Contemplating a Dominions 3 nation mod

[Avoraciopoctules]

After discovering how seemingly simple Dominions 3 modding might be (opened a couple of .dm files, looked simpler than scripting in Neverwinter Nights), Akula and I have been discussing the idea of working on a mod nation. Anything we should know starting from ground 0?

We have some definite ideas on the sort of nation we'd like to create, and I think I could Frankenstein sprites reasonably well once I finally download GIMP or buy a new copy of Photoshop, but I'm not sure where the best place to start would be.

[Username17]

OK, you want to have your nation fit in thematically with the rest of dominions. Dominions is sort of a meta-setting setting, but it still has style guidelines. You can make Korean-themed Dragon People or Hun themed cavalry barbarians, but you can't make a nation of giant robots or a nation of atheists.

Secondly, you want to figure out what kind of magic your guys do. It's tempting to have water benders that have a bunch of water and a random and healers who have a bunch of nature and a random and so on until you cover all the magic - but that's really broken. Remember: people build mothers of avalon and they don't feel stupid doing it.

And thirdly: you want to make your army have some sort of tactical theme. It should have some tactical depth and shit. But it should also be able to conquer indies with some relatively simple strategy. However, and this is perhaps most important of all: it should still be in line with available armies in its era. It's certainly tempting to give units a defense skill of 14, but seriously you should constantly remember that a trained human soldier has a 10 in most stats. Higher numbers should be reserved for things that have a real reason to have higher numbers - and those things should be priced accordingly.

-Username17

[Akula]

We were thinking a LA Caelum splinter with Blood (3), Air(3-4) and Astral (2-3). With some nature (2?) and a tiny amount of death (1) and water (1). Thematically, the ravens have pushed the high seraphs out and the high seraphs have turned to blood magic in an attempt to return to relevance elsewhere. The have infiltrated and suborned a small human nation and now serve as soldiers in the church of the new god, they hide themselves among the humans with magic.

Mechanically, we were looking at having two cap only mages that would be expensive high end blood/air or blood/astral casters. The would have a recruit anywhere mage assassin, with really ass combat stats something like hp 8 attack 7 defense 8. The big feature of the nation would be glamoured stealth caelian sacreds at every castle; these units would be average caelians with glamour tacked on, maybe an extra point of HP or two and str 10, but otherwise the same as a non iceclad caelian infantry. Real sacred iceclad caelians would be capital only and non stealthy, both would cost more then they do normally. They would borrow most of their basic military from man, so human longbowmen and a reasonable line holding infantryman, but nothing super exciting. They would have an illusionist look alike mage and a few heretic human mages that would have the nature and death access.

[Avoraciopoctules]

We are getting a lot of inspiration from this nation mod:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=35154

Hesalt is an interesting idea, but implemented poorly. Particularly the army composed of almost nothing but indies. I've been quite curious to see what something like Caelum would be like with a more conventional ground army (instead of mammoths) and sneaky flying units, and I think we could produce something better in terms of both mechanics and flavor.

The nation that the high seraphs take over will be located between Man and Ulm. We are thinking Longbowmen and crossbowmen both might be recruitable, but no well-armored and/or stealthy archers, since both of those are signature units of the factions we are drawing from. Melee foot soldiers won't be very great, but both vanilla and elite national knights will be available.

Though this nation will be a blood power, it will not be able to blood sacrifice to spread dominion. There will be at least one commander unit with a patrol bonus, and all the nation's good blood hunters will be glamoured.

EDIT:

Akula mentioned heretic human mages. These will mostly be the mages of the nation from before the High Seraphs showed up. The biggest heretics will be death mages of some kind, who the Seraphs really dislike due to their similarity to the Ravens, but who are sufficiently valuable and liked by the regular humies that they are tolerated.

[Username17]

LA Atlantis is an infantry heavy iceclad faction, it works pretty damn well.

Yeah, Hesalt doesn't seem that well thought out. Also, I don't know where the blood magic comes from in your idea. Seriously, the blood magic seems pretty left field - especially for people who are trying to not get noticed. Blood magic is the MOST visible of all the paths, because you're literally raiding villages to power it.

But sure. You've got a Late Age faction who have Sacred Iceclad Caelumites that backs up a human army, some of whom may have ice armor as well. That seems workable. Things to note:

If they are the people driven out by the Raptors, they shouldn't have any Death magic at all. Anyone who did Death Magic should have been able to stay. Thematically there just shouldn't be any Death Magic in the faction.

If you give Seraphs a nature sideline, even one point of it, Caelum becomes a clamming faction. With great Astral reserves comes great piles of Yazata. So having them be be excited enough about their sacred flying heavy infantry to get a bless for them would lead well into the astral focus.

