No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

I just came to a realization, Dom3 has stuff from almost any mythology and National Epic imaginable. However, I cna't recall seeing anything relating to the Finnish national epic, Kalevala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala)? Have I missed something?

Has JK completely forgotten his dear neighbouring country?

Are there any other "negleted" mythologies? If there are, they must quite obscure, I can't think of anything else that JK might have missed.

(disclaimer: I am in no way suggesting that JK somehow *has* to implement stuff form every mythology and National Epic imaginable. I'm just fooling around a little bit.)

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Middle Eastern/Arabic stuff doesn't seem to be too well represented. Nor aboriginal Australian, Welsh, Scottish, Romany/Gypsy etc I'm sure the list is quite long.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Um, Burnsaber, KO is the content guy, JK does the coding. And no, Dom3 does not have Kalevala in it, unfortunately. Kristoffer has not had time to put it in and I understand there were some issues about needing to research it first, more indepth than the stuff already in, which he has studied previously.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

We should make mods!

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Durr.. How could I get something so basic mixed up? Kalevala might not lent itself to a nation (at least not one that wouldn't be too much alike to Vanheim/Midgård).

Väinämöinen would make for a kick-*** rainbow pretender. Pohjan Akka would most likely be a crone who can transform into a giant harpy.

It's a shame that item modding is limited. Sampo would make for a awesome artifact (gives money and lots of supplies and increases dominion)..

Damn, I'd better not get too excited here. I don't have time for another modding project currently.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

I used Väinämöinen as my password in an MP game once. Imagine typing that in correctly every time you log in.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Kalevala, that name is very similar to the Estonian "Kalevipoeg". Are they related some how?

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Yes, Kalevipoeg and Kalevala are related.

As for no Welsh, arthurian legends are welsh and Man fits this role. For Scotland, Ireland is very near that (Scathach, unique hero of Eriu, was an Scot in the Book of the Red Branch).

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Man, Tir, Eriu, Fomoria and Marverni pretty much sort out the Celtic background/mythology for the British Isles between them (okay, Marverni is a little more Gaul than Gael I guess). The Anglo-Saxon bits are dealt with by the Skandic nations, more or less.

I'd definitely be interested in seeing Kalevala (about which I know nothing) and even the Eastern European/Russian mythologies in Dom3.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Kalevala is hard to transform into a nation. It has a bunch of stories, but they tell of outstanding heroes, not about wars. Old mighty wizard, young foolish wizard, the great smith, the cursed anti-hero, the evil shapechanging crone of the northern Pohjola, etc.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Those examples sound like they could work in game as mercenaries, rather than nations.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Mostly, they stay in one place. Väinämöinen, the old singer, stays in his home and farms his fields. He doesn't manage to get married, but does boast a rather inspiring array of magical powers. He is always a bit more powerful than even his most powerful enemies, entrancing scores of people with his magic and negating plagues sent to destroy the nation. Or making a forge in the stomach of the giant that ate him. Or going to world of the dead just to find the words for finishing his boat. The one time he got really angry earth shook, mountains shuddered, and Joukahainen (Youkahainen) learned an important lesson about humility and respecting your elders. The young guy only got away after he promised his sister would marry Väinämöinen.
Ilmarinen, the great smith, doesn't move about much either. He created an artifact to get the permission to marry one of the daughters of Louhi, the crone of Pohjola, and after his wife's death (thanks to the the anti-hero) made a golden replica that he still found lacking. With that much wealth and skill, he wouldn't be a mercenary. People would come to him, not the other way round.
Lemminkäinen died, and his mother brought him back. Would you buy a mercenary who already failed once? I thought so.
Louhi, the crone of Pohjola, governs her manor and doesn't go out much. Oh, she might steal the sun and the moon, or freeze all the oceans of the world, call in the great beasts of the seas or transform into a mighty bird to carry her army when trying to recover the artifact Ilmarinen stole back with the other good guys, but she's not the adventurous type.
There are also some minor characters, like the man barely an inch high. He came from the sea, equipped with miniature armor and a miniscule axe, and stepped up to became a hulking giant for whom felling a tree big enough to cover all sky was no problem. There are also various monsters: Iki-Turso of the seas, a great moose, a great bull, etc.
Oh, and that promised wife of Väinämöinen? She wasn't happy with the marriage and drowned herself. Ilmarinen's wife died too. Not to mention the anti-hero and his whole family. No wonder Finns are said to be melancholic.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

It has been a while since I read my Kalevala but it has a lot of things which could be used as heroes/spells/summons/items. For basic unit lineup you can look info from other sources. Some light/medium infantry would work fine. For example something like hirdmen & huskarls of Vanheim with axemen and shortbows/villains. Hakkapeliitta as a light/medium cavalry. Maybe even make them sacred, at least I can't think any other sacred unit apart from some which would work better as summons.

