Freaklords I mod game (signups)

[zlefin]

Edit: the game is now in signups, answers to discussion points are on the 5th post, mine. Though feel free to weigh in on them.


my first game, so pardon any irregularities in my post.

hopefully, this will be the first in my Freaklords series, each one having some special mods to do something interesting and different.

This game will be about equipment. which are the best ones? which comboes are best? of course tactics and diplomacy cna matter a good deal as always.
All nations will be created mod nations.
There will be no magic commanders, so all about troops.
There will also be no gem income, or magic sites.
There will be no recruitable indies; so you only have the units you chose to have.

Each nation will have 4 infantry and 2 cavalry chassis.
Each nation will also have 1 scout, 1 commander, 1 mounted commander, and 1 H1 priest commander.

For each unit you can choose its equipment from the equipment lists for generic equipment.
Infantry cost 10 gold, 1 resource +equipment resource costs.
Cavalry cost 25 gold, 1 resource + equipment resource costs. (there will be a size multiplier of 1.5 for cav equipment costs; to account for the horse barding; the game already does this in a more complicated way, just be aware of it when designing your units)
Equip List for the game

spear
pike
(trident was deleted for having oddly good stats for being onehanded low cost. possibly cuz trident is mostly used by underwater units, and costing may be different for them. There will be no other weapon deletions, i've checked all the others stats for normalcy)
halberd
short sword
dagger
broad sword
falchion
great sword
mace
hammer
maul
morningstar
flail
axe
battleaxe
long spear
lance (cavalry only)
(this is the special lance attack of cav that's only once a battle and with the charge bonus, as per the way units are equipped in the game, this lance doesn't count as using a hand)
(also, all cav will have a hoof attack as per the normal game)

javelin
sling
short bow
long bow
crossbow
arbalest

armor:

buckler
shield
kite shield
tower shield - not for cav


leather cuirass
ring mail cuirass
scale mail cuirass
chain mail cuirass
plate cuirass
leather hauberk
ring mail hauberk
scale mail hauberk
chain mail hauberk
plate hauberk
full leather armor
full ring mail
full scale mail
full chain mail
full plate mail
furs


iron cap
full helmet
half helmet
reinforced leather cap

As humans, each unit has 2 arms, but will use the standards used in the game for typical unit equipment; that is, units using both hands for a missile weapon can also have a one-handed melee weapon. Units with a 1h melee and a shield can also use javelins, as javelins are onehanded.
Edited to clarify: units using a 2-handed missile weapon can also use a 1-hand melee weapon ONLY. they cannot use a 2-handed melee weapon, nor can they use a 1-hand weapon and a shield; nor can they simply use a shield.

All cavalry units will also have a hoof attack from the horse.
All units are normal humans; with the same stats as a normal generic human unit of its type.
Which is mostly 10s; with 12 base for ap. encumbrance 3 for foot, 5 for cav.
Foot are mapmove 2; cav are mapmove 3.

There are also some points to be discussed for signup.

First, what to do about SC pretenders; they will be somewhat weakened by the lack of research and equipment only coming from random events; however that also means fewer counters for them will be available, as spells are basically non-existent.

Second, other spell-casting by pretenders; while research will be quite slow with only the pretenders to research, it would still be possible for them to get some useable battle spells. It's already a lot of modding for me to make the nations; modding out all the spells (other than the holies) would be time-consuming.

For both of these issues, they could be simply banned by declaration, with violators punished by removal from the game. Are there any existing mods which could take care of the issues? that could also cover it.

Third issue, scales; since magic is mostly useless, alot of people may take drain 3; it may be that everyone has so many points that everyone takes the same picks for scales. Should we try to avoid this, or will it simply not be a problem in the first place?

Fourth issue, gold. the need for gold will be somewhat reduced since there will be no need to accumulate mage commanders. Should the base gold multiplier be changed from the standard game settings or not?

Would anyone like to dispute the available equipment list, or nominate other options? i've been over the domdb so i'm unlikely to add anything, but if enough people want it that is possible.

