Exalted Mod

[Vicious Love]

Pshaw, game balance is for the weak and sickly.
Even in the age of the Ascension Wars, the Exalted weren't MEANT to be balanced, and doing this to them seriously impairs their style.
Go overboard. Then make the Exalted nation a theme which costs 800 or so points, ensuring only impossible difficulty AI, players in insanely high point value modded games, etc. actually get to play them*.
Nothing quite as fun as having 16 player-controlled nations go up against one Exalted nation(Probably also player-controlled) in a desperate bid to make the world a saner, not quite so manga-Earthdawn-mock-WoD place. Y'know, Paradigm Shift(TM) or whatever.
Besides, if you absolutely must make them a balanced nation like any other, you could always give them an "Exalted --" theme*, and come up with some cliched explanation about how nobody believes in fairies anymore, and so the Exalted aren't anywhere near the 800 point special-scenario-or-ubernation-only juggernaut they once were. Either make them weaker, or weaken an existing, mere mortal nation and compensate by giving them the mostly-endgame-related wildcard that is the Exalted, as insanely expensive capitol-only commanders, or high gem cost national summons, with upkeep.
Go on, you know you want to.


* Well, not a theme, those aren't actually moddable yet... just make each of their pretender Chasses cost base cost+800 points.

** OK, not a theme. You get the idea.

[Vicious Love]

Then again, even if you make them 200 Astral Pearl national summons, the Sidereal will be seriously out of whack out-of-the-box SCs. I mean, insanely high Astral, sacred, luck, twist fate, quickness, magic resistance, attack and defense skills to put pretty much anything else to shame. At only twice the cost of a Doom Horror, that's quite a deal. At the cost of a Doom Horror plus one casting of Gift of Reason, that ain't half bad either.
Hence my original suggestion to forget game balance altogether.
If you want them to be true, full-power exalted without restricting them to special scenarios or throwing balance out the window, I suppose you could make them special heroes, available only at ultrarare special sites(Like the Gray Knights), or only in specific rare special events, or even combinations of events and sites/units.*
Of course, finding one of these sites or getting one of these ultrarare events would still be, in plain terms, an outrageous stroke of luck which wins you the game. A few Dragonblooded, the least smackalicious of the Exalted, could make short work of, say, a fully equipped Heliophagus. Therefore, players are likely to See this sort of workaround as more of an arbitrary, aggravating, random cheat mode sorta thing than an enjoyable gameplay feature.
Erm. Suggestion retracted.

All things considered, I am being kind of pessimistic, though. I'm sure the Exalted can ultimately be balanced, as long as you don't make them a nation like any other. However, unless you drop the Sidereal altogether, I do suspect you're going to have some major headaches preventing The Ultimate SC... then again, the Sidereal aren't supposed to actually work for any nation or fight anything, are they? What if you just made them a truly horrendous special event, like Bogus on PCPs? It's pretty much common knowledge that if the Sidereal ever go to war, it'll be the end of all creation, but one or two doing unpleasant things for unfathomable reasons is definitely acceptable.
With the Sidereal out of the way, everything else CAN be balanced, albeit tricksily. I mean, Lunars would make truly spectacular fighters and stealthy units(Plus a dollop of Nature, and a dash of Astral), but have very little SC potential.

Of course, once you actually start thinking about giving the Exalted a proper niche, rather than making them just like Pangaea, Abysia, Ermor, Marignon, and possibly Caelum combined, you open up a whole new can of worms. The 17 nations in Dom 2 are truly spectacularly balanced, and each has a unique range of strengths and weaknesses. The human nations overlap a little, but are ultimately very, very different, when you get down to it.
What niche could a balanced Exalted nation possibly fill? What disadvantages and, Pretenders help us all, advantages would they have, and how would you preserve the rock-paper-scissors equilibrium?


*I know this can't presently be modded, but at least it's already been done by the devs themselves. We know for a fact that special events can be linked to specific units/sites. Now all we have to do is invest as much effort in modding Dom 2 as the devs invested in creating it in the first place. I motivate, you mod.
Of course, if this actually can be done, the Exalted might make an interesting desperate Last resort for a losing nation. You spend insane amounts of gold and resources on a "Generic Prophecy" immobile, stealthy, noncombatant unit, and every turn, you have a 2% chance of an Exalted appearing to actually fulfill the generic prophecy in your darkest hour.

