New Mod Release: An Age Aside

[Endoperez]

I do think they are the most powerful. They have lots of units, lots of money, can go either for awesome amounts of money (order 3) or luck (order 0/turmoil 1 + luck3), benefit from resources so can get a fast start (and more money), their mages can be useful on the battlefield (magma bolts), forge some items (earth items, burning pearl, charcoal shield, faithful). But I think that is more because of the weakness of other nations. Take away the archer and give it to some nation that is weaker.

Few things that would spice things up:
*Give the animal/charmer nation Wolfherds, make Summon Animals their national spell and make it slightly cheaper. Take away most recruitable animals so that they won't have to pay too much upkeep for the summoned critters.
*For more Ielyft creatures, check the R'lyeh mod 'False Dawn '
*consider giving some nations unique starting units, kind of heroes that exist from the beginning.

[quantum_mechani]

Endoperez said:

Few things that would spice things up:
*Give the animal/charmer nation Wolfherds, make Summon Animals their national spell and make it slightly cheaper. Take away most recruitable animals so that they won't have to pay too much upkeep for the summoned critters.
*For more Ielyft creatures, check the R'lyeh mod 'False Dawn '
*consider giving some nations unique starting units, kind of heroes that exist from the beginning.

These sound like good ideas, the only reason I did not give them the summon animals spell was because I shied away from stealing to many spells to be nation only.

On balance, I would rather weaken one strong nation than have to strengthen all of the rest. Though perhaps a national starting hero for most would be do-able.

80 may be a bit much for resource cost, but on the other hand, mech men are one of the best summons out there.

[Ighalli]

This is a pretty interesting mod!
Here are a few thoughts I have on it after loading it up: I'd say give the horse brothers the blood henge druids, which would kill two birds with one stone (mages in general and the blood thing). I'd say go ahead and steal the summon animals spell (I'd mod it to less effects and way less gems, similar to vine men stuff) because it's rarely, if ever, used in a normal game. I also think that while you're making CH and MM cost resources only, you should do that with some of the other units that are normally summoned. Maybe a succubus could be 666 resources and the animals and illusion troops could be similarly repriced. I'm not sure how resource only troops are balanced, but it makes a little more sense in my mind, at least.

[quantum_mechani]

Ighalli said:
This is a pretty interesting mod!
Here are a few thoughts I have on it after loading it up: I'd say give the horse brothers the blood henge druids, which would kill two birds with one stone (mages in general and the blood thing). I'd say go ahead and steal the summon animals spell (I'd mod it to less effects and way less gems, similar to vine men stuff) because it's rarely, if ever, used in a normal game. I also think that while you're making CH and MM cost resources only, you should do that with some of the other units that are normally summoned. Maybe a succubus could be 666 resources and the animals and illusion troops could be similarly repriced. I'm not sure how resource only troops are balanced, but it makes a little more sense in my mind, at least.

I could give them bloodhenge, but I would prefer to keep blood a minor part of the nation.

I'm not sure how 0 resource units balance either, but from a thematic standpoint only the mech men and clockwork horrors makes sense to be resource only.

[Ironhawk]

So when is the test game??

[Ighalli]

Why do you think that those should be free? They're made of complicated machines. Someone has to get the metal (resources, but some of the metal might be rare) and make the 6 foot tall watch (lots of gold). They would need constant repairs and maintenaince (upkeep). Illusions and spiders on the other hand dont seem like they'd draw a salary, of course like you said it could repepresent the summoning costs and so forth.

[quantum_mechani]

Ighalli said:
Why do you think that those should be free? They're made of complicated machines. Someone has to get the metal (resources, but some of the metal might be rare) and make the 6 foot tall watch (lots of gold). They would need constant repairs and maintenaince (upkeep). Illusions and spiders on the other hand dont seem like they'd draw a salary, of course like you said it could repepresent the summoning costs and so forth.

I will admit the resource only cost for mech men is not perfect, but I really have a hard time imagining what phantasmals would do with resources.

EDIT: I will probably try to do the test game as a #dominions IRC channel game.