Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod
 

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

I don't suppose there's any way you could make a version w/out the recruitables, so we can use it in "Water Total War!"? Since we're using the Single Age mod we're forced into MA :(

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

Thanks Burnsaber! I'll give it a try.

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

Open the .dm file of the mod with a text editor and you can remove parts that you don't want in it for your game.

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

I can. It's just a matter of taking some code out, it's not really a bother.

So you want a version with no new units? Just the sites/items & spells?

I'll upload it "soonish".

I also got some other ideas, but I'd like to hear what people think about them before I implement them.

- A cheap new summon for a "underwater guide". He's not anything special, would just possess the ability to bring troops underwater with him like the Sea King.
- Adding some more magic sites underwater, especially more air sites.

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

Okay, here is a castarized version of the mod, only including the global changes of the original mod.

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

Ok, I've decided to start to my updating cavalcade from this mod. The planned changes will include these:

1) MA & LA version of the mod.
2) More air & fire sites underwater. The vanilla underwater site distribution is so heavily focused on earth & nature that it isn't even funny.
3) More UW sites allowing the recruitment of independent mages (with paths other than water), these will be uncommon sites. One uncommon unique mage site per path (- blood & water) should do the trick. Ideas about what these mages could be (like backround stuff) will be greatly appreciated.
4) "The Underwater Guide": a cheap, low-level water summon spell for a commander with the ability to lead troops underwater. This should allow UW access even without construction research.
5) "Ride the Currents": I'm not sure if I can make it to work, but I'll announce it anyways. This (if I get it to work) spell will basically be a water magic teleport, but only between two water provinces. If that works, I should be also be able to make a higher level version that is basically UW only "Gateway". This should fix the absolutely massively annoying "only 1 water province movement" 'feature', and make water magic more useful underwater.

If any of you have any comments concerning the changes in the version 0.6 (are the recruits too powerful, for example?) this would an absolutely wonderful time to announce them.

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

Yay, triple post!

Anyways forgot to mention one important thing. I'll also be making a global version (that'll work in all-ages games) without the new coastal recruits for the UW nations, because people seem to be intimitated by them. It's a bit wonky solution, but it's probably necessary to make this mod more vanilla friendly.

I can understand why people would be against the new recruits ("you dare to mod *new* units to sacred vanilla nations? How dare thee!"), but I really see it as necessary. Besides LA R'lyeh, UW nations aren't reallly ramping up the victories in the Hall of Fame, you see? If I just make the UW-access more common, it would just make the UW nations even weaker.

Besides, the "only crap in land castles" feature, although thematic, really doesn't work in the long term. It just makes it hard for UW nations to hold their land provinces and disencourages them from going to land, which leads to the "turtle underwater" problem.

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

You can definitely make an underwater only gateway and teleport - tiamat is underwater provinces only so you can use that as a starting point.

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

Well i only have good feedback on this mod from watertotalwar. the kelp fortress change is really noticable. actually have to build forts.

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

Yeah I think the kelp fortress change should definitely be something that's in every game.

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

I'm playing EA Atlantis in Water War and actually doing pretty well. As one of the few water nations without any access to nature mages, I'd probably be toast by now without that change.

Also, I approve of the unit changes/adds - unfortunately, they weren't compatible w/ all ages. Any chance of making a future version with the units that is compatible?

2c

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

Unfortunately this is impossible due to lack modding tools. You can't mod land/sea recruits for those nation who have them. This meant that in order to get EA R'lyeh coastal recruits, I had to mod MA R'lyeh into eraly era and make it a copy of EA R'lyeh and overwrite MA R'lyehs nationals coastal recruits.

I could make a global versio with recruits, but MA Atlantis and EA R'lyeh would be left out.

Re: Underwater gameplay enchantment mod (UWGEM) v0.6
 

Okay, here's another preview. These will be independent mages from uncommon UW sites. In vanilla all independent UW mages are water mages, which are completely useless for UW nations, since all of the have good water magic already. You can probably guess which mages focus in what path.

http://xs942.xs.to/xs942/09325/uwgimpreview793.png

Here are the paths & special abilites I've planned for them:

-Albatross Mage 2A1W 10% A/W/N/S, lose all water magic on land
-Drowned Captain 2D1W, big pillagebonus, stealthy, poor researcher
-Sulphur Mage 2F1W1A, aquatic, some fire & poisonresistance
-Coral Druid 1N1H 100% N/W/A, animalawe
-Ictyid Stargazer 1S1H 100% S/N, prevent bad events, slightly insane (visions of R'lyeh)
-Seasmith 1E 50% E/W/F/N pic, forgebonus 10


Expect the one on the far right. The draq troll, yeah. She'll be a cheap summon (level 3 conjuration, W2, costs 5 water gems) that can lead troop underwater like the sea troll king. Because of the coral armor, she will also be able to support in combat (poison spikes + regen + lots of hp).

