New nation: NATURE rising 0.30

[Cor2]

Nature Rising: mod for EA <font color="red"> now version 0.30 </font>

"A strangeness has overtaken the wilderness of Primevale, origin of all life. What was once
Wild is now tame. What was once asleep is now awake. Even the stones stir with life. All the animals
and nature itself are acting with an alien purpose. Nature is rising."

Strengths: strong preists and Nature mages. Two sacreds, access to flying. Very thuggable commanders. Forest survival.

Weaknesses: low morale (all animals, a rattail could ruin your day), not very good ranged weaponry, very little protection.

the version 0.3 contains these changes:

Updated to incude art by Juzza.
Lowered costs for most units
Changed picture for elephant, changed unit as well
boosted Vine queen nature to 6
Added descrips to some units
fixed names of some units
deleted eagle
added ants and killerbees
added start site
changed pictures
added two new pretenders
added scout/stealthy units
Vine queen domsummons killerbees

[Cor2]

Oh yes, and I am having ttrouble renaming some of the units, if some one could look and tell me what I am doing wrong that would be great.

[Shovah32]

Nagot gick fel! over the nations flag.tga .

[Cor2]

opps, Let me fix that.

[Shovah32]

No! I will not let you fix that.

[Cor2]

I think its better now. Sorry.

[llamabeast]

lol Shovah http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Cor2]

planned additions.

National ritual summons:

Rock Elemental
Nature Elemenetal
Treants
Call Animal Legion (like summon animals but 300+)

Planned Pretender additions:
The Primevale Redwood

The One Mind

[Shovah32]

They need a home site for gem income. Their magic, while high level, is completely in the nature path and is far too limited, particularly for EA. I think alot of their units are over-priced although I cant go into detail just yet. A 1 gold/1 resource size 1 insect could be good - a slightly more expensive, recruitable dragon fly could also be nice.

Im atleast pretty sure this mod isnt over-powered.

[Cor2]

Thanks Shovah

I wanted to make the two sacreds capital only, but i could not get the site to work. I will try again.

The only nature was intentional, I see what your saying about the other EA nations. I want to try to leave it nature only and see. I will probobly have to change it, or make the nation MA.

I do really like the idea of adding a Bee/ wasp and a giant ant for 1/1 or 2/1. I have been intending to add insects from the start, just have not done it yet.

[Morkilus]

or better yet... Dominion-spawning insects based on a hive creature. Look at the Insectoid mod, for some examples.

[Juzza]

Yooou need to lower some costs!! things look a little over priced to me, um, I might be able to aid in some sprite making! just pm me, or post some stuff you need done, though there is a small problem. Are you #copystat these units and making new monsters or just modifying current units? cause doing somthing like adding gold costs to somthing like lions, from 0-50 might ahve an inpact on game play, um, I'm not actauly sure how much upkeep lions or any summons have, so to avoid that messy-ness copystating is a good idea.

[Cor2]

Yea I am using copy stat, so as not to mess with other animals.



Thanks for the offer to work on the sprites!
I get a list together of spites together...
But off the top of my head the mod needs

A Huge friggin Redwood tree (like the treelords)
A silverbacked bear (size 5 I think)
a bee or wasp (size 1)
an ant (size 1)
a green glowing sphere (Size 2)

[llamabeast]

You know there's already an ant in the game? A load of them are created by the "Creeping Doom" spell.

[Cor2]

llamabeast said:
You know there's already an ant in the game? A load of them are created by the "Creeping Doom" spell.



yeah, i know. i dont really like the way they look. Ants should not be white.

[llamabeast]

Cor2, I reckon you should get your old profile picture so we can recognise you more easily.

I didn't remember the ants being white, although I've hardly ever seen them. I agree that doesn't sound so good.

