Mod Project - Metaphysics

[Gregstrom]

It's time-consuming, but... If you gave each nation a series of spells that could summon unique researcher units (so multiple spells and unique units would be required for each nation) then you could both cap the number of researchers per nation (i.e. if a nation had 5 summon spells, they could only get 5 researchers) and, by setting costs and/or research levels of the spells appropriately, you could limit how quickly a nation got them.

Inanimate units may well be immune to seduction, I think.
Complete immobility might be a good idea, as it makes them less usable in combat.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

It's time-consuming, but... If you gave each nation a series of spells that could summon unique researcher units (so multiple spells and unique units would be required for each nation) then you could both cap the number of researchers per nation (i.e. if a nation had 5 summon spells, they could only get 5 researchers) and, by setting costs and/or research levels of the spells appropriately, you could limit how quickly a nation got them.

Err. Ain't that simply impossible? 70 nations x 5 spells takes 350 spell slots, over the limit by about 220 spells. Only way I could see this happen would be to make a different version of the mod for each era and save spell slots by overwriting nationals from other eras.

But is this all trickery really so necessary? I mean we're playing (mostly) against humans? You could just say that you can only have 3 researcher units, if someone cheats, you could easily tell it from the research graph.

[LDiCesare]

But then you'd have to turn the graphs on all the time.
There are spells that can summon several uniques though (Elemental royalty for instance). Isn't that moddable too so you'd need just one spell per nation?

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

But then you'd have to turn the graphs on all the time.

Perhaps not. You could houserule that when a player is elminated, the player responsible has to send his turn file for the eliminated player to inspect.

But I find it kind of silly to assume that players would cheat if the mod gave the opportunity. We have a pretty solid community here, right? But I just might be naive, thought.

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

There are spells that can summon several uniques though (Elemental royalty for instance). Isn't that moddable too so you'd need just one spell per nation?

Sorry, can't do.

[Illuminated One]

Well, I will try to monitor the usage of special units and spells.
It's very exploitable and better safe than sorry.
Also this would allow a lot more modding options (a spell that changes, depending on how often it was cast, or gets random results, etc).
This is what will keep me for a time, the researcher units are basically finished, except tweaking them.

So I will probably go along these lines (maybe I'll add the opportunity to boost research with a second shape but with a huge upkeep cost - like when you were only recruiting high level mages):

Good research (Arco, Bogarus, Marverni, Pythium, Man, Marignon, Abysia, Bandar)
Turns-----1-----2 to 11---12 to 23----24 to 35---36 to 48---49+
RP/Turn--200------80-----------140-------200-------270------350

Mediocre research (...)
Turns-----1-----2 to 11---12 to 23----24 to 35---36 to 48---49+
RP/Turn--100------60-----------120-------180-------250------340

Bad research (Niefel, Mictlan, Sauro, Pangea)
Turns-----1-----2 to 11---12 to 23----24 to 35---36 to 48---49+
RP/Turn--0------40-----------100-------165-------240------330

Similarily 3 different costs
Expensive (Pythium, MA Ermor, Caelum, Hinnom, Van, Hel, Abysia, Lanka, Bandar)

Mediocre (...)

Cheap (Mictlan, Lanka, Arco, Ulm, Jomon, Man, Agartha)


Magic 3 scales will mean +30 more rp/turn.

As you can see the distribution favors weak nations, however I tried to keep it thematically justified.

Here are my indicators
Good research - highly cultured, strong progressive movement
Bad research - barbaric, very traditionalistic or even backwards

Expensive - established, possibly decadent magocracy, money/status motiviation for research
Cheap - more down to the earth mages, altruistic or patriotic motivation

Are the differences to big/small?
Would be interesting to compare to score graphs of normal games.