Commander roster is a bit more difficult tho... forester, hakkapeliitta commander, wiseman/singer and witch spring to my mind. Wiseman is mage-priest with NNEH and some randoms, like water/death/fire for example. Witch could be almost the same but without priest skills.

As spells and summons diseases and all sort of spirits of rivers, lakes, fire, dead people, forests and so on are pretty common in finnish mythology. Also spellsongs and animals (bears, wolves, swans) are obvious. Making dom spells out of those requires creative imagination and work with stats and abilities tho.

I would certainly play a Kalevala mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

The way I see it is very much like tka outlined above, but with a fairly big emphasis on summoned units. Low level, low quality in large quantity much like the Gana available to Lanka, with some more powerful but numerically fewer summons.

Relatively few recruitable troops. The commander ideas tka threw around would be fairly ideal. The Kalevala people would probably all have forestry too, or almost all of them. Väinämöinen, Louhi, Ilmarinen, Lemminkäinen and some of the other characters would make for a wide cast of heroes, but you'd need to have several hero dependent events. Väinämöinen and Lemminkäinen in same province would probably be detrimental to income and cause unrest, maybe also something else. Väinämöinen and Aino (Lemminkäinen's sister) in the same province = Aino dies. And so on and so forth.

But making a Kalevala nation would be VERY work intensive.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Not any more so than making an Arthurian myths based nation (MA Man). The traditional 3 witches, bards, knights and longbowmen, knights of the round table as knights of the stone, hints to the older myths of tuatha de danaan... Making a nation BASED on a myth is just as hard as you want it to be.

I'm not sure if Nature is even that necessary. Nature was respected, that's certain, but the spells use various asepcts of nature that the N path of Dominions doesn't cover that well. N2 would be enough for most of the stuff the heroes do, really - there's no Gift of Health, no great beasts such as Tarrasques, no walking forests... Well, Charm would be just about perfect. But I still think Earth should be more important. Joukahainen boasting about turning Väinämöinen and his clothes to metal (Petrification), Väinämöinen singing him into the bog (similar to Earth Meld), Destruction (Väinämöinen destroyed Joukahainen's equipment, transforming the bow into a rainbow, sword into a bolt of lightning, arrows into hawks, etc), and Construction in general.
Death would be another strong one, perhaps. Earth/Fire is quite common already.

I played with the idea a while ago. You could get special units from various parts of the poems, such as from the origin of iron (iron was found and told how it could serve the humans, and it agreed to be worked upon. it didn't like the fire, and when the water was prepared for hardening an evil creature bought poisons in the stead of honey a bee was supposed to bring, which made the iron mad and angry. that's why iron bites deep and why it's just as good for weapons as it's for tools). Weapons tempered to deal extra damage to magic beings, or just naturally poisonous. Ranger-type stealthy archer/infantry. Huskarls and Hirdmen.


I've got some sprites of white-clad furmen somewhere. Let's see if we can throw something together. Please, post all your ideas.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Very true, but I could also see those fitting nicely into nature category too. A matter of taste I suppose, both would work for me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Considering that Kalevala is all about getting wife, I bet that both Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen would work as mercenaries if you could pay in blood slaves instead. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

As a complete novice on this I need to say this: it SOUNDS a lot like midgard/vanheim etc nations.. with other heroes...

are you all sure it's worth a mod..

well it's your time.. but couldn't you just make the rest of the warhammer nations first? (this is of course totally not influenced by any personal desires I have http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif)

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

I kinda came up with a idea how Sampo could be implememnted. It's pretty crucial part of the story.

Copystat something unique and make it a construction national summon. You can't make it give any money, but what about *huge* supply bonus and gem production (like lots of fire gems or one of each gem type). It would most likely be a earth/fire national summon, which would be outside your nationals. You would have to depend on your pretneder or if you get lucky, the hero Ilmarinen to forge it.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

I'd think nature would be quite important, if not for the heroes, but to recruitable mages. After all, in the rural settings, everyone knew some "spells". At least in Finnish tradition the women knew healing and farming spells (a bit like the NE witch) whereas men practised magic related to hunting (and possibly hurting, N...B?). During the time of witch hunts, most convicted witches in eastern Finland were male, after all they were practicioners of the black magic. Women's magic was mostly beneficial, so why hunt 'em?

(Of course, as Swedes brought their civil ways to western Finland they also brought the idea that women were the bad witches, and as such most convictions for witchcraft were given to women in west.)

I'd also base the nation on historic light infantry, but with summons of its own. And heroes based on stories. Maybe a mix of 'heims and EA Ulm?

