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It turns out that LA R'lyeh makes a great disciple nation because they don't drive their teammates insane. I'm sure there will be several other thoughts regarding what makes a good team, like picking nations that benefit from similar scales (all moderate-to-high resource nations that can benefit from 2 or 3 Prod, for example). It's pretty cool. I guess I failed to stay away from the beta completely. At least I have avoided touching MA or any aquatic nation? 
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Sep 4, 2013 17:23
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 18:50 |
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Where can I find my order number if I bought it from Desura? EDITED to remove instructions that were well in excess of what is required. Schneeble fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Oct 12, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 11:54
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Lilli posted:The turns are essentially as short or as long as you want them to be. Early on they will be very short, but end game turns will generally last a good deal longer if you want them to. This being said, I pretty much never spend more than 15 minutes on a turn; even if I'm huge in the late stages of a game. The trick to beating Lilli--as has been proved by science*--is to lose embarrassingly, long enough for her to start getting bored. Then you put together an alliance capable of orchestrating a coordinated strike against as many points as possible! Sure, she's capable of responding to all the little threats... but she won't be able to bring herself to invest the time required to do that. Victory! * Sample size of one Let's Play
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Oct 12, 2013 03:07
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ShadowCatboy posted:What... WHAT?! God dammit Shrapnel Games! Every time I think I escape your clutches you drag me back in!!! If it helps, it's not Shrapnel any more (right now you can only get it through Desura) and it's not pre-order any more either!
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Oct 18, 2013 09:58
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NinjaDebugger posted:Schneeble may still have our notes from when we were trying to get Awesome Heroes going, if you're interested. I'm not sure your ideas will align super well with mine, but it's worth a try. Talk at me on IRC if you like, or I have PMs. I just went diggin around for that file and it was not in any of the likely locations. If it turns up I'll let you know but in the meantime you'll have to go from memory and/or current inspiration.
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Oct 29, 2013 01:59
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Daeren posted:I just look at the replays and see all the fast-and-furious backstabs, political moves, and out-of-game diplomacy. While the game looks pretty great, and that sort of thing seems fun to a degree, I just wanna do my thing, not be expected/required to make shady deals on IRC to survive, and not get massacred or dragged into Diplomacy-style machinations every time I'm trying to learn something or be on my own. Is there space to just be like "yo, make me an offer and I'll help you out and lose FOR you in exchange for you helping me not get hosed over by other people"? Isn't there a new mode where it's two teams, and the leaders are the ones who win proper if the teams win? The Disciple (team) games are quite fun and we do see them often enough. There have been a whole mess of new games going up lately and certainly more on the way; two- and three-player team games seem to provide a nice balance of cooperation and effort so I suspect there will be quite a few of those as time goes on.
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Dec 6, 2013 12:23
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ninjewtsu posted:I would love to see how this plays out. I don't imagine you guys are doing a whole big Let's Play deal out of it, but will there be anyone anywhere describing this match in any detail? I'm pretty sure that at least one member of the Something Awful team will post some sort of AAR here in this very thread. Even if it's just me, just once, at the very end of the game.
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Dec 14, 2013 00:10
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Dinomod is available for Dom4 So I've been sitting on this version of the mod (more or less) for over a month now as I tried to get together a little play-testing game, but due to holidays and illnesses and home ownership troubles the players were never really able to contribute all at the same time and I grew impatient. Therefore I'm releasing this very early build of what is sometimes referred to as "dinomod". The whole Esubonten project is already more or less mapped out across all three eras, but the first and most complete is Early Era. EA Esubonten is playable, though currently it has only one hero (ultimately it will have 5 heroes and a multihero). I also need to convert some of the national spells over from the Dom3 version and I've not yet done that. The biggest bottleneck is of course sprite work. I drew all of the human sprites from scratch, added new hadrosaur sprite, and completely re-created the troodon sprites. Ultimately I will also re-do the triceratops and ankylosaur, and touch up the tyrannosaur, pyroraptor, and pteranodon. Besides that I have hero sprites to make. All of that being said, the core elements of the nation are in place and the whole thing hangs together well enough to be playable and get balance feedback. The nation is loosely inspired by the Akan cultures of western Africa, but of course it also has dinosaurs thanks to a magical river valley that is a sort of portal to another world and time. Those themes are consistent across all eras of the nation: MA will have a sort of ice age and megafauna like mastodons and smilodons and the like, while LA will see the supply great beasts dry up all together. Anyway I don't have a fancy roster image and I don't have time to put one together, so have a screenshot of the recruitment screen (it won't show everything but it's a start) and a link to the latest version of the mod.  Esubonten Mod 0.05 I am curious to know what folks think of the flavor, the balance, and of any bugs that may appear.
