Mod: 11nations mod

[sube]

Hi there,

i've been developing quite a lot of mods since dom3 came out (actually, i spend much much much more time modding than playing), and since it does not cost anything to make them public, here it goes! In my dom3 mods dir i have a total of 11 modded nations, but in the attached zip file you will find only 9 1/2 of them, as one is not yet playable, and one is not really much of a nation.

Every remark you'll post is very very welcome! I don't post very often on these forums, but rest assured that every suggestion you will post will be read and taken into account, and i'll try to answer you as soon as i can. To have a proper discussion, a single thread for each individual nation would have been more suited, but hey! I'm quite the lazy bastard, so here it goes, 1 thread with 11 nations, we'll see how it goes.

A few general notes: this modding thing started back in dom2, when i modded some nations from a french comic book (Black Moon Chronicles). Then i got kind of bored and gave up, only to start again with dom3. I now included some more nations from other comics and videogames as well, plus the classic dwarves and elves and stuff. When modding, i did not pay too much attention to balancing issues, as i was mostly trying to reproduce the lore from the comic books.
I'm not much of an artist, so my sprites are quite flat, and also units are mostly seen from the front, not from the side as in dom3 original graphics. I'm perfectly aware of that, and doing absolutely nothing about it.

But here's a few more details nation-by-nation:

The Empire: a large human empire, from the Black Moon chronicles comics. Reliable infantry armies, big elephant, no sacred troops. Individual mages are nothing special, but there are many different types of them, so you have direct access to all the elemental paths and capitol-only astral, plus small % of virtually every magic path. To do's: mod the emperor as a hero!

The Knights of Light: an order of monastic knights, again from the BMC comics. They are the Marignon-type of knights, more bent on killing the weak rather than defending them. Elite infantry, good cavalry and chariots, fire magic with a bit of astral. To do's: i'd like the priests to have the inquisitor skill, if it will ever become a modding command.

The Black Moon: well, quite obviously, this also comes from the BMC. An order of priests who try to conquer the world in their spare time. Human and orc armies, with a few large creatures. Strong priests, death and blood mages. Holy troops with Illithid-like paralysis (they are supposed to be psykers). To do's: 1 more hero maybe, and upgrade Lord Greldinard with the nasty mount you see in the comic book.

The Knights of Justice: more knights from the BMC books. These, however, are good and virtuous, holy paladins embodying all the ideals of knighthood. Very elite army, with lots of holy troops and abilities like recuperation and reinvigoration (which anyway does not work as a modding command, yet). However, no missile troops. Wind magic, with a bit of astral. To do's: not much, i think (apart from the usual balance issues).

Dwarves: there are dwarves in the BMC, however you don't see them that often, so i ended up inventing most of the stuff from scracth (well, relatively, i used all the classical things about dwarves you can imagine). Lots of infantry, elite but very slow, with high armour, morale and hp. Castle defence and siege bonuses. Earth magic, with a bit of fire. Prod bonus in castles. What more? These dwarves have size 2 not 1, since they may be short but they are quite heavy and large. To do: not much.

Bad dwarves!: the bad cousins of the dwarves mentioned above. Not as tough, but they have national summons (golems), blood magic and dom spread by sacrifices. Fire magic, too. To do: need to add two heroes (almost there!), and they should have nightvision, which is not moddable yet (unless i use copystats etc.). That's unfortunate as their castles are mostly caves, lol.

Elves: again, from BMC, but you don't see them that much over there, so i freely invented most of the stuff. They are a kind of wood elves, but in the BMC elves are not too nice and clean. Lots of good archers, some elite infantry, but low armor and no shields, so be careful! Nature and water magic. To do's: maybe some heroes.

Dunmer: these are the dark elves, or dunmer, from the game Morrowind. All in all, they are good people (kind of), not the sadistic dark ones you see in other games/books. They use armor made from insect chitin. Lots of infantry, elites, and holy troops. Wind, fire and astral magic, 3 immortal heroes. Here i really paid attention uniquely to lore, not that much to balance. To do: i think that's it.

