Ermor - The Restoration - Draft v0.75
 

Sparked by the discussion in the Gath Dev Diary thread, would there be any general interest in seeing a mod where MA & LA Ermor were switched around?

It won't be very difficult at all for me to do the description changes for a mod that punts Broken Empire to Late Era and makes it a splinter offshoot of exiles returning from Pythium to restore Ermor. I may make one regardless of the level of interest here, but I figured I'd ask. All it needs is altered descriptions, really. A few minor tweaks to some unit equipment. Perhaps also some extra minor mage for them to give a bit more variety in magic than the AWSD they currently have.

I'll kindly thank Foodstamp for providing the skeleton of the mod in the dev diary thread, saves me from making that much structure. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Naturally, if Kristoffer feels that this is territory best left untrodden because he wants to keep it to himself, I will respect that and any mod I may or may not make will in such a case stay private.

So, speak up if you want to see this! If all I get is a general unenthusiastic 'meh' to this, I'll probably put it on backburner.


EDIT: Since Kristoffer himself decided to encourage me, here's a first draft

EDIT 2: Uploaded draft version 0.75 of the mod, with further modified Renata and Renatus, a thematically appropriate Cultist and a new unit, the Shadow Priestess. Shadow Vestal also got new graphics.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Well not having read that thread I wonder why you would do that.

Then you'd have an annoying strong MA ermor and no fishheads to counter them.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

To be able to face off eeeeevil Ermor with gooooood Marignon, instead of Diabolical Faith. MA also has slightly more magic and I think most nations would be at least as good at countering Ermor in MA as they are in LA.

I also fail to see how including both LA Ermor and R'lyeh in the same game can be considered a good thing. It just makes everyone else's game that much less fun.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Endo.. it means they only ruin one age and not 2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Rlyeh is, imo, much more annoying to deal with than Ermor.

I'm not interested in this mod, but maybe others are.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

I would be interested, at least to see how things work out on a thematical level. So I would encourage you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

I think that this would be great. Staggering Ermor/R'yleh instead of having them both in the same era seems like a good idea, and a slightly changed MA Ermor would do great in LA too in terms of variety.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

I'd love to see a mod like this. I miss the days from Dominion, and DomII when I could pit classic Ermor against all of the MA nations it used to face off against.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

I have seen at least two game threads in which the host straight out banned
LA Ermor and R'lyeh. In my personal opinion, Ermor is not unbalanced, just
extremely scary. R'lyeh, on the other hand is simply nuts.

Single water nation with massively amphibious units, defensive dominion,
autospawn, clamming ability, extra summoning ability, full slots thuggable
commanders, best mages in the age, insane magic resistance, the two most
powerful paths at reasonable levels...

When I first looked at it, I went 'Huh?'.

I went back to look at them, and to see whether they are as insane as I
rememebered... So I found out some more advantages that I had missed:
communionable priests, amphibious net using troops, mindless tramplers.

Does anyone believe that the dominion is bad enough to balance ALL these
disavantages? From my tests, growth 3 is enough to counteract the population
killing effect, and the insanity effect is no worse that let say Pythium's
old age problems. Of course, the insanity affects invaders MUCH worse than
it does R'lyeh.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

As much as I'd like to have LA Ermor and MA Marignon in the same bracket, I'd strongly prefer keeping LA Ermor where it is. I like LA as the era of death and decline.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Well I generally dislike LA for having mostly nations of death and blood (I always RP a good character)

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Originally I thought it would be a good idea to create a water nation with counters specific to LA R'lyeh, but now I believe it may be a good idea to give a few nations a spell that counters some of R'lyehs strengths.

For instance a cure insanity spell that is specific to a few nations that people feel perform poorly in LA. Atlantis comes to mind, maybe a few others. Put the spell higher up in the research levels to make it a strategic decision to shoot for that spell to counter R'lyeh.

Sorry for the off topic here and in the Gath thread http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Nevermind the tangent, Foodstamp. If not for that skeleton mod, this thread would not exist.

