Arabs and Carthaginians
 

The game already has Phoenicians. Phoenician culture is so heavily intertwined with greek culture that it's hard to distinguish the two - greek letters are actually phoenician, as are greek naval techinques, at least originally. Furthermore, following the conquest of the levant by Alexander, the phoenician city states Hellenized almost completely. Now, given that ME Arco has elephants (which you ride over the Alps to attack Ermor), as well as Sirrush, it covers both. Thumbs up to Kristoffer.

Arabs, on the other hand, are different, and are not well covered. Furthermore, the Phoenicians (Greeks too) were definitely a maritime culture.

Also, it turns out this didn't actually happen, but there's an urban legend that Rome salted the soil around Carthage so that nothing would grow there again. A mid era nation where the land was cursed with death magic by the Ermorians would be pretty cool.

So, how is this for a national arc -
In every era:
Lots of cheap light cavalry (like the T'ien Ch'i horseman).
Sailing.

In the early era, has no blood magic directly, but has priests who can perform blood sacrifices and a douse bonus (I need to check if douse bonuses work on a unit with blood magic 0), and has national spells that conjure blood mages. No sacred warriors, but powerful and diverse magic off of cheap national summons.

In the middle era, has been cursed by Ermor. Maxage on all units is 20, your units are cheap, but old. Nation struggles to survive, should somehow reward you for taking the Death scale. Sacred warriors are child-cavalry (size 3, resource size 1, hoburg profile). Cannot recruit mages, but gets a crazy good deal when summoning them - summoned mages slowly free others from the curse (have a domsummon ability that makes units who aren't dying,) and are immortal.

In the late era, muslim arabs. Religion is universalist - so you have sacred versions of literally every unit you can recruit, and you make most of them everywhere. Sacred units benefit from Sakina - they are all Morale 30. Other units -
* Dervish. Capital only berserking sacred.
* Ainsarii. Capital only stealthy sacred.
* Murshid. A priest/mage, H1. WSN plus 100% from WSN plus 10% from WSN. Capital only, berserker (like Dervishes.) You get a hero version who is bigger.
* Hashshasin. A priest/assassin/mage, H1. Capital only, has DN, is crazy bad-***.
* Imam. A priest/general, mounted, H3, has a standard, large leadership. Capital only. You get a hero version who is H4.
* Ulema. A priest/philosopher, H2, makes research.
* Mufti. A priest/judge, H2, has a patrol bonus. Capital only, maybe has a chance of death magic?
* Qadi. A priest/judge, H1, has a patrol bonus.
* Alchemist. A mage. FED, 100% FED, 10% FED. You get a hero version who also has blood and astral - he's eeeeevil.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

Just a couple of thoughts to add, because I really like what you have so far (good work, by the way):

If the Devs will allow it-and it'd probably require some sort of coding in: a bonus to EA "Carthage" to recruiting mercenaries, since they and the Phoenicians did that a *lot*. Say every gold EA nation spends translates to 2 gold from everybody else. It makes them both different and very powerful, in a new direction.

Secondly, what if in MA-to go along with the death scale-the sacred child calvalry all had a "twice-born" type ability, that only functions under a Death scale? So that, if you kill them, they come back, preferrably more powerful the stronger the Death scale-this would probably also require some coding, but the coding ideas wouldn't have to be incorporated into the mod until/unless they become doable. And, I'd give them crossbows, personally, since the idea of a sacred child-calvalry reminds me of parts of Stephen King's Gunslinger saga.

LA seems really interesting, powerful, and complete.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

Well, for me, it all really depends on what you mean by 'arab'. LE is clearly Muslim, which is actually missing from the game. So go all out on that.

Earlier Iranian/Persian realms can quite easily be represented by MA Arcoschephale.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

Hmm. Actually it strikes me that there's no Australian aboriginal inspired faction in the game either, unless you count the endurance and whatnot of Machaka.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

All sounds excellent to me, except:

- I don't really like the idea of child cavalry. Winning a battle against them by slaughtering the children wouldn't feel so good.
- Wouldn't sacred everything be a bit crazy with a strong bless? Or maybe not, because you're still restricted the Holy resource.

