Mod: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01

[rdonj]

Have you been using summoned SC dragons at all? The magma and golden dragons can be fairly effective SCs and go a long way towards making armies easier to fight. And you can use golden dragons as teleporting army assassins against undead with solar brilliance if you're careful. Magma dragons tend to work better on undead though, especially if you have a minor E/N bless.

[Loren]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Have you been using summoned SC dragons at all? The magma and golden dragons can be fairly effective SCs and go a long way towards making armies easier to fight. And you can use golden dragons as teleporting army assassins against undead with solar brilliance if you're careful. Magma dragons tend to work better on undead though, especially if you have a minor E/N bless.

I've been killed before reaching that point.

[Aezeal]

So we are not walking over AI's on impossible anymore... that sounds like balance has improved somewhat at least

I don't know how you normally (with other (vanilla) races) fare against 12 impossible AI's but personally Í think it might be a good thing you can't beat them

I will look into morale but PD exists of less wyrmlings than it did before

I've checked morale and it's all 12 (only a few) and going up.. pretty sure that is equal to well trained and elite human troops. Even wyrmlings have morale 12.. if they break I think the game wants regular troops (and militia since that is what wyrmlings basicly are) to break in that situation.

I'm not sure about avarage PD morale but I can't imagine much PD having better morale really. Not to mention I'm not feeling good about improving the race again after all reports of them being overpowered before.

The vinedragon will be looked into when I have time again. Rdonj the sprite has a "regular" size of 128 max I think but even that size makes the pictures cross over eachother on all sides.

I'm also wondering about your phrase "my fliers" since I'm pretty sure ALL dragons have flying (even wyrmlings)

the characteristics of dragons are
- flying
- (at least) darkvision 50
- (at least) size 3 (increasing with age)
- claw attacks
- magicboost 1 (for all except priestly magic, also increasing with age)
- at least pillagebonus 1 (increasing with size)
- increasingly higher magic skills (including) priestly magic (starting with 0 for young dragons though)
- having the "heal" = recuperate I think ability
- limited slots (#itemslots 61568)

[JimMorrison]

I think the "Morale" issue with the wyrmlings, especially as PD, is that with their size, their relatively low defense, and their lack of a shield - they will all spread out around the enemy on turn 1, then get horribly slaughtered. Then that portion of the PD routs, and thus puts the entire battle in jeopardy of routing.

I might suggest removing the Flight from wyrmlings, as they haven't matured enough to achieve sustained flight? It may actually make them more useful then, as they will at least stay clumped together.

[Loren]

Originally Posted by Aezeal

So we are not walking over AI's on impossible anymore... that sounds like balance has improved somewhat at least

I don't know how you normally (with other (vanilla) races) fare against 12 impossible AI's but personally Í think it might be a good thing you can't beat them

Yeah, I still fare better with the Dragons than with the stock races.

I will look into morale but PD exists of less wyrmlings than it did before

It's got less but it should have few or none. They aren't meaningful defense. There is also those "no one"'s that hurt. If you have to have them there, beef them up and make them immobile.

I've checked morale and it's all 12 (only a few) and going up.. pretty sure that is equal to well trained and elite human troops. Even wyrmlings have morale 12.. if they break I think the game wants regular troops (and militia since that is what wyrmlings basicly are) to break in that situation.

The wyrmlings aren't the problem. It's the tougher dragons. It's *NOT* just the PD, it's in combat in general against ghosts. I think what's going on is that since you are using fewer tougher units the morale-lowering from the undead gets more concentrated.

[rdonj]

The wyrmlings give the illusion of not flying, as iirc they move along the ground in combat instead of leaping suddenly where they want to go.

I am not sure I agree about strengthening wyrmlings, or about removing them from the PD. In the sense they're currently being used in, they're not supposed to be meaningful as province defense, they're what's being protected. That being the case, making them unable to fly and reducing their ap would probably be a good idea. Removing them from the PD just means they won't ever be used, because they're too expensive and fragile to be used as chaff and will underperform even unshielded militia. You also don't really need chaff with the dragons, generally speaking. But making them much stronger would not be a good idea, they're not really much weaker as it is than a venemous dragon in melee, and those cost twice as much.

I also am not sure that the dragons need higher morale, per say. I have had problems with summoned dragons routing due to fear spam even when I gave one the helmet that increases morale. But it hasn't been as bad on my armies. Maybe loren has been getting more ghosts than me, but my experience has been that the dragons win battles too fast for fear to usually be an issue. And if it is possible for it to be an issue maybe that's not so bad.

[Loren]

Originally Posted by rdonj

The wyrmlings give the illusion of not flying, as iirc they move along the ground in combat instead of leaping suddenly where they want to go.

I am not sure I agree about strengthening wyrmlings, or about removing them from the PD. In the sense they're currently being used in, they're not supposed to be meaningful as province defense, they're what's being protected. That being the case, making them unable to fly and reducing their ap would probably be a good idea. Removing them from the PD just means they won't ever be used, because they're too expensive and fragile to be used as chaff and will underperform even unshielded militia. You also don't really need chaff with the dragons, generally speaking. But making them much stronger would not be a good idea, they're not really much weaker as it is than a venemous dragon in melee, and those cost twice as much.

I also am not sure that the dragons need higher morale, per say. I have had problems with summoned dragons routing due to fear spam even when I gave one the helmet that increases morale. But it hasn't been as bad on my armies. Maybe loren has been getting more ghosts than me, but my experience has been that the dragons win battles too fast for fear to usually be an issue. And if it is possible for it to be an issue maybe that's not so bad.

The problem isn't fear spam, the problem is undead, especially ghosts. Against such an army a rout is almost certain regardless of the force matchup.

[Aezeal]

removing flight could be done of course but would make the wyrmlings even less usefull as chaff to recruit.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Aezeal

removing flight could be done of course but would make the wyrmlings even less usefull as chaff to recruit.

But they're not useful as chaff at all, already.

[Loren]

Got around to trying the new version vs 10 difficult AI's.

One AI picked an early fight when it had only a few provinces (I don't know what happened to it's expansion) and it was soon gone. I then found myself in a two-front war. The Ghost Dragons made all the difference--it took quite a while to reduce his forces but they were able to keep his armies leaderless and thus unable to actually attack. Bogarus had me outgunned by a mile in wide open space, if he could actually have advanced on me I would have been dead. I had enough force on the front to stomp on leakers but that was it and I couldn't spare the forces from the other war against Utgard.

As I was beginning to get the upper hand against Utgard Agartha decided to jump into the fray. Apparently cutting him off from Utgard (they were at war) caused him to pick a new opponent and I was the only one he bordered. He was weak, though, and died quickly.

Utgard finally fell and I sent my army against Bogarus. I was still outgunned but he had a thousand leaderless troops, I snuck around behind his battle line and gutted the rest and then I could roll up the battle line.

I got a bit of a breather to bring my PD up to stop remote attacks (Agartha would have been a real pain if he hadn't been so small--he didn't have the gems to keep it up.)

Tien Chi outgunned me at least 3 to 1 when they decided to go to war but again the Ghost Dragons really did a number on them. I really liked the battle result of him losing 500 units, no commanders and I lost nothing. (I had cut his retreat.) They are still 2 to 1 in army size but I've reclaimed my territory and am pushing him back.

The Dragon of Fate works now. Do you mean it to take multiple empowerments to be able to summon one of them, though?

I'm still in last place on research, it looks like it's going to be a win, though.