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Blast from the Past, Return of the Underkings

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/a...ngs-roster.jpg

(Version 1.00 is now available for download)

Hello everyone.

Two months ago or so, due to the mention of DwarfFortress and it's graphic pack (which for me, made it playable instead of painful), I've been having quite some fun, and have grown somewhat enamored of the crazy and short people. This of course made me want to play with Dwarves in Dom3, but I found I was unable (Yes, I'm familiar with the late-era mod nation of Pirate Dwarves, and while I find that quite creative, it just doesn't have the right feel). I recalled that Zepath made a dwarf nation mod back in the Dom2 days, so I searched for it, downloaded it, tried it, and was unable to start it. I then set myself to modifying it to work in Dom3. With some tweaking I eventually got it to work, and then played a small game.

While back in Dom2 I found the mod quite exciting, it had not aged particularly well, and was asking for some modern updates with the new modding capabilities. For a while I considered starting from scratch, but then decided not to, when there was already an excellent framework, and many good sprites already made. I looked around for Zepath on the forum to ask him for permission, but he hasn't been on the forums for a while. I have decided to utilize his work, without his blessing, but give him due credit.

Here starts a sort of mod-making AAR/Blog for those of you who may be interested. For those of you who aren't, skip down to the asterisks.

I kept track of all the changes I made from the get go to make it easier to both reverse changes that may have unexpected consequences, and to make it easier to ask questions or direct criticism at me.

So then I began. My first consideration was era. To fit into the framework of coming before the late-era Dwarves, and the medium and heavy infantry which are the bulwark of the troops (and should stand out as heavier than the other nations of the era), it made the most sense to make it mid-era.

I then changed the basic dwarf stats, gave them darkvision, poison resistance, a higher cost, etc. This was a process that continued for several weeks. Dwarves couldn't just be short humans, they had to have a very different racial stat set. I hit the books (from my own DND collection) and various online sources to get the research.

After perusing several forums, I realized that the Zepath mod was somewhat influenced by the Warhammer Dwarven nation. I'm not quite familiar with Warhammer, but I decided to distinguish it from those roots. I've included some significant fan-service for DND players, DwarfFortress players, and those fine people who enjoy Tolkien. I found attempts at variety difficult, since most Dwarf culture and ideas are pretty cohesive and similar to the early Tolkienesque version which gave rise to much of the fantasy of the 20th century.

On the question of Dwarf size, whether to be 1 or 2, I leaned more for 2, as their bulk and stockiness and choice of weapons could easily equate into standard medium sized formations. As well as increase their resistance to trampling slightly, which befits Dwarves. However, as the sprites were already size 1, it would look very strange, and resizing everything to be several pixels larger ruined the point of not starting from scratch.

Dwarves should be tough, strong, and possess good endurance. Able to move fast for their size, and carry heavy loads long distances without complaint. They should be stubborn and courageous and therefore hard to break in battle, and thus the high morale. They have some slight protection due to their thicker skin and broad, dense bones. Their natural skill combined with their lengthy training and lifespan equates into a good attack rating, but their lack of flexibility and agility mean they have a poor defense. They are also more resistant to magic and poison, and possess good darkvision. They cost 50% more than an average human, sometimes much more, and should be hard to mass.

Anyway, I settled upon a Dwarf base, here:

Base Dwarf
ap 11
mapmove 2
prot 2
hp 12
size 1
str 11
enc 2
att 11
def 9
prec 9
mr 11
mor 12
gcost 15
rcost 3

darkvision 75
poisonres 25
mountainsurvival
special: dwarves are resistant to losing mapmove from either heavy armor or militia status

Then settled upon a militia status modifier:

Militia
-30% to gcost (usually 3, but in this case rounded down to 4)
+1 to enc
-2 to att
-2 to def
-2 to mor
-1 to mapmove (offset by dwarf special ability)

I wanted to include some way of lowering the effect of encumbrance on movement on a battlefield, but found there really wasn't any way to do that without approximating it with completely new low encumbrance armors (which would somehow not be as fatiguing) or giving them more action points, which would then be all over the place depending on how the dwarves would be equipped.

