Mod: Avernum, Crystal Souls v1.5 UPDATE

[Sombre]

PREVIEW IMAGE.




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Summary: A new Middle Era nation based on the Exile series by Spiderweb Software. The mod contains a large amount of new graphics and the nation is densely packed with new content. Vahnatai and immobile crystal souls rule over an alliance of Nephils (cat people), Slith (lizard people) and Avernites (humans). Includes 6 trog national summon spells.

Strengths:
Varied selection of both infantry and commanders
Nephil stealth armies
Very powerful and varied magic
Semi-Amphibious Slith armies
Great research ability
Summonable trog superheavy infantry

Weaknesses:
Generally expensive
Best mages all have drawbacks
Extremely vulnerable to missile fire
High risk sacreds
Capital centric nation
No cavalry

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UPDATE VERSION 1.5


-- TWEAK - Vahn ranger greatly reduced in cost

-- TWEAK - Vahn mages and shapers slightly increased in price

-- TWEAK - Avernite mage nerfed a bit

-- TWEAK - Costs of various commaners fine tuned

-- TWEAK - Stealth of Nephil normalised at 10

-- FIX - Moved nametypes to overwrite ea ulm ones, since we've run out and Avernum is an MA nation




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Re-Download please.

UPDATED: Version 1.4 is out. It makes a host of balance and costing tweaks, cleans up a lot of code, sorts out the darkvision once and for all, adds a new nephil scout commander and gives onebattlespell of light of the northern star to the crystal souls, as well as improving their research. It's a must have update damn your pig eyes!



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Original post and premise:

First let me start by saying I have obtained permission from spiderweb to use some graphics from their Exile series, provided the mod is only for our private use (the frequenters of this forum). Spiderweb make a number of excellent old-skool RPGs and I strongly suggest you check out their stuff at http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com

This mod adds the Middle Era Avernum nation to Dom3. Avernum is an underground nation of exiles and their new masters the Vahnatai. I have altered things quite a bit from the story of the Exile series in order to fit better with the feel of Dom3.

[Foodstamp]

I think the graphics look fine. I am using the original graphics for my master of magic mod and they seem to fit in alright.

[aku666]

Will there be Erika as a random hero for Avernum?

[Sombre]

Hahah, yeah I could do Erika for Avernum. But then I'd do Hawthorne for the Empire of course. Is it possible to do those one-off heroes in modding right now?

[Stryke11]

Erika would pwn Hawthorne.

LA Agartha is pretty Avernum-ish. Well, not really, but sorta. Lotta differences actually, but the idea of a human nation living underground are similar.

I see intense cave by cave battles, if someone could design the map (I guess is would like like an ant farm. Actually, that's an awesome idea...a VERTICAL map, where the top line of provinces are the surface, and the rest are many levels of interconnected tunnels. Tons of chokepoints. Oh the sheer joy )

[DrPraetorious]

Vahanatai would be more interesting, I'd think. They live in caves, and they have earth magic, but otherwise nothing in common with Agartha, really. They tend to be armed with wave blades and shuriken .

Alternatively, as the ages progress they should *acquire* the ability to recruit Vahnatai - who tend towards earth/astral/nature, or earth/astral/holy (two types of shapers). Human mages would do death/fire/water/air (since that's basically what "magic" does in Exile.)

Crystal souls are available as a national summon. They're immobile, but magically powerful incl a holy of 4.

[Azriel]

I can imagine a Geneforge mod, too. They would be extremely summons-heavy.... Three basic leader-types: Agents, Shapers, and Guardians but there would be others, too, like independent serviles, drakes, etc. And then there are the insane ones that have had a bit too much cannister juice. Too much fun!

[Foodstamp]

This mod is a lot of fun. This nation is very powerful but I think it is neat for single player play.

I lucked out and picked up 3 heroes within the first year of the game. My strategy consisted of making tons of gem producers with my great scales and summoning troglodytes like woah.

I made my phophet the slith gladiator guy with the excellent regen, and he pwnd anyone foolish enough to step in my domain (65 hp with 8 candles).

Next time I play, I am going to try a different pretender setup. I am going to go 3 order 3 magic 3 growth, enough death for the mid range undead leaders, and enough nature/water for clams. My astral economy was unreal, and I can only imagine with clams to boot


Balance/ bugs-------------------------------------

Really, talking about mod balance is truly a matter of opinion in dominions, but one thing that did stand out was the power of the Trog khazi with 3 blood / 3 earth. In my game I did not have growth scale, so they picked up afflictions pretty fast from old age, but they seem very underpriced in any case for what they are capable of.

The only bug I found was a typo in the description of the starting commander. Ben needs to be replaced with "been".


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Conclusion

This is really a fun mod. I am going to fiddle around with the unit numbers and the nation number so I can play this mod with my mods in the same game. I am curious to see if the AI has the brain power to pearl horde with this nation or use the summons properly.

There are a lot of different units to choose from, and I admit I was a bit lost when it came to the theme of the nation because I have never played the original game. It seemed like the Nephil could be developed into a nation of their own, as could the sliths, but I imagine this probably conflicts with the original games story.

The graphics fit in PERFECT. You did an excellent job of resizing and making these graphics work.

I love this mod, nice work!

[PvK]

Looks very, very nice!

[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Bug.gif[/img] However in 3.08, it is suffering from the two-headed bug from explicitly setting the unit slots based on the incorrect values in the mod manual, which now correctly end up with you getting two heads if you enter that number.

[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Bug.gif[/img] The half helmet on the Avernite units isn't working.

[Sombre]

Yeah that 3.08 itemslots dealie means I'll have to update pretty much all of my mods.

Thanks for the bug report - keep them coming :]

Foodstamp - if you think that the nation is /over/powered rather than just powerful, then we have a problem and I'll need to go through the balance again. I thought that making the Crystal Souls cost 500 would make pearl hoarding with them at least slightly difficult, but maybe I need to either whack the cost up even more or otherwise hose them off a bit (maybe nix their research value).

The trog khazi is perhaps a bit underpriced. They have a cost left over from when they were somewhat weaker. Khazis in Exile were tough as all getout, so I think what I need to do is pump up their cost, particularly given the astral pearl economy you can get going with this nation. I might give them a random of fire/water as well, just for the fun blood summons - though this would be reflected in the updated cost.