Alugra, City of Wonders v1.06 - Stable version
 

Re: Alugra, City of Wonders and Heroes & Villains
 

i'd be rather worried that any cheap national gift of reason will be hard to balance... I take it that it works on normal summons as well?

Re: Alugra, City of Wonders and Heroes & Villains
 

sounds interesting. I'd help, but I'm afraid that my advice is worth nothing, with 0 mp games under my belt. But I have thought a race with more random magic and low level variety could be interesting...

Re: Alugra, City of Wonders and Heroes & Villains
 

Yes, but there is a complication. The GoR uses astral gems (note; the best gems ever) -> Your mages suck -> You need to GoR your troops to get more mages, especially in the early game -> it costs astral gems -> you'll have few astral gems to spare to the amazing things you could do with them = lame.

Besides, is really *that* more poweful that your Tartarians cost 10 death and 5 astral instead of 10 death and 20 nature?

Don't worry about balance when playing then. Just focus on the question number 3. Is it fun to play?

Alugra, City of Wonders. Things to come
 

The next version, 0.2, will include:
(The units whose placeholder graphs can be seen in EA will be done first)

-Logo
-Flag
-Thug graphics
-Gambler graphics
-Watchman graphics
-Multihero (About him, let's just say that I'll be using the Kappa sprite as a base. Gowabunga, dudes! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif)

Well, has anyone tried it out? Even if you just skimmed through the units, don't be afraid to tell your opinion.

Also, one more question to those who have tried the mod:
Did it bother you much that the graphs were placeholders? I'm just curious since I'm thinking just leaving the current Master graphic as it is. It's just too damn perfect for the job. I really don't know what to add to it.

About the national heroes, I'm looking for some suggestions regarding to the missing two. So far, I have idealized these;
- The multihero I already mentioned.
- "Captain Alugra", the captain of the watch with indestructable shield
- Maker of Villains (since Maker of Heroes is also in EA, I couldn't resist the power of the Pun. And yes, he will be the Hero maker's evil identical twin.)

So I've got room for two more. Since this nation is so much tilted towards Order/Misfortune (high gold cost, low res units), I'm thinking of making the Heroes really good and numereous to encourage taking some Luck scale.

P.S: I couldn't find the Valkyrie sprite along the sprites KO released in the "Sprites: Request to Devs"- thread. I went them through 3 times and found only despair. Is there any other way I could find it?

Re: Alugra, City of Wonders. Things to come
 

I looked at them, and even GoR at least 1 of each gifted, just to have a precise idea. Having access to many paths and forgers compensate, I think, the cost in astral gems.
I'll maybe playtest them as I want to test the new map eight gates, and never play capitol centric factions on my usual 400+ maps. It is true that access to air/astral inders the capitol centric flaw.
Why is this faction tilted toward misfortune ? Isn't sloth the scale to take ? As you have access to many paths, fortune could bring you the gems needed to start remote site search.
The faction seems pretty complete, and I guess the graphics are good as they are, would you dress like a superheroe if you had superpowers ? Imagine all an army dressed like them, their ennemies have to take a morale check against 20, or spend 3 turns laugthing.
You should change the graphics for those who use a common indep graph (ie : workers), as it could be confusing if you recruit some of them.

Re: Alugra, City of Wonders. Things to come
 

I didn't try them yet... I'm super busy in rl, but would check them out if things calm down later. i'd vote for new graphics, but i havent even looked at it.

Re: Alugra, City of Wonders. Things to come
 

This nation is tilted towars misfortune becuase it is tilted towards Order. High Gold cost units = Order. And everyone takes some Misfortune with his Order.

I'm distinguishing the gifted from other units by making them wear differently colored capes.

Workers = No cape, just blue overalls. (they're already quite distinquished enough)
Smith = Orangish cape.
Watchmen = Red
Gambler = Dark Green
Sailor = Blue
Villain = Purple
Manifest = Light Blue
Preacher = Black/ Dark Red

I'm not ready to tacle the Worker yet. I need to find his sprite first. Couldn't find it on the database. I better ask about those "missing" sprites in another thread.

To Zylithan;
Have no sweat about it. I mean, you're not *forced* to play it or anything.

Re: Alugra, City of Wonders. Things to come
 

I've looked at the dm file.

One thing I'd suggest:

I don't know if it works (some special effects don't work with some effects), but
#spec 16
should say, that only magic beings are effected by a spell. You might want to aply that to your "The Power Within" spell (if it really works)

Re: Alugra, City of Wonders. Things to come
 

Yes, I knew of that possibility too. It's a thematic decision to not do it that way. Even if I specced it to affect only Magic units, it would still work for Living Statues, Gargoyles and whatnot.

