Black Company Mod

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

I modeled my recruitable Taken off of Wraith Lords: immortal, undead, mage-generals. Stats as of now:

hp 30, st 15, enc 0, att 13, def 13, prec 13, mr 15, mor 15, fear 1, regen 10, gcost 300, fire/unholy 4/3, standard 20, immortal, undead. Expertleader, okmagicleader, goodundeadleader.

A big difference tween WL and Taken are Taken are not Ethereal, but have better armor (black steel full plate, helmet, shield). Taken have a mace, while WL have Bane Blades. WL have more hits. Taken have unholy 3--which is a big change, and one I am observing the effects of.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

All the heroes are immortal, as are all the recruitable Taken. 4 heroes. The recruitable Taken are roughly equivalent to Wraith Lords. I may have to scale them down a bit, or make them more expensive, but I am watching that in my sample games.

I made some major additions Last night: Soulcatcher and her Soul Gatherer stealthy assassin minions. I haven't had a chance yet to try them out, but they could add a few layers of complexity to the mod.

Right now, you play and play and you hope and you hope for one of those heroes to pop up. Until at least one does, you are at a severe disadvantage compared to the other nations. Or at least that is how it appears to me so far. It could be that a different style of play would do better.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Uh-Nu-Buh:
I modeled my recruitable Taken off of Wraith Lords: immortal, undead, mage-generals. Stats as of now:

hp 30, st 15, enc 0, att 13, def 13, prec 13, mr 15, mor 15, fear 1, regen 10, gcost 300, fire/unholy 4/3, standard 20, immortal, undead. Expertleader, okmagicleader, goodundeadleader.

A big difference tween WL and Taken are Taken are not Ethereal, but have better armor (black steel full plate, helmet, shield). Taken have a mace, while WL have Bane Blades. WL have more hits. Taken have unholy 3--which is a big change, and one I am observing the effects of.

Another big difference would be the regen 10 on the Taken, and the fact that they only cost 300 gold as opposed to the 40 death gems [and one turn action from a good death leader] you need for Wraith Lords.

Niefel Jarls, the most individually powerful recruitable leaders at this time, cost 500 gold - and while they have twice the hitpoints of your Taken, they are neither immortal nor do they regenerate.

Double the cost to 600d, or set it to 666d as that seems appropriate to their level of strength

At a mere 300d, I could see myself buying almost exclusively Taken, equipping them with Dragon Helmet/Fire Scale to give them protection from fire, a reinvigoration item or two, and orders to bLast away. Hey, they have precision 13, which is unheard off in fire mages elsewhere, so why not use it to the fullest.

[ February 22, 2004, 13:15: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

[Bossemanden]

I think the recruitable Taken should be changed to a theme-specific summons spell ala vampire count for Ulm Black Forest. The reasoning is that the Taken cant be bought but must be Taken through magical means.

Maybe prereq: Death 3 and Astral 3 (based on the description of the Taking of Whisper in the first book).
Cost should be in the order of 40-50 gems of either Death or Astral gems.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

I am not convinced Taken are disproportionate to the mod as a whole. There are no good researchers in this mod. That means that even with powerful magic Users, you don't get powerful spells. Early game, you are scrambling to stay alive vs. the faster starters. Mid-game you have a few ok spells like flare and fire-spark, but although the high precision makes these spells more puissant than normal, they are still low level spells. Late-game, you are really hurting due to the lack of research. Everyone else is going to be doing the big powerful spells, while the Black Empire will still be doing low to mid level spells--just a lot more of them.

I'm glad you brought up Niefel Jarls. I was trying to come up with a cross between them and Wraith Lords. I think I succeeded! I might have to raise their cost a slight amount, and I might lower their priestly power, but otherwise I think I got it right. I hope to release the module to the public sometime this week with the largest of the play balance issues worked out (so I don't embarrass myself too much). At that time you can try it out and let me know!

