Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

(Download v.50 is now available)
Some of the following may be obsolete:

Hello everyone.

I'm your friendly neighborhood long-term lurker. I've decided to step out of the shadows, because I've been working on some mods for quite a long time (just for my own amusement), and one of them is (IMHO) getting to a level where, with significant balancing and some additional attackgraphics/polishing, it could be enjoyable for others. The reason, of course, is that I've enjoyed so many great mods by the community (and of course the basic game itself; Thank you devs and modders!), so I'd like to give back. This is my third new nation mod, which is called 'Urdheim, The Infinite Horde' and consists of kobolds and dragonkin, lead by Half-dragon mages. I'd like it eventually to have moderate to above average balance when compared to most vanilla nations.

This is inspired heavily by DND kobolds, and the name Urdheim, comes from old-school dnd winged kobolds known as Urds. It should be noted there are no Urds per se in the nation, though there is some decent variety amongst the bloodlines of the kobolds. I've also pursued about every fantasy resource freely available on the web on all topics related to kobolds, draconians, dragonkin, drakes, half-dragons, and all things draconic.

I suppose I'd also like to see the level of interest in a Kobold Nation. I should have a beta download ready either this weekend or the next one. By posting this, I am basically committing myself to finishing it, which helps along with positive interest in the community, as far motivation goes. (It's hard to stay motivated after spending hundreds of hours scouring the web for reference pictures for sprites, and various sources for ideas for units.)


Anyway here's the detailed nation info:

Era: Early
#descr "A nation of Kobolds. Kobolds are tiny and weak lizardlike creatures possessing great speed. They are aggressive, xenophobic, yet quite industrious. Kobolds are noted for their skill at using poison, building traps, preparing ambushes, and mining. While having longer lifespans than humans, they reach adulthood in a matter of months, and breed frequently and in great numbers. They claim to be distantly related to dragons, which they worship as deities."
#summary "Race: Kobolds. Military: Small and stealthy light infantry with good leaders. Prefer Heat 1."

MAGIC: Fire=4, Earth=3, Death=2, Water=1, Nature=1
PRIESTS: LVL=1, sacred Ascendants

Numbers used in mod:
-- Weapon 880-898
-- Armor 380-381
-- Monsters 2865-2899
-- Sites 880-881
-- Nation 78

Fortresses:
Capital: Cave City
Default: Cave Fort
Farmland: Motte-and-bailey
Mountain: Cave Castle
Swamp: Swamp Fort
Forest: Forest Fortress

Province Defense:
Commander at def 1: Kobold Warchief
Units at def 1+: 2x Kobold, 1.5x Kobold Lt. Infantry
Commander at def 20: Kobold Sorceror
Units at def 20+: 1x Kobold Med. Infantry, 0.5x Firebrand


Strengths: Strong if highly focused magic, Stealthy and highly mobile troops, tough sacred unit, some potent national spells, good province defense, small production bonus.

Weaknesses: Weak priests, most units are cold-blooded, most units wear no armor, lack of true archers or cavalry, morale problems, no recruitable sacreds.

Kobolds have stealth, cold-blooded, 25% resist-fire, mountain survival, 50% darkvision, and are size 1.
Also: good leadership, good speed, good attack/def, good magic-resistance, pathetic hitpoints, low strength, poor morale.

kobold regular should have:
5 hp
6 str
11 att
11 def
4 prot
9 mor
12 mr
4 enc


units recruitable:
kobold (shortspear)
kobold skirmisher (shortspear/net)
kobold raider (hammer/torch) + pillage + animalawe
kobold light infantry (shortspear/shield/<font color="red">^</font>poison dagger)
kobold medium infantry (shortspear/scale/cap/shield/<font color="red">^</font>poison bolt)
kobold miner (pickaxe/pickaxe) + siegebonus + defense
<font color="blue">$</font> firebrand (fireblast/firebreath) + fireimm. + gluttony + (nostealth)
<font color="blue">$</font><font color="purple">@</font> winged hellion (firespikes/barbed tail) + magicbeing + blind + heat + fireimm. + flying + (nostealth)

commanders recruitable:
kobold ranger (shortspear/net trap/leather) + stealth10 + spy + patrol + okleader + wastesurvival
kobold warchief (shortspear/<font color="red">^</font>poison bolt/blades trap/scale/cap/shield) + summons 5 light infantry + good leader
kobold firelord (fireblast/firebreath/plate) + awe + makes 1 firebrand + gluttony10 + incunrest3 + (nostealth) + excellent leader
waterborn (quarterstaff) + amphibian + poisonres + (100% water/nature random) + (nostealth)
blessed one (magicstaff) + amphibian + poisonres + sacred + 1 holy + (120% water/nature random) + (nostealth) + supplybonus 20
kobold summoner (claw/summonflame) + makes 1 ash wyvern + animalawe + supplybonus 20
kobold sorceror (magicstaff) + 2 fire + 1 earth + 1 death + (100% earth/death random) + (10% fire/earth/death random)
<font color="purple">@</font> scion of glaurung (claw/firebreath) + sacred + 3 fire + 1 holy + (20% fire) + (20% fire/earth random) + flight + heataura + (-research) + (nostealth)
<font color="purple">@</font> scion of sirrush (claw/firebreath) + sacred + 3 earth + 1 holy + (20% earth) + (10% death) + regeneration + fire/poison immunity + siegebonus + (-research) + (nostealth)

makemonster unit summon:
Ash Wyvern (Same as normal wyvern, except: Size 3, -2 strength, +50% fireres)
Magma Drake (Sacred Drake on steroids, can go berserk, is weak to cold, bonus in hot provinces, and costs some gold upkeep)

ritual unit summons:
Kobold -Conj. 0 x30 E ( 5 earth gems)
Glaurung Ascendant -Conj. 0 x4+ FFFF (16 fire gems)
Kobold Skirmisher (farsummon) -Conj. 2 x30+ EEF (12 earth gems)
Kobold Raider (farsummon) -Conj. 4 x40+ EEEFF (18 earth gems)
Cursed One -Conj. 5 x2 DD ( 2 death gems)
Ancient Gargoyle -Ench. 7 x1 EEEA (20 earth gems)

ritual commander summons:
Dragon Ancestor -Conj. 3 x1 DDE (12 death gems)
Draconic Demilich -Conj. 8 x1 DDDDD (80 death gems)

heros:
Kobold Strider (Wicked Polearm/Strider Claws) + rejuv. + excellent leader + standard
Kobold Evoker (Staff of Withering) + 2 fire + 2 earth + 2 death + 2 (fire/earth/death) random + fear + rejuv.
Scion of Abraxas (Enchanted Sword/Lightning) + sacred + 2 air + 1 holy + shockimm
Master Summoner (Partial Displacement) + Summon MagmaDrake

pretender:
Ancient Dracolich
Arcane Dragonstone

<font color="blue">$</font> = I was for a long time considering throwing mounted firedrake riders, or flying wyvern cavalry into the kobold mix, but for the following reasons I went with a different route: 1. they seemed way too far on the strong/expensive side of the scale, 2. along with cavalry seeming unthematic for kobolds, and 3. the firedrake riders being too reminiscent of Agarthan caveknights.
<font color="red">^</font> = 1 time use only ranged weapon
<font color="purple">@</font> = Capital Only



