Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans 3 eras -- Update 6
 

Recent updates:
0.3b - more balancing
--a few more stat balances

0.3a - balancing
--completely revamped all recruitables stats and equipment; mostly a nerf
--revamped human heroes stats
--revamped newarmors; created newarmor 'leather scale hauberk'
--edited t'ien ch'i national spell 'wrath of the ancestors' to include MA & LA qayan

0.2e - fixes - thanks radio_star and mehrunes_dagon
--fixed 'summon burkhan', 'summon chotgor' and 'summon abaasy' spells
--fixed newweapon 'spring attack'
--increased 'manghit udagan' to mapmove 4
--removed extraneous 'manghit' recruit
--changed 'call of the mastodon' spell to a flat 3 effect summon for 2 gems
--reduced 'shudkher' unit's prot
--fixed genghis pretender domsummon by removing extraneous tags
--enable EA heroes 'khadny mangaa' and 'arvan tavan tolgoytoy atgaalzhin'
--increased pathlevel of almost all spells


EDIT:
EA: Erlik Qayan, Death & Fire
--Priests reanimate but can't preach, recruit demons and undead

MA: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
--About the same as they were before, a few less mages though

LA: Tengri Qayan, Spirits of the Sky
--Similar to Cinggis but with even less mages, dyingdom, SC national pretender

Disclaimer: I do not claim that any of the sprites used were hand drawn. The non-vanilla sprites are all edits of graphics found online. The sprites are free for anyone to borrow and use for themselves. I thank Globu for his help.

I made a little showcase for the non-vanilla sprites. I marked Globu's wonderful sprites with a 'G', left of their head. Many of my sprites are not finished, but usable - they do have action sprites, though.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...5&d=1269014862


The eras appear to work together fine; however, I don't know how to do an all era game, so I may be in error.

Many mages have an inherent magicboost to one or more paths. So if they have get a random pick, they will often have 2-3 skill in the path they get. Maybe I should add a more specific, less fluffy way of saying this to each mages' description?

Future updates:
Rename 'Genghis' pretender to 'Celestial' or 'Heavenly' Khan. As suggested by Globu.
More appropriate descriptions; this will require a visit to the library.
Sprites.
Edits to gold cost and starting paths/randoms pending feedback.
New summons: Pegasus

All spells: Do you feel the paths and schools are appropriate?
end EDIT


Cinggis Qayan is pronounced ching | giss hahn (rhymes with thing | hiss khan). Although a common rendering from antiquity is Genghis Khan. However, I encourage people to take a personal approach and say it however they like. :)

Many of the sprites are vanilla as I am not an artist. I plan on eventually making my own, or possibly convincing my youngest brother to do it. (He is an artist, but he hates dominions.) :( Although I would have no trouble accepting submissions. ;)
Edit: Globu has kindly offered to make some sprites. Hopefully this will lend a little more personality to the Qayan!

Feel free to offer any suggestions, comments, criticism, or anything else you wish to say. Please be certain to let me know of errors or conflicts in my code, I'll be happy to fix it. And if you have any modding experience, don't hesitate to review my .dm for anything that looks off. (I tend to be thorough and at times redundant, so it may be on purpose.)

I have used this mod with and had no problems with the following other mods: CBM 1.6, CPCS, Deep Dagon, FW thugs n summons 1.00, Greater Gods, Worthy Heroes 1.8, Streamers & Standards (Llama's version), Nova Deus II, Magic Site Mod and Throne of Heroes.

Also works with the warhammer nation mods: AI Ogre Kingdoms, Chaos Undivided, Tomb Kings, Bretonnia, Dwarfs, Lizardmen, Skaven, Wood Elves

I would like to thank the creators of all of these excellent mods! Especially my favorites: CBM, CPCS, Chaos, Dwarfs, Lizardmen and Skaven. :up: I would make a warhammer nation if I was an artist. :(

Clearly not with *ALL* of the mods enabled, this would lead to problems with too many spells.

I've edited some of those mods on my own machine to work together better, hopefully my own edits aren't actually allowing my mod to work without errors. I tried to be thorough and examine the IDs used by those other mods.

Changelog:
0.2d - adjustments and sprites
--created new units 'khadny mangaa', 'arvan tavan tolgoytoy atgaalzhin', and 'khangard'; enabled 'khangard' as a LA hero
--created newweapons for natural attacks of 'khadny mangaa' and 'arvan tavan tolgoytoy atgaalzhin'
--created sprites for 'khadny mangaa', 'saman of erlik', 'kut', and 'burkhan'
--reworked pretender 'erlik' sprite, including a more human scale, still can't get that dang arm right though
--scaled down and cleaned up 'almas' sprite
--changed EA multiheroes
--added 1 fire gem to EA startsite 'the ceremonies of ot', added 1 air gem to EA startsite 'erlik's death-hall', removed astral pearl from EA startsite 'erlik's death-hall'
--revamped stats of 'sholmos' and 'shudkher' units, bringing them more in line with yomi 'onis' and lanka 'rakshasas'
--edited sauromatia national spell 'call ancestor' to include MA & LA qayan
--restricted 'kharash' spell to MA qayan
--edited 'jadaci of storms' from a lower level copy of 'storm', to a higher level copy of 'thunder strike' with 5 effects
--adjusted pd numbers of all eras
--other minor changes

0.2c - fixes and balancing - thanks radio_star
--created new EA summons 'abaasy' and 'chotgor', created associated summon spells
--new sprites using skySpirit sprite as template: 'abaasy' and 'chotgor' summons, 'tenger' multihero, 'tengri' pretender
--reduced MA starting gems
--changes to 'genghis' pretender: gave magicboost 1 to encourage taking magic paths, gave onebattlspell 'divine blessing', changed domsummon to 'kheshig' only, removed makemonster
--removed fear from 'geser' hero, increased awe to 3
--changed 'summon death worms' spell to blood school
--renamed 'yeti' to 'almas', revamped description
--changes to 'shudkher' commander: reduced fear to 3, reduced magicboost of blood path to 1, enabled 'sholmos' sprite, reduced randoms by 10%
--changes to 'summon sholmoses' spell: less effects, higher slave cost, higher research level
--fixed 'kharash' spell description
--changes to EA PD: added 'qam of erlik' commander, added 'kut' troops
--removed domkill and domunrest from EA
--fixed 'erlik' pretenders' domsummons, other changes
--numerous changes to 'endur' summon, 'tenger' multihero, and 'tengri' pretender
--other minor changes

0.2b - more accurate terms, some sprites, a showcase
--created sprites for sholmos, servant of odqan, and servant of tengri
--adjusted some stats and magic paths
--created #newweapon "silver cup of manzan"
--exchanged sholmos 'claws' with 'stone club'; added 'furs'
--exchanged yeti 'claws' x2 with 'fist' x2 and 'head butt'
--gave servant of odqan 'throw flames'
--fixed 'summon death worms' spell, then changed path(s) to blood only
--cleaned up sholmos sprite
--created 'qayan tiger' unit to represent Siberian tiger; created related summon
--created 'mastodon' unit, and pointed 'call of the mastodon' spell to it
--added Globu's mammoth sprite for mastodon
--raised gem cost of 'chosen of tengri' by 5
--cleaned up yeti sprite, and scaled action sprite better
--raised enc on most mounted troops by 1-2, lowered AP of all mounted troops by 1-3
--changed name of 'servant of erlik' to 'priest of erlik'
--created new units 'servant of erlik' and 'kut'; added to ea qayan recruitment queue
--changed name of 'qayan honor guard' to 'kheshig'
--changed name of 'qayan warrior woman' to 'khatun'
--changed name of 'qayan scout' to 'noyan'
--changed name of 'qayan tarkhan' to 'tarkhan'
--changed name of all qayan 'vessels' to 'manghits' (mangudais)
--changed name of 'servant of tengri' to 'qam of tengri'
--changed name of 'servant of odqan' to 'qam of odqan'
--changed name of 'servant of erlik' to 'qam of erlik'
--changed name of 'servant of manzan gurme toodei' to 'udagan of manzan'; then changed unit to female
--changed name of 'servant of bay-ulgen' to 'qam of bay-ulgen'
--changed name of 'servant of eje' to 'udagan of eje'
--changed name of 'servant of ot' to 'qam of ot'
--changed name of 'priestess of tengri' to 'iduan of tengri'
--changed name of 'vessel priestess' to 'manghit udagan'
--changed name of 'priest of bay-ulen' to 'saman of bay-ulgen'
--changed name of 'priest of erlik' to 'saman of erlik'
--changed name of 'vessel high priestess' to 'manghit iduan'
--changed name of 'sky spirit' to 'endur'
--changed name of 'chosen of tengri' to 'burkhan'
--changed name of 'elder sky spirit' to 'tenger'
--gave all human units 30 cold res, gave all non-human units 50 cold res
--created three new national spells 'jadaci of snows', 'jadaci of rains', and 'jadaci of storms'; they are altered copies of 'wolven winter', 'rain', and 'storm', respectively
--created new national spell 'kharash', battlesummons 25 militia
--changed 'summon yeti' spell to air and nature paths
--changed name of 'awaken bay-ulgen' spell to 'awaken lord of the upper spirits'
--changed name of 'qayan militia' to 'unaghan borghul'
--changed name of 'qayan infantry' to 'nokud infantry'
--changed name of 'qayan bowman' to 'nokud bowman'
--changed name of 'qayan vanguard' to 'nokud vanguard'
--changed name of 'qayan light cavalry' to 'nokud light cavalry'
--changed name of 'qayan cavalry' to 'nokud cavalry'
--changed name of 'qayan cavalry woman' to 'nokud cavalry woman'
--changed name of 'qayan heavy cavalry' to 'bahadur'
--added A path mask to erlik shaman randoms

0.2a - sprites!
--fixed some major problems by combining three ages into one mod
--changed some minor things
--created two new spells "Call to Mother Earth" and "Awaken Bay-Ulgen"
--created sprites for 'sky spirit'
--added unfinished sprite for erlik's human form
--removed sky spirit from recruitment queue, this was a testing measure only
--created sprites for 'Olgoi-khorkoi' - Mongolian death worms
--fixed gcost of sholmos and shudker demons
--created sprites for 'yeti'
--created pd only militia archer women
--added Globu's wonderful sprites! - priestess of tengri, genghis pretender, khan chassis heroes, servant of manzan, qayan militia and qayan archer

0.1d - Ch-ch-ch-changes!
--fixed startsite errors, and edited startsites of erlik qayan - thanks humakty
--changed erlik pretender hardpaths from 1S 2D to 3D
--cleaned up some code; there is still slop though
--reenabled summon yeti spell
--edited hardpaths/randoms and descriptions of servant of ot, servant of erlik and servant of odqan
--edited startsites of cinggis qayan
--edited hardpaths/randoms and descriptions of priest of bay-ulgen, priestess of tengri, servant of eje, servant of bay-ulgen and servant of manzan
--raised gcost of priestess of tengri to 280gp

0.1c - Another try! Thanks everyone!
--reduced gcost of archer from 40 to 15gp
--created two more eras
--some other minor changes
--fixed Lasso and Qayan Heavy Lance using 'harpooning' instead of 'entanglement,' as suggested by SlipperyJim. Entanglement only works on 'magic' weapons.

