|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - QUICK UPDATE 0.7
Chance of B4 or above (pretty damn good) is 52.5%
Abysians Warlocks have a 25% chance of B4 I hear. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - QUICK UPDATE 0.7
Anywha, I've made some balance changes based on suggestions I've been hearing and will release 0.8 quite soon.
I'll also throw in a bit of new content. A pretender or a blood summon or something. Suggestions are welcome. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - QUICK UPDATE 0.7
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
I dived into the manual for the exact mechanics of blood hunting, and - unless I made a mistake somewhere along the line - as things stand now the Misborn is still a more efficiënt bloodhunter. With a sanguine dousing rod Haimgrots generate 1,22 slaves/gold of upkeep, (1B)Misborns 1,37, so while the difference is not as big as I thought it still favors the Misborns. If you were to change goldcosts to 120g for a Misborn and 70g for a Haimgrot, things get turned around, giving 1,39 slave/gold for Haimgrots, and 1,24 for Misborns. You'll loose a little bit of that edge since 3 (effectively) 3B hunters will generate just a bit more unrest on average than you can recuperate with 0% taxation, so you'll miss the occasional hunt due to unrest. I'm not sure how to start calculating how much you'd loose, but I suppose the relative values would be allright here. (and your bloodhunting efficiëncy will still be behind Lanka and Mictlan, but better than most other nations. ) The occasional 2B Misborn would still be the best bloodhunter, by the way, but I don't think that's a huge problem. Quote:
Standing on itself the Misborn is a nice mage, even at 120g. He's a good researcher, depending on paths either a good bloodhunter or a good low level battlemage, has access to quite a few useful items for forging, and is sacred to boot. Add him to an existing nation - say Abysia - and they'll get a huge powerboost. But in the context of Arga Dis he's fine. Unless you envisage Arga Dis as really slow researchers too, because that they won't be with the Misborn in his current state. Quote:
Quote:
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - QUICK UPDATE 0.7
I'll get 0.8 of this released on the weekend. I think I'll give them a new pretender. A blood and air tornado I think, like a huge air elemental only red ;]
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - QUICK UPDATE 0.7
Ridiculously minor comment: In the Blackwing description (they are very cool by the way), 'reigned' should be 'reined'.
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - QUICK UPDATE 0.7
Also, the Sworn Companions should in my opinion have a price increase - the Fear effect is extremely powerful, and almost no unit can stand up to them for any length of time (apart from units that can't rout of course). They are not bad fighters either. Maybe 100 gold? I think this is what Nightmares cost, and I suspect the Companions are definitely better than them.
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - QUICK UPDATE 0.7
Yeah they cost more in 0.8
90 or 100, I forget. Standards and morale buffs like sermon of courage seem to pretty much stop them, btw, and they are of course quite vulnerable to getting shot or blasted with magic. Even a knot of crossbows can mess them up. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze
1 Attachment(s)
I've updated the mod to 0.8 - get it from the first post.
Attached to this post is the updated national preview. It will also appear in the first post. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze
Just thought I would note that I'm just setting up an MP game with mod nations, and Arga Dis is still free. Someone sign up, they're awesome! (The game's called Marmoset).
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 0.9
1 Attachment(s)
New version is up.
Adds a couple new summons, tweaks some stuff. Arga Dis is very near completion now, as the 0.9 status suggests. Please give it a go and let me know what you think! (Attached is just a preview pic that is displayed in the first post, where you can find the mod) |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 0.9
Two comments about the new version. The first being that the harpies don't cost anything, which is obviously a bug and all that. When they do cost something I wouldn't make them more than a 1:1 ratio in terms of cost to amount of units recieved, they're a cool unit and that curse ability is nice, but they're too fragile for anything other than focused strikes against an enemy's main army. I'd also consider lowering their path costs to BD rather than BBD because devoting the resources to forging a booster for the occasional BD misborn or a gilgan to summoning 7 fragile harpies seems like a bit of an over-investment. Second, the augurs are pretty much useless as far as I've seen. They are too expensive for a mage who's picks are way too random to be useful. I've actually gotten one with one magic before, and a unit that starts old, comes with an affliction, and costs 33 blood slaves is way, way too much of an investment to even have a chance of coming with one pick on it. If the cost was lowered, or their paths altered to have a better chance of offering something really different from what you get from the misborn I'd consider ever using them, but as it stands they don't really bring anything new to the table.
