Renaissance Mod 8.2 – Dremer overhaul, new unit & buildings!

[Chumley]

Renaissance Mod 8.0 is here!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=493257789
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Recent patches have overhauled the Infernals and the Sylvan Order with an eye on balance and improved racial identity. Now it's the Dremers' turn!

Patch 8.2 makes the Dremers the truly voracious race they are. Now much more food-dependent, they have updated buildings and mechanics that facilitate a stronger food-based economy.

In addition, Dremer units have been rebalanced to be a little easier for opposing players to handle when they go on the offensive.

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NEW CONTENT!
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» Dremer Workers (NEW unit - dremer) tier 1 basic fighter; has 'Work the Land' action {terraform to lands of life; works on contaminated lands}; can be upgraded to Dremer Grunts, Dremer Throwers & Dremer Summoners for FULL COST
» Mutant Pig Farm (NEW building - dremer, pigs) +8 food, +15 population | upk = 3 gold; replaces 'Pig Farm'
» Dragon Rot Farm (NEW building - dremer, dragon eggs) +15 food, +15 mana | upk = 10 gold
» Barrow Tree (NEW building - sylvan, barrow) +5 mana, +3 research, 4x 'Nature's Chosen' perk for healer, creature {+2 XP; 10% chance to self-res}; replaces 'Tent Researchers'

DEVELOPER NOTES

Obviously, the Dremers were the focus of this patch. I had used previous patches to take a hard look at the Infernals (whereby the waterwalking as a racial trait was eliminated) and the Sylvan Order (removing the Koatls and adding Bearmen and Wood Elves). So I thought I should focus equal attention on the Dremers. And they needed it.

Whenever I'd fire up Warlock 2, there was one race that gave me little joy to play -- the Dremers. They just felt... I don't know... lacking. For my own enjoyment of the game (let alone the community), I knew I had to do something.

Based on some prior community feedback, what it seemed that they lacked the most was a cheap tier 1 unit. And I personally felt that they lacked some early game nuance. Their gameplay was always the same -- muscle your way through and prevent your units from dying at all costs. And if you lose one of your early units, know that your game might be boned because they're so costly to replace. So this made for a frustrating experience.

Until now.


Enter the Dremer Worker.

This unit fills the last slot available for new units in Renaissance Mod. Even one more unit added to the mod will crash the game. But as the last unit, this one is a great addition. It does wonders to improve the Dremer play experience.

With the Dremer Worker, their race feels much more like a hive. Workers are needed to tend the land to improve food production, and mass amounts of food is now required for the colony to grow and support more powerful units.

In addition, the early game now provides many more options:

• Do you immediately upgrade your Worker into a Grunt or Thrower?
  
  
• Do you train an army of Workers, since they're the cheapest early Dremer units and they can be upgraded later?
  
  
• Do you use Workers or shadow units for base defense... or both?

What's more, Dremer units really feel like they evolve throughout your game. You could take a Worker from a lowly tier 1 unit all the way to a frightening tier 4 powerhouse. And because you can upgrade units in many different ways, you can adapt your strategy as necessary. It's also easier to upgrade units over the course of your game than it is to buy the highest tier units outright.


Dremers are HUNGRY.

As of 8.2, Dremers require much more food and much less gold. This means you won't struggle quite as much to afford to hire new units, but you do need to ensure you can feed them, or unrest will run wild.

Dremers also have two options for food-based cities. You can create a standard food-city using their typical farming branch. Or you can dual focus on gold and food. Both the Dremer Stash and the Dremer Hoard buildings can facilitate a dual-focused city.

Usually dual-focused cities are inefficient, but with the Dremers, these gold-food hybrid cities can greatly advance your game. So this also adds to the newly improved uniqueness of their faction.

They were also given new buildings, like the Mutant Pig Farm and the Dragon Rot Farm to help satiate their voracious appetite.


Improved flavor -- yum.

In addition to the overhauled gameplay for the Dremers, various elements of their race were also improved:

• More flavorful "shdowy" portraits for slave units, like Shadow Seers and Miners.
  
  
• Skittering Settlers -- an overhaul of the settler unit -- does a better job of giving the sense of lowly insects that burrows into the ground to form a colony.
  
  
• The Dremer Forge is now the Adrenal Chamber, with a biological upgrade rather than armor, which the Dremers don't naturally wear.

These are small changes, but they definitely add to their uniqueness and the overall feel of their race.


And yes, some nerfs, too.