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

What era should the nation be in? Early is a bit crowded already, and the bows used are often shown as crossbows. If we put the nation at Middle, we could make the nation independent splinter of what used to be under Helheim's rule. Heim basic infantry, stealthy infantry based on LA Ulm rangers, couple of special units (like Hakkapeliitta cavalry). I'm not sure what the race's ability should be like. Increased hp and strength as Ulm, lowered encumberance as Machaka, increased magic res as Eriu, or increased morale on all troops, or something else altogether...

There's also the possibility of making the Kalevala nation precede LA Atlantis. Forbidden Coast, the Coast of Ice and Bones... I'm sure the Sami have some stories about underwater race, and Finnish mythology is full of spirits of the rivers, rapids and lakes. Some kind of Näkki or Staalo as an assassination spell would also work very well with this theme. See *1 below.


What about the magic? All of Nature/Death, Water/Earth/Death and Earth/Nature would fit in my opinion, but I'm not really that familiar with the old stories. We could use 3 to 4 mages, most recruitable everywhere. A female witch (NE), a male wiseman with holy 1 with Nature 1 and perhaps a random, a spellsinger with more magic and perhaps holy 1 or 2... Perhaps a sami-inspired shaman as a more powerful nature-caster, and the spellsingers with mixed paths. National spellsongs would be a must. Perhaps Sermon of Courage and Fanaticism as spellsongs? The latter would take a gem.

Gnomes (354; a bit like dwarves with E2N2, glamour and stealth) would fit both the Finnish tradition of gnomes guarding homes, saunas, places etc, AND work as a continuation of the Helheim theme (gnomes instead of svartalfar). That'd make for a nice summon.


There are many stories about water spirits teaching you if you could trick them to do it without killing you. Any ideas about implementing that?



http://www.pakanaverkko.fi/vox/staalo.shtml
Lihatontta (Flesh gnome) is a magically constructed staalo a witch created to destroy. Depending on the story, it was made from a living or dead body, clay or cloth. In Juha Pentikäinen's book, a man he interviewed described the construction of lihatontta:
"Used to believe that if I'm mad at someone, then I make a likeness of human in clay and cut my finger, so that blood comes and drop it to the clay. And the witchcraft makes in it a spirit."
Only the victim could see the creature, and it would return to kill it's sender if it couldn't find the victim in one year's time.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

If I remember correctly, the initial advantage of swedish army in the 30 year war was its conscripted army when compared to other countries mercenaries. Conscripted, such as Hakkapeliittas, who were brought in as per "each house shall provide a man and a horse" rule. So, cheap and plentiful. But my history isn't that good.

Too bad hordes of poor quality fighters don't work in Dominions...

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

About hakkapeliitta:

I'd like to give them fay horses of the vanir, and either light lance or lance to benefit from the high ap (26). This way, the initial charge causes tremendous damage, just like the pistol charge did for the hakkapeliitta. At the moment, I'm thinking of
- elite stats (11 hp/str/att, 12 def +3 mounted, 14 mor), move 3/26 of vanir
- broadsword/lance/hoof for att 11/12/11
- reinf. leather cap, scale cuirass, shield for def 14, 18 with parry; and prot 10/8 for body/head
- gcost 40, res cost 15, forest survival
In my tests, this does respectively well.

About the basic infantry:
What if the infantry had weapon, shield AND a short bow? Similar to LA Man's Tower Guards and their crossbows, or EA Ulm warrior maidens. They won't have tower guards' heavy armor, so they'll probably be way inferior... but they'll be stealthy, giving the nation very good stealthy force. stealthy med infantry with shield, AND affordable archers - that's very good.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

IMHO for that armour etc the resource cost should be higher, probably gold a bit too.

The infantry sounds nice.. elite stealth teams.. but be carefull not to overpower/underprice them.. a unit that can do a lot should cost a lot too.. and can only do one of the things you've paid for at the same time. Versatility is nice but some pplz have said "you can't use this and this at the same time so the price shouldn't be very high.. it's not true IMHO versatility should come with a price --> thus an army should not have to much versatile units else they will all be relatively expensive

--> just my take on things, you are an experience modder so I'm probably just saying things you know anyway

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Re:Hakkapeliitta cost
I intentionally chose the weapons and armor of the Hakkapeliitta so that the equipment would cost as little as possible. Centaur Warriors and Vanir are way better, and even cheaper in resources. The weak armor is risky in longer battles, or against massed archers.
I originally had them at knight stats (12 hp/str/att/def), but that'd make them too expensive - they die quite easily against tough enemies. So I toned down hp, str and att, and lowered the gcost by 10. That might've been a bit too much, but I don't think it should be raised by more few gp.