I gave them a premium to the resourcecost on their base, as the size 1 resource cost was too low, and it offset it somewhat, without the extreme of the resourcesize 2 with the heavy equipment. It also reflects higher Dwarven quality and durability of the equipment (which isn't really reflected in terms of armor stats, and is there simply for flavor and balance).

I thought for a while about fireres 25 and coldres 25, as it could be argued that Dwarves are slightly resistant to the elements, but I couldn't really justify it in terms of the price increase, necessity for flavor, or that it was an especially interesting or honest interpretation of Dwarven abilities, and doing something like a 10% resistance was just too much fluff (that would likely not save any Dwarven lives, and probably do weird things to spells like Fire resistance or Army of Gold).

After these changes, I started restructuring the costs, as all the Dom2 prices were far too low, especially on the paladins. These merited special attention, as the two sacred Paladins were almost mirror image of each other in terms of stats and equipment, though one was clearly, if only slightly, better. With some stat boosts, special abilities, and a magic weapon, they were a bit more dissimilar, and each had a group of enemies it would be good against. I still wasn't completely satisfied so I focused on the paladin aspect as a form of limited personal magic, and gave them an extra magic short range spell-like ability (weapon) which balances them with each other, and drove the unit cost even higher. This was perfectly fine with me, Dwarven paladins should be quite rare and extraordinary, certainly more so than Jaguar Warriors or Palankashas, and a bless strategy should be one of many feasible options, not the only one.

Then I added a weaker version of the Rune Priest, at which point the magepriests and paladins were made capital-only as it makes sense they would only be present in numbers at the capital, and makes Underheim quite capital-centric and low magic.

Brewmasters are something I consider a small stroke of genius, as they add a lot of flavor to the otherwise grey, warlike, and dour Dwarves. Neither scout, assassin, leader, thug, mage, or priest, they count as a new commander type, utility. Their various abilities and jack of all trades nature should fill in the gaps of at least several strategies, and bring the atmosphere of Underheim away from just war, war, and more war 24/7.

I considered the various neat cavalry ideas that exist for Dwarves; Pony, Boar, Bear, Mountain Ram, Dire Wolf, Giant Eagle, Gryphon, Hippogryph, Pegasi, Cave Drake, Battlewagon, Mechanical Horse, Pony Golem, even a Winged Tiger(!). It seems that out of the various mounts that exist in fantasy, someone somewhere will put a Dwarf on it. I came to the conclusion of zero Dwarven cavalry, for two reasons. One is balance, Dwarves possess good light, medium, and heavy infantry, as well as good ranged units (in the form of crossbowmen), the biggest hindrance of course, is the lack of troop mobility, both tactically and strategically. Giving Underheim a cavalry unit not only takes away one of it's major weaknesses but also lowers the effectiveness of certain counters against it (massed crossbows, massed evocations, even size 3 and 4 tramplers). The second reason is one of flavor and consistency, the Dwarves here are size 1 and thus quite small, furthermore they have short stubby legs, and should have a hell of a time successfully riding anything that they're not bolted onto or otherwise attached. Lances also seem like not a very Dwarven weapon.

I considered for a while new modding unit abilites, halt sacred, and the other anti-sacred tricks Ulm recently acquired. However tempting, the last thing that Underheim needed was to be more similar to Ulm. So I stayed completely away from that. This was also part of the consideration to get rid of the Halberd on one of the Paladins.

In that vein, since the two main magepriests were kind of similar to ME Ulm, I thought of expanding their magical variety somewhat. Taking note of the Dom3 Dwarf smiths who possess A, F, E, D randoms, I figured that was as good a selection as any and gave them a small chance of that.

I toyed for a while with the idea of Dwarven Loremasters, Engineers, and Skalds (Bards), but felt Rune Priests should be sufficient as there too much overlap, and already too many commanders. I also didn't want to give them any more paths. It did give me the idea of adding a researchbonus on the Mages, and increasing their price, fitting in with the idea of rare and expensive Dwarven mages.