[Vicious Love]

Duuuude. I may be getting on a tangent here, but am I the only one who sees the awesome potential of a whole line of grotesquely unbalanced modded nations? You can either pit a dozen or so ordinary nations against one, or set two or more up against each other and indulge your overkill fetish. I mean, comparing Sidereal to Doom Horrors, I was reminded of how I find it weird that Dominions has only one type of horror, in a few sizes, when by all rights there should be hundreds of types of 'em. I then realized that one of the few things that could pose a threat to a Cosmic Smackdown nation like East Exaltedonia, other than R'lyeh as it Should Be, would be a Horror touched, Horror controlled nation. Boo-yah!
But I digress...

[Scott Hebert]

I'm glad there's some enthusiasm for the project.

The Solar mod is finished. They replace Marignon, for obvious reasons (or at least, obvious to those who know Exalted). Please don't 'whine' about the graphics, as I don't have a way to modify them yet.

Regarding balance, each Solar costs 450g, and 50 Resources. They all have FS???, with two randoms in Elemental and one in Sorcery. This is to prevent big gains in Death or Blood, which are definitely not thematic for them. They all have a base 30HPs and recuperation. They are also all Sacred. Differences by caste follow:

Dawn: Fear(+15), Standard(+15), Leadership 75
Zenith: HHHH, Awe(+0), Leadership 125
Twilight: Extra pick in Elemental, and Sorcery; only 25 HPs, Regenerate 10%, Forge Bonus 25%, Research bonus: 4, Healer 10%, Leader(all) 10. (Yes, they're big. They're your best Researchers. Good luck affording them.)
Night: Stealthy (+30), Assassin, Spy, 25 Leadership. These are possibly the best Assassins in the game, but they cost 4 times the amount of an Empoisoner.
Eclipse: Awe (+6), All Survivals, Sailing, good leadership.

The Eclipse is Mounted, the rest are on foot. The Twilight is the worst combatant, then Zenith, then Eclipse, then Night, and finally Dawn (best).

The only other commanders you get are the 'basic' independent commander, and the 'basic' independent priest. Your troops are Broadsword HI, Spear/Javelin LI, Ring Mail Archers, Bow LC, and Lance/Broadsword HC (which may go away). You start with a 'basic' commander, and 20 HI. In an initial test, it doesn't seem that much different than other nations, and I'm playing on Rich.

Next in the 'pipe' is the Lunars. I _do_ wish I could restrict randoms to only specific magics. If I could, I would remove the Elemental/Sorcery distinction from the randoms on the Solars, and instead say 'anything but Death/Blood'.

My only other question is how do I get this uploaded? I don't really have anywhere to put it Online.

Scott

[Jurri]

Agreed on the game balance! Out of the window it goes.

I contemplated an Exalted-mod earlier, but found the present modding tools lacking for my vision. What I envisioned doing, however, was some half a dozen nations balanced against each other, if at all. Some thoughts on that, perhaps it evokes some thoughts:

-The Empire
Very strong elemental exalted, no randoms however. Like, 3 or 4 on single path. A cool Empress pretender. A modified "Wild Hunt" ritual as a national spell - the point being that only the different kinds of Exalted and Faeries would be holy; Difficult to balance, though.

-The Northern barbarians
An uber-cool Solar pretender, the bull guy of the North. Assorted barbarian chaff as armies, Solar Exalted as national heroes, Lunars as recruitable commanders.

-The city state of Nexus
All human armies with very sucky pretender options. Merchant commanders with blood, the reasoning being that blood slaves would represent those things they offer to various protective spirits. Also alchemists and sages, seeing as Nexus is the center of learning. All with blood, with blood being the school to be modded for hedge magic. You can see where it went too complicated

-The Deathlords
I thought about doing a map with, say thirty provinces of underworld, from where only certain places could be accessed (the Shadowlands). Very strong independent Deathlords and powerful magic sites in the Underworld to conquer. Powerful pretender options and summonable Abyssal Exalted heroes alongside autosummoned rabble.

-The Celestial city
On similar veins, with immobile gods for pretenders, and a separate map for the City. Immobile like the Sphinx that is, no teleporting. Stealthy Sidereal Exalted commanders, only able to leave the city through a national teleportation spell.

