Mod: New Nation: Travelers

[galica]

I spent a huge amount of time(more than 10 hours) testing this mod. I started a tower game, 1000 provinces, 10 nations, hard AI, forbidden magic mod(more magic) max sites, everything normal, with rainbow druid(mage character with a lot of paths).dom 10, s3,o3, md2, luck-3. Expansion with the immortal chaff wasn't bad, but I can expand faster with pretty much any other race you can name. The "free" chaff has a 10 or 15 Gp cost for maint., and the majority of the game I spent 80% of my income just paying my troops. With sloth, I recruited the max number of troops at every castle but their numbers were trivial the entire game. With a long thin map, I encountered Ulm on top and Jotemheim on the bottom-4 provence front on each side. Both sides were flinging 150-250 soldier stacks every turn at me. If you fight in your dominion, your chaff respawns in your capitol(15-25 provinces away from the front). fighting in your own dominion tends to erode your territory over time, so going on the offence tends to have you facing dominion 8-10, at least 9 provinces deep with enemy temples in 1/4. Even a solid wall of temples(which I paid for by alchemizing gems.) takes a LONG time to wear down. I usually lose 100-200% of the enemy units in chaff-even in battles where I had an advantage. The seducers, which are recruited at old age and have 1 hp, die most of the time from age checks. I suppose you could counter this by keeping them in human form during winter months. I had had more than 100 provinces fully searched, fever fetish farms, clam and earth stone production lines. 75 mound fiends(with 2 types of resource producers) cranking out long dead. The national summons, which don't heal weren't worth the cost, so I was using generic summons. My summoners were enslaving enemy giants and troops-these were good units-but ultimately not enough. During the later stages, I started thugging the hermits, I also used them for fetish farms. The only reason I went so long was because I was having so much fun with the forbidden magic mod. When I realized that the only thing keeping me alive was this huge magic economy I had built, using generic summons I stopped the game.

Hermits are probably your best end game unit, for thugs. Any of your ethereal commanders aren't going to be usable during the winter(when age checks come in)-these guys need to be reduced in cost being immortal is not much value mid-late game when your fighting mostly in enemy dominion(if you're fighting in your dominion, you're losing anyway). The dominator armor is a 1-2 battle wonder-there's really no time to ferry your entire unit back to a lab for repairs. I probably would have done better by taking a high productivity and ignoring the summoners entirely in mid-late game-I tried to swarm with chaff and the maint. crippled me, they also suffered 80% casualties in every large battle.

Overall pretty thematic, high quality graphics and spells(as always). Definitely needs to have the cost of spawns greatly reduced. Not sure what to do with the commanders, avoiding winter deployment to avoid the game-breaking old age casualties seems hokey. Difficult but not impossible to get your magic going without national mages-as long as your pretender is designed for it. Let me know what you decide to do with the spawns, plus then next round of changes and I'll give it another run.

[Endoperez]

First time I remember someone really testing a mod out, and writing a detailed report. Good work!

[Amos]

Thank you for an incredibly detailed report.

-I'm thinking of removing the cost of the Missionaries from the cost of the Princes. Right now when you buy them you are paying for them both.

-I'll remove the spawns maintenance cost completely.

-The update will be posted when I figure out what to do about Dominator units (I think leader's ability to travel enormous distances and change form at will makes them worth the cost).

As for scales, try sloth/2 magic/3 instead. Same research value but more money and resources.

[Amos]

Version 0.06

- Gave Hermit "Katar" instead of "Pata" (was too lazy before);
- Raised Summoner's price to 95gp;
- Lowered maintenance for both Soldiers and Elite Soldiers of Ka;
- Possessed Prince gained a lowered cost and a 3-stage shape shift:
P.Prince -> Missionary <-> P.Captain;
- Added another armor unit that can fly - "Exterminator Armor" ("Construct Army" spell summons them at research lvl 9 instead of "Dominator Armor");
- Lowered price of "Construct Squad" and added "Construct Flying Squad" spell.

[Amos]

Version 0.07

Changed unit numbers to 2450-2480. I'll change the problematic numbers in my other mods when I have the time.

[Amos]

Version 0.08

- "Ethereal Claw" is mrnegates;
- All armor got stonebeing;
- All Travellers got stormimmune;
- "Exterminator Armor" is stormimmune.

[Aezeal]

Hmm I'm checking this nation out since you said it might be usefull for dominions 3000

I've played a few turns and I'm wondering about a few things
you need to seduce mages to cast spells but mostly you'll just have your troops and free spawn. Most nations get more powerfull later in an age due to magic. For this nation that is much less the case so I wonder what the way is to balance this nation for end game.. is it purely the fact you'll be flooding the enemy with immortal flying free-spawns or am I missing something.

The graphics are lovely but I'd need to replace all basic swordsmen and horsemen of course. I see the ka units as units that won't need to shapeshift in space and I love the immense range they can move (but basicly limited by your dominion spread or they will die)
I wonder if this nation really needs the basic recruitables since I love the freespawn

are the human sized ka warriors and leader etc also wearing armor or are they possesing humans or are only the recruitable possesed warrior taking over human bodies? (and why do they do that btw they are much nicer as immortals )

I also think they don't need ranged weapons (or guns at least) for them selves.. they ka units seem to be useable as they are.

I'm gonna try to get earth magic to cast those summons and see about those. I'm not quite sure how that fits in thematically though atm

[Amos]

are the human sized ka warriors and leader etc also wearing armor or are they possesing humans or are only the recruitable possesed warrior taking over human bodies? (and why do they do that btw they are much nicer as immortals )

There is a bug(?) in Dominions that kills deceased immortals permanently. The Travelers cant stay in this dimension for long (have very low max age) so they become deceased quite quickly and die. It doesn't matter if they do so in a friendly dominion or not, they do not come back from that. They need the human bodies and the armor to survive.

I've played a few turns and I'm wondering about a few things
you need to seduce mages to cast spells but mostly you'll just have your troops and free spawn. Most nations get more powerfull later in an age due to magic. For this nation that is much less the case so I wonder what the way is to balance this nation for end game.. is it purely the fact you'll be flooding the enemy with immortal flying free-spawns or am I missing something.

Everyone plays differently. I see armies of armor flying around, crushing everything.

[HoneyBadger]

Amos, I was just curious as to why you never post images of your work, online in the threads? You do beautiful artwork, and very distinctive, but to see it, one has to download the mod, which isn't always the most convenient thing to do-and must certainly reduce the amount of people who actually *do* download your mods, since they're unable to appreciate beforehand, how visually special they are.

[Amos]

Amos, I was just curious as to why you never post images of your work, online in the threads? You do beautiful artwork, and very distinctive, but to see it, one has to download the mod, which isn't always the most convenient thing to do-and must certainly reduce the amount of people who actually *do* download your mods, since they're unable to appreciate beforehand, how visually special they are.

I used to upload some of the images. But after a while I stop liking them or change them completely. And the old ones are still there, like an inconvenient evidence .