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Ashen Emperor Class

The Ashen Empire Rises! From the mists of time an ancient and evil force awakens, exhuming longdead legions from their graves, erecting blasphemous idols and performing dark rituals - the might of this once glorious nation and its Emperor shall be restored and rule all Elysium once more.....

The Ashen Emperor is a mix of MA Ermor and LA Lemuria from dominions - though not quite a direct port it plays vaguely similarly to them. Although it starts out very powerful it is very much so a slow burn class, it takes a long time to reach its potential. This is definitely not a class for the impatient, but is nearly invincible given enough time.

I created this class primarily to be an enemy to my Baron Mod (Raise the Levies!), the two play very well off of one another. The events in both mods work perfectly in direct connect multiplayer and do not experience any weird bugs or malfunctions.

The mod has been extensively tested almost exclusively on the following settings and is intended to be played on them as a baseline:

Map Size: Enormous
Era: Empire
# of AI: 8-16 (teams of 1-3)
AI Difficulty: Knight
Wilder: Enabled
Multiplayer: Co-op (optional) [Never Tested in Versus, YMMV]

Warning: The class is currently not set up for the AI to play properly, it does not progress almost at all to getting new units and is stuck at the beginning for the most part. It will spam unending legions of undead to overwhelm Elysium and is a fairly difficult AI to play against despite never getting better units. Play with Random AI at your own risk.

[Note: There is currently no special bonus for claiming the Capitolium for the class yet, so you do not have to play in an Empire Era, although any Era with many cities is highly suggested.]


Summary

45+ Units
- 17 Commanders
- Longdead, Soulless & Spectral Legions
- Skeletal Cavalry
- Wandering Stupid Undead
- Unholy Priesthood reanimates Longdead from corpses
- Hades Idols
- Lemurians
- Unearthed Tartarians
- Elite units with dark blessing & bane weapons
- Ashen Emperor grows in power - each of his 6 levels unlocks new rituals and units for the class

Resources
- Hands of Glory
- Life Force
- Corpses
- Iron

75 Rituals
- Ashen Emperor serves as centralized focal point
- Unholy Priests haunt cities, exhume legions and empower the forces of the empire
- Dusk Elders & Lemurs summon forces from Hades

Empowering The Empire
The Ashen Emperor himself acts as the center of the class, through him your better units and rituals are unlocked and your dark blessing is increased. He begins the game frail and weak with no rituals of his own and must rely on the unholy bishops to restore his strength. After the first level he gains access to his own rituals and will steadily increase in power and unlock more of the mods content with each level he gains. Each time the Emperor levels up your Dark Blessing will can be increased - increasing the strength of nearly all of your best units. The Emperor requires vast amounts of Life Force to increase his level, which can only be gained by constructing Ashen Idols in human settlements and graveyards throughout Elysium.

Undead Legions
The Legions of the Ashen Empire consist primarily of surprisingly durable longdead - fresher corpses can be converted into Soulless legions and later on the spirits of the legions can be called to serve once again from Hades. Longdead Centurions and Consuls can be raised along with the men under their command to be sent off to fulfill the duty granted to them millenia ago.

Unholy Priesthood
The Unholy Priests are the sinews of the Empire. They reanimate the legions, erect idols, create graveyards, haunt cities, unearth ancient temples and even lead & buff armies. Each of the three different priests, Acolyte, Bishop and Arch-Bishop has access to different rituals the others do not and fulfill important roles to ensuring the Empire's rise goes smoothly.

Ancient Evils
Open the Soul Gates of Lemuria and bring forth the spirits of the dead empire. Make deals with the lord of Hades, send foul spirits to spread death and disease amongst your foes and bind the spirits of aeons dead gods and enslave them to your will.

Sunder The Veil
Shatter the walls that stand between Elysium and Hades and draw the spirit world into the land of the living. Drown the squatters living in a world that is rightfully yours with endless tides of vengeful spirits and the thundering march of your legions.

The mod should be compatible with pretty much any other mod, it adds a mounted mound king which the Necromancer and Markgraf gain access to and alters the existing longdead legionaire units in minor ways.

The following existing terrains were edited to increase their hands of glory income: Haunted City, Haunted Capitolium/Slums/Temple District/Trade District and Ancient Temple
The ancient temple was also given the ziggurat's battle map.

If there is a compatibility issue it is probably related to conflicting numbers being used, if that is the case simply find the conflicting numbers and alter them in the c5m of this or the other mod. The following are the relevant numbers used in the mod:

Custom Terrains N/A
Terrain Groups -1059 to -1065
Variables 7771 to 7776


I have several content updates planned for this and my Baron mod, though when I will actually make them I do not know yet. I will probably make a completely new mod or two before revisiting these ones.

I also cannot make sprites to save my life, I can edit existing ones and mix and match well enough but it does limit my ability to add content to these mods, so I am looking for anyone who does like making sprites and is willing to contribute to help out. If you are interested leave a comment or start a discussion below!



Join My Discord[discord.gg] - I've set up a discord where you can get info & updates on my current & upcoming projects, this is also the easiest way to get in touch with me. I plan on expanding into modding Dominions & other games in the future, I hope you'll look forward to playing those as I am.

If you like what I do and want to throw a few bucks my way I've opened a ko-fi account: https://ko-fi.com/hsmasher.

I take mod commissions - if you've got a mod you'd like me to make for you, or you'd like an extra pair of hands for your own, get in touch, if I like it and feel it's something within my ability to make I'd be happy to do so.