Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

Anybody interested in creating a mod wich sports triremes, biremes, catapults, ballistae, siege towers?

Triremes & Biremes would be sea units (doh!)

catapults & siege towers would have a strat move of 1,a tac move of 0 to 2, and give bonus in sieging (catapults : 5; tower : 20), with catapults able to launch boulders.
Ballistae would have a strat move of 0 (thus remains where they are constructed, in castles) and would fire powerful bolts against the enemy.

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

What about a Ram as a Siege weapon? Or bolt thrower.

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

I will use this mod to gift of reason a trireme, then give it an amulet of the fish and procede to assault all landlubbers. I imagine it walks on its oars, like an ATAT.

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

LMFAO

That killed me Johan. I can imagine it delivered so dry you'd think you were at a Star Wars convention with a serious tone.

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hahaha... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I got all excited when I read the thread title... thought you were going for mechanized units like Laser Squad Nemesis. Oh, well... I like SF vs Fantasy=)

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

Would boats fight underwater? Whole new concept of naval combat. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I think you should skip ships until the engine allows surface fighting in the seas.

It sounds a fun idea for a mod. With a world full of huge trampling monsters I can easily see humans fielding smaller, more portable, machines to battle them. Scorpion ballistas, smaller catapults or even oil cannons spewing flames (For T'ien Ch'i atleast). Just stay clear of regular siege engines as they would be useless in a battlefield. As far as I can tell the "Siege" command takes the construction and use of siege engines into mind. How else would they be storming fortresses?

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

ah yes, forgot about this sea battle, under the surface http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Anyway, is it possible to mod a site so that the units it produces changes? Would enable the infamous Dwarven Workshop.

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hahaha... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I got all excited when I read the thread title... thought you were going for mechanized units like Laser Squad Nemesis. Oh, well... I like SF vs Fantasy=) </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes it was a tease Cherry. I know that many of you love Terminators on rampage. Must be related to hormons, or something like that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

Rise of the Machines would make for an interesting Ulm theme.

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

Couldn't you just mod the ship so that it is like the Pocket Ship Item?

Make it a Commander and it's effect is to carry 1 Commander and 50 Troops (25 Mounted) in a 1 Movement Ocean type of scenario? Kind of like how CotS and Vanheim are right now.

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

Well, in the standard Ulm armies the Siege Engineer and Sappers look like they *do* build catapults and so on when sieging.
The idea is cool though, so we could have other things than Jotuns to hurl boulders ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
We can even give catapults some flame attack - naphta/boiling oil !! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
For naval combat we have to wait - same for any "transport" unit ... too bad ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

And J.O., you know what's funny ? Back in MoM days one of the worst abuse was to have flying invisible warships to wreck havoc on the whole map !! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ January 18, 2004, 19:22: Message edited by: PDF ]

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I was thinking about this yesterday. It's almost possible to mod something interesting, but the problem is that there is no way to restrict the movement of such ships to the water - it would always be possible to drag them across land provinces, which is silly. So unless and until IW decide to implement something to help with that quibble, they have to be rationalized/imagined as at least partly magical, like the pocket ship or Vanheim leaders.

The added problem with items like Pocket Ship is you can teleport them for free using magic labs, or give them to a flying unit or undead cavalry or other fast leader type, and move them very fast across land.

The added problem with "leader" ships is that there is no way to use them to transport other leaders.

Still, adding magic ships to more races could be interesting. Some maps (such as some of Gandalf's random maps, and the England map) bring up some interesting maps for coast-to-coast ship movement, such as when there are many land provinces all adjoining one sea province, so sea movement can not only bridge obstacles, but also can allow much faster coastal movement.

Siege engines could be fun, but I would wait for the weapon mod and then make them not very efficient, so even if people Gift of Nature them and add silly powers to them, they won't be too powerful. That is, a missile-thrower would be innaccurate and have an extremely low rate of fire (should be quite worse than an Ulmish arbalest, or even simply ammo = 1) - the advantage is if it does hit something, that thing is almost surely kaput. I would give practically all siege engines a strategic move of zero, as well (not one).

