouses comparable to standard Vanheim and Caelum, one
is about average, and one is kind of weak. None of this would matter even a
little bit if you made a 'by-the-book' map with pre-deployed armies and pre-set
alliances. Something else I would love to see is nation specific pretenders
and heroes.

A scenario that fine tunes the nations would be great. Now if I only had any
idea what the comic book is about...

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

Hmm... I think I was incorrect in saying that the Black Moon nation is a
powerhouse. I think it is a bit more than that. Anyone wants to test
drive the mod? I am challenging any two fans of the light to take me on!

I am willing to play one on two on the Reemergance map. The Black Moon
will prevail!

(against two of the three other modded nations)

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

I find that the Menthats are great. They remove all thinking from troop selection. Just get a little screen of normal troops and then load up on these bad boys for early expansion fun.

They should probably be boosted a little in cost.

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

Confirm : the black moon is a powerhouse !
However, that is just what I needed in my SP games. But that nation is raping all other AIs of that game, including ermor.

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

Thank everybody for the comments - and sorry if I'm not too present on this board...

Tuidjy/Unknown_Enemy: in which aspect you see the Black Moon as particularly powerful? Blood magic maybe? (and the combination blood + death as well) When managed by the AI, against other AIs, in my case it didn't do anything amazing... just average. I was using level4 AIs, lvl9 independents, 3 starting provinces. Haven't tried it against Ermor AE, so I have no idea if the Black Moon can easily defeat it (when both AIs).

Tuidjy: you say one of the nations of this mod is quite weak, are you referring to the knights of justice?

Huzurdaddi: OK i can easily raise (a bit) the cost for menthats. They are about halfprice compared to Illithids and they perform about the same task, with the difference that they are not amphibious and specially that arrows can easily despatch them - at least the Illithids can stand a good amount of punishment. And menthats are magical, so you need a magical leader (Illithids as well, but all Illithids commanders are also magical commanders if I'm not wrong).

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

> Tuidjy: you say one of the nations of this mod is quite weak, are you
> referring to the knights of justice?

The Knights of the Light are quite weaker than the other three nations. I would
rank them as balanced with the standard Dominion II nations, even slightly on
the weak side.

Why? Because Dominions II ends up being about magic, and the Knights of Light
have the weakest mages of the lot. Their troops are slightly less powerful
than the knights of Justice, and fire magic is the weakest path in the game.

> Tuidjy/Unknown_Enemy: in which aspect you see the Black Moon as particularly
> powerful?

Black Moon has an incredibly cheap and effective troop in the mentats. Orc
berserkers make a perfect meat shield. The Death Masters can easily become
capable of the deadly raise skeleton/drain life combo. The Lords of Negation
are great thugs once you hit Construction 4 and start churning out Wraith
Swords. The Acolytes are perfect researchers. The Summoners are great blood
hunters. And to top it off, the priests are also very good.

None of the valuable troops and commanders requires truely high resources, so
Black Moon can easily get away with Sloth 3. With Thugs and Blood
Supercombatants made possible with cheap research amd blood hunting, Black Moon
can afford to take a early peaking Supercombatant like the Ghost King.

I would take Moork led by A5W1E3S6D3 Ghost King with a O3S3H0D2M2M3 domain,
against any two of the other modded nations, and expect a good fight.

By the way, Death two and blood hunting is not really a contradiction. This
nation is powerful enough not to rely on blood troops, and just go for the
major demons (arch-devils, ice devils, etc...) Against most opponents, Moork is
primarily a death nation.

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

>The Knights of the Light are quite weaker than the other three nations. I would rank them as balanced with the standard Dominion II nations, even slightly on the weak side.

That's quite ok then - as long as they are more or less balanced with the standard nations, that's fine by me. The Knights of the Light are maybe more of an early expander, with chariots, battlemages and reasonably good troops. In late game, sure, they are less competitive.

>Black Moon has an incredibly cheap and effective troop in the mentats.

Time to raise their cost then... And what about making them capitol-only units? (provided this will be explicitly moddable)

> Orc berserkers make a perfect meat shield. The Death Masters can easily become capable of the deadly raise skeleton/drain life combo. The Lords of Negation are great thugs once you hit Construction 4 and start churning out Wraith Swords. The Acolytes are perfect researchers. The Summoners are great blood hunters. And to top it off, the priests are also very good.

I wold not like to change much here... Lords of Negation as capitol-only, but apart from that...

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

Wow. So now I have a few more armies to tryout. I'm back ... and I still love this mod the most. (A map wouöd-of course- be my next hearts desire). Good job, jube. But I've grown to expect nothing less from you.

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

Thanks Tricon!
A map is also in the plans, but that's going to take a while

Re: Black Moon Armies
 

I played around (quite)a bit. My impressions so far:


Light (most played faction, as it has been around a while): have a hard stand - though I do quite well with them- mainly pecause of the high resource costs. Limited in late game magic wise, but that's only keeping true to the books.

Justice: a bit low on variable units... though that is also keeping true to the books. Maybe an "avatar" unit, capital only?

Emperor/krhynn(sp?)- no experience so far

black moon: Awesome units (you put a lot of work in these). A powerhouse. I would increse the menthats cost a bit, though not that much.
Lord of negation should be capital only, definately!
IMO To reduce their "powerlevel" one could nerf the priests a bit. The impression I get from reading the books is that Hazheel is his own "god", his powers indeed awesome- but in terms of this game he would be definately be (just) a pretender. The religious aspect of the black moon ist not THAT dominant (at least to me) in the books. Powerful magic disguised as religion if you will. All in all, seeing their good unit selection and their variety - at least for ballance purposes - I would either reduce their level or drastically increase their cost.

Kepp at it! And thanks for your effort.