Right now, in one game, I am in turn 30, no heroes yet, but half and half Black Captains and Taken as commanders. I am finding the Forvalaka to be overly powerful. The Limper Infantry is about right on, now that I have increased their armor and cost. The Black Infantry has surprised me with its efficacy. Despite their low Pro of 6, they seem to really kick butt. A small screen of Limper Infantry and a large number of Black Infantry really seems to do the trick.

Strategically, the Limper Infantry is a problem. Their movement of 1/7 means getting them to the fight is hard work. Once they get there however, they do the job.

The Forvalaka move 3/30, and they are a pleasure to use. Their Pro of 5 means they die fairly quickly, which is good since they are inhumanly powerful infighters. Sorta like magical berserkers. I am going to scale their attacks back a bit as they seem too dangerous. Archers should pincushion them, but haven't run into many of those. Knights and heavy cav should also be efficacious with their lances.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Uh-Nu-Buh:
[QB] I am not convinced Taken are disproportionate to the mod as a whole. There are no good researchers in this mod. That means that even with powerful magic Users, you don't get powerful spells.

No, it means that you will rely on sages or other independents for your research just like everybody else, who do not have good researchers as part of their national theme.

Good and cheap researchers in the national theme is not a prerequisite for good research. It can certainly makes things easier, but it is seldom required.

Early game, you are scrambling to stay alive vs. the faster starters. Mid-game you have a few ok spells like flare and fire-spark, but although the high precision makes these spells more puissant than normal, they are still low level spells. Late-game, you are really hurting due to the lack of research. Everyone else is going to be doing the big powerful spells, while the Black Empire will still be doing low to mid level spells--just a lot more of them.

As stated above, I really don't think this will be the case. I think you will quite likely have found one or several sites with sages or other indigineous mages within the first 10-20 rounds, after which you have been producing at least one researcher each round.

Assuming you do not have a rainbow-mage/researcher as a pretender in the first place, and have gone for conjuration magic in order to be able to conjure up researchers for gems. (So many excellent choices)

I'm glad you brought up Niefel Jarls. I was trying to come up with a cross between them and Wraith Lords. I think I succeeded! I might have to raise their cost a slight amount, and I might lower their priestly power, but otherwise I think I got it right. I hope to release the module to the public sometime this week with the largest of the play balance issues worked out (so I don't embarrass myself too much). At that time you can try it out and let me know!

Well, what more can one ask? All the previous nitpicking is to a large degree based on guesses based on your comments. It will be nice to see the actuality.

I must say that 300 gold immortal mages with high armour, hitpoints, morale, magic resitance, precision, AND magic paths does seem a bit over the top and open to REAL abuse, but let us see.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

You make a lot of good points, but I'll just address two of them.

The first is relying on luck for research. Yep. Good point. With luck you can get your research going, only 20 turns or so behind your neighbors. And it might be more than 20 turns, as this is a slow-out-of-the-gate nation....

The second point I'd like to address:

Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen:
I must say that 300 gold immortal mages with high armour, hitpoints, morale, magic resitance, precision, AND magic paths does seem a bit over the top and open to REAL abuse, but let us see. [/QB]

Hard to refute! However, I'd still say that Niefel Jarls are far more powerful. Breakdown

NJ Taken Analysis
sz 5 2 no trample for T
hp 72 30 NJ can take more dg
pro 15 26 T have heavy armor
mor 15 15 tie
mr 18 15 NJ win self confidence
enc 4 0 T are undead
st 25 15 Big win to NJ
att 12 13 Slight edge to T
def 16 13 Makes up for the armor?
prec 12 13 Slight edge to T
mv 3/14 2/14 Strategic edge to NJ

NJ has quickness for X2 spells/attacks, huge ice cloud, an extra trample attack, fire 3, and is sacred (sacred increases cost by 50%).

T has minimum regen, is immortal, fire 4, and unholy 3. It has been argued that the unholy 3 is no help, and in the test games it hasn't. The T's armor may be too heavy; it certainly adds fatigue to their spell casting, providing a real boundary there.

I'd say that the NJ beats out the Taken overall, and that if it wasn't sacred it would cost about 375 gold and 40 res. The Taken's cost of 350 gold and 35 res seems in line--or slightly high.