[MOD][ENG] "Saturation Mod" v 1.4.1 for King's Bounty: Dark Side

[Molder]

Your attention is drawn to the global hardcore mod for King's Bounty Darkside, finally translated into English. The current version of Saturation mod 1.4.1 has the following features: unusually high difficulty, a lot of new creatures, artifacts, a variety of tactics, new hero skills, new medals, interesting opponents, new objects on the map and even a few new characters and quests, new game mechanics and much, much more.

Brief description of Saturation Mod v1.4.1:

Added or modified content relative to the original:

1. The player's hero
— 8 new skills for each class, available almost at the beginning of the game
— A new type of slot for items "Pants"
— Belt and Gloves are placed in separate slots
— Change of conditions and awards for some medals
— 11 new medals, 3 for each class and 2 overall
— Slower acquisition of new levels
— 33% less Leadership when getting a new level
— The maximum number of runes is issued up to the 80th level
— Increased the maximum number of levels for Blackie
— Redesigned some skills, such as "Onslaught" and "Foresight"
— The number of runes for getting a level is reduced by 1
— Redesigned gaining Experience and Gold for a fight in the direction of a significant reduction in Impossible Difficulty
— A new item type has been added — "Arcane Stone" designed for permanent strengthening of combat and resurrection spells. Stones do not enhance the talents of creatures
— The "Diversions" skill has been redesigned, now it cannot take away a turn, but it reduces Speed and blocks some abilities of enemy creatures
— The "Lord" skill has been redesigned, now it gives an increasing Leadership bonus instead of discounts and also gives a Protection bonus to all creatures.


2. Artifacts
— 300 new artifacts of various types
— 30 new sets of items, 5 assembled artifacts
— Items with improvements for runes or special conditions
— Runestones for exchanging runes
— A lot of new properties for artifacts: immunity to certain spells, strengthening the abilities of creatures, imposing effects in battle
— Significantly increased cost of artifacts depending on their level and effectiveness


3. Magic and Spells
— The balance of most types of spells has been redesigned in terms of the ratio of Mana to their effectiveness
— Almost all spells with massive damage have been weakened, point spells have been slightly strengthened
— Almost all spells now become more effective depending on Intellect
— Most spells can receive bonuses from various sources, such as artifacts or hero skills
— New spells: "Lizard Egg", "Revitalization", "Raise Dead", "Magic Resonance"
— Some unbalance-effective spells, such as "Phantom", "Creation", "Invisibility", can only be used a certain number of times per battle for each creature
— Added items that increase the usage limit of some of the spells described above
— Some spells are now limited to Leadership to use
— Changed the principle of operation of some spells, like "Last Hero" and "Doom"


4. Creatures
— Total rebalance of Leadership, Initiative, Speed and Cost of creatures. Melee creatures have become faster and more powerful on average, low—level creatures have become more profitable
— 40 new creatures for various factions
— A full-fledged Lizard race
— 300 new talents for creatures
— Adding passive properties to many creatures
— The influence of Intellect, artifacts or the hero himself on some talents or features of creatures
— 5 Runic creatures, the effectiveness of which strongly depends on the player's free runes
— Increase differences between dark and light versions of creatures


5. Arena
— Added the mechanics of fatigue in battle, now in protracted battles, creatures will receive penalties for Speed, Initiative and Morale, with the effect for the player or the computer depending on the complexity
— Each creature has one of five degrees of endurance in combat
— Improved AI for the behavior of creatures and heroes
— Rage skills are rebalanced, Jealousy depends on the hero's Leadership
— There are always 10 enemy units in battles with Gremlins Towers now
— The type of arena can have a stronger effect on creatures and even enable or disable certain talents for them
— The power of effects with permanent damage is reduced
— Now the randomness in battles is completely mathematical and does not depend on save/loads
— The player automatically loses if he does not have a single real squad left alive


6. Global Map
— 2 new characters in Portland and 3 new quests
— A huge variety of creatures and artifacts in stores
— The assortment of items in the Shelter stores is updated as prisoners are surrendered to Sorug
— Chief Sorug and Don Romantic are now merchants, Peter Stuhr returns 100k of gold after his defeat
— Enemy heroes are significantly enhanced, but various rewards can be given for defeating them, for example, Leadership or a bonus to the hero's characteristics
— The strength of enemies is 300% instead of 170% on Impossible Difficulty, the rest of the levels are also enhanced
— New objects and enemy heroes have been added to some locations


