Vaettiheim 2.2
 

PREVIEW IMAGE

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...1&d=1222598687

---------------------------------------

Summary: An update to the Vaettihiem nation. Exiled Vaetti and Gyga form a Late Era nation with troll, wolf and Spero allies.

Strengths:
Cheap, effective size 1 troops
Strong, durable trolls
Spero flying armies
Fast wolf based troops
Very varied recruitables
Useful wolf chaff summons and spawns
Heavily stealth based

Weaknesses:
Slightly unreliable and old mages
Weak missile troops
Weak priests
Sacreds cap only
Specialist units are expensive


UPDATE V 2.2

This is a relatively minor update in terms of gameplay, but changes a lot in the dm file itself so could produce some hilarious bugs.

-- All copystats replaced with actual stats

-- Many changes to ID numbers

-- Changed the role of the Wolf Lord to make him less of a call allies monkey

-- Replaced the werewolf spy with a simple and very cheap Vaetti scout

-- Exile Guard no longer cap only

-- Troll Druid gets +1 nature in a forest

-- Prettied up the flag and banner a bit


----Mod uses ID Numbers --

--Nation 74

--Armor 320

--Weapons 695

--Monsters 2400-2427

--Sites 887-889

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

I like those little goblin guys...Good thing they became a nation of their own!

Suggestion:Maybe a custom pretender?

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

I could make a super ancient Gygja pretender, or just give them something new and crazy. I think the fenrer pretender or ***** queen work pretty well though.

I'll add a minor dominion spawn of wolves in a later update. Honestly though they aren't exactly a priest/holy/sacred nation, so the pretender and dominion are somewhat less important.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

I had myself a project of changing the exemple mod into a nation of vaettir and trolls (instead of wyvervns), I think it would be more appropriate, but as I'm currently too busy with my map editor, ...

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

Huh, great minds think alike eh? Well I'm keeping the draconians as is, but the Vaetti also get 2 troll units, some more wolfy stuff and a troll hero or two.

If you want to make any suggestions or have any units etc I could put them in so you can carry on working with the map editor.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

You can use Bogus and his teams as sprites for heroes/commanders for your mod, that's what I planned to do. (The Troll mage could serve as placeholder sprite for a Troll Shaman for exemple, and the Troll raider could maybe serve as a troll scout/ranger commander)

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

Interesting... I was beginning to think my tutorial Vaetti nation ended up with such high stealth no one would ever uncover it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

Ah, but you forgot we modders have control over the patrol bonus. "Your patrolling troops in D:/Dominions 3/mods found a concealed tutorial. A big grin ensued."

Thanks for making the Vaetti. It not only helped me with shapeshifting and namepool commands, but also gave me a lot of enjoyment in SP. I hope by having an SE on here more people will give the little fellas (and their big friends) a chance.

I'll definately add a troll shaman commander with limited earth magic (hey, he's a troll) but to keep with the theme of the nation he'll be a sort of overpriced and weak mage and have only priest 1. He'll really be there just to complete the wishes of troll addicts. As will the moose riding troll national hero.

The Vaetti are getting their own upgraded Fenrer pretender in the next version who automatically calls wolves when in friendly dominion. They'll also get a new type of vaetti infantry armed with a pickaxe who gives a slight siege bonus.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

A minor gripe with the the Vaetti hag Description:

So how come they have the same amount of magic as the ones in MA (EA?) Jotun?I propose they get 1 death and 1 random (or 2 random)

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

As recall, I gave them an extra 10% random.

I tend to make my nations very conservatively balance wise- enough power so it isn't simply unimaginable to play in MP, but well less than the top-tier base game nations. Besides, for the Vaetti in particular, I don't think more powerful really fits, if I were convinced they needed a boost I would lower prices.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

I would like a cheap shortbow unit. I really enjoy the mod.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

Hmm. Well they are sort of a missile-weapon-less nation, but I suppose it couldn't hurt for them to have Vaetti shortbow archers - be prepared for crappy morale though.

In the next version,... a new vaetti archer, a new vaetti with a pick, a troll shaman leader (weak magic/priest), a moose riding unique troll hero and a new pretender (with the fenrer graphics) called Crescent Moon Wolf who attracts wolves while in his dominion. I think with these added little bits I'll basically be finished with the SE.

All credit goes to quantum of course, I'm just adding frosting to a delicious Vaetti cake :]

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

That's exactly what I want, thank you.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

What about reducing the cost of the moose archers ?

