New mod nation: Sylvania, Vampire Counts

[llamabeast]

I am very pleased to present my new nation mod: Sylvania, Vampire Counts.


Sprite credits: Order of the Rose sprites based on Altdorf sprites by Sombre. Dragon sprites based on sprites by Zepath. Thanks!

This nation has been something of a magnum opus for me - I've been working really hard on it for months. I really hope that I've managed to get the feel I was aiming for, and that people playing enjoy it.

This nation is loosely based on / inspired by the Warhammer nation "Vampire Counts". As with my Tomb Kings mod, the Warhammer nation served really as an initial basis and source of inspiration, and I have invented new stuff and veered away from what Warhammer says when it didn't suit me.

This is the nation description:

--
Sylvania is a desolate province of dark forests and deadly swamps. Peasants eke out a miserable existence tilling the infertile soil, or take up arms to defend themselves from the marauding wolves, bandits and monsters which infest the province. In decades past the nobility were concerned stewards of their people, ruling and protecting them as best they could. More recently they have become withdrawn, and dark tales keep the peasants away from their castles.

With the disappearance of the Pantokrator the nobility have revealed themselves as powerful vampires and all who opposed them have been slain. Now the armies of Sylvania are forced to march side by side with the walking dead to conquer new lands for the vampires and their dark god.
--

The nation has quite a number of unusual mechanics. There is a tension between playing as a mortal nation or an army of undead, or, to a lesser extent, a blood nation. You can harvest your population for death gems via a national Raven Feast, or you can keep them to fund your mortal armies. You can also manipulate your population by infesting their sewers with ghouls (hunt down troublemakers, reduce unrest but kill population), or punish them for insubordination by having the dead rise from their graves and kill those who are disobedient (the national spell Punishment, one of I think about 25 national spells).

A couple of possibly non-obvious things I should point out:
- The nation's dominion causes unrest.
- If you cast "Army of the Crypts" or "Army of the Swamps" in friendly dominion you will get sacred undead (and occasionally other things). The stronger the dominion the more you'll get.
- Having vampires in battle buffs your undead - the more vampires, the greater the proportion of the undead get buffed. Von Carsteins give a strength boost, Necrarchs give regeneration.

This mod has already gone through a couple of iterations over on the dom3mods forums, so hopefully this should be a stable version. Many thanks to Baalz, Wraithlord, Soyweiser and rdonj in particular for their feedback.

More feedback is always extremely welcome! Feedback really is lifeblood to a modder. I really hope people enjoy playing this nation, it's been a lot of fun (and occasionally a lot of work!) making it.

[Taqwus]

Very nifty.

Is Necrarch-granted regeneration supposed to be have much rarer effect than the other vampire boosts?

[llamabeast]

Um... It should only be rarer in that there are likely to be fewer Necrarchs than Von Carsteins. Do you think it is rarer still?

[Taqwus]

Haven't noticed any effects on the longdead masses -- probably due to lifelessness making it ineffective on them, I suppose. I'll have to try higher undead and have another look.

[llamabeast]

Oh, missed this point. The regeneration does work on the undead, cos I used the special kind of regeneration that works on lifeless units (it's in the game because of the Pangaea manikin regeneration spells).

[llamabeast]

New version released: v1.02. I finally decided that even though the unrest dominion was an interesting concept, it was just too painful and too prone to need micromanagement. So I've removed that, and made quite a number of other balance changes.

Here's the changelog:

- Unrest dominion removed
- House of Dust berserk increased to 3 - now have much better combat stats than House of Shadows apart from encumbrance from berserk
- Von Carstein cost increased to 450
- Von Carsteins given less good armour. They are still pretty powerful if used carefully.
- Removed gcost on summons
- Removed domsummon of common animals from Von Carsteins - they now have to use Summon Allies or the spells to get them (didn't really want an animal-based nation)
- House of Shadows bat form only has mapmove 2, explained in description
- House of Dust wolf form only has map move 3, but gained mountain survival and forest survival
- Konrad Von Carstein can no longer change shape
- Made wolf sprites smaller
- Made "Punishment" spell better (halved pop kill, cost 5->4)
- Reduced pop kill of sewer ghouls slightly (best I could do). Now kill 160 population / turn
- Sewer ghouls cost increased from 16 to 20 blood slaves
- Forester gcost increased to 14 (from 13)
- PD somewhat weakened
- Morale on animals was a bit odd - fixed
- Added "Shadow Ravens" spell. Thaum 6 version of Raven Call which has a gem cost of zero but can only target friendly provinces.
- Improved both of the dragon summons. Apart from stat changes, Zombie Dragon is now a commander and Draconic Dragon gained a misc slot.

Hope people enjoy this - feedback greatly appreciated as always!