MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

I'm considering making a mod for Dominions 3 to create a Jomon nation set in MA. It would be based around the Heian Era of Japan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heian_period

The reason I want to make a mod is the because of the crazy spells the Jomon get, from the 5 signs to Kami they can summon. Oh and the Ryujin are cool.
With all these cool things, it always seemed like a waste that the Jomon would be in the last era, where magic is the weakest. Here you have a great combination of magic, but few ways of getting it. I decided that a Middle Era for Jomon would be appropriate. Something Balanced with present day CBM 1.92.
In many ways, I wanted to conserve many of the elements of the Jomon, with out being boring or redundant.
No, what I am looking for is a nation that shares something in common with the Shinoyama, but was different, like Lanka and Kailasa, or Helheim and Vanheim.
My plan would be that both Shinoyama would have common summons (Tengu, Tigers, Nushi and Kitsune) but Shinoyama would get Oni, the Jomon of the middle age would be unable to summon Oni and get Jigami, Mori-no-Kami, Uljigami, Kaijin, Tatsu, Kenzoku, Gozu Mezu, and Yama-no-kami, and the 5 signs.

With the Ryujin, I wanted it to be a nation of water and a little astral, air and earth.

I'm thinking that their starting magic would be 2 Water, 1 Astral, 1 Air, and 1 Earth.


This means a centralized empire, with the Samurai just starting to rise up to social heights, but mixed in would be a greater use of the Ryujin. There are no Daimyos yet, and the Samurai are few and consider elite. Some of the inspiration does come from Rise of the Samurai.

The emphasis will be more on Long Bows then Jomon of the Future. This is because during the Heian Period, The Bow and the Spear were king, while the sword was for a secondary weapon. Horses are also rarer, and Heavy Samurai Armor is not present. Overall the army should be less resource intense, but also weaker.

Story:
Fleeing the Yomi, many peasants from refuge by the shore, where the Ryujin held sway. In exchange for fealty, the Ryujin would help protect the Jomon from the Yomi, and later the Bakemono. With the rise of a new God, the Jomon, with their allies, set out to conquer those that originally enslaved them and create a new empire.

Non Magical Leaders
Gokenin - Longbow, Katana, Samurai Armor, Kabuto
Not much different from the the original, except for the addition of the Long Bow. No Mounted version, since Horse are rare.

Jito - Wakizashi, Ashigaru Armor, Jingasa, Patrol: 10.
Stewards of the land, these guys know the area. Weaker then the Gokenin, they are good on Patrol.

Kokushi - Lance, Katana, Samurai, Kabuto, Mounted
Your high end leaders. Basically, like the Daimyo but with less armor.

Ninja - Ninjato, Shuriken, Chain Mail Cuirass, Assassin:1 Stealth: 30.
Exactly the same is the later era Ninja.

Basic Troops -
Bottom tier (better than milita) - Ashigaru come in two types in this era, Short bow and Yari. The yari version is identical to that of the later era. Both are weak chaff units, peasants with some training. Better then Milita, but worse then trained warriors.
Ashigaru (Short Bow) - Short Bow, Wakizashi, Ashigaru Armor, Jingasa.

Ashigaru (Yari) - Yari, Ashigaru Armor, Jingasa
Same as above.

Middle tier (cost 10 gold a piece) - The attendents are a train soldier. The samurai of this era was a rare position and so the Attendants came as an inbetween station. Later the Attendants would become part of the samurai class, but during this era they're were trained warriors not considered samurai. Lacking the Kabuto, and using weaker weapons, they would be no match for later day samurai in protection or defense, but they will be easier to mass.
Attendant (No-Dachi) - No-Dachi, Samurai Armor, Jingasa

Attendant (Naginata) - Naginat, Samurai Armor, Jingasa

Top Tier - Samurai - During the Ryu era, the Samurai were fewer and the term was reserved only for the most elite units. Equall in skill to Oban of the Daimyo era, they excelled at the Bow and spear more than anything.

Samurai (Longbow) - Longbow, Katana, Samurai Armor, Kabuto

Samurai (Mounted) - Lance, Katana, Samurai Armor, Kabuto

Temple Units

Monk of the five fold

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Reserved

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Reserverd

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

The Bow and Spear were always dominant in Japanese warfare. It shifted from mounted archery, to bow and spear and other polearms (mainly nagatina), to musket and spear and other polearms, before the Tokugawa Shoguns pacified the entire country. The sword was always a secondary weapon, as a backup to spear, bow, or musket. The greatest predominance it ever achieved in actual warfare was the very end during the invasion of Korea, in which musket troops (with sword sidearms) were present in such number that they were often pressed into melee.

Jomon always drew more from myth than history anyway, but insofar as historical systemic shifts in warmaking can be applied to the era system, the big ones were from mounted combat and individual champions to mass infantry, and from the current samurai dominated warfare to ashigaru (evolving from rabble to professional soldiers) dominated warfare in a hypothetical post-late era. The current Jomon is something of a mix-and-match as it is, with sword troops that never existed, crap militia ashigaru, and heavy shock cavalry which were historically introduced concurrently with professional ashigaru and massed musketry.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Something to keep in mind about historicity, the katana was originally a cavalry weapon. The curve and length of the blade are pretty indicative of this. Which also matches what is known about japanese warfare before massed ashigaru.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Hadn't realized that. Right now, I'm sticking to two types of samurai, Archers and Mounted. I'll be back tomorrow with some better updates.

