Blood Elves

[Amos]

Version 0.32

[WraithLord]

Amos, I would gladly help in whatever way I can.
Please tell me what is missing in the mod or else how you want me to go about adding the descriptions.

Oh, and the sprites are beautiful (as is the standard in your mods http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

[Amos]

Thx http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Until they release the Mod manual there is nothing to be done except writing the descriptions. I'll try to do some things today, but tomorrow my PC will be gone for a week or more.

[DominionsFan]

Ouch!!! The transparency color is black and the shadow color is magenta? Arghhhhh! Now I will have to replace those. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Amos]

DominionsFan the final images should be on black background. I draw them on white and view them on grey because some are too dark to be viewed on black.

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/6940/chohei1azw4.jpg http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/5483/commander1oa3.jpg http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/2439/blood1agx3.jpg http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/525/lord1afm3.jpg http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/9177/archdruid1dm8.jpg http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1848/master1sn0.jpg

[DominionsFan]

Amos said:
DominionsFan the final images should be on black background. I draw them on white and view them on grey because some are too dark to be viewed on black.

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/6940/chohei1azw4.jpg http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/5483/commander1oa3.jpg http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/2439/blood1agx3.jpg http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/525/lord1afm3.jpg



I see. Well I thought that the transparency color is the magenta, and the shadow's color is black. No problems anyways, since so far I only photoshopped miniature units, and as some people in a previous thread point out, it might be against the copyright laws, so maybe I will have to use the units from the game and photoshop those, also I will draw units myself. [Im waiting for an answer from Wizards of the Coast about this issue first of course, because it would be neat to use up miniature photos.]

[Amos]

No one will take you to court if you dont sell what you rip.

[WraithLord]

Amos said:
Thx http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Until they release the Mod manual there is nothing to be done except writing the descriptions. I'll try to do some things today, but tomorrow my PC will be gone for a week or more.


For writing the descriptions I need to be familiar with their concept, which I'm not http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Were these Salvatore's dark elves, or warhammer's elves I could have gotten right into it...

[Daynarr]

Transparency color for flags is pure black (0,0,0 RGB scale). I assume its the same for unit sprites.

[Amos]

Were these Salvatore's dark elves, or warhammer's elves I could have gotten right into it...



Think Warhammer's Dark Eldar. Main idea for the mod is that the elite is seeded with blood spores to become Hamadryads (essentially Tree Lords without magic). Every battle field leaves behind Forests of Hamadryads to hold the territory. I wrote very basic descriptions for most of them in excel.

[Thilock_Dominus]

You can also choose transparent background in your paint program. It'll do the same trick.

[JaydedOne]

Those are beautiful sprites.

Well done.

[WraithLord]

Amos said:

Were these Salvatore's dark elves, or warhammer's elves I could have gotten right into it...



Think Warhammer's Dark Eldar without the Chaos corruption. Main idea for the mod is that the elite is seeded with blood spores to become Hamadryads (essentially Tree Lords without magic). Every battle field leaves behind Forests of Hamadryads to hold the territory. I wrote very basic descriptions for most of them in excel.


For Warhammer I'm familiar with dark, high and wood elves, but I can google some to learn about Dark eldar. I can also use your basic descriptions from the excel and possibly add to them.

[Amos]

Dark Eldar are from Warhammer 40k universe.

I have completed the basic descriptions for all the units and updated the zip at the beginning of this thread.

[Amos]

This will be the pretender for this mod:

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/8629/demon1tb6.jpg

[Shovah32]

Post deleted by Shovah32

[WraithLord]

Thanks Shovah32. I'll both send you the list of units in the mod and take a look at www.40konline.coms. (http://www.40konline.coms.)

[Shovah32]

whoops, that was meant to be .com (im guessing you figured that out but..)

[WraithLord]

Shovah32 said:
whoops, that was meant to be .com (im guessing you figured that out but..)

I have sent you a PM with the units list. thanks!

[Shovah32]

Ive sent some help for now, hope it helps.

