Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.92 -- Quickfix
 

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

am i blind, or where is he on the cool picture with all the units?

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Sorry, sort of forgot to include it. Well, the unit will just have to be secret for now.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

In terms of graphic quality, this is the prettiest mod I´ve seen so far. No kidding.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

It looks absolutely gorgeous. Some thoughts:

Prospectors are amazing. So cheap, and the flanking miners are simply killer. Every dwarf player will have to consider the possibility of making a castle just to pump out these guys. And if you got death magic on your pretender...these guys are possibly the best non-caster assassins ever. I sent one out on a lark to a Death Match and he killed a Mother of Rivers.

Hammers are just not worth it, it seems. They have two shticks--hitting really hard and high morale. Unfortunately, Troll Slayers do both better and have 2 mapmove while costing the same amount of gold and fewer resources.

Province defense is simply insane. You are essentially immune to rushes because 10 province defense will deal with most early-game armies. At 20+ though the positioning is a bit weird with the Longbeards in back and the Heavy Crossbowmen in the very front, if that's able to be changed.

Both luck and misfortune are viable strategies. Your heroes are kickass(especially with the freespawning slayers) and you can use every gem you can, but misfortune is easy to deal with because 10 province defense everywhere makes you immune to barbarian attacks.

As far as pretender chassis goes, it seems like the dominion scores of the Mother of All and the Brother of War should be swapped. Otherwise there's such a difference in power between the two that there's no point ever getting a Brother of War. Besides, the Father of Runes is better in combat, frankly. Maybe give the Brother of War the standard Slayer-luck, too.

As far as straight-out power level goes...I'm thinking about a fight between the Dwarves and Ulm. At any stage of the game, Dwarves would wipe the floor with the poor suckers. The best advantage Dwarves have, though, is that it's an absolute pain to take them down. Between the killer province defense, 600 defence on the capital and most of your other castles, and a castle defense bonus of 3, almost any other nation seems a more tempting target. And that advantage in multiplayer can't be ignored.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

I agree about Ulm. It almost looks like Burnsaber took Ulm as a reference and made the dwarves at least slightly better in every respect.
Otoh Ulm could rely do with some improvements like these so I don't consider it bad.

One thing, though:
Why are all dwarves resistant to lightning and some to other stuff?
Should this represent their magic resistance?
I've always considered those natural phenoma that get triggered by magic. So resistance to magic shouldn't help you much when hit by lightning even if a mage conjured up the storm (just like mr wont help you if a mage telekineticaly shoots an arrow).
With high prot, high mr (+free drain), low enc, high damage, I find it hard to see how you are supposed to kill them except with lightning once buffed with weapons of sharpness and marbe warriors/army of ...

Some typos

vast Empire
Clansdwarf (For there isn't)
Ranger (aim with their throwing axes or aim when throwing their axes)
Longbeard (I think the last sentence is bad but maybe that's just me).

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

No time to try them out today :(. I'm hoping I'll have a little free time tomorrow, but that is rare for me as of late. You'll probably have a new version out before I even install the mod, heh.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Duly noted. I'll likely increase their cost a bit and make them poorleaders. And in order to keep the "stealth" aspect in order, I'll make the Journeyman Runesmith noleader. That way all three stealthy leaders will have a niche. Ranger Champions will be the beast leaders, prospectors do their summon thing and Journeysmiths are stealthy mages. (Which is plenty of a niche)

Good Point. I'll probably have to make the Troll Slayers more expensive anyway. They are rare specialist troops and shouldn't be that massable. I think 40-50 gold might a more appropiate pricing.

Hmm, it's that good? I'll slice the troops in half. 0,5xCrossbow and Clansdwarf per point (same for the pd20+ recruits). I can likely fix the positioning of the pd20+ troops, but I'm not 100% sure

Ok, good idea.

The Father is quite crippled by his enc 7. Brother has fear, so he can go for awe+fear combo more easily. I'd rather not give the slayer luck for the Brother, because basically he is Grimnir and the blessings of the slayers (a'k'a their auto-luck) comes from him.

Yeah. I tried to stick to using Ulm as a balancing stick early on in the development. But really, everything just.. sucked. The nations have so similiar themes that the nations will basically overlap gameplay wise.

But, I'll just try again. I was thinking of giving all dwarf units like +5-7 base resource cost (to drive the 'few in number' point really home), then dwarfs will be even more resource hungry than Ulm and lack the "bonus resources from castles"-bonus that Ulm gets. I also realized that the 100% elemental random on Runelords is unecessary and a bit unthematic (the elemental randoms are just supposed to ease the player into paths of the Anvil of Doom). I'll make them F1E3 base with 50% EFS and 20% elemetal random. That change will make them less diverse than Ulm.

I also might get rid of the Drain-immunity. Sure, it's thematic, but it's not *that* necessary.

It's supposed to represent their connection to the earth elemental (a'k'a sort of constantly being grounded). Also, in my orginal vision, the dwarfs were a bit less massable (I'll try to fix it pumping their resource costs). Because you basically don't have any chaff units, all air nations would take you as easy pickings. 5x Thunder Strike castings and all your troops are dead. Whoopsie!

Ironbreakers have some additional resistance to represent them from being runically warded from magical attacks. They are quite killable with their enc 7 in prolonged battles however.


Thanks. Duly noted.


