Mytheology Pretenders

[Psientist]

This is a mod-in-progress that creates some new pretenders and spells. I'll keep adding to it as I go along, depending upon time, learning curve, and the availability of mod commands to support the ideas I have.



Currently - v2.05 - June 19 2008
"32 new Pretenders including 24 brand new deities and eight Pretenders formally available only as Summons and a few new special monsters. Also, a whole bunch of tested new spells.

The new Pretenders include Carrion Lord (Caelum Late), Cthulu (Rlyeh - all) Desire (Middle Man), Toad Demon (CAbysia Late), Fallen Archangel (Marignon Late), Great Egg (Caelum all), Grim Reaper (Ermor All), Monkey King (Kailasa Early, Bandar Log Middle, Patala Late), Morpheus (Arcocephale Late), Pantokrator (All), Shah of Djinn and Ifreet (Marignon Middle), Teratos Rex (C'Tis Early), Thunderbird (Caelum All), Black Dragon (all), Gold Dragon (all), Shadowcat (all), Father of Medicine (all), Great Eye (Earth/Water - all), Great Eye (Fire/Air - all), Great Eye (Astral - all), Menhir of Death (Ermor Early), Menhir of Growth (Marverni Early), Menhir of Courage (Marverni Early), Mother of Assassins (Machaka Middle). Most of the new pretenders have custom graphics.

The summons Pretenders include Heliophagus (Abysia Late), King of Banefires (Yomi Early), King of Deeper Earth (Argatha Early), Queen of the Sea (Oceania Early), Queen of Thunder (Caelum Early), Tarrasque (New - Pangea Early), Yggdrasil (Maverni Early), Vastness (Ryleh Middle).

The new spells include Shards of Hastur (a large-area paralyze), Bind Toad Demon (self explanatory - an amphibious demon!), Feeding Frenzy (underwater equivalent of Swarm), Man O' War (underwater analogy to Raise Skeleton), Diabolic Brigade (Instant Army O' Imps), Trap Visitor (bind, or steal, the Void Gate Visitor), Banefire Veil (Death version of Dome of Flaming Death), Rite of Ashk'Ente (a souped-up Manifestation), Soul Harvest (farsummon 5 Grim Reapers), Aurora Warriors (Body Ethereal version of Fog Warriors), Soulblades (grants astral blades to some soldiers), Eclipse (farcast blindness on an enemy army), Foreboding (farcast the Battle Fright affliction on enemy troops), Storm of Acid (farcast Rusty Armor on enemy troops), Revelation (search for holy magic sites), Sanctuary (a temporary holy dome), Divine Judgement (a holy version of Flames from Afar), Sea of Scarabs (summon hundreds of beetles), Menhir of Fortune, Menhir of Courage, Menhir of Faith, Menhir of Growth, Menhir of Peace, Summon Wraith King (Nazgul!), Loki's Mirrors (battlefield glamours), Dirge of the Drowned Gods (battlefield-wide Sailor's Death), Aria Discordia (battlefield-wide confusion)."


Have fun - the link to download the latest version is http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/download.php?Number=617457

[Shovah32]

who gets morpheus? i cant find him

[Psientist]

SOrry. Morph is in Late Age Arcocephale. Teratos in is Early Age C'tis.

[HoneyBadger]

Wouldn't Teratos be late age Jomon? if he represents Gojira, that is.

[Psientist]

I suppose it could be, but it wasn't my intent to create Gojira (another King of Monsters!). I thought of him more as a leftover king of dinosaurs (T-rex), and thus fitting to the lizard-men. No nuclear breath! But I guess that means somebody needs to do a Gojira mod...

[Foodstamp]

OH...NO.... THERE GOES TOKYO.... GO GO GODZILLA!

[Psientist]

I added a bunch of Summon pretenders to the mod. Caveat - I haven't playtested some of them!

I experimented with creating the Eater of the Dead as a Pretender. It was pretty interesting as a SC at first, but quickly it started diseasing all my commanders and units - and I think even in surrounding provinces. Then by the 10th month, it had grown so powerful that it just attacked my own troops and then bugged off. So, making it a pretender didn't give full control to the player... so I removed it from the mod.

If any other modders have any standalone pretender mods they want me to incorporate, I'd be happy to make Mytheology a "Pretender Collection" mod.

[Psientist]

I added two new pretenders, using some hacks I found and the new mod summoning capabilities in the latest Dominions patch. The latest version adds:

Pantokrator (all nations)
Desire (Man, Middle Age)

I apologize to the devs if the Pantokrator is non-canon, but it was begging to be done by SOMEBODY.

[Psientist]

Added one more pretender: the Grim Reaper (Ermor, Early Age).

[Psientist]

I thought it might help to show some of the sprite graphics I developed for this mod. The Grim Reaper and the Pantokrator (the glowing dude) are all original. Desire is based upon the Succubus monster template, and the Teratos Rex upon some dinosaur model photo I found on the internet, and adapted accordingly.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/494859-pretenders.gif


Also, some strategy thoughts I developed during playtesting:
Desire: Bump up your "dominion" setting at onset. Set up Desire in a high-dominion safe province, assigned to summoning Suitor allies. Equip your various armies with as many Priestesses of Cytherea as she attracts, since that will be infrequent even with a high dominion. Keep your Priestesses assigned to a well-guarded commander, behind the lines. Have a spare commander or two always ready to retrieve your priestesses if they rout. After every battle, make sure you check your "army setup" in case the Priestesses (or your Goddess) have charmed any enemy troops.

