Mod: Epic Heroes Mod -Version 1.5 Released

[Xietor]

Where to start?
Improved sprites by endoperez; descriptions completely redone. They are more thematic and much improved. typos were corrected, and 2 new heroes:

The Fallen Angel of Pythium(theme and parts of the description credited to Bandar Lover)

The Monkey King of Bandar Log(done by endoperez and slightly toned down from the one used in his Monkey King mod since this hero is present from the start).

So Epic Heroes now represents 6 of the 22 races. Enjoy! and feedback is important. It will allow me to make this mod better for you! I have tough skin, if you see something you think can be improved blast away.

[Xietor]

I plan to release a new beta version of the Epic Hero Mod every time I make 2 new Epic Heroes. After 22 Heroes are made,
beta will be over and then regular versions will just tweak for balance. Anyone is free to submit an idea for an Epic Hero for a race, and if it is better than a hero already created, it will be added, as long as the Mod is still in beta.

This hero is already done, and he may make you want to play Mictlan:

"A Jaguar Warrior is a devoted guardian of the Mictlan Temples. In battle he dons a Sacred Jaguar Hide. When wounded the blood from his wounds merges with the Sacred Jaguar Hide turning him into a Were Jaguar. The Were Jaguar is half man, half beast, and sacred.

The Blood-Cursed Champion was once a Jaguar Warrior and the bodyguard of an Onaqui, a powerful blood mage of an earlier era. Beset by Vampire assassins, the Onaqui performed an archaic blood ritual on his bodyguard, imbuing him with the tools to defeat any assassin. The Blood-Cursed Champion did not need to sleep or eat, and had night vision.

But the ritual was a blood lust curse, dooming him forever to Were Jaguar form. After making this discovery, the Blood-Cursed Champion slew the Onaqui and his Beast Bat minions, and then went into hiding.

Centuries passed-a new age dawned-and the Blood Cursed Champion heeded the new god's call, and returned to protect the High Temple. He is a legend to the Jaguar Warriors."

I have not started the 2nd additional hero yet, but hopefully he can be finished in the next day or 2. I am thinking of an immortal assassin for a weak mp race. Any thoughts?

[Endoperez]

Very nice descriptions! The Obsidian Medium's theme changed a bit too much, though. I thought it too alien to feel, or to be pleased. I'll PM you the description I want to use in the stand-alone mod. Any way, few typos, to be updated for the next version:

"Beowulf cut out the creature's heart and ate it to insure it remained dead." -> ensure
"Liking the scorched land, the Black Phoenix has come to view the Abysians as a kindred race." -> Would it be better as "Taking a liking to the scorched land..."?

The Blood Jarl of Niefel is currently just few hundred years older than the other Niefel (who all have maxage 1000). I'd increase his maxage by quite a bit, to perhaps 2000 or so. Startage would have to also be changed, of course.

I think the Fallen Angel is a bit too powerful as-is. For one, he's physically more powerful than Virtue pretender that Pythium can take, has good magic that's probably easier to use in battles (Twist Fate, Luck, Body Ethereal, Fire Shield). It can also bless itself, and prophetizing it would give Pythium a flying H4 prophet. And while it might not be able to take provinces on first turn, a bless, Alteration 1 (Personal Luck) or any armor (Construction 2) will greatly increase its power.

There are many things you could change or get rid of. Changing Fire magic to Air would keep him more in line with Pythium's other mages.
Getting rid of the Holy magic would give at least some reason not to make him your prophet (Arch Theurg would be the only way to reach Holy 4).
You might get rid of either Fire or Astral, making it less a mage and more a warrior.
Getting rid of the Awe would severely limit its power as an early expander.
Most if not all angels are Magic Beings, which makes them weak against certain spells and items. Giving him the Demon tag would give even more counters.
It might have lost its lightning resistance (vulnerable to the wrath of heavens).

[Xietor]

Endoperez, you have 100 percent say on the agarthian hero. let me know what you want it to say and i will have it changed for the next version.

Some good catches on typos also. I think the Angel is a bit overpowered and i will give some thought to balancing it. The issue is there are no weak angels. Heck one of the angels pythium summons has vengeance 2, and great stats to boot. I tried him at 1st and he rolled over everything on turn 1.

So you hate to have a nerfed angel as your epic hero. I cannot imagine him being a demon or not having priest magic.
Some angels have awe 5, and i reduced the awe a good bit. Their base description says they have awe, so i can make it the lowest awe possible, but i think the awe needs to stay.

The magic is most likely where the nerf will come. It does only have prot 7, so if it flies in to melee it will die. What armor can pythium make at const 2? I know at 4 they get the best there is with chain mail of displacement and silver hauberk. But I doubt pythium does down the const. tree 1st?

Once people can start playing these we will get a better idea what needs nerfed and what needs boosting. The angel also has a dom20 summon of a little angel. Did you catch that?

In the end they will be balanced. Weak races like mictlan will get the benefit of the doubt with its hero. In fact, the blood-cursed champion kicks major butt, and if he was the hero for vanaheim, pythium, arcos, or another power race id be concerned. But i am leaning towards giving the weaker races a slightly better hero anyway.

