Phantasy 2018: Slideshow of features
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mokrygorky
" If you know what the picture means, then shhhh. If not, its a mystery. "
Then don't post it in a slideshow of new FEATURES.
Then don't post it in a slideshow of new FEATURES.
Hold on a minute, is v.723 the most recent version?
HunterAlpha1 said:
as explained, I am not the moderator. But EVERY LAST CHANGE to Phantasy 2018 since August 2 2017 came only from me. SO I make most of the posts. But there's only one person that can change a sticky, or label the latest version. Thats not me. Guspav has come here 2-3 times in the last 7 months and posted. I think he visits every 2-3 weeks just to see if I've burned down his mod yet. From time to time my rough manners get me in trouble, thus I have NO moderation power here, whatsoever. I'm a serf like you here, except ALL the patches came from me. Not even 1 line in assists from anyone else.
So... once more with feeling:
PHANTASY CALRADIA, summer 2014 version, the latest update is 0.723
Whatever it has, Guspav wrote 4 years ago.
Phantasy 2018, Christmas 2017 version series v150, which now reads 1.500 on your screen so you have less reason to slap a patch from 2014 over it to scramble everything. IT IS A DIFFERENT MOD SHARING THE SAME FORUM.
Whatever THIS has, started with Guspav's last 3 years work, then was handed to me broken, so that it couldn't compile and around 30 mistakes made sure that most cleric spells, most magic spells, stealth attacks, unarmed damage, and necromancer handling was fairly broken.
AS HANDED TO ME:
absolutely 0 diplomacy functions were there. There was no chamberlain. No dodge. No rigale -- although I'll concede that brought problems as well as alternative solutions (such as crafting and foraging). There was no morale benefit to drinks; there were 1/3rd less foods, and their portions smaller and weights heavier. There was no prejudice. There was weaker undead. Cleric spells had half the radius of effect. Magic resistance was much less for all troops, making magic super over powered. The enterprises paid next to nothing. Towns had half as many trade routes, and no working caravans. Bandit spawns were totally bugged in 3 different layers so that fixing any one broken layer still hung every quest for bandits, which meant hangs in dialogs for guild masters, tavern keeps, and lords/monarchs. Raw materials weren't profitable for trading. Trade routes were half filled out, especially for new towns - only native routes were present, then maybe 4 routes each new town, with some duplicate routes.
There was no wife as a companion. No hiring prisoners by talking to them. No vassal offers for female players. No kingdom ladies spanned races/factions due to native creation. In about 3000 places, less 500 that Guspav DID modify, the gender WAS backwards for talking to non humans. There was no PBOD/formations. Battles were about 1/3rd slower, or more. Strategic map stuttered more heavily and could not be adjusted simply as now. There was no "Phantasy Settings" allowing end user access. All the added reports, camp action menu items, tree viewers, tools for inspecting your game's trade routes, prejudices, your gear materials. There were no dynamic resists. There were no buffs and debuffs. Gauntlets of Ogre power were broken. Mage Staffs were broken. Items were scattered around making it difficult to do things like interpolate metadata about that item if you could not add some sort of item property flag to the item -- and so many of the tricks I added couldn't have been made. Stealth attacks execute 80% faster; the magic spells that used to need > 400 lines of script just to decide if you had a staff and some mage clothes equipped now do this in around 41 scripted lines. In most timers, there used to be large overlaps causing bubbles of performance hits; these are spread now to have a more smooth movement on map or battle -- although battle has many large peaks, especially at reinforcement waves. There were no debugging tools for magic, no weighing of gear or encumbrance, no difference in speed between robes and heavy plate.
So, which one do you play?
I can't sticky for you. If you don't know and don't care, neither can I. I can just report on whats done. But if you're a TLDR person, I can't spoon feed you. NO time. No mandate. You're just another complaint in a wilderness; but at least I shared the project for people MOTIVATED enough to decide for themselves, to educate themselves, on the small chance they MIGHT get value from it. Its not like I get paid one fraction of a cent for another download. Neither is it a vaporware bait and switch.
