Idea for a mod

[odd_enuf]

mod for pythium

desciption

The Theugs of pythum didn't learn there lesson from the fall of Ermor. They continued there magic experiments, striving for greater and greater power. Like Ermor, they paid for there pride when there experiments brought another cataclism. Magical energies ripped throught he land, killing many. The ranks of the Theugs were almost whiped out, along with most of the political and military leadership. The survivers soon discovered that the bLast of magical energies had infused the land, the air, and the people with magic. Most of the ordinary citizens could manipulate these magical energies, allowing them to cast minor dweomers, though most were not strong enough to become full mages. The citizens have organized themselves into 4 warrior societies, each one attuned to a different element. And they are lead by those most powerful in magics

requirements
turmoil 1, magic 3, 50 extra dp

units
all units have above average magic resistnace due to there familiarity with magic, 11 or 12, but lower then the high magic resistances of pangea.
militia- costs 8 gold,
Those citizens not lucky enough to have gained any magical power are not allowed to join any of the warrior societies. Instead, they are foced into ther militia. Already ousiders, they are given no training, so they do not fight hard.
stats- same crappy stats as normal militia, expect they have an even lower moral, 5 or 6. Also, they do not have the higher magic resistance that the rest of the citizinry enjoy,
note- the provincial defense is made up of militia, lead by gifted commanders.

Shield bearer- costs 12 gold- high resourses
Those citizens whose magicical skills are closely attuned to the earth join the brotherhood of the shield bearers. They wear heavy armer and carry two shields, one massive tower shield, and one smaller spiked shield that is used as a weapon. There connection to the earth lets them carry this heavy burden without tireing as fast as normal men.

stats- total protection of 19, defense 15, attack 8 moral 12
weapon spiked shiled, dmg 0, attk -2, def 2, prot 2, enc 1,length 1
total encombrance 8, but units has reinvergeration 4

fire or flame blades - costs 13 gold - moderate resourses
Those citizens whose powers are attuned with fire become flame blades. They have the ability to empower there weapons with fire, [similer to the flames from a fire 9 blessing] changing them into magic weapons that can pierce armer.

stats- attack 15, def 8, moral 11, protection 10 -12 ( chain mail) ambidexitry 2
weapons 2 fire daggers, damage 4 AP, attack 3, def 0, length 0

Wave Walkers- cost 10 gold, low resourses
Those citizens whose powers are attuned to water become wave walkers. They have the abilitiy to breath and move underwater as if on land. They wear no armer, which would only hamper them underwater.

stats- FULL amphibion, moral 10, att 11, def 11, pro 0, enc 0 weapon greatsword

Wind masters - costs 10 gold, low resourses
Those citizens whose powers are attuned to air become Wind Masters. Bows were frowned upon by the old mililtary generals of Pythuim, but those generals are now all dead, and bows have been reintroduced. Wind masters have the ability to subly manipulate the winds to guide there arrows, giving them better presicion then normal archers

stats- same as unarmed archer, moral of 9
weapons short bow and dagger
if possilbe, have aim autocast on each unit at the start of battle, to keep their higher precision from stacking with wind guide, otherwise have higher pression, aroudn 15
other stats same as normal archers, no armer

Commanders

Scout- costs 30 - 35 gold, low res
Those citizens who have glamour abilities are emplowed as scouts.

stats- same as normal scout, except they have glamour ability.

Gifted- costs 110 gold
With the old elites of society gone, the new elites are those that have magic abilities. Those who are skilled in both the magical and martial arts are trained as gifted. Combining both these skills the gifted are powerful warriors and the new leaders of the Pythium. There dicipline also makes them good researchers

stats- above average attack and defense ~13-14, low encumbrance armer, shield, longsword, helm
magic Full Random 1 +1 research
leadership 50

Savant- costs 80 gold, 1 resourse- capital only
Citizens who are exceptionally skilled in 1 magic disipline at the expence of all others become savants. There focus gives them high magic skill, but there ignorance of other forms of magic limits there research ability.