[Juzza]

I thought they were kinda brownish, oh, also, another sprite you might one is

1) a proper elephant without riders

and disregarding sprites for a second your doing nature raises, you still need, Giant Spiders, wolves, possibly dire wolves, did you have great bears? um, moose theres probably more as well

[Juzza]

ahh found ya!!

heres the sprite for the ant, it ain't white!!

you could probably use the Corpse candle sprite for the green glow as well, but I'm too tired to go and find that, I'll do it soonish to show you

[Cor2]

Oh I remember them looking white. thats good then. I will use them.

I dont like the idea of killer dragonflys though. That is just silly.

I noticed there is a tree image from the evlish nation mod, I might steal that one.

[Juzza]

I was going to suggest that, I can change the colours around and add some little bits to that if ya want, but I'm not superstar, I'm not 'the' best artist.

[Juzza]

Heres an elephant without a saddle or men on the top, unless you wanna use the model with monkeys on the elephant, but I don't think the men fit too well with the mod.

[Juzza]

You also said you needed "a green glowing sphere" is this sorta what you're looking for? I can change it around if your not happy with it.

[lch]

That sphere looks more or less like the Corpse candle, but that elephant definitely is something, alright.

[Cor2]

thanks alot!

The Elephant will be great!

The glowing green sphere is for a pretender, so it needs to be a bit more grand. Its supposed to be the embodiment of the spirit and power of nature, or some such.

thanks again.

[Endoperez]

Saber Cherry, an vibrant character no longer regular here, once suggested a nation of animals and/or vinemen. Her ideas were strange, but the ideas I remember being thrown about were:

vinemen, vine ogres and their recruitable versions with some simple equipment

aquatic 'killer whale' national summon, and killer tuna and other strange stuff

Any way, some animals that you might've missed:
great cat (second form of some Yomi/Shinuyama sorceress (uba?) summon, you can use the sprite at least)
horned serpent/sacred serpent of C'tis
demon toads of Mictlan (or non-demon versions of them)
Markata of the monkey nations, and perhaps atavi and/or bandar as well
tigers (the ones Tiger Riders of MA Bandar Log leave behind in battles)
Griffons and those lizards the Garnet and Jade Amazons ride
Black Hunters of MA Machaka also have second forms with just the animal
perhaps the serpents the Sauromatians/Pythians ride
Hydras/hydra hatchlings
the wolf form of Jotun Skratti (a size 4 giant wolf, bigger than the dire wolves)
Great Bears, the EA Ulm summon
Kithaironic Lions, cave/fire/frost drakes, wyverns (unless you intend them to remain summons)
Jaguars of Mictlan (I think they have a national Conjuration for those, but I might've confused something with their Rain of Jaguars spell)
great eagles who lead the black hawks of Call of the Winds

also, the carrion creatures reanimated by Pangaea are most often animals, and include undead moss-elephants

basilisk, cockatrice and other rare creatures from crossbreeding

phoenix could be used, perhaps for a hero

[Cor2]

Thans endo. I wanted to stick to real animals as much as possible, I think i do need to include some other big cats.

Many of those suggestions where in the first draft, but there was just too much stuff, it needed to be cut.

[Juzza]

You 'could' use this if you don't find anything better, I just fiddle around with a few things from a few different sprites, not really what I wanted, but it's what I ended up with.

oh, also I'm gonna see if I can make a good silverback bear now.

[Juzza]

oh jees, this is horrible, lol, sorry.

[Sombre]

I've heard of iced buns, but iced bears? Madness.

What does a silver back bear look like anyway?

[Juzza]

~looks sad~ it looks that bad??

[lch]

I guess the idea is to look at the gorillas...

http://www.berggorilla.org/deutsch/faq/fragpics/silberr.gif

[Sombre]

The silver can't be too huge a contrast to the normal fur though, or it looks very odd.

If you download Bandar Lover's barbarian mod, it has a bear pretender graphic I pulled from the Exile games. That looks a little different from the standard bear (it's grey not brown, for starters) and it might be better for basing a silver backed bear sprite on.

But Juzza's one is fine, basically, I was just kidding.

