Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.8 - First stable release!
 

It all looks awesome. I can't help but try to find a way to make Runebearers into minithugs for some reason, but then I realize that Journeyman Runesmiths are so much better at it. Clan Kings are a bit rough at 175 gp, but I know I'll still get them. The new heroes look great!

I've actually been liking a nice W4E4S4N4 bless for Runeguards. It gives a bit of everything and allows you to take good scales still. W4 sounds a bit wacky, but it lets you get 20 defense with a single star on the buggers. It really goes a long ways.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.8 - First stable release!
 

Yeah, Runebearers make for pretty poor thugs. However they excel in general utility. They are able to quckly transport items to the frontlines from your forging factories and sometimes even bring some miner reinforcements with them. The reinvigoration bonus makes them somewhat better for holding those "quicken boots + spellcasting item" comboes.

Also, ten miners lead by a Runebearer with a Bottle of Living water is quite formiable and very mobile raiding force.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

Yeah, Skaven are very well equipped to deal with Dwarfs (lot's of poison). This is quite nice thematically speaking since they are arch enemies in the Warhammer universe.

I'll keep the Ward as 40 prot, it's supposed to be a great magical force field instead of a real shield (see how Daemon Slayers and the pretenders have it without any visible shields). It's was a mistake to give it to Runeguards. I'll change it for next version by changing their shield to basic dwarf shield and reducing their enc to 1 (to keep it in the level it is now). They'll lose 1 def in the process, but I think that the minor nerf is warranted.

It also should be noted how fragile the slayers really are, so they are easily countered in return. 40 gold unit that dies/gets crippled to 1-2 shortbow hits? You can also easily target them by "fire largest" command (they have more hp than most dwarf units). Also, one easy way to target them is to make your mages cast some non-ap/an combat spells (Vine Arrow, Blade Wind, Magma Bolts, Cold blasts,.. etc). The mage AI will use those spells against slayers because they deal more damage to them than the armored line units.

Also, ditto on the research issue.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

I didn't want to give the impression that I think the slayers are a huge issue - I just think for "flavours" sake they could be summons (with high upkeep - think of all the beer they drink and associated damage these dudes do to the environment/taverns).

Small gem cost + small research cost + mage time = Slayers + upkeep

I think the way Sombre made the upkeep for the Skaven Globadiers/Warplightning Crews etc. high works pretty well.

I do think the Runeguards could be given some cold resistance - these guys are staunch.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

If you give Runeguards normal dwarven shields, please give Journeymen Runesmiths #poorleader back.

I'd actually be fine with troll/giant slayers becoming research-0 (maybe Thaum-1) summons. But if so, they should become upkeep-less(makes sense, anyways). 5 gems for a giant slayer, 3 gems for 5 troll slayers? Also while we're at it Dragon Slayers should probably get some fire resist. You know, on principle.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

Well they aren't supposed to actually slay dragons, just fulfil their slayer oath against them (die). I think the point with slayers is that they're named after the level of thing sure to kill them. Trollslayers stand no chance against trolls, giant slayers would be splattered by giants, etc. But a dragon slayer would beat a troll, maybe a giant, no chance against a dragon.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

The reason we gave runeguards the runic wards in the first place was to make them not pointlessly vulnerable to the dwarf's own crossbows. If they go back to the basic shield type they once again become only modestly shielded infantry that deals excessively poorly with crossbows. Please don't :(

Still don't really like slayers as summons... but if they absolutely have to be, it had better be a gem type that the dwarfs get a very nice income of.


Edit: Okay, so really the runeguards were given runic wards to make them more interesting as sacreds. I guess we'll see if they are still worth using without the runic ward. I am somewhat skeptical, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

The difference between parry 5 and parry 4 is not *that* big. :D

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

Lies! By dropping 1 parry, runebreakers will be completely unplayable!!1!11!!

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

With a normal shield, Runeguards become just Clansdwarf Heavy Warriors with higher stats(across the board, prettymuch). So...shouldn't they be mapmove 2?

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

Heavy Warriors have mapmove 2 because they are trained for offensive missions. Runeguards are well.. guards. As for the gameplay aspect, I'd like to keep the Runeguards "down" so ti speak. I really don't want dwarfs to become a bless nation.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

Ah, okay. That makes sense.