stats- average for a mage
leadership 0
magic- FR 2, -2 to research

Chaos mage- costs 110-120 gold [ about the same as a lore master] 1 resource

After the cataclism wild magic surges still plague the land. Those that sucessfully manage to harness this power become power choas mages. Those that try and fail, die. The survivers often still bear the scars from this struggle. The chaotic nature of these mages doesn't lend itself to the dicipline of research.

stats - normal for a mage, 75% chance for a random battle affliction (including feeble mind)
leadership 10
magic FR 5 -2 research

Theug - costs 120 gold
Not all of the Theugs were killed in the cataclism, some of the ones living in outlying areas survived. There power has greatly dimished, and the populace blames them for the destruction, so there religous authority has been reduced.

stats- same as theug
leadership 10
magic S1 H2

advantages
This theme has a varity of specilized infrantry for a moderate price.
They also have cheap and versitile mages.
very good scouting

disadvantages
There is no cavalry at all, the serpant cataphracts are gone, along with hydras and assasins.
While the mages are cheap and fairly powerful, its impossilbe to know what skills you will end up with, and your unlikly to get more then a couple 3's in any skill.
Possilby the worst provincial defence of any nation.
While each of the specilist troops are very good at what they do, there is no unit that is good at everthing, so knowing which of the troops to train and troop placement becomes more important.
Forced turmoil will reduce the amount of gold you have to spend on these nice troops, and will also make taking a misfortune scale more difficult
Forced magic scale, combined with the forced turmoil limits the number of design points that can be spend on the pretender.
Lousy priests, best they have is h2, and he's expensive

I don't know how to write this, nor do I have the time to do so, but I would like to hear feedback about my idea, and if anyone would like to make this go ahead.

odd_enuf

[Sandman]

Four tribes, magically diverse... it's kinda like the Amazon mod, isn't it?

The wind walkers strike me as underpriced, and the wave walkers strike me as completely useless; with no armour, they'll get annihilated by tritons.

[Vicious Love]

Just getting this straight, you want the chaos mage to have 5 1-point random picks, not one 5-point random pick, right?

[odd_enuf]

right, the chaos mages have 5 1 random point, just like lore masters, the savants have 2 random in the same school.

odd_enuf

[Ironhawk]

Very cool idea, conceptually! Seems like it might be overpowered tho. With the exception of the water guys, all the other inf are all exceptional at what they do: some nice HI (earth), some late fire killers (fire - who are ap AND fire damage AND magic all on a normal troop), and excellent bowmen. Basically this mod makes pythium ground troops top notch.

Which would be fine, except that you've also got the Chaos Mage here which is effectively an amazingly cheap mini-rainbow mage. It's almost gauranteed of having 2 levels in *any* magic. Possibly more! And yes, they could be afflicted (which is a WAY COOL idea, btw), but the truth is that there are only a handful of afflications that make a mage useless (feeblemind, mute, blind), unlike a soldier.

Turmoil 1 will slow production a little but people will just take Prod 2-3 to make up for it and search out all the earth and fire sites with thier cheap mini-rainbow mages to make up the gold income.

[Vicious Love]

I'm honestly not sure this mod is that overpowered. Methinks the shieldbearers and fire infantry should be given a cost increase, but even in their present state, stupendous though they may be, they're no more than a match for Mictlan and Marignon's ultracheap sacreds, assuming your pretender has a few level 4 paths or a single level 9 path.
Sure, everything seems overpowered at first glance, but I really can see how tweaking a few numbers can make this nation perfectly balanced.
I take it the idea is that magic is sort of... diffuse for this nation. Everyone has it, but hardly anyone's mastered it, and no one's properly developed it. Aptly enough, their research leaves much to be desired, unless you focus on minisages which are pretty much useless for rituals and combat, and not all that useful for forging.

My only real qualm is that they haven't got enough variety. I'm not suggesting you make them more versatile or better in a particular field, I just get the feeling they could stand to be a bit more complex. Four types of infantry plus sub-militia, something's missing. Something with style. Caelian mammoth style.

