Dominions 3000 v0.81 - lots of new indies, new map (using the brand new map commands)

[Aezeal]

"Dominions 3000" is a total conversion mod for Dominions 3. It is Dominions in space but still with a fantasy touch.

Nations:

1. Galactic Empire of Ulm (nation nr 75)
Ulm is loosely based upon Ulm in dominions 3 and the warhammer spacemarines.
Galactic Empire Ulm features:
-- Planet Guards (militia), Spacemarines in several different forms some of which based on/decendants of dominions 3 Ulmish nations, spacecraft
-- Several Leaders and Casters including a Huge Capitol Ship
-- Several unique summoning spells for this nation including the high level and probably overpowered weather control and atmosphere control droids.
-- a new pretender god (a bit like an improved sage really)
-- adjusted existing spells (those which alter ranged combat are made more expensive since there is more ranged combat so their effect can also be expected to be increased
-- Ulm has General Johnny Rico (made promotion)
-- Ulm has a Vampire Knight, leader for the Blood knight (no, no blood mage, it's just a title)

2. R'lyeh (77)
R'lyeh features:
-- void gate
-- Illithid mutant
-- our known and beloved mindblasters the Illithid
-- enslaved blue aliens, space trolls and pirates
-- An Illithid Mutant pretender
-- the powerfull, mindcontrolling, yet immobile Elder Brain for R'lyeh
-- the Illithid Nautiloid spaceship
-- The terrible control Space Eel spell
-- Control kraken spell

3. JOMON
- a nation not as technologic advanced as Ulm but with all sorts of magic weapons to make up for it
-- Mech battle suits with ice,fire or lightning weapons
-- the return of the Oni as sacred warriors
-- a ninja assassin
-- the return of the Dai-Oni..
-- The coming of the fearsome Oni-dragon

4. ORCS
- A nation lead by commanders which attract the always warlike troops who don't to be bought to fight.
-- Some technoloy
-- no scouts (nothing subtle in this race)
-- heavy guns and medium armor all around
-- units weaker in space
-- lots of even heavier weapon summons.

5. INSECTS
- Insectoids conquering the galaxy
-- Queens breed troops and summon other leaders.
-- Blood nation
-- lots of summons
-- no recruitable troops or commanders
-- weak in space
-- 3 insect races united for bug supremacy
-- weak ranged combat, strong melee

6. COMMONWEALTH
- based on Amos Commonwealth: Landfall nation
- Elders leading a humanoid race through the galaxy, preaching the LAW
-- A water/astral nation
-- icy weapons (now armorpiercing)
-- prefers cold 3
-- spaceforms more mobile (higher AP) than regular forms
-- has terraformers which spread your (cold) dominion

7. DRAGONS

- relatively weak recruitable mage power.
- strong recruitable commander chassis with some mage power.
- all mages have a strong (dragon) chassis so you are not able to buy a cheap researcher/mage, you always pay for the chassis even if you don't need it.
- Huge sizes. wyrmlings are size 3, then it only goes up. As is known from giant nations this in not an advantage.
- PD is weak, also due to the size problem and because dragons are just not the race with the nature to stay put and defend a province.
- the recruitment bar looks like a carnival since the different shapes the dragons can take all have very specific colors.
- The young adult dragons (commanders)
- the nation has A LOT of nation specific summons (the adult, elder and ancient dragons) all of which have magic and an increasingly powerfull physique. The nation does NOT lack for SC's.
- The summons are not all castable out of the box, there will have to be investments in magic boosting equipment or powering up mages.
- To balance this the casting and research requirements for summons are relatively low and most in one research arm (conjuration)
- The lack of certain equipment slots does limit the SC options
- This lack is rebalanced again in the oldest dragons with special powers.
- The summons give acces to a wide range of magic power (large magic diversity which reflects the magic in their blood.
- The nation has no recruitable sacred troops and only one (cap only and actually a relatively weak) sacred commander. This is because any sacred recruitable would probably make that troops the only recruited troop and the nation alway played as a bless nation. Now a bless will certainly help the sacred recruitables but then again those are powerfull already and early in game the scales might be needed, or a rainbow mage to sitesearch and more easily unlock the different summons might be a good idea for this nation. (my personal advice would be the latter.)
- I think the nation will have a hard time early on in a game but with their powerfull summons and decent magic diversity the end game might give a good end game.
- The nation has no regular heros but the 3 types of adult dragon (summons) can also appear as multihero's.

8. SHARDS OF SHIAR

- undead
- focus on dead magic and holy magic
- a few usefull holy spells (nation specific)
-- more powerfull demon killers
-- holy buffs
- all troops and commanders are souls of the dead, ethereal, blind, darkvision 100, cold res 100, siegebonus 1 (if you can move through walls you should have that), AN ghostly touch attacks of different calibers.
- no ranged weapons
- no protection
- immortal capital only troops (3 types, one sacred) and commanders (all priest/mages)
- high magic variety (all except blood) in non capitol mages (since those are souls of random mages) but low in power.
- FESD randoms on the capital only immortal mages (next to death and holy magic)

Description: "The people of Shiar had a long culture of ancestor worship next to the worship of their benign pretender, they had researched ways of easy communication with the souls of the dead, leaving the bodies resting. This benign death magic was widely practiced on Shiar and supervised by the clergy of their pretender to avoid evil use of necromancy. The world of Shiar was recently destroyed by demon invaders and their terrible pretender god. In the moment of destruction the pretender god of the Shiar, not strong enough to battle the demon pretender, tried to save his people by blessing them with eternal life using all his powers including his lifeforce. The demon pretender warped his spell and now the souls of the inhabitants of Shiar live on, undead. The spells also affected the dying pretender and he too was changed, now undead, and less benevolent. Shards of Shiar have fallen in a distant province and are now the centre of a new nation and religion. The new Shiar nation does not want to extriminate all life but want leadership of selected suitable undead souls over the unbalanced and often unthinking forms of life in the galaxy. They use their still powerfull death magic abilities in their old, but also in new ways."

"The Lord of Souls"
description : "The Shiar pretender used to be weak, but was willing to give everything including his own live for his followers. When he died giving his live with his greatest casting untill that moment, securing immortality for all Shiar souls he was still twarted by his demonic opponents spells. The backlash of those combined powerfull spells changed the pretender god of Shiar. He is now also an undead immortal and still wishes the best for the souls of his people. More powerfull now he intends to maximize the use of his immortality by helping his followers with magic and in battle. In his new religion souls unbound by mortal bodies are meant to be the ruling class above those confined by earthly bodies, with himself ruling all. "

9. Neoclidia

A nation based upon the Cthulu Mythos created by Darkwind. The great old ones are returning and want the universe. Mysterious and powerfull.. try it.

Indies:
- Space pirates, their captains and their base a powerfull pirate spacestation
- Blue Aliens and their bigger cousins the giant Space Trolls.
- Predator Aliens and their queens.
- Space Eel (who actually should be called Gigantic Killer Space Eels)
- Spiders inhabiting distant planets (as 2 poptypes)
- Space Kraken hovering in spaces near you
- Snowbeasts led by their Alpha Males

A preview of some sprites for the first 3 nations. Behind each flag teh units for the nation, behind the dom 3K symbol the indies. Indies and R'lyeh overlap since those are the ones R'lyeh enslaved.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6733&d=1220565286


In addition to this

- unthematic summons have been removed
- new "space sites" added
- more new sites added
- unthematic sites removed
- included in this mod are the lines of the improved arena award
- a large number of new spells
- some old sprites have been slightly polished
- lots of new indies

A few numbers to show the size of the mod (though there is much more that isn't reflected in these numbers.

Unit numbers used (aprox)

Neoclidia 2200 - 2253
Insect 2500 - 2537
Ulm 2583 - 2659
Indies 2700 - 2749 AND 2400 - 2408
Jomon 2750 - 2777
Orc 2800 - 2850
Commonwealth 2950 - 3000
Dragons 3001 - 3029
Shiar 3050 - 3080

Magic sites 765 AND 800 - 834 AND 901 -902 AND 989 - 998

weapons 650 - 667 AND 700 - 765 AND 775 - 783 AND 800 - 806 AND 810-818

Armor 215 - 222 AND 270 - 274 AND 340 - 354


The thematic map is a seperate download:

Map
- The Solar System Map has been fully updated, indies everywhere and also recruitable now, no longer recruiting archers on your planets.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6578&d=1218839369

A new larger map is out now in beta. It has new backgrounds for the space fights and several planets will look differently matching their color on the map.
Try the Galaxy map now !!!

Please try these nations and maps and give feedback. Changes will be made based on feedback. As you can see in this thread I listen to what is said and often balance or improve things based on that.

[Aezeal]

Questions I need answer too to continue:

1a Can you make a mod so you only get certain creatures (new modded ones) in the indie sea provinces?
1b If above is not possible is there a way to empty all seas provinces?

2 Can you change the background of sea battles to either black or some starry pattern?

[Darkwind]

For #2, I think you might be able to modify the underwater battlemap, since they're all seperated and in a convenient folder. Not sure how one would go about doing that though.

For #1, #land <province number> apparently kills everything in a province. #commander "<commander type>" sets the new commander. #bodyguards <nbr bodyguards> "<type>" sets the bodyguards for the commander. #units <nbr units> "<type>" sets units. It's all in the map editting guide.

Finally, even though this is really only the bare bones of a mod and there are no new pretenders, it's still a bit fun (I chose a Prince of Death because of the evil theme of the LA, which this presumably comes after).

[Aezeal]

yeah that is in the guide but I don't want to set it seperately for each province. I'd like it to be random but from lists I can select. Or if I could alter the existing troop types so it'll either empty or with certain troops I can make.

[Darkwind]

I think that if you use #selectmonster and #clear, you're given an essentially blank slate but it's still used for indy provinces. I don't think you can alter the lists used when picking independent defenders, though. If all you used was #selectmonster and #clear, it would either crash or no independents of that type would appear.

[Aezeal]

My nation took offence to your remark about being not much..

I've improved it quite a lot and it's a real nation now, might even be balanced somewhat

v.2 attached to the original post

[Aezeal]

Hmm I wanted to post v0.30.. which is incredibly cool of course.. but I can't yet.

If it is posted I do hope some will try it.

I'll post a new fancy map with it

[llamabeast]

You can post it now!

[Aezeal]

So I thought too... but alas:

Dominions 3000 - Galaxy at war - Galactic Ulm - v0.30.zip:
Your file of 4.91 MB bytes exceeds the forum's limit of 244.1 KB for this filetype.

[llamabeast]

It's fixed now, apparently.

[Aezeal]

I'll try it now...
everyone wait for v0.30 :D

[Aezeal]

Coming soon (V0.40):

PIRATES.. nay even better: ALIEN PIRATE RAIDERS and their captains and their spacestations...

[Aezeal]

Well things are moving fast.. V0.40 will have MUCH MUCH more than only some indie pirates... they will also have ENSLAVED PIRATES.
ENSLAVED PIRATES?? Who enslaves in dominions 3... can it be...
YES, R'lyeh is back, and in space
so a 2nd race will be coming in the next version of this mod

Why R'lyeh as 2nd race you might ask (or not, I'm talking anyway): Well sprites are the limiting factor in all this work and since I already had sprites for the indie pirates (and the indie aliens) I though why not make those Illithid slaves.. fits the lore perfectly it's what Illithid do in their weekends (and the rest of the week).. and I figured the Illithid wouldn't change much just because they are taking over a galaxy.. so those sprites where also easy to get.

Once I get the Illithid mindblast artillery working (don't ask) the race will be put on the market. (For the fans: yes they will have a void gate.)

So next patch real 1 vs 1 games with 2 completely different nations can be played on the beautifull solar system map.

[HoneyBadger]

I'll try to come up with some ideas this week, Aezeal. I've got a few nation ideas floating around in my head, and I'd like to do some space monster graphics.

By the way, if you're doing space pirates anyway, how about...I dunno...Ice Pirates! with robots! Led by Robert Urich! ok maybe that's too far...but, Ice Pirates!

[JimMorrison]

I'll try to come up with some ideas this week, Aezeal. I've got a few nation ideas floating around in my head, and I'd like to do some space monster graphics.

By the way, if you're doing space pirates anyway, how about...I dunno...Ice Pirates! with robots! Led by Robert Urich! ok maybe that's too far...but, Ice Pirates!


Is that a new version of the map? Because it is hilariously awesome! :up:


I've always enjoyed pop culture spoof/reference, like having a hero named Robert Urich (or some derivative thereof), just for the fun of it. One of the human factions could get a Johnny Rico hero too, and so on. ;)

[Aezeal]

New version? The pic you see in the first post is the new map and I've populated it with aliens and space eels.. it seems all the indies are very very much overpowered on this map though, even with the very decent Ulmish troops.

Next version the pirates will come.. they too where very powerfull (indies with 2 10 dmg AP ranged weapons really kill a lot very fast.)
So now the indies have lost a weapon (2 bad for R'leyh though since they use the same fighter :D.. but Ulm should have the better fighters anyway.. and Ulm pays for it.

R'leyh gets a control space eel spell though.. which should be nice too use :D

[Aezeal]

V0.40 will also feature guest star General Johnny Rico fighting for Ulm as a Hero

[Aezeal]

V0.40 is out including updated map and R'lyeh as 2nd playable nation

plz test, and give feedback!!!

see the first post for the attachments needed.

Thanks, Aezeal

[Psientist]

It is possible to create custom, or modify existing, magic items and assign them to indies. Just look at my Antilarium metamap.

Creating a .dm file depends somewhat on your operating system, but it's just an ordinary text file with a funny extension. I suspect a "rename" of a plain text / notebook file in windows explorer will do it, it certainly will in Mac OS.

in unix it's "mv filename.txt filename.dm"

[Aezeal]

with wordpad I can just directly save it as xxxxx.dm

anyway to me it seems I can only create weapons and armor with much variation... not much more.. the fun effects like regen, flying etc etc are tehre ways to get that?

[HoneyBadger]

If anything, Johnny Rico ought to be a Lieutenant, but if you want a higher rank: 'Space Martial'. Also, Ulm ought to get heros: "Hassan the Assassin" "Sergeant Zim" and "Corporal Ace" "Corporal Dizzy" and "Corporal Kitten". Maybe a "Space Martial Anson" after RAH?

[Aezeal]

uploading v0.41 now

[Aezeal]

pplz don't hold back, just DL this :D

also I see some have DL'ed (and I hope played) my files so I need feeeeed bacccckkkk

PS Jomon is getting along nicely, nick had some nice idea's for the nation and he's busy with some sprites for the commanders. Depending how fast he's going I'll see if I can use his sprites for those commanders to post the next version in a few days or if I'll just use some placeholders (the regular unit sprites.)

[Aezeal]

OK pplz new version is out.. 3 nations to play..

so play it and give feedback so we can start balancing it all and see which nations need a few extra things and what would be nice there...

Any idea's for our 4th nation?

OW and don't forget to reupload the solar map files since I deleted a few of ths fishies since they seem to be a bit of a hassle as indies if there are too much (except for R'lyeh who just mindblast them anyway)

[hunt11]

this is a really fun mod to play with so keep up with the good work

[Endoperez]

I'll have to see what space R'lyeh is like, but Alpha Centauri-inspired Xenofungus/Mind Worm symbiosis nation and/or independent province could be rather interesting.

