Shadow Realm Community Expansion - Development

Draxynnic · Nov 30, 2018

From a lore perspective, I'm inclined to have the dragons. It's likely that Meandor would have taken some with him, if they weren't already present.

Revenant archons... I'm of two minds, but I'm leaning towards 'no', on the basis that it seems to be an abomination that arose on Athla which the living archons wouldn't tolerate in their own vicinity. The reason I'm of two minds is that there's an argument that generic evil undead should be present, and the only thing about the revenant archons that really ties them to the living archons is the Revenant Titan, but necromancers and raider spawners are probably sufficient to represent that.

Hiliadan · Nov 30, 2018

HousePet said:
With regard to the RMG integration mod only adding the Shadow Realm Layer to the RMG, this is not entirely correct.
Without that mod the Shadow Void is labelled Lava Pool.
It also disables audio reverb and changes something about the camera iirc.

When I say "add the Shadow layer", I mean add everything related to the Shadow layer. Void is only in the Shadow layer, so I included it in it. Same for audio reverb for the Shadow layer and the camera angle for the Shadow layer.

Ok then I remove the Archon Revenant from the Wikia, and keep the Dragons. I saw none in the alpha test game #2 but I haven't played that many maps on the Shadow layer yet so good to know there are actually Dragon Dwellings there!

HousePet · Dec 2, 2018

If we add a future Shadow Demon dwelling, it will be an Evil faction, so we it will overlap with the Revenants anyway.
I suspect that the reduced number of dwelling options or the reduced available city locations are making the dwellings more rare.
I can give it an adjustment if needed.

Draxynnic · Dec 2, 2018

Speaking of Shadow Demons, I'm noticing a lack of Shock Weakness among their ranks. Given that it was a plot point that, apart from the Lords, they were vulnerable to electrical attacks, we should probably consider giving them 40% Shock Weakness.

Hiliadan · Dec 3, 2018

Yeah, someone else reported about the missing 40% Shock Weakness. I added it to the list of known issues. Looks like a unit property became buggy during the release.

Back to development topics...

Forgotten Throne projected climate/overlay
Here is an update of the proposal:
Frozen Beauty Forgotten Throne (Artica) -Arctic
Scarlet Destroyer Forgotten Throne (Yaka) - Tropical
Earthen Mother Forgotten Throne (Mab) -Wetlands -> Subterranean
Queen of the Spiders Forgotten Throne (Arachna) -Blighted
Skull Lord Forgotten Throne (Nekron) - Volcanic
Fickle Mermaid Forgotten Throne (Nimue) -Wetlands [for: HousePet, Dr_K, Lordoflinks, Refineus; against: Hiliadan] -> Temperate (or Autumn [for: Dr_K, Hiliadan, The Mentat, Rodmar; against: ])
Wizard King Forgotten Throne (Inioch) - Temperate [for: HousePet, Dr_K, Hiliadan, Lordoflinks; against: ] -> Tundra [for: Draxynnic, Hiliadan, The Mentat, Rodmar, Refineus; against: ]

New topics:
Infused's armour
Infused have Armoured, but the flavour text says they are unarmoured. Should we change the flavour text or the stats and the model? - implemented
FOR: Draxynnic ("change "unarmored" to "lightly armored"), Refineus

Archons
They currently do not have Shadow Walker. Do we all agree they should get it? - implemented
FOR: Hiliadan, Draxynnic, Refineus
AGAINST: HousePet (Obelist of Life gives Lesser Shadow Walker to Archons in domain, and Shadow Walker Aura to Saint)

Also, their Dwelling should always be Pure Good, right? (in terms of alignment)
FOR: Draxynnic (from Slightly Good to Pure Good), Refineus
AGAINST:

We had some extra ideas to make them more unique, thoughts?
- True Sight on all their units - implemented
FOR: HousePet (Lesser True Sight ideally), Draxynnic, Refineus
AGAINST:

- Mind Control Immunity on all their units
FOR: Refineus (probably)
AGAINST: HousePet

- Astral Blast: short range once per battle ranged attack on all their units available only in the Shadow Realm <- we can give boosts based on overlay (e.g. Wetland Foraging of Gobs) but does it work for climates too? We could make the Astral Blast conditional on STARTING the turn on Shadow climate.
FOR:
AGAINST:

- Shadow Demon Slayer on all their units
FOR:
AGAINST: HousePet, Refineus (they didn't have it in AoW2, rather give them Undead Slayer)

- Battle Cry: morale boost and/or resistance/defense boost working like Warcry from Orcs; "Elite troops": +25% upkeep
FOR:
AGAINST: Refineus (probably not)

And by the way, @Draxynnic: thanks for the lore texts for most units!