It really sounds like you're falling into the trap of wanting to slather every kind of magic on your faction. MA Caelum is a magical Powerhouse because they have a build-anywhere caster who has A3W1 and 1.1 AWSD. That's seriously it. You don't need a Blood 3 caster and a Nature 2 caster and a Death caster and all that shit. You're an Air/Water/Astral position. That is a fine thing to be.

So you could have:

High Seraphs (capitol only): A3, W2, H2, 1.1 AWSN
Seraphs (build anywhere) A1, W1, 1.1 AWSN
Caelian Seers (capitol only) S2, A1
Human Illusionists (build anywhere) A2 .2SN
Seraphine (build anywhere) H2
Starlight Crafters (build anywhere) S1

You don't need to go "all crazy". Ice Clad troops are pretty awesome. And besides, it's the late era.

-Username17

[Avoraciopoctules]

LA Atlantis is an infantry heavy iceclad faction, it works pretty damn well.

That would make a pretty nice faction to compare against. Mictlan and Patala are also pretty interesting as powerful nations with a race of elite mages and soldiers supplementing the monkeys/humans. But Atlantis intrigues me because it has thematic connections to Caelum. They learned icecrafting from captive Caelians and used it to build equipment, ships, and cities. This implies that large numbers of Caelian icecrafters could be somewhere nearby, and thus that there's a decent chance of portraying Atlanteans as some kind of neighbor. Maybe a hero option.

Yeah, Hesalt doesn't seem that well thought out. Also, I don't know where the blood magic comes from in your idea. Seriously, the blood magic seems pretty left field - especially for people who are trying to not get noticed. Blood magic is the MOST visible of all the paths, because you're literally raiding villages to power it.

I believe there were 2 reasons for the idea. The first was to have the Seraphs looking into some kind of dark magic to fight the Death used by the Raptors. The whole conspiracy angle seemed like it might fit well with the the Seraphs abducting humans for their nefarious magical experiments. The second was because a national assassin who sucked in close combat but could use offensive Blood magic and a variant Eagle King summon with Grigori wings on the sprite both sounded neat.

On the other hand, dropping blood would simplify things quite a bit and I personally would enjoy playing the faction more if it focused on other stuff. Much less micromanagement, and also less evil. There are plenty of "depressing facts" in the faction already. Oh, and Mictlan already has a plot with nonhumans taking over and starting up a blood cult.

But sure. You've got a Late Age faction who have Sacred Iceclad Caelumites that backs up a human army, some of whom may have ice armor as well. That seems workable. Things to note:

If they are the people driven out by the Raptors, they shouldn't have any Death magic at all. Anyone who did Death Magic should have been able to stay. Thematically there just shouldn't be any Death Magic in the faction.

I think I can agree with this. Putting in fancy human heretic necromancers is interesting thematically, but it would give too much diversity and make regular Caelum's Harabs less unique.

If you give Seraphs a nature sideline, even one point of it, Caelum becomes a clamming faction. With great Astral reserves comes great piles of Yazata. So having them be be excited enough about their sacred flying heavy infantry to get a bless for them would lead well into the astral focus.

That sounds cool. I've always wanted to see a Caelum that made heavy use of their Astral national summons.

It really sounds like you're falling into the trap of wanting to slather every kind of magic on your faction. MA Caelum is a magical Powerhouse because they have a build-anywhere caster who has A3W1 and 1.1 AWSD. That's seriously it. You don't need a Blood 3 caster and a Nature 2 caster and a Death caster and all that shit. You're an Air/Water/Astral position. That is a fine thing to be.

So you could have:

High Seraphs (capitol only): A3, W2, H2, 1.1 AWSN
Seraphs (build anywhere) A1, W1, 1.1 AWSN
Caelian Seers (capitol only) S2, A1
Human Illusionists (build anywhere) A2 .2SN
Seraphine (build anywhere) H2
Starlight Crafters (build anywhere) S1

I think this is viable. We do want some kind of national assassin, but I am happy narrowing the focus to A/W/S with clamming potential. Interesting that you are suggesting Seraphs with randoms instead of the standard extra pick of Air of LA Caelum, but we are going to be writing a new unit description anyway, so it is definitely viable. The angle of these being a new generation of Caelian mages works, since there can a national emphasis on providing ice equipment to humans in addition to Caelians and developing Astral magic further.

You don't need to go "all crazy". Ice Clad troops are pretty awesome. And besides, it's the late era.

