Mod: Nation : Machaka Spider Cult

[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

[Twan]

Perhaps I should make the griots capitol only or raise their price (they start with less reasearchbonus and an higher price than philosophers who can have 10rp for 50 gold, but philosophers are capitol only and useless out of research).

The King can be recruited in several turns (the display of remaining ressources is buggy, but you can recruit him even with 60 ressources on your capitol it will just take 5 turns). There may be an unbalance if a lucky player gets 300+ prod even with sloth, or can't have 300 with prod 3, but in most cases a prod 3 nation will have the 300 ressources and a sloth 3 far less.

PS : I've just realised I've given to the anansais two random 100 in addition to the 25% death instead of a 100 and a 10 , they are also too good for their cost but it was an error.

[Shovah32]

Well seems pretty good for now, my only real problem now is there arent enough scripting slots for my kings who are very powerful and quite hard(turn 30 first one was ready) to create but amazing when ready(invunerability, strength of gaia, summon earthpower, soul vortex, fireshield, attack closest while equipped with faithful, blacksteel kite, horror helm, robe of shadows, earth boots, snake ring and amulet of resilience)

[Twan]

I've made 10 tests with sloth, 10 with prod 1 and 10 with prod 3 taking all provinces around the capitol on Parganos (map without special start locations)

With sloth 3 I had more than 300 ressources 1 time / 10, less than 150 2 times /10
With prod 1 I had more than 300 ressources 5 times / 10, 6/10 once prod 1 was on all provinces around the capitol , never less than 150
With prod 3 I had more than 300 ressources 6 times / 10, 8/10 once prod 3 was on all provinces (only 220 in one case but I had just 2 neighbours, 296 in the other)

Perhaps it's a little too random to use huge ressource costs on a map with fully random start (ressources are very dependant of a correct first province), but with balanced start locations (say 4+ neighbours including one forest or mountain) it works well.

[Twan]

New and probably last version.

[Twan]

Fixed the mod for dominions 3.04 (new nation number : 77).

[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

[Shovah32]

You do realise that if a commander goes over a provinces resource limit the game will just accumulate resources over several turns until he is made dont you?