Here are the sites I'm going to add. The last ones listed per each path are the uncommon ones

Fire (2 common, 2 uncommon)
-Tropical Current, 1F 1W
-Underwater Volcano, 2F
-Fountain of Sulphur 2F 1A, Sulphur Mages, unq
-The Flame that Shall Always Burn 2F 1S
Air (2 common, 2 uncommon)
-Air Bubble (2A)
-Sea Wind (1A 1W)
-Albatross Island 2A 1W, Albatross Mages, unq
-Valley of the Electric Eels (2A 1W 1N), unq
Water (1 common, 1 uncommon)
-The Greatest Current, 2W, unq
-Chaotic Current, 2W 1A
Earth (1 uncommon)
-Sea Forges, 1E 1F 1W, Seasmiths, unq
Nature (1 uncommon)
-Grove of Kelp, 2N 1W, Coral Druids, unq
Death (1 common, 1 uncommon)
-Ancient Kraken Carcass. 2D
-Bermuda, 2D 1W, Drowned Captain, unq
Astral (1 common, 1 uncommon)
-The Island of the Lost, 3S, unq
-Gorge of Visions, 2S 1N, Ichtyid Stargazer, unq

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.8
 

Mod updated. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Remember that my goal is to make it easier to get into and out of water. I have a long rant about this, but I'm too tired to type it now. Let's see how I feel tomorrow.

I'll likely soon start a MP game to test this mod to the fullest.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.8
 

Well I haven't tried this mod but thanks in advance - I whole-heartedly agree with the concept. I don't really enjoy playing as an UW nation, nor fighting them. I love the concept and the content of UWs but it's just too painful to fight them on their own turf and too dull to spend most of the game turtling below the waves.

/begin off-topic ramble -
I was thinking about a game set up where there were not many UW provinces (and NO UW nations) and the oceans served more as a reward for whatever nation could get UW to grab them. It might add another strategic objective to contemplate (always a good thing to have more paths to victory to consider) - do I grab the UWs before my foes...

Of course you'd then probably have to ban nations with amphibious units etc or worry about nations with no access to paths that lead to UW capabilities so it might not really be feasible in practice...

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.8
 

All great stuff Burnsaber! Did you know in Dominions_2 any water mages could enter water provinces and the higher the water magic the more troops could follow!

Unfortunately the DOM_3 beta testers never complained enough when the developers removed this ability and thus crippling what little assistance the AI opponents had for expanding into water provinces. As a result during our LAN games which include AI opponents we have no choice, but to play only land maps OR very specific and few AI opponents.
:(

Yes, an oddity in Dom_3... also strange how there's no blood sites in water provinces. One of the developers said there's no blood sites because the blood washes away the water, but actually blood and water would mix. There's fire sites in water provinces... strange how water doesn't extinguish fire sites. :re:

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.8
 

Yeah, I knew. Did you know that this feature was even in Dom:PPP? :P

But yeah, it's a shame to see it gone.

Well, you can't blood hunt underwater so it sort of makes sense to have water as "no blood" zone.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.8
 

So I finally got around to DLing this because I generally don't play the UW nations at all due to the problems you listed in first post. I'll give my thoughts about my upcoming play test later. Instead, I have to ask, is there a difference between the UW Enhancement mod vs. the UW Improvement mod that is lumped into the rar file download. A cursory look thru both DM's shows no noticeable differences.

And thanks for your prolific mod work for this thoroughly enjoyable game!

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.8
 

Ugh. The old version was called "Enchantment" but everyone kept pestering me if it's supposed to be "Enchanment" mod (there's a difference). Knowing my lack of linguistic ability, I just decided to rename it. Apparently the old name stuck on to the MA+LA and the Global version (you'll see that the banner has the correct name). I'll fix it for the next version.