Now, I managed to draft a halfway decent version of LA Broken Empire (epithet changed to "The Restoration"), but obviously it needs some more work. Mainly it needs a couple of more beefed up infantries, as the current ones are pretty underprotected for LA. The Restoration Renata and Renatus also need the gold costs increased some. Otherwise I'm fairly happy with it. The main point was to get the thematics right from the get-go. All the mage and Broken Empire specific commanders and units had their descriptions altered (Lictor and Shadow Vestal included).

The MA Ashen Empire still has a screwed up description and summary since those seem to be hardcoded into the game and modifying a nation's era requires copy-pasting the description, summary and brief into the mod file to get it all right.

This mod does not conflict with any existing mod since the new Renata and Renatus replace the unused Human Huskarl units 1603 and 1604. The mod file is extensively commented.

Now, I want feedback, especially on the thematics. The balance issue with the Renata and Renatus is another thing that merits its own hashing out.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

This mod already exists and has done for some time AFAIK.

The one age mod or all ages mod allows you to play with any nation of any age all together.

So you simply select all MA Nations minus MA Ermor and put LA Ermor in, I do it in SP all the time, as a impossible LA Ermor provides more of a challenge.

Unless of course Edi you plan on altering the units/leaders/mages of either/both MA/LA Ermor.

Edit

Just read Edi's last post http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif, yes I understand you are changing the nations so they are more thematic.

Good idea... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Since a comment I made seems to have sparked this, I guess I should comment...

1) Thematics is good. You should write up some more stuff for stuff like the Ermorian Cultist.

2) The income probably should be 3D, 1S. Maybe even 2D, 2S.

3) The Renatus/Renata fit, really... if you really wanted to, you could make mention about how Pythium assisted in the Restoration, which would explain why they are present. (Whole Eastern Roman Empire helping to restore the Western Roman Empire thing.)

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

I would like to say from using this so far I like the way LA one works best. The MA one I have watched Ermor expand but not overpoweringly yet. They are first, but me and C'tis are right behind them. I'll keep testing into it some.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Wow.

As an LA-Ermor convert, I don't know what to say.

Given that, in other threads, LA-Ermor and LA-R'lyeh rank as the (muddy) #1/#2 powers, it is probably unwise to introduce them to the Middle Age.

To form an analogy from Dickens:
An ant is what it is, and a grasshopper is what it is, and Christmas is a humbug.
LA-Ermor is what it is, and LA-R'lyeh is what it is, and mixing ages is <freaking crazy>!

Are your really serious? Taking one of the most feared age/nations and moving it DOWN one? In its own age it is difficult to deal with, what chance have these mortals against it as literal amateurs?
================================================== ====
As an LA-Ermor enthusiast, I humbly suggest you disband the thought as, anyone with Ermor prowress WILL conqueror the world.
Necessarily.
Work it out. Who can resist?
{Ermor's recent kill ratio/fix helps it along particularly in earlier ages. "Earlier=Weaker" and its new kill ratio makes Ermor unsurmountable in earlier ages.}
================================================== ==
If I am wrong, feel free to chastise me.
Understand that I have been playing LA-Ermor for over a year.

In this thread I want to emphasize that LA-Ermor has NO PLACE in earlier ages, as in its own place it is difficult enough to deal with.
------------------------------------
Faithfully submitted,
HNC3.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

What? MA is the closest to what Dominions 1 was like. With this mod, it'll be even closer to it.

Yay for "everyone gang up on Ermor!", D1 style!

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Middle has MORE magic than Late. Middle has easier access to cheap, unarmoured archers than Late. Middle has easier access to decent low-resource cost infantry, although that varies from nation to nation. Middle has less Death magic than Late, which does hurt a bit, but then again EVERYONE will gang up on Ermor, if only to get the death gems that will enable them to get access to Death magic.