Only missing the Lightning Sprite, Archon Legionary, Shadow Demon Lord, Shadow Demon Larva and Will Breaker now.

And looking forward to progress on the scenario of map 3 of the campaign.

HousePet · Dec 4, 2018

I favour Nimue as Wetlands and Inioch as Temperate.

Infused: The flavour text is too good to get rid of. So we have to change the stats and model.

Archons:
I'm not keen on giving them Shadow Walker. (Although the build I'm checking at the moment appears to have given them all Shadow Walker. Its been done as Inherent, not Archon sourced.) We don't have a lore reason for it and it makes the mechanics of Shadow Sickness the same for all new races.
I suggest changing the Obelisk of Life to give (Lesser) Shadow Walker to Archon units in domain. At the moment, the Obelisk description sounds like it will bless invaders, without giving your units any benefit.
Shadow Demon Slayer will be rather similar to the Shadow Elves all getting it, so I wouldn't go for that. Archon's innate Spirit resist gives them an inherent defensive bonus against Shadow Demons. Evil Slayer and Holy Champion give them bonus damage against Shadow Demons as well, so I don't think they need any specific bonuses in this regard.
They have good resist, which sort of covers Mind Control Immunity.
True Sight would be interesting. A few of their units already have it. I sort of want a Lesser True Sight ability, but I guess we can make do with full True Sight.

Draxynnic · Dec 4, 2018

Yeah, I'll be filling in the others as inspiration allows. I had an idea for the Larva, but I didn't particularly like it, so I'll see if I can come up with something better.

Infused: In the end, it makes sense for gameplay to drive the fluff. We can change "unarmored" to "lightly armored" easily enough.

Archons:
Honestly, I'm inclined to give it to them. They didn't have it in Shadow Magic, but their background makes them expert in travelling between worlds, and they've been in the Shadow World pretty much since Shadow Magic. It's reasonable to think they'll have found some way to adapt.
I think it's reasonable for archon dwellings to have a range of alignments from Slightly Good to Pure Good. Alignment doesn't mean the same thing as it did in AoW2, and not all Archons were exactly nice people.
If we were to give Archons something extra, it could be True Sight, although their actual ability was seeing through deceptions more than seeing people who are good at hiding. I'll need to review their current statistics and abilities and see if anything else jumps out.

Dr_K · Dec 4, 2018

HousePet said:
Without that mod the Shadow Void is labelled Lava Pool.
It also disables audio reverb and changes something about the camera iirc.

This would explain why I've been experiencing very sporadic, strange behavior while using the testing map. Is there a reason they are not in the main mod? If not, I'll move them to the main mod when I get a chance. This will keep all of the edits to the decodence layer definition in one space instead of split between the mods since the main mod edits that entry as well.

Hiliadan said:
And by the way, @Draxynnic: thanks for the lore texts for most units! Only missing the Lightning Sprite, Archon Legionary, Shadow Demon Lord, Shadow Demon Larva and Will Breaker now.

I haven't looked yet, but are they in the xml? If not, I can add them into the xml tonight when I look at the Archon/SD description problem.

HousePet said:
I favour Nimue as Wetlands and Inioch as Temperate.

I'm in favor of both of these as well. If we really want to stick to climates instead of terrain for all, Autumn would probably be best if using Temperate for Inioch.

HousePet · Dec 5, 2018

Dr_K said:
This would explain why I've been experiencing very sporadic, strange behavior while using the testing map. Is there a reason they are not in the main mod? If not, I'll move them to the main mod when I get a chance. This will keep all of the edits to the decodence layer definition in one space instead of split between the mods since the main mod edits that entry as well.

I'm guessing Gloweye saw some things that needed tweaking and did it in the RMG mod instead of waiting for someone to fix it in the Content one. Not really sure.

HousePet · Dec 8, 2018

Another thought for Archons and Shadow Walking: If we go down the route of not having them with automatic Shadow Walker, give the Saint Shadow Walker Aura.

While testing the number of Spawner Sites, I noticed that the amount of solid land in the Shadow Layer doesn't seem to increase as much as I would expect with larger map sizes. Asking for a Very Large map seems to get you at least 50% Void. I'm not sure if this is intended or even where to look to change it.

The orange filled Glass Furnaces are bothering me by looking a lot like Magma Forges. Should I replace the lava texture with the blue one, even though it ends up going green?

I'd like to make another Spawner Site and I'm thinking of something from AoW2...
Chaos Rift:
But as much as I enjoyed stomping enemy cities with Liquid Formed Chaos Lords and Hellfire, we don't have models. So I was thinking of Sprites, Lesser Elementals, Elementals and Node Serpents as marauders/guards.
Rewards would be mana and casting points.
I think I can stick a few existing site pieces together to make a model for it. (I was thinking the base of the Eldritch Pool and the vfx from Casting Catalyst would look about right.)