DasTactic has been doing some amazing LPs on YouTube with Renaissance Mod. I enjoy watching him play, but his playthroughs have also alerted me to some balancing issues -- particularly with the Dremers.

While I maintain that they're not overpowered for humans, for the AI on higher difficulties (where they're given bonus resources), the Dremers can be too much for a human player to handle.

8.2 makes them a little more manageable. And not just through unit nerfs (of which there are a few), but also through changes like Dremer Great Mage starter perk updates and even some swapped out building perks.

They already have excellent resistances, so care was taken to reduce the amount of perks they can easily obtain to further improve their toughness. After doing some test games, it's definitely a step in the right direction. They're still tough opponents, but nothing an experienced player can't handle.


See the patch notes for complete details regarding all of the 8.2 changes:

» Notes for Patch 8.2

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If you're enjoying Renaissance Mod, be sure to give it a "thumbs up" rating if you haven't already done so.

In addition, your feedback means the world to me. Please post your comments in this thread below. Thanks!


http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=493257789

[Stockinger]

Thanks!

[TwoTonGamer]

Thank you for all of your hard work. I am so grateful you have seen the charm in this game and have been able to improve it so much. Cheers!

[Mazey]

I've been playing the most recent version and I've noticed a couple of things that seem to be bugs.

Firstly, the AI now never seems to build their religion at all. In previous versions they were happy to build the shrines and temple cities, but in this version I haven't seen any built at all.

Second the Koatl Village resource never spawns naturally. I've read you intend this to be a replacement for the elves now they are part of a main faction, but if the resource never spawns then they can't be.

Hope that helps. :)
Thanks for the great mod.

[Chumley]

@Mazey - Thanks for the feedback.

The AI will only elect to convert buildings to temple cities, strongholds and freetowns if they have more cities than the city limit allows -- at least, that's how it's always been in Renaissance during all of my playtesting. So if they haven't hit the city limit, they won't build religious cities.

Shrines have fallen out of favor for the AI ever since I removed the shrine building perks. But it's been many patches since I did that -- perhaps a year ago.

The second bug you mention isn't anything I can reproduce. In all of my recent games, I have seen Koatl villages spawn in every single one.

[WWDragon]

I have seen koatle villages spawn in my games too.
They did only spawn on one continent in the overworld and no where else that I know of.

So it's possible to miss them.

[Trotwood]

Thanks chumley! You have made this game the most up to date and polished fantasy 4x on the market imo. You should apply for a job with stardock and slap fe:lh into a semblance of order ;-)

But seriously, your efforts are greatly appreciated.

[Chumley]

Trotwood původně napsal:

Thanks chumley! You have made this game the most up to date and polished fantasy 4x on the market imo. You should apply for a job with stardock and slap fe:lh into a semblance of order ;-)

But seriously, your efforts are greatly appreciated.

Lol, thanks. I appreciate the vote of confidence. :-)

[Slim_Cognito]

First just wanna say your mod looks amazing! I'm someone who has played Warlock 1 for hundreds of hours but I didn't get Warlock 2 because of reasons. But am now considering it only because of this awesome mod you created. Got a few questions if you guys don't mind answering.

How is the hero system in this mod? I remember when I vs my friend in warlock 1. Whoever gets a supreme hero first with some enchancements could basically solo the other's side's entire army. To give a example, we both have a massive empire after many hours of playing, only difference was he had a supreme hero, not even a 2000g legendary hero, just a supreme at 900g. It was the vampire lord. He never even send his army to clash against my army. His supreme hero with some enchancment just soloed my entire military while never retreating or backing down. Was wondering if that is still the case in this mod or warlock 2 in general.


Thanks in advance.

[Chumley]

Sure. :-)

Lords (heroes) are definitely still a big part of the game. But Renaissance Mod does two things to greatly improve the type of situation you're concerned about:

1) All lords have been better balanced so that they are all relatively equal in strengths and weaknesses for their stage/tier. For example, all tier 1 lords (150 gold cost) are fairly similar in power to one another, just as all tier 2 lords (700 gold cost) are. However, base tier 1 lords will always be weaker than base tier 2 lords (base meaning without any level-ups or enchantments).

In addition, Renaissance Mod greatly expands the amount of lords available for hire, including a huge increase in legendary (tier 3) lords that cost 2000 gold. In this way, more higher tier lords are available for recruit later in the game, when you need them most.