Currently at 45 gold, you get two shortbow attacks at precision 8.

Sure the mosse has great mouvement, and its HP can help survive some loose arrows, but I would rather have 4.5 indeps archers with precision 10.

If the moose riders were at 30 gold, they would still be more expensive that normal archers, but the mouvement and hit points could make them usable

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

I thought the point of the moose riders was to hold then attack - they are sort of like multirole cavalry for Vaetti.

I haven't altered the stats of the vanilla unit, but I'll give them a test and see if they suck at charging as well as shooting.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

They have two attacks that could do some damage, yes, but with their low attack (and defence) skill, large size, and lack of armor they are less useful than even indeps light cavalry.

I could live with the low precision and armor by using them as mobile archers that can follow fast armies (with the forest trolls and wolf riders, you can have army move 2 with all units having forest survival), and survive some lone arrows or spell thanks to their HP. But not for this price.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

Yeah you're right, I just tried them out and they're pretty poor in melee, especially for the price. Ok, I'm going to drop the cost to 35 and maybe give them a touch more attack power. I mean a charging giant moose should be able to at least do /some/ damage, especially going by the description.

I hadn't realised how hard it is to get clean graphics from vanilla units. Any suggestions people? The pics from the info window and recruit screen are both the wrong size and with a screen capture they sort of blur into the surrounding background.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

Use #copyspr command. Or if you want to change vanilla graphics there is a tutorial here . Also there was a tutorial for taking sprites out of the game by Endoperez but I have no idea where that is. I wish someone would "sticky" those posts.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

Suggestion : moose knight national summon ?

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

I prefer national summons to be magical creatures and I'm pretty sure I'm using that sprite for a national hero already.

Amos: I just need to know how to get the vanilla graphics in a clean form and at the right size. I'm already ok with general editing, adding new sprites etc. But thanks :]

I've made an archer sprite but it doesn't look too great and it took more work than I'd have liked. Still, I think it's good enough for now.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

Not possible. The right size sprites you can get from inside the battle screen. The whole process is not very efficient and too hard.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

My old method (for DomII) doesn't work any more. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I did post it here in the Dom3 modding subforum, but I hadn't tested it properly and the units aren't shown in their original size (in e.g. description window) when Dom3 is windowed.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.1
 

Ah well. I can get the images in a sort of wrong size blurry format, but that's not too good,... still I used it to make a troll shaman (the troll mage as a template) who doesn't look awful, even with my useless graphical skills. Oh and the archer isn't as bad looking as I made him sound. He's fine from normal battleview distance.

It's spring festival out here (in china) right now,.. but in a few days I'll update this, maybe update the avernum nation,.... neither is getting national spells added just yet because I haven't wrapped my head around spell modding at all,.. but in the future they should do. I'll also update the mod list (I think people are finding it useful) and announce another nation I'm messing about with based on the poetry of the English Civil War. Yes, the poetry. You heard right.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

I love this mod, but there are two things that seems not right:

- The draconian chief should'nt have hands

- normal Trolls have 11 natural protection, already one of the best for a recruitable units, if not the best (of course some summons have better protection).

ow come that forest trolls, supposed to be a slightly smaller (less HP and strength) version of mountain trolls, have 14 base protection ?

With so much protection, a small pack of forest trolls or wolf trolls can take almost any indeps province.

If you really wants them to be better armored that normal trolls, just give them better equipment (or maybe let them have less armor that mountain troll, but with better combat values, or give them a protection for the head)

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

Weird, I don't remember changing the prot value to be different from vanilla trolls. Let me look into this (wolf trolls do seem a bit invincible) and I'll probably drop the prot down. As for the Dracboss, sure I'll chop off the hands.

Next version will be out in a couple of days. It will be very nearly final for this SE. Glad you like it so far - check out the Exile/Avernum mod too if you have time.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

New version released. Check the first post.

The troll prot values are sorted out (trolls are still niiice shock infantry, but cost twice as much as Jotun giants and aren't twice as powerful).

Other than that, tell me if you like the new graphics for the two extra vaetti and the shaman. Believe me when I say they were more difficult to make than it might look.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

I like the changes a lot, I noticed that the new archers are size level 2 and the groundbreakers description would leave me to believe that they should have some siege bonus.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

#Siegebonus is bugged. It doesn't work at all as far as I can tell.

The size is fixed though. Good catch. I've stuck up the new version, 1.35.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

Ok a very minor update taking us to 1.4.

