Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.75 minor update

[Sombre]

PREVIEW IMAGE

http://i43.tinypic.com/2zyvudj.png

http://i41.tinypic.com/35in02r.png


-- version 0.75

-- TWEAK - remove 1 astral income

-- TWEAK - major reduction of magic weapons, now only on the Temple Guard halberds (it was severely limiting options vs Lizards, which was lame)

-- FIX - Salamanders now animals!

-- TWEAK - Stegadons considerably higher cost in res and gold



-- version 0.7

-- TWEAK - Poison res values changed across the board to better match dom3 styling

-- FIX - Crest plate for warchiefs, no crest plate for skink scouts

-- TWEAK - Temple Guard now spawned by Slann when they first arrive in their 'awakening' state

-- TWEAK - Both 4th and 5th gen Slann more expensive to recruit, but same upkeep

-- TWEAK - Sacred spawnings now have armour for e9 bless, but still no helmets

-- FIX - 3rd gen shapechange further fixed, doh

-- FIX - flood of serpents cost bug fixed


-- version 0.6

-- FIX - Skink Warchief given swamp survival

-- FIX - 3rd gen Slann shapechange fixed

-- FIX - One who fathomed the depths now amphibious as intended

-- FIX - Tail Spines now ranged attack


-- Version 0.5

-- CONTENT - Nakai the Wanderer national hero added

-- TWEAK - Temples now cost 600

-- TWEAK - Sweeping morale changes to reflect effectiveness of 'cold blooded' in the warhammer tabletop - effectively it's +2 ldr - so skinks have same ldr as humans

-- TWEAK - Repriced commanders according to new scheme

-- TWEAK - Spawning of Huanchi moved to conjuration, descriptions tweaked

-- TWEAK - Blowpipes no longer ignore shields, do more damage, skink hunters better prec

-- TWEAK - Skink costs reduced significantly

-- TWEAK - Slann can no longer ever be empowered in blood

-- TWEAK - 4th gen Slann slightly more likely to get nature, another 10% on elements

-- CONTENT - Terradon summon added

-- CONTENT - Stegadon recruitable added with placeholder graphic, no attack sprite

-- CONTENT - Added flood of serpents, rain of snakes and serpents of sotek spells

-- CONTENT - Added Third Generation Slann

-- CONTENT - Added Second Generation Slann of the Seas

-- CONTENT - Added watershape to Tzunki spawning

-- CONTENT - Added Nightscale of Huanchi, Bloodscale of Sotek, Deepscale of Tzunki, Sunscale of Chotec

-- Version 0.4

-- TWEAK - Tepok spawnings now teleport (fly)

-- TWEAK - Temple Guard gold and resource cost raised

-- TWEAK - Terradon mount attacks att improved

-- TWEAK - All summoned sacred spawnings now upkeep free

-- FIX - Resolved weapon ID conflicts with CBM and my other MA mods + Tomb Kings


-- version 0.3

-- Changed salamander breath to avoid conflict with cbm

-- Added Skink Shamans

-- Reduced cost of skink cav and terradons, made terradons size 3

-- blowpipes more accurate, less damaging




---------


Ok, these guys are now out of beta and into version 0.2

They have a lot of their stuff ready and are essentially playable. They still need more spells, the stegadon troop, heroes, a better flag, some graphical tweaks and of course the 2nd and 3rd generation slann summons. These will all come in time.


------------------------ ORIGNAL POST --------------------------


Today I started work on the Lizardmen from Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I'm still working on Empire and other stuff, but I really like the look of lizardmen and feel inspired to do their graphics.

Before that though, here's a rough overview of the nation. The thing that makes them unique is basically their crazy powerful Slann mage priests. The /weakest/ of these guys are basically the best mages in warhammer and I'm going to translate this to dom3. The downside being their ridiculously high costs. Lizardmen will not have massed battlemages because they will lack the steps between basic mage and uber mage - you either get a skink priest or you get an incredibly expensive Slann. There's no all purpose middle guy.


STRENGTHS

Extremely potent Slann magepriests
Access to all paths but death with top tier astral
Specialised troops like kroxigor, stegadons and salamanders
Excellent morale across the nation
Devastating and relatively easy battlefield communions

WEAKNESSES

Below par skink province defense
Temples and forts very expensive
Slann are most expensive mages in the game
No real mid tier combat mages
Somewhat weak against missile fire

[Shovah32]

Sounds like fun. To me, it seems like the Saurus troops wont be as good as they should be. If they are only getting weak armour then that protection 8 will be killer. Natural protection of 10 or so seems better to me. Slightly higher strength, maybe 13(perhaps even 14), also seems more appropriate - right now they're barely above tough humans. I know that they shouldn't have too much armour thematically, and I don't think they should in game, but they will need something to keep them a little above alot of the heavier human troops in terms of survivability with all the missile weapon love that exists.

Which units will be capitol only? Temple guard seems likely, and maybe chameleon skinks(although I hope not). Possibly some of the bigger beasties too.

And for commanders? I would guess 4th generation slann, but what about the 5th generation guys? Sure, you don't want them having too many slann, but large cost should handle that. And having both slann capitol only would both really reduce the magical strength of lizardmen and also mean that 5th generation slann would rarely get used, even if they were alot cheaper than the 4th.

I know the second generation slann will be completely badass, but any idea about their actual magic levels?

Just throwing some random thoughts around.

ps: If you don't finish this quickly, you may have to start getting all your anonymous mail scanned.

[Sombre]

I'm actually not planning on making Slann or Temple Guard cap only (they can teleport between their cities after all). Instead they'll be restricted by seriously high costs. Well the Slann will anyway, the Temple Guard will just be an average level sacred.

As for the Saurus, they actually are fairly vulnerable to missile fire in warhammer, where toughness 4 will only get you so far, but you might be right that they need natural prot of 10+. I don't want missiles to be their bane or anything, just one tactic that works ok against them. They will be very cost efficient and powerful close combat troops though. Regarding their strength, in Warhammer they hae strength 4 which is the same as Ogres and strong orcs, humans, dwarfs etc. I gave Ogres str 14 in dom3 because they're size 3 - clearly they're at the top of the group that has strength 4 in warhammer. Meanwhile strength 4 humans, such as those found in the empire, might only get str 11 in dom3. So Saurus will get either str 12 or 13. They're subsantially stronger than humans, but they aren't like ogres or trolls or kroxigors or anything. Also their Obsinite weapons will have nice stats, so they'll do enough damage in close combat I'm sure.

The second generation Slann will probably be rocking something like S6 guaranteed, with 4s and 5s in other magic coming up too and chances of higher levels. I'll need to think about it but believe me they really will have crazy magical powers. They'll be H5 for one thing, being basically the holiest (and oldest) things in the entire warhammer world.

[Shovah32]

I am very glad to here that Sombre, very glad indeed. Now get to work, before I get out the whip.

[samoht]

I just tried out both of the other Warhammer mods you've done and I'm impressed.

I've always thought the Warhammer universe could lend itself well to the Dominions style of gameplay and you managed to really capture the feel of the Ogre Kingdoms and Skaven. I don't know if you're looking for any input/feedback on those mods, but I'd be more than happy to tell you more of what I think via PM if you're interested.

I'm very much looking forward to this one being completed.

Just a couple general questions tho...

How long does it normally take for you to complete a mod like this?

Do you plan on making mods for all of the various Warhammer armies?

[DigitalSin]

Thank god for you, Sombre. I've been kicking around the idea of making a lizardman mod for god-knows-how-long, however never got around to making it due to school and other games distracting me. If you want some input, I'll be glad to help!

[Sombre]

I love any input on any of my mods. I prefer over the forums than by PM, but it's your choice.

It usually takes me ages to complete a mod. I don't have a huge amount of free time to do this stuff and graphics are hard because I'm no artist. Lizardmen are quite graphically demanding too.

I plan on making mods for all the warhammer nations, yes, eventually. That's a matter of years though at this rate ;]

I have Empire about 20% finished, but I was getting a little tired of them and wanted to do something different.

[samoht]

Well sweet. What program do you use to make all of the sprites?

And with the Empire you could more or less just take sprites from the game, maybe recolor them a bit, change a couple stats and give them new descriptions... unless you're going for all original artwork.

I can't wait to see the Dwarves and Orcs/Goblins... you know... ages from now.

One idea for the Lizardmen... I don't know if you've already thought of this but maybe make a new pretender for them and make it an Old One. It would work well with their fluff, and the way the game works. One of their gods coming back to claim dominion of the world.

[Sombre]

I've pretty much decided I don't like doing pretenders for my mod nations. I will try to give them appropriate ones from the available selection though.

I've done quite a few sprites for the empire. I don't like working from base sprites, though I do sometimes use them as templates. I use Paint Shop Pro for my graphical editing.

I might bump the empire thread and put up some preview artwork or something. It's not my best work though.

As for Orcs and Goblins, Okin was working on them. Llamabeast has actually done a nation very close to Tomb Kings too and they play well.

[llamabeast]

Ooh wow, this is really exciting! Lizardmen would probably be top of my personal list of mods I'd like to see, so I was very happy to come home to find this post! I think the Lizardmen are thematically super cool.

I really like the analysis you've done as well, you have a good thorough style of planning things before you get stuck in.

I think I agree with Shovah's comments about the Saurus' prot and strength, though I guess playtesting will really be the best way of find out what works well.

I'm intrigued to see how you do the Slann (cost/magic). The unusual nature of having rare, super-powerful mages may make them quite a different nation to play off the bat.

[Valandil]

Not totally sure about your saurus stats. In WH they have ws4, giving them above average attack and defense. You're values do not reflect this adequately, in my opinion. In fact, in WH, saurus warriors, especially blessed ones, are probably in the top five infantry units. Your version would be in the bottom third, especially compared to eg. Panpiper's chaos warriors.

It occurs to me that these lizards will actually have MORE Slann, and flying ones at that, than most nations can field high mages. Being recruitable everywhere, AND summonable via ubiquitous astral, they will likely be massed. With native s5+, basically any army in the game will disingtegrate against lizard magic after about turn 45.

I honestly, if it wer my nation (and it isn't,) would shift the focus more towards the elite saurus infantry and monsters, and away from massed Slann.

By the way, Sombre, do you remember the old edition, when Slann Lords were fully capable combat toads? Otherwise known as the "flaming sword of rhuin" era?

[Sombre]

Uh,.. I don't see how being recruitable everywhere and summonable (these are different units mind you) will lead to Slann being 'massed'. They're going to be expensive both to recruit and to summon, which will prohibit massing them. The idea with restricting them to cap in order to restrict numbers is fine if you're accepting people will basically build 1 a turn because they're such a great deal. That isn't how I'm planning on doing things. I'm restricting their numbers by making sure they aren't a no brainer deal. Very powerful very expensive. It's a particularly weird that you're basically calling them overpowered when you have no idea of their cost and only a rough idea of their magic. People would mass them if they were an amazing bargain or something, sure, but they won't be and the regular units will be priced in a balanced way, so you won't end up ignoring their troops to recruit just commanders.

