D'Tesh

[lemonjelly]

What about the art for the Necrototem improvement? Its a long, thin tower with a skull on top, if you want, I could re-colour it...

And, I didn't realise you were going to do levels of powers, my bad. Well, if your doing them for a lot of things, here are some more:
Healing
First Strikes
Invisibility?
Terrain Bonuses

And, I take it that its going to be a module? If not, can I merge it into Fallen Ages (when I finally release =P ) But, if it is a module, it will work anyway.

 

[Swinkscalibur]

I forgot about that improvement, if you could recolor that it'd be great, but if not It'd pass just fine. Should work as a module. But I hope it gets picked up cause I think its fair, easily balanced and both flavorful for both the play style and lore of the civ.

 

[lemonjelly]

Silly question, but what do you mean 'gets picked up'?

Here is the improvement, sorry for the lack of a button, but if you like the model, I'll make one for you.

 

[Swinkscalibur]

I just mean merged into the regular mod, thanks for the model, I'll look at it is soon as I get the chance.

 

[lemonjelly]

Ahh, okay. If you make a module, you don't need to update it for patches.

And, no problem.

 

[Valkrionn]

I'm a big fan of limiting the D'tesh like the Kuriotates, with the number of cities correlated to game map size. There are however a couple of issues with this
a) can the D'tesh build forts outside there borders?
b) is there a way for D'teshi forts to hold there territory better vs. enemy cities. (As of now forts are only good in unclaimed land. (Or would you let the terrain modifications and the corresponding undesirability of this land be the only detractor from enemies culture pushing D'tesh of their land)

All civs can build forts outside borders, so long as they are at least one plot away from other forts.

Really, the Wasteland is deterrent enough. And their Fort Commander is rather strong... Can do some serious damage to stacks approaching him.

On another note, some of the comments you made regarding melee and mounted experience got me thinking. If you are going to ban them from experience because lorewise it doesn't fit. Than why allow them to gain experience from buildings. Here are my ideas...

Can't remember off hand if the D'tesh have a Training Yard UB, but if they don't they should. It could be called "Necromantic Totem." This monument helps the D'teshi forces focus their energy to create more powerful unit types and it allows their arcane line to cast spells which would permanently boost the strength of units in the city.

Here are some spell ideas

Conjure Necromantic Armor - requires the Necromantic Totem building in the city. 6 turn cast time. (exact times can be balanced). Causes all melee and mounted units in the stack to gain the Necromantic Armor promotion (+40% defencive strength)

Conjure Enchanted Sword - essentially "Enchant Sword" without Enchantment mana. 3 turn cast time to compensate. Gives Enchanted Sword promotion to melee and mounted units. (+20% strength)

Infuse Strength - requires Necromantic Totem, and Chosen of D'tesh or Council of Four. 8 turn cast time. Gives an additional promotion to melee and mounted units in stack giving +20% strength.


I don't have time to write all my ideas but this should be enough to get the right idea. This building would be very important to the D'tesh, should have a slightly-average increase in hammer cost because of the boost it provides to mounted units as well. I like that it also encourages early development of the arcane line (which is flavor appropriate for the D'tesh)

The basic idea is good (Same reasoning for the Salthouse UB, the Morgue; Turn it into something they'll use), but too much and it's too strong. They're already a strong civ, and limiting their cities doesn't weaken them too much. I'd give each training building a one-time effect; Some first strikes, or defense, or whatever. Nothing strong.

 

[Swinkscalibur]

I will take that into account. I don't really want to change the power of the D'tesh, just give them more flavor. Basically I want to take into account the tech and building requirements of the various training buildings and work them into a system that allows the player to build one (the more I look into it, the more I think it should be fairly expensive) building and use it to give approximately 3 promotions (some promotions will overwrite each other) to melee and mounted units.

 

[Valkrionn]

I will take that into account. I don't really want to change the power of the D'tesh, just give them more flavor. Basically I want to take into account the tech and building requirements of the various training buildings and work them into a system that allows the player to build one (the more I look into it, the more I think it should be fairly expensive) building and use it to give approximately 3 promotions (some promotions will overwrite each other) to melee and mounted units.

That sounds fine; I'd just avoid anything too complicated or too powerful. Main reason I dislike the idea of a big list of spells.

 

[Kraydak]

You could appropriate the Leader mechanic to implement the flavor better. Mindless D'tesh undead (non-recon line) would be 0 strength, 0 move, 0 upkeep unless they were being commanded and in range. D'tesh Arcane would gain the ability to lead units (and maybe grant buffs to said units based on the level of Death and Shadow known). This *maybe* could be expanded to all arcane units with death 1 for their skeletons. The D'tesh palace and various other buildings would spawn immobile, weak, high command point/range units.

