Forest Of Loren - Release
 

NB: This is a beta test of Forest Of Loren.
To download it click on the attachment on this post.



---WHAT DOES FOREST OF LOREN (BETA) OFFER ---
A whole new nation!
A cool Banner
A flag
6 Uniqued Pretenders.
Spirit Of The Forest, Black Unicorn, Elven Master Druid, Forest Dragon and Forest Dragon Elven Form.
11 new units
14 new commanders
10 new weapons
4 new armors
200 new names



--- BETA TEST NOTES ---
I need all the feed back I can get. You can write it in this thread, PM me or write an E-mail to me. The only way to improve it and balance it is if people test it and comments the problem. Any comments, suggestions and critiques are welcome.
The first thing I'm very bad with grammer and there's some spell errors in the mod so if you people point out where it would be cool.
Also the most obivious thing is the cost of the units is it to high to low. If it's totally unbalanced I'll just build a MP mod of (FOL)Forest Of Loren so there's two version of FOL a single/rpg version and a multiplayer version.
Some of the unit description aren't finished and some of the description I've decided to redo.





--- TODO LIST ---
*Add 50 extra names. - DONE.
*Make 4 heroes which eventually join you if you're lucky enough.
*Add 2 extra Pretender. - DONE.
*Remake and/or finish some of the unit descriptions. - DONE.
*Add Special Nation Magic
*Improve some of the unit sprites.
*Remake nation Flag. - DONE.
*Write a README file and a PDF file with all stuff about Forest Of Loren and its units etc.



--- KNOWN ISSUE ---
*The Forest Dragon can only shapeshift after turn 1.
*The Forest Dragon does not suffer from -2 magic penalty.
*Problems with restricting the pretenders to FOL nation.
*Due to unable to make new sites, the unicorn, silver unicorn and moonlight Mistress isn't 'only recruitable' at start province.
* Glade Guard is missing Castle defend +1

These issues may be solved in a later dom2 patch or in Dom3.



with best regards
Thilock Dominus

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

one question, why would you choose the forrest dragon over the green dragon?

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

It looks cooler and probably doesn't get a paths penalty for being in dragon form.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

There's some diffrences between Forest Dragon and Green Dragon. Forest dragon cost 75, have acid breath and a 1 misc slot more and 2 extra movement points. But don't have resistance to anything.

OT: Seems that the server I'm hosting my pictures is down or I've used up my bandweight for this month.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

That's OK, we can still DL and look at them=)

By the way, I'm not sure if you knew, but you can put a shadow under the unit by using violet pixels. Color (RGB) {255, 0, 255}. Nobody pays much attention to shadows so you can just do an oval or trapezoid.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

now news to see just at start of a working day ..., I'll test it as soon as I can ... I'm also testing Ogala ...

good play and thank you
Liga

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Does the units not drop a shadow in FOL? It does in mine.
Could I get a feedback on the if the units drops shadows? I made a transparent black which blend 50% with the dom2 background.
Take a look: http://thilockdominus.freehomepage.c...shadowunit.jpg

OT: It seems that it just the server was down, but up and running now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Ah... I'll take your word for it (the page times out on me). I have only unzipped the mod to look at the pretty pictures and noticed a lack of violet, not used it in the game yet. I'm too busy programming the combat sim and modeling unit interactions to actually PLAY http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I like your unit icons, btw!

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Phhheeww...You scared me there for a moment LOL.
I made the units on a transparent background instead of the taditional black background. In my opinion it's easier to work that way. So instead of violet which indicate shadow I made my own shadow with a transparent black http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

I have put your mod on my web site:

Liga's mods page

pointing out that is just a beta release ... I have also asked people of my dom2 group to test it!

good play
Liga

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Thanks Liga http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Wow the look and feel of this is really great -- an amazing artist you are!
Have played 2 games with them so far -- very fun! Will try one more and then post results here of my testings.
Before you "go gold", you may need a native-speaker to go over some of the texts -- if you need help, let me know.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Beautiful looking mod. It does not look particularly overpowered, either, which is a first as far as I am concerned. There are a few things that puzzle me, though.

The defense of the units is extremely high - too high to make sense. A groundpounder worth a dozen of golds should not have better combat stats than a Vanir hero.

