Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

Hmm, the vine dragon seems to have an issue. It shows a black background behind it and pink below it, at least when you're looking at it in the strategic view... I haven't seen it in battle yet. Might the sprite be bigger than it's supposed to be? The black background covers up part of the name and other commanders grouped near it.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

Black should be transparent, magent should be the shadow. If they're even slightly off, they won't work.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

I thought I finally was going to get somewhere against the Impossibles. While I started near Ermor I got a very defensible position. Tian Chi picked a fight and I killed all his land forces. I had been cranking out temples because of Ry'leh and this soon resulted in a dominion kill on his sea forces.

For some reason Ermor didn't decide to go after me but Agartha did. @#%^@%^ ghosts, the bane of the Dragons! After I finished off Tian Chi I tried to deal with Agartha but I wasn't getting very far, my forces kept routing.

I also find there is a big problem with the PD. The majority of the units you get are "no one", wimpy fighters that move very slowly. My fliers engage at the start, the stupid wrymlings die (the only use I can see for these units is to have lots of units to deter AI attacks.) and the steel dragons fight the battle alone.

While I was trying to deal with this a couple thousand Patela units came across my other border. I had put too much into PD for deterrence (probably why Ermor didn't attack) before discovering that it's actually a liability if I'm defending the province. The final straw was an attack from Agartha that hit maxed PD + over 100 bonebiters. Most decent PD would have stopped the attack alone, with 100 bonebiters it should have been a cakewalk. It was a rout instead.


I also think the dragons need better morale. I've never had this insane rout problem against ghosts with any other race.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

Have you been using summoned SC dragons at all? The magma and golden dragons can be fairly effective SCs and go a long way towards making armies easier to fight. And you can use golden dragons as teleporting army assassins against undead with solar brilliance if you're careful. Magma dragons tend to work better on undead though, especially if you have a minor E/N bless.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

I've been killed before reaching that point.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

So we are not walking over AI's on impossible anymore... that sounds like balance has improved somewhat at least :D

I don't know how you normally (with other (vanilla) races) fare against 12 impossible AI's but personally Í think it might be a good thing you can't beat them :D

I will look into morale but PD exists of less wyrmlings than it did before

I've checked morale and it's all 12 (only a few) and going up.. pretty sure that is equal to well trained and elite human troops. Even wyrmlings have morale 12.. if they break I think the game wants regular troops (and militia since that is what wyrmlings basicly are) to break in that situation.

I'm not sure about avarage PD morale but I can't imagine much PD having better morale really. Not to mention I'm not feeling good about improving the race again after all reports of them being overpowered before.

The vinedragon will be looked into when I have time again. Rdonj the sprite has a "regular" size of 128 max I think but even that size makes the pictures cross over eachother on all sides.

I'm also wondering about your phrase "my fliers" since I'm pretty sure ALL dragons have flying (even wyrmlings)

the characteristics of dragons are
- flying
- (at least) darkvision 50
- (at least) size 3 (increasing with age)
- claw attacks
- magicboost 1 (for all except priestly magic, also increasing with age)
- at least pillagebonus 1 (increasing with size)
- increasingly higher magic skills (including) priestly magic (starting with 0 for young dragons though)
- having the "heal" = recuperate I think ability
- limited slots (#itemslots 61568)

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

I think the "Morale" issue with the wyrmlings, especially as PD, is that with their size, their relatively low defense, and their lack of a shield - they will all spread out around the enemy on turn 1, then get horribly slaughtered. Then that portion of the PD routs, and thus puts the entire battle in jeopardy of routing.

I might suggest removing the Flight from wyrmlings, as they haven't matured enough to achieve sustained flight? It may actually make them more useful then, as they will at least stay clumped together.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

Yeah, I still fare better with the Dragons than with the stock races.

It's got less but it should have few or none. They aren't meaningful defense. There is also those "no one"'s that hurt. If you have to have them there, beef them up and make them immobile.

The wyrmlings aren't the problem. It's the tougher dragons. It's *NOT* just the PD, it's in combat in general against ghosts. I think what's going on is that since you are using fewer tougher units the morale-lowering from the undead gets more concentrated.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

The wyrmlings give the illusion of not flying, as iirc they move along the ground in combat instead of leaping suddenly where they want to go.

