Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Hey Amos, havn't seen you around here lately http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

I agree with you on the sprites - very nice.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

There's been some chatter bout this mod recently over the forums and in the IRC channel and the consensus is that they are pretty heavily overpowered. Not crazy can't be beat overpowered, but probably stronger than any of the dom3 vanilla nations.

Now I haven't looked into this fully, but the main areas of concern appear to be the pretenders (not so much the immobile one though) and the troops that summon allies. Summoning is a very powerful ability and hard to balance - I've made summoning units that were far too strong before myself. If you're still around, Saulot, I think I can round up comments from various people about the balance and make some more detailed suggestions at a later date. Everyone does seem to agree that they're a very interesting and cool nation, just with a pretty major balance problem.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Still my favorite mod nation so far.

Sombre are the discussions more about the remote summon spells or the unit summons of light infantry?

I could see the remote summoning spells being considered a bit overpowered, very cheap "call of the wild" type thing. I don't really see how the unit summons are that overpowering, they NEED a high quantity of troops.

On the other hand, I haven't truly played them as a low gold summoning force yet, so I could just be talking out the wazoo.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

It was the troop summons and the spell summons if I recall. When I tested them the summoning of basic infantry was very powerful - with even just a handful of leaders doing it you could work up a pretty crazy force and over time it just gets bigger and bigger, all with very little in terms of cost. Also, the kobolds themselves aren't actually very weak, when they get stuff like the doubleshot - I mean they aren't elites or anything but I really wouldn't consider them as swarming chaff.

In the next few days I'll get a bit more feedback on the balance and do some testing of my own. They are certainly a nation that could be balanced without scrapping and units or concepts or anything, but they do appear to be a ways off vanilla power as it stands.

I'm realising that I honestly haven't tested them enough right now to call them overpowered for sure, I just thought it was only fair to bring up the gist of what I'd heard in this thread. Saulot said he was concerned about balance (which is a very good thing), so I'd love to help him out.

The lich dragon pretender is too strong though, that I can say for sure ;]

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

I believe that most of the vanilla nations are underpowered. When I play them I always fill like I should be correcting their balance upward.

Hey Shovah. Been crazy busy. Hadnt had time for Dom.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Power is relative. If 20 nations are underpowered and 3 are overpowered, it makes far more sense to reduce the power of the 3 than increase the power of the 20.

This is something I don't get about people who rail against 'nerfing' and actually say that more units should be like the overpowered ones. If more units were like them, they wouldn't be overpowered any more and you probably wouldn't like them. It's all relative.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Well, I realized last week that it's been 6 months since I last worked on Urdheim. Regardless why it happened, I find that dissapointing, as the state I left Urdheim in is a bit embarrassing. I'm aware of how some elements are unbalanced, and I plan on continuing to balance and polish the nation until it shines. In that vein, I release this weeks' step towards that goal, V.40. Hopefully I'll receive sufficient feedback on how to improve balance and allow not just enjoyable singleplayer but multiplayer experience as well. The file is as usual, at the beginning of the thread. Thank you for reading, and sorry for the delay.

Changes from v.30 to v.40:

Ancient Dracolich HP from 160 to 125
Ancient Dracolich loses poisoncloud
Ancient Dracolich loses Plague Breath
Ancient Dracolich pathcost from 50 to 80
Scion of Glaurung goldcost from 380 to 400
Scion of Sirrush siegebonus from 15 to 20
Scion of Sirrush goldcost from 440 to 500
Kobold Summoner goldcost from 280 to 300
Kobold Warchief loses Lt. Infantry Autosummon5
Kobold Warchief gains Med. Infantry Autosummon1
Kobold Warchief goldcost from 160 to 140
Guide Kobold Band gemcost from 10 to 12
Guide Kobold Horde gemcost from 15 to 18
Enliven Ancient Gargoyle gemcost from 16 to 20
Ambush effect reduced from 18+ to 16+
Flamecast AOE from 5+ to 4+
Trigger Fire Trap fatiguecost from 20 to 30
Master Summoner goldcost from 560 to 600
Magma Drake goldcost from 60 to 75
Net Trap fixed (does not dissapear when a weapon is equipped)
Net Trap improved (now includes 20 stun damage instead of AN 1 damage)
Vicious Blades Trap fixed (does not dissapear when a weapon is equipped)

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

This last round of changes includes a few significant ones, which should shift the balance to where it's supposed to be (for all those who thought Urdheim was overpowered), and I'm pleased enough to say that it's no longer a beta. Anyway, this should be the last update for quite a while.