[Aezeal]

Hunt11 anything that you found that needs improving, changing etc?

Endo: seems pplz like mind controllers Honey-Badgers (I think) wants to make a mind controlling aboleth race. Anyway if you play a bit with R'lyeh (which basicly is very much like R'lyeh in the basic game but they don't have the absurd cheap chaff to make a screen for the Illithid) let me know if you think the nation you mention would still add to the game.. and if so.. don't hold back :D

[hunt11]

The only problem i had was when i was playing with Jomon and using the Dai-Oni the first one i used after the first battle changed back to the original Dai-Oni and was behaving like it as well (he got the automatic two wolves at the start of the battle) the next couple Dai-Oni did not seem to share the same problem. The only really two things that I would like to see added (except for new nation, but you are already working on that) would be more independent types over then space pirates, and a bigger map which would open the way to truly epic games as massive space empires wage war over entire galaxies.

[Aezeal]

Well with only 3 races so far the map is pretty much too big atm by most standards.. if we get more races I could make a lot more of this map or create another.

I copied the Dai-Oni and only changed his stats to reflect the suit he's wearing and gave him weapons for that (fire weapons since I think that is thematic) the wolves are just there... they should be untill I think of a nicer one battle spell. If Dai-oni change to their original sprite then I used a wrong #firstshape somewhere.

PS there are 2 indie types (but I'm sure you already saw that) when I find some nice sprites and idea's for indies I'll make them but since indies are only a small part of the early game new nations have priority (so you can get your epic games.)

a few questions:
-did you think the indies where much stronger than in the regular game?
(in the lastest version of the map I removed a lot of teh fish since I thought more than 2 of them would be way to strong for indie armies.)
- Which of the races did you think was strongest?
- which of the races seemed the least complete?

[hunt11]

The indies are a lot stronger then you would usually find so it make initial expansion a lot slower then it should be. The strongest race has to be Ulm with their strong infantry and their very powerful spaceships. No nation really seems to lack anything but R'lyeh seems like you could add more units that they could recruit to represent alien species that had been enslaved and that now lives to serve their masters.

[Aezeal]

ah well more fodder for R'lyeh is a thing I'd thought of already.. and as soon as I find more indies I'll give them too r'lyeh :D

Do you really think Ulm is strongest?
I'd have tought it would be the weakest of the bunch.

PS Jomon misses a regular infantry (the militia you could say) it will come though.. it'll be a strong militia though, with plasma bow and light sabre. Jomon usually has decent PD

[hunt11]

From what i have tried Ulm has some units that really work well together, blood knights and any type of infantry with good firepower and with this simple combo they can be very powerful indeed with the knights holding down the enemy as your firepower eats away at the enemy

[Aezeal]

yeah it's hard to balance the increased firepower which sort of needs to be in space age with close combat troops which is why I gave Ulm strong infantry with flying.

Maybe I need to weaken those a bit or make them much more expensive in either gold or resources :D

I thought that the new artillery for r'lyeh with the blue aliens or space trolls in front fo them would be very strong too.

Jomon is a bit weaker but has a lot of resistances (also on troops and the powerfull summon) so should be stronger end game. And JOmon has the sacred oni which I think are very blessable much better to bless than the other sacreds

Well please keep playing and let me know.. the more feedback I get the more I can improve.

[Panpiper]

I only played for an hour or so on the new map, enough to conquer the planet I found myself on, my city in the middle, surrounded by provinces (nice start for Ulm). I discovered upon processing turn one that the Ulmish scout is not stealthy. Er... Taking the surrounding provinces was trivially easy for Ulm. For troops I purchased nothing but Personal Artillery Marines and deployed them to the far rear of the map. I put my starting troops to the far rear as well. Not a single troll ever reached my firing line. They got close the first couple of battles, but as far as Ulm is concerned, the indies are not over powered.

Then having taken all the planet provinces, I went to move my army onto the large planet surface at the bottom of the map only to discover that only my Vampire Knight prophet could make the leap (he having flying). Hrmm... says I. Right, build troop transports, I think in a fit of lucidity. This still does not permit jumping to the bottom planet surface. It does however seem to permit going into space, so off to take the moon space, then the planet inside, then back to moon space, then the second of the three 'space' spaces around my main planet and... And here is a sticky one, I am not allowed to fly into the third space that encompasses my planet even though the space I am in is adjacent to it. Hrmm... So back I go to that first space sector and from there I can jump onto the bottom planet surface.

And there endeth my play for the day.

The Ulmish Navy Capital Ship had what seemed to me an odd effect in the Death Match. It appeared to do little damage (no firing sprite?) and yet both opponents routed off the field after doing damage to the ship. Go figure. No reward mind you as the ship has no hands. Oops.

The Chief Engineer has a strategic movement of only one, while all the other magic using commander have two. This is most inconvenient for site searching, forcing extra micromanagement upon us. I'd prefer that they all have the same strategic movement.

All in all I think you've got something here. The game appears to adapt itself nicely to the role of a space game. Thank you for the divergence.

[Aezeal]

about the scout: thanks.. he wasn't stealthy 5 but stealty 5 which seems to make all the difference. --> fixed

I kinda feared that the personal artillery might be a bit overpowered, recruitable AoE long ranged attacks can do that.

I'll increase their resource cost (and the blood knight) a bit I think, fits with my idea (and description of ulm in Jomon troops) that they use a heck of a lot of resources to create powerfull weapons.

The map things you encounter are mostly intentional: the land on the bottom of the map is a seperate planet from the one in the middle above it so only linking via space. (I wanted a few start sites on the planets with 3 or more provinces... the planet you started on has more but most are waste or swamp to compensate and the bottom planet is split in 2 by a mountain range (see the name of the middle 2 provinces))

Can you give me the space numbers of the province which should be connected but aren't?

The Ulmish capitol ship indeed doesn't have a firing sprite but it should do damage it has twin blasters so up close and ranged it should have a weapon with 2 attacks. I'm still not sure what happens if you give a ranged weapon 2 attacks but imho he should just have 2 shots.

The chief engineer is just like a lot of higher level mages.. map move 1 :D intended and will stay like that, sorry

[Panpiper]

I'll increase their resource cost (and the blood knight)...
Actually I ommitted to report that I did an aborted start of the game, playing only three turns before restarting. In that game, I recruited for troops only Blood Knights, with the starting troops providing rear fire support. I built up long enough to recruit and prophetize a Vampire Knight then hit my first province. The trolls cut through my Blood Knights like they were paper dolls, not a one survived. They did some damage and the starting troops were able to rout the trolls before they got slaughtered. Suffice to say that I do not believe that the Blood Knights need to be nerfed at all. Rather the contrary, that or the trolls need toning down, which would then make them even easier fodder for the ranged troops however.


Can you give me the space numbers of the province which should be connected but aren't?
31 & 17

[Aezeal]

Hmm I'd think that the bloodknights and the trolls are somewhat equal.. but I guess the HP of the trolls makes them survive long enough.. When they attack they will probably always kill when they hit, AP and high strength.

I wonder if I've gone a bit overboard with AP and AN attacks..
but with the high protection I was using on Ulm I thought I had to balance that (not to mention that nearly all ulms ranged attacks are also AP)

The provinces are now linked.. I'll attach it to the first post the next time I update it again

[hunt11]

the real value of blood knights is that they hold down the enemy giving you a chance to destroy them with your heavy guns

[HoneyBadger]

You might possibly consider adding something like the big bug-headed creature from 'This Island Earth' if you want a good slave race. It's a classic sci-fi movie, (one of the first major sci-fi movies made in color) and I've always thought that the mutated crab-shambler guys from MA R'lyeh were somewhat based on the creature/mutant at the end of it. The 'This Island Earth' critter (just called a mutant) is also pretty recogniseable.

[Panpiper]

Provinces 18 and 22 on 'spacemap' do not connect either even though 18 is the planet surface and 22 is the immediate space above it. In order to get to space from 18 I have to jump to the moon first and then to space.

[Aezeal]

good point, keep coming with the feedback.. this will be changed of course..

[Nikelaos]

right guys, hope you like my jomon sprites, anyway i saw something about a new survival horror game Electronic Arts is going to release called 'dead space' and space age ermor jumped straight out at me.

imagine a not so distant past where the legions of undead fell to modern technology, the treasures of the dead plundered by the triumphant living. But alas history must repeat itself, among the stolen artefacts is an unholy object of great power, whole fleets of ulmish mining crafts consumed by death, now quiet vessels housing the deformed and still moving bodies of the massacred led by the returning god of the dead.

keeping this and 'dead space' in mind can someone make a start on sprites, i would but my hands are kinda full at the moment.

thanks.

[Aezeal]

I'd keep the necrons of warhammer 40K in mind combined with that then.

Considering you just want to use skeletons there isn't that much we need to do on graphics though.. just take the skeleton sprite and give them an ulmish weapon.. and I think I even have the seperate weapons the ulmish sprites have. For Necrons you could probably just colorify a skeleton to grey/metallic.

When I'm done with the things I'm doing now I might be interested to start on this if the nation can be fleshed out a bit. I need a bit more details on what troops there would need to be etc etc.. if we just make them undead ulmsmen it might not be that interesting. we could go for the huge piramid ships the necrons have... huge expensive ships. and then next to that undead and robots... it does have some appeal.

But then you'd probably end up coping the death domain from ermor too... sinec that would be very thematic... do we want ermor like that in space?

It would make for another "different" nation though (even though we already know how it plays :D)

[Aezeal]

To be expected:
a new breed of indies: on the planets there are now not only the fearsome blue aliens but in the uninhabited outlands on distant planets an evil breed of spiders has evolved. To communicate with these spiders one needs to be able to lead magicbeings.
--> 2 new pop types are created out of 4 spider troops and 2 leaders.

some new sprites for existing units (a new one for the Ulm general & general rico), a new one for the Jomon Ninja (just a recolor really) and MAYBE even a hand drawn (by Nick) new Dai-Oni. Also some space ships have gotten attack sprites.

[Nikelaos]

[QUOTE=Aezeal;635177]
Considering you just want to use skeletons there isn't that much we need to do on graphics though.. [QUOTE]

actually i wanted to lean towards 'dead space' with a sort of newly dead but mutated approach. Think of it as sorta foul spawn + souless and then cover the lot in blood. We could sacrifice all armour and the unholy booster spells of LA ermor for more beastly offense and have some nice summoned commanders and large monsters made from multiple corpses and perhaps some ulmic mining gear could be chucked in there as weapons and such for thuging out.

[Aezeal]

hmm well if new sprites are needed.. then I can't work on the nation :D I'm not so good with new sprite creation :D

New sprites would mean all option current undead nations have, summoning longdead etc etc couldn't be use anymore.

But by all means start on the nation. if you use ermor LA nation number you could even keep their killing dominion.

If you can't do the modding I'm certainly willing to do it if yo explain what each troop should do (a long detailed post would help me there)

PS how is the dai-oni going, and the jomon assasin? :D

[Nikelaos]

dai oni i just had to recolor the sword so he is done, i just finished the sprites for the human infantry and plasma bow so unless you want anything else done i can send em to you right now and get to work on ermor.

[Aezeal]

NICE, MAIL ME, them then I can add them and complete Jomon :D I do like the dai oni sprite I had though maybe I should make some sort of summon for him later.

I'd love to see the infantry so Jomon can have normal starting troops and PD.. In a small test the battlesuits just crushed pretty strong PD so better not start with too much of them I think. (I increased price on them too :D)

You post a nice post on how you envision your dead space race so I know what you mean exactly and so I can make stats for them later and some descriptions. The more you post the more I can make the race like it :D
suggestions for spells and whatever you think the nation should have etc etc

(PS I do advice you read a bit about necrons for Warhammer 40000 too since there are some nice idea's there.)
I'll mail you the base sprites I found for Ulm so you can maybe use the weapon sprites on your undead if you want.

[Nikelaos]

yeah had a look at the necrons, they remind me of general grievous a bit lol but yeah i imagine something like that being a commander or perhaps the equivalent of a censor from LA ermor, i just started editing some foul spawn sprites and they are starting to look pretty sweet so look forward to seeing them pretty soon.

[Aezeal]

I think the piramids would make nice capitol ships too.

anyway if you have a unit sprite and tell me what the unit should be like I can mod them quickly.

I had to resize the graphs I got from you but they will be in the next version too

[Nikelaos]

alrighty then, two are done already, if someone could provide me with the sprites for foulspawn, preferably the big strong ones, then it would be a big help.

[Aezeal]

lol that is easy there should be a file on this forum with sprites from all units til version 3.14 at least (probably updated already but I haven't got it)
I usually look for a creature with the search function in database and then look at the sprites.

of course you can't do that since you don't have those files... I'll mail them

[Aezeal]

0.46 coming in a fwe min

[HoneyBadger]

Endoperez: That Alpha Centauri mind worm idea is excellent. When you're done setting Kalevala up, would you consider working on such a nation?

[Aezeal]

OK next edition will have a major change at least (2 numbers)
I was wondering why range combat was SOOO strong while I had some nice shields with decent protection values....

right protection values.. and def 0 (= parry 0) ok so now the shields will actually HAVE a parry value and combat in space will be as it never was.

[Nikelaos]

right ermor sprites are coming along nicely,i got 3 more which i'll send you now aezeal, anyway whilst doing ermor i got an idea for pangea, i thought it weould be better to finish ermor first but this idea excites me so much that i am starting now and working on both.

sticking to pangeas 'nature pissed off' theme, lets say that (with all the new weaponry and stuff) earth got trashed, many civilisations by now have already left for the final frotier but nature is still left with this massive pain in the backside, the only survivers on earth now are a variety of mutant hybrids (not much has changed here for pangea :P), fungi and a number of intelegent insects. It was once said that World War 4 would be fought with sticks and stones, this is infact true for pangea who travel the universe on the spores of mother nature's bounty, bringing life back to the wastelands war left behind.

[Aezeal]

yes I had been thinking about either an insect race (starship troopers) or a nature race (I was thinking the Ousters of Hyperion/Endymion books who try to build huge planet, even solar system size plantlive throughout the whole universe.)

That last thingie might be hard to represent but fungi and insects and some weirds whatevers might be good if you fit a decent bunch of ranged weapons into the picture.

[Aezeal]

It might be better if you choose one of the 2 races to work on.

What I've found about the necromorphs in dead space is that they are some sort of alien (no idea how they look) that go inside a corpse and then they and the corpse morph into some sort of freaky looking zombie (all different sorts)

if we know how the primary creature should look like we could easily create a send form (which would then be your pics)

do they use weapons or is it all melee?

Too me there isn't enough known to start creating a nation out of this atm.
What unit should there be?
how about commanders?
do you just buy each of the creatures or do you summon them?

basicly: tell me more :D

[Panpiper]

It may well be that I am missing something as I am not the best of players and I have never really played R'lyeh before, but in this mod I am having utterly no success with them versus independents. Jomon and Ulm are both relative cake walks for me, buy lots of ranged firepower, stand off and blast. With R'lyeh this does not work. Trying to play the hand to hand game gives even worse results. I've tried spending as many as ten turns building up prior to attacking an independent and still get my face handed to me. (I should mention that I always set independents to maximum strength.)

