Amazon Mod

[Kristoffer O]

A new mod made by PvK has just been made public.

Soon there will also be a mod by Stephan Weiss. It's about orcs. New graphics .

[Tuidjy]

Someone well know and trusted by the community.
*cough* Zen *cough* should gather all the mods
and make an 'official' package of modded nations.

Then we could playtest them, balance them, and
hopefully end up with something that people will
be Ok with playing competitively.

[PvK]

I will be interested to hear what people think of the balance of Themiskyra, the Amazon nation this mod replaces Pangaea with.

It seems balanced to me, though different from any other nations, and certainly with many strengths. It does get off to a good start because of having access to all magic paths. Of course, all other nations have a chance to get all of the same abilities by late game, by taking independent Amazon tribes. The gem income is fairly weak too, and dispersed. The new units I added are mainly to provide something generic for PD, but the Amazon Leader and heroines have good thug and perhaps item-SC potential. And I added an (I think minor) stealth element. I think they're a lot of fun to play, but I'll be interested in elite high-magic-type players' opinions of their balance.

In later patches, or with some more graphic work, I hope to be able to modify the pretender choices and heroines a bit. Otherwise I think it is pretty complete and AFAIK balanced.

PvK

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by PvK:
I will be interested to hear what people think of the balance of Themiskyra, the Amazon nation this mod replaces Pangaea with.

I like it. It's not as overpowered as it looks, despite the ability to recruit sacred troops everywhere.

I've toyed with an Amazon mod myself in the past, except I didn't add extra troops bar the standard scout. My only capital sites were the 'Many Thousand Things' because it seemed thematically appropriate (Amazon tribes have developped many thousand skills while they lived apart from each other), and the 'Brigand Lair' , also for thematic reasons: the four tribes are still competing for supremacy - thus the 'necessary' unrest. On the good side, it grants access to Villains - I assume Amazons need these renegades to mate .

[PvK]

Hehe. Ya, it sounds like we did very similar mods, then. Since my scout is just an Amazon Version of the standard scout, your Brigands are essentially like my Wayfarers (except for the breeding part ), and your Ten Thousand Things site is similar to my selection of 1-gem sites. The main practical difference would be my Amazon Leaders.

PvK

[Leadman]

Originally posted by PvK:
I will be interested to hear what people think of the balance of Themiskyra, the Amazon nation this mod replaces Pangaea with.

It seems balanced to me, though different from any other nations, and certainly with many strengths. It does get off to a good start because of having access to all magic paths. Of course, all other nations have a chance to get all of the same abilities by late game, by taking independent Amazon tribes. The gem income is fairly weak too, and dispersed. The new units I added are mainly to provide something generic for PD, but the Amazon Leader and heroines have good thug and perhaps item-SC potential. And I added an (I think minor) stealth element. I think they're a lot of fun to play, but I'll be interested in elite high-magic-type players' opinions of their balance.

In later patches, or with some more graphic work, I hope to be able to modify the pretender choices and heroines a bit. Otherwise I think it is pretty complete and AFAIK balanced.

PvK

Thanks for putting this mod together . I've been playing it a lot since it came out. It's definitely not over powered and allows several viable strategies. They only thing that I would like to see added is a capital only temple guard heavy infantry unit that is sacred and has higher protection and stealth .

Leadman

[PvK]

All good points. (Academically, there are others with no great leaders - see for example Broken Empire.)

Having an Amazon that is more efficient at leadership than independent commanders seems thematically good, and reduces the fiddliness of having many commanders to lead troops around. On the other hand, independents will still be pretty cheap and efficient, and have the irreplacable advantage of not requiring a fort to hire. Meanwhile an Amazon player will still have to decide whether to hire a spellcaster or a leader in each fort province, and so may go with independents anyway just so they can hire more spellcasters. Hmpf.

All told, I think I'm still tempted to simply increase the Amazon Leader's leadership.

PvK

[FrankTrollman]

One severe problem with the "half rainbow gems" they have now is that the minimum gem production of any group in the entire game is five - and that shows up even on pure martial factions like Ulm. More "Magic" oriented factions get substantially more gems. Any of the all-dead Ermors get 10 gems each, but the Amazon's closest analogue (Spring and Autumn Tien Chi) is still walking off with 6 gems per turn.

I say Tien Chi is their closest analogue, because they can recruit 3 sacred leaders for a total of 515 gold who collectively have access to all paths of magic except Blood and have 3 random picks. That's at least as good as what the Amazons can do (unless you're just dying to find those Brigand's Lairs), and they start with 6 gems (gems which ironically can pump right into the whole national summonins things which are pretty awesome).

So I don't think it would be at all out of place for them to generate six or seven gems a turn, one from each type they are supposed to specialize in.

-Frank

[quantum_mechani]

FrankTrollman said:
the minimum gem production of any group in the entire game is five

Not quite- Abysia Blood of Humans has only four.

[FrankTrollman]

I stand corrected then. There is a single, wretched set-up that produces only four gems. But it has lots of problems. Anyone else think that it's great idea to trade your heat aura for throwing axes?

The lack of gem production is one of many flaws with that set-up, and is simply evidence that there just aren't any viable starting positions with less than five gems.

And the point that the only basic Rainbow Mages with crappy normal leaders get six gems/turn and some starting access to summoned monsters still stands.

-Frank