[llamabeast]

I think it's nice, but the careful shading you've done with the lighter white at the edge of the silverback has the effect of accentuating the edge and making it look like it has some height to it, as if there is a pile of stuff (icing) on the bear's back. I think if you redo the shading to remove the emphasis on the edge it will look really nice. You certainly seem to have the knack of subtle shading, and have chosen good colours for the back (people often use white rather than grey pixels for something that's meant to be white, which looks horrible).

[Juzza]

Thanks guys, I'm pretty decent at removing stuff and even making things a little bigger, it's adding things!! especially to animals! it makes it so much harder cause you can't copy stuff from other things quite so easily, which is the best way for me to do things, I'll attach it to this post once I've finished with the new one, unless someone else wants to have a go at it??

~now attached~

[Cor2]

Hey Its been a busy day.

Thanks Juzza for the sprites.

That green glowy thing looks awesome. I am not too picky, i could use the bear. I guess i agree with llammabeast that it will look good with some teeks to the shading. I tried to make one and you should see how crappy it turned out. Anyway its about my bed time here. Maybe i will get some modding done tomorrow so you can see your sprites in action.

[Juzza]

okay, so I have too much time on my hands, and I'm not a skilled artist, so you know what that results in? lots of half assed stuff!!

I changed some tiny things from the that tree pretender and added an attack sprite, heres the zip.

[Juzza]

jus' wondering, do we have a good place in this mod for blood magic? nature has little rules or morality meaning blood sacrifices shouldn't be such a huge moral outrage for the followers, considering they will mostly be animals and mindless plant beings.

[Cor2]

Hmm. Yes and no. I see your point.

I was envisioning the domains being largely free of living things of the two legged variety. Making blood slaves kinda hard to come by.

I was even contemplating putting Need Not Eat on all the critters and having a death dominion like ermor, but that is way too complicated and would not work for a variety of reasons. I also thought of giving them a supply bonus equal to what they eat so you could use the silverbacks to pillage the countryside, but i think that is redundant with such powerful nature mages.

I am reluctant to add any other paths of magic besides nature. But I think i will have to in the end. I can see arguments for earth and death as well as blood. for the momnet i want to boost what they have in nature and see if they can hold their own.


sorry i have not really set down and work on this again, i have been sorting through some more details in my head.

[Cor2]

Nice tree by the way, it will do just fine.

[llamabeast]

I might be disinclined to include blood and death, you might end up with another Pangaea (they're a bit dark-side-of-nature-y I think). I suppose a touch of air, water or nature might feel kind of natural. I'm not sure though, kind of thinking aloud. Possibly even astral.

[Wyatt Hebert]

An idea if you want to branch the magic out a bit (and make them highly efficient) is to make a spell like Voice of Tiamat for land provinces, and make it Nature based. Make it 10 Nature gems to find all Elemental and Nature sites. Also, give them either nature summons for Living Elementals (think minor Elemental royalty) for the paths, or give them some randoms in Elemental magic could work out.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Wyatt Hebert

[Cor2]

Hey Juzza. The image files end up with big black boxes around them and pink shadows. They look like the right color I am not sure why the game is treating them like solids.... Take a look at the attached mod.

[Juzza]

which image files? it might be something to do with, oh crap!! I forgot to replace the black and the shadows when I did the colour changes!!

... want me to redo them? it's not too hard to jus' change the background colour and the shadow colour in paint, their the st purple and the standard black.

[Cor2]

Yes, that would be very nice (redoing them). I need to learn the color numbers for the shadow and transparent, i can never get them right.

thanks Juzza.

[Juzza]

huh, um, I juuust realized, have you done any sprite modding before? cause, the black boxes and purple shadows get rendered by the game engine into

Black = totally see through

Purple = shadowed see through

this zip has everything in it, the tree pretender, a redon silverback, looks better now, I think, and I redid the green glowy thing too.

