Mod: Pythium, the Second Empire

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Redeyes

I have two immediate reflections:
Keeping the Artisans capital only isn't really warranted - they are pretty abysmal in all areas but forging, which actually isn't very good anyway.

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

I agree that artisans are really so sub par there's little reason to build them. Since they have so many randoms and you only need one in each path, building more than two or three is a gamble, since you're likely to get a duplicate path and thus wasted a valuable capital-mage slot.

I'd like to keep them as cap-only for thematic reasons. I'll likely boost them in some another way. Now that I think about it, I could give them 10% F, 10%A, 10%E, 10%S and 10%W additional randoms to make it possible to get some "Savants", like renessaince geniuses that have mastered several forms of art. With those randoms, they'd always get that one quarantieed pick and had ~41% chance of getting at least one of those 10% randoms for some crosspath forging action. I admit, they'd still be inferior choice to Alchemists, but Alchemists sort of outlive their usefulness in the mid-game once you have stabilized your research and enough of the W picks to act as acid spammers.

I'm not really a advocate of wacky randoms, but they might make sense in this context.

Originally Posted by Redeyes

Theosis is too cheap compared to similar spells. Call Amesha Spenta has higher path and research requirements (5 astral, 8 research), and a cost of 50 pearls (under cbm, 60 otherwise). The summons from Theosis are superior in most ways, why it ought to be more expensive.

Yeah, LDIceasre brough that up. I'm making another version Wednesday and I'll price them better for that. I'd like to keep them "relatively" cheap though, so I'll probably make the spell somewhat harder to cast to justify that. I was thinking of S5H3 (so you need at least cap on emperor and thus con6) with 50 gems.

Although I kind of disagree on the Archangels being superior to Spentas. Their combat stats are pretty similar, Arch Angles have somewhat higer awe and better average hitpoints, but all Spentas get full item slots (3 of the archangels have restricted slots). Spenta of Sky and Metals is clearly better than any of the archangels and Spentas diversify their respective nation more (3 of the six spentas get you to N and also 3 get you to higher E), they also get 5's in some paths for some good global casting action. Only two of the archangels diversify (Glorifier and Healing) and other angels only give high paths on paths you already have good access to. I'd say that they are pretty much equal as summons and I'd say that CBM Spentas are a bit overpriced in relation to how difficult they are to get for Caelum (besides, as astral summons they have to be competetive with RoS and RoW).

Originally Posted by Jack_Trowell

Principes seems overpriced at 15 gold. They only have slightly above average stats and equipement. The tower shield is of course good against ranged attacks, but the medium armor means that arrows that aren't blocked will often wounds the unit. And gold cost is not supposed to be about equipement but stats, and for what I see, for supposed "elite" units, theyr only get a few 11s instead of the base human 10.

As such, 12 gold each would seems like a better price, but maybe I am missing something about them ?

Well, vanilla Pythium Pricipes are heralded (or at least were heralded some time ago) as one of the human best infantry in the game. They are like custom made to act as meat screens for the communions. The ones in this mod are a bit nerfed because they lost a point of defense when I changed their weapons, so 14 gold could be warranted. But I'll see if any other players have anything to say about this, it's been a while before I have played CBM Pythium somewhat competively.

[Sombre]

Does this overwrite MA pythium then? I'd prefer to see it behave like Ulm Reborn or Jomon Broken and be able to act alongside them, to play out mirror universe / civil war style conflicts.

I don't care about stuff it interferes with in other ages tbh, since I like the ages to be clearly divided.

[Burnsaber]

Okay, I made a new version to quickfix the Theurg Artisan and the Theosis summon. I also wanted to get the Cultist intoruduced as soon as possible.

I'd like to hear feedback about two things though that concern me about this mod. They might be abusable.

1) Pyrotes. Although they sometimes fail comically they can really bring things down fast. Could they be abused in MP? The obvious counters to them would be fire magic (duh) and fire resistance and they could kind of be countered with combat summon spam (phantasms, skellies, swarm) becuase the more they have to attack, they more chances they have to fry themselves or their allies.

2) The holy communion spells. The biggest concern for me at the moment is the H8 "Divine Wrath", which is basically renamed "Ark" effect. If you really wanted to, you ceould kind of get it fast with the prophetized Emperor, PoS and 8 communion slaves. The thing about the ark is though that if you don't want it fry you, you can only use Battle Vestals with the communion which makes the whole army kind of fragile. Perhaps I should make it researchable, like the "Calling of the Seventh*"?

