Horror Scourge.

[Amos]

Version 0.20

Kurgi causes "Feeble Minded" affliction in the province he's in but domsummons Lesser Horrors. So he is not totally useless.
This nation is very hero dependant so you will need high luck or turmoil or both.

[DrPraetorious]

Nice pixel art!

Any chance I could get you to draw -
a three headed black dragon (one of the Asi, a significant badguy from Zoroastrian myth),
a guy with a tiger head and a woman with a tiger head (a Rakshasa and a Rakshini, respectively,)

I have my own mod with seven heroes - and I've only *once* gotten the same multihero twice. If you have all seven slots used, I believe that you *expect* to duplicate a multihero ~4% of the time, assuming you get two heroes over the course of the game (2/7 of getting a multiero the first time, 1/7 of getting the same hero next time you get a hero.)

So, with all that said, I'll fire it up and see what happens.

A few suggestions -
give the Blade Master a better weapon, if not two weapons.

These are some nice units (and, I assume, some really nice national summons) but you should give them a bit more magic.

You could give them a random on the advanced sorcerer (I'd suggest SBNA, to make them as different as possible from both existing mid-era astral/blood nations, Jotunheim (avoid death and water) and Abyssia (avoid fire and earth.))

Or, you could give them a capital-only master sorcerer, who is something like HBBBSS{SBNA,100%}{SBNA,10%}.

I think one of your summonable horrors should be a nasty priest - this is especially true given your dying dominion - 1 priest/temple and the biggest priest is level 1? Against a significant dominion push you go out like a light.

Finally - something odd does seem to be happening. No heroes are showing up and I've got turmoil-3 and luck-3. I'm not sure if I'm just getting bad luck or what, but it's turn 20 so this seems odd. There might be some requirement (# of recruited characters? Size of army?) to get heroes that I'm not meeting.

Anyway, would it be possible for me to add this to my mod-pack?

[Amos]

Lol so much to respond too.


Any chance I could get you to draw -
a three headed black dragon (one of the Asi, a significant badguy from Zoroastrian myth),
a guy with a tiger head and a woman with a tiger head (a Rakshasa and a Rakshini, respectively,)




Cant promise anything. I'll give it a go if I find some time.


I have my own mod with seven heroes - and I've only *once* gotten the same multihero twice. If you have all seven slots used, I believe that you *expect* to duplicate a multihero ~4% of the time, assuming you get two heroes over the course of the game (2/7 of getting a multiero the first time, 1/7 of getting the same hero next time you get a hero.)




In my Crusade mod I got multihero 3 times during the game.


give the Blade Master a better weapon, if not two weapons.




You get 2 assassins with national summons. Blade Master is only viable until you research them. His stats are relatively high though.


These are some nice units (and, I assume, some really nice national summons) but you should give them a bit more magic.

You could give them a random on the advanced sorcerer (I'd suggest SBNA, to make them as different as possible from both existing mid-era astral/blood nations, Jotunheim (avoid death and water) and Abyssia (avoid fire and earth.))

Or, you could give them a capital-only master sorcerer, who is something like HBBBSS{SBNA,100%}{SBNA,10%}.

I think one of your summonable horrors should be a nasty priest - this is especially true given your dying dominion - 1 priest/temple and the biggest priest is level 1? Against a significant dominion push you go out like a light.



Those summons are Horrors, they cant have any magic(unthematic). There are only 5 actual commanders. I'll think on the dominion problem.


Finally - something odd does seem to be happening. No heroes are showing up and I've got turmoil-3 and luck-3. I'm not sure if I'm just getting bad luck or what, but it's turn 20 so this seems odd. There might be some requirement (# of recruited characters? Size of army?) to get heroes that I'm not meeting.




I got Kurgi in my game, but the heroes arnt coming like they should. And at the end of the mod I added #luckevents 100, so maybe I should remove it.


Anyway, would it be possible for me to add this to my mod-pack?



Sure.

[Amos]

Changed luck from 100 to 50. Maybe it was too high to work properly.


