Mod: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod

[llamabeast]

Some things would rust horribly in the sea. Clockwork horrors definitely shouldn't work underwater, as their mechanisms would sieze up in like a day. Probably the same for mechanical men.

[Sombre]

A new use for the 'taking damage underwater' mod command, you say??

Gosh.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

I see no reason why air has to be a good magic path for UW summons. Air Queens are specifically prohibited from going UW, after all. Air can let you breath UW, but let you do awesome stuff down there? Uh... huh?

You are probably right about the air summon. I'll give them a copy of the "ease UW item penalties" spell though, so that they can actually do something with all that UW item access.

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Some things would rust horribly in the sea. Clockwork horrors definitely shouldn't work underwater, as their mechanisms would sieze up in like a day. Probably the same for mechanical men.

Well, you can bring some heavy infantry underwater with breathing items and they never suffer from anykind of rusting. It would be odd if I applied the "rusting" logic on the Mechanical dudes but not on them. Besides, they are "magic beings", so it's not that much of stretch to assume that they are enchanted against rusting. Clockwork Horrors suck in UW anyways, mostly because of the reduced AP from poor ambhibian. I really see no reason to nerf them even further.

[Burnsaber]

OK, UWGIM global released! Note that the .dm file does not overwrite the old one, you should just delete the old "UWGIM-global" .dm file before DL'ing the new version. This version make absolutely no national changes and is intented for those who like their UW nations as vanilla as possible.

I have tested that most of the spells work underwater, but I really can't test the balance of applications of all these changes. Especially the water evocations working underwater is a BIG change and I'd like to hear thoughts on the matter. (Hint: Expansion with "cold blast" is fun because there are no archers to kill your mages). I also didn't up any prices on anything because of it got UW access, which might raise minor balance issues but I really doubt it.

I also only went through the national summons on wiki. I might have missed some national units and spells that should be castable underwater. If you see something that does fit with the logic of this mod, please report it and I'll fix it.

List of changes this "global" mod version makes:

"Global Changes"

- "Prince of Death" into poorambhibian
- "Mother of Rivers", "Lady of Fortune" and "Lady of Springs" made into amphibians. (they were born form water)
- "Summon Sea Dogs" now reguires W1
- Thetis' Blessing down to ench 7
- Two new (W2/A2) spells that can partly negate UW breathing item penalties
- New summon "Awaken Kelp Ancient" that basically gives you "free" immobile "PD" commander underwater.
- "Living castle" now only reguires nature magic and is cheaper. It can now only be casted from land
- "Boil" now reguires just F2
- Vine Men/Ogres & Kings transform into Kelp equivalents if they move underwater, making them amphibious.
- Some uncommon UW indy mage sites and other sites to slightly balance gem income UW.
- Some common coastal sites that give access to good UW units
- "Ichtyid Warrior" unit got a parry 7 custom shield to act as a good arrow catcher for UW nations.


SPELLS:

- The following spells have been made castable in UW. Any summons from a summoning spell have of course been made into poor amphibians.

CONJURATION:

Black Servant
Awaken Vine Men
Revive Wight
Revive Bane
Awaken Vine Ogre
Summon Winter Wolves
Summon Fall Bears
Revive Bane Lord
Summon Lammashtas
Summon Ghosts
Call Eater of the Dead
Animal Horde
Awaken Ivy King
Summon Mound Fiend
Call Wraith Lord
Legions of Wights
Tartarian Gate


ALTERATION:

Manifest Vitriol

EVOCATION:

Slime
Cold Bolt 
Cold Blast
Rust Mist
Freezing Mist
Healing Light
Sleep Cloud
Falling Frost
Earthquake
Healing Mists
Magma Eruption
Bane Fire
Cloud of Death
Niefel Flames

CONSTRUCTION:

Clockwork Horrors
Construct Manikin
Crusher Construction
Construct Mandragora
Mechanical Men
Siege Golem
Golem Construction
Iron Dragon
Juggernaut
Poison Golem

ENCHANTMENT

Revive King
Create Revenant
Behemoth
Pale Riders
Hidden in Snow
Reanimate Archers
Ziz

THAUMATHURGY

Rage
Leeching Darkness
Hydrophobia

Notable national summons that got UW access:
Panganea Carrion creatures, national undead summons (Shura, Civatateo, Baen Sidhe), Monster & Jaguar Toads



The "national" version of UWGIM will be released sometime in the future and concentrate on making EA/MA Oceania/Atlantis suck considerably less.

[kianduatha]

Mmm, Shura getting amphibian.

