Mod thread- WH hordes of chaos

[Valandil]

Following discussion in the wahammer nations thread, I have decided to attempt a mod for actual use.

The Hordes of Chaos are malign, depraved, and destructive. From their fastnesses and gateways in the frozen north of the world, they raid and pillage other civilisations:
Longships from bleak norsca filled with bloodsoaked raiders, hunched sorcerors wielding dark magic from the gods themselves, black armored knights riding to the world's ending, and the hellspawned throngs of daemons.

The hordes of chaos worship the four gods of Chaos:
Tzeentch the manipulator, who weaves men's fates.
Nurgle the plague lord, bringer of decay.
Khorne the blood god, who dictates men's slaughters.
Slaanesh the dark prince of pleasure and pain.

Each member of the horde seeks to rise in the favour of the dark powers- to become a dread champion of chaos, and finally to ascend to immortality and daemonhood. Fortunately for the world, this path is paved with blood, and it may be the blood of other followers of chaos as well.

Only once in a thousand years does a champion arise with the favour of all four gods and the strength of body and mind to weld together the fractious hordes and unite them into glorious slaughter. That time has come.

The forces of chaos are powerful- marauders from the northlands conditioned by years in the harsh climes, and born into a life of battle march alongside the favoured of the gods, men of great stature with unearthly fires burning in their eyes.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Essentially, there are three aspects of a chaos horde: Mortals, Beasts, and Daemons.
The recruitable units will be solely mortals, such as might be found in the north. Sorcerors and champions will be able to call forth daemons as the war progresses.
(Any tips on the inclusion of beasts would be welcome)

__________________________________________________ _________

[Valandil]

Part One: The Recrutable Mortals of Chaos
(or: Why Elenian Hates Making Sprites)

Marauder
WH- WS4 BS3 S3 T3 W1 I4 LD7 M4
LOTS of options.

Dominions- Att 12 DEF 10 Str 11 Hp 10 Ap 12 Prec 9 MR 9 Mor 10. Wasteland survival.
<<Axe+Shield/Axe+Javelin/Flail>> Light Armor.
Medium infantry specialising in brutal assaults, Marauders are the only 'weak' troops available. They are nonetheless above-average humans, and are decently well equipped.
[no notes here, these are basically easy to do]

Marauder Horsemen
WH- WS4 BS3 S3 T3 A1 W1 I4 LD7 M9

Dominions- Att 12 DEF 10 Str 11 Hp 10 Ap 22 Prec 9 MR 9 Mor 10
<<Axe+shield+throwing axe>> Light Armor.
Decent horsemen, medium cavalry with axes. Ride ahead of the main force souting and pillaging.
(Notes: I cannot draw horses in gimp. Pillage bonus or survivals)

Warriors of Chaos
WH- WS5 BS3 S4 T4 W1 A1 I5 LD8
Dominions- Att 13 Def 12 Str 12 Hp 13 Ap 10 Mr 10 Mor 13 Prec 9
<<Sword+Shield,Greatsword,Halberd>>Heavy Armor
Combat Monsters with supreme stats and equipment. No longer normal humans, more comparable to abysians.

Chosen Warriors.
WH- WS5 BS3 S4 T4 W1 A2 I5 LD8
Dominions- Att 14 Def 13 Str 12 Hp 15 Ap 10 Mr 10 Mor 14 Prec 9 +SACRED
<<Claymore>>Chaos armor=really very heavy.
Ultraelites blessed by the dark gods with fanaticism and sealed suits of chaos armor.

--erm. Computer error. Will finish soon.--

[Sombre]

Regarding the beasts - there's plenty of room for a Beasts of Chaos nation based on the Warhammer army list of the same name and the earlier Beastmen army books.

Feral Harpy
Ungor
Gor
Bestigor
Beast Chariot
Minotaur
Dragon Ogre
Chaos Troll
Chaos Centaur

etc etc. Sort of like a Chaos version of Pangaea. Lots of blood, death and nature magic, along with some stuff from the 4 powers.

But the Hordes of Chaos should get Chaos Warhounds I think, since they are associated with marauders, not beastmen.

I like the stats on the marauders - a basic att value of 12 seems right for Chaos, who are supposed to be the undisputed masters of melee. I think I'd give the marauders another 1 or 2 hp though, they only have toughness 3, but their large northern frame could account for an extra point or so. Skaven have toughness 3 and str 3 as well, but are clearly smaller and weaker - in dom3 you get more values than in Warhammer, so you can represent these differences - I gave them str 9 and hp 9.

As for the chaos warriors - WS5 is very rare and very high in Warhammer (amongst basic troops) and I would give them at least 14 att. By the time they become chaos warriors they are starting to become more than human, so they don't need to be limited by the general Dom3 stats of elite troops having att13 or so.

[Valandil]

Computer seems to have recovered from it's illness, so I here go aagain.

You are right about choas warriors being superhuman, but, well... Chaos lords are WS8! That would be 22 on a linear scale 5=14... Also swordsmasters, if you or I ever get around to high elves...

Perhaps you are right about marauders having a bit more hp than normal people. What is your stance on pillage bonus or sailing for marauders? Horsemen?

AM i right in incluing chosen of the gods as sacreds? Should I bother with chosen knights? (Given my equine drawing limitation?*)

Can you think of a way to 1) limit the numbers of chosen and 2) add some weakness to chaos. As represented in the rules, Chaos has brutal troops, some decent fodder, powerful magic, monsters, and even a BIG cannon.
____________________

*See, I draw all my sprites from scratch in GIMP.
_________________________________
Chaos Knights:
Warhammer-
WS5 BS- S5(*) T4 W1 A1 I5 LD8 M8
Chaos steeds, it should be noted, are S4
Dominions-
ATT 14 DEF 13 Str 14 Hp 14 Mr 10 MOr 13 Prec 10
<<Sword+Shield>>Heavy armor.

Chosen Knights:
WS5 BS- S5(*) T4 W1 A2 I5 LD8 M8
Chaos steeds, it should be noted, are S4
Dominions-
ATT 15 DEF 14 Str 15 Hp 16 Mr 10 Mor 14 Prec 10
<<Sword+Shield>>Chaos armor. SACRED

Warhounds of Chaos
Att 13 Def 11 Str 13 Hp 12 Mr 8 Mor 8 Prec 4 AP 18
<<Bite>>
[Note: needs abilities to make worth recruiting]

What about chariots? cultists? I have 11 recurtables as it stands.

[Valandil]

Leaders of Chaos-
This is where it all descends into ruin

Champions of the dark gods-
Aspiring champion.
Att 15 Def 14 Hp 15 Str 15 Mor 15 Mr 10. Ld 40.
<<Flail>>
(seriously considering 25% SS chance to represent mark of tzeentch)

I'm ignoring Exalted Champs, since they'd be useless.

Lord of Chaos.
Att 17 Def 16 Hp 20 Str 16 Mor 16 Mr 11 Ld 80.
Standard 10. <<Greatsword>>
(seriously considering 25% SSS chance to represent mark of tzeentch)


Sorceror of Chaos
As chaos warrior, except
FD? ?is 110% FDWB

<B is all that's needed to start a blood economy of khorne daemons. There are no tzeentch sorcs, hence no astral (See Aspiring Champ) Death is Nurgle, Fire is fire, Water is slaanesh and the chill of the north.>

Exalted Sorceror of Chaos
As chosen warrior, minus sacred.
FFD? ?is 210% FDWB

Shaman of Chaos
As marauder, but H1, 10%N1

(What else?)
(Need a scout)

[Sombre]

Pillage bonus sounds good. As for sailing,.. most of the marauder tribes are land based, up in the extreme north around the chaos gate at the pole. Only the norse just north of the old world seem that interested in sailing.

I think Chosen should be sacreds, yeah. Chaos are a pretty religious nation all things considered, since the Four Powers are a part of every day life.

Technically, Chaos should get a Chaos Warrior Chariot and a marauder chariot. I think just the chaos warrior one would be fine. As for cultists,.. I say leave them. That was the old chaos before they brought in the idea of the northern lands being rife with tribes of excellent fighters rather than fodder humans.

