MA: Jomon: The Courts of the Ryu - Looking for insight

[legowarrior]

You think we should go with linked paths?
If we are going to keep it at over 300 gold, then I think we should have 2 map movement. Get rid of healing. Old age should be countered by the Nature magic.

[shatner]

When I first started that post you hadn't yet written your "H:2, F:1, A:1, W:1, E:1, N:1 + FAWEN x 110%" version of the Saigu yet; my linked paths version was meant to be a response to your linked paths version.

I think if this caster is going to be a flimsy human stat-wise than she should by roughly the same as the Imperial Alchemist as far as cost and total paths. The two fill a similar conceptual space (cap-only AEFWN mage with healing)... but that's just my take on it. This is your mod, it's your vision/design that determines what is appropriate for the capstone caster and, as we can tell from my table of MA capstone mages, the cost and power of a mage can be way over or way under the average based on the nation's design (Shinuyama's super cheap and awesome Sorcerer, Ermor's slow, old, magically average but undead spawning Grand Thaumaturge, etc., etc.).

Based on what you've said, I'm guessing the theme for MA Jomon is "expensive, diverse but magically powerful mages". Every single mage of theirs is rockin' at least one pick off of a AEFNW random. The Onmyo-ji is a really solid mid-tier mage so I don't think they need another diversity caster, I think they need something that costs less than the Ryujin (5 paths for 500gp... ouch!) but can still reliably get a 3 in one or more paths. Linked paths are a good way to do that.

[legowarrior]

AH, that makes sense. Well, we can always make changes after the fact. I'll start reading up on the modding process, and see if I can find images for the new units later in the week I think. I have a few other small tweaks that I want to make as well.

[shatner]

I will say that putting healing on a cap-only, high-caliber mage is non-synergistic. Arco does it right by having a dinky, cheap mage-priest as their healer because having a priestess spend her mage-turn healing some wounded troops or a feebleminded astrologer is an acceptable use of her time... she's recruit-anywhere and inexpensive.

My two main concerns for the Saigu is that she should be magically distinct from both the Onmyo-ji and the Ryujin, AND she should be interesting. Healing is interesting, but it is far from being the only interesting thing we could give her. If you really want healing for the nation, we could make the Shugenja or Envoy of Ryu a weak healer.

[rdonj]

If the miko is a sacred unit but not a commander, then you are really stuck with either making the bows already come with the effect (which I would suggest wholeheartedly), or making a special bless that only affects sacreds who are also magic beings or something along those lines, and give the miko that creature type. It is probably really not worth it.

[legowarrior]

Originally Posted by legowarrior

Update2!

Sites
Enclave of the Ryu - 2 Water,
Imperial Shrine - 1 Air, 1 Nature, 1 Earth

Castle Units - Order of cost
Ashigaru Spearman (Yari)- Same is later era

Ashigaru Bowmen (Shortbows) - Similar to bandits without stealth

Wokou - No-Dachi, Leather Cuirass, Jingasa

Attendent (Naginata) - Similar Stat to later era Samurai but with less protection (Jingasa instead of Kabuto)

Attendant (Katana) - Same as a above

Samurai Archer - Similar stat to O-ban or Go-Hatamoto, but with the weapons and armor of the Samurai Archer.

Samurai Cavalry - Same Stat line of Cavalry but with Samurai Armor instead of heavy samurai armor. (Might do an archer version, but mount archery comes later in the history of Japan)


?Onni-Bushi - Naginata, Samurai Armor, Jingasa, Immune to Seduction, Patrol Bonus. High Morale, but everything else is basic. Build them to patrol a region. Female units that existed.

Shrine Units - everywhere
None

Underwater units
Shrimp Soldier - Same as later era

Shark Warrior - Same as later era

Capital specific
Enclave of the Ryu (Site)
Shark Warriors - Same as above

Imperial Shrine (Site)
?Miko - Sacred Bow (double damage to Undead and Demons) Imperial Robe, Jingasa,


Castle Leaders
Gokenin - Same as later era, but without heavy samurai armor, and with longbow.