As for the Saurus - I have the lizardmen army book here and they have WS3, I1. Possibly they have WS4 in some ealier/later edition, but I haven't seen that. WS3 = roughly att 10, I1 = deduction to fighting skill in my book. But believe me with the bonus bite attack they will offensively be plenty dangerous. I'm willing to put their prot higher, but I really think you're overrating them in WH. They rarely break but they are MUCH worse than chaos warriors. Chaos Warriors have far better weapon skill, initiative and armour and everything else is pretty even. Compare the points costs. I'm not going to balance the dom3 versions against panpiper's chaos warriors either, because I have my own system and I'm not really familiar with panpiper's mod.

Temple Guard have WS4 and I2 and in dom3 terms I'll probably give them 12 att and 10 def or something.

[Valandil]

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so hostile. In the newest book, saurus are WS4 I2. According to my lizardman player friend. He might be cheating me.

I have no idea whether slann will be overpowered, probably not given your reputation as a modder, but, in my extremely limited experiance, gold is not really an obstacle to mage produciton late game, and astral pearls are crazy common.

[Kristoffer O]

Hi I would probably make WH S4 = Dom Str12-14

So with the Saurians being cool I would go for Str 13 and perhaps increase the HP to 15.

Wardens and Black Lords have something like that in str (perhaps12) and HP IIRC and I guess they would translate as S4 T4 WS4 units.

[Kristoffer O]

BTW:

Cool of you to make the mod.

JK has an Lizarman army. My brother has a Skaven army. When you have finished this you have to make a dark elf army!

Although, I agree, both Skaven and Lizardmen are cooler http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[HoneyBadger]

I'm really, really excited about this mod. Lizardmen are my favorite Warhammer nation. I don't care for the "look" of them as much as some of the other nations, but I definitely appreciate the theme and the units themselves.

YAY WEAPONS! YAY MAGIC! YAY DINOSAURS! ok there's my inner 10 year old.

Plus, I trust in Sombre's ability to create masterpieces of pixel art.

It's all good http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Sombre]

Slow going so far. Mostly been working on stats, but I should have a unit graphic or two to show in a little while. The Saurus are like slightly bigger, spikier, blue Ctis slave warriors.

Lizardman armies are very blue overall.

[Valandil]

I have a crazy friend with a yellow and red lizard army, but in general, I suppose that's true.

Any hope of implementing something like drain magic into dominions? I can't think of a way, but I'd love to see it. One of my favourite spells.

[Sombre]

I think the only way I could simulate drain magic is probably with a national mr buffing spell. There isn't much else I could do. I suppose I could give them an anti magical creature spell as well.

[Valandil]

Yeah. That's about what I concluded too- dispel is ritual only, etc.

Hmm. That's fine, though. Slaan will probably have plenty of other stuff to do anyways.

[Sombre]

Work is veeery slow because I'm so busy right now. So don't hold your breath for this one. I think I may be able to work on it during lunch break at work though, which would give me enough time to do some code and a little graphical stuff each day.

[Sombre]

Here's a Saurus preview pic to wet your whistles/pants/lizards.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/595242-saurus%20preview.png

Not 100% finished but nearly.

I decided to give all obsinite weapons the magic tag and +1 att to make up for the underwhelming saurus attack stat I'm going with. Thus the Obsinite sword is 1 att 0 def len 3 dmg 7. Pretty nice piece of kit. The obsinite spear is len 4 att 1 def 0 dmg 4 and costs less in resources.

[DigitalSin]

Sombre. That is some absolutely epic art.

[Amhazair]

DigitalSin said:
Sombre. That is some absolutely epic art.

Amen to that.

[Sombre]

I should have a skink graphic done by the end of today. They seem a little bit big at the moment (as does the saurus in fact, for a size 2) but skinks in warhammer do seem to be larger than goblins, smaller than humans. That actually gives me quite a few units:

Saurus Warrior (sword)
Saurus Warrior (shield)
Skink (blowpipe)
Skink Archer (poison arrows)
Skink Skirmisher (jav + shield)
Skink Cohort (shield + spear)

The tricky graphics will be the big dinosaurs and the Slann, but overall Lizardmen have a lot less stuff than, say, skaven. Also many of their units are re-equips or recolours of other ones. Sacred spawnings for instance just get different coloured markings, while temple guard are just Saurus with bone helmets and a little bit more decorative gold and stuff.

Glad you like the Saurus so far.

[DigitalSin]

Really, that looks almost like you've taken a picture.

[Sombre]

I like it too, but more and more I'm thinking I'll need to decrease the size. I just put it next to an Ogre and it's damn near as big.

I'll shave off a few pixels and repost it. It'll still be big for a size 2, but hopefully a bit more reasonable.

[Sombre]

Ok here's the slightly smaller saurus next to a size 3 ogre and a size 4 ogre tyrant.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/595407-Saurus%20slightly%20resized.png

He's still a very large size 2, but I think a bit better now. Shame he looks ever so slightly less impressive :[

[Edratman]

Sombre, your graphics are stunning.

[DigitalSin]

Yeah, from the little I know about Warhammer that looks about right. Don't sweat it anyway, I seem to recall them being described as large humans.

[Sombre]

I've finished the skink. I'll upload tonight.

Tomorrow I'll start on a salamander or cold one I think. Both should be relatively straightforward. The salamander is practically a fire drake anyway.

[Sombre]

Skinky skink.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/595861-Preview%20skink.png

[Kristoffer O]

Nice!

[DigitalSin]

...You are so damn talented.

[Sombre]

Thanks. I don't think I'm that good. Just good source material and plenty of practice doing dom3 sprites.

Now KO, he's got actual talent.

Salamander ho!

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/596169-Salamander%20preview.png

[DigitalSin]

Haha, think all you want, it won't change my opinion. My brother does the same thing all the time.

[llamabeast]

Wow, the salamander is _really_ nice!

[Sombre]

Saurus Cavalry!

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/596517-Saurus%20Cavalry%20Preview.png

Again, probably not 100% finished. The cold one doesn't look quite right somehow. The stats on these guys are scary though.

[llamabeast]

Is the saurus perhaps a bit far back on the cold one's back?

[Wauthan]

Awesome sprite-fu Sombre. Looks like you're shaping up for yet another box office smash hit.

[Zeldor]

Anyone else also thinks it is Ichtyid sitting on the tail of that green something?

[Sombre]

They're like that on the model. I think it might be to get the model to stand properly and bear its own weight. There is a saddle involved though.

I could shift him forward a bit no problem. I'll have another look later and maybe change it.

[Sombre]

Chameleon skink!

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/596825-Chameleon%20skink%20preview.png

He's such a cutie. Nasty poison weapon though.

[Endoperez]

Nothing to see here, move along...

[Sombre]

I've changed the Chameleon slightly to give him more of a jaw, which differentiates him from the regular skinks a bit more. It's similar to what Endo did. I can't be bothered to upload because it's such a minor change.

Next units will be,.... some different sacred spawnings I think. So basically recolours of saurus and skinks. They will all be summons apart from the red crested skinks who are buildable. All non sotek sacred spawnings will have the sacred tag. If you are going to go heavily for a sotek themed nation then you probably won't want a heavy bless, because Sotek = heretic in the version I'm doing. You'll get fun blood summons and spells though.

[Sombre]

The sacred spawnings.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/597101-Spawnings%20preview.png

[Sombre]

Sotek = hig berserk, poison immune, not sacred
Tzunki = amphibious, coldres, sacred
Tlazotl = morale 30, higher mr, sacred
Tepok = mr 17, possibly something else, sacred
Chotec = fire immune, elevated AP, sacred
Quetzl = elevated prot, sacred
Huanchi = stealth, survivals, mapmove 3, sacred

Red Crested skinks are not sacred, have minor berserk and better fighting stats than regular skink, plus better morale (slightly).

[Saulot]

The lizards look quite nice. I particularly like the irregular shield shape.

[Sombre]

Skink cavalry and temple guard. Bit plain these.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/597931-lizzy%20hizzy.png

[DigitalSin]

Mad. Keep up the good work Sombre, I may just start to idolize you.

[Sombre]

Just as a warning in advance: I will demand blood sacrifice for my dying dominion.

[Wauthan]

Sombre said:
Just as a warning in advance: I will demand blood sacrifice for my dying dominion.



'E's not dead. 'E's restin'! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Dammit Sombre! You're making modding look so darn easy. Fie, I say! Fie!

[Valandil]

Slann! Want a Slann!
err...
Very nice sprites by the way. Do you work from scratch?

[Sombre]

A Slann eh? They seem like they're going to be one of the trickier sprites. But ok, probably a 5th gen Slann next.

I work largely from scratch and I don't resize miniatures or pictures or anything like that. However I do sometimes use dom3 basegame sprites as a template and I always do the graphics while looking at pictures of miniatures/artwork from the army book. After all I'm making a warhammer mod so I want the sprites to be recognisable.

Couple of examples. The Saurus warrior was done while looking at 3 photos of saurus miniatures and one piece of artwork from the army book. I also used the dom3 ctisian slave warrior as a template, though if you compared them side by side now you'd probably be hard pressed to see evidence of that. When I do any graphic I try to look at various dom3 basegame sprites and sprites I've previously made to work out size and pose and so on too.

[DigitalSin]

Haha, I'll sacrifice my brothers to your dominion any day.

[Valandil]

Will say that your sprite work is extremely impressive, then. Drawing stuff from scratch within the constraints of the dominions millieu (not the right word, but you know) is not an easy thing to do. Well, not for me.

[Endoperez]

I more impressed at his speed and dedication. I can't bother myself to draw that fast. Doing that many different base shapes would take much, much longer for me...

[Sombre]

It's basically one graphic per two days - I do them in the lunch break at work, spending about 30 minutes of it per day. So an hour per graphic pretty much.

The Slann might well take a bit longer, because he's big and hard to get looking right. If I get too frustrated I'll do something easier like Saurus veteran leaders, skink chiefs and priests and so on. Those are basically the troop sprites with such extra doodads, maybe a slight size increase.

[Sombre]

Aargh. I had a slann virtually finished and the memory stick it was on died. Thankfully that's all I lost, but it was still a few days work. It was looking badass too.

GAH.

I'll do some attack sprites or something instead. Right now I'm too irked to try the Slann again.

[DigitalSin]

Awwh. That really sucks. Did you even get down the skink that they use to attack?

[Mozkito]

I don't think that regular infantry should have Magic Weapons :O

[Sombre]

Caelum's regular infantry do.

[Amhazair]

As do EA and LA Atlantis, and really quite many sacreds. And the various R'lyehs obviously have magic ranged weapons.

[Mozkito]

Caelum has fluff behind it. and just because someone has it, does not mean you have to have it too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
Don't get me wrong, you are a wonderful mod maker, and I love your work Sombre but I dont understand, Why are the lizardmens STONE/bronze weapons magical?

[llamabeast]

Why don't you wait and see what the fluff is in the lizardmen descriptions?

We know Sombre'll do a good job. He's a smart guy.

[Endoperez]

Mozkito said:
Caelum has fluff behind it. and just because someone has it, does not mean you have to have it too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
Don't get me wrong, you are a wonderful mod maker, and I love your work Sombre but I dont understand, Why are the lizardmens STONE/bronze weapons magical?



The Unfrozen Warriors already use magical stone swords, and the Tir na N'og tuatha use magical, non-iron weapons. They had gold instead of bronze, IIRC, but that's even less practical than magical bronze weapon if you consider how soft gold is.

