Kingdom of Angmar - Version 0.52 available

[LumenPlacidum]

I have no modding skills and no real graphical skills, but I thought it would be a really awesome thing to try to mod a nation based on Tolkien's works. In selecting a nation which I could aspire to create, I wanted to try to emulate some of the dominions feel of having older nations and myths and concepts of which many people are unaware.

Nine for mortal men, doomed to die.

So, I thought of the Angmar, founded by the Witch King of Angmar (the lord of the Nazgul). It would be a MA nation (with a nod in the direction of having Morgul be the LA variant and Mordor be the EA variant), and would be based on the evil human kingdom in northern Middle Earth. Since this kingdom is in the Misty Mountains, there is certainly the possibility of goblins and trolls.

Notable Figures:
The pretender selection for Angmar will be pretty limited, perhaps being restricted only to various forms of Sauron. Currently, there are a number of possible ones, which need to be fleshed out: Dark Lord (titan SC), Eye of Flame (immobile), Lord of Gifts (forge bonus, stealthy, corruption?), The Necromancer (archmage style), Master of Shapes (can alter between vampire, great wolf, and bat forms).

One thing that would make Angmar have a different 'feel' from other nations would be the inclusion of a heavy thug with the starting commanders, the Witch King of Angmar. This is a pretty big benefit, since it automatically supercharges expansion, but much of the magical potency of the nation would be focused in this unique unit. So, it's not so much a question of his presence overpowering the nation, but the fact that he can only do so much keeping the nation balanced.

I'd like to have the eight other ringwraiths as either unique summons or essentially as the result of artifacts. The unique summons seems like it would be relatively easy. However, I'm wondering if it's possible to do something like the lycanthropos amulet or the pebble skin suit and have a MR-based chance of turning into a Nazgul each turn when the artifact is worn. Obviously, these would be the nine rings of power intended for human hands.

Magic Diversity:
I'm thinking Angmar would have three magical paths as primary things: death, astral, water and fire. I think having very few sacred units (just priestly commanders and the nazgul themselves) would help to prevent it from being one of those mod nations that makes a race that can do everything.

National Units:
For units, I think the wild and barbarian-like human kingdoms of Angmar and Rhudaur as well as the orcs of Mt. Gundabad would provide sufficient variety. I'd imagine the Angmar humans to be elites with good equipment and stats, but costing lots of resources and a fair bit of gold. The Rhudaur humans would have furs and axes and would probably have a small berserk bonus. Finally, the orcs of Mt. Gundabad could be the capitol-only troops, supplying cave trolls and warg riders.

Anyway, suggestions are very welcome.

Version 0.5 - All national units done. No national spells complete and no heroes available yet.

Version 0.51 - Nazgul heroes added. Some units changed for gross balancing efforts (national mages made not quite so sucky)

Version 0.52 - Three national spells added, along with Barrow Wights and Uruloki.

[LumenPlacidum]

A little research into Tolkien mythos indicates that the Witch King was essentially on his own as a Nazgul until Angmar was destroyed and he fled to the Morgul Vale, when he met up with the other 8 ringwraiths. As such, perhaps he should be alone as a unique summon for Angmar.

All of the nine would be available for a LA Morgul nation, if I manage to piece together stuff to construct all of this.

Is it possible to have a recruitable unique? Or, can you set the starting commanders for a nation independent of what they can recruit? It would be very different if Angmar had this one immortal big thug chassis that it could use at the start of the game, but didn't really have any good recruitable mages otherwise, except as really mild support or for pretty poor research. It would be almost like having two pretender gods.

Magical beings disintegrate on the battlefield if there's no mage that can lead them, right? If so, I can have trolls as magical beings, and if you kill the mage who's exerting influence over them, they succumb to the sun and turn to stone.

[Zargen]

The Witch King would be more along the lines of a pretender.

[rdonj]

Is it possible to have a recruitable unique? Or, can you set the starting commanders for a nation independent of what they can recruit? It would be very different if Angmar had this one immortal big thug chassis that it could use at the start of the game, but didn't really have any good recruitable mages otherwise, except as really mild support or for pretty poor research. It would be almost like having two pretender gods.

Magical beings disintegrate on the battlefield if there's no mage that can lead them, right? If so, I can have trolls as magical beings, and if you kill the mage who's exerting influence over them, they succumb to the sun and turn to stone.


1) Yes.
2) Yes. Although I am inclined to agree with Zargen that the witch king should be more like a pretender than a recruitable.

3) Yes.

[Attle]

I think there is a mod which enables the player to summon a commander based on a Nazgul/witch king. Or rather, I know there is a mod but I can't find it now. Maybe someone else here knows which mod it is?
You should check it out.

[Burnsaber]

It's mytheology, IIRC

[rdonj]

Trumanator was also working on a mordor mod that has the nazgul as unique summons.

[Redeyes]

Angmar and Mordor was active at different times, at the events of the Lord of the Rings Angmar was already of the past. Anyway, Angmar lies in the Frozen lands beyond the Misty Mountains - unlike burning Mordor. Aligning their casters with water/ice and giving their troops frost resistance might be an interesting choice if you want to differentiate the nation from Mordor.

I like the idea of having unique recruitables/summons, partially because I think pretenders are a bit out of place in most of Middle-earth. You could weaken the pretenders by inflating their costs so high paths become impossible to by. You could even take them out altogether by making them immovable & feebleminded (Steward of Gondor?).

[Trumanator]

I actually have a mordor mod nation about 50% done, but my inability to understand sprite editing has left me there for the last few months.

[Sombre]

What is there to understand?

[LumenPlacidum]

Does it make more sense to have the Witch King as a unique summon, unique recruitable, or as an option for a pretender god?

Trumanator, what era were you going for for your Mordor nation? Maybe when I actually figure out what programs can edit .tga files I'll be able to share some of what I work on with you so you can get sprites out for yours. How were you dealing with the Nine in your mod?

[Squirrelloid]

Unique, probably summon. Pretender makes no sense - he serves Sauron. Pretender gods serve no one but themselves.

(Sauron would be the pretender - although arguably you can 'construct' a sauron with the current system. Although better graphics and tailored magic paths/abilities would be cool. Sauron at the time of Angmar is effectively 'imprisoned' in dom3 terms).

And pretenders make plenty of sense in middle earth terms. Its just by the time of the War of the Rings the Valar were not involved directly in the affairs of the world. One could argue the Istari are sort of like pretenders... Hmmm...

[LumenPlacidum]

Sure, in that the Istari were Maia. Maia were on the same order as the Valar, just of lesser magnitude. I view the Valar as equivalent to dominions Pantokrator but as a pantheon. Sauron is a perfect example of a pretender god: a somewhat lesser being trying to claim a throne that's really too much for himself.

[Burnsaber]

Maybe when I actually figure out what programs can edit .tga files I'll be able to share some of what I work on with you so you can get sprites out for yours.

Almost any program can edit .tga files. I prefer GIMP because it's free but still has some quite advanced tools. As for sprite editing itself, first steps are the hardest. GIMP has a bit confusing command layout and learning the finer points of pixel art will take some practice.

For your first mod, one should try to stick as basic designs as possible. If you take a quick look at my first mod (Alugra, City of Wonders, see sig for link), you will see how the units basically are vanilla units with recolors,altered equipment and capes added. Like has been mentioned, Psientist has done a wicked sprite for both Nazgul and basic Orc (can be found in the Antilarium and Mytheology mods), you should consider using those as base sprites.

Like always, I'll also like to state that I'll give constructive feedback and suggestions to any sprites posted on the "Sprite Editing Tutorial" sticky thread. If you ran into some other trouble, you can post in the thread I mentioned or try to seek me up from the dominions3 IrC channel.

[thejeff]

I love the idea of the Witch King as a unique starting commander, more powerful than anything recruitable. That's a unique way to approach a nation.
Sauron should be the only available pretender and should only be taken imprisoned. I don't think there's a way to enforce that, but it could be strongly recommended in the descriptions.

The other Nazgul could be available as summons. They may not have been around Angmar, but that doesn't mean they couldn't come.

[LumenPlacidum]

Oh good, someone else likes the idea of having a unique thug commander to start with.

I was thinking making the witch king something like the following:

HP 30 Str 15
size 3 Att 15 = 14 + (1 weapon), ambidex 3
Prot 1 Def 18 = 14 + (3 mounted) + (1 weapon)
Mor 30 Prec 12
MR 18 Move 3 / 20
Enc 0 Good Leader/Undeadleader
S3D4H3
Sacred, Undead, NNE, Glamour (and stealthy +25), Coldres 100, Fireres -50
Darkpower 5, Fear +9 (4 from D4), Immortal, Ethereal, Darkvision 100

Weapon: Pale Blade (not sure what to make of this yet)
Armor: Crown

I could see him being the nation's only access to astral, and certainly the strongest access to death. Having him at the beginning would let the expansion go very well (especially if you could quickly forge armor for him), giving you more territory than others. However, I intend to make units somewhat less cost efficient for Angmar than what other nations enjoy, requiring those extra resources to have forces on par. This would result in ritual/forging goodness (because sites are based on number of provinces and gem costs independent of who's using them) and more strategic tension (since with more territory you need to be more wary of stretching yourself thin).

Other mages would probably include some sort of cap-only orc shamen, with passable death and fire access, as well as recruit-everywhere wildmen shamen with weak water and death magic. With only average researchers at the capitol and definitely sub-par ones elsewhere, Angmar will need more castles to keep up in research, which they can manage because of the extra SC to begin with. It should feel like a different dynamic than playing other nations.

With regards to encouraging the player to take an imprisoned pretender, it seems like the best ways of doing that are to give them good sacreds to encourage a huge bless (not doing this, there will be no non-commander sacreds), or to make it so they really need fantastic scales. Not sure how to do that. Of course, it shouldn't be necessary that any pretender the player takes should be imprisoned, but only that specific chasses encourage such activities. In fact, there could be multiple chasses representing Sauron in different stages:

Lord of the Rings : most powerful; titan-like SC who should be imprisoned.

The Lidless Eye : immobile, perfectly feasible awake or sleeping.

The Necromancer : research-based pretender that makes sense if it's awake (sort of).

Annatar : forging pretender, makes sense awake, due to timeline in the world.

Feedback would be appreciated.

[Squirrelloid]

The titan-SC is an invention of the movie. It has nothing to do with any of the real source material. I'd skip it.

If anything, possibly a shapechanging version (into a werewolf or vampire) would be more appropriate - see Beren's tale in the Silmarillion.

[LumenPlacidum]

Oh? I thought after corrupting Numenor, Sauron, like Melkor before him, could no longer change his form from that of a great dark lord. Kind of a punishment for leading men to break the Ban of the Valar. Either that or he couldn't be pretty again. Can't remember which.

Anyway, I'm starting to dissect some other peoples' mods to figure out what I'm doing in terms of mechanical changes. Is there any way to make sure I don't step on toes with unit numbers and such?

[Squirrelloid]

Couldn't change his form anymore, but that mostly meant he couldn't become pretty. The only story involving Sauron in a physical fight is Beren and Luthien, and then it involves shapechanging. In fact, afaict he never takes a form substantially larger than man-sized. (I haven't read all the collected notes books that Christopher Tolkien collected, in particular I haven't gotten to the War of the Ring book, but given how the ring and power in general is portrayed by Tolkien, something as vulgar as larger size seems unlikely).

[kianduatha]

It would be fun to have a 'pretty' Sauron too--very high pretender cost, but flying, stealthy and a corruptor, a la Lord of Civilization. Maybe immortal too, but low enough hp/stats that he wouldn't really work as a SC.

[thejeff]

Couldn't change his form anymore, but that mostly meant he couldn't become pretty. The only story involving Sauron in a physical fight is Beren and Luthien, and then it involves shapechanging. In fact, afaict he never takes a form substantially larger than man-sized.<snip>

Specifically, he was no longer able to take a fair form, and thus was no longer able to deceive Elves or Men about his true nature, but had to rule by force and terror.

The other case of Sauron in a physical fight is when he is overthrown by Gil-Galad and Elendil. It is not described in any detail, but I got the impression of an epic struggle. A larger than human, though not titan sized form could be justified.
Isuldir did describe the Ring as shrinking.

I do like the idea of multiple Sauron forms to choose from for a pretender, even if justifying them is a stretch. Gives the player some options, while remaining appropriate.

[Trumanator]

In my mod I was specifically following the movies more than the books, for whatever that's worth. I actually posted it, since rdonj was helping me out, and I was kinda hoping someone would want to help me out by doing some sprites. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Sombre: I suppose its not the editing itself, but figuring out how to make the editor do what I want it to.

Edit: Here (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43563&highlight=Mordor)it is.

[rdonj]

Speaking of which, do you remember what it was we were going to do next when I vanished? I kind of got busy and forgot about it :(

[Trumanator]

I'm not sure either, though I forget if we actually got the Sauron pretender to work.

[LumenPlacidum]

Well, first try at sprite editing. Started with the unarmored mounted commander, but made him into a black rider. There's a lot of depth to the grays, but they seem to be lost in the scale of things. I have a long way to go, clearly. Amazing how even one this simple could take so long. Spent a couple hours on it.

The bright pink does represent shadow, right? In which case, it just uses a darkened background color? I'd really like something to make the nazgul *pop* but they're notable for being just black riders, right? Anyway, at least I have the rider separate from the horse, so I can plop him down on a fell beast when I get to those.

http://i37.tinypic.com/jhsv12.png

[LumenPlacidum]

The units seem to be going as follows:

Rhudaur Men: 3 varieties, all share mountain survival and cold resistance 50.
Wild Man: Slightly better equipped barbarian with great club, berserk +0, pillaging bonus (1)
Hunter: Shortbowman with prec 11, stealth, forest survival
Savage: 2 hatchets on a berserker +3 which serves as a heavy hitter that will be consumed by arrow fire; pillaging bonus (3), ambidex 2

Angmar Men: 2 varieties, both have mountain survival. A premium is paid for either type.
Swordsman: broadsword/kite shield with chain hauberks, pretty good stats (atk 12 def 12 base)
Bowman: composite bow at prec 11

Gundabad Orcs: 3 varieties, capitol-only. All of these orcs are hardy, having reinvigoration 3, which serves to make their very heavy armor somewhat more practical. They all have gluttony 2, cold resistance, mountain survival, darkvision 50% and berserk +3. They are expensive gold- and resource-wise.
Orc Warrior: Morning star/Kite shield, plate hauberk
Elite Warrior: Flail/Kite shield, full plate mail. These elites have berserk +4, which will make them tough as nails.
Warg Rider: Light lance, broadsword, kite shield, plate hauberk. Addition of bite attack from warg makes these effective shock troops.

Cap-only Gundabad Shaman will be F1D1H2 +110% EFDW. It still has the reinvig 3, but also has the berserk +3, which could be a distinct disadvantage for a mage. Is equipped with armor and weapons anyway.

[LumenPlacidum]

Hmm, a quick test reveals that the bright pink does NOT actually become shadow in the game... So, I'll just get rid of it or something. Does it have to be an exact color?

[llamabeast]

It has to be an exact colour. Don't get rid of it! Sprites will look terrible without shadows. Copy it from another sprite. Make sure you are using something good (like GIMP, which is free and excellent).

[LumenPlacidum]

So, I want to have hill trolls in for Angmar, but I have too many cap-only troops as it is and they're probably too powerful for recruit-everywhere. I also want to somehow model the idea that they cannot travel normally since they get turned to stone in daylight. It was suggested to me that they might work in this way as part of the heavy province defense that comes at 20+. As part of PD, trolls would make attacking into the core of Angmar a pretty scary prospect, which would help the nation to wait for the Witch King to marshal its strength when it wants to attack.

If possible, I will have the trolls have questionable loyalty (or just give them trample and low morale with the usual consequences).

[rdonj]

Having them as part of the PD isn't a bad idea. I'm pretty sure your plan to give them questionable loyalty through some modding trick won't work, but I don't think low morale trampling is entirely thematic. Decent morale and trampling, maybe. Actually I think it would be more thematic for trolls to go berserk, but it is your mod, and I haven't read the books super recently.

[kianduatha]

Questionable loyalty might come from a copystats of a War Lobster. Give them 10 hp or something in their firstform, and their second form just goes berserk on everyone. It'd be fun. And terrifying.

I'm kinda weirded out by Angmar not having any recruit-anywhere orcs. Maybe at least have a snaga recruitable? And I hope there are orc summons.

It'd be nifty to give orcs/trolls/the witchking darkpower of some level(at the very least darkvision 100). It would also be cool to have some sort of commander(summoned/hero/???) autocast darkness at the beginning of combat. It just seems...wrong... that casting Utterdark as Angmar isn't really a good idea right now, between the nice bowmen and even their elite troops not having full darkvision.

[Burnsaber]

If you make Trolls able to go "War Lobster", I'd suggest to make them summons instead of PD units. Otherwise your PD 20+ would be extremely vulnerable to anything with "Fire Largest" command (or spells like "Mind Burn"), which would make the trolls "pop" while they have only friendly troops nearby.

[LumenPlacidum]

Angmar seems like it was mostly a kingdom of men, though there were orcs also in the misty mountains. I'm using the idea that the real stronghold of the orcs in Angmar was Mount Gundabad (the ancestral home of the dwarves and the reason why dwarves so hate the orcs). However, since smaller goblins lived in the mountain chain that housed Angmar following the War of Wrath against Morgoth, they're definitely in the area. I could make these snaga orcs small, cheap and numerous, I suppose, with real crap for morale, but full darkvision.

Anyone know if it's possible to have specific bad events for a nation? Would be funny to have Angmar being plagued by the dragons out of the north.

How does the lobster thing work? Is it just that they automatically smash anyone around? Or, do they have to take damage first, or fail a morale check? I'd be sort of ok with the idea of the trolls having this serious flaw of just eating anyone nearby when the going gets tough. Promoting the use of different strategies for attacking the nation is something that I think should be encouraged, unless the weakness is such that it makes them useless.

[kianduatha]

I'm not sure you could Fire Large Monsters down the "War Lobster" trolls. They'd only have like 10 hp in their first shape, and so probably wouldn't be targeted. If anything, the Mind Burners would just take out the berserk ones for you. It's still a good idea to pull, but if people are targeting your trolls, they are targeting the berserk ones over the controlled ones.

The idea is that they would have only 10 hp or so. Then, when they die, they get replaced by a much tougher unit that just tramples everything nearby, friend or foe. It would be glorious.

I am a bit worried about having a composite bow recruitable. They're quite nearly as good as longbowmen, and I fear that this will become another archer nation.

[LumenPlacidum]

The archer nation concern is one I have also, but still I feel they should have some archers. Maybe I should do something like what shinuyama has, and make the archers into good melee combatants, so that the idea is to let them soften the enemy before crushing them up close.

Alternatively, I could just give them shortbows. Or even remove the Angmar Bowman unit entirely, and leave the nation to rely on the Rhudaur Hunters for ranged support.

Tests on my original design for the Gundabad Orcs made them nigh unstoppable against indies. Two turns worth of recruits could take out any sequence of indie provinces forever, knights notwithstanding.

The current Gundabad Elite Warrior looks like this:
#newmonster 2899
#name "Gundabad Elite Warrior"
#descr "These are the elite of orc society beneath dark Mt. Gundabad. These orcs are equipped with thick, black iron armor and strike quickly and strongly with their flails, making them ideal shock troops. Elite warriors possess the hardiness of all orcs of Mt. Gundabad, with the appetites to match, but have a greater inner fury which they release in battle."
#hp 17
#size 2
#prot 3
#mor 13
#mr 10
#enc 2
#str 14
#att 12
#def 12
#prec 10
#ap 10
#mapmove 2
#mountainsurvival
#coldres 50
#darkvision 50
#supplybonus -2
#reinvigoration 3
#berserk 4
#weapon "Flail"
#armor "Plate Hauberk"
#armor "Half Helmet"
#armor "Shield"
#gcost 40
#rcost 8
#end

The combination of heavy armor, berserk with 2 attacks, and reinvigoration makes them really really effective. Which I suppose is predictable. But, they cost 40 gold and 36 resources a pop. I originally had them at 23 hitpoints and with full plate mail, but that was just crazy. Now the lesser shield makes them trigger berserk more from slingstones, and the lesser hitpoints makes them somewhat more killable in melee. If it's really unreasonable, I'll drop the reinvig to 2.

[kianduatha]

The reinvig is just fine. They have what, 4 net fatigue, 6 when berserking? The real thing is that you mentioned a desire to make Angmar troops less effective pound per pound than other nations; these guys are pretty badass, mostly from the flail+shield(which is kinda weird, since flails are 2handed weapons). The real thing is just that a square of these can destroy an entire square of enemies every round, so they don't get hit too much. Combine that with a high attack and repel against prettymuch everything but spears, and they do well.

If you find them too powerful...just change the flail into a morningstar. Or take away the shield entirely. I'd actually like to see the 23 hp version with full plate and no shield, just to see how they run. You might like the style a bit more. I think overall they'll have lower survivability than this current version.

[Squirrelloid]

Make the trolls a summon. Conj 2-3 req E1? Oh wait, we have that already...

Alternately, make some of the orcs more widely available so another cap-only doesn't seem like that big of a deal =)

(I mean, orcs breed rather rapidly, there's no reason why the lesser versions shouldn't be available everywhere).

[kianduatha]

Given his view on the nation, it makes sense to have all but snagas cap-only. Then you can summon some more(and other nasty things) using gems from your larger empire, thanks to your SC Witch King.

[LumenPlacidum]

The real thing is that you mentioned a desire to make Angmar troops less effective pound per pound than other nations

Good reminder. These orcs are a problem with that concept because they're both the heavy hitters and the front-liners, which is inherently effective. I want Angmar to have to spend more for the same effectiveness. Maybe it does make more sense to have them play the attrition game instead of just making things very expensive. The extra cost can come from upkeeping the large armies required to perform well against others, I guess.

How else can I achieve that design goal?

[LumenPlacidum]

I'm finishing up a first draft of the actual mechanics for all the units and such. I'll sketch up some basic graphics and post it up in a day or two.

For this first draft, I'll really be testing to see if the highly-expensive and non-massable but effective cap-only troops make the whole nation's military as powerful as others. If I give Angmar a very strong early game, leading into only a mediocre mid-game due to the unmassable elite troops and the massable troops that die by the hundreds, then that part will essentially be successful. I suspect that as it is, the nation is *very* front-heavy. The extra SC/thug at the beginning plus the ability to recruit a few crazy orcs from the capitol early on makes their start a real juggernaut. Their best access on mages is pretty weak (D1F1 +110% BDFW and D1W1 +100% DEFW), except for the Witch King himself, who is D4S3, fully capable of getting the high death stuff.

After I get the crappy sprites in there and post it for a first review, I'll start to consider things like national spells.

That reminds me, how many hero slots are there for a nation? At least 8?

[rdonj]

Not quite. There are 6 hero slots, and 2 multihero slots. If you wanted 8 specific heroes you'd probably have to make two of them summons.

[LumenPlacidum]

Eh, the chances of getting more than 8 multiheroes is pretty slim. Maybe I'll just make a "Ringwraith" multihero to represent each of the others. Not like any but one has a name anyway.

[rdonj]

Yeah, I don't think that would be a problem at all. The chance of getting even 4 heroes in the same game is so small it might as well be nonexistant.

[kianduatha]

Not like any but one has a name anyway.

Lies! I remember Andunaphel the Quiet, Ren the Unclean, Khamul the Easterling, Akhorahil, Hoarmurath of Dir, Uvatha the Horseman, Dwar of Waw, and Ji Indur Dawndeath.

[Squirrelloid]

Not like any but one has a name anyway.

Lies! I remember Andunaphel the Quiet, Ren the Unclean, Khamul the Easterling, Akhorahil, Hoarmurath of Dir, Uvatha the Horseman, Dwar of Waw, and Ji Indur Dawndeath.

Too bad only Khamul is an official name. Not that I oppose the use of the other names.

Of course, only the Witchking was actually in Angmar...

[LumenPlacidum]

That's why I was thinking it would be best if the others were heroes. They have to "arrive at your city, ready to fight for your cause" because they weren't there previously. Consider it Sauron sending reinforcements :p.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm pretty excited about this mod. I'm a big fan of Tolkien and thought I'd put my 2c in about the Heroes vs Summons debate.

Please feel free to ignore them :).

A little research into Tolkien mythos indicates that the Witch King was essentially on his own as a Nazgul until Angmar was destroyed and he fled to the Morgul Vale, when he met up with the other 8 ringwraiths. As such, perhaps he should be alone as a unique summon for Angmar.

I was thinking about this, and it would (to me, anyway) be really neat if each of the 9 ringwraiths was a unique summon. That's something Tolkien never got around to. Only 2 of the ringwraiths even have names. This is an interesting Nation by itself, but adding a bunch of unique summons I think would make it stand out, not only as a Tolkien-based Nation, but even compared to all the Vanilla and Mod Nations already out there.

Also, actual magic users are very rare in Middle Earth, so having the Ring Wraiths and Pretender as your main/more or less only casters, with heroes providing additional spellpower, would make the Nation very interesting to play, I think.



As heroes, you'd only get 6 of them, at best, and I think there's plenty of other options here for heroes/multiheroes.

Suggestion for possible Heroes: Saruman (E3/F2/A1/W1/N1/B1/H1, elderly but self-healing, 25% forging bonus), Mouth of Sauron (high leadership, some magical ability: S2/D2/B2? possibly H4?), Gothmog (high leadership, high morale, possible Boldog--see below), Shagrat (very large, extremely tough orc with very high Prot and possibly even Awe--he won the battle of Cirith Ungol and he's got the mithril coat), Grond (construct with high Seige bonus, produces Mountain Trolls), Corsair Lord of Ships (excellent Sailing, could have a secondform that rides a Mumakil, strong Banner in either form, could occasionally produce Mumakil-riding Black Corsairs.).

Suggestion for Multiheroes: Mordor Troll--huge, relatively intelligent, very nasty troll with spiked armour, Boldog--largest, meanest, smartest orcs around, might even have some magical ability (from Wikipedia: Boldog (…) is a name that occurs many times in the tales of the War. But it is possible that Boldog was not a personal name, and either a title, or else the name of a kind of creature: the Orc-formed Maiar, only less formidable than the Balrogs. Melkor had corrupted many spirits — some great as Sauron, or less as Balrogs. The least could have been primitive Orcs.)

It seems to me that, considering that Sauron is just a disembodied spirit at this point in time, instead of giving Angmar the Witch-King as a starting commander (The Witch-King in the books doesn't really show up until late in the game), you might possibly give them a "Sauron's Shadow" unit, which would have immortality, etheriality, and a patrol bonus, but no physical stats (1 hp, 0 Str, etc.), only 1 mapmove, and no actual magic, but the ability to lead your mindless trolls, and the sun-fearing varieties of orcs (since "the Uruk-hai and Olog-hai could fight in the sunlight, as long as they were under Sauron's Shadow.").

Speaking of uruk-hai and olog-hai, have you considered that they might be a Summons? possibly Blood/Nature, along the lines of Crossbreeding?

By the way, do you have any intention to include Shelob? Maybe as a Unique, in place of a starting scout? Could be (appropriately, I think) a good early Rush deterrant. You could make her a stealthy cannibal (so that she eats orcs) with no Leadership.

[LumenPlacidum]

I was thinking about this, and it would (to me, anyway) be really neat if each of the 9 ringwraiths was a unique summon. That's something Tolkien never got around to. Only 2 of the ringwraiths even have names. This is an interesting Nation by itself, but adding a bunch of unique summons I think would make it stand out, not only as a Tolkien-based Nation, but even compared to all the Vanilla and Mod Nations already out there.

Well, I'm sort of making the assumption that the other ringwraiths are about in the world, but are not tasked with any duties in bringing down the kingdom of Arnor. This leaves wide open the concept of the Nazgul being unique summons, which would be perfectly fine to me, where the summon calls its services, but doesn't create it on the spot. This is quite possible as a way of going about getting them, but it also puts a little more control over them in the hands of the player in a time when they were more or less Sauron's only powerful actors in the world, since he had not taken shape.

I was more inclined to have the Nazgul being unique summons (probably at low level conjuration) in the Late Age version of the nation, which I wish to do after this one, which would be modeled on Mordor, not Angmar.


Also, actual magic users are very rare in Middle Earth, so having the Ring Wraiths and Pretender as your main/more or less only casters, with heroes providing additional spellpower, would make the Nation very interesting to play, I think.


I intend for other magic users to be weak, but I didn't really consider that it would be playable to not have any access to other mages. I'd probably have to improve the unique magic users significantly, especially in the research side of things. Or, I could have some cheap magicless commanders with very low research values and a strong death income for skull mentors or something. It's something to ponder. I would very much like to reflect the idea that mages in Middle Earth were rare.

However, in the Lord of the Rings, when the fellowship was traveling south from Rivendell, they were fallen upon by a pack of wargs, led by some sort of magic-using wolf, if I recall. It was pretty much the most blatant use of magic present in the books (Gandalf calling down lightning strikes and such). I need to look it up again, but if that's the case, the magic stuff could be more prevalent on the evil side of things.

Suggestion for possible Heroes: Saruman, Mouth of Sauron, Gothmog, Shagrat, Grond, Corsair Lord of Ships.

Suggestion for Multiheroes: Mordor Troll, Boldog

Those are great ideas, but I think they're better ideas for the Mordor concept for late age, since they're all from that time period. I particularly like having Grond as a heroic construct that generates trolls. I'd probably give it a high standard ability too.

It seems to me that, considering that Sauron is just a disembodied spirit at this point in time, instead of giving Angmar the Witch-King as a starting commander (The Witch-King in the books doesn't really show up until late in the game)

Well, as far as I know, the books don't go into Angmar terribly much, and the Silmarillion more than the actual trilogy. It seems to me that the Witch King was the founder and ruler of this kingdom all throughout its life if war against Arnor. The fact of the Witch King's presence all through that time period is the reason I'm including him as the starting commander. Though, the different playing dynamic of having such a powerful, unique, and immortal commander early on who represents a sizable chunk of your nation's access to magic is also interesting to me.

you might possibly give them a "Sauron's Shadow" unit, which would have immortality, ethereality, and a patrol bonus, but no physical stats (1 hp, 0 Str, etc.), only 1 mapmove, and no actual magic, but the ability to lead your mindless trolls, and the sun-fearing varieties of orcs (since "the Uruk-hai and Olog-hai could fight in the sunlight, as long as they were under Sauron's Shadow.").

I do really like this idea, and that's what I'm trying to get at for the trolls. They cannot survive the light of day, so they need to be led by someone who can extend the shadow over them as they go. I dearly wish there was a mechanic that I could use to make them die when not in friendly dominion, because the dominion spread mechanic for them would be perfect. Also, weren't Uruk-hai specifically the orcs that didn't particularly mind being out in the sun? I didn't think they needed a shadow at all, hence Saruman's army of them.


Speaking of uruk-hai and olog-hai, have you considered that they might be a Summons? possibly Blood/Nature, along the lines of Crossbreeding?

I hadn't considered that, but again it makes sense for a Mordor nation, and I do like the idea. I have no idea if there were uruk-hai and olog-hai in the northern parts of the Misty Mountains in that time period. Perhaps Angmar could also have access to the spells, but not have any convenient mages who can cast them, like many of the national spells that get inherited from previous eras.


By the way, do you have any intention to include Shelob? Maybe as a Unique, in place of a starting scout? Could be (appropriately, I think) a good early Rush deterrant. You could make her a stealthy cannibal (so that she eats orcs) with no Leadership.

I had considered adding Shelob when/if I do Mordor. That's one reason why I had been asking about whether it's possible to mod events. I think Shelob would be fun as one of those indie attack events. She strikes and claims one of your provinces as her own, and is a nasty SC alone. Having her as a starting scout is also quite possible.

Edit: the sprite that I made for the witch king doesn't look quite so dark and homogeneous in the actual game:
http://i48.tinypic.com/9i65cp.png

[HoneyBadger]

The sprite looks really good!


The problem I see with getting this guy from the beginning is that, by the second round, you've already Prophetized him (not that you really need to, since he's Sacred, but it'll let him self-bless, give him access to all the other Holy spells--including one that grants retributive damage to any unit that actually hits him--spreads Dominion, and grants extra hp, att, def, mr) and slapped black plate on him, making him a perfect Rusher, or just a perfect Indie-killer. And you don't have to worry about getting him killed or wounded, since he's immortal.

Waiting 2 more rounds gives him a black shield and a black helmet, neither of which will encumber him, since he's undead, solving that pesky archer problem.

Speaking of Bless, I'd do everything I could to give this guy a Fire 9/Water 9/Astral 4 bless (he's got 3 attacks, afterall, his Att's a little low, and he's worth the MR boost), giving him atleast 4 attacks a round, at a base Att 18, and Def 22, and 18 MR, plus whatever the prophetizing gets you.

If that becomes too expensive (not sure why it would, since this guy's the starting army to end all starting armies, who needs Production, or income?), Fire 9 + Astral 4 will get the job done.

Fire vulnerability sounds like a problem, except it isn't, because you've quickly forged him a ring of fire resistance as soon as it becomes a problem, and he's got cold resistance and natural undead poison resistance. Shock resistance isn't so far behind, since there's a number of forgeable items for that, including and especially Copper Plate, which takes care of Shock, and does even more additional retributive damage.

With Fear +4 (+14, with the Horror Helmet he can forge by himself), Etherialness, Twist Fate, the Luck he'll soon be able to cast on himself, and the high Prot I just mentioned (20 or so), what, besides an SC Pretender, is going to have a chance of stopping this guy in the first year? How about the 2nd year, when he's got a real army behind him?

An army of Shades and Shade Beasts, Banes, Black Servants, and Longdeads, by the way, led by Mound Kings, with a host of Revenant researchers. With this guy to get your Deathmill rolling, forget about your National recruits. Undead don't cost any upkeep, don't eat, don't age, etc.

At the end of the 2nd year, having used him to ravage the countryside, and now using him to finely crush anyone left standing, you're going to be collecting plenty of Astral Pearls from all the site-searching you'll want him to do (infact, taking the time to do site-searching might be the only thing slowing him down. It's worth the time, since high Astral + high Death = win), and since this is one unit that's actually worth empowering, even Mind Hunt isn't going to reliably stop him.

And if you think he's nasty now, just wait till you hit Soul Vortex and Const 6.


It's not just that he's good in the early game, it's that he's very very good, and keeps getting exponentially better throughout the game, and practically by the month. With a good Pretender to back him up (a Cyclops, Blood Fountain, or Great Sage would do quite nicely), he might as well be a walking Nation all by himself. As a prophet, I'm not convinced he even needs his home Province, so long as you carefully monitor your Dominion.

I think having this guy around from round 1 would change not just this Nation's strategy, but the strategies of everyone he's going to fight. Pretenders become SC Killers, magic weapons, priests, and Dom Pushing are priorities, and nobody except the Witch King bothers with basic PD at all.

[kianduatha]

Not really any worse than starting with a Prince of Death. The same things that take him out will deal with this guy--and he doesn't fly. If you want to spend 400 design points to help one unit(no sacred recruitabless) that's easily counterable with death, astral or blood...I guess you could go after Eriu! After putting both air and nature magic on your pretender and forging a ring of tamed lightning and snake ring(with no national income in either), you can watch as you lose because you have one thug who can take out province defense, and he has a dozen.

If nothing else...people will realize that your Witch King can only be in one place at once--which means you're dead meat the second you commit yourself against one enemy. You cannot afford to ignore your nationals.

It does make this nation really different from other ones, but it's not any more game-changing as starting near someone who has elephants. If it happens, you grab some counters. End of story. I can't think of a middle-age nation that doesn't have counters within reach, unless you planned from the beginning to go after Eriu.

His purpose is to jumpstart you against indies so you can leverage your inferior nationals and get some momentum for your first war. He's powerful, but not against a prepared foe. He's a ridiculously powerful raider, but not a viable front line.

[Squirrelloid]

For more information about the Kingdom of Angmar, its probably somewhere in the 12 books of notes Christopher Tolkien organized and published, somewhere I haven't read yet. (its a lot of books, and they aren't small).

Some specific notes:

Uruk-hai are created by Saruman, and as such didn't exist in the time of the Kingdom of Angmar.

I have no idea if Orog-hai existed yet or not. There's a little reason to believe they were trolls resistant to sunlight.

Saruman should not be 'old'. He took the form of an old man, but he was a Maiar, and as such ageless and older than the world.

[HoneyBadger]

Kianduatha: This isn't starting with a Prince of Death, this is starting with a free Prince of Death. Sure he doesn't fly, but you get free points in magic, and etherialness besides. Even if you don't spend a single design point helping him out, he's still going to be able to take most indies by himself.

You could easily make an SC Pretender (a cheap Dom 10 Wyrm, for instance, to give you ocean access and spread your Dominion quickly), right along with this guy, enabling you to reliably capture 2 Indie provinces every round from round 1. That's a heck of a jumpstart. Are you going to be able to counter both of them by Turn 6? Because, if we're not ignoring the Nationals, that's not an unreasonable amount of time for a 3rd expansion army.

[LumenPlacidum]

...people will realize that your Witch King can only be in one place at once--which means you're dead meat the second you commit yourself against one enemy. You cannot afford to ignore your nationals.

This is precisely the point of him. I didn't want him to be a SC that was phased out quickly against enemies, because aside from lucking into another nazgul (if I have them as heroes, and the others will be less powerful), he's the best you've got by a very wide margin, and the ONLY access to astral (excepting the design of the pretender god). Going for a bless for him would work, but would be completely useless for the rest of the nation since only the national mages are priests and thus are sacred (though I have the nazgul sacred to offer the player that difficult choice), and the cheapest bless to help the mages (earth), is pretty much useless for him, since he's 0 enc. Besides, there's no way to resist Dust to Dust, and it's available super-early.

I want the witch king to be an element of the army that people have to think about dealing with. I don't think he's any more powerful than an awake SC pretender god. Of course, the fact that you could have two of them is a little scary, but that just means that you're going to eat one of your neighbors (though in a 1-on-1, your opponent could specifically counter the concept in their build), which is just like some other powerful early nations. Angmar will have a very strong early game (automatic SC), a pretty weak middle game (poor armies), and a moderate late game (due to having someone with high death and astral).

That said, some of what you're seeing is actually more extreme than you're assuming. His fear is +5 plus death, so +9 to begin with. That darkpower is a very hefty one at +5. He already spreads dominion like a prophet, but I'll be disabling temple spread (Sauron didn't have any temples, really). So, prophetizing him wouldn't actually help that, I think, unless it would increase it to 2 candles per turn. Countering that, though, is that I gave him enough abilities that he doesn't gain heroic abilities (or is that just that he's unique?).

It seems to me that for the effect of having a very strong unique starting commander to be pronounced, that commander should be very very good.

Oh, and the black breath is actually a ranged attack (causing fear and a little paralysis at short range), so he's only got 2 attacks in melee.

If he *needs* to be toned down, then I'll do it, but his strength is very much the difference between this nation and another, and I'll be more willing to drop the efficacy of everything else to keep him very good.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, it'll certainly be a fun Nation to try out, whenever I get the chance. Hopefully, it can get some MP testing, and we can get a better idea of balance. I'm anxious to see the rest of the National units.

[LumenPlacidum]

Classes are done for the time being; back to working on this. How does one modify the little icon for magic sites?

[LumenPlacidum]

Anyone had any success putting magic beings into province defense? My trolls aren't showing up at all.

#newmonster 2886
#name "Hill Troll"
#spr1 ".\Angmar\Hill Troll\1399_o-bakemono_1.tga"
#spr2 ".\Angmar\Hill Troll\1399_o-bakemono_2.tga"
#descr "Nightblades that are assigned to defend a given area frequently go out and claim leadership over a pack of the hill trolls that live in and around the Misty Mountains. Capable of protecting the trolls temporarily from the light of the sun, which petrifies unprotected trolls. the Nightblade simply puts the pack of trolls in the path of any incoming enemies. The result is usually messy and great fun for the trolls. Sometimes the results are less than spectacular for the Nightblade, since the trolls have a nasty habit of running away over the top of their leader."
#hp 38
#size 3
#prot 8
#mor 10
#mr 12
#enc 2
#maxage 200
#str 20
#att 10
#def 10
#prec 8
#ap 14
#mapmove 1
#magicbeing
#regeneration 10
#mountainsurvival
#coldres 50
#darkvision 50
#supplybonus -8
#berserk 8
#weapon "Great Club"
#gcost 60
#rcost 12
#end


#defcom1 "Rhudaur Chieftain"
#defcom2 "Nightblade"
#defunit1 "Rhudaur Savage"
#defunit1b "Rhudaur Stalker"
#defunit2 "Angmar Bowman"
#defunit2b "Hill Troll"
#defmult1 30
#defmult1b 15
#defmult2 20
#defmult2 8

[Sombre]

That's because your last line of code there says "#defmult2 8" when it should say "#defmult2b 8"

[LumenPlacidum]

It's AMAZING how many times I looked for exactly that mistake and didn't find it.

[Stavis_L]

Classes are done for the time being; back to working on this. How does one modify the little icon for magic sites?

Change the path and level of the site. There are a few different icons for each path; I believe there was a thread about this recently, where Foodstamp (I think) posted a graphic with all the site icons...

[LumenPlacidum]

It's been a while, but I got some of the sprites going. Modifying them really speeds up once you've done a few. Please let me know what you think so far with the stats/sprites. Here they are:

Captain of Carn Dum (pretty basic leader commander):
http://i46.tinypic.com/30jlhqr.png

Gundabad Elite Warrior (cap-only heavy infantry):
http://i49.tinypic.com/2nss8pg.png

Angmar Swordsman (heavy infantry):
http://i45.tinypic.com/zvc6t2.png

Angmar Bowman (heavy archer/light infantry):
http://i47.tinypic.com/2vudemu.png

Edit...
Oh, also the Gundabad Shaman (best recruitable mage and cap-only, the random magic paths are 110% FWDB)
http://i46.tinypic.com/244304p.png

The berserk and reinvig on both the orc units are +4 and 3 respectively.

[LumenPlacidum]

Gundabad Warrior (cap-only heavy infantry with a bit less offensive potential; that's berserk +3, reinvig 3):
http://i47.tinypic.com/2hx1wrq.png

Snaga Goblin (light infantry; berserk +2 and good stats for size 1):
http://i47.tinypic.com/2938uqa.png

There are 6 more units to go in their basic lineup before I post a working copy.

[kianduatha]

Ooh...nice, nice.

Initial comments--just to preserve armor numbers...couldn't you just give Gundabad orcs Plate Hauberks? Similarly, I might go for Rusted Chainmail or something on Snagas and also lower their resource cost, seeming as you mentioned them scavenging instead of having to give them equipment. Ugh, I just noticed their 8 encumbrance too. The graphic for snagas is rather confusing, also--I had a bit of trouble the first time around figuring out where the head was.

Berserk and what, 11 spellcasting encumbrance on those Shamans? That's tough, especially for their poor magic paths. I'd at least throw them a bone and make them only 220 gold or something. They also could stand to be 14 magic resist instead of 13.

As a sidenote, do units with a dousing bonus but no blood still do well at bloodslave hunting?

The Gundabad Warrior looks incredibly awesome. In fact, he looks way more awesome than the Elite Warrior--so much so that I'd suggest switching the names and just giving the Elite Warrior a broadsword(which might make more sense anyways, and make him more well-rounded). They can stand to be better, anyways--if you're worrying about their expansion, think of it like this: they're flat out inferior to Dai Bakemono, and Shinuyama doesn't exactly have a rocket-fast opening.

Orcs of all sorts should have more hitpoints methinks, if just on principle. 16 for elite warriors/shamans, 14 for the regular Gundabad warrior, 11 for snagas. Speaking (again) of snagas they could actually maybe go down to 7 or 8 morale(bearing testing, of course).

With the 15 gold cost on Angmar Bowmen, they're more than capable of having composite bows. I can assure you this will not become an archer nation.

[Burnsaber]

As a sidenote, do units with a dousing bonus but no blood still do well at bloodslave hunting?



IIRC, you need to be a blood mage in order for the douse command to work.

Although there might be a workaround but I haven't tested it. You could give the unit #magicskill 7 1 and #magicboost 7 -1, which should result in the oxymoronic blood mage without blood magic.

[LumenPlacidum]

I was initially going to give snagas rusted chainmail, but it actually has a resource cost of 0. I guess I could just add to the unit's base resource cost, though. I admit that in playing with them, the snagas are a bit hard to get to those teeming millions that they should be able to manage.

Hmm, if I gave the Elite Warrior a Plate Hauberk and a Broadsword instead of the Morningstar and custom armor, then berserk they'd have 16 attack / 9 defense instead of their current 17+2 attack / 6 defense, and their resource cost would go up from 29 to 35 what with the actual armor requiring more effort than just stapling sheet metal to orcs. I'll give it a try like that.

[kianduatha]

Ah, I didn't realize that the Heavy Plate Mail had actually a *lower* resource cost. It rubs me the wrong way to have something called that not like 20 protection, though.

On a second, not sleep-deprived look as far as mechanics go the elite warrior should probably have the morningstar to keep the 'offensive' option clean and then have the more well-rounded regular warrior. I was just going off which graphic looked cooler.

I'm actually sort of afraid that the regular Gundabad Warrior isn't actually worth the cost--compared with the Angmar Swordsman(which is appropriately priced for this nation) you lose what, 6 defense? All for one strength and a bit higher prot.

[LumenPlacidum]

The berserk +3 matters quite a bit. Reinvigoration base can be used against fatiguing spells that are there to "soften up" your troops before they close the distance. Finally, the cold resistance is clearly useful in some situations. The problem is the comparison with the elite warrior.

I agree that the gundabad warrior is not so much cheaper than the elite warrior (or the warg rider, but I haven't done that sprite yet) that it is frequently as good of a choice. I might actually go back and redo the elite warrior sprite, since it's one of the first ones I did.

I was alarmed in my tests to see squads of the bowmen alone beating knight indies. They took the lance charge without batting an eye. I think two were killed against about 20 knights. Then, they beat them back in melee. It may have been a fluke.

I agree in being sort of dissatisfied with my snaga sprite. I really want to give the impression of being slouched over in a very strange stance. Perhaps it would help if I had greater contrast in my palette. The rusty metal, brown leather, and dark green skin all sort of blend together into a mess of an image.

I might give the gundabad shaman 1B base and retain the blood possibility in the random magic. Then, I'd give them 1 higher research penalty. I'm not so sure about cutting their cost. With an earth blessing, they are *frightening* thugs, even without any equipment. E9 gives them reinvig to match that very heavy encumbrance and they've got a mid-20's prot when berserk with that.

[kianduatha]

You're right, I'm not really accounting for the berserk(which is pretty nice).

That situation with the angmar bowmen seems to be a fluke--they're good, but expensive enough that they're by no means overpowered. The buckler's a nice touch, though. They'll definitely win any archer duels if you can ever get enough of them.

I sort of like the shamans being able to thug out of the box(and be poor combat casters because of it). I doubt people will take an E9 bless just for the shamans(and witch king, who doesn't need the reinvig at all). They're easy enough to deal with, though, with that low a magic resist.

[LumenPlacidum]

Nightblade (the random paths are 50% D and 10% DS; I know they have plate cuirasses and that's not really reflected in the picture. I figured they could wear them under the robes. These are the mages you get at high levels of PD, so they're the linchpin of the cave trolls):
http://i46.tinypic.com/2vdsosj.png

Everyone loves assassins who can cast disintegrate!

[rdonj]

So far my main concern with this nation is, is it even playable? Mages are universally expensive, weak, and terrible at research. Do they have any magical options that are viable to allow them to survive in midgame? Or can they only be played against mod nations that are specifically designed to also suck at magic?

[LumenPlacidum]

Well, that midgame is really going to be the hard part for them. They have pretty good access to death magic. The Witch King gives them at least some access to astral. The Gundabad shamen have blood magic, frequently at B2 with douse 1 natural. So, late game magic should be pretty good for them, but really, a lot of that is riding on the Witch King. Their national mages are good enough to cast a few staple spells. The recruit-everywhere ones can cast frozen heart, numbness, shadow bolt/blast, disintegrate, ghost grip, skellispam, and orb lightning. The cap-only ones can cast falling fires, pillar of fire, prison of fire, disintegrate, ghost grip, bane fire takes a staff or gems, skellispam, blood boil, hellfire, hellbind heart, leech, and some acid spells with a bit of help from gems and a water bracelet. They can forge all of the penetration items (though using the Witch King to make the astral ones is probably a waste). Rituals-wise, they have quite a few blood possibilities, with vampires and various demons being quite viable, but also leviathans, undead archers, and such. Using a pretender to get access to the higher-path blood summons and boosters would get you up to more diversity there. Hidden in snow is castable by the recruit-everywheres, and the nation has enough death to climb the ladder to tarts, but has no means of un-afflicting them naturally. With the Witch King, you can even skip ahead directly to lichcraft.

When I get to national summons, I'll probably be giving them some wraith summons to act as thugs. The barrow wights from The Fellowship of the Ring were men of Angmar.

[kianduatha]

The Nightblade seems fun. Expensive, but fun.

Here's what I see as the problem--you only have a chance if people don't know anything about the nation. If they know that you have a nice early game(not as good as, say, Ogres though) but peter out early game for a while, people will just gang up on your large but weakly defended territory.

You have to hope that you blast out the gate faster than everyone else and that people don't then get worried and beat you down for it.

That being said, I'd rather see how it plays right now and buff as needed than create a monster. You're doing perfectly(and I'm breathlessly anticipating the Worg Riders).

[LumenPlacidum]

Rhudaur Savage (resource-cheap guys that hit hard but die in droves, most of your PD is made of these):
http://i47.tinypic.com/29fb4w2.png

Up next is the Gundabad Warg Rider, though I'm having some trouble thinking of a good pose. Wolves seem more dynamic than horses to me, so I want a good one.

[LumenPlacidum]

Here's what I see as the problem--you only have a chance if people don't know anything about the nation. If they know that you have a nice early game(not as good as, say, Ogres though) but peter out early game for a while, people will just gang up on your large but weakly defended territory.

I'm sort of hoping to make high PD a fairly good choice for the nation. The PD has lots of berserk guys with hatchets, and high levels of PD give a trampler that the nation can't get anywhere else. Finally, those tramplers are paired with an actual assassin commander, who has good stuff to hit enemy thugs. While it's definitely not going to protect against a concentrated offensive, I'm hoping to be able to make it somewhat harder to raid Angmar.

As far as I can tell, the real options for mid-game are some combination of powerful battlefield spells and thugging. I think Angmar's strength will lie in the thugging. I wonder how crazy it would be to have the Mount Gundabad site give Construction bonus: 20... it's the place where the dwarves were fashioned from the stone after all. That would provide a definite advantage for thugging.

I'm breathlessly anticipating the Worg Riders.

Actually, the cavalry might have to wait until I can decide on some good stance for them. I've got 5 units left needing sprites:

Hill Troll
Rhudaur Chieftain
Rhudaur Shaman
Rhudaur Stalker
Gundabad Warg Rider

[kianduatha]

For the record, I'm about 90% sure the nightblade would just spam undead(and not very well) instead of actually engaging any thugs. Berserking guys with hatchets help, though.

[LumenPlacidum]

Hill Troll (That berserk is a whopping +8, meaning that it's pretty easy to dodge that greatclub until you piss it off, when it turns to 35 base damage at attk 18):
http://i49.tinypic.com/152z0a1.png

Incidentally, after the snaga, that's my second try at making a sprite from scratch. I think it's a vast improvement.

[kianduatha]

That is beautiful, and more able to take down thugs than I thought it would be. Ow.

Please say there's a medium level (blood?) summon to get a handful of those guys.

[LumenPlacidum]

No, I think a summon to get the trolls can't really work in this era. They're there to beef up Angmar's ability to defend. Also, they shouldn't be able to travel long distances because of the whole petrified-in-sunlight thing.

When I do the LA version, Mordor, you'll have a blood ritual that creates Olog-hai, which are trolls which can walk out under the sun. They'll be better armed and just as pissed off.

The EA version, Angband, will have similar trolls as recruitables (I'm thinking they should have really low stats, but a HUGE darkpower bonus, to encourage you to bring darkness around wherever they go). What are all the things increased by darkpower? Strength, attack, defence, MR?

[Burnsaber]

. I wonder how crazy it would be to have the Mount Gundabad site give Construction bonus: 20... it's the place where the dwarves were fashioned from the stone after all. That would provide a definite advantage for thugging.


One hint: Don't.

Even "just" Con 20 sites are absolutely game-breaking (a'k'a they can decide games on their own) because of the somewhat buggy way they combine with forge bonuses.

Also, having a con 20 site on your capital would make you absolutely unignoreable target since *everyone* would like to get that thing for themselves.

[LumenPlacidum]

Fair enough. Maybe just a couple more gem income which would build up to a bit of a boost when construction is researched.

Oh, and in my tests I've realized that probably the best way to start with this nation is to have a diverse rainbow mage for access to boosters awake, so you can have 50 research points from turn 1.

[LumenPlacidum]

Just to make sure, we CANNOT mod in linked random paths, right? So, I cannot make my nazgul multiheroes D3+100% W3/E3/A3/F3/B3, right?

[rdonj]

You'd have to use the #magicboost command. There's a vague potential for empowerment abuse there, but it's the only way to give linked randoms that I'm aware of.

[kianduatha]

I don't think we have to terribly worry about empowerment abuse with the Ringwraith multiheros though, so #magicboost should be fine.

If you wanted to give Angmar a fairly 'unique' buff based on their magic sites, you might just give Mt Gundabad #incscale 1(Increases Productivity).

In a slightly related note, I had a beautiful vision for something like a Minas Morgul nation whose home province increased Death and Misfortune, and you basically had to do everything in your power to keep the scales down(or just abandon your capital, I suppose)

[LumenPlacidum]

Did a few more, though the warg rider's lacking an attack sprite at the moment.

Rhudaur Shaman (actually, I'm probably going to take away the research -1 on these guys, that much gold for that much research is amazingly awful; the randoms are 50%+10% AWD):
http://i47.tinypic.com/314ow0h.png

Rhudaur Chieftain (berserk is +6, pretty standard commander otherwise... hopefully no one will hate me for using so much of a stock commander shape):
http://i49.tinypic.com/1z53vo1.png

Gundabad Warg Rider (I'm worried about the fact that the encumbrance and reinvig are equal. It makes these guys *completely* badass; I might have to increase their price or basic encumbrance. The warg you get afterwards is pretty much the same as a dire wolf)
http://i50.tinypic.com/2i090tv.png

[kianduatha]

Ooh, nice. You really get the sense that the Rhudaur Shaman is not very eager to be there.

As for the encumbrance thing, usually mounted guys just have a basic enc 2 higher than normal--so 5 base encumbrance would be just fine. You also may want to make the warg rider a bit 'stouter', as he looks thin in comparison with the other orcs.

If the Rhudaur Shaman doesn't have a research malus then this nation is in a better place than I thought--their main hurdle to getting thugging going is a complete lack of earth magic. Specifically, you can only forge shields if you get lucky with indies or get up to Const-6 for Lantern Shields.

All in all, looking great! I can't wait to play them.

[LumenPlacidum]

their main hurdle to getting thugging going is a complete lack of earth magic. Specifically, you can only forge shields if you get lucky with indies or get up to Const-6 for Lantern Shields.

All in all, looking great! I can't wait to play them.

I agree that their lack of earth magic is a problem for them, but it's a very good path to take on your pretender. Also, you can forge a rather good shield at Const-2: the Enchanted Shield. Low enc and high parry, though admittedly the witch king doesn't really care about the encumbrance.

[LumenPlacidum]

There, I've uploaded what I've got so far for people to play around with. I'll add the ringwraith multiheroes soon and update it.

Now, what sorts of national summons should I have? I figure they'll have a bunch of wraith undead summons with death, and death+astral will yield wraith commanders, who will also be death/astral mages.

Is it possible to mod in a remote attack spell a la Ghost Riders? The ability to unleash the fire drakes that live in the Misty Mountains as uncontrolled devastation would be awesome. You wouldn't get the unit, but it'd be hard to remove.

[kianduatha]

Ah, one small problem with the mod file--I think it was using \ instead of / in file paths.

Oh gosh those warg riders are scary. Their wargs when they get killed have horrible old age, though :p

[LumenPlacidum]

Ah, the type of slash is causing problems?

Oh yeah, the warg age will become that of the orc... and orcs are functionally immortal. Hmm, not sure how to change that, other than to make wargs have the same max age.

Also, I noticed that I didn't include the attack sprite for the Hill Trolls (though that's something that is RARELY seen, since they have to be hitting something at least as large as they are). That'll be fixed when I update it. Also, should the trolls be size 3 or 4? size 4 probably makes more sense, but size 3 would make them more effective against cavalry thugs.

[LumenPlacidum]

Is it possible to mod in a unit with the Corruption ability? I can't find it in the modding doc.

[Burnsaber]

Is it possible to mod in a unit with the Corruption ability? I can't find it in the modding doc.

#copystats, but IIRC, there are only two guys in dom3 with that ability. The Lord of Hell with a screaming mouth for a crotch and one of the grigori.

[BigDaddy]

I actually have a mordor mod nation about 50% done, but my inability to understand sprite editing has left me there for the last few months.

You could release an alpha with stock sprites, or some with color replacement. Color replacement can do the job of making it look unique, without much work... but obviously you don't get novel work from it.

[kianduatha]

Is it possible to mod in a unit with the Corruption ability? I can't find it in the modding doc.

#copystats, but IIRC, there are only two guys in dom3 with that ability. The Lord of Hell with a screaming mouth for a crotch and one of the grigori.

I think(hope) it's for the 'corruptor' version of the Sauron pretender.

[LumenPlacidum]

Yeah, that's the idea. I'm not sure I like the fact that it seems to be impossible to get the ability and not have flight come along with it. But yeah, the pretender chassis is the "Giver of Gifts" (the form in which Sauron forged the rings of power, 'Annatar'). It will have a forge bonus of 25% and hopefully the Corruption ability. I wasn't planning on giving him the ability to fly, so I might have to make him change form between a male and female form to be able to seduce like a succubus and get whoever. Clearly, this chassis is going to have to be very expensive.

The video card on my main computer may have melted, so I might be a while with the next update. I hope I can grab my files from there, I was starting to work on a kick-*** sprite for the Dark Lord pretender chassis. That's going to be quite the SC option.

I've decided to make another limiting factor of the nation (all the nations of this line that I design, actually) that they can only pick from the Sauron (or Morgoth, for EA) pretenders. It shouldn't be so bad, since I'll have a bunch of themes for them.

Aside from the Giver of Gifts and Dark Lord, there will be the Lidless Eye immobile pretender, who will lower unrest in his province. The Necromancer Shade, who will be a pretty typical rainbow mage, with ethereality thrown in. Finally, the Master of Forms will have the option of being a vampire form, a bat form, or a wolf form.

I'm considering an EA chassis to represent Morgoth (other than the same Dark Lord above) as "Dissonance in the Music" which would have tiny combat stats, a huge stealth score, and would generate a ridiculous amount of unrest in his province, as well as reaping a small amount of the population.

[Burnsaber]

.
I've decided to make another limiting factor of the nation (all the nations of this line that I design, actually) that they can only pick from the Sauron (or Morgoth, for EA) pretenders. It shouldn't be so bad, since I'll have a bunch of themes for them.


Uumm. As far as I know, it's not really possible to edit out the automatic vanilla pretenders without disabling them from all nations. I guess you could houserule it, thought.

[LumenPlacidum]

Haha, really? Oh well, no biggy.

[Humakty]

This civ, while representing the first orc civ, and a really cool one, feels a little under powered. Very capitol centric troops and commanders, mages unable to cast in battle without changing their armor first, and rather weak capitol mages. Oh, and so called mages recruit everywhere, that won't do anything noticeable, research being their bane.

All in all, you very well capture the feel of Middle Earth Angmar, and scarcity of magic. But it won't be adapted to dominions, as troops only get you that far, before they dye in bursts of purple fire.

[LumenPlacidum]

Hey, thanks for the honest assessment. My initial goal was definitely to capture the feel of Angmar before going into the balancing. I have some things I want to add to the mod before I really start to weigh options against those of other nations.

National summons are likely to be a big part of making the nation a bit better, since I intend to give a few levels of thugable commanders. I think in the current version, the Rhudaur Shamen have a base research of 2, but at that cost, I'll probably up that to 3, which should be a pretty big difference.

Is there any specific problem so far that the nation really cannot face against? Against early tramplers, the trolls in the PD work wonders. They do ok against thugs, which is also true of the orcs and savages (assuming you use some shortbows to make your own guys berserk). It's true that I should probably increase the MR of most stuff in the nation. I just didn't really use other nations' numbers to guide what I put in for that.

The early game is great, and the late game has decent blood, strong death, and moderate astral. Those Gundabad Shamen are supposed to be very good blood hunters, so even with only recruiting them at the capital, you should be able to turn them into a respectable income. Getting the odd booster is a suitable role for the Witch King and pretender god, which allow your mages to cast some summons for variety (otherwise, devils are pretty much the staple). Devils are probably strong enough to bring you past the mid-game. The thugs will offer some other options, though. I mean, yeah, their mages aren't top-tier battle casters, but you should be able to push through into the late game after some effort, and once you get there, things shouldn't be too bad.

[Humakty]

Well, the all in one mage in the capitol is interesting, sure, but it's max one per turn, and they are bloodhunting OR researching. Or doing all the other things only them can do. And their magic might is still pretty limited, and random, so each game is a gamble. So by late game you might in fact be looking at middle game spells, not being sure you've got someone to cast those spells. Not sure some devils will change your day.

[kianduatha]

Definitely a bit better research on your recruit-anywhere mages is gonna make a big difference. I'd say still that Elite Warriors are simply not worth the cost(resources, mostly--don't they still have that artificial resource hike?).

Also just for flavor it feels like at least snagas should be partially poison resistant.

I like them so far...the nation seems flexible but not overpowering. Wraiths will be nice to burn gems on to get a bit of magic diversity and some research.

I am thinking this is going to be a hell of a nation to raid. You have out of the box the Witch-king, awesome province defense, and you're almost certainly going to get some vampire lords just to add insult to injury.

[LumenPlacidum]

I'd say still that Elite Warriors are simply not worth the cost(resources, mostly--don't they still have that artificial resource hike?).

Yeah, because my main computer died, I'm now working with the version I posted. It looks like I wasn't entirely sane when I posted this first version. I didn't include the troll attack graphic, and the units have older stats than what I was running my last tests with. Elite Warriors... I think I might make the normal ones mapmove 1 and lower both their resource costs. Also, the version I posted didn't have the updated hitpoints for all the orcs. I upped the Elite Warrior to have 17 hitpoints.

I'm realizing that I'm not really getting the swarms of snagas that I'd really like. The upkeep builds up too fast. So, I'm going to make them cheaper. Probably 8 gold instead of 10.

I am thinking this is going to be a hell of a nation to raid. You have out of the box the Witch-king, awesome province defense, and you're almost certainly going to get some vampire lords just to add insult to injury.

Pfft, just wait 'til I do Mordor. That's gonna be a hell of a nation to raid. After all, one does not simply WALK into Mordor.
.
.
.
I'm so sorry.

[DaveCG]

Pfft, just wait 'til I do Mordor. That's gonna be a hell of a nation to raid. After all, one does not simply WALK into Mordor.
.
.
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I'm so sorry.

But what if you had wizards? or bears...

Or bear wizards!

On a more serious note you're doing some great work, I'm slogging though a .dm file for my EA Machaka mod atm (only 7 months late!) and it really takes it out of me, but yeah like I said great sprites and great ideas so far, looking forward to the finished one.

[LumenPlacidum]

Hmm, it turns out that my plan to have all wraiths spread dominion like a prophet might not work in conjunction with #dyingdom. Even bolstering the Witch King to a domspread of 3, he doesn't really improve dominion. I will assume that it is one of the things blocked by #dyingdom.

I've added in Ringwraith multiheroes. All Nazgul (the Witch King included) will have an overall magicboost of 2. The Witch King's starting paths are S1D2 now, to get him up to the S3D4 I wanted. Each Ringwraith has D1 +100% FAEDB, meaning that they'll have either 3 death and 3 of one of fire, air, earth, or blood, or they'll have 4 death. Most of their stats are the same as those of the Witch King, or only slightly worse, but they are not immortal (though that may change... it WAS really hard to permanently kill any ringwraith, but the Witch King has immortality to represent Glorfindel's prophecy about him).

Other heroes and multiheroes I'm thinking about:

The Great Goblin - Would be a pretty strong blood mage and priest, I think, as well as having some pretty good thug options. The Great Goblin lived in the Misty Mountains, just as Angmar does, so I don't think it would be unreasonable to create a connection there.

Possibly a named Balrog. Balrogs, however, are going to be extremely strong summons from the early age. Getting this hero early on would probably make you a complete steamroller with the Witch King, a pretender god, and a balrog SC... I probably shouldn't. When I make them, Balrogs will be powerful death and fire mages, with randoms possibly coming from astral, earth and blood.

Wight King - The last Dunedain king of Rhudaur, raised and given sorcery after his slaughter at the hands of the wild-men of his kingdom. Probably awe in addition to his fear aura. Priestly powers with some death magic seem appropriate.

[rdonj]

I've been very sick recently and haven't had much chance to play with the mod, but I do have a suggestion. Remove the reinvigoration from wolf riders and reduce encumbrance to 4. The reason cavalry has a fixed level of encumbrance is because the mount is getting fatigue, not the rider (or at least this is my understanding of that particular mechanic). Since it is the orc that's supposed to have the reinvigoration rather than the wolf, it doesn't really make sense for them to have it. Also, in the current implementation wolf riders are more or less e9 sacreds for no design points or bless requirement with their extremely heavy armor and low effective encumbrance.

Also, I think non-immortal nazgul is probably best. It makes the witch king extra special and having several free, powerful immortals seems overkill.

[LumenPlacidum]

Sure, I'll give that a try. Do you think they'll really be a viable choice after that?

Also, I realized that one effective way to give Angmar a bigger army and still require them to pay for it with their early gains is by having national spells that summon the recruitables, just in numbers. I think a "Command the Pits" spell that gave you 12 snaga goblins for 1-2 gems would create the teeming masses of goblins that I'd envision for the nation. They would have the same upkeep, but you'd bypass their initial recruitment and resource costs. Also, the ability to lay down a few of these spells while under siege would be very scary, since an essentially unguarded fortress could be made to have hundreds of tiny little medium infantry scampering around everywhere in a couple turns.

I don't really want the snagas to compete for the gems that would be used for the wraith summons when I make those, so I'll probably make it a blood spell. This will allow really massive armies of goblins to be running around, while the orcs and angmar humans form an elite core of the forces. This is perfect. My only worries are to a) prevent this option from being completely overpowered, and to b) allow the snagas en masse to be a moderately effective idea throughout the mid-game also.

Is there some way to restrict a spell to being cast in a mountains province? Doesn't really make sense for goblins to just be springing up out of the plains.

Also, I'm working on adding summons for Barrow Wights. I'm thinking that S1D2H1 is good for them. Conjuration 4, probably. Passable combat stats, with fear +0, cold aura, and ethereality, probably rusty equipment. How many death gems would someone expect to pay for that? Somewhere between 8 and 15 is my guess.

[rdonj]

12 snaga for 2 blood slaves would be insanely cheap. I would suggest no fewer than 1 slave per snaga, to be comparable to normal spells. I don't know exactly how much they should cost offhand, but take a look at the blood spells in skaven, or things like crossbreeding to get a feel for what they should think about costing. Also if you make them summonable like that they should cost even less. Say 4 or 6 gold, but with an artificial resource hike to make them less recruitable earlier. Just leaving the gold costs on the summons should be enough to keep them from becoming overpowered. Although that will make them much less attractive to use also.

Well, there are definitely spells that can only be cast in mountains such as jomon's yama no kami, but I don't know if there are any that you could copy to summon troops.

No idea how much the barrow wights should cost, I'd have to actually see them first.

[LumenPlacidum]

1 slave per snaga?! These goblins aren't particularly effective. Bone fiends come at 9 fiends per 3 slaves, and they have good hitpoints, attack, defense, and 2 attacks at about the same damage. Square by square, they're very comparable. I don't think they'd be worth any more than 2:1, and I think even that is stretching it. You can only actually get blood magic with your cap-only mages anyway, and they have to perform the double duty of hunting and summoning. The slaves are worth comparatively more for Angmar than for other blood nations because of the relative lack of blood mages.

Edit: didn't notice bone fiends were size 3 so the square-by-square comparison isn't exactly right. Imps, however, are a reasonable comparison. Less armor and damage, encumbrance, WAY bigger defense, flying, fire immune, banishable are the differences. Imps weigh in at 5 per slave...

I'll try 12 snaga per 6 slaves, because I like to err on the side of caution, but I suspect it won't be a good enough option for people to actually use it.

[Humakty]

As recruit everywhere mages really suck at battlefield magic, I think you can rebalance it with other advantages. Many base game nation with bad recruit everywhere mages have gorgeous other options. Formoria is a good example I think.

[LumenPlacidum]

Uh, what's the good alternative open to Fomoria to make up for their mages? Unless you mean the Fomorian Kings...

[Gregstrom]

Morrigans. And Wrath of the Morrigans.

[rdonj]

Sorry, I'm still pretty sick and kind of gave a price without really thinking it through. However while it is true that snaga are not that amazing, they also aren't completely terrible either. Using the price of imps as per the summon imp spell does not really work. All combat summons are much cheaper than summon spells that permanently give you units. It's just not a fair comparison. If you want to look at the cost of imps, you have to look at horde from hell or infernal forces. Horde from hell summons a devil (at 3 slaves, which is crazy cheap) and a bunch of imps, at 44 slaves for 25 units. That's a bit over 1 slave per imp. Anyway, going with a 2:1 ratio sounds reasonable.

[LumenPlacidum]

Hahaha, goes to show how often I play blood nations. So, Summon Imp isn't a ritual, huh? Yeah, you're right about that not being fair then.

[kianduatha]

Oooh, very nice. You might want to keep the Witch-King just S3D4 and not have a magicboost, especially since prophetizing him gives you an H5 guy off the bat.

The spellcasters definitely got enough of a jump now--I keep waffling about whether they're worth sacrificing design points on a bless for(definitely at least a tasty rainbow)

You might want to consider giving them a slightly smaller starting army--right now what they get is enough to blind-attack first turn with only one or two losses.

[Radio_Star]

It seems like orcs and goblins should have the same (probably 100) darkvision? Is the difference a balance consideration or a flavor consideration?

[LumenPlacidum]

Flavor. Snaga goblins were the type of orcs that lived in Moria. Slightly smaller and better adapted to a life in complete darkness.

[LumenPlacidum]

Barrow Wight (Conj 4, requires 2D1S costing 10 death gems for now; the magic paths available to it are 1D1S +100% WDSB, so one in four can recast the summoning spell):
http://i49.tinypic.com/10ohfs2.png

So far, they've been quite capable thugs in my tests. Magic duel will bring them down right quick, though.

And, with that, I'll be updating the download to include the three spells I've added as well as some of the balance changes people have suggested and I've made.

The three spells are:
Command the Pit - 6 blood slaves for 12 snaga goblins.
Raise Barrow Wight - 10 death gems for 1 barrow wight commander.
Enrage Uruloki - 15 fire gems for a remote attack of a huge dragon that flies off after it fights. I haven't posted stats for the dragon because I don't have an original sprite for it for now. I'm using the red dragon pretender sprite.

[BigDaddy]

Sorry, I'm still pretty sick and kind of gave a price without really thinking it through. However while it is true that snaga are not that amazing, they also aren't completely terrible either. Using the price of imps as per the summon imp spell does not really work. All combat summons are much cheaper than summon spells that permanently give you units. It's just not a fair comparison. If you want to look at the cost of imps, you have to look at horde from hell or infernal forces. Horde from hell summons a devil (at 3 slaves, which is crazy cheap) and a bunch of imps, at 44 slaves for 25 units. That's a bit over 1 slave per imp. Anyway, going with a 2:1 ratio sounds reasonable.

You can consider part of the cost of HFH as a premium, however, because it is a raiding spell. If/when they win, they can be flown out of the province the next turn, or used again... etc. You can cast it on anywhere.

[rdonj]

Sorry, I'm still pretty sick and kind of gave a price without really thinking it through. However while it is true that snaga are not that amazing, they also aren't completely terrible either. Using the price of imps as per the summon imp spell does not really work. All combat summons are much cheaper than summon spells that permanently give you units. It's just not a fair comparison. If you want to look at the cost of imps, you have to look at horde from hell or infernal forces. Horde from hell summons a devil (at 3 slaves, which is crazy cheap) and a bunch of imps, at 44 slaves for 25 units. That's a bit over 1 slave per imp. Anyway, going with a 2:1 ratio sounds reasonable.

You can consider part of the cost of HFH as a premium, however, because it is a raiding spell. If/when they win, they can be flown out of the province the next turn, or used again... etc. You can cast it on anywhere.

That is most certainly true, yes. It is probable that horde from hell has a built in transport fee to go with it, probably between 5 and 10 gems worth, imo. I thought about mentioning this, but since the imps would still be over 1 slave per imp and under 2, I didn't figure it changed the math enough to mention.



The barrow wight cost looks fine for now, they're probably more or less equivalent to shura at present with added vulnerability to magic duel making it kind of painful to equip them.

[kianduatha]

Enrage Uruloki seems rather underpowered--half the time it just flies into melee and gets instagibbed, and even when it isn't acting dumb it isn't very effective, even against province defense. Awe +0 (or fire shield) and a melee AOE-3 fire attack seem thematic and rather justified.

[LumenPlacidum]

The spell isn't exactly what I wanted it to be. However, I'm surprised that the dragon isn't being effective for you. 18 protection with a lot of hitpoints and fear is decent on the defensive side. The protection goes up when the thing goes berserk. The offensive power of it is pretty scary, and it will TEAR UP thugs with moderately high DEF and thugs of pretty much any protection level.

Initially, I wanted it to fly in and attack, then SIT there if it won, just waiting to defend its territory.

I'd be willing to increase the HP, Att, Def, or even Prot (a little), in order to make the dragon fairly competent. Also, I sort of just quickly gave it weapons. I might give it 2 claw attacks and make its fire breath have Str range instead of Str/2 and increase the AoE.

[kianduatha]

I think I was unlucky in my first half-dozen casts of the thing. Further testing has been much better--it can at least take out 10 province defense most of the time. It just seems closer to the power of Call of the Wild than that of Ghost Riders--and given that it's a level 8 spell that requires a F3 cap-only mage and 3 separate boosters to cast...

as far as getting it to sit there afterwards...with the new patch, maybe make it under Angmar's control(still attacking randomly in combat, of course) and give it Shattered Soul 100? I have no idea what would happen, but it sure would be hilarious.

[LumenPlacidum]

Oh, is that what shattered soul does? I've never known.

[LumenPlacidum]

I actually rather like the shattered soul idea, but my problem is that I can't seem to get these blasted farsummons to summon ONLY a commander. I had intended for Raise Barrow Wight to be Send Barrow Wight (since the lore says that the Witch King sent them into the barrow downs), but that didn't work either.

The problem is that when you farsummon something, you seem to name a unit type and what you get is a commander of that type plus as many units as the number of effects, but that always seems to be at least 1.

If it were at all reasonable to talk about mated pairs of dragons, then it might work, except that the troop versions can then be pulled out and put on other commanders for ridiculous artillery.

The nazgul multiheroes are extremely rare, but when you get one, it gives you so many more possibilities! Just ran a test game and got a D3A3 one pretty early on. Now that's a powerful thug.

Finally, I was trying to think of something to spice up the Gundabad Elite Warriors, since while they became more fair when they lost their 1-handed flails, they also became more blah. So, I was thinking about some of the lesser-used one handed melee items, and thought that the armor-breaking effect of the Star of Heroes would be interesting (and damn scary) to really challenge those elite unit rushes at the beginning of the game, since so many of them rely on heavy armor to push them through. Would that be horribly broken?

[kianduatha]

The (messy) workaround is having the other unit just have an invisible sprite and onebattlespell something that instagibs themself. Alternately you could just say that they had some Rhudaur hunters to follow afterwards and occupy the province afterwards. The barrow wight summon is way easier, just put in a handful of dispossessed spirits as well. No biggie.

I think of everything to do to the Elite Warrior, just plain replacing their morningstar and shield with a flail and giving them full plate(with only the half helmet so their head prot is still lower) is the single thing that'll make them unique without grossly overpowering them. They'll still die to crossbows/flaming arrows/spells of all sorts(anything with a lance also destroys them), and lucky hits will still get them. They might need a price bump to like 33 gold in that case(with wolf riders going up to 50, which probably should happen anyways since they're brutally powerful).

[LumenPlacidum]

I'm working hard on making sure that my Dark Lord pretender chassis is awesome. Here's a bit of a WIP image of the sprite being created:

http://i42.tinypic.com/v4o3uo.png

Mostly, this is being done by loosely immitating the movie replica armor pictured here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Dark_Lord_Sauron.jpg

...the shoulder blades might have to be omitted for the sake of being kind of ridiculous...

Also, I've done a couple concept sketches for a Balrog, being designed as a summon for the eventual Early Age version of this nation (Angband: Battle of Sudden Flame), but that might double as a possible pretender chassis for Angmar. Balrogs are going to be *hardcore* with fear and awe baseline (being demons of terror and maia before all). The Whip of Many Thongs that all balrogs have will probably be AoE2 fire and have a couple of attacks; on a hit, the target will be entangled. I'm very hesitant to bring up this debate, but I'm unsure whether or not I want my balrogs to have wings, and if any item slots should be unavailable. Finally, I know that I want them to have fire and death magic, but I don't know what peripheral magics they should have. Suggestions welcome!

[Baneslave]

...the shoulder blades might have to be omitted for the sake of being kind of ridiculous...

Sounds good IMO, as those look very out of place.

[mehrunes_dagon]

fort description contains illegal command

farmlandfort:down:

according to modding manual, farmlandfort should be defined with command

farmfort

[rdonj]

So I've been playing this mod a bit in SP. I'm just wondering, does anyone else feel like this nation is kind of wasting its death gems if it's not cranking out an endless supply of barrow wights with them? They bring a lot to the nation - magic diversity, mind hunt protection, decent thugs, reasonably effective battle mages, reanimators, and h2 priests if you really need them. At conj 4 there's not much reason NOT to go with these guys over building skull mentors because they get most of the research for the same cost while being much more versatile. The magic duel weakness is still pretty bad, but you can avoid this to an extent by only using the s2 ones as thugs with pearls and a starshine skullcap and script returning on your guys if necessary. I wonder if they almost do too much for you. What do other people think?

I'm also not really sure I get the use of the elite warriors. Gundabad warriors are pretty close to as good and way more massable. In fact they're pretty much your only massable armored unit. I just don't really see the point in building elite warriors, which you can only get half the number of. For me gundabad warriors basically make elite warriors useless.

[LumenPlacidum]

Well, you're not the only one to comment about the elite warriors vs. the regular ones, and people seemed to much prefer the regular warrior sprite (the elite is kinda crap). Maybe I'll just leave the elites out. Are the warriors good enough to recruit? I gave them a bit of a resource discount because of the salvaged nature of their armor, but it might have been too much.

As for the barrow wights, I do want them to be used, and I think they have enough problems with the extra fire damage, undead, and magic duel vulnerability. You're saying they're a good deal just for the research? Hmm, probably true. With a nation as research-starved as Angmar, though, it seems like they would need SOME way out. Also, the fact that you have to summon them with the Witch King (or a pretender) until you get the 1/4 random correct is a bit of a drawback, adding onto his already-extensive list of roles. If you have a possible suggestion for toning them down, I'd be glad to consider it.

[rdonj]

Gundabad warriors are about half the resources for a unit with more defense, more or less the same prot, more or less the same morale (due to berserk), and 2 less hp... other stats are a bit worse off, and they only have mapmove 1 instead of 2, but if I want a higher resource unit I'd generally prefer the warg riders to the elite warriors because they fatigue out less quickly.

Barrow wights aren't a good deal JUST for the research, no. You'd be better of making skull mentors if that's all you want. But there's no reason to make skull mentors because they can research, fight, forge, search for magic sites, etc as needed. They are much more versatile for basically the same cost. And they'll never get useless like skull mentors eventually will. You still want to forge lightless lanterns though. Also it's not strictly necessary to summon them with the witch king until you get the proper random if you use a skull staff, which you will want anyway eventually. The witch king can probably spare the time to summon a few though, it's certainly a better use of his time than casting arcane probing or researching. Probably making them worse at researching or unable to reanimate (not sure that's possible) would be the best "fix", but I'd rather hear back from other people first.

[kianduatha]

My personal preference would be to simply make them more expensive. 15 or so gems wouldn't be too outrageous for them.

Gundabad warriors are pretty nice, not gonna lie. I find the flavor text between the Gundabad Warriors and the Angmar Swordsmen pretty jarring though without the Elite Warriors there.

The reason the Gundabad Warrior is so nice is because he has the most 'bang' for your resources, which is almost always going to be your problem. People will of course buy him, because he costs even less resources than an Angmar Bowman(who by the way would still benefit from a composite bow or something--short bows just plain suck in MA)

[rdonj]

Yeah, for the resource cost there's really nothing on the roster that compares to the gundabad warrior, and that is what makes them so good.

By the way, the enraged uroloki would work much better if it was a commander. Then its air shield would work and it wouldn't go crazy forgetting to use its breath attack all the time. Interesting that going berserk makes it decide to fly in battle when it otherwise walks... I wonder what's up with that.

[Graeme Dice]

All flying missile units walk into range if they are going to shoot.

[LumenPlacidum]

I cannot get enrage uruloki to do what I want. What I really want is for it to summon a neutral commander dragon who attacks, then SITS THERE after the battle to defend the province against attackers. Since neutral summons go away after they fight, I made it a friendly summon, but one who is constantly doing random stuff. Unfortunately, friendly commanders seemingly cannot be summoned alone, and it automatically puts in a troop uruloki with the commander. Not sure how to fix it.

[Sombre]

There's no clean way to do that. I tried the same thing with a spell that hatched a nest of nasty critters in enemy territory and if you wanted to retake the prov, you had to kill them. No luck.

I can think of some extremely messy ways of doing it.

[kianduatha]

My slightly less messy way of doing it is just to also give you ~5 Rhudaur stalkers(or I guess just one) along with the dragon, explaining it away as the stalkers enraging the thing.

[LumenPlacidum]

I'd be fine with that, but I also don't know how to make the commander and the troops summoned different things.

[Sombre]

Yeah that doesn't work. What you need is an effect which kills or transforms either commanders or troops until you get the right mix of stuff. It's doable but it isn't worth the mess.

[rdonj]

Oh man! I thought my dominion seemed to be doing pretty well for just the few blood sacrificers I had, but I chalked it up the the excessive level of goodness that is blood sacrifice. I didn't realize that barrow wights had the domspread ability... and here I am, sitting with something like 34 of them and 7 base dominion :P No wonder my dominion is doing so well!

[LumenPlacidum]

All wraiths of Angmar do. Barrow wights, multihero nazgul, and the Witch King.

[Sombre]

Yikes. Domkill ahoy!

[LumenPlacidum]

What? It's not even guaranteed spread every turn, only a god can do that. It's like each barrow wight is blood sacrificing one slave automatically each turn. It's definitely strong, but I didn't find it unreasonable in my tests. It seemed like an interesting and thematic mechanic to me. The nation is hard to attack, but one has to fight against the shadow of the enemy spreading.

[Sombre]

No, it's one spread per turn. It's the same as a juggernaut. At least in my experience.

Even if it weren't, I would also consider 34 extra temples to be domkill ahoy.

Also blood sacs are 2 checks, not 1 like a temple.

[LumenPlacidum]

Hmm, I swear I've seen it fail to spread its full amount, which is what made me initially think that domspread didn't work for dyingdom nations, or had a 50% chance or something like that.

Is it so unreasonable that it cannot be stopped? I want to make this into a balanced nation that can be used in MP.

[Sombre]

Depends how much barrow wights cost :]

Domkills are very hard to defend against when they involve blood sac and domspread units. But if they have to expend significant effort on the stuff, then it isn't so much of a problem. Of course rdonj seems to indicate that he'd be massing barrow wights even without the knowledge that they domspread. So effectively you're pushing dom like crazy for free.

[kennydicke]

IIRC, barrow-wights are little more than spirit-like agents of the Witch-King, in the common version of the trilogy. IMHO, I wouldn't have interpreted them as prophet-like dom-spreaders. The Nazgul, yeah; probably even the Balrogs.

I wonder if you have plans for an EA version? Maybe based around Morgoth and the The Silmarillion...


Anyway, good job on the mod; I'm always up for Orky-goodness. :up:

[rdonj]

Currently barrow wights are at 10 gems per... for all the things they do right now that probably isn't enough. They're not THAT good as thugs because astral nations can kill them easily and their protection is never going to be stellar given your likely forging needs and capabilities (though they do just fine against PD, especially with ethereality). They're kind of weird because they perform a bunch of different roles all at once. At least their reanimation is only good enough for longdead skeletons and not cavalry. But it would be really easy right now to just use them as researchers who sit there the majority of the game spreading your dominion. They're easily a much better investment than juggernauts are, and much easier to research up to. Plus they can be used to form communions with each other, which could have consequences I don't quite think you intended....

[LumenPlacidum]

I wonder if you have plans for an EA version? Maybe based around Morgoth and the The Silmarillion...


Once I get this done, which involves balancing factors, a couple replacement sprites, pretender god chasses, and a few more heroes (and maybe another summon or so), I will be moving to EA to do Angband: Battle of Sudden Flame.

Should have some very interesting summons and heroes, from Carcharoth the Red Maw to Balrogs to Drauglir and Glaurung. I don't think it will need a weird dom-spread mechanic like Angmar and the LA Mordor would.

Anyway, I hear the arguments that barrow wights are too versatile for their current cost. I'll increase the price a bit (maybe 12-15 gems each) and apply a research malus to them. I'd like to preserve the wraith dom-spreading mechanic, and I'd sooner get rid of blood sac, making the wraith mechanic the only way of spreading dominion.

[LumenPlacidum]

Dark Lord:
http://i41.tinypic.com/2zj9xn6.png

That's the basic chassis. I think fear and awe as a baseline is pretty powerful, but he's pretty expensive, and demon offers some counters. The magic is pretty limited, and death is not a very useful path for him to have to complement Angmar, so I think the potency of the chassis is ok. Besides, his encumbrance is probably too high to be a very good SC out of the box.

The weapon "Hammer of the Underworld" is currently a magical weapon with ok stats that hits with AoE 1 and turns things slain into soulless. I'm not sure why I have that second effect, but I'm looking for something to make it interesting.

Graphically, I think the legs are too bright inexplicably, so I'll probably play around with that to make it a bit better.

[rdonj]

Not bad. I think the arm with the hammer looks a bit... odd, too. He's kind of in a fencing position right now, which I'm not sure goes so well with that hammer as a weapon. And I think it would work a bit better if the armor was darker overall. But it's a good sprite overall :)

What level of awe does he start with? The encumbrance could definitely be an issue for him as an awake SC, but he might be able to pull it off. The aoe soulless could actually be helpful to him for that by absorbing attacks so he doesn't have to.

[LumenPlacidum]

Awe 0, Fear 1+death

Hmm, I see what you mean about the fencer position. Part of that is that the other hand seems like it's up for balance. Actually, I want it to be that he's making a fist with the rear hand and the fore hand is just sort of loosely holding the hammer low. I wonder how I can get that across better. Maybe the hands should be larger, too.

[rdonj]

Maybe if the back arm were turned down instead of up? I'm not sure. The hands seem more or less okay in size, but you could try making them bigger if you think it will work out better. The positioning of the feet also adds to the whole fencing image :) I'm not sure what to do about the hand with the hammer... you could try bringing it down a little lower, I guess. Then it should look a bit less like fencing. But I'm not sure if that would actually look *good*. Sorry I'm not more helpful about this.

[jowe01]

Wow, have just found this mod and I can say that i really like it. However, is there a newer version? Reading the thread, it seems that development was going ahead full speed and then suddenly stopped. What happened?