Warhammer MA: Empire

[Sombre]

I was going to do Dwarfs, Chaos Dwarfs or Dogs of War as my next project, but I've decided to start off the Warhammer Empire nation instead, mainly because I need a break from doing non human sprites for a while and Dogs of War is such an eclectic nation that it would require more in the way of graphics.

So anyway, Empire it is, at least for now.


THE EMPIRE


THE NATION SHOULD

Be tactically flexible
Make full use of resources and production
Have strong religion
Be restricted by its humanity
Represent the incredible diversity of the Colleges
Have very useful and cost effective PD
Be split evenly between North and South creating two interesting balanced nations


WEAPONS

Crankbow - 3 crossbow bolts per turn, not that much ammo, bit innacurate.
Hand Crossbow (ranged) - A single shot medium/close range missile weapon.
Hand Crossbow (melee) - A single shot AP melee weapon.
White Wolf Hammer - Solid two handed hammer with charge bonus.


ARMOUR

Empire Full Plate - High quality full plate.



------ EMPIRE SOUTH ------


RECRUITS

State Spearman - Spear, Shield, Iron Cap, Plate Cuirass.
State Halberdier - Halberd, Iron Cap, Plate Cuirass.
State Swordsman - Broadsword, Shield, Iron Cap, Plate Cuirass (improved skills, higher cost)
State Crossbowman - Crossbow, Dagger, Leather Cap, Plate Cuirass.
Greatsword - Greatsword, Empire Full Plate, Iron Cap.
Greatsword - Greatsword, Empire Full Plate, Iron Cap.
Nobleborn - Horse, Plate Hauberk, Iron Cap, Hand Crossbow (melee/ranged), Broadsword.
Free Infantry - Shortsword, Dagger, Studded Leather, Reinforced Leather Cap.
Archer - Shortbow, Leather Cap, Leather Armour, Dagger.
Reiksguard Foot - Broadsword, Shield, Empire Full Plate, Full Helmet.
Inner Circle Reiksguard Knight - Warhorse, Lance, Broadsword, Shield, Empire Full Plate,

Full Helmet.
Order Knight (generic) - Warhorse, Lance, Broadsword, Shield, Empire Full Plate, Full

Helmet.
Flagellant - Sacred, Flail.
War Wagon - High rcost. Various ranged and melee weapons, trample.
Steam Tank - V. High rcost. No cannon, but tramples and uses steam weapons + 'fire' shield, extreme prot.
Marksman - Carries a crankbow.
Outrider - Horse, Arbalest, Short Sword, light armour.


COMMANDERS

Scout
State Captain
State General
Elector Count - Expensive, summons state troops, not a bad general
Reik Captain - As knight, standard, 80 ldr.
Grand Masters - One per Southern order, they are unique summons who in turn can use 'summon allies' to gather Inner Circle knights of their order. Probably require house
rules. The Reiksmarshal Kurt Helborg is particularly powerful.
Initiate of Sigmar - H1
Battle-Priest of Sigmar - H2, 40 ldr, extra holy spell or two
Theoganist - H3, old, not a leader
Witch Hunter - H1, stealthy, inquisitor, increase unrest
College Adept - 1 Random pick, used to summon College Wizards



------ EMPIRE NORTH ------


RECRUITS

State Spearman - Spear, Shield, Iron Cap, Plate Cuirass.
State Halberdier - Halberd, Iron Cap, Plate Cuirass.
State Swordsman - Broadsword, Shield, Iron Cap, Plate Cuirass (improved skills, higher cost)
Greatsword - Greatsword, Empire Full Plate, Iron Cap.
Free Infantry - Shortsword, Dagger, Studded Leather, Reinforced Leather Cap.
Archer - Shortbow, Leather Cap, Leather Armour, Dagger.
Huntsman - Longbow, Leather Cap, Leather Armour, Axe, stealthy.
Hunting Hound - Summoned by Huntsmaster, stealthy flanker.
Kossar - Ringmail, Reinforced Leather Cap, Axe, Composite Bow.
Ungol Horse Archer - Ungol Horse, Furs, Composite Bow, Falchion.
Winged Lancer - Ungol Horse, Lance, Shield, Falchion, Plate Hauberk.
Teutogen Guard - Empire Full Plate, White Wolf Hammer, Half Helmet.
Inner Circle White Wolf - Warhorse, Empire Full Plate, White Wolf Hammer.
Order Knight - Warhorse, Lance, Broadsword, Shield, Empire Full Plate, Full Helmet.
Warrior of Ulric - Sacred, Greatsword, Ringmail, Iron Cap.
Wolfkin - Sacred, Furs, Axe, Broadsword, stealthy.



COMMANDERS

Scout
State Captain
General
Elector Count - Expensive, summons state troops, not a bad general
Hunt Master - Horse, light lance, spawns hunting hounds
Boyar - Ungol Horse, Plate Hauberk, Composite Bow, Falchion
Ice Mage - Water and possibly air magic from Kislev
White Wolf Seneschal - As White Wolf Knight, standard, 80 ldr.
Grand Masters - One per Northern order, they are unique summons who in turn can use 'summon allies' to gather Inner Circle knights of their order. Probably require house rules.
Initiate of Ulric - H1
Battle-Priest of Ulric - H2, 40 ldr, extra holy spell or two
High Priest of Ulric - H3
College Adept - 1 Random pick, used to summon College Wizards



SPECIFIC KNIGHT ORDERS


SOUTH

Reiksguard (Special polished armour gives +1 def)
Blazing Sun (Morning star rather than broadsword, partial fire res)
Griffon (Higher morale and mapmove 3)
Hunters of Sigmar (Forest survival, axe, slightly worse armour, supplybonus)
Black Bear (+1 str)
Sigmar's Blood (Sacred)
Gold Lion (Wasteland survival)
Encarmine (No lance, no shield, two swords, very skilled, high upkeep)
Hammers of Sigmar (Sacred, no lance, holy hammer, shield, no helmet)


NORTH:

White Wolf (No lance, no shield, no helmet, use white wolf hammers, +1mr, berserk 0)
Panther (Falchion rather than broadsword, wasteland survival, animal awe)
Templars of Everlasting Light (Standard effect)
Sacred Scythe (No lance, anti undead scythe)
Knights of Morr (Increase unrest, fear 0, no lance)
Broken Sword (No lances, better sword skill)
Wolves of Ulric (Sacred, similar to white wolf)
Gryphon Legion (Not really a knight order, but the Kislev equivalent, upgraded winged lancers)


MAGIC COLLEGES

Schools

Fire - Bright - F+ - Evocation
Wizard - Higher precision, lower research
Lord - Strong fire shield, starts at higher leadership


Metal - Gold - E (F) - Alteration and construction
Wizard - Alchemy (?), higher upkeep
Lord - Forgebonus


Shadow - Grey - AD - Enchantment, alteration
Wizard - Stealthy
Lord - Flight, spy


Beasts - Amber - N+ - Conjuration
Wizard - Forest survival, shapechange to wolf
Lord - Shapechange to giant bear, useful summon allies ability in this form


Heavens - Celestial - Equal AS - Evocation and thaum
Wizard - Research bonus, prevent bad events
Lord - Better bonuses


Light - Light - FS - Alteration and Evocation
Wizard - Heal, Auto communion (pythium copystats)
Lord - Better heal?


Life - Jade - N EWA - Alteration, Evocation
Wizard - Decrease unrest? Heal?
Lord - If possible, increase growth scale (lord of fertility)


Death - Amethyst - D (W) - Alteration, Enchantment
Wizard - Drain life attack
Lord - Armed with Soul Slaying scythe weapon


Each school will have 2 summons available - one for a standard Wizard such as "Bright Wizard" and one for a college lord, "Bright Wizard Lord". The standard wizards will basically be 2 in one path then have some kind of secondary path, or a chance at lvl3 in their main path if from a focused school like Bright.

The Wizard Lords will be lvl 3 average, but some lvl 4. They will kick ***, but they will all be old.

The whole thing will be started off by the College Acolyte recruitable which has lvl 1 random in NEFADS.

N1 summons Amber, Jade
F1 summons Bright, Light
A1 summons Grey,
D1 summons Amethyst
S1 summons Celestial
E1 summons Gold

The summons will have to be researched and will be found with one version in each of the schools favoured by the mages, at level 3 and 6 perhaps?

[Sombre]

A little preview of my very first empire unit - a member of the elite Reiksguard Foot.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/548658-reikpreview.png

[Burnsaber]

Jade Wizards should also probably have forest survival.

About Witch-Hunter:

I think they shouldn't be spies, scouts, perhaps. Spies are coolheaded folk who don't attract attetion to themeselves. Witch Hunter preaching with foam-coming-out-of-the-mouth and burning womenfolk attracts attention. Besides if they're spies they might have a bit too much going on. Summon, patrol, spying, preaching? He'd just cost too much gold to do any of those things because of his diversity. Even if he's a mere scout he still has the stealthy inquistor combo going on.

If you want a spy unit, how about agitator? I got a inspiration to write a improptu description:

"In the busy life of well populated Empire cities, many charismatic characters earn their living by making loud speeches against/for political issues (depending on which side pays them more). Many of them end up shouting speeches that are wiewed to anti-nobility and thereby, heretical. They are captured and put to the rope. Sometimes, an especially charismatic invidual might be saved form the rope, if he starts saying the right things about the Holy Empire.."

[zepath]

I'm anxious to see this one come about. The Empire is my (second?) favorite WH Fantasy nation.

[Autochthon]

Let's see what we can add here...

Flagellants! We loves them - and maybe Flagellant commanders? And they seriously need Berserk. I dunno why the vanilla Dom3 Flagellants don't...

Standard Bearers. I've never seen an Empire Army in TT w/out being fully decked out w/SB + Musician for Morale bonuses.

Greatswords. Yeah, baby!

Warrior Priests are Sacred Priest (H1?) Commanders w/Leadership.

Light Mages would have to be Holy as well.

Grey Mages should have Glamour instead of Flight. Also should have Cause Unrest and/or Assassin Order.

Amber Mages w/Shapeshift, Stealth, all Survival abilities.

Jade Mages w/Supply, Poison Immunity, Rejuvenation.

Celestial Mages w/innate Luck? Or just leave as A/S Magi.

Gold Magi should have higher Resources Cost to offset Forge Bonus

Priest of Sigmar has H2S1, while Priest of Ulric has only H2 but higher Str and Atk and Sacred?

Can't be Empire w/out Artillery, either.

Shortbows and Crossbows too - but no Comp. Bows or Longbows.