Some nations have lots more trouble against Ermor than others, but that's also true in LA. MA Ulm especially will have trouble killing the spawn fast enough before it gets Blade Wind, and there are some other nations that will have trouble, like Kailasa which also has very weak priests.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Couldnt Kailasa just spam Solar Rays (I think its the zombie killer?) That one works amazing, especially in communion. I used it LA with Bogarus before and its amazing. Verses Ermor that is.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

MA TC, Marignon, Pythium, Mictlan, Rlyeh can all spam banishment in a communion. That's even more effective than Solar Rays. It's zero fatigue, so the slaves never get tired and can cast their own Banishments too. If you want you can throw in a couple of Mind Burning masters too, to fry the commanders if Ermor forgot to bring ghouls.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Thanks! I should say that the idea has been kicking around in the back of my head ever since I first talked about the thematics and history of Ermor with Kristoffer some months ago and it got some more wind in its sails from the Halt Heretic thread, which is the main post of mine Kristoffer referred to in the Gath Dev Diary thread. You can find that thread here and the exact post is here.

Ermorian Cultist is part of both Ashen Empire and Broken Empire unit roster, so it would be a very difficult trick to alter that without screwing things up for one nation or the other. The description as it currently stands is acceptable.

Good point. Hadn't thought of that. I'll see what I can do about that this evening. Won't be difficult. I also thought of adding a new startsite to give the Broken Empire/Restored Ermor a unit like the Pythian Comitatense in LA. I also need to look into adding a Primani type heavier infantry with mapmove 1, because the MA legionnaires can be classified as medium-heavy infantry at best. The tower shield helps, though, but the armor is way below most LA nations.

The problem is that there are few unused unit slots within the existing framework, four in all that I know of, maybe one more. I just used two of those on the Ermorian Renata and Renatus.


These two are units 1603 & 1604, cleared and copystatted, NOT the Pythian Renata and Renatus. I wanted them there, but the thematics had to be different. Check the descriptions... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

hnchrist3 - what? The ages don't get stronger as they go on. They just get different (more armour and less magic). Since you really want magic to kill Ermor, I would probably say the Ashen Empire might even be easier to destroy using MA nations.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Ever played Dom2 against Ashen Empire? It's quite beatable in MA.

Completely serious. See the suggestions posted by the worthies who responded to you earlier. Ashen Empire has been beaten many times before.

Previous evidence disagrees with you. And I assure you I have absolutely no intention of abandoning this little mod project. None whatsoever.

You happen to be wrong, because many people played against Ashen Empire in Dominions 2, where all we had were the Middle Era nations (mostly) and Ashen Empire was by no means unstoppable. I've been involved with Dominions for several years now, ever since Dominions - PPP, first as a player and mapmaker, then a community documenter and for the past year and change as the moderator in charge of the bug reporting in addition to doing the community documentation on my own. I have a fairly long experience of the game and of its various aspects, so I suggest that I do know what I'm doing with this project.

I would like to emphasize that Illwinter Games, the developer of the game, disagrees with you. See Gath Dev Diary thread on the forum and Kristoffer's encouragement for this mod earlier in the thread. In addition, several longtime players who are veterans of countless MP games, also disagree with you and have the numbers and earlier experience to back up what they say.

All of that said, nice getting to know you. New faces are always welcome. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Just be prepared to have your viewpoints challenged if you present them as unequivocally as you do.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

For me, the 'bugginess' of the historical references is what causes the consternation. Particularly, Yo(o)mi and S[h]inuyama are both nations based off of Tokugawa Zidai literature, while Zyomon (Jomon) actually predates it (to the Sengoku Zidai). I'm currently working (albeit slowly) on a more 'historically accurate' EA and MA for them. Most likely EA would be Wakoku and be a nation of female-dominated shamans, while MA would superficially appear similar to TC and be named Yamato.

As you pointed out at the end, you've already copied sprites and written new descriptions for the Renatus and Renata. Why not do so for the Ermorian Cultist? Or, equivalently, replace it with a similar but new leader? Say, a Ermorian-themed Battle Deacon?

You _could_. If I may make a suggestion, perhaps make an infantry unit that has Fear? Maybe an Undead unit? Unfortunately, we no longer have 'minor fear' to make it more palatable.