As for their idiosyncrasies and things to consider;
1. It should be noted they have no sacred recruitables, though they have a potent early sacred summon that about 30% of their Glaurung Scions can cast. Large sacred armies should still be quite a rarity nonetheless.
2. They also possess some potent farsummons, which definitely help in the ambush concept.
3. The sorcerors can combatsummon skirmishers on the edge of the map (a la the howl spell), for even more ambush feel.
3. While they have no archers per se, the firebrands are more of a close-range artillery, though they are very fragile and as often as not, get themselves, or other kobolds killed.
4. The ranger is an incredible commander (spy, 3 mapmove leader/raider, and patroller), though it suffers from over-generalization and thus is somewhat expensive for any of the various roles it could fill.
5. They are highly mobile. With a mapmove spread of 2 to 3 (&amp; mountain survival) they generally are fast responders.
6. Powerful battlemage thugs in the form of the two scions, should be on par (or almost there) with both Neifel Jarls, and Yomi's Dai Oni.
7. The cheapest mage has only 1 random, and no base magic, and so can be recruited without a lab.
8. While all kobolds possess natural armor, most units don't wear any normal armor, so most earth-based protection boosters won't benefit much.
9. Summoners are not sacred, and quite expensive, but Ash wyverns have no upkeep, and the summoners themselves possess a very good ranged attack (at least in the early game).
10. They start off with 2 fire, 2 earth, and 1 death gems. This is less than the usual early age 6, but it is more than made up for by a gold and resource bonus site, and a death magic scry site "The Obsidian Sphere". Both of which go hand in hand with kobolds industrious/mining nature, and their stealth/spying concept. For RP purposes, one can call the latter an artifact from a long lost dragon's horde.
11. An extrapolation of #2 and #10, the precision scrying works wonders with the farsummons, for precision raids on unguarded or lightly guarded areas.
12. Cursed Ones possess both melee and ranged strength draining attacks, this is effective at whittling away small/tough armies, and can combine quite well with firetrap spamming sorcerors.
13. Due to their poor encumbrance, battles involving lots of kobolds tend to be won quickly or not at all.

As a bit of a preview, I put together an image of some of the recruitable kobold units.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/a...ldinfantry.jpg

Edit1: Here's some more units, as promised:
Glad to hear all the positive responses, more unit stats will come later.

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/a...ndomunits2.jpg

Edit2: Here's some unit stats as promised:

Glaurung Ascendant (size 3) (sword/firebreath/helmet/plate/towershield) + sacred + fire imm. + neednoteat

Cursed One (steal strength/curse/weakness/weakness) + ethereal + cold/poison imm. + amphibian + magic being + lifeless + stealthy + neednoteat + blind + affliction chance

Ancient Gargoyle (size 5) (claw/claw) + flying + blind + lifeless + magicbeing + noheal + neednoteat + fire/cold/shock res. + poison imm.

Dragon Ancestor (size 6) (lifedrain) + 3 holy + sacred + immobile + heat + neednoteat + spreaddom + incunrest-2 + nobadevents5 + fire/poison imm. + lifeless + noheal + blind + (smallgoldupkeep)

As for the rest about the Draconic Demilich, I think I'll save it as a bit of a surprise in the mod.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Looks great!

Finished soon?

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Thanks!

Well... I suppose I should mention what still needs to be done:
1. Some attack sprites
2. Unit stat/cost balancing
3. Summons stat/gems balancing
4. Adding/Removing/Adjusting national spells
5. Improving a few unit descriptions
6. Reading suggestions that I imagine will be posted here

Once that is done I suppose it will be ready for beta release (and ready for yet more balancing), though like Dominions itself, it is never truly finished. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Saulot, what program do you use to make and modify your sprites? I like the kobold images. Thanks.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Looks well thought out.

I like the summoning a lot - summon allies or domsummons or similar to maened summoning?

Are the scions beefy? a la thuggable?

So high magic potential is:
5F on glaurung
4E on sirrush
3D on sorceror
1N or 1W on the waterborn

Do you have thoughts on the stats of the summons yet? For instance, what is the draconic demilich? Mage, thug? How does he compare to the 30 gem demilich at ench 7(?)? What's the ancestor? Cursed? Is ancient gargoyle a beefier gargoyle?

Yup I like it, very themed - lots of small, low-mid quality sneaky troops. Limited but relatively powerful magic. I think the commanders, summons and firebrand/hellion will make or break it though (i.e. make more fun for ME). Commanders all seem very nice, will be a big decision on what to make each turn (why the -research, btw?) which is a good thing.

Looking forward to seeing it.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Yay another modder! Awesome graphics you've shown so far. Though they look like they should be bigger than size 1.

Very cool concept, looking forward to the first release.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

@dmentd
I use gimp for almost all my graphics now. Back in the day I used good old reliable paint. My sprite experience comes from using paint along with a gif-animator and making aim icons for all my friends.

@jutetrea
I wish I could do maenad summons, but instead do regular kobolds, with special kobolds appearing in fort provinces/temple provinces, but as it is now, just two units autosummon (warchief/firelord) 5 and 1 units respectively. And the Summoner uses the makemonster (or summon allies action). I may still give an autosummon to the summoner. I considered giving the Ranger an autosummon of skirmishers/raiders but it would kind of give them away when they're sneaking/spying in enemy territory, and they're chock full of abilities as is.