DrPraetorious there already is a pretty good Rakshasa in NewGods mod (I dont remember who made it). Granted its only male, but changing him into a female shouldnt be a problem.


http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/8568/rakasha1pb7.jpg

[Kristoffer O]

Think it was made by Fmunoz. One of the guys behind Battle for Wesnoth.

I don't want to discourage you, but there will be rakshasas in the next patch when Lanka, Land of Demons appears as a new nation.

[Amos]

Added age and a powerfull form of priest Horror

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4015/souljuggler1su0.jpg

Forgot to add #holy.

[Shovah32]

This will probably be your best work yet once its finished. Havnt got any heroes yet but i notice one balance problem: The sorcerers should have S3 imo, this will both let them send lesser horrors AND make the nation atleast a little more resistant to magic duel(if thats too much then maybe a 50% random SB)

edit: i also like how my horrors (especially king of the world) can move from one side of the map to the other (as it should be) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Shovah32]

With luck 3 i got my first hero (Umor) on turn 55.
Got my second hero (a regular horror named Do Na) on turn 56.
Turn 58 and Scabiel the Maker of Ruins has appeared.

[Turin]

You could try the approach I made for testing the worthy heroes mod.

Setup a game with a luck 3 pretender and another human nation, then setup a local server with that game and set quickhost to 1 minute.
Then simply check into the game every hour or so to see what kind of heroes are there.

You should of course set up more than one game to get more samples.

[Shovah32]

Also, whats up with scabiel? Alot of turns he dosnt move at all and every few turns (when he does something) everyone around him just dies.

PS: Im enjoying using massed horror seeds+scabiel (with lucky pendant and ring of regen) to destroy large jotun armies.

[Endoperez]

I think Scabiel tries to move on its own. Like Eater of the Dead. It probably doesn't work unless he's independent.

[Shovah32]

OK, left it to autohost every minute and now its on year 12. Im pretty sure that basic horrors(which I assume are multiheroes) as multiheroes dosnt work as a still only have one and, umor does disappear (HoF lists him as dead though) and scabiel appears to have died (forgot i was playing vrs an ai nation) after racking up 600 or so kills.

[Endoperez]

Shovah32 said:
OK, left it to autohost every minute and now its on year 12. Im pretty sure that basic horrors(which I assume are multiheroes) as multiheroes dosnt work as a still only have one and, umor does disappear (HoF lists him as dead though) and scabiel appears to have died (forgot i was playing vrs an ai nation) after racking up 600 or so kills.



... I wonder if Rarku ate either one.

[Shovah32]

No, i left Scabiel out vrs several hundred jotuns, many of which carried horror seeds and, since scabiel is listed as being horror marked i assume their AN damage killed him(since with his 35 prot, luck, regen and iirc etherealness i doubt regular jotuns would have hurt him.

[DrPraetorious]

How about a sacred unit? If you copy the stats off of a Praetorian Guard, you can have him show up with random afflictions. I gave him the nightmare sprite just to test him out, he works.

#newmonster 2390
#copystats 667
#spr1 "./Horror/LesserNightmare1.tga"
#spr2 "./Horror/LesserNightmare1a.tga"
#name "Posessed Tetsu"
#descr "When an apprentice warrior of the Tetsu clan is wounded, but not slain, he is rendered inelligible to become a veteran. Faced with a life of drudgery, shame and servitude, these crippled warriors will offer themselves up to the more cunning sort of Horrors. Most are slain horribly, but horrors regard the cruelest and most embittered individuals as choice vessels - when the vessel is slain, the horror briefly escapes. Their fellow Tetsu regard these unfortunates with a mixture of pity, fear and religious awe."
#holy
#fear 0
#ethereal
#weapon 70
#weapon "Short Sword"
#armor "Shield"
#armor "Full Leather Armor"
--armor "Tetsu Helm"
#secondtmpshape 2383
#gcost 75
#magicbeing
#end

[Amos]

You could try the approach I made for testing the worthy heroes mod.