I am not sure I agree about strengthening wyrmlings, or about removing them from the PD. In the sense they're currently being used in, they're not supposed to be meaningful as province defense, they're what's being protected. That being the case, making them unable to fly and reducing their ap would probably be a good idea. Removing them from the PD just means they won't ever be used, because they're too expensive and fragile to be used as chaff and will underperform even unshielded militia. You also don't really need chaff with the dragons, generally speaking. But making them much stronger would not be a good idea, they're not really much weaker as it is than a venemous dragon in melee, and those cost twice as much.

I also am not sure that the dragons need higher morale, per say. I have had problems with summoned dragons routing due to fear spam even when I gave one the helmet that increases morale. But it hasn't been as bad on my armies. Maybe loren has been getting more ghosts than me, but my experience has been that the dragons win battles too fast for fear to usually be an issue. And if it is possible for it to be an issue maybe that's not so bad.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

The problem isn't fear spam, the problem is undead, especially ghosts. Against such an army a rout is almost certain regardless of the force matchup.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

removing flight could be done of course but would make the wyrmlings even less usefull as chaff to recruit.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

But they're not useful as chaff at all, already. :p

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

2 attacks, can still put 3 on a square, some prot, decent HP and strength there should be plenty of use for them... well at least that is what I was thinking..

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

The problem is they're just too expensive to use as throwaway chaff. And I don't know that dragons need chaff to begin with. If you're worried about lances - kill the cavalry before it can attack. If you're worried about archers, all you can really do with wyrmlings is make sure they take the first volley. Magic you just can't stop, if you want to protect against it you need buffs. You could probably use them for other purposes as they don't actually have bad stats, they are just expensive for what you get.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

Exactly. The only remotely possible use is chaff to draw the first volley and I simply haven't seen the need. At least in SP archers simply don't do enough in the first volley to matter.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

ah well whatever in the base game there are enough troops that never get used, they wyrmlings are there for thematic reasons and if noone wants them then thats fine :D It's pretty much a given thing for me that I usually play iwth 1-2 unit types for most races anyway :D

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.00
 

So except for the vine dragon pic all other dragons work now? Has someone been able to test all ancient ones yet :D

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

So 1.01 is out, vine dragon pic is changed (the colors where good but it had an alhpa channel.. no idea how it got there)
I changed the mamga dragon attack sprite a bit too (less black)

I also adjusted a few small things.. the strength of the bonebiter was 29 (instead of the 19 it is now) and hopefully the battle spells a few dragons have work now.

Have fun :D

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

I still haven't gotten to the final summons in my game yet. I'm playing about a dozen sp games at the moment and the turns in my dragon game are a bit daunting, I'm constantly shuffling around my entire army to deal with ermor pretty much :P

The change you made to strength is going to be pretty significant, I don't think it will be nearly as easy for the dragons to steamroll people now.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

hmm when I saw it it was obvious it was a mistake.. strenght (like all stats) scales with their "age" and while combat dragons have relative high strenght for their agegroup this wasn't correct at all (only the most powerfull dragons have strength 29.. the strengh of the recruitable troops is all below 20.. only a few commanders have higher strength.. I've also deleted one of their attacks (instead of 2 AP claws he now has 1 whiptail non armour piercing.) It could very well be that in combination with the higher price he's totally overpriced now... then the steel dragons or wyrmlings can be an alternative though.. i doubt the nation as a whole will be underpowered that easy so it can be balanced back later.

Against ermor.. well it will probably always be a weaker spot for the nation with not much access to priests early on.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

Got around to trying the new version vs 10 difficult AI's.

One AI picked an early fight when it had only a few provinces (I don't know what happened to it's expansion) and it was soon gone. I then found myself in a two-front war. The Ghost Dragons made all the difference--it took quite a while to reduce his forces but they were able to keep his armies leaderless and thus unable to actually attack. Bogarus had me outgunned by a mile in wide open space, if he could actually have advanced on me I would have been dead. I had enough force on the front to stomp on leakers but that was it and I couldn't spare the forces from the other war against Utgard.

As I was beginning to get the upper hand against Utgard Agartha decided to jump into the fray. Apparently cutting him off from Utgard (they were at war) caused him to pick a new opponent and I was the only one he bordered. He was weak, though, and died quickly.

Utgard finally fell and I sent my army against Bogarus. I was still outgunned but he had a thousand leaderless troops, I snuck around behind his battle line and gutted the rest and then I could roll up the battle line.