All the stats and descriptions of all units mentioned are already in the mod.
The scions are quite beefy. They're size 4 half-dragons, with the stats to match. Their slots are not quite standard though. Missing some, and an extra misc. slot to somewhat make up for it. The scions are meant to be powerful/rare (as in cap-only), warriormages for use in battle. They will of course be doing some summoning/forging as well, but doing mundane research is beneath them, and they don't much care for it.

The Demilich is one of my favorite units (immortal flying undead mage with lots of death magic and fear), and could be one of the summons to focus a strategy around. Same with the Ancient Gargoyle. Essentially a much larger, tougher, element resistant gargoyle. It should be relatively difficult to get the E3A1 mage for Urdheim however. I'll throw in another group image in the first post soon, with some more units. I'll also add some more stats of the other units mentioned in the first post.

@BandarLover
Thanks!
You're absolutely right about their appearance, and I have two avenues for responding.

1. Heightwise, they are almost human. But they are very thin, and they like to swarm/fight in close proximity. Important for tunnel/cave fighting, and just as useful above ground.

2. At the beginning, I tried making the first kobold much smaller. But you couldn't tell it was a kobold, or even a lizard. It looked like a brown pixie with a tail. Making sprites is difficult enough, and almost impossible when trying for 16x16 pixel units with any detail. For the sake of appearance, I prefer them this size.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Very impressive. I especially love the shield on the infantries. Keep up the excellent work on this visually stunning mod.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Visually stunning is a bit much.

I like the idea of a kobold nation though. If you want partial darkvision without armour you could copystats from a 'hiem dwarf, who has darkvision 50 and mountainsurvival. You'd have to use clearmagic though.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Looks very cool Saulot! I have always had a soft spot for the old D&amp;D kobolds.

Optically amazing! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

/shrug, I think the graphics look awesome.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Jealous much?

J/K Sombre, you know I love your work.

Though are those little light blotches on the raiders suppose to be there?

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Hahah, I'd love to pretend I'm jealous but I don't think the mod subforum is a very good place for DRAAAMA.

They do look very nice though - like Amos' stuff they are quite different from the style of Dom3 but as one nation I bet they look really good on the battlefield.

There is one thing - if you use copystats with the dwarf from 'heim to get darkvision 50 I think there's a bug where you can't assign the unit to have ld40. They have to have ldr10 or 120 or whatever instead. #okleader just doesn't work for some reason.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Oh and Bandar - those are the flames from the torches they're carrying.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Thanks for that. I didn't notice the Torch in their hands. Guess my eyes are failing as I'm getting older. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Thanks for all the positive comments. It's quite appreciated, and most helpful as a form of motivation to keep working at it, and improving the quality of the mod.

As for darkvision, I'm going to lean against it for now, when the mod is released for beta, and if people suggest it as a good idea, it may be implemented as Sombre suggest, though it does ruin the Ranger's current leadership (possibly some other units too).

As for today's progress, I've updated two attacksprites, did a few balancing changes to stats/costs, and added a national spell.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Played through a quick 45 province game vs. impossible Vanheim. Progress is steady. Feels like one or two more quick games, and it should be ready for betatesting by the public.
Update for today:

Fixed several itemslot bugs.
Fixed age of units.
Added two attacksprites.
Balanced several units.
Improved Scion of Abraxas.
Added a national combat spell.
Tweaked several national spells.
Updated nation forts.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

I've worked out how to get darkvision and 40 leadership working.

You make a unit 12345 or whatever and copystats the darkvision unit (like an agarthan infantry) to him. Then you give him the #armor "nothing" #weapon "nothing" tags.

Then when you make your units you copystats 12345 instead of the agarthan and you get the darkvision but not the equipment.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Have to say that's a creative solution, good job Sombre.

So I've been thinking about darkvision again, and it presents some options to be weighed carefully. Adding 50% darkvision to all the kobolds seems realistic enough, but adding abilities like that makes me want to increase their goldcost or take away a point somewhere. The problem of course being, that every time they're balanced up in terms of quality&amp;cost, they are a bit farther away from the cheap weenie army they're supposed to be. I suppose one possibility is to lower their hp by one. They're not very likely to survive more than one blow anyway, so this is a minor tweak down for them, as partial darkvision is a minor tweak up.

On the other hand, if the kobolds get darkvision, perhaps the more draconic units (the two scions specifically), should also get it. This is thematic of course, with DND dragons, but not thematic with Dom dragons. Their already pretty beefy, and the risk of just adding cool ability after another and creating overpowered creatures is high. One really has to reign oneself in from giving in to that. *sigh*

The third aspect of this, is this once again begs for a revision of the nation forts, to the cave type forts. Kobolds are as much, if not more, underground dwelling creatures as aboveground, so realistically/thematically it fits. This does however, pose the issue, of how powerful the kobold forts become. (Their PD is pretty healthy already.)

So... thanks to Sombre, I'm now leaning for darkvision. Suggestions are more than welcome.

Secondly, I've been considering the spell 'Life after Death', amongst other necromantic spells, and I Was wondering, is there any way to select which unit is created as that nation's undead? Kind of how Caelum, C'tis, Etc... each have their own soulless. I'd be willing to create kobold skeleton and soulless sprites for this purpose if it was possible. (So far I've been strongly leaning against adding a national 'create skeleton' spell, just for the purpose of throwing around kobold skeletons.)

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Adding in nation-spesific undeads isn't possible. It's been requested in the modders' wish list.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Thanks for the response Endoperez, I was expecting as much.

So no one has any suggestions/opinions about darkvision? (Have to say I'm a bit dissapointed about that.)
Well, I'm going to backup the .dm file and make a go for it.
Then another quick game to see how the balance works.

Progress:
Removed a province defense commander not previously mentioned (who is otherwise cool) for 'not feeling right'.
Removed a summon for same reason.
Rewrote many spell descriptions. (I'm quite happy with the farsummons now.)
Summoner can now use strength boosting items/heroic abilities to improve it's attack.
Added traps. (2 in weapon form/1 in spell form).
Tweaked down startunits.
Upgraded Kobold Strider.
Created mod banner.

Overall, I feel like I'm quite close to a release. We'll see how the darkvision/cavefort goes.

Prediction:
There will be a download by friday.

Question:
Does anyone know how to add more than heat 3 to a creature without adding fire magic on it?

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Copystats EA Abysia's Burning Ones?