A taste of what I'm looking at is Capital Recruiting of Ryujin and Shark Warriors (and an amphibious Priest), but weaker mages.

I'm thinking of stealing the priesthood from the traditions of the Ryukyu Islands, where woman are mostly the priest.

Otherwise I might look at Ogamisama, in which there are two types of priestess, the sighted and the blind. Something to think about.
http://radiantdark.wordpress.com/fem...nism-in-japan/


Some notes, I'm thinking about take away access of the Oni from the MA Jomon. The story line rational is that they fled the Oni, and so wouldn't want anything to do with them. Also, with early access to the sea, the Jomon are more powerful, so I think that the loss of Oni and Shura might balance them slightly in the beginning. We shall see.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

With the emphasis on fealty to and recruitment of ocean spirits/dragons, you should probably make it so this nation starts adjacent to a water province, like LA Atlantis or LA Marignon. You will definitely want to include some sort of "can lead X troops underwater" ability with at least one of the commanders (maybe the amphibious priest you mentioned). Finally, are you going to give them access to sailing?

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

And this is just an idea I'm gonna throw out there to see what people think:

High-end samurai heroes/summons: You said you want to have the emphasis be on samurai being rare, elite soldiers, and since a quick trip to wikipedia shows the Heian period as being when the samurai took over Japan and started getting big on bushido, why not work some bushido-ness in some way. I'm thinking, create one summonable thug or hero for each of the seven virtues of bushido. This can be treated like summoning elemental royalty, where you cast one spell and get a randomly selected unique unit. This could help fill the void of some of the higher end oni summons that LA Jomon gets and add some extra flavor to the nation. EA Hinnom already does something like this with their spell Release Lord of Civilization, though I'm sure we'd want these summons to be lower research and less world-shattering.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Modding that requires repurposing an existing similar spell. There's no way to create a new 'summons one of several unique creatures' spell from scratch.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

It seems like it would make sense to have different spells for each type of samurai anyway.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Hadn't even thought that far down the line yet.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Some great ideas so far. The bushido thing... I hadn't even thought of that yet. What I need is mages for the this era, weak recruit every ones.

I want to keep the Monks of the Five Fold and there spells, and I think the Omnyo-ji should stick around. I'm tempted to keep the Shugenja in, but take out the Master Shujenja.

The idea of having the priest take units with it sounds good, but only 10 at a time.

As to sailing... There are the Wokou, but that is of a later era.

If the Wokou were in the game, I would make Wokou Captain and Wokou Raider
The Captain would have sailing and 25% of Air, 25% of Water Magic. 1 in 8 would have water and air. No lab needed.
Weapons and Armor - Ashigaru Armor, and 2 Wakizashi each. No Helmets.
What do you think. I could make the capital only.

And yes, the Jomon would 100% always start coastal.

Keep the ideas coming. I'll add some information to the first thread about my goal. Keep up the great work.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

One of the defining characteristics of Shinuyama and Jomon is how their recruit-anywhere troops and commanders are excellent and they have little-to-nothing they care about that is capital-only. Whether you want to continue that focus will impact what the design for their mages is like.

Here's my take on what a typical nation has
cheap h1 priest
better h2 priest
weak mage-priest (H1 + 1-2 paths)
cheap mage (2 paths max)
diversity mage (heavy randoms or lots of low paths)
ritualist mage (2-3 in 2 paths)
Capstone mage or priest (something awesome that defines the nation)

Now, not all of these slots are filled for all nations, and sometimes one unit covers multiple roles. Shinuyama has their amazing Bakemono Sorcerer to act as their diversity mage, ritualist mage and capstone mage. T'ien Ch'i has two cap-only mages which are both diversity mages (it's hard to get above a 2 in any one path with T'ien Ch'i)... however, T'ien Ch'i also has a super-cheap, super-efficient recruit-anywhere researcher with the minister of magic. It's really hard for me to point at which of those three is their "capstone mage".

For Jomon I'm seeing the following line-up:
some cheap h1 priest, maybe amphibious or ocean-themed
an amphibious h2 priest (UW transport, chance of getting W1)
five fold monk (same as LA Jomon)
Shugenja (same as LA Jomon)
Omnyo-ji (same as LA Jomon)

And then, we have the following if we want to emphasize Recruit-anywhere for MA Jomon:
Sendatsu E1N1A1F1 + 2.1xENAF, need not eat, 250 gold, map move-1.
This guy would be like Atlantis' King of the Deep or Pangaea's Pan: expensive, non-sacred and magically powerful. He's meant to be a mountain ascetic (like the Shugenja) but Master Shugenja was already taken so I had to fish around wikipedia for another, similar word. Since you'll already be able to recruit a W3+1xAA/EE/FF/NN sacred dragon from the ocean, I felt like having a water-less mountain mage (whose upkeep is the same since he's non-sacred) would help separate the two capstone casters. He also doesn't tread on the Omnyo-ji because of his complete lack of astral magic. He is cheaper than the King of the Deep or the Pan but the Pan generates freespawn and the King of the Deep has stats well beyond that of a flimsy, size-2 human.

