Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

A major issue with domsummon is that there are only 3 strengths - domsummon 1 produces a LOT of guys. I think it's actually 1 per point of dominion, give or take. Domsummon 2 produces half of a LOT, so if you're in dom 10 for instance (which is extreme, admittedly), you're talking something like 5 a turn. So with three Slann, not a crazy number at all in the early game, you'd be getting 15 free temple guard every turn. Then there's domsummon 20, which is 20 times less than domsummon 1. That's what the vampire queen has for summong vampires, for instance - you get one very occasionally in very strong dominion.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

You could do autosummon. One temple guard each a turn might be quite nice.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

I suppose summon 1 or summon 2 with domsummon20 might produce the desired results. Or is summon only 1 and 5? Yeah I think it is.

Summon allies is another option (with a choice of 1,2,3,4 or 5) and though I am less inclined to go for that, it is more versatile and controlled (so you're never annoyed by having spawned troops).

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Summon allies is annoying though.

You could make them upkeep free if you were worried about annoying spawning. Frankly I can't imagine ever being too annoyed by it though.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Hmm... perhaps domsummon 5 but retaining the gold cost so they generate upkeep? Or even with an increased base cost. I still doubt you'd have nearly so many as you are likely to end up with under the current system and as kianduatha said it would make you more likely to purchase slann, particularly the 5th generation earlyish in the game.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

You mean summon 5? You can't do domsummon5, only 1 2 or 20.

If they had summon 5 you'd get say, 4 slann, and you'd be a total nightmare to invade. The upkeep isn't an issue if you get them killed quickly enough and since you could move the slann, you could have armies of temple guards that were impossible to wear down. You'd have to kill them all in one go and get the slann too. Very hard.

Plus if I give Slann auto summons of temple guard, I'd have to make them even more expensive (the Slann). Not so much with summon allies.

I am tempted to give dormant slann summon allies for temple guard, currently. That way you could build slann and set them dormant, wake them up when you need the magic more than the troops. Plus there's tension with the site searching you want them to do. Alternatively, could make temple guard cap only, or more expensive still.

One thing is for sure - Lizardmen are going to use a bless. I leave the option of no bless there for people who want it, but let's face it with all their most awesome stuff being holy, they really have to take the bless. This mere fact means sacreds will generally eclipse regulars, no matter how cool the regulars are. I appreciate that it's sort of sad that you don't feel you can build the specialist troops because that would mean missing out on sacreds however. That isn't an issue with summons. If temple guard were summoned by slann though, wouldn't people not build troops and instead keep saving up for slann? That doesn't sound right either.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Er, I meant domsummon2, sorry. I figure domsummon would mechanically work out better anyway, since it would mean you can't be reinforced so easily when you're on the offensive. I suppose the main problem with this solution is that it's technically possible to have a higher temple guard income than you would with forts if you build up enough slann. If you made the fifth and the 4th generation slann domsummon20, and 3rd gen domsummon2 it might not be quite so bad.


However, making it work while dormant with summon allies is probably a better solution, if perhaps somewhat less attractive from a player's perspective. I don't completely like temple guard being cap only from a thematic perspective, but that would be the simplest way to balance them.

There is definitely no doubt that the lizards are a bless nation. I honestly don't think there's really much point to having better scales than I get on my imprisoned bless pretender anyway... and with the ability to summon useful sacred warriors with every magic path save death, you'd be crazy not to take advantage of that even if temple guard were cap only or otherwise rare. Anyway you are right that people massing slann to then mass temple guard would be pretty stupid.

It is a delicate issue for itza but I am sure however you ultimately decide to handle them it will be for the best.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

I would not be opposed to a weaker dom summon (like summon 20). If you buffed the temple guard back up to their original stats, they would be worth it (and available by mid-game). It would slow down the early game a tad maybe, but not much as Itza has plenty of other excellent recruits.

Another option that I believe I mentioned already (as I like it) is to have Slann battle-summon 2-5 guards. I think this is quite thematic (the guards following the Slann) but it might also be a little unbalanced (assassinations would be harder, though they are already difficult, and it would be more feasible to tele-drop Slann on enemy PD). Maybe battle-summon 3 and domsummon 20?