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

That unfortunately adds fireshield and berserker +3 along with waste survival and darkvision 50%. I suppose I will make do with not having higher heat.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Ah, fair point.

Very much looking forward to the download.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Oh, for a darkvision opinion - I'd say yes. Thematic considerations should come first I reckon, and besides it's a very niche and rarely used ability, it's not really going to make them overpowered.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Seconded on the darkvision -thumbsup-

Lots of DV 50 floating around makes the game more interesting.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Saulot, does your username have a Vampire: The Masquerade connection? I knew it rung a bell, it's just occurred to me that perhaps Saulot was the antediluvian who founded the Salubri.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Thanks for the responses.

Ok, partial (50%) darkvision is now implemented.

Results:
Everyone has partial darkvision except for blind/undead units, and except for the ranger, waterborn, and ash wyvern. The Ash wyvern may be subject to change.

Issue 1: (Ranger)
Unfortunately the ranger is already copystatting to acquire patrol bonus, and while I could get rid of that, I feel that the kobolds aren't just good spies, they are good counterspies as well. With (a) small size, (b) good stealth, (c) good perception, (d) innate organization and coordination with other kobolds, (e) good memories about their territories, and of course (f) strong paranoia, they should be quite able at finding brigands causing trouble, or enemy scouts/spies/preachers/raiders running amok in their territory. In fact, if the opportunity presents itself in a patch later, I would feel very comfortable giving all kobolds a patrol bonus of 1, and then using the copystat to give the ranger darkvision.

Issue 2 (Scions):
I feel like the stronger units should have full darkvision. Unfortunately, despite spending some time poring through the unit database (Btw, Thank you very much Edi) I'm pretty sure all 100% darkvision units have a host of other qualities that are undesired. Closest I noticed was the troglodyte, which only has extra trample. Interesting sidenote; Demonbreds and Misbreds are both demons, AND possess 100% darkvision.

Issue 3 (Miners):
Same as above, instead for the miners. (The mining caste spend almost all their time underground).


Cave City/Castle/Fort implemented, similarly to Agartha. With 3 underground and 3 above ground forts, you generally have some options with what to go with. This of course gives an advantage to the Urdheim forces against most conventional armies, but presents a disadvantage against both Agartha and Lanka, as well as other undead and demon armies. This seems perfectly fine to me.

Hopes for today's testing:

1. One quick game against both Neifelheim and Agartha.
2. One quick game AGAINST Urdheim using no-indep mod. Nation to be played yet undecided.

Things I've been thinking about adding before beta release:

1. One additional new pretender. (Total of 2)
2. One additional new hero. Probably a master summoner. (Total of 4)

Edit:
@llamabeast: Yes, that's right. Back in '03 I played a Salubri character in a nice tabletop game. It was the first name that came to mind when making this user. Despite living in NYC, it's ridiculously hard to find a decent game for DND without powergamers/non-roleplayers/people-without-attendance-issues, or a decent game of Vampire without powergamers/crazy people, or for that matter, ANY game whatsoever of Alternity.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Alright, after several months(!) of development, the Urdheim beta (v0.1) is finally here for download as promised. (Check first post)

Inside you get:
1 new nation
60 national sprites
30 national units
15 national spells
2 national pretenders
1 small thematic gui change (fully optional)

Now, despite this being my first real mod, don't be gentle. Be brutal. I welcome and embrace criticism. I prefer constructive criticism naturally, but I imagine anything can help me improve the mod for the next release.

I am committed to seeing this through and will be releasing new updates with added content, more balance, and less bugs in the coming weeks.

If I may suggest some music to go with the nation (for those of you who enjoy the fantasy gaming music genre but have heard the EA dom music a thousand times), this leads to the free to download knights of honor soundtrack:
http://www.sunflowers.de/english/support/dlkohmusic.php

Nothing else to add except,... Enjoy!

Edit:
In the music link provided, the track "vulture's lair" has a broken link. It is fixed simply by copying/pasting and then changing vulture's to vultures.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Based on playing a quick 15 turns or so, I really like the nation - there are lots of interesting units, lots of colourful spells. It's like a cross between an Amos nation and a regular dom3 one. That's mostly a good thing (although I don't like Amos' nations that much, I think the quality there is excellent).

But to be honest they do seem overpowered. Just as an example - the Kobold warchiefs autosummon 5 light infantry a turn and they only cost just over 100 gold. They pay back the investment very quickly and do it without having to sit still and summon allies.

The poison doubleshot I'm also not too sure about. This is the early era and they have a missile weapon (one-shot, true) which is basically better than a crossbow. I think I'd prefer if it were slightly less good and the mediums were slightly cheaper.

I like the fire-breathing units a lot - there are some strong similarities between this nation and my skaven, although your 'flamethrowers' have higer prec so don't tend to toast your own guys as much. I also really like the idea of the traps used by the casters/commanders. Very nice.

I haven't played them long enough to say much more - they do seem a bit good, that's all. Early game size 1 swarming and facehugging combined with national thugs, great magic etc.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Thanks for the response Sombre. Balance and flow/gameplay are my two biggest concerns. Naturally, things tend to be overbalanced before they're more in line with where they should be (Dom2 Ermor/ Dom3 Van comes to mind). Oddly enough the warchief and the med. infantry were two of my bigger concerns about being unbalanced (after the glaurung scion/ascendant). As for the warchief, there are several solutions that come to mind:
1. Increase gold cost.
2. Remove summon5, and replace with 3 or 4 summon1's (I think that would work).
3. Replace summon5 with summon1 med. infantry.
4. Replace lt. infantry summon with the much less hardy skirmishers.

I'm leaning most towards option 1. I feel like the vast numbers effect you get from the strong autosummon is quite thematic (puts the Infinite in Infinite Horde). And the great chieftains should be well paid.

On the other hand, upkeep is still a factor, and lt. infantry do drop pretty quickly. Even when sending out warchief groups (4 warchiefs supported by 1 sorceror). Often times there will be 25 casualties. This may just be against the high independent setting I play at. Will wait for more input.

As for the poison doubleshot, it does do less damage than a normal crossbow (plus has shorter range though that is somewhat irrelevant).

Possible downtweaks:
1. Lower damage from 8 to 7/6.
2. Lower precision on the doubleshot from 2 to 1/0.

I'm not sure about either one, will wait for more responses to come in.

