Kneel before MEGAMOD

[DrPraetorious]

With an expansion to 94 nation slots, the limit on nations PER ERA is basically gone, but there's still a limit for megagames.

This remains a planning thread. This is a significant project - and I believe in planning things out rather than jumping in head first, so suggestions are much appreciated.

Nominate, disagree and dispute my choices here. Also, again, if there is disputation, reservations or changes-of-mind about my including anyone else's work, let me know.

Any nations I include will be redacted (censored), if need be, so that they don't over-write or redefine anything used in the main game, and I will also heavily adjust them for balance.

I'm selecting nations on the following criteria:
* Pixel art. I suck at pixel art, and have great respect for those who can do it.
* Uniqueness/originality/leverage. Nations which are highly dis-similar to any existing nation, and also very specific and unexpected, are preferred over nations which are generic, or which are similar to existing nations (Nehekara, for example, I like a lot but is very similar to LA C'tis). Now that I've got more nation slots I will relax this somewhat.
While there are now a lot more nation slots, there's still a limit on the amount of material I can reasonably include, so editorial decisions aside I may want to pool one or more mod nations together.

Game balance is not a concern in choosing nations, but I will be adjusting them heavily in order to balance them against my target nation(s) in each era. The target nations are nations which I feel are in the second-best quantile - strong, respectable nations but not overpowering.

Note that, although I am using the *names* for my mod nations for the amalgamated nations, very few of my own units will be included.

Balance Targets: EA Agartha, Abysia and Caelum
MA Marignon, Pangaea and Jotunheim
LA T'ien Ch'i, Arcoscephale and Pythium

Anyway, let's discuss the custom nations. We now have 24 slots to fill (71-94).
71 - Haida Gwaii (EA) - (Foodstamp) thematically unchanged, but lots of additional powers. Healing, leading troops underwater, stuff like that.
72 - Kharam Dzu (LA) - (Zepath) Needs relatively little modification.
73 - Urdheim (EA) - (Saulot) I haven't seriously thought about the balance on this one yet. I might "reclassify" it as MA and give them slightly better gear or something, but won't make any thematic changes.
74 - Blood Elves (Amos' version) - Needs a lot of balance work but it won't be difficult.
75 - Insectoids (EA). (Amos) Needs a lot of balance work, but worth the trouble.
76 - Absaroka (EA). (Maraxus). I haven't had time to consider balance issues.
77 - Skaven (Sombre). A personal favorite, and relatively easy to balance. I might add some stuff from Frank's skaven draft mod that he was working on.
78 - Avernum (Sombre). CBM version is okay.
79 - Themiskyra (Frank). Needs major revamps and modernization, which I might do myself.
80 - Arga Dis (MA). I think the CBM version is overnerfed.
81 - Theran Empire (MA). Is underpowered but has plenty of stuff, at least from a magical standpoint. May benefit from game mechanical shifts, but I will avoid thematic changes since I have the nation slots free.
82 - Theran Empire (LA). Is grossly overpowered, frankly. I'm not going to include more than one vampire nation, so this one may get frankensteined somewhat, with some sanguinia units added in.
83 - Carthacia (LA). Is slightly overpowered and has nonconforming units. I'm not including more than one hoburg nation, so this might get frankensteined.
84 - Asherah (EA) - A mix of Gaea (Foodstamp) and Nature, Tooth and Claw (Cor2); it will have the unique play features of Foodstamps Gaea nation, but will be quite a bit more powerful (that nation is too weak for MP). Asherah is the semitic mother deity.
85 - Fthaqqua (Honeybadger). Also hard to balance. But it's weird+different, which is good. I could just have one of the above nations start worshipping fire vampires but that ruins the uniqueness. /me cries. Maybe I'll include this instead of Insectoids as I've got, like, six of Amos' mods in there already. But Insectoids was the only one I was going to use unmolested. Groan.
86 - Sylvan Elves (Zepath). CBM version is underpowered.
87 - Stigian Desert (Amos). Mostly balanced, national pretender is insane.
88 - Tomb Kings (Llamabeast). Yes, these two nations are very similar. Maybe, they're descended from one another? I could put them in different eras and cross-pollinate a few units.
89 - Teutanion (Zepath). Haven't looked at the CBM version yet.
90 - Chaos Undivided (Valandil). Still needs some balance work.
91 - Sons of Kaleva (Endoperez).
92 - Githzerai (Maraxus)
93-94 - Tasilondren and Carcosa. Frankenstein for science-fictiony nations. I'll see if I can make two nations out of my favorite material from: Magoserium (Uh-nuh-buh), Commonwealth/Crobuzon/Confederation (Amos), Tharoon (Sombre), Alugra (Burnsaber), Free Port (Juzza). Hesalt (QM) and Tarent (Juzza) as well. I'm going to review the individual units and artwork and see what I can come up with. The epithet would be: "Schizophrenia".

