still enjoying Kings Bounty in 2019 , just stumbled onto your Mod, Thnkx!

Is anyone using Avenger Angel? Despite the enhances, I still see its usefulness very situational. Perhaps should cost even less mana and/or improve its damage and/or duration.

On the other hand, I have raised locally the mana cost of Slow. And made it shorter. I was using it all the time.

Penalty: 1, 2, 3
Duration: 1, 2, 2
Mana cost: 7, 10, 15

Ingeneers are still useful but not overpowered anymore. I'm more or less fine with them. Maybe could amplify their damage interval, though. And/or getting a charge of "Energetic drink", to improve their speed by two points.

An item upgrade wiped out 80% of my troops. Epic fight. I have decided not to reload and live with the consequences. It was Officers Baton first upgrade and I was level 12.

--

Welcome zleevz. You should try it out. It's lovely crafted and his author is around, listening to the feedback, fixing bugs and even expanding it. I'm enjoying it far more than the original campaign.

To raknefne:

Holy Armor, the skill you learn from the monk in Sprudne Islands, does it works against bosses, too?

it is the same skill from vanilla. I can't remember, but haven't touched anything about the stats etc. - in vanilla you got it from killing 20 of a certain kind of troop from one of the first houses on the starting island.

Ingeneers: I increased the short range shooting by 15%. I think there are different oppinions if they are too weak now. They still summons. Alternatively the blind potion could be a slow reload? Or summon could be a reload like Royal Thorn but a little slower.

Avenging Angel: Noted. Yes, if you still never use it is too weak compared to other choices. I'd rather have bigger damage than longer time casted IMO. In v1.21 you get a bonus if you fully upgrade it, then it works for 7 rounds (and not 6).

Slow: Interesting. Along with Fear these 2 spells have great tactical influence on how to controle the battlefield. With a shorter duration 1,2,2 - I think I'd keep the old mana price. Hmm, good point! I guess you would only use it from spell level 2 then, instead trap would probably be more usefull. Have to think about it.

Let me hear from others about Slow, Fear and Ingeneers (in Trent).

Sirlancelot reminded me of item upgrades. I did mention them, too. They were unchanged from the vanilla game, where I can easily wait to become, say, twice as powerful before I tackle with them.

Upgrades: I lowered the upgrade difficulty with about 33% in Trent because it is a shorter game. Even lower? Perhaps half of vanilla? BTW Erkihlmarl, I think when u tested Trent the upgrades were as in vanilla.


Avenging Angel: For next version 1.21, I suggest (color in brown has changes from v1.2):
damage=90-150 //in vanilla: 85-130
type=bonus
typedmg=magic
lvl_dmg=80 // %
duration=5,6,8 //Trent 1.2: 4,5,7 ---- vanilla 4,5,6
int=0 // intellect does or does not influ
}
levels {
// level = mana_cost, crystals_cost to upgrade from previous level
1=5,1 //Trent 1.2: 6,1 --- vanilla 9,3
2=7,2 //Trent 1.2: 8,2 --- vanilla 13,5
3=9,5 //Trent 1.2: 10,5 --- vanilla 18,8

With duration 8 for level 3, there's a reward for upgrading, which I never did in any KB games... could be mana 4-6-8 also - alternatively Intellect could influence the damage, which it doesn't now... ??


Slow for v1.21:
Mana 6-9-12 (was 5-7-12). Crystal 5-10-15 (was 2-5-12). Duration 2-2-2 (was 2-3-3). Slowed still 1-2-3.
I didn't change anything with this spell before btw.

I get Erkihlmarl point, but would refrain from changing it further. Otherwise we'll end with "low" level characters equipped like gods. "You really want that bow, really? Well, prepare your anus".

Avenging Angel should prove to be useful against opponents which you can't damage or affect a big deal without it. For example, against very high defense enemies, like Paladins, or in the presence of level 5 creatures with high resistances as well but a weak spot in magic, like Cyclops.

Also useful against foes that you *need* to take out as soon as possible and perhaps can't evade their hits, like bosses.

Making it cheaper in both mana and crystals is a good place to start from. Let's gonna be patient and test it extensively. I will develop "Magic Light" skill from the Magic tree in my Paladin playthrough, to see how evolves getting it to the fullest.

Allright. Still a bit less than Fear or Blind, so it seems ok. Well, perhaps I'd reduce first level duration to 1 turn. Let's give that poor bears and knights a chance.

How about reload 3 or 4 and reduce blind chance effectiveness to 75-85%? I think the summons are allright. It's already quite powerful by that side, keep in mind he can also repair (=resurrect) the robots. Two times.

Of course.

In respond to myself: yes, it protects against everyone.

Avenging Angel: I just did some math. It will be overpowered in 1.21 with 8 rounds. At level 3 it does 245-410 damage, which is 343 damage in average. Multiplied by 6 it is around 2k damage! (often all the charges with Avenging Angel is not used, therefore I used 6 and not 8 in the math)... Sounds like vanilla rounds like 4,5,6 is better then 5,6,8...

Ingeneer: I remember you, Sirlancelot, suggested a lower chance like 50% for blindness, I just couldn't do it in the code. This was easier. That's why I didn't change the chance of blindness but instead reduced it to just 1 bottle.

Skill from Sprudne Island: I didn't change anything, due to out of time... but could easily be increased in strength - I mean the 3 different skills you get depending on the hero class. Trent is hard in itself, so it won't inbalance things.

Remember you need to be hitted in order to trigger. It could be OP with the typical "tank" with 75% or more physical resistance plus Target, or with cannon fodder.

But the reality is that often such conditions do not happen in Trent.

You could be very lucky and find several items that augment the resistances, though.

So in the end, I suppose you're right. Besides, is not that difficult to summon or even have a unit you don't mind to lose.

I hope you are not angry with me.

Yes, but I proposed that 50% chance for blindness with the vanilla reloading time. Now, with three or four turns before being able to use the talent again, I see more reasonable a higher chance.

And please, don't forget these are just my impressions/opinions.

Hmm, I feel the paladin skill (Holy armor), is more or less balanced. In fact, my first reaction when I saw it, was... oh my, this gonna make the game too easy.

--

By the way, I have played KB Crossworlds (and Armored Princess before), for near two thousand hours, but roughly 80-85% of the time, as a warrior. So that's the character I know better.

Hehe, no I'm not angry with you, Sirlancelot, on the contrary it's good with feedback!

Good to know. It's a relief. :)

Alchemists are broken. Or so it seems. Venom and energetic potions are missing from their list of talents.

However, at least when controlled by the AI, they are able to throw venom potions even with Magic Shackles or a troop upon them.

I suppose you are both right about item upgrades. I have to see myself, I'll start a new game.

PS. Steam counts that I have played almost 600 hours, but I may have played that many hours already before Steam.

I have already lowered it a little more for next version. So overall it is 30-50% easier to item upgrade than vanilla. Some items have just a little bonus, like Steel Band that only get +2 Attack and +1 Defense when upgraded. Therefore I made such one easier than something that gives bigger bonus.

There is a "sleepy wolf" next to the Trent Dungeon who seems to be able to interact with the player, yet he doesn't respond. Is it related to a quest? Should I be able to talk to him?

https://i.imgur.com/Kg7Vfra.jpg

No it is just for the scenairy. In general all such animal that is neutral are just for the fun. No quest

How is your experience with the Heroic Battles against the strong heroes. Do u avoid them. Or do u wait for later when u are stronger? These battles u cannot retreat from or use rage skills. Sort of a miniboss fight.

I'm thinking of the idea of making some strong spells that only enemy heroes can learn. for instance a Blind with 5 turns etc - would cost 10.000 crystal to learn so players can only use as scroll if they find them. Of course if I could find out how Matt who made The Legend mod with heroes casting more than 1 spell per turn that would help.

Although I think the Heroic Battles are strong enough the spells could be used for other heroes.