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 0.9
The Harpy problem is just a silly error.
I entered #fatiguecost 7 for the spell instead of #fatiguecost 700. Easy to fix for you guys. I'll fix the upload later, bit busy now. They're ok at killing random archers etc, but the real ability there is the curse. It can't be resisted by MR (so long as they actually hit with the attack). Can be useful against elite units, thugs etc. I might change them a bit though. I'm ok with putting their cost to 1B1D. As for Augurs, I'm not very confident about their balance, but I don't believe they are useless. Firstly it's 33 blood slaves, not gems, so in terms of gem costs it would be something like 15 or so,.. it isn't like blood isn't going to be something you're doing with Arga Dis either; it's their main magic. It's true that you can get one with only a single point of magic, or even one with no magic, but it's quite rare. The average amount is 3-4. True these are in some pretty random paths and some of them are covered by the Misborn, but you get access to astral and nature, as well as a chance (thoug not a very good one) of getting better fire and death magic than offered by the misborn. Compare them with "Summon Spectre" for a spectral mage, a spell which is still used by plenty of people. In terms of magical diversity the Augurs are better and they are slightly cheaper in terms of cost. The area where they fall down is that the Spectral Mage is almost thuggy in terms of stats, while the Augurs are physically very weak. I'd love to hear more input on them before I go reducing their cost. I'll also test them more myself and see if I come to similar conclusions as you TheMenacer. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 0.9
UPDATE TO 1.0
Fixed price error for Harpy. Reduced cost of Augurs. Some other tweaks (primarily resource cost corrections. Now Arga is more of a sloth nation, befitting their lack of armour.) I think Arga Dis is largely finished now, joining Ulm Reborn and Vaettiheim in that regard. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 1.1
Very quick update to 1.1
I messed up the mr on some units, so now I've sorted that out. I also added a bit of gold cost to the augurs, so you have to pay them upkeep. Not much though. Go to first page to download. This isn't anything that will break ongoing games using Arga Dis. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 1.1
The myrmidon Argan Captain has Move 2/6 as compared to the normal Argan Myrmidon's Move 2/7.
The mounted Sworn Captain cost 140 Gold as compared to the mounted Sworn Companion costing 120. I know that the Sworn Companion cost is inflated to compensate for the fear ability. Also, that Sworn Captain fights with the Gilgan for the capital commander slot. Something does not seem right that the cost difference is 20 gold though... The Sworn Companion's main weakness of low survival rate does not really apply to the Sworn Captain since the captain can use forge items. Also, the Sworn Captains does serve a unique role with map move 3. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 1.1
So, I've been keeping tabs on this mod since I reviewed it for the first time, way back then. (Did I aleady mention that I really dig this nation? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif) I'm currently playing them in multiplayer, and I do agree with with your comment Sombre, they do feel like a finished nation. The issues raised in this thread all seem to have been adressed, and Arga Dis now feels and plays like a streamlined, balanced and unique nation.
