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Author Topic: Monsterous Menagerie  (Read 74691 times)
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RopeDrink
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« on: September 06, 2010, 08:58:53 AM »

Hey folks - Following on from my thread in "Singleplayer" Forums (Called 'Bigger Armies') I came to the conclusion that I would have to create something myself in order to make a satisfying (partially) greenskin campaign.

However, this isn't nessecarily Orcish, they do assist, however a rag-tag collection of monsters, goblins, orcs and outlaws are under the intimidating rule of a lone Troll and his guard of Ogres.

Yeah, sadly unlike some people I haven't attempted to really stretch the boundries just yet and I am hopeful I can merge this 'Army' edit with the work of other people who have already altered all ingame battles - My new army is now working alongside the Rise of Dead Mod (Which makes the enemies mostly Imperial and the odd Greenskin, as opposed to Undead) which actually makes more sense than having it Orcs v Orcs/Undead all the time.

I've just edited the entire army and am testing it as we speak - If you want a general idea of how it works, here's some basics.

LEADERSHIP:
Leader is Troll with 2xOgres - I hate having 'lone' leaders as that comes with the possibility of losing a whole fight just because your one unit got killed, so 2 Ogres make up for it - The Leader is powerful and the Ogres are, well, Ogres, so this ensures some lastability and POWER from your leader without being too overpowered that it can't be defeated if you get reckless.

Like any Troll/Ogre compilation, they cause fear, move fast and pack a wallop but are not immune to fear themselves and only the Ogres have armor wereas the Troll has Troll armor, so one has to keep that in mind when making decisions as they can be killed off if not taken care of.

UNITS:
Your starting army is composed of the usual - Leader, Infantry, Archers but... No Artillery. Your Archers are typical Outlaw Archers (Shaped to be on par with Helmgart Bowmen) and your Infantry is a small unit of BigUns... Your Artillery is replaced by a Gigantic Spider with a troop of Goblin Handers (Again, this is just an excuse to avoid 'single' units, though you do get single units later in the campaign).

Lack of artillery is made up by the 360 Degree vision, Fear, speed and mobility of a Spider with weak but competant infantry support.

Later additions are all a mish-mash of Outlaws, Goblins, Orcs and Ogres with the odd additional Spider/Scorpion/Troll assistance later on.

Additional Experimental Changes:
I have edited quite a number of things to test them out but I don't want to reveal too much until I've seen it action and know it works - Let's just say that this may not be totally original but there will be some slightly interesting changes.

Hopefully I'll have seen enough to post a link to it later today.

Last but not least, if this proves balanced and enjoyable, I'll work on custom banners and maybe even sprites. Until then, just consider this an "Arm_ALL" edit for now.

MOD EDIT: Download Link
http://www.filefront.com/17333170/Monsterous Menagerie.rar
« Last Edit: September 29, 2010, 08:05:32 PM by Darkmancer » Logged
olly
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« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2010, 07:14:06 PM »

Sounds Awesome, I will look forward to playing this!

Smiley

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and back in Nuln, the ageing Graf Berhardt smiled his secret smile of pride whenever he heard the latest tales of his eldest son's ever growing chain of glorious victories -(sothr manual)
RopeDrink
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« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2010, 09:08:02 PM »

Not to ruin too much but I recorded and uploaded Battle #2 - The army still needs testing and I've yet to be 100% sure the future regiments work properly, especially the new steam tank and Ballista.

Here's a basic look at how the core starting units fare against the "Real Dark Omen" SP Campaign (Which is actually quite difficult at times and so far it's been pretty balanced).

Dark Omen - Working on a Custom CampaignDQ | by Aeva


I'll be AFK for two days as I'll be spending time with the girlfriend but once I've got more free time I'll likely do more work. Even made Custom banners for two units with the little time I had so thats the next step.
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olly
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« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2010, 09:14:50 PM »

Cool!

