Mod: Mod thread- WH hordes of chaos

[Panpiper]

Giving some thought as to how to handle bloodletter and other Khorne daemon 'summoning' without Khorne having to use magic, which is unthematic, how about using 'domsummon'? Give the Lord of Khorne a domsummon2 for bloodletters and a domsummon20 for a bloodletter champion. The question then is how to handle something like the greater daemon summoning of a Bloodthirster. Here's the trick; give a domsummon20 to the summoned bloodletter champion that summons a Bloodthirster. If a player fields a dozen such lords of Khorne in the early game, it's a fair bet they'll net at least one Bloodthirster at some point mid game.

[Valandil]

hrm.
Anyone know if transformation could be modded? love the idea of "ascent to daemonhood," which would basically have a chance of daemonifying you, a chance of feeblemind, a chance of spawn, maybe others? Could make for a neat way to incorporate daemon princes.

[DigitalSin]

I doubt it. My experiments with trying to mod spells that chose from random lists ended in much fire and cursing and trying to sell my soul. Bad times.

[Valandil]

Too bad. I'll look into this soul-selling buisness though. Think I could sell someone else's too?

[DigitalSin]

Hmm... Are they a loved one? That could count.

[Panpiper]

"Chaos Undivided" is a race mod based on the Warhammer universe. It is a single mod that encompasses all four of the major chaos powers, as opposed to doing four separate race mods.

Chaos armor has been abstracted. Chaos armor is fused to the body to whom it has been granted, it becomes part of their body. It cannot be taken off nor can other armor be worn over it. Hence in this mod it is considered the equivalent of very tough skin. Those units that do not have a torso item slot have had chaos armor granted unto them. It does not encumber and costs no resource points. You will however notice that chaos armor equipped units invariably have rather high gold costs.

Revision log:

Version 0.11
Fixed an issue with capital only units being available everywhere.

Version 0.12
Added nametypes for Demon names.

Version 0.13
Radically altered the pretender, Archaon, and gave him appropriate graphics.

Version 0.14
Reduced poison cloud on Nurgle heroes. Added banner bearer summonable troop with appropriate national spell.

Version 0.15
Numerous small tweakages.
Removed priestly magic from all recruitable commanders except Chaos Cultist. Added level one priest magic to capital only Exalted Sorcerer. However also added Priest magic 3 to all five Daemon Prince heroes.
Added Lesser Daemons of Slaanesh and spell to summon them.

Version 0.20
Added a lot of extra names and made them fit the respective powers that the unit is affiliated with.
Increased the gold cost of the Lords by 50 to 250 as the increased combat power of their chaos steeds is worth at least that over the steedless champions.
All Demons planned are now in the mod (Nurgle Plaguebearers, Nurglings, Daemonettes, Daemonettes on Steeds of Slannesh, Pink Horrors of Tzeentch, Blue Horrors, Screamers, Bloodletters, Bloodletter Champion, Flesh Hounds, Chaos Furies, Great Unclean One, Keeper of Secrets, Lord of Change & Bloodthirster). It is largely complete now except for graphics, tweaking and balancing. Some Tzeentch combat spells should still get designed.

Version 0.21
Added ritual spells for summoning Bloodletter Champions and Unreasoned Champions (actually both just tougher troops with which to shore up the troop line).

Version 0.22
Corrected "Gift of Chaos" ritual spell. It was summoning the wrong unit.

Version 0.23
The "Gift of Khorne" summoning ritual now summons a bloodletter commander instead of a troop.
Painted proper sprites for standard chaos warriors (x3), chosen chaos warriors, chaos knights, chosen chaos knight, unreasoned champion, and improved the chaos chariot.

Version 0.24 *Save game breaker!*
There is no longer a 'Chosen Chaos Warrior' unit. Instead there are now four sacred, capital only chosen chaos warrior units, one for each of the powers. Appropriate sprites were painted. Collect the whole series! ;-)

Version 0.25
The four champion commander units for the four powers now have sprites that are vastly more appropriate (scaled up 'chosen warrior' sprites). These are still technically placeholders, as it would be nice for the actual champions to be even more thematic.