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Jan 16, 2014 17:00
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dis astranagant posted:Unless it's changed the raptor assassin priests autocast divine blessing. Yeah, that's changed per Pavlov's observations. Pavlov posted:Edit: Oh wow, nevermind. See these guys spawn two sacred bodyguards every fight, that they immediately bless. Two or three raptor assassins can take out low province defense or militia indies with the right bless. Four can take out moderate province defense. So not only are they stealth preacher assassins, they're also stealth raiders and have full slots. All for 145 gold too. Yes, they are pretty much the star of the nation. They may (or may not) need to have their costs tweaked, but their power represents a shift from the Dominions 3 version of this mod in which they were mostly bless-casters for the T-rex or pyroraptor units. Overall the national mages are not top-tier, and the fact that the strongest priest is a cap only H2 is a deliberate handicap. The national spells that exist in the old Dom 3 mod are only to summon more pyroraptors or T-rexes, and not to get better priests. That's an interesting idea, though. Thanks! In my limited testing the assassins can generally take most commanders up to "ponymans" at which point it becomes a toss-up. Mages are relatively easy targets early, but bodyguards will pose a problem. In that vein I may actually give the assassin a Patience penalty (to allow for more bodyguards) rather than fiddle with the gold cost. Such changes really depend on how the mod works in practice. I do appreciate the feedback, and the kind words. My intent with the mod is to make it feel like it could fit into a vanilla game (in terms of both flavor and mechanics). If you spot anything that you think needs improvement please let me know! In the meantime I will slowly plug away on sprite improvements until EA is fully fleshed out.
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Jan 16, 2014 20:58
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a terrible ivan posted:I've noticed that Esufo Chiefs/Leatherback cavalry's effective attack is few points lower than their attack skill. If I understand this right the reason for that is lack of #bonus command on their "Head Butt" weapon. Might be something that you want to change. Also green pants on green lizard make me see a dino centaur. Good catch! I assumed that the head butt weapon had #bonus on it, but I guess I'll have to make my own version that does. I wasn't sure about the green on green thing either, I could stand to palette swap that guy's clothes. FnF posted:Doesn't that mean they're too good? Versatility is a valuable commodity and worth paying a premium for. I remember these little devils costing something like 7g/1r which is just crazy (unless they're not recruit-anywhere any more...). Although in my limited experience I only fought them once, with an F9 bless they shredded through things outrageously quickly. With the N bless now giving hit points, that'd be even more beneficial to them, granting a proportionally higher amount of HP than to other sacreds. And they're size 1 too. The same bless doesn't work for each approach (a bless that is good for the T-rex is not great for the little raptors or the assassin, and so on) and the nation as a whole has fairly weak, nonsacred mages and weak priests. Those drawbacks are part of the cost of having other options. Also the little tiny raptors are not freespawn so that's not really a thing. I mean, I acknowledge that they were at one point in the Dominions 3 version but they are not now. Snollygoster posted:The last time I played dinomod it had sacred, trampling, 18-move T-rexes with Devour skateboarding across almost everything in their path. I'm sure that got adjusted but it didn't leave me with a great impression. :\ It would be really excellent if I could get the balance right the first time, but then as now I release what I've got in part to get feedback and to see what other people's thoughts and experiences are so that I can make the mod better. I'm sorry that you had to suffer through the SwallowTimes and I hope we can work through the pain I've caused you together, as professionals if not as friends. Pavlov posted:The real drawback with the T-Rex is that it's Mres 8, which means that unless you go strong astral bless, they'll all get mage-murdured or charmed by your enemies if you fight a human with them. Even with the astral they'll still probably get taken. Actually, low Mres is a drawback in all of their dino troops (i.e. all of their good troops). That said, the T-Rex could probably get knocked down from fear 8 to 5 to be more in line with vanilla. I don't think a T-Rex is that much scarier than a hydra. T-rex was fear-5 in an earlier build and I nudged it up based on a suggestion from early tests. I'm comfortable nudging it back down to 5.
