Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

The Nation:

Brief: "Remnants of a destroyed world have landed in a province the undead souls of the dead, blessed by a god and cursed by another, want to take over the galaxy creating an undead leadership over all life."

Description: "The people of Shiar had a long culture of ancestor worship next to the worship of their benign pretender, they had researched ways of easy communication with the souls of the dead, leaving the bodies resting. This benign death magic was widely practiced on Shiar and supervised by the clergy of their pretender to avoid evil use of necromancy. The world of Shiar was recently destroyed by demon invaders and their terrible pretender god. In the moment of destruction the pretender god of the Shiar, not strong enough to battle the demon pretender, tried to save his people by blessing them with eternal life using all his powers including his lifeforce. The demon pretender warped his spell and now the souls of the inhabitants of Shiar live on, undead. The spells also affected the dying pretender and he too was changed, now undead, and less benevolent. Shards of Shiar have fallen in a distant province and are now the centre of a new nation and religion. The new Shiar nation does not want to extriminate all life but want leadership of selected suitable undead souls over the unbalanced and often unthinking forms of life in the galaxy. They use their still powerfull death magic abilities in their old, but also in new ways."

Summary: "Restless undead souls of inhabitants of Shiar are going to conquer the universe. An undead religious nation."

The God

name: "The Lord of Souls"
description : "The Shiar pretender used to be weak, but was willing to give everything including his own live for his followers. When he died giving his live with his greatest casting untill that moment, securing immortality for all Shiar souls he was still twarted by his demonic opponents spells. The backlash of those combined powerfull spells changed the pretender god of Shiar. He is now also an undead immortal and still wishes the best for the souls of his people. More powerfull now he intends to maximize the use of his immortality by helping his followers with magic and in battle. In his new religion souls unbound by mortal bodies are meant to be the ruling class above those confined by earthly bodies, with himself ruling all. "

- LA
- undead
- focus on dead magic and holy magic
- a few usefull holy spells (nation specific)
-- more powerfull demon killers
-- holy buffs
- all troops and commanders are souls of the dead, ethereal, blind, darkvision 100, cold res 100, siegebonus 1 (if you can move through walls you should have that), AN ghostly touch attacks of different calibers.
- no ranged weapons
- no protection
- immortal capital only troops (3 types, one sacred) and commanders (all priest/mages)
- high magic variety (all except blood) in non capitol mages (since those are souls of random mages) but low in power.
- FESD randoms on the capital only immortal mages (next to death and holy magic)

- added 3 heroes
-- The High Preacher
-- The Consort
-- The Master of the Hunt
- added a multi hero
-- Exarch

- new battlefield wide versions of the holy spells (air/holy and death/holy so they can cost gems, needed because they are very powerfull)

- some summons
-- Shiar dragon
-- Shiar hounds of the collossi
-- a remote convert souls spell

I consider the nation pretty fleshed out now with appropriate summons, heroes and spells. Their story feels good to me and though their units are limited in number I think it covers all flavor and theme I came up with. Unless I get good idea's adding units can't really be defended flavor wise.
SO for now the nation is ready...

EXCEPT for final balancing for which I need it play tested. So I'll call this version 0.9, going to 1.00 once it's been through some playtesting and balancing.

now v .91 some changes

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

I've created this nation primarily for dominions 3000 but since it uses no spaceforms it can be used perfectly for dominions vanilla.

I've just created the nation so more balancing might be needed.

I hope some people try the nation and I'd love to get feedback on balance for vanilla and for dom 3K.

A little hint: USE the new holy spells I made.

For balance suggestions: the idea is that all units stay ethereal and that all cap only units stay immortal. The attacks need to remain an.

If the nation needs to be stronger ( but I doubt it) things I've got in the back of my mind are:
- chill aura's
- BF wide versions of my new holy spells
- higher HP and damage

If the nation needs to be weaker:
- I'm primarily thinking about lowering HP or damage then

PS I'm pretty proud about the new spells I created, needed to look up a lot in the spell DB etc, finding the code for "works only on undead" etc, finding out how to use the different buffspells. So plz do take a good look at those 2-3 spells :D

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

Did you not include the flag graphic? I'm getting crashes because Dominions can't find the Shiar flag. :confused:

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

Hmm, personally I think it might be better to have it in a different age. You already have LA ermor, having two nations of undead might be a bit much.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

hmm I thought I disabled the flag.
As for age.. dom3 K is age 3.. and it's nice against armoured units... and you don't have to include both nations in the same game :D
I think the nation would do pretty well against ermor :D

