Glittergem, Land of Gnomes v0.81
 

So, this is my first mod and I need help in balancing and spriting.
Gnomes are size 1, they have weak, but cheap troops and powerful S and E mages. There are 4 national summons, but 3 of them are a bit changed versions of other units.
Four Con1 W1E1 summon costs 3 water gems, so they are easily massed early - this might help in expanding.

This is still incomplete mod.
All descriptions have many mistakes and typos, can anyone help me with this?
What can I add in? What should I change?
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/8125/previewze.th.gif
Changes in 0.6
-standartized natural protection (2)
-added new commander (Golden Warlord)
-tweaked morale and precision
-added random path chance to mages
-mages and priests are capital only
-removed "inanimate" from golems
-tweaked leadership
-no more commas in description (I can't make descriptions more "dense", because of my english)
-deleted nation overview and description for rework
Changes in 0.7
-tweaked Glittergold Warrior and Golden Warlord att, def, mor
-given Eagle Rider a riderless shape and tweaked stats
-fixed weapons and morale
-added a new recruit (Gnome Miner)
-Glass Armor is now Enchanted Glass Armor
-Golems are inanimate and mindless again
-added stealth bonus for scout
-added a better description for Golden Warlord (thx Stavis :))
Changes in 0.71
-added a hero (Gnomish Giant)
Changes in 0.8
-fixed many things, the most significant are:
illusionist are not capitol-only
descriptions! (Thanks to Stavis)
Changes in 0.81
-fixed a bug with hero

P.S. Sorry for my bad english

Re: Glittergem, Land of Gnomes v0.5
 

Yay Gnomes :).

Re: Glittergem, Land of Gnomes v0.5
 

It would be a good idea to add an outline or general description of this mod to the first post in the thread. You know, to get people interested.

Re: Glittergem, Land of Gnomes v0.5
 

A few quick thoughts:

1) The descriptions are a little...sparse

2) The natural protection varies quite a bit on your gnomes. Militia, warriors, and archers get 3, glittergold warriors 4, scouts, clerics, and priests, wizards, illusionists, and golemancers 1, captains 2?

I don't really see the rationale for the distribution; it seems a bit random.

3) Your gnomish warriors have morale 7, vs. the archers morale 8. Might want to explain the discrepancy. Also, any fear/awe using nation will own them.

4) You might want to make an attempt to fit them into the Dominions world setting...Your nation descript describes gnomish physical characteristics and psyche, but not much about why they're backing a pretender...

5) Your description for the wizards/illusionists implies some variability in magic paths. They both have fixed paths (not to mention the same description). Also - all your mages/clerics are recruitable everywhere, vs. being tied to your capitol. Is that an intentional design feature?

6) 14 seems to be your base precision on your mages/clerics. Pretty high, especially when your archers only get precision 9.

7) I don't think "inanimate" is the tag you want for the golems. You probably *do* want "mindless" however.

8) You should probably give the scout "noleader" unless you have a reason not to.

9) Your wizards are all "okleaders" (40 leadership) as well as having lots of magic leadership. Is this intentional? It's certainly unusual.

10) Might want to give an elite commander to go along with the glittergold warriors (who I imagine will vastly represent your non-archer recruits.)

11) In general cut down on your commas in descriptions.

Also - this mod raises the question: Gnomes vs. Monkeys? Who would win?

Re: Glittergem, Land of Gnomes v0.6
 

2Stavis_L

Finally, constructive critique :)
I read your suggestions and made an update.

Re: Glittergem, Land of Gnomes v0.6
 

Sorry, re: my suggestion for removing "#inanimate", apparently that tag actually makes the unit "lifeless", which is entirely appropriate. You should probably still flag them as "#mindless" though (even though you've already given them morale 50; not sure if that implicitly flags them mindless or not.) The main reason is so they do not gain experience (to keep them in line w/other constructs, such as standard golems, gargoyles, crushers, etc.)

A few additional comments:

1) The golden warlord has only 9 HP vs. the Glittergold warrior's 10, and also has lower attack/defense. Is there a rationale?

2) For the eagle riders, you might want to consider dropping the hitpoints and giving them a 2nd shape (or temp 2nd shape) of the eagle.