A quick walk-through of the new recruiting mechanic:
You need to be lord of a Town, not just a castle. You don't have to be king/queen.
In this example, I own Obsidian Spire and Ahmarad. I am a vassal of Blazing Hand; Blazing Hand has captured the Drow capital also, but did not migrate the population away from Drow. Khergits have captured Bloody Cliff (Orc capital), and likewise have not migrated the Orc town to a new population. I have previously migrated Ahmerad to be Blazing Hand culture, and Obsidian Spire to be Ridas Mageocracy culture. Note how that changes the recruits available at town recruiting menu. Notice especially the option to recruit multiple golems, since my OWN faction likes me so much. When I visit Ridas Mageocracy, all they offer me there is a single clay golem.
In brief, you need to wait for the "Recruit Troops" town menu item to show. It happens twice a week, roughly.
Here you see the value of migrating the town culture. I can recruit locally some Golems, 10 mages OR I can use my one recruiting chance to do something new:
choose "Recruit by Caravan from a trading town" and it brings up a report showing all the trade route towns tied to the town you are at;
and shows their diplomacy status, what faction the town is, what kind of troops are recruited from THAT town's culture (in case any towns have been migrated to a new culture), whether any convoys of troops from THAT town are already in progress to THIS town, and how troops are available at the originating town for the case where a recent order FROM at a DIFFERENT town (you own) has depleted temporarily the number of available troops that you could pull to THIS town. (In that case, the other town that just sent an order someplace else only has 1/3rd the usual number of troops, returning to full number when that order arrives at its destination. The cost per troop varies according to distance -- you (abstractly) are paying their food, protection, and ticket as walking passengers in a chartered neutral caravan, allowing them to cross safely from kingdom to kingdom without being molested. But you pay about 3 to 4 times what you might pay if you had gone to their village and recruited directly. The time delay is based on averaged 25 km per day travel time plus 3 days preparation at the source town of troops. The number of troops answering your call (and their base cost) depends somewhat on your class, how that faction reacts to your current party (word gets around if you ride with half undead/Orcs/etc), and so forth. Notice there are two earlier orders already travelling to this town.
If you press Quit, you lose the chance to recruit that cycle and the list made of what is available is discarded - but it doesn't cost you anything.
If you press Update, you proceed to the next stage and choose the town you want to recruit from. The most important information is displayed again here, since there is no going back. Towns with 0 recruits available or at war with your faction are filtered from this menu view.
Finally, you can choose essentially, ALL of the troops offered, HALF the troops offered, to Cancel at this point and loose the recruiting chance this cycle (so wait another half week to recruit again), or in THIS case since there are both male and female troops available, you can choose MIXED ALL, MIXED HALF, giving in total 5 options. I'll choose MIXED ALL, and since as a Paladin I was getting +5 troops offered, the 55 I was offered will instead be delivered as 1 set of 27 male Drow and 27 female Drow. Although my Blazing Hand (and Elf) troops can't stand drow troops, they're for the garrison, where the constable will train them as "ranged" giving me quite a few Drow mages in my defensive garrison.
Also there is no cut off, so far, for troops ordered in this system, so if you have patience you can pack your city with quite a few troops, perhaps moving some of them to castles you own etc later. Its a much faster recruiting than by Diplomacy recruiter. the special caveat are not many factions will offer troops to known necromancers. You'd get a few criminals and such, many more if you are also a Rogue, but the turnout will be lower and cost a little more. You'll see this immediately in the first report stage. Mummies of course have no problem for Necromancers. Rogues get a fairly good bonus on recruiting, as they can wash criminals and thieves guild associates from a marginal existence in other towns to the relatively better fed if boring life of a career garrison soldier in your hopefully well fed towns. I suppose their life is bleak if you seldom feed them and otherwise neglect to protect trade caravans from being eaten by bandits.
-------
Khergit faction allied to Blazing Hand, allowing me access to their Super Troop:
since I don't own the town I don't get the recruit by caravan option... I'm just visiting.
You need to be lord of a Town, not just a castle. You don't have to be king/queen.
