Mod: Ermor - The Restoration - Draft v0.75

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MA TC, Marignon, Pythium, Mictlan, Rlyeh can all spam banishment in a communion. That's even more effective than Solar Rays. It's zero fatigue, so the slaves never get tired and can cast their own Banishments too. If you want you can throw in a couple of Mind Burning masters too, to fry the commanders if Ermor forgot to bring ghouls.

[Edi]

VedalkenBear said:
Since a comment I made seems to have sparked this, I guess I should comment...

Thanks! I should say that the idea has been kicking around in the back of my head ever since I first talked about the thematics and history of Ermor with Kristoffer some months ago and it got some more wind in its sails from the Halt Heretic thread, which is the main post of mine Kristoffer referred to in the Gath Dev Diary thread. You can find that thread here and the exact post is here.

VedalkenBear said:
1) Thematics is good. You should write up some more stuff for stuff like the Ermorian Cultist.

Ermorian Cultist is part of both Ashen Empire and Broken Empire unit roster, so it would be a very difficult trick to alter that without screwing things up for one nation or the other. The description as it currently stands is acceptable.

VedalkenBear said:
2) The income probably should be 3D, 1S. Maybe even 2D, 2S.

Good point. Hadn't thought of that. I'll see what I can do about that this evening. Won't be difficult. I also thought of adding a new startsite to give the Broken Empire/Restored Ermor a unit like the Pythian Comitatense in LA. I also need to look into adding a Primani type heavier infantry with mapmove 1, because the MA legionnaires can be classified as medium-heavy infantry at best. The tower shield helps, though, but the armor is way below most LA nations.

The problem is that there are few unused unit slots within the existing framework, four in all that I know of, maybe one more. I just used two of those on the Ermorian Renata and Renatus.

VedalkenBear said:
3) The Renatus/Renata fit, really... if you really wanted to, you could make mention about how Pythium assisted in the Restoration, which would explain why they are present. (Whole Eastern Roman Empire helping to restore the Western Roman Empire thing.)

These two are units 1603 & 1604, cleared and copystatted, NOT the Pythian Renata and Renatus. I wanted them there, but the thematics had to be different. Check the descriptions...

[llamabeast]

hnchrist3 - what? The ages don't get stronger as they go on. They just get different (more armour and less magic). Since you really want magic to kill Ermor, I would probably say the Ashen Empire might even be easier to destroy using MA nations.

[Edi]

hnchrist3 said:
Given that, in other threads, LA-Ermor and LA-R'lyeh rank as the (muddy) #1/#2 powers, it is probably unwise to introduce them to the Middle Age.

Ever played Dom2 against Ashen Empire? It's quite beatable in MA.

hnchrist3 said:
Are your really serious? Taking one of the most feared age/nations and moving it DOWN one? In its own age it is difficult to deal with, what chance have these mortals against it as literal amateurs?

Completely serious. See the suggestions posted by the worthies who responded to you earlier. Ashen Empire has been beaten many times before.

hnchrist3 said:
As an LA-Ermor enthusiast, I humbly suggest you disband the thought as, anyone with Ermor prowress WILL conqueror the world.
Necessarily.

Previous evidence disagrees with you. And I assure you I have absolutely no intention of abandoning this little mod project. None whatsoever.

hnchrist3 said:
If I am wrong, feel free to chastise me.
Understand that I have been playing LA-Ermor for over a year.

You happen to be wrong, because many people played against Ashen Empire in Dominions 2, where all we had were the Middle Era nations (mostly) and Ashen Empire was by no means unstoppable. I've been involved with Dominions for several years now, ever since Dominions - PPP, first as a player and mapmaker, then a community documenter and for the past year and change as the moderator in charge of the bug reporting in addition to doing the community documentation on my own. I have a fairly long experience of the game and of its various aspects, so I suggest that I do know what I'm doing with this project.

hnchrist3 said:
In this thread I want to emphasize that LA-Ermor has NO PLACE in earlier ages, as in its own place it is difficult enough to deal with.