If anyone still has any balance criticisms, or pretender/hero ideas, I'm still all ears.

For those who enjoy Urdheim, I've resumed work on that project I started back in July, and I should have a teaser ready this weekend or the next one.

Changes from v.40 to v.50:

Castigation of Sirrush NOE from 2 to 1, and fatiguecost from 20 to 50
Castigation of Sirrush loses MR easily negates, and now has secondary effect "Confusion"
Summon Cursed researchlevel from 5 to 6
Gather Cursed researchlevel from 5 to 6
Return Ancestor researchlevel from 6 to 5
Cursed gained darkpower 1
Fixed "Trap the Soul"
Fixed Darkvision
Scions now have 100% darkvision
Miners now have 75% darkvision
Kobold Warchief now has patrolbonus 8
Draconic Might now has BF effect, fatiguecost from 25 to 50, and researchlevel from 3 to 5
Draconic Spirit now has BF effect, fatiguecost from 50 to 60, and researchlevel from 5 to 6
Blessed One now has #onebattlespell "Holy Avenger"
Scion of Abraxas now has #onebattlespell "Air Shield"
Kobold Evoker now has #onebattlespell "Summon Earthpower"
Kobold Evoker goldcost from 170 to 420 (for upkeep purposes)
Kobold Strider now has #onebattlespell "Twist Fate"
Kobold Strider loses Med. Infantry Autosummon5
Kobold Strider gains Med. Infantry Autosummon1
Kobold Strider gains Med. Infantry Makemonster2
Kobold Strider now has 200 goldcost (for upkeep purposes)
Almost all basic Kobold units base encumbrance from 3 to 4

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Well, after two months of silence, I have to poke the community and ask again, is the balance finally good?

This is an important consideration, as I'm working on some other mods, and my tendencies will likely come into effect in the other creations.

Furthermore, if you like Urdheim, player testimonials motivate me to work faster on other mods.

I'll likely revisit Urdheim in the summer. With the possibility of doing a Middle era version still on the table.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Hi, it was a while since I tried it. I don't think it was finished at that time, but I liked it. I do not remember what I thought about balance at the time, but they might have been strong back then.

I haven't tried any mods recently, since I've been caught up in the making of Gath etc

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Well, that definitely takes precedent. I'd love to hear what you think if/when you do try it again.

As for everyone else who has given feedback, thank you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

I think the mod is wonderful. I took the liberty of moving them to MA (because that's my preferred era) and always set them as an opponent, mainly because I don't like to play blood.

The AI plays them great. They are always one of the top 2 or 3 strongest foes (including LA Ermor) which I also moved to MA. That probably means that they are over powered, but I don't care. The AI could use a dozen more nations like them.

At impossible/aggressive settings the Kobalds always give me a run for my money. What more could you ask?

And the sprites are outstanding. Much better than anything I have ever done. I have to admit that I also changed the colors of a few to use for my modded monsters because they are so good.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

I'm glad you like the mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'm a bit confused about the blood, as Urdheim has no blood.
Fire, Earth, Death are the paths.

Urdheim was originally made to give me a challenging opponent to play in SP, but I did eventually work hard to try to achieve vanilla balance (so people could also enjoy playing Urdheim against other AI... or even another player *gasp*).

I'm sad to hear that it's still not properly balanced. What are the settings you play on, and is anything else modded?
By settings I mean, # of provinces on the map, # of nations on such a map, gold/resource/supply settings, magic sites, research setting.

Thanks, I spent a lot of time on the sprites.

I suspect that while not any individual unit is overpowered, just the nation as a whole due to the very large variety of units, which are set up synergistically, so the AI who purchases a few of everything (or in the case of Impos. AI a lot of everything, as it doesn't deal with a gold bottleneck), gets an effective army it can use like it uses all armies (as a big club).

I'll be revisiting this issue of balance at some point. I'm strongly opposed to just hitting everything with a nerf stick, so more balance commentary from the community would help. Settings you play on would be a key piece of info.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

My mistake about the blood. I only played them once and am working on my own mod (to be Builders or Engineers if I am ever figure out how to balance them. If not, I am happy playing a strong nation).