Grim Reaper: Use Grim as a SC against independent provinces. Try to keep him in your dominion, especially against other players; while he is deadly as a SC against regular armies, he can be killed by strong priests, magic users, or magic armies (he is "undead", after all). Against other nations' armies, have him assassinate a few commanders before attacking, preferably while backed up with other (regular) armies. Use his high mobility as a "roamer/troubleshooter" to keep dominion high at your frontiers, and fight off incursions at the edges of your domain.

[Aeshi]

Grim Reaper should be in Late Age Ermor

[Shovah32]

Found a problem: Teratos Rex, the big trampling dino is only size 2...

[Psientist]

Found a problem: Teratos Rex, the big trampling dino is only size 2...


errr, he's got a BIG roar! heh, ok, I'll fix that.


Grim Reaper should be in Late Age Ermor


I was thinking about that. I settled on "early" because (a), I'm playing EA Ermor in a MP game now, and kind of felt the nation "needed something" because it produces lots of death mages, but all its good troops were "living" so none of the really useful death-oriented ritual or battlefield spells can be used without shooting yourself in the foot. Second, I kind of like the idea of the EA Ermor story where they are "transitioning to a new faith", embracing a clear ideal of Death.

However, if most players think I've made the wrong call on the nation assignment of any of the Pretenders, just let me know. Some of the decisions were kind of arbitrary.

[Aeshi]

Oh all right then

[Shovah32]

I think the reaper would make a nice addition to all 3 ermors.

[Psientist]

I'm not sure it's possible to add a single pretender to more than one nation, without creating mulitple Pretender "clones'. I guess that wouldn't be so hard either, would it?

[Psientist]

Version 1.5 now posted.

- Fixed Teratos Rex size, should trample with the best of them now.
- Reduced movement of grim reaper by 1 (seemed excessive).
- Added new "Monkey King" pretender to Kailasa, Bandar Log and Patala ages based upon Chinese/Malaysian "Sun Wukong" fable.
- Added Grim Reaper to all ages of Ermor.

Considering making a "Kong" SC pretender for Kailasa.

[Aeshi]

Small Suggestion:The Teratos Rex looks a bit silly with his current colours (A purple dinosaur?!) could you make him green?He'd look a lot better in my opinion

[Psientist]

That's probably reasonable. I wasn't really going for a Barney effect.

[Sombre]

[singing purple thunder lizard] I stomp you, you curse me, we are one big family -stomp stomp bite- [/singing purple thunder lizard]

[Aeshi]

Thanks.I might use him then without all my lizardmen thinking "why are we worshipping a barney-gone-wrong dinosaur?"

[Psientist]

Version 1.52 uploaded.

Changes:
- New "Fallen Angel" pretender, with custom graphics based upon the original Fallen Angel image.
- Teratos Rex no longer looks like Barney.
- 2 new Blood Spells:
#name "Lure Visitor"
#descr "This spell lures a Visitor from beyond and binds it with the living silver cords of many blood slaves to serve the caster. Horrors can be powerful guardians against horrors attracted to a horrormark."

#name "Diabolic Brigade"
#descr "The caster sacrifices many blood slaves, and receives the service of a brigade of lesser demons."

- And a few minor playability / balancing tweaks.

[Shovah32]

Is the visitor meant to be a regular unit and the same guy that is summoned through the rlyeh void gate? if so he costs too much.

[Aeshi]

The Teratos Rex looks really good.

[noname]

The "desire" unit requires stealth in order to use seduction, but she doesn't have stealth.

[Psientist]

Yes, the Visitor is the same as summoned through the void gate, and it's a Unique. I guess it's a little pricy, but I found it to be pretty tough in combat even against horrors and the like.

Good point on the Desire pretender. I was hoping it would still work, say, in the case of a sieging army on the same province. Originally I had stealth turned on, but then I decided, how can the goddess of lust and beauty go unnoticed?

I'll take opinions - should there be no seduction, or should she also be stealthy?

Thanks on the compliments. I was much happier with my original art for the Grim Reaper and the Fallen Archangel though...

[noname]

She has to be stealthy in order to seduce. As for the seduction ability... she wouldn't be much of a desirous figure if she couldn't seduce(tbhe seduction of the succubus, Nagini, Oread, and Rakshasi is stealth-based, and we don't think they're any less beautiful.) It might also make sense for her priestesses to have the seduction ability, which will be revealed if the "gift of reason" spell is used on them. Also, even if the seduction fails, she is still an awesome assassin, with the ability to stop almost all concievable commanders with the "enslave mind" ability. What is the "Desire"'s seduction level anyway? And her priestesses?

I'm planning on making a mod of my own, one with several units with the seduction ability. Do you mind if I modify the "Desire" unit of yours?

[Psientist]

Great suggestions! I'll stealthify Desire, and make sure that the priestesses have the seduction capability too (hidden), although they might already.


I'm planning on making a mod of my own, one with several units with the seduction ability. Do you mind if I modify the "Desire" unit of yours?



Knock yourself out, it's for everybody's fun.

