Any Machaka love?
 

I noticed DaveCG seems to be off and running on an Early Age mod of Machaka, but does anyone know if there are any mods out there for the vanilla Machaka? It seems such a shame that they don't have any nation specific summons or spells, and I have not heard if KO had any plans to update them in any future patches so I thought I'd check with the mod community to see if anyone had tried modding them.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

Well I'm working on Machaka for Dom 3 K :D (spider walkers, spiders and spider spaceships :D) but it's not released yet except for an alpha version in the dom 3 K thread.

And I seem to recall someone made a spider god pretender for them something with an A. It's in the signature of one of the more regular posters here, possibly endoperez.

Can't remember much else.. have you tried a forum search?

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

You know, I was half thinking about rejazzing up MA Machaka alittle! :P

More on topic, I don't think I've seen anything for MA Machaka other than endoperez god spider pretender, which is totally awesome.

DrP did a EA Machaka before me and he's done a LA one too, which I must admit gave me the idea to make my own, hopefully KO which get round to it after he's finished with yomi/jomon's dragon stuff and I think he said something about do Tcchi-china stuff after that if I remember right, oh well, maybe something will come out the wood work.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

Don't forget there is a reserved nation slot for EA Machaka. My guess is that when EA Machaka is being built, MA Machaka will receive some love at the same time :).

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

thank you guys for the replies. I did try a search in the forums but didn't find anything specific to MA MAchaka. Suppose I'll just wait patiently for the devs to get to it when they get to it. :)

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

Personally I think it would be cool to have Early Age Machaka be able to summon a litany of lesser gods, cumulating in with size 6 giant spiders and the lion headed titan pretenders which broader selection magic. Of course the problem with these lesser deities is that they often compete with the pretender for the affection of followers and would be saddled with varying levels of heresy depending on their power.

For late age, as a change of pace, it would be interesting to see Machaka as one of the few uncorrupted nations. I'd imagine that it would be historically based off of Mali and Songhai. The backstory could center around the Pretender vanquishing the Black Sorcerers from the god mountain and founding the great city of Timbuktu a haven for alchemists and philosophers. Tuareg light infantry would form the core of the nations military, its capital heroes would come preequiped with golden bracers of protection, and magic wise death would largely be replaced with astral.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

I suppose this is as good a place as any to ask, but what myths would you say inspired Machaka, I know in the book it says...er...can't remember atm, but it did say something about the phatom comics as well, I was hoping someone could point me towards a good book or site or something, being as everything for the EA mod I've done has been completely pulled out of the void that is my mind, and based around the two words "Lion Kings" in EA Machakas nation slot, not much to really go on...and I'd like to tie some real world myths in, could be fun.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

wait I'll give you a lil machaka love (it's lines and sprites from my in progress dom 3 K mod not polished for dom 3K even so certainly not for use in vanilla but you should try it.. you are welcome to use anything you like if you would like to expand on it.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

Machaka really could use more balanced Province Defense. It's the reason my love for them faded.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

The epic of Sundiata would probably be your best bet. Historical king but with much legend thrown in, in terms of magic and such. I did however read an excellent hellboy story, Makoma, that had an african setting. Not sure if its based on solid mythology but it would be quite workable in game terms (Hellboy relives the exploits of a legendary hero, who overcomes and befriends the giants of the forest, mountain and river, defeats a fire demon, and a powerful necromancer before he is forced to fight an apocalyptic dragon and leave the world reborn in the wake of the combat.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

Thanks, although I'm not so sure about the awesome, what it with being a very early proof-of-concept. :D


Our best bet would probably be to get Kristoffer to play the EA Machaka mod, and then get inspired to play little MA Machaka, and then decide that they're due for an update. That, or kidnap him and send him to Africa for his summer holiday. Without sun protectors and with a laptop, so that he'll get burned and will have to stay indoors. We might also have to give him few hints, such as making Indian gurus ride into town on giant, mind-controlled spiders that eat the people and his breakfast, so that he gets that Enslaved black spiders are Not Good.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

