Re: Evolution of a longdead
 

Promising:)

Re: Evolution of a longdead
 

Wow, that was a brilliant number of comments just for one skeleton - thanks guys! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'll post another preview in the next couple of days. It's coming along quite well, I'm enjoying doing the graphics a lot more than I thought I would.

A warning again before I say any more - I'm deviating a bit in places from the Warhammer nation, mostly for reasons of making it work in Dominions but also a bit just because I want to. Hopefully this won't be too annoying for anyone.

The design of the nation is an interesting challenge. I want to make it feel very different to Ermor. The idea is not to have unending hordes of chaff - I see the Tomb Kings armies more as normal armies, except to their horror they find that they're all dead, and reincarnated not as they expected but as fleshless skeletons. Also they don't explicitly hate the living, they will just kill anyone who would try to steal their treasures, or prevent their attempt to reclaim the glory of their ancient empire. The one thing they do hate is the people who unleashed the enchantment that made them this way - not Nagash but... Ermor.

How to limit their production is the first question. From the army book you get the impression the vast armies of the Tomb Kings can just get up and fight whenever their king wants to. Obviously you can't have instant free armies in Dominions, and I don't want a repeat of an LA Ermor style summoning chain, so I decided to have them 'recruitable' in the normal way. The justification being that reviving them from their millennia-long sleep requires long rituals which are use costly incenses, balms and other materials, so gold and resources are still required. To be honest 0 resource cost would make more sense, but I don't like the feel of that. I'm imagining many priests slaving away endlessly carrying out the rituals of reanimation, so raising an army shouldn't be that quick.

In Warhammer the magic of the Tomb Kings is all priest-based, and is largely buffs of their own troops. To represent this I'm adding a number of holy buff spells, so that priests will be a critical part of a Tomb Kings army. Ordinary magic is also important in Dominions though, so I'm adding 'Buried Sorcerors', mages who were valued by their king to such an extent that, willingly or not, they were buried alive in his tomb when he died, so they would be with him in the afterlife. At present I've given them F2A1D1 (fire and air seem kind of deserty to me, and being as they were a death-obsessed nation even the sorcerors would have had some knowledge of death magic, though that was mainly the preserve of the priests). I'm not sure if that'll be too powerful (Aim + Falling Fires), we'll have to see. Also I intend to give the Tomb Kings themselves powerful magic, and the higher level priests will have death magic up to D2. Since there will be priests in abundance, that means the main magic will be Death followed by Fire, with smaller amounts of Air and some chance of random Earth and Astral picks on the Tomb Kings.

I've done the graphics for 1 infantry and 2 archer types so far, plus the Buried Sorceror. Still to go - heaps of stuff. 4 more infantry types I think, 2 cavalries, a chariot, tomb swarms, tomb scorpions, bone giants, ushabtis, three levels of priests, a scout and the tomb kings. But I am getting faster and using previous units as templates for new ones, so I am optimistic it will come along fairly quickly.

Re: Evolution of a longdead
 

Man I'm verbose aren't I?! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Evolution of a longdead
 

Yes, yes you are.

Well, I'm rather unfamiliar with Tomb Kings, but what you posted there sounds good.

Will be waiting patiently for this one. */taps his foot*

Tomb Kings preview
 

I'd intended to post my progress here more regularly than I have. Anyway, it's coming along well, and I'm really enjoying myself doing it. I've done probably half to two thirds of the sprites, plus a similar proportion of the mod code itself. It shouldn't take too much longer to do most of the recruitable sprites, then there's the various summons to do as well. Some of them will be difficult (Ushabti!), but an interesting challenge. Perhaps I'll release a version before I go on to do those. I also still have all the descriptions to do, although I think they're all roughly stored in my head.

Anyway, to whet your appetites here's a preview of some of the national units. They're at double actual size so you can see them more clearly - although obviously that also makes them look rougher. Let me know what you think.

Re: Tomb Kings preview
 

Oooo llama!
I love skeletons!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/skull.gif [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Poison.gif[/img] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/skull.gif [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Poison.gif[/img] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/skull.gif [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Poison.gif[/img]
Looks really good. I am looking forward to playing this when you are finished. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Tomb Kings preview
 

Nice skellingtons.

I know you're way ahead of me, but I'll try to get Ogre Kingdoms available as beta about the same time you release this. Then we'll have three warhammer nations playable. Four if Valandil gets Chaos released.

Re: Tomb Kings preview
 

Ah well, what I forgot to mention is I'm going away for a week and a half tomorrow, so you'll probably catch up with me fast!

Re: Tomb Kings preview
 

Well then hopefully you'll have some Ogrey goodness waiting for you when you come back.

Re: Tomb Kings preview
 

Looks nice. I like the scarabshields and the egyptian style. I way prefer these to my own smudged skellies. Nice work

The tomb kings was a WH nation I always wished I had had.