Blast from the Past, Return of the Underkings

[Saulot]

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa4/totallyserial/underkings-roster.jpg

<font color="blue">(Version 1.00 is now available for download)</font>

Hello everyone.

Two months ago or so, due to the mention of DwarfFortress and it's graphic pack (which for me, made it playable instead of painful), I've been having quite some fun, and have grown somewhat enamored of the crazy and short people. This of course made me want to play with Dwarves in Dom3, but I found I was unable (Yes, I'm familiar with the late-era mod nation of Pirate Dwarves, and while I find that quite creative, it just doesn't have the right feel). I recalled that Zepath made a dwarf nation mod back in the Dom2 days, so I searched for it, downloaded it, tried it, and was unable to start it. I then set myself to modifying it to work in Dom3. With some tweaking I eventually got it to work, and then played a small game.

While back in Dom2 I found the mod quite exciting, it had not aged particularly well, and was asking for some modern updates with the new modding capabilities. For a while I considered starting from scratch, but then decided not to, when there was already an excellent framework, and many good sprites already made. I looked around for Zepath on the forum to ask him for permission, but he hasn't been on the forums for a while. I have decided to utilize his work, without his blessing, but give him due credit.

Here starts a sort of mod-making AAR/Blog for those of you who may be interested. For those of you who aren't, skip down to the asterisks.

I kept track of all the changes I made from the get go to make it easier to both reverse changes that may have unexpected consequences, and to make it easier to ask questions or direct criticism at me.

So then I began. My first consideration was era. To fit into the framework of coming before the late-era Dwarves, and the medium and heavy infantry which are the bulwark of the troops (and should stand out as heavier than the other nations of the era), it made the most sense to make it mid-era.

I then changed the basic dwarf stats, gave them darkvision, poison resistance, a higher cost, etc. This was a process that continued for several weeks. Dwarves couldn't just be short humans, they had to have a very different racial stat set. I hit the books (from my own DND collection) and various online sources to get the research.

After perusing several forums, I realized that the Zepath mod was somewhat influenced by the Warhammer Dwarven nation. I'm not quite familiar with Warhammer, but I decided to distinguish it from those roots. I've included some significant fan-service for DND players, DwarfFortress players, and those fine people who enjoy Tolkien. I found attempts at variety difficult, since most Dwarf culture and ideas are pretty cohesive and similar to the early Tolkienesque version which gave rise to much of the fantasy of the 20th century.

On the question of Dwarf size, whether to be 1 or 2, I leaned more for 2, as their bulk and stockiness and choice of weapons could easily equate into standard medium sized formations. As well as increase their resistance to trampling slightly, which befits Dwarves. However, as the sprites were already size 1, it would look very strange, and resizing everything to be several pixels larger ruined the point of not starting from scratch.

Dwarves should be tough, strong, and possess good endurance. Able to move fast for their size, and carry heavy loads long distances without complaint. They should be stubborn and courageous and therefore hard to break in battle, and thus the high morale. They have some slight protection due to their thicker skin and broad, dense bones. Their natural skill combined with their lengthy training and lifespan equates into a good attack rating, but their lack of flexibility and agility mean they have a poor defense. They are also more resistant to magic and poison, and possess good darkvision. They cost 50% more than an average human, sometimes much more, and should be hard to mass.

Anyway, I settled upon a Dwarf base, here:

Base Dwarf
ap 11
mapmove 2
prot 2
hp 12
size 1
str 11
enc 2
att 11
def 9
prec 9
mr 11
mor 12
gcost 15
rcost 3

darkvision 75
poisonres 25
mountainsurvival
special: dwarves are resistant to losing mapmove from either heavy armor or militia status

Then settled upon a militia status modifier:

Militia
-30% to gcost (usually 3, but in this case rounded down to 4)
+1 to enc
-2 to att
-2 to def
-2 to mor
-1 to mapmove (offset by dwarf special ability)

I wanted to include some way of lowering the effect of encumbrance on movement on a battlefield, but found there really wasn't any way to do that without approximating it with completely new low encumbrance armors (which would somehow not be as fatiguing) or giving them more action points, which would then be all over the place depending on how the dwarves would be equipped.

I gave them a premium to the resourcecost on their base, as the size 1 resource cost was too low, and it offset it somewhat, without the extreme of the resourcesize 2 with the heavy equipment. It also reflects higher Dwarven quality and durability of the equipment (which isn't really reflected in terms of armor stats, and is there simply for flavor and balance).

I thought for a while about fireres 25 and coldres 25, as it could be argued that Dwarves are slightly resistant to the elements, but I couldn't really justify it in terms of the price increase, necessity for flavor, or that it was an especially interesting or honest interpretation of Dwarven abilities, and doing something like a 10% resistance was just too much fluff (that would likely not save any Dwarven lives, and probably do weird things to spells like Fire resistance or Army of Gold).

After these changes, I started restructuring the costs, as all the Dom2 prices were far too low, especially on the paladins. These merited special attention, as the two sacred Paladins were almost mirror image of each other in terms of stats and equipment, though one was clearly, if only slightly, better. With some stat boosts, special abilities, and a magic weapon, they were a bit more dissimilar, and each had a group of enemies it would be good against. I still wasn't completely satisfied so I focused on the paladin aspect as a form of limited personal magic, and gave them an extra magic short range spell-like ability (weapon) which balances them with each other, and drove the unit cost even higher. This was perfectly fine with me, Dwarven paladins should be quite rare and extraordinary, certainly more so than Jaguar Warriors or Palankashas, and a bless strategy should be one of many feasible options, not the only one.

Then I added a weaker version of the Rune Priest, at which point the magepriests and paladins were made capital-only as it makes sense they would only be present in numbers at the capital, and makes Underheim quite capital-centric and low magic.

Brewmasters are something I consider a small stroke of genius, as they add a lot of flavor to the otherwise grey, warlike, and dour Dwarves. Neither scout, assassin, leader, thug, mage, or priest, they count as a new commander type, utility. Their various abilities and jack of all trades nature should fill in the gaps of at least several strategies, and bring the atmosphere of Underheim away from just war, war, and more war 24/7.

I considered the various neat cavalry ideas that exist for Dwarves; Pony, Boar, Bear, Mountain Ram, Dire Wolf, Giant Eagle, Gryphon, Hippogryph, Pegasi, Cave Drake, Battlewagon, Mechanical Horse, Pony Golem, even a Winged Tiger(!). It seems that out of the various mounts that exist in fantasy, someone somewhere will put a Dwarf on it. I came to the conclusion of zero Dwarven cavalry, for two reasons. One is balance, Dwarves possess good light, medium, and heavy infantry, as well as good ranged units (in the form of crossbowmen), the biggest hindrance of course, is the lack of troop mobility, both tactically and strategically. Giving Underheim a cavalry unit not only takes away one of it's major weaknesses but also lowers the effectiveness of certain counters against it (massed crossbows, massed evocations, even size 3 and 4 tramplers). The second reason is one of flavor and consistency, the Dwarves here are size 1 and thus quite small, furthermore they have short stubby legs, and should have a hell of a time successfully riding anything that they're not bolted onto or otherwise attached. Lances also seem like not a very Dwarven weapon.

I considered for a while new modding unit abilites, halt sacred, and the other anti-sacred tricks Ulm recently acquired. However tempting, the last thing that Underheim needed was to be more similar to Ulm. So I stayed completely away from that. This was also part of the consideration to get rid of the Halberd on one of the Paladins.

In that vein, since the two main magepriests were kind of similar to ME Ulm, I thought of expanding their magical variety somewhat. Taking note of the Dom3 Dwarf smiths who possess A, F, E, D randoms, I figured that was as good a selection as any and gave them a small chance of that.

I toyed for a while with the idea of Dwarven Loremasters, Engineers, and Skalds (Bards), but felt Rune Priests should be sufficient as there too much overlap, and already too many commanders. I also didn't want to give them any more paths. It did give me the idea of adding a researchbonus on the Mages, and increasing their price, fitting in with the idea of rare and expensive Dwarven mages.

Adding a dwarven version (which is slightly cheaper and the constructs are slightly better) of mechanical men, seemed a natural step for the prideful dwarves.

I threw in a healing spell as I wanted the Dwarven Clerics to be involved in the actual fighting of battles, without giving them H3, and thus smite.