In this example, I own Obsidian Spire and Ahmarad. I am a vassal of Blazing Hand; Blazing Hand has captured the Drow capital also, but did not migrate the population away from Drow. Khergits have captured Bloody Cliff (Orc capital), and likewise have not migrated the Orc town to a new population. I have previously migrated Ahmerad to be Blazing Hand culture, and Obsidian Spire to be Ridas Mageocracy culture. Note how that changes the recruits available at town recruiting menu. Notice especially the option to recruit multiple golems, since my OWN faction likes me so much. When I visit Ridas Mageocracy, all they offer me there is a single clay golem.
In brief, you need to wait for the "Recruit Troops" town menu item to show. It happens twice a week, roughly.
Here you see the value of migrating the town culture. I can recruit locally some Golems, 10 mages OR I can use my one recruiting chance to do something new:
choose "Recruit by Caravan from a trading town" and it brings up a report showing all the trade route towns tied to the town you are at;
and shows their diplomacy status, what faction the town is, what kind of troops are recruited from THAT town's culture (in case any towns have been migrated to a new culture), whether any convoys of troops from THAT town are already in progress to THIS town, and how troops are available at the originating town for the case where a recent order FROM at a DIFFERENT town (you own) has depleted temporarily the number of available troops that you could pull to THIS town. (In that case, the other town that just sent an order someplace else only has 1/3rd the usual number of troops, returning to full number when that order arrives at its destination. The cost per troop varies according to distance -- you (abstractly) are paying their food, protection, and ticket as walking passengers in a chartered neutral caravan, allowing them to cross safely from kingdom to kingdom without being molested. But you pay about 3 to 4 times what you might pay if you had gone to their village and recruited directly. The time delay is based on averaged 25 km per day travel time plus 3 days preparation at the source town of troops. The number of troops answering your call (and their base cost) depends somewhat on your class, how that faction reacts to your current party (word gets around if you ride with half undead/Orcs/etc), and so forth. Notice there are two earlier orders already travelling to this town.
If you press Quit, you lose the chance to recruit that cycle and the list made of what is available is discarded - but it doesn't cost you anything.
If you press Update, you proceed to the next stage and choose the town you want to recruit from. The most important information is displayed again here, since there is no going back. Towns with 0 recruits available or at war with your faction are filtered from this menu view.
Finally, you can choose essentially, ALL of the troops offered, HALF the troops offered, to Cancel at this point and loose the recruiting chance this cycle (so wait another half week to recruit again), or in THIS case since there are both male and female troops available, you can choose MIXED ALL, MIXED HALF, giving in total 5 options. I'll choose MIXED ALL, and since as a Paladin I was getting +5 troops offered, the 55 I was offered will instead be delivered as 1 set of 27 male Drow and 27 female Drow. Although my Blazing Hand (and Elf) troops can't stand drow troops, they're for the garrison, where the constable will train them as "ranged" giving me quite a few Drow mages in my defensive garrison.
Also there is no cut off, so far, for troops ordered in this system, so if you have patience you can pack your city with quite a few troops, perhaps moving some of them to castles you own etc later. Its a much faster recruiting than by Diplomacy recruiter. the special caveat are not many factions will offer troops to known necromancers. You'd get a few criminals and such, many more if you are also a Rogue, but the turnout will be lower and cost a little more. You'll see this immediately in the first report stage. Mummies of course have no problem for Necromancers. Rogues get a fairly good bonus on recruiting, as they can wash criminals and thieves guild associates from a marginal existence in other towns to the relatively better fed if boring life of a career garrison soldier in your hopefully well fed towns. I suppose their life is bleak if you seldom feed them and otherwise neglect to protect trade caravans from being eaten by bandits.
-------
Khergit faction allied to Blazing Hand, allowing me access to their Super Troop:
since I don't own the town I don't get the recruit by caravan option... I'm just visiting.
A little update on my adventures with "Wife as a Companion".
