EA Pictland, Way of the Wilderness v1.04
 

Original Post Replaced with Release Post

EA Pictland, Way of the Wilderness
current release v1.04 on 26th Oct 2010

v1.04 Update

• Added +2 earth gems to Wolf Den site bringing the factions gem income inline with the vanilla nations (+6 per turn)

v1.03 Update

• Painted Warrior: No longer starts with old age
• Painted Warrior: Is now ambidextrous (was always meant to be, fixed typing error)

v1.02 Update

• Pictland Howl spell level increased from 0 to 2
• Windcall spell level increased from 0 to 1
• Pictish Wail ATT reduced from - 2 to -4
• Temple cost increased from 200 to the default 400
• Minor change to nation description

v1.01 Update

• Elder: Research increased from 1 to 4
• Hag: Healing increased from 20 to 40
• Wailing Woman: Pictish Wail now works as intended
• Wind Hawk: HP upgraded by 2, Str upgraded by 1
• Windcall: Number of summons increased from 8 to 10
• Sacred Skulls: Description shortened, was too long

Mod Features

• New Early Age Faction: Pictland
• 28 New Units, Complete with New Sprites
• 2 New Spells
• A Few New Armors and Weapons

Sprite Preview
Contains all units, but not their attack poses

http://i55.tinypic.com/2qbsz05.jpg

I'm proud to present my first mod EA Pictland, Way of the Wilderness for download.

The nation is loosely based on ancient Celts and the Picts from the Conan setting, but to be honest I had an idea in my head of what I wanted them to be like and just went with it. They are primitive wildsmen, at home in the woods and friendly with the animals (they have Wolf and Hawk allies). Below is the background taken from the in-game description.

Background
Pictland is a realm of hundreds of small clans each with their own unique history and customs. The Great Council, made up of the clan chieftains, meets on a seasonal basis to discuss matters of great importance. All Pictish clans share some common traits. Sacrifice and ritualistic burnings are practiced widely, farming and husbandry are almost non-existant and most clans survive by hunting and gathering or by raiding others. Picts are adept woodsmen, they live amongst the plants and the animals, when a Pict is silent and still they become one with the forest and even the animals pay them no heed. Most Picts do not wear any armor, but helmets are worn by important clansmen as a symbol of their authority. Picts fight with bows, spears, axes, clubs and crude hunting knives and paint their faces blue before going into battle. Pictish settlements are small villages, the largest of which are permanent while the smaller ones move with the seasons.

Final Words
I hope you enjoy the mod and go easy on me, its my first try ;)

Re: W.I.P. EA Pict, Way of the Wild
 

Hi, welcome.
Be careful about province defense. Do NOT mix archers, or even javelin throwers, and melee troops. Since all your guys are unarmored, they'd suffer the Machaka syndrome: Archers will kill their friends and the whole army will rout.

Also, with no air access to fend off missiles, you'd better have good nature/earth buffs to help your troops in melee. They'd better be cheap too or they'll die in droves.

Re: W.I.P. EA Pict, Way of the Wild
 

Thanks for the heads up on Province defence! I'll probably mix Warriors with Savages then.

As for the lack of air access, the Wild Hawk summon was meant to go some way to adressing that, in numbers they should be able to rip through Archers hopefully, but not stand on their own against armoured troops. Of course this is not as easy as recruiting air troops, but hopefully adds an extra dimension to think about.

I want most troops to be cheap yes, they are only human, and come without armour. Hopefully the Shaman should help with the Earth/Nature buffs. Hopefully within a week I should get a playable version uploaded, then any advice from testing will be invaluable, as a new player there may be aspects of the game I'm still not too knowledgable about.

Overall I want them to be balanced, possibly slightly more challenging to play than most factions, but I want to avoid making them underpowered too :-D

Edit: Would giving everything except Hawks, Hags and Elders, (who have 0 leadership anyway) forest survival and sneak be overpowering?

Re: W.I.P. EA Pict, Way of the Wild
 

That would be comparable to Pangaea so I wouldnt call it too overpowering. Stealth armies are rarely used effectively by most players anyway IMHO

Re: W.I.P. EA Pict, Way of the Wild
 

Hi Woodman, nice looking sprites!

#itemslots 14470 (will give you weapon, shield, helmet, boots, 2 trinkets)

#itemslots 12422 (will give you weapon, shield, helmet, 2 trinkets)

Goodluck on your mod!

Re: W.I.P. EA Pict, Way of the Wild
 

Thanks Foodstamp that will come in handy!

I edited the first post to have a new image with the completed set of Sprites and also edited the list to add the new units into it.

Time to start work on the text file now.

Re: W.I.P. EA Pict, Way of the Wild
 

Woodman, you seem to have PM's turned off.

So far I do like your mod. But I would change the wolves the guys are riding into Dire Wolves. (At least the image). Because the wolves are normally ridden by goblins, and look a bit to small for humans.

(I do like the blue guy. Actually, I want more blue guys! But I think that is just me).

If you want more advice/criticism. It would also be nice to cross-post this thread in the dom3mods forum. But be warned. The dom3mods forums is more of a gloves off, shields up kinda place. (So if somebody really doesn't like your mod, or you, they will say this. But so far the only nastiness has been aimed at shrapnel).

Link: http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods

Re: W.I.P. EA Pict, Way of the Wild
 

Thanks for the support and advice Soy. I plan to go back to the graphics when I manage to get the mod up and running (lets just say there is more than one bug in it at the moment, lol).

There are a few tweaks I want to make to the sprites, I did plan on using the Dire Wolf originally because like you say the normal wolf is small, but its attack sprite is awful, its just looking up, hehe. I will try and either a) resize the current wolf, b) just resort to using the Dire Wolf instead.

Didn't know my PM was off, I'll take a look, thx Edit: Turned it on :-)

Re: EA Pict, Way of the Wild
 

Updated first post with mod release! Please enjoy!

Includes new bigger wolves, as requested by Soy ;)

Re: EA Pict, Way of the Wilderness
 

If you were still looking for an alternative to the wolf sprite I found one which after I did some recoloring I think works pretty well.