PBEM and Single Player Balance Mod v1.21 released on its beta branch

[hiliadan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJHCndRTx4U

Ranked #4 best mod by AoW3 players in a recent poll, the PBEM & Single Player balance mod released its v1.21 about 2 months ago on its beta branch. That new version will be released on the main branch of the balance mod around April 21st and brings much needed changes to specializations such as Earth Adept, Partisan, etc., refines the previous changes to mind-control and healing and start to tackle the issue of risk/reward for high level sites. v1.21 also integrates two mods into the balance mod, bringing some of the best visual improvements of AoW3 to its users: the Racial Class Unit Reskin mod by Tibbles and the Racial Watchtower by iHunterKiller. v1.22 of the balance mod will make currently rarely used units, heroes or their abilities more useful, fun and interesting to play.


Full article on the-Battlefield/com/aow3 the community website for AoW3: https://www.the-battlefield.com/aow3/index.php?page=commnews&eingabenewsid=59

[hiliadan]

Steam does not allow to display pictures directly in discussions so you can unfortunately only see the screenshots from the mod on the article.
Discussions on how to make currently rarely used units, weak heroes or weak heroes' abilities more useful are currently under way. If you have some good ideas to share, feel free to post them to inspire us! :)

[hiliadan]

The balance mod has been translated in Russian by Larik, many thanks to him! So Russian-speaking players can now enjoy the mod in their language!
You can find a translation of the article about the release of v1.21 in Russian here in the official forum (below the intro + screenshots + video): http://aow.triumph.net/forums/topic/pbem-and-single-player-balance-mod-v1-21-released-beta-branch-and-in-russian/

[hiliadan]

v1.21 has now been released on the main branch of the balance mod!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=661597466

[hiliadan]

The main branch of the community balance mod has been updated to be compatible with v1.8 Poseidon. If you haven't subscribed to it, it's time to add this must-have mod to your game to benefit from improved visuals and a more fun, more balanced game, for single player and PBEM!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=661597466

[hiliadan]

An issue with Builders not able to build Fortress on water (with v1.8 POSEIDON) has been fixed.

[hiliadan]

The changelog of v1.22 should be finalized next Friday.

Here are the changes confirmed so far:
GC25
Earth Elemental cannot be obtained as a reward any more in the Forbidden Sanctum

GC37
Effigy of the Lich King gives Healing Undead and Undying (was Healing Undead and Necromantic Aura)

GC38a
Spiders spawned by the battle enchantment of Shrine to the Queen of Spiders (Arachnide Hordes) do not provide XP when hit or killed

AD10a
Baby Spiders and Baby Serpents get the abilities of their evolved state (Spider Queens and Mature Serpent) on Elite, namely:
Dread Spider Baby: Inflict Severely Poisoned
Hunter Spider Baby: Inflict Enfeebling Fever
Vampire Spider Baby: Inflict Exhausting Fatigue
Baby Reed Serpent and Baby Shock Serpent get +4 MP

Dr08a
Musketeers do 11 melee damage (was 10) and gets +1 melee damage at Veteran and Elite

Ne15
Undeads that attack a unit with Necromantic Aura get “Immune to Necromantic Aura” (cannot be dispelled) if the Aura fails its 7 spirit attack check on them. Units with “Immune to Necromantic Aura” cannot be affected by it.

Ne18
Whispers of the Fallen provide 2 RP per unit tier for each unit killed in combat. Fallen Heroes provide 10 RP (was 3 RP per unit tier and 15 RP)

Th05
Divine Justicars costs 12 points (was 10)

Wa05
Researching Death March allows to cast Death March for 60 CP and Individual Death March for 20 CP, which has a similar effect. Individual Death March can only target 1 stack of 1 T1 Irregular (and units can only be targetted once by Death March or Individual Death March).

Ha09i
Brew Brothers cost 75 gold and 20 mana (was 70 gold and 20 mana)

Ha13
Halfling Shaman get Nourishing Meal on gold instead of Healing.

Cr04
Temperate Empire gives +1 defense and +1 resistance to allied units in your domain.

[hiliadan]

And the other changes confirmed for v1.22 (no other change should be brought to v1.22 now; that's the "final" changelog):
GC02a
Maximum XP interactions (XP counters) for each tier are 6/8/9/10 for tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, tier 4 respectively (was 6/8/10/12)

GC39
Migration takes a minimum of 2 turns (was 1 turn) + 1 turn every 15 hexes (as before)

GC11a
Units acquired through Ghouling Strike have an upkeep increased by +25% gold/turn

Dr18
Dreadnought heroes can choose Gas Mask at level 7 for 5 points: units in the stack led by this unit get 40% Blight Protection and immune to Choking Fumes, Suffocate and Disgusting Stench. Undead, Elemental, Machines and Incorporeal are not affected.