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

ok new file uploaded, flag now included

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

you can expect:
- some summons
- probably some other new spells involving holy magic

Other idea's I had was using lifedrain 2nd effect on the attacks but I'll leave that for now unless I hear the nation is too weak.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

- added 3 heroes
-- The High Preacher
-- The Consort
-- The Master of the Hunt
- added a multi hero
-- Exarch

- new battlefield wide versions of the holy spells (air/holy and death/holy so they can cost gems, needed because they are very powerfull)

- some summons
-- Shiar dragon
-- Shiar hounds of the collossi
-- a remote convert souls spell

I consider the nation pretty fleshed out now with appropriate summons, heroes and spells. Their story feels good to me and though their units are limited in number I think it covers all flavor and theme I came up with. Unless I get good idea's adding units can't really be defended flavor wise.
SO for now the nation is ready...

EXCEPT for final balancing for which I need it play tested. So I'll call this version 0.9, going to 1.00 once it's been through some playtesting and balancing.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

'Convert Souls' requires holy gems.

What would a holy gem be, anyways? A tear of an angel?

A few thoughts from my current playthrough:
-Sneaky priests? Shiar has H3 sneaky priests, H2 sneaky priests, and H1 sneaky priests. Not to mention an H4 sneaky priest if you make an H3 your prophet. That is, by all accounts, a lot of sneaky priests.
-High Necromancers can get every path except Blood. That means that, with one unit(that has no extra downsides to anything), you have easy access to nearly every path in the game. They're like Spectres (if I remember, Spectres can get nearly every path too) that don't cost gems. And are sneaky.
-I'm getting ESD on the capital-only magi.
-The Shiar pretender encourages getting Dom9-10 for the Awe. With the added synergy of getting an unstoppable horde of immortal units who never have to fight in enemy dominion, a powerful also-immortal SC seems a bit much.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

- is having sneaky priests that much of a problem?
- The mages do get all paths.. but not neccesarily any usefull combo's, only 150%.. are they overpowered? I'd rather not mess to much with the stats though.. I can probably balance him by increasing price.
- I'll look into the paths on the cap only mages (fixed it was 7269 instead of 7296)
- The pretender needs to be immortal, I guess I could give him less HP though. --> gone to 40 now. his start price goes to 125 and I'll make his path cost 50. and to make him even more expensive I'll start with dom 1 now.. that should give less points to play around if you want dom 10. He is supposed to be about as strong as the PoD though.
- balancing immortal troops isn't easy I agree (have said so myself in the vampire thread where someone wanted a completely immortal army).. I hoped that by making them cap only I could make a good start. Maybe I'll lower their hp a bit more. Or I could make them all sacred that would make them more powerfull per troop but severely limit the number you could get. But then one would probably only use the Collossi. I think this needs to be balanced by resources. It already gives a good choice between going for high res for cap troops or not (since the rest of the castles would not need anything higher than sloth 3) I think I'll give them a negative resources or something, it's hard for ghosts to manipulate resources etc.
- I've fixed the convert spell (I had path 0 5 and then path 0 8.. so it replaced the death magic instead of being a sec req. it's now 0 5, 1 8 (death prim, holy sec)


Ow and the shiar high priest isn't supposed to have that dark dragon sprite obviously just see it now.
Also the enslave quadraped and monster should have another attack but for some strange reason it's not showing.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

I don't think the necromancer is that overpowered.. sure he gives lots of paths but he's got 4 paths MAX and a very low chance of getting 2 in anypath except for death. Also he's pretty expensive since he'll need to be your main researcher anway.
Id sooner give him a 1 research bonus than nerve him. He's terribly cost inefficient.. he's like 4x as inefficient as a sage. Sure he's got a decent chassis for a mage but paying for it everytime you want a researcher isn't very nice for a nation. Their relatively bad non cap recruitables and commanders need to make up for the immortal problem.

Also I think that while getting indies you don't need your immortals to die, if you insist on invading another with decent dominion it'll mean fighting on his dominion. Also all troops are undead so the obvious counter is clear.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

The problem with sneaky priests is that priests can preach. Sneaky units can hide in enemy lands. Sneaky priests can preach in enemy lands, i.e. domkill gets a whole lot easier and immortal units can fight in their own dominion. I think a couple of the priests might be assassins too (though I might be thinking of the magi).

