Another new theme idea: Renaissance Marignon

[Sandman]

How about a theme for Marignon based upon the Italian Renaissance? Granted, Marignon has a lot of themes already, but another one won't hurt, will it? They're certainly the closest in terms of culture and military to the Italian Renaissance, being kinda based upon Spain of about the same time period.

In this theme, the fanaticism of Marignon has diminished, to be replaced by a culture of innovation and discovery, as well as intrigue and occasional civil strife.

The main perks for this theme are:

Good spies and assassins: Renaissance Italy is famous for its political machinations and backstabbing. One option would be to have a combined spy/assassin; a stealthy operative who is quite capable of getting his hands dirty, although his combat stats are not much better than a regular assassin.

Another interesting idea would be for a second type of assassin; an Undead Hunter. They have the unusual conbination of being assassins with priestly powers, and their equipment and stats are pretty good. Sort of like Van Helsing, Blade or Buffy, really. Would be quite cool.

Well-trained and equipped infantry: Marignon has pretty good infantry already, and the Renaissance has meant that their skills and equipment have become even better. At a cost in gold and resources, obviously. Swordsmanship has become even more popular, and all their elite units (which replace the Man at Arms) use a variety of different sword styles; Great swords, longswords, rapiers, sometimes combined with daggers and bucklers. More advanced crossbows are another possibility; a repeating crossbow that fires two shots every three turns, for example. The Italian Renaissance saw improvements in armour-making as well, and it would be nice to have this, although I recognise that this is stepping into Ulm's territory.

Renaissance Masters: These are the geniuses of the period. Think Leonardo Da Vinci. Whilst their magical skills are somewhat limited, they excel in a variety of different areas. They're excellent researchers, somewhat proficient magical craftsmen (forge bonus 15) and talented siege engineers and castle defenders. They should probably be capital-only.

I'm not sure what magical skills to give them, since their interests were so diverse and widespread. At the moment, I'm thinking of 1 earth, 1 nature, 1 elemental random and one full random. The earth represents their engineering and sculpting skills, whilst the nature represents their interests in biology and the inspiration they got from the natural world. But they could just as easily have magical skills from any of the schools except maybe death and blood. One possiblity would be to have more than one type of Renaissance Master, each with slightly different skills.

Good, but limited priests: The priests of this time would have powerful holy skills (i.e holy-4), but no other abilities, so no fire magic or inquisitor bonus.

Now, the weaknesses:

No truly powerful mages: The Renaissance Masters dominate the lab, but as combat mages they're not particularly good. The fire-astral mage-priests of Marignon are gone, and only a well equipped or lucky with randoms Renaissance Master will be able to match their powers.

Not much blessable stuff: No flagellants, no Knights of the Chalice. There's still the Undead Hunter, which might be worth a bless effect or two, but apart from that, zilch. If people think that this is too crippling a disadvantage, one potential sacred unit could be a unit equivalent of the Undead Hunter, although sacred stealthies are quite common already.

No cavalry: This isn't 'historically' accurate, but with good infantry and ranged units, it'd be tough to justify having cavalry that wasn't also as good. And that would probably be overpowered. Sure, you could hike up the gold cost, but that would just be boring.

I suppose one justification would be that Marignon is now a republic controlled by merchant families as opposed to a traditional nobility.

Starting sites:

The gem sites would probably be a wide mix of stuff, given the versatility of the Renaissance Masters. Gold and resource producing sites may also fit the theme, as would an academy of war.

Now, I may try to create this nation, although I'm terrible at graphics modding, so someone else would have to do it.

As it is, I'd be interested in any comments or criticism people have.

[Sheap]

We already have Marignon-inspired Ulm in the form of Iron Faith; an Ulm-inspired Marignon would be ok too, I suppose.

1) In the Renaissance the power of the church waned. I think holy-3 priests would be plenty, plus Marignon has plenty of strong priest themes already.
2) In the Renaissance technology advanced. Crossbowmen could be replaced with Musketeers or an even less advanced firearm (Arquebus? ).
3) I would suggest that the advance of technology should also reduce magic. In addition to having weak mages, there should be a mandatory magic-0 or worse.
4) I like the forge bonus on the Renaissance Masters, but they shouldn't have Earth so they are different from Ulm. Also note that with 4 picks which may stack, they are still pretty fair mages and spectacular forgers.
5) I think you have to keep the cavalry around. Cavalry didn't really disappear until World War 1.
6) Given the advances in business during the renaissance, I think having well equipped, high cost units is OK (also works with your "expensive cavalry" idea).
7) National heroes: Da Vinci himself, a spectacular researcher/engineer. Machiavelli, who attracts assassins. One of the various Renaissance artists, who could produce money (is this possible?) I like heroes that do things other than just be mages/warriors.
8) Given the advance of science during this period, Astral would be an appropriate choice (and will also have the effect of keeping the Masters - who could probably use a better name - in the lab).

[Sandman]

Priests: A holy-4 priest is an advantage, but on the other hand, some of the greatest works of the Renaissance were religious in nature; the Sistine Chapel and Michaelangelo's David, for example.

Technology: Arquebusiers do fit the theme, but I reckon there's an unwritten law against gunpowder in Dominions. Why wouldn't T'ien Chi and Ulm have it as well?

Low Magic: I like this idea. Don't know if it's moddable though.

Earth Magic: Look at it this way. Most of the water nations are either cold-immune or water-breathing. The two strongest nature nations have lots of stealthy stuff. A forge bonus is simply the earth Version of this. Besides, with their engineering and sculpting skills, it does make thematic sense.

No cavalry: It's true that it not 'historically' accurate, but I just want to give the theme a clear, unambiguous weakness, to avoid kitchen sink syndrome.

Good troops: The way I see it, the Renaissance troops would be a tier above the Marignon troops; like default T'ien Chi and their Imperial troops. With possibly an ultra-elite unit above them. Their leaders (possibly mounted) would be Princes and Dukes.

Heroes: I was thinking the same thing. As well as Leonardo and Machiavelli, you could have Galileo (astral, researcher), Michaelangelo (earth, engineer, bonus to statue-making spells) or Marco Polo (sailing, stealthy, spy, air, water).

Astral magic: I wouldn't want to give them astral magic just so they'd be vulnerable to magic duel; that's annoying enough with T'ien Chi. One idea I had was to split the Renaissance Masters into sculptor, astronomer and artist, with earth, astral and nature respectively. They'd still be limited by low magic levels, partially dependent on lucky randoms.

[Vicious Love]

I fail to see the appeal of this theme. Besides, if you wanna be geographically accurate, it should be Ermor that gets the Renaissance theme. I'd pay to see that.