Fix This Theme: Return of the Raptors

[Kristoffer O]

Chris: We would be glad to post your mod.

All: agreed, raptor theme is rather weak, as is BK.

[JJ_Colorado]

Well,

I'm certainly no expert but I just saw the Caelum Raptor theme absolutely dominate a 15(?) player game on Mosehansen. Maltrease won the game by a HUGE margin - it was never really in doubt after about turn 35 or so I would say. The theme can't be _that_ bad. Caelum is pretty good anyway.

John

[Maltrease]

Thanks for the compliment, but that was base Caelium not Raptors.

[Truper]

Originally posted by Sheap:
The obvious use for powerful priests is to cast Fanaticism.

However, I hate mixed mage/priests. They drive me up the wall. It's basically just a way of making the mage more expensive.

Heh - it's basically just a way of making the mage *less* expensive - half maintainance is nothing to get upset about. And Fanatacism is a nice option for a mage/priest on the verge of unconciousness...

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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Originally posted by Chris Byler:
(270 gold for a Holy-2 priest - ok, he's also a pretty good mage, but in terms of priest power for your money, awful).

Why do people want priestly power on their mages at all? Why do people want powerful priests at all really? Being sacred is good. Being a priest and a mage is not, since you pay more for abilities you can't use at the same time and less power on the battlefield.

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It's not necessarily that I want priest power on a mage, as that I want it on *something*. A Black Seraphine, or keeping the regular Seraphine, would have been fine, and if it had already existed in the theme I probably wouldn't have messed with priest levels at all. Or I suppose along with making the Raven Guard sacred, I could have added a Raven Champion priest commander (adding new units is a lot more work than changing the stats of existing ones, though - I want to try the present minor tweaks before I jump into adding new units, if it's even possible to add new units that are specific to a theme in the current Dom2 Version). But any nation needs some priests, especially one whose weapons melt in average temperatures.

However, I don't think priest-mages are *that* expensive, in general. Keep in mind that if you buy a priest and a mage separately, you pay full upkeep on the mage; and that you often don't need two priest-mages to do everything you could do with one priest and one mage (because you can't always find a good use for both of them every turn). Of course, some are very expensive - but I will point out that the Grand Master, Arch Theurg, Celestial Master and Harab Elder all cost the same or less upkeep than a Crone or Norn, despite their high recruiting costs. (The Sauromancer and High Seraph are a little less, but they are unusually cheap for their power - a trait not originally shared by the RotR harabs.)

[Cainehill]

[quote]Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

Why do people want priestly power on their mages at all? Why do people want powerful priests at all really? Being sacred is good. Being a priest and a mage is not, since you pay more for abilities you can't use at the same time and less power on the battlefield.

Think back to when you were playing Serpent Cult Pythium in the Twilight of Magic PBEM. All those priestly mages you had researching were able to stop researching and recall your Wyrm in just one turn pretty much every time.

There's no way you would have recruited 20 or so priests who didn't have spell casting, forging, and research ability.

IMM, that's one very good reason to love priest mages : you have the priests when you need them.

Also, when you run into an undead province, banishment is often more effective than mage spells, at least early to mid game. Again - those mages having priest abilities comes in handy.

[Boron]

a funny unit idea comes to my mind i want to share :

since caelum RotR is thematically about death and the Raptors are according to description fierce and fanatic warriors what about adding a suicide unit ?

would be hard to balance but extremely funny .

since dominions is fantasy you don't need to care about ethics . this is a game not rl.

so in the unit description should stand :
"Raptors don't care much about weak ones .
They believe in the false faith that only useful raptors may life . those which have not proven their skill in combat or magic at the age of 20 years are sacrificed .
in times of need the harabs curse them with various foul rituals . now the sole purpose in the life of these cursed ones is to "kamikaze" on the enemies of the raptors. "

these cursed units fly into the enemy and then explode .
there are 2 Versions :
the air one explodes in a lighning nova .
the death one explodes and spreads desease on area ( game technical : mr easily negates , by hit : decay ) .
the killed death Version suicide raptor revives than as soulless for the rest of the battle . if he survives the battle he still disappears ( like with reanimate ) .

suicide units would be really fun and fit very well in a fantasy game like dominions .

although they were totally imbalanced ( too weak ) in age of wonders + aow 2 ( sm )
the goblin suicide bombers there were really funny