Byzantine Pythium Nation Mod Thread - Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

I made this mod aeons ago for dom3, it was originally fueled by my dislike against the ridiculously old Arc Theurgs and the lack of Varangian Guard in the base game Pythium.

This mod adds a new a bit more byzantine flavored nation to middle era. It does not affect the base game Pythium in any way. The nation shares the name because it shares any units with the base Pythium.

Update 05.01.2014 to version 1.211 (the dm file is still named v1.1 but this is intentional so that you can upgrade your current game)

Changes:
- Removed holy requirement from the icons since it was not actually preventing non-priests from forging them!
- Fixed bugs relating to the Icons
- Description and typo fixes
- Fixed Vestal Archons forge malus
- Fixed the bugged Archangel summon spell

Graphical preview of the mod. Click on the picture for download. Only new units shown in the preview:

When you compare this to the base game pythium, you lose the Arch Theurg, Hydras, Gladiators and the Emerald Guard. You also lose the 'special snowflake' additional gem income.

You gain the Varangian Guard and gimmicky Greek Fire units. You also get a summon for named archangels, some national items and commanders with small forgebonus. You also get resource expensive composite bows and some cavalry, both light and heavy!

You also get the recruit the Emperor, a powerful mage and a priest. But beware, you can only have one out at a time!

Click here to download
Note that this mod is not completely compatible with Early Age Hinnom base game nation since the Archangels overwrite the "Release Lord of Civilization" spell that they have.

Also note that the national items require a priest to forge them as a secondary path. The game lists that as "unknown gem type" but you can just ignore that.

Edited by: Burnsaber

Cool - thanks for making this.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Sorry I just love this mod so much. Glad to see it made it to Dom4.

MAurelius11 wrote: WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Sorry I just love this mod so much. Glad to see it made it to Dom4.

Just fun a coincidence , when testing this update my True Emperor was named "Aurelius" by the RNG.

Update 28.12.2013 to version 1.1

Download from OP.

Changes:
-Fiddled with gold costs
-Theurg artisan randoms downplayed, reduced goldcost
-Added a new pretender, the True Emperor based on a legend of byzantine imperial guard who broke in to the imperial tombs and prayed in front of the grave of Emperor Leo
-Iconodules have now some actual magic.
-Theurg Acolytes improved slightly to make them a bit more competitive option against regular theurgs.
- Fixed some typos.
- Akritoi are now prec 11
- Lowered the holy requirement of the big communion holy spells
- The Emperor is now a bit more hardcore to make him a bit more better candidate to actually lead some communions and make him worth his cost.

So the emperor is now a unique recruitable with random magic. If you dislike the random, you need to get him killed before you can roll again. If the emperor is alive, recruting another will just resummon him at the cap. But if your Emperor is dead and you recruit another, it will be completely new one.

True Emperor is interesting but I could imagine it would be strange to have both an emperor and a true emperor (would they get along? ). Maybe unique recruitable can be empress?

MAurelius11 wrote: True Emperor is interesting but I could imagine it would be strange to have both an emperor and a true emperor (would they get along? ). Maybe unique recruitable can be empress?

It is mentioned in the pretender description, he uses the "mortal emperor" as puppet rulers. His undeadness could be considered as a slight PR nightmare.

A "Norag the" hero appeared on my test play of the latest version - only weapon is a useless kick and his sprite looks like a indie spearman with "NAT" written in one corner. I'm not sure if this is an issue with this mod or Worthy Heroes, so I'll just ask here - is this something I screwed up while installing?

I recall not having deleted the previous version of the mod, but I copied it in the mod folder, overwrote all files and deactivated the previous one.

Informatix wrote: A "Norag the" hero appeared on my test play of the latest version - only weapon is a useless kick and his sprite looks like a indie spearman with "NAT" written in one corner. I'm not sure if this is an issue with this mod or Worthy Heroes, so I'll just ask here - is this something I screwed up while installing?

I recall not having deleted the previous version of the mod, but I copied it in the mod folder, overwrote all files and deactivated the previous one.

Dammit, had a typo in the mod. The multihero for the nation (Arch Theurg) was bugged. I uploaded a fixed version, download in the OP.

Haven't tried the last release with the Emperor pretender, but I'll say this is quite a well thought-of mod I hope to see more of

Update 03.01.2014 to version 1.2 based on comments in Marcus Aurelius' LP on this nation. You can do this update on top of your current game.