I got a bit of a breather to bring my PD up to stop remote attacks (Agartha would have been a real pain if he hadn't been so small--he didn't have the gems to keep it up.)

Tien Chi outgunned me at least 3 to 1 when they decided to go to war but again the Ghost Dragons really did a number on them. I really liked the battle result of him losing 500 units, no commanders and I lost nothing. (I had cut his retreat.) They are still 2 to 1 in army size but I've reclaimed my territory and am pushing him back.

The Dragon of Fate works now. Do you mean it to take multiple empowerments to be able to summon one of them, though?

I'm still in last place on research, it looks like it's going to be a win, though.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

So it sounds like the army is somewhat balanced now and only the ghostdragons need to be changed a bit... the assassination ability should be worth quite a bit on a stronger chassis.. and while the ghost dragon is pretty weak for dragon standards I guess his price needs to go up quite a bit.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

Yeah, although if you take away the assassination I suspect the race is too weak and would need strengthening somewhere. The assassination is the only thing that's allowed me to survive.


Farther into the game, some more thoughts:

1) The Wave Dragon should be summonable underwater.

2) I'm strongly inclined to think the Death Wraith dragon should have assassination capability. It looks so much like an upgraded Ghost dragon that it seems strange it doesn't retain the assassination power.

3) I think the summons need some organization as to the paths they have and what it takes to summon them. I don't like the fact that more than one of them can't be obtained without using empowerment/wishing (Although, admittedly, the Fate dragon can wish with boosters alone) or else putting a lot of magic on your pretender.

4) I'm inclined to say the elder dragons are underpriced.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

Hmm well against 10 difficult AI's who are picking on you you acn't expect to win every game. But I won't take assassination away completely in anycase. Maybe the troops need to be stronger again.

1) The Wave Dragon should be summonable underwater.
Hmm good point will try to get that done... once

2) I'm strongly inclined to think the Death Wraith dragon should have assassination capability. It looks so much like an upgraded Ghost dragon that it seems strange it doesn't retain the assassination power.
It should

3) I think the summons need some organization as to the paths they have and what it takes to summon them. I don't like the fact that more than one of them can't be obtained without using empowerment/wishing (Although, admittedly, the Fate dragon can wish with boosters alone) or else putting a lot of magic on your pretender.
- This is intended, either you get lots of magic in the pretender or you empower a lot or you pick certain summons. The summons should be worth it in anycase and you don't really need them all at once anyway :D (pick the summons against your opponent)

4) I'm inclined to say the elder dragons are underpriced.
- Hmm but you need empowerment etc etc so I'll leave it at this for now they should be the strong point of the race so a lil underpricement is needed (and they have SC restrictions in the slots so they aren't unbeatable.. well.. )

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

I would be inclined to say to let the troops rest as they are for the moment. Play with them for a while and if they really feel too weak they can be changed. There are lots of inherent bonuses to the dragons... they make great raiders due to the flying, and you almost never have to fight a particular battle. You can always reform and fight somewhere else. Anyway I don't think they're too bad now, but perhaps I am mistaken.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

I won't change much now except real bugs. They don't need to be the strongest race out there anyway. Early game is allowed to be relatively though too since I think they should be a stronger late game race.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

I don't get it. The Death Wraith Dragon is marked as an assassin as far as I can tell, yet it does not have the assassination ability.


Digging some more: The summoned dragons have gold & resource cost so they have upkeep. That's not normal. Is there some reason for this or is this a mistake?

More digging, more problems: The Dragon Raid spell. I hadn't seen it before, finding it in the file I tried it. Yikes!

*SOME* of the melee dragons flew forward and engaged. Others sat around at the start point, I don't know why. The Poison Ivy sat there at the start point casting Raise Dead--and just about killing the melee dragons that didn't fly into combat with it's aura. It's units stayed there with it, they never accomplished anything other than be arrow targets.

Finally I believe it must have cast touch of madness on itself but I didn't see it--it went up to maximum ranged attack range and started spitting, never hitting anything.

I don't know why all of the misbehavior but the poison dragons shouldn't be mixed with the others like that!

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

Hmmm it's a good point that the poison ivy dragon should be there since you can't set up the placement.. I'll make it another dragon in the future.

