Which nations need help?
 

I'm continuing to work on spells and I was wondering if people thought there were other nations that needed help?

My list of positions that need help already includes:
Marverni - EA
Ulm - EA MA
Ermor - EA
T'ien Ch'i - MA
Agartha - MA

I'll also be doing spells for other nations (especially nations like Machaka that are kind of underserved) - which, since they aren't intended to be useless, will still be a boost in power, but not a large one (or that's the idea).

Anyone else have any to add?

Llamabeast suggested that I move this to the main forum, so I did.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Uhm, why did you leave LA Ulm out from that list?

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Whichever one is being played by me.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

LA Ulm has a very strong sacred unit.

LA Ulm has a wealth of national spells - including, for example, a national spell that lets you trade blood slaves for blood hunters. The count has become an utterly inferior thug, but it still worth it as a blood hunter.

They also get a unit-hordeing unit out of their capital.

I agree that LA Ulm is not an overwhelmingly strong position, but with their diversity of stuff they are perfectly competitive. Also, LA nations are generally not that fancy - seldom better than 2 picks in anything.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Middle T'ien Ch'i really isn't that bad.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

EA Ermor bad? has good melee troops for the early game access to a wide variety of magic and has a semi decent sacred. weaker than MA/LA maybe and not in the same class as the heims in EA certainly but to my mind one of the better nations to choose

Re: Which nations need help?
 

EA Ermor is certainly stronger than the other "weak" nations.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

EA R'lyeh perhaps?

Re: Which nations need help?
 

HA! I bet I can lose to you while both hands aren't tied behind my back.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

I'd like to give R'lyeh the ability to become a blood position once it comes on land.

Mainly, this is for thematic reasons - if you've got cultists, they should be performing blood sacrifices. Duh.

This would involve national blood spells, and adding blood magic to some of the R'lyeh freespawns.

The other nation on which I'd like feedback is C'tis.

Is EA C'tis weak? I've never played it in multi-player. I honestly don't know.

MA C'tis is a very interesting nation. It seems to me that the chief weakness of MA C'tis is that they have a lot of trouble with magic diversification. But would MA C'tis be too powerful if they didn't have that limitation? The best workaround at present is to take 4N on your God so that you can place shrouds on diseased independent casters. This is expensive and non-optimal in a lot of respects.

I think the only thing LA C'tis needs is the ability to bless her undead, which my mod already enables. LA C'tis is already swimming with national magic in any case, and hardly needs more.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Thanks for including Marverni - EA, they are in the most need, IMHO

Re: Which nations need help?
 

I don't play MP, but at least in SP they are one of my favorite nations. Cheap sacred researchers, no need for a bless means it's easy to prioritize magic research. No real problems with expansion given Elite Warriors and Heavy Infantry. Easy access to skelly spam and later on Cloud of Death. Magic diversification is a bit of a problem at first, but C'tis has an easy time getting intelligent Tartarians with so many death and nature mages, and Unfrozen mages are an option sometimes too. I don't see C'tis as needing any help.

-Max

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Also, Augur Elders are recruitable anywhere. I haven't played EA Ermor yet--they're on my list to try out--but that's a pretty decent-looking battlemage, amassable in large quantities, with access to Nether Darts and Pillar of Fire.

-Max

Re: Which nations need help?
 

EA Ermor has many advantages - but none zip zilch national spells.

As a pythium clone it's a powerful position - except for the lack of air magic.

Otherwise, as a sacred rusher or the like, it's just kinda inferior. So I gave them some powerful sacred summons (the Angels) and I think that covers that nicely.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

I'm not sure EA Ulm needs help per se. They have some of the better human units in the game.

EA Ctis rocks. 3 Death? Slave Warriors? Chariots? Even City Guard are pretty good, for the age (12 armor) and cost (10/10).

Why *not* an aquatic blood-nation?
 

EA R'lyeh is baaad. However, that's pretty obvious to most people. What I'd really like to see is Atlantis having more spells, and the ability to use blood on both land and sea would be extremely thematic, and fun. Not too overpowering either, because there aren't many blood-sites (if any) in the ocean, so it'd be harder for them to collect bloodslaves-and they'd probably need more than a human nation would, since they maybe wouldn't be as familiar with the most efficient rites.