[Amos]

I'm back. I'll start adding a few more units and descriptions. I have only borrowed an atmosphere and some names from the Dark Eldar. The units are all original or very loosely based on Dark Eldar.

[WraithLord]

Shovah32 said:
Ive sent some help for now, hope it helps.


Thanks Shovah32. I've forwarded it to Amos as I've run into some shortage of time due to R.L. constraints.

And BTW Shovah32, are you the one and same as Shovah?

[Amos]

I'm finalizing the units and their names and will finish the first version of the mod in 1-2 days.

I find new Mod manual very confusing. The tables are all over the place. The old manual was much better IMHO. Where can I get a resource cost of items?

[Amos]

Post deleted by Amos

[Amos]

Post deleted by Amos

[Shovah32]

Indeed i am Wraithlord, could remember my login name so i justmade a new account.

[Amos]

First release version.

Known bugs:
-Head armor is /2 for some reason
-Awe is -1
-I still dont get the age thing
-Dont know how to fix a name on a Hero
-Poisonous weapons dont poison(dont seem to have poison effect on them)
-Anti-demonic weapons ether dont show the dmg type or like weapons with poison effect on them dont do anything(so I'm changing it to holy dmg until the patch)

[Amos]

Version 0.4

-Alfar Homunculus and Hamadryad loose all magic after shapeshift.
-Added weak poison to some weapons.
-Minor changes to sprites.

[Frostmourne27]

IIRC poison didn't work on weapons in Dom2, you had to mod a poisoned weapon to get the poison effect. Maybe that is your problem.

[Amos]

you had to mod a poisoned weapon to get the poison effect



What do you mean? I created weapons with poison effect in Dom2 but I never tested them myself so I have no way of knowing if they worked as intended.
I give a normal weapon secondary effect from 50-54. Am I doing it wrong?

I could have given them poisonous swords already in the game but I didnt want them to get magical weapons.

[Amos]

Frostmourne27 read my previous post pls. I jumped page with this one.

Version 0.5

-Most of the units got Poison resistance
-Lord Militant got Immortality (there was no point in buying him before too many cheap commanders)
-Minor graphic change to Light

Going to post bugs at the beginning of the thread.

[Talleyrand]

Wow, those units look amazing! I hope you get the kinks worked out of this mod because I would love to play it.

[Frostmourne27]

IIRC, you are correct about how to do it, but I think that in Dom2, even if you gave them the poison effect in the mod file, they never got it in game. However, you could take an exsisting weapon, change it (totally, if you wanted) and get a poisonned weapon that worked. That may have changed though.

[Amos]

Added this version to the first post.

[Frostmourne27]

I can't: my copy STILL hasn't arrived. Canada post is REALLY lazy.

[Talleyrand]

I like these units. I think I found a bug though. The Vermillion Commander likes to charge right into the frey even when you set his orders to stay behind his troops. It's gotten to be where I have to place him on the far left side of the formation grid and pray most of the opposition is dead or dying before he runs in and gets himself killed.

Some more thoughts:

The Alfar Archers seem way too good for their cost. I'm still new to this game but I've never seen archers as accurate as these guys are. Not even close. Every single one of their arrows hits something. I usually play Early Age though so maybe archers are just better Late Age? I would still either give them weaker weapons or increase their cost.

And while I like the lore for the Grotesques and think their unit graphic is cool as all hell, I just don't see the point in buying them. Their attack skill is way low and their protection is too, so you almost never hit anything and are always getting hit by something. Maybe add trample?

I love all the different commanders though and some of the units are really cool, especially Prince of Many Faces. The lore is top-knotch as well. Thanks for putting this little beauty together. It inspires me to try and create a faction of my own.

[Amos]

Forts are in.

Thanks for the praise.


The Alfar Archers seem way too good for their cost. I'm still new to this game but I've never seen archers as accurate as these guys are. Not even close. Every single one of their arrows hits something.



They are elven archers after all. The bow is only good against lightly armored opponents. Should be useless against heavy armor. I'll play a few games and see if they are unbalanced (I havent been able to play a single game since I got Dom 3 because of the mods http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif ).


