Stygian Corruption

[Amos]

Version 0.39



Summons:
Mater Mundi -> Bonded Enforcer x 2
Lord Judge -> Bonded Hound
Lord Arbiter -> Bonded Pike x 3
Despoiler -> Bonded Undead x 5

[Foodstamp]

Downloaded and tried a small map, one AI enemy. I ascended before year two lol,

The pros...

The graphics are awesome! Excellent job ripping/redoing these graphics from whatever game they are from. The shadows are great, none of the units look ugly at all.

The nation has a consistent feel to it, and the "banner" for the nation has a very unique look i really like.

The cons...

WoW, take everything good about any nation in dominions 3 and put it into a nation and you got this one. Glamour units, strong assassin, unmatched morale, ulmish type heavy armor units, flankers, a solid bless unit, insane magic picks on commanders (for late era), stealth armies, tramplers, regen, recuperation, atleast one commander GENERATES blood slaves, holy 4 priests.

As i found out in my first game, a regular nation is no match for this one.

In it's current form, this nation is way too overpowered, but fun and thematic to play single player. If no balance is added, I will probably still use this mod as a challenging AI opponent.

Only other con I can mention is the generic title of the nation "Fallen Nation". A mod with such beautiful graphics and a solid theme deserves a little more time spent on the name.

EDIT: Forgot to add... The Nation specific pretender is a holy4 priest. I am not sure if this is intentional but the idea behind priests in dominions I believe is they worship the pretenders. A Pretender being a priest of a faith that worships him seems a bit odd.

[Endoperez]

I'll download it and have a look.

I think giving holy magic to pretender didn't work, so you might want to test if a Holy 4 commander can be a pretender at all. It might not work.

[Foodstamp]

It seemed to work in my initial test game. The pretender was able to bless my troops. Gonna double check and run a larger game.

[Amos]

Endoperez Holy power works on a pretender. As I told you else where you need to make him sacred for it to work. Thats what "no holiness" error means.
Foodstamp try fighting Blood Elves on a small map. I got slaughtered by the archers. Most of the units in this mod got no armor protection.

[Foodstamp]

Will do, I just toppled my nearest enemy on a medium map at "early fall, first year" so gonna go ahead and call it quits on this game.

[Amos]

I'll play with balance some more tomorrow. If you think this is overpowered, the original mod made them all into gods http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif. "Nephilim" means fallen. I can just call them Nephilim nation but its the same thing. There is a controversy about giving pretender holy powers. As you can see I'm for it.

[Foodstamp]

Ok tried blood elves versus the stigian on a 15 province map. They seem a good and equal match for one another. But when compared to the other nations, they are gods among ants.

[Amos]

Removed ethereality from Harlequin and posted. It was a bit too much.

[Gandalf Parker]

Was it a standard god or did you build one from a non-standard unit? What nation number is it filling?

It might be fun to build a large scenario around this. A really big map, a particularly good position for this nation such as in the middle with lots of bottlenecks around it. Give it extra starting units, some prime equipment, start it with a few neighbor provinces with prime population types and magic sites. Then declare the scenario as being "Human players are highly recommended to make alliances agaisntthe AI"

Gandalf Parker

[Amos]

It is a custom made god. The nation number is 72.

[Amos]

Ver. 0.17
Made armor much lighter. Should make Gate Keepers less invincible.

[DrPraetorious]

Tangential question - what does the "no holiness" error mean? I'm working on a mod, and it always generates such an error....

[Amos]

You gave holy powers to someone who doesnt have a #holy command.

[Amos]

I tried experimenting with names but either I'm missing something or custom naming is bugged.

[Amos]

New version 0.18

[Shovah32]

I miss the old bengehenom. Boosting his natural prot to 10(or giving him a head slot) and his health to 50 or 60(and a nice gold boost to around 350) might make him a bit more useful.
Or you could make him a blood summon again and return him to power (damn he was fun)

[Amos]

I'll see what I can do with the new spell system. Do you miss the old sprite as well? Pathwalker could get the new daemon sprite (I wanted to use Pathwalker's sprite for Horror mod anyway) and Bengehenom will get his old sprite back. The Wing Pass will get the correct feeblemind effect.
#secondaryeffectalways is still bugged so I made feeblemind a secondary effect only. I'll also add two more misc slots.

