Age of Men: Themed Game
 

I'm thinking of starting up a game soon with the theme: The Age of Men. Wanted it to be all about big armies clashing and mortal heroes instead of just mages wrathing everyone and SCs wiping out whole armies. To that end me and quantum came up with a pair of house rules

1) You can only have 1 mage per 25 regular units in an army in the field

2) Only recruitable size 2 units can be used as SC chasis

I've already got four players (myself included) and am looking for others who might be interested in a game like this. Let me know if you are. Comments and changes to the proposed house rules are also welcome.

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

What about using tka's spell/item limiting mods ?
Or making a small mod yourself ?

You could e.g. just mod out wrathful skies and a few other such "uberspells" and limit construction to lvl 2 e.g. .
This way it should be harder to do overwhelming SCs .

I have some concerns about rule 2 : only size 2 recruitable commanders may be turned into SCs :
Any knight is size 3 .
So nations like jotunheim , vanheim , man etc. are a bit disadvantaged then maybe .

Finally what about blood ? If someone plays mictlan e.g. and may not use blood he is severely disadvantaged .

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

You can freely customize my mods to suit your game rules.
It's easy to change that Item Remover to remove only levels you want. link

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

Seems likely that everyone will just pick a lich, the ghost king, or the vampire queen, all size 2.

So, people wouldn't want to play Mictlan in this game, eh? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

But they are not recruitable size two. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

As for the other concerns, I doubt Vanhiem and Jotunhiem will be disadvantaged in a game were normal troops are so important (and anyone can get, say, a barbarian chief to make a SC).

We could probably make a mod toning down some spells and items (though wih items, it really has nothing to do with our rules, some items are just much better than others).

Since reseaching is fine without having a bunch of troops, having blood hunters in a lab province should be no problem.
I would also point out you will likely want patrolers, so thoose would account nicely for the required troops in non-lab provinces.

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

I already have a mod lying around which bumps up supply and gold to handle bigger armies and also tones down some of the spells which are vicious to big armies. But I dont want to cut out wrathful, etc, just make them rarer. And the cost associated with the 25 troops per mage does that and at the same time ensures that troops will play a part in every battle.

Size 2 recruitable does rule out cavalry, so yeah that might be too restrictive. Maybe just say any recruitable? But Jotunhiem has a *significant* advantage there so perhaps no joats in this game?

As for blood, there is no problem with summoning troops. The same applies to any Nature nation as well. But given the number of troops you have to deploy I'm thinking that you'd still have about half living/half summoned?

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

Hm only half troops summoned is probably a bit bad for abysia because their troops are very resource expensive .
As mictlan though i could just do 1000 slaves and 1000 devils that would be 50/50 ratio between national troops and summons .

Other concern : If someone uses lots of tartarians as mages ? Wouldn't that give that player a huge edge because recruitable SCs will probably have bigger difficulties killing them than real SCs ? And with less mages allowed this would probably help especially undead quite a bit too .

Finally Caine has a good question what about pretenders . A Vq/Gk needs not really equipping so by using such a pretender you don't break your houserule 2 only recruitable commanders may be equipped as SCs . They are no "SC" because they have no weapons ? .

And what about e.g. vampire lords used just with soul vortex as attackers ? Does such a vampire lord then count as a SC ? Or as a mage ? Or as none of that ?

I think it is better to use some kind of mod , maybe your mod . This way the rules can't be stretched . This will just naturally happen because one player sees a rule severer then another .

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

OK, let me make a few examples to better define 'mages' and 'SCs':

Ghost Kings: While it is true that with buffs they don't need equipment to act as a SC, having magic makes them a mage, meaning he must drag along 25 troops that can be killed/routed.

Bane Lords: Being bigger than size 2 and non-recruitabe, he can't be equiped with items. However, as he is not a mage he can go solo and take out weak PD with his natural toughness.

Tartarians: While you can find some that can be a SC without being equiped with items, thier magic again means dragging along killable/routable troops.

