Mod: New Nation, Harabatia: Rise of the Raptors v1.00

[whiplashomega]

While the mod up to now has received little attention from, well, anyone but myself. I hope this version, which I consider to finally be out of beta stages, will be up to par. If anyone kept up with the old thread where I released the beta versions, this new one involves some serious makeover work on graphics, editing of most descriptions, balancing, removal of some units(specifically the ones I had borrowed from Sombre's Ogre Kingdoms, thank you again Sombre) and the addition of new units to fill a similar role. As for the details of what this mod is, pay attention.

Harabatia is a middle age nation that is directly based on the existing Dominions story line. The story, in short form is this:

300 Years Ago - Caelum is a united country in EA
265 Years Ago - Last Eagle King leaves, leading to a power struggle between the clans
260 Years Ago - Harab Seraphs of the Raptor clan think they should rule, Spire Horn and High Caelum refuse to allow it, civil war ensues
250 Years Ago - Raptor clan loses the civil war and is cast out of Caelum
At this point in vanilla, the Raptors scatter and become a indie recruitable, only to come back in late age, my mod alters this so that one of the few surviving Harab Elders is able to hold the clan together by making concessions to those who blame the Harab Seraphs for the war.
250 years ago - Raptor clan begins the Great Exile, which would last 100 years as they search for a new home.
245 Years Ago - The Harab Seraphines organize the ancestor cult amidst the exile.
220 Years Ago - While traveling through Arcoscophale the Raptors steal a herd of Elephants in a raid.
210 Years Ago - The Harab Seraphs learn the use of nature magic from the Pans of Pangaea.
200 Years Ago - The first wingless are born among the Raptors, but balanced also by the birth of the first Risen Yazatas.
151 Years Ago - The Raptors discover a large mountain surrounded by dense forests, and populated by a kingdom of trolls.
150 Years Ago - The current Master Harab challenges the Troll King to single combat, and using his greater mastery of magic, defeats him, claiming the troll kingdom.
50 Years Ago - Amid worries about their growing numbers the wingless are forbidden to breed with winged Raptors and commissioned for mandatory military service. Early casualties are heavy, but they are soon taken in by the trolls, and start a thriving community.
0 Years Ago - The Pantokrator disappears, while whispers of a new God are told among the Raptor clan. The clan prepares for war.

Unit Summary
Wingless
Wingless Archer - a well trained, but otherwise fairly standard archer with a long bow.
Wingless Raven - Well trained, well equipped harassing troops armed with spears, javelins, chain armor and shields.
Trolls
Harab Troll - The trolls of Harabatia wield heavy axes and spiked shields which they use to crush enemies on the charge before cutting into them with their axes.
Elite Troll - Plate armor, heavy flails, and spiked shields make these troops into tanks.
Raptors
Raptor Hunter - weak militia flying archer unit, poor precision, short bows
Raptor Militia - armed with spears and simple leathers, poorly trained but cheap.
Raptor Home Guard - somewhat better armed than the Raptor Militia with javelins and shields, trained to hold a line and throw their javelins.
Raptorian Warrior - decently trained flyers equipped with a short sword and shield.
Iron Crow - elite flyers armed with short sword and shield
Raven Guard - elite flyer armed with two swords
Capitol Only
Risen Yazad - Elite flying sacred, wields a magic golden spear, shield, and strong armor.
Commanders
Raptor Scout - flying scout with decent stealth
Crow Lord - skilled commander and elite flyer.
Priests and Mages
Young Seraphine - 1H flying priest. cheap.
Caretaker - 1D1E1H flying mage priest.
Harab Seraph - 1A1D +1AEDN standard mage unit
Iron Crafter - 2E with forging bonus
Harab Naturalist - 2N with supply bonus
Harab Sage - 1D with research bonus
Harab Elder - 2A1E2D1N +1.5AEDN elite mage unit, capitol only
Harab Seraphine - 1D1N2H mage priest, capitol only

Heroes
Master Harab - 3A3E4D3N, expert leader, physically weak, but awesome mage unit
Great Seraphine - 3D3N3H, multihero, best priest and excellent mage
The Archer - stealthy archer assassin equipped with a variety of magical items, no leadership
Hero of the Yazad - sacred, expert leader with standard, flying, great stats
Betrayer of Caelum - good leader, ice clad, can summon ice clads.
Summons
Risen Troll King - 2E1D an undead troll king good leader for undead/magic units, great dark vision
Eagle King - 4A1W1E +0.1FAWE unchanged from vanilla, great air mages and leaders
Ancient Raptor - Sacred undead chaf.
Raptor Elephant Riders - Elephants are similar the world over, big heavy tanks meant to trample opponents.
Gods
Eagle King - 1A1W1S 80 points per path, 2 base dominion, decent stats, cost 0.
Arch Harab - 1A1D, 10 points per path, 1 base dominions, poor stats cost 40
Other new spells
Knowledge of the Ancestors - 3D costs 25 gems Level 4 Enchantment Death magic version of Acashic Record
Wind Speed - 1A level 2 battle enchantment costs 20 fatigue. Hastes 10 units
To Dust and From Dust - 2E2A level 5 enchantment costs 15 earth gems. teleports mage and army to friendly lab.