I think Knights are a must for Chaos. If you have trouble drawing horses, just use a horse sprite from the game as a base - the sprites were made available by K O recently, including attack sprites, so just find a random cavalry unit from there and heavily modify it to get a nice chaos steed (with extra powerful hoof attack).

I guess the 2 big weaknesses of chaos are the high cost of their stuff (if you leave out cultists) and their lack of missile weapons. This translates fairly well into dom3 I think.

[Valandil]

Obviously they need knights. I was merely wondering about TWO types: chosen and otherwise.

Missiles are definetly going to be absent, save for some horsemen throwing axes and tzeentch daemons.

If you're a warhammer player, you no doubt realise that steeds ALWAYS kill more enemies than the knights. Hence, I agree with increasing the power of chaos hoofs.

Warhounds? Why build them?

[Sombre]

Warhounds can be an auto spawn/summon allies troop of the more Marauder-esque leaders. You could also have them spawned by a Marauder scout of some kind and give them stealth - they'd be the only mundane chaos stealth troops then.

I think variety is good when it comes to chaos. If they have a large number of recruitables that's not a big problem - chaos are a pretty varied army thanks to the 4 different powers. As long as the graphics don't need to be hugely different it doesn't take that long to give Chosen extra fancy helmets, or glowing swords or banners or whatever, so why not have both types?

[Sombre]

I'm really looking forward to seeing pink horrors turn into 'units' of two blue horrors when killed, by the way. It'll look great and work great in dominions.

[Valandil]

Fair Enough.

As of right now, I've finished the sprites (attack and normal) for

Chaos Warrior with great weapon
Chaos Warrior with Halberd
Marauder Horsemen (Based on a Tien Chi Daimyo, thankss Sombre)
Sorceror
Fury
Bloodletter


Only fifty something left. P.

[Sombre]

Post a preview so we can all criticise them and complain about them being the wrong size / too cartoony / too dark / too brightly coloured.

You know you want to ;]

[Valandil]

Umm. Well. Since you put it that way.
Oh. 'Too dark' is an understatement. And I'm NEVER finished, so don't think this is final.

Thy'll be up an about 30 minutes

[Valandil]

WOO!

[Sombre]

I think those look great, with my only minor concern being that the chaos warriors and the bigger guy appear to be standing front facing the viewer, whereas most units in dom3, including the horseman and so on, are pretty much side on. They'd look great on the recruitment screen, but might be a bit strange on the battlefield. The style of them is nice though and has a gritty feel to it that suits Warhammer.

On a more positive note, the fury and the disc riding fellow are particularly cool :]

[Valandil]

The disc riding fellow is a changebringer of tzeentch, and is absolutely the second coolest daemon in warhammer, following the daemon chariot of tzeentch.

You are right about the warriors, and I might fix them.
I've got a bloodletter and some marauders done too, but they'll be in my next update.

[Valandil]

FInished a lord of change, which is quite pretty. WIll be away from coming sunday for four weeks, will probably finish thirteen deays after that, given current progress. .DM will take another 3-4 days before beta test. Looking at 7 weeks.

[llamabeast]

Thirteen days eh? That's precision estimation.

[Valandil]

Hmm. Actually, I chose thirteen because
1) it's the sacred number of the horned rat,
2)Let plog(gx) denote the discrete logarithm according to the prime number p, i.e., the number l modulo p − 1 such that
Then 13 is the only prime number p such that for any two primitive roots g and h,
3)Thirteen is the fifth lucky number.
4)The atomic number of aluminium is 13
5)There are 13 zodiac constellations, which consist of the 12 signs in the astrological zodiac and Ophiuchus.
6)The number of participants at the Last Supper was 13
7)In Tarot decks, the #13th card of the Major Arcana is Death.
8)The legion with which Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with was the Legio XIII Gemina
9)In egyptian mythos, there are 13 steps between life and death
10)MEtatron's cube is bmade up of 13 circles
11)It's pretty important to the states:
The number of original colonies the United States was founded from. The original flag had thirteen stars, one for each state. New stars have since been added whenever a new state joins the union, but the idea of adding stripes for new states was soon dropped, so the American flag to this day has thirteen horizontal stripes: six white ones and seven red ones.
The Great Seal of the United States has:
13 levels of the truncated pyramid,
13 letters in "E Pluribus Unum", which appears in the banner running through the eagle's beak on the right side of the bill's reverse.
13 letters in the phrase "Annuit Coeptis", which appears over the pyramid on the left side of the bill's reverse.
13 stars above the Eagle,
13 leaves on the olive branch,
13 olives on the olive branch,
13 arrows held by the Eagle, and
13 bars on the shield.
The number of guns in a gun salute to U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine Corps Major Generals, and Navy and Coast Guard Rear Admirals Upper Half.
The Naval Jack of the United States has 13 stripes, 7 red and 6 white, the rattlesnake has 13 buttons on its rattle, and the motto "Don't Tread on Me" has 13 letters
12)There are thirteen steps leading up to the gallows
13)There are thirteen items in this list.

QED

[DigitalSin]

You forgot number 14 - The number 13 is driving me insaaaaaaaane http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[llamabeast]

Number 2 makes no sense!

[Valandil]

Umm. Ya.
THe equation editor stuff I did apparently doesn't copy into Firefox very well. Can you suggest a differentreason so I don't have to reduce it to twelve?

[DigitalSin]

My reason my reason !! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Valandil]

Leaving for France today. Might do some work there, probably not.

[Kristoffer O]

I love the disc of Tzeench.
Zoom - kazoom http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[lch]

llamabeast said:
Number 2 makes no sense!


See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13_%28number%29#Mathematics

[Noble713]

*bump* So what's the word on this?

[Yerevans]

hey this one seems great, let hope its alive

[Valandil]

Okay, okay. Fine. I'll finish it.

I really was hping you'd all forgotten, since I'm swamped with schoolwork right now, but I've still go the old stuff, and I'm willing to finish the mod. I'll write a Dm, since thats way easier than grpahics.

[Yerevans]

for graphics you can just put some placeholders for now, if you nedeed help with them i guess someone will be willing to lend a hand, i actually can, but i'm awful lol;)

[Valandil]

I'm reasonably capable of GIMPing, but I have to do everything from scratch (its psychological,) and I'm busy, and there doth be much work forthcoming. I have to finish about nineteen different daemons for summons alone.

[Autochthon]

Hmmm,

Frankly, if I were to do a WHFB Chaos game, i'd create factions by ethnicity rather than patron Power.

So, instead of the Khornate, Slaaneshi, Nurgling and Tzeenchian nations, i'd choose Norse, Kurgan, Beastman and Hung (I'm sure there are more).

But that idea starts to break down due to the fact that you can't mod your nation's mages to only have Paths and National Spells based off your Pretender http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Ah well...

[Valandil]

I am just doing a single mod for all the powers/tribes, since there is a hardlimit on active mods AFAIK, and It would be nice to run several warhammer mods together. I have done a .dm, and finished another marauder sprite, but it will take a while yet before, eg, all the daemon summons are done and with graphics. I also need a chaos lord, champion, chosen, another warrior, possibly a chariot, knights, and about seventeen daemons. Gurgle.

[Panpiper]

Valandil, with the release of Zepath's beautiful Warhammer map there is more call than ever for appropriate Warhammer nations. There is no Warhammer nation I am looking forward to more than that of Chaos. I would dearly love to see what you've got done with the mod to this point.

The graphics, while utterly crucial to a finished mod, are less important to me at this juncture than the mod stats and such itself. Is there any chance you could perhaps send me whatever mod nation *.dm file you might have prepared to this point? I would be most interested in perhaps finding placeholder graphics from the released sprite pack so as to tide things over while proper graphics are being prepared. This would give some of us the opportunity to playtest what might be ready in terms of stats and perhaps help flesh out the details. While I am not quite ready to handle building a full mod nation myself, I've gotten pretty handy at hacking and tweaking other people's mods (for my own SP amusement). I would love to be of some assistance.

[Valandil]

I lost a bundle in a computer mishap, but I have a really rudimentary dm and most graphics intact. I suppose I could send the .dm to you; or even finish it myself.

[Panpiper]

Valandil said:
I suppose I could send the .dm to you; or even finish it myself.