[Cor2]

Yes, i have tried some sprite modding. Not to say it wokred very well. I knew about the shadows and transparent, but I never get the right shade so I need to look up the numbers.

I would also love to learn how people take images from things like Magic Cards and put them in the game. Never works fro me. I end up with an unrecognizable blob.


By the by, You posted some stuff in .bmp but the game needs .tga. I can convert it no problem though. I just hope it does not lose some quality.

THanks Juzza. I will see if I can work on this today.

[Cor2]

Hey juzza, the elephant is not fixed, its not in the zip.

[Juzza]

There wasn't anything wrong with it, I took it right out of the huge directory, that Kristofer Osterman added, all I did to it was change it's back, it should look fine.

[Cor2]

Thats weird. I wonder why it show up in the game with a black box and a pink shadow. I used paint.net to convert it to a tga file, could that have messed with the colors? Any thoughts?

[Sombre]

Quickest way to avoid figuring out why that problem has come up is just to have Juzza upload it as a .tga inside a zip.

[Juzza]

yeah, good idea, I didn't know that paint could convert thins to tga I always use CorelDraw, maybe it messes the colours round a little with paint, sorry, I'll upload it right away

[Cor2]

thanks much Juzza. i will see how these work:)

[llamabeast]

Hey guys, for doing graphics can I strongly recommend the free program GIMP: http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ (scroll down a bit for the windows download). It's the main graphics program for linux and is considered a real strength - and I've found it perfect for sprites (plus of course it's free). Once you've got the knack you'll probably find it hugely easier than coreldraw or paint.

[Sombre]

But worse than Paint Shop Pro http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Juzza]

ahh!! buttons everywhere!! it's so confusing!!

[llamabeast]

Sombre: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
Juzza: Hopefully the button confusion will recede. It is lovely, promise!

Incidentally, pretty much the only tool I use for sprites is the pencil. And then I double click on the colour indicator below quite a bit to adjust my colour.

But the bits that are really helpful are the Tools-&gt;Colour Tools. Think that area should be a bit darker/higher contrast/green rather than red? Just change it! It's awesome.

[Juzza]

I think I manage with paint and corel for the moment...

[Cor2]

I have Paint.net (free) for easy/ quick jobs and I haev GIMP for more detailed jobs. At least that is how it works in theory, In reality I barely know how to work Gimp so i never use it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

I do plan on learning some day. I have it penciled in tenativley around the time hell freezes over.

It is a really go program though. I gave it to a graphic designer friend and she loved it.

[Juzza]

Hey I just had a thought, no wait! an idea! now don't all congraduate me at once, anyway this mod is nature rises, so how about a funky kinda scout, a Chuckabra(sp?) or Goat Sucker, have it as a like +10 stealthy commander and have it cause unrest in the province it's in, a decent amount too.

[Cor2]

cupacabra ? the Mexican myth? Is unrest moddable?

School started on monday, progress on the mod may be kind of slow well see.

[Cor2]

I should say I have made some changes already. and Adding a scout is one. I lowered costs and added units including a zero gold unit. its not ready for .02 yet though.

[Sombre]

You can have a unit increase unrest in the province it's in and if you give it the spy ability it can cause even more with the 'instill uprising' command.

[Juzza]

Yeah that Mexican myth, I could try and get a sprite together for it... if your willing to put it in, but I don't think making it a spy is a good idea, I don't think a wild creature could really instill an uprising.

[Cor2]

I could see it eating up the farmers animals. They get all riled up and blame their neigbors and start feuds and such. A little streach i guess.

[Juzza]

I think, if we are gonna put them in, that they would cause unrest that way, as in they just always do that, even in your own land when you first recruit them, but we're talking about maybe, 5 unrest per turn or something similar, cause if you then get like 5 into a province, it's either stuck on like 20 tax or constantly patrolling until they catch them.

[Juzza]

You know, if I copy and pasted say the back fur from the giant wolf pretender, I might be able to make a better silverback... want me ta give it a try?

