Mod: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde

[Saulot]

(Download v.50 is now available)
Some of the following may be obsolete:

Hello everyone.

I'm your friendly neighborhood long-term lurker. I've decided to step out of the shadows, because I've been working on some mods for quite a long time (just for my own amusement), and one of them is (IMHO) getting to a level where, with significant balancing and some additional attackgraphics/polishing, it could be enjoyable for others. The reason, of course, is that I've enjoyed so many great mods by the community (and of course the basic game itself; Thank you devs and modders!), so I'd like to give back. This is my third new nation mod, which is called 'Urdheim, The Infinite Horde' and consists of kobolds and dragonkin, lead by Half-dragon mages. I'd like it eventually to have moderate to above average balance when compared to most vanilla nations.

This is inspired heavily by DND kobolds, and the name Urdheim, comes from old-school dnd winged kobolds known as Urds. It should be noted there are no Urds per se in the nation, though there is some decent variety amongst the bloodlines of the kobolds. I've also pursued about every fantasy resource freely available on the web on all topics related to kobolds, draconians, dragonkin, drakes, half-dragons, and all things draconic.

I suppose I'd also like to see the level of interest in a Kobold Nation. I should have a beta download ready either this weekend or the next one. By posting this, I am basically committing myself to finishing it, which helps along with positive interest in the community, as far motivation goes. (It's hard to stay motivated after spending hundreds of hours scouring the web for reference pictures for sprites, and various sources for ideas for units.)


Anyway here's the detailed nation info:

Era: Early
#descr "A nation of Kobolds. Kobolds are tiny and weak lizardlike creatures possessing great speed. They are aggressive, xenophobic, yet quite industrious. Kobolds are noted for their skill at using poison, building traps, preparing ambushes, and mining. While having longer lifespans than humans, they reach adulthood in a matter of months, and breed frequently and in great numbers. They claim to be distantly related to dragons, which they worship as deities."
#summary "Race: Kobolds. Military: Small and stealthy light infantry with good leaders. Prefer Heat 1."

MAGIC: Fire=4, Earth=3, Death=2, Water=1, Nature=1
PRIESTS: LVL=1, sacred Ascendants

Numbers used in mod:
-- Weapon 880-898
-- Armor 380-381
-- Monsters 2865-2899
-- Sites 880-881
-- Nation 78

Fortresses:
Capital: Cave City
Default: Cave Fort
Farmland: Motte-and-bailey
Mountain: Cave Castle
Swamp: Swamp Fort
Forest: Forest Fortress

Province Defense:
Commander at def 1: Kobold Warchief
Units at def 1+: 2x Kobold, 1.5x Kobold Lt. Infantry
Commander at def 20: Kobold Sorceror
Units at def 20+: 1x Kobold Med. Infantry, 0.5x Firebrand


Strengths: Strong if highly focused magic, Stealthy and highly mobile troops, tough sacred unit, some potent national spells, good province defense, small production bonus.

Weaknesses: Weak priests, most units are cold-blooded, most units wear no armor, lack of true archers or cavalry, morale problems, no recruitable sacreds.

Kobolds have stealth, cold-blooded, 25% resist-fire, mountain survival, 50% darkvision, and are size 1.
Also: good leadership, good speed, good attack/def, good magic-resistance, pathetic hitpoints, low strength, poor morale.

kobold regular should have:
5 hp
6 str
11 att
11 def
4 prot
9 mor
12 mr
4 enc


units recruitable:
kobold (shortspear)
kobold skirmisher (shortspear/net)
kobold raider (hammer/torch) + pillage + animalawe
kobold light infantry (shortspear/shield/^poison dagger)
kobold medium infantry (shortspear/scale/cap/shield/^poison bolt)
kobold miner (pickaxe/pickaxe) + siegebonus + defense
$ firebrand (fireblast/firebreath) + fireimm. + gluttony + (nostealth)
$@ winged hellion (firespikes/barbed tail) + magicbeing + blind + heat + fireimm. + flying + (nostealth)

