Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

Your commanders are your siege machines. All your noncaster commanders should have at least Piercers, more likely Ethereal Crossbows or Thunder Bows.

Wow, I just realized that the Rune spells are 0-fatigue. Those anvils can keep on casting forever.

Oh, by the way, Grudgestone might do with going down to Evo-2. Frankly, most of your Earth casters have better things to be doing anyways(Legions of Steel comes to mind, as do Earth Might and Earth Meld) and people are going to get level 2 anyways for Arcane Probing.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

I guess we just disagree on what is acceptable power level. I could argue why Pythium is just plain better than all of the nations you mentioned, but it would probably be best if we just "agree to disagree" and continue on. Tangents and derails serve no one.

Here is the point where the issue boils down. I just don't see v0.7 dwarfs being weak. I just don't see it. Sure, you have weaknessess, but you have some insane strenghts. Forgebonus 30, superb national troops, summons that can throw 3 Thunder Strikes for 0 fatigue, summons that throw "ingnore shields" 10 AN damage with prec 15 to range 30, national anti-thug/SC chassis for fire gems, prospectors, etc...


Well, people don't really use them for that role (because you have Adons), just because even forgebonus 15 is seriously awesome on a mage that can reach "high level" forgings. I know that dwarfs don't have recruitable SC chassis to "feed" with their forgebonus 30, but still, there is a *lot* of scary **** you can do with them. Besides, Runelords being expensive is also a thematic consideration (In, WH there are likely about max 30 runelords remaining) and affects the King/Runelord competition for the capital commander slot.


Sorry, but not going to happen. Dwarfs aren't supposed to be throwing fireballs around. Anvils of Doom are the only exception.

Exactly why should Runesmiths be thugs? Since when has that been a argument for comparing mages? (Master Smiths suck balls, you can't thug them!). And if Runsmiths were good thug chassises, why would you ever recruit Giant Slayers/Kings? And remember that just their upkeep/research ratio is second to Journeymen, they still, well.. do more research. If I just made them cheapest researchers, why would you ever recruit Journeymen? Now, Journeymen are the most cost-effective solution, but runesmiths give more (research)bang for your buck, ideal when you have some excess cash flow.


But the thing is, Dwarfs aren't that weak in magic currently. Sure, your battlefield magic sucks (until you get anvils), but you can make that up by summons and rituals. There is also is a lot you can do with Journeymen in combat.

See Sombre's post at the end of 5th page for some good reasons why war machines/gunpowder sucks. This mod is a conversion of the tabletop dwarf army into dom3 universe, not a straight conversion (the reasons for that are manifold, I won't start listing them here). To tell you the truth, even if I had the tools to make workable war machines, I probably won't implement them. Why? Because they are boring (gameplay wise).

There really isn't anything intresting about a nation that is always hunched back to end of the battlefield with troops at "Guard Commander" in every battle. Thematic, sure. Boring as hell? Heck yes.

The basic "lighting" attack would be just too powerful, because you have extremely easy access to "Strenght of Giants". 16 AN lightning damage is just way too much. Besides, the basic lightning weapon is just prec 0, which would make thunderers cause a lot of friendly casualties (=unthematic). Also, it's pretty clear from the description and the graphic that they basically use guns (oh right, silly me, "Thunder Staffs"). Why would strenght increase their damage with a gun?

But like you said, they are pretty wicked as they are. You kinda got me on the air items (although Winged Shoes do not give mapmove 3, they just give mapmove +1), but as far as I know there is no forgeable item that gives 3 formiable melee troops with accurate AN+ignore-shield lighting damage to range 30. Thunderers are powerful, are easily accessible and do not cost a lot of mage time. They are fine as they are.

I'll probably give the Flamethrowers a bit more ammo though. Added to fix-list.

