Mod: Blast from the Past, Return of the Underkings

[Sombre]

Of course the second form doesn't have to have the command to change shape back.

Amos made good use of this in the insectoids mod.

[Edratman2]

That sure sounds like workable solution.

I am not thinking of assigning a high gold cost because I am thinking that it would only be used in a specific province, thus not justifying high upkeep cost. A gem expensive shape changing summonable siege engineer sounds like an idea that fits in with what I am picturing. I like the idea of not allowing a shape change back also. I figure that historically, siege towers were built on the spot and not transported to the next walled defensive site. Maybe some hardware and a few elements were salvaged, but I'm proceeding on the basis of 100% loss.

[Saulot]

@Aezeal:
I thought you didn't want size 1 dwarfsprites?

The Zepath mod with many dwarf sprites that I'm using is still available on the Dom2 forum. As for Underheim, it will be released when... it's... ready.

@KO:
No worries, no golems in this mod. Ideas saved for later.

@Edratman:
Siegetowers eh? It's a nice idea. I worked up a watchtower (which shot crossbows) for the kobolds in Urdheim, but my biggest hurdle was the lack of size due to the 128 pixel limit, and what happens when you get routed... the tower rotates and tries to escape(!), even though it's immobile. That can be fixed by giving it a special morale, but still was pretty amusing. So the question you want to consider, is the siegetower big enough? (Some of the forts have giant walls.)

The second problem is when you have more than one. It looks real wierd, since units (particularly units of the same type) are rarely spaced out in a formation of normal battle lines, and having several towers next to each other (siege or watch tower) looks pretty horrible. I went around this problem using it as a tier 2 province commander ensuring uniqueness, but still... the result was still somewhat clunky and awkward and I axed the unit.

For you to avoid this problem, you'll need to make the unit which transforms into a siege tower kind of rare. Either making it a ritual summon which costs some decent amount of gems, or a cap-only commander when you have other cap-only commanders who you desperately want all the time.

While it's true historically that siegetowers were built on-site and only for their prospective target, I'd advise against it. There is no method to remove units. So either you do make it a oneway trip, which leaves you a permanent siegetower sitting there, which means you'd pretty much have to give it no upkeep in tower form. Or you make the siege engineer be able to changeshape both ways, and just make him expensive in engineer and tower form (to reflect the costs of building and maintaining such a tower in active use).

Your last problem is, how strange or abstract the siege mechanics work in Dominions. A siegetower is supposed to get your units to a wall, fight defenders on a wall, and capture the walls, and then open the gates, letting in the rest of your army. The siegetower unit would do none of those things, just have a strong siegebonus. The towers of a fort that's being stormed still fires at you, which means the walls haven't been captured, but the gate is somehow open.

The most realistic unit that could be made considering the Dom siege situation, is a battering ram. It breaks open the gates. That's how it's supposed to work, and that's how it would work in game. (One can assume that as part of the abstraction that IS what is going on. There ARE battering rams all over the place, built and then destroyed for each siege.) After all KO isn't actually opposed to siege weapons, he did have them in COE. Ballistas, catapults, and even trebuchets were quite common in my dwarf armies. I think his complaint was one of scale. The inability to bestow the awesome size on a siege weapon, due to the 128 pixel limit.

Now if none of these problems feel insurmountable for you, then great, I'd love to see the results. Unique things like that tend to add a lot of flavor to nations. I'm somewhat opposed to adding siegetowers to Underheim, since they don't really need it. I even considered battering rams early on, but it would just be redundant with the miners and mine foremans, and I was unsatisfied with my sprite results.

I'll be revisiting the siege construct idea in my next mod.

[Aezeal]

my dwarves will have stat size 2, no fear

[Sombre]

Dwarves should clearly have fear.

[Aezeal]

/me hurts sombre

[Saulot]

Well, I just finished one complete run-through. I used the No Indep. SilentSeas map and played vs. Impossible Jotunheim with no mercs. I used a sleeping loremaster pretender with Dom4, E9S4, but didn't use sacreds at all in this test. As expected, I had a very slow and painful start, but eventually triumphed using a collection of highborns, hurlers, crossbows, and bolt throwers, with a smattering of battleragers.

It was very satisfying seeing many throwing axes, crossbow bolts, and ballistas flying across the battlefield.

I can report that Battleragers are functioning exactly as I want them to, they frequently rush ahead of the other dwarven forces, and chop away against the enemy, often getting 10-15 kills in a battle, early on hitting the hall of fame, usually accumulating an affliction or two, before dying in a blaze of glory after 1-4 battles. They're thuggable if you spend the effort in items, but they pretty much will get themselves killed no matter what.

I'm considering increasing their size (just in terms of space they occupy, not their sprite) to prevent their being coddled by players by keeping them in the back and then timing their movement so they somehow manage to stay in formation with other dwarves.
At size 3, they won't get quite that formation protection, and are more likely to be hit by ranged weapons.

The Dwarven clerics and their healing spells work wonderfully (and also as I had hoped), many dwarven lives are saved (most importantly prolonging the battleragers), though afflictions accumulate steadily, which tends to somewhat offset experience gains.

Earth gems feel the squeeze (more so than Agartha) as there are so many things to spend them on, and while I usually have gem reserves in most of my games, there were none in this one.

I'll try a bless strategy for my next game, though rushing is really out of the question, with the extremely expensive cap-only paladins.

[Saulot]

Well, uploaded the unit roster to the first post. Most of the top half is original Zepath.

Anyway, haven't had time to get a second run through yet, but will be getting to that soon. After that, it should be decent enough to release, and most of the balancing and tweaking will come then.

[Tyrian]

The sprites are really good.

[Sombre]

There's a pretty distinct difference between Zepath graphics and your added graphics, but with them mostly being summons it doesn't seem too jarring.