Age of Men: Themed Game

[Ironhawk]

The key is this kind of gray area b/w plain old mages and mages which have the right paths and are powerful enough on thier own that they could be SCs. How do you make the distinction? Or should you even bother?

Maybe you have the right idea Zen. Tho I would really hate to just nuke all 4+ commanders cause some of them are fun to have, like treelords and whatnot. But it may come down to that.

Zen said:
If you wanted to do the age of men, you should just make it so anything over size 4 is illegal (as far as commanders).

Then if you want to include the mandatory retinues, make it so that any unit defending or attacking has to have at least 25 troops (up to 25 for those with less leadership).

If you'd like I can whip together a mod removing all spells that produce Commanders over size 4 and of course GoR (the other exploit).

[Cohen]

I'd like to play, but keep in mind something like a Wraithlord is very nasty and not so big in size.

Other stuff you need to count are the nations restricted to heavy infantry like Ulm.
They probably can't afford many mages in armies.

As Age of Men, may I suggest to add human pretender rule?

Indeed, Vanheim and Man could have a great benefit cause of their elite troops and blessed mage-priest-commander ...

Another rule should be about priests, I mean, som nations have priest lvl 3 (sermon of courage) that are mages, like Abysya or Arco or Pythium. That's not fair for those nations to be forced to lose a mage "slot" for someone that is needed more for keeping their troops in the battle than direct spellcasting.

And what about Undead Nations? They could have plenty of stuff spamming skeletons, because they can get hundreds of troops easily toghether.

I'd put free mages til they've no more than 2 magic level in total, or 3. Or related 1 every 10 units.
Meanwhile the stronger mages, could be 1 every 25 units. There're still the options of false horror spamming for lower level mages.

I like the idea of a game based on national troops, we need to refine the rules however. And national heroes will mean something more!!!

[quantum_mechani]

Ironhawk said:
The key is this kind of gray area b/w plain old mages and mages which have the right paths and are powerful enough on thier own that they could be SCs. How do you make the distinction? Or should you even bother?

I don't see what's wrong with some mages (like Galdermen and Mystics) being SCs, bringing 25 toops with sets good limits on them. There is still a large niche for more mobile solo no-magic SCs. I would just mod out immortal summons and pretenders.

[Ironhawk]

My fear with Jotunhiem is thier (relative to other recruitable commanders) high base hit points. It seems to me that it would be too easy for them to get over the critical point in terms of lifedrain. But then again I have to admit that my play experience with quality SCs is actually pretty limited. What do the more vetern players think?

That's a good suggestion about troop costs, Boron, but its too much work to check it. If you just say 1 mage per 25 troops, you can just count the mages and eyeball the troops or check the end of battle info. But if you have to go through and count each troop type and check its cost? That would make the house rule more trouble than it was worth.

Boron said:
Do you think jotunheim could be allowed then too ? Just niefelheim gets disallowed but i think a normal jotun commander hasn't a big edge compared to a tuatha or van .

2nd i would suggest the following rule instead of the 25 men rule :
Each mage has to bring with him troops worth 300 gold .
This encourages players to build expensive units also like hydras or knights .

[Boron]

Ironhawk said:
My fear with Jotunhiem is thier (relative to other recruitable commanders) high base hit points. It seems to me that it would be too easy for them to get over the critical point in terms of lifedrain. But then again I have to admit that my play experience with quality SCs is actually pretty limited. What do the more vetern players think?

That's a good suggestion about troop costs, Boron, but its too much work to check it. If you just say 1 mage per 25 troops, you can just count the mages and eyeball the troops or check the end of battle info. But if you have to go through and count each troop type and check its cost? That would make the house rule more trouble than it was worth.

Yeah but a militia costs 7 gold while a knight costs about 70 gold .
So in order to get the quote for mages many players will rather build stuff like slingers/militia than knights because the mages still rock knights .

Maybe just these summonable SCs/Thugs should be modded out :
-Wraithlords
-Banelords
-Tartarians
-AQs
-IDs
-ADs
-Waterqueens
-Heliophagii
-Demon lords
-Devils

More questionable :
-Vampire lords
-Firbolgs
-Earth kings
-Fire kings

Maybe i missed 1 important Sc type .
The golem could be left in because he has astral 1 , so can easily be killed with mind duel .

Furthermore jotunheim niefelheim is forbidden .

Finally i would do these 2 additional changes :
-Wrathful skies needs now A7 to cast
-Remove wish

Soul contract i am not sure if it should be kept or not .

Anyways these changes should take only about 10 minutes to make as a mod and then the SC abuse fear is gone .

Ermor e.g. gets 1 wraithlord hero so this hero is then out of a sudden just a really nice national hero .