Setup a game with a luck 3 pretender and another human nation, then setup a local server with that game and set quickhost to 1 minute.
Then simply check into the game every hour or so to see what kind of heroes are there.

You should of course set up more than one game to get more samples.



Turin thats not possible since horrors disappear after a while.

[Amos]

Tetsu Sorcerer now has 3 Astral.

Thanks for your help guys. I think that the random behavior of Doom Horrors adds to the flavor.

[Shovah32]

Once the patch is released(and therefore moddable national spells) do you have any idea how long you will take to finish this?

[Amos]

No idea. A week maybe.

[Amos]

Added the only non-national spell. Added another Horror

http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/2599/temptation1ne6.jpg

Its a horror seducer. The problem is it uses Succubus stats, and that means demon. Is there any other seductress in the game? Whats its number?

[NTJedi]

Amos said:
What I need is for someone to test the heroes in this mod(there are 7 heroes):




The modding manual says each nation can only have 5 heroes. What steps, commands, adjustments allowed you to setup 7 heroes?

Thanks!

[Amos]

5 heroes + 2 multi-heroes.

[DominionsFan]

Very nice looking units Amos! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Endoperez]

Amos said:
Added the only non-national spell. Added another Horror

http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/2599/temptation1ne6.jpg

Its a horror seducer. The problem is it uses Succubus stats, and that means demon. Is there any other seductress in the game? Whats its number?



Human form of Nagini (doesn't work due to shapechange).
There're at least two more seducer-types that are demons.

You could try EA Arco Oreiad.

[Amos]

Tnx Endoperez.

[Amos]

Added prices.
There is a movement bug. Keda Flier should have 1 map move, instead it has 2. Its a flight issue. So I changed the mapmove to 0 and it works fine.

Azi attachment for DrPraetorious.

[Amos]

This is version 0.07 with all the spells in regular form. After the release of the patch all I'll need to do is balance the mod and change the spells to national.

[Amos]

Added Pretender:

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/3955/doom1awo9.jpghttp://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4520/doom1hq5.jpg

[Shovah32]

Pretender looks sweet.

[Amos]

Pretender is less godly. Minor tweeks to graphics. King costs more.

[Amos]

Changed Keda Leader's sprite

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/6641/kedaleader1ju6.jpg

And added 2 more units.

[Amos]

Added last unit.

[DrPraetorious]

Some final suggestions.

Give this nation 2 blood slaves/turn out of the capital. With a strong dominion and even a level 1 priest, this will make it at least *conceivable* that you'd survive with an imprisoned pretender.

Mictlan actually starts with a level 1 priest instead of a scout; but you'll be making your initial scout into your prophet if you have the blood slaves to manage it. You could give them a non-mage priest as well, maybe a torturer who adopts a priestly function to allow him to undulge his sadism, he could be an inquisitor with a patrol bonus and cost ~40 gold, and be perfectly acceptable as a starting unit. If you go around worshipping beings that feed on pain and misery you should probably have an inquisitor of some kind.

Also, if their temples only cost 200 gold they'd be in much better shape in that respect, but I'm not sure if you can do that in the current mod generation.

That said, the nation is quite playable and I'm kicking *** (against the computer, anyway) so you don't really need to change anything.

[Amos]

You dont need 2 blood slaves. You get very cheap Head Hunter that gets much more than 2 slaves a turn when he Blood hunts.
This nation needs to start with the God present, so even if you loose your God in the first few turns (I lost mine to Hunter of Heroes in first five turns in 3 games), you could potentially survive for long enough to call him back. Imprisoned God will kill your initial expansion as he is the one to give it the initial momentum, and you will have to rely on Heroes appearing, which is a bad strategy IMHO. This nation is very weak at the beginning as you have probably noticed.

Also, be careful with your blood slaves. If you leave them in your magic vault they tend to vanish. One strategy, the one that I employ, is to distribute your blood slaves to all your researchers (for protection as well).