-Username17

You are right. Fancy glamoured flying infantry might be too high-magic for LA. And once again, that will probably simplify the design of this faction. Let's move away from the glamoured conspiracy angle. That makes Caelians overtly being regular soldiers much more plausible.

I would like the following in the faction's soldier lineup:
Recruit-anywhere:
- Human Light Infantry
- Human Heavy Infantry
- Human Longbowmen
- Human Knights
- Stealthy Caelian Infantry (the kind with ice-studded armor, shields, spears/swords)
Capital-only:
- Elite Human Knights (thinking ice armor, chill aura, ice blades, cold immunity)
- Holy Caelian Iceclads (not stealthy. mapmove 2 will mean there are times you won't be able to send them somewhere along with Yazatas)

Not sure what precisely to do with the infantry, or how much of the army should have ice gear instead of metal. And the army list is a little short, since those are just what I am fairly certain we want.

-------

With what we've discussed so far, I can see 3 stealth options the nation so far.
- Stealthy Caelian soldiers led by Seraphines
- National assassins of some kind.
- You mentioned human illusionists. Those could be nice magical support.

Holy Iceclads and Yazatas would both be a more powerful, but non-stealthy force. Hmm. Now I am thinking about Province Defense. This faction will be able to take a lot of provinces inside enemy lines and then fortify against enemy attack. Should they have strong or weak PD? Hesalt had a neat idea when they put Phantasmal Warriors in the PD, but Akula has pointed out that those made the faction exceptionally resistant to early attacks by some SCs. The only other faction that readily comes to mind is EA Arco, which had fliers in the PD after 20 points.

[Orca]

Why not combine the illusionist/assassin ideas? It's a fairly natural combo, 'I am your worst nightmare'. There's an EA side which has an illusionist assassin IIRC.

I wouldn't give that combo randoms though.

I wouldn't worry about the short army list. If you really want to pad it with a couple of trap options like most sides do, sure, but why bother?

[Avoraciopoctules]

Why not combine the illusionist/assassin ideas? It's a fairly natural combo, 'I am your worst nightmare'. There's an EA side which has an illusionist assassin IIRC.

I wouldn't give that combo randoms though.

Definitely viable. Hesalt has an Illusionist assassin, but the modder gave it Air 1, with no randoms. Much less exciting than even a regular illusionist.

Just A2 would likely be enough for reliable assassinations via phantasmal warriors and lighting.

I wouldn't worry about the short army list. If you really want to pad it with a couple of trap options like most sides do, sure, but why bother?

I like having lots of pretty units to play with. One of the reasons I really enjoy playing MA Mictlan. The probably-terrible Sun Warriors are still kind of nice as an option I wouldn't otherwise have.

[Orca]

Well, if that's what you want ...

Crappy light cavalry appears on many lists. Give them ice studded armour, 50% cold resist, bucklers, a light lance and a shortbow and you've got your version. Or something like that. I'm sure you can do pretty sprites for them too.

Besides light infantry (spears?) and heavy infantry (swords?) you could add axemen and/or users of the polearm of your choice. One of them could get a minor buff like +1 patrol perhaps.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Talked with Akula a couple hours ago, and he seemed fine with stripping Blood, Death, and so on out of the faction. I remember him saying something about wanting to keep glamour and replacing Amesha Spentas with summonable eagle kings, but I don't recall the details.

He pointed out that chill auras on soldiers is actually pretty powerful. Probably best if only commander knights get free Rime Hauberks.

=========================

Okay, I downloaded GIMP, and after discovering my Mac was too old, I moved the operation to the Dom 3 PC. I took a Photoshop class a few years ago, so I can probably get the hang of this if I put some effort in.

I'm fiddling around with knight sprites, and you can see one below:


I took a knight of the Chalice, selected the armor's color range, and applied several layers of blue at 10% opacity. Looks a little better than I expected, but I'll definitely want to change some details. What's a decent national symbol that would be reasonably easy to add to armor on a sprite? Snowflake is the obvious choice, but it might be tricky putting a six-pointed star or similar on a shield given the small number of pixels I have to work with.

[K]

Why not combine the illusionist/assassin ideas? It's a fairly natural combo, 'I am your worst nightmare'. There's an EA side which has an illusionist assassin IIRC.

I wouldn't give that combo randoms though.

Definitely viable. Hesalt has an Illusionist assassin, but the modder gave it Air 1, with no randoms. Much less exciting than even a regular illusionist.

Just A2 would likely be enough for reliable assassinations via phantasmal warriors and lighting.