It is unclear how to choose sprites for all the units people may come with. If nothing else, units will be copied from existing nations/indies with comparable equipment. but if we hvae alot of nations there may be some overlap. It would be nice if it was visible roughly what kind of equipment and weapons a unit had.


Map will depend on how many people we have.
As to hosting method and times, those are open for discussion and on whether we can find a server for a tcp/ip game. if not, then it'd have to be pbem.

If you signup, you are free to keep your equipment choicse secret from other players; so ya don't need to post em in here.
I need to know them to mod them into the game of course; but i won't be playing in it.

So, let the signups and discussion begin,
Zlefin

[Micah]

Good concept, though it looks a little too vanilla. I'd maybe add in 5-10 points to distribute among each troop's stats in addition to their equipment, so you could have Big Sword Guy with a greatsword and a high attack value, and Meatshield with armor/shield and high morale that can't hit diddly. What got me thinking about that in the first place is that having 10 morale is really frustrating, as your guys tend to break a LOT, and not having any elite units is a pain.

SC pretenders might be a bit OP in this format, especially since they won't lose much if they're killed since paths don't matter, but I think a spellcaster chassis wouldn't be too strong...most of the really devastating spells take gems, and the amount of research it would require to cast anything would make it a long-term strat, and probably a fairly weak one at that.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah micah has a good point. While it does seem like an interesting excercise, I think it might get old kind of quick. After all, with no indies and no summoning/forging, the troops you start with are the troops you end with. After about turn 30 or so its going to be pretty rote.

Might be interesting to do something like this: start off the game with your 6 standard units. But then at turn ~20 you get a special unit, which has some interesting stats or abilities to spice up the game. And then another even better and more interesting unit at turn 40.

As for SCs, you're probably better off just banning them. Mod up a human pretender with no magic and just make everyone use that.

[zlefin]

yeah, it may be best to just ban SCs.
if people want morale higher than 10 that's fine, any individual stat can be tweaked on the baseline. having morale of 11 or 12 shouldn't be a problem. as long as repel still matters some.

I don't wanna do a dynamic mod (where stuff changes mid game);
maybe using cumulative vp would help encourage the game to be shorter? with a time limit unless people erally wanna keep playing. It should be a fairly aggressive game anyways. At least, if we can find some people who wanna play it. Do people care for their troops so little that the ydon't wanna see what the best equipment is?

[zlefin]

as to various issues:
SC pretenders are banned.

If you wanna try a magic-user pretender, given that research will be very difficult, no mages are recruitable, and sites will be at 0; and no gem income; given all that, it's not deemed a balance problem if someone wants to try that.

Priests will be h2 so they can cast sermon of courage.
The costs for your commanders will be 20g scout, 30g foot commander, 80g mounted commander, 100g priest.
leadership values of 0,40,80,10 respectively.

As to PD, all nations will have the same pd, something generic and not bad. Exact composition has not been finalized, but will likely be 1x short bow and 1x light inf. with 1x heavy inf at 20+. these generic troops will be drawn from the indy pool, as will the commanders.

To signup, post in this thread that your signing up, and send me a pm with your choices for unit equipment; so i can get started on the mod.
Zlefin

[quantum_mechani]

An additional note, there has been talk of making the first run of this experiment an all-in-one-sitting game, due to the comparative lack of micromanagement to do. Possibly this Friday, if all the players are interested and can make it.

[Hadrian_II]

It sounds interesting, but with 4 troops and 2 cavs you can make units for everything:

footman with xbow for the damage
footman with towershield to eat enemy bolts/arrows
footman with maxed prot/enc to fight in line
+1 footman for special purposes

some hard hitting knights to do max damage
some def maxed cavalery to tire out enemy troops

I would limit the choice of units, so that not everyone has everything.

This idea sounds kinda interesting, but not interesting enough as it is.

And btw. Friday is a bad time for blitzes as its weekend

[quantum_mechani]

Hadrian_II said:
Friday is a bad time for blitzes as its weekend

Weekends are the time most blitzes happen.