Vampires: these are the vampires from the game Soul Reaver. More beasts than vampires, actually. Six different clans, each one with different skills. But beware: everything has to spawn or be summoned, can't recruit anything. Vampires are quite strong, and they are also immortal, however, they use no weapons/armor and are undead, so they also have several weak spots. Their mages are also kind of crappy, and dominion can be spread only by blood sacrifices. New god for this nation (Kain). Again, no idea if i'm any close to any kind of balace. See it as a challenge! To do's: five heroes (well they should be six, the 6 sons of Kain, but i think you can mod a max of 5 heroes only).

Then, 1 1/2 more nations:
The Thark Empire: again, BMC stuff. An ancient empire, they look a bit like roman legionnaires, and fight in greek phalanxes. The empire has lost much of its power, however it is still, and by far, the most powerful naval force of the BMC world ( = sailing skill for officers). Water and astral magic. Not playable yet, so i haven''t included it in the zip file.

The Cult of Darkness: this is from another comic book. A mod made in like 2-3 hours, so you can imagine the results - but it's for free no? Human, undead and mind-controlled units, death magic. Playable, but not that much of a nation, have to revise all units and graphics, i'm waiting for some good ideas to pop up into my brain.

Wheeww, that's was a long post. Well, give a look if you like, and let me know.

[jutetrea]

I'll check em out briefly, but you might want to eventually throw some more information up. There are a lot of nations here, unless they are really boring they'll have lots of idiosyncrasies. Ideally there would be a post with all troop types (pros/cons or #'s), commanders, and specifically mages and magical potential. Any national spells? Any nation specific summons?

Have these all been playtested to the point where they at least work? Do they replace any nations? Any units? weapons/armor, etc?

Something like this:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1
is extensive but very welcome.

[Frostmourne27]

If you're trying to give units abilities like inquisitor and reinvig you can copy the units that do have them and change the stats and weapons. (the specials will stay behind) If I'm not mistaken, the command is #copystats, and you create the new monster first.

[Juzza]

vampire nation doesn't start

on of Lhynns hero's, the Levithan(sp?) has human item slots, eg: two hands, feet, head ect, should only really have misc.

You're dark dwarf guys, small graphical glitch on the judge, he's equipped with a dagger, but most obviously using a staff.

I bet there are ALOT of things like that around in such a huge mod!! before you release the final version I suggest you go through every nation, check every units stats, armour and graphics then check the actual .dm file to make sure you haven't accidentally copied something like #copystat at the start of every unit.

All in all looks like tons of fun!! I like the black moon the best.

oh, also have you played that old Black Moon Chronicals game? it's like an adventure RTS, if you have can you pleeeeease tell me how to get it working in Windows Exp, it looks so fun!

[Sombre]

You can mod more than 5 heroes by using up #multihero1 and #multihero2.

True, the slots aren't unique, but with both multiheroes and 5 regular ones it is very, very rare to get two of one of the multis.

[jutetrea]

Alright, I started up a mid era game with 9 nations in it. Pretty much just checking them out, didn't even conquer 1 single independent with em, but ran em to 40 turns to see what turned up. Some comments might come off as a bit negative, I'm not meaning em that way. Just more along the lines of like, dislike, confused, etc when I looked at it. All in all its pretty impressive. The graphics could use some work in general (bright reds, blues, black, white, etc), but I think that comes after playability.

Gave all nations (except vamps) imprisoned fountain, 6 dom, 3O3P0H2G3L3M

Here goes, first thoughts:

Elves
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No National spells
Possibly rename starting site - forest is a bit drab
Possibly mixup starting army, melee/ranged?
Is 3g too little or too much for +1 morale +1 prec?
Why ever buy the greatsword guy over 2 weapon guy? 2 max damage that significant?
Nice sacreds - look fun
Why buy an advent commander?
Curious how thuggable blademaster commander would be.
Overall seemed ok if a bit plain

Grudenkash
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Construction national spells - golems. A bit underwhelming. The war golem was kind of nice. More or better? Possibly drop the levels of the vanilla golems a bit to infer extra golem expertise?
No scout? On purpose?
Add a minor forge bonus to bloodsmith? 10 or 20?
Possibly increase % random on the sorc or drop price. Why buy a sorceror for 150g for 2F and a tiny random chance vs. a 150g 2B1F1E 50%BFE?
Possibly add a 1 blood slave into start site for national spells, although it wasn't difficult to hunt. Gems/resources seem to be the limiters.
Possibly add a b4f4 potential? Both paths need lvl 4 for boosters.
Unit selection could use some variety
I like the nation, would include it after some tweaks

Kahlahk
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Graphics could use improvement
national spells 4 in conj.
12 swordsmen for 5D seems cheap
1 knight = 4D, 5knight for 10D? Cheap?
Very limited troop selection
Nice starting mage, mages are pretty cheap.
Not a very exciting nation.

Morrowind
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No national spells
6 starting gems - on purpose?
tons of commander choices, some very similar (minor weapon or armor change)
3 sacreds is nice
What's the point of the royal guard? flavor?
Telvanni capt needs amph helm
Good mages and 3H priest
Heroes - got the tinker, pretty nice. 5E too much?
Max magic - 3A,3F,3S
I like this nation, would include it

Altenberg
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No Nat spells
max magic 4F,1A,1E,3S
High morale, heavy armor/resource
Initiate - crusader, 5g for +1hp, +1mor, +1def.. too cheap or not worth it?
Sacred is nice, might be too cheap on the gold
Beefy 2/3S,3H priest for 270g
Heroes - Champ and Venerable priest both seem pretty good

Khaz Durok
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no Nat spells
max magic 4E,2F
units and commanders could use some variety
Might increase % chance on random magics
1 low priest (1H) 270 gold
Heroes are a bit boring - got high king and redhelm

Sysygia
--------
Nat spells seem to be Lanka's (blood/death)
Magic 4A,1W,1F,3S
Nation is pretty boring

Moork
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No Nat spells
Magic 3D,3B 1 unit with tons of randoms (A,F,W,E,D,B)?
Orcs too cheap?
Like the menhats - odd with the theme, but still like em
Love the trolls and giants (very similar to that free DOM precursor they released). Might need to limit them somehow, they seem powerful (didn't use them in combat yet)
Lord of Negation - first time I looked at this guy I was very surprised. Then after summoning about 20 I had real bad luck I guess. Best I think I got was 3 or 4 levels of magic. Lots of 1 level. Thought he'd be too powerful, possibly not. Wonder how thuggable he'd be.
Good priests, 1H,2H,3H
Hero - got thorn - HUGE mage, too much? had 18 rp and lots of levels + immortal.
Possibly add variety to the starting gems?
Looks like a fun nation

Lhynn
------
Tuatha National spells? Cu Sidhe, spell songs?
Magic 3F,3A,3E,3W,S
7 starting gems (3xS,1xF,A,E,W)
No sacreds?
Needs better graphics
Leviathan is nice, need to limit somehow..size 6, 120hp, 11 morale, 13 prot, 3 attacks. Might be too cheap.
Cheap mages for the power it seems
Crazy randoms on minor and archmage
Recruited like 20 archmages, rarely had anything over 4 levels of magic. Highest path was a 3. Bit cheap.

Vamps
-----
Only nation to have a pretender selection?
Very interesting nation... seems like it would be a lot of micromanagement.
10 domain seems worth it considering that pretty much every unit is immortal. The whole immortal thing might be a bit much. Possibly give all commanders immortal and all troops just regen + rejuv? I'll actually be trying this nation out, looks very intersting.
Research looks to be pretty brutal.
Bunch of national spells - all 0 research
I like it, but I'll have to playtest it I think
lots of domsummons, reanimates
Seems like there will be tons of commanders in a longer game. Would be interesting to see how they do in a long game vs. a short game.

All in all I liked Moork and the vamp nation the best. For the majority more pretenders and national spells would be cool. Didn't get a chance to see many heroes, even with 3 Luck.

Included the game as a .zip for the heck of it. All mods off except the 11 nations, good way to see a bunch of it.

[Saulot]

That's quite a collection you've managed.
Alright, I'll take it one step at a time, so I checked out one nation, the Dunmer. I'll try a little play-by-play / critique of how that worked out. (I'm not going to be pulling any punches, so I hope you don't get offended by anything I say, I mean it with respect and the hope that my critique may help broaden your view, and possibly improve the balance and flow of the mod, or at least consider design alternatives in any future mods.)

Pregame:
W10 Dom4 Blue Dragon with good scales. Cradle of Dominions NI Map. High Indeps, Low Gold/Resources. 7 AI's.

Turn 1 Observations:
As soon as I try my first turn, I'm overwhelmed. There are close to 30 (!) recruitable units and commanders. My first thought was woah, and then my next thought was with so many units, it's going to be all over the place. I proceeded to examine each unit carefully. Surprise, it's the opposite of my first impression. It's not all over the place at all, in fact, most of the units are almost identical versions of each other. I'm not talking about the graphics, which are actually nice and feel appropriate. I mean the stats, equipment, and uses. Pretty much most of the units are just heavy infantry. There's little reason to pick more than one houses' guard, probably favoring Redoran, with possibly some Telvani if I'm fighting C'tis. As for the two sacred units, they're practically identical. Only real difference is that for the second one you pay 5 more gold, but get 1 more morale, 1 higher attack, and 1 more damage with it's weapon.
Then the commanders, we have a similar situation. There are 4 house captains and a Redoran lord. The lord likely fits the bill for all command jobs because of the high leadership and the other house captains (with the exception of Telvanni) will probably be never used. Then you have 4 mages on a spectrum of strength. There is sufficient variety from the first to the second, but why pick either when the third is actually a better researcher per gold than the first two, and can do everything the first two can do as well. Then the priests, exactly 3 priests, each one practically the same except for their holy power; 1, 2, 3, respectively.
We come up again on the two sacred commanders, which have a similar issue as the two sacred units.
Next we have the scout and the assassin. 12 gold for each? That's the cheapest scout and assassin I've ever seen. Something more like 20 & 40 would be more appropriate. We also have the Royal Guard unit/commander. Capital only heavy infantry? Why? It has similar stats as all the other heavy infantry, and fits the same role.
Also, the fort is a great city, which may be the best possible capital fort (60 admin.) and there are 6 gems in the starting sites (as opposed to the usual 5 for medium era), and together that's probably rather strong in terms of balance.

Turns 2-15 Observations:
Used mostly archers and Redoran guards for expansion, and lots of Telvanni mouths and lords kept me up with research and some early forging and sitesearching. The units I used seem pretty balanced to me. Since fire/air/astral leads to a lot of offensive battlemagic, two Telvanni lords supporting the main army were quite effective. Overall the heavy infantry makes it play in a style similar to Ulm, which IMO isn't a bad thing, and the different magic should make for a sufficiently different mid/end game. For anyone on the fence as to whether to try it or not, I'd say give it a shot.

Reading through the .dm file:
I noticed you assigned a UW and DEEP fort. I've never seen that before in a land oriented nation mod, and it may activate forts for them in those areas. Which you probably could build using a Telvanni Captain. I'm pretty sure that's undesired behavior, otherwise it seems somewhat unbalanced.
Three Immortal heroes with other good abilities also seems overly strong in terms of balance, though I understand that thematically they're 'living gods'.

