SC and Thug Diversity Project

[JimMorrison]

Thanks guys, for your help. I was going to reiterate the responses to the couple people who seem to totally misunderstand the object of this project, but I realized - if they can't be arsed to actually read the rest of the thread, then they won't read my response. And if they do just read my earlier posts, they'll understand the point!

And yes, while I want them to be as special as possible, bear in mind it will be my first mod, and is a bit ambitious, so if you want something really fancy to be included (like Llama's exciting Wendigo, or anything with multiple shapes?), then you'll really want to entertain the thought of coding it up yourself for inclusion.

I was thinking about the Crystal Golem last night, and I thought perhaps I will include a "Glass Golem" instead. You know how glass is still somewhat liquid, and "flexible" even when hard? He would have very high prot, and low HP, to simulate being very solid, but brittle. Could make a water version, the Aquarium Golem, who autosummons small sharks in combat, from inside his hollow body! (That part IS a joke, btw. )


Oh and just to clarify, what I am hoping to accomplish here, doesn't really overlap with things like Iron Dragons and such, I'm only interested in commander type units, who can be used with the flexibility of being able to operate alone if need be - and geared, though some may only have misc slots, they should be potent and useful nonetheless.


And anyways, since comments from non-mod-active people have grown less productive already - perhaps now is as good a time as any to move it to the other forum? Please, and thank you.

[Aezeal]

the sandworm could be a commander and IMHO (ow was it my idea ) it's still the best idea in this thread. Not to mention he's very kewl as he pops up when he attacks, really looks like how it's supposed to be.

[Wrana]

First, I would generally agree with Omnirizon about a possibility of abuse and not a great need for this (except in certain cases of old nations which don't have national summons to fill this niche maybe). Still, it's an interesting idea on its own. My ideas on this are (some you may remember from previous discussions; I would prefer to exclude things which would be obviously nation-specific such as genie...):
Fire:
I would offer Salamander or Dragon first.
Another possibility would be either Talos which I mention later or more generic Golden Statue (with Earth, Mindless, heat aura...).
Some servant of Magma King is another possibility.
Earth:
Mechanical Giant/Clockwork Swordsman - generally, they are somewhat similar, with possible difference on Enc. Stats are better than Mechanical Men, full slots, mindless, no magic. As a variation of an idea I'm toying with thought of Talos - a bronze giant with molten copper for blood Daedulos made for King of Crete. But this should be Arcocephalos only...
Ushabti (or Scared Statue if we want to escape Egyptian name). A statue of your god enchanted to move, etc. It would be based on Living Statues, but sacred and maybe a priest.
Air:
First off, here we can place an archer thug - with either some magical bow or a natural missile attack. It could be either an undead (which I wouldn't like) or a denizen of either heavenly (as in Kailasa) or faerie realms. Of course, it should get a high Precision, plus better hp than humans and higher Str (as some magic missile weapons have Str-related stats). Att/Def may be average.
Stymphalian Bird is a variation on this - requires also Earth, flies and throws its copper feathers at enemies (stats as arrows, but multiple attacks and much ammunition). High natural Prot, misc slots only.
Another possibility would be someone like Vanherse/Sidhe Champion.
Water:
In addition to already mentioned aquatic thugs, I would offer a flying jellyfish - obviously, also requiring Nature or Air, non-magical, large, relatively brittle - but with multiple poisonous attacks.
It's also possible to get character version of Claymen or Alchemical Lion (forgot how it's called - character could use name of Abraxas or something similar).
Astral:
Here it gets tricky as Astral is already powerful in late game. It's possible to get something similar to weaker Devatas with a background of a reincarnated great warrior.
Another possibility would be a Champion of Grey Order ((?), the one which contains ethereal Astral mages and knights serving them produced at special site or appearing as a random event).
Nature:
Some largish Were-creature, of course. It may also be a transformation of the caster rather than summoning spell (I would generally prefer such a way for Nature and possibly Earth instead of summons - or maybe it would be enough to make a Transformation lower and cheaper).
Satha - a giant poisonous snake with mind and possibly additional attack (or defense) with something like Mesmerize.
Maybe Faerie Champion - weaker mage than Queen, but better combatant (or maybe place him in Air)...
Death:
Already has quite enough so I wouldn't add anything here.

[Gregstrom]

Or make the weapon one attack at AoE2 instead of 2 at AoE 1.

That'd justify the low price

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Wrana

First, I would generally agree with Omnirizon about a possibility of abuse and not a great need for this (except in certain cases of old nations which don't have national summons to fill this niche maybe). Still, it's an interesting idea on its own.