And while I like the lore for the Grotesques and think their unit graphic is cool as all hell, I just don't see the point in buying them. Their attack skill is way low and their protection is too, so you almost never hit anything and are always getting hit by something.



Grotesques are intended for use against blood heavy nations that use a lot of demonic summons. Made Grotesques armor=19 (as intended but somehow I forgot about it. Tnx Talleyrand).



I think I found a bug though. The Vermillion Commander likes to charge right into the frey even when you set his orders to stay behind his troops. It's gotten to be where I have to place him on the far left side of the formation grid and pray most of the opposition is dead or dying before he runs in and gets himself killed.




Command him to Hold,Hold...Hold(or Cast Hold) then Fire Closest. I had no problem with him even with Heroic Quickness with 60 AP.

[Amos]

Made bows:

-less dmg
-less accurate
-non magic (that one was a mistake before)

[Shovah32]

If you intent grotesques to be used vrs blood nations then they really need a boost since the blood summons people actually use (devils, fiends of darkness ect) have very nice defence.

[Amos]

Grotesque fixed.

[Shovah32]

Also, blood elf forts (if they are used by a human at least) would be impossible to capture (oh look, i get a 1000 castle defence bonus from a 140 gold unit)

[Amos]

I removed the defense bonus(its broken). You must be using an older version.

[Amos]

Unless there are problems, this will be the last update for this mod until the patch.

[Amos]

New version 0.18

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Awesome Mod, Amos. Very well done.

[sube]

Hey Amos,

looks like the Alfar Bow has precision 20 and no rcost, is that on purpose?

[Amos]

Nope, missed it. The change is negligible anyway, but quick fix uploaded.

[sube]

OK i see the fix. But precision = 20 is intented? It means that the archer is shooting with like precision 32 (just asking, might well be intentional)

And btw I checked head armour in this mod, it gives half value as you claim (e.g. 36 --> 18), however if I check a modded helm in a mod i made, that one behaves correctly... (21 --> 21) And apart for the specific values used, my code looks the same as yours. But I'll go back to that

However, great mod this one!

[Amos]

But precision = 20 is intented? It means that the archer is shooting with like precision 32



It is intentional. And while they are quite accurate, the archers are crap against armored opponents.


And btw I checked head armour in this mod, it gives half value as you claim (e.g. 36 --> 18), however if I check a modded helm in a mod i made, that one behaves correctly... (21 --> 21) And apart for the specific values used, my code looks the same as yours.



There is not much room for error in armor modding so its a bug.

[Endoperez]

Amos said:

But precision = 20 is intented? It means that the archer is shooting with like precision 32



It is intentional. And while they are quite accurate, the archers are crap against armored opponents.



Their missiles will always hit at range 25 or less. ALWAYS. Whatever square they choose to target, they hit. And even at range 50, the arrows won't deviate more than 1.16 squares. They will probably deviate less.

Formulas:
Precision over 10 is counted as twice as big, so prec 32 is counted as 54 in the formulas.

Range before deviation:
Prec/2 - 2 = 54 / 2 -2 = 27-5 = 25

Maximum amount of deviation is (range * 1.25 /Prec). So the range, e.g. 50, is multiplied by 0.023.




That high precision is very extreme in Dominions statistics. It could cause weird things, like 100 bowmen targetting the same square and more than half of them hitting the one square. Using bows with prec 5 (and archers with prec 12) would allow deviation at range 12 or more, and the maximum amount of deviation would be (Range * 0,052) or about (Range/20). Maximum of two squares at range 40, maximum of one at range 20. That's STILL very good. Your is just extreme.

[Amos]

Their missiles will always hit at range 25 or less. ALWAYS. Whatever square they choose to target, they hit.



That hasnt been my experience. They miss, a lot. I beat them with Nephilim (light armored if at all). So they are accurate, as the elven archers should be (when did you ever see or read about an elf missing with a bow), but they are far from unbeatable. If I were to change the accuracy it would be unthematic and IMHO unneeded. But if you dont like it fell free to modify.