Sounds like a very cool theme though, I like it.

Oh, I don't suppose it's possible to create a spell that reduces the age of other units, rather than the mage himself? If you could make a ritual that reduced the age of all units in the province by 1, you could use your mages to actually cure people of old age, rather than increasingly relying on domsummoned troops, which might feel a little odd.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

Llamabeast, I'm assuming you don't play a lot of blood-nations?

I'm currently working on a Middle Era Aboleth nation influenced by the Mamluk culture, so hopefully we'll soon have several Muslim-influenced nations. Moors would be nice to see, though, as would Turkish dervishes.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

Well, the thing with blood slaves is you forget what they are after a while. And, well, they are adults at least. Children just seem a bit wrong to me.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

I thought they were naked, 13 year old virgin-girls who were blinded and then kept in prison, isolated from human contact their whole short miserable lives, so they could be sacrificed by being flayed alive and then have their eternal souls ripped from their bodies and eaten by demons in a profane, unholy ritual?

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

Well in some societies it was (and still is) considered quite the honour to be offered up to god or for king and country.

So maybe they live splendid lives of luxury then are given a sweet, sweet sendoff into the glory of the afterlife, safe in the knowledge that their family has gained honour and status.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

Nah, I'm pretty sure they just carve the skin off of them with barbed whips and red-hot razor blades.

Their families they probably burn at the stake.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

So sort of like that film Cook Off?

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

I think I missed that one, who was in it?

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

I suggested an undead Carthage a while back. Fire/death, mostly, with fireproof basic undead and the elites including elephants, undead slingers, archers, etc.

I'd just make the hashishim cheaper and available everywhere. Maybe 40 gold, stealth +10 and dual golden daggers (they didn't like poison). Capital-only assassins are seldom worth it.

Magicwise, my preference would be to make a Muslim nation's core magic fire/air. It's vaguely thematic, not taken by any other nation and is a good combination.

For the early era, you get a Persian nation with fire/air/astral and angel summons. In the middle era, it becomes a pure fire/air Arabic nation with djinn and efreet summons, whilst in the late era, it moves to an Ottoman nation with earth/fire/air and powerful Jannissary elites.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

When I think of Zoroastrianism, I think of fire and air, but if I had to pick magic paths for Muslim-themed nations, it would be the same as for Christians and Jews-astral and death. Do any nations take those two paths?

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

EA Ermor is obviously meant to be Christian - but their spellcasters are not. Marignon, Pythium and LA Ulm are pretty clearly Christian with Mage/Priests.

"So.... the Manticore is... Jesus?"
"The Manticore is the *third person* in the holy trinity. He's of the same *substance* as Jesus."

But it depends on what we want for our Muslim spell-casters.

Alchemy is an arabic word, so they get Alchemists, who should have more or less the magic powers attributed to sorcerers in Arabic folklore, which tend towards fire, earth and death - but I *could* give them any magic paths I wanted.

I'm also giving them Sufis, who I'm giving magic powers similar to what hindus are given - astral,nature and water. Idea being that these are contemplative and transcendental kinda magics.

Obviously I could go a different route, and give them priest/mages who can work spells duplicating the miracles described in Islamic texts, but that's not the standard treatment.

As for Zoroastrianism, it's pretty clear that they get astral, fire and *water*. You could also make an argument for air and nature, but water is a must-have - Zoroastrianism worship and ritual magic focuses heavily on the purifying powers of water and fire (although they do not, properly speaking, worship either.)

Sandman - available everywhere, two golden daggers, check. 40 gold is kinda cheap for the stats I was gonna give this guy, though - are you suggesting he should have regular assassin stats?

