Hi! All,
I have visited this place since long time ago but this is my first post. I really appreciate all the people here who have enriched this wonderful game. I have played only this game more than 2 years now!

While I tried Dwiggs 5.0, I found a small bug. The Dragon Hatchling of the Fey Folks cannot gain experience. I like to cuddle them until they get too big. But I cannot do that!

Even with the critical error, I really enjoy this new version. A dwarf engineer could turn into a cannon tower! Wow!

ltmoon, thanks for the feedback on the hatchling, and welcome!
Has anyone else noticed this issue?

[This message has been edited by The_Stranger (edited 10-11-2007 @ 09:46 PM).]

merchant still exclude survivalist which is not good idea i m sure and expander not worth both 2 picks and 2000 res

there are 2 different trolls, one have 10 att, another 9. i m almost sure with 9 att is buildable and with 10 att appears in patrols. seems u wanted to set 10 att to buildable one

btw if we have bug on wyrm with ss missing once it enter city with hall of enchantment, maybe add lightning strike and immunity to it?

[This message has been edited by Air_warlord (edited 10-12-2007 @ 04:14 PM).]

sigh...I thought I fixed those. I will now, thanks.

u fixed it, i just checked previous version instead of new though not sure u fixed lizards any of its units have huge list of disadvantages, and almost zero advantages.

[This message has been edited by Air_warlord (edited 10-12-2007 @ 04:23 PM).]

If a Wyrm Shell Ship is in an underground recruitment hall, when you recruit it the ship does not materialise in the surface water as I anticipated. The ship still shows as being available in the structure, your 500 gold has been taken, and if you press recruit again it says you have already recruited a unit this turn

EDIT: also Call of the Forest doesn't produce any units?

[This message has been edited by RogerRabid (edited 10-12-2007 @ 11:01 PM).]

Ok, Rog, I'll test both of these things. Cheers.

seems mystics soon will be new "crusaders" hehe it never ends

EDIT: also Call of the Forest doesn't produce any units?

Apologies, I have been notifed by somebody far more knowledgeable and experienced than myself in the machinations of this game that Call of the Forest never did work underground, so on this occasion it is not your fault that the dwarf race has yet again been shafted

My comment on Fey Folks Dragon hatchling may be about something else. It happened when the Hatchling killed the Goblin Bombers (Is this the right name? I mean the self-exploding ones). But I realize that other units also do not gain exprience by killing the bombers. Is this a part of the Mod?
One more thing I noticed was about a Orc Mushroom Bomber. I killed all other units and there was only one Mushroom. I thought that it might be good for soup. But, I could not attack it and had to retreat all units. I coul see the picture and it attacked my units, but I could not click on it.

[This message has been edited by ltmoon (edited 10-13-2007 @ 09:00 PM).]

Are you sure you weren't having some mushrooms of your own

All Goblin level 0's cost 3 gold upkeep, start at gold medal, and don't give xp. So that's why the Dragon didn't get xp. It's not part of the mod so much as part of using level 0 units. I wanted cheap Gobbos!

As for the Magic Mushroom...I'm perplexed. Anyone else know what could be happening?

Hi Stranger, a couple of comments:

1) I still think the skill system in the beta sucks. Not as bad as it did earlier, but bad enough.
2) In your wisdom, or lack thereof, you have made an item that gives +10 resistance, martyr and willpower. Now I wasn't sure if that item put on a hero would mean the hero was automatically martyred in a battle, but I put it on and read the description, which indicated the hero would now be able to cast martyr. So, I put it on a hero without casting points. Nevertheless, this hero died promptly in the first battle she was in, without being wounded.
So, the item might be useful if you could take it on DURING a battle (as in aow1), but that isn't possible in aow:sm. So the only effect is that the hero wearing it dies in the first battle. Is this intended, or just another blunder? The item disappeared with the hero after she died, by the way.
3) I'd appreciate if items you have to kill units for are /useful/, i.e. please don't make any more items of this sort, or items with abilities like "cursed, -2 res, blinded" which are then put into structures by the RMG; you can't see what items are in a structure before you've conquered the guards.
4) I didn't realize the effect of goblin level 0 units before (no upkeep), but with that change, I can live with the warg riders lacking taunt etc., and the cheap units fit the goblin theme perfectly.
5) There are a lot of other things about the new beta that I do like, but that just makes it more frustrating with things like the skill system or useless - or senseless items :/
6) The Halfling Garden Cart...I remember complaining about this a year or more ago - maybe two years...but: It says in the description that is has path of life...which is hasn't...maybe that description could be changed? I know it was supposed to have it...but it never did....so maybe it shouldn't say so

[This message has been edited by Gandalf_DK (edited 10-14-2007 @ 06:59 PM).]