This actually might make most of the UW nations more viable--especially the Manifest Vitriol/Vine men shenanigans. Oh my goodness, you can field summons armies without needing to give all your casters amulets of the fish <3

The only truly silly spell I see is Earthquake...you're swimming.

[Frozen Lama]

yeah earthquake doesn't make sense. falling frost.... not sure if the frost would "fall" in the water. or at least not that painfully.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by kianduatha

The only truly silly spell I see is Earthquake...you're swimming.

Read the description for the spell.

With a thundering boom, the ground heaves and erupts, throwing soldiers into crevices that close after a few seconds

I see no reason why a event like that couldn't happen underwater.

Originally Posted by Frozen Lama

yeah earthquake doesn't make sense. falling frost.... not sure if the frost would "fall" in the water. or at least not that painfully.

Falling frost does pure frost damage. So a 100% frostres unit is immune, no matter how feeble it otherwise might be. So, the spell does not in fact do any damage in the form of falling icicles and stuff, it is just cold. Things like momentum and friction do not apply, it is just magical drop in the temperature. And you can make frost underwater in dom3, I know this because "Grip of Winter" works underwater in vanilla.

[llamabeast]

Earthquake makes a lot of sense to me - I would actually expect it to be very nasty in the real world, because of the shock waves being transmitted through the water.

The ones I don't think should be included are Rust Mist, Healing Mist and Freezing Mist, and arguably Sleep Cloud, because (a) mists don't make a lot of sense under water, and (b) they are horrible spells whose graphics make my game run so slowly that I generally have to give up watching any battle in which they are cast. Mainly (a) though. On the other hand I think Cloud of Death makes sense under water as it could be seen as a purely mystical cloud.

I also feel Cold Bolt, Cold Blast and Slime don't feel right, as they appear to have momentum and you'd expect them to get stopped in their tracks underwater. However I can see why you've included them and I think it's probably fine.

I also agree that Falling Frosts doesn't feel right, but reckon that on balance it is probably okay and again it is useful to include for gameplay. At least there is consistency that, admittedly surprisingly, all the cold evocations work underwater.

If there were no shortage of spell slots I would be tempted to make alternative versions of Cold Bolt, Cold Blast, Slime and Falling Frosts which were underwater-only, had exactly the same effects, but had different graphics and descriptions which were more consistent with being underwater. However the lack of spell slots means this probably isn't worthwhile.

[llamabeast]

Oh, I forgot to actually say my main reaction - this looks really great, thanks Burnsaber!

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

The ones I don't think should be included are Rust Mist, Healing Mist and Freezing Mist, and arguably Sleep Cloud, because (a) mists don't make a lot of sense under water, and (b) they are horrible spells whose graphics make my game run so slowly that I generally have to give up watching any battle in which they are cast. Mainly (a) though. On the other hand I think Cloud of Death makes sense under water as it could be seen as a purely mystical cloud.

The thing is that "Poison Cloud" is castable in UW in vanilla. If this magical cloud of poison can stay "concentrated" on a specific area for a certain time before dispersing to the enviroment, other clouds should too. Their function is pretty much the same, the only difference is the inclusion of "Mist" in the title. The thing is, I don't see why a W/E mage couldn't make a certain area of water corrosive by applicating the "Rust Mist" spell. The poor name choice of the spell is just semantics. I could easily change the name to "Rust Cloud" and it wouldn't change a thing.

Originally Posted by llamabeast

I also feel Cold Bolt, Cold Blast and Slime don't feel right, as they appear to have momentum and you'd expect them to get stopped in their tracks underwater. However I can see why you've included them and I think it's probably fine.

I also agree that Falling Frosts doesn't feel right, but reckon that on balance it is probably okay and again it is useful to include for gameplay. At least there is consistency that, admittedly surprisingly, all the cold evocations work underwater.

Yeah, my logic here is the same. It's pure frost damage, a magical drop in temperature. Friction and momentum do not matter here, as the spells clearly do no physical damage. That's why "Ice Strike" is still not castable underwater.

Originally Posted by llamabeast

If there were no shortage of spell slots I would be tempted to make alternative versions of Cold Bolt, Cold Blast, Slime and Falling Frosts which were underwater-only, had exactly the same effects, but had different graphics and descriptions which were more consistent with being underwater. However the lack of spell slots means this probably isn't worthwhile.

Well, I could just edit the vanilla spells to have different graphical effects. "Slime" for example could just have a explosion of goo happen at the target and we could skip the missile graphic. People would notice that for sure, but probably not care. (it would just make the battle run faster)