I would like to emphasize that Illwinter Games, the developer of the game, disagrees with you. See Gath Dev Diary thread on the forum and Kristoffer's encouragement for this mod earlier in the thread. In addition, several longtime players who are veterans of countless MP games, also disagree with you and have the numbers and earlier experience to back up what they say.

All of that said, nice getting to know you. New faces are always welcome.

Just be prepared to have your viewpoints challenged if you present them as unequivocally as you do.

[VedalkenBear]

Edi said:
Thanks! I should say that the idea has been kicking around in the back of my head ever since I first talked about the thematics and history of Ermor with Kristoffer some months ago and it got some more wind in its sails from the Halt Heretic thread, which is the main post of mine Kristoffer referred to in the Gath Dev Diary thread. You can find that thread here and the exact post is here.

For me, the 'bugginess' of the historical references is what causes the consternation. Particularly, Yo(o)mi and S[h]inuyama are both nations based off of Tokugawa Zidai literature, while Zyomon (Jomon) actually predates it (to the Sengoku Zidai). I'm currently working (albeit slowly) on a more 'historically accurate' EA and MA for them. Most likely EA would be Wakoku and be a nation of female-dominated shamans, while MA would superficially appear similar to TC and be named Yamato.

Ermorian Cultist is part of both Ashen Empire and Broken Empire unit roster, so it would be a very difficult trick to alter that without screwing things up for one nation or the other. The description as it currently stands is acceptable.

As you pointed out at the end, you've already copied sprites and written new descriptions for the Renatus and Renata. Why not do so for the Ermorian Cultist? Or, equivalently, replace it with a similar but new leader? Say, a Ermorian-themed Battle Deacon?

Good point. Hadn't thought of that. I'll see what I can do about that this evening. Won't be difficult. I also thought of adding a new startsite to give the Broken Empire/Restored Ermor a unit like the Pythian Comitatense in LA. I also need to look into adding a Primani type heavier infantry with mapmove 1, because the MA legionnaires can be classified as medium-heavy infantry at best. The tower shield helps, though, but the armor is way below most LA nations.

You _could_. If I may make a suggestion, perhaps make an infantry unit that has Fear? Maybe an Undead unit? Unfortunately, we no longer have 'minor fear' to make it more palatable.

The problem is that there are few unused unit slots within the existing framework, four in all that I know of, maybe one more. I just used two of those on the Ermorian Renata and Renatus.

I'll get to the Renata and Renatus below, but they don't seem to add much. Well, the Renatus doesn't. I might suggest something like adding a Shadow Vestal leader-type, perhaps with unique minor magic.

These two are units 1603 & 1604, cleared and copystatted, NOT the Pythian Renata and Renatus. I wanted them there, but the thematics had to be different. Check the descriptions...

I did. I guess I'm suggested a more explicit association.

[Edi]

VedalkenBear said:
For me, the 'bugginess' of the historical references is what causes the consternation. Particularly, Yo(o)mi and S[h]inuyama are both nations based off of Tokugawa Zidai literature, while Zyomon (Jomon) actually predates it (to the Sengoku Zidai). I'm currently working (albeit slowly) on a more 'historically accurate' EA and MA for them. Most likely EA would be Wakoku and be a nation of female-dominated shamans, while MA would superficially appear similar to TC and be named Yamato.

Good thing I know little of early Japanese literature. That way I can stay ignorant of that and be happy as a clam with Yomi and Shinuyama as they are.

VedalkenBear said:
As you pointed out at the end, you've already copied sprites and written new descriptions for the Renatus and Renata. Why not do so for the Ermorian Cultist? Or, equivalently, replace it with a similar but new leader? Say, a Ermorian-themed Battle Deacon?

I suppose I could. Problem is that then I need to wipe the recruitment queue, but no biggie, I guess. It would also allow me more leeway because I could use the Triarius and Praetorian Guard unit slots to modify things. Probably the Alae Legionnaire too. The Battle Deacon would be a good idea. Too bad there are no convenient units to copy sprites from, but modifying the battle deacon sprite from MA Pythium could work. The problem there is that it will soon get to be altogether too much work.