And thanks in advance for the feedback. If the water breathing item change isn't enough, I have some other plans to make water more accessible, like:

1) Revamping some summons to be more amphibious. Like Vine Men for example. They don't breathe, so why can't they go underwater? Same with Bane Lords and many other units. They deserve poor ampihibian tag at least. Why do ghosts have poor amphibian tag? They're ethereal, it's not like matter could hamper them, at least according to all common ghost lore.

2) More summons for UW accessible units (probably to nature, since it's available to everyone through indy shamans). Kelp Men, anyone? Sea Dogs could also be a pure nature summon, IMHO.

3) Turbo-charging water-breathing item access (sea king's goblet to level 0 and cost W1, Barrel of Air level 0 air 1, Manual of Water Breathing level 0 N1). If I get desperate that should do the trick.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.8
 

Small bug report. The Oceania spell, Call to Arms, is suppose to summon selkie warriors (I think) and instead summons the Wanderer hero, but as a reg unit and not the hero unit.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.8
 

Besides the bug reported above, my initial thoughts after playing a shortened SP game using this mod. I only played as UW nations so I can't yet comment on the ease of land nations to get into the water:

It does seem easier to get troops out of the water, or rather the commanders. Pretty big plus for Ry'leh, (Mindlords rock!) and Oceania. Not that big a deal for Atlantis.

I've not found any of the new magic sites I think. I'm not that familiar with UW sites as it is, so it's possible I've gotten them without really knowing they were new.

Love, love, LOVE the unit types. I'd tried your Oceania enhancement mod before, so I already liked the idea of Selkies and new merman units, and the Atlantian coastal units have nice flavor, nothing to write home about, but still solid troops. I do, however, really like what you did for Ry'leh. Your Dema warrior additions are very cool. Add to that the Doomsayer hero who can convert enemies AND freespawn troops and I think you've gotten me hooked on an UW nation. Kudos!

That's pretty much all I got for a first impression. I cut the game short because I was also running one of the better independents mods, gold version, and when the Doomsayer converted some of the indy troops with high gold costs, my upkeep shot up into the stratosphere! (I went from about 300g upkeep to over 4000 the next turn)

A question. Do you plan on incorporating your cross path combat spells mod to this? Or did you alrdy and my lack of UW knowledge is showing again? Also, what is the difference between the Selkie Mist spell and the regular old mist spell?

This is all for now. Thanks again for your hard work!!

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.8
 

Yeah, if you plan on playing with EA R'lyeh, I'd suggest you use a NI map. Makes life a lot easier.

Actually, I already have incorporated the UW spells from CPCS into the mod ("Befoul", "Oxidize", "Surge of Algae", "Chaotic Currents", "Deep Drowning", "Call Drowned", "Ink Strike").

Selkie Mist easier to cast than regular A3 mist (1/4th of Daughters of Selkie can cast it without boosters) and causes the "Rain" effect too.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.81
 

Ok, I did a quick update in preparation of a worthcoming MP game.

Important changes from version 0.80 to 0.81:
- Manual of Water Breathing now reguires just N1 to forge.
- "Water Strike" spell boosted significantly.
- "Crushing Pressure" now just does pure damage. Highly lowered fatigue cost.
- "Call Drowned" summons more ghosts. Fear the fear auras!
- EA R'lyeh now starts with "Living Castle" with 30 admin.
- EA Atlantis now starts with admin 40 "Kelp Citadel". Although a bit unthematic, the guys need the extra resources.
- Bug with the Call to Arms spell fixed.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.81
 

question: (or maybe a report)

in a random test game i got a pathless daughter of selkie. it looked like it was a wave lord, and he turned into a daughter when i sent him on land. how? when i tried it again, it didn't happen. maybe i just forgot which unit i had, but then i could find a way to get a pathless daughter

Edit: I figured it out. when the turtle chief goes onto land, he become a daughter of selkie, then he stays as one even if he goes back underwater. i assume this isn't WAD?

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.81
 

Yeah, I can see the problem. Damned be the mystic workings of the "copystats" command! Easy to fix, I'll post improved version tomorrow.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.82
 

Ok, v0.82 uploaded and the turtle bug fixed.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.82
 

Too late now I guess, but IMO the only possible way to make the living pillars really viable would be to 1) give Atlantis a decent way to get an E bless, and/or 2) give living pillars an enc value thats actually sane.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.82
 

One more thing- Can you please please pretty PLEASE give the shamans one more astral level?! I'm just having fantasies of fighting off EA Oceanian KOTD with Deep Ones plus Fortunas Meddling...

