Mod: EA Pictland, Way of the Wilderness v1.04

[WoodMan]

Hey tcon, that wolf is really nice. I'm okay for Wolves now, I'm happy with the way they came out in the end, also, it was the most time consuming sprite to make. Perhaps if I ever make a mod with a cold based nation I would use those Wolves, but I'm happy with the browny coloured Pictland Wolves for now

[Gandalf Parker]

Maybe it would work as a pretender?
Or after looking at it, maybe a really cool summons? Or a battle spell?

[tcon]

I have only played through about a dozen turns, but so far I like the team. The graphics are good and everything seems pretty well developed. There are only a few changes you may want to consider. The elder might be more balanced with a research of 3 or 4, giving him only 1 makes him not likely to be built and slightly worse than most nations researchers. The hag seems slightly underpowered having old age and only 1 astral, but if you increased the healer ability it would be a much more useful mage especially since most units don't have any armor this would really help. I really like using the savage, but a great club might fit the sprite better, regular clubs are usually one handed and the larger club would make him even more fun to use. If you decide to use the great club its #165 so you don't have to go looking for it. Overall though I really like the mod and how well you made the team, especially for a first release.

[WoodMan]

Hey tcon thanks for the feedback! You make a couple of really good points.

The Elder does one less research than a Philosopher but costs the same. The reason for this was because the Philosopher is Capital only, but the Elder can be built anywhere. However, this is actually no advantage, because the troops are so cheap and delicate and the clan leaders only control 40, you pretty much have to build a new commander every turn, meaning you don't have time for the Elders. So, giving an extra Research to the Elder might make them more viable, but I wouldn't want to make them better than the philosopher, so it will probably be just +1 extra reseach.

I agree with you about the Hag, because I'm not that familiar with the Healing ability I kind of guessed the amount, I wanted her to not be as good at healing as the Acros Priestess, but I might have made her too bad, perhaps a boost to 50 might do it.

As for the Savage, I think they are fairly balanced at the moment, they actually have only a 1 handed club if you pause and look at the attack sprite (its their arm going above their head with the club at the end). Giving them the Great Club is quite a boost in dmg (over double I think) which would make them better than the Berserker who is the Cap only version of a Savage (but without the Pillage ability).

The other things I'm looking at are the Pictish Wail (weapon of Wailing Woman) never seems to hit, it is -2 accuracy, it might need to be boosted to 0 or +1 or +2 and the Windcall spell is quite useless because the Hawks don't attack on the same turn they are summoned and get wiped. I think either the Hawks need a slight buff, or the spell range reduced to 1 perhaps, so that they spawn on the caster and then fly to enemy, they seem to attack the same turn as they fly, but not same turn as summon for some reason.

[tcon]

The fix for windcall should work, and I'm not sure why the wail isn't working. I can't tell if the attack is missing, or if the secondary effect just isn't hitting. You could try giving it a #flysprite for trouble shooting to see how accurate the attack is, or use #secondaryeffectalways to see if that fixes it because I'm not sure if it will trigger #secondaryeffect since it does 0 damage it might not consider it harming the unit and causing the secondary. Also, the philosopher has research 5.

[WoodMan]

Ah thanks for the info on the Philosopher. At the time of making the mod I was actually playing Arcos and my Philosophers were only doing 2 research, now I start a new game again and see they do 5! It must have been my slothful domain that was making them do less or something. Thought it was strange because the database said 5, but in game was only 2

I will fix up the Hag, Elder, Wail and Windcall and post an update soon, cheers for the advice!

[WoodMan]

Updated the first post in the thread with version 1.01 and list of changes!

Thx

[WoodMan]

Updated the first post in the thread with version 1.02 and list of changes. I feel now that the nation is done and dusted and I'm ready to move on to my next But if anyone points out anything in particular they think is broken or wrong that I missed I'll come back and fix.

Cheers all!

[Gandalf Parker]

I really love this mod. Love the name. Love the theme.
And its very well done. Excellent work as a first time effort.

[WoodMan]

Thanks very much for the kind comment, much appreciated. Glad you enjoyed it!