[Sombre]

It actually says in the armybook that the obsinite stone the lizardmen use is unknown even to the metal lore mages of the empire. It's stronger, sharper and more durable than steel. To me that seems pretty special, so I give them the magic tag on their weapons, reasoning that the stone is something like the 'high magic' version of warpstone.

[Amhazair]

If you really want magic weapons of a primitive material, take a look at LA Atlantis Bone Glaives. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
EA atlantis uses stone (basalt) magical weapons.

[DigitalSin]

It also says in the army book that the weapons are powerful enough to cut through heavy armour/bone etc. So either the Saurus are exceptionally strong, even by their standards, or there really is something special about this stone.

[Mozkito]

Sombre said:
It actually says in the armybook that the obsinite stone the lizardmen use is unknown even to the metal lore mages of the empire. It's stronger, sharper and more durable than steel. To me that seems pretty special, so I give them the magic tag on their weapons, reasoning that the stone is something like the 'high magic' version of warpstone.



Then that is all I need to hear!

I too play a Lizardman Army in the TT, but I guess I overlooked the weapon description.

Thanks for clarifying my doubts, and I'm sure you'll do a fine job indeed Sombre. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[HoneyBadger]

Thought I'd chime in here: The very best stone weapons of Neolithic actual reality, earth, right now, as in: down the street some guy with a degree dug it up and carbon tested it to be over 10,000 years old, are pretty amazing.

For one thing, they're as much as 5 TIMES as sharp as the average modern scalpel. Obsidian can be manufactured, right now, today, this very minute, in the real world, sharp enough that it's used instead of metal for eye surgery.

As for bronze...well, let's step back a minute from bronze and consider copper. Copper's a pretty amazing metal. For one thing, the ancient Egyptians-6000 something years ago, at the time of the Great Pyramid, old dynasty, could manufacture copper chisels that were every bit as hard as steel. They did that by compressing the copper, under extreme pressure, using wood that they soaked in water. The copper atoms compacted, creating a highly tensile surface suitable for carving even the most royal of cartouches.

Bronze, itself, is not a bad metal at all. It's a lot better than poor quality iron, and it's way better than even good iron for the purpose of making armour. With the added bonus that it doesn't rust. The problem with bronze is that tin is expensive and relatively rare. We don't even use tin cans anymore because aluminum is so plentiful.

Another problem with bronze is that it's harder to make large blades out of it than it is to make them from decent quality steel, and so an additional pressure to use iron occurred, since the Romans, when they went all Byzantine, were feeling a little insecure after losing the western Empire, and getting into phallus symbols in a AHEM *big way*, they shifted their armies to larger and larger weapons.

Actually, that's not entirely true. It'd be kindof funny (atleast to me) if it was the whole answer, but bronze was pretty much on the way out when the Hittites showed up, having invented iron, and really stuck it to the old bronze-using empires. Iron was a fad. Iron was popular, iron was successful, and iron was cheap. With the added bonus that iron, ultimately, was the better invention, because it could be refined into steel, in all it's myriad excellent forms.

We still use bronze today, though. It's tough, it's-especially in the case of beryllium bronze-extremely corrosion resistant, even to salt water, it's easy to work with and melt down, and it's a good looking metal.

I've seen some outstanding modern bronze knives manufactured using freezing processes, special mouldings, and magnetic fields. If we can do all that today, surely we can imagine magic also enhancing bronze.

And consider that in Dominions, magic has the tendancy to become less and less powerful, over time. Entropy definitely exists. So, old bronze, stone, wood, bone weapons might very well be several degrees more magically powerful, and common, than iron weapons, even if you don't factor in the common belief that iron was anti-magic.

[Zentar]

Sombre always does great work, unfortunately he also eats, sleeps and does other things. I enjoy his mods, NI map mods, and general wisdom / insights. This looks like another winner and I cann't wait till it is completed!

[Sombre]

I've been really busy recently and I've had to scale back my mod plans. I will continue working on lizardmen and get a beta ready, but I'm dropping a bunch of other ideas I had simply due to lack of time.

I am still truckin' though ;]

The new patch is awesome.

[Shovah32]

Come on Sombre, back to work! *cracks whip*

Now, I shall vanish into the mists once again..

[Sombre]

Here's the old graphics I had ready. As per llama's sage counsel, I shall be working primarily on the lizardmen until I've made some real progress on them. I tidied up a couple of these graphics, but my real upcoming work will be doing more attack sprites and sorting out some of the lesser commanders like Skink shamans etc

I am leaving the Slaan for a while because like I said, I had done a lot of work on one and lost it all. That's a real demotivator believe me.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/27aafaf9c3.png (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)

[rdonj]

Yes, more excellent warhammer races appear on the horizon!

[llamabeast]

These really are very, very nice.

Also I agree with my past (but forgetful) self that the salamander is an awesome sprite.

Losing the Slann must have been infuriating. I _hate_ it when that kind of thing happens.

[HoneyBadger]

I had exactly the same thing happen to me. Really nice graphics set, maybe 18 units with attack sprites, that went bye bye along with my laptop. Immensely frustrating. That's why now, if I do a single graphic, I post it to the board that night.

And I know how hard it is to get back up on your horse and ride, but if it's any consolation, Sombre, I've had similar things happen before, and mostly the second time comes out a little better than the first set did.

Anyway, I'm still very excited about the lizardmen, Sombre. You do beautiful, creative work, very consistently, and these are certainly no exception.

[Kristoffer O]

> I am leaving the Slaan for a while because like I said, I had done a lot of work on one and lost it all. That's a real demotivator believe me.

Yep! At times I've lost a number of sprites due to save format of the .trs file. A long number of sprites are stored in the same file. If I accidentally save over army12.trs with a new file I lose all sprites since last backup. Quite annoying. It happened in CoE andÂ*I've been quite careful ever since. Still, I have lost a couple of sprites at times.

[Sombre]

Arf. I have done a little work on attack sprites today. The real progress will come on the weekend when I have more free time. I'm really happy with the way the skinks have turned out.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/8105897c2a.png (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)

[HoneyBadger]

Are those grey fellows in the middle the undead version? If so, good show!

The skinks (I'm assuming the little guys at the top right?) look very good, as does your...thunder lizard rider?

I think my favorite would be the unit at the top left with the helmet. I always find heads hard to draw, especially if they're non-human. And adding some other critter's head ofcourse just compounds the problem. You've pulled this off flawlessly in two different versions.

I'm very jealous of your sprite-making ability, Sombre.

You do inspire me to work harder on getting graphics out, though, and ofcourse, making them look better. I'll try to add some graphics to my speculation/placeholder mods sometime this weekend, and give myself a break on dragons.

[Sombre]

Are those grey fellows in the middle the undead version? If so, good show!


That's just a Sacred Saurus of Huanchi. They're stealthy and have poisoned weapons and 100% DV.

[HoneyBadger]

Oh very nice.

Out of curiosity's sake, have you had any thoughts on doing undead/Longdead versions for your Warhammer nations? If the Devs were handed a couple nice graphic sets (and Kristoffer seems quite interested in this mod), they might be convinced to allow us to mod them in. Not that it's necessary for Warhammer Lizards or Ogres from the Warhammer point of view, but as far as Dominions goes, everybody seems to use undead in Dominions once in a while.

[Sombre]

I'm not doing it on the offchance they'll be motivated to add that modding feature.

The Ogre Kingdoms Slavelord Braugh graphic sort of demonstrates what I might do if reanimation table modding was available though.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, we can hope that they'll add it sometime soon. Seems reasonable, since we now have variating longdead for vanilla nations (Jotuns, C'tis, Demonbred, and such) so we know it can be done, and that the Devs are interested in doing it.

P.S. As far as ogres go, with their huge guts (and all the gas you can imagine would build up inside a dead ogre), if we ever get the reanimation tables-and if by then we got the ability to add an Amulet of Vengeance power to modded units-I can just imagine Soulless ogre corpses exploding messily all over their enemies.

[Sombre]

I need an opinion on the Skink Priest.

With or without feathers?

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/c7c3d9cab0.png (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)

[Edratman]

All I would recommend is to put both into the montage of sprites on page 8 of this thread and see which one is easier to visually identify.

Both look good.

[rdonj]

I find the feathered one more visually impressive, and if only one were to be used I would prefer that one.

[Sombre]

Ok feathered one it is.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/3762a4c981.png (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)

[Sombre]

And here's the Sotek version. B1 mage and heretic with 40 leadership.

Want to bloodhunt? No dominion for you my friend. He's carrying a snake in case it isn't clear. I can't draw snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? [/indy]

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/0135f72ebb.png (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)

[HoneyBadger]

The attack version(bottom) looks great, Sombre-the whole thing looks great, actually-although the top looks a bit like he's holding some kind of weird flail. I think it's just that the curve close to his face is slightly too sharp, so that it looks like a solid, straight handle, attached to something flexible.

[Sombre]

Well I might tweak them a bit.

Here's a Saurus Scar Veteran. He's the standard 40 leadership dude, but he's also pretty buff in combat and will have a small standard effect. He's slightly larger than other Saurus and his weapon is a little scarier. The 80 leadership Saurus, the Oldblood, will be larger and buffer still, plus sacred and white, bearing the mark of the Old Ones. He'll onebattlespell something like personal luck.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/be6a20a28a.png (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)

[Edratman]

Having a unit carrying a snake sounds like an impossible task with the scale of a size 2 sprite. Even with your skills.

[Aezeal]

I think giving a recruitable leader auto luck is overdoing it a bit Sombre.. sprites look nice though :D

[lch]

Snake flail, **** yeah!

http://www.legaljuice.com/snake%20bite%20strange%20bizarre%20face%20weird.jp g

[Aezeal]

luckily there are not that many snakes in the netherlands :D

[Sombre]

I think giving a recruitable leader auto luck is overdoing it a bit Sombre.. sprites look nice though :D

Why? It isn't like he'll be some uber thug because of that. Plus being cap only he'll probably never be built.

[HoneyBadger]

I actually like the idea. Takes a total thug unit with probably a brain the size of an avocado pit, and adds a sweet low-level alien vibe that's absolutely appropriate for a race that was genetically designed by beings from the stars, without quite crossing over into that nasty bad sci fi mess that must be avoided at all costs.

[Sombre]

According to the literature, Saurus are actually quite smart. It's just that their smarts are all warfare based, while the skinks are better suited to administrative duties and communication. This leads to them being falsely identified as stupid, when in fact they are just specialised/instinctual.

Oldbloods, having lived for thousands of years, are very experienced and it would stand to reason that they haven't lived that long by being stupid. Of course their brains are still limited to combat.

The luck comes as an additional blessing. The various sacred spawnings of Huanchi, Chotec etc all have their own benefits in addition to being sacred and those with the mark of the Old Ones, the greatest of all marks, will get boosted stats and personal luck. They are marked by the Old Ones to do great things, after all.

Being cap only will mean you'll see very few of them. It's hard enough getting people to build anything other than mages, without limiting what I'll put on recruitable commanders.