On other news, I just heard that my lectures for firday were canceled. I'll likely be able to release a new balance quick-fix version then.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

I find it strange that the runesmiths don't loose magic power in battle. At least it doesn't appear in their stats. That's maybe why they seem that much OP, as a whole.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Hmm, I don't think you won't have chaff troops. Militia is easy to come by.
Might be that with the Lighning res you're actually a lot better off against air nations because of the AI.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Wow, those are some sweet looking graphics. I am going to steal them and make myself a Dwarf Fortress mod MWAHAHAHAHA.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Maybe for the PD do an intermediate change first--the real problem are the crossbows. I've seen 10 crossbowman from PD stop 8 mammoths before they even reach your front line. If the PD were 1 Clansdwarf 0.5 crossbowmen, then it might be reasonable. It wouldn't have the killing power to really do anything.

If you give the Brother of War Dom4, could you also give him a chassis cost of 40 instead of 50? That way people could afford another scale with him. The main problem with him is you give up high air access, which cannot be stressed enough. Put Flight and Fog Warriors on some Troll Slayers and everyone wants to cry.

The only units I can really get behind raising the resource cost of are the crossbowmen. Right now by far the best expansion strategy is to every round get a prospector and as many crossbowmen as you can, and you field an expansion party every 2 rounds with prod-0.

The funny part about getting rid of the drain immunity is that suddenly your research mages are Engineers, and you only make Runesmiths when you really need someone and can't get a Runelord from your capital. This has the side effect of making the Dwarfs even more of a nightmare to siege. "Oh hey you might not want to do that each of my researchers has castle defense 20".

Frankly, though, I'm not too concerned about lightning nations. Again, that's what the prospectors are for. Their flanking miners will tank the lightning for long enough to get through. If you wanna be really careful, keep Ironbreakers or Runeguards as having the lightning resist, but take it away from everyone else. That way you have a counter to them, but aren't just casually immune to it.

Trollslayers could maybe go up to 40 gold. They're really a late-game unit/"oh no a giant nation is rushing me" type, so it won't really change anything, though. Noone'll still get hammers.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

I thought about it some more, and the real thing that's assuring prospector dominance right now is not the low gold cost(which would probably be fine at 40 or maybe 60), but the low resource cost. Right now he's the lowest resource cost commander you get(other than the giant slayer), and so of course he'll be used almost exclusively early game. Make him cost at least 40 resources, preferably closer to 50/60, and he'll still be used, but not as your main early-game meatshield. This also reduces troop spamming to have everyone you'd ever want to recruit as a commander with 40+ resource cost.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Don't take the drain away. It is thematically good.

I think I have other comments too, but I'm too tired! Looking really sweet though Burn.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

I updated the first post with the planned changes for the next version (0.7, due to friday). Thanks to all for the comments and suggestions! If the nation is still simply better than Ulm, even with all the nerfs planned, I might just go ahead and overwrite MA Ulm with this nation. This 'solution' will also have the added benefit of giving dwarves the "extra resources from castles" - bonus.

There are some things thought I want comments for. Are the Clan Kings worth the cap only slot? Or to put it simply, would you ever recruit it over Runelord? Also I'm a bit torn on the mapmove issue. Mapmove 2 as the standard is thematic option, but Ulm has 1 as the standard. If I simply keep most units at mapmove 2, the comparison to Ulm will be even more skewed.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Does the
...command not work? (p29 of the mod manual)

Assuming you wanted them to have that bonus anyway...

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

I think that mapmove 2 is thematically awesome, but makes balance kinda iffy. If your mapmove 2 units are 'good enough' to get the job done, you'll almost never recruit the MM1 ones. So you just use crossbowmen and (heavy)clansdwarfs. It might make sense to make your crossbowmen have MM1, but the standard melee keep at 2. Of course, that just tips the scales towards using indy archers/rangers. Actually, I'm kinda okay with the rangers option. Rangers and miners are your scouts/raiders/forward armies, and then you have these clunking armies coming up behind.

On a somewhat related note, I finally realized the real point of Hammers: they only have 3 encumbrance. I'm sure that can be leveraged somewhat hilariously.

I think it might be a bit more appropriate to benchmark Dwarves against, say, Shinuyama's combat strength. I'll try to run some tests later.

By the way, I don't really understand why Distill Flame/Distill Thunder are in Alteration. It sounds prettymuch exactly like Construction.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

@Stavis_L

Since when has that command been available? I feel so old now.

Well, as much as I'd like to give it, it doesn't really matter since I can't give it anyway (becuase then Ulm would look even more suck in comparison).

Damn you Ulm :shakes fist:!

For the same reason that I went to so extreme lenghts to try to make Anvils of Doom into sensible enchantment summons. Construction is a absolute no-brainer for this nation (that's okay thought, there always has to be a favourite). Adding your national summons to construction would just be a boring case of "getting your cake and eating it too". IMHO summons/national spells are a lot more intresting if they are sprinkled all over the research screen, makes you think since you need to "sacrifice" your research a bit to get them. As a added bonus, this "sacrifice" often might make you miss the optimal spells and perhaps encourage to use the less-optimal ones in some crazy fashion.

I'll change the description and try to really emphasize the "Distilling" process in the description. They also could be in Enchantment (as the other "runic" stuff), if I ever need to give the player a nudge to go into that direction.

On another vain, I was thinking the exact same thing about making Cbows into MM 1. Thematically, I think I might make the basic Clansdwarf and Clansdwarf Cbow MM1 by giving them a bit "militia" feel. Heavy Clansdwarf and Arbalests could stick to their MM2 (since their equipment requires more training, they are a bit more professional soldiers).

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Not positive, but I believe only in 3.23, so you haven't been missing it for very long. Lots of new modding love added in the last couple of patches; worth revisiting the modding manual if you haven't in a while :-) Or, see my post to the modding shortlist comments thread for ones that (at least according to the manual) have been added (relatively) recently (since last time the shortlist was updated, anyway.)

