Crusader MoD

[Cohen]

I could tone down them, the problem is that they haven't any magic at all ... and Ulmish troops are pretty weak considered that xbows or flagellants with F9 blessing can slaughter them (yes I got about 30 black knights of Ulm slaughtered by the same amount of flagellants, with about 4-5 loses of them).

Another thing I've to wait for is capitol only units, that will cut off massive production of certain commanders/units.

[PvK]

You write that as if 30 Fire-9 blessed flagellants would not be formidable! They are one of the most destructive units in the game with that blessing! One of Flagellants' main weaknesses is that they can be slaughtered by ranged attacks, such as simple arrows. Practically anything will get smashed if they try to fight 30 blessed flaming flails!

Heavy Cavalry are not just to throw directly into attack against anything. They should be more of a flank force on hold/attack, while a main body of infantry occupy the center, supported by whatever support you have. They can be a decisive shock strike force when they engage the right foe at the right time, but they aren't invulnerable.

The Iron Faith Black Templars are a good baseline for comparison. I think the variety and wide range of abilities will make your Crusaders quite strong, without exaggerating their skill levels or making them cost far less than they should. It may require skill to use them, and they will have some vulnerabilities, but that's a good thing.

Testing them out in some hard battles, I see that the Awe is a massive effect - most units won't even be brave enough to attack them. I think probably none of the units really deserve Awe, and probably not Fear either, comparing to other units in the game - those are really for visibly divine units like angels, dragons, and powerful undead monstrosities.

PvK

[Cohen]

I've raised some cost of the troops, gold and res.
I've reduced the fear caused by knights, and awe too.

Infantry should have already round shield, not kite.

I'm not so sure however about this balance, since they're quite exposed to magic, even with their high magic res, many spells negates or ignore armor.

Most of the best commanders should be capitol only.
And probably templars and hospitaliers knight troops too.

To have an high bless pretenders should take high magic, penalizing scales. And I believe gold and resources are vital for this nation.

[PvK]

Comparing to Iron Faith, which I consider a reasonably-balanced nation with a similar style, I see this comparison (assuming the skills, abilities, costs, resources, and weapons of Crusader are brought into balance as I suggested before):

Iron Faith advantages:
* Better mage/priests with higher magic levels and random picks, and inquisition bonus.
* Better-equipped and cheaper heavy infantry.
* Units with seige bonuses.
* Spy.
* Units with construction bonus.
* Arbalests.
* Has better initial gem income.
* Can use undead pretenders (I assume Crusaders shouldn't have any).

Crusader advantages:
* Huge variety of elite troops and leaders.
* Almost all special troops and leaders are sacred.
* Has a unit which can heal other units.
* Has elite sacred fighter commanders for SC use.
* Has a Holy-5 priest (I think this is unique in Dom 2 - he can Smite without an artifact or being a prophet - this makes up for a lack of magic).
* Units have great morale (probably should also be weakened a bit) and standard-bearers.
* Has fire-immune units.
* Has units with built-in magic weapons and armor.
* Has strong fighting units with recuperation.

So again, I think Crusaders have plenty of good advantages, and may still be over-strong, even if you reduce everything back to normal ability levels. The main weakness is lack of magic flexibility, but they are strong enough that they should be able to conquer themselves some mages and other things they don't have to begin with.

PvK

[Cohen]

For pretenders, I have changed the Jotun unique ones, since if I change other pretender, also other nations have them.

Their National Heroes (only 2 however) are very good and skilled in magic ...

[Daynarr]

There is no need to change existing pretenders, you can make new ones and make them unique for your nation. It's quite simple really. There is avatar mod on Illwinter site that has lots of special pretenders, so you can use it to see how it's done.

Btw. nice effort! Just solve some balance issues (mentioned already) and you are all set.

[PvK]

15 MR is exposed to magic?

You seem to have some very strong views about balance in Dominions. The best Crusader national units are some of the best units in the game here, and are available from turn one. Consider if the player takes a rainbow mage with Crusaders. He has no need at all for an SC pretender, because he can hire one SC leader and a few near-SC units per turn (5-10 of which can be bodyguards for the RB mage). The RB can site search and make items to multiply the power of the holy knights.

If you want to de-emphasize magic against troops, making one nation which can simply hire the best units in the game (including comparing to late-game magic summons!) isn't an effective way to do it. That just creates one super-unbalanced nation.

What I'd suggest to accomplish that, would be to use High research cost and a low site frequency, and/or to make/use another mod that increases the power requirements and costs of the good and powerful spells. I was sort of thinking of doing one myself, not because I think it's necessary, but because I think it would be an interesting variation.

PvK

[ June 13, 2004, 00:22: Message edited by: PvK ]