Either way works for me. Likely the best thing would be for you to spend just a bit more time with the DM to tweak it to your satisfaction, then send what you've got to me. I then would see if there was any more tweaking that I might be able to do to add yet more flavor. That done I would send it back to you for your approval (this is your mod). At that point, we might well have something people could play with, even though many graphics might be graphics from other units already in the native game.

My Email address is in my profile.

[Valandil]

Umm... sadly, tweaking will take a couple weeks, probably. I mean, there are about twenty different daemons to go through.

BTW, what about summoning khorne daemons? BLood seems apropriate, but then there would have to be a khorne sorc, which is totally illegal?

Also, I was thinking about just giving lords a chance for S3, to represent mark of tzeentch? After all, there are no Tzeentch sorcs either...

[Shovah32]

You could have a khornate champion with blood magic, but auto-berserk in battle so he couldn't cast.

[Panpiper]

Valandil said:
Umm... sadly, tweaking will take a couple weeks, probably. I mean, there are about twenty different daemons to go through.


Here we witness the difference between a hacker and an artist. You are an artist. A mod you create will be both beautiful and rich in variety. However we may have to wait, perhaps a long while. ;-) I am a hacker. I see the problem of twenty daemons and think, copy, paste * 20, hack * 20, tweak * 20, print. It wouldn't be pretty, there wouldn't be a whole lot of originality, but... ;-)

BTW, what about summoning khorne daemons? BLood seems apropriate, but then there would have to be a khorne sorc, which is totally illegal?


If you were doing a Khorne race mod, you would be absolutely correct. However you are not. You are doing a 'Chaos Undivided' race mod. It makes perfect sense to me to have but two or three generic Sorcerers of Chaos and make them potentially representative of all the four chaos powers.

Also, I was thinking about just giving lords a chance for S3, to represent mark of tzeentch? After all, there are no Tzeentch sorcs either...


If it were me doing the mod from scratch, I would have quite a selection of different commanders, given that there are four different powers in the same mod. For each of the four powers, there would be both a lord and a champion. Each would be representative of their respective powers, Nurgle having area effect disease 'weapons', Tzeentch having perhaps as you suggest S3, Khorne having awesome combat stats, and Slaanesh having "Enslavement" and "Enslave Mind" as bonus weapons. The difference between lords and champions would simply be that lords have superior leadership and champions have superior combat stats and poor leadership.

I would consider giving the lords H2 or 3 and making the champions merely sacred. However for racial point balance, I would also consider not giving Chaos any holy or sacred at all. I mean technically they are all fanatically 'holy' towards chaos, but rather than actually making them all holy, it would seem reasonable to me to simply assume their holiness attributes are already figured into their stats, appropriate for whichever of the four powers the unit is aligned.

The problem with balancing Chaos is that I see the individual chaos unit as being obscenely powerful relative to a corresponding native unit. If they can field sacred versions of those units, there could well be nothing that could stop them short of an army of SCs. Once can balance things only so far with gold and resource costs. Rather than make a chaos warrior cost something like 200 gold and 80 resources, I would rather keep the 'price' down to something a player could actually afford in at least small quantities and balance things by giving them no sacreds, but that's just my take.

By the way, for heroes I would create four individual Daemon Princes, each in turn representing each of the four powers, plus a single 'chaos undivided' daemon prince combining the best of all four. They would be immortal, have combat stats slightly superior to their respective champions, leadership stats the same as the lords AND, heroes would be the only sacreds I would give Chaos, each having H2. Perhaps also throw in a multihero Chaos Sorcerer with superior magic range and scope and a multihero daemon spawn (no leadership combat monster). (As an aside, the Slaanesh daemon prince I would create would have stealth and a good seduction (around 20). That would be one truly feared assassin.)

The handicap of zero holy (other than the heroes) might be too great a handicap as dominion kill would be a very serious problem. It might be necessary in multiplayer to allow for a marauder shaman to possess at least H1, just to at least have some minimal preaching ability. But the way I see the balance working is that Chaos has to exploit it's 'conventional' troop superiority to gain territory quickly, so the dominion effect of other gods is kept at bay. They should expect to almost always be fighting inside someone else's dominion.

[Valandil]

Actually, balancing chaos infantry isn't that impossible, really. Sure, they're lethal, but only about 40% more so than an empire swordswinger. Saurus warriors can mash them. The problem is that chaos has everything: elite infantry, REALLY elite commanders, fodder, monsters, summons (Although the fury is pretty weak, actually,) powerfull magic, apocalyptic cannons of doom, no old age problems, and even some free points from cold pref. Their dominon should actually be pretty fierce, from the number of cults tht tend to spring up- id expect stealthy preachers, honestly.

The trick to balancing them, I believe, is in speed. Make them really very slow to get armies together, research done, and such. I considered giving unreast causing effect to several troops, just to see how that effects the dynamic.

Now, supposing the great chaos incursion is defeated, it will take a long time for them to strike again- this is exactly appropriate. The problem is, the strike mustn't be unstoppable, or this would be irrelevant.

Bst way to kill them, I think, should be encirlcing the main army that they do have with fast flyers or somesuch, and then hitting it with serious battlemages until it routs. SCs wouldn't work too well, since, eg. A Lord of Change will eat any SC with violet fire.

[Panpiper]

It looks like you have your thinking well in hand. It's interesting just how different the take can be on chaos. Appropriate for chaos I suppose, eh? I am very much looking forward to this.

[Panpiper]

Giving some thought as to how to handle bloodletter and other Khorne daemon 'summoning' without Khorne having to use magic, which is unthematic, how about using 'domsummon'? Give the Lord of Khorne a domsummon2 for bloodletters and a domsummon20 for a bloodletter champion. The question then is how to handle something like the greater daemon summoning of a Bloodthirster. Here's the trick; give a domsummon20 to the summoned bloodletter champion that summons a Bloodthirster. If a player fields a dozen such lords of Khorne in the early game, it's a fair bet they'll net at least one Bloodthirster at some point mid game.

[Valandil]

hrm.
Anyone know if transformation could be modded? love the idea of "ascent to daemonhood," which would basically have a chance of daemonifying you, a chance of feeblemind, a chance of spawn, maybe others? Could make for a neat way to incorporate daemon princes.

[DigitalSin]

I doubt it. My experiments with trying to mod spells that chose from random lists ended in much fire and cursing and trying to sell my soul. Bad times.

[Valandil]

Too bad. I'll look into this soul-selling buisness though. Think I could sell someone else's too?

[DigitalSin]

Hmm... Are they a loved one? That could count.

[Panpiper]

"Chaos Undivided" is a race mod based on the Warhammer universe. It is a single mod that encompasses all four of the major chaos powers, as opposed to doing four separate race mods.

Chaos armor has been abstracted. Chaos armor is fused to the body to whom it has been granted, it becomes part of their body. It cannot be taken off nor can other armor be worn over it. Hence in this mod it is considered the equivalent of very tough skin. Those units that do not have a torso item slot have had chaos armor granted unto them. It does not encumber and costs no resource points. You will however notice that chaos armor equipped units invariably have rather high gold costs.

Revision log:

Version 0.11
Fixed an issue with capital only units being available everywhere.

Version 0.12
Added nametypes for Demon names.

Version 0.13
Radically altered the pretender, Archaon, and gave him appropriate graphics.

Version 0.14
Reduced poison cloud on Nurgle heroes. Added banner bearer summonable troop with appropriate national spell.

Version 0.15
Numerous small tweakages.
Removed priestly magic from all recruitable commanders except Chaos Cultist. Added level one priest magic to capital only Exalted Sorcerer. However also added Priest magic 3 to all five Daemon Prince heroes.
Added Lesser Daemons of Slaanesh and spell to summon them.

Version 0.20
Added a lot of extra names and made them fit the respective powers that the unit is affiliated with.
Increased the gold cost of the Lords by 50 to 250 as the increased combat power of their chaos steeds is worth at least that over the steedless champions.
All Demons planned are now in the mod (Nurgle Plaguebearers, Nurglings, Daemonettes, Daemonettes on Steeds of Slannesh, Pink Horrors of Tzeentch, Blue Horrors, Screamers, Bloodletters, Bloodletter Champion, Flesh Hounds, Chaos Furies, Great Unclean One, Keeper of Secrets, Lord of Change & Bloodthirster). It is largely complete now except for graphics, tweaking and balancing. Some Tzeentch combat spells should still get designed.