I've updated the main thread. Please check it out and discuss it here

Reg. 'blood lust' is it correct that this enchant/ability does NOT give willpower, as fury did? Certain races (orcs primarily) need will power for their units and are weakened a lot by such a change, while all races with dominate/seduce are strengthened by it.

The reduction in upkeep cost for enchants discussed was 30%, not 15%-25%. To me you said you'd implement this change, and here you write you are /considering/ a 15-25% reduction?

We talked in GS about making dwiggs game quicker. My impression is that if the general city production was increased with 10-15% (and maybe city growth with 10-15% also), then the games would be quicker. Units are built faster, and you reach faster to a point where you can build higher level units. I'm not sure if people in general think Dwiggs games should play faster - but it seems to me that increasing production and city growth is the only sure way to accomplish it.

The present skill system DOES slow down the game IMO. It's easy to illustrate with constructor - if I don't pick that, the level 1 units that took 1 turn to build now take 2 turns - and starting with tigrans with their research bonus, it still takes me a whooping 37 or so turns (depends on city size and nodes etc). to research constructor.

Reducing the cost of skill researching by 10% is probably a good idea, but I still don't see the rationale for letting the 4 skills mentioned cost 2000, esp. expander. If we agree in principle that the skills should cost what their 'value' is, then the logical thing to do would be to write up a list of value-based costs and discuss that. I will try and come back with a suggestion for discussion.


------------------------------------------------------------


List of spirit rewards (of the spells given, I couldn't find a way to find out which units might be offered; if anyone knows, let me know – but I think the spells are most important anyway).

Shrine:

War:
Anarchy
Animate hero
Black dragon
Blood lust
Corpus Furia
Crash gates
Crusader
Fire Storm
Fireball
Hellfire
Mass Confusion
Unholy champion
Wildfire

Nature:
Call of the Forest
Firebug swarm
Golden Age
Great beetle (summon)
Healing showers
Mighty Meek
Nature elemental
Red dragon (summon)
Rejuvenate
Spring rains
Stone skin
Woodcraft
Zephyr bird (summon)

Order:
Gold dragon (summon)
Holy champion
Resurrect Hero
Sacred Wrath
Saintly Aura

Magic:
Air elemental (summon)
Bind summoned
Double Gravity
Earth elemental (summon)
Enchant Weapon
Fire sprite (summon)
Seeker
Static shield
Summoner's aura
Syron (summon)
Water elemental (summon)
Wind Walking

[This message has been edited by Gandalf_DK (edited 10-15-2007 @ 06:50 AM).]

increasing production and growth can make game slower if more ppl will try to use higher level units also increasing prod and growth will damage lower lev units use, so i think if u want fast and easy lev4 hordes - play 1.3

We talked in GS about making dwiggs game quicker. My impression is that if the general city production was increased with 10-15% (and maybe city growth with 10-15% also), then the games would be quicker. Units are built faster, and you reach faster to a point where you can build higher level units. I'm not sure if people in general think Dwiggs games should play faster - but it seems to me that increasing production and city growth is the only sure way to accomplish it

I think this would encourage people to rush for lvl 4s and mass lvl 4s, so I don't think this is a good move. Reducing research time of skills, and reducing upkeep of spells by about 30% would, however, be beneficial IMO

cheaper skill research is best for turtling too skill massing and fast style of playing are absolutely opposite things. expensive casting spec1 allows fast attack with summons, it must speed up game, more time u need to research spellcasting1 - more hard to defend vs summon rush, while everything easy to research and easy to cast is paradise for slow builders

Quoted from Air:

Increasing production and growth can make game slower if more ppl will try to use higher level units