[Amos]

I'll change him to something like this

http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/5378/bengehenom4hx4.jpg

I'll finish it soon and post it.
Until we can make national spells, the Bengehenom and Pathwalker will remain purchasable.

[Nerfix]

Actually, we can make national spells now. Get the patch and then check the spell modding part of the modding manual... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Endoperez]

New spells can be done, but not researchable national spells. And there've been reports that state that national spells are currently totally impossible.

[Nerfix]

Oh. Saddness. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Amos]

New version 0.19

New sprites for Bengehenom and Pathwalker.
Weapon changes for Bengehenom.

P.S. Almost finished with the sprites for Horror mod, but I'll wait for the national spells fix to start working on mod itself.

[Shovah32]

Thank you, yes i did also miss his old sprite (he looks kick-*** again)

Cant wait for horror mod either.

[Amos]

Changing Pathwalker again. I'm going to use the sprite for Horror mod. Uploading this sprite instead

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/8452/pathwalker1eq1.jpghttp://img150.imageshack.us/img150/2577/pathwalker1aih2.jpg

[Amos]

Version 0.20
Minor graphical changes. Minor unit changes. Castle defense for "Gate Keeper" is 7 instead of 30. "Bengehenom", "Pathwalker" and "Guardian" are now summonable. Lilith can seduce.

[UninspiredName]

You left some pink at the bottom...

[Amos]

You left some pink at the bottom...



http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[UninspiredName]

Oh, the game reads that as a shadow... Now I feel like an idiot. Sorry, folks.

Anyways, I really like the mod. I'm keeping it permanently enabled now. I can't suggest any improvements, though.

And I've had no trouble with national ritual, and combat summons, and haven't tried any others.

[Amos]

Combat summons? There are 3 national summons: 2 commanders and 1 unit(Guardian). If there are combat summons then its either a bug or its not mine.

[UninspiredName]

No, I was just responding to some reports that national summons are impossible. Never mind...

[Amos]

Version 0.21

-Made bonded summonable
-Changed some sprites
-Other minor changes

[Amos]

Version 0.23

Mater Mundi summons 2 enforcers; Lord Arbiter summons 3 pikes; Despoiler summons 5 undead.

[Amos]

Gave the "Pathwalker" four hands (he had two). He has 4 in "Nephilim" mod but I forgot to change that in "Stigian Corruption".

[Sombre]

Amos, do all your nations from a certain age work together? For example can I put all your late era nations in one game without conflicts?

[Amos]

Unless I made a mistake, yes they should work together.

[Amos]

Version 0.24

-Added 4 more units;
-Changed some sprites;
-Changed prices.

[Amos]

Version 0.25

Key Keeper uses magic missile now.

[Amos]

Version 0.26

-Despoiler is undead (added poison and cold resists, removed ethereal);
-Changes to inventories.

[Gandalf Parker]

You were going to play with balance. Is this a player nation, or is it still a better AI.
And is there any way you could split this and bring back the "early version made them all like gods" that you talked about? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

[Amos]

This is definitely an AI nation. I mean, most of them have magic weapons that kill in one stroke. If that's not AI nation I don't know what is. No amount of balancing can change that with this mod. I changed prices so that it felt more like a vanilla nation, but it can never be balanced against one.


And is there any way you could split this and bring back the "early version made them all like gods" that you talked about?



The early version you are talking about was my first attempt at modding so it was insanely unbalanced even amongst my own nations.

[Amos]

Gave "Death Adept" wastesurvival, okleader and 1 holy. Lowered his magic resistance to 15.

[Sombre]

I just got a black archon tga missing error when using the,... despoiler I think, to summon allies.

[Amos]

Oups, there was a mistake. Fixed and uploaded (Dark Archon is a hero I added from Chaos Wars but forgot to change sprite info and add the sprite to the correct folder).

[Amos]

Minor sprite changes.

[Amos]

Version 0.27

Gave Bonded Undead and Forward Enforcer a sheol sword. The impact is minor but I made the sprites with sheol weapons in mind and later forgot to make them.

[Amos]

Changed Blood prices:

Guardian - 8
Bengehenom - 18
Pathwalker - 66

[Amos]

Added one more undead for the Despoiler to conjure.

[Amos]

I was working on another spell for the nation and I noticed that I use the same picture of angel as did Kristoffer http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. I guess we use the same sources for our sprites.

