Black Company Mod

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

The reason I started this mod was twofold--I love the Black Company series and would like to play it in Dominions, and I have some ideas about play balancing that I wanted to mess around with. Some of these ideas are:

1. making a more powerful unit that costs mis-proportionately more than other units to start with, but has less cost over time, e.g. in supplies. Take the Limper Infantry as the main example of this. 1.5X heavy infantry, costs 2X a heavy infantry, but still only eats 1/unit of supply per month.

2. making units more powerful not through strength or hits, but through endurance and morale. Again, the Limper Infantry is my example. Sure, they have great armor also, but the main difference between neutral hvy inf and them is the Mor 15 vs 10, and Enc 1 vs 3. In fact, they are very similar to Ulm Hvy Inf, except for the morale and endurance--and the fact that they cost more.

3. I also wanted to experiment with a top-heavy empire in a way. The primary foot-soldier of the Empire isn't important in this Mod. In the book each unit was vastly different, coming from different absorbed kingdoms, armed and armored completely differently and sporting different tactics and strategies. But the big wins/losses were almost always due to the heroes. I was hoping to emulate this with a kind of generic foot-soldier. I did kick around the idea of making 4-6 vastly different basic units, but that would take away from the flavor of the Empire. Instead, I have a generic infantry, 4 vastly different vastly expensive elite units, 2 great leaders, and 4 ultra powerful heroes that you might or might might not get. In a +2 luck, you should get one hero every 20 turns, which should make up for the slow military growth this expensive mod requires. That, and the fact that an army of 50 will eat 50 supplies/month, yet be as powerful as an army of ~75. An army travels on its stomach, and I am making powerful stomachs.

I am still kicking around the idea of Soulcatcher as a unit that charms/dominates enemy commanders, with her patron unit as a stealthy assassin charmer/dominator (as in when the BC took Whisper).

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Anybody want to make some icons for me? I am not visually artistic. So far, I have borrowed other units' icons....

Black Infantry--light infantry
Limper Infantry--super heavy infantry
Forvalaka--were-leopard
Boomer--battlemages, fire ball throwers
Shapechanger--hero
Howler--hero on flying carpet
Limper--hero, battlemage, soldier

I also need a theme banner.

Thanks!

[Peter Ebbesen]

Enc 1 vs 3 is no real difference to Heavy Infantry - fights need to Last for a long, long, time for encumbrance on infantry to be important. Morale 15 vs 10, on the other hand, is an enormous difference. 15 is what the countries with highest morale get for their best (usually sacred) troops. If the Limper infantry only cost twice as much as regular heavy infantry in gold, they are probably underpriced.

(Well, I may have misunderstood you, but from your description it sounded as if your Limper Infantry would be about as strong as Ulm Guardians and with about the same movement allowance, but with higher morale and possibly higher magic resistance - while costing approximately the same.)

Anyhow, looking forwards to what you come up with.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

I hadn't considered the Guardians. When I look at their stats, they look very similar. Hmmmm. I was comparing them to Ulm Inf 3, which I consider to be very heavy infantry.

Compared to Ulm Guardians, they have very similar stats. +1 Morale, +1 St, -1 Hp, -2 Armor, etc. Cost is similar as well.

I may need to differentiate them a bit. Thanks!

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Coffeedragon:
As you get the Heroes for free, won�t this Mod be vastly over-powerful?

Any mod that tries to be faithful to the heroes (and Villains, if you can tell the difference) of the Black Company will be vastly powerful per definition.

Just need to add the Dominator as a pretender with a standard attack of, hmm. Master Enslave to be thematic (and possibly the corresponding Astral Magic to survive the fatigue ), and it should be done.

Nah, that is one good reason for leaving the Dominator out of the pretender selection.

[Teraswaerto]

Having powerful heroes isn't necessarily a balance problem. You need luck to get them & luck as a scale is kinda weak. I doubt anyone would claim Tien Chi to be overpowered since they have immortal heroes with good magics and special abilities.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
Having powerful heroes isn't necessarily a balance problem. You need luck to get them & luck as a scale is kinda weak. I doubt anyone would claim Tien Chi to be overpowered since they have immortal heroes with good magics and special abilities.

Ahem. The immortal hero units proposed for the Black Company mod are incredibly more powerful than the weaklings T'ien C'hi gets. Reread the first post. We are talking hero units with magic skills usually only seen on pretender gods (8/1, 4/4), and, if they are to be anywhere near faithful to the Black Company novels, very high hitpoints, defense, and protection as well. And possibly regeneration.