@balancing: I honestly took order-2 and prod-0(though higher production might have been a good idea). I could barely afford enough to stay out of bankruptcy. Making them sacred wouldn't help much, since I was only recruiting 3-4 units per turn in the capital anyways. Might I suggest increasing gold cost? Oh, sure, they might not ever die, but unless you take order-3 all of those immortal, undead units are going to bankrupt you.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

yeah I made the weakest necro's assasins, not the priests
ehm I'd take order 3 with any nation myself but I think I'm missing something. you say they are bankrupting you yet you want an increase in gold cost?

Anway plz be specific about which units you think should have higher or lower cost?
I've now added a lowering of resources with 30% for the nation.. but when I hear you I'd say I should remove that again.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

I was exaggerating when I said I was being bankrupted. Honestly, mostly I'm just suggesting things--take them with a grain of salt, because 1) I'm honestly not very good, and 2) I haven't managed to get far enough to determine whether I 'll win and any super-duper-awesome combos. Most of this is conjecture.

Still, though, I managed to (with Dom3K) take 1 or 2 actual losses per battle in my main attack force (said 1 or 2 losses were easily replaced by my priests, who auto-summoned units each turn). I even managed to take Space Eel provinces reliably, which is rather hard to do, I find. I don't think they need any help.

Actually, that might help decrease the power of Shiar a bit--remove the priests' auto-summon powers. One could theoretically (and in practice) take no actual losses from battles simply by replacing lost units through priests.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

The way you've done immortals probably isn't too strong, though even as it is I would probably recruit nothing from my capital except for the immortal collossi.

The god was probably a bit strong, with innate ethereal, blood vengeance and fear. Then if you give him awe also, he comes out pretty powerful. At 30 points per new magic path he was a bit too good at branching out into other paths. Though you still would probably have needed to take him dormant or imprisoned to get the points.

I didn't get to play much but I noticed the bird soul had stats as good as the others, was cheaper, and could fly? It is clearly superior to any of the other non-shiar choices other than the enslaved monsters.

I am getting really busy these days so I don't really have lots of play testing time anymore, so probably I'm not going to be able to do much of that for you for a while. Going to try to finish that map up though.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

hmmm ok I liked the idea of converting new souls a(and it's not immortals you get anyway) but maybe it's too much.

I'll wait till some more feedback arrives and then implement everything at once.

I've also thought of a fun, nice, new and completely useless spell (well the spell as such isn't even new, the idea is)

I'm going to make a summon that summons the nations banner (that black star) as a creature, ethereal (so it pulses nicely) and make it be a holy spell (so a priest who has nothing better to do can cast it) called Omen, the start will be called Omen too.
It will have no attack, no stats worth mentioning whatso ever, and abou 10 HP. It will just have a description with something like "The Undead Priests of Shiar are now communicating with the souls of the dead in this province. Prepare to serve under the benign rulership of the souls of the wise of ages past."

Pure propaganda, like real warfare, completely useless in game, but might be fun in multiplayer, and it totally fits a priestly nation to try talking and diplomacy before actual warfare. I'm making it holy so it won't need a usefull mage to cast it (though all priests are mages so you'll loose some research to cast it anyway)

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

about the god: blood vengeance is just there cus I never used it before and he could have it.. it's not needed for thematic purposes, he could loose it if it's too powerfull (to be honest I've never that in action ever so no idea how powerfull it actually is)

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

Blood Vengeance, in a nutshell, is as such: An attacker takes a potshot at Mr. Vengeful. I don't think it matters where the attacker is. If the attacker fails the MR check, he gets his giant flaming boulder thrown right back at him. Understandably, that hurts. It's not too useful against SCs, but it's great for indies (as I would know, since my dom-9 god was an indy-soloing machine, coming out with almost no scratches, except for that one time he tried to kill two Space Eels and died, but came back in the capital no worse for the wear).

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

If I understand it correctly, blood vengeance also works in the strategic map. For example, if someone tried to use fires from afar and hit him, they would have a chance to damage themself with it instead of the unit with blood vengeance.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

I might just need to tone down his attacks a bit too... he's pretty though to kill so maybe his damage output should be lower.. might even upgrade something else back again then if he gets too weak.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

Trying this against the regular AI's.

First game: I started right next to Ermor and he jumped me early on. While I was able to hold the battle line for a long time he was able to expand and I wasn't. I threw in the towel when I started losing units to a lack of support.

Second game: I got into an early war with Utgard but this has been much more manageable. He's definitely on the run but I'm staying within my dominion to save my immortals and it's being much harder to push dominion than I would expect, although Utgard's dominion finally seems to be collapsing.