Version 0.21
Added ritual spells for summoning Bloodletter Champions and Unreasoned Champions (actually both just tougher troops with which to shore up the troop line).

Version 0.22
Corrected "Gift of Chaos" ritual spell. It was summoning the wrong unit.

Version 0.23
The "Gift of Khorne" summoning ritual now summons a bloodletter commander instead of a troop.
Painted proper sprites for standard chaos warriors (x3), chosen chaos warriors, chaos knights, chosen chaos knight, unreasoned champion, and improved the chaos chariot.

Version 0.24 *Save game breaker!*
There is no longer a 'Chosen Chaos Warrior' unit. Instead there are now four sacred, capital only chosen chaos warrior units, one for each of the powers. Appropriate sprites were painted. Collect the whole series! ;-)

Version 0.25
The four champion commander units for the four powers now have sprites that are vastly more appropriate (scaled up 'chosen warrior' sprites). These are still technically placeholders, as it would be nice for the actual champions to be even more thematic.

Version 0.26
Removed a useless shapechange ability from Champions of Tzeentch (a holdover from a previous experiment).
Fixed a crash bug caused by a spelling error when the Sorcerer of Chaos Undivided hero showed up. Also improved the sprite.
Added summoning spells for each of the four powers to summon a champion level 'troop' appropriate to their allegiance.

Version 0.27
Added proper sprites for Daemonettes and Daemonettes on Steeds of Slannesh. It took me hours to get them looking decent but when I saw their effect on the battlefield, it was a hypnotizing as they are supposed to aught.

Version 0.30
Thank you Humakty for the crucial playbalance feedback.
Lowered resource cost on Marauder infantry.
Basic Chaos warrior gold cost increased to 30. Most all other Chaos troop gold cost increased by as much as 50%.
Basic sorcerer gold cost reduced by 10. Exalted increased by 50. Commander champion costs increased by 50. Lords increased by 100!
Reduced gem cost of "Lesser Summoning of Tzeentch" (Screamers) to 5 and it's research level by one. Increased attack rating of Screamers by 2.

Version 0.31
I'm not sure how it happened, I could have sworn it was working before, but somehow "Imbue Chaos' was summoning a Bloodthirster instead of doing the Gift of Reason thing. Fixed.
Finalized sprites for Chaos marauders, marauder flails, and marauder horsemen.

Version 0.32
Added a basic recruit anywhere chaos warrior flail & shield unit. Now there are four basic chaos warriors to go along with the four 'chosen' capital only sacreds, the four champions and the four lords. Very appropriate. Four times four.
Added a small chaos symbol to all units carrying shields.

Version 0.33
Tweaked the basic Chaos warrior recruitables to make them more thematic of the four powers. Slaanesh got a +1 defense, Tzeentch a +1 Magic Resist, Khorne a +1 strength and Nurgle got poison resistance, so now you can have regular troops along with your Nurgle commanders without your Nurgle commanders killing off your regular troops. Changed the Khorne regular Chaos Warrior to use a battleaxe instead of a greatsword (more appropriate for Khorne).

Version 0.34 *Save Game Messer Upper. Won't break, but old Lords of Tzeentch will be downgraded.*
All four Lords now have proper sprites. The Lord of Tzeentch curtesy of Valandil. The lords have been rather extensively tweaked and may in fact now be imbalanced. I could use comments on their current design and gold cost.

Version 0.40
Gold costs again increased, this time on all sacred units possessing chaos armor. However all sacred units now possess 'heal' (rids afflictions), this as opposed to giving everyone poison resistance. Previously it was effectively impractical to ever mix Nurgle commanders with any but Nurgle followers. Now at least the sacreds can cope with the after effects.
Province defense beefed up a tad for 20+. Changed defending commanders to first cultist, then basic sorcerer.
Banner Bearer fear effect reduced to 'fear +0'. Increased summoning (creation) cost to 10 bloodslaves.
All 'Gift' spells now summon the same unit, a single strong mainline sacred troop with zero maintainance cost. They are essentially a way to use 'excess' gems to shore up the troops.
Greater Demons and their summoning spells tweaked.
Gave a +2 research bonus to Exalted Sorcerers, as their cost was otherwise too crippling to research.
Lord of Tzeentch is now as good a caster as the Exalted Sorcerer but with emphases on Astral which the Sorcerer does not possess. (Sorcerers tend to have higher fire than Lords of Tzeentch, chances for water which Lords do not have and much better chances at blood magic.)
First draft of the Tzeentch combat spells is done. ("Red Fire" also usable by sorcerers.) My thanks to Sombre.

Version 0.41
Thanks much in part to inspiration from DrPraetorious, I have tried to rebalance things to get Chaos more in line with being balanced with native races. Almost all units have been downrated somewhat, not drastically, but keeping them more in line with what one would expect from elite units in native. Also, the resource bonus which was previously available in the capital is no longer present. This will keep Chaos from fielding a large quantity of sacreds, forcing them to rely more on the more normal units. I now find it quite challenging to play in SP so I think I have hit on the right formula.

Version 0.42
Many of DrPraetorious' suggestions have been implemented.
The capital resource bonus is back.
Chaos hounds have been removed from the recruitable list, they are now domsummon units only.
Pretender magic, etc. toned down a tad, other adjustments made and point cost lowered to 150.
Flails on all Nurgle units replaced with morningstars. Nurgle followers are now undead instead of having poison resistance and Nurgle champions and lords now have disease clouds instead of poison.
'Emerald Guards' are more elite than chaos warriors and cost only 25 gold, so the regular line chaos warrior gold cost has been dropped to 20.
Regular knights of chaos gold cost dropped to 55 (their stats are comparable to regular knights yet they have no lance).
Magic resistance for chosen, champions and lords increased slightly, slightly more for followers of Nurgle, significantly more for followers of Tzeentch.
Slaanesh chosen, champions and lords got 'awe' and all Slaanesh followers got a significant morale boost.
All Khorne followers now have berserk.
Champion gold costs reduced somewhat, lord gold costs reduced quite a bit except for the Lord of Tzeentch.
All summoned greater demon weapons are now magic.

Version 0.43
Chaos armor is now an armor 'item' though it cannot be removed or replaced. As it is a magical gift of the chaos powers, it has no resource cost. It also does not encumber.
Nurgle units are again equipped with flails, though it is a lighter one appropriate for wielding in one hand.
'Undead' Nurgle units got a small hit point and magic resistance boost. Enough for me to consider recruiting them again along side the other units.
Nurgle and Slaanesh champions and lords are back up to their previous gold costs with Slaanesh getting a bit of a nerf. Now Slaanesh lords 'cannot' easily solo standard independents. Doh!

Version 0.44
Graphics change only.
Sprites cleaned up to remove much of the black border residue. Regular, chosen and champion chaos warriors now have subtle but distinct differences in the look of their sprites, beyond simply different weapons. This to differentiate them by their chaos power alignment.

Version 0.45
Lazy_Perfectionist's spell descriptions are in.
Corrected a typo that resulted in a 'no name' unit showing up in province defense beyond 20.
The basic, recruit anywhere sorcerer was pretty useless and has been upgraded, getting now four magic picks. At the very least, either fire or death will wind up level two.
Slaanesh got another nerf on their offensive combat, dropping strength and attack slightly. This to compensate for a basic 'awe' effect which was in but not working (now fixed). Slaanesh champions and lords also given seduction, which is mostly thematically decorative as they are not stealthy units (champions are male, lords are female). One could equip them to be stealthy however.

Version 0.46
Lord of Tzeentch given a foot slot. Daemon prince heroes given an extra miscellaneous slot.
All Nurgle units (undead) now have poison resistance.
Champion and lord of Khorne HP and protection boosted slightly (I was never recruiting them).
Lord of Khorne given ambidextrious 8 and fear 5(!). Cost boosted to 400 gold, now equal to other lords.
Lord of Khorne now domsummons flesh hounds instead of bloodletters. Flesh hound sprites painted.
Slaanesh daemon princ'ess' hero tweaked and sprite painted. (I should have probably kept this for last, as desert.)
All other deamon prince heroes tweaked.
Chaos Cultist given a single random magic pick (fire, death or astral). Gold cost increased to 70.
New 'holy' ritual spell added. Grants (mixed) blessing of Chaos upon some hapless person and transforms them into a 'foul spawn'. Chaos now has 'mutants'.