I'm currently scales-rushing a F4S4D6N4 Skavenblight, so I'll have more data in a bit. This is gonna be really rough, though, since it's No Indies and so I have no chaff(or cheap archers).

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

Okay, I'm currently working on a new version and it will be likely up in by the next weekend. There will be a lot big changes that I want to announce though.

But I'll start with the new content.

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/4...storspirit.png

These guys can be summoned through a new Primal Rune "The Rune of Doom" for ench 9. It casts darkness, dooms all opponents and summons six of these of guys to the battlefield.

There will also be a new national spell like the "Ritual of Rebirth" that rebirths the hero as this unit instead of the mummy (this will be especially nasty with dead anvils and runelords which are in the HoF).

Now for the other changes:

Okay, I'm gonna get a lot of slack for this, but Runeguards have to lose their sacred status. It just never made sense for dwarfs to have sacred units besides runesmiths, I just added them because it's sort of excepted out of a nation for there to be sacreds. The problem is that Dwarfs are intended and are balanced on the premise that they'd start off slow, the extremely solid PD and big forgebonuses are very problematic on a nation with good early game. Runeguards are just an so obvious way to counteract this weakeness that it just makes the whole design intention rebundant. It also makes the pretender design boring since you will always just go for Runeguard bless.

Usually I'm just happy if players find intresting ways to play the nation I designed, but I'm calling BS on Runeguards. They just make the nation another bless rusher (a thing that dom3 does *not* need) because they need very special counters from the opponent and you can easily leverage your good PD to easily protect the lands you conquered to prevent the counter-raids. I can't seriosuly nerf them and let them keep their sacred status, because there are just two options here. Either they are useable (and thus be used always) or be too nerfed to function (boring), obvious lose-lose for me. To make long story short they are currently unthematic, no-brainer choice, warp the nations gameplay and pretender design and are annoying for your opponent to deal with.

So I'll make them lose sacred and lower their gold and resource costs based on that. I'll also give them a new niche by adding some nice secondary effect to their Runehammers (either stun, minor lightning damage or curse). If the dwarf expansion or the nation itself is too weak without sacred Runeguards, I'll just do what I should have done in the first place: boost troops.

As for the tweaks to Runesmiths and Runelords, getting big forgebonuses is very abusable and are the current reason for their really poor magic. If I limit the forgebonuses they can achieve, I can boost their magic and make the nation less dependent upon the Anvils.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

Actually, with the recent discoveries relating to the "Polymorph" spell, I might be actually able to fulfil my orginal intention and give the Runesmiths -1 to all magic in combat. The current thing with the heavy encumberance armor and missing body slots is just a hackish alternative I was forced to implement. I'm pretty sure I can make the negative battle path thing work out and with it, the Runesmiths and Runelords will likely get completely revamped.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

What are the discoveries about polymorph exactly ?

A new way to change unit type with onebattlespell without getting afflictions ?

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

Jack_Trowell

Burnsaber quote from another thread:
Do you mean Vogons?


Burnsaber
Sounds awesome! Looking forward to the changes.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

No he means Vorlons. Babylon 5 species.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.81 - First quickfix!
 

Yeah, there's no real way to fix Runeguards as is--as long as they're blessed Dwarves will be a bless rush nation.

On a somewhat related note...in my multiplayer game I'm being eaten alive by high upkeep costs. A lot of the reason I've been leaning so hard on Runeguards is that all my other troops are ridiculously expensive. I was all ready to start massing Thunderers and Flamethrowers to counteract that when I realized how much gold they cost, too. I have to be aggressive or else I'll go bankrupt. Maybe lowering crossbow/arbalestier costs some?

Also, tip of the day: don't send Anvils against Bandar Log. Ugh.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.95 - First quickfix!
 

New version. Lot of nerfs, mostly based on the backlash I got on IrC about their performance on the Scruntlefunt game. Very glad about getting the Runesmith battleform to work. This nation is now a lot closer to my original intention.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.9
 

Are anvils of doom now immobile?

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.9
 

Holy cow this is all my fault :shock:

All the changes look really good though, I'll try them out right away!

