Mod: Dominions 3000 v0.81 - lots of new indies, new map (using the brand new map commands)

[rdonj]

Hmm. Well, assuming for the moment that a pirian isn't going to be wearing equipment, the first thing that jumps out at me is that it could be awful hard for them to deal with the nations that do a lot of ranged damage. For example, I'll consider ulm.

Basic pirian stats:
11 hp
11 attack
9 defense
5 prot
11 precision
no shield or way to not take damage.

Ulmish space marine:
10 hp
10 attack
12 defense (10 + 2 from shield)
15 prot
9 precision (10 - 1 from weapon)
parry 2 shield with 15 prot

No idea how strong your race's ranged weapons are, ulm's blasters do 10 ap at up to 40 range.

So the basic ulmish space marine can take a lot more punishment than the basic pirian. Maybe even take multiple hits for a pirian to kill, potentially, depending on how strong their attack is. If it's an aoe attack sort of fireball that will mitigate the problem there a bit though. Meanwhile a good part of the time a pirian will die if it gets hit once. And even in melee an ulmish space marine has a better chance to hit the pirian than the pirian does to hit it, with a 4 AN damage weapon. Of course, if it does it has the fire shield to contend with... the fire shield value may actually be too high, it should be fairly low on the normal guys, ramping up for the higher ones. There aren't many units in dom3k with more than 20 hp. I would say start somewhere between 2-4 and go maybe to 10 for the Firstbloods.

So overall, statwise they are really fragile, but I guess if the cause enough burning it will work out. However, if they do get the aoe attacks they'd need to fight ranged nations, they will absolutely mow down the close combat nations (insectoids, commonwealth). If the pirians are basically thought of as chaff and the true/firstbloods the real damage doers that could work out better.

I think the firstbloods could use a little extra attack skill, I'm thinking of those accursed ice battle suits that jomon has with something like 18 defense skill, you have to be able to hit those with the firstbloods or it's a dealbreaker! I don't think they're worthy of being high level summons as they are though, they have the damage output (theoretically), but not the survivability to really be SCs. Consider the Jomon summonable SC, the oni dragon. Or ulmish capital ships with amulets of missile protection and a pendant of luck. Whatever the firstbloods end up like they have to be able to compare to those for SC quality, if you want them to be a high level summon. And they're just not survivable enough to be SCs imo. Assuming an amulet of missile protection and a pendant of luck, they still need either higher health, higher defense, or higher prot to make SC territory. Or perhaps an innate ability such as ethereality.

Sorry for being so wordy :P

[Darkwind]

I've decided to bang up a quick "fix" for the Firstbloods. Changed stuff in bold.

Firstblood
12 AP, mapmove 2, size 4
14 attack, 12 defense (starting with 10 for Pirians), 14 precision
25 HP, 15 strength, 13 protection(starting with 7 for Pirians)
14 MR
12 morale
1 encumbrance
weapons: Greater Starburst (basically a big version of the AP non-fire attack), Big Fire Sword of Doom or somesuch (my idea: sort of like the First Sword, but less super-powerful and a bit more fiery death. Still some normal damage, though)
fireshield 14?, heat 10? (these guys are epic heat-producers), maybe #iceprot -2
75 poison resistance, 100 fire, 25 cold (as said before, their heat is going to melt some of the stuff before it gets there)
By the way, they'll probably all have fire 1 or 2+.

Some of this stuff might make Prians/Firstbloods a bit too powerful, but oh well. I have to leave now, I've spent a lot longer than I intended. I'll get to the rest of your reply later.

[Aezeal]

nice nice another race I can't wait to see it finished
I'll see about lowering damage on the oni if it's so overpowered

Maybe the 3 of us (or others who are interested) should start a small game to test the game as it is now though just to check it out?

[Trumanator]

the Pirians sound a lot like the Faeros from Kevin J. Anderson's Saga of Seven Suns. Also, its great that you guys like Wheel of Time, I can't wait for the last one to arrive and FINALLY finish the series.

[rdonj]

The big problem with the oni is that it combines unavoidable damage (aoe can't be stopped by shields and automatically hits) with armor negating damage so you get no prot, and does enough damage to kill many units in 1 hit. And ranged damage generally doesn't kill things very fast in dom3k, so even if you had just militia standing in front of the oni it would take a lot of firepower to bring them down before the oni killed everything.

I would be willing to play a game. Hmm, I think I would rather play orks, but I can probably play anyone.

[Darkwind]

I'd be willing to join, as any race. I'd prefer the Commonwealth (just to see what's up with them).

[Darkwind]

I'll repost the bugs I've already discovered (in case you haven't fixed them yet):

-You used "Enslave Minds" on some units, which is not a weapon. Well, you might be able to make it a copy of Enslave Mind with an AoE or something, but it isn't a weapon yet.
-"Life Drain" is not a weapon also. Not sure what that one would actually be though, maybe "Lifedrain"?
-R'lyeh has no summonable ships. Considering their recruitable ship, I think that's an oversight. Not really a bug, but still.
-The Orks don't actually increase their magic when they upgrade (though that should be easy to fix, with Amos' way of doing it right there in the mod)
-Jomon's fifth unit (Aka-Oni, I think it's supposed to be) has no name for me.
-Jomon's Defender has an incomplete description.
-On turn 2, in a test game I was playing, Ulm's units disappeared. Don't know what's up with that, might have been a one-time craaaazy bug.

A lot of these are easy fixes though, so it's not like you have to take a week off to fix the mod or anything.

[Aezeal]

hmm ok
so we have at least 3 players that is enough for me to test at least 3 races... of course honeycan't play.. I forgot that for a moment and it's really a shame but can't be helped.

Here's what we'll do. I'll enter the dragons as they are now (in the dom 3 mod) to the game somewhere in the next weeks and if anyone wants changes (like the oni damage) then just tell me what you think should be changed and I'll find some time to change it.

Once that is all done I'll post a new version of the mod and we should be ready to play. No wait I'll enter the dragons first so they can be play tested to (game crashing bugs would really be a shame).

I'll need some time and if my first kid is born it might give serious delay but'we should get this running within the month I'd say.

[Endoperez]

Vanilla Dom3 has two enslavement weapons:
274 Enslave Mind
189 Enslavement

and several life-draining weapons, including:
63 Life Drain
449 Life Drain
271 Life Drain Tentacle

I still haven't tried this out, but here's my two cents re: Pirians.
There are several Astral spells they should be able to cast. Solar Brilliance, Light of the Northern Star, Astral Fires... Some of the spells could be made national-only, others could have different versions that the Pirians could cast, if you don't want to give them much astral.

Fire/Water spells could also work well. Acid Storm to destroy all armor on the battlefield would be pretty evil.

[Aezeal]

hmm those weapons.. I see what is wrong but I'm pretty sure it was correct.. once.. I've just given them multiple enslave mind weapons now from vanilla game.. should be good. The other is hopefully working better now too.
can't see a reason why the Aka-oni wouldn't be named like that.. all lines are the same as the next oni.
The defenders acutally had a complete description only I used " instead of ' in it s it was cut short (or at least that is what I think it was, will need to check that though)
That last one.. can't think what it would be if it keeps happening I'll think about it.. not now though

I already looked into the orc magicians and in the next version it should be fixed (I recall fixing that a month ago, but was still testing the dragons so haven't released it yet)

Np r'lyeh summonable ships is staying for now.. can't make a new ship for them really. Since there are relatively few mindflayers they don't need much ships for themselves.. r'lyeh has other summons