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

I don't know, battle summoning could be a bit too good due to assassination battles (as you already pointed out). There really don't seem to be very many good ways to kill slann off, plus again if you have a lot of slann in a province your enemy has to kill several dozen temple guard every battle to get to them.

I don't know, trying to do anything too fancy may just turn out to be too unfeasible for game purposes. Auto summons do tend to be hard to balance in mods.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

The Summon Allies option seems like it would lead to a very strange path for Lizardmen--castles become less important than Slann for troop production. Think of it like this: A castle and temple now costs 2000 gold. Two fourth-generation Slann in comparison costs 1700, and would give you as many temple guards as a castle(at least 3/turn apiece, i presume?). Sure, you have the opportunity cost of two Slann--but wait, it was actually *cheaper* than making the castle in the first place. All you really lost was two commander recruits which probably would have otherwise been skink priests. And you can't really say you 'lost' the commander recruits either, because in actuality you got the best thing you could recruit. You didn't get the early-game usage of two skink priests, then.

Frankly, that sounds terrifying. I could see someone year two having only two castles maybe and over a dozen slann in stasis just pouring out hordes of temple guards, since it's actually more economical than the current strategy--and gives you buttloads of high astral mages for when you need them.

Domsummon is in comparison actually sounding more tame.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

In case you haven't checked to figure out why flood of serpents doesn't work right yet, the issue is a typo in the #fatiguecost line.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Yeah I figured that out. Thanks anyway :]

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Sombre, Warhammer lizardmen appears to be incompatible with your mod Ogre Kingdoms. With only theese 2 mods, the game crashes when creating middle-age pretender saying

Något gick fel!
Bad #startsite command
Något gick fel!
Bad #startsite command
Aborted

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

They both use startsites 996 and 997, IIRC.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Yep. Easily fixed. I guess I'll sort it out formally when I update Ogres. Soon my pretties!

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

sombre, third generation slann fails to get back from dormant state. There's strange command

#shapechange 3001

i guess that should that be 2301 ?

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Correct!

It was a leftover from when they were using entirely different IDs. I knew about it but forgot to fix it. It will be fixed in the next update, which will have minor content and lots of fixes :]

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

I've tried as good as all of your other mods by now, and they are excellent! Though, your WHFB Lizardmen mod was what drew me towards adding mods to DOM3, and I can't get it to work. I made an account just so I could resolve this issue I'm having.

I can activate the mod, and I've tried in combinations with other mods (and having only the lizardmen mod activated), but as soon as I try to start a new game, I get the "Något gick fel!" box with the message "Bad #shapechange command".

What's the problem here? What can this poor newb do to fix this? :o

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

try this:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...2&postcount=53

it is a mod that combines the 6 finished Warhammer nations into 1 mod and it doesn't seem to have any conflicts that I've noticed.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Damn. I get the exact same error as before.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

that is....odd. I know I've started my own SP Warhammer game using this mod. You're sure it is the ONLY one running? They can't guarantee total compatibility with any other mods running, except maybe CBM.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

make sure that CBM isn't included in that mod.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

@ MonkeyLover: Yep, I've tried all kinds of combinations too. I even downloaded twice to make sure I didn't get any corrupt files.

@Trumanator: CBM? I don't think it's about compability issues, as I tried running both the Itza mod solo, and the bigger "whole warhammer" single mod with Tomb Kings and Chaos included.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

That is certainly odd. Are you absolutely certain that you don't have other mods enabled? Remember that some of them don't have banners that would show up in the right side of the screen.

If you have just and only the wh complimation mod "six nations" enabled and start a game, there really shouldn't be any error.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Yep, I'm 100% sure. Partly because the lizardmen mod was the first mod I've ever tried on Dom3.

I tried that once I removed ALL other mods I had, and enabled the "six nations" mod. I got the exact same error.

It's the darnest thing :(

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Have you patched the game to the latest version? 3.23b.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

We play with CBM and Lizardmen - v0.6: there is an issue with the stegadon's howdah javelins attack that doesn't show on the unit description and that isn't used on the battlefield.
I've made a few tests tweaking the mod and only the first 4 attacks of the stegadons (which is supposed to have 5: gore, spike tail, howdah bows long-range, howdah bows mid-range and javelins) are listed and working. You can set the attacks in any order, only the 1st 4 will work, maybe thats an ingame limitation?
Strange though because hydras do have 5 attacks for example (4 lesser heads plus greater head).
Any clue?