Knightly Orders provide mounted Sacred units.

Are we including Allied contingents too? Or is that too much?

Here's a brain-bending idea for you...

Instead of having an Empire faction, why not have seperate factions for each Electorate and replay the Time of the Three Emperors?

We could do this because there is enough variety between factions. The Northerners worship Ulric and tend towards melee-heavy armies. The Westerners favor Sigmar and favor newfangled weapons like artillery, magic and cavalry. Finally, the Easterners love Taal, and their forces reflect this by being fast and mobile, with lots of skilled archers and light infantry.

Oh right, the Magisters weren't around. Damn space/time continuum...:P

[Sombre]

I had already decided to split The Empire into two nations, combined in one mod. The divide is basically Northeast / Southwest, I've decided to call one Empire South and one Empire North. Empire North gets the cult of Ulric, Middenlanders and Kislev allies. South gets more stuff from Nuln, the Reik etc.

I'll update the first post with extended army lists. They still aren't finished.

The sprites are actually proving harder than anticipated, because I don't feel happy only slightly modifying vanilla ones. I want them to look distinctive. I will use some vanilla sprites as a base/placeholders at first, but sometimes it's hard to find suitable ones.

[Aezeal]

2 points..

1. STEAMTANK

2. with the new warhammer world map in progress (ye olde world thread) I think your mods would be the best ones to play on that map..
--> the old world is a fairly small part of that map where a lot happens
--> splitting the empire in 2 means MORE players on that small part
so I would ask.. please create (next to this idea maybe) a race which would be the empire as one race..

[Sombre]

1. How is that a point? What about the steam tank?

2. Like Greenskins, the Empire army list is too large to cram everything into one nation. Once I'm finished, someone can combine the two nations into one with great ease. It's just a matter of a few lines of code and a bit of copying and pasting. I'm not going to do it personally because I think it's a bad idea. It would be like putting the units and commanders from EA Ulm, MA Ulm and LA Ulm all into one nation. Just too much stuff.

[Humakty]

Couldn't you divide the magicians between the two empires ?
True the magical game will be less random, but it would avoid a maybe too powerfull late game ?

[zepath]

Humatky: That is an interesting question. With the Colleges of Magic located in Altdorf, will the battle wizards only be made available to Empire South? Perhaps you could include them all in the Empire North nation with slightly inflated prices to represent the additional resources required to enlist college-trained wizards from the south.

[Sombre]

I'm planning on balancing the College wizards simply by costing them high enough in gems and in the case of Wizard Lords, research, that getting enough of them as battlemages will be quite tough.

The idea being that you don't get droves of wizards from each school, instead you go for the Colleges that you want/need. I fully expect Bright and Gold to be popular as battle mages, but that fits warhammer pretty well. I might give amethyst DS to use nether bolt too.

The lategame will be strong in terms of variety, becasue by that point you probably have several Wizard Lords, but the handicap of not being able to simply recruit useful wizards is fairly major and should have weakened the midgame a bit. Besides, the Empire is supposed to be able to turtle somewhat - they aren't a rush nation at all, as reflected by their many slow summons and lack of uber sacreds.

[llamabeast]

The Reiksguard sprite is really lovely. It has, at a stroke, taken my excitement level for an Empire mod from 'disinterested' (never liked Empire when I played Warhammer - what's with all the frills?) to 'keen'.

[Autochthon]

In WHFRP lore, the Magisters and their Colleges were answerable to the Emperor alone.

However, we are taking liberties with this in that the Emperor has either lost his mandate to rule or that is is now being seriously challenged.

We could bend the lore a bit further by introducing a inter-Collegiate schism based on this. When the Emperor is strong, then the Colleges have no problem being totally dependent on his good-will.

But if the Emperor is weak enough to be seriously challenged, members of the Colleges might try to seek alterative patronage.

If we use this sort of reckoning, then we can allow both sides to use Mages.

Or, you can have entire Orders throw their support behind a faction. I can definitely see the Amber and Jade Orders supporting the North over the South, whereas the Gold and Celestial Orders are unlikely to prefer Middenheim over Altdorf, despite their having schools in both cities.

Just a few thoughts to keep creative juices flowing...

[Kristoffer O]

Prehaps limiting the top ranking wizards to the Altdorf Faction.

[Aezeal]

STEAMTANK is a very valid point

[Sombre]

Is it? Does that mean ULTRA SPINE SALAD and TURBINE DOLPHIN are also valid?

There's no need for me to write any explanation for why Empire North and Empire South both get the college wizards, because pretty much any Empire army can use any of them. I won't be representing Patriarchs in the game, other than Balthasar Gelt, the Bright Wizard one (I forget the name - he was supreme patriarch before Gelt) and possibly Volans himself.

Just to be clear, by splitting Empire into two nations, I'm not writing in a civil war or representing the periods when the crown was challenged. It's merely a method of splitting up the huge unit list. I was planning on doing the same with Orcs and Goblins (which Okin is now doing I believe).

If you want to represent a civil war, that's up to you to roleplay just as if you want to represent a full and undivided Empire you'd have to make special rules allying the two nations, or combine them into one super nation.

[llamabeast]

Is it? Does that mean ULTRA SPINE SALAD and TURBINE DOLPHIN are also valid?



Sombre, you crack me up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Autochthon]

Shouldn't Witch Hunters also have some sort of Patrol Bonus?

After all, their job is to root out hidden deviancies of body and mind, which make them excellent Patrol units.

The dead bodies and lost populations that result from being on Patrol orders also fits the image of the Witch Hunters.

Makes me wonder if Witch Hunters shouldn't have Pillage too. Y'know - "Kill everyone to save them from themselves." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Frankly, I think that Flagellants and the Warrior Priest should have the Inquisitor skill instead.

[Autochthon]

Sombre said:
Is it? Does that mean ULTRA SPINE SALAD and TURBINE DOLPHIN are also valid?




Yes, but aren't those Dwarf war machines? I don't have the Armylists on me, sooooo...http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Ronco Gunrisson's Salad Shooter, anyone? Or maybe a lost schema from Von Meinkoff's estate? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Aezeal]

no they are not valid.

come on.. when I started WH all empire players would drool over the tank, good or not.. it's just a must have http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Sombre]

Oh so you were just asking me to include it? It's already in my proposed army list and has been since well before you made that post. So you'll get steam tanks. Eventually. OWL LASER.

Giving flagellants inquisitor wouldn't do anything. It just helps preaching in hostile dominion. Witch hunters could have patrol bonus.

[Autochthon]

Sombre said:
Oh so you were just asking me to include it? It's already in my proposed army list and has been since well before you made that post. So you'll get steam tanks. Eventually. OWL LASER.

Giving flagellants inquisitor wouldn't do anything. It just helps preaching in hostile dominion. Witch hunters could have patrol bonus.



!) Unfortunately, lots of Owls are Endangered, so you may have to settle for cranky mutant Egrets. Or Flamingos.

2) Fanatics of all stripes love to preach when they aren't hurting people. Sometimes they do both at the same time. At these times they can be -very- persuasive. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

[llamabeast]

Egrets? I've had a few - but then again, who hasn't?

[Aezeal]

Don't you think beserk, sacred and 2 attacks is a bit much for lowly flagellants though? And then maybe inquisitor on top of that?

[Sombre]

llamabeast said:
Egrets? I've had a few - but then again, who hasn't?



-universe groans-

I'm not using dom3 flagellants. I'm making my own, based off the warhammer unit.

Tomorrow I start getting into the modwork again and I'll carry on for the next 4 days or so. So I might even be able to get a beta out in a couple of weeks.

Of course there are other mods crying out for more stuff. Skaven will get an update of some sort soon. Probably heroes.

[llamabeast]

Oh boy, I did a misquote! It should have been

Egrets, I've had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.

How embarrassing.

Looking forward to the new mods by the way Sombre! And, I'm still working on the Tomb Kings, believe it or not. I'm asymptotically approaching completion (I do half of what's left to do each week - now I just have about ten descriptions, the forts and the banners to do, shouldn't take long at all).

[Sombre]

I have been working on this, though very slowly. I have a lot of code done at least.

Anyway, 3 new graphics to tide people over.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/558533-Infantry%20preview.png

[Kristoffer O]

Looks nice. I'm particulary fond of the sword guy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Humakty]

Very nice, are you following one of the particular colour code of the Empire ? (there is one per region/free city)

[Sombre]

I am to an extent. Each different state unit will bear the livery of a different force or region. For instance the Halberdier up there is clearly from Altdorf, while the spearman has a modified Stirland colour scheme. The greatsword might be from a number of different places. I'm not going to pay very close attention to copying livery colours and patterns, but I am going to make sure the armies look colourful and the units are distinct - you aren't playing a single region army here, but a combined Imperial force, so many and varied colour schemes make perfect sense.

I'm splitting the Empire into North and South. Roughly speaking this will be the split:

North

Middenland
Middenheim (city)
Talabecland
Talabheim (city)
Hochland
Ostland
Ostermark
Norland
Kislev Allies


South

Reikland
Altdorf (city)
Nuln (city)
Wissenland
Averland
Stirland
The Moot (Halfling region)

Clearly the Empire South gets more engineery stuff due to Nuln, Halflings due to The Moot, different knightly orers etc while Empire North gets huntsmen, Kislevites, the northern knightly orders,.. and so on.

The two sides will end up being pretty different. Even their basic state troops have some differences - southern spearmen use long spears and ringmail while northerners use regular spears and have plate cuirasses like halberdiers, the southern state troops include crossbows, northern shortbow archer militia are slightly better,.... lots of little things.

[Humakty]

GAAAAAHHHHH !!!!
Urm...euh...I mean yeah, it will be nice for sure...

[Morkilus]

so, wait... 2 different nations? Sweet.

[Sombre]

Yeah they'll be split into two nations, with two flags, in two different mod files as well probably. Only way to fit everything in.

[Noble713]

*bump*

This project isn't dead, is it?

