Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

I read in the manual that EA Pangea should try to diversify it's magic near late game with summons. Stuff like Faerie and Lamia queens should be a given, but it mentioned 'unique blood summons'. So, even though I never played them before, I decided to try making a game using them earlier today to see what those unique blood summons were.

I went through the entire list of blood magic and saw not one instance of purple text. I was thinking that they could have meant stuff like Arch Devils or Demon Lords, but the only one who would even be able to have blood magic at that level (at least without several hundreds of slaves used for empowerment) would be the God and the strategy that was mentioned did not have any sort of blood magic on the god.

I was wondering if that was the case, why bother even mentioning it? Granted, Blood and Nature can do some pretty cool stuff, but things like Dark Vines and Cross Breeding are stuff Mictlan can cast just as easily, easier actually because of their natural Blood income and more efficient hunters.

So here, I am coming up with this this topic and I have a few questions for you players and developers.


1) Was EA Pangaea originally supposed to have national blood summons? If so what would they have been?

2) If not, what kinds of incentives would you give EA Pangaea to go down the path of Blood?


I was thinking that perhaps one incentive would be to have a better way to get an income of slaves than sending your frighteningly expensive mages out hunting. I know that Pans attract Maenads, so would it really be so hard to believe that one in every few Maenads showed the qualities typical of blood slaves? Perhaps in exchange for fewer summoned Maenads, the Pans would generate one blood slave every two or three months if that's at all possible?

Another one could be that you can summon unique blood mages. Perhaps some halfmen revel a little too much in the brutality nature? They might ostracize themselves from the rest of Pangaean society, but would be willing to serve in exchange for a host of young girls.

For example: "Some particularly sadistic Satyrs have a penchant for drinking blood. Sometimes they have done this for so long that they can tell pure blood from ordinary blood by it's taste and smell. While most satyrs are found seducing commoner women, this one, once coerced into service, is instead sent among the commoners while they sleep. They go into houses and prick the fingers of sleeping girls, taking a small taste of their blood. If they believe that a girl has the right blood type, the satyr will carry her off into the night never to be seen again."

This summon would be a Black Satyr commander with good stealth, no leadership and armed with a dagger and hoof. No magic, but he'd have enough of a douse bonus to make him roughly equivalent to a standard B1 mage for Blood Hunting. This cheap, low-level summon would help you get started with a blood hunting economy so you don't have to send those valuable Pans out hunting (or at least not for very long).

Now what other stuff might you guys add?

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Purple text is National spells. Which can be unique summons, but usually it's not.

"Unique Blood spells" does mean the Ice and Arch Devils, and the Helios and Lords (and Illearth if you want).

You just need B3W3 for Ice Devils, B4F2 for Arch Devils.

Assuming you're unlucky and never get the 10% or 25% randoms you want:

B2 Pans are common. Empower one to B3N2 (he'll be >N2, of course, but that's the minimum), and he can forge Thorns Armor. Wear it, and he's now B4. Now he can forge a B1 Knife and a B1 Skull for B6. And he can forge Armor of Souls now, which is also B1 and can be removed, and is pretty nice armor for a thug/SC too. But you don't need it yet, and the Devils are not cheap.

Your best bet in EA for B3W3 is the Jade amazons, they are pretty common. 50 slaves to get one to B1W1, plus a water ring and a robe, and wear the skull and knife too for B3W3. Yay, Ice Devils.

Arch Devils are a bit harder since Garnet Sorcs are more rare, and you'd need 35 fire gems to empower one to F2. It's easier to do the Helios first and use the F4B3 one to summon the Arch Devils.

Same deal with the Demon Lords. Use the B4 Helio, empowered once, with: Armour of Souls, Skull, Knife, and the Black Book if you've got it, or a ring of Sorcery if you have that. I can't remember his slots. Empower twice if you need to.

If you're in an MP game with EA Mictlan, and he doesn't get trashed early, then you're going to have a really hard time competing for these uniques, so maybe don't bother, if that's the case.

(Oh, and I don't think Maenads and blood slaves have anything in common, other than their basic equipment. Diametrical opposites, pretty much.)

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

I still agree that Pangaea needs national Blood summons. The standard devils and demon lords just don't fit thematically.

Dark Vines are about the only thing that seem to. More along those lines, corrupted nature rather than demonic would be nice. A blood Treelord?

