Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Yup, cursed gives me striders.

Flamecast - as I said, great spell. I'd almost be tempted to nerf it a bit, its that good. I love the range and the aoe, possibly drop the damage? Damage is 12+ AP so a high level fire mage would do even more damage? Possibly 8+? It does have the 1H casting requirement, so that may be enough of a limitation. Thoughts?

What do draconic might and draconic spirt do? +STR and +MR respectively? Quantities?

Trigger fire trap is very nice as well, any idea how the # of effects ramp up? Would be a nice higher level spell to get a 4+ or 6+ version.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

"Castles - they're all nice, but a couple lower quality/cheaper choices may be worth it."
-- Well, there are motte-and-baileys and swamp forts which are pretty low quality.

"Any thought to adding 25-50% poison res? Might make them too powerful, but you figure many of them have poisoned weapons..."
-- It's a reasonable thought, but for several reasons I'd have to go with no poison res. 1) None of the sources give them poison res. 2) They already have a variety of abilities. 3) They rarely poison themselves, or each other. And if they did, they're likely to die from it. So tolerance being built over time is not something that should be represented racially for kobolds. 4) Also, skill at finding/making/applying/storing poison doesn't really transfer into extraordinary ability to withstand it.

"Not a fan at all of the scion of sirrush - way too expensive and limited. Not enough slots to be a good thug, bad research, way too expensive (again), good immunities, but I'd rather have a 3E sorceror for the variety. I MAY purchase enough to finally get a 4E (for 5E w/boots)...but doesn't seem to be worth it."
-- I'll be retouching the Scion of Sirrush for v.30 (Increasing chance of 4E a bit, decreasing cost a bit). Also not to be mean, but keep in mind it can't wear boots.

"Still haven't recruited a firelord for some reason, so no opinion."
-- I'm dissatisfied with the Firelord. It's supposed to be a light thug, but it's overshadowed by the Scion of Glaurung.

"Sorcerors are great, really wish they were sacred though upkeep hurts after awhile."
-- Everything has it's weaknesses. Sorcerors are far more useful for forging, rituals, and battlemagic, but Waterborn / Blessed might be a better research monkey.

"Blesseds. Love em and hate em. I WANT the 2W and 2N for site searching. But that leaves me with tons of 1W and 1N or 1W1N guys just floating... so 140g for 3 research. Not terrible, but not great either. Luckily they're sacred. I must have really bad luck. I thought it was a 10% chance to get a bonus, but I had to have 40 of the buggers around before I got 2W (had 2x2N in the meantime)."
-- I've had some bad luck with them as well, but other than increasing their chance for a second path, I'm not sure what to do about that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

"Scion of Glaurung - rocks. Flying rocks. Flying with good leadership is better. ...with the ability to cast 2 great spells they rock even more. The sacred summons is a bit pricey, but those guys are tough... even 4-8 at a pop are good to strengthen the line. Flamecast rocks my socks off. Difficult to thug (easier than sirrush), but I generally use as a leader/caster anyway. Well worth the cost."
-- Then it's exactly as I wanted it to be. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

"Ascendant - rocks, expensive but very nice.
Cursed - meh, didn't impress much. But think are good for battlefield summons or if you really need a size 3. Hmm... just looking at the icons above, I was getting striders as a summons when using the cursed spell.
Ancient Gargoyle - one thing I haven't summoned yet.
Dragon Ancestor - er, what's the point? Might want to add 1 path of something. Is this just an equivalent to a telastic animation?
Draconic Demilich - COOL! Very expensive, but real real cool. Haven't used much yet, but the options look real impressive."
-- Ah, you've found a bug with the cursed. Seems I've used the same unit number for both by mistake, and the cursed is being overwritten. Will be fixed in v.30
-- The Ancient Gargoyle is pretty tough to manage for Urdheim, but if you do get a few, they should be worth it.
-- Dragon Ancestor, hm.... Well, it's essentially a buffed telestic animate that's thematic for kobolds. I was on the fence for a while as to what to give it. It currently is a lvl 3 priest, spreads dominion, decreases unrest a little bit, and lowers the bad event chance a little bit. It's also pretty tough to take out in combat. It's a defensive niche unit that fills some roles, mainly the only good priest of Urdheim, and the spreading of dominion which is somewhat useful. While I realize you won't be dealing with LA Ermor, it can be somewhat useful defensively against Lanka and Mictlan. I'm still not completely settled on the final design. I may yet give it some sort of weak domsummon or some magic in the future after some longer playthroughs.
-- I like the Draconic Demilich too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

"I got the summoner - if that thing had about 30hp it would make a very kick butt thug. Those are some cool abilities. Summons are very nice as well, 1 mapmove made me not use them though."
-- I couldn't in good conscience give it that much hp, heh. Keep in mind that when the Master Summoner uses the ranged attacks, encumbrance isn't a factor. So you should be able to throw some defensive stuff on it. Plus to strength items also help.

"Dracolich - still like it alot. Lack of change shape is tough if using as forger/caster (lack of slots)."
-- As for shapechanging for dragons, I realize they're supposed to change shape in both mythology and recent fantasy games/books, but the loss of slots from one form to another (and the subsequent loss of items), makes it rather unpleasant to give them items in those slots. Furthermore, the poorer magic ability in dragon form makes me want to stay away even more. My explanation for this in game is that the Dracolich doesn't want to change it's shape. It's enamored with it's powerful immortal dragon skeleton, and is fully capable of the full range of casting, because it's animated by magic, not muscle.

