Mod: Epic Heroes Mod -Version 1.5 Released

[Horst F. JENS]

So it seem you just invented the Bastard Battleaxe (TM) some ~700 years too late ;-P

[Edi]

I wouldn't worry about the handedness too much. The Abysian Warmaster (prophetized Warlord) wields twin battleaxes and war shamblers and mournful use a glaive AND a shield, even though a glaive is a two-handed weapon.

[Xietor]

Exactly Edi.

I am not having them dual wield 2 long weapons. A battle axe to a big strong man may handle the same as a broad sword to a smaller man. Exactly the same.

Of course if you feel guilty using the tough bastards, especially if you are at war with the peace dwelling forest people, feel free to have Beowulf not summon any of them!

[Horst F. JENS]

Actually, i built all of my strategys around turning Beowulf into an summoning factory and conquering the world with Longbowmen and Geata Stoneguards.

Those flying throwing axes are my favorite sight. Have to try them out with wind guide...

[Xietor]

Version 1.4 is in the works.

More improvements to the descr. and some tweaks/bug fixes

1. Ctis and Pangaea getting 3rd misc slot

2. Pangaea getting poisonres 100(oversight)

3. humans that have night vision will have the appropriate "dark vision" tag rather than blind. Treants, starspawn etc, will continue to be blind

4. Vanheim hero, besides getting a cute "Red Pointy Hat"
and a "Ceremonial Robe" will also get 2a to go with the 2e 2n.

Additionally the Forest survival and 25 stealth that disappeared with the dark vision copystats fix, will be back, as well as his illusion. This will make the gnome the most stealthy unit in the game.

Clockworks will come in greater numbers.

Lastly, he will get a Tinker's Hammer(forge bonus).

The cute little gnome will continue to have only 6 hps, but his utility is unmatched.


5. Elephantarch of Arcos grand Elephants will have their size corrected to 6.

6 Ctis-major changes. While she loses spy/assassinate, she is tougher in melee, and her precision with her special poison spit attack is lethal.

Her Croaker dominion summons loses 1 set of sleeping vines arracks, and has another replaced with something less lethal. So the Croaker only has 2 attacks now, one of which remains sleeping vines. Att skill also lowered to 10.

7. Ancient Master loses his dominion summon, but had his makemonster ability increased from 3 to 5. He also gets Darkvision 100, and a few slight combat boosts.

8. Tien Chi's hero will undergo some more changes, but they are still pending, as input from the good Dr. and the Epic Heroes mp game provides information about balance.

9. ulm-the Black order soldier summons has been reduced from 4 to 3, they got 1 enc added to their stats, and 2 enc and -2 defense was added to the black duke's plate.

A mp game using Epic Heroes is starting, and when it is complete, 1.5 will likely have more fine tuning based on gameplay.

[Xietor]

Epic Heroes Mod 1.4 can be downloaded here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?e99ud3xxhng

A good many changes were made, both for polish, with the descriptions, and new armor and weapons, and for balance. The changes were made after more gameplay, and from suggestions from players that have used the mod.

A complete list of the changes will follow, but the short of it is this:

1. Heroes that had limited slots, like the Treants, Ancient ophidian, Black Phoenix got a 3rd misc slot.

2. Tein Chi's hero, created and monitored by Dr. P, was changed again at his suggestion. Less of a rainbow now, but more power in particular paths.

3. Black Phoenix received an additional fire magic, and fire imps come in greater numbers.

4. Sacred Yeti lost its stealth, and the aoe fear from its Yeti Slam. Testing showed that the yeti's high base fear, combined with a aoe fear attack, was overpowering.

The Yeti's makemonster was increased from 1 to 2(winter wolves).

5. The Tithe Collector received some armor

6. Mad Tinker received 2a, forge ability, awesome weapon and thematic armor(pointy red hat and elememental robe).
The tinker's inadvertent loss of illusion, stealth, and forest survival was restored. Mad Tinker now has 8 hps!

7. All units that should have dark vision have that now rather than blind. There are issues modding dark vision, which was what caused the oversight with the mad tinker's stats.

8. The Black Duke's armor now has enc and def penalties, reflecting the fact that it is plate, regardless of how well it was crafted. The black duke can only train 3 rahter than 4 black order soldiers per turn.

9. Pythium's angel has 3a now. This was from popular demand, and i remain convinced pythium is an over powered race that deserves a 6 hp gnome, but i was influenced by peer pressure.

10. Ancient Master lost his dominion summons, but can make 5 lions a turn now instead of 3. He regenerates now, and received some combat tweaks(made slightly tougher). He also has 100 percent dark vision.

11. mr was lowered on some heroes slightly, from 18 to 16.

12. Arcos summoned elephants are now size 6, and their attack was lowered.

13. water races remained unchanged, as did agartha, bandar log, machaka, man, jotunheim, eriu, and ermor.

14. Ctis hero's precision was boosted a good bit, making her ranged attack quite lethal. Her combat abilities were tweaked slightly upward, but she cannot spy or assassinate now. Her dominion summon "Croaker" now has 1 rather than 3 sleep vines, but it did get a 2nd useful melee attack.

[Xietor]

After playing Shin. a lot the past few days, I decided to give the Ancient Master the ability to make one of these thematic Japanese Mythical Lions each turn. Obviously the Ancient Master has other needs for his time, but if he is ever in desperate need, he can sit in a province and use a "summon allies" command to get 1 of these per turn:




These will only be available when version 1.5 comes out, which is not for a couple weeks at earliest. For the curious, it is a berserk 1 skill. Originally I had the Ancient Master making 2 of these per turn, hence the description they always come in pairs, but they are too tough to allow 2 per turn-even with Shin. who is not one of the top end Mp races.