Hiliadan · Dec 8, 2018

HousePet said:
The orange filled Glass Furnaces are bothering me by looking a lot like Magma Forges. Should I replace the lava texture with the blue one, even though it ends up going green?

If you could work out how to fix the flickering colour of the Heart and correct the colour of the Glass Furnace to the planned blue, that would be great.

HousePet said:
Chaos Rift:
But as much as I enjoyed stomping enemy cities with Liquid Formed Chaos Lords and Hellfire, we don't have models. So I was thinking of Sprites, Lesser Elementals, Elementals and Node Serpents as marauders/guards.
Rewards would be mana and casting points.
I think I can stick a few existing site pieces together to make a model for it. (I was thinking the base of the Eldritch Pool and the vfx from Casting Catalyst would look about right.)

And yeah that Chaos Rift spawner would be great! If you can put a nice model together, let's design the site.

Regarding Lesser True Sight, what effect would it have?

@Draxynnic: here are the stats of the Archons: https://age-of-wonders-3.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Hiliadan/Living_Archon

HousePet · Dec 9, 2018

I don't think we can do a Lesser True Sight. I was just thinking that full True Sight might be too powerful, but then again, stealth isn't a major part of the game.

Hiliadan · Dec 9, 2018

Forgotten Throne MCU
So, I made some first drafts of the Elder creatures unlocked by the 6 Forgotten Throne's MCU.

First a comparison between the Eldritch Horror and its Elder version that the devs designed:
- HP: 99 vs 111
- def: 15 vs 14
- res: 13 vs 14
- cost: 360 vs 500
- melee: 16 phys, 4 spirit, 4 blight vs 18 phys, 5 spirit, 5 shock
- abilities are actually quite different and the Elder does not have the same abilities + the abilities from medals as I would have thought:
Abilities only the Normal Eldritch has: Dominate, Shock Breath, 100% Blight Protection, 60% Spirit Protection, Inflict Brain Rot (Veteran), Inflict Daze (Elite)
Abilities only the Elder has: Spirit Breath, 60% Blight Weakness, 100% Spirit Protection, 20% Physical Protection, 20% Frost Protection, 20% Fire Protection, 60% Shock Protection, Shadow Step, Life Drain, Blinding Aura, Something's Inside, Tireless, Elemental Slayer, Fear Strike, Void Implosion, Electrical Skin, Total Awareness

Based on that, I suggest to follow the design of the devs and have very strong T4 but not T5, and they should not be too strong. So it means they lose some abilities from their equivalent T4 but gains other and are played differently. I wonder whether we should or not add a "Elder Creature" ability giving +50% upkeep to them though. The Elder Eldritch has a ton of abilities which makes it clearly stronger than a normal T4.

Please note that we also need to come up with names for the MCU! I made some suggestions but they can surely be improved!

So here we go:
Frozen Beauty (Frost Cavern): Elder Frost Dragon
+ 12 HP
- 1 def
+ 1 res
- 2 phys, -1 frost melee
+ Explosive Ice Death
+ Arctic Concealment
+ Pledge of Protection
+ Dome of Frost
+ Ice Nova
+ Path of Frost (Veteran)

Cost: 350 gold 75 mana

Scarlet Destroyer (Burning Nest): Phoenix
So I'm hesitating between having just a normal Phoenix or having an Elder (or otherwise) Phoenix. We said it should not have Dedicated to Good.
A Phoenix is pretty good in itself, surely better than most existing T4. Not sure if it would be on par with an Elder Eldritch or the other Elder creatures designed for the expansion. Having the possibility to build such a unit instead of having to get access to it through Secret Spells is also quite strong.
In any case, we probably need either to change the descriptions in game (and in the Wikia) to say Phoenix are NOT Dedicated to Good but the Summon Phoenix spell give them Dedicated to Good, or to introduce a new unit that is a Phoenix but not Dedicated to Good, to avoid confusion. What could be its name?

I'm not sure the current 360 gold cost is appropriate though. 350 gold, 50 mana seems more appropriate (like current T4 Dragons).