2) There is a spell added in one of the DLC called 'Call of Suzerain'. For 100 mana, it makes a random lord available for hire on your NEXT turn. This greatly improves your ability to load up your army with lords appropriate to the early, mid and late game. Sometimes it takes a few casts before you get an ideal lord, but this spell always gives you options.

In the DLC, this spell is only available via starting perk. Renaissance Mod takes this game-changing spell and adds it to the spell tree fairly early on. So you can work toward researching it and getting your own lords as quickly as possible. (In Warlock 2, there is a spell tree just like Civ's technology tree, so you can strategically advance your game rather than through the random assortment of spells that Warlock 1 offered.)


So with both of these changes, along with all the new lords the mod adds (more than double what the base game provides), your experience with lords should be greatly improved.

In addition, Renaissance Mod adds more ways to increase the resistances to various types of damage, so a hero like the Supreme Vampire can't just solo your entire army. But you do need to be strategic in how you outfit the defensive resistances of your troops.

Hope this helps. :-)

[Slim_Cognito]

Chumley původně napsal:

Sure. :-)

Lords (heroes) are definitely still a big part of the game. But Renaissance Mod does two things to greatly improve the type of situation you're concerned about:

1) All lords have been better balanced so that they are all relatively equal in strengths and weaknesses for their stage/tier. For example, all tier 1 lords (150 gold cost) are fairly similar in power to one another, just as all tier 2 lords (700 gold cost) are. However, base tier 1 lords will always be weaker than base tier 2 lords (base meaning without any level-ups or enchantments).

In addition, Renaissance Mod greatly expands the amount of lords available for hire, including a huge increase in legendary (tier 3) lords that cost 2000 gold. In this way, more higher tier lords are available for recruit later in the game, when you need them most.

2) There is a spell added in one of the DLC called 'Call of Suzerain'. For 100 mana, it makes a random lord available for hire on your NEXT turn. This greatly improves your ability to load up your army with lords appropriate to the early, mid and late game. Sometimes it takes a few casts before you get an ideal lord, but this spell always gives you options.

In the DLC, this spell is only available via starting perk. Renaissance Mod takes this game-changing spell and adds it to the spell tree fairly early on. So you can work toward researching it and getting your own lords as quickly as possible. (In Warlock 2, there is a spell tree just like Civ's technology tree, so you can strategically advance your game rather than through the random assortment of spells that Warlock 1 offered.)


So with both of these changes, along with all the new lords the mod adds (more than double what the base game provides), your experience with lords should be greatly improved.

In addition, Renaissance Mod adds more ways to increase the resistances to various types of damage, so a hero like the Supreme Vampire can't just solo your entire army. But you do need to be strategic in how you outfit the defensive resistances of your troops.

Hope this helps. :-)

Awesome! Thanks for replying and everything you said is perfect, exactly what I was hoping for. Now just gonna wait for a sale. Hopefully a early summer sale in june lol.

[WWDragon]

Even a tier 1 lord who survives long enough can become strong enough to solo several other squads at once.
I never dismiss a lord who I've had a long time.

[Chumley]

WWDragon původně napsal:

Even a tier 1 lord who survives long enough can become strong enough to solo several other squads at once.
I never dismiss a lord who I've had a long time.

I might keep a tier 1 lord if it's really good and it fills a particular niche that I can't fill with any other hero. But I far prefer to run a full complement of tier 2 and 3 lords by the end-game.

In my experience, tier 3 legendary lords far surpass even the highest level tier 1 lords once they've gained a few levels.

Every play style is valid if it works for the player. That's one of the nice things about Warlock 2. :-)

[Slim_Cognito]

Now I'm just worried that the servers for this game might get shut down since War of the Roses were shut down by them a few months ago lol.

[WWDragon]

Chumley původně napsal:

WWDragon původně napsal:

Even a tier 1 lord who survives long enough can become strong enough to solo several other squads at once.
I never dismiss a lord who I've had a long time.

I might keep a tier 1 lord if it's really good and it fills a particular niche that I can't fill with any other hero. But I far prefer to run a full complement of tier 2 and 3 lords by the end-game.

In my experience, tier 3 legendary lords far surpass even the highest level tier 1 lords once they've gained a few levels.

Every play style is valid if it works for the player. That's one of the nice things about Warlock 2. :-)

Yup.

[Jeined]

Does perk of the dragon great mage (Tal Kallesil) work at all for cities? It should remove "different race" penalties, but it doesn't. There still is -10% resourse penalty in my undead city and -25 population penalty. Only penalties are present in the tooltips and calculations also are made with penalties only.