Mod: Nation : Machaka Spider Cult

[Shovah32]

Only started playing but noticed one problem, the king seems to have lost his negative research by shape changing.

[Twan]

Edited, thanks Shovah.

(added research -5 to the spider form 2661)

[Shovah32]

Also i think the king could use a reduction to 800 gold. niefel jarls and dai oni for example are only 500, have far better stats, better research and 3 or so (iirc) less magic paths. (sure you can bump up the kings stats with a shape change but the magic ability and slot loss means its not really worth it imo).

[Endoperez]

I would've suggested incorporating my Anansi pretender mod in, but you seem to have added your own version of the tricksters already

[Twan]

I've re-edited the mod, fallen Anansai shapechanged back to Black Sorceress after being in spider form.

@Endo : Yes of course the Anansi pretender was my first inspiration.

@Shovah : In fact my first intention was to make the king unique but recruitable if killed, but there is no #unique command, so I've given him a very high price, can't say if he worth it, starting with levels >4 (up to 6) in a path is invaluable when you can use rituals but not that useful before. Finally I'm perhaps going to make kings heroes, except the one given at start (Machaka desserves a king as first prophet anyway), and perhaps add princes with lower magic and a far lower cost or another kind of mages.

[FrankTrollman]

Only the default pretenders can be used as the command to add pretenders may make them unavailable to other nations. Special heroes have not been added yet

Here's the current workaround:

#copystats and #copyspr a pretender you want to add to your nation. Then give that copy of the original pretender a nice #restrictedgod 68. That will make a duplicate of an already existing god that only works for the nation you want.

Eats through unit IDs fast, but it does give nations the correct feel.

-Frank

[Twan]

My first test being finished I've made the following changes :

- made the grey spiders better (13 def instead of 7, catching a running little spider isn't easy ; they remain crappy against missiles and ae spells)
- suppressed the air random on anansais to reduce the number of cross path items they can forge (and make them a little less powerful, mistformed spiders with fire shield and invulnerability in addition to a bless and eventually water/nature buffs were a little too good)
- kings now cost 750 gold but 300 ressources, to represent the ceremonies for their crowning which paralyze the nation ; I've also changed their picks, giving them nature 2 instead of the 50% random and 1 of their earth levels (note : the display of remaining ressources is buggy when you give a so huge res cost to a commander, but the creation works properly)
- added the griot as a new commander recruitable everywhere. Griots are storytellers using some illusion cantrips to illustrate their sagas. They have a standard capacity and air 1 (+10% of +1 air/nature). They also have a research bonus in sloth dominion like a philosopher

The new cost of the kings coupled with the griot bonus gives an interesting strategic choice to the nation. Without production in most cases to recruit a king will mean recruiting no other capitol only mage during 2/3 turns. Without sloth, griots are not better than witch doctors for research and have weaker magic for the same price (but may still be useful mages as they are the only ones with an access to air) ; with sloth 3 they become very good researchers for their price.

I've also added pretenders including a lich version of the machakan king and a legendary griot (rainbow human mage with dom 3 as many machakan believe that the First Storyteller has invented the world with his words).

[Shovah32]

Im running a rainbow (3 in all other than blood) griot with order 3 sloth 3 misfortune 2 magic 3, suddenly my 80 gold non-capitol only griots have a research ability of 8

[FrankTrollman]

I don't even know what you're doing here. I just ran a test game where I captured every land province adjacent to the Capitol and I had Order 3 AND Productivity 3, and I made 271 Resources.

Do you always play on 125% or 150% resources or something? Because a lot of us don't, and the King is by no means garanteed to ever be recruitable before you can cast Riches from Beneath.

Of course, in high resource games or just plan games where you happen to find a Great Iron Mine next to the capitol you could hire one every turn. It's not balanced at all.

Some Machaka positions will never be able to recruit this bad boy and other Machaka positions can crank 'em out.

I strongly suggest going back to the drawing board, because this version doesn't work on first principals.

-Frank