Pythium is not one of those weak races though, so i will give the angel some thought.



I am not sure Jut what you mean by forcing an Epic Hero to be the prophet. How could you do that?

[Endoperez]

Xietor said: So you hate to have a nerfed angel as your epic hero. I cannot imagine him being a demon or not having priest magic.
Some angels have awe 5, and i reduced the awe a good bit. Their base description says they have awe, so i can make it the lowest awe possible, but i think the awe needs to stay.

The Awe of angels is described as "radiant aura". Just saying "The Fallen Angel was permanently cast out of the heavens. It lost its radiant aura and most of the magical powers it once possessed." is enough to explain why it doesn't have Awe.

There is also ONE angel without awe and without priestly magic in the game. It is also a demon. Of course, I'm talking about the Fallen Angel blood summon, which seems to be restricted to LA Marignon nowadays.
It is sacred, magic being AND demon, flying, immune to fire but not to lightning, and has Fear instead of Awe. It uses a custom weapon that's pretty much a Flambeau without extra damage to undead. It's unit nr 626. I don't think your Fallen Angel should be as powerful. He has lost his earlier source of power and hasn't received Infernal power in its stead. I agree that giving your Fallen Angel the demon tag would be a bit drastic, but I was looking at this other Fallen Angel when thinking about that.

I am not sure Jut what you mean by forcing an Epic Hero to be the prophet. How could you do that?

The map editing commands allow you to set the pretender, prophet, even scales and such of your nation. Modding commands don't allow that, but the new #spreaddom lets you make a hero spread dominion like a prophet. It's a powerful ability, though, and should probably be reserved to old, "head of the church"-figures like the Patriarch or Cardinal heroes of Pythium and Marignon.

[jutetrea]

Ah, didn't know it was only map commands. How about the permanently blessed status of a prophet? Or the dominion/HP affects? Do either have a mod command?

The idea being that there are all these new gods fighting for top, each religion usually has a High Priest or Priestess...a cult leader. The prophet somewhat takes care of that, but you could also use it as a "reason" for having epic heroes in the first place. Especially for highly religious nations. The prophet is "usually" just going to be some shlep, either an existing H3 which isn't unique or a normal commander/scout (occasionally a summons or existing hero). This way your "prophet" is an instant bada$$ and converts more folks due to his bada$$ery and sermons.

I disagree that the #spreaddom has to be on an infirm unit. It just has to be thematic, in literature it seems that just as many cult heads are young and charismatic as there are old and "wise". You might have one of those little 1F guys from Marignon suddenly see the face of god and go all apocalyptic. Just depends on the story. (which i suck at btw)

Just some thoughts, and since I'm not that experienced with unit building/mods just want to brainstorm a bit. It might possibly fill that "cool" unit ability for straight melee heroes, or you might say it has to be the old infirm guy because it gives him a big jump in early useability to have 2 prophets.

Just thinking, and liking where you're going with this.

[Endoperez]

There're no modding commands for permanent bless, or for making his hp dependent on dominion.

There are High Priests like that in the game. Pythium has Bartholomeus the Patriarch, Marignon has Carmont the Cardinal - both are very old, very strong priests and quite weak mages.

I agree that #spreaddom could also be used for other heroes which are built around the ability, but it's a powerful ability and should stay quite rare.

[jutetrea]

I agree it should be rare, but 1 extra unique unit may not be gamebreaking. I've ended up with 3 prothets via LA Ry'leh, unfortunately they spent half the time insane so that may be the difference.

Would be nice if you could mod it just to create the initial hero as THE prophet, preventing the addition of another till death/6 mo. Then the whole theme of a mod could be powerful high priests/esses assisting the pretender. Nations with infirm units would get H4 or H5 with low movement, hp, old age, medium magic and melee based units would get the H3 + normal heroics.

I'm clueless on sprite creation, how difficult is it to add a rider to an animal? i.e. could you grab the rider from a behemoth or a cave knight and just copy it over? For instance, iron dragons/tarrasques are powerful units but actually very limited singly...lots of hp, but slow and mostly average stats. Possibly heroize larger animals and throw a rider on them, leviathan/monster fish/shark/kraken, etc... the ideas been thrown around a bit but it might make a good starting chassis.

[Sombre]

With the new sprite extraction is very very easy to stick a rider on a new mount.

[Xietor]

Shortly, I will be posting the beta0.2 version that will include :

Mictlan, The Blood-Cursed Champion
Pangaea, Black Heart Treant

The Fallen Angel is going to have its 3s removed and its awe lowered from awe2 to basic awe.

Agartha's hero's descr. tweaked to conform to endoperez specifications, a couple minor typos fixed, and the age of the blood jarl increased.

Ulm will be next, but my pace of cranking out heroes will be a bit slower from here on out. I have no ideas for any of the water races, or the newest ma race. They will be the last 4 added. There are several other races I have no ideas on either.