Which nations need bennies?

[DrPraetorious]

I dislike the conceptual balance mods, and wish to pursue balance by an additive, rather than subtractive route (also Growth is only underpowered if you play on a postage stamp). I will fold these modifications into my megamod once I can get it working .

Here are the changes I would like to make:
1) Every nation should get a full slate of national heroes. This is an extension of the worthy heroes mod to 7 heroes per nation. Part of the rationale for this is, in spite of the addition of extra income events, Fortune/Turmoil is still somewhat weaker for most positions than Order/Misfortune. So, we can make Fortune better without changing the event frequencies or anything else coarse. Those nations (Panga-cough) which already thrive on turmoil get loser heroes.

2) I'd like to add a lot of national spells. National spells are less likely to muddle the existing theme or feel of a nation, and are intrinsically easier to balance than additions or changes of national units.

For a weakness to be "problematic", it should meet most or all of the following criteria:
a) It should render the nation significantly un-fun (hopeless) to play under a common circumstance.

b) There should be no easy way to adjust your tactics around the weakness already in game. We are not trying to encourage turtling here - "I can't ignore the world until turn 60 and then launch my space armada" != a weakness.

c) It should lead to defeat with >80% certainty. There are only a few nations (Abyssia and Jotunheim only, I think) that beat a double-bless Helheim in a cage match reliably. I don't view this as unbalanced - if you can go 1:2 against helheim under such circumstances the game is still worth playing, and weaknesses of the helheim position later in the game will tell.

The additions we make to correct these weaknesses should:
a) By preference, be new heroes. If not new heroes, new spells. If not new spells, new national units. I'd like to add new units only as a last resort. OTOH, if someone has a really cool idea for a new national unit (those guys added to Pythium are neat), we should use it.

b) Preserve both the feel and main tactics of the nation - preferably, they should enhance them. If a nation has critically weak national mages, for example, we should give them national spells that make those national mages more useful in conjunction with their existing national units.

Let me give an example. I tend to think that Caelum is somewhat weak - especially against forces consisting of craptons of crap (existing lightning magic does great against small numbers of elite units.) This spell is drawn from the classic RPG Powers and Perils.

#newspell
#name "Darkling Light"
#descr "This spell calls down several bolts of the black lightning of the dark, which arcs among the stormclouds of the underworld. Each bolt of the black lightning can strike several foes, but it is silent and produces no shockwave."
#school 2
#researchlevel 4
#path 0 5
#path 1 1
#pathlevel 0 1
#pathlevel 1 1
#fatiguecost 70
#aoe 1
#effect 2
#nreff 1003
#damage 1008
#precision 5
#range 5025
#flightspr 339
#explspr 10009
#spec 64
-- Does anyone know how to make the zots blind people, do shock damage and cause lesser fear?
#restricted 9
#restricted 59
#end