"What is castigation of sirrush supposed to do, doesn't seem to do anything."
-- Castigation of Sirrush is a limited area affect version of Curse of Stones. I'll be adding a more detailed spell manual to the readme in v.30

"er, is there a listing for the rest of the spells? I have the new mythology installed so get confused which spells are which. I'll remove the mod and check it out in a bit and edit. "
-- See above.

"Flamecast - as I said, great spell. I'd almost be tempted to nerf it a bit, its that good. I love the range and the aoe, possibly drop the damage? Damage is 12+ AP so a high level fire mage would do even more damage? Possibly 8+? It does have the 1H casting requirement, so that may be enough of a limitation. Thoughts?"
-- Flamecast is rather powerful. The 1 holy requirement means that outside of wished for fire/priest summons or a prophet, only the Glaurung Scions will be able to cast it. National spells are supposed to be somewhat better than standard spells, to promote use over their more mundane counterparts. I suppose I'll tweak it down in a subtle way. More useful in specific circumstances, less useful all the time (this is also pretty much in keeping with national spell themes).

"What do draconic might and draconic spirt do? +STR and +MR respectively? Quantities?"
-- That's right, all will be explained in full detail soon in the readme.

"Trigger fire trap is very nice as well, any idea how the # of effects ramp up? Would be a nice higher level spell to get a 4+ or 6+ version."
-- The aoe increases by 1 for each additional fire magic. Perhaps a greater version should be implemented? I'll think about it for v.30 or .40. I'm currently leaning against it, as there already are a significant amount of national spells, and I don't want to go too 'spellhappy'.


Expect v.30 to come up either tonight or tomorrow. It will feature some balancing, a bug fix, and an improved readme with spell descriptions/explanations similar to that found the dominions manual.
Btw, did anyone like the gui change? Or the suggested music?

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

I also gave this a whirl (played a 110 province game through). I went with W9 blue dragon and with an agressive expansion plan. With a W9 bless, the scions are thugs right from the start!

So I conquered with Scions and my dragon in the early game(worked wonderfully, I quickly took lead in the "provinces" chart). My one Scion of Sirrush got Heroic Strenght in the beginning stages and by late game his strenght was around 64 unbuffed.

Not much to say about balance, seems fine to me. I found use to most of the units (expect those flying fire/wasp thingies). My usual army composed of Medium Infantry in the middle accompanied by Light inf. and firebreathers in the flanks.

Keep up the good work, had much fun playing this.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Thanks Burnsaber, that's good to hear. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Sorry for the delay, anyway; Version .30 of Urdheim is now available at the first post.

Changes from v.20 to v.30:

Attacksprite for Scion of Abraxas added
Fixed Bug with Summon Cursed/Gather Cursed spells
Scion of Sirrush from Earth/Death 10% to Earth 20% & Death 10%
Flamecast damage from 12+ to 9+, and AOE from 4+ to 5+
Flamecast now does secondary fatigue damage
Castigation of Sirrush from AOE 7+ to 5+, NOE from 1 to 2, Precision from 2 to 1
Firelord now has awe 0
Firelord now has 10% chance of Fire 2
Firelord HP from 15 to 22
Firelord goldcost from 140 to 220
Firelord resourcecost from 47 to 60
Firelord unrest from 2 to 3
Firelord firebrand autosummon 1 removed
Firelord firebrand makemonster1 (summon allies) added
Cursed strength from 6 to 8
Cursed attack from 11 to 15
Cursed defense from 11 to 12
Cursed morale from 17 to 99
Cursed now blind
Cursed now curses
Cursed now sometimes comes with afflictions
Cursed now called Cursed One
Blessed now called Blessed One


Hopefully this will fix more balance issues. Also, the readme now has a brief spell manual on the bottom.
Anyway, Enjoy! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

I'm not sure that giving morale 99 is a good idea - it has no special properties but it's so high that it could have some odd effects on the game. Better to give morale 40 or something - much the same effect, but less extreme.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

99 is a special number, which functions as gone berserk (never flee).
50 is mindless, 30 is standard unbreakable (flee when whole army flees).

Edit:
I'm still on the fence as to whether they should be mindless or not. The concept in question for the Cursed Ones having a fragmented mind could be argued either way, and I'm not terribly opposed to them dissolving, though it does change the balance up and down in more subtle ways as well. Future comments and further reflection may bring a stronger conclusion.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

It's true that berserk units have morale 99, but giving a unit morale 99 doesn't make them start/go berserk to my knowledge. I haven't tested it extensively though.

I didn't know about morale 30. Useful if it actually works.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Well, no update this week, as things are getting close to where they should be (I think that every unit now has its use). I did however, bring the first post more up to date with where things are now. Anyway, if nobody brings up any more balance or usefulness concerns within the next month or so, I'll probably be able to release the final version for Urdheim (for v3.08 of Dominions) in mid August.
Once again, aside from the normal criticisms, any balance / hero / pretender suggestions are more than welcome.

For those who enjoyed Urdheim, and would like to see more, I've started work on something else, and that should hopefully be released sometime in late August. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

A very complete, and graphically nice mod. I've tested them on Glory of Gods map with all AI to difficult, and I've squashed helheim and maverni at the same time. I think armor piercing plus poison (double shot) is a bit strong for early age, specially against small elite armies which tend to get murdered in one volley. Maybe they have got less of an advantage against large armies of chaff (maybe...).
Your mod is one of the most complete I have seen so far, with plenty of new strategies to experiment.
Late august seem so far away. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

I love your sprites! Very well done.