I added a second siege engine, 'Runic War Machine' (a massive catapult), which is essentially done, but I was unsatisfied with the sprites, and then removed it. I was displeased with the two options of either having several dwarves load, aim, and fire the device, and how that would interact (spritewise and statwise) with attacking the siege engine, or the other option of it creating ammo out of thin air, aiming, and firing magically (only commanded by a mage), which is a cop-out utilized by many fantasy games.
<font color="blue"> ^ After further consideration, the problems with the sprites is when there is more than one machine. Due to the size, they overlap, which makes them look very 2d, and therefore completely wrong. The solution, of course, is to make there be only one (a unique summon). This allows there to be more depth and flavor to the nation, without seeing the strangeness that is a dozen giant magical catapults running around. It also allows me to make it truly devastating in power, and quite high in cost. As for whether to have it truly mechanical, or truly magical, I figured a hybrid system just might work (in terms of balance, atmosphere, and appearance). Where it's essentially a magical catapult that makes ammo and fires on it's own, but it needs the guidance of an operator who directs where the catapult is to fire, who is quite vulnerable and killable, and in such an event makes the machine grind to a halt. This seems reasonable enough, but will need further testing. </font>

I was considering for a while adding an immobile guard unit, which is significantly cheaper to make up for it, and increase the defensive nature of Underheim, but as there was already a stoneguard and a gateguard, it felt awkward and far too repetitive. This was a major hurdle timewise, and was only resolved when I restructered both the stoneguard and gateguard (as I was already unsatisfied with both units) and changed names and descriptions.

Furthermore I got rid of several other redundancies and cut down on troop numbers which I felt didn't really add anything. The Axe/Plate Dwarf was too similar to the Hammer/Plate Dwarf, and the Battleaxe Clansdwarf was essentially a weaker version of the Woad Raider. (Adding is easy, trimming is hard, but the latter gives a nation a good feel and flow.)

After the immobile templeguard was made, I considered for a while giving Rune Priests the ability to summon allies, and while I don't think it would be too overpowering, as they're immobile, and Rune Priests are capital only and have much more important things to do, and it fits well in terms of how the units interact thematically, I so far am somewhat hesitant (of autosummons, or in this case makemonsters) due to the Kobold Warchief imbalance back in Urdheim. Right now I'll add it, but this is an on the fence situation that could use outside input.

I also considered adding an ally race to the Dwarves, kind of like how early Agartha gets Troglodytes, for broad variety. However, Dwarves are unlikely to rely significantly on outsiders, and it's hard to imagine alternate species which could be found in significant quantities in Dwarven armies. This did however lead to both the Raven hero, who manages to be quite useful, as well as the Raven Spies spell. They will likely only come up intermittently in terms of multiple games, but their rareness works quite well, in terms of balance and atmosphere, in my opinion.

<font color="blue"> ^I thought about fortresses for a while. While it could be argued that Underheim could use Cave Cities, Castles, and Forts, as they possess good darkvision (and so darkness is mostly helpful), and to varying degrees live underground, I felt that the Dwarves who rule on the surface, war on the surface, farm on the surface, should build and live on the surface. They should be for the most part surface dwarves. Certainly much more so than Agarthans. It also means spells like earthquake aren't totally immersion breaking when cast in fortress battles.

^I recently gave Underheim a fortress making spell. I was throwing the idea around for a month now, but decided to see how it would work. It's certainly much cheaper (at 25 earth gems) than all the other fortress making spells, but it's also significantly handicapped over them. It's not a ritual that targets other provinces, but has to be cast in the province where the spell is to occur. Thus building a lab first then having the right caster there to cast it, should prevent any strange abusive notions for it late game, while creating a few more strategic options for the Underheim player.

UPDATE:
Despite it seeming promising at the outset, I was unable to get the province limitation set up properly, so the fortress spell works on any province. The cost is now 50 gems. We'll see if that's too cheap.
</font>

The most controversial and essentially final step was the idea of the Eternal Guardian, a powerful construct which is also a lategame summon, turned into a unique starting hero. This is more than offset by making it weaker than the summons, immobile, possessing an upkeep, and most importantly, removing the starting army. I think it works pretty well on a lot of levels, especially balancing down Underheim and expanding the story and background, and I'm pretty interested in everyone's thoughts on this.

There's plenty of other stuff I changed or added, but that doesn't require too much explanation, and is listed in the changelog.



******
Anyway, thanks to Zepath, for the sprites, the mod, and the structure. I wouldn't have been able to do it without him. Seriously, I wouldn't have bothered doing this from scratch as the sprites are particularly painful to work with when talking about size 1 creatures (16 pixels!), or even extra short size 2.

Here is the detailed nation info:


Era: Middle
#descr "Hidden in the rough face of great cliffs and disguised as bare rock are the gates into the earth carved by an ancient race. Beneath the great mountain ranges reside the proud and stout dwarves, a race of short, stocky beings hewn from rock during the making of the world. They have a great love of things made and cherish a rich tradition of construction and engineering. Dwarves are potent warriors as well, being much tougher than humans and often just as cunning. In these days the dwarven clans have come together under the rulership of a noble council of lords, the Underkings. The council serves the will of a god who has come to place dwarvenkind in its rightful spot, at the pinnacle of the world."
#summary "* Race: Dwarves - small, tough humanoids

* Military: Dwarven medium and heavy infantry, holy paladins, ballistas and constructs

* Magic: Fire and Earth with Strong Forging, and a small chance of Air, Death

* Priests: Moderate"
#brief "The realm within the mountains is ruled by a council of hereditary monarchs, the Underkings. From their halls deep within the caverns of the earth, dwarves march for war clad in gleaming plate mail and wielding keen-edged axes. The Underkings bring heavy infantry and potent siege weapons to bear on the battlefield."


Numbers used in mod:
-- Weapon <font color="blue">780-799</font>
-- Armor 397-399
-- Units <font color="blue">2800-2845</font>
-- Sites 850-851
-- Nation 76
-- <font color="blue">Nametype 149 </font>

Fortresses:
Capital: -- Mountain City
Default: -- Fortress
Farm: -- Castle
Mountain: -- Mountain City
Swamp: -- Swamp Fort
Forest: -- Forest Fortress


Province Defense:
Commander at def 1: Dwarf Chief
Units at def 1+: 1x Dwarf Militia, 1x Dwarf Hurler
Commander at def 20: Rune Acolyte
Units at def 20+: 1.5x Dwarf Crossbowman, 0.2x Bolt Thrower

Stats listed earlier

Strengths: Powerful and tough melee units and sacreds, Excellent morale, Strong forge and construction bonuses, Multiple sacred types, Potent National Spells, Supply rarely a problem, Small production bonus, Castledefense is common, Excellent heroes, Eternal Guardian starting hero

Weaknesses: No cheap troops, Best troops hard to mass, Limited tactical and strategic mobility, Lack of cavalry, Vulnerable to area effects and trampling, Most mages and sacreds are expensive and capital only, Magic is limited in both strength and variety, No typical starting army, No Cheap Forts