commanders recruitable:
kobold ranger (shortspear/net trap/leather) + stealth10 + spy + patrol + okleader + wastesurvival
kobold warchief (shortspear/^poison bolt/blades trap/scale/cap/shield) + summons 5 light infantry + good leader
kobold firelord (fireblast/firebreath/plate) + awe + makes 1 firebrand + gluttony10 + incunrest3 + (nostealth) + excellent leader
waterborn (quarterstaff) + amphibian + poisonres + (100% water/nature random) + (nostealth)
blessed one (magicstaff) + amphibian + poisonres + sacred + 1 holy + (120% water/nature random) + (nostealth) + supplybonus 20
kobold summoner (claw/summonflame) + makes 1 ash wyvern + animalawe + supplybonus 20
kobold sorceror (magicstaff) + 2 fire + 1 earth + 1 death + (100% earth/death random) + (10% fire/earth/death random)
@ scion of glaurung (claw/firebreath) + sacred + 3 fire + 1 holy + (20% fire) + (20% fire/earth random) + flight + heataura + (-research) + (nostealth)
@ scion of sirrush (claw/firebreath) + sacred + 3 earth + 1 holy + (20% earth) + (10% death) + regeneration + fire/poison immunity + siegebonus + (-research) + (nostealth)

makemonster unit summon:
Ash Wyvern (Same as normal wyvern, except: Size 3, -2 strength, +50% fireres)
Magma Drake (Sacred Drake on steroids, can go berserk, is weak to cold, bonus in hot provinces, and costs some gold upkeep)

ritual unit summons:
Kobold -Conj. 0 x30 E ( 5 earth gems)
Glaurung Ascendant -Conj. 0 x4+ FFFF (16 fire gems)
Kobold Skirmisher (farsummon) -Conj. 2 x30+ EEF (12 earth gems)
Kobold Raider (farsummon) -Conj. 4 x40+ EEEFF (18 earth gems)
Cursed One -Conj. 5 x2 DD ( 2 death gems)
Ancient Gargoyle -Ench. 7 x1 EEEA (20 earth gems)

ritual commander summons:
Dragon Ancestor -Conj. 3 x1 DDE (12 death gems)
Draconic Demilich -Conj. 8 x1 DDDDD (80 death gems)

heros:
Kobold Strider (Wicked Polearm/Strider Claws) + rejuv. + excellent leader + standard
Kobold Evoker (Staff of Withering) + 2 fire + 2 earth + 2 death + 2 (fire/earth/death) random + fear + rejuv.
Scion of Abraxas (Enchanted Sword/Lightning) + sacred + 2 air + 1 holy + shockimm
Master Summoner (Partial Displacement) + Summon MagmaDrake

pretender:
Ancient Dracolich
Arcane Dragonstone

$ = I was for a long time considering throwing mounted firedrake riders, or flying wyvern cavalry into the kobold mix, but for the following reasons I went with a different route: 1. they seemed way too far on the strong/expensive side of the scale, 2. along with cavalry seeming unthematic for kobolds, and 3. the firedrake riders being too reminiscent of Agarthan caveknights.
^ = 1 time use only ranged weapon
@ = Capital Only



As for their idiosyncrasies and things to consider;
1. It should be noted they have no sacred recruitables, though they have a potent early sacred summon that about 30% of their Glaurung Scions can cast. Large sacred armies should still be quite a rarity nonetheless.
2. They also possess some potent farsummons, which definitely help in the ambush concept.
3. The sorcerors can combatsummon skirmishers on the edge of the map (a la the howl spell), for even more ambush feel.
3. While they have no archers per se, the firebrands are more of a close-range artillery, though they are very fragile and as often as not, get themselves, or other kobolds killed.
4. The ranger is an incredible commander (spy, 3 mapmove leader/raider, and patroller), though it suffers from over-generalization and thus is somewhat expensive for any of the various roles it could fill.
5. They are highly mobile. With a mapmove spread of 2 to 3 (& mountain survival) they generally are fast responders.
6. Powerful battlemage thugs in the form of the two scions, should be on par (or almost there) with both Neifel Jarls, and Yomi's Dai Oni.
7. The cheapest mage has only 1 random, and no base magic, and so can be recruited without a lab.
8. While all kobolds possess natural armor, most units don't wear any normal armor, so most earth-based protection boosters won't benefit much.
9. Summoners are not sacred, and quite expensive, but Ash wyverns have no upkeep, and the summoners themselves possess a very good ranged attack (at least in the early game).
10. They start off with 2 fire, 2 earth, and 1 death gems. This is less than the usual early age 6, but it is more than made up for by a gold and resource bonus site, and a death magic scry site "The Obsidian Sphere". Both of which go hand in hand with kobolds industrious/mining nature, and their stealth/spying concept. For RP purposes, one can call the latter an artifact from a long lost dragon's horde.
11. An extrapolation of #2 and #10, the precision scrying works wonders with the farsummons, for precision raids on unguarded or lightly guarded areas.
12. Cursed Ones possess both melee and ranged strength draining attacks, this is effective at whittling away small/tough armies, and can combine quite well with firetrap spamming sorcerors.
13. Due to their poor encumbrance, battles involving lots of kobolds tend to be won quickly or not at all.

