[alansmithee]

Really great looking mod, I enjoyed it a lot. Couple of things though, I noticed Rune of Water takes earth, is that intentional? And also, Oathstones and the Anvil say mapmove1, but can't move. I don't think you intended them to move, so it might be more clear if you could switch it to 0/2 instead of 1/7 (not sure if you can or not, I haven't tried modding yet).

About the gameplay, I'm just finishing my first try with them. Large random map, rainbow mother sleeping w/ 3 order and 3 drain, 11 other mighty AI nations, now down to just me and Oceania. I personally finished 7 or 8 of the other nations. From very early play, it just seems to me that the nation is full of stuff that's really really good (prospectors, xbows, smiths, possibly ironbreakers and basic dwarf warriors) and stuff that, at least to me, just isn't that good or would never be recruited (pretty much everything else). I actually never got any ironbreakers in this game, but I can see the use of a recruitable troop that has high mr and all the resistances they do in MP. Slayers might have some niche use against giants or some large sacreds, but they're still gonna die insanely fast and there's not much you can do about that.

Both summonable commanders seem much to difficult to bring out, especially for what you get. The only ways to get the anvil require some combination of artifacts, a prophet, expensive empowering, or elemental staffs (under CBM, which I don't use but I know is common here). And for that you get a pretty good combat mage only available at castles, and another forger. To my knowledge you can't use travel spells to attack with a regular army, so all the cool runes will only be used in combination with astral travel (a lvl 9 spell) or in castle defense. I really think mapmove 1 wouldn't be all that bad (and they lug the anvils around in the tabletop game from battle to battle, so it's not entirely unthematic). And the demon slayer doesn't seem worth the gems, especially compared to golems. They die too quick, and giving even one weapon replaces both of their slayer axes. Getting luck is really cool, but I found it mildly difficult filling all the misc slots they get (outside of stacking bracers which i've heard some people consider an exploit). And for people who use CBM, I think using smiths with hero blades would be better in every way (to do what slayers seem designed to to). They'd survive longer, and don't require your prophet to cast a 20 gem ritual. Otherwise I'd rather just get 10 more gems, and cast a golem. Also, that doesn't require going outside of cons (which is a nobrainer for dwarves). So you'd get golems earlier, as well as them being better.

On the whole I think the nation is very balanced vs. other Warhammer nations (maybe not Brettonia, which imo is a bit weak) and the other base nations. The smith battle spells are all really good, and it was mentioned before but the prospector/xbow combo is wonderful and makes expansion early a breeze (and even though it was against AI, I rushed Mictlan and had them defeated by middle of second year using just prospectors, xbows, and 1 smith). The PD is also great, and helps in making them a nation that's a ***** to invade. I would maybe look into the summons a bit, either make them a bit better or easier to summon. And as much as I would personally hate it, mapmove 1 for the xbows might help make it more of a choice.