BTW - if you overwrote Ulm, you'd also get to use their nametype (*tempt tempt*)

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Don't compare to Ulm! Ulm are notoriously weak and dull. They are the last thing you want to compare to. I think you'll find Dwarfs are not overpowered compared to the other Warhammer races, or indeed any of the better vanilla MA races.

Also I personally would much prefer you didn't overwrite Ulm. It is good if you can play any pair of races against each other. Overwriting Ulm just makes that needlessly difficult. After all, someone might find an Ulm v Dwarves game interesting.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

:heart:Ulm:heart: dull?! Maybe, but I still love them. :p
Looks great Burnsaber! :up:

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Really great looking mod, I enjoyed it a lot. Couple of things though, I noticed Rune of Water takes earth, is that intentional? And also, Oathstones and the Anvil say mapmove1, but can't move. I don't think you intended them to move, so it might be more clear if you could switch it to 0/2 instead of 1/7 (not sure if you can or not, I haven't tried modding yet).

About the gameplay, I'm just finishing my first try with them. Large random map, rainbow mother sleeping w/ 3 order and 3 drain, 11 other mighty AI nations, now down to just me and Oceania. I personally finished 7 or 8 of the other nations. From very early play, it just seems to me that the nation is full of stuff that's really really good (prospectors, xbows, smiths, possibly ironbreakers and basic dwarf warriors) and stuff that, at least to me, just isn't that good or would never be recruited (pretty much everything else). I actually never got any ironbreakers in this game, but I can see the use of a recruitable troop that has high mr and all the resistances they do in MP. Slayers might have some niche use against giants or some large sacreds, but they're still gonna die insanely fast and there's not much you can do about that.

Both summonable commanders seem much to difficult to bring out, especially for what you get. The only ways to get the anvil require some combination of artifacts, a prophet, expensive empowering, or elemental staffs (under CBM, which I don't use but I know is common here). And for that you get a pretty good combat mage only available at castles, and another forger. To my knowledge you can't use travel spells to attack with a regular army, so all the cool runes will only be used in combination with astral travel (a lvl 9 spell) or in castle defense. I really think mapmove 1 wouldn't be all that bad (and they lug the anvils around in the tabletop game from battle to battle, so it's not entirely unthematic). And the demon slayer doesn't seem worth the gems, especially compared to golems. They die too quick, and giving even one weapon replaces both of their slayer axes. Getting luck is really cool, but I found it mildly difficult filling all the misc slots they get (outside of stacking bracers which i've heard some people consider an exploit). And for people who use CBM, I think using smiths with hero blades would be better in every way (to do what slayers seem designed to to). They'd survive longer, and don't require your prophet to cast a 20 gem ritual. Otherwise I'd rather just get 10 more gems, and cast a golem. Also, that doesn't require going outside of cons (which is a nobrainer for dwarves). So you'd get golems earlier, as well as them being better.

On the whole I think the nation is very balanced vs. other Warhammer nations (maybe not Brettonia, which imo is a bit weak) and the other base nations. The smith battle spells are all really good, and it was mentioned before but the prospector/xbow combo is wonderful and makes expansion early a breeze (and even though it was against AI, I rushed Mictlan and had them defeated by middle of second year using just prospectors, xbows, and 1 smith). The PD is also great, and helps in making them a nation that's a ***** to invade. I would maybe look into the summons a bit, either make them a bit better or easier to summon. And as much as I would personally hate it, mapmove 1 for the xbows might help make it more of a choice.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

2 mapmove on just the heavy clansdwarfs and arbalesters(well, and slayers and rangers) could be interesting. I can't help but think that I would only every use those units then.

It also seems weird that Dwarf Arbalests are noted for being hard to aim but have Precision 3, while Dwarven Rangers are noted for the precision on their axes but then have Precision -2.

I'd be way happier with Daemon slayers if they took fire gems to call out instead. And Alteration is fine for Distill Flame/Thunder, but it would make them used way more often if they were research level 3 instead of 4. That way you can almost justify going for it right after Earth Meld if you're going that route instead of Evo early.

As far as using up miscellaneous slots, let me make it even harder: Slayers of any type only need one item--the slave matrix. Dwarves are perfect for reverse communions. You get invulnerability, summon earthpower, quicken self, mirror image, body ethereal, and flight, plus 100% resistance of anything you would want. Oh, and your entire army gets berserk, haste, and strength since each communion member will cast Rune of Grimnir. This allows you to use your crazy magic paths without running into fatigue problems from your high casting encumbrance. Oh, and it's really thematic to have a few runelords just chanting over your slayer elites before launching them into battle. With a bit of setup, you have nearly invincible thugs for 4 gems apiece. You can even swap in some really mean surprises in there for the nasty fights, like Fire Shield, Astral Shield and my personal favorite, Breath of Winter. They'll never expect it. And even just prospectors would be terrifying like that. Sure, it takes some setup--but it allows you to leverage your low random magic paths and forging bonus to terrifying effect.

It seems kinda weird that Dragon Slayers and Daemon Slayers are so similar. I mean, Daemon slayers get, what, a few more hp and some slightly higher stats?

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

The Arbalest thing is my fault. What I meant to say was that they are hard to aim without special training, I'll change it to be clearer. And Dwarf Ranger throwing axes are pretty accurate when compared to basic throwing axes (prec -5). Remember that the distance is much shorter, so prec >0 would likely make hit all the time.

Sounds pretty awesome. But wouldn't casting Rune of Grimnir make your communion leaders berserk too?

Working on it. I'll likely give them the "Slaying" weapon as a intristic bonus weapon.


