Balance Machaka

[rtyffg]

Hmm, an intresting collection of ideas to mod.
About that spider armor - i agree, that it should be lighter, and, maybe, less sturdy how about 2 variations:
- spider armor: prot 15, def -2, enc 2, rcost 26 (as light as ring mail, as protective as scale mail, but costly) -- made for bane spiders/spider warriors (raising their defence and allowing to give them mapmove 2) -- which, in turn makes them that mentioned stealth unit, as they are already stealthy.
- light spider armor: prot 11, def -1, enc 1, rcost 16 (as light as leather mail, as protective as ring mail, still costly) -- made for hoplites (as lighter armor would allow them fast move and, again iron plate armor in a rainy climate...)
- giving a javelin/poison javelin seems a viable idea as well, maybe plain javelin to most non-bowmen and a poison javelin to hoplites and heavy spider riders? But not to light spiders, as they already have web spit attack and a total of 4 weapons.
- About small spider battlesummon - i already did a spell of throving spiders into anemy ranks, not sure they need small spiders as an addition (since spell numbers are limited).
- About skull totem - i've tried to make simulat idea (immobile lifeless wards, shooting needles with nasty effects), but lacked skill to do sprites.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

Well, lions are known as the "king of the jungle", despite being dry plains predators, so while it's still an error, it's pretty forgiveable, and might even have been intentional for thematic reasons.

I think Machaka as a theme is still salvageable. It's a jungle/rainforest Nation, obviously, but one very different from Mictlan. Not only is this Africa, Machaka also has much more modern army, albeit one that doesn't currently stand out in any way.

Thoughts: I think you've got good points about the hoplites, Kianduatha. They could stand to be brought up into competitiveness. I was thinking thought, instead of giving them mapmove 2, they might be given a single (weak) poison javelin, along with the plate hauberks and improved Machaka spears. That would make them very effective, more thematic, defensive units, while not unbalancing them due to the poison bug, since they only have a single shot.

Machaka militia could also stand to carry a single javelin into battle. This is a Nation of hunters who live in the jungle, and even the poorest peasant classes would probably carry atleast wooden javelins for self defense. That'd give them a strong militia, which wouldn't hurt their PD. Not a bad thing, I think.

The spider riders could also stand to have one of those poison javelins. That would do a lot to up their damage potential when they're closing to attack, and hopefully synergise with their shortbows enough that they become somewhat more effective when used at range.

I'd also add a stealthy (0) unit to their army. This is where I'd put the mapmove 2: It would be equivalent to a Machaka militia in stats, but instead be armed with a spear and a single (weak) poison net, with an Area 1 poison effect. Basically, a net full of tiny poisonous spiders. They wouldn't be poison resistant, so they'd damage themselves, but those nets in combination with stealth should find some uses.

As opposed to summoning spells (although I still think the Sasanbonsam unit could be a good one-more about that in a moment), I agree that I'd like to see Machaka get more National combat spells. Here's one that seems pretty obvious.

Spell Name: Arachnophobia. Alt 2/Nature 1.
There's every reason in the world to give them a spell that summons a large group of tarantulas in combat. They could have 2 hp, a 1 poison damage tiny bite att, complete poison resistance, 14 action points, and a relatively low Att. (7-9) for balancing reasons. Castable at Alt 2 with Nature 1, 1 Nature gem, and 10+ effects. The spiders could be used to defend the sorcerors, to reinforce the mediochre warriors, and ofcourse to stretch battles out.

As far as summon spells, I've come up with 3.

The first would be an improved version of Mandragora, but instead be based on the gigantic tarantulas the Black Hunters ride.

Spell Name: Instill Effigy. Const 5. Nature 2/Death 2

The spell would give you 3 Black Hunter spiders (called "Obiah"), with Sacred, Undead, MagB, Mapmove 3 and Sleepvines x2. Considering that this is a jungle Nation with a spider theme, the spell makes a lot of thematic sense, and gives you a little more reason to have a decent Bless.

You could then have an undead hero riding one of these beasts.

The second would be a spell I came up with for my Cimmeria Nation.

Spell Name: Construct Skull Totem. Const 0/1 Death. 1 Death gem.

Skull Totem
Hp. 4 Size 2 Str. 2 Att. 2 Def. 10. Prot. 3 (3) Mor. 12 MR. 12 Mv. Immobile/No Teleport. Prec. 8 Weapons: None
Fear (0), Patrol bonus (1) Demon. Self Healing.

Not the most impressive unit, but cheap and massable, which makes it effective with the Fear, and useful enough simply as a PD helper, with the Patrol bonus. It should also help a lot against early Rushes, in combination with some improved Hoplites, since it's immediately available. It remains thematic, with the Hunter theme, and the sprite is even done for it already.