Underheim Information and Idiosyncracies:
1- Dwarves small size easily translates into melee superiority as well as being harder to hit with most ranged weapon fire, but tramplers and highly precise area effect spells will be devastating.
2- Dwarves are highly resistant to encumbrance effects on their mapmove, this is reflected in several dwarven units retaining 2 mapmove, despite single digit action points, which lends itself well to the Tolkienesque dwarven endurance in forcemarches.
3- Dwarves are highly capital-centered, with both their sacred units, and the two major mage-priests being capital only, to maintain both the slow spread of dwarven culture atmosphere, and the importance of the dwarven central city, where everything else is but an outpost.
4- With two different powerful and expensive capital sacreds, this leads to broader flexibility in dealing with some nations.
5- Dwarven Clerics can heal Dwarves mid battle. This leads to more Dwarves surviving through the battle, but possessing more battlescars and afflictions, which I feel is very much in character and gives atmosphere to the nation.
6- While Dwarves could realistically use arbalests, dwarven crossbows tend to be too weak to penetrate most dwarven shields and armor, and the Bolt Throwers are very precise, and so minimize friendly fire and show the value of Dwarven life.
7- While the nation has one less gem in it's capital, it has the valuable Forge of the Ancients, and makes Underheim the premier forging nation, as befits the Dwarves. This also makes Underheim more capital-centric. Furthermore, all other construction spells are affected, and so several constructs will be more attractive for Underheim.
8- The Brewmaster is a unit that fills in a variety of roles. Useful to slowly heal dwarven troops, to supply armies or prevent starvation inside besieged forts, to cast a useful spell in battle, or to act as a counter-spy by reducing unrest caused by spies pervading the dwarven realm. This can also allow the increasing of taxes without patrolling.
9- Several Dwarven commanders slightly lower unrest (Captains, Lords, and Underkings), reducing the effect of unrest increasing events, spells, and spies, as well as taming captured provinces quicker. This makes the Dwarven atmosphere one of Order and calm.
10- Though possessing more expensive and weaker mages than most other mid-era nations, with a researchbonus they tend to maintain a good pace in terms of research. Furthermore, they possess a good variety of Dwarven only spells which are reasonably potent and makes them a type of magic specialists, and should provide a unique playing style. However, Dwarven mages will never be around in sufficient quantities, and their loss will be especially painful.
11- Dwarven Pathfinders are sailors. Though more expensive, this makes them more flexible and mobile as an explorer than most scouts.
12- Rune Priests can call upon sacred Templeguards to reinforce certain locations, even if under siege. Even after considering the gem cost, the low upkeep and high morale of these immobile fort defenders should make them an attractive option, and gives Underheim a strong defense.
13- Dwarven forts are slow to build, and are built for defensibility, not speed. With several units possessing castledefense abilities, and above average province defense, Underheim tends to keep territory once it acquires it.
<font color="blue">^Midgame, this is improved with Rune Priests able to summon a fort into existence in any province. </font>
14- Conversely, there are several units with significant siegebonuses, and forts, walls or other constructs will rarely stand to a Dwarven army.
15- Dwarves start with the Eternal Guardian instead of a typical starting force. The Guardian is relatively powerful, but requires some upkeep, has no mapmove, and will die if it leaves the capital (through magical means). This slows down Dwarven expansion significantly as Mage recruitment is moved back a turn with the requirement of another mobile leader or sending a mage out early and typically translates into a weaker early game (with a lucky early turn mercenary grab only partially alleviating this). This does, however makes them somewhat resistant to rushing, as the capital should be harder to take.
16- Dwarven heroes are quite good and should stand out, making a misfortune scale rather undesirable even with the Order synergy. With the King of Ravens set up to scry and spy, the Geomancer to throw earthquakes and other battlefield spells, and the Underkings to lead and rally large conventional forces, each is a major boon to the luck player, though the Underkings are somewhat more common than the other heroes.
17- Late game options, which are usually weak for both nations of limited magical variety as well as Earth and Fire nations, are unusually robust for Underheim, with the important 'Hearthstrike' and 'Forge Battlemaster' allowing access to use a second gem type for an assassination spell, and a strong late-game summon.
18- Underheim has a broad variety in terms of Pretender choices. It interestingly is suited best to a strong earth bless over any other, which benefits their mages and paladins significantly, and is what the Stone King pretender is set up to do. However, the paladins are too slow and difficult to mass, and so cannot be the only troop choice. Due to it's limited magic variety, Underheim would also significantly benefit from a rainbow mage. Since it also has an unusually slow start, it could definitely use an awake combat pretender. Each of these path makes sense.


I'll be including a spell-list, unit-list, and complete changelog, as well as a screenshot of the various units in the second post.

[Saulot]

[Reserved for excess.]

Oh, and the mod is essentially finished. Sprites are done, descriptions are done, spells are done, etc.

Only thing left is to tweak the costs, balancing, and beta-testing.

Should be ready for mass-consumption in 1-2 weeks.


Current Changelog (though it may be missing a few things):

Bugfixes include:
Added missing soundfx to weapons
Fixed spelling errors
Fixed missing holy tag

Changes include:
Removed "The Cornerstone" as a starting magic site (This spread order and gave astral!)
Removed "The Steel Ovens" as a starting magic site
Added "Ancient Forge" as a starting magic site
Added "Halls of the Underkings" as a starting magic site
Added "Helmsfire Order House" as a starting magic site
Rune Paladin is now capital only
Rune Paladin now uses a magical Greataxe instead of a halberd
Runepriest is now capital only
Runepriest is now called Rune Priest
Rune Priest now has 30% chance of higher magic
Rune Priest now has researchbonus 2
Helmsfire Paladin is now capital only
Helmsfire Keeper is now capital only
Helmsfire Keeper now has 30% chance of higher magic
Helmsfire Keeper now has researchbonus 1
All Dwarves now have darkvision 75%
All Dwarves now have mountainsurvival
All Dwarves now have poisonres 25%
All Dwarves now have maxage 250
All Dwarves stats tweaked
All Dwarves descriptions tweaked
All Dwarves now cost more
Paladin Orders now are more varied, powerful, and expensive
Stone King now blind
Stone King lifedrain upgraded
Woad Raider berserker from 10 to 4
Woad Raider now has swampsurvival
Woad Raider now has forestsurvival
Woad Raider now has a Throwing Axe
Stoneguard now has castledef 1
Stoneguard now known as Highborn
Gateguard now has castledef 2
Gateguard now known as Royal Guard
Stone Chief now has castledef 3
Stone Chief now known as Dwarf Captain
Dwarf Lord now has castledef 5
Dwarf Lord now has standard 10
Dwarf Miner siegebonus from 10 to 6
Underking now has standard 20
Underking now has castledef 10
Underking is now a multihero
Underking now casts Fanaticism
Underking now domsummon20 Royal Guards
Dwarf Clansman now called Clansdwarf
Dwarf Scout now called Dwarf Pathfinder
Dwarf Pathfinder description expanded
Dwarf Pathfinder is now a sailor
Dwarf Pathfinder now has a Throwing Axe
Bolt Thrower now has siegebonus 3
Bolt Thrower now has castledef 3
Bolt Thrower more like Castle Ballista
Bolt Thrower hits now scare troops in the same square
Bolt Thrower operator now carries tower shield
Bolt Thrower now has secondshape / unmanned version
Added castleprod 25
Province Defence now uses less Dwarf Militia
Province Defence now has Dwarf Hurlers
Province Defense now has a few Bolt Throwers
Province Defense now has Rune Acolyte Commander
Castletype capital is now Mountain City
Castletype default is now Fortress
Castletype farmland is now Castle
Castletype mountain is now Mountain City
Castletype swamp is now Swamp Fort
Castletype forest is now Forest Fortress
Temple is now #7
Clansdwarf (Battleaxe variant) no longer recruitable
Highborn (Axe variant) no longer recruitable
<font color="blue">Expanded namelist </font>

Completely New:
Weapon - Dwarven Throwing Axe
Weapon - Dwarven Crossbow
Weapon - Dwarven Pickaxe
Weapon - Dwarven Maul
Weapon - Runed Greataxe
Weapon - Helmsfire Greataxe
Weapon - Brand of Earth
Weapon - Brand of Fire
Weapon - Massive Mace
Armor - Dashing Hat
Spell - Hearthstrike
Spell - Earthfriend
Spell - Raven Spies
Spell - Runes of Abjuration
Spell - Mechanical Dwarves
Spell - Conjure Stormhammers
Spell - Prayer of Restoration
Spell - Touch of the Enduring Earth
Spell - Requiem of Final Peace
Spell - Battlecry of the Underkings
Spell - Assign Templeguard
Spell - Enervation
Spell - Call Battlerager
Spell - Forge Battlemaster
Spell - Cold Earth's Embrace
Spell - Discover Dwarf Fortress
Spell - Awaken the Fearless Spirit
Spell - Unleash Doombringer
Unit - Unmanned Bolt Thrower
Unit - Templeguard
Unit Summon - Mechanical Dwarf
Unit Summon - Animated Stormhammer
Commander - Rune Acolyte
Commander - Brewmaster (For the Dwarf Fortress Fans) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Commander Summon - Battlerager (For DND fans)
Commander Summon - Battlemaster
Unique Summon - Doombringer
Starting Hero - Eternal Guardian
Hero - King of the Ravens (A1 mage, spy, gemprod 1 air, flyer) (For Tolkien fans)
Hero - Geomancer (E3 mage, gemprod 1 earth, always has a lesser earth elemental in battle)
Pretender - Loremaster (Hybrid Sage class pretender)
Pretender - Son of Mimir (Titan class pretender)

[BandarLover]

Sounds great Saulot! AFAIK, Zepath has stated before that anyone can use his mods for their own purposes due to the fact that he tends to come and go for long periods of time, so I don't think he'll be upset about your plans.