The gold cost is intentional, big dragons just have upkeep.. I don't see why the smaller ones would cost gold and the bigger ones nothing.. they price isn't THAT much. Also since the summon cost are relatively low for their power this is a way to balance that to prevent you from getting too large armies of summoned creatures.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

1) There's no point in having a resource cost on a summons. It has no effect.

2) I seem to have fixed the Deathwraith assassin problem--I killed the command and copied the one from the Ghost dragon. I put the new line earlier in the list of options. Which behavior fixed it I don't know. Note that this does *NOT* affect existing dragons!

3) There seems to be another balance problem. I'm now trying it against 8 mighty's. Again, the Ghost dragons are the only reason I'm alive. Somehow a large force from Ulm broke through anyway and I threw everything I had available at it. The bonebiters mostly died, the few that didn't routed. I noticed that the real killing was coming from the Flame Tongue dragons, though--and from that point on I have been recruiting only Flame Tongue and Ghost dragons--all chiefs, no indians.

My strategy at this point is Ghosts along the entire battle front, two levels deep where I'm actually pushing forward so there's nothing that can grab the provinces I'm taking. The strike groups are pure Flame Tongues. The Bonebiters under their adamantine leaders are still around but I'm using them to mop up PD-only provinces behind his lines, sooner or later they'll get smashed with no retreat but I don't care. I've got a couple of groups of Ice Plated dragons clearing the water. The summons are beginning to come on-line but I haven't gotten enough to be committing them to battle yet.

I'm close to declaring this one won as at this point the two remaining big empires don't seem to be able to do anything about me even though Man has 3600 troops (but zero leaders) on our border. Next game will be against Impossible AI's using an all-commander strategy.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

you should be able to kill a lot of those troops with a SC or a few thugs..

if the game is finished.. just try to kill those large armies.

can you try mixed armies of some shooters, bonebiters and commanders with equipment? I'd guess those balanced armies should be able to take pretty strong forces.

I'm not quite sure that the nation is underpowered though.. in SP you'll need to take advantage of tricks to beat 8 mighty opponents with any nation.. just recruiting you'll always loose since they have about double your income each (or something like that after upkeep at least)

Things I'll probably change:
- higher cost for ghostdragons
- maybe give the bonebiter a bit of a cost reduction (I guess loosing 2 AP attacks for 1 no AP attack is too much on top of the higher price)

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

Yeah, with the leaders gone they wither very quickly. I haven't taken them on yet because of dominion. I'm holding him at chokepoints and I don't really want to break into the land beyond until I've cleared Ry'leh dominion from it. I'm stomping on Arco first.

My problem is that I have a hard time declaring that I've won when I'm in next to last place on army size.

I see no need at this point. Pure commander armies are doing quite well.

Yeah, it wouldn't fare as well in MP.

Yeah, the units are over-nerfed by now. I'd *MUCH* prefer one fire-tongue to 3 bonebiters.

A few other things:

I seem to have fixed the Death Wraith assassination--see above.

The Dragon Raid spell needs to get rid of the poison units.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

Observations against impossible AI's.

I'm at war with 3 neighbors. So far Ermor hasn't declared war, we have only one province of contact. Strangely, C'tis hasn't declared war, either. I'm not sure what's going on there, maybe he's at war with someone in the corner, he's not at war with the only neighbor of his I can see.

The other 3 nations I border I am at war with. Mictlan is now in pretty bad shape, I just took the last province around his capital and parked a group there. He's still got some provinces on the other side of the mountains, though. I've got Tien Chi stopped cold with assassins, Arco has managed to break through the assassins twice and somehow managed to kill his pretender against a PD 20 province. (He attacked with 200 units! I got the pretender and some magic units that were left leaderless, everyone else routed.)

As I said earlier, I'm going pure leaders, no troops at all. I've got a pile of Ghost dragons, a pile of Flame Tongue dragons, and only enough of the others for site searching. (I haven't started forging anything yet.)

I just finished taking the last indie province in my part of the world, this has freed up a bunch of Ghost dragons that could counter Ctis if he gets frisky.

I'm #1 in provinces and income, in next to last place on research (Ctis' has stailled, otherwise I would be in last place) and fairly low on dominion. It goes without saying I'm in last place on army size.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

Sounds like the flametongue and ghostdragon are overpowered to me :D

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

This is the toughest one so far but I think I'm going to win it despite some miserable luck.

Mictlan is gone. I'm at war with Ermor. Assassins aren't holding the line very well, I'm having to keep a whole bunch of dragons on the battle line to hold them off.