If we want to emphasize Capital-only then we have the following:
1) Sendatsu E2N2A2F1H1 + 1.1xENAF, sacred, need not eat, map move-2 for 300 gold. Now he's almost a carbon copy of the Bakemono Sorcerer but not old, not an ogre and not recruit-anywhere.
2) Five Fold Yamabushi H2 + 1xAA/EE/FF/NN/WW, should have a magic weapon and decent stats, 200 gold, good for spamming one of the five signs, as well as handing him a crystal shield for smites/divine blessing/bigger five sign spam.

If you go recruit-anywhere then you won't need much in the way of recruitable sacreds (maybe the same Sohei and Yamabushi from LA Jomon). If you want to emphasize the capital then you should give them something good... though I'm not sure what that would be exactly.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

So much of Dominions is about hiring gobs of mages so you out-research and out magic your opponents. There are so many commanders and priests that are rarely, if ever hired, which I find a pity, and frankly a little boring. While I certainly don't want a nation where every commander has some awe-inspiring power that makes them comperable to a high-end mage, I do enjoy it if the lesser commanders have something about them that makes them interesting.

Take MA T'ien Ch'i as an example. They have:
1) An H1 priest that prevents bad events AND unlocks a nice money-making good event
2) An H2 priest that prevents bad events, causes good events and unlocks 2 nice, money-making good events
3) A cheap commander with a big patrol bonus and an immunity to seduction
4) A high stealth spy
5) A cheap, recruit-anywhere researcher
6) A pair of weak mages with weak healing
7) A weak mage which prevents bad events

And everything else is either normal or a is a mage which inherently justifies itself. That's a lot of character and it makes the nation more interesting.


So let's look at the potential line up for Jomon and see if we can make it similarly interesting:
*1) An H1 amphibious priest who auto-casts water ward at the start of battle. Place this priest among a group of shrimp soldiers (or what-have-you) and at the start of battle they'll enjoy a nice defense boost. That might make you want to bother hiring an h1 priest at one or two points early in the game.
*2) An H2 amphibious priest who can lead 10 to 25 troops under water. May have a chance of getting W1.
3) A monk mage-priest who can cast one of five unique spells
4) A mage who prevents bad events and summons an ethereal bird at the start of battle
*5) A commander who can take 40 troops sailing
6) A high stealth assassin
*7) A cheap commander with a nice patrol bonus

Commanders with an * next to them are new; having been thought-up by one of the suggestions in this thread or is contained in Legowarrior's original post. While none of these ideas will make or break the nation, it will make it more interesting. I think making a commitment to character will help us going forward on this brainstorming.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Okay, I'll briefly go through my thoughts, and people can shoot them down or alter them as they see fit. Also, I use the same rule of thumb in this as I do in my research, KISS (Keep it simple stupid). I will fail to properly use KISS here, as I fail in my research, but that is my starting block.

Sites
Enclave of the Ryu - 2 Water
Imperial Shrine - 1 Pearl, 1 Air, 1 Earth

Castle Units
Ashigaru Spearman (Yari)- Same is later era

Ashigaru Bowmen (Shortbows) - Similar to bandits without stealth

Attendent (Naginata) - Similar Stat to later era Samurai but with less protection (Jingasa instead of Kabuto)

Attendant (NO-Dachi) - Same as a above

Samurai Archer - Similar stat to O-ban or Go-Hatamoto, but with the weapons and armor of the Samurai Archer.

Samurai Cavalry - Same Stat line of Cavalry but with Samurai Armor instead of heavy samurai armor. (Might do an archer version, but mount archery comes later in the history of Japan)

?Wokou - Two Wakizashi, Samurai Armor, no helmets, although not from the correct period, they fit the era, don't you think?

?Onni-Bushi - Naginata, Samurai Armor, Jingasa, Immune to Seduction, Patrol Bonus. High Morale, but everything else is basic. Build them to patrol a region. Female units that existed.

Shrine Units - everywhere
None

Underwater units
Shrimp Soldier - Same as later era

Shark Warrior - Same as later era

Capital specific
Enclave of the Ryu (Site)
Shark Warriors - Same as above

Imperial Shrine (Site)
?Miko - Sacred Bow (true story) Imperial Robe, Jingasa,
Idea - When blessed, bows do double damage to undead and demons (Can that be done?)

Castle Leaders
Gokenin - Same as later era, but without heavy samurai armor, and with longbow.

Mounted Gokenin - Same as later era but without heavy samurai armor

?Jito - Wakizashi, Ashigaru Armor, Jingasa, Weaker, decent leader with patrol bonus. Like the Eunuch, but with all parts attached

Shugo - Better version of the Mounted Gokenin.

?Wokou Captain - Same as the unit. Decent Leader (40) and has sailing and 25% of Air and 25% of Water (7/16 chance of a magic user, 1/16 chance of having both)

Shrine
Monk of the five folds - As a the later eras

Laboratory
?Shugenja - Same as later era but more powerful (has an extra FAWEN availabe, remember, magic is easier in the MA)

Onmyo-ji - Same as later era, but younger, and maybe a better chance of predicting events. I don't know.