0.1b - Couldn't of done it without you guys!
--edited some descriptions, especially pretender entries; removed Earth historical references
--edited historical-based heroes maxage to match age at death
--cleaned up some code; redundant, slop, and unecessary code
--raised all #prec values of 10 to 12
--gave all units #ambidextrous 2; thanks Trumanator
--edited #fear values for Khan heroes; edite #itemslots for Khan heroes
--raised cost of , "Qayan Cavalry", "Qayan Cavalry Woman", "Qayan Heavy Cavalry", "Qayan Chariot", "Qayan Vessel", "Qayan Honor Guard", "Qayan Captain", and "Qayan Warrior Woman" each by 5gp
--distributed the "Medium Lance" to most cavalry; the rest got "Qayan Heavy Lance"
--changed instances of '338 -- heavy hoof' to '56 -- hoof', smaller, faster horses with lighter shoes for faster travel pretty much precludes a heavy hoof
--changed many #custommagic values
--reduced misc slots of most heroes
--changed all instances of #mr20 to #mr18
--removed aoe effect from "Death Worm Acid" and "Death Worm Shock"; increased range of both from 5 to 10
--replaced "Qayan Javelin Hail" with "Javelin Hail"
--replaced "Qayan Magic Sabre" with "Magic Sabre"
--repalced "Qayan Sabre" with "Sabre"
--swapped IDs of "Sabre" and "Magic Sabre"
--replaced "Qayan Greatbow" with "Longbow"
--replaced "Qayan Horsebow" with "Composite Bow"
--created #newweapon "Medium Lance"
--created #newweapon "Qayan Heavy Lance"
--created #newweapon "Lasso"
--replaced "Qayan Light Scale" with "Qayan Scale"
--replaced "Qayan Heavy Scale" with "Qayan Lamellar"
--replaced "Qayan Lamellar" with "Lamellar Armor"
--replaced "Qayan Scale" with "Leather Scale"
--edited stats for "Lamellar Armor" and "Leather Scale"; swapped IDs
--raised cost of "Qayan Infantry" from 11 to 13gp
--raised cost of "Qayan Bowman"; reduced natural prot of "Qayan Bowman" from 2 to 0, this was an error
--raised cost of "Qayan Vanguard" from 20 to 30gp
--raised cost of "Qayan Light Cavalry" from 25 to 35
--raised "Javelin Launcher" #enc from 0 to 5; removed ; reduced cost from 150 to 70gp.
--raised #ambidexterous value of "Qayan Vessel" from 2 to 3; raised MR from 11 to 12; changed #armor from "Lamellar Armor" to "Leather Scale"
--raised #ambidexterous value of "Qayan Honor Guard" from 2 to 3
--raised cost of "Qayan Scout" from 20 to 30gp
--changed name of "Qayan Captain" to "Qayan Tarkhan"
--raised cost of "Servant of Tengri" from 60 to 75gp
--raised cost of "Servant of Bay-Ulgen" from 180 to 210gp
--reduced researchbonus of "Servant of Gazar Eej" from 0 to -2
--increased researchbonus of "Priest of Bay-Ulgen"
--gave Geser hero #awe 0
--reduced "Genghis" pretender misc slots from 4 to 2; reduced #fear value from 5 to 3; reduced gcost from 50 to 25; raised pathcost from 50 to 75
--reduced "Bay-Ulgen" pretender #hp from 300 to 150, disabled #domsummon20 "Ivy King", reduced #awe from 5 to 1; reduced misc slots from 4 to 2; reduced startdom from 4 to 1
--increased the researchbonus of "Bay-Ulgen" and removed researchbonus from "Tengri"; values were juxtaposed
--reduced "Tengri" pretender hp from 50 to 20, reduced precision from 8 to 4; reduced gcost from 275 to 200; reduced startdom from 4 to 1; reduced stormpower from 10 to 6; reduced #awe value from 5 to 1; reduced misc slots from 4 to 1; disabled #magicboost tag
--raised gcost of "Gazar Eej" pretender from 75 to 100, changed name to "Eje"; reduced #awe value from 5 to 2; reduced misc slots from 4 to 2
--changed "Erlik" pretender #onebattlespell from "Undead Mastery" to "Darkness"; raised gcost from 125 to 175; reduced startdom from 3 to 1; reduced death hardpaths from 3 to 2; removed blood hardpath; reduced misc slots from 4 to 2; made same edits to bear form
--corrected #fear value of "Olgoi-Khorkhoi"
--reduced #incunrest of "Sholmos" from 5 to 1
--reduced #nreff of "Call of the Mastodon" from 1005 to 1002
--raised cost of "Summon Death Worms" from 4 to 10 gems
--made Vessel Priestess recruit anywhere
--reduced starting infantry to 10
--reduced bowmen in PD from 30 to 15

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Sounds intresting. I'll take a look once I have the time.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

What a first post! I like your attitude.

Like Burn, I will try this when I have time. To answer a couple of questions:

No there isn't a clean way to make mod weapons work with flaming arrows.

Onebattlespell can effectively only point to vanilla spells, so if you had it pointing to a modded spell, that wouldn't work (there is a workaround which is commonly used, I won't go into it unless anyone wants me to). It does work fine with spells that have a fatiguecost of 100+ though, so not to do with gems.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

the question about silk clothing could be fixed by giving them armor with air shield

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Took a brief look at this mod....it looks very interesting, very well done, and extremely fun to play.

balance wise it probably needs to be toned down a bit. I will post some suggestions later.

Great work!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Thanks! I had hoped somebody would find it interesting, even though it's not overly original. No rush on trying them out, I'd prefer people to have fun with my creation and not look at it as work (like my poor bro).

Thanks to you too! I like to be open, positive and honest; a result of working closely with men of faith.

And like Burnsaber, I encourage you to try them at your own leisure, all the better for the best feedback! :)

Unfortunate, but not unexpected; as of my personal notes in the .dm, I may change their bows to vanilla weapons. (Which do no justice to the Hunnic recurve bow; the Mongolian version of which, at 166 pounds of draw weight, was the most powerful hand-held weapon until the invention of the breech-load rifle.) It seems that an archer nation should have access to Flaming Arrows. Perhaps their is a way to make a national spell that would perform a similar function? Or maybe I can make another bow with flaming arrows and give it to a specific unit. (Maybe one of the sacreds, or the stealthy cavalry?)

I noticed in the modding.pdf that onebattlespell can only be used on vanilla spells. I guess maybe you could edit a spell to get around this? I would be very interested in seeing how you accomplish this, if only to slake my thirst for knowledge. The spells were not being cast as normal, I hadn't tried actually giving the unit a gem to cast it with though. My brother is supposed to do that kind of thing, but he's busy reading his new RPG books.

Thank you! Can air shield be added to non-magical armor, I didn't notice it, if so. I suppose I could make a new magic item called Silk Robes or somesuch.

Once again, thanks! If it didn't have vanilla sprites, I would consider it done well enough. I also had fun playing as them, but those pesky dwarves and slann keep calling my name! (Oh, I long for simpler times. Machaka, Lanka and Ermor, how I miss you!)

Yeah, I have the same feeling. Toned down a LOT, morelike. I look forward to suggestions from more of you seasoned players! :)

Thank you much! Hopefully others will agree. ;)

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Looks really good. I've been practicing a bit, so I could contribute a few sprites if it'd help. (I'm no freehand artist -- I cheat, massaging reduced images of miniatures into sprites.) Attached is an example -- you can use it for a female priestess/mage, if you like and it fits the theme. This one still needs a bit more tidying up (and a bit more action -- tough to mess with those legs) in the attack sprite, but I like her. I use her for the Great Enchantress pretender, since I don't so much like the existing sprites for her (both the base one and the one in the Nova Deus mod).

I'll take a closer look at it. For what I have seen, two things that hit me straight off the bat:

1) Those bows -- should they overpower Hinnom's giant-equipped Great Bows? They also put to shame the Longbow of Accuracy, what with the AP.

2) Those randoms -- nice. I love the wild randomness. Were you intending that the mages without 100% magic skill in any one pick should be recruitable without labs?

3) Oh, and why not a third -- those pretenders: nice touch with the addition of four thematic pretenders!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Preliminary balance suggestions:

troops:
Be careful with those greatbows. I don't really have a precise suggestion on their balance.
Qayan infantry are actually pretty good for what you pay. Might not be thematic
Vanguards are wierd right now. 3 attacks per round, one at 6 and another at 4? Does this mean they can ever hit with the light lance charge? I don't know, but I'd suggest taking another look at their weapons. If you are committed to stealth that is fine, but raise the cost to 25 at least if you keep the stealth. Perhaps take off the light lance completely?
Same issue with light cavalry
regular cavalry seems alright, as do mounted women and heavy cavalry....
Honor guard would be okay if they were cap only....otherwise I fear the nation will be dominated by a bless.
Vessels are pretty balanced. Perhaps they should be the only cavalry with stealth?

Summons:

Death worms: too cheap....i would make it one effect for 4 gems instead.....death worms seem pretty awesome. That way with N2 you can get two for 4 still.....3 for 4 is too cheap.
Yetis: i like this summon...cost feels right for a small raiding troop
Sky Spirits: Strong, but a major focus so keep as is
Call of the Mastodon: hmm...feels a little too good...one N2 mage with 5 gems can summon up a lot of mammaths.....then again, N gems are competing with death worms.
Chosen of Tengri: The biggy....immortality makes this summon way way way too cheap. I would say 50A or 45A is probably a more reasonable price....summoning one of these guys should be a huge investment.




Mages:
I like the randomness theme, but....costs need to go up, and research down.

Servant of Tengri: raise cost to 70 or 75
Odqan: fine as is
Servant of Elrik: fine as is
Servant of Bay-ulgen: probably lower research by one, or raise cost to 200
Manzane-Gurme-Toodei: fine as is
Gazar Ej: lower research by one...otherwise these are excellent researchers AND battlemages....
Servant of Ot: fine as is
Priestess of Tengri: raise cost to 250-270....too cheap for a mage with the chance to get 4A or 4S, even though they are cap only humans with no special qualities....
Vessel Priestess: fine as is....niche unit
Priest of Bay-Ulgen: seems too expensive...I would always get a priestess of Tungri instead.



I'll play around with it a bit more.....let you know if anything else seems off. I would really like to play this nation in MP.....I will keep an eye out for a mod nation game.

Once again....great job with the mod!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Globu
I like the sprite, too bad she's blonde. Which is generally never a prob in real life ;) but not a trait in the Altaic tribes. Although supposedly red hair was a recessive trait; one shared by their Scythian cousins, a fact that proponent's of 'Irish descent from Scythians' like to swear by.
Although I really could find a use for it, makes me think of a game I used to play called Ogre Battle. I'm thinking maybe the priestess of tengri, but we'll wait and see.

I thought they were less powerful than the Gileadite bows, but I wasn't taking armor-piercing or stats into account. The larger bows that Mongolian foot units used *would* be a "Longbow of Accuracy" by middle-age earth standards. They were stronger, more accurate and had a better 'kill' range than the English longbow (long considered the epitome of bow technology, and should be the basis for the greatbow). I was trying to combine historical accuracy with the dominions universe, but I will edit whatever seems unbalanced to you vets. Maybe drop a few damage points?

I liked the random theme I started to develop early on, and felt it somehow fit with the nomadic nature of the Mongol tribes. About two seconds after I read that post, I realized the potential for money-saving that no hard paths creates. Although, thinking on it, I kind of like the idea of a nation where a Temple *is* a Lab. (Possibly not fitting for dominions?) If their current loadout is reason for concern, however, I will add one hard path to all but one or two of them.

I created five, did only four show? Or do you feel one is unthematic? (If so, I will delete the offending cur!) Or, mayhap you were alluding to one being an absolute SC, one being immobile, one a shape-changing mage, one being a titan, one being human, or some other variation?


Thanks much for your post, some food for my brain to munch. Seriously, I appreciate the input. Your handle is familiar, methinks, have you created a mod or a map? Maybe I just read a post somewhere.

Aufwiedersehen.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

FYI if you have a lot of weapons on a unit don't forget to give it some ambidextrous skill or make some of the attacks #bonus. Otherwise you end up with a bunch of stuff at very low att skills.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

If that's the only thing, and it's otherwise usable, that's quite easy to change. Let me know if it is, and I can switch hair (and clothing) color schemes. Can also change the staff and other stuff like that. No prob either way. :)

EDIT: Oh! I just looked again. It's not so clear, but that's not hair -- it's a headdress. (For the source image, look up Brigade Models's Arianrod of the Obsidian Spear from the Celtos range of miniatures. Here's one image, though I used another one as the source image.)

I thought they were less powerful than the Gileadite bows, but I wasn't taking armor-piercing or stats into account. The larger bows that Mongolian foot units used *would* be a "Longbow of Accuracy" by middle-age earth standards. They were stronger, more accurate and had a better 'kill' range than the English longbow (long considered the epitome of bow technology, and should be the basis for the greatbow). I was trying to combine historical accuracy with the dominions universe, but I will edit whatever seems unbalanced to you vets. Maybe drop a few damage points?[/quote]

I had no idea about the Mongolian bows -- that's pretty amazing.

I was thinking actually about EA Hinnom's Great Bows (range 45, dmg 15 flat) rather than the Gileadite Bows (range 50, dmg 17 flat). Given that it's pretty difficult for size-2 units to top size-4 giants holding enormous bows, I think placing it somewhere inbetween the Long Bow (range 40, dmg 13 flat) and the Great Bow and giving it a precision bonus would still make it incredibly impressive, without impinging on the special/magical nature of the Longbow of Accuracy.

By the way, I claim no special knowledge here (no vet or anything -- I play SP only as well), so it's just my $0.02 grain of salt. :) And, of course, I'm assuming there are no size-2 units in the game that use Great Bows -- I don't recall ever seeing them, but of course could be dead-wrong.

Yeah, the randoms theme is definitely a nice one. As far as I've seen, the no-hard-paths thing isn't necessarily bad in se, and some nations, like Sauromatia, have such lablessly-recruitable mages, but, if you do do it, my (again, non-expert) understanding is that it should be treated and weighed as a national advantage. My thought: go with it! Just balance for it, as good players will use it to save 500 gold on labs for some forts.

Nah, I'm just unobservant. :) I missed the fifth! Will have to look at it again.

Glad to help any way I can. Yes, my one contribution is the corrected, hand-named version of the Glory SP map.

Oh, and by the way, I forgot to mention -- I wouldn't worry one bit about the nation being thematically covered by T'ien Chi and Sauromatia. Think about it this way: how many nations did the devs make for Scandinavia? Variety and flavor is always nice.

Cheers!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Alpine Joe

A poster named Globu had concerns as well, looks like it may be back to the drawing board. Historically, the average Mongol warrior would carry both the recurve bow for mounted use and the larger bow for use on foot at a longer range; with each bow he would have two quivers, one with armorpiercing arrows and one with arrows more effective for killing/wounding lightly armored humans and horses. (Yes, they purposefully killed horses.) I only made two to save precious weapon-space. Further ideas will, hopefully, be forthcoming. Side note: average Mongol warriors also carried a tool-use knife, a dagger, a tool-use battleaxe, a sabre/scimitar, a lance, a buckler, a suit of armor, a helmet, and silk underclothing for protection against armorpiercing and poisoned arrows; as well as all the trappings to maintain and repair said items, as well as mend their clothing, tack & harness and siege weapons. This amount of gear was mitigated by the fact that even the lowest born man or woman warrior (they were equals) would have four to five spare horses to take into battle.

