Mod: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.75 minor update

[Sombre]

Ah yes, that's true about the 3rd generation Slann. I had intended to give them domsummon2 or something of temple guard but I decided against it until I could test more (spawning units with upkeep can be a bit problematic). So just ignore that bit in the description for now I guess :]

The Bloodscales are potentially the cheapest to get (if you get a big blood economy) but I think you're right that going so strongly into blood with lizards is somewhat tricky. Their unholy axe does work very well against sacred enemies, but I haven't seen their blood vengeance actually do that much yet - I will have to try thugging them with more than a couple of items and see what happens. I guess they could be used to swarm an SC and maybe kill him with blood vengeance or something, but it gets an mr roll to resist after all.

Regarding Chotec - I think giving the sunscale heatpower 3 might be a bit too strong, though if I remember correctly it also makes him completely rubbish in the inevitable cold 3 you're going to run into (especially if the enemy has water magic).

Xhotl is probably my favourite spawning at the moment, graphics (bubblegum!), flavour and gameplay wise. They're just awesome with a big communion behind them laying down crazy aoe cold, shock and poison. Of course they get absolutely owned by fire magic, even fireflies sorts them out easily.

[rdonj]

Actually I looked back at the slann while posting and saw that they do have the domsummon in there when the slann is dormant. So I edited my post in the hopes no one would see that :P If you're worried about having them summon units with a gold cost you could maybe make an alternate version of the temple guard that doesn't cost anything. But I'm not sure that's really necessary especially if they are only creating them when they're dormant, since they are your best option for breaking into high level ritual spells.

Yeah, I don't see how you could really put much effort into even researching blood in the first few years. By the time you actually have the research and slaves to spare to cast it the benefit of their having blood vengeance is likely significantly lessened. I haven't actually used them yet so if you think it's not a big deal it probably isn't. But blood vengeance is something that's pretty rare in the game, confined to expensive late items and very high end blood magic so having it available on a cheap low end summon seems overpowered even if it isn't.

The heat power 3 does make him pretty strong in heat 3 dominion. But you're right, any sensible player in mp with water magic available to them will spam wolven winter at any province they expect to have a major battle in. Might be a bit harder to do though if you use the sunscales as in-dominion thugs.

If you pop the bubble with fire magic, does that 500% extra damage carry over to the second form? I've had times with second shapes where it seems they take spillover damage from the primary form and if that carries over, you could just cast combustion and watch them all go poof. The Xhotl summons are very fun though, they definitely offer you a lot of battlefield flexibility.

[Sombre]

I don't think any damage done to the shield carries over no. If it does it's probably down to some glitch. The main point is whatever prot you put on them, any amount of fire is probably going to blast right through it.

[rdonj]

By the way, ogre and lizard startsites still conflict with each other... :P

[kianduatha]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Yeah, I don't see how you could really put much effort into even researching blood in the first few years. By the time you actually have the research and slaves to spare to cast it the benefit of their having blood vengeance is likely significantly lessened.

The point of going blood-4 isn't the summons, it's for Flood of Snakes--by the way, did you mean to have that spell be free? It's extraordinarily brutal to start spamming it year one. It can take down anything that doesn't have archer support. Two casts can take down a knight or elephant province, or most castles' province defence. Try out getting an awake sage and blitzing to blood 4, it's a lot of fun. By early winter year one you get an expansion army every time you make one or two priests of sotek(and a scout or indy commander to capture the provinces).

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by kianduatha

The point of going blood-4 isn't the summons, it's for Flood of Snakes--by the way, did you mean to have that spell be free?

No, obviously not -sigh-

I tested it before and it was working fine, guess I somehow messed up the fatigue cost since then. Ah I see, I retyped it at one point and typoed fatigue.

I will fix that shortly. But I will wait a couple days before I upload another version, in case anyone spots other bugs to fix. Otherwise this is just going to get ridiculous.

In the meantime you can go into the dm file using a text editor, find "Flood of serpents" then manually replace the typo of fatiguecost with the correct spelling. The cost will then be 10 slaves.

[rdonj]

Tail spines is still a melee attack.

[rdonj]

I've been thinking... and I know this would be a radical shift from how the lizardmen play now, so it could be difficult to balance, but it just does not seem thematic that temple guard can become as numerous as they can. Basically right now, temple guard are THE unit that itza makes. Well, them and priests. But 90% of the time if you're recruiting a soldier it will be a temple guard. Since the temple guard is supposed to be the rarest of spawnings I am not certain that they should be recruit everywhere sacreds. Actually, what do you think of making all slann auto or domsummon them instead, with no recruitables? You could remove the price tag on them so they wouldn't cause upkeep issues.

Anyway it's just an idea. I see all these great units in my recruitment roster but I know unless I'm in dire need of extra units I'll never recruit them because temple guard are just that good.

[kianduatha]

Originally Posted by rdonj

what do you think of making all slann auto or domsummon them instead, with no recruitables? You could remove the price tag on them so they wouldn't cause upkeep issues.

That sounds like an amazing idea, but very hard to balance. It would definitely change the flavor of the whole nation, making them much more slann-centric.

[llamabeast]

Having them as autosummons would indeed make them quite hard to balance.

I do agree with rdonj though, it is very easy to end up just always making Temple Guard (as I did in Warhammerama). How about just making them capital only?