Gunpowder Mod Thread - Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

Inspired by the Tataraba mod, I've decided to add gunpowder weapons to a few late age nations that could stand to have them thematically: Marignon, Ulm, Jomon and Bogarus.

This mod adds four new weapons, the Arquebus, Matchlock Rifle, Cannon and the Wheellock Pistol.

The arquebus has half the range of a shortbow and a long reload time, but it is very powerful.

The matchlock rifle is a weapon used by some Rangers of Ulm. It is similar to the arquebus, but more accurate, longer ranged and slightly less powerful.

The wheellock pistol has only been given to a few of Marignon and Bogarus's commanders. It is a defensive weapon with an shorter range than the arquebus and only comes with a single shot.

The cannon is a strong siege weapon, but it is inaccurate and limited to one per turn.

All units added thus far have both idle and firing sprites.

Units added:

--Marginon--
Arquebusier
Siege engineer (with cannon)
Lieutenant, Captain, Goetic Captain and Admiral have been given Wheellock Pistols

--Jomon--
Ashigaru Gunner
Samurai Gunner
Ashigaru Archer (by popular demand)
--Ulm--
Arquebusier
Jaeger
Siege Engineer (with cannon)

--Bogarus--
Voi gunner
Kynaz, Veliki Kynaz and Voivode have been given Wheellock Pistols

Future plans:
An elite Musketeer unit for Marignon
Indie arquebusiers
A mercenary company of arquebusiers
Give each new unit a better description.
Balancing

If possible, I'd also like to add a better sound effect. Does anybody know how?

"No guns in muh fantasy"
Then don't download it.

DOWNLOAD LINK (v004):
Dropbox.com

Edited by: KateMicucci

Nice, I'll check this out. The early firearms and the perioid of transition from heavy armor to no armor and from melee to firearms is really fascinating.

Fantastic! Cant wait to test these out!

The lack of a projectile animation is somewhat confusing. I wasn't sure if the Arquebusiers were even firing untill I realized what was going on. Making a bullet animations in Dominions would probably be nearly impossible. Maybe a sling bullet with really high speed could do the job...almost. They'd still fly in an unfitting ballistic arc.

I did a bit of testing. The gun troops are kinda awkward to use but they are really good on a good roll. I think it works out very nicely and fits the overall feel of early guns. I had a couple of battles where the timing was perfect and the gunners blasted a huge hole to the enemy battle line and they routed...and a handfull where the enemy melee troops broke through and everyone on my side either died or routed. Unsuprisingly a gunline behind a line of pike troops seems the best way to use them. The Samurai Gunners are really neat since they are competent at fighting back melee troops if everything goes wrong.

This looks really cool, KateMicucci (and it's nice to know I inspired someone else)! I think it's a great thematic fit for the Late Age, and the ashigaru archers also fill an odd hole (lack of spammable missile troops) in Jomon's roster. Downloading now.

Haven't tested the mod, but there used to be a problem with ranged weapons with no #flyspr being 100% accurate, it's why some modders chose not to add guns to mods even when it would fit the source material, like some of the warhammer stuff. Did you get around it somehow or is it not a thing anymore?

Edited by: Admiral_Aorta

"Voi gunner"? Try this.

Thank you for the feedback, Individual8580!

Admiral-Aorta you are 100% correct. Arquebuses are 100% accurate right now. The obvious solution is to use the invisible flysprite. Unfortunately the number listed in the database is not invisible at all. I'll experiment with flysprites and update the mod when I find one that's appropriate.

Thanks for the suggestion, smirnovdw. I'll take it under consideration.

I downloaded this mod and added #flyspr 111 1 to the arquebus, wheelock pistol and matchlock rifle. I didn't think the results looked too bad, although I understand that in this case cannon and hand-held firearms would have the same flysprite.

In terms of combat effectiveness (for my modified version of your mod), friendly fire was a bit of an issue, but the weapons still seemed pretty effective.

Using the slingstones as the projectile looks pretty ridiculous since at 5x5 they're the size of the unit's heads. I'm considering either 97, which is a small bullet-shaped fireball, or 337, which almost looks ok when it's moving. 441, a 1 pixel wide gray line, would work fine except that the game won't accept it.

Other problems:
The wheellock pistol makes commanders want to charge into battle so that they can use their one shot, and then they run into melee. Why doesn't this happen to commanders with javelins? A player could get around this with scripting but the AI seems to have trouble. Or maybe the AI is normally that dumb and I just never played with it enough to notice.

I am also finding that without the effect of their unintended 100% accuracy, the guns are basically just short-range arbalests.

V004 is going up with the fire bullet sprites for now.