As a bit of a preview, I put together an image of some of the recruitable kobold units.


Edit1: Here's some more units, as promised:
Glad to hear all the positive responses, more unit stats will come later.



Edit2: Here's some unit stats as promised:

Glaurung Ascendant (size 3) (sword/firebreath/helmet/plate/towershield) + sacred + fire imm. + neednoteat

Cursed One (steal strength/curse/weakness/weakness) + ethereal + cold/poison imm. + amphibian + magic being + lifeless + stealthy + neednoteat + blind + affliction chance

Ancient Gargoyle (size 5) (claw/claw) + flying + blind + lifeless + magicbeing + noheal + neednoteat + fire/cold/shock res. + poison imm.

Dragon Ancestor (size 6) (lifedrain) + 3 holy + sacred + immobile + heat + neednoteat + spreaddom + incunrest-2 + nobadevents5 + fire/poison imm. + lifeless + noheal + blind + (smallgoldupkeep)

As for the rest about the Draconic Demilich, I think I'll save it as a bit of a surprise in the mod.

[Kristoffer O]

Looks great!

Finished soon?

[Saulot]

Thanks!

Well... I suppose I should mention what still needs to be done:
1. Some attack sprites
2. Unit stat/cost balancing
3. Summons stat/gems balancing
4. Adding/Removing/Adjusting national spells
5. Improving a few unit descriptions
6. Reading suggestions that I imagine will be posted here

Once that is done I suppose it will be ready for beta release (and ready for yet more balancing), though like Dominions itself, it is never truly finished.

[jutetrea]

Looks well thought out.

I like the summoning a lot - summon allies or domsummons or similar to maened summoning?

Are the scions beefy? a la thuggable?

So high magic potential is:
5F on glaurung
4E on sirrush
3D on sorceror
1N or 1W on the waterborn

Do you have thoughts on the stats of the summons yet? For instance, what is the draconic demilich? Mage, thug? How does he compare to the 30 gem demilich at ench 7(?)? What's the ancestor? Cursed? Is ancient gargoyle a beefier gargoyle?

Yup I like it, very themed - lots of small, low-mid quality sneaky troops. Limited but relatively powerful magic. I think the commanders, summons and firebrand/hellion will make or break it though (i.e. make more fun for ME). Commanders all seem very nice, will be a big decision on what to make each turn (why the -research, btw?) which is a good thing.

Looking forward to seeing it.

[BandarLover]

Yay another modder! Awesome graphics you've shown so far. Though they look like they should be bigger than size 1.

Very cool concept, looking forward to the first release.

[Saulot]

@dmentd
I use gimp for almost all my graphics now. Back in the day I used good old reliable paint. My sprite experience comes from using paint along with a gif-animator and making aim icons for all my friends.

@jutetrea
I wish I could do maenad summons, but instead do regular kobolds, with special kobolds appearing in fort provinces/temple provinces, but as it is now, just two units autosummon (warchief/firelord) 5 and 1 units respectively. And the Summoner uses the makemonster (or summon allies action). I may still give an autosummon to the summoner. I considered giving the Ranger an autosummon of skirmishers/raiders but it would kind of give them away when they're sneaking/spying in enemy territory, and they're chock full of abilities as is.

