OEM - Oceania Enchanment mod v0.8!

[Zeldor]

LA R'lyeh gets crap, and it gets nothing in non-coastal provs. I was surprised that MA ATlantis does not get anything either. They are all amphibian after all, so they should be able to colonise land and live there [well, all those with "deep" in the name could stay uw only].

You are lucky bastard, I didn't get a single Kelp Fortress in Faerun. That's just not cool. BTW, I think there should exist forts with higher admin uw. Does any nation have anything over 10-20 admin? Except cap that is.

[llamabeast]

Isn't the point, though, that while all water nations have poor recruiting on land, the other two are nonetheless powerful on land, while Oceania are feeble? So there is probably no need to do anything to the recruits for the others.

I think people have different ideas as to what this mod is trying to achieve. The way I see it, the current situation is that Oceania are the strongest in the water, and the weakest on land. Although this may have seemed like an interesting idea to KO, in fact it just means that Oceania easily conquer the seas and then are stuck and have a boring game. This mods seeks to strengthen Oceania on land while weakening them a bit in the sea. In the process it gets to greatly add to the thematic depth of the nation. Seems just perfect to me.

[vfb]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

What does EA R'lyeh get? I know the MA R'lyeh gets some sucky hybrid troops but at least they're workable.

EA R'lyeh gets nothing in forts above ground, coastal or otherwise. Just the independent recruitables.

Mind Lords (with a fish amulet) and slave mage communions make them better than EA Oceania on land, I've got to admit.

[chrispedersen]

By the way, somewhere in the docs, you said the daughters of selkies had seduction.. but they don't. Intended? I think if they had it - similar to sirens that D.O.S would be a great unit.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Isn't the point, though, that while all water nations have poor recruiting on land, the other two are nonetheless powerful on land, while Oceania are feeble? So there is probably no need to do anything to the recruits for the others.

I think people have different ideas as to what this mod is trying to achieve. The way I see it, the current situation is that Oceania are the strongest in the water, and the weakest on land. Although this may have seemed like an interesting idea to KO, in fact it just means that Oceania easily conquer the seas and then are stuck and have a boring game. This mods seeks to strengthen Oceania on land while weakening them a bit in the sea. In the process it gets to greatly add to the thematic depth of the nation. Seems just perfect to me.

Er, yeah. I really shouldn't post after midnight. EA Atlantis has pretty good melee troops and R'lyeh has heavy astral (which can do pretty much everything), they're quite fine. Thematically, they're a lot more intresting too, no need the deepen their thematic depths.

However, the idea of expanding this mod a bit isn't necessarily a bad one. I could easily expand this mod to cover some issues underwater combat has in general in EA.

EA Issues:
- Oceania owns all with free Kelp Castles and Knights of the Deep
fix: Kelp Castle to uncommon site and KotD nerfs
- EA Atlantis has no shots against either R'lyeh (all troops under mr 11!) nor anything that could hit Knights of the Deeps in melee
fix: Increase mr on some troops (coral guard?) and/or a national antimagic (h3/h2 with limited AoE, perhaps?), the KotD nerf should even out their match-up with Oceania.
- IIRC, if I recall correctly, both EA R'lyeh and EA Atlantis lack heroes. I actually have one made for both already (for a update to WH that apparently never was to manifest, but it's okay) and I was thinking of making a Traitor Queen hero that would be accessible to both of them.

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

By the way, somewhere in the docs, you said the daughters of selkies had seduction.. but they don't. Intended? I think if they had it - similar to sirens that D.O.S would be a great unit.

I can't recall saying that. But, I dunno. I really see no reason for it. The Daughters are a must-recruit-every-turn-if-able unit already (to get A2 ones for lighting spam, and they also can get some combinations of magic you can't access otherwise, like E and A on same mage for Scultata Voluntrus & buffed Rain of Stones) and that 10% random opens up for some sweet "luck-outs" (E2! A3!)

Have you gotten any of the heroes? I'd like to hear your opinions about them. There is a bit of commented out code in .dm file to make them recruitable if you want to view them all quickly. (remember to also read the Selkie heroines underwater form description)

[HoneyBadger]

The graphics finally showed up, Burnsaber--they look great!

I also like your idea of the "tragedy of the queens". Personally, if it were me, I'd have the Queens be "involved" with the Pantokrator, possibly as his concubines? I think of the Pantokrator as the ultimate evil, myself, so in my mind he compelled them to love him through divine means. And ofcourse he also cursed them to lose their beauty and become hideous if they ever bestowed their favors on anyone else. Naturally, they loved the Triton Kings on sight--atleast they did when the Pantokrator's hold over them was finally broken--but by that time, the Kings had fooled around with other beings, out of sheer loneliness/frustration.


I have to strongly disagree about R'lyeh being fine, in any way, shape, or form, however. Not only are they not terribly interesting (sorry, but this is especially egregious, considering they're the most alien and evil Nation in the game, in my opinion), they're atleast extraordinarily difficult to use, if not underpowered.

Not that the ideas behind them are *bad*, and they're certainly fun to play, it's just that to play them competitively in MP (has anyone won a major MP game with them yet?), you have to sacrifice everything that makes them interesting.

If any Nation in the game should have summonables, I think it should be R'lyeh, the Nation based on a story cycle that pretty much revolved around the mysterious appearance-most typically by summoning-of alien entities. MA and LA already have plenty of that, but EA just doesn't really stand out. Nor does it tie in to the MA/LA Nations, so it might as well not be called 'R'lyeh' in the first place.

At the very least, they deserve more heroes. The one they have is nice, but there's 5 more slots available to be filled with all sorts of uniquely squamous alien abominations, and 6 slots for shudderingly bizarre multiheroes.

[Zeldor]

Burnsaber:

Yeah, I think your ideas for other uw nations are good. I think that Atlantis could get some more troops recruitable in coastal forts, for example Coral Guards and H2 priests. Some lame weak mage would be cool too [for every uw nation in coastal forts], but they don't have anything, huh. Mages of the Deep are really pricey too. 260 gold for non-sacred guy with just 6 RP, ouch.
I don't know what was the real intention for Atlantis troops, but they are not cheap and are really really bad. QM's explanation that they get BKs so should accept unusable troops does not satisfy me.

And so many nations lack real heroes... that is really sad. I think you could safely just add stronger versions of their mages. So some super Queen [with H4-5 instead of H3, maybe with some N], some buffed Basalt King, Mage of the Deep with cool paths... another cool Basalt King... Niefel gets some uber Jarls as heroes, so it would be fine. I'd be tempted to play Atlantis again, with luck.

P.S. I don't think that QM will go far with CBM Extreme [if he makes it], he surely won't use modded nations etc. So we need to put in Enhanced Gameplay modpack. I hope you are willing to work on more nations, I can help as much as possible I could work on heroes maybe and descriptions? Well, we can talk on IRC, maybe today evening [same timezone].

[chrispedersen]

I'd like to be kept involved on the game pak as well.

As for Atlantis however - no way you can totally own R'ylleh. Cleveland put together a convincing demonstration of same and has a post on here about how to use Atlantis to be R'ylleh.

Its a great rivalry - but if you don't show up for it - yeah Rylleh will beat you ever day.

[vfb]

In any case, all joking and wingeing and moaning about R'lyeh aside, I really appreciate the beautiful work you've done here for Oceania, Burnsaber. Thanks!

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, you're doing great work, Burnsaber. Oceania has always been one of the least interesting Nations for me, but you've done a lot to turn that around.