EA R'lyeh would be better if it had more strong national astral spells, and maybe some earth, since they do live in mud. A little blood would be fine, but I don't really see them being a "blood-nation", as opposed to Atlantis. I can definitely see Atlanteans sending raiding parties to the surface and dragging back screaming victims to use as bloodslaves. They're already maybe breeding with surface-dwellers once in a while for kicks, and they're weird and creepy and evil enough to be very in to nasty demonic rituals. I just don't see the same thing nearly as clearly for EA R'lyeh. They're too alien and strange for blood-magic. They might use slaves for drudge-work, but not for blood magic, except possibly in a very limited capacity-maybe a mutant strain of aboleth has access to 1 blood as a random?.

Re: Why *not* an aquatic blood-nation?
 

EA Rlyeh is fine, at least imo. And they need less, not more, Astral to be thematic, at least.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Purely for entertainment purposes, it would be fun to stick some dinosaur type summons on EA C'tis, but they're strong already, and any additions for them would just be an indulgeance. I'm sure I spelled that wrong.

Sometimes it's fun to indulge, but if you're just helping out the weakest nations, EA Agartha and EA R'lyeh are the most obvious choices for increased national spell lists. I can think of all sorts of extremely weird, interesting cave-dwelling monsters to summon: giant crayfish, beholders, giant catfish, bats, ropers, purple worms, carrion crawlers, there's tons of stuff ready to grab just from D&D-and most of them have high quality miniatures you can grab for graphics off the internet.

Niefelheim is very, very strong, but they're too much of a 1 trick pony, in my opinion-they really could use some more (not-unbalancing! infact, they should be very expensive) national spells. They've only got 2, and while they're fine, a lot could be done to expand and improve the theme. EA Tien'Chi is another one-they are already very powerful, but they deserve a larger themed national spell-list.

Yomi has HUGE opportunities to expand their national spell list, probably they're the most wrongfully slighted nation when it comes to national spells, and they really could use some help.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

EA R'lyeh sucks. A lot. And they should be the premiere EA Astral nation.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

I don't think EA Ermor is weak by any means, but as far as their national spell list goes? yeah, I can go along with you there, I just hope that whatever spells they get go along with the "vibrant empire, cosmopolitan culture, open-minded, enlightened Citizen of the Republic, might be rotten to the core, but looks very alive, shiny, and full of hope on the outside" feel to the nation.

It could use more of that kind of representation.

Militarily, they can be quite strong, because they have a very incorporated war-machine.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

You would'nt say that if you had experienced:-

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gifThe Attack Of The Aboleths http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

This consists of teleporting Aboleths/Mind Lords scripted to body etheral, personal luck, quicken self, astral shield, breath of winter, attack closet.

They have life drain, EA Atlantis/EA Helheim PD 30+ stands no chance. They cause utter chaos and can overwhealm a nation pretty quickly. Especially when followed up with build lab, gateway huge armies in.

The only boost EA Atlantis needs is some way of getting more air gems (EA Oceania needs this as well) to help it get on land.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Yeah, EA R'yleh has some pretty strong disadvantages, but they've also got some pretty good advantages if you play to them.

I really think MA Mictlan could use some nation spells because on top of being quite underpowered they loose effective access to the national spells they already get (blood). They really need a spell(s) to make the coutail worthwhile, maybe a astral/nature non-blood demon (like T'ien Ch'i's non-evil demons). Maybe a flying demon with a poison cloud? That could lead to some interesting strategies.

It also might be cool if, since they're thematically anti-blood magic if they had a kind of reverse Astral Corruption global which punished blood magic usage (maybe increased unrest for each blood slave captured?).

Re: Which nations need help?
 

eh, I use that all the time, and it doesn't compare to a heavily blessed Niefel Jarl with just Breath of Winter, and on top of that, they've got great national troops and land-start.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Thematically, I love EA R'lyeh. It's my favorite nation, as far as role-playing goes. In practice, however, it's a big dud.

Yes, you've got nice SCs-nice and expensive-but not much else, and the SCs are difficult to use compared to many, because you can't upgrade them with items.

Your commanders, other than aboleths, are pretty sucky, you've got no national melee to back up your magic missle troops, and you're in the water. You've got nice tramplers, but they quickly become obsolete.