Shrine/Laboratory
?Envoy of the Ryu - Holy 1, Water 1, +1 FAWEN. Amphibious and can take 10 units underwater. Basically a cool priest of water, with some magic.

Underwater
Ryujin - Same as later era

Crab General - Same as later era

?Envoy of the Ryu - Same as above

Capital Specific
Enclave of the Ryu
Ryujin - Same as above and the later era

Imperial Shrine
?Saigu - H2, +1 Astral, +1 FAWEN, Immune to Seduction, Healing 50%
Female relatives of the Emperor, chosen to be trained as priests.

Spells available -
Summon Karasu Tengu
Ambush of Tigers
Summon Konoha Tengus
Contact Dai Tengu
Contact Nushi
Contack Kitsune
Contact Jigami
Contact Mori-no-kami
Sommun Ujigami
Contact Kaijin
Contact Tatsu
Summon Kenzoku
Summon Goz Mezu
Contact Yama-no-kami
Teaching Sign
Fear-not Sign
Welcome Sign
Earth-Touching Sign
Meditation Sign


Break down
Cheap H1 priest - Not really, you have the monks with there cool spells.

Better priest - 2, the Envoy and the Saigu, the Saigu has astral, making her good for communions, but she is capital only, while the envoy with teaching sign becomes a better priest on the battlefield.

Cheap mage - Monks of the Five Fold

Diversity Mage - The Shugenja and the Onmyo-ji. Especially the Shugenja, since you are hoping for 2 air, to get Dai Tengu, 2 earth to get Tatsu, but everything else is do able.

Ritualist Mage - Ryujin

Capstone Mage - Combination of the Ryujin, but also the Saigu. With Communions, she will be an awesome Master I think. Might give her another path.

I didn't use the more power amphibious mage, because I wanted to keep holy a little weaker in the middle era then the later era.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Your proposed line-up seems fine, overall. However, I have a few critiques and counter-proposals:

Wokou Captain: this guy doesn't need to be a capital-only commander. LA Marignon, for example, can hire the Chartmaker or the Captain anywhere, and they're basically the same unit as the Wokou (the Chartmaker even has no starting magic plus 1xAS despite this being in the Late Era). If you feel uncomfortable making him recruit-anywhere as he is currently, go ahead and drop the magic paths. If this guy is forced to compete against the rest of your commanders for your capital recruitment slot, it's unlikely he'll ever get recruited... which would be a real pity.

Miko: the only on-bless effect I know of is Mictlan's Eagle Warriors gaining flight while blessed. I don't know if double damage to undead and demons is a viable on-bless effect; I'll leave that to be answered by one of the more veteran modders.

Shugenja and Onmyo-ji: I'm not a big fan of identical units having different stats between eras unless there is a compelling reason to do so. T'ien Ch'i is not made worse because it's Master of the Way is the same in all three ages, but it does make sense that the Mictlan Priest (same in EA and LA) was changed in the Middle Era because of them dropping blood magic. Making the Onmyo-ji younger or a better fortune-teller smacks of change for the sake of change. And if you are going to give the Shugenja a second AEFWN random, you may as well just keep the Master Shugenja instead, since they'll be almost identical.

Saigu: Having a cap-only healer priest is fine and I agree with your desire to keep MA Jomon from having strong priests. However, the Saigu is eclipsed as a mage by the Onmyo-ji. This makes it's claim to the role of "awesome communion master" rather dubious because the Onmyo-ji will be more numerous (and thus more likely to have whatever path combination you want, such as Fire + Astral for astral fire spam) and have higher/more paths than the Saigu. True the Saigu will be able to act as a communion-enhanced priest but the divine spells aren't impressive enough to justify this cap-only commander, in my opinion. And that includes all the various sign spells that only Jomon gets; they're nice but more of a novelty than a strategy changer, even after CBM beefed them up a bit. This unit will need to either distinguish itself from the Onmyo-ji path-wise OR gimmick-wise. The former can be accomplished by giving them doubled random paths (like the Ryujin). The latter can be accomplished by giving them two forms, one which automatically casts communion master at the start of a battle, and one which automatically casts communion slave at the start of a battle... that's pretty different and cool right there.

Ryujin: I think the Ryujin is a somewhat awkward commander who was originally added to the LA Jomon sundae as a little cherry on top; nice but more of a garnish for the nation. I mean, Ryujin are pretty neat in the Late Era where 5.1 mages are a big deal and getting a 3 in any one path is rare, but I think that in the middle era they are much too expensive for what they offer. For an MA nation, I think we should look at the Couatl for guidance balancing them because the two are very similar units (cold blooded, flying, sacred and very expensive). Shrangrila00 posits a similar thought over in the "Scales for Jomon" thread, which I wanted to reproduce below.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Oh, and if this is meant to be a nation focused on/ruled by the Ryujin, it should probably have a heat preference of +1... what with their dragon overlords being cold blooded.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

You bring up some great points. The Wokou captain should be available anywhere, and the Seigu isn't good enough.

About units changing over time, you do see it a lot, in the celestrial master, most of the Abysian units and the like. Same name, new spheres.

I'm not 100% convinced of the +1 heat yet.

What can we do with the Shugenjas and the Onmy-ji?

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Well, the Shugenja is supposed to be a mountain hermit; he's even got mountain survival. That says to me earth and air. Furthermore, you mentioned earlier how important E2 and E1A1 is for the summons tied to those paths. As such, rather than have the Shugenja be E1 + 2xAEFWN (thus diminishing your chances of getting E2 and E1A1), we can change it to E1 + 1xAEFWN + 1xAE. That way you have a 100% chance of getting E2 or A1E1, and a 1-in-5 chance of getting either E3 or E1A2. That keeps them useful but still less magically powerful than the Master Shugenja. Since these guys are map move-2, they'll probably be your go-to mage for offensive battlefield casting (bladewind, legions of iron, destruction, lightning bolt, arrow fend, etc.).

For the Onmyo-ji... hmmm. You can make him younger if you'd like... it's a nice touch even though it has only the tiniest impact on their performance in-game. You could make them map move-2; that'd make a big difference between the MA and LA versions. Or you could give them recuperation and include some text about them recovering from non-fatal injuries quickly as a result of their near immortality. Other than Map Move-2, these are all minor changes but I'm not seeing a need to improve the Onmyo-ji in an important way, like giving them additional magic paths or flight. Having a recruit-anywhere 4.1 path mage (with a max path of 2) is about normal for the middle era.

As far as the Seigu, you'll have to map out the conceptual space you want that unit to fill before I can offer any further suggestions. If you want it to be a key player in communions, you'll need to make her a better version of the Onmyo-ji or do something neat like the auto-communion master/communion slave idea I had. If you want her to be something else... hmm, what are our options?
1) Mage++. Lots of nations' cap-only mage is just a better version of their run-of-the-mill mage. You can do something crazy like give her S2 + 1xAA/EE + 1xFF/NN/WW + 1.1xAEFNW. Boom! Instant, superior version of the Shugenja and Onmyo-ji. Make her old and/or map move-1 and you have yourself a reasonably balanced, high-caliber mage.
2) Super awesome researcher. Like LA Bogarus' Staret; lots of paths and a research bonus.
3) Super cheap. If you want to accept that MA Jomon is going to hire a huge pile of Shugenjas and/or Omnyo-jis then you can make the Seigu as good a caster as either but make her slightly cheaper AND sacred. Since you'll have Ryujin and summons to help reliably break into the higher tier spells, you can more easily get away with the cap-only mage being a magical light-weight but super-efficient researcher.
4) Thuggy. Give her good stats, helpful self-buff paths (air, nature, earth, astral), sacred + at least H1 and maybe stealth. Once your gem income and construction research comes online, hand her some gear and send her out raiding.
5) Special Spell Caster. Create some more of those five-sign spells but make them require H2 and A2/E2/F2/N2/W2 (and make her paths be H2 + 1xAA/EE/FF/NN/WW). Then when you want someone to cast the "wide scale air-shield, moral boost and lightning resistance sign", or the "remove fatigue and give reinvig-2 to a cluster of casters sign" you hire Siegus. Just make sure you make those new spells appropriately placed in the research tree.
6) Unit Spawn. Give her a summon allies ability that lets her spawn something worth spending a cap-only mage turn spawning.
7) Economy Boost. Give her abilities like fortune-telling, causes good events or lowers unrest. That way just having them around is passively boosting your economy.

There's more but that should be enough to get to brainstorming over.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

I disagree on the Saigu--the idea is there and they are a very valuable addition to your lineup. They'd be better with a second random(or even better a linked random so they get 2 in a path all the time), but even as-is they're terrific force enhancers. You get easy access to H3 and up, power of the spheres, reinvig in communions(mmm), and a more efficient base to start arrow fending guys. No need for something spectacular.

The Ryuujin is...nice. They're highly mobile, specialized force multipliers. You can really mess with your enemies by constantly shifting what magical support your different armies have. I used to think they were overpriced, but I've grown out of that.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

If the Seigu ends up as a S2H2 + 1xAA/EE/FF/NN/WW that'd be fine provided it was fairly inexpensive. A 4-path, 2-holy cap-only mage is fairly uninspiring by MA standards, but make it cheap and it could work since the nation already has a super-expensive, recruit anywhere underwater dragon mage.

That said, I think kianduatha is overstating the usefulness of the five sign spells within a communion. Let's break 'em down:

Air: This one is the nicest since it hits an ever widening area (scales with holy power) with sermon of courage and air shield. However, only 1 in 5 Seigu can cast this and by the time I'm sending out large communions, I'm usually well on my way to arrow fend if that's a priority for me. Good but not amazing.

Earth: Hits one demon with an easy-resist, shorter range soul slay. That's a pretty big waste of an action for a communion master.

Fire: Hits one unit with an easy-resist charm spell. This is better, especially if you deck out your caster with penetration-boosting items. Still, anything worth casting it on is going to have at least a decent MR meaning any success is a statistical outlier. For everything it can succeed reliably against, your better off dropping some communion-boosted evocation on instead.

Nature: Bestows the caster and all communion slaves with Power of the Spheres, without requiring an astral pearl. Nice, certainly, but since PotS isn't exactly expensive or out of Jomon's research path (conjuration), it isn't anything to write home about. Note that this does NOT stack with PotS... nor does it scale in any way.

