Mod: Blast from the Past, Return of the Underkings

[Saulot]

[Reserved for excess.]

Oh, and the mod is essentially finished. Sprites are done, descriptions are done, spells are done, etc.

Only thing left is to tweak the costs, balancing, and beta-testing.

Should be ready for mass-consumption in 1-2 weeks.


Current Changelog (though it may be missing a few things):

Bugfixes include:
Added missing soundfx to weapons
Fixed spelling errors
Fixed missing holy tag

Changes include:
Removed "The Cornerstone" as a starting magic site (This spread order and gave astral!)
Removed "The Steel Ovens" as a starting magic site
Added "Ancient Forge" as a starting magic site
Added "Halls of the Underkings" as a starting magic site
Added "Helmsfire Order House" as a starting magic site
Rune Paladin is now capital only
Rune Paladin now uses a magical Greataxe instead of a halberd
Runepriest is now capital only
Runepriest is now called Rune Priest
Rune Priest now has 30% chance of higher magic
Rune Priest now has researchbonus 2
Helmsfire Paladin is now capital only
Helmsfire Keeper is now capital only
Helmsfire Keeper now has 30% chance of higher magic
Helmsfire Keeper now has researchbonus 1
All Dwarves now have darkvision 75%
All Dwarves now have mountainsurvival
All Dwarves now have poisonres 25%
All Dwarves now have maxage 250
All Dwarves stats tweaked
All Dwarves descriptions tweaked
All Dwarves now cost more
Paladin Orders now are more varied, powerful, and expensive
Stone King now blind
Stone King lifedrain upgraded
Woad Raider berserker from 10 to 4
Woad Raider now has swampsurvival
Woad Raider now has forestsurvival
Woad Raider now has a Throwing Axe
Stoneguard now has castledef 1
Stoneguard now known as Highborn
Gateguard now has castledef 2
Gateguard now known as Royal Guard
Stone Chief now has castledef 3
Stone Chief now known as Dwarf Captain
Dwarf Lord now has castledef 5
Dwarf Lord now has standard 10
Dwarf Miner siegebonus from 10 to 6
Underking now has standard 20
Underking now has castledef 10
Underking is now a multihero
Underking now casts Fanaticism
Underking now domsummon20 Royal Guards
Dwarf Clansman now called Clansdwarf
Dwarf Scout now called Dwarf Pathfinder
Dwarf Pathfinder description expanded
Dwarf Pathfinder is now a sailor
Dwarf Pathfinder now has a Throwing Axe
Bolt Thrower now has siegebonus 3
Bolt Thrower now has castledef 3
Bolt Thrower more like Castle Ballista
Bolt Thrower hits now scare troops in the same square
Bolt Thrower operator now carries tower shield
Bolt Thrower now has secondshape / unmanned version
Added castleprod 25
Province Defence now uses less Dwarf Militia
Province Defence now has Dwarf Hurlers
Province Defense now has a few Bolt Throwers
Province Defense now has Rune Acolyte Commander
Castletype capital is now Mountain City
Castletype default is now Fortress
Castletype farmland is now Castle
Castletype mountain is now Mountain City
Castletype swamp is now Swamp Fort
Castletype forest is now Forest Fortress
Temple is now #7
Clansdwarf (Battleaxe variant) no longer recruitable
Highborn (Axe variant) no longer recruitable
Expanded namelist

