Re: Fear the Grendelkin!
 

I think amphibian would fit. Very cool, llamabeast!

Re: Fear the Grendelkin!
 

Looks like fun llamabeast! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: Fear the Grendelkin!
 

Thanks guys! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Regarding amphibiousness: He does like water, but I can't see him wandering around on the sea bed (grendels don't like salt), so I'm not sure how well amphibian would fit.

As for reinvig etc: The real power of the guy is his full slots, which mean you can make up for any particular deficiencies like fatigueing. I don't think natural reinvig is necessarily thematic though, since it's a pretty rare thing in vanilla dominions.

Any ideas for alternatives to "claws"? And yes, he does hit like a truck! My first one got heroic strength, and rapidly reached strength 103! Smackdown!

Re: Fear the Grendelkin!
 

By the way, at the moment he has fear +10 (he's very very big!) and cold res 50% (it can get cold in damp caves). Do you reckon fear +10 is too much?

Re: Fear the Grendelkin!
 

Fear also the Roc! (see attached)

This one will be an air summon, obviously. He has fear+0, 50% storm resist, patrol bonus 20 and siege bonus 20 (drops big rocks) at the moment. Again, suggestions welcome.

Edit: Oh whoops, there's some bugs in that picture, and unfortunately I don't have time to fix them now. Please ignore the roc's armour! His natural protection is 12. Also I think I need to get rid of the repetitious "Such is the..."s.

Re: Fear the Grendelkin!
 

I look forward to giving this mod a go when it is finished.
(The Roc does kind of remind me of a giant seagull, but I don't believe I could do any better. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif)

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Non-uniques, at least 100 gems for one + host (winter wolves etc), but only 3 misc slots. That's enough for antimagic and two immunities, but you can't boost their protection. I lowered the bear's protection to 16, 20 after E4 and regen to 10.

I'll lower them to just two paths (levels 4 and 3), at least for the first version.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Bracers? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif


I like the Roc, I see you gave him a shield, is this to simulate him being nearly invulnerable to arrows?

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

How is that a SC? I'd have thought survivability (air buffs, prot 12, 80 hp) wouldn't be enough to make the Roc more than a thug.

Personally, I think the Roc would do well as an A4 mage for perhaps 35-35 gems. That way, A3 nations can summon a Roc, have it make an Air booster, and then start making more boosters. Similarly, F3 summon for F4 mage/thug would be nice. Perhaps a fire-breathing, multi-headed canine?

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Oh, sounds like I completely misremembered your earlier post, sorry!

The armour on the Roc is a mistake, I'll take it off when I get a chance/work out how.

Endo: Yeah, the Roc isn't really very good as an SC. He's as good as I thought it reasonable to make him, being as he's a bird and all. He is more useful than any other late-game summons Air has at least.

I did originally have him as A4, but then worried that was too much. After all, even the Air Queen is only A4. If you think A4 is reasonable though, maybe I'll change it.

Very much looking forward to seeing your stuff Endo. Are you doing new graphics, or using vanilla graphics?

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

I already had a Roc as recruitable in my Genies mod.. thought that one looked nice too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif (great eagle look-alike )

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Is there a downloadable version of your genies mod Aezeal? I can't find one.

The Roc is indeed just a recolouring and slight resizing of the Great Eagle (I made its wings and body larger by adding extra rows/columns of pixels). I probably should have said that right away actually. The Grendel, though, is proudly mine, although I started with a line drawing outline from the interweb.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

my mod is in the mods thread

nomads and genies it's called should be able to search for that and my name..

Re: Fear the Grendelkin!
 

Beowulf ripped an arm off one of THOSE??!!! Wow.

Nice pic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

-Max

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Protection is boostable with Krupp's Bracers (or Bracers of Defense).

-Max

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Here's an idea for an earth summons: the archons of Gnosticism. Now what powers should they have?

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

I like that the Roc has Map move 5. Though the fact that it has air magic means it can just cloud trapezee anyway. Keeping map move in mind for future chasis is a good idea tho.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

I think they should have the ability to summon dragons, basilisks, shapeshifters, and goblins. And shoot lightning-bolts during combat.

"The world, the Gnostics said, is ruled by the great and evil Archon, whose empire stretches as far as the firmament. But, in another universe, there's another Archon. And he wants your empire..."