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.82
 

Yeah, Living Pillars are problematic, but the LA Agarthan blind sacred dudes get some use with similar handicaps (high resource cost, high encumbereance), so I don't think that they're hopeless. Now EA atlantis has a higher admin fort and the Pillars costs fewer resources (+ a mr boost). If that doesn't work, perhaps further boost is necessary, but I'll just see how they are now.

They're not obciously going to be pure bless material at any point, but should work as an occasional support troop. (they're pretty good at taking lance hits from KotD's).

Sorry, but I'll keep them the way they are. It was a desing decision to make all of the new coastal mages give 1 one mora path access (Oceania now gets consistent A2 on land, R'lyeh D2 and Atlantis gets access to nature with the shaman). You can hit S2 with that 10% random thought with coral tribe shaman.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.82
 

Well, to give credit where its due, the admin increase and the res cost reduction combined to make them much better than they were. I can now consistently use them to expand with an E9 N4 bless, which I actually got cheaper than I thought I would. 4 of them set to guard com. w/a BQ set to divine bless, smite X4, spells actually do quite well against most indies. I still think that in general though, Atlantis is toast in any war they might have w/Oceania before around turn 20 or so.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.82
 

I won't be so sure. Oceanian troops rely a lot on their defense and armor, KotD's especially so. Some alteration research will give you access to "Earth Meld" (allowing you to hit them) and "Oxidize" (to get rid of their armor). If the Oceania player just spams Oceanian tritons, your SC should be able to handle them.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.82
 

Played a bit more yesterday with this mod.

The female water troll (the Conjuration 2 W2, 5 W gems spell, name escapes right now) is just amazing value for the price for certain nations. Hello Bane Lord who is cheaper, easier to get, regenerates, is blessable, has massive leadership, can lead land-bound troops under water and is not undead :o Ok, she has pretty high encumbarance, but a minor earth-bless negates that.

Seems to me to be too good to be true, but might of course feel very differetly in a real game...


EDIT: Now that I think of it, not sure if the trollette is available from something in CPCS instead rather than UWGIM, as I had both those enabled (with CBM1.5 and the no-gem-generators -mod).

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.82
 

The Trollette is from UWGIM, but shes not sacred. Are you sure you don't have other mods enabled than CBM, CPCS, and no gem gens? She can only be sacred by a result of mod clash.

But yeah, thanks for the report. Due to a brainfart, I forgot to give her special itemslots (just misc slots) :doh:. I'll upload a fixed version shortly. She's meant to be tough (because her death will result in drowning of all his "guests" underwater), but not thug material.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.82
 

Yes, I am positive. However, I may have had a brainfart myself, I made her prophet just to check things (you know, just to see how big HP pool she would have in Dom10 ;) ), and of coure she became sacred and blessed from that :angel

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.82
 

In the Jenga version she still has only misc slots, is this intentional now?

Other than that, I think it is much better that her leadership is toned down (as it is in Jenga version) and HP downed to 40. It's a slight bummer she can't lead magical troops though as there is now way to give her the crown (no head-slot). With a bit of experience and a Barrel of Air or Goblet of the Sea King she can lead really amazing numbers of troops under the waves.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.82
 

Yeah, it is, I also updated the download from this thread.

Yeah, the 160 leadership was actually a bug (she is copystatting the Son of the Sea pretender for her amazing UW abilities). I also hit her stats with a nerf stick based on your post and slightly increased cost to make you summon Ice Drakes if you need something for combat. I'll probably give her some magical leadership in the next version, but I don't want to release yet another version just because of that. But anyways, glad to hear that shes working for your UW needs.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

meant to post this sooner, another small bug report:

In my last game with Ry'leh using this mod, their land PD had slave tritons in it. Just weird seeing aquatic units on land. :D

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

Did they fight or did they instantly drown?

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

Interestingly enough, they fought! :D

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

Ok, then it's just a 'cosmetic' thing. I won't do a quickfix update for that. Added to the fix list, thought. Thanks for the bug report!

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

Looked over the spells today.