Finally, the Sasanbonsam:
Spell Name: Heart of Darkness. Blood 5. Requires Blood 3/Nature 3
This spell would give you a flying, undead, stealthy (10) vampire (more or less) assassin, with 2 (strong) poison iron hook attacks, a Lifedrain bite, Immortality, and Regeneration 10.

Thematically, harpies occasionally nest on the Black Mountain, and the bravest Machaka heroes occasionally will capture one alive. They cut off it's legs, feed it a drop of the dead god's blood, sacrifice it to the dead god by putting it in a sack with dozens of tiny spiders who take weeks to kill it and fully dessicate the corpse, then the Machaka replace it's feet with several big iron hooks they've dipped in spider venom, and the Sorcerors and Voices of the Lord cast spells and perform rituals over it's corpse. It reanimates as a hideous vampire thing that serves Machaka in unlife.

It wouldn't have any magic paths, and no hand or feet slots, so it's continuing usefulness would be limited, but as an assassin it should be quite effective.


One would think armour made from spider silk and chitin would be lightweight.
Spider armour, it seems to me, should be no more than 2 Enc, tops. Maybe -2 Def, also.


What does everyone think of giving the Black Hunters/Hunter Spiders a spider claw attack? That would make them significantly more effective at dealing damage, especially as Sacreds. I'm also in favor of having the Sacredness carry over to the hunter spiders, themselves. You could additionally give them one of the mentioned poison javelins. It won't go over the maximum 4 attacks allowed, and I think it would serve to make them a top Sacred in the game, dangerous in both melee and at range.

I like a lot of this Honey.. thank you.

I still like the idea of implimenting either a spider jump, or spider charge. In my balance mods I modify the spell howl and call it awaken stick and stone...

A similar idea might be cool.. where spiders are crawling out of the wood work. Some big ones, lots of little ones.

I still like the shrunken heads, animating ala carcator.

I love spider silk armor - maybe making it 1 encumbrance - or none, but giving susceptiblity 10 to fire?

[kianduatha]

Well, the lighter spider armor isn't really necessary; Plate Cuirasses are 15 prot -1 def 2 enc, which is a good all-around for a Hoplite.

I'm afraid that coming down to 15 prot would erase every semblance of the Spider Warrior's survivability. They don't have shields, and going up to 8 defense won't really save them. Heavier armor is better for them, almost. Spider Armor would be fine changed to just -3 def 3 enc. A much better thing to do for Spider Warriors and Bane Spiders is increase their magic resist. At least the Bane Spiders. It's just criminal to have them be 10 MR.

Militia having javelins would be awesome and fix a lot with the nation as a whole. Their PD wouldn't even suck as much with so many javelins (and the militia not running in so fast to die).

I would think that one of the most important things to get Machaka is a bit of magic diversity--a bit of air access(from a summon?) would give them Arrow Fend and Wind Guide, among other things.

A sacred summon(ghost spiders? shards of the dead god implanted into a squad of Spider Warriors?) would help a bunch too. I'm hoping that it's somewhat justifiable to take a production scale(or at least neutral), what with better Hoplites and soforth. That in turn would make it easier to use Black Hunters.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, as far as the limited number of spells, units, etc., it's really becoming a serious limiting factor on mods. One that's going to eventually cut into the enjoyment of the game, atleast for me.

But, I wouldn't worry about it too much, in this particular case. Machaka is one of the vanilla Nations, and I think it deserves a certain priority, when it comes to something like spells, especially combat spells, which are already underrepresented, in comparison to summoning spells. Besides, you're not adding an entire new Nation to the game, you're just fixing one that's already taking up a lot of space.

If the smaller spider riders already have 4 weapons, then they're fine. The shortbow still seems kind of superfluous, though, but admittedly not completely out of place.

You're welcome to use my sprite for the Totems:
Normal
Attachment 9073
Attack
Attachment 9074

Machaka sorceresses already have air magic,

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Sorceress

and they're a pretty diverse Nation already, for that matter, with recruitable access to fire, death, nature, air, astral, and earth. If you want additional magic diversity beyond that, maybe they could get a capital only lizard shaman? That would give them access to Astral/Nature, and it wouldn't really break the theme, or unbalance them, since it's a pretty common unit anyway, and making it Cap would keep it small scale. Curse seems like it would be both useful and thematic to Machaka, and having early access to it should serve as an additional rush deterrant. It would also make Machaka slighly more formidable against Miasma C'tis, not a bad thing considering both Nations are likely to take Heat scales. As a bonus, no need to add another unit to the game.


As an aside, considering how blah Machaka's basic human warriors tend to be, it would be great to dress them up with some varied African weaponry.

I'm already familiar with a few of these, having borrowed some for my Aksum mod, but there's a ton more to choose from, including a wide variety of throwing weapons, and even many fantastic weapons that were intended to be used as currency.

