Age of Wonders Factions

[FrankTrollman]

I found some old AoW sprites stripped out of the game for use in public domain mods.

You know what that means? Making public domain mods for Dominions 3 with Age of Wonders factions in them. Enclosed are three units from the frostlings: the Archer, the Snow Scaper, and the Magician. It's very little work to make these guys, though AoW had less units than a proper Dominions position does. So the question is: how do we do these factions?

The Lizardmen, Humans, and Undead are essentially already in Dominions with no work at all. The Halflings aren't a lot of work, it just requires a playable Hoburg to be brought back. The Goblins, Orcs, Elves, Dark Elves, Archons, and Frostlings, though, are more effort.

Frostlings need a:

Spearman
Swordsman
Wolf Rider
Archer
Snow Scaper
Dire Penguin
Raider
Yeti
Mammoth

Scout
Commander
Raider Commander
Wolf Rider Commander
Shaman
Magician
Frost Queen (Capitol Only)

That's minimum. But it's also short of where they want to be to be a full faction (no sacred troops, for one thing). I was thinking of adding:

Winterguard (sacred frostling warriors who ride of Winter Wolves).
Engineers (Commander level snowscapers with siege bonuses).
Mage Apprentices (weak magicians that can stnd there and hold Skull Mentors in the mid game).

Special characters:

Wolf Trainer (he actually trains the winter wolves that the winter guard ride and generates winter wolves while in cold provinces - thanks "copystats"!)

Grand Architect (he designed the original ice palace and is a huge siege bonus guy with some supercharged snowscaper powers and some water and earth magic)

Queen of Winter (the eldest of the Frost Witches, she brings winter wherever she goes).

National Spells:

Charm Ice Dragon (Thaumaturgy 7) You spend a lot of water gems and get a giant monster that flies and brings cold.

Light of the North (Evocation 3) You spend a couple of Air Gems and get a tiny ethereal squad of cold wisps.

Illwinter (Blood - you know the drill).

But I'm struggling on the paths. The shaman has an icicle and a cold bolt attack, so he doesn't need any magic (H, 10% chance A or W). The Magician though, he''s all about the spells. WW A ?? perhaps? If his Questions were each (AWDN), would that be too weak? All the Frostlings are the size and strength of Vaetti, so there's a built in drawback to even the most powerful magician (and they need those siege bonuses).

-Frank

[Tyrian]

I have already thinking about a AOW mod (based on shadow magic), but I have some problems with graphical aspect (I am very bad with that). For me the Magician (Artica in this case?) is a pretender, not a unite.

I think frost queen are a sacred unit, in AOW, they are described to be direct Artica's creation/children.

[DominionsFan]

Well, I don't think that you should rip out the unit graphics from a retail game, that is really not very nice. [..and of course illegal]
If you want new unit graphics, you can use miniature photos [well that isn't legal at all, but at least you won't use sprites from a retail game], or find other ways to get some.
We are planning to use miniature photos, however since that isn't very legal also, I am now playing with the idea to use Civ 3 user made units as basic images for the units. It can work, I've already made some tests.

[Tyrian]

I have made some graphics for modding AOW, but the result is hum... see in the attachement

[DominionsFan]

Tyrian said:
I have made some graphics for modding AOW, but the result is hum... see in the attachement

Interesting.

[Tyrian]

You are kind