On other news, the sudden appearance of the #castleprod command gave me a pretty good way to get more thematic feel for the nation. I was thinking of making dwarfs build "Mountain Citadel" (cost 1200, admin 20, build 5, def 800) everywhere and give the nation a hefty #castleprod bonus. This would be thematic. When dwarfs build forts they are meant to last, cost a lot and take time to build, but the results are good. Basically, you would have less forts, but the ones you have do more. This would likely make prospector spam less attractive (tighter commander slots) and reduce the "invicible forts" aspect. It's easier to go against 3 very well defended forts than 5 well defended ones. Yeah, it's a lot like Itza's Tel Cities, but not as extreme (no 800gp temples).

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Hrm...I'm not sure how I'd feel about *all* mountain citadels...don't they imply that you have a mountain to build on?? Maybe hills, but mountains?

Also - note that Mountain City is not much worse in defense (700 vs. 800 def) but has other characteristics that might make it a good alternate (6 vs. 5 turns, 1400 vs. 1200 gold, 30 vs. 20 admin) so may be be appropriate in the right circumstances, perhaps as capital....

Perhaps something like:

Fortresses
Capital: Mountain City
Swamp: Hill Fortress
Farm: Citadel
Forest: Hill Fortress
Mountain: Mountain Citadel
Default: Mountain Citadel

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

I like the idea of a big castle production bonus, but that means all forts need to be expensive or it might get overpowered. In the example above you could exploit the hill forts in swamp and forest for example. Better to have swamp fortress and forest citadel. Other than that I like stavis suggested list.

Too bad you can´t assign the prodbonus only to one fort type to encourage the player to build in mountains.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Would cave forts be conscionable? They seem very thematic for dwarves, and I just love auto darkness in forts :)

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

I'm somewhat confused; I thought the thematic business *was* getting a fairly high percentage(30+) of non-caster national commanders. It seemed pretty intentional; The castles were amazingly good(not too expensive, high admin, high defense), while it took a lot of gold to recruit casters. In fact, it took as much gold to make a castle+lab+temple as it took to make 2 castles without them. To add to that, the ridiculous resource cost of your troops makes it so that each individual castle cannot produce many troops. So of course you would make as many castles as possible, but some of those would not even have labs in them.

This results in two things: A higher ratio of commanders to troops(and way fewer troops, total), and more national non-caster commanders. Both of those seem very 'dwarfish'.

What would increasing castle cost/time while increasing the resources you get from them do? It would 1. increase the proportion of mage commanders(bad). 2. It would increase the 'real cost' of lightly equipped thugs(bad). 3. It would encourage the use of indy commanders for troop ferrying/carrying crossbows(bad).

I'm just not seeing it.

On another note, the Clan King is worth it if you actually turn him Oathsworn(the extra magic resist and runic ward really help), but it's just so hard to justify using him like that when you know he's absolutely useless to you after that battle. Maybe if Oathsworn Kings could actually...do something. Summon allies, priest 2 and inquisitor, an 'increase order/prod in this province' special(I think there is one of those, right?). Something that would make him marginally useful even after laying down the stone.

Oh, and taking a look at Hammers again: I think the main reason I wouldn't purchase a Hammer is that Rangers do their job better. For 2/3 the gold, you get more or less the same damage(-1 attack, -1 damage), a bit lower defenses, but mapmove 2(!!), stealth, and a ranged weapon(!!). Hammers are still nice, I mean, they just need a comparatively lower cost. Maybe 25.

I was going to say something about the Engineer, but when I was testing him my game seemed to crash every time I took him into combat. I'm gonna restart my computer and try testing some more, but has anyone else seen this?

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Just to be clear, I was suggesting the Hill Fortress, which is 10 admin, 150 supply, 5 build turns, 1200 gold, and 600 defense. Not the Hillfort, which is 5 admin, 100 supply, 3 months, 800 gold, 200 defense.

There is no Swamp Fortress; there is a Swamp City (50 admin, 1000 supply, 5 months, 1200 gold, 400 defense) and a Swamp Fort (0 admin, 100 supply, 3 months, 800 gold, and 100 defense.) The latter are basically mage pumps, so I'd avoid them for dwarfs, and choosing the former would make it your highest admin fort.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

I was under the impression that Cave Forts are bugged. Besides, auto darkness would just aggravate the "invicible forts" issue.

Well, my original vison was to have expensive forts, because looking at how the dwarfs do it in Warhammer, it's the way they do things. The current "Citadel" things was just a compromise, because I needed high admin forts. But the sudden appearance of the #castleprod command allows me to circumvent the importance of admin value. (damn I wish we had fort modding). Dwarfs in WH have like 6 major forts, in which most of the dwarf race live, they don't really have towns and castles spread out all over the place like humans. It's all about big communities, which is why massable forts are unthematic. Remember that dwarfs are supposed to be few in number and fewer forts reflect this.

The change will also help to differentiate the nation from Ulm, gameplay-wise.

It's a shame about the non-magic commanders seeing less use, but that's just how Dom3 works. I'll try to counteract this by giving minor researchbonus on Runesmiths (so that you'll need less of them) and boosting the non-magic commanders. I'll also give a new national spell "Restoration of Ancient Glory" which will pop up a fort to a mountain province.

Good idea. It was my intetnion of giving the Oathstone forms patrolbonus and minor summon commands, but I kind of forgot it. I'll whip something up for the 0.7

Good point, I'll try to keep them competitve when comapred to rangers.

The attacksprite might be bugged, I'll take a look at it.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Ah. I wasn't seeing that thematic issue since I was assuming that castles were not going to be isolated(continuous lines of castles makes for easier defense/combining of forces) so I saw it as one community just getting larger/extending their line of fortification. I see 'few in number' more as a matter of troop/commander ratios.

