Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Wow, great mod, thanks for your hard work!

But now for some (hopefuly constructive) criticism:
1) Lich and Master Lich have bright green pixels on their legs and on the ends of their (cool) clothing, why is that? I'd expect their tattered robes to look like tattered robes (unless they are somehow magical), the green glow in their mouths is cool though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
2) For some reason I can't help but think the vampire queen is wearing pajamas, maybe if her shirt and pants were a bit brighter? Or maybe if she had some jewelry?
3) I really like the "high fantasy" Pheonix http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
4) Lord of Decay looks pretty cool too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
5) Lord of Destruction could use a slightly bigger axe (if it can fit :X)
6) The crone is greatly improved http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
7) Changer of Ways is pretty cool too, I like what you did with the shadows http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
8) Hooray for Lord of Fertility!

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Wow... I always thought #shapechange always gave #seccondshape, automatically... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Good thing that I tested the Phoenix before "correcting" you!

Phoenix - the firebird is very impressive image. The Phoenix, as it is now, doesn't fit that image, but I almost wish there was something else to use it with. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif The Heron image is also very, very good. It has just one flaw - against the default dark-red background, it's beak vanishes. There's too little contrast between the beak and the background. Even so, the new heron image is better than the old one.

The rainbow mages are VERY fuzzy on anything but Best filter, at least in my monitor and resolution. The colors just blend together. I noticed this especially with the Great Sorceress; the light hair and the white robe blend in unless I check her description or make the commander icons bigger/zoom in on battle. Vampire Queen and the bigger pretenders are fine - I can't see the details of their faces, but I can tell between cloak, cloth and skin. The Lich and Master Lich look somewhat strange as well. It might be just that their color and the dark red background not working for me.


Lord of Pleasure is insane. Nature 5 and 160 points means that he's the cheapest way to get Nature 9 bless. One less starting dominion matters less because he starts better Awe than is available from Dominion 10. Being a demon is a problem, but having a Devour Soul attack is just insane - only one summonable creature has it in base game, and it's a unique, national summon of C'tis. You should bring it more in line with the other pretenders. Perhaps a Nature version of Moloch (N2 B1), Awe +1, and two default weapons (Magic sceptre, and new Touch of Enslavement (enslave, att 0, def -2, length 0, mr negates). It's physically bigger and more powerful than Moloch, but doesn't fly, so it could have the price of a Titan with similar magic (w and 1 or just 3).

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Heavenly Messenger seems kinda imba. I played him and gave himn earth 4 for Protection and blessing. I then hastly forged a sharp blade and began attacking provinces defended by militas. Because of his awe 4 he will rarely (read: not) get attacked by troops with morale 8-10.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Try a dom10 virtue. He starts with dom4 so getting there is easy and he starts with a good weapon so can start killing straight away.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Ighalli, the pillage bonus just seemed appropriate. The description for the Lord of Destruction is actually taken (in part) from an entry in the "Warhammer Fluff Bible" on Khorne, the Lord of Destruction. The pretender itself was based on Khorne whom I could not see withholding from a little pillaging on account of his preference for a battle between warriors. After all, to the victor go the spoils and I'm sure Khorne would dig on the spoils like any good warlord-god.

Agrajag, the new liches are actually sprites I took from my Dom 2 nation mod Necropolis in which they were semi-undead priest kings with an ancient Egyptian flair. At the time I suppose I meant their jewelry (if that's the appropriate word) and greaves to be composes of some strange other-worldly material that glows green much like the bane weapons. I like the way they look now... it says, "Yea, that's right, I'm so powerful I can make crap glow different colors," but as Endo also mentioned them I may mess around with the sprites and see if I can make them better. The Vamp Queen sprite is a very close approximation of the one originally found in Dominions. Do you think an outright white garment would be better? As for the Lord of Destruction's axe, I don't think it can get any larger w/in a 128x128 sprite. It's quite a large axe as it is!

Endoperez, I thought a black beak was cooler but I'll lighten it a bit for the next version. As for the rainbow mages -- I assume you mean the Crone and Great Enchantress -- I will tweak the contrast and sharpness of both and we'll see if that improves them at all. I'm running the game on a relatively new Dell XPS at the highest settings and I wasn't thinking that they might "blur up" on other machines. I agree the Lord of Pleasure needs a higher points cost at least. I'll also factor in your other suggestions when updating. Do you think the Lord of Destruction, Changer of Ways, or Lord of Decay are also over-powered?