Adding a dwarven version (which is slightly cheaper and the constructs are slightly better) of mechanical men, seemed a natural step for the prideful dwarves.

I threw in a healing spell as I wanted the Dwarven Clerics to be involved in the actual fighting of battles, without giving them H3, and thus smite.

I added a second siege engine, 'Runic War Machine' (a massive catapult), which is essentially done, but I was unsatisfied with the sprites, and then removed it. I was displeased with the two options of either having several dwarves load, aim, and fire the device, and how that would interact (spritewise and statwise) with attacking the siege engine, or the other option of it creating ammo out of thin air, aiming, and firing magically (only commanded by a mage), which is a cop-out utilized by many fantasy games.
 ^ After further consideration, the problems with the sprites is when there is more than one machine. Due to the size, they overlap, which makes them look very 2d, and therefore completely wrong. The solution, of course, is to make there be only one (a unique summon). This allows there to be more depth and flavor to the nation, without seeing the strangeness that is a dozen giant magical catapults running around. It also allows me to make it truly devastating in power, and quite high in cost. As for whether to have it truly mechanical, or truly magical, I figured a hybrid system just might work (in terms of balance, atmosphere, and appearance). Where it's essentially a magical catapult that makes ammo and fires on it's own, but it needs the guidance of an operator who directs where the catapult is to fire, who is quite vulnerable and killable, and in such an event makes the machine grind to a halt. This seems reasonable enough, but will need further testing. 

I was considering for a while adding an immobile guard unit, which is significantly cheaper to make up for it, and increase the defensive nature of Underheim, but as there was already a stoneguard and a gateguard, it felt awkward and far too repetitive. This was a major hurdle timewise, and was only resolved when I restructered both the stoneguard and gateguard (as I was already unsatisfied with both units) and changed names and descriptions.

Furthermore I got rid of several other redundancies and cut down on troop numbers which I felt didn't really add anything. The Axe/Plate Dwarf was too similar to the Hammer/Plate Dwarf, and the Battleaxe Clansdwarf was essentially a weaker version of the Woad Raider. (Adding is easy, trimming is hard, but the latter gives a nation a good feel and flow.)

After the immobile templeguard was made, I considered for a while giving Rune Priests the ability to summon allies, and while I don't think it would be too overpowering, as they're immobile, and Rune Priests are capital only and have much more important things to do, and it fits well in terms of how the units interact thematically, I so far am somewhat hesitant (of autosummons, or in this case makemonsters) due to the Kobold Warchief imbalance back in Urdheim. Right now I'll add it, but this is an on the fence situation that could use outside input.

I also considered adding an ally race to the Dwarves, kind of like how early Agartha gets Troglodytes, for broad variety. However, Dwarves are unlikely to rely significantly on outsiders, and it's hard to imagine alternate species which could be found in significant quantities in Dwarven armies. This did however lead to both the Raven hero, who manages to be quite useful, as well as the Raven Spies spell. They will likely only come up intermittently in terms of multiple games, but their rareness works quite well, in terms of balance and atmosphere, in my opinion.

 ^I thought about fortresses for a while. While it could be argued that Underheim could use Cave Cities, Castles, and Forts, as they possess good darkvision (and so darkness is mostly helpful), and to varying degrees live underground, I felt that the Dwarves who rule on the surface, war on the surface, farm on the surface, should build and live on the surface. They should be for the most part surface dwarves. Certainly much more so than Agarthans. It also means spells like earthquake aren't totally immersion breaking when cast in fortress battles.

^I recently gave Underheim a fortress making spell. I was throwing the idea around for a month now, but decided to see how it would work. It's certainly much cheaper (at 25 earth gems) than all the other fortress making spells, but it's also significantly handicapped over them. It's not a ritual that targets other provinces, but has to be cast in the province where the spell is to occur. Thus building a lab first then having the right caster there to cast it, should prevent any strange abusive notions for it late game, while creating a few more strategic options for the Underheim player.