The black satyr idea sounds good. Summonable blood hunters can be a balance issue though, since they can pay for themselves quickly. Or have some drawbacks. Upkeep cost and generate unrest?

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

And going further than that, having national mages that are able to cast national spells would in my opinion also be fairly thematic. You either need to use your pretender, indy mages or empowerment to cast carrion summons.

I would propose a 2N1D mage with 100% chance of N or D and 10% chance of an additional N or D, with the ability to transform a unit into its carrion equivalent ? It would have to be a very expensive unit though. Maybe give it some side effect like unrest ?

Finally, I agree with Starshine_Monarch about the blood aspect : blood requires loads of mages to work properly, and using pans to blood hunt... well... Either a 1B satyr, 1N1B satyr mage would be great for this. And of course, specific blood summons would be great.

EA pangaea lacks diversity about mages, and is very dependant of the pretender magic paths or indy mages.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

LA Pythium has a national for summoning a maenad-spawning B1 Satyr (who can seduce females), or something along those lines. Adding more recruitables isn't very probable, because EA is all about big mages with lots of power.

All nationals aren't meant to be castable in all ages. Lanka has all those fancy Blood spells - but IIRC Kailasa can also cast those spells. If it wasn't Kailasa, then Bandar Log. Those spells aren't meant to be used, but to show that the option existed before it was accepted or that the nation could have gone for it, but decided otherwise.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Late Age has death Pans right? And the Carrion spells are thematically theirs, not Early Age. So that doesn't bother me as much.

I'd thought that too about Pans bloodhunting, but I tried it out in a SP game and they do pull in a ton of blood slaves.
Not as cost effective as most blood nations, but not prohibitive either. I do like the idea of, maybe Pandemoniacs, getting slaves instead of Maenads.

But thematically, it's the Nature blood summons that are needed. Pangaea doesn't make sense as demon worshipers. But spilling blood in the dark places of the forests to waken ancient powers of nature. That works.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Well, those are good reasons to be against death magic for EA pangaea. I'll drop the idea then.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

I think it's doable. It's mentioned that it's mostly the type of blood, so one or two Maenads might have blood like that. The description of blood slaves on the battlefield also mention that they are drugged into their mindless state and I have no trouble imagining that the Pans know how to make all sorts of different herbal sedatives. Just drug her up to calm her down and poof, instant mindless thrall.

I had planned for the Black Satyrs to generate unrest, far quicker than any normal Sneak or Reveler. I guess I just forgot to mention it. Sorry. As an additional small balance precaution, since satyrs are lustful creatures by nature, I suppose raising the slave cost of the spell a bit might be warranted.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Blood slaves are virgins, maenads are maenads. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Nothing that says they couldn't have been virgins before. You just gotta find 'em quick.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Here's what makes a Maenad a Maenad, from wikipedia:

... they indulged in copious amounts of violence, bloodletting, sexual activity, self-intoxication, and mutilation.

Doesn't sound like blood slave material to me.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

I'm still amazed at the fact that the lord of the wild and pans are able to make those "copious amounts of sexual activity" several time (up to 17) in a single month.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

You should be more amazed at the Revelers. A small group of them can get hundreds of husbands and/or fathers to arms in the span of few months. That would change the poptype if Dominions games lasted long enough. Fortunately for the enemies of Pangaea, 14-16 years would be 160 to 200 game turns.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Who's saying they can't do it all at once? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

This discussion started well but was stopped in its tracks too soon (in my opinion).

Any idea for blood summons ?
I had 2 ideas about making some. Expanding the dark vines theme to other units. As said above, "A blood Treelord" would be a good idea, as would be blood ivy kings, blood carrions (those would just be roughly equivalent to carrions that you can have with death magic, except they are summoned using blood slaves as a power source).

I was also thinking of getting a specific blood spell that would empower "nature" summons and units into a blood equivalent. More or less what crossbreads is to summon animals, and dark vines are to "regular" vines, except you'll target other stuff (other animals ? I was also thinking of transforming pans, minotaurs, satyrs, maenads, dryads, fairies, harpies...).

Basically, having a set of spells that would empower your regular units into a more powerful "blood" version.

I wonder if it would be possible to make this as a mod ? I've no experience in it but I would be willing to try.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Battlefield-wide Stream of Life, anyone?