Ragnarok-X, the Messenger is essentially a Virtue with Astral and a reduced additional paths cost, opening him up for a number of powerful strategies. You are probably right though and I may reduce his starting dominion to 2 and hit points by ~33% in the next version.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

I'd reduce the point cost and magic levels of the magic-5 pretenders, it's kinda out of synch with official pretenders, which never go above magic-3.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Sandman, that was purposeful. All four are based on the Chaos gods of the Warhammer universe who have rather distinct characters already. It wouldn't be very fitting with the lore of Khorne, the Lord of Destruction for example if his Blood magic were only level 3 or if Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, wasn't capable of casting the Eyes of God (w/ only Astral-3). I thought about making them more in sync with the "standard" pretenders, but decided against it.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

I see.
1) You don't have to change anything, you should do things they way you think they look best. If the green glow bothers me, I can just edit it myself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
2) I think an outright white garment would be better. In fact, I tried some tweaking (though I didn't save the tweaked version) and both black and white clothing looked better than the grey. (Be aware though that I'm not talking about the cloak, just pants/shirt)
3) It is a large axe - bigger than most humans :O
However, it looks puny comapred to who's wielding it. Looking over the .tga I see you can make it 8 pixels longer. (The problem imo is only in length, not in overall size.), I tried just moving the axe head to the side and duplicating the shaft to fill in the blank, but it looks pretty obvious that the shaft is just a paste, and thus ends up looking wrong.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Many thanks to you Zepath for taking the time to make this mod. I'm very happy with your alterations on the crone, and I'm very grateful that you accepted that suggestion. Many of your other graphics were also instant favorites. I quickly incorporated them into the game and they look perfectly splendid.

May your muse never grow silent.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

But the Oracle and the Sphinx can't cast Eyes of God either, the Moloch can't summon devils, the Great Mother can't summon vine ogres, etc.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

I'm glad many of you are enjoying this mod!

Sandman, those pretenders can do those things if you choose to buff their magic skills. To be truthful to the lore behind the new pretenders in question I chose to represent them with power already abundant enough to perform such feats. To try and balance things, they are more expensive in points costs and all are vulnerable to banishment as demons. Although I will probably increase their points costs in the next update (and have already done so to the Lord of Destruction). In general, I think they appropriately represent the Chaos gods from the Warhammer mythos and would be somehow lesser if I brought them into line with the standard Dominions "template" for pretenders (i.e. no magic paths greater than 3 to start).

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

I'm working on weird nations for a mod:
N'kai (intelligent oozes, slimes, nameless horrors in the dark, etc),
Adomo (earth gnomes and earth elementals, basically)
C'thon (Middle Era Aboleth royalty, death-cult, Mamluk-style slaves)
Mu (Late Era mutant Aboleths and dolphin-riders),
Yith (Late Era extraterrestrial spirits possessing an insectoid race),
Fthaggua (fire vampires, basically a race of etherial, immortal, life-drainers),
Lemuria (underwater nature-magic race based on Ammonites, kinda-sorta like Pangaea only underwater),
Y'qaa (Elder Things ala At the Mountains of Madness-extensive users of Crossbreeding-type magics, created Shuggoths, kind of resemble flying 5 sided barrels, have bizarre advanced technology)

It's going to be a while before I can get the artwork up and running for these mods because my scanner is on the other side of the U.S., but if you're still taking requests I thought I'd mention what I'm working on and that I could use some original Pretenders. It might be fun for you to get really wild and come up with some truly bizarre godlings. I'll gladly answer any questions and fill you in as much as possible on any details you may be interested (and anyone else is welcome to work on this project too, I only have so much creative energy, and it's getting spread pretty thin). I just ask that any Pretender submissions for these nations be in earnest-I don't want blatant jokes (subtle ones are fine as long as they look cool). I want to maintain as high a level of quality as possible. Thanks!

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Bump & FYI: Nova Deus II has been updated with new content.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Many thanks once again Zepath. I must say that your skill continues to improve with each new release. I think I'm ready to provide critisism now though and I hope you will take no offence.

