Exalted Mod

[Vicious Love]

Duuuude. I may be getting on a tangent here, but am I the only one who sees the awesome potential of a whole line of grotesquely unbalanced modded nations? You can either pit a dozen or so ordinary nations against one, or set two or more up against each other and indulge your overkill fetish. I mean, comparing Sidereal to Doom Horrors, I was reminded of how I find it weird that Dominions has only one type of horror, in a few sizes, when by all rights there should be hundreds of types of 'em. I then realized that one of the few things that could pose a threat to a Cosmic Smackdown nation like East Exaltedonia, other than R'lyeh as it Should Be, would be a Horror touched, Horror controlled nation. Boo-yah!
But I digress...

[Scott Hebert]

I'm glad there's some enthusiasm for the project.

The Solar mod is finished. They replace Marignon, for obvious reasons (or at least, obvious to those who know Exalted). Please don't 'whine' about the graphics, as I don't have a way to modify them yet.

Regarding balance, each Solar costs 450g, and 50 Resources. They all have FS???, with two randoms in Elemental and one in Sorcery. This is to prevent big gains in Death or Blood, which are definitely not thematic for them. They all have a base 30HPs and recuperation. They are also all Sacred. Differences by caste follow:

Dawn: Fear(+15), Standard(+15), Leadership 75
Zenith: HHHH, Awe(+0), Leadership 125
Twilight: Extra pick in Elemental, and Sorcery; only 25 HPs, Regenerate 10%, Forge Bonus 25%, Research bonus: 4, Healer 10%, Leader(all) 10. (Yes, they're big. They're your best Researchers. Good luck affording them.)
Night: Stealthy (+30), Assassin, Spy, 25 Leadership. These are possibly the best Assassins in the game, but they cost 4 times the amount of an Empoisoner.
Eclipse: Awe (+6), All Survivals, Sailing, good leadership.

The Eclipse is Mounted, the rest are on foot. The Twilight is the worst combatant, then Zenith, then Eclipse, then Night, and finally Dawn (best).

The only other commanders you get are the 'basic' independent commander, and the 'basic' independent priest. Your troops are Broadsword HI, Spear/Javelin LI, Ring Mail Archers, Bow LC, and Lance/Broadsword HC (which may go away). You start with a 'basic' commander, and 20 HI. In an initial test, it doesn't seem that much different than other nations, and I'm playing on Rich.

Next in the 'pipe' is the Lunars. I _do_ wish I could restrict randoms to only specific magics. If I could, I would remove the Elemental/Sorcery distinction from the randoms on the Solars, and instead say 'anything but Death/Blood'.

My only other question is how do I get this uploaded? I don't really have anywhere to put it Online.

Scott

[Jurri]

Agreed on the game balance! Out of the window it goes.

I contemplated an Exalted-mod earlier, but found the present modding tools lacking for my vision. What I envisioned doing, however, was some half a dozen nations balanced against each other, if at all. Some thoughts on that, perhaps it evokes some thoughts:

-The Empire
Very strong elemental exalted, no randoms however. Like, 3 or 4 on single path. A cool Empress pretender. A modified "Wild Hunt" ritual as a national spell - the point being that only the different kinds of Exalted and Faeries would be holy; Difficult to balance, though.

-The Northern barbarians
An uber-cool Solar pretender, the bull guy of the North. Assorted barbarian chaff as armies, Solar Exalted as national heroes, Lunars as recruitable commanders.

-The city state of Nexus
All human armies with very sucky pretender options. Merchant commanders with blood, the reasoning being that blood slaves would represent those things they offer to various protective spirits. Also alchemists and sages, seeing as Nexus is the center of learning. All with blood, with blood being the school to be modded for hedge magic. You can see where it went too complicated

-The Deathlords
I thought about doing a map with, say thirty provinces of underworld, from where only certain places could be accessed (the Shadowlands). Very strong independent Deathlords and powerful magic sites in the Underworld to conquer. Powerful pretender options and summonable Abyssal Exalted heroes alongside autosummoned rabble.

-The Celestial city
On similar veins, with immobile gods for pretenders, and a separate map for the City. Immobile like the Sphinx that is, no teleporting. Stealthy Sidereal Exalted commanders, only able to leave the city through a national teleportation spell.

-The Yozi
Again, a dimension of their own. A national modded send horror spell, sending a succubus instead, in order to gain commanders in the real world. These would be the Infernal Exalted and others possessed by the Yozi. Also a national blood gateway spell, very high cost, so the Yozi can leave their realm. This would signal the end of the world, as the Yozi would be better than anything else.

The idea would be that the Yozi player tries to score some commanders and provinces from the real world so he can blood hunt the slaves he needs to get his gamebreakers out of their confinement. The Yoziland wouldn't, of course, have any population. You can see why it is I never even begun the project

-Faeries
Main catch being a national crossbreeding-like spell, only with very varying results, from bugs to behemoths.