* Has anyone tried it out? I made it researcable because you can get it out pretty fast if you want to and dealing with Michael is pretty hard in the early game, especially because he will most likely eat any awake SC pretenders/early thugs alive very easily.

CHANGES FROM 0.7 TO 0.8

-> Theosis made more expensive and harder to cast
-> New commander: Cultist, replacing the generic assassin
-> Now compactible with LA Pythium
-> Pyrotes gold cost to 35 gold (from 30gold)
-> "Divine Protection" spell grants now elemental resistances too
-> Principe gold cost reduced to 14 gold
-> Theurg Artisans got more randoms

Originally Posted by Stavis_L

Burnsaber - had an idea for your more angel-centric Pythium. Perhaps you could use the modified unit type target of Ritual of Rebirth to allow Pythian martyrs to return as (lesser) angels? Perhaps an Angel of the Heavenly Choir or Angel of the Host?

Sounds cool, but I want to keep spell slot usage to a minimum and I don't really think that this Pythium would really get much units to the HoF in a game. Also, it would be kind of dumb to re-awaken a regular Archangel or Harbinger as a weaker angel. It would be kind of nice to have that option, but it wouldn't really get much use.

Originally Posted by Sombre

Does this overwrite MA pythium then? I'd prefer to see it behave like Ulm Reborn or Jomon Broken and be able to act alongside them, to play out mirror universe / civil war style conflicts.

Yes, because a lot of my motivation for this mod comes from the power level of Pythium and I really think that it should be nerfed. IMHO, it's espicially annoying, because MA is the most balanced era (Ashdod does not exist in sensible games) and Pythium really sticks out like a sore thumb there.

I also really like the fact how it uses absolutely minimal modding slots, especially with the increasing amount of mod conflicts people are getting nowdays. If someone really, really wants to see some real Pythium vs Pythium action, they can make the mod for it themselves (it's pretty simple). That kind of matchup would be pretty dumb anyways, because this nation is a lot weaker than the orginal, so the outcome would be pretty clear. The orginal nation has higher astral (mind duel anyone?) and better communions (better masters for them), so it would really just be a slaughter. Actually using this mod would actually boost regular Pythium with the boosted angel summons this mod provides.

Originally Posted by Sombre

I don't care about stuff it interferes with in other ages tbh, since I like the ages to be clearly divided.

Well, to be honest, I don't really care that much either. But I kinda like LA Pythium (although the sacred hydras are really dumb, IMHO, they should be summons) so I don't want this nation to break it. Besides, fixing the compactibility issues was pretty trivial.

[WraithLord]

In my test game I can't recruit battle vestals. Are you sure they're there?- If so, I'm probably experiencing a conflict with another mod.

Also I can recruit varangian cap. as a unit.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

In my test game I can't recruit battle vestals. Are you sure they're there?- If so, I'm probably experiencing a conflict with another mod.

Also I can recruit varangian cap. as a unit.

That's very odd.

Do you have any other mods enabled than CBM?

Also, it might cause odd behaviour if you enable this mod before enabling CBM (I have a warning about that in the OP, but it can be easy to miss).

So, when enabling this mod, enable CBM first and after that the "Pythium, the Second Empire". This is because the mod overwrites mmany CBM changes so it has to be enabled last so that the game reads it last.

[WraithLord]

Yes, I enabled the mod after CBM.
I have diversity and sprites mods on as well, I'll try w/o them.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

Yes, I enabled the mod after CBM.
I have diversity and sprites mods on as well, I'll try w/o them.

I took a quick look and this mod does not clash with either diversity or the sprites mod. The bugs you are having really sound like something CBM did (for example, the Varangian Captain overwrites the Emerald Guard unit, so it becomes recruitable troop if the game draws the recruitment list from CBM instead of this mod). Also the no "Battle Vestals" thing also points out to the game drawing the recruitment list from CBM, since in CBM the Battle Vestal is cap only (and thus produced from a site, not from the list). I don't know why your game is using the CBM list if you enabled it first, put this mechanic could be prone to mystic bugs we don't know depending on OS and other stuff.

Now that I think about it, I could just combine this mod with CBM. I will simply take the CBM mod, put this mod at the end of it. That "combination mod" should be pretty much clash free. I'll make that version once I get home.

[WraithLord]

Yeah. I made sure to enable your mod after CBM. Since 1.6 is so common now it sounds like a great idea to make your sure your mod lives in peace with it. Thanks!

[Sombre]

It should be living in peace with it anyway provided CBM was enabled first, so I'm confused.

[WraithLord]

I can send my system spec, game files etc. if it helps. Don't know what's more effort, to put this mod after CBM or try to debug strange conflicts like I have.