Mod: Age of Wonders Mod

[Professor_Dyar]

Thanks Edi!

Here is what I am thinking: Julia will be available for least seven different nations. I could make her a hero for each unit, a unique summon, or both. If she's a hero, the she could appear multiple times (one for each nation), but each nation would get her only once, but it would be unpredictable when and if she would appear. If she's a summon, then I could restrict access to her by requiring research, magic paths, and magic gems, to acquire her, and I could make her unique, but if she dies, she could be summoned (resurrected?) anew, and moreover, another nation could probably swipe her away since she is available to multiple nations. I could of course do both: make a hero Julia and a unique summon Julia with a different unit number. Here, of course, there really could be two of her, if you both get her as a hero and summon her, but if you do get her as a hero, she can't be swiped from under your nose by another player casting the same summon. A final thing I can do, of course, is just add Julia to the list of female names - of course, then there could again be more than one Julia, but that could be explained that they are different people who just happen to have the same name!

Speaking of which, I'm trying to understand how heroes are named. Are the name tables reiterated for each nation, or how do you make sure that a hero has a specific name? I don't see a #heroname command. Are the custom name lists specific to each nation, i.e. if I, say, give the Elves two heroes (say, Julia and Elric), and give the Dark Elves two heroes (Meandor and Melenis), would modding name lists 127 and 128 separately for the Elves and Dark Elves respectively allow me to ensure these names? Certainly the nations in the game have heroes with specific names, many of them more than two such heroes!

[Edi]

There's no way to do extensive name modding for individual heroes, because each hero requires a separate nametype with just one entry. There are not nearly enough free nametypes. Existing hero names are hardcoded.

[Professor_Dyar]

Hm - that's a problem. What happens if I give a hero a name from one of the custom name lists, but the list is blank? Could I name the unit the name of a hero?

Also, which do you think would work better for my purposes: seven different nations each with a hero for Julia, or a unique Julia summon available to those seven nations?

Last, I'm curious, but I want to know approximately how powerful to make AoW heroes. What stats/abilities/magic would you give to Julia? How would you represent her armor?

[Edi]

The best you can do is just do the description and whenever somebody does get the hero, they can rename it so the name matches.

As for what you want, take a look at the Worthy Heroes mod and how the heroes there have been beefed up. For Julia, I'd probably go for something like

hp 14
prot 0
mor 17
mr 18
str 12
att 14
def 16
prec 16
mapmove 2
ap 13
ldr-n 120 or 160
ldr-u 0
ldr-m 10
forest survival
awe +2
standard +20 or 30
sacred
female (well, duh)
magic A3E3N4H3 (or H4 instead of H3, if you prefer)
Weapon Enchanted Sword
Armor Silver Hauberk, Golden Shield (or Enchanted Shield)

That'd be fairly thematic. At least it comes closest to how I've envisioned Julia, but may be influenced how I played the original Keepers campaign with Earth 3 Life 4.

[Wauthan]

Making a custom name list with every single entry named "Julia" oughto work. I remember poking around with the Avernum mod to produce a similar result.

I'm a bit confused with Julia being a hero rather then a pretender (she's the queen of the elves after all) but personally I would go with the unique summon approach. Would be wierd to have all seven nations sporting a Julia hero unit at the same time.

Believe it or not but I too worked on an AoW mod (even managed to create some silly looking graphics). But that was way back when Dom3 was just released, and the tools are more powerful now. I eventually scrapped the idea because it was fairly difficult for me to 'translate' AoW into Dom3.

All things considered the AoW heroes need to be toned down to the standard set by the Worthy Heroes mod. In AoW the high level heroes where nigh unstoppable, and would make the supercombatants in dom3 seem mewling kittens in comparison.

My take on Julia (assuming mounted AoW1 style hero):

#size 3
#hp 14
#mor 15
#mr 15
#str 10
#att 12
#def 12
#prec 12
#mapmove 3
#ap 36
#maxage 10000
#mounted
#forestsurvival
#incunrest -30
#magicskill 6 3
#weapon "Enchanted Sword"
#armor "Silver Hauberk"
#superiorleader
#expertmagicleader

It might be a bit too powerful though.

Edit: Curse your ninja skills Edi! But atleast our "Julia" had some overlap. Your's even more buffed then mine though.

[Aezeal]

yours has a maxage though.. his one dies when she's 50 (and is overpowered too)

[Professor_Dyar]

I actually have considered the possibility of Julia being available as a pretender for appropriate nations, seeing how almost deific the Wizards in AoW2+ are (Yaka certainly is a pretender!). I may include that as an option, but I want her to be available as a heroine as well, at least for the more AoW1-style nations in the mod.