Well, the elemental access in the v0.6 was way over the top and I guess I sort of "spoiled" you guys into it with it. The only reason Runesmiths even have elemental access was just to make the paths on the Anvil seem more thematic. It'd be odd if you just randomly got a summon with power in the elements when your other mages are restricted to Earth/Fire/Astral. I made the runelord elemental random 100% in v0.6 out of some random "oh noes, it's too weak" panic attack. Think about it, why should Runelords have common access to water magic? What does water magic have to do with with forging, runes and ancestors? Same thing applies to air magic.

You have a point about the odd 50% random, I'll beef it up to 100% for v0.8, added to fix list.

Good point. Added to fix list.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

Last thing about this, I do think Pythium is stronger than the 3 nations I mentioned (maybe not C'Tis, but I'm a sucker for dominion effects). You just mentioned the mages, and I was speaking to that.

I don't think they're Man/Malacha weak, but I see them closer to there than the (non-Ashdod) top. I don't see the slayers as being that good at all. They just seem to die to easily. And everyone knows as the game progresses, troops have less and less use.

I respect the thematic consideration. But I would never choose to recruit a king. You need the research too badly.
I found runesmiths to be decently thuggable in 0.6. That was one of the reasons I thought the slayers were so sub-par: they were totally bettered by runesmiths as thugs. And as it stands, i'd still never recruit a king or slayer. I see thugging being handled by golems for the most part now, or possibly, journeymen. The stealth still gives journeyman a place, even if they weren't more gold-efficient.

I don't know about rituals making up for it, but I think the thunderers can help a bit making up for magic lack. I do see midgame potentially being a problem if you haven't hit anvils yet (which are really really amazing, and I love the changes to them)
That's not a big deal, just wondered was it something intentional, since the mod follows the tabletop pretty close. Besides, the anvils pretty much can do most of the "artillery" stuff anyways.
Pretty sure they give 3, as everything with flying has mapmove 3 (I could be wrong on that though)

And again, I'd like to stress how much I enjoy the mod, it's great fun and looks wonderful.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

...er...you do use a text editor that does find/replace, right? If you include the slashes as part of the string to replace, it should only match on the file paths ("/DWARVES/" --> "/DWARFS/"). Just saying. Though, as you say, it has no impact when actually playing.

Hah! English has a long and glorious tradition of bad puns made in poor taste; try substituting 'y' for 'i', and 's' for 'th':
Hurri --> Hurry
Thorri --> Sorry

...and since it apparently requires explanation even to notice, I definitely wouldn't change any of them.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

I still get the dwarf engineer sprite 2 error.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

And that's about the level I'm aiming for. v0.8 will bring some more slight buffs (see the fix list for details), so they should be powerful enough after that.

Well, slayers are not thugs in the same way as Bane Lords, for example. They, are perfect anti thug/sc units, thought (high attack value + immunity to awe + slayer axes). I admit that doesn't really translate well to a SP experience. Althought stone boots and some random good shield should be "enough" survival for what the AI throws at you.

And troops really have less use, but you have some nice specialist units to throw a unpreprepared opponent off. Arbalests hit for 16ap damage, meaning that they can consistently do damage to prot 30 units! Hammers/Slayers are basically immune to awe & fear and hammers hit with magic damage and high attack value, which allows them occasionally to overwhelm thugs. Ironbreakers can be easily buffed to be elemental-immune with "ward spells" and beefed to mr 19 and prot 26 (even more with army of lead/gold). Where is your god now?

Sure, those things have counters, but my point is that your troops are really nice templates to get a lot of mileage out of battlefield buffs and thus have solid late game uses.


It's a shame that I couldn't make the Kings drain-immune. I'll have to try to think about a solution. I might make Kings non-cap (perhaps with a higher gold cost, do disencourage unthematic spamming).

Heh, good thing that I nerfed the smith armor some more then :P.

Well, like I said, Giant Slayers are more like anti-thugs than thugs themselves. So it's pretty likely that you wont recruit some for SP. As for the kings, see comment above this quote. And like I said, journeymen are cost-effective but because of the tight castle commanders slots, I often go for Runesmiths after my first forts have been built (because they basically do 50% more research than journeymen and massing them also has the side-effect of getting that nice 10% elemental random).

