New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

This is a new Nation mod which adds the barbaric nation of Dinnas'Arval to the early age.

This is Version 1.00 of Dinnas'Arval it's not version 1.01 because I just zipped those files 3 times and I'm not zipping them again tonite.

Anyway, I made huge improvements, added descriptions to everything, the nation now has proper forts, proper starting sites, some new scared units, which I'm unsure if I've made them too uba, anyway, huge improvements, Nation has a story now, try it out!

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

Updated a lot of stuff, balanced stuff, still yet to add descriptions.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

I'll try it this weekend, Juzza. I took a look at it before, but since there wasn't a lot going on, there wasn't much to comment on.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

well, I just need to know, like are the barbians too strong, should they cost more gold, that kinda feedback, I mean personally, I think it's fairly balanced and I got a hero done the other night, gonna update that later with another two more heros and a prooper scout unit, though, I'm unsure on the priestess, they get lots of wolves... they might need to cost a little bit more.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

I think the costs are basically reasonable. You might want to give shields to the axe throwers so they can form a shielded front line.

The half helmets, awe, broad magic paths stealth and regeneration seem like unexpected features, but they seem to pay enough for them. I didn't notice the wolves though.

You might want to make different unit forms to offer the priestess as a pretender. She ends up being very expensive there with many paths, which is different and not necessarily bad, but kind of unorthodox and not very flexible.

P.S. Oh the great city does not seem right for a barbarian capital, unless perhaps their story is they captured it from a civilization.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

oh, um, the base mod was taken off my other mod Tarent which used a great city, the priestesses will not stay pretenders its a side effect of the copystats to get the wolves as is the regeneration, them being pretenders I can just restrict them to an unused nation but I can't get rid of the regeneration.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

You could reduce the regen to 1%, possibly even 0% you know.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

I've tried to reduce it to zero, doesn't work and as far as I know it's at 10 percent witch I can just graft into the description without too much hardship good suggestion though, um, but does anyone know of any other commander that has wolves come to their aid in battle? other than the ***** queen?

Oh and has anyone checked out the two blood spells?

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

Dai Oni.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

hum, their demons aren't they?

I don't think I can get rid of that, and my priestess can't be demonic! thanks anyways.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

Updated lots and lots, see top post to see, try it out! even if you don't like, download it, it looks like more people like it :p kidding!

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

Looking at this some more, I have a few specific comments and a few generic ones.

1) You are only giving 5 total gems on the capital sites. It does seem like the general rule is 6 in EA. What is your rationale for deviating from this?

2) The commanders _seem_ fairly priced, but I was getting an awful lot of randoms (the non-100% ones), it seemed.
2a) Side note: You might want to start with an Assassin instead of a Priestess. That's a really good early research boost.

3) Barbarian King Hero needs his 'mount's' weapons designated so that he doesn't take multiweapon penalties for them. (I believe that's #extra or #bonus.)

On a more general note, it plays well, though a bit more attritive than I'd like. My main concern is that why would I play this over, say, Niefelheim? This has a lot of the same drawbacks of Niefelheim (i.e., very expensive mages, no cheap mages, no cheap blood hunters, etc.), but few of its benefits. Now, the mages are sacred which helps quite a bit in upkeep issues, and I received quite a few good mercs early so my expansion was rapid, but even so I was rather concerned over my early gold issues.

Now the mages themselves are quite possibly the best sorcerers in the game, with the High Priestess able to get 4S, 4N, or 4B. (Not sure about 4D, but I don't think so.) And in the game I've been playing for the past hour and a half or so, I got all 3. I also got a SSDDNNBB one, which was quite nice.

I guess one of my pet peeves is that certain magic paths (and particularly certain combinations of magic paths) occur much more frequently than others. To take this example, all the Jotunheims, Sauromatia, and BF Ulm have more or less the exact same magic (varying degrees, but same magic). And now this mod as well. This is just my feeling on the matter, but I like mods because they offer new options, and this mod doesn't offer me as much as some others.

This general issue is, I want to stress, my _personal opinion_ on the matter and I don't think Juzza should change the mod based on it.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

Hum, nice comments, I'll definately take some into consideration, but did you try to latest version? you didn't mention the Ancients.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

The Ancients? IIRC, I was playing a Fire-6 Air-4 Phoenix, so the Bless was useful, but nothing major. As far as the commander was concerned, if I needed to guarantee having Death-2 on someone (and I didn't get it from a High Priestess), I'd recruit one or two. I'm not the one to ask about thug chassis, if that's where you're going.

Oh yes, and the Possesssed Berserkers looked quite nice. I was surprised they weren't Sacred, though. Very nice overall stats. Probably should add another ritual higher up that lets you get more than one at a time (for a commensurate price).

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

Mm, but even normal priestess can summon those and I think I definitely need to make the high priestess a tiny bit weaker, heh, their too good compared to the other commanders.

I do intend on making at least two more spells, at least two more heroes, and fixing the current one, and hopefully another commander and another unit, tough, I don't intend on making any better commanders, by that I mean max starting leadership of 40, thats one of their disadvantages.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

Meant to reply to this earlier, work keeping me soooo busy.

I like this mod. I'm always appreciative when people do their own graphics. You coulda wussed out like me and used existing pics but overall, I think your graphics are good. Not been able to playtest it as much as I would like (Sorry Sombre, I'm trying) so I can't really give you much feedback on balance and what not. I haven't even summoned a possessed berserker yet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif But a solid effort thus far.

P.S. I also like the idea behind your Tarent mod. I'd read some intersting discussions in other threads about possibly modding in some gunpowder nations and I like the whole quasi-magi-technology thing. I vaguely remember playing an Arcanum RPG years ago. It was made by Sierra I believe.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

Well, I'm glad you like it!!

I'm aware my graphics aren't the best, but they've come a long way from my first mod, (tarent) and still getting better, it's hard doing most of my work in paint, but I'm learning how to shade better and with the ability to copy sprites straight from the game, well, it won't really make my mods, that much faster, I think it takes me as much time to edit one as to make my own, but the quality is definitely a a step up from my animations.

And np that you haven't play tested it, though if you do, might wanna wait for the next version, hopefully up in the next few days, fixes a few major mishaps, like the mages power.

um, and yes! I'm also aware I spelled Tarant wrong!! it was a silly mistake! lol, and I only got into arcanum the... 3rd time I tried it, so it took me a few tries to get into heh, but I'm glad I did, best RPG I've ever played through...... 7 times http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif yes I have no life.

Re: New Nation: Dinnas\'Arval
 

New update, no new units or spells just a few fixes and changes, high priestesses shouldn't be as strong anymore, Ancient Weavers are more worth getting, the Hidden master no long has 40 leadership, downed to 10, um possibly, more I'm unsure, at least I know that it's compatible with the new patch and all.