Since I discovered the tweaker I couldn't stop making changes to the game. Here is my version, made for my own enjoyment (it has no pretention of being a "balance" mod), but some may like to test.
last version : http://www.sendspace.com/file/yrx42u
My most important changes were in the building tree, as I wanted to offer more choice in early game / for new settlements while also opening alchemist guilds and war college to more races but slowing a little the military and powerful buildings developpment.
So,
- I removed the builder's hall requirement for granary, shrine and library. Builder's hall is instead used to enable tier 2 buildings (temple, guilds, etc..), and has a slightly increased cost.
- I made a smithy needed for sawmill and barracks, and barracks + builder hall needed for city walls
- A temple is now needed to produce shamans, so no building allowing to build troops better than spearmen is directy available
- I changed requirement for alchemist guild, now only needing library and armory, but increased its cost a lot
- as well for war college, the requirements have been lowered to fighter guild and sage guild
- armorer's guild is so now more optional than before (for races not getting good units at this stage nor needing it for fantastic stables) but I gave it a cool effect : it now reduce a lot the upkeep of fighter's guild (from 5 to 1)
- there are cross requirement for religious and research buildings, slowing the access to mage and priests (sage guild is needed for parthenon, temple is needed for university)
The effect of these changes is to offer more interesting choices in early and mid game. For example with fighter guild, armory and sage guild you have the possibility to directly research the very expensive war college to get better troops, or first go for armorer's guild to reduce your cost, or another possibility is to make the alchemist guild all races can now build.
I also made a lot of change to units and races...
As I wanted to make terrain more important and combat less predictable, a lot of units (notably all non dwarves swordsmen and most elite racial units) get an extra 0,5 movement point, allowing them to move 2 tiles through clear terrain, and making harder to use fire and retreat against them in combat.
Halberdiers and spearmen remain as slow as before, but halberdiers have been largely boosted (at the price of an increased cost) all getting armor piercing attack and better defense, and spearmen, while still crappy, now have negate first strike for most races.
To compensate the melee units being faster, all bowmen have recieved +1 to their ranged attack, or some other bonuses.
For the races, my main goal was to make generic races less generic, so I mostly changed orcs and nomads.
Orcs have now more special units : their swordsmen have 2 movement (haven't they outrun Aragorn ?), their bowmen and shamans are mountaineers, and they get very special "mages" (in fact more necromancers), not good at range but able to teleport in combat and turning defeated enemies into undead. On the other hand orcs have lost the ability to build cathedrals, making harder for them to developp big cities.
Nomads are more nomads and the globally fastest race (only equalled by gnolls). All their troops got increased movement at the price of reduced combat stats. They also get settlers moving at 2 and able to defend themselves, and the fastest outpost growth, but an as bad city growth as elves, and they have lost the ability to build cathedral, mechanician and animist guilds, while now having access to their own mages, who don't use fire ball spell but have a wind walking ability.
Dwarves is the only race to remain as slow as in vanilla, with only move 1 units, but now all dwarves have the construction ability, while their engineers have been replaced by (rather crappy) slingers, their melee units got increased defense, and their golem is now the only recruitable magic immune creature (an ability I removed from paladins).
Halflings, to simulate their small size making hard to hit them at range have all recieved the large shield bonus (which was also increased to 3 shields).
High elves have a scouting bonus for their cavalry and longbowmen, who also recieved the long range ability. Their mages now use nature magic, and instead of fireball are now able to cast a heal spell.
Lizardmen have special shamans, more expensive than others but who have learned from lizards replacing their tails how to regenerate, and their javeliners use poison now. While still having no access to buildings increasing production, lizardmen can now build sage and alchemist guilds as well as war colleges.
Dark elves non caster units have lost one ranged shot, while their casters have gained one. Their warlocks now use the web spell instead of doom bolt, more thematic for a race worshiping a spider goddess and a little less frustrating when you have to take their cities in endgame. They are also now able to planeshift, so beware of surprise warlocks attack.
Trolls now have war mammoths that should be feared, being the strongest unit with first strike and armor piercing and also cold immune. Out of that and the ability to build alchemist guilds they also get mountaineer swordsmen and shamans.
High men paladins have been made more paladins than immune tanks, losing their magic immunity (replaced by a death and stoning only one) but gaining healing abilities (finally that's an healer unit that should survive some fights especially as their defense has been increased too).
Barbarians and draconians are mostly unchanged but their special units got a little boost (first strike for berserkers, more defense for doom drakes)
Finally I changed many spell casting costs (and some effects) too.
- All nature summons as well as early death and chaos ones have largely reduced casting costs, so expect to see large armies of skeletons, bears or hell hounds early
- I nerfed some spells I find very annoying / overpowered like disenchant area (cost increased to 90, so it should be rarely seen on battlefield before very endgame ; on the other hand I reduced the costs of standard dispell magic and disenchant true), flame strike (reduced damage by half), crack calls (cost increased), meteor storm (casting cost doubled) and confusion (save a little easier and now not affecting illusion immune creatures)
-I made harder to resist against warp creature
-I reduced the cost of some death globals like eternal night, which combined with cheaper summons should make death as powerful as other schools
-I reduced a little spell of mastery research cost but increased its casting cost to 8k mana
First version : [url="http://www.filefactory.com/file/3xndw973flsj/n/onemoremod_zip
"]http://www.filefactory.com/file/3xndw973flsj/n/onemoremod_zip
[/url]
v2 http://www.sendspace.com/file/qscr7p
last version : http://www.sendspace.com/file/yrx42u
My most important changes were in the building tree, as I wanted to offer more choice in early game / for new settlements while also opening alchemist guilds and war college to more races but slowing a little the military and powerful buildings developpment.