All the stats and descriptions of all units mentioned are already in the mod.
The scions are quite beefy. They're size 4 half-dragons, with the stats to match. Their slots are not quite standard though. Missing some, and an extra misc. slot to somewhat make up for it. The scions are meant to be powerful/rare (as in cap-only), warriormages for use in battle. They will of course be doing some summoning/forging as well, but doing mundane research is beneath them, and they don't much care for it.

The Demilich is one of my favorite units (immortal flying undead mage with lots of death magic and fear), and could be one of the summons to focus a strategy around. Same with the Ancient Gargoyle. Essentially a much larger, tougher, element resistant gargoyle. It should be relatively difficult to get the E3A1 mage for Urdheim however. I'll throw in another group image in the first post soon, with some more units. I'll also add some more stats of the other units mentioned in the first post.

@BandarLover
Thanks!
You're absolutely right about their appearance, and I have two avenues for responding.

1. Heightwise, they are almost human. But they are very thin, and they like to swarm/fight in close proximity. Important for tunnel/cave fighting, and just as useful above ground.

2. At the beginning, I tried making the first kobold much smaller. But you couldn't tell it was a kobold, or even a lizard. It looked like a brown pixie with a tail. Making sprites is difficult enough, and almost impossible when trying for 16x16 pixel units with any detail. For the sake of appearance, I prefer them this size.

[dmentd]

Saulot, what program do you use to make and modify your sprites? I like the kobold images. Thanks.

[jutetrea]

Ok, so I've been playing this nation more than I've played any other additional nation (barring replacement mods). I like it a lot. Just some random thoughts on how they mesh with MY way of playing.

Dracolich rocks, expensive but an immortal awake size 6 god is nice. I generally go with a rainbow for late game magic, but all my test games have been early-mid so far.

I generally try for order 2/3, sloth 2, heat 3, death 0-3, luck 2-3. Then either go dom 9 for awe or dom 5 and more magic.

Rarely buy more rangers, too expensive unless a nearby enemy capital. I've found the pillage and patrol bonus to be pretty useless, but beyond that a great unit. What would be the cost discount if pillage and patrol bonuses were removed?

I generally find myself recruiting medium infantry and skirmishers almost exclusively. Never the pillage or miner troops with a rare plain kobold. Never build the little flamethrowers.

If I've got a chunk of money I will buy the flying commander and 25 or so of the flying/heat units for a strike force...very effective but very expensive.

I try to buy a summoner or 2 early to get started on 1-2 ash wyverns per turn. Every so often get a nice non-magic leader airforce support. Never have taken a summoner into battle.

Blesseds are a pain. I've just had terrible luck getting both a 2N and a 2W out of them. Luckily its pretty cheap 3 research so it works out if I have a sorceror or 2 to beef up initial research. Haven't made it to many significant mid games so haven't tested out the battlemage aspect that much yet.

Earth ascendant - haven't used much
Fire ascendant - great for flying strikeforce, haven't thugged much/at all. The magic seems to work well and the low level %chance to cast summons is real nice. Haven't tried bulking at all since they're pretty expensive but nice.

Warchief is nice, with the summons being light infantry I havent seen a huge impact. I wouldn't increase it, but wouldn't decrease either.

I generally just mass a force of 80 or so med infantry/skirmishers. Split em evenly into 2 groups, set a bit ahead of the commander, no orders and let em go. Usually does well, occasionally have morale problems (lots of routs to pick up after). Generally works vs indy's, cavalry and tramplers do big damage.

I've got a few games going, but i'm going to scrap them and hit some bigger maps with more enemies to try to get and stay in the midgame for a bit. liking it so far.

So, what't the point of the arcane dragonstone?

[Saulot]

Thanks
I appreciate the thorough critique.

Yeah, I like immortal pretenders, and liches in general. I felt like there should be one immortal undead dragon somewhere. It's pretty badly suited for a rainbow, but the death 9 bless on the two sacred mages can be pretty good for some of the broader area spells like bladewind, and give the sacred summon a little extra kick against strong/healthy summons.

Well, um Rangers don't have a pillage bonus. Rangers only have waste survival, +10 stealth, and a patrol bonus on top of a regular kobold. The patrol bonus was added for thematic purposes (kobolds are paranoid and constantly patrol their territory) but gameplay-wise is useful for MP play if anyone is so inclined, so you can prevent stealth preachers/scouts/spies on the cheap. It's pretty synergistic with the good province defense of Urdheim.
As spies AND stealthy leaders (for leading raiding parties) AND possessing the net trap (which makes them somewhat useful assisting kobold armies even without a magic weapon equipped), I feel they should be somewhat pricey compared to most basic commanders. Even removing the patrol bonus would only probably drop the price by maybe 10 gold?
That's kind of the style of the kobolds, even though most of them are rather useless and weak, because there's just so many, they have more exceptional individuals. Those come at a premium, but make the kobold nation survive/viable when compared to others, and so interesting (at least, to me).

The Raiders have a pillage bonus, which is also somewhat thematic. I doubt any human would really use the pillage option, but if they so desired, they're a good group to do so with. The raider farsummon could eventually be used in that sense. Farsummon 4/5 groups of them into poorly defended back-provinces which you've scried upon, and then set them all to pillage, even if the opponent has a defense force sitting next to it, they could only stop one of them at a time.
(Even though I'm not a hardcore MP player, I tried to make Urdheim a viable/good nation to use in a MP game)

The firebrands are kind of a niche unit. Useful against Neifels/Vans or whenever else you need aoe 1 fire attacks, but too fragile and expensive to rely upon significantly.

The flying strike force is pretty solid. It's also a good idea to use one 4fire glaurung for a prophet to lead the sacred summons (at least, if you have more firegems than you're using, and generally I send one glaurung to site search behind my conventional kobold army to make sure I do).

The summoners are a kind of long-range artillery, though too expensive to really throw around. It should be relatively useful to use in a more defensive game though, as attacking a province which has summoners on top of province defense should be rather painful. (Though you may never see them outside a fort)

The different mages each have their own strength/weakness to make each of them viable. The blessed are of course your cheapest priest, but they also have a supply bonus aside from what the nature randoms get, which can make them somewhat useful throughout the game, particularly if you rely on large kobold armies, (even more so in unpleasant enemy dominions). Though they are more than twice as expensive as the waterborn, they're still a reasonable researcher option because of being sacred, and having a small chance at 2W or 2N (should be 10%). The waterborn can be made in any fort without a lab or temple, and that's their strength. Amphibious on both of them is pretty significant if you stumble on a shambler/kappa province early.

The Sorcerors have different national spells available to them depending on the random they get. So you'll have fire trappers, ambushers, castigators, and defensive buffers, in addition to the usual magic (such as fireballs or skelespam).

I've strengthened the Earth Scion a bit with a siegebonus to broaden it out from being a specialty thug/forger, to also being somewhat more useful as an army supporter. (Kobolds low strength means you need very large amounts of kobolds to siege anything, usually about 2-3 for each normal human, which makes miners pretty necessary. The Scion now can be a bit of a viable alternative to needing sizeable miner squads. Yes, I've thought about giving a siegebonus 1 to the kobolds early in the mods development, but I like the idea of having very large kobold forces to take over fortresses, or the need to sap enemy walls (use miners).)

Yeah, all of the kobold units are rather fragile, even the more expensive firebreather and the flyer. Battlemage squads should be the alternative against cav/tramplers.

Well, the dragonstone is an immobile pretender. It's there mostly for style/thematic purposes (and to give players more options yet keep things Kobold-like, like KO I like more options too even if they're rarely used), though it's also viable for fire/earth bless (such as E9/F4, and yes I realize fire/earth is somewhat suboptimal both as a bless, and with Urdheim already having plenty of fire/earth mages.). I've played a couple games with f4/e4/d4/n4 dragonstone and the sacred summons are reasonably potent/durable with that bless, though you're rather limited in how many of them you can mass. This probably won't come up, but the dragonstone should be incredibly tough to take out in the capital (in case of MP play, and anxiety of early bless rush).


Anyway, glad you like it.
So I guess I have some questions for you (and anyone else too, don't be shy):
1a. Have you tried v.20?
1b. Do you like the changes?
1c. Have you gotten the new villain (hero) yet?
2a. Do you feel any unit/spell is too strong/weak? Is there something that seems useless (not necessarily unwanted for your style but just useless overall)?
2b. Anything that needs to be done to achieve vanilla balance (as compared to an above average vanilla nation)?
3. Any miscellaneous things you'd like to see? Or random other suggestions?