[Amos]

Version 0.19

Minor graphical changes(ex. Lord Deceiver had a wrong sword). Blood Chalice got 50 regen. Deceiver got a bow(Deceiver's Sting) instead of Vision's Foe which is a crossbow.

[Amos]

Flytrap's #castledef lowered to 10.

[Morkilus]

I really like this mod. I'm a little curious why the Vermillon commander disobeys orders and always charges to his death... maybe he's very anxious to get turned into a tree? Changing into trees after death is very cool, especially after reading Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead.

[Amos]

I'm a little curious why the Vermillon commander disobeys orders and always charges to his death...



Its a bug.

[Theonlystd]

haha wow this feels like cheating to be honest .


I like the idea of the Nation but wow every things overpowered. Get 50 archers put them way at the back of the map. Put a few decievers in front of em with hold and attack commands. And watch armys be decimated before meele starts

[Amos]

I destroyed them, archers and all, on Large maps with both Trade Confederation and Nephilim Empire. Just use alot of heavy cavalry if you are playing against them.

[Sombre]

Amos has said several times that they aren't balanced for use against vanilla nations - so give them a go against his other nations. Like the two he just mentioned.

[Theonlystd]

ah well if hes not going for any balance then i guess my comments where pointless ;p

[Amos]

IMHO the best vanilla opponents against Blood Elves are Ulm and Caelum.

[Psientist]

First time I've played with this mod. Very nice; I am enjoying it.

My only comments -
1) having the hamadryads generate earth gems seems a bit much to me (my opinion).
2) it would be nice to have a national ritual spell that capitalizes on the whole reforestation / blood thing.

Good work!

[Amos]

1) having the hamadryads generate earth gems seems a bit much to me (my opinion).



Its nature gems. And only Hamadryads created from leaders produce them. As a solution I could dramatically lower the home province gem production. Although in none of my games as Blood Elves I had an unbalancing amounts of nature gems produced. Too few of my trees survive to produce them.


2) it would be nice to have a national ritual spell that capitalizes on the whole reforestation / blood thing.



My head is in the Insectoid mod at the moment but if you have any ideas for the spell and if it doesn't clash with the concept I'll see about adding something like that.

[Psientist]

Well, after I played it a bit more, the nature gems - as you stated - didn't seem that unbalancing. Most of my hamadryads ended up located in remote provinces, which would require either setting up a laboratory, or some circuit-rider commanders to go around and "harvest" the "hamadryad fruit". Which seems to fit in well with your theme.

I *did* end up compensating by setting blood-hunters where hamadryads were, and building laboratories there when I could afford them. That way my Pretender could easily pool their gems/virgins whenever.


My head is in the Insectoid mod at the moment but if you have any ideas for the spell and if it doesn't clash with the concept I'll see about adding something like that.



Oh, how about:
- "Hatred of the Trees" - forests in enemy territories grow, and cause increasing unrest.
- "Bitter Fruit" - enemy units in friendly domains have a chance of horrormarking. Perhaps only in forest territories.
- "Forests Reborn" - forests grow in friendly domain. (still haven't played around with spell modding; but I assume that changing province attributes isn't possible anyway).
- Bind lesser horror. My mages are attracting horrors like flies in my test game; what better horror defense than a few tame horrors as guardians?


I also thought it might be an interesting idea to have a "sister" nation to the blood elves that was underwater.

At any rate, fun mod!

[Psientist]

One more idea, possibly "doable", given the changes in the 3.06 patch:

- a revision of the "lifetime protection" item that generates during battle something demon-forest themed - like thorn trees (FROM HELL!), or angry roots from the ground.

[Amos]

Version 0.21

Repriced everything. If you liked balance from previous version Do Not update.


One more idea, possibly "doable", given the changes in the 3.06 patch:

- a revision of the "lifetime protection" item that generates during battle something demon-forest themed - like thorn trees (FROM HELL!), or angry roots from the ground.



Psientist, I'm finished with Stigian mod for now so I'll start playing with spell modding for this one and maybe I'll end up with something interesting (if I dont get distracted and start another mod).