Maybe that's too obscure for anybody else to remember.

-Max

P.S. Basilisks rock!

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

I <3 treant.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Hmm... a Roc, hmmm?

With a wingspan long enough to blot out the sun, maybe they should autocast darkness. Of course, with air magic, they'll be tough to get for the races that really would benefit from them, at least the ones I can think of. Shinuyama, Yomi, Atlantis, etc. Still, it might be interesting, though certainly complicated and possibly work too much against it... Though...

Idea 2: Talons. Why restrict yourself to two claws when you have a bird bigger than a 747? Rather, something big enough to carry off elephants, and maybe even whales? Take a penalty to damage, but give it eight attacks like a kraken? Haven't thought out the mechanics too well, so not sure about the idea, but the thought would be that their claws are just so big that each talon is a threat.

Idea 3: Auto-summon in combat djinnis. i don't have my inspirational source before me, but hark back to the tale of Aladdin. To quote a hurridly googled play:

There's a certain national summon recently added, that comes with four companions. I'm not thinking something as powerful, but definetly more numerous. A bird that auto-produces its own raiding force upon entering battle, losing them upon ending the battle. Make them a meaner, burnier, more magical version of the army one might get from hidden in snow. So something that would be threatened by a serious army, but is more than capable of taking on good pd that has some support from mages and soldiers... Disappearing afterwards, they wouldn't help with any sieges, or be deployed elsehere.

If you're looking at the rukh:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roc_(mythology)
there's also the Simurgh:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simurgh
The Simurgh is practically written for Dominions, with a lot of its traits easily translated into the game using existing features. Though I'd make this not have air paths, perhaps nature, water, and holy, and unique, with the roc repeatedly summonable, but a simurgh not. She might not be very ferocious in combat, but interesting in some other ways, such as healing, immortality, and some kind of ability similar to Shinuyama's vampire with its sleepy flute. Perhaps some lifesteal to imitate its eating.

I am curious what this 'Ghoghnus' is, especially since I've never heard of it before, and can only turn up four google hits, most of which google won't even offer to translate, but look like blogs.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

The Djinn actually gave her the egg in that play? Hmmm, in the version I recall he refused, called them ungrateful and said he would kill them except that he knew it was actually the magician's idea, and told them who the magician was. I thought it was interesting that the Djinn didn't actually _have_ to obey them.

-Max

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

I remember way back when in middle school reading the tale of aladdin, and not disney-version, but the peeping-tom verson. Also, the tales of sinbad. Owned that book.

Anyways, I agree, think play took artistic license. I would have linked to the play, but it takes an even more drastric reinterpratiion of the tales, somehow converting it into pregnancy? Anyways, the gist of there being a tie between the roc's egg and the djinni does ring true to memory, even if I can't believe how different the latter passages are.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Actually, he just ripped the arm off of a size 3 grendel.I was thinking more earth/other mages with high levels of heretic, halt heretic, and awe, along with some kind of mind control attack.Where's that quote from?

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Considering a thought which was given here - about making late-game LESS dependent on SCs I would offer to include some positive-event, etc. spells. I remember that somebody did include something like that in his mod using #copystats to gain positive-effect ability from existing Pretenders, than making new creatures immobile and non-attacking & naming the Menghirs...
There is also a possibility to include a Mountain That Walked as a Nature summon - a particularly large & wise elephant. This creature was known for his habit of making a regular ambushes against hunters who tried to shoot him. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Maybe he should even be a mage - though with research penalty.
Considering a bear-spirit having an access to Death - in North Asian folklore, at least, bear was considered to be a very wise animal, having an access to spirit world...

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

I'm not even sure it'd be possible to make the late-game less dependant on SCs without changing the entire base system of the game. Look at it this way, on the one hand, yes, it'd be nice to be able to have your legions of national mages not be obsolete by then, but considering the gradual escalation of magic it's just impossible. The fireball that by pure chance smacks right down in the middle of your mages is annoying, possibly altering the outcome of a battle, but isn't necessarily devastating. The earthquake/rain of stones that completely obliterates the entire lot of them could very well be if it hits your main army, and it will eventually. Important units with low HP just don't scale up alongside everything else. Thus it falls to supercombantants or thugs to shrug off hits that'd otherwise lose you five or six turns worth of recruitment and a potentially a whole bunch of gems.