Air 1 is enough for Phantasmal Warrior and Orb Lightning, more than enough for a viable assassin. It's also enough for Flight, Mirror Image, Air Shield, and Mistform if you blow a gem. Charge Body and Shocking Grasp are also possible and powerful in an assassination situation

When you look at modded nations, you need to look for the hidden tactic that will get abused. In this case, it's the Air 1 that makes an almost unbeatable assassin.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Aha! Makes a bit more sense, then. This is why it's awesome to conceptualize with people who know the game. Did a little more casual spriting, and afterwards realized that the Bogarus military looks very lootable.

[Akula]

Okay, I did some coding and ran a single test, glamoured Iceclad with a major earth bless still enter melee with 20 fatigue after flying and attacking. I modded HP and str to 10 and they still couldn't hit indies with reliability, let alone kill them. And prot 20 was useless as they seemed to take 7+ damage on every hit.

EDIT: Gonna try lowering base incumbrance to something an E bless has a prayer of catching up to and increase attack skill by 1.

[Avoraciopoctules]

20 Fatigue with 4 reinvig after entering melee? Ouch. If we want deadly sacreds, this will be problematic, and it will look odd if we diverge from Caelian base stats too much.

I was planning to do some more spriting, but my spriting computer got hijacked for shooting zombies. Instead, I'll look at unit ideas during open time in my library shift.

[Akula]

I reduced the base incumbrance by 2 and upped base attack from 11 to 12. That appears to make all the difference. They still die to squads of militia if the fight goes long enough, but now they can actually kill enemies and raid PD effectively, I am happy.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Nice. Interesting to see how much difference a couple of stat points makes.

[Akula]

Codedump: You can copy paste these into the hesalt mod, as long as you replace the monster with the one with the same number.

--Caelian Seer
#newmonster 2712
#copyspr 202
#copystats 202
#clearmagic
#magicskill 1 1
#magicskill 8 1
#magicskill 4 2
#name "Caelian Seer"
#illusion
#nobadevents 5
#poorleader
#holy
#gcost 250
#descr "Placeholder"
#end

--Caelian Seraph
#newmonster 2700
#copyspr 202
#copystats 202
#clearmagic
#magicskill 1 1
#magicskill 2 1
#custommagic 11008 100
#custommagic 11008 10
#name "Caelian Seraph"
#holy
#poorleader
#stealthy 20
#illusion
#gcost 200
#descr "Placeholder"
#end

--Seraph Lord
#newmonster 2693
#copyspr 203
#copystats 203
#clearmagic
#magicskill 1 3
#magicskill 2 2
#magicskill 8 2
#custommagic 11008 100
#custommagic 11008 10
#name "Seraph Lord"
#illusion
#goodleader
#holy
#gcost 350
#descr "When the ruling seraphs fled Caelum, they quickly realized that in order to survive they must put their magic to new uses, and eventually they were able to rediscover the ancient art of glamour. Using this power they quickly assassinated and took the forms of the nobility in the remote nation of Hesalt. Under their leadership the once backwater kingdom has become a force to be reckoned with."
#end

--Soldier of the Spire
#newmonster 2701
#copyspr 132
#copystats 132
#hp 10
#str 10
#att 12
#enc 3
#name "Soldier of the Spire"
#holy
#illusion
#descr "Placeholder"
#gcost 35
#end

More code, these units are new and need the following lines added to the addrec section of the mod:
#addreccom 2721
#addreccom 2720

--Seraphine
#newmonster 2720
#copyspr 204
#copystats 204
#name "Seraphine"
#illusion
#descr "Placeholder"
#gcost 90
#end

--Starlight Crafter
#newmonster 2721
#copyspr 478
#copystats 1283
#name "Starlight Crafter"
#enc 3
#clearspec
#coldres 50
#magicskill 4 1
#forgebonus 15
#descr "When the Caelians came to Hesalt, they realized that they would need someone to arm the pathetically equipped soldiers of their new kingdom. But the Icecrafters who had long provided weapons for the Caelian war machine were few in number, and the task was beyond their resources. So the drew on the mages of the kingdom and taught them the secrets of icecrafting. The Starlight Crafter used to be a mage in the service of a minor prince, but has accepted tutelage from the Caelian masters of Hestalt and now crafts magical ice for the kingdom."
#gcost 100
#end

[Avoraciopoctules]

I am presently writing in between answering questions at the library. This means I am in a decent position to write flavor text. It would probably be best to figure out what background we want to take with the faction first. Here's my first thoughts:

The Seraphs get pushed out of Caelum by the Raptors. Lots of Caelians get scattered in all directions, but a substantial number go to the frozen northlands, where they can exist comfortably. However, the Atlanteans have already staked a claim there and are none too friendly. Those of the Seraphs and their followers who survive and escape enslavement to fuel Atlantis's new ice-based civilization learn to keep a low profile, the most sophisticated mastering glamour magic. Astral begins to appear in the fom of seers who predict danger before it appears. Eventually, the Seraphs begin to thrive in obscurity and their numbers force them to relocate to avoid war with Atlantis.