I also had an interesting experience: I tried to sneak a *LARGE* army through Man's territory. I was caught and won the battle--I got the province. Afterwards I did not appear to be at war with Man--he never did anything hostile to me. In the end I realized his war with Utgard had reduced him to a single province so I took it.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

You couldn't beat ermor even with your tons of level 2 and 3 mages? That is unexpected I'd thought a undead nation would just be banished into loose bones.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

The problem is it's awfully hard to maintain a battle front against Ermor. I can smash their armies no problem but they keep messing me up in the process--and my troops need gold. An army breaks through and I got chasing it until it sieges a castle and I can catch up. Ermor is a royal pain in an early battle.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

Try researching up thaumaturgy for wither bones... you've got the mages to cast it and it should cause ermor horrific casualties. Also, if you have lots of magical firepower one thing you can try doing is having your troops set on guard commander, on either a commander set to holdx5 and attack or a mage commander. That will give you a good chance to mess them up before they get close to you.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

I find the troops to be a tad similar to each other, with no real difference, apart from HP and move. It makes playing them a bit dull. (at least to my suboptimal playing style) The fact all their troops only count on ethereal to save their little a*ss makes them easy to counter by midgame in MP, I think. (or earlier for some faction) All my observations are relative to classical dom 3.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

There is quite some similarity indeed, but teh quadrapeds have a double attack, the monster even more.
The Collossi have 2x AOE 1 attack (Though I'm thinking it might be a bit much)
The new spells (which I was so very proud of) can help mid/end game.
One is a large AoE airshield (and a BF version which they can't cast easily), the other is a AoE stoneskin (and the BF version of it too)

In the end all human nations are pretty similar too though, not even diferecen in HP, only a little in move and rely on prot to save their axes.

Do you have any suggestion to ikmprove the race considering your view of it?

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

Well, after reading your post my view is all of a sudden quite different, as I hadn't spotted all of this. (I do not read all the DMs, lazy me)(it spoils quite a bit of pleasure too)

But, even knowing all this, I still think you could be quite hard pressed early on by, lets say, caelian infantry, or anything better using magic weapons.
What do you think of some sort of armored thralls, or mercenaries ? It would help diversify their base roster of units. You can even make them a level 1 or 2 construction/whatever, if you think armored stuff should stay exceptionnal.

edit : uh stoneskin uh ? Err maybe no armored goodies after all. Needs more testing to make my mind.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

hmmm it's a spell that casts stoneskin on undead only :D it's holy, the larger version (which you might not have yet) is death/holy since it needs to cost gems or �*t's too powerfull.

I'll post a new version which has all spells I'm talking about in any case.

I agree that nations with magic weapons will be quite annoying.. against them you'll just have to field immortals and grind them down.. some nations just don't do well against other sorts.. I think demon or undead nations wouldn't like fighting against this nation :D

I could see however that it might be too much of a problem.. then I'd might be able to think of something..but the smaller version of the holy spell, stone souls is already AoE 3 and castable by holy 3 priests... with this nation you could get your undead to prot 15 in a few turns of buffing with this spell if you invest in the holy 3 priests that is.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

No--the problem was keeping a solid battle line so they didn't slip around behind. Keeping a sufficient force to deal with whatever he could throw in a dozen provinces overstretched me.

It reached the point that he was pushing dominion on me, the attacks were getting bigger but I didn't have money to build any more troops.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

hmm still I'd say just banishing the crap out of them with H3 priest should really really kill armies big time

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

A couple of questions:

1) Why the Star of David for a symbol? Or does it have some other meaning I don't know?

2) One thing bothers me here: the freespawn the commanders produce. They are of a type that needs support.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

I liked a black star thingie, first I wanted some 3 pointed thingie or swirl thingie but it wasn't as easy to find one (since those I had have white background and fading grey edges) then I saw this one and it had no background and no wavering edges so I used this one. No special meaning or something. It's black and a star and seems to fit the nation.

I do hope noone (jews in particular) see stuff used in this game as a problem. In any case this is not an evil nation, more a "good" sort of nation even though undead so there really is no need be insulted or anything. It also doesn't mean I'm pro-Israel or something for the palestinians out there btw since while I have nothing against jews I don't support the behaviour of Israel personally. No need for replies on this btw, this is my personaly opinion and will not very likely be changed by discussion on this forum. plz help me balance my mod further.

Ehm what do you mean by "they are a type that needs support" and what is the problem with that? In the newest version (uplaoded yesterday) I've drastically reduced freespawn btw.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

The freespawn causes the upkeep costs to keep going up and up and up even without any recruiting.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

ah well... they aren't immortal so you can just send them of to die :D and in the newer version you only get very few of them.

but thanks for the tip about it if it keeps being a major problem I'll remove it.