MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.49
 

The version here (v1.49) is obsolete, as I am no longer maintaining threads or any work on the Shrapnel forums. The mod is currently at v1.54, and can be found in its current and updated version here.









SHANGRI-LA, HIDDEN CITY OF THE SECRET MASTERS
An MA nation for Dominions 3
Version 1.49

Original and Primary Author: Nounours
Revising Authors: Globu and Pyg
Current Maintainer: Globu

Preview

To see ongoing graphical changes, along with rationales where appropriate, check out the following images. (I update these more often than I update the download, so not all changes are implemented in the current public version yet. A lossless copy of both these images is in the download.)

Graphical Changes Page 1
Graphical Changes Page 2

UPDATE MAY 3, 2010

I'm not quite sure what to say. I'm pretty dismayed with recent events, and am shocked and disappointed at how it was handled and the sort of attitudes revealed on the part of people who I think should have known better.

I'll continue to update here for now, and will try to finish projects started, but I have to say that working with and modding the game in this context has lost much of its savor -- the mod community has been effectively splintered in what has come out to be a rather heavy-handed and destructive phenomenon that could have been avoided several times over by a little more respectful handling.

Ironically, I had just been having a conversation with a friend, about a week or so ago, about how the Dom3 modding community was unusually cooperative and integrative, a state of affairs I fear is pretty much in doubt now.

That said, I've put up a small update. There are no changes to the .dm file for this update -- it's just a handful of sprites: the Ascended One (hero), Ascended Master (pretender), and the Shangrilan heavy infantry, archers and crossbowmen.

UPDATE APR. 30, 2010

• Rje reduced in cost 140 -> 110 gold. (That seemed like a lot for a capital-only human commander with no magic or priest levels and no specials beside good stats, a standard ability and being sacred.)
• Gelug (Yellow-Hat Lama) reduced in cost 270 -> 220 gold. Compared with other lama types, this guy is pretty weak, offers no path variation, and doesn't seem to warrant the cost. May be just me, but did anyone find him worth it at 270?

DESCRIPTION

Shangri-La is an MA Nation based on Tibetan myth and history. The nation is centered around the hidden city of Shangri-La, ruled by powerful mage-priests who seek spiritual ascension and enlightenment.

Its military is composed of Bhödpa mountain tribesmen, well-armed Shangrilan troops, and Mi Gö ape-men similar to the Bandar of Kailasa.

The mod has thus far been checked for compatibility with CBM, UWGIM, Magic Site Mod, and Endgame Diversity Mod, and is compatible.


Troops:

- Bhödpa spearman, archer, mountaineer (light infantry)
- Bhödpa yak rider (light cavalry)
- Shangrilan archer, crossbowman and heavy infantry; Dmag-Dar (banner-bearer) & Dmag Hrag (veteran soldier)
- Light Bhödpa Cavalry & heavy Shangrilan Rta Pa Cavalry.
- Mi Gö and Mi Gö hunters (Mi Gö are ape-like intelligent creatures, related to yetis. And yes, there are yetis )...

Sacreds:

-Guardian of the Hidden Valley
-Mi Dred (sacred Mi Gö warriors armed with club made of enchanted ice)

Commanders:

- Bhödpa Scout
- Bhödpa Sde Pa (Clan Chief)
- Shangrilan Dmag Dpon (Officer) and Rje (king)
- Shangrilan Monk (Drapa)
- Mages: Ngagspa (sorcerers who dabble in dark magics), Demon-hunters (Tibetan stories and legends seems to be full of demons!) and Ragyapa (priests charged with practicing funerals by cutting corpses to small pieces and feeding them to vultures and other birds of prey).
- Lamas: Red-Hat lama, Yellow-Hat lama and Black-Hat lama
- Hidden Masters (powerful mages and occult masters of Shangri-La)

Summons:

- Yetis
- Theurang, Klu & Lha spirits
- Srin Po, Bdud and Btsan demons
- Snow Lions
- Citipatis (undead who haunt cemeteries and dances on corpses)


REVISING AUTHOR'S NOTES

Nounours seems to have disappeared for a while. Pyg put up a version that corrected case-mismatched sprite filenames, and two missing sprites, on the mod's thread. Seeing that, and finding myself charmed and impressed by the mod, I decided to correct some other errors and apply a bit more polish to this excellent nation mod.