This is just so Vaettihiem can be used with Zepath's late era mods. It's fun to have vaetti, dwarves and elves all going at each other. I'll ensure balance with Themiskyra too at a later date.

Update coming soon
 

Update imminent. If you want anything included in the mod now is the time to ask for it. Suggestions for another national hero are very welcome.

Re: Update coming soon
 

Ok, minor update to v1.5

1.6 will probably be final - I await feedback before I make it.

Re: Update coming soon
 

I've changed my mind about a few things in this mod, so a lot of values have been adjusted this time. I believe the nation will be considerably less underpowered now.

Perhaps the most major change is that Vaettihiem now has a full selection of fort types, including a stronger starting one.

v1.65 is attached to the first post, so give it a go and let me know if you have any ideas, as usual. I am totally willing to add a couple of new units, summons etc if they're suggested and make sense.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.0
 

Once again I'm up too late looking at mods by accident.

I just signed on to say it was strange that all the forts were the same, but I see there's an update. Magic! So, having an update gives me a chance to notice any uppercase/lowercase errors.

(what the files are called) -> (what the mod says)
Vaetti groundbreaker(2).tga -> vaetti...
troll shaman(2).tga -> Troll Shaman(2).tga

I guess the easiest solution would be to have a convention that all filenames are entirely lowercase.

An entirely separate comment: Being as the draconians are meant to have come from the cold place where the vaetti now live, it seems a bit odd that they are cold blooded. Presumably these draconians are different and more hardy than your average draconians.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.7
 

Updated for use with 3.08. See first post for download.

I'm sorry I totally forgot to sort out the naming conventions,... but an easy fix once you know how I hope.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.7
 

So, I've been thinking lots about the Vaettiheim troops, and I have quite a few suggestions. I don't know if you're still interested in making changes to this, or if you're more keen to work on Arga Dis etc now. In any case, I'd be more than happy to mock up any new units/try out some balance changes etc, but only with your permission - it is your baby after all.

Okay, onto the units:

Vaetti spearman - lovely. I like him a lot. Perfect staple unit.

Vaetti archer - Similarly, just right.

Both kinds of wolf rider - again, really good. I think you've got the pricing and balance just right for both.

I really enjoy playing with these various vaetti troops for some reason, I don't know why but I think they're great. I tried to play a mass-markata strategy with Kailasa once, but that went hideously wrong. Maybe I just like small units.

Vaetti groundbreaker - I think these are an excellent idea, (particularly the strength potion!) but somehow just not quite useful enough at the moment. I've been trying to mix them in with spearman to add a bit of punch. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work very well - I think it's their attack and defense stats (8 and 7 respectively), since their damage is quite respectable. Maybe the pick axe could be made less awful to attack with? I can see that they should be clumsy weapons, and the low defense rating is reasonable if disastrous for their survival, but the end result is that they're not much use in battle. I'd suggest increasing the attack rating of the pick axe by 2, and their base defense by 1 (they are experienced pick-axe users after all). They'd still be a difficult choice over the spearmen because of their terrible survivability, but they might at least work for causing damage. Their siege bonus could then be lowered to 2 or even 1 so that they don't become crazily effective when present in large numbers (there's likely to be many more of them around if they're useful in battle as well). Another possibility for improving their survivability would be giving them better armour.

Werewolf - I'd forgotten these existed! They look a little expensive to tempt me, but I haven't tested them so it's not a fair comment.

Moose Riders - I just can't work out what to do with these. As archers they're too expensive and take up too much space. In combat they're awful - mainly because they're too big. I know you've already made them a lot cheaper and better, but they're still missing something. Maybe the moose should have a powerful charge attack? Maybe the defense could be upped a little? Perhaps they could be cheaper?

I think actually I like the powerful charge option best - unleash two volleys, then... chaaarge! They might die, but they might just manage to break the enemies first.

I assume they'd look silly if they were size 3? That would be better. Another problem I guess is that this unit is already in dominions, so it seems inconsistent if they're changed too much. Still, I think it's better to change them if necessary.

Forest Troll - great, just right.

Draconian - I haven't got the knack of these either. I don't know if you realised, but in our duel I sent 800 gold's worth of draconians on a raid against you. Unfortunately I hadn't scouted very well, and landed in a province of independents behind your borders. It was only a moderately tough indy province, but they made short work of my draconians. 800 gold gone.

Of course, the main value in them is that they can fly. That's worth a lot. But still, they're just frustratingly bad - unless I'm misusing them, of course, which is quite possible.

