Conceptual Content Mod

[cleveland]

Thank you very much.

A recruitable troop is a bit more difficult. Like Wrana said, they have inferior infantry because their longbowmen are so good; simply giving them a better infantry unit would be unbalancing, I think.

One possibility is to adapt the "Forester" commander (MA Man's scout) into some sort of rank-and-file troop. The Forester is an unusual but interesting commander: 2-weapons (axe & dagger, ambidextrous) plus a short bow (at 12 precision), stealthy(+10), patrol bonus(5), forest survival, but no leadership.

How's this sound:
Forester Cadet
"Those who aspire to be Foresters must undergo rigorous training as Forester Cadets. Midway through their training, Cadets are pressed into active military service, usually to quell unrest and hunt down enemy spies, but occasionally as marksmen in support of the Wardens behind enemy lines. Cadets lack the hand-to-hand combat skills of true Foresters, but proved quite effective against the large Tuatha when in formation.”

The unit would then be a copystat of the Forester, with several ability reductions (they’re in training, after all):
Edit: On second thought, I'd recommend keeping the axe/dagger/short bow combo of the base Forester, but remove the ambidextrous to make him bit less effective
11 precision(vs. base precision 12) , so the short bow is somewhat less effective
Stealthy(+0) (vs. base stealthy +10, though this has no effect for units)
Patrol Bonus(1)(vs. base Patrol Bonus(5) )
15gold? (vs. base cost 20gold; a longbow costs 13gold, for comparison)

Basically, this unit should make the MA Man player give serious consideration to stealth raiding. As it stands, MA Man is awash with stealthy commanders, but has only one stealthy troop, the Warden, which is capital-only sacred.

They’d be useless in large battles, where less-expensive longbows will be the preferred missile units and the lack of a shield will make them too vulnerable as blockers (shieldless=death by friendly fire), so no imbalance there.

But 2 weapons plus a bow gives them very nice stealth raiding potential, and in a pinch they can be thrown at giants/elephants for some six 6-attack-per-square action.

Thoughts? If nothing else, it gives the poor Forester unit some company, which currently seems so out-of-place.

[Sombre]

A unit themed around the Forester commander also sounds like a good idea. I'm not sure about the equipment and stats, but a middle tier mapmove 2 infantry/ranged unit with stealth and forest survival sounds good for MA Man. They are largely a forest based nation after all.

I'm quite tempted to go with minor animal awe actually - in Britain various animals such as wolves were hunted to extinction as the population grew - these forester themed units could be specifically trained to hunt down dangerous beasts. This of course would give them some more niche uses.

Also - wolfhounds. These fit with the Camelot/Round Table influence and the general feel of Man. Also act as a cheapo version of the summons.

[Wrana]

Personally I think Daughters being capital-only rather stupid idea. As recruitable everywhere they could be useful as cheap researchers...
Medium cavalry would be nice. Especially as English & Scottish knights usually weared significantly less armor then their continental colleagues... due to the fact that their countries wern't exactly rich. Hobilars of Scotch border weared armor but less than even local knights... though they usually fought on foot (but we need not go into these details). 2-sword infantry, I think, would be too much - or at least will look that way! What could be done is to give foresters some leadership. Stealthy bowmen I don't think would be particularly useful & making Wardens non-sacred would be against the standing theme of the nation.

[Wrana]

Yes! Wolfhounds certainly! They'll also give some company to summons. I'm not sure whether thay should be recruitable troops or summonable by Foresters, etc.
Another thing - as weapons for foresters-in-training I would offer quarterstaffs which would make them not particularly dangerous for dedicated melee troops, but able to defend themselves longer due to weapon Defense bonus. And these were actually used in England by both brigands & those who hunted them!

[Sombre]

I'm not making any changes to existing units if I can help it, that sort of stuff should be brought up in the CBM thread.

This is about adding a little content to each nation.


I'm dead-set against adding any unit with a quarterstaff because as far as I'm concerned it's a buggy weapon. The def stat on it is silly. But I don't want to get into that in this thread.

[Wrana]

What do you mean by silly? The weapon definitely IS very useful to defend with!

[Endoperez]

Wrana said:
What do you mean by silly? The weapon definitely IS very useful to defend with!

He thinks it's like a spear without the sharp part, and thus shouldn't give any more defense than a spear. I tried to argue that it isn't used like a spear, but let's not repeat that discussion here. As Sombre said, this isn't the thread for that.

[Wrana]

Well, if he wants to use that as argument here, he shouldn't think that I will take it as Holy Writ. Either he should argue his point or just drop it.

[VedalkenBear]

I tend to agree with Wrana on this issue. If no 'quarterstaff' units can be even suggested without being rejected, the underlying issue needs to be addressed.

[Sombre]

Hahah, what? Drop it? So if I don't argue the point in this thread I have to concede and do what you tell me?

Good luck with getting that to work.