Is there a trick that I am missing or is R'lyeh simply weaker than the other two races?

[Aezeal]

hmm I turned the indies down a bit, I don't know if the indie setting still matters since I handplaced them all in the provinces

In my test games I didn't have too much trouble with the indies though.. especially the ones with few troops (the fish) are immobilized fast.

I usually try a screen of chaff and then depending on what I'm facing either mutants or illithid (since most troops are higher size so less on a square I think I'll lower muntant price since they are relatively less effective)

it sort of worked then.

I didn't figure r'lyeh would be that weak.. teh same illithid that work pretty well in base game are now even cheaper and there are larger and less indie troops.. so I'd figure that would help them actually.

I'll lower the mutant cost though.
PS do you ahve the latest version? 1-2 versions ago I lowerd MR a bit on some indies which should help mindblasting

PS there is a #end missing so the weapon of the jomon militia is strange, this is changed already for the next patch
also there will be a new indie type then.
as I said next version will also have shield with a parry value which will lower effectiveness for ranged combat.. sadly most indies don't have shields since they have no tech except the pirates and they need to be clearly weaker than ulm so have no shield either....
I need to think of something for that .. though indies being weak isn't that much of a problem

[Nikelaos]

It might be better if you choose one of the 2 races to work on.

What I've found about the necromorphs in dead space is that they are some sort of alien (no idea how they look) that go inside a corpse and then they and the corpse morph into some sort of freaky looking zombie (all different sorts)

if we know how the primary creature should look like we could easily create a send form (which would then be your pics)

do they use weapons or is it all melee?

Too me there isn't enough known to start creating a nation out of this atm.
What unit should there be?
how about commanders?
do you just buy each of the creatures or do you summon them?

basicly: tell me more :D


well i think it should work pretty much exactly like LA ermor, we could swap the variety of freespawn chaff with my chaff units which i have based on the mutilated corpses you see in dead space, the odd mound king that freespawns can be replaced by a beefier walking mutant corpse and then the remaining summoned commanders and troops can be formed from a mix of dead space, the necrons from warhammer, LA agartha's Ktonian dead and perhaps some other things we think of before and possibly after i complete the sprites for what we already have.

i'll get to work on the countless chaff sprites we'll need and this should give us some time to think of something if we need to add more on.

also i should espect most of the chaff will be melee but with the prospect of us changing space into something other than sea so we can have a sorta no gravity all round flying effect on all critters in space, melee shouldn't be much of a disadvantage. However we could probably add in some ranged attack summons if not have any as freespawn.

[Aezeal]

hmm let's not mix the necrons in this since we'll already have a crapload of sprites etc.. If I have some extra time I might just create another nation for the necrons (I've been looking into them and there is more than enough there for a nice nation)

Have you checked if the replacing of the original chaff can be done?
I think that if you just use the weapons from those sprites I send you for higher troops you can use those as ranged troops. (so the most common free chaff will be weaponless zombies, the medium ones will have melee weapons (the chainsword thingie) and then ones with blasters like Ulm has.
Everything stronger than that will be a summon. This nation looks bloody so we could make it a blood/death nation instead of just death.

PS a think about sprites. make the sprite sizes 16-32-64-128 and not just random and make the background true black (0.0.0) since that is what dominions seems to use (black in creatures should be a bit off like (30.30.30)

(Necrons would be earth/death)

[Panpiper]

I do have the latest version, yes.

I expect part of my problem is that I tend to resist the use of 'chaff' as I do not like having resources 'expended'. I would rather come up with a strategy that preserves investments so that my strength is always building. It would seem that this strategy simply does not work with R'lyeh. Without investing resources in sacrificial chaff each turn, R'lyeh has no way to keep the trolls off it's ranged troops as they simply don't die fast enough. My worry is that anything I have ever seen in hand to hand with those trolls dies so fast, I don't see how any chaff will be anything more than a speed bump. I'll try again.

By the way, I have gotten very confused with the names of the two maps. I expect that is partly because the 'Galaxy at War.map' uses the 'spacemap.rgb'. Anyway, all map feedback I've given was feedback on the 'solar system map'. Hence; Adjacent orbital spaces on 'solar system map'; 31 & 17, still don't connect.

[Aezeal]

Ehm well you have those trolls available yourself you know :D
your chaff isn't exactly weak. And the Illithid don't kill that fast.. they PARALYZE.. paralyzed troops are very very very very vulerable.. IF someone is dealing damage that is so you need melee troops

and I thought I'd fixed that link but I'll look again (well the command wasn;t there but it is now.. I'll upload it with next patch)

[Panpiper]

I retried R''lyeh and recruited equal numbers of trolls along with the mindblast units and I have met with much more success. I have lost trolls which then need to be replaced and I still need some time to build up, but it's nowhere near as bad as my previous attempts.

A celebrant of the faith has appeared preaching justice and bringing with him no less that 49 Oni Dragons. Needless to say my victory is now assured. ;-)

Er...

Also, there is a recruitable troop, not commander, in many of the space territories that seems to use an Oni Dragon silhouette as a graphic and has some pretty weird stats. See attached screen caps.

[Aezeal]

That celebrant of the faith business... well.. no clue what to do about it really..

the dragon oni is newly created, not a modded creature and it's unit number is way out of range of normal units.

The scout thing was due to unit number being 100 off (and luckily there are still creatures of this mod there :))

Thx for the info and that is fixed now

[Nikelaos]

Have you checked if the replacing of the original chaff can be done?


In that email to me you said it could be done by using the same unit number or something, except in that email we were thinking of pangea to be the nation to replace and have my big bloody corpses take the place of the big leafy carrion beasts if i remember rightly.

[Aezeal]

I said I thought it could be done.. asking pplz here might be an idea :D

we'd need to know which troops (numbers) are the ones that you get as free spawn (and which ones with temples, and castles and castles and temples...

there is a way to find the unit number of troops ... if you can look that up and then look which troops ermor get then I THINK I could change them.

I'm a bit busy with the rest so if you could look that up for this nation while making the sprites then I can mod it later :D

[Nikelaos]

okay then, but would you mind making a thread to ask if we can do that, i would but my explanation for what we are trying to do seems a bit 'not enough' for me cause i'm not sure entirely how you said it may be done.

little bit confuzled.

but i'm fine looking up which troops ermor gets and then making a new sprite for each.

[Aezeal]

wait wait, we can't do that .. if we change all free spawn then we'll change the regular skeletons etc etc too.. it'll mess up death magic incredibly.

Untill we find a way round this or redesign the whole race idea you'd better put it on a hold and start with that semi-pangaea insectoid idea

There IS an insectoid mod somewhere.. I never played it but heard about it.. might be worth checking out.

[Nikelaos]

hmm you raise a fine point, maybe if we do ermor on pangeas number thing (so replace carrion beasts and manikins with my corpses) then we could atleast have a uniquereanimate command which reanimates our undead instead of the bog standard skellies and zombies, this was the initial plan anyway wasn't it?.

Pangea ofcourse would then have to go under another nations number thing but that works fine because i didn't wan't them to retain the manikin/carrion beast reanimating abilities anyway.

[Aezeal]

hmm then we'd loose the mannikins.. less of a problem.. but really we could just make them all regular summons, domsummons, makecreatures etc etc
there are quite alot of ways to get creatures without paying for them :D

I myself was kinda thinking about some orc/goblin race..where you don't need to pay for most troops since they are warlike bastards anyway wo flock to leaders to fight.. so mostly commanders to buy and then they can create their troops in a number of ways. Some spaceships would have to be bought maybe or summoned with magic. --> you could do the same thing with your race

Since you seem to prefer working on ermor above pangaea it might be best if you figure out some sort of structure for this: like which commander produces what etc etc

[llamabeast]

Unfortunately I can't seem to run this mod, because there are at least several upper case/lower case filename inconsistencies. e.g. a sprite may be listed as Ma_Rlyeh_icon.tga, but actually be called ma_Rlyeh_icon.tga, and so on. On Windows this makes no difference, but on Linux it's a killer.

Also, I think the idea of using forests for space (or vice versa) is genius. That should get over most of your problems and add a lot of potential for interesting things.

You should bear in mind that most things move slowly through forests, and forest survival is a skill things can have. Maybe forest should be the planet surface, and forest survival represents the ability to move rapidly over planet surfaces?

[Panpiper]

Unfortunately I can't seem to run this mod, because there are at least several upper case/lower case filename inconsistencies. e.g. a sprite may be listed as Ma_Rlyeh_icon.tga, but actually be called ma_Rlyeh_icon.tga, and so on. On Windows this makes no difference, but on Linux it's a killer.

Ouch! Lower case everything, always! This is a law! ;-)

[Aezeal]

ehm I admit I never paid much attention to upper and lower case filenames.. never mattered, never knew either.. but I want llama to judge my mod dammit.

Is there a way to make all letters in a tekst file lower case (then I could manually edit all the sprite names.)

Anyway what I wanted to post: I put the forest form in.
I think I'll give all units #forestsurvival by replacing "#spr1" with "#forestsurvival #spr1" it will mess up my tidy mod (getting a lil less tidy already now my nations needed lots of extra forms and I needed to be creative with unitnumbers) a bit but whatever, troops do need to move through space fast.

I'm just thinking that making a land forest + mountain could represent a meteorfield/astroid belt which slows movement :D

forget that I think I got most cases right now.. I'm posting the next version anyway so then llama cn maybe tell me if it works for him then

[Nikelaos]

thought i should let you know aezeal, i'm at school again so sprite production will slow, busy busy busy.

[rdonj]

Not sure where you would like this sort of feedback so you get it here for the moment.

Bugs: I found a bug with jomon where sometimes enemies will become paralyzed at range when you shoot at them. I haven't tested exactly why, but it happens frequently and I'm pretty sure it's the Jomon Defenders doing it. Probably somehow related to the paralyze damage on their lightsabers.

The pirate space stations have a dual heavy blaster attack with only one shot. Since every other dual blaster attack in the game fires twice, I'm pretty sure that was unintentional.

Another one I'm not quite sure if it's a bug, but I played a game as ulm, one as jomon and one as r'lyeh (all on the solar system map) and in every game I encountered at least one independant province with 20+ guardians, most of them being oni dragons. Having oni dragon defenders in such numbers is a bit excessive. I've also run into a few provinces with normal independants such as heavy cavalry and crossbowmen.




Things I'm not quite sure are bugs but bug me: R'lyeh's Nautiloids are cheaper than Ulm's capital ships and are also better both offensively and defensively?

Ulm's capital ships are incredibly expensive and not really worth buying. They're really vulnerable to Jomon's AN guns and R'yleh's mindblasting, and have barely more offense than ulm's fighters do. They also have less protection than a black knight, which seems very strange. Suggestions for improvement- More guns. Possibly aoe weapons. Health similar to the nautiloid. Magic resistance for things like the capital ship and space stations should increase a lot too, because theoretically there are a lot of people on board and it should be harder to paralyze an entire ship of people than it is right now. I would suggest somewhere between 18 and 22 MR. The gold cost can increase if it gets strong enough, but right now they're really underpowered.

Pirate space stations are even worse off. Space eels are far more deadly against ulm and jomon. Neither is worth much against r'leyh due to mind blast spam.

Tasers are pretty much the best melee weapons (except for light sabers which do as much damage but with aoe paralysis). Since it's incredibly hard for melee troops to get to melee, pretty much the only things that can get there are monsters like the space eel or the oni dragon. And they have so much prot that tasers do as much or more damage as anything else. Making Ulmish Space Marines probably the most efficient melee troops in the galaxy, and some of the most effective.

Ulm can't really fight oni dragons in the numbers that Jomon can make them if they really want to. If you want I can show you a turn file where I attacked a swarm of them in early year 3, I killed one and the only enemy commander on the field in two turns, losing almost 60 space marines and planet guard in the process. With an army of 60 planet guard, 20 personal artillery marines, 7 space fighters and 155 space marines. Anyway, my conclusion is that Oni Dragons are too strong, too massable, too fast and too incredibly easy to research to be fair early on, as Jomon is the only one who could really hope to stop large oni dragon assaults anyway. For some reason they do a terrible job on space eels though. I had the oni dragon pretender with 35 strength and 300+ health lose to one and almost get killed.



Ideas: Ulm's transports, I assume, are meant for transporting troops. They have strategic move 3 and fly, and carry something like 80 men. But the only troops that actually benefit from this are the blood knights. What if you gave ALL ulmish troops three strategic move and flying, but left commanders how they are so you can only fly on the strategic map when on a spaceship? You might have to lower the ap of most of ulm's troops to not let them fly in battles, but it's not like they really need to be able to move that fast anyway as they're going to spend most of their time shooting. You could leave the planetary guards with 1 mapmove and no flying so they can't be flown around to keep them thematically as defensive troops.

I don't really like that some troops (and ulm's transport) use fists for melee weapons. The troops should at least get combat knives or something, and giving the transport a single ship blaster wouldn't be a big deal.

It would be nice if there was some kind of projectile art for the guns because if you want to see what happens in a battle you pretty much have to watch it twice to see what happened when.

[Aezeal]

rdonj: this sort of posts are exactly what I need.

Bugs: I found a bug with jomon where sometimes enemies will become paralyzed at range when you shoot at them. I haven't tested exactly why, but it happens frequently and I'm pretty sure it's the Jomon Defenders doing it. Probably somehow related to the paralyze damage on their lightsabers.

I knew about this one and I've fixed it already (it was the missing #end I was talking about. If it remains after next patch let me know.

The pirate space stations have a dual heavy blaster attack with only one shot. Since every other dual blaster attack in the game fires twice, I'm pretty sure that was unintentional.
I'll look into this when I'm behind my own comp tomorrow

all the balance things
Lot of good suggestions, I've just started giving prices and not really comparing them yet your points will be a good start. Never noticed the taser being that good yet so I'll lower their damage I think (I kinda like the AN idea)

On Onidragons: did you get them that easily that early? I thought they where pretty high research and cost. I'll increase it all I guess.

The transport where intended to transport troops but I don't think the idea that started it can work anymore (carry other troops) on the otherhand I think I'll lower the GC a lot leaving only some resource cost so it will be a cheap leader. All spaceforms get mapmove 3 though so armies will move through space (forest really) fast.

I thought most troops had a weapon (often taser) except one of the mages which I really think doesn't need a weapon.. which other ones miss weapons?
I'll look into the transport I guess I'll give it a tractorbeam too :D (I don't think you've seen them yet though since they are new.)

projectile art.. which one would fit do you think?

GREAT POST, I need more of those.. keep it coming.

PS could you give me a prov number on which prov has the oni-dragons and the normal independants?

[rdonj]

In the version I downloaded yesterday, summon oni dragon was conjuration 1 and costed 4 death per dragon.

Personal Artillery Marines, Ulmish Planetary Guardsmen, Chief-Engineers, Navigators, and Jomon's University Professors all have no melee weapon. Strangely, Jomon's defenders have fist weapons as well as their lightsabers. I have the feeling that probably went away when you changed the #end on their light sabers though. Oh, also Dai Oni have javelins, that's a little weird. The taser is, for the record, so good because even ulm's 25 ap ranged weapons on the artillery marines do less damage per hit than one taser in melee to a space eel.