[Cor2]

That sounds good. that is about what i was imagining.

[Juzza]

Cor?? how's this going lately??

[Cor2]

Very slowly. I have a long weekend coming up, so I plan on getting some of this done. But right now I have to study Chinese. Ni Hao!

[Cor2]

Hay Juzza! updated check it out.

the version 0.3 contains these changes:

Updated to incude art by Juzza.
Lowered costs for most units
Changed picture for elephant, changed unit as well
boosted Vine queen nature to 6
Added descrips to some units
fixed names of some units
deleted eagle
added ants and killerbees
added start site
changed pictures
added two new pretenders
added scout/stealthy units
Vine queen domsummons killerbees

Still to come:

National Spells
more units
More Balance
Change of the Spirits weapon should have a "drainlife" not a fist


I would love to hear balance/ theme input.

[jutetrea]

K, just downloaded and installed, haven't played through it yet:

Did you want all the Vaetti units in there? Both commanders and troops?

Did you mean for the tree and globe to be purchasable pretenders, if so, I'm definitely making a glow prophet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Are the ants and bees supposed to be 0g 1res? How about the ant commander? If so, I'd probably give the ant commander a 1 research...possibly, I'll play it out.

Was there supposed to be a second animal sacred?

Commanders look beefy, although everything is pretty expensive...I'm thinking of changing to order/sloth methinks.

I think you also have the vaetti spells in there, are there plans to make unique national spells? I noticed you mentioned something like legion of animals, but didn't see it.

I like the idea a lot, I also like the sheer multitude of random animals you can recruit. No idea how it'll work out yet, but it looks interesting.

[jutetrea]

Also get a "no holiness" error

Doubt the Tree of life is supposed to show up as a recruitable commander, but if it does it shows up with H1, and needs holy

[jutetrea]

Ok, played Aran with 4 AI (normal)

The non-stealth lord of the hunt makes for a great thug, mine got toughness so he's even extra beefy - moo!

Rainbow pretender seems useful, order is definitely a plus, sloth doesn't hurt too bad, and took luck so got the air hero.

The air hero seems pretty weak, although he does bring air into the mix. IMO I'd bring him up to 3A.

I also got the gygja hero from vaet/jot...not sure if its supposed to be in there.

I've got 2 priestess provinces (1N1W 25%WDNE, have about 20 trying to get 2W for sites) Other than those and a few ferrying commanders I've been trying not to recruit indy's, going to try on a NI map next I think.

I took the essence/orb and brought it up to 4 in each of its paths, been working out ok.

Since the essence/orb thingy was there as a purchasable commander for 120 I've been using it. If its NOT supposed to be there, might need a research boost and a magic leader boost on something else.

Ants and Bees aren't that bad, rarely use the bees and I use the ants but I need one of the orbs with 160 magic leader to really make them worthwhile. Possibly the sloth, but I find once I build the units I want I don't ahve a lot of resources left over.

Bear is really nice, pricey but the rejuv and berserk are key. Initially I thought the berserk value was too high, but for the price I think it works out.

Spiders - great, pricey but worth it mixed with others.
Lions - so so
dogs &gt; boars. Boars morale necesitates a follow up commander to pick up the routed boars.
Tangler - havent used much, but the magicbeing is a bit tough

The ant commander 0g 1 res 2N actually isn't that bad. They die off pretty quick it seems. So its great when low on cash and nothing else to do to toss one up there for the few turns it survives.

Fun nation, straightforward except the fun of trying to get into new paths.

[Cor2]

What was that about Vaetti units? In my tests I see non of those.

weird about the tree of life. I have played several test games and never seen it as a recruitable commander. I am going to re-upload the file after this post to see if it fixes the problem. You are alos getting the Spirit as a recruitable and I am not so something really weird is going on.

There should not be an ant comander.

Are you running two mods at once? the mod nation number is slot 74. Sounds like your alos running the Vaetti mod too. It may use the same nation number.



