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Orcish Empire
New mod available.
Abysia and Ti'en Ch'i replaced by rivalling orcish nations. Nice new graphics. Enjoy! |
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thx!
but..it foud be nice to see orc nation in normal Version so we coud get new race... it coud be add in next patch but.. do that mix game... or it need lots of work to add new race? |
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This mod looks great thematically although I am not yet sure if its balanced.
Question to the mod-developer: Can I assume its intentional that both empires have no units with priestly powers and need to rely on "neutral" priests? |
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Chief of the guard has only a fist as a weapon.
Catapults look nice. [ July 12, 2004, 02:47: Message edited by: Molog ] |
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The balancing thing:
send me ur experiences, i hadnt enough time for testplaying. i would be glad for any help. thanx. ps. sorry for my bad english http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif |
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The graphics and unit concepts are nice!
Aside from the orcs and most of their stuff being better and cheaper compared to other units in the game, I'm not sure about balance between the two. Do you want them to be overpowered versus everything else, or are you interested in how to make them on the same scale against other units? These orcs are supposed to be like Warcraft Orcs? They're like elite demi-trolls with slightly super equipment, no? Even some of the regular weapons seem to be on scale with magic trinket weapons, rather than normal weapons: Most daggers are 2 1 0 0 but your Orcs' daggers are 3 2 1 1. A regular two-handed battleaxe is 9 ordinary damage but your Waraxe looks one-handed and does 10 damage and is armor-piercing. PvK |
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The catapult fires every turn? Seems like it should only fire once every four turns or so.
PvK |
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I don't think that they are overpowered, actually.
They have a nice early punch, but but I think that they are not even competitive later on. Abysmal research, no priests... once magic comes into play, they will be as bad as basic/IF Ulm. |
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yeah they too need strong national troops like with cohens crusaders mod http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
in early game they are very great but when magic comes to play they will loose the egde. i didn't play to far with them until now but i think the orcrace which gets the unique shaman from beginning could quite quick research conj6 for spectres to speed up research . |
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Heh... ya everyone needs "strong" national troops like Cohen's Crusaders! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
I tried them out a bit and I guess I mainly think some Ratings are higher than make sense, rather than higher than are balanced for the entire nation in a high magic game. Some things are severely off the usual scale for gold and resource costs compared to what you get. That can be all right if that's what you want, but if you want things to have appropriate numbers compared to similar things in the existing units, then I think there are several things I would change, like the "daggers" that are +1 to everything including length, and the 22-hitpoint orcs (unless these orcs are _supposed_ to be like half-ogres, or to be like Claymen). The gold and resource costs are much lower than unmodded units with similar or lesser skills or equipment. However that could be the special ability of the orcs, which is fine. The double hitpoints and built-in (magic ?) superior weapons seem more like mistakes, though. I'd rather go even further and halve the cost of common orcs from 8-10 to 4-5 gold, but give them half as many hit points, change their daggers to normal daggers, perhaps change them from defense 10 to 9 (since they have attack 11 and are not elite troops). That would actually make them more powerful, in some ways (two for the price of one), but would make more sense to me than the super hit points and superior weapons, etc. If these are based on Warcraft though, and in Warcraft the Orcs are like half-ogres, then maybe it's partly that I don't recognize what's trying to be represented. PvK |
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what really imbalances cohens mod is the far to strong phoenix knight pretender . you can get powerful bless effects with him and an immortal sc without equipment . because 2 of the commanders produce 20 supplies furthermore you really can do very well for almost the entire game without much magic . though i admire cohens effort and ideas and his drawings of the troops are very nice too i think it is really imbalanced for small maps because 1-2 of his neighbors can do whatever they want but almost 100% sure will be overrun . at faerun it is perhaps more interesting since you have very low gem income and only your pretender can search either directly or with some spells . and as long as you don't find sages your research speed sucks bigtime too. the orkmod is nice too . but what i think is really imbalanced is primarely kronotauron the shaman hero for the renegade tribes . he has as good magic paths than a archdemon . no other unique summon has as high / many paths than he expect the 3 archdemons . + 4 death / 4 nature income is too much too . with recuperation + 76 hp he is like a second pretender from start onwards . + for forging / summoning you already have covered death nature and air so you can design your pretender taking this into account and give him e.g. blood and earth or something similiar that you cover 60+% of the magic paths . since the basic orks only need 1-3 resources and the most expensive unit only 17 resources you can take sloth 3 for additional points . the mod is really very stylish and has much rpgflavour but is only good for either 1on1 with the 2 orcraces or as an aienchanting mod together with cohens if you don't take one of the 3 races yourself . the oger's from orcish empire are like a trampling troll from turn 1 on with the same upkeepcosts . but i find the renegade tribes all in all even stronger because of their supermage . the only real balanced mod so far which could be a official 18th race is really your amazon empire mod pvk http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif but it was quite easier for you since 90% of the units / leaders you did just take from the game or ? you didn't alter any stats on the 4 tribes units / leaders ? you "only" added the amazon scout / leader + the wayfarer and amazon + the 2 pd units or ? and of course the national heros . but balance was much easier for you then if you made something completely new like cohen and weissi did http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif i think psycholochy plays an important part there too . you want to make a really cool new nation and then you easily oversee that it is too powerful. nothing is more frustrating than to hear your nation sucks because it is so weak. the other side of this is that you almost can't avoid overpowering it . |
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To the mod creator: I am currently well into production of my own orc mod, and right now the only real holdup is creation of orc sprites (im modifying existing ones to look 'orky') I was wondering if you would mind if i used your fantastic sprites in my mod . Being an extremely un-artistic person they are far better than anything i could come up with, and my mod is going to have a very different feel from yours. More along the lines of LoTR and D&D orcish hordes.
