Mod: Warhammer MA: Empire

[Calchet]

I find the idea of Death magic on bright wizards a bit odd. They're all about sudden violence and destruction, brightly-burning anger and violent temper. Not subtle in the least, but direct, forceful and effective.

Death magic, meanwhile, feels like a long-term path, fairly subtle, using summoned beings to do your work for you, some of them sneaking about, crippling your opponents to make them easier to kill later, ageing them, making them sick, and so on - the only point where it makes sense for a Bright Wizard is that it contains the fear spells, but leaving death out of Aqshy and giving the Empire a national "The Burning Head" F-spell for scaring people would feel far more thematic... or so I see it.

[rdonj]

My suggestion for where to put celestials, after looking at your list, is probably into either alteration or thaumaturgy.

[Amonchakad]

The paths on the mages look good, I'd just add a couple things about their abilities to make them more "unique":

-give the Gold mages a forge bonus(perhaps even place them in Construction school?)
-animal awe for Amber mages;
-why no undead leadership on the Amethyst mages? As far as I recall, they are skilled necromancers.

Also, I agree that steam tanks should be mid-game construction summons: probably a high protection trampler unable to be routed?
Don't remove them please, because I'd really like to see the gorgeous sprite you'll do for them

[Sombre]

No, amethyst wizards are skilled anti necromancers. They use the Lore of Death, rather than the Lore of Necromancy. They also revere Morr, god of the dead, whose followers are basically crusaders against the undead. So they'll get anti undead spells and technically in dom3 they'll be able to cast all the death magic they probably shouldn't, but I'll try to discourage that in the description and through stuff like not having undead leadership.

I will make sure the wizards get appropriate special abilities - I just wasn't listing them all above. I agree Ambers should have animal awe and Golds will definitely get a 10% forge bonus at wizard level, probably 20% at Lord level. All the Lord level guys will get cool stuff, like the Golds will have high prot from turning to gold, the Grey Lords will fly and have glamour, the Amber Lord will ride a huge bear and entangle people who attack him etc. The Lords are going to be relatively pricey in gemcost, so you won't have many of them. Probably like 25 gems each.

The Steam Tank probably isn't going to get a very good graphic from me. I don't like drawing big stuff or inanimate things very much - see the doomwheel and screaming bell, which are very basic.

Re: Bright Wizards having death magic - it is only a very small amount and only for some of them. I could take it out though. I have already put in a burning head spell which is fireball + fear causing flaming skull summon at the point of impact - that currently requires F2D1 but I could make it F3 and just have it be more tiring for the mage to cast, or at higher research level.

[rdonj]

Will a death mage still try to cast raise dead if it has no undead leadership? Is it even possible to give a death mage no undead leadership, given that death magic increases it (would being mindless work?)?

It's too bad the AI likes the raise dead spells so much, it's really hard for a death mage not to just turn into a skelly spammer after turn 5.

[Sombre]

I'll just give them #noleader. Pretty sure that removes all leadership regardless of paths.

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by Sombre

I'll just give them #noleader. Pretty sure that removes all leadership regardless of paths.

Hrm...have you tried that? Not sure about #noleader specifically, but #noundeadleader (the undead leadership equivalent) says the unit "cannot lead undead units when it is a commander (unless it is a death or blood mage). This is the default." [emphasis mine] That implies that the leadership value will just be a baseline 0 adjusted by the normal B/D magic modifiers.

As a test (don't have a game machine avail. at the moment) someone could B or D empower a scout to see whether it gains undead leadership.

[rdonj]

Actually stavis I don't think that test would work

However, as it happens I'm playing a game with Jomon, Broken Swords at the moment, and they have death mages with no undead leadership. Looking at the mod file it seems sombre accomplished this by giving them the #noleader tag. The only question that remains in my mind is whether they'll cast raise dead or not.

[Sombre]

Like I said, #noleader not #noundeadleader. #noleader is a special tag, it really does remove all leadership.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Actually stavis I don't think that test would work

However, as it happens I'm playing a game with Jomon, Broken Swords at the moment, and they have death mages with no undead leadership. Looking at the mod file it seems sombre accomplished this by giving them the #noleader tag. The only question that remains in my mind is whether they'll cast raise dead or not.

So I've finally gotten around to testing this now. Death mages who have no undead leadership WILL cast raise dead and the like, even if there are no friendly mages on the battlefield with undead leadership. Predictably, when they raise the dead, the dead disintegrate due to lack of undead leadership. Kind of a pain.