Agreed on the game balance! Out of the window it goes.
I contemplated an Exalted-mod earlier, but found the present modding tools lacking for my vision. What I envisioned doing, however, was some half a dozen nations balanced against each other, if at all. Some thoughts on that, perhaps it evokes some thoughts:
-The Empire
Very strong elemental exalted, no randoms however. Like, 3 or 4 on single path. A cool Empress pretender. A modified "Wild Hunt" ritual as a national spell - the point being that only the different kinds of Exalted and Faeries would be holy; Difficult to balance, though.
-The Northern barbarians
An uber-cool Solar pretender, the bull guy of the North. Assorted barbarian chaff as armies, Solar Exalted as national heroes, Lunars as recruitable commanders.
-The city state of Nexus
All human armies with very sucky pretender options. Merchant commanders with blood, the reasoning being that blood slaves would represent those things they offer to various protective spirits. Also alchemists and sages, seeing as Nexus is the center of learning. All with blood, with blood being the school to be modded for hedge magic. You can see where it went too complicated
-The Deathlords
I thought about doing a map with, say thirty provinces of underworld, from where only certain places could be accessed (the Shadowlands). Very strong independent Deathlords and powerful magic sites in the Underworld to conquer. Powerful pretender options and summonable Abyssal Exalted heroes alongside autosummoned rabble.
-The Celestial city
On similar veins, with immobile gods for pretenders, and a separate map for the City. Immobile like the Sphinx that is, no teleporting. Stealthy Sidereal Exalted commanders, only able to leave the city through a national teleportation spell.
-The Yozi
Again, a dimension of their own. A national modded send horror spell, sending a succubus instead, in order to gain commanders in the real world. These would be the Infernal Exalted and others possessed by the Yozi. Also a national blood gateway spell, very high cost, so the Yozi can leave their realm. This would signal the end of the world, as the Yozi would be better than anything else.
The idea would be that the Yozi player tries to score some commanders and provinces from the real world so he can blood hunt the slaves he needs to get his gamebreakers out of their confinement. The Yoziland wouldn't, of course, have any population. You can see why it is I never even begun the project
-Faeries
Main catch being a national crossbreeding-like spell, only with very varying results, from bugs to behemoths.
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Well, this actually can't be too useful for you, but here it is anyway!