Mod: Warhammer Dwarfs, version 0.92 -- Quickfix

[kianduatha]

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.

[Burnsaber]

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).

[kianduatha]

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.

[Burnsaber]

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.

[Stavis_L]

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'. Apparently his brother accidentally hit him with a hammer. His brother's 'Thorri'. ) I'd leave them in, though. The dwarfs won't be laughing.

[kianduatha]

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.

[Trumanator]

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

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

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

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!)

[Trumanator]

Originally Posted by Stavis_L

He has, in other threads

Why else would I find it curious?

[alansmithee]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

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.

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.