Besides making more personalities willing to come travel with you, and closing the OSP exploit where a person could farm gear by
accepting the wife many times into party and stripping free gear over and over (that can't happen here), there are other things you can do in the Phantasy 2018 system. For one, if you lose a battle your wife is rescued and sent home, so she does not re-appear and get into a dialog state that forces you to cheat divorce to recover from, as the original OSP had. So, I do more than "cut and paste" in this mod.
Here we see her in my party.
I've taken the liberty of paying for her to become a magic user.
She's a red eyed drow with a pony tail, and although the stats aren't supreme for Kingdom ladies, the female drow do start with enhanced martial arts. Its possible she does more damage unarmed than armed, at least up close, since unarmed damage includes kicking also. I should have agents auto kick sometime soon...
In court she also has a suitable weapon. I had earlier made via Rigale a fine Dwarven hand crossbow with tempered steel bolts for ammo but now that she is a NPC magic user slots 2, 3, and 4 will be emptied in battle. Only the player isn't micromanaged for gear; NPCs get more than 1 spell and they are placed differently than players, so all that matters is what I put in slot 1. Notice I MADE her tunic via Rigale.
and for that matter I MADE this head gear with Rigale. You don't always get lordly or the best item modifiers, and in this case the ingredients were too costly to try a second time. Its not like I save game and try again; usually I wont try more than twice to make the same item. Rigale sometimes makes worse than you could have bought at a merchant. The one thing is, you can fairly reliably get the item instead of travelling across half the map to that faction, which might not trade with you anyway. But mainly Rigale is a good use for cheap iron, hides, or silk.
dialog choices while she is in the party:
----
Oh, and here's something I made with crafting in Rigale today (after 4 tries) as a Master Smith at skill 17:
EDIT: and by the way, I've had the same prisoners for FOUR MONTHS dragged around with me. I do have leadership 6, which matters.
I'm running patch P1, which matters. You want high leadership AND patch N7 (now removed) or P1 (which may yet get published, sometime "Soon").
Besides making more personalities willing to come travel with you, and closing the OSP exploit where a person could farm gear by
accepting the wife many times into party and stripping free gear over and over (that can't happen here), there are other things you can do in the Phantasy 2018 system. For one, if you lose a battle your wife is rescued and sent home, so she does not re-appear and get into a dialog state that forces you to cheat divorce to recover from, as the original OSP had. So, I do more than "cut and paste" in this mod.
Here we see her in my party.
I've taken the liberty of paying for her to become a magic user.
She's a red eyed drow with a pony tail, and although the stats aren't supreme for Kingdom ladies, the female drow do start with enhanced martial arts. Its possible she does more damage unarmed than armed, at least up close, since unarmed damage includes kicking also. I should have agents auto kick sometime soon...
In court she also has a suitable weapon. I had earlier made via Rigale a fine Dwarven hand crossbow with tempered steel bolts for ammo but now that she is a NPC magic user slots 2, 3, and 4 will be emptied in battle. Only the player isn't micromanaged for gear; NPCs get more than 1 spell and they are placed differently than players, so all that matters is what I put in slot 1. Notice I MADE her tunic via Rigale.
and for that matter I MADE this head gear with Rigale. You don't always get lordly or the best item modifiers, and in this case the ingredients were too costly to try a second time. Its not like I save game and try again; usually I wont try more than twice to make the same item. Rigale sometimes makes worse than you could have bought at a merchant. The one thing is, you can fairly reliably get the item instead of travelling across half the map to that faction, which might not trade with you anyway. But mainly Rigale is a good use for cheap iron, hides, or silk.
dialog choices while she is in the party:
----
Oh, and here's something I made with crafting in Rigale today (after 4 tries) as a Master Smith at skill 17:
EDIT: and by the way, I've had the same prisoners for FOUR MONTHS dragged around with me. I do have leadership 6, which matters.
I'm running patch P1, which matters. You want high leadership AND patch N7 (now removed) or P1 (which may yet get published, sometime "Soon").
Quick preview of Thursday night's v153 savegame breaking launch: new series.
First, I decided to overrule myself on Necromancers, but I promise they won't be the vastly overpowered easy mode they were in v150.