I was thinking that the high admin was nice for the gold gain. The thought was that you had a pretty strong impulse to make castles on top of the gold/silver mines you encountered(hehe).

But anyways, I'm trying to think about what having high gold/high resource troops actually does. Gold limits how many you can buy in total, and how many you can keep lying around because of upkeep. It limits your mage and castle production, since otherwise they are the main gold sink. Resource cost doesn't do that; it merely limits your rate of production for a given castle and gives/takes away design points from your pretender by allowing or discouraging taking a sloth scale.

So then, high resource cost troops merely mean that from any one given castle, you can't produce many units per turn. Most people agree that production scales are generally not particularly useful after the first two years or so, since you have enough castles to produce the troops you want.

As far as resources go, you have two real options: to make each castle essentially independent, or force the player to cluster castles together to have enough troop production? How fast do you want dwarfish armies to be able to be produced?

Note that all these considerations have nothing to do with absolute resource cost. The only things that matter are differences between units in your lineup, and a comparison between the resource cost of your troops and how many resources your castles provide.

High resource costs for your troops and the castle resource bonus essentially cancel each other out. Well, not quite--it makes indy troops way easier to mass(did we mention that dwarfish infantry is immune to standard arrow fire?) and it neuters your early-game when you have a low dom score. As does giving harder to construct castles. I'm just worried that your momentum is going to be absolutely terrible early game with this setup.

By the way, giving Runesmith better research also deals with Prospector spam. The marginal cost of making a non-Runesmith goes up. And it gives you a bit of an incentive to research up early, because you actually have a chance at getting to the artifacts first(though I personally don't see much use for the artifacts with these guys--they seem more a mid-game nation. Their entire shtick is being able to leverage low-mid research to terrifying effect).

I haven't gotten the chance to play multiplayer with these guys, so ultimately I'm just theorycrafting here. I'd really like a few games to get a feel of what the nation would do under actual conditions before changing the castle types(except for swamp fort...that one has to go). Because ultimately, Dwarfs can just roll over AI opponents like nobody's business, and that isn't really a fair metric.

--Oh, and having sucky/hard to make forts just gives you more of an incentive to be extremely aggressive. With 5-6 turn forts and your siege bonuses, it might actually be faster to take someone else's fort than build one yourself. In Dominions, you're going to have a bunch of forts no matter what. It just seems that a defensive playstyle with mostly national commanders is superior to aggressive play with indy commanders as your troop-movers, as far as theme goes for the dwarves.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Thanks for your input. You raised some very valid points. I'm quite well done with the 0.7 update at the moment, you can check the "fix list" in the first for the things I've done at the moment (it serves as public change log at the moment). I'd like to hear your comments. Tomorrow, I'm going to playtest for a bit before the friday release.

As for the forts and resourcecosts, the expensive forts are there to stay. Like I explained, the citadels were a compromise I was forced into, because 1200gp forts had sucky admin values and those aren't moddable. The change isn't that extreme (200 more gold and 1 more turn to build), it's noticeable, of course and does make the nation slower. Starting a bit slow is thematic for the nation, the nation is all about rising back up from utter ruin. It's also a major MP consideration, mostly because "invicible forts" is pretty dumb stragedy. Ok, it's rather genius stragedy if played right, but boring to play and even more frustrating to play against. Dwarfs are very good on defense even without such tricks.

I have no delusions about the change, it's a big nerf. But I'd rather make a too weak of a nation than too strong, especially when thinking of the first MP game. As for general "power level", the only thing I know for sure at the moment is that I don't want this nation to be as strong as Itza. I've alwyas disliked "Pythium" level powernations.

You also shouldn't worry too mcuh of the res-cost increarses, they are pretty minor, being mostly for thematic reasons and in-nation troop balancing.

I wouldn't worry about slow starts. Prospectors make pretty nutty expanders because the indies just go bat**** insane when faced with border summons. Archers rushing into melee, commanders left alone on front to be shot by crossbows, friendly fire.. it's simply madness!

And if the expensive forts make aggressive playstyle more attracting, that's just a good thing. I belong to the school "Turtling is boring and should be disencouraged". And for the style of dwarfs I'm going for, it's pretty thematic too (Those grudges aren't going to avenge themselves, you know).

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

Right. I forgot about the whole 'grudge' thing. The whole expensive castle thing sounds great then.

The changelog sounds pretty awesome; I like especially the Daemon/Dragonslayer switch.

I presume where it says "Runic Ward" is going to 5 encumbrance, you mean Runic Armor? Otherwise the high-end slayers/Brother of War are going to fatigue out super-fast. And are Runesmiths getting the research bonus, or Runelords?(My vote would be toward Runesmiths--Runelords should be doing better things than researching, anyways)

I'm still having a bit of trouble justifying ever purchasing an Engineer(if I want Siege bonus I'd rather just have a couple Prospectors). They can't research since they're not drain-immune, they have no good combat magic paths, and they don't have the forge bonus to make items. Basically I can see making a few to continually cast Distill Flame/Distill Thunder, but that's about it. They make decent missile-weapon holders since they can cast Aim, but once again I'd rather have prospectors do that. As a proposed solution...give them a chance at A2, either by making them 3? (this also makes them not require a lab, as a bonus), or by just giving them like a 25% air random. This would let them be your sitesearching guys, at least.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

A new version, 0.7, is up! The changes mostly consist of balance changes and fixes based on the feedback on this thread. I'd like to give my sincerest thanks for all the constructive feedback, it has really helped me to move this project along.

One new thing thought is that I manged to scrap up a dwarf nametype with about 230+ names. I cheated a bit thought and used a random dwarf name generator, so some of the names aren't that.. awesome, but if people are bothered by them, I could try to replace the more bothersome ones.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

I was interested in your dwarfnames, and noticed a few things along the way...