[Psientist]

I'll watch with interest.

[Amos]

Version 0.22

Maybe I'm just too tired but all I could come up with is an enhanced version of "Tangle Vines" and "Wild Growth" ("angry roots from the ground" of a sorts). It entangles plus banes (I added the damage for both together). Everything else is either impossible to do or is already in the game. Giving them "Bind lesser horror" is unthematic. I added the vines spell.
"Hatred of the Trees" is possible only without "forest growth" part. I'll just have to copy the "Blight" spell. Though when it hits it will be Blights description I imagine. No way to change that.

[PashaDawg]

I'm gonna give this Mod a whirl this week... looking forward to it. Jurri and I are gonna try an all-Amos-mod duel. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Amos]

Version 0.23

Another attempt at balance:

-Archer and Light Rider prices raised;
-Some other prices lowered (Grotesque and Blood Chalice significantly).

[Amos]

Version 0.24

Found many small errors in description as well as in function.

[Amos]

Fixed magicboost error.

[Amos]

Version 0.25

Lowered prices for: Archer 12, Chohei 11, Light Rider 51, Lancer 55;
Raised resource requirements for cavalry and Alfar Bow.

[Amos]

Version 0.26

Inventory fixed.

[Amos]

Version 0.27

-Changed armor costs;
-Added 2 more units (Alfar Warrior and Vodyanoi);
-Added 6 more summoning spells (Homunculi and Grotesque are now summoned as was intended from the beginning);
-More changes and fixes.

[Xietor]

Very nice graphics. Dr Praetorious suggested the use of the blue druid tga file for the epic hero he did for the epic hero mod. I downloaded the mod, and the graphics were so nice.

I have to figure out a way to use that venus fly trap in my mod(you would be given full credit of course!).

[Amos]

Version 0.28

- Changed nation number to 73;
- Fixed "Demonic Roar" weapon;
- Gave "Storm Lord" stormpower.

[Amos]

Bump so you dont miss an important update because of the page jump.

[Amos]

Version 0.29

- Another price revision;
- Lowered pretender price;
- Gave the Arch Druid research bonus;
- Removed Fey's research;
- Lowered provincial defense numbers.


I should probably redo most of the sprites. This was one of my first mods and it shows.

[DrPraetorious]

I think that the sprites look cool, they mostly need cleanup - stray black pixels removed, that sort of thing.

When would be a good time to fork your LA mods into the megamod? I've been making balance notes to myself but haven't yet actually changed anything.

Purely by way of example, these were the notes I had on the previous version:
* Blood Elves
- Some of the descriptive text needs cleanup.
- Notes: Capital is wank (Admin 30), especially for the late era. It could be a tel city (admin 40), at the least. Low capital admin should figure into unit costs, which are too high even for average admin.
- Spells are all reasonable on a first pass.
- Prince of many faces: loses immortality, reduced to fire magic 2, slight statistic reductions, cost lowered to 150 pts.
- Several of these sprites need background cleaning, they've got stray black pixels.
- Cavalry and cavalry commanders should not be animals. Cavalry commanders no longer turn into trees (flavor text update), and are no longer sacred. Cost reduced to 75 gp for Vermillion, 85 gp for Crimson. This means you will actually use the Crimson Commanders as blood hunters.
- Lancer and Light Rider reduced to 40 gp.
- Venus Flytrap is now a summon. Costs 1 nature gem? This unit really isn't that useful, and is pretty well useless if you have to recruit them (because once you're sieged, you can't!).
- Still considering what to do with sacred heavy inf. and commanders that turn into trees. Needs playtesting. At present they are hugely expensive so recruiting them everywhere seems almost irrelevant. Is there some occult significance to the #s 101, 122 and 158?
- Ritualist cost reduced to 90 gp (and he's still overpriced, compare to the minister of magic from MA T'ien Ch'i.)
- Blue Druid reduced to H2. Cost lowered to 200 gp. Considering making them capital only.
- Green Druid reduced to H1. Cost lowered to 250 gp (healers can cost as much as you want.) Considering making them capital only.
- Archdruid reduced to H3, given an AWE random and a 10% chance for an AWEN random.
- Lord Militant should probably be a hero?