Yep, I use to wait for later until I feel strong enough to face the encounter without massive loses.

Better than that would be that they would able to cast normally forbidden spells for the AI. Sort of Target (although this spell is one the strongest of the whole game), Stone Skin, Pain Mirror, Berserker, Invisibility, Time Return, Death Star and so on.

By the way, Target and Stone Skin are another candidates for tweaking. If you manage to increase Physical Resistance up to around 85-90%, and combine with Target, the game, as long as the damage sources remains physical and Level 5 units are not prominent, becomes a cake walk.

Regarding spells, the best creation of Matt is IMO Enchant Hero (formerly Last Hero) In the right situation is amazing for both the player and the AI without exploiting anything.

I crafted a new spell but ai would not use it. too complicated for me... I've decided to leave this idea for now and focus on some new creatures. Anyway the enemy heroes in Trent are pretty strong anyway...

I could give ai hero spells like invisibility etc but they didn't use it even if it was the only spell they had. I did that in the editor after setting ai_attack=1 in the spell in spells.txt. I guess some lua files must be modded...!?

Made a small update. Most things will work in your current saved games (except bug fix with Count Bob and the early Heroic Battle):


Trent version 1.21
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- A crash bug fixed when talking to Count Bob late in game. A strange "no chat" text occured.
- Item upgrades: Lowered more, now 30-50% lower than vanilla (in Trent game ends around level 36 in the Krasen map, that's why I lowered it). Was 30% lower in Trent v1.2
- The Heroic Battle on Jerneland is slightly easier (fewer enemies).

Creature changes:
- Paladin: Prayer does not heal, only damage and scare off evils. There's a reload on Prayer now.
- Snake, Swamp Snake, Bear, Ancient Bear, Polar Bear: Got "Home Ground" which is +1 Initiative in forests or close to forests.
- All 3 snakes got 'Reptile', which is -30% Defense in snow. They had -25% in vanilla in the code (along with -25% Attack), but it was not written in text for the player, also the attack reduce didnt work properly.
The snakes also got the text 'Snake Agility', which already worked, but the text was missing. 10% chance to avade attacks.
- Ingeneer: Same price as vanilla (lowered a little from Trent v1.2). Damage short ray is about 40% stronger than vanilla (was only 15% stronger in Trent v1.2)
- Runemage: Text bug on description for High Mage/Runic/Runic Armor fixed.

Spells:
- Plague: Duration increased to 2,3,4 (was 2,2,2). Spread chance % 25,30,35 (was 15,20,25).
- Avenging Angel: Mana 5-7-9 (half price as vanilla, in v1.2 it was 6-8-10). Duration 5,6,7 (was 4,5,7 in v1.2 and 4,5,6 in vanilla).
- Slow: Duration is 1-2-3 (was 2,3,3). Mana 4-8-12 (was 5-7-12). Crystal 5-10-15 (was 2-5-12). Price 3200 (was 1200). Still slow 1-2-3 in movement.
- Magic Axe: Increased by 30% in Damage. Price 500 (was 2.500 gold). Mana 4-7-10 (was 5-9-13).
- Ghost Sword: Mana 6-8-10 (was 10-10-10). Cheaper to learn. 110 Damage (was 100)
- Poison Scull, Fire Arrow, Kamikaze: Around 10% more damage.
- Ice Snake: 25% more damage.
- Fire Ball: 10% more damage, also more damage when leveling it up. Price 1200 (was 5000)
- Small adjustments in price. Lightning for instance 1.000 (was 2.500 gold in v1.2).

Some LUA magic. Yeah, probably. But I really don't know, either. It would be easier if Matt himself could explain it. He used to visit or get notified about messages at his youtube video/channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE0VbSnfYkM

I would write him myself but I don't want to bother. I wrote him already to his forum account and email about Trent. You could, though. :-D

Oh, and congrats for the new release. :-D

I see the mage got a bit boost on his offensive powers. Considering that wizards were, in general terms, nerfed in Armored Princess that's likely a good idea.

Possible bug: In Fromlen, after defeating the shipwreck undead, I receive some units and items for free, and if I right click on the Witch Hunter, the game crashes.

Another bug. Same area. The Superfly boost his troops with a +20% extra fire damage. Ok. But if we examine one of them, they are actually getting +20 damage, not +20% of their base damage value.

https://i.imgur.com/fEepEDJ.jpg

answers
 

Shops with free items: It is not a bug, it is to encourage to use troops that u normally wouldn't use, like in Jerneland there's a shop in the castle area with free peasants... you would never use peasants else...

Superfly damage: Must be more than a 'wannabe superfly', I thought I had repaired that bug, thx... A guy did the Superfly on impossible...

Upper Trent: When you get here, Sirlancelot, pay attention to the texts when u interact, a player said something sounded strange, but I need to know who and so said it to correct mistakes.

New spells and creatures, AI enhancement: I've decided to leave that for now, it takes too much of me... for instance I made a new creature, that worked just fine, but when I gave it to the enemy it crashed... a guy mailed me about new creatures but never returned the mail...

Spell enhancement in 1.21: Like Avenging Angel, which rarely was used before, and I guess only as level 1, I :wink:enhanced it to encouraged player to use different tactics. Like the Magic Axe spell, I rarely learned even as level 1, then maybe now, like Avenging Angel.

The bug I refer to is the crash to desktop when you make right click over the Witch Hunters.

You are right about the free units. In fact, it encouraged me to use Assasins for a while.

Of course he did. The Dragon fliers are very fragile, hence easy to onslaught from afar. Just casting Magic Shackles level 3 was enough for me.

By the way, the leadership limit of this spell is a bit crazy, I can't imagine any combination of troops with so big leadership, no matter their quantity/numbers. I guess was intentional? True, before the spell was mostly useless, but know seems OP.

Fine. I'll keep an eye on them.

Patience. Take it easy. :-)

Sure. I use Poison Skull from time to time, though. The poison effect is rather crippling.

--

The Grand strategy medal has three tiers, right? It's good you reduced the maximun bonus to +600 leadership. Now you can play with different playstyles without much concern about it.

I have adjusted (reduced) locally the duration of Fear to 1, 2 and 3 turns respectively, to make it more in line with the changes to Slow.

Been thinking the same... Could be 8-10-12 Mana with duration 1-2-3.

Witch Hunt bug: noted.

About creatures: hehe I don't have enough patience. When making Hylfire and Bonfire, Terroin did the modding. I only did quests and maps in Bonfire. And testing. This is new to me...

Witch Hunter bug: I tried having witchies and right clicked - also in battle, had no crash here...



Made a small update 1.22, since I noticed I've left an enemy with a new creature which I later deleted. Game would crash, so had to update:

Trent version 1.22

- Jerneland, bug: A crash might occur, since an army in the snow had a new creature which I later deleted. It could only happen in new games started in v1.21
- Fromlen: Leisner the Superfly (in the water north-west) said 20% more Damage but was actually +20 Damage. Now corrected to just 100% of base attack, which meens double damage.
- Fear: Duration 1-2-3 (was 2-3-4). Price 8-10-12 (was 10-10-10). Crystal 3-5-8 (was 3-3-3).



Wonder about fear, it could be 5-10-15 Mana since the duration is 1-2-3 ...?

The crash should only occur under the circumstances I described, I think. Were the Witch H. modified, anyway? Because if not I figure it would be a problem related to the shipwreck or the area, not to the creature.

Maybe, although in general terms Fear is better than Slow, so it makes sense that the first level of the spell is also more mana expensive.

I haven't touched the witch hunters

I insist about Magic Shackles level 3. It always work and feels OP. Makes fights against demons (for example) too easy. :|

I'm now clearing Trent Dungeon. A few days ago had a nasty surprise with the pirate who sails the seas at Fromlen. Oh my... haha, it was a good battle.

Hmm... It was another player who suggested no leadership limit on magic shackles... Actually...

