design LA Ermor (AI)
 

Just to keep things simple, lets stick to map commands. If you were to create a map game with an Late Age Ermor that didnt make dumb mistakes...
(LA Ermor is nation 50)

#computerplayer 50 4
#god 50 #
#scale_order nation -3+3
#mag_astral
#dominionstr 50 1-10
#additem
#allies 50 #
#specstart 50 prov
#setland
#fort
#temple
#lab
#startspell 50 "spell name"
#commander
#comname
#bodyguards # monster
#units # monster
#knownfeature
#unrest
#defence
#population

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

OK starting with the first one. What God would you give it? Any unit in the game (doesnt have to be a pretender and other settings such as magic and equipment are also changeable).

I wonder what Eater of the Dead would do in a nation full of undead? Or maybe one of the unique devils. Tarrasque even.

Or maybe to avoid the "sends to arena" or "charges the pretender into losing battles" it would be best to use something non-moving. A monolith? Remember that we can preselect its equipment also which could be interesting to do with old mono.

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

interesting...maybe lord of hell, demon lord lvl9 summon one of the 3 demon lords.....nice hp tons of power even gets blood magic....he might cast blood rite. but he spawns thralls too i guess taht will be just too annoying.

my preference would be an unique PoD for the AI.....problem with him is he is not ethereal and cannot go into the water like ghost king.

sphinx i like too as choice if AI use her with high dom10. lots of hp and if ai would use ghouls to defend castles it would be gold.

problem is ermor starts with just ermor citadel with just 200 def value.

a combat pretender that casts soul vortex and some other buffs before each battle would be interesting too.

i do not know whats possible to do or not just brain storming.

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

Brainstorming is good. We can actually do most of that.

We can give it any magic we want, and what abilities they dont have can often be faked by giving them equipment right at the start (stealth cloak, ring of water breathing)

Extra units or sites that can generate ghouls can help insure them being available for castle guards

Home castle can be changed, or additional castles given nearby or at chokepoints on the map

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

dark citadel is probably better with AI LA Ermor, like it was the case in previous dom versions.

for magic: max astral and max death in any case.

problem with item abilities is, once that pretender is dead the item is lost for the AI.

"eater of the dead" sounds fun as pretender....i did not expierement enough with that one how much hp can he max have without dominion? and what if he goes independent after a while? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

Even if he breaks out on his own, by then he is huge so it should still be a fun time.

Death and equipment could be a factor. What about Blood Fountain. There are 4 miscellaneous slots. If you could pick ANY misc equip to give right at the start, even uniques or things only seen on event monsters, what would it be?

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

a blood fountain with a lof of hp added perhaps?

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

Hmm I dont think I can add hp in a map command. I can add alot of experience. And of course a super high dominion would add alot of hp

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

Blood's a little moot unless you stack its land with blood-income sites. Pop loss + utter lack of early blood mages (neither Dusk Elders nor Spectators get it, IIRC)= no blood income to speak of. The Lord of Corruption spawns blood slaves, but he's only one guy and doesn't spawn THAT many.

If you wanted to ensure that a mobile pretender was unlikely to kill itself easily, the Armor of Virtue would help.

Sphinx with high Death, high Astral, full slots to avoid curse/horror mark (a Skull Mentor, a Ring of Sorcery, maybe a Spell Focus, can't remember if it gets a fourth or even a third slot).

Accompany with Bowl of the Lost for free Banes if we're being cruel.

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

I will keep Bowl of the Lost in mind for later when sites comes up (the #knownfeatures command). Good call on that one.
LA Ermor only starts with one national site that gives 15 death gems. Probably not worth replacing that but it does give 3 more slots for sites. Isnt there one that gives blood slaves? It might be national and Im not sure if national sites can be re-given

Come on Taqwus. If you could give LA-E anything as a pretender what would it be? It doesnt have to be new. It can be any player-use Ermor build.

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

i saw lord of hell spawning blood slaves too.

and dusk elders have a chance to get blood magic. but i saw it only 1 time in most games where i massed dusk elders they had only astral, water, earth, fire and air other than death. nature never maybe? and hardly ever blood

blood fountain can fit just for the fear effect and themewise. it should get auomatically blood slaves and have max blood, death and astral.

sphinx just has 1 misc slot if i remember correctly...

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

I was thinking that death Ermor with a Horror for a god would be thematic

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

doom horror perhaps?

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

Sure, there's blood slave sites. Most common non-national is Damned Merchant, +1 per. One of the Academies, maybe the one of High Magic, also gives +1, I think. Mictlan obviously has higher-volume one in EA.

Doom Horrors, like the Eater of the Dead, might have some undesirable hardcoding -- the going-independent. Not sure it's good for the game if the AI is betrayed by its pretender running amok and slaughtering its worshippers. Not sure whether Call God would work, either. Weird scenario. Definitely don't use Kurgi; the AI won't handle the feebleminding (bad when the Ashen Empire is completely dependent on mages), and you need Kurgi around to punish people who cast globals during Astral Corruption.

A humanoid lich-type or a Harbinger with the Sceptre of Dark Regency is very thematic, 'tho. Even a Prince of Death with the Sceptre of Dark Regency, the Crown of Katafagus or Amon Hotep would be vicious; classic fear + awe, and Amon Hotep gives MR to boot making it a bit harder to kill.