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.9
 

Autoberserking slayers are all sorts of sexy(especially the part where they get your bless...still trying to figure out a decent use for that besides happening to have N4), and I'm loving trying to stack squares with other fun units I want berserk and lucky(clan kings are an obvious go-to, but they're so expensive still...what with the research bonus on Runesmiths I think the days of Magic-1 are long gone and the pitiful research on clan kings needs to die with it)

I'm sometimes running these surprisingly effective forces that have a handful of ironbreakers or something with an indie commander, plus a giant slayer with two troll slayers on the flank(there's a trick to getting them all in a single square). It's just beautiful. I hereby pronounce the giant slayer a 150 gold 41 resource size 6 unit of pain.

Overall very nice. I'm still struggling to find a legitimate use for miners, as it's really obnoxious to get them and it just doesn't seem worth it overall. I'd rather float a few engineers or even better just burn some gems on a crumble than ever really use miners. They're just not good as troops in any circumstance and their siege bonus is too low to justify taking one over an actual combat recruit.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.9
 

No. I really tought about making them immobile in the development, but it just didn't really work out. If you wanted to use them on anything else but forging or rituals, you needed to teleport them (which makes them attack on the magic phase, and does not allow you to combine them with your armies). Everytime you wanted to use them again, you needed to built another labratory just for the purpose. It was really just annoying and did not play out well in the game. They just were not fun to use. It would be thematic for them to unable to move (especially in the battle map), but this is one of the cases where gameplay > thematicness. If I had all of the modding tools in the world, I'd probably do some sort of compromise but right now it is either mobile or immobile, so what is there for one to do?

(see the excessive restrictions on UW acceess in vanilla as an example where thematic stuff absolutely destroys gameplay)

They get the bless? :eek:

*quick test game*

Umm.. Not intented. I really just thought that non-sacreds cannot get blessed by the spell effect "bless" but this apparently proves me wrong. Whoa. This opens all sorts of possibilities for the Holy War mod.

The bless effect is only in the slayer #onebattle because of Ancestor Spirits use the same effect and they really should be always blessed. I could just give them auto-bless and negative magic to prevent them from being battlemages (since if you reawaken a Runelord as Ancestor Spirit, it won't get the battle penalties in magic. Hence their current auto-berserking).

It's kind of cool though. Not sure if I should quickfix it or not (whatever the case, the behaviour should be explained in the unit description).

EDIT:

Yeah, I'm going to quick-fix the bless thing. Slayers really should not be sacred in any case. They are mostly subject to pity, not reveration from their fellow dwarfs.

Their point is mostly in the mapmove 3 and stealth. They can make pretty wicked stealthy PD raiders with Runebearers equipped with Bottle of Living Water or some nice bow. I could reduce their resource cost thought to 35 resources since that niche is pretty small.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.9
 

Well my worry is that they're simply too good. When I saw that they had mapmove 3, checked out their cost and efectiveness (incredibly powerful enc 0 spells) I actually assumed that you'd balanced them as being immobile and then accidentally taken it off. In Scruntlefut the dwarfs have churned out a lot of anvils and they just seem redonkulously good for the price (35 earth gems).

Could they not have mapmove 3 at the very least? It seems kind of unreasonable that a gigantic stone slab with a huge metal anvil on top can travel as fast as light cavalry.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.9
 

Yeah Anvils only need 1 mapmove--teleport to your forward army, then move along with it. He did nerf them bunches, though--50 gems now I think, and it kills the caster. Usually that means you also lose a pair of boots(unless you wanted to get rid of your naturally E5 casters), so effective cost 57 gems and a cap-only caster.

Hah, and here I thought the bless was intentional--not that they're revered by the other Dwarves, but that they can channel some of their God's power when enraged in battle.

The really really fun part about the Slayer blessing part is that it also makes any other units in the same square blessed, even if they weren't sacred before.

I'm somewhat worried that the aoe autoberserk(without other entertainment like the bless) will actually lower the power of the Slayer. One of the best things you could do with them was put up Body Ethereal, but now it's impossible because your mage will go berserk before he can cast it. Of course, that whole play is already nerfed a bunch because Runesmith -1 to magic in battle means you can't get the astral casters in the first place. Ah well...we still have Iron Warriors.