The bulk of my revising work has been in two major areas. First, I've done some extensive textual editing of the descriptive and flavor text (Nounours is clearly an excellent non-native English speaker, but there were a good number of textual gaffes that could use some love). Second, I've added a few sprites and variants (the Yak, Yak Rider and Lama of the Frozen Heights pretender) and polished up the existing spritework a bit -- sprites that had awkward shading, stray pixels, outright mistakes (such as the Dmag Dpon's helmet changing color) or other problems -- while trying to remain consistent with the author's style.

However, I've made a number of fixes and, I hope, improvements as well, including revamping the PD, commenting the .dm file, and fixing a few minor problems.

I am currently still in the process of polishing up the artwork, and will likely be making some minor changes to correct any other oversights I find and to better balance the mod.

If you like this mod, but find it imbalanced in some way (particularly for MP play, since I haven't played MP and don't have a feel for it), please do pipe up and let me know how it could be improved.

If you come back and see this, Nounours, cheers to you for this incredibly good nation modand I hope you'll continue with your fine work! (And, of course, I will be happy to release the mod back into your care.)


RESOURCES USED

Overall, unit IDs 2700-2799 should be considered reserved for this mod.

Also, the following ID numbers are used:

-- Nation 89
-- Magic Sites 821-822
-- Weapons 901-906
-- Armors 250-251
-- Nametype 127
-- New Spells Used: 15

Specifically, the following Unit IDs are in use: 2702-2707, 2709-2712, 2714, 2721-2722, 2729-2730, 2734, 2740, 2742-2751, 2753, 2755-2769, 2772-2782 and 2786-2787.

Feedback is welcome on whether any IDs should be changed to make for better compatibility (yes, yes, I know it's impossible to make *all* mods compatible, but nonetheless).


VERSION HISTORY

v1.49

• Sprites tweaked: Shangrilan heavy infantry, archers and crossbowmen. Overhauled Shangrilan heavy cavalry (Rta Pa and Rta Dmag Go), Ascended One (hero) and Ascended Master (pretender).

v1.48

• Rje reduced in cost 140 -> 110 gold.
• Gelug (Yellow-Hat Lama) reduced in cost 270 -> 220 gold.
• Sprites tweaked: Overhaul of Shangrilan basic commander (Dmag Dpon), standard-bearer (Dmag Dar), elite heavy infantry (Dmag Hrag), Guardian of the Hidden Valley, and king (Rje). A few more fine tuning tweaks to Bhödpa Horseman and Yak Rider sprites.

v1.47

• Shangrilan Crossbowman map move 2 -> 1 to be consistent with other Shangrilan troops in similar armor.
• Bhodpa Yak Rider and Horseman helmets changed from Half Helmet to Reinforced Leather Cap to be consistent with other Bhodpa units, including Sda Pa commander.
• Yaks Gone Wild. Added second "Yak" form for Yak Rider (#secondtmpshape). Now, when Yak Riders are killed, their mounts continue fighting (albeit with 7 morale) and disappear when combat is over.
• Yak Rider combat movement rate 22 -> 18. Gold cost 25 -> 32. Name changed from 'Yak Rider' to 'Bhodpa Yak Rider'.
• Swamp fort type changed from Wizard's Tower (gold 600, admin 30) to Swamp Fort (gold 800, admin 0). Rationale: doesn't make much sense to give such an advantage; the people of the frozen mountain heights would not be likely to be better than almost all other nations at building effective structures and administrative functionalities in swamplands.
• Sprites tweaked: All Bhodpa troops and commanders. Bhodpa Yak Rider unit sprite completely replaced (rationale: the original version's rider wasn't Bhodpa, and the thing it was riding wasn't a yak), as was the Bhodpa Horseman (rationale: it looked basically like it was a generic T'ien Ch'i without much modification, and didn't look Bhodpa either). Both should now look distinctly Bhodpa.

