Two very good ideas!(i promise)

[Endoperez]

If we were able to mod poptypes, and could add a new poptype for every nation in the game, it'd be pretty simple to have e.g. the capital of C'tis to have a custom poptype that allows the recruitment of C'tis Militia, C'tis Light Infantry, Slave Lizards, Runners and Lizard Shamans, or the capital of Abysia to have a custom poptype that allows the recruitment of one type of Humanbred, Garnet Amazons (but not griffon riders) and maybe a mage of some kind (Garnet Sorceress?), etc. Even now, the poptypes of the capitals could be defined to be e.g. Knights/Longbow for Man (which would be very nice because the capital would actually have the resources to produce knights), Garnet Amazons for Abysia, Lizards and Lizard Shamans for C'tis, HI/crossbows for Ulm, tribals for Mictlan/Machaka/Tien Chi, Markata/Atavi for monkey nations, etc.

[B0rsuk]

I'd rather see it the other way around. When you capture enemy capitol, you can't recruit any units of that nation, which is very strange when you consider that, after all, C'tis is a centre of major civilisation.
I mean, you can capture and subdue various small tribes, with their fragile culture. It's verry strange that a much bigger civilisation leaves no trail at all. Additionaly, you get access to some non-national units the original player could never recruit (hidden population?).

I would love to see something like this: once you capture enemy capitol, you should be able to recruit 1-2 predefined unit(s) from that civilisation. Nothing really special, but it should stand out from regular poptypes, too. But it should be potentially useful.
Examples:
- if you capture Abysia, you can recruit Humanbreds
- Spider Riders in captured Machaka (NOT spider knights - the ones without armor) + Witch Doctor perhaps
- Harpies and/or Satyr Sneaks in Pangaea
- Runners in C'tis
- some basic infantry or regular composite archers in Tien Chi
- Arbalests in Ulm (I wonder... if squirrels report true,protection value of a shield doesn't matter against missiles.... doesn't make Arbalests even less useful ?)
- Halberdiers or Swordsmen in Marignon
- Shield+spear+sling warriors in Mictlan. They're interesting and they slaughter many kinds of archers. Actually, most slingers massacre Machakan archers.
- Marverni Javelineers for Marverni

Is it possible to mod this ?

[Endoperez]

B0rsuk, read my post before yours. It's poptype-dependent. The original player won't even see the poptype of his capital. The poptype will be all a conqueror sees besides his own national troops. There aren't enough poptypes to cover all the nations - no humanbreds, no satyrs, no non-raptor Caelumians, no halberd/pike independents (Ulm/Marignon), etc. However, many nations already have a poptype that fits them pretty well. Jaguar Tribe for Mictlan, Lion Tribe for Machaka, HI/crossbows indeps for Marignon, Slingers for Marverni, Lizards/Lizard Shamans for C'tis, etc.

Besides not being able to make new poptypes, the biggest problem is that the poptype of the capital can't be modded. It can be changed via map commands, but you'd need a program to automatically choose a random province to be the capital of a nation, and then choose which nation would start there, and then change the poptype into something suitable if you wanted to play random games.

[Ballbarian]

It can be changed via map commands, but you'd need a program to automatically choose a random province to be the capital of a nation, and then choose which nation would start there, and then change the poptype into something suitable if you wanted to play random games.

You will be able to do this with the next version of SemiRandom. I already have the random start positions and custom god files. Adding poptype to the god file would produce the desired result. (Really wish we could mod poptypes at the map file level.)

[Endoperez]

Ballbarian said:
You will be able to do this with the next version of SemiRandom. I already have the random start positions and custom god files. Adding poptype to the god file would produce the desired result. (Really wish we could mod poptypes at the map file level.)

I wasn't quite sure about the name of your program any more, otherwise I'd have mentioned it as an answer.

Also, I wish we could set maps to automatically enable spesific mods for all games played on it. That'd enable all kinds of interesting maps.

[Xietor]

You do not always get a nice province either. Many times the computer takes death 3 misfortune 3, and after suffering through that negative crap, and win a tough fight at the capital, you are rewarded with an average population province.

[HoneyBadger]

Here's an idea for a Pretender ability. It's similar to Pretenders who summon units in battle (Lord of Serpents, Lord of the Night, etc) and ones that produce units (Vampire Queen), but instead of these two abilities, you could choose a Pretender who allows you to *recruit* a special kind of unit-or a small group of related units-with gold and resources, as you would your Nation-specific units, in the same province as your Pretender is in (similar to Capital-only). Only, instead of Nation-specific units, they'd be *Pretender*-specific units.

You could then choose a Pretender who allowed you to recruit a unit that would compliment the nation you're playing with-for instance a Mountain King dwarf Pretender who allowed you to recruit dwarf warriors to support your Niefel giants or a Lady of Coral that allowed your land-based nation to recruit Shamblers right off the bat.

There's lots of possibilities-a Dragon Queen that allowed you to recruit drakes, a Lord of the Flies that let you buy imps, a Tyrant Lord that let you recruit Villains, or a Divine Huntress that allowed you to recruit archers equipped with longbows.

Balancing probably would be easier than with Pretenders that simply produce units, since you still have to pay for the special unit with resources.