For next v1.3 I lowered it to leadership 125% - 160% - 250% (was 200-300-10000). Still higher than vanilla (100% only).

And/or make it more mana expensive. In my opinion is just the third level which clearly need to be nerfed, and maybe with +8 or +10 mana cost is enough.

20 -> 28 or 30.

It was 35 Mana in vanilla for level 3 magic shackles. I forgot it was for all enemies not just one - that's why I lowered the Mana price. I'll change it to 30 Mana at level 3 instead of current 20 Mana. In the code it says "one,one,all" - must meen all enemies at once at level 3. Never used it... but strong, I can see. And 125-200-250% of leadership. Crystal 4-8-30.

I have increased the mana cost of the third level to more than vanilla cost, 38... it felt still OP. And I wonder yet if that's enough. I'm clearing much of the dungeon easily thanks to this spell.

Currently testing with leadership limit 125, 200, 200. And mana cost 10, 15, 40.

I'm also tempted to try out 125, 200, 150. Mana cost 10, 15-20, 35. That way you'd have to choose between disable the talents of the probably most dangerous foe on the field or disable all the rest.

I reached upper Trent, by the way. No strange/weird text bugs yet. :)

Priests and Rune Mages, at least. Huzzah!

---

Reduced locally physical resistance of units with Steel Armor to 25%. The game should cap resistances at 75-80% IMO, but as I assume this is not possible through simple modding, this is the best I can do to keep balance. In fact, even 75 or 80% cap could prove to be insufficient of a nerf if combined with Magic Shield from Archmages. The AI should try to disable that kind of combos right away (with dispel or the like)

Let's hope the devs do a better job on balance and AI terms on next KB iteration.

---

About magic shackles: alternatively level 3 could just be for one and not all. Still strange I haven't heard about magic shackles being op before... But in vanilla the leadership is 100% also at level 3. That is the difference.

Strange indeed...

I agree with you about the alternative proposed. I'm gonna test a bit more with the third level affecting all, though. Spells which affect all opponents at once are very interesting, although also prone to break balance.

I love these changes, however:

'Home ground' would be more interesting if give +1 morale. Initiative bonus is pointless for Bears, as they need to be hitted first in order to take advantage of their Brutality skill. Besides, you can already obtain +1 to Initiative to animals and dragons with the Blue Dragon pet.

I edited and added more information to previous posts.

Terroin creature sounds are amazing. The demons speechs are scary as hell.

Sounds: Terroin made the sounds for the creatures in his studio and altered them. He did it in 1-2 days, it was funny talking to him afterwards, his voice sounded very "off" after all the recordings, hehe. He is a friend of mine, living just 15 km away.

Snake/bears 'homeground': It was mostly intended for the AI as an advantage, I suppose snakes are not used so much. That's way I didn't give Royal Snakes 'homeground', since it is normally the only snake used by the player. U still think +1 Moral is better?

Magic Shackles: I'll await your tests, Sirlancelot, sounds like just a solo effect is the way to go, but with big big leadership and cheaper Mana, 10-15 or so?

So that's why they sounded so proffesional. They were recorded in a studio. It's unusual in "amateur" mods to find such piece of quality.

Hah! It's a small world! Where do you live?

Good point. But yes, +1 moral it's definitely better for bears, which are too slow in reaction terms anyway. +1 to initiative wouldn't make a difference for them.

But for the snakes, the AI will take more advantage from the initiative bonus, there you're right.

Hence I would give +1 moral to bears and +1 initiative to snakes.

Moreover, yesterday night I faced off a group of orc trackers along with an horde of snakes and they pushed me to the limit. I could barely disable them thanks to Higher Magic; four spells in a row in two rounds. And even them they were able to kill two paladins, ten priests and one royal thorn, which I fortunately could resurrect thanks to Sacrifice, my red dragon and tons of mana (I have an item which improves the pet dragon Mana Acceleration significantly)

I need more time to test it thoroughly. Now I'm trying out the 125, 200, 150 leadership limit with 10, 15, 35 mana cost idea.

Ingeneer:

You forgot to raise their damage on the flamer script section, thus our dwarf friend kept damage bonus from 1.1 (or 1.2, I don't remember), 17,30, and not 20-35.

By the way, why you gave Paladin acess to Higher Magic, and Warrior access to Resurrection?

To Sirlancelot:

Are u mage in your game? Well just to improve paladin in a fast and easy way. Overpowered with high magic to paladin? other suggestions for hero classes?

Ingeneers: Ur right, it was melee that had 40% increased damage. Changed now for v1.3

Not so keen on lower mass magic shackles leadership. Id rather lower it to level 2 OR just effect on just 1. What about 10-10-10 Mana. Leadership 125-150-1000 or so, still level 3-4-4. Crystal 4-8-10 and ONLY works on just 1 creature. Regarding leadership, remember AI is stronger in Trent, and u are playing on hard, not impossible.

No, I'm a paladin.

I don't know, yet. I got Higher Magic two days ago. However, it's one of the most powerful skills in the game, so chances are that yes, it'll be overpowered.

In principle, I'd refrained to include it in the Paladin skill tree repertory, unless you were 100% sure it was needed. There're other skills rather weak, like Diplomacy or Prayer, which could have been improved instead.

Anyway, I don't have confronted yet the most dangerous foes nor had time enough to judge its impact properly. Time will say.

About Magic Shackles:

I see. I understand your concern. Make it focused on just one creature, then. Places like Trent dungeon will be much harder now, because enemies like Demonesess or Imps are very talent dependant.

I've been enjoying the mod, though tbh the current difficulty tuning feels like everything is two difficulty levels ahead of the base game -Normal feels morel like the base game's Impossible.

That said, some issues:

-A random-but-consistent bug I've run across is where a specific battlegroup will end up always crashing the game upon the completion of a specific enemy stack's turn. My first run is unable to get past the first three islands, for example, because the Unicorn Hero guarding the next Sea Chart always causes this crash on the first turn, but a Mage and Paladin that I've started since then don't get this crash on this particular Hero. Conversely, the Mage has one Item where the keeper fight always crashes the game on the second-to-last enemy's move, so I'm probably not going to be able to upgrade the Item until I'm much more overwhelmingly powerful, if ever. So it's 'random' in the sense that different files end up with different battlegroups causing the crash, but it's consistent in that if a given battlegroup causes the crash it will ALWAYS cause the crash.

-The Paladin's Prayer Talent doesn't do anything. Clicking it goes into a targeting mode, and occasionally I've triggered a visual effect on Undead, but it never does anything mechanical (No damage, no fleeing), and it doesn't even end the Paladin's turn.

-In my Mage run, attempting to assemble the pet dragon's four Items into their combo form gave me an Ordinary Helmet with no way to get back the original four Items. I was able to reload, mind, but still.

On a more design-y note, while I've overall been impressed on the tuning of the game so far, I'm a bit uncomfortable with how some specific elements of randomization lean heavily toward a quality-not-variety approach. For example, with the third island my first run had to bait enemies away from the Castle to be able to access it, my second run had no enemies there at all, and my third run had an enemy battlegroup there but can reach the castle without the battlegroup noticing them. This is a particularly memorable example, but it's a recurring thing that some important locations (eg lootables) might be guarded or might not be, and particularly in the very beginning of the game this can easily mean the difference between a run being stonewalled/forced to accept massive casualties vs leveling up/looting Talent Runes/gaining access to a shop with key units and suddenly being able to effortlessly solve a series of previously-problematic fights. Even if the crash weren't blockading my first run, I'd probably never get back to it regardless just because it's struggled so much from worldgen punishing it in this sort of way so consistently.

I'm glad you have came here to the discussion/debate/feedback topic, Ghoul King.

I used to suffer random crashes to desktop every now and then, until I activated my antivirus (Panda Dome) multimedia/game mode. Perhaps is not related to the causes of yours, but better safe than worry.