Here's a thought I had: Replace the draconians with "Frost Draconians" or some such. Slightly smaller, maybe blue. They'd have no "cold blooded" tag, and be only size 3. This would be thematic, since they live in the frozen slopes of Crescent Mountain. They could even have a very weak cold aura. Anyway, I think making them size 3 would make them enormously better at a stroke. They've got good stats after all, they just get ganged up on horribly.

Okay, that's it for the units. Essentially I really like all of them, but can't work out how to use a few. I think already this is probably better than most vanilla races - generally there's several units in every lineup that I tend to ignore.

Now, I really like using masses of Vaetti, and I've been thinking that it would be nice if there were a couple more types of them. Here's a couple of ideas I had. I've written little descriptions, but only to give you an idea of what I had in mind.

Vaetti Scrounger

In the shadow of Crescent Mountain, life is harsh. The weaker or less lucky vaetti may struggle to survive, and be reduced to scavenging on the scraps left by their more fortunate kin. In times of war these desperate vaetti may often join armies in large numbers, finding worn and rusted weaponry and hoping to scrounge whatever they can in the wake of battle.

--

I like having silly numbers of units, and the vaetti are great for that, although their size 1 makes them look less numerous than they are. The thing is, they're not actually _that_ cheap - because they're really quite good soldiers. I was thinking it would be good to have a unit that really was very cheap, that you could mass in huge numbers to overwhelm the enemy.

These would cost 6 gold perhaps (I'm tempted to say 5 but that might be too low), and be generally a bit worse in every way than the normal spearman. They'd use a rusted sword, rusted shield and maybe normal leather armour. The rusted equipment might be resource free (being scrounged), making these easy to mass. They'll not do much good but they might just wear your opponent down or tire out his troops.


Vaetti Beast Catcher

In the forests around Crescent Mountain lurk many strange and hideous beasts. When the vaetti first fled there, many of them were killed when they strayed too far from the camps. And so, the vaetti organised teams of beast catchers equipped with nets, to venture into the forest and bring down the monstrous creatures that threatened them. The beast catchers were very successful, and have now become skilled at hunting down and ensnaring any monsters that stray too close to the vaetti camps.

--

These'd have nets, and maybe spears or something. They'd give the vaetti a chance against really tough opponents. They'd probably work very well in synergy with the groundbreakers, I guess. Balancing them would require a bit of thought, but other nations have net troops and they don't seem overpowered.

That's it for now! Like I say, I'd be up for creating prototype versions of these if you'd be interested but don't have the time, but no worries if you're not keen on the ideas.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.7
 

I just thought I'd say that when I said I'd be happy to mock up any new units etc with but only with your permission, I really meant only if you'd like me to. I'd like to help out if you're short of time, but it's far more important that the mod keeps its sense of identity as your creation, if you know what I mean.

I was just thinking because Foodstamp said in another thread how he changed one of his mods loads because of feedback, and ended up hating it. That would be really bad.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.7
 

Well Vaettihiem SE was originally a sample mod made by QM to serve as a tutorial, so in a sense it's not exactly my work to begin with and belongs to the community.

I'm completely happy for you to work on it - if you can do graphics then go right ahead and edit/use mine, if not then I can new graphics for new units. Basically we can work on it together if you want.

I'm taking a break from modding until this weekend, at which point I can do a bit more on Vaettihiem, sort out some Arga Dis stuff etc.

As far as the draconians are concerned, I've used them in a SP game to deal a fair bit of damage by adding a squad of them to vaetti/troll armies and setting them to hold then attack rear. They aren't amazing in a fight, but enough of them can tear archers and mages apart, provided you keep the other troops off them. They can be used to paradrop behind lines, but it might not be cost effective.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.7
 

Cool, that sounds really good. I guess I'll probably end up being quite short of modding time myself, since the plan is that any spare time I fancy doing something constructive I funnel into developing the llamaserver. But I'll definitely try to have a tinker with the vaetti when I get a chance.

Let me know what you think of my comments/suggestions when you get a chance.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.7
 

After a bit of discussion with llamabeast, I've decided to add Vaetti netters, Vaetti sorcerors and a Vaetti Hermit national hero to the nation.

Archers and groundbreakers will get new graphics (somewhat cleaner) and groundbreakers will get slightly altered stats.

Draconians will be removed entirely and replaced with the Speros, primitive mountain dwelling winged lizardmen who aren't coldblooded and can use some weapons. They'll have a regular infantry version and a chieftan to lead them. Slightly smaller and cheaper than dracs, but same purpose.