Version 0.26
Removed a useless shapechange ability from Champions of Tzeentch (a holdover from a previous experiment).
Fixed a crash bug caused by a spelling error when the Sorcerer of Chaos Undivided hero showed up. Also improved the sprite.
Added summoning spells for each of the four powers to summon a champion level 'troop' appropriate to their allegiance.

Version 0.27
Added proper sprites for Daemonettes and Daemonettes on Steeds of Slannesh. It took me hours to get them looking decent but when I saw their effect on the battlefield, it was a hypnotizing as they are supposed to aught.

Version 0.30
Thank you Humakty for the crucial playbalance feedback.
Lowered resource cost on Marauder infantry.
Basic Chaos warrior gold cost increased to 30. Most all other Chaos troop gold cost increased by as much as 50%.
Basic sorcerer gold cost reduced by 10. Exalted increased by 50. Commander champion costs increased by 50. Lords increased by 100!
Reduced gem cost of "Lesser Summoning of Tzeentch" (Screamers) to 5 and it's research level by one. Increased attack rating of Screamers by 2.

Version 0.31
I'm not sure how it happened, I could have sworn it was working before, but somehow "Imbue Chaos' was summoning a Bloodthirster instead of doing the Gift of Reason thing. Fixed.
Finalized sprites for Chaos marauders, marauder flails, and marauder horsemen.

Version 0.32
Added a basic recruit anywhere chaos warrior flail & shield unit. Now there are four basic chaos warriors to go along with the four 'chosen' capital only sacreds, the four champions and the four lords. Very appropriate. Four times four.
Added a small chaos symbol to all units carrying shields.

Version 0.33
Tweaked the basic Chaos warrior recruitables to make them more thematic of the four powers. Slaanesh got a +1 defense, Tzeentch a +1 Magic Resist, Khorne a +1 strength and Nurgle got poison resistance, so now you can have regular troops along with your Nurgle commanders without your Nurgle commanders killing off your regular troops. Changed the Khorne regular Chaos Warrior to use a battleaxe instead of a greatsword (more appropriate for Khorne).

Version 0.34 *Save Game Messer Upper. Won't break, but old Lords of Tzeentch will be downgraded.*
All four Lords now have proper sprites. The Lord of Tzeentch curtesy of Valandil. The lords have been rather extensively tweaked and may in fact now be imbalanced. I could use comments on their current design and gold cost.

Version 0.40
Gold costs again increased, this time on all sacred units possessing chaos armor. However all sacred units now possess 'heal' (rids afflictions), this as opposed to giving everyone poison resistance. Previously it was effectively impractical to ever mix Nurgle commanders with any but Nurgle followers. Now at least the sacreds can cope with the after effects.
Province defense beefed up a tad for 20+. Changed defending commanders to first cultist, then basic sorcerer.
Banner Bearer fear effect reduced to 'fear +0'. Increased summoning (creation) cost to 10 bloodslaves.
All 'Gift' spells now summon the same unit, a single strong mainline sacred troop with zero maintainance cost. They are essentially a way to use 'excess' gems to shore up the troops.
Greater Demons and their summoning spells tweaked.
Gave a +2 research bonus to Exalted Sorcerers, as their cost was otherwise too crippling to research.
Lord of Tzeentch is now as good a caster as the Exalted Sorcerer but with emphases on Astral which the Sorcerer does not possess. (Sorcerers tend to have higher fire than Lords of Tzeentch, chances for water which Lords do not have and much better chances at blood magic.)
First draft of the Tzeentch combat spells is done. ("Red Fire" also usable by sorcerers.) My thanks to Sombre.