Ages ago (it might very well be a full year by now - I must be getting old...) I saw a couple of modders (I can't remember if you were one of them, but I think it's not unlikely) discussing the possibility of writing guides on the different mod nations, to help spark interest in them. Since I felt motivated to write down my thoughts on Arga Dis, and would love to share my love for it, I decided to give it ago. I'll post the results of this exercise in the general forums in a minute. Though it's meant as a strategy guide, and not a mod review, I suppose you can get a lot of my opinions there. Keep in mind though that if I discuss balance or strength of units in that thread, I'm doing so from the point of view of developping your strategy, and not as suggesting something should be changed about the mod. (To illustrate my point: In that other thread I mention Gilgans having quite low MR for units of their calibre, in order to conclude that you should make sure that you equip them with enough MR items, before sending them out to face an astral nation. I do however feel that in the context of Arga Dis, and given their price, Gilgans are balanced, and the slightly low MR is just an intresting part of that balance, and thus, if I were to review the Arga Dis nation, I would not make an issue out of that MR. Does that make sense? ) So, having made that point clear (I hope) I have two minor points where I think some balancing adjustments could still be made, if you feel up to it. I believe the Augurs to be very useful units, as you can also see in my strategy post. I see you added an upkeep cost to them to tweak them a bit. I feel this was a very good idea for this kind of units, who could otherwise start rivaling the misbreds as your general-purpose mages, which is something I suppose you want to avoid. At the revised cost of 25 slaves I do believe them to be slightly underpriced, given their various potential uses, though not by very much. I would price them closer to thirty (perhaps 29 to avoid the nice round number in accordance to general blood ritual pricing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif) With their old age, deformities, general ill health, and (I assume) reluctance to leave their chambers with the cosy scrying fires, I would also think they would be prime candidates to be given mapmove 1. This would, imo, be thematic, another minor drawback to add ontop those they allready have to help out the balancing, and encourage (a little bit at least) their 'historical' use on the homefront as opposed to on the battlefield. Three birds with one stone. The second issue is a bit more tricky. It's about the sworn companion and the blackwing rider, who both suffer from the same problem. Both these units fill a potentially very powerful niche, so to avoid their over-use you put a high price on their heads(and rightly so)while at the same time keeping them somewhat fragile. However, being a blood nation, you'll generally have somewhat less money available and thus will try to avoid spending lots on money on... let's call it non-core units. And, to put the final nail into their coffin, blood has strong units already filling the niche these two units try to occupy. (demon knights and devils respectively) As things stand now I see no real reason to recruit either of these units. Which is a shame as they're such cool units. I'm not quite sure on how to solve this. For the sworn companion, I do believe they are slightly overpriced, but even if you lower their price to a level that would make them an intresting buy for most nations, (100g maybe?) they'll still be competing with the demon knights, and demon knights are absolutely awesome. Maybe at a lower price you'd recruit some sworn companions and form a mixed unit if you can't mass the demon knights fast enough? Massing these does take a while, at least before reaching blood 9. I haven't even convinced myself that this is a good solution though, so feel free to disregard me. On the other hand, I can't justify lowering the cost of the blackwing riders. They are after all a truly elite flying unit. At the same time I can't imagine spending even far lower amounts of money on them as long as they remain as fragile as they are now. I mean, they literally get killed by dagger-wielding archers now. The only solution I can think of (which doesn't mean it's the only one possible of course) is by increasing their armour and thus their survivability. As you state in their description they 'became influenced by foreign cultures' so they did have the opportunity to come into contact with heavier armour. I don't know however if you're willing to abandon the high-defence-low-armour concept of the unit. Unfortunately defence alone just doesn't cut it for size 4 units. The multitude of attacks aimed at your square will lower your defence stat too far too fast. Those are the last issues I have found with the nation, so all in all big congratulations are in order. This is a fabulous nation, and I humbly bow my head before the master. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 1.1
First of all, thanks. This is great feedback and it's genuinely a thrill to hear from people who enjoy using my nations (I'm sad that way).
I'll comment more on your strat guide when it goes up. Perhaps you could include a few images for people unfamiliar with Arga Dis. I know strat guides encourage people to try nations out, so this is all good news to me. As for the tweaking suggestions,... Augurs can happily be moved to mapmove 1. You're right that it makes perfect sense. Their cost is low, it's true, and you can get an amazing bargain if you're lucky. On the other hand you can also get a virtually worthless, old, crippled high upkeep [censored]. I may have priced them low because I have rubbish luck. to be continued when I get home ..... |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 1.1
-deleted double post-
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 1.1
Yep, I'm totally aware of the f@#*ng worthless, old, crippled, high upkeep [censored] feeling. I still stand by my point, though it's not such a big deal either.
Posting the guide I suddenly remembered that I forgot to mention that their scout units stealth hasn't been improved yet, as most other scouts have been. I suppose you'll also want to give them the 'normal' scout stealth? |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 1.1
1 Attachment(s)
Yeah I'll bost their stealth. Scouts have 10 now do they? Or 5?