G

[jutetrea]

I love the Panto pretender, but feel like I'm cheating if I'm playing him. Are his costs correct at 200? Flying, immortal, fire shield, high HP, awe +0, 1F1A2W1E3S, path 20? He's all good with no negatives, makes a rockin SC with a few items and starts out with 23 research base. Not to mention the fetters...

I'm a huge fan of combat passives

If the cost isn't correct (no idea how to calculate it), could you add something similar but more rules-fair?

Awesome mod btw

[Cor]

what happens if a commander fails at seduction and enslaves a non stealth commander? Would they both be exposed and have to fight the an army alone?

If that is the case it might not be a good idea for Desire to have both.

[noname]

But if the desire takes the commander back to the capital as soon as the seduction works, there's no need to worry about stealth, remember, it already works this way with the succubus, who is able to seduce non-stealth commanders and escape without any problems.

[Sombre]

It's very hard to balance the point costs of pretenders. You have to remember that the inherent points cost is insignificant compared to the magic paths, path cost and dominion strength of the gods. The Lord Of War, despite having a crappier cheaper body than the cyclops is actually more expensive if you go for earth magic, because the cyclops starts off with more of it - more of a difference than the inherent points cost suggests.

So don't be afraid of tuning this value waaaay up on powerful pretenders - it just forces people to take them asleep, sacrifice some scales, have less insane magic etc.

[Psientist]

Yeah, sombre's points are on the money. It's tough to balance a Pretender's starting cost to what it would cost to beef up their magic to a comparable level. As a sort of SC rainbow pretender, I like him as an unpredictable and power AI pretender. But, as before, I'll happily take suggestions - 200 is one of the most expensive Pretenders already. Is 300 too much?

[jutetrea]

For his benefit I don't really think so, it really feels like he's cheating http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I've never done the calcs before so I'm curious.

Chassis
Flying - ?
Fire Shield - ?
Immortal - ?
Old Age - (-?)
Domain 3 - ?
Fetters - ?
No Eat - ?
20% PR - ?
Medium to good stats
Say 100? No real clue.. Maybe 150?



20 per path
1F - 20
1A - 20
1W - 20
1E - 20
3S - 20 + 16?
1Random - 0 +8?
124

So maybe 250-275ish?

[Taqwus]

Might also be noted that all pretender types cost the same when Wished...

[Sombre]

Although Wish is hardly a huge balance consideration is it?

[Wish]

though these are pretty great ideas, one should note that no pretender starts with more than 3 magic divided among whatever paths.

given that the kings/queens and the pantokreator (or however its spelled) are WAY overpowered.

why is crushbite armor negating? the reaper probably shouldn't have awe. (maybe more fear though)

[Taqwus]

Sombre said:
Although Wish is hardly a huge balance consideration is it?



Depends on map size, victory conditions, and availability of magic sites. If there's a lot of time for research and building up clams, and enough territory per nation to provide the gem income to bootstrap the clam machine... if it's a much better deal than wishing for a Seraph, there's a potential issue.

[Psientist]

I'll make some adjustments on the next update.

[Psientist]

Latest update.

Version changes:
- price balancing for the Pantokrator and Grim Reaper
- new spells!
Lure Visitor (Blood): summons a Visitor (unique)
Diabolic Brigade (Blood): summons a small troop of imps.
Feeding Frenzy (Water): underwater equivalent of "swarm"
Summon Man O' War (Water): underwater equivalent of
"raise dead", really
Shards of Hastur (Astral): area-effect paralyze
- Tweaks for previously mentioned Pretender summon units for Gift-Of-Reason surprises.

[Psientist]

Also, a graphic of what the Fallen Archangel pretender looks like. Custom modification of one of the default graphics.
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/510527-fallen.gif

[Sombre]

That looks niiiiice.

Forgive me if the moslist is a bit behind right now. Busy busy.

[jutetrea]

Don't want to install it yet, still having fun "cheating" with the old Panto http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif What were the major changes to him, I see you raised the cost to 300 which is good, anything else?

Love the spells listed, anyone try shards yet? Overpowered? What's the AOE?

[Psientist]

AOE: 665

I"m sure I had a reason for that in playtesting. Feedback always welcome.

Here are some gifs of my next spell summon; I thought that blood magic could benefit from being able to summon at least one amphibious demon type, so here is my custom sprite graphic for a demon-toad! He'll be built into the next version of the mod, and I envision his strength somewhere in the ballpark of the Heliophagii.


http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/511065-toaddemon.gif

[Sombre]

That looks friggin solid. Is it going to have trample to represent the swallowing of small enemies?

I really like that the different modders on this forum all have their own visual style.

[Psientist]

He's going to be a huge-ungous swallower! With some earth, blood, water magic, but basically a combatant I think. hadn't decided on the trample yet, whether or not that fit. Could be sort of a death-hop thing...

[Sombre]

I just thought trample would be a good way to represent an ability to gulp up things smaller than himself. It's pretty much insta-death for even heavily armoured units, so it makes sense for a giant demon cane toad :]

Poison cloud might be fun too.

[Amos]

I just thought trample would be a good way to represent an ability to gulp up things smaller than himself.



Swallow weapon does just that.

[Sombre]

Oh. Hadn't noticed the swallow weapon. I just thought they used trample for stuff like this, ala the jaguar toad. Guess not.

[Psientist]

haha, I was thinking of a poison cloud / cane toad thing too. There's one attribute that does a poison-when-hit thing, I thought that might fit.