The Brother of War pretender choice is once again looking terribly, terribly lackluster. He's prettymuch just a Dragon Slayer with a chest slot and without 2 misc slots. I guess he has slightly better weapons, but he doesn't have the reinvig(which is in fact what tends to kill him). Also his AOE berserk was always the worst of the three pretenders' onebattlespells, and now it just looks even worse since your 70 gold commanders can do the same thing(they even do it better right now!). Maybe give him something different, like Weapons of Sharpness(mmmm) or Quickening? At this stage, it seems almost criminal to not get some magic diversity on your pretender, so he just gets sidelined. I'd rather take a Dragon just so I had at least one other path covered.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.9
 

Which now have fatigue :D

And they now cost 40 earth gems and it "kills" the caster (the caster is lost because he gets up in the Anvil, sort of). Usually the mage needs a least earth boots to cast the spell, so the cost is now like 47 gems and the loss of a cap only mage.

40 gems. I think that the caster killing (+7 gem cost basically) and fatigue on the Primal Runes is enough of a nerf. Also the loss of forgebonus reduces their uses.

Well, the thing is that the Berserk and the luck does not come from their god, but from the ancestor spirits who use them to get their own grudges avenged. So the blessing just doesn't fit in. I knew about the luck effect getting spread over and it was intentional, it's not much of a strecth to assume that the ancestor spirits could extend their "blessing of luck" to some guys fighting alonside them.

The blessing is especial thematic concern because you can use them to bless basically anything, like Bane Lords, Moose and bunch of other stuff that just does not make sense. I can just imagine a opponent going like "Why is that Moose blessed?". This is especially problematic because as a onebattlespell, the thing as no graphical presentation on the field and it just sort of happens.


Well, the thing is that it also a boost. They now get their hefty berserk bonuses automatically instead having to take damage first (and thus avoid the chance of being one-shotted or afflicted by the blow).

You could also just give a Runesmith a cap or a coin.

Well, the berserk will stay. He should not cast spells in the battlefield *ever*. Grimnir is much like Khorne in his hatred of magic. The Brother of War has one aspect that other gods lack, he is probably the best anti-SC chassis in the game. One swing and you get "curse luck" and basically get critted in the second blow. Give him quickness and there probably isn't a foe he couldn't kill in a single turn.

Admittely, that probably isn't a attribute you want in a god. I could give him his innate fire magic back. I might also test the effects of a negative #magicboost commands on pretenders with him. I'm not sure how it works out, but in the ideal case I could give him pathcost 0 for all paths but make him lose much of that magic in the actual game (cheap blesses, basically). Perhaps that Sombre's firstshape trick could work here?

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.9
 

Burn, why did you move Dwarfs to nationslot 75? At nationslot 77 they were conflicting with Tharoon (who are unfinished and easily changed), though outside of my MA mods and warhammer ones I'm not sure else they may have conflicted with,...

Now they're conflicting with Lizardmen though! Makes warhammer games a little bit more fiddlesome.

79 is free as far as I know, if 77 was a problem for some reason.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.9
 

Whaa? You made Lizardmen conflict with with your own Arga Dis mod?

I have to change the nation number to get around the llamaserver "pretender for the wrong age" bug. IIRC, you got that in the Scruntlefunt game so you know what I'm talking about. I'll have to check what else "llamaserver" nation MA numbers are available.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.9
 

The only cause of that bug was the dm having a space in the name. Didn't look like it had anything to do with ids.

Yes, Lizards conflict with Arga Dis, because Arga Dis needs its IDs redone anyway.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.9
 

Oh, ok. I guess my theory on the bug was false, now that I think about it.

I'll change the nationnumber back on the quickfix that will be made manifest probably on tuesday/wednesday next week.

On anoher vein, any thoughts on the new spells "Rune of Doom", "Anvil of the Dwarrows" and "Debts Unpaid"?

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.9
 

Anvil of the Dwarrows is pretty fun to mess around with, but the only real advantage he has is the higher astral level for against magic duels. That's perfectly okay though.

Rune of Doom appears to not hand out blessed/lucky Spirits--presumably that's intentional though.