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Well, this actually can't be too useful for you, but here it is anyway!

[Scott Hebert]

As for the Sidereals... heh. Yes, they're going to be very good Astral mages. No, they're not going to be SCs. It's hard for someone with 10HPs, no armor, and a 10 base encumbrance to be a SC, no matter what kind of buffs they have.

Scott

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Jurri:
Agreed on the game balance! Out of the window it goes.

Actually, I'm trying to retain game balance, but on a different level. If I can find the proper balance point for the Solars, then I might go with the 'nation' approach.

I contemplated an Exalted-mod earlier, but found the present modding tools lacking for my vision. What I envisioned doing, however, was some half a dozen nations balanced against each other, if at all. Some thoughts on that, perhaps it evokes some thoughts:

What I want more than anything is magic item modding for daiklaves and whatnot.

-The Empire
Very strong elemental exalted, no randoms however. Like, 3 or 4 on single path. A cool Empress pretender. A modified "Wild Hunt" ritual as a national spell - the point being that only the different kinds of Exalted and Faeries would be holy; Difficult to balance, though.

Well, my plans for the Terrestrials won't have them so powerful, because they need to cost about 1/3 of the Solars (so 150g, currently). I _really_ like the idea of a Wyld Hunt Ritual, though. I'll see if I can incorporate it.

-The Northern barbarians
An uber-cool Solar pretender, the bull guy of the North. Assorted barbarian chaff as armies, Solar Exalted as national heroes, Lunars as recruitable commanders.

This is very similar to what I plan for the Lunars. All the Barbarian troops, and Lunar Commanders. No Bull of the North, though.

-The city state of Nexus
All human armies with very sucky pretender options. Merchant commanders with blood, the reasoning being that blood slaves would represent those things they offer to various protective spirits. Also alchemists and sages, seeing as Nexus is the center of learning. All with blood, with blood being the school to be modded for hedge magic. You can see where it went too complicated

I'm not sure if Nexus is the 'center of learning'. Blood would be nice to represent the Slave trade, but it's too close to what the Yozis and the Infernals are doing for my tastes.

-The Deathlords
I thought about doing a map with, say thirty provinces of underworld, from where only certain places could be accessed (the Shadowlands). Very strong independent Deathlords and powerful magic sites in the Underworld to conquer. Powerful pretender options and summonable Abyssal Exalted heroes alongside autosummoned rabble.

Yes, an excellent idea about the map. The Abyssals, as is their nature, will be dark mirrors to the Solars.

-The Celestial city
On similar veins, with immobile gods for pretenders, and a separate map for the City. Immobile like the Sphinx that is, no teleporting. Stealthy Sidereal Exalted commanders, only able to leave the city through a national teleportation spell.

Interesting idea! I'll have to see if I can incorporate this.

-The Yozi
Again, a dimension of their own. A national modded send horror spell, sending a succubus instead, in order to gain commanders in the real world. These would be the Infernal Exalted and others possessed by the Yozi. Also a national blood gateway spell, very high cost, so the Yozi can leave their realm. This would signal the end of the world, as the Yozi would be better than anything else.

That would be quite interesting. I don't think I'd let them leave, though.

The idea would be that the Yozi player tries to score some commanders and provinces from the real world so he can blood hunt the slaves he needs to get his gamebreakers out of their confinement. The Yoziland wouldn't, of course, have any population. You can see why it is I never even begun the project

Oh, I don't see why they can't recruit demons. They'd just have to do it with gems. Interesting, really. They would be a Blood equivalent of Soul Gate Ermor.

-Faeries
Main catch being a national crossbreeding-like spell, only with very varying results, from bugs to behemoths.

How neat. You could use all of the Sidhe commanders for the Fair Folk themselves, as well.

Well, this actually can't be too useful for you, but here it is anyway!

Actually, it was extremely helpful. Thanks!

Scott

[Endoperez]

Mods can be changed 'on the fly'. I am not sure but with --postexec it might be possible to change the mod file so that the recruitable commanders will be different for one turn at a time. All units/commanders would be available at every fort, though, as long as you are unable to mod sites...

I think the --postexec is only executed in the host-computer, so the game would have to change the mod file of that turn too. I'm not sure if this would work, but wanted to share the idea...

And this mod seems to very interesting.

[Scott Hebert]

Hmm. Endoperez, could you perhaps elaborate on this? Are you saying it's possible to switch the units available to a given nation (through switching the mod) on a turn-by-turn basis?

For example, it's possible for me to have 5 mods, all the same except for what type of Exalted is recruitable, and switch between them on a turn-by-turn basis? Can you randomize this?

Scott