I, as well, felt they were too cheap. I actually plan on raising *all* troop costs, there lower cost was more of a testing measure. I just thought it would be better to use suggestions as a control, than my own arbitrary choices. I agree that they are not thematic for a cavalry nation, ala dominions. However, historically (I seem to like that word), the Mongol cavalry was the vanguard for a larger infantry force; it's just that the cavalry was so powerful, by the time the footmen got there a day or two later, the besieged had already lost or surrendered (this fit nicely because then the tired footmen would become the local garrison). (Much like the Huns, they actually rarely attacked, they usually just camped outside the gates until someone came out and paid them to go.) Originally, I had intended them to be PD only, but decided that ignoring an important part of their historical strategy (cavalry making camp at area of invasion to tie up forces and prevent supplies from reaching the besieged, as the infantry foot-slogged their way to the same point for the pitched battle; not unlike my dominions playstyle where appropriate) would be detrimental to the overall feel. I am open to change on this and all subjects, however. :)

I think in my limited playtesting they only ran out of ammo once, but the reason I gave them high ammo was because they always carried two very large quivers with them. I gave them all high AP, high mapmove and three survivals (among other reasons) to simulate the quickstrike nature of the mongol hordes, whose infantry was even known for it's rapid deployment. I am not really commited to stealth, I just thought stealthy cavalry was a neat idea that I hadn't yet seen elsewhere. I was thinking of giving them flaming horsebows (more damage? less ammo?) and raising the cost to thirty gp. They have a lance because even Mongol infantry carried a lance to use as a spear (their lances were more like spears in design, although used as a lance on horseback). I can change whatever feels wrong though. Or even remove them completely. I aim to please.

I guess I could lower the AP on them somewhat, but I used AP as the first primary variant for the troops. I believe I was trying to create similar stats to Horse-Brothers, who I feel represent Huns/Mongols/Cossacks. I was going to increase gcost to five more than whatever I set the vanguard at.

I thought they were all a little cheap, but maybe I actually hit the nail on the head with them? Maybe I'll go just 5gp higher on each, instead of the 10-15 I had planned.

I made changed them from cap only to mitigate the fact that I added low numbers of them to second tier PD, and to make a bless viable. I realize that they probably don't *need* a bless, but I think bless should be an option (not a 'be all-end all') for all/most nations. I can easily add them to a startsite though. Or perhaps change them in such a way that a bless wouldn't seem mandatory (if it does).

Probably a good suggestion, if one more person agrees then I will make it so. I really like the unit myself. And if you wondered why I gave them (and most of the troops/summons) abilities they can't use, it's because my dominions-playing bro have GoR wars, where we try to GoR as many different units as possible. (Ever GoR a four-star militia? He *ROX*!) :rolleyes:

One worm for four gems was exactly what I was going for. But I can't seem to make it do just one. My #nreff is 1001, is that the wrong value for a 1+ summon? Or am I using the wrong value? Anyway, that change will be implemented as soon as I figure out el problemo. If I can't for some reason, I will double or triple the gem cost for a better ratio. Do you feel nature is appropriate? My first thought was blood, my bro suggested fire (though they use electricity and acid, not fire, despite the graphic).

I also like this one, and even felt it was the right cost. I thought they were too strong though, maybe my judgement was hasty. My bro says the leadership on the commander is too low (though, knowing him, he summoned allies for twenty or more turns before even looking). I felt poorleader was just right (and he would have no leader if it didn't summon troops as well). This is one I really want a better sprite. (Current Great Ape sprite would be ok if it had white fur.)

Strong, but not too? When I had them at conj-3 at 10 air gems for 3+ I easily conquered yalun-to in less than two years. (Then my cap produced 4 air gems a day though. And Tengri was low enough cost for me to take 9 dom.) I like them as they are as well.

I hadn't actually tried it since I increased the fatigue cost (was 80!). Maybe reduce the number of effects? Or perhaps raise the researchlevel? Or just raise the pathlevel? Would using elephants instead of Caelum mammoths make a difference? Ideally, I would make a new Mastodon troop, but not until I have a proper sprite. I really like the fit, the Altaic area was rife with mastodons in an earlier time (and seems to go great in dominions). Plus I own an album called 'Call of the Mastodon', and I love the title. Although, in one battle, on one cast they took a fort by themselves. The other two times I used them they ran away. :( I just assumed that this would happen more often than not (low morale, I think) and didn't test it any further.

I had actually meant to disable to immortal tag. Although, it fits best with their other summons and the spirit multihero. The low cost was also part of playtesting. Part of why I made them cheap was because of the cost of those durn airboosters. Will raise the cost to 50, because you have great suggestions, and does seem to be very reasonable if I leave them immortal (will still raise to ~40 if I disable #immortal).


Muchas gracias! Will respond to the rest of your post ASAP.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Having thought about it, here's a really quick suggestion for stats I'd offer for the bows.

First, note that effective range is heavily affected by precision. Thus, if you gave them a weapon with the same stats as a longbow but with a precision bonus of 2, it would in fact increase effective range, so it's not necessary to improve them too much in other stats.

That said, here's my suggestion:

Range 40. Damage 14. Precision bonus 2, but this has to be balanced by your cavalry units' precision -- if you're giving them precision on the order of a base 12, that's already a heavy advantage. I'd suggest 11 precision on the cavalry and precision bonus 2, which amounts to a horrific base precision of 13 on those monsters.

If you'd like to up the range a bit, I don't see why a non-round number won't work. 42? It's the answer to life, the universe and everything, anyway.

I'd definitely shy away from AP, as that's clearly, in the game, the province of the fire-every-other-round crossbow mechanic.

The lack of applicability of fire arrows still is kinda bothersome though. Anyway, that's my suggestion for stats!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

I definitely like the flavour of the mod and the source material.

Suggestions:
Balance-wise, the longbow is basically 'best in the game' level for bows. The Quyanate greatbow should preobably be in line with that sort of power (drop the AP, range 40-45, and you still have an impressive bow).

Also in balance terms, Horsebows should probably be less powerful than a composite bow - especially in terms of range. Currently your opponents have the unenviable challenge of crossing the entire battlefield under longbow fire in order to engage units who can face down heavy cavalry. If the cavalry had to start off closer to their enemies it would redress the issue somewhat. Perhaps a range of 25-30? As regards the vanguard, it'd work just great if you gave it a lance instead of a light lance (or made it a special copy of the lance with lower damage). At the moment it's trying to use a light lance in one hand and a sabre in the other.

Magic-wise, Water is probably the only path you can't get at level 3 (well, B3 is very unlikely, but you have some Blood access so the rest will follow eventually). Again, this is probably a little too much.
The mages/clerics: They're pretty much all named as worshipping a specific god - great historically, but not quite so good if your Pretender is called Bob. Why would worshippers of a deity other than the Pretender get priest levels or sacred status? Their mixture of diversity and power could be addressed by making one sect the priests of your Pretender and casting the rest as also-rans. Give the also-rans a chance of getting one level (and no more) in their chosen paths (maybe give one of the also-ran sects the possibility of level 2 in their paths, come to think of it) and you'll have something better in line with most nations.

You've a shedload of great material in this mod, and I reckon there's enough here for a mod in each age. Give each age a focus on a different sect and you'd have the basis of 3 great mods.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Alpine Joe

Randomness does seem good, and I also felt they were too cheap, for the most part. I only added researchbonus to servant/priest of bay-ulgen, bay-ulgen and (erroneously, Tengri). Should I give a research malus to the rest then? Is this usual for other nations? Or just for these guys? I do agree though, and research will go down. But not for Bay-Ulgen, et al. He and his followers will either retain a research bonus, or simply won't get a malus; which would you prefer, comrade?

His original cost was 90; so, no problemo!

Not too cheap for a potential 3F?

Not too cheap for a potential 4D or 2D2B?

Which do you feel is a better option? At this point, I want them to be a staple researcher, so I will up the cost to 210 to be safe.

I thought maybe was too expensive considering his only real use was the potential water picks. I used the #nobadevents to give a little use of the buildup of them you could get trying for a remote-searcher.

I was going for a researcher who could make a decent battlemage in a pinch (all their mages really, I figured if Mongols had mages, they would be battlemages). Will focus into a battlemage role by reducing research by 1 (maybe 2). Great suggestion!

I had hoped he wouldn't be too cheap considering what he brings to the table. He looks good as a forger/situational battlemage (my goal) right now?

I made them cap only for that very reason. However, they are probably still too cheap; I will split the difference and raise the cost to 260gp. Another great suggestion. Side note: I hadn't really thought about how powerful they *could* be with those paths, just how thematic and cool they would be.

This was one where I felt the most comfortable in pricing. I felt the #assassin tag might be unthematic (at least in the early Mongol history), and almost went with seduction instead. Suggestions? Side note: The Mongols made frequent use of spies. What would be a good amount to raise the cost of the scout by because he has the #spy tag? I'm thinking 5-10, but it could be a more powerful ability than I realize. Or is his current cost fine?

In one play test game, I only recruited them and was using aim/other buffs and firing with their bow (with some heavy-type cavalry bodyguards/arrowcatchers; it seemed so effective that I didn't want them to outshine the Priestess of Tengri. Any other suggestions on putting them on equal footing? I would prefer it to be a tough decision on which cap only to recruit, unless you really need a specific one. I will reduce their cost to 250 (original) and increase their research by one.

I love suggestions, and you seem pretty good at making them. MP is without a doubt the greatest gauge for mod balance (this coming from someone who's only played SP). And I would be proud to know that someone liked them enough to try them in a MP environment.

Once again...Thanks!!! :)

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Trumanator

Thanks Murphy Brown, oops, I mean Trumanator. ;) I actually deduced this before playtesting, but thanks for the great info (seriously!). I only made the bows #bonus though (Mongols children, boys and girls, learned to use the bow to hunt from the time they could draw one [a still lighter version, for children only], learned to use a bow for war from their early teens, and no Mongol would ever leave home without at least one bow. And I would like to give all the mages and the foot unit one to represent this (though this is probably not a good idea, and I never implemented it). I only gave #ambidextrous 2 to the commanders and one sacred, does anyone feel the troops should have it too? Or maybe make the sabre #bonus instead of giving them ambidextrous? Ambidextrous is thematic, historically (that word again!) any warrior culture that didn't rely on tight formations like the greeks, romans, chinese, persians, etc,was trained to fight with both hands equally well with any weapon (including switching bow hands for horse-cultures). Suggestions?

Thanks Trumanator


Globu, again!

Hmm, it does look like hair to me. I like it, and if you change it so that it looks like black hair, or more clearly (to me, it really is subjective) like a hairband, I will make one of the mages a female with a pike or #newweapon (Spear of Justice?). Suggestions? (The only reason I wouldn't use her for the Priestess of Tengri, is that I consider her a more traditional caster... but if some people think that it would be good for the priestess, it's fine with me. Maybe use her for Servant of Manzan?) BTW, that is a cool mini from a company I hadn't heard of, and you did a pretty good job of making a dominions conversion.

Recurves were amazing, and played a huge role in Hunnic, Mongol, Turkic, and Persian dominancy. (In many of these cases, bad leadership did what opposing armies could not... stop the might of mounted archers!)

Sorry, I thought that EA Hinnom had the same bow in the different eras; and that the greatbow was on a unit I, heretofore, had never seen. My Hinnom-mania ended after six long SP games (two on 400+ glory map), six victories and the realization that Hinnom really does *EAT EVERYTHING!* My thought was that a giant holding the equivalent of a long bow, would still be inferior to the Mongol-style recurve, but I am not *always* correct. ;) I really want to keep them #armorpiercing, or I, for one, would never recruit them over a mounted archer. Side note: The three primary bows I can recall being known as a greatbow are the English longbow, the Japanese mounted longbow, and the African footbow (which was larger than a longbow, braced with the feet while laying on the back, drew back with both hands, fired the equivalent of a javelin (although it was still an *arrow* with flights), had the power of a crossbow, and was the equivalent of a siege weapon in most parts of southern Africa (and other parts, I believe). Interestingly (or not), my house mod for machaka incorporates these on a #newmonster; I also created guys with throwing irons (large, crude, vaguely blade-shaped, generally unsharpened, heavy pieces of iron that were deadly effective at close range).

I meant a vet to the boards or SP as much as a vet to MP or modding. I appreciate your input, look forward to more, and am gaining valuable insight. Like I said, I thought the greatbow was on a unit I've never seen before. And I really would like to keep #armorpiercing on the "Qayan Greatbow." (Which was an arbitrary name... anyone like "Qayan Largebow" or "Qayan Large Recurve" or "Qayan Infantry Bow" better?

On advice of the once called Alpine Joe, I have increased the cost of several mages (albeit mostly hardpath ones). I can make others more expensive, or reduce number of randoms for any mage that still seems under-priced.

Don't feel bad, I couldn't find Erlik after I made him. And it's probably easy to miss Genghis too.

Thanks for the help. I had d/led the new version of Glory just minutes before I made that post. ;) Is there any way I could get you to make a version of the smaller Glory map with fixed starts? I made one myself, but on the G6 version.

I felt the same way, but was afraid that others wouldn't. Glad to be proven wrong. As I am an idealist heart, and a realist in thought, I make for a *great pessimist!* ;)

Back at you, although I don't drink anymore. And when I did, I surely didn't drink their. ;)

Thanks all, again!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Globu, habit-forming

Truth be told, I hadn't even considered that aspect! Very helpful.

I like it... but have concerns.