Line 42, 62 --> "RUne" should be "Rune" (although no-one will ever see it in-game)

Line 334 --> "Dwarf Lighting" should be "Dwarf Lightning". I think. LOL.

Why all the "Dwarf Weaponname/Armorname" bits? Are they *that* different? Weapon slots are limited too, you know :-) Couldn't you just bump the stats on the dwarfs?

Also, since you're not using "Dwarves", should you be using "Dwarven" or "Dwarfish" or just "Dwarf"? (in your weapon/armor names)

Dwarven Axe
Dwarfish Axe
Dwarf Axe
Dwarvish Axe

...personally, I like the 'v', but since you seem to be moving away from it.

Line 626, 794, 1439, 1579, 1819, 1946, 2071 --> Dwarven vs. Dwarfish in description
Line 1439 (again) --> "Dwarves" should be "Dwarfs"

Along that vein, your mod directory is still "Dwarves". Need to be consistent :-)

Also - your forts differ from the details posted in the first post Hill Fort --> Hill Castle:

Capitol 42 --Mountain City
Swamp 37 --Hill Fortress
Farm 38 --Hill Castle
Forest 37 --Hill Fortress
Mountain 9 --Mountain Citadel
Default 38 --Hill Castle

...and after all that, I like your name list, although the potential for humor exists with names ending in 'i'. (I met this dwarf engineer who was afflicted with a broken leg. His name is 'Hurri'. :smirk: Apparently his brother accidentally hit him with a hammer. His brother's 'Thorri'. :p) I'd leave them in, though. The dwarfs won't be laughing.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

Initial thoughts: Awesome. I like the gold/resource changes--I don't feel obligated to just get crossbowmen anymore, and my front line is more varied too.

Some other things I saw: I like that Clan Kings get some research, but they're not drain immune so it ends up only being 1 research.

Did Distill Flame/Thunder get a higher price because of the lower research level? Because with the efficiency of Dwarven construction, I'm not sure I can justify getting at least the Flamers--that's 3 Lightless Lanterns a bit later in the game, or a few fire brands.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

I'm surprised Sombre hasn't popped in to correct your "stragedy". (Its strategy.) :)

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

He has, in other threads :)

Burnsaber's (mis)coinages are growing on me, though:

Stragedy - A strategy destined for tragedy. Suits dwarf history.
Disencouraged - Discouraged via the encouragement of other options.

...they always seem to make sense in a weird way :)

(Hope I'm not being too harsh Burnsaber; heaven knows what my posts would look like if I was trying to write in Finnish!)

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

Why else would I find it curious? ;)

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

This is obviously personal philosophy, but I'm always much more worried about a nation too weak than one too strong. Especially for multiplayer. If a nation is too strong, you can gang up on it. But if a nation is too weak, not much can be done for it (and it won't get played). And as boring as turtling might be, I think it's far more boring to be constantly rushed/attacked because everyone knows you're playing a weak nation.

I don't see either Itza or Pythium being anywhere near too strong, but again that's more personal philosophy. I just see a nation that is upper-mid in power level getting used a lot more than one that's lower in power level. We need more Pythium, C'tis (who I think is really strong MA), etc and less Ulm, Malacha, etc.

More to the new version, I can understand reducing the PD, and also changing the troops. But I think the runesmith nerfs are a bit much. More gold (when gold's already tight), more encumbrance, and less paths don't nearly do enough to offset the small research boost. Also, with all castles being so expensive now, your research will lag quite a bit, and recruiting non-caster commanders puts you at an even greater disadvantage.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, balancetest version 0.6
 

I'm inclined to agree; You will be behind on research, probably by a lot. Your Runesmiths are already at a disadvantage, between massive casting encumbrance and a total inability to thug them. You're more reliant on noncaster commanders than, well, anyone.

That castle-summoning spell is the most ludicrously difficult thing to cast I've ever seen. You have to lug a prophetized astral-random runelord over to a mountain province with a lab, and then he dies when he casts it? Or I suppose you could make an anvil of doom and then kill it.

By the way, at this point the whole nation almost works better by getting Magic-1, using cheap Engineers as your main researchers, Runelords for your forgers, and just not getting Runesmiths if you can help it. You don't get as many high-earth casters, but you really didn't need many of those anyways. And on the plus-side, you one-turn siege every castle you meet. And have actual battle-casters that don't fatigue out on turn 3. It's at least a fun strategy to consider--you do lose other things by doing so.

It's my perception that Runesmiths have so much not going for them that they didn't need a cost increase. Frankly you shouldn't be caught dead bringing more than a handful of them into a battle--and that's mostly because you can't get water/astral buffs any other way.

Again, a lot of these things I'd have to be in an actual multiplayer game to test out.

Oh, and no matter what, Dwarves can't be as low-tier as Machaka. Just think of what prospectors can do to Machaka province defense. (Actually it's Rangers that utterly destroy them--those throwing axes simply demolish militia)

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

Er, yeah. I always spell "Lightning" wrong. Don't know why, it's alot like my issue with "Strategy".

Well, I admit that they're not *that* necessary gameplay wise, but it's a important thematic element. Basically every game always highlight the "Dwarf-made items are awesome" thematic aspect, but they don't get any in-game bonuses from it. Luckily dom3 has the mechanics to especially show this "dwarf items are awesome" fact and I intent to use it.

The custom armor actually has a gameplay intent behind it. To make dwarf units more vulnerable to Iron Bane, acid spells and desctruction effects. With the way how natural prot and armor prot combine, if I were to give dwarf units regular chain cuirass instead of dwarf-made one (which has +2 prot compared to normal), I'd have to give them +4 natural prot to keep the same prot value.

