Mod: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.92 -- Quickfix

[kianduatha]

Yeah, there's no real way to fix Runeguards as is--as long as they're blessed Dwarves will be a bless rush nation.

On a somewhat related note...in my multiplayer game I'm being eaten alive by high upkeep costs. A lot of the reason I've been leaning so hard on Runeguards is that all my other troops are ridiculously expensive. I was all ready to start massing Thunderers and Flamethrowers to counteract that when I realized how much gold they cost, too. I have to be aggressive or else I'll go bankrupt. Maybe lowering crossbow/arbalestier costs some?

Also, tip of the day: don't send Anvils against Bandar Log. Ugh.

[Burnsaber]

New version. Lot of nerfs, mostly based on the backlash I got on IrC about their performance on the Scruntlefunt game. Very glad about getting the Runesmith battleform to work. This nation is now a lot closer to my original intention.

-- Runeguards no longer recruitable

-- Added some fatigue to the Primal Runes
-- Changed nation number for llamaserver compactibilty ("pretender for the wrong age bug")
-- Lost the curse attack from PD
-- Runesmiths got improved picks and lost the heavily encumbering armor. They now get -1 to all paths in combat thought.
-- Runesmiths and Runelords got improved forgebonus (both in 30), but lost their hand slots to prevent forge bonus abuse
-- "Grudgestone" spell revamped, no longer curses, AoE 1 and casts "Panic" as nextspell
-- Lost "The Rune of Valaya/ Grimnir/ Grungni" spells
-- Summoning Anvil of Doom now makes you lose the caster, but you now get 12 Runeguards
-- "Call of Fate" made cheaper = 14 gems (old cost 18 gems)
-- Slayer commanders now auto-berserk themselves and some units near them at the start of the battle and they got reinvigoration 2 to combat the berserk fatigue.
-- Journeymen Runesmiths got a small random
-- Anvil of Dooms are a tool of vengeance, and got a negative forgebonus and researchbonus
-- New summon: "The Anvil of the Dwarrows"
-- New spells: "Debts Unpaid", "Rune of Doom", "The Anvil of the Dwarrows"
-- Updated the secrets file with these changes

[Sombre]

Are anvils of doom now immobile?

[kianduatha]

Holy cow this is all my fault

All the changes look really good though, I'll try them out right away!

[kianduatha]

Autoberserking slayers are all sorts of sexy(especially the part where they get your bless...still trying to figure out a decent use for that besides happening to have N4), and I'm loving trying to stack squares with other fun units I want berserk and lucky(clan kings are an obvious go-to, but they're so expensive still...what with the research bonus on Runesmiths I think the days of Magic-1 are long gone and the pitiful research on clan kings needs to die with it)

I'm sometimes running these surprisingly effective forces that have a handful of ironbreakers or something with an indie commander, plus a giant slayer with two troll slayers on the flank(there's a trick to getting them all in a single square). It's just beautiful. I hereby pronounce the giant slayer a 150 gold 41 resource size 6 unit of pain.

Overall very nice. I'm still struggling to find a legitimate use for miners, as it's really obnoxious to get them and it just doesn't seem worth it overall. I'd rather float a few engineers or even better just burn some gems on a crumble than ever really use miners. They're just not good as troops in any circumstance and their siege bonus is too low to justify taking one over an actual combat recruit.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Sombre

Are anvils of doom now immobile?

No. I really tought about making them immobile in the development, but it just didn't really work out. If you wanted to use them on anything else but forging or rituals, you needed to teleport them (which makes them attack on the magic phase, and does not allow you to combine them with your armies). Everytime you wanted to use them again, you needed to built another labratory just for the purpose. It was really just annoying and did not play out well in the game. They just were not fun to use. It would be thematic for them to unable to move (especially in the battle map), but this is one of the cases where gameplay > thematicness. If I had all of the modding tools in the world, I'd probably do some sort of compromise but right now it is either mobile or immobile, so what is there for one to do?

(see the excessive restrictions on UW acceess in vanilla as an example where thematic stuff absolutely destroys gameplay)

Originally Posted by kianduatha

Autoberserking slayers are all sorts of sexy(especially the part where they get your bless...still trying to figure out a decent use for that besides happening to have N4)

They get the bless?

