Mod: Golden Age of Magic (cheap drakes and more)

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

The Golden Age mod is mostly done, I am asking for comments, additions, requests, etc.

Golden Age V0.1

Cheaper Drakes: 4 gems
New Sites (all rare):
--mineral cave: recruit huge powerful ancient cave drake for 1000gold and 200resources
--windswept spire: ancient wyvern
--ice lake: ancient ice drake
--magma rift: ancient fire drake
--black cauldron: recruit cauldron born
--achillean spring: recruit achillean infantry
--arawn's leafy bower: recruit arawn's huntsman
--forge of wonders: recruit clockwork horrors
--stables of doom: recruit paladin

New Divine Spells:
--Heavenly Favor (luck)
--Wound Balm (healing light)

[Endoperez]

Could you give a bit more info about those divine spells? Personal luck, or luck, and how high level is needed?

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Endo,

It seems to me there are a couple of holes in the Priest's repertoire. Generic priests have a reputation for healing and blessing, and are supposed to be giving and unselfish. The only blessing they have in Dom III is for sacred units so it is very specific. I wanted a more generic blessing. I wanted neither spell to be too powerful, nor too unavailable. In general, Divine magic seems about twice as powerful as regular magic, so that is how I came up with the following:

#newspell
#copy "luck"
#name "Heavenly Favor"
#descr "Begs the god to favor a few nearby warriors in battle."
#school 7
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 8
#pathlevel 0 1
#fatiguecost 10
#range 5
#precision 2
#aoe 1
#end

#newspell
#copy "healing light"
#name "Wound Balm"
#descr "Begs the god to heal a few friends."
#school 7
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 8
#pathlevel 0 1
#fatiguecost 10
#range 25
#precision 100
#aoe 1
#end

This mod in general is comprised of a bunch of small mods thrown in together. They are little hole fillers, adding a little bit here and there. The spring where Achilles received his iron skin. The black cauldron of Celtic myth. Reducing the cost of Drakes so they might actually be used. Creating huge ancient drakes as a filler between drakes and actual dragons. Adding a paladin unit (Camelot). Giving priests the power to do small healing and blessing spells. Etc. etc.

If anybody can think of any other small holes, I would be happy to add to the mod. I should post the first version later today. I need to do the graphics for the new units--always the last part of a mod for me as I have no artistic ability at all.

[Endoperez]

Luck is quite powerful ability. Luck as H1 spell that doesn't have to be researched would make H1 priests VERY useful. I think everyone using this mod would save for a temple, build it somewhere where it allows recruitment of independent priests, and mass those.

IMHO, H1 is too low for a Luck spell. A healing spell, especially one that costs fatigue like yours, is fine as a H1 spell, but Luck should take at least H2, possibly H3.

Also, I'd prefer "Divine Favour" and "Care Bear Stare" as names of the new holy spells.

[Potatoman]

I think the luck spell would be fine it was H4.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Endo,

LOL. I needed a good laugh.

You make some good points. Care Bear Stare is good. If I add curse I will make it Care Bear Glare.

In general, if you look at the other divine spells, I don't think these are out of line power-wise.

Consider Banishment. H1, Fatigue 0, Range 20, AOE 4+, Dg 5+, armor negating.

Consider Blessing. This is obviously a very powerful spell. Again, it is H1. No fatigue. AOE 5+.

Luck is S1. Fat 20, R 5, AOE 1.... It is Alt 4, so it does have to be researched.... Probably having every 1'st level priest able to do it, although in line power wise, is game unbalancing. I will make it H2. You are right.

Making it H2 may not be enough, I may mess with the Number of Effects and reduce it. Maybe make the fatigue cost higher.

H2 may not be balancing enough, and H3 is too far.

[Endoperez]

Banishment works against undead and demons, and nothing and no one else. That doesn't help your expansion except in rare cases.

Blessing is good, but ONLY if you invest some points on your pretender's magic and build sacred units. Sacred units aren't always your best troops and are almost always more expensive in at least gold than your other units, so this depends heavily on nation.

Luck is always good. Healing Light is a rarely-used spell, and making it an actually useful spell by making it holy is a great idea. While mages always have something better to do, you won't mind priests casting it.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Luck is aoe1 and r5 so it only affects a small number of units. Having 10 or 20 cheap h1 priests negates that limitation. H2+ priests are not cheap, so I think your sugestion is right on.

[HoneyBadger]

Uh-nu-buh, any chance of adding a holy spell that cures afflictions? Unless all heal spells already do-I generally don't use such. A couple other nice ideas that come to mind would be a spell that gives flying, and a spell that makes units' weapons do double damage to undead/demons

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

1. Cure affliction. I don't think so. A unit that does it--sure. I can add one in one of the sites if you want. What storyline should I use for the unit? Name, background, etc. I'll throw it in!

2. Flying. Sure. However, how would this fit in with the normal idea of "divine"? I agree that if your god/pretender is a master of air then it makes sense, but the general priest magic is not oriented in any direction at all. If I make one holy spell that is air oriented, any holy unit can use it (e.g. a priest to the water god Tursuk). Not sure this should be done.

3. Weapons of normal units do double damage to undead/demons. This is a thematically good choice, if you hold to the course of generic holy priest magic. However, priests already have a boatload of anti-undead/demon magic. Not sure if it would be worth it in this case.... It might also unbalance the game.