Mod New Nation: Kharam Dzu

zepath · #1 November 24th, 2006, 06:54 PM

DrPraetorious, the repeater crossbowmen can still be shot to death just as easily as the other dwarves and decent flying troops could cause them serious trouble.

HoneyBadger, let me know what you like and dislike once you've loaded it up and played a bit.

HoneyBadger · #2 November 25th, 2006, 05:00 PM

It might be a little while, I've got a lot on my plate right now (something like 6 mod nations, plus work, plus the holidays etc), but definitely will do, Zepath. Hmmm might get to it tonight...

upstreamedge · #3 December 2nd, 2006, 11:22 PM

I have been playing around with this mod a lot recently and I thought I would give some feedback.

First are good things: To begin with the core idea is super awesome. I mean, dwarf pirates??? I love the national heroes, your idea to make a couple of immobile ones was great! I like your unit concepts allot, they fit in very well with the theme and are fun to use. I think the art is very good as well, and basically it is just a high quality mod.

This does not mean it is perfect, and personally I found it to be slightly unbalanced. These are the things I noted, and I offer my suggestions below

Chaplains- are very very very strong. for 150g and 3r you get a mage that gets 2 random picks in fire earth or death, this alone is not overpowered but the fact that they are level two priests makes them REALLY good. I think that having the chaplain be such a good priest takes away from the pirate flavor. My feelings on this would be to either make the chaplain holy 1, or to make a new holy 1 priest and bump the chaplain up in cost, or to take away the chaplain's magic and create a new dwarf mage unit.

Angel Killers- I think these are over powered because their sword is armor piercing, I think flavor wise it would make more sense to make the weapon magic. I also would increase gold cost by about 5.

buccaneers- since dwarves are size 1 and 5 of them fit into a square the berserk 2 is devastating, I would bring it to berserk 1

balloonist- 1 air and 1 astral gem a turn seems a little much, I would do air only.

overall- I think I would replace death magic with air magic for a more consistent flavor.

HoneyBadger · #4 January 14th, 2007, 06:09 PM

Ok, this is really late, but...

I think the guys in the diving armor are fantastic.
All the units are good, for that matter, although if I could request, either a Nemo Pretender in a Nautilus, or a Nautilus high-level construction summon

I think it would be both appropriate and fun to include a reference to 20,000 leagues under the sea in this nation.
I forget if it's there, but if not, it'd be nice to see the Ancient Kraken as an alternate Pretender here too.

zepath · #5 January 15th, 2007, 04:01 AM

HoneyBadger, I'm glad you like 'em. When I conceived of this nation of dwarven pirates the image of first generation diving gear immediately came to mind. As a result this nation is probably a little out of place even in the Late Ages, but the dwarves are always supposed to have a leg-up (or keg-up perhaps) in the realm of technology. Equipping them with 18th or 19th century-esque accessories seemed right. I've put aside my nation mods while working on Nova Deus and this on could really use an update... Great idea on the Nautilus, btw!

Horst F. JENS · #6 January 16th, 2007, 02:45 PM

Zepath: That's a great mod, respect !
Never had such a funny feeling while playing dom3 as with those dwarf pirates :-)
I wonder where you got all the ideas from ? The Beer Guard guy .... brilliant !
And after scanning the .dm file i found out about the parrot demon.... excellent !

Could you explain the "background" of the death magic skill ?
I understand it is thematic from the black skull and bone flag but somehow i feel that a seafaring race should have some air skills. Just can't imaging an dwarven pirate necromancer...

While playing i found myself recruiting only repeater-crossbowmen and bombards. (I still have to go underwater and try out those diver guys). Maybe it is my playstyle, but does not make the bombard (grenade thrower) the "normal" pirate guys useless ?

Some ideas i got while playing:
repeater-crossbowmen: Maybe those guys could use a nerf ? If the weapon idea is based on the chinese chu-ko-nu, the range and accuracy should be inferior to a normal bow.
As it is now the dwarfen repeater crossbowmen have longer range than a bigger human crossbowmen but twice the rate of fire ... seems unlogical to me, with all respect to the dwarfen craftmanship.
Adding castle defense bonus ?

Aging: All dwarfes seem to be rather young..

Bombards: maybe less damage and adding "strength not added" ? Also Armor-Piercing or just flame damage instead of Armor Negating damage ? And maybe less range / less accuracy..

Idea for new units:
Sniper: A commander. I think of sailing-age sharpshooters sniping at enemy captains from the top of the mast.

Catapult: In the description of the bombards, you described big catapults on ships. Could not the dwarfes dismantle such an catapult and use it on land instead of on ships ?

For all the shieldless, armorless guys like longbeards:
adding a unit like a "tower shield bearer". He once stole a big tower shield of an enemy and now carry this shield with both hands into battle to give the longbeards cover. Unit has ridicule fighting skill (useless kick), high enc and slow movement but thanks to the huge shield good shield protection and big size (2) to attract arrows.

Have to go back to the game and launch some raiding partys :-)

HoneyBadger · #7 January 16th, 2007, 11:45 PM

How about a dwarf close-combat specialist with bladed armor and armed with daggers?

Sniper's very good.

I'm thinking seige engines might work a bit like Early Era Ermor's gladiators-you pay a fee to "rent" them for one battle-the cost of setting them up, and then they're "left behind". Included with small catapults (or better yet a horizontal vector mangonel-ballista, unless you're throwing fire, or throwing over a body of soldiers.) could be giant shields.