I'd personally go for a magic experiment gone wrong creating driders/spider centaurs and who then take over and give the spiders a more holy position. a few recruitable spiders which are sacred. I think entering giants (giants AGAIN???) would just dilute the still underused spider theme :D. MORE SPIDERS!!!! --> ow this chain of events would make this story LA.. of course it could be turned around and be made in EA (would fit dom 3 better even.. more magical in EA fading that out as the ages pass.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

But outside of Anansi, which surprisingly isn't included for Machaka, spiders aren't all that well represented in African mythology whereas animism and lesser deities are. Secondly they weren't so much giants as elemental, animal headed quasi deities (that animism again) MA Machaka is definitely the time and place to do a spider cult given the dominance of the spider transforming black sorcerers. This definitely should be reflected in the conjuration tree, summonable riderless black hunters with improved magic resistance, smaller death poison baring spiders, your recommended driders (the most favored bane spiders perhaps), elephant sized giant spiders with multiple web shots and trample, and magically potent divine spiders who are the black sorcerer's true masters. Given that MA Machaka is slightly on the evil side and is based loosely on west africa, it should have Soumaoro as a national hero given that he is a wicked pagan sorcerer king who sits on a chair lined with the flayed skins of vanquished kings (incidentally also a great black smith) that is ultimately defeated by sundiata who creates the empire of Mali and brings islam to west africa while permitting its coexistence with animism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soumaoro_Kant%C3%A.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

hmm I myself don't care much for mythologies really (owww sacrilege in this forum).. I just say what I would like to see :D

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

This, one thousand times this for sure, I've got some money saved, and I'm only over in the uk, hmm, properly not wise to talk about kidnapping KO on his forum, quickly, to the hidden forum!
-dun dun dun dun dun daaa daaaaaaa-
On less silly note it is a shame Machaka seem to have been forgotten, mind you I have no idea why I care, it not like I even like them that much, I hate spiders for a start, it's just you know, support the underdog and all that :) personally I'm just biding my time until I make some MA welsh druids, mwuahah-etc.


Thanks for the reading suggestion Lurker, I'll be sure to look at it, I'm basically looking to made the EA mod have at least something that doesn't come off as "And this is a lion, and this is a lion and hey, guess what? that's a lion too." although I'm going into the starting roots of the cult with ther...hang on, I'll stop being lazy and try to get the .dm finished by wednesday and you'll see, it'll need balance and spell checking and suggestions galore but at least it'll be out there, and it has to be wednesday for after that I get my mindless giant robot fighting fix, oh the joy of gundam...

Hey Aezeal how'd you feel about a gundam nation for dom3000 :p ahhh, there goes the rest of my free time.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

gundam nation... haha
check my Jomon in dom 3 K... you might recognize some sprites from gundam games :D

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

Mytheology mod gives Matchaka a new goddess Empress of Assassins which is pretty cool.

I think more could be drawn out from the old DnD Drow. More drider like. Something that would work for Lolth Goddess of Spiders.
http://www.freewebs.com/spe720/k%27lzik.jpg

Gandalf Parker
--
new sig self-deleted for rudeness

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

I like my drider, haven't seen the mytheology one though.

Having seen both driders now I must say I like mine better :D mostly becuase his is more of a huge spider not what I think of as a drider (it probably isn't intended as one either).. it looks good though since it's a huge sprite with details.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

thanks for the info guys, I'll check out a few of the mods mentioned. DaveCG, shot you a PM with a few ideas for your EA Machaka mod. :)

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

I really love Machaka, they're one of my fav nations of Dominions and it's a shame they look like an afterthought. Vanilla Machaka really does need some summons and those suggested above would work great). I need to check out that EA Machaka mod that's flying around and see how that pays out but I'm concerned by that hugely expensive king unit the modder puts so much emphasis on. It seems that king unit is the whole focus of the mod and makes him the central theme of the nation. In MA the kings are merely figureheads as the priesthood as complete control of society, os maybe in the past (EA) the kings had too much control or they became corrupt and had to be reigned in but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with a hugely powerful king unit that is pretty afr removed from any other king unit in the game. I'll check it out and see if it can be improved any.