[ July 17, 2004, 00:36: Message edited by: Cheezeninja ] |
Re: Orcish Empire
Crusader Mod's troops are so much more powerful and cheap than anything anyone else has, that they can easily either wipe out everyone before magic is strong (on a small map) or find other mages (on a large map - not just sages but many other types), though they aren't likely to really need much magic, since their units are better than most summons anyway, and much cheaper.
This orc mod isn't necessarily that imbalanced, but some of the values just seem a bit incorrect compared to what I think they are trying to represent. I'm not sure they are (or aren't) necessarily imbalanced as a whole. I just think some of the values don't seem to make sense, such as catapults firing faster than arbalests (let alone as fast as shortbows), or daggers being like shortswords (could just change their name to "Blade" or something), or them having heaps of hitpoints. Oh, and the Shamen I think may accidentally have the #mounted property, because their defense scores seem to be higher than their base + equipment would indicate. Quote:
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PvK |
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when i wanted to spice up some fewused units in age of wonders 2 shadow magic at the end the syron lvl 4 ship and the human air ship were the most powerful lvl 4 units and the halflings centaur the most powerful lvl 3 unit . it started moderately but in the end .... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif [ July 17, 2004, 01:58: Message edited by: Boron ] |
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Heh. Well I have over twenty years of gaming under my belt, and close to a year playing this game series, so that probably helps. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
PvK |
Re: Orcish Empire
Well, the Orcish empire is replacing Abysia and therefore has a default heat of 3. However the Imperial Orcs have no unit which is heat-resistant or which can really fight efficiently in heat 3.
Is this intentional? |
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It's possible to mod the heat preferences of the nation to something else, so the creator probably just forgot to change this.
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Ash has enough advantages to be interesting and even playable, but several weaknesses (one of which is huge) that apply to all the theme's troops, making it very vulnerable and easy to thwart - even by indies. |
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Ash has enough advantages to be interesting and even playable, but several weaknesses (one of which is huge) that apply to all the theme's troops, making it very vulnerable and easy to thwart - even by indies. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">i only looked briefly at that mod . i have to admit that i don't like the theme very much . it reminds me too much on shogun : total war . so i didn't seriously play them . what i myself like quite much too is the black moon chronicles mod with the empire of lyhn and the knights of the light . i think this mod is quite balanced too . |
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A difficulty with replacing all the nations is that there are still thousands of units and equipment which will still exist as independents, mercenaries, summons, items, etc., which would take a long time to remove, unless perhaps you design a map which is meant to be completely used up by starting provinces, or has all modded independents, and you also edit the spell list, etc. Not to mention that spell effects can't be modded and are based on the existing units' values. It's much easier to balance things to the existing system. PvK [ July 17, 2004, 17:19: Message edited by: PvK ] |
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Shall I correct the spelling etc. too, or is that "thematic" because orcs can't spell well?
