[MattCaspermeyer]

These are all very interesting points...

Originally Posted by Ezrekiel

I think its the requirement to use only Orc troops which makes fixing Bagyr's start so unnecessarily complicated.

I certainly agree with you here.

Originally Posted by Ezrekiel

Sure, Neoline can do impossible/no loss as is with using all demon troops.

For Daert, things are a bit different already: in the unmodified game he has to rely on getting a ultra-rare spell from the ore cart and he will use his 2 free Vampires only. Using just one undead stack does not quite feel the same as using all undead troops to me, although that might be considered a technicality.

With this mod, Daert has more useful Undead troops and it just feels more natural for a Mage.

Originally Posted by Ezrekiel

More imporant is that relying on a strong spell like Phoenix early on does feel like a natural choice for the mage class, while turning Bagyr into a trapper imho does not.

Relying on Phoenix for Daert doesn't feel right to me since its an Order spell. With this mod, Daert uses Chaos spells, which are more natural of a path for an Undead Mage - at least at the beginning of the game.

As far as Bagyr, I honestly think the Trapper Medal / Diversion route is the most natural for an Orc / Warrior.

Think about it, which of the 3 characters is most likely to be out trapping? It's a Warrior and an Orc to boot.

Diversion belongs in the Might tree, honestly, and probably Heroism with its +Defense belongs in the Spirit tree. The problem is that most of us played Neoline first and we did not question the fact that Diversion is in her tree rather than the Might tree and so as you all so aptly point out, we've done this before with respect to trapping.

This is the real problem, to me though: Diversion is in the wrong tree!

Originally Posted by Ezrekiel

In my suggestion, I would also like to keep the changes from the unmodified game to a minimum -this should be a fix for a developers oversight and not a complicated mod.

That was one of my goals with this mod as well, plus there is only a limited amount of things we can do with using KB_DB_EDIT (the tool I've been using to edit the *.LOC files).

Originally Posted by Ezrekiel

Because I'm not a modder myself I do not know if these ideas are technically possible to do, but if its possible, how about these suggestions:

1) Find a short-time ally who also flees from the forces of light (after all they advance everywhere, dont they ?). The easiest idea here might be the troll having a child he wants Bagyr to take with him to safety. A single Troll with weaker stats, less hitpoints (2-300 maybe?) and correspondingly lower leadership requirement might be a more elegant solution. He'd stay with Bagyr until he can leave the shelter, which just happens to be after the whitehill fight(s).
Should it not be possible to mod/implement such a baby troll into the game just add one additional stack of a friendly troop as desired on the map (or purchasable somewhere) maybe ?

I pretty much know how to do all this except for how to take the unit away. The strange thing here, though, is that you could probably accomplish the same thing with giving him 2 to 3 of either Brontors, Choshas, or Highterants. The Highterants, especially with their egg laying or the Choshas with their summoning would probably be all you need to push them over the top. I then wouldn't have to use the Orc Scouts, thus preserving that questline for later in the game as originally intended.

Originally Posted by Ezrekiel

or

2) I like the idea of giving Bagyr more leadership to deal with this in his own way, but I think this should be a temporary buff as to not change the balance of the campaign for all the fights AFTER whitehill. Is it possible to offer an artifact with a +x Leadership bonues and have the game remove it after whitehall ? Or maybe its a cursed artifact with +leadership and -100% max rage ?
Some additional troops would be necessary to offer for him to buy, but this would feel like giving the player MORE options as opposed to forcing him down the only working skill path.

More Leadership does seem natural to me, too. I don't see a need to take it away as long as it is not a whole lot more. The +150 and +100 from items is a lot at the start of the game, but those items will be ditched later, so I see no need to curse them.

As an alternate, it does not seem unreasonable to me to give each class 20 times their levelup leadership rate for starting Leadership: Bagyr: 15 * 20 = 300, Neoline: 20 * 20 = 400, Daert: 10 * 20 = 200. I don't see that as being unreasonable since it is based on their levelup capability.

As far as troops are concerned, the right amount of troops sold at the Troll shop would allow you to use two full stacks in the Shelter with your reserve slots. This is pretty much now this mod works now.

