Mod: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights 1.01)

[Wrana]

I'd definitely remove militia as such. While Middle East states often levied common citizens as defensive troops, they were not completely untrained and often got some moderate to good equipment - I'd say something more like Bogarus lesser troops than common militia. I'd still think raiders would be more thematic.
As for other comments I'll try to test it in a few days,
Keep up the good work!

[elmokki]

I personally think the gladiator like raiders would suit a lot better to an EA version of this nation which would probably be filled with stealthy cavalry and recruitable djinns. Sadly if I ever want to make the same loosely arabic theme for an another era, it'll most definately be LA.

I was thinking of a loosely Ottoman empire based highly bureucratic one where magic is highly institutionalized and an underground Abdul Alhazred cult with something like fire/death/blood/astral-mages (probably really low level and/or random paths though) along with the official state sanctioned fire/water scholarly ones. Fire because I want to give some era a possibility to actually summon ghul (edit: actually an ifrit bey with a death random can do it) and the idea of corrupted/dead/whatever djinns sounds kind of cool too. If djinns are beings of smokeless fire, they could be beings of smokeless banefire ;P

I think two riders on a dromedar would not work without making that basket, and I believe the camel riders just simply are cooler this way. I personally like my mods as streamlined and smooth as possible and somewhat detest having multiple units on the same sprite. Technically I could make camel archers summon a foot archer unit for every battle, but that kind of feels like a non-smooth hack solution too.

Also, for me historicity doesn't really matter much as Dominions isn't a very historical game. Personally I think al-Nadim is quite historical enough when compared to other human nations in the game. It feels arabic to me atleast and that's enough for me

EDIT: Oh yeah, regarding militia. I reckon I'll make a leather armored version of the spear infantry next time I can be arsed to. That should serve as a weak but not as terrible militia unit.

Also, I did just realize that the shortbow archers aren't there just for the theme. There's plenty of fire to access flaming arrows and that should warrant archers in some cases.

[elmokki]

Here's actually an older heavy infantry sprite I'd use for LA al-Nadim and I just wanted to do some drawing to see if I can make a decent looking janissary uniform. I don't really know what janissaries should be armed with in dom3 as firearms are out of question and just making them kickass crossbowmen feels a bit boring. Crossbowman with shield and scimitar seems a bit hard to draw (shield on back and seathed scimitar and crossbow?) but would sound like a sensible option. And yeah, I know, the janissary hat should not be a cone. I'll look into it later.

For theme I reckon secret cult would be too LA Ulmish, so maybe it's either nasty al-Nadim with something like 2D 1F 1W 100% FW 10% DFWS mages or a less nasty al-Nadim that has forsaken it's past and centered itself more on astrology with 2S 1F 1W 100% FW 10% FWSE mages. Those are the two choices of main mages I find the most interesting. There should probably be some other mage too though.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by elmokki

Crossbowman with shield and scimitar seems a bit hard to draw.

Actually it's not. Just "copy-paste" the crossbow sprite from the LA Man "Tower Defender" unit to the units back and that's about it.

[elmokki]

0.87
- Militia replaced by Al-Nadim Light Infantry, which is basically a Militia with shield and normal infantry stats.
- Due to above, you'll only get 1 light infantry an 1 archer per PD point <20
- Some fixes to text all around
- The lowest level ifrit and marid summons cost a bit more gems

New version at first post.

[Wrana]

I see your point of view. Maybe more on that later.
For now - results of playtests:
0. A list of Arabian names is required. Actually, I had one made for my own attempt and you may use it (link was here somewhere, or just ask and I'll repost it soon).
1. Scouts & Spies require higher Stealth than +0. Currently, even independent Scouts have Stealth +10. And Spies with Stealth +0 are just unusable.
2. Dervishes die in droves. It's probably possible to prevent it with large masses and W9 bless, but even so it won't be so good a unit - though certainly able to cause much damage with F bless. I didn't test possible tweaks but currently they aren't so good.
3. Why so big Water? And almost no Air. Especially on Jinn it would be more thematic, I think.
4. Mullah is described as being judge, while having no such ability - or any other which would make him preferable to Mystic.
5. Vizier is described as mage of Air - and has no Air access.
6. Why Str 11 on beduin troops? I agree with Enc 3 for their cavalry - but this?
7. Marid Bei has no paths to summon lesser Marids. On the other hand, Ifrit Bei is very hard to summon without using Pretender.
8. Considering Pretenders - I don't think Fountains appropriate here. But Monolith and Divine Glyph would be. Some Middle-East-themed Pretenders also (Morning Star, Lords of Desert..., maybe even Shedu), as well as Virtue.
9. Considering Alhazred - I'd give him at least Summoning skill.

