Expanded Underwater Pretender mod Thread - Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

Hello.

As some may have gathered, I love underwater nations, but I must admit they seem a bit left behind on some point. One of thoses points is the pretender selection. In dom4 most nation got a lot of different option, usually covering next to every elements. Underwater nation are thoses who have the less number of pretender, and three element are never present on UW chassis : fire, air, and blood. While Blood is understandable (you cannot blood hunt underwater), Fire and Air are quite present on some UW nation (Atlantis for fire, Pelagia and Oceania for Air), and Voice of Tiamat mean you usually have a decent number of thoses gem. There is also way too many UW chassis with high water, which is in term of gameplay not very useful when most UW nation can get water 4 without trying and all can get at least water 3.

There is also some very obvious inconsistency, like Pelagia and Oceania getting only one chassis with nature when even R'lyeh have two, or EA Atlantis getting only one chassis with Earth and zero with fire. I have kept a spreadsheet with the number of pretender chassis for each element, to better see what is blatantly lacking for each nation.

A general improvement for all UW nation was to add an amphibious archmage chassis. He have been made purposefully pretty expensive to make sure the aquatic one still have some niche and to be consistent with similar archmage chassis. Another general improvement is the transformation of the Sea Dragon to an earth dragon (of which they are none) instead of a water one (of which there is two other), which mean all UW nation have a good chassis for E9 bless.

To make up for that, a lot of water, river, or storm-related pretender chassis have been made amphibious or poor amphibious, so that land nation have more option if they want to get UW with their pretender.

Here is the link : Docs.google.com

I welcome discussions and remarks. I have done my best to justify each change and to make sure each had a meaning, but there is certainly problems or inconsistency I didn't spot.

Changelog :

PRETENDER

* the following pretender have been made amphibious :
- Teotl of Rain
- Devi of Good Fortune
- Titan of rivers
- Annunaki of the sweet waters
- Blue dragon
- Green dragon

* the following pretender have been made poor amphibious :
- Annunaki of the Underworld
- Colossal Fetish
- great Mother
- Neter of the Underworld
- Prince of Death

* the following pretender have been changed :
- Lord of the wave from W2E1 to F1W1E1
- demilich get Inspiring Researcher (1). That way, UW nation got an inspiring researcher pretender, and the demilich have more of a purpose.
- Statue of War get 2 (upkeep-free) Shark rider per turn when underwater, instead of the land barbarian. It's not linked to whether you are an UW nation or not, so land nation can teleport their pretender underwater and summon some shark knight.
- Idol of Beast summon 1 Monster fish instead of 1 Jotun Wolf when underwater.
- Sea Dragon is now Earth 2 (with -2 on other path in dragon form) instead of Water 2

* the following pretender have been added :
- Master of Current, an A1 archmage amphibious and with limited sailing ability. Good physical stat (about the same as a King of the Deep). 75 points, so that he don't ridiculize other giant archmage like the Skratti pretender (who cost 50 point for B1 and no much else) and to help make the aquatic archmage relevant.

* All underwater nation got the Master of Current (new pretender). In addition, they each got new pretender :
- Atlantis in all age got the Teotl of Underworld and Teotl of Rain, both because Mictlan are neighbor to the Atlantic Sea and because of LA Mictlan.
- Atlantis EA got in addition the Idol of Sorcery and Statue of War to help give a feeling of a barbarian nation
- Pelagia get the Statue of War and the Statue of Fertility, because of their civilized nature and because they feel quite greek. They also got the Devi of Good Fortune, because I imagine them making trade route between Arcosephale and the monkey realms.
- Oceania get the Idol of Beast and Idol of Sorcery to help the feel of uncivilized beasts.
- MA Oceania got in addition to the idols the Statue of War, because they feel more belligerant than the EA Oceania.
- R'lyeh get nothing outside of the Master of current for now. I suspect they might need more Earth chassis choice.

I approve without reservation of the change to the Sea Dragon. There's already a Water Dragon and the world doesn't need two.

Personally, I'd give the Statue of War some Shark Tribe Brigands (unit 2472) underwater, because that's more like the Barbarians/Brigands the Statues of War get now. And I would also definitely apply it to both Statues of War, because right now you only have it applying to the Western Statue of War and not the Eastern Statue of War (unit 2465).

But in general, I would much prefer to get actual new pretenders with new graphics and such rather than stat adjustments to the current crop. I mean, the world isn't short on crazy water gods and goddesses, you just need to do up a picture. For example, here's a standing sprite for Blibdoolpoolp:

Dropbox.com

-Frank

I don't want to create pretender for the sake of it because there is already a lot of them, some in need for a niche. That being said, I do intend to try my hand at 2 sprites, namely for a Sobek pretender (the god of the nil, not the MA C'tis unit), and a Jormungandar. The first one would give an amphibious egyptian pretender who would be thematic, the second one a nordic amphibious pretender. And of course, the Master of current need a sprite (the current sprite is one from a MA Atlantis hero).

(the goal being to have at least one amphibious chassis per major pantheon. Also, no god of the nile for C'tis seem pretty strange given that Egypt had like 15 nile god)

I will add that to the eastern one too. I didn't see they were two of them.

Bumping/necroing this to encourage progress
Really looking forward to a crocodile/Sobek pretender, also for an egyptian-themed acquatic pretender don't forget hippos - there was a fertility hippo goddess, could use that for Water/Earth/Nature.

Although you made an archmage with sailing already, some kind of undead Pirate Lord/Mage with death magic and sailing/pillaging/raiding could be fun too.