I really can't think of any reason why the Masters would be able to train a Living Statue, but not a Tartarian. Besides, I find the mental image of a 5-feet tall master giving martial arts lessons to a 60-feet tall undead giant extremely funny.

I really haven't used the Tartarian stragedy on a large scale, so I can't say this for sure, but I really think that it won't matter much if your tartarians cost 10 death/5 astral instead of 10death/20nature. Your maximum death capacity is D3 on a villain (if you get lucky), which is not enough for economic tartarian summon (all of the Tartarian summoners would need: Skull Staff, Skullface, Ring of Sorcery, Ring of Wizardy). So you'd need to summon the D4 lichs, which cost death gems and research on enchanment path and it still wouldn't be too economical (even the Liches would need Skull Staff, Skullface, Ring of Sorcery), good luck finding those astral gems for Rings of Sorcery when you need to GoR like a madman to have the mage-power a late-game nation needs. So you're mostly restricted on Tartarizing with your Pretender, which anyone can do. You just do it a dat cheaper.

Yeah, I could make it affect only magic units and put it in the description "that it only works for gifted", but that would be lying, and I'm not too hots on that.

Version 0.2
 

Version 0.2 is up! It adds graphics for Gambler, Watchman, Worker, Thug and adds a new multihero(es), the dreaded Ninja Turles! The mod now has a logo and a flag, too.

About the Graphics, I'm not really aiming for a stunning graphical quality, more to a "if it works, it's fine"- attitude. If something hurts your eye, report it and I'll do my best to fix the issue.

I'm still looking for feedback on balance. The current prices are only estimates, and probably need tweaking.

I'm aiming to make a fun nation, with a different gameplay from other nations and a good balance for possible MP play. If MA pythium and MA Ulm are bith 'balanced' I at least have a quite large area to land on when it comes to balance http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif.

If someone is up to playing against me in a blitz this (or any) weekend using this nation, I'd be glad to accept the challenge. That would be a awesome oppurtunity to test the balance.

I also had a idea for a new hero, so I only need idea for one more. I really can't use the "just uberize a recruitable commander"- idea, as this nation is just a too good of an opportunity to make lame jokes and references. This is what I'm thinking; The next person to post the name of his favourite comic book superhero gets it added as hero in this nation (altered for flavor, of course)

Re: Version 0.2
 

Baa'lah of Pawn (www.pawn.se, NOT safe for work!)

EDIT:
Now that I've posted my suggestion, I'll fill in the details.

Pawn is a webcomic drawn by a Swedish artist by the name of Fredrik K. T. Andersson. He's an awesome drawer and is one of the reasons I want to learn arts - I want to be able to create stories like he does in his pictures. Any way, Baalah would be a female demon that has two forms; a size 2 one and identical, much larger form. Neither form is winged. Size 2 form would probably be stealthy and seducer. Also, both forms should be male. She can only seduce women, and be seduced by women. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif Shape-changing is an old and respected tradition in comic books, so it goes fine.

Martian Manhunter would also be cool, but he'd be pretty strange with Mind Burn, etherealness (or at least very high stealth/glamour), flying, rejuvenation etc. He'd make for an insane thug, even with his fire vulnerability.

Re: Version 0.2
 

I knew that I might end with something obscure, but there was a *no way* to see this coming. I was actually familiar with Frederick's works beforehand, I have skimmed through his archives in Elfwood. I like his works (especially the humoreous ones, the 'daddy' ones are just way too good).

Now I just need to figure out a way to strike her into the backstory of the nation. Summoning spell gone awry? Hmm.. you're given me much to ponder.. (don't worry, I like challenges). I'll start working on her once I have made all other units in the nation. (I still have: Cutthroat, Villain, Fisherman, Minion, Manifest and Librarian to make)

Re: Version 0.2
 

A shapechanging human would work, for the most part. The comic hasn't really come to the revelation part yet. A half-demon would also work, if we handwave certain problem with the comic's two characters...

Re: Version 0.2
 

Edited for great justice!

Re: Version 0.4
 

The mageupdate that is 0.4 is here. All recruitable units have now graphics! I also added a new combat spell for Preacher and Watchmen to use.

I also added a new hero. Only two more to go! I know that llamabeast just posted his Khemri-mod, but I'll try to hang on as I can. Perhaps a small tease will work for luring players?