I'll get to the Renata and Renatus below, but they don't seem to add much. Well, the Renatus doesn't. I might suggest something like adding a Shadow Vestal leader-type, perhaps with unique minor magic.

I did. I guess I'm suggested a more explicit association. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Good thing I know little of early Japanese literature. That way I can stay ignorant of that and be happy as a clam with Yomi and Shinuyama as they are. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I suppose I could. Problem is that then I need to wipe the recruitment queue, but no biggie, I guess. It would also allow me more leeway because I could use the Triarius and Praetorian Guard unit slots to modify things. Probably the Alae Legionnaire too. The Battle Deacon would be a good idea. Too bad there are no convenient units to copy sprites from, but modifying the battle deacon sprite from MA Pythium could work. The problem there is that it will soon get to be altogether too much work.

This kind of things is why I asked for feedback. An infantry with fear is pretty harsh though, unless it's capital only. Infantry equipped with a magical weapon might be an option.

Those two are a sort of package deal or I need to rethink some offshoot of the Sacred River Cult with just one unit. The Shadow Priestess idea is not a bad one at all. I could probably use that. Especially if I redo the Renata/Renatus thing. The thing is that creating entirely new things from scratch is a lot more time consuming than building on existing stuff and using variations.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

If you redid the guy character (Renatus?) And gave him the picks of both and maybe upped the cost, it would free your slot and give you one mage for the same role, or is that too powerful? I played this mod already LA and besides your living troops being somewhat under armored It works pretty well. I came up against C'tis and their heavy infantry takes a great toll on the Legions. A Cap only troop may work but Personally I'd rather have a few less perks and more availability. They already have 2 Cap only troops, I'd personally think that stronger armor everywhere would help. I would also mention though that I generally dont use the Praetorian or the Triarii because of the old age.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Thanks for the feedback. I've been considering getting rid of Triarius and Praetorian Guard precisely because their old age is also something of a thematic remnant from the Dominions 2 situation where Broken Empire was a parallel timeline. The old age is certainly not thematic now. So I removed that.

I did some tinkering, but I've got to go to bed. I think I'm going to keep the Renata and Renatus as the Pythian offshoots but with increased price. Made Censor and Lictor recruitable everywhere and added a new capital only commander, Shadow Priestess, using #3 of the four slots. I expect I'll use #4 for the Ermorian Cultist reworking.

The only problem is going to be redundancy with magic paths unless I tweak the Renatus and Renata custom randoms to slightly different to emphasize their roles.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

How are you going to replace Triarii and Praetorian Guard? Are those the units that will become the new heavy infantry?

What are the four unused units, btw? You mentioned two huskarls, and then there's the old Golden Naga, and I think another unused female pretender, perhaps old Mother of Rivers or something.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

That ups the number of unused units to 6, possibly 7. Golden Naga, old Lady of Fortune, huskarls 1603 & 1604, 1137 & 1138 (Unused Minotaur & Unused Warlord, they are by those names in the game) and perhaps one of the markata units around number 1119 or thereabouts.

Not sure if old Daughter of the Land is also unused these days.

What I did with Triarius was change startage to just shy of old age with some variation, so if you get one from the high end, it will be old after about 12 turns. Praetorian guard, cleared the unit, copystatted Emerald Guard and renamed back to Praetorian Guard, then set startage to somewhere above 40 with variation so they will eventually become old.

Ineed to work on that mod some more and I apparently need to get into the graphics modding business to get an acceptable graphic for the Shadow Priestess. Might as well replace the Shadow Vestal blob at the same time. I'll post the tyweaked mod in a couple of days.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Just wanted you to know I'm rooting for you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

I moved the thread here to the MAps & Mods forum because the place is more appropriate.

The mod has been updated to v0.75, so it's still a draft.