[Wrana]

Thank you for the good work! Though I have to disagree on some issues, as usual.
(What I agree with is the 2 nations idea, though on different basis: I think that in gods-based games, such as Dominions is, it would be simply wrong to include followers of Sigmar and Ulric as one faction. I would prefer that it would be possible to make choice on the Pretender creation stage, but it's not so, alas. :( Kislevites I would (and shall) try to make an independent nation.)
0. I still think that Warhammer nations should be LA.
1. Why don't you include firearms as they are? They are surely part of WarHammer world, and balancing them shouldn't be too difficult...
2. I would (and shall, for my version) make a rapier as a new weapon - in any case, it needs to be done when Tilea will be under work... Otherwise, Imperial Swordsmen/Free Companies are often depicted using falchions...
3. I would include Empire standart bearer as additional unit
4. I would make at least Inner Circle Knight sacred (actually, in my version it's planned to make Free Lances, who is normal knights, and Knights of the Orders, who is sacred...)
5. I would include both mounted and foot versions of Sigmarite clergy... Plus Arch-Lectors. Grand Theogonist, I think, can only be included as unique (?) Hero.
6. Idea of Wizards/Lords as summons I think just isn't right, but it's possible that it grants better balance (though making them capital only and costly could be restriction enough?). Or do you make it so for some different reason? With Skaven some units made as summons for Warlock Engineers was thematic for sure, but for Empire?
7. North forces I generally agree about, but maybe they better have chain mail, not plate armor (I mean infantry, not Knights, of course!)?
8. Maybe too many Knight Orders, especially if we remember that they are dedicated to different gods...
That's it for now. ;) In any case I plan to make at least some Warhammer-based nations coming autumn, but it would be fine to know reasons behind what you do..

[Sombre]

1. Dom3 isn't designed for guns and they don't work well within it, or make much sense in its context. I make the warhammer nations to be used along with the Dom3 set of nations, not as part of a total conversion.

2. I don't really see the point of adding a rapier as a new weapon. I'm not against the idea but it isn't a classic empire weapon or anything and it's basically just another sword, with slightly different stats to broad, short and falchion I guess.

3. I thought about having standard bearers and decided against it. Every nation in Warhammer has them in the tabletop game, but the dom3 AI doesn't handle them too well and I prefer standards on non magical commanders as incentive to build them.

4. Some of the orders will be sacred, probably. Several of the orders have no strong religious association, or are part of a cult that is often at odds with the primary religion (see blazing suns, a classic empire order). Inner circles are just the elite of the order, not any more sacred to ordinary people/the priesthood.

5. To keep the number of commanders on the build list down to a semi reasonable number, I'm just having H1+2+3 priests, probably all on foot.

6. I want to include all of the magical orders. This simply doesn't work if they're recruitable from the recruit screen. That's the only reason for this decision, really. It does give the Empire an interesting mechanic too.

7. The plate armour is actually a bit of an issue. Plate cuirass is pretty damn heavy armour in dom3, yet in warhammer the empire troops have light armour. I might give them a special 'empire plate cuirass' or something with slightly less prot and enc. Some of the lighter units have ringmail etc also - notably the spearmen.

8. Yeah there are probably too many. There are probably too many nations, spells, items and units in dom3 also. I'll just add one or two in each version I release. They all have cool graphics and backstories and I will give them all slightly different mechanics. I expect them to be more of a theme/RP thing though, unlike the magic colleges which will have a big impact on gameplay.

[Sombre]

Oh and no this isn't abandoned. I'll finish it eventually. I might even upload a bunch of graphics this weekend to tide people over. I admit I haven't worked on it forever though - all the stuff I could show you is old.

[HoneyBadger]

Sombre-as concerns plate armour: There are quite a few different varieties and methods of producing plate. Some are going to be quite heavy, particularly those mass produced, or cheaply produced-such as the average recruitable Dom3 unit. Very high quality plate, however, would have to either be made on a very limited basis because of the expense and level of skill to produce it, or be produced by a nation with an advanced infrastructure, like the Empire. The very best plate armour ever produced (from Kasten-Brust to Maximilian) covered you from head to toe, allowed completely free movement, and weighed no more than 50lbs.

[Wrana]

Thank you for your answers.
1. I, for my part, am going to try to make WarHammer series mostly separate - about as BlackMoon project was, which added 4 different nations from different setting with intention that they were mostly to be played against one another, not alongside Dominions staple nations. I consider this more logical - without thinking where they appeared from and why. As for how they work - I didn't play much with Tarent mod, but had an impression that firearms worked relatively well in its context.. Have you any information on this? And in WarHammer there are quite many firearms so I'm not sure that their abscence would make style the same. Mechanically, of course, difference isn't much.
2. Well, slightly different stats, of course. Just that when I thought about this, I realised that a) historical counterparts to Empire Swordsmen, i.e., Spanish rondashiers (sp?) used just them and b) I would need them anyway when working on Tilea...
3. Agree that in WarHammer most armies have them. But it could be a good way to represent higher discipline and organisation of Empire armies (I don't plan to include banners for Bretonnia foot, for example). Another possibility I thought of is to make Empire infantry more mobile both on battlefield and on a strategy map than their armor would indicate ("marching"; this wouldn't be the case for cavalry).
4. Generally yes. Which is why other possibility and 8. :) I just don't see Empire cavalry consisting entirely of Templars and light cavalry - there should be secular knights as well as sacred ones, and the latter, while fine in RPG context, shouldn't probably be in the game which centers around gods struggling for domination...
5. Have to agree with this - there are many commanders already... And you didn't include Engineer, I fear! By the way, I agree that Witch Hunter should have patrolling, not spying ability. If any, he is more like assassin, not spy...
6. Understand now... Not sure if it would be manageable other way, too.
7. Yes, it's somewhat of a translation problem. But in this case (and some others) I am more inclined to go by art and descriptions rather than strict WarHammer mechanic (which, after all, includes just 2 general armor types)... And the question was due to the fact that north-provinces troops I've seen depicted with different armor.
8. Well, we surely can't reduce the number of things developers throw at us! :) While in the mods we produce we have more freedom in regards what to not include.

[Sombre]

Sombre-as concerns plate armour: There are quite a few different varieties and methods of producing plate. Some are going to be quite heavy, particularly those mass produced, or cheaply produced-such as the average recruitable Dom3 unit. Very high quality plate, however, would have to either be made on a very limited basis because of the expense and level of skill to produce it, or be produced by a nation with an advanced infrastructure, like the Empire. The very best plate armour ever produced (from Kasten-Brust to Maximilian) covered you from head to toe, allowed completely free movement, and weighed no more than 50lbs.

Well I'm not that fussed about history. Empire State Troops are generally depicted with plate cuirasses and so they're going to have some sort of chestplate armour. However in Warhammer they are not heavy infantry - they are medium at best. The Greatswords do have full plate and I'm ok with them being tough to kill (though without helmets, poor fellas), but the plate cuirass in dom3 is a bit much for the state troops.

[Sombre]

Thank you for your answers.
1. I, for my part, am going to try to make WarHammer series mostly separate - about as BlackMoon project was, which added 4 different nations from different setting with intention that they were mostly to be played against one another, not alongside Dominions staple nations. I consider this more logical - without thinking where they appeared from and why. As for how they work - I didn't play much with Tarent mod, but had an impression that firearms worked relatively well in its context.. Have you any information on this? And in WarHammer there are quite many firearms so I'm not sure that their abscence would make style the same. Mechanically, of course, difference isn't much.
2. Well, slightly different stats, of course. Just that when I thought about this, I realised that a) historical counterparts to Empire Swordsmen, i.e., Spanish rondashiers (sp?) used just them and b) I would need them anyway when working on Tilea...
3. Agree that in WarHammer most armies have them. But it could be a good way to represent higher discipline and organisation of Empire armies (I don't plan to include banners for Bretonnia foot, for example). Another possibility I thought of is to make Empire infantry more mobile both on battlefield and on a strategy map than their armor would indicate ("marching"; this wouldn't be the case for cavalry).
4. Generally yes. Which is why other possibility and 8. :) I just don't see Empire cavalry consisting entirely of Templars and light cavalry - there should be secular knights as well as sacred ones, and the latter, while fine in RPG context, shouldn't probably be in the game which centers around gods struggling for domination...
5. Have to agree with this - there are many commanders already... And you didn't include Engineer, I fear! By the way, I agree that Witch Hunter should have patrolling, not spying ability. If any, he is more like assassin, not spy...
6. Understand now... Not sure if it would be manageable other way, too.
7. Yes, it's somewhat of a translation problem. But in this case (and some others) I am more inclined to go by art and descriptions rather than strict WarHammer mechanic (which, after all, includes just 2 general armor types)... And the question was due to the fact that north-provinces troops I've seen depicted with different armor.
8. Well, we surely can't reduce the number of things developers throw at us! :) While in the mods we produce we have more freedom in regards what to not include.

1. Good luck with that huge project. Guns in dom3 can of course be simulated quite easily, but they don't look right at all to me. The nearest I would do is something like the Ogre Deathbelcher.

3. Empire organisation I'd been representing with strong PD and good for the cost State Troops. They get 11 morale for instance, representing their drilling beyond the basic infantry level.

4. I have included both secular and religious knights. I don't agree that secular knights have no place in dominions. There are quite a few examples of secular groups of troops in dom3. There are even heretics.

5. They will probably have a cheap siege bonus engineer of some sort. Well, the Altdorf faction anyway.

7. I haven't seen northern state troops with different armour. Unless you're referring to an older range of models?

[HoneyBadger]

Eventually, I have plans to do some codifying of weapons and armour to use as a general reference of effectiveness for the game. It'll take a lot of work and research, so I won't be done with it any time real soon, but I think I can do a pretty good job of illustrating what weapons and armour in the game should be capable of doing, and where are the gaps.

Hopefully, it'll serve a purpose as a handy modding reference, for me if for noone else, since it can become very time consuming and very arbitrary to just guess at what a given piece of equipment ought to do.

I'm planning on making it quite complete, containing as it should all major and most minor ancient arms, up to an including the Renaissance.

[Wrana]

3. Maybe that would be enough. But how to represent their Detachments... :confused: ;)
4. Maybe I wasn't clear - I meant that I am against the current situation in WH when all Empire knights are considered to be from Orders (except Counts themselves, that is)!
7. Quite probably, I am not watching model lines closely. Also illustrations in Empire army books...

[Wrana]

IIRC, there are some Greatsword regiments that don't wear helmets, but other do. In 6th ed. armybook I clearly see Wissenland Greatsword in Capellino helmet (p.11), some Greatswords in what is "Iron Cap" (p. 31), Carroburgers with both (p. 42), but Talabheim with no helmet as I see (same page). I don't have 7th ed. one on hand, but I think you will get similar pattern from it.

[Wrana]

I am with you! In spirit, at least.. ;) More seriously, I could be of help starting with October-November when I'll have enough time.

[HoneyBadger]

Good. You can work on military arms of Russia, the Slavic countries, Turkey, Mongolia, and Eastern Europe. Just give me a list, sorted by region and approximate date, with a picture if you can find one, any references, and a short description.