v1.46

• Ragyapa, Demon Hunter and Demon Slayer were priests but not sacred. They are now.
• Mod name changed from "Shangri La.dm" to "Shangri_La.dm" in order to avoid problems with the Llamaserver. For now, a copy with the original filename will be included as well for those who have ongoing games with the old mod filename.
• Mod directory name changed from "Shangri La" to "Shangri_La" in order to avoid problems with Llamaserver.
• Flag redone in the style of Zepath's Streamers & Standards. (Nounours's original, done in the vanilla Dom3 style, is included as an alternate.)

v1.45

• Summon Yeti spell corrected (#effect 10000 --> #effect 10001).
• Made shiny new mod banner. The original one was wrongly-sized and overpixelated.
• Fixed nation flag (it had an off-black section of the background).
• Lama of the Frozen Heights pretender added by request.
• Yet another round of textual edits. I was tired. Also, some descriptions were just too long, and were a bit verbose. I have tried to keep the core of what is being said in those entries, while chopping them down to more manageable size.

v1.4

• Readme created and documentation updated.
• Some further corrective edits to descriptive text.
• Spell "Contact Lha" was summoning the wrong creature (a Btsan); changed it to the correct unit ID.
• Problematic PD changed completely (original version used Citipati, normally summons, and referenced an unused unit ID). In favor of balance for an otherwise well-powered nation, basic PD has been changed from Shangrilan soldiers to Bhödpa spearmen and archers, with Bhödpa yak riders and basic Mi Gö appearing at 20+.

v1.3

• Case-mismatched sprite filename references and missing sprite references fixed by Pyg.
• Magic Site IDs moved from 852-853 to 821-822 to adjust for conflict with Magic Site Mod.
• Shangrilan Crossbowman armor changed from Full Leather to Scale Hauberk to match description and sprite art.
• All descriptive and flavor completely edited and revised.

Previous Versions

It appears that Nounours did not maintain a version history to this level, so the version history shown herein begins with Pyg's and my revisions.



CREDITS AND PERMISSIONS (from the perspective of primary revising author)

First and foremost credit is to the author of this mod, Nounours, for the superb work he has shared with us.

Secondary credits are to Pyg for correcting some problems and inspiring me to polish other aspects of the mod.

Big thanks to Kristoffer O and Illwinter for their excellent work, which even my *wife* loves, and on which most of this work is based.


All edits and further development of this mod is done without the permission of the author. I know of no statement of his feelings on permissions. The mod and work remains his own (though it is evidently based on vanilla sprites, and thus derivative of Kristoffer O's artwork).

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.4 (REVISED Apr. 2010)
 

Very nice!

I hope I can fold this into the ma combo mod at a later date.

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.4 (REVISED Apr. 2010)
 

Thanks! Me too.

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.4 (REVISED Apr. 2010)
 

Seems to be missing a Frozen Lama yet. If you were Pashadawg you'd have folded that one in already ;)

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.4 (REVISED Apr. 2010)
 

Would you like that as a pretender?

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.4 (REVISED Apr. 2010)
 

Frozen Lama certainly pretends to be able to play dom3 :P

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.4 (REVISED Apr. 2010)
 

Playtesting the mod (combined with others via combine_Mods.py)

"call yeti" does not work. My pretender 10 Water/1 earth casted it, but nothing appeared.

Lookin inside combined .dm, everything seems to be ok with yeti id no:
==========================================
#newspell
#name "Call Yeti"
#descr "Shangrilan mages have learned to contact the savage yetis from the frozen heights and bind them into service of the ascendant god of Shangri La."
#school 0
#researchlevel 4
#path 0 2
#pathlevel 0 2
#path 1 3
#pathlevel 1 1
#effect 10000
#nreff 1001
#fatiguecost 2500
#damage 2411 dmged
#restricted 76 dmged
#end

-- Yeti
#newmonster 2411 dmged
#name "Yeti"
#spr1 "./april_3/dmgtga327.tga"
...
====================================

and 2411 is nowhere else in the file, which is expected

Can someone summon yeti with a powerful water mage? I don't want to play vanilla game with only this mod installed

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.4 (REVISED Apr. 2010)
 

I haven't even messed with spell modding yet, but, looking at this and then doing some research, I haven't found references to the use of effect 10000.