Definitely haven't seen the tractor beam yet. That could be cool.

I don't really know what kind of projectile art would be good. It's definitely hard to come up with something that would make sense for this game. If you were using bullets it would be easy to say to go for sling stones for the moment. You can't mod projectile art, can you? 'cause if you're envisioning the blasters being star wars-esque you could almost get away with making the shots smaller versions of the fire shot jomon uses.

It was a few turns ago in my game that I last fought dom3 independants so I don't know, but I think it's semi-random because in my ulmish game I had oni dragons in a territory that my jomon game has blue aliens in. I'll go compare maps a sec.

The following provinces have Oni Dragon PD in one or both games: 13 (oni dragons and space trolls in one game, blue aliens and space trolls in the other), 22 (oni dragons, thralls, vampires, space pirates, space station, vampire count), and 1 (heavy infantry, light infantry, crossbowman, space station). There could be more since I haven't explored the whole map in either. I saw a few provinces that had no independants as well, one of which I believe was that planet with every terrain type, connected to the center province of that large planet on the bottom. Also in my game as ulm it seems r'lyeh somehow managed to acquire upwards of 40 oni dragons, though I'm quite certain they don't have the spell to summon them. Screenshot attached, if not pretty.


Edit: Okay that screenshot doesn't really help. But if you look really closely you can see what appears to be the very top of the r'lyeh banner's star above the heads of the dragons.

[rdonj]

Oh. Also, if you do change shield parry values they will start working in melee too, so keep that in mind. And needlers may want to change to AN damage, 1 AP damage isn't really enough to hurt anything (this only affects ulm's med-priests).

I think you're eventually going to have to make the entire magic system over, there are too many things, summons especially, that are going to be all out of balance in this mod. Like summoning longdeads on the battlefield, they're going to be completely useless without 20+ mages summoning them....

[rdonj]

There actually apparently is an invisible flysprite that doesn't hit instantly according to the database. That's 149. The arrow shaped fiery missile sounds promising too, number 426.

[Aezeal]

I don't know why there are oni dragons in those provinces the code for the map doesn't put them there.. someone said that he got a celebrant fo the faith with dragons though.. strange and I don't get it but that could explain something.

You have a version where teh oni dragon is still at test costs.. it will be much harder to get :D

If magic isn't balanced then that isn't my problem atm.. just don't use weak spells :D

Ok that twin ship blasters now has nratt 2
The transport already had a tractorbeam (great idea I had)
Prices have been changed, Ulm capitol ship a bit improved
I think most troops that have fists need to have them (mostly those mages) the artillery has their hands fill with their cannon and can't wield melee weapons, just drop the cannon and his, same for mages
Ulm defenders do need a weapon I think so they now have a combat knive on the ground, in space they don't get another weapon.
I lowered taser damage by 1 but you hardest point for them is the use against space eels and that is just one troop... against normal troops I don't think they are that much overpowered.
Trying to get rid of the Javelin for the dai-oni, but the best way to get rid fo copied weapons is unknown to me.. I changed it a bit and we'll see what happens now
used the flysprite you suggested and one for artillery
changed MR on large ships

AND with these changed I'm releasing v 0.5!!!!

[rdonj]

Did you by chance base the oni dragon off of another unit, such as a type of militia? Because all the times they've cropped up its been in a place where you might normally see them. If you did, maybe if you just created the unit from scratch the problem would go away. That being said, it sounds like you did copy the dai oni and then change his sprite and so on. If you made a completely new unit instead it should let you do it without the javelin. For the record, I also was doing a quick test game of a normal nation with your mod on and found oni dragons defending provinces. Not sure that proves anything though.

Yeah, tasers aren't really overpowered on some things, they just have some idiosyncracies.

It would also be really convenient if all the different nations had different-colored score graphs to make it easier to tell them apart :)

[Aezeal]

nope nope didn't base it on anything created from scratch.. if it keeps popping up I'll change the unit number next version. The Dai Oni is copied as is the ao oni.. but not the dragon. The spirit from (and of the otehr oni too) are copystat.

Anyway try the new mod, also DL the updated map

[rdonj]

Playing now. Couldn't really play earlier. I'm only a few turns in but a few things I noticed.

1) The spider indy text says they're supposed to be commandable only by magic beings but they aren't magic creatures.

2) Wow shields. Either their protection is too high or the parry needs to come down. I had a shoot out with some pirate raiders... for about 10 turns we exchanged fire and I only even hurt them twice, while they failed to damage my jomon defenders (who do seem to be working properly now and have a much more enjoyable attack). I think it would be fine if just the parry went down... to something like 2 for ion shields and 3 for plasma shields. Anyway, I shall continue.

[Aezeal]

hmm somehow the pirates have the strongest shields.. I changed that... I'll lower parry too

I'll reupload 0.5 in a few min so you can test/play it better

[Sombre]

Would you like to post up some screenshots or previews of this mod? I think it would encourage people to try it.

[Aezeal]

well sprites are not the strongest point of the mod really :D but I'll try.. lots of work though for all the nations :S

have you tried it already Sombre?

[Aezeal]

previes in first post now

[rdonj]

The combat system is feeling much better now. I'm much happier with ulm's capital ships and how they compare to the nautiloid. I still don't know that they have enough firepower to be cost effective unequipped but they could be turned into fairly decent SC's with a few items. Transports still have fist weapons though. Meh. Plasma shields still might be a little tiny bit too good, but it's not that bad. I'm finding a lot less normal independants since you added the new varieties, but they still crop up here and there.

I think Ice Samurai battlesuits might be a bit too strong vs ulm, but that's debatable. They're almost invulnerable to small arms fire, but you can kill them in melee so it's not so bad. They just do a lot of damage before they die.

One thing you probably should change though is the spider independants. They have too many varieties of spiders with the web spit ability. You should remove it from all of them except maybe the netter spiders, but leave the melee web. I've had enough spiders get to me that they could start killing my troops, but then they all stand back and shoot webs at me... so that would help them a bit.

Also I had an idea for a spell. What do you think of something like a "combat drill" spell, that summons some immobile enemies with no ranged attack that attack a province. And maybe there could be a higher level one like a "live fire combat drill" that summons enemies armed with laser pistols. Just to give you a little more flexibility with how you use your troops. It would really help personal artillery marines, anyway, because they're not that good against space monsters (too many friendly casualties) but almost necessary against jomon. I'm not entirely sure if you can do it though. It was just a thought.

I'm also thinking of making a mod race of my own to go with it. I have absolutely no graphics-making skills so if I do make it I'm going to borrow some of your ulmish sprites as placeholders.

Edit: Yeah, ice samurai battlesuits are fine. However, ulmish personal artillery marines losing their heavy weapons and having them replaced with space blasters is frustrating. Could they be given some kind of space heavy weapons instead?

[Aezeal]

Rdonj good points you have

I already feared the ice suits might be too powerfull (but I feared they would be too strong in melee since they have 2 attacks and paralyse (don't you mean the lightning suits?))

Getting rid of fists a great problem for me and I don't know the solution yet.. I'll just keep adjusting stuff. Same goes for the spiders, the netters are the only ones supposed to have the net but getting rid of it after copy statting a spider isn't that easy it seems.

And the artillery can't get heavy space weapons :D find other ways.. buy more space craft whatever :D Ulm isn't supposed to be a very strong space nation :D They'll get a tank though.. which is even less usefull in space :D

I'll think about those spells you mentioned and see what I can do..
drop pods or something

[rdonj]

The Ice Battle Suits are supposed to have 2 attacks? I only see them as having one. Different version maybe. The Ice Battle Suits are really strong in melee and definitely kill their share even in small numbers, but you can gang up on them if they're in anything like reasonable numbers and bring them down, which I don't have too much of a problem with. And it helps that their attack skill is still fairly low. If you just massed them I don't know, that could be pretty hard to deal with. I'll try massing them and lightning suits in my next game with them. What was giving me doubts was not using anything stronger than ap 11 on them at range :P Bringing in fighters and personal artillery marines to kill them helped enough to convince me that they're not too overpowered against ranged attacks.

Lightning Samurai Battle Suits are really strong too. If you use them in small numbers it's not too unreasonable because you still get lots of misses, but if you used them in large numbers it almost certainly changes. But the lightning cannons do shock damage, so in a way, if you look at it right now even if they are overpowered (they probably do need to cost more in gold and or resources anyway if they stay the way they are. I think it might be better though to just give them really high ap and leave an to large ships so you can't mass it) jomon gets a lot weaker if you can get to midgame and bring out lightning/fire resistance. If that wasn't the case I would probably have to say that all their battlesuits are overpowered, because the fire ones do a huge amount of damage for their cost too.

[rdonj]

Okay, further testing leads me to believe the ice battle suits may be slightly overpowered but it's not really a big deal. Lightning battle suits are a bit more iffy because 20 an is a lot, but it is mitigated somewhat by the relatively limited number of them you can have in one province. An Ulmish player could probably take on a jomon player reasonably well as long as the jomon player didn't have food items, but with them it would look pretty bleak. R'lyeh would need some really powerful magic backing them up not to get torn up by a jomon player it seems. I am slightly surprised though that battle suits are size 4, I'm pretty sure fighters are size 3 and I wouldn't have thought the battle suits would be bigger.

Anyway, I would either lower the damage 5-10 points or raise it 10 or more points and make it ap instead. Another option could be to make them fire once every two turns. But if you did any of those I would consider making them smaller because their supply costs rack up fast. If you don't change their size you might want to give battle suits a siege bonus because it takes forever to get through city walls with size 4 creatures without huge strength without diseasing yourself horribly. You should probably look at this more yourself, I'm not entirely sure if there's a major imbalance here, it does seem like there's potential though.

By the way, one of the floating predator alien cages has mod commands in its description. And because they're useless in space it might be good to make them not have ap in forests.

[Aezeal]

Rdonj:
I think I'll give them a lower damage AN attack, they now have the big lightning cannon some ships have and that might be a bit too much.
I'll increase the gc a bit (5 each) too if you say it's all suits are bit overpowered.
I've changed size of all fighters to 4, suits should indeed be considered bigger than fighters but fighters aren't 5 and suits aren't 3.. so they should both be 4 I guess :D

I'll leave siegebonusses for suits out for the moment, guess Jomon just sucks at sieging :D.

[rdonj]

Those changes sound pretty good to me. Now you just need to see if anyone disagrees with me, I hear entirely too much of myself talking these last few pages.

[Aezeal]

hehe well if others don't give feedback then I''m listening to you.. I'm not playing the mod myself since I'm putting most time in getting sprites or typing more for the mod. I only load a game when I really need to see if something works and then I look at things that have been said a bit :D

It would be nice if we could get a MP game going, that would be a real test. If you can find 2 more players we could load a game for you on llama's server, I doubt that will be a problem.. wouldn't even have to play the whole game just starting with first 20-30 turns or something..

[rdonj]

I don't know, might be nice to have one or two more nations first. Seems a bit much for just 3 nations. I might try to get someone to hotseat me soon though.

[rdonj]

Oh well, a few more things.

1) I still don't feel like ulm's capships have enough offensive oomph. The problem is, with the really high shield prot even heavy ship blasters barely qualify as heavy weapons. So most times when you shoot at a shielded opponent, you don't do anything. And most of the time you don't kill things even when you do hit them, so really all the ships provide for you is a big tough block of health. Which isn't bad in and of itself, but you can't really equip them with anything to make them better at killing and that's a lot of resources to not be doing any killing. In vague relation to this, I think making ship artillery fire once every turn wouldn't be unreasonable, because it's not really that strong for how rare it is in the game.

2) On the other hand, there's not a whole lot jomon can do to kill a ship that's immune to fire, immune to lightning, has an air shield, and is lucky. Unfortunately repair droids don't work yet so I couldn't mess with that. Ice battle suits are about it, as the ships are pretty helpless in melee.

3) For some reason after firing at each other for a while it seems as though even if they still have shots left, everything gets tired of it and runs into melee. In my last battle this happened on turn 11 or 12. I've had this happen a bit before and didn't think to mention it. Oops. But somehow I don't think you can fix it... I think it's an issue with dom3 itself.

P.S. Tractor beams work nicely :)

[otthegreat]

I just started a game with this mod so I don't have a lot to say but I'll put it down before I forget.

I fought spiders on a planet with forest terrain. It was kind of funny to fight a space battle on a planet. Was it a mistake to make province 28 (solar system map) a forest?

Also I believe rdonj has already mentioned this but there are still some provinces defended by dom 3 independants. One province, 48, has recruitable elephants and heavy infantry.

Should I assume attack sprites for space kraken will be forthcoming? ;)

That's all for now. Its a lot of fun so keep up the good work!

[Aezeal]

UPDATE: NEW ORC NATION IS OUT

the nation uses only a few sprites as of yet but is fully playable.
Please try it!!!

The orcs are a race that look up to powerfull leaders, all orcs aspire to be a great warrior but only a few have what it takes. Once a great leader emerges the other orcs flock to his side to war against the rest of the galaxy.

No recruitable troops, only 3 recruitable aspiring commanders who can (and probably will) evolve in powerfull leaders of the orc race. Troops will find the powerfull leaders to lead them to war. Other powerfull orcish commanders can be bribed to join the army with the valuable and holy green gems (of nature) if summoned by intervention of powerfull mages.

[rdonj]

[QUOTE=otthegreat;636901]Also I believe rdonj has already mentioned this but there are still some provinces defended by dom 3 independants. One province, 48, has recruitable elephants and heavy infantry.Should I assume attack sprites for space kraken will be forthcoming? ;)QUOTE]


In regards to this, I believe that all provinces with predator independants have recruitment lists of heavy infantry, elephants, and slingers. To be extra precise I will provide unit numbers.

Elephants - 150
Heavy Infantry - 38
Slingers - 50
In every province I took over that I remember having the predators in them, those three exact monsters show up.

Will try out the orcs now.

[rdonj]

Aezeal, one of your #onebattlespell commands isn't working, I keep getting nagot gick fel.

[rdonj]

got another one, can't open ork brute 1.tga (I removed all the #onebattlespells so I could play)

[Aezeal]

Some provinces (the ones used as start province will not have regular defenders.. but they should really be empty, not have dom 3 defenders.

The last one battle spell I put in is the fanatism on the warmonger.. now you say it I recall I didn't play a test game after putting him in. I'll remove that since I recall someone else said there was a problem with holy onebattlespells.. I'll find something else.

The orc brute thingie is probably a small error on my part.. not that easy to test since they arrive very rarely. (domsummon 20) I can DL it here and I'll change it right away :D --> correction no I can't no zip on works computers..

I'll look into the recruiting list for indies on the predator provinces.

[Aezeal]

changed those things.. remember for the wrong indies you need to reDL the map file

[rdonj]

I can't play the new version yet, I'm playing a hotseat game vs someone.

I don't suppose you fixed the problem I'm having with province 1 on accident... in that hotseat game and another one I just started it was my starting province and I get no starting army, troops or commanders. Including my God. Bleh.

[Aezeal]

hmm no didn't change that .. no idea what causes that either

[Aezeal]

I'd like feedback on the orcs.. I didn't want them to float in cash so I gave a lot of commanders 2 incunrest but I think it's a bit much when I'm playing now :D next version will have lower incunrest and only for those that are "leaders" (not mages etc) And I lowered the gc (and thus upkeep for some commanders)

The most basic troops don't have upkeep though and only the specialized troops ahve upkeep

[Aezeal]

Anymore balance stuff I need to know about? I'm coming with a new version soon (including insects) and more balance stuff could be included.

rdonj?? maybe something from your game?