Greatly enjoyed the write up of your thinking process in making this mod, though I am a bit upset there won't be any dwarf bear cavalry. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif But your argument against cavalry is sound so I'll deal with it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

But 1-2 weeks?! Ugh, I need my dwarf fix now! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Aezeal]

Good call on teh no cavalry, but dwarves are not so small that it justifies size 1. I figure their shoulders are about 1.5 as broad as humans so it just won't fit.

Personally I'd be a greatly for having recruitable battle golems

[Endoperez]

Saulot said he'd have preferred size 2 dwarves, but the sprites were all size 1...

[Saulot]

@BandarLover:

That's good to hear about Zepath.

I'm glad to hear about the write-up, otherwise all that typing would have been for no reason, heh.

Yeah, the cavalry would be nice just for the coolness factor. Unfortunately, if I just threw in everything that was cool, it would be kind of like... throwing in 20 of your favorite types of food into one pot. Not exactly edible.

1-2 weeks is not too bad. I could have started this thread much earlier.

Patience is after all, a dwarven virtue. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

@Aezeal:

Yeah... like Endo said I agree. But spritework is quite time-consuming. Smallscale spritework is even more difficult. My typical method of starting with a bigger picture, and then scaling down (such as scaling x3, so 9 pixels turn into one, and a palette of 5 colors, plus black and white, turn into a palette of a broad spectrum of colors and shades), doesn't work well when the downscale end result is tiny (15-30 pixels tall). What is a relatively easy method to get great results turns into something which turns into blurry blobs. I found this out the hard way when working on kobolds. As a result the kobolds were made quite tall.

(Though his wide color pallete would seem to indicate otherwise, I believe it's some mask or blur feature to blend the colors a tiny bit.) Based on the edges, shapes, and outlines, Zepath seems to do it at-scale one pixel at a time, probably zooming out and in to see how changing the color of one pixel looks different overall. This is most likely incredibly time-consuming.

So, while I'm not opposed to doing sprites from scratch... especially considering Zepath's organized method is one I could learn from (as in how he has several dwarf bases, plus armor overlays, shield overlays, weapon overlays), it would take up a lot of time, and that's time I wouldn't be spending working on several other mods I want to get to.

Anyway, just to give you a comparison, the Zepath Dwarves are around 20 pixels tall and 16 pixels wide (with weapon and shield). Typical humans are 32 pixels high and Hoburgs are I believe 16.

If I was going to do it from scratch, I'd probably make them 26 pixels tall and 24 pixels wide.

[Cor2]

I am excited. I look forward to this release. I like the idea of size 1 dwarfs. Fits with the dominions world and does not break drastically from D&amp;D.

By the way, what do you mean Dwarven Fortress is unplayable in its standard ASCII version? Its the only way to play! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Aezeal]

Saulot there must be miscommunication I mean, regardless of sprites that dwarves (what kobolds) should not be size 1 but size 2 (for example take the lord of th rings movies) Gimli is more equal sized with aragorn than with hobbits bulk-wise.

[Sombre]

He understands what you mean Aezeal. He's just saying the sprites he's using, which were made by Zepath when this was a dom2 mod, are the size of other size 1 units like hoburgs. Roughly speaking.

Therefore Zepath intended the dwarves to be size 1. You'll find the same thing in Kharam Dzu, the dwarven pirate mod Zepath made for dom3. Size 1 dwarves.

Sure, you think they should be size 2. But zepath didn't.

[Aezeal]

sprites aren't that important and no reason not to just make them size 2.

I'm right and everyone who thinks dwarves need to be size 1 are wrong.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Foodstamp]

You guys should debate this like you have RL facts to back it up.

It was very entertaining to watch people debate the anatomy of undead and gorgon petrification on the main forum. Some people even bothered to do 'research'. Was quite funny http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

[Aezeal]

I'm not debating http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif I'm just saying I'm right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

As long as they are size one I will call this mod the gnome mod.. of course I have facts to prove that gnomes wouldn't have these stats either (well except the size 1 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif)

[Endoperez]

Aezeal said:
I'm not debating http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif I'm just saying I'm right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif



Dwarves in Dominions are size 1, see EA Helheim Svartalfar, Vanheim dwarves. This means that you can't be right.

Also, you should stop debating whether stating things is or is not debating. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Aezeal]

I'm not going to debate with you, I'm just right and even KO is wrong, with his Svartgnomes and vanheim gnomes.

[Sombre]

When I do warhammer dwarfs and chaos dwarfs they will be size 2. The sprites will be larger than size 1 though.

[Aezeal]

All hail Sombre

Sombre agrees with me, further testimony to me being right.
(not that I needed to be convinced)

[Saulot]

Who knew dwarf-size would be so controversial... heh, I guess size really does matter.

By the way, the Battlemaster is a battle-golem... er... giant possessed/animated suit of armor. It's just not recruitable. It's a late-game summon. Probably around 50 gems (so that should tell you what sort of terror it should be). Though it doesn't have most slots, and isn't a mage so it can't self-buff, it doesn't really need to.

Recruitable golems sounds totally strange. What would golems need with money?

@Sombre:
Well, with you doing two dwarf nations and Honeybadger doing another one as well... there will certainly be enough dwarves running around to make everyone happy.

*ponders 4 person game of dwarf blitz*

[Sombre]

You could have them cost 1 gold and lots of resources though.

[Saulot]

Hm... probably would have to be pretty extreme amounts of resources, like 100 or so. Otherwise every fort you make equals too much freespawn.

Not a bad idea though.

[Aezeal]

There is quite some money needed to forge magic golems.. precious resources (but then as non-metal resources so not out of the resource pool but which you need to buy with money)

I think 1 gold 100 resources isn't the way to go since it would be too easy to get them.

[Darkstone]

I thought gold represented training and salaries. Whereas resources represented material and forging.

[Sombre]

Not necessarily.

[Kristoffer O]

Of course dwarves are small. The very word dwarf means small, while gnome means funny man with funny face, funny hat and funny size. Garden gnomes are small, but garden dwarves are miniscule.

THere is a word for 'little men' in all languages I suppose. Dwarf, dvärg or something else. Not 'squat men'. We follow international conventions an keep the dwarves small.

Gnomes on the other hand could be as any size as long as they appear funny http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

---

Gold is mostly training and salaries. But since it is an abstraction it could mean expensive materials that need maintenance or refueling. Perhaps the golem runs on olive oil. Then it eats supplies as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I don't think 100 res is that much. With a nice dominion and fort you can easily get 400-500 res. 4 Golems/turn sounds pretty nasty (but I dont know how powerful you intended them).

Hinnom will have a commander that costs 123 res becaiuse of his size (6) and high res cost of magical gear.
Ashdod will have an anakite soldier with res 88.
I've tested them some. Recruitment is rather slow, but they are powerful and it feels ok.

[Saulot]

Changelog added to the second post.
First post has a few more things included (in blue for ease of reading).

I've been working on Underheim for quite a bit more this week, and progress is good, I added two new pretenders, some more spells, and tweaked stats around. The second pretender was inspired by some interesting stories about the Bergrisar, and I think many of you will really like it. I feel much better now about the pretender selection, and feel the spell selection is robust enough. As for actually running playtest games from start to finish, I haven't actually gotten to that yet (as new inspirations keep coming). Despite some ideas still remaining, I'm going to refrain from adding anything more.

So until I run some games through to completion,... you'll all just have to be patient. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Aezeal]

hey post your mod.. I want to rip the graphs (since you did that too) to have something to look too when trying my own dwarven mod

[Edratman2]

I'm slowly developing a mod using a human race that I call builders. I'm making a summonable unit that might fit in well with your dwarves because of their constuction skills.

The unit is a siege tower. It is summonable, fairly pricey, with requirements that match the base magic skills of the best mage of the nation who I've given 1 magic point in a path that is unique among all other recruitables. It'll have a siege bonus of 25 to 100 (still developing that) with very low attack, defense and HP values along with negative 100% resistance to fire, shock etc. Also it would have 0 mp and 3 ap. It has no usable function other than to accelerate breaching the castle walls.

