.com.unity Forums - Mod MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.49

The version here (v1.49) is obsolete, as I am no longer maintaining threads or any work on the Shrapnel forums. The mod is currently at v1.54, and can be found in its current and updated version here.

SHANGRI-LA, HIDDEN CITY OF THE SECRET MASTERS
An MA nation for Dominions 3
Version 1.49

Original and Primary Author: Nounours
Revising Authors: Globu and Pyg
Current Maintainer: Globu

Preview

To see ongoing graphical changes, along with rationales where appropriate, check out the following images. (I update these more often than I update the download, so not all changes are implemented in the current public version yet. A lossless copy of both these images is in the download.)

Graphical Changes Page 1
Graphical Changes Page 2

UPDATE MAY 3, 2010

I'm not quite sure what to say. I'm pretty dismayed with recent events, and am shocked and disappointed at how it was handled and the sort of attitudes revealed on the part of people who I think should have known better.

I'll continue to update here for now, and will try to finish projects started, but I have to say that working with and modding the game in this context has lost much of its savor -- the mod community has been effectively splintered in what has come out to be a rather heavy-handed and destructive phenomenon that could have been avoided several times over by a little more respectful handling.

Ironically, I had just been having a conversation with a friend, about a week or so ago, about how the Dom3 modding community was unusually cooperative and integrative, a state of affairs I fear is pretty much in doubt now.

That said, I've put up a small update. There are no changes to the .dm file for this update -- it's just a handful of sprites: the Ascended One (hero), Ascended Master (pretender), and the Shangrilan heavy infantry, archers and crossbowmen.

UPDATE APR. 30, 2010

Rje reduced in cost 140 -> 110 gold. (That seemed like a lot for a capital-only human commander with no magic or priest levels and no specials beside good stats, a standard ability and being sacred.)
Gelug (Yellow-Hat Lama) reduced in cost 270 -> 220 gold. Compared with other lama types, this guy is pretty weak, offers no path variation, and doesn't seem to warrant the cost. May be just me, but did anyone find him worth it at 270?

DESCRIPTION

Shangri-La is an MA Nation based on Tibetan myth and history. The nation is centered around the hidden city of Shangri-La, ruled by powerful mage-priests who seek spiritual ascension and enlightenment.

Its military is composed of Bhödpa mountain tribesmen, well-armed Shangrilan troops, and Mi Gö ape-men similar to the Bandar of Kailasa.

The mod has thus far been checked for compatibility with CBM, UWGIM, Magic Site Mod, and Endgame Diversity Mod, and is compatible.

Troops:

- Bhödpa spearman, archer, mountaineer (light infantry)
- Bhödpa yak rider (light cavalry)
- Shangrilan archer, crossbowman and heavy infantry; Dmag-Dar (banner-bearer) & Dmag Hrag (veteran soldier)
- Light Bhödpa Cavalry & heavy Shangrilan Rta Pa Cavalry.
- Mi Gö and Mi Gö hunters (Mi Gö are ape-like intelligent creatures, related to yetis. And yes, there are yetis )...

Sacreds:

-Guardian of the Hidden Valley
-Mi Dred (sacred Mi Gö warriors armed with club made of enchanted ice)

Commanders:

- Bhödpa Scout
- Bhödpa Sde Pa (Clan Chief)
- Shangrilan Dmag Dpon (Officer) and Rje (king)
- Shangrilan Monk (Drapa)
- Mages: Ngagspa (sorcerers who dabble in dark magics), Demon-hunters (Tibetan stories and legends seems to be full of demons!) and Ragyapa (priests charged with practicing funerals by cutting corpses to small pieces and feeding them to vultures and other birds of prey).
- Lamas: Red-Hat lama, Yellow-Hat lama and Black-Hat lama
- Hidden Masters (powerful mages and occult masters of Shangri-La)

Summons:

- Yetis
- Theurang, Klu & Lha spirits
- Srin Po, Bdud and Btsan demons
- Snow Lions
- Citipatis (undead who haunt cemeteries and dances on corpses)

REVISING AUTHOR'S NOTES

Nounours seems to have disappeared for a while. Pyg put up a version that corrected case-mismatched sprite filenames, and two missing sprites, on the mod's thread. Seeing that, and finding myself charmed and impressed by the mod, I decided to correct some other errors and apply a bit more polish to this excellent nation mod.

The bulk of my revising work has been in two major areas. First, I've done some extensive textual editing of the descriptive and flavor text (Nounours is clearly an excellent non-native English speaker, but there were a good number of textual gaffes that could use some love). Second, I've added a few sprites and variants (the Yak, Yak Rider and Lama of the Frozen Heights pretender) and polished up the existing spritework a bit -- sprites that had awkward shading, stray pixels, outright mistakes (such as the Dmag Dpon's helmet changing color) or other problems -- while trying to remain consistent with the author's style.

However, I've made a number of fixes and, I hope, improvements as well, including revamping the PD, commenting the .dm file, and fixing a few minor problems.

I am currently still in the process of polishing up the artwork, and will likely be making some minor changes to correct any other oversights I find and to better balance the mod.

If you like this mod, but find it imbalanced in some way (particularly for MP play, since I haven't played MP and don't have a feel for it), please do pipe up and let me know how it could be improved.

If you come back and see this, Nounours, cheers to you for this incredibly good nation modand I hope you'll continue with your fine work! (And, of course, I will be happy to release the mod back into your care.)