Here's a few image galleries for use as references:

http://www.hamillgallery.com/SITE/Weapons.html

http://www.rrtraders.com/weapons.htm

http://www.joelcooner.com/African/Af...f-weapons.html

http://www.antiqueswords.com/Topic%2...%20Weapons.htm African, as well as some Asian weapons.

http://www.africanarmsonline.com/ the Designs link on the left hand side of the page is particularly useful.

http://eriksedge.com/category.php?ca...rican%20Swords


I have another idea for a low level summon, by the way:

Spell Name: Summon Wolf Spider
Requires Conjuration 1, Nature 2. Cost 1 Nature gem.
# of effects: 2
This spell summons 2 Giant Spiders (again, no need to add a unit or draw a sprite).

Giant Spiders are weaker than the spiders Machaka can already recruit, and don't have webs, but they're still pretty decent, and ofcourse much better than your human warriors.
At 2 spiders per gem, the spell is pretty cost effective, but you'd only get 2 spiders per cast, which I think should balance it out pretty well, considering the requirements to cast it, and that it would be competing with Summon Animals. Basically, it would be there to give you the option to use your sorcerors to quickly raise a fighting force, should the need arise, and you should be able to get it early enough in the game to make it effective, even considering the time spent away from researching for several sorcerors to cast the spell.

[rtyffg]

This seems to be mistake in the wiki.
Machakan sorceresses are actually FED +10%FEDN not A2S2 + 20%AWSD. Thus Machaka only has reliable access to 3F,3E,2D or 3N on recruitables.

[kianduatha]

There are just two different Sorceress units. The A2S2 one is an indy. Heck, if Machaka had those as sorceresses there wouldn't even be a point to the mod--they'd be the most magically diverse nation around and no longer subject to mindhunt beatdowns.

If you wanted to really make Machakan baseline troops a bit better, just replace the normal hide shields on their infantry with Great Hide Shields. Combine that with making Machaka Spears at least 0 to attack instead of -1, and you have decent troops. They'll still take a beating, but parry 6 instead of 4 does make a difference.

It'd be fun to see at least.

[HoneyBadger]

Not a bad idea about the great hide shields. You could also give any of their troops that don't have the Machaka spears, assegai instead of spears. Assegai could have -1 to length from standard spears, but +1 to damage and +1 to attack. That would give you more strategic depth, when combining forces.

You could also give some of their warriors knopkerrie, instead of spears. Knopkerrie would be identical to maces.

[kianduatha]

After trying out some of the armor and weapon changes, I'm more or less content with Machaka's baseline troops.

2 mapmove Hoplites(with lighter armor and correspondingly nicer defense) are good all-around troops that have minimal losses in standard fights. They're incidentally a bit easier to mass with a slightly lower resource cost, too.

Your standard armorless troops can take a better beating--they do their job much better with parry 6 shields. They can even tie up knights for a bit with their 15 defense, too.

With the Great Hide Shields on your Warriors, I can justify giving Militia javelins--they need them to stay competitive, and this will make your PD not suck quite so bad.

Spider Knights methinks should have spear and lance instead of just a light lance. It makes them a decent amount more dangerous, too.

As a question, which do you think should come first on Great Spiders and Hunter Spiders? Web or Bite? Right now they have Bite first, which seems somewhat nonsensical. I'll have to do a bunch of testing to see which is more effective overall, too.

My overarching thoughts are that there are some little things to do for Machaka still that can make all the difference. Better recruitable troops(and correspondingly better province defense) help a lot.

Another idea is to give Ears of the Lord a small (~25%) chance to have 1S. The rough idea is that this saves you having to burn death gems on Spectres and gives you general Mindhunt resistance(especially since the buggers are stealthy!). It even makes sense that the stealthy guys might get some Astral in their travels.

Try it out--between these changes and CBM's 80 gold Black Hunters, I think most of Machaka's pure troop worries are resolved. I'd still like some cool stuff like a national Arrow Fend-type spell and a late-game summon, but it's a start.

[rtyffg]

Funny enough, i was trying changes for Machaka the same time. Through with some differences.
Made spider armor -3def 2 enc. Light spider armor 11 prot -1def 1enc. Replaced plate armors with either spider or light spider ones. Tried to replace most spears with assegais. Tried to gave javelins/poison javelins to most troops.
It seems balanced variant might be something in between of those 2.
Another trought (not put into mod): maybe spider riding units could use poison bows/javelins/lances (dipped in poison of their mount)

[kianduatha]

Ooh, very nice. Initial thoughts are that the Spider Knights and Black Hunters are disserviced by getting Spider Armor--they don't benefit from the lower encumbrance and want to use the heaviest armor they can find.

I really like the Poison Javelin. It gives you something to do against crazy raiding thugs that aren't poison-immune.