Another strange thing is the forest shield - it decreases defense. If you are trying to model the fact that the shield actually slows the infantryman down, I think that you are on the wrong track. First, it will probably have unexpected results when rolling for an arrow hit. Second, in Dominions, even heavy, cumbersome shields, like the tower shields, increase defence. Now, I am rapier fencer, but I have gone against my boyfriend's SCA heavy fighter setup, and I assure you - a shield is a Heck of a defence.

I am not quite sure what is going on with income. You talk about a penalty to income, but I seem to be getting better capital income than I expected. Maybe a fluke.

And last, are these elves supposed to have some trouble with research? They have great combat mages, but no researchers to speak off.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

The problem here is that the dragon is wounded the first turn because of dominion HP bonus. It would be fatal to change form. All Dominions dragons start with the other form. If you put the other shape first (and make it a god), it will work properly, but you'll see the wrong image during god selection. It is not possible to make him work exactly like a standard dragon right now.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Not sure if this is your intention, but changing the scales in the mod will not just change the scales for the modded nation but for all nations in the game were the mod is used. The wardancers might also be an issue, their defense combined with their offensive power, sacred status and fear makes them quite formidable.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Okay, I was not aware of the scale thing.
That War dancers issue concerned myself, but I gave them the chance with the current stats into the beta test to see how people responding to them.

The Forest Shield is an error, the stats that is. There will be new stats to the Forest Shield, it was made in haste.

The Research issue: Well it was my intension to aim low. I used it as a compensation to the more stronger units types. But I'll take a look at it.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Remade the the Forest Of Loren banner. (check my sig.)
New Flag for Forest Of Loren.
50 new names have been added.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

personally I think it looks over powered. The only weakness I see if it's only holy 3 priest is very expensive, which makes it difficult to get sermon of courage, and the lack of a cheap researcher. You have excellent national troops, possibly the best nationals outside of niefhiem. It has access too all schools of magic except death, which you can easily put on a pretender. I would eliminate the priestess with 1 water, leave only the air one, and change the random on the unicorn priestess to sorcry random only instead of elemental random. right now they can get the missing death magic easily through lamia queens. Currently, the unicorn priestess with a fire random can forge fever fetishes to get plenty of fire gems, and you can make clams using the 1 water priestess and a water bracelet. Change the magic paths this way would leave them with no way of getting fire or water magic outside of pretender/indies, giving them another weaknes. Also, if you can only make 1 commander captital only I would make it the unicorn priestess. This would make sermon of courage even harder to get, adding another weakness. As for the troops, I don't see much of a problem with the war dancers, with that low of protection they'll be sitting ducks for ranged weapons, ditto for the dyrads.

odd_enuf

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Nice. I'm feeling a surge of warhammer inspiration. I think I have to paint my dark elf pirates.

I was surprised when my quickly made pretender showed up with a random elven name instead of the boring old ones.

Some thoughts:

Elven Warriors:
Spear costs 1 res.
Buckler costs 1 res.
Broadsword costs 3 res IIRC.
Leather Cuirass costs 1 res.
Base cost for all units 1 res.

So elven warrior with spear should cost 4 and the one with long sword 6 (or 7 if elven long swords are of superior craftsmanship).

Wardancers:
Unicorns cost 140 and are inferior to wardancers in everything but MR (more or less).

Wardancers have area 7 fear. This is very powerful. They are scarier than a cyclops. In warhammer they have fear i guess. This is more like terror. A group of wardancers will break any enemy within moments. Spread them through your squads and you will have a horrible fear machine. They are also recruitable everywhere.

Their defence becomes very high when they wield two ritual swords. Base defence of 16 is on par with devils.

2 magic attacs of 15 is also high. Nothing wrong with that, but also something that should cost.

I would triple the wardancers cost and see if I would still find them attractive. Unicorns on the other hand might be made cheaper.

Leaders:
Very high defense.

General:
Very high defense and/or awe on blessable units (air 10 blessing) makes them impossible to hurt without area spells.

Otherwise it seems fine. There are lots of commanders I haven't tried yet, but I find no cause for alarm (the war dancers got me a bit alarmed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ).

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

The file attachment on the first post in this thread does not have these changes.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Nice mod Thilock http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif . My first glance at it looks very promising and your Unit-Graphics are really superb .
I will start a few SP-Games with it for sure after finishing my first 1 or 2 Hoi II campaigns http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

No, I havn't uploaded it yet with the new changes. I thought it was minor changes which wouldn't affect the game play.