Version 0.41
Thanks much in part to inspiration from DrPraetorious, I have tried to rebalance things to get Chaos more in line with being balanced with native races. Almost all units have been downrated somewhat, not drastically, but keeping them more in line with what one would expect from elite units in native. Also, the resource bonus which was previously available in the capital is no longer present. This will keep Chaos from fielding a large quantity of sacreds, forcing them to rely more on the more normal units. I now find it quite challenging to play in SP so I think I have hit on the right formula.

Version 0.42
Many of DrPraetorious' suggestions have been implemented.
The capital resource bonus is back.
Chaos hounds have been removed from the recruitable list, they are now domsummon units only.
Pretender magic, etc. toned down a tad, other adjustments made and point cost lowered to 150.
Flails on all Nurgle units replaced with morningstars. Nurgle followers are now undead instead of having poison resistance and Nurgle champions and lords now have disease clouds instead of poison.
'Emerald Guards' are more elite than chaos warriors and cost only 25 gold, so the regular line chaos warrior gold cost has been dropped to 20.
Regular knights of chaos gold cost dropped to 55 (their stats are comparable to regular knights yet they have no lance).
Magic resistance for chosen, champions and lords increased slightly, slightly more for followers of Nurgle, significantly more for followers of Tzeentch.
Slaanesh chosen, champions and lords got 'awe' and all Slaanesh followers got a significant morale boost.
All Khorne followers now have berserk.
Champion gold costs reduced somewhat, lord gold costs reduced quite a bit except for the Lord of Tzeentch.
All summoned greater demon weapons are now magic.

Version 0.43
Chaos armor is now an armor 'item' though it cannot be removed or replaced. As it is a magical gift of the chaos powers, it has no resource cost. It also does not encumber.
Nurgle units are again equipped with flails, though it is a lighter one appropriate for wielding in one hand.
'Undead' Nurgle units got a small hit point and magic resistance boost. Enough for me to consider recruiting them again along side the other units.
Nurgle and Slaanesh champions and lords are back up to their previous gold costs with Slaanesh getting a bit of a nerf. Now Slaanesh lords 'cannot' easily solo standard independents. Doh!

Version 0.44
Graphics change only.
Sprites cleaned up to remove much of the black border residue. Regular, chosen and champion chaos warriors now have subtle but distinct differences in the look of their sprites, beyond simply different weapons. This to differentiate them by their chaos power alignment.

Version 0.45
Lazy_Perfectionist's spell descriptions are in.
Corrected a typo that resulted in a 'no name' unit showing up in province defense beyond 20.
The basic, recruit anywhere sorcerer was pretty useless and has been upgraded, getting now four magic picks. At the very least, either fire or death will wind up level two.
Slaanesh got another nerf on their offensive combat, dropping strength and attack slightly. This to compensate for a basic 'awe' effect which was in but not working (now fixed). Slaanesh champions and lords also given seduction, which is mostly thematically decorative as they are not stealthy units (champions are male, lords are female). One could equip them to be stealthy however.

Version 0.46
Lord of Tzeentch given a foot slot. Daemon prince heroes given an extra miscellaneous slot.
All Nurgle units (undead) now have poison resistance.
Champion and lord of Khorne HP and protection boosted slightly (I was never recruiting them).
Lord of Khorne given ambidextrious 8 and fear 5(!). Cost boosted to 400 gold, now equal to other lords.
Lord of Khorne now domsummons flesh hounds instead of bloodletters. Flesh hound sprites painted.
Slaanesh daemon princ'ess' hero tweaked and sprite painted. (I should have probably kept this for last, as desert.)
All other deamon prince heroes tweaked.
Chaos Cultist given a single random magic pick (fire, death or astral). Gold cost increased to 70.
New 'holy' ritual spell added. Grants (mixed) blessing of Chaos upon some hapless person and transforms them into a 'foul spawn'. Chaos now has 'mutants'.