Here is what i see on in my tests
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa92/allothernamestakenreally/recruitables.jpg



on other matters:

The heros will be replaced with nation specific ones.


National spells are coming.

yes the Spirit and the Tree should be pretenders and not commanders.

Thanks for playing!

[Sombre]

No dire wolf? No amphibians?

It would be rather fun if the nation could build underwater forts and the two or three underwater animals too. The Sea Lion, the antlered one and so on.

[Cor2]

Good suggestion. i look into that. Did you have the same problems that Jutetrea had?

[Sombre]

You mean Jutetra? Nope. He clearly has Vaetti turned on.

[Cor2]

By the way I checked and Vaettiheim has the same mod number as Nature. Didn't think this would be a proble see in as nature is 1st and Vaettiheim is 3rd.

[Sombre]

It's not a problem unless you have them both enabled at once, which there's no need to do, because they're in different ages. He just made a mistake I guess.

[Cor2]

Your right Sombre, I meant Jutetrea.

[jutetrea]

Ok, yup I'm a dumbass. That being said, it was fun combo'd.

Pros: Great thuggable commanders, stealth heavy preacher, ants, great sacreds

Cons: Costly units, ants, lack of magic diversity, lack of magical leadership variety, slow research

I'm slogging through another game now, 8 player (no indy) aran, almost down to 3 nations and I'll roll over the rest methinks. Much tougher.

Rambles:

Water nations - what to do? Pure pretender or indy luck so far.

Research - recommendations? Real slow

Cost - gold is still a huge issue, even with order 3 growth 3, sloth 1, heat 1, luck 2 I'm always poor.

Seems there's a big jump from the cheap units, hawk/boar/dog to the medium units spider/lion. &lt;10g to 40g. The spider might be worth the 40g, but I'm not sure the lion is. I think a good medium 20g unit might be nice.

ants - it really seemed my whole game revolved around ants and research. The 2N guys for ok priced research and magical leadership and masses and masses of ants.

Didn't bother much with the elephants, figured if I was going to spend 100, might as well spend 160 and get a sacred berserker.

Bears are great, very difficult to mass due to cost, but with recup they stick around awhile.

ants - it really seemed my whole game revolved around ants and research. The 2N guys for ok priced research and magical leadership and masses and masses of ants.

Is the limited magical leadership part of the grand design? the 2N guys having 40 normal leadership was very very key.

Any chance of getting a good chunk of magical leadership for under 100g?

Most of my game consisted of buying the 2N guys everywhere I could every turn, troops on the front line (which tapped the gold) and ants everywhere else. Slowly move the ants to the front to get armies of 200-400 and use them as buffers for the real troops. After a battle, consolidate and move the mages into a lab to summon animals or vine ogres.

Guardians were very very fun, favorite unit by far. Thuggable, but by no means unbeatable. Survival went way up once I was able to branch into other magic paths/items. I've got like 10 running around currently.

Vine queen - only built 1 to cast GoH and Mother, haven't used for much else except the freespawns a bit.

Keeper - Didn't use many keepers (1), could never afford em. Didn't have a big bless, and didn't stealth preach. Was nice for pushing dom at the borders though. Next time I'm going to try to use these earlier.

How are the tanglers, didn't really use them. Price primarily.

Went with a sleeping enchantress 4F4E4S4D, worked out ok, missed the 5% regen, although regen rings were plentiful.

Got lucky and got a gnome, witch, sage and lore master sites which eventually got me into all the paths.

How are you feeling about varying the magic just a bit? Even with 1 unit with a 2 random in something like 1N 100%NX 50%X

nature/water - oceania
nature/death, nature/blood, nature/earth - Pan
Nature/Air - man, Eriu
Nature/fire - not too thematic
Nature/astral - ??

I think air or water have to be accessible via pretender or nation just to deal with water nations. But curious to see if I'm just blind to an approach.

