Subscribe to download
MA Annulonde - Guild of Specialist Artisans

Hey all, and welcome to the Dominions 6 edition of my Annulonde mod, a faction of Mediterranean themed pseudo-transhumanists attempting what can best be described as an arcano-technological supersoldier program.

• Strong FWE access, some Astral.
  
• All around expensive troops
  
• Elf-esque sacred assassins, no glamour though.
  
• Formation Fighter troops
  
• Cities instead of forts - better admin, worse defence
  
• National spell focus on preserving valuable units and reducing attrition
  
• No Chaff, get hit by evocations and weep bitter tears.
  
• Weep more tears when you remember you lose 4 units per square, not three.
  
• Scales default to Drain 3 / Production 3; lower production at own peril.

At some point, I do hope to get some proper gameplay footage and better screenshots than currently exist for the Workshop, but it has been a low priority, so thank you for your patience.

I've received a fair degree of feedback over the few years since I first released this mod for Dominions 5 and therefore there is a good chance that balance wise it is at least somewhat in the right wheelhouse for DE games at the very least. You better have a plan for after your troops stop carrying you though, because lategame can be a real hell for you.

Also, major shoutouts to Executor and Summer, both of whom were very understanding and positive when I approached them asking "Hey, I'm a bit awful at art, so I kitbashed some of your sprites together, is it ok if I publish it?". Check out their mods!

There is also a (now slightly outdated, but mostly holds out) primer for the Dom5 release of the mod here[docs.google.com], which I hope to update when I have time - mostly, it misses the FROG Troopers (Amphibious Raiders) and Network Nodes (Imobile Communion Slave) summons that were added in v1.3; and doesn't account for a few spells moved to Glamour magic.

• You have stealthy sacreds, strong assassins, and loads of access to Spies. Diplomatic clout and information warfare are intended strengths.
  
• I like assassins. They're a cool mechanic, and I have a lot of fun gearing them. The assassins are a major focus of the nation, and I'd prefer to nerf other things to keep them at the high end, because they are expected to be the thing the nation does better than anyone else.
  
• Everything should be a bit overcosted, you should feel bad about losing troops and commanders.
  
• Conversely, you can invest in advance to preserve units - many of your higher end units can use National Twiceborn spell variants that cause them to return as the same unit type.
  
• You start off gold income troop based, but you begin a transition to gem income based full stealth armies by midgame. They still cost upkeep though.
  
• You're a Mundane Research nation, but your only efficient research unit is inefficient in RP and is barely even a wizard.

This is a nation in the "wannabe elf" category, at least as far as design principles goes. Your stats are good (And, for your sacreds and commanders, excellent and on par with EA Nemedians at the higher end), and you have decent Stealth access, but you lack the glamour, mounts and other things which really make Elves stand out. Don't try out Elf-ing an elf nation though, because if the balance is working right, you should lose that engagement.

Your commanders and sacreds tend towards being very versatile, but pricey, meaning you always end up overpaying for the task you want them for. On the bright side, in an emergency, they can be thrown into other roles without difficulty.

Conversely, owing to the more secular nature of Annulonde as a nation, Indie priests are penalised when you recruit them, which means you are somewhat reliant on your more expensive, albeit more versatile, national commanders to perform those roles.

Notably, this nation has firearms. These are very resource expensive, and are effectively slightly better crossbows, with a couple of harsh limiters - obviously, they do not get any form of strength to damage, and as a result have limited options for applicable army buffs, and a lot of the ones that are useful are in Air, a path you don't have any access to natively. They have very restricted ammo (5 shots) so in general by the time the enemy reaches your line, you're going to be nearly out of ammo anyway - they're aimed as a "softening volley" rather than designed to get into long range attrition shootouts. Cannons and such are AoE weaponry, massive friendly fire magnets, and also your most cost efficient siege strength. I feel these are very hard to balance correctly, simply because I can't find a way to delay them firing on the first turn on a combat before counter-buffs go up.

I've intentionally tried to leave you in a slightly disadvantaged situation in magic - you have decent elemental access, but you have very limited sorcery and a lot of spells you likely want are in Air and Nature, paths you lack access to in any good sense. The lack of sorcery options I feel tends to disadvantage you into the mid to lategame, but this may just be a result of my amateur viewpoints.

As a side note, my Pretenders are roughly intended to be balanced alongside Pretenders Enhanced, and as a result the rainbow mage has innate Recuperation and Disease Resistance. This may be a bit out of sorts for normal games, and I apologise.

As for "Development plans in future", the following are changes I intend to make:

Balance: Kind of obvious, but I always need feedback from people on what is actually good, bad, working as intended and straight up non-functional.
Bugfixes: I don't know of any bugs in the current version! But if you find and report one, I will try to get a fix out ASAP - keeping my mod functional and playable is a priority.
Fluff Mechanics: I want to try to do a lot more with events and heroes, for example making the hero with insanity occasionally wander off and assassinate people uninvited. Including your own. This is proving difficult for me to event properly. Furthermore, I'd like to just get some more national events in, because I always enjoy them and feel they add a lot to the feel of a nation even when they're awful and kill you.
National Spells: I feel the current national spell list is lacking in interesting options as opposed to just useful ones. I'd love to hear ideas people have on this, if any.

Anyhow, thanks for listening to my long winded ramblings! Again, big thanks to Executor and Summer for their permission to use their assets as baselines, and for just having cool and interesting mods that encouraged me to try modding out myself. It may not be groundbreaking, but I feel happy I've at least made something that is broadly playable and whilst perhaps not "feature complete", at least feels like it isn't missing anything essential. Even if it turns out to a little wonky sometimes in terms of balance, I hope you at least have some fun with it!