Black Company Mod

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Catquiet:
Maybe you should split it into two nations. One for the Black Company : good troops and good heroes. One for the Empire : average troops and amazing heroes.

They weren't always on the same side.

That would be neat - even neater as themes.

Basic nation: The Lady's Empire.
Theme#2: Black Company [For Empire]
Theme#3: Black Company [Vs. Empire]

.....But that is a hell of a lot of extra work.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

The reason I started this mod was twofold--I love the Black Company series and would like to play it in Dominions, and I have some ideas about play balancing that I wanted to mess around with. Some of these ideas are:

1. making a more powerful unit that costs mis-proportionately more than other units to start with, but has less cost over time, e.g. in supplies. Take the Limper Infantry as the main example of this. 1.5X heavy infantry, costs 2X a heavy infantry, but still only eats 1/unit of supply per month.

2. making units more powerful not through strength or hits, but through endurance and morale. Again, the Limper Infantry is my example. Sure, they have great armor also, but the main difference between neutral hvy inf and them is the Mor 15 vs 10, and Enc 1 vs 3. In fact, they are very similar to Ulm Hvy Inf, except for the morale and endurance--and the fact that they cost more.

3. I also wanted to experiment with a top-heavy empire in a way. The primary foot-soldier of the Empire isn't important in this Mod. In the book each unit was vastly different, coming from different absorbed kingdoms, armed and armored completely differently and sporting different tactics and strategies. But the big wins/losses were almost always due to the heroes. I was hoping to emulate this with a kind of generic foot-soldier. I did kick around the idea of making 4-6 vastly different basic units, but that would take away from the flavor of the Empire. Instead, I have a generic infantry, 4 vastly different vastly expensive elite units, 2 great leaders, and 4 ultra powerful heroes that you might or might might not get. In a +2 luck, you should get one hero every 20 turns, which should make up for the slow military growth this expensive mod requires. That, and the fact that an army of 50 will eat 50 supplies/month, yet be as powerful as an army of ~75. An army travels on its stomach, and I am making powerful stomachs.

I am still kicking around the idea of Soulcatcher as a unit that charms/dominates enemy commanders, with her patron unit as a stealthy assassin charmer/dominator (as in when the BC took Whisper).

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Anybody want to make some icons for me? I am not visually artistic. So far, I have borrowed other units' icons....

Black Infantry--light infantry
Limper Infantry--super heavy infantry
Forvalaka--were-leopard
Boomer--battlemages, fire ball throwers
Shapechanger--hero
Howler--hero on flying carpet
Limper--hero, battlemage, soldier

I also need a theme banner.

Thanks!

[Peter Ebbesen]

Enc 1 vs 3 is no real difference to Heavy Infantry - fights need to Last for a long, long, time for encumbrance on infantry to be important. Morale 15 vs 10, on the other hand, is an enormous difference. 15 is what the countries with highest morale get for their best (usually sacred) troops. If the Limper infantry only cost twice as much as regular heavy infantry in gold, they are probably underpriced.

(Well, I may have misunderstood you, but from your description it sounded as if your Limper Infantry would be about as strong as Ulm Guardians and with about the same movement allowance, but with higher morale and possibly higher magic resistance - while costing approximately the same.)

Anyhow, looking forwards to what you come up with.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

I hadn't considered the Guardians. When I look at their stats, they look very similar. Hmmmm. I was comparing them to Ulm Inf 3, which I consider to be very heavy infantry.

Compared to Ulm Guardians, they have very similar stats. +1 Morale, +1 St, -1 Hp, -2 Armor, etc. Cost is similar as well.

I may need to differentiate them a bit. Thanks!

[Teraswaerto]

Having powerful heroes isn't necessarily a balance problem. You need luck to get them & luck as a scale is kinda weak. I doubt anyone would claim Tien Chi to be overpowered since they have immortal heroes with good magics and special abilities.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
Having powerful heroes isn't necessarily a balance problem. You need luck to get them & luck as a scale is kinda weak. I doubt anyone would claim Tien Chi to be overpowered since they have immortal heroes with good magics and special abilities.

Ahem. The immortal hero units proposed for the Black Company mod are incredibly more powerful than the weaklings T'ien C'hi gets. Reread the first post. We are talking hero units with magic skills usually only seen on pretender gods (8/1, 4/4), and, if they are to be anywhere near faithful to the Black Company novels, very high hitpoints, defense, and protection as well. And possibly regeneration.

Basically, it corresponds to giving the player 0-3 extra non-customisable pretender gods through luck.

And then there are the RECRUITABLE immortal Taken mages (good magic, high leadership, high hitpoints &etc) with 3 unholy priest levels as well. They may not be able to fly like Spring and Autumn's Celestial Master, but that is most likely the only area where T'ien C'hi can beat them.