Mod: MA Skavenblight 1.15 hotfix

[Sombre]

I have released a beta for you kind folks to enjoy.

See the first post for details. It's still a ways from being finished in terms of content.

[Saulot]

Excellent. Time to play.

Also... Curses! This will no doubt delay the release of Urdheim by several hours.

[Theonlystd]

wooot *playing*

[Valandil]

Yay!

[Theonlystd]

Really like it so far and look forward to the rest of the units..


Tho id like to see a Grey Seer as possible Pretender choice .. Maybe some kind of ability like various units flocking to the province hes in or if nothing else just make him a basic mage Pretender for thematic reasons

[Sombre]

In later version they'll get the Horned Rat as a pretender as well as 2 or 3 members of the Council of Thirteen - probably The Seerlord, Plaguelord Nurglitch and the master of Skryre (I forget his title/name).

You have a lot of units to play around with already, though the doomwheel and screaming bell would obviously be pretty cool to summon up.

They'll get some sort of Grey Seer castable BIG remote summon in the future too, representing the Skaven love of swarming a city of province out of nowhere, using hidden tunnels. Probably something like 80 clanrats.

[Kristoffer O]

Been playing around a bit with the mod today. Very fun. I always liked skaven, even though it was my brother that had himself a skaven army.

Some initial thoughts:
Great variety of troops. I had a hard time deciding what to build. I want them all. They come with great flexibility. I'm not sure, but it is possible that you should make specialists a bit more expensive, so they are recruited mostly for special tasks and counters.

Consider if you want summonables to be freespawned as well. I found that I didn't really care for research, as I could get warpfirethrowers etc just by recruiting commanders. I quickly lost interest in research. There was probably some higher lvl summons that I can't get if I just summon allies.

Summon allies is generally a very powerful ability that is difficult to valuate, but my initial impression is that the summoned allies were quite cheap. A warpfire thrower might be about as good as a fire drake, perhaps better, considering the larger area attack (but lower survival rate) wich costs 10 gems = 10-150 gold. Or as good as 9 arbalests (3xall hit in an area) that fires every turn and always hits, but has short range and more friendly fire. I would probably pay at least 50 for one of these guys, even with friendly fire. Thus I would gladly pay for the warlock at 250. Only I would then not be able to buy rat-whippers that get lots of cheap giant rats .

Building as many castles as you possibly can is probably crucial to pump out as many freespawners as possible.

So I had a blast, but whipped the [censored] out of Ulm who happened to be near me

Another thing you might wanna reconsider. Plague priests' plague scepter. That is an artifact lvl item they got (secondary effect of woundflame, same as the spell plague lvl 7 IIRC). With one successful strike against an enemy (prefferably large or well armored so he survives the whole turn) you can destroy an entire army of say 1000 units (including your own of course). I suggest you replace the plague secondary effect with leprosy or some other nonvirulent disease

Hmm. I wonder how the AI handles them. Probably very well, considering they have freespawners and great initial troops. The AI is fond of freespawns and summon allies IIRC. More so than moving around in a strategically sound way

[Sombre]

Which specialists were you thinking of? The night runners and gutter runners?

I'm currently having a think about summon allies and how to best balance it, but I will say that choosing to ignore research and go for summoned allies is supposed to be an option with this nation (at least on micro scale) but it shouldn't be an easy choice to go for the allies. If it is currently, I'll have to change things. One thing I've already decided for the next version is that Rat Ogres, Globadiers and Warpfire Throwers will have a high(er) upkeep cost that will be mentioned in their description and make them less of a bargain when 'free' summoned.

If I have to keep them as gem summons only, I'll fiddle around with the spells to cast them and make them so they're still fairly low research level and must be massed by using several casters, with a higer research level of the spell massing them more efficiently. Comparing them to fire drakes doesn't make sense though - who actually summons fire drakes at that gem cost?

The Moulder Packmaster's cost will be up in cost next version. Giant Rats do pretty much suck and run away after a few casualties though.

The Plague Priest's scepter will be changed. I'll give him decay on it probably.

Thanks for the feedback and glad you enjoyed it. Future versions should be much improved, as with all my mods.

[Sombre]

After a bit more testing and playing around, I've made some changes which will be in the next version.

Chieftan - Now only summons slave allies. The autosummoned clanrat was making him hard to use as a scout and was a bit odd.

Warlord - Now only summons clanrat allies, no 1 autosummoned stormvermin per month.

Packmaster - Now summons 4 and not 5 giant rats. Price slightly up, chance of blood magic slightly up.

Master Moulder - Now summons only one Rat Ogre ally, but is magically improved to encourage a bit of blood use.

Plague Priest - No more plague weapon. Slightly improved magic chances. Summons 3 not 4 plague monk allies. The Chantor also has slightly improved magic chances.

Warlock - No more summon allies. Slightly cheaper.

Warlock Engineer - No more summon allies. Slightly cheaper.


I have changed the summong spells so warlocks and engineers can summon either small groups of globadiers/warpfire throwers or larger groups, depending on skill. This should encourage gem gathering and research.

I have also added a new summon for pestilens plague priests - Pestilens Plague Rats - you get 3 of them for 5 death gems, they look identical to moulder giant rats, but they have a secret payload - a plague inflicting bite attack. Mix them in and surprise your friends ;]

There are two new combat spells - warp lightning and the more powerful 'powered warp lightning'. These are low level, easy casting requirement spells that do high damage. The problem is the need 1 and 2 earth gems respectively and are very unreliable.

I've also added in the screaming bell with a placeholder graphic, as a construction summon at level 8. It's pretty badass, but the balance might be way off and the graphic doesn't look too good.

I've actually decided I like the warlock and engineer graphics, so I'll just clean them up a bit and they'll stay roughly the same in future versions. Not sure about the chantor.

I'll upload 0.3 after a bit more testing today. Maybe in a couple of hours. Let me know about anything before then and I'll probably fix it.

[Baneslave]

I haven't downloaded any versions yet, so I am waiting 0.3 eagerly. I just hope that I remember to download it later.

Great work this far.