Expansion Pack: Blood and Fire (MA Abysia) Thread - Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

Welcome to the third in my ongoing Expansion Pack series! The goal of these mods is to add a little gameplay diversity to existing factions without dramatically changing them.

MA Abysia has a less well-defined identity than its Early ("original big fire guys") and Late ("humanbred+religious cult") versions. I've chosen to focus on expanding the 'Warlocks crazily experiment as they struggle to find a version of themselves that won't die out' theme that should be in there, but inexplicably doesn't manifest in the form of exclusive blood summons in the base game. And since Abysia has less grounding in real-world mythology than any other faction, I had to get a little bit more inventive...

VERSION 1.2 DOWNLOAD LINK!

(full details are in the readme including the reasoning behind changes made, and the intended function of the new units. If Dropbox formats it oddly for you, there's another copy in the game .zip)

New in 1.2:

-The Dragonbred! He flies, he sets stuff on fire. Note that he's a (summoned) trooper not a commander, so you'll have to shell out some GoR Nature gems if you want an SC chassis.

New Stuff:
-Recruit Abysian Javeliners! They hold the tips of the javelins under their armpits for 5 minutes before throwing them, and the results ain't pretty.

-They got the idea from Sulfurides (Wastelands only). These peculiar not-quite-Abysians are 2S1F heretics with a minor research bonus. The Anathemants warn that they're all infected with something called 'cooties', so don't get too close. They're body-guarded by Sulfides - who invented the fire-longspear, which is as awesome as it sounds.

-Summons! A quick stopover in Conjuration nets us Quenched Ones, who are sacred big dudes made out of stone. Wow! You'll just have to figure out how to get underwater to summon them...

-But the main event's in Blood. Get your Warlocks a-crossbreedin', and they might come back with Gimlets, amphibious batworms who appeared suddenly out of nowhere about one patch ago. Or maybe they'll make Plasmids, who are made of lava and throw lava (which they are made of). If you want to get thugganomic, you'll want an Ironclad or two, or you could call in a Demonbound Warlock to introduce a little Death magic to your life.

-I invented the best thing ever and you should make lots of them and give them to your Abysians. They're called Bottles of Distilled Spirits (Const4), and they do what you'd expect would happen when an Abysian tries to drink alcohol and then spits it out (hint: fire is involved).

Tweaked Old Stuff:
-I modified the sprite for Lava Warriors, since the original was just a dude holding flails. He now has some bronze trim and an Abysian emblem painted on his breastplate.

-The Anathemant Salamander has been reverted to his EA incarnation - 1H instead of 2H, cheaper, not old. This makes them easier and cheaper to use as your noncap combat mages and preserves more of a flavour distinction between MA and LA.

-Demonbred are no longer StR, as it just made cap recruitment too bottlenecked. They're more expensive and don't get the dowsing bonus anymore, though.

-Lowered ages for all the other mages. Apprentices are no longer old because wut, and the Dragon and the Warlock will probably wait a year to die of old age now instead of doing so instantly.

-Some other tweaks, but they're less controversial.

Notes:
Balance: This is primarily a "new stuff" mod, and it's more powerful overall than the base faction due to things being (mostly) buffed to improve usability rather than toned down. That doesn't mean I'm not interested in balance feedback, however - I particularly want to know if something's so good it overshadows everything else, or if it's so terrible that no-one will ever go near it.

Compatibility:
-This mod is MC compatible as of the 24 November 2013 spreadsheet update.

-It won't break any other existing official factions. Units that were shared between different ages of Abysia have been duplicated and then had the duplicates modified.
-Compatibility with mods that rebalance the game wholesale (such as a hypothetical CBM) obviously can't be guaranteed in advance.

-For compatibility with Worthy Heroes, make sure this mod is activated first. If in doubt, deactivate both then reactivate them in order (Expansion Pack: Blood and Fire first, then WH).

-I've added code at the end of the .dm that can make it compatible with Llamabeast's excellent Mobility mod. If you've decided to live life in the fast lane, simply delete the '--' at the start of every line in the section at the end of the .dm to activate it.

Usage: If you want to use any of this in your own mods, go for it! Most of the spritework's Frankensteined anyway.

Other mods in this series:
-Expansion Pack: Sceleria
-Expansion Pack: Eriu

Edited by: gothefungus

Looks really cool.

Abysian was def in need of some elbow grease! Good work! Hold the tips under armpits..lol

Very minor alterations for version 1.1 (link in OP). At Sombledon's suggestion, I added a red border around the Bottle to make it more obvious that it's an exclusive national item. I also lowered the Ironclad's strength and pushed the Bottle to Const4 - I had changed these before release to test some things, and forgot to change them back to their intended values.

Edited by: gothefungus

I checked out the national summons in preparation for a mod game and it turns out "Search for the Quenched Ones" lacks the underwater requirement and can be cast everywhere.

Have you successfully cast the spell anywhere other than underwater? I ran a quick test game and it correctly gave me the 'wrong terrain for this ritual' error message when I tried to cast it on land.

Unfortunately, I'm going on holidays in (checks watch)... Five minutes and won't have internet connection for a week! I'll have to have another look at it then.

Looks like I activated Worthy Heroes before this mod and it must have screwed up the spell, a new test worked fine, sorry for the bother.

Good news! I've figured out how easy it is to make 2-frame animated GIFs in GIMP.

I'm sure all of you are eager to summon this lil' crossbreed between Dragon Man and Trogdor the Burninator who constantly makes Hulk Hogan poses, so scroll up! I've updated the OP.

In what folder do I put the art assets?

Your Dominions User Data Directory is kinda hidden, but you can find it by opening the game and clicking on Game Tools->Open User Data Directory. Inside there's a /mods/ folder - simply extract the .dm and folder full of images into that.