Arabs and Carthaginians

[DrPraetorious]

The game already has Phoenicians. Phoenician culture is so heavily intertwined with greek culture that it's hard to distinguish the two - greek letters are actually phoenician, as are greek naval techinques, at least originally. Furthermore, following the conquest of the levant by Alexander, the phoenician city states Hellenized almost completely. Now, given that ME Arco has elephants (which you ride over the Alps to attack Ermor), as well as Sirrush, it covers both. Thumbs up to Kristoffer.

Arabs, on the other hand, are different, and are not well covered. Furthermore, the Phoenicians (Greeks too) were definitely a maritime culture.

Also, it turns out this didn't actually happen, but there's an urban legend that Rome salted the soil around Carthage so that nothing would grow there again. A mid era nation where the land was cursed with death magic by the Ermorians would be pretty cool.

So, how is this for a national arc -
In every era:
Lots of cheap light cavalry (like the T'ien Ch'i horseman).
Sailing.

In the early era, has no blood magic directly, but has priests who can perform blood sacrifices and a douse bonus (I need to check if douse bonuses work on a unit with blood magic 0), and has national spells that conjure blood mages. No sacred warriors, but powerful and diverse magic off of cheap national summons.

In the middle era, has been cursed by Ermor. Maxage on all units is 20, your units are cheap, but old. Nation struggles to survive, should somehow reward you for taking the Death scale. Sacred warriors are child-cavalry (size 3, resource size 1, hoburg profile). Cannot recruit mages, but gets a crazy good deal when summoning them - summoned mages slowly free others from the curse (have a domsummon ability that makes units who aren't dying,) and are immortal.

In the late era, muslim arabs. Religion is universalist - so you have sacred versions of literally every unit you can recruit, and you make most of them everywhere. Sacred units benefit from Sakina - they are all Morale 30. Other units -
* Dervish. Capital only berserking sacred.
* Ainsarii. Capital only stealthy sacred.
* Murshid. A priest/mage, H1. WSN plus 100% from WSN plus 10% from WSN. Capital only, berserker (like Dervishes.) You get a hero version who is bigger.
* Hashshasin. A priest/assassin/mage, H1. Capital only, has DN, is crazy bad-***.
* Imam. A priest/general, mounted, H3, has a standard, large leadership. Capital only. You get a hero version who is H4.
* Ulema. A priest/philosopher, H2, makes research.
* Mufti. A priest/judge, H2, has a patrol bonus. Capital only, maybe has a chance of death magic?
* Qadi. A priest/judge, H1, has a patrol bonus.
* Alchemist. A mage. FED, 100% FED, 10% FED. You get a hero version who also has blood and astral - he's eeeeevil.

[HoneyBadger]

Just a couple of thoughts to add, because I really like what you have so far (good work, by the way):

If the Devs will allow it-and it'd probably require some sort of coding in: a bonus to EA "Carthage" to recruiting mercenaries, since they and the Phoenicians did that a *lot*. Say every gold EA nation spends translates to 2 gold from everybody else. It makes them both different and very powerful, in a new direction.

Secondly, what if in MA-to go along with the death scale-the sacred child calvalry all had a "twice-born" type ability, that only functions under a Death scale? So that, if you kill them, they come back, preferrably more powerful the stronger the Death scale-this would probably also require some coding, but the coding ideas wouldn't have to be incorporated into the mod until/unless they become doable. And, I'd give them crossbows, personally, since the idea of a sacred child-calvalry reminds me of parts of Stephen King's Gunslinger saga.

LA seems really interesting, powerful, and complete.

[VedalkenBear]

Well, for me, it all really depends on what you mean by 'arab'. LE is clearly Muslim, which is actually missing from the game. So go all out on that.

Earlier Iranian/Persian realms can quite easily be represented by MA Arcoschephale.

[Sombre]

Hmm. Actually it strikes me that there's no Australian aboriginal inspired faction in the game either, unless you count the endurance and whatnot of Machaka.

[llamabeast]

All sounds excellent to me, except:

- I don't really like the idea of child cavalry. Winning a battle against them by slaughtering the children wouldn't feel so good.
- Wouldn't sacred everything be a bit crazy with a strong bless? Or maybe not, because you're still restricted the Holy resource.

Sounds like a very cool theme though, I like it.