[Wrana]

I have to say beforehand that I don't know much about Slavic countries (I have some good articles on Poland, but not Bohemia or Serbia). Turkey & especially Mongolia would be easier - I have some friends who dig deeply indeed on these. I personally am more interested in Ancient Greece and Hellenistic world, though, of course, I have some information on Russian developments. ;) Plus European Renessaince (mostly Germany and England), and I have also information on China and surrounding regions, particularly Korea.

[Sombre]

Take it to another thread, please.

[Wrana]

Sorry. But it's finished in any case.

[Sombre]

I said before I would upload some of the graphics I did a while ago for Empire.

So here they are. Several are unfinished. I'm not currently working on Empire, but they will be finished one day.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/02482c41e9.png (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)

[HoneyBadger]

Beautiful. Thanks for posting them! I wish more modders would post their graphics, since it's the only way I can look at them.

[Wrana]

Thank you!
A question, though - is the vehicle a War Altar or War Wagon?

[Sombre]

It's a very unfinished war wagon. The War Altar looks quite different.

The war wagon code is all complete though and kicks some serious ***.

[Wrana]

Yes, I remember - you did post it somewhere and it was quite good. While Altar looks differently, I have no actual miniature and don't remember how it looked laterally. So I was somewhat puzzled by this picture. Thanks.

[Alderanas]

so you workin on this or lizardmen or both or just plain workin?

[Sombre]

I'm not working on this currently. When I have lizardmen to a solid point, I will resume work on this and try to release a limited beta within the nearish future. The Empire is an absolutely vast nation which is going to take a lot of time to 'complete', since it has the max number of heroes (and then some), all the knightly orders, all the different colleges of magic etc. But I do want to get a version playable and then keep adding to it bit by bit, like I did with Ogres, Skaven and am doing with Lizardmen.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm excited about this. I like big Nations with a lot of options.

[Sombre]

I've decided I'm going to take an unusual approach with this mod and model the Colleges of Magic system (which is a major feature of the nation and perhaps the most original thing about it) before anything else is done.

To sum up the system. You recruit initiates who summon wizards who summon wizard lords who summon the unique patriarch (or supreme patriarch for gold) for each College of Magic.

Initiate - a 100% random in virtually every path. Their research to gold ratio isn't good.
Wizard - Each College has a different one with different abilities, traits, paths etc. Each requires 1 in the appropriate path to summon and their summoning depends on research in the appropriate school. Each has 3 points of magic total.
Wizard Lord - As the wizard, but their path requirements match wizards, not apprentices. They're also higher research. They have 5 points magic, total.
Patriarch - They are unique and have many powerful abilities. They require boosted wizard lords to summon. They have at /least/ 7 points of magic total.

So Empire get varied magic, yes? Well eventually they do. They are almost the polar opposite of High Elves or Slann - they are excellent at a single type of magic, but there are no 'rainbows' amongst them whatsoever. It will also take a long time to research and summon all the different schools and in fact Empire's research isn't that hot,.. unless they pick certain schools to pursue and are willing to find and spend a lot of gems.

I have posted a lot about the Colleges of Magic before. I have very detailed plans for how they will all work, but they will require a lot of balancing.

Thus it makes sense for me to release the Colleges of Magic as a sort of pre-mod, changing a nation like, say, Marignon, to have them as national summons and remove its innate mages. This will allow people to test them and me to showcase the idea and evaluate how well it works. This is absolutely my priority project now. It will be released in the near future. It will feature little in the way of new graphics, using placeholders (recoloured generic mages in robes) but it will have new spells fitting the magic of the colleges.

[llamabeast]

Sounds great!

[Kristoffer O]

Very interesting concept. I'd like to see how it turns out.

[Wrana]

The idea seems interesting, even though as it is now, I'd think it more suitable for, say, Chaos or Tomb Kings. I am not sure whether it's possible to change it so that spells would change existing wizards instead (turning unit into a new form with better magic and special abilities, plus appropriate gold cost for upkeep), but if it's so, I would make such approach...

[Sombre]

Because it's a summon you mean? It's fairly easy to explain.

"When Teclis brought magic to the humans of the Old World, he knew that while too short-lived to understand High Magic and the full truth of the eight Lores, human wizards could certainly master one Lore. He founded the Eight Colleges that stand today; Bright, Gold, Grey, Amber, Celestial, Light, Jade and Amethyst. The Colleges pick only wizards of clear potential to join their ranks and while they compete for the best and the brightest, they work together to license and thus control aspiring wizards. These minor mages, known as Initiates, may be employed by any of the Colleges to fill lesser roles, acting as scribes, investigating rumours of magical sites and the like. For ambitious Counts and generals, Initiates serve as both magical support and contacts through which fully fledged wizards from their patron College may be hired."

A summon doesn't have to mean you draw a magic circle and use gems to make something appear. You can even have 0 gem summons which then cost gold.

[Mordici]

This looks like its going to be another mod nation that will get me playing this game more than I should :D

I love the whole wizard summoning concept to get the magic working. Plus I love nations with large numbers of heroes.

One question on the wizard summoning though. If you summon the Patriarch of a school and it dies, will you be able to resummon it again or is it dead?


With Sombre behind the wheel this will be on par with the Skaven mod if not better!

[Sombre]

You can resummon a slain patriarch as though it were a demon lord or similar unique summon. But the cost will be steep, of course.

[Wrana]

Summons which cost not gems but gold are interesting, of course. I didn't know such were possible.
At the same time, an idea that a wizard can eventually reach higher state through certain rituals of initiation is more appealing to me. Or is it impossible to implement by modding?

[Sombre]

I can't see a 'clean' way to do it, sadly. There's probably a few hacky ways to do it, but none of them appeal to me. Maybe you'll be able to work it out when you do 'em.

[Aezeal]

I don't think it's doable really. I don't really see the problem with summonable mages either.
If the nations have the accolyte and the normal wizard of each school (thats already quite a list on the recruit screen) then having the 2 higher powers of mages as summons is nice enough if they are not too high into the research tree and don't cost to much gems to get and still need upkeep.
When you said you could make them cost gold I think you meant upkeep right? or can you actually make them cost gold to summon (because I wouldn't know how).

[Sombre]

Yeah, upkeep. 0 gem cost summons which /then/ cost gold.

[Aezeal]

hmm a mage that would normally cost 400 gold for would be cheap... or just incredibly expensive after a number of turn if the upkeep was high.

The biggest problem I can think of is you have NO recruitment times and/or restrictions by castles. YOu could just recruit TONS of the cheap summoning bastards, send them to a lab on the front, let them all summon a powerfull wizard and then send him out in the fight immediately, so he's consting only a very low upkeep.. and the summoners could then just KEEP on going.. powerfull mages could be used as expendable chaff. The primary investment is what makes a unit valuable and why you need to protect him.

[Aezeal]

and when you've won a war you'd just separate the summoners in one prov + one powerfull firemage and the rest in another and cast a few fires from afar on it to kill all the powerfull mage chaff so you don't have to pay the upkeep :D

[Sombre]

Well the summons in this mod cost gems (and have upkeep). I was just saying you could have summons which cost no gems, as an example of using summons in a way that isn't supernatural.

[Aezeal]

Then again it's not unreasonable for the most powerfull wizards to cost gems.. they'd need some magical investments to buy all their stuff and components and of course their patron needs to pay that, and they'd only work in a somewhat magically advanced place, wizards have their pride too so SOME research limit needs to be there. I'd say the most powerfull wizards might only come to lands where there was at least research level 6 in the paths they use most :D.

You'd just need to have some acceptable level of recruitable mages and since you insist on having all paths inboth nations (a topic on which I'm completely neutral there is a lot to be said for both options (more diversity between the nations and smaller recruitmentlines vs lore)) that would mean a line of 9 mages :D

[Sombre]

The summons are restricted by their gem cost and by research. There is only one recruitable mage, the 3rp 100 gold initiate used to summon College Wizards.

[Aezeal]

hmmm if there is a gem cost that is of course a restriction.. I'm not sure how happy a nation will be if all their research needs to come from summons though and IMHO it will be pretty hard to balance but with your experience it'll probably end up ok anyway :D

Are you working actively on Empire again btw?

[llamabeast]

I had a thought. How about having the heads of the colleges, whatever they're called, available as pretenders? Them going for godhood would make about as much sense as anyone one else for the Empire (apart from the Emperor of course).

The reason for my thought was this. As we were discussing the other day, saying "I'm going to play Empire and concentrate on Bright Mages" is all very well, but in general you're best to site search for all paths, and so once your research has got fairly advanced you might as well get all the mages from all the colleges.

However, and here's the key bit, you could have the head of college be not especially strong/rather expensive for a pretender but, like the Mother of Rivers in CBM, give gems of the appropriate colour. So if you wanted to really concentrate on Bright Mages you'd take the Bright guy as your pretender and get an extra 6 gems a turn of fire gems, research straight up evocation and dominate with the Bright wizards while having only small numbers of the other colleges. So it would allow more explicit choice in how you play the nation.

What do you reckon?

[Aezeal]

Idea is nice, though I have the feeling Sombre has it all figured out allready and won't be making much changes.

After having said the idea is all right I have to say I think giving 6 gems might be a lil too much :D

[llamabeast]

Yeah, well 6 was just an arbitrary number, you could use whatever value seemed appropriate. 6 is what the Mother of Rivers gives in CBM though - seemed quite extreme to me!

[Aezeal]

well I don't play much, so certainly no CBM but it still seems a hell of a lot to me :D

[Mordici]

I think making each of the leaders of the magic colleges a pretender choice really limits what the Empire is and can be in the game. You could do exactly what you are proposing by simply summoning the one master of the magic college that you want and just working within their magic paths and ignoring the others.

I would rather have them all as choices to summon. Who knows you might just need those other college heads later on to give the Empire a splash of a certain color here or there ;)

[llamabeast]

You could do exactly what you are proposing by simply summoning the one master of the magic college that you want and just working within their magic paths and ignoring the others.

Er, what. No. The point with a pretender is that you start off with them and they could be a source of gems. Summoning a high level mage is a very different matter.

Anyway, say you took the Bright pretender, that wouldn't limit you from the other colleges at all. You'd be in the same position with respect to, say, the Amethyst college as if you'd just taken one of the vanilla pretenders. It's just that you'd have a boost getting started with the Bright wizards because of your extra fire gems.

I wasn't proposing limiting the available summons depending on who your pretender is. Just adding some pretenders which supply gems.

Anyhoo, this is an irrelevant discussion in a sense. We will have to see what Mr. Sombre is thinking!

