Interesting discussion about the different races. 2 of 3 players rate dwarves as the strongest race, the 3rd (Lev) as the 2nd strongest race. Personally I would also rate the dwarves as the strongest, but of course the game isn't only about melee strength, both mobility, ranged attack, speed, growth speed, bonuses etc. etc. come in too. For that reason I don't think the halflings can be valued as the weakest race, for instance, it's easy to mass cities with them, and you nearly always have enough gold - you just need to find a dwarf or archon town to migrate to later
Anyways, I mentioned the high rating for the dwarves (and dark elves) because of my suggestion: It might be a good idea to let rune masters and spider queens get leadership IV at gold instead of starting with it? Will make it a more special ability, which I thought it ought to, and weaken them slightly; it is a bit too easy to use rune masters or spider queens to boost your stack's attack and defense.
I know some forumers don't like to remove fire immunity from units, but I'd also suggest the dwarf steam tank loses its fire immunity - as far as I know it's the oNLY machine with fire immunity, and it doesn't make sense, at it's built from wood (and the dwarves have a HOST of fire immune units already); a better candidate for fire immunity would be the undead bone machine; bones don't easily catch fire.

Apart from these nitpick suggestions I am still interested in discussing how dwiggs games could be sped up. I know I mentioned it before, without much enthusiasm, but having just played CoMA and MP mod and then going back to Dwiggs, the difference is tremendous.
I think I mentioned earlier that if you increased city growth with a certain percentage, and also the city production, you would probably get a faster game. People objected that this would be "against the spirit of dwiggs" and make it only about massing level 4 units, but I don't think that will be the case. I think whether or not people mass level 4 units has to do with their cost effectiveness compared to lower level units - so if it takes 5 turns to build a level 4 unit, but it fights better than 6 or 7 level 1 units of the same race - well, then you go for it; otherwise, you might successfully stick with the lower level units, esp. since upgrading the city to be able to build level 4 units in the first place is a lengthy process.
What I mean by this is that as long as the cost/benefit balance isn't stacked against lower level units, then they will be built and used - and I do not think it is stacked against them with the current prices/production costs in Dwiggs - therefore it should be possible to increase city growth and production, while maintaining the same balance.

BTW, Stranger, if you still have unit graphics left over, maybe at some point there would be time to add an extra unit to each race? Time to spiff the mod up a bit

Reg. the halflings: Letting the sheriff start with a higher level of leadership is a very easy way of strengthening them, and, well - another favourite thing of mine that I suggested loooong ago was to give the rogue poison darts instead - it's a bit repetative with all those stones their units keep hurling (and again, if you want to strengthen the buggers, give them more marksmanship).

[This message has been edited by Gandalf_DK (edited 01-06-2008 @ 05:05 AM).]

Reg: the halflings, I think the problem is as follows - since everyone has mighty meek, strengthening them stat-wise might make them unbalanced. But the problem is, except when fighting lvl4 or heroes, the lvl2s and 3s mighty meek really doesn't play a big part. So, I think even a stat boost for the pony rider (+1 def, +1 res) and willpower + higher attack for the sheriff would be a good idea. Personally, I like poison darts and poison strike to stay with the goblins and the tricksy fey.

I also think the Nomad Djinn needs a major boost. A defense of 5 makes it so weak in offense and the only saving grace is the seekered magic bolts.

I like Gandalf's idea about adding (possibly even replacing existing units) more units to each race but that can be done after the 5.0 version is released perhaps?
That way, we would have a bug-free (hopefully ) single-install professional-looking version of Dwiggs ready to be played and then, we can start trying out new units which can be added to the mod along with the v1.5 content.
Thoughts?

Well it's probably a good idea to release the (single install?) Dwiggs 5.0 first, and then make a test resource set with new units in that can then be discussed. Question is whether strenghtening the halflings should happen in 5.0 itself or as part of the test set, but I'll leave that for Stranger to decide.

Stranger, you still in need of descriptions? I've just been very busy lately, maybe you could update that list of units/heroes that still need one.

Tested recently dwiggs with large starting town. With Gandy, BigBen and Karf. I asked for large town to seed up a game. We were very lucky we were not too close to each other. Game was really a bit faster, after 6 hours of playing I could kill Karf and possibly take point vic. But large starting town is not a universal option in general due to it has too big tower instead of more other structures. Is it possible to change in mods? I told many times about reasons of slowness of dwiggs mod compared to other mods. And Gandys suggestion of increasing town growth etc may make a mod even more about building and maybe even more slow somehow. Other suggestions about taking leadership from sq and rune are just funny. They are even not lies in dwiggs style.
And I really do not think dwarves are best race, because of ug starts are often really bad and in many situations you need to expand and build cities that is very problematicaly with slow growing dwarves. And runes are not that so strong btw.

Jean,

if you could send me an email, I'll post you a list of some units/heroes that need doing. I'd be appreciative

Stranger, I sent you a mail to the address in your profile but don't get the impression it's reached you, should I use a different method?