Also I find it quite strange that the Ancestor Spirits have fatigue problems.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.92
 

New version.

Changes from 0.9 to 0.92

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.92 -- Quickfix
 

Thank you for doing this. I downloaded the mod, tried a few things in SP, it looks pretty sweet. So, I have some strategy questions.

The basic recruitables are awesome. A commander and 5 (five!) heavy clansdwarfs can take most indy 5 provinces (exceptions being lance cavalry, barbarians, and crossbows). However, I wonder how well they will fare in the mid-game against other players. The trouble is they are counterable: slow and very vulnerable to AP damage. This is the MA, so indy crossbowmen are available. Also battlefield evocs - being slow, the enemy mages get more time to rain down the level 2-3 evocs; being expensive and therefore few, the loss of each one to a spell makes a larger impact. Also skellyspam, or the vast horde armies like maenads or markatas - being few, they can't do enough damage fast enough. Also, they are encumbered. Enc 3 is not too bad, but the best are enc 5 or 7, which will fatigue themselves to sleep against those maenads/skellys. A partial answer to battlefield evocs is that the Runeguards(?) are 50% resistant to everything, but they are enc 7! There are battlefield buff spells which help with resistances, but spells to help with fatigue are high level in N, not a path the Dwarves focus in normally.

Well, so I'm thinking, how about trying something a little more along the lines of Baalz's guide to Ulm. Unfortunately, we don't have access to air, but we do have commanders who even without equipment are almost thug material. I'm thinking of Journeyman Runesmiths as thugs. A golden shield and firebrand are kind of cliche, but the dwarves have great forging advantages and fire and earth happen to be their favorite paths. Compared to a Vanjarl, say, we have no mistform and no cloud trapeeze, but on the plus side our basic armor is better and the items are cheaper. At least they are stealthy so with a bit of preparation one could raid with these guys using standard alternating hide-attack pattern. Journeyman Runesmiths are holy priests, so something like a E9N4 bless, though you might be able to get away with something like E6N4.

One problem we have is the castles are expensive. I don't think there is much to be done about that.

Focusing on thugs instead of national troops buys us dropping production 3, possibly down as far as sloth 3. With sloth 3 and drain 3, that is a lot of design points. How to use them? I would suggest an awake research rainbow pretender; the Dwarves national troops are so good vs most indies that even with sloth3 you can still send out a viable expansion party every turn. So this starts looking a bit like Baalz's Helheim plan, a Great Druid with E9N4 and perhaps another minor bless or 2 and some more paths. Since research is up in the 20s, they wont notice the -2 from drain3 much.

So, does focusing on early research buy us anything cool? One could of course charge up construction to equip thugs as soon as possible, but we don't need the thugs for indy expansion. Sadly, we have no D gems to accelerate research using skull mentors, so research will just have to be done the hard way. Mostly my question is, can the Dwarves be successful, despite their anti-magical lore, as a heavily magic-using nation? Are there cool summons they can get to, either national ones, or standard ones available in their paths?

Another idea I had was looking at the Mother of All. Any time I see a unit with a lot of healing I think of Tarts. So put something like E6D4N4 on her and you have a tart factory, though it requires researching up to conj 9, not all that synergistic with much else. The D income for the Tarts would have to be bootstrapped by the pretender sitesearching and then summoning spectres and other summonable D mages. (fortunately there are plenty of those). Ditto the N income for GoR, although indy N mages are plentiful. In this case you probably have to make her asleep for the points, but again, you can live without the 240 research points the pretender generates in year 1, since there is no magic research that you absolutely positively must get done quickly.

Also, I find it really helps to get into the spirit of being a Dwarf if you take some misfortune scales. You go to open up the new turn, you grumble "OK, lets see what bad stuff happen to us this time".

I don't have a lot of experience, but I am really enjoying thinking about strategies for these dwarves. Any thoughts? Alternatively, am I underestimating the recruitable troops and should just rely on them to last through the mid-game?

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.92 -- Quickfix
 

Healing doesn't remove afflictions from undead. You need gift of health or the chalice for that.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.92 -- Quickfix
 

Are they supposed to have a 4 gem income?