Black Moon Armies

[Unknown_Enemy]

Confirm : the black moon is a powerhouse !
However, that is just what I needed in my SP games. But that nation is raping all other AIs of that game, including ermor.

[sube]

Thank everybody for the comments - and sorry if I'm not too present on this board...

Tuidjy/Unknown_Enemy: in which aspect you see the Black Moon as particularly powerful? Blood magic maybe? (and the combination blood + death as well) When managed by the AI, against other AIs, in my case it didn't do anything amazing... just average. I was using level4 AIs, lvl9 independents, 3 starting provinces. Haven't tried it against Ermor AE, so I have no idea if the Black Moon can easily defeat it (when both AIs).

Tuidjy: you say one of the nations of this mod is quite weak, are you referring to the knights of justice?

Huzurdaddi: OK i can easily raise (a bit) the cost for menthats. They are about halfprice compared to Illithids and they perform about the same task, with the difference that they are not amphibious and specially that arrows can easily despatch them - at least the Illithids can stand a good amount of punishment. And menthats are magical, so you need a magical leader (Illithids as well, but all Illithids commanders are also magical commanders if I'm not wrong).

[Tuidjy]

> Tuidjy: you say one of the nations of this mod is quite weak, are you
> referring to the knights of justice?

The Knights of the Light are quite weaker than the other three nations. I would
rank them as balanced with the standard Dominion II nations, even slightly on
the weak side.

Why? Because Dominions II ends up being about magic, and the Knights of Light
have the weakest mages of the lot. Their troops are slightly less powerful
than the knights of Justice, and fire magic is the weakest path in the game.

> Tuidjy/Unknown_Enemy: in which aspect you see the Black Moon as particularly
> powerful?

Black Moon has an incredibly cheap and effective troop in the mentats. Orc
berserkers make a perfect meat shield. The Death Masters can easily become
capable of the deadly raise skeleton/drain life combo. The Lords of Negation
are great thugs once you hit Construction 4 and start churning out Wraith
Swords. The Acolytes are perfect researchers. The Summoners are great blood
hunters. And to top it off, the priests are also very good.

None of the valuable troops and commanders requires truely high resources, so
Black Moon can easily get away with Sloth 3. With Thugs and Blood
Supercombatants made possible with cheap research amd blood hunting, Black Moon
can afford to take a early peaking Supercombatant like the Ghost King.

I would take Moork led by A5W1E3S6D3 Ghost King with a O3S3H0D2M2M3 domain,
against any two of the other modded nations, and expect a good fight.

By the way, Death two and blood hunting is not really a contradiction. This
nation is powerful enough not to rely on blood troops, and just go for the
major demons (arch-devils, ice devils, etc...) Against most opponents, Moork is
primarily a death nation.

[sube]

>The Knights of the Light are quite weaker than the other three nations. I would rank them as balanced with the standard Dominion II nations, even slightly on the weak side.

That's quite ok then - as long as they are more or less balanced with the standard nations, that's fine by me. The Knights of the Light are maybe more of an early expander, with chariots, battlemages and reasonably good troops. In late game, sure, they are less competitive.

>Black Moon has an incredibly cheap and effective troop in the mentats.

Time to raise their cost then... And what about making them capitol-only units? (provided this will be explicitly moddable)

> Orc berserkers make a perfect meat shield. The Death Masters can easily become capable of the deadly raise skeleton/drain life combo. The Lords of Negation are great thugs once you hit Construction 4 and start churning out Wraith Swords. The Acolytes are perfect researchers. The Summoners are great blood hunters. And to top it off, the priests are also very good.

I wold not like to change much here... Lords of Negation as capitol-only, but apart from that...

[Tricon]

Wow. So now I have a few more armies to tryout. I'm back ... and I still love this mod the most. (A map wouöd-of course- be my next hearts desire). Good job, jube. But I've grown to expect nothing less from you.

[sube]

Thanks Tricon!
A map is also in the plans, but that's going to take a while

[Tricon]

I played around (quite)a bit. My impressions so far:


Light (most played faction, as it has been around a while): have a hard stand - though I do quite well with them- mainly pecause of the high resource costs. Limited in late game magic wise, but that's only keeping true to the books.

Justice: a bit low on variable units... though that is also keeping true to the books. Maybe an "avatar" unit, capital only?

Emperor/krhynn(sp?)- no experience so far

black moon: Awesome units (you put a lot of work in these). A powerhouse. I would increse the menthats cost a bit, though not that much.
Lord of negation should be capital only, definately!
IMO To reduce their "powerlevel" one could nerf the priests a bit. The impression I get from reading the books is that Hazheel is his own "god", his powers indeed awesome- but in terms of this game he would be definately be (just) a pretender. The religious aspect of the black moon ist not THAT dominant (at least to me) in the books. Powerful magic disguised as religion if you will. All in all, seeing their good unit selection and their variety - at least for ballance purposes - I would either reduce their level or drastically increase their cost.

Kepp at it! And thanks for your effort.