[Psientist]

OK, I decided to rush the next version, since I realized that some of the spells in v1.52 were still set in "playtesting" mode (e.g., dirt cheap).

Version 1.60 fixes the spell research, fatigue and casting levels for Trap Visitor and Shards of Hastur. It also adds the Blood spell (and unit) "Bind Toad Demon" (per my previous post).

[HoneyBadger]

Just a suggestion: You might consider naming him something a little more "latiney" instead of just calling him a "demonic cane-toad" just to give it that extra demon-feel. Not that there's anything wrong with "demonic cane-toad", it's just a bit anti-climactic, maybe?

[Psientist]

lol, I considered that, but was drawing a blank. Since the demon toad isn't a strong unique like the heliphagii or the archdevils, I thought a "generic" name (e.g. "fiend") would be sufficient. If inspiration strikes, I'll rename!

[Sombre]

Although I haven't tested this, looking at the TGA files in the most recent update many of them don't have magneta shadows and aren't on black background. Do they actually show up properly in dom3? I would have thought that a white background would make them look like walking 2d paintings.

[Psientist]

well, as long as the sprites have been properly alpha masked, the only difference the background would make is what the foreground edges were antialiased against (and even then, not so much depending on how the masking was done). I like to use grey as a neutral background so that it gives minimal artifacts against either white or black or color terrain backgrounds, but I guess it's up to the players to let me know if my theory worked.

As to the shadows... I purposely left out the ground shadows on a couple of units, but I might have just missed some by error I guess. My default method for the shadows is to not have any foreground color for them, but just a 50% alpha mask where the shadow is supposed to be, so that whatever the terrain background is gets partially darkened. Again, that was my theory, it seemed to work out in the few tests I specifically looked for it. Let me know if not though.

[Psientist]

OK, I've uploaded major update to my Mytheology mod. Changed the version # to 2.0, because the latest version includes a whole bunch of new spells and a bunch more new gods. The game notes / description are all up on the beginning of this thread, as well as the file for download.

[Psientist]

Special special thanks to DrPraetorius for his spell bitmasking efforts. His work made most of my mod possible.

At any rate, here are some gifs of a couple of the new pretenders added in v2.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/533100-tbirdegg.gif

[Sombre]

Simply an excellent mod -thumbsup-

[Endoperez]

Monkey King, and probably many other old pretenders, have two heads. This is due to a bug whose effects were noticed (halved head protection), but the fix only worked to make the problem more apparent. You'll have to rework the bodyslots numbers to fix this.

Also, at least for me, the Monkey King (of MA Bandar Log and LA Patala) has wrong graphics. It seems to use the attack sprite of one of the new units in 1800s. It is also missing its description. Tarrasque of EA Marverni is also using the same mis-sprite, but it appears to have its description intact. The bug/problem appears to be linked to copying player-made units. Also affected are MA Caelum Great Egg and Thunderbird.


Some pretenders are horribly overpowered. Fallen Angel of LA Marignon has F4D3S3B3 AND Holy 2. It costs just 150 points... Giving Baphomet the same levels of magic costs 62 points MORE, and Baphomet is immobile and starts with two of the four paths Fallen Angel has... And Baphomet isn't flying, immortal flier with all slots available either! Not to mention that the Fallen Angel can bless itself! Symbol of Unchallenged Victory indeed! And the Djinn... Any pretender that can give Marignon five level 9 blesses is overpowered. F9A9S9E9 X9 takes all your points, but it shouldn't be possible. You can have F9A6E4S4 with an awake pretender and net positive scales!
On the other hand, Desire is useless. 18 hp on a seducer/assassin unit ensures her death. I didn't check out her summons, or if she has a temporary second form but she CAN'T be used as a seducer as per her primary form's stats. It'd be suicide.

Speaking of suicides, I gather Lord of the Plague Wind is supposed to only be used as either dormant or imprisoned...



EDIT: Also, the mod descriptions doesn't work because several pretenders use #description instead of #descr. The latter is for monsters, the former for the whole mod. #description works, because Dominions interprets it as #descr, some unnecessary stuff, "description of the unit" AND #description "description of the unit" at the same time.


EDIT2:

I'd like to add that I like some pretenders. Pantokrator might not be balanced, but I like the idea, and the outcome isn't too far from what I'd imagine myself. The Great Egg is excellent. It's just that there are many, many problems with the mod...

[jutetrea]

Love this mod,

Can't wait to try out the spells (which all sound great btw)

Yes there may be probs (haven't tried out this new version yet), but all in all its a fantastic mod. I'd love to see a version balanced for MP eventually as well.

I'll update when I get a chance to test it out.

[Psientist]

Thanks Endo. Most of the pretenders I haven't tested on 3.08 (only on earlier versions), and I hadn't seen any of the bugs you mentioned. I'll take your advice, however, and post a fix as soon as I can, probably next week (deadlines loom!).


On the other hand, Desire is useless. 18 hp on a seducer/assassin unit ensures her death. I didn't check out her summons, or if she has a temporary second form but she CAN'T be used as a seducer as per her primary form's stats. It'd be suicide.


Part of that is intentional, I thought it would be theme-appropriate that a goddess of beauty isn't well suited for battle. She can summon Priestesses with lesser levels of her powers, which while also frail, made an interesting addition to battles in my tests.



