Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Over the last few years the dom3 community has made some amazing mod nations, which to me add hugely to the enjoyment of the game. However, I think new players often find it difficult to find the good mod nations amongst the confusion of this forum, so I thought I would make some compilation mods.

These mods are collections of my personal favourite mod nations. I should emphasise that the choice is completely subjective, and in fact I haven't been able to include all the nations that I like. I'm hoping that players will find these packs a useful starting point, and will be inspired by them to check out other mod nations, and indeed to make their own! The best way to browse other nation mods is Globu's Mod Catalog (I particularly like the online viewable version).

It's very possible to combine mods from these packs with other mods to make your own combinations - I'll talk more about this in the second post. This has all been made possible by Sombre's fantastic Mod Compatibility project, without which making this mod would have been nigh on impossible.

There are two packs:

Pack 1

This pack consists entirely of mod nations based on or inspired by nations from Warhammer. I've put this as pack 1 partly because I hope that players who aren't interested in Warhammer won't overlook it, as I think that the nations by Sombre and Burnsaber in this pack are probably the finest mod nations which have yet been made. There are also two mods by me in the pack, but obviously I can't comment on their quality. :) All nations are added to the Middle Age.

Preview picture:

http://llamaserver.net/llamabeast/im...p1_preview.png
I'd recommend checking out the individual preview pictures in the links below, as I was only able to squeeze a tiny fraction of the awesome new sprites into this picture.

Contents:

Itza, Servants of the Old Ones by Sombre
Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail by Burnsaber
Nehekhara, Tomb Kings by llamabeast
Skavenblight, Rise of the Under-Empire by Sombre
Ogre Kingdoms, Gathering of Might by Sombre
Dwarfs, Grudges of the Ancestors by Burnsaber
Altdorf, Pride of the Empire by Sombre
Sylvania, Vampire Counts by llamabeast

Comments about the nations should be directed to the individual threads, rather than here.


Pack 2

This pack adds nations generally themed around real-world cultures, like the base-game nations. Three of the nations are actually "alternative history" versions of base-game nations. There is a more Byzantine Pythium, a "good" LA Ulm and an "evil" LA Jomon. All the nations are compatible with base game nations though, so if you want you can play the two Jomons against each other, for example.

Preview picture:

http://llamaserver.net/llamabeast/im...p2_preview.png
Again, I'd recommend checking out the links below for more complete preview pictures.

Contents:

Early Age:
Haida Gwaii by Foodstamp

Middle Age:
Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters originally by Nounours, extended and maintained by Globu
Al-Nadim, The Thousand and One Nights by elmokki
Svarogia, Dark Forests by Executor
Arga Dis, Blood of Warriors by Sombre
Pythium, The Second Empire by Burnsaber

Late Age:
New Ulm, Iron Faith Reborn by Sombre
Vaettiheim, Exiled Tribes by Sombre
New Jomon, Broken Sword by Sombre

Again, comments on the nations should be directed to the threads themselves rather than here to make sure that the authors see them.

While I'm writing a long post about mods, I also highly recommend the following mods which affect gameplay for all nations:

Conceptual Balance Mod 1.84 by quantum_mechani
Holy War: Lesser Edition by Burnsaber, with minor tweaking by llamabeast
Cross Path Combat Spells (CPCS) by Burnsaber

Enjoy! :)

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Until recently it was very hard to use multiple mods at once, since the chances were that they'd clash. However this has now become much easier thanks to Sombre's Mod Compatibility project ([MC]. All the mods listed there work together straightforwardly.

In order to make these packs, I mostly just put all the mods listed on the [MC] page and stuck them together. The only additional work was adjusting some mods so that they were compatible with the [MC] project (and making the preview pictures).

If you want to make your own combinations of nations, all you need to do is get the .dm files for the individual nations, and enable the ones that you want to use. The Mod Compatibility project page is the place to find the individual mod files, although right now it is slightly out of date (since Sombre has not internet at home at the moment). Purely for convenience I'll also attach all the files I used to make the packs to this post.

Now, there's one caveat to all this loveliness of compatible mods: it turns out that there is a limit to the number of mod sprites that dom3 will load at once. If you try to get it to load more then it will crash.