Yes, if you survive long enough, you can become very strong, but that can be said of lots of nations, if not all of them. They certainly don't have the ultimate end-game of later R'lyeh.

The position you start at is abysmally weak, and you don't have a fast track to power, like say Mictlan does.

Your one hero isn't even that great, nor are your Pretenders.

The free spawn you get are fine, but they do exactly 0 damage and on top of all that, your priests are immobile and you've got weak sacred troops upon who's shoulders a strong Bless is almost completely wasted.

And where are your national spells? I can't even remember them having any.

Finally, I forgot to mention that they lack the one true defining quality of R'lyeh. No Voidgate! If they had a Voidgate-and commanders with the skill to summon from it without going all "quirky"-they'd be a good, solid nation.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

I don't think EA Ermor, EA (nor LA) Ulm or MA Agartha need boosting. EA Marverni and MA Ulm, yes. Though staying thematic while adding spells to boost Ulm might be tricky. Making Tempering the Will much easier to use would be a natural one. LA Marignon seemed weak to me, but I didn't try very long.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Really, adding spells to these nations is not the way to balance them. Marveni is hobbled by its absurdly expensive druids and crummy troops, and MA Ulm just needs more magic.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

It really depends on the spells added, doesn't it?

Re: Which nations need help?
 

As I said, you've got to play to their strengths. Obviously a Neifel Jarl is tougher for a toe to toe slug out, and if you play R'yleh like Neifelhiem it will be a total dud.

Don't do that. I've made the analogy before - Neflelhiem is a battleship, R'yleh is a submarine. Slugging things out toe to toe will be a dud every time. You've got to think more fade, dodge, and weave. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Here are some *significant* advantages EA R'yleh has to EA Neflehiem which you can use if you're clever.

1) Can recruit ready made thugs out of every castle, needing not a single item to take out most PD alone with a little research. Granted, you will need an amulet of the fish to attack the land, but strictly speaking they're effective out of the box.

2) All of the Mind Lords (capital only) and 25% of the aboleths (recruit anywhere) can teleport out of the box. This, combined with #1 means you can attack an absurd number of territories in a single turn against someone you don't even share a border with. Generally easy enough to forge crystal coins to get even more attackers.

3) As Meglobob mentioned, gateway is an excellent one-two punch to follow your initial teleportation wave with.

4) You can perform a brutal amount of mind hunting. This loses it's effectiveness late game, but can be stunningly effective midgame.

5) Most nations will be reluctant to attack you in the water early on. This is a powerful diplomatic tool as well as meaning you often don't need to sign NAPs, leaving you with lots of options once people start getting entangled in other affairs.

6) Voice of Tiamat + Dark Knowlege + Arcane Probing + Haurespex (+ Aschric Record for the land), R'yleh can quickly take a gem lead.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

A ring of regeneration works just as well as a 4N shroud for preventing further HP loss and afflictions from disease. And all you need for the rings is any tribal shaman province, plus one thistle mace to kick off a mace-building, ring-building spree. Plus some gems http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Yeah, well, I'm trying to get people to sign up to a game to test the spells I've added, but no takers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

The proof, as they say, would be in the pudding.

Druids are expensive - but they have a shot at *two* 4s (both earth and astral), and they are sacred. The problem is that it takes a while to get those magic types going.

EA Marverni's troops are inferior - but only slightly. I don't think that's really Marverni's problem.

Anyway, if you give Marverni spells that it can use to buff itself up early in the game, I think it becomes quite a bit more competitive.

EA Ulm is definitely stronger than MA Ulm. Having lousy MR on all of your troops is a lot less of an issue when you have a real horde of them; and your commanders (except for the dismal warrior chief whom you never use) all have decent MR. But I still think EA Ulm lacks a certain punch.

I've found LA Marignon to be a very strong position in multiplayer. I couldn't tell you why.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Is there any good reason why Ulm shouldn't get Tempering the Will at Thaumaturgy 0?

-Max

Re: Which nations need help?
 

You can do all that, Baalz, but you're still going to be at a big disadvantage. They're not a totally useless nation, I'll give you that, but the things they are good at are not good enough to win the game against a really powerful nation, unless you're a lot better than the person you're playing against.