Oh, I don't suppose it's possible to create a spell that reduces the age of other units, rather than the mage himself? If you could make a ritual that reduced the age of all units in the province by 1, you could use your mages to actually cure people of old age, rather than increasingly relying on domsummoned troops, which might feel a little odd.

[HoneyBadger]

Llamabeast, I'm assuming you don't play a lot of blood-nations?

I'm currently working on a Middle Era Aboleth nation influenced by the Mamluk culture, so hopefully we'll soon have several Muslim-influenced nations. Moors would be nice to see, though, as would Turkish dervishes.

[Sandman]

I suggested an undead Carthage a while back. Fire/death, mostly, with fireproof basic undead and the elites including elephants, undead slingers, archers, etc.

DrPraetorious said:
* Hashshasin. A priest/assassin/mage, H1. Capital only, has DN, is crazy bad-***.

I'd just make the hashishim cheaper and available everywhere. Maybe 40 gold, stealth +10 and dual golden daggers (they didn't like poison). Capital-only assassins are seldom worth it.

Magicwise, my preference would be to make a Muslim nation's core magic fire/air. It's vaguely thematic, not taken by any other nation and is a good combination.

For the early era, you get a Persian nation with fire/air/astral and angel summons. In the middle era, it becomes a pure fire/air Arabic nation with djinn and efreet summons, whilst in the late era, it moves to an Ottoman nation with earth/fire/air and powerful Jannissary elites.

[HoneyBadger]

When I think of Zoroastrianism, I think of fire and air, but if I had to pick magic paths for Muslim-themed nations, it would be the same as for Christians and Jews-astral and death. Do any nations take those two paths?

[DrPraetorious]

EA Ermor is obviously meant to be Christian - but their spellcasters are not. Marignon, Pythium and LA Ulm are pretty clearly Christian with Mage/Priests.

"So.... the Manticore is... Jesus?"
"The Manticore is the *third person* in the holy trinity. He's of the same *substance* as Jesus."

But it depends on what we want for our Muslim spell-casters.

Alchemy is an arabic word, so they get Alchemists, who should have more or less the magic powers attributed to sorcerers in Arabic folklore, which tend towards fire, earth and death - but I *could* give them any magic paths I wanted.

I'm also giving them Sufis, who I'm giving magic powers similar to what hindus are given - astral,nature and water. Idea being that these are contemplative and transcendental kinda magics.

Obviously I could go a different route, and give them priest/mages who can work spells duplicating the miracles described in Islamic texts, but that's not the standard treatment.

As for Zoroastrianism, it's pretty clear that they get astral, fire and *water*. You could also make an argument for air and nature, but water is a must-have - Zoroastrianism worship and ritual magic focuses heavily on the purifying powers of water and fire (although they do not, properly speaking, worship either.)

Sandman - available everywhere, two golden daggers, check. 40 gold is kinda cheap for the stats I was gonna give this guy, though - are you suggesting he should have regular assassin stats?

VedalkenBear - Arco does a fine job for Phoenicians and Phillistines (who are greeks anyway,) but a *dismal* job of subbing in for Iranians or Persians. They have hardly any cavalry, and no archers! T'ien Ch'i is a better match for Persia.

[normalphil]

EA Ermor spellcasting is pretty Christian-appropriate for that stage in things, but seeing it depends how you play them because the emphasis is entirely up to you. If you're swimming in bishops and archbishops for your 'mage' presence, you have it. Recruit either a bishop or archbishop every turn you can. Auger Elders, call them gnostics. Stay away from them, or at least use them in extreme moderation, they won't lead to anything good down the road (glyph of irony). The Numina hold-overs are Mithradists (yeah, those were in there). For pretender-god choice, just don't take something that goes that much against your grain. Take a Virtue (personally, I use a dormant Virtue with maxed order and productivity, dom 5, air 3 and astral 5. By no means optimal, but guess what /she's/ there to do...). Take a Sacred Statue, or an oracle. Be sinisterly contrary and take a Moloch or Prince of Death and prove the more rabid sects of protestants right. Take a Divine Emperor and start a splinter-sect; it's pretty much what the Druze did with Islam, why should christianity be exempt. Take a Lich to be /really/ sinister (or respectful, nowhere is it written that you have to play a Lich like an evil-presence).

Failing all that, well; "All hail the great Spider! So sayeth the Spider!". Your mileage may vary.

Personally, I'd like an Apostle-esque mage-smiter hero. Take /that/, Simon you git.