Some pretenders are horribly overpowered. Fallen Angel of LA Marignon has F4D3S3B3 AND Holy 2. It costs just 150 points...


This is my biggest design weakness. I have a hard time getting the point / power balance down for MP, and MP play is what I've always had in mind. Mostly, i rely on feedback from others in the forum to help balance that out, I'm really open to any and all balancing suggestions. I've seriously increased the point costs of both the Pantokrator and the Grim Reaper due to posts on the forum. If there was some sort of general "formula" for cost/magic/special ability assignment, I'd be all over it. Something like

total magic levels x20
plus 40 x each special ability (summons, gems, etc)
plus 1 for each attribute point (HP, strength, prot, etc.)
= recommended Pretender cost, rounded up

Or some such (I haven't really worked out the numbers obviously).

Endo, thanks for the constructive feedback. Jute, Sombre, ditto for the compliments.

[Endoperez]

Level 3 in one path: 50 points
levels 2 in one path: 25 points
level 1 in one path: 10 points
no magic: -50 points

dominion 1: - 10 points
dominion 2: 0 points
dominion 3: 20 points
dominion 4: 50 points

pathcost 10: 30 points
pathcost 20: 20 points
pathcost 50-60: 0 points
pathcost 80: -25 points

size 2 body (10 hp, etc): -30 points
size 3-4 body (Virtue, PoD): 0 points
size 5-6 body (Asynja, Titans): 60 points
monster body (Dragon, Wyrm): 80 points

full slots: 0 points
extra slots: 20 points/slot
missing one or two slots: -30 points
missing most slots: -50 points

immortality: 30 points
special abilities (immunity or 2 50% resistances, regeneration, amphibious, flight): 10 points /ability
negative abilities (old age, magic being): -10 points/ ability
inanimate: -30 points and no body cost


Phoenix: Fire 1 (10 points), Air 1 (10 points), size 2 body (-30 points), immortality (30 points), flight (10 points), fire immunity (10 points): 40, 50 in game


Forge Lord: Fire 1 (10 points), Earth 1 (10 points), size 6 body (60 points), fire immunity (10 points), forge bonus (10 points), dominion 3 (20 points): 120, 125 in game

Dragon: fire 2 (25 points), monster body (80), flight (10), immunity (10), fear (10 points), restricted slots (-50), dominion 1 (-10), new paths 80 (-25 points): 50 points, 50 in game

Virtue: size 3 body (0 points), dominion 4 (50 points), air 2 (25 points), 2x 50% resistances (10 points), flight (10 points), awe (10 points), magic being (-10 points), newpath 80 (-25 points): 70 points, 50 in game

Great Enchantress: Earth 1 (10 points), Astral 1 (10 points), makes gems (10 points), pathcost 10 (30 points), human body (-30 points), dominion 1 (-10 points): 20 points, 55 in game

Master Druid: Nature 1 (10 points), stealthy (10 points), vine man/ogre summon bonus (10 points), pathcost 10 (30 points), human body (-30 points), dominion 1 (-10 points): 20 points, 35 in game

Crone: Death 1 (10 points), pathcost 10 (30 points), human body (-30 points), dominion 1 (-10 points), old age (-10 points), extra slots (2x20 points): 20 points, 0 in game

My formula doesn't work for rainbows.

Nataraja: size 6 body (60 points), extra slots (2x20 points), missing slots (-30 points), dominion 3 (20 points), pathcost 50 (0 points), no magic (-50 points): 40 points, 40 in game

Manticore: monster body (80 points), flying (10 points), poison immune (10 points), fear (10 points), pathcost 50 (0 points), no magic (-50 points), dominion 2 (0 points), missing most slots (-50 points): 10 points, 0 in game

Wyrm: monster body (80 points), amphibious (10 points), regeneration (10 points), poison immune (10 points), fear (10 points), dominion 3 (20 points), new paths 50 (0 points)no paths (-50 points), missing most slots (-50 points): 40 points, 50 in game

Solar Disc: Fire 3 (50 points), fire immunity (10 points), heat 13 (10 points) (lesser heat isn't good enough to count as an ability), flying (10 points), size 4 body (0 points), dominion 3 (20 points), new paths 50 (0 points), missing few slots (-30 points): 90 points, 75 in game

Prince of Death: Death 3 (50 points), cold immunity (10 points), fear (10 points), poison immunity (10 points), undead (-10 points), flying (10 points), size 4 body (0 points), dominion 3 (20 points): 100 points, 75 in game

Lord of the Sky: Air 3 (50 points), size 6 body (60 points), shock immunity (10 points), flying (10 points), dominion 3 (20 points): 150 points, same in game

it seems level 3 in a path is even more expensive I thought. 75 points for level 3 in one path.



This is a 5-minute guideline. Destroyer of Worlds - Nataraja difference of 125 points isn't here. Many size 5-6 pretenders with lesser magics are much cheaper in the game than this formula would make them cost.

Any way, let's check out some of your pretenders:

Pantokrator:
hps of a size 5 body: 60 points
Astral 3: 75 points
Water 2: 25 points
Fire 1, Air 1, Earth 1: 30 points
amphibious, flying, awe, fire shield, mapmove 4: 40 points
immortal: 30 points
old age: -10 points
dominion 3: 25 points
pathcost 20: 20 points
270 or 295 points, depending on if one uses the original or the corrected cost of level 3 path. Because the corrected gives almost the same result you had given him(295 and 300), it seems to work.