My thinking on the unit is that you have to sally forth to destroy it, much like I've seen in a hundred movies.

Your a much better modder than I , so you would probably do the thought justice if you think it is viable. If not, I'll creep along with my development.

[Sombre]

It has 0 mapmove? How is it going to get to the fort to help with the siege?

[Aezeal]

I think he wants you to summon it in the enemy province where you cannot not have a lab while doing the siege.

[Endoperez]

That'd be easier to do by making a Siege Engineer who can shape change into a siege tower with bigger gold cost (== higher upkeep) and mapmove 0, but huge siege-bonus and perhaps powerful, short-range attacks. If done well, it'd be useful enough to be near the frontlines, i.e. near the walls.

[Edratman2]

Aezeal said:
I think he wants you to summon it in the enemy province where you cannot not have a lab while doing the siege.



Damn, your right. I'm still trying to balance the recruitables and haven't even started on the spells.

I don't have much feel for recruitables. What I think is good is way too strong.

[Sombre]

Of course the second form doesn't have to have the command to change shape back.

Amos made good use of this in the insectoids mod.

[Edratman2]

That sure sounds like workable solution.

I am not thinking of assigning a high gold cost because I am thinking that it would only be used in a specific province, thus not justifying high upkeep cost. A gem expensive shape changing summonable siege engineer sounds like an idea that fits in with what I am picturing. I like the idea of not allowing a shape change back also. I figure that historically, siege towers were built on the spot and not transported to the next walled defensive site. Maybe some hardware and a few elements were salvaged, but I'm proceeding on the basis of 100% loss.

[Saulot]

@Aezeal:
I thought you didn't want size 1 dwarfsprites? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

The Zepath mod with many dwarf sprites that I'm using is still available on the Dom2 forum. As for Underheim, it will be released when... it's... ready.

@KO:
No worries, no golems in this mod. Ideas saved for later.

@Edratman:
Siegetowers eh? It's a nice idea. I worked up a watchtower (which shot crossbows) for the kobolds in Urdheim, but my biggest hurdle was the lack of size due to the 128 pixel limit, and what happens when you get routed... the tower rotates and tries to escape(!), even though it's immobile. That can be fixed by giving it a special morale, but still was pretty amusing. So the question you want to consider, is the siegetower big enough? (Some of the forts have giant walls.)

The second problem is when you have more than one. It looks real wierd, since units (particularly units of the same type) are rarely spaced out in a formation of normal battle lines, and having several towers next to each other (siege or watch tower) looks pretty horrible. I went around this problem using it as a tier 2 province commander ensuring uniqueness, but still... the result was still somewhat clunky and awkward and I axed the unit.

For you to avoid this problem, you'll need to make the unit which transforms into a siege tower kind of rare. Either making it a ritual summon which costs some decent amount of gems, or a cap-only commander when you have other cap-only commanders who you desperately want all the time.

While it's true historically that siegetowers were built on-site and only for their prospective target, I'd advise against it. There is no method to remove units. So either you do make it a oneway trip, which leaves you a permanent siegetower sitting there, which means you'd pretty much have to give it no upkeep in tower form. Or you make the siege engineer be able to changeshape both ways, and just make him expensive in engineer and tower form (to reflect the costs of building and maintaining such a tower in active use).

Your last problem is, how strange or abstract the siege mechanics work in Dominions. A siegetower is supposed to get your units to a wall, fight defenders on a wall, and capture the walls, and then open the gates, letting in the rest of your army. The siegetower unit would do none of those things, just have a strong siegebonus. The towers of a fort that's being stormed still fires at you, which means the walls haven't been captured, but the gate is somehow open.

The most realistic unit that could be made considering the Dom siege situation, is a battering ram. It breaks open the gates. That's how it's supposed to work, and that's how it would work in game. (One can assume that as part of the abstraction that IS what is going on. There ARE battering rams all over the place, built and then destroyed for each siege.) After all KO isn't actually opposed to siege weapons, he did have them in COE. Ballistas, catapults, and even trebuchets were quite common in my dwarf armies. I think his complaint was one of scale. The inability to bestow the awesome size on a siege weapon, due to the 128 pixel limit.

Now if none of these problems feel insurmountable for you, then great, I'd love to see the results. Unique things like that tend to add a lot of flavor to nations. I'm somewhat opposed to adding siegetowers to Underheim, since they don't really need it. I even considered battering rams early on, but it would just be redundant with the miners and mine foremans, and I was unsatisfied with my sprite results.

I'll be revisiting the siege construct idea in my next mod.

[Aezeal]

my dwarves will have stat size 2, no fear

[Sombre]

Dwarves should clearly have fear.

[Aezeal]

/me hurts sombre

[Saulot]

Well, I just finished one complete run-through. I used the No Indep. SilentSeas map and played vs. Impossible Jotunheim with no mercs. I used a sleeping loremaster pretender with Dom4, E9S4, but didn't use sacreds at all in this test. As expected, I had a very slow and painful start, but eventually triumphed using a collection of highborns, hurlers, crossbows, and bolt throwers, with a smattering of battleragers.

It was very satisfying seeing many throwing axes, crossbow bolts, and ballistas flying across the battlefield.

I can report that Battleragers are functioning exactly as I want them to, they frequently rush ahead of the other dwarven forces, and chop away against the enemy, often getting 10-15 kills in a battle, early on hitting the hall of fame, usually accumulating an affliction or two, before dying in a blaze of glory after 1-4 battles. They're thuggable if you spend the effort in items, but they pretty much will get themselves killed no matter what.

I'm considering increasing their size (just in terms of space they occupy, not their sprite) to prevent their being coddled by players by keeping them in the back and then timing their movement so they somehow manage to stay in formation with other dwarves.
At size 3, they won't get quite that formation protection, and are more likely to be hit by ranged weapons.

The Dwarven clerics and their healing spells work wonderfully (and also as I had hoped), many dwarven lives are saved (most importantly prolonging the battleragers), though afflictions accumulate steadily, which tends to somewhat offset experience gains.

Earth gems feel the squeeze (more so than Agartha) as there are so many things to spend them on, and while I usually have gem reserves in most of my games, there were none in this one.

I'll try a bless strategy for my next game, though rushing is really out of the question, with the extremely expensive cap-only paladins.

[Saulot]

Well, uploaded the unit roster to the first post. Most of the top half is original Zepath.

Anyway, haven't had time to get a second run through yet, but will be getting to that soon. After that, it should be decent enough to release, and most of the balancing and tweaking will come then.

[Tyrian]

The sprites are really good.

[Sombre]

There's a pretty distinct difference between Zepath graphics and your added graphics, but with them mostly being summons it doesn't seem too jarring.

[krawn]

How's this mod going? Is a release imminent? I've been checking back daily in anticipation.

[PvK]

I'd love to see this one in action, too.

[Saulot]

Very well, wish granted.

The first version is released, you may download it from the first post.

My apologies for the delay, but the constraints on my time this month have been quite exceptional.

It seems like many modders or developers, I sometimes operate under Valve time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time

Anyway, the balancing is still far from finished, hopefully you all will be able to help with that. Remember, comments and criticisms will help make the mod better.

It's interesting to note, that Underkings is automatically balanced up when played by the AI, since it doesn't follow 0 mapmove limitations. I didn't plan on that, but let's call it a feature of the mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Aezeal]

before I look... what size are dwarves?

[Humakty]

I looked at it, and some stuff draw my attention :

- Loremaster has new magic path cost 40 . Is it intentional ? Considering is other stats, I would rather take a great enchantress. It is thematic for dwarves not to have too diverse magic, but I thing you could give him another path. Or two, and raise path cost to 50-60.

- At the beginning of line 4 of Mimir's backgroung "the them" seems a bit too much.

I'm now going back o playing them, and will give further feedback if I've got anything to say.

[PvK]

Woo hoo! Thanks Saulot! Wow, there is a lot of work here!

Aezeal, the dwarves here seem to be Size 1, though I think I'm with you that Size 2 is more appropriate for (edit: a Tolkien/FRPG) type of dwarf. At size 1 though they'll use less food, be deadly at group melee combat (5/square), and be easy mulch for tramplers... Edit: The dwarf sprites are drawn to about a size-1 scale, though. Like, 3-feet tall or so.

[trentzero]

I just tried a game and got a no holiness error CTD. I believe this is from certain units having priest levels but not having the sacred tag?

