Mod: MA-Desdares: (updated with new sprites, tweaks)

[superdestructo]

Yeah, I can compress in .zip format.
My winzip program expired and won't work without registration, but WinRAR seems to be able to compress as .zip as well. So i'll do that.

Mod:

Thanks for the input, and don't worry, i'm not offended by any "criticism" - i find it helpful

I know I have to make some adjustments.
I pretty much dialed in all the values off the top of my head, and hadn't really done a lot of game-testing. A lot of the indy units such as the priest offset some of the balance I wanted to achieve.

I fixed the summon costs for elementals, but the other technical problems haven't been addressed.


As for gameplay, I defiantly agree about the immortal units being overpowered. Instead of eliminating them, i am going to try to quintuple their gem cost and increase the research and summon requirements. They now cost 5 and 10 gems each.

Mercenary units and the mercenary commander have been altered to cost 0 resources. The melee merc has been reduced to 30 gold and the ranged merc has been improved slightly. The commander has been reduced to 90 gold.

Now, you can hire a full 40 man squad for 1290 gold and 0 resources. Of course, their wages will be almost 100 gold per turn, but they are decent troops. Perhaps they should not be included in normal armies in large numbers, but they should be useful regardless.

Devoted militia now cost 5 gold and have been slowed down to 1/7 movement speed and now have 5 encumbrance. Their morale is also down slightly. Resource cost slightly reduced. They can be somewhat powerful with good blessings.

Stalwart heavy infantry have been slightly reduced in costs. Battle Maidens have been reduced in cost to 45. They now have high magic resistance and some reinvigoration, while their berserk ability has been reduced to 1.

All summons now cost more gems and research and magic levels have been improved.

National mages have been altered slightly.

The Gold Standard priest/commander unit now has a lower resource cost and priest level 2.

The mounted commander unit has been reduced in cost to 330/60, has improved leadership abilities and has lost all death magic.

The kunoichi assassin now dual wields and has ambidexterity.


Anyway, thanks for the input. Might still need a little more adjustment. At some point i will get to fixing up the graphics a little bit as well.






Here is a full list of changes I have made:


Units:

Stalwart: (Heavy Infantry)
gcost -5
rcost -5
prec: -1

Devoted: (Holy militia)
AP -3
Map Move -1
Morale -1
rcost -2
enc +1

Crimson Guard: (Melee Mercenary)
gcost -15
rcost -3 (0)

Crimson Rogue: (Ranged Merc)
morale +1
prec +1
rcost -3 (0)

Battle Maiden: (capital specific melee)
gcost -15
mr +5
berserk -2
reinvigoration +3
heals afflictions


Commanders:

Crimson Commander: (merc commander)
gcost -30
rcost -9 (0)
pillagebonus +15
hp +1
mr +1
prec +1
lose Crossbow
upgrade helmet

Gold Standard: (gold priest)
rcost -15
Holy power -> lv2
#expertleader

Dark Lord: (cavalry general)
gcost -90
rcost -5
morale +2
lose all death magic
#superiorleader
#expertundeadleader
#poormagicleader

Kunoichi: (assassin/spy)
gcost -15
stealth -5
ambidextrous +2
(now dual wields)


Deathmaster: (Death Magic Spellcaster)
gcost +60
Death Magic +1
Fire Magic -1
#fear 1

Blightcaster:
#forgebonus 20

Lavamancer:
gcost +30
researchbonus 3


Summons:
Eternal Legion: (immortal undead melee)
AP -1
Def -1
Summoncost -> 5 gems ea.

Eternal Rider: (immortal undead horseman)
Summoncost -> 10 gems ea.

Lava Elemental: (small lava elemental)
Protection -4
lose pooramphibian
Summoncost -> 10 gems ea.

Lava Giant: (large lava elemental)
Protection -2
lose pooramphibian
Summoncost -> 60 gems


Hero:
gcost -30
pathcost -25 (25)
Loses deathmagic
Loses earthmagic
Firemagic +2 (3)
#superiorleader
#expertundeadleader
#goodmagicleader



Spells:
Legionnaire Reborn"
Cost 1deathgems -> 5deathgems
Req -> lv 2 deathmagic


Stalwart Score"
Cost 20death -> 100deathgems
Req -> lv 5 deathmagic
Research level -> lv 4

Legion Reborn - removed


Rider Reborn:
Cost 2deathgems -> 10deathgems
Req -> lv 3 deathmagic
Research level -> lv 2


Thirteen Riders:
Cost 26deathgems -> 130deathgems
Req -> lv 4 deathmagic
Research level -> lv 6


Lord's Runion -> Lord's Return:
Cost 50deathgems -> 75deathgems
Req -> lv 6 deathmagic


Lava Elemental:
Cost 3 firegems -> 10firegems
Req -> lv2 fire, lv1 earth

Lava Elementals:
Cost 18 firegems -> 60firegems
Req -> lv3 fire, lv2 earth


Lava Giant:
Cost 30 firegems -> 60 firegems
Req -> lv4 fire, lv2 earth

[Wauthan]

I've made a more extensive SP test this time and I must say that your mod have taken a big leap forward.
It's much better balanced now, well for SP atleast, to the point that all that is needed is merely fine tuning.