To everyone:
There's still some stuff I may or may not add to Urdheim, possibly another hero or pretender (btw, I'm really open to ideas), but it's mostly just balancing. If the next Dominions 3 patch changes anything significantly or opens up some new mod commands that may warrant going back and updating everything as well.

[jutetrea]

Ok, some more thoughts after playing a longer game (bout 7-9 in all schools of research so far).

Castles - they're all nice, but a couple lower quality/cheaper choices may be worth it.

Any thought to adding 25-50% poison res? Might make them too powerful, but you figure many of them have poisoned weapons...

I still rarely recruit anything beyond med infantry, skirmishers to use up spare resources and very rarely miners when I have a tough nut to crack.

When I am EXTREMELY flush with cash I'll pick up 25-30 of the flying guys for a glaurung strike force. 28x50=1400gp for a very routable unit...can be devastating though. Set them to attack archers right off the bat, everyone else to hold/attack and they do a bunch of damage and usually flee. Unfortunately picking up the pieces afterwards is a chore with them being magic beings.

Not a fan at all of the scion of sirrush - way too expensive and limited. Not enough slots to be a good thug, bad research, way too expensive (again), good immunities, but I'd rather have a 3E sorceror for the variety. I MAY purchase enough to finally get a 4E (for 5E w/boots)...but doesn't seem to be worth it.

Still don't recruit a lot of rangers unfortunately...spies rock, but research is king. I think MP would be much different though.

Still haven't recruited a firelord for some reason, so no opinion.

Warchief's rock - primarily the 80 leadership. the summons is ok, but not amazing either way (could be nerfed/buffed and I don't think it would make too much of a diff).

Summoners rock, yet a bit niche. Went nuts with them this last game - 15 in a province, quickly got some nice flying strike forces. The flaming guys are better, but the ash wyverns are nice en bulk.

Sorcerors are great, really wish they were sacred though upkeep hurts after awhile.

waterborn are good as well, rarely purchase, but nice not having to need a temple/lab.

Blesseds. Love em and hate em. I WANT the 2W and 2N for site searching. But that leaves me with tons of 1W and 1N or 1W1N guys just floating... so 140g for 3 research. Not terrible, but not great either. Luckily they're sacred. I must have really bad luck. I thought it was a 10% chance to get a bonus, but I had to have 40 of the buggers around before I got 2W (had 2x2N in the meantime).

Scion of Glaurung - rocks. Flying rocks. Flying with good leadership is better. ...with the ability to cast 2 great spells they rock even more. The sacred summons is a bit pricey, but those guys are tough... even 4-8 at a pop are good to strengthen the line. Flamecast rocks my socks off. Difficult to thug (easier than sirrush), but I generally use as a leader/caster anyway. Well worth the cost.

Summons
Ascendant - rocks, expensive but very nice.
Cursed - meh, didn't impress much. But think are good for battlefield summons or if you really need a size 3. Hmm... just looking at the icons above, I was getting striders as a summons when using the cursed spell.
Ancient Gargoyle - one thing I haven't summoned yet.
Dragon Ancestor - er, what's the point? Might want to add 1 path of something. Is this just an equivalent to a telastic animation?
Draconic Demilich - COOL! Very expensive, but real real cool. Haven't used much yet, but the options look real impressive.

Heros -
Got 2 of the strider guys, didn't use them much. Seems like they'd make pretty good thugs.
I got the summoner - if that thing had about 30hp it would make a very kick butt thug. Those are some cool abilities. Summons are very nice as well, 1 mapmove made me not use them though.
Haven't got the rest yet

Pretenders
Still haven't used the dragonstone - still don't get it, will try later.
Dracolich - still like it alot. Lack of change shape is tough if using as forger/caster (lack of slots).

Spells - love em!
What is castigation of sirrush supposed to do, doesn't seem to do anything.
All farsummons - great! I use it more for reinforcements then ambushes, which I think goes against the theme...still great.
flamecast - rocks!

er, is there a listing for the rest of the spells? I have the new mythology installed so get confused which spells are which. I'll remove the mod and check it out in a bit and edit.