Mod: New Nation: Dinnas'Arval

[Juzza]

Updated lots and lots, see top post to see, try it out! even if you don't like, download it, it looks like more people like it kidding!

[VedalkenBear]

Looking at this some more, I have a few specific comments and a few generic ones.

1) You are only giving 5 total gems on the capital sites. It does seem like the general rule is 6 in EA. What is your rationale for deviating from this?

2) The commanders _seem_ fairly priced, but I was getting an awful lot of randoms (the non-100% ones), it seemed.
2a) Side note: You might want to start with an Assassin instead of a Priestess. That's a really good early research boost.

3) Barbarian King Hero needs his 'mount's' weapons designated so that he doesn't take multiweapon penalties for them. (I believe that's #extra or #bonus.)

On a more general note, it plays well, though a bit more attritive than I'd like. My main concern is that why would I play this over, say, Niefelheim? This has a lot of the same drawbacks of Niefelheim (i.e., very expensive mages, no cheap mages, no cheap blood hunters, etc.), but few of its benefits. Now, the mages are sacred which helps quite a bit in upkeep issues, and I received quite a few good mercs early so my expansion was rapid, but even so I was rather concerned over my early gold issues.

Now the mages themselves are quite possibly the best sorcerers in the game, with the High Priestess able to get 4S, 4N, or 4B. (Not sure about 4D, but I don't think so.) And in the game I've been playing for the past hour and a half or so, I got all 3. I also got a SSDDNNBB one, which was quite nice.

I guess one of my pet peeves is that certain magic paths (and particularly certain combinations of magic paths) occur much more frequently than others. To take this example, all the Jotunheims, Sauromatia, and BF Ulm have more or less the exact same magic (varying degrees, but same magic). And now this mod as well. This is just my feeling on the matter, but I like mods because they offer new options, and this mod doesn't offer me as much as some others.

This general issue is, I want to stress, my _personal opinion_ on the matter and I don't think Juzza should change the mod based on it.

[Juzza]

Hum, nice comments, I'll definately take some into consideration, but did you try to latest version? you didn't mention the Ancients.

[VedalkenBear]

The Ancients? IIRC, I was playing a Fire-6 Air-4 Phoenix, so the Bless was useful, but nothing major. As far as the commander was concerned, if I needed to guarantee having Death-2 on someone (and I didn't get it from a High Priestess), I'd recruit one or two. I'm not the one to ask about thug chassis, if that's where you're going.

Oh yes, and the Possesssed Berserkers looked quite nice. I was surprised they weren't Sacred, though. Very nice overall stats. Probably should add another ritual higher up that lets you get more than one at a time (for a commensurate price).

[Juzza]

Mm, but even normal priestess can summon those and I think I definitely need to make the high priestess a tiny bit weaker, heh, their too good compared to the other commanders.

I do intend on making at least two more spells, at least two more heroes, and fixing the current one, and hopefully another commander and another unit, tough, I don't intend on making any better commanders, by that I mean max starting leadership of 40, thats one of their disadvantages.

[BandarLover]

Meant to reply to this earlier, work keeping me soooo busy.

I like this mod. I'm always appreciative when people do their own graphics. You coulda wussed out like me and used existing pics but overall, I think your graphics are good. Not been able to playtest it as much as I would like (Sorry Sombre, I'm trying) so I can't really give you much feedback on balance and what not. I haven't even summoned a possessed berserker yet. But a solid effort thus far.

P.S. I also like the idea behind your Tarent mod. I'd read some intersting discussions in other threads about possibly modding in some gunpowder nations and I like the whole quasi-magi-technology thing. I vaguely remember playing an Arcanum RPG years ago. It was made by Sierra I believe.

[Juzza]

Well, I'm glad you like it!!

I'm aware my graphics aren't the best, but they've come a long way from my first mod, (tarent) and still getting better, it's hard doing most of my work in paint, but I'm learning how to shade better and with the ability to copy sprites straight from the game, well, it won't really make my mods, that much faster, I think it takes me as much time to edit one as to make my own, but the quality is definitely a a step up from my animations.

And np that you haven't play tested it, though if you do, might wanna wait for the next version, hopefully up in the next few days, fixes a few major mishaps, like the mages power.

um, and yes! I'm also aware I spelled Tarant wrong!! it was a silly mistake! lol, and I only got into arcanum the... 3rd time I tried it, so it took me a few tries to get into heh, but I'm glad I did, best RPG I've ever played through...... 7 times yes I have no life.

[Juzza]

New update, no new units or spells just a few fixes and changes, high priestesses shouldn't be as strong anymore, Ancient Weavers are more worth getting, the Hidden master no long has 40 leadership, downed to 10, um possibly, more I'm unsure, at least I know that it's compatible with the new patch and all.