I think I must have taken misfortune 3 instead of luck 3, though. Tien Chi is in the water and being a nusiance so I decide to sweep him out. 60 flame tongues go in--and Thestis' Blessing gets knocked out!

Idiots, it was dispelled during the magic phase, why did you go fly into the water and drown???

Then my guys discovered Phoenix Pyre: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=41737

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

Hey loren in your fix for deathwraiths.. are they still magical beings?

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

Yes. I didn't actually change any properties, just messed with the text. Either there was a hidden typo or something about the order of the properties messed up the game.

I've got one on the screen, it shows:

Death-6
Holy-2
Research-8
Fear
Shock resist-50
Fire resist-25
Cold resist-100
Poison resist-100
Magic Being
Ethereal
Flying
Stealthy
Pillage Bonus
Recuperation
Darkvision-100
Assassin

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

ok I thought it might've been to much abilities on a creature and magic being was the last... so I guess that isn't it either
gotta love the dragons and all their abilities

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

At least for SP it's still got balance problems: A pure Ghost/Flame Tongue strategy won it without too much difficulty.

The only actual real use I made of the summons was to cast some globals.

I had enough summons at the end to use in battle but it all that did was speed things up by a couple of months.

At the point I declared it won I had all access to the enemy blocked off by a minimum of 50 flame tongues and I was pushing dominion out. Had I just kept hitting End Turn I probably would have won it eventually.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

I don't think it would be nearly so easy in mp, you'd make enemies very fast if you went around assassinating everyone's commanders, and a player at least will put guards on them. I actually lost a few early on in my game against ermor to ghost grips and or fear. Plus I imagine you must expand a lot more slowly than most nations.

That said an ethereal 35 hp assassin with 3 attacks (one of which is ap) and 14 attack skill is a bit much. They need to be either ridiculously expensive (upwards of 400 gold, non-sacred), lose most of their attacks, lose ethereality, be a summon, or get a massive attack skill nerf. Possibly a combination of several of the above. I really don't think they should have 3 attacks, especially.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

I've started (for dom 3000 it's already uploaded) to just make them cost 300 gc.. 150% increase. For the future I'm thinking about lowering HP by 5, att by 1, str by 1 and loose one attack. But since the troops where not so strong I'll let them have this advantage for now. Especially in dom 3000 they might be just what the nation needs. And indeed with a few strong guards they might be defeated more easily.

PS Loren are you interested in playing a nation in our upcoming dom 3000 game (you could have dragons though with the serious playtesting you've already given them, thanks again btw, I suspect they will be one of the nations with fewer flaws left.)

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

I'm not all that good a player actually but it might be interesting.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

Well I'm not a good player either so that is good to hear :D

Would you prefer the dragons or another nation (you have first pick on dragons.. for other ones you'll have to be first to sign up for them in the thread on the MP forum (which I will create somewhere next week unless there emerge huge bugs I need to fix before we can play.)

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

Dragons are the only one I've played with so I'll take them.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

I suggest you DL the whole dom3K mod then and the solarsystem map and try it out a bit.

Re: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01
 

Of the Dom3000 nations, these dragons are my favorite. In fact, I've taken to use them in the more traditional maps.
Great job!
There is one thing that makes them far overpowered, however: The ghost dragons assassination ability makes assassinations almost a sure thing. The only being that can survive an assassination attempt by one of these is a pretender. That's just too powerful. As cheap as they are, you can assassin spam any nation on the map and then just walk over them with any size army. Five or six ghost dragons in a capital, each assassinating every turn, will completely destroy that nation and, really that's not very enjoyable to either player.
Therefore, I recommend that the assassination ability be removed from ghost dragons. I think spy ability would be a nice trade-off.

By the way, I've fixed a few grammatical errors and I've taken the liberty to add three national heroes to your original mod. Please have a look and let me know what you think. When you download it, change the file extension from ".txt" to ".dm" and you should be good to go. The heroes I created are oriented more towards a traditional map and theme, so you may not want to include them in the Dom3k mod. I used existing sprites for the heroes, but I really should create new ones. If I do, I'll post them here, too.

Oh, one other thing. This nation becomes really interesting when you play on a map with no independants. In fact, I recommend that's the only way to do Dragons if you are going to play SP.

Once again. This is a really fun mod. Thanks!