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

[elmokki]

There'll be a patch to fix summon path requirements tomorrow.

[llamabeast]

I had a chance to have a nice long play with the nation this evening, so I have a number of comments.

Firstly, once again I really like this nation, it's one of my favourites. You've given it a really nice feel.

I think the overall power level is slightly below average. Everything is okay but you have no standout strong points. With that in mind I think you can afford buffs where you fancy them.

To start with your first question, I think dervishes are great. I actually think they are slightly overpriced - 20 gold might be better. As you say they are potentially powerful but will always be niche, as you simply can't stop them from dying like flies. E9 doesn't help at all, and S9 will help but they'll still be short-lived.

I think the beduins are greatly overpriced. For comparison, Sauromatian light cavalry cost around 20 gold (in CBM; vanilla light cavalry are horribly overpriced). I'd suggest 20 gold would be a good price point for the beduins as well (perhaps 18 for the archer one?). Incidentally why do they have 12 hit points?

The camels similarly are very overpriced. I'd suggest maybe 25 gold for the heavily armoured one and 20 for the archer. I'd love to think of some special ability to make them stand out but it's hard to think of one. I think the animal awe and "long" camel bite are good moves, as is putting elite troops on their backs. I think with a reduced price they would see usage.

Also with the camels, I think they would look better if you added a little shadowing on the camelskin under the legs, to make them look more like the legs are actually on the camel's back rather than superimposed on it.

I also reckon the Mubarizun is a tad expensive. Maybe 15 gold?

I like all the mages. The Mystic is definitely useful - please leave him in! A cheap communion slave alongside all your astral-bearing Viziers is a fun unit. Also the fact that he's sacred allows you to put together big holy communions to get H3 or H4 casters in battle if you're facing lots of undead.

An additional beduin mage would be cool. Leave the mystic in, but the beduin mage you suggest sounds fun.

I tried out almost all the djinns (couldn't summon the high level fire one due to lack of suitable mages). I think you've got them about right. The little ones are powerful but easily killed (although it bugs me slightly that the ifrit are more powerful in pretty much every way than the marids - fire shield, better stats etc). The Beys are nice and this time there is a clear differentiation with the Marid being the "magicky" one, and the Ifrit being the "fighty" one. I didn't like the Sultan so much - I don't think the sprite is quite up to the standards of the rest of the mod, and it bothered me slightly that the Sultan had less magic overall than the Bey, but was suddenly very good at astral. I also tried the Ghul - seems cool. She will give the nation death access but I think that's fine, it will only be on a relatively small scale and it takes some effort to get there. Plus she allows Skulls of Fire to give you a handy fire booster. Anyway overall I think the djinns are good.

[elmokki]

New version up at the first post.

0.93 (18.3.2011)
- Beduin cavalry tweaked to be more in line with Sauromatia light cavalry
--> Beduin troops hp, att and def reduced 12 -> 11
--> Beduin Raider gold cost 40 -> 20
--> Beduin Mounted Archer gold cost 40 -> 18
- Mubarizun gold cost 18 -> 15
- Mubarizun commander hp 13 -> 16 to be more in line with for example Marverni Boar Lords.
- Dervish gold cost 25 -> 20
- Camel unit prices lowered to be more in line with similiar powered cavalry units
--> Camel Cavalry price 50 -> 25
--> Camel Archer price 25 -> 20
- Camel sprites got a very subtle tweak
- (lesser) Marid stats brought to be more in line with (lesser) Ifrit stats.
- Marids of all levels get glamour again. There's a risk this is overpowered, but we'll see.
- Alchemits research bonus increased 2 -> 3
- New unit: Beduin Sorcerer
--> Mounted mage with 1F1E and 110% FEW, stealthy and 140g cost

[attackdrone]

Originally Posted by elmokki

--> Beduin Raider gold cost 40 -> 20
--> Beduin Mounted Archer gold cost 40 -> 18
--> Camel Cavalry price 50 -> 25
--> Camel Archer price 25 -> 20

These are very good changes. In test games I never built a single of any of these units due to the high gold prices combined with lack of a lance. I'll start a new non-bless game with a rainbow pretender and report back on how that goes.