What do you think about the topic we're discussing lately? That's it, if it's a good idea or not to include Higher Magic on the Paladin Magic Skill tree and make Resurrection available to Warriors. My initial impression is that it would be preferrable to improve weaker skills of each specific hero rather than incorporate probably the most powerful and symbolic skills of each class.

For example, the Paladin has Prayer and Diplomacy as rather useless skills which could be improved, don't you think?

PS: In the latest pages we have been discussing about simmilar subjects; spells and creatures changes and so on.

Paladin with Higher Magic: I didnt have the time to have a look at Paladin's skill tree, that's why I did the shortcut by just giving him Higher Magic. I'll remove it, Prayer or Diplomacy need a work, I agree.

Difficulty: A player did the impossible level, and the Xworld has been out for a while, that's why I turned up difficulty. I might lower it though, since I also play Hard, never Impossible in Trent. Since some creatures like Paladin and Ingeneers which were OP have been reduced since version 1.0 it is time to have a look at overall difficulty.

Crashes: I haven't heard about that before. What sometimes help, is taking items on off and try again. Depends.

3rd island: It is random if there is a guard in front of the castle, yes, that was part of the randomization...

If it matters any, I'm playing the Good Old Games version of Crossworlds. Maybe it handles things a bit differently and that's what the crashes are about?

Difficulty-wise, my main point was actually that the mod's description presents the difficulty as being around one level higher than in the base game. Since I prefer to play Armored Princess on Hard, I went with Normal, and while I've ended up enjoying the challenge I still feel it would be better for players to be forewarned that they should probably drop down two difficulty levels compared to the base game, not one.

Skills-wise, I'd tend to agree that buffing/replacing bad Skills is generally a better approach than just passing out the ultimate Skills to other classes. Right now the Paladin basically invalidates the Mage later in the game -admittedly Trent Wars seems to be short enough that this isn't as huge a problem as it could be, but when I noticed my Paladin had Higher Magic I found it quite jarring regardless. Mind, I wouldn't necessarily object to passing out Higher Magic to everyone -it would address some oddities like 'the Mage is the best at grinding Guardian Angel'- but if you went in that kind of direction that would tend to imply a more significant overhaul of class concept/Skills in general. Just passing out Higher Magic to the Paladin with the Mage getting nothing to give them a unique edge is off. (It's not like Archmage is all that great)

As far as the Mind tree goes, in my view its issues are an intersection of

1: Many of its Skills are overpriced. Prayer is lame, but if it was 3 or 4 Mind Runes for the first rank it would be boring-lame, not this-is-not-worth-it-lame.

2: It further suffers from universally essential Skills acting a Rune sinks -no matter who you're playing, you should try to max Trophies as soon as possible, and this is MORE true in Trent Wars than in the base game where money eventually becomes essentially infinite. Which is 15 Mind Runes before you can get on with purchasing other Skills.

3: Lastly is that Mind's Skills that don't suffer directly from either of the above end up suffering it indirectly from the organization of the Skill tree. Voice of the Dragon is a decent enough Skill if you happen to be interested in using animals/dragons, but it's locked behind such a massive amount of Rune sinks it tends to be difficult to justify purchasing it if you're not the Paladin -and even the Paladin will still take forever to get to it since Resurrection is massively more useful AND its requirements are more biased toward Inherently Worthwhile Skills.

Just reorganizing the tree so that eg Prayer is at the END instead of locking off several Skills would go a long way to fix things.

Though on the topic of price points... Trent Wars puts me rather in mind of The Legend when it comes to the overall map design philosophy. Specifically that in The Legend you spend a lot of your time scooping up the easy loot so you can be powerful enough to beat (Well, trivialize in its case, but close enough) easier encounters which unlocks more areas/more improvements to your character and/or army, etc. Which I'm mentioning because I'm a little surprised Trent Wars didn't overhaul Talent Rune costs in the first place; The Legend has MUCH lower costs than later entries in the series because later entries are more focused on making grinding out levels the path to true power, with Talent Runes found in the field primarily mattering for how they add up over time. (With the occasional 'I just need one more Mind Rune- there's one!') Whereas The Legend prices its Skills so that finding individual Runes is actually quite likely to let you purchase a Skill right away, at least until fairly late in the game, and that model seems a bit more in line with Trent Wars' design.

Which I'm mentioning primarily because if you're going to overhaul Skills anyway, then it's a relevant point.

Thank you GhoulKing for your inputs! I haven't touched either Rage Skills nor Talent Skills in Trent, seems the Paladin skill tree is up next...

Paladin skill tree: For instance in Huntiro's mod, he added overall Resistance to the skill Prayer, just like a saw a The Legend mod that also did that. I will have a look at the Paladin skill tree and lower them, especially Diplomacy/Prayer. Also the Diplomacy Skill could be enhanced by getting more than 100% exp but 200% for instance. I'll post more when starting to plan changes.
Trent is a shorter game, u end up at level 35 or so. And I haven't checked prices for Talent Skills at all compared to vanilla.
I hope it is not necessary to lower Warrior or Mage regarding the amount of runes for Skill deveopment... just Paladin.

The crash bug in Sprudne with an Unicorn hero: I checked the army in the editor, it is just normal units and a hero. I haven't heard anyone else have this crash. Do you also have the Orcs on the Marsh, I think that is needed.

Bug with assembling 4 pieces for Rage item: I tested, yes, strange, it doesn't work, but haven't touched it. Will get back on this... when assembling I got a bow, and when dissambling the 'doll' I got a low level sword, strange...

So far, these are the changes for the next version 1.3 which I have already made:

- Higher Magic Skill removed from Paladin. Resurrection removed from Warrior.
- Difficulty settings: Lowered to 100% - 130% - 170% - 210% (was 100-140-190-250) since some spells and creatures have been nerfed.
- Fromlen (3rd island): A random guard at castle lowered in leadership. It is still randomized if it is here at all (30% chance)
- Fromlen: The ghostship has more random troops, still for free.

Spells:
- Magic Shackles: NO mass effect at level 3. Leadership 125-150-5000%. Mana 10-10-10. Crystal 3-6-8. Price lowered to 1500 (was 3000).

Creatures:
- Ingeneer: The increased 40% ranged damage in 1.21 now fixed so it actually works...
- All bears and Snakes/Swamp Snakes: 'Home ground' gives +1 Ini to Snakes but +1 Moral to Bears (a new feature in 1.21).
- Paladin: Prayer bug fixed, now undead/demons run away in fear as intended. Reload on Healing instead of 1 Charge.

Paladin Skill Tree will be improved for version 1.3:

- Scouting: 2-2-3 Runes (was 2-3-3). Intellect 1-2-4 (was 1-2-3).

- Trophies: 1-2-4 Runes only (was 5-5-5 and a Magic Rune each level). Gold 5% - 15% - 30%

- Prayer: 6-10-14 Runes (was 10-12-14). Krit 4-9-15% (was 3-7-10%). Shifted with Diplomacy location in skill tree.

- Learning: 7-11-15 Runes (was 11-11-11). Experience 5-15-25% (was 10-15-20%). Intellect 1-2-4 (was 1-2-3).

- Adrenalin: 6-7-8 Runes besides 1 Might Rune (was 7-8-9). In addition, gives +1 Speed/Initiative permanent to: Level 1 units / Level 1-2 units / Level 1-3 units.

- Neatness: 6-7-8 Runes (was 7-9-11).

- Persuation: ????????? Perhaps 1-3-6% Phys. Res.

- Diplomacy: 5-6-7 Mind Runes besides Might Runes (was 8-8-8 or so). 8-14-20% (was 8-12-16%). Will also give Defense to Level 1-3 units: 2-6-10 Defense.

- Ressurection: 8-10-12 Runes (was 12-14-16!)

- Dragon Voice: 6-8-14 Runes besides other (was 9-10-11).


Dragon Voice, Diplomacy, Adrenaline, Prayer, Power of Spirit will all effect for instance summoning like Demon Portal (partly) or Animal Call since they stand stronger. I assume Dragon Voice's moral also effect summonings?


COMMENTS???

Hmm. I would refrain from making such profound changes all of sudden. We removed Higher Magic because it could be overpowered and now are probably falling in the same mistake by simply going through other path.

I would rather go step by step, making small changes, testing them and then reflecting about the overall feel.

GhoulKing said he enjoyed the challenge, just reported that it should be informed (in the readme, I guess), that every level of difficulty is not one but two levels harder than vanilla.

The Paladin skill tree. Before making any change, I'd count the total quantity of runes cost of the complete Paladin skills tree, and get assured that this number is still the same at the end of the modifications. That way should be easier to keep balance.

Prayer runes price could be 6-10-14, like you said. The first tier the cheapest so the player who is not interested at all in the skill because thinks is superflous can almost skip it.

Diplomacy. I like the changes WotN introduced for it:

https://www.vigaroe.com/2018/10/warr...is-part-2.html

I'd avoid/not so keen about raising resistances... as I stated some messages ago, the game has not a cap at 75-80%, just at the outrageous 95%, which is basically the same like not having a cap at all.

Reasonable and interesting change, because the third level of the skill was previously a bit meh. I'd keep the runes price intact, however. It's an essential skill.

I disagree a bit with GhoulKing here. I'm level 20 at my Paladin playthrough and money is not a problem/issue. Perhaps it was at the beggining, but honestly never bother me or felt wrong.

And again, this is a relevant skill (not essential, but important nevertheless), thus I'd rather keep vanilla runes cost, or lowered them just a little.

Good approach. However... lowering the first tiers runes cost so much could have the effect of making the paladin skills tree so cheap for all classes, that it would preferable to be a warrior or a mage.

Sounds tempting, but maybe a bit out of scope. How about just +1 to speed? There're already other skills that raise Initiative.

Not sure about this. In principle, I think it's a very relevant and advantageous skill and would keep its runes cost intact. Otherwise would make Alchemy even less important than it is already.

Absolutely disagree. Ressurection is the best paladin skill and should keep its runes cost intact.

In fact, I would raise the third layer of the skill runes cost up to 18 or more. You want to make Holy Armor and other skills obsolete and expendable? Pay for it.

Good approach, but probably a bit excessive. How about +3?

These are my first impressions after reading your last post.

In this web you can easily count the amount of runes that would cost changing all the skills that we're talking about:

https://www.celestialheavens.com/kingsbounty/hs-en.htm

Considering that in order to modify them you need to also pay for other skills, the numbers I get, are:

20 Might runes.
189 Mind runes.
16 Magic runes.

Ok, thx for inputs. Regarding diplomacy, I don't have the capability to change so player get exp for deserting/joining troops, still I never developed it in WotN.
I will hold more back then with the skills. Uploading v1.3 later.

Trent version 1.3 released for download (see first post)
======================================

- Warrior Hero: Resurrection removed.
- Paladin Hero: Higher Magic Skill removed and the skill tree improved.
- Difficulty settings: Lowered to 100% - 130% - 170% - 210% (was 100-140-190-250) since some spells and creatures have been nerfed.
- Fromlen (3rd island): A random guard at castle lowered in leadership and moved to another location in Fromlen, still random if it appears.
- Fromlen: The ghostship has more random troops, still for free.
- Item bug: The 4 rage items from 'Orcs on the Marsh' that can be mixed to a new item 'Dragon Toy' didn't work properly. I had to remove the option to sample the 4 items, no clue how to repair, same code as in vanilla.
- Item; Dragon Toy: Can now be found, not crafted: Price 40.000, Level 4, Rage 8, Petattack 10%
- Item 'Helm of Antenna', former part of 'Dragon Toy': Price lowered and the Initiative penalty for level 3-5 removed.

Spells:
- Magic Shackles: NO mass effect at level 3. Leadership 125-150-5000%. Mana 10-10-10. Crystal 3-6-8. Price lowered to 1500 (was 3000).

Creatures:
- Ingeneer: The increased 40% ranged damage in 1.21 now fixed so it actually works...
- All bears and Snakes/Swamp Snakes: 'Home ground' gives +1 Ini to Snakes but +1 Moral to Bears (a new feature in 1.21).
- Paladin: Prayer bug fixed, now undead/demons run away in fear as intended. Reload on Healing instead of 1 Charge.

Mind Skill Tree has been changed a bit:
- Scouting: Intellect 0-2-4 (was 1-2-3).
- Trophies: 2-4-6 Mind Runes (was 5-5-5 and a Magic Rune each level). Gold 5%-15%-30%
- Prayer: 6-12-16 Mind Runes (was 10-12-14). Krit 3-7-12% (was 3-7-10%). Shifted with Diplomacy location in skill tree.
- Learning: 7-14-16 Mind Runes (was 11-11-11). Experience 5-14-22% (was 10-15-20%). Intellect 0-2-4 (was 1-2-3).
- Adrenalin: 6-7-11 Mind Runes (was 7-8-9). In addition, gives +1 Speed Level 1 units / +1 Speed Level 1-2 units / +1 Speed & Initiative Level 1-3 units.
- Persuation: When maxed, +1 Moral all including Neutrals and Droids (was only for Demons & Lizardmen at level 3). Costs 2 extra Mind Runes for Level 3.
- Diplomacy: 6-7-8 Mind Runes (was 8-8-8 or so). 5-10-15% (was 8-12-16%). Now gives Defense to Level 1-3 units: 2-6-10 Defense.
- Spirit of Power: 6-8-10 Mind Runes (was 8,8,8 ), so total the same amount of runes.
- Voice Dragon: 10-11-11 Mind Runes (was 9-10-11).
- Resurrection: Costs 2 extra Mind Runes for Level 3.


Number of Rune changes in v1.3 if all is maxed in the Mind Tree compared to vanilla:
Might: 0
Mind : 0 (Trophies, Diplomacy & Prayer are cheaper. Resurrection, Learning, Voice of the Dragon & Persuation are more expensive).
Magic: -2 (Trophies)
The following skills are stronger than vanilla: Scouting, Learning, Prayer, Adrenalin, Persuation, Diplomacy.
Generally the first level is cheaper than vanilla but with a smaller bonus.

Examples from the skill enhancements:
Call of Nature and Demon Portal will have stronger units if you upgrade Prayer, Adrenalin or Diplomacy with increased Crit, Defense, Speed and Initiative.
With Maxed Prayer, Persuation and Level 2 Voice of the Dragon a Polar bear will have +3 Morale which gives 59% Crit instead of 30% Crit Chance. Btw, moral does not effect summonings.

The crash in question affects battlegroups at random, it's not something about the unicorn Hero in particular. It's just that if a battlegroup is affected by the crash, it's always affected by it -I've got a Mage run that hasn't been able to upgrade a Dress because the second-to-last enemy triggers the crash when they finish their move, and I've tried repeatedly over the course of the run. (Changing up my army, doing different initial moves, etc) The only thing I haven't had the chance to test yet is if I could bypass the crash by killing the problem unit and/or skipping its turn.

I do like the idea of Adrenaline bolstering lower-Level units. Scarface doing so is one of the more interesting aspects of Trent Wars, as while Level 5 units tend to be surprisingly lackluster aside that point higher Level units are normally more desirable for a variety of reasons, and there's rarely adequate incentives to try out lower-Level units. Overall the current list of Mind tree changes is good -making base ranks cheaper so it's easier to reach key Skills at all helps a lot.

To GhoulKing:

Crash: Do you recall if it is a certain monster? It could also be the arena at the Unicorn place, but you also mentioned a Dress upgrade. I didn't change arenas at upgrades, only the amount.

Item bug: But strange things happens, like the 'Dragon Toy' item that suddenly couldn't be made out of the 4 items. I tried to give the hero all 5 items in vanilla ORCS ON THE MARSH and it works, then I copied the code in items.txt to same file in Trent, and it still didn't work. Strange, because I didnt mod this... jesus... so I just removed the possibility of connecting the 4 items and made the Dragon Toy buyable in a lesser version.