Grim Reaper:
Death 3: 75 points
amphibious, fear, poison immunity, etherealness, stealthy, blind, flying, mapmove 4, soul scythe: 90 points
immortality: 30 points
undead: -10 points
dominion 1: -10 points
pathcost 80: -25 points
150 points, your choice: 220
Your higher price is better, because he is ethereal, stealthy, enc 0, immortal flier with mapmove 4. He can kill any and all armies without specialized anti-Azrael mages anywhere near the capital in two turns, at max. He needs 10 gems of equipment, at most (body armor, perhaps amulet of luck). As for how the formula could be corrected to prevent such mistakes, etherealness is such a powerful ability that it could be given a price of 30 points as well.


Fallen Angel:
Fire 4: at least 75 points, perhaps 100
Death 3, Astral 3, Blood 3: 3x75 points
fear, fire immunity, sacred, flight: 40 points
recuperation: immortality also grants this, so free
immortality: 30 points
demon, magic being: -20 points
dominion 3: 25 points
pathcost 60: 0 points
375 or 400 points, depending on the cost of Fire 4. You've priced him at 150.


Morpheus:
size 2 body: -30 points
pathcost 30: perhaps 15 points
Air 4, Astral 4: 150 or 200 points, depending on if level 4 magic is 75 or 100 points
awe, glamour, precision 30: 30 points
magic being: -10 points
dominion 3: 25 points
180 or 230 points, depending on magics' price. You've priced him at 105.

Teratos Rex:
monster body: 80 points
fear, trample, berserk, siege bonus, recuperation, Crushbite: 60 points
Blood 1: 10 points
pathcost 70: -25 points
dominion 2: 0 points
total: 125 points, your price at 100
Crushbite is hideously powerful. It always hits (18 attack +10 weapon) and always deals 45 points of armor-piercing damage. Other monster pretenders don't have similar kill-em-all weapons of god destruction, and he also tramples all being he can't bite. It's not too bad because size 4-5 thugs and SCs can take him down.

Monkey King:
size 2 body: -30 points
dominion 1: -10 points
Air 1 Earth 1: 20 points
pathcost 20: 30 points
stealth, recuperation, mapmove 4, red feather cap, golden chain mail, gold band staff, copies: 70 points
total: 80 points, your price: 100 points
He's much tougher than normal humans, but not quite on the level of Virtue or PoD, so his body would be worth perhaps -10 points instead of -30. All his equipment is hideously powerful! +14 defense from both his helmet and his armor, and a ranged weapon with 8+str points of AP damage at range 50! 20 points of AP damage at that range for no fatigue is about as good as an Acid Bold: two targets instead of AoE 1, both are unresistable, both have special ability weakening the target (armor destruction/weakness). Very good in the beginning, less so after initial expansion, but still good against SCs in late game.

[Saulot]

Have to say, excellent and well-though post Endoperez. Your effort is appreciated, though I'd still like to hear from JK/KO, if they actually have a design & cost structure format. I have/saw somewhere a dom 2 modding guide for unit/commanders/mage costs, but something more comprehensive would be nice.

[Psientist]

Endo - that was very detailed. I had started making a spreadsheet to be consistent about all these things, and I'll incorporate your examples and post it to the forum tomorrow.
Thanks

[Endoperez]

Saulot said:
Have to say, excellent and well-though post Endoperez. Your effort is appreciated, though I'd still like to hear from JK/KO, if they actually have a design & cost structure format. I have/saw somewhere a dom 2 modding guide for unit/commanders/mage costs, but something more comprehensive would be nice.



AFAIK, there's no official pretender cost formula.

I'm glad that my quick formula seems to hold up. I just made some educated quesses and corrected it against few examples of various pretender classes, all directly to that post I made.

[Psientist]

Woot! I just got promoted to "sergeant".

Endo and all, check out my thread:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=533667&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

Hopefully I've created a consistent tool that incorporates your suggestions, plus a lot of additional detail.

I've used it to recost all my pretenders. i've also fixed all the bugs in the mod you guys pointed out. I think the 3.08 patch caused some new bugs (surprise), since the "messed up sprite" just showed up since 3.08, and had nothing to do with the actual Pretender's attributes.

Strangely, it seems to have something to do with some high-number pretender units that I think are in the new Tuatha nations, that seem to be "reserved" for some purposes.

For example, if I numbered my pretender's #shapechange alter to one of those numbers, the pretender wouldn't load. If, however, I changed the alter's unit number to something much higher... it would work. Even though the number is NOT in conflict with any other unit in my mod, and I don't have any other mods running.

Also, some pretenders would insist on showing that wierd titanic tuatha-looking warrior sprite no matter what until I changed the unit number for something very different. since it was a trial-and-error thing, it was very irritating to make it work.

At any rate, I also added a couple new pretenders and another new spell to my mod while I was going through the trouble, ending up with a pretty significant overhaul:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/534323-dragons.gif

[Psientist]

Oh yeah, all my custom magic armors - which worked fine before - now cause crashiness. I have removed them for now. Will post the update shortly.