The immortal legionaire summons work just fine now, and the recruitable units are worth their gold.
The nation works along a very neat concept in that you want to use a strong bless strategy but need
good scales, and high dominion, to afford the troops.

The sacred units are such that any bless will work well, though F9 is brilliant with the Devoted, and give
the nation have a very strong PD. All in all you can be proud in having created a fun and interesting nation,
and one that is a good challenge to play against in SP. The battlemaiden is a really neat unit now.

I did change a few things though.

Added a few HP to the dark lord and made him Priest 2. So he can be a more survivable thug and to
give you more reason to build him. BTW you don't need to use the #itemslot command for new units,
since the game usually defaults to the correct value.

Made golden standard priest 1. He is bargain already since you summons his own Devoted.
Ten of them keeps the frontlines well supplied.

Made deathmaster capital only. He's a very strong caster and this puts a limit on how many you can field at once.

Lowered the cost for the elementals, since your nerf makes them a lot easier to deal with. 5 for Elemental,
25 for Elementals and 30 for the Lava Giant (it was the small ones that were too cheap).

I also added a few new heroes, since it just felt appropriate that a herocentric nation had all heroslots filled.

Hope my feedback is of any use.

[Cor2]

Superdestruct: If you need a good, free program to zip and unzip (no spy/adware invoved) I suggest Alzip.

Just down loaded, will get back to you on the. mod

[superdestructo]

Alright, finally got back to this.



New update has fixed sprites. I also created the lavamancer sprite from scratch, re-drew the crimson commander and edited battle maiden. Also edited the shield to be more 3-D, un-leaned and shortened the hero slightly, cleaned up the lava-elemental, fixed undead, eliminated extra black pixels, made a flag and a banner.

I also added the missing arrow sprites to the Crimson Rogue's Mercenary Bow. I think the missing sprites caused them to automatically hit their target or something... 'cause they were taking out everything instantly...

From a gameplay standpoint, here's what I remember doing.

I basically agree about the lava elementals, as fire gems are worth more. I put the summon costs back to the original numbers.

I put the gold standard back to 1 priest level and reduced his domsummon from 3 to 4.

I reduced the parry of the shield by 1.

I raised the armor value of the full plate by 1.

Increased Stalwart resource cost by 5.

I made the Crimson Commander have goodleader.

Removed fear from the deathmaster.
Removed the 25% chance of extra death level for deathmaster.
Made deathmaster +10 years older. He's 5-6 over old age now.

Gave the Dark Lord superiorleader in all categories.
Increased his cost to 360 gold.
Gave him the ability to decrease unrest by 10. Should be useful now.
However, when testing this it seems that there will always be some unrest anyway. A bunch of Dark Lords seem to keep unrest above 1 but under 10, depending on tax-level, no matter how many I recruit?


Overall, the race should be weakened slightly. A lot of unique stuff you can do. Updated ZIP is attached.

[Tyrian]

Dark Lord seems to me very overpriced. Same problem for his undead counter part(but in gems). Compare him to a wraith lord, equaly immortal, and more powerful, but more easier to conjure.

[superdestructo]

Well, I raised the cost of Dark Lord because his ability to passively decrease unrest should allow you to maintain higher tax rates in your provences.

I don't have extensive knowledge about how the economics work, but if he costs 360 and is holy, that would mean he costs 180/15 = 12 gold per turn in upkeep. In the test I did, I was able to raise taxes to 120 % and keep unrest between 2 and 5% over about 12 turns. Don't remember the exact numbers, but many provinces would probably profit from the Dark Lord's presence.

He's also got incredible leadership skills (160/160/160) allowing him to transport an insane number of troops. Basically 480 troops for 360 gold. This 4:3 ratio is the same as ordinary commanders. (40 troops, 30 gold) Realistically, you'll probably never max out his troop capacity and he has only one inventory for items, but he also costs half as much in upkeep, is priest level 1, and decreases unrest.


About the undead summon version, you are probably right. I more or less forgot about him. He is basically just a commander version of the standard immortal undead cavalry. I would give him priest level 1, but im not sure about making standard immortals holy. I'll give him increased leadership skills and look into his cost. Trying to conserve units.



PS, Wauthan -
What was that about heroes? If you have some good ones, I could use them. Generally, i'm fairly lazy. Maybe you can tell by the frequency of my updates, but I do things by whim. I also make stuff mostly in paint because I am too lazy to work out all the components of photoshop. The thing that annoys me most is when it "blends" colors when saving as bitmap. There must be some way to turn that off!

[lch]

Nice looking mod. I feel like starting another Mod Nations game...