If you really want to be anti-social, at least I won't make it easy on you. Every last hand will be raised against you, and you start by fleeing the starting city with all but necromancers hunting you actively. Noone wants you as a mercenary or vassal, except the Lich king -- who offers vassal only status. There will be no way to use diplomacy mechanics to wash relations like in v150. Also there is no longer starting as some other class and adding necromancer, magic user, or cleric at a later time. Choose it up front or it stays closed to you forever. You can choose two classes; some classes block other classes.
Secondary classes are weaker versions of primary classes -- the skills are less, and that class earns experience slower. Barbarian, Necromancer, Paladin can only be primary classes. Fighters only get specialization bonus if the Fighter is the primary class. Bard, Ranger, Monk, Rogue, Magic user, Cleric and Fighter are valid second classes. Race is implicit on selecting faction, and that faction becomes your default player culture.
Picture #1 shows the two classes Primary and Secondary plus all racial, sex, class1 and class2 additions and subtractions summed together, plus every last Rigale change. Rigale starts completely enabled, including epidemics. Only "fatigue" and forced night camping are turned off. I still may change encounters in the next few days thus I'm reluctant to release a tester preview tomorrow. But possibly I'll make something ready to a select few people this time tomorrow.
Notice in picture number 2 Necromacy is not something the player can add points to. Instead Necromancers start with skill 5 and that skill is frozen.
There will be no adding to it for your companions or spouse. Don't worry, you won't be burdened with a spouse if you're a lich. The numbers changed between picture 1 and picture 2 as a result of becoming a lich, although I had put some adjusts anticipating lichdom into the presentation. It's fairly honest otherwise. You can get down to 1 strength if you choose the wrong options, in which case you'll move like a tortoise with even what seems like very light gear (pro tip, your weapons slots weight matters too), especially as a female elf or drow. You can be eerily charismatic with the right choices, or end up very buffed for strength with the right choices. Fighter specialization for example isnt shown. You will have cleric deity selection if you choose a cleric as primary or secondary class, with all benefits that gives.
Bards are the only ones that entertain for money; monks are not capped at unarmed skill 3. Otherwise you've seen all the systems tested in v150 before this.
Notice in picture # 4 fog of war has hidden the location of towns outside your faction except for the starting town. All castles and villages start hidden.
Drow are moved to the north of the map, and nearly every faction shifted slightly.
second set, Elf female Bard primary Cleric secondary;
character backgrounds chosen to show a diversity of Rigale starting bonuses
First, I decided to overrule myself on Necromancers, but I promise they won't be the vastly overpowered easy mode they were in v150.
If you really want to be anti-social, at least I won't make it easy on you. Every last hand will be raised against you, and you start by fleeing the starting city with all but necromancers hunting you actively. Noone wants you as a mercenary or vassal, except the Lich king -- who offers vassal only status. There will be no way to use diplomacy mechanics to wash relations like in v150. Also there is no longer starting as some other class and adding necromancer, magic user, or cleric at a later time. Choose it up front or it stays closed to you forever. You can choose two classes; some classes block other classes.
Secondary classes are weaker versions of primary classes -- the skills are less, and that class earns experience slower. Barbarian, Necromancer, Paladin can only be primary classes. Fighters only get specialization bonus if the Fighter is the primary class. Bard, Ranger, Monk, Rogue, Magic user, Cleric and Fighter are valid second classes. Race is implicit on selecting faction, and that faction becomes your default player culture.
Picture #1 shows the two classes Primary and Secondary plus all racial, sex, class1 and class2 additions and subtractions summed together, plus every last Rigale change. Rigale starts completely enabled, including epidemics. Only "fatigue" and forced night camping are turned off. I still may change encounters in the next few days thus I'm reluctant to release a tester preview tomorrow. But possibly I'll make something ready to a select few people this time tomorrow.
Notice in picture number 2 Necromacy is not something the player can add points to. Instead Necromancers start with skill 5 and that skill is frozen.
