Mod: Finally: Sar Elad, testers needed

[Nerfix]

Greetings

After such a long time the Sar Elad mod has reached a point where the mod can be played.

So what is this Sar Elad thing?

It's a nation based on biblical Israel with sling-armed infantry, Judges and Prophets.

Strong Astral magic, elemental randoms with pronounced Fire and Air. Sacred units can get 100% shock immunity with Air 9 bless.

Appears in Early Era.

The mod is not complete yet! But it is playable, and I wish feedback. I'm especially concerned if the mages are too good and if the missilespam is too potent.

Current known bugs/issues:
- Some annoying purple bits in shadows. I will fix them a bit later
- The capital only sacred unit should have Awe 0 or -1
- Sar Hamishim commander doesn't appear at all for some strange reason
- very limited pretender selection. I'd like to make more gods avaitable for them, but I think the #allowedgod command overrieds the previous #allowedgod command, so some of the pretenders would become Sar Elad exclusive

Features that cannot be implemented currently:
- National summons. Should have the regular angelic
summons and couple unique summons
- Patrol bonus

This mod has been made by Nerfix and Agrajag. Flag is based on material zepath provided.

So, go and test the mod!

[Shovah32]

Only just started playing but here are my thoughts:
Scythe havay could really use an attack and/or damage bonus to their scythes as the sling+sickle is so much better.

The shomer yeshuvim dont have a patrol bonus which their description indicates they should.

The non capitol sacreds are simply poor and over costed imo(not sure what i would do to fix ('em though) and, even with weak awe i think the capitol only sacreds wouldnt be worth their cost (give them and/or their swords an attack bonus and they could atleast be useful vrs more expensive demonic troops)

The shopet could use a patrol bonus (seems like their thing) but overall seem nice.

I cant see any reason to recruit any melumad (if i want priests i'll buy one, if i want a mage i'll buy one) because they are just below average at everything.

I think the haham could use the +2 random that some of your other mages get with a gold increase to 180-200 (they are currently old and not particularly strong)

And finally i think the navi could use either +1 astral level or recuperation because with such severe old age (compared to other EA nations 'uber mages' they need some advantage)


edit:
not sure if its because of this mod but with my starting army, starting commander-prophet and some havay slingers i got a nagot gick fel during battle (i think it was after my first group of slingers fired)

[Agrajag]

I pretty much agree with Shovah:
I think the scythe could use +1 attack +1 damage.
Both sacred troops are pretty weak, just compare them to EA Ermor's infantry and see for yourself :X
I'd give the Turning Sword two attacks due to its dynamic nature, and maybe decrease attack/damage by 1 to compensate, or just up the price a bit (especially if they also get awe).
The Lohem Mashua'ah seems to be paying dearly (in cost) for his blessability, I'd just make him cheaper, which combined with his none-capitol-only-bility (:P) would combine into a half-decent massable blessable.
I don't agree about the Melumad, this guy is obviously the cheap researcher, and does that pretty well since he is the only one not under the threat of old age.
As for the Navi, I think the best way to treat him is just to extend his life expectancy. As thematic advisor for the mod (:P) I can say that that would be really thematic, since several really holy men in the bible are known for extremely long lives (700 years and the likes). Maybe up his max age to 120, but increase his age to ~90.

Also:
I think the Shopeht could probably use a price reduction due to his old age, but also some research penalty, as these guys tend to lean to the active side rather than the ponderous side.
Sarei Milhama should be Sar Milhama (sarei = plural of sar)
The Sair's sprite suggests he has a copper helmet, which he doesn't.

The final comment is only thematic: while it would take quite some effort without much reward, I'd probably create exact copies of all bronze weapons and armor currently in use and rename them to copper.

*Applauds the hard work done by Nerfix*

[Oh, and BTW, for anyone wondering my work on the mod is just:
a) Thematic advisor (names for units, who should have what, what makes sense, etc.)
b) Minor Sprite modification (Nerfix drew up everything, and I did some very minor editing to make it look a bit better, for example the weapons/armor are a bit brighter than the original version, and I made minor changes to other colors to make them look more real and less like pictures)]
[And now compare that to Nerfix which coded and drew everything, as well as came up with ideas and suggestions]

[Nerfix]

Thanks for comments, I'll look into the scythe issue.

Patrol bonus can't be modded. so yeah, they're supposed to have it but they don't. =/

I was actually afraid that easily massable sacred units would be too good, but sure they could be boosted. How should they be boosted? The cap-only one is supposed to have Awe, but it doesn't work for some reason or other. I can always up their stats.

Melumad is supposed to be a cheap research and a communion slave.