I really like it, I naturally cling to 0's, 3's and 5's. 42 is the answer and sometimes a robot can be a *great pessimist* too! ;)

I really liked the thematic element of the Mongols carrying armorpiercing arrows, but if is too overpowering in the dominions 3 metagame, then it had better go.

I am toying with the notion of somehow making a flaming bow #newweapon for some of the cavalry. Although switching over to vanilla bows is another option I've considered.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Gregstom, :salute: I don't know what these mean, but I just noticed you are a colonel and I'm a private. :salute: again.

Thanks. I do too. If I ever make another mod it would be for the race that even the Mongols feared. No, not the Vikings (a la, Eaters of the Dead/The Thirteenth Warrior; those were Tartars anyway, cousins of the Mongols, or sometimes, an alternate name for them). Nope, not the Japanese, whom live on an island chain the dynastic Mongol rulers of China considered to be *cursed* after having lost all their expeditions to said islands to weather events. (Shades of another certain Armada which attacked an imperialistic island nation, no?) Yes, that's it, the Goryo (Koreans); a country with the distinction of being the only Asian nation to have never been fully conquered by foreign invaders. They would be fun because they used Mongol, Chinese, Japanese and Rus equipment, depending on who they were fighting. Typically, like versus like. I hesitate because they were the originators of gunpowder/fireworks and this doesn't sit well with dominions. (However, copious fire-mages and flaming bows do...) And there is always my house Machaka mod, but that will never see the light of another computer until they get some real love from the forum-goers [or CBM].

Yeah, I tried to emphasize their superior weaponry, and probably over-compensated. Seems there is no way to keep #armorpiercing, so it's gone (from the community at least, it's special place in my heart ensures it in my house version.)

Actually, horsebow, recurve bow and composite bow are functionally interchangeable terms, as they all generally refer to a Hunnic-style bow. Once again, however, emphasizing superior weaponry has lead to overcompensation.

This was also the unenviable task of everyone who ever tried to stand against the Huns, Mongols, Turks, early Persians, Xiongnu, Cossacks and a host of other central Asian tribes. I tried to emphasize this too, at the cost of balance, apparently. :(

Anyone have a problem with me making a #newweapon for all the units that is somewhere between the two lances?

That is actually how they fought, according to historians of modern times and antiquity. Once again, true life does not make for dominions balance.

I wasn't even thinking that three in most paths was unbalancing, but on second thought you are surely correct. And three was my goal. I'll be sure to try to balance this on the next update, or the one after.

Again, you are correct, I think. My reasoning was taking a more pantheonic (true to life) approach. In the end, no matter who their favored god was, they all worshiped either Tengri or Ulgen. Much like the greeks all worshiped Zeus, no matter the favored god of the cult or temple. My goal was creating a host of cults (isn't Pythium like that? maybe it's another nation? maybe Mictlan? or maybe I'm dead wrong!) that all worked together towards a shared goal. Plus, part of it was taking into account the no hardpath status of many of the mages. (You may not have to buy a lab, but you *do* have to buy a temple; which you might not have done otherwise.) Once again, this *will* be addressed according to popular census over my own whims. And the part of making two max of any path other than Air and Astral would probably still work fine.

That is a very distinct possibility, though I would want proper sprites first. I did dislike posting with vanilla graphics. It would be harder for me to separate it into three mods than to balance one, methinks. That being said, I am in no way against it, I love your ideas, I think they do make great sense balance-wise (I'm rather unfamiliar with vanilla MA nations, other than machaka), and will probably want to do this in the future. Hopefully, before Dec 21, 2012. ;)


Thanks a lot, Gregstrom. :) You guys seem to have the best intentions at heart. Hopefully, I can make the most of them. ;)

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Thanks! Yes, I love those minis by Kev White. He's unbelievable. I bought, like, 120 of the Celtos ones during a sort of binge five years ago.

Well, if it looks like hair at this scale, we can treat it as such. I'll see what I can do.

Very interesting on the bows -- especially that African one. Hey, I've seen posts like "Machaka could use some love..." -- may want to release that puppy.

Well, pricing can likely make an important distinction there -- in my own play I often find it fairly wasteful to splurge for cavalry archers when regular ones will do the job fine.

But aside from that, they can make for terrifying PD, if that is to be a national strength. Although given the offensive power level so far, these archers in PD may be a bit much -- but once it's balanced better, it can be a good fit. (That could also be remedied by a second class of cheaper foot archers using lesser bows, with these being used for PD instead.)

As for the thematic element, at least to me, 14-damage long-range bows are pretty impressive. And now, coming to think of it, in light of the flaming arrows problem and what you've said about the Mongols' recurve bows, I don't think it would be inappropriate at all to use the stock Great Bow of Hinnom's EA archers. And that would make them fearsome and distinctive in itself.

If you do go with armor piercing, though, it would seem appropriate to keep the damage down. It would make them a bit underwhelming against un-/lightly-armored targets, but then they're mostly dead meat anyway. It still seems like a tough fit, though, balance-wise, and will make them horrific in the early game.

I really like the use of Recurve in the name, since that gives the most descriptive information and is least abstract, giving something for the imagination to chew on. That may just be me though.

My pleasure!

As for giving the MP Glory map the same treatment... Not so sure about it. The larger one was a monster and took way more time than I expected. (I seem to like using "monster" and "monstrous" today -- I really hardly ever use those words.) Also, I'm working on a 650-province, meticulously tidied-up random-gen map that I hope to release some day. So probably not on the small Glory map.

:D


Now, all that said, here are some preliminary samples of what I'm dubbing Mongol archers. They're not finalized, and still need some detail work (stray pixels, edges, and so forth), not to mention base sprites (these are pretty clearly action sprites). Details like colors and bow size can be changed easily, as shown here. And I'll be throwing in a little nocked arrow, of course.

Let me know if you'd like me to proceed with one or both of these guys. (Each can be a different variant archer.) I can also customize, if you have a use for it, the female archer sprite I put up in the Avernum mod thread.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

A note on the recurve bows: I had assumed (given the history and geography of the Ashdod/Hinnom/Gath source material) that the greatbows they used would be recurves. Their piccy looks sort of recurved, for that matter. If that assumption is correct, Qayanate bows shouldn't be quite up to those stats (Ashdod giants would presumably treat a 166 pound pull as a child's toy).

As far as vanguards etc. go: Their attack values drop (obviously enough) because you're using two weapons with a combined length of 6. Making the light lance a #bonus or adding some ambidexterity would fix this, as others have noted. The mental image of a horseman using a sabre and light lance while simultaneously getting effective use out of a buckler seems a little odd, though. My initial idea had been the creation of a sort of 'medium lance', with the lance's function of breaking on the first hit and the #bonus tag. I don't know if that's possible, though.

Mages: You're right on the button when you refer to Pythium. They and Mictlan are existing models of pantheonic faiths within the game. Pythium handles worshippers of something other than the Pretender by giving them the heretic tag, while Mictlan gives different sects the task of worshipping different aspects of the Pretender. Either works nicely. They're also (I think) a good model of the sort of mage power a magically diverse nation should have.

By the way, why does the Quyan light scale they use have 0 enc? It doesn't matter for the cavalry, and the infantry are definitely under-encumbered given their levels of protection.

PS: Don't worry about the colonel thing. It certainly doesn't mean I'm any kind of expert.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Globu

Is he famous? I don't know the names of those who model minis. I've also had similar experiences with 40k models, most recently Orks. (I would absolutely love a greenskin mod!)

It may just be me, does anyone else think it looks like blonde hair? If not, it's fine as is. And I'm still thinking servant of manzan.

I hadn't read that, but it's not as if I've read every post. All I've seen is trash-talk for my favorite national theme (except for one that you can probably guess). My artwork is so atrocious (by comparison, the javelin launcher is grade-A work) that I would need a sprites for them as well! And I would rather anyone wanting to help out focus on the other mod nation's that still need polishing. Though if someone who wanted to, made a sprite I could stomach (I quit using mine because I couldn't take it anymore) I would gladly take a look at 'Machaka, A Lesson in Balance;' the lesson of course being me learning to make a mod, edit the nationals, and, importantly, retain balance (which I don't think I did, I was rocking Ashdod's world last time I played SP with them, last year sometime). :( Also, if I could find out how to edit a nation, and not completely replace them, that would be real incentive. If memory serves, I tried a #copynation (or something) and couldn't get the changes to work. This was over a year ago.

Whereas, I generally make as many cavalry archers as possible, and just use regular to supplement PD (unless I have to use them, or have a Gateway capable leader with longbowmen).

Once again, I tried to emphasize the fact that once the Mongols had captured a town/area, they didn't lose it unless they let you take it. (Generally, for strategic reasons.) Although, they already have too many strengths, from what I've gathered. I really like the idea of PD-only archers (another part of my Machaka mod was "Hunters," basically they were PD-only militia with bows (think I used lion tribe sprites).

If others like this idea, I could go for it. I would prefer to use a #newweapon, but vanilla weapons have their uses (and don't take ID slots). I disabled #armorpiercing at this point, but it would be my preference to add it back. I'm trying to go by popular consensus. If their can be such a thing for a new mod.

I had hoped for a strong early-mid-game, with an underpowered late-game. Kind of matching the fast rise, fairly lengthy status quo, and ultimately quick fall at the end (as both the Huns and Mongols are known for). Strong early game is a natch. It would probably be best for an average-strong mid-game and a fairly weak late-game. Suggestions anyone?

I merely named it a greatbow as a way for me to remember that was the basis of the weapon when I first made it. I prefer recurve myself, and it is the most accurate short name. (Mongol-style Hunnic Recurve, being more accurate still, but too long for my tastes.

'Tis a shame, 'tis a shame indeed. No biggie, though. I will just redo my own using the newest version. (That is, if the smaller map is even different now.)

I like them myself. If nobody has problems with them, I'd like two. One for PD-only, one for the recruits; if you could make one have a slightly longer bow that would be cool, but not important. (Oh, looks like you already did!) If you can make them look like scale-type armor, great!; if not, I don't care too much. If you can add a buckler (a smaller shield that could generally be worn while firing a bow) that would be awesome. And pinball completes the scene... oops, I meant a small axe on a belt loop. If you don't want to take the time, cool. You've done more than I expected already. And I'm thoroughly impressed if you just whipped those up! (Still impressed if you didn't; they aren't my usual stick figures, that's fo' sho'!)
Edit: Forgot to mention that I like the tan guy and the dark-red/brown guy. But do the ones you find easiest to edit!

In essence, yes. Unless someone else really hates them for some logical reason, they'll fit nicely.


Thanks

Oh, and to whomever didn't like them having three survivals. The Altaic region tribes lived in a vast area, that was all at once mountainous, forested and a true wasteland (especially the Gobi Desert). I felt it was thematic for this and a couple other reasons. First, they Mongols would travel with four to five horses to each man/woman warrior; if supplies ran short they would let blood from the jugular of a horse and drink the blood (excellent nourishment, I'm told), allowing them to have a continuous supply a combination food/drink that was replenishable (my brother wanted me to give each unit a supply bonus, but I thought the survivals worked better for other reasons). Second, the heaviest factor in the Mongol dominance was not superior equipment (this was a close second), not their superior tactics (which was uncommonly good for a less *civilized* race, but probably only third; look up 'Subutai' for a more thorough example), but was the fact that their cavalry could move at lightning speeds (especially compared to larger, heavier European horses and soldiers) and that their foot troops were equally as fast relative to the less vigorous European counterparts (including the *barbarian* tribes). AP, mapmove and survival helped me to simulate speed. I will tone them down for balance. But I do feel it's thematic. I appreciate your thoughts, understand where your coming from, and am looking for a way to mitigate this with their other all too evident strengths!

Danke Schoen!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

I think (and bear in mind that I haven't done this myself) that what you do is:

1 - edit existing national units. The game picks that up just fine.
2 - creating national spells = create normal spells then use the #restricted tab.
3 - For changing the nation itself, just #selectnation <x>. Use appropriate commands to change what you want, and the game will overwrite existing nation data appropriately. Remember to drop in a #end when you finish changing things (this was always my weakest point when I did any coding), and all should be well.

A standard way to weaken late-game would be heavily restricting access to Astral, Death and Blood. The low MR on national troops should already help this along, as I imagine a Master Enslave would do truly horrible things to a Quyanate army.

I know I made a comment - my intent was more to register surprise than dislike. It does provide an exceptional level of mobility, which was presumably the intent. I guess it's pretty much appropriate for what they did historically, although I can't claim expertise on the subject.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Gregstrom

I always thought of the Gath nations as being Semitic, as nametype, unit/commander titles/names, startsites, heroes, etc. are *all* Semitic in origin. While they are truly great peoples, (especially the hittites, gotta love those who wield iron in while everyone around them is just hitting the bronze age! mod material?), I never thought of them as having recurve bows. But I wouldn't doubt it if I was wrong. If so, you are correct; if not, you are still correct. ;) I tried to use the greatbow (when I was thinking it was an English longbow) as a reference, while staying on par/slightly better than it, weaker than the Gileadite bow, and stronger than the longbow (which to me was a standard long bow ~4.5-5ft long, while an English longbow was at least 6' long). If vanilla longbows are meant to represent standard longbows, the Mongol-style recurve should far outstrip it; if vanilla longbows are meant to represent English longbows the Mongol-style recurve *should* be comparable and slightly stronger with roughly equal (slightly higher) range and precision for the user. I can understand balance concerns, and tend to agree. I just like historical accuracy for some reason. I will tone them down to be about equal to a longbow for the larger recurve on foot units and slightly better than a composite bow for the mounted recurve. Further playtesting at those levels should determine their overall gamebreaking power. You raise really good points!