Yeah, I admit that the use of possessive pronoun is a bit of a mess currently. I prefer "Dwarven" myself, but sometimes I just used "Dwarf" because I wanted to avoid bumping into the character limit. I'll make it more consistent in the next version.

No, just absolutely no. Changing the name of the graphic folder will break all the "image links" in the .dm and replacing them will just open so many possible bugs (like the engineer battle crash bug in the v0.6). It's just a case of opening a really big can of worms for 0% gain.

I don't get the joke. Is there something wrong with me?

Yeah, I knew that. Unfortunately I can't make them drain-immune due to modding constraints. Basically they are copystatting a Gath commander for that "research although not mage"-tag and the only way to get the "Drain-immune" tag is to copystat a ulm smith. I can't copystat two units, so here we are. I decided that some research is better than no research and let it stay.


I upped their price because it was really needed. Compare Flamethrowers to Fire Drakes and Thunderers to Storm Demons (which are often spammed in MP basically just for their lighting throwing ability).

Hooray for abusing the english language! I am the corruptor, the defiler, sneaking in new words spawned from the wicked aether of my chaotic mindscape! And wasn't shakespeare famous for basically making words up as he went along? :D

But seriously speaking, I really don't mind. The only way for my grammar to improve is to be pestered about it constantly. Lightning and Strategy, lightning and strategy. Thanks for that and please keep on rolling.


Yeah, when talking about power-level, it's pretty much impossible to come to a clear conclusion. I dislike Pythium because it gets the best human infantry, hydras, best human mages (in its era), communicants, uber national summons, and completely random extra gem income (why?) with no clear drawbacks. Old age is more like a nuisance than a real drawback.

But this mod is still in development stage. I know from experience that it's best to *really* aim for weakness for the first releases. It's always easier to boost than nerf in order to fix something. This is basically what my other nation mod, Alugra, is going through. It started out too strong, but I (and other people) got used to it's power level, which made it difficult for me to try to get things appropiately costed. I call this "I don't want to castrate my baby" -effect.

I assume that when talking about "less paths", you mean Runelords, not smiths? I really don't want to go overboard with the Runelords, forgebonus 30 is really powerful (compare to Ashdod's Talmai Elder, which costs 500 gold for less path power and forgebonus 15).

And if I calculated correctly, Runesmiths now have the second best upkeep/research ratio (second to only journeyman runemsmiths) in the nation (in a drain 3 enviroment, of course). But if people feel that they're not worth going for, I might lower their prices back to normal.

It's also good to remember that dwarfs are really supposed to suck at magic, in fact, they shouldn't have magic at all. They could thematically have okay research but they shouldn't ever be "magic" comparable to anything other than MA Ulm.

Yeah, I might have gone a bit overboard with it, I'll probably remove the random mountain requirement. But the spell had to fill a lot of reguirements, like:

1) Reguire astral gems (if it costed earth, it'd compete with Anvil of Doom, and fire/air just don't make sense)
2) Be cheap & low research enough to be able to be casted in mid-game, where forts actually matter (to avoid "Wizard's Tower"- pitfall, it just comes too late to have effect on anything)
3) Not to be spammable, which is hard when taking into account reguirement #2 (because then we'd be right back to the "invicible forts" issue, hence the requirement of killing a prohetized mage, this gives at least 6-month long period between castings).


Yeah, it's sort of quasi-intentional. Of course the magic scale shouldn't be the best strategy you take all the time, but should be considerable, perhaps even plausible with certain game settings and maps. It's not even unthematic, considering how the Golden Empire dwarfs are basically embodiments of "magic 3" scale (where everyone and their dog had a runeaxe and people were using anvils of doom as lunch tables). Going drain-3 all the time in a "no-brainer" mode is a bit boring.

Yeah, this is the biggest issue when doing MP-balanced mod nations, it's all talk until the first game. At the moment, I could see the v0.7 go for MP-testing. Basing on the comments, it's certainly not overpowered, but (IMHO) shouldn't be that weak. And there really isn't any revisions and major additions waiting impletion, the content is there. Unfortunately, I really don't have time to start admining (or participating) in a yet another MP game.

If you want to compare to vanilla nations, Ulm is the way to go and dwarfs really trump them in all aspects (except for battlemagic). MA Ulm isn't even really considered *that* weak anymore.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

i didn't get it

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

Well, I am comparing them. Fire Drakes with Dragon Master are way cheaper, have longer range, more ammo, don't cost upkeep, and are significantly tougher. They're capable of forming a frontline, while Flamethrowers are...not. Well, they can in a pinch, but you have better options once you get into melee.

Storm Demons are an entire league above Thunderers, between the flying(in storms, too!), storm power, no upkeep, and a nicer ranged attack(theirs scales with strength). Oh, and they're ethereal and take blood slaves, which are renewable.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

I'm wondering if, now that there are seven playable Warhammer nations, that somebody might want to go and make a total conversion mod. There are a lot of spells in the base game that probably aren't appropriate to the feel of the Warhammer world, and it might be neat to strip the game down and rebuild it a bit.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

These guys are summons, you can't just compare the units one:one, you have to take into account how easy they are to summon. First of all, Dragon Master + Fire Drake reguires more research (not much, I admit), mage-time from N3F2 mage (unless you need boosters, which makes it reguire even more research). Where as you can just research alt 3 and just start summoning them, no need for extra research or boosters or mage-time from a 5-pick mage. Fire Drakes also have pretty poor accuracy, often causing pretty heavy friendly fire casualties (a problem flamethrowers don't have, you can use them with non-fr troops with no problem). As for frontline abilities, drakes can tank, but that's the extend of their ability. In prolononged melee, they will just fatigue out and die, because they have serious issues dealing damage in melee. (being size 4 and having to solo everything doesn't help). Flamethrowers have higher mr, prot and are smaller size, making them much more difficult to counter with spells (even basic stuff like Sleep Cloud is painful for drakes).