Abuse, how? The intent of this mod is primarily for large games, of ~20 players or more where there is already abuse in the form of 3-4 people getting all unique SCs, and most other nations who didn't take Death on their pretender not having direct counters to them. You can argue that most of those nations have other options in communions and the like, and I will invite you to see how fast those armies can be devastated with a little Rain of Stones, or Bone Grinding. A well built SC requires gearable commander units to effectively neutralize - a skilled player should avoid or neuter other threats most of the time, I mean that is precisely what the basic SC is specifically designed for - army killing. Since we know that the basic concept of arming an SC to destroy entire armies works, and is commonplace - then we need to at least allow everyone in a large game, some sort of access to the tools to make SC killing thugs, if nothing else. I can't believe after my last post I felt the need to reiterate, but you put enough time into your own post, I felt obligated to try harder to reach mutual understanding.

Originally Posted by Wrana

Fire:
I would offer Salamander or Dragon first.
Another possibility would be either Talos which I mention later or more generic Golden Statue (with Earth, Mindless, heat aura...).
Some servant of Magma King is another possibility.

The Salamander as far as D&D portrays it (not sure where folklore stands on this), rather than the almost useless Salamanders that Abysia can train? If so, I kind of like it, could modify the Lord of the Waves graphics fairly simply. As far as dragons, I wanted to avoid the cliche, and I feel that if Honeybadger ever finishes his dragons mod, they'll be wayyyyy more fun than just making cheapo pretender chassis knockoffs. Also, Fire is one path that desperately needs something to face up to other SCs, and dragons as implemented thus far in Dom3 cannot hope to do so. A magic weapon is a must, just for starters..... not just teeth.

Originally Posted by Wrana

Earth:
Mechanical Giant/Clockwork Swordsman - generally, they are somewhat similar, with possible difference on Enc. Stats are better than Mechanical Men, full slots, mindless, no magic. As a variation of an idea I'm toying with thought of Talos - a bronze giant with molten copper for blood Daedulos made for King of Crete. But this should be Arcocephalos only...
Ushabti (or Scared Statue if we want to escape Egyptian name). A statue of your god enchanted to move, etc. It would be based on Living Statues, but sacred and maybe a priest.

Actually, if you have seen Hellboy2 (I just did, fun film!), I was inspired by the soldiers in the Golden Army, which is generally much like you described. And, as you point out, something that screams "X nation specific" was generally something I tried to avoid, as per Talos. I will look into the Ushabti later though, and see if it is something I would adapt to general use, rather than it being reserved for C'tis.

Originally Posted by Wrana

Air:
First off, here we can place an archer thug - with either some magical bow or a natural missile attack. It could be either an undead (which I wouldn't like) or a denizen of either heavenly (as in Kailasa) or faerie realms. Of course, it should get a high Precision, plus better hp than humans and higher Str (as some magic missile weapons have Str-related stats). Att/Def may be average.
Stymphalian Bird is a variation on this - requires also Earth, flies and throws its copper feathers at enemies (stats as arrows, but multiple attacks and much ammunition). High natural Prot, misc slots only.
Another possibility would be someone like Vanherse/Sidhe Champion.

Good point, I didn't conceive any of these as primarily intended for ranged use yet. But I wonder if that's what Air most needs? For example, I was going to build in as a drawback on the Archon, a lack of SR, so that he could not be used as a blocker for evocation spam without sacrificing gear slots for immunity to friendly fire. I will try to think on this - a creature that throws spines or something is pretty cool.

Originally Posted by Wrana

Water:
In addition to already mentioned aquatic thugs, I would offer a flying jellyfish - obviously, also requiring Nature or Air, non-magical, large, relatively brittle - but with multiple poisonous attacks.
It's also possible to get character version of Claymen or Alchemical Lion (forgot how it's called - character could use name of Abraxas or something similar).

A flying jellyfish! Oh man now THAT is an image! The Visitor sort of already is such a thing, but this could be a very fun variant on that. Basically a giant gasbag with poison+fatigue damage. That's another I will chew on, I really like it. Making a larger version of the Vitriol Lion has potential - but as it is a spirit of acid, it should be F+W, and I am really trying to avoid cross-path stuff, as it drastically limits availability, and the goal of this mod specifically is to enhance accessibility.

Originally Posted by Wrana

Astral:
Here it gets tricky as Astral is already powerful in late game. It's possible to get something similar to weaker Devatas with a background of a reincarnated great warrior.
Another possibility would be a Champion of Grey Order ((?), the one which contains ethereal Astral mages and knights serving them produced at special site or appearing as a random event).