Dr19
Dreadnought heroes can choose Lava Walking for 4 points at level 9, it also gives them 100% Fire Protection

Dr21
Dreadnought heroes can choose Activate Golem at level 11 for 5 points to deploy and enter a Golem once per battle: until the end of battle, the hero gains Machine, Wall Crushing, Demolisher, Tireless, Reinforced, 40% shock weakness. He loses the bonus from his current mount, the Mounted ability (and associated bonus) and his MP are reduced to 28. He keeps his race’s, items’, etc.’s other abilities and spells. Activate Golem causes the heroes to enter Guard Mode and finishes their turn.
Activate Golem cannot be used while on Water or Lava.

Ha06b
Halfling T1’s Lesser Mighty Meek gives +1 physical damage by tier level difference with the unit attacking them (was +1 strength on all channels per tier difference with the unit they attack)

Ne03a
Dead cities do not have economic bonus any more (was gain +5% to all types of income for every level of Necromancy skill)
Embalmers Guild gives +5 gold and Cathedral of Bones gives +10% to all the incomes of the city. A new building can be built in Ghoul city, requiring Cathedral of Bones, it costs 150 gold and 100 mana and gives +15% to all the incomes of the city.
Cathedral of Bones costs 100 gold and 100 mana (was 150 gold and 100 mana).

Th10
The description of the tech Exalted Martyr does not provide any XP bonus to Martyrs (was saying it gave +50% but was actually not). Martyrs evolve on Champion I (was Elite).

Fi04
Tropical Empire gives Inflict Immolation to allied units in your domain.


EDIT: we're looking for some ideas for the name of the new Necro economic building. Any proposals? :)

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

EDIT: we're looking for some ideas for the name of the new Necro economic building. Any proposals? :)

Hmm... an undead building that boost the economy. A name invoking industry might be appropriate:

Bone Furnace/Furnace of Bones

Cadaver Mill

Transmuter's Workshop

[Mulzaro]

Originally posted by hiliadan:

Dr18
Dreadnought heroes can choose Gas Mask at level 7 for 5 points: units in the stack led by this unit get 40% Blight Protection and immune to Choking Fumes, Suffocate and Disgusting Stench. Undead, Elemental, Machines and Incorporeal are not affected.

Pretty neat idea, but doesn't the game have enough blight protection already? Also, Gas masks would be a more logical name since it applies to the whole stack.

[hiliadan]

The initial idea was to give only immunity to Choking Fumes to have a combo with it, but then it seemed too situational and the 40% Blight Protection was added. I am also not 100% sure because Dread also already have access to two other protections. We will see.
And you're right for the name, I correct that.

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

Bone Furnace/Furnace of Bones

Cadaver Mill

Transmuter's Workshop

Nice ideas! I like the Bone Furnace. Any other ideas?

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Could make it 20% blight protection and lower the cost by a point or two.

Would still be useful, and would make the ability more distinct from all the other "resist 40%X" ones out there.

Question: When the Dreadnought uses the "Activate Golem" ability, does their model change, like with shapechange? Or just their stats?

[hiliadan]

Well, it seems the Activate Golem ability will be harder to mod than expected, so not yet sure how it will look like in the end. But the initial idea was that they would change model to become a unique Golem with a slightly modified model (e.g. different colors), and their stats would be modified as indicated in the description above.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

That does sound cool.

I've never tried to mod AoW3, but it seems to me that a straight shapechange into a custom golem would be achievable, but changing the appearance whilst keeping some of the stats and changing others seems like it would be much harder.

If the ability as described doesn't work out, would it be possible to make a golem-shifting dreadnought who can turn the ability on and of?

I.E. shapeshift into a custom golem which has cool abilities, but doesn't have any of the heroes' usual abilities, but does have the ability to shift back into the hero? (shifting back would disable all the heroes' one-use-only abilities, like when they are resurrected, so he couldn't keep switching.)

In order to be interesting, the golem would need some extra abilities in that case. Say, Fire Mortar? Powerful, but too out of line with the Druid's ability to throw lightning, especially since there's the extra overhead of having to shift and the ability starting on cooldown, but still very useful in sieges. It would probably give people the incentive to use the ability even if the shapechange means losing the usual spellcasting/leadership abilities and whatnot.

[hiliadan]

Another idea for the Necro economic building's name is Necromantic Trading Post.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Honestly, "necromantic trading post" sounds a bit silly.

Who are they trading with? How is it increasing profits? What is necromantic about the trade? Why can't other classes build trading posts? Are there travelling salesman necromancers?

Thinking from a lore perspective, there are lots of ways a necromancer could boost the economy. The dead never need to rest, so you have infinite cheap labour. They don't need to breathe and don't feel pain, so you can make them work in all kinds of dangerous environments.

But trade? If there's one thing that does not feel suitable for legions of undead horrors to be doing, it is trading stuff.