SC and Thug Diversity Project

[JimMorrison]

Well, this is about a mod concept, but please let the post stay here for a bit, as I want to gather ideas from everyone before I get started, including those who don't often look in the mod subforum.

Anyways, this has been discussed numerous times in the past, and I am ready to jump on it - A mod that introduces viable and cost effective Thug and SC chassis to all paths that lack them currently.

Basically, this is more for the large games, than the small games. In small games there are enough royalty and whatnot to give people a decent shot at getting something to work with. In a game with 20+ players, the people who do not shoot straight for Uniques, will generally always get locked out.

This mod will leave in the existing Unique royalty, but my current concept is to add in elemental "Princes" and "Princesses" who use the same models (hey, I'm cheap!), but have slightly reduced stats, and are somewhat cheaper. But I also want to include non-Unique SC chassis for Astral and Nature (probably use the Treelord graphic, and not sure what for Astral summon), and thug chassis for every path (other than Blood) that are comparable in cost/utility to Bane Lords.

Now here's the thing though - I want them all to be distinctly different, and have their own assortment of strengths and weaknesses, I'm not just going to copy Bane Lords and change the color, and call them "Astral Lords", that would be pathetic. So what I need from everyone, is some conceptual inspiration as to what would make a good thug for the various paths, and what will set each one apart from the rest. Also, if anyone wants to volunteer to do graphics for the thugs, it would be much appreciated, else I will recycle those from existing Dom3 sprites as well. ;)

I've got some ideas rolling around, but I am here to take suggestions and requests! I want this to be a resource that makes large games more competitive and enjoyable for everyone.


Early Concept List:

Fire
Ifrit (Bane Lord level thug, flying, minor magic randoms in FAES, same slots as Djinn)
Balrog (King level SC, Fear, flying, high stats, few slots with "built in" gear)


Earth
Ogre Conquistador (Bane Lord level thug, random magic, full slots, low MR, replaces Ettin on my list after all)
Golden Centurion (King level SC, regen, high resistances, Mindless, full slots, no magic)


Air
Hototo (Bane Lord level thug, good general, Standard, full slots, no magic)
Adom (sub-King level SC, Ethereal, damage shield, only misc+hands)


Water
Sludge Animate (Bane Lord level thug, Mindless, Fatigue attack)
Olm Champion (between Bane Lord and King level? high stats, few slots, powerful buffing magic)
Marid (King level SC, Awe, high MR, strong mage)


Astral
Entropic Manifestation (Bane level thug, 4 arms, Fear)
Entity (Bane Lord level thug, fast, flying, multiple life drain attacks, few slots)
Archon (King level SC, higher stats, full slots, high MR, no other abilities?)


Nature
Brownie Trickster (size 1 assassin, fragile but Glamored/Lucky/etc)
Lycan (werecreature, Bane Lord level thug, stealthy, high regen)
Vengeful Treant (King level SC)


Death
Decomposing Reaver (Size 4 Mindless, minor SC comparable to Golem, though perhaps lacking any magic - Enchantment 7)

[Darkwind]

Something interesting might be a thug-type that already has high MR, Ethereal, Luck, etc. but poor stats elsewhere, maybe barely above humans, for Astral. A "Great Astral Spirit", maybe?

As for Nature, I think maybe something fairly mundane, with high Attack and Defense, but low-ish (for a thug/SC) MR/maybe morale. "Beastman", maybe (you could steal the graphics from Pangaea)? It might even have an extra Misc slot to represent that it has a tail to put rings and such on.

Just throwing these out there. :o

[llamabeast]

Just so you know, I've nearly finished a project with exactly this intention. There was a thread some months ago that I took inspiration from.

That's not to say you shouldn't do one too of course. The more the better.

[JimMorrison]

Just so you know, I've nearly finished a project with exactly this intention. There was a thread some months ago that I took inspiration from.

That's not to say you shouldn't do one too of course. The more the better.

Hmmm, I didn't know anyone was actively working on it. It occurred to me that I hadn't seen any real discussion for a few months, and I had the inspiration today to really dig into it.

Out of curiosity, how many different summons are you implementing, and about how far away from completion is it? I agree that more summons can only be a good thing, I just don't want to discover that I am duplicating your work, when I'd rather be complimenting it.

[Omnirizon]

I don't agree with this project, not for MP play. I think the paths are attempted to be balanced. Giving air lots of good thugs would unbalance it due to all the good battle spells it has. On the other hand, Death is a little too powerful in this respect, while fire is a little too weak. so some tweaking could be done, but I don't think its a good idea to just add thugs to all paths wily nily. Air should not receive thugs I don't think.

[JimMorrison]

But the late game revolves around commander units. Commanders with distinctly powerful abilities, and far greater survivability to line troops. The current problem in MP now, is you either summon Tarts, you are into Blood, or you are Wishing Seraphs/Chayots/??. Yes you also have the royalty available, but when there are 20 players, and 12 royalty, you can see they won't make it far around the table.

The point is to provide options for everyone once their line armies start to become somewhat obsolete.

Honestly, I don't see where Air is any more powerful than any other path, in general. In the late game, most paths have ready ways to completely lay waste to entire armies - but few paths have something to supplement your strategy with, once your armies are vulnerable to wholesale slaughter.

[Micah]

Air is the one elemental path that is impossible to protect against in terms of armies...storm warriors will get you 50% resistance, but the damage is AN, so you still take damage. On top of that, the best army-wide prot buff confers 75% shock vulnerability.

[JimMorrison]

Air is the one elemental path that is impossible to protect against in terms of armies...storm warriors will get you 50% resistance, but the damage is AN, so you still take damage. On top of that, the best army-wide prot buff confers 75% shock vulnerability.

I don't see this as reasoning that they should be hamstrung in the summons category. Hardly fair if the heavy Air nations get to be feared until the late game, then find themselves faced by SCs summoned by everyone else, whilst their armies get Earthquaked to death.

Shock damage is AN, but is overall less spammable than many other damage types due to the high Fatigue on Thunder Strike, and the lack of either a "Cloud" or "Rain" type spell.

Anyway, that's beside the point. This thread has nothing to do with the relative viability of any paths outside of summons - only to do with the relative viability of summons per path. Currently only Death and Blood have non-unique summons that you can base late game strategies around, and only Death has a strong and affordable mid-game thug chassis, in the Bane Lord.

Now if you want to argue that the Air versions should be a bit weaker overall, then sure, give suggestions of how to implement them in a way that provides better overall balance - but they are getting summons to fill holes in their rosters. But you know, I'm not going to give Nature and Water significantly more powerful summons just because they are less useful in combat - so I don't know what you expect. :p

[Omnirizon]

I think it would be neat to create a spell set to used in a game of _ONLY_ summons (master of monsters style. pa-dow)

[vfb]

Fog Warriors > Earthquake. Shimmering Fields is a large area lightning attack, great for Armies of Foo like Micah says. Wrathful Skies is a "rain" effect I guess.

Some Air nations also get their own national thug summons or recruitables. Astral also has non-unique summons that you can base late game strategies around.

I think that not having common thugs/late SCs in every path increases diversity of tactics. If every path can just make thugs and SCs, you'll see even less armies in the late game.

[llamabeast]

I agree that it needs careful balancing. But it has always bothered me that if I'm really into fire, then (assuming the royalty's gone) I simply _can't_ summon any useful thug. There's nothing. If that was a funny quirk of fire, fair enough, but it seems to be a funny quirk of fire, air, earth, water and nature (apart from the Sleeper), which I think is a shame.