Edi's Julia is comparable in power to the default heroes of Tir 'na n'Og, which is only appropriate considering Julia's race: she's a good mage, a good commander, and, properly outfitted, a good thug, but hardly a supercombatant. It would be easy to create a pretender who would be more powerful in any of these areas, and not that difficult to create a pretender who could surpass her in all of them (although said pretender might need to be imprisoned or take negative scales). Julia the pretender of course will have the option of being a bit more powerful.

The seven nations in question represent different aspects of the various factions. So, they are the Elves (as a race), the Keepers, the High Priests, the Spirit of Nature, the element of Life, the altar of Life, and the Wizard's Throne, and possibly the elements of Air and Water as well. It is certainly reasonable that Julia would belong to any one of them. I would like to explore possibilities of her existing in each of these, even being killed in some but not in others (hey, only one of these nations can win - this is Dominions!), which is why I considered the multiple hero approach. Of course, if she's summonable instead, this can happen in a different fashion, with multiple resurrections. The multiple hero approach also keeps one nation's options for her free of what might happen to other nations' options - e.g. if the Keepers' Julia gets horrormarked, the Elves' Julia isn't. This might be preferable or not, depending.

I'm not sure whether or not to make heroes mounted. I may make both, actually, depending on circumstances (nation). For her abilities, I am open to suggestions, but her default spheres in the Valley are 4 Life, 2 Air, 1 Water, so her magic will reflect that. Certainly I do want to give her a long lifespan - even with BoT, she should not be worrying about her age! But should she have Awe (as Edi gives her), or possibly Stealth and Seduce (the designs on her armor certainly look made to draw attention to her figure)?

More immediately, though, is the philosophical question of equipment for heroes: the vast majority of commanders in Dominions, including even most of the pretenders, are armed with common weapons and armor. The obvious implication is that the player is expected to forge magical items for their thugs and SCs. Should AoW heroes have magical equipment, or basic stuff that will be replaced?

*

Meanwhile, here is a transcript from the mod file:

----Humans

--Musketeer and Air Galley to be added here
--Spell to construct Air Galley to be added here
--May also add spells allowing Humans to summon some Bogarus mages

--Select Late Man
#selectnation 51
#name Humans
#era 1
--Flag?
#descr "Banished from their garden for their moral imperfection, the Humans invaded the Blessed Continent and destroyed the magically powerful Elven civilization that preceded them and took their legacy of magic. Ambitious, brash, and independent, the Humans seek to split infinities, do the undoable, and make themselves masters of Nature's laws. Their governments are forever evolving, and each man and woman is his or her own mind. Some desire to invent and build things. Others desire to rule and wield power, while others are content to sit in the shade of the trees and tell stories to children. Some humans are deeply spiritual, while others show a knack for learning powers that were thought forgotten. Every man walks after their own pursuit with brazen disregard for the laws of nature or the order of life.

Though the Humans now control the heart of the former Elven civilization and power, their power has come with a price. Once, Humans harvested Elven magic, but now, magic is draining from the former Elven lands, and from the Humans as well. In response, the Humans have called upon their faiths and their masters of knowledge both truthful and hypocritical, and have created an order of mages who can research even in the draining magic of the Valley of Wonders. Will the Race of Men spread from the Valley and usher the world into a new age of the mundane, or will other races reclaim the Elven Valley and restore the Age of Wonders?"

#summary "Race: Humans
Military: Crossbow-armed heavy infantry, longbows, knights, Wardens of the Elven Court
Magic: Astral, Air, Earth, some Fire, Death, Blood
Priests: Average"

#brief "The Empire of Humanity has taken control of the Valley of Wonders and is building a new Age of steel without fantasy."
#epithet "Children of Chaos"
--Give Humans the Cathedral-temple
#templepic 9

--Underwater province defense needs to be added here

#end

[Sombre]

I wouldn't worry too much about the specific details of heroes until you've got the basics done.

But since we're on that topic,... what I did for the Skaven Warhammer mod was make the heroes powerful, give them their famed items as best I could and remove the slots that they would have used up to wield them. So Ikkit Claw, who traditionally has Storm Daemon the warp halberd, his mechanical claw and his special mask has no head slot or hand slots. Queek who is armed with a warpstone charm, warpstone armour, dwarf gouger and,.. I forget what the other weapon is called,.. anyway he got no hand slots, no body and 1 less misc than other heroes. Since I can't actually give him equipment representing the charm he wears, I simply mentioned it in the description and upped his base mr. The two weapons he has are comparable with ok melee forgables and he has armour with low enc and prot 22 or so. In this fashion you get heroes who effectively come pre-equipped with magic items but can still be improved.