Water: I don't actually know how much fatigue this spell removes, or whether that amount scales with holy power or not. However, it would only really be worth scripting in a communion with a whole lot of slaves (preferably a reverse communion). Depending on how much fatigue it removes, it might approximate what a blood mage can do with reinvigoration. However, Jomon can already get this benefit from the recruit-anywhere Envoy of Ryu (guaranteed to have at least W1H1) and a crystal matrix (which almost 2 out of every 5 Onmyo-ji can forge).

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

What if we got ride of the Shugjena, and replaced the Seigu with
Master of the Fivefold Path, a Capital only unit
H2 F:1, A:1, W:1, E:1 N:1 FAWEN +1

Even as I write this, I'm not a huge fan of it.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Update!

Sites
Enclave of the Ryu - 2 Water,
Imperial Shrine - 1 Air, 1 Nature, 1 Earth

Castle Units
Ashigaru Spearman (Yari)- Same is later era

Ashigaru Bowmen (Shortbows) - Similar to bandits without stealth

Attendent (Naginata) - Similar Stat to later era Samurai but with less protection (Jingasa instead of Kabuto)

Attendant (NO-Dachi) - Same as a above

Samurai Archer - Similar stat to O-ban or Go-Hatamoto, but with the weapons and armor of the Samurai Archer.

Samurai Cavalry - Same Stat line of Cavalry but with Samurai Armor instead of heavy samurai armor. (Might do an archer version, but mount archery comes later in the history of Japan)

?Wokou - Two Wakizashi, Samurai Armor, no helmets, although not from the correct period, they fit the era, don't you think?

?Onni-Bushi - Naginata, Samurai Armor, Jingasa, Immune to Seduction, Patrol Bonus. High Morale, but everything else is basic. Build them to patrol a region. Female units that existed.

Shrine Units - everywhere
None

Underwater units
Shrimp Soldier - Same as later era

Shark Warrior - Same as later era

Capital specific
Enclave of the Ryu (Site)
Shark Warriors - Same as above

Imperial Shrine (Site)
?Miko - Sacred Bow (true story) Imperial Robe, Jingasa,
Idea - When blessed, bows do double damage to undead and demons (Can that be done?)

Castle Leaders
Gokenin - Same as later era, but without heavy samurai armor, and with longbow.

Mounted Gokenin - Same as later era but without heavy samurai armor

?Jito - Wakizashi, Ashigaru Armor, Jingasa, Weaker, decent leader with patrol bonus. Like the Eunuch, but with all parts attached

Shugo - Better version of the Mounted Gokenin.

?Wokou Captain - Same as the unit. Decent Leader (40) and has sailing and 25% of Air and 25% of Water (7/16 chance of a magic user, 1/16 chance of having both)

Shrine
Monk of the five folds - As a the later eras

Laboratory
?Shugenja - Same as later era!

Onmyo-ji - Same as later era, but younger, and maybe a better chance of predicting events. I don't know.

Shrine/Laboratory
?Envoy of the Ryu - Holy 1, Water 1, +1 FAWEN. Amphibious and can take 10 units underwater. Basically a cool priest of water, with some magic.

Underwater
Ryujin - Same as later era

Crab General - Same as later era

?Envoy of the Ryu - Same as above

Capital Specific
Enclave of the Ryu
Ryujin - Same as above and the later era

Imperial Shrine
?Saigu - H2, 1 Earth, 1 Air, 1 Nature, +1 FAWENx2 Immune to Seduction, Healing 50%, Awe 0, movement 2
Female relatives of the Emperor, chosen to be trained as priests.

Spells available -
Summon Karasu Tengu
Ambush of Tigers
Summon Konoha Tengus
Contact Dai Tengu
Contact Nushi
Contack Kitsune
Contact Jigami
Contact Mori-no-kami
Sommun Ujigami
Contact Kaijin
Contact Tatsu
Summon Kenzoku
Summon Goz Mezu
Contact Yama-no-kami
Teaching Sign
Fear-not Sign
Welcome Sign
Earth-Touching Sign
Meditation Sign

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

There are two ways I could imagine this maybe theoretically working. One, you have a self bless spell that targets your priest and gives them a bless that #nextspells a personal demon cleansing. The other method would be to #nextspell a transformation into a form with a blessed bow. It's been long enough since I've modded I'm not entirely sure whether either would work or not.

Alternatively, and far easier and more likely to work, don't make them bless themselves to use the blessed bow, they're a priest anyway and they'll probably be doing some blessing before they start shooting anyway, or you can assume the bows were blessed outside of the battle. It won't really make a big difference in the long run.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

That new version of a Saigu is interesting--it doesn't look like much, but most of them would be able to pack quite easily E5 or A4(A5 in a storm) or N5 in a battle. Even the F ones can get F4 in a pinch in-combat, but their real benefit is as army buffers it sounds like.