It's interesting you mention the 'alien' aspect of Lizardmen, because that is something I want to get across. They are cold blooded and unemotional creatures whose motives are entirely obscured other Warhammer races, since everything they do follows Slann interpretations of knowledge left behind by the Old Ones and various portents. In a certain sense they are almost like the Rlyeh of land, trading the unknown of the deep ocean, for the unknown of dense forest and the New World. They're definitely going to be one of the stronger Warhammer races, but they'll also have some clear disadvantages.

[Aezeal]

Well he'd have higher than human stats and then have luck.. no need for a luck pendant anymore so that is an extra slot and 5 pearls for free.. seems like decent thug material to me but cap only does make it better

[Sombre]

This is true, but you have to consider how often people actually stick aumlets of luck on size 3 thugs with no magic. He'll have good stats, certainly better than almost any human, even in Warhammer, but he's no Dai Oni or anything.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, perhaps a brain the size of an avocado then, instead of just the pit :) But what I meant by that wasn't that they were stupid animals, but that they're-as you said-specialized. The reason us humans have such big brains is that we're very generalized animals. We can do anything, survive anywhere, for a longer period of time-not very many animals make it past 70, even in the reptile world-than almost any animal on Earth. We need all that memory and ability to use our brains in different ways. That doesn't mean we're all geniuses-watch tv for a few hours if you haven't figure that out yet-just that we're all capable of fast adaptation and deep recollection. The Saurans, being so specialized to warfare, don't need that--and a bigger brain just makes a bigger target, after all.

[Sombre]

Kroxigor!

I had a mishap with the attack sprite that pissed me off. But I'll do it this weekend or something.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/ad01dab4df.png (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)

[HoneyBadger]

Kroxigor looks great!

[DigitalSin]

Excellent sprites Sombre!

[rdonj]

Now that is one mean-looking club.

[lch]

Now that is one mean-looking club.
The man is a hack. Real mean-looking clubs have spikes to them. :cool:

[Sombre]

Testing attachment problem.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6875

[HoneyBadger]

Actually, real mean-looking clubs have bikers to them... :evil: :angel:

[Theonlystd]

oooo looking good i cant wait

[Sombre]

Me either. I'm really looking forward to getting this to beta, because I'm very happy with how the graphics turned out and the nation should be very interesting. It will require a lot of balancing after the first release though.

[Wolfman_Dan]

Hey guys, long time lurker first time poster:(, I just wanted to say that this mod looks awesome. I have played all the warhammer mods and they are great. Sombre your sprites look great. As a final note I am waiting with baited breath for some one to tackle Warhammer Dwarfs cause they are my favorite army.:up:

[Sombre]

I will get around to dwarfs eventually but after lizardmen it's going to be getting the Empire out in some form, then either Dark Elves, since KO asked for them, or Chaos Dwarfs, because they're a smaller project and because they're badass.


Oh and I decided on magic paths for Skinks.

Priest - H1, 100% SN, 100% WEA.
Sotek Priest - Heretic 2, B1, 100%

Also after talking with Okin I've decided all skinks will be stealthy, primarily to allow stealth armies with sacred troops etc.

[Sombre]

This is quite close to beta release. The beta will not be very well balanced and of course will be missing various bits of content. But it should give an idea of what the race is about. It will have a placeholder graphic for the Slann. Apart from that, all I need to do is the skink warchief graphic and a few misc bits and bobs like fort types and I'll release it. So this week almost certainly.

[Theonlystd]

I will get around to dwarfs eventually but after lizardmen it's going to be getting the Empire out in some form, then either Dark Elves, since KO asked for them, or Chaos Dwarfs, because they're a smaller project and because they're badass.


Oh and I decided on magic paths for Skinks.

Priest - H1, 100% SN, 100% WEA.
Sotek Priest - Heretic 2, B1, 100%

Also after talking with Okin I've decided all skinks will be stealthy, primarily to allow stealth armies with sacred troops etc.

Chaos Dwarfs or Dark Elves?!?!

Do you stop being awesome? :D

You want my first born kid or something? Seems like a fair trade

[Sombre]

I put a beta up. First page.

Keep in mind it is /just a beta/ though. It isn't finished. I just want to get input on costing, features etc as early as possible. It should be playable enough to have some fun with anyway.

The slann graphic is very much a placeholder btw.

[Theonlystd]

Your chamleons blowpipes shoot out spears according to the info you get when you right click on it =p

[Theonlystd]

Also i appear to get this error while watching battles with cold ones that die..


myloadmalloc: cant open ./mods/./Warhammer Lizardmen/Cold one.tga

it causes a ctd

[Sombre]

Thanks, those are fixed in the zip now attached to the main post. Well in 5 mins it will be.

[llamabeast]

Just had a quick chance to play about with this this morning.

I think I may have a new favourite nation.

[Sombre]

I'm very pleased with them and I'm also very motivated to keep improving them. I wouldn't be surprised if I got to a v0.6 or so within a couple of weeks. Depends on feedback partly :]

I think the magic for the 4th gen will be,...

S4H3N2F1E1W1A1 with NFEWA 100% + FEWA 100% + FEWA 100%

Slann are pretty much unsurpassed at finding magic sites. Which is fine with me.

[llamabeast]

Isn't that what the 4th gen already is, pretty much?

Are the spells for summoning the 3rd and 2nd gens missing, or did I just fail to find them?

I like how the sacred spawning spells are scattered across the schools of magic.

[llamabeast]

If you want to do a little duel, e.g. Lizardmen vs Skaven (bagsie Lizardmen!) I would be up for that. Or maybe you could play Vaetti, since I have a sneaky suspicion they are the weakest of your mod nations, although I still very much enjoy playing them.

[HoneyBadger]

Lizards vs rats sounds like a lot of fun!-I really enjoyed playing Skaven, although I have a feeling that I'll enjoy Lizardmen even more, if I can ever give them a go.

Skaven vs Avernum might be good too, since to me they seem to play somewhat similarly.

Coincidentally enough, my wife and I were watching a History channel series on cryptids tonight, and one of the shows was on giant rats. I didn't catch the end of it, but I thought about Skaven while I was watching it.

[Sombre]

Isn't that what the 4th gen already is, pretty much?

Are the spells for summoning the 3rd and 2nd gens missing, or did I just fail to find them?

I like how the sacred spawning spells are scattered across the schools of magic.

The 5th gen is S3H3N1E1W1F1A1 with NFW 100% and NEA 100%. So the 4th gen one (once added as a cap only commander) will be a substantial upgrade.

3rd and 2nd gen (as well as 4th) are not currently in. They will be summons. 3rd gen will be normal summons, 2nd gen will be 5 different unique summons with strength in a particular area. 2nd gen will be immobile but able to teleport/gateway etc.

The Carnosaur will be a nature summon, as well as the mount of the hero Kroq Gar. There will also be Terradon/Terrasaur summons, which will summon the mounts that the recruitable terradon rider unit has. Of course they'll be upkeep free, which is the advantage.

[Sombre]

If you want to do a little duel, e.g. Lizardmen vs Skaven (bagsie Lizardmen!) I would be up for that. Or maybe you could play Vaetti, since I have a sneaky suspicion they are the weakest of your mod nations, although I still very much enjoy playing them.

After this weekend I should have done enough work on the lizards for them to be duel playable, yeah, so we could do one. Or we could have a 4 player Warhammerama with Ogre Kingdoms, Lizardmen, Skaven and Tomb Kings.

[HoneyBadger]

Didn't Lord Kroak like destroy an entire major dwarf kingdom with a series of earthquakes? I see these guys getting a little Earth-will Lord Kroak get a lot more than the rest? Is that likely, or is it too early to tell?

[HoneyBadger]

Damn-I'd take Ogres in a second, if I could...

[Sombre]

Didn't Lord Kroak like destroy an entire major dwarf kingdom with a series of earthquakes? I see these guys getting a little Earth-will Lord Kroak get a lot more than the rest? Is that likely, or is it too early to tell?

Kroak is dead. He was iirc the last of the 1st generation of Slann and his power in dom3 terms would be pretty unimaginable. He did kill hundreds if not thousands of greater daemons after all.

He will be in the mod though, in the form he takes in the army book; that of a mummified corpse carried into battle as a totem of sorts. When Slann die their spirits hang around partly attached to their old physical forms and they're still able to commune with other slann, exert some influence on the winds of magic etc. So he'll be a strong hero, but nothing like a 2nd generation Slann.

[llamabeast]

Kroak's croaked it, eh?

I'd be very much up for either a duel or a 4-way Warhammerama. Whatever takes your fancy.

[trentzero]

Augghh! :D I've been following this mod for a long time. Can't wait to test it out!

Some issues on first run.

Saurus Oldblood: Shouldn't he also have recuperation like the Saurus cavalry (because of the cold one slime)? Uh, and they also have feet slots.

Skink Warchief: No default weapon in contrast to description of obsidian weapon?

The 2in1 troops: Are their secondary attacks bonus attacks? Otherwise w/o ambi, they're kind of useless. Because of the penalty to extra attacks. I think this was the same problem with moose riders right?

That's it on first boot. Conducting more research now.

[Sombre]

Ah yes I forgot to give them ambi. That's my bad.

The Oldblood should have recuperation and be mounted, the Skink Warchief should have an obsidian sword.

I'll fix those issues and reupload the beta. Thanks for your feedback and keeping it coming!

It's much easier to track down errors quickly at this stage.

[Theonlystd]

After playing the start of one game and abit into a second


Salamander seem a bit strong.. I enjoy having an arty unit that doesnt kill more of your guys than theres after the skaven.


But the 5 ammo,13 precision, 27hps and 8 Range make for a unit that doesnt seem to die as long as i have units in front of em .And they slaughter the other guys.

[Sombre]

Perhaps Salamanders simply need to be more expensive. I plan to give them watershape so they can swim around killing stuff like true underwater predators rather than simply being amphibious.

Anyway, a version with some fixes and an added 4th gen Slann is uploaded.

[trentzero]

One more bug concerning the Saurus Cavalry again. When they lose their rider, the resulting Cold Ones do not have recuperation.

Also, this might be a crossover bug with another mod but some swords are getting replaced with obsinite swords. Apparently weapon 710 is used by I think the CBM.

[Sombre]

The ids weren't picked with awareness of any other mods, so I wouldn't advise playing it with others enabled.

At a later date I will ensure it's conflict free with my favourite MA nations and of course with CBM.

As for the Cold One - that isn't a bug. Cold Ones are temporary units which don't exist outside of battle effectively, so they don't need recuperation.


I've put the skink priest up to 90 gold and the salamander is more costly (85) and slightly less precise. He really was too good before.

[okiN]

Not sure if this is an oversight or not, but the talk of stealthy raids in the description for skink cavalry doesn't seem to fit in with their lack of the actual stealth characteristic.

Mod seems great, as usual. Can't wait for it to be finished, so I can pit my mighty greenskin horde against these pathetic worms! :D

[okiN]

Dormancy for fourth generation slann seems to be borked - the sprite and description change, and it gains recuperation, but it also retains magic skills and mobility.

[Sombre]

Hmm. I'll fix that. I just made a mistake or two in the code.

I can't draw the terrasaur. Here's what I've got. I may or may not finish it tonight. It's probably been the hardest sprite to draw so far.

[trentzero]

Eh? It works fine for me. They don't have magic paths after I change shape on them.