You can use the submarine/battleship analogy, but they're like having a navy that's made up of a handful of submarines, iron-clads, and primitive canoes, and pitting them against a modern navy--maybe without subs, but with battleships, helicopters, aircraft carriers, support vessels, the whole works. The subs might be very effective-at certain tasks-but they are still going to have a hard time fielding all those depth-charges and sonar scans.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Why should they pay through the nose for their One Good Thing? The Druids have 6.1 magic paths and 2 priest levels for 380 gold. They have no other abilities except for blood sacrifice (worthless). They don't even have forest survival!

The Early T'ien Ch'i Celestial Master, to take an extreme example, has 7.1 paths and 2 priest levels for only 250 gold. 130 gold less, and he can fly as well.

The Yomi Dai Oni is a fully fledged SC with 8.1 paths, 1 priest level and a truckload of special abilites. He's 500 gold, only 120 more than the druid.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

If I were going to fix R'lyeh, I'd give them the ability to recruit enslaved sea-trolls (capital only), and do something to make all those free-spawn atleast somewhat effective offensively-like make a level 0-2 national spell that makes them all slightly poisonous (1 point of damage).

It'd also be nice if the sacred aboleth recruitables had a counterpart to the Mind Lords

As far as national spells-I'd do spells that summoned Polypal Mothers who could produce stronger types of spawn-one that's amphibious, another one that has weapons-grade (low level) life-draining, a third that has mild poison, a fourth that can "fly" underwater", and a fifth with slight regeneration, and maybe a spell that "mutates" all your troops into more effective forms-give them one point of (improveable) Un-natural armor or a water-version of Breath of Winter or Moss Body (can that be cast underwater? I'm at work) or makes their natural attacks armor-piercing, without increasing the damage, or makes them all sacred-since sacredness probably is different for an Aboleth than for a human. I think that would be neat. Naturally, these spells would be tailored to be cost effective when you use them on masses of spawn, but very inefficient for any other use, for balance.

Please Note: some of these ideas, I'm actually using for mod nations that I'm working on, but my wife and I are in the process of buying and moving into a house, and I have neither the free time nor the concentration to get them out any time soon, so feel free to use these, I just might come back later and use them myself.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

You missed one critical advantage of the druid over both, it's not capital only. Also, raw number of paths is a bit misleading, other than for site searching 1-2 paths at high levels is far better than 3 or more all over the place.

As far as new national spells for Marverni, you might want to wait and check out the new summons IW a has cooking for them, according to the progress page.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

The Celestial Master has more magic paths, but they're scattered all around (a single 4 is in many ways more useful than a couple of 2s) and he is capital-only. I agree, though, that the Druid seems overpriced compared to the Ktonian Necromancer, the Dai Oni, or the Sauromancer.

-Max

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Druids can also do a nice communion with a bunch of stargazers. It's a problem surviving in MP to the point where you have multiple castles.

Some national summons like Cu Sith or Agartha's Earth Elementals would do wonders to help them out. A mid-level summonable researcher would be great too, since Marverni cannot craft any research items. Right now, not taking Magic-3 scales with Marverni is suicide.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

The Marverni druids are lethal once enough magic is researched. Because of their astral magic and high communion potentianl they are one of the best mages in the game. Their main weakness is no air magic, and air magic is often a needed defensive magic.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

A large communion with summon earth power and bladewind/gifts from heaven/soul slay as required is always nice, particularly if you pretender was an awake cyclop(fast expansion, earth bless grants even more reinvig)

Re: Which nations need help?
 

While MA Pangaea is not a "weak" race, their national summons
are all around a death theme which is not really their main theme, which is nature.

It would be nice if Pangaea had a unique national summon that was unrelated to a death theme. Maybe a level 5 conj summons of a pure forest type unit.

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Yeah, in my SP games I've modded Pans to have a N4E1D2 (and increased gold cost to 400) plus added death to the random 10%. My goal is to improve all nations to the point where I don't mind playing on random race, and without some death magic Pan wasn't making the cut.

-Max

Re: Which nations need help?
 

Make 4 MA Pans, and that's probably enough to get one with D1 (if you're incredibly lucky, there's about a .5% chance to get D2). But D1 is enough to cast all the national summons in any case. Also D1 is all you need for Dark Knowledge, so eventually you can empower your D1 Pan to D2. By then you should have researched Conj 6 for Lamia Queens, and then you'll have lots and lots of death.