Smiley

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and back in Nuln, the ageing Graf Berhardt smiled his secret smile of pride whenever he heard the latest tales of his eldest son's ever growing chain of glorious victories -(sothr manual)
alavet
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« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2010, 07:26:34 AM »

what i think that simple replacing units with strogner versions of enemies just not enough. some guys like Grend & Flank managed to add additional enemy regiments and thats realy challenges.

For the standard campaing/units thre is actually not much diffirience between boar cavalry or knights, or even wights & ghouls (both retreat quite easilly). Unless you change goblins vs mummies or something :-)

adding more meat definately increase difficuilty imo.

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RopeDrink
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« Reply #5 on: September 08, 2010, 01:12:33 PM »

Oh I know - I've originally been testing against the campaign that altered deployment zones and had insane difficulty (Example, the first battle involved Orcs having at least three bolt throwers, a rock lobber, countless archers on the hill and multiple infantry - It was highly unlikely you'd get anyone out of the deployment zone and into safety before half your army was pegged by artillery and arrows).

The difficulty in the Real DO Campaign is apparant - In the 2nd Battle the enemy regiment is tagged as "Knights of the Realm" but when I checked the stats it turned out to be Grail Knights with big stats, inability to be routed and had magical swords (Item), weapon tagged as "Flails" and the leader had ridiculously big stats - It really was tough.

Apart from that one fight it was balanced.

I'd love to alter the deployment zones etc but I'd leave that for once I've really tested the balance.
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Mikademus
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« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2010, 11:14:20 AM »

I think this campaign looks really interesting. I especially like the creativity of attaching "handlers" to monsters to allow you to use these units more tactically rather than as expendable suicide troops.
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RopeDrink
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« Reply #7 on: September 10, 2010, 01:47:06 AM »

Thats exactly my main goal - And seeing as Troll/Spider+Extras alone is pretty powerful (Especially the leader, Troll with added stats and 2xRegular Ogre Support) I've compensated for it by reducing Artillery to only what you get at Blighted Towers (You dont start with any) and the Archers are decent but limited for most of the campaign making it slightly more Melee orientated.

It's fun as I've not really seen this done before (Though it's probably been done and I just haven't played the Mod).

I'll be playing the campaign tonight again to carry on balancing but it'll likely require the player to also install "Real DarkOmen" - Problem is I've encountered SEVERAL bugs with it, mostly down to how the creator made the enemy necromancers - I suspect it's because he's turned them to Goblin/Orc Shaman but they are tagged as Evil Wizards, use the Wagghh book and their page description still links to Necromancer rather than Shaman - when they are scripted to 'teleport' (Brigands attack) and later levels (Bogenhafen) the game keeps crashing, probably because teleport isn't a part of Wagghh magic - I've had to edit the campaign to copy/paste necromancers back into the levels and it's worked fine since then.






Additional Info.

Leader has stats between Troll>Treeman, mostly towards Troll based to make sure it's not too powerful alone - It has basic Leadership so despite being terrifying and packing a big punch, it can break from combat quite easily, so you won't be using him as a one-unit destroyer even though he's the most powerful melee you have which I think is pretty fair.

Infantry is replaced by a smallish band of BigUns - 18 of them to be exact. They have no additional stats but it's not like they need them seeing as they are pretty much the best melee Orcs have. They're just about on par with Grudgebringer Infantry.

Spider+Handlers replaces your Artillery - You lose the Artillery for the added bonus of it's great vision, speed and power though like the leader, it may be a nasty regiment but it can be killed pretty easy without care - Even charging the Leader and the Spider into a regiment will not guarantee victory against medium/tougher units, especially not ones with enhancements - This is also pretty fair in my eyes.

Archers are the equivelant of Helmgart Bowmen which aren't as accurate as Crossbowmen but there are more of them. They have no additional stats unlike Willem Fletcher so this slightly makes up for it and ensures they aren't going to be winning many hand'to'hand fights if you get careless.