As for LA though I like the idea of hving Machaka on of the few uncorrupted nations and I love the idea of basing around the Malian empire. They were massively wealthy and for a time some of the most educated people on the planet. Introducing Astral magic into their makeup would fit perfectly. I like the idea of bringing driders into the nation but I'd recomend limiting them to LA and having them sacred. The sorcerers of Black Mountain could have been purged by the priesthood for corruption and those few who weren't tainted by foul magics chose to show their devotion to the god by mergin with the spiders to become the first driders. Now they are few in number and sacred, hiding in the God Mountain waiting to be called into action. Drider commanders could be the last of the Black Sorcerers and they could be decent mages (maybe not as good as the original sorcerers because these were the uncorrupted ones so probably the more novice sorcerers), call them Drider or Spider Elders or something. The drider troops could be their chidren and they lack the magical training, call them Drider or Spider Children or something.

For LA Machaka's military I'd focus primarily on the hoplites. If their society survives the rigours of the middle age and a possible corruption then the empire that comes out of that would be strong and organized. An African hoplite army would be cool, throw in some Zulu military elements based off their bull-horn strategies (or whatever they called it) and you have the army worked out. Basicly you'd have regular hoplites supported by older and more experienced second line troops (like the triarius of Ermor) and have younger, faster and more lightly equiped flank troops with shorter spears. I'd not use the spider cavalry of the MA, perhaps they had issues controling all those spiders (maybe the spiders influenced by their god began the purge of the wicked form their ranks - thousands of giant spiders decending from the forrest to cleanse are gonna leave a lasting impression on a culture!), instead they'd rely on their driders for cavalry support (though they'd be cap only sacreds andin short supply). Leave them their archers, perhaps upgrade them to composite bows (outside influences in their military) which would be balanced by their lesser access to Flaming Arrows. There's also one thing that's been forgotten thus far about Machaka - the Bandar. Their history (in the form of heroes) mentions the intelligent apes living deep in the jungles nearby. Maybe in the late age Machaka has subjugated the ape kings and they use their warriors as levy troops or auxilliaries? Well armoured and trained hoplites supported by the stronger ape warriors would make for a nice mix (similar to how Arco has their own ape warriors). Throw in an Ape King commander to go alongside an obvious hoplite commander and you have your military leaders sorted.

Only thing left to decide would be how the priesthood is represented. If God Mountain was purged then some sort of inquisition would be in order. I'd keep the settup of the priests (Eyes, Ears and Mouth of the Lord) to some extent. Give the Eyes and Ears the Inquisitor bonus as they're out actively looking for corruption and threats to the faith. The Mouth of the Lord can instead have access to astral magic as they spend a lot of time communing with their god and interpreting his/her/it's commands. Maybe the king is now a priest-king and the vessel of the god? His person is chosen from amongst the ranks of the Voices and his priest abilities match theirs but he is a more powerful astral mage. Machaka could be a relatively good astral nation but a choice would need to be made about using their expensive astral priests as communion slaves or not.

The more I think about this the more I like the idea of LA Machaka. I need to learn how to mod this game so I can put all these idea's into practice!

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

Demantiae, I love your ideas. I'm too very fond on the idea of making "uncorrputed" LA nations. What can I say? I'm just a sucker for happy endings.

The best way to start nation modding is to read the modding manual (it comes with the game, in dominions3/docs), it will give you some idea about what can be modded and what cannot. Also, take heed from another mod nation .dm file. You can avoid many starting troubles by copying structure and pieces of code from a working piece.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

How does this look for mage selection. I love your idea for reinventing the eye, ear and voice.

Spider Elder- A drider mage representing the loyalist black sorcerers who were transformed following the turmoil that preceded the rise of the new god. They would be capital only sacred, thugable commander. It has all slots minus feet and comes with 1F 1E 1D

Voice- With the fall of the Black Sorcerers, the Voice's found themselves to be the most powerful force remaining in Machaka. With the emergence of the new god, they have thrown themselves behind his worship with wild abandon, learning the mysteries needed to commune with him directly. They would be a recruitable everywhere sacred mage with 2H 1S 50%SNFE 50%SNFE. As you said, their principal role would be to form communions.