Well, we both were right (sort of). I did a quick test, and equipping winged shoes only gives +1 to the mapmove statistic on the unit screen but still allows you to fly over two provinces (basically mapmove 3). But if you give it to mapmove 2 guy, he can fly over 3! provinces.

The more you know...

Thanks, I appreciate it. Your comments have been helpful and given me a lot to think about.

TECHNO BABBLE hits Burnsaber (roll: d20=18 + 4 = 22 over 12 AC)
The attack is super-effective! (roll: 100d6=126)
BURNSABER takes 126 damage!
BURNSABER is stunned!

(sorry, I'm pretty computer illeterate)


Oh, it was a pun! Heh, should have noticed.

Note that the new mod .dm file does not overwrite the old one! I changed the name so that the mod would appear with other WH mods in the "mod enabling" screen. So, you'll have to start a new game (and preferably delete the old .dm file, dubbed "Dwarves").

(Apparently I forgot to mention that on the first page. Fixed now, thought)

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

Dwarf kings would be nice recruit-anywhere, but they really would have to be more expensive/somehow worse if so. Slayers would still be your anti-SC(with some King support for the brutal Cursed Luck). If Kings were 150 gold base, Journeymen Runesmiths would be more efficient researchers no matter the scales--and better thugs, besides. Being able to cast Invulnerability goes a long way. If you were planning on just doing Fire Brand/Shield of Gleaming Gold, you'd go with Slayers(for the luck) or Runesmiths(for the 30 prot/reinvig). Clan Kings are used with their default weapon(and shapechanged for defense) for the Cursed Luck. Otherwise it's just not worth it(excluding the possibility of a high bless).

It gives you a bit more flexibility, which is nice. Now I have to try like an E9N4 blessed thug strategy and see how it works(it won't).

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

I've still not really had a chance to play the mod, but I was wondering... any chance dwarves could have higher parry on their shields? Being shorter than normal, I would think that their shields would cover proportionally more of their body than the same shield used by a human. So it might make sense to have their shields have a little more parry. It also seems slightly strange that shields are the one piece of armor that the dwarves don't really do well (aside from runic wards). Four parry shields everywhere leaves them strangely vulnerable to arrows. Anyway it's not a big deal, just seemed a bit odd to me.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

Yeah, 150 gold (a bit higher for the oathstoned form, because of the +1 researchbonus) was along the lines I was thinking of. I also was thinking of changing their "Grudges" ranged attack to just cursing without the damage aspect. Of course, I'd have to edit the vanilla ranged "Curse" attack to do so, but it will only "break" the low-end "Summon Likho" bogarus summon, so no biggie.

That's one reason I'm not really worried about dwarfs being weak in MP. You can, if you so choose, absolutely decimate thugs /(SC's even, with more effort). The PD only needs minimal support to really shine vs thugs. Your PD is composed of high morale troops (suck it awe/fear!) with good damage output and because of crossbow/arbalests, air shield is a necessity. You are really not rushable by awake SC's (because one hit by a King will just decimate them) and your capital pd can stop many rush-types with minimal support. When you take into account the absolutely monstereous defence values of some of your castles, it won't take much effort to survive to the mid-game.

E9N4 bless should really work out for Runeguards (at least for expansion). They would be pretty much indestructible and they have okay damage output.

Trust me, Dwarfs aren't vulnerable to arrows. At all. Though Crossbows might occasionally take damage with their measly prot value of 13 :D. Dwarf shields have +2 prot value compared to normal shields, which coupled with their already high port values makes their shield blocks nigh impossible to penetrate by recruitable troops (even giants).

Opposing crossbows and flaming projectiles are slightly more problematic, but hey, it wouldn't be really fair if they were immune to everything, would it?

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

I was under the impression that the prot value of a shield had no effect on missiles. If they hit the shield they were negated entirely. The behaviour of armour negating lightning attacks when used against shielded troops would seem to bear this out.