That's why I think every path/nation should have viable endgame summons, because the current blood/death/astral split is just unbalanced. It'd be nice if we could keep the point of each path without losing its effectiveness by late game, but some paths, like fire for example, just aren't going to be able to do that. Fire being all aboud evocations could feasibly have some ridiculously powerful "smack the entire battlefield for a billion unresistable damage" spell, but without something big and mean to cast it, the poor mages who try are going to get a faceful of tartarian.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

I'd like to see paths keep true to their spirit. You bring Fire as an example, but why wouldn't some Evocation / Alteration bring smackdown even on Tartarians? Say a spell in theme of "brightest flames burn fastest" that targets one unit with highest Attack in province for some 999 points of damage? Or a Water spell that stops largest unit from moving, and if you attack the province on same turn it starts the combat under Encase in Ice effect? Air spell that instead of sending one Seeking Arrows at one commander's heart sends one hundred of them (think of Hero's ending)?

Naturally nothing actually moddable, but with some creativity (read: large enough boom) ideas can emerge for other things than summons.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Basically 2 things could reduce the dependence on SCs in the late game:

First, even stronger battlefield buffs. If there were huge effect or battlefield wide buffs that gave enhanced protection against mass damage spells, and/or made those mass damage spells uncastable for some reason, and/or simply made normal troops much more effective against SCs, then conventional armies would retain usefulness.

Second, incredibly powerful single target spells. I know there are some, but adding more, so there are more paths that have things that can disable or kill of targets of singular power, would make it harder to rely on a small handful of units to wreak havoc.

Personally though, I am against a prevalence of spells that can instantly kill such an investment of time and effort, so I am more in favor of the route of horribly powerful debuffs (having an SC pretender Soul Slain is just sad), but at the same time, I am very much in favor of more variety and availability of the type of singularly powerful endgame summons that are already available. I mean, if you aren't going to take out Seraphim et al, then there need to be more options, IMO. Especially for casters, if things like Rain of Stones are going to be considered to make human sized mages obsolete, then we should have more plentiful late game caster summons. If it costs less gems to summon a 30hp+ caster that is as powerful or more powerful than your capitol only mages and then give them some gear that -might- help them survive, then why not?

I mean, we are playing at gods. It only makes sense that once the little mortals have played out their ultimate usefulness in the war, it's because the gods are bringing beasts and beings of legend into the fray, it only makes sense that it would be so. What this just means, is that currently the range of options in the end game narrows, because of the limited number, so we add a slew of new ones to broaden those options again, and make different magic paths viable to compete at the top of the pyramid.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Wouldn't it actually be able to cycle through all of its forms in a single turn? I just tried to do something similar, but couldn't, because you can shape change and give other orders afterwards.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Personnally my solution would be endgame non-SC summons casting powerful battle spells with the #onebatllespell command.

In the spell mod I'm (very slowly) developping, the endgame summons will be spirits with stats like that :

Spirit of Dreams (endgame air summon) hp and all stat (except MR) = 5, only 2 misc slots, but is a true ethearal and has a onebatllespell combining effects of Fog Warriors and a mass Confusion affecting 25% of the squares, also has two precision 100 long range attacks one with aoe 10 false fetters and one with aoe 10 confusion ; out of combat can call phantom beasts and domsummon/summon (a lot of) phantasmal warriors.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Yes in fact the only way to have the desired effect is to use a cycle of firstshape commands, so the dragon evolves after each fight (but sending an egg to combat isn't very logical).

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

It sort of seems like giving such access to massive offensive spells would only erode the value of smaller units even more, making the only viable counter to have a few units with highest possible MR, and pray. It sounds like a cool unit, it just singlehandedly renders just about any conventional army into a complete waste of money, or even worse, a great way to buy the troops that kill your own mages off. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Twan,

+1 to the #onebattlespell idea. A nice alternative to conventional SCs.

-Max

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Could you add a non-shapeshift action or spell that calls the next shape? So you have Move, patrol, defend, etc. and another action called "Transform". But you don't transform until you end the turn with that action selected. Or give him a ritual spell that kills the current unit and creates a new one in it's place. I don't know if those types of things are possible though, because my mod-fu is not strong.

Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

First version of my monster mod attached. It has four seasonal spirits and one improved Mechanical Man commander. I've tested the units and they should work fine, and the spells appear, but I haven't tested if they summon the correct creature (or anything at all).

That's 4 level 9 non-unique SC summons and one strong non-unique level 9 thug. The mechanical giant has full slots, full immunities and enc 0, but 40 hp and mr 12. It might still be too good for its price (15 gems).

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

I'd say make relatively WEAK Fighter --> mages with a one battle spells.. and then not one that has all those major effects Twan had.. but multiple so you'd have to combine them and they could be killed w/o to much effort

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

Transform command is, I think, impossible. Rituals, iirc, will work on any unit(s) which is not what is desired. Though there is a transformation possibility here. I would say that chain of #firstshape would be better, or even making unresearchable #onebattlespell - unless somebody actually knows how The Eater of the Dead works!
We also could add to any of these possibilities some uncontrollability - for example, giving large dragons some Tartarian-style madness & making their final shape a neutral. This will make Dragons a viable alternative, but not a must-have.
A #onebattlespell alternative is cool, too. I'm not sure about it exact effects on gameplay, though. Testing may prove whether or not it makes conventional armies even weaker than SC prevalence does. But in any case I think this is a productive direction to look in. Also, does somebody know whether it's possible to take SCs out temporarily without banishing them to Cocytos? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

It's exactly the contrary, onebattlespell allow to use armies in attack, if used to cast spells like antimagic, protection buffs, resistances, etc... before round one.

The problem is more to avoid to make armies too powerful and end with a game where only number of troops matter as they are immune to anything.

So I'd mix the best buffs with effects that may be detrimental (affecting the two armies or even friends only).

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

The other way to use an army in an attack is to attack twice (once during the magic phase and once during the conventional phase) so that the defender uses up all his gems during the magic phase.

-Max

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

Another question - is there a possibility of direct or battlefield Dispel?

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

Trusting AI to use or not gems is rather unreliable and this tactic is not usable for the most important battles (castle storming, attack of provinces with lab+domes, etc...).

Also any addition to the game making success relying on something else than exploitation of spell AI stupidity would be good to take IMO.

Mages simply shouldn't use their gems when they are sure to win without (and should be sure to win against about 90% of what is used to harass them in magic phase, and sometimes actually work). Seing 30 wise mages thinking they need to use their gems to kill a hundred of black hawks the province defense alone would rout, or one diseased teleported ennemy caster in suicide mission, is more a problem than a quality of this game.

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

Shoggoth:

"It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train – a shapeless congerie of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter."

Basically, a size 6 greenish blob of bubbles. Lots of HP, maybe no or low protection. Trample attack I guess (I think they were giant six foot penguins), with some sort of engulfing attack. Bite seems a bit weak to describe it, but I guess it might do.

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

Isn't that a Vastness? Vastnesses are already in the game.

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

Greater Otherness I think.

Vastnesses are more about the Flying, ethereal, mind blasting than the trampling. I'm not sure which lovecraftian beastie they come from.

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

Vastness would roughly equal Yog-Sothoth, who is an Elder God.

Shoggoths are just huge beasties of great appetite and I think dubious intelligence.

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

If I remember my mythos lore properly, shoggoths were created by and served the Great Race until they rebelled. The rebellion suggests intelligence.

I still say they match the Othernesses quite well.

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

In any case the Cthulhu Mythos is already represented in the game quite well. Except that Starspawns don't fly - probably for game balance reasons...

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

[smacks forehead] Oh! So *that's* why they call it R'lyeh!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I still think the Mythos might possibly provide more summons. I considered suggesting the Hounds of Tindalos but all I could think of was teleport + assassination, which didn't seem quite evocative enough.

-Max

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

I'm really surprised that the Mi-go don't show up in any capacity. They might be a little immediately identifiable as a lovecraft property, but there's no rule against having some vaguely recognizable flying fungus beast that removes peoples' brains for kicks, is there?

Re: Season\'s Greeting and Ninja Robots
 

Try to implement Crxyxll if you are so smart http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif