Mod: Bugrom

[DrPraetorious]

Tada, a mod nation. This is version 1.0-alpha.

The female units need artwork, and it needs national spells which will await the patch. Probably there is something else I forgot.

I'm going to use this mod as a tutorial, covering:
1) How to convert pictures into usable in-game artwork.
2) How to "borrow" from existing artwork and reuse artwork templates, specifically in GIMP.
3) How to write and balance mod nations, in very general terms - specific rules maybe later.
4) How to use the spell modding engine. There will be a bugrom national spell of almost every type to show how it is done.

None of the tutorial stuff is in there yet, the art isn't done, and I have yet to do any national spells (I won't, until the next patch version.)

[SlipperyJim]

This is exactly what n00b modders need! You are the wind beneath my wings....

[Zylithan]

tutorial soudns great!

[Morkilus]

I heartily endorse and wait for this project. Dr. P for Modder of the Week!

[DrPraetorious]

The key to good pixel art is that you have to use differences in shading to suggest more detail than you can actually display.

You can't draw scale mail, but the correctly chosen pattern of alternating gray pixels can *suggest* scale mail.

If you have any artistic talent you can probably do this freehand, and skip this section.

If you can't draw, I'm going to go over the trial and error you can do in GIMP to get passable pixel art by shrinking down, rotating etc. the images of actual objects. A good artist is going to get better results working freehand, and if you can use an existing pixel drawing as a "chassis", you are probably better off doing so. It is very much a trial-and-error procedure; GIMP has a lot of features you can try to make the image look good, and it's difficult to say what will work well when shrunk down a great deal.

The images below show how I made my "male bugrom" chassis. Once I have the chassis made, the modification of an existing chassis section is more relevant.

These are some test images to make sure that my hosting setup works. I'll add more explanation later.

Here's some beetle I grabbed off the internet -


And through a series of shrinkages, rotations, color masks, copying and pasting, I produced this chassis. I can say with confidence that no artistic ability was required -

[Panpiper]

DrPraetorious said:
3) How to write and balance mod nations, in very general terms - specific rules maybe later.

Bravo DrPraetorious. This will be a great boon to we beginning mod makers and ultimately as a result, a boon to all Dom3 players. Thank you.

I am especially looking forward to what you have to say about balancing nations. I believe my chaos mod is still way off kilter. I have to play versus Amos' mods for chaos not to cake walk through the opposition.

[DrPraetorious]

The biggest issue when balancing user-generated nations is: against whom shall I balance them?
The following nations are what I recommend to use as balance targets. These are robust, capable nations but not dominant or outrageous:
EA Agartha
EA Abysia
EA Caelum
EA Ermor
MA Marignon
MA Pangaea
MA Jotunheim
MA Eriu
LA T'ien Ch'i
LA Arcoscephale
LA Pythium
LA C'tis

The Bugrom - Early Era Nation. I'll be balancing it against EA Agartha.
The Bugrom warriors have roughly equivalent combat stats to one of the Cavern Guard.
The Bugrom Warrior isn't amphibious (a significant drawback), can't see in the dark (likewise), and is injured 30% of the time, but has four limbs, berserking, slightly better stats across the board and a much lower encumberance. He's also slightly bigger and stronger.
Note 1 - being able to spend gold for troops with special powers is an advantage for your nation, even if you pay gold for it on a per-unit basis, unless you are *forced* to spend way too much.
The Warrior is better than the Cavern Guard - the Cavern Guard comes in at 13g/22r. Since the Warrior doesn't pay rp for his armor, he comes in at only 13r. Since he's modestly better than the Cavern Guard, his gold+resource cost should be modestly higher - somewhere above 22. 30 is a good round number. The Bugrom get a number of infantry who are more or less similar to the Warrior - Warrior with Kite Shield is probably the best of them, so it's safe to use his cost for the other 3. All of them cost 30. All told, trading the Cavern Guard (and the other regular pales ones, who are pretty similar) for the Bugrom Warriors is a slight advantage overall - more elite troops are generally better, even at a proportionally higher price.
I hadn't yet assigned an mr and a mor to the warrior and guardian bugrom - I'll go ahead and copy these values from the cavern guard (both 12s,) and give the guardian a morale of 13.
Instead of Ancient Ones, the Bugrom gets the Matron and Gardener. Neither of these units is useless, but they are completely incapable of supporting a bless rush (which Ancient Ones and especially Seal Guard can do) so this is a significant drawback, in total.
The Harridan is more interesting as a unit - but it is intended *not* to be good enough to really support a bless rush strategy. With F9W9S9 you could get something going that would be terrifying in its way, but again, this is a step down.
So, the bugrom military has better non-sacreds, but seriously deficient sacreds. This is a net loss for the military end of the nation, justifying an improvement in their magic and magi.