If I can manage to get to Blighted Towers to test out the new Steamtank and the Artillery Units, I'll supply a beta-link for people who are interested to try out this army.

Again, though, I must stress that it'll probably be slightly overpowered vs the regular default campaign as two units cause fear so it won't be a complete package - First I'd need to re-create the DarkOmen SP Enemy Armies to really balance it out.

After that maybe some custom sprites and banners.
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Darkmancer
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« Reply #8 on: September 10, 2010, 03:04:10 AM »

1) A please make it tougher than the orignal  campaign - Everybody whoses going to play your mod will have played though the entire orignal campaign (or at least most of it)

2)  I think you'll be able to solve the teleport crash problem by giving the dark magic spell book to one of the none magic using enemy regiments.  I wont guarentie it'll solve the problem, however it solves it for multiplayer, as it makes the game load the spell effects, which all units then have access too.
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RopeDrink
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« Reply #9 on: September 10, 2010, 04:40:51 AM »

Indeed - It was a bug with the RealDarkOmen Mod not my own.

I've been working on the Singleplayer Battles. Even though I've not altered spawn points or anything, I've swapped all levels vs Greenskins to that of Imperials and most of the Undead Battles will remain the same until later.

This means the experience vs SinglePlayer campaign will be slightly similar for Part 1 (Up to Azguz Bloodfist) but from then on more and more unique regiments will come into play. I've increased all enemy regiment sizes considerably regardless of where you are in the story so that will add a decent challenge to the fights because most of your own regiments are actually quite small.

Ideas for Unique Regiments Include:

Banshee's:
Think of them as magic weilding Wraiths. They will naturally be using the Dark Book, which will likely allow teleportation, and will maintain the same properties are regular Wraiths meaning you'd do well to use Magic Weapons if you intend to send Melee after them - Otherwise you're in for a rough time trying to crush them with Magic or Artillery/Archers as they are pummelling your troops. Should make them quite tricky even if causing them to flee will kill them. How you do this is up to you.

I'm pretty bored of the same old Necro/Vampire nieussance so it's time to spice up the enemy casters a little.

Outlandish Snipers:
Pretty much the bastard child of Elven Bow Mastery spliced with Human Pistol Technology - The regiments will be small but they will be capable of some serious medium range carnage if not dealt with.

Gatling Cannon & Goblin Artillery:
So, the Goblins have been forced out of the Army and behind the Ballistas. That's all well and good until you try to kill them and realize the Ballista (Which is now Mobile) is also defended by several competant Goblin Archers. The Ballista was always pretty dire unless you increased their accuracy. Instead I've made it very very slow moving and it's handlers are now capable of ranged attacks to boot.

Imperial Steamtank is no longer a Tank, per say. It's pretty much a bullet spewing bucket that acts like a fast-reloading machine gun. Moves faster to boot. Sounds good, right? Problem is it can be routed and doesn't take half as much damage as it used to be able so if you think it's going to be fun running over regiments you best think again otherwise you'll be saying bye bye to it very quickly.




The ideas aren't all that great but thats because I'm limited unless I start practicing custom sprites, which is something I intend to do in the future. Either way, it may not be totally original but it should be pretty challenging!
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RopeDrink
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« Reply #10 on: September 10, 2010, 06:09:17 PM »

Ok, been tinkering with this campaign - I may not be able to make it perfect because I'm not exactly playing the campaign blind so I know where everything spawns and what they are like, but even I got my ass kicked in Bogenhafen. The first 2 Fights are very simple (As it should be) but 3-4-5 show the difficulty rising as really obscene regiments come to the fore and start wreaking havok.

I've moulded quite a few enemy infantry to that of Undead / Night Elves and some very nasty Vampire Lords so things can be quite spicy but to make up for it I've added quite a lot of money drops from defeated regiments and magical drops will start happening from Bogenhafen and onward.