The Traverse the Sea spell being the same level as gateway and requiring W5 compared to Gateway's S4, while being more limited in effect, is really poor design. Yes, its 3 gems cheaper, but that doesn't even begin to make up for a more limited ability to use it. Why not give it the same limitation as the Ride the Currents - must be to a friendly province (without the lab requirement). Now it has some advantages over gateway, but is still strictly inferior to astral travel. (Honestly, Astral Travel is too high level as it is, because by the time you have it, you don't care about armies anymore).

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

Stritcly inferior to Astral Travel? Astral Travel is researchlevel 9 and costs 25 astral gems. It's not a valid comparison. And for why it's harder to cast than Gateway, it's because the spell, althought necessary is sort counterinituative to this mod number #1 goal: to make access to water easier. There is no way for a land nation to attack UW if the uw-nation can just use these spells to cheaply teleport an army on the magic phase at the path of the invading army.

With W5 it can't be reached without boosters, requiring both thaumathurgy and construction research (there are some expections,like MA Atlantis and EA Oceania). The intention of the spell is to allow movement in UW over that non-moddable 1 province restriction. It is costed and pathed for that use.

Well, if people deem it that unusable, I might consider it. But this spell does something quite new, I first want to see how the 'conservative' version works before turbo-charging it.

As for you comparisons to Gateway and other astral travel spells:
1) Remember that these cost water gems. With gem gens out of the picture water gems will be perhaps the most useless gems in the game. If you can use the water version over the astral version, you will likely do so.
2) Water nations are a lot better at water magic than astral. (expect for R'lyeh, of course)
3) Water magic is a *lot* easier and cheaper to boost than astral magic.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

My point was such a boost wouldn't make it too powerful.

So, you take a bunch of sucky nations (Oceania, Atlantis), and then you make it easier to attack them, but it isn't acceptable to let them actually defend themselves?

They'd have to know exactly where they were being attacked to use it thusly. And considering land nations can generally duplicate that effect (admittedly on a somewhat smaller scale) with strategic move 2 or even 3 (cavalry)... it really doesn't seem unreasonable to allow a larger effect when that effect requires gems, a mage turn casting, and a mage who can lead the army in the first place, gems spent on boosters, and having dedicated the RPs to acquiring it (and sufficient construction). Especially since water nations will often have more border territories than land nations because there is less water and its often strung out along the land (which they may or may not hold or be able to hold).

So basically water nations can't have nice things?

Oh, it'll be used. Only because water nations will be so desperate for *anything* that they'll have to pony up and use it. That doesn't make it not a really poorly balanced spell that takes too much investment of mage time, research, and gems for what it does. Its just most water nations *don't have any other choice* but to try to use it.

1) Irrelevant. Most water nations are stuck with water income - you're basically penalizing them (again) for being a water nation. (Also, its not like water doesn't have perfectly playable summons for the midgame when this spell might actually be useful).

2) Still irrelevant. Its pretty easy to get an S2 mage to S4 for gateway. You take ES on your pretender if you don't have ES naturally for crystal coin, especially if you've got astral to want the coin. W2 mages aren't really boostable to W5 in any reasonable way. MA oceania has a mere 1/4 of their casters who can reasonably be boosted high enough (W3 + 2 boosters, all their mages are W2 + 1/4 of ?100%), and doing so takes *construction 6*. EA Atlantis is no better off. Natural S3+ mages are a lot less rare than W4+ mages.

3) Sure, 2 boosters cost more gems for astral than water (20s 10e vs. 20w), but S2 is a lot more common for astral nations than W3 is even for many water nations, and boosting S is a lot better than boosting W. And astral has the RoS and RoW for even more boosting options - not that they're cheap, but you can do it. Water has... a unique trident?

And we're talking about access to a spell that even without the lab limitation is still vastly more limited in the long term than gateway, since at some point that water nation needs to traverse the land if it expects to win.

As written, the spell is more useful for EA Rlyeh than nations who actually need it like MA Oceania and EA Atlantis. That's just silly.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

Egh? I'm having hard time understanding your argument. Because a lower research level, with different magic path spell is weaker than a high research one with a different path doesn't mean that you should boost the weaker one. That's like boosting "Falling Fires" because it's not as good as "Niefel Flames".

Water provinces are pretty large and most land provinces only have connecion to a single water province. If you see a huge army on a coastal province, they usually have only one water province to move to. Without the lab requirement, defensive maneuvers would be too easy.

*cough*

You read the first post, right?