[Sieger]

This is a great mod. I've only extensively played the R'lyeh, Jotunheim, and Ulm epic heroes but all three of them are very power and appropriate to their nation.

The R'lyeh hero I think is more powerful than some might realize, he's a pretty brutal assassin, and with his enslave mind ability and overall toughness most commanders will be in bad shape against him, even with body guards (who are often turned against the commander they are protecting!)

[Xietor]

Coming in version 1.5:

Pythium: Fallen Angel size increased from 2 to 4.

Shinuyama:

I feel my knowledge of Shinuyama has increased a ton since I first made the Ancient Master. For mp purposes, I find Shinuyama's situation similar to Machaka, with a vulnerability to a dominion 10 wyrm bum rush, or aggressive expansion from races with low resource highly blessed troops. To alleviate this disparity:

Ancient Master is getting a hp boost from 18 to 27,
100 percent shock resistance, whirling fists are getting improved(defensive), Amphibian(to reflect a monk's total body control and ability to hold breath a very long time. In Dungeons and Dragons they were immune to asphyxiation, immune to mind control spells, and took 1/2 damage from spells.

Ancient Master is not getting any resistance to fire or cold, but he is getting shock res. Shock resist, high mr, and increase in hps from 18 to 27 should prevent him from getting 1 shotted by a level 3 priest casting smite-which is what happens currently.

In fact the Ancient Master is getting an insanely high MR of 40, yes 40, to reflect that he is immune to mind control spells. Unfortunately there is no way to mod immunity from mind control, so i will achieve the same affect with the off the chart mr. This will also have the intended effect of making him immune to mind hunts.

He only has 27 hps, so he is still vulnerable to numerous methods of death, but he will not be subjected to smite, mind hunt, enslave mind, charm, or lightning based attacks.

Gift from heaven, incinerate, frozen heart, trample, wind ride, and skelly spam are all obvious ways to kill him.

The makemonster ability of a Shishi, though only at a rate of 1 per turn, gives shin some necessary tough units early on that can face a hydra, vans etc. Though they fare poorly in tests against size 6 tramplers.

It is hard to believe Shin has no unit that has a shield(:, no cavalry, no sacred units, and national summons that are really nothing special until conj 8. Their best mage has severe old age.

They do get a tough longbow unit, but at 38 resources a pop, you cannot amass enough of them early to fight off an early blitz.

Kappas get fatigued too fast, and have no shield. Adding a shield and give them a normal fatigue, and you may have something. Make them capital only.

Shin. pd post 20 is nice, and that is a strong point. Good research is another strength. But those strengths do not help early.

So shin. is getting a boost to its epic hero, and Shishi, though few in number, will give pause to all but elephant and mammoth races.

Maragon:

One of the 4 races I unfairly penalized(vanheim, pythium and ermor are the other 3) with less than epic heroes because i felt they were too tough already in mp. This issue was discussed, and I have since been convinced I erred in not giving every race a truly Epic Hero. It is not the goal of this mod to balance the races through epic heroes. Vanheim and Pythium were boosted in 1.4 as those races were to be used in the Epic Hero MP game.

Marignon's Tithe Collector is becoming an Epic Hero. His priestly skills were reinstated, he was given 2 air magic, armor, and some extra hps. He can now melee a bit. Since he received major boosts in melee ability his awe was removed.

A tithe collector is feared, not held in awe. And he would have been overpowered with his melee boosts, priest boosts, 2a boost, if he had the double whammy of awe and fear.

Here is 1.5 version of the Tithe Collector:



Ulm: Black Duke of Ulm's makemonster ability of Black Order Soldiers reduced to 2 per turn.

Ermor will receive an entirely new Epic hero., the Angel of Death, whose screenshot is 2 posts below.


Abysia Black Phoenix fire resistance increased to 200 percent. Some items make a unit susceptible to fire, and the thought of a Black Pheonix taking damage from fire is an alien concept, even with barkskin.

Black Phoenix prot increased from 3 to 8, and he was given a fireshield.

Atlantis- Early expansion and lack of ranged units on land plague Atlantis, thus a makemonster ability of 2 silver orangs was added. They are sacred, immune to cold, and are ok in water. More of a boon is they have a cold based ranged attack on land.

Atlantis leadership skills are boosted, and he loses his slow domsummon of a ghost-that is replaced with a silver orang.

Atlantis' Epic Hero now attracts skeletons in great numbers.

The Silver Orang is pictured here:





Rlyeh's epic hero is looking a bit too tough in the Epic Heroes MP game, and will be toned down a bit in a yet to be determined manner.

Very good feedback from the Epic Heroes MP game.

Machaka: The fear of the immortal assassin is overpowered. Instead of having to kill bodyguards, he injures 1 and the rest run. This ability was inadvertently added when i had to use the copystat command to add his dark vision.

Vanheim: the little gnome is being accused of being a sc

. While I may not agree that an 8 hp epic hero makes a good sc, I did remove the aoe1 effect from the Tinker's Hammer. It does still have the 2ndary effect of small area fire damage. For crying out loud, he has 8 hps! Kill him already.


The Sacred Yeti: New Description and body slot added

[Sombre]

I was just going to start doing the angel graphic you wanted for Ermor, when I noticed unit graphic 626 - fallen angel.

Isn't that basically what you wanted? You could just use that sprite.