Persian Empire Mod (Updated)

[quantum_mechani]

Verjigorm said:
I have completed a mod for Ulm turning them into the Persian empire. Please download/test/play it and let me know what you think. I am especially concerned with issues of unit cost, and errors.

Known issues:
1. I can't get rid of Ulm's free spell "Legions of Steel", but the Persian wizards have difficulty casting it anyway.

2. The spell, "Sanguine Heritage" now summons a Fravartin, not a Vampire Count.

3. Vampire counts are now Fravartin, Thralls are now Spectres--this will cause a change in one of the random (bad) events.

4. I can't change the names of the heroes--I wrote their names into the flavor text.

5. I don't know how (or if) I can insert newline characters into the racial summary.

6. I couldn't give the Simurgh a research bonus without giving it magic paths--it has 1F1A1W1E.

7. Urvaram were originally supposed to be 1N wizards who transformed into 1F1D wizards when they died. Magic paths cannot be changed when a unit shapechanges, so they are now always 1N1D.

8. The mod uses the following indices:
Unit indices: 1650 - 1671
Armor indices: 350 - 352
Weapon indices: 750 - 764

Looks good, however I have a few questions/comments:

*How can you access the changed sanguine heritage spell since you cleared themes?

* I think Sha'ir may be a bit underpriced given the other advantages of the nation. Maybe something like 45-55?

*Perhaps a small cost hike for immortals, given they are non-capital only sacreds.

[Verjigorm]

Oh... I should've noted a bit more about the Sanguine Heritage spell:

The reason you can access it is because I modded it--I changed it over to nation 4 which changes it from a theme spell to a standard national spell (very useful--I wasn't sure if it'd work, but it did).

In order to cast it you need 3 Astral and 3 Death--Fravartin can be enhanced to cast this spell, but none of the recruitable wizards can cast it without Empowerment.

The Sha'ir has an Elemental random and a Research penalty of -3. He is not a good researcher (he gets 1pt/50 or 1pt/12.5 at Magic Scale-3). I can see how he would be advantageous at Magic-3... I intended for Persia to have slow research. If it works (I haven't checked yet), I might give him a research penalty like -6 to block his research at all Magic scales.

I also thought the Immortals might be a bit cheap They're quite effective.

[quantum_mechani]

Verjigorm said:

The Sha'ir has an Elemental random and a Research penalty of -3. He is not a good researcher (he gets 1pt/50 or 1pt/12.5 at Magic Scale-3). I can see how he would be advantageous at Magic-3... I intended for Persia to have slow research. If it works (I haven't checked yet), I might give him a research penalty like -6 to block his research at all Magic scales.

I believe magic scale bonus is applied after research penalties.

[Sandman]

Nice mod. Comments:

To fit in better with the other nations of the game, Persia should really have a fictionalised name. Just my opinion, of course.

The standard troops are a little bit on the expensive side, I'd shave a coin or two off their cost.

The cavalry lack a hoof attack, although they're still really good.

No assassin unit? The hashishim were a Persian group, weren't they? Remember, most nations have either stealthy troops or spies/assassins.

Is it necessary to give the immortals short-bows? They're truly excellent troops already, and I'd rather have a cheaper resource cost than a few weak waves of arrows.

[Saber Cherry]

Sandman said:
To fit in better with the other nations of the game, Persia should really have a fictionalised name. Just my opinion, of course.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. I agree. Maybe "The Dune People" or "Cameltopia" or "Petropolis" ... Ok, those weren't serious, but I agree that a fictionalized name would be best.

[Verjigorm]

Chazar >> Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, my linux box is broken at the moment and I haven't had the compunction to fix it. I assume that the standard CRLF characters--0d0a, inserted (e.g. by a hex editor) would solve the problem. I'll check it out, I just figured that the parser stopped reading when it hit a newline character or a quote.
Quantum >> I'll do a little more number crunching and see if I can pick a fair, but higher cost for the Sha'ir.

Sandman >> The Hashishim were an Islamic group--most of the Persia mod is based on Zoroastrian Iran which is pre-Islamic. The exception is, of course, the Sha'ir which is an Islamic derivation. I didn't feel that, with their other bonuses in mind, they needed either a spy or an assassin. They have a scout and stealth units The Fravartin and his Spectres are stealth units.

I was going to do a fictional name for them, but my knowledge of Sanskrit (particularly the Avesta dialect) is confined to English translations thereof. (any Sanskrit majors out there?)

The reason I gave the Immortals shortbows is because they often carried them--[Digression]I don't know what the Sanskrit word that the Persians used to indicate the "Immortals"--Immortals is a derivation of what the Greeks called them. Satapatish is the correct word for their lieutenants though. I'd prefer to use the Sanskrit word, but I haven't seen it used.

My brother, "BigDaddy" here, noted that the price of the Scythian Archer was 15g, 10r, and thought it was quite high considering most archers are less than 10 bucks. I based the unit costs on a weighted deviation from the mean (I have attached my work spreadsheet for all interested to peruse). There is a good chance that they're too expensive, however, I'm not really an expert on cost analysis.

I suppose I forgot to give the cavalry hoof Attacks . They're pretty good without, but in keeping with the spirit of the game, they should.

Anyone picked up Zarathustra, Rustam, or the Simurgh yet?

[quantum_mechani]

Verjigorm said:


Anyone picked up Zarathustra, Rustam, or the Simurgh yet?

Yes, I got Rustam, I think 40 HP is a bit much considering giants are only 30.