Further, you might be able to strip D'tesh of all normal happiness, but let their commanders cast spells in cities that costs command points but grants happiness at some exchange ratio, or just track unused command points.

Either way, you would want to add some "resident necromancer" type buildings or units available starting very early on.

 

[odalrick]

You could appropriate the Leader mechanic to implement the flavor better.

Brilliant idea.

And there is a promotion effect that gives happiness, it could be used instead of no unhappiness. Let the arcane units give, say +3 happy in own cities. Then each Adept could direct three citizens to do useful work, with unhappy citizens representing shambling, direction-less hordes rather than actually unhappy undead.

With auto-acquired promotions and normal promotions it would be easy to have differentiation in controlling ability depending on tier, level and investment.

 

[Swinkscalibur]

While those ideas sound great, all but the autoaquire promotion in the city is beyond the scope of both my ability and my desire to improve my ability.

edit: on second thought, I might have underestimated my ability. But I think I overestimated my like for the ideas. The thought that now comes to my head upon rereading some of them is micromanagement. Also I don't think its a great idea to brute force pigeon hole the D'tesh down the arcane line. I'm looking more a balance between lore and game play.

 

[Valkrionn]

You could appropriate the Leader mechanic to implement the flavor better. Mindless D'tesh undead (non-recon line) would be 0 strength, 0 move, 0 upkeep unless they were being commanded and in range. D'tesh Arcane would gain the ability to lead units (and maybe grant buffs to said units based on the level of Death and Shadow known). This *maybe* could be expanded to all arcane units with death 1 for their skeletons. The D'tesh palace and various other buildings would spawn immobile, weak, high command point/range units.

Further, you might be able to strip D'tesh of all normal happiness, but let their commanders cast spells in cities that costs command points but grants happiness at some exchange ratio, or just track unused command points.

Either way, you would want to add some "resident necromancer" type buildings or units available starting very early on.

Were I to do something like that, the Arcane units would be CAPABLE of it, but keep in mind, they're still undead bound to the will of D'tesh. They just have a bit more freedom than even the Recon, which is necessary for their magic.

What I'd prefer would be to allow direct training of the Dullahan UU. These units are the ONLY (Aside from Thanatos, who may as well be one and would be moved over to them) unit free of D'tesh. They still obey him, but only because their master Laroth wishes hem to.


As for the idea itself, I love the flavor of it but have some significant issues with it. For one thing, it would have to be made COMPLETELY clear what is required to move these units. For another, it's a lot of micromanagement being introduced into a civ which is rather free of it. Finally, the happiness idea would just be taking something implicit (No happy cap comes with a Mage Guild) and making it explicit (Need mages in a city for happiness.). Not a great idea in this situation, IMO.

Brilliant idea.

And there is a promotion effect that gives happiness, it could be used instead of no unhappiness. Let the arcane units give, say +3 happy in own cities. Then each Adept could direct three citizens to do useful work, with unhappy citizens representing shambling, direction-less hordes rather than actually unhappy undead.

With auto-acquired promotions and normal promotions it would be easy to have differentiation in controlling ability depending on tier, level and investment.

 

[lemonjelly]

Swinkscalibur, have you had a chance to look at the model yet?

Hmm... I can't see the problem with it, but why don't you make the mage guild remove a certain amount of unhappiness and unhealth, then make other buildings available through the Arcane techs that remove more unhappiness and unhealth?

 

[Swinkscalibur]

I haven't looked at it yet. I have been really busy what with the Holiday's and all. Happy New Year and stuff. I'll let you know what I think as soon as I get to it! (I'm sure it'll be great, at least 10 million times better than anything I could do.)

 

[Deon]

Double-click that file twice, it takes 10 seconds .

isn't it the same model from the game? And it has an icon.

 

[lemonjelly]

Its the same model, I changed the colour

 

[Deon]

Really? I don't see the model texture. What is its name? There're effect textures but no model texture.

 

[lemonjelly]

Yeah, but the 'glow' around it changed the colour a lot. I couldn't find an actual model texture though.

 

[Deon]

Oh I see. It was purple if I remember it correctly. I thought you meant the object texture .

 

[lemonjelly]

Yeah, it was purple originally. And, ah, I thought that as well before I checked the files, no biggie.

Its a really simple edit, and somebody could do a lot better easily.