7. Technical features
— Fixed a huge number of bugs in the game, leading to crashes or incorrect operation of the program
— Some bugs, unfortunately, still remain, while it is not possible to fix some of them, but they are not critical at the same time
— Fixed sounds in the game, such as the sounds of Blackie's attacks
— Fixed missing music in some arenas
— Fixed a lot of graphical interface bugs, for example, extra elements or incorrect location of the hero image
— Now all hero slots are displayed when entering the castle
— Fixed the type of some arenas
— Fixed most of the typos of the original

Some screenshots: https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...gY?usp=sharing

Download the Mod:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17Od...ew?usp=sharing

A full description of the mod, tips on the game and the history of all versions can be found in the downloadable archive with the mod.

[Sirlancelot]

Sounds awesome! And Dark Side is the only episode of the saga I haven't played yet. I can't wait

[Molder]

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

Sounds awesome! And Dark Side is the only episode of the saga I haven't played yet. I can't wait

This mod is very different from the original Darkside, and indeed from other parts of King's Bounty too. In any case, good luck

[Sirlancelot]

Well, here comes my first question:

What level of difficulty do you recommend for a newcomer to DarkSide along your mod? I'm a veteran of the series, though.

[Molder]

Originally Posted by Sirlancelot

Well, here comes my first question:

What level of difficulty do you recommend for a newcomer to DarkSide along your mod? I'm a veteran of the series, though.

Well, this mod is just designed for King's Bounty veterans. For the all-encompassing experience Impossible is recommended. The difficulty will for the most part be not at all in the number of enemies as such, but in their quality and features. Be prepared for the fact that the enemy can give a serious rebuff at any stage of the game, not only at the beginning, as usual.

Experience in the Dark Side is not so important, except that sometimes there may be extra running around due to completing quests.

Don't forget to read Advices & Tips for the mod.

[Belcanzor]

Many thanks for your hard work!

In impossible:
The difficult skyrocket after the Dark Spirit.
Snow terrain and a ton of troops make the life of demoness hard :p
Tavern as 1k vikings or frozen creatures. I got 1 demon and 2 executioner, if someone got a hint please share.
I cannot pass the 2 heroes with a Vamp in impossible.

This is not criticism, is my personal experience. Mod work flawless.

[Molder]

Originally Posted by Belcanzor

Many thanks for your hard work!

In impossible:
The difficult skyrocket after the Dark Spirit.
Snow terrain and a ton of troops make the life of demoness hard :p
Tavern as 1k vikings or frozen creatures. I got 1 demon and 2 executioner, if someone got a hint please share.
I cannot pass the 2 heroes with a Vamp in impossible.

This is not criticism, is my personal experience. Mod work flawless.

This mod is really very difficult for any players, regardless of their skill of the game. If it is very difficult for you, it may be worth taking Normal or Hard difficulty.

Moreover, the order of passage, the discovery of new islands, and so on are very important here. In this case, you should not fight on White Mountain (enemies will be killable there in the future), but try to levelup in Portland.

[Belcanzor]

Originally Posted by Molder

This mod is really very difficult for any players, regardless of their skill of the game. If it is very difficult for you, it may be worth taking Normal or Hard difficulty.

Moreover, the order of passage, the discovery of new islands, and so on are very important here. In this case, you should not fight on White Mountain (enemies will be killable there in the future), but try to levelup in Portland.

I find a troop that I can defeat without much loss and for my surprise I dont need to fight the others. Look I was wrong about the balance.
Thank you for your answer.

[Molder]

Originally Posted by Belcanzor

I find a troop that I can defeat without much loss and for my surprise I dont need to fight the others. Look I was wrong about the balance.
Thank you for your answer.

Apparently I didn't understand you at first. As I understand it now, you meant the squads on the White Mountain necessary for the quest of the Dark Spirit. And now there are new units and objects there, which causes some confusion There is no need to immediately kill new troops, glad you found the right ones.

[Belcanzor]

Is there a quest to not fight him? Already got the princess but still need to fight him and suffer very heavy loses.

I try several games but is always the same, I can defeat the map guardians without sweat but that guy is a monster.
Even troops that are fire protected died like nothing.

Is there no quest then just a hint about how to defeat a guy that barely got damage from 10 demons hit :p