Here is a screenshot of the new hero (he won't come with experience, he just fought a battle before taking that pic)
http://xs220.xs.to/xs220/07443/Joe.png
Then I sended him alone to a independent province. This is the result:
http://xs220.xs.to/xs220/07443/Joevstheworld.png

I hope that I managed to arouse your curiosity..

Re: Version 0.4
 

Heh. Joe the Tanner is called Wonde ^^.
Second form or something?

Re: Version 0.4
 

Heh. It's like the time I cast Enslave Mind on Thuella the Air Queen and she came back from a Gift of Reason with some generic commander's name. A good blow to the head will do strange things.

Re: Version 0.4
 

Oh.. Durr.. I took pic of the wrong guy! I have several of these lying around in my test game. (made them recruitable to test them out), that one was recruited before I haxed him to always be named Joe.

Proof:
http://xs220.xs.to/xs220/07443/TherealJoe.png

Re: Version 0.4
 

Wonde is superior to Joe! o_o

Even without the experience Wonde seems to have 1 more hit point, 1 more defence and 2 less encumberance.

Re: Version 0.4
 

That's because Joe is standing on a swamp. And the first experience star doesn't give any hitpoint bonus, so they're pretty much equal.

Joe is heorically stupid and Wonde has Iron Will. The normal magic resistance for "Joe the Tanner" is 5.

Re: Version 0.4
 

Just thought I'd let everyone know that I gave this a look today and came away with a very good first impression. I'll certainly be playing with this mod a bit in the future and I hope Burnsaber keeps working on it, with feedback of course ;]

Re: Version 0.4
 

Thank you very much for your kind words, Sombre.

Version 0.5 is up!
Changes include:
- Toned down the gifted
- Other balance fixes
- Added 9 national spells
- 5 new pretender choices, 1 national unique
- improved grammar and spelling
- Added hero: Captain Alugra

I went through the descriptions 3 times and put them through a manual spelling fix. Unfortunately I haven't actually studied correct english in a while, so internet has managed to corrupt my english quite well. If there are any more spelling/grammar errors, the odds are that I don't even realize them as mistakes. If you would be kind enough to point any spelling/grammar errors in the mod, I'll fix them for the next version.

Yes, you read that last paragraph right. I'm asking you to be a Grammar Nazi. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Some of you might be thinking that having 6 national personal buff spells is a bit excessive, but I really want to encourage to use the Manifests and trained gifted as thugs instead of battlemages. Superheroism is all about smashing face, not throwing fireballs around.

If someone would be kind of to tell me why the forum isn't showing my awesome nation preview pick in the first post, that'd be super. (problem fixed, thanks to Sombre)

Re: Version 0.4
 

I had a little written up about this mod, but I feel I need to play it a bit more. Now there's more stuff! Yay.

Re: Version 0.4
 

I'm having trouble using the Watchmen, but they make excellent mages and are flying, so they have a niche. The workers and villains are amazing in melee.

Descriptions, esp. for the Fisherman, are awesome.

I really like the graphics. They're very "dominions-y".

I've caught a couple descriptions errors, but you've probably caught them with the spellchecker.

Overall, the "Gift of Reason" nation is fun to play with just to try for different possibilities. It also is fun to be easily able to give various dumb-summons leadership.

Re: Version 0.4
 

There are still quite a few little problems in the descriptions Burn. I'm willing to go through the entire mod and just tweak bits in the descriptions if you'd like. Tonight I'm a bit busy but on Thursday I could certainly do it.

Couple of other thoughts - should ungifted soldiers have flail, the two-handed(?) weapon used by flagellants, or morningstar, the one handed weapon used by ulmish infantry with shields? Also it seems like librarians are a bit too hot at research. I know that's the point of them, but 200 gold for 10 research in a single mage is pretty amazing. I don't know, perhaps they aren't too good, I'm not very good with EA mage balance and they aren't useful as mages really, just for research.

Re: Version 0.5
 

@Morkilus
Thanks for feedback, Morkilus. Watchmen are flying elite heavy infantry (like Caelum ice armor flyers, expect that they don't suck), they just slaughter archers.

I'm glad that you liked it.

@Sombre
Thanks for volunteering to check the descriptions. When I see you on IrC, I'll show you the Baa'Lah description. You don't necessarrily need to check the Smith description: I'll be changing it for next version. I found that they are *very good* for early expansion, as they're practically immune to archers. I'm making them able to "morph" into metal and before each battle they morph with a Full Plate Armor. Yeah, just like Iron Man with his battlesuit. (it's a eloborate excuse to rise their resource cost since the armor in which they morph into has to be made first, you see?)

