Knighst of Light mod

[Pocus]

I adjusted further my private Version of your mod, tell me what you think:

The charriot is too cheap, there is no purpose on building cavalry, so I raised the cost by 10.
I renamed the holy masters (one of each is holy) High Master.
The 2 upper class HI, I renamed them "Elite ..."

Aside that, I made the modifications I spoke before too. Overall, the mod seems rather balanced.

Do you plan to have cheap xbows, or a siege tower / catapult?

[sube]

I think that is probably correct to increase the chariot cost, but maybe an increase by 10 is a bit too much? I'll give a try, probably you are right.

As for the crossbows, I exchanged the full chainmail with a chain hauberk, this decreases the resource cost from 25 to 23, if I remember correctly. I wouldn't like to go lower than that...

And I have been thinking a lot about the siege tower, because I like the idea. But how could be that implemented? High hp and prot, huge siege bonus, but what kind of attack should it have, missile? Actually that's maybe not very important since you would use in sieges, and try to keep it out of battles.

However, I have a doubt about the siege tower: ifwe give these knight also siege engines, wouldn't they get too powerful? How would you implement that?

[PhilD]

Originally posted by sube:

And I have been thinking a lot about the siege tower, because I like the idea. But how could be that implemented? High hp and prot, huge siege bonus, but what kind of attack should it have, missile? Actually that's maybe not very important since you would use in sieges, and try to keep it out of battles.

No Protection, no Defense, high HP, fire vulnerability, big area fire attack (or boulder).

Or am I wrong about it?

[Tricon]

About the siege tower:

- Fair to high HP 60-80?
- Protection 6-8 or more (Depending on the time period, siege towers were armored and/or coated with a fire resistant mixture .. I do not have the name of it, though)
- no defence
- fire vulnerability
- high siege bonus
- low magic resistance
- high morale
- very low movement rate 1/3?
- average precision
- high cost (in gold.. I'n not sure if it can be considered resource heavy, but I leave that open to debate)
- probabably an archer attack (historicly siege towers were obviously very seldomly used in open battles. Usually these towers were built near the fortresses you wanted to siege. The most logical use in an open battle IMO would probably be as an archer platform. There are some reports that the romans used siegetowers as quick and easy towers for temporary forts.)

As for the chariots... well, I think the price is OK. They are mighty against independant militias and other light troops, but they have a very hard time against knights/heavy cavalry. Not to mention larger opponents like jotuns.

Inmy current game perhaps the biggest advantage of the OoL is a fast early expansion because of their good armors. However, nothing that a SC cannot do for any other nation as well. Against other nations, like Man or Jotuns (current borders) they're strugling. The Knights/knights of avalon or niffel giants are powerfull morale breakers. But that's to be expected of them. main point is... right now I think the OoL is very ballanced. A new unit like the siege tower would not change that if it's uses are limited or counterbalanced by weaknesses. SP and MP has to differentiated here, IMO. A unit suceptible to fire is a definite weakness in MP games (considering all the items and spells out ther, especially flaming arrows). In SP the AI is not as "fire happy" as most players. Overall something that shióuld be tested in-game a lot.

[Pocus]

@Tricon : check the stats and the prices of the knight and the charriot. Now tell me why you would want to build cav, when you have a charriot nearly superior in every other aspect?

The (unarmored) Arcoscephalian Charriot cost 40. I dont think that 45 is too few for the OoL one.

@Sube : I'm far from thinking that OoL is a powerful nation. The magic they can field is rather average, not to say poor. They are far less versatile that most other nations, and in the end, dominions is a game of magic (if you want to win). So dont be worried, you can still add a siege tower (or a catapult, to throw some boulders) without overpowering the race.

If you keep a siege tower, I would give them a bow of war to represent the numerous archers they bring, but the price of such engine would be very high (if you add also, as you should, a siege bonus). Something around 300-350 gp...

[Tricon]

@Pocus Nothings really wrong with the price, or maybe even 5 gold more... I rather think that the cav is overpriced a bit. The only reason for me to purchase cav (now) is the pretty good lance weapon/reach (but I'm at work now. ...I only know for sure that the masters have the good lance, I'm not sure about the cav)

On what do you base the price of the siege tower? 300-350 seems extreme. I was thinking allong the lines of 200 GP. but I haven't done the math yet. So it's an honest question.

If you'ld be so kind as to tell me how you modded the mod, I'ld be much obliged. Did you just open the file with a text editor and changed the according lines? What is necessary to mod an existing mod?