--Changed pathfinder and Dwarf Lord to holy status and still got the error...

--scratch that, I'm just getting some crossover with monster numbers from another mod http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Injured.gif

[PvK]

The thrown hammers from Dwarven Throwing Axe are visually enormous (like, two meters long) for some reason. Their range should probably be Strength rather than straight 12.

Dwarves should probably use a better Axe than the standard Axe - there's no reason to prefer the Axe dwarf to the hammer dwarf, and the only cost difference is 1 resource point, for +1 attack.

[trentzero]

I notice that the Battleragers are size 3, hulking monstrosities compared to their normal brethren. Intended?

[Aezeal]

yeah I can imagine themhaving loads of armor and being one size larger might fit.... and size 3 sounds nice to me...if regular dwarves where size 2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[PvK]

Saulot commented earlier about the Battleragers being size 3 in order to keep them from using the 6/square dwarf formation. They are pretty funny in practice because they get Quickness somehow and zoom around doing two attacks, and they have berzerk +10 (rather extreme).

[Aezeal]

lol + 10 protection.. that would be nice especially since I guess they already have some armour.. why not sacred with earthbless 9 too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Thematically I can imagine the battle ragers needing a lot of room for all kinds of battle raging maneuvres http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[trentzero]

Yes, they don't need no stinkin' armor either! Woad is enough for them (prot 6). That and booze, lotsa booze... drunken dwarf-fu maybe? I can imagine them whistling "Happy Woodcutter" as they charge into the enemy ranks, spittle and axe a flying...

[Aezeal]

battle ragers use the most heavy of heavy armour, with points everywhere, read the Salvatore stories about them battlehammer battleragers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

They should get a damageshield (1)

[Saulot]

"- Loremaster has new magic path cost 40 . Is it intentional ? Considering is other stats, I would rather take a great enchantress. It is thematic for dwarves not to have too diverse magic, but I thing you could give him another path. Or two, and raise path cost to 50-60."

Hm, well I suppose he could have death, but I'd very much prefer if the dwarves weren't running around with skeletons in tow, or a death bless.

If he had a lower pathcost, it may be overpowered.

Suggestions are quite welcome, I'm not quite satisfied with the Loremaster, as my original idea for him was unable to be worked out in game, and tuning him down to a plain sage pretender is kind of boring.

"- At the beginning of line 4 of Mimir's backgroung "the them" seems a bit too much. "

Fixed.

"Woo hoo! Thanks Saulot! Wow, there is a lot of work here!"

Thanks. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

"The thrown hammers from Dwarven Throwing Axe are visually enormous (like, two meters long) for some reason. Their range should probably be Strength rather than straight 12."

That's the size of the sprite animation. Nothing I can do about that. As for range being strength, I'd prefer that myself but that's not moddable.

"Dwarves should probably use a better Axe than the standard Axe - there's no reason to prefer the Axe dwarf to the hammer dwarf, and the only cost difference is 1 resource point, for +1 attack. "

Hm, yes I suppose they are too similar, so I have several options here. I can give a dwarven axe a +1 to hit, (which makes it identical to a hammer, so that wouldn't work), I can give a dwarven axe a +1 to damage, which would probably make it still inferior to the hammer 4 times out 5, and not really be worth it, since then I'd have to round out dwarven hatchets and battleaxes as well, and that seems like much ado about nothing.

The other alternative, is to get rid of the hammer dwarf warrior altogether, which I have considered earlier, but left it in there for the same reason they're there in Ulm, for flavor.

Suggestions welcome.

As for Battleragers, I think trentzero has the right idea. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I gave this unit a LOT of thought and consideration. There were several ways I could have went about it, as they needed to be special and different.

I thought about making them bigger and giving them trample (not terribly original). I thought about giving them a ton of armor, however, there are plenty of walking tin-cans available, and another one would hardly have been special. Furthermore, with dominions encumbrance rules, they would be slow as a plumber going for his tools. I don't think I need to mention balance as yet another reason.

Then I examined the onebattlespells that could somewhat make them rage. Obviously, rage was the first choice, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work, and even if it did, nobody would want to buy them. Self quickness seems to do the trick. They run around like crazy and chop things up. The strong berserk ability takes care of their boosted defence soon enough, to around 0, but gives them the ability to survive blows that would lay another being low. Despite their unusually good abilities, the lack of a body slot should keep them out of the abusive thug range.

All in all, I think it's a fine approximation of Battleragers and that they're a highlight of the mod. I'm quite pleased with them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[PvK]

For the axes and hammers, yeah it's tricky within the existing values. My ideal solution would actually be to make and apply a weapon mod, because the issue is a pet peeve of mine. (I think the two-handed weapons and good one-handed battleaxes are undervalued, and daggers overrated. I'd call the existing Axe a Woodaxe for foresters and other non-pros, and make a one-handed battle Axe cost more resources but have no negatives to skill, like the difference between a Maul and a Battleaxe.)

But given the existing weapons, I think I would suggest adding a non-magic Dwarven Axe weapon with say damage 7 or 8, attack 0, defense -1 or 0, length 1, and giving it a noticeably higher resource cost than the Hammer. I'd also have a Dwarven Battleaxe with at least damage 10, just because.

Also I think your Helmsfire Greataxe should be length 3.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Existing stats:
Fist -2 -1 -1 0
Dagger 2 1 0 0
Hatchet 5 0 0 1
Axe 7 -1 -1 1
Hammer 7 0 -1 1
Shortsword 5 0 1 1
Broadsword 6 0 1 2
Maul 9 0 -1 3
Battleaxe 9 0 0 3

Your added stats:
Dwarven Pickaxe 3 0 -1 1 (AP)
Dwarven Hammer 8 0 -1 1 (magic)
Dwarven Maul 11 0 -1 3 (magic)
Runed Greataxe 10 1 0 3 (magic + undead)
Helmsfire Greataxe 10 2 0 2 (magic + fire)
</pre><hr />

[Saulot]

I too would probably change some weapons, starting with the ones which were more traditionally for dealing with heavy armor; warhammers, mauls, picks, lucerne hammers, etc. by lowering their damage and making them AP. I'd also probably change some of the spear users to have more variety, with military forks, warscythes, and pikes.

But imposing that inside of a nation mod hardly seems fair, and there's already a balance mod that's quite well developed.

Well, there's nothing wrong with the rationale behind making a dwarf-based axe, it's just that improving it wouldn't just change the balance of one of the dwarf units, but several of them. Due to how size 1 resources go, even if I gave it 3 or 4 more resources, it would still be too similar to a hammer. Also, I'm not sure I could explain away why it would be have such a higher resource cost. Lastly, there's still the problem of there being 3 axes (hatchet, axe, battleaxe). Changing one, suggests the other two should be altered as well.

I didn't add a 'Dwarven Hammer'. That's the base weapon for the magic item of the same name.

As for the two greataxes, that was intentional as I wanted to make them a bit different, to have less similarities between the paladins. The second greataxe is somewhat shorter, double headed (thus the rounded edge means that the most likely point of impact is at the middle of the axehead, and not the top) thus better balanced, and possessing the ability for an equally brutal backswing (this all translates into +1 to hit, -1 to length in Dom terms). However, tweaking the stats of the greataxes is certainly mutable and not set in stone. Hopefully the two paladins are balanced, yet different enough.

[PvK]

Yes, I'm with you on the armor-piercing weapons. I'll have to check out the balance mod.

Seems to me axes are the signature stereotypical dwarven weapon, and these dwarves are apparently expert weaponsmiths, and yet their non-magical axe weapons are inferior to plain hammers or swords. As a player, I'd probably rather recruit hatchet versions at 5 0 0 1 than axe versions at 7 -1 -1 1 (and I essentially never recruit the axe dwarves because of the hammer dwarves). Really it's just a flavor/thematic thing.

...

Especially since they are ultra-strong already simply due to their stacking double the number of figures per square in melee combat.

[HoneyBadger]

Somebody really ought to do a study on weapon type/form efficiency as compared to the size/strength of the person weilding the weapon. It would make for an interesting thesis.

I don't know why Tolkien, or anyone else, felt the need to put axes in the hands of dwarfs, except for their Norse origins. Here's an interesting fact, however: Dwarfs weren't short, in Norse myth. They were, as far as can be told in modern times, as tall as humans. They only acquired their lesser status *after* the Viking age-probably influenced by the general shift of "faerie creatures" from large to small.