Yes, I love the traps. Before the traps, I just felt like it was really missing something. Something kobold-like and important. Like a leg chop. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Undoubtably there will be some serious balancing going on over the next few weeks. Due to my playing style/limited MP experience, I seriously doubt I'm using some tactics/strategies/combos to full effect.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

You'll also have to remember that in late game, the light infantry could be boosted substantially. Marble Warriors, or even Wooden Warriors, Battle Fortune... and a bit earlier, Arrow Ward. Those cut off the losses you'd take substantially.

You can't have more than one #summon1 command per commander. You can have #summon1 and some #makemonster working, though. What about #summon1 and #makemonster 4?

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Before I continue, I should point out I never did any testing of late game. I only played 4 quick games against 1-2 AI's on the silent seas map. (3 of those weren't even very good tests since I changed things in the middle of them, and also changed things after them.)
I assume you mean Arrow Fend (there was no arrow ward in the manual). Battle Fortune would likely be more useful on something with better defense than lt. infantry. For both those spells, they require A3 and S3 respectively, both tough orders to fill for Urdheim. As for marble/wooden warriors, you have a very good point.

I'll be thinking about the possible options suggested, though I lean towards:
1. Gold cost increase.
2. Replace with skirmishers. May be combined with option 1.
3. Replace summon5 lt. infantry with summon1 med. infantry, and makemonster 4 lt. infantry. This may be combined with option 1.

As for the medium infantry, I'll wait for more comments to come in.

Edit:
Oh, and also, I noticed there are 20 downloads, and only 2 comments so far. Feedback is important and appreciated, and I'll need it to improve the mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

After i downloaded it lost power.But played it a bit more now..

Dracolichs price needs to go up or be tweaked a bit..

It only died once taking on lvl 9 indies with no spells cast on him and no other troops supporting

I pretty much always do SP with 300supply,resources and such.. So stuff that summons other stuff isnt as usefull.

So far Firebrands have been my worse enemy .. Size 1 + area of effect weapon = lots of Medium Infantry dead..


Will have to play more before i suggest anything else

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Brought the first post more up to date. (Some stuff was obsolete).

Progress towards v.20:
Increased Warchief cost from 120 to 160
Decreased doubleshot damage from 8 to 7
Decreased Dracolich fear aura from 10 to 5
Decreased Dracolich HP from 180 to 160
Fixed a few grammatical errors in descriptions.

I hope to release v.20 on friday, and try for a once a week update until it seems ready for final status (well, final for v3.08 of dominions).

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Unfortunately, due to unforseen time constraints and some balancing issues with a new hero, the next version will be coming out tomorrow instead of today.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Version .20 of Urdheim is now available at the first post.

Changes from v.10 to v.20:

Dracolich fear from +10 to +5
Dracolich HP from 180 to 160
Warchief goldcost from 120 to 160
Med. Infantry goldcost from 16 to 15
Doubleshot damage from 8 to 7
Kobold Pick damage from 1 to 2
Net Trap range from 25 to 30
Blades Trap range from 25 to 30
Scion of Sirrush now has siegebonus 15
Fixed a few grammatical errors in descriptions
Fixed potential *nix capitalization problem with one errant sprite
Summoner goldcost from 300 to 280
Master Summoner hero added
Magma Drake summon added


Hopefully this will fix most of the balance issues. Also, I'm really happy with the new hero.
Anyway, Enjoy!

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Ok, so I've been playing this nation more than I've played any other additional nation (barring replacement mods). I like it a lot. Just some random thoughts on how they mesh with MY way of playing.

Dracolich rocks, expensive but an immortal awake size 6 god is nice. I generally go with a rainbow for late game magic, but all my test games have been early-mid so far.

I generally try for order 2/3, sloth 2, heat 3, death 0-3, luck 2-3. Then either go dom 9 for awe or dom 5 and more magic.

Rarely buy more rangers, too expensive unless a nearby enemy capital. I've found the pillage and patrol bonus to be pretty useless, but beyond that a great unit. What would be the cost discount if pillage and patrol bonuses were removed?

I generally find myself recruiting medium infantry and skirmishers almost exclusively. Never the pillage or miner troops with a rare plain kobold. Never build the little flamethrowers.

If I've got a chunk of money I will buy the flying commander and 25 or so of the flying/heat units for a strike force...very effective but very expensive.

I try to buy a summoner or 2 early to get started on 1-2 ash wyverns per turn. Every so often get a nice non-magic leader airforce support. Never have taken a summoner into battle.

Blesseds are a pain. I've just had terrible luck getting both a 2N and a 2W out of them. Luckily its pretty cheap 3 research so it works out if I have a sorceror or 2 to beef up initial research. Haven't made it to many significant mid games so haven't tested out the battlemage aspect that much yet.

Earth ascendant - haven't used much
Fire ascendant - great for flying strikeforce, haven't thugged much/at all. The magic seems to work well and the low level %chance to cast summons is real nice. Haven't tried bulking at all since they're pretty expensive but nice.

Warchief is nice, with the summons being light infantry I havent seen a huge impact. I wouldn't increase it, but wouldn't decrease either.

I generally just mass a force of 80 or so med infantry/skirmishers. Split em evenly into 2 groups, set a bit ahead of the commander, no orders and let em go. Usually does well, occasionally have morale problems (lots of routs to pick up after). Generally works vs indy's, cavalry and tramplers do big damage.

I've got a few games going, but i'm going to scrap them and hit some bigger maps with more enemies to try to get and stay in the midgame for a bit. liking it so far.

So, what't the point of the arcane dragonstone?

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Thanks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I appreciate the thorough critique.

Yeah, I like immortal pretenders, and liches in general. I felt like there should be one immortal undead dragon somewhere. It's pretty badly suited for a rainbow, but the death 9 bless on the two sacred mages can be pretty good for some of the broader area spells like bladewind, and give the sacred summon a little extra kick against strong/healthy summons.

