Mod: Nation: Sirius

[Maraxus]

May I present to you the latest in air superiority: Sirius.

Send Caelum back into their Ivory towers with incorruptible swords.

Sirius might be like Caelum ... without Mammoth and most of it's magic. Instead you have mighty troops with the highest fighting skills possible!!!
At the ground, the birdman calling themselves Sothis are supported by human followers thatturn into berserkers, their Mages evoke the destructive forces of the Holy Vulcan while the winged Lords magically pull the Air itself on their side.

Seriously, you guys: Sirius!!!

Okay, enough of the advertising.
This is a mid-era nation mod.
90% done: Sprites, first and second versions of the values, now it's time for some featback. I guess the balancing won't be perfect right away.



Misc stuff:
The spell modding was a thing of compromises again. I added two cross-path attack spells, one Fire/Lighning combination and a long range assasin spell. But overall, I'm content with that now.

But then there was the "Avatar of the Vulcan" Pretender, who's first design idea was to be bound to the Vulcan in a bad way, too. Copying the Blood Lord seam to work but sadly I had to realise, that in fact the pretender lost a part of his HP every round in any province. What suprises me, because the starting commanders do have your capitol as home province, while the pretender has none.

[Thilock_Dominus]

Nice. Downloading. So it's like Caelum with fire path?

[Maraxus]

Except for the fact, that it does not have any Mammoth and considderably less magic.
So for the average Caelum game, it's totally diffrent.

...of course on the other hand it has mighty flying troops and commanders that can support them in the frontline.

[Burnsaber]

I gave this a whirl yesterday, and here are my thoughts. I played with E9N4 imprisoned cyclops with Ord3,Prod3,Death3,MisFort 2 and Magic 1.

1) The sprites are pretty good, but there some things in them that bother me. They seem a bit one-colored, especially the skin. Perhaps you could shade them a bit more? I'm not too fond of the "lighting sword" effect you use on the.. well, lighting sword wielding guys. It just doesn't stand out from a far and close up it seems like a some random pixels. Lighting is hard thought, I had the same problem a year back. I copied the thunder effect from the lighting wielding Tartarian. See the attachment on how I did it. But you know, these things are always relative ("beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and so forth).

2) Are you sure that you the right flysprite on the Raiders throwing axes? Those things are massive!

3) Your Sacreds are awesome. E9 bless means that they can never fatigue out themselves and improves their prot too! Combined with the regen from N4, I really had very few casualties when expanding. I don't think that they're broken, though. Being capital only and considering the lack of mighty magics in this nation, they're probably okay. It's just that bless nation isn't really intresting in SP, since the AI doesn't counter them in any way.

4) Why Zeothicer only cost 11 resources with all that magical gear? These are also very good, instant thugs really - Blessing (withE9N4 bless), Mistform, Mirror Image or Iron Skin (if got E pick), hold, hold attack archers. With those commands, I was able to solo provinces, perhaps a dat too good for 280 gold commander? I'd reduce the awe to +0 ,at least.

5) Why do Vulcanmages have stealth? It's not really explained in the description.

6) I think you might have gone a bit overboard with this "few magic"-theme. Max paths F2/E1/A3 on nationals. That's weaker than Ulm (F2,E3,A1,S1), and thay have those sweet Iron Angels and Iron Blizzards. Perhaps add 10% randoms on some mages? Some national combat spells?

7) You should run those descriptions through a spell-checker. Lots of typos. Is the "Heros" spelling intentional? The plural of "Hero" is "Heroes".

My overall thoughts:
Guite okay nation mod, when I think about it. You have a diamond there, you just have to polish it a bit more. The theme of flying samurais is quite nice and the national flag is way beyond awesome, it really encompasses the Steel & Lightning theme. The troop selection is small, but large enough. It's just that I don't see much options when playing this nation. Either go for bless on Sothic Saints or use javeling/axe throwing infantry + archers with Wind Guide + Flaming Arrows. Those won't really cut it in the late game.

[Endoperez]

Having a chance for bit more Earth would help quite a bit, IMO. E2 -> Earth Boots -> Hammers, and on the other hand, E3A3 is only one pretender-turn and lots of gems away from Earth/Air Staves of Elemental Mastery and two Air boosters.

You could also give them minor Water access. I don't think there are any nations that have ONLY elemental magic, but ALL of it. That would give them a rather unique theme, I think.

[Burnsaber]

It seems that I'm somehow unable to edit my previous post, hence a new one with few things to say. Does the new forum somehow limit editing?

Originally Posted by Maraxus

The spell modding was a thing of compromises again. I added two cross-path attack spells, one Fire/Lighning combination and a long range assasin spell. But overall, I'm content with that now.

I've come to know a thing or two about spell modding through my SPCS project. If you have a problem with spell modding, just contact me with details, I'd more than glad to help (if I'm able). I also have few ideas I wasn't able to fit in CPCS, so I'll bounce them here.

- Blessing of the Vulcan Winds: A/F a buff spell makes hot volcanic winds blow around friendly troops, protecting them from enemy missiles, guiding their own missiles and lighting them aflame once send towards target. (in game speak: Wind Guide + Air Shield + Flaming Arrows on small Aoe, perhaps?)

- Wild Cyclone: Pure A national evocation. A wild tornado comes and lifts some opposing soldiers up in the air and drops them on the battlefield again. (high physical damage and "blinks" targets, AoE 1?)

Also, you don't seem to have #explspr for the "sparks" secondaryeffect on the lighting swords. Don't know if that's intentional, but I was kinda expecting some blingbling when using them. I've mapped a healthy portion of the explsprites, so may be as Blunt as to suggest explspr 10065 (few falling blue transparent colors).

