Mod: Ogre Kingdoms - MA Warhammer Nation - 0.9 minor update

[HoneyBadger]

I like that the Ogres struggle, magically. I think they should-it's a big part of what makes them interesting as a Nation. Dom3 already has (compared to it's unit and Nation diversity) an extremely limited magic system, in that there's only 8 paths, total. And most Nations are already able to get atleast *some* access to most if not all of the paths, without Pretender interference.

Adding in bootstrapping, empowerment, booster items, the ability to convert Astral to other gem types, etc. and having 8 separate magical paths loses a lot of it's meaning.

[Sombre]

Here is the latest thinking on the Ogre upgrade:

The idea is to add a daemonic/chaos influence to Ogres which matches what blood magic does in dom3 and makes them more interesting mid and late game. When the Great Maw impacted it unleashed a huge amount of energy and the area around it, known as the wastes, is still rife with Chaotic energy. I'm not changing the story of the maw and saying it's a chunk of warpstone or anything, but it is, at least in part, of Chaos. Countering this is the more shamanic mountains/wilds magic of the Ogres' new home which has roots far back before the impact of the Maw.

Slaughtermasters: Will now be H2B3 with EF50%. In recent years Slaughtermasters have begun to split into 3 types. Normal vanilla ones (1/2 with just B3), those with a connection to earth from which the Maw emerged (1/4 with E1) and those with a connection to the burned wasteland and chaos fallout around the maw (1/4 with F1). The earth enabled SMs can dig new mawpits. The fire enabled SMs can bind Henchfiends and later even Fiends of the Waste. This change is done.

Mawpits: Immobile holes in the ground surrounded by jutting teeth/bones/rocks. They are simply H3 and 0 gold upkeep making them fantastic for blood sacrificing and little else. I'm hoping to stop them from smiting/banishing somehow. Their summoning cost in terms of blood slaves is reasonably low, they don't need to be researched and Ogre temples are incredibly cheap (100 gold) since they can't preach or anything. Code is done, graphic is currently a placeholder and might be that way for a while.

Henchfiends: Researchers (by Ogre standards) with B1 + DF100% magic, they allow the Ogre Kingdoms to channel blood slave income into research, but still the nation won't have good research unless you /really/ push for it. They are spined demons with robes and are completely inedible (even by Ogre standards). They appear to SMs who are compelled to roam the wastes around the maw and offer power in exchange for blood spilled on the blackened sands. They are then bound to the SMs and do their bidding, patiently exerting influence on the Ogres as a race. They aren't sacred because they aren't 'orthodox' children of the maw. I've done the code for these guys, I'll just give them a simple graphic and they're done.

Fiends of the Waste: Badasses. These are Ogre sized daemons of magical and physical prowess. Think somewhere below a heliophagii or Verminlord in stats (at least D2F2B2 magic) They are somewhat ogrish but have no mouth, many eyes, horns and the trademark backward knees. It is rare for a SM to bind one - only Groth Onefinger the hero has bound several - and they require a vast sacrifice of burned bodies to summon. Again they are a corrupting influence on the Ogre race, drawing it towards chaos, and aren't sacred. I want to do a tasty graphic for them so they'll take a while.

Yhetee Shamans: Summonable by N2 hunters. These are shamans of the mountainous wilds with low nature, earth and water magic (I'm thinking W1N1E1 + 100% WNE). Their research isn't handicapped like Ogres but isn't great. The attractive thing about them is they get three nice national spells to cast - cold immunity buff for Ogres, a spray of ice/rock shards and a howl which attracts sabretusks rather than wolves (if possible to code). I've coded them, the graphic is easy but I haven't done the spells, though those shouldn't take long.

Abominations of the Maw: A straightforward blood summon at the top end of the gut magic/gorgers/mawtribe spectrum. I've talked about these guys before. Total juggernauts, also with dom spread. They are out of the box SCs that you can't do anything to upgrade (no slots) and will be economical, but straightforward (no flight etc). They make the world dread dealing with you because they are extremely destructive (causing unrest, pop death etc). I have almost finished the code, the graphic will take a while. I think I'm going to have them be slavegiants who were dragged to the Maw, forced to gaze upon it and covered in armour/weapons much like pitfighters. So they'll be size 6 and all that.

Mawgut: Another commander summon in the maw/gut magic line (so blood + holy). Butchers who have given themselves over the the Maw - their gut splits open and becomes a maw like mouth which they must feed. Consequently they grow much, much fatter. They are B4 H3 with berserk, great hp and regen + an awesome devour attack which also drains life. They also spread dom and tend to eat population. No research from these. I've started the graphic, the code is nearly done.


Feedback plox!

[llamabeast]

All sounds very awesome, dramatic and appropriately scary to me, although the Mawgut sounds a bit yucky!

Suggestion on how to prevent the Mawpit casting battle spells: Create a spell called Fatigue Self or something which does that - hits the caster with a load of fatigue damage, e.g. 180. Then set #onebattlespell Fatigue Self for the Mawpit, so that in battle it will always be asleep. You could also give it negative reinvig, if that works (like clockwork horrors) so that it doesn't wake up in long battles.

[Burnsaber]

If you want to prevent the Mawpits from being useful in combat, here's some ideas:

1) you could give them ridiculous encumberance and negative reinvogration -5 so that once they pass out the from the spellcasting, fatigue they regain from resting is negated by the reinvogration. But that's kinda hacky and unaesthetic solution.

2)I'd probably make them #onebattlespell a custom spell that would give them 100 fatigue combined with the negative reinvogration, but since that requies some hacking, I can understand if you don't want go that route.

3) Give them 1hp and secondaryshape with weaker magic. Then give the firstshape poisoncloud and no poisonres so that it will kill itself on the first turn. Or #onebattlespell that will make it kill itself (like Shockwave or something like that).

EDIT: Ninja'd by Llama!

[Gregstrom]

Why not just have reinvig -100? Fatigue from negative reinvig seems to be capped at 200, so the mawpit wouldn't die of fatigue from it.

[Sombre]

If banishment, sermon of courage, blessing and smite aren't 100 prec (and thus automatic hit) I think giving it 0 prec might stop if from casting any of them. I don't mind it divine blessing.

[Gregstrom]

Smite is 100 prec, I'm afraid.

[Sombre]

Would it cause any problems if I reduced smite to 99 prec?

[llamabeast]

Hmm, so I have been messing around.

It turns out you can't #onebattlespell to either kill yourself in a non-poisony way, or fatigue yourself. Or at least I couldn't make it work. This is very sad indeed.

Further, it turns out that you can't set encumbrance over 99. Poo.

The only way I can think of, which is nasty, is to onebattlespell 1 poison damage (I can give you code for that if you want), have only 1 hp, and have a second form with negative magicboost. This is fine, apart from the fact that the main form has to have only 1 hp, which is very odd looking. It does, however, work properly both in offense and defense.

The alternative is to set encumbrance to 99, and have it cast no more than 2 spells/battle.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Hmm, so I have been messing around.

It turns out you can't #onebattlespell to either kill yourself in a non-poisony way, or fatigue yourself. Or at least I couldn't make it work. This is very sad indeed.

That's probably because the AI thinks that damagespell on yuorself isn't that hot and refuses to cast. I don't know if onebattlespells are optional, but I got that problem numereous time when doing CPCS. The workaround is to make the mainspell some insignificant buff (like Haste or something) and #nextspell the damage. IMHO, that should work.

Edit: In conclusion, when you want to fool the casting AI, #nextspells are the way to go. It could also be possible to make a spell that AI would "simply" love and spam like there's no tomorrow. Don't see much uses for that kind of spell thought.