A well-equipped Mandaha is less thematic unless the theme is 'Unholy Alliance' between demons and undead, but the automatic darkness would be vicious and it's unique to Mandahas, if memory serves. Add the Black Book of Secrets for seasoning. I'd suggest the Sceptre of Corruption except that's horror-marking.

Tartarians are more thematic, being undead; the male Tartarian Titan, provided that it has no afflictions (are the afflictions added by the spell, or an inherent property of the unit?). Obvious weapon is Tartarian Chains. Maybe Tome of the Lower Planes as well, very appropriate. Consider using a cave fortress...

Etimmu's an obvious candidate for usurper, but you can't prevent him from showing up as a hero without mods. You could make the hero insta-drown by giving Ermor an -underwater- province, but you'd also lose Ermor-the-Pretender's immortality, the rest of Ermor's heroes, et al.

Again, fill slots. The AI will happily use horror-marking items like Lightless Lanterns. OK on sage, bad on pretender.

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

LE Ermor is already quite powerful, so I wouldn't choose it as the number 1 choice for an upgrade. Unless other nations are also heavily upgraded an improved ermor would invariably lead to a 'human vs ermor' situation in every game. Ermor is also not as easy to mess up for the AI - having bad scales is not such a problem.
Also, having the Eater of the Dead as a pretender might be a bit iffy unless doing so would stop it becoming uncontrolled!
I don't think the arena is necessarily /that/ suicidal for an AI pretender if they are naturally powerful. I like the Prince of Death as a pretender, thematically. It's also physically powerful. If given some equipment at the start it should crush most arena opposition. The difficulty would be if multiple AI nations sent upgraded pretenders to the arena... but at least the battles would be fun to watch.

AI Ermor should have a high dominion (10?) and scales on the lines of turmoil 3/ sloth 3/ cold 3 (better for cold auras / luck 3 / magic 3 (or 1) / Death 3.
Obviously, the pretender needs death magic. Giving it very high levels to allow for global enchantments and so on is probably best. 10 perhaps?
The pretender absolutely needs to be awake.

Blood and nature don't seem very thematic for Ermor and blood is pretty useless for the Ashen Empire. all the others could easily and be added to beef the pretender up. Giving Ermor a pre-designed SC pretender with items and strong magic plus a strong dominion and luck/magic scales will probably spell doom for any other AIs near them though.

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

I went with Ermor first because I wouldnt mind creatng a downloadable scenario where its a better idea for multiple human players to ally against the AI than to fight each other. It would be the only major challenge in the game.

Even worse by the way, I was going to add ally commands so that any other AIs you added to the game would automatically be allied with Ermor http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

Oh, well, no problem with Ai vs AI balance in that case then

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

For challenge: two more of the 15-gem site, then a big conjuration bonus site.

Or a good money site and a site that allows recruitment of a cheap earth mage, or nature+earth mage. Then the AI will search for earth sites.

A rainbow-8 sphinx might be fun... big research, sometimes it'll cast spells the ai rarely uses.

Can these commands be used for human players too?

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

Actually yes, most of them can. Thats kindof the direction Im taking. Im creating it as a nation, and then when you start the game you would be able to select the AI setting (or human if you want).

Some of this is still experimental but but at least parts of it should work since they worked for making scenarios in Dom2

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

I would like to see a "doom" race created for all 3 ages. After some thought, for the ultimate challenge, I would like to see:

Ermor have 2 gods. 1 a stationary god with 10 dominion 10 astral, and 1 "attack god, the vampire queen, also 10 dominion, 10 death, 10 earth. I would like ermor's scales at 3 death, 3 luck, 3 turmoil, 3 production, 1 drain(for 1 mr to make it harder to banish. I would like this doom
race to reaminate less in numbers, but much higher quality troops. If possible, i would like this race to start with complete knowledge of all evocation attack spells, and all death conjuration spells.

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

Im told there is a bug with #startspell altho I havent verified it.

Changing the troops would take a mod. I can add troops to the starting setup with map commands but I cant make changes.

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

Sounds like this would be a lot of fun. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I was teaching a friend of mine how to play via a pbem game and the only house rule was no direct player vs player combat until all of the ai players were defeated. Made for a very interesting game. I spent the first third of the game helping to keep him alive, and the 2nd third pummeling him with subversive spells and tributing nasty magic items to his last ai opponent. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

Is there a map command to specify awake / dormant / imprisoned gods? I can't find a reference to it anywhere in the exe or the docs.

While I'm at it, #scale_order should be #scale_chaos.

Below are some of my notes that others might find helpful:

Scales: (-3 tips left, +3 tips right)
scale_unmagic -magic/drain
scale_unluck -luck/unluck
scale_death -growth/death
scale_cold -heat/cold
scale_lazy -prod/sloth
scale_chaos -order/chaos

Magic:
mag_priest
mag_earth
mag_air
mag_water
mag_fire
mag_blood
mag_death
mag_nature
mag_astral

Re: design LA Ermor (AI)
 

No there is no command for dormant/imprisoned