Not giving everyone ambidexterity was one concession I made to balance before even starting the mod. I would gladly give them all ambidexterity 2 if it's not too unbalancing.


It does to my western sensibilities as well, but that is how the Mongols and Huns fought (when not shooting a bow, while still effectively using their buckler). History does not always match with logic, but we can try to force it!

That was my initial idea as well, and was a topic I had wanted to broach at a further point. I'm actually pleased you brought it up. :) I am also unsure, I pretty much *just* delved into modding. My other attempts were mostly edits to prior code and a mirror of Machaka with a few new units that were probably way too strong. I assumed that the #charge tag made it *break* like lances, I am probably in error. If there is a decent way to do it, that anyone knows of, I'll take my best crack at it!

I was initially going to make the servanta of erlik, the closest thing to a true outcast, a heretic (I really like these one cold-bloods called Priests[?] of Sotek) as they were the only true outcasts. I should have made a note that one of the strengths of Mongol rule was that they were open to all races, creeds, and religions; they gave equality (at least, relative for the times) to men, women and other races that were *Mongol* (they themselves referred to any conquered/allied people in this way, they saw no difference between where someone was from, who he was descended from, what his skin color was, what his occupation was, or how he worshiped his chosen god; they only looked at if the person was useful to their society, whether as a warrior or workforce. (No slaves! Freedom was as important to them as it is *supposed* to be to American citizens.) For primarily this reason I decided against heretics; I also liked the pantheonic element to the lizardmen of Itza, so I thought I could incorporate a similarity. The only peoples they truly looked down on were the Chinese (cowards who hide behind walls), the Japanese (inhabitants of cursed islands) and the Koreans (who were too deadly to be engaged). All this aside, if the consensus is to make some heretics, or to remove #holy from some of them, I'll cast historicity aside!

The leather-scale armor used by the Altaic tribes was not only tougher (read: protection), but lighter (read: encumbrance), more flexible (read: defense) and more durable (not really translatable to dominions) than the chain mail hauberks that were the European standard of the time. They didn't actually have lighter or heavier armors (the closest thing was an even tougher variation known as Lamellar armor, a more deflective albeit more rigid version) I took license to create variation; but technically, there should just be "Qayan Leather Scale" and "Qayan Lamellar Armor." Lamellar armor is actually what is shown in most depictions of Mongol, Rus, Turkic and Byzantine (ooh, another phenomenal race for a mod, the vanilla Pythium, a decent nation, does no justice; Byzantium, the Varyags of Miklagaard! I've already got a number of ideas, from twenty seconds of thought) warriors. Anyway, to a people whom both sexes donned armor at a very young age, and wore it as everyday clothing, a *light* armor would have no encumbrance. Once again, though, balance trumps historicity! Suggestions?

Don't worry about the private thing. It certainly doesn't mean my last name is Parts! :drum roll: Please! ;)

That wasn't meant as an insult Gregstrom. So please don't take it as such. I appreciate your input (as I do everyone's) and will strive to make everybody's suggestions gel into a fun, playable, and balanced mod nation!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Gregstrom, once again Mein Freund!

It was long ago that I tried, and while I have a little experience in programming, and the modding language is superbly easy (whoever created it was a *true* genius), I couldn't make it work. If I ever get around to making my Machaka replacement releasable, I would try extra hard with help from my new *friends.* I suspect the final #end tag was the culprit. That attempt got deleted long ago however.

Yeah, that was my fear. I hoped the MR would help some (and still think it should be 7-8 on most units for an even more obvious weakness). I also thought that Master Enslave could be horrid (along with magic duel against the mages) but I've never actually seen either spell be cast in SP, and can only assume people frequently use them in MP (they both seem very strong, in the right circumstances; circumstances that would be more common in MP, methinks). The Qayans have fairly limited access to blood and death (but good enough to make access perhaps too easy in lategame). So says I! They aren't Astral powerhouses, but are better than average (and probably better than that). Suggestions?

I'm sorry Gregstrom, I didn't mean to come off that way. I was annoyed that I couldn't find who wrote it, not at the content. I didn't feel it was a bad question, or without merit. I just couldn't find where I read it and was too lazy to Ctrl+F. I will edit the post so that it seems less *anal.*
Edit: The time limit for editing was up! At least I apologized, though.

I will change it, if it's for the best. I would not claim expertise in any subject, but have a general knowledge of most and can remember pretty large chunks of data for short periods. I did about four hours of online research before starting the mod, which is mostly copied into a .txt file in my mods folder. I'm not a scholar by trade, but I am well read, well watched (History) and well versed in the subject of many ancient peoples/weapons/armors. I generally only spout stuff that is confirmed in at least two references (as per my college days).

Once again, I am sorry if I alienated you or anyone else with my pedantic ramblings, or sometimes curt comments. These are things I struggle with sometimes, and it does no good to hide from or lie about my shortcomings.

Thank you

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Yeah, the great bow is definitely too much. Longbows at 13 damage are considered quite powerful in dominions, and crossbows at 10 ap every 2 rounds even more so against armored targets. 15 ap every round for just one more resource than a longbow is not just good, it's ridiculously good. 10 ap is enough to consistently damage 20 prot, but not much higher. 15 ap is enough to consistently damage 30. Against more normal units with protection values ranging from 8-16, each shot fired from these great bows has a VERY good chance of killing your average human. Compare this to a crossbow, a crossbow will do the same amount of damage on average to a guy with 6 protection (militia) as a great bow will to a guy with 16(tough heavy infantry). They are really, really powerful in dominions with those stats.

Hopefully I haven't come across as being too harsh, I'm just trying to show you the math behind why everyone is saying they're too powerful ;). Personally, I would replace the horsebow with longbows and the great bows with the hinnom bows as others have suggested. This will enable you to use them with flaming arrows and make the great bows much less unreasonable. I think they would be better at +1 damage over longbows than +2, but I think it's a reasonable compromise.


The Tengri pretender - Expensive little chassis, but still ridiculously overpowered ;). At current price, you can take it awake while still having pretty good scales and decent dominion (or balanced scales and dominion NINE). Couple this with high awe, higher than 100% lightning resist (why?), 100% poison resist, immortality, ethereality, 0 enc trample, bunches of AN attacks, and an insanely high storm power value... if you can get this things #onebattlespells working, it will truly be an undefeatable monster. I am not kidding. And on top of that it has good buffing+mobility magic paths built in. He needs serious work to be fair. As an aside, for some reason in the pretender screen he is listed as having s3 and a3, but when I look at his magic paths to increase them, he only has them at 1. Not sure what's going on there.


Ulgen - Well, he's certainly no Tengri, so he's much more reasonable. Largely he seems a bit of a niche pretender... sort of like a sphinx on steroids, that can create mages (if GoRed, which is still cheaper and much less research than normal) I'm a bit concerned about his domsummon ability, and the amount of misc slots he has seems a bit much (same with the last guy too). It would be pretty easy to stack this guy with boosters and cast several great globals and spells, and you can get the magic to do so while taking him awake without sacrificing your scales.

Gazar Eej - Much more reasonable chassis. Possibly still better than its cost, and yet again the extremely high level of awe, but otherwise I don't see anything glaringly wrong with it. As a suggestion, consider bumping its cost to 100 points and lowering the awe to +1 or +2.

Genghis - Too many misc slots. Three maybe, but 4 just seems like too much. The level of fear could also drop a bit. Perhaps to +2? Other than that he is not too bad. I might actually lower his price though. Not all the way down to 0, but say somewhere around 20. Simultaneously, consider bumping his new path cost to 60-80.

Erlik - Why does he #onebattlespell undead mastery? This is an insanely good ability, way too good to be a #onebattlespell. Why not darkness? That seems reasonably thematic and not so overpowering. Either way he I think he is too cheap. He should probably be at least 150 points, and also, have fewer misc slots ;) It seems also that he has a lot of magic paths. A pretender with three seperate magic paths probably should not be so skilled in a particular one. Especially not if he has such a high dominion score. I notice all of your pretenders have very high dominion scores. You might want to consider toning some of them down. For example, in vanilla there are only something like 2 pretenders with a dominion of 4, and those are the fountains, which have fairly low utility as far as pretenders go. Whereas all of yours are powerful mages, SCs, army enhancers, etc ;) Consider bumping most of them down to 1 or 2 dominion, leaving Genghis with high dominion to represent his authority and ability to command.

I'm not going to talk much about the troops. Cavalry look more or less okay except for the ones with light lances, who suffer from a lack of dexterity and have lower attack values than intended. The basic infantry are slightly good for troops that are supposed to be a bit meh, but are probably fine. Qayan vessels having spy and assassinate is weird, but since they can't use those abilities it doesn't matter that much. The archers are just too good, even at 35 gold per. Even if they were cap only and 50 gold per archer, they would be too good :P Why do the javelin launchers have 0 encumbrance and all those resists?


One last thing... death worms. Their stats aren't too ridiculous, but their price is too low, and their attacks are way too good. They shouldn't be more than aoe1, and no, the worms really don't need fear :P

That was way longer than I'd intended... again, I hope I don't come off to harshly, everything I said above is just my personal opinion and entirely capable of being wrong!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

My assumption was sort of based on their being right next door to Persia, and it seemed likely that they'd use similar bow technology.

Interesting. I would have said that Man's placement in the Dom3verse (successors of the Sidhe, questing grail knights) placed them solidly as England, making their (vanilla) longbow the English longbow.

Something needs to be done - as it stands the lighter cavalry types are only useful as archers (att 6 with their sword?).

It probably does, but I can't personally confirm it. Try it and see, I guess.

Heretics in the Dominions sense just means they divert worship away from the Pretender. For Pythium the heretic cults are tolerated as a part of society, and Arco's heretic unit is presumably an influential part of mainstream society. I guess there could be an argument that to earn the #heretic tag you need to be a credible part of your society or no-one will listen to you. That's not to say you should necessarily use the #heretic tag, of course - it's one of a bunch of viable options, and what to do is up to the mod's creator.

If Qayan dominion is a sort of generalised Mongol-ness, any priest can spread it. If dominion is worship of the Pretender Tengri, then priests of Ulgen probably aren't going to be much help.

One suggestion would be to increase the resource cost, I guess.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Hmm, iirc priests of sotek have the heretic tag in Itza.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Hmm, lots to comment on. Let me pick out a few things from the thread so far which I think need to be flagged further, before I boot up the mod.

Not that this is possible outside of onebattlespell, but no no no. Having a silk vest on does not equate to airshield. Airshield can stop massive boulders, flaming arrows (without getting hit by the fire), seeking arrows etc. Airshield is a magical force batting away projectiles. A silk vest is just something to add to custom armours, or you could give the unit a natural #prot level of 4 or something.

No. It can't be added to magical items either. Nor is it a monster command. It would require a onebattlespell, unless I'm forgetting some monster you could copystats. Regardless I think putting air shield in to represent a silk vest is insane.

I would. From your descriptions, I would give all their archer units the longbow weapon. It still gives them the best human bows in the dom3 world, works with flaming arrows etc - only issue is it says 'longbow' instead of 'recurve compound horsebow' or whatever you want it to say. Which I don't think is an issue, much in the same way I wouldn't make a 'cutlass' weapon to replace 'falcion' or a 'gladius' to replace 'shortsword'.

Gems have nothing to do with it imo. If you point out the specific units its going wrong for I can take a look. onebattlespell has always acted a little weird though.

The method for getting round the vanilla restriction is to first make an exact copy of the vanilla spell using #copyspell - then you edit the original vanilla spell to be whatever you want it to be, then you #onebattlespell call it by ID number.

Other things:

If you do want units to fight with both sword and lance at the same time, you have to give the unit an appropriate level of ambi. Regardless of what historians say, there's no way I'm going to believe warriors would use a technique like that unless it was /useful/, therefore there should be a point to it in dom3. Two attacks at att8 is the lowest you could really go before it becomes too crappy to imagine a warrior using it. Even that is pretty abysmal. Remember ambidexterity can essentially be whatever value you like, because it /only/ matters for these weapons. So you can make it 10 if you want and realistically it won't cause any problems.

If you want a lance with charge bonus which beaks after one round and doesn't screw up the attack from the sword on the first round it needs #charge, #ammo 1 and #bonus. The #ammo 1 is the breaking part.

I see no reason not to make a new lance for the mongols. Unlike with missile weapons it isn't going to cause any flaming arrows style interaction problems.

Regarding encumbrance free armour or having low enc. Think very carefully about this. If you're saying all your guys, racially/culturally have high levels of endurance which set them apart from the other dom3 species/nations (like machaka) then give them enc 2. No lower. As concerns the armour, the fact that they're used to wearing it around as clothing doesn't mean it causes no enc. You might say it reduces the enc by 1 or something, but being used to something and it being magically weightless are different things. Knights used to do exercise in armour, but dom3 has its own system of armour and enc and it's best to stick to that if possible. Besides which, most of your stuff is mounted (which should mean base enc 5 or 4 with the racial bonus) and ignores the armour enc.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Yep. In my version they worship Sotek, who is either not an old one, or is an old one on a different path from the others.