PvK

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

Perhaps it shouldn't be possible to Give Reason to mindless beings or constructs. Poor Iron Dragons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">NOooo!!! Boo. Hiss. I knew IW had a dislike for giving the Gift to Void summonings! The truth comes out! Squid-heads of the world unite. We must crush this foul, evil idea before it takes firmer root! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The spell name should probably be changed to gift of command then, as reason implies some thinking ability.

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">NOooo!!! Boo. Hiss. I knew IW had a dislike for giving the Gift to Void summonings! The truth comes out! Squid-heads of the world unite. We must crush this foul, evil idea before it takes firmer root! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The vastness has astral for a reason, namely as a slight bonus when and if anyone tries to make it reasonable, same with the 10 strat move. So no one is going to take that particular toy away from you.

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And such a lovely toy indeed it is. Thank you, thank you!

(poster goes back to lurking ... in her void gate)

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And such a lovely toy indeed it is. Thank you, thank you!

(poster goes back to lurking ... in her void gate) </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">...until Pythium or other astrally powerful nation teleports in some prepared Magic Duelers before you can take advantage of the 10 movement points that turn.

Everything dies to something. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">R'lyeh is every bit as capable of teleporting starspawns around as Pythium. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ah, invisible flying warships, how I miss thee. Especially invisible, flying, spell-locked warships. Dispel that! It was fun starting out with flying warships, then upgrading them to invisible, flying, spell-locked, hasted warships.

It was almost as bad as the endless free elementals for a 13(?)-book mage. Especially free air elementals with your invisible flying warships. Just start spawning out the endless hordes of elementals, phantom warriors, and phantom beasts ad-infinitum once you found a random book that made them free. You could even get to the point where you had a graphical glitch of them appearing in the wrong place with the wrong graphic if you did it enough.

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thanks for the reminder of something I'd been overlooking: that Teleport (etc.) happen at the top of the turn before movement takes place.

Given how many powerful Starspawn mages I have (which have been doing nothing but research and item construction thus far -- turn 50 on the Orania map), that should simplify my task of chasing down the Pangean and Man units that have been annoying me of late whilst I'm distracted due to simultaneously taking out C'tis, Caelum, and Mictlan. heh Fortunately, Pan is on its Last gasp, unable to replace its losses, as Jot has been steadily munching on them while they've been busy irritating me. Now Jot has almost surrounded the Pan fort. Less work for me. And Man has decided that it's easier to chew on C'tis than on me. Life is good. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmm, unless you were teleporting your army with them, those would have to be some pretty tough mages to avoid dying in 1 round to a vastness ( what are they, 40 AP flying lifedrain mindbLast ? )

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The problem is that they won't close in and use their lifedrain in the first round if you give them fire orders, and they won't use their mindbLast if you tell them to attack. Does blood vengeance protect against instant kills like soul slay?

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Maybe there are two of them? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

I mean, I dont think the vastness have a lot of attacks, so you will probably not lose more than one mage each round.

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A Vastness has 3 mind bLasts per turn, plus the strength steal. So it can incapacitate up to 30 enemies. Which is highly unlikely unless they are weak, and the battle would be over before it could finish off that many anyway. Of course, most fodder run away long before the Vastness can incap that many.

My best one is now up to Awe +6 as its heroic ability. Takes some serious enemies to even want to engage it ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You mean will the magic effect kick in even after the Vastness has died? Or if the Vastness survives, and thus takes no "damage", per se? Good questions! Can someone from IW answer this?

Re: Rise of the Machines suggestion
 

My guess:

1 Soulslay cast
1.1 MR works - nothing happens
1.2 MR does not work
1.2.1 Blood vengeance works and caster dies
1.2.2 Blood vengeance does not work and vastness dies