I was also thinking of making a national summon. It's a huge metallic statue, in which 5 smiths have morphed into. Two of them makes the legs move, two make the arms move and one controls. No, the word "Voltron" means nothing to me. "Power Rangers", doesn't ring any bells either. Yes, I'm a extremely silly person.

Yeah, it's meant to be a morningstar. I was working on it quite late in night and forgot the name for that "one handed flail", I just looked at the DB and found the 1-h flail. So I gave the "Lava Warrior" Flail to them..
It will be fixed for the next version.

About Librarians. Yeah, they're a bit too boring. You just recruit them whenever you can (even if I nerfed their research). They kinda overshadow the Master and Preacher as capitol only commander and discourage taking Magic scale (Magic is *very* thematical for this nation). I was thinking of making them recruitable troops (they'd then be Mind Blast archers, like Illithids). I might give the master a small price decrease. Then the capitol would probably produce about 50/50 Preachers and Masters. Masters are pretty good mages (Astral magic is awesome afterall, and if you get one with F/D random: hello Nether Darts/Astral Fires!). Preachers are just leaders, until you research the AoE Charm spell for them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif.

Re: Version 0.6
 

Version 0.6 is here. Now with 100% more naked demon chicks!
This is quite final version, I'm not intending to add any more stuff (since I just noticed my .dm is just as big as the skaven mods .dm file -> a good sign that I have enough stuff in). So now on it will be all about balancing, balancing and more balancing.

Changes:
- Added "Inner Reserve" spell
- Added Colossus and Baa'Lah, alongside with the spells to summon them.
- Made Librarians troops instead of commanders and fiddled with their randoms dramatically
- Gambler randoms made better
- fixed the armor issue on the Ninja Turle
- many minor bugs fixed
- minor nerfs to many gifted troops
- Manifests now sacred to make bless matter something for this nation

Ok, Endoperez, how do you like Baa'Lah? I decided against her having the human sized second shape for three reasons;
1) Female seduce is so marginal ability that the player would probably still just use the badass form 99.9999% of the time.
2) More artistic work (I'm lazy like that)
3) She can only change shape by a virgins kiss in the comic, so it's not like that she can change shape at will.
I'm basing the "Baa'Lah" became good on the part of the comic where she feeled sorry for that knight she remembered slaying, as she seemed to have gained "soul", so to speak, after Ayalah bound her into her servitude.

Re: Version 0.6
 

Eh.. I accidentally had worng version uploaded. If you downloaded your version beifre I posted this, it might be a good idea to download again.

Description \'fix\'
 

I just went through the .dm and tweaked a load of descriptions, ironing out typos and clunky sentences. I didn't want to change it too much though :]

Anyway, the .dm is in the attached zip. It has the same name as the original, so careful if you want to make a backup.

Re: Description \'fix\'
 

I went them trhough and they're clearly superior. They will be added to next version. Many thanks for this.

0.65
 

Folket raised many good points on IrC today and I went through the units again and hitting them with nerf stick. I compared the various gifted troops to other national infantry of similiar abilities and compared res & gold costs. I'm now pretty sure that both the gifted regular troops are now quite balanced. The nerfs and Sombre's grammar fixes are now in the version 0.65

Now the big balance question is the magical diversity and cheap national GoR.
Are they too powerful?

I hope that my coming duel with Folket will shed some light on the issue.

Re: Version 0.6
 

I just noticed this mod again, and decided to check it out. If I don't post anything else, everything was fine but I felt lazy. Seems interesting, any way.

Re: Version 0.2
 

Joe the Tanner is awesome! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Version 0.2
 

Since Joe is a bit "special" hero, I'll have to bug you about this a bit more spesifically.

1) How did you figure out how to use him. Did you need the "hints" I gave in this thread, or did you figure it out yourself?

2) Do you think that he's too powerful? I may have went overboard with his "special" power, since he can't wear too much stuff when his special power is "activated".

Re: Version 0.2
 

Very impressive mod, really cohesive back story. It oozes flavor.

Re: Version 0.2
 

Thanks. I'm kinda suprised that people seem to like the backstory. It's just your basic superhero myths and cliches altered to fit a medieval setting. Perhaps that's what people like about it?

Unlike one might think, I haven't claimed any 'inspiration*' from the "Heroes" tv series. It started showing on finland a week after I started working on this project.

*read: blatantly steal

Re: Version 0.9
 

Okay, the blitz had to be premately ended, but my underwater struggle revealed some ugly sides of the fisherman unit.

