Blood Red FIGHT ON!)
 

This is a mod friendly game, for any relatively balanced mod. Dwarves, rats, amazons or go with a classic and smack these upstarts around.

Era: Middle
Map: TBD once we see how many players we've got
Renaming on, everything else default
No holds barred, exploit whatever you can find
Mods: CBM 1.6
Diplomacy: Machieviellian - extra points for stylish doublecrossings.

The last game I admined was a nightmare from people going MIA. Everyone joining this game needs to have read and signed the Baalz good player pledge.

Players:
Baalz - Nehekhara
Alpine Joe - Alugra
Gregstrom - Themiskyra
ghoul31 - Dwarves
Aethyr - Shinuyama
Tollund - Ogres
Trumanator - Jomon Broken Swords
Ossa - R'lyeh
Jarkko - Eriu
Ferrosal - Skaven

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

i'd like to give Alugra a Whirl

Pledge read and signed.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

How could I resist? Put me in for Themiskyra, please.

As the amazons still need more balancing, I'd love it if people took the time to look at the mod and make suggestions.

I'm considering these changes to the current state of play: Caryatids (animated statues) have no PR, where common sense (and comparable units) suggests PR 100. Same for Bronze Maidens.

Warrior alchemists did have a forge bonus of 25%, which was borderline thematic but possibly OP and so was removed. An alchemy bonus would seem appropriate, though.

From their description, I think it's appropriate to give Storm Children #stormflyer.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Dwarves

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Shinuyama please

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

It seems like Themiskyra's PD could be toned down quite a bit. A mage at PD 1 who can spam dessication/frozen heart/vine arrow makes thuggery a risky proposition without pretty good equipment. At 20+ the PD has 2 different kinds of top notch sacreds along with a priest to bless them, high precision archers (including poison bows!), 2 different mages (counting the mage/priest) and heavy infantry with good defense & shields. I'd also suggest making all their sacreds cap only to bring them more in line with other nations - sacred cavalry is almost universally cap only, and having to decide which of those really awesome sacreds to go with adds an interesting bit of choice while going a long way towards tempering the fact that there are 6 (!) different really good sacreds with flying, etherealness, fear, stealth, poison bows, glamour, really high defense and some with also high protection. Being able to pump most of them out of every castle is a bit over the top. I'd also maybe tone down the protection on the infantry, not only for balance but thematically its a bit off putting that the amazon chicks are sporting armor comparable to Abysia - except with much better encumbrance and much lower resource cost.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Shadow Vestals and Valkyries make totally no sense there really. I have commented on that mod earlier, it needs lots of tweaking, so it's thematic and makes sense. Idea is cool though.

I want to play Nehekhara once, but I cannot join any more games right now.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Just curious, are you accepting mods from other eras as well? It would be interesting to see someone play jomon broken swords in a game, I'm pretty sure they've not been in an mp game before. And alugra (already asked for) is an ea mod.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Yeah, so long as they're not blatantly unballanced any mod nation is fine.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Are the Ogre Kingdoms considered relatively balanced? If so, I'd like to play as them.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

I'd like to join with warhammer chaos from the 5 nations mod - thats not that unbalanced IMO;)

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

I'd like to join as an old mod nation I played before, Sanguinia by Zepath

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

I would like to suggest a no trading of gems, items, and slaves rule if people are amenable to it. Cuts down on the advantages of IRC people (I'm on IRC) :)

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Ossa: no, you don't want to play Chaos. It is too awful to actually play. Trust me.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

I really won't recommend it. The nation is a bit off a mess at the moment and needs quite a lot of work. We had a lot of Drama in "Sign of the Hammer" because of it.

Also, Baalz, I hope that you have someone ready to use the llamascript. Whenever 3+ mod nations are involved, clashes are inevitable.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Zeldor: That change is already in my dev version - I should probably have made it explicit. The nation doesn't really need Valks or Vestals as recruitables anyway, since its native sacreds are enough.

Making the sacreds all cap-only... well, I'll happily try it out. What I'd like to see are terrain-dependent recruitables, so that the nation's choice of sacred units depended on the terrain you built castles in.


Their armour makes a lot of sense thematically, but 0 resources is a bit too good. I could add a resource cost, or just make the armour more sensible. Ring cuirass on Jade, chain cuirass on Garnet, plate cuirass on Onyx?

