Mod: Mod thread- WH hordes of chaos

[DrPraetorious]

Oh, one other thing - your sprites look nice, but they have black outlines around them. This is how you prevent that from happening (in GIMP):

take an image that still has a transparency layer, shrink it down to your heart's content.

once you are finished working on the image:

select layer -> transparency -> threshold alpha

you may want to try this a couple of times but the default value (127, which corresponds to 50%) usually works fine.

NOW flatten the image to add the black background (Image -> Flatten Image). Make sure that your background is black when you do this.

Tada.

[Panpiper]

DrPraetorious said:
- If they don't have Torso slots and you put Torso armor on them, then they can't take it off.

!!!

I did not know this! I shall promptly create chaos armor to put on them.

Pump their MR and possibly hit points (for nurgle).

I think I shall do this. I did another test game with the current 0.42 version and found myself 'not' recruiting Nurgle units because of their undeadedness.

You could add a "horseman's flail" or a "light flail", if you wished.

This too I should (shall) do.

If you're going to give them an Admin-20 capital, that's potentially workable, but a 10% reduction in the costs of capital only units might be appropriate, to compensate for the lost gold revenue.

I understood that the administration of a fort affected it's resource collection from neighboring territories. I was not aware it also affected gold collection somehow.

What you really need to do is run some combat tests with your mages and thugs, and see how they do.

My newbieness reveals itself. I am not sure how to go about doing such 'combat tests'. Guidelines as to how to do that would make for a good addition to your Bugrom thread.

Your advice on sprites is much appreciated, but you assume a greater understanding on our parts than may be warrented. I think I understand what you mean about 'transparency layer' though I don't yet know how to create such a thing. I haven't a clue what 'threshold alpha' means, though I am sure that by 'trying' to follow your instructions, I might at least gain a clue. ;-) Paraphrasing; If we paint the sprite on a layer that is transparent, then we won't get bleedover dark pixels at the edge of our sprite. 'Flattening' the image onto a black background afterwards gives us our final product without the dark borders. I think I get the theory. Now I just have to figure out where all the buttons are, what the labels mean, and how not to get lost in the morass of options. (How I long for the fictional 'simpler times'.)

[Amos]

Unless you resize or skew/rotate a sprite you shouldnt get bleedover dark pixels. I dont use Gimp so cant help you with that. You dont have to use transparency at all, if you paint on pure black (0,0,0) background. Personally, I only use transparency when I'm playing with alot of layers.

[Panpiper]

Actually I use resize and rotate quite a bit. I find for instance if trying to get a nice graduated shade on a small sprite, it is easier to paint the shading with an airbrush tool on a 'sprite' three times larger then shrink down. In fact in order to get a nicer blending effect, even on sprites that I have built pixel by pixel at the normal sprite size, I will often blow it up to three times it's size and use the blend tool to get a cleaner shading. When then shrunk back down, the pixel shading looks far better. This way I can build the sprite using only a handful of shade gradations and still make it look like I used dozens.

I stand however in awe of your sprite painting talents Amos.

[llamabeast]

Just had my first very quick look at this - good work! Looks like it will be a really nice mod. It's already really good fun.

A couple of quick comments:

- Maybe the graphics for the units from the different gods could be somehow differentiated a little more, apart from just their weapons? Maybe Khorne could have red armour or red edging to the armour, Nurgle could be covered in rust and mould, etc..

- I think the Champions and Lords may be a bit overpowered, or at least it warrants looking into. The only ones I tried were the Slaanesh ones. Two Champions of Slaanesh or one Lord are enough to conquer pretty much any indie province - I think that makes them overpowered. If you want to keep cool uber Lords (and they are pretty cool), maybe they could be summons.

[Amos]

Applying light "Blur" filter would be far neater. But I dont know if Gimp has filters and anyway you dont need it. Just resize the canvas (not the size) to anything other than the standard (64x64, 128x128 etc.). It will look like the sprite contains more pixels than it does.

[Panpiper]

llamabeast said:
Just had my first very quick look at this - good work! Looks like it will be a really nice mod. It's already really good fun.

Why thank you llamabeast. I will do my best.

Maybe the graphics for the units from the different gods could be somehow differentiated a little more, apart from just their weapons? Maybe Khorne could have red armour or red edging to the armour, Nurgle could be covered in rust and mould, etc..

Yes, I've intended to do something like that for a while. A subtle color variation for the basic chaos warriors, a bit more on the chosen with a hint of unique decoration and plainly different decor on the champions. The Lords are already completely unique. I expect I will get to that when I try to reduce the dark border pixelation. (Real life permitting)

*Done in version 0.44*

I think the Champions and Lords may be a bit overpowered...

ARGH!

;-)

I've been bouncing the gold cost of those units all over the place trying to find the right balance. DrPraetorious felt they were too expensive and suggested I compare them to Jotun Herse at only 60 gold. I dropped the cost down slightly. I think I agree though that especially the champions and lords of Slaanesh need to be bumped back up, the lord matching the Lord of Tzeentch at 400 gold and the champion going back to 250. I do not want to make them summons though as Slaanesh needs regular recruitable commanders. Enslavement and enslave mind are powerful effects, but they are also completely thematic for Slaanesh. I never thought to try having any of the commanders solo indies. I didn't think them powerful enough to try. I guess I should.

Edit: llamabeast is right, One Lord of Slaanesh or two champions can indeed solo standard independents. Gold costs are going back up for those for sure. And then I'll look more closely. *Slaanesh champions and lords nerfed slightly in 0.43 and again in 0.45*

[Brownoak]

Panpiper

Just playing this nation- thanks- great fun!

The variety of units makes for an interesting range of tactical options and it is thematically strong.

I thought you may like some feedback. Why not have dominion (I assume it is dominion doing this ) produce mutants instead of warhounds, it seems thematically more appropriate and you could perhaps use a foulspawn sprite as a placeholder, if not permanently.(Incidentally a foulspawn sprite would be a good placeholder for your chaos spawn unit).

Regards

Brownoak

[Brownoak]

Sorry Valandil and Panpiper misread the thread and mixed you up...

Brownoak

[Panpiper]

Brownoak said:
Sorry Valandil and Panpiper misread the thread and mixed you up...

Valandil started the ball rolling on a Chaos mod, and then sort of ran out of steam. I picked up on it a few weeks ago and actually released this development version. I've been trying to get Valandil more involved, but haven't heard from him in three weeks now. Unfortunately, up till now the only thing of Valandil's that is actually in the mod is his sprite for the Lord of Tzeentch.

As for including 'mutants', I agree that it would make sense if simply going with the theme of chaos mutation, but I am trying to stay relatively in tune with the Warhammer fantasy miniatures line. As far as I know, there have never been simple 'mutants' in the chaos army lists other than the mutations one finds on the units already listed. For instance, chaos armor is itself, considered a chaos mutation.