Other national attributes
PD - Homeguards and Wingless Archers, with Raptorian Warrior bonus.
Prefers Cold +1
starting fort - Mountain City
default fort - Motte and Bailey
farm fort - Citadel
mountain fort - Mountain Citadel
forest fort - forest ramparts
swamp fort - river fortress

Starting Units
Crow Lord with 15 Raptor Homeguards and 5 Harab Trolls
Raptor Scout

change log for 1.03
description fixes
added Wingless Cloudgazer commander 2S, very expensive, no leadership (but provides access to astral that is pivotal for late game strat of eagle kings)
made trolls capitol only
created new start site, "City of the Trolls"
removed research bonus for eagle king god form
gave troll units forest survival
renumbered units/start sites to remove between mod conflicts with Haida Gwaii and Mytheology
reduced cost of Holy Father to 1 gem
reduced and reworked magic skills for Master Harab, now 3A2E2S3D, also reduced leadership from expert to good and set max age to 75, removing older command and setting starting age
made Great Seraphine a hero instead of multihero
added Raptor Axe Warrior
fixed an error in the description of the Arch Harab caused by a missing quotation mark.

change log for 1.02
added Arch Harab God chassis
reduced magic skill and increased cost for additional paths for Eagle King god form.
removed raptor elephant riders from recruitable set, now a level 2 conjuration summon costing 4 nature gems.
fixed encumbrance for risen troll king, now set at 0
made Harab Elders capitol only
started documenting changes
altered graphics of Harab Naturalist and Harab Sage to be less lurid, added browns and blacks to robes
reduced morale for Raptor Militia to 9, and for Raptor Homeguard to 10.
added Raptor Hunter unit
reordered recruitable line-up

change log for 1.01
reduced damage and attach values for shield smash
increased defense penalty and encumbrance of Troll Shield and Elephant Leather Hauberk
increased gold cost of Harab Troll and Elite Troll
reduced hit points and precision of Wingless Archers
reduced hit points of Wingless Raven
replaced reinvigoration with regeneration for Risen Troll King
increased gem cost of Summon Eagle King, To Dust and From Dust, and Knowledge of the Ancestors

[Humakty]

I'll happily playtest those, as they seem nice and I love flyin' armies. Will report soonish.

[Humakty]

Having had a quick look at this mod, I'm astonished. What's the point ? You've got everything you could dream of. From top notch archers (prec 12 + longbow) to elite infantry (elite trolls...23 protection...Regeneration...Raah once again) passing rapidly on the tramplers, who aren't really ubber, thanks god, to finish with top notch flyers, who easily can take the role of flankers from the non existent cavalry.(I propose rhino cavalry, with three riders armed with lances)

So the OB is maybe too complete, as you can adapt to almost any situation with your basic OB, which contains creatures that should only be available by summoning spells, very costly ones in the case of the elite troll.

Relatively to this OB, I find their mages too powerfull(potentially 4A 3N 3E 4D), and I recommend, if you wish to balance this mod, to take down one or the other, making the trolls summons being a base. But you can leave this mod as is, even if I doubt it has presently many uses, apart as a tought AI.

PS : OB = Order of Battle

[llamabeast]

'Tis a little harsh Humakty - there's lots of work gone into this!

Sadly I don't really have time to test this properly, which I'd like to do. I looked at it before and really liked the theme. The graphics are pretty nice too, although the purple and the green are a little on the lurid side.

From Humakty's post, sounds like it might be worth looking at balance. It's very hard not to make a nation overpowered when working on it, because, well, you just keep on wanting to make it cooler!

[llamabeast]

Also, I haven't looked at these trolls, but it's not unreasonable to have recruitable trolls. Sombre's Vaettiheim has recruitable trolls, and that nation is definitely not overpowered!