Agreed on simply giving the Miko just plain bows that do bad things to demons. It just works, and I don't think there is a way of giving them a special spell that wouldn't give all your priests the ability to get demon killing weapons.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Miko are sacred Units.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

I have been away number crunching; I see I've missed some recent developments. To help inform us on how magically powerful to make the Seigu, as well as how much it should cost, I've gone and compared all the top mages from the Middle Era and determined things like Average Gold Cost, Average Upkeep, Average Highest Path, Average Total Paths, and Average Cost Per Path. These are further broken down between cap-only mages and recruit-anywhere mages. The overall numbers are the following:

Average Gold Cost = 296.3
Average Max Path = 3.4
Average Total Paths = 6.3
Average Cost Per Path = 47


Therefore the latest 7-path Seigu should cost 329 => 330gp and it'll be in-line with the cost of its peers.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Maybe she is a bit too powerful. I should probably get rid of Awe and make her old with 1 movement. But thanks for the info, that is really cool.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

The more that I think about it, the more I want her to be the same price as the Celestial Master.
H:2, F:1, A:1, W:1, E:1, N:1 + FAWEN x 110%?

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Based on the data I've compiled, I'd make the Saigu something like this:
Saigu, E1A1N1H2 + 1xFF/AA/WW/EE/NN + .1xFAWEN, 340gp, Immune to Seduction, Healing 50%, barely old(-1 stats), Map Move-1

Now her cost is strickly average and she's like a cross between the Celestial Master and the Imperial Alchemist. This is especially appropriate because the Imperial Alchemist has a similar FAWEN path theme as well as healing. She is sacred and can hit A/E/N3 60% of the time which justifies her being more expensive and slower than the Imperial Alchemist. Plus, one of T'ien Ch'i's themes is "cheaper than average mages with low, diverse paths", so it makes sense that Jomon's capstone mage is a bit costlier.

The fact that Jomon has weak priests but seemingly decent sacred units doesn't matter so much since that sacred is an archer so you can stick the lowly H1 blessing them well out of harms way while they pepper the enemy from afar.


Realize that the Celestial Master is cheaper than he "should" be. Having cheap, diverse mages is T'ien Ch'i's schtick. Based on the average, the Celestial Master should cost 380gp. Similarly, the greatest mage of the entire age is the Bakemono Sorcerer. He's got more non-divine paths than any other caster (9.1), is sacred, recruit-anywhere!!!, map move-2, costs only 300gp, reliably hits a 3 in one path and is tougher than your average mage. Having hands-down the greatest mage of the era, cheap and recruit-anywhere is one of the things which defines Shinuyama. Both those nations defy the averages for the age because of the larger context of their nation making that okay.

As such, think on the larger context of MA Jomon and what the Saigu is meant to inhabit before you start trying to fine-tune its stats.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

You think we should go with linked paths?
If we are going to keep it at over 300 gold, then I think we should have 2 map movement. Get rid of healing. Old age should be countered by the Nature magic.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

When I first started that post you hadn't yet written your "H:2, F:1, A:1, W:1, E:1, N:1 + FAWEN x 110%" version of the Saigu yet; my linked paths version was meant to be a response to your linked paths version.

I think if this caster is going to be a flimsy human stat-wise than she should by roughly the same as the Imperial Alchemist as far as cost and total paths. The two fill a similar conceptual space (cap-only AEFWN mage with healing)... but that's just my take on it. This is your mod, it's your vision/design that determines what is appropriate for the capstone caster and, as we can tell from my table of MA capstone mages, the cost and power of a mage can be way over or way under the average based on the nation's design (Shinuyama's super cheap and awesome Sorcerer, Ermor's slow, old, magically average but undead spawning Grand Thaumaturge, etc., etc.).

Based on what you've said, I'm guessing the theme for MA Jomon is "expensive, diverse but magically powerful mages". Every single mage of theirs is rockin' at least one pick off of a AEFNW random. The Onmyo-ji is a really solid mid-tier mage so I don't think they need another diversity caster, I think they need something that costs less than the Ryujin (5 paths for 500gp... ouch!) but can still reliably get a 3 in one or more paths. Linked paths are a good way to do that.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

AH, that makes sense. Well, we can always make changes after the fact. I'll start reading up on the modding process, and see if I can find images for the new units later in the week I think. I have a few other small tweaks that I want to make as well.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

I will say that putting healing on a cap-only, high-caliber mage is non-synergistic. Arco does it right by having a dinky, cheap mage-priest as their healer because having a priestess spend her mage-turn healing some wounded troops or a feebleminded astrologer is an acceptable use of her time... she's recruit-anywhere and inexpensive.

My two main concerns for the Saigu is that she should be magically distinct from both the Onmyo-ji and the Ryujin, AND she should be interesting. Healing is interesting, but it is far from being the only interesting thing we could give her. If you really want healing for the nation, we could make the Shugenja or Envoy of Ryu a weak healer.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

If the miko is a sacred unit but not a commander, then you are really stuck with either making the bows already come with the effect (which I would suggest wholeheartedly), or making a special bless that only affects sacreds who are also magic beings or something along those lines, and give the miko that creature type. It is probably really not worth it.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

So, the change is that the Seigu that she reduces unrest of the province she is in. Not by much though. Is there an ability like that already we could use?