I might also do some kind of white werewolf hero.

I'll stick up some graphics tonight or tomorrow using mediafire.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.7
 

*is very excited*

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.7
 

I got distracted by other stuff and by trying to get a Tharoon beta together, but I did whip up some new graphics for the Archer, Groundbreaker, Sorc and Hermit. Hard to make the little vaetti look that good, but they're recognisable anyway.

The Speros present more of a challenge. I'm basically thinking of a slave warrior or regular ctissian of some kind as a base, stick on some wings, make them white/grey,... anyway it'll get done soon enough.

Here's a preview gif of the new stuff I did. The sorc looks very distinctive because I figured they're an entirely new order of vaetti that have formed and they're somewhat more influenced by newer 'evil' schools of magic than the old 'evil' Seith of the Gygja.

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.p...y2&thumb=4

Should work.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.7
 

You never cease to amaze me Sombre. Those pics are sick. My fave has to be the bottom one. Is that a tank of some vile liquid it is carrying? Anyway, awesome as per usual.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.8
 

I should have 1.8 released by the end of tonight. I've done all the new graphics apart from the white werewolf and I've coded in the speros, the hermit hero, added a vanilla gygja hero, coded the white wolf,.... altered the groundbreakers (instead of making a new vaetti pickaxe weapon I just gave them an axe and shield - the graphic is still a pickaxe though).

The thing I haven't quite worked out is the new stats to turn the troll shaman into a troll druid and the stats/magic the vaetti sorcerer should have. I'm thinking he'll be blood astral death randoms with slim to no chance of nature picks.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.8
 

Hmm. For the nature-free sorceror, how about D1 + (SDB) 130%? You could include nature in the 30% pick if you wanted.

I think that would work fairly well. He'd have quite a high chance of being useful. Well, getting S or D would be good. Getting blood would be a bummer - what do you do with a B1 mage (if they're too expensive to use as blood hunters)?

I suppose one solution would be to make him D1B1 + (SDB) 130%, so that blood picks would then be more useful. Are they meant to be strongly blood-themed though? I'm not sure what you have in mind.

How about just making the druid N2E1? Maybe with an extra 10% N, just for excitement.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.8
 

The Vaetti are a bit odd - if anything you can say they are nature based, since they get a couple of nature magic wolf summons. I would say Seith puts equal importance on BND with S as a secondary focus. I'm actually going to remove the chance of the hags getting S2 because of this - they'll still be able to get B2, N2 or D2 as before, if they're lucky enough.

The Troll Druid (formerly shaman) gets H1N2E1 with a NE 10% chance.

Sorcs don't exactly follow Seith, they've branched off and lose nature in the process; they still have S as secondary and still go for DB (blood and death are both alluring to these power hungry little sods, since it's widely used by the LA humans they mimic).

So I'm thinking of giving them D1B1 SDB120%, as per your second suggestion, with nature in the 20%. I'm sticking nature in there and making it 20% because I really don't want people getting 3D or 3B - they still can but it's real unlikely. We'll see how that turns out - with communions (which are a good idea with the nation in CBM) they should be able to pinch hit for the gygja as combat mages when needed.

I tested the netters just now and they made a mess of some heavy cavalry when sprinkled in with the standard spear vaetti.

The spero have odd graphics, but they look ok. You'll soon see what I mean.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.8
 

That all sounds really good.

I will miss my S2 hags (of which I had no fewer than 4 in our game, which I think was ridiculously lucky because I reckon they should be 1 in about 48), but I suppose lucky Gygjas can fill in for them. It seems a shame to reduce the chance of hags getting astral, since the S1 ones are by far the most useful, but I can see where you're coming from.

The shamans and sorcs sound great.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.8
 

You should still get enough S1 hags with a 1/4 chance of getting it off the NBSD 100%.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.8 UPDATED
 

I've updated the attachment to 1.8 and it seems to be working.

If it stops working tell me and I'll set something up on mediafire.

ENJOY.

Oh and llama (and others) feedback on cost and stat changes is more than welcome. I think the vaetti sorcerer for instance might be priced a bit oddly.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.8 UPDATED
 

Awesome, good stuff Sombre. I had a chance to take a quick peek, and the new graphics are really good. I won't have a chance to have a proper play till Monday unfortunately though, so I'll try to post some comments then.

Re: Vaettihiem SE 1.8 UPDATED
 

I lied unfortunately, it's been a hectic evening. I've had a brief look, but will spend some more time on it before I post comments.