[okiN]

Maybe he fixed it. Doesn't work on my version.

[Sombre]

No I haven't fixed it. He's probably thinking of the Fifth generation.

I'll upload a new version tonight with improved (not finished) Slann graphics, some more spells and of course Terradon Riders.

[trentzero]

Ok, I just now noticed that the dormant state is 5th generation and the active state is 4th generation on both units. Dormant state has no paths and no mobility and changing to active state reverts to a 4th generation, even if they were previously a 5th.

[Sombre]

I've uploaded v0.2

There are various fixes, upgraded slann graphics and terradon riders added. The nation is now out of beta and while yet to be balanced to any high standard, it is completely playable.

I added some armour to the temple guard to make an E9 bless possible. They might be too good now though. We'll see.

[HoneyBadger]

These look great, Sombre. By the way-are the floaty Slann the 5th generation, and the asleep Slann the 4th?

[okiN]

Why don't you just DL it and find out?

Seriously, though, no. The 5th gen is the green one, the 4th gen is the red one, and they both have a second, dormant form.

[lch]

Those dormant Slanns are a very clever invention by Sombre. Usually the Slanns are powerful mages with a very high base cost. If you're strapped for money, though, you can switch them to their second form for a while which has zero gold cost and thus no upkeep at all. This completely disables them, BTW.

[HoneyBadger]

I can't download anything, okiN, or believe me, I would.

That's really clever, Sombre!

[Amos]

Wow Sombre... Beautiful sprites.

[Alderanas]

I Love these guys they have to be one of my favorite nations now besides your tomb king guys. Keep up the good work!!!:)

[Sombre]

I Love these guys they have to be one of my favorite nations now besides your tomb king guys. Keep up the good work!!!:)

The Tomb Kings were made be llamabeast, not me. Excellent mod though.

[HoneyBadger]

It's a little confusing, since there are two mods that seem to be based on Warhammer skellies: the Stygian Desert one by Amos, and the Tomb Kings by Llamabeast. Both are excellent, and neither one was made by Sombre, who's made the most Warhammer-based mod nations of anyone.

[Sombre]

I don't think Stygian desert is based on warhammer. Did Amos say it was?

[llamabeast]

Nah, I just looked at it now. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with Warhammer.

[HoneyBadger]

I kind of assumed it was, but I could certainly be wrong about that. It does remind me of Tomb Kings, atleast vaguely, but that's looking at it from the outside, and from what I remember 6 months ago, or more. So if it's not, then I appologise to Amos for the mistaken identity.

I'll add in my defense that Amos does fantastic mods that are some of my favorites, but they're generally so original and so complex that it's hard to remember with much precision what's going on in them (beyond the very general), without looking at them. And the mod descriptions-even the threads about the mod-don't help much to alleviate that.

So half-remembered undead + desert + guarding "secrets" = in my mind something "Tomb Kings"ish. *shrug*

[Sombre]

I've made a quick upgrade, new zip is attached.

It's a very minor tweak of some prot values and making it so you can actually cast the Sotek Spawning from the Blood school.

[rdonj]

Regarding the temple guard... for its price, as a recruitable everywhere sacred, it does seem to be pretty strong. Just about any bless would be very good with them, and their only real major weakness is their lowish mr. Two natural attacks, one with the obsinite halberd is a real killer though. That kind of combination of damage output, defensibility and recruit-everywhere status is very rare.

Of course, I'm biased because I may have to fight off a sacred lizard rush very soon.

[Sombre]

You may be right. I just toned down their prot a bit. I want them to be recruitable anywhere because the lizards are in many ways like Mictlan - their sacred warriors are their elite and can be found wherever there are Slann.

However the cost might need pushing up a little.

[rdonj]

Yeah, that does make sense. It might also be nice to increase the resource cost a little so there's at least SOME detriment to taking a heavy sloth scale.

Also, near as I can tell the dormancy state on slann doesn't actually decrease their upkeep.

[Sombre]

Yeah, that does make sense. It might also be nice to increase the resource cost a little so there's at least SOME detriment to taking a heavy sloth scale.

Also, near as I can tell the dormancy state on slann doesn't actually decrease their upkeep.

Hmm. It should do. I was under the impression shifting to a form with a lower goldcost reduced upkeep.

Let me test it quickly.

[Sombre]

Yep they definitely change your upkeep. It just doesn't change on the fly on the top right income display. You have to wait a turn.

[llamabeast]

Okay! Having played with the Lizardmen a bit I have some comments.

Firstly, this an awesome mod. Definitely up there with my very favourites.

My biggest suggestion regards with the Skink priests. They are lovely units, easy to recruit and great for research. But, they're almost unusable in battle. They all have low paths, which seems reasonable, and it seems they are perfect for using in a communion. However, because of the quirks of the way communion behaves in Dom3 you can only effectively have one communion master. Once the first master has cast, all following slaves won't do anything.

So basically, you can use the Skink priests uncommunioned, which is fairly useless, or with a Slann or two. Slann are great but they're scarce, and you don't want to have to use them all the time. Further, because the Slann are automatic communion masters, having even a single Slann present stops all the priests casting (or rather, all those with higher unit number than him). So this is a bit sad really. I was even considering recruiting Priests of Sotek just so I could set them as sabbath masters and have them rain fiery and viney death down on the opposition, but I don't want to recruit heretics just for that, and besides sabbath master is rubbish.

Here's my suggestion: Add a new Skink priest unit, of a slightly higher rank. Have him cost more, 100-120 gold, and have a fixed astral pick as well as 50% nature and the same other picks as the ordinary priest. So on average he'd only have half a pick more than the ordinary priest. This higher ranked priest wouldn't be an automatic communion slave, and so could be used as a communion master for packs of skink priests. It wouldn't be an overly powerful option, but would add a nice alternative to using Slann.

Right, on to my other unit-by-unit comments:

Skink skirmishers: Great, although I'm unclear on when javelins would be better then blowpipes. Probably they do a bit more damage.

Skink archers: Don't think I'd ever recruit these, as they seem inferior to the javelins and blowpipes. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Skink (blowpipes): These are nice. But from a thematic point of view, it really makes no sense to me that they ignore shields. They can't be that accurate. And indeed, they aren't even very accurate (prec 10).

Red crested skinks: Awesome, I like these little guys.

Chameleon skinks: Haven't used them yet, but they look fine. Bit expensive maybe. Their blowpipes aren't amazing in the same way as poison bows, given that they only have range 10.

Skink cavalry: These seem very expensive to me. I can't really justify recruiting them. I'd suggest 20 gold or slightly over.

Terradon rider: These seem extremely expensive to me. I definitely wouldn't buy them. You'd spend a fortune getting 10 and they'd get mashed up and rout straight away. They have a great deal less staying power than the skink cavalry because they have bad defense as well as bad protection. I'd suggest maybe 30-35 gold.

Saurus warriors: All awesome. I like these guys, but they're not too powerful. Quite vulnerable to missile fire, it seems.

Temple Guard: I've not found these guys excessive, but then I haven't tried a really strong bless. I think their price may well be okay though - presumably they are a strength of the nation.

Saurus Cavalry: Expensive but worth it.

Kroxigor: I'm a bit unsure about these guys. I don't think they can really be your main fighters, simply because they're big and expensive. I've tried using them just to absorb punishment, but they're not actually that tough. I'd definitely rather have 4 saurus for any situation I can think of. Maybe they should have a little higher protection, or else be a little cheaper?

Salamander: Looks good with the newly increased price. Was a bit too good before.

---
Commanders
---

Apart from the above comments about the skink priests, I think these are all excellent. I've not tried using the Priests of Sotek, but it seems they could lead to a good blood economy. The commanders and the Slann all seem to work very well. The Slann sprites are coming along nicely.

[rdonj]

Skink archers aren't bad if you just need massed bowfire on low prot units. They aren't going to be that great against heavy or even light infantry, but I think they'd be fairly useful on most undead and vine men/carrion.

Kroxigors seem more like a back up unit for the most part, but they'd be really useful if you were fighting, for example, abysia playing with a bless strategy.

[Amos]

Thank you for the praise HoneyBadger. But "Stygian Desert" is definitely not a Warhammer nation.

[HoneyBadger]

If I should ever get another chance, I'll happily verify that, Amos. :)

[Sombre]

Thanks for your very positive feedback llama. Let me address some of the points you raised.

Skink Priests: As you said, they are largely there to act as noncasting slaves for the Slann. They also perform minor duties that are beneath the slann, such as raising temples/labs, astral site searching, magic dueling, blessing sacred raiders, researching etc. As such they are absolutely essential to the every day running of the nation. So there's part of me that's tempted to just say "Tough, Skink Priests aren't there to cast battle spells, especially if there's a Slann present." But it isn't entirely true. They actually can be used relatively easily in a reverse communion - just make sure you don't use one of those Slann you recruited at the start of the game - recruit one specifically for the purpose of the reverse communion with the priests (I believe this is a sure fire way of getting them to come before him in the order of battle, correct me if I'm wrong). They will then be able to spam mind burn, paralyze, lightning bolt or whatever.

I'd actually say the reverse communion is the quirk rather than the master and noncasting slave one, which is what I intended. But I'm happy with both working for the Slann. I would consider the fact that the Slann are scarce and are essentially your only battle-mages to be a key weakness of the nation. I didn't intend skinks to commune with each other (though they can be used by Sotek, you're right),... I wonder what would happen if you just scripted a skink to cast communion master? Perhaps he would cease being a slave and become master of the other skinks.

"it would add a nice alternative to using Slann" - you aren't supposed to have an alternative ;P



Skirmisher: Javs do more damage and are boosted by something like strength of giants. But most importantly the skink skirmishers have shields - for an army like lizards this makes them a prime choice against crossbows, composite bows, javs, stuff that is going to hurt saurus pretty bad.

Skink archers: Basically they just have much longer range. I'm thinking of giving them more ammo too. Also,.. though I'm not sure, I think they benefit from flaming arrows while blowpipes do not.

Skink (blowpipes): You're right. I'll up the precision and decrease damage. They are already quite accurate though, as prec 10 at the ranges they can fire at means they rarely miss. My reasoning to have them ignore shields is more of a gameplay thing - it gives them a role as the killers of the shielded skirmish troops. They can't do jack against anything with armour though, which makes sense to me.

Chameleon Skinks: I may make them cheaper. They are expensive because they are a special unit with absurd stealth (40) and because I consider poison missile weapons to be buggy (and overpowered). I'll have to give the chameleon scout leader 10 if I haven't so their stealth means something. I'm also tempted to give them glamour, representing their extreme stealth, or some sort of dodge based 'shield', because of their ability to see threats coming from any angle.

Skink cavalry: They aren't cheap, but they can actually do a lot of damage on the flank charge - light lance + horned one attacks are no joke. Though they are fragile in the sense that the skink is easily killed, the horned one will fight on, so they can be a one shot weapon sometimes. I might drop them to 25 tonight.

Terradon rider: I'm changing them to size 3 and tweaking them a bit. They are supposed to be like more expensive but even faster versions of the skink cavalry. Like the cavalry though I think their low morale might stop them from attacking rear properly,.. so,.. they'll be improved but I don't know by how much.