Kurgi was fairly useless. Now he produces 3 Astral gems. Be careful, he causes "Feeble Minded" affliction in units in the same province.

[Amos]

Version 0.10 with all the spells nationally restricted (except for the "Tartarian Smith").

[Boron]

Awesome mod again Amos http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


Could summon shadow horrors be buggy? I tried the spell but don't seem to get shadow horrors http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

[Amos]

Post deleted by Amos

[DrPraetorious]

Amos - when I folded this mod into my megamod I changed the spell effect number for those two spells to 10001 (which works, it's a typo in the manual and not a bug.)

[Amos]

Thats great. Tnx. Changed it back.

[Ighalli]

This is a really fun nation to play! After looking at it fairly thoroughly, I found some things to question (and/or complain about) though.

I think the head hunters are way too good. At 60 gold and an effective blood magic 4 (for hunting) they're far, far better than any other blood hunter in the game. I'd suggest lowering their #douse to 1. They'd still probably be the best in the game even then, but since they can't research it'd probably even out.

Why do the mages all have an increased lifespan?

Why do the black leigionaires cost so much? I understand they're elite, but 14 gold seems closer than 44. They're not THAT good afterall. Looks like a bunch of the other troops are overpriced too. What compared to other national elite troops like Pythium emerald guard (the best humans who cost considerably less) makes them worth this kind of money?

Why does the pretender have holy levels?

Finally, one of the Kisei X of [the?] Word units fight with 2 short swords. They cost more resources than the other variety, and they're worse. Without ambidexterity, they have lower attack scores than the #nratt 2 troops.

[Amos]

I think the head hunters are way too good. At 60 gold and an effective blood magic 4 (for hunting) they're far, far better than any other blood hunter in the game. I'd suggest lowering their #douse to 1. They'd still probably be the best in the game even then, but since they can't research it'd probably even out.




Thats because I dont like the micro management of the blood sacrifices. I hunt for slaves in bulk instead of a trickle. Head hunters hunt at the level of 4 blood mage, but if a lot of people (2-3) dont like it I'll lower the douse to 1-2. Now the Head Hunter costs 90 instead of 60.


Why do the mages all have an increased lifespan?




I calculated age differently than Illwinter. Adding 10 max years for every 1 magic level. Magic is supposed to empower the mage not age him/her. Dom 3 is unforgiving enough without adding to it the mages that start the game dying.


Why do the black leigionaires cost so much? I understand they're elite, but 14 gold seems closer than 44. They're not THAT good afterall. Looks like a bunch of the other troops are overpriced too. What compared to other national elite troops like Pythium emerald guard (the best humans who cost considerably less) makes them worth this kind of money?



I priced the units using my own system. Also, the money in Dom 3 is not as important as in Dom 2. In mid game you get a lot of it. So 44 in the end is not much different than 14.


Why does the pretender have holy levels?



To show that by feeding the Pretender (blood sacrificing) the Rift opens even more. Read the Soul Juggler's description.


Finally, one of the Kisei X of [the?] Word units fight with 2 short swords. They cost more resources than the other variety, and they're worse. Without ambidexterity, they have lower attack scores than the #nratt 2 troops.



You are right I forgot to add ambidex. Uploaded the corrected version.

[Amos]

Kurgi now summons Lesser Horrors.

[Amos]

Version 0.13

Inventory fixed.

[Amos]

Version 0.14

-Night Terror gained abilities to summon Void beings and to cause insanity in enemy provinces;
-Keda Beast is made unique;
-Changed Keda Flier's sprite.

[DrPraetorious]

Firstly, let me say that this my favorite mod, no question. Awesome schtick, excellent execution, great artwork.

Have you considered making most of the summons combat-summons? Do you know what happens when you copystats a horror and then summon it as a non-neutral? Does it still favor horror-marked enemies or not?

Have you considered making your custom horrors sent-summons instead of normal summons? If you give the nightmare some holy magic, you could send a bunch of them to attack a remote province and they'd be able to bless themselves. I'm not sure what blessing (if any) they'd get as a neutral summon.