So, for those more knowledgeable about spell modding, is this a typo/gaffe? Should it be "#effect 10001"?

(Mehrunes_dagon, I suppose you could, as a quick test, change the effect to 10001 and see if that makes it work.)

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.45 (Apr. 2010)
 

Aren't Mi Go some weird lovecraftian thing?

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.45 (Apr. 2010)
 

Possibly, but Mi Go in kham ka means man head (or thereabouts).

While in putonghua mi-ho is a name given to mountain monkeys.

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.4 (REVISED Apr. 2010)
 

Thanks, Globu, it worked. Got 11 Yeti in 1 call.

#10-2+3=11. fine

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.45 (Apr. 2010)
 

Ah, good. Glad that works.

11 yetis... that seems pretty potent. Let me know your impressions on whether it seems excessive in-play.

I also noticed that two priests (the Demon Hunter and the Ragyapa) were not flagged as #holy. That will be fixed in the next version.

Also, I made a new flag in the same style as Zepath's Streamers and Standards. Preview of it and the new mod banner attached.

Question for Linux guys out there: does it cause any filename/path problems that the mod's directory name has a space in it ("Shangri La")? Would it be better, for maximum compatibility, to change it to, say, "Shangri-La", or "Shangri_La"?

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.45 (Apr. 2010)
 

I don't think that the space would cause problems in Linux, but llamaserver has a issue with mods that have a space in their name. Naming it "Shangri_La" would be the safest bet, IMHO.

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.46 (2010-04-21)
 

Thanks for the quick answer, Burnsaber.

Alright, new version up. I was going to hold off on another update until I had a more substantial batch of changes, but, since I'm changing file paths and mod filename, I figured the sooner the better to get it out.

For those with ongoing games that reference the mod as originally filenamed, it is safe to delete the original mod directory. Both the legacy version (Shangri La.dm) and the now-standard version (Shangri_La.dm) reference the new directory, but, aside from name and mod descriptor text, are identical.

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.46 (2010-04-21)
 

I was looking over a few sprites and cleaning up ones with noticeable problems, when I realized that the creature the yak rider is riding is not actually a yak. And the riders are Furthermore, the rider seems like a fairly generic unit not in keeping with the style of the other Bhodpa units.

I like the yaks, but it bothered me, so I went ahead and made a replacement. I'm debating whether to use white yaks, or to use brown/black ones for normal yak riders and reserve the white one for a yak-riding Bhodpa hero.

Almost-done preview attached.

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.47
 

Updated. Most sprite tweaks are very minor -- cleaning up shading gaffes and a stray pixel here and there --, though two have been completely replaced: the Bhodpa Yak Rider (per my last post) and the Bhodpa Horseman (for similar reasons regarding the rider).

It's no great artwork by any means, but I think it looks a bit more Bhodpa (Bhodpaish?).

Attached shows before and after.

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.47
 

An improvement!

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.47
 

Second that !

Has anyone given this nation a run in MP ?

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.47
 

Updated to v1.48. Just a couple of minor tweaks, gameplay-wise, that hopefully will make two units a bit more worthwhile (reduction in cost), and a bit of sprite-polishing.

I'd appreciate any feedback on the cost reductions. I thought both the Rje and the Gelug lamas to be overpriced and not worth it, but it could just be me.

I'm tempted to return the Rje's cost to 140 (or increase it to 150) and tack on Priest level 1.

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.45 (Apr. 2010)
 

Played the game to the final stage (against mighty AI). Got nearly killed at the beginning, due to low income of money and gems.

I like no-upkeep troops but most Shangri-La summons cost money. The only exception IMHO are Klu and Yetis.

