Defenders of the Faith MOD v1.0

[fawahar]

You can blame the community for being dead, but that is one of the less accurate assumptions for us true Disciple fans! In that accordance of thought, here you are my modding work of Disciples III: Reincarnation. With this mod you can experience:

-New Leaders and Units
-New Spells and Abilities
-New Tactics and Strategy
-100%Balanced
-Campaign Friendly
-Experienced Modder
-FREE AND FAN MADE

You can download the mod Here[1drv.ms]

Heed the call to your Disciples friends, and have a lot of good time!

[Urek]

I don't think this mod works. I see new unit in the city trees as white squares.

[fawahar]

Hi Urek, if you are playing non-steam or other client version of the game such error might exist. Also disabling other gameplay-changing mods is necessary step. The game reads directories to load the unit images in the city trees. If you see a white square that means that your game does not contain the image file of the unit in the same directory. For example a russian client sometimes differs in load order from english client, which I guess steam tried to fix, since even the modding of english client useses some folders with "russian" label. I am not sure that bug is fixable but the best you can do is reinstall disciples 3 from steam in its english variant if there was such option, then downlaod and enable only the defenders of the faith.vdpack in you mods options.

Best of luck!
-fawahar

[fawahar]

Get the latest version of Defenders of the Faith DOWNLOAD[1drv.ms] v0.1


CHANGES:
-fixed effect(s) Icon of Tricks of the Trade skill
-fixed bug where Demon and Undead Thief Leaders could use army slots, now all have 0 Leadership

------------------
P.S. the patch link was added also to the opening post, so they are the same file now. if for any reason you want to play the mod without the changes mentioned above, you'll have to pm me for the old file. thanks.

[Wolf]

Originally posted by Insomnia:

Get the latest version of Defenders of the Faith DOWNLOAD [1drv.ms] v0.1


CHANGES:
-fixed effect(s) Icon of Tricks of the Trade skill
-fixed bug where Demon and Undead Thief Leaders could use army slots, now all have 0 Leadership

Hello, is there a list of what exactly is changed in this mod? I mean the whole mod, not just the patch :)

[fawahar]

Originally posted by EU Forever:

Hello, is there a list of what exactly is changed in this mod?

Hello, friend! Indeed I am planning to create and release educational/presentation video(s) and maybe a small pdf guide on the mod's idea and overall appearence, revewing all or at least most of the mod's exact changes. I'd assume in the next two weeks I'll manage to find time to do so, but in any way I encourage everybody to try download the mod and give it a good simple 20 minutes on any chosen map. The style in which I work on my game mods is such, that it reveals itself pretty quickly, so if you've had already experience with Disciples 2 and 3, you'd know soon after starting any game if that mod suits your liking or not.

Moreover, I can share few inisights right now, just a briefing on the topic:

Goal of Defenders of the Faith: Change the gameplay in a such way that it makes it much more exciting for both single and multiplayer, yet retain its original Disciples 3 composition, so it does not feel like much different than the original game.

Lore of Defenders of the Faith: Retain general Lore, but incorporate its own shade(my perspective) and deviation, mainly trough changing/adjusting/improving the ideas behind units, leaders and spells(lorewise).

Gameplay of Defenders of the Faith: Keep the fundamentals which are tied with the Disciples 3 core system, but add all new tactics, maneuvers, thus creating unique situations for the player, which by itself gives the fresh experience of already good game, modded properly.

Special Ideas of Defenders of the Faith: Innovate to the point where the mod brings exaltation in the player, yet remain focused not to loose itself in wrong(or too much extreme) turns and twists, which can lead to player's furstration and emotional demise.

Future of Defenders of the Faith: To be examined thoroughly and as much time allows, for inconsistancies and maybe even blunders in the gameplay, and fix such. Also, polish the visuals and "general gameplay" feel of the game while being true to its core ideas and still following of the Disciples series values and morals, which are incoparable to any other game.

Now in more simple words, what I have exactly done here is: Took all gameplay parts, divided them in sections and optimized and innovated in each section. This varies from the trivial stats balance of a level 2 spell or neutral unit to the grandiose change of the Demons faction leaders and the complete change of the Undead Hordes specter/archer unit tree. Not a single unit/spell/item/map object was left unchecked. Some of them I left as they were, since I find them fitting the rest of the changes, and as well I find them very nicely designed. Yet that would not be more than 15-25% of the whole game environment. The rest has been either completely redesigned or balanced and adjusted with the smallest margin, my testing abilities allow. So, yes, the mod heavily needs a true presentation to the player of this amazing game, thou only time will tell when I can provide such a luxurious addition.

[Wolf]

Thank you for your quick response. I have been checking your mod out and it looks good but I think there is a bug with the Ghost tree for the Undead Hordes - the models are taken from Empire (for exaple Ghost looks like the Empire's Priestess).