Priest Kings- The priest kings rule the great city of Timbuktu. The most magically talented Voices are sent to the capital in order to further their training. Particularly adapt in their knowledge of arcane mysteries, they direct the fate of entire tribes. Sacred capital only mage with 2H 2S 100%SNFE 100%SNFE 100%SNFE

Griot- Griots are a caste of scholars bound to serve the royal families of Machaka. They are poets, scholars, historians, storytellers and magicans, devoting entire their lives towards the service of their masters. With the rise of the priest kings, they have congregated around the great city of timbuktu with its many libraries and universities. Griots are recruit anywhere mages. They are good researchers but their magic picks are erratic and they lack astral 100% NFEA 50%NA 50%EF 50%NFEA

Witch Doctors-Your recruit anywhere death bootstrappers same as in MA

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

I'd say swap out the death magic for nature on the Spider Elders (abandonment of ancestor worship and the corruption that went along with it) and adoption of a more naturalistic outlook of things. Essentially the more nature focused Witch Doctors/Sorcerers are worked into the former Black Sorcerers combining the two as one unit/concept. The Witch Doctors were very fond of abusing their power so I'd think they'd disapear along with the mages of God Mountain and the Griots are their perfect replacements. Those who want to learn the secrets of things instead go to Timbuktu and the great library there and learn what they can. I like the random magic path access too, just keep them away from astral and death.

An idea I had for the priest-kings would to call them Vessels of the Lord. I'd give them H3 rather than 2 as a priest driven society requires a H3 unit IMO. You could probably balance this out by removing the Ears of the Lord, the nation (being the dominant culture in it's region) may not need to send out priest-spies so much. In fact it might be very insular (culturally and religiously) like China was historically. Leave the Eyes as they are but add the Inquisitor bonus and you have a patroling inquisitor unit that can take care of all your societal control needs :-)

I like the idea of the rumours of the Black Sorcerers being related to a dead god buried inside God Mountain being part of the reason for their destruction. Perhaps a false god arose in the mountain and the sorcerers, together with their spider assassins sought to gain total control over the nation. The priests of course knew better (perhaps prompted by some deity from the depths of the God Forest) and they rebelled thus leading to a civil war - priests vs sorcerers. Of couse the priesthood won, purged the sorcerers and those witch doctors they found wanting and imprisoned them all inside the mountain for all eternity. The Driders are all that's left of them, showing their devotion to the (winning) god by taking on his/her form and staying within the mountain as guardians of the fallen mages. If the god of the forrest is now the lord of Machaka rather than the god of the mountain it would explain why Machaka might be cool with the idea of having the monkey tribes as vassals and levies in their army.

If anybody has any idea's for making Machaka better let us know! I'll have a go at modding something for LA but I can't make any promises. Had a cursory glance at the modding manuals but that's all. If anybody could recomend an easy mod I could pick apart that would be great. My only modding efforts to date have been in the Hearts of Iron/Victoria/Euroa Euniversalis games and they were text file based. I often just took existing parts of the games (or mods) and just made alterations here and there to figure it out. If this is possible with Doms 3 mods then I could work something out fairly easily. I will however have problems with the sprites as I have absoultely no idea where to begin with those.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

Just select one that works. All nation mods basically do the same thing. Add units & new nation & some summoning spells.

There is a sprite editing tutorial here in the forums http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=42737.

Read the whole thread, there is a lot of machaka stuff discussed by DaveCG after page 2. You'll probably find it useful.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

I think my Tomb Kings mod is reasonably comprehensible as are any of Sombre's mods.

Re: Any Machaka love?
 

As much as I'd like to recommend my dom 3 K mod I'll have to admit it's not very easy to read through.. (but it has nearly all sorts of uses of commands in it :D)

So I'd have to say that when I started modding I always had Sombre's skaven mod opened next to whatever I was typing it has everything you need in it.

The modding isn't the hard part in the end, getting your sprites is (as honeybadger shows us with his tons of lines of code in several mods but far to few sprites (yes this is meant to get you starting HB)) If you have an idea it's put into a mod very quickly if it's a thing that can be done.. or if it can't be done you'll have to discard it just as quickly :D