Version 0.28

Added another summoning spell.

[Amos]

Gave Nomad Warrior leather cuirass.

[Amos]

Small sprite changes.

[Amos]

Version 0.31

Neophytes gained Sheol cuirass. Short Sword changed to Scimitar. Changed sprites for Nomads and Neophytes. Merged some of the changes I liked from "more balanced" version.

[Amos]

Version 0.32

Slight adjustment to prices;
Lowered Nephilim sizes to 3;
Changed pike sprite;
Mutant lost trampling.

[Amos]

Version 0.33

Body armor heavier.
Fixed Overlord.

[Amos]

Version 0.34

Inventory fixed.

[Amos]

I didnt like the sprite for the second Bonded Undead so I changed it a bit.

[Amos]

I have been playing with a human body sprites and made this more muscular undead. I liked it better than the old one so I'm uploading it instead. I dont think anyone will notice the difference but it will bug me if I dont.

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/607/bondedundead1mn9.jpg

I'm working on a new mod but I'm only just starting so it will take me some time.

[Sombre]

Nice! Any teasers about the new mod Amos?

And I might as well ask here, do you mind if I do CBM versions of your mods? I'd basically only be changing costs and some stats.

[Morkilus]

That sprite looks great. Of course, I'm always interested in new undead nations. Too bad LA Ermor is mostly unmoddable.

[Amos]

I'm going to base it loosely on China Mievilles "New Crobuzon". With bio-thaumaturges and Remade. It's not an undead nation, this sprite replaced BondedUndead1 in the Stigian mod.

Sombre you could try to do the CBM versions but I dont know how successful you would be. Some of them are pretty complex.

[Amos]

Fixed the wing weapon on Bengehenom.

[lch]

Hi Amos, could you please confirm that your mods are 3.10 compatible? Thanks in advance!

[Amos]

Should be ok. I've checked if they all work and they do.

[Amos]

Drastically dropped prices on Lord Arbiter and Lord Judge. The nation was useless as an AI opponent because of the high costs.

[Amos]

Version 0.35

- Despoiler is inanimate and capital only now;
- Neophyte, N. Sentinel and Nomad Warrior lost berserker (Sentinel will get patrol bonus after the next patch);
- Neophyte and N. Sentinel lost pillage and stealth.

I'm working on new ME Stygia mod. Thats where all those changes come from.

[Amos]

Version 0.36

- Fixed "Demonic Roar" weapon;
- Guardian's hp and blood cost raised;
- Bengehenom's blood cost raised;
- Stygian, Shadow Emperor, Neophyte, Neophyte Sentinel, Despoiler and Overlord given darkvision;
- Changed inventories.

[Amos]

Lowered numbers of local defense force.

[Amos]

Fixed "Dark Archon" inventory.

[Amos]

Added a new spell "Unholy Heart". The spell summons "Child of Darkness", an alternative to Seraph as a SC (summoning of an angel in an anti-angel nation wasnt very thematic).

[Amos]

Raised blood cost for "Unholy Heart" and "Call Bengehenom" spells.

With the right equipment the Child is virtually unstoppable.
- One possibility is making him a unique. His counterpart the Seraph is not a unique though;
- or removing his ability to use items of any kind;
- or removing his ability to fly (probably together with items so he couldnt fly with them);
- or leaving him as is (he certainly costs enough).
I havent decided yet. Any of the first three choices will reintroduce the Seraph back as an endgame SC.

[Amos]

Version 0.37

-Added a new spell "Unholy Initiation" that summons Fallen Angel;
-Child of Darkness lost the flight and ability to carry items;
-Lowered cost of "Unholy Heart".

[Amos]

Gave Bonded Pike animalawe 3.

[Amos]

Version 0.38

Unit numbers changed to 2705-2739. All mods are ready for the next patch.

[Amos]

Version 0.39

- "Ruah Blade", "Demonic Roar" & "Wing Pass" are mind weapons;
- "Unlife Bolt" completely rewritten to work like "Unlife Strike";
- "Pathwalker" is stormimmune.

[Edratman]

Amos, may I borrow some (8 to 10 sets) sprites for my mod? It will be noted in the thread and dm file that sprites were borrowed.

If the old ball and chain doesn't have too much for me to do tonight then I should be able to finish the descriptions and post it.

[Amos]

Sure.

[Edratman]

Amos, Thank you very much.