New Nation: Travelers
 

Version 0.08

I wanted to make a nation with no magic, so here it is.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

"Possessed Prince" can change into "Missionary of Ka" at will.
Changed "Ka" attack sprite.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Version 0.03

-Added two multiheroes;
-Added another unit.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Version 0.04

Added 3 summoning spells.

Going to test the mod now.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Added another spell.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Version 0.05

Units with the "spectral sword" weapon got "spectral fire" instead;
Soldier of Ka got "spectral sword" instead of "phantom blade";
Terminator armor got +2 protection -def and ap.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

I played the first release version and I'm definitely in favor of increasing the power of the free-spawns. I'm not sure if this is a documented bug, but if an immortal commander dies from a disease, it is gone forever. I had 2 missionaires die from a disease, 1 I had just purchased the previous turn in my capitol-they never re-appeared and they were definitely in my dominion. The immortal free-spawn, which basicly starts off old, starts racking up afflictions immediately, which I can consider a design decision. Not sure if the immortal free-spawn is getting diseased, and dropping dead immediately and then evaporating. Will test the new version and see how it goes. After the first 15 turns, I never purchased any units as the upkeep on the free spawn was so high(gold cost 10 and 15 respectively. Great work on the mod!

PS-Was using a rainbow pretender but didn't go far enough to see if that works. Would consider weakening the free-spawn if you can reduce the up-keep.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Its a known bug. But it fits well with this mod so I'm not complaining. Otherwise the Travelers would never die and you will have an unlimited numbers of immortal seducers.

I'll try to balance them better. The new weapon is a step in the right direction.

I actually never play with pretenders other than the mod's original, since I try to balance them, more or less successfully, for the mod.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Changed the name of the nation to "Principalities". Didnt like the old name of "Princedoms".

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Small changes to sprites of Armor type units and leaders.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

I spent a huge amount of time(more than 10 hours) testing this mod. I started a tower game, 1000 provinces, 10 nations, hard AI, forbidden magic mod(more magic) max sites, everything normal, with rainbow druid(mage character with a lot of paths).dom 10, s3,o3, md2, luck-3. Expansion with the immortal chaff wasn't bad, but I can expand faster with pretty much any other race you can name. The "free" chaff has a 10 or 15 Gp cost for maint., and the majority of the game I spent 80% of my income just paying my troops. With sloth, I recruited the max number of troops at every castle but their numbers were trivial the entire game. With a long thin map, I encountered Ulm on top and Jotemheim on the bottom-4 provence front on each side. Both sides were flinging 150-250 soldier stacks every turn at me. If you fight in your dominion, your chaff respawns in your capitol(15-25 provinces away from the front). fighting in your own dominion tends to erode your territory over time, so going on the offence tends to have you facing dominion 8-10, at least 9 provinces deep with enemy temples in 1/4. Even a solid wall of temples(which I paid for by alchemizing gems.) takes a LONG time to wear down. I usually lose 100-200% of the enemy units in chaff-even in battles where I had an advantage. The seducers, which are recruited at old age and have 1 hp, die most of the time from age checks. I suppose you could counter this by keeping them in human form during winter months. I had had more than 100 provinces fully searched, fever fetish farms, clam and earth stone production lines. 75 mound fiends(with 2 types of resource producers) cranking out long dead. The national summons, which don't heal weren't worth the cost, so I was using generic summons. My summoners were enslaving enemy giants and troops-these were good units-but ultimately not enough. During the later stages, I started thugging the hermits, I also used them for fetish farms. The only reason I went so long was because I was having so much fun with the forbidden magic mod. When I realized that the only thing keeping me alive was this huge magic economy I had built, using generic summons I stopped the game.

Hermits are probably your best end game unit, for thugs. Any of your ethereal commanders aren't going to be usable during the winter(when age checks come in)-these guys need to be reduced in cost being immortal is not much value mid-late game when your fighting mostly in enemy dominion(if you're fighting in your dominion, you're losing anyway). The dominator armor is a 1-2 battle wonder-there's really no time to ferry your entire unit back to a lab for repairs. I probably would have done better by taking a high productivity and ignoring the summoners entirely in mid-late game-I tried to swarm with chaff and the maint. crippled me, they also suffered 80% casualties in every large battle.

Overall pretty thematic, high quality graphics and spells(as always). Definitely needs to have the cost of spawns greatly reduced. Not sure what to do with the commanders, avoiding winter deployment to avoid the game-breaking old age casualties seems hokey. Difficult but not impossible to get your magic going without national mages-as long as your pretender is designed for it. Let me know what you decide to do with the spawns, plus then next round of changes and I'll give it another run.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

First time I remember someone really testing a mod out, and writing a detailed report. Good work!

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Thank you for an incredibly detailed report.