[rdonj]

I haven't been able to play the orks yet. I'll probably try them out when you release the next version.

[Aezeal]

I know but any issues with the already existing nations.. or suggestions for balancing?

[rdonj]

Oh. No, not really at the moment. Just when it was starting to get good my game stopped :P So I don't really have much to add.

[Aezeal]

Ok 0.6 coming up with insects included

a few days ago I wanted to change something but I forgot what it was.. let me know if things need changing :D it might be what I missed.

Orc and Insect will be hard to balance with the rest but let me know how they are now.
Orcs should be better playable than last version. Insects already where balanced by Amos somewhat I beefed them up a bit with a lil higher armor and some AP attacks on different units.

Most insects are next to useless in space, I wonder how that will work out.

[rdonj]

Well... the first thing I noticed is that the insects aren't available as a playable nation. I was going to test the orks first anyway, but that is a little extra incentive.

[Aezeal]

lol ok forgot to mod that part in.. I'll update the files in a few sec

[Amos]

I think the "Commonwealth" mod might be a good fit for this mod. Starships are included.

[Aezeal]

hmm I'll look into it more nations that are ready for action are always nice :D

I'd like some feedback on the current nations though.. rdonj has done a great job on the first 3 nations but orcs and insects need at least some balancing and more views on balance are always good.

Amos your feedback would be appreciated too :D

[rdonj]

Seem like bugs:
1) After the Ork Heroes enter space they turn into a fighter form and don't turn back on planets.
2) The starting army includes 10 Ork Heroes as troops?
3) Ork Heroes seem to serve no purpose in the initial form, except if you wanted them to not be producing units for some reason. They get stronger and can lead more troops so I don't understand why the first form is there.
4) The other two commanders are the same way, their initial form doesn't seem to do anything that their second form doesn't do better.
5) You also get veterans as troops sometimes, I thought they were commanders?

The Ork's magic seems really limited, only being able to get earth 1 on its national commanders and needing lots of nature combined with other paths to summon things.

I'm pretty sure they produce too fast, the price of the commanders isn't very limiting so it's fairly easy to get a huge number of troops every month really early in the game.

[Aezeal]

1/ will be changed

2/ rdonj I changed nr 2 already, with the update that does include insects

3/ the purpose is to be able to buy them for a price while after changing they have a higher upkeep price.. it also shows all heros begin as just strong warriors :D, WAD, not a bug if I ever need a scout I could make this one a scout though but I'm against it for now.

4/ same for these :D, WAD, not a bug

5/ you have a veteran boss (commander) and veteran troops (mostly summoned by commander but also rare domsummons by other ones.

on the other comments
--> there must be more than earth 1 in there I think, the orc crafter has earth 2 and there is a summon (bigger builder) that has E3 he's also needed for bigger ships

They aren't that expensive that is true but the unrest they create was crippling my econ when it was a previous level (negative income in like 10 turns.) Their higher upkeep cost should limit the cash you have somewhat.. if not then I can always change prices of the bosses. the better units also have upkeep (the basic ones don't)

Also you can only create one per castle.. so you'd need more castles first to mass produce them and you need to buy mages for research too. (who can't research if they build big ships.)

DL the mod again in 5 min and see if it's better plz :D

[rdonj]

Well, after realizing that my crafters only had 1 earth and I really couldn't do anything with that I just started mass producing commanders.... And with just the commanders I didn't really have any trouble building more forts, at the moment I'm in year 3 and can produce a commander from 4 forts every turn. Also because it really doesn't matter where you build your forts you can build them in places that don't generate much money and put all your commanders who are summoning into one or two low income provinces and it makes your unrest not hurt that much. I took a quick look at my unrest levels and I would guess I'm not losing more than 140 gold a turn off of unrest. Patrolling helps too.

I didn't realize about 5, that's cool then.

The main reason I don't like the ork heroes having to change shape to summon troops is because it's really hard remembering the names of all the ones I've already changed, so I had to start renaming them so I'd know who was who. It's just a bit of micromanagement frustration.

I also noted while fighting jomon that the Dai Oni attack sprite creates a giant black block on top of the Oni. And then I realized how insanely good Jomon's PD is, with evenish numbers of fire battle suits and defenders, wow. I'm way too strong to be killed in this game, but low ork morale, lack of ability to hit ice battle suits and rather large amounts of money spent on really nasty PD might make it impossible for me to actually win.

[Aezeal]

hehehe might need to tone Jomon PD down then.. on the other hand.. what you post sounds like those 2 nations are sort of balanced :D

Orcs are meant to use large numbers of somewhat chaff (orcs aren't really that chaffy.. but in space they should have some more problems right? They get fewer spacecraft at least and the ones they get arent that good.

4 castles at the end of year 3 doesn't sound that dramatic but that indeed means you get a lot of troopers in the end. Will be hard to finetune though, probably impossible.. I think giving the troop producing heros even larger costs will be the only way, or more unrest :D or both :D

[Aezeal]

I've done more unrest, more upkeep and higher build cost.. so next patch will make orcs quite a bit harder too play.

[rdonj]

Yeah, they're fairly weak in space. Then again, Jomon is pretty much the only nation not weak in space. I think if I had access to some of my summons I might be able to get through them, as it is though I don't have anything capable of tearing down those infernal ice battle suits with the orks. :fire:

Yeah, it doesn't really sound like that much, but it really adds up and I can make an army of 120 orcs every turn from one set of two castles. Largely it's an advantage in the early game, because you make troops so much faster than everyone else that they'd be very hard-pressed to stop a rush. Then again, rush nations will be rush nations.

I think the Orks will be more fair costing more, I will see when I play them. I'll play the insectoids today, I've played amos' mod before so I'm not sure how much different it will be.

[rdonj]

By the way, province 28 is a forest and is a planet province.

[rdonj]

I can't really say for sure about the balance of the insects. They destroy things in melee but get destroyed at range by just about anything that can shoot. Which basically means they're reasonably good on anyone except possibly ulm. I think they're pretty much okay. They have a bit of an issue with their commanders though, none of their commanders have any leadership in space, so if you lose a fight, you pretty much have to wait until your bugs get chased back to a planet to collect them. Also, the standard females have a very strange series of transformations when they enter space. First, they become scarabs. Then when they reach land again they transform into swarm mothers, and get locked into the swarm mother forms for the rest of their lives.

[Aezeal]

no leadership in space?? Nono you are mistaken.. the female is supposed to lead them in space.. and she has loads of leadership

and that last part.. ehm well my fault probably (I just found out I used a certain unit number a few times with different orc units too so some orc leaders have strange transformations too.)

I looked into it there was indeed something wrong with the scarabs and it might explain why this happened (the female actually had the correct commands though but the scarab wrong (female) plainshape command.. due to that some things might get like this.. hope it's better now, I'll repost again :D hope you don't mind doing a DL again :D

Now you should get females in space which remain superior leaders. Orcs should be better too.

The orcs are quite nerved so I wonder how they will do.. I think I must do something about the icesuits too I hear to much about them.. they are meant to be melee but maybe 2 attacks is a bit much or maybe just price them higher.. I'll start with changing price.. can be done more gradually than just removing 50% of the offence :D

Since Jomon is strong in space I think they should be weaker on land.. to start with the ice suit is 5 gp more and the PD is weakened (less of everything)

Ow orc have gotten some hero's but not ones that produce much troops.. (I was envisioning getting 3 heroes that summon troops the first 3 turns.. and then I removed most troop producing lines :D)

[Aezeal]

- Orc bugs solved
- Orc heroes implemented
- new sprite for the orc rager (though orcs still need more sprites)

[Amos]

Amos your feedback would be appreciated too

Sorry Aezeal, I would like to help but my girlfriend has severely limited my Dom playing. Thats why my mod is taking so long... I have to do it in secret :smirk:. Between work and my aforementioned girlfriend there isnt much time left for the gaming. Now shes dragging me into a fitness club trice a week :rolleyes:.

[Aezeal]

no use in modding if you don't play

to quote the lost boys in the movie Hook (I think)

"play"

[rdonj]

I had an idea for making jomon weaker on land. Because they look like gundams I couldn't help thinking of Gundam Seed and how the gundams were so fast and agile in space, but on earth they got slowed down a lot due to being in atmosphere, and also because they couldn't fly around all the time. Abstracting that, if you gave them a forest shape and lowered their normal defense a few ticks it would have a pretty similar effect.

The females definitely had lots of leadership but the scarabs and swarm mother space forms didn't have leadership, which is what messed it up. With that fixed they should be much easier to play. I'm not sure whether enough of their bugs are space-worthy enough to beat a determined player though, with only the hivers and infrequently spawning males able to fight in space. Will definitely have to arrange a game at some point.

[Aezeal]

infrequent spawning males??? I made the queens able to summon males too.. means you'll need more queens maybe but overall you should be able to create a lot of males.. and they are only makemonster2 atm.. I could increase that if I wanted (to 5 max)

this is in your version already, it's not a new thing.. I had this problem thought out myself and wanted options to get a good load of males in space :D

PS which hiver is able to go in space.. I though only the female and the male where able to go there...

[rdonj]

The Hivers called "Hiver" are the ones that can go into space. I guess they weren't intended to be in space then. Once I figured out that they could I didn't make any more normal queens, so I only had the primordia regina and one normal queen, plus a bunch of the hive queens.

The summon allies button summons males? I couldn't quite tell, I had too much happening at once. I guess that helps, though I am still not sure how well you'd do trying to fight over space with so few units. I guess you have the other things to provide some distraction, but it sounds iffy. And if you're making them, you're not researching, or blood hunting, or sacrificing, or making more females... that might be a bit much to give up for 2 males.

[Aezeal]

hmm true, I might implement the thingie mentioned in the insectoid thread, so the generate slaves automatically 3/turn or something and then let them kill pop. Till that day.. just make more queens.. TO make it up to you I'll have them make 4 males though.
The hiver space shape was there but the command to change to it wasn't thx for noticing. I might give the hive queens something which works in space too.

PS how do you compare the Soldier (Nest) to protector (Hive) as ranged attack units I guess the hive should still be stronger but previously the soldier didnt have that attack so might be I made the attack on the soldier too strong so the protector isn't that usefull anymore

[rdonj]

Personally I never used them as ranged units, because they're so incredibly effective at melee. But you don't terribly have to worry about them being too strong, 8 ap barely qualifies as a ranged attack in dom3k whereas the protectors have aoe poison... basically 3 or 4 an aoe damage, to just about anything. Actually I would suggest lowering the amount of those summoned, you don't need them in huge quantities to be effective, and they're quite strong at range.

I am not sure what corrosion does. Is that a break armor effect? If that's the case, then I could see it being useful as a ranged attack, but I would suggest lowering the ammo to 2 or maybe 3. That way you could use it without completely giving up their melee potential. Did you intend for the drones to not have AP attacks? They both have Insectoid Claw attacks but the drone's version doesn't pierce armor. That was a big reason for me to use the soldiers in melee instead of ranged. You also may or may not want to increase the ammo on the protector's ranged attack, as it has 5 shots.

[Aezeal]

The no AP attack on basic drones was intented ( I created the AP claw specifically for the other troops), they are just chaff IMHO.. if the race is balanced without the soldiers being good ranged troops then I'm not changing it.. the race doesn't need to have much ranged attack.

I have no direct clue what corrosion does to be honest.. I hope it breaks down armor though :D

PS if you put the Soldiers in the front line shooting they will end up in melee soon enough.

[Amos]

You may want to try my "Travelers" and "New Crobuzon" mods. Travelers have mecha like armor, while New Crobuzon uses steam armor and guns.

[Aezeal]

Hmm Well I guess travelers will still be different from my Jomon so I'll have a look at them later. I'll also look at New Crobuzon but that sounds more like 19th century than sci-fi :D.

I'm busy with Commonwealth now though so the rest will have to wait. Spend hours modding your old sprites into spaceforms (Once I knew what I wanted it went fast but that took me a while) Now I'm doing the code and I'll need to mod a lot (modding spaceforms is a pretty boring job, creating the units all together is nicer, but I'm not gonna just use your pics, must remain mostly your mod --> the idea and the stats are great anyway so nothing to gain anyway.)

Commonwealth will be ready soon I hope.

[Amos]

Good luck :)

[Aezeal]

hehe I'm sort of ready atm..

Commonwealth will be uploaded soon
it's the same as Amos version (clearly)
except for the following
- spaceform, with wings for most units but a shuttle for the 2 human sized mages.
- no simians
- one weakish (?) but AN ranged infantry unit
- also air magic for all mages (most randoms are now ASW) (to make clear for myself why there are lightning attacks)
- less astral magic (3) on the ship but 1 air added
- changed some weapons on the ships (made most stronger)
- lowered cost for nearly all spells
- increased costs for all commanders
- dyingdom, starting with a stronger terraformer (the Galactic Ice Citadel)
- added a new turret (lightning turret)
- wormhole now is S3 A1 (still castable by the ships and no other units (well maybe with VERY VERY lucky randoms, I'd have to check but I even doubt that)
- Frigate is recruitable
- there is a farsummon spell to create a few frigates, destroyers and a leading ship in a distant planet

[Aezeal]

ow and I gave them illwinter.. if you in some way get a Blood 5 mage and research it.. well then you may cast it :D

[JaghataiKhan]

A Sci-Fi dominions mod! HURRAH!

Ulmish troops are cute, btw... This mod has potential for epic-fantastic win.

Before leaving the friend's laptop I must add that I destroyed an entire army since the monsters were living in space barges but the territory was planetside.

[Aezeal]

hmmm most have been a forest province.. thought I had removed those from planets.. which province nr?

[JaghataiKhan]

Westernmost planet that looks like Uranus)and probably IS Uranus, top province. Also the southernmost Moon Wastes are strangely seperated in the middle, unreachable by land.

[JaghataiKhan]

Couldn't edit, so...

A Spider Queen turns into a Predator Queen when loaded and unloaded in a barge :)

[Aezeal]

which is a pretty neat trick.. but not the way it should be I'll edit that later (need sleep now)
The moon being divided in 2 is intentional (see the province names next to the barrier) to create 2 4 province start locations on a planet.

[JaghataiKhan]

How do I made Orkish strategy? What is the meaning of changing shape? It only seems to do positive things. Anyway, my tinkers are summoning ships, and heros started to attract brutes. Not too bad, You really made a good mod. Also, any mention of Commonwealth, its existence kills the game.

[Aezeal]

The meaning of changing shape is to show lowly warriors become the champions of their race.. it also lets you buy cheapish troops but let the shape which summons units be much more expensive in upkeep.

I'm happy you like the mod, keep playing and keep giving feedback, I've changed the predator/spider thingie (the regular predator also becomes a spider :D)

What is wrong with commonwealth?

[JaghataiKhan]

It says "Ice spear.tgp corrupt" or something and crashes the game. And no, reinstalling the mod for a fresh file for the weapon didn't work.