Games Workshop have actually retconned that difference and now Sotek is simply the most popular and powerful old one, in fact they seem to suggest he's the king of the old ones or something. Which is just less interesting, so I went with the old version. I also made slann unable to be empowered in blood.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Seriously? That's not nearly as cool :(. It would have been much better for him to be a god created by the skinks, or an aspect of khaine/khorne.

As regards his #onebattlespells not working, 3 of his gods have them and none of them work iirc. Those are Tengri, Ulrik, and Bay-Ulgen.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

rdonj, another familiar name?

Thank you for mathematical analysis. I've got an update coming soon (depends on when I need sleep!) that will hopefully address some concerns. I wanted powerful, not uber. I suspected before I even posted the mod that they would be too strong, and have only gotten MASSIVE confirmation.

I'm probably the one who is too harsh, replying to everyone's slightest comment with longwinded ramblings and unsubstantiated claims. I will try a couple more times at a usable version of my #newweapons, before going vanilla. But it's growing ever closet to the point that I will have to.

True dat, every time I used him I raised the cost. So, logically, I just quit using him so that I wouldn't have to raise the cost! ;) My brother won't try any other pretender, and I used him alone to conquer a 50+ prov map before year two ended. He did die once, but all the priests I had made in the meantime called him back in two turns! It's either raise his cost so that he has to be sleeping (kinda silly, though I do like the Pantokrator, so feasable) or scale him down (probably best). I used the sky spirits I made first to scale up to the elder spirit multihero, and then scaled him up to get Tengri. Again, I overcompensated. Suggestions? I'm thinking less hp ~25-30, possibly no hardpaths (this would be unthematic though), about 5-6 stormpower, startdom reduced to 1-2, maybe half precision, reduce awe to 2-3, and only 1-2 misc slots. A nerf-nuke, if I might say so! Opinions?

CI hadn't noticed the AN on his attacks. Really does make him a true beast! I was going for the raw power of a tornado, and a god, rolled into one. I succeeded far too well. My bro told me that there is something that can reduce shockres, I increased it to 150 to drive home that this guy can't be affected by lightning, is it annoying, unbalanced or unnecessary? If so, it's gone!

I gave him the '#magicboost 53 2' tag, so that any magic skill taken would be boosted by two. My brother hates this tag and it was partly to annoy him. I think removing this would be for the best, depending on the other changes. (I suppose I could just limit it to a boost of one to air and astral, as a midway point.)

I had the same thoughts, and I wouldn't want to meet a sphinx on steroids! ;) I didn't really think about GoR on the domsummon ivy kings!

As was I already, I wanted to make him an ivylord or whatever, where he summons extra vinemen, but couldn't. I didn't even think of trying to give him the ivy crown, can this be done?

Sorta what I wanted, a pretender custom made for casting varied globals. (He is the source of knowledge!) But definitely too much. I'm thinking about half the hp, removing all domsummons but possibly leaving/enhancing the makemonster, reducing awe by to 2-3, reducing misc slots to 2-3 and upping his cost to 175-180. Thoughts?

She was supposed to cost 175 points, my bad! Is this an unreasonable change? Your suggestion of 100pts and much lower awe sound just right, though. Will be implemented. Should she have one less misc slot as well?

I scaled Khan to multihero, then up to various khan heroes, from best of these (gesar/subutai) up to genghis. If you could offer scaling suggestions for them as well, I would appreciate it! I will lower his misc slots to two, for now. His fear will be +3, for now. His gcost reduced to 25, for now. And his path cost raised to 75, for now. This guy is actually my favorite, as he is a non-mage, human pretender who could potentially work! I say 'for now' pending further input. Not because I dislike the changes!

I only play SP and have never seen the spell be cast; I didn't think it would be very powerful against anyone other than MA/LA Ermor. I'm sorry to assume, because that... you know the rest. ;)


Very good suggestion, I was under the impression that darkness was overpowered/overused (plus I didn't want to hurt the national archers!); but if you like darkness better, and I do too in most regards, then so it shall be! I was originally going to see if I could do 'Ermorian Legion,' but this was unthematic troop-wise; my bro suggested undead mastery over the legions.

Well, I don't mind removing the blood pick, and the astral if I have too; I really think he should have at least two hardpaths in death. I agree his dominion should be lower. :)

It has been so long since I played without a slew of mods, I never even considered people who don't. :( I'm sure there are more high dom pretenders in the mods I use, but they aren't as strong as mine, perhaps (read: certainly). Will change for update.

Although unthematic, this was an attempt at balance. I plan on making both sabres #bonus, but I would give troops #ambidextrous 1-3 if anyone felt that #bonus wasn't enough.

Meh, for a Mongol was elite for most at the time. I raised their price, however.

I gave them certain abilities so that if my bro GoRed one, they would be like a lesser priestess. I wouldn't mind removing them!

Others agree with you rdonj, I have scaled down the bows. And will probably do so again. Will raise their price too. And may make cap only.

It was my way of simulating that they are a *construct.* They may be pulled by a horse, but are not alive. I thought that trample still increases fatigue at 0-enc, but I am probably wrong. Suggestions?

Three primary aspects of the old legends of the death worms: they can kill at range with an electric discharge, they spew acid at range that dissolves armor and is poisonous, and, to this day, a large number of Mongolian people are deathly afraid of the worms and won't venture near their abode in the mountainous areas of the Gobi desert. To be thematic, Fear has to stay. I will lower (and thought I already did!) the aoe of worm attacks. Make any other suggestions that would make keeping fear plausible!

No worries, I would bet at least a dozen people ignored my mod because of my needlessly long posts. I will try to downplay this in the future.

Every time I read one of these posts, it makes me rethink everything I've done! (It's a good thing!) When I post replies with lots of historical data, it is not to prove anyone wrong or display some sort of superior knowledge; it is merely to show where I was coming from, what I had in mind and what is *historical.* It may change things for your own thoughts if you understand the *supposed* nuances I was going for. Then again, it may reinforce them! Don't hesitate to wax philosophical further on the subject of dominions!

Thanks!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Gregstrom

You are probably right, they are *right next door*, as it were.

I'm not too familiar with MA nations, and almost never play as *human* nation's. Although, I also associate Man with Arthurian England. I didn't know they had longbow recruits. (sheepish grin)

I gave them standard lances and #bonus sabres. Will this be enough? Only time (and playtesting) will tell.

I might try it if I feel it's necessary. I'm not even sure *how* I would be able to tell!

Yeah, I do get your point. And was an option I considered in the beginning, and then again later. And could be a nice counterpoint to their strength. But, aside, from the servant of erlik, I would definitely wait to find balance in other ways than going against a tenet I had from the outset. That being said, I will try to gauge what my goals are more closely.

Well, I was going with the Mongols as the primary source, while incorporating other influences (Hunnic, Buryat, Xiongnu, Turkic, Rus and other Altaic tribes.) I only added *cults* that were widely popular in the true *Mongol* regions. For instance, Ulgen was actually part of the Buryat theology. When the Mongols assimilated their close Buryat cousins, they didn't forbid their theology, or regard their holymen as heretics. They simply said, "Well, Ulgen is obviously either the same guy as Tengri, or his son, or his father, or some other relation. We'll worship whoever we want, you'll worship whoever you want, because we are all *Mongols* now, and that's what *Mongols* do." To which the Buryat replied, "Ok, we can go with the flow. Just one thing though, Ulgen doesn't like this Erlik guy." And the Mongols answered back, "That's fine, as long as you don't discriminate (kill/heckle) against anyone who prefers Erlik, then we're all good. Because we're all *Mongols* and that's what *Mongols* do." Obviously, this conversation didn't really happen; but a literary interpretation of cultural assimilation could never be truly accurate. This example, and the many like it when they assimilated other cultures (but, curiously, not their pantheons), weighed heavily on my decisions. I would certainly have made a *cult* of another family of pantheons a heretic. The only reason I'm not completely sold on servants of erlik is because they were more like doomsayers (alas, the end is nigh) then true heretics (their gods are false, kill the infidels). If they had been more active in trying to sway the people from their own faith (poisoning sacred horses, preaching against the established pantheon, leading revolts against the *government*) then I would certainly make them heretics. That being said, if anyone else feels that the servants of erlik, or any of the other priests should be heretics instead... BLAMMO, change done. Until then, know that I am seriously considering your argument anyway, and this may be a final push for balance in the future!

The last few hours I've been seriously considering all of created equipment resource cost by 2-6. This would somewhat mitigate the quality concerns. Although unthematic (besides being superior, their weapons/armor were also cheaper to make, maintain and repair, due to less use of metals and more use of leather/design) I feel the increased resource cost would be a good balance factor.

Thanks! Everyone has such good contributions. I would hate to have to rate them! Gregstrom, please do a little more brainstorming and expound some more on your own thoughts. It may be foolish/impossible to please everyone, but I would rather one poster like my mod than two non-posters not like it. Not because I don't like people who don't post (I trolled this site for over a year!), but because the people who post are generally the most committed and most likely to provide real substance to a mod!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Not sure where you'd know my name from. I do post a bit on this forum, but otherwise I can't think of anyplace online where I actually use this name, other than the dom3 IRC channel. Glad to know I wasn't coming on too hard, I did try to keep a sense of levity in there. You haven't either, for the record. In order not to create a gigantic quote string, I won't quote you too much ;).

Tengri definitely needs to be nerf-nuked. There is just no way around it, unless you want to do something crazy like make him a 600 point pretender :P The 150 lightning resistance is just... an aberration. There is no unit in dominions, no matter how immune to something, that has more than 100 resistance. And while there are a small number of effects (ironskin, army of lead/gold, maybe an artifact but I can't think of any) that will decrease shock resistance, everyone else has to cast a spell or use a misc slot to counter this. So it's very undominionsy. If you're going to nerf-nuke him, I would suggest something like: 20-30 less hp, 18 mr instead of 20 (ALL pretenders have 18 mr), reduce att/def values to 14 or 16, remove the magic boost, awe no greater than 2, lose the extra shock resist (again, no unit in dominions has more than 100 even if it's completely immune to it), smaller siege bonus, no more than 4 storm power, 2 misc slots only (very typical for this sort of pretender), and consider giving it 1 encumbrance, but this part may not be necessary. I would also strongly consider removing the immortal tag. The dominion definitely needs to drop, to 1 or 2, whether the immortal tag stays or not. Having done all this he'll be something like a 150-200 point chassis.

Bay-urgen - If you want him to have the ivy king ability, you should try #copystat-ing an ivy king. That should give him ivy lord 3, which is quite respectable. However I'm 99% sure this won't help him summon them without actually using one of the spells ;). Having actually played him shortly in a test game, the domsummoning wasn't as bad as I thought. However, I got all ivy kings and no vine ogres. I would remove the ivy king summoning, since it's potentially exploitable, but leave the vine ogres. And make sure that you're using the proper unit number to summon them. Suggested changes: hp reduced by 50%, fire susceptibility, awe reduced to no more than 2 (you will hear this a lot ;)), give him recuperation, increase attack skill to 8, reduce misc slots by 1 and call it a day.

Gazar Eej - I didn't put a whole lot of thought into my price suggestion. Yeah, lose a misc slot, awe reduction, increase price. But increase the price to at least 125, not 100. That's too low. What I did is basically compare her to the titan sitting right next to her. The titan is likely a better expansion pretender, but she has lots of useful abilities and is a better SC later on, and is probably worth closer to 150 points (and lower her dom to 2).

Genghis - One thing you have to remember, is that as a pretender the unit automatically scales with your dominion level. So it's not 100% necessary to have him actually be any stronger than them. Misc slots to two is a good change, and fear +3 is probably okay. Other changes sound fine for now.

Elrik - The thing with #onebattlespell-ing undead mastery, is that it completely shuts down entire strategies just by having one unit. Most undead has pretty bad mr, i.e. less than 10. Undead commonly used as thugs tend to have around 14 mr, which basically means that undead thugs used against you have to have an mr pendant, or they'll have an excessively high chance to be turned. And if your opponent is really unlucky, they could send a tartarian SC at you and have you capture that first turn, before they get any buffs or anything. Having darkness instead is quite annoying also, but is easier to deal with and would make him more interesting as a combatant while still justifying his insane pricetag. Further, getting a really good strategy together to utilize the darkness seems like it would require a lot more work. You only have guaranteed d1 mages, a decent number of 2s, and a few 3s (under the current system, but I recall reading that you were considering changes to the magic to lessen it, which is a good idea). You would have to recruit mainly these guys as mages, and they have quite possibly the worst research-gold ratio of all your mages. And as you said, it would hurt your own troops, which is another reason it's a better idea ;) As for Elrik's magic, try removing the blood pick and lower death to 2, keeping the astral. This would be reasonably in line with standard dom paths.

I only really use CBM consistently, and I've never tried mythology pretenders, so I don't know what those are like. Mainly I play nation mods ;)


I would make the lance #bonus instead, as it is longer.


Maybe thematic, but if you are GoRing those, you're seriously wasting gems. Just remove it, it looks odd and doesn't really add anything.


Well, depending on what the new bows look like they may not need to be cap only. If the bows they had weren't capable of killing even the mightiest of SCs, they could actually go down to a reasonable gold price, too.