-I'm thinking of removing the cost of the Missionaries from the cost of the Princes. Right now when you buy them you are paying for them both.

-I'll remove the spawns maintenance cost completely.

-The update will be posted when I figure out what to do about Dominator units (I think leader's ability to travel enormous distances and change form at will makes them worth the cost).

As for scales, try sloth/2 magic/3 instead. Same research value but more money and resources.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Version 0.06

- Gave Hermit "Katar" instead of "Pata" (was too lazy before);
- Raised Summoner's price to 95gp;
- Lowered maintenance for both Soldiers and Elite Soldiers of Ka;
- Possessed Prince gained a lowered cost and a 3-stage shape shift:
P.Prince -> Missionary <-> P.Captain;
- Added another armor unit that can fly - "Exterminator Armor" ("Construct Army" spell summons them at research lvl 9 instead of "Dominator Armor");
- Lowered price of "Construct Squad" and added "Construct Flying Squad" spell.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Version 0.07

Changed unit numbers to 2450-2480. I'll change the problematic numbers in my other mods when I have the time.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Version 0.08

- "Ethereal Claw" is mrnegates;
- All armor got stonebeing;
- All Travellers got stormimmune;
- "Exterminator Armor" is stormimmune.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Hmm I'm checking this nation out since you said it might be usefull for dominions 3000

I've played a few turns and I'm wondering about a few things
you need to seduce mages to cast spells but mostly you'll just have your troops and free spawn. Most nations get more powerfull later in an age due to magic. For this nation that is much less the case so I wonder what the way is to balance this nation for end game.. is it purely the fact you'll be flooding the enemy with immortal flying free-spawns or am I missing something.

The graphics are lovely but I'd need to replace all basic swordsmen and horsemen of course. I see the ka units as units that won't need to shapeshift in space and I love the immense range they can move (but basicly limited by your dominion spread or they will die)
I wonder if this nation really needs the basic recruitables since I love the freespawn :D

are the human sized ka warriors and leader etc also wearing armor or are they possesing humans or are only the recruitable possesed warrior taking over human bodies? (and why do they do that btw they are much nicer as immortals :D)

I also think they don't need ranged weapons (or guns at least) for them selves.. they ka units seem to be useable as they are.

I'm gonna try to get earth magic to cast those summons and see about those. I'm not quite sure how that fits in thematically though atm :D

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

There is a bug(?) in Dominions that kills deceased immortals permanently. The Travelers cant stay in this dimension for long (have very low max age) so they become deceased quite quickly and die. It doesn't matter if they do so in a friendly dominion or not, they do not come back from that. They need the human bodies and the armor to survive.

Everyone plays differently. I see armies of armor flying around, crushing everything.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Amos, I was just curious as to why you never post images of your work, online in the threads? You do beautiful artwork, and very distinctive, but to see it, one has to download the mod, which isn't always the most convenient thing to do-and must certainly reduce the amount of people who actually *do* download your mods, since they're unable to appreciate beforehand, how visually special they are.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

I used to upload some of the images. But after a while I stop liking them or change them completely. And the old ones are still there, like an inconvenient evidence ;).

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Well you can change the overall image too of course.. I agree with Honey that your sprite work is great and it wouldn't hurt to show it :D

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

I like them a lot, Amos. Maybe if you shared them with a wider audience, you might feel better about them, once you got feedback.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Only thing is this is again a freespawn nation if I put it in dom 3000 that will be the 3th (of total 7 then) with freespawn.. quite a diffent balance than the vanilla game.

I don't see why this nation couldn't have recruitables though I love the graphics and the general idea behind this nation but I've difficulty fitting it in dom 3000 directly.

Why aren't the followers of Ka sacred btw? Seems like it might be a thing for them.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

I didn't want to make another "all holy" nation. The Travelers religion, if you can call it that, is working on a different dynamics (they are completely alien).


I've finished the basic structure for my new mod- "Dreamers" (Theran empire EA), and have all of the summons sprites ready. I'll probably release it when I have the summons integrated and all the descriptions done.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Just wanted to say that I think this is a really cool mod! Also, I was wondering if this mod increases the chances for indies to have special commanders? I was just playing a game with this mod and CBM 1.5 and was finding troll kings, sorceresses, etc. in indy provs, with gems and items.

Also, does your dominion spread normally? It seems like it doesn't.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

I'm sorry. I haven't touched this mod in a while. So, I have no idea how the fix of the "immortal bug" affected this nation.

No it doesn't.

I think there are positive modifiers to the dominion spread in this mod, but I'm not sure. As I remember it, this nation is very dominion dependent. So, it's entirely possible that they get some boost in that area.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

What bug? I can't recall any bugs about the immortal tag.

Re: New Nation: Travelers
 

Diseased immortal units used to die permanently. Most of the Traveler's immortal units are quite old.