Mod: Assimilation (recruit some conquered foes!)

[Azurain]

Hello! This is a new gameplay-changing mod.

The short:

This mod allows you to recruit a few enemy troops types and commanders at their capital once you have conquered it.

Version 1.1 of the mod includes a file for each of Early, Mid and Late. Please ensure you only have ONE age (early, mid or late) active at a time.

Sites used are from 820 - 845 or so, to avoid this conflicting with the Magic Sites Mod (unless they've expanded it).

The long:

One of my favourite things about Master of Magic was conquering new races and adding their strengths to my own, creating a really diverse, interesting fighting force. It really gave me motivation to continue to conquer my neighbors (can't wait to get troll infantry and dark elf sorcerers to supplement my high elf forces, etc).

So I was always disappointed when, for instance, I conquered Jotunheim and couldn't convince any of the giants there to follow me. Seemed silly that some of the giants wouldn't be willing to join me, even if maybe the most powerful wouldn't.

This idea has been floating around in my head ever since I heard of the added site modding functionality (a couple years ago) which allows the use of #mon and #com commands (letting all nations recruit new units from specific sites).

Basically I've taken 3-5 (usually 5) of the 'second-best' or 'stock' units and commanders for each nation, added them to a new site (or a modded site for those races which have 4 startsites already) and given that site to the nation as a startsite. This has the effect of giving you access to those troops (at the enemy capital only) when you have conquered the enemy's capital.

The side effect, of course, is that the units appear twice in your capital's recruitment roster, but that's a minor, unavoidable blip, all things considered.

I did not attempt to balance perfectly. I chose flavorful, interesting units which I would generally like to be able to recruit as another nation, but never chose the most powerful troops available (sacreds only in a couple of cases where it made sense--Mictlan for instance--and never a race's "top" caster). Balance is not perfect nor should it be. I'm fully aware of the game-changing nature of this mod, which is the point, after all.

So please, no complaints about how much better it is to conquer Bandar Log than it is to conquer MA Ulm, or about how in some ways this makes Productivity a more valuable pick, etc etc. I know. But it sure is fun to be able to say "I can't wait to conquer Helheim so I can start up a blood economy to get my Antlered Shaman some Earth Blood Stones."

Feel free to make suggestions, or create your own dramatically better versions of the mod! It's easy enough. I created this for my own use, after all, and am just uploading it on a lark.

[Juzza]

This looks really cool, I'm about to try it out. But what'd be better is instead of gaining the same units you gain some slightly different units. For instance a few types of enslaved Jotunheim giants forced to serve your god. Or some less powerful versions of say Burning Ones. This would however be a lot more work and have the side effect of them being recruitable by the the original nation.

[Azurain]

Originally Posted by Juzza

This looks really cool, I'm about to try it out. But what'd be better is instead of gaining the same units you gain some slightly different units. For instance a few types of enslaved Jotunheim giants forced to serve your god. Or some less powerful versions of say Burning Ones. This would however be a lot more work and have the side effect of them being recruitable by the the original nation.

I thought of that, actually, though I was thinking 'mercenary' more than 'enslaved'. But it's a lot of work to add all the units (especially if you want to modify the sprites a bit), and that opens up all sorts of questions--for instance, in that case I bet people would want to evenly balance the recruitable units, maybe make them slightly less cost-effective than 'normal' nationals, give specific types of commander to each nation, etc, which is just less fun I think. I also wanted to avoid mod conflicts as much as I could, and a great way to do that is to avoid using up any unit ID's at all.

[llamabeast]

Awesome idea - what a great first post!

Thanks very much for posting this. I think that next time I get to organizing a multiplayer game I will include this mod as it sounds very fun.

[Gandalf Parker]

Excellent work! Kudos to you for filling something that has been a fairly frequent request.

There is some territory here that can fall into MAP commands instead of MOD. Ive found that adding a capital magic site to a nation causes it to be treated as a capital site. But interestingly, the game does not check to see whose capital site it is. In this way, I have given nations the capital-only units of other nations. And when the capital is taken, it is still treated as a cap site (it does not give the invading nation those units). A fun example is giving Erius glamoured infantry to MA Man which allows MA Man to really kick ***. Great for boosting AIs by allowing "allied" AIs to be super-allied and use each others units.

I know, the opposite direction that you went in. But Im wondering if what you originally wanted was the capital units? What Im thinking is that you can clean up that duping thing if you use a map along with the mod. Or you can offer it as a special online game using your mod by using an edited map for that game.

Can a cap-only site be duplicated in a way that creates a non-caponly site? IF a nation is placed in a specific starting location, then the map can clear out the sites that each nation gets in their cap and replace them duplicate sites that are not flagged for the cap-only checks.

[Azurain]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Excellent work! Kudos to you for filling something that has been a fairly frequent request.

There is some territory here that can fall into MAP commands instead of MOD. Ive found that adding a capital magic site to a nation causes it to be treated as a capital site. But interestingly, the game does not check to see whose capital site it is. In this way, I have given nations the capital-only units of other nations. And when the capital is taken, it is still treated as a cap site (it does not give the invading nation those units). A fun example is giving Erius glamoured infantry to MA Man which allows MA Man to really kick ***. Great for boosting AIs by allowing "allied" AIs to be super-allied and use each others units.

I know, the opposite direction that you went in. But Im wondering if what you originally wanted was the capital units? What Im thinking is that you can clean up that duping thing if you use a map along with the mod. Or you can offer it as a special online game using your mod by using an edited map for that game.

Can a cap-only site be duplicated in a way that creates a non-caponly site? IF a nation is placed in a specific starting location, then the map can clear out the sites that each nation gets in their cap and replace them duplicate sites that are not flagged for the cap-only checks.

Thanks!

I wanted to avoid having cap-only units as the 'conquered' units since they tend to be the elites. I prefer the idea of the elites generally refusing to follow another god, but some of the rank-and-file units and commanders/mages being willing to join up.

That said, if you like the idea of collecting the capital-only units, it'd be easy enough, without having to worry about map commands, to just edit the sites that give capital-only units and replace the 'homecom' and 'homemon' commands with 'com' and 'mon' (which would then let the units be recruited by anyone who owns the site, rather than just the home nation). You just have to remember to re-add any gem producing commands since editing a site tends to wipe most of the site's attributes.

Technically that'd avoid the 'duplicate' issue, but I find it to be at worst a very minor annoyance, personally.

[Calahan]

This looks like the start of a really great mod Azurain.

I've always understood why Illwinter decided that you can't recruit enemy national units when you took their cap, but at the same time always wondered how games would play out if you could. ie. If you could recruit enemy national mages, it would likely strongly effect who you attacked first.

I haven't checked the mod itself out yet, but might well give this mod a whirl in a future game* I organise to see how it works in practise.


* A newbie game probably, as testing experimental drugs on newbs is always the way to go

[Korwin]

Originally Posted by Calahan

I haven't checked the mod itself out yet, but might well give this mod a whirl in a future game* I organise to see how it works in practise.


* A newbie game probably, as testing experimental drugs on newbs is always the way to go

If its otherwise an Vanilla (no CBM) game, count me in.

[Executor]

Great idea! I'd be very interested in seeing a game like this, seems rather intriguing.
I guess all the good nations will get attacked pretty fast now, so, dibs on Man!
Good work

[nerozero]

I would love to play a game with this mod, it sounds really fun!

Wondering if this would led to more aggressive play from players, could be interesting.