Originally Posted by Maraxus

But then there was the "Avatar of the Vulcan" Pretender, who's first design idea was to be bound to the Vulcan in a bad way, too. Copying the Blood Lord seam to work but sadly I had to realise, that in fact the pretender lost a part of his HP every round in any province. What suprises me, because the starting commanders do have your capitol as home province, while the pretender has none.

You could totally work on that. That's a unique theme, pretender that's doomed to die, but will rise again from the ashes. Sweet merciful Phoenix!

I kinda had a idea that might solve two "problems" in one strike. The lack of paths and units. Tengus. You have the paths for them, you have a sort of oriental theme of Zen swordsmen. They could have same ancestry, but have grown apart, Tengu are wild, carefree and playful, the little brother of the family. While Sirius are stoic, cold and completely dedicated on swordsmanship, the older brother, sort to speak. They might not live together, but have a sort of alliance to protect their mountain homes. Summonable tengu commander could open up minor nature on magic paths. They probably wouldn't consider Tengus sacred, but it's not hard to #newmonster a tengu that's not sacred. DOn't know if you had anything like this planned or if it's on the line with your idea of the nation, but I'm just bouncing ideas around.

[Aezeal]

hmm burnsaber (this is OT) if you have mapped the explsprite could I get a list (if you have mapped the flightpsprites for missiles I'd love that too.

expl sprites work on everyhit right, ranged but also melee?

[Maraxus]

Thanks for the feetback.

Burnsaber post 1:

1)I was not to content with the pixel sparks either, I think I will try something along the Valkyrie there. Thanks.

2)I did not make the throwing axe. It's the normal thowing axe from Ulm.

4) Oh, yes, because the Black Steel Plate has resources 0 and in the case of this one guy I forgot to add it to the unit. Will be +15=26

5) I think I'll improof the description

6) Ulm's 10% is not really much and without it's E2F1 ... I think I have a bit more here. But adding 10%s myself sounds possible. In fact I had the Zeothicer with 10% anything untill very late. Maybe I make it 10% "something useful" for Zeothicer and Spellsword. (Along with making the Zeothicer and maybe the Spellsword a bit more expencive).
And about my two spells: The Fire/Air is pretty plain and had to get (unless your pretender happens to be able to forge fire skulls), the "dagger" (which does not look like a dagger due to flightsprites below 10000 not working in spellmodding) however is one I like.
If range attack hits (vs. shield): Chest wound and 17+ damage at perfect range and precision.

Spelling: I will see if I get this installed at some point.
Damn, I allways have heroes wrong (and basicly know this since I searched the tv show of the same name online some vain times. But looks like I still not get it right when not thinking about it). Will improve, I promise.


2nd post:

Blessing of the Vulcan Winds: I can't really feel it for them. Maybe ... plus making a 3 effect chain should include the alteration of existing spells, shouldn't it?

Wild Cyclone sounds cool.

And explospr on melee weapons? That works? Nice.


Tengus were one idea I had in the beginning, too. Air/Nature is pretty covered with Tir, Man and Eriu, I think.
But as a mid to high level conjuration for the right pretender to expand the magic, that might work.


And the immortal god with "dies outside home province" will sadly go down to 1 HP and then get reincarnated every round with 1 HP, not with fresh full HPs.


Oh and to the "overall thoughts" in the first post:
I thought that massing the Greatsword warriors and raiding the hell out of the opponent might be an okay tactic at any time. Add to this cheap cloud trapeze economy thugs (Spellswords with shield of awe and maybe Gridle of might and Fire Brand, Zeothicer with Fire Brand and Shield of Valor or something ... All set on Mistform and attack).
On top some possible battlefield magic:
Earth boots plus summon earthpower for some vulcanmages to magma eruption, the others cast Phoenix Power + Falling fire, Stormpower (use staff) for Spellswords to get to Thunder Strike.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Maraxus

The Fire/Air is pretty plain and had to get (unless your pretender happens to be able to forge fire skulls), the "dagger" (which does not look like a dagger due to flightsprites below 10000 not working in spellmodding) however is one I like.
If range attack hits (vs. shield): Chest wound and 17+ damage at perfect range and precision.

Use copyspell "Blade Wind" to get the daggerish blade. Just "write over" everything else but #flightspr. I often copyspell "ghost grip" for the spooky skeletal hand. If you have nreff at 1, there will be only one missile.

Originally Posted by Maraxus

Spelling: I will see if I get this installed at some point.
Damn, I allways have heroes wrong (and basicly know this since I searched the tv show of the same name online some vain times. But looks like I still not get it right when not thinking about it). Will improve, I promise.

Just copy-paste the description to Word and let it spell-check it for you. Then just copy paste back.

Originally Posted by Maraxus

Blessing of the Vulcan Winds: I can't really feel it for them. Maybe ... plus making a 3 effect chain should include the alteration of existing spells, shouldn't it?

No. It would just require two new spells, no need to alter existing ones. But this really ain't a archer nation really, so perhaps it's better to scratch it. Besides, I didn't notice the existing F/A spell.

Originally Posted by Maraxus

Wild Cyclone sounds cool.

Yeah, it should be. The hardest part is to make it look like a cyclone. Just thought about this, there probably is no way to make it look like a tornado. Howabout you call it "Wind Snatch" or something, more localized, less flashy effect should work then.

Originally Posted by Maraxus

Tengus were one idea I had in the beginning, too. Air/Nature is pretty covered with Tir, Man and Eriu, I think.
But as a mid to high level conjuration for the right pretender to expand the magic, that might work.

Tengu's are Air/Earth already and the national spell on Shinyama castable by your nationals. I see no reason to restrict them outside the grasp of your nationals. Besides you already have the "Daeva" summon as a prentender only.