There's a 7 point resource penalty on Crystal Amazons for some reason (probably related to the original mod giving them poison bows). Taking that off would be good.

PD: I've had a closer look, and ZOMG! It's PD that motivates you to put over 20 points per province. Yeah, it's far too good. My instinct would be to swap out the sacreds for the other two amazon types, make the first commander a Crystal Priestess and the second one a Sorceress of some sort.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

For balance purposes I'd say Sauromatia is a decent yard stick - they've got a lot of the same flavors and are a powerful nation. All of Sauro's troops have scale mail, plate seems pretty unthematic to me - but that's just my opinion. If it is used, it makes sense to put the heavier armor at map move 1. Dragon scale is fine thematically, but it should have a very high resource cost and only be on one or two elite unit types - both for balance and just from common sense. Pegasus riders seem more like a 80-100 gold recruit to me : sacred, flying cavalry with a high defense and a poison bow. I'd also raise Jade Maiden's price a little bit, they're quite cheep compared to other sacred cavalry. I might peg them even a little more costly than the Sauro Oirorpata if they're not cap only and have poison resistance, if they were...maybe 60 gold (along with more expensive pegasi) then there probably wouldn't be a balance issue with having the sacreds recruit everywhere - though I can't think of any other nation with recruit anywhere sacred cavalry.

Oh man, I just noticed the amazon archers have a poison bow. That needs to be switched for a normal bow. Sauro's poison archers are very, very strong even being cap only. Those things are in the PD? Gah, that is insanely over the top....

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Well well... then I would like to join as Ryleth. Is that ok;) ?

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

I'd be interested in rolling the mods with my own DMG script if folks want. I think it's a bit more robust than the other script and can detect when too many slots get filled, etc. I'd like 48 hours to work out any kinks. PM me if interested Baalz.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Ah... You're looking at the original mod. Here's a more current version - dm file only.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Onyx amazons are down in their descriptions as making heavier armour than other amazons. If you're talking thematic, wearing a cuirass is more of a greek thing than middle eastern - but they're a greek myth so I think it could be gotten away with.
I was working on the principle that MA armour tends to improve a little over EA armour, and the step to a plate cuirass (NOT hauberk - the cuirass is what units like Ermor's Centurions wear and is generally mapmove 2) didn't look like a big one.


Sounds reasonable enough to me. What resource cost are we talking - 20?

Well, the indy ones are 50. How much extra is a poison bow worth, given you can't mass them in the numbers Sauro can?

Jade Maidens are pretty much the nation's shock troops as things stand currently. They're very affordable, and have an attack that's better than str 9 + spear. Bumping their cost and cutting back on infantry armour will be interesting, and could well be beneficial by promoting the use of a greater range of units.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Hmmm, I was comparing the pegasus riders to EA Arco's wind riders and the Gryphon Riders but I suppose they're actually decently weaker. Poison arrows aren't that big a consideration on units too expensive to really mass. 50 is probably a decent price for them.

On the dragon scale, I don't know...as it is it's superior to the dragon scale mail which takes constr-6 research and 10 gems (minus the elemental resistance). Its clearly superior to every other non-forged armor in the game - it may need to be dialed back a bit even with a resource bump.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Alright, I'll give it another 24 hours for sign ups, then we can see how many we've got so we can discuss maps and do whatever work we need to get the selected nations working together.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting - last call)
 

I would like to give Agra Dis a run.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting - last call)
 

Here is a test mod for this game. It may have some problems, and will certainly be replaced by a final version. It includes nations up to Arga Dis and has all the mods for the game (including CBM 1.6). You absolutely must disable ALL other mods!

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

It's amazing armour to have for free on a mage, but on cavalry it's just 15 prot, -1 def. That's pretty special, but less special than Ulm's Black Plate and only a little better than a plate cuirass (14 prot, -1 def).

It can't be dialled back as is, because it's using the stats for the forged dragon scale mail. However, creating a new armour type isn't very challenging - what were you thinking the stats should be?