I think I might boost the Augur upkeep even more, though not by much. I like the fact that getting a crummy one is even more painful. Regarding the blackwing and companions, I do see what you mean. The blackwing are very fragile indeed and tend to get shredded by almost anything they fight, despite good stats. I think it's reasonable for me to improve their armour in some way. They also have the disadvantage of not having a recruitable flying commander, though that isn't particularly hard for Arga to rectify with summons or items. They're a niche unit for sure. Sworn Companions are a different story. The reason their cost is so high is that they've been price-hiked several times. At their old price I'm pretty sure they were overpowered. The problem is they can do a huge amount of damage in very short order on the charge and more importantly, they have fear. This means if you get enough of them they can simply ride through huge armies, routing them after a turn or two of melee and killing a huge number as they try to run away. Now it's hard to mass Companions, that's for sure, but if you get around 10 of them they really can be nuts. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 1.1
I think most scouts are at +10 stealth now. I think a few may be higher at +15 but I am not 100% sure.
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 1.1
Yeah, average scouts have 10.
I noticed the price hikes to sworn companions too. When I first saw them they were about 75g if I remember correctly. Which indeed was way to cheap for what they're capable of. If you're convinced they can't be made cheaper through previous testing that's fair enough. I still can't see myself using them, but then no one ever said everyone had to think the same about every unit in the game. Anyway, their biggest problem isn't their price, but the fact that if you want hard-hitting fear-causing cavalry demon knights are so easy to get. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 1.1
1 Attachment(s)
I'm hard at work (well, sort of) at the next version of arga dis. Loads of tweaks and a couple of new blood summons.
Here's a look at the Urtyr, a corrupted fleshcloak wearing satyr with a limb lopping bronze sickle. http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...%20preview.png |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 1.1
Looks great, as always, although the bronze sickle looks a little bit more like a shepherd's crook than perhaps you intend?
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - UPATED 1.1
1 Attachment(s)
Urtyr and Shaman.
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...20Preview2.png I don't mind that it looks like a crook :] |
Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.3
1 Attachment(s)
Note that we skipped over v1.2 because I never released it. Anyway I will attach 1.3 to the main post within the next 5 minutes, so wait for that if you please. I have attached the preview pic to this post - it will be visible on the first post as usual.
- version 1.3 -- CONTENT - Added "Bray of the Urtyr" spell -- CONTENT - Added Urtyr shaman and troops as blood summons -- TWEAK - Slightly upped companion protection - leather cuirass to hauberk -- TWEAK - Recosted some commanders and troops slightly -- TWEAK - Tweaked Myrmidon description. -- TWEAK - Helgrot scout brought to stealth 10 in line with other scouts -- TWEAK - Gilgan fear, berserk and cost reduced slightly. -- TWEAK - Blackwing riders got scale mail hauberks to make them more useful and accentuate the foreign influence on them -- TWEAK - Blood Wind pretender removed. I never liked it. -- Version 1.2 -- FIX - Argan myrmidon captain's move to be the same as his troops -- FIX - Apparently weapon 57 was sickle, not hoof. Hoof is 56. Fixed. -- FIX - Hoof attacks on sworn companion and blackwing changed to non str based horse hoof attack id 56 -- TWEAK - No more misborn starting scout. Now they get a nice helgrot scout instead. -- TWEAK - Misborn are now younger, with lower maxage. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.3
Yay, love this mod, really do, nothing quite like being a magical sparta with giants http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Thanks for all the great work sombre, trying out new version now. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.3
Sombre, we are truly blessed to have your inventive creative brilliance visited upon us again and again. This was a strong bless nation with a little bit of everything (Arcoscephale meets Jotunheim). Now there is even more to enjoy with nice graphics as always.
You also have a new icon. What is that critter smoking? You seem to have more map and mod ideas than I have accolades to show my appreciation. Please continue to do the things you do. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.3
Thank you both. The critter I have as my icon is Lazarus Chalmers, Gentleman Experimentor. He's smoking a blend of hashish from the near east, opium from the far east and tobacco from the East End. He walks with a cane following a catastrophic velocipede accident in which he lost his first love, gravity.