Great with all the feedback http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif....I'm surely get busy to solve all things out, thanks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

But if you're curious how the new flag looks like: http://thilockdominus.freehomepage.c...hotnewflag.jpg (big file 1431.25 KB)

Yup, I made it that way for those who wouldn't bother with names.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Updated the FOL. Changed some of the unit stats and cost.

It can be downloaded at the first post. I have included the old banner if some don't like the new banner. It's in Fol_Animation/Icons change OldFOL.tga to FOL.tga

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

ok -- Great mod Thilock!!

These are my first impressions.
- I really really like the work you did here. The graphics are incredible. In fact, they are fantastic. Hat's off!
- I have no idea what Warhammer is. I have heard that word once or twice, but have no clue what it is. Sorry if I am therefore misreading something... Since many of your descriptions still read "test", I cannot exactly make sure of a lot of it. You may want to contact a native-speaker of English for some of this (you can contact me!! I would be happy to help) to polish it up. Since there is not yet any description, I didnt understand the water path on the Forest Priestess.

In terms of balance, I want to say this to contextualize my suggestions below:
The pros:
- There are no non-stealthy units whatsoever. The entire recruitable force is without exception stealthy.
- With only one exception, the least amount of stealth any unit has is +10. Every single unit but the Treant has a stealth rating between +10 and +20. This also includes the armored troops with prot 10+.
- There are quite a number of very variable units -- 11 troops, ranging from the butch treant to the lightning-resistant faery to the prec-14 archer to the awesome unicorn, standard infantry, and cavalry. There are 14 recruitable commanders, including spies, and 7 magic-users. Of the 25 units, 2 are capital-only.
- Three of the troop units are sacred; none of these are capital-only.

The Cons:
- Many of the units cost a lot of gold. (Good.)
- Average priests (but cheap temples make up for that).

Although I love the feel of it, in my three little tests I just steamrolled my impossible AI opponents. It was fun! But basically, the only problem I see is a lack of weaknesses.
The troops are all top-notch, and there is no weakness or lack of ... anything but some magic paths (which I had on my pretender). You have cheap troops (some of which are 100% shock resistant) for fodder, elite ground forces, THREE types of sacred troops, all of which are incredibly powerful (imagine a wardancer with any kind of bless effect!) and two of which are cheap.

You beat the pants off my Oglalas, whom I thought were *THE* stealth race so far. Wardancers cut through just about anything with ease, but backed up with archers with a Faery Queen casting wind guide, a few Faeries as tough-to-hit distractors, and flanked by Glade Riders and unicorns, I had no trouble surprising just about any army by showing up in their backdoor with any combination of crack stealthy troops. Faery Queens, Faeries and a few commanders with rings of Shock Resistance did a nice job with Wrathful Skies as well.

I played once with an a4 Titan, once with a d-6 Prince of Death, and once with a Rainbow. I didnt try a F9 Moloch, but that will be next; then I will try your own new pretenders!

It is great fun, but I would tend to want to tone it down a lot, without losing too much flavor. So without trying to change too much, I would probably do this, if I had the choice and I were in charge:

- Reduce the stealth of ALL units by approx. 8-12. The Scout and the Waydancer should still be very stealthy, but otherwise, I would suggestion having at least most troops stealth +0 or max +5, since they are forest dwellers, and least 1/4 to 1/3 of the troops non-stealthy (I would choose for this EVERYthing with protection above 9 plus the unicorns as well as treants and meadow priestesses.)
- Reduce Fear effect of Wardancer to -4. (Fear stacks with bless.) Reduce Defense by 6. Reduce MR by 1. Make ritual sword not armor-piercing. Increase cost by 10. Make them capital-only. (Similar for the corresponding Commander, except I would reduce MR for him by 2
- Increase cost of Dryads by 10. Reduce MR by 1. Make them capital-only.
- Decrease precision of Elven Archer by 1.
- Make the scouts scouts, not spies. They shouldnt be able to start uprisings.
- Get rid of the shock resistance on Faeries.
- Remove fear on Treants. Remove Recuperation. Reduce MR by 2. Reduce Prot by 3. Remove armor-piercing and magical attack of the thorned claw. Reduce cost to 250. Alternatively, I would make them ritual summons (could replace a carrion summons).
- Make Faery Queens capital-only, and not shock-resistant. Magic Resistance should definatley not be higher than 18.