Basically, it corresponds to giving the player 0-3 extra non-customisable pretender gods through luck.

And then there are the RECRUITABLE immortal Taken mages (good magic, high leadership, high hitpoints &etc) with 3 unholy priest levels as well. They may not be able to fly like Spring and Autumn's Celestial Master, but that is most likely the only area where T'ien C'hi can beat them.

[Bossemanden]

I think the recruitable Taken should be changed to a theme-specific summons spell ala vampire count for Ulm Black Forest. The reasoning is that the Taken cant be bought but must be Taken through magical means.

Maybe prereq: Death 3 and Astral 3 (based on the description of the Taking of Whisper in the first book).
Cost should be in the order of 40-50 gems of either Death or Astral gems.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

I am not convinced Taken are disproportionate to the mod as a whole. There are no good researchers in this mod. That means that even with powerful magic Users, you don't get powerful spells. Early game, you are scrambling to stay alive vs. the faster starters. Mid-game you have a few ok spells like flare and fire-spark, but although the high precision makes these spells more puissant than normal, they are still low level spells. Late-game, you are really hurting due to the lack of research. Everyone else is going to be doing the big powerful spells, while the Black Empire will still be doing low to mid level spells--just a lot more of them.

I'm glad you brought up Niefel Jarls. I was trying to come up with a cross between them and Wraith Lords. I think I succeeded! I might have to raise their cost a slight amount, and I might lower their priestly power, but otherwise I think I got it right. I hope to release the module to the public sometime this week with the largest of the play balance issues worked out (so I don't embarrass myself too much). At that time you can try it out and let me know!

Right now, in one game, I am in turn 30, no heroes yet, but half and half Black Captains and Taken as commanders. I am finding the Forvalaka to be overly powerful. The Limper Infantry is about right on, now that I have increased their armor and cost. The Black Infantry has surprised me with its efficacy. Despite their low Pro of 6, they seem to really kick butt. A small screen of Limper Infantry and a large number of Black Infantry really seems to do the trick.

Strategically, the Limper Infantry is a problem. Their movement of 1/7 means getting them to the fight is hard work. Once they get there however, they do the job.

The Forvalaka move 3/30, and they are a pleasure to use. Their Pro of 5 means they die fairly quickly, which is good since they are inhumanly powerful infighters. Sorta like magical berserkers. I am going to scale their attacks back a bit as they seem too dangerous. Archers should pincushion them, but haven't run into many of those. Knights and heavy cav should also be efficacious with their lances.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Uh-Nu-Buh:
[QB] I am not convinced Taken are disproportionate to the mod as a whole. There are no good researchers in this mod. That means that even with powerful magic Users, you don't get powerful spells.

No, it means that you will rely on sages or other independents for your research just like everybody else, who do not have good researchers as part of their national theme.

Good and cheap researchers in the national theme is not a prerequisite for good research. It can certainly makes things easier, but it is seldom required.

Early game, you are scrambling to stay alive vs. the faster starters. Mid-game you have a few ok spells like flare and fire-spark, but although the high precision makes these spells more puissant than normal, they are still low level spells. Late-game, you are really hurting due to the lack of research. Everyone else is going to be doing the big powerful spells, while the Black Empire will still be doing low to mid level spells--just a lot more of them.

As stated above, I really don't think this will be the case. I think you will quite likely have found one or several sites with sages or other indigineous mages within the first 10-20 rounds, after which you have been producing at least one researcher each round.

Assuming you do not have a rainbow-mage/researcher as a pretender in the first place, and have gone for conjuration magic in order to be able to conjure up researchers for gems. (So many excellent choices)

I'm glad you brought up Niefel Jarls. I was trying to come up with a cross between them and Wraith Lords. I think I succeeded! I might have to raise their cost a slight amount, and I might lower their priestly power, but otherwise I think I got it right. I hope to release the module to the public sometime this week with the largest of the play balance issues worked out (so I don't embarrass myself too much). At that time you can try it out and let me know!

Well, what more can one ask? All the previous nitpicking is to a large degree based on guesses based on your comments. It will be nice to see the actuality.

I must say that 300 gold immortal mages with high armour, hitpoints, morale, magic resitance, precision, AND magic paths does seem a bit over the top and open to REAL abuse, but let us see.