Kroxigor: They aren't frontline troops at all and if used as such, will perform much worse than saurus for the cost. The combination of poor skills, no shield and only medium prot with size 3 just leaves them in a world of hurt. They're also far more expensive than say, ogre bulls. The role they are /amazing/ at is killing high prot units. They hit for an /absurd/ amount of damage with their clubs, the only trouble is getting them to land. They were designed to be used mixed in with skinks (who travel at about the same speed) so the skinks reduce the defence with multiple attacks, allowing the krox's land their clubs. Against knights, ulm/agartha/Empire/Dwarf troops and the like they should work better than saurus, who struggle against high prot units. They also represent, like the salamander, an even crazier gold to resource ration. However I will consider tweaking them based on some tests. You get them in PD over 20 by the way. Few of them though.

[llamabeast]

Thanks for all that Sombre, all sounds great.

Apart from these pesky priests...

So, you can set a load of the priests to be communion masters. However, they also remain as slaves. What this means is that as soon as one of them casts a spell, the remaining ones are unable to take an action. So you can only effectively have one master.

Recruiting a Slann to come last is very unreliable. Units can have lower unit numbers to fill in gaps as earlier units die I think. Just doing test, I had a lot of difficulty in getting a Slann with a higher unit number than 4 priests. What bothers me more about this, though, is the real metagaming nature of it. The fact that some Slann should be significantly superior to others just by virtue of having a higher unit number bugs me.

Finally, I'm not quite sure I understand how you'd plan on using the reverse communion. Those slaves that get to cast before the master do not have boosted levels. The only possibly advantage to them is if the master casts Power of the Spheres or another booster spell. Otherwise they are stuck casting their level one spells.

So really, I don't think there is any very satisfactory way to get any useful spells out of those lovely priests, apart from the one communion master you can have per battle. This makes me sad. Go on, stick in a non-slave priest, please? (This is not genuine begging of course, obviously do whatever you think best.) The only difference he really needs to have is not to be an automatic slave, although having automatic astral would make a lot of sense. I guess what frustrates me is that the usefulness of the priests is greatly hampered by the fact that they are automatically slaves, which is meant to be a benefit. It's a shame you can't just somehow turn it off.

[Sombre]

Another point I forgot to mention about kroxigor is that they have mapmove 2 with forest and swamp survival and are considerably faster than Saurus Warriors in battle, while being cheaper than Saurus Cavalry (quite a bit cheaper really). Try using them with Skinks and see if they fare better.


Regarding Priests:

I was thinking more having one priest as a communion master, rather than many. I guess you want to construct a battery of slaves and masters - in that case the only way you can do it is with Slann as masters and priests as slaves. Something they are awesome at btw :P

It's a shame you can't just recruit a Slann to come last, but I don't think that the higher unit ID makes them that much better. A lot of the time you don't want your slaves casting stupid stuff, because they'll only get fatigued to death when the master casts powerful spells. The metagaming nature of it is something that's out of my control - I personally feel communions rely way too heavily on invisible unit IDs and I'd rather that element was removed, replaced with Communion Master, Communion Slave and Communion Member (slave that casts) spells.

I was under the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that in a reverse communion, the slaves that can cast spells get boosted paths from being in the communion. Is it just that they get boosts from the buffs then? If that's the case, then you can still benefit in the case of having one skink master (easier to make sure he casts after the slaves) or finding a slann with a high hidden ID.

I put in automatic slave and master not entirely as a benefit, but as a feature. It's clearly a double edged sword, which pleases me. The fact is Skinks should always be slaves if a Slann is around - they live only to support them after all. Slann should never be slaves and if I could have my way, skinks wouldn't be able to commune with each other.

That said,.. there is a solution I can offer, in the form of a Skink Shaman from the Southlands. There they have very few Slann and are much more feral, so it makes sense that some spawnings of priests are not part of the temple cities. These could be non sacred, get the possibility of fire magic in their elemental pick (currently restricted to Slann and naughty Sotek cultists) and not be automatic slaves. I'm thinking around 70 gold with a research malus. That way you'd have 50% of them able to master up and 25% of those able to use fire magic, possibly leading to some destructive communions, yet overall the priest would be a better investment.

[llamabeast]

Nice, that sounds like a good solution, I like it. I think I agree with everything you say, actually.

I was under the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that in a reverse communion, the slaves that can cast spells get boosted paths from being in the communion. Is it just that they get boosts from the buffs then?

Yep, that's right.

Sounds like I have been trying to use the kroxigor in a naïve way then. I'll give them a try with some skinks, but from what you say it sounds like the price is about right.

[Sombre]

-- version 0.3

-- Changed salamander breath to avoid conflict with cbm

-- Added Skink Shamans

-- Reduced cost of skink cav and terradons, made terradons size 3

-- blowpipes more accurate, less damaging

[llamabeast]

Awesome.

[llamabeast]

Oof, research malus 2 on the shaman is quite harsh. The ones with nature instead of astral will be quite painfully useless.

Still, despite my endless complaining, thanks very much for adding them!

[llamabeast]

Ouch, skink priest has gone up to 90 gold! Aah! The 70-gold priests were my favourite thing!

This will call for some serious strategy rethinks. Are you sure they should be so expensive? They're not exactly powerful in anything less than very large numbers.

[Aezeal]

Llama you are spamming :D ban your self :D

[llamabeast]

:p .

[rdonj]

The skink priests were actually 90 gold in the last version too.

[llamabeast]

Really? Obviously I've cracked. Ah well.

Apologies for the overexcitable spamming Sombre. :)

[Sombre]

A wild llama was sighted kicking and braying. Unrest has increased by 10!

[lch]

/me hands Sombre a Rat Tail.

[llamabeast]

Eep!

[Sombre]

Any more feedback coming in for the lizzies?

The next update will focus on tweaks to get an early balance, giving the salamders their water shape, at least one blood spell for sotek priests,... and probably the 3rd generation slann as a summon. I don't think it will get a particularly different graphic, probably just a modified throne, more bling and a different colour. I'm thinking blue.

The 2nd gen slann are going to be 5 unique summons. Each had a different duty in shaping the world itself and this will be reflected in their abilities. In the simplest sense there might be one with very strong earth magic, one with water, one with air, one with fire and one with nature. But they'll get other stuff too - domsummoning sacred spawnings, different movement abilities (some mobile, some immobile), onebattlespells etc.

I'm already invisioning the havoc a stormflying onebattlespell-storm mapmove 10 uberslann could cause. Or an immobile F6 bugger that generates fire gems. Teehee.

[rdonj]

I can't wait to see the second generation slann. They should be a sight to inspire terror in your opponent. Are you going to put them in different paths like with the sacred spawnings?

As far as feedback goes, on the one hand the lizards seem incredibly strong to me. They have a very solid early game with the quite decent temple guard, or the sneakily trample-resistant skink/kroxigor army, or even the saurus warrior army. Also cavalry and salamanders, while expensive, should not be underestimated. In the mid game they have all those happy sacred spawnings, and access to many powerful battlefield spells. By the late game, you'll probably have been clamming pretty good, you're an inherently powerful astral nation and can make giant communions to boost your slann to crazy levels of power to cast just about whatever you want in battle. You also have excellent forging abilities, and I think saurus oldbloods would make for a pretty decent chassis earlier in the game.

The only real weakness they have, I think, is slann equipment slotting (their incredible cost aside). If you want to cast higher level globals you'll probably have to empower a number of slann (at least until the 2nd generation becomes available to you), which is of course expensive. I completely agree with the logic about their lack of slots, as they're just too large and abnormally shaped to actually equip most of the forged items, and while I could see them being capable of using a single a hand-held booster one-handed ones basically don't exist, and you really don't need slann turning into SCs with shields and aoe weapons.

Most of this is theory-crafting though in honesty, I haven't played as Itza very much. I had a little game going a few days before the warhammerama game started and was pretty much just playing around to see what they could do and check out the sacred spawnings.

Edit: On second thought their very expensive forts are quite a drawback as well. The fort cost is very good at holding them back a bit early on. I would say this was another very good choice for balance as well as aesthetic purposes.

[Sombre]

I forgot to thank rdonj for that feedback. I have many ideas for the lizards, though I'm quite surprised by the lack of response on the forums. I really thought they'd be a hit. They're rather pretty after all and have some unique qualities.

[rdonj]

I'm contemplating trying to write a guide for them. I still haven't played them that much but I really want to. They have so many neat things they can do. I'll probably look into that after some of the other 5 million things I have to do today are out of the way.

[Nasser]

I've played a few single player games with them and I've got to say they feel really powerful. With a W, N and E bless the temple guard sacreds just never die, I've very rarely found myself using any of the other summoned sacreds because they're not as durable or very situational. Obviously this would completely change in a multiplayer game, but I've no experience there. I was planning on waiting for you to complete the nation before I provided feedback, but I'll say that they are indeed very thematic and very beautifully drawn. I've enjoyed them very much so far.

[rdonj]

With a W, N and E bless the temple guard sacreds just never die, I've very rarely found myself using any of the other summoned sacreds because they're not as durable or very situational.

If I ever do write that guide, I hope to change your mind about that :) I agree that Itza feels pretty powerful, but not just for their temple guard. Actually in the Warhammerama game that's just finishing up, llamabeast's temple guard are more or less just high morale chaff atm, it's his massive slann-lead skink communions that hold the real power. Though I would be the first to say that his bless is definitely sub-optimal for fighting me.

[Humakty]

A beautifull mod, but is it a surprise ? No. Now we want Sombre 3d sprites !(?)

Can't remember any numbers actually, but It seems to me that I found the resource cost quite low for all the saurus chaps, who can easily crush any heavy infantry they encounter(cavalry is not safe either),magic weapons on everyone is really good too. I don't know if it is really overpowered, as their magery is all clumsy and hard to use (you clearly won't have support mages everywhere)(I play rather big maps).

All in all I need to restart a game and look at those nifty sacred summons again. It seems to me they were quite usefull. (a tool for each job)

[Sombre]

I think I'm going to pay particular attention to the balance of the temple guard. When I made them I was comparing Itza with Mictlan, due to their many similarities, and envisioned the Temple Guard as being on par with Jaguar Warriors in their overall awesomeness. The problem there is that Mictlanese troops are mostly rubbish, while Itza has an excellent range of troops and avoids many of the disadvantages of Mictlan to boot.

The sacred summons are also somewhat eclipsed by the Temple Guard, who benefit from a rather different bless (E9 actually works on them for instance and their durability favours regen and reinvig). So perhaps they just need a cost hike.

I doubt I will increase resource costs across the board. Itza are pretty much a sloth nation, since their armour and weaponry is largely either biological or naturally occuring.

[llamabeast]

I actually think the Temple Guard are a bit too strong. Not dramatically so, but just to the extent that I don't bother recruiting anything else any more (apart from the red skinks sometimes). Given the amazing range of troops that the Lizardmen have, that's quite a pity.

[Sombre]

I think there are definitely some cases where the temple guard will be worse than other options, but that makes other choices like skinks (when facing heavy aoe battlemagic), salamanders (vs niefel for example) etc far too niche.

I am going to set them to mapmove 1, reflecting their overwhelming instinct to stay with the Slann/Temple. Then I'll look at their cost.

