[Burnsaber]

[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 .

Originally Posted by kennydicke

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.

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)

Originally Posted by kennydicke

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.

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.

Originally Posted by kennydicke

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?

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.

Originally Posted by kennydicke

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.

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.

Originally Posted by kennydicke

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.

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.

Originally Posted by kennydicke

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.

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!

Originally Posted by kennydicke

Never played edieval: Total War, fun?

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