UPDATE:
Despite it seeming promising at the outset, I was unable to get the province limitation set up properly, so the fortress spell works on any province. The cost is now 50 gems. We'll see if that's too cheap.


The most controversial and essentially final step was the idea of the Eternal Guardian, a powerful construct which is also a lategame summon, turned into a unique starting hero. This is more than offset by making it weaker than the summons, immobile, possessing an upkeep, and most importantly, removing the starting army. I think it works pretty well on a lot of levels, especially balancing down Underheim and expanding the story and background, and I'm pretty interested in everyone's thoughts on this.

There's plenty of other stuff I changed or added, but that doesn't require too much explanation, and is listed in the changelog.

******
Anyway, thanks to Zepath, for the sprites, the mod, and the structure. I wouldn't have been able to do it without him. Seriously, I wouldn't have bothered doing this from scratch as the sprites are particularly painful to work with when talking about size 1 creatures (16 pixels!), or even extra short size 2.

Here is the detailed nation info:

Era: Middle
#descr "Hidden in the rough face of great cliffs and disguised as bare rock are the gates into the earth carved by an ancient race. Beneath the great mountain ranges reside the proud and stout dwarves, a race of short, stocky beings hewn from rock during the making of the world. They have a great love of things made and cherish a rich tradition of construction and engineering. Dwarves are potent warriors as well, being much tougher than humans and often just as cunning. In these days the dwarven clans have come together under the rulership of a noble council of lords, the Underkings. The council serves the will of a god who has come to place dwarvenkind in its rightful spot, at the pinnacle of the world."
#summary "* Race: Dwarves - small, tough humanoids

* Military: Dwarven medium and heavy infantry, holy paladins, ballistas and constructs

* Magic: Fire and Earth with Strong Forging, and a small chance of Air, Death

* Priests: Moderate"
#brief "The realm within the mountains is ruled by a council of hereditary monarchs, the Underkings. From their halls deep within the caverns of the earth, dwarves march for war clad in gleaming plate mail and wielding keen-edged axes. The Underkings bring heavy infantry and potent siege weapons to bear on the battlefield."

Numbers used in mod:
-- Weapon 780-799
-- Armor 397-399
-- Units 2800-2845
-- Sites 850-851
-- Nation 76
-- Nametype 149 

Fortresses:
Capital: -- Mountain City
Default: -- Fortress
Farm: -- Castle
Mountain: -- Mountain City
Swamp: -- Swamp Fort
Forest: -- Forest Fortress

Province Defense:
Commander at def 1: Dwarf Chief
Units at def 1+: 1x Dwarf Militia, 1x Dwarf Hurler
Commander at def 20: Rune Acolyte
Units at def 20+: 1.5x Dwarf Crossbowman, 0.2x Bolt Thrower

Stats listed earlier

Strengths: Powerful and tough melee units and sacreds, Excellent morale, Strong forge and construction bonuses, Multiple sacred types, Potent National Spells, Supply rarely a problem, Small production bonus, Castledefense is common, Excellent heroes, Eternal Guardian starting hero

Weaknesses: No cheap troops, Best troops hard to mass, Limited tactical and strategic mobility, Lack of cavalry, Vulnerable to area effects and trampling, Most mages and sacreds are expensive and capital only, Magic is limited in both strength and variety, No typical starting army, No Cheap Forts