And still orphaned are:
* Conticeos (Baneslave). I like it, but still early in development. Any suggestions for what I might bump or combine?
* Bugrom (Me). Wah, I like this one. Amos' bugs have better artwork. I might just add a fourth group of bugs to his insectoids mod
* Rohan (Foodstamp). The secret is that I'm Bored of the Rings.
* Dinnas'Arval (Juzza). Original reason I didn't include this is b/c the game already has barbarians - but with that restriction relaxed...
* LA Necropolis. Could move in with the other two desert-dwelling undead nations

I had mostly finished work on an EA Padmassa, which did not make the cut above, so I want to figure out as much as possible what I'm actually going to do before I resume work.

[Sombre]

This sounds completely bat**** insane and therefore lots of fun.

But won't several of the mod nations have way more stuff than the regular nations? It's a bit odd innit?

[Agrajag]

That sounds truly awesome *kneels*
As the (unofficial) thematic adviser to Sar Elad (as well as doing some very minor work to prettify the sprites), I'd really like to see Sar Elad included (as well as revamped and modernized, which it needs quite a bit.)
Also, while I haven't tried Angelic Crusade, if we are talking about angels here (not a far fetched assumption) then I know it fits Nerfix's vision of Sar Elad. (He wanted to add some angel summons. But I think national summons weren't possible at the time. Or maybe he just didn't get around to it.)

EDIT: Hehe, I went to the Sar Elad thread (linked to in the mod list) and it actually goes so far as to include me as an author ("This mod has been made by Nerfix and Agrajag.")

[llamabeast]

Have you checked out my Tomb Kings Dr P?

[WraithLord]

Yes, an herculean task indeed. *Kneels* before thy awesome powers.

Also, if there's at any given time a need of some text altering, automatic procedure calculation etc. I would love to help (given that my RL and 4 MP games leave me time). I'm quite familiar with tools such as sed/awk/perl/python and java/C++, and no its not my CV, just an offer to help

[Armadi]

Wow. Can't wait.

[Shovah32]

llamabeast said:
Have you checked out my Tomb Kings Dr P?

I think he already mentioned it when he listed why he chose the nations he did. He said that, while it was good, it was too similar to LA Ctis.

[Burnsaber]

I know that asking this is a bit selfish, but I need to ask it anyways.

Have you tried my "Alugra, City of Wonders" nation. I don't know if you think that the graphics are good enough, but I think that it has remarkably different gameplay from vanilla nations with it's GoR theme. In Alugra, your recruitable mages suck for EA, but you have troops with magical picks and cheap national GoR spell.

[llamabeast]

Well Tomb Kings is actually not very similar at all to LA C'tis (I guess they both have fire/death). Not that I mind too much, but it seems a pity.

[DrPraetorious]

Actually, I was confused and thought Alugra was part of that of that package of city-fight nations , I was also under the impression that it was in Alpha?

It is quite different.... ugh, shortage of nation slots. And none of burnsaber's stuff is in here. I could bump either Skaven or Avernum, I suppose.

Tomb Kings is not similar to LA C'tis in terms of *game play*, but it is similar (egyptians+undead) in terms of *theme*. Likewise, Dinnas'arval (sp.) does not play much like EA Ulm, but barbarians in the EA is taken as a schtick, and Tuetanion overlaps with the schtick of LA Ulm and LA Man, even though it does not play the same.