Version 0.47
The "Chaos Blessed" holy ritual spell has revealed a bug in the game. If you <shift> <M> to autocast each month this spell, the game will crash. (The problem is that it is a 'holy' ritual. The game engine does not like 'holy' ritual spells.) As this is most definately a spell one would set to autocast, it had to be modified to work around this bug. When the bug is fixed, this will properly become a holy ritual again and chaos cultist will go back to a random single magic pick. For now however, "Chaos Blessed" is a level 0 thaumaturgy ritual requiring fire 1 to cast. Chaos cultists now all have fire 1.
I have also bumped the cost of chaos cultists up a notch again, now at 80 gold, due to this additional functionality.

[Valandil]

Ummm.. Wow. just wow.
Now, it is impossible to give a chance for S3, AFAIK. I'm worried about the sheer number of comanders available- this is why I was trying to stick them into basically one commander for each of Lord, Champ, Sorc, types.

Now, I'll send you some images and maybe .dm work tomorrow (I'm in GMT-8, BTW.)

[Panpiper]

Valandil said:
Ummm.. Wow. just wow. Now, it is impossible to give a chance for S3, AFAIK.


Actually the 25% chance of S3 is working as designed. The problem is that it is also boosting the holy to 3. What I could do is give the S3 chance just to the champions who do not have holy and so would not suffer that problem. The question then becomes what to give the Lord of Tzeentch (as opposed to the champion). Maybe some sort of special 'violet fire' bonus weapon? I want to keep the lords with holy 1 seeing as how Chaos has little in the way of holy otherwise, that chaos cultist doesn't count for much.

By the way, the domsummon2 of warhounds on the chaos cultist works very much in opposition to their otherwise potential stealthiness. This is deliberate. It was not my intent to give chaos truly functional stealth preachers. Just give them enough stealthiness as to be worth playing with sometimes, maybe.

I want to vary the weapons outfit on the various champions at some point, but I also want the graphic to be appropriate to the change as well, so it may wait a bit. Getting the demons put in and the summoning spells has priority.

Valandil said:I'm worried about the sheer number of comanders available-


Well, in theory the commanders dedicated to each of the powers would have rather different features and therefor flavor. Lords of Nurgle have their disease clouds (I used poison), Tzeentch have their magics, Slaanesh can play havok with the enemy by turning units of the enemy traitor in their midst, and Khorne is just supremely powerful in melee. I really enjoy the idea of being able to play with this variety. Even after building this much of the mod (and playing 30-40 turns in SP several times, testing), I have no idea which of these options I would choose over the others. Likely I would mix them, all but Nurgle, whom I would still keep around in a seperate army of nothing but Nurgle followers (who can deal with the poison) just as an ace in the hole.

Don't worry too much about the variety. The champions on foot I can handle the graphics for (and will once the demons are functioning). The Lords will need a bit more work as they are as yet possessing very inappropriate sprites and it will be some work, but I likely can handle that too if you are otherwise uninspired. Where we most need your artistic talents is with the demon summonables, for whom there are really very little in the way of appropriate graphics in the native game.

[Panpiper]

I'm about to start adding the rest of the demons and am a bit lost with a few of them. There is quite the variety and I am wondering if some are not perhaps a bit redundant. Truth is I don't remember the game mechanics for a few of these units. For instance I recall nothing on Screamers and Chaos Furies. If I include stats for all of these (with placeholder graphics), am I going to give you Valandil, another "worried about the sheer number" concern?

-- Daemonettes on Steeds of Slannesh
-- Nurgle Plaguebearers
-- Nurglings
-- Horrors of Tzeentch
-- Blue Horrors
-- Screamers
-- Bloodletters
-- Bloodletter Champion
-- Flesh Hounds
-- Chaos Furies
-- Great Unclean One
-- Keeper of Secrets
-- Lord of Change
-- Bloodthirster

Edit: Well, they are all in the game now with placeholder graphics. Many of the placeholders will do fine indefinitely. (Some of the placeholders are rather extensive graphics hacks of existing sprites. Check out for instance the daemonettes on steeds.) What really needs work are the greater demons and the horrors. That and a lot of stat tweakage no doubt.

[Humakty]

I'll start testing your mod today, and I will report soon.
To have more downloads and testers, you should put a disquette icon before the thread's name.

[Sombre]

Eh,.. I think if you take the attitude that those placeholders will do fine indefinately you might not get a lot of people playing the mod.

I mean eyecandy isn't everything, but it's pretty important from a Warhammer perspective - half that hobby is just collecting, customising and painting miniatures.

[Panpiper]

You are right Sombre, I just looked at the sprites again in a thumbnail viewer. What I wrote wrote is clearly inaccurate. I should have said, 'some' of the place holders will do 'for quite a while', while other much less appropriate placeholders get replaced with proper sprites.

Sombre said:I mean eyecandy isn't everything, but it's pretty important from a Warhammer perspective - half that hobby is just collecting, customising and painting miniatures.


I hear you. And if I can get a better grip on graphics editing myself (as I've already freaked out Valandil with the sheer number of units) I would actually add several more varieties of differently armed chaos warriors, so a player could 'collect' then into nicely mixed squads.

By the way Sombre, you might have noticed that I used one of your mods, Arga Dis, as a template of sorts to guide me in getting everything filled in properly. Nothing of your mod survives now in Chaos Undivided other than the structure of the DM file, but I thought I aught to acknowledge the debt.

Humakty, thank you. The mod is at the point right now that unless I get feedback or stuff from Valandil, there is not much left for me to do other than graphics (which I have little experience with) or the Tzeentch magics, of which I have little knowledge.

On that note, does anyone want to take a shot at writing the essential Tzeentch combat spells (astral)?

Only Valandil, the thread's starter, can put a diskette icon on the thread I believe.

[Sombre]

This is just how I'd initially approach Tzeentch magic, so it's a bit rough.

Red Fire - An accurate (prec 10) midrange fire ball type spell that does aoe 1 18 damage, but can be resisted by mr.

Yellow Fire - Either a small aoe fire shield buff, or some sort of protection buff. It gives a 5+ ward save in warhammer to mage and his unit, which basically translates into a defensive buff of your choice.

Green Fire - Just a Tzeentch version of confusion, really.

Blue Fire - An upgraded version of red fire. Prec 20, better range, more damage, more AOE. Again, can be resisted by mr.

Indigo fire - In warhammer this spell kills enemies and produces horrors from their ashes. It's nasty as all hell. I guess there are a few options here, but what I'd go for is actually a combat summon of a handful of a special kind of horror which has flying (representing them being cast forward by the caster) and does weak but aoe red fire esque damage as its melee attack, coupled with a nice explosion sprite which will cause them to look 'staggered', going off one by one. Trust me that'd look roughly right, they'd burn a few guys and then probably die. It'd be cool.

Violet Fire - Pretty much a straight copy of the banish to inferno spell

So all 6 Tzeentch spells are actually doable, which is nice.

[Panpiper]

Thank you Sombre, I will work with that. Right now though my brain is so full of Gimp that I don't seem to be able to think in terms of coding at all right now. I'm a bit burnt right now having done nothing but this mod for the last three days. I might yet continue working on more sprites this evening. I think your spells will probably spell the 0.30 version of the mod.

[Humakty]

I've been trying to playtest your mod,but the rapid progression of your work has not made it easy.( I tested with a 4F/4W/4S/4D/4B pretender, with prod 3 and growth 1)

Has they are now they're maybe the most powerfull army around, because an elite army with 2/3/4 F mages,before phoenix power,is absolutely deadly.As it is, their only weakness is the low MR of these guys.