PvK |
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A difficulty with replacing all the nations is that there are still thousands of units and equipment which will still exist as independents, mercenaries, summons, items, etc., which would take a long time to remove, unless perhaps you design a map which is meant to be completely used up by starting provinces, or has all modded independents, and you also edit the spell list, etc. Not to mention that spell effects can't be modded and are based on the existing units' values. It's much easier to balance things to the existing system. PvK </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It can be a map, and it can be a script/short program editing .map files. You just edit independents and in the mapfile: choose&clear (#land?), set poptype to X, commander X_1, units to X_2 and so on... The program should have some way to choose the number of defenders. BTW, something like that with easily added new maptype (all poptypes/provinces from which to choose) would be a boon to modders... If it was confiqurable along these lines: #provincetype 1 #poptype 1 #terrain mountain #commander1 2001 #unit1 [1-4] 2003 #commander2 2002 #unit2 [1-4] 2004 ...where provincetype would be identification method, poptype the number of the poptype to be assigned, the numbers after commanderNr and unitNr would be the unit type and rarity. 1 would be used for something like knights, 4 for militia... The game would put in random value dependant on that. #terrain would be just for thematic reasons. I might try for that myself if I hadn't enough to do with my 'official' project... Java for university. Almost working... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif It might be possible to tweak that to allow adding some more player-defined special provinces... Think of 'The Sundering', or the provinces inhabited by Solaris (whom I have never seen) or the Cyclopses. |
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You cannot COUNT on Loremasters. You will not get them in every game, even in a world map, much less in the beginning... National mages have many advantages, the biggest being that reliability, over Loremasters, and I think they were intentionally made to cost much less than they should, because of their rarity.
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but in gametechnics if you wouldn't get them cheaper than your nationalmages then they were rarely worth the build . they need to be cheaper to be a reward when you really rarely find them. on the other hand that is quite unfair . another such example is finding early a site with 40% blood or conjuration or forging bonus . |
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I apreciate the effort that was put in these two Orc mods but I must say I didn't like much of what I saw. No flame intended BTW, I hope this will only be understood as constructive criticism. I can't remember everything I've seen offhand, but these are the main points I'd change:
No priests: nice twist, I like that. Optionally you could add an unholy-1 (no more!) dark priest or priest/shaman akin to Broken Empire's Cultist. Bad MR: nice twist again, although 9 would be OK too. Weapons: I think I've seen too much broadswords and too much tweaked weapons. I'd use regular great clubs, mauls, axes, battleaxes, morningstars, flails and spears as primary weapons. Maybe shortbowmen too (give these an axe as a secondary weapon). Standards and standard effects: drop them all. Add a special (and expensive) standard unit akin to Soul Gate standard legionary which causes Fear(+0) instead of boosting the morale of nearby friendly units. That seems much more thematic to me. Morale: it's either very bad or insanely high, which seems very odd. Give 10 to regular troops, 12 or 13 to elites. Hitpoints: way too high. Your Orcs are human-sized and thus should have physical stats akin to Ulm or Abysian standard troops. I'd give 12 to 13 HPs to most troops, base ATT of 11 and base DEF of 9. Wolfriders: remove the trampling, it doesn't makes sense, since wolves only jump on their targets to put them off-balance, and always use their jaws as their only weapon. I can't remember if they have a bite attack, they should get one that inflicts something like 12-13 damage (no STR bonus) since the wolves have to be fairly large to be mounted by stocky orcs (IIRC standard wolves use a 2 damage bite attack and have a STR of 8). Stealthy units: +16 seems just silly on standard troops. I'd give them all zero, possibly +10 or +20 only on one or 2 dedicated leaders. I don't know if it's possible, but I'd try to make one of these Orc nations a replacement for Ulm, and would edit the Wolfherd so you get a special unit that can summon wolves for free from the start. Well, that's all I can think of now since I can't even remember what the leaders look like, maybe I'll follow-up with more if you need more feedback. |
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Endoperez, that would be very nice to have such a utility. Gandalf and someone whose name escapes me have also been working on some other map population projects.
PvK |
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hi folks, thanks for ur replies. the thing was, i wanted to change almost every race into dwarves, elves, humans and so on... with changing independents too. but after developing the orcs, i hadnt enough time for going on. i have 2 weeks of university left, then i have vacation for 2 month... so i think in that time i will do some more stuff.
The thing was, that i never wanted to fight against the other races originally in dominions 2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif some things u mentioned i just forgot to implement or just werent even possible in Version 2.08 ... if someone of u has some time and fells like doing it, he could change the stats to a "realistic" scale compared to the other nations, so u could mix them. see u all |
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but in gametechnics if you wouldn't get them cheaper than your nationalmages then they were rarely worth the build . they need to be cheaper to be a reward when you really rarely find them. on the other hand that is quite unfair . another such example is finding early a site with 40% blood or conjuration or forging bonus . </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Rarity only costs more (in theory) in a common market with a fixed demand and a limited supply. That's not the situation here at all. Boron, it's not unfair if someone finds a site with unique abilities, if they had to do something that involved choices to get the site. For example, if they invested in magic paths and invested the time and possibly resources to search for the site. It's a prospective investment that paid off well. PvK |
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