Well, um Rangers don't have a pillage bonus. Rangers only have waste survival, +10 stealth, and a patrol bonus on top of a regular kobold. The patrol bonus was added for thematic purposes (kobolds are paranoid and constantly patrol their territory) but gameplay-wise is useful for MP play if anyone is so inclined, so you can prevent stealth preachers/scouts/spies on the cheap. It's pretty synergistic with the good province defense of Urdheim.
As spies AND stealthy leaders (for leading raiding parties) AND possessing the net trap (which makes them somewhat useful assisting kobold armies even without a magic weapon equipped), I feel they should be somewhat pricey compared to most basic commanders. Even removing the patrol bonus would only probably drop the price by maybe 10 gold?
That's kind of the style of the kobolds, even though most of them are rather useless and weak, because there's just so many, they have more exceptional individuals. Those come at a premium, but make the kobold nation survive/viable when compared to others, and so interesting (at least, to me). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

The Raiders have a pillage bonus, which is also somewhat thematic. I doubt any human would really use the pillage option, but if they so desired, they're a good group to do so with. The raider farsummon could eventually be used in that sense. Farsummon 4/5 groups of them into poorly defended back-provinces which you've scried upon, and then set them all to pillage, even if the opponent has a defense force sitting next to it, they could only stop one of them at a time.
(Even though I'm not a hardcore MP player, I tried to make Urdheim a viable/good nation to use in a MP game)

The firebrands are kind of a niche unit. Useful against Neifels/Vans or whenever else you need aoe 1 fire attacks, but too fragile and expensive to rely upon significantly.

The flying strike force is pretty solid. It's also a good idea to use one 4fire glaurung for a prophet to lead the sacred summons (at least, if you have more firegems than you're using, and generally I send one glaurung to site search behind my conventional kobold army to make sure I do).

The summoners are a kind of long-range artillery, though too expensive to really throw around. It should be relatively useful to use in a more defensive game though, as attacking a province which has summoners on top of province defense should be rather painful. (Though you may never see them outside a fort)

The different mages each have their own strength/weakness to make each of them viable. The blessed are of course your cheapest priest, but they also have a supply bonus aside from what the nature randoms get, which can make them somewhat useful throughout the game, particularly if you rely on large kobold armies, (even more so in unpleasant enemy dominions). Though they are more than twice as expensive as the waterborn, they're still a reasonable researcher option because of being sacred, and having a small chance at 2W or 2N (should be 10%). The waterborn can be made in any fort without a lab or temple, and that's their strength. Amphibious on both of them is pretty significant if you stumble on a shambler/kappa province early.

The Sorcerors have different national spells available to them depending on the random they get. So you'll have fire trappers, ambushers, castigators, and defensive buffers, in addition to the usual magic (such as fireballs or skelespam).

I've strengthened the Earth Scion a bit with a siegebonus to broaden it out from being a specialty thug/forger, to also being somewhat more useful as an army supporter. (Kobolds low strength means you need very large amounts of kobolds to siege anything, usually about 2-3 for each normal human, which makes miners pretty necessary. The Scion now can be a bit of a viable alternative to needing sizeable miner squads. Yes, I've thought about giving a siegebonus 1 to the kobolds early in the mods development, but I like the idea of having very large kobold forces to take over fortresses, or the need to sap enemy walls (use miners).)

Yeah, all of the kobold units are rather fragile, even the more expensive firebreather and the flyer. Battlemage squads should be the alternative against cav/tramplers.

Well, the dragonstone is an immobile pretender. It's there mostly for style/thematic purposes (and to give players more options yet keep things Kobold-like, like KO I like more options too even if they're rarely used), though it's also viable for fire/earth bless (such as E9/F4, and yes I realize fire/earth is somewhat suboptimal both as a bless, and with Urdheim already having plenty of fire/earth mages.). I've played a couple games with f4/e4/d4/n4 dragonstone and the sacred summons are reasonably potent/durable with that bless, though you're rather limited in how many of them you can mass. This probably won't come up, but the dragonstone should be incredibly tough to take out in the capital (in case of MP play, and anxiety of early bless rush).


Anyway, glad you like it.
So I guess I have some questions for you (and anyone else too, don't be shy):
1a. Have you tried v.20?
1b. Do you like the changes?
1c. Have you gotten the new villain (hero) yet? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif
2a. Do you feel any unit/spell is too strong/weak? Is there something that seems useless (not necessarily unwanted for your style but just useless overall)?
2b. Anything that needs to be done to achieve vanilla balance (as compared to an above average vanilla nation)?
3. Any miscellaneous things you'd like to see? Or random other suggestions?

To everyone:
There's still some stuff I may or may not add to Urdheim, possibly another hero or pretender (btw, I'm really open to ideas), but it's mostly just balancing. If the next Dominions 3 patch changes anything significantly or opens up some new mod commands that may warrant going back and updating everything as well.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Ok, some more thoughts after playing a longer game (bout 7-9 in all schools of research so far).

Castles - they're all nice, but a couple lower quality/cheaper choices may be worth it.

Any thought to adding 25-50% poison res? Might make them too powerful, but you figure many of them have poisoned weapons...

I still rarely recruit anything beyond med infantry, skirmishers to use up spare resources and very rarely miners when I have a tough nut to crack.

When I am EXTREMELY flush with cash I'll pick up 25-30 of the flying guys for a glaurung strike force. 28x50=1400gp for a very routable unit...can be devastating though. Set them to attack archers right off the bat, everyone else to hold/attack and they do a bunch of damage and usually flee. Unfortunately picking up the pieces afterwards is a chore with them being magic beings.

Not a fan at all of the scion of sirrush - way too expensive and limited. Not enough slots to be a good thug, bad research, way too expensive (again), good immunities, but I'd rather have a 3E sorceror for the variety. I MAY purchase enough to finally get a 4E (for 5E w/boots)...but doesn't seem to be worth it.

Still don't recruit a lot of rangers unfortunately...spies rock, but research is king. I think MP would be much different though.

Still haven't recruited a firelord for some reason, so no opinion.

Warchief's rock - primarily the 80 leadership. the summons is ok, but not amazing either way (could be nerfed/buffed and I don't think it would make too much of a diff).

Summoners rock, yet a bit niche. Went nuts with them this last game - 15 in a province, quickly got some nice flying strike forces. The flaming guys are better, but the ash wyverns are nice en bulk.

Sorcerors are great, really wish they were sacred though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif upkeep hurts after awhile.

waterborn are good as well, rarely purchase, but nice not having to need a temple/lab.

Blesseds. Love em and hate em. I WANT the 2W and 2N for site searching. But that leaves me with tons of 1W and 1N or 1W1N guys just floating... so 140g for 3 research. Not terrible, but not great either. Luckily they're sacred. I must have really bad luck. I thought it was a 10% chance to get a bonus, but I had to have 40 of the buggers around before I got 2W (had 2x2N in the meantime).