But in conclusion, yeah, you can't form a frontline with them, but that's not really their point (remember that dwarfs are all about working in community & teamwork). They are slightly behind your frontline, throwing flames until they run out and then wading into melee to support your melee frontline with their 14 ap fire damage with 14 attack value + dam 3 bonus attack staffs. I'd say that they're pretty comparable, but flamethrowers are easier to mass. You have a point about there being other uses for your fire gems, so I might go down to 5 gems if more people feel that they're not worth going for.

[/quote]

Once again, compare the summon spells. Storm Demons are pretty god damned hard to mass (whereas Thunderers are not), and require *much* more mage time. Thunderers also have slightly higher prec on their weapons and ignore shields (although, to be fair, I think that Storm Demons might too, but I'd have to test to be 100% sure). Besides, one more thing going for Thunderers is your lack of other uses for air gems (air level 1-2 items pretty much suck) and air gems are pretty easy to get, even with just a engineer manually site searching, since over 50% of air sites just reguire Air 1 to find. [8 common sites and 12 uncommon ones, to be exact]. And god help if you luck out into a A2 engineer. He can find over 90% of air sites, just by manual searchs.

But in conlusion, I'd consider Thunderers overall performance. Just try them out. You can easily get, say 9-12 of them by turn 18 if you sent out Engineer to site search early. They were just absolutely wicked in my test. Of course, the AI didn't try to counter them, but Thunderers don't really have that many counters. Get lighting resistance or die.

Wrong thread, try the "Warhammer Nations" thread. That thread is for discussion WH stuff & nations in general, this thread is about the dwarf mod. (not that I'm against the project, but I'd like to keep this thread in the point)

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

Yeah, Thunderers are still wicked; all I would want to do is change Thunderers to have the same ranged weapon as Storm Demons(so that strength buffs affect it, and to save a weapon slot), and maybe 5 ammo for the Flamethrowers.

I disagree about the air gems once you hit Const-4, though. Boots of Flight are prettymuch the most important item you can forge, right after Slave Matrices. Giving your Runelords mapmove 3 and flying just can't be beat. Dancing Tridents about double the life expectancy of a Slayer in melee, what with the repel and some ridiculously high attack stat.

It would really be nice to get better randoms on at least the Runelords. It feels kinda weird that Runesmiths have more reliable Astral, and you just don't have the stability to be able to count on basically ever getting a water random before year 3 or something. You also might go for owl quills if you had any chance of getting an Air1 Runelord before they were obsolete.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

I think you're really underrating the effect of old age. And I'd say Ermor is close for infantry, not to mention Agartha or even much-maligned Ulm. Mages are the best humans, but I'd put near-human Marshmasters and Bakemono sorcerers as being very similar in power level. And hydras are a nice bonus, but not overpowering. Really, I see Pythium as about where most nations should be, and the other "men" nations to be somewhat lacking (although Ermor is pretty close in MA). But again, this is all personal philosophy, and I would just hate to see a great mod not get used because it's no fun to play due to it's weakness.


Yeah, I meant the lords. And this isn't a fair comparison (which I think you know), as the 500 gold also comes attached to a thug/borderline SC chassis. Now, if you want to add in a body slot so you can get rid of the armor that makes them virtually useless in combat...

They're still probably worth going for IMO (since you don't really want to give up the 120 pts for drain3), but you're still gonna lag far behind. Again, it's not just the boosted cost of the smiths, it's also the boosted cost of the castles you have to get to recruit more smiths. And even considering that, they're still only second-best to the journeymen. That, coupled with their uselessness as thugs now makes them seem quite useless.

Well, to paraphrase something I heard about this game before I was playing it, Ulm (and this was pre-buff when they were considered the worst nation) is a nation full of people who are strong in will, and rely on the strength of iron to overcome magic. Unfortunately there's a spell that can block out the sun. Point being, any nation that thematically sucks at magic, is gonna be at a natural disadvantage since magic is so strong.

And it might not be what you want to go for, but when I think of the tabletop game I always imagine rows of sturdy infantry (which is quite present) backed up by ridiculous amounts of war machines (which don't seem present at all). Now if you don't want to add war machines (I was actually thinking if possible you could have cannons with gift of the heavens or some similar effect if it's moddable since nobody seems to want to just code "gunpowder" effects) I think it's reasonable to see runecasters as being essentially war machine replacements (through judicious use of earth spells, etc) if you did get rid of the crazy armor.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

Interesting point about the war machines. I guess you decided to ditch war machines altogether Burn? That is basically in keeping with dom3 I guess. On the other hand Sombre included a Gnoblar scrap launcher in the ogres mod, which I thought worked quite nicely.

Re: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.7
 

Scrap launchers I think work ok because they are essentially the same as a bunch of archers or slingers. Other war machines like cannons, bolt throwers etc I don't think work properly in dom3 for a number of reasons which become evident when you try to make them. They never really work as they're supposed to, look the way they're supposed to or fill the same sort of role they do in warhammer. Dom3 as a system largely abstracts war machines as being part of sieges that you don't get to see.

Then again I have represented most of the war machines for the nations that I've done. When I finish Empire I'm sure people will complain about the lack of them (as well as the lack of gunpowder), but to me it just doesn't work in dom3. I've tried handgunners and pistoliers and I coded up a hellblaster volleygun even, but it all kinda sucked.