0 encumbrance trample is just too good for a recruitable. The horse is fatigueable even if the cart isn't, and without the horse the cart is pretty useless. My suggestion would be to give it 3-5 encumbrance to represent the horse, and remove the resistances because they're really weird and abnormal for a unit like that. Then reduce the price of the cart by 60 or so gold because they're no longer ridiculously abusable :)


As for the death worms, I don't know, from your description it sounds like they could get away without having any aoe at all (with a precision and range boost to make them not useless. Range increased to 10 is probably warranted anyway). Also, they have fear 15, which is a completely nuts value. For a unit summonable so early, that is just too much. Suggestions for this unit: Again, maximum aoe of 1 on both weapons, fear no greater than 5, cost at least 5 per worm, and no more than 1 or 2 at a time for a level 3 summon. You could possibly make a higher level version of this spell that summons more at once. Another thing that might be a good idea would be raising the level of conjuration required to summon them.


One last bit of advice: Weigh sombre's comments more heavily than mine. He is actually a modder, and there are plenty of things I have no good idea of pricing for. I've also been known to make snap judgements and be way off the mark in some cases of balance.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

You can. Just #copystats something that has ivylord and overwrite everything else about the unit that you don't need. IIRC, there is a indy mage called "Animist" that has ivy lord 2, he could be a good starting point.


As for trying out your mod, I think that I'll wait for the new version. It seems that this version has gotten a lot of feedback already.

Although, I have read this thread and some things caught my eye that I'd like to rise up. You mentioned something about wanting the nation to have "really poor late game", to sort of balance its early game power. I'm sorry to inform that won't really make it as a MP nation (if we are aiming for MP balance here). There is all sorts of rage going about boosting Tir'na'Og that has sort of similiar power curve. If the nation works too much by "+early power -late power" principle, it will eat up 1/2 nations by turn 40 and then get simply obliterated by something that can do something in the late game. That really won't be fun for the nations that get overwhelmed by the nation's early power nor will it be fun to watch your empire crumble to dust.

You also seem to have a lot of national pretenders. IMHO, it's a bit of a waste to have more than 1 or 2 national pretenders. Players are only going to use one (most likely the most powerful one), even if that, so the rest of them are sort of "wasted". I think that the four gods could be unique summons to give something to aim for in the late game.

Also the randoms on the mages seem really unnecessarily chaotic to me. It would be absolute infuriating, for example, to recruit ~5 Priestess of Gengri and not get single A3. It would be just as unbalanced to get 5 A4's in the row. Sure, the odds for those are unlikely, but are they really so necessary as to justify for those games simply spoiled because you just couldn't hit those randoms you needed. You could easily combine 70% X/Y + 30% X + 30% Y into one 100% X/Y random.

Also, you have a lot of commanders. To tell you the truth, opening the recruitment screen was sort of overwhelming. The thing with having many commanders is that (sort of like with national pretenders) is that the players are only going to use the ~3 most powerful ones, because commander slots are really tight. Especially true for mages as diverse as in this nation. My suggestion would be the same as for the pretender. Make the excess into summons. I'm not sure if it fits with your idea for the nation, but perhaps the servants could summon the priests/priestess's of their relative faiths?

Do not take offence by any of this, the idea and the theme are really cool. And this focus on Horse Archers is really unexplored territory for Dom3. All the pieces are there, it just needs some polishing. (I've been itching for a mongol nation to dom3 ever since I got my *** handed to my by them in Medieval: Total War)

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

My own feedback on a few issues:

Encumbrance of lighter armors: With games that go by small dice rolls (this is essentially a 2D6 mechanic game, right?), there is always a problem with granularity. I always personally loved the broad possibility curve of D100 pen-n-paper RPGs like Rolemaster. That said, sometimes you have to lose a bit of thematicity to the lack of granularity. I think, unless the armor is extremely light, keeping the encumbrance of it above 0 (i.e., 1) is a must; 0 is "perfection," at least in a sense.

My own approach is to respect the difference in small numbers, whether in a low-granularity game or a high-granularity one. A simple increase of 1 in protection (or damage, or precision, or what have you) for a category or item above its equivalents/commensurates is a respectable advantage; 2 is incredible and rare, and 3 is legendary/fantastic. As long as flavor text/thematic element is reflected in some numerical manifestation, I think the it maintains both feel and real advantage. The special nature of the Mongols is going to come through and shine even with more modest numbers.

General Power Curve: I agree on balancing it more and not making it an early power/late ragdoll nation. If you want to go with MR hit, I would make it no less than 9.

Commanders and Randoms: Aw, I love the selection of commanders. Perhaps in the intense economizing of MP games the top three might be the only ones chosen, but, at least in an SP game, I see myself loving the variety.

And on randoms, perhaps a slight bit more predictability may or may not be in order, but I like the theme and random element keeps it fresh and interesting.

Regular units with spy and assassin tags: Seconded on removing the tags. While it makes for more fun with GoR, I find that excessive.

Bows: What rdonj said seems pretty persuasive to me as well. The Semitic giants here are the mechanical representation of actual giants, not just large men with well-constructed/designed bows. And those giants with well-constructed/designed bows! It seems that the limitations of the game in its current state force you to choose between (1) trying to find some way of making them distinctive and special with vanilla Long Bows; (2) making them definitively special with custom bows, at the cost of making your nation (or at least those heavily-used archers) egregiously miss out on the most important spell to an archer-heavy nation; or (3) use bows meant to represent what 1,200-pound giant archers with well-designed/constructed bows use. At least to me, (2) seems fairly unacceptable (from a designer standpoint -- if you did it anyway, I'd still play it :)); flaming arrow compatibility is essential, and (3) cheapens giants and is just too broad.

I dunno -- very hard choice. But also remember that the devs represented inhumanly-strong size-3 Japanese dai bakemono archers using Japan's bows as Long Bows as well. In the end, if you went with Long Bows and gave them a nice precision bonus, I think they'd still be very special. Horse archers with bucklers and long bows sound very scary indeed.

Sprites: Oh, by the way, do you have an overall color scheme in mind? Tans and reds, for example, or something as a guide?

And, if you have specific requests and ideas, let me know, and I'll try to put something together.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

rdonj, again!

Yeah, I was trying to point out in my own way a heretic unit that I like; because, fluffwise, they are heretics and because they had such a different path from the other mages. I thought this could apply to servants of erlik; although, historically, not heretics, they have a vastly different philosophical outlook and in my mod a vastly different magic path. I can go either way on them at this point.


sombre, again! thanks for the warhammer mods, should've said so earlier!

Actually, it was more like a full thermal top and bottom than a vest. But I strongly agree that airshield would be inappropriate. My reasons for further inquiry were more for personal knowledge than for something I planned too implement. I don't know if I want to give any of them natural protection, although a very interesting method of accounting for the silk underclothes (and one I disregarded early).

Yeah, I couldn't find it in modding.pdf at all. I don't know any monster has airshield naturally (but I'm not familiar with half or more of the summons, and few of the MA vanilla nations. Using an airshield as it is would be insane to represent silk underclothing. However, I was trying to elicit ideas, and it worked. Was it a bad idea? No. Was it a feasible idea? Yes. Was it an idea appropriate to the goal? Probably not, considering I only wanted it to work against arrows/bolts. The whole concept of silk stopping these missles only works because of the spinning/twisting action that flights create. Silk offers no protection versus knives, swords, spears, clubs, maces, javelins, boulders, fire (well, a little, but not enough to matter) or any other type of attack that is not spinning on a particular axis. You are right, though.

And this may probably be the final fix. I wanted as a unique feel to their equipment as to their nationals. Being a thorough (read: anal) person, in a world of 'close-enoughs' (our own, not dominions) I prefer accuracy. It was more than the name. Firing a recurve bow is as different from firing a longbow as firing a light crossbow is from firing heavy crossbow, or as different as throwing a knife is from an axe; not to mention the difference in capabilities. If equivalency is equal to happiness, then I can live with the change. (And it appears to be a popular choice!)

As far as the sabre is concerned, it is an even more unique weapon when compared to a short sword or falchion; longer and easier to wield (slashes, instead of stabs) than a short sword (which you rightly compare to a gladius, other that the fact that a gladius was broader, they were functionally the same weapon); lighter and faster than a 'traditional' falchion (this is more subjective, some would consider a falchion the same as a sabre, many would not; some would say a cutlass is a scimitar, some would call it a sabre; some would say a scimitar is a sabre, others would say it's a falchion; others still would say it's semantics and that they are all the same weapon because they all have medium to long length, variably curved, blades, thin to thick in width wielded primarily from horseback in a slashing motion, in this sense a shamshir and a dao are also the same weapon as the rest. I could easily have used either to represent a sabre; and if people prefer, I will replace the sabres with short swords or falchions. This was not brought up by anyone yet, but why not nip a potential problem in the bud?

I'm not sure at all, first time I messed with that tag. I believe all of my pretenders were having the issue, but I was honestly just checking out the function, and the only one I really wanted was for Tengri to autocast Storm, although now that I've given Erlik Darkness, that is one I'd like to keep.

This wouldn't affect that spell for everyone? I thought that was how it worked! (#copyxxxx, I mean) Interesting, are their other uses for #copyspell? I've never been able to find the ID number of a spell, unless, of course, the name is the ID number.

It would be useful to hold one opponent at bay from feet away with your lance while simultaneously attacking another with your sword. And if it was a literal translation from the real world, every Mongol warrior would have an Att of 14 or more. Using a weapon in each hand, sometimes called Florentine, is a very attack oriented style that many people have died trying to use, and, if you ask any SCA member, suicidal unless heavily trained to do it (like say, from a young age). All that aside, I agree, it must have a point. I thought that light lances broke after the charge like the normal ones; so, what I had intended, a charge followed by sword attacks, was not what I had rendered. Also, I thought that at a certain point ambidexterity would equate to an Att bonus, if not then I have no qualms with adding it to the troops.

That's sweet, did you come across that by yourself, or did I just miss it?

I could make a tweener lance, using your awesome idea. :D My favorite part is making weapons and armor (hence, what I consider to be an overabundance in my mod). I could do it all day for every weapon conceivable and not really get bored. I had wanted to make equipment that other people would use for their own mods. Like hey, I want a Persian nation, and I can use this guys bows, sabres and lamellar armor; or, I want a Byzantine nation and I could use the very same items; or Korean, or Cossack, or Turkic, or a slew of other peoples that would make for a great mod IMO.

Right after I created the bows and assigned them to my first units, I fired up dom3, enabled the mod, started a game with a fire9 great sage, researched to ench5, attacked a neighbor, cast flaming arrows with my pretender, checked the archers to see that they had flaming arrows ability, hit 'q', quit out and checked a mental box in my head that said, 'yup, it works;' this was not just bad programming, it was bad testing. It wasn't until right before I was ready to post that I had actually watched a battle with flaming arrows and realized it didn't work! I could have then made substitutions, but had grown accustomed to and started to like the bows I made. I figured if anybody thought they were worth sacrificing flaming arrows for, I would keep them. I'll just remove them. Saves spaces for better implemented weapons at least! :) Oh, well, too bad there isn't a #bow or #flamen tag to add flame arrow compatibility.

I gave all the human units 3 enc, AFAICR. The modding.pdf didn't point out that mounted units have a higher enc value. I noticed most if not all had 4, so I gave some 3 and some 4 to account for riding horses since early childhood (which makes a *huge* difference in how fast you tire out from riding one). Easy enough to correct. I gave 0-enc to the javelin launcher, because I saw it as a machine, with a horse just their to pull it into position. I gave the spirits 0-enc because they're supposed to be essentially just air (even the humanoid one!).

I agree, and I attempted to account, almost exactly as you say. I reasoned if they all wore the base armor everyday from a young age, hunted, played, slept in it, treated it like a second skin (or third when you count that silk) in combination with the fact that it was already lighter and more flexible than chain mail hauberks (enc-2 vanilla), and only slightly more cumbersome than leather hauberks (enc-0 vanilla) that these factors would all combine to make the base armor enc-1. I postulated then that when donning the *lighter* version, they would feel significantly unburdened (hence, enc-0), like wearing heavy winter clothes all year round (Wyoming!) and then going south and changing into summer clothes (BOOM! you feel light as a feather); and that when donning the *heavier* version they would feel slightly more burdened (hence, enc-2). I should reiterate the fact they only had two forms of armor, lacquered leather scale and lacquered leather scale with a lamellar drape. I created more for variation, I thought it might be boring if all the troops had the same armor. More to the point: I can either increase the three scale #newarmors enc tag by 1 each; or I can remove the light and heavy versions of the scale and simply alter the normal scale and lamellar #newarmors to be more different.

Wow, I must really need to catch up on my fluff! That's not at all how I remember it. I thought your lizardmen fit how I remembered them to an absolute T!

Thanks for the valuable insights, and to anyone who actually read this.


rdonj

I've already made most of your pretender suggestions. Thanks!

Will undo change to sabres and make a new tweener lance with #bonus.

It's just something me and my bro do. Will save it for the house version!

We'll see. Probably gonna end up being longbows/composite bows.

I honestly thought that trample would ignore enc-0, my bad. Agree enc-4 sounds pretty good right now, 5 is probably better for a single horse lugging that thing around (even though few animals compare in raw strength to a horse... or a human!). Note: it's supposed to have two wheels, something look off?

Range 10 and aoe gone. Check and double-check! Um, my bro was justing raving about a fear 15 pretender yesterday. The worms are supposed to have fear 0... Apparently #fear tag by itself defaults to 15? That .pdf said it was 0! Fixed.

I will not disregard anyone's advice, but I will take the harshest criticism as the best calls for change. I never really paid attention to who made what before, just what I liked and didn't. I will take everyone's advice with a grain of sand, a tablet of aspirin and a pair of blinders. ;)

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Burnsaber, hello! I like Dwarfs. A lot!