Mind Tree: We will see from some plays how it works. I made the better skills more expensive Resurrection, Learning, Voice of Dragon while easier to push forward in the skill tree until the last 2 rows. I haven't played Trent for some time, since I spent a lot of time making it... but when I'll having a go again, I MUST try the Paladin. Feels more appealing now. I tend to use Mage the most in KB games. I guess Warriors and Mages will look more into the Mind Tree now.

Congratulations for the new release! :)

I like most of the changes, however I'm unsure about how the modifications to the overall difficulty will affect the experience. And the Diplomacy bonuses seem too generous. :shock: I will, however, trust your expertise. You're the mod creator, so you know your mod better than any of us.

If I install this version instead of my current one, how the overall difficulty of Hard will be? 170% or 190%? I was enjoying the game with 190%...
And how the mind skill tree will look? Updated? Or will I need to start a new game to see the changes?

Finally, how can I increase the overall difficulty of item upgrades? I prefer vanilla difficulty or 30% easier at most. In general I don't want to be able to upgrade low level items to level 4 and level 5 ones at low levels just because the game is shorter. I can be wrong, but sounds very OP.

Did you try to play the game with the firewall/antivirus configured differently? I used to suffer frecuently crashes after battles and setting the antivirus better almost completely eradicated them.

About skills: I haven't played with it but never maxed diploma in any games... not even for sure I will now since I often use level 4 later.... Later we can put the tune price up. You have to make a choice if you will focus on some low levels or keep runes for the higher skills... Even if you use Level 1-3 units in your army, it is often max 1-2 you use later in game, so it is weaker than 'Spirit of Power'. The way Diplomacy effects the most is in summonings. It will have to be tested; developing Diplomacy to max and have Call of Nature for instance. Also the Rage skills that plants an egg is more interesting now... It is noted for an observation (could be 2-5-8 Defense, and/or 6-8-10 Runes instead of 6-7-8 ).

Item upgrade: u have to change each one in items.txt - but let us c with new overall difficulty. If you change it here it will be deleted in future versions, and it is a big job... if there're more than u thinking it is too easy, I will change it back to 30% easier than vanilla. It's just that Trent is only half as long as vanilla. It is noted for an observation.

Overall difficulty will only effect NEW games. Only problem is prayer and diplomacy skill that has been shifted. I would not use v1.3 unless ur starting a new game. I have to play test too to fully say if it is balanced with difficulty. Id play impossible then. I'm not an mod expert so keep posting opinions. Alternatively it could be 100 - 140 - 180 - 220%, it is noted for an observation.

Spell/Creature info: I have updated post#2 that shows all changes in Trent regarding spells and creatures.

I've not found a larger pattern to the crash. In the case of the Dress, for example, it's a Swordsman that crashes the game, but there's other Swordsmen in the group that don't crash the game. And the unicorn Hero didn't have Swordsmen at all. The only consistent pattern I've noticed thus far is the part where if a given battlegroup causes a crash once, it will always cause a crash and always with the same stack.

I've actually not had any other form of crash, which is a bit surprising. Red Sands has more random crashes, or for that matter Warriors of the North. I went in expecting random crashes, and haven't had them.

As far as the Dragon Toy goes, maybe the problem is that you copied the Item code at all? I've not messed around with King's Bounty modding, but my understanding is that stuff that's already in the base game generally doesn't require a mod re-specify its existence. Maybe what you're doing is, as far as the game is concerned, making a new set of Items, rather than importing the regular set, and then the combo Item code gets confused by this?

Though tbh I actually prefer the idea of the combined Item just being a separate Item. In the base game, the combined Item is generally difficult to justify denying yourself access to the Shovel and the Boots; like yeah sure Lava Call, Fiery Phantoms, and Dragon Dive all get to do more damage, but not THAT much more, and missing out on extra chests and the utility of bonus pushing is painful.

Regarding Diplomacy; +10 Defense might be a bit much, given it's applying to Levels 1-3. If it only applied to Levels 1-2 I'd be more inclined to think it cool but not necessarily amazing, but a lot of very solid army formations end up being made entirely of Level 2-3 units anyway, so at that point it's bordering into being ridiculously better than Resistance -while still allowing you to potentially steal enemy units!

Diplomacy: Good idea with level 1-2 only. Seems a v1.31 must come out soon, lol...

Dragon Toy item: I ONLY copied text after the bug, it was to see if some mistake was in the code had occur - even though I never touched it. So the problem is not copying, i copyied to find the error.

Crash: Could you try taking off items and on again, to see if it changes. Anyway, I have no clue what does it besides what Sirlancelot suggested, about NOT being a Xworld/Trent issue but computer.

Yep, I would prefer it back to 30% easier. Getting a level 4 or 5 item early on is very tempting, but probably too OP as well.

Besides, with 30% easier I was able to get two level 3 items* quite close to the beggining anyway, just needed to be ready for Gremlins combat, gathering the appropiate army. And of course accept casualties.

*: Advisor's dress and Colonel's baton.

If it helps, I run the game under Windows 7, and have it installed outside of Program Files subfolders.

It's the Steam version.

Uploading v1.31

- Item Upgrades 30% easier.
- Difficulty 100-140-180-220%
- Diplomacy Skill only for level 1-2 units (not 1-3)

Readme file with changes for v1.31 can be seen in file next do download link.

It's best only to use v1.3 or 1.31 in a new game. Saved games, especially if you are playing as the Paladin Hero will probably inbalance things / mess things up in the skill tree. So only download if you start a new game.

Congrats! :) And thanks for taking my feedback into consideration.

I really hope Ghoul King will be able to enjoy the mod properly at some point!

My antivirus is Panda Dome, by the way.

Considering that I shouldn't install v1.31 until I start another run, what should I change exactly into my items.txt for items upgrades I want to get back to 30% easier than vanilla?

Currently I have the Snake Ring, Colonel's Baton, Tuning Module (broken) and Silver Shoes.

Sirlancelot, not sure if your current game will be able to be loaded if you take the new file with the items and overwrite your old verison. U could take items.txt from version 1.31 and overwrite same items.txt in Trent.kfs\ and it will work, but you might loose the option to load games! Not 100% sure... so I wouldn't do it... in case u do, the text for the Dragon items will not be right.

Ouch! :-| Don't worry then, I'll simply ignore the upgrades until I feel my level would be the neccessary to actually try them out.

Allright. Time to make new suggestions (I love it =P , let's reckon)

Creatures:

* Assasins: I think they're in general an awesome offensive creature when recruiting them right off the bat at the start of the game and playing a warrior or even paladin/mage specialised in Chaos magic. Moreover if you equip them with Assasin's Dagger or another(s) item(s) which improves them directly or indirectly.

But in Trent, they have two or three clear caveats:

1. Not time enough to increase their Find Weakness damage bonuses to really high degrees/percents.

2. Poor leadership/hit points ratio when compared against Royal Snakes.

3. Depending on your luck, lack the appropiate spells to protect them properly.

Hence, I 'd suggest a +10 or +15 bonus to their HP. This little boost could make a huge difference when facing them as enemies or trying to improve their survivability chances in our hands.

* Knights and Paladins:

As I have mentioned several times in this post, Crossworlds doesn't have a real cap on Resistances (95% is approximately the same as 100%), which means you can make units almost invulnerable to a few or several damage types. And sadly, this sometimes turns the game into cakewalk.

Due to it, I think would be more reasonable to reduce and set their Steel Amor protection to 25%. Otherwise, when combined with any item that raises physical resistance +10% or more and cast Stone Skin III, unless there're other kind of non physical damages in the battlefield, is game over. Furthermore, Archmages Magic Shield can even exploiting it farer.

Besides, Knights and Paladins are already insanely protected by Mastery, high defense base stat and what not.