VQs: She does present a bit of a problem as she will keep fighting if her escort troops route, unlike the GK. The simplest thing would just be to rule out immortal
pretenders and summons.

You also misunderstood Ironhawk, he said the summons/troop ratio was likely to be 50/50, not that there was a rule about it.

EDIT: On the topic of mounted commanders, just say that the size 2 rule is waived for mounted units (it should be obvious which units are mounted, if some disagreement occurs, just check for the mounted flag)

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

If you wanted to do the age of men, you should just make it so anything over size 4 is illegal (as far as commanders).

Then if you want to include the mandatory retinues, make it so that any unit defending or attacking has to have at least 25 troops (up to 25 for those with less leadership).

If you'd like I can whip together a mod removing all spells that produce Commanders over size 4 and of course GoR (the other exploit).

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

Do you think jotunheim could be allowed then too ? Just niefelheim gets disallowed but i think a normal jotun commander hasn't a big edge compared to a tuatha or van .

2nd i would suggest the following rule instead of the 25 men rule :
Each mage has to bring with him troops worth 300 gold .
This encourages players to build expensive units also like hydras or knights .

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

The key is this kind of gray area b/w plain old mages and mages which have the right paths and are powerful enough on thier own that they could be SCs. How do you make the distinction? Or should you even bother?

Maybe you have the right idea Zen. Tho I would really hate to just nuke all 4+ commanders cause some of them are fun to have, like treelords and whatnot. But it may come down to that.

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

I'd like to play, but keep in mind something like a Wraithlord is very nasty and not so big in size.

Other stuff you need to count are the nations restricted to heavy infantry like Ulm.
They probably can't afford many mages in armies.

As Age of Men, may I suggest to add human pretender rule?

Indeed, Vanheim and Man could have a great benefit cause of their elite troops and blessed mage-priest-commander ...

Another rule should be about priests, I mean, som nations have priest lvl 3 (sermon of courage) that are mages, like Abysya or Arco or Pythium. That's not fair for those nations to be forced to lose a mage "slot" for someone that is needed more for keeping their troops in the battle than direct spellcasting.

And what about Undead Nations? They could have plenty of stuff spamming skeletons, because they can get hundreds of troops easily toghether.

I'd put free mages til they've no more than 2 magic level in total, or 3. Or related 1 every 10 units.
Meanwhile the stronger mages, could be 1 every 25 units. There're still the options of false horror spamming for lower level mages.

I like the idea of a game based on national troops, we need to refine the rules however. And national heroes will mean something more!!!

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

I don't see what's wrong with some mages (like Galdermen and Mystics) being SCs, bringing 25 toops with sets good limits on them. There is still a large niche for more mobile solo no-magic SCs. I would just mod out immortal summons and pretenders.

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

My fear with Jotunhiem is thier (relative to other recruitable commanders) high base hit points. It seems to me that it would be too easy for them to get over the critical point in terms of lifedrain. But then again I have to admit that my play experience with quality SCs is actually pretty limited. What do the more vetern players think?

That's a good suggestion about troop costs, Boron, but its too much work to check it. If you just say 1 mage per 25 troops, you can just count the mages and eyeball the troops or check the end of battle info. But if you have to go through and count each troop type and check its cost? That would make the house rule more trouble than it was worth.

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

Yeah but a militia costs 7 gold while a knight costs about 70 gold .
So in order to get the quote for mages many players will rather build stuff like slingers/militia than knights because the mages still rock knights .

Maybe just these summonable SCs/Thugs should be modded out :
-Wraithlords
-Banelords
-Tartarians
-AQs
-IDs
-ADs
-Waterqueens
-Heliophagii
-Demon lords
-Devils

More questionable :
-Vampire lords
-Firbolgs
-Earth kings
-Fire kings

Maybe i missed 1 important Sc type .
The golem could be left in because he has astral 1 , so can easily be killed with mind duel .

Furthermore jotunheim niefelheim is forbidden .