No matter what, lizards will clearly remain a bless nation, but I don't want a case where temple guard are all you build, that's for sure.

[llamabeast]

I think they're already mapmove 1.

Anyway, I reckon you might want to make them more expensive. Or remove their armour again - that'd make people more inclined to use offensive blesses rather than E9. I think that'd be quite cool actually. Yep, that plan gets my vote.

[Sombre]

Ah yes, Saurus are already mapmove 1. Hmm.

I'm not sure I want to remove their armour entirely. Instead I'll probably make it very weak. It's just a pair of gold shoulderguards after all. They could also be more expensive in terms of gold and resources (since they are carrying a fair bit of bling).

[Nasser]

Maybe you could help encourage the use of the sacred spawn summons by enhancing their diversity. I seem to remember not being very impressed when I first summoned my batches of sacred spawns because I'd think "well, these are just normal saurus with slightly more armour, or slightly more magic resistance. I think it'd be neat to make each spawning more unique by giving them something else, different weapons perhaps, or maybe special commander summons for each spawning with their own abilities that mesh well with their given troops. I'm just thinking out loud here, and I imagine that the spawns may become more attractive with the nerf to Temple Guard. Still, unique and diverse troops never hurts :)

[rdonj]

The temple guards definitely do encourage a bless, and having skink priests and the slann also as sacred gives even more incentive for a high earth bless. But I think the temple guard perform at least on par with something like S9/E6/N4, and with that bless all those sacred spawnings benefit and become a whole lot more interesting. It also gives them an S9 caster which they will otherwise have to spend a lot of gems empowering to get.

But I would also contend that Itza is completely viable even without a bless. Taking an awake research/site searching rainbow pretender could really help boost their magic to reach the dizzying heights of power the slann communions can reach on the battlefield more quickly. Playing without the temple guard does make expansion a bit slower, but saurus warriors and skinks do fine on most indies, and you have things like kroxigor and salamanders to ruin a player's day.

[rdonj]

Also, I think the sacred summons are pretty much fine the way they are. However, having mark-specific commanders is a pretty good idea. The sacred spawnings of huanchi, for example, would be much better off if lead by a lizard with the mark of huanchi, to take better advantage of their terrain survival bonuses.

[Nasser]

I was thinking thematically it would be fun to have, for example (and forgive my shorthand, I don't have the unit names with me at work) the water spawn with tridents or the stealthy ones with spears or javelins or the earth ones with maybe just a claw and a larger defensive shield, perhaps the fire ones with a larger axe or club. Stuff like that.

e: I'm not sure how well any of that fits with the Itza lore, but it would help to spice things up, rather than have hundreds of the same saurus models of a slightly different colour.

[Humakty]

It seems strange blowpipes in the PD start in front of their shielded brethen. They get killed fast, then the shielded ones rout, very sad to watch.

Glamour is really good on chameleon, they tend to survive longer in melee than the red skinks, seems a bit odd. Wouldn't it be better to give them airshield to represent the fact they are hard to spot from a distance ?

The various spawnings spells are really good to rapidly raise armies of sacred buddies,pumping 40 of them per turn can be quite devastating. And some of those fellas are really good (air,earth,astral). So they complement well an army of temple guards.

I wonder how much this faction would beneficiate from a multiple minor bless (F,W,S,N,E). As your armies are hard to replace, and CBM boosts most minor spells, I think Astral 4 or 6 is mandatory.

It's true that temple guards are great, as well as the cap only thug on lizard, but coldblooded is a huge drawback if you don't manage to have second sun up fast. I don't think they are really superior to Mictlan because of this flaw, which is easy to exploit in MP. (can't remember the name of the spell which lowers temperature)

[Sombre]

rdonj: I think that's a good idea about the sacred spawns. I think I'll use nextspell to make sure you get a nice commander version along with your spawning. Probably with the same sprite (or very slightly changed) but with different stats.

Nasser: They are always going to look relatively similar, but perhaps I can do a little more to differentiate them. I'm adverse to creating more graphical work for myself, but there are minor changes I can make, like giving the water saurus a trident and possibly a UW shape. The stealthy spawning (Huanchi) already have spears rather than swords. I'm thinking of giving them poisonous bites too. As for the stat differences - again they aren't /huge/ and you're still talking sacred saurus warriors basically, but there are some major differences, like mapmove, ultra high prot, resistances (which can be a very big deal) and stealth. The one with slightly higher mr iirc also has boosted morale and something else about it - it's a combination of effects. There is one with greatly boosted mr too. You're right I can do a little more with them though.

Humakty: I don't think I can do much about the PD formations. I think I'll be changing blowpipes so they don't ignore shields btw, though I'll have to find something else to make them special. As for Chameleons, I can't give airshield via mod commands and it doesn't fit much better than glamour in battle anyway, while glamour gives the Chameleons their super stealth on the strategic map. I don't mind them being hard to kill in melee, because they cost a lot more than red skinks and don't do any damage back.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, it's really helpful. I'll take a look at sacred spawnings this weekend I think. Give them a few tweaks. I thought it might be fun to have one 'drop' its tail when badly hurt and get a second form (which it retains after battle - they don't grow back).

[Digress]

I thought it might be fun to have one 'drop' its tail when badly hurt and get a second form (which it retains after battle - they don't grow back).

Will they lose their sacred status along with the tail ?

Can that be modded ?

Just asking ...

[Sombre]

Sure that could be modded.

I'm not sure it makes sense though. They are sacred from their spawning onward after all.

[llamabeast]

Their sacred soul has its physical manifestation in the tail. Everyone knows that.

[Digress]

And then there is the endless teasing :)

I like the mod alot by the way.

[Sombre]

I whipped up the Third Generation Slann the other day. They're pretty powerful, but expensive.

They also have a lot of bling. Like Mr T.

I'm working on the 5 Second Generation ones. Unique summons.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7872&stc=1&d=1236368768

[Sombre]

As is traditional (see the chameleon pipe smoking gentry), I have made my latest slann graphic into an aristocrat. This one is an industrialist it seems, keen on low cost socially responsible fuel solutions.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com//attachment.php?attachmentid=7904&stc=1&d=1236810864

Burn the poor!

[Fantomen]

Great work Sombre. I´m really keen on this mod.

You should make that last one a national hero.

[rdonj]

I wonder what his attack animation would look like.

Also I'm really looking forward to seeing what the third generation slann can do :).

[lch]

I've added an Alpha channel so that it's easier to make out the Slann...

[Sombre]

Your alpha channel seems to have messed up some bits of the graphic and I don't think he's hard to make out anyway with normal monitor brightness.

Regardless the graphic was knocked up quickly for fun and no he's not going to be a hero.

[Jazzepi]

Social Darwinism at its best.

You did great sprites for the mod.

Jazzepi

[rdonj]

By the way sombre, did you ever change the ogre and lizard startsites to not conflict? I'm pretty sure I have the latest versions and they still use the same site numbers as each other. Just haven't bothered changing it on my system since I can always just play with the warhammerama mod :P Of course that's getting a bit out of date now.

[Sombre]

That will be fixed in the next version, which will be released once I have completed the 5 unique 2nd gens and modified the sacred spawnings, as well as added a spell or two (Sotek needs some series snake summoning).

[llamabeast]

Are there still ultimate plans for dinosaurs?

[Sombre]

Yes. Carnosaur and the other one,.. Stegadon I think, will both be in eventually. Stegadons with a fort on their back which fires projectiles and Carnosaurs with thuggable Oldbloods riding them.

[Fate]

I have been playing a bit, and I strongly believe the temple guard should be cap-only. As evidence I list it against some other cap-only MA sacreds:

*Heart Companion (Arco)
25G 30R
11HP 17Prot 6(4)D
14Da 11A 5L
14Mor 10MR 9Enc 1/7Mov

*Lictor (Ermor)
25G 24R
12HP 13Prot 9D
20Da 12Att 3L
15Mor 11MR 7Enc 1/8Mov

*Daoine Sidhe (Eriu)
35G 12R
13HP 10Prot 11(4)D
15Da 12Att 4L (+Jav)
12Mor 14MR 5Enc 2/11Mov
Glamour, 50DV

Temple Guard (Itza)
24G 12R
16HP 15Prot 8(4)Def
21Dam 10Att 4L (+Magic, +Bite!!)
18Mor 11MR 4Enc 1/9Mov

*=cap-only

The temple guard are the cheapest (in resources AND gold), have the most health, and the second best protection. They also retain respectable defense and MR. They have the highest attack (even compared to the 2-handed wielding Lictor) and they make up for their low attack with magic weapons and a bonus bite. To top it all off they have the lowest Encumberance (even compared to Daoine Sidhe).

Admittedly, none of the nations I compared them to are *Bless* nations per se, but these are their cap-only sacreds! At least raise the Gcost to 30. Even better, raise the Rcost to 20 (that is more in line with their protection, even if it isn't becuase of armour).

And considering that the nation has sacreds in every path, even B1 sacreds for the bloodhunters to summon, they don't need a build-anywhere sacred to maintain their sared forces. So please make the Temple Guard Cap-only.

[Sombre]

I have had them at 32 gold for a while. I forgot they were that cheap in the version everyone else is using. I'm not sure about making them cap only - 5th gen Slann are not cap only currently.

[Fate]

Just because the Slann can go everywhere doesn't mean (necessarily) that the temple guard do.

Still the hike to 32 gold is good. If you don't want to make them cap only or increase their resource cost, could you consider reducing some of their stats? Maybe cutting their MR (because of their proximity to the Slann) or increasing their encumbrance or reducing their attack/strength/defense/protection.

Also, the temple guard description says they are old, but they have the same start age (in my version) as all the other Saurus infantry.

[rdonj]

In warhammer everywhere there are slann, there are also temple guards. So iirc it was a thematic decision based on warhammer's backstory.

[Sombre]

The second generation slann who helped create the seas maintains a psychic bubble around him which is nigh impregnable, though once it's popped he's not quite so tough to deal with.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8319&stc=1&d=1244492923

[lch]

Bubble Bobble! :happy:

[llamabeast]

Just what I was going to say!

[Sombre]

Crazy thing is when I wanted to see how I should do the highlights on the bubble, this is the image I used:
http://www.lukechueh.com/images/paintings/paintings-whole/bubble-trouble.jpg

Bubble trouble!

[Sombre]

We made Bub (or Bob?) from Bubble Bobble angry! :O

Same deal as with Skrag. You guys choose which you prefer. Ridiculous overkill or classic glowy eyes wrath.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8320&stc=1&d=1244505487

[Jazzepi]

Can we have one where he rocks out with an electric guitar that's actually MADE from electricity? His hands are already on the first and last fret.

Jazzepi

[rdonj]

What if you used glowy eyes for the primary sprite, and ridiculous overkill for his attack sprite? I kind of like the idea of going a bit over the top for something as potent as a 2nd gen slann.

[Humakty]

I second Rdonj, the electric effect is most nice on a super slann.

[Sombre]

Cool, I'll make sure all 2nd gen Slann are suitably over the top and have distinguishing abilities.

[Sombre]

Messing around with Tzunki.

[llamabeast]

What's Tzunki?

Looks very cool anyway. I really like the swimming sprites.