Also, please fix the moon territories, a few of them have elephants(though a space elephant sounds fun), one of them is always empty, and nerf the monstrous Jomon mechs that tear any target that can't jump on them like Ulmish vampire knights apart with their massive LAZORS. Make them untiring,few but still formidable, or make smaller, "Elemental Suit" from Mech-Warrior series, and please add more soldiers. Jomon is too bland.

As for R'lyeh, ever thought of making the Brains mobile? They already live in floating cities and we make them sit on orbit in huge Fluid tanks. Why not put engines and move them? Also, I doubt rlyeh would use the smaller blue aliens for slavery. Why not use always the biggest troll? You could take out the alien and put a genetically made mutant with random stats and skills, maybe a fruit of crossbreeding. Hey! Crossbreeding should be ready for Rlyeh and cost only stellar energy! These guys are scientists!

Insectoids' breeding requires slaves. You should put a "Hive" magic site that eagerly provides generous amount of slaves for breeding purposes. If Ulm has earth gems, why not blood for insectoids? Buff these guys up, they breed too slow and controlling them is too difficult. How do I conquered space?

[rdonj]

I got as far as opening the recruitment screen and got "cannot open ./mods/./Commonwealth/LightSpear1.tga".

Which of the mechs were you having trouble with? Was it just a specific kind or was it all of them? I'm not sure they should be untiring, because theoretically there's a human in there piloting it. If nothing else, adrenaline is going to take its toll on you eventually.... More soldiers would be good though, Jomon doesn't have a whole lot of variety as it is.

The only insectoid unit that can operate normally in space is the male, so you need to get up a good number of normal queens early on. Also, try using drones as your front line in space too, they're fairly hard to hurt as coccoons and it will keep more of your males alive. And remember that queens can summon males with the summon allies command.

[Aezeal]

Jomon has 3 mechs, a militia and 2 demons which are very good for blesses.. not much troops in total but they cover everything you can need I think.

I think he might mean lightning warriors.. they might be a bit good.. maybe I'll tone down their gun a bit.

Ah I see what was wrong, the light spear was still getting it's image from the original mod (which I also have so no problem for me) the rest is good I think.

I'll reupload the mod

Some provinces are empty, that is correct because those are possible start sites.. else they will become troops if someone starts there.. so I've got to leave them empty

I need some province numbers though
- which province has elephants
- which province has troops in barges on a planet

[JaghataiKhan]

Also, please add a blood source to Insectoid home planet.

[Aezeal]

hmm a small blood source maybe.. the nation worked without it for the regular game.. Maybe I should have queens create 1 slave / turn so you get some slaves even if they do other stuff?
I think the whole idea of amos was that there isn't a special site and I kinda like that.. or I could give them a douse bonus so they 'll be better hunters and have more turns to not hunt and do other things.

[rdonj]

I'm pretty sure he's talking about province 28. Also, I just thought I should mention Jomon's red oni don't seem to have a name.

[Amos]

Queens are immobile. How would they hunt slaves?

[Amos]

Why did you make space a forest? Isnt it better to make the water into space? That way you can have leaders transfer soldiers through space.

[JaghataiKhan]

Yeah. Water, and treating every race like mermen who don different forms under-and above water should be far easier!

[Aezeal]

hmmm there are a large number of reasons why I've not used water, they are all in the other thread or higher up in here but I'll try to give a recap (might be missing something)

PRO WATER:
sailing, but you can't sail to water provinces. so basicly you'd not use space then if you transport units

AGAINST WATER:
- no ranged combat in water, while sci-fi uses a lot of ranged combat, spaceships could only bump into eachother
- max map move 1 in water, while space movement should be quick
- no flying in water
- no flying to water province (I think)
- a lot of spells don't work in water (minor inconvience)

And treating every race link mermen etc is exactly the same as forest form really so doesn't change anything

PS Amos they have blood magic right? So they can blood hunt anyway. But the ones the queen would produce would be like cattle that has reproduced or something :D

[JaghataiKhan]

Which makes me wonder... 2 blood slaves in the inventory of the Primordia Regina per turn may be reasonable, as if having retainers to raise and breed a human slave, not to mention queens do not need them to be virgins... Just protein rich (FAT) :D

Or immobile Queens could get one automatic blood slave per turn as well at the cost of 10 dying people(think of nephilim script of killing pop), I'm sure insectoids would be real great to play, simulating the tyranids.

[Aezeal]

hmm I could also let the females get slaves and queens not.. would make for a balance there

[JaghataiKhan]

Care to add an infernal faction or a late Age Ermor with Nekron-alike guns and spaceships? Abysians in space? Machaka with mutant spider riders and stealth armor assassins with plasma falchions?Midgard with Vans living in space or Agartha Caveships :)

[Aezeal]

Well if you want those.. make them.. I can use help with making nations :D

if you can create sprites I can do the mod if needed and if you give me the idea's you want.

[Nikelaos]

don't anyone touch ermor please, i already started on them and will get back onto them, will make sprites this weekend, probably.

[Aezeal]

hehe I still think your idea's for Ermor might be hard to implement... but don't let that hold you back :D

And if I need to mod the nation I need more specific unit descriptions (and the unit numbers of which units they need to replace)

I'm sure someone can tell us how you find out unit numbers in game

[Aezeal]

plz post a large post about what you want with ermor so others know how they can make a different nation :D

and you could always make 2 nations but just play one or the other just like regular mods can replace nations :D

[Nikelaos]

once we find out the unit numbers it will be easy, they'll run basicly the same as LA ermor so not much we need to change really.

[Aezeal]

hmm the story behind the nation is still a but vague to me but I agree the game play will be good and different compared to the nations we already have. We'll just need to balance the freespawn against the dominions 3000 nations..

giving freespawn ranged weapons might be potentionally overpowering.. probably should be reserved for relatively race spawns.

PS I think you should see if you can think about other fitting colors except the fleshy look you are using before. The units looked great, but if all troops are like that it might be a bit.. well.. hard to distinguish on the battlefield.

But I don't know enough of the background to know if you could also use other colors

[Nikelaos]

i'm gonna use more black and earthy colours for elite units, think of it like LA agartha's Ktonian dead, flesh and steal, but i will do other stuff.

how about festering corpses spewing puss, they could be plague carriers and it gives me an ecuse to throw in some green and yellow?

[Aezeal]

hey your party.. do what you want.. I'll help you with what you need help with but it's your idea and you decide what you want in...

[Amos]

Some of my "Hellgate" sprites have a sci fi look to them. You may want to use them for an undead nation.

[Nikelaos]

yeah that would be cool, i'll send you my email.

[Amos]

You can find them on this page - here (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=37922).

[Nikelaos]

okay then, with the combination of me and amos' work, ermor should be definately be done this weekend, unless god forbid i die or some other not very nice event occurs.

[Nikelaos]

also amos love your sprites. I'll make a few look a bit more thematic for the nation, then get aezeal to mod em in lol.

[Aezeal]

Done this weekend? Ermor has like a zillions spawns that need to be replaced.. if you give me a sprite and the unit number it should replace I could do something about it though.

What are your ideas about putting those freaks in space though? Can they live in the cold, vacuum of space, do they become something else? are they mostly inactive in space?

[Nikelaos]

come on there aren't that many spawns, besides i already made a start however long ago and off course it's the weekend, meaning i'm bored and need something to do all day.

Edit:and they don't become something else in space, they just stay as weird corpses floating in ZG, speaking of which can you script normal units to autocast spells, if you could then we could script them to autocast blink in space so as to simulate floating uncontrolably in ZG. apart from that i don't see why something which is already dead needs to adapt to survive in space.

edit: wtf is that flag?

[JaghataiKhan]

Before Aezeal kills me, I must say that ı woN't be able to help to this mod for a very long time. I am spending what little time I have to the Turan mod, and learning modding from scratch. I know nothing right now, so I make mistakes and learn, I am still trying to add abilities and magic paths to shamans.

[Aezeal]

Nikelaos but wierd floating corpses probably don't ahve the same combat efficiency as on land (for example most troops already have lower combat power in space (humans that is) I'd say floating corpses without spacesuits wouldsuffer even more (which actually is a decent way to combat overpowering numbers of freespawn) --> the sprite could remain the same I guess but maybe their stats would have to change? Or do you envision them as undead that are a bit less coordinated in movement overall but don't suffer further penalties in space?

Jaghatai, I'm not gonna kill you :D I'd love to get more feedback on the mod so if you have some time to play the game I'd love to hear more comments. The post in the other thread wasn't aimed at you :D

anyway nick, ifyou have everything we need just send me the sprites, tell me about how strong they should be and tell me which unit they should replace :D

Also: remember that when we replace ermor they will probably also replace all regular undead summoning spells and that this nation will get acces to other death summons like wraiths etc

[Nikelaos]

i would put attack, defence and movement down due to no grip on ground and so harder movement, however i wouldn't put anything else down and i don't see why they would suffer, humans would only suffer because we need oxygen to function our bodies(undead are animated by magic) and our blood pressure ,which is usually counteracted with the resistance from the air around us, would make us literally burst(no need for respiration means no need for heart which means no blood pressure)

[JaghataiKhan]

my advice would be just speeding up spectral undead and giving them armor piercing attacks. Remember Final Fantasy: the Movie? sorta like this would be ok.

Put some Purchasable Tomb-Ships if you can!

[Nikelaos]

Now you mention it, yes i do remember that movie, btw don't ghosts already have an armor piercing attack like life drain or something?

[JaghataiKhan]

Then all you need to do is edit the Ghost sprite by a tiny bit, add some more stats and they are good to go.

[Nikelaos]

woah there are morer freespawn then i thought, anyway unit numbers are as follows;

184 Knight of the Unholy Sepulchre
186 Longdead Velite
187 Longdead Legionnaire
188 Mound King
189 Longdead Horseman
190 Mound King
191 Longdead
192 Longdead
193 Longdead
194 Longdead
195 Longdead
196 Longdead
197 Soulless
198 Ghoul
253 Dusk Elder
254 Spectator
255 Wailing Lady
256 Acolyte of Eldregate
257 Bishop of Eldregate
258 Arch Bishop of Eldregate
259 Lictor
260 Censor
555 Arch Censor (hero)
618 Longdead Warrior
619 Longdead Warrior
914 Soulless Warrior
915 Soulless Warrior
916 Soulless Warrior
917 Soulless Warrior
918 Soulless Warrior
919 Soulless Warrior
920 Soulless Warrior
921 Soulless Warrior
922 Soulless Warrior
1657 Longdead Triarius
1658 Longdead Principe



(with soul gate up)
672 Spectral Velite
673 Spectral Legionnaire
674 Dispossessed Spirit
675 Shadow
676 Shade
677 Apparition
678 Wraith Centurion
679 Wraith Consul
680 Wraith Senator
681 Shadow Tribune
682 Spectral Standard

[Aezeal]

Well soul gate will definately have to stay.. I don't think the soulgate units need to be replaced either.. maybe leave those as they are.

Ow wait that isn't all that either since having swords etc might not be what they need.

You could just mod the sprites a little though.

you don't NEED to make different sprites (or stats) for each units.. we could just replace them with the same unit instead of 2 different ones.

a soulless replacement with a gun and one with h2h weapons should be enough.

[Nikelaos]

yeah

[Aezeal]

hey Nik if you read the mod manual you could do some of the modding yourself too if you wanted.

[Nikelaos]

i guess but i can't be bothered with modding, i rather just making pretty pictures.

[Aezeal]

hehe ok I'll make them into something then but the more you tell me about how they should be the more the nation will end p the way you want it aight?

[Nikelaos]

aight

[Aezeal]

so.. do you have some sprites already :D

[Nikelaos]

i need to know what i've already given you first, don't wanna resend sprites.

[Aezeal]

you got my mail right, my inbox can handle a lot.. just send everything :D

[Aezeal]

I'm going to put a classical fantasy race (more than nation) in this mod. the nation might actually work as mod in the vanilla game too (though probably overpowered since Í'm trying to balance for this mod). I'm going to add some of my idea to make it fit in this setting and to get a bit of background and it will be sweet.

Can anyone guess what race it will be from these hints? :D

[JaghataiKhan]

Space Elves or Halflings!

[Nikelaos]

you already added orcs, does that not count?

[Aezeal]

no I'm thinking about another nation :D, though I admit the orcs would fit too.. but I mean the nation I make here will fit in dom 3 too (and these orcs don't since they have guns and spaceships :D. Space halfers or elves would probably also need guns and ships.. so it's not them either. PS usually these guys are not presented as a nation or a race as such... more as individuals :D

keep guessing :D

[Nikelaos]

Dwarves?

[Aezeal]

Hmm would dwarves work without ships and guns?
Dwarves would be the first nation which would have guns :D
also dwarves (especially dwarves I might say) are often presented as a race, not as individuals

not even close :D

[Amos]

Either dragons or horrors. I'm leaning toward the dragons. If so, there are some dragon nations around.

[JaghataiKhan]

Or an angelic nation, angel, dragon or demon. Or vampires :P

Space werewolves! Beholders!

[lch]

I found an old thread (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=32775) where Psientist has been providing sprite images from mods for a space game he once created. Maybe it is of some use.

[Aezeal]

Well it's dragons and did I say there wasn't a nation like it?

But Dragons against spaceships might be fun :D hating the new technology that makes the lesser races able to invade their territory (space) and fight with them more evenly.

I'm going to try to tell the "story" that quite some dragons are born, lots of them dieing early in live while still small (which are the basic troops) and having no intelligence (not mindless though) then while growing up they evolve into different sorts of dragons (I'm choosing to make all dragons of 1 race and not different races in one nation) the elder they are the more intelligent, more abilities etc. No sacreds amongst recruitables (why would "kids" be holy)
varied magic but probabaly not to much combined in the recruitables and not higher than level 3 in recruitables.

quite some summons of elder dragons, highly evolved, specialized, higher magic power etc etc etc

I'm thinking it will play as a nation of giants (even the smaller troops have higher hp and strengt and thus cost) with the commanders being more powerfull and thugish but less time slots (a major weakness I'd say) and no sacreds troops to get a bless on. (in this regard weaker than say Niefelheim (though I'll balance them primarily for dom 3000 in the first place so maybe I'd need to change some AP attacks to normal attacks to get a decent dom 3 nation) but with GOOD powerfull summons which won't really need the hand slots to be better thugs than niefeljarls (well maybe that is going a bit far... but I'll try to make the highest level summons REALLY powerfull)

I fear this setup will mean there will be a small number of commanders and troops recruitable, (always a weakness in most of my nations since ussually can give a nation what I think it needs with 5-6 recruits and 4-5 commanders. as Niefelheim I'm only recruiting Niefels and mages so the rest of the nation is a bit of a waste for me :D)

I hope this nation will be liked :D

[Aezeal]

hmmm the nation might even be underpowered.. it doesn't seem easy to play early age.. I've 20 or 21 dragons ready so now I only need to create 1-2 pretenders and they are nearly ready

[Darkwind]

I've pretty much finished Neoclidia. Seven Old Ones of various types, two heroes, one multihero and so many new spells (most of which are unique) I can't bother to count them. I stayed up all night to do this, too, after months of procrastination. Both the .txt and .dm attached; all the poor Neoclidians need now is some sprites and some balancing.