[Sombre]

It's an interesting idea. I actually think more pretender options should allow you to get hold of gems, because you can effectively already spend points at that stage on getting gold, so why not a specific type of gem?

Problem one is that I want to have the patriarchs available as unique summons. They aren't capable of god level magic, so they wouldn't make a lot of sense as F9 S9 pretenders. However I could add a symbol for each of the winds/lores/colleges of magic with minimum trouble, which would produce gems of the appropriate type. Something like a blackened obelisk for Fire, a model of the celestial spheres for heavens etc. Set their new path requirements very high, give them gem production, researchbonus, high in their natural path(s) etc

Problem two is for some reason I don't like doing pretenders. So we'll see what happens. But it's a good idea which would let people focus on one school heavily if they really wanted.

[Redeyes]

How far along with Empire are you, Sombre?
I'm quite interested in taking up modding - I was looking at Empire as it as a nation I'm interested in, both in seeing it adapted here and otherwise.
Though if you're about to release something I will wait to see your go, your creations are top-notch. :)

[Sombre]

Not very far at all. I have come code and I have some sprites, but it's nowhere near finished.

I'd work with someone to do it if we were on the same page about stuff and the artwork wouldn't end up looking like a mishmash.

[Burnsaber]

All right, I've finished the (possible) Bright Wizard pic. I went with the WRFP description of imperial bright mages (a'k'a well trained and inspired military leaders as well as mages). If you like the style & quality of the pic, I could be inspired to do more mages (but I'm getting more and more tempted to do Brettonia, so I could switch projects..).

http://xs541.xs.to/xs541/09285/bright_wizards981.jpg

[BandarLover]

I think they look good, Burn! Though I would suspect a bright mage to have more fire, fiRE, FIRE!!

And, if I may throw my 2 cents worth in...

Why not start with a Brettonia mod while making the odd off graphic to help Sombre out with Empire? Not that Sombre really NEEDS help, I'd think, he is quite prodigious at turning out great artwork to go along with his mods. So I guess I'm saying, 'Go make Brettonia!' that way I can have a couple human Warhammer races with which to beat back the skaven, ogre, and lizard hordes!

:D

[Burnsaber]

I think they look good, Burn! Though I would suspect a bright mage to have more fire, fiRE, FIRE!!


Well, magic is sort of tabu in Warhammer world. It is born of Chaos, corrupting and evil by it's very nature. Every spell a wizard casts might backfire by a Tzeenetch's Curse. Hence they really don't light stuff on fire just for a show, it's not worth of being impaled by pitchforks.

Besides, there will also be a Bright Order Patriarch, so I need to top the "Epicness" when/if I do him too. He can have fire.



Why not start with a Brettonia mod while making the odd off graphic to help Sombre out with Empire?


Took heed of your advice, see the new hype thread for Breton for details


Not that Sombre really NEEDS help, I'd think, he is quite prodigious at turning out great artwork to go along with his mods. So I guess I'm saying, 'Go make Brettonia!' that way I can have a couple human Warhammer races with which to beat back the skaven, ogre, and lizard hordes!

:D

Sombre seems to a bit of a perfectionist (doing spawns for all the lizard gods! Damn, talk about fine-detail!) and his time is limited -> slow progress rate. He was the one to actually suggest that I help him out in IrC a while back. Besided, Im pretty hyed about the Empire nation myself. If I can somehow help to make surface faster, I'm all for it.

[Sombre]

I have been super busy the last couple of days. Hopefully I can power out some ogre stuff tomorrow and get closer to doing actual content for Empire.

Until then let's wait and see about collaboration - I don't want to set you off doing stuff while I get sidetracked by another project or sit around twiddling my thumbs :]

[Ballbarian]

I can't picture you twiddling your thumbs Sombre. :)
(btw: Great job so far!)

[Burnsaber]

Until then let's wait and see about collaboration


Ugh. If llamabeast had the balls to do it..


Also, comment on the spell, comment on the spell! :o


Also, comment on the pic, comment on the pic! :o

[Redeyes]

Also, comment on the pic, comment on the pic! :oI think you could add in some fiery destruction to the attack sprite - at least that's what I though to do ;)



One of the ideas I'm working with is take the the Abyssian Warlord and Warmaster's unitid for the Warrior Priest. Why? For those who don't know, when a Warlord is made a prophet it turns into a Warmaster.

This should allow me to give a special appearance and abilities to the "Prophet of Sigmar".

Either way, this idea could be extended to the wizard orders, allowing the player to choose in which direction to specialize the nation. Here's a list of the units with a prophet form (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=40553).

[Wrana]

One of the ideas I'm working with is take the the Abyssian Warlord and Warmaster's unitid for the Warrior Priest. Why? For those who don't know, when a Warlord is made a prophet it turns into a Warmaster.

This should allow me to give a special appearance and abilities to the "Prophet of Sigmar".


Good idea, I think. This somewhat limits usability of such a mod, of course - the mod nation wouldn't be usable along with existing one (Abyssia in this case), but a possibility for unique prophet characters outweights it for me. I'd probably use something like this for my Arabian-based mod even though I want it to be usable along with other nations. But this allows for unique Khalifs... And Warhammer would work best as a total conversion, I think.
As for Empire in particular, this could be used to make unique War Altar, for example (the armybook contains some indication that there is only one such).

[llamabeast]

A War Altar would be much better done as a unique summon. There is no problem with making new unique units.

The idea of making a unit which changes on being prophetised is quite cool though. I think the best thing to do would be to create a new unit for Abysia, exactly the same as the Abyssian Warlord, but obviously without the special propheting thing. Then Abysia would be left essentially unaffected (apart from losing one little cosmetic feature), while you would get to do the cool thing with the Prophet of Sigmar.

I personally am very keen on having all mod nations be compatible with all vanilla nations (ideally even those in other ages). I think both me and Sombre like mixing the Warhammer nations with the vanilla nations.

[llamabeast]

Burn, I think the Bright Wizard isn't one of your best, because:

1) His face looks funny.

2) He is generally a bit blurry and low and detail. Maybe he needs more bling.

Obviously he's still a pretty good sprite and I'm only offering criticisms because I think your sprites are amongst the very best.

[Sombre]

Yeah regarding the mixing of warhammer and vanilla nations I think some people have this idea of a total conversion, but even if it were realistic (which I don't believe it is) I'm not sure it would be that much fun. I like adding the warhammer nations as dominions 3 nations which mix and match with other mod nations and the basegame.

There's something awesome about taking warhammer skaven up against legions of Jotun giants, or Tomb Kings against the goblins and oni of Shinuyama.

[Wrana]

There's something awesome about taking warhammer skaven up against legions of Jotun giants, or Tomb Kings against the goblins and oni of Shinuyama.
Not so awesome - I (Shinuyama goblins) killed off Skaven while Tomb Kings made a very strong peacetime development, after which we both took part in stomping down Ermor! :) Maybe if the game didn't turn into sheer boredom by the time of Skaven-stomping, I could agree with you, but I don't think mix and match is intristically better...
Of course, another thing needed for total conversion would be a possibility to make Warhammer-specific magic items and spells. Spells are sometimes possible, but items are sadly not (there are too many cool features currently not modable). If you meant this, I can only agree. But make all Warhammer nations excluding items (except maybe some may be modelled with summons already having them?) and with limited magic difference is certainly possible. Actually, I almost have them on paper - excluding graphics. A plus side of such an approach is that they should be balanced amongst themselves in this case. A minus side, of course, is ton of pics necessary at one time - what other problems do you see?
By the way, which Warhammer nations are still not taken by modders? ;)

[llamabeast]

Not so awesome - I (Shinuyama goblins) killed off Skaven while Tomb Kings made a very strong peacetime development, after which we both took part in stomping down Ermor! Maybe if the game didn't turn into sheer boredom by the time of Skaven-stomping, I could agree with you, but I don't think mix and match is intristically better...

Can't understand you, sorry. What was not good, and what are you suggesting caused it?

[Sombre]

Not so awesome - I (Shinuyama goblins) killed off Skaven while Tomb Kings made a very strong peacetime development, after which we both took part in stomping down Ermor! :) Maybe if the game didn't turn into sheer boredom by the time of Skaven-stomping, I could agree with you, but I don't think mix and match is intristically better...


... what? I don't get it. How is that anything to do with mixing warhammer and dom3 nations? Sounds more like you got bored in a specific game, during the first war?


Of course, another thing needed for total conversion would be a possibility to make Warhammer-specific magic items and spells. Spells are sometimes possible, but items are sadly not (there are too many cool features currently not modable). If you meant this, I can only agree.


No, I wasn't so much referring to spells and items. I think 90% of the spells in warhammer can be adequately represented in dom3, while the items are far less important to the warhammer flavour, and many of them are already represented by basegame items, or could be made so (almost all of the weapon style items in warhammer can be made for example). As you say, you can also make summons, heroes etc who already carry certain items, describe these in the text and give them appropriate abilities. A Skaven summon might be for an assassin or warlord armed with the Fellblade, who is struck with disease or decay when entering battle, but has a hugely powerful weapon etc.

But make all Warhammer nations excluding items (except maybe some may be modelled with summons already having them?) and with limited magic difference is certainly possible. Actually, I almost have them on paper - excluding graphics. A plus side of such an approach is that they should be balanced amongst themselves in this case. A minus side, of course, is ton of pics necessary at one time - what other problems do you see?
By the way, which Warhammer nations are still not taken by modders? ;)

Well I don't know if you noticed, but there have been a lot of projects where people almost have everything on paper and almost have all the ideas mapped out - but they don't come to be. In my experience having the stuff mapped out, doing the initial 'research' etc is virtually nothing of the time and effort it takes to make a mod. I have every warhammer nation pretty much mapped out, every warwind nation and a few others,.. but I don't feel it's actually progress. So as I said before, I wish you luck in making every warhammer nation for your own TC and look forward to playing it, but I don't think it's realistic.

For reference, here is the state of play regarding warhammer nations. I wouldn't say that any of them are 'taken' by any modders, since there's nothing to stop someone doing their own version.