[Psientist]

Oh, by the way, here is the picture of the unknown dude who likes to substitute for my pretenders. As Endo hinted, alot of the problems were caused by when I tried to #copystat a new modded pretender... but not all of them.
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/534365-whoisthisguy.gif

[Psientist]

I've uploaded 2.01 (go to the first post in this thread to download). It includes the following fixes / changes:

- new spell, Sea of Scarabs.
- redone sprite for the Shah of Djinn and Ifritt (below), which I was never happy with before.
- new pretenders: Black Dragon, Gold Dragon, Shadowcat
- repaired pretenders (never worked): Carrion Lord
- fixed pretenders (broken by 3.08 patch): Monkey King, Great Egg, Thunderbird, Grim Reaper, Treelord (now Yggdrasil)
- Weakened Fallen Angel and Shah of Djinn and Ifritt, which were stacking up magic levels from the original unit I was copying.
- Re-costed and rebalanced ALL PRETENDERs.
- Repaired Shards of Hastur... made it stronger (more battlefield affected), and fixed transposition which made it a water spell instead of astral. Oops.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/534366-newdjinn.gif

[Psientist]

Hey, I'm on a roll. Found another small bug due to "reserved" numbers, fixed it, and added five new spells which I think will add some interesting dimensions to the game: Runestone of Fortune, Runestone of Courage, Runestone of Faith, Runestone of Growth, Runestone of Peace (all self explanatory, pretty much).
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/534425-standingstones.gif

Maybe if I come up with some great ideas, I'll add to the list of potential standing stones, and maybe give them some slightly different shapes so they start looking sort of like a stonehenge in your army lineup!

[Endoperez]

What do the runestones do? Fortune - prevents misfortune as a Fortune Teller, or generates good events as Lady of Luck/Jade Emperor? Peace - Order?

I guess Faith increases dominion like Juggernaut, Growth increases Growth and Courage has a huge Standard effect.

[Saulot]

I just tried downloading v2.02 from the first post, and somehow I got v2.00 again.

[Psientist]

Hmm, OK, shall re-upload it.

[Psientist]

Version 2.03 uploaded.

New updates include 3 new pretenders (the Great Eyes), and much better-balanced and performing Menhirs (Runestones) as spells, and of necessity, as pretenders as well. Also added the Father of Medicine pretender, which although was a quicky I am very happy with!

The most recent version is downloadable from the first post in this thread.

Here are the pictures of the new pretenders. There are only 3 "Great Eye" pretenders (earth/water, air/fire, astral+astral), which actually look much better in the game than they do here; the Great Eyes can shapechange between forms.

And yes, I was of course influenced by the Eye of Sauron in the designing of the Great Eyes, although surprisingly (I suppose) Sauron wasn't the origin of the idea.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/535879-eyes.gif

[Frostmourne27]

Great mod!

I've looked at all the pretenders, and a couple of things stand out. The Angel of Death is precision 30. If I'm not mistaken, that's the highest in the game. Is that deliberate? I'm not quite sure why he'd be all that good an archer. Scythe swinging seems more his style. Most of the other pretenders are pretty cool. I can't seem to get the holy-requiring spells though. They simply don't show up anywhere, except for revelation, which shows up as a battle spell. I'm pretty sure its not supposed to be. They do however, sound pretty cool from the mod descriptions. One other thing: what happens if somebody summons a unique summon that has a similar/identical pretender?

[Shovah32]

The two great eyes that start with no magic have to buy fire/air or earth/water to get any advantage in their changed forms which is a little annoying(2x30 starting path cost for a start).

[jutetrea]

Just want to chime in, I'm really digging the new spells.

[Psientist]

Frosty said:

Great mod!

I've looked at all the pretenders, and a couple of things stand out. The Angel of Death is precision 30. If I'm not mistaken, that's the highest in the game. Is that deliberate? I'm not quite sure why he'd be all that good an archer. Scythe swinging seems more his style. Most of the other pretenders are pretty cool. I can't seem to get the holy-requiring spells though. They simply don't show up anywhere, except for revelation, which shows up as a battle spell. I'm pretty sure its not supposed to be. They do however, sound pretty cool from the mod descriptions. One other thing: what happens if somebody summons a unique summon that has a similar/identical pretender?



Thanks!
Precision 30... hmm, maybe a typo, I can't imagine why GR would need that. Not even very theme-consistent. I'll drop it on the next revision.

Most of the holy spells I've added are set up as rituals, and they show up in the commander menu. At least in my test games! I"m betting you are not seeing them because (a) your commander doesn't have enough Holy juice (most require Holy 2+), or they haven't been researched yet. I decided to make a number of those Holy spells, unlike the default (which are not rituals), researchable instead of research level 0, to make them show later in the game. "Revelation" would probably be safe to show immediately, however...

Regarding summons...
On my Menhirs (which are technically pretenders too, for a few, since I'm copystats-ing a couple pretenders to get their special effects). Gametesting shows no problem summoning multiple versions.

For "Trap Visitor".. Kind of cool actually. If you have the Visitor, and somebody casts the spell... they "steal" the Visitor from you.

Regarding the other summons, like Queen of the Sea / King of the Earth... Hmm. Good question, I haven't playtested casting the spell when the summons Pretender is in play. I *presumed* it would behave like when you cast "summon queen of the sea" too many times... e.g., nothing, the uniques are already in play. Anybody have any guesses?

[Psientist]

Shovah32 said:

The two great eyes that start with no magic have to buy fire/air or earth/water to get any advantage in their changed forms which is a little annoying(2x30 starting path cost for a start).




