Golden Age Arcoscephale

[Blitz]

I've played this theme extensively in SP, but in my opinion it loses far too much over vanilla Arco to be a viable choice in a competitive game. The theme is very appealing at first glance, but many of it's units are overcosted and underpowered. Let's take a quick look at some of the changes over regular arcoscephale.

1) Loses Hoplite, Hypaspist, Elephant, Philosoper, Strategos, Heavy Cavalry, Bad Chariot, and the Hoplite and Hypaspist Commanders.

2) Gains Myrmidion, Icaryd, Wind Rider, Wind Lord, Chariot, Chariot Archer, Engineer, Philosoper, Icarid Champion and Sceptic

3) Also has access to two new heroes in the Daiadalos and Asterios. Their starting site no longer produces SSSSN, but rather AAEES.

So we see that GA Arcoscephale loses all it's good military troops (Elephant, Hoplite, Hypaspist, Heart Companion), and these are replaced with the Myrmidion, Chariots, and Wind Riders. Chariots are just plain bad. The attrition rate is awful. Those, and Myrmidions are terribly resource-intensive under a sloth forced theme. The chariot archer has perhaps the worst precison of a ranged unit while being one of the most expensive. The wind riders are good units, but they are not much better than Valkries, while twice as much.


Wind Rider 13hp 17ar 12mr 11str 12at 16df
Valkrie 12hp 13ar 14mr 11str 13at 15df

The wind rider has the additional bonus of a lance, but the other stats are comparable. Also note the Valkrie has 25 stealth and that slightly good ability called glamour. IMHO these are two comparable units. The Wind Rider is superior, but not by a large margin, yet costs 125 to the valkrie's 60

The icarid is much cheaper than the Valkrie, but is extremely difficult to mass, costing 28 resources and being capitol-only. It's stats are also not comparable.

The myrmidion isn't a bad unit, but again it's very difficult to mass due to it's high resource cost under sloth. Additionally they are armed with short swords. Combine that with a whopping 8 encumberance, and it's unlikely they can stand up to commparably priced infantry.

Myrmidion 12hp 17ar 10mr 11str 12at 11df Short sword
Man at Arms 11hp 15ar 10mr 10str 11at 12df Broad Sword
Blood of humans Abyssan HI 12hp 18ar 11mr 11str 10at 9df Morningstar
Swamp Guard 12hp 18ar 12mr 10str 11at 10df Falchion
Ermor/Plylithum Triarius 10hp 18ar 10mr 10str 11at 12df Long Spear
Tien Chi Imperial Guard 10hp 15ar 10mr 10str 11at 12df Falchionh
Zweihander 12hp 19ar 9mr 10str 10at 6df Great Sword
Hirdman 10hp 15ar 10mr 10str 11at 12df Broad Sword

All of these units are comparably priced. Only the Zweihander costs even close to the same number of resources and has the same 8 encumberance... yet costs only 10 gold. Every unit on this list has a better weapon, deals more damage, and has more staying power than the myrmidion. It's not even worth comparing them to the three exceptional hoplites that he replaces from standard Arco.

So in addition to losing our good infantry and elephants, we gain basicly nothing for regular army troops. The Myrmidion is a poor heavy infantry unit. The Wind Lord costs far too much. The Chariots are far too expensive to use against independants, and are of only limited use in large battles. Therefore we must gain something magically, right?

Wrong. We lose the Astrologer, the cheapest 3-astral mage available, and we gain no new mages. The philosopher is without question the best researcher available to any race, yet is only slightly more efficient than a sage, and cannot cast search spells or forge lesser magic items. The Engineer and Skeptic both have limited usage. Both are unique units with potential, but certianly cannot hope to have the game impact of bonus troops that other themes get. You can give me a laundry list of usages for these two units, and I will tell you that I'd rather have a Seithkona, Tuatha, Master of the 5 elements, Fortune Teller, or Galderman. I'd sure as heck rather have my Astrologers back. These units have a niche role, yes. However, they do not compensate for the loss of Astrologers in any way, shape or form.

Golden Era Arcoscephale is far too weak. I hope the developers choose to strengthen this theme in their next patch, as they did Blood of Humans and Desert Tombs in previous patches. While I concede that realisticly a Bronze-age myrmidon should not be able to stand up to iron infantry, there must be some magical compensation. The philosopher is a wonderful unit, however it is the only notable addition to this theme. Sadly this does not make up for losing the very strong hoplites and elephants... and certianly not the philosopher, who is nearly as powerful as an Arch-Seraph in my opinion.

