[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by wyatan

I'll have to try it out, should provide a nice challenge.

Sounds good - hope you enjoy it!

Originally Posted by wyatan

Now, a few observations.

Bagyr

- While it's nice to give the Orc Scout a whirl, there's a whole quest line dedicated (and a late one to boot) to designing and enabling that unit.
If it's available from the start, the game stops making sense in that regard.
Not that it really matters, but well, just sayin'.

I tried it without them, but simply put, Bagyr needs a unit that can summon troops. The only Orc troop that can do that is the Orc Scout. I realized that you do get them later in the game as part of a special quest, but I figured giving you one or possibly two at the very beginning wouldn't hurt, although I haven't seen the text to the quest line to see if it seems very inconsistent.

Nonetheless, if you read through all my posts in this topic, you'll note that I tried it with all the other Orc Level 4 and below troops, but that wasn't enough. The only other route to go would be to give him a non-Orc summoner. Seems very unfitting to me so that's why I ended up adding the Orc Scout.

The Troll Shop does present an option to provide him with some non-Orc troops, but I wanted him to be able to do it with Orcs only since Neoline and Daert can do it with their race's troops.

Too bad Orc Hunters aren't in the game any more as they would have been a good choice instead of the Orc Scouts and not changed the flavor of the later quest.

As an aside, why aren't the new Crossworlds Orc troops in Dark Side?

Originally Posted by wyatan

- Also regarding the "quest integrity" aspect, the troll shop should still sell trolls. Sure you can't buy them at the start, but when later on you're told that a family of trolls lives there, it rings a bell. While if there were no trolls for sale, the player might go "uh ?" instead.
Minor nitpick, I know.

No worries - this part hasn't been changed (he still sells 1 Troll at the very beginning and note that I only affected the starting Tristrem map, not the one you return to).

Originally Posted by wyatan

- I would swap the spell distribution: Stoneskin and Berserker in the spell book, Trap and Nature Call at the shop.
The reason is that Stoneskin and Berserker are both "mainstream" for the warrior class (support spells) and in-character for an orc, while Trap and Nature Call present alternate strategical approaches. So those should be an option at the player's discretion, not an "imposed choice".
- There are two medals that require casting a few spells a lot of time, I believe one spell from each selection should be made available to the player from the start (either by picking spells from both lists, or by editing the medal spell lists to include the new spell selection).

Tried it with the way you suggested at first (read my earlier posts) and it had very little to no impact on helping Bagyr do no loss.

Playtesting with Bagyr was very important here and unfortunately I came to the conclusion that he needs: 1) Orc Scout for summoning of Wolves and 2) Trap spell so that you can get 3 Traps with Level 2 Diversion + Level 1 Trapper Medal. I tried a lot of other spell combinations that made sense for a Warrior / Orc and they simply were not viable with only 10 to 15 Mana for no loss.

It is not possible to get a spell school (i.e. Order, etc.) @Bagyr Level 5 (I think he needs to be about level 7 or 8 before he has enough magic runes to get a spell school) so you have to give him a spell that can be cast at the beginning of the game that is actually useful to him and the only one that really helps is Trap through the Diversion / Trapper Medal route.

Due to this, it really makes no difference between whether he starts with Scrolls of Animal Call, Stone Skin, and Berserker or he buys them. I went with Stone Skin and Berserker as purchased spells since the sum of them is cheaper than one Animal Call scroll (his start scroll), thus saving him a little bit of money. Don't forget there are also 2 more level 1 scrolls that he can buy from the Troll Shop so he might also get Whirlwind, which I think is a good Orc scroll.

Originally Posted by wyatan

Daert

- Same observation concerning the female vampires as for Bagyr's orc scout.
(Although that quest line is pretty silly in the game, since female vampires clearly already exist).

I don't think this one is as really any concern since you can go purchase them by going to Monteville (i.e. no quest needed to get 10, although you need a quest to get more than that). It adds to the game flavor by starting with them and you get exposed to the only new Undead troop right away.

Strangely, they are not as good as regular Vampires (at least for the early game since their numbers are too few to use their ability that disables an enemy and they can't increase their numbers if one dies).

Originally Posted by wyatan

- On my first playthrough, I got the feeling the game was trolling me: you get Poison Skull as a damage spell... while most of the initial opponents are poison resistant!
Furthermore, Poison Skull is not really in-character for a vampire.
So I'd ditch it.

Poison Skull has always been one of the obvious Undead level 1 spells going back to The Legend. It is the only offensive spell cast by the Undead Statue in arenas so it totally fits giving it to an Undead Mage at the start of the game, even though all the enemies are resistant to it as you mention.

Originally Posted by wyatan

Frost Grasp would be more "vampirish", and I believe it's a spell that gets little love anyway (well, by me at least, lol). So I'd make that the spellbook spell instead of just a scroll.

Frost Grasp is the perfect starting spell for Daert due to the units in the Catacombs. Fortunately, it is easily added to his casting repertoire before even getting there since he starts with a scroll.

Poison Skull is actually just as good if not better suited for early Portland than Frost Grasp due to higher damage potential and lack of resistance of opposing troops. Since you'll be level 3 by the time you are finished with Portland, you'll then be able to learn Frost Grasp for your Catacombs run, so starting with Poison Skull and then learning Frost Grasp seems like a natural progression (although there is no denying having Frost Grasp only would work well, too).

Originally Posted by wyatan

- Kamikaze is an interesting tactical spell (and also one that's not getting much use I believe), and it's been proven to be enough to beat the shelter fights (although that's tough), but again, not very "vampirish".

This may be true, but we really don't know anything about Daert's background, so who knows, he could have been experimenting with explosives as a mage and it is a great way to get you to experiment with a spell that is hardly used in the game (or any King's Bounty game for that matter). Giving it to you as a scroll at the start seems like a great opportunity to allow players to experiment with this spell.

Originally Posted by wyatan

Call of Death would be more thematic (although its tactical usefulness here, especially for no loss, is doubtful).

This was my exact thought process, too, but Call of Death simply costs too much Mana / is not powerful enough at the beginning of the game to really make a difference. I really, really tried to see if that spell would be of help since it seems perfect for Daert. Unfortunately, it just does not help through the Shelter fights and it is also redundant with the Necromancer's ability who can use it more effectively. If it actually resurrected troops, then that would be huge, but it doesn't.

So all-in-all, I think the changes I made to both Bagyr and Daert capitalize on their play styles and give you a flavor of all the new Orc and Undead troops at the beginning of the game, just like Neoline gets Fire Elementals and Blood Priestesses very early (the new Demon units).

The game is actually still very challenging such that you may end up skipping the big Spider stack in the Catacombs, but you at least should try that stack. I was able to do it with Neoline in my original (unmodded) Impossible playthrough and Bagyr was able to do it with this mod, although it was very, very hard. Daert was also able to do it with this mod as well. So mission accomplished!

I also think the spell combinations for both are very well suited for Warrior and Mage playing styles keeping in mind the Mana pool available to each character early, which is a significant constraint on the viability / utility of various spell / troop combinations.

Perhaps there is a way for Bagyr to do it without Orc Scouts, but I haven't found the combination, yet, while sticking to Orc-only troops.

Thanks for your comments - give it a try and post back here with any new thoughts / insights!

/C\/C\