Pack 1 is reasonably close to the limit - you can enable Pack 1, CBM and Holy War Lesser Edition at the same time, but if you add much else it will crash. Pack 2 has a bit more space, so for example you could easily have 1 or two Warhammer nations enabled at the same time as Pack 1. Ultimately if you want to combine bits of the two packs, along with other mods, you're probably better using the individual nation mods rather than these packs. These packs are meant to be a starting point, not a finishing point.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Trying to create a game with pack1 loaded results in an error message entitled 'Nagot gick fell' that says 'too many sprites in mod'.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Do you have other mods loaded as well? Pack 1 is fairly near the sprite limit, so you can l't combine it with too much else unfortunately.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Why make it into single big mods?

Wouldn't it be more practical to make them packs of nation mods adjusted to work together, but with separate .dms?

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Fantomen - yes, for convenience I'm going to attach all the individual .dm files to the second post this evening, and the great thing is that they are all mutually compatible (thanks to Sombre's Mod Catalogue project), so for people who want to spend time picking and choosing it'll be fully flexible. However I thought that for players who haven't delved much into mods before there's a lot to be said for convenient compilation mods. In fact there's a convenience benefit for everyone - I will be pleased just to turn on Pack 1 whenever I want to play around with Warhammer nations rather than looking through the whole vast list of mods.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Another plus 4 the big .dm file is that you don't run so fast into the annoying game mod limit.
For me it got so bad that I'm always moving mods in and out of circulation :(

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Yeoman outrider costs 1g. got to be a mistake.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Actually, I think they're meant that way. Ogre's and Skaven's national scout cost 1 gold as well. From what I remember, this was to make recruiting them suck less. There is usually more than enough indy scout provinces to recruit from and Warhammer nations all have good capital only commanders.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Oh, I thought there were meant to be more or less balanced against normal nations.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

They are. But there are problems with normal nation balance. How often do you find yourself hiring a national scout? Yeah.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

They are indeed meant to be balanced against normal nations. Sombre and Burnsaber had a thing that they thought scouts should be virtually free because the opportunity cost of a commander slot is more than cost enough, which is true I think. Doesn't change the overall balance of the nations much.

Edit: Ninja'd by squirrelloid!

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

fair enough. though 10g would have been enough IMO.
This way you could blood hunt like crazy with 20 scouts costing like one normal scout.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Yeah you could, if you had a spare fort for 20 turns. To be honest the normal 20 gold per scout is negligible anyway compared to the fort time.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Or in two turns if you have 10 castles and are too short on gold to recruit much else (Mid-End game ).

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

I have just uploaded v1.01, which fixes a few minor issues:

- Pythium's starting army was weird. Fixed.
- Bretonnia and Dwarfs both made extensive use of base-game spell slots to save using spell slots. However there were some unfortunate side-effects - most notably the game crashed if the ENP was loaded before CBM. Since we now have many spell slots to spare I've modified them to use new spell slots, so this crash error should be fixed.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Updated first post to make prominent reference to Sombre's Mod Compatibility project and Globu's Mod Catalog, as I'd originally intended to. Updated second post to explain properly about combining mods.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

v1.02 released! Attachments to the first and second posts have been updated.

The new packs contain the latest versions of all the mods. To be honest I've lost track of all the changes since the last version, but certainly these changes are included:
- New version of Empire adds a number of new wizard lords
- New version of Lizardmen adds quite a few new heroes
- New version of Sylvania makes fairly sweeping changes to the balance
- New version of Dwarves removes a bug whereby crossbows were hugely overpowered.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

When I attempt to make a new game, when I change the nation from Random, it gives me Nagot Gick Fel: cannot open Ogre kingdom flag.

Arg.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Updated to CB 1.83 and Holy War LE. When attempting to use the 8 base nations individually with these two modules (I cannot find the combined mod that you said you used in version 1), the Too Many Sprites error occurs.

And I would have edited that in to my original comment but apparently we can no longer edit after 30 minutes without administrator's permission... oh my god.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Disregard my posts, it's been a long night and a long time since I last played Dom3. :)

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Those problems are being fixed altho we might have to wait for the next patch.\
http://ulm.illwinter.com/dom3/dom3progress.html

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

1000-->2000 looks awesome... and yes I afraid I can't use those packs as stated in the mod intro without going over. And Ogres always wipe themselves out in SP, maybe I'll sub Wood Elves...

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

I havent looked at the race, but it sounds like it might be like the problem that Mictlan often has in vanilla play. Their needs are so specific that they are extra susceptable to random choices in pretender and scales. The fix would be the same. Assigning logical god/magic/scales is always good for AI anyway but extra recommended for nations like that.