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Guess I'll have to combine gore and tail into one weapon with two attacks in the next version.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

you could also combine the 2 howdahs bows attacks in a single 12 attacks (2x6), 20 range (18 and 25 currently).

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

The nice thing about 25, 18, 10 is that it forces your dudes to advance firing. I don't see the need to have separate tail and gore attacks, so I'll combine them.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Crossposting from the Sign of the Hammer thread since I didn't want to clutter it up:
That sounds like a great set of changes. Combine scarcer Temple Guards with maybe 1/2 as many units per summon of the sacred spawnings(but with ceremonial plates?) and they become your specialty units--nice for specific missions, but never numerous enough to be your main army.

Might I suggest that if you're making 5th gen Slann cap only, you might not really need Tel Cities as forts. Alternately, Oldbloods might become recruit-anywhere(I confess that I really want to use these guys, but definitely can't justify getting one at the cost of not getting a Slann). I don't think that would do horrible things, if just because you have noone who can forge Vine Shields or Shields of Gleaming Gold outside of cap-only Slanns.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

No the expensive forts definitely stay. It's both a balance check and an on-theme decision. The Lizardmen created only one new temple city in several thousand years and that was at the site of an old one.

Oldbloods I think are probably good enough that you'll get a couple early on when you can't afford a Slann a turn. If no-one is using them I'll either make them build anywhere or a summon though - I don't want them to go the way of the lord warden et al.

The sacred spawnings make sense as being fairly numerous, being entire spawnings created to fulfil a task. But they may well be too cheap.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Hi Sombre,

Mostly a lurker around here, but I thought I'd pipe up with a thought.

I'm playing an Itza SP game on the Glory map, and quite enjoying it -- great work. (Incidentally, I've never played WFB, but your mod here has given me a compulsion to buy and paint up some skinks.)

The saurus commanders, though -- it struck me as somewhat thematically-inappropriate that they can wear armor. I mean, I know the devs have taken a fairly permissive approach in that regard, so it's not the biggest issue in the world, but doesn't that also make for extreme ease in getting high-prot thugs? As in, simple fire plate giving an oldblood 24 prot, and a simple saurus cmdr 21. Either by themselves wouldn't inspire me to post about it, but it seems to my admittedly inexperienced eyes (I've only played SP) that built-in ironbane-/rust-proof medium-to-high-infantry-level armor composed of spikes and ridges and all that shouldn't accommodate magic armor, particularly when mass protection and all that sort of thing starts getting laid down.

As it stands, I almost feel kinda dirty, getting into year 5 in my game, throwing armor on those puppies, affordable as they are.

It might all balance out, and I'm not sure how that would affect the Ceremonial Plates armor you use for them, but I thought I'd throw that out there as an early impression. I could just be overestimating.

Also, just a thought in regard to the domsummon thing, forgive me if someone already mentioned it and I missed it, but would a good balance be, instead of domsummon, having the dormant forms have a Summon Allies ability?

Anyway, love the mod. Speaking SP- and flavor-wise, I quite love the little skinks and the variety, and was pleasantly surprised with the waterforms. It's all quite wicked.

Cheers!
Globu

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Having also toyed with saurus thugs, I don't think they're that hot. The mounted ones with recuperation, who are indeed powerfull, are cap only and compete with the cap only meta powerfull mage, so you probably won't field many of them, just the ones you bought during the first turns. Regarding the recruitable everywhere, the stats aren't anything extraordinary, they have no magic, so they're just ok as thugs. Tons of nations have thugs that just dwarven saurus commanders. eck, I even prefer ulm black knights, they just need a blade and shield to start being usefull.

Plus, you shall not forget those guys are cold blooded, and are to be used with great care, fatigue being a great thug killer.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

You're right on the basic saurus commanders -- by no means special. I mostly had in mind the summonable commanders in regard to that, and kind of lumped in the basic 20-gold recruitable cmdr with 'em without thinking.

But, for sure, I hadn't really taken cold-blooded into consideration.