And yes, archers are quite usable - and would be even better with more access to Air! I don't see what do you mean by capital-only infantry, but they should probably get some weapon other than scimitar...

[elmokki]

Originally Posted by Wrana

I see your point of view. Maybe more on that later.
For now - results of playtests:
0. A list of Arabian names is required. Actually, I had one made for my own attempt and you may use it (link was here somewhere, or just ask and I'll repost it soon).
1. Scouts & Spies require higher Stealth than +0. Currently, even independent Scouts have Stealth +10. And Spies with Stealth +0 are just unusable.
2. Dervishes die in droves. It's probably possible to prevent it with large masses and W9 bless, but even so it won't be so good a unit - though certainly able to cause much damage with F bless. I didn't test possible tweaks but currently they aren't so good.
3. Why so big Water? And almost no Air. Especially on Jinn it would be more thematic, I think.
4. Mullah is described as being judge, while having no such ability - or any other which would make him preferable to Mystic.
5. Vizier is described as mage of Air - and has no Air access.
6. Why Str 11 on beduin troops? I agree with Enc 3 for their cavalry - but this?
7. Marid Bei has no paths to summon lesser Marids. On the other hand, Ifrit Bei is very hard to summon without using Pretender.
8. Considering Pretenders - I don't think Fountains appropriate here. But Monolith and Divine Glyph would be. Some Middle-East-themed Pretenders also (Morning Star, Lords of Desert..., maybe even Shedu), as well as Virtue.
9. Considering Alhazred - I'd give him at least Summoning skill.

And yes, archers are quite usable - and would be even better with more access to Air! I don't see what do you mean by capital-only infantry, but they should probably get some weapon other than scimitar...

0 - Isn't the amount of custom name lists limited? Oh well, I reckon I could make specific version with a name list at some point for people who don't want to mix a dozen mods. I do agree that arabic names would be far more thematic.
1 - It's a known issue. Fixed in 0.87, though scouts are +25 and should be +10.
2 - Yeah, I tested them a bit in single player. They aren't too awesome, but then again lesser ifrit and lesser marid are very usable with a water bless too, so I reckon they have their use if you have a water or fire bless as they're very easily massable with low resource cost and recruit everywhere. They're definately supposed to be flagellants on steroids, which is pretty much the role they are filling now.
3 - The water used to be air, which is why the descriptions were borked. I don't really know why I thought air was so good along the obvious fire. Water fits marids better, and it also has far more interesting synergy with fire. I do agree that the djinn themselves could have air, but I'm afraid about giving the nation more magic diversity. Air would give more power to dervishes with arrow fend and storm to shield them from arrows, but that's not a reason to add arrows. I've already once weakened dervishes for being too good anyway.
4 - He's considerably cheaper and doesn't need a temple to build. That said recruiting them is somewhat wasteful as you could spend your castle commander slot to recruiting a mystic or a vizier. That, however, is the issue with any national basic priest or commander in any nation. The description actually says "clerics and attourneys", so no judges there. I gave them 40 leadership and made them PD commanders to show of their somewhat adminstrative nature though. Imams, who actually have the judge thing in their description, might get patrol bonus, but the description is there primarily to tell that they have an adminstrative role along with their religious role.
5 - see answer to question 3
6 - Sauromatian light cavalry has str 11. That's where I took that from iirc. I reckon they could have str 10 as well.
7 - Yeah, I just thought about those today. I reckon I'll make marids pure water summons which would fix both but would also forget the smokeless fire-thingie.
8 - I don't think you can remove any of the current ones from the selection. The ones you suggested should definately be added there though.
9 - I don't think you can give it without #copystats, and I already need to #copystats for insanity, which I find more essential than summoning skill.

Some other weapon than scimitar for mubarizun would look good as currently they're scimitar infantry with different colors, but I really have no clue what weapon would be somewhat historical, balanced and look cool.

Air would surely make archers better, but then again it'd make the mages worse. Having both fire and air on one mage is rather useless, but having fire and water is good for acid spells