I would suggest lowering the ressource cost of the marauders, or to give them some 30/40 admin forts, so that I don't end up with chaos warriors only (they cost twice as much in resource, but they make up their cost every day). I also had some minor recruitment pbm.(very minor)

As for the gold cost, abysian heavy infantry is 20 gold, and wouldn't hold the line for ten seconds against these brutes. I suggest putting the base cost of chaos warriors to 30, and see how it fits.(and raise the cost of latter units accordingly, all of them are gorgeously powerfull)

The basic mage is worthless, the exalted one is a pure machine of destruction.(upkeep :150 basic/125 exalted : I wouldn't see a superior chaos mage costing less than his apprentice)

As for the test, I've made an early war with arcos and burned them to cinders. I lost several chaos warriors to my own artillery. As I've some mages with F4, I'll recruit some indep archers, so as to flame arrow them...

As for the summons, I ve only had time for two of them : portepeste : 5D gems for 20 of them : really nice with a nurgle army, so you can poison them before they get burned (great combo possibility with bog beasts).To the opposite I found the discs of tzeentch : 10 gems for 10 : useless, even caelian archers would fit better in a melee, but they don't cost gems!

Great and speedy work on this mod ! Keep going, and you'll have the undisputed honor to finish the 13 other nation mods (with their UPP).

[Panpiper]

Humakty said:
I've been trying to playtest your mod,but the rapid progression of your work has not made it easy.


Heh. Sorry about that. ;-)

Thank you, thank you, thank you Hamakty. As I've said several times before, I am really bad at playbalancing myself, much preferring to work within a point build system. Your feedback (and hopefully that of others) is what will really get this mod properly aligned with other races.

Has they are now they're maybe the most powerful army around, because an elite army with 2/3/4 F mages, before phoenix power,is absolutely deadly.As it is, their only weakness is the low MR of these guys.


That and their lack of their own ranged troops. They are meant to be powerful. What is supposed to balance this out is their difficulty in massing any sort of large numbers. To that end their forts are kept very low admin. Also to that end, your feedback is a great boon. All your suggestions have been implemented.


Great and speedy work on this mod ! Keep going, and you'll have the undisputed honor to finish the 13 other nation mods (with their UPP).


I have gotten little real work done in days. I am going to have to stop modding at some point today for at least a little while to attend to a few things. ;-)

[Panpiper]

I want to add a 'musician' summonable unit similar to the banner bearer summonable unit. This is thematic with the way the miniatures game works and will make Chaos armies even more colorful. The banner bearer currently confers a 10 standard and a +5 fear. This is appropriate for the banner. However I really am not sure what effect to give the musicians to make them different and worth including in a unit. Does anyone have any ideas?

I am thinking of perhaps replicating somewhat the effect of the banner bearer, giving the musician a 5 standard and +0 fear and instead of the near useless 'kick' attack of the banner bearer, give them instead a reasonable area effect attack. For a melee unit however that could well be more of a handicap than a boon, given that they are likely to be hitting their own guys half the time they attack.

[llamabeast]

You should be very careful putting fear on any but the strongest units. It's extremely powerful.

Also with the standard bearer, even AOE1 is powerful. I assume you must be talking about larger areas, since AOE1 would never hit your own men. But anything larger than AOE1 is almost certainly overpowered.

[Panpiper]

Banners are an integral part of warhammer armies, something that is seen with virtually every showcased unit. The game mechanics have these banners as powerful magical devices that indeed, project power causing fear in the enemy and strengthening the morale of their own men. I really feel that including such a banner is vital to preserving the spirit of warhammer. However there is nothing to say that such banners come cheap. It may well be that I have them too cheap, perhaps far too cheap.

Currently in the Chaos Undivided mod, such a banner is carried by a 'relatively' crunchy troop, not much tougher than the standard, recruit anywhere chaos warrior (other than being blessable). He has a rather ineffectual attack. Currently it costs 5 blood to summon (create the banner effectively) and is a level two blood spell for research. Assuming it is kept in the game, what level and blood cost would you recommend llamabeast in order for it to be balanced?

[Burnsaber]

If you make the standard bearer a commander, you can make him more powerful without making him cost bajillion gold.

[Panpiper]

Burnsaber said:
If you make the standard bearer a commander, you can make him more powerful without making him cost bajillion gold.


Currently the banner bearer does not cost gold, it is a summonable troop. Plus the idea is not to make it even more powerful, but to find the right game cost that reflects it's current power.

I want to keep it a troop, not a commander, for a couple of reasons; I like the visual of the banner being among the troops when looking at the army setup screen. Also I envision that many players would want to have one such banner per unit and if it were a commander, that would turn into a 'lot' of commanders.

[llamabeast]

Um, I'm not really sure about summoning costs, that would take a bit more thought. Having a banner bearer is fine - there are already quite a few of these in Dominions, and they all have the morale boosting effect. Fear is a strong thing though - probably equivalent to Terror in Warhammer. It is similarly rare. If you really want fear then I would say make it fear+0.

What you could do is have two summons. One would be an ordinary banner bearer at the cost you describe or even cheaper, basically a slightly above-average warrior who gives a morale boost to his neighbours. Then you could have a higher-level summon to get a banner bearer with a powerful magical banner enchanted by the chaos gods to cause fear in their enemies. This guy could have the fear property, or it might even be possible to mod the weapon so that it causes AOE fear in those it strikes, which would be fun.

This is also slightly more warhammer-y to my mind. After all most standard bearers don't carry magic standards.

[Panpiper]

llamabeast said:
it might even be possible to mod the weapon so that it causes AOE fear in those it strikes, which would be fun.


You are right llamabeast, that could be seriously hilarious. It is also quite realistic. Panic is indeed contagious.

I would take your advice with the standard bearer and eliminate the fear from the basic version and create a 'better' more expensive version for the later game. However I don't really want to have a player wind up with 'redundant' standard bearers, as one never sees a unit with more than one banner. I would rather simply find the right cost for the banner bearer as is such that a player won't have them until they can afford their effect. Then they can gaze upon their army, rightfully proud of it's awesome power. :-)

[Panpiper]

Before this mod, I had never looked at spell modding before. My first stab at spell creation may have left something to be desired. Many thanks to Sombre for pointing me in the correct direction, any deviations are my own fault.

Does this look right to you all? Are there any glaring errors, inconsistencies or imbalances I should correct immediately?

-- Red Fire -

#newspell
#name "Red Fire"
#descr "An accurate (prec 10) midrange fire ball type spell that does aoe 1 18 damage, but can be resisted by mr."
#restricted 75
#school 2
#researchlevel 1
#path 0 0
#pathlevel 0 1
#fatiguecost 10
#effect 2
#damage 18
#aoe 1
#flightspr -1
#explspr 10113
#precision 10
#range 30
#spec 4096
#end

-- Yellow Fire -

#newspell
#copyspell "Tempering the Will"
#name "Yellow Fire"
#descr "It gives a "5+ ward save" in warhammer to mage and his unit."
#restricted 75
#school 4
#researchlevel 5
#path 0 4
#pathlevel 0 3
#fatiguecost 20
#aoe 8
#end

-- Green Fire -

#newspell
#copyspell "Confusion"
#name "Green Fire"
#descr "A unit in the area of effect has a 50% chance each turn of becoming confused, subject to magic resistance."
#restricted 75
#path 0 4
#end

-- Blue Fire -

#newspell
#name "Blue Fire"
#descr "An upgraded version of red fire. Prec 20, better range, more damage, more AOE. Again, can be resisted by mr."
#restricted 75
#school 2
#researchlevel 4
#path 0 0 -- The magic path for casting, IE: fire, water, etc.
#pathlevel 0 3
#fatiguecost 20
#effect 2
#damage 24
#aoe 3
#flightspr -1
#explspr 10141
#precision 20
#range 40
#spec 4096
#end

-- Violet Fire -

#newspell
#copyspell "Infernal Prison"
#name "Violet Fire"
#descr "Toast!"
#restricted 75
#school 5
#researchlevel 9
#path 0 4
#path 1 0
#pathlevel 0 4
#pathlevel 1 3
#fatiguecost 300
#end

-- Indigo fire -

#newspell
#name "Indigo Fire"
#descr "A combat summon of a handful of flying elementals."
#restricted 75
#school 2
#researchlevel 6
#path 0 4
#path 1 0
#pathlevel 0 3
#pathlevel 1 2
#fatiguecost 50
#effect 1
#nreff 5
#damage 2337
#end

#newmonster 2337
#spr1 "./chaos/indigo_fire_1.tga"
#spr2 "./chaos/indigo_fire_2.tga"
#name "Indigo Flame"
#descr "Indigo elemental, short lived but burns twice as hot."
#hp 1
#size 2
#prot 0
#mor 10
#mr 8
#enc 1
#str 10
#att 8
#def 10
#prec 8
#mapmove 0
#ap 30
#gcost 0
#rcost 1
#weapon 171 -- small area fire weapon effect
#flying
#end

[Burnsaber]

I hope you won't have those descriptions in the real version. You don't mention game mechanics in flavor text.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Having only cursory knowledge of Warhammer, I offer the following descriptions. I'm certain they could be better, but I'm trying to sleep before 2:00 AM. Maybe they'll provide some inspiration. As well... I have the feeling that they aren't quite the flavor for the Forces of Chaos, from what I do know... But if I was hijacking those spells to add to all nations, here's how I'd add em. I'd let someone who owns fluff material come up with nation-specific descriptions.