Are there any other spells you might want to add? Examples of stuff I can do now:
* A blood/holy spell that only blesses magic beings.
* A spell that gives all sacred magic beings on your side (thus, all your horrors), say: berserking, fast movement, etc.

You can also add spells that give them the ability to horrormark enemies more efficiently, for example.

[Amos]

Have you considered making most of the summons combat-summons? Have you considered making your custom horrors sent-summons instead of normal summons?



That would mean the Tetsu are controlling the Horrors not the other way around.


You can also add spells that give them the ability to horrormark enemies more efficiently, for example.



They got "Astral Claw" for that.


Are there any other spells you might want to add? Examples of stuff I can do now:
* A blood/holy spell that only blesses magic beings.
* A spell that gives all sacred magic beings on your side (thus, all your horrors), say: berserking, fast movement, etc.




Why would you cast a spell that blesses only magical beings when you have extremely low requirement spell that blesses them all?


Do you know what happens when you copystats a horror and then summon it as a non-neutral? Does it still favor horror-marked enemies or not?



I would guess that they would act like the original unit, but thats just a guess.

[Amos]

Version 0.15

-Fixed Temptation;
-Night Terror costs 40 slaves.

[DrPraetorious]

I always thought that they worshipped the horrors, but that the horrors really didn't care (except possibly for the awakening God, if he is some kind of horror.)

Even if the horrors are somehow in charge, their ability to enter our reality is pretty clearly limited, so it'd make sense for them to be remotely summoned or summoned in combat and then to vanish.

I was playing this position and I just didn't see a lot of reason to bring blood slaves with me into combat, and sacrifice them to my pointlessly evil religion. Almost all of my combat magic was astral, in fact. That's no good, if you're going to be the Horror Scourge, you should show up in combat with a *lot* of blood slaves.

They could have a blood-holy spell which blessed all of your horrors and also provided any of the following bonuses (drawn from the bitmask on effect 10). I'm not listing any bonuses which are already available as a bless or which wouldn't really benefit a horror much:
* Luck
* Barkskin
* Boost Strength
* Pain Transfer (?)
* Resist Fire or Cold
* Cold or Heat Radiation
* Stoneskin
* Holy Avenger
* Boosted MR (cumulative with astral blessing)
* Ironskin

So, for example, you could have a combat spell which blessed all of your horrors (all of your sacred magic beings) and made all of your horrors lucky. It'd be blood/astral, which is fine since all of your guys are blood/astral/holy anyway.

Likewise, a variant of astral healing that cost blood slaves and only healed your horrors.

The Astral Claws don't provide enough horror marking to make combat-summoning of conventional horrors really worthwhile, which is too bad, because as the horror scourge it'd be cool if you horror-marked people and then sicked horrors on them.

Boosted national versions of astral geyser and other horror-marking spells would be nice as well, especially if you had more reason to summon independent horrors.

[Amos]

...and sacrifice them to my pointlessly evil religion.



All religions are pointless http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Also, religion can only be evil if viewed from the outside.


Almost all of my combat magic was astral, in fact. That's no good, if you're going to be the Horror Scourge, you should show up in combat with a *lot* of blood slaves.




The mages of the nation gain their powers from the Astral plain (from Horrors). Also, I dont like blood slaves on the battlefield. Maybe 1 or 2 but not in the amounts that you are talking about.


So, for example, you could have a combat spell which blessed all of your horrors (all of your sacred magic beings) and made all of your horrors lucky.



They are so powerful as is I dont want to overpower them. I'm thinking about making powerful Horrors domsummon lesser Horrors. I think independent Horrors should be outside of the nations control (I dont like that the situation is different at the moment but I can live with the inconsistency).

[Amos]

Version 0.16

Added new summonable unit - the "Rift". It domsummons Horrors and Lesser Horrors, spreads dominion but causes massive unrest. You will be in hundreds in no time.