An as for the OoL being overpowered... I don't think so, too. They're somewhat dependant on a decent starting position (resources). Have no real versatility with magic, are very slow and fairly easy to exhaust on the battlefield.
My next games will be against OoL... I'm sure I'll find some more weaknesses.

Again: Thumbs up for this mod. My favorite so far.

[sube]

Tricon: yes you open the .dm file with a text editor (I use wordpad), then you change what you like to change - in the dominions2/doc directory (if I'm not wrong) there are modding instructions.

And by the way I find cool the idea of giving defence 0 to siege towers, because it introduces interesting strategic elements. You'll have to move your towers carefully on the map, because they are extremely useful in sieges, but if the enemy catches them in a battle, then thanks to their 0 defence they can be easily dispatched - and bye bye to 200 gold!

So when I have more time I'll start working a bit on the graphics. For the meantime, I have Version 1.1 almost ready: not many changes actually, only a few fixes and price changes which I still have to test. And I added another wizard, a lvl3 fire. Not yet sure if it's a good idea, I don't think it's going to give a tremendous boost to the magical power of the knights, the idea is that they should not completely suck at magic like in the present Version.

[Daynarr]

AFAIK there is no possibility for now to mod unit bonus to siege or castle defense. That will make it hard to implement siege engines properly since they wont have bonuses in sieges.
Giving large strength for catapult or siege towers might do the trick temporarily as strength is counted in sieges/defenses but attack values should be low. Actually giving high strength and throw boulder ability (like the one Jotun's have) would make a catapult both throw them at large distances and usefull in sieges.

[Tricon]

Originally posted by Pocus:
@Tricon : The cavalry is not overpriced by far, its a very good cavalry for the price. Compare the following units:

indep heavy cav :45 gold, 48 res
to
OoL cav : 42 gold, 55 res


Thats why he must be costlier. I rised to 50 gp, and everything seems in balance. Please check the arcoscephalian chariot, you will see (and they are not armored).

Thanks for clearing that up. I didn't have access to dom2 the past two days, and will not have or the next 5.

Originally posted by Pocus:
@Sube:
Fire 3 for a mage is not that interesting IMO, perhaps you can add a mage fire 2, random (elemental) 2 (same pick twice), this way the OoL would be a bit more versatile, with a chance to get earth 2, air 2 or water 2. But its IMHO.

I agree 100 %. Fire three is cool, of course, but you get them in regular games anyway...once in while , at least. Introducing a second random "slot" brings more versatility and makes the OoL not so heaviliy indi dependant for good spellcasters. -- But in all honesty, I do not see the "comic" reference to that. (..but I 've only read 1-8,reread it this week ...inspired by the mod )

Rereading the comic got me thinking about the other major parties. How about we start a side discussion (either here or in a new thread) about
what units each party should have, or the order in which we can "persuade" sube to do them .

Not meant to really interfere with your baby, here... but it would be interesting to see nonetheless.
...
One of the problems I see is how to differentiate Parcifals order from the OoL in a way that make sone play them differently. There are of course ´some major difference, especially in magnitude of magic used. From the art of the comic, one cwould assume that they are even better armored than the OoL and have perhaps even better elite troops, though far fewer in number.... But I'm getting ahead of myself here. So how about it ?

[Pocus]

@Tricon : The cavalry is not overpriced by far, its a very good cavalry for the price. Compare the following units:

indep heavy cav :45 gold, 48 res
to
OoL cav : 42 gold, 55 res

The OoL has better stats :
20 prot vs 19 prot
12 morale vs 11 morale
14 defence (!!) vs 11 defence

so the problem is not in the hvy cav, but in the charriot : he has the same stats that the hvy cav, with even a 22 prot, and can trample up to and including cavalry (size 4), for 35 gold & 50 res.
Thats why he must be costlier. I rised to 50 gp, and everything seems in balance. Please check the arcoscephalian chariot, you will see (and they are not armored).

Siege tower at 350 gp : this is because I spoke of adding a bow of war to them, a magical item giving 13 arrows for each volley, so the cost... If the ST keep a boulder, as Sube wants, then 200 gp is a fair price, depending of the siege value.

@Sube:
Fire 3 for a mage is not that interesting IMO, perhaps you can add a mage fire 2, random (elemental) 2 (same pick twice), this way the OoL would be a bit more versatile, with a chance to get earth 2, air 2 or water 2. But its IMHO.

Dont forget to change leaderships values, I gave a 50 leaderships to most military leaders, as the OoL is renowned to field large armies, poor leaders to mages, and 25 leaders to the 80 gp priest, as they are war-priests. Again, its a proposal, its your mod.

[ February 26, 2004, 12:14: Message edited by: Pocus ]