3) The Eagle riders are equipped with weapon 347 - Flail. It seems like a flail would be pretty cumbersome to swing at a target while flying by on a giant eagle, but maybe that's just me. Perhaps you could give them 357 - Light Lance instead? Or maybe something like an axe/hatchet, with a bonus 408 (talon) and/or 404 (beak) attack from the eagle? (would be more like the eagle swooping down and raking/grasping the target while the gnome lays into it with the weapon.)

4) Regarding morale - your elites and military commanders have outstanding morale (especially considering how poor the morale of the chaff is.) 16 morale and above is pretty rare- By filtering Edi's Dom3DB, you can see tht only 607 out of the 2125 base units have > 15 morale, and that includes all the pretenders, heroes, uber-summons, and mindless units. There are a few recruitable elite commanders with this level, but only very few. 18 on the Golden commander is probably over the top. Even 13 morale on an average mage is quite good. 13 morale on your scout is probably the best morale on a regular scout I can think of.

5) The regular gnome warriors could use at least a rudimentary helmet - perhaps 119 - Reinforced Leather Cap or 120 - Leather Cap would be appropriate? Perhaps the Golden Warlord could afford a better helm as well? :) Perhaps 118 - Half Helmet

6) The "Amber Shield" on the Golden Warlord - this is normally used by the Amber Clan tritons. Do the gnomes have a trading venture with them? Or perhaps you could mention some other source for the amber shield in their description? Something like: "They bear special shields adorned with amber traded from the triton clans as a mark of status, amber being a stone especially prized by gnomes, but less available via normal mining endeavours." Or you could just give them a normal shield, or create a custom "Glittergold Shield" or something...

7) The Glittergold warriors and Gnome captains both wield weapon 363 - an iron cudgel. This is a two handed weapon, which doesn't make sense considering they also wield shields. Perhaps 253 - Hatchet, 252 - Club, 13 - Hammer, 12 - Mace, or 15 - Morningstar? You might also want to consider swapping it for weapon 7 - Quarterstaff on your mages and priests. Or perhaps 153 - Stick (to put them on parity with Hoburgs :) )

8) Similarly, the Golden Warlord wields 14 - maul, which is basically a huge 2 handed sledgehammer. Considering that he's size 1 and also wearing a shield...perhaps weapon 13 - Hammer, 12 - Mace, 265 - Spiked Club, or 15 - Morningstar is more appropriate?

9) It seems to me that you should have an additional set of gnome warriors wielding 267 - Pick Axe as a weapon (2 handed, so no shield) just for flavor :)

10) The Gnomish archers might want a backup weapon if they run out of ammo or get stuck in melee. Weapon 9 - Dagger is pretty standard.

11) The Glass armor for the bottle gnomes. Glass? Really? Not crystalline or something? Maybe "enchanted glass", or "glassteel", or something? Just not envisioning much glass armor holding up to combat.

12) You might want to increase the stealth bonus of the scout. Stealth 10 is pretty much the CBM scout standard, if you're shooting for that, although 0 is the vanilla standard. However, I would imagine that a small, secretive race would be naturally more stealthy than a big clumsy human sized scout. Perhaps.


Some things to think about:
- how do the gnomes interact with the other races? Especially hoburgs, giants, vaetti, the various 'heims.
- If they have a strong earth connection, perhaps they can summon earth elementals (much like Agartha.)
- It's not entirely clear to me which gnomish archetypes you're shooting for - small woodland beings that live in burrows and are friends with squirrels and such - or cave/tunnel living creatures more like diminutive dwarves? I assume gnomes do not equal fairies/sprites here.
- As a hero, you could have a gnomish giant (size 2 :) )

Re: Glittergem, Land of Gnomes v0.6
 

I read your comments and made another update
P.S. oh... I had so many typos (Eagle Riders should wield 357, not 347; mages with Iron Cudgels and so on)
P.P.S. I'm trying making gnomes that are something between "friends of squirrels" and "tunnel living creatures". Source is D&D

Re: Glittergem, Land of Gnomes v0.7
 

That would be a pretty cool idea :)

Re: Glittergem, Land of Gnomes v0.71
 

Oh, forgot the giant :)
P.S. If there are any mistakes in description, could anyone correct me?

Re: Glittergem, Land of Gnomes v0.71
 

Strabo - rather than post a long entry here, I put up a Google docs document with some expanded/revised descriptions. Do what you like with it.

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhq2s3sc_0cz65c4ds