Globu, why Klu mages are free, but undead and demon summoned infantry is not? I suggest that demons/undead should cost no money but bring unrest and/or eat population.

And why no difference between two forms of Klu? Judging by description, human form should at least travel faster. But the only difference i noticed is lack of boots slot on serpent form.

I suggest that human form be made faster, not cold-blooded, and unable to go underwater.

In general this nation is interesting to play. It does not look overpowered, though has full magic coverage and powerful priests.

Crowds of yeti are good against most middle-era nations, but the problem is to survive the beginning with 9 water dormant pretender and lucky scales, and find enough water gems.

With construction 6, evocation 4 and conjuration 6, and some earth and air gems, crowd of thunder-striking theurangs is a win.

With scales set to easy win later in the game, surviving debut is difficult. So playing this nation is interesting.

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.48
 

Absolutely spot-on.

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.45 (Apr. 2010)
 

Awesome feedback, mehrunes_dagon. Much thanks.

Yeah, that's a pretty serious disadvantage at the beginning. Did you tend to get a lot of your sacreds and hidden masters? (At 60 or 70 a pop for the sacreds, and 400 for an HM, that's quite an expensive proposition.)

Good point. I'll look into that.

I haven't checked out the summons in too much detail yet, but it's about time to. Yeah, you're right about that. Plus AP should be lower on the serpent form, and a few other things. That's definitely on the list of things to fix for the next version or so.

Makes sense. I'll check the vanilla nagas and check for other appropriate points of difference.

Again, great feedback! Will fix the klu/naga and upkeep issues (which I suspect are likely from copy-pasted stats, and Nounours simply forgot to zero out the gcosts), and look forward to any more feedback you have if you play more.

Oh, as an aside, I'd like to know what you think about the changes to the Rje and Gelug gold costs, having played through with it. And about whether it would be a good idea to throw priest 1 on the Rje, gameplay-wise (the description would need to be edited slightly to adjust for it, obviously).

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.49
 

Sounds like a nice mod. I'll have to check it out.

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.45 (Apr. 2010)
 

Yes, first victories were won by crowds of Mi Dred. I only fought Skaven and Nekehara at that point, but i think that with quickness bless Mi Dred is the best soldier money can buy. Guardians of the hidden valley are slower, and thus suffer more from ranged attacks before they charge enemy.

Rje is capital-only, costs more than Mi Dred, and is slower. Secondly, with my sloth/disorder/cold dominion capital lacks resources for buying enough Mi Dred, so i did not buy any Rje.

Gelug with crystal shield is the divine blesser, so one per sacred army is needed. He can also be communion master. Unfortunately i did not try to use mage communion in this game, because in the beginning i did not know enough spells to make it useful, and later used crowd of thunderstrikes.

Since i did not use Rje, used only few Gelugs and other top-ranking mages, i have no opinion on the price of commanders.

About making Rje able to bless himself. Self-blessing and well-equipped Rje is a small auxillary army. And i further suggest that Rje be hireable everywhere. Many nations can hire nice sacred commanders everywhere. Marignon, for instance. IMHO this makes games more interesting.

Re: MA Nation: Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters v1.49
 

Good feedback. Thanks again.

I'm not sure yet of making Rje recruit-anywhere, since its rationale is capital-restrictive by definition (Shangrilan "kings," as it were) but I did go ahead and add a priest level. It'll at least give a good consolation prize when plopping down 400 for a Hidden Master or 240 for a Wise One is too expensive.

There are a number of other changes, including revising almost all human sprites. I'll be getting to the nonhuman sprites shortly.

If you play another game with it, I'd be happy as a clam if you keep that feedback rolling in. (And you should notice some improvement (hopefully) in the sprites and in a few other things -- notably, PD still wasn't working 100% correctly, and Mi Go weren't showing up in 20+ like they were supposed to.) For myself, I'm currently playing an SP game on the 700-province Anastasia map -- pretty huge.


Anyway, for everyone else:

UPDATE: I'm currently maintaining this mod in its latest versions at the new forums. Please go there, linked at the top of the OP, for version 1.51.