[Radio_Star]

First the general stuff: My initial impression is that I really like the theme. Heavy duty Caelum, trading mainline evocational access and resistances for tough-nosed recruitables. Like Humakty pointed out, there's definitely a lot of firepower and certain things, most notable the trolls, but there's a lot of weaknesses to balance it out. The best mage suffering from old age is a great counterweight, and I might think about bumping up the starting age just a little bit more. You'll also have to steer pretty clear of a lot of classic Caelum battlemagic (looking at thunderstrike here) since pretty much all of your troops close quickly, either due to decent movement rates or flying, and wind up prone to getting friendly fired. That all makes for a balancing act on the battlefield that I really like.
On to the details: Trolls do seem just too good. 5 of the basic model can roll over any non-heavy cav indy without losses. That makes for a blistering initial expansion without any reliance on blessings. About the time that heavy battle magic comes around to stop them, you're leveraging their good inherent MR, mass flight, darkness, elemental resist buffs et al and still brutalizing people. A few quick ideas are a map move decreases, dropping the second attack or their base attack value (I like the shield bash for thematic reasons), an MR drop, and making the elites cap only.

A combination of cheap forts and an army transport spell that uses earth gems and can be cast pretty much out-of-the-box by a recruit anywhere mage with high leadership gives them a really frightening defensive capability. It's hard to experiment with that one, but given the tremendous amount of earth gems you're likely to have around, this might merit a tweak.

Paying gems for a never healing unit makes me sad. Switching the troll kings to magic units and costing them accordingly is something I'd like to see as a player. I also don't understand the high encumbrance + reinvigoration that they have. Am I missing something? As for the undead sacreds .. I'm not sure. I don't think I'd ever spend death gems and a mage turn on them as is, but I also don't have any positive feedback on the unit, so grain of salt and all that.

Harab Seraphs seem kind of superfluous in the line up, but they're about the only unit that does.

10 astral gems for an Eagle King is a steal for anyone, but especially for a nation lacking in quality thugs .. maybe up this price a little?

Finally, recruitable stealthy units without access to a stealthy leader has always been a peeve of mine.

All in all, it looks like the outline of a very fun, flexible and different nation. It's Caelum, only playing in the NFC East!*


*a conference known for its grueling, hard-nosed, smashmouth style of play, for the 95% of the world who doesn't care about American Football

[whiplashomega]

I have to agree on the trolls, they are somewhat overpowered. I wanted to change the weapons for thematic reasons, but didn't want to change their basic stats. As such I'm thinking I'll increase encumbrance on their armors, and reduce the attack and damage on the shield bash by a couple each. Plus a further increase in cost. On Humaky's criticism, I'm bumping down the archers precision and hit points by a point, as well as the wingless ravens. And as I just mentioned, the trolls DO need dumbing down, as they make Ashdod's giants seem almost weak, unfortunately they were the one unit that didn't really get play tested before release, and they most definitely made the battle line unbalanced. I hadn't even noticed that the Raven Guards were a stealthy unit! Though I don't really want stealthy armies here, just seems to be too versatile, so I'll just get rid of that rather than provide a stealthy commander.

On to radio stars criticisms, I think I'll bump up the costs of the Eagle King summon and To Dust and From Dust transport spell, I'll say to 15 each for now. Maybe switch out Motte and Bailey for a more expensive fort? perhaps a citadel. As for the Risen Troll Kings, the high encumbrance is simply a result of them being equipped identically to the indie troll king unit. The reinvigoration bonus was meant to be thematic with them being risen from the earth and connected to it. I could give them some weak regeneration instead, thus making them a 'heals only in battle' unit? is that possible? I included them primarily as a summonable leader for undead armies, particularly in conquering underwater and so on.

What I'm surprised at is that no one commented on the site searching death spell, frankly I thought that was one of the more overpowered points, allowing for easy diversification of magic. Anyway I think I'm going to up the cost and research level of that as well.

Thanks for the comments, this is my first attempt at real modding for Dominions, so it does have some ironing out to do.

[whiplashomega]

First balance changes made and posted, as detailed in my previous post. Let me know if that fixes things (especially with the trolls). I also changed the starting army to 15 homeguards and 15 wingless archers, no trolls to start anymore. I'm tempted to just remove the elephants, thoughts? Trolls still too powerful? Should I make Harab Elders capitol only? Any further suggestions on changes to spells? suggestions that you already made but didn't enact that you still think should be part of this shindig?

[Endoperez]

Most undead creatures avoid armor encumberance by having base enc 0. Do that instead of reinvigoration.

You can try regen + does not heal, it sounds like a nice idea.

[Humakty]

I'm really sorry if I seemed harsh, as I play many mods, and haven't produced anything myself. I just wanted to point out what seemed too powerfull, but maybe I pushed a tad too far.

I really think you could get rid of the elephants, as the army seems too complete with them, but it would be wasting good art work. Usually, armies fielding size 6 tramplers (arco/monkeys/caelum) are lacking in other units, most often in damage dealing/soaking infanry, which is not the case here. And if you get rid of the elephants, it won't be that much necessary to nerf trolls.

Anyway, I'll play your new version tonight, great work !

PS : I swear I won't ever more post after having a bad day.