Mod: MA Man, Origin of the Curse

[Torgon]

This is the first mod I've put together. It's a re-imagining of MA Man.

Overall, I really like the theme of MA Man, it has a great Arthurian Legend and Knights of the round table table feel. However once you get past the initial intro brief and a couple of rather generic hero's there's not much substance. By and large it's a nation without much magic diversity with a pretty generic lineup of troops and pretty mediocre national summons.

The other big problem is that there is no background developed for one of the most important events in the nations history: the curse of LA Man. Something that basically destroys the nations way of life and dramatically alters the theme and magic focus.

Thus the mod has two goals:

1. Develop and explanation for the curse in LA Man that fits with the overall theme of the nation and background of the world of dominions.

2. Make Man a more interesting and diverse nation to play with some unique national strengths and powerful summons.

This mod is a work in progress and is very much in its initial stages. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. This mod builds off the Changes already made to MA Man by CBM 1.92 and is designed to play with that Mod.


1. Explanation for the curse:

Man is a bastard child of the middle era. It's sort of a descendant of Tir na n'Og, but not really. Erui really holds that claim with Tuatha lords, Sidhe thugs, and fir blog infantry. Man gets a few spell songs and some green dogs but that's about it. However, there's are a couple interesting things in the lineup that don't get much attention because you'd have to kit a pretender out in order to use them: barghests and black dogs. These little guys hint at some interesting opportunities if we run with it. What they imply is that Man is close to the old Plains of Fomoria. A nation that happened to get wiped out by a vile curse on their entire people

Now Fomoria is an incredibly interesting nation without any offspring, and Man is a nation without a direct parent. Lets arrange an adoption and see what it gets us.

The general story I'm putting together is of a renegade coven of Crones who seek for greater power. They find old Tuatha records in the Forest reveling the locations of old sites of Fomorian Power. They explore them and discover the dark secrets of the Fomorian Kings, but in the process are forced to give up the power of nature and life that they currently hold. They use this new power in service of Man but as these dark crones increasingly use death magic within the forest of Avalon this corruption ultimately leads to the curse.

So now that we have an explanation for the curse, lets see what we can do with this nation on #2.

2. Making man a more interesting and diverse nation to play with some unique options and summons.

The addition of dark Fomorian power helps a lot. The general idea will be two conflicting themes within the nation of Man. Powerful magic of nature and life, but an undercurrent of corruption from the old death magic of Fomoria.

Changes:

Daughter of Avalon: made recruit anywhere, healer 50, upped cost to 100g. With two powerful cap only mages she was going to be relegated to near obscurity again.

Crone of Avalon: Sprite changes to make her look more mage of lifey

Additions:

Recruitable Units:

Dark Crone of Avalon: Cap only commander, Stealthy, A2D2H2 mage, 350 g. Gives Man access to death magic, increasing the number of paths Man has full access to up to three, still a relatively low number in MA.

National Troop Summons:

Black Bowmen of Avalon: Slightly better stats than longbowmen, arrows cause fear.

Champion of the Black Order: Slightly better stats than normal wardens, fear causing weapons, dark vision and dark power

Knights of the Black Order: Slightly better stats than Knights of Avalon, fear causing, regeneration, dark vision and dark power.

Morrigans: flying, Glamored, fear causing, holy. These guys are just too cool not to make it out of EA. Some interesting additional stealth and raiding options.

Archer of Avalon: slightly better stats that a long-bowman, armed with a longbow that entangles upon hits.

Champion of the White Order: Slightly better stats than wardens, 25 elemental resistance across the board (a mini blessing of Gaia), regeneration.

Hand of Avalon: Vine ogres with slightly more hit points, better MR, and entangle.

Hamadryads of Avalon: Warrior Hamadryads without homesickness

Knight of the White Order: slightly better stats than Knights of Avalon, awe, 25 elemental resistance across the board, regeneration

National Commander Summons:

Awakened King: A4D3H2 AWD 110%, undead. A Formorian King brought back from death, but driven insane by watching their people perish. Gives man some additional SC opportunities, and most importantly native access to A4 without a pretender. They were currently the only Air heavy nation that could not reliably access the Air boosters without help. This was a pretty huge handicap as it basically forced man to take an A4 pretender or lose out on huge portions of the Air arsenal.

Avatar of the Living Wood: Powerful level 8 national summon. 3A2E3N, Basically a Treant on PCP, higher HP, higher protection, 4 arms, automatic blessing of gaia cast in battle.

Spirit of the Ancient Groves: A2N2 Hamadrayad commander, a creature of otherworldly beauty. Seduction, stealthy, immortal. Immortal might be a bit much, but I like it thematically.

Guard of the King: Powerful level 9 national summons. Guard of the Once and Future King, transformed into a being of pure magic by the power of the forest. 9 random picks between AFWESN.

Spells:

Dance of the Morrigans: national spell of Fomoria. summons morrigans in battle across the battlefield.

Still working on developing some additional national spells, commander level summons, and a more interesting hero or two. Any input would be most welcome. Particularly on prices. I want all of these new options to be useful, but nothing too overpowered.