I need to readjust some ages as at least Shophet and Haham shouldn't be old. Nevi'im need to have their lifespans extended, I agree on that. Shophets will propably get a research penalty.

I have no idea about the N�got Gick Fell. I've tested this mod several times and it hasn't crashed for me. Hmmm'e...

I've thought of adding Earth 1 to Haham and Nevi'im, but I'm not sure of this, and also changing start gem income to 1F 1A 1E 3S. Thoughts?

Thanks for the comments.

[Endoperez]

You could #copystats a Gandharva or a Yavana Warrior to the cap only sacred (giving them Awe), just remember to set size to 2 again. You might also find some unit with patrol bonus you could copy.

[Shovah32]

Never thought about communion, with that in mind melumads are fine as is. I agree that a research penalty on shophets (maybe just 2) and a cost decrease of 10 or 20 gold would be fine. The nagot gick fell was probably just a bug and i really dont have an opinion either way on the e1.

[Agrajag]

As for the Earth - I'd really like earth, since its an awesome path to have (also nice with communion + blade wind), but I don't think there's much thematic justification either way.
Basically, all miracles are Elemental types, so there isn't much thematic cause to discriminate one elemental path over another.

My personal preference would be to add the earth, since I like earth

[DrPraetorious]

It looks very good overall, so I'm going to niggle you with details. I've got a game going in the other window and it strikes me as a reasonably balanced nation overall.

The Sar Hamishim is un-recruitable b/c you reused his unit number for the Kohen (2986.)

If you don't mind making him ethereal, you can just copystats off of the King of the Banefires and your Angel of Death will have his banefire shield.

I think that the Judge should prevent bad-events (copystats on the late Ulm fortune-teller should achieve this. Use #clearpath to strip the magic off.)

You need a mod-activation icon. It can just be a white rectangle or something but there's no way to tell if the mod is active or not.
(e.g. #icon <graphicsfile>)

Everyone else at that latitude prefers Heat +1.

There are some spelling and grammatical errors in your flavor text (listed below) - I've also got some suggestions, which you are free to ignore. For that matter you're free to ignore the spelling corrections too

The Melumad is clearly costed to compete with the Theurg Acolyte - but the Haham, which is noticeably superior to a base-line Theurg, has been given a pricebreak. The whole theurg progression is over-priced b/c they get commuicants, and they have such strong magic in the mid era.

My suggestion - give the Haham a double random, and change the prices to 80, 200 and 420. That way, you'll recruit reasonable numbers of each.

The navi should have a 10% chance of FAWES - and I agree about upping the age.

The scythe is fine (it has reach), but the peasants should be Per 9. That'll tone down the sling-spam somewhat. Obviously you're not going to want to recruit a lot of scythe-wielding peasants but I don't see that as a tremendous problem. The axe is an inferior weapon in the early era, since no-one wears armor that you'd need to use it to chop through, especially if you wake up with a strength of 12 (which is the actual historical use of metal axes, one of the awesome things about this game). I'd give the Lohem a Flail, instead, which would make them a highly competitive unit against craptons of crap. He should also probably be cheaper.

That starting army is too strong - the missile spam is not that big a deal, but you start with 40 of what are, for the early era, heavy infantry.

Either cut it down to 25 or 30 troops total, or give 20 lo'hem and 20 shomer shayarot instead.

The Nazarene should have the Jawbone of an *** as his default weapon.

Elijah should be immortal, he should fly, he should trample, he shoul be size 3, he should have a fire-shield, he should be flying around in a flaming chariot, kicking *** and taking names. Also, he should have nature magic so he can sick bears on people. Also, "Tishbite" is the more usual Anglicization.

On the subject of national summons - if you add a summon that requires, say, FFFA or AAAF, it will be very hard for other people to cast. That's the tempoary fix me and Frank have been going for on our mods.

I think these Pre bonuses are probably a bit too high - I don't see the justification for giving the archer a Pre bonus at all (the Long Bowman from Man only gets +2, and the Welsh on whom they are moddled had a reputation as awesome archers.) You could do worse than just to give the entire army a 1-point Pre penalty.

[DrPraetorious]

Oh, on the nagot gick fel - for some reason windows is partially unhappy with that Zip archive. If it says graphics files are missing, try going into the zip file and copying all the graphics out manually.

The reason that "awe" doesn't work is b/c you don't have "awe 0". To give a unit "awe 0" (the minimum value) you go "#awe 1" (no + sign.)

[Nerfix]

Whoa, nice post DrPraetorius, good post. Thanks, I'll look into your suggestions.

Also, I have yet to implement the heroes at all, so they don't show up, or in case I forgot to disable them for real they show up as random units. Nice ideas for Elijah.

I'll tone down the starting army.

I'll try to get a new version out ASAP.