RESOURCES USED

Overall, unit IDs 2700-2799 should be considered reserved for this mod.

Also, the following ID numbers are used:

-- Nation 89
-- Magic Sites 821-822
-- Weapons 901-906
-- Armors 250-251
-- Nametype 127
-- New Spells Used: 15

Specifically, the following Unit IDs are in use: 2702-2707, 2709-2712, 2714, 2721-2722, 2729-2730, 2734, 2740, 2742-2751, 2753, 2755-2769, 2772-2782 and 2786-2787.

Feedback is welcome on whether any IDs should be changed to make for better compatibility (yes, yes, I know it's impossible to make *all* mods compatible, but nonetheless).

VERSION HISTORY

v1.49

Sprites tweaked: Shangrilan heavy infantry, archers and crossbowmen. Overhauled Shangrilan heavy cavalry (Rta Pa and Rta Dmag Go), Ascended One (hero) and Ascended Master (pretender).

v1.48

Rje reduced in cost 140 -> 110 gold.
Gelug (Yellow-Hat Lama) reduced in cost 270 -> 220 gold.
Sprites tweaked: Overhaul of Shangrilan basic commander (Dmag Dpon), standard-bearer (Dmag Dar), elite heavy infantry (Dmag Hrag), Guardian of the Hidden Valley, and king (Rje). A few more fine tuning tweaks to Bhödpa Horseman and Yak Rider sprites.

v1.47

Shangrilan Crossbowman map move 2 -> 1 to be consistent with other Shangrilan troops in similar armor.
Bhodpa Yak Rider and Horseman helmets changed from Half Helmet to Reinforced Leather Cap to be consistent with other Bhodpa units, including Sda Pa commander.
Yaks Gone Wild. Added second "Yak" form for Yak Rider (#secondtmpshape). Now, when Yak Riders are killed, their mounts continue fighting (albeit with 7 morale) and disappear when combat is over.
Yak Rider combat movement rate 22 -> 18. Gold cost 25 -> 32. Name changed from 'Yak Rider' to 'Bhodpa Yak Rider'.
Swamp fort type changed from Wizard's Tower (gold 600, admin 30) to Swamp Fort (gold 800, admin 0). Rationale: doesn't make much sense to give such an advantage; the people of the frozen mountain heights would not be likely to be better than almost all other nations at building effective structures and administrative functionalities in swamplands.
Sprites tweaked: All Bhodpa troops and commanders. Bhodpa Yak Rider unit sprite completely replaced (rationale: the original version's rider wasn't Bhodpa, and the thing it was riding wasn't a yak), as was the Bhodpa Horseman (rationale: it looked basically like it was a generic T'ien Ch'i without much modification, and didn't look Bhodpa either). Both should now look distinctly Bhodpa.

v1.46

Ragyapa, Demon Hunter and Demon Slayer were priests but not sacred. They are now.
Mod name changed from "Shangri La.dm" to "Shangri_La.dm" in order to avoid problems with the Llamaserver. For now, a copy with the original filename will be included as well for those who have ongoing games with the old mod filename.
Mod directory name changed from "Shangri La" to "Shangri_La" in order to avoid problems with Llamaserver.
Flag redone in the style of Zepath's Streamers & Standards. (Nounours's original, done in the vanilla Dom3 style, is included as an alternate.)

v1.45

Summon Yeti spell corrected (#effect 10000 --> #effect 10001).
Made shiny new mod banner. The original one was wrongly-sized and overpixelated.
Fixed nation flag (it had an off-black section of the background).
Lama of the Frozen Heights pretender added by request.
Yet another round of textual edits. I was tired. Also, some descriptions were just too long, and were a bit verbose. I have tried to keep the core of what is being said in those entries, while chopping them down to more manageable size.

v1.4

Readme created and documentation updated.
Some further corrective edits to descriptive text.
Spell "Contact Lha" was summoning the wrong creature (a Btsan); changed it to the correct unit ID.
Problematic PD changed completely (original version used Citipati, normally summons, and referenced an unused unit ID). In favor of balance for an otherwise well-powered nation, basic PD has been changed from Shangrilan soldiers to Bhödpa spearmen and archers, with Bhödpa yak riders and basic Mi Gö appearing at 20+.

v1.3

Case-mismatched sprite filename references and missing sprite references fixed by Pyg.
Magic Site IDs moved from 852-853 to 821-822 to adjust for conflict with Magic Site Mod.
Shangrilan Crossbowman armor changed from Full Leather to Scale Hauberk to match description and sprite art.
All descriptive and flavor completely edited and revised.

Previous Versions

It appears that Nounours did not maintain a version history to this level, so the version history shown herein begins with Pyg's and my revisions.

CREDITS AND PERMISSIONS (from the perspective of primary revising author)

First and foremost credit is to the author of this mod, Nounours, for the superb work he has shared with us.

Secondary credits are to Pyg for correcting some problems and inspiring me to polish other aspects of the mod.

Big thanks to Kristoffer O and Illwinter for their excellent work, which even my *wife* loves, and on which most of this work is based.

All edits and further development of this mod is done without the permission of the author. I know of no statement of his feelings on permissions. The mod and work remains his own (though it is evidently based on vanilla sprites, and thus derivative of Kristoffer O's artwork).