Peryton riders may still be a concern, as they benefit more from good armour with low enc.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting - last call)
 

Well possible bug number one: the "Mastermind" pretender for Alugra has the "slayer runeaxe" effect on her "tricks of the street" attack. Seemed a little odd.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting - last call)
 

If you accept non-mod nations, then I could join with Eriu to test this cunning plan I have come up with :)

Re: Blood Red (recruiting - last call)
 

I will take the Skaven.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting - last call)
 

Good catch. DMG doesn't renumber secondaryeffect yet, so it's crossing with another mod. This will be fixed in next version of this mod.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting - last call)
 

Test mod #2, includes Skaven and Eriu.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting - last call)
 

You didn't put in Sanguinia :(

Oh wait, Sanguinia isn't in the roster!

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

Alright, I'll call it closed at 10 nations. Anybody want to nominate a map? Thanks for putting it all together Pyg!

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

Urraparand, Sharivar, Parganos, and Rim of Darkness come to mind as possible candidates. RoD might need some balancing though, and I haven't actually played Urraparand in an MP game.

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

I've played Urraparand in MP a few times, and I like the map a great deal. However, you absolutely HAVE to have fixed starts...or its bound to be a short game for someone. :)

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

I will watch this game with interest.

Re: Blood Red (recruiting)
 

Aha! I spotted what's happened here. CBM 1.6 bumps forged dragon scale armour up to 17 prot, making it rather nifty. That's not great for Themiskyra's balance, of course.

I'll create an armour type called 'Dragonscale Hauberk', and give that the expected values of 15/-1/1 and an appropriate resource cost. I could even give Amazon infantry something like 'Dragonscale Cuirass' with 13/-1/1... but that's a different issue.

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

I've no objections if you want to put in the changes.

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

Hmmm, watching them in action I've got some stronger concerns about Themiskyra being balanced against other nations. Masses of strong sacreds are very tough, and combine their great defense with good protection, good offense and their sacreds are not only recruit anywhere, but also pretty affordable. Compare to some of the other really good recruit anywhere sacreds. There are really only a few and they're well known for being powerhouses.

Mictlan Jaguar warriors. Low defense & protection means there are lots of decent counters.

Lanka Kalu-mukha. 60% more expensive than jade maidens. Only 1 attack. Lower protection. Vastly lower defense.

Hmmm, I can't think of any other top notch recruit anywhere sacreds off the top of my head. You can't really compare cap only or indie recruits because of how powerful critical mass is - 20+ high defense sacreds are all but invincible in melee as they've got friends to their left and right. When you can have several (all of your) armies like that its a bit out of line with other nations. When you add on the strategic flexibility of having a bunch of very different top notch sacreds available so you can fly, sneak, overwhelm with fear or go with the cheap guys (you can get 2 jade maidens and some change for the price of a Van)... it just seems quite a bit too much.

What do other people playing think? I'm willing to allow it if I'm the only one who thinks this.

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

Looking at Themiskra, I agree that their sacreds seem a little ridiculous. However the other mod nations in this game all have some pretty effective strategies as well. i say leave them as is, but everyone be aware of how strong they can be.

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

Baalz, I concur with your statements; I think it is the recruit anywhere sacreds that put the nation over the top. So, some additional balancing should probally occur. The question is: how much time to you allow for this before starting the game? I'm not opposed to going forward w/o further changes, but this will inevitably lead to certain decsions in game that might not otherwise occur if the nation were more balanced.

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

Took a look at Themiskyra, and I have to agree they look way too good. They need serious toning down to be in the same ball-park with the other nations :)

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

I'm inclined to down-power them myself. I just won a fight in Dramatica I probably shouldn't have (although I did get pretty damn lucky even so).

Vanilla Jade Maidens (and all the other amazon sacreds) are pretty lightly armoured, which may be why they aren't often used in preference to nationals. In Dramatica, there's the added problem that they have more prot than they were intended to, which doesn't help things at all.

Other than sacreds, Themiskyra isn't really great at melee (str 9 and spears - even with decent armour and defence, the basic units just don't seem to get anywhere against armoured troops) and so there might be an argument for having a sacred available anywhere. For this game though, I'd rather see how it went with cap-only sacreds.

The attached mod is a significant update:

- sacreds have a higher resource cost and Jade Maiden prices have been bumped to 60.
- armour is toned down a lot.
- sacreds are cap only.

This should change things noticeably, I hope.