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

I would love to see something like this. Pangaea with Blood pretty much screams out for the worship of Shub-Niggurath:

"Something black in the road, something that wasn't a tree. Something big and black and ropy, just squatting there, waiting, with ropy arms squirming and reaching. . . It came crawling up the hillside. . . and it was the black thing of my dreams – that black, ropy, slime jelly tree-thing out of the woods. It crawled up and it flowed up on its hoofs and mouths and snaky arms."

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

The Reveler can summon a Satyr? OMG, this nation is causing me mass confusion. I don't know where to go with it. It seems they can recruit/spawn almost anything.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Yo, I read your post and was inspired. I decided to "Lovecraftice" Pangaea a bit.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...vc=#Post618628

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

I'd love to see somebody run with this enough that we could have two separate EA Pangaeas, one regular, one extra-dimensional evil [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon10.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon10.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon10.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon10.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon10.gif[/img]

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Well, regular Pangaea can be creepy, particularily in Late.

I guess that a simmilar-but-more-plainly-extradimensional nation (somewhat like the vague theme of Atlantis -with Dagon-, and R'lyeh) would be in order. Maybe Leng: Nature and Blood, or somesuch?

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

One more throught about pangaea blood uniques - can't they be done as "strenghened" versions of base units? Something like B3E2 spell giving some stone\iron-skinned versions of satyr.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Why would you need satyr if you can summon demon knights?.
The only possible option I see is a bunch of satyrs with one spell but still I don't think it's cool.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

I was thinking more on the lines of "economical" blood analogues of other spells. As in, not as good as the "good" version, but cheaper to do and thus spammable.

As for the satyrs, I dont think stone skin fits thematically, but maybe one that summons mass armed satyr manikins?

also: as in the çuote from "Notebook found in an abandoned house": How about a spell that summons (or maybe just sends) a Dark Young/Dark-Vine-On-Steroids to assasinate an enemy commander?

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Just for reason that satyrs and like are surely paneyan while demon knights are not. Of course, these has to be summonable in bunch, and need to be stronger, than "normal" versions. Possible background for such spell is a ritual, during which a mage takes blood, empovers it with some element(or magic) and units empower by drinking it/

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Because actual demon worship and blood sacrifice to summon demons just doesn't seem to fit Pangaea.

Blood soaked trees awakening to seek vengeance on despoilers of the forest ... that works.

There's no way, that I know of, to prevent them from using the common blood summons, so the best thing to do is to give them attractive thematic alternatives.

I'd love to see more Dark Vine type blood creatures.

I'm not sure about the satyrs. Manikins are death creatures, so a blood spell seems weird to summon them. The Stone/Iron skin also seems odd. Maybe sacred blood satyr summons? With even more berserk and/or regen?

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

I like that one. Some "blood revelers" or something. Spell descr around the liness of "Through a blood drinking ritual, a group of units are thrown into a permanent frenzy and gain high regenerative powers". Would work as a melee unit with +3 berserk, and a regeneration of... hmm, ten percent? and be a reasonably low level summon.

Another nice one would be a "Curse of lycanthropy", but I dont know if that can be done...


As for mannikins, I think it can go either way (as they dont exactly çualify as undead proper, with the vines and whatnot). Althrough the default spells are in fact focused on conjuration/necromancy.
I did add a l5-blood slaves "Carrion Festival" spell, which is supposed to spawn manneads and mandragora in a faraway province (not profficient about the success of it's code. I´m playtesting it right now) The IC rationale is that it triggers a massive frenzy in the province, with women going out to dance with the dead, like in Robert Aickman's "Ringing the Changes".

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Could give them an interesting ability like Blood Vengeance even..... And of course for a higher level blood summons, some form of tainted minotaurs, as well.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

Stone\iron skin does not fit for satyrs, but some more powerfull beings like minos (and maybe pans) seem fitting to it for me (at least, pangaea is greek in some ways, and some mythic greek heroes seem to have ironskin analogues).
Some presumptions at this point: Since such ritual includes giving power through enchanted blood, then it should apply in different ways, based on second school used (Something simular to appropriate bless). Like blood-nature spells resulting in berserk and regen, blood-earth giving hard skinned troops with reinvig, but losing berserk of "basic version", blood-death resulting in poisonous/leprous creatures (seems fitting for harpys only). Will try to mod and see which spells of "empowerment" category actually fit.

Re: Bloody EA Pangaea: Unique Blood spells?
 

does anyone know how (or if) you can make a spell that turns units into were-things, like Lycanthropy amulet??