We can also nerf Stone Skin, of course, but I think that would be complementary and non substitutive.

Spells: (nerfs and enhancements)

Hell Breath

Power: 30, 40, 50 (from 20, 30, 40)

Perhaps is a bit too much of a boost, but the reality is I never used this spell before thinking about this enhancement... Too low benefit for warriors and pals not focused in Chaos AND Intelect.

Doom

I wouldn't pay more than 12 mana for it, regardless its level. Helplesness cost MUCH less and I have the impression its actually equally or more effective against high defense creatures.

Stone Skin

Duration: 2-3-4 (instead of 3-4-5) I never understood why it has a so long base duration on the first place when compared to other common, ordinary spells. It seems to me that the developers though (errousnesly), that the initiative penalty would be much more of a nuissance than it actually is.

Power: 10, 20, 30. Same scenario and reflection.

*Penalty: -2,-2,-2 Heh, heh,heh :twisted: You want to be solid like the stone, eh? There you have.

*: This is more experimental and non so important than the duration and protection part.

I agree on most except the massive nerf of stone skin. Never use Doom or hellbreath too. Not sure about knights and paladins... Hmmm.... But assassin's I rarely use so health could be good.

Perhaps also foreman From the dwarf race... Good improvement in wotn

Orcs tend to be avoided I guess...

I have suffered a crash when attempting to upgrade another Hiking Dress (it transforms into Advisor's dress when upgraded)

Two crashes. Same item upgrade. Sounds bad. Probably something went wrong when transitioning from 30% easier item upgrades than vanilla to -30%/-50%. Or between those two versions of the mod. Never had a problem like this before.

Or is it perhaps a problem related only with unicorns?

Hmm, how can I put some text in spoiler mode?

SPOILERS AHEAD:





Yesterday I killed Luffe. It was an epic fight, and in fact I lose all my ingeeners and halve of my troops in the battle. My setup was quite defensive and so it was Luffe's.

A huge "mistake" from my part, since my adversary main strategy was to decimate my troops with Geyser every turn. I tried to onslaught him, but my paladin is mostly all about defense and crowd control.

Very nice battle. Probably much easier with a warrior or a more offensive oriented paladin. But very funny nevertheless

Use the cursor of your mouse to select an see the text inside the spoiler area.

I don't have the old version to check it. Perhaps yes, I messed things up, in current version I had no problem upgrading the Hiking Dress in v1.31, tried it in 3 games just now. There were no unicorns in any of these tests but don't think it is the unicorns.

Do you think should I start a new game with latest version, then?

By the way. Don't worry. We all mess things up everyday. :)

I would continue.

Problem is, I had another crash just a few minutes ago with Balroom Dress item upgrade. I think if I continue with my current playthrough I could end with difficulties to get good items at the endgame. I could make a backup of my current Trent version and start a new game with latest.

Well, after doing a backup I have started a new game with latest version. Let's hope item upgrades and key battles are stable.

Again Paladin and Hard.

Despite the description, priests bless only last one turn.

Sirlancelot:
- Could u try loading your old game in v1.31? Just to see if it is possible to load and if it crashes again in the upgrade fight?
- I guess, we get to test the new Paladin skill adjustment since u have started a new game, thx.
- Priest bless: I checked the code, I actually increased it in an earlier version from duration=2 to 3. Strange. Have to check in fight...

Yep. It didn't crash. :-D

Yes, the code seems fine, but the bless effect only last for one/two rounds.

Any progress with the bless talent from priests?

I have recently reached Sprudne Islands. I'm trying out different combinations of troops. Level 4 units are still key in order to achieve Grand Strategy medals. That's why I'm reluctant to go with Level 1-2 units despite their bonuses. Their hit points are way smaller. It's difficult to keep them alive, specially without Target. Thanks God I found this spell recently.

I have made a bunch of little changes to make the game more balanced I think:

* Archmages: +1 maximun damage. 5-9 instead of 5-8. A bit more interesting on the DPS field.

*Assasin: +15 HP. They resist a bit longer.

*Goblin Shaman, astral damage talent halved. They were insanely broken. (OP)

*Polar bear: +10 HP (hence, 140), +2 to maximun damage: 12-24 instead of 12-22. Still worse than a regular knight or paladin... but more competitive with moral bonuses. I rarely use them for long, but love their potential.

*Knights and Paladins Steel Armor: 25% physical resistance instead of 30% or 35%. Still the best fighters out there, but a bit more vulnerable. Now Guardsmen are less obsolete.

*Runemage: 45 attack and Destruction reload 2 instead of 3. Now they are really dangerous as an enemy, and a bit more useful to the player too.

*Pacifism: +10% to health increase. 40,50,60 (was 30,40,50) Still much worse than Stone skin, but interesing to combine with Sacrifice, for example.

*Magic Spring: Defense +7,12,18 (was +5,10,15) Makes the defense increase a bit more noticeable. Specially useful to low level units.

*Hell Breath: Power +10% to each level. Now I actually use it sometimes against fire vulnerable units.

*Doom: Mana cost 12 to each level. I wouldn't pay more for it. Helplesness is much cheaper and useful against high level creatures.

* Fit of Energy: I would reduce the mana cost, but don't find it inside spells.txt

Bug: The bonus to Defense from Diplomacy, is also applied to enemies.

In my game the priest gave two rounds of bless... About diploma bug. Damn I know what's wrong...

Good inputs btw thx, using for v1.32. Fit of Energy is called 'spell_adrenalin' in spells.txt btw.

Uploading Trent version 1.32


- Skill bug fixed: The new bonus for Diplomacy for level 1-2 were also applied on enemies, fixed now.
- Paladin has Holy Anger from start (was Scouting).
- Diplomacy: Increased a little; now 5-10-15% diplomacy, 2-7-12 Defense for level 1-2.
- Paladin Skill 'Trophy' (extra gold after battle): Price reduced by 2 Runes when maxed compared to Trent v1.31
- Paladin Skill 'Absolute Balance': Price increased by 2 Runes when maxed.

Mind Skill Tree in v1.32 is now compared to vanilla:
- Scouting: Intellect 0-2-4 (was 1-2-3).
- Trophies: 2-3-5 Mind Runes (was 5-5-5 and a Magic Rune each level). Gold 5%-15%-30%
- Prayer: 6-12-16 Mind Runes (was 10-12-14). Krit 3-7-12% (was 3-7-10%). Shifted with Diplomacy location in skill tree.
- Learning: 7-13-17 Mind Runes (was 11-11-11). Experience 5-12-22% (was 10-15-20%). Intellect 0-2-4 (was 1-2-3).
- Adrenalin: 6-7-11 Mind Runes (was 7-8-9). In addition, gives +1 Speed Level 1 units / +1 Speed Level 1-2 units / +1 Speed & Initiative Level 1-3 units.
- Persuation: When maxed, +1 Moral all including Neutrals and Droids. Costs 2 extra Mind Runes for Level 3.
- Diplomacy: 6-8-8 Mind Runes (was 8-8-8 or so). 5-10-15% (was 8-12-16%). Now gives Defense to Level 1-2 units: 2-7-12 Defense.
- Spirit of Power: 7-8-9 Mind Runes (was 8-8-8 ), so total the same amount of runes.
- Voice Dragon: 10-11-11 Mind Runes (was 9-10-11).
- Resurrection: Costs 2 extra Mind Runes for Level 3.
- Absolute Balance: 8-11-13 Mind Runes (was 8-10-12). Overall 2 extra Mind Runes.