The arch druid sits in a very strange pose, and his steed is so uniformly grey that it appears almost ghostly. Perhaps the man could rest his empty hand at his side while "passive" or wield the sickle in his left hand?

The arch mage looks great indeed. So good in fact that the added owl looks out of place and unecessary.

"Khorne" appears to be a tad bit too interested in his axe. I think that the unit would look better if he kept the same downwards facing pose in both the images.

The great enchantress is a very brave effort. The pose and concept are both very good but I'm not sure that the result lives up to your vision. I was expecting a "younger" version of the crone when I downloaded your mod. You can't go wrong with pointy hats when it comes to unisex magewear.

The lord of fertility is a wast improvment. But don't you think he would look better if he had his right hand clenched into a fist in both images?

Personally I don't like the concept of the world tree. I feel that it would be a lot more suitable for a novel map design rather then a pretender. In my game I changed the name and description to fit a more generic, and smaller, "Tree of Life".

The colors on the sphinx makes it look a lot like it's mythical namesake, rather then a giant stone statue. Nothing wrong with that of course but I was hoping that you might feel the inspiration to create a "living" sphinx as well.

Thanks again for sharing all your hard work and I hope that you feel that it was worth the effort. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Wauthan, thanks for the detailed suggestions. A lot of the things you mention were actually intentional.

I took the upper body of the Arch Druid from the "Wanderer" hero of Marverni who is essentially a very powerful druid. His pose is the same as the philosopher-types of Arcoscephale and all the Druid-types of Marverni and so I thought it jived well with Illwinter's art for similar druidic mages. Perhaps if his left hand were glowing with a little magic power or carrying a leafy branch?

You just like the Arch Mage because I gave him a pointy hat. I get it. So much for Archimedes the grumpy owl, eh?

In my original conception, "Khorne"s axe was to be dripping sweet, sweet blood into his mouth and thus make his preoccupation with the thing more about quenching thirst than unhealthy obsession. I never got around to that, but since you mention it that is one improvement I will remember to make.

The enchantress is simply a re-coloring of a mage commander from my elven nation mod Sylvania. I plan to take her down a different route in the future so don't consider the current sprite final in any way.

The Lord of Fertility has an open hand in his primary sprite because I wanted him to appear generous and inviting. A clenched fist just seemed too angry. Instead he says, "Come, have some of my tasty food, and we'll make nasty love."

The World Tree is another port from my Sylvania mod. I thought a proper Yggdrasil pretender belonged in Dominions and that was my attempt. Of course, you've changed what you don't like, which is what any user of the mod is free to do.

Perhaps a paler color on the Sphinx? More like the new Sacred Statue?

Were you neutral on the new dragons? I couldn't decide if they were sweet or too "D&D"...

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

The new dragons are hellasweet! I just thought that I ought to be more restrictive with praise, for fear that too much of it all at once might go to your head. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Heh, really should have caught the Sylvania ports. Tend to be a bit narrowsighted when evaluating mods. I'm actually not sure what color that would suit the sphinx. The one you're using is fairly close to the original. Might be that I've easier to envision the present day version rather then how it looked "in the glory days".

Do you make your graphics from scratch or are they based on images from other games?

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Wauthan, glad the dragons are well-received with you! At the moment, I am trying to find the right look for a new Dracolich and Carrion Dragon based on them.

Per the Sphinx, I've tried a new coloration for the body and face that is almost identical to the grey seen on my new Sacred Statue art. My intent with the Sphinx was to have it appear, like you say, as it was "in the glory days". It was originally covered with a plaster to give it a smooth surface and painted. Illwinter's Sphinx looks more like the rough, worn monolith that we see today. I'd prefer it to look as glorious as it must have been to the generation who came together to build it.

Most of my images are from scratch. I draw basic shapes freehand while usually looking at a piece of fantasy art. I use a few basic shades of the same color to get the shape of the unit and then use a darken/lighten tool to raise and lower the light levels on the shape to give it depth. Finer, sharper adjustments of darken/lighten and color give it the final touch. I use Paint Shop Pro X for all the artwork and it has a powerful suite of tools for this sort of thing. I'm also a long-time fan of the Warhammer miniatures games and I think some of the techniques for making tiny models come to life with paint and brush translates here.