Version 0.47
The "Chaos Blessed" holy ritual spell has revealed a bug in the game. If you <shift> <M> to autocast each month this spell, the game will crash. (The problem is that it is a 'holy' ritual. The game engine does not like 'holy' ritual spells.) As this is most definately a spell one would set to autocast, it had to be modified to work around this bug. When the bug is fixed, this will properly become a holy ritual again and chaos cultist will go back to a random single magic pick. For now however, "Chaos Blessed" is a level 0 thaumaturgy ritual requiring fire 1 to cast. Chaos cultists now all have fire 1.
I have also bumped the cost of chaos cultists up a notch again, now at 80 gold, due to this additional functionality.

[Valandil]

Ummm.. Wow. just wow.
Now, it is impossible to give a chance for S3, AFAIK. I'm worried about the sheer number of comanders available- this is why I was trying to stick them into basically one commander for each of Lord, Champ, Sorc, types.

Now, I'll send you some images and maybe .dm work tomorrow (I'm in GMT-8, BTW.)

[Panpiper]

Valandil said:
Ummm.. Wow. just wow. Now, it is impossible to give a chance for S3, AFAIK.

Actually the 25% chance of S3 is working as designed. The problem is that it is also boosting the holy to 3. What I could do is give the S3 chance just to the champions who do not have holy and so would not suffer that problem. The question then becomes what to give the Lord of Tzeentch (as opposed to the champion). Maybe some sort of special 'violet fire' bonus weapon? I want to keep the lords with holy 1 seeing as how Chaos has little in the way of holy otherwise, that chaos cultist doesn't count for much.

By the way, the domsummon2 of warhounds on the chaos cultist works very much in opposition to their otherwise potential stealthiness. This is deliberate. It was not my intent to give chaos truly functional stealth preachers. Just give them enough stealthiness as to be worth playing with sometimes, maybe.

I want to vary the weapons outfit on the various champions at some point, but I also want the graphic to be appropriate to the change as well, so it may wait a bit. Getting the demons put in and the summoning spells has priority.

Valandil said:I'm worried about the sheer number of comanders available-

Well, in theory the commanders dedicated to each of the powers would have rather different features and therefor flavor. Lords of Nurgle have their disease clouds (I used poison), Tzeentch have their magics, Slaanesh can play havok with the enemy by turning units of the enemy traitor in their midst, and Khorne is just supremely powerful in melee. I really enjoy the idea of being able to play with this variety. Even after building this much of the mod (and playing 30-40 turns in SP several times, testing), I have no idea which of these options I would choose over the others. Likely I would mix them, all but Nurgle, whom I would still keep around in a seperate army of nothing but Nurgle followers (who can deal with the poison) just as an ace in the hole.

Don't worry too much about the variety. The champions on foot I can handle the graphics for (and will once the demons are functioning). The Lords will need a bit more work as they are as yet possessing very inappropriate sprites and it will be some work, but I likely can handle that too if you are otherwise uninspired. Where we most need your artistic talents is with the demon summonables, for whom there are really very little in the way of appropriate graphics in the native game.

[Panpiper]

I'm about to start adding the rest of the demons and am a bit lost with a few of them. There is quite the variety and I am wondering if some are not perhaps a bit redundant. Truth is I don't remember the game mechanics for a few of these units. For instance I recall nothing on Screamers and Chaos Furies. If I include stats for all of these (with placeholder graphics), am I going to give you Valandil, another "worried about the sheer number" concern?

-- Daemonettes on Steeds of Slannesh
-- Nurgle Plaguebearers
-- Nurglings
-- Horrors of Tzeentch
-- Blue Horrors
-- Screamers
-- Bloodletters
-- Bloodletter Champion
-- Flesh Hounds
-- Chaos Furies
-- Great Unclean One
-- Keeper of Secrets
-- Lord of Change
-- Bloodthirster

Edit: Well, they are all in the game now with placeholder graphics. Many of the placeholders will do fine indefinitely. (Some of the placeholders are rather extensive graphics hacks of existing sprites. Check out for instance the daemonettes on steeds.) What really needs work are the greater demons and the horrors. That and a lot of stat tweakage no doubt.

[Humakty]

I'll start testing your mod today, and I will report soon.
To have more downloads and testers, you should put a disquette icon before the thread's name.