Mod: Powergamers Mod

[DrPraetorious]

Brief overview of changes

-- Nations --
Icy Horde <- E Niefel Special AND Sacrificedom, All Jotunheim, E Ulm, L Atlantis
Cold +3

High Ones <- M Arco Special, All Caelum, M Mictlan, E Tir/M Eriu
Cold +2

Western Empire <- M Ermor Special, Sacrificedom, EM Ermor, ML Pythium (no Snakes), ML Marignon

Kingdom of Isles <- M Man Base, Sacrificedom, All Vanheim, L Ulm, ML Man

Eastern Empire <- M T'ien Ch'i Special, All T'ien Ch'i, EM Bandar Log, L Jomon

Iron Kings <- M Agartha Special, 25% castleprod bonus, All Arco, M Ulm, E Helheim, ML Agartha (humans and constructs)
Cold +1

The Lost <- M C'tis Special, All C'tis, EL Agartha (agarthans and undead), Patala (just the nagas), Hydras
Heat +2

The Deeps <- M Oceania Base, EM Atlantis, EM Oceania

The Wilds <- L Pangaea Special, sacrificedom, E Marverni, All Pangaea, E Fomoria (just fomori), M Machaka

The Fiery Horde <- E Lanka Special, nodeathsupply, E Lanka, EM Yomi, All Abysia
Heat +3

-- Pretenders --
All pretenders are specific to one of the ten nations above.
Pretenders are all gcost 0.
Costs to learn new paths generally halved.
All pretenders are immortal.
All pretenders are +2 to base dominion strength.
Pretenders get 4-9 more picks of magic, depending.

-- To do list --
R'lyeh, E and L Mictlan, and the Nemedians have no home, nor do the heretics from L Pythium.
Tried to combine them - couldn't recruit on land.

-- Version 0.1 --
-- Fixed scout/PD mixup for The Lost.
-- A slew of balance fixes to all of the pretenders. None
of the pretenders are old now.
-- The pretenders are now evenly distributed among the 10 nations.
-- The secondary shape for the red dragon is now a great warlock, instead of a great sage.

[RamsHead]

I notice that quite a few of the gods have been pushed into old age because of the increase of their magical powers. This was unintended, correct?

I also notice that the Icy Horde has three Pack of Wolves spells. Not a major problem by any means.

The High Ones have both the Contact Cu Sidhe and Summon Cu Sidhe spells.

The Eastern Empire has three Ambush of Tiger spells.

The Lost has a Dis for their scout despite not being able to recruit one. You may have done that on purpose though because the Lost do not have any scouts or spies. They do have assassins though.

The Fiery Horde has both the Summon and Contact Scorpion Man spells.

[Endoperez]

Any nation with Agarthans in it shouldn't prefer Cold!

Iron Kings <- M Agartha Special, 25% castleprod bonus, All Arco, M Ulm, E Helheim, ML Agartha (humans and constructs)
Cold +1

Helheim isn't actually that much about cold. It could just as well be Heat +1 without any other changes.

[DrPraetorious]

Iron Kings has human units from the Agarthan nation, and sacred statues (which are not coldblooded), so it can get away with liking Cold.

The Dis scout for The Lost was a typo - I had the empoisoner for defcom2 instead of scout.

I'll fix the ages for the pretenders.

[DrPraetorious]

New version.

[archaeolept]

for the missing naiton, just combine the Mictlans, add nemedian mages... dunno what the heretics are like... but the micts + nemedia should be a powerhouse enough...

[jutetrea]

This looks like fun, stickied and dl'ing now

[Huzurdaddi]

This is an impressive amount of work. This must have taken quite a while DrPraetorious.

Playing it, I've noticed four (and a half) things so far:

1. The pretender design is quite complicated. Since many of the pretenders are high HP and immortal a number of very nasty mid game scenarios are opened up if proper magic paths are selected. However, this may come at the cost of an overpowering bless. Also, since the pretender is such an awesome unit you want to have it immediately available, which limits points. Oh and finally you really need dom10 since it is moderately cheap and many other pretenders will have it. It is vexing! GJ. I would love to see how these immortal pretenders play out in a multiplayer game. Please list some builds. I would love to see how others are designing their pretenders!