Only one of my sprites is based on a pre-existing image. The new Sacred Statue is based on an image of a statue of Nike, Winged Victory, that I pulled off a Google image search.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Well I for one appreciate your efforts. Me, I couldn't paint a bogbeast even if my life depended on it. In the silly Avatar mod I made for domininions 2 I used some extracted images from old "abandonware" I found on the web. I managed to clean a few of them up a little, and resize them to fit into the game, but I eventually gave up since... well... Lets just say that Windows Paint is sort of frustrating to work with and the bmp to tga conversion didn't work well.

I've attached the images to this post in case you, or someone else, might find some possible use for them.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Wauthan, I remember the Avatar mod! It didn't ring a bell until I looked at the .tgas, but I downloaded it and used it from time to time in Dom 2. I don't have the .dm file any longer, but if you're down for it and can post that file as well I could update and integrate some or all of the pretenders from Avatar into Nova Deus II. I am particularly struck by the two larger, generously-clawed pretenders and remember them being some sort of long-dormant sleeper type of thing in your Avatar mod. Those would be neat to bring back and the art is great for 'em. Let me know.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Of course. The file was still loitering in my dom2 folder. Haven't looked at it for quite some time now so it might need a major overhaul.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Very nice work Zepath.

A couple of possible improvements:

1) It´s possible in dom 3 to mod the dragon form magic of the new dragons to have 2 less levels than the human form. Simply add "#magicboost 53 -2" on the dragon form.

2) It would be really thematic for the divine messenger to have a higher mapmovement, right now he seems to be a pretty weak pretender compared to the virtue for example.

3) The risen emperor is vastly overpriced. A lich queen is immortal has better stats, is cheaper and has a higher dominion, so the one astral doesn´t matter. In addition it would be really fitting for him to be a very powerful undead leader.

I really like all the new graphics with the exception of the crone, which looks pretty silly with the pointy hat http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif .

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Turin, aha! I knew not everyone was into the pointy hats. Thank you for the suggestions, btw. I had not thought about the magic drain on the new dragons and will impliment that in addition to your other thoughts.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Zepath, I'm going to make a version of the Crone in a Baba-Yaga style. No reason not to have many hags out there, and the ones who don't like pointy hats might enjoy chicken feet. I won't claim that the artwork will be as good as yours or that my style is similar, however, but you're welcome to add the finished product to your mod if you like it. I'll basically be making an entirely different Pretender from the Crone that's in the vanilla game, stats-wise as well as visually, and I'll probably even rename her, so it shouldn't replace anything you're working on.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

HoneyBadger, cool beans. Lemme know when you've got it finished. I'm not really familiar with Baba-Yaga so I shall leave it entirely up to you. I'd be happy to add it into Nova Deus II if you'd allow that.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

That's great, Zepath, thanks. When I can I'll research more in-depth the Baba Yaga myth and get back to you about it.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

HoneyBadger, yea fill me in on this strange mythos of the chicken-legged hut. It reminds me of Invader Zim...

Also, a bump and FYI, Nova Deus II has been updated to version 1.2 with some new graphics and new pretenders!

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

What can I say? It's bleedin' brilliant, it is. Many thanks for sharing your mod Zepath.

As for the chicken-legged hut of Baba Yaga it's not quite as bizarre as one could hope. The Wikipedia offers a reasonable explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Yaga

Baba Yaga is a very good concept for a new pretender, and it would be very cool indeed to see a nation based on old russian and slavic myths. Since Baba Yaga is the arch-crone herself it makes sense that she doesn't wear a pointy hat. It would simply be too much witchiness to handle.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

See? And you thought I was making it up http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

When my wife and I get our new house, I think I'll grow some blue roses in the front yard.

Baba Yaga's hut would be size 6, have trample effect and a bite attack. It would be Baba-Yaga's first form. She could transform into her flying mortar and pestil (size 4, flying, trampling), and then into a raven (size 1) if badly injured. The first two forms would have lots of protection and decent HP. The third form would be weak but immortal.

