Idea of a new economy mod

[Twan]

Without a big nerf to clams (etc) about everyone swim in gems in late game (or is an hopeless situation against the hoarders).
With a big nerf to magical economy, blood and freespawn nations are out of balance ; and if you are not lucky with site searching you can have a struggling gem economy even with a big late game realm.

So... I've started to think about making a mod changing the economy.

The idea would be to remove (or nerf a lot) magical ecomy items (as they have no cost once created), but allow to recruit or summon gem producing commanders or "buildings" (costing upkeep and/or creating problems like increasing unrest, devouring population, spreading diseases etc).

Each nation would have access to 2 new recruits :
- a capitol only gem producing commander, not extremely expensive (say 400 to 800 gold) but you'll usually have a difficult choice between them or your best mages
- a non capitol only commander producing another kind of gem, with a far higher cost and more upkeep (say 800-1200 gold if not sacred, or the double if sacred)

In addition, I'm also thinking about adding some summons of gem producing buildings (immobile commanders) giving other options in late game, costing no upkeep but spoiling the province they are in (things like an ensorceled graveyard producing death gems but having the "reaper" effect of an harvester of sorrow, a chaos nexus producing fire gems but increasing unrest a lot). They would allow an exponential growth (not limited by gold) at some point, but would be far easier to target than clams (as to limit the costs you have to gather them in one province and they can't move and are targetable by spells).

I've elected the late age to test the idea (because there aren't too much nations, and because nations with recruitables need a boost against free spawn nations), and I'm now looking for suggestions for the gem producing units, the goal being for each nation to have gem producers fitting the theme, in addition the units should have some use, so the players have an incentive to move these units instead of letting them stacked in their forts, but shouldn't be sufficiently interesting to make them a no brainer (compared to recruiting mages). Making them potential (low quality) thugs, or giving them other interesting powers should be the way to go.

Ie for LE Atlantis :

Capitol Only : Bone Priest

Descr : Before the war against Rlyeh, consorts were the most numerous atlanteans priests, forming the low clergy. Most of them were slain or gone insane trying to repell Rlyeh dominion. The few survivors developped a cult of their fallen brothers, collecting their bones and using them as fetishes to protect themselves against Rl'yeh mind magic and fight its dominion. They are now masters at extracting and using the essence of the deads, if they have no other personnal uses for it.

(800 gold, H2, inquisitor, produce a d gem, big shambler in bone armor, hp 25, Mor 15, MR 15, Str 16, Att/Def 12, Prec 8, autocast magic resistance)

Non capitol only : Clam Fisherman

Descr : Since the victory of Rlyeh, the few atlanteans fishers brave enough to plunge in the deeps ask to be royally paid to do so. In any sea they are able to find lots of supplies as well as well as some pearls, but are also often driven insane by what they found.

(1000 gold, not sacred, atlantean scout with no special power on land, can shape change into an aquatic only form producing 80 supplies and a pearl, but having 20% of insanity)

[Aezeal]

hmm the problem there is that they'll compete against the regular cap only units..

if you just make them summons it might be better.. first you pay gems, later upkeep

[Edratman]

My mod, about 1 week from completion, called "Valley of Mana" has recruitable and summonable gem sources.

I will not post it until I have completed testing of all summons (and I need to add a few more), but if you are interested in seeing the Alpha version, I will e-mail it.

I chose an alternate route for the capitol gem producer. I used an extremely high resource cost and a lower gold cost of 300.

To balance out the gems and magic (which is also special) the nation has totally crap resuitables, only 3 of them, all demons, and not very strong.

The nation will be a magic and research powerhouse, but very weak militarily. Will struggle in the early game, but will rock in mid game and later.

I have designed this with SP in mind. I don't have the slightest idea about balance, and don't play MP so my only experience in that arena is reading the various threads, but I think it will be fun in SP.

I can't make sprites, so I have borrowed from the main game and other modders. I also need to request the original sprite makers permission prior posting the mod.

[Kristoffer O]

> hmm the problem there is that they'll compete against the regular cap only units..

That was the point, wasn't it?

The whole idea sound interesting.

[Edratman]

Originally Posted by Kristoffer O

> hmm the problem there is that they'll compete against the regular cap only units..

That was the point, wasn't it?

The whole idea sound interesting.

On the spot analysis KO. Yes, that is the point.

[Edi]

Regarding blood nations: Blood slave availability is tied to site frequency. Play a game with site settings at 25%, 30% or 35% and suddenly you simply will not be doing nearly as much with blood magic as you would with a site frequency of 50% or higher, at least not without problems in your gold economy.

[Aezeal]

might be the point KO but I think having them as summons is a better idea regardless.. there usually is (for me) already a shortage of cap only commanders in a game.

Gems are also used a lot and using them on this will be a choice too.

[llamabeast]

Sounds interesting.

Another alternative to the original issue might be to nerf clams etc, but also to give every unit in the game 2 less douse bonus than it currently has (i.e. -2 for most units). Or perhaps just -1. That would have the effect of strongly nerfing blood economies. A mod like that would be easy to make with Edi's database and a perl script.