Obviously these ideas haven't been thoroughly tested, and yes Zen, I'll mod it if enough people like the ideas.

1) Give the wind rider awe +1. The only national troops which cost more than a wind rider are the Hydra, Black Hunter, and Neifel Giant. This ability would boost their survival rate considerably, and probably make them one of the best national troops in the game. Since they are one of the most expensive, obviously that's what they should be. Massing them would still be prohibitive, due to them being capitol-only and expensive... but this boost is both thematic and greatly enhances their power.

2) Raise the cost of the myrmidon to 18. Boost hit points by one (13). Boost morale by two (15). Boost both attack and defense by one (12). Most of you have seen the movie Troy. Their portrayal of the myrmidons is somewhat generous, but there is no doubt the Mydmidon is supposed to be an elite fighter. These bonuses would reflect the power of the unit, while not losing the thematic short sword and bronze armor. There's no way these changes would bring them in line with einheres, or other top end infantry... but hopefully the myrmidons would resemble the expensive elite units they are supposed to portray.

3) Raise the cost of the Wind Lord to 350 gold. Add two levels of Air magic and the same +1 awe that the wind riders get. This would not make the Wind Lord the recruitable SC that the Tuatha or Drotts are, but would still be an extremely powerful unit. This is thematic, as Arcoscephale gets air gems with Golden Era. While he would be very expensive as compared to Drotts and Tuatha, the lance, awe and flying abilities probably compensate for the glamour, priest, and better magical powers of the others. This would be a difficult unit to balance, but I think it would be a good addition to the theme.

I'll see what I can do about whipping up a mod. It's 2:30am out here on the West Coast, but I'm off tomorrow and possibly by the time you read this I may have whipped something up. Let me know what you think of the ideas.

[ June 18, 2004, 10:27: Message edited by: Blitz ]

[Blitz]

#modname "Golden Era Enhancement Mod"
By Peter Grauer aka Blitz
#description "This mod gives strong enhancements to Golden Era Arcoscephale, as well as the Arcoscephale national pretender, the shedu"
#icon "./empbanner.tga"
#domVersion 2.12

List of Changes (old values in brackets)

Wind Rider
- Awe +1 (0)

Myrmidon
- Cost raised to 18 (15)
- Morale boosted to 15 (13)
- Attack raised to 12 (11)
- Defense raised to 12 (11)
- Hit Points raised to 13 (12)

Myrmidon Champion
- Cost raised to 40
- Hit points raised to 15 (14)
- Morale Boosted to 16 (15)
- Attack raised to 13 (12)
- Defense raised to 13 (12)

Wind Lord

- cost raised to 400 (175)
- Awe +1 (0)
- Air magic level 2 (0)

Skeptic
- Stealth raised to 10 (0)

Shedu
- Encumberance lowered to 3 (4)
- Defense raised to 18 (10)
- Dominion raised to 4 (3)
- Protection raised to 15 (9)

#selectmonster 661
#enc 3
#def 18
#prot 15
#startdom 4
#end

#selectmonster 1077
#gcost 18
#hp 13
#mor 15
#att 12
#def 12
#end

#selectmonster 1071
#stealthy 10
#end

#selectmonster 1076
#gcost 40
#hp 15
#att 13
#def 13
#mor 16
#end

#selectmonster 1075
#gcost 400
#magicskill 1 2
#awe 1
#end

#selectmonster 1074
#awe 1
#end

[Blitz]

Took me an hour. Since you can't post file attatchments in this forum, I just pasted the modfile. Just copy it and paste into a textfile. Rename the textfile to goldenera.dm and place it in your \mods directory. The banner points to the banner from the empowerment mod, so if you want that picture download that mod.

I'm gonna email the beta of the mod to gandalf, and maybe he can put the zip on http://www.dom2minions.com/ until it's in a reasonably complete form, at which point I can send it to Illwinter.

Enjoy.

[Endoperez]

Shedu was dramatically increased. I'd like to read your comments on it too. The ones about Golden Age were a nice read, but I can't comment them. I'm not experienced enough to see how good a unit is without testing it in battle first.

[Blitz]

Shedu was dramatically increased. I'd like to read your comments on it too. The ones about Golden Age were a nice read, but I can't comment them. I'm not experienced enough to see how good a unit is without testing it in battle first.

Well the main limitation of the Shedu remains... that you only get head and 2 misc slots. In order to make him into a viable SC choice you have to take 5 more levels of astral (to combat magic deul), then at least level 3 earth. He can't use any lifedrain weapons, and as a trampler they aren't too useful anyway. He'll never be able to wear boots of quickness or jade armor, so if you want him hasted you need to pay 80 design points for water 1. He's never going to be a world-class SC, so increasing his combat statistics really only enhance his value as an early-game trampling expander.