There will be no adding to it for your companions or spouse. Don't worry, you won't be burdened with a spouse if you're a lich. The numbers changed between picture 1 and picture 2 as a result of becoming a lich, although I had put some adjusts anticipating lichdom into the presentation. It's fairly honest otherwise. You can get down to 1 strength if you choose the wrong options, in which case you'll move like a tortoise with even what seems like very light gear (pro tip, your weapons slots weight matters too), especially as a female elf or drow. You can be eerily charismatic with the right choices, or end up very buffed for strength with the right choices. Fighter specialization for example isnt shown. You will have cleric deity selection if you choose a cleric as primary or secondary class, with all benefits that gives.
Bards are the only ones that entertain for money; monks are not capped at unarmed skill 3. Otherwise you've seen all the systems tested in v150 before this.
Notice in picture # 4 fog of war has hidden the location of towns outside your faction except for the starting town. All castles and villages start hidden.
Drow are moved to the north of the map, and nearly every faction shifted slightly.
second set, Elf female Bard primary Cleric secondary;
character backgrounds chosen to show a diversity of Rigale starting bonuses
Here's the result of presentation to make multi-classed character but with custom tree's option to start as your own King:
I've selected a Elf male, Paladin primary and Bard secondary class (so I can make money and leverage the charisma across both classes).
The second choice is you start normally, no kingdom at start but its a normal start (so you're not stuck having to choose custom troop trees up front, which burns like a half hour or more of your real time). I should probably change the text a bit on option #2 to say what it is more clearly, and otherwise it's about ready.
picture #2: its pretty plain and there is still one icon to flesh out showing starting renown.
Also its not showing starting gold or renown from the kingdom inheritance, that's a surprise that suddenly happens while you are still messing with making your character. You'll have a free 50000 dinars. Should I mention you can't borrow as much or use 4-ways inn bank the way you might have gotten used to in v150? You better set up an enterprise or two, or get a day job, or at least trade wisely before wasting your cash on toys at 4-ways inn. Tournaments no longer give free money.
The backstory is: I was surprised to find my deadbeat dad that left me so many years ago made this kingdom and left it to me. I was off
swearing I'd never be like him and now I find out that he actually did think of me, surprising me with this inheritance. Unfortunately I know nothing of the kingdom I just received...
I've selected a Elf male, Paladin primary and Bard secondary class (so I can make money and leverage the charisma across both classes).
The second choice is you start normally, no kingdom at start but its a normal start (so you're not stuck having to choose custom troop trees up front, which burns like a half hour or more of your real time). I should probably change the text a bit on option #2 to say what it is more clearly, and otherwise it's about ready.
picture #2: its pretty plain and there is still one icon to flesh out showing starting renown.
Also its not showing starting gold or renown from the kingdom inheritance, that's a surprise that suddenly happens while you are still messing with making your character. You'll have a free 50000 dinars. Should I mention you can't borrow as much or use 4-ways inn bank the way you might have gotten used to in v150? You better set up an enterprise or two, or get a day job, or at least trade wisely before wasting your cash on toys at 4-ways inn. Tournaments no longer give free money.
The backstory is: I was surprised to find my deadbeat dad that left me so many years ago made this kingdom and left it to me. I was off
swearing I'd never be like him and now I find out that he actually did think of me, surprising me with this inheritance. Unfortunately I know nothing of the kingdom I just received...
Yet another walk through of a Necromancer / Cleric starting as King, made in v155 B2_plus build today:
first you MUST select for race/region "Living Undead" to correctly set up a Necromancer:
after your character starts about 4 hours in game a pop up window will ask you to select your deity.
It will only show you evil aligned deities, so no fire cleric option for Necromancers.
Before you can do anything you'll be sucked into making your custom troops. UNTIL THIS IS DONE you can ONLY AUTOCALC battles, as all your high tier troops start naked.
I set undead skin, and there could be trouble if you don't.
The downside of undead skin is enemy clerics; the upside is you start will all troops +2 ironflesh.
I selected a single branch with 7 tiers instead of the split branch, so that I can have a super troop of sorts at the end.
