Balance Machaka

[chrispedersen]

I was working on giving Machaka some love in my balance series - but a lot of the changes I wanted to do are not working out well.

Here were the changes I had for the drawing board

I wanted Machaka spiders to be very effective vs. SC's. To this end I wanted a paralyzation effect ala petrify on the spit nets and stingers.

I loved the carcator effect in combat, yet I wanted to give a research bonus greater than +2. I wanted the cost to be 5F/5N - fire and nature to dry the heads and yet retain sentience. But the carcator curse spitting ... didn't fit.

I wanted to add some kind of gate ability, as well as a reaper ability to the assassins.

Unfortunately, I'm only a middling modder at best. When I teleport the assassin - he fights the province - he doesn't stealth there.

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Giving machaka sauromatia's poison arrows makes a great deal of thematic sense. You already have jungles, poison all over the place, and a familiarity with death and nature magic.

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Barring any of these, perhaps just giving machaka a national version of flaming arrows at one level lower in the research tree? But this really feels like a kludge

Comments?
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I also like the idea of working in ai totemic spirits

The spelled caleld something like Spirit Guide.

Mechanic - the wizard casts the spell is replaced with a form of himself with slightly different attributes.

For example: Raven totem - +4rp (wisdom)
Bear totem: double hp, berserk +2
Spider totem: Gains spit weapon, web, brachiationi
Frog totm: Gains ampibious, poison spit
Bat totam: Gains stealthy, domsummon bat

And or it would be nice if there were an onebattle spell for him ...

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On an unrelated note:
Anyway to give light lances the ability for the wielder to counter darkness?

[Kuritza]

Can you mod spears with paralyzing poison (adding fatique on hit)? I'd say, thematically that would fit quite well, and that might be a good step towards countering SCs.

[Foodstamp]

You may be able to do the stealthed reaper idea with a modification of the "Monster Boar" spell. If it takes a unit number as the damage type, you could copy the spell and change the damage to the unit you are trying to use. You wouldn't have control over the unit, but he should sit there and plague the place up if we are able to mod the spell in that manner.

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Giving machaka sauromatia's poison arrows makes a great deal of thematic sense. You already have jungles, poison all over the place, and a familiarity with death and nature magic.

While it would make sense, I don't think that would be too thematic (at least in my opinion). To me Machaka is something about Sorcerers and spiders, and without them the rest is crap.

If there would a spell like flaming arrows which would make regular arrows poison arrows, then yes, that I would love to see.

Barring any of these, perhaps just giving machaka a national version of flaming arrows at one level lower in the research tree? But this really feels like a kludge

I agree with that. Unless it had some limited area (like AoE 20 for example) too, but I don't know if it is possible to make such a spell.

[rtyffg]

Originally Posted by Jarkko

I agree with that. Unless it had some limited area (like AoE 20 for example) too, but I don't know if it is possible to make such a spell.

The minor flaming arrows spell itself seems possible, at least the following lines seem to work (school and paths are to test easyly):
#newspell
#copyspell "Flaming Arrows"
#fatiguecost 10
#aoe 20
#school 3
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 0
#path 1 6
#pathlevel 0 1
#pathlevel 1 1
#restricted 35
#end

Still maybe the other possible change is to add a gemproducing(fire) national summon,
and add a set of drawbacks to that unit: no item slots, immobile, reaper(througn will not disease units but at least"plague" the local population), and with a considerable gold cost(to limit usable numbers). Something like this:
#newmonster 2900
#copysprite 1952
#name "Fever Fetish"
#descr "Gem generator"
#mapmove 0
#ap 2
#immobile
#gemprod 0 1
#gcost 1500
#older 50
#leper 50
#end

#newspell
#name "Place Fevers"
#fatiguecost 100
#nreff 1
#effect 10021
#damage 2900
#school 3
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 0
#path 1 6
#pathlevel 0 1
#pathlevel 1 1
#restricted 35
#descr "The caster gathers magical essence of fevers in the province and places it into a statue. Gathered power brings a statue to life and causes it to spread deadly diseases. Every month a fire gem is created by gathering power from fevers caused."
#end