There are different ways of doing that. By manually selecting it as a "human player" and then setting it to Computer Player in the first round. Or it can be done with map commands. Or you can use a program like SemiRand to assign them randomly so that you dont know what they have altho Im not sure how you would get SemiRand to recognize added nations

I really have to finish something for Solo Play suggestions. A sticky thread or a web page

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Yeah I've been playing for years, did some MPs; I usually just start Ogres off with good scales, immortal pretender, and a sacrificer of the highest Holy level I can, then leave them to their fate. Altdorf has been fun so far but wow they start slow on magic, had to begin with awake Great Sage. What an incredible army they have.. and once their magic gets going it would seem hard to stop. Probably the strongest Warhammer race I've played, and I've done all but Sylvania now in multiple games.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

"Probably the strongest Warhammer race I've played," Care to elaborate on that?

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

The others generally seem very well balanced against non-mod nations... but having heavy access to all flavors of magic other than blood is clearly a bit much even with gem fees. This becomes even more apparent when coupled with their very versatile and supercharged army units. Tribute to Order should probably be made capital-only for starters. Some of the heavy plate for the troops seems overdone and non-canon as well, especially Greatswords.

Even the Flagellants are scary; with a few forts, you can really get a critical mass of them going, and a water or fire bless takes them over the top. You're not losing much by going for Generals over the cheap mages and getting large advantages in resource expenditure for the cost. 180pp for 3H 2-move priests is very cheap. They segue into Death extremely easily.

Pretty much all they need is access to a decent independent battlemage, very common and easy to find, and Altdorf is well-nigh unstoppable the way they stand now. I would hate to play against them in MP.

--obviously this should be in the Altdorf thread if there is one, sorry about that.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Keep in mind that empire isn't a finished nation yet, and due to the whole "every mage that's worthwhile costs gems" mechanic it may have some fine tuning to do yet. But before the most recent version, empire has felt on the weak side if anything.

So the latest version of empire has fairly cheap level 2 mages in all paths save blood now. This is pretty much the big thing this nation has going for it, cheap diversity. The recruitable mages are absolutely useless except for research and summoning your real mages. So while you do get a lot of diversity, you are spending gems to have your mages that you can't spend elsewhere. So while it is cheap to get diversity, and a lot cheaper than many other nations get as far as access to non-national paths goes, this nation does have to keep investing because all of its mages are diversity mages. It is the main strength of the nation though.

On the other hand its army is hardly awesome. It's pretty mediocre, in fact. Pretty much anything you can recruit is more or less the bog standard of average, with only a few standout units. Marksmen due to being the cheapest and most massable arbalest-wielding guys ever are the biggest of these. Nothing else is really better than usable. Swordsmen are good arrow catchers, and their cavalry is decent. Tribute to order summons quite nice cavalry units, but they're gold inefficient compared to the recruitable knights, with the exception of the inner circle reiksguard. And flagellants are those same guys marignon gets, and that you get from random events, with the exception of a few more hp. Which, while they do work, are still not that amazing. The big benefit of them is that they're very, very cheap. Even greatswords aren't amazing, you really need the retinues to make them justifiable because they recruit/move so slow.

I definitely don't think altdorf is the strongest of the warhammer mods right now. I'm not sure who I quite think is, but there are several contenders. I had the luxury of playing Itza before they got nerfed hard, and would have had no trouble saying they were the strongest in the past :D Maybe they still are, but they've lost a lot of their potency lately.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

The mage system for Altdorf will be tough to get used to, and I can see neonates having issues with it. The gem usage seems to be right on, but at such low levels of research, they still seem very powerful. The ? mages themselves (no lab required) all carry useful battle magic lines, and at 60gp/3 research, all it takes to turn them from useful to very efficient is a +1 magic scale. I see most of the difficulty of the use of Altdorf in the proper use of their mages. Do you research, site search, or fight? The fact that they can do all these without much opportunity loss I think makes them very handy.

Their army is both diverse and extremely powerful. From excellent crossbows to the superb Swordsmen: 12gp 2-move heavy infantry (and they are in most respects HI), cheap heavy lance/full plate cavalry and big-hp Flagellants that get to do their devastating attacks significantly more often than even a normal Flagellant because they can survive... there's not a bad troop in the bunch, and more, they're SO, SO CHEAP. Given that it will take some production scales to take advantage of most of it, but even their 8g/8r dual-wielding, ambidextrous infantry is usable and effective. Production isn't even necessary between that, Generals (the Greatswords are free, mind you), and (oh my god 13/7) Marksmen. I cannot think of any non-mod nation that could beat them in a straight army fight. Add in Reiksguard Cavalry and it's just not fair; those basically do not die. Knights of the Rose were charging them to no avail; they are a wicked tool.