Ohhhh, hmmmmm. The Shadow Seers, and the Eludians. Now that is another excellent idea. Before I get to building anything for Astral, I'm certainly going to put some concentrated thought in that direction, I think it has serious potential for awesomeness.

Originally Posted by Wrana

Nature:
Some largish Were-creature, of course. It may also be a transformation of the caster rather than summoning spell (I would generally prefer such a way for Nature and possibly Earth instead of summons - or maybe it would be enough to make a Transformation lower and cheaper).
Satha - a giant poisonous snake with mind and possibly additional attack (or defense) with something like Mesmerize.
Maybe Faerie Champion - weaker mage than Queen, but better combatant (or maybe place him in Air)...

That's another fun thought, but do we have a way yet to mod a ritual with random effects such as that? A spell like "Induce Lycanthropy", which was a significantly more powerful version of Transformation, could be a lot of fun - though, it could get really painful trying to get N5 mages to sacrifice for it. Plus, the multiplication of the amount of work if I have to create (already have werewolves in the game) a werebear, a weretiger, a were-great-eagle, etc. I kind of like the snake, though my first guess is that it's not quite the thing for this mod, as for Nature especially, I want options for anti-SC duty as well as traditional army stomping SC duty, and anything like a snake is going to get creamed by an army of any real size (unless it's a giant stone-snake, oh hi there Sandworm but you would belong in Earth!).

Originally Posted by Wrana

Death:
Already has quite enough so I wouldn't add anything here.

Like I said, couldn't help myself. I'm trying to think of one interesting thing to add to Blood maybe. Definitely something very niche use, but a reason for Blood lovers to appreciate the mod as well. For example, the Death summon that I have in mind comes out of Enchantment, and quite high up it - for those with much Death who want to do something other than head straight up Conjuration.


And Aezeal, I will think about your Worm, but he needs some serious balancing for introduction to the base game, I think, and I'm not sure if I want a big giant thing for Earth that only gets misc slots..... we'll see.

[Aezeal]

Well a lot can be changed.. you could easily make him have 100 HP, no regen, 4 misc slots, only AoE 1 devour, higher or lower prot and of course.. higher price. And he fits the anti-SC role perfectly (it's what that attack is for you know). You could also make an "Old man of the Desert" unique with these more powerfull stats.

Desendant of Jormungandr: aquatic sea serpent of immense size and power.

Generic Beholders are a nice option too btw, can have all sorts of attacks etc. Not something for full slots though.
I know you all have something against using DnD stuff but really stealing idea's form dnd is exactly the same as stealing them from mythology (where dnd gets most of their idea's too in the end.. it's just naming after that)

Some sort of merman titan, with a water and a landshape, a nice powerfull trident and an enchanted net.

Does death already have a Cerberus summons.. would probably need to be unique but could be very nice. Might even be blood or nature though.. it only guards the gates to the underworld it's not undead as far as I know.

Personally I think the phoenix should get a non god version (and an upgrade at that)

Nature could have some sort of unicorn riding nymph or elf/fae lord. Combining power, abilities and extra attacks of the unicorn with full slots.

For astral some sort of strange void monster could be an option, based on the Cthulhu mythos maybe?

Anti SC summon but not a SC it self could also be a summons of a huge number of small creatures with a AoE 1, AN 1 dmg attack. An army could easily kill them, but a SC with a limit on his attacks would have more problems with that. (could be and army of ghosts, insects, small devils whatever you want for whatever path aoe to avoid def and AN to avoid armor is the key here.)

Of course you can just get mansized and formed heroes of high strenght. Real human heroes and mages. Archmages, master archers, master shinobi, mercenaries, the best gladiators. Stuff like that would fit Dominions 3 well I think since they are basicly most about humans and humansized pplz. With nice one battle spells and stuff.

PS I think were spells would be a good idea but you can't morph the caster and you can't pick different form.
Then again a spell were dragon would be nice you'd cast it on a random peasant (meaning no troop or commander disappears) and he'd be a normal or other sort of infantry (but as commander so he could have items) at start of battle but with a 2nd form of a dragon when killed, that would give some suprises.

Ow and for blood the best idea's are I think the not original sorts of vampire lords with multiple forms from some of the mods that already exist. Even more demons and devils isn't the answer at least.
A new horror might be fun though

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

That's another fun thought, but do we have a way yet to mod a ritual with random effects such as that? A spell like "Induce Lycanthropy", which was a significantly more powerful version of Transformation, could be a lot of fun - though, it could get really painful trying to get N5 mages to sacrifice for it. Plus, the multiplication of the amount of work if I have to create (already have werewolves in the game) a werebear, a weretiger, a were-great-eagle, etc. I kind of like the snake, though my first guess is that it's not quite the thing for this mod, as for Nature especially, I want options for anti-SC duty as well as traditional army stomping SC duty, and anything like a snake is going to get creamed by an army of any real size (unless it's a giant stone-snake, oh hi there Sandworm but you would belong in Earth!).

