Mod Mytheology Pretenders

Psientist · #1 February 9th, 2007, 02:10 PM

I thought it might help to show some of the sprite graphics I developed for this mod. The Grim Reaper and the Pantokrator (the glowing dude) are all original. Desire is based upon the Succubus monster template, and the Teratos Rex upon some dinosaur model photo I found on the internet, and adapted accordingly.

Also, some strategy thoughts I developed during playtesting:
Desire: Bump up your "dominion" setting at onset. Set up Desire in a high-dominion safe province, assigned to summoning Suitor allies. Equip your various armies with as many Priestesses of Cytherea as she attracts, since that will be infrequent even with a high dominion. Keep your Priestesses assigned to a well-guarded commander, behind the lines. Have a spare commander or two always ready to retrieve your priestesses if they rout. After every battle, make sure you check your "army setup" in case the Priestesses (or your Goddess) have charmed any enemy troops.

Grim Reaper: Use Grim as a SC against independent provinces. Try to keep him in your dominion, especially against other players; while he is deadly as a SC against regular armies, he can be killed by strong priests, magic users, or magic armies (he is "undead", after all). Against other nations' armies, have him assassinate a few commanders before attacking, preferably while backed up with other (regular) armies. Use his high mobility as a "roamer/troubleshooter" to keep dominion high at your frontiers, and fight off incursions at the edges of your domain.

Aeshi · #2 February 9th, 2007, 04:13 PM

Grim Reaper should be in Late Age Ermor

Shovah32 · #3 February 10th, 2007, 10:15 AM

Found a problem: Teratos Rex, the big trampling dino is only size 2...

Psientist · #4 February 10th, 2007, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Found a problem: Teratos Rex, the big trampling dino is only size 2...

errr, he's got a BIG roar! heh, ok, I'll fix that.

Quote:

Grim Reaper should be in Late Age Ermor

I was thinking about that. I settled on "early" because (a), I'm playing EA Ermor in a MP game now, and kind of felt the nation "needed something" because it produces lots of death mages, but all its good troops were "living" so none of the really useful death-oriented ritual or battlefield spells can be used without shooting yourself in the foot. Second, I kind of like the idea of the EA Ermor story where they are "transitioning to a new faith", embracing a clear ideal of Death.

However, if most players think I've made the wrong call on the nation assignment of any of the Pretenders, just let me know. Some of the decisions were kind of arbitrary.

Aeshi · #5 February 11th, 2007, 08:45 AM

Oh all right then

Shovah32 · #6 February 11th, 2007, 10:22 AM

I think the reaper would make a nice addition to all 3 ermors.

Psientist · #7 February 11th, 2007, 02:53 PM

I'm not sure it's possible to add a single pretender to more than one nation, without creating mulitple Pretender "clones'. I guess that wouldn't be so hard either, would it?

Sombre · #8 April 16th, 2007, 11:17 PM

Although I haven't tested this, looking at the TGA files in the most recent update many of them don't have magneta shadows and aren't on black background. Do they actually show up properly in dom3? I would have thought that a white background would make them look like walking 2d paintings.

Psientist · #9 June 30th, 2007, 02:39 PM

Special special thanks to DrPraetorius for his spell bitmasking efforts. His work made most of my mod possible.

At any rate, here are some gifs of a couple of the new pretenders added in v2.

Endoperez · #10 June 30th, 2007, 03:41 PM

Monkey King, and probably many other old pretenders, have two heads. This is due to a bug whose effects were noticed (halved head protection), but the fix only worked to make the problem more apparent. You'll have to rework the bodyslots numbers to fix this.

Also, at least for me, the Monkey King (of MA Bandar Log and LA Patala) has wrong graphics. It seems to use the attack sprite of one of the new units in 1800s. It is also missing its description. Tarrasque of EA Marverni is also using the same mis-sprite, but it appears to have its description intact. The bug/problem appears to be linked to copying player-made units. Also affected are MA Caelum Great Egg and Thunderbird.

Some pretenders are horribly overpowered. Fallen Angel of LA Marignon has F4D3S3B3 AND Holy 2. It costs just 150 points... Giving Baphomet the same levels of magic costs 62 points MORE, and Baphomet is immobile and starts with two of the four paths Fallen Angel has... And Baphomet isn't flying, immortal flier with all slots available either! Not to mention that the Fallen Angel can bless itself! Symbol of Unchallenged Victory indeed! And the Djinn... Any pretender that can give Marignon five level 9 blesses is overpowered. F9A9S9E9 X9 takes all your points, but it shouldn't be possible. You can have F9A6E4S4 with an awake pretender and net positive scales!
On the other hand, Desire is useless. 18 hp on a seducer/assassin unit ensures her death. I didn't check out her summons, or if she has a temporary second form but she CAN'T be used as a seducer as per her primary form's stats. It'd be suicide.

Speaking of suicides, I gather Lord of the Plague Wind is supposed to only be used as either dormant or imprisoned...

EDIT: Also, the mod descriptions doesn't work because several pretenders use #description instead of #descr. The latter is for monsters, the former for the whole mod. #description works, because Dominions interprets it as #descr, some unnecessary stuff, "description of the unit" AND #description "description of the unit" at the same time.

EDIT2:

I'd like to add that I like some pretenders. Pantokrator might not be balanced, but I like the idea, and the outcome isn't too far from what I'd imagine myself. The Great Egg is excellent. It's just that there are many, many problems with the mod...