I particularly like the flavor text for the Great Old Ones and such. Though I guess it's hard to go wrong with alien beings of unimaginable power and no regard for morality at all. What does everyone else think?

Also, bump. It's been a while and it seems this thread has fallen into disrepair. What happened? While my questions never end, even after so long?! :)

Must sleep now. Bye.

[Aezeal]

hmm I'm having a lil less time (which is why I didn't reply to this last message in here sooner :D, but thanks for the PM anyway) and I'm optimizing the dragons nation which is intended for use in this mod too as a stand alone nation for the regular game to hopefully get some more replies too it (which seems to have worked) I'm posting a new version of it now as it happens. Once that one is sort of balanced I'll put that in this mod too, hopefully saving me tons of worry about the balance of them in this mod. Once your nation is ready I'll be sure to make an update ASAP though or if someone (you :D) could set up a MP game for it then I'd add them too.

If you have questions: just ask them and I'll answer (usually the same day but some days like the last 2-3 I'm not much on the comp :D)

How do we get sprites for you nation though.. that is a harder problem... I've got no idea of what they should look like and I'm more used to taking pictures and only fitting them as a sprite so I can't really do it myself..

EDIT: WOW lots of work on the mod.. we really need graphs for this!!!

[Darkwind]

I haven't exactly been keeping up with the mod, and I don't have much time right now, so initial impressions:

Ulm:
-Evoc 7 (with no national spells elsewhere in the line) for a 45-gem spell that creates 15 units? By then, you'd probably want more space fighters for the war in space than fifteen ground fighters you could just recruit.

R'lyeh:
-Have you modified the Void Gate units? You'd think they would be changed after so much time and when force to fight on a galactic scale. Forcefield-shielded Vastnesses with mind-enhancing 'helmets', anyone? :angel
-R'lyeh has no summonable ships. This makes puppies cry.
-Most of its national spells are high-end, though I guess that's not really too bad if that was what you were aiming for. Just saying.
-There seems to be some overlap between R'lyeh and Neoclidia. Namely, Illithids are immensely powerful beings who plan on conquering the universe; Old Ones are unimaginably powerful beings that plan on conquering the universe again. The only difference seems to be that the Old Ones can rip you a new one physically as well as mentally, instead of having to rely on slaves.

Jomon:
-The Defender has an incomplete description.
-The fifth unit has no name. This is bad.
-A recruitable ethereal assassin with great stats and a 15-damage AN long-range weapon? Sounds like a walking deathbot for land forces.
-Puppies are still crying, although since Jomon has no ships anyways I guess they're just sniffling.
-Only one, really high-end national spell? That amounts two two weak oni, the Dai Oni, and Oni Dragons. I'm fairly sure Oni Dragons can pretty much only be summoned by your pretender, too. Although if they're as powerful as people say they are, that's not too much of a handicap.

Orks:
-No use for that earth magic?
-Ork Aspiring Heroes can immediately become Ork Heroes. Is there any drawback to this?

Insectoids:
-Are you sure giving the Primordia Regina earth magic (ie, easy access to powerful generic ships due to likely high E magic from crappy scales) was a good idea?

Commonwealth:
-The pretender has Astral and the site gives Astral pearls, but AFAIK the only use are a few high-end astral/w spells. Maybe reduce the Astral income in favor of Water income?

Also, on turn 2 all of Ulm's units disappeared. I don't know why. The mod seems a lot better than the last version I picked up, though all the vanilla spells still seem to be here, likely due to lack of anything to replace them with.

Finally, I'll come back to you with more well-based idea and opinions later; this was a quick look. Sadly, many puppies cried during the making of this post.

[Aezeal]

removing vanilla spells isn't really much of an option, most aren't that strange for dom 3K though.. items would be a bigger problem for "immersion"

[Darkwind]

How is it not much of an option? Wouldn't #selectspell "spellname"
#clear
#endremove the spell (or at least render it useless)? The only thing this doesn't work on I think is globals, of which there aren't many. The only problem I see is that it would take a while to go through all of the spells and remove them.

Also, I'm playing through as the orcs. Expect to see some commentary soon.

At first look, they seem interesting; I think something might be bugged though since none of the units seem to be getting increased paths when I upgrade them. It might be because I upgrade them immediately though.

[Aezeal]

no the idea is it makes cheaper recruit cost but later higher upkeep cost.. it also symbolizes the orcs following charismatic leaders that evolved from the ranks.. there is no penalty or bonus not to do it right away (you generally shoudl just do it right away) There should be improved stats, mages should get more magic, the leader more leadership etc.. not very much they start as minimal commanders and they just become about average commanders you'd normally recruit) BUT THEN THEY ALSO START ATTRACTING TROOPS which is the point

I think just clearing vanilla spells isn't very elegant.. AI would probably still cast the spells. And as I said.. most spells aren't very much a problem to have in the game. Summons are a bit of a problem, for best effect you'd probably best redo them all... but that is not for now IMHO

[Darkwind]

no the idea is it makes cheaper recruit cost but later higher upkeep cost.. it also symbolizes the orcs following charismatic leaders that evolved from the ranks.. there is no penalty or bonus not to do it right away (you generally shoudl just do it right away) There should be improved stats, mages should get more magic, the leader more leadership etc.. not very much they start as minimal commanders and they just become about average commanders you'd normally recruit) BUT THEN THEY ALSO START ATTRACTING TROOPS which is the pointI'm getting the better stats, the better leadership, just not the better magic. I'm not sure why; I'm fairly sure Amos did it in the Insectoid mod and that worked. Though, looking at it, Amos used a negative #magicboost to give the Females less magic than the Queens, but with the same base magic(so after changing, the negative #magicboost would be removed and they'd get their full magical potential). Looking at the Crafter/Tinkerer, I see you did not do that, instead specifying the paths that they'd start with and not their maximum levels. So that's cleared up, I guess.

I think just clearing vanilla spells isn't very elegant.. AI would probably still cast the spells. And as I said.. most spells aren't very much a problem to have in the game. Summons are a bit of a problem, for best effect you'd probably best redo them all... but that is not for now IMHOI can see your reasoning.

Edit: Also, someone else reply to this thread! I don't want it devolving into just me and Aezeal posting!

[rdonj]

I'm still taking a break from back when it was me and aezeal going back and forth for pages. At some point I'll test again and have feedback but for the moment I'm happy to see other people's opinions about it than my own.

[Aezeal]

hey Rdonj did you see that too? the orc leaders not evolving into mages? I thaught that was workign pretty well.

[Endoperez]

How is it not much of an option? Wouldn't #selectspell "spellname"
#clear
#endremove the spell (or at least render it useless)? The only thing this doesn't work on I think is globals, of which there aren't many. The only problem I see is that it would take a while to go through all of the spells and remove them.


There's a command for removing spells. I think it was #researchleven -1. There are those mods Kristoffer made that disable all spells above level 4, and those would be a good starting place if you wanted to.

Bigger problem is having enough spells to keep research meaningful and to still have stuff for mages to do.

[Aezeal]

yes you are right of course.. but I really do think most spells are still usable for this mod.. mages are not removed and they work the same.

would be good to remove some summons maybe.. but still a thing for later.

PS endo could I entice you to play the mod and give feedback?

[rdonj]

Ork Prentices don't seem to have magic for me, and tinkers keep the 1e they start with.

[Aezeal]

let me look now

hmmm I was pretty sure this worked before... but I'll be the first to admit it doesn't now... maybe it never did but that would be somewhat strange, the race wouldn't really have been playable and I didn't get that much complaints.

I guess I'll solve it like amos did.. doesn't change anything from what it should be.

I've also added the dragons from the other mod again (which where "optimized" there)

I'm going to read back a bit and then if there where no other to do things (I think I already did everything) I'll post a new version.

[Aezeal]

hmmm the random magic doesn't work either... will need to think something for that too
'
Since this thread is getting some reactions I'll wait 1-2 days to get more needed changes before I put out the next version with the dragons and with the adjusted orc mages.

[HoneyBadger]

You guys are doing a great job keeping this alive-especially you Aezeal. I'm surprised and pleased to see so much getting accomplished, and I just want to commend you. I can't test it out at the moment, but I'm very much looking forward to doing so, sometime in the future.

Keep up the good work!

[Aezeal]

You where gonna work on your nation for dom 3 K next right?

[HoneyBadger]

Yep, and things are progressing. The graphics are a huge challenge, but it's a lot of fun to work on non-human units. Right now I'm studying Ammonite fossils, so that I can do the fossilized ammonite unit. I haven't decided whether I want to adapt an existing sprite, or create one from scratch.

The Squicks will be based on the Mi-Go, by the way, and I know pretty much how I want them to look like, so they may end up getting done all together, one morning when I'm feeling active.

I've got enough Nations right now that it's preventing me from getting very burned out on any one idea, which, although there's a huge amount to do, actually keeps me progressing faster, overall, so if you notice me giving more attention to another Nation at a particular time, don't worry that it means I'm not working on Aboleths, I'm just doing everything as an overarching project, rather than concentrating on any one thing at any given time--but my focus is definitely concentrated on Aboleths.

You should probably expect atleast one new graphic for the Nation every week, that's what I'm aiming for, but-believe it or not-I'm a really low energy person, especially this time of year, so I have to kind of work around my physical and mental/emotional limitations.

[Darkwind]

More bugs--it's "Enslave Mind", not "Enslave Minds". Also, "Life Drain" doesn't seem to show up on the Elder Brain, so I guess that's not a weapon too. The Elder Brains are showing up with no attack, which is bad.

[Aezeal]

I'll look into that, they are mostly used as researchers and casters anyway I'd guess so not that much of a problem I hope :D

[Darkwind]

Well, two Enslave Minds is really good, and an essentially defenseless unit isn't. Without their attacks, I doubt the Brains deserve 500 gold, since a fairly high Astral power doesn't mean it's powerful enough for 500 gold. A unit that can Enslave Mind two enemies a turn, however, might (even though the two are essentially conflicting abilities). I'm not an expert, though (actually, I think it probably wouldn't deserve 500 gold anyways--that's a hefty cost for what's essentially a researcher that can double as a combat mage if it really needs to; seriously, 11 research per unit on a sacred, so it actually costs less upkeep than a mage Starspawn).

[Darkwind]

Say, is the Ice Citadel supposed to have magic? It has #magicboost 53 -5, but no magic to un-boost. Same with the Terraforming Tower, I think (I haven't gotten to the Commonwealth yet, still working on the Orcs).

Same with the Builder too, it seems. And the destroyer. And the frigate. As does the Attack Form, Lightning Turret, Turret, and Defense Form units (wow).

[HoneyBadger]

I'm starting work on the Squick/Mi-Go's today, by the way.

[Darkwind]

Wait, but if the Mi-Gos (in name at least) come from Lovecraft, and assumign Aezeal keeps the R'lyeh nation, that's three Lovecraft-inspired nations (Aboleths, R'lyeh and Neoclidia). Wow. Lovecraft and space go together like peanut butter and jelly (even moreso since I plan on at some point creating an 'Ancients' race (the Ancients were alluded to in a few descriptions of Neoclidian units; more like the few survivors+assorted summoned goodies though).

We need a post (maybe even a thread) for all of the bugs. Seriously. This large of a project, it seems, comes with bugs galore.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, Lovecraft is cool...I was thinking yesterday that it might be really fun for someone (not me!) to do a Nation based around Fallout 3.

[Aezeal]

hmmm those commonwealth stuff you mentioned.. I copied them directly form amos mostly so... I guess there are reasons for that.. it doesn't seem like a bug to me it's intended and I don't see why it would be a problem either.

All bugs can be reported in here and I'll fix em though :D

Lots of Lovecraft.. I saw that coming since I knew you all where working on those nations but you both seemed so enthousiastic and with different idea's that I'm not about to stop either of you.. I did mention it before to at least one of you (darkwind I think) and said that maybe you should combine it... but it's not a neccesity for me.. I'll just see what we end up with :D

PS which other bugs are you referring too?

[HoneyBadger]

Aezeal: Lovecraft, Dunsany, William Hope Hodgson, H Ryder Haggard, Mervyn Peake, etc. may be slightly less accessible than a more modern novelist, but I really think that it would be worth your time to explore the amazing literature they produced. Their writing, being before (or at the beginning of) the Pulps, Tolkienization, D&D, and standardization of Fantasy had a chance to homogenize, categorize, and-in a lot of ways-dumb down the genre, are often a good deal richer and deeper-and more strongly written-than many others. It's really the golden age of fantasy, and you're denying yourself a lot, by not giving it your consideration.

It may not be your cup of tea, but it's really, *really* good tea.

[Aezeal]

hmmm I want to get some lovecraft and some conan actually but not that easy to get without paying huge transport fees from america. But I really doubt I'll find it actually better (Ghormenghast wasn't to my liking for example). My favorite books are the Malazan tale of the fallen, Wheel of time, a song of fire and ice, Dune though and those aren't standard Dnd pulp stories. New (to me at least) books that I've not read whole series of that appeal to me are The name of the Wind, and the Locke lamora books of scot lynch. Actually I'll have to say that even the drzzt books are quite nice and generally well written and I crash through them once in a while to get some diversion of the more serious works (pratchet does wonders for that too). I personally do want to write the works that originated many of the books i love so much but don't kid yourself.. it's evolution and the changes the genre has gone through is because it's improved in general. No idea why you'd be thinking it would not be my cup of tea though since I've never ever said something like that, just not read it because it's not available to me.

[Darkwind]

Continuing the OT: I used to like Wheel of Time, but don't anymore. ASoIaF is great, though.

On-topic, I've officially started another nation for this, Piria. Basically, it's Abysia. In space. Except, well, not Abysia. Their backstory is essentially thus: There once was a star named Piria. For whatever reason, it was sentient. It created a bunch of mini-starlings, the Firstblood Pirians, who were fairly large and overall awesome. Then Piria took a centuries-long catnap. The Pirians became weaker, leading to the Pirian's of the game's time. As Piria wakes up, more and more stronger ('Trueblood') Pirians are being born, who are overall more awesome than normal Pirians but little children compared to the strength of the Firstbloods.

So, Pirians are humanoid balls of star stuff. They have fair attack but poor defense, and have a large heat aura (Put a Pirian next to a tree and it bursts into flame. Put a Trueblood next to a tree and a small forest would burst into flame. Put a Firstblood next to a tree in Haiti and trees will be bursting into flame in Canada). Due to being sentient balls of gas, they won't really wear much armor, instead relying on their natural skills to kill things dead (fireballs, anyone?) before they can be killed dead themselves. I'm thinking they won't be too much of a magic-oriented nation, focusing more on the power of their troops. i.e., Pirians won't have a couple mages spamming large fireballs. They'll have an army of Pirians spamming medium-sized fireballs.

Though, they'll probably have almost only Fire, with some Earth and a tiny bit of Astral, so they'll probably have quite a few mages spamming Fireball too. Not to mention choice national spells, such as Giant Fireball of Doom(tm).

Any thoughts?

[rdonj]

Two thoughts. 1) If anyone ever researches fire fend/warriors of muspelheim piria is pretty much doomed. 2) Their fire is going to have to be pretty good to overcome Jomon's oni right now with their 10an aoe1 fire attacks (which imo are way too strong).