I am playing a heavily modded game. The map I am using is one of the game maps, "Glory". It has approx 250 provinces.
It is a MA game with my mod nation (under development), mod nations Urdheim, Skaven, Desdares, Avernium along with moved era nations LA Ermor, Bogarius (LA), EA Helheim and 10 to 15 standard MA random foes (always the 3 water nations selected).

All AI's are set on impossible-aggressive. Gold and resources vary between 150 and 300. (Urd success seems faily immune to variation, most everyone else responds well to higher gold/resources.) Magic sites are set at 100. Research is normal. Indy's at 9.

I see a lot of the creatures with sprites scion2 and some of the sprite scion1 (very nice sprites, by the way. I've recolored scion2 for myself. Hope you don't mind.). I suspect this is the primary source of the strength, but do not really know. They are vulnerable to an attack with a strong bless, but what isn't?

I really like that single kobald (the miner??)that keeps popping up all over the place. I've lost provinces to the little bugger when I forgot to PD them.

The castles may be a bit expensive. Kobalds do not seem to have as high a castle ratio/province as the water nations or some of the other AI's. Next game that I start I'll probably do something about that. The thread on the main page about castles has gotten me thinking about them and I'm planning to change all the mod nations to Wizards tower in all locations as an experiment to see how the AI deals with it.

I do not know if they are not balanced. All I can say is that the AI really plays them well.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Hi, I tried it a bit the other day.

THe fire breathing guys are quite devastating. At least vs the AI. I'm not sure, but I would probably pay the double and not feel ripped of. Compare them with salamanders. They have approximately the same dmg, but also range. Also more ammo and can hide behind troops and still attack. A bit vulnerable to missiles, but that is possible to alleviate.

Poisoned missiles are currently a bit bugged, and poisons regardless of dmg, which makes the darts quite good. But with 1 ammo it is no big deal.

I liked the traps http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Commanders that summons troops for free are very powerful. If an ash wyvern is worth about 50 gold, each summoner has a break even point of 6 turns. I didn't bother to recruit other commanders, unless I was hard pressed to get a fire mage or wanted to try a summon.

Kobold summons are very cheap. 30 for 5 gems is even cheaper than longdead and other banishable chaff.

The medium inf are quite elite (and cost as such). Their skill levels are comparable with Wardens and other elite units. Might be intentional, but I would suggest renaming them so it is obvious that they are the elites of the nation.

The light inf is also well drilled by human standards. But you might have intended for the kobolds to have 11 as base skill level, being a warlike people.

The miners seems quite cheap and easy to recruit. For a few bucks and one month of recruiting you have a force able to take down most walls. I don't remember what similar units do cost in the vanilla game.

Didn't play long enough to test the summons.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Thanks for the criticism and consideration, I'll be including some of your thoughts the next time I update Urdheim.

Well, the Firebrands are quite good offensively for their cost, but they are far more fragile (with about 1/4 of the hitpoints of salamanders and 1/3 of the prot), not only in dying to archers or spells, but also able to miss with their attacks and kill each other and your other troops off. However, you're not the first person to mention raising their cost, and I'll likely be doing that in the next version.

I liked the traps too, I think it was the most fun/creative part of Urdheim. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

So you didn't find the 300 non-sacred gold cost of the summoners prohibitive at all? So with the upkeep and the basecost, you've spent 540 gold to get 11 wyverns after one year. Obviously as time move forward, they become a better and better deal, but to get the most out of it you need to buy a bunch of them, and that means you're not getting mages, which means you fall behind the research curve. Though I'm hesitant to raise their price, I'll give it some more thought and consider some other tweaks, especially since you're not the first to mention this.

Base kobolds are
_5 hp
_6 str
11 att
11 def
_4 prot
_9 mor
12 mr
The med infantry essentially have +1 to stats over that, and are double the cost. Kobolds tend to have higher att and def to their speed, quick reflexes, and very skittish nature.
I think I'll be raising the resourcecost of the Med. Inf. by one and consider changing their name or at least expanding their description.

I think I'll lower the siegebonus by 2, and lower their cost by 2, (a drop in effectiveness by 37% and a drop in cost by 17%) which means you'll need a lot more of them to get things done.

I'll be examining and playing through Urdheim more thoroughly again, and revising some costs / stats. Even a modest 10-15 changes, can have a more significant impact on how the whole nation plays and how effective it is.