Currently my test game with 0.91/0.92 using an Astral 9 / Water 9 / Fire 9 blessing is going quite well. The addition of Priest 2 to the Sultans makes a late game bless strategy effective. A crystal shield on a Sultan allows for a sacred flying divine bless force of Maridi or Ifriti. The summons make for spectacular siege troops due to the flying. Going misfortune combined with the fairly terrible provincial defense means that patrol forces (Dervishes based out of forts) are used instead of buying PD.

In my next game I shall likely go with better scales and a rainbow pretender with a minor blessing (Fire 4 / Water 4 perhaps, which should help with summons).

[elmokki]

I'm tempted to give Beduin Raiders a lance. It's doubtful that it'd make them too powerful anyway.

[llamabeast]

I like the changes!

Would giving raiders a lance be thematic? It's not something I'd visualise them using.

It's possible that the cost reductions may still have been too conservative (i.e. the cavalry should be even cheaper), but some more playtesting is needed really I think.

[elmokki]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Would giving raiders a lance be thematic? It's not something I'd visualise them using.

Historically it's probably more or less thematic to give them atleast light lance, but for the mod? I don't know. The biggest issue isn't really if they have a lance or not but that if they have a lance they need to have it in the model too instead of the scimitar.

[llamabeast]

Hey elmokki,

I don't know whether you've been following the development of Sombre's Mod Catalogue. It's a sticky on the other forum. Anyway he's been putting together a list of mods which are all mutually compatible. Using a big spreadsheet of ID numbers, we're trying to get a large number of the best mods to be compatible with each other (and CBM) so they can be used without worrying. It will also be very helpful for me as I have plans to release a big mod compilation with many of the best nation mods in it.

Anyway, since I really like this mod I'd like it to be added to the list of compatible nations, so I just went through it and moved a couple of ID numbers around (as it happened there wasn't much to do, just weapons and site numbers). I decided I might as well do a proofreading run too, so I did that - for the most part there were just a very small number of typos, although some of the descriptions for the djinn summons had got slightly jumbled.

Anyway it would be really great if you were happy to use the attached mod as the basis of future versions of the mod, so we can more easily keep everything compatible.

On the subject of the mod contents itself, I noticed that djinni have quite hefty upkeep costs. This is a bit unusual for summons (I think only trolls have upkeep in vanilla dominions) - I wonder if it would make sense to either remove them or, if you like them, mention them in the djinni descriptions (greedy for gold!).

[elmokki]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Hey elmokki,

I don't know whether you've been following the development of Sombre's Mod Catalogue. It's a sticky on the other forum. Anyway he's been putting together a list of mods which are all mutually compatible. Using a big spreadsheet of ID numbers, we're trying to get a large number of the best mods to be compatible with each other (and CBM) so they can be used without worrying. It will also be very helpful for me as I have plans to release a big mod compilation with many of the best nation mods in it.

Anyway, since I really like this mod I'd like it to be added to the list of compatible nations, so I just went through it and moved a couple of ID numbers around (as it happened there wasn't much to do, just weapons and site numbers). I decided I might as well do a proofreading run too, so I did that - for the most part there were just a very small number of typos, although some of the descriptions for the djinn summons had got slightly jumbled.

Anyway it would be really great if you were happy to use the attached mod as the basis of future versions of the mod, so we can more easily keep everything compatible.

It's work I've been avoiding (even though I think I remember the mod being mostly in correct ranges last I checked) and I'll definately include it. Thank you.

On the subject of the mod contents itself, I noticed that djinni have quite hefty upkeep costs. This is a bit unusual for summons (I think only trolls have upkeep in vanilla dominions) - I wonder if it would make sense to either remove them or, if you like them, mention them in the djinni descriptions (greedy for gold!).

Those are rough drafts for earlier age costs for the units, but I do guess they might as well be removed as if I happen to make EA al-Nadim it'll be a different .dm file anyway.

[llamabeast]

Hey elmokki,

I'm planning to release the Expanded Nations Packs mod compendiums in a few days' time, and I'd like to include this mod if I may. Is that okay, and are there any imminent changes that you'd like me to wait for?

Seems to me the mod's pretty polished and good to go. The only things I can think of are the gcosts for the djinni, and also I just noticed a comment earlier in the thread about a nametype for the nation. I haven't even checked whether you've included one (it's tricky at work), but since the latest patch there are quite a few spare nametypes to work with if you'd like to.