Oceania - Let's fix it. Mod discussion

[llamabeast]

Right! I have been working this evening on a nice apocalyptic end-game battlefield enchantment. Code below.

It is meant to represent a powerful ritual to bring the wrath of the sea to the battlefield. The skies open, rain pours down in torrents, visibility is reduced to a few yards, the ground turns to mud, and from all sides the power of the sea itself descends to crush the enemies of the Oceanians.

I envisage it being maybe a research-8 spell in one of enchantment, alteration or conjuration. It would need quite high caster level, maybe water-6.

What it does:
- Storm
- Mist
- Quagmire
- Summons water elementals from all sides. Initially large elementals will come (in the first round or two it looks crazy). However, quickly the torrent will be reduced to just a few smaller elementals each turn. After 9 turns nothing more will come (hence it's not exploitable).

The spell looks potentially overpowered, but I don't think it is really. I haven't carefully tuned the number of water elementals, but I think they would not be a huge issue for a magically prepared late game army. In fact a mid game army could fend them off well enough I think.

Note that in the code the spell is trivial to cast, and not restricted to Oceania, so that it is easy to test.

Code:

#newspell
#copyspell "Storm"
#name "Oceanian Quagmire"
#school -1
#effect 81
#damage 85
#nextspell "Mist"
#end

#newspell
#copyspell "Summon Water Elemental"
#name "Oceanian Small Elementals"
#school -1
#effect 9043
#damage 412
#nreff 5
#nextspell "Oceanian Quagmire"
#end

#newspell
#copyspell "Summon Water Elemental"
#name "Oceanian Medium Elementals"
#school -1
#effect 3043
#damage 410
#nreff 3
#nextspell "Oceanian Small Elementals"
#end

#newspell
#copyspell "Living Water"
#name "Oceanian Large Elemental"
#school -1
#researchlevel 0
#effect 2043
#damage 408
#nreff 2
#nextspell "Oceanian Medium Elementals"
#end

#newspell
#copyspell "Storm"
#name "Coming of the Flood"
#school 0
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 2
#pathlevel 0 1
#fatiguecost 100
#nreff 5
#nextspell "Oceanian Large Elemental"
#end

(note the nreff 5 is not a mistake, it seems to be needed for the summons to work correctly)

[chrispedersen]

Awesome stuff... and I'm not nearly the modder you are - but I may have a way to fix the land only recruit problems.

Give it a new nation number. Sure, pita, but it would work wouldn't it?

[HoneyBadger]

I'm glad you like them, Burnsaber.

By the way, for some reason, your graphics aren't showing up for me... Dunno if it's you or me?

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Awesome stuff... and I'm not nearly the modder you are - but I may have a way to fix the land only recruit problems.

Give it a new nation number. Sure, pita, but it would work wouldn't it?

True! Never thought of that. Seems like some of the Dema alliance is back. (it's pretty.. stupid to only have 1 recrutable troop & commander in land castles). Now the daughter of selkie can be just a mage and the land-priest could be the dema shaman.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

I'm glad you like them, Burnsaber.

By the way, for some reason, your graphics aren't showing up for me... Dunno if it's you or me?

They're showing for me. It's just a basic .gif, so it could be somesort of weird internet safety setting, perhaps you should try saving the picture on your computer (you can do that, right?) and looking it from paint or something.

[HoneyBadger]

Tried and it doesn't work, dunno why...

[llamabeast]

Isn't the issue perhaps that you can only control one of the recruitment lists, the water one or the land one? If not, awesome.

Also, comment on the spell, comment on the spell! (I got excited about it because it took me ages to get it to work - obviously you don't have to use it though)

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Isn't the issue perhaps that you can only control one of the recruitment lists, the water one or the land one? If not, awesome.

Actually, I really don't know. I was thinking of #clearing the nation and then giving the recruitables.. I'll have to test this. I'll be sure to tell the results.

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Also, comment on the spell, comment on the spell! (I got excited about it because it took me ages to get it to work - obviously you don't have to use it though)

It's pretty awesome, I'll probably scrap the quaqmire, since it will hamper the elementals (and your nationals) too (not really thematic, me thinks). Mist + storm + water elemental horde is probably enough humidity for a single battlefield . I'll probably make it W5A2 or something (the air is to make it difficult for MA oceania to cast, it is the plan of the Triton Kings afterall). But other than that, it's definately in.

[llamabeast]

Including air as a requirement makes sense, although of course since it will be a national spell MA Oceania won't be able to cast it anyway unless you give them access to it.

As for the quagmire, it is no particular advantage to Oceania to have it cast, and also swampiness doesn't really fit with their theme. Another disadvantage is that having the spell cast three battlefiend enchantments at once gives the strong impression of a modder having got overexcited! However, I was just trying to imagine what would happen in the onset of a phenomenal deluge accompanied by rising waters from all sides, and the ground turning swampy seemed like a very realistic effect. In fact it is hard to imagine it not turning swampy. In any case I'm easy with whatever you go for.

[Zeldor]

Burnsaber:

That's probably why Quagmire should stay. It fits in it and you should be able to work with it.

I hope more nations are going to get fixed. In MA it's needed more. I'd say - Man, Agartha, Machaka need more love most.

P.S. Haven't seen you on irc recently...