After you made your troop tree you can exit town, click Camp menu: actions: use necromancy: summon specialized skeletons: summon 20 skeleton infantry or 30 skeleton archers. The archers have longbows and the infantry are reasonably tough, all things equal. They fight better at night than in the day and otherwise DO NOT go down in battle or they all run away. Resist the urge to Rambo at the front. That's for your staff errm pets to do. Necromancers learn "managerial skills" or die fast...
You'll need to heal afterwards. Normally, this is the first speed bump - by plan, it is extremely difficult to get a heal. Rings of healing wont work on a lich. The unicorn won't help a lich. Heal spell and healing auras fail on necromancers. ANY necromancer. But negative energy burst, and the sword the Lich, do work. Thus, cleric is a viable second class for Necromancer. Evil cleric, that is. I should sometime shrink the text on the energy burst tabs, but people vastly over estimate just how much free time I really have, instead of being happy that anything works. At least I took time to make this walk through...
The first thing you should do is enter town, visit the castle, talk to the minister, "hire staff", and hire a chamberlain and a constable.
You should deposit about 5000-6000 dinars with your chamberlain to pay for recruiting troops via caravan, which only needs 1K or so but you'll be deficit spending by week 2, assuming you last that long. Caravan recruiting shows at the town menu as "recruit troops" after 2 days wait.
Let's give you a good start:
So notice on slide 18 and 19, different factions had different available numbers. This is entirely from prejudice -- all you have so far are a few undead and several dark mages in your party, and already some factions offer fewer recruits than others. In this case there is only one real choice: "House of Ken Urden" / Drow troops coming from Praven. They will be allies and males are potential casters and females are potential priestesses, with healing rings at highest level. That you don't have to buy. If that isn't enough, just think of how fashionable they look. Come on...
Except, if they are the best choice but those are all the drow that touch Dhirim by trade routes, then the NEXT time recruit troops shows take the 5 dark mages. Put them at the bottom of your party so they fall down last in battle, and dont YOU try to be the hero. Wimp out and let your undead do their thing. You're the boss, right? Cause if you go down, they all run away. Unless you have worked up some necromancers from keeping those darkmages alive, in which case if they aren't wounded they stop "your" undead from revolting.
Now, having given you 2 days head start, don't be surprised if you get steam rolled. Basically, your only chance to stay alive the first few weeks is to take troops from the garrison and beat down small enemy raiding parties while recruiting and making anything you can. You now (as of B2) have a HUGE party size so fill it to beat all those little lords that come running. Avoid fair fights. Its a necromancer thing -- until you really do have 400-500 troops in Dhirim, its a magnet to get sieged. You can't strip the troops for long, but you CAN smack a lord, then return some troops, dumping some of those tier 1 skeletons and zombies you get after each battle back into town so it seems like town has a huge garrison. At the same time you are levelling up a force to reckon with, hopefully steam rolling small lords and dodging big ones. You need to work fast, very fast, and win all your battles so as to not waste troops. Keep hiring dark mages every 2 days and otherwise let them pump up the volume once a week. You might just pull through after all.
In my opinion, v156 was simpler and safer, but I tried to give you some options for v155. The problem with taking the throwing spells is you have to wear really light armor or it hits the effective magic power your troops have, which is a function of intelligence for custom troops only. You cant directly twiddle with it; its automatic. Charisma is magic defense skill. The settings I chose give +2 MP and +2 Magic defense (only to the custom troops), plus custom troops already start with +2 magic defense. The polearm focus was mainly to show off dual stab, but with a good shield it gets the job done. These should be fairly good dodge troops, able to skirmish well, and maybe get some free heals while rounding up prisoners.
Sell your prisoners as a set, not one by one, for double pay.
first you MUST select for race/region "Living Undead" to correctly set up a Necromancer:
It will only show you evil aligned deities, so no fire cleric option for Necromancers.
Before you can do anything you'll be sucked into making your custom troops. UNTIL THIS IS DONE you can ONLY AUTOCALC battles, as all your high tier troops start naked.