Scion of Glaurung - rocks. Flying rocks. Flying with good leadership is better. ...with the ability to cast 2 great spells they rock even more. The sacred summons is a bit pricey, but those guys are tough... even 4-8 at a pop are good to strengthen the line. Flamecast rocks my socks off. Difficult to thug (easier than sirrush), but I generally use as a leader/caster anyway. Well worth the cost.

Summons
Ascendant - rocks, expensive but very nice.
Cursed - meh, didn't impress much. But think are good for battlefield summons or if you really need a size 3. Hmm... just looking at the icons above, I was getting striders as a summons when using the cursed spell.
Ancient Gargoyle - one thing I haven't summoned yet.
Dragon Ancestor - er, what's the point? Might want to add 1 path of something. Is this just an equivalent to a telastic animation?
Draconic Demilich - COOL! Very expensive, but real real cool. Haven't used much yet, but the options look real impressive.

Heros -
Got 2 of the strider guys, didn't use them much. Seems like they'd make pretty good thugs.
I got the summoner - if that thing had about 30hp it would make a very kick butt thug. Those are some cool abilities. Summons are very nice as well, 1 mapmove made me not use them though.
Haven't got the rest yet

Pretenders
Still haven't used the dragonstone - still don't get it, will try later.
Dracolich - still like it alot. Lack of change shape is tough if using as forger/caster (lack of slots).

Spells - love em!
What is castigation of sirrush supposed to do, doesn't seem to do anything.
All farsummons - great! I use it more for reinforcements then ambushes, which I think goes against the theme...still great.
flamecast - rocks!

er, is there a listing for the rest of the spells? I have the new mythology installed so get confused which spells are which. I'll remove the mod and check it out in a bit and edit.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Yup, cursed gives me striders.

Flamecast - as I said, great spell. I'd almost be tempted to nerf it a bit, its that good. I love the range and the aoe, possibly drop the damage? Damage is 12+ AP so a high level fire mage would do even more damage? Possibly 8+? It does have the 1H casting requirement, so that may be enough of a limitation. Thoughts?

What do draconic might and draconic spirt do? +STR and +MR respectively? Quantities?

Trigger fire trap is very nice as well, any idea how the # of effects ramp up? Would be a nice higher level spell to get a 4+ or 6+ version.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

"Castles - they're all nice, but a couple lower quality/cheaper choices may be worth it."
-- Well, there are motte-and-baileys and swamp forts which are pretty low quality.

"Any thought to adding 25-50% poison res? Might make them too powerful, but you figure many of them have poisoned weapons..."
-- It's a reasonable thought, but for several reasons I'd have to go with no poison res. 1) None of the sources give them poison res. 2) They already have a variety of abilities. 3) They rarely poison themselves, or each other. And if they did, they're likely to die from it. So tolerance being built over time is not something that should be represented racially for kobolds. 4) Also, skill at finding/making/applying/storing poison doesn't really transfer into extraordinary ability to withstand it.

"Not a fan at all of the scion of sirrush - way too expensive and limited. Not enough slots to be a good thug, bad research, way too expensive (again), good immunities, but I'd rather have a 3E sorceror for the variety. I MAY purchase enough to finally get a 4E (for 5E w/boots)...but doesn't seem to be worth it."
-- I'll be retouching the Scion of Sirrush for v.30 (Increasing chance of 4E a bit, decreasing cost a bit). Also not to be mean, but keep in mind it can't wear boots.

"Still haven't recruited a firelord for some reason, so no opinion."
-- I'm dissatisfied with the Firelord. It's supposed to be a light thug, but it's overshadowed by the Scion of Glaurung.

"Sorcerors are great, really wish they were sacred though upkeep hurts after awhile."
-- Everything has it's weaknesses. Sorcerors are far more useful for forging, rituals, and battlemagic, but Waterborn / Blessed might be a better research monkey.

"Blesseds. Love em and hate em. I WANT the 2W and 2N for site searching. But that leaves me with tons of 1W and 1N or 1W1N guys just floating... so 140g for 3 research. Not terrible, but not great either. Luckily they're sacred. I must have really bad luck. I thought it was a 10% chance to get a bonus, but I had to have 40 of the buggers around before I got 2W (had 2x2N in the meantime)."
-- I've had some bad luck with them as well, but other than increasing their chance for a second path, I'm not sure what to do about that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

"Scion of Glaurung - rocks. Flying rocks. Flying with good leadership is better. ...with the ability to cast 2 great spells they rock even more. The sacred summons is a bit pricey, but those guys are tough... even 4-8 at a pop are good to strengthen the line. Flamecast rocks my socks off. Difficult to thug (easier than sirrush), but I generally use as a leader/caster anyway. Well worth the cost."
-- Then it's exactly as I wanted it to be. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

"Ascendant - rocks, expensive but very nice.
Cursed - meh, didn't impress much. But think are good for battlefield summons or if you really need a size 3. Hmm... just looking at the icons above, I was getting striders as a summons when using the cursed spell.
Ancient Gargoyle - one thing I haven't summoned yet.
Dragon Ancestor - er, what's the point? Might want to add 1 path of something. Is this just an equivalent to a telastic animation?
Draconic Demilich - COOL! Very expensive, but real real cool. Haven't used much yet, but the options look real impressive."
-- Ah, you've found a bug with the cursed. Seems I've used the same unit number for both by mistake, and the cursed is being overwritten. Will be fixed in v.30
-- The Ancient Gargoyle is pretty tough to manage for Urdheim, but if you do get a few, they should be worth it.
-- Dragon Ancestor, hm.... Well, it's essentially a buffed telestic animate that's thematic for kobolds. I was on the fence for a while as to what to give it. It currently is a lvl 3 priest, spreads dominion, decreases unrest a little bit, and lowers the bad event chance a little bit. It's also pretty tough to take out in combat. It's a defensive niche unit that fills some roles, mainly the only good priest of Urdheim, and the spreading of dominion which is somewhat useful. While I realize you won't be dealing with LA Ermor, it can be somewhat useful defensively against Lanka and Mictlan. I'm still not completely settled on the final design. I may yet give it some sort of weak domsummon or some magic in the future after some longer playthroughs.
-- I like the Draconic Demilich too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

"I got the summoner - if that thing had about 30hp it would make a very kick butt thug. Those are some cool abilities. Summons are very nice as well, 1 mapmove made me not use them though."
-- I couldn't in good conscience give it that much hp, heh. Keep in mind that when the Master Summoner uses the ranged attacks, encumbrance isn't a factor. So you should be able to throw some defensive stuff on it. Plus to strength items also help.