Update: Yup, definitely some number-tweaking to be done here. I realize the chaos mages have a research penalty, while lore masters have a bonus, nonetheless, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that lore masters are ultra-rare, ultra-cost-effective indies. Methinks the lore master->chaos mage ratio should be more like circle master->goetic master than indy druid->pan, or whatever.

[odd_enuf]

With the choas mages, I compare them to lore masters, who are 120 gold for fr4 with a research bonus of eithor +4 or +7. Chaos mages have 1 more random path, but they get a research penalty instead of a bonus, plus they have the random afliction, at about the same cost. seems like a fair trade to me. About the good heavy infrantry, there weapon is damage 0 and attack -2, so while they can take a lot of punishment they can't deal it out. With the flame blades, they can dish out a bunch of damage, but with a defense of only 8 and only 10-12 protection, they can't take a lot. With proper troop placement you may be able to make the shiled bearers take all the damage, while the flame blades deal it out, but that is difficult to do. While the archers do have high precision, they can't increase it further with wind guide, like man, caelum, and tien chi, plus there only shortbows, not the more powerful long or composite bows. Plus, like ulm, they don't have level 3 priests, so they can't cast sermine of courage to keep there units from routing. If the units end up being too powerful, you can always increase the costs to a fair amout, though the turmoil scale gives a -28% decrease in income compared to the order 3 scales most players take.

I also forgot to mention heroes.

"name" the arch-theug
"name" idiolized the old theugs, even after the destruction they wrought. Once he gained acceptance inside there ranks he searched for any remaining texts from before the fall of the theugs. His studies were successful, he has relearned many of the lost knowledge, becoming almost as powerful as the arch-theugs of old. This knowledge comes at a price however, he is feared and distrusted by the remaining population.

stats- same as an arch theug
magic 2a 1w 3s h3
leadership 0

"name" the master of choas
"name" showed great magical talents from a young age, he started casting spells while still a child. As he grew older, he knowledge and controle only increased. He achieved mastery over the chaotic magical energies released by the chataclysm, allowing to achieve the dream of the theugs who created it, becomeing the most powerful mage in the world.

stats- same as chaos mage, but no random afliction
magic 10 fr
leadership 25

as for the Last hero, I was thinking of someone who was talanted in all the magic abilites of the warrior societies, thus having the bonuses of each of them. Thus he would have stats higher then the gifted, glamour, reinveration 4, full amphibion, aim cast at the start of battle. As for the fire bonus, if you give him the same fire daggers as the flame blades he loses this bonus if you give him a different weapon, so you could give him permant flame weapons, like the blessing, or cast weapons of sharpness on him at the start of each battle if that is too stong. however, when you start adding up all these bonuses, he might end up too strong, hard to say.


odd_enuf

edit-
hmm, something big, somethign with style, I suppose that troglydites would fit, they were unleased when the cataclism opened great rifts in the earth, have have now been tamed.
Alternetly, you could let them keep the hydras, though I prefer the first.
A third Idea, the mutated, humans who have been so warped by the magical energies they are no longer reginisable as human. I'd have to think about what stats and abilities they would have, though they coudl be similer to the more powerful crossbreeds. Without knowing there abilities, its too early to assign a cost to them, though they would probably be low resourses, high gold.

For a bit more varity, I was thinking of a nature infrantry, give them spears, javalins, furs, and a suply bonus of 1-4, costs 10-13 gold.

for starting sites, you would then have ten thousand things, 5 gem income, e,w,a,f,and n, then the swamps, mod the full hydra into the trogladites, the hydra tamer into the savants, and get rid of the hydra hatchling

For the tweaking, raising the price of choas mages to 130-150, shield bearors to 14, and flame blades to 15-16, might help balance them. Also, give the wave walkers armer so they have prot 10, plus make them full amphibions, raise there price to 12 gold. When you factor in the 28% turmoil penatly, the effective price becomes roughly 180 for the choas masters, 100 for the savants, 140 for the gifted, 20 for the flame blades, 18 for the shield bearors, 13 for the archers, though of course this penatly will be offset somewhat by alchamy and gold/gem mines.