I set undead skin, and there could be trouble if you don't.
The downside of undead skin is enemy clerics; the upside is you start will all troops +2 ironflesh.
I selected a single branch with 7 tiers instead of the split branch, so that I can have a super troop of sorts at the end.
After you made your troop tree you can exit town, click Camp menu: actions: use necromancy: summon specialized skeletons: summon 20 skeleton infantry or 30 skeleton archers. The archers have longbows and the infantry are reasonably tough, all things equal. They fight better at night than in the day and otherwise DO NOT go down in battle or they all run away. Resist the urge to Rambo at the front. That's for your staff errm pets to do. Necromancers learn "managerial skills" or die fast...
You'll need to heal afterwards. Normally, this is the first speed bump - by plan, it is extremely difficult to get a heal. Rings of healing wont work on a lich. The unicorn won't help a lich. Heal spell and healing auras fail on necromancers. ANY necromancer. But negative energy burst, and the sword the Lich, do work. Thus, cleric is a viable second class for Necromancer. Evil cleric, that is. I should sometime shrink the text on the energy burst tabs, but people vastly over estimate just how much free time I really have, instead of being happy that anything works. At least I took time to make this walk through...
The first thing you should do is enter town, visit the castle, talk to the minister, "hire staff", and hire a chamberlain and a constable.
You should deposit about 5000-6000 dinars with your chamberlain to pay for recruiting troops via caravan, which only needs 1K or so but you'll be deficit spending by week 2, assuming you last that long. Caravan recruiting shows at the town menu as "recruit troops" after 2 days wait.
Let's give you a good start:
Except, if they are the best choice but those are all the drow that touch Dhirim by trade routes, then the NEXT time recruit troops shows take the 5 dark mages. Put them at the bottom of your party so they fall down last in battle, and dont YOU try to be the hero. Wimp out and let your undead do their thing. You're the boss, right? Cause if you go down, they all run away. Unless you have worked up some necromancers from keeping those darkmages alive, in which case if they aren't wounded they stop "your" undead from revolting.
Now, having given you 2 days head start, don't be surprised if you get steam rolled. Basically, your only chance to stay alive the first few weeks is to take troops from the garrison and beat down small enemy raiding parties while recruiting and making anything you can. You now (as of B2) have a HUGE party size so fill it to beat all those little lords that come running. Avoid fair fights. Its a necromancer thing -- until you really do have 400-500 troops in Dhirim, its a magnet to get sieged. You can't strip the troops for long, but you CAN smack a lord, then return some troops, dumping some of those tier 1 skeletons and zombies you get after each battle back into town so it seems like town has a huge garrison. At the same time you are levelling up a force to reckon with, hopefully steam rolling small lords and dodging big ones. You need to work fast, very fast, and win all your battles so as to not waste troops. Keep hiring dark mages every 2 days and otherwise let them pump up the volume once a week. You might just pull through after all.
In my opinion, v156 was simpler and safer, but I tried to give you some options for v155. The problem with taking the throwing spells is you have to wear really light armor or it hits the effective magic power your troops have, which is a function of intelligence for custom troops only. You cant directly twiddle with it; its automatic. Charisma is magic defense skill. The settings I chose give +2 MP and +2 Magic defense (only to the custom troops), plus custom troops already start with +2 magic defense. The polearm focus was mainly to show off dual stab, but with a good shield it gets the job done. These should be fairly good dodge troops, able to skirmish well, and maybe get some free heals while rounding up prisoners.
Sell your prisoners as a set, not one by one, for double pay.
A quick update on sea battles progress in series v158:
The fight was a little dark so I'll have to adjust the time of day for night battles, but that is a minor task.
The main thing was to show loot after the sea battle, something often missing in other mods, and the idea that pirates even spawn at sea at all.
It's progress, little by little.
The fight was a little dark so I'll have to adjust the time of day for night battles, but that is a minor task.
The main thing was to show loot after the sea battle, something often missing in other mods, and the idea that pirates even spawn at sea at all.
It's progress, little by little.
- Status