They got plenty of nice things. Hence my reluctance to give them a superior teleportation spell just for their use. Now that I think about it, this argument must be some sort of misunderstanding. Allow me to restate the intention of the spell

Traverse the Sea isn't intented in no shape or form to duplicate the stragedies and or uses of the Gateway or Astral Travel spells. It is a modded mid-game spell with the intention of allowing you to move your map move 1 troops around in your territory and is supposed to require some planning on your part to do so. It's not an offensive spell, it's not an defensive spell, it's just a movement spell. If you want astral travel or gateway, then just use those spells instead, perhaps take some astral on your pretender.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

Strategies.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

[quote=Burnsaber;709975]If you want to keep the effect as is, it should require something like W3 and 5 or fewer gems... and maybe only require Thaum 4. Its literally less than half as good as gateway, and making it harder to cast just makes it laughable.

Also, many land provinces do connect to multiple water provinces.
Map: Aran - see provinces 15, 17, 25, 27, 48, 56, 81, 89, 90. That's at least half the coastal provinces.
Map: Cradle of Dominions - see provinces 85, 94, 103 for examples (not surveying the whole map - those were 3 of the first 4 coastal provinces i looked at).
Map: Urraparand - 137, 142, 147, 148 were 4 of the first 5 provinces i looked at, all with at least 2 adj water provinces.

And as I said, the effect of my proposed modified version is sort of like having map move 2-3 units and a nearby fortress on land, except slightly improved (which it should be, since it requires W5, mage time to cast from a mage capable of leading an army, and gems as opposed to just moving the units).

I'm just going to focus on one here for clarity.

More heroes? Nice, but not really a balance change. I mean, its not like many land nations didn't already have a bunch of heroes anyway. And given MA Oceania needs to use their pretender to get actual good magic paths, taking luck scales is sort of out of the question.

Coastal recruits/improve capricorn land performance: these were (1) essential anyway if MA Oceania wasn't going to suck, and (2) have absolutely nothing to do with making it easier for MA Oceania to repel invaders *in the water* who now have a much easier time doing so.

So basically, MA Oceania is now easier to invade and got nothing to compensate for that.

Movement is inherently either defensive or offensive. Its changing the strategic value of your troops.

Regardless, it is vastly overpriced for what it does in terms of mage skill, gem cost, and RPs. Either it needs improving or it needs to be easier to access and cast.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

As of CBM 1.6, coral priests are now EA Atlantis' most cost efficient researcher(despite only a 50% chance at a pick, their rock-bottom cost and sacred status trump everything else). Not only that, but since only half of them can even research, you have an entire army of spare preachers and blessers. Since you're an underwater nation, you were going to need those preachers anyways...and this allows you to in turn take a lower dominion score if you want.

But alas, with UWGIM enabled, these tiny powerhouses don't even exist. Now, the coral shaman is amazing, and frankly does a ton for Atlantis' magic diversity...but it would be nice to have the coral priest around.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

Unfortunately it's simply not possible. You see, due to modding stuff, the only way I could give EA Atlantis new coastal recruits was to edit the excisting coastal recruits. So basically, Coral Shaman is Coral Priest. IIRC, UWGIM reduces the cost of Mage of Deep dramatically, so you have an borderline effective researcher now there.

Re: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod (UWGIM) v0.83
 

It does reduce the cost of the Mage of the Deep to 200 gold...but then, so does CBM 1.6.

Assuming Magic 1:

Mage of the Deep(200g, 7 research) - 28.6 initial ,1.9g upkeep/point of research

Basalt King(500g, 10.1 research, sacred) - 49.5 initial, 1.65 upkeep/point of research

Coral Shaman(190g, 6.1 research, sacred) -31.1 initial, 1.04g upkeep/point of research

Coral Priest(45g, 2 research, sacred) -22.5 initial, 0.75g upkeep/point of research


That on its own doesn't seem too bad; there's the loss of extra 'freebie' H1 commanders, but you needed more castles to get out the priests, so it's about even. The real problem is that in UWGIM, your best researcher by almost a factor of 2 is coastal only. This can be...quite problematic. Unfortunately, I can't really think of a solution other than to shift the magic diversity over to the Mage of the Deep(they're even noted as being magically diverse) with another 25% random AN, then leave the coral priest alone. It doesn't get you level 2 nature, though.

Edit: It does give you a ridiculously good communion master a decent chunk of the time, though. And I suppose you could make the first random 100% EWFSN, but it doesn't seem...right.