What do you think? I dont want to "knock" your excellent mod; it is truly great, and looks so wonderful. And fun to play too!

If you ever need help with some English-proofing, let me know.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

I regret to mention that the download in your first post is still your original 0.9 release. If you've updated the archive, the downloadable version from this forum lacks your updates. You might want to attach it to a new post. Or you can email me the file so that I can update the version I have available on my site.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Too late, tinkthank. I already offered my services. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

I just used the Injuns! vs Forestfull O'Elves. Boy, did I get steamrolled.

The Oglalas may be a better mid-late game nation, but the elves are an early game powerhouse. This will teach me to overlook basic troopers - these are anything but basic. Wardancers are nigh unkillable, if the player positions and scripts them right. By turn 13, my magical superiority started showing, but by then, I had lost half my lands...

How powerful I think this mod is? I don't know anymore. But Petar offered to use it against the Black Moon mod, and that mod is scary.

Good night now.



The defense most definitely needs to

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Sorry I thought I could update it through the first. So here it is.
One of the biggest changes is that I've removed sacred on wardancers. Made unicorns a bit cheaper, corrected rcost on elven warriors. >Redone the Forest Shield.
Added new Flag
Added New Banner

I'll look into the problems that you guys posted above.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Thanks for the update. I bumped the version number of the .dm file to 0.91 on the copy I host on my site.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Updated with the new version also my web site

good play
Liga

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Very cool Mod!! Fun, fun, fun.

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Next upcomming release of FOL will be tomorrow.

It contains alot of tweaks to balance it, plus two new pretenders.

Tree Of Life(38 kb) and Forest Monolith (42 kb)

DOWNLOAD THE NEW VERSION OF F.O.L. HERE
 

*** NEW RELEASE v. 0.92 Beta ***

--- Added ---
* Two new Pretenders - Tree of Life and Forest Monolith.
* Full Description to all units/Pretenders/Commanders.

--- Graphical changes ---
* The FOL flag (again).
* Minor changes to Forest Dragon.
(this wont be the last http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )


--- New Weapon ---
*Added Ancient Forest Sprites.


--- Balance issues ---
* Huge reduce in Stealth abilities in general. (Though a new ability like Forest stealth would be appriciated http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )
* Ritual Sword no longer have Armor piercing.
* Thorned Claw no longer have Armor piercing and don't count as a magical weapon.
* Elven Archer -1 Precision
* Faery no longer have 100% Shock res.
* Faery Queen No longer have 100% shock res. and reduced Magic res. from 20 to 18.
* Unicorn don't have stealth.
* Silver Unicorn don't have stealth.
* Moonlight Mistress don't have stealth.
* Wardancer reduced fear to -4 and reduced Magic res. by -1.
* Wardancer Champion reduced fear to -2 and reduced Magic res. by -1.
* Forest Dryad cost 50 gold instead of 40.
* Willow dryad cost 145 gold instead of 135 gold.
* Elven Scout lost the ability to instill uprising.
* Forest Priestess added awe +0
* Meadow Priestess added awe +0
* Elven Druid added research bonus +2
* Elven Elder Druid added research bonus +2


--- Misc. changes ---
* Moonlight Mistress can now only be bought at starting province.
* Black Bull, Lord of The Wild and Vine Dragon have been replaced with Black Unicorn, Forest Dragon and Spirit of the Forest. (This will break your current game if you these pretenders)
* Waywatcher is now recruitable in every castle.
* Elven Scout and Waywatcher aren't affected by the stealthy cutdown.


It was my intension to have 5 only-recruitable-at-province units (waywatcher, Treant, Unicorn, Silver Unicorn, Moonlight Mistress), but it's not possible at current time.
So instead I change the waywatcher around with Moonlight Mistress. If people want to play as it meant only recruit these five units at the home province.
That will make it difficult to play FOL, because the only level 3 priest is only avaible at home province.

Bone Daddy be my guest to correct my description. I'm sure there is enough grammer error to drive an english teacher crazy.

