Mistica: A Magocratic Police State (LA) - v 0.2
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...9&d=1288490603

In the years of Ermor's decline, the remote vassal province of Mistica became a haven for persecuted mages seeking sanctuary. Over time, the various magical and mystic societies banded together to form a Mana Cult, extolling the virtues of magic in all its forms, both as a pragmatic means of protecting their own ability to gather for magical purposes, and as a means to extend their own arcane abilities. The populace embraced the new religion with an unexpected fervor and it has become clear that a divine presence has coalesced from the magical energies-- one who now blesses powerful magi with strange gifts. With the departure of the Pantokrator, whether they will it or not, they are caught up in the struggle for divine omnipotence currently underway.

Race: Humans
Military: Average to poor, but with morale issues. Expensive castles.
Magic: Strong Astral, access to all paths.
Priests: Weak, but all are mages. Expensive temples.

ID slots:

Nation 84
Weapons 620-621
Armour (none)
Monsters 3200 - 3230 and overwrites vanilla unit 2
Sites 780-783 --alternatively, repurpose 30-32 (EA Mictlan) and 129 (EA Atlantis) if using something that consumes all site slots

THIS MOD REQUIRES CBM 1.6 (or possibly later versions, looking forward) AS IT USES WEAPONS AND TEMPLATE UNITS THAT ARE DEFINED THERE.

30 Oct. 2010 - Version 0.2

• Juggernaut: reduced HP, astral, and protection. Made NoHeal. Updated sprite.
• Fixed leadership stat for Master of Occult
• Fixed MA typo in title.
• Added Master Alchemist as pretender option.

14 July 2010 - Version 0.1 - Initial Public Release

Comments and criticism welcome.

(P.S. - explicit permission is hereby given to adapt or re-use mod code or graphics from this mod in any other Dominions mod.)

Re: Mistica: A Magocratic Police State (LE)
 

I took a quick look. Noticed some things. Sorry for not elaborating, but have a bit of a rush to work right now.

- The Mod Title says "MA Nation: Mistica", which kinda confused me

- Juggernaut pretender is sacred, intented? Also seems very, very cheap. Especially considering the dom5.

- Master of the Occult has more leadership than the Master of Destruction, who is supposed to be able to lead armies according to the description.

Re: Mistica: A Magocratic Police State (LE)
 

Thanks for the quick feedback!

Whoops, I had gone back and forth on MA/LA a few times, and looks like I missed that reference.

Sacred is unintentional, a side effect of copying the base juggernaut. Since the domspread can be added now, I don't need to do that, so it should be easy to fix.

As for cheapness, costs are a first stab. However, I was comparing vs. the Oracle (which I consider a default choice for a scales approach), with it hopefully being a slightly better option as a national pretender chassis. Compared to the CBM Oracle, the meaningful comparisons(it seems to me) are:
* +1 starting dom
* additional juggernaut dom spread ability
* -1 astral
* not immobile (although only barely)
* no fortuneteller ability
* much better HP
* somewhat worse protection
* trample (probably only marginally useful given the AP of 4...)
* 2 fewer misc slots
* same new-path cost (40)

Doesn't seem too out there; am I missing other factors that I should be weighing more heavily?

Whoops, that's a side-effect of the copystatting from Leo to get the heretic ability. Hopefully explicitly setting #poorleader will overwrite that...

Re: Mistica: A Magocratic Police State (LE)
 

Being mobile seems the most outstanding difference, it can mean much during early game.(site searching, accompanying armies....)

Re: Mistica: A Magocratic Police State (LE)
 

The thing is, he can expand into independents very well. The indy troops cannot deal with 20 prot dude that has over 250+ hp (since he spreads his own dominion, he fights in it quite often). Also the high awe makes it really cheap to buy him awe, which makes him even more indestructible. That's quite a big advantage over Oracle.

Another thing that makes him a excellent expansionist is that he is safe. Some pretenders can get really owned by random indy mages or knights and the like. Not Juggernaut, he just does not care if some damage comes through, it's not like he can get any crippling afflictions (like Chest Wound, arm loss and the like).

I was able to buy him S4, dom9 and still get 6 positive scales. That's probably the cheapest expansion pretender in the history of dom3. Since you don't need a rainbow or a bless, I find that going for the Juggernaut is a bit of no-brainer at the moment. Also, I think he could use some other weapon than fist, it seems really odd.

Re: Mistica: A Magocratic Police State (LE)
 

Heh - believe it or not, I hadn't considered it as an expansion pretender, but rather as a scales chassis...I'll have to think how best to handle that; while I can definitely see it being more or less impenetrable, effectiveness at actually killing anything else seemed questionable. Do the units just run up and jump underneath it to be trampled?

Since it's a special unique unit vs. your run of the mill Juggernaut, some modification vs. the "baseline" is probably in order...perhaps extra gold ornamentation has rendered so heavy that it's no longer mobile. Or a Michaelangelo equivalent has added super-fine detail that is less resistant to damage...

As for the fist weapon, that's from the base Juggernaut unit. I guess it's the facing statue punching :-) That could probably use replacing (on the base unit too, I suppose, although that's kind of out of scope for this mod.) Perhaps "Crush" (since it's basically rolling over opponents.)

Re: Mistica: A Magocratic Police State (LA) - v 0.2
 

Updated to v.02 - see first post.

Re: Mistica: A Magocratic Police State (LA) - v 0.2
 

Punch is the default weapon that a unit will use if you don't write the #weapon, you can't make a unit weaponless; a max 1 hp damage is the nearest thing possible.
The wheels are wonderful.

Re: Mistica: A Magocratic Police State (LA) - v 0.2
 

I wasn't really trying to make them weaponless per se; I just hadn't considered the weapon as it was just using a copy of the base juggernaut. I think crush is reasonable, though.

Hope it's not a spoiler, but the wheels are originally ancient golden plates that were uncovered in Afghanistan. I tried doing wheels by hand, but my patience for shading by hand is limited.

With the recent CBM changes, I'm going to have to consider what to do with the juggernaut pretender, as all the titans are now better at domspread than this chassis.

Re: Mistica: A Magocratic Police State (LA) - v 0.2
 

-shouldn't the pillar be inanimate and mindless?
-the golem king have casteldef -1; it means he have no bonus or a malus?
-why with the master of occult you first created it coping Leo and then you #select it and change its stats? wasn't easier to do it in one step? especially seeing that first you give him noleader and then poorleader.
-nice sprite on the eye, it reminds me of the pokemon "unown"