Mod: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01

[Loren]

Got around to trying the new version vs 10 difficult AI's.

One AI picked an early fight when it had only a few provinces (I don't know what happened to it's expansion) and it was soon gone. I then found myself in a two-front war. The Ghost Dragons made all the difference--it took quite a while to reduce his forces but they were able to keep his armies leaderless and thus unable to actually attack. Bogarus had me outgunned by a mile in wide open space, if he could actually have advanced on me I would have been dead. I had enough force on the front to stomp on leakers but that was it and I couldn't spare the forces from the other war against Utgard.

As I was beginning to get the upper hand against Utgard Agartha decided to jump into the fray. Apparently cutting him off from Utgard (they were at war) caused him to pick a new opponent and I was the only one he bordered. He was weak, though, and died quickly.

Utgard finally fell and I sent my army against Bogarus. I was still outgunned but he had a thousand leaderless troops, I snuck around behind his battle line and gutted the rest and then I could roll up the battle line.

I got a bit of a breather to bring my PD up to stop remote attacks (Agartha would have been a real pain if he hadn't been so small--he didn't have the gems to keep it up.)

Tien Chi outgunned me at least 3 to 1 when they decided to go to war but again the Ghost Dragons really did a number on them. I really liked the battle result of him losing 500 units, no commanders and I lost nothing. (I had cut his retreat.) They are still 2 to 1 in army size but I've reclaimed my territory and am pushing him back.

The Dragon of Fate works now. Do you mean it to take multiple empowerments to be able to summon one of them, though?

I'm still in last place on research, it looks like it's going to be a win, though.

[Aezeal]

So it sounds like the army is somewhat balanced now and only the ghostdragons need to be changed a bit... the assassination ability should be worth quite a bit on a stronger chassis.. and while the ghost dragon is pretty weak for dragon standards I guess his price needs to go up quite a bit.

[Loren]

Originally Posted by Aezeal

So it sounds like the army is somewhat balanced now and only the ghostdragons need to be changed a bit... the assassination ability should be worth quite a bit on a stronger chassis.. and while the ghost dragon is pretty weak for dragon standards I guess his price needs to go up quite a bit.

Yeah, although if you take away the assassination I suspect the race is too weak and would need strengthening somewhere. The assassination is the only thing that's allowed me to survive.


Farther into the game, some more thoughts:

1) The Wave Dragon should be summonable underwater.

2) I'm strongly inclined to think the Death Wraith dragon should have assassination capability. It looks so much like an upgraded Ghost dragon that it seems strange it doesn't retain the assassination power.

3) I think the summons need some organization as to the paths they have and what it takes to summon them. I don't like the fact that more than one of them can't be obtained without using empowerment/wishing (Although, admittedly, the Fate dragon can wish with boosters alone) or else putting a lot of magic on your pretender.

4) I'm inclined to say the elder dragons are underpriced.

[Aezeal]

Hmm well against 10 difficult AI's who are picking on you you acn't expect to win every game. But I won't take assassination away completely in anycase. Maybe the troops need to be stronger again.

1) The Wave Dragon should be summonable underwater.
Hmm good point will try to get that done... once

2) I'm strongly inclined to think the Death Wraith dragon should have assassination capability. It looks so much like an upgraded Ghost dragon that it seems strange it doesn't retain the assassination power.
It should

3) I think the summons need some organization as to the paths they have and what it takes to summon them. I don't like the fact that more than one of them can't be obtained without using empowerment/wishing (Although, admittedly, the Fate dragon can wish with boosters alone) or else putting a lot of magic on your pretender.
- This is intended, either you get lots of magic in the pretender or you empower a lot or you pick certain summons. The summons should be worth it in anycase and you don't really need them all at once anyway (pick the summons against your opponent)

4) I'm inclined to say the elder dragons are underpriced.
- Hmm but you need empowerment etc etc so I'll leave it at this for now they should be the strong point of the race so a lil underpricement is needed (and they have SC restrictions in the slots so they aren't unbeatable.. well.. )

[rdonj]

I would be inclined to say to let the troops rest as they are for the moment. Play with them for a while and if they really feel too weak they can be changed. There are lots of inherent bonuses to the dragons... they make great raiders due to the flying, and you almost never have to fight a particular battle. You can always reform and fight somewhere else. Anyway I don't think they're too bad now, but perhaps I am mistaken.