Underheim Information and Idiosyncracies:
1- Dwarves small size easily translates into melee superiority as well as being harder to hit with most ranged weapon fire, but tramplers and highly precise area effect spells will be devastating.
2- Dwarves are highly resistant to encumbrance effects on their mapmove, this is reflected in several dwarven units retaining 2 mapmove, despite single digit action points, which lends itself well to the Tolkienesque dwarven endurance in forcemarches.
3- Dwarves are highly capital-centered, with both their sacred units, and the two major mage-priests being capital only, to maintain both the slow spread of dwarven culture atmosphere, and the importance of the dwarven central city, where everything else is but an outpost.
4- With two different powerful and expensive capital sacreds, this leads to broader flexibility in dealing with some nations.
5- Dwarven Clerics can heal Dwarves mid battle. This leads to more Dwarves surviving through the battle, but possessing more battlescars and afflictions, which I feel is very much in character and gives atmosphere to the nation.
6- While Dwarves could realistically use arbalests, dwarven crossbows tend to be too weak to penetrate most dwarven shields and armor, and the Bolt Throwers are very precise, and so minimize friendly fire and show the value of Dwarven life.
7- While the nation has one less gem in it's capital, it has the valuable Forge of the Ancients, and makes Underheim the premier forging nation, as befits the Dwarves. This also makes Underheim more capital-centric. Furthermore, all other construction spells are affected, and so several constructs will be more attractive for Underheim.
8- The Brewmaster is a unit that fills in a variety of roles. Useful to slowly heal dwarven troops, to supply armies or prevent starvation inside besieged forts, to cast a useful spell in battle, or to act as a counter-spy by reducing unrest caused by spies pervading the dwarven realm. This can also allow the increasing of taxes without patrolling.
9- Several Dwarven commanders slightly lower unrest (Captains, Lords, and Underkings), reducing the effect of unrest increasing events, spells, and spies, as well as taming captured provinces quicker. This makes the Dwarven atmosphere one of Order and calm.
10- Though possessing more expensive and weaker mages than most other mid-era nations, with a researchbonus they tend to maintain a good pace in terms of research. Furthermore, they possess a good variety of Dwarven only spells which are reasonably potent and makes them a type of magic specialists, and should provide a unique playing style. However, Dwarven mages will never be around in sufficient quantities, and their loss will be especially painful.
11- Dwarven Pathfinders are sailors. Though more expensive, this makes them more flexible and mobile as an explorer than most scouts.
12- Rune Priests can call upon sacred Templeguards to reinforce certain locations, even if under siege. Even after considering the gem cost, the low upkeep and high morale of these immobile fort defenders should make them an attractive option, and gives Underheim a strong defense.
13- Dwarven forts are slow to build, and are built for defensibility, not speed. With several units possessing castledefense abilities, and above average province defense, Underheim tends to keep territory once it acquires it.
^Midgame, this is improved with Rune Priests able to summon a fort into existence in any province. 
14- Conversely, there are several units with significant siegebonuses, and forts, walls or other constructs will rarely stand to a Dwarven army.
15- Dwarves start with the Eternal Guardian instead of a typical starting force. The Guardian is relatively powerful, but requires some upkeep, has no mapmove, and will die if it leaves the capital (through magical means). This slows down Dwarven expansion significantly as Mage recruitment is moved back a turn with the requirement of another mobile leader or sending a mage out early and typically translates into a weaker early game (with a lucky early turn mercenary grab only partially alleviating this). This does, however makes them somewhat resistant to rushing, as the capital should be harder to take.
16- Dwarven heroes are quite good and should stand out, making a misfortune scale rather undesirable even with the Order synergy. With the King of Ravens set up to scry and spy, the Geomancer to throw earthquakes and other battlefield spells, and the Underkings to lead and rally large conventional forces, each is a major boon to the luck player, though the Underkings are somewhat more common than the other heroes.
17- Late game options, which are usually weak for both nations of limited magical variety as well as Earth and Fire nations, are unusually robust for Underheim, with the important 'Hearthstrike' and 'Forge Battlemaster' allowing access to use a second gem type for an assassination spell, and a strong late-game summon.
18- Underheim has a broad variety in terms of Pretender choices. It interestingly is suited best to a strong earth bless over any other, which benefits their mages and paladins significantly, and is what the Stone King pretender is set up to do. However, the paladins are too slow and difficult to mass, and so cannot be the only troop choice. Due to it's limited magic variety, Underheim would also significantly benefit from a rainbow mage. Since it also has an unusually slow start, it could definitely use an awake combat pretender. Each of these path makes sense.

I'll be including a spell-list, unit-list, and complete changelog, as well as a screenshot of the various units in the second post.