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PAoD - Pascal's Armies of Darkness [Necromancer]

Welcome to PAoD - Pascal's Armies of Darkness!

What is this about?
I always thought it was weird, that some classes like Necromancer or Demonologist use standard recruitment (Spearman, Swordsman, Archer, etc.), while others like Druid or High Priestess got their very own units. I mean, who would want to follow a Necromancer, fighting as a soldier besides the undead to create a realm of death? Nobody, was my first thought, surely there could be a better cause to fight for. But what about the desperate, the power hungry, the already corrupted? They might find such a cause appealing. And I decided to create them - these Armies of Darkness.

No, really, what is this about?
A new recruitment list to replace the standard units with thematic versions for the Necromancer Class, including normal recruitment and some mercenaries, a few new rituals, too. Quite a few of those units use some kind of gimmick or another, things that have always been possible in CoE but were - in my opinion - criminally underused in the base game.


Compatibility?
I only removed standard and start troops for the class and added new things, no existing data was altered.
The AI seems to do alright with the changes.

But is it balanced, though?
As balanced as the base game, I imagine - not at all.
Honestly, I tried to be reasonable, but this is not a balance mod. The strength of CoE - in my opinion - is its variety of cool and interesting units and I tried to play into these strengths. In my opinion the power level is quite fair, but I am open to feedback.

Known Issues?
- the recruitment window does not show negative costs, you just have to remember that Graverobbers offer 3 Hands of Glory upon recruitment
- English is not my first language (you may already have noticed?) - still I like to write excessive unit descriptions. Some things will be worded weirdly, I imagine, and I probably missed some mistakes. Please forgive me.


Credits
Mostly Illwinter Games, all the new sprites are more or less slightly altered versions of CoE or Dominions sprites. Unit concepts and writing are all mine, too, basically, but I used a lot of commonly known tropes and won't pretend I invented the wheel anew, although I did not knowingly copy any existing works or used them as a direct inspiration.


Leave some feedback: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/1606340/discussions/1/3039354010637515243/


Update 1: A Goat goes to the Library
- many balance changes, some requested like the weakening of Mistress of Crows or Pale Hunter, others not requested and smaller
- Pale Hunter is now immortal and easier to kill (even if that sounds like a contradiction)
- Mistress of Crows now cannot share a tile with another Mistress, or the Crows will tear one of them to shreds. Jealous little beasts. Beware, there is no ingame indication of this new function yet, other beside the unit description (and somewhat vague there, too.)
- new content, containing but not quite limited to:

new ritual: Sentence to Farmwork
reduce your Apprentices insanity by sending them to a farm for a year, they can even teach Necromancy to Goats there (which is probably a bad idea.)

new ritual: Plant Skull Tree
as proposed by Redfog in the comment section, you can now corrupt Ancient Forests to keep the forces of nature at bay (thanks for giving me a reason for adding more 'stupid' freespawn. I love 'stupid' and freespawn units, together even more)

The Crimson Update - A Gentle Rain of Blood

A massive addition to the Necromancer, introducing a new upgrade path for the Apprentice - the Bloodmancer!
Call upon the powers of the Blood to drown your enemies... well, in blood. A new ritual tree, new summons, new options unlocked in the late game I will not talk about here.

The Bloodmancer is quite slow and expensive at the start, so you probably will not want to send your starting Apprentice on this path, but the power level can be explosive in later stages of the game. Balance is pain.

Some balance changes here and there, most notably, Plant Gallow Tree is now level 2. It was 3 before, right?

--- If you like the mod, please consider leaving a rating. It should help with visibility and I like to see my mod on the front page, even if I should not take it so seriously ---