I'm sorry for being a downer, but I'm kinda getting to known a lot about spell modding with CPCS project. Transformation and it's ilk are nearly completely unmoddable. You can't alter the Transformation spell in any way expect for school, gem cost, paths and level.

[Agema]

Originally Posted by Wrana

In addition to already mentioned aquatic thugs, I would offer a flying jellyfish - obviously, also requiring Nature or Air, non-magical, large, relatively brittle - but with multiple poisonous attacks.

I like this idea too. A vast size 6 flying jellyfish.

[Wrana]

Considering Transformation itself - I know that its actual effects are unmoddable as for now. But making it earlier and cheaper (And I also meant not requiring Nature 5 here) could be enough to provide Nature with adequate thugs. At the same time, transforming mage into a definite form is a thing which I consider to be both thematic and useful - so, until somebody comes with a way to mod it (I seem to remember someone making a code-digging for additional spell effects...) just consider it a lobbying for future inclusion of such possibility (of course, it's also possible to use a feature of summoning new unit while killing the caster - but this isn't the same).
To JimMorrison:
By Salamander I meant more of an alchemical Fire spirit than either DD or Abyssia version (DD one isn't that bad as a starter, though - just not very thematic. But then, it could be quite similar to already mentioned servant to Magma King).
As for SC killing I don't think that Fire is where we should look for it: a self-evident feature of fire creatures is either fiery attack or defensive fire (fire shield or heat aura). Any SC aimed to fight your armies and mages when you are known to have Fire is pretty sure to be immune to it. Of course, there is a possibility to use either Banefire or Acid as attack type - but you say that you don't want cross-path summons here... The only thing remotely close to Fire which could be effective against enemy SCs is making it a being glowing so brightly that attacking it could inflict blindness - on the other hand, we already have this in various angel-types...
Considering Air I think that it just shouldn't duplicate other paths, but concentrate on what it does best. And this points us to flying, glamour, missiles - and generally, to raiding. At the same time I think just making Great Eagle-type commander is useless: misc slots only it can't be made into an SC or strong thug and even with Air magic it would remain weak - useable as a commander of flying troops but not on its own... I seem to remember, though, that there is a depicting of astrological sign of December making it look like a centaur with wings. I don't remember how it's called offhand, but it may be a base for Air thug also... Still another variant is a Draconian mage (though lack of hands makes him not so usable as thug).
As for Hellboy - I don't like 4-color comicses, so I don't think I will ever see it. ON the other hand the idea itself is both old and viable. And Ushabti I think isn't so specific an idea - sacred statues which suddenly come to life appear in many places...
On jellyfish - yes, precisely. I remember such beauties from the old game Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant. Actually, I think that playing it again may be useful just for picking up some interesting monsters...
Shadow Seers - yes, name escaped me, but I think that building on what is already in the game makes it more easy to fit thematically. And they are cool as described...
Considering snake - well, "it never helps", but I just couldn't help it. ON the other hand, if it gets the poison like that of The Fang it can be pretty effective against SCs especially. Army may stomp it, of course - but this would also depend on which other features are implemented - armies seem to have not-so-easy time with Wyrm...
As for Death - even in Enchantment, it already has both Lichcraft and Buried in Ice/Sand, which, while pricey, are very good thugs, bring troops and may add to magic diversity. I really don't see what may be added to it... But wait, there's more! (c) Baalz. Death allows you to bring dead hero back as a mummy!
Blood may use something non-unique which isn't Vampire, though (as much as I like them, they are already in the game and doing quite well). A possibility that I see is something like a champion of Demon Knights. There are also many variable demons and Horrors, though most of them are quite specific, so should be nation-restricted...
There was a good thought about human heroes in Aezeal's post, too, even though it seems to go beyond the scope of this mod. (Cerberus is a good beast, but it is as correctly stated unique - and nation-restricted, too!) Inicorn, though, could be used even independent of rider - some authors even make them shapeshifters (though I don't remember tham as such in actual folklore)!

[Aezeal]

Burnsaber you could probably just change the results of the transformation though (replace those units) replace the least usefull of them with a SC and the spell gets better. Of course I've never used the spell and don't know if the results are used in other ways too.