In the capital, agartha gets E4F2W2D2 - Bugrom will get A3S3D3N3, which is 12 picks total and a step up, although not a huge one given the benefits of concentration.
In the provinces, Agartha gets only E2F1W1D1, some of the weakest non-capital magic in the early era. The Bugrom are going to get A2S2D2N2, which is a very significant step up because it greatly raises the quality of combat magic that you can spam.
In the capital, Agartha pays 400 gold for a sacred giant, who stays crunchy, even in milk. The Sorcerer Lord also stays crunchy, even if dipped in kerosene and set on fire, is a better thug even though he can't be blessed, and has an extra point of magic, although no holy.
So the Sorcerer Lord ought to cost slightly more than 400 * 2/3 ~= 250 (the x2/3 in cost for not being Sacred.) Beca, I'll make him cost quite a bit more than that - 350 gold each.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Sacred units actually cost less than their listed price because they cost 50% upkeep. This is a bigger deal in long games and less important in short games, but +50% seems to be the standard adjustment for being sacred. This is a completely distinct question from the advantage of being sacred - i.e. benefiting from blessings.
The High Queen has one *fewer* picks than the oracle, flies and has awe, but is a little girl instead of a giant, which is a very big deal in a combat caster. She's also old. I'll make her quite a bit cheaper - 250 gold.
The Queen is pretty comparable to the Earth Reader. She's quite a bit more fragile, but has an extra level of holy and flies. I'll make her cost 5 bucks more.
I'm going to give the Bugrom an admin 40 fort in their capital (which is quite a bit better than the Admin 30 which the Bugrom get) but, in exchange, I'm going to force the Bugrom to build Tel Cities everywhere else. Tel Cities *suck*, they have a high defense rating but they take 6 turns and 1400 gp to build for only an admin of 40.

All things taken together, the Bugrom are slightly worse than Agartha so far. They can't pull off a real sacred rush, the improvements in their magic are partially (although not entirely) offset by the price increase, and although they have a slightly better capital their overall fort selection is worse.

There are two more places I could give the bugrom advantages:
- I *could* make their Sorcerers (not the Sorcerer Lord) cost effective. Cheap units with astral magic make great communion slaves, and the Sorcerer is also a decent thug, to boot. If he's expensive, your ability to wield non-air magic suffers considerably.
- I could give them better scouts. This I will do.

I'm going to price the Sorcerer in at 150 gp. For a 3.75 pick non-sacred giant, this is a good deal, but still pricey to use him as a communion slave. Cheap communion slaves are one advantage that the Bugrom do not get.
I am going to give the Bugrom a flying scout (who will also be a spy.

In sum - I used EA Agartha as a guideline to figure unit costs, and to balance an improvement in the strength of my magic vs. an inability to pursue a sacred rush or other blessing strategy.

[Panpiper]

Taking inspiration from your example DrPraetorious, I did a rebalancing of Chaos Undivided. I then played a test SP game in a fairly tight map with several of the races you suggested. I got my *** kicked by Jotunheim and MA Caelum. I may have gone too far in my attempt to keep chaos down. Their units, one on one, are still quite elite, but they can build them in such small numbers that they get swamped.

Would you do me the huge favor perhaps of looking at my mod and tell me perhaps where I have gone wrong? The very low admin of the starting Dark Citadel was meant as a very significant part of the balance feature. I am not sure however that removing the resource bonus from the starting site was a good idea.