I'll supply a link to the ALL ARMY File, the first 5xLevels and some SaveGames today for people who want to get a hands on idea of how this little campaign is progressing.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2010, 07:33:38 PM by RopeDrink » Logged
RopeDrink
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« Reply #11 on: September 10, 2010, 07:49:40 PM »

Ok, it's still in progress but I didn't want to make a thread without supplying something playable for people to try out.
Seeing as it's incomplete you have two choices.

You can JUST install the PLYR_ALL and use the Army vs any campaign (Even default) if you like, or you can install the 1PBAT and pitch this Army against my own Campaign - Sadly I've only edited the first 5 battles (AKA 1st Fight all the way to Bogenhafen).

I included 3xSaveGames which are optional as well - They are for Bat3, Bat4 and Bat5 - I suggest you play from battle number 1 but if you can't be bothered, feel free to throw the savegames into your SAVEGAME FOLDER. Otherwise just delete them.

It's all still very work in progress so bare with me, it's going to be changed as time goes by.

DOWNLOAD LINK HERE:
http://www.filefront.com/17279501/Monsterous-Menagerie-SPC.rar/

PLEASE BACKUP YOUR 1PARM & 1PBAT FOLDERS BEFORE USING THIS!


Notes on these files:

The whole army has been customized, right to the end, though I've not tested beyond Blighted Towers and the Steam Tank wasn't as good as I had hoped but again, it's work in progress. I really doubt people will play with this army much anyways.

TIPS: The difficulty is sporadic / volatile for a number of reasons.

1* The enemy regiments can be tough... Very tough... But they are not Undead thus most can be routed and because two of your core regiments inspire terror, this can be easy... However, those same two regiments are also quite small - They may be powerful but all enemy regiment sizes have been drastically increased so your small units can and will be squashed if you get cocky. They also often have very slightly better leaders and some even contain Undead.

There are also fear immune regiments that this tactic will not work with - It's up to you to learn how it works.

2* Because I have made custom Regiments (AKA Night Elves & Drow) they are marked as Elves and HATE GREENSKINS - 75% of your Army WILL be Greenskins so even though you have a mostly 'melee' orientated Army, actually engaging in heavy melee can get tricky so use your ranged abilities wisely - I Strongly recommend you level up the Shaman & Archers ASAP! I find the best method is to absolutely annihilate as much as possible with ranged attacks before you even consider sending in your Leader/Spider and if you decide to use those two regiments without much assistance, work on flanking to get best results.

Don't want to spoil too much - Hope people try it out!

Suggestions and Feedback welcome!
(Could a Moderator please place the download link into the First Post?)

This is subject to change but once I'm really happy I'm going to add custom banners and sprites.
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olly
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« Reply #12 on: September 11, 2010, 11:23:01 AM »

I've downloaded it and can't wait to play it tomorrow,

Smiley

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and back in Nuln, the ageing Graf Berhardt smiled his secret smile of pride whenever he heard the latest tales of his eldest son's ever growing chain of glorious victories -(sothr manual)
RopeDrink
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« Reply #13 on: September 11, 2010, 12:41:18 PM »

Well I'm glad at least one person will try it though don't get your hopes up, it's a very simple Mod so far and I haven't had as much time as I'd have liked in order to balance it and alter it.

Just keep in mind - Some fights may seem too easy or too hard, purely depending on the fear mechanic. The leader is not the most 'inspiring' person on the field and sometimes he and the Spider get a bit scared in big numbers (As you would when it's 25v3 or 30v5) but they, too, cause Terror so it can depend on how you use this.

The archers are decent as well so use them wisely. I really hope you play from Bat1 to Bat5 (Trading Post to Bogenhafen) and give me your thoughts Smiley

Suggestions welcome!
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Wkurwiony
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« Reply #14 on: September 11, 2010, 03:40:32 PM »

ill try it also ;]
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