Stygian Desert
 

Version 0.13

This is Stygian nation MA.

It includes hot fixes for blessing type spells by Dr. Praetorious.

Al'gunahkar autosummons "Armed Yilan Tanri", domsummons "Yilan Tanri", "Armored Yilan Tanri" & "Armed Yilan Tanri" and calls "Flesh Golem".
Ancient Al'gunahkar summons even more undead: he autosummons "Armed Yilan Tanri" & "Armored Yilan Tanri", domsummons "Yilan Tanri", "Armored Yilan Tanri" & "Armed Yilan Tanri" and calls "Flesh Golem".



http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=110

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

My god Amos, how do you do it? How do you consistently come up with stupendously awesome graphics and ALSO come up with original and seriously interesting races to play with? Thou art truly god.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

No negative comments? I like negative comments (gives me something to fix).

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

My negative comment is there are too many good mod nations now ;P

Seriously though, I'm going to give this a go with your other MA nations in some SP action a bit later.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Ver. 0.02

Added a Hero;
Added patrol bonus to "Neophyte Sentinel" and "Sentinel Commander".

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Ghads! That is one scary assassin you've got there Amos. One of them took out a 400 GP Lord of Tzeentch wearing Chaos armor in two rounds. He died in the process, but still, yikes! Don't change it (someone needs to keep chaos down). But realize that that assassin is a Major strength of this race. (Of course you probably do realize that.)

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

I made him as a possible counter to Angels and Nephilim lords. Dark Punisher is unbeatable in hand to hand but high level Angels take him out easily with a spell. I wanted someone who can close the distance and attack before an Angel fires a spell (of course that will only happen if human is playing the Angels, otherwise they cast alot of worthless spells and get killed).

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

No negative comments here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Isn't it possible to mod starting scales constraints for modded nation, like at least death 2 for desert?

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Added spell "Wendigo Transformation".

I dont think so. Maybe that should be one of the requests for the devs.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Version 0.03

Added "Nazar Goz" demon of decay;
Changed "Wendigo" sprite;
Gave "Al'mezar" castle defense bonus.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Added another hero.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

cool mod

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

So any thoughts? I feel that the Despoilers dont create enough undead for Death nation, but maybe thats just my natural urge to overpower (tell me if you think I'm wrong or I'll start overpowering). Maybe Death 2-3 is too much? With this death rate and high dominion, that you need for undead production, I just dont get enough cash.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

All Yilan Tanri get random afflictions now.

I'm thinking of creating an alternative economy. Not only should you be able to buy Despoilers but summon them as well. That way you aren't reliant on money only. I'll test that idea then post it if I like how it plays.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Version 0.04

Added "Ancient Al'gunahkar" with the spell;
Added another "Yilan Tanri".

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

I've been testing on version .2, I've been testing in 2 games, one with the geo map and a e9 bless, and a long tower map with f9w4 bless,both games independents 9. The first game with the F9 bless, I used the heaviest non-immortal sacreds which worked alright but with prot 13, I was losing troops every battle, even the decisive victories. Then I realized you have 14 point ap composite bows and did another game with E9 bless, using sacreds on hold and att closest in center, undead on flanks with hold and att rear. Even in battles where I lost NO reg troops, I frequently lost 20-30 undead due to bow fire. With 50 14-pt ap bows, you might kill 15 enemy , you might kill none, plus they frequently one-shot your undead or blessed. Both games I had a bank of 10+ despoilers summoning undead. With 0 prot, most of your undead are 1-shoted by enemy bowfire or melee. Even with most of my gold in despoiler farms, the undead are a distraction at best.

The lvl 4 holy commander is good and research isn't bad with the 100 gp sacred mage. However you have only access to death 4 and astral 1- pretty limited. You could do a lot with some group protections but with this magic selection it'll be a while before you can get a commander capable of doing them.

Your milage may vary-a lot of you MP guys could probably do a lot better. With a death dominion, these guys could never make it-the heavy lifting was being done by my sacreds and bowmen.

You're paying 27 gp in maint for despoilers, getting 3 longdead+ equilvent +4-6(?) souless+ equilvent in dom 9-zero gp maint undead. LA Ermor puts out several times as many undead at 0 maint and they are only slightly less effective. plus the large number of Ermor undead blunts any banishment counters. The one time I faced 2 priests I lost more than 100 of 160 undead(undead on flanks) and 6 of 85 reg.

I've been lurking here for a while and just want to tell Amos that his mods are just AWESOME! I really appreciate all the work he puts in.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Thank you for the response. I feel the same. The undead massing was largely ineffective. Against archers you could try an Air bless.
I enlarged the numbers that the Despoilers produce, and lowered their price back to 375gp. The Ancients got another type of undead to summon as well.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Added a spell summoning nomads.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Added yet another spell, a copy of "Wind Ride".

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

And another spell "Reanimate Honored Dead" and a new unit.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

I wanted to add the last hero but for some reason I am unable to upload http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif. I also think it deleted my mod. I'll try again tomorrow.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Uploaded the last hero.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Added alternative pretender. Let me know if you think he's too powerful for the cost.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Version 0.06

Forgot to add gem production to one of the heroes. There was a spelling error as well (I'm sure I'm missing many more). "Yigin Seri" regeneration is 20% (was 10). Uploaded.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

No-one cares about the spelling errors - the descriptions are cool, even most of the grammatical errors sound cool. The Nazar Goz spell description reads to me like you didn't finish it?