Yeah, I haven't mentioned my project for a long time Jim, because it's been on hold. I got a little burst of enthusiasm yesterday though, so I may be able to finish it soonish. I think it's pretty unlikely we'd overlap, but here are my creatures:

Air:
Roc
Shishi
Asynja (the same as the pretender)

Fire:
Great Zmey
Ember Lord (a balrog, basically)
True Firebird (Bogarus annoyingly overlapped with the zmey and firebird, but my versions are very different)

Earth:
Wild Ettin
Mechanical Giant
Cyclops (smaller than the pretender)

Water:
Colossal Kraken (smaller than the pretender)
Grendelkin (with Earth) (based on Beowulf)
Wendigo (with death)

Nature:
Treant

Most of the graphics will be either original (zmey, ember lord, mechanical giant, grendelkin, wendigo, treant) or adapted and significantly changed from vanilla (roc, shishi, firebird, ettin, cyclops, kraken). Only the Asynja will use vanilla graphics. The graphics, of course, has been by far the bulk of the work, since big sprites are hard.

The balancing will need to be done carefully. Certainly air should never be even close to being as good at summons as death. But I just wanted there to be the option. If battlefield magic's no use, and you've got 200 air gems sitting around, I wanted you to be able to splurge on some cool stuff.

[Aezeal]

Hmm for astral you have that ether gate person.. maybe an upgraded version of him with a nice ability on top would be an option.

[vfb]

Astral has Golems and Wish already, and a few national angel summons.

[llamabeast]

Yeah, it's never hard to find a good use for astral pearls, I don't reckon any more astral summons are needed.

[Agema]

Hardly SC territory, but you could try for a fire thug:

Ifrit (about 10 fire gems)

There were several types of Djinn as far as I know, of which the Ifrit were "smokeless fire". They seem to be mostly malevolent sort of demons. They tempted people into sin, and had the ability to change shape.

For approximate values, say:
30HP, Prot 0, 18 Mor, 16 MR, 1 Enc, Age (500/1000)
15 Str, 13Att, 13Def, 10 Prec, 3/20 Move, Ldr 10.

Fly, Fire resistance 100, Ethereal?, Seduce?.
Alternative forms (Human, snake)?
Standard humanoid weapon/item slots.

[Agema]

Also, what should be a simple thing to do, but you could make a summonable nordic Fire Giant SC using the Niefel Jarl chassis, just convert where appropriate all the cold and water magic to fire/heat, and give it a reddish tone rather than blueish.

[Agema]

Air:

Lilith (cost: high, summon A5D1)

Lilith is often portrayed as a succubus, but the original was a Babylonian goddess of wind and storms also associated with bringing disease. Could base the picture on the lady of love chassis.

For approximate values, say:
80HP, Prot 0, 30 Mor, 18 MR, 0 Enc, Age (500/1000)
18 Str, 12Att, 12Def, 12 Prec, 3/20 Move, Ldr 10.

Magic: A3D3

Fly, Shock resistance 100, Seduce, Disease cloud, Storm power, Fly even in storm, Some way to avoid being diseased?
Standard humanoid weapon/item slots.

[Redeyes]

Try recuperation on Lilith, disease would at least not be a problem for long then.

[vfb]

I think the idea was for non-unique summons, but your Lilith looks interesting. The easy way to make her disease-immune is to make her a Demon. It's thematic too.

[Redeyes]

The three Gaths has a "summon Lilot" spell, which summons a "daugther of Lilith"

If you are going for a demon version of Lilith, consider opening that one up to all nations as well.

[JimMorrison]

Hehehe, well Llama, ironically the Ettin, Cyclops, and Treant were all on my tentative list. :p

I may just start collecting notes for now, and when your mod comes out, perhaps you would consent to it being added to my "big game balancing package" mod? I would add some other summons as well, but if nothing else, the inclusion of your work would make the full mod that much more likely to come to fruition.

Also, some of those, like the Firebird perhaps don't have many slots? I had intended to look for somewhat humanoid forms for most (and I thought that was the best nerf for Air summons - to give them less slots), so that they would be truly thuggable (options for reinvig, resistance items, etc).

Oh and as far as the Ether Lord goes, I am intending to somewhat balance these summons relative to A) Bane Lord, 12 gems, and B) Elemental Royalty, 50 gems. The Ether Lord is just not very cost effective for 90 gems. I've completed over a dozen MP games, and almost every single game I have seen Bane Lords AND Royalty, not once have I seen an Ether Lord used.

And anyway, reiterating Llama's comment - I don't think there can be too many viable summons. If I were -only- adding summons to Astral, then it would be a stupid mod, but if every other path is getting useful stuff too, I hardly see how including Astral is an issue. The goal of my mod will not be to balance the relative usefulness of the paths, just to insure that you are not hamstrung completely by your path selection (or gem income! sometimes you get TONS of one type of gem, and nothing to spend them on - not for long now).

[Aezeal]

You know what I think...
I think this should be in the mod forum.

Jim I meant you could use something similar as an astral summon (maybe same sprite) but with better stats and summoned alone. "Ether" ehm... "something higher than Lord"

That was what you asked for right an idea for a new summon for astral? no me mentioning that ether spell just for fun?

[llamabeast]

Hehe, I was also vaguely thinking of doing a big game balancing mod! :D

But yes, of course. The more awesome things we all make, the better. I think you can consider any mods I make to be open source.

[Panpiper]

Dominions Two had an Arch Angel astral summons that I really missed when I moved on to Dominions Three. It was a level 7 conjuration requiring astral five and 50 'pearls' to summon. It came with a bodyguard of five 'regular' angels. It's stats were nowhere near that of a Seraph being much more in line with a typical thug. What made it nice was that it had fire 3 and holy 4!

I miss my Arch Angels.

[llamabeast]

They're still available as a Marignon and Pythium summon, judging from your description.

[JimMorrison]

Hehehe sorry about that Aezeal, I thought you were just saying that Astral didn't need summons because of the Ether Lord, and other reasons. And I asked that this not be moved to the mod forum -yet- so I can get some preliminary ideas from the people who don't check into the subforum often, if ever.

And I agree, something like an Ether Duke, or something or other. :p Or maybe make Vastnesses summonable, or Visitors. One could argue that doing so would erode R'lyeh's uniqueness, but they'd be fairly expensive, and would allow R'lyeh access to them if they are having crappy luck with the Void Gate (yay, more Lesser Othernesses.....).

Going to start a tentative list in the first post, with ideas people have posted, and what I already had in mind. I'll list things like the Ettin (but not every summon from Llama's list) since it was already my starting point. It'll show up in about 10 minutes from this post. ;)

[JimMorrison]

Got distracted, and had trouble with a couple. Oh and you also took Shishi from me, Llama. :p Air was very troublesome, but I found a couple of things, and really, with your blessing Llama, I may just borrow yours, and let Air have less overall diversity, to appease the masses. ;)

Most of what I intend to do is going to be pretty straightforward, as long as I can get by with a minimum of graphical work (I am not above cannibalizing to get the job done!). I'll start drawing up stats tomorrow I think, and as long as this can get just a little more exposure out here, for other comments/submissions, then it can be moved to the mod forum very soon.

Thanks everyone. <3 And yes, I know Death doesn't "need", but I've had that image in my head for some time now, as an Enchantment summon, and I couldn't resist. :p

[Aezeal]

OK I'm not reading that first post but just trying to come up with some idea's myself

Astral:
- Ether Champion (allows for multiples of it and sounds strong in general.)
- (after having been in my earth section: ) Crystal Golem, could have luck (onebattle), eyeloss, horrormark (those last 2 are pretty extreme), resistances for everything if needed.
- Shapeshifter (multiple forms for multiple needs, could have any power, could have a thug version of it and a shapeshifter lord as SC version.)

Nature:
- Vine Giant. Could be anysize, could be any strength, could have a whole lot of abilities (reinvig, regen, entangle) and full slots.

Earth:
- Iron Golem (or some other metal golem) same as vine giant could be anysize, could have reinvig, high prot, any strength, trample, quite some resistances if needed, full slots.

Water:
- Living whirlpool (not something for slots, so not really what you wanted, could even be a unit not a leader) could be just powerfull and with a devour attack that can kill anything.

Air:
- living hurricane: same as above ... ok air elementals resemble this but this would be way more powerfull.. if you want to keep air somewhat balanced (not a fill scale SC) this could be an option as commander or leader.
- Thunderbird (has been done somewhere as a modded summon somewhere)

Earth/Fire:
- Awaken Vulcano: immobile vulcano which can attack with streams of lava upclose and shoot fiery boulders at range. A defensive powerhouse, could also be a mindless trooper needing a mage to control it.

Fire:
- Efreti (I've had them in a mod, just not as sc quality but could easily be anything you want) fire mage, heat, fire shield etc etc are all option.

[JimMorrison]

Mmmm, I like the Crystal Golem. Maybe with a little work, could come up with a less generic identity for it, too.

The Adom is sort of like the Living Hurricane, but has some cool lore behind it, you should check it out on the webs! :D

For the Whirlpool, I wanted to completely avoid "aquatic only" summons. There are a number of useful ones that already get mostly avoided, since they are so hard for land nations to gain solid access to, and if you are aquatic you generally don't want to burn gems on stuff that can't crawl onto land when you're ready - at least, not after the early-mid game.

Ifrit seems popular, he was already in my little black book, and is definitely going into the mix in one form or another.

Also, a powerful shapeshifter could be a TON of fun. Give it multiple shapes with no intention of shifting in combat, but just a bit of uncertainty for the enemy as to which form he will attack in. Problem there is that something like that could be fairly challenging for me - this mod has a significant amount of content, but I am trying to work it out so as to minimize the effort required to achieve desired results. ;)

[llamabeast]

Your list has lots of interesting stuff Jim.

If you suggested Shishi ages ago, on a thread in a similar vein to this, then yes, I stole it from you! I got lots of ideas from that thread actually.

I'll endeavour to make a bit of progress this weekend, in the gaps between thesis writing.

[OmikronWarrior]

Creating summonable thug chasises has got to be the least imaginative way to "balance" paths. For example, I'd love to get some units that help with magical diversity, like an Earth summon with 4 randoms each F/E. Or how about summons with unique skills, like an Argus summons whose 100 eyes gives him Patrol-100. Or a water summon that causes unrest and cold scales in his current province.

I am not saying don't make thugs (especially if they have an interesting mythological background, of which Tolkein is only a mediocre example of), I am saying trying to use some creativity and imagination.

[Panpiper]

Creating summonable thug chasises has got to be the least imaginative way to "balance" paths.
I do not disagree with you that having imaginative thugs is good. However I would point out that the exercise here is not one of balancing paths but rather simply adding summonable thugs and super combatants such that there are greater options for people in larger games who are not first up to bat with getting the current uniques. This is not to say that balance should not be taken into serious consideration, but the primary intent is variety and options.

[llamabeast]

I agree that there should be lots of variety. I suspect that Jim does too.

I've got quite a few odd things, not least the Wendigo that grows in size and power as it eats population, from initially human size to a huge giant. It grows faster if it takes part in battles (it devours the bodies).

[Aezeal]

Omikron.. the problem with the sort of summons you mention is that they will probably never be used and that would be a waste of long hours of modding. (unless they are a usefull thug besides :D)

Ow I still like the sandworm btw, I've used it in my unfinished nomads and djinni mod. It could be a commander or a trooper, and basicly it's just there for it's devour attack so not a real SC but if it's a commander it could be kitted out.

The non attack sprite was just some vague lines (where it crawls under the earth, I had them in a roughly U form shape I think with some small lines beside in earthish brown but now I think of it it would be better in shadow (magenta)) and then an attack sprite with an open maw doing an attack that will kill nearly everything in 1-2 AoE. Size 6, high prot, fire res, flying (burrowing), lots of terrainsurvivals, siegebonus. --> it's huge siege bonus could put it in the niche category like omicron wanted.
And could of course have any number of other skills (regen, reinvig)
would be an earth summon of course :D

Heck I'm putting him in dom 3 K (well I already have my space eel which fills the same nice, but I just LOVE dune and it's a scifi mod so how could I've kept him out so long).. there is a critter that will at least still be usefull in the times of tanks etc since it will swallow everything and some more whole.

[Aezeal]

PS some of the flavor texts are dom3K ish but the idea should be fine.

#newspell
#name "Capture Sandworm"
#descr "You pay a team of experts to capture and train a sandworm for your cause, like most mercs they like to be paid in earthgems. Your own powerfull earth magics are needed to divine a province where a sand worm could be found."
#school 1
#researchlevel 7
#path 0 3
#pathlevel 0 5
#effect 10001
#fatiguecost 1000
#damage 2410
#nreff 1
#end

#newweapon 765
#name "Devour"
#aoe 1
#dmg 999
#armornegating
#bonus
#nratt 2 --- to simulate it can swallow huge numbers of troops at once.
#att 0
#def 0
#len 0
#end


#newmonster 2410
#spr1 "./dominions 3000/2410_Sandworm_1.tga"
#spr2 "./dominions 3000/2410_Sandworm_2.tga"
#name "Sandworm"
#descr "The sandworm is one of the largest creatures known in the galaxy. It prefers to live deep under ground where it spends most of it's time burrowing. It attacks by swallowing whole regiments of troops or even multiple tanks at a time. Once devoured by a sandworm nothing can survive since the combination of the bowelmovements and extreme heat, which it uses to burrow through the ground, are deadly to everything. The Sandworm burrowing makes it tactical and strategical maneuverable like flying units."
#hp 300
#size 6
#ressize 6
#prot 20
#mor 15
#mr 18
#enc 3
#str 30
#att 13
#def 12
#prec 10
#mapmove 4
#ap 10
#gcost 100
#rcost 20
#itemslots 12288 -- two misc
#wastesurvival
#forestsurvival
#weapon 765 - devour
#trample
#regenerate 10
#stealth 5
#fireres 100
#coldres -50
#shockres -50
#flying
#siegebonus 100
#animal
#maxage 100000
#older 10000
#end


And this would be it. Insane high HP, high prot, high strenght.. I hope I don't need to explain those.
Fireres, since it's got high heat in itself.
Weakness to shock (It could be killed by giving each segment a shock)
Weakness to cold .. just to make is not so powerfull and it was also vulnerable to water. Stealth: it burrows, but not to much since it's still a huge beast.
High map move and flying.. the burrowing (the mapmove might be reduced since this is nearly the equivalent of a jet I think.)
Trample: it can trample I think, but if it uses this to much I'd remove it since the..
Devour attack: attacks 1 spaces for AoE 1 and should do damage there.
regen: I like durability :D
Siegebonus: burrowing helps a lot, not to mention ot could probably burrow right through the outerway and leave a gap for your army.
Animal: cus it's one (I do hope this doens't influence the sigebonus, just the regular siege effectifity.)
Att/def, not to high but a creature is used to it's natural weapons.
waste and forest survival becuase it can burrow there just as easily. Swamps are water which it shouldn't like, and mountains would be more of a problem I'm thinking.

Well it's probably not what you are looking for (but if you use it and redo the pics I might steal em... though I like these, they are decent enough) but I like them.

[llamabeast]

10 earth gems? AOE 2 unresistable death? :shock:

[Aezeal]

wel'l.. it's no commander :D sort of like a tart :D.. ok MAYBE some more then.. but it's for dom 3K and there the spaceeel (15 gems) has the same attack but can also go into space and this one can't hence it's lower cost it can't be used on half of the map. Maybe I should make it 4-6 seperate attacks w/o AoE though so defence can protect you. Ow and it only has 2 slots so you can only give an amulet of luck and an amulet of regen.

[llamabeast]

You could make it do say 40 damage, so troops would be munched just the same, but SCs would get at least some chance to swing back. Also make it normal damage, not AN.

[Tifone]

Or AP if we wanna think of digestion acids :D

[Panpiper]

10 earth gems? AOE 2 unresistable death? :shock:

Heh, yea. I was reading the description and thinking it aught to be more like 100 earth gems, at least.

[JimMorrison]

Thanks guys, for your help. I was going to reiterate the responses to the couple people who seem to totally misunderstand the object of this project, but I realized - if they can't be arsed to actually read the rest of the thread, then they won't read my response. ;) And if they do just read my earlier posts, they'll understand the point! :happy:

And yes, while I want them to be as special as possible, bear in mind it will be my first mod, and is a bit ambitious, so if you want something really fancy to be included (like Llama's exciting Wendigo, or anything with multiple shapes?), then you'll really want to entertain the thought of coding it up yourself for inclusion.

I was thinking about the Crystal Golem last night, and I thought perhaps I will include a "Glass Golem" instead. You know how glass is still somewhat liquid, and "flexible" even when hard? He would have very high prot, and low HP, to simulate being very solid, but brittle. Could make a water version, the Aquarium Golem, who autosummons small sharks in combat, from inside his hollow body! (That part IS a joke, btw. ;))


Oh and just to clarify, what I am hoping to accomplish here, doesn't really overlap with things like Iron Dragons and such, I'm only interested in commander type units, who can be used with the flexibility of being able to operate alone if need be - and geared, though some may only have misc slots, they should be potent and useful nonetheless.


And anyways, since comments from non-mod-active people have grown less productive already - perhaps now is as good a time as any to move it to the other forum? Please, and thank you. :happy:

[Aezeal]

the sandworm could be a commander :D and IMHO (ow was it my idea :D) it's still the best idea in this thread. Not to mention he's very kewl as he pops up when he attacks, really looks like how it's supposed to be.

[Wrana]

First, I would generally agree with Omnirizon about a possibility of abuse and not a great need for this (except in certain cases of old nations which don't have national summons to fill this niche maybe). Still, it's an interesting idea on its own. My ideas on this are (some you may remember from previous discussions; I would prefer to exclude things which would be obviously nation-specific such as genie...):
Fire:
I would offer Salamander or Dragon first.
Another possibility would be either Talos which I mention later or more generic Golden Statue (with Earth, Mindless, heat aura...).
Some servant of Magma King is another possibility.
Earth:
Mechanical Giant/Clockwork Swordsman - generally, they are somewhat similar, with possible difference on Enc. Stats are better than Mechanical Men, full slots, mindless, no magic. As a variation of an idea I'm toying with thought of Talos - a bronze giant with molten copper for blood Daedulos made for King of Crete. But this should be Arcocephalos only...
Ushabti (or Scared Statue if we want to escape Egyptian name). A statue of your god enchanted to move, etc. It would be based on Living Statues, but sacred and maybe a priest.
Air:
First off, here we can place an archer thug - with either some magical bow or a natural missile attack. It could be either an undead (which I wouldn't like) or a denizen of either heavenly (as in Kailasa) or faerie realms. Of course, it should get a high Precision, plus better hp than humans and higher Str (as some magic missile weapons have Str-related stats). Att/Def may be average.
Stymphalian Bird is a variation on this - requires also Earth, flies and throws its copper feathers at enemies (stats as arrows, but multiple attacks and much ammunition). High natural Prot, misc slots only.
Another possibility would be someone like Vanherse/Sidhe Champion.
Water:
In addition to already mentioned aquatic thugs, I would offer a flying jellyfish - obviously, also requiring Nature or Air, non-magical, large, relatively brittle - but with multiple poisonous attacks.
It's also possible to get character version of Claymen or Alchemical Lion (forgot how it's called - character could use name of Abraxas or something similar).
Astral:
Here it gets tricky as Astral is already powerful in late game. It's possible to get something similar to weaker Devatas with a background of a reincarnated great warrior.
Another possibility would be a Champion of Grey Order ((?), the one which contains ethereal Astral mages and knights serving them produced at special site or appearing as a random event).
Nature:
Some largish Were-creature, of course. It may also be a transformation of the caster rather than summoning spell (I would generally prefer such a way for Nature and possibly Earth instead of summons - or maybe it would be enough to make a Transformation lower and cheaper).
Satha - a giant poisonous snake with mind and possibly additional attack (or defense) with something like Mesmerize.
Maybe Faerie Champion - weaker mage than Queen, but better combatant (or maybe place him in Air)...
Death:
Already has quite enough so I wouldn't add anything here.

[Gregstrom]

Or make the weapon one attack at AoE2 instead of 2 at AoE 1.

That'd justify the low price :D

[JimMorrison]

First, I would generally agree with Omnirizon about a possibility of abuse and not a great need for this (except in certain cases of old nations which don't have national summons to fill this niche maybe). Still, it's an interesting idea on its own.

Abuse, how? The intent of this mod is primarily for large games, of ~20 players or more where there is already abuse in the form of 3-4 people getting all unique SCs, and most other nations who didn't take Death on their pretender not having direct counters to them. You can argue that most of those nations have other options in communions and the like, and I will invite you to see how fast those armies can be devastated with a little Rain of Stones, or Bone Grinding. A well built SC requires gearable commander units to effectively neutralize - a skilled player should avoid or neuter other threats most of the time, I mean that is precisely what the basic SC is specifically designed for - army killing. Since we know that the basic concept of arming an SC to destroy entire armies works, and is commonplace - then we need to at least allow everyone in a large game, some sort of access to the tools to make SC killing thugs, if nothing else. I can't believe after my last post I felt the need to reiterate, but you put enough time into your own post, I felt obligated to try harder to reach mutual understanding. :p



Fire:
I would offer Salamander or Dragon first.
Another possibility would be either Talos which I mention later or more generic Golden Statue (with Earth, Mindless, heat aura...).
Some servant of Magma King is another possibility.

The Salamander as far as D&D portrays it (not sure where folklore stands on this), rather than the almost useless Salamanders that Abysia can train? If so, I kind of like it, could modify the Lord of the Waves graphics fairly simply. As far as dragons, I wanted to avoid the cliche, and I feel that if Honeybadger ever finishes his dragons mod, they'll be wayyyyy more fun than just making cheapo pretender chassis knockoffs. Also, Fire is one path that desperately needs something to face up to other SCs, and dragons as implemented thus far in Dom3 cannot hope to do so. A magic weapon is a must, just for starters..... not just teeth. ;)


Earth:
Mechanical Giant/Clockwork Swordsman - generally, they are somewhat similar, with possible difference on Enc. Stats are better than Mechanical Men, full slots, mindless, no magic. As a variation of an idea I'm toying with thought of Talos - a bronze giant with molten copper for blood Daedulos made for King of Crete. But this should be Arcocephalos only...
Ushabti (or Scared Statue if we want to escape Egyptian name). A statue of your god enchanted to move, etc. It would be based on Living Statues, but sacred and maybe a priest.

Actually, if you have seen Hellboy2 (I just did, fun film!), I was inspired by the soldiers in the Golden Army, which is generally much like you described. And, as you point out, something that screams "X nation specific" was generally something I tried to avoid, as per Talos. I will look into the Ushabti later though, and see if it is something I would adapt to general use, rather than it being reserved for C'tis.


Air:
First off, here we can place an archer thug - with either some magical bow or a natural missile attack. It could be either an undead (which I wouldn't like) or a denizen of either heavenly (as in Kailasa) or faerie realms. Of course, it should get a high Precision, plus better hp than humans and higher Str (as some magic missile weapons have Str-related stats). Att/Def may be average.
Stymphalian Bird is a variation on this - requires also Earth, flies and throws its copper feathers at enemies (stats as arrows, but multiple attacks and much ammunition). High natural Prot, misc slots only.
Another possibility would be someone like Vanherse/Sidhe Champion.

Good point, I didn't conceive any of these as primarily intended for ranged use yet. But I wonder if that's what Air most needs? For example, I was going to build in as a drawback on the Archon, a lack of SR, so that he could not be used as a blocker for evocation spam without sacrificing gear slots for immunity to friendly fire. I will try to think on this - a creature that throws spines or something is pretty cool.


Water:
In addition to already mentioned aquatic thugs, I would offer a flying jellyfish - obviously, also requiring Nature or Air, non-magical, large, relatively brittle - but with multiple poisonous attacks.
It's also possible to get character version of Claymen or Alchemical Lion (forgot how it's called - character could use name of Abraxas or something similar).

A flying jellyfish! Oh man now THAT is an image! The Visitor sort of already is such a thing, but this could be a very fun variant on that. Basically a giant gasbag with poison+fatigue damage. That's another I will chew on, I really like it. Making a larger version of the Vitriol Lion has potential - but as it is a spirit of acid, it should be F+W, and I am really trying to avoid cross-path stuff, as it drastically limits availability, and the goal of this mod specifically is to enhance accessibility.


Astral:
Here it gets tricky as Astral is already powerful in late game. It's possible to get something similar to weaker Devatas with a background of a reincarnated great warrior.
Another possibility would be a Champion of Grey Order ((?), the one which contains ethereal Astral mages and knights serving them produced at special site or appearing as a random event).

Ohhhh, hmmmmm. The Shadow Seers, and the Eludians. Now that is another excellent idea. Before I get to building anything for Astral, I'm certainly going to put some concentrated thought in that direction, I think it has serious potential for awesomeness.


Nature:
Some largish Were-creature, of course. It may also be a transformation of the caster rather than summoning spell (I would generally prefer such a way for Nature and possibly Earth instead of summons - or maybe it would be enough to make a Transformation lower and cheaper).
Satha - a giant poisonous snake with mind and possibly additional attack (or defense) with something like Mesmerize.
Maybe Faerie Champion - weaker mage than Queen, but better combatant (or maybe place him in Air)...

That's another fun thought, but do we have a way yet to mod a ritual with random effects such as that? A spell like "Induce Lycanthropy", which was a significantly more powerful version of Transformation, could be a lot of fun - though, it could get really painful trying to get N5 mages to sacrifice for it. Plus, the multiplication of the amount of work if I have to create (already have werewolves in the game) a werebear, a weretiger, a were-great-eagle, etc. I kind of like the snake, though my first guess is that it's not quite the thing for this mod, as for Nature especially, I want options for anti-SC duty as well as traditional army stomping SC duty, and anything like a snake is going to get creamed by an army of any real size (unless it's a giant stone-snake, oh hi there Sandworm :p but you would belong in Earth!).


Death:
Already has quite enough so I wouldn't add anything here.

Like I said, couldn't help myself. I'm trying to think of one interesting thing to add to Blood maybe. Definitely something very niche use, but a reason for Blood lovers to appreciate the mod as well. For example, the Death summon that I have in mind comes out of Enchantment, and quite high up it - for those with much Death who want to do something other than head straight up Conjuration.


And Aezeal, I will think about your Worm, but he needs some serious balancing for introduction to the base game, I think, and I'm not sure if I want a big giant thing for Earth that only gets misc slots..... we'll see. ;)

[Aezeal]

Well a lot can be changed.. you could easily make him have 100 HP, no regen, 4 misc slots, only AoE 1 devour, higher or lower prot and of course.. higher price. And he fits the anti-SC role perfectly (it's what that attack is for you know). You could also make an "Old man of the Desert" unique with these more powerfull stats.

Desendant of Jormungandr: aquatic sea serpent of immense size and power.

Generic Beholders are a nice option too btw, can have all sorts of attacks etc. Not something for full slots though.
I know you all have something against using DnD stuff but really stealing idea's form dnd is exactly the same as stealing them from mythology (where dnd gets most of their idea's too in the end.. it's just naming after that)

Some sort of merman titan, with a water and a landshape, a nice powerfull trident and an enchanted net.

Does death already have a Cerberus summons.. would probably need to be unique but could be very nice. Might even be blood or nature though.. it only guards the gates to the underworld it's not undead as far as I know.

Personally I think the phoenix should get a non god version (and an upgrade at that)

Nature could have some sort of unicorn riding nymph or elf/fae lord. Combining power, abilities and extra attacks of the unicorn with full slots.

For astral some sort of strange void monster could be an option, based on the Cthulhu mythos maybe?

Anti SC summon but not a SC it self could also be a summons of a huge number of small creatures with a AoE 1, AN 1 dmg attack. An army could easily kill them, but a SC with a limit on his attacks would have more problems with that. (could be and army of ghosts, insects, small devils whatever you want for whatever path aoe to avoid def and AN to avoid armor is the key here.)

Of course you can just get mansized and formed heroes of high strenght. Real human heroes and mages. Archmages, master archers, master shinobi, mercenaries, the best gladiators. Stuff like that would fit Dominions 3 well I think since they are basicly most about humans and humansized pplz. With nice one battle spells and stuff.

PS I think were spells would be a good idea but you can't morph the caster and you can't pick different form.
Then again a spell were dragon would be nice you'd cast it on a random peasant (meaning no troop or commander disappears) and he'd be a normal or other sort of infantry (but as commander so he could have items) at start of battle but with a 2nd form of a dragon when killed, that would give some suprises.

Ow and for blood the best idea's are I think the not original sorts of vampire lords with multiple forms from some of the mods that already exist. Even more demons and devils isn't the answer at least.
A new horror might be fun though :D

[Burnsaber]

That's another fun thought, but do we have a way yet to mod a ritual with random effects such as that? A spell like "Induce Lycanthropy", which was a significantly more powerful version of Transformation, could be a lot of fun - though, it could get really painful trying to get N5 mages to sacrifice for it. Plus, the multiplication of the amount of work if I have to create (already have werewolves in the game) a werebear, a weretiger, a were-great-eagle, etc. I kind of like the snake, though my first guess is that it's not quite the thing for this mod, as for Nature especially, I want options for anti-SC duty as well as traditional army stomping SC duty, and anything like a snake is going to get creamed by an army of any real size (unless it's a giant stone-snake, oh hi there Sandworm :p but you would belong in Earth!).


I'm sorry for being a downer, but I'm kinda getting to known a lot about spell modding with CPCS project. Transformation and it's ilk are nearly completely unmoddable. You can't alter the Transformation spell in any way expect for school, gem cost, paths and level.

[Agema]

In addition to already mentioned aquatic thugs, I would offer a flying jellyfish - obviously, also requiring Nature or Air, non-magical, large, relatively brittle - but with multiple poisonous attacks.

I like this idea too. A vast size 6 flying jellyfish.

[Wrana]

Considering Transformation itself - I know that its actual effects are unmoddable as for now. But making it earlier and cheaper (And I also meant not requiring Nature 5 here) could be enough to provide Nature with adequate thugs. At the same time, transforming mage into a definite form is a thing which I consider to be both thematic and useful - so, until somebody comes with a way to mod it (I seem to remember someone making a code-digging for additional spell effects...) just consider it a lobbying for future inclusion of such possibility (of course, it's also possible to use a feature of summoning new unit while killing the caster - but this isn't the same).
To JimMorrison:
By Salamander I meant more of an alchemical Fire spirit than either DD or Abyssia version (DD one isn't that bad as a starter, though - just not very thematic. But then, it could be quite similar to already mentioned servant to Magma King).
As for SC killing I don't think that Fire is where we should look for it: a self-evident feature of fire creatures is either fiery attack or defensive fire (fire shield or heat aura). Any SC aimed to fight your armies and mages when you are known to have Fire is pretty sure to be immune to it. Of course, there is a possibility to use either Banefire or Acid as attack type - but you say that you don't want cross-path summons here... The only thing remotely close to Fire which could be effective against enemy SCs is making it a being glowing so brightly that attacking it could inflict blindness - on the other hand, we already have this in various angel-types... :(
Considering Air I think that it just shouldn't duplicate other paths, but concentrate on what it does best. And this points us to flying, glamour, missiles - and generally, to raiding. At the same time I think just making Great Eagle-type commander is useless: misc slots only it can't be made into an SC or strong thug and even with Air magic it would remain weak - useable as a commander of flying troops but not on its own... I seem to remember, though, that there is a depicting of astrological sign of December making it look like a centaur with wings. I don't remember how it's called offhand, but it may be a base for Air thug also... Still another variant is a Draconian mage (though lack of hands makes him not so usable as thug).
As for Hellboy - I don't like 4-color comicses, so I don't think I will ever see it. ON the other hand the idea itself is both old and viable. ;) And Ushabti I think isn't so specific an idea - sacred statues which suddenly come to life appear in many places...
On jellyfish - yes, precisely. :) I remember such beauties from the old game Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant. Actually, I think that playing it again may be useful just for picking up some interesting monsters... ;)
Shadow Seers - yes, name escaped me, but I think that building on what is already in the game makes it more easy to fit thematically. And they are cool as described...
Considering snake - well, "it never helps", but I just couldn't help it. :D ON the other hand, if it gets the poison like that of The Fang it can be pretty effective against SCs especially. Army may stomp it, of course - but this would also depend on which other features are implemented - armies seem to have not-so-easy time with Wyrm... ;)
As for Death - even in Enchantment, it already has both Lichcraft and Buried in Ice/Sand, which, while pricey, are very good thugs, bring troops and may add to magic diversity. :p I really don't see what may be added to it... But wait, there's more! (c) Baalz. Death allows you to bring dead hero back as a mummy! ;)
Blood may use something non-unique which isn't Vampire, though (as much as I like them, they are already in the game and doing quite well). A possibility that I see is something like a champion of Demon Knights. There are also many variable demons and Horrors, though most of them are quite specific, so should be nation-restricted...
There was a good thought about human heroes in Aezeal's post, too, even though it seems to go beyond the scope of this mod. (Cerberus is a good beast, but it is as correctly stated unique - and nation-restricted, too!) Inicorn, though, could be used even independent of rider - some authors even make them shapeshifters (though I don't remember tham as such in actual folklore)!

[Aezeal]

Burnsaber you could probably just change the results of the transformation though (replace those units) replace the least usefull of them with a SC and the spell gets better. Of course I've never used the spell and don't know if the results are used in other ways too.

[Mithras]

Clockwork assasin? high protection, low hp, moderately high fatigue, incredibaly high movement, good attack rating but low defence and strentgh, multiple attacks. Should be good enough for one half of SC killing team...
earth obviously

Prince of steam... requires only fire to summon but with some water magic thrown in maybe a chance to get air. Allows for diversification, and the acid spells. Give it mistform and a full set of slots along with high strength and attack (compensated by lower protection)?

[JimMorrison]

Clockwork assasin? high protection, low hp, moderately high fatigue, incredibaly high movement, good attack rating but low defence and strentgh, multiple attacks. Should be good enough for one half of SC killing team...
earth obviously

Hmmmmmmm..... this machine constantly emits a piercing high frequency shriek from its gears as it closes on the target, and the fires burning in its furnace blaze with the white-hot fury of the sun. Multiple Paralyze/Stun attacks (to spam against high MR), a single AN main attack with x2 to Undead? I'd actually give them the Assassination ability, as with their "attack systems" powered down they can move silently, and are "stealthy" by virtue of no need for shelter or sustenance, allowing them to keep to inhospitable terrain as they approach their target.

Earth is going to get some really neat toys in this mod - which is funny, because they already have SO many things to spend gems on, how do you choose??


I like the Steam idea as well, but not for this first mod, I want everything single path. But, it's making me think there could be some fun after this is complete, doing a cross-path-summons mod, like Burnsaber's combat spells mod. Just something to add some extra spice to your Dom3 banquet, of course. ;)

[Aezeal]

Clockwork assassin: good idea

Multiple attacks: good idea

Paralyze/Stun attacks: bad idea

AN main attack: bad idea

x2 damage against undead: bad idea

Assassination on an assassin: good idea

(seriously clockwork being hack with blades, not AN blades but AP blades which do damage and don't stun and certainly have no thematic reason to do more damage to undead.)

If he's to be SC material low def and low HP will be quite a hit on him though.. but all could easily be balanced to get him on the right tier.

To stay in the clockwork scene clockwork harvester with those nice scyting wheels in front (you know the one they uses now adays on big fields) trampling over armies :D Or Clockwork Elephant.

[Wrana]

Clockwork Elephant would be cool... :) Of course, we already have Iron Dragon...
Another possibility for Nature could be (I think I mentioned it before in some other thread) just an intelligent Elephant with some weak magic for self-buffs. Think The Mountain That Walk...
A development of earlier thought of Aezeal: if we want to make an "anti-SC" it can have a good number of low-damage attacks. Variants:
Poltergeist: Astral or maybe Death, Ethereal creature, description states that it attacks by throwing various objects telekinetically. May get Sticks & Stones as a missile attack, but main would be "Thrown Objects" attack with high multiplier and low damage. Only miscellanrous slots, obviously. May be stealthy, though it's not necessary.
Chain Elemental (or somethin suitably impressive-sounding, there was some DD monster of such general nature and I believe that there was some movie where it appears 1st): Earth(?). Looks like humanoid figure totally wrapped in chains. Controls those chains, making them flail around striking his opponents. Obviously quite good protection. Possibly entangle defense (or secondary effect of attack?)

[Aezeal]

a good number of low damage AN attacks will be hell to most SC I'd say. But forcing it upon once chassis will be awkward. Personally I think a swarm of size 1 critters will be much more elegant and if they all have 2 attacks (and you don't need to much useless lore to talk that right).. much more original too. all those summonings where you summon 1 guy and then he get's to do all the killing is boring :D

The mountain that rides is the only thing I know (Song of fire and Ice)

An earth summon of a real mountain that lives would be nice htough.. but I already mentioned my immobile sentient vulcano (still quite original IMHO)

What about some sort of wolverine (the x-man not the animal) type summon for nature. Quick in attacks, adamantium claws, regenerates etc etc. A regular size 2 summon would be nice I'd say all those huge things are getting boring.

Some air person with onebattlespell summon valkeries would be rather powerfull just because of that spell. If he himself then is H3 so he can bless them, has some airmagic for buffs, maybe a Valkyrie herself.. some sort of Valkyrie leader. (would make the spriting easier since you could just adjust the Valkyrie sprite) yeah that sounds nice. Air/death/holy a nice magic sword with some death theme.. maybe the raisedeath ability? Sacred herself of course.

Would have all sorts of options.. buffing herself and the valkeries, just spamming skeletons, going melee and raising the dead. The Valkyrie stats are pretty decent, giving this Valkyrie hero a bit better stats would be acceptable.

hmm this idea is sweet if you won't use it I will, though it's much better suited for dom 3 vanilla than dom 3K.

Living clouds is nice for a onebattle spell too btw, some titan race, whose leaders are masters of the wind? A titan chassis decent HP, with air magic and that onebattle spell would be nice. Full slots etc. Not to much other abilities except shock res I'd say. Good for kitting out and having those airelementals as extra punch and just to cut through chaff.

You could think of something with phantasmal army but I dislike the phantasmal spells... masters of illusion etc, not that heroic.

Same with living earth, fires, water etc as for the living clouds, a titan themed for the magic path that autosummons them seems nice.

[JimMorrison]

Clockwork assassin: good idea

Quite


Multiple attacks: good idea

Well yes, especially to kill an SC.


Paralyze/Stun attacks: bad idea

I'm not sure why. Paralyze attacks are MR checked, I think Stun can be made so as well. The point is that he is fragile, but is a specific counter to SCs.


AN main attack: bad idea

Care to explain why? It's not the hardest thing in the world to make a Dusk Dagger. I was still envisioning the Golden Army, they have this big blade on one arm. I could just have it do massive damage, but it seemed more as if it were sharp, than anything else. I will be testing these beasties, you know. If AN is too much, I can make it AP.


x2 damage against undead: bad idea

His intended use is to kill Tartarians.


Assassination on an assassin: good idea

Well I mentioned that because the primary goal was things for the battlefield, so I first saw him as a "battlefield assassin", or a guy meant to counter SCs in direct combat, but not necessarily 1v1.


(seriously clockwork being hack with blades, not AN blades but AP blades which do damage and don't stun and certainly have no thematic reason to do more damage to undead.)

It's not the blade that stuns, reread what I said. :p The stun is caused by intense pain and sensory overload from the bright furnace that powers it, and the horrendous noise it creates when in combat. Again, my apologies if you have trouble imagining it, try this video: Golden Soldiers (http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4124639513/). Just imagine the fires inside much brighter, and a hellish scream emanating from the clockworks. :p Also note the blades are glowing, but perhaps if I remove the undead multiplier, the rest will start making more sense to you. (Also note they look kind of pathetic in this clip, this is just before they all start spontaneously regerating/rebuilding.)


http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4124639513/If he's to be SC material low def and low HP will be quite a hit on him though.. but all could easily be balanced to get him on the right tier.[/quote]

I didn't see this guy as an SC, but as an SC killer. This is the point of building a concept for him that allows him the ability to Stun a single target. It partially comes down to luck, if he gets on you first, you're dead. If you get him first, he's toast.

[Panpiper]

Ritual Spell: Aether Spawn

Cost: 1 astral gem

Summons one commander and a number of identical 'troop' units, numbers balanced to taste.

Creatures are small, stealthy, fast moving/flying, 1 hit point etheral that do a 1 AOE AN attack.

To be effective one will need significant numbers of them, meaning one or more astral mages will have to devote many turns to accumulating them. However once massed, they would form an effective deterrent against raiding, as an attacker will have no way of knowing whether or not a province is haunted by these things.

I expect we would see a production line of clammed astral mages with ritual orders set to autocast.

[Aezeal]

you can talk it right al you want but a stun attack would be stupid, AN too.. just a lot of whirling blades doing AP damage would be better and not need such a long explanation (which isn't even working for me)

I like the Aether spawn too, resemble my idea but that stealth idea is fun. Though I doubt they would be a real deterrent for a raiding force that existed of more than a single SC or a few mages.

[llamabeast]

Yeah, I don't think heat and unpleasantness can give you a stun attack. Mindless constructs would be unlikely to be fazed by it, but a stun attack would affect them just the same. If you wanted you could give him a heat aura. Doesn't seem thematic for a clockwork assassin to me though.

With AP, and AN, it's worth remembering that ordinary sharp weapons have no armor-piercingness. Magical super-sharp weapons are AP. AN is very rare indeed. In fact I'm pretty sure no creature in the game comes with an AN weapon (apart from mental attacks and so forth).

[Redeyes]

The different air elementals/lightning hawks and the swarm spell's Dragonfly are the only creatures with AN attacks that immediately come to mind, another AN attack wouldn't be out of place.

Don't forget the "strength of wielder not added" tag

[llamabeast]

Yeah sorry, I was thinking of the clockwork assassin, not the aether spawn. AN for the aether spawn would be fine. Might be best to set it to #dt_cap (max one damage) though, otherwise the DRN can make even damage 0 AN attacks quite vicious.

[Aezeal]

Hmm I gave the souls in my shiar mod all AN low damage attacks too.. that seemed thematic..aetherspawns woudl be similar.. but imho except the most magical weapons the best a "solid" attack should be is AP. high strenght, high damage and AP will have about the same effect though. Strenght 15+ for a construct wouldn't bother me, nor would damage 5 on it's blades.. combined with AP that will put dents in most SC if there are a lot of attacks raining down on them.. and I can imagine some sort of construct with 6 flailing blades easily.. if he's really fast he could even make each blade strike 2x (I must say I find that always hard to put into creatures.. just fast attacking --> you can only really do it with eitehr giving it 2 of the same attacks.. but that would look like it's using 2 swords, or giving the weapon 2 attacks.. which means you need to create a new weapon and can't use an ordinary weapon. or giving ti onebattlespell quickness but that would make it all magical (and I still don't know if it works on troops or only commanders.)

actually I think the aetherspawn spell would very well suit me for dom 3K (they could easily move through space too) since it has quite a lot of high prot SC chassis and this would be a nice way to even the field if needed. I'm thinking a bit higher cost though if it summons multiples.

Does anyone know of an existing sprite (smallish) that would be fitting?

[Panpiper]

I like the Aether spawn too, resemble my idea but that stealth idea is fun. Though I doubt they would be a real deterrent for a raiding force that existed of more than a single SC or a few mages.

They would be imbalancing if they were a deterrent for a serious force. The idea is to make one's opponent just a little less caviler about easily romping through one's 'undefended' territory with solitary commanders. If they want to raid, fine, but they should have to work for it. And worry about it. ;-)

Description:
The souls of those who have died filled with anger often do not pass to the afterlife, but are rather trapped in the akashic plane. A gifted mage can harness these spirits and give them a quasi existence in the physical world. Their hatred remains unabated and can be felt by those near to them; a painful, deadly hate.



actually I think the aetherspawn spell would very well suit me for dom 3K (they could easily move through space too) since it has quite a lot of high prot SC chassis and this would be a nice way to even the field if needed. I'm thinking a bit higher cost though if it summons multiples.

Does anyone know of an existing sprite (smallish) that would be fitting?

To minimize the need for micromanagement (having to equip multiple mages with gems regularly) it would be nice to keep the spell to a single gem. The idea is that a player would have to invest in dedicating multiple mages over time to amass adequate numbers. This is meant as a balancing feature 'in addition to' the gem cost. Increasing the gem cost in order to summon larger numbers would have the effect of both increasing micromanagement (manually adding gems) as well as reduce the number of mages that need to be dedicated to production. For balance, reduce the numbers summoned, don't increase the gem cost.

For the sprites, just have a shadow on the ground.

[JimMorrison]

Okay, my own concept for this Clockwork Assassin is rapidly moving out of the realms of this mod, and into the next potential mod.

I don't know, I haven't used Edi's DB, maybe with the number of sacred mages in the game, a summon that required E4/H1 would be available to enough nations to justify it. Anyways, I would give it 2 Holy Scourge as built in weapons. So there, haters. :p


I'm growing fond of this Aether Spawn spell as well. Would it be possible to give their commander the unique ability to cast Gateway for free? Give him a small Magic Leadership number, and no normal/undead leadership, and that should limit abusability of the spell. They wouldn't be insanely mobile, but would be able to jump to sieged labs before reinforcements arrive, for a nasty surprise.

Or even better perhaps, make the summon just give you 1 guy, and he has the Teleport ability. In combat, he automatically generates "Aether Tendrils", which are size 1 units with the small AN attack.

I like the idea of weakish units with autosummons in combat. I'm not married to one yet, but there's got to be something here that it would work beautifully for - could be this guy. :p

[Aezeal]

you want things that can't be done. You either make a gateway spell for free and give ti too all nations or restrict it to 3.. can't give ti to a single mage.

Summoning units can be done, summoning in combat can only be done with regular spells not with self made spells.

I don't see why the better suggestions for the clockwork assasin would be moving it out of your general mod idea.

#newweapon "razorsharp blade"
#dmg 5
#armorpiercing
#att 2
#def 1
#rng 3
#nratt 2
#end

#newmonster "clockwork assassin"
#descr "It slices it dices it's fast and it's sharp, hoburg's nr 1 kitchenappliances factory now presents the clockwork assassin. Order one now and get this stainless steel knive-set for free."
#spr as needed.
#hp 25
#size 3
#prot 20
#mr 15
#mor 15
#att 15
#def 15
#mapmove 2
#ap 25
#blind
#weapon "razorsharp blade"
#weapon "razorsharp blade"
#weapon "razorsharp blade"
#weapon "razorsharp blade"
#inanimate
#fireres 50
#coldres 50
#shockres 75
#magicbeing
#noleader
#nomagicleader
#noundeadleader
#slots for 4 arms and whatever.
#end

perfectly suited as a SC

[Wrana]

To Aezeal:
Mountain That Walks was a real-life guy: a particularly large and shrewd elephant who managed to kill quite a number of hunters. Locals attributed various mystical abilties to him. What is known for sure is that he both tracked hunters and made regular ambushes, military-style. :)
More on mystically powerful animals: Vietnamese had an idea of a maneater tiger getting an ability to summon spirits of his victims and using such shamanic powers to lure more victims... Blood/Nature summon? ;)

[JimMorrison]

I don't see why the better suggestions for the clockwork assasin would be moving it out of your general mod idea.

They are only "better" because you prefer them. :P I AM looking for suggestions and advice, and I do want this to be something people will use and be happy with, but I do have to make the final design decisions on whatever it is that I put together.

There are multiple reasons that it could push it out of the realm of what I have imagined for the mod - because the specific goal of the mod is "to introduce summons of comparable power, availability and cost to the existing Bane Lord and Elemental Royalty".

This means all summons should be single path. This also says certain things about the roles that these summons will be suitable for. I can only reiterate - this isn't just a "we need more summons" mod, it's a mod to increase the competitive nature of large games where there are not enough Unique summons (and items) to go around to all of the stronger players.

For this reason, my own imagining of this "Clockwork Assassin", was as a readily available (who wants to be without Earth in the late game?) Tartarian killer. He's not a 1-hit-wonder, he's not an instant trump card to a pristine Tart, but he is something designed to be better at fighting them than most other things.


As far as the Aether guy goes, I am not sure I wanted him to have S3 on his own. I just wasn't sure if a unit could be given an effect like an Item Spell that casts a ritual for free. As I said before, this will be my first mod, and while the size of it is a bit daunting, I had already intended to keep the core concepts fairly basic, so I wouldn't have to range off into the realms of "new, and previously unimagined taste sensations". I would love to do some really daring and interesting summons, but I can't seem to say this enough - that sort of thing will likely have to wait for a different mod. I'm glad that you want to help make this mod cool, I just worry that you are trying to make it be the mod that you wanted, and not the mod that I offered to make. <3

[llamabeast]

Just give the aether dude and his troops flying, and if you want mapmove 4 or 5. Then they're super mobile and you have no modding problems.

[Mithras]

Thief of fire? Fire summon that autocasts darkness (make him see in the dark, give him a terrible precision rating, to stop some of your more obvious fire evocations), has awe and a fire weapon? Giant (Titan)sized (modify the smith god or the cyclops art)... basically an army killer, not that fire needs more of those really. Would need specific counters, but the idea of a giant that autocasts darkness and has some obvious ways to deal with undead apeals to me.

"In the days when the All-god (I can't be bothered to attempt spelling the other version :D, Pankrater?) controlled the flame many heroes attempted to steal this source of power. All were foiled and many were put to death, but the most powerful were imprisoned within the very source of fire itself. Furthermore they were cursed, even when trapped within the source of all fire they were surrounded by darkeness. A firemage must use a great amount of magic to free these titans from their prisons but the very fact that they have survived millenia of eternal heat and darkness is a testemant to their physical and mental might" Hmm sounds more like a pretender chassis, it will probably have to be toned down a little to see use."

Hey I like spewing forth half formed ideas... I really should learn to mod :D

[llamabeast]

Sounds good, but autocasting darkness is really uber!

[Mithras]

Yes I was thinking at least more gems than royalty and higher research but generic... As I said it would probably need to be toned down... but then again if you give it the same magic level (In fire obviously) and research requirements as Tartarians, but ask for 60 gems or something... I'm talking real late game fare basically designed to kill late game 'chaff' or anything that isn't an SC, or blind/darksight. Feel free to butcher as you wish, this guy could easily be man sized with a heat aura and natural fireball attack, actually that would be a decent counter to non fire resistant SC's... if easily massed... thats a bit to normal for me though... I'm musing over how to give a fire summon AoE non fire Ap damage... or an insane attack rating...

[JimMorrison]

Yes I was thinking at least more gems than royalty and higher research but generic... As I said it would probably need to be toned down... but then again if you give it the same magic level (In fire obviously) and research requirements as Tartarians, but ask for 60 gems or something... I'm talking real late game fare basically designed to kill late game 'chaff' or anything that isn't an SC, or blind/darksight. Feel free to butcher as you wish, this guy could easily be man sized with a heat aura and natural fireball attack, actually that would be a decent counter to non fire resistant SC's... if easily massed... thats a bit to normal for me though... I'm musing over how to give a fire summon AoE non fire Ap damage... or an insane attack rating...


Perhaps a re-envisioning of him (since he is undead killer?) that autocasts Solar Brilliance. Not -quite- as powerful as Darkness, as you can't use it in support of an army without Blinding your own units, and also actually hurts undead, where Darkness technically kind of helps them (they are 100% Darkvision by default, same with Demons).


As for the Aether dude having Flying + high map move, I thought of that, but I wanted him to be able to strike during magic phase, which is when you normally have to hit raiding thugs/SCs.

[Gregstrom]

I'm musing over how to give a fire summon AoE non fire Ap damage...

Create a new weapon and give it normal damage and AoE 1.

[Mithras]

I'm musing over how to give a fire summon AoE non fire Ap damage...

Create a new weapon and give it normal damage and AoE 1.

That bits not my problem :D, I meant how to thematicly give a fire summon such an ability...

WHich leads me on to... the avatar of rage (yes it needs a new name) A fairly lowcost fairly high research/magic path fire summon. The idea is to give it lots of high strenght high attack attacks so that it can actually kill SC's.
So it has high attack and a the ability to go beserk (a large beserk bonus?) give them some AP claw attacks (two? four?) (their hands are so hot they melt through none magical armour) They also have a high battle movement and strength. Make them etheral. Give them human HP and and defence (but perhaps a decent protection, nothing good enough to stop a SC though) . The idea is four or five of them could take an lone SC (provided it doesn't have multiple magic weapons, or AoE spells)give them full slots and you have something that at least has a chance of afflicting an SC...

disclaimer: Most of these are ideas with what I think of as appropriate abilities, sort of bent to fit around the roles JM seems to want... please assemble/disassemble/throw away to taste :D

[lch]

WHich leads me on to... the avatar of rage (yes it needs a new name)
Somebody has been playing the King's Bounty remake, methinks... ;)

[Mithras]

WHich leads me on to... the avatar of rage (yes it needs a new name)
Somebody has been playing the King's Bounty remake, methinks... ;)

In my defence I have no idea what your talking about... time to run a search on Kings Bounty...

[Wrana]

Do so - it was a very funny game at the time and from it HoMM series was developed...

[lch]

I was talking about the remake, I don't know the original game. But it's pretty enjoyable and you should know it - it's been developed by a russian game company! The same guys that made Space Rangers 2. Definitely worth trying out the demo at least.

[Wrana]

Well, I'm not monitoring new games with any degree of regularity. Due to the fact that most of what they produce is... let's say, I wouldn't play most if I'd get paid for it! :mad: I'll look up this one - maybe they didn't screw it up - such accidents do happen, fortunately. :)
By the way, King's Bounty 2 existed previously - it was some garage-style work by some Ukrainian student at about 1995 :confused: - quite good at it, too, if only he wouldn't make a starting placement of your character completely random without checking for playability - so one often had to restart several times before being finally able to do something (the first time I played it I started square in the middle of impassable mountians)... :) Oh, ye goode olde times... :)