Try bradjosse@gmail.com

I consider fire blazing comet too powerfull spell as 15 cost, that means cost 13 with chanlerer and can do dmg 15 with warmage. Also very good idea to put earth stoning back to 10 cost, I think it was me who wanted it to 12, but that nefves it too much

Best race is Archons for sure, best 1st lvl and prolly best 4th lvl + res bonus.

Demons comes to second. Dwarfs & dark elfs shares the 3rd place with their leadership IV 4th lvl. Most races are not too bad, but the silly hobbits canīt make an attacking army

Common dwiggers seem busy, since gs is empty most of time!

[This message has been edited by Munataros (edited 01-14-2008 @ 02:47 AM).]

Any new updates? Eagerly awaiting the final release!

I'm updating the unit bodies (I renamed every unit so that they'd be easier to find); once this is done, we're good to go I'll make a big push this weekend, and hopefully send it to Timelord on monday.

Hey stranger, one question to you as the expert :

In our current MMBEM project, I want to implement certain stuff that can only be achieved by using the SEM 2.0 mod from Swolte.
For instance I want to have outposts with wizzard tower and heroes with better starting spells.

Problem: When I started (a copy of ) the so-far-created Descent to Undermountain map in the Editor with SEM 2.0 mod chosen, I could do all those changes and saved the map => All Dwiggs related stuff such as new wizzard sprites and new recruitment buildings and sort of were gone, which ouldnīt be the biggest problem at this point.

BUT: Then I switched back to Dwiggs, loaded the map and some things seemed to be corrupted. Beside the all Dwiggs-only stuff being gone, strange error messages appeared on several cities - canīt remember which one. Furthermore - when I click on a such an Wizzard-tower outpost, then the tower is gone...

Do you know, if using the SEM on a Dwiggs map works (would be mod in mod though )? Or can you give me a hint what I did wrong or what I should do that it works?

thx
Morgul

SEM mod should work for most things....Please send me the map and I'll take a look

(edit: oops) Thanks for your hard work making this great mod!

[This message has been edited by solutionx (edited 01-26-2008 @ 09:35 PM).]

hi stranger, it might be a bit late but would u be able to make the flame thrower and the frost thrower work in the red. I've seen it done in another mod and think its great...thx.

Luna Park

Thanks for the kind words, solutionx

Luna, I actually favour the idea also. But it would be a fairly major change. The mod that first used it was Chris Lighthawks, I believe, though I'm not sure how he did it. Maybe by changing the number of shots?

Frall made that change (flamer and frost throwers able to shoot in red) for the mp 1.6 mod. Dunno how he did it, but if I get a hold of him I'll find out. I think it's a good change for dwiggs, but if implemented, their price should rise a bit - those machines have more impact in dwiggs than in the mp mod, where the change just make them /useable/, in dwiggs it will make them really good.

That would be good, Gandy, thanks

Come to think of it, I think that Lighthawk used the effect on dragons, not machines.

Now, the thing is, it may require that I change the nature of the attack, which means that each unit getting that attack would be able to move and use it...we'll see.

Yes, I got the idea for that change from Kris his mod. He found out how to do it.

It's very easy to make a breath-like attack usable in the redmovement. All you have to do is change the number of shots to 2. It will still fire only once, but can be used with any number of MP left. Hope that will help you.

Yep, thanks Frall

Could be nice that dragons get the breath working at red movement too.

That's my though too, Muna.

I suggest we test how it affects the game when dragons can use their breath attack in red, obviously it will make them stronger and it might be needed to compensate there too with a higher price.

yes, I agree Gandy.

There maybe have to be an X pack or a patch at some stage.

But I've finished everything and am trying to upload it to Timelord for a final test. I'm trying to use Pando to send the file, but it ain't goin' right now.

Does anyone else know a reasonable way to send a 266 mb file?

I might have a number of other suggestions for changes for dwiggs - if I get time to check it all through - but such changes will only be small changes or stats and/or abilities etc. i.e. changes that require a new resource set (700 kb) if implemented - and would have to be tested first to see
if people like them. So I suggest the new dwiggs is released and tried - and such smaller changes can be tested later and perhaps added through a new resource set.

This file hoster: http://s2.quicksharing.com/
Has a 500 mb size for uploaded files and looks like it's free, I'm still trying to test it, but it seems a good bet for hosting that dwiggs file.

Vampire bats, maybe a bit too expensive for their power? I had one get "owned"/destroyed by two purger attacks. The vampire lord has considerably less resistance then the bats, and even more vulnerable to such holy bolt attacks.

Perhaps the vampire mod could have as much resistance as the bat mode?

That's reasonable, I think. Done

Joy! Joy! Joy!
Just communicated with Stranger; Dwiggs 22.4C (pj) should be available by the 16th!

Yes indeed

Stranger, the halfling fire-bombing eagles, could they be made to mature into great eagles at gold? Muna and I were discussing units - and I've never seen a gold pony rider; and there seems to be a general agreement that halflings are pretty weak - but this will boost them. However - it takes a while to build that halfling special structure...and war shrine - and get enough kills - so it shouldn't be too much
strengthening.