Red Fire - A spiritual flame, it burns unbelievers.
Red Fire - A spiritual flame, it burns those weak of mind and faith.

Yellow Fire - This flame burns away the doubts of the believers and makes them strong in their faith.

Green Fire - A sickly pale green fire that devours the sanity of your enemies.
Green Fire - A sickly pale green fire that consumes trust, causing friends to turn upon one another.

I hope this was of use, but if it missed the mark.. no big loss of my time. Best of luck with the mod.

[Panpiper]

Burnsaber said:
I hope you won't have those descriptions in the real version. You don't mention game mechanics in flavor text.


I was looking online for a good while for better descriptions but failed. It was not my intention to go with those descriptions and I do intend to replace them. I just didn't want to sit on this version of the mod solely because of the descriptions. The one's that are there are basically placeholders from when I copy/pasted Sombre's suggestions. I may stick with the description for Violet Fire however. "Toast!" is a pretty apt description, no? ;-)

[DrPraetorious]

A few suggestions:
The Lord of the End Times is at strong variance withe existing pretender chassis, making him difficult to balance.
I suggest lowering his magic to FSB, his cost to 150 pts., his dominion strength to 3, and his new path cost to 40.
A quick glance at your magic and it appears roughly comparable to MA Marignon.

- I assume that all of the natural prot-23 stuff represents chaos armor. Add "Chaos Armor" as an armor, and put it on them, instead.
- Having a "Dark Citadel" as your capital sounds thematic but is a huge disadvantage, and possibly a good part of the reason the position seems weak. Give them an admin-40 fort instead, maybe a regular Citadel.
- The warhound has to cost at least 4 gold. It could be a freespawn from some other unit, but 1/1 is unbalancing because of what it lets you do to your tax rates and blood hunting.
- The "Flail" is a two-handed weapon, the weapon you want would be closer to a morningstar.
- Even given that he's got 3 hands (cause of the flail), the Nurgle Chaos Warrior is too expensive - compare to the Emerald Guard. The other chaos warriors likewise.
- Likewise, the Chaos Knight is only marginally more elite than a conventional knight.
- Now, the *chosen* chaos knight legitimately costs 120 gold. Likewise the other chosen, although I think they could stand to have additional magic powers.

My suggestion -
* Give all of the "of Khorne" units Berserkers, even the little warriors. Bigger berserk as they rise in rank.
* Make all of the "of Nurgle" units Undead. This makes them all immune to disease. Now give the more elite ones a disease cloud.
* The Chosen should have a higher MR. The MR bonus for the Tzeentch types should be larger (+3 or more.) The Lord of Tzeentch should absolutely be MR 18 - one of the few units that could justify MR 20.
* Give all of the "of Slaanesh" a huge morale boost - and give the chosen ones Awe +1.

The Champions are too expensive. Compare them to the Jotun Herse. With the exception of the mage-lord of Tzeentch, the lords are too expensive as well.

In general, my suggestions would be to balance this nation against MA Jotunheim for the commanders, who are all so buff they count as giants, and MA Marignon for the military.

So I think you did overdo it nerfing your position.

[Panpiper]

A thousand 'thank you's DrPraetorious, I shall implement virtually all of your suggestions. The only ones I am debating are;

- I don't like the idea of making chaos armor something they 'wear' and can take off and replace. Chaos armor is something that is part of their bodies like a horn is to a rhino or armor plates are to a stegosaurus. I realize that making it a part of their bodies eliminates resource costs and encumbrance, but this is actually intentional, and leads to their high gold costs.

- The dark citadel IS thematic as a starting location. Rather than breaking that theme, I think I would rather just put back the resource bonus on the starting location.

- I've long worried about using the poison cloud effect with Nurgle champions and lords. Your suggestion about making it disease clouds and Nurgle followers undead would certainly make the effect more properly what it is supposed to be and appropriately less powerful than poison. However I worry that making Nurgle followers 'undead' will make them vastly weaker due to the power of priest banishments. I'll do it and see. I think I'll pump their magic resistance a tad though.

- The flail is listed twice in Edi's database. One of the entries has it as a single hand weapon. I used that one assuming it was a smaller flail. I just compared the stats with the two hand version and they are identical. Oops. The flail is very thematic for Nurgle. I guess I'll have to drop the shield (except that will require that I redo a bunch of sprites). Hmm... I guess morning stars are thematic too. ;-)

DrPraetorious said:
The Champions are too expensive. Compare them to the Jotun Herse. With the exception of the mage-lord of Tzeentch, the lords are too expensive as well.


Hmm... Here things get difficult. The Jotun Herse is only 60 gold. I see what you mean in that the actual stats are somewhat comparable, while chaos has attack and defense a bit higher, the Jotun Herse has significantly higher hit points and strength. However Nurgle Champions have disease clouds, Slaanesh have enslavement, Tzeentch has a 30% chance at astral 3 magic, and the Khorne champion would slaughter Jotun Herses in droves. I note that the stats of the Jotun Herse and those of the Jotun Gode are roughly similar, but due to the addition of Holy 2, the Jotun Gode cost 200 gold. For now, I shall work on the assumption that the additional talents of the chaos champions are roughly analogous to the the holy 2 of the Jotun Gode and drop the gold cost to 200, awaiting further feedback. The physical stats of champions and lords are very similar but lords have higher leadership, and domsummon 20 appropriate units for their power. They also start with a magic weapon. Again, being very unsure as to what extra value this should cost, I'll bump the lord cost of Nurgle and Khorne down to 270. Slaanesh has enslavement which especially when massed is very powerful. I'll put the Lord of Slaanesh at 300 GP. The Lord of Tzeentch which is appropriately awesome stays at it's current maxed out 400 GP.

Again, thank you ever so much for the lookover and advice. I really do not want this race mod to be out of balance, that's no fun for anyone.

[DrPraetorious]

- If they don't have Torso slots and you put Torso armor on them, then they can't take it off. You can certainly leave it at Enc-0. Should chaos armor be immune to Rust Mist and Armor of Achilles? Maybe it should.
The chief concern is that natural prot values cannot be boosted by an earth blessing.

- Pump their MR and possibly hit points (for nurgle).

- You could add a "horseman's flail" or a "light flail", if you wished. The 1-H flail is for use by giants and Gods (like the Mother of Rivers.)

If you're going to give them an Admin-20 capital, that's potentially workable, but a 10% reduction in the costs of capital only units might be apropriate, to compensate for the lost gold revenue. You also might wish to give them superior fortress options elsewhere - the Motte-and-bailey and the Citadel are both excellent forts that you could claim would be built more or less anywhere. The Wizards' Tower is a secret super-cool fort type that you might allow them to build, but that'd be weird.

What you really need to do is run some combat tests with your mages and thugs, and see how they do.

[DrPraetorious]

Oh, one other thing - your sprites look nice, but they have black outlines around them. This is how you prevent that from happening (in GIMP):

take an image that still has a transparency layer, shrink it down to your heart's content.

once you are finished working on the image:

select layer -> transparency -> threshold alpha

you may want to try this a couple of times but the default value (127, which corresponds to 50%) usually works fine.

NOW flatten the image to add the black background (Image -> Flatten Image). Make sure that your background is black when you do this.