The Seraphs find a new, moderately successful human civilization nearby, one with relatively rudimentary magic. On the flipside, they have lots of people, and their military is strong enough that it could serve as a great defense. The Seraphs make a bargain with the rulers of this human kingdom and the civilizations merge.

===========================

If someone could post the text from LA Caelum's ingame nation description page, I'd find that useful. I could use that as a base for writing one for the new nation.

[Akula]

Caelum is a magocracy of winged humanoids inhabiting the highest mountain peaks. In ancient times, there were three Caelian clans, but when the Harab Seraphs of the Raptor Clan began to study the dark ways, the High Caelians condemned them and civil war broke out. The Raptor Clan was banished and scattered across the world. The Eagle Kings were replaced by the High Seraphs of the Palace of Frozen Crystal. But now a new God is rising and the scattered tribes have gathered. The Raptors returned to Caelum and overthrew the magocracy. Harab Seraphs, the mage-priests of this new and dark faith, have replaced the High Seraphs and black-winged Raptors have become the ruling elite. Now the Raptors have cast their eyes upon other nations. The Harab Seraphs are skilled in Air, Death and Earth magic. Some Seraphs are still alive and craft the magical ice that Caelians use instead of regular metal. The ice tempers with lower temperatures and the heavy ice armor is more durable in cold climates than in warmer ones. All weapons crafted from the ice are magical and capable of harming magical beings. The High Caelians live in the coldest mountain peaks and are unaffected by low temperatures. They are thin and light. Spire Horn Caelians are less resistant to cold but have partial resistance to lightning. The Raptor Clan Caelians live on the lower mountain slopes and are of heavier stock. They are not as resistant to the elements as the other Caelians. The Caelians are skilled archers and prefer hit-and-run tactics, even though they do have some heavy troops, such as huge Mammoths.
____________________________

EDIT: Less friendly coexistence and more seizing control by any means. This is dom 3 after all.

[Akula]

More codedump, this time it is a sacred iceclad knight (human, not caelian). Fluff should indicate that they were the first to serve the new god among the humans and are above all others of their kind in his/her esteem. It is recruit anywhere.

Copy into the addrecunit section:
#addrecunit 2694

And the unit itself:
--Royal Knight of Hesalt
#newmonster 2694
#name "Royal Knight of Hesalt"
#descr "The royal knights used to serve the king of Hesalt. When the king entered into an alliance with the Seraphs they were the first to be equipped in the caelian model. When the new god came to Hesalt and the king refused to bow to its will, the knights quietly disposed of him and swore their loyalty. For this they are first among the humans in the eyes of the new god and are sacred to it."
#copyspr 57
#copystats 57
#clear
#ap 20
#mapmove 2
#hp 12
#prot 0
#size 3
#ressize 2
#str 12
#enc 5
#att 12
#def 12
#prec 9
#mr 12
#mor 13
#eyes 2
#mounted
#gcost 50
#rcost 12
#weapon "Lance" | 4
#weapon "Hoof" | 56
#weapon "Ice Blade" | 37
#iceprot 2
#holy
#coldres 50
#armor "Ice Hauberk"
#armor "Ice Aegis"
#armor "Ice Helmet"
#end

[Avoraciopoctules]

Alright. The Caelians stab the humie king in the face and electrocute his homies. The glamoured Caelians then replace much of the upper class and once they have enough secret police to control the masses they officially accept any non-glamoured Caelian immigrants not down with the dark magic.

EDIT: just saw your last post. The knights doing the dirty work does fit better.

[Akula]

At this point the core of the nation is put together, still remaining to be done on the coding end are:

Replacing the troop line up with real national troops.
Rewriting the PD to use said troops, maybe dropping the phantasms.
Writing a new generic national commander.
Changing the capital sites and gem income.
Writing one national summon and copying another.
Changing the heros to be more heroic.

[Avoraciopoctules]

And graphics are progressing. Image below.



I think we are far enough along to start a thread in IMOI. Or just have this one moved.

[Akula]

Hi guys, I don't know how many people care about this, but Hesalt should have a playable alpha tomorrow, currently I need to fix the PD and starting army, then I need to add a few national spells and heros.

Okay, seems that you cannot use different pd codes in the same game.

[Akula]

I need a work around for the PD code, it keeps crashing the game when I try and open the recruit menu.