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Jan 18, 2014 04:58
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amuayse posted:Have you considered #reclimit? I have, and as TheDemon mentioned there is also #slowrec; It will just take some fiddling before they are in an ideal place.
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Jan 18, 2014 22:03
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dis astranagant posted:The dinomod spearmen are 587 years old for some reason and thus completely useless. That is ridiculous. I didn't do anything to their age or anything that would impact it so I don't know why that would happen. Thanks for the catch, I'll fix it. Donkringel posted:I am liking the Esufo swordsmen. I can mass them fairly quickly assuming I can find a forest province, and they're ok up close. Yeah, there's a lot of undisciplined going on with dinosaurs which makes for interesting challenges in spite of the strong stats. EDIT: dis_astrangant, I'm not seeing the age thing on the spearmen in the current version. All of the spearmen are showing up as ~22 out of 50 years old, whether I look at the starting ones or ones I've just recruited. Schneeble fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 01:40
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Esubonten "DinoMod" v0.06 Available After taking into consideration feedback here and at the Dom4mods forum I have a new version of the EA dinosaur-centric mod ready to go. The changelog looks like this: v0.06 posted:* Added head butt attack that is a near copy of weapon 300 but with the #bonus tag and flat damage. This weapon only applies to the hadrosaur as a mount. Additionally I changed the kente of the cavalry units to make it easier to distinguish man from hadrosaur, and I swapped out the old triceratops sprite. The new one may need some more tweaking but after a long break from working on these sprites I'm not ashamed of it so in it goes. Thanks for the feedback from the last round, and I hope you enjoy playing with the new version!
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Jan 26, 2014 04:34
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Irony.or.Death posted:Sup literally everyone else on my team  I have moved to the "Dragons are at least a little overrated" camp.
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Feb 5, 2014 03:13
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I am taking a break from dinomod updates and thought I'd try my hand at another hex map. This one is for a 12-player disciple game, divided into 4 teams of 3. Everything is more or less symmetrical. There are some ocean provinces around the edges and caves in the middle, some some river crossings and mountain passes and choke points where hexes don't connect to their neighbors, and in the caves there is a connection along the edge of other hexes as the tunnels go "underneath." The city icons show start locations but are not part of the in-game map.
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Feb 12, 2014 22:39
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Kenlon posted:I want to do hills/mountains/trees in the same style as the Jason Lutes maps (Cradle/Glory), but GIMP is being difficult - it looks like the only way to get what I want is to make them as brushes, and then be very careful not to drag the mouse when putting them onto the map. Which is pretty dumb. That is pretty dumb, but you seem to be off to an excellent start. Looking forward to the result!
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Feb 13, 2014 21:05
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Esubonten "DinoMod" v0.07 Available The latest version of the mod is available here. The changelog looks like this: v0.07 posted:* Added two merc groups (one in EA only, the other in EA and MA). This change (and the sprite adjustments that went with it) marks the end of any major tweaking or sprite work or whatever in the EA incarnation of the mod nation. The next version that I make available will include the initial playable build of MA Esubonten. I only have maybe 1/3 of the sprites ready at this time so it may be a while before that release. Thanks to those who provided feedback on this mod and on the earlier Dom3 version, fraught with drama as that experience was for some of you.