VedalkenBear said:
You _could_. If I may make a suggestion, perhaps make an infantry unit that has Fear? Maybe an Undead unit? Unfortunately, we no longer have 'minor fear' to make it more palatable.

This kind of things is why I asked for feedback. An infantry with fear is pretty harsh though, unless it's capital only. Infantry equipped with a magical weapon might be an option.

VedalkenBear said:
I'll get to the Renata and Renatus below, but they don't seem to add much. Well, the Renatus doesn't. I might suggest something like adding a Shadow Vestal leader-type, perhaps with unique minor magic.

Those two are a sort of package deal or I need to rethink some offshoot of the Sacred River Cult with just one unit. The Shadow Priestess idea is not a bad one at all. I could probably use that. Especially if I redo the Renata/Renatus thing. The thing is that creating entirely new things from scratch is a lot more time consuming than building on existing stuff and using variations.

[Cerlin]

If you redid the guy character (Renatus?) And gave him the picks of both and maybe upped the cost, it would free your slot and give you one mage for the same role, or is that too powerful? I played this mod already LA and besides your living troops being somewhat under armored It works pretty well. I came up against C'tis and their heavy infantry takes a great toll on the Legions. A Cap only troop may work but Personally I'd rather have a few less perks and more availability. They already have 2 Cap only troops, I'd personally think that stronger armor everywhere would help. I would also mention though that I generally dont use the Praetorian or the Triarii because of the old age.

[Edi]

Thanks for the feedback. I've been considering getting rid of Triarius and Praetorian Guard precisely because their old age is also something of a thematic remnant from the Dominions 2 situation where Broken Empire was a parallel timeline. The old age is certainly not thematic now. So I removed that.

I did some tinkering, but I've got to go to bed. I think I'm going to keep the Renata and Renatus as the Pythian offshoots but with increased price. Made Censor and Lictor recruitable everywhere and added a new capital only commander, Shadow Priestess, using #3 of the four slots. I expect I'll use #4 for the Ermorian Cultist reworking.

The only problem is going to be redundancy with magic paths unless I tweak the Renatus and Renata custom randoms to slightly different to emphasize their roles.

[Endoperez]

Edi said:
Thanks for the feedback. I've been considering getting rid of Triarius and Praetorian Guard precisely because their old age is also something of a thematic remnant from the Dominions 2 situation where Broken Empire was a parallel timeline. The old age is certainly not thematic now. So I removed that.

I did some tinkering, but I've got to go to bed. I think I'm going to keep the Renata and Renatus as the Pythian offshoots but with increased price. Made Censor and Lictor recruitable everywhere and added a new capital only commander, Shadow Priestess, using #3 of the four slots. I expect I'll use #4 for the Ermorian Cultist reworking.

How are you going to replace Triarii and Praetorian Guard? Are those the units that will become the new heavy infantry?

What are the four unused units, btw? You mentioned two huskarls, and then there's the old Golden Naga, and I think another unused female pretender, perhaps old Mother of Rivers or something.

[Edi]

That ups the number of unused units to 6, possibly 7. Golden Naga, old Lady of Fortune, huskarls 1603 & 1604, 1137 & 1138 (Unused Minotaur & Unused Warlord, they are by those names in the game) and perhaps one of the markata units around number 1119 or thereabouts.

Not sure if old Daughter of the Land is also unused these days.

What I did with Triarius was change startage to just shy of old age with some variation, so if you get one from the high end, it will be old after about 12 turns. Praetorian guard, cleared the unit, copystatted Emerald Guard and renamed back to Praetorian Guard, then set startage to somewhere above 40 with variation so they will eventually become old.

Ineed to work on that mod some more and I apparently need to get into the graphics modding business to get an acceptable graphic for the Shadow Priestess. Might as well replace the Shadow Vestal blob at the same time. I'll post the tyweaked mod in a couple of days.