Mod: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.4

[Sombre]

Chance of B4 or above (pretty damn good) is 52.5%

Abysians Warlocks have a 25% chance of B4 I hear.

[Sombre]

Anywha, I've made some balance changes based on suggestions I've been hearing and will release 0.8 quite soon.

I'll also throw in a bit of new content. A pretender or a blood summon or something. Suggestions are welcome.

[Amhazair]

Sombre said:
Amhazair: Thankyou for your detailed feedback, it's much appreciated and exactly the sort of thing I'm after.

You're welcome. I actually love soing this kind of thing, diving into the mechanics of a game I'm playing, trying to figure out the best options. Unfortunately, for some weird reason I have far less energy to do this since I'm working.

The speed of the hoplites is set to 7 across the board pretty much because despite having only light armour (that's why they have mapmove 2 not 1) when they're in battle they advance carefully and protect each other. It's supposed to represent that they're fighting in a phalanx-esque formation.

Yeah, I thought this might be it. Fair enough.

About the Haimgrot, as I said in my earlier post, they have a douse bonus of one, so hunt at a level of B2. You still might be able to build solely misborn and use random B1 and B2 ones for hunting though, so maybe they need to be a touch cheaper.

I did indeed miss this. (and the description) It (the description) actually fits right in with the dozens of other little hints that are spread around the game which you're likely to miss unless you pay close attention. Well done. I suppose you can still give them a dousing rod to up their bloodhunting level one more?

I dived into the manual for the exact mechanics of blood hunting, and - unless I made a mistake somewhere along the line - as things stand now the Misborn is still a more efficiënt bloodhunter. With a sanguine dousing rod Haimgrots generate 1,22 slaves/gold of upkeep, (1B)Misborns 1,37, so while the difference is not as big as I thought it still favors the Misborns. If you were to change goldcosts to 120g for a Misborn and 70g for a Haimgrot, things get turned around, giving 1,39 slave/gold for Haimgrots, and 1,24 for Misborns. You'll loose a little bit of that edge since 3 (effectively) 3B hunters will generate just a bit more unrest on average than you can recuperate with 0% taxation, so you'll miss the occasional hunt due to unrest. I'm not sure how to start calculating how much you'd loose, but I suppose the relative values would be allright here. (and your bloodhunting efficiëncy will still be behind Lanka and Mictlan, but better than most other nations. ) The occasional 2B Misborn would still be the best bloodhunter, by the way, but I don't think that's a huge problem.

I agree with making the Misborn 120 gold or so. Not a huge change but maybe they're a touch too good right now. Arga Dis is supposed to have relatively weak magic, but obviously be strong in blood and have a superior military.

There's different ways of making a nation magically weak though. Say the Niefelheim way: powerful but expensive mages with awefull research efficiëncy, or the Ulmish way: Limited paths and low maximums.

Standing on itself the Misborn is a nice mage, even at 120g. He's a good researcher, depending on paths either a good bloodhunter or a good low level battlemage, has access to quite a few useful items for forging, and is sacred to boot. Add him to an existing nation - say Abysia - and they'll get a huge powerboost. But in the context of Arga Dis he's fine. Unless you envisage Arga Dis as really slow researchers too, because that they won't be with the Misborn in his current state.

Gilgans can have higher MR - I'll make it the same as an quivalent MA big mage/thug. It's not supposed to be a weakness. Being cap only I don't want to make them more expensive though and they are a major feature of the race. I might change my mind later.

About the price: I looked around a bit at other big guys. In MA the only recruitable in that category are the Agarthan Oracles, but while you could compare them magically the Oracles are just so much poorer as a SC chassis there's hardly any comparison. In EA on the other hand you can find some real yardsticks to measure the Gilgans by. Basically both the Basalt King and the Dai Oni are phisically similar to the Gilgans, with similar stats. Both these guys have a serious edge in the magic department though. With F/W/E and F/E/D with possible air random they have amazing self-buff capability. (the Basalt kings can't self-bless though), and they're both also very powerful battlemages if you choose to use them that way. So in view of all this they should definitely fall quite some way short of these guy's 500g cost, but keeping them cheaper than 400g Oracles is just criminal. Someone needs to give those poor Agarthans a break, don't you realise they're a tragic and dying race? They move me to tears... Then again using a dying race as a yardstick might not be the best idea in the world. Seriously though, I'd peg the Gilgans at roughly 430g, though obviously you can make some allowances for the nation as a hole. (And I also haven't played Arga Dis for nearly long enough to actually be able to use the Gilgans, and judge them in action. ) Alternatively you could weaken them a little bit, knocking off a few hp, lowering strength a little, reducing the berserk to maybe 4, generally make them into really powerful thughs (with equipment obviously) rather than real SC's.

Glad you enjoyed them - as others will probably tell you, I keep updating and supporting my mods whenever feedback is available. I'm striving for good quality across the board here.

I've peeked in on the mod forums enough to be aware of that. Judging from what I see and read, and from this one nation I looked at you're definitely succeeding at this.

[Sombre]

I'll get 0.8 of this released on the weekend. I think I'll give them a new pretender. A blood and air tornado I think, like a huge air elemental only red ;]

[llamabeast]

Ridiculously minor comment: In the Blackwing description (they are very cool by the way), 'reigned' should be 'reined'.

[llamabeast]

Also, the Sworn Companions should in my opinion have a price increase - the Fear effect is extremely powerful, and almost no unit can stand up to them for any length of time (apart from units that can't rout of course). They are not bad fighters either. Maybe 100 gold? I think this is what Nightmares cost, and I suspect the Companions are definitely better than them.

[Sombre]

Yeah they cost more in 0.8

90 or 100, I forget. Standards and morale buffs like sermon of courage seem to pretty much stop them, btw, and they are of course quite vulnerable to getting shot or blasted with magic. Even a knot of crossbows can mess them up.

[Sombre]

I've updated the mod to 0.8 - get it from the first post.

Attached to this post is the updated national preview. It will also appear in the first post.

[llamabeast]

Just thought I would note that I'm just setting up an MP game with mod nations, and Arga Dis is still free. Someone sign up, they're awesome! (The game's called Marmoset).

[Sombre]

New version is up.

Adds a couple new summons, tweaks some stuff. Arga Dis is very near completion now, as the 0.9 status suggests.

Please give it a go and let me know what you think!

(Attached is just a preview pic that is displayed in the first post, where you can find the mod)