Fishermen completely OWNED underwater independets with their high def and nets, making it quite difficult for Folket to counter them, since he was playing C'tis and only could recruit underwater independets. You really can't use their weak point, battle magic (40 gold heavy infantry unit, nice target) against them in uderwater.

I nerfed them in the new version along other gifted troops, just to be on the safe side.

I also scrapped the starting elemetal gem income. You have accees to all path expect nature, but only starting income in one. So you'll have to maunally site search for 7 paths of magic. A royal pain in the *** and it will make it harder for the Alugra player to capitalize on his magical diversity early.

You see, my plan was to have Alugra rely on the Gifted troops early, but as the game goes forward and there will be all sorts of nasty combat spells flying around, your magical diversity will start to kick in and patch things up a bit. Kinda like some nations are very vulnerable early, but strong in late game (shinyama). I'm planning on a nation that won't be especially weak (but not strong) in early/mid/late game.

I also made the Manifestation pretender a bit better. He now has small area fire and shock as his attacks. He seemed to be a pretty good early SC, but he will fall apart against anykind of planned opposition (I'll give you all a hint, he has no arm slots = no forged weapons and his natural attacks are all elemental damage. A high attack thug with fire and shockres 100 will completely own him). The new attack (or the combination of the two explosionsprites) also looks cool as hell on the battlefield. Seriously, look it up.

I played a bit the new version and to tell you the truth, I'm not at all sure what is the right way to play this nation. There are many, many stragedies to explore.

Version 0.91
 

Okay, I gave myself bit to take a look on this mod and I noticed few major bugs. The Ninja Turtles and Cutthroats didn't assasinate due to me being unable to spell. Fixed!

On my six month hiatus there must also have spurned new players and modders on these forums. Feel free to test this mod and give feedback.

Re: Version 0.91
 

Good to see you again Burnsaber. Hope your hiatus has been good.

Re: Version 0.91
 

Well, I'm still in the army, so my is still limited even after I get the laptop. So it's like moving from being on hiatus to moving on crawl speed.

*shrugs* a change for the better at least.

Re: City of Wonders 0.91
 

I'm looking for players to test this mod in MP. 3 volunteers should be sufficient to make long enough test game. Say if want to play Alugra, the game would just more objective if I'm not playing Alugra.

Re: City of Wonders 0.91
 

I will be playing this nation in the forthcoming mod nations game so if you want I will report anything I find that is completely off balance.

Re: City of Wonders 0.91
 

Yeah, that would be awesome. What name is the game? I'd like to keep an eye on the thread.

I've compared the gifted units to troops of other EA nations and they were comparable, so I think they're balanced. Especially with their inherit weaknesess that human player will likely abuse (Watchmen hate poison, Smiths Lighting, Villains combat magic and magic weapons..). They might take an unprepared opponent by suprise, thought.

I have tons of suggestion and hints going on my mind, but I think I'll stand back and watch. It will be really intresting to see what stragedy yuo'll choose (and how it fares out).

Re: City of Wonders 0.91
 

Spell "Experiment" does not work. It is not represented in the list of spells when I try to cast it.

Re: City of Wonders 0.91
 

That's odd.. I'll try to take a look on the issue. I never got around to test the "experiment" & "improved experiment" spells. Thought that they would work since they show up on the list. You sure that your mage had sufficient blood magic?

I've tested all other spells, so they should work, if that's any help.

Thanks for reporting the issue

Re: City of Wonders 0.91
 

I'm not too familiar with this mod-sorry, I was checking it out when my last laptop broke-but, going along with the whole SuperHero element that it represents (as far as I can remember, anyway), and given that we now have the 'Unique' tag, it seemed to me that it might be fun if you included a set of "Unique Experiment" spells, labeled by number only, say-but with fun descriptions (to cause a bit of confusion, since we can't do random summons yet), each of which summoned up a unique superhero type hero/critter.

Just a thought.

Re: City of Wonders 0.91
 

Yes I am sure.

Re: City of Wonders 0.91
 

Btw I forgot to post this originally but now that the mod nations game has started if any of you are still interested in the city of superheroes progress, you may get occasional glimpses into my progress (or lack thereof) here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=40609

Re: City of Wonders 0.91
 

Nice thought. It's just a tad late. I'm not really into adding any new units. It's quite a ragtag collection of units at the moment really.

But it seems that I have to figure out something to replace the "experiment" - spells. It's just too thematic thing for villains to cast. It's a shame that copyspelling crossbreeding doesn't seem work.