Suggestions:
There are a few things which need to be shifted down in terms of balance (like gem income or the heroes), but otherwise that's fine.
I realize that you were trying to maintain consistency with the source and have the full range of potential Dunmer units and characters, but much like a large shrub I feel it could use a trim, and a few units removed and a few altered. Just a lot of units have similar stats, cost, and functionality. More specifically, the hlaalu/redoran guards should be more different, or one of them removed. The three types of sacreds could probably be trimmed down to one. The captains could be trimmed down from 4 to 2. The three priests could probably be trimmed to two. The scout could be removed (The assassin more than makes up for scouting needs, and outside of No Indep mods, national scouts are rather unnecessary). The 4 mages could be trimmed to 3 (and the stronger ones should have a higher research per gold cost in comparison to the weaker ones to promote the weak mage use as a researcher, since the stronger one will be more useful in terms of battles/rituals/forging.). The two sacred commanders could be trimmed down to 1. The Royal guard could be removed as well (since it adds little outside RPG elements to the nation IMHO). That would remove about 10 units, bringing it to a more cohesive 18, though 20 seems good too. (Generally a good way of figuring it out is if by the end of the game, you haven't used more than half the units available, then there probably are too many.)

I realize reading this sort of advice after you've already spent the time and effort to make sprites for all those units, is somewhat unpleasant, but you wanted to hear suggestions/criticisms so that's what I did. Perhaps a trimmed version of the .dm file could be released for improved gameflow / vanilla balance, and the full version could remain for those players who prefer the RPG side of the game.

Edit:
Sombre's suggestion in the following post is good too.

[Sombre]

Rather than eliminating units which have graphics and flavour text made for them, you could change their abilities and have them as summons of some kind.

[sube]

Thanks for all the comments! I am really glad for any criticism i receive, no way i find this unpleasant. Having spent a lot of time on these mods, i am now too much into it and i may often fail to see the larger picture - so any comment coming from a new pair of eyes is very, very helpful, and i greatly appreciate the time you put into that.

I'll be working on the changes and fixes you suggested, but it may take a while as my dom3 time is kind of limited. Probably version 1.1 will be out in a week or two, if everything goes fine.

A few quick answers before i have to get back to work:

- Juzza: yep i had the game! But that was a longtime ago, it was a windows95 game and i had it working under windows98 thanks to an official patch, but that's how far i got. No clue on how to have it under Xp.

- I already went through each mod a good 2-3 times and fixed many things, but still, i probably missed many more, like the assassin priced at 12g or the judge equipped with a dagger but showing a staff in his graphics, and others. Thanks for spotting those - they'll be fixed asap

- I modded some of these nations a long time ago, before Lanka and Tuatha came out. As a result, two nations are using Lanka's and Tuatha's id number, so they got also all their national spells (and they take these EA nations out of the game when activated). Going to fix that somewhat (either changing numbers, if there are enough available, or removing the national spells).

- Dwarves - Dark Dwarves: they have no scouts on purpose

- Vampires: I am also wondering if immortality on all troops is a bit too much, but i wanted a very "different" nation, and I tried to compensate with poor research, weak mages, and sacrifice-only dom spread. Btw mass immortality may have the curious effect of overcrowding your capitol with reborn troops, which you'll have to ferry back to the frontline, and may feel a bit weird. I need to play it more, and see how it goes - maybe removing the immortality could be the way to go.

- Morrowind: yep i did not pay too much attention to balance, i just tried to port all the units from the other game. But i'll review this nation and try to eliminate a few units + make the others more different, two versions (RPG / balanced) may as well be the better solution.

Thanks again guys, i'll also try to post some more detailed nation-by-nation descriptions when i have time

[sube]

Btw the flashy graphics mostly comes from the fact that i tried to reproduce the art from the comic book, hence the flat whites, blues, reds etc. The non-BM nations are maybe a little less flat