[fawahar]

Originally posted by EU Forever:

Thank you for your quick response. I have been checking your mod out and it looks good but I think there is a bug with the Ghost tree for the Undead Hordes - the models are taken from Empire (for exaple Ghost looks like the Empire's Priestess).

Yes, I use the models from Empire, since adding new models will be a task of a huge scale, just making them ghostly and transparent, so they have a bit of a difference. Also the Demonic leaders use two neutral an one demons skin, there is no cosmetic change in these three replacements. I hope the players can get used to the fact there are few units much like each other, at least on the outside look. It took me some consideration before I implemented this change, I just really wanted to remake some, how to say... "not exactly fascinating" unit skins in the game and that was the best if not only option that I could imagine and fit the lore overall.

[Wolf]

Originally posted by Insomnia:

Originally posted by EU Forever:

Thank you for your quick response. I have been checking your mod out and it looks good but I think there is a bug with the Ghost tree for the Undead Hordes - the models are taken from Empire (for exaple Ghost looks like the Empire's Priestess).

Yes, I use the models from Empire, since adding new models will be a task of a huge scale, just making them ghostly and transparent, so they have a bit of a difference. Also the Demonic leaders use two neutral an one demons skin, there is no cosmetic change in these three replacements. I hope the players can get used to the fact there are few units much like each other, at least on the outside look. It took me some consideration before I implemented this change, I just really wanted to remake some, how to say... "not exactly fascinating" unit skins in the game and that was the best if not only option that I could imagine and fit the lore overall.

But there are models from the original game (D3:R) for Ghost units, right? Couldn't you have used these instead?

[fawahar]

Originally posted by EU Forever:

But there are models from the original game (D3:R) for Ghost units, right? Couldn't you have used these instead?

Absolutely, however the new ghost tree now is basically "the revived humans, who have allegiance to mortis"(they(ghosts) were in a sense already the revived humans in the original D3 lore, so its not a exactly run-away from the basics). And there is few more things that I bothered with, like animations for example, which also created a space to play with the elemental damage change into that tree, maybe the most significant in a sense of gameplay chage for the Undead Hordes. It was a hard task but I tried make a combination that makes sense to me at least and hopefully looks ok(ish) :) and btw imo the Paladin is just so amazing(design) unit, I could not resist re-use his skin :)

[Wolf]

Originally posted by Insomnia:

Originally posted by EU Forever:

But there are models from the original game (D3:R) for Ghost units, right? Couldn't you have used these instead?

Absolutely, however the new ghost tree now is basically "the revived humans, who have allegiance to mortis"(they(ghosts) were in a sense already the revived humans in the original D3 lore, so its not a exactly run-away from the basics). And there is few more things that I bothered with, like animations for example, which also created a space to play with the elemental damage change into that tree, maybe the most significant in a sense of gameplay chage for the Undead Hordes. It was a hard task but I tried make a combination that makes sense to me at least and hopefully looks ok(ish) :) and btw imo the Paladin is just so amazing(design) unit, I could not resist re-use his skin :)

I see, thanks for sharing :) Yeah, the paladin does look great!

[Wolf]

I have some feedback after finishing the first mission for the Undead Hordes on normal. The last boss seems almost impossible to beat (I had to keep retreating, revive and heal, and then go back into the fight). This is because all buff potions can only be used in the combat (which I believe is the change made by you in this mod) so I could not make my weak units more protected. Any chance of changing how the potions work in your mod? Maybe make some of them available to be used before the fight and some of them during the fight? Why was this changed in the first place?

[fawahar]

You can use many tactical solutions to overcome the boss fights in the campaign. There are plenty of opportunities, however, yes + stats potions are prohibited to be used out of combat, since that is heavily exploitable maneuver(especially in single player) and I find it quite boring in general. In the particular scenario, without giving much spoilers, if the player uses the training camp in a smart way and gathers enough artifacts from the map, the last fight should be quite easy even without using potions. That said, I must admit that there are few encounters amongst the campaigns which are actually very hard and need special attention and good decision making. have fun ;)

[fawahar]

Now you can get two bonus maps for Defenders of the Faith!

Map1 32x32: Terrial[1drv.ms] v1.0 (Small Skirmish 1v1)

Map2 72x72: Above and below[1drv.ms] v1.0 (Large Skirmish 1v1v1v1 ffa)

[Holy Fool Sehrael]

Would you recommend this to newcomers?

[fawahar]

Originally posted by Sehrael:

Would you recommend this to newcomers?

Well, the mod is safe to be played from "day1" by anyone interested in turn-bsed strategy games with or without playtime in any of the disciples games series. Thou I suggest trying different things(mods/vanilla) and going with what pleases you intuitively.