Earthen Mother (Earth Altar): Elder Cockatrice https://age-of-wonders-3.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Hiliadan/Forgotten_Throne#
So we said mix between Kharagh and Basilisk. However, I find it a bit hard to mix the two as Kharagh are big physical brutes whereas Basilisks and Cockatrice are more magical creatures with strong magical abilities.
It could be:
Melee: 6 Physical, 6 Shock, 6 Spirit (I forgot what Magical Strike's channel are supposed to be)
Dominate
Doom Gaze
First Strike
Strong Will
20% Fire Protection
100% Blight Protection

We have another option, it's to go for Kharagh directly, using this model from New Arsenal (if Griffith allows, and anyway I doubt he made the model himself):

E018E1ED9D07E14DE810DEDA980A1977BA4E1563

Queen of the Spiders (Ancient Lair): Elder Queen Spider
Based on a Dread Spider Queen.
+40 HP (T3 to T4 and then Elder)
+2 def (T3 to T4)
+2 res (T3 to T4)
+2 phys melee (T3 to T4?)
Lay Eggs (new ability: Spawn a T1 Spider, randomly chosen between the 3 types, from the corpse of a non-Undead, non-Incorporeal, non-Machine, non-Elemental unit)
Life Steal
Inflict Enfeebling Fever
Phase
Backstab (Veteran)
Inflict Noxious Vulnerability (Veteran)
Fear Strike (Expert)
Life Drain (Elite)

Cost: 300 gold, 40 mana

Skull Lord (Ancestral Boneyard): Elder Bone Dragon
+ 12 HP
- 1 def
+ 1 res
-2 phys , +5 spirit melee
+ Void Implosion
+ Invoke Death
+ Path of Decay on Veteran
+ Life Drain on Elite
- Gas Breath
- Inflict Noxious Vulnerability (Veteran)
- Inflict Enfeebling Fever (Elite)

Cost: 350 gold 75 mana
(320 / 50 for a Bone Dragon; 350 / 50 for a Frost Dragon)

Fickle Mermaid (Sunken Wreck): Lost Privateer
The initial idea was to make it a Giant but while designing it, I thought it might make more sense to make it more a kind of elite Irregular, imbued with some power from Nimue after his stay under water for some time (==> Geyser).

I tried to come up with T4+ stats while taking into account it's an Incorporeal so should have lower stats (like Shadow Stalkers have lower stats than T3).
- Fire Pistol
- Volunteer
+ Geyser: new medium range (no line of sight or range penalty) ability that can send 1 enemy unit bouncing randomly and cause 10 phys and 10 frost damage, see Racial Heritage's Flood Priest for an example of how to implement it
+ Assassin's Strike
+ Backstab
+ Incorporeal
+ Total Awareness
+ Water Concealment

Cost: 300 gold, 40 mana

Refineus · Dec 9, 2018

For the campaign. I would like to know if it's possible to have a sort of "Wizard requisite" to be available for the custom wizard heroes in the game. Giving them some unique bonuses and trait that's unique for them. Otherwise, they will just be powerful heroes.

Dr_K · Dec 10, 2018

Refineus said:
For the campaign. I would like to know if it's possible to have a sort of "Wizard requisite" to be available for the custom wizard heroes in the game. Giving them some unique bonuses and trait that's unique for them. Otherwise, they will just be powerful heroes.

Can we not add requisites directly to the heroes like the special abilities are added to the heroes in the base game? Or is it only allowing abilities/properties instead of requisites?

Refineus · Dec 10, 2018

Dr_K said:
Can we not add requisites directly to the heroes like the special abilities are added to the heroes in the base game? Or is it only allowing abilities/properties instead of requisites?

Heroes have requisites available. They can be added without problem. I checked this.

A wizard requisite has no impact on base mod apart from being visible in campaign.

Im not to familiar with the .rpks how to add these requisites myself.

Dr_K · Dec 10, 2018

Refineus said:
Heroes have requisites available. They can be added without problem. I checked this.

In this case, then it is very easy to add a Wizard Requisite for those heroes. I've not worked with creating heroes much, so I'm not very familiar with what customizations are available. Being able to add a custom list of requisites makes this much easier.

If you have any specific bonuses in mind, let me know, and I can setup those properties to be inherent to any unit with the Wizard requisite.

The availability of utilizing properties and/or requisites on various types of entries throughout the mod editor seems slightly consistent, but there is enough variability that certain mechanics become nearly impossible because you can't use one or the other for certain things.

Hiliadan · Dec 13, 2018

HousePet · Dec 14, 2018

Not sure about a Kharagh. We know what effect having tanky T4s has on the game...
Calling them all Elder X makes things fairly clear without any particular downside.
Happy with +50% upkeep on them.

HousePet · Dec 14, 2018

I've uploaded some screenshots to the pics folder for use as Steam pictures. I think only Dr_K can add pics there unfortunately.

Shadow Realm Community Expansion - Development

Field Marshal

Major

Field Marshal

Field Marshal

Major

Field Marshal

Field Marshal

Captain

Field Marshal

Field Marshal

Major

Field Marshal

Major

Captain

Captain

Captain

Captain

Major

Field Marshal

Field Marshal