Changes

• Renata increased gold cost and changed magics (190 gold, WN, 100% WSN, 20% WSDN)
• Renatus increased gold cost and changed magics (190 gold, WD, 100% WSD, 20% WSDN)
• New graphic for Shadow Vestal
• New unit: Shadow Priestess (capital only)
• Ermorian Cultis changed to be thematic for the Restoration, copystatted base Ernorian Cultist and altered description.
• Lictor and Censor are no longer capital only
• Gem income 2D (Temple of the Dead), 2S (Temple of the Spheres)

I would like to hear feedback. Especially on the Shadow Priestess, because that one definitely needs a review for balance issues. It's very much an echo of the Dom2 Shadow Vestal, but there need to be ways to make sure it isn't abusable.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Downloading now and going to take a look at it, Edi. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I'm actually surprised that you incorporated so much of my feedback/suggestions.

Initial Reactions: First and foremost, if you're going to keep that extremely high base encumbrance on the Shadow Priestess, say something about it in the fluff. (I recall the Nightmare Onyx Amazon unit having a fluff reason for their high encumbrance.) It's something disconcerting to find out.

As for the Shadow Priestess, as a whole, I didn't try to 'kit them out' in the short time I had, but my initial impression would be to drop their random paths (they give you nothing that the Grand Thaumaturgs don't, and they're both capital-only), reduce their cost to about 160g (maybe a bit lower), and make their encumbrance something 'normal'. Maybe not 'undead' normal (0), but lower than 10 base.

The Renata/Renatus I find overcosted; I would recruit enough of them to give me some variety, but I would never rely on them. I compare them to the Master Shugenja and Onmyoji of Jomon (i.e., similar LA mages), and find that at 160g, they would have (almost certainly) one less path than the Jomonese mages, but would be sacred. This seems a fair trade-off. I'm still not sure I would use them (the Thaumaturg is such a good priest-mage on so many levels...), but they'd be at least a better buy.

Anything else 'in particular' you want me to look at?

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Thanks for the comments. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

The base encumbrance on the Shadow Priestess is an oversight. Looks like a I plain forgot to add the #enc command and missed it when I looked at the mod in-game, so it defaults to 10. Should be 1. You can fix that by just adding #enc 1 to the Shadow Pirestess unit in the mod file, it'll retroactively fix your games that use the mod.

As far as making the Priestess and the Grand Thaumaturg competitive with each other, what about upping the base D1 on the Priestess to D2 and a cost of around 180? That's a D2 mage with possible more magic paths, low base encumbrance, fast mapmove to shuffle undead armies around, massive undead leadership and immortal to boot, sounds fairly good to me that way, but I worry about making the GT too unattractive. Though the GT is the only one who can get Air and H3, and has the highest potential for Death and outright highest Astral.

The unit costs are something I just basically drew out of a hat, which is why I need feedback such as yours. I suck at the cost analysis side.

The idea with the Renata and Renatus was to give the nation easier access to Water and Nature magic, but not too high levels. They can get access to both Voice of Apsu and Haruspex in addition to Dark Knowledge and Arcane Probing, so chances to diversify magic later in the game is increased. The Renatus also gives a chance to get D2 mages without requiring a Grand Thaumaturg. The Thaumaturg is indeed an excellent mage and I'm having hard time pinpointing where a sweet spot of balance so that all of the mages would be usable, because there is so much overlap between the Thaumaturg and the Renatus.

Would these ideas work?

I would also like to get feedback from others who have tried this mod.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

The Shadow Priestess is a thug chassis, pure and simple. You probably could remove all but her holy magic, and keep her cost the same, and she'd be 'balanced'.

She's Immortal and Ethereal, and you've given her quite easy access to both Astral and Death magic. This gives quite a few options:

1) Trick her out, Dom2 VQ style. Consider that with easy boosters, she can do:

Soul Vortex
Personal Luck
Astral Shield
Attack

Oh, and you can throw in the Holy spells too. If you give her 2D innately, then the chances go up quite a bit that you'll have Priestesses who can throw all of the above with _no_ boosters. Considering the fact that they are Immortal, that sounds pretty good.

2) Immortal Nether Darters. That's rather rude. It all depends on whether you want artillery or melee.

3) Take a Blood Pretender and make them all Assassins. Considering that BE Ermor _should_ have access to Apostacy, this can make them like Hellbind Heart/Charm Assassins.