[Sombre]

In issue with gold free units like the ants, is that they really encourage micro throughout the entire game. I can only imagine what it's like shipping ants around when you have like 8 forts. And if you don't, you're missing out.

[jutetrea]

Yeah, big micro without a lot of punch...but it does give you something to do with all those forts when you can't afford to buy anything http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Plus with the 1 move its worse (although I don't mind the 1 move or eek, the 3 battlefield move). They've got to be weak. They really did take up my whole game it seems.

Possibly just give the keeper very good magic leader as well? Nice that the vine queen has it, but I'd rather bring a keeper into battle vs a vine queen.

Trying a bless strat this time, a 9N2F4E3S enchantress. Didn't really want to take nature since its redundant, but the regen seems to be the only useful bless besides fire. Earth prot doesn't seem to affect them (because of no armor?) and while reinvig is nice, doesn't seem to be the problem yet although ahven't had huge battles. I initially wanted to try a E9N10 Cyclops but prot doesn't work and can't find a good petender http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Not a fan of immobiles, and the orb thingy is too expensive for other paths cuz I think you need a little (air or water)/earth/astral (shoulda gone 2A on the above ench).

So far, 4 bears can cruise through indy's at 5. I've had like ~10 battles and only have lost 1 to elephants (out of 3 elephant indy combats). Bloody brutal with +8 berserk (nature bless stacks)

Research still seems slow, but isn't 100g for 4 research normal? Possibly just seems slow cuz of limited options?

Think I'll ditch the ants and see if play flows better.

[Cor2]

I like the ants but I see your point about micro. At least they don't rout, you would hang yourself trying to collect them all back up.

I am afraid the Bears need nerfing. In my test game that is all I recruited and nothing could stop them ( I had a nature 9 bless) Thier only drawback is the low MR.

I see the limited magic as a trade off for:
1 Free units
2 A badass sacred
3 the most powerful preists in the game
4 thuggable units
5 the most powerful single path recuitable mage in the game (I think 6 is it right)


I have been tweeking and I have already raised the magic leadership to 80 on the Witchplants

Might I add that I found the tanglers to be Awesome. They are worth the gold IMHO, but not when you could by 2/3 of a bear. They tangle when they are attack and have 3 sleep vines attacks (total of 9 attacks!) They are a real thug killer. By my calculations ( i could be wrong) if three of them attack a SC, the final attack gets +52 to hit. Ouch. They should die to archers and hordes of chaff.

For research I usually use boars, they are half as cheap for upkeep (sacred). But I guess it seems slow b/c there is no native research items.


I am alos going to bring start site in line with others of early era (ie 6) and have the bears capital only.

[Cor2]

I ran a test game were I set Nature to Impossible AI and played one on one. It did pretty well. The AI favored the Tanglers, and of course hordes of indy chaff.

Other tweeks i am going to introduce:
1 a random pick mage so you can get elemental magic(its going to be cool, and have a research bonus)
2 I have already raised the Vine queens magic leadership to max.
3 I will lower the cost of the lions as per your suggestion Jutetrea.
4. Add an amphib unit and commander, I am thinking Toads and turtles, we will see.
5. I am going to fix the guardian and the Keeper's slots, they should not have head or feet (B/C horns and hooves)

[jutetrea]

Been playing this mod a lot:

I'm still running the 9N4E(2F1W3S) bless against impossible and mighty ai.

I'd love to see vans in some of the battles the bears are in, I THINK they'd do just as well. 16 bears and a keeper can take out about 200 pans of a 400 pan army. How do you plan on nerfing them? Right now they may be a bit better than vans, but cost over twice as much. Plus they really need a nature bless to be truly fearsome (I think), which limits options a bit and is very redundant with the national path.

Kind of oddball, but did you think of giving them a "thick fur" type armor so the +4 prot of earth works?

If capital only, will the cost drop or will there be more changes?

Really sad about the loss of guardian feet slots, no more flying boots. 10 prot for the head is a bit low for an ideal thug, especially with such a low defense when berserked. Do you plan on adding a gore attack by default to simulate horns?