[Endoperez]

Give "the master of chaos" level one in everything. And 'sacred'-status. He has achieved *everything*. Besides, I'm not sure if heroes can have random picks.

The "arch theurg" shouldn't have priestly magic. Atleast not at level three. Sermon of Courage from someone everyone is afraid of...

For the Last hero, he seems thematic. However, you might consider giving him half of the powers of all other, instead of their full powers. After that he would have stats of the gifted, reinvigoration 2, poor amphibion, aim cast at the start of battle but poor precision, ambidexterity 2 and dual-wielded longsword and a flaming dagger. Notice how his powers in fire are only enough to affect the second weapon.


About Chaos Masters: 5 full picks is much. The idea has been thrown around a few times, but it is still very powerful. 120 gp is not much, research is on par with any 3-pick mage and the afflictions could be bad but they are so cheap that it doesn't affect much... Even if 25% of them were feeble-minded when bought the price to get a useful one would be about 160 gp (120*4/3) in the long run. And much less than 25% of them are useless! I would up the cost to that 160 gp's, at least. In the very end I compare the research values of their three mages, and I put my suggestion in there too.

This nation would have access to all magics at atleast 3, and with all the different paths they can easily make all boosters. Including Rings of Wizardy! One S2E2 mage can do Starshine Skullcap, Crystal Coin, Ring of Sorcery, Ring of Wizardry... All forged with Dwarven Hammers, of course. And in the end of endgame they would have Chaos Masters equipped with Staff of Elemental Mastery, Robe of the Magi and Ring of Wizardry/ Sorcery for total magic bonus of 3 (2 true plus plus both sorc. & elem. bonuses), reinvigoration 5, immunity to fire and cold or lightning and prot. 15 depending on the type of the staff used, and penetration bonus of two.

All this for 5+5 gems for Staff, 10 gems + 10 slaves for robe, 10 + 20 pearls for rings for total of 60 gems/pearls/slaves. Earth 2 will be good enough to cast Forge of the Ancients after they get the booster-mill going, they will find all the sites so have gems to keep it up and have access to all magics atleast at 5 without any boosters spesific to that magic. They also have easy access to Hammer of the Forge Lord, and exteremely lucky Masters could even be able to cast Wish... They also have cheap communicants in sacred Theurgs.

AND to the top of it all, their best researcher is their best mage. As seen under, 24 gp/rp for CM, 40gp/rp and cheaper upkeep for others. However, CM researchs more than twice the amount of Savant and almost twice the amount of theurg, being much more useful than either of them... In very long run and/or with magic scale one could consider theurg, but SHH versus ????? seems rather weak.

research point (rp) formula used: 2 + (# of picks) +- bonus

Savant: 80gp / 2 = 40 gp/rp, upkeep of 5,3 gp
Chaos Master: 120 gp / 5 = 24gp/rp, upkeep of 8 gp
Theurg: 120 gp / 3 rp = 40 gp/rp, upkeep of 4 gp

my Chaos Master: 160 gp / 5 = 32 gp/rp, upkeep of 10,7 gp

This is more balanced, as it is no longer the best researcher for 20+ or whatever turns. I'm not going to calculate how many turns it takes for upkeep to make this cost more than the others, but it will happen much faster than in your original case.


Your idea is somewhat raw, it could use some more consideration, tweaking and balancing, maybe some more units (supply guys seem nice) but it could work. Do you have a name for it? It would be nice to know what I am waiting for... :P

[odd_enuf]

hmm, looking at the research, if you make the chaos master cost 140-150, and increase the reseach penalty to -3, then research woudl be 35-37.5, gifted as is would be 27.5, take away there research bonus and there cost becomes 37, which seems about right, about a name, I was thinking of somethign along the lines of enchanted lands, though comeing up with names for things is what I'm worst at.