Mod: Urdheim, The Infinite Horde

[Saulot]

Thanks for the response Sombre. Balance and flow/gameplay are my two biggest concerns. Naturally, things tend to be overbalanced before they're more in line with where they should be (Dom2 Ermor/ Dom3 Van comes to mind). Oddly enough the warchief and the med. infantry were two of my bigger concerns about being unbalanced (after the glaurung scion/ascendant). As for the warchief, there are several solutions that come to mind:
1. Increase gold cost.
2. Remove summon5, and replace with 3 or 4 summon1's (I think that would work).
3. Replace summon5 with summon1 med. infantry.
4. Replace lt. infantry summon with the much less hardy skirmishers.

I'm leaning most towards option 1. I feel like the vast numbers effect you get from the strong autosummon is quite thematic (puts the Infinite in Infinite Horde). And the great chieftains should be well paid.

On the other hand, upkeep is still a factor, and lt. infantry do drop pretty quickly. Even when sending out warchief groups (4 warchiefs supported by 1 sorceror). Often times there will be 25 casualties. This may just be against the high independent setting I play at. Will wait for more input.

As for the poison doubleshot, it does do less damage than a normal crossbow (plus has shorter range though that is somewhat irrelevant).

Possible downtweaks:
1. Lower damage from 8 to 7/6.
2. Lower precision on the doubleshot from 2 to 1/0.

I'm not sure about either one, will wait for more responses to come in.

Yes, I love the traps. Before the traps, I just felt like it was really missing something. Something kobold-like and important. Like a leg chop.

Undoubtably there will be some serious balancing going on over the next few weeks. Due to my playing style/limited MP experience, I seriously doubt I'm using some tactics/strategies/combos to full effect.

[Endoperez]

You'll also have to remember that in late game, the light infantry could be boosted substantially. Marble Warriors, or even Wooden Warriors, Battle Fortune... and a bit earlier, Arrow Ward. Those cut off the losses you'd take substantially.

You can't have more than one #summon1 command per commander. You can have #summon1 and some #makemonster working, though. What about #summon1 and #makemonster 4?

[Saulot]

Before I continue, I should point out I never did any testing of late game. I only played 4 quick games against 1-2 AI's on the silent seas map. (3 of those weren't even very good tests since I changed things in the middle of them, and also changed things after them.)
I assume you mean Arrow Fend (there was no arrow ward in the manual). Battle Fortune would likely be more useful on something with better defense than lt. infantry. For both those spells, they require A3 and S3 respectively, both tough orders to fill for Urdheim. As for marble/wooden warriors, you have a very good point.

I'll be thinking about the possible options suggested, though I lean towards:
1. Gold cost increase.
2. Replace with skirmishers. May be combined with option 1.
3. Replace summon5 lt. infantry with summon1 med. infantry, and makemonster 4 lt. infantry. This may be combined with option 1.

As for the medium infantry, I'll wait for more comments to come in.

Edit:
Oh, and also, I noticed there are 20 downloads, and only 2 comments so far. Feedback is important and appreciated, and I'll need it to improve the mod.

[Theonlystd]

After i downloaded it lost power.But played it a bit more now..

Dracolichs price needs to go up or be tweaked a bit..

It only died once taking on lvl 9 indies with no spells cast on him and no other troops supporting

I pretty much always do SP with 300supply,resources and such.. So stuff that summons other stuff isnt as usefull.

So far Firebrands have been my worse enemy .. Size 1 + area of effect weapon = lots of Medium Infantry dead..


Will have to play more before i suggest anything else

[Saulot]

Brought the first post more up to date. (Some stuff was obsolete).

Progress towards v.20:
Increased Warchief cost from 120 to 160
Decreased doubleshot damage from 8 to 7
Decreased Dracolich fear aura from 10 to 5
Decreased Dracolich HP from 180 to 160
Fixed a few grammatical errors in descriptions.

I hope to release v.20 on friday, and try for a once a week update until it seems ready for final status (well, final for v3.08 of dominions).

[Saulot]

Unfortunately, due to unforseen time constraints and some balancing issues with a new hero, the next version will be coming out tomorrow instead of today.

[Saulot]

Version .20 of Urdheim is now available at the first post.

Changes from v.10 to v.20:

Dracolich fear from +10 to +5
Dracolich HP from 180 to 160
Warchief goldcost from 120 to 160
Med. Infantry goldcost from 16 to 15
Doubleshot damage from 8 to 7
Kobold Pick damage from 1 to 2
Net Trap range from 25 to 30
Blades Trap range from 25 to 30
Scion of Sirrush now has siegebonus 15
Fixed a few grammatical errors in descriptions
Fixed potential *nix capitalization problem with one errant sprite
Summoner goldcost from 300 to 280
Master Summoner hero added
Magma Drake summon added


Hopefully this will fix most of the balance issues. Also, I'm really happy with the new hero.
Anyway, Enjoy!

[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.