Amazon Mod

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Arryn:
The problem you mention is connected to the existing blood slave, which I imagine is hard-coded to its ID.

That was a joke, Arryn.

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Sorry. Hard to tell at times with you, with your admittedly half-senile memory and all. hehe

[FrankTrollman]

OK, I've played with the Amazon mod for a bit, and I agree that the lack of rainbow gems is really hard on them. And rather unwarranted, considering how rainbow magic focused their army is.

I suggest:

1> Starting magic sites should be "ten thousand things", and "catacombs" at the least. For flavor, they should probably also have a "damned merchant" - although that's really not important.

2> What the hell is up with the price of the Amazon Leader? She costs as much gold as a Jade, Garnet, or Crystal Priestess (and more resources). She isn't a preacher, she doesn't have two paths of magic, and she can't even lead more troops. It's not like she can make a super combatant or anything, so she's just horribly over priced. The bulge she has over a 30 gold commander from an adjacent province is virtually nothing (even the reduced upkeep from sacred isn't really a reduction, because her base cost is more than twice as much) - she should have a lot more leadership or cost a lot less, maybe both.

Other than that, this mod is really cool, thanks for putting it up.

-Frank

[PvK]

Thanks for the feedback, Frank!

By "rainbow gems", I assume you mean one of every gem type. I understand it'd be nice to have that, but I decided not to for two reasons:

1a) It would be 7 gems per turn, which would be more than most other nations, so I'd consider it an advantage compared to others for balance purposes.

1b) They do have a big advantage in having all paths on their extremely varied recruitable mages, so they can generally find most or all gem types quickly, and can site search quickly and easily without any magic on a pretender, so the initial deficiency can be made up for quickly.

So what I did was give them "half-rainbow gems" (if you will), where each of the four tribes' strongest gem is in the starting mix (except Garnet's blood, which they can hunt immediately anyway - but they do get their secondary, fire). So I think this is a healthy, interesting, and balanced starting position, without seeming too strong compared to other nations in the unmodded game.

The Amazon Leader is a unit I like, but you're not the first one to be puzzled at the cost versus its abilities. The reason I didn't give them higher leadership was partly thematic, because priestesses and sorceresses are the leaders of Amazonian society. The reason the leaders are so expensive is their sacred status and their fighting skills and stealth. An Amazon Leader with blessings and some magic items can be pretty potent at least against ordinary units, though it's true she's unlikely to reach SC caliber. Comparing to say the TC Prince General at 150 gold and the Sidhe foot leader at 140 gold (two other sacred leaders, which I suppose some players might also disdain), I think her price is in the right ballpark as she is now (or maybe slightly high)... if you were going to use her the way I had in mind... which many players probably wouldn't. That is, I had in mind to use them for their skills as thugs, archers, and leaders of stealth raiding parties, and/or with blessings. So my mistake, I think, was that she has some niches, but her obvious role is as an ordinary commander, for which she seems overpriced.

I also confess that some of the reasons I didn't add a couple more unit types were that if I add any, they won't line up so nicely by tribe , and that it's so much work for me to create and tweak the graphics.

In general though yeah, I think I mostly agree and would tend to add a general leader who isn't sacred and lacks stealth and such high skills, and who costs a more typical leader cost.

Perhaps what I should do instead is increase her leadership. That way she can still be used for niche roles, but will also be an efficient choice for leading armies around.

PvK

[Alneyan]

Now that I am thinking on it, I am not so sure if the Amazon Leader should have a better leadership. Not having a decent, specific leader makes sense thematically, and it is a nice twist from most other nations (the only other nation without a "charismatic" leader is Spring & Autumn T'ien Ch'i, with its 80 gold leader for 25 leadership).

Giving her some priestly authority may be another idea. She would not have the magic skills of the Priestesses, and so would still be at the lowest end of the magic Users of the nation. Her priest levels would be useful to bless herself while on a stealthy mission, and/or to do some stealthy preaching. Since the Amazons do not have a stealthy sacred troop, it would still prevent the use of "elite blessed stealthy taskforces".

Alternatively, the Amazon Leader may be given the status of spy, if you consider her to be able to disturb the "ordinary" life of the people (hence an Instill Uprising ability). Giving her a Succubus-like ability might have been an idea as well, where the "seduction" would probably be much closer to a direct abdunction through more mundane means. I do not think you can alter the odds of success of the seducting unit however, so it would very likely not work here.

[Cainehill]

But does it make sense that the amazon troops would find male leaders ( remember, most indie commanders are male ) so much more appealing that they would follow men in greater numbers than they would their own amazon leaders?

As things stand, people would either recruit male commanders from independent provinces (cheaper, possibly better leadership) or, and this would be my choice, ignore the Amazon Leader and simply recruit Garnet Priestesses as commanders - the same price in gold, higher leadership, priest ability, and fire / blood magic, so they cost less upkeep, lead more troops, bless and double as researchers / combat mages.

[archaeolept]

well the garnets certainly follow men... with a knife

[PvK]

All good points. (Academically, there are others with no great leaders - see for example Broken Empire.)

Having an Amazon that is more efficient at leadership than independent commanders seems thematically good, and reduces the fiddliness of having many commanders to lead troops around. On the other hand, independents will still be pretty cheap and efficient, and have the irreplacable advantage of not requiring a fort to hire. Meanwhile an Amazon player will still have to decide whether to hire a spellcaster or a leader in each fort province, and so may go with independents anyway just so they can hire more spellcasters. Hmpf.

All told, I think I'm still tempted to simply increase the Amazon Leader's leadership.

PvK

[FrankTrollman]

One severe problem with the "half rainbow gems" they have now is that the minimum gem production of any group in the entire game is five - and that shows up even on pure martial factions like Ulm. More "Magic" oriented factions get substantially more gems. Any of the all-dead Ermors get 10 gems each, but the Amazon's closest analogue (Spring and Autumn Tien Chi) is still walking off with 6 gems per turn.

I say Tien Chi is their closest analogue, because they can recruit 3 sacred leaders for a total of 515 gold who collectively have access to all paths of magic except Blood and have 3 random picks. That's at least as good as what the Amazons can do (unless you're just dying to find those Brigand's Lairs), and they start with 6 gems (gems which ironically can pump right into the whole national summonins things which are pretty awesome).

So I don't think it would be at all out of place for them to generate six or seven gems a turn, one from each type they are supposed to specialize in.

-Frank

[quantum_mechani]

FrankTrollman said:
the minimum gem production of any group in the entire game is five

Not quite- Abysia Blood of Humans has only four.

[FrankTrollman]

I stand corrected then. There is a single, wretched set-up that produces only four gems. But it has lots of problems. Anyone else think that it's great idea to trade your heat aura for throwing axes?

The lack of gem production is one of many flaws with that set-up, and is simply evidence that there just aren't any viable starting positions with less than five gems.

And the point that the only basic Rainbow Mages with crappy normal leaders get six gems/turn and some starting access to summoned monsters still stands.

-Frank