It's exactly as if someone thought, I want to min/max this army for gp expenditure and upkeep, while keeping everything about the specific unit types that makes them great... oh and add some armor, too. Not only do they get the job done in grand Empire fashion, they do it cheaper than almost anyone. I just figured that the mage system was in place in order to hobble them, but by mid-game the astounding diversity has got to help them more than anything. I can see them having more difficulty in the endgame where more ritual magic is being cast... but by then they've survived and thrived, and they can throw everything in the book at you, if not as much of it as a like-sized opponent can bring to bear.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

What are the Reiksguard Cavalry stats and cost?- What makes them so good?
Are they better 1:1 than say, Bretonn knights of the realm or grail knights?

I did start an MP game with Altdorf but didn't have time to get far...

EDIT, by "Reiksguard Cavalry" did you mean Inner Circle Reiksguard Knight?
EDI2, if so I found their stats (below) looks good but not broken good unless I'm missing something.
#hp 12
#size 3
#mounted
#ressize 2
#prot 0
#mor 13
#mr 10
#enc 5
#str 12
#att 12
#def 12
#prec 11
#mapmove 2
#ap 18
#gcost 65
#rcost 6
#armor "Empire Full Plate"
#armor "Full Helmet"
#weapon "Broad Sword"
#weapon "Lance"
#weapon 710
#armor "Kite Shield"
#awe 1
#nametype 104
#end

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Well, they have 21 armor and 16 defense, lances, heavy cavalry attack, and most importantly, Awe. You also get 12 of them for 1000gp and 120 Resources, along with a thuggish commander. The large amount of high-bonus Standard commanders in the army means that they don't normally rout unless they're pretty much annihilated, too.

So they're not as good as Grail Knights at 1:1; however, they cost 2/3rds the gold and 1/7th the resources, and do not require magical commanders, all while fulfilling most of the role. And I think we can agree that Grail Knights are basically the end-all and be-all of cavalry.

WOW updated: they cost 0 upkeep.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Ok after extensive testing this is not true. :)

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

Yeah, the main point about reiksguard inner circle is the awe. Otherwise they aren't *that* special. They are purely inferior to the grail knight, but as said they are a bit cheaper than the grail knight. Grail knights are 120 gold per, with inner circle reiksguard being effectively a bit below 100. Grail knights of course have the nation-specific blesses with cool buffs attached too, and are sacred, so that definitely puts them far ahead if the bretonnia player has a decent bless in terms of overall power.

Empire's crossbows aren't that great just because they take a lot of work to mass. Armor is okay, but 99% of the time I'd rather have numbers than protection for crossbowmen. And the arbalest guys cost a bit more gold and use arbalests, which are kind of a double edged sword. The swordsmen are pretty much the most standout unit of the lot, but I would rather have, say, saurus infantry instead. Those guys are bruisers, and take pretty much no resources. They also beat f9s9 empire flagellants in equal numbers :) But yeah, I did win an mp game backed by hordes of empire flagellants.

Empire's biggest problems are really in early game, after that things start getting a lot smoother for them. But basically you have knights, flagellants, and arbalests to defend yourself with early game. And can't rely at all on magic.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

I would think that the way to defeat Empire is with an early-mid rush with a heavy magic focus. Just hit them hard with magic and don't stop until you bring them to their knees. But Flagellents, Swordsmen (11 atk, 12 defense, 11 morale base with sword, plate, and shield all for 12gp omg), super cheap knights, and Marksmen make a ring of pure faith and steel around anything you'd be assaulting, and even their PD is pretty fair. It'd be a tough nut to crack and a VERY fine line -- you'd need just the right mages with just the right spells or they could match you act for act with 1-magic casters and alteration/evocation.

But once that magic starts ramping up, look out, because even the kitchen sink is not sacred and it will be flung at you along with everything else. And they can survive very well with low income because of excellent cheap troops that are extremely hardy.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

In an SP game I see that Eriu sends to the Arena what looks like a slinger. When you check its stats it is shown to be a "mother of mountains" with stats corresponding to a pretender.

I have 3.27, ENP 1.02, CBM 1.84, Sprites 1.10 & BI resources 2.1. I can UL the turn if that be helpful.

Re: Expanded Nations Packs released!
 

This version of svarogia has name vila.tga and it is referenced as Vila.tga - this fails on Linux and, probably, on Mac.

Going to write script to find out similar problems in other mods.