As far as costs go, I always look at extant costs and compare/contrast. My approach to this aspect of design has been derided here in the past, so I don't want to retread old ground.

I'm pretty sure 160g would be a 'fair' price for the Renata and her brother. The diversity is nice, but that's about all they offer. I guess the best you can say is that communions could boost their magic levels to open more battle magic. But really, with every single Thaumaturg made to throw Nether Darts and being able to bless themselves, there isn't a whole lot you need, there, IMO.

Boiled down: The Shadow Priestess as is seems far too cheap for her possible utility. The Renat clan is a bit too expensive, for the same reasons.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Okay, nix on 2D then. Keep 1D, have 50% D, 50% S and nix the 20% SD and keep H2, price at around 200. That'll still make her a thug chassis, but not quite as brutal as she would be with 2D and the 3 partial randoms.

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

That certainly would go a long way towards mitigating the 'naked thug' issue.

So overall they are 25% DHH, 25% DSHH, 25% DDHH, and 25%DDSHH, hrm? That seems all right.

I'll look into a Bless strategy for them later today. I am a bit concerned at the attritive power of the Darters, especially if you have one carrying a Banner of the North Star (or scripted to throw the spell), and then retreat. That looks like an awful amount of pain that's pretty renewable.

Edit: Bless strategy I have so far looked at is E9S9 with a Sphinx. Please note, I am running CBM.

The Shadow Priestesses are definitely good at 200g and the last-mentioned stats (I took the liberty of editing the mod file... hope you don't mind!). I basically researched to Enchantment-3 (for Astral Shield) and Alteration-1 (for Personal Luck), and scripted the following:

Astral Shadow Priestesses - Holy Avenger, Personal Luck, Astral Shield, Attack (none)
Non-Astral Shadow Priestesses - Unholy Blessing (holy-2 version), Holy Avenger, Frighten, Attack (none)

The Frighten is really just a placeholder for a turn. With Reinvig-4 and a melee encumbrance of 2, it's not like it's going to hurt you to throw it.

4-6 working together can easily take an Independent-7 province, 'naked'. Sure, you lose 1-2, but they come back and it's not that much of a setback.

Hrm... I'll have to check replays, but I don't think that Holy Avenger is actually triggering with them. Am I misunderstanding how that spell is used?

Oh, and my first Renata I recruited was W3N1. Do you _really_ want them to have access to Clams that easily, no matter the probabilities involved? While that's pretty rare, IIRC, 1/3 of them will be WWN, with only needing a Bracelet to Clam, and if you play with Luck (as I do), it's not like you're not going to have Water and Nature gems by the time you're able to make the bracelet. :p

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

I don't mind you editing the mod file and testing things out at all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

What do you mean about the attritive power of Nether Darters? Do you mean throwing a bunch of the priestesses at the enemy with a chaff screen, Darting them and then coming back for more after they die (assuming friendly dominion)? Okay, that's something to look at, but it's not much different than tossing a horde of thaumaturgs at them, since you can get those anywhere for cheap. 5x Darts and run is still brutal.

The clam issue I did not think of. That can be a problem, but I don't see an easy way around it unless a change to the randoms is made so it's 100% SDN random and the 20% WSDN staying as is. That way only 20% of them are W2N and need a bracelet before clamming. Can't remove the fixed Nature without screwing up the thematics and even changing the random changes the symmetry between the Renatus and Renata, but as you said, it can be a serious balance issue. Astral nation, undead reanimation, immortal thuggable commanders and easy clams all in one package would be a bit much, I suppose.

Thanks for the analysis! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Ermor Era Switch Mod - General Interest?
 

Yes, you took my meaning on the attrition issue. I bring it up because immortals have these kinds of issues.

Regarding the Renata, I think you have a good idea on how to 'deal' with them. You can change the Renatus as well to be more 'flexible' at the same time. Also, with the change you propose 5% of Renatas would be WWN. They'd have a 20% chance to get one of WSDN, with an equal chance of each of those. 0.25*0.2=0.05

I don't mind the analysis part at all. I'm glad to be of service.