Originally Posted by Ezrekiel

or

3) mod the game to reduce the stack sizes of the initial battles to a manageable amount while leaving the game otherwise unchanged.

So is any of these mods technically possible or am I just dreaming ?

I had actually considered this, but Neoline seems pretty well tuned for the stack sizes in the Shelter / Whitehill so I went with changing Bagyr and Daert instead.

An alternate is to add some level 3 / 4 Orc troops to the Shelter shop when you get there to augment the ones you already have (of course these would also be available to Neoline and Daert as well).

All of your ideas sound doable for the most part or implementable with perhaps some limitations or alternates that are roughly equivalent.

But let's hit the reset button for a moment and consider this:

If you played Bagyr first, and saw Diversions where Heroism was, would you have thought twice about it or just picked the skill and kept playing?

For me, I honestly wouldn't have thought about it and just kept playing. The Traps seem more natural to a Warrior for me. The skipping turn part, could be more natural for Neoilne / Spirit tree. We could split this skill apart, putting the trapping ability in Might and keeping the skipping turn part in Spirit.

Has anyone played Daert with this mod? I think his playthrough now works really well as he can focus on the Magic tree and use his various Chaos spells to great effect. So I think at least Daert is good now.

As far as Bagyr is concerned, I think the Trapper Medal / Diversion route is much more natural for him than Neoline. If the Trap part was in the Might tree to begin with then we really wouldn't be talking about this.

I think I could possibly remove Orc Scouts if I gave Bagyr the opportunity to get some level 4 Lizard troops. I don't think there are any eggs, but it is easy to add Brontor / Chosha / Highterant eggs to the game and have the Troll shop sell 3 or so of them (probably have it be random between one of those 3). You could then hatch them as needed to augment your army. They are not Orc troops, but I don't see it being unreasonable for the Troll shop to have some exotic Lizard troop eggs. As Lizard troops are not normally in the game, Bagyr could be unique with the opportunity to play with one or potentially more of them (you could even use Sacrifice later to augment their numbers if you really, really wanted to play them).

I like the ideas coming here, let's keep thinking of more ideas, but let's also not let the Neoline playthrough cloud our thoughts with what might be better suited for Bagyr.

I'm actually partial to the Lizard egg idea now that I'm thinking about it some more. There could be a lot of potential here, especially if you buy them as eggs. I'd have to see how much they'd cost, they might be expensive. Using Griffins and Ents as a guide, Highterant Eggs would be 520 a pop, Choshas 1500, and Brontors 1700. I'm not sure why Highterants are so much cheaper than the others, but they only cost 260 compared to 1100 for Choshas and 1300 for Brontors (egg cost is roughly Troop Cost + Leadership + Hitpoints).

Resetting back to the unmodded game, if I made it such that you had max Shamans and max of either Spirit Talkers, Catapults, Orcs, or Veteran Orcs by the time you hit the Shelter as well as a random level 4 Lizard troop maxed out due to eggs, that may go a long way as you could split the Shamans into at least 2 stacks to double up on their totems keeping ranged troops busy. The Choshas / Highterants could summon / lay eggs to get you some disposable troops or the Brontors could dig and attack remotely. Your other Orc troops could then support the others as needed, either dishing out ranged damage or protecting against melee troops.

If I gave Bagyr at least 250 Leadership to start the game, he'd have exactly 460 at Level 5 so that he could have at least 2 Brontors / Choshas or 3 Highterants. He'd have enough Leadership for 2 Shamans.

Shelter fights could be:

• 1 Shaman
• Maximum of either Spirit Talkers, Catapults, Orcs, Veteran Orcs
• Departing Tristrem numbers of either Spirit Talkers, Catapults, Orcs, Veteran Orcs
• 2 or 3 Lizard Egg troop
• 1 Shaman

I'd still give you Trap as a spell - you don't have to go Trapper Medal / Diversion if you don't want to although it'd be easier if you did.

I wonder if the above lineup would be sufficient to defeat the Elven / Human Shelter stacks. With the Orc Scouts, I continuously summoned Wolves multiple times so this may still not be enough.

We could then augment with more Leadership if the above proves insufficient or I could give the option of getting another Lizard troop, probably always Highterants and then either Brontors or Choshas.

Thanks for all the comments so far - keep 'em coming!

/C\/C\