Mod: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K

[Aezeal]

I don't think the necromancer is that overpowered.. sure he gives lots of paths but he's got 4 paths MAX and a very low chance of getting 2 in anypath except for death. Also he's pretty expensive since he'll need to be your main researcher anway.
Id sooner give him a 1 research bonus than nerve him. He's terribly cost inefficient.. he's like 4x as inefficient as a sage. Sure he's got a decent chassis for a mage but paying for it everytime you want a researcher isn't very nice for a nation. Their relatively bad non cap recruitables and commanders need to make up for the immortal problem.

Also I think that while getting indies you don't need your immortals to die, if you insist on invading another with decent dominion it'll mean fighting on his dominion. Also all troops are undead so the obvious counter is clear.

[Darkwind]

The problem with sneaky priests is that priests can preach. Sneaky units can hide in enemy lands. Sneaky priests can preach in enemy lands, i.e. domkill gets a whole lot easier and immortal units can fight in their own dominion. I think a couple of the priests might be assassins too (though I might be thinking of the magi).

@balancing: I honestly took order-2 and prod-0(though higher production might have been a good idea). I could barely afford enough to stay out of bankruptcy. Making them sacred wouldn't help much, since I was only recruiting 3-4 units per turn in the capital anyways. Might I suggest increasing gold cost? Oh, sure, they might not ever die, but unless you take order-3 all of those immortal, undead units are going to bankrupt you.

[Aezeal]

yeah I made the weakest necro's assasins, not the priests
ehm I'd take order 3 with any nation myself but I think I'm missing something. you say they are bankrupting you yet you want an increase in gold cost?

Anway plz be specific about which units you think should have higher or lower cost?
I've now added a lowering of resources with 30% for the nation.. but when I hear you I'd say I should remove that again.

[Darkwind]

I was exaggerating when I said I was being bankrupted. Honestly, mostly I'm just suggesting things--take them with a grain of salt, because 1) I'm honestly not very good, and 2) I haven't managed to get far enough to determine whether I 'll win and any super-duper-awesome combos. Most of this is conjecture.

Still, though, I managed to (with Dom3K) take 1 or 2 actual losses per battle in my main attack force (said 1 or 2 losses were easily replaced by my priests, who auto-summoned units each turn). I even managed to take Space Eel provinces reliably, which is rather hard to do, I find. I don't think they need any help.

Actually, that might help decrease the power of Shiar a bit--remove the priests' auto-summon powers. One could theoretically (and in practice) take no actual losses from battles simply by replacing lost units through priests.

[rdonj]

The way you've done immortals probably isn't too strong, though even as it is I would probably recruit nothing from my capital except for the immortal collossi.

The god was probably a bit strong, with innate ethereal, blood vengeance and fear. Then if you give him awe also, he comes out pretty powerful. At 30 points per new magic path he was a bit too good at branching out into other paths. Though you still would probably have needed to take him dormant or imprisoned to get the points.

I didn't get to play much but I noticed the bird soul had stats as good as the others, was cheaper, and could fly? It is clearly superior to any of the other non-shiar choices other than the enslaved monsters.

I am getting really busy these days so I don't really have lots of play testing time anymore, so probably I'm not going to be able to do much of that for you for a while. Going to try to finish that map up though.

[Aezeal]

hmmm ok I liked the idea of converting new souls a(and it's not immortals you get anyway) but maybe it's too much.

I'll wait till some more feedback arrives and then implement everything at once.

I've also thought of a fun, nice, new and completely useless spell (well the spell as such isn't even new, the idea is)

I'm going to make a summon that summons the nations banner (that black star) as a creature, ethereal (so it pulses nicely) and make it be a holy spell (so a priest who has nothing better to do can cast it) called Omen, the start will be called Omen too.
It will have no attack, no stats worth mentioning whatso ever, and abou 10 HP. It will just have a description with something like "The Undead Priests of Shiar are now communicating with the souls of the dead in this province. Prepare to serve under the benign rulership of the souls of the wise of ages past."

Pure propaganda, like real warfare, completely useless in game, but might be fun in multiplayer, and it totally fits a priestly nation to try talking and diplomacy before actual warfare. I'm making it holy so it won't need a usefull mage to cast it (though all priests are mages so you'll loose some research to cast it anyway)

[Aezeal]

about the god: blood vengeance is just there cus I never used it before and he could have it.. it's not needed for thematic purposes, he could loose it if it's too powerfull (to be honest I've never that in action ever so no idea how powerfull it actually is)

[Darkwind]

Blood Vengeance, in a nutshell, is as such: An attacker takes a potshot at Mr. Vengeful. I don't think it matters where the attacker is. If the attacker fails the MR check, he gets his giant flaming boulder thrown right back at him. Understandably, that hurts. It's not too useful against SCs, but it's great for indies (as I would know, since my dom-9 god was an indy-soloing machine, coming out with almost no scratches, except for that one time he tried to kill two Space Eels and died, but came back in the capital no worse for the wear).

[rdonj]

If I understand it correctly, blood vengeance also works in the strategic map. For example, if someone tried to use fires from afar and hit him, they would have a chance to damage themself with it instead of the unit with blood vengeance.

[Aezeal]

I might just need to tone down his attacks a bit too... he's pretty though to kill so maybe his damage output should be lower.. might even upgrade something else back again then if he gets too weak.