*quick test game*

Umm.. Not intented. I really just thought that non-sacreds cannot get blessed by the spell effect "bless" but this apparently proves me wrong. Whoa. This opens all sorts of possibilities for the Holy War mod.

The bless effect is only in the slayer #onebattle because of Ancestor Spirits use the same effect and they really should be always blessed. I could just give them auto-bless and negative magic to prevent them from being battlemages (since if you reawaken a Runelord as Ancestor Spirit, it won't get the battle penalties in magic. Hence their current auto-berserking).

It's kind of cool though. Not sure if I should quickfix it or not (whatever the case, the behaviour should be explained in the unit description).

EDIT:

Yeah, I'm going to quick-fix the bless thing. Slayers really should not be sacred in any case. They are mostly subject to pity, not reveration from their fellow dwarfs.

Originally Posted by kianduatha

Overall very nice. I'm still struggling to find a legitimate use for miners, as it's really obnoxious to get them and it just doesn't seem worth it overall. I'd rather float a few engineers or even better just burn some gems on a crumble than ever really use miners. They're just not good as troops in any circumstance and their siege bonus is too low to justify taking one over an actual combat recruit.

Their point is mostly in the mapmove 3 and stealth. They can make pretty wicked stealthy PD raiders with Runebearers equipped with Bottle of Living Water or some nice bow. I could reduce their resource cost thought to 35 resources since that niche is pretty small.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

No. I really tought about making them immobile in the development, but it just didn't really work out. If you wanted to use them on anything else but forging or rituals, you needed to teleport them (which makes them attack on the magic phase, and does not allow you to combine them with your armies). Everytime you wanted to use them again, you needed to built another labratory just for the purpose. It was really just annoying and did not play out well in the game. They just were not fun to use. It would be thematic for them to unable to move (especially in the battle map), but this is one of the cases where gameplay > thematicness. If I had all of the modding tools in the world, I'd probably do some sort of compromise but right now it is either mobile or immobile, so what is there for one to do?

Well my worry is that they're simply too good. When I saw that they had mapmove 3, checked out their cost and efectiveness (incredibly powerful enc 0 spells) I actually assumed that you'd balanced them as being immobile and then accidentally taken it off. In Scruntlefut the dwarfs have churned out a lot of anvils and they just seem redonkulously good for the price (35 earth gems).

Could they not have mapmove 3 at the very least? It seems kind of unreasonable that a gigantic stone slab with a huge metal anvil on top can travel as fast as light cavalry.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Sombre

Well my worry is that they're simply too good. When I saw that they had mapmove 3, checked out their cost and efectiveness (incredibly powerful enc 0 spells)

Which now have fatigue

Originally Posted by Sombre

I actually assumed that you'd balanced them as being immobile and then accidentally taken it off. In Scruntlefut the dwarfs have churned out a lot of anvils and they just seem redonkulously good for the price (35 earth gems).

And they now cost 40 earth gems and it "kills" the caster (the caster is lost because he gets up in the Anvil, sort of). Usually the mage needs a least earth boots to cast the spell, so the cost is now like 47 gems and the loss of a cap only mage.

Originally Posted by kianduatha

Yeah Anvils only need 1 mapmove--teleport to your forward army, then move along with it. He did nerf them bunches, though--50 gems now I think, and it kills the caster. Usually that means you also lose a pair of boots(unless you wanted to get rid of your naturally E5 casters), so effective cost 57 gems and a cap-only caster.

40 gems. I think that the caster killing (+7 gem cost basically) and fatigue on the Primal Runes is enough of a nerf. Also the loss of forgebonus reduces their uses.

Originally Posted by kianduatha

Hah, and here I thought the bless was intentional--not that they're revered by the other Dwarves, but that they can channel some of their God's power when enraged in battle.

The really really fun part about the Slayer blessing part is that it also makes any other units in the same square blessed, even if they weren't sacred before.

Well, the thing is that the Berserk and the luck does not come from their god, but from the ancestor spirits who use them to get their own grudges avenged. So the blessing just doesn't fit in. I knew about the luck effect getting spread over and it was intentional, it's not much of a strecth to assume that the ancestor spirits could extend their "blessing of luck" to some guys fighting alonside them.