Tada.

[Panpiper]

DrPraetorious said:
- If they don't have Torso slots and you put Torso armor on them, then they can't take it off.


!!!

I did not know this! I shall promptly create chaos armor to put on them.

Pump their MR and possibly hit points (for nurgle).


I think I shall do this. I did another test game with the current 0.42 version and found myself 'not' recruiting Nurgle units because of their undeadedness.

You could add a "horseman's flail" or a "light flail", if you wished.


This too I should (shall) do.

If you're going to give them an Admin-20 capital, that's potentially workable, but a 10% reduction in the costs of capital only units might be appropriate, to compensate for the lost gold revenue.


I understood that the administration of a fort affected it's resource collection from neighboring territories. I was not aware it also affected gold collection somehow.

What you really need to do is run some combat tests with your mages and thugs, and see how they do.


My newbieness reveals itself. I am not sure how to go about doing such 'combat tests'. Guidelines as to how to do that would make for a good addition to your Bugrom thread.

Your advice on sprites is much appreciated, but you assume a greater understanding on our parts than may be warrented. I think I understand what you mean about 'transparency layer' though I don't yet know how to create such a thing. I haven't a clue what 'threshold alpha' means, though I am sure that by 'trying' to follow your instructions, I might at least gain a clue. ;-) Paraphrasing; If we paint the sprite on a layer that is transparent, then we won't get bleedover dark pixels at the edge of our sprite. 'Flattening' the image onto a black background afterwards gives us our final product without the dark borders. I think I get the theory. Now I just have to figure out where all the buttons are, what the labels mean, and how not to get lost in the morass of options. (How I long for the fictional 'simpler times'.)

[Amos]

Unless you resize or skew/rotate a sprite you shouldnt get bleedover dark pixels. I dont use Gimp so cant help you with that. You dont have to use transparency at all, if you paint on pure black (0,0,0) background. Personally, I only use transparency when I'm playing with alot of layers.

[Panpiper]

Actually I use resize and rotate quite a bit. I find for instance if trying to get a nice graduated shade on a small sprite, it is easier to paint the shading with an airbrush tool on a 'sprite' three times larger then shrink down. In fact in order to get a nicer blending effect, even on sprites that I have built pixel by pixel at the normal sprite size, I will often blow it up to three times it's size and use the blend tool to get a cleaner shading. When then shrunk back down, the pixel shading looks far better. This way I can build the sprite using only a handful of shade gradations and still make it look like I used dozens.

I stand however in awe of your sprite painting talents Amos.

[llamabeast]

Just had my first very quick look at this - good work! Looks like it will be a really nice mod. It's already really good fun.

A couple of quick comments:

- Maybe the graphics for the units from the different gods could be somehow differentiated a little more, apart from just their weapons? Maybe Khorne could have red armour or red edging to the armour, Nurgle could be covered in rust and mould, etc..

- I think the Champions and Lords may be a bit overpowered, or at least it warrants looking into. The only ones I tried were the Slaanesh ones. Two Champions of Slaanesh or one Lord are enough to conquer pretty much any indie province - I think that makes them overpowered. If you want to keep cool uber Lords (and they are pretty cool), maybe they could be summons.

[Amos]

Applying light "Blur" filter would be far neater. But I dont know if Gimp has filters and anyway you dont need it. Just resize the canvas (not the size) to anything other than the standard (64x64, 128x128 etc.). It will look like the sprite contains more pixels than it does.

[Panpiper]

llamabeast said:
Just had my first very quick look at this - good work! Looks like it will be a really nice mod. It's already really good fun.


Why thank you llamabeast. I will do my best.

Maybe the graphics for the units from the different gods could be somehow differentiated a little more, apart from just their weapons? Maybe Khorne could have red armour or red edging to the armour, Nurgle could be covered in rust and mould, etc..


Yes, I've intended to do something like that for a while. A subtle color variation for the basic chaos warriors, a bit more on the chosen with a hint of unique decoration and plainly different decor on the champions. The Lords are already completely unique. I expect I will get to that when I try to reduce the dark border pixelation. (Real life permitting)

*Done in version 0.44*

I think the Champions and Lords may be a bit overpowered...


ARGH!

;-)

I've been bouncing the gold cost of those units all over the place trying to find the right balance. DrPraetorious felt they were too expensive and suggested I compare them to Jotun Herse at only 60 gold. I dropped the cost down slightly. I think I agree though that especially the champions and lords of Slaanesh need to be bumped back up, the lord matching the Lord of Tzeentch at 400 gold and the champion going back to 250. I do not want to make them summons though as Slaanesh needs regular recruitable commanders. Enslavement and enslave mind are powerful effects, but they are also completely thematic for Slaanesh. I never thought to try having any of the commanders solo indies. I didn't think them powerful enough to try. I guess I should.

Edit: llamabeast is right, One Lord of Slaanesh or two champions can indeed solo standard independents. Gold costs are going back up for those for sure. And then I'll look more closely. *Slaanesh champions and lords nerfed slightly in 0.43 and again in 0.45*

[Brownoak]

Panpiper

Just playing this nation- thanks- great fun!

The variety of units makes for an interesting range of tactical options and it is thematically strong.

I thought you may like some feedback. Why not have dominion (I assume it is dominion doing this ) produce mutants instead of warhounds, it seems thematically more appropriate and you could perhaps use a foulspawn sprite as a placeholder, if not permanently.(Incidentally a foulspawn sprite would be a good placeholder for your chaos spawn unit).

Regards

Brownoak

[Brownoak]

Sorry Valandil and Panpiper misread the thread and mixed you up...

Brownoak

[Panpiper]

Brownoak said:
Sorry Valandil and Panpiper misread the thread and mixed you up...


Valandil started the ball rolling on a Chaos mod, and then sort of ran out of steam. I picked up on it a few weeks ago and actually released this development version. I've been trying to get Valandil more involved, but haven't heard from him in three weeks now. Unfortunately, up till now the only thing of Valandil's that is actually in the mod is his sprite for the Lord of Tzeentch.

As for including 'mutants', I agree that it would make sense if simply going with the theme of chaos mutation, but I am trying to stay relatively in tune with the Warhammer fantasy miniatures line. As far as I know, there have never been simple 'mutants' in the chaos army lists other than the mutations one finds on the units already listed. For instance, chaos armor is itself, considered a chaos mutation.

[DrPraetorious]

In Mordheim you could rectuit units called, I believe, simply "mutants".

I'd be of the position that crossbreeding is close enough. A national holy ritual that didn't cost any gems and made, like 1+holy skill crossbred units would be fun and balanced.

[Panpiper]

Oops. I don't think there were any downloads of the mod in the last nine hours, but if you did and got a race that starts with a 'lord' of Khorne and a daemon prince of Slaanesh, you got a test file I was using to test those two commanders. Sorry. The race is meant to start with a champion of Khorne and a chaos cultist. The correct file is now uploaded.

[Kantha]

(2 lev)Lesser summoning of Nurgle -> for 5 gems i get 20 plaguebeares..

(5 lev)Summoning of Nurgle -> for 10 gems - 10 nurglings..

This doesn't sound right, does it..?

[Kantha]

Lol..

I'm rude.. Apologies...

The mod is otherwise briliant!

[Noble713]

I've been playing this mod for several days now* and so far it's been great. Very nice graphics, a variety of units, and reasonably balanced, all things considered.


1. Greater Daemons. I've summoned all except for a Bloodthirster and have been rather disappointed. Why aren't they all commanders? I summoned them with the intention of having each leading its own daemon host, and instead I'm stuck trying to dig up a nature mage to give them the Gift of Reason. I don't even know what their combat performance is like (their stats are great) because they haven't left my capital.

2. Graphics tweaks for the chaos warriors/champions/lords would be greatly appreciated and flavorful.

3. Ooo, it would be nifty to have heroes from the actual Warhammer mythos. I might contribute on this, digging up the relevant fluff/stats and trying to find imagery. I've never done any Dom3 modding, maybe it's time I started.



*I'm using the Chaos, Ogre Kingdoms, Tomb Kings, and Skaven races on the Warhammer map (with appropriate starting locations that I added myself). All we need now are Dark Elves, High Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs!