Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.92 -- Quickfix

[Burnsaber]

Thread Moved (http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=73)

[Frozen Lama]

[
Commander at def 20: Ancestor Stone


am i blind, or where is he on the cool picture with all the units?

[Burnsaber]

[
Commander at def 20: Ancestor Stone


am i blind, or where is he on the cool picture with all the units?

Sorry, sort of forgot to include it. Well, the unit will just have to be secret for now.

[Fantomen]

In terms of graphic quality, this is the prettiest mod I´ve seen so far. No kidding.

[kianduatha]

It looks absolutely gorgeous. Some thoughts:

Prospectors are amazing. So cheap, and the flanking miners are simply killer. Every dwarf player will have to consider the possibility of making a castle just to pump out these guys. And if you got death magic on your pretender...these guys are possibly the best non-caster assassins ever. I sent one out on a lark to a Death Match and he killed a Mother of Rivers.

Hammers are just not worth it, it seems. They have two shticks--hitting really hard and high morale. Unfortunately, Troll Slayers do both better and have 2 mapmove while costing the same amount of gold and fewer resources.

Province defense is simply insane. You are essentially immune to rushes because 10 province defense will deal with most early-game armies. At 20+ though the positioning is a bit weird with the Longbeards in back and the Heavy Crossbowmen in the very front, if that's able to be changed.

Both luck and misfortune are viable strategies. Your heroes are kickass(especially with the freespawning slayers) and you can use every gem you can, but misfortune is easy to deal with because 10 province defense everywhere makes you immune to barbarian attacks.

As far as pretender chassis goes, it seems like the dominion scores of the Mother of All and the Brother of War should be swapped. Otherwise there's such a difference in power between the two that there's no point ever getting a Brother of War. Besides, the Father of Runes is better in combat, frankly. Maybe give the Brother of War the standard Slayer-luck, too.

As far as straight-out power level goes...I'm thinking about a fight between the Dwarves and Ulm. At any stage of the game, Dwarves would wipe the floor with the poor suckers. The best advantage Dwarves have, though, is that it's an absolute pain to take them down. Between the killer province defense, 600 defence on the capital and most of your other castles, and a castle defense bonus of 3, almost any other nation seems a more tempting target. And that advantage in multiplayer can't be ignored.

[Illuminated One]

I agree about Ulm. It almost looks like Burnsaber took Ulm as a reference and made the dwarves at least slightly better in every respect.
Otoh Ulm could rely do with some improvements like these so I don't consider it bad.

One thing, though:
Why are all dwarves resistant to lightning and some to other stuff?
Should this represent their magic resistance?
I've always considered those natural phenoma that get triggered by magic. So resistance to magic shouldn't help you much when hit by lightning even if a mage conjured up the storm (just like mr wont help you if a mage telekineticaly shoots an arrow).
With high prot, high mr (+free drain), low enc, high damage, I find it hard to see how you are supposed to kill them except with lightning once buffed with weapons of sharpness and marbe warriors/army of ...

Some typos

vast Empire
Clansdwarf (For there isn't)
Ranger (aim with their throwing axes or aim when throwing their axes)
Longbeard (I think the last sentence is bad but maybe that's just me).

[rdonj]

No time to try them out today :(. I'm hoping I'll have a little free time tomorrow, but that is rare for me as of late. You'll probably have a new version out before I even install the mod, heh.

[Burnsaber]

Prospectors are amazing. So cheap, and the flanking miners are simply killer. Every dwarf player will have to consider the possibility of making a castle just to pump out these guys. And if you got death magic on your pretender...these guys are possibly the best non-caster assassins ever. I sent one out on a lark to a Death Match and he killed a Mother of Rivers.


Duly noted. I'll likely increase their cost a bit and make them poorleaders. And in order to keep the "stealth" aspect in order, I'll make the Journeyman Runesmith noleader. That way all three stealthy leaders will have a niche. Ranger Champions will be the beast leaders, prospectors do their summon thing and Journeysmiths are stealthy mages. (Which is plenty of a niche)


Hammers are just not worth it, it seems. They have two shticks--hitting really hard and high morale. Unfortunately, Troll Slayers do both better and have 2 mapmove while costing the same amount of gold and fewer resources.


Good Point. I'll probably have to make the Troll Slayers more expensive anyway. They are rare specialist troops and shouldn't be that massable. I think 40-50 gold might a more appropiate pricing.


Province defense is simply insane. You are essentially immune to rushes because 10 province defense will deal with most early-game armies. At 20+ though the positioning is a bit weird with the Longbeards in back and the Heavy Crossbowmen in the very front, if that's able to be changed.


Hmm, it's that good? I'll slice the troops in half. 0,5xCrossbow and Clansdwarf per point (same for the pd20+ recruits). I can likely fix the positioning of the pd20+ troops, but I'm not 100% sure


As far as pretender chassis goes, it seems like the dominion scores of the Mother of All and the Brother of War should be swapped. Otherwise there's such a difference in power between the two that there's no point ever getting a Brother of War


Ok, good idea.


Besides, the Father of Runes is better in combat, frankly. Maybe give the Brother of War the standard Slayer-luck, too.


The Father is quite crippled by his enc 7. Brother has fear, so he can go for awe+fear combo more easily. I'd rather not give the slayer luck for the Brother, because basically he is Grimnir and the blessings of the slayers (a'k'a their auto-luck) comes from him.


As far as straight-out power level goes...I'm thinking about a fight between the Dwarves and Ulm. At any stage of the game, Dwarves would wipe the floor with the poor suckers. The best advantage Dwarves have, though, is that it's an absolute pain to take them down. Between the killer province defense, 600 defence on the capital and most of your other castles, and a castle defense bonus of 3, almost any other nation seems a more tempting target. And that advantage in multiplayer can't be ignored.


I agree about Ulm. It almost looks like Burnsaber took Ulm as a reference and made the dwarves at least slightly better in every respect.
Otoh Ulm could rely do with some improvements like these so I don't consider it bad.


Yeah. I tried to stick to using Ulm as a balancing stick early on in the development. But really, everything just.. sucked. The nations have so similiar themes that the nations will basically overlap gameplay wise.

But, I'll just try again. I was thinking of giving all dwarf units like +5-7 base resource cost (to drive the 'few in number' point really home), then dwarfs will be even more resource hungry than Ulm and lack the "bonus resources from castles"-bonus that Ulm gets. I also realized that the 100% elemental random on Runelords is unecessary and a bit unthematic (the elemental randoms are just supposed to ease the player into paths of the Anvil of Doom). I'll make them F1E3 base with 50% EFS and 20% elemetal random. That change will make them less diverse than Ulm.

I also might get rid of the Drain-immunity. Sure, it's thematic, but it's not *that* necessary.


One thing, though:
Why are all dwarves resistant to lightning and some to other stuff?


It's supposed to represent their connection to the earth elemental (a'k'a sort of constantly being grounded). Also, in my orginal vision, the dwarfs were a bit less massable (I'll try to fix it pumping their resource costs). Because you basically don't have any chaff units, all air nations would take you as easy pickings. 5x Thunder Strike castings and all your troops are dead. Whoopsie!

Ironbreakers have some additional resistance to represent them from being runically warded from magical attacks. They are quite killable with their enc 7 in prolonged battles however.



vast Empire
Clansdwarf (For there isn't)
Ranger (aim with their throwing axes or aim when throwing their axes)
Longbeard (I think the last sentence is bad but maybe that's just me).

Thanks. Duly noted.


On other news, I just heard that my lectures for firday were canceled. I'll likely be able to release a new balance quick-fix version then.

[Humakty]

I find it strange that the runesmiths don't loose magic power in battle. At least it doesn't appear in their stats. That's maybe why they seem that much OP, as a whole.

[Illuminated One]

It's supposed to represent their connection to the earth elemental (a'k'a sort of constantly being grounded). Also, in my orginal vision, the dwarfs were a bit less massable (I'll try to fix it pumping their resource costs). Because you basically don't have any chaff units, all air nations would take you as easy pickings. 5x Thunder Strike castings and all your troops are dead. Whoopsie!

Hmm, I don't think you won't have chaff troops. Militia is easy to come by.
Might be that with the Lighning res you're actually a lot better off against air nations because of the AI.

[Foodstamp]

Wow, those are some sweet looking graphics. I am going to steal them and make myself a Dwarf Fortress mod MWAHAHAHAHA.

[kianduatha]

Maybe for the PD do an intermediate change first--the real problem are the crossbows. I've seen 10 crossbowman from PD stop 8 mammoths before they even reach your front line. If the PD were 1 Clansdwarf 0.5 crossbowmen, then it might be reasonable. It wouldn't have the killing power to really do anything.

If you give the Brother of War Dom4, could you also give him a chassis cost of 40 instead of 50? That way people could afford another scale with him. The main problem with him is you give up high air access, which cannot be stressed enough. Put Flight and Fog Warriors on some Troll Slayers and everyone wants to cry.

The only units I can really get behind raising the resource cost of are the crossbowmen. Right now by far the best expansion strategy is to every round get a prospector and as many crossbowmen as you can, and you field an expansion party every 2 rounds with prod-0.

The funny part about getting rid of the drain immunity is that suddenly your research mages are Engineers, and you only make Runesmiths when you really need someone and can't get a Runelord from your capital. This has the side effect of making the Dwarfs even more of a nightmare to siege. "Oh hey you might not want to do that each of my researchers has castle defense 20".

Frankly, though, I'm not too concerned about lightning nations. Again, that's what the prospectors are for. Their flanking miners will tank the lightning for long enough to get through. If you wanna be really careful, keep Ironbreakers or Runeguards as having the lightning resist, but take it away from everyone else. That way you have a counter to them, but aren't just casually immune to it.

Trollslayers could maybe go up to 40 gold. They're really a late-game unit/"oh no a giant nation is rushing me" type, so it won't really change anything, though. Noone'll still get hammers.

[kianduatha]

I thought about it some more, and the real thing that's assuring prospector dominance right now is not the low gold cost(which would probably be fine at 40 or maybe 60), but the low resource cost. Right now he's the lowest resource cost commander you get(other than the giant slayer), and so of course he'll be used almost exclusively early game. Make him cost at least 40 resources, preferably closer to 50/60, and he'll still be used, but not as your main early-game meatshield. This also reduces troop spamming to have everyone you'd ever want to recruit as a commander with 40+ resource cost.

[llamabeast]

Don't take the drain away. It is thematically good.

I think I have other comments too, but I'm too tired! Looking really sweet though Burn.

[Burnsaber]

I updated the first post with the planned changes for the next version (0.7, due to friday). Thanks to all for the comments and suggestions! If the nation is still simply better than Ulm, even with all the nerfs planned, I might just go ahead and overwrite MA Ulm with this nation. This 'solution' will also have the added benefit of giving dwarves the "extra resources from castles" - bonus.

There are some things thought I want comments for. Are the Clan Kings worth the cap only slot? Or to put it simply, would you ever recruit it over Runelord? Also I'm a bit torn on the mapmove issue. Mapmove 2 as the standard is thematic option, but Ulm has 1 as the standard. If I simply keep most units at mapmove 2, the comparison to Ulm will be even more skewed.

[Stavis_L]

...I might just go ahead and overwrite MA Ulm with this nation. This 'solution' will also have the added benefit of giving dwarves the "extra resources from castles" - bonus.

Does the
#castleprod <bonus>

...command not work? (p29 of the mod manual)

Assuming you wanted them to have that bonus anyway...

[kianduatha]

I think that mapmove 2 is thematically awesome, but makes balance kinda iffy. If your mapmove 2 units are 'good enough' to get the job done, you'll almost never recruit the MM1 ones. So you just use crossbowmen and (heavy)clansdwarfs. It might make sense to make your crossbowmen have MM1, but the standard melee keep at 2. Of course, that just tips the scales towards using indy archers/rangers. Actually, I'm kinda okay with the rangers option. Rangers and miners are your scouts/raiders/forward armies, and then you have these clunking armies coming up behind.

On a somewhat related note, I finally realized the real point of Hammers: they only have 3 encumbrance. I'm sure that can be leveraged somewhat hilariously.

I think it might be a bit more appropriate to benchmark Dwarves against, say, Shinuyama's combat strength. I'll try to run some tests later.

By the way, I don't really understand why Distill Flame/Distill Thunder are in Alteration. It sounds prettymuch exactly like Construction.

[Burnsaber]

@Stavis_L

Since when has that command been available? I feel so old now.

Well, as much as I'd like to give it, it doesn't really matter since I can't give it anyway (becuase then Ulm would look even more suck in comparison).

Damn you Ulm :shakes fist:!


By the way, I don't really understand why Distill Flame/Distill Thunder are in Alteration. It sounds pretty much exactly like Construction.


For the same reason that I went to so extreme lenghts to try to make Anvils of Doom into sensible enchantment summons. Construction is a absolute no-brainer for this nation (that's okay thought, there always has to be a favourite). Adding your national summons to construction would just be a boring case of "getting your cake and eating it too". IMHO summons/national spells are a lot more intresting if they are sprinkled all over the research screen, makes you think since you need to "sacrifice" your research a bit to get them. As a added bonus, this "sacrifice" often might make you miss the optimal spells and perhaps encourage to use the less-optimal ones in some crazy fashion.

I'll change the description and try to really emphasize the "Distilling" process in the description. They also could be in Enchantment (as the other "runic" stuff), if I ever need to give the player a nudge to go into that direction.

On another vain, I was thinking the exact same thing about making Cbows into MM 1. Thematically, I think I might make the basic Clansdwarf and Clansdwarf Cbow MM1 by giving them a bit "militia" feel. Heavy Clansdwarf and Arbalests could stick to their MM2 (since their equipment requires more training, they are a bit more professional soldiers).

[Stavis_L]

@Stavis_L

Since when has that command been available? I feel so old now.

Well, as much as I'd like to give it, it doesn't really matter since I can't give it anyway (becuase then Ulm would look even more suck in comparison).



Not positive, but I believe only in 3.23, so you haven't been missing it for very long. Lots of new modding love added in the last couple of patches; worth revisiting the modding manual if you haven't in a while :-) Or, see my post (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?p=714515#post714515) to the modding shortlist comments thread for ones that (at least according to the manual) have been added (relatively) recently (since last time the shortlist was updated, anyway.)

BTW - if you overwrote Ulm, you'd also get to use their nametype (*tempt tempt*)

[llamabeast]

Don't compare to Ulm! Ulm are notoriously weak and dull. They are the last thing you want to compare to. I think you'll find Dwarfs are not overpowered compared to the other Warhammer races, or indeed any of the better vanilla MA races.

Also I personally would much prefer you didn't overwrite Ulm. It is good if you can play any pair of races against each other. Overwriting Ulm just makes that needlessly difficult. After all, someone might find an Ulm v Dwarves game interesting.

[Ballbarian]

:heart:Ulm:heart: dull?! Maybe, but I still love them. :p
Looks great Burnsaber! :up:

[alansmithee]

Really great looking mod, I enjoyed it a lot. Couple of things though, I noticed Rune of Water takes earth, is that intentional? And also, Oathstones and the Anvil say mapmove1, but can't move. I don't think you intended them to move, so it might be more clear if you could switch it to 0/2 instead of 1/7 (not sure if you can or not, I haven't tried modding yet).

About the gameplay, I'm just finishing my first try with them. Large random map, rainbow mother sleeping w/ 3 order and 3 drain, 11 other mighty AI nations, now down to just me and Oceania. I personally finished 7 or 8 of the other nations. From very early play, it just seems to me that the nation is full of stuff that's really really good (prospectors, xbows, smiths, possibly ironbreakers and basic dwarf warriors) and stuff that, at least to me, just isn't that good or would never be recruited (pretty much everything else). I actually never got any ironbreakers in this game, but I can see the use of a recruitable troop that has high mr and all the resistances they do in MP. Slayers might have some niche use against giants or some large sacreds, but they're still gonna die insanely fast and there's not much you can do about that.

Both summonable commanders seem much to difficult to bring out, especially for what you get. The only ways to get the anvil require some combination of artifacts, a prophet, expensive empowering, or elemental staffs (under CBM, which I don't use but I know is common here). And for that you get a pretty good combat mage only available at castles, and another forger. To my knowledge you can't use travel spells to attack with a regular army, so all the cool runes will only be used in combination with astral travel (a lvl 9 spell) or in castle defense. I really think mapmove 1 wouldn't be all that bad (and they lug the anvils around in the tabletop game from battle to battle, so it's not entirely unthematic). And the demon slayer doesn't seem worth the gems, especially compared to golems. They die too quick, and giving even one weapon replaces both of their slayer axes. Getting luck is really cool, but I found it mildly difficult filling all the misc slots they get (outside of stacking bracers which i've heard some people consider an exploit). And for people who use CBM, I think using smiths with hero blades would be better in every way (to do what slayers seem designed to to). They'd survive longer, and don't require your prophet to cast a 20 gem ritual. Otherwise I'd rather just get 10 more gems, and cast a golem. Also, that doesn't require going outside of cons (which is a nobrainer for dwarves). So you'd get golems earlier, as well as them being better.

On the whole I think the nation is very balanced vs. other Warhammer nations (maybe not Brettonia, which imo is a bit weak) and the other base nations. The smith battle spells are all really good, and it was mentioned before but the prospector/xbow combo is wonderful and makes expansion early a breeze (and even though it was against AI, I rushed Mictlan and had them defeated by middle of second year using just prospectors, xbows, and 1 smith). The PD is also great, and helps in making them a nation that's a ***** to invade. I would maybe look into the summons a bit, either make them a bit better or easier to summon. And as much as I would personally hate it, mapmove 1 for the xbows might help make it more of a choice.

[kianduatha]

2 mapmove on just the heavy clansdwarfs and arbalesters(well, and slayers and rangers) could be interesting. I can't help but think that I would only every use those units then.

It also seems weird that Dwarf Arbalests are noted for being hard to aim but have Precision 3, while Dwarven Rangers are noted for the precision on their axes but then have Precision -2.

I'd be way happier with Daemon slayers if they took fire gems to call out instead. And Alteration is fine for Distill Flame/Thunder, but it would make them used way more often if they were research level 3 instead of 4. That way you can almost justify going for it right after Earth Meld if you're going that route instead of Evo early.

As far as using up miscellaneous slots, let me make it even harder: Slayers of any type only need one item--the slave matrix. Dwarves are perfect for reverse communions. You get invulnerability, summon earthpower, quicken self, mirror image, body ethereal, and flight, plus 100% resistance of anything you would want. Oh, and your entire army gets berserk, haste, and strength since each communion member will cast Rune of Grimnir. This allows you to use your crazy magic paths without running into fatigue problems from your high casting encumbrance. Oh, and it's really thematic to have a few runelords just chanting over your slayer elites before launching them into battle. With a bit of setup, you have nearly invincible thugs for 4 gems apiece. You can even swap in some really mean surprises in there for the nasty fights, like Fire Shield, Astral Shield and my personal favorite, Breath of Winter. They'll never expect it. And even just prospectors would be terrifying like that. Sure, it takes some setup--but it allows you to leverage your low random magic paths and forging bonus to terrifying effect.

It seems kinda weird that Dragon Slayers and Daemon Slayers are so similar. I mean, Daemon slayers get, what, a few more hp and some slightly higher stats?

[Burnsaber]

It also seems weird that Dwarf Arbalests are noted for being hard to aim but have Precision 3, while Dwarven Rangers are noted for the precision on their axes but then have Precision -2.


The Arbalest thing is my fault. What I meant to say was that they are hard to aim without special training, I'll change it to be clearer. And Dwarf Ranger throwing axes are pretty accurate when compared to basic throwing axes (prec -5). Remember that the distance is much shorter, so prec >0 would likely make hit all the time.


As far as using up miscellaneous slots, let me make it even harder: Slayers of any type only need one item--the slave matrix. Dwarves are perfect for reverse communions. You get invulnerability, summon earthpower, quicken self, mirror image, body ethereal, and flight, plus 100% resistance of anything you would want. Oh, and your entire army gets berserk, haste, and strength since each communion member will cast Rune of Grimnir. This allows you to use your crazy magic paths without running into fatigue problems from your high casting encumbrance. Oh, and it's really thematic to have a few runelords just chanting over your slayer elites before launching them into battle. With a bit of setup, you have nearly invincible thugs for 4 gems apiece. You can even swap in some really mean surprises in there for the nasty fights, like Fire Shield, Astral Shield and my personal favorite, Breath of Winter. They'll never expect it. And even just prospectors would be terrifying like that. Sure, it takes some setup--but it allows you to leverage your low random magic paths and forging bonus to terrifying effect.


Sounds pretty awesome. But wouldn't casting Rune of Grimnir make your communion leaders berserk too?


It seems kinda weird that Dragon Slayers and Daemon Slayers are so similar. I mean, Daemon slayers get, what, a few more hp and some slightly higher stats?

Working on it. I'll likely give them the "Slaying" weapon as a intristic bonus weapon.


On other news, the sudden appearance of the #castleprod command gave me a pretty good way to get more thematic feel for the nation. I was thinking of making dwarfs build "Mountain Citadel" (cost 1200, admin 20, build 5, def 800) everywhere and give the nation a hefty #castleprod bonus. This would be thematic. When dwarfs build forts they are meant to last, cost a lot and take time to build, but the results are good. Basically, you would have less forts, but the ones you have do more. This would likely make prospector spam less attractive (tighter commander slots) and reduce the "invicible forts" aspect. It's easier to go against 3 very well defended forts than 5 well defended ones. Yeah, it's a lot like Itza's Tel Cities, but not as extreme (no 800gp temples).

[Stavis_L]

On other news, the sudden appearance of the #castleprod command gave me a pretty good way to get more thematic feel for the nation. I was thinking of making dwarfs build "Mountain Citadel" (cost 1200, admin 20, build 5, def 800) everywhere and give the nation a hefty #castleprod bonus. This would be thematic. When dwarfs build forts they are meant to last, cost a lot and take time to build, but the results are good. Basically, you would have less forts, but the ones you have do more. This would likely make prospector spam less attractive (tighter commander slots) and reduce the "invicible forts" aspect. It's easier to go against 3 very well defended forts than 5 well defended ones. Yeah, it's a lot like Itza's Tel Cities, but not as extreme (no 800gp temples).

Hrm...I'm not sure how I'd feel about *all* mountain citadels...don't they imply that you have a mountain to build on?? Maybe hills, but mountains?

Also - note that Mountain City is not much worse in defense (700 vs. 800 def) but has other characteristics that might make it a good alternate (6 vs. 5 turns, 1400 vs. 1200 gold, 30 vs. 20 admin) so may be be appropriate in the right circumstances, perhaps as capital....

Perhaps something like:

Fortresses
Capital: Mountain City
Swamp: Hill Fortress
Farm: Citadel
Forest: Hill Fortress
Mountain: Mountain Citadel
Default: Mountain Citadel

[Fantomen]

I like the idea of a big castle production bonus, but that means all forts need to be expensive or it might get overpowered. In the example above you could exploit the hill forts in swamp and forest for example. Better to have swamp fortress and forest citadel. Other than that I like stavis suggested list.

Too bad you can´t assign the prodbonus only to one fort type to encourage the player to build in mountains.

[Trumanator]

Would cave forts be conscionable? They seem very thematic for dwarves, and I just love auto darkness in forts :)

[kianduatha]

I'm somewhat confused; I thought the thematic business *was* getting a fairly high percentage(30+) of non-caster national commanders. It seemed pretty intentional; The castles were amazingly good(not too expensive, high admin, high defense), while it took a lot of gold to recruit casters. In fact, it took as much gold to make a castle+lab+temple as it took to make 2 castles without them. To add to that, the ridiculous resource cost of your troops makes it so that each individual castle cannot produce many troops. So of course you would make as many castles as possible, but some of those would not even have labs in them.

This results in two things: A higher ratio of commanders to troops(and way fewer troops, total), and more national non-caster commanders. Both of those seem very 'dwarfish'.

What would increasing castle cost/time while increasing the resources you get from them do? It would 1. increase the proportion of mage commanders(bad). 2. It would increase the 'real cost' of lightly equipped thugs(bad). 3. It would encourage the use of indy commanders for troop ferrying/carrying crossbows(bad).

I'm just not seeing it.

On another note, the Clan King is worth it if you actually turn him Oathsworn(the extra magic resist and runic ward really help), but it's just so hard to justify using him like that when you know he's absolutely useless to you after that battle. Maybe if Oathsworn Kings could actually...do something. Summon allies, priest 2 and inquisitor, an 'increase order/prod in this province' special(I think there is one of those, right?). Something that would make him marginally useful even after laying down the stone.

Oh, and taking a look at Hammers again: I think the main reason I wouldn't purchase a Hammer is that Rangers do their job better. For 2/3 the gold, you get more or less the same damage(-1 attack, -1 damage), a bit lower defenses, but mapmove 2(!!), stealth, and a ranged weapon(!!). Hammers are still nice, I mean, they just need a comparatively lower cost. Maybe 25.

I was going to say something about the Engineer, but when I was testing him my game seemed to crash every time I took him into combat. I'm gonna restart my computer and try testing some more, but has anyone else seen this?

[Stavis_L]

I like the idea of a big castle production bonus, but that means all forts need to be expensive or it might get overpowered. In the example above you could exploit the hill forts in swamp and forest for example. Better to have swamp fortress and forest citadel. Other than that I like stavis suggested list.

Too bad you can´t assign the prodbonus only to one fort type to encourage the player to build in mountains.

Just to be clear, I was suggesting the Hill Fortress, which is 10 admin, 150 supply, 5 build turns, 1200 gold, and 600 defense. Not the Hillfort, which is 5 admin, 100 supply, 3 months, 800 gold, 200 defense.

There is no Swamp Fortress; there is a Swamp City (50 admin, 1000 supply, 5 months, 1200 gold, 400 defense) and a Swamp Fort (0 admin, 100 supply, 3 months, 800 gold, and 100 defense.) The latter are basically mage pumps, so I'd avoid them for dwarfs, and choosing the former would make it your highest admin fort.

[Burnsaber]

Would cave forts be conscionable? They seem very thematic for dwarves, and I just love auto darkness in forts :)

I was under the impression that Cave Forts are bugged. Besides, auto darkness would just aggravate the "invicible forts" issue.

I'm somewhat confused; I thought the thematic business *was* getting a fairly high percentage(30+) of non-caster national commanders. It seemed pretty intentional; The castles were amazingly good(not too expensive, high admin, high defense), while it took a lot of gold to recruit casters. In fact, it took as much gold to make a castle+lab+temple as it took to make 2 castles without them. To add to that, the ridiculous resource cost of your troops makes it so that each individual castle cannot produce many troops. So of course you would make as many castles as possible, but some of those would not even have labs in them.

This results in two things: A higher ratio of commanders to troops(and way fewer troops, total), and more national non-caster commanders. Both of those seem very 'dwarfish'.

What would increasing castle cost/time while increasing the resources you get from them do? It would 1. increase the proportion of mage commanders(bad). 2. It would increase the 'real cost' of lightly equipped thugs(bad). 3. It would encourage the use of indy commanders for troop ferrying/carrying crossbows(bad).


Well, my original vison was to have expensive forts, because looking at how the dwarfs do it in Warhammer, it's the way they do things. The current "Citadel" things was just a compromise, because I needed high admin forts. But the sudden appearance of the #castleprod command allows me to circumvent the importance of admin value. (damn I wish we had fort modding). Dwarfs in WH have like 6 major forts, in which most of the dwarf race live, they don't really have towns and castles spread out all over the place like humans. It's all about big communities, which is why massable forts are unthematic. Remember that dwarfs are supposed to be few in number and fewer forts reflect this.

The change will also help to differentiate the nation from Ulm, gameplay-wise.

It's a shame about the non-magic commanders seeing less use, but that's just how Dom3 works. I'll try to counteract this by giving minor researchbonus on Runesmiths (so that you'll need less of them) and boosting the non-magic commanders. I'll also give a new national spell "Restoration of Ancient Glory" which will pop up a fort to a mountain province.


On another note, the Clan King is worth it if you actually turn him Oathsworn(the extra magic resist and runic ward really help), but it's just so hard to justify using him like that when you know he's absolutely useless to you after that battle. Maybe if Oathsworn Kings could actually...do something. Summon allies, priest 2 and inquisitor, an 'increase order/prod in this province' special(I think there is one of those, right?). Something that would make him marginally useful even after laying down the stone.


Good idea. It was my intetnion of giving the Oathstone forms patrolbonus and minor summon commands, but I kind of forgot it. I'll whip something up for the 0.7


Oh, and taking a look at Hammers again: I think the main reason I wouldn't purchase a Hammer is that Rangers do their job better. For 2/3 the gold, you get more or less the same damage(-1 attack, -1 damage), a bit lower defenses, but mapmove 2(!!), stealth, and a ranged weapon(!!). Hammers are still nice, I mean, they just need a comparatively lower cost. Maybe 25.


Good point, I'll try to keep them competitve when comapred to rangers.


I was going to say something about the Engineer, but when I was testing him my game seemed to crash every time I took him into combat. I'm gonna restart my computer and try testing some more, but has anyone else seen this?

The attacksprite might be bugged, I'll take a look at it.

[kianduatha]

Ah. I wasn't seeing that thematic issue since I was assuming that castles were not going to be isolated(continuous lines of castles makes for easier defense/combining of forces) so I saw it as one community just getting larger/extending their line of fortification. I see 'few in number' more as a matter of troop/commander ratios.

I was thinking that the high admin was nice for the gold gain. The thought was that you had a pretty strong impulse to make castles on top of the gold/silver mines you encountered(hehe).

But anyways, I'm trying to think about what having high gold/high resource troops actually does. Gold limits how many you can buy in total, and how many you can keep lying around because of upkeep. It limits your mage and castle production, since otherwise they are the main gold sink. Resource cost doesn't do that; it merely limits your rate of production for a given castle and gives/takes away design points from your pretender by allowing or discouraging taking a sloth scale.

So then, high resource cost troops merely mean that from any one given castle, you can't produce many units per turn. Most people agree that production scales are generally not particularly useful after the first two years or so, since you have enough castles to produce the troops you want.

As far as resources go, you have two real options: to make each castle essentially independent, or force the player to cluster castles together to have enough troop production? How fast do you want dwarfish armies to be able to be produced?

Note that all these considerations have nothing to do with absolute resource cost. The only things that matter are differences between units in your lineup, and a comparison between the resource cost of your troops and how many resources your castles provide.

High resource costs for your troops and the castle resource bonus essentially cancel each other out. Well, not quite--it makes indy troops way easier to mass(did we mention that dwarfish infantry is immune to standard arrow fire?) and it neuters your early-game when you have a low dom score. As does giving harder to construct castles. I'm just worried that your momentum is going to be absolutely terrible early game with this setup.

By the way, giving Runesmith better research also deals with Prospector spam. The marginal cost of making a non-Runesmith goes up. And it gives you a bit of an incentive to research up early, because you actually have a chance at getting to the artifacts first(though I personally don't see much use for the artifacts with these guys--they seem more a mid-game nation. Their entire shtick is being able to leverage low-mid research to terrifying effect).

I haven't gotten the chance to play multiplayer with these guys, so ultimately I'm just theorycrafting here. I'd really like a few games to get a feel of what the nation would do under actual conditions before changing the castle types(except for swamp fort...that one has to go). Because ultimately, Dwarfs can just roll over AI opponents like nobody's business, and that isn't really a fair metric.

--Oh, and having sucky/hard to make forts just gives you more of an incentive to be extremely aggressive. With 5-6 turn forts and your siege bonuses, it might actually be faster to take someone else's fort than build one yourself. In Dominions, you're going to have a bunch of forts no matter what. It just seems that a defensive playstyle with mostly national commanders is superior to aggressive play with indy commanders as your troop-movers, as far as theme goes for the dwarves.

[Burnsaber]

Thanks for your input. You raised some very valid points. I'm quite well done with the 0.7 update at the moment, you can check the "fix list" in the first for the things I've done at the moment (it serves as public change log at the moment). I'd like to hear your comments. Tomorrow, I'm going to playtest for a bit before the friday release.

As for the forts and resourcecosts, the expensive forts are there to stay. Like I explained, the citadels were a compromise I was forced into, because 1200gp forts had sucky admin values and those aren't moddable. The change isn't that extreme (200 more gold and 1 more turn to build), it's noticeable, of course and does make the nation slower. Starting a bit slow is thematic for the nation, the nation is all about rising back up from utter ruin. It's also a major MP consideration, mostly because "invicible forts" is pretty dumb stragedy. Ok, it's rather genius stragedy if played right, but boring to play and even more frustrating to play against. Dwarfs are very good on defense even without such tricks.

I have no delusions about the change, it's a big nerf. But I'd rather make a too weak of a nation than too strong, especially when thinking of the first MP game. As for general "power level", the only thing I know for sure at the moment is that I don't want this nation to be as strong as Itza. I've alwyas disliked "Pythium" level powernations.

You also shouldn't worry too mcuh of the res-cost increarses, they are pretty minor, being mostly for thematic reasons and in-nation troop balancing.

I wouldn't worry about slow starts. Prospectors make pretty nutty expanders because the indies just go bat**** insane when faced with border summons. Archers rushing into melee, commanders left alone on front to be shot by crossbows, friendly fire.. it's simply madness!

And if the expensive forts make aggressive playstyle more attracting, that's just a good thing. I belong to the school "Turtling is boring and should be disencouraged". And for the style of dwarfs I'm going for, it's pretty thematic too (Those grudges aren't going to avenge themselves, you know).

[kianduatha]

Right. I forgot about the whole 'grudge' thing. The whole expensive castle thing sounds great then.

The changelog sounds pretty awesome; I like especially the Daemon/Dragonslayer switch.

I presume where it says "Runic Ward" is going to 5 encumbrance, you mean Runic Armor? Otherwise the high-end slayers/Brother of War are going to fatigue out super-fast. And are Runesmiths getting the research bonus, or Runelords?(My vote would be toward Runesmiths--Runelords should be doing better things than researching, anyways)

I'm still having a bit of trouble justifying ever purchasing an Engineer(if I want Siege bonus I'd rather just have a couple Prospectors). They can't research since they're not drain-immune, they have no good combat magic paths, and they don't have the forge bonus to make items. Basically I can see making a few to continually cast Distill Flame/Distill Thunder, but that's about it. They make decent missile-weapon holders since they can cast Aim, but once again I'd rather have prospectors do that. As a proposed solution...give them a chance at A2, either by making them 3? (this also makes them not require a lab, as a bonus), or by just giving them like a 25% air random. This would let them be your sitesearching guys, at least.

[Burnsaber]

A new version, 0.7, is up! The changes mostly consist of balance changes and fixes based on the feedback on this thread. I'd like to give my sincerest thanks for all the constructive feedback, it has really helped me to move this project along.

One new thing thought is that I manged to scrap up a dwarf nametype with about 230+ names. I cheated a bit thought and used a random dwarf name generator, so some of the names aren't that.. awesome, but if people are bothered by them, I could try to replace the more bothersome ones.

[Stavis_L]

I was interested in your dwarfnames, and noticed a few things along the way...

Line 42, 62 --> "RUne" should be "Rune" (although no-one will ever see it in-game)

Line 334 --> "Dwarf Lighting" should be "Dwarf Lightning". I think. LOL.

Why all the "Dwarf Weaponname/Armorname" bits? Are they *that* different? Weapon slots are limited too, you know :-) Couldn't you just bump the stats on the dwarfs?

Also, since you're not using "Dwarves", should you be using "Dwarven" or "Dwarfish" or just "Dwarf"? (in your weapon/armor names)

Dwarven Axe
Dwarfish Axe
Dwarf Axe
Dwarvish Axe

...personally, I like the 'v', but since you seem to be moving away from it.

Line 626, 794, 1439, 1579, 1819, 1946, 2071 --> Dwarven vs. Dwarfish in description
Line 1439 (again) --> "Dwarves" should be "Dwarfs"

Along that vein, your mod directory is still "Dwarves". Need to be consistent :-)

Also - your forts differ from the details posted in the first post Hill Fort --> Hill Castle:

Capitol 42 --Mountain City
Swamp 37 --Hill Fortress
Farm 38 --Hill Castle
Forest 37 --Hill Fortress
Mountain 9 --Mountain Citadel
Default 38 --Hill Castle

...and after all that, I like your name list, although the potential for humor exists with names ending in 'i'. (I met this dwarf engineer who was afflicted with a broken leg. His name is 'Hurri'. :smirk: Apparently his brother accidentally hit him with a hammer. His brother's 'Thorri'. :p) I'd leave them in, though. The dwarfs won't be laughing.

[kianduatha]

Initial thoughts: Awesome. I like the gold/resource changes--I don't feel obligated to just get crossbowmen anymore, and my front line is more varied too.

Some other things I saw: I like that Clan Kings get some research, but they're not drain immune so it ends up only being 1 research.

Did Distill Flame/Thunder get a higher price because of the lower research level? Because with the efficiency of Dwarven construction, I'm not sure I can justify getting at least the Flamers--that's 3 Lightless Lanterns a bit later in the game, or a few fire brands.

[Trumanator]

I'm surprised Sombre hasn't popped in to correct your "stragedy". (Its strategy.) :)

[Stavis_L]

I'm surprised Sombre hasn't popped in to correct your "stragedy". (Its strategy.) :)

He has, in other threads :)

Burnsaber's (mis)coinages are growing on me, though:

Stragedy - A strategy destined for tragedy. Suits dwarf history.
Disencouraged - Discouraged via the encouragement of other options.

...they always seem to make sense in a weird way :)

(Hope I'm not being too harsh Burnsaber; heaven knows what my posts would look like if I was trying to write in Finnish!)

[Trumanator]

He has, in other threads :)


Why else would I find it curious? ;)

[alansmithee]

I have no delusions about the change, it's a big nerf. But I'd rather make a too weak of a nation than too strong, especially when thinking of the first MP game. As for general "power level", the only thing I know for sure at the moment is that I don't want this nation to be as strong as Itza. I've alwyas disliked "Pythium" level powernations.

This is obviously personal philosophy, but I'm always much more worried about a nation too weak than one too strong. Especially for multiplayer. If a nation is too strong, you can gang up on it. But if a nation is too weak, not much can be done for it (and it won't get played). And as boring as turtling might be, I think it's far more boring to be constantly rushed/attacked because everyone knows you're playing a weak nation.

I don't see either Itza or Pythium being anywhere near too strong, but again that's more personal philosophy. I just see a nation that is upper-mid in power level getting used a lot more than one that's lower in power level. We need more Pythium, C'tis (who I think is really strong MA), etc and less Ulm, Malacha, etc.

More to the new version, I can understand reducing the PD, and also changing the troops. But I think the runesmith nerfs are a bit much. More gold (when gold's already tight), more encumbrance, and less paths don't nearly do enough to offset the small research boost. Also, with all castles being so expensive now, your research will lag quite a bit, and recruiting non-caster commanders puts you at an even greater disadvantage.

[kianduatha]

I can understand reducing the PD, and also changing the troops. But I think the runesmith nerfs are a bit much. More gold (when gold's already tight), more encumbrance, and less paths don't nearly do enough to offset the small research boost. Also, with all castles being so expensive now, your research will lag quite a bit, and recruiting non-caster commanders puts you at an even greater disadvantage.

I'm inclined to agree; You will be behind on research, probably by a lot. Your Runesmiths are already at a disadvantage, between massive casting encumbrance and a total inability to thug them. You're more reliant on noncaster commanders than, well, anyone.

That castle-summoning spell is the most ludicrously difficult thing to cast I've ever seen. You have to lug a prophetized astral-random runelord over to a mountain province with a lab, and then he dies when he casts it? Or I suppose you could make an anvil of doom and then kill it.

By the way, at this point the whole nation almost works better by getting Magic-1, using cheap Engineers as your main researchers, Runelords for your forgers, and just not getting Runesmiths if you can help it. You don't get as many high-earth casters, but you really didn't need many of those anyways. And on the plus-side, you one-turn siege every castle you meet. And have actual battle-casters that don't fatigue out on turn 3. It's at least a fun strategy to consider--you do lose other things by doing so.

It's my perception that Runesmiths have so much not going for them that they didn't need a cost increase. Frankly you shouldn't be caught dead bringing more than a handful of them into a battle--and that's mostly because you can't get water/astral buffs any other way.

Again, a lot of these things I'd have to be in an actual multiplayer game to test out.

Oh, and no matter what, Dwarves can't be as low-tier as Machaka. Just think of what prospectors can do to Machaka province defense. (Actually it's Rangers that utterly destroy them--those throwing axes simply demolish militia)

[Burnsaber]

Line 334 --> "Dwarf Lighting" should be "Dwarf Lightning". I think. LOL.


Er, yeah. I always spell "Lightning" wrong. Don't know why, it's alot like my issue with "Strategy".


Why all the "Dwarf Weaponname/Armorname" bits? Are they *that* different? Weapon slots are limited too, you know :-) Couldn't you just bump the stats on the dwarfs?


Well, I admit that they're not *that* necessary gameplay wise, but it's a important thematic element. Basically every game always highlight the "Dwarf-made items are awesome" thematic aspect, but they don't get any in-game bonuses from it. Luckily dom3 has the mechanics to especially show this "dwarf items are awesome" fact and I intent to use it.

The custom armor actually has a gameplay intent behind it. To make dwarf units more vulnerable to Iron Bane, acid spells and desctruction effects. With the way how natural prot and armor prot combine, if I were to give dwarf units regular chain cuirass instead of dwarf-made one (which has +2 prot compared to normal), I'd have to give them +4 natural prot to keep the same prot value.


Also, since you're not using "Dwarves", should you be using "Dwarven" or "Dwarfish" or just "Dwarf"? (in your weapon/armor names)

Dwarven Axe
Dwarfish Axe
Dwarf Axe
Dwarvish Axe

...personally, I like the 'v', but since you seem to be moving away from it.


Yeah, I admit that the use of possessive pronoun is a bit of a mess currently. I prefer "Dwarven" myself, but sometimes I just used "Dwarf" because I wanted to avoid bumping into the character limit. I'll make it more consistent in the next version.


Along that vein, your mod directory is still "Dwarves". Need to be consistent :-)


No, just absolutely no. Changing the name of the graphic folder will break all the "image links" in the .dm and replacing them will just open so many possible bugs (like the engineer battle crash bug in the v0.6). It's just a case of opening a really big can of worms for 0% gain.


...and after all that, I like your name list, although the potential for humor exists with names ending in 'i'. (I met this dwarf engineer who was afflicted with a broken leg. His name is 'Hurri'. :smirk: Apparently his brother accidentally hit him with a hammer. His brother's 'Thorri'. :p) I'd leave them in, though. The dwarfs won't be laughing.

I don't get the joke. Is there something wrong with me?


Some other things I saw: I like that Clan Kings get some research, but they're not drain immune so it ends up only being 1 research.


Yeah, I knew that. Unfortunately I can't make them drain-immune due to modding constraints. Basically they are copystatting a Gath commander for that "research although not mage"-tag and the only way to get the "Drain-immune" tag is to copystat a ulm smith. I can't copystat two units, so here we are. I decided that some research is better than no research and let it stay.



Did Distill Flame/Thunder get a higher price because of the lower research level? Because with the efficiency of Dwarven construction, I'm not sure I can justify getting at least the Flamers--that's 3 Lightless Lanterns a bit later in the game, or a few fire brands.

I upped their price because it was really needed. Compare Flamethrowers to Fire Drakes and Thunderers to Storm Demons (which are often spammed in MP basically just for their lighting throwing ability).


Burnsaber's (mis)coinages are growing on me, though:

Stragedy - A strategy destined for tragedy. Suits dwarf history.
Disencouraged - Discouraged via the encouragement of other options.

...they always seem to make sense in a weird way :)
(Hope I'm not being too harsh Burnsaber; heaven knows what my posts would look like if I was trying to write in Finnish!)


Hooray for abusing the english language! I am the corruptor, the defiler, sneaking in new words spawned from the wicked aether of my chaotic mindscape! And wasn't shakespeare famous for basically making words up as he went along? :D

But seriously speaking, I really don't mind. The only way for my grammar to improve is to be pestered about it constantly. Lightning and Strategy, lightning and strategy. Thanks for that and please keep on rolling.



I don't see either Itza or Pythium being anywhere near too strong, but again that's more personal philosophy. I just see a nation that is upper-mid in power level getting used a lot more than one that's lower in power level. We need more Pythium, C'tis (who I think is really strong MA), etc and less Ulm, Malacha, etc.


Yeah, when talking about power-level, it's pretty much impossible to come to a clear conclusion. I dislike Pythium because it gets the best human infantry, hydras, best human mages (in its era), communicants, uber national summons, and completely random extra gem income (why?) with no clear drawbacks. Old age is more like a nuisance than a real drawback.

But this mod is still in development stage. I know from experience that it's best to *really* aim for weakness for the first releases. It's always easier to boost than nerf in order to fix something. This is basically what my other nation mod, Alugra, is going through. It started out too strong, but I (and other people) got used to it's power level, which made it difficult for me to try to get things appropiately costed. I call this "I don't want to castrate my baby" -effect.


But I think the runesmith nerfs are a bit much. More gold (when gold's already tight), more encumbrance, and less paths don't nearly do enough to offset the small research boost. Also, with all castles being so expensive now, your research will lag quite a bit, and recruiting non-caster commanders puts you at an even greater disadvantage.


I assume that when talking about "less paths", you mean Runelords, not smiths? I really don't want to go overboard with the Runelords, forgebonus 30 is really powerful (compare to Ashdod's Talmai Elder, which costs 500 gold for less path power and forgebonus 15).

And if I calculated correctly, Runesmiths now have the second best upkeep/research ratio (second to only journeyman runemsmiths) in the nation (in a drain 3 enviroment, of course). But if people feel that they're not worth going for, I might lower their prices back to normal.

It's also good to remember that dwarfs are really supposed to suck at magic, in fact, they shouldn't have magic at all. They could thematically have okay research but they shouldn't ever be "magic" comparable to anything other than MA Ulm.


That castle-summoning spell is the most ludicrously difficult thing to cast I've ever seen. You have to lug a prophetized astral-random runelord over to a mountain province with a lab, and then he dies when he casts it? Or I suppose you could make an anvil of doom and then kill it.


Yeah, I might have gone a bit overboard with it, I'll probably remove the random mountain requirement. But the spell had to fill a lot of reguirements, like:

1) Reguire astral gems (if it costed earth, it'd compete with Anvil of Doom, and fire/air just don't make sense)
2) Be cheap & low research enough to be able to be casted in mid-game, where forts actually matter (to avoid "Wizard's Tower"- pitfall, it just comes too late to have effect on anything)
3) Not to be spammable, which is hard when taking into account reguirement #2 (because then we'd be right back to the "invicible forts" issue, hence the requirement of killing a prohetized mage, this gives at least 6-month long period between castings).



By the way, at this point the whole nation almost works better by getting Magic-1, using cheap Engineers as your main researchers, Runelords for your forgers, and just not getting Runesmiths if you can help it. You don't get as many high-earth casters, but you really didn't need many of those anyways. And on the plus-side, you one-turn siege every castle you meet. And have actual battle-casters that don't fatigue out on turn 3. It's at least a fun strategy to consider--you do lose other things by doing so.


Yeah, it's sort of quasi-intentional. Of course the magic scale shouldn't be the best strategy you take all the time, but should be considerable, perhaps even plausible with certain game settings and maps. It's not even unthematic, considering how the Golden Empire dwarfs are basically embodiments of "magic 3" scale (where everyone and their dog had a runeaxe and people were using anvils of doom as lunch tables). Going drain-3 all the time in a "no-brainer" mode is a bit boring.


Again, a lot of these things I'd have to be in an actual multiplayer game to test out.


Yeah, this is the biggest issue when doing MP-balanced mod nations, it's all talk until the first game. At the moment, I could see the v0.7 go for MP-testing. Basing on the comments, it's certainly not overpowered, but (IMHO) shouldn't be that weak. And there really isn't any revisions and major additions waiting impletion, the content is there. Unfortunately, I really don't have time to start admining (or participating) in a yet another MP game.


Oh, and no matter what, Dwarves can't be as low-tier as Machaka. Just think of what prospectors can do to Machaka province defense. (Actually it's Rangers that utterly destroy them--those throwing axes simply demolish militia)

If you want to compare to vanilla nations, Ulm is the way to go and dwarfs really trump them in all aspects (except for battlemagic). MA Ulm isn't even really considered *that* weak anymore.

[Swan]

Originally Posted by Stavis_L
...and after all that, I like your name list, although the potential for humor exists with names ending in 'i'. (I met this dwarf engineer who was afflicted with a broken leg. His name is 'Hurri'. Apparently his brother accidentally hit him with a hammer. His brother's 'Thorri'. ) I'd leave them in, though. The dwarfs won't be laughing.
i didn't get it

[kianduatha]

I upped their price because it was really needed. Compare Flamethrowers to Fire Drakes and Thunderers to Storm Demons (which are often spammed in MP basically just for their lighting throwing ability).


Well, I am comparing them. Fire Drakes with Dragon Master are way cheaper, have longer range, more ammo, don't cost upkeep, and are significantly tougher. They're capable of forming a frontline, while Flamethrowers are...not. Well, they can in a pinch, but you have better options once you get into melee.

Storm Demons are an entire league above Thunderers, between the flying(in storms, too!), storm power, no upkeep, and a nicer ranged attack(theirs scales with strength). Oh, and they're ethereal and take blood slaves, which are renewable.

[Graeme Dice]

I'm wondering if, now that there are seven playable Warhammer nations, that somebody might want to go and make a total conversion mod. There are a lot of spells in the base game that probably aren't appropriate to the feel of the Warhammer world, and it might be neat to strip the game down and rebuild it a bit.

[Burnsaber]

Well, I am comparing them. Fire Drakes with Dragon Master are way cheaper, have longer range, more ammo, don't cost upkeep, and are significantly tougher. They're capable of forming a frontline, while Flamethrowers are...not. Well, they can in a pinch, but you have better options once you get into melee.


These guys are summons, you can't just compare the units one:one, you have to take into account how easy they are to summon. First of all, Dragon Master + Fire Drake reguires more research (not much, I admit), mage-time from N3F2 mage (unless you need boosters, which makes it reguire even more research). Where as you can just research alt 3 and just start summoning them, no need for extra research or boosters or mage-time from a 5-pick mage. Fire Drakes also have pretty poor accuracy, often causing pretty heavy friendly fire casualties (a problem flamethrowers don't have, you can use them with non-fr troops with no problem). As for frontline abilities, drakes can tank, but that's the extend of their ability. In prolononged melee, they will just fatigue out and die, because they have serious issues dealing damage in melee. (being size 4 and having to solo everything doesn't help). Flamethrowers have higher mr, prot and are smaller size, making them much more difficult to counter with spells (even basic stuff like Sleep Cloud is painful for drakes).

But in conclusion, yeah, you can't form a frontline with them, but that's not really their point (remember that dwarfs are all about working in community & teamwork). They are slightly behind your frontline, throwing flames until they run out and then wading into melee to support your melee frontline with their 14 ap fire damage with 14 attack value + dam 3 bonus attack staffs. I'd say that they're pretty comparable, but flamethrowers are easier to mass. You have a point about there being other uses for your fire gems, so I might go down to 5 gems if more people feel that they're not worth going for.


Storm Demons are an entire league above Thunderers, between the flying(in storms, too!), storm power, no upkeep, and a nicer ranged attack(theirs scales with strength). Oh, and they're ethereal and take blood slaves, which are renewable.
[/QUOTE]

Once again, compare the summon spells. Storm Demons are pretty god damned hard to mass (whereas Thunderers are not), and require *much* more mage time. Thunderers also have slightly higher prec on their weapons and ignore shields (although, to be fair, I think that Storm Demons might too, but I'd have to test to be 100% sure). Besides, one more thing going for Thunderers is your lack of other uses for air gems (air level 1-2 items pretty much suck) and air gems are pretty easy to get, even with just a engineer manually site searching, since over 50% of air sites just reguire Air 1 to find. [8 common sites and 12 uncommon ones, to be exact]. And god help if you luck out into a A2 engineer. He can find over 90% of air sites, just by manual searchs.

But in conlusion, I'd consider Thunderers overall performance. Just try them out. You can easily get, say 9-12 of them by turn 18 if you sent out Engineer to site search early. They were just absolutely wicked in my test. Of course, the AI didn't try to counter them, but Thunderers don't really have that many counters. Get lighting resistance or die.

I'm wondering if, now that there are seven playable Warhammer nations, that somebody might want to go and make a total conversion mod. There are a lot of spells in the base game that probably aren't appropriate to the feel of the Warhammer world, and it might be neat to strip the game down and rebuild it a bit.

Wrong thread, try the "Warhammer Nations" thread. That thread is for discussion WH stuff & nations in general, this thread is about the dwarf mod. (not that I'm against the project, but I'd like to keep this thread in the point)

[kianduatha]

Yeah, Thunderers are still wicked; all I would want to do is change Thunderers to have the same ranged weapon as Storm Demons(so that strength buffs affect it, and to save a weapon slot), and maybe 5 ammo for the Flamethrowers.

I disagree about the air gems once you hit Const-4, though. Boots of Flight are prettymuch the most important item you can forge, right after Slave Matrices. Giving your Runelords mapmove 3 and flying just can't be beat. Dancing Tridents about double the life expectancy of a Slayer in melee, what with the repel and some ridiculously high attack stat.

It would really be nice to get better randoms on at least the Runelords. It feels kinda weird that Runesmiths have more reliable Astral, and you just don't have the stability to be able to count on basically ever getting a water random before year 3 or something. You also might go for owl quills if you had any chance of getting an Air1 Runelord before they were obsolete.

[alansmithee]

Yeah, when talking about power-level, it's pretty much impossible to come to a clear conclusion. I dislike Pythium because it gets the best human infantry, hydras, best human mages (in its era), communicants, uber national summons, and completely random extra gem income (why?) with no clear drawbacks. Old age is more like a nuisance than a real drawback.

But this mod is still in development stage. I know from experience that it's best to *really* aim for weakness for the first releases. It's always easier to boost than nerf in order to fix something. This is basically what my other nation mod, Alugra, is going through. It started out too strong, but I (and other people) got used to it's power level, which made it difficult for me to try to get things appropiately costed. I call this "I don't want to castrate my baby" -effect.

I think you're really underrating the effect of old age. And I'd say Ermor is close for infantry, not to mention Agartha or even much-maligned Ulm. Mages are the best humans, but I'd put near-human Marshmasters and Bakemono sorcerers as being very similar in power level. And hydras are a nice bonus, but not overpowering. Really, I see Pythium as about where most nations should be, and the other "men" nations to be somewhat lacking (although Ermor is pretty close in MA). But again, this is all personal philosophy, and I would just hate to see a great mod not get used because it's no fun to play due to it's weakness.


I assume that when talking about "less paths", you mean Runelords, not smiths? I really don't want to go overboard with the Runelords, forgebonus 30 is really powerful (compare to Ashdod's Talmai Elder, which costs 500 gold for less path power and forgebonus 15).

Yeah, I meant the lords. And this isn't a fair comparison (which I think you know), as the 500 gold also comes attached to a thug/borderline SC chassis. Now, if you want to add in a body slot so you can get rid of the armor that makes them virtually useless in combat...

And if I calculated correctly, Runesmiths now have the second best upkeep/research ratio (second to only journeyman runemsmiths) in the nation (in a drain 3 enviroment, of course). But if people feel that they're not worth going for, I might lower their prices back to normal.

They're still probably worth going for IMO (since you don't really want to give up the 120 pts for drain3), but you're still gonna lag far behind. Again, it's not just the boosted cost of the smiths, it's also the boosted cost of the castles you have to get to recruit more smiths. And even considering that, they're still only second-best to the journeymen. That, coupled with their uselessness as thugs now makes them seem quite useless.

It's also good to remember that dwarfs are really supposed to suck at magic, in fact, they shouldn't have magic at all. They could thematically have okay research but they shouldn't ever be "magic" comparable to anything other than MA Ulm.

Well, to paraphrase something I heard about this game before I was playing it, Ulm (and this was pre-buff when they were considered the worst nation) is a nation full of people who are strong in will, and rely on the strength of iron to overcome magic. Unfortunately there's a spell that can block out the sun. Point being, any nation that thematically sucks at magic, is gonna be at a natural disadvantage since magic is so strong.

And it might not be what you want to go for, but when I think of the tabletop game I always imagine rows of sturdy infantry (which is quite present) backed up by ridiculous amounts of war machines (which don't seem present at all). Now if you don't want to add war machines (I was actually thinking if possible you could have cannons with gift of the heavens or some similar effect if it's moddable since nobody seems to want to just code "gunpowder" effects) I think it's reasonable to see runecasters as being essentially war machine replacements (through judicious use of earth spells, etc) if you did get rid of the crazy armor.

[llamabeast]

Interesting point about the war machines. I guess you decided to ditch war machines altogether Burn? That is basically in keeping with dom3 I guess. On the other hand Sombre included a Gnoblar scrap launcher in the ogres mod, which I thought worked quite nicely.

[Sombre]

Scrap launchers I think work ok because they are essentially the same as a bunch of archers or slingers. Other war machines like cannons, bolt throwers etc I don't think work properly in dom3 for a number of reasons which become evident when you try to make them. They never really work as they're supposed to, look the way they're supposed to or fill the same sort of role they do in warhammer. Dom3 as a system largely abstracts war machines as being part of sieges that you don't get to see.

Then again I have represented most of the war machines for the nations that I've done. When I finish Empire I'm sure people will complain about the lack of them (as well as the lack of gunpowder), but to me it just doesn't work in dom3. I've tried handgunners and pistoliers and I coded up a hellblaster volleygun even, but it all kinda sucked.

[kianduatha]

Your commanders are your siege machines. All your noncaster commanders should have at least Piercers, more likely Ethereal Crossbows or Thunder Bows.

Wow, I just realized that the Rune spells are 0-fatigue. Those anvils can keep on casting forever.

Oh, by the way, Grudgestone might do with going down to Evo-2. Frankly, most of your Earth casters have better things to be doing anyways(Legions of Steel comes to mind, as do Earth Might and Earth Meld) and people are going to get level 2 anyways for Arcane Probing.

[Burnsaber]

I think you're really underrating the effect of old age. And I'd say Ermor is close for infantry, not to mention Agartha or even much-maligned Ulm. Mages are the best humans, but I'd put near-human Marshmasters and Bakemono sorcerers as being very similar in power level. And hydras are a nice bonus, but not overpowering. Really, I see Pythium as about where most nations should be, and the other "men" nations to be somewhat lacking (although Ermor is pretty close in MA).


I guess we just disagree on what is acceptable power level. I could argue why Pythium is just plain better than all of the nations you mentioned, but it would probably be best if we just "agree to disagree" and continue on. Tangents and derails serve no one.


But again, this is all personal philosophy, and I would just hate to see a great mod not get used because it's no fun to play due to it's weakness.


Here is the point where the issue boils down. I just don't see v0.7 dwarfs being weak. I just don't see it. Sure, you have weaknessess, but you have some insane strenghts. Forgebonus 30, superb national troops, summons that can throw 3 Thunder Strikes for 0 fatigue, summons that throw "ingnore shields" 10 AN damage with prec 15 to range 30, national anti-thug/SC chassis for fire gems, prospectors, etc...



Yeah, I meant the lords. And this isn't a fair comparison (which I think you know), as the 500 gold also comes attached to a thug/borderline SC chassis.


Well, people don't really use them for that role (because you have Adons), just because even forgebonus 15 is seriously awesome on a mage that can reach "high level" forgings. I know that dwarfs don't have recruitable SC chassis to "feed" with their forgebonus 30, but still, there is a *lot* of scary **** you can do with them. Besides, Runelords being expensive is also a thematic consideration (In, WH there are likely about max 30 runelords remaining) and affects the King/Runelord competition for the capital commander slot.



Now, if you want to add in a body slot so you can get rid of the armor that makes them virtually useless in combat...


Sorry, but not going to happen. Dwarfs aren't supposed to be throwing fireballs around. Anvils of Doom are the only exception.


They're still probably worth going for IMO (since you don't really want to give up the 120 pts for drain3), but you're still gonna lag far behind. Again, it's not just the boosted cost of the smiths, it's also the boosted cost of the castles you have to get to recruit more smiths. And even considering that, they're still only second-best to the journeymen. That, coupled with their uselessness as thugs now makes them seem quite useless.


Exactly why should Runesmiths be thugs? Since when has that been a argument for comparing mages? (Master Smiths suck balls, you can't thug them!). And if Runsmiths were good thug chassises, why would you ever recruit Giant Slayers/Kings? And remember that just their upkeep/research ratio is second to Journeymen, they still, well.. do more research. If I just made them cheapest researchers, why would you ever recruit Journeymen? Now, Journeymen are the most cost-effective solution, but runesmiths give more (research)bang for your buck, ideal when you have some excess cash flow.



Well, to paraphrase something I heard about this game before I was playing it, Ulm (and this was pre-buff when they were considered the worst nation) is a nation full of people who are strong in will, and rely on the strength of iron to overcome magic. Unfortunately there's a spell that can block out the sun. Point being, any nation that thematically sucks at magic, is gonna be at a natural disadvantage since magic is so strong.


But the thing is, Dwarfs aren't that weak in magic currently. Sure, your battlefield magic sucks (until you get anvils), but you can make that up by summons and rituals. There is also is a lot you can do with Journeymen in combat.


And it might not be what you want to go for, but when I think of the tabletop game I always imagine rows of sturdy infantry (which is quite present) backed up by ridiculous amounts of war machines (which don't seem present at all). Now if you don't want to add war machines (I was actually thinking if possible you could have cannons with gift of the heavens or some similar effect if it's moddable since nobody seems to want to just code "gunpowder" effects) I think it's reasonable to see runecasters as being essentially war machine replacements (through judicious use of earth spells, etc) if you did get rid of the crazy armor.

See Sombre's post at the end of 5th page for some good reasons why war machines/gunpowder sucks. This mod is a conversion of the tabletop dwarf army into dom3 universe, not a straight conversion (the reasons for that are manifold, I won't start listing them here). To tell you the truth, even if I had the tools to make workable war machines, I probably won't implement them. Why? Because they are boring (gameplay wise).

There really isn't anything intresting about a nation that is always hunched back to end of the battlefield with troops at "Guard Commander" in every battle. Thematic, sure. Boring as hell? Heck yes.

Yeah, Thunderers are still wicked; all I would want to do is change Thunderers to have the same ranged weapon as Storm Demons(so that strength buffs affect it, and to save a weapon slot), and maybe 5 ammo for the Flamethrowers.

I disagree about the air gems once you hit Const-4, though. Boots of Flight are prettymuch the most important item you can forge, right after Slave Matrices. Giving your Runelords mapmove 3 and flying just can't be beat. Dancing Tridents about double the life expectancy of a Slayer in melee, what with the repel and some ridiculously high attack stat.


The basic "lighting" attack would be just too powerful, because you have extremely easy access to "Strenght of Giants". 16 AN lightning damage is just way too much. Besides, the basic lightning weapon is just prec 0, which would make thunderers cause a lot of friendly casualties (=unthematic). Also, it's pretty clear from the description and the graphic that they basically use guns (oh right, silly me, "Thunder Staffs"). Why would strenght increase their damage with a gun?

But like you said, they are pretty wicked as they are. You kinda got me on the air items (although Winged Shoes do not give mapmove 3, they just give mapmove +1), but as far as I know there is no forgeable item that gives 3 formiable melee troops with accurate AN+ignore-shield lighting damage to range 30. Thunderers are powerful, are easily accessible and do not cost a lot of mage time. They are fine as they are.

I'll probably give the Flamethrowers a bit more ammo though. Added to fix-list.


It would really be nice to get better randoms on at least the Runelords. It feels kinda weird that Runesmiths have more reliable Astral, and you just don't have the stability to be able to count on basically ever getting a water random before year 3 or something. You also might go for owl quills if you had any chance of getting an Air1 Runelord before they were obsolete.

Well, the elemental access in the v0.6 was way over the top and I guess I sort of "spoiled" you guys into it with it. The only reason Runesmiths even have elemental access was just to make the paths on the Anvil seem more thematic. It'd be odd if you just randomly got a summon with power in the elements when your other mages are restricted to Earth/Fire/Astral. I made the runelord elemental random 100% in v0.6 out of some random "oh noes, it's too weak" panic attack. Think about it, why should Runelords have common access to water magic? What does water magic have to do with with forging, runes and ancestors? Same thing applies to air magic.

You have a point about the odd 50% random, I'll beef it up to 100% for v0.8, added to fix list.


Oh, by the way, Grudgestone might do with going down to Evo-2. Frankly, most of your Earth casters have better things to be doing anyways(Legions of Steel comes to mind, as do Earth Might and Earth Meld) and people are going to get level 2 anyways for Arcane Probing.

Good point. Added to fix list.

[alansmithee]

I guess we just disagree on what is acceptable power level. I could argue why Pythium is just plain better than all of the nations you mentioned, but it would probably be best if we just "agree to disagree" and continue on. Tangents and derails serve no one.

Last thing about this, I do think Pythium is stronger than the 3 nations I mentioned (maybe not C'Tis, but I'm a sucker for dominion effects). You just mentioned the mages, and I was speaking to that.

Here is the point where the issue boils down. I just don't see v0.7 dwarfs being weak. I just don't see it. Sure, you have weaknessess, but you have some insane strenghts. Forgebonus 30, superb national troops, summons that can throw 3 Thunder Strikes for 0 fatigue, summons that throw "ingnore shields" 10 AN damage with prec 15 to range 30, national anti-thug/SC chassis for fire gems, prospectors, etc...

I don't think they're Man/Malacha weak, but I see them closer to there than the (non-Ashdod) top. I don't see the slayers as being that good at all. They just seem to die to easily. And everyone knows as the game progresses, troops have less and less use.

Well, people don't really use them for that role (because you have Adons), just because even forgebonus 15 is seriously awesome on a mage that can reach "high level" forgings. I know that dwarfs don't have recruitable SC chassis to "feed" with their forgebonus 30, but still, there is a *lot* of scary **** you can do with them. Besides, Runelords being expensive is also a thematic consideration (In, WH there are likely about max 30 runelords remaining) and affects the King/Runelord competition for the capital commander slot.
I respect the thematic consideration. But I would never choose to recruit a king. You need the research too badly.
Sorry, but not going to happen. Dwarfs aren't supposed to be throwing fireballs around. Anvils of Doom are the only exception.

Exactly why should Runesmiths be thugs? Since when has that been a argument for comparing mages? (Master Smiths suck balls, you can't thug them!). And if Runsmiths were good thug chassises, why would you ever recruit Giant Slayers/Kings? And remember that just their upkeep/research ratio is second to Journeymen, they still, well.. do more research. If I just made them cheapest researchers, why would you ever recruit Journeymen? Now, Journeymen are the most cost-effective solution, but runesmiths give more (research)bang for your buck, ideal when you have some excess cash flow.

I found runesmiths to be decently thuggable in 0.6. That was one of the reasons I thought the slayers were so sub-par: they were totally bettered by runesmiths as thugs. And as it stands, i'd still never recruit a king or slayer. I see thugging being handled by golems for the most part now, or possibly, journeymen. The stealth still gives journeyman a place, even if they weren't more gold-efficient.

But the thing is, Dwarfs aren't that weak in magic currently. Sure, your battlefield magic sucks (until you get anvils), but you can make that up by summons and rituals. There is also is a lot you can do with Journeymen in combat.

I don't know about rituals making up for it, but I think the thunderers can help a bit making up for magic lack. I do see midgame potentially being a problem if you haven't hit anvils yet (which are really really amazing, and I love the changes to them)
See Sombre's post at the end of 5th page for some good reasons why war machines/gunpowder sucks. This mod is a conversion of the tabletop dwarf army into dom3 universe, not a straight conversion (the reasons for that are manifold, I won't start listing them here). To tell you the truth, even if I had the tools to make workable war machines, I probably won't implement them. Why? Because they are boring (gameplay wise).

There really isn't anything intresting about a nation that is always hunched back to end of the battlefield with troops at "Guard Commander" in every battle. Thematic, sure. Boring as hell? Heck yes.

That's not a big deal, just wondered was it something intentional, since the mod follows the tabletop pretty close. Besides, the anvils pretty much can do most of the "artillery" stuff anyways.
(although Winged Shoes do not give mapmove 3, they just give mapmove +1)

Pretty sure they give 3, as everything with flying has mapmove 3 (I could be wrong on that though)

And again, I'd like to stress how much I enjoy the mod, it's great fun and looks wonderful.

[Stavis_L]

Along that vein, your mod directory is still "Dwarves". Need to be consistent :-)

No, just absolutely no. Changing the name of the graphic folder will break all the "image links" in the .dm and replacing them will just open so many possible bugs (like the engineer battle crash bug in the v0.6). It's just a case of opening a really big can of worms for 0% gain.


...er...you do use a text editor that does find/replace, right? If you include the slashes as part of the string to replace, it should only match on the file paths ("/DWARVES/" --> "/DWARFS/"). Just saying. Though, as you say, it has no impact when actually playing.


...and after all that, I like your name list, although the potential for humor exists with names ending in 'i'. (I met this dwarf engineer who was afflicted with a broken leg. His name is 'Hurri'. Apparently his brother accidentally hit him with a hammer. His brother's 'Thorri'. ) I'd leave them in, though. The dwarfs won't be laughing.

I don't get the joke. Is there something wrong with me?


Hah! English has a long and glorious tradition of bad puns made in poor taste; try substituting 'y' for 'i', and 's' for 'th':
Hurri --> Hurry
Thorri --> Sorry

...and since it apparently requires explanation even to notice, I definitely wouldn't change any of them.

[BandarLover]

I still get the dwarf engineer sprite 2 error.

[Burnsaber]

I don't think they're Man/Malacha weak, but I see them closer to there than the (non-Ashdod) top.


And that's about the level I'm aiming for. v0.8 will bring some more slight buffs (see the fix list for details), so they should be powerful enough after that.


I don't see the slayers as being that good at all. They just seem to die to easily. And everyone knows as the game progresses, troops have less and less use.


Well, slayers are not thugs in the same way as Bane Lords, for example. They, are perfect anti thug/sc units, thought (high attack value + immunity to awe + slayer axes). I admit that doesn't really translate well to a SP experience. Althought stone boots and some random good shield should be "enough" survival for what the AI throws at you.

And troops really have less use, but you have some nice specialist units to throw a unpreprepared opponent off. Arbalests hit for 16ap damage, meaning that they can consistently do damage to prot 30 units! Hammers/Slayers are basically immune to awe & fear and hammers hit with magic damage and high attack value, which allows them occasionally to overwhelm thugs. Ironbreakers can be easily buffed to be elemental-immune with "ward spells" and beefed to mr 19 and prot 26 (even more with army of lead/gold). Where is your god now?

Sure, those things have counters, but my point is that your troops are really nice templates to get a lot of mileage out of battlefield buffs and thus have solid late game uses.



I respect the thematic consideration. But I would never choose to recruit a king. You need the research too badly.


It's a shame that I couldn't make the Kings drain-immune. I'll have to try to think about a solution. I might make Kings non-cap (perhaps with a higher gold cost, do disencourage unthematic spamming).


I found runesmiths to be decently thuggable in 0.6. That was one of the reasons I thought the slayers were so sub-par: they were totally bettered by runesmiths as thugs.


Heh, good thing that I nerfed the smith armor some more then :P.


And as it stands, i'd still never recruit a king or slayer. I see thugging being handled by golems for the most part now, or possibly, journeymen. The stealth still gives journeyman a place, even if they weren't more gold-efficient.


Well, like I said, Giant Slayers are more like anti-thugs than thugs themselves. So it's pretty likely that you wont recruit some for SP. As for the kings, see comment above this quote. And like I said, journeymen are cost-effective but because of the tight castle commanders slots, I often go for Runesmiths after my first forts have been built (because they basically do 50% more research than journeymen and massing them also has the side-effect of getting that nice 10% elemental random).

(although Winged Shoes do not give mapmove 3, they just give mapmove +1)

Pretty sure they give 3, as everything with flying has mapmove 3 (I could be wrong on that though)


Well, we both were right (sort of). I did a quick test, and equipping winged shoes only gives +1 to the mapmove statistic on the unit screen but still allows you to fly over two provinces (basically mapmove 3). But if you give it to mapmove 2 guy, he can fly over 3! provinces.

The more you know...


And again, I'd like to stress how much I enjoy the mod, it's great fun and looks wonderful.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Your comments have been helpful and given me a lot to think about.


...er...you do use a text editor that does find/replace, right? If you include the slashes as part of the string to replace, it should only match on the file paths ("/DWARVES/" --> "/DWARFS/").


TECHNO BABBLE hits Burnsaber (roll: d20=18 + 4 = 22 over 12 AC)
The attack is super-effective! (roll: 100d6=126)
BURNSABER takes 126 damage!
BURNSABER is stunned!

(sorry, I'm pretty computer illeterate)




Hah! English has a long and glorious tradition of bad puns made in poor taste; try substituting 'y' for 'i', and 's' for 'th':
Hurri --> Hurry
Thorri --> Sorry

...and since it apparently requires explanation even to notice, I definitely wouldn't change any of them.

Oh, it was a pun! Heh, should have noticed.

I still get the dwarf engineer sprite 2 error.

Note that the new mod .dm file does not overwrite the old one! I changed the name so that the mod would appear with other WH mods in the "mod enabling" screen. So, you'll have to start a new game (and preferably delete the old .dm file, dubbed "Dwarves").

(Apparently I forgot to mention that on the first page. Fixed now, thought)

[kianduatha]

Dwarf kings would be nice recruit-anywhere, but they really would have to be more expensive/somehow worse if so. Slayers would still be your anti-SC(with some King support for the brutal Cursed Luck). If Kings were 150 gold base, Journeymen Runesmiths would be more efficient researchers no matter the scales--and better thugs, besides. Being able to cast Invulnerability goes a long way. If you were planning on just doing Fire Brand/Shield of Gleaming Gold, you'd go with Slayers(for the luck) or Runesmiths(for the 30 prot/reinvig). Clan Kings are used with their default weapon(and shapechanged for defense) for the Cursed Luck. Otherwise it's just not worth it(excluding the possibility of a high bless).

It gives you a bit more flexibility, which is nice. Now I have to try like an E9N4 blessed thug strategy and see how it works(it won't).

[rdonj]

I've still not really had a chance to play the mod, but I was wondering... any chance dwarves could have higher parry on their shields? Being shorter than normal, I would think that their shields would cover proportionally more of their body than the same shield used by a human. So it might make sense to have their shields have a little more parry. It also seems slightly strange that shields are the one piece of armor that the dwarves don't really do well (aside from runic wards). Four parry shields everywhere leaves them strangely vulnerable to arrows. Anyway it's not a big deal, just seemed a bit odd to me.

[Burnsaber]

Dwarf kings would be nice recruit-anywhere, but they really would have to be more expensive/somehow worse if so. Slayers would still be your anti-SC(with some King support for the brutal Cursed Luck). If Kings were 150 gold base, Journeymen Runesmiths would be more efficient researchers no matter the scales--and better thugs, besides. Being able to cast Invulnerability goes a long way. If you were planning on just doing Fire Brand/Shield of Gleaming Gold, you'd go with Slayers(for the luck) or Runesmiths(for the 30 prot/reinvig). Clan Kings are used with their default weapon(and shapechanged for defense) for the Cursed Luck. Otherwise it's just not worth it(excluding the possibility of a high bless).

It gives you a bit more flexibility, which is nice. Now I have to try like an E9N4 blessed thug strategy and see how it works(it won't).

Yeah, 150 gold (a bit higher for the oathstoned form, because of the +1 researchbonus) was along the lines I was thinking of. I also was thinking of changing their "Grudges" ranged attack to just cursing without the damage aspect. Of course, I'd have to edit the vanilla ranged "Curse" attack to do so, but it will only "break" the low-end "Summon Likho" bogarus summon, so no biggie.

That's one reason I'm not really worried about dwarfs being weak in MP. You can, if you so choose, absolutely decimate thugs /(SC's even, with more effort). The PD only needs minimal support to really shine vs thugs. Your PD is composed of high morale troops (suck it awe/fear!) with good damage output and because of crossbow/arbalests, air shield is a necessity. You are really not rushable by awake SC's (because one hit by a King will just decimate them) and your capital pd can stop many rush-types with minimal support. When you take into account the absolutely monstereous defence values of some of your castles, it won't take much effort to survive to the mid-game.

E9N4 bless should really work out for Runeguards (at least for expansion). They would be pretty much indestructible and they have okay damage output.

I've still not really had a chance to play the mod, but I was wondering... any chance dwarves could have higher parry on their shields? Being shorter than normal, I would think that their shields would cover proportionally more of their body than the same shield used by a human. So it might make sense to have their shields have a little more parry. It also seems slightly strange that shields are the one piece of armor that the dwarves don't really do well (aside from runic wards). Four parry shields everywhere leaves them strangely vulnerable to arrows. Anyway it's not a big deal, just seemed a bit odd to me.

Trust me, Dwarfs aren't vulnerable to arrows. At all. Though Crossbows might occasionally take damage with their measly prot value of 13 :D. Dwarf shields have +2 prot value compared to normal shields, which coupled with their already high port values makes their shield blocks nigh impossible to penetrate by recruitable troops (even giants).

Opposing crossbows and flaming projectiles are slightly more problematic, but hey, it wouldn't be really fair if they were immune to everything, would it?

[Graeme Dice]

Trust me, Dwarfs aren't vulnerable to arrows. At all. Though Crossbows might occasionally take damage with their measly prot value of 13 :D. Dwarf shields have +2 prot value compared to normal shields, which coupled with their already high port values makes their shield blocks nigh impossible to penetrate by recruitable troops (even giants).

I was under the impression that the prot value of a shield had no effect on missiles. If they hit the shield they were negated entirely. The behaviour of armour negating lightning attacks when used against shielded troops would seem to bear this out.

[Redeyes]

I was under the impression that the prot value of a shield had no effect on missiles. If they hit the shield they were negated entirely. The behaviour of armour negating lightning attacks when used against shielded troops would seem to bear this out.

You are entirely correct, protection doesn't matter at all against missiles. It's a yes or no deal, which is why shields provide such a strong protection against missiles. Like the shield which gives an added air shield? Already removes a higher percentage of missiles on its own.

[kianduatha]

Except it seems that lightning from Storm Demons does not follow this--they absolutely destroy troops even if they have 7 parry tower shields. Thunderers, on the other hand, follow standard shield parry rules. The difference is huge.

And reading the manual again, shield parry is stupid effective and several times more important than shield protection(especially when you already have ~20 prot). It would make sense for at least Runeguards and Ironbreakers to have absolutely badass shields, and probably the standard infantry too. By "absolutely badass" I mean vanilla tower shields(or kite shields, even).

[Burnsaber]

I was under the impression that the prot value of a shield had no effect on missiles. If they hit the shield they were negated entirely. The behaviour of armour negating lightning attacks when used against shielded troops would seem to bear this out.

Sorry, I was kind confusing back in my message. Rdonj was questioning the benefit of the custom "Dwarven Shields", since they don't grant extra parry compared to normal shields and thus make them more vulnerable to arrows. My response to that was the fact htat due their high prot values, dwarfs pretty much ignore arrows already.

As for the custom shields, I meant to say that their melee shield blocks are more efficient due to +2 extra prot, which is the bonus granted by the "Dwarven Shields". (the basic clansdwarf, for example, has 32 prot shield block. Even giants have trouble hitting through that, so they "need" clean high attack hits to damage dwarfs)


Except it seems that lightning from Storm Demons does not follow this--they absolutely destroy troops even if they have 7 parry tower shields. Thunderers, on the other hand, follow standard shield parry rules. The difference is huge.


You sure? Thunderers should ignore shields, since their damage is in the secandaryattack, not the weapon itself (it's a lot like how the Sauromatian poison archers always get the poison damage through, unless the arrow misses completely). I really didn't notice any thunderer shots lost to shield block in my testing (but I was moslty fighting against abysia in that test). The Storm Demon ignoring shields is probably some special hardcoded (a'k'a not moddable) tag it has on the weapon.


And reading the manual again, shield parry is stupid effective and several times more important than shield protection(especially when you already have ~20 prot). It would make sense for at least Runeguards and Ironbreakers to have absolutely badass shields, and probably the standard infantry too. By "absolutely badass" I mean vanilla tower shields(or kite shields, even).

IIRC, the manual values are incorrect. Someone tested them a while back and the protection by parry wasn't as big as the manual would make you believe. Can't recall the name of the thread in question, though. IrC vets might recall the exact numbers.

As for the tower shields on Runeguards/Ironbreakers, it would just make the weaker, since it'd just boost their encumberance without that much gain. I think they're pretty fine as they are.

[Fantomen]

A prospector and a some rangers makes a crazy effective force for the price. Expansion, stealthy raiding and regular battles. I´m beating equal numbers of Ashdods elites WITH magic support with ease and have yet to face anything that stands a chance.

Flanking just seems crazy good, broken even. The question is, can it be effectively countered in early game in MP.

I know this will be different in MP but considering you can pump out one of these stealthy raiding forces in every fort every turn it seems a bit too powerful to me. On top of that they break down walls before anyone can say slartibartfast.

As the nation looks now I´d just take uber scales and rush everyone one by one with prospector raiders, wars that would end the same turn they started.

[llamabeast]

You sure? Thunderers should ignore shields, since their damage is in the secandaryattack, not the weapon itself (it's a lot like how the Sauromatian poison archers always get the poison damage through, unless the arrow misses completely). I really didn't notice any thunderer shots lost to shield block in my testing (but I was moslty fighting against abysia in that test). The Storm Demon ignoring shields is probably some special hardcoded (a'k'a not moddable) tag it has on the weapon.

To ignore the shields, it would need to be secondaryeffectalways, I believe. I haven't checked which secondaryeffect you've used (nor tested my claim).

[rdonj]

Yeah, the dwarfs have great protection under those shields, so they are largely immune to short bows/long bows/composite bows. Of course, due to the way dominions works you still get the occasional fantastic hit (such as an unfatigued, e9 runeguard taking 13 damage from a random short bow). That's not really a big deal though. The part that sort of bugs me, is that dwarfs don't use short bows, they use 12 damage crossbows, which happen to be some of the best weapons to use to kill dwarfs since they only use mediocre shields. That said, I'm not sure how much I really want to see 8 encumbrance ironbreakers, or 7 encumbrance runeguard. If the price of having reasonable encumbrance levels is being a bit vulnerable to missile weapons, I can live with it.

They are quite amazing in melee though.

[kianduatha]

A prospector and a some rangers makes a crazy effective force for the price. Expansion, stealthy raiding and regular battles. I´m beating equal numbers of Ashdods elites WITH magic support with ease and have yet to face anything that stands a chance.

Flanking just seems crazy good, broken even. The question is, can it be effectively countered in early game in MP.

Prospector/Ranger is pretty nifty...but you're using all your commander slots for noncasters. It's really nasty if you can catch someone unawares(sieging their cap from stealth before they can manage to reinforce province defense), but if they even have a turn of preparation, they should be able to fend you off. Flanking shenanigans only really work in smaller engagements(with the amusing exception of castle storming), unless you have like a dozen prospectors.

Strictly though, if you take Prod-3 you are somewhat of a terror(early game) against certain nations. But that's because you're not recruiting casters and going for a blitz-kill or two.

And Ashdod is prettymuch the worst nation to go up against Dwarves with. You have no chance of ever sieging a dwarven castle, you're the one outnumbered(noone wants to be outnumbered by dwarves), you rely overly much on protection(Adons get absolutely creamed by base 24 damage warpicks, E9 bless or not), and if things go south the Dwarven player just goes after you with some Giant slayers or something. They're not called that for nothing. I'd be terrified of Dwarves if I were Ashdod--especially since the scary armies are stealthy.

[Burnsaber]

A prospector and a some rangers makes a crazy effective force for the price. Expansion, stealthy raiding and regular battles. I´m beating equal numbers of Ashdods elites WITH magic support with ease and have yet to face anything that stands a chance.

Flanking just seems crazy good, broken even. The question is, can it be effectively countered in early game in MP.

I know this will be different in MP but considering you can pump out one of these stealthy raiding forces in every fort every turn it seems a bit too powerful to me. On top of that they break down walls before anyone can say slartibartfast.

As the nation looks now I´d just take uber scales and rush everyone one by one with prospector raiders, wars that would end the same turn they started.

Yeah, prospectors kinda got me suprise. The summoning thing was just supposed to be a nifty bonus and nice defendive trick. I was sort of thinking "Nifty, didn't see that coming". I've been playing with them a bit and the battle AI going crazy because of them really seems like a bug (and makes raising pd quite ineffective countermeasure against them). It's just.. cheap. Having a unit that's really only effective because the AI is retarted.

I don't think they're really that broken balance wise. Your forts cost a ton, which makes it even harder to "spam" them without heavy consequences. I'll probably nerf them anyway though, since I really don't like how they play out in the battlefield. It just seems.. buggy and cheap.

I'll have to think of something. I might up their costs further, or reduce the amount of miners summoned to 3 or perhaps make them noleaders. Or I might remove them as a recruitable alltogether and make them summonable by some remote "miner ambush" spell.


To ignore the shields, it would need to be secondaryeffectalways, I believe. I haven't checked which secondaryeffect you've used (nor tested my claim).


This very well might be the case. In any case, I'll take a look into it.

The part that sort of bugs me, is that dwarfs don't use short bows, they use 12 damage crossbows, which happen to be some of the best weapons to use to kill dwarfs since they only use mediocre shields. That said, I'm not sure how much I really want to see 8 encumbrance ironbreakers, or 7 encumbrance runeguard. If the price of having reasonable encumbrance levels is being a bit vulnerable to missile weapons, I can live with it.


Yeah, if you go with the regular "crossbows at the very back"-placement, you will get friendly fire. Remember that dwarfs are about tight communities and teamwork, you need to place your crossbows closer to avoid friendly fire. Don't worry, they can take the heat.

[Humakty]

Speaking of those dwarfs archers, they maybe take the heat a bit too easily. I think you can bypass basic melee units altogether, as the shooters have damn good melee weapons, combined with surprisingly high attack skill. They tend to beat the crap out of indies with no support, twenty of them being able to reliably expand versus anything, well you'll take some hits against knights, if you don't bother buying a prospector.

Flanking a dwarven army can lead to sharp consequences !

[HoneyBadger]

I like that these guys aren't aiming for Ashdod. Ashdod, to me, has kind of taken on the role of "Eeeevil Empire" status, and these dwarfs, with their slayers and such, seem like a good remedy for that. They might not be able to defeat Ashdod on their lonesome own, but they seem like they'd make ideal partners in an alliance against the Nephilim.

[rdonj]

Speaking of those dwarfs archers, they maybe take the heat a bit too easily. I think you can bypass basic melee units altogether, as the shooters have damn good melee weapons, combined with surprisingly high attack skill. They tend to beat the crap out of indies with no support, twenty of them being able to reliably expand versus anything, well you'll take some hits against knights, if you don't bother buying a prospector.

Flanking a dwarven army can lead to sharp consequences !

I wouldn't try this on a player. They're good, but, they still only have 13 protection. And cost 30! resources. All someone has to do to beat them is mass 4 resource short bows.

I'll try moving my crossbows further up and see if that helps any.

[Illuminated One]

Yeah, autoflanking is pretty annoying.

Some spells (destruction or even worse armor of achilles but Gifts from Heaven and Flame Erruption, too - all more or less "natural" choices against dwarves imo) are ridiculously hard to use because of their range/precision issues.
Your only option is to (attack)*x(spell)*y(cast) or something and it's bad enough to only cast one to three spells and risk your mages up close before the AI takes over. Now with autoflankers this becomes impossible at all since you don't know if you move forward or backward. It doesn't actually matter much if that's one or hundrets of miners summoned.

[kianduatha]

I wouldn't try this on a player. They're good, but, they still only have 13 protection. And cost 30! resources. All someone has to do to beat them is mass 4 resource short bows.

But then you ambush his shortbow army with some rangers, who can brutalize shortbows--especially when the bowmen are shooting at random flanking miners.

[rdonj]

That is true, up to a point. Rangers are still probably technically archers though, so if you set your shortbows to fire archers, they won't waste quite as much time on the miners. You would probably still need something to deal with the miners though. I think a lot of weirdness with dealing with the flanking miners could be dealt with just by never scripting attack/fire closest on anything that you don't want to set chasing miners down. Use attack rear for your melee units, and probably fire archers for any ranged units you have. The problem though is you can't really just ignore the miners, they're pretty nasty in melee. So you need to have some method of killing them. A thug or two on each flank would probably be sufficient, more or less.

[Sombre]

Personally I'd just turn miners into standard stealth/siege units and remove the summon from the prospector. I don't think there's a better way to simulate their 'deep strike' stuff. I considered it briefly with the sneaky skaven units like gutter runners who can also use those tunnel attacks, but in the end it just caused too much hassle.

[Fantomen]

Agree with sombre, even though I love to own the AI with prospectors in SP.

It would really be cool to add a remote attack spell with miners instead. Perhaps even make it low in research, easy to cast and remove miners from recruitment entirely.

[rdonj]

I don't think it would really hurt the dwarfs too much to lose them, either. I've been playing with o3/p3 using longbeards to expand, and they're doing comparably to the crossbows. I think I lose units more often, but I still win plenty of battles without any losses, and these armies actually have a decent mapmove on them. Plus I have been recruiting mages (engineers, magic 3) instead of prospectors, so magic is a lot healthier than it was under crossbow expansion.

The unit that I'm actually having the most trouble finding a use for is the runeguard. They're completely unnecessary for the purposes of expansion, though they are tremendously difficult to kill. But the difficulty in massing them makes it a bit hard imo to justify using them as a bless strategy. And the reinvigoration from an e9 bless is barely enough for your big mages to notice. Though they will appreciate it. Actually I think you'd almost want to go all the way to e10 if you really wanted them to work, due to their incredibly low numbers and high encumbrance. Otherwise they are begging to be overwhelmed.

[Burnsaber]

I've been playtesting a bit more and come to the conclusion that Prospectors have to go. The border summoning thing was really intented as a minor boost to give the commander a sort of niche. But, yeah, it proved really much more powerful than I thought. My first response was "Hey, that's sort of cool", and the AI going insane was quite hilarious. It's always nice to hear about unforeseen strategies forming up, it's a sign of "open-ended" nation that can use many different strategies.

But I've managed to playtest a bit more now. The way how the border-summons work is just.. buggy. The way the AI reacts to it just doesn't maky any sense, which is a major immersion downer. Also, fighting against prospector spam could very well prove to be the most frustating thing ever to fight against, since it combines stealth (major annoyance) with combat summons (major annoyance, since you'll have to kill the same miners in each combat). Basing on the talk of this thread, most players seem to base a whole fort(s?) on massing these guys. This really isn't the path I want this nation to take gameplay wise. Conclusion: the bordersummon thing is pretty nifty and thematic, but the game really can't handle it, so it has to go.

Well, on the plus side, this change allows me to bring in a new thematic inclusion from the WFRP books to replace the "Prospector" (without the border summon, his niche is just way too small). Runebearers. They are dwarf messengers who use the dangereous underway to bring messages in order to allow commmunication between the isolated/sieged dwarf holds. Gameplay wise, they will have 10 leadership to lead small miner squads, major mapmove (4), high stealth, all survival skills (they travel underground, ignoring regular terrain obstacles) and a lot of magic slots. Miners will also get the "all survival skills" thing, but I'll bump their rescost to 40 to compensate for the bonus.

This way, the Ranger Champion is the best leader for stealth forces (due to his higher leadership), but the Runebearer can quickly transport items and gems to the frontlines. His one niche will be also to lead the mapmove 3 miners around to allow for nifty defensive tricks.

I'll probably make a new "Miner Ambush" combat spell to still allow some access to the "deep strike" strategy. I'll balance it against to the "Howl" spell.

As for other planned changes, I'll probably make Runeguards a lot more hardcore by giving them the "Runic Ward" instead of the basic dwarf shield. I'll likely bump their gold cost a bit too (60?), since this is a pretty major boost.

[rdonj]

Now that could make runeguards really interesting. I'd love to see that change. An increase in gcost would almost certainly be necessary to compensate, maybe even more than the 10 you're considering. Just as long as the rcost is not inflated too much more, as it is you really have to pray for a great start location to get more than a few per turn maximum.

Also, I agree about getting rid of prospectors. When you got them in large enough numbers, it really wasn't very easy to deal with the freespawn. Even if you could script to deal with them without your entire army going crazy chasing after the miners, the difficulty involved in killing them with the eventually huge numbers of dwarfs you could spawn, would have been a nightmare to deal with in mp. A howl-esque miner summon spell sounds nifty though.

[Fantomen]

Will you give the runeguards a two handed weapon as well?

[rdonj]

Runic wards are still shields, so it would be difficult to give them a 2 handed weapon. I suppose he could make them a one-handed version of a two-handed weapon to use, but I wouldn't go that direction personally.

By the way, thunderers definitely are parried by shields. They're pretty decent even as is though. I've been playing dwarfs vs brettonia... they're my go to weapon for grail knights/kotr.

Also, I'm really liking iron breakers. They cost an arm, a leg, and a spleen, but they just do not die. And the Dwarfs do a pretty good job with buffs, so it doesn't really even take much effort to make them even better.

[llamabeast]

Could mapmove 4 really make sense for a dwarven messenger? That is as fast as fast undead cavalry riding across open plains, by both day and night. How can a dwarf cover that much ground?

[rdonj]

Underground roller coaster?

[Burnsaber]

Could mapmove 4 really make sense for a dwarven messenger? That is as fast as fast undead cavalry riding across open plains, by both day and night. How can a dwarf cover that much ground?

First of all, Runebearers cheat. They travel along the abandoned and nearly forgotten underground tunnels build during the golden empire, basically giving them a major shortcut (to anywhere). They don't need to follow rivers to find a shallow point to cross and neither do they get slowed down by rain, winterstorms and muddy terrain.

Second, they are not called "Runebearers" just for fun. Let's just say that they are packing something more to help them run than just a dry pair of socks.

Third, do not underestimate the power of dwarven willpower and sheer refusal to give up, even when faced with a nigh impossible task.

[alansmithee]

I would recommend waiting to remove prospectors now until there's some multi-player action with the dwarves. As it is, you'll have almost no battlefield magic presence until you hit the anvils (outside of some buffs). I kinda saw prospectors as a way to help deal with that. Against AI scripting they're good, but I don't think it would be as gamebreaking against a human player (I could be wrong though).

[Burnsaber]

I would recommend waiting to remove prospectors now until there's some multi-player action with the dwarves. As it is, you'll have almost no battlefield magic presence until you hit the anvils (outside of some buffs). I kinda saw prospectors as a way to help deal with that. Against AI scripting they're good, but I don't think it would be as gamebreaking against a human player (I could be wrong though).

The thing is that you can't script pd, allowing prospectors to raid even 15+ pd provinces without losses. Combine this with stealth. Also "no battlefield magic" is a pretty heavy statement. Everyone seems to overlook Journeyman Runesmiths. Sure, E2 is not much, but it is everything you need, especially if you give them Earth Boots.

[alansmithee]

I would recommend waiting to remove prospectors now until there's some multi-player action with the dwarves. As it is, you'll have almost no battlefield magic presence until you hit the anvils (outside of some buffs). I kinda saw prospectors as a way to help deal with that. Against AI scripting they're good, but I don't think it would be as gamebreaking against a human player (I could be wrong though).

The thing is that you can't script pd, allowing prospectors to raid even 15+ pd provinces without losses. Combine this with stealth. Also "no battlefield magic" is a pretty heavy statement. Everyone seems to overlook Journeyman Runesmiths. Sure, E2 is not much, but it is everything you need, especially if you give them Earth Boots.

There's many things that are able to raid provinces, I don't think prospectors are unusual in that regard. I just think it might be a bit hasty, considering most (if not all) of the testing has been coming against AI opponents.

And E2 isn't much at all, especially since you can't really afford to span the journeymen (with castles costing so much, you need someone to research) and they can't lead troops. Also, most of the big earth combat magic is really exhausting, and you're wasting at least one turn to summon earthpower them.

Going after anvils really also has the benefits of giving you all the runes right there.

[rdonj]

The thing prospectors do that normal PD raiders don't though, is flee rather than dying when they fail. They're also pretty cheap. You're expending a lot of effort to make large enough groups of them to take out significant PD, should your opponent choose to field it. But chances are you'll never lose a single prospector to anything but routing. Except possibly battlefield-wide AoE spells.

As for journeyman runesmiths, well, honestly so far mostly I've used them to run around and build forts/temples... but they are still quite useful in battle. They can cast plenty of decent spells with just summon earthpower. I'm not quite sure why it's a "waste" of a turn to cast, either... summon earthpower is a quite handy buff. The only thing I really miss from them is the rune of grungni (which is only marginally better than legions of steel anyway). But a journeyman runesmith can cast just about every other buff you'd want. Just bring a runesmith around for weapons of sharpness and you're good.

[rdonj]

I realize the AI is a spectacularly bad opponent to test on for this, but I decided, basically, I was going to try to beat the AI with armies of nothing but prospectors. Took O3/P1/G3/L3 with a dormant dom10 brother of war for scales and domspread ability.

For the first phase of the game, I did the two prospector+two rounds of crossbowman production expansion while I built up castles, to produce more and more groups like this. Eventually, when it started becoming too expensive to produce max crossbowmen every turn from every fort, I stopped producing them altogether to focus just on forts and prospectors. I'm now in late winter of year 3, producing 22 prospectors each turn, who in turn generate essentially 88 freespawn every turn... who do 24 damage a hit, screw with opponent scripting, have pretty decent armor, etc. Long story short, swarms of prospectors are entirely capable of killing entire armies by themselves with no losses or even any real danger to them. Maybe if you start bringing real magic into the battles things would change a bit, but I don't think there's much chance of actually getting any kind of real attrition in on said prospector swarms.

[Burnsaber]

And E2 isn't much at all, especially since you can't really afford to span the journeymen (with castles costing so much, you need someone to research) and they can't lead troops. Also, most of the big earth combat magic is really exhausting, and you're wasting at least one turn to summon earthpower them.


E2 is enough for you to cast Legions of Steel, Earth Might/Strength of Giants, Armor of Achilles/Destruction and Earth Meld (+ you have Grudgestone). Those spells, if used right, can be a lot more devastating than the exhausting Blade Wind. Armed with boots, Journeymen can also take care of casting Weapons of Sharpness.

"Summon Earthpower" as a waste of turn? That reinvogration bonus is absolutely awesome. I often cast it as my first spell, even if the caster isn't likely going to cast any other earth spells (like E2F3 mage for example). Journeymen are also your most cost-effective researchers in the terms of upkeep.

On other news, my final exam for this fall will be Wednesday. I'll start forging the 0.8 update after that.

Althought I got a surge of inspiration today and drew Thorgrim (The High King, holder of the Book of Grudges). I'll probably fiddle with the axe a bit, but other than that, he's pretty finished.

http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/2980/dwarfpreview7.png

[kianduatha]

I'm fiddling around with some of the proposed changes--Runeguards are absolutely terrifying with a high bless. You give up a ton to do so(no air access, imprisoned pretender usually, no gold left over for castles), but the results are hilarious. Think of an E10N4S4 bless. They're suddenly 0 enc, 24 protection, high defense, shielded troops with 17 magic resist.

Of course, your expansion isn't really any higher than that of a normal Longbeard or something strategy. In fact, because of the crazy goldcost of recruiting full on Runesmiths just for troop ferrying(ugh, but thematic), you take a while to get a second castle up. The real bonus is just having these badass Runeguards around.

I really wouldn't put them above 60 goldcost right now, though. You have that gigantic cost of needing to use a 220 gp commander just to bless them. And while they're more or less immune to conventional troops, magic still does a number on them(it just has to not be MR-resistable) and you'll never have a lot of them.

[alansmithee]

And E2 isn't much at all, especially since you can't really afford to span the journeymen (with castles costing so much, you need someone to research) and they can't lead troops. Also, most of the big earth combat magic is really exhausting, and you're wasting at least one turn to summon earthpower them.


E2 is enough for you to cast Legions of Steel, Earth Might/Strength of Giants, Armor of Achilles/Destruction and Earth Meld (+ you have Grudgestone). Those spells, if used right, can be a lot more devastating than the exhausting Blade Wind. Armed with boots, Journeymen can also take care of casting Weapons of Sharpness.

"Summon Earthpower" as a waste of turn? That reinvogration bonus is absolutely awesome. I often cast it as my first spell, even if the caster isn't likely going to cast any other earth spells (like E2F3 mage for example). Journeymen are also your most cost-effective researchers in the terms of upkeep.



By waste of a turn, I mean it's entirely necessary to cast it to be able to reach any of the decent spells, as opposed to being optional (but amazing) for higher earth caster. Also, legions of steel is inferior to the national spell. And iirc Destruction and Earth Meld have pretty high fatigue, too (I had them in mind, not just blade wind)

I actually love the journeymen, I just don't think they're well-built to be handling much combat casting.

[rdonj]

Well, when I was playing the dwarfs, my most generic sequence of orders for a journeyman runesmith was Summon Earthpower, Legions of Steel, Strength of Giants, X, X.

With a runesmith, my order sequence was Rune of Grungni, Summon Earthpower, Strength of Giants, X, X.

These are pretty similar buff cycles honestly, and while the rune of grungni is slightly superior to legions of steel, it's not really that superior on dwarfs, who have high MR and don't get the weapons of sharpness effect that often. Anyway, once you get construction 7 I think journeyman runesmiths are almost superior to real runesmiths for the majority of your battlefield needs. With boots and summon earthpower they reach four earth, and if you really want it higher and can make one, a crystal shield will bring them to the same spellcasting fatigue as a runesmith with 5 earth magic. Four earth is enough for almost anything you could need, and will allow you to cast all the buffs you want. More cheaply, and for less fatigue than a runesmith due to the lesser spellcasting encumbrance.

Another interesting thing you could do, since dwarfs forge so cheaply, would be to make communion matrixes with your astral random runelords. Then you can make communions with your runesmiths for things like petrify spam, or actually get someone to a decent level of astral magic other than an anvil.

[mehrunes_dagon]

I'm playtestesting Dwarves version 0.7 against other warhammer nations, with mighty AI (=160% bonus). Anvil of doom, when summoned at least every 2nd turn, is a real killer. I'm filling hall of fame with them.

I suggest making them immobile, increasin their gem cost, making the one who summon them 10 years older, increasing research level of the killing runes, or something like that

[kianduatha]

Yes, they are killer against the AI. The question is if they are killer against actual players. They actually were immobile in the past, and they were absolutely useless because they couldn't accompany actual armies into battle. Frankly, they're your only 'good' battlemages, and do require sacrifices to get to.

What spells were you using with the Anvil against the AI?

I do agree though that the Runelord changes have inadvertently made the Anvil of Doom spell too easy to cast; maybe bump it up to Holy-4 or Earth-6? Speaking of which, the Runelord hero is a bit lackluster these days; Sure, he has S2, which is nice, but before the Runelord changes he was the badass who was actually able to summon Anvils without being prophetized.

[rdonj]

I'm playtestesting Dwarves version 0.7 against other warhammer nations, with mighty AI (=160% bonus). Anvil of doom, when summoned at least every 2nd turn, is a real killer. I'm filling hall of fame with them.

I suggest making them immobile, increasin their gem cost, making the one who summon them 10 years older, increasing research level of the killing runes, or something like that

Please never do any of these. Oh dear god, please. That would be just crippling. If you really need to nerf them, maybe make the runes have some sort of fatigue cost attributed to them so the anvils can't cast all day. But anything beyond that would just be pointlessly excessive. The anvils are pretty much the only way the dwarfs are going to get any kind of decent battlefield magic other than earth, and the requirements are already pretty high. Given that they're also quite large and healthy, they should also make somewhat easy targets....

Anyway I think the anvil in its current iteration is an interesting sort of mechanic and I would like to see them stay as they are.

[HoneyBadger]

Do the anvils have any sort of armour on them, currently?

I was thinking that, considering they're massive blocks of metal, you might represent that by giving them armour, which could then be rusted away via various spells, leaving the anvil itself intact, but with a serious penalty to Prot.

[Burnsaber]

I'm playtestesting Dwarves version 0.7 against other warhammer nations, with mighty AI (=160% bonus). Anvil of doom, when summoned at least every 2nd turn, is a real killer. I'm filling hall of fame with them.

I suggest making them immobile, increasin their gem cost, making the one who summon them 10 years older, increasing research level of the killing runes, or something like that

It's one of those units that will just smash the AI, because the AI just too retarted to come up with anwsers. It's the same thing as with thugs/SC's/BF spells and the like. If you feel like they spoil your SP experience, you can just not summon them. Really, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to come up with anwsers to the Anvils, but the AI is too dumb to use them.

Some examples, just out of my head:
1) Mind Duel (you can easily use S2 mages to duel them, since anvil costs 35 gems, you will easily come out ahead)
2) Fire/Attack Largest commands (Anvils have more hp/size than most units in dwarf armies)
3) Troops with fire & shock resistance
4) Seeking Arrows (2 hits will often kill, 1 cripples their spellcasting with the +5 enc affliction)
5) Disease Demons/ Manifestation (depending on the script of the Anvil)

I have been thinking about making the primal runes cost 10/15 fatigue, but I hardly see a reason for it, since in my testing Anvils seem to start spamming "Paralyze" after running out of script.

Rune of Thunder/Fire really look and seem powerful in game. But one should realize that other nations can get really similiar effect by just bringing mages into battle. Rune of Thunder equals 3 thunderstrikes (admittely with much lower fatigue), which in turn is not that much more amazing than 3 High Seraphs. Rune of Fire basically has the desctuctive power of 3-4 F2 mages going for Falling Fires. And with the fatigue aspect going to waste as soon as the script runs out...


I do agree though that the Runelord changes have inadvertently made the Anvil of Doom spell too easy to cast; maybe bump it up to Holy-4 or Earth-6?


Earth 6 is a bit problematic, since you'd need two earth boosters to cast the spell, which is pretty hard to do in CBM 1.6(or get really luck out with randoms, since the chance for Runelord E5 with 0.8 randoms is about 2%). H4 would likely be okay, although it's just a logistical problem with prophet placing.


Speaking of which, the Runelord hero is a bit lackluster these days; Sure, he has S2, which is nice, but before the Runelord changes he was the badass who was actually able to summon Anvils without being prophetized.

I'll probably dwiddle with his paths a bit and make him a bit more thematic too. A1W1F2E3S2H3, the elemental will power represent his ancient knowledge (from the golden empire, when dwarfs were more connected to the elements). I'll give him a pretty big researchpenalty thought (he doesn't share his screts). I might give him H4 too, since that'd make him able to easily power himself up to casting the primal runes (ancient power!).

[rdonj]

I don't really think the primal runes need to cost fatigue either. I have had more luck getting them to continue to fire after the script runs out, but I've only used them against huge chaffy AI armies, so.... Also, when things start getting close to the anvils, their precision is so high that with rune of fire, I've frequently seen all the shots hit one square, which can seriously lower the total damage output on most things.

If you did change the runelord hero like that, he would definitely be much more useful. It would be very tempting to manually site search with him early on, but if he could actually cast the primal runes that would make him pretty awesome.

[Burnsaber]

New version.

Tired.

That is all.

[kianduatha]

It all looks awesome. I can't help but try to find a way to make Runebearers into minithugs for some reason, but then I realize that Journeyman Runesmiths are so much better at it. Clan Kings are a bit rough at 175 gp, but I know I'll still get them. The new heroes look great!

I've actually been liking a nice W4E4S4N4 bless for Runeguards. It gives a bit of everything and allows you to take good scales still. W4 sounds a bit wacky, but it lets you get 20 defense with a single star on the buggers. It really goes a long ways.

[Burnsaber]

It all looks awesome. I can't help but try to find a way to make Runebearers into minithugs for some reason, but then I realize that Journeyman Runesmiths are so much better at it.

Yeah, Runebearers make for pretty poor thugs. However they excel in general utility. They are able to quckly transport items to the frontlines from your forging factories and sometimes even bring some miner reinforcements with them. The reinvigoration bonus makes them somewhat better for holding those "quicken boots + spellcasting item" comboes.

Also, ten miners lead by a Runebearer with a Bottle of Living water is quite formiable and very mobile raiding force.

[Burnsaber]

The Skaven would have won through eventually, in my unbiased opinion.


Yeah, Skaven are very well equipped to deal with Dwarfs (lot's of poison). This is quite nice thematically speaking since they are arch enemies in the Warhammer universe.


The 40 protection Runic Ward shields on the Runeguards seems too high - maybe they should have some cold resistance added and the shield dialed down.

Reducing the protection of the runic ward is probably not completely unwarranted... 40 is an awful lot of protection for a shield.

I'll keep the Ward as 40 prot, it's supposed to be a great magical force field instead of a real shield (see how Daemon Slayers and the pretenders have it without any visible shields). It's was a mistake to give it to Runeguards. I'll change it for next version by changing their shield to basic dwarf shield and reducing their enc to 1 (to keep it in the level it is now). They'll lose 1 def in the process, but I think that the minor nerf is warranted.


Maybe the troll slayers and giant slayers should be low level summons rather than out of the box trample counters. Forcing the player to do some research if they find they have elephants etc. as neighbours.


However I disagree with making slayers unrecruitable. Dwarf armies are so ridiculously slow to build, they need to have a pretty good trample counter available or they are completely screwed. Dwarven magic being what it is, forcing them to have to have strong research out of the gate would be pretty harsh.

It also should be noted how fragile the slayers really are, so they are easily countered in return. 40 gold unit that dies/gets crippled to 1-2 shortbow hits? You can also easily target them by "fire largest" command (they have more hp than most dwarf units). Also, one easy way to target them is to make your mages cast some non-ap/an combat spells (Vine Arrow, Blade Wind, Magma Bolts, Cold blasts,.. etc). The mage AI will use those spells against slayers because they deal more damage to them than the armored line units.

Also, ditto on the research issue.

[Digress]

I didn't want to give the impression that I think the slayers are a huge issue - I just think for "flavours" sake they could be summons (with high upkeep - think of all the beer they drink and associated damage these dudes do to the environment/taverns).

Small gem cost + small research cost + mage time = Slayers + upkeep

I think the way Sombre made the upkeep for the Skaven Globadiers/Warplightning Crews etc. high works pretty well.

I do think the Runeguards could be given some cold resistance - these guys are staunch.

[kianduatha]

If you give Runeguards normal dwarven shields, please give Journeymen Runesmiths #poorleader back.

I'd actually be fine with troll/giant slayers becoming research-0 (maybe Thaum-1) summons. But if so, they should become upkeep-less(makes sense, anyways). 5 gems for a giant slayer, 3 gems for 5 troll slayers? Also while we're at it Dragon Slayers should probably get some fire resist. You know, on principle.

[Sombre]

Well they aren't supposed to actually slay dragons, just fulfil their slayer oath against them (die). I think the point with slayers is that they're named after the level of thing sure to kill them. Trollslayers stand no chance against trolls, giant slayers would be splattered by giants, etc. But a dragon slayer would beat a troll, maybe a giant, no chance against a dragon.

[rdonj]

The reason we gave runeguards the runic wards in the first place was to make them not pointlessly vulnerable to the dwarf's own crossbows. If they go back to the basic shield type they once again become only modestly shielded infantry that deals excessively poorly with crossbows. Please don't :(

Still don't really like slayers as summons... but if they absolutely have to be, it had better be a gem type that the dwarfs get a very nice income of.


Edit: Okay, so really the runeguards were given runic wards to make them more interesting as sacreds. I guess we'll see if they are still worth using without the runic ward. I am somewhat skeptical, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

[Burnsaber]

The reason we gave runeguards the runic wards in the first place was to make them not pointlessly vulnerable to the dwarf's own crossbows. If they go back to the basic shield type they once again become only modestly shielded infantry that deals excessively poorly with crossbows. Please don't :(


The difference between parry 5 and parry 4 is not *that* big. :D

[rdonj]

Lies! By dropping 1 parry, runebreakers will be completely unplayable!!1!11!!

[kianduatha]

With a normal shield, Runeguards become just Clansdwarf Heavy Warriors with higher stats(across the board, prettymuch). So...shouldn't they be mapmove 2?

[Burnsaber]

With a normal shield, Runeguards become just Clansdwarf Heavy Warriors with higher stats(across the board, prettymuch). So...shouldn't they be mapmove 2?

Heavy Warriors have mapmove 2 because they are trained for offensive missions. Runeguards are well.. guards. As for the gameplay aspect, I'd like to keep the Runeguards "down" so ti speak. I really don't want dwarfs to become a bless nation.

[kianduatha]

Ah, okay. That makes sense.

I'm currently scales-rushing a F4S4D6N4 Skavenblight, so I'll have more data in a bit. This is gonna be really rough, though, since it's No Indies and so I have no chaff(or cheap archers).

[Burnsaber]

Okay, I'm currently working on a new version and it will be likely up in by the next weekend. There will be a lot big changes that I want to announce though.

But I'll start with the new content.

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/4227/ancestorspirit.png

These guys can be summoned through a new Primal Rune "The Rune of Doom" for ench 9. It casts darkness, dooms all opponents and summons six of these of guys to the battlefield.

There will also be a new national spell like the "Ritual of Rebirth" that rebirths the hero as this unit instead of the mummy (this will be especially nasty with dead anvils and runelords which are in the HoF).

Now for the other changes:


-Runeguards back to basic shields, reduce enc by 1, lose sacred. Runehammer gets some intresting secondaryeffect (either curse or minor lightning attack) -- explained below

-Fix typoes in nation description, slayer (layer) description, runebearer, basic units (n't)

-Change nation number for llamaserver compactibilty (will fix the "pretender for the wrong age" bug)

-Built-in dwarven hammers for basic Runesmiths (They lose hand slots, but get forgebonus 30), Runelords will retain their slots but get decreased forgebonus to 10. I will boost their randoms to compensate -- explained below

-Lose the curse attack from PD (it's just annoying and unfair for the opponent. It also looks rather inelegant)

-"Slaying" changed to not be a magic weapon (so that there is something you can do to protect yourself against it, besides, Slayers are monster slayers, not ghost hunters)

- "Rune of Grungni" spell completely revamped. It does not boost troops anymore, but gives caster "Summon Earthpower" + "Phoenix Power" effects. (The old version of the Rune of Grungni is quite rebundant, since you have extremely easy access to Legions of Steel anyways)


Okay, I'm gonna get a lot of slack for this, but Runeguards have to lose their sacred status. It just never made sense for dwarfs to have sacred units besides runesmiths, I just added them because it's sort of excepted out of a nation for there to be sacreds. The problem is that Dwarfs are intended and are balanced on the premise that they'd start off slow, the extremely solid PD and big forgebonuses are very problematic on a nation with good early game. Runeguards are just an so obvious way to counteract this weakeness that it just makes the whole design intention rebundant. It also makes the pretender design boring since you will always just go for Runeguard bless.

Usually I'm just happy if players find intresting ways to play the nation I designed, but I'm calling BS on Runeguards. They just make the nation another bless rusher (a thing that dom3 does *not* need) because they need very special counters from the opponent and you can easily leverage your good PD to easily protect the lands you conquered to prevent the counter-raids. I can't seriosuly nerf them and let them keep their sacred status, because there are just two options here. Either they are useable (and thus be used always) or be too nerfed to function (boring), obvious lose-lose for me. To make long story short they are currently unthematic, no-brainer choice, warp the nations gameplay and pretender design and are annoying for your opponent to deal with.

So I'll make them lose sacred and lower their gold and resource costs based on that. I'll also give them a new niche by adding some nice secondary effect to their Runehammers (either stun, minor lightning damage or curse). If the dwarf expansion or the nation itself is too weak without sacred Runeguards, I'll just do what I should have done in the first place: boost troops.

As for the tweaks to Runesmiths and Runelords, getting big forgebonuses is very abusable and are the current reason for their really poor magic. If I limit the forgebonuses they can achieve, I can boost their magic and make the nation less dependent upon the Anvils.

[Burnsaber]

Actually, with the recent discoveries relating to the "Polymorph" spell, I might be actually able to fulfil my orginal intention and give the Runesmiths -1 to all magic in combat. The current thing with the heavy encumberance armor and missing body slots is just a hackish alternative I was forced to implement. I'm pretty sure I can make the negative battle path thing work out and with it, the Runesmiths and Runelords will likely get completely revamped.

[Jack_Trowell]

What are the discoveries about polymorph exactly ?

A new way to change unit type with onebattlespell without getting afflictions ?

[kennydicke]

Jack_Trowell

Burnsaber quote from another thread:
The spell effect "polymorph" (number 54) allows for different #damage values for different shapes. How you can use this? Just attach it to some buffing spell as #nextspell and you can have spell that grants the caster the form of a dragon for the battle or something just as cool.

"How many Vorlons does it takes to change a lightbulb ?"
Do you mean Vogons?


Burnsaber
Sounds awesome! Looking forward to the changes.

[Sombre]

No he means Vorlons. Babylon 5 species.

[kianduatha]

Yeah, there's no real way to fix Runeguards as is--as long as they're blessed Dwarves will be a bless rush nation.

On a somewhat related note...in my multiplayer game I'm being eaten alive by high upkeep costs. A lot of the reason I've been leaning so hard on Runeguards is that all my other troops are ridiculously expensive. I was all ready to start massing Thunderers and Flamethrowers to counteract that when I realized how much gold they cost, too. I have to be aggressive or else I'll go bankrupt. Maybe lowering crossbow/arbalestier costs some?

Also, tip of the day: don't send Anvils against Bandar Log. Ugh.

[Burnsaber]

New version. Lot of nerfs, mostly based on the backlash I got on IrC about their performance on the Scruntlefunt game. Very glad about getting the Runesmith battleform to work. This nation is now a lot closer to my original intention.