Im curious how theyd fare with a preset god of 9N and a no indy map.

[Cor2]

I was thinking of dropping their hp to 40 instaed of 60. Maybe dropping berserk some. You may be right.

If i gave them thick fur then rust and destruction and such would work on them. Seems silly.

I was going to give them a antler attack, better than gore, i think the moose might have it already.

thanks for playing and all the great feedback Jutetrea.

[jutetrea]

Couple more thoughts:

What's the reasoning behind the fort types? Pretty brutal starting with a 5 or 10 admin fort, I'm quite psyched when I capture an enemy capital.

oddball thought: Any interest in making the 3 armed Ettin available for summons? I've always wanted to play a nation where one could be used as a thug.

Lanka &gt; Bears. Started up a new game (N10A2) vs an impossible Lanka, their high str guys did a number on the bears. Luckily I've started using the keepers to ferry bears instead of the boars and the 4H banishment helped.

So far sauro's wrath of ancestors (para), high str units, and fatigue casters have been their biggest problems. Similar to the giants in that at size 5 you're only getting 1(?) a square and they get mobbed. They're fantastic against indy's or &lt; 80 troop armies but mobs do quite a number even with 20% regen. With the 60 hp and good regen they can usually shrug off the single big hit from a lance, or small heavy cav squads. Archers don't do much against them either. Finding them very similar to giants but without the cold aura but with berserk (which is a good and occasionally bad thing).

Very similar to giants, with a couple differences - cold aura which is huge, cold resistence - meh, and 15 MR which is huge. Bears get fear +0 which is huge, recup which is nice but an 8 MR which is a huge negative. I'm not so sure they need to be nerfed all that much.

Boars - would you think about giving them a boost? I just looked through the EA nations and it isn't uncommon to find similar plus an ability for similar cost.
Arco - + heal, 20g diff
Ermor - +1 100Random, 30g, +1H 30g
Mict (bit different though), +1 10Rand -40g
TC - similar, minus stealth -15g, +1 100Rand +10g
Tir - +1A +glam +80 leader, darkvision, 50g

Possibly a 50% random for 2N possibility, or 2H, or increase leadership. Healing would be sweet and it kind of fits. Or on the other hand, reducing their cost to say 75ish.

I could just be using them wrong, and I have started using them for researching to keep costs down. I still find I need a ton of vine mages to ferry magical troops.

Guardians - They actually die pretty easily, especially unblessed. With the limited item types available they aren't a huge killing force. I've been using hydra armor, horned helm (which will be going away), eye shield+kris (or whatever I can lay my hands on) or gladiator gloves, ring of regen and anything else I can get for another misc. With const 6 items and a bit of magical diversity by that point they do pretty well as thugs. I still like them a lot, just don't use them as much.

hounds, boars, apes
Have you been able to successfully use the hounds or boars? They seem to rout quicker then base infantry and have less impact on a battle even in large #'s. Still ok in large #'s, but I can't seem to use em right as they flee.

The apes seem too expensive as well, their ranged attack is minimally useful and in melee they are chaff. Any thought on dropping their HP/size a bit and reducing their cost? I like the idea thematically, and limiting the ranged to sticks/stones but 20/5 is pretty expensive for a cash strapped nation. I'd rather find indy's at 10/4 and get 30 range.

Pretenders:
Tree is good, although I personally hate immobile. What's teh reasoning for giving the orb thing an 80 path cost? Unsure about balance wise, but for utility he'd jump way up there with a 40 path cost. Lower would be better, but unsure if you'd rather have a higher base price and lower path cost. like 150 start, 20 path or something around there, whatever works out with Endo's pretender cost formula.

Still playing it, still liking it. I'm thinking the bears make it much more of a bless nation in my mind. Although my next game will be going for a moderate N4-N6 bless and good scales. Used the tree this time for an N10A2 and mostly good scales and its working out ok, except Lanka.