If it concerns you, I can fix them all in a jiff, bit I have some questions abour parts of speech -

is the Unlife a concept or a proper noun?
- "sacrament of unlife" (if a concept)
- "sacrament of (the) Unlife" (if a proper noun)
I think the second one sounds cooler.

You treat a bunch of things as given names (i.e. "A caster animates Yigin Seri" vs "A caster animate an Yigin Seri", as to "Someone shot a Man" vs "Someone shot DrPraetorious"). Is that on purpose? Should also probably be "The Caster" instead of "A Caster", or something flowery like "The Master of Unlife ...."

There are also some punctuation mistakes.

This is one of your best balanced mods, and also conceptually clean and I need to clear a nation slot. Gragh. Only unit that I think is unsalvageable is the Stygian King - you can have an upgraded version of any pretender chassis *except* the Prince of Death http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif OTOH, he's got some awesome artwork - does he have eyes on spikes on his back? Whatever that is it looks cool.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

You think so? What else do you think should it say?

Thats the correct one. Unlife is both a concept and a noun.

I'll probably go through the mod fixing all those when I find time for it. I dont see the principal difference between "A Caster" and "The Caster". Depends on how you read the statement.

I'm anarchistic when it comes to punctuation http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Thats skulls.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Some grammatical corrections. I didnt do them all because I'm grammatically challenged http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Version 0.07

- "Al'bagimli" starts insane;
- Added two anti-aging spells "Minor Holy Sacrament" (20gems/10years) and "Holy Sacrament" (50gems/100years+insanity).

In my game I used the "Burden of Time" spell and found that Elixir of Life doesnt stop unnatural aging. I watched my immortal Dispoilers get older and older, and thought that that doesnt make sense. Periodical ingestion of unlife should control the aging.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Another thing I didnt know: Death magic raises max age for undead not Nature. Wasted a lot of nature gems to learn that one.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

New summoning spell "Call Eternal Messenger".

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Version 0.09

-Last spell (for the end game) "Call Guardians of the Tomb";
-A lot of small cosmetic changes.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Changed Stigian to Stygian in 3 different mods. Let me know if I missed any.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Version 0.10

-Gave darkvision to all underground units;
-Stygian Terror casts "Darkness" at the beginning of battle.

When I get more time I'm going to update the rest of the mods.

Re: New Nation: Stigian Desert
 

Version 0.11

Changed unit numbers to 2400-2435 (I hope I caught them all).

Re: Stygian Desert
 

Version 0.12

- "Unlife Strike" weapon is dt_raise and mrnegates;
- "Al'mezar" is stormimmune;
- "The Stygian Terror" is stormimmune and leper 10;
- "Resul Al'koken ve Al'son" is stormimmune and leper 3;
- "Resul Al'zaman" is stormimmune (since he is already leper 10 I didnt add the command);
- "Nazar Goz" is stonebeing.

Re: Stygian Desert
 

Version 0.13

Added zombiereanim.
Added domkill 2 to the nation (no need to set Death scales).

Re: Stygian Desert
 

Amos, could we please get a graphics preview for this Nation?

Re: Stygian Desert
 

Give me a few days...

Re: Stygian Desert
 

Wow, really, dunno what you use and your experience in the field, but you make truly amazing graphics.

Still have to play the nation too :p As soon as I can I give it a try. ;)

Re: Stygian Desert
 

Amos is an artist with a real gift, there's no denying it, as there's a quality to his sprites that goes beyond technical expertise.

What makes it even more amazing is that creating sprites isn't oil painting, or sculpting travertine marble, where you've got a lot of freedom and options. We're talking about an extremely rigid, extremely limiting medium here, that at best can only be clumsily manipulated. I've got years and years of experience drawing with a mouse, and sprites are miserable, awful things to try to draw realistically (and I'm bad at it, always have been, even if I'm slowly getting better), but somehow he goes beyond even realism, into conveying powerful ideas and emotions and character to the units he creates. It's just stupifying.

Re: Stygian Desert
 

Thank you for all the praise.

Added preview for some of the mod units.

Re: Stygian Desert
 

They look amazing, Amos. Better than I remember them, infact, but maybe that has to do with seeing them all at once :) thank you!

Re: Stygian Desert
 

I just came across this mod and wanted to add some praise. This is the most thematically engaging nation I've played in Dom 3. The slow dom kill forces/lets you transition from national troops supported with freespawn to legions of freespawn fronting hordes of mage/priests who spread your dominion of doom, backed in turn by immortal terrors savaging anyone who strays into your dominion. Even while you lose horde after horde of undead chaff, the archers and mages, the damage dealing core of your armies, simply return with new and ever larger waves of shambling grotesqueries, slowly grinding down everything in your path.

I really got the feeling of starting with a small seed of corruption and watching it flower into a thanatotic kudzu, consuming everything it touched.

Couple that with absolutely top-notch artwork and this is probably my favorite Dom 3 mod.


/end shameless praise

Re: Stygian Desert
 

I am sorry to perform thread necromancy, but let me just say... Wow. This mod, along with Llamabeast's excellent but underpowered mod nation Sylvania, Vampire Counts, constitutes the pinnacle of achievement with respect to mod nations. They are a cut above even the highest quality nations, such as Sombre's excellent Warhammer nations, and I am truly grateful that you have put your talent and time into such a delightful project. Thank you, so very much, for creating such an artwork. Truly, one can raise the Stygian hordes to conquer the lesser races whilst enjoying the best artwork and theme I have yet seen in Dominions 3.

That this exists? It is a credit to this world.