Mod: MA al-Nadim - The thousand and one nights 1.01)

[elmokki]

Originally Posted by attackdrone

I noticed a few minor issues with what is quickly becoming one of my favorite mod nations.

1- Marid/Ifrit Beys and Sultans are not magic leaders. Perhaps the Beys should gain the #okmagicleader tag, and the Sultans the #goodmagicleader or #expertmagicleader tag.

That's definately a bug. Being magic beings who are leaders to lesser magic beings they definately should be better leaders.

2- None of the Marid/Ifrit Beys or Sultans are priests. Making the Beys a level 1-2 priest and the Sultans a level 2-3 priest would open up some middle-late game strategies that synergise well with the early game. As it is I need to put flying boots on a pack of Viziers (due to #1) and an Imam (due to #2) to link up with my Marid Sultans and Ifrits.

There's game balance to consider too and I really don't have much clue about that - though it isn't like getting one flying imam should be that huge problem anyway so it shouldn't matter much. In terms of plausibility I reckon that in the general theme of al-Nadim it'd make sense that the djinni are devout followers of the new god and could well have some priestly powers.

Besides, in a more djinni orientated EA version atleast the marids would definately have priestly powers.

I went ahead and implemented your suggested changes for fort creation and Marids summoned using water only (so a Marid Bey/Sultan can summon helpers - it is much more thematic). I have them making Simple Fortress (1000 gold, 20 adm, 4 turns) by default, with a Forest Fortress (1000 gold, 15 adm, 4 turns) in the forest, a Simple Hillfort (800 gold, 5 adm, 3 turns) in the mountains, and a Swamp Fort (800 gold, 0 adm, 3 turns) in the swamp. This seems to balance well in my test games. They don't need a lot of administration for the triple bless strategy I went with.

By the looks of it there's a version I released that I didn't bother to release on these forums. It's available at http://nikita.tnnet.fi/~elmokki/alnadim090.zip and the patch notes are as follows:

0.87 -> 0.9 changelog
- Scout stealth nerfed to the usual +10
- Camel Commander has finally stopped biting the enemies himself and now lets his camel do that.
- Beduin Horse Archer lost his buckler.
- Ghul are sacred in both forms. They still are technically djinn, even if tainted and evil and whatever.
- Ghul gets stealth +10.
- Highest tier summons removed.
- Marids are now just "djinn" while ifrits are special, stronger djinn. Due to that marids now have fire resistance instead of cold resistance and slightly worse stats.
- Djinn Bey (old marid bey) now has F2A2S1 with 110% FAES (same as grand vizier)
- Ifrit Bey now has with 2F1A1D 110% FADE
- Djinns are summonable at research levels 4 and 5 and ifrits at 5 and 6. Gem costs are slightly adjusted too.
- Viziers and Grand Viziers swap their W to A and their E random is changed to W random as I happen to love acid spells.
- Start fort changed to Great City, as it does suit better.
- Built forts are:
-> Fortified city for farm, plains and waste
-> Mountain Fortress for mountains
-> Forest Fortress for forests
-> Swamp Fort for swamps

Now, I seriously can't understand the reasoning for the magic path changes and I would now reconsider the removal of the most powerful summons, so I'll probably have to make a 0.91 that fixes that soon.

Regarding the fort changes, I don't remember the fort stats for those, but I believe that they are apart from Swamp Fort relatively big forts. I think it'd suit to make them smaller, more like what you suggested.

...

On another note, Water-9, Fire-9, Astral-9 Dervishes are pretty fantastic! The dual scimitars pack a punch. The price/resource point seems about right, on par with Vanheim Skinshifters and Mictlan Jaguar Warriors. Of course, Dervishes die more often (so use Arrow Catcher shield-infantry)!

Sounds like they are filling the exact role they are supposed to be filling. I just hope that they aren't too powerful in comparison to the alternatives since what I wanted was to have a sacred that is atleast somewhat viable with a bless BUT that isn't so overpowering that the only competitive way to play the nation is to go for a bless. Al-Nadim just has a good pile of other tools too.

Besides I still think the camels look very damn cool and should have some use

Also, I'm tempted to add some sort of a mounted beduin magician that has enough magic to be an useful addition to a stealthy beduin raiding party.