Skaven (Done by me)
Ogre Kingdoms (Done by me)
Lizardmen (Done by me)
Tomb Kings (Done by llama)
Chaos Hordes (Panpiper has made a mod which isn't 100% finished but apparently covers most of this)
Empire (I am working on, handful of graphics and code)
Greenskins (Okin was working on, several graphics seen)
Bretonnia (Burnsaber is working on, several graphics seen)
Chaos Beasts (Zepath made some sprites for a chaos nation which included some beastmen, but other than that, nothing)
High Elves (I remember someone posted one or two graphics which looked ok - they are also /partially/ represented in Zepath's Sylvania)
Wood Elves (also partially represented in Sylvania, other than that, nothing)
Dark Elves (I made one unit graphic, someone made some slightly ropey looking ones from resizing the miniatures)
Dwarfs (There are some fantasy dwarf nations, but nothing warhammery really)
Chaos Dwarfs (Someone posted some decent sprites a while ago, for a few basic units)
Dogs of War/Tilea (I actually have code for about 10% of this, and some graphics never seen)
Araby (There are a couple of middle eastern mods, unfinished)
Vampire Counts/Sylvania (Partially covered, sort of, by Zepath's Sanguinia)
Classic Undead (Nothing here so far, really)

I think that's all of them. I might be missing something though.

[Wrana]

Maybe if the game didn't turn into sheer boredom by the time of Skaven-stomping, I could agree with you, but I don't think mix and match is intristically better...

... what? I don't get it. How is that anything to do with mixing warhammer and dom3 nations? Sounds more like you got bored in a specific game, during the first war?
By the end of first war. What I meant is that the presence of Warhammer nations didn't add anything to the development of events. Also, while either classic Dominions nations or Warhammer ones have a rich history of interrelations already developed, they do not really have good reasons for relations between groups. Of course, some game scenarios can actually play along with this fact - but I at least think those where nations know of each other more interesting.
Another thing is that some Dominions nations have many similarities with Warhammer ones. And this makes them somewhat interchangeable, also creating a reason for mod-maker to make his mod nation overpowering in an effort to make it different from an existing ones. I feel such an impulse myself sometimes and I think that something similar could afflict the author of the Tomb Kings... :(


But make all Warhammer nations excluding items (except maybe some may be modelled with summons already having them?) and with limited magic difference is certainly possible. Actually, I almost have them on paper - excluding graphics. A plus side of such an approach is that they should be balanced amongst themselves in this case. A minus side, of course, is ton of pics necessary at one time - what other problems do you see?
By the way, which Warhammer nations are still not taken by modders? ;)

Well I don't know if you noticed, but there have been a lot of projects where people almost have everything on paper and almost have all the ideas mapped out - but they don't come to be. In my experience having the stuff mapped out, doing the initial 'research' etc is virtually nothing of the time and effort it takes to make a mod. I have every warhammer nation pretty much mapped out, every warwind nation and a few others,.. but I don't feel it's actually progress. So as I said before, I wish you luck in making every warhammer nation for your own TC and look forward to playing it, but I don't think it's realistic.
Yes. Now I see what you mean, thank you. I still think that it's possible, though it would probably be better to make them one at the time. I hope first ones would appear during the following winter when I have less work...

For reference, here is the state of play regarding warhammer nations. I wouldn't say that any of them are 'taken' by any modders, since there's nothing to stop someone doing their own version.

Skaven (Done by me)
Ogre Kingdoms (Done by me)
Lizardmen (Done by me)
Tomb Kings (Done by llama)
Chaos Hordes (Panpiper has made a mod which isn't 100% finished but apparently covers most of this)
Empire (I am working on, handful of graphics and code)
Greenskins (Okin was working on, several graphics seen)
Bretonnia (Burnsaber is working on, several graphics seen)
Chaos Beasts (Zepath made some sprites for a chaos nation which included some beastmen, but other than that, nothing)
High Elves (I remember someone posted one or two graphics which looked ok - they are also /partially/ represented in Zepath's Sylvania)
Wood Elves (also partially represented in Sylvania, other than that, nothing)
Dark Elves (I made one unit graphic, someone made some slightly ropey looking ones from resizing the miniatures)
Dwarfs (There are some fantasy dwarf nations, but nothing warhammery really)
Chaos Dwarfs (Someone posted some decent sprites a while ago, for a few basic units)
Dogs of War/Tilea (I actually have code for about 10% of this, and some graphics never seen)
Araby (There are a couple of middle eastern mods, unfinished)
Vampire Counts/Sylvania (Partially covered, sort of, by Zepath's Sanguinia)
Classic Undead (Nothing here so far, really)

I think that's all of them. I might be missing something though.
Thank you. I'd say two things considering this list first: it makes no sense to make Arabia under this project until we know what Warhammer Arabia actually looks like (some Warhammer novels descripted it, but that isn't the same as an actual official description). As for Arabian mods under work, I wouldn't include them here. At least my unfinished one was planned as a part of Dominions world and its storyline, as were others which I saw. Considering "Classic" Undead it's possible to think of them as Nagash's army - but I don't think it would be particularly different from Vampire Counts if he would be acknowldeged in their descriptions. I think that differences between vampire bloodlines could be more trouble here and it may be necessary to make them into different nations (as it isn't possible to change recruitables, etc. according to the Pretender's choice). What would you say on this?
Of Warhammer nations not covered I think I can make either High Elves or Tilea realtively quickly. THe latter especially as they don't require much new graphics...

[Sombre]

And this makes them somewhat interchangeable, also creating a reason for mod-maker to make his mod nation overpowering in an effort to make it different from an existing ones. I feel such an impulse myself sometimes and I think that something similar could afflict the author of the Tomb Kings... :(


I don't feel that Tomb Kings is overpowered, but if you have some insight on that front I'm certain llama would like to hear it in the Tomb Kings thread.


Thank you. I'd say two things considering this list first: it makes no sense to make Arabia under this project until we know what Warhammer Arabia actually looks like (some Warhammer novels descripted it, but that isn't the same as an actual official description). As for Arabian mods under work, I wouldn't include them here. At least my unfinished one was planned as a part of Dominions world and its storyline, as were others which I saw.


I'm not including them as Warhammer nations. I mentioned them for the same reason I did the zepath nations - parts of them could be repurposed.

I'm not sure what you mean by project, are you referring to your own bid to make all the WH nations? There isn't a whole lot on Araby, but there is source material and they got a limited selection of Warmaster scale models too.


Considering "Classic" Undead it's possible to think of them as Nagash's army - but I don't think it would be particularly different from Vampire Counts if he would be acknowldeged in their descriptions. I think that differences between vampire bloodlines could be more trouble here and it may be necessary to make them into different nations (as it isn't possible to change recruitables, etc. according to the Pretender's choice). What would you say on this?


Well, I think there are a fair number of differences between the classic undead army lists, which more heavily featured necromancers, liches etc and the Vampire Counts.

If I were doing all WH nations I would split undead into Tomb Kings, Sylvania (with mortal units alongside undead), Undead (in the classic sense, with necromancers and liches prominent) and Vampire Counts (featuring the 4? remaining vampire bloodlines).

But realistically I'm not likely to get all that done. And people want Empire before I start anything else.

Of Warhammer nations not covered I think I can make either High Elves or Tilea realtively quickly. THe latter especially as they don't require much new graphics...

Depends if you want to make a quality mod nation, or just bash one or two out to up the number of Warhammer nations for a Warhammer themed game or something. I personally believe Tilea/Dogs of War requires some of the most diverse and difficult graphical and coding work, but that's just my take on it. I go into a little more depth and detail than a lot of people would.

Anyway, I swear by the 141 unholy gods of Wimpole Hall I will resume work on Empire this weekend. For real.

[Wrana]

Thanks!
By project I meant what exists - as different people do different Warhammer nations with some coordination I think I saw. Maybe it's just me. :)
On Warhammer Undead I see your point. At the same time Necrarch bloodline I think was made as a replacement for old Liches/Necromancers. So at least them would take the same niche. Other lines also have slightly different realations with mortals. Another thing is that in Warhammer Necromancy is restricted to this serie of armies while even those of the others who clearly have access to Death magic (in Dominions sense) do not use zombies, etc. Possibly, it's just impractical, but this is one reason I think about total conversion...
As for Tilea I must note that it has units and characters which are quite the "human norm" as its core. This allows to use much conversion. Coding will necessiate more details, of course, but it's much easier for me than work on new graphics.

[Sombre]

Just some work in progress. I tested out gunpowder weapons again today and wasn't happy with the results, so I'm sticking with a crossbow using version of the nuln engineering school.

From left to right - Free Infantryman, Nuln Marksman, Nobleborn, Flagellant.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8578&d=1248643678

[Noble713]

Love the Free Company and the Flagellant. The Nobleborn seems like he could use a bit more on his mount to make him stand out from the rank & file horsemen types.

[Sombre]

Well for Empire the rank and file cavalry are basically knights, so the lack of barding makes the Nobleborn distinct.

However you're right the horse is quite basic. It's an older KO one, so I could spruce it up a bit.

[Sombre]

Hi everyone. I'd like to ask a favour of you all, if you enjoy my mods.

Please nag me to do Empire. If I don't get it done and fairly soon I am going to be pissed at myself but apparently I need a bit more motivation than that, because progress is molasses slow currently.

So if you want Empire before 2015, please spare a moment to nag or enthuse either on IRC or in this thread. Demand a certain graphic or justification for design decisions or even to see code proving something. It'll work and therefore so will I. I think.

[Humakty]

Oh, mighty Sombre, who's sorcerous knowledge is envied by demons themselves, your work will live forever among the most shiny stars, my wife pronounce your name when she ... gives birth to my childs. I'll invade the world, and rename all of the bogs 'Sombre's bog' so that the witch hunters don't find you. We live only so that we can testify to our ultimate judge that we have played your mods. You can't leave us in darkness, you have to get up and, once more, save us from the mortal fate of 'Boredom' (a most evil sorceror).

[rdonj]

Hmm. I'm thinking reiksguard, some of the knightly orders, and a steam tank ;).

Nag nag nag.

[BandarLover]

Empire! Empire! Empire! The mob has spoken!!

[Burnsaber]

Here are my superior demands for the wizard order mages! Because I want everything to accomodate to my knowledge of the WRFP lore!


Fire - Bright - F+ - Evocation
Wizard - Higher precision, lower research
Lord - Strong fire shield, starts at higher leadership


Pure fire sucks! Especially when you can't mass them for battlefield use. The summons from fire are basically neglible so they don't really have too many uses in few numbers. However the WRFP lore suggests that Bright Mages often lead squads of troops and are subject to some martail training at their academy. So perhaps they could have some basic armor (enc 0 magic scale mail?) and higher fighting stats with a Fire Sword. Won't likely matter much, but it might be nice to have some mages that might survive a rain of stones casting.


Metal - Gold - E (F) - Alteration and construction
Wizard - Alchemy (?), higher upkeep
Lord - Forgebonus


Perhaps metallic skin for the lord? Not that he needs it, but it's thematic.


