[kennydicke]

Gregstrom

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.

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

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.

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)

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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!