I would also make the pirians immune to fire, and explode when they die. Make their attacks aoe armor piercing at best, aoe is too good as armor negating unless it's on something like a tank with a slow refire rate. If you give something an aoe AN attack make it a melee attack. I would suggest not letting their commanders wear any items... at all. Not even miscellaneous.

[Darkwind]

1. Well, their attacks won't be completely fire-based. A gun shooting bullets of +3 OH GOD I'M ON FIRE might have the "OH GOD I'M ON FIRE" part negated by those, but not the "gun shooting bullets" part. Of course, a gun that could be held by sentient flaming gas would be hard to find.

So yeah they're pretty much screwed. I've been planning to give them a Bane Fire-esque national spell which requires a bit of Astral (and a lot of research), with the effect of "OH GOD I'M ON FIRE" without the resistances the "FIRE" part would imply. And if they turn out to really fail, I'll give them a Blood spell that's essentially a nuclear warhead detonating over your skull, but with more "fiery death" and less "I have three arms now haha". Maybe even a low-Blood spell to summon "Lowblood"s who are basically Humanbred Abysians (ie, something that can wield Resistsfireium without melting it). I plan on giving them a fairly powerful Blood multihero, and maybe a mage that can break the Blood barrier (the same mage that can get astral?, by the way. Basically you can't go wrong with variants of "OH GOD I'M ON FIRE".

2. Wow you're right. I just checked Jomon, and those guys seem fairly cheap resource-wise, although that's a somewhat hefty gold cost. They'd be incredibly effective against Piria. Perhaps a capital-only unit with a Banefire-esque (minus the Decay of course) attack that checks MR instead of fire resistance? It could help solve the problem of the troops completely failing against Fire-resistant nations (they'd only mostly fail).

3. D'oh! Immunity to fire is kind of obvious. I might even give the Truebloods and higher, or all of them, some resistance to cold. They are sentient flaming gas, an iceball isn't going to touch them. Immunity, or resistance to, poison would probably be a good idea too. Maybe even darkvision or blind (they're fire incarnate, a little darkness won't do much, if they use eyes at all).

4. Fireball is AoE armor piercing, right? That's probably what I'll give my units. Giving commanders absolutely no items sounds a bit harsh, though. I'll probably give them misc slots, so they'll remain at least somewhat thuggable (or in Firstbloods' case, SCable).

5. Wow this post ballooned quickly.

[rdonj]

I like the idea of a cap-only unit that has a non-fire fire attack, it would definitely help them a lot. Perhaps even make it sacred, I'm sure that as a race of pureflamium(tm) they would revere those whose flames burn the hottest and brightest :) You could maybe even get away with making it non-mr resistable, just an ap attack with no fire effect. Or maybe an AN single target attack with high precision? And everything you said in three makes sense to me also.

Yes, fireball is aoe piercing. The reason I suggest no miscellaneous is because it would be really hard to give them equipment that wouldn't just melt, thematically speaking. But if the commanders had decent stats, casting something like body ethereal, personal luck wouldn't make for a bad thug, especially if it had a native fire shield. Though they might have fatigue problems....

[Darkwind]

First of all, a quick idea at what a Pirian's stats might be:
Pirian
10 AP, mapmove 1 or 2, size 2
11 attack, 9 defense, 11 precision (they'd be fairly good at throwing around fireballs)
11 HP, 11 strength, 5 protection (they don't have armor, they have poor defense, incredibly low protection would be icing on the cake of pain)
11 MR
10 morale
3 encumbrance
weapons: fireball, fire touch or somesuch
fireshield 10?, heat 5?, maybe #iceprot -1
50 poison resistance, 100 fire
Trueblood
9 AP, mapmove 1 or 2, size 3
12 attack, 10 defense, 12 precision
13 HP, 12 strength, 7 protection)
12 MR
11 morale
2 encumbrance
weapons: greater fireball, greater fire touch or somesuch
fireshield 12?, heat 6?, maybe #iceprot -1
50 poison resistance, 100 fire, 10 cold (as said before, their heat is going to melt some of the stuff before it gets there)
Firstblood
12 AP, mapmove 2, size 4
14 attack, 11 defense, 14 precision
25 HP, 15 strength, 11 protection
14 MR
12 morale
1 encumbrance
weapons: Greater Starburst (basically a big version of the AP non-fire attack), ultra fire touch or somesuch
fireshield 20?, heat 10? (these guys are epic heat-producers), maybe #iceprot -2
75 poison resistance, 100 fire, 25 cold (as said before, their heat is going to melt some of the stuff before it gets there)

So it's sort of an ascending order. The meh Pirians, the cool Truebloods, and the thuggable (at the least; the Firstbloods will probably all be a lot stronger due to being more awesome in general than the usual Firstblood who is already awesome) Firstbloods.

Feedback is welcome. I tried to make the Pirians okay (ie, not overpowering, but not weak either), the Truebloods great (ie, they have a higher resource/gold cost and deserve it), and the Firstbloods made of awesome and win (they'll be mid or high-level summons, capable of thugging out and maybe even SC status). Feel free to tell me why they are not what I meant them to be.

Edit: It's sort of only of all. I meant to reply to your post rdonj, but got a little carried away I guess. An AP normal attack sounds great, actually. I'll probably end up making it sacred (maybe both a Pirian version and a more powerful Trueblood version). I wanted miscellaneous slots since at least the Firstbloods were meant to be nice thugs/SCs, while the Truebloods could probably qualify as a thug (some of them, at least).

Doubleedit: Changed a couple things. More encumbrance for Pirians, more precision for Firstblood. Also changed my mind about Starburst (it's Greater for a reason).

[HoneyBadger]

Lovecraft is easy, and free on the web. http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/

Here's everything he ever wrote--feel free to print it out, it's legal.

Conan's a little harder, as it would, hypothetically, require you to go here http://gutenberg.net.au/search.html (http://gutenberg.net.au/search.html) and do a search for Robert Howard. Ofcourse, I can't recommend that, as I'm not 100% certain how legal it would be to do so within the United States, but I'm not sure it's *not* legal, either, but ignorance is not an excuse.

[rdonj]

Hmm. Well, assuming for the moment that a pirian isn't going to be wearing equipment, the first thing that jumps out at me is that it could be awful hard for them to deal with the nations that do a lot of ranged damage. For example, I'll consider ulm.

Basic pirian stats:
11 hp
11 attack
9 defense
5 prot
11 precision
no shield or way to not take damage.

Ulmish space marine:
10 hp
10 attack
12 defense (10 + 2 from shield)
15 prot
9 precision (10 - 1 from weapon)
parry 2 shield with 15 prot

No idea how strong your race's ranged weapons are, ulm's blasters do 10 ap at up to 40 range.

So the basic ulmish space marine can take a lot more punishment than the basic pirian. Maybe even take multiple hits for a pirian to kill, potentially, depending on how strong their attack is. If it's an aoe attack sort of fireball that will mitigate the problem there a bit though. Meanwhile a good part of the time a pirian will die if it gets hit once. And even in melee an ulmish space marine has a better chance to hit the pirian than the pirian does to hit it, with a 4 AN damage weapon. Of course, if it does it has the fire shield to contend with... the fire shield value may actually be too high, it should be fairly low on the normal guys, ramping up for the higher ones. There aren't many units in dom3k with more than 20 hp. I would say start somewhere between 2-4 and go maybe to 10 for the Firstbloods.

So overall, statwise they are really fragile, but I guess if the cause enough burning it will work out. However, if they do get the aoe attacks they'd need to fight ranged nations, they will absolutely mow down the close combat nations (insectoids, commonwealth). If the pirians are basically thought of as chaff and the true/firstbloods the real damage doers that could work out better.

I think the firstbloods could use a little extra attack skill, I'm thinking of those accursed ice battle suits that jomon has with something like 18 defense skill, you have to be able to hit those with the firstbloods or it's a dealbreaker! I don't think they're worthy of being high level summons as they are though, they have the damage output (theoretically), but not the survivability to really be SCs. Consider the Jomon summonable SC, the oni dragon. Or ulmish capital ships with amulets of missile protection and a pendant of luck. Whatever the firstbloods end up like they have to be able to compare to those for SC quality, if you want them to be a high level summon. And they're just not survivable enough to be SCs imo. Assuming an amulet of missile protection and a pendant of luck, they still need either higher health, higher defense, or higher prot to make SC territory. Or perhaps an innate ability such as ethereality.

Sorry for being so wordy :P

[Darkwind]

I've decided to bang up a quick "fix" for the Firstbloods. Changed stuff in bold.
Firstblood
12 AP, mapmove 2, size 4
14 attack, 12 defense (starting with 10 for Pirians), 14 precision
25 HP, 15 strength, 13 protection(starting with 7 for Pirians)
14 MR
12 morale
1 encumbrance
weapons: Greater Starburst (basically a big version of the AP non-fire attack), Big Fire Sword of Doom or somesuch (my idea: sort of like the First Sword, but less super-powerful and a bit more fiery death. Still some normal damage, though)
fireshield 14?, heat 10? (these guys are epic heat-producers), maybe #iceprot -2
75 poison resistance, 100 fire, 25 cold (as said before, their heat is going to melt some of the stuff before it gets there)
By the way, they'll probably all have fire 1 or 2+.
Some of this stuff might make Prians/Firstbloods a bit too powerful, but oh well. I have to leave now, I've spent a lot longer than I intended. I'll get to the rest of your reply later.

[Aezeal]

nice nice another race I can't wait to see it finished :D
I'll see about lowering damage on the oni if it's so overpowered :D

Maybe the 3 of us (or others who are interested) should start a small game to test the game as it is now though just to check it out?

[Trumanator]

the Pirians sound a lot like the Faeros from Kevin J. Anderson's Saga of Seven Suns. Also, its great that you guys like Wheel of Time, I can't wait for the last one to arrive and FINALLY finish the series.

[rdonj]

The big problem with the oni is that it combines unavoidable damage (aoe can't be stopped by shields and automatically hits) with armor negating damage so you get no prot, and does enough damage to kill many units in 1 hit. And ranged damage generally doesn't kill things very fast in dom3k, so even if you had just militia standing in front of the oni it would take a lot of firepower to bring them down before the oni killed everything.

I would be willing to play a game. Hmm, I think I would rather play orks, but I can probably play anyone.

[Darkwind]

I'd be willing to join, as any race. I'd prefer the Commonwealth (just to see what's up with them).

[Aezeal]

hmm ok
so we have at least 3 players that is enough for me to test at least 3 races... of course honeycan't play.. I forgot that for a moment and it's really a shame but can't be helped.

Here's what we'll do. I'll enter the dragons as they are now (in the dom 3 mod) to the game somewhere in the next weeks and if anyone wants changes (like the oni damage) then just tell me what you think should be changed and I'll find some time to change it.

Once that is all done I'll post a new version of the mod and we should be ready to play. No wait I'll enter the dragons first so they can be play tested to (game crashing bugs would really be a shame).

I'll need some time and if my first kid is born it might give serious delay but'we should get this running within the month I'd say.

[Darkwind]

I'll repost the bugs I've already discovered (in case you haven't fixed them yet):

-You used "Enslave Minds" on some units, which is not a weapon. Well, you might be able to make it a copy of Enslave Mind with an AoE or something, but it isn't a weapon yet.
-"Life Drain" is not a weapon also. Not sure what that one would actually be though, maybe "Lifedrain"?
-R'lyeh has no summonable ships. Considering their recruitable ship, I think that's an oversight. Not really a bug, but still.
-The Orks don't actually increase their magic when they upgrade (though that should be easy to fix, with Amos' way of doing it right there in the mod)
-Jomon's fifth unit (Aka-Oni, I think it's supposed to be) has no name for me.
-Jomon's Defender has an incomplete description.
-On turn 2, in a test game I was playing, Ulm's units disappeared. Don't know what's up with that, might have been a one-time craaaazy bug.

A lot of these are easy fixes though, so it's not like you have to take a week off to fix the mod or anything.

[Endoperez]

Vanilla Dom3 has two enslavement weapons:
274 Enslave Mind
189 Enslavement

and several life-draining weapons, including:
63 Life Drain
449 Life Drain
271 Life Drain Tentacle

I still haven't tried this out, but here's my two cents re: Pirians.
There are several Astral spells they should be able to cast. Solar Brilliance, Light of the Northern Star, Astral Fires... Some of the spells could be made national-only, others could have different versions that the Pirians could cast, if you don't want to give them much astral.

Fire/Water spells could also work well. Acid Storm to destroy all armor on the battlefield would be pretty evil.

[Aezeal]

hmm those weapons.. I see what is wrong but I'm pretty sure it was correct.. once.. I've just given them multiple enslave mind weapons now from vanilla game.. should be good. The other is hopefully working better now too.
can't see a reason why the Aka-oni wouldn't be named like that.. all lines are the same as the next oni.
The defenders acutally had a complete description only I used " instead of ' in it s it was cut short (or at least that is what I think it was, will need to check that though)
That last one.. can't think what it would be if it keeps happening I'll think about it.. not now though :D

I already looked into the orc magicians and in the next version it should be fixed (I recall fixing that a month ago, but was still testing the dragons so haven't released it yet)

Np r'lyeh summonable ships is staying for now.. can't make a new ship for them really. Since there are relatively few mindflayers they don't need much ships for themselves.. r'lyeh has other summons

[Aezeal]

Ow and plz give me a few more post like darkwinds last one (all bugs I've left in the game) so I can try to get a new version with all bug fixes :D

[rdonj]

Ork heroes who venture into space still retain their spaceship form when they come back to land.

Also, the space forms of the commonwealth have the same problem that the dragon sprite did where it creates a massive black background for the units.

[Aezeal]

hmmm that is annoying.. I don't really know where that alpha channel comes from, but I should be able to remove it pretty easily. The Orkhero thingie should be easily adjusted, maybe I've already adjusted it when I changed the other forms though but I'll look into it when I'm making adjustments again.

Keep this coming if we want to play a MP game we'd better get most annoying bugs out of the game or we'll be forced to stop it too soon. Major balancing problems can be mentioned too.

Rdonj would you be interested in a MP game for dom3K too?
Any others that would like to join in.. if all nations could be played that would be ideal :D. I'm most interested in getting the newer nations played though since the first ones have been played more than the others already I guess. Dragons has been tested on it's own so probably needs less testing too.. maybe balancing for this setting but I'd prefer to keep the nation identical in dom3 and dom 3K (easier for me to keep track of changes) it will probably mean they are a bit overpowered in vanilla and relatively weaker in dom3k (no shields might be too much too, in that case I'll give them some sort of lifeforcebioshielding i guess but I'd rather not go there.) The fact they can fly and have decent armour should eliminate that problem somewhat.

[Darkwind]

Gandalf has already discovered that a mod can be altered on the fly in a game, if I remember. So no worries about stopping it, unless a fatal error comes up.

Still though, probably a good idea to get as many bugs done for as soon as possible.

[rdonj]

I already tossed my hat in, with a preference towards orcs.

Btw it might be a good idea to give the commonwealth some ap melee weapons, they have an awful lot of melee units to have just normal attacks, which are a bit weak in d3k.

Dragons could be hard to balance so they work in normal dominions and d3k with the same version. If the dragons were like they were before the big nerfs I'd say they probably could cut it, as is I am not sure. Actually, I think the dragons have somewhat low armor for the mod.