Shadow - Grey - AD - Enchantment, alteration
Wizard - Stealthy
Lord - Flight, spy


In WRFP, the Grey order is descriped as a mix of KGB and Illuminati. Having eyes everywhere and eliminating things that could pose a threath for the empire. You have the stealth aspect here, but these guys are seriosly frightening. Assasination or patrolbonus could also be thematic.


Light - Light - FS - Alteration and Evocation
Wizard - Heal, Auto communion (pythium copystats)
Lord - Better heal?


Perhaps some custom anti-demon weapon?


Death - Amethyst - D (W) - Alteration, Enchantment
Wizard - Drain life attack
Lord - Armed with Soul Slaying scythe weapon


In WRFP, the Amethyst order is descriped as a special task force opposing necromancers. Perhaps they could get some custom anti-undead weapons by using the "stop the dead" vanilla weapon?

[Sombre]

Pure fire sucks! Especially when you can't mass them for battlefield use. The summons from fire are basically neglible so they don't really have too many uses in few numbers. However the WRFP lore suggests that Bright Mages often lead squads of troops and are subject to some martail training at their academy. So perhaps they could have some basic armor (enc 0 magic scale mail?) and higher fighting stats with a Fire Sword. Won't likely matter much, but it might be nice to have some mages that might survive a rain of stones casting.


Aside from the bonus via fire magic, bright wizards will be leader 40, lords 80. They will all have onebattlespell phoenix power. Pure fire may not be the best path, but when you have F3 (F4 in combat) and the other wizards are rocking 2s and 1s in their paths, I think you'll feel happy. The lord has a little death thrown in too and a variety of nice powers (including a flame sword). Additionally bright wizards will have heatpower 2 and lords 3 making their stats nuts in hot dominion. Finally the addition of spells like the flaming sword combat summon and the burning head evocation makes fire more interesting.


Perhaps metallic skin for the lord? Not that he needs it, but it's thematic.


I think gold lords will probably get something along the lines of a selfbuff only army of gold casting. They're going to be decent battlemages with FE and they'll get a nice acid based aoe missile weapon at wizard and lord level.


In WRFP, the Grey order is descriped as a mix of KGB and Illuminati. Having eyes everywhere and eliminating things that could pose a threath for the empire. You have the stealth aspect here, but these guys are seriosly frightening. Assasination or patrolbonus could also be thematic.


Yeah, sounds reasonable. The lords are going to be flying and incredibly stealthy so they'd be fun with the assassin trait.


Perhaps some custom anti-demon weapon?


I think they get an anti daemon/undead spell added but I don't remember right now.


In WRFP, the Amethyst order is descriped as a special task force opposing necromancers. Perhaps they could get some custom anti-undead weapons by using the "stop the dead" vanilla weapon?

Yeah that sounds reasonable. Though death magic itself is also seriously good at killing undead. The anti undead knightly order (which borders sylvania) whose name escapes me (Morr maybe?) will have some very nice undead blasting scythes and those will probably be available on the amethysts too.

[Fantomen]

nag.:poke:

Give us our mod, I want my mod!:p

[Amonchakad]

*mutter mutter*

*more mutter*

Ehm ehm,

WE, the United Fans of Warhammer-Dominions - no,wait.

*mutter mutter*

WE, the International Association for a Complete Warhammer Mod - just a second,please?

*mutter mutter*

WE, the Warhammer Enthusiastics for a Better Dominions - what's NOW?Hang on there.

*angry mutter*

WE, the Warhammer Enthusiastics for a Better Dominions, AND Bill -

Bill: Thanks!

Hereby demand a beta version of the Warhammer: Empire Mod, to be delivered ASAP.

Failure to comply will result in a horrible death involving butter, cantaloupes and lobsters.

[Sombre]

Ok I am actually doing stuff. Slowly.

Here is an empire commander. He's supposed to be a state captain but he looks way too fancy for that now. I think he might be an 80ldr commander. He can't be that important as he's on foot. The 120ldr general will be mounted, as will the elector counts, who will be recruitable uniques. Probably. Or maybe just heroes.

You also get a choice of two flags. I'm not super pumped about either of them, but I don't care much about flags, as evidenced by the unfinished itza one.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8915&d=1254345146

[BandarLover]

I like the flag on the left, the white makes it stand out more. For someone who doesn't like making flags you do a fine job on them. :D

[rdonj]

I agree, the white flag seems to work better.

[Amonchakad]

The Angry Mob with Pitchforks and Torches declares the white flag to be the winner.

[Sombre]

Coincidentally also the flag the commander is pointing at.

[Sombre]

Bright wizard. Hard to get them exactly right, but it'll do for now.

[Burnsaber]

Bright wizard. Hard to get them exactly right, but it'll do for now.

I.. I'm speechless. Pure 100% awesome distilled into a sprite.

If the Lord is even more awesome than that, it just might cause a brain overload.

[Sombre]

I would like people's opinions on that actually. Should the lords be on foot or mounted? If mounted, they are easier to differentiate. Though it's not hard to have them look very upgraded on foot to be honest.

The patriarchs will all have special mounts and whatnot, like elementals, monsters, special forms etc.

[Sombre]

Warrior Priest. One on the right is the nearer finished. I should do a stage by stage one day, I can just never remember to do so.

[BandarLover]

Very nice sprites Sombre! Particularly the Warrior priest. LOVE the twin tail comet on his tunic.

As far as the lord goes, I know mounting them would def make them stand out separate from reg bright mages, I just don't think it they would look good to me on a mount. That's my own personal aesthetic sense though.

[rdonj]

Amazing sprites as usual, sombre. Well, as I said on IRC I vote for mounted wizard lords. I think you can pull them off well.

[Sombre]

I'm going to crank out a wizard a day if I can. I think grey is the next logical one. They're air and death magic combined with stealth.

[Sombre]

Grey wizard. Not massively happy with it, but I'm getting one done a day at least :]

[BandarLover]

You're prolly too demanding on yourself. I think it looks cool. :D

[llamabeast]

I think it looks very cool. I was imagining a gandalf hat (my grey wizard model what I painted has a gandalf hat), but actually the hood looks very fitting.

[Sombre]

The grey wizard lord will have a gandalf hat. He can be a bit less physically stealthy what with all his magical power. He'll also have a nice raven.

Any preference on which I do tomorrow?

[Burnsaber]

I'm going to crank out a wizard a day if I can.

This sentence mocks me. There's clearly a joke to be had on its expense but I keep on drawing blanks. So much potential, wasted..

But anyways, back to the topic.

The thing I'd like to see next is either amethyst wizard or Grey Wizard lord.

[llamabeast]

Amethyst.

[lch]

The choice already was Amethyst. Or else.

[Zargen]

Amethyst would be a great one. Death magic! hm...But how to give them death magic without having them spamming undead spells? Since Amethyst Wizards more-or-less worship Morr who is against the use of undead.

[lch]

Unfortunately Death magic grants the ability to command undead. Otherwise one could prevent the use of reanimation spells by removing this ability from the wizards.

[Sombre]

Well I think if you give them #noleader they can't command undead no matter what.

I'm not that worried about it though - if people want to RP a bit they won't use the undead spells if they can help it. Amethysts will have their own national spells to be using anyway - rather than skellyspam they'll probably be able to spam shadelike things for instance.

[Zargen]

Hey Sombre have a look at this
http://greywolf.critter.net/ahq/spells/amethyst.htm
From the looks of it Amethyst actually have more in common with astral magic instead of death.
For their weapons I think they should have like. staff(obvious) and more importantly; enslave(for Altered Allegiance).

Also found this picture you could take into consideration while making the sprites.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammeronline/images/f/fd/Wizard_npcs.jpg
from left to right: amethyst, grey, jade, and celestial wizard

Since I'm not sure how far along you've gotten with them I'd like to add my general thoughts to the wizards

Amethyst Wizards: Astral and some Death(most necromancers are actually corrupted amethyst wizards, we could use that)

Grey Wizards: Air magic. They're illusionists to the core. Maybe a little astral.

Light Wizards: Light Wizards are actually more along lines of Priests in Dom. They deal in banishing demons and destroying undead. I think they should have low amounts of water, astral, and fire.

Celestial Wizards: As one would expect. Heavy Astral users. Along with air and fire. When they attack someone. They make SURE they're dead after the first spell. Comets. Lighting bolts. that sort of thing.

Bright Wizards: Fairly obvious. Mainly Fire. But maybe a minor in earth for magma and the like.

Amber Wizards: They're less like wizards and more like tribal shamans. So some nature skill, but can also hold themselves in battle. They use spears instead of staves for such a reason.

Jade Wizards: These ones are the Druids. Big boost of Nature magic.

Gold Wizards: Earth magic users. Known to be alchemists.

If you want some ideas for spells without having to flip through the book you can use this link here: http://greywolf.critter.net/ahq/professions/wizards.htm

[Sombre]

Hmm. Those resources seem to be from Advanced Heroquest and contradict some of the background from WHFB, which is my primary source.

I have the paths of the schools pretty much mapped out. Amethyst wizards are death users with some wind, maybe some astral too. They are all armed with anti undead scythes. They aren't getting an enslave attack.

Sorry for the delays on the amethyst, I've been really busy and one of my friends is going through some serious woe these last few days, so I've been looking after her.

[Zargen]

Whats the latest news Sombre?

[Sombre]

I got busy with so much other stuff! That's the news ;]

But I'll do an amethyst tomorrow.

[Sombre]

This mod should probably be considered the 'mod that will never be' much like KO's impressive map ;]

Believe it or not I still intend to finish it though. I just need my new laptop to arrive and replace this horrible one.

[Jack_Trowell]

Maybe you should split the mod into several parts, each for one faction of the empire (north with Ulric's followers, center with Sigmar's ...)

And it would allow for the civil war scenario I dream of ... :D

[Sombre]

My new laptop has arrived. Now begins the painful process of transferance.

[Sombre]

Been wizzy doodling.

Amethyst and Celestial. Like night and day!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/picture.php?albumid=36&pictureid=277

[rdonj]

I love the way the amethyst mage's robe wraps around his legs. It's a simple touch, but very cool. And I imagine somewhat difficult to produce.

[Amonchakad]

That's some good-looking sprites! The amethyst mage looks indeed very cool with that swirling robe.

[Sombre]

Thanks guys.

I've decided the wizard lords will all be mounted. This gives me a bit more canvas to paint the symbols of their orders on. The amber mage will be mounted on a bear, the bright mage will get a warhorse. It also makes them immediately distinct from the lesser order mages.