Axes, in combat, work by concentrating force-more than a sword-on a smaller area, but allowing the spread of force-more than a spear-to affect a greater area. The axe itself also acts somewhat like a lever, trading greater surface area for greater precision and striking power, which is why an axe requires more room to swing than a similarly sized sword, and much more than a spear does to thrust.

What does this mean? It means that, in the hands of a much smaller person, that lives in close quarters and thrives in heavy armour, you're putting a much larger, heavier weapon, that requires more room to swing, and that actually does less damage-especially to armour and compact targets-and has much less functionality and availability than a pick in similar circumstances.

Axes for dwarfs is great for Dominions, because it's pure myth. If you want something based a bit on reality and common sense, arm them with picks, spears, shortswords, macheti-type weapons, and crossbows.

[Aezeal]

ok that was to much for me.. I can sort of see the 2nd alinea, but I can't see how that translates into the 3th (and thus 4th)

WHy would a very strong small person not wield an axe? What has the heavy armour to do with it?
Why is a larger heavier weapon a problem for a strong person?
Why does it do less damage to armour compared to a sword when you say it concentrates the force more? (ow wait that was compared to a pick right, I can see that)
I always consider dwarven quarters about the size that a dwarf can wield and axe and defend a whole corridor with swings of one axe.. how does that fit into your equation.

on your final alinea.. I can see why picks would be better than axes.. not why spears, shortswords and macheti-type weapons are better, since if you have the power to wield a heavy weapon.. IMHO it will hit harder.. which is a good thing when breaking armour right?

Plz enlighten me (really, no sarcasm here, I'd like to know it all)

[Maraxus]

I think what he wants to say is not, that a heavy swinging weapon is a problem for a strong person.

Point is, that it is worse then a small (or) thrusting weapon, because strength actuall matters less on heavy weapons: Those get their force through their own weight and speed.
And the speed they get per acceleration way (as long as you have a minimum strength to lift it), so long arms are an important advantage, while muscle power is a minor advantage (it effects the speed taken to the squareroot, if you what physics F=1/2*m*v² ).

I don't think that armor of the weapon wielder is a factor here: While it hampers your movements in directions it is not designed for, it does not meaningful hamper the moves it is designed for: Swinging a weapon is one such movement.

The armor of the target plays a role, however: I think dwarves will also train to use weapons which are efficient against heavy armor as they have it, and these are swung weapons: axes, military hammers, picks.

I can not agree with the "axe requires more room to swing than a similarly sized sword" because you don't need to compare length here but weigth. Greataxe beats Greatsword in close areas, because it is shorter. Likewise if you compare a longsword with a same weigth axe.

Picks as an alternative to axes?
Sure, they focus the impact on a single point which is why later Warhammers were more like picks then hammers - but the axe has it's advantage, too: A single long spike in your body is not straight out fatal, unless it hits heart, brain, spine. Probably not even disabling. The victim might live with it for another minute but it needs only seconds to hit you. On the other hand, an axe breaks bones where it stikes. Disables the victim better.

I agree that thrusting weapons - spears and maybe shortswords - make some sense for dwarfs as subterran fighters with short arms. However considering their need to also be able to kill heaviest armored targets, I also see the reason to use swung weapons. Among those axe, hammer and pick all have pros and cons and I can reasonably understand if dwarfs would choose the axe to be traditionally important.

[llamabeast]

Aezeal, what's an alinea?

[Edratman]

llamabeast said:
Aezeal, what's an alinea?



I too was curious. A search revealed that it is the Dutch word for paragraph.

[Aezeal]

damn seemed like a somewhat latinish word that might be used in more countries... paragraph was not in my head atm

[HoneyBadger]

Spears are better, because they extend reach, and because they only require a tiny space to thrust forward, which means they can fit into narrow confines, and can be weilded by more combatants, against more opponents, in a given area-thus, the phalanx. And phalanxi are the way to go, underground, where there isn't a lot of maneuvaring possible, or necessary, and where you can usually guess where your opponent is going to come from.

Shortswords are good for dwarfs for the same reason they were good for the Romans-they don't require a lot of room to thrust, preferrably upward under armour.

Machetis are good for three reasons-1: they're versatile, 2: they're tough weapons that can take a lot of abuse, and 3: they're good for clearing underbrush, and when you're a dwarf, not used to being on the surface and having to deal with underbrush, you want to be able to hack through it so you can see, and move.

[Aezeal]

I'd still say a lot of power and a heavy axe is a pretty nice combination as well though

[PvK]

Spear convenience would depend a lot on the tunnel. I've tried simply carrying around fairly long (5-foot or 6-foot) poles inside a modern house and found it was fairly tricky to get around without bashing the pole into something.

[HoneyBadger]

PvK: True, that. But, you have to consider that, defensively, it has a lot of potential-and defense is what the dwarfs are all about. You wouldn't see a dwarf carrying around a spear in an area he didn't know well, or a place where it would would be a liability due to space.

Things become different, though, when it's in a tunnel *designed* by the dwarfs, and it's a spear *designed* by the dwarfs.

Personally, I think dwarfs would invent a lot of their own weapons. They're master craftsmen, with lots of time on their hands, and lots and lots of enemies.

There was an old issue of Dragon Magazine that featured new dwarfen weapons. Things like a crossbow that fired sharpened discs of metal-ideal for ricochet damage I would think, in those "hard to reach" places, the dwarfen claymore-a short, stout 2 handed sword, designed for dwarfs by dwarfs-with the phraise "short, thick, and nasty" as a byword, and the ceremonial dwarf battle-club, which-being a dwarf weapon-was a lot more than just ceremonial, made of metal inlaid, lead-cored hardwood, and used by dwarf calvalry mounted on angry mountain goats.

They might very well use axes frequently-I just don't see them as being their primary, be all-end all, weapon.
Maybe for dwarfs that live on the surface? where they need to chop down trees, to make charcoal if nothing else.
But does Gimli really *need* to be carrying around...what, 5 axes or so? What did he use to pick his teeth with? Maybe that's why dwarfs grow beards, to hide all the dental damage...

I think, the deeper down you went in a typical dwarf underkingdom, the less and less "typical" the dwarfs you'd meet would become. There might even be some women down there...

[PvK]

All good points and interesting valid ideas. I'm not sure there's any material disagreement left here.

Seems to me that for ultimate correctness purposes (not necessarily this mod), it doesn't matter much what the head is like on an axe/mace/hammer/pick - it should be possible to make such a weapon as good at length/attack/defense as any other, with the exception that hammer and especially mace don't need to strike in a particular direction, which advantage might or might not be considered to be worth a +1 relative attack mod. However there might be tradeoffs between those values and the resulting damage and resources too.

[HoneyBadger]

Well-and this may surprise you-the greatest advantage that an axe has over all those other weapons is it's ability to be used fluidly. A properly shaped axe, of a good weight, can not only be thrown accurately, but it can also be used in melee to strike much faster than most other weapons, if the wielder is well-trained.

The axe curves down to strike, but that downward chop can be completed into a circle, by rotating it in the hands, which allows the head of the axe to swing back up, carried by the weight of the head (like a pendulum do), which by the way gave the axe-fighter a bit of a break, since the axe would at that point be carried along via momentum; and causing the blade of the axe to function a bit like a rotary saw-albeit in slow motion. It's quite impressive, even when the axe in question is the size of a hatchet-when it's an English Long-axe, it's frankly awe-inspiring.

Imagine a martial-arts movie wherein two fighters are squaring off with staves, and watch as one combatant rotates her staff in a circular motion-now imagine that the staff itself is "only" 5 feet long, but 2 inches thicker, and that one end of that staff is topped by a 4lb axe blade. It takes a lot more strength in various muscle groups, ofcourse-the axe would be swung more from the shoulders and back than the arms and waist, but the idea is much the same.

You can't do the same with a sword, because the sword has too much blade, and you can't do it as well, with a mace/hammer/etc. because of the bulkiness of the head.

It's one of the reasons why the "moon-shaped" head was so popular, though, because it allowed the axe to easily slice both into, and then out of, a given wound, shearing off with less risk of the blade getting stuck in a bone. Which also gave the axe-fighter a chance to engage more than one enemy at a time, since a long enough axe could "cleave" into and out of one wound, only to be carried-again, via momentum-into and out of another wound, on another combatant.

