Progress Report On My Dominions 4 Pony Themed Mod. · 11:51pm Jul 31st, 2015
Not much to report, but progress has been made. Primarily sprites and the like, replacing placeholders like this huge pink abomination leading Equestria's finest and statting/equipping unit types.
As well as tuning game-mechanic ideas and redoing other parts of the mod to improve meshing.
Notable Changes:
* Pony troops now draw from a customized name-ruleset. Like Twinkle-shine and Bisquit, rather than native Dom ones, like Leonus and Vadjet, improving immersion by 20%.
* Early Era Earth Pony Berzerkers have been removed from Equestria's roster due to thematic conflict as well as underperforming in combat. They have been replaced with Earth Pony "Boulder Dashers".
* Boulder Dashers added: Fearsome Earth Pony Militias who kick big boulders enemywards. The pun is wholly intended.
* Earth Pony Levy and Earth Pony Regular have been rolled together into the Spearpony basic infantry.
* Earth Pony Levy Archers have been standardized into Markspony.
* Earth Pony Herdleaders can now drum up Pony Levy Troops in the field. With the added benefit of achieving one of the core objectives of the mod in the process.
* Core Objective Achieved: Skittle colored armies of ponies.
* Vast Majority of Sprites in the process of being redone, using Dshou's new and slightly improved pony templates. He is amazing.
* Herdleaders now get a supply bonus.
* Pegasi Troops rebalanced.
* Unicorn Adepts rolled into Unicorn levies and their magic missile replaced with a simple throwing spell.
* Unicorn Battle Mages nerfed and resprited.
* All pony troops now get two map-moves. Except for Pegasi who can already fly.
And so on and so on and so on. This is a fun little project and I'm glad to have friends that support me with it... As well as anti-anxiety meds, without which I would be a complete gibbering wreckage now.
It is good to see that you are still working on such, and I just wanted to say that that is a really good Celestia Sprite. Good Job!
If I may ask you, do you know what magic paths you are giving to Equestria? I imagine that Astral would be one of them since Communions go well with their theme and is a lot of what Equestria seems to specialize in. Are there others you might guess that I'm not thinking of?
EDIT: Also I have to ask when you mean "...Skittle colored armies of ponies" did you mean you found a way to randomized their color or just in general that the armies units together are the color of skittles?
3285591 I had to abstract it heavily, and have a extensive google-doc explaining the reasoning behind most mechanic decisions, most which have been discussed at length with some co-authors, spriters and Strategy Game enthusiasts I managed to rope in. - But the short answer:
- Earth ponies have limited access to Earth and Nature magic.
- Pegasi have Air magic.
- Unicorns have astral and elemental pips. Being active magic users.
- Sea Ponies have water magic, (Hippocampi, Seahorses, Sirens, Kelpies etc)
- Crystal ponies have access to astral magic, despite being a offshoot Earth Pony Tribe. Due to their exposure to the Aurora Borealis of their native territories.
- Unicorn Wizards have a slim chance at the less ethical magic types, such as Death or even Blood, as part of their studies.
- Changelings have blood magic pips. It is an abstraction of their need to feed upon the emotions of others. - If you want to summon changelings to fight for you, you have to offer them something in return.
- Breezies have pips in nature magics.
And certain pretender-chassi have pips according to their themes. - Grogar and Sombra are death-magic users. Tirek would be Fire and Blood.
So in short(er): Wide access to elemental magics, with a emphasis on astral magic. Very limited access to the darker arts.
3285657
Wow I didn't think this would have more things involved then most base nations in Dominions 4. This is great! I don't know how I'm going to wait. Just try to be sure you get the balance right, but as long as you do this is amazing!.
3285709 Oh and to answer your edited-in-question! Well originally I was having each recruitable unit be a different color. But that led to issues as the map would be covered in eye-searingly hot pink blobs of archer-pones. So now all the "national troops" are shades of white and dark grey, while the levies, which each tribe's commander can summon for free (in small amounts per turn), pick from a pool of randomly colored, poorly equipped and untrained peasant-ponies. This was the only way I could find to get properly randomly colored ponies. (Besides summoning-spells!) But it works and it gives Equestria a sorta unique game-play mechanic that stands out among the vanilla-nations of Dom4. As well as getting us armies that look like a explosion in a candy factory.
s20.postimg.org/vd2j46bvx/Sk_rmklipp_2015_08_01_04_26_07.png
(More colors will be added as the mod develops)
3285860 *Claps*
Bravo My Good Man! Quite the creative solutions to some interesting problems, Also I see that Discord is a pretender god too it seems, Seems like he'd do well with the classic Chaos/Luck Dominion combo. I wish you well and bid you ado.
*GASP* Wow... just wow... i mean... i looked closely to the pictures and i was super amazed by them.
Great work so far, really =)
i mean dayum... Celestia looks so awesome <3
PRAISE THE SUN!
cant wait to see/read more. As so amazing
This looks so cool!
3285860 I've had the same problem.
Before I read this I got very excited thinking you found a way to have multicolored units.
by the way I've uploaded my WIP mod on my devientart page
http://lesserartist.deviantart.com/
if you want to look at it feel free. Be warned its very unfinished and probably has a lot of problems. (first time uploading anything like this)
3305249 Sorry for not commenting sooner, - Its a good mod. Very well thought out and a lot of care obviously went into making the sprites fit the style of the rest of the game! (Unlike my own mod, which just grabbed some pony templates from Dshou and painted some armor on top) Though I wonder if 18th century rifle-pones fits the bronze to iron age theme of Dominions 4.
3375111 Yah I started out with a more medieval themed mod but then I read a fic with 18th century ponies so I redid the entire mod in that style, If and when I do a middle age mod for equestria It will be more medieval with different orders of Equestrian knights.
I've started working on the mod again slowly so a better version will be up relatively soon just need to finish testing it. And figure out how event modding works.
Edit: I'm going to post any updates on my profile so I stop derailing your mod.
PS: when do you think your mod will put online? I'm looking forwards to seeing it.