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.3
(Edited)
Quick bug, the spell to summon an Urtyr Shaman just summons a commander Urtyr. Otherwise the urtyr make a fantastic addition to an already fantastic mod nation. They very much help along the image of the nation as a blood soaked ancient Greece. Maybe that's why I was never really thrilled with the blood wind pretender, there was nothing about it that was particularly Spartan, so it wound up feeling a bit arbitrary. I suppose if I were going to suggest a new one, I'd go with some kind of "restored gilgan" rather than the blood wind. The blood wind didn't make a whole lot of sense, but the gilgans are supposed to be reduced in power since the days before their inprisonment, it'd be pretty awesome to see a goddamn gigantic gilgan that hasn't been diminished taking the lead over his lesser brethren. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.3
Awwww...I really liked the Blood Wind-it wasn't perfect, but it was unique as a Pretender type, and the only Pretender I used with Arga Dis (which I absolutely love), because of that reason.
Any chance you might consider just redoing it, rather than removing Blood Wind? Arga Dis would be a fun nation to have several different "strange and terrible" Pretender choices, like Blood Wind, because I see it somewhat as a glimpse into a very bloody, barbaric pre-(or atleast formulative)-Olympic Greece that is rarely represented-and the vast Greek Pantheon had some of the godliest monsters and most monstrous gods. As far as your sickle looking like a crook-well, it is a Greek goat-man, so it doesn't get much more shepherdy than that I suppose http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.3
Ah, there's always a little bug or two creeps in.
I'll upload a fixed version at the main post momentarily. I've basically discovered I don't like doing new pretenders. They never seem to work out well for me. I might come back and do a bigass Gilgan in the future, but for now they'll have to make do with the current pretender selection. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.3
Is there an easy way to switch between two versions of a mod on the same PC? I'd like to check this out, but am currently playing a MP game with Arga Dis, and since it's close to finished I don't want to force my opponents through the hassle of having to update their mods just to suit me.
Edit: The satyr sprites look absolutely frigging awesome by the way. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.3
You can just rename the .dm from Arga Dis.dm to Arga Dis New.dm or something.
Then when you enable the mod make sure you enable the new one. Though it might be a little tricky to tell the new and old versions apart to be honest. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze
I can understand not enjoying a certain aspect of the game, Sombre, and if creating new Pretenders is yours, that's perfectly reasonable. I will say though that you've always done a great job with anything you've lent your hand to, modwise, Pretenders included.
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.35
My first post to say I love this nation. A few ideas:
- Sparta had two kings, one warring, one staying home: another (immobile) hero -the sovereign king- would be nice. - Hesiod in theogony writes about three Hekatoncheires being appointed by Zeus as guardians for Tartarus. Having a multi handed, horrid blood titan could be cool |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.35
If we're saying ideas now, I've got one that I thought would be sort of cool, cerberuses (or however you pluralize that). Since Cerberus doesn't show up in any other capacity, it'd be pretty sweet and in my opinion super thematic to have three headed war dogs for this nation. They can work as either a low level blood summon if you just want straight up dogs, higher level if you want them to kick tons of *** or breathe fire or some crazy crap, or recruitables because hey, there's nothing magic about them, they're just some jacked up dogs that hung out near the gilgans for too long just like the mares.
War dogs are awesome even before they're terrifying and mutated, and Arga Dis feels like the sort of nation that'd use something like that, in my opinion. Also definately +1 to Hekatoncheires. This has been my session of yelling "Ooh ooh do this" at someone else's project. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.35
Dang, I missed this update. I've always been meaning to check this nation out again after my sorry attempt long ago. It really has a unique feel to it, and the graphics are superb.
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.35
If only the author would get around to updating this!
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.35
Yeah, dammit!
Oh and it's not Sparta, it's really, really not. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.4
Version 1.4 up, no new content, just ID reshuffles. Enjoy.
|
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.4
I'm playing a game with the latest edition atm, and some things seem quite strange. I got wights, smoulderghosts, umbrals, sepulchrals, flame and iron corpses, and cavern wights as additional recruits.
Current mods are; CBM, CPCS, magic site mod and Holy war mod. Edit: Just noticed that they are all for free, 0 gold cost to recruit. :D Tried playing with only the Arga dis mod, and the extras was still there. |
Re: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.4
Just test values I left in by accident.
Fixed in the OP now. Not worth a renumber of version. |
| All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:26 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©1999 - 2025, Shrapnel Games, Inc. - All Rights Reserved.