Dang, i never thought of the cost consequences of that; I merely thought of it as "bonus". however, as you state, to take minimal advantage of the bonuses you may as well just add 60 to the cost of the pretender. I guess that's another little tweak to add to the next revision.

That's kind of the problem with having a "work in progress" mod. Every time I have a playtested revision to put out, with all the little tweaks and fixes and balances to make the mod "just right", I usually come up with a few great ideas for new spells or pretenders and add them in at the same time. Which adds a new set of minor "irks" which require more fixes and tweaks and balances...

Maybe I should just declare "no more additions" at some point!

[Psientist]

Just want to chime in, I'm really digging the new spells.



Hey, thanks for the props. Feedback is what keeps me modding!

[Frostmourne27]

Psientist said:

Most of the holy spells I've added are set up as rituals, and they show up in the commander menu. At least in my test games! I"m betting you are not seeing them because (a) your commander doesn't have enough Holy juice (most require Holy 2+), or they haven't been researched yet. I decided to make a number of those Holy spells, unlike the default (which are not rituals), researchable instead of research level 0, to make them show later in the game. "Revelation" would probably be safe to show immediately, however...




Yeah, I saw that. For whatever reason however, they don't show up in the research tree that I can see. I can cast them now though, so I'm betting it was a lack of research. Does anyone know if spells with holy as the primary path show up in the spells list?

One other thing: the Fallen Archangel's description say it has daeth magic, but it has astral instead, and it's armed with a fist, and the sprite, well - its definitely _not_!

[Psientist]

haha!
I'll double check the FA's magic.
The "fist" weapon is a holdover from the #copystats, which acts a little funny about giving weapons to the new unit. I think I had figured a workaround, however, for getting rid of that "fist" problem.

[Frostmourne27]

I don't really object to the FA having fist as a weapon, its good enough as it is, but the sprite just doesn't go with fist as a weapon -- it looks like its wielding a wraithsword or a baneblade or something... Further FA problem: it's size two. I don't think its supposed to get trampled to death by minotaurs...

[Endoperez]

Dark Fire Sword of the Fallen Angel of the Reascendance, most probably.

The one workaround is to copystats unit, give it #weapon "nothing", then copystats the once copystatted unit.

[Taqwus]

Black Dragon in v2.03 appears to keep all standard-humanoid slots in dragon form. That's a good bargain for 20 design points. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Psientist]

Endo, I've found that when you #copystats a custom modded unit, sprites problems sometimes arise. I've had to go back and redo all my custom units since the last patch because of that.

keep those bug reports coming!

[Saulot]

I've refrained from commenting earlier, even though I've followed this mod through it's every draft, because I'm generally opposed to strongly shifting the game balance of the whole game in subtle ways that I don't fully understand all the consequences of, when I haven't yet mastered the vanilla game and all it's secrets. (I don't use CB for the same reason.)

Nonetheless, I think you deserve to hear that I think it's a very good mod, the graphics are quite nice and vivid, and some of the units are rather creative. The spells are interesting as well. (While I haven't actually played with it, I've looked at every sprite and read pretty much every line in the modfile.) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Frostmourne27]

Well; here's a little info on making pretenders out of unique summons. When nobody takes them as pretenders they seem to work fine, not sure what happens if someone does. They also don't get the pretender ability, which is good. However, they can no longer gain heroics, which isn't so nice. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif, unless of course that is a DOm3 change (I can't recall reading about it anywhere, but it seems possible)

[llamabeast]

That is indeed a dom3 change I think.

[Sombre]

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=546353&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

This guy has a problem with the feeding frenzy spell, but he posted in the wrong place, so I'm linking.

[Valandil]

Hey. The gold dragon has full slots, like the black dragon.
Furthermore, "Summon Toad Demon" creates a Gold Dragon.
Aurora Warriors is really really hard to cast- you need astral 10! And 10 pearls!

The Conj. 9 angel of death group summon doesn't have a commander, so they all rout immediately. Mortis Hora works fine though.

The Vastness pretender is maybe a bit TOO powerful...

[Psientist]

Ah, see that. Didn't come up as a morale issue in my playtesting; it should be modelled very closely to the summon dragonflies default spell, so I am not sure why "fish spam" should pose any more of a problem than "dragonfly spam"... but I'll give it a close check before I release my next update.

[Tyrian]

Thank Sombre

[Zargen]

I can't seem to find the fallen Archangel in the list for late marignon.

[Humakty]

Zargen, I found him in mid marignon.(??)
I couldn't find the gold dragon anywhere.

[jutetrea]

One spot the gold dragon shows up is the 77 blood slave frog summons. I think it was supposed to be a W3 or W4 mage (which would be great) but a naked, mundane dragon shows up.

Good stats, no magc, full slots....

[Valandil]

Its also a tien chi pretender (EA?)

[Psientist]

Sorry I've not been on the board in ages. Work.
Fixed the Toad Demon thingy and the dragons' slots. Did a bunch of game balancing, added a couple of major spells, and more pretenders, "the empress of assassins", Cthulu.

Here's what the new pretenders looks like; Mother of Assassins, Cthulu, and the Wraith King (also a summons):
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/617456-newpretenders.jpg
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/617456-newpretenders.jpg

[Psientist]

And here is the actual mod. Enjoy!