[Aezeal]

as I said.. axes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[HoneyBadger]

Axes are good...just not for dwarfs. Not particularly, anyway. Just like swords aren't very good for giants.

[Saulot]

Indepth discussions of dwarven tunnel battletactics and equipment aside, however interesting it is*, what is everyone's thoughts about giving them an improved axe or axes (as per PVK's suggestion or something similar)?

*There are still a few pieces of dwarven tunnelfighter's equipment left unmentioned

[Maraxus]

For mechanical reasons, I would not give better equipment across the board, unless you want to make it a more ressource-focussed the gold focussed nation.
Increasing strength, attack and defence has the same effect and makes it easier to compare with the other nations.

Of course there is:
1. There is basicly nothing wrong with making it more ressource-focused.
2. Even if the common soldier uses the average axe you can still add in elite-infantery or commaners that use improved weapons. Think of Tir Na Og and their Gold weapons.

[Saulot]

Well, high resource costs are problematic in terms of weapons, since they're size 1 which means only a fraction of the resource cost is used. I believe 1/2.

So resource heavy they're not. I believe outside of bolt-throwers the highest cost is 25. Which is marginal compared to some other nations, especially once you also add in the production bonus inherent to Underkings.

Secondly, the elite units side-step the axe question completely because they use hammers or magic weapons. The heirarchy tends to be axes, hammers, magic weapons, if one could divide the dwarven units into groups by their level of eliteness (so I made up a word, so what?) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

This whole problem arises from the axe and hammer problem. Axes are inferior, so everyone wonders, why use axes? If I improve the axes a bit, they'll be even more similar to hammers, so everyone wonders, why have both axes and hammers? If I improve axes a lot, everyone wonders, why use hammers?

Despite well thought out arguments presented thus far, I am still leaning for my original thinking (which is the easiest and cleanest solution), get rid of the hammer dwarf warrior, and so remove the side by side comparison and choice of axe and hammer.

[PvK]

Since nothing of any other size would ever use the proposed "Dwarven Axe", why would it be problematic to make it cost however many resources would be needed to differentiate it from the hammer?

Seems to me it could be even more clear than the difference between the MA Infantry of Ulm with Battleaxe or Maul - more resources for a slightly better weapon. You could also decide that Dwarven axes are more prestigious personal weapons than hammers and so have them cost +1 or +2 gold more to hire troops with those.

[PvK]

Oh, it occurred to me after I wrote that, that another option could be, if the weapons balance mod you mentioned results in addressing this, to simply suggest that the mod be used with that weapon balance mod, and/or make one that does, or failing all that, wait for me to make one that does... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[PvK]

When you wrote, "there's already a balance mod that's quite well developed", did you mean Conceptual Balance mod or a weapon balance mod that I haven't found yet, or ...?

[Saulot]

I meant the CB mod, even though I don't use it myself. I can only assume that Underkings plays the same way with the CB mod.

I'd be interested to see a pure weapons mod.

I'll play around with modifying axes a bit, and see how it turns out.

[MaxWilson]

Aezeal said:
lol + 10 protection.. that would be nice especially since I guess they already have some armour.. why not sacred with earthbless 9 too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Thematically I can imagine the battle ragers needing a lot of room for all kinds of battle raging maneuvres http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif



Ouch, +10 berserk means +10 encumbrance, which means armor isn't going to do a lot to help them survive the battle. They *will* go out in a blaze of glory.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Saulot said:
This whole problem arises from the axe and hammer problem. Axes are inferior, so everyone wonders, why use axes? If I improve the axes a bit, they'll be even more similar to hammers, so everyone wonders, why have both axes and hammers? If I improve axes a lot, everyone wonders, why use hammers?

Despite well thought out arguments presented thus far, I am still leaning for my original thinking (which is the easiest and cleanest solution), get rid of the hammer dwarf warrior, and so remove the side by side comparison and choice of axe and hammer.



I like this solution. Dwarves use axes because it's thematic, not because it's effective. Although their small size compensates for the lowered attack.

-Max

[Zentar]

My really really late response to this mod... This is the first mod that I have noticed that has no mages for hire. What am I missing?

[Endoperez]

A bug that removes magic picks when too many mods are enabled at the same time?

[Zentar]

Endoperez said:
A bug that removes magic picks when too many mods are enabled at the same time?



It occurs when Tomb Kings is enabled. The problem seems to be specific mod related because it does not occur when several other mods are active. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif

[Endoperez]

I don't know what causes it, but it's been reported as fixed in the progress page (http://ulm.illwinter.com/dom3/dom3progress.html) and I managed to get a mod to work by disabling all mods except the one I wanted to try. It could be that Tomb Kings triggers it even if no other mods are enabled, and I don't know if you can do anything but wait for the next patch in that case.

[PvK]

If another mod uses the same unit numbers, they will mod each other if both mods are active in the same game. I have an old version of Vaettiheim installed and it merges Vaettiheim with Bogarus.

Example:

Underkings says, units X through X+6 are dwarf mages.
Bob's mod says, units X through X+9 are power rangers.

Result is no drawf mages, and power rangers with beards and axes... ;-)

[HoneyBadger]

Bump.

[Humakty]

I know it was discussed before, but, really, size one dwarfs are not what i expected as an experienced RPG player. Apart of this small (haha) problem, this mod is great. Just don't mess with tramplers, any tramplers. Even iron pigs will send you back home crying.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm definitely using size 1 dwarfs in my mod Nations. They'll be very tough size 1's, but it's nicer for balance, and for making things function differently, across different Nations. And, honestly, if you need size 2 dwarfs, you've already got Ulm.

[Humakty]

My various tests showed they will be really hard to balance for MP, or even SP : six figures per square, really all what my F2 mages like (if you manage to escape tramplers). I don't know for the mod you're doing, but I had real problems figthing some nations that use mages (ie :heims) or tramplers (ie : pangaea)in SP. Mostly I find them way too costly for the rate at which they get squashed.

Can you imagine the number of casualties after :aim/thunder strike/thunder strike ?

[Aezeal]

size 2 plz

[HoneyBadger]

It's not always easy to use size 1 units well, but it can be done. Each size level has it's own advantages, and disadvantages. Yes, tramplers are a big issue, no pun intended, but Nations which primarily focus on size 1 units should have a solution to most trampler problems.

In the mod Nation I'm doing, for instance, size 1 dwarfs are grouped together with giants and trolls, which range from size 1-6. They've also got access to quite a bit of elemental power, especially air, so thunder/lightning isn't much of a danger. Also, I haven't decided yet, but it's likely the dwarfs themselves will get some kind of minor (25% in most cases) elemental resistances.

Kharam-Dzu, on the other hand, had a very impressive repeater crossbow that, when massed in sufficient numbers, would make short work of elephants. It wasn't the perfect solution, but they have plenty going for them.

[Sombre]

What's the advantage of being size 4?

[Humakty]

I don't know why you're asking, but the main advantage is to be less susceptible to area of effects.

Regarding this mod, I had forgotten the capitol only weak mages. I guess it is only meant to be played by dwarf fortress fans

[llamabeast]

Yeah, and size 4 can't be trampled by chariots (Hinnom aside).

[JimMorrison]

Yeah, and size 4 can't be trampled by chariots (Hinnom aside).

And size 4 has great synergy with size 2 chaff that can easily filter forward to eat swords.

[Sombre]

It has worse synergy than size 2 or 1.

It also has worse synergy than size 3, with size 3.

I ask because honey just said all the sizes have advantages and disadvantages. I was curious to know what people thought the advantages of size 4 (imo the worst size) are. The AOE one is an interesting thought. It's also a disadvantage though, when it's an aoe buff.

[Humakty]

Depending on the ratio size/cost, you can have more or less ease to stop attack rear squads. As for this mod, the units cost more than their size 2 counterparts, but cover less ground (being size one), making it hard to cover all the frontline.

[Alderanas]

If you ever were interested in adding cavalry to this nation which seems like a no. In many of the games i have played the Dwarves have ridden Gryphons. If you were to add them you could make them sacred and very expensive so you couldn't mass them. The Dwarves as you pointed out with cavalry could be bolted down to the gryphons by a saddle of some sort if that is at all interesting ot you. Even if there is no cavalry it is a great nation.