[Amos]

When would be a good time to fork your LA mods into the megamod?



I'm mostly done with the changes for now.


- Several of these sprites need background cleaning, they've got stray black pixels.




Do you have a list?


- Cavalry and cavalry commanders should not be animals.



I make them animal for a reason. The horse under the rider will not attack a unit with animal awe. I'm thinking of giving this attribute to all the pikes in my mods.


- Venus Flytrap is now a summon. Costs 1 nature gem? This unit really isn't that useful, and is pretty well useless if you have to recruit them (because once you're sieged, you can't!).




Reasonable. I may do so myself. I made them for AI to use.


Is there some occult significance to the #s 101, 122 and 158?




Do you mean the cost? I do the occult thing with stats sometimes (13 with dark forces, 7 with angels). But thats not the case here. Those units turn into Homunculi which I have estimated as 50gp for pricing. I didnt even include the price of the gem producing trees. Otherwise they just cost too much.

[DrPraetorious]

Okay, I'll start grabbing the current versions and working from those.

I should say - I'm aware of why you gave the Cav. animal. If I were going to include a mod that turned *all* Cav. animal (and/or a pikemen/longspears mod that gave pikemen animal awe) this is what I would do as well. However, barring such a mod, it's inconsistent for one nation to have animal on the cav and not others.

All of the Cavalry have stray black pixels around the tail of the horse. The Senshi have black pixels particularly around their right-hand weapons (which would be on our left looking at the pic,) the deceiever and the venus flytrap have them all over.
I think the storm lord has some on the bottom side of his weapon.

It's not a huge issue except with the flytrap, which has a positive halo.

I've got some comments and questions on your other mods which I'll send in a forum message.

[Amos]

Tnx. I'm adding animalawe 3 to all the pikes because otherwise there is no point in having them in the mod. Units with long spears carry shields. Pikes usually get ignored when recruiting because units with shields are always superior. If you think its inconsistent feel free to remove this attribute in the Megamod.
I'll try to do the sprites and the Venus summoning spell today.

[Amos]

- Alot of small sprite changes and corrections;
- Venus Flytrap can be summoned, instead of recruited, through the "Grow Venus Flytrap" spell.

[Amos]

As per DrPraetorious suggestion:

- All Druids had their holy magic and price reduced;
- Fort was changed to Citadel with admin of 40;
- Arch Druid was given a random AWEB 25%.

[Amos]

Low capital admin should figure into unit costs, which are too high even for average admin.




DrPraetorious, that was intended to limit the numbers of the elves on the battlefield. They are not meant to have huge armies but small, highly effective ones.

[DrPraetorious]

Ah, well, that's true - but in that case, they need better stats or something http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

But that was a typo, I meant - low capital admin should figure into *mage* costs. The gold cost of units is actually pretty negligible for most nations, although not at all for this one.

I'm going to do a bit more testing and fiddling.

[Amos]

Version 0.30

Lowered "Fey Assassin" HP by half and reduced his price.

[Amos]

- Storm Lord got Air 3 and higher price;
- Crimson Commander replaced Storm Lord as a PD commander;
- Lord Militants sprite finally got a shadow.

[Amos]

- Gave "Green Druid" springpower 3 and raised animalawe to 1;
- Added a new spell "Contact Goddess of Magic" (She is unique. She should be a heretic but i couldnt give her uniqueness and heretic at the same time).

[Amos]

Version 0.31

Changed unit numbers to 2600-2630.
When the new patch comes out remind me to fix the Goddess of Magic.

[Amos]

Version 0.32

- Added a new unit "Hamadryad Seedling" as a domsummon for Hamadryad;
- "Demonic Roar" weapon is now a mind weapon;
- "Goddess of Magic" is a heretic now;
- "Storm Lord" got #stormimmune;
- "Grotesque" is a #stonebeing;
- "Blood Chalice" got #bloodvengeance 1 and a raised cost of 225.