Thoughts on balancing MA Man

[thejeff]

Between the Middle and Late Ages, Man has come under some kind of Curse, that's led its mages to learn how to work under Drain. And apparently to abandon Nature magic, despite still having a Nature income. The Curse is mentioned in the descriptions, but left very unspecified. It could be related to Ermor's Fall or Ulm's Malediction, or not.

It would be thematic to give Man some high path summons or spells that tied into this. Something Nature based, but nasty and destructive. Is it possible to mod creatures that affect scales (increase drain)?

My creativity ran out before actually coming up with an appropriate creature.

[Endoperez]

Crones aren't the only old creatures that survive only thanks to their magic. Bogarus has those cursed crone summons with age 110/200 or similar, the Crone pretender is always advised to take magic, etc etc.

IMO, having Nature magic bring Crones to the safe or almost-always-safe age category would be fine, so that if they are ever Muted or Feeble-minded, they'll probably catch a disease next winter.

[JimMorrison]

thejeff said:
Between the Middle and Late Ages, Man has come under some kind of Curse, that's led its mages to learn how to work under Drain. And apparently to abandon Nature magic, despite still having a Nature income. The Curse is mentioned in the descriptions, but left very unspecified. It could be related to Ermor's Fall or Ulm's Malediction, or not.

It would be thematic to give Man some high path summons or spells that tied into this. Something Nature based, but nasty and destructive. Is it possible to mod creatures that affect scales (increase drain)?

My creativity ran out before actually coming up with an appropriate creature.

I know Pangaea kind of went the "dark druid" route, but they did so in a blood sacrifice direction..... What if man went nature+death? A couple of new vine creature summons early on, and then for late game, some sort of vengeful forest being? Perhaps they would be a good fit for Llama's Dark Treant from the endgame summons thread?

[Endoperez]

JimMorrison said:
I know Pangaea kind of went the "dark druid" route, but they did so in a blood sacrifice direction.....

Actually, LA Pangaea has least Blood of all Pangaea themes, and is the first one with reliable Death and reliable access to the national Nature/Death summons and the national undead reanimators. I don't see what's "blood sacrifice" about that...

[JimMorrison]

Well yes that's true, LA they do shift towards death, I wasn't thinking about that, since we're looking at MA, and Pan is blood in EA/MA.

Anyway, was looking for a way to tie into the "corruption" theme, with new summons.

Looking at them again, since they only have solid access to N and A, it's going to take some thought to add something that their national mages could hope to cast. Though, if a N+D theme was a good concept for them, they could be given a summons that only needs N, and gives a unit with some D on it. Of course, with the point that this unit, a Tainted Nymph or some such thing, would have a couple of N/D summons that would give the nation something new to work with.

Perhaps a new take on some sort of woodland vampire. These Tainted Nymphs would suck the magical essence from people, perhaps represented in combat by Mind Blast or Paralyze attacks. Their summons could be vampiric forest creatures of enhanced strength, dire wolves and bears and mooseseses.

[Xietor]

For those who think Man would be more fun to play with a few changes, I have incorporated a few of the suggestions, plus added some of my own into a mod, Kingdom of Avalon.

It is not yet 100 percent complete, as Foodtamp is making me a banner for it, and I wanted some feedback before posting it on the mod forums.

Do not tell me Man is too tough in the early game. They are not. Still pale compare to mictlan and ermor, and even the elephant nations.

So if you take the time to play several turns, I would love some feedback before I make this mod finis and devote my full efforts to Throne of Heroes.

http://www.mediafire.com/?jxyvyy0kolh

[Xietor]

Looking at 2 more issues.

Lowering the cost of KOA to 50 gold and 52 resources.

And also i want to make the daughter of Avalon useful in some way.

2 thoughts:

A. one would be to increase her cost, and add h2.

B. the second would be to leave her at 80 gold, but add fortunetelling. If I choose option B, i need to decide between whether 5 or 10 is more appropriate.

Feedback from someone besides tyrant would be nice. Public thanks to tyrant for his input.

[Wrana]

Doesn't seems to work for me. If I have to become member for it, I'll probably refrain from looking this mod up...