Creatures:
- Assassin: +15 Health.
- Archmage: 5-9 Damage (was 5-8 ). Leadership reduced to vanilla. Makes it more interesting as dps.
- Priest: Bless last 2 turns.
- Polar Bear: +10 Health, +2 to maximum Damage.
- Runemage: Destruction reload 2 (was 3). +5 Attack.
- Goblin Shaman: Astral Attack reduced by 33% (was OP).
- Knight: Phys. Res. reduced to same stats as vanilla (30%).
- Guardsmen: 60 Health (was 50). Smashing Blow 33% more Damage.
- Foremen: 15% Phys.Res (was 0%), 15% Fire Res (was 10%). Price lowered by 10%

Spells:
- Stone Skin: Duration 3,3,4 (was 3-4-5 rounds). Mana 4-6-8 (was 3-5-7).
- Doom: Mana 14-13-12 Mana (was 20-20-20 in vanilla, but 15-15-16 in Trent)
- Hell Breath: +10% Damage all levels, now 30-40-50% extra Fire Damage.
- Peacefulness: Health increases by 30-45-60% (was 30-40-50). Gold price halved.
- Fit of Energy: 18-16-14 Mana (was 20-20-20).


Can be used in existing games, will also work imediately (except Paladin's start skill).
I tried making Diplomacy giving 1-3-5% Experience, but couldn't find out how, not sure if I can just copy the code from skills.lua about Learning to Diplomacy, don't dare.... it didn't work by giving experience in the skills.txt file. Would make sense to give experience, IMO. Don't dare to copy code from WotN...

As you can c Sirlancelot, I've taken many of your ideas in v1.32. For future updates, some ideas, plz comments:

- Higher Magic 1-2-2 Magic Runes more expensive, but Destruction 1-2-2 cheaper.

- Adjustments in the Warrior skill tree?

- Rage pet adjustments?? More damage to Dragon Dive?? Suggestions. Does rage skills develop fast enough? etc.

- some troop randomness adjustments? Undead troops are not so easy to find in Trent, in Sprudne a ship offers undeads, but don't think there are other options.

- other?

- Foremen: I didn't have time to make something funny new talents for him in v1.32, I just gave him more resistance and made it cheaper, still I don't think many will use him... could be summon/recruit 1 stack of Miners, 33% of leadership or so. ??

Just started an Armoured Princess campaign again....but I don't think I've ever played this campaign, will certainly give it a spin ! :-P

Higher magic vs. Destruction rune cost: Hmm, interesting. That'll make Destruction a bit more cheaper for non Mage characters. Thus offensive spells more appealing in general. Sounds good.

The warrior skill tree is already pretty good, in my opinion. I have played several times the original campaign as a warrior and never felt there was something relevant missing.

That being said, perhaps Onslaught level three could make the Initiative bonus last for one more turn, for example. Otherwise there're not much reasons to improve it to such extent.

Frenzy first rank could start at +4 Attack per slayed enemy instead of +2. I don't recall in Trent many battles where the number of enemy stacks where high enough to make Frenzy bonuses worth its rune cost. Thus Frenzy ranks could be +4/+6/+8, where at least the last level should be more expensive than in vanilla.

More damage to Dragon dive? Sure, because unless you're fighting a bunch of pterodactyls (I don't remember their name in game) or something like that, is only interesting against summons and Gremlin Towers.

I never play an undead army, but probably yes, another shipwreck here and there would be desirable for that kind of party. Just don't force the player to fight thousands of undead, that's a WoTN weak spot.

Foremen alone are too easy to defeat, that's right. They barely have a chance thanks for their high initiative, and are intrinsically related to miners. So yes, it could be interesting to test how it would be if they were able to summon some miners on their own.

Do it, you won't regret. :)

Plans for next update:
=================

The skill changes have same overall cost if whole skill tree is maxed:
- Higher Magic: 13-16-18 Magic Runes (was 12-14-16)
- Destruction: 7-7-8 Magic Runes (was 8-9-10). 3 Might Runes cheaper overall when maxed. Damage 20-40-60% (was 15-30-50). Makes Damage spells more interesting.
- Distortion Magic: 1 Might Runes more expensive at level 3.
- Concentration: Overall 2 Might Runes more expensive when maxed.
- Frenzy: 4-6-8 extra Attack after a kill (was 2-4-6). Last 2 levels each cost 1 Might Rune more (2 in all).
- Onslaught: Level 3 costs 2 Might Runes less (still gives +3 Initiative in the first round).

Dragon Pet:
- Dive: 10% cheaper at level 1 (was 20). 8-10% more Damage from level 2.
- Lava: 10% cheaper at level 1.
- Frenzy (the mass astral dmg): 10% cheaper at level 1.
- Ball? Do you use this? Very random what it hits...
- Perhaps the starting choice of pet also affects which dragon skills that becomes stronger. Choosing Ball could give +10% Damage on Dive, Lava, Frenzy.
- Perhaps a few new items with pet enhancements.

Plz comment

Btw in Sprudne (map2): Do u remember to checkout the lakes after certain quests? I think it is after the frog Gunhilda quest, they open up so you can walk in the lakes and look for chests (hidden or sea chests).

Yep, in fact I use Ball of lightning all the time. When conveniently developed, can inflict large amounts of damage. Very powerful and cheaper than most in mana terms.

I will pay attention to that. I don't remember checking the lakes again in my previous playthrough, so it's possible last time I missed some goodies.

I'm not sure if this would be a wise decision. The margin to choose what abilities you develop is quite narrow already.

Comments on the future update:

- Good to hear, Ball of Lightning is used. I just haven't used that a lot.

- Wall can be good at first, but I suppose it is too weak later? Wonder if items with +25% would be interesting. There's already a pet item that gives +50% Health.

- And also the Egg, very risky since it can break before hatching. Could improve the shell health and lower the rage price, what do u think? Or items that gives bonus to the egg.

- I recall a 1c forum post that requested some effects on the starting Dragon choice. That's why I start thinking of bonus depending on the choice. I also recall the mod RedSand that gives bonus to the pet thru skills (a new paladin skill late) and in the medals. Most petskill enhancements was around the Push damage (forgot name of the pet attack that pushes just 1 creatures 1+ back).
But for now I just make the Lava, The astral mass attack and Dive 10% cheaper in the 1st level.

- Foremen: Working on making them recruit miners, just need to make AI use the ability too. It works now when I summon them. I have lowered the amount they summon because Miners can be very defensive with their skill talent. Foremen only recruits around 25% of his leadership, but with a reload of 5-6. I might use them now, actually! Before it was always Ingeneers, droids, perhaps Alchemist from the dwarf race.

New items for next release
 

I'm adding some new items for the next v1.4, it is basically items from Hylfire or Bonfire adjusted a bit. Here's a new set item for low levels and only 2 are needed for the set bonus:

Attachment 15641Attachment 15640

Notice that there's NO picture for the 'Invisible Armor' ... hoho

I will make it 10% dmg instead of 5% crush blow. And increase wall health a bit I guess

Wall. I rarely use it in the later stages of the original campaign, but in Trent I'm not so sure whether would be useful or not. On my previous playtrough I improved it quite a bit. Proceed with caution with the bonuses.

Hmm, I think the egg is pretty much ok. Is easy to improve it to the point that summons a level 2-5 creature of 90% your leadership, which is rather amazing. Yes, you can't use it every time without risk to break it, but that's part of the balance.

Ah, that's an innovative way of improve the pet. Interesting.

Push damage can be improved for the midgame and endgame, sure. It loses effectiveness at that point, although the pushback effect continues to be useful most of the game.

Good. I never bought Foremen myself, either. Hence that modification looks cool. Time will say if is balanced or not. 25% of leadership and reload 5 or 6 seems reasonable.

Neat. Fancy idea. An item that balances itself (like the Usurer's ring), and enhances 1-2 level creatures.

The invisible armor lack of picture can lead to confusion, though. :confused: Nevertheless, it's kind of logical the way it shows.

Ive added a blurred picture of the invisibility armor.

Foreman: when miners strike with their talent they get 100% defense but don't retal. The strike makes foremen have Max critical for 2 turns once in a battle along with some other stat buff. Will be fun... Terroin is helping modding that to avoid headache....

Great! I'm looking forward to it. I hope keeps balance.