About spellsongs and national spells:
Inspiration for these effects came from here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonttu

Spellsong of the Forest People, N3 ritual, conj 2
Contacts Tapio, King of the Forest, and summons his servants (sacred bears? bears with tough hide similar to kithaironic lions?)
Spellsong of the Mountain People, E2N1 ritual, conj 3
Contacts and summons a Gnome, E2N2 stealthy mage with glamour
Spellsong of the Water People, W2N1 ritual, conj 4
Contacts Ahti, King of the Waters, and summons a Näkki. It is a strange creature that resembles a shambler and has W2, 2xWDN magic.
Spellsong of the Grave People, N1D1, Thaum 1
Combat spell that causes disease in AoE 1.
Spellsong of the Wood People, N2, Alt 2
Precision boost in AoE 5+ near the caster (the wood people help the arrows to fly straight)
Spellsong of the Steel People, N1E1, Evoc 3
Heals damage (the steel people take back the wounds they have caused). I'm not sure whether I'd like to have it be like Song of Healing or Healing Light.


If it was possible to create a spell that removes disease but not other afflictions, I would make that one as a Spellsong of the Fire people, N2 ritual.


I'm thinking the mages could be like this:

Witch: sacred, E1N1 for 100 gp
Wiseman: sacred, N1H1, 100%WEDN for 120 gp
Spellsinger: E1N2, 100%EN, 210%WEDN, for 240 gp

summons at Conj 3:
Näkki, W2, 200%WEDN
Gnome, E2N2


As you can see, I decided Nature was better for the Spellsingers. I'd still like to add a Sami-inspired Shaman, perhaps as a N2, H1 stealthy capital-only mage.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

I'm also sure that you can't mod a summoning spell that summons two types of creatures. So you need to have a spell to summon Tapio and a different one to summon his servants.

Perhaps the Hiisi would be a good option for Tapion Väki? They are decipted as semi-friendly, but mischievious. They wouldn't most likely be too strong on stats, but come in nice amounts. There are stories of them riding goats, that'd make a intresting unit graphic (black hairy goblin riding a goat.. Awesome!).

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Initial mod attached here. I'll have to leave NOW, so no progress for a week. The graphics I did not attached; I edited the hakkapeliitta sprite and added a bow to the hunter.

EDIT: this mod changes EA Ulm into a MA nation that has the basic recruitables and summon spells of a Kalevala-inspired nation.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

sounds like a size 2 trample unit.. which might be interesting http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif or just some variant on the wolfrider.. but the goat with it's horns could trample.. but size would be small.. which might make it a unit only usable in specific circumstances.. (maybe a bit to few though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif)

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Contact =/= summon. Tapio is left undefined, but his servants, the great bears, come. Same with Ahti/näkki. Näkki is a water creature that lures people to lakes and drowns them.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Those Hoburgs better watch out!

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

Example mod looks good to me but I wouldn't give fay horses to Hakkapeliittas tho. I would like to keep recruitables as mundane as possible.

I was thinking of making also 2 spells which summon hiisis. Possibly nature-death spells. One which summons multitude of small hiisis (goblins) like Burnsaber said, and other one which summons bigger ones, more like jotuns or trolls. Atleast thats what springs to my mind when Im thinking about landmarks like Hiidenkivi, Hiidenkirnu and Hiidenkiuas which were considered to be work of hiisi.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

It probably wouldn't be that big of a chance to change their mounts into normal horses. I'm afraid it's hard to balance them properly, though - they are essentially light cavalry, and light cavalry sucks, and I can't make them knights because they weren't. I'm trying to make a unit that can compete with Centaur Warriors or the EA non-sacred mounted Vanir units, except that it can't. It's not sacred, it doesn't berserk or have glamour, and at least the Centaurs are cheaper. The Mounted Hirdmen might be 55 gp or so - 15 gp isn't nearly enough for such a huge difference in power.

Hiisi is way different from Tapio. Both the race and the king are called Hiisi, and they have nothing to do with the forest apart from living in the wilderness and avoiding cultivated ground.
If I were to implement them, Hiisi would be Vaettir for the small ones and either Jotuns or Trolls for the bigger ones. There's a story in Kalevala about hunting down the "hiien hirvi", the hiisi's great elk (moose)... and both Vaetti and Trolls use mooses in warfare. I probably won't make them recruitable, but that's one thought.

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

So... tka, Aezeal and the mysterious third person who downloaded this:

1) Would recruitable, capital-only Vaetti, Wolfrider and Troll units be fine? I'd add them to the Hiisi's House site.

2) Are the prices balanced? Spellsingers, especially - 240 gp for a N2E1, 2.1xEWDN random mage doesn't seem that good for a cap only mage.

3) What about the summons. Are the mages priced well? Should the Ohtos be sacred?

4) The Bear Tribe Shaman is a last minute addition quite literally, so I had no time to think about cost or anything. Would he be used to help stealth groups, or could that be the Gnome's role? Would he have to be non-capital-only?

5) Finally, I'm going to change Huntsman's short bow into a crossbow, and increase his price to 13 gp. Good, bad?

Re: No Kalevala references in Dom3?
 

A new thread HERE.