-I find the idea of "sent the bloodthirsty toddlers in first" slightly disturbing. +1 point
- ... but vampires - born? I think there would have to be some bloodsucking to get new vampires?
-Why is a Necromancer into item forging?
-The Shadow Dragon has magic -4 instead of the usual -2 and I see no reason for that.
-You are giving out #dt_raise very cheap. Sounds perfect for the ritual dagger but not 100% fitting for the vampiric Greatsword. PS: Okay, it might not look stylish in the code but after playing it, I love that feature.
-Your "Black Venom Dagger" is more a "Black Venom Short Sword", because of reach (That is okay, dual short swords are cool but the name is misleading).
There are a lot of tags not needed. For the children of the night for example:
#eyes 2 - is default anyway.
#stormimmune - makes only sense for flyers
#ambidextrous 2 - Your daggers have reach 0, so not really needed, unless you cast gift of reason on one and give it 2 bigger weapons. You can of course still leave it in for flavor ...
#douse - is a commander only feature. Again, one should somewhat plan for gift of reason, giving units the correct #itemslots, but this one I find strange.
#secondtempshape 2402 - Is it correct, that this is on the 2400 child AND on he 2401 wolf form?
Only minor stuff but I thought, I mentioned it.
-Humans with maxage 100? Why do your humans get twice as old?
-The Black Rose Lord's Mist Form shold have the same maxage as the Lord himself ... which should not be toooo old. Tune that down a bit. 2 or 3 hundred years age and 500 maxage is okay, over 1000 should be reserved for Pretenders, the mightiest summons and maybe a national hero or two.
-That mistform also needs a better weapon then "Fist" (None is given then Fist is default)
-Overall, that Mistform is quite funny but useless. Whatever kills the Lord kills the mist in the next round the latest. You of course the Lord is powerful enough even like this (so it does not need to be changed balance wise) but you might want to consider reducing the mistforms Moral to 0 (or similar really low), so that he is most likely to flee, unless he is killed in the same round he is transformed.
-I have not tried it, but I guess, that the Ancient vampire's #secondshape might void his #immortality.
-Standards for the skeleton commander and Lord feel wrong because Skeleton armies should not have moral problems anyway.
-The Skeleton troop summons are a bit expencive. Sure, Skelleton guard is level 0 but on only Enchantment 1 you have reanimation, which produces somewhat weaker skeletons but 10 for 5 instead of 3 for 7. And Skeletal Warriors will have to get comared to Pale Riders, same path, same cost, only 1 level higher (even if diffrent school).
And there you get 20+!!! With a charge bonus.
If you want to keep the units, I'd adjust numbers to:
Skelleton guard: 5 for 5 gems
Skelleton warriors: 10 for 10 gems
...1 for 1 is about twice as costy as longdead reanimation / Pale riders. While they are nowhere near twice as good in the offence, the higher magic resistence and the lack of never heals will give them enough more staying power so that this sounds reasonable.
Your provincial defence 2a references a unit 2553. You have not created such a unit.
Overall, your nation definitly is not to weak. I played two short test games against the AI and based on simply Black Rose Guards and Lords I had no problem at all, even without a bless (1st game).
With an Imprisoned Blue Dragon and a simple W9 plus great scales it had a really good roll. Additional Dark Mystics were needed to bless but it really was not hard to manage, since they fly.
The research had to wait a bit but then the Necromancers started it up and it worked average. Mystics can fly to expansion bases and build lab&temple, and 2 or 3 Summoners get you your magic diversity.
It would be an interesting test to see, how this nation does in a longer game and - more important - how easy it is to get there.
Basicly, it feels a bit like playing Niefelheim but with the soulless that survive the battle, it has a Zombie-hordes touch.
So, overall: Thanks for the mod, was a nice game.