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

Since I'm the author of two of these mod nations that have "effective stragedies", I've decided to level the playground and help the players in this game by telling something about them.

You see, both of my nations (Dwarfs and Alugra) are pretty oddball and play out a lot different than most dom3 nations. If you try to use "conventional" tricks against them, you might be suprised.

Dwarfs

This is the nations second MP game, so there might be some balance issues. However, my feedback in the thread has mostly been about improving them somehow, so I'm quite confident that they are fine (if they are not, gangbang always works) . Dwarf military is likely best in the game, but cost a lot of gold and resources. All of their castles also cost 1200gold and take 4 turns to build. It is in essence, a slow nation to get rolling and is likely to play defensively, especially considering their good PD.

They have mages with forgebonus (gee, what a shocker), but only medicore diversity and only really strong magic in earth. Also, their most powerful mages have casting encumberance of 13!, limiting the magic support they can give to their troops. This is not a nation that throws fireballs around in the battlefield. You should note though that they have very heavy artilley unit at enchantment 7, "Anvil of Doom" that can do all sorts of crazy stuff. Be prepared to counter it if you think that the dwarfs have access to it!

If you face dwarfs, you should use shielded chaff troops to negate the effectiveness of their excellent crossbow archers (and ranger throwing axes!) and kill the melee forces with appropiate selection of magic. Anything that does AN/AP damage will do fine (poison, combustion, star fire/stellar cascades, numbness, gifts from heaven, fireball, lightning spells), try to avoid mr-negates effects due to their high mr and drain dominion. Be careful when using thugs or big sized troops against them, since they excellent counter to those in the form of slayers (who are weak to archery, try fire largest to target them since they have some extra hp when compared to other infantry).

In conclusion: To fight against dwarfs you need to switch gears to deal with a low number of extremely elite troops, instead of the chaff with mage support most nations wield.

Alugra

Alugra is another oddball. At the moment, it has gone through 3 MP games, facing slight nerfs after each one. IMO it is balanced at the moment. It has sucky national mages, but it has 7 different types of cap-only "gifted" troops who come with magic picks. The nation also comes with a national GoR spell that costs 7 astral gems.

Their regular non-cap forces are pretty meh, but the afromentioned gifted troops are superb and fill many roles, allowing Alugra to wield a wild smorgasbord of battlefield tactics. GoR'red gifted are also good thug chassises and this fact is only improved by their good selection of national self buffing spells.

If you face Alugra, you should be prepared to deal with gifted thugs and troops. Note that gifted are magical beings ("Control", "Moonblade" and "Opposition" ring any bells?). Also, being human(oid?), they have low hitpoints considering their big gold costs so AP/AN stuff works well. Scouting is also very important when fighting Alugra, learning their troop composition allows you to abuse the weak points of many gifted troops (poison with watchmen, lightining for Smiths, mr-stuff vs workers).

One of the oddest stragedies that Alugra can wiled is something called "Thug Communion". Alugra's single non-cap mage, "Manifest", is a guarantied S1 and has pretty good stats and equipment. Sometimes they are communioned en masse with leaders casting self-buffs and finishing the deal with "Use the Leylines". It is a national spell that clears 100 fatigue and blinks the caster. If casted by a leader, it affects all slaves too.

It's nasty.

You have been warned :D

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

Alright, I've no objection to Themiskira in this state. I'm going to be out for the next couple days, I'll try to get everything settled and get the game up for Sunday so everyone finalize your pretenders. Last call for map discussion, unless anything else is added I'll pick one of the ones Truman suggested. Pyg, if you could rebundle the mod package with the changes Gregstrom put in?

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

Final version? Probably not as only a few people have tested it. Here is version 3.

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

That little pyg makes me squeal every time.

So cute!

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

Ogre maneaters and pitfighters are missing their weapons in the current version.

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

OK. Test #4. The process turned up an ' sprnbr too high for this file' that went away by changing the order of the mods. Weird. I'm going to chalk it up to the Ogres being ornery.

Re: Blood Red (closed - setting up)
 

'sprnbr too high' can also turn up halfway through a game, btw. It used to be a major pain in the *** when trying to use mod nations. The limits have been increased, but are still there. One of the reasons I've never tried to start another big all mod nations game.