"Dracolich - still like it alot. Lack of change shape is tough if using as forger/caster (lack of slots)."
-- As for shapechanging for dragons, I realize they're supposed to change shape in both mythology and recent fantasy games/books, but the loss of slots from one form to another (and the subsequent loss of items), makes it rather unpleasant to give them items in those slots. Furthermore, the poorer magic ability in dragon form makes me want to stay away even more. My explanation for this in game is that the Dracolich doesn't want to change it's shape. It's enamored with it's powerful immortal dragon skeleton, and is fully capable of the full range of casting, because it's animated by magic, not muscle.

"What is castigation of sirrush supposed to do, doesn't seem to do anything."
-- Castigation of Sirrush is a limited area affect version of Curse of Stones. I'll be adding a more detailed spell manual to the readme in v.30

"er, is there a listing for the rest of the spells? I have the new mythology installed so get confused which spells are which. I'll remove the mod and check it out in a bit and edit. "
-- See above.

"Flamecast - as I said, great spell. I'd almost be tempted to nerf it a bit, its that good. I love the range and the aoe, possibly drop the damage? Damage is 12+ AP so a high level fire mage would do even more damage? Possibly 8+? It does have the 1H casting requirement, so that may be enough of a limitation. Thoughts?"
-- Flamecast is rather powerful. The 1 holy requirement means that outside of wished for fire/priest summons or a prophet, only the Glaurung Scions will be able to cast it. National spells are supposed to be somewhat better than standard spells, to promote use over their more mundane counterparts. I suppose I'll tweak it down in a subtle way. More useful in specific circumstances, less useful all the time (this is also pretty much in keeping with national spell themes).

"What do draconic might and draconic spirt do? +STR and +MR respectively? Quantities?"
-- That's right, all will be explained in full detail soon in the readme.

"Trigger fire trap is very nice as well, any idea how the # of effects ramp up? Would be a nice higher level spell to get a 4+ or 6+ version."
-- The aoe increases by 1 for each additional fire magic. Perhaps a greater version should be implemented? I'll think about it for v.30 or .40. I'm currently leaning against it, as there already are a significant amount of national spells, and I don't want to go too 'spellhappy'.


Expect v.30 to come up either tonight or tomorrow. It will feature some balancing, a bug fix, and an improved readme with spell descriptions/explanations similar to that found the dominions manual.
Btw, did anyone like the gui change? Or the suggested music?

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

I also gave this a whirl (played a 110 province game through). I went with W9 blue dragon and with an agressive expansion plan. With a W9 bless, the scions are thugs right from the start!

So I conquered with Scions and my dragon in the early game(worked wonderfully, I quickly took lead in the "provinces" chart). My one Scion of Sirrush got Heroic Strenght in the beginning stages and by late game his strenght was around 64 unbuffed.

Not much to say about balance, seems fine to me. I found use to most of the units (expect those flying fire/wasp thingies). My usual army composed of Medium Infantry in the middle accompanied by Light inf. and firebreathers in the flanks.

Keep up the good work, had much fun playing this.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Thanks Burnsaber, that's good to hear. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Sorry for the delay, anyway; Version .30 of Urdheim is now available at the first post.

Changes from v.20 to v.30:

Attacksprite for Scion of Abraxas added
Fixed Bug with Summon Cursed/Gather Cursed spells
Scion of Sirrush from Earth/Death 10% to Earth 20% &amp; Death 10%
Flamecast damage from 12+ to 9+, and AOE from 4+ to 5+
Flamecast now does secondary fatigue damage
Castigation of Sirrush from AOE 7+ to 5+, NOE from 1 to 2, Precision from 2 to 1
Firelord now has awe 0
Firelord now has 10% chance of Fire 2
Firelord HP from 15 to 22
Firelord goldcost from 140 to 220
Firelord resourcecost from 47 to 60
Firelord unrest from 2 to 3
Firelord firebrand autosummon 1 removed
Firelord firebrand makemonster1 (summon allies) added
Cursed strength from 6 to 8
Cursed attack from 11 to 15
Cursed defense from 11 to 12
Cursed morale from 17 to 99
Cursed now blind
Cursed now curses
Cursed now sometimes comes with afflictions
Cursed now called Cursed One
Blessed now called Blessed One


Hopefully this will fix more balance issues. Also, the readme now has a brief spell manual on the bottom.
Anyway, Enjoy! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

I'm not sure that giving morale 99 is a good idea - it has no special properties but it's so high that it could have some odd effects on the game. Better to give morale 40 or something - much the same effect, but less extreme.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

99 is a special number, which functions as gone berserk (never flee).
50 is mindless, 30 is standard unbreakable (flee when whole army flees).

Edit:
I'm still on the fence as to whether they should be mindless or not. The concept in question for the Cursed Ones having a fragmented mind could be argued either way, and I'm not terribly opposed to them dissolving, though it does change the balance up and down in more subtle ways as well. Future comments and further reflection may bring a stronger conclusion.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

It's true that berserk units have morale 99, but giving a unit morale 99 doesn't make them start/go berserk to my knowledge. I haven't tested it extensively though.

I didn't know about morale 30. Useful if it actually works.

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

Well, no update this week, as things are getting close to where they should be (I think that every unit now has its use). I did however, bring the first post more up to date with where things are now. Anyway, if nobody brings up any more balance or usefulness concerns within the next month or so, I'll probably be able to release the final version for Urdheim (for v3.08 of Dominions) in mid August.
Once again, aside from the normal criticisms, any balance / hero / pretender suggestions are more than welcome.

For those who enjoyed Urdheim, and would like to see more, I've started work on something else, and that should hopefully be released sometime in late August. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

A very complete, and graphically nice mod. I've tested them on Glory of Gods map with all AI to difficult, and I've squashed helheim and maverni at the same time. I think armor piercing plus poison (double shot) is a bit strong for early age, specially against small elite armies which tend to get murdered in one volley. Maybe they have got less of an advantage against large armies of chaff (maybe...).
Your mod is one of the most complete I have seen so far, with plenty of new strategies to experiment.
Late august seem so far away. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif

Re: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde
 

I love your sprites! Very well done.