[quantum_mechani]

Boron said:

Maybe just these summonable SCs/Thugs should be modded out :
-Wraithlords
-Banelords
-Tartarians
-AQs
-IDs
-ADs
-Waterqueens
-Heliophagii
-Demon lords
-Devils

More questionable :
-Vampire lords
-Firbolgs
-Earth kings
-Fire kings

Every one of these is larger than size 2 (except the Vampire
lord which I already said should be removed) thus couldn't be equiped with SC items. In addition all but the Banelord have magic meaning they must bring a troops escort. I can't imagine even an air queen being over powered with no items and 25 troops where ever she goes.

Furthermore jotunheim niefelheim is forbidden .

Finally i would do these 2 additional changes :
-Wrathful skies needs now A7 to cast
-Remove wish

Soul contract i am not sure if it should be kept or not .

Anyways these changes should take only about 10 minutes to make as a mod and then the SC abuse fear is gone .

Ermor e.g. gets 1 wraithlord hero so this hero is then out of a sudden just a really nice national hero .

I don't see niefelhiem being that bad, the jarls can't have items and need to bring troops. Wish I'm not sure would be that bad without Gift of Reason. You make a good point about
dead Ermors, they should probably be outlawed (or at least be required to take misfortune 3).

[Ironhawk]

People are getting sidetracked by all the traditional SC chasis. The house rule states that only *recruitable* size 2 units can be used in an SC fashion. So Wraithlords, Firbolgs, Vampire Lords, etc, all cannot be equipped in that way. You could still use them as mages or thugs or something, but no more than that.

Yeah Ulm is just as crippled as ever.

Human pretenders might be fun too, yeah. It is the Age of Men, after all

Very good point about priests. I think the way to tackle that problem, instead of trying to add some additional work of checking whether a mage is 1, 2, 3 in some magic path is just to mod the nations in question. I will take thier cheapest mage/priest unit that has H3 and copy it and remove all magic (except for holy) from the copy. (Can this be done via modding? Do I have to overwrite an existing commander for that nation?)

Undead nations will definitely have far too easy a time complying with the troop house rules. I think that all nations which have units with Unholy magic should be Banned (just Ermor and Ctis DT, i think?)

National heroes will definitely be something to get excited about in this game. I'm looking forward to that!

Cohen said:
I'd like to play, but keep in mind something like a Wraithlord is very nasty and not so big in size.

Other stuff you need to count are the nations restricted to heavy infantry like Ulm.
They probably can't afford many mages in armies.

As Age of Men, may I suggest to add human pretender rule?

Indeed, Vanheim and Man could have a great benefit cause of their elite troops and blessed mage-priest-commander ...

Another rule should be about priests, I mean, som nations have priest lvl 3 (sermon of courage) that are mages, like Abysya or Arco or Pythium. That's not fair for those nations to be forced to lose a mage "slot" for someone that is needed more for keeping their troops in the battle than direct spellcasting.

And what about Undead Nations? They could have plenty of stuff spamming skeletons, because they can get hundreds of troops easily toghether.

I'd put free mages til they've no more than 2 magic level in total, or 3. Or related 1 every 10 units.
Meanwhile the stronger mages, could be 1 every 25 units. There're still the options of false horror spamming for lower level mages.

I like the idea of a game based on national troops, we need to refine the rules however. And national heroes will mean something more!!!

[Ironhawk]

After talking it over in IRC, we came to some conclusions about how the house rules will work out. To avoid any confusion over what is acceptable in terms of an SC chasis we are removing the size restriction on that rule:

2) Only recruitable commanders can be used as SCs

And then outlawing the use of Jotunhiem. The remaining nations have a handful of size 3 and size 4 units but they've been looked over and dont seem overpowered. To put any magic item, other than a magic booster, on a summoned commander would then be considered a violation of the rules.

Additionally, any nation that has Unholy magic will be Banned since it can too easily circumvent the troop requirements of house rule #1. This means: All flavors of Ermor, Ctis DT, Pangea CW, and Ulm BF.

Lastly, a handful of summoned commanders are too powerful even without items and will be removed. Most notably Vampire Lords and the ID with the Hellsword. Others may be included at a later date.

[Cohen]

What about giving some equipment chances to some summons?

An example is the Firbolg, that has 15 precision, that would be wasted without a bow. In that case I'd have nothing contrary giving to a firebolg a magic bow.

Who's in charge to remove the magic item slots from any big guys? Even because in limit cases someone could loot from enemy a cursed item, so he can't remove that Scythe of Slaying from his guy.

Underline the fact that some "magic booster" are damn good weapon, apart from SunSlayer that is unique, the Blood Thorn is non unique, and have drain life.

[quantum_mechani]

Good point about bows, it seems like a good idea to alow ranged weopons as well as boosters on any commander. I think we decided to mod out the blood thorn.