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Sure, there is #incunrest. Give it a negative value and it will decrease unrest in that province by that amount each month. To give you a basis for comparison, the Lady of Love pretender has #incunrest -25, the Jade Emperor has #incunrest -10, whereas LA Bogarus' Skopets have #incunrest 20 (generating 20 unrest/turn). For a cap-only mage, I'm guessing something like #incunrest -3 or -4 would be appropriate.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

If you don't already have it, the latest modding manual has probably 99% of the info you'll need for this mod. I also strongly recommend you make a copy of the .dm file for CBM1.92 and tinker with it if you haven't modded before, just to get a feel for what does and doesn't work. Modding Dom3 is surprisingly easy for most things but requires exacting attention to detail. And for everything that isn't easy, it's almost completely impossible.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

I've done some similiar - though far more limited in scope - research for top tier mages and there it seemed that comparing those exclusively most of the time holy levels did very little to the cost. I wonder what kind of results we'd see if we did the same with ignoring holy levels (and actually it'd be interesting to see the standard deviation too)

Maybe I'll do that for your data tomorrow, I don't know. Thanks anyway, this'll be of great use for UnitGen when figuring what kind of paths to generate and how to price mages.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

What we need to do since some Linear Algebra on that ****! Also, we have to consider that having 2 in a single path is worth much more than having 1 in two paths! It will all have to be balanced during testing though.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

A lot depends also on which paths are in question.

Astral (communions), Blood (sabbaths and blood hunting) and Water (Frozen heart) are fairly decent even at level once, while most of the others don't really benefit that much at all.

As an extreme example 1S1? mage is probably in many cases at least as useful if not way more useful than a 2S mage.

But honestly, exact mechanics like these don't matter unless you want to randomly generate nations. For handmade nation mods you can find balance more easily.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Cool.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Should we do anything interesting with the Wokou? Right now they are lightly armored infantry with No-Dachi, but if we wanted to give them more of a sea theme, we could give them yari, turtle shells and nets. But not having shields is one of the themes of the Jomon.

Something to think about.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

If you want to do something more with them, I have some ideas. First off, I think we should steer well clear of any shields; it's just not nation appropriate. Nets... I suppose. However, I'm more inclined to go with dual wielding (give them two wakazashi or something) and/or give them a harpoon. It's a one-shot javelin weapon that entangles it's target. Currently it's only used by LA Atlantis' Seal Hunter (that nations chaff), but when I went to the wikipedia page for Wokou it had "Japanese Whaling" under the related links so I figure that's justification enough.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Make it so! :)

I thought about the duel wield, but if you are a pirate on a ship, you want to have a hand free to catch on to ropes and the like, so a single weapon is probably best, maybe the Wakizashi with the harpoon, or the Ninjato with Harpoon.

If we take off the No-dachi from the Wokou, I would like to move it to the Attendent with the sword then, if that makes sense?

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

This nation looks really cool, I can't wait to play it.

Have you made a start on any graphics yet? That is always the tricky bit. Although for this nation it should be much easier than for most since you can reuse existing graphics for most units.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

I have been hesitant to start on that. I'll probably look later this week, but I (or I should say we, since Shatner is probably far more important to the development of this nation at this point then I am) will be reusing most of the units from the later Jomon.


Units
Ashigaru (Yari) - We will just steal reuse the image from the later era.

Ashigaru (Bow) - If it is the same, I am inclined to steal the Bandits from the same era.

Attendant (Naginata) - I'm hoping to take the Samurai with the same weapon and still the Ashigaru head on it.

Attendant (No-Dachi) - This is the trickiest one, since the No-Dachi Samurai carries heavy armor. If the heavy armor looks the same, I'll do the same as before, stick a Ashigaru head on it.

Samurai - Samurai Archer, maybe painted red or something.

Samurai (Mounted) - Reuse the later era one. I don't think the heavy armor makes a huge difference.

Wokou - Depends on the final weapon use. I'm thinking the Slinger Body, Ashigaru Head and Ninja Arms (I wonder if I can do that?)

Onna-Bushi - ??? No idea.

Miko - ??? (Imperial Consort, colored red with Long Bow?)

Shark Warrior and the rest, the same!

Leaders
Monk, Shugenjas, Onmy-ji, Gokenin, Ninja all stay the same!

Envoy - depends on the weapons on him, but I'm thinking the Sea father might be alright.

Jito - Ashigaru with different weapons maybe? Bandit Leader perhaps with some changes?

Shugo - No sure yet.

Saigu - Imperial Consort again? Does anyone have suggestions. I'm looking a female Kannushi I think.

Anyway, any suggestions on how to do with is welcome, any art would be great and play testers are also happy to be seen.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

I offered to write the .dm file for Legowarrior so he could focus on unit descriptions, sprites and brainstorming. I've already got a working version done but it's only got placeholder sprites and unit stats for now.

I had a thought concerning the Miko and Saigu sprites. You can probably steal the sprite of one of T'ien Ch'i's heroes (http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Immortal_(Ho_Hsien-Ku)). As is it might work for the Saigu (I'm not really sure what they're supposed to look like in the first place), and if you edit in a long bow then it could work for the Miko as well.

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Closet thing I could find. http://zen-shop.net/doll1.html

Re: MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight
 

Unit descriptions I can do, but making images is a learning experience of me. Like I told Shatner, I think he's doing the hardest part, and deserves a lot of the credit when this is completed (maybe most of it, I'm rather a procrastinator if I'm working alone).