Completely New:
Weapon - Dwarven Throwing Axe
Weapon - Dwarven Crossbow
Weapon - Dwarven Pickaxe
Weapon - Dwarven Maul
Weapon - Runed Greataxe
Weapon - Helmsfire Greataxe
Weapon - Brand of Earth
Weapon - Brand of Fire
Weapon - Massive Mace
Armor - Dashing Hat
Spell - Hearthstrike
Spell - Earthfriend
Spell - Raven Spies
Spell - Runes of Abjuration
Spell - Mechanical Dwarves
Spell - Conjure Stormhammers
Spell - Prayer of Restoration
Spell - Touch of the Enduring Earth
Spell - Requiem of Final Peace
Spell - Battlecry of the Underkings
Spell - Assign Templeguard
Spell - Enervation
Spell - Call Battlerager
Spell - Forge Battlemaster
Spell - Cold Earth's Embrace
Spell - Discover Dwarf Fortress
Spell - Awaken the Fearless Spirit
Spell - Unleash Doombringer
Unit - Unmanned Bolt Thrower
Unit - Templeguard
Unit Summon - Mechanical Dwarf
Unit Summon - Animated Stormhammer
Commander - Rune Acolyte
Commander - Brewmaster (For the Dwarf Fortress Fans)
Commander Summon - Battlerager (For DND fans)
Commander Summon - Battlemaster
Unique Summon - Doombringer
Starting Hero - Eternal Guardian
Hero - King of the Ravens (A1 mage, spy, gemprod 1 air, flyer) (For Tolkien fans)
Hero - Geomancer (E3 mage, gemprod 1 earth, always has a lesser earth elemental in battle)
Pretender - Loremaster (Hybrid Sage class pretender)
Pretender - Son of Mimir (Titan class pretender)

[BandarLover]

Sounds great Saulot! AFAIK, Zepath has stated before that anyone can use his mods for their own purposes due to the fact that he tends to come and go for long periods of time, so I don't think he'll be upset about your plans.

Greatly enjoyed the write up of your thinking process in making this mod, though I am a bit upset there won't be any dwarf bear cavalry. But your argument against cavalry is sound so I'll deal with it

But 1-2 weeks?! Ugh, I need my dwarf fix now!

[Aezeal]

Good call on teh no cavalry, but dwarves are not so small that it justifies size 1. I figure their shoulders are about 1.5 as broad as humans so it just won't fit.

Personally I'd be a greatly for having recruitable battle golems

[Endoperez]

Saulot said he'd have preferred size 2 dwarves, but the sprites were all size 1...

[Saulot]

@BandarLover:

That's good to hear about Zepath.

I'm glad to hear about the write-up, otherwise all that typing would have been for no reason, heh.

Yeah, the cavalry would be nice just for the coolness factor. Unfortunately, if I just threw in everything that was cool, it would be kind of like... throwing in 20 of your favorite types of food into one pot. Not exactly edible.

1-2 weeks is not too bad. I could have started this thread much earlier.

Patience is after all, a dwarven virtue.

@Aezeal:

Yeah... like Endo said I agree. But spritework is quite time-consuming. Smallscale spritework is even more difficult. My typical method of starting with a bigger picture, and then scaling down (such as scaling x3, so 9 pixels turn into one, and a palette of 5 colors, plus black and white, turn into a palette of a broad spectrum of colors and shades), doesn't work well when the downscale end result is tiny (15-30 pixels tall). What is a relatively easy method to get great results turns into something which turns into blurry blobs. I found this out the hard way when working on kobolds. As a result the kobolds were made quite tall.

(Though his wide color pallete would seem to indicate otherwise, I believe it's some mask or blur feature to blend the colors a tiny bit.) Based on the edges, shapes, and outlines, Zepath seems to do it at-scale one pixel at a time, probably zooming out and in to see how changing the color of one pixel looks different overall. This is most likely incredibly time-consuming.

So, while I'm not opposed to doing sprites from scratch... especially considering Zepath's organized method is one I could learn from (as in how he has several dwarf bases, plus armor overlays, shield overlays, weapon overlays), it would take up a lot of time, and that's time I wouldn't be spending working on several other mods I want to get to.

Anyway, just to give you a comparison, the Zepath Dwarves are around 20 pixels tall and 16 pixels wide (with weapon and shield). Typical humans are 32 pixels high and Hoburgs are I believe 16.

If I was going to do it from scratch, I'd probably make them 26 pixels tall and 24 pixels wide.

[Cor2]

I am excited. I look forward to this release. I like the idea of size 1 dwarfs. Fits with the dominions world and does not break drastically from D&D.

By the way, what do you mean Dwarven Fortress is unplayable in its standard ASCII version? Its the only way to play!

[Aezeal]

Saulot there must be miscommunication I mean, regardless of sprites that dwarves (what kobolds) should not be size 1 but size 2 (for example take the lord of th rings movies) Gimli is more equal sized with aragorn than with hobbits bulk-wise.