I think /can/ and /if/ is important here. As I see it, what makes level 1 units more used in dwiggs is that they are more cost effective compared to higher level units (in some cases, for instance dwarves), while it takes a long time, and is expensive to get to the higher level units. This effect would still be in force if growth and production was increased (it still costs a lot, and takes time, to build the needed structures for the higher level units, and their strength relative to lower level units hasn't been changed), so the advantages of lower level units would still be there. It is true, however, that it would be EASIER and FASTER to get higher level units, so IF people chose to sit back and wait to "go for the kill" until they had level 4 units, this would now happen faster than it does with the present growth and production values.
This would be my comment to Roger too. In many ways I think the only way to really gauge the effect is to try it, though;
such a change can always be reversed

cheaper skill research is best for turtling too skill massing and fast style of playing are absolutely opposite things. expensive casting spec1 allows fast attack with summons, it must speed up game, more time u need to research spellcasting1 - more hard to defend vs summon rush, while everything easy to research and easy to cast is paradise for slow builders

This doesn't make sense, how can expensive CS1 allow fast attack with summons? If you only have 20cp it takes longer to summon an army, surely? Why would slow research of CS1 make it harder to defend against a summon rush? If you have cheaper spell upkeep and quicker access to CS1 it makes it easier to rush, because you can use enchantments to beef up a mediochre army, surely? Having rushing as an option makes games faster, doesn't it?

Roger it make sense if u took casting specialist and summoner from start exactly for summon rush. but if u summon many units u cant research anything else, in one moment u will be forced to not choose another research object to not run out of mana, so the question how fast can opponent research casting specialist or other useful skills and spells will give u answer how successful will be your attack for example at start u can cast boar in 1.6 turns and your opponent in 3 turns, once he get spell casting 1 - your advantage disappears.

Gandalf we had more research in early versions - tower upgrades gave like 10 or even 15, monastery 10, casting chamber 10 and result was many ppl were sitting and building and those who tried to attack very often found his army outdated by strong spells, lev 3 summons and so on, so Stranger decreased research and all was working better, at least i heard Timelord who never use outpost building tactics is winning sometimes And about production - 105 prod in dwarve city with order shrine is too low for u? 90 prod is possible in any other city. Growth bonus from temple, monastery and nature shrine is 40, even undead breed like rabbits with it and once such numbers can be get for free, without vast resource usage - everyone will just build high lev units

increasing production and growth can make game slower if more ppl will try to use higher level units also increasing prod and growth will damage lower lev units use, so i think if u want fast and easy lev4 hordes - play 1.3

I completely agree. Gandalf's every suggestion is pushing the mod toward the kind of gameplay 1.3 or MP mod had - mass high lvl heavily enchanted units. Increasing growth and production, reducing enchantment cost and skill research cost, changing back to the old skill system...all these will reduce the distinction between the races quite a bit - no longer will a growth bonus or a production bonus seem as important as before.

Reg. 'blood lust' is it correct that this enchant/ability does NOT give willpower, as fury did? Certain races (orcs primarily) need will power for their units and are weakened a lot by such a change, while all races with dominate/seduce are strengthened by it.

The headlong rush into battle characterized by blood lust does indicate the unit would be immune to mind-attacks (kinda like the barbarian's rage in d&d increasing the will save) but getting it at silver is way too easy!

The reduction in upkeep cost for enchants discussed was 30%, not 15%-25%. To me you said you'd implement this change, and here you write you are /considering/ a 15-25% reduction?

Stranger, I beg you...do not reduce the enchantment upkeep costs. They are fine as they are now and I don't see a need to change them just to make more enchantments feasible!

The present skill system DOES slow down the game IMO. It's easy to illustrate with constructor - if I don't pick that, the level 1 units that took 1 turn to build now take 2 turns - and starting with tigrans with their research bonus, it still takes me a whooping 37 or so turns (depends on city size and nodes etc). to research constructor.

Why should a player always have all the skills? Isn't the whole point of this new skill system to eliminate that 'feature' - each player ending up with pretty much every skill around turn 50 or so? In almost every game we played this weekend, I see you building outposts and hordes of lvl1 shooters for defense of every outpost and village...and you claim the skill system is slowing the game down? I think the mentality of only going for high lvl units should change as otherwise, none of the features in Dwiggs would make sense to you.
2 nodes (of your sphere, easy with specialist since you usually get alter node at start in research book) + 4 heroes + wiz tower lvl2 + library gives you 125 research. IMNSHO, Constructor, Scholar and Explorer should stay at 2000. Expander can be reduced a little - not as popular as it once was.

With the change in the unit distribution for the dwarves, whats the big difference between the mole rider and the boar rider? One has double strike and 2 less damage and the other has charge and block - same att/def/res/mp and boar rider has 3 hp less than mole rider. IMO, boar rider should go back to lvl 1.
Cosmic Spray - is it a lvl3 spell now? If yes, I think it should keep the current cost and area of casting AND number of attacks - a reduction in damange should suffice.

Unit ILB changes -
1. Noctorn - dunno if its just me but he is not visible and appears only while attacking in some directions
2. the elf ranger changes to the elf archer when firing in the north-east direction

Wrote the above before going for lunch but seeing as there have been some more posts...

Quoted from Roger:

This doesn't make sense, how can expensive CS1 allow fast attack with summons? If you only have 20cp it takes longer to summon an army, surely? Why would slow research of CS1 make it harder to defend against a summon rush? If you have cheaper spell upkeep and quicker access to CS1 it makes it easier to rush, because you can use enchantments to beef up a mediochre army, surely? Having rushing as an option makes games faster, doesn't it?

CP1 being costlier implies that getting a summoned army/support stack, true. However, people aiming for a rush can now take CP1/summoner and get a summoned army faster. The defender, without CP1 at start, will definitely take a longer time to research it and hence, cannot rely on faster summoning or the extra 10 cp to get more defense. Cheaper spell upkeep and cheaper CS1 will put everyone on a similar footing, negating the importance of CP1. Again, this being my interpretation of things, it can be subjectively flawed in the eyes of others...but I do think that the higher research cost makes CP1 more important and makes it a more lucrative starting skill (especially due to the benefits of getting summoner/channeler sooner)

Thanks for sorting out those rewards, Gandalf. I think we should probably discuss eliminating a few of them from the three shrines other than Order, which could use a few more. I'd like them to be thematic (suiting the Shrine personality), not necessarily completely balanced out, but all worth having!

Some good discussion in here...

"also increasing prod and growth will damage lower lev units use." I think so, or at least discourage players from using them. The viability of all units is the charm of Dwiggs for me, and one of its primary distinguishing features. All units have had their costs and levels designed specifically for the current growth and production levels, so changing those would amount to changing the whole mod--that is, all unit costs would have to be reassessed and many redone.

"skill massing and fast style of playing are absolutely opposite things." In the sense that skill massing often tends to go hand in hand with building/developing lots of cities and accumulating enough gold/structures to crank out level 4's, Air is right, I think. A truly fast game is less than an hour (assuming that a quick tower capture or two breaks the game), and can be accomplished by a skillful player with the current system. Nomads / Air/ Pacifist/ Explorer is a good combination for rushing. What this fast game debate boils down to, for me, is play style. If a fast game is the most important consideration, there are ways to achieve it within any ruleset; but the player must choose a strategy/skill set/race that is conducive to a fast game.

"but I do think that the higher research cost makes CP1 more important and makes it a more lucrative starting skill (especially due to the benefits of getting summoner/channeler sooner)." That's how it was conceived and, to be honest, it makes the magic based skills quite valuable, especially in the early game. I've tried starting with casting specialist/summoner, and it really works well. To me, it creates another starting strategy, while it really limits nothing. If everyone can summon quickly, then everyone is at same advantage.....there may be a few more units in the army with cheap CS, but the armies would still be on par with each other. That is the case now with more expensive CS 1--only difference is each army will have a few less summons...but the relative army strength is still the same, assuming that all players take advantage of their ability to summon.

I think Air mentioned that too much magic can slow down a game, and I'll try to give an example of why: I think we all agree that low level units are valuable and effective in Dwiggs combat--they are a viable fighting option. Let's assume player A decides to choose constructor/pacifist and build a lot of cheap quick, strong attacking units, like Barbarians, to go for a fast conquest. If the player he attacks is turtling along and has only 20 cps and, let's assume, a handful of units, he is pretty helpless against 16 or so Barbarians. If he gets a quick 30 cp plus a decent area attack spell (fireball, C. Lightning, C. Spray), he can stop this fast attack, not through any decent strategy but simply because strong magic can beat up weaker units. If a player wants to FOCUS on magic, great, but I think in a strategy game, units should be the most crucial component. So, building units in a creative/strategic way should be rewarded, not penalized. Making magic too abundant reduces the value of units. If a player wishes to compromise their unit production to go for magic, that balances things out...as player A can churn out more units while player B gets summons and researches.

Also, what of the faracster/undead ideas above? And what about an ability that masks confusions, as bloodlust masks panicked? Edit: confusion and infection can't be masked :'(

Are people ready for a "c" version to test?

[This message has been edited by The_Stranger (edited 10-15-2007 @ 07:53 PM).]

I seem to have done something wrong.

I just got around to trying to install your mod. Here's what I did.

1. Fresh install from CD.
2. Ran 1.3 patch.
3. Ran unofficial 1.4 patch.
4. Ran Dwiggs 1.4 patch.
5. Ran Dwiggs 1.4 upgrade.
6. Ran Dwiggs 5.0b patch.

When I started the game, it was immediately [in the "Customize Wizard" process] apparent that some of the graphics were missing. A number of wizards had no prortraits.

So, I ran the UGPM gui utility, but there was no indication that it was doing anything. After a couple minutes, I closed UGPM and restarted the game. The missing wizard portraits were still missing. I started scenarios with each of the missing wizards--one or two had their small graphics on the mapboard, altho their portraits were missing, the others had neither the mapboard graphics, nor the portraits.

Did I miss some file I should have downloaded and run? I'm new to the AoW mods, so I admit I don't know what I'm doing. If anyone has any ideas, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks.

Dr.Zatt,

could you send me a screenshot of the portraits you can't see?

Also, did you install the files from your default AoWSM directory, or from somewhere else, such as your desktop?

Regards

Are people ready for a "c" version to test?

We're like the battery, Stranger - Ever Ready!

Haha, Roger! No worries, mate. I've got a couple tweeks to make, then I'll put it up.

And thanks everyone for the feedback.

Stranger,

Thanks a lot for your help. It's really nice that this game has such an active and supportive community. I hoped someone could help me get this working, but I didn't expect it to happen so quickly.

Thanks again.

DrZaat

Did he solve your problems by just asking some questions? I think what's lacking in your list is the 5.0A patch. Before you install 5.0B, you have to install 5.0A, at least as far as I know. It's download you can find in screen if you scroll all the way up this page.

Here's a link to the 5.0 beta:

http://aow2.heavengames.com/aowsm/Projects/Dwiggs_5.0a.exe

ElJoepo,

Not quite. We exchanged a couple emails, and he told me I was missing the 5.0A patch--I had thought it was included in the 5.0B patch. Once I ran both patches in order, the missing graphics showed up.

I don't see why farcasting needs to be changed.

Would your addition of the extra unit to undead be done with without subtracting anything?

I like the necromancer idea your playing with, I suggested something similar awhile back but with a few more details as follows.(I also though of a mage for every sphere, Ill try to finish that sometime soon)

Ice bolt, and bombard as well as death bolt for necromancers. Good marksmanship. The idea is of a actual mage who just specializes in death.

Not undead:

Morph lich at gold:
Lich would be changed a bit to reflect a more adanced necromancer, would be undead with holy weakness unlike necromancer. Improved range and such. Maybe magic domain?

Speaking of morph:

I'd like to see baby fairy dragons morph to adult ones like in dwiggs 1.4 GS.

I figured out why pure water sphere occassionally doesn't start with frog spell or geyser with 0 magic. There's 6 level 1 water spells. So when it happens that the frog spell or geyser doesn't make the cut as one of the 5 first level spells your allowed with pure sphere. You don't start out with that spell (and of course can never research it)

The 4th level water spell great wyvrm does indeed still lose static shield when going through a water sphere hall of enchantment. It does get it back upon reload but who wants to have to reload a game just for that.

I'm not sure why, stone golem starts out with stoneskin and does not lose it upon walking through a earth hall of enchantment. Maybe its because wyvrm is a summon? Maybe if wyvrm got it at silver? Maybe you used a different type of static shield addition?

I dont think dwarven engineers should morph ballista towers. But maybe they can morph MasterCraft Stone Golem's with gold medal. Like regular stone golems except also have fire pistal and get a marksmanship upgrade at gold.

The idea/story would be that some wise old engineers have dedicated their lives to such masterpieces. Spending the rest of their days in its creation and maintenance. Their expert knowledge allows the built in functional pistal.

I really like the bully unit. Though it seems evil would be a better alignment for them.

I really like the woodsman unit, glad to see it come over from BNW.

[This message has been edited by TruePurple (edited 10-16-2007 @ 05:54 PM).]