Check out the LP from here:

Youtube.com

Changes:
- Added cavalry commanders to lead the cavalry units
- Added a vestal commander to better lead vestals if you want to go for a bless
- some description fixes and typo fixes

Edited by: Burnsaber

Do the theurg communicants actually do anything? It says they're supposed to cast communion slave at the start of the battle but they don't seem to be in my game.

The Emperor won't cast communion master either even tho I have him scripted to and I have regular theurgs casting communion slaves.

clench wrote: Do the theurg communicants actually do anything? It says they're supposed to cast communion slave at the start of the battle but they don't seem to be in my game.

The Emperor won't cast communion master either even tho I have him scripted to and I have regular theurgs casting communion slaves.

Emperor casts "communion master" automatically at the start of battle. He won't cast it, cause he already has it.

The Theurg Communicant is the same unit that base Pythium has, but it might be bugged in the base game. I'll do a test and get back to you.

EDIT: I just had a Emperor with 2 communicants go into battle and the Emperor was able to cast "Fanaticism" as his first spell. So the communion was working

I'm not sure what could be problem in your end. Do you have any other mods enabled?

Edited by: Burnsaber

The boosted levels from a communion don't show up in the unit display in battle and that might be throwing some people off, if they haven't used communions before.

_noblesse_oblige_ wrote: The boosted levels from a communion don't show up in the unit display in battle and that might be throwing some people off, if they haven't used communions before.

That is also true. I've been into dominions so long so I take these things for granted.

Yeah I see it now that he's casting fanaticism. Thanks

It would be nice if there was some kind of visual feedback for holy level... how many communicants do you need to "max" the Emperor's holy?

Communion Masters path boost is based on the number of slaves. With 2 slaves, the master gets +1 to all paths (including holy), with 4 slaves, the master gets +2 to all paths, with 8 slaves +3, 16 slaves +4 paths, 32 slaves +5 paths

If you want to cast the national holy 6 spells, you will need a Emperor with 8 slaves. If you have a prophetized emperor (base holy 4), you will only need 4 slaves

Great thanks Burnsaber. Will fool around with it some more..

I am having a ton of fun with this mod. Diverse, interesting, but not overpowered like some. I also wish there was some visual recognition of boosted paths due to communions. I admit I have never checked, so do in-battle boosts (such as summon earthpower) also not show up?

I'm just glad to have a pretender that can heal afflictions Marcus!

EDIT:

Ok not sure if I'm missing something here but I just cast angelic host and it took my 55 fire gems but no archangel or angel appeared... am I missing something?

Edited by: clench

clench wrote: I
Ok not sure if I'm missing something here but I just cast angelic host and it took my 55 fire gems but no archangel or angel appeared... am I missing something?

Oh man is my face red! You are correct it is bugged. I did a quickix for it. Sorry about your 55 fire gems

I had version 1.21 up for downoad for about 40 minutes before this post came up. So if you downloaded before this post came up, I suggest you redownload. It should shown version 1.211 in the mod screen if you have the right .dm file

Update 05.01.2014 to version 1.211 (the dm file is still named v1.1 but this is intentional so that you can upgrade your current game, just replace your current .dm file with this)

Changes:
- Removed holy requirement from the icons since it was not actually preventing non-priests from forging them!
- Fixed bugs relating to the Icons
- Description and typo fixes
- Fixed Vestal Archons forge malus
- Fixed the bugged Angelic Host summon spell

I'm sorry about these constant updates! I really should do more rigorous testing on the mod instead of just assuming that it works if it shows up.

Edited by: Burnsaber

At least we caught it before Marcus got to that point in his LP

EDIT:

I can confirm that Theosis and Angel of Fury both work

Edited by: clench

Burnsaber wrote: I'm sorry about these constant updates! I really should do more rigorous testing on the mod instead of just assuming that it works if it shows up.

I wouldn't worry about it. I'm doing rigorous testing for the whole world to see .

Edited by: MAurelius11

Update 11.01.2014 to version 1.22
- Fixed some physical stats of theurgs (that are messed up in the base game)
- Fixed compactibility issues with Dwarfs mod. Note that you need to update both dwarfs and byzantine pythium for both of them to work correctly with one another

This update is not crucial if you aren't trying to play the mod with my dwarfs mod