Finally i would do these 2 additional changes :
-Wrathful skies needs now A7 to cast
-Remove wish

Soul contract i am not sure if it should be kept or not .

Anyways these changes should take only about 10 minutes to make as a mod and then the SC abuse fear is gone .

Ermor e.g. gets 1 wraithlord hero so this hero is then out of a sudden just a really nice national hero http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

Every one of these is larger than size 2 (except the Vampire
lord which I already said should be removed) thus couldn't be equiped with SC items. In addition all but the Banelord have magic meaning they must bring a troops escort. I can't imagine even an air queen being over powered with no items and 25 troops where ever she goes.
I don't see niefelhiem being that bad, the jarls can't have items and need to bring troops. Wish I'm not sure would be that bad without Gift of Reason. You make a good point about
dead Ermors, they should probably be outlawed (or at least be required to take misfortune 3).

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

People are getting sidetracked by all the traditional SC chasis. The house rule states that only *recruitable* size 2 units can be used in an SC fashion. So Wraithlords, Firbolgs, Vampire Lords, etc, all cannot be equipped in that way. You could still use them as mages or thugs or something, but no more than that.

Yeah Ulm is just as crippled as ever.

Human pretenders might be fun too, yeah. It is the Age of Men, after all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Very good point about priests. I think the way to tackle that problem, instead of trying to add some additional work of checking whether a mage is 1, 2, 3 in some magic path is just to mod the nations in question. I will take thier cheapest mage/priest unit that has H3 and copy it and remove all magic (except for holy) from the copy. (Can this be done via modding? Do I have to overwrite an existing commander for that nation?)

Undead nations will definitely have far too easy a time complying with the troop house rules. I think that all nations which have units with Unholy magic should be Banned (just Ermor and Ctis DT, i think?)

National heroes will definitely be something to get excited about in this game. I'm looking forward to that! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

After talking it over in IRC, we came to some conclusions about how the house rules will work out. To avoid any confusion over what is acceptable in terms of an SC chasis we are removing the size restriction on that rule:

2) Only recruitable commanders can be used as SCs

And then outlawing the use of Jotunhiem. The remaining nations have a handful of size 3 and size 4 units but they've been looked over and dont seem overpowered. To put any magic item, other than a magic booster, on a summoned commander would then be considered a violation of the rules.

Additionally, any nation that has Unholy magic will be Banned since it can too easily circumvent the troop requirements of house rule #1. This means: All flavors of Ermor, Ctis DT, Pangea CW, and Ulm BF.

Lastly, a handful of summoned commanders are too powerful even without items and will be removed. Most notably Vampire Lords and the ID with the Hellsword. Others may be included at a later date.

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

What about giving some equipment chances to some summons?

An example is the Firbolg, that has 15 precision, that would be wasted without a bow. In that case I'd have nothing contrary giving to a firebolg a magic bow.

Who's in charge to remove the magic item slots from any big guys? Even because in limit cases someone could loot from enemy a cursed item, so he can't remove that Scythe of Slaying from his guy.

Underline the fact that some "magic booster" are damn good weapon, apart from SunSlayer that is unique, the Blood Thorn is non unique, and have drain life.

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

Good point about bows, it seems like a good idea to alow ranged weopons as well as boosters on any commander. I think we decided to mod out the blood thorn.

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

True, true. If you want to put bows or other ranged weapons on a summoned commander that seems ok.

Blood thorn is going to get yanked, yeah. A one handed lifedrain weapon is too powerful anyway.

As for summoned commanders picking up items? We probably should mod out all thier item slots, but I am just too lazy to do that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I think we should just say if you pick one up you have to hand it off to a recruited commander or a lab as soon as possible.

Speaking of modding tho does anyone know how I can mod nations to add in a basic H3 unit (for those nations that have only mage+priest)?

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

I was mentioning the fact you can get a cursed item with your summon, so you can't remove it.

Re: Age of Men: Themed Game
 

Just opened a thread for the game. Sign up for your nation of choice!

Age of Men