The armor bonus is redundant with stoneskin, which is available early, and castable with his base chassis. The defense value is definately big, as is boosting his domain to the highest level. However, I doubt these abilities offset the drawbacks of less equipment slots.

In comparison, the Virtue...

- Has the same path cost, and costs 75 points less.
- She (now) has the same dominion, as well as two excellent abilities (lightning resistance/Awe 4!!).
- She only has level 2 air, rather than two paths, but this since he's 75 points cheaper on an 80-point chassis, getting a second path (of your choice mind you) costs you only 5 points more than what you would have to pay for a Shedu.
- She has a full compliment of equipment slots, and comes standard with a nice flambeau

On the flip side the Shedu is a beast at 230 hit points. However, I think you would find him to be limited as a lategame combat SC... however I think he would do quite well as a caster SC, similar to a monolith. When you compare him to other (non crappy) national pretenders, I think he's still strictly second-tier. The Nataraja is clearly superior (and available to Arcoscophale). The Allfather (at the same cost mind you) is clearly superior. The Carrion Dragon (50 points), is in another class. Now he may be comparable to other national choices such as the Jade Emperor or Mother of Tuathas, two similarily priced national pretenders.

However, by maintaining his 80-point paths and limited item slot compliment, it's almost certian that he'll never completely excel at either fighting or casting. At this point he'll make a good expansion aid for the first few turns, then probably retire to the library to make golems... showing up to cast a few big spells in the more important battles. I actually considered lowering his price (to 50), or his path cost (to 40) in addition to raising his combat values. Limiting his item slots has a crippling effect on his overall usefulness... given these severe restrictions on usable items, he has to be great in other areas. Maybe filling the "early trampler, lategame golem maker" niche will be enough... but somehow I doubt it =).

I'm open to suggestions on how to make him somewhat on par with the better avatars available to Arcoscephale... namely the Virtue, Nataraja, Lady of Fortune, Prince of Death, and Ghost King. Since Arcoscephale has access to all of the non-unique avatars that I consider in the top tier... you have to make the Shedu one of the best pretender gods in the game, or else regardless of his strength he's not going to be used since Arcoscephale has such diverse choices in this area. How to accomplish that while maintaining the general idea Illwinter had for the Shedu (trampling flier, limited magic, no item slots), is the question. He was already the highest hit point, non immobile pretender in the game (tied with the kraken, which was aquatic and of course dosen't fly). Even as a flying, durable, trampling chassis with magical paths in both astral and earth, he saw limited or no use. This speaks volumes about the power of items in this game.

[ June 18, 2004, 13:24: Message edited by: Blitz ]

[Chris Byler]

Why not start the Shedu with Astral 3 Earth 3, instead of 1? Let him be strong in those paths since he will pay dearly to have any others (and you're pretty much forced to buy Astral pretty high anyway to protect against Magic Duel). He already has a high base point cost, why doesn't he get anything much for it?

Limited magical versatility and item use is still a bit of a problem, but he can now much more cheaply get a level of magic power that can make him a contender on the battlefield doing something like Power of the Spheres, Summon Earthpower, Blade Wind x3. Compared to other battlefield mages he is pretty tough even without casting defensive buffs. So once the usefulness of body ethereal, stoneskin, attack rear is exhausted, he can start standing behind bodyguards and troops and casting powerful spells over them.

Oh, and those chariots that are so crappy? Not once the God casts Legions of Steel/Marble Warriors and Will of the Fates on them... Riches from Beneath will offset the problems of a mandatory sloth dominion, if you can afford it.

As for Golden Age: I like the idea of myrmidons being more of an elite unit in skills/morale. They may not have modern equipment but they can fight like the heroes of old Awe on the wind riders seems cool too - and they *are* more expensive than Valkyries for little benefit. And I agree that Golden Age needs something magically to make up for the loss of the Astrologer, although I don't know what. Stronger or cheaper Mystics, a new mage, or maybe an arch-priestess with Nature 2 Holy 4 (making them a strong-priest nation)?

Hmm, I just had an idea. Give them the three Metal Adepts as capitol-only mages (perhaps a new capitol site, Metallic Tower?). They're astral and elemental, so they don't do anything a Mystic couldn't theoretically get; but they give you more predictability of what elements you get. Plus two of their elements are air and earth, which Golden Age Arco gets gems for. Best of all it requires almost no work to implement because the units already exist