[Sombre]

Tzunki is the Old One or lizardman god in charge of the seas. His sacred spawnings can go swimming and have various other powers. Mostly they're just badass underwater though. I'm doing a commander for each sacred spawning and I'm also tweaking them so they're as different as possible (and not just lots of recoloured saurus).

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8327&stc=1&d=1244581627

[Nasser]

Sombre those look really awesome, exactly what I was hoping you'd do when I suggested it :D

[Sombre]

Hmm, this next update is looking like a fair chunk of content.

3rd gen slann, a new sacred spawning, commanders for each spawning, at least 2 2nd gen slann, 2 blood spells, 1 nature spell, swimming for salamanders,... I'm tempted to stick in a first go at Stegadons too, possibly with a placeholder graphic.

[llamabeast]

Stegadons!

We want stegadons!

llamabeast
Secretary, NAPSM (National Association for the Promotion of Stegadon Mods)

[Sombre]

Well I've added Stegadons. Currently they use a placeholder graphic which is little more than a resized, adjusted and slightly cleaned picture of the miniature with a skink howdah dropped on top. But amazingly it actually looks quite good. I'll just paint over it when I do the proper graphic - it makes a great base. No attack sprite though. I don't want to get bogged down by the stegadon graphic because I'm easing myself into graphics with the sacred summon stuff and the slann - it will have to wait for another update. Anyway I thought I'd show you what it looks like currently - it's the biggest unit width-ways in the entire game afaik.

I tossed in a couple of other things I was working on the other day as a scale comparison.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8332&stc=1&d=1244930927

I'm just about to do the swimming salamander sprite so you can take those underwater properly.

[Nasser]

Ahhh I'm so excited! I want to play it now :(

[Noble713]

Outstanding new graphics. Can't wait to find myself battling them.

[Ballbarian]

Looks great Sombre! :)

[Sombre]

UPDATE!

Preview pics are attached.

-- Version 0.5

-- CONTENT - Nakai the Wanderer national hero added

-- TWEAK - Temples now cost 600

-- TWEAK - Sweeping morale changes to reflect effectiveness of 'cold blooded' in the warhammer tabletop - effectively it's +2 ldr - so skinks have same ldr as humans

-- TWEAK - Repriced commanders according to new scheme

-- TWEAK - Spawning of Huanchi moved to conjuration, descriptions tweaked

-- TWEAK - Blowpipes no longer ignore shields, do more damage, skink hunters better prec

-- TWEAK - Skink costs reduced significantly

-- TWEAK - Slann can no longer ever be empowered in blood

-- TWEAK - 4th gen Slann slightly more likely to get nature, another 10% on elements

-- CONTENT - Terradon summon added

-- CONTENT - Stegadon recruitable added with placeholder graphic, no attack sprite

-- CONTENT - Added flood of serpents, rain of snakes and serpents of sotek spells

-- CONTENT - Added Third Generation Slann

-- CONTENT - Added Second Generation Slann of the Seas

-- CONTENT - Added watershape to Tzunki spawning

-- CONTENT - Added Nightscale of Huanchi, Bloodscale of Sotek, Deepscale of Tzunki, Sunscale of Chotec

-- Version 0.4

-- TWEAK - Tepok spawnings now teleport (fly)

-- TWEAK - Temple Guard gold and resource cost raised

-- TWEAK - Terradon mount attacks att improved

-- TWEAK - All summoned sacred spawnings now upkeep free

-- FIX - Resolved weapon ID conflicts with CBM and my other MA mods + Tomb Kings

[Amonchakad]

Just a quick bug report:
-the Third Generation Slann changes shape to ID 3002, which appears to use the sprite of a human commander.
-the One Who Fathomed The Depths doesn't have an unique name, like his description suggests, and doesn't have amphibian, which he should have, still according to the description.

This was taken with CBM on, but it shouldn't make difference.

Looking at the mod file, the Slanns have a LOT of abilities which aren't listed in their descriptions.Is this WAD?

Another (very minor) bug: in the nation description, the Race;Military;Magic;Priests voices aren't indexed.

Yet another(I really got nothing to do today:D): the Spinescale of Quetzl(the leader) mentions ranged attacks in his description, but he has none; I suppose that the 6 attacks "tail spines" was meant to be ranged?

[Sombre]

Thanks, I suspected there would be a bunch of bugs. The main post will be updated within a couple minutes of this post with v0.6 including fixes to most of that. Couple of other things:

I'm not sure what you mean about Slann having a lot of abilities which aren't mentioned in the description. If you're referring to Zlatlan for instance, the domspread is pretty fully explained in other descriptions, since the 5 second generation slann are basically the most holy things on the planet. The gem production is just from his mastery of water magic. I don't really like dryly listing everything they can do and I think most of it is covered anyway.

You can't really do unique hero names, that's not a bug. Just rename him manually.

Not sure what you mean by voices not indexed. If you mean they don't start on new lines, it's because dom3 doesn't recognise lind ends from notepad which I use to edit text files. It's still completely readable though. I might expand the description a little in the next update, because it's pretty bare currently.

-- version 0.6

-- FIX - Skink Warchief given swamp survival

-- FIX - 3rd gen Slann shapechange fixed

-- FIX - One who fathomed the depths now amphibious as intended

-- FIX - Tail Spines now ranged attack

[rdonj]

I have the feeling blood vengeance and halt sacred on the bloodscales of sotek might be a little overkill. These new sacred spawning leaders are definitely feeling thuggable. It may be made up for by how relatively hard it is for them to get much benefit out of blood though.

So far, in game I've only summoned the warriors of chotec and xhotl. Chotec's warriors are nice, but the commander is pretty amazing in your dominion. And I have to say, I love the new warriors of xhotl. Especially with the s9/e6/n4 bless I play itza with. 2 free lives and being largely immune to magic is very fun.

And of course, stegadons are much fun as well. I wouldn't say they're completely practical all the time, but they are what every other recruitable trampler wishes it was. Well, except for being cold blooded and racking up incredible amounts of fatigue. But as long as you use them sensibly that's really not a big problem. Their bows don't tend to be that amazing, but what do you expect from a bunch of skinks.

[Sombre]

Ah yes, that's true about the 3rd generation Slann. I had intended to give them domsummon2 or something of temple guard but I decided against it until I could test more (spawning units with upkeep can be a bit problematic). So just ignore that bit in the description for now I guess :]

The Bloodscales are potentially the cheapest to get (if you get a big blood economy) but I think you're right that going so strongly into blood with lizards is somewhat tricky. Their unholy axe does work very well against sacred enemies, but I haven't seen their blood vengeance actually do that much yet - I will have to try thugging them with more than a couple of items and see what happens. I guess they could be used to swarm an SC and maybe kill him with blood vengeance or something, but it gets an mr roll to resist after all.

Regarding Chotec - I think giving the sunscale heatpower 3 might be a bit too strong, though if I remember correctly it also makes him completely rubbish in the inevitable cold 3 you're going to run into (especially if the enemy has water magic).

Xhotl is probably my favourite spawning at the moment, graphics (bubblegum!), flavour and gameplay wise. They're just awesome with a big communion behind them laying down crazy aoe cold, shock and poison. Of course they get absolutely owned by fire magic, even fireflies sorts them out easily.

[rdonj]

Actually I looked back at the slann while posting and saw that they do have the domsummon in there when the slann is dormant. So I edited my post in the hopes no one would see that :P If you're worried about having them summon units with a gold cost you could maybe make an alternate version of the temple guard that doesn't cost anything. But I'm not sure that's really necessary especially if they are only creating them when they're dormant, since they are your best option for breaking into high level ritual spells.

Yeah, I don't see how you could really put much effort into even researching blood in the first few years. By the time you actually have the research and slaves to spare to cast it the benefit of their having blood vengeance is likely significantly lessened. I haven't actually used them yet so if you think it's not a big deal it probably isn't. But blood vengeance is something that's pretty rare in the game, confined to expensive late items and very high end blood magic so having it available on a cheap low end summon seems overpowered even if it isn't.

The heat power 3 does make him pretty strong in heat 3 dominion. But you're right, any sensible player in mp with water magic available to them will spam wolven winter at any province they expect to have a major battle in. Might be a bit harder to do though if you use the sunscales as in-dominion thugs.

If you pop the bubble with fire magic, does that 500% extra damage carry over to the second form? I've had times with second shapes where it seems they take spillover damage from the primary form and if that carries over, you could just cast combustion and watch them all go poof. The Xhotl summons are very fun though, they definitely offer you a lot of battlefield flexibility.

[Sombre]

I don't think any damage done to the shield carries over no. If it does it's probably down to some glitch. The main point is whatever prot you put on them, any amount of fire is probably going to blast right through it.

[rdonj]

By the way, ogre and lizard startsites still conflict with each other... :P

[kianduatha]

Yeah, I don't see how you could really put much effort into even researching blood in the first few years. By the time you actually have the research and slaves to spare to cast it the benefit of their having blood vengeance is likely significantly lessened.

The point of going blood-4 isn't the summons, it's for Flood of Snakes--by the way, did you mean to have that spell be free? It's extraordinarily brutal to start spamming it year one. It can take down anything that doesn't have archer support. Two casts can take down a knight or elephant province, or most castles' province defence. Try out getting an awake sage and blitzing to blood 4, it's a lot of fun. By early winter year one you get an expansion army every time you make one or two priests of sotek(and a scout or indy commander to capture the provinces).

[Sombre]

The point of going blood-4 isn't the summons, it's for Flood of Snakes--by the way, did you mean to have that spell be free?

No, obviously not -sigh-

I tested it before and it was working fine, guess I somehow messed up the fatigue cost since then. Ah I see, I retyped it at one point and typoed fatigue.

I will fix that shortly. But I will wait a couple days before I upload another version, in case anyone spots other bugs to fix. Otherwise this is just going to get ridiculous.

In the meantime you can go into the dm file using a text editor, find "Flood of serpents" then manually replace the typo of fatiguecost with the correct spelling. The cost will then be 10 slaves.

[rdonj]

Tail spines is still a melee attack.

[rdonj]

I've been thinking... and I know this would be a radical shift from how the lizardmen play now, so it could be difficult to balance, but it just does not seem thematic that temple guard can become as numerous as they can. Basically right now, temple guard are THE unit that itza makes. Well, them and priests. But 90% of the time if you're recruiting a soldier it will be a temple guard. Since the temple guard is supposed to be the rarest of spawnings I am not certain that they should be recruit everywhere sacreds. Actually, what do you think of making all slann auto or domsummon them instead, with no recruitables? You could remove the price tag on them so they wouldn't cause upkeep issues.

Anyway it's just an idea. I see all these great units in my recruitment roster but I know unless I'm in dire need of extra units I'll never recruit them because temple guard are just that good.

[kianduatha]

what do you think of making all slann auto or domsummon them instead, with no recruitables? You could remove the price tag on them so they wouldn't cause upkeep issues.

That sounds like an amazing idea, but very hard to balance. It would definitely change the flavor of the whole nation, making them much more slann-centric.

[llamabeast]

Having them as autosummons would indeed make them quite hard to balance.

I do agree with rdonj though, it is very easy to end up just always making Temple Guard (as I did in Warhammerama). How about just making them capital only?