She'd have nature and death magic with 20 points for additional paths, and cost maybe 175.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Holy cow... this Baba Yaga thing keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. What would the house be "biting" with? The toothy maw of its keyhole? Also, I thought weapons were pretty much ignored on trampling creatures because they attacked with their size and weight rather than martial skill. If anything, my interest for a Slavic nation mod has certainly been piqued.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

It's my take on the situation that it would be the door rather than the keyhole that was a hungry sharp-toothed mouth. And as far as trampling goes, yes weapons are ignored, but not if the trampler is the same size as the tramplee, if you see what I mean. Size 6 vs size 6, the hut would use it's bite attack instead of trampling.

A Slavic nation would certainly be interesting, although I'd personally include elements of Russian and Polish mythologies just to make the mod a little more complete.

That would allow me to include Czernebog and the Russian bear as Pretenders, alongside Baba Yaga, and include Cossac troops (the poor Cossac tribes are either extinct or nearly so under Communist Russian rule. Not much thanks for a warrior elite who aided Russia time and again in it's history. It's nice to be able to give them atleast the dignity of a place in an Eastern European/Low Countries nation, until a Russian mod comes along.).

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Bump & FYI, Nova Deus II has been updated to v1.21 to include my revision of the Earth Mother (one of the most-requested pretender revisions). I wanted to keep her true to form and so the new Earth Mother still very much resembles a giant "Venus" figurine and in fact is little more than a high-res sprite drawn to match the original Illwinter art as closely as possible. At least now she has a face and is a good bit larger. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Woot! Can't wait to take a look. <3 for the Earth Mother!

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Foodstamp, let me know if she satifies.

Bump & FYI, Nova Deus II has been updated to 1.22 to include a fix for the points cost discrepancy in some shapeshifting pretenders that was pointed out by poster Edi on the main Dom 3 forum.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Whenever I see ***** queen, it reminds me of my wi-err- *runs Tracks Eraser* my uhhh boss. *nods*

Anyways, excellent art on this m8, ty!

oh wait- I have a complaint, is the Earth Mother groping herself? Looks kinda suspicious yet =/

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Gooles, I wasn't actually going for a self-groping Earth Mother motif... I tried to draw her as closely to the original Illwinter art as possible only with higher resolution. Anyway, glad you like the mod!

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Earth Mother is hawt.

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

Hey, Earth Mother is suppose to be all about feritility so a lil' groping is O.K. And is it just me or does the Heavenly messenger look like an ethereal Super Sajin? I started a game with him and named him Goku. Love your work Zepath. I think I've downloaded every one of your mods and look forward to more Warhammer themed Nations. WAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Re: New Mod: Nova Deus II (taking requests)
 

BandarLover, orks would make a sweet nation mod... Unfortunately, I haven't got the time to work on much in the way of Dominions goodness these days. Glad you're enjoying all the mods still!

Re: Nova Deus II v1.22 (w/ New Content)
 

I've found a bug, unfortunately.

Playing Man, Late Era, with the black dragon. I get an error message upon starting battle saying:

"myloadmalloc: can't open ./mods/./novadeus/pretender_black2.tga"

Otherwise, thank you for a very nice mod. The artwork is splendid.

Edit: Fixed it by editing the mod file, as it should be "pretender_blackdragon2.tga", but the original file should still be fixed.

Re: Nova Deus II v1.22 (w/ New Content)
 

Props for the initiative in handling the bug yourself! Most people prefer to just to complain :p.

But it is very very unlikely that Zepath will fix the mod, since he hasn't logged on in 2 years. But you should upload your fixed version for others to use.

It's a shame that Zepath is gone. I would have liked to see what he could have done with this all these cool new modding tools we got. Mods usually require at least some maintenance, to keep up with the changes in the base game, so I'm not sure if Zepaths mods are still 100% compactible with the base game or CBM (which is the new vanilla).

Re: Nova Deus II v1.22 (w/ New Content)
 

Good idea BurnSaber.

Here it is:

Re: Nova Deus II v1.22 (w/ New Content)
 

for some reason im having trouble using the mod. It says when i enable it that [myloadmalloc: can't open (whatever is the .tga file)] Im confused. I'm certain i did everything right...

Any help?

Re: Nova Deus II v1.22 (w/ New Content)
 

Push from the iPhone to find the thread on the Comp.