Mounted Gokenin - Same as later era but without heavy samurai armor

?Jito - Wakizashi, Ashigaru Armor, Jingasa, Weaker, decent leader with patrol bonus. Like the Eunuch, but with all parts attached

Shugo - Better version of the Mounted Gokenin.

?Wokou Captain - Same as the unit. Decent Leader (40) and has sailing and 25% of Air and 25% of Water (7/16 chance of a magic user, 1/16 chance of having both)

Shrine
Monk of the five folds - As a the later eras

Laboratory
?Shugenja - Same as later era!

Onmyo-ji - Same as later era, but younger, and maybe a better chance of predicting events. I don't know.

Shrine/Laboratory
?Envoy of the Ryu - Holy 1, Water 1, +1 FAWEN. Amphibious and can take 10 units underwater. Basically a cool priest of water, with some magic.

Underwater
Ryujin - Same as later era

Crab General - Same as later era

?Envoy of the Ryu - Same as above

Capital Specific
Enclave of the Ryu
Ryujin - Same as above and the later era

Imperial Shrine
Saigu - H2, 1 Earth, 1 Air, 1 Nature, +2 FAWEN, Immune to Seduction, movement 1, ?Reduces Unrest?
Female relatives of the Emperor, chosen to be trained as priests.

Spells available -
Summon Karasu Tengu
Ambush of Tigers
Summon Konoha Tengus
Contact Dai Tengu
Contact Nushi
Contack Kitsune
Contact Jigami
Contact Mori-no-kami
Sommun Ujigami
Contact Kaijin
Contact Tatsu
Summon Kenzoku
Summon Goz Mezu
Contact Yama-no-kami
Teaching Sign
Fear-not Sign
Welcome Sign
Earth-Touching Sign
Meditation Sign

So, the change is that the Seigu that she reduces unrest of the province she is in. Not by much though. Is there an ability like that already we could use?

[shatner]

Originally Posted by legowarrior

So, the change is that the Seigu that she reduces unrest of the province she is in. Not by much though. Is there an ability like that already we could use?

Sure, there is #incunrest. Give it a negative value and it will decrease unrest in that province by that amount each month. To give you a basis for comparison, the Lady of Love pretender has #incunrest -25, the Jade Emperor has #incunrest -10, whereas LA Bogarus' Skopets have #incunrest 20 (generating 20 unrest/turn). For a cap-only mage, I'm guessing something like #incunrest -3 or -4 would be appropriate.

[shatner]

If you don't already have it, the latest modding manual has probably 99% of the info you'll need for this mod. I also strongly recommend you make a copy of the .dm file for CBM1.92 and tinker with it if you haven't modded before, just to get a feel for what does and doesn't work. Modding Dom3 is surprisingly easy for most things but requires exacting attention to detail. And for everything that isn't easy, it's almost completely impossible.

[elmokki]

Originally Posted by shatner

I have been away number crunching; I see I've missed some recent developments. To help inform us on how magically powerful to make the Seigu, as well as how much it should cost, I've gone and compared all the top mages from the Middle Era and determined things like Average Gold Cost, Average Upkeep, Average Highest Path, Average Total Paths, and Average Cost Per Path. These are further broken down between cap-only mages and recruit-anywhere mages. The overall numbers are the following:

Average Gold Cost = 296.3
Average Max Path = 3.4
Average Total Paths = 6.3
Average Cost Per Path = 47


Therefore the latest 7-path Seigu should cost 329 => 330gp and it'll be in-line with the cost of its peers.

I've done some similiar - though far more limited in scope - research for top tier mages and there it seemed that comparing those exclusively most of the time holy levels did very little to the cost. I wonder what kind of results we'd see if we did the same with ignoring holy levels (and actually it'd be interesting to see the standard deviation too)

Maybe I'll do that for your data tomorrow, I don't know. Thanks anyway, this'll be of great use for UnitGen when figuring what kind of paths to generate and how to price mages.

[legowarrior]

What we need to do since some Linear Algebra on that ****! Also, we have to consider that having 2 in a single path is worth much more than having 1 in two paths! It will all have to be balanced during testing though.