So,
- I removed the builder's hall requirement for granary, shrine and library. Builder's hall is instead used to enable tier 2 buildings (temple, guilds, etc..), and has a slightly increased cost.
- I made a smithy needed for sawmill and barracks, and barracks + builder hall needed for city walls
- A temple is now needed to produce shamans, so no building allowing to build troops better than spearmen is directy available
- I changed requirement for alchemist guild, now only needing library and armory, but increased its cost a lot
- as well for war college, the requirements have been lowered to fighter guild and sage guild
- armorer's guild is so now more optional than before (for races not getting good units at this stage nor needing it for fantastic stables) but I gave it a cool effect : it now reduce a lot the upkeep of fighter's guild (from 5 to 1)
- there are cross requirement for religious and research buildings, slowing the access to mage and priests (sage guild is needed for parthenon, temple is needed for university)
The effect of these changes is to offer more interesting choices in early and mid game. For example with fighter guild, armory and sage guild you have the possibility to directly research the very expensive war college to get better troops, or first go for armorer's guild to reduce your cost, or another possibility is to make the alchemist guild all races can now build.
I also made a lot of change to units and races...
As I wanted to make terrain more important and combat less predictable, a lot of units (notably all non dwarves swordsmen and most elite racial units) get an extra 0,5 movement point, allowing them to move 2 tiles through clear terrain, and making harder to use fire and retreat against them in combat.
Halberdiers and spearmen remain as slow as before, but halberdiers have been largely boosted (at the price of an increased cost) all getting armor piercing attack and better defense, and spearmen, while still crappy, now have negate first strike for most races.
To compensate the melee units being faster, all bowmen have recieved +1 to their ranged attack, or some other bonuses.
For the races, my main goal was to make generic races less generic, so I mostly changed orcs and nomads.
Orcs have now more special units : their swordsmen have 2 movement (haven't they outrun Aragorn ?), their bowmen and shamans are mountaineers, and they get very special "mages" (in fact more necromancers), not good at range but able to teleport in combat and turning defeated enemies into undead. On the other hand orcs have lost the ability to build cathedrals, making harder for them to developp big cities.
Nomads are more nomads and the globally fastest race (only equalled by gnolls). All their troops got increased movement at the price of reduced combat stats. They also get settlers moving at 2 and able to defend themselves, and the fastest outpost growth, but an as bad city growth as elves, and they have lost the ability to build cathedral, mechanician and animist guilds, while now having access to their own mages, who don't use fire ball spell but have a wind walking ability.
Dwarves is the only race to remain as slow as in vanilla, with only move 1 units, but now all dwarves have the construction ability, while their engineers have been replaced by (rather crappy) slingers, their melee units got increased defense, and their golem is now the only recruitable magic immune creature (an ability I removed from paladins).
Halflings, to simulate their small size making hard to hit them at range have all recieved the large shield bonus (which was also increased to 3 shields).
High elves have a scouting bonus for their cavalry and longbowmen, who also recieved the long range ability. Their mages now use nature magic, and instead of fireball are now able to cast a heal spell.
Lizardmen have special shamans, more expensive than others but who have learned from lizards replacing their tails how to regenerate, and their javeliners use poison now. While still having no access to buildings increasing production, lizardmen can now build sage and alchemist guilds as well as war colleges.
Dark elves non caster units have lost one ranged shot, while their casters have gained one. Their warlocks now use the web spell instead of doom bolt, more thematic for a race worshiping a spider goddess and a little less frustrating when you have to take their cities in endgame. They are also now able to planeshift, so beware of surprise warlocks attack.
Trolls now have war mammoths that should be feared, being the strongest unit with first strike and armor piercing and also cold immune. Out of that and the ability to build alchemist guilds they also get mountaineer swordsmen and shamans.
High men paladins have been made more paladins than immune tanks, losing their magic immunity (replaced by a death and stoning only one) but gaining healing abilities (finally that's an healer unit that should survive some fights especially as their defense has been increased too).
Barbarians and draconians are mostly unchanged but their special units got a little boost (first strike for berserkers, more defense for doom drakes)
Finally I changed many spell casting costs (and some effects) too.
- All nature summons as well as early death and chaos ones have largely reduced casting costs, so expect to see large armies of skeletons, bears or hell hounds early
- I nerfed some spells I find very annoying / overpowered like disenchant area (cost increased to 90, so it should be rarely seen on battlefield before very endgame ; on the other hand I reduced the costs of standard dispell magic and disenchant true), flame strike (reduced damage by half), crack calls (cost increased), meteor storm (casting cost doubled) and confusion (save a little easier and now not affecting illusion immune creatures)
-I made harder to resist against warp creature
-I reduced the cost of some death globals like eternal night, which combined with cheaper summons should make death as powerful as other schools
-I reduced a little spell of mastery research cost but increased its casting cost to 8k mana
First version : [url="http://www.filefactory.com/file/3xndw973flsj/n/onemoremod_zip
"]http://www.filefactory.com/file/3xndw973flsj/n/onemoremod_zip
[/url]
v2 http://www.sendspace.com/file/qscr7p