VedalkenBear - Arco does a fine job for Phoenicians and Phillistines (who are greeks anyway,) but a *dismal* job of subbing in for Iranians or Persians. They have hardly any cavalry, and no archers! T'ien Ch'i is a better match for Persia.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

EA Ermor spellcasting is pretty Christian-appropriate for that stage in things, but seeing it depends how you play them because the emphasis is entirely up to you. If you're swimming in bishops and archbishops for your 'mage' presence, you have it. Recruit either a bishop or archbishop every turn you can. Auger Elders, call them gnostics. Stay away from them, or at least use them in extreme moderation, they won't lead to anything good down the road (glyph of irony). The Numina hold-overs are Mithradists (yeah, those were in there). For pretender-god choice, just don't take something that goes that much against your grain. Take a Virtue (personally, I use a dormant Virtue with maxed order and productivity, dom 5, air 3 and astral 5. By no means optimal, but guess what /she's/ there to do...). Take a Sacred Statue, or an oracle. Be sinisterly contrary and take a Moloch or Prince of Death and prove the more rabid sects of protestants right. Take a Divine Emperor and start a splinter-sect; it's pretty much what the Druze did with Islam, why should christianity be exempt. Take a Lich to be /really/ sinister (or respectful, nowhere is it written that you have to play a Lich like an evil-presence).

Failing all that, well; "All hail the great Spider! So sayeth the Spider!". Your mileage may vary.

Personally, I'd like an Apostle-esque mage-smiter hero. Take /that/, Simon you git.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

Okay, this cracked me up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

-Max

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

Maybe it's like those tabloid magazines, where Jesus's face appears on a potato chip? except in this case, Jesus's face just happened to appear on a big winged lion with a scorpion's tail.

Who knows? maybe Elvis and the Great Mother will get together and have that alien baby.

It's a funny old world.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

Obviously the Lich is Jesus - being of great power that dies and rises again.

Actually if you modded Jesus into the game as a pretender, one that claimed to be the son of the Pantokrator,... what would he have?

Obviously the ability to heal people in his province.
A supply bonus (water into wine)
Sailing (walking on water)

What else?

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

Praet: I guess I was referring to pre-Roman Mesopotamian cultures? Basically, the stuff that is covered by ME Arco and/or EA C'tis.

And I would _kill_ for a thematically cohesive Fire/Air nation. A recurring 'issue' of mine is that all of the magic combinations are not equally represented.

If Water is an integral part of Zoroastrianism, why not make a ME Caelum mod (which supposedly has those influences) and give them Fire magic? The Eagle Kings may not have died out, etc. etc.

Edit: Also, please be respectful of all religions. It's rather amusing/saddening how often religious tolerance is not equally applied.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

I definitely agree with you, VedalkenBear. Religious freedom is something that we not only take for granted in this country, we often take advantage of it. Everyone should have the right to find their own way in life, whether it's through Judaism or it's offspring, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism-there are still a few out there-or anything else.
Personally, I'm more anti-religious than anything else, but that doesn't mean I hold the beliefs of others-anyone's beliefs-in contempt.
After all, it's a very mysterious universe and it's not a good idea to piss off gods, even gods you don't happen to worship, yourself.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

Just in case that was directed at me: I wasn't laughing at a religion, I was laughing at con men and their wide-eyed dupes. It was just funny the way it was worked into Christian terminology.

-Max

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

A few? I recently read that as many as 3 million people still follow Zoroastrianism. That's really surprising to me! But it is understandable when you think about it, one of their principle religious figures is called Ahura Mazda. Hands down my vote for the coolest religious name ever.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

As interesting as this is, this is also _way_ off topic.

I might look into doing another mod that was Islamic/Muslim in nature. I'd consult my brother-in-law who has a degree in History focusing on the Mongol period.

That would be very intriguing.

Re: Arabs and Carthaginians
 

FWIW, I was intending that the non-sacred "Sorcerers" recruited by Wu-Shan would be fire/air mages primarily (with randoms also drawn from earth/nature/water.)

The sorcerer's weapons are wind and fire, after all (I think I'm mangling the quote but that's the sense of it.)

I don't think it's reasonable to expect all magic combinations to be equally represented. There are some pairings that just tend to go together. The lack of fire/air is, admittedly, a bit more unexpected than the lack of fire/water.