*** Changes from v.091 ***
* Wardancer and Wardancer chamipon no longer holy(sacred).
* New flag.
* New Banner.
* Added 50 more names (200 names are now avaible split into 3 catagories).
* Changed the stats of Forest Shield.
* Corrected the name of Spirit of the Forest.
* reduced the cost of Unicorn and Silver Unicorn by 10.

Many thanks to you guys who came with input and suggestions or just commented the project http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
By the way could I get some feedback on the FOL pretenders?

with best regards
Thilock Dominus

Re: DOWNLOAD THE NEW VERSION OF F.O.L. HERE
 

Looking very interesting -- just DLing now, will test asap, but probably cannot post with anything conclusive before 1 week is up (next Sunday or Monday even maybe).

Some minor notes just by looking at your post (wthiout checking your new zip):
- I wanted to mod Pan too for Oglala for many reasons (Pretender picks, cheap Temples, Theme, etc.), but ended up taking TC because of 1. the starting sites I could choose from and 2. the starting spells were what I needed. I think Pan has few sites with capital-only non-commanders. Maybe you could consider a different nation? Or see if there are any other sites?
- Any particular reason for the +2 research bonus on the druids?
- I havent actually tested your FoL pretenders yet, but saw them, and they looked fine (both in terms of balance and in terms of thematic flavor and graphics!). Havent opened your new package yet.

Anyhow, thanks for the update, looks very promising -- will get back to you!

Respond to tinkthank
 

The reason why the druids gets +2 research bonus is that was very hard to do research with FOL it also fit into the theme. The Druids is wise and knowledgeable http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

I'll look into if it's possible to move FOL to another nation.

Re: Respond to tinkthank
 

Version 9.2 is also on my web site!

thank you Thilock_Dominus

Re: Respond to tinkthank
 

Tinkthank, I think I can move it to Pythium.

Re: DOWNLOAD THE NEW VERSION OF F.O.L. HERE
 

As a friendly suggestion, you should copy the contents of your post #335459 into a "history.txt" or "readme.txt" to be included in the actual zipfile. This will help those that download your mod from my site and Liga's site who might not be reading this thread.

Re: DOWNLOAD THE NEW VERSION OF F.O.L. HERE
 

Ok, will do.

Re: Respond to tinkthank
 

You know, although that is no fit whatsoever thematically, that may be a very wise decision for your nation; the Swamps and other sites really allow for a lot of capital-specific troops without having to worry about gem income (You'll have to mix and match sites anyhow for the right starting income.) I think this could be just what you are looking for. You have no worries with the pretenders either since you have lots of really decent nation-specific ones yourself. And you have your own flag too. (Btw, your new Prancing Unicorn flag is TREMENDOUS -- nice job!)

Re: DOWNLOAD THE NEW VERSION OF F.O.L. HERE
 

Here's with a text file containing what changes I've made.

Re: DOWNLOAD THE NEW VERSION OF F.O.L. HERE
 

Thanks!

Re: DOWNLOAD THE NEW VERSION OF F.O.L. HERE
 

Release 0.94 comes in some few days...

Re: DOWNLOAD THE NEW VERSION OF F.O.L. HERE
 

I received your files and am working on them... cannot promise when I will get them done, since I have visitors now, but am doing my best....

I still find the units in general to be overpowered, and in total the nation to lack weaknesses, especially now that I am reading their descriptions with much greater care.

It is nevertheless lots of fun in SP!

Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Thanks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Oh well - Dracasia gonna match FOL that I'm working on atm.
If people don't want to play it if they find it overpowered, use it as an AI opponent http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Good point!!!

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

Sorry that I havn't released the next version of FOL, but my harddisc blew up and I had to buy a new which I recently had enough money to buy. I also upgraded my OS and set it up and found my backup CDs which contains all the stuff with FOL...so I'm back up running very soon.

Apologies for the incovenience.


with best regards
Thilock Dominus

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

I just downloaded your new version played with an older one until now .

One balance question :
Why does the glade guard cost 20 gold ? Expect 5 more protection he is not better then an elven warrior who costs only 12 gold .
Imho 12 , maybe 15 gold would be the correct price for the glade guard as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif . For 20 gold i don't consider him worthy enough to be purchased .

Re: Forest Of Loren - Release
 

It's been fixed for the next patch.