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Feb 17, 2014 02:41
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Several months later, I've finally gotten around to finishing the Middle Era incarnation of Esubonten, the Dominions mod nation loosely inspired by combining certain elements of the (primarily) Akan and (secondarily) Mande cultures of western Africa--with the ultimate objective of having a Caribbean-inspired late era--with the idea that Dominions could do with some dinosaurs and other badass animals from the before-times. The first installment of this mod trilogy went up back in February and can be found here. I keep fiddling with the dinosaur sprites because, quite frankly, I struggle with the use of more dramatic shading to show depth and as a result many of my sprites look flat. So any time I release one of these major updates there's a chance that I've discreetly replaced some of the sprites. ANYWAY, this post is to discuss the freshly-minted MA release and to see what you fine folks think of it. Anyway, just like with the EA post I will include a screenshot of the recruitment screen from the capital (though there are a couple of foreign recruits that are not included and I should talk about those as well), along with a link to the .zip. Incidentally (if you're playing with the EA version of the mod) this mod also updates the EA to version 0.08, which makes the following changes over version 0.07: 0.08 posted:* Added Hypnotic Charm, which grants 2d6 Hungry Flame bodyguards, the Mesmerize attack (5 ammo and all), and 6 Gluttony at Const 4 and a cost of 5 A gems.  Esubonten Mod 0.31 A couple of things to note: The mainline troops have bells on their shields, which mechanically make them appear more numerous than they are. In practice this seems to do weird things to scouting reports but I rather like it. An army with maybe 30-something of them might show up in a scouting report as being an army of "about 84 units" which shows me that the mechanic is working, but provides oddly specific estimates. There don't seem to be as many big animals! I've got giant emus (as cavalry), mastodons (as non-trampling archer platforms that change shape to permanently lose one archer, then the other), and (as summons only) smilodons. I'm also borrowing (in that same summon) great bears, dire wolves, and great boars. One of the conceits of this nation is that the humans have--largely for political reasons--moved away from using most of the big animals available. Most of the dinosaurs of EA have died off, unfortunately. Only the smaller raptors remain (the littlest are still summons while the human-sized ones are much more integrated into the nation). In EA, one of the key commanders was the nation's only priest, an H1 (troodon) assassin. In MA the troodons are starting to grow more civilized and are now called asani. They still have assassins. Although they don't have innate spellcasting or come with automatic bodyguards, the assassins do self-bless automatically in combat and are powerful enough to deal with most basic commanders before magic ramps up too much. The nation's mages are, on the whole, pretty diverse but not tremendously powerful. The core mage is the goldsmith, who focuses on F but has some access to E, A, and D. The other recruit anywhere mage is weak and probably useful mostly for site searching or utility tasks, but she has limited access to W, A, and N. The last two mages are a foreign-only mage who is not strong but adds D access, and a StR capital only mage with W, A, and N paths. Anyway, this is all a bit rough and I've literally only tested the whole thing enough to know that the units, items, and spells work the way that they are supposed to. As far as power and playability are concerned I'm shooting for somewhere in the ballpark of "feels like an average vanilla Dom4 nation."
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Jun 10, 2014 01:10
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I Love You! posted:In general i support mods that add a small amount of content over those that dramatically change existing content, though I'm also not really one for mods in general especially during the early phases of a game's life where the meta is still being tested out. Then you should totally try out my dino-mods as linked on the previous page. It adds a small amount of content (a nation in MA and one in EA) and does not change existing content! Also there are dinosaurs. 
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Jun 11, 2014 02:15
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 18:50 |
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Dre2Dee2 posted:Just downloaded and browsing some of the units a bit, I really like the fluff you've come up with. I always felt like there should've been some real deal dinos in EA, so I'm definitely going to try this out. Thanks! Let me know what you think. As for the gluttony trait, it seemed like the most thematic drawback available (aside from the low MR, which I did and which keeps with the dominions template for animals but is also kind of boring).
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Jun 11, 2014 12:03
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