The blessing is especial thematic concern because you can use them to bless basically anything, like Bane Lords, Moose and bunch of other stuff that just does not make sense. I can just imagine a opponent going like "Why is that Moose blessed?". This is especially problematic because as a onebattlespell, the thing as no graphical presentation on the field and it just sort of happens.

Originally Posted by kianduatha

I'm somewhat worried that the aoe autoberserk(without other entertainment like the bless) will actually lower the power of the Slayer.

Well, the thing is that it also a boost. They now get their hefty berserk bonuses automatically instead having to take damage first (and thus avoid the chance of being one-shotted or afflicted by the blow).

Originally Posted by kianduatha

One of the best things you could do with them was put up Body Ethereal, but now it's impossible because your mage will go berserk before he can cast it. Of course, that whole play is already nerfed a bunch because Runesmith -1 to magic in battle means you can't get the astral casters in the first place. Ah well...we still have Iron Warriors.

You could also just give a Runesmith a cap or a coin.

Originally Posted by kianduatha

The Brother of War pretender choice is once again looking terribly, terribly lackluster. He's prettymuch just a Dragon Slayer with a chest slot and without 2 misc slots. I guess he has slightly better weapons, but he doesn't have the reinvig(which is in fact what tends to kill him). Also his AOE berserk was always the worst of the three pretenders' onebattlespells, and now it just looks even worse since your 70 gold commanders can do the same thing(they even do it better right now!). Maybe give him something different, like Weapons of Sharpness(mmmm) or Quickening? At this stage, it seems almost criminal to not get some magic diversity on your pretender, so he just gets sidelined. I'd rather take a Dragon just so I had at least one other path covered.

Well, the berserk will stay. He should not cast spells in the battlefield *ever*. Grimnir is much like Khorne in his hatred of magic. The Brother of War has one aspect that other gods lack, he is probably the best anti-SC chassis in the game. One swing and you get "curse luck" and basically get critted in the second blow. Give him quickness and there probably isn't a foe he couldn't kill in a single turn.

Admittely, that probably isn't a attribute you want in a god. I could give him his innate fire magic back. I might also test the effects of a negative #magicboost commands on pretenders with him. I'm not sure how it works out, but in the ideal case I could give him pathcost 0 for all paths but make him lose much of that magic in the actual game (cheap blesses, basically). Perhaps that Sombre's firstshape trick could work here?

[kianduatha]

Yeah Anvils only need 1 mapmove--teleport to your forward army, then move along with it. He did nerf them bunches, though--50 gems now I think, and it kills the caster. Usually that means you also lose a pair of boots(unless you wanted to get rid of your naturally E5 casters), so effective cost 57 gems and a cap-only caster.

Hah, and here I thought the bless was intentional--not that they're revered by the other Dwarves, but that they can channel some of their God's power when enraged in battle.

The really really fun part about the Slayer blessing part is that it also makes any other units in the same square blessed, even if they weren't sacred before.

I'm somewhat worried that the aoe autoberserk(without other entertainment like the bless) will actually lower the power of the Slayer. One of the best things you could do with them was put up Body Ethereal, but now it's impossible because your mage will go berserk before he can cast it. Of course, that whole play is already nerfed a bunch because Runesmith -1 to magic in battle means you can't get the astral casters in the first place. Ah well...we still have Iron Warriors.

The Brother of War pretender choice is once again looking terribly, terribly lackluster. He's prettymuch just a Dragon Slayer with a chest slot and without 2 misc slots. I guess he has slightly better weapons, but he doesn't have the reinvig(which is in fact what tends to kill him). Also his AOE berserk was always the worst of the three pretenders' onebattlespells, and now it just looks even worse since your 70 gold commanders can do the same thing(they even do it better right now!). Maybe give him something different, like Weapons of Sharpness(mmmm) or Quickening? At this stage, it seems almost criminal to not get some magic diversity on your pretender, so he just gets sidelined. I'd rather take a Dragon just so I had at least one other path covered.

[Sombre]

Burn, why did you move Dwarfs to nationslot 75? At nationslot 77 they were conflicting with Tharoon (who are unfinished and easily changed), though outside of my MA mods and warhammer ones I'm not sure else they may have conflicted with,...

Now they're conflicting with Lizardmen though! Makes warhammer games a little bit more fiddlesome.

79 is free as far as I know, if 77 was a problem for some reason.