That would work great, but I gotta tone everything down some more to be happy. ;) Although, that will work for any commander, right? I have some ideas.

I would prefer to wait for a more polished version myself. ;) More feedback than I was ready for I'm afraid. I'm on the downswing of a manic cycle, so...

I just thought it would fit in with their strong early theme. If possible, I would truly prefer a balance. That's why you guys post, and I read. I didn't know that about Tir na nog. I guess that would be boring. I like to retain a theme once I've got one. I was mostly worried about being really strong in early and in late, which I want to avoid. My bro and I wouldn't be able to tell by ourselves.

I agree. I had hoped if I bad a bunch, one or two would catch people's eyes. Then I could just leave out the rest. I didn't even consider making them summons, but I left myself summon slots if I wanted to make more. Was this bad etiquette?

Well, I am trying to refine them more. I really though they could be something different and unique. I was getting frustrated myself trying to get an A4, then I got two. Having such a setup could easily spoil your gameplan. I hoped that a strong military and good pretender could offset this. I also thought that the random nature could emphasize their different aspects, the fact they are not a true mage nation, but have a high potential. If this really means they are destined for doom, then I will change them by combining the custommagics.

Once again, I actually agree. They have way too many (for my bro's sake) and I had a blast making them; I figured if most people liked the number, they would stay, or, if not, people might pick some favorites, or point out ones that shouldn't be there. I could then dump some, someone earlier mentioned making other ages, this could work too. But I would really prefer getting this guy into shape before delving into another haphazard attempt.

None taken, healthy criticism is the best! I'm glad that one theme that I chose seems to be in high regard. The whole reason I chose them. I guess I'll go through and really take a harder look at these guys. I was hoping for something that might be interesting, and it mostly worked. Never played edieval: Total War, fun?


globu, sorry bud, trying to make this quick.

I think I got it worked out; think I'll go to two armors. KISS, never my strong suit, and not my favorite band. ;) One at enc-1 the other at enc-2, two prot difference.

MR 9 it stays.

Commanders: I'll need to sleep on that. And talk to my bro. A lot of this is what he or I wanted, or thought was neat. I may have been pretty far off from what is appropriate though. But I play by myself, and my bro plays by himself. I rush, he turtles. While combining what we both like to do into one nation seemed tough, we both thought I came up up with a unique way to do it. You guys know better what would work in the 'real world.' i.e. MP Btw, my bro is real cool and nicer than me, he won't care at all what gets changed, as long as he gets to turtle.

The randoms will have to be more predictable.

Fixed!

They will be vanilla.

This guy, he's Shinuyama? or a summon?

Trying to locate my Mongol warrior pic. May have to find it online. Will have something... tonight?

Nah, probably too much work involved. Just make them how *you* like them. They'll probably turn out fine. It was overambitious on my part to ask for all the trappings.


Anyway, thanks all! I will try to get something done for you guys!

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

[quote=kennydicke;731880]Burnsaber, hello! I like Dwarfs. A lot!
[quote]

Yeah, I noticed that you mentioned it in your first post. Thanks for the compliment. If your brother likes to turtle, I assume that he likes it too :D.

Well, Ivylord is one of the weakest abilities around. I think that you could keep it. And yeah, the trick works for any commander.

Some other cool things you can only copystat:
-> Construct lord
-> Research without being a mage (used for dwarf Clan Kings)
-> Lose paths when leaving home province (although you will get "#magicbeing" and "#ethereal" that you can't get rid of)

You can have a nation that is its best in the early game, but you should let the nation have at least a shot in having decent late game. Although the nation as it now stands will likely have terrific endgame. Solid shot at S4 and being able to get S/N for Crystal Coins makes this nation a astral power.

There is not much of a "modding etiquette", but reserving a bunch of spell slots really serves no purpose (they are tight as they are!). But yeah, I think that the four gods would work better as unique summons. You have several paths you could take them;
1) Copy-over the Hinnom "Summon Lord of Civilization" spell and replace the Grigori with your own units. Then it would work like "Summon Spenta" for Caelum or like Arch devils.
Pros: No used spell slots
Cons: It would reduce compactibility in single-age games
2) Have each god have it's own summon spell
Pros: You could make each god it's own summon spell, like reguire air mage for Tengi, death for the death god and so forth.
Cons: 4 spell slots, players will likely focus on the most powerful one.

Well, some people really like randoms, so you should not totally scrap them. There just is no need for them to be so.. extreme. I'd consider something like 100% + 100-X% + 100-Y% random to be still manageable (you know that you are getting *some* random and the other are just bonus -> no biggie if you don't hit them. If you have over three <100% randoms, it gets kind of hard to actually process what kind of mage you are actually buying). Also, having like 1-2 mages with absolutely crazy randoms would be fun, but it's a bit too much if all mages are like it.
IMHO, you could have really erratic randoms on one mage (it's not bad when you decidedly take the risk, but it IMHO is if you are forced to take the risk). If everyone has crazy randoms, it also makes it hard to plan in advance to what you will have access to and even more crucially, *when* you will have the magic available.


Well, the negative about having a lot national commanders is that most of them won't be used and if there are way too many of them, they clutter the recruitment screen. Also, each commander is one more unit to draw. But it really seems that you are familiar with the source familiar and have a lot of stuff to tell us through the unit descriptions, so losing commanders means also losing text space.

But remember that not all summons have to be magical in nature. You could have a remote summon, for example, that summons a strike force lead by the "Qayan Warrior Woman", if you were to knock that out of the recruitment screen, but wanted to keep in for thematic reasons.


I must say, you are really taking all of this like a champ. It really takes courage to bring something homebrewed for own use into light like this and take very heavy suggestion changes with so good attitude. Rock on, dude!

Yeah, it's fun until you learn the tricks to humiliate the AI in combat.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

Well, I can't promise fast work, but here is Mongol archer 1 for preliminary review. Feel free to make demands -- how does it match the concept? More armor? Change the whole shirt to metallic color? Hat too big? Want me to find a way to put a more prominent spike on top? I know you mentioned axe and buckler before, and I can tack those on, but here is a base unit. Again, most work done, but not yet finalized (i.e., I haven't looked at it in game and gotten rid of the inevitable dark edges and artifacts).

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans
 

OK, so, I got *some* sleep; bear with me people. ;)
And soon I'll have to reread everything posted; I may have a large memory but, when I'm winding down from a manic episode, I tend not to retain a lot. And as far as my strange sense of humor, I'll try to refrain from being specific, ok guys?

As far as the I do things, I've always been more of whittler than a bricklayer. What I mean is I start with a large unformed mass (read: too much stuff, uber stats) and carve it down into art; as opposed to a person to likes to set a solid foundation, and then build up until they have a monument.

I can't swim, but I've always been able to jump into the water and find my way out; when I try wading in slowly, that's when I drown.


Burnsaber

I wish I could say that, but he's such a turtle that he's been playing the same SP game as Lanka for almost a month... and it's only 100+ provs. That being said, he WILL love all the warhammer mods. Funny, I never tried a turtle approach with them (or anyone else), I learned to be aggressive from my HOMM days, and it's served me well in other strategy games (especially dom3, galciv and ROTK).

And I still plan on using it, what I really meant was that I wanted to get him to a point where he's playable/balanced; a point where *I* can feel comfortable adding something like that... Would I be able to #copystats right below #newmonster, and leave the rest the same?


->I'm not sure what Construct lord is?
->That probably explains why just giving a #researchbonus never worked for me!
-> That could be interesting for Tengri as he already has those tags, and still seems strong.

Well, my idea of an endgame is probably different from yours as a whole. I meant having a *little* to *moderate* difficulty bootstrapping into two or more of S, D or B, I always feel weaker if I'm not strong into one of these; I didn't mean a nation that crumbles at the end, I'm honestly ignorant of a nation like that - I do reasonably well with all of them, no matter the national paths. Also, I'm not sure that the game ever transitions into a true *late* game against the AI. So, what I mean is, I've always had trouble with not being clear enough; and with expecting people to understand me and my intentions.

There is not much of a "modding etiquette", but reserving a bunch of spell slots really serves no purpose (they are tight as they are!).
Well, I didn't really plan on using them for *summons*, I just had extra space from where I started (3950?) and called it that.

Do others agree? My first pretender is the one *I* care about, Genghis. I just thought it would be fun to have a fair slice of different ones for different uses/strategies. By having them be summons, you get to have your cake and eat it too. Query: How would you propose I reconcile making these spells viable, while at the same time reducing the number of commanders?

This is an approach I never could get to work. My first attempt at modding was overwriting EA national spells with the Chaos Mods spells, because I was having trouble having it *and* all the other warhammer mods at once.

I would have hoped that they would strong and different enough that the choice would be more situational/strategy-based.

Yeah, but I figured eight spell slots was enough for now. Not that I'm at a loss for spells. I could probably think of eight more real fast. ;) Plus, I wanted to start with the more magical-type summons and go from there.
Call of the Mastodon was a spell I made to check out what 'border summon' is; that could easily be a ritual, independent or otherwise. Although, something really gets me about the mage making the elefant sound, and then a bunch of mastodons show up.

That's because I am a champ! But seriously, thanks, I saw a theme that wasn't explored fully by any nation, thought it would be fun, and went for it. Thanks.

Many games are like that. Is it real-time or turn-based? Or possibly not a strategy at all? I'm always on the look out for new games to buy.


globu

Looks good, probably for PD-only militia archer I will make soon. Fine for concept. They used very little metal in their armors, because they needed it for weapons and horse-related materials; metals in armor was more predominant in their helmet tops and binding areas of the body suit, although iron scale leggings was common on the heavier mounted troops. The spikes were actually more of a fear tactic used by their heaviest cavalry, and not by the lighter troops; but if you like spikes, go for it.

Thanks guys. Hopefully I will be done soon.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans -- Update 1
 

The quayan bowman feels quite overpriced now, at 40 gold for a longbow.

The honor guard being recruit everywhere really is too much regarding the rest of their recruitables.

Regarding the barding of the horse, the base game rule is : you pay for it, but it has no use. CBM just gets rid of the barding cost. So upping the prot is quite original, and quite powering.

I don't find the magic that weak, there's much morse in MA (ulm/man). True there are a lot of randoms, so planning is hard, but potential is here at least. And top shelf mages see some use in game before becoming old. A rare sight for a human faction in general.

The entangle effect seems not to work, or I was unlucky and not one had a chance to take effect. (5 batlles or so) It didn't slow me down mush.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans -- Update 1
 

Humakty, hello!

Agreed. Set gold price before I switched to longbows. Have a specific price in mind?

At this point, I'm really leaning the same way. I was already tempted to make it so.

I just don't want it to be *too* powerful.

I'm not familiar with vanilla MA, but I garnered that magic is weak. Perhaps their magic is too strong? I did make the mages young, do you think overly so?

I had the exact same problem and conclusion... it likely doesn't work. Just thought I'd try something a little different. Let me know if you find out different, ok?

Thanks for the input, back to work.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans -- Update 1
 

You're using weapon 137 (Entanglement) as your #secondaryeffect and #secondaryeffectalways. According to the DB, that's a magic effect used by the Vine Whip & Vine Bow. Perhaps it requires magic or something?

You could try weapon 453 (Harpooning) and/or weapon 261 (Web) instead. Maybe that would work better?

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans -- Update 1
 

With a longbow he should be around 10 gold, more if he has precision above 10. Probably no more than 15 gold.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans -- Update 1
 

One of the kinds of aspect archers in the Sylvania mod has entanglement on their arrows - you could try copying that.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans -- Update 1
 

For the spritework, for now instead of posting every time I come up with something, I'll be putting them up in an album here (a feature I had no idea about two days ago). I'm trying to do a sprite a day or so, ideally.

On an unrelated note, if anyone wants a hawt succubus or a runt triceratops, they're up. :D

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans -- Update 1
 

SlipperyJim and llamabeast, hello!

Entanglement was my first thought, but harpooning is definitely more appropriate for the lance! I played Sylvania a couple times, but don't want to bite code. I will contact the author and ask if it's alright. Very good suggestions, that I would never have thought of!


Rdonj, hello!

Coincidently, I changed the gcost to 15 after reviewing Man's longbowman (after Humakty pointed out they were 40gp). That is the first change to the next update.

Btw, 'Qayan Honor Guard' as recruit anywhere *is* too strong, this is the second change.


I hope you guys all feel free to edit the mod to suit you better! I'm still learning! Thanks for the feedback. :)

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans -- Update 1
 

Just for your information, "code biting" is absolutely allowed here. In fact, it is encouraged. (Many modders like to point out stuff like, "See the Arga Dis .dm file, they stuff like that")

There is no reason for you to go through the same amount of trouble as the other guy did.

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans -- Update 1
 

Burn's not kidding. I ripped off some of his code in another thread, and he didn't complain a bit. :D

Re: Cinggis Qayan, Wrath of the Khans -- Update 2: Three Eras
 

I lied. I will indeed post about it when I have spritework completed.

So far, I have the archers provisionally done, with a female sky mage/priestess and a mounted commander/hero in progress. All can be seen here:

Battle Scene with Mongol Archers, Female Mage/Priestess and Mounted Cmdr.

Display Image of Archer and Mounted Commander

Being a total amateur at this, I heartily welcome criticism and suggestions. Particularly on whether I succeeded with the Mongol fur cap.