DrPraetorious I thought about your Bless proposal. I'm seeing Horrors as being pretty solitary and individualistic. It wouldnt do to have them blessed en mass.

[Amos]

Version 0.17

Added another Horror - the "Spinner", and its summoning spell.
Changed sprite for Lesser Horror.
Added age to Temptation.

[Folket]

The dread really needs a nerf. Three wail attacks and good defence. They are worth at least 25 slaves at lvl 3. For nine slaves you have no problem to push out 10 a turn.

Given their cost they should not be more powerful then devils.

[Amos]

I didnt have time for Dom lately. Is 15 slaves more appropriate for the Dread if I lower its protection to 0?

[Amos]

Dreads protection lowered to 0 and def 10. Its cost raised to 14 slaves.

[jutetrea]

Finally tried out this mod, plays really well. Terrible early game, but with a rainbow pretender and some lucky indy shots it can do almost anything anyone else can. Research was really really slow till I got some boosters up, upkeep gets pretty brutal if heavy hunting.

Once mid game (or late early) hits and you've got dousing rods and nightmares it completely changes and they start to dominate easily.

I like the doom horror heroes, really help out on early expansion...then poof gone. Got umor and rarku(?) this last game, got me at least to keeping up with the AI until my blood economy started flowing.

My game was a bit odd, played the inf. sands map with tons of wastelands, which were great for hunting. Not a furious income but less of a hit to shut one down. Also made my smaller elite armies more viable. The biggest impact was probably finding the 40% blood site right next to my cap. Unfortunately now I've got all apaths covered, good income on all gems and nice armies....its too easy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

The summons are pretty overpowered imo. Even the knight at 7 slaves will take out indy's no prob. 1 or 2 of almost any of the summons above the first will act as huge thugs for a small army, allowing them to take out much larger armies even without battle magic. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of powerful summons I just think they should cost more.

Is there something wrong with the keda beast summon? I couldn't move mine at all.

[Amos]

Even the knight at 7 slaves will take out indy's no prob.



I removed protection and added 5 HP to the Knight. Should be more balanced.


Is there something wrong with the keda beast summon? I couldn't move mine at all.



There was a mistake with the Beast. I tried to make it unique but made it immobile in the process. Its fixed now but lost its uniqueness.

[Amos]

Version 0.18

- Lowered cost for "Black Legionnaire";
- Fixed multihero error;
- Gave "Keda Leader" darkvision;
- Gave darkpower to Dreads and Nightmares.

[Sombre]

Just so you know Amos, you can make a unit unique with the only side effect being either regeneration or stealth 0.

If you're interested I'll tell you how later.

[Endoperez]

I'd be interested, and it should probably be posted into some kind of a modding guide somewhere. I'm not sure if any exist that cover summon spells and how unique creatures work with them.

[Amos]

I'm very interested. Keda Beast gets on my nerves every time I play "Horror" mod.

[Amos]

Keda Beast made unique (tnx to Sombre for showing me the uniques with the fewest number of attributes).
Raised blood price for some of the spells.

[Amos]

Version 0.19

- Gave all Horrors (except for Keda Beast and Kurgi) stormimmune;
- Fixed "Night Terror" stats and added bloodvengeance 1, leper 2 and a raised cost of 44 gems;
- "Keda Beast" got barbed tail weapon;
- "Rift" got bloodvengeance 3.

[Darkwind]

Great mod! I haven't went to the endgame yet with this, but I'm sure I'll be in for some fun surprises when they do. The Rift particularly sounds fun with its summoning of hordes of Horrors and such to kill, well, everything not a Horror.

On a side note, how did you get Blood Vengeance? I didn't see any command for it in the manual, so I just sort of assumed it wasn't moddable.

[Amos]

#bloodvengeance is a command that came with the new version.

[rdonj]

Just curious, has anyone else noticed when playing this mod that when you have multiple horrors in an army they'll attack each other as well as the enemy?

[Amos]

Version 0.20

Added domunrest 1 to the nation.