-The Yozi
Again, a dimension of their own. A national modded send horror spell, sending a succubus instead, in order to gain commanders in the real world. These would be the Infernal Exalted and others possessed by the Yozi. Also a national blood gateway spell, very high cost, so the Yozi can leave their realm. This would signal the end of the world, as the Yozi would be better than anything else.

The idea would be that the Yozi player tries to score some commanders and provinces from the real world so he can blood hunt the slaves he needs to get his gamebreakers out of their confinement. The Yoziland wouldn't, of course, have any population. You can see why it is I never even begun the project

-Faeries
Main catch being a national crossbreeding-like spell, only with very varying results, from bugs to behemoths.

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Well, this actually can't be too useful for you, but here it is anyway!

[Scott Hebert]

As for the Sidereals... heh. Yes, they're going to be very good Astral mages. No, they're not going to be SCs. It's hard for someone with 10HPs, no armor, and a 10 base encumbrance to be a SC, no matter what kind of buffs they have.

Scott

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Jurri:
Agreed on the game balance! Out of the window it goes.

Actually, I'm trying to retain game balance, but on a different level. If I can find the proper balance point for the Solars, then I might go with the 'nation' approach.

I contemplated an Exalted-mod earlier, but found the present modding tools lacking for my vision. What I envisioned doing, however, was some half a dozen nations balanced against each other, if at all. Some thoughts on that, perhaps it evokes some thoughts:

What I want more than anything is magic item modding for daiklaves and whatnot.

-The Empire
Very strong elemental exalted, no randoms however. Like, 3 or 4 on single path. A cool Empress pretender. A modified "Wild Hunt" ritual as a national spell - the point being that only the different kinds of Exalted and Faeries would be holy; Difficult to balance, though.

Well, my plans for the Terrestrials won't have them so powerful, because they need to cost about 1/3 of the Solars (so 150g, currently). I _really_ like the idea of a Wyld Hunt Ritual, though. I'll see if I can incorporate it.

-The Northern barbarians
An uber-cool Solar pretender, the bull guy of the North. Assorted barbarian chaff as armies, Solar Exalted as national heroes, Lunars as recruitable commanders.

This is very similar to what I plan for the Lunars. All the Barbarian troops, and Lunar Commanders. No Bull of the North, though.

-The city state of Nexus
All human armies with very sucky pretender options. Merchant commanders with blood, the reasoning being that blood slaves would represent those things they offer to various protective spirits. Also alchemists and sages, seeing as Nexus is the center of learning. All with blood, with blood being the school to be modded for hedge magic. You can see where it went too complicated

I'm not sure if Nexus is the 'center of learning'. Blood would be nice to represent the Slave trade, but it's too close to what the Yozis and the Infernals are doing for my tastes.

-The Deathlords
I thought about doing a map with, say thirty provinces of underworld, from where only certain places could be accessed (the Shadowlands). Very strong independent Deathlords and powerful magic sites in the Underworld to conquer. Powerful pretender options and summonable Abyssal Exalted heroes alongside autosummoned rabble.

Yes, an excellent idea about the map. The Abyssals, as is their nature, will be dark mirrors to the Solars.

-The Celestial city
On similar veins, with immobile gods for pretenders, and a separate map for the City. Immobile like the Sphinx that is, no teleporting. Stealthy Sidereal Exalted commanders, only able to leave the city through a national teleportation spell.

Interesting idea! I'll have to see if I can incorporate this.

-The Yozi
Again, a dimension of their own. A national modded send horror spell, sending a succubus instead, in order to gain commanders in the real world. These would be the Infernal Exalted and others possessed by the Yozi. Also a national blood gateway spell, very high cost, so the Yozi can leave their realm. This would signal the end of the world, as the Yozi would be better than anything else.

That would be quite interesting. I don't think I'd let them leave, though.

The idea would be that the Yozi player tries to score some commanders and provinces from the real world so he can blood hunt the slaves he needs to get his gamebreakers out of their confinement. The Yoziland wouldn't, of course, have any population. You can see why it is I never even begun the project

Oh, I don't see why they can't recruit demons. They'd just have to do it with gems. Interesting, really. They would be a Blood equivalent of Soul Gate Ermor.

-Faeries
Main catch being a national crossbreeding-like spell, only with very varying results, from bugs to behemoths.

How neat. You could use all of the Sidhe commanders for the Fair Folk themselves, as well.

Well, this actually can't be too useful for you, but here it is anyway!

Actually, it was extremely helpful. Thanks!

Scott