As for the 4th Gen Slanns, I know, at least playing on the Glory map into year 5, I haven't found it worthwhile to get one except maybe once every two or three turns -- they're just too expensive to get one every turn -- so I get the oldbloods on other turns, and they do feel quite powerful (again, to the point that I feel a twinge of guilt throwing a cheap ol' fire plate on them and seeing the prot go to 24). But as for the 4th Gen Slanns, is it really practical that one will get one of those 850-gold monsters every turn?

I'll pipe up later when I've played it deeper if I have more putatively-worthwhile feedback on it.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

I think the special saurus commander summons have one big advantage : you'll always be able to field loads of them, as you can summon one kind per magic 'color' . All having different bonuses. The big advantage of this faction is its special spells completness. It ensures you a very good midgame.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

I will agree there, you have a very decent midgame between powerful battle magic and the sacred saurus summons, especially when sombre gets the armored versions in so you don't need as crazy of a bless anymore :P

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

I have just had what you might call a cunning idea. It was inspired by what Burnsaber has done with the Runeguard in his Dwarfs mod. Namely, he made them summonable along with the anvil of doom, but otherwise unrecruitable.

So here's the idea: Temple Guard, which were going to be made cap only, should instead be entirely unrecruitable, and you get a certain number of them ONLY when you recruit (or summon) a Slann. That way they aren't limited entirely to the cap, they only come along with Slann and you never have Slann without having them.

So how to do this? Simple. When you first get a Slann (let's say a 5th gen recruitable one), he comes in an 'Awakening' form, which autosummons temple guard. This awakening form turns into a regular Slann the very next turn, which no longer summons dudes. The regular slann behaves in exactly the same way as they have been previously.

What's exciting about this concept is that it so perfectly fits what temple guard are all about. They are directly proportionate to the number of Slann you have, without being a never ending stream of spawned guys. If you want to use them, you gotta buy Slann, if you want to buy Slann, you're going to use the temple guard. It also helps people cope with how crazy expensive Slann are, since you get 'free' bodyguards.

This method might also work VERY well with non mage commanders, the kind no-one wants to buy. Attempts to solve this problem have taken the form of summon allies or autospawning troops, giving them onebattlespell of summoning some guys for fighting, etc. But these methods are, in their own way, somewhat exploitable and a little 'messy'. Instead of these methods, why not have, let's say,... a Skaven Warlord, who when you buy him, appears in a 'mustering' form, which then autosummons a bunch of troops. It then shifts back into a normal skaven warlord and acts normally. So essentially you get a bunch of troops free for the cost of not recruiting a mage, but you ONLY GET THEM ONCE. No more endless summoning of troops, no more economies which ignore gold, no more having to fight 30 commanders who spawn combat summons over and over again with all their losses being completely expendable.

Interesting non?

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Extremely interesting. Good thinking Sombre!

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Sombre
I liked his new changes, for the thematic concerns.

It sounds very cool, but how can you do this? A landshape?

Yes, very thematic as I understand the WFB Lizardmen.

Hmm, I always buy an expensive one and one-three cheaper Slann every turn by year two - maybe my methods are inefficient? I've always got so much gold...

Definitely.

To me, extremely.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

I really like this idea. It would do a lot to make them more balanced, while being thematic as anything and encouraging diversity of play. Nice!

This concept definitely has a lot of potential, and it will be interesting to see what the modding community does with it.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.6 UPDATE
 

Definitely a nice idea--it allows for the concept of 'units' recruited at once. It especially works well with heroes and soforth, where the hero comes with an honor guard.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.7 minor update
 

-- version 0.7

-- TWEAK - Poison res values changed across the board to better match dom3 styling

-- FIX - Crest plate for warchiefs, no crest plate for skink scouts

-- TWEAK - Temple Guard now spawned by Slann when they first arrive in their 'awakening' state

-- TWEAK - Both 4th and 5th gen Slann more expensive to recruit, but same upkeep

-- TWEAK - Sacred spawnings now have armour for e9 bless, but still no helmets

-- FIX - 3rd gen shapechange further fixed, doh

-- FIX - flood of serpents cost bug fixed

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.75 minor update
 

-- version 0.75

-- TWEAK - remove 1 astral income

-- TWEAK - major reduction of magic weapons, now only on the Temple Guard halberds (it was severely limiting options vs Lizards, which was lame)

-- FIX - Salamanders now animals!

-- TWEAK - Stegadons considerably higher cost in res and gold



I will add this latest version to the new Middle Combo Mod soon.