OEM - Oceania Enchanment mod v0.8!

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

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

Yeah, I tried a different extension. Glad to hear that it worked.

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

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 view the Pantakrator as Deux ex Machina, a plot device, mostly. When you need an omnipotent being to do something, he's your entity. I haven't really tought about him being goodish or evilish. If I really need to deepen the Pantakrator, I usually imagine him as an old-testament type god. You know, being jealous and pissed off on his subjects mostly.

About your idea, I'm not sure if it fits with the vanilla vision of Pantakrator. It would give him too much personality, so to speak.

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

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.

I have to agree that the coastal recruit thing is a real bummer. EA R'lyeh also has serious troubles getting on to land. I could make them overwrite MA R'lyeh so that I can give them 2 troop recruits and 2 commanders and make them spawn some troops in the coastal forts every turn. You seem like an expert on the subject of EA R'lyeh, so if you have any ideas, please feel free to suggest them.

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

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.

I usually consider the nation okay on the hero front if they have at least 3 different heroes. But ideas are welcome. Remember my inability to work art from scrath, thought. I need a solid base to work my magic.

Originally Posted by Zeldor

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.]

I admit that Coral Guards would make some sense. However, this land recruit thing isn't very moddable, so you're moslty stuck with 1 commander and 1 troop (althought I have to check what MA Atlantis gets). Althought I just got an idea. How about Coral Warriors, atlantians who have moved to land in order to escape constant Oceanian triton raids (reefs = shallow water = Oceanian territory) and Coral Shamans H1 with 100% W/S pick (perhaps 10% W/S/N).

Originally Posted by Zeldor

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.

I haven't really played EA Atlantis so much so I don't really know. At least they look usable, high hp, natural prot, several attacks.. Is there something I'm missing? If they're weak, couldn't you just could lower their cost?

I'm also not buying the BK explanation. Althought Niefelheim isn't the standing point of balanced nation: BKs << Jarls and Niefelheim has absolutely terrific (skinshifters, niefel giants) troops. I think that EA Atlantis could stand to have some usable troops.

Originally Posted by Zeldor

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].

Yeah, let's talk on IrC once I manage to haul my *** there. Been busy working currently.

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

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'lyeh.

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

I think that you have misread, no one here has said that Atlantis would beat R'lyeh all the time. All of Atlantian troops have mr 10 or lower, that's a massive weakness against R'lyeh and not overcome easily, especially if they decide to rush you.

[chrispedersen]

I think that you have misread, no one here has said that Atlantis would beat R'lyeh all the time. All of Atlantian troops have mr 10 or lower, that's a massive weakness against R'lyeh and not overcome easily, especially if they decide to rush you.

I'm saying it. Played properly, atlantis can beat R'lyeh.

[HoneyBadger]

Anything can happen, ofcourse, but are the two Nations reasonably balanced against one another?
This is a bigger issue than with land-based Nations, don't forget--there's little opportunity for the classic "dogpile strategy" that is so often brought up when balance issues between Nations are debated.

[Zeldor]

Problems with uw playing are:
1. It's a blitz game, mid and late game performance of a nation does not matter, as you have 2-3 provs between your caps and war is over withint 15 turns max. No room for fancy tactics, just brutal power + luck. So awake pretender + stronger troops. That's why Atlantis sucks [+ no N for them + pathetic magic diversity]
2. Temp scales don't matter, you just take Cold3, which is stupid.
3. Free forts for OCeania [no N for Atlantis, dunno about R'lyeh].
4. Extremely pathetic indie mages with almost no magic diversity, so you are stuck with paths from your pretender [and you usually need him awake, so much less].
5. Really low admin in forts, hard to make resource heavy troops [which usually suck anyway].
6. Too hard to get on land, too hard to get into water. It's liek 2 separate games, but one is without winner.
7. Too many nations have really really really really bad heroes. Does any water nation get anything decent? I think that some heroes should be totally removed or replaced with much stronger version [I think C'tis is best example, when 'hero' means just a weak guy with no magic and just Valor bonus].
8. Movement - some should really have mapmove 2 uw. Probably just a small part, but we all know that fish and squids can get really good speed. So Krakens could do so here too. And that stupid 'feature' of reduced movement for flying units uw.

[Frozen Lama]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

7. Too many nations have really really really really bad heroes. Does any water nation get anything decent?

Actually EA atlantis gets a really awesome hero. A BK with W3N2 and a forge bonus 25, so acess to N and an amazing clam forger (for better or for worse.) but in general, your right

[Burnsaber]

Ok, updated version before I start working on the UWGEM (Underwater gameplay enchanment mod).

Changes
-- Wave knights are now your land recruits, they are elite heavy infantry with resource cost sliced in half (since their equipment is not forged, but traded for), but are more expensive to compensate.
-- Coming of the Flood now gives less elementals
-- Improved & typo fixed descriptions, especially on heroes.