Persian Empire Mod (Updated)

[Verjigorm]

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.

Changes:
1. Cavalry now have hoof attacks.
2. Sha'ir now costs 45gp.
3. Fixed Scythed Chariot name (was Wolfherd).
4. Fixed carriage returns in summary.
5. Reduced basic infantry cost.
6. Increased Immortal cost by 5gp each (for non-cap sacred).
7. Reduced Rustam's hp from 40/20 to 25/15.
8. Changed some filename capitalization to conform with linux (hopefully I didn't miss any).
9. Changed the name from Persia to Aracesia (a butchering of the divine ancestor's name, Arsaces).
10. Fixed some commander names that had slashes in them.

Notes:
1. The Magus, Mobed, and Sha'ir have Elemental randoms, not full randoms.

2. The Mobed's random picks are linked (e.g. he will get 2F, 2A, 2W, or 2E but never a combination).

3. The national spell, Sanguine Heritage, takes 3 Astral and 3 Death to cast -- none of the national mages can cast it, so make a pretender that can or ignore the spell. The spell summons a Fravartin who, in turn, gathers Spectres. These are the stealth units of Persia.

4. Many of the units transform into others when they die.

Urvaram Aabi lose the abilities of Heal and Supply +20 among other things. They become immortal and gain several other personal abilities making them "better" as singular units but not nearly as good as a support unit.

Immortals transform into Aabi--their weapons are phantasmal and they lose their strength. They gain some abilities of the non-corporeal undead, however.

Satapatish also transform into Aabi, but they get a life drain attack instead of a phantasmal one.

The cavalry units will transform into similarly equipped infantry units upon their death--this is to simulate the death of the horse rather than the rider. I would have liked to make a probability of either complete death or dismount, but the game does not allow such things.

5. The priest/mages have special ranged or melee (Barshnuum) fire attacks. Zarathustra's (hero) attack is a Divine Armament which is supposed to cause 3x damage to demons and undead.

6. The Scythed Chariot is a very powerful commander that is probably best used as a stand-alone rather than a leader like the TC S&A Noble. It has a significant armament and is a size 5 trampler. It's resource cost of 59 is quite expensive, though.

7. Persian scouts are excellent bowment with 13 precision.

8. Units employing white horses are capitol only, but receive an AP and map move bonus.

9. All of the Persian forces have wasteland survival (a very valuable trait).

10. The rings possessed by the Magi are shields.

11. Typically, shield-wearing units do not have bows. However, it is possible to wield a bow while using a small shield. The traditional Persion Gerron is made out of wicker and is very light. It provides no protection, but does add defense. It's primary use (historically) was to deflect incoming arrows.

12. The basic gem income for Persia is 3F, 1N, 1S.

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

[Saber Cherry]

Oooh, pretty... did you draw them yourself, or get them from somewhere?

[Verjigorm]

No, most of the images are modifications of things I yanked off the net.

[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.

[Chazar]

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

I had the same problem with the desciption for my Chandrea map. For me it worked to use the tool "dos2unix" once on the file. The tool should be included in most Linux versions. Otherwise you'll have to add the linefeeds manually, but be cautious that they are not removed when savong.

Interestingly enough, I was working with Linux anyway and just edited the mapfile generated by the Dom2 maputility with XEmacs, but somehow it only used the dos-style newline...

[tinkthank]

DL'ed, cant see it now, hope to test it tomorrow!