2. E9N9 Niefel Giants are very hard to handle. Actually I should start a thread in the main forum for counters, especially in the early game. Other than blowpipes I don't know that there is one (I have not tried this but in theory it should work). I easily rolled impossible AI's in my one game (as usual with the giants).

3. If you only play with the mortal races (ie: no giants) stealth units play a major role. Many nations have assassins or spies (or both!) and they are very effective (especially the stalker and the ninja). In an MP game patrol will very important (also many units have a patrol bonus so those may actually figure into a game! Fantastic!).

4. The PD seems pretty solid. I like it. I have not tried all of the natios but the two that I have tried so far (Icy Horde and Western Empire) both had decent PD. I like it.

5. (this is more of whine than anything else so you can skip) The new hydras are comically bad compared to the old hydras. Simple archers crush them rather badly. Ah well. They were only really decent in CB anyway.

One pretender design (probably sub-optimal, but with Neifel it does not matter that much):

Monolith: E9, S6, N10. Order:3, Sloth:2, Cold:3, Misfortune:1, Magic:1, Dom:10. Awake.

[DrPraetorious]

On Domstr:
Domstr 3 is *half* the dominion spread of domstr 6. It's pretty easy for a domstr 6 power to squelch a domstr 3 power (let alone a domstr 10 power!).
Domstr 7 is more than two thirds of domstr 10, and there is no domstr 14 to worry about.
Domstr is quite cheap - but if you need the points for something else you can generally get by with < 10.

Okay, these are my builds:

Icy Horde:
Imprisoned Monolith, E9N9S6, Domstr 10, Order 3, Sloth 1, Cold 3, Growth 3, Luck 3.

High Ones:
Dormant Archmage, F9W9A4S4, Domstr 7, Order 3, Cold 3, Misfortune 2, Magic 1.

Western Empire:
Awake Prince of Death, E9D9, Domstr 10, Order 3, Misfortune 2, Drain 2.
-- try his bless on your Knights, not on your vestals.
OR
Imprisoned Baphomet, F9W9A4S9, Domstr 10, Order 3, Sloth 3, Misfortune 2.
-- try his bless on your shadow vestals and flagellants.

Kingdom of Isles:
This one amused me, but is probably far from the most effective:
Awake Lady of Love, W9E9N4, Domstr 10, Order 3, Sloth 1, Death 3, Misfortune 3, Drain 3.
-- She's got like +6 awe, a prot of 12 and a def of 20. Of course, your going to be inundated with plagues in no-time.

Eastern Empire:
Imprisoned Statue, W9E9S9, Domstr 10, 3 Order, 3 Productivity, 2 Misfortune.
-- Hosts of ancestor vestals and red guards.


Iron Kings:
Imprisoned Lich Queen, A4W9E9D9, Domstr 8, 3 Order, 3 Productivity, 3 Cold, 1 Misfortune, 3 Drain.
-- This bless is *insane* on wind riders and helhirdings. With the reinvig and the awesome infliction chance, you raid the Icy North to death.

The Lost:
Awake Wyrm, W9E9, Domstr 10, 3 Order, 3 Sloth, 3 Heat, 3 Growth, 2 Misfortune.
-- This bless is decent on your heavy infantry, and you get a SC with strong scales. Not my most exciting build, I'm afraid.

The Wilds:
Awake Gorgon, E9N9, Domstr 10, Turmoil 3, Luck 3, Drain 2.
-- Start out with giants, then the Pandemoniacs bloodhunt while the Maenads patrol. Spend the blood slaves on an ungodly dominion push.

The Fiery Horde:
Awake Scorpion King, E9F9, Domstr 10, 3 Order, 3 Heat, 2 Misfortune.

[Huzurdaddi]

Your western empires PoD is much like mine (although I did not go for drain-2), I am a huge fan of the PoD.

Anyway from your pretenders, and the ones I designed, I felt like the scared troops were playing an even bigger role in this mod in vanilla DomIII (which is saying something!). Is this what you intended?