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by rtyffg

The minor flaming arrows spell itself seems possible, at least the following lines seem to work (school and paths are to test easyly):
#newspell
#copyspell "Flaming Arrows"
#fatiguecost 10
#aoe 20
#school 3
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 0
#path 1 6
#pathlevel 0 1
#pathlevel 1 1
#restricted 35
#end

Still maybe the other possible change is to add a gemproducing(fire) national summon,
and add a set of drawbacks to that unit: no item slots, immobile, reaper(througn will not disease units but at least"plague" the local population), and with a considerable gold cost(to limit usable numbers). Something like this:
#newmonster 2900
#copysprite 1952
#name "Fever Fetish"
#descr "Gem generator"
#mapmove 0
#ap 2
#immobile
#gemprod 0 1
#gcost 1500
#older 50
#leper 50
#end

#newspell
#name "Place Fevers"
#fatiguecost 100
#nreff 1
#effect 10021
#damage 2900
#school 3
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 0
#path 1 6
#pathlevel 0 1
#pathlevel 1 1
#restricted 35
#descr "The caster gathers magical essence of fevers in the province and places it into a statue. Gathered power brings a statue to life and causes it to spread deadly diseases. Every month a fire gem is created by gathering power from fevers caused."
#end

Great idea on the limited effect flaming arrows.

Good coding!
I have used the gemproduing nationals to good effect for abysia, agartha. I'm in favor of it for machaka as well so long as the other changes don't get to strong. I'll probably borrow your concept whole stock.

Do you have any suggestions for the other items in the opening post?

[Lurker_at_Threshold]

There was a thread a few months back on how to improve Machaka thematically.

Personally I think Machaka needs a set of national summons. Given that the medieval kingdoms of west africa practiced a mix of animist and Islamic beliefs, I could see the addition of a hierarchy of lesser gods that could be summoned to fight on behalf of the pretender. It could work something like this.

God of the Rivers

A god of the rivers would be a potential nature thug. It would be about the size of a troll, and have a hippo's head. It would cost nature gems to summon, have full slots minus the head, be amphibious and have magic 2W 100% (W,N)

God of the Forests

A god of the forests would be a potential nature thug, but realistically it would be better suited as a nature mage/forger. It would be about the size of a troll, and have an elephants head. It would cost nature gems to summon, have full slots minus the head, be sacred and have magic 2N 200% (N,E,F)

God of the Jungle

A god of the jungle would be an upper tier nature thug, and a capable caster. It would be about the size of a troll king, and have a gorilla's head. It would be the last nature summon, and have full slots, be sacred and have magic 1N 1E 310% (N,E,D)

God of the mountain

A god of the mountain would be a high level mage, and a potential means to bootstrap into astral. It would be a spider, albeit one with the head of a man, which ironically would give it just a head slot, and three miscellaneous slots. It would be an earth summon, sacred, stealthy and have magic 2E 2D 1F 210% (E,D,F,S)

God of the Savannah

A God of the Savannah would be Machaka's national super combatant. It would pretty much be the lion headed titan, the lord of the desert sun. It would be a fire/nature summon cost fire gems, be sacred, have the pretenders other additional abilities and have magic 2F 2N 300% (F,N,E)

[Squirrelloid]

@Lurker:
You're absolutely right about the islamist component, and its not really represented. Maybe a 'heretical priest' mage unit with different paths from their other magic users? (Ok, fire is sadly appropriate, but maybe F + S?)

[Lurker_at_Threshold]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

@Lurker:
You're absolutely right about the islamist component, and its not really represented. Maybe a 'heretical priest' mage unit with different paths from their other magic users? (Ok, fire is sadly appropriate, but maybe F + S?)

Heretical priests with a astral/holy national variant of ermor's apostasy which with a booster and a little research could be on the front lines belching gouts of astral fire? Said priests could actually be halfway decent researchers if they just didn't want banish your pretender's existence...

[chrispedersen]

Well, I like the idea but these are way stronger casters than I would be comfortable adding.