-- Runeguards no longer recruitable

-- Added some fatigue to the Primal Runes
-- Changed nation number for llamaserver compactibilty ("pretender for the wrong age bug")
-- Lost the curse attack from PD
-- Runesmiths got improved picks and lost the heavily encumbering armor. They now get -1 to all paths in combat thought.
-- Runesmiths and Runelords got improved forgebonus (both in 30), but lost their hand slots to prevent forge bonus abuse
-- "Grudgestone" spell revamped, no longer curses, AoE 1 and casts "Panic" as nextspell
-- Lost "The Rune of Valaya/ Grimnir/ Grungni" spells
-- Summoning Anvil of Doom now makes you lose the caster, but you now get 12 Runeguards
-- "Call of Fate" made cheaper = 14 gems (old cost 18 gems)
-- Slayer commanders now auto-berserk themselves and some units near them at the start of the battle and they got reinvigoration 2 to combat the berserk fatigue.
-- Journeymen Runesmiths got a small random
-- Anvil of Dooms are a tool of vengeance, and got a negative forgebonus and researchbonus
-- New summon: "The Anvil of the Dwarrows"
-- New spells: "Debts Unpaid", "Rune of Doom", "The Anvil of the Dwarrows"
-- Updated the secrets file with these changes

[Sombre]

Are anvils of doom now immobile?

[kianduatha]

Holy cow this is all my fault :shock:

All the changes look really good though, I'll try them out right away!

[kianduatha]

Autoberserking slayers are all sorts of sexy(especially the part where they get your bless...still trying to figure out a decent use for that besides happening to have N4), and I'm loving trying to stack squares with other fun units I want berserk and lucky(clan kings are an obvious go-to, but they're so expensive still...what with the research bonus on Runesmiths I think the days of Magic-1 are long gone and the pitiful research on clan kings needs to die with it)

I'm sometimes running these surprisingly effective forces that have a handful of ironbreakers or something with an indie commander, plus a giant slayer with two troll slayers on the flank(there's a trick to getting them all in a single square). It's just beautiful. I hereby pronounce the giant slayer a 150 gold 41 resource size 6 unit of pain.

Overall very nice. I'm still struggling to find a legitimate use for miners, as it's really obnoxious to get them and it just doesn't seem worth it overall. I'd rather float a few engineers or even better just burn some gems on a crumble than ever really use miners. They're just not good as troops in any circumstance and their siege bonus is too low to justify taking one over an actual combat recruit.

[Burnsaber]

Are anvils of doom now immobile?

No. I really tought about making them immobile in the development, but it just didn't really work out. If you wanted to use them on anything else but forging or rituals, you needed to teleport them (which makes them attack on the magic phase, and does not allow you to combine them with your armies). Everytime you wanted to use them again, you needed to built another labratory just for the purpose. It was really just annoying and did not play out well in the game. They just were not fun to use. It would be thematic for them to unable to move (especially in the battle map), but this is one of the cases where gameplay > thematicness. If I had all of the modding tools in the world, I'd probably do some sort of compromise but right now it is either mobile or immobile, so what is there for one to do?

(see the excessive restrictions on UW acceess in vanilla as an example where thematic stuff absolutely destroys gameplay)

Autoberserking slayers are all sorts of sexy(especially the part where they get your bless...still trying to figure out a decent use for that besides happening to have N4)


They get the bless? :eek:

*quick test game*

Umm.. Not intented. I really just thought that non-sacreds cannot get blessed by the spell effect "bless" but this apparently proves me wrong. Whoa. This opens all sorts of possibilities for the Holy War mod.

The bless effect is only in the slayer #onebattle because of Ancestor Spirits use the same effect and they really should be always blessed. I could just give them auto-bless and negative magic to prevent them from being battlemages (since if you reawaken a Runelord as Ancestor Spirit, it won't get the battle penalties in magic. Hence their current auto-berserking).

It's kind of cool though. Not sure if I should quickfix it or not (whatever the case, the behaviour should be explained in the unit description).

EDIT:

Yeah, I'm going to quick-fix the bless thing. Slayers really should not be sacred in any case. They are mostly subject to pity, not reveration from their fellow dwarfs.


Overall very nice. I'm still struggling to find a legitimate use for miners, as it's really obnoxious to get them and it just doesn't seem worth it overall. I'd rather float a few engineers or even better just burn some gems on a crumble than ever really use miners. They're just not good as troops in any circumstance and their siege bonus is too low to justify taking one over an actual combat recruit.

Their point is mostly in the mapmove 3 and stealth. They can make pretty wicked stealthy PD raiders with Runebearers equipped with Bottle of Living Water or some nice bow. I could reduce their resource cost thought to 35 resources since that niche is pretty small.

[Sombre]

No. I really tought about making them immobile in the development, but it just didn't really work out. If you wanted to use them on anything else but forging or rituals, you needed to teleport them (which makes them attack on the magic phase, and does not allow you to combine them with your armies). Everytime you wanted to use them again, you needed to built another labratory just for the purpose. It was really just annoying and did not play out well in the game. They just were not fun to use. It would be thematic for them to unable to move (especially in the battle map), but this is one of the cases where gameplay > thematicness. If I had all of the modding tools in the world, I'd probably do some sort of compromise but right now it is either mobile or immobile, so what is there for one to do?

Well my worry is that they're simply too good. When I saw that they had mapmove 3, checked out their cost and efectiveness (incredibly powerful enc 0 spells) I actually assumed that you'd balanced them as being immobile and then accidentally taken it off. In Scruntlefut the dwarfs have churned out a lot of anvils and they just seem redonkulously good for the price (35 earth gems).

Could they not have mapmove 3 at the very least? It seems kind of unreasonable that a gigantic stone slab with a huge metal anvil on top can travel as fast as light cavalry.

[kianduatha]

Yeah Anvils only need 1 mapmove--teleport to your forward army, then move along with it. He did nerf them bunches, though--50 gems now I think, and it kills the caster. Usually that means you also lose a pair of boots(unless you wanted to get rid of your naturally E5 casters), so effective cost 57 gems and a cap-only caster.

Hah, and here I thought the bless was intentional--not that they're revered by the other Dwarves, but that they can channel some of their God's power when enraged in battle.

The really really fun part about the Slayer blessing part is that it also makes any other units in the same square blessed, even if they weren't sacred before.

I'm somewhat worried that the aoe autoberserk(without other entertainment like the bless) will actually lower the power of the Slayer. One of the best things you could do with them was put up Body Ethereal, but now it's impossible because your mage will go berserk before he can cast it. Of course, that whole play is already nerfed a bunch because Runesmith -1 to magic in battle means you can't get the astral casters in the first place. Ah well...we still have Iron Warriors.

The Brother of War pretender choice is once again looking terribly, terribly lackluster. He's prettymuch just a Dragon Slayer with a chest slot and without 2 misc slots. I guess he has slightly better weapons, but he doesn't have the reinvig(which is in fact what tends to kill him). Also his AOE berserk was always the worst of the three pretenders' onebattlespells, and now it just looks even worse since your 70 gold commanders can do the same thing(they even do it better right now!). Maybe give him something different, like Weapons of Sharpness(mmmm) or Quickening? At this stage, it seems almost criminal to not get some magic diversity on your pretender, so he just gets sidelined. I'd rather take a Dragon just so I had at least one other path covered.

[Burnsaber]

Well my worry is that they're simply too good. When I saw that they had mapmove 3, checked out their cost and efectiveness (incredibly powerful enc 0 spells)


Which now have fatigue :D


I actually assumed that you'd balanced them as being immobile and then accidentally taken it off. In Scruntlefut the dwarfs have churned out a lot of anvils and they just seem redonkulously good for the price (35 earth gems).


And they now cost 40 earth gems and it "kills" the caster (the caster is lost because he gets up in the Anvil, sort of). Usually the mage needs a least earth boots to cast the spell, so the cost is now like 47 gems and the loss of a cap only mage.


Yeah Anvils only need 1 mapmove--teleport to your forward army, then move along with it. He did nerf them bunches, though--50 gems now I think, and it kills the caster. Usually that means you also lose a pair of boots(unless you wanted to get rid of your naturally E5 casters), so effective cost 57 gems and a cap-only caster.


40 gems. I think that the caster killing (+7 gem cost basically) and fatigue on the Primal Runes is enough of a nerf. Also the loss of forgebonus reduces their uses.


Hah, and here I thought the bless was intentional--not that they're revered by the other Dwarves, but that they can channel some of their God's power when enraged in battle.

The really really fun part about the Slayer blessing part is that it also makes any other units in the same square blessed, even if they weren't sacred before.


Well, the thing is that the Berserk and the luck does not come from their god, but from the ancestor spirits who use them to get their own grudges avenged. So the blessing just doesn't fit in. I knew about the luck effect getting spread over and it was intentional, it's not much of a strecth to assume that the ancestor spirits could extend their "blessing of luck" to some guys fighting alonside them.

The blessing is especial thematic concern because you can use them to bless basically anything, like Bane Lords, Moose and bunch of other stuff that just does not make sense. I can just imagine a opponent going like "Why is that Moose blessed?". This is especially problematic because as a onebattlespell, the thing as no graphical presentation on the field and it just sort of happens.



I'm somewhat worried that the aoe autoberserk(without other entertainment like the bless) will actually lower the power of the Slayer.


Well, the thing is that it also a boost. They now get their hefty berserk bonuses automatically instead having to take damage first (and thus avoid the chance of being one-shotted or afflicted by the blow).


One of the best things you could do with them was put up Body Ethereal, but now it's impossible because your mage will go berserk before he can cast it. Of course, that whole play is already nerfed a bunch because Runesmith -1 to magic in battle means you can't get the astral casters in the first place. Ah well...we still have Iron Warriors.


You could also just give a Runesmith a cap or a coin.


The Brother of War pretender choice is once again looking terribly, terribly lackluster. He's prettymuch just a Dragon Slayer with a chest slot and without 2 misc slots. I guess he has slightly better weapons, but he doesn't have the reinvig(which is in fact what tends to kill him). Also his AOE berserk was always the worst of the three pretenders' onebattlespells, and now it just looks even worse since your 70 gold commanders can do the same thing(they even do it better right now!). Maybe give him something different, like Weapons of Sharpness(mmmm) or Quickening? At this stage, it seems almost criminal to not get some magic diversity on your pretender, so he just gets sidelined. I'd rather take a Dragon just so I had at least one other path covered.


Well, the berserk will stay. He should not cast spells in the battlefield *ever*. Grimnir is much like Khorne in his hatred of magic. The Brother of War has one aspect that other gods lack, he is probably the best anti-SC chassis in the game. One swing and you get "curse luck" and basically get critted in the second blow. Give him quickness and there probably isn't a foe he couldn't kill in a single turn.

Admittely, that probably isn't a attribute you want in a god. I could give him his innate fire magic back. I might also test the effects of a negative #magicboost commands on pretenders with him. I'm not sure how it works out, but in the ideal case I could give him pathcost 0 for all paths but make him lose much of that magic in the actual game (cheap blesses, basically). Perhaps that Sombre's firstshape trick could work here?

[Sombre]

Burn, why did you move Dwarfs to nationslot 75? At nationslot 77 they were conflicting with Tharoon (who are unfinished and easily changed), though outside of my MA mods and warhammer ones I'm not sure else they may have conflicted with,...

Now they're conflicting with Lizardmen though! Makes warhammer games a little bit more fiddlesome.

79 is free as far as I know, if 77 was a problem for some reason.

[Burnsaber]

,...

Now they're conflicting with Lizardmen though! Makes warhammer games a little bit more fiddlesome.

79 is free as far as I know, if 77 was a problem for some reason.

Whaa? You made Lizardmen conflict with with your own Arga Dis mod?

I have to change the nation number to get around the llamaserver "pretender for the wrong age" bug. IIRC, you got that in the Scruntlefunt game so you know what I'm talking about. I'll have to check what else "llamaserver" nation MA numbers are available.

[Sombre]

The only cause of that bug was the dm having a space in the name. Didn't look like it had anything to do with ids.

Yes, Lizards conflict with Arga Dis, because Arga Dis needs its IDs redone anyway.

[Burnsaber]

The only cause of that bug was the dm having a space in the name. Didn't look like it had anything to do with ids.


Oh, ok. I guess my theory on the bug was false, now that I think about it.

I'll change the nationnumber back on the quickfix that will be made manifest probably on tuesday/wednesday next week.

On anoher vein, any thoughts on the new spells "Rune of Doom", "Anvil of the Dwarrows" and "Debts Unpaid"?

[kianduatha]

Anvil of the Dwarrows is pretty fun to mess around with, but the only real advantage he has is the higher astral level for against magic duels. That's perfectly okay though.

Rune of Doom appears to not hand out blessed/lucky Spirits--presumably that's intentional though.

Also I find it quite strange that the Ancestor Spirits have fatigue problems.

[Burnsaber]

New version.

Changes from 0.9 to 0.92

- Nation number changed back to 77, removed the space from mod name which was the real cause for the bug
- fixed the slashes in the banner line
- Fixed the Slayer onebattlespell bug
- Miners to lower res cost (30)
- Runeguards to mapmove 2
- Anvils to mapmove 2
- Ancestor Spirits lost auto bersek, got magic penalties instead.
- Brother of War got fire magic, slaying bonus weapon and some reinvigoration to prevent berserk fatigue
- Mother of All, starting magic changed to S2, lowered pathcost (20 -> 10)
-- Updated the secrets file with these changes

[aaminoff]

Thank you for doing this. I downloaded the mod, tried a few things in SP, it looks pretty sweet. So, I have some strategy questions.

The basic recruitables are awesome. A commander and 5 (five!) heavy clansdwarfs can take most indy 5 provinces (exceptions being lance cavalry, barbarians, and crossbows). However, I wonder how well they will fare in the mid-game against other players. The trouble is they are counterable: slow and very vulnerable to AP damage. This is the MA, so indy crossbowmen are available. Also battlefield evocs - being slow, the enemy mages get more time to rain down the level 2-3 evocs; being expensive and therefore few, the loss of each one to a spell makes a larger impact. Also skellyspam, or the vast horde armies like maenads or markatas - being few, they can't do enough damage fast enough. Also, they are encumbered. Enc 3 is not too bad, but the best are enc 5 or 7, which will fatigue themselves to sleep against those maenads/skellys. A partial answer to battlefield evocs is that the Runeguards(?) are 50% resistant to everything, but they are enc 7! There are battlefield buff spells which help with resistances, but spells to help with fatigue are high level in N, not a path the Dwarves focus in normally.

Well, so I'm thinking, how about trying something a little more along the lines of Baalz's guide to Ulm. Unfortunately, we don't have access to air, but we do have commanders who even without equipment are almost thug material. I'm thinking of Journeyman Runesmiths as thugs. A golden shield and firebrand are kind of cliche, but the dwarves have great forging advantages and fire and earth happen to be their favorite paths. Compared to a Vanjarl, say, we have no mistform and no cloud trapeeze, but on the plus side our basic armor is better and the items are cheaper. At least they are stealthy so with a bit of preparation one could raid with these guys using standard alternating hide-attack pattern. Journeyman Runesmiths are holy priests, so something like a E9N4 bless, though you might be able to get away with something like E6N4.

One problem we have is the castles are expensive. I don't think there is much to be done about that.

Focusing on thugs instead of national troops buys us dropping production 3, possibly down as far as sloth 3. With sloth 3 and drain 3, that is a lot of design points. How to use them? I would suggest an awake research rainbow pretender; the Dwarves national troops are so good vs most indies that even with sloth3 you can still send out a viable expansion party every turn. So this starts looking a bit like Baalz's Helheim plan, a Great Druid with E9N4 and perhaps another minor bless or 2 and some more paths. Since research is up in the 20s, they wont notice the -2 from drain3 much.

So, does focusing on early research buy us anything cool? One could of course charge up construction to equip thugs as soon as possible, but we don't need the thugs for indy expansion. Sadly, we have no D gems to accelerate research using skull mentors, so research will just have to be done the hard way. Mostly my question is, can the Dwarves be successful, despite their anti-magical lore, as a heavily magic-using nation? Are there cool summons they can get to, either national ones, or standard ones available in their paths?

Another idea I had was looking at the Mother of All. Any time I see a unit with a lot of healing I think of Tarts. So put something like E6D4N4 on her and you have a tart factory, though it requires researching up to conj 9, not all that synergistic with much else. The D income for the Tarts would have to be bootstrapped by the pretender sitesearching and then summoning spectres and other summonable D mages. (fortunately there are plenty of those). Ditto the N income for GoR, although indy N mages are plentiful. In this case you probably have to make her asleep for the points, but again, you can live without the 240 research points the pretender generates in year 1, since there is no magic research that you absolutely positively must get done quickly.

Also, I find it really helps to get into the spirit of being a Dwarf if you take some misfortune scales. You go to open up the new turn, you grumble "OK, lets see what bad stuff happen to us this time".

I don't have a lot of experience, but I am really enjoying thinking about strategies for these dwarves. Any thoughts? Alternatively, am I underestimating the recruitable troops and should just rely on them to last through the mid-game?

[Graeme Dice]

Another idea I had was looking at the Mother of All. Any time I see a unit with a lot of healing I think of Tarts.

Healing doesn't remove afflictions from undead. You need gift of health or the chalice for that.

[Sombre]

Are they supposed to have a 4 gem income?