[Aezeal]

I won't change much now except real bugs. They don't need to be the strongest race out there anyway. Early game is allowed to be relatively though too since I think they should be a stronger late game race.

[Loren]

I don't get it. The Death Wraith Dragon is marked as an assassin as far as I can tell, yet it does not have the assassination ability.


Digging some more: The summoned dragons have gold & resource cost so they have upkeep. That's not normal. Is there some reason for this or is this a mistake?

More digging, more problems: The Dragon Raid spell. I hadn't seen it before, finding it in the file I tried it. Yikes!

*SOME* of the melee dragons flew forward and engaged. Others sat around at the start point, I don't know why. The Poison Ivy sat there at the start point casting Raise Dead--and just about killing the melee dragons that didn't fly into combat with it's aura. It's units stayed there with it, they never accomplished anything other than be arrow targets.

Finally I believe it must have cast touch of madness on itself but I didn't see it--it went up to maximum ranged attack range and started spitting, never hitting anything.

I don't know why all of the misbehavior but the poison dragons shouldn't be mixed with the others like that!

[Aezeal]

Hmmm it's a good point that the poison ivy dragon should be there since you can't set up the placement.. I'll make it another dragon in the future.

The gold cost is intentional, big dragons just have upkeep.. I don't see why the smaller ones would cost gold and the bigger ones nothing.. they price isn't THAT much. Also since the summon cost are relatively low for their power this is a way to balance that to prevent you from getting too large armies of summoned creatures.

[Loren]

1) There's no point in having a resource cost on a summons. It has no effect.

2) I seem to have fixed the Deathwraith assassin problem--I killed the command and copied the one from the Ghost dragon. I put the new line earlier in the list of options. Which behavior fixed it I don't know. Note that this does *NOT* affect existing dragons!

3) There seems to be another balance problem. I'm now trying it against 8 mighty's. Again, the Ghost dragons are the only reason I'm alive. Somehow a large force from Ulm broke through anyway and I threw everything I had available at it. The bonebiters mostly died, the few that didn't routed. I noticed that the real killing was coming from the Flame Tongue dragons, though--and from that point on I have been recruiting only Flame Tongue and Ghost dragons--all chiefs, no indians.

My strategy at this point is Ghosts along the entire battle front, two levels deep where I'm actually pushing forward so there's nothing that can grab the provinces I'm taking. The strike groups are pure Flame Tongues. The Bonebiters under their adamantine leaders are still around but I'm using them to mop up PD-only provinces behind his lines, sooner or later they'll get smashed with no retreat but I don't care. I've got a couple of groups of Ice Plated dragons clearing the water. The summons are beginning to come on-line but I haven't gotten enough to be committing them to battle yet.

I'm close to declaring this one won as at this point the two remaining big empires don't seem to be able to do anything about me even though Man has 3600 troops (but zero leaders) on our border. Next game will be against Impossible AI's using an all-commander strategy.

[Aezeal]

you should be able to kill a lot of those troops with a SC or a few thugs..

if the game is finished.. just try to kill those large armies.

can you try mixed armies of some shooters, bonebiters and commanders with equipment? I'd guess those balanced armies should be able to take pretty strong forces.

I'm not quite sure that the nation is underpowered though.. in SP you'll need to take advantage of tricks to beat 8 mighty opponents with any nation.. just recruiting you'll always loose since they have about double your income each (or something like that after upkeep at least)

Things I'll probably change:
- higher cost for ghostdragons
- maybe give the bonebiter a bit of a cost reduction (I guess loosing 2 AP attacks for 1 no AP attack is too much on top of the higher price)