Mod Urdheim, The Infinite Horde

Sombre · #1 June 20th, 2007, 12:31 AM

Hahah, I'd love to pretend I'm jealous but I don't think the mod subforum is a very good place for DRAAAMA.

They do look very nice though - like Amos' stuff they are quite different from the style of Dom3 but as one nation I bet they look really good on the battlefield.

There is one thing - if you use copystats with the dwarf from 'heim to get darkvision 50 I think there's a bug where you can't assign the unit to have ld40. They have to have ldr10 or 120 or whatever instead. #okleader just doesn't work for some reason.

Sombre · #2 June 20th, 2007, 12:40 AM

Oh and Bandar - those are the flames from the torches they're carrying.

BandarLover · #3 June 20th, 2007, 08:14 AM

Thanks for that. I didn't notice the Torch in their hands. Guess my eyes are failing as I'm getting older.

Saulot · #4 June 21st, 2007, 12:43 AM

Thanks for all the positive comments. It's quite appreciated, and most helpful as a form of motivation to keep working at it, and improving the quality of the mod.

As for darkvision, I'm going to lean against it for now, when the mod is released for beta, and if people suggest it as a good idea, it may be implemented as Sombre suggest, though it does ruin the Ranger's current leadership (possibly some other units too).

As for today's progress, I've updated two attacksprites, did a few balancing changes to stats/costs, and added a national spell.

Saulot · #5 June 23rd, 2007, 11:25 PM

Played through a quick 45 province game vs. impossible Vanheim. Progress is steady. Feels like one or two more quick games, and it should be ready for betatesting by the public.
Update for today:

Fixed several itemslot bugs.
Fixed age of units.
Added two attacksprites.
Balanced several units.
Improved Scion of Abraxas.
Added a national combat spell.
Tweaked several national spells.
Updated nation forts.

Sombre · #6 June 24th, 2007, 02:18 AM

I've worked out how to get darkvision and 40 leadership working.

You make a unit 12345 or whatever and copystats the darkvision unit (like an agarthan infantry) to him. Then you give him the #armor "nothing" #weapon "nothing" tags.

Then when you make your units you copystats 12345 instead of the agarthan and you get the darkvision but not the equipment.

Saulot · #7 June 24th, 2007, 03:46 PM

Have to say that's a creative solution, good job Sombre.

So I've been thinking about darkvision again, and it presents some options to be weighed carefully. Adding 50% darkvision to all the kobolds seems realistic enough, but adding abilities like that makes me want to increase their goldcost or take away a point somewhere. The problem of course being, that every time they're balanced up in terms of quality&cost, they are a bit farther away from the cheap weenie army they're supposed to be. I suppose one possibility is to lower their hp by one. They're not very likely to survive more than one blow anyway, so this is a minor tweak down for them, as partial darkvision is a minor tweak up.

On the other hand, if the kobolds get darkvision, perhaps the more draconic units (the two scions specifically), should also get it. This is thematic of course, with DND dragons, but not thematic with Dom dragons. Their already pretty beefy, and the risk of just adding cool ability after another and creating overpowered creatures is high. One really has to reign oneself in from giving in to that. *sigh*

The third aspect of this, is this once again begs for a revision of the nation forts, to the cave type forts. Kobolds are as much, if not more, underground dwelling creatures as aboveground, so realistically/thematically it fits. This does however, pose the issue, of how powerful the kobold forts become. (Their PD is pretty healthy already.)

So... thanks to Sombre, I'm now leaning for darkvision. Suggestions are more than welcome.

Secondly, I've been considering the spell 'Life after Death', amongst other necromantic spells, and I Was wondering, is there any way to select which unit is created as that nation's undead? Kind of how Caelum, C'tis, Etc... each have their own soulless. I'd be willing to create kobold skeleton and soulless sprites for this purpose if it was possible. (So far I've been strongly leaning against adding a national 'create skeleton' spell, just for the purpose of throwing around kobold skeletons.)

Endoperez · #8 June 25th, 2007, 04:03 AM

Adding in nation-spesific undeads isn't possible. It's been requested in the modders' wish list.

Saulot · #9 June 29th, 2007, 11:13 PM

Alright, after several months(!) of development, the Urdheim beta (v0.1) is finally here for download as promised. (Check first post)

Inside you get:
1 new nation
60 national sprites
30 national units
15 national spells
2 national pretenders
1 small thematic gui change (fully optional)

Now, despite this being my first real mod, don't be gentle. Be brutal. I welcome and embrace criticism. I prefer constructive criticism naturally, but I imagine anything can help me improve the mod for the next release.

I am committed to seeing this through and will be releasing new updates with added content, more balance, and less bugs in the coming weeks.

If I may suggest some music to go with the nation (for those of you who enjoy the fantasy gaming music genre but have heard the EA dom music a thousand times), this leads to the free to download knights of honor soundtrack:
http://www.sunflowers.de/english/support/dlkohmusic.php

Nothing else to add except,... Enjoy!

Edit:
In the music link provided, the track "vulture's lair" has a broken link. It is fixed simply by copying/pasting and then changing vulture's to vultures.

Sombre · #10 June 30th, 2007, 01:10 AM

Based on playing a quick 15 turns or so, I really like the nation - there are lots of interesting units, lots of colourful spells. It's like a cross between an Amos nation and a regular dom3 one. That's mostly a good thing (although I don't like Amos' nations that much, I think the quality there is excellent).

But to be honest they do seem overpowered. Just as an example - the Kobold warchiefs autosummon 5 light infantry a turn and they only cost just over 100 gold. They pay back the investment very quickly and do it without having to sit still and summon allies.

The poison doubleshot I'm also not too sure about. This is the early era and they have a missile weapon (one-shot, true) which is basically better than a crossbow. I think I'd prefer if it were slightly less good and the mediums were slightly cheaper.

I like the fire-breathing units a lot - there are some strong similarities between this nation and my skaven, although your 'flamethrowers' have higer prec so don't tend to toast your own guys as much. I also really like the idea of the traps used by the casters/commanders. Very nice.

I haven't played them long enough to say much more - they do seem a bit good, that's all. Early game size 1 swarming and facehugging combined with national thugs, great magic etc.