For bright mages does a 12 prec F2 with 30% ED who autocasts phoenix power sound reasonable? Not having to cast phoenix power saves you a round and equally importantly saves a bunch of fatigue.

[Sombre]

Actually I've thought about all the wizard level paths:

Bright (Lore of Fire): F2 30% ED (autocast PP)
Light (Lore of Light): S2 F1 (sacred)
Gold (Lore of Metal): E2 F1 30% W
Jade (Lore of Life): N1 W1 A1 E1 30% NW (sacred, healer)
Amethyst (Lore of Death): D2 100% SA (no undead leading)
Amber (Lore of Beasts): N2 30% E (strength of gaea autocast)
Grey (Lore of Shadow): A2D1 (stealthy, spy)
Celestial (Lore of the Heavens): A1 S1 60% A 60% D (fortune teller, researcher)

[rdonj]

Sounds pretty good so far. Although at first glance D on a celestial mage seems a bit odd.

[Sombre]

Yeah that's a typo. It's supposed to be an S. Silly edit timer.

[rdonj]

Yeah, that makes them look much better.

I took a look back 3 years ago (yikes!) at the first post, and I was wondering a bit about how you have the summon paths set up. You've got jade, light, bright, AND celestial mages all apparently summonable through evocation. So your best researchers, your primary evocation batteries, your healers (and most diverse mages), and your primary astral mages all available in the same tree. Evocation alone will get you access to all your national paths, and all but death to level 2 on just the basic mages. It would probably be a good idea to spread some of these guys around a little more to keep evocation from being too obvious of a path to head up early.


Also, I was thinking about steam tanks. From your description of them, I almost feel like they'll be too good as a recruitable unit. How do you feel about making them a commander instead? Or failing that, a summon.

[Humakty]

Empire roster should allow for a OK early game, even without decent evoc. You've got every tactical combination you could dream of, plus some nasty special units. And if recruitable mages are weak, shouldn't it balance with ubber units ? You'd still be pretty vulnerable to air/astral mages (who can pawn any recruitable unit you could dream of). Not so sure about astral, isn't it countered by lifeless and other similar tags ?

All in all, it should give them a pretty different gameplay, which is always nice.

EDIT : I just remembered steam tanks were created by a long dead genius, and are slowly breaking down one by one, as time and battles pass along. So a summon similar to the elemental royalty one would be most fitting. Can't remember how many are stiil operational though. (and lended my army book, or lost it somehow, which is a shame, it had lots of fluff in it)

EDIT EDIT : I've seen an article in white dwarf, which allowed for customisation of steam tanks, to give them a more 'unique' feel, as each one of them is a unique masterpiece. So an immensely talented modder could even make each one of them slightly different. (is this one subtle enougth ?)

[Sombre]

The spreading of the schools throughout paths is tricky. 8 mages spread throughout 5 paths (discounting construction and blood). This is what I figure at the moment:

Alteration - Gold
Evocation - Bright, Light
Enchantment - Grey
Thaumaturgy - Amethyst
Conjuration - Amber, Jade
?????????? - Celestial

Just don't know where to put Celestial.

Re: Steam Tanks - Definitely going to be construction summon, not a recruitable. The war wagon will be recruitable but will not be suitable for rushes/expansion due to the resource cost. I'm not going to make steam tanks unique because I think they're pretty boring doodads with the cannon removed. Tempted to remove them entirely.

[Calchet]

I find the idea of Death magic on bright wizards a bit odd. They're all about sudden violence and destruction, brightly-burning anger and violent temper. Not subtle in the least, but direct, forceful and effective.

Death magic, meanwhile, feels like a long-term path, fairly subtle, using summoned beings to do your work for you, some of them sneaking about, crippling your opponents to make them easier to kill later, ageing them, making them sick, and so on - the only point where it makes sense for a Bright Wizard is that it contains the fear spells, but leaving death out of Aqshy and giving the Empire a national "The Burning Head" F-spell for scaring people would feel far more thematic... or so I see it.

[rdonj]

My suggestion for where to put celestials, after looking at your list, is probably into either alteration or thaumaturgy.

[Amonchakad]

The paths on the mages look good, I'd just add a couple things about their abilities to make them more "unique":

-give the Gold mages a forge bonus(perhaps even place them in Construction school?)
-animal awe for Amber mages;
-why no undead leadership on the Amethyst mages? As far as I recall, they are skilled necromancers.

Also, I agree that steam tanks should be mid-game construction summons: probably a high protection trampler unable to be routed?
Don't remove them please, because I'd really like to see the gorgeous sprite you'll do for them:D

[Sombre]

No, amethyst wizards are skilled anti necromancers. They use the Lore of Death, rather than the Lore of Necromancy. They also revere Morr, god of the dead, whose followers are basically crusaders against the undead. So they'll get anti undead spells and technically in dom3 they'll be able to cast all the death magic they probably shouldn't, but I'll try to discourage that in the description and through stuff like not having undead leadership.

I will make sure the wizards get appropriate special abilities - I just wasn't listing them all above. I agree Ambers should have animal awe and Golds will definitely get a 10% forge bonus at wizard level, probably 20% at Lord level. All the Lord level guys will get cool stuff, like the Golds will have high prot from turning to gold, the Grey Lords will fly and have glamour, the Amber Lord will ride a huge bear and entangle people who attack him etc. The Lords are going to be relatively pricey in gemcost, so you won't have many of them. Probably like 25 gems each.

The Steam Tank probably isn't going to get a very good graphic from me. I don't like drawing big stuff or inanimate things very much - see the doomwheel and screaming bell, which are very basic.

Re: Bright Wizards having death magic - it is only a very small amount and only for some of them. I could take it out though. I have already put in a burning head spell which is fireball + fear causing flaming skull summon at the point of impact - that currently requires F2D1 but I could make it F3 and just have it be more tiring for the mage to cast, or at higher research level.

[rdonj]

Will a death mage still try to cast raise dead if it has no undead leadership? Is it even possible to give a death mage no undead leadership, given that death magic increases it (would being mindless work?)?

It's too bad the AI likes the raise dead spells so much, it's really hard for a death mage not to just turn into a skelly spammer after turn 5.

[Sombre]

I'll just give them #noleader. Pretty sure that removes all leadership regardless of paths.

[Stavis_L]

I'll just give them #noleader. Pretty sure that removes all leadership regardless of paths.

Hrm...have you tried that? Not sure about #noleader specifically, but #noundeadleader (the undead leadership equivalent) says the unit "cannot lead undead units when it is a commander (unless it is a death or blood mage). This is the default." [emphasis mine] That implies that the leadership value will just be a baseline 0 adjusted by the normal B/D magic modifiers.

As a test (don't have a game machine avail. at the moment) someone could B or D empower a scout to see whether it gains undead leadership.

[rdonj]

Actually stavis I don't think that test would work :)

However, as it happens I'm playing a game with Jomon, Broken Swords at the moment, and they have death mages with no undead leadership. Looking at the mod file it seems sombre accomplished this by giving them the #noleader tag. The only question that remains in my mind is whether they'll cast raise dead or not.

[Sombre]

Like I said, #noleader not #noundeadleader. #noleader is a special tag, it really does remove all leadership.

[rdonj]

Actually stavis I don't think that test would work :)

However, as it happens I'm playing a game with Jomon, Broken Swords at the moment, and they have death mages with no undead leadership. Looking at the mod file it seems sombre accomplished this by giving them the #noleader tag. The only question that remains in my mind is whether they'll cast raise dead or not.

So I've finally gotten around to testing this now. Death mages who have no undead leadership WILL cast raise dead and the like, even if there are no friendly mages on the battlefield with undead leadership. Predictably, when they raise the dead, the dead disintegrate due to lack of undead leadership. Kind of a pain.

[Sombre]

Sounds pretty annoying, but it's the best I can do. You'll have to just accept that amethysts are at a disadvantage once they go off script.

[llamabeast]

The Celestial sprite looks a little like the Tomb King sprite. Is he related by any chance?

[Sombre]

Only by his love of bling!

The light wizard might be even more similar - he has a blue and gold stripe egyptian style headpiece.

[rdonj]

Sounds pretty annoying, but it's the best I can do. You'll have to just accept that amethysts are at a disadvantage once they go off script.

If only there was an easy way to restrict spells by nation :(

[Burnsaber]

You could give the amethyst wizards some juicy national death battlesummoning spells (perhaps shade-like beings), which they could spam instead of undead summons? It's just a matter of making the spell seem better than animate dead in the eyes of the AI. (more effects, increased range?)

[rdonj]

That would certainly deal with the problem of summoning units that will just disintegrate. That spell could potentially be pretty powerful though so its implementation would have to be handled very carefully.

[Burnsaber]

That would certainly deal with the problem of summoning units that will just disintegrate. That spell could potentially be pretty powerful though so its implementation would have to be handled very carefully.

There's one trick that one could use to make the spell seem more useful in the eyes of the AI. Since raise dead gives 10 soulless, we need to top that with >10 things summoned per spell. Giving the spell improved range and precision values might allow us to make the spell summon less guys (needs testing).

Make the spell summon say 15 Fillerunits. Being size 1, they will fill up 3 squares. Then make the summon spell nextspell a AoE1 instaskill spell. This will kill all of the fillers we summoned. Then have the *real* summoning the effect by nextspelling the nextspell.

Elegant? No (the spell will show wrong effect number in its description)

Will it work? ..Probably

[rdonj]

Obligatory sombre-nagging bump :)

[kianduatha]

Wouldn't it be more fun instead of doing fillerunit shenanigans to just create shade units with exhaustion? That way they'd never get overwhelming(and the whole idea of shades able to pierce the veil just for a few short moments is awesome)

[rdonj]

Exhaustion wouldn't quite be the right effect for that. Instead I'd suggest a low maxage and nextspelling decay on them. It would be closer to the effect that you're going for.

[Amonchakad]

Bump.

Any news, Sombre?Perhaps we can send the Mod Fairy to visit you next night:p

[Amonchakad]

*poke*

I'm sure that many dom3 addicts are eagerly awaiting their chance to burn heretics to the pyre and spread the faith of Sigmar with inspired sermons(and if that fails, big steel hammers work even better). I sure am!

[Sombre]

News is only that I'm busy with lots of other things, so modding dom3 has taken a back seat for a while now. I would like to continue in the future though.

Hopefully one day I will release this mod.

[Amonchakad]

Oh, okay; I'm sorry to hear this:( I guess witch-hunting will have to wait.