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Author Topic: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Mod - PLEASE TEST!  (Read 19842 times)

Meph

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[WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Mod - PLEASE TEST!
« on: September 04, 2019, 10:51:36 am »

Ok. Done for now.

http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14532

Please have a go at it; everything that's included should be fine. This is the version I'd release, unless you let me know about horrible oversights I missed. ;)

A quickstart quide (best open in new window)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)






Hey guys,

I want to finally pick up modding again after all the tileset work; first thing on my list is a playable evil race of sorcerers. Since DF already allows having werebeasts, vampires and necromancers, I thought it would be nice to throw everything evil-horrorish into the race and let people role-play it out.

Masterwork DF for 34.11 had a rather extensive Warlock mode, so that's what I'm basing this on. Sadly the fort-mode AI changed a lot when it comes to interaction usage; and I want to try to avoid dfhack as a dependency as far as possible. I'll still use it to spawn creatures and affect workers with syndromes, but I hope to replace that with raws after the villains update.

Suggestions, help, feedback, requests, as always: anything welcome!
« Last Edit: September 17, 2019, 09:52:22 pm by Meph »
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Meph

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2019, 11:00:46 am »

What I have so far:

 - A working entity file with really bad ethics. They got their own language and nobles.
 - A working creature file with a base Warlock creature, skeletons and zombies.
 - Pets: Mephits (Imps) with minor magic spells.
 - Ability to embark with 1(!) demon, forgotten beast, nightcreature or titan. You might also convince a caravan to bring those for a hefty price. (Pet value 1000).

I tested spawning creatures, kinda works. Dfhack crashes the game at the moment of creation randomly, so I got to figure out why.
I also tested animated, glowing constructions and workshops, that works fine.

Baby steps. :D
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DerMeister

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2019, 11:29:17 am »

What I have so far:

 - A working entity file with really bad ethics. They got their own language and nobles.
 - A working creature file with a base Warlock creature, skeletons and zombies.
 - Pets: Mephits (Imps) with minor magic spells.
 - Ability to embark with 1(!) demon, forgotten beast, nightcreature or titan. You might also convince a caravan to bring those for a hefty price. (Pet value 1000).

I tested spawning creatures, kinda works. Dfhack crashes the game at the moment of creation randomly, so I got to figure out why.
I also tested animated, glowing constructions and workshops, that works fine.

Baby steps. :D
I have etics for my creature mod, this is really bad, even for goblins. Creatures is simple - you can copy human and add from necromancer or zomby curse. Spells is not in dwarf fortress setting. Embarking with demon, FB, titan or bogeyman was invented by me, this work by animal definition in entity code: add to all creatures class "not generated", forbid this class for definition and add animals always present. For simplier way, you can forbid general poison class, but your warlocks will have more pets.
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Meph

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2019, 11:46:03 am »


Sprites. I did use NATURAL_SKILLS and SKILL_LEARN_RATES to force specific sprites on specific castes. I needed to give them 6 points in both a labor and a military skill, so that people on embark can't give them a higher skill in an area they shouldn't be able to learn.

 - Warlocks: Spear & Diagnosing. (Can learn all other labor skills except for miner/butcher, but can't learn weapon skills)
 - Skeletons: Pike & Mining. (Can learn all other weapon skills except for spear/wrestling, but can't learn any labor skills)
 - Zombies: Wrestling & Butcher. (Can learn all unarmed combat skills, but nothing else)

The gameplay result of this:

 - Warlocks get magic staffs (spear skill) that allow them to use magic in combat. They run your fort and use most of the workshops for production of high-quality gear.
 - Skeletons form your organized army, being equipped with weapons and armor, while also doing manual labor, mostly digging deep down in the caverns.
 - Zombies form your mob-like militia, with infectious zombie bites and wrestling. They don't need equipment and wouldn't be able to use it well.

Of course you can still mix and use those as you like, but a Warlock will never be a good swordfighter; nor will a skeleton make a masterwork armor; nor would a zombie ever be great at dodging.

They also have different needs:
 - Warlocks are male or female; have thoughts and emotions, can marry and sire offspring; need food and drink. But.. they can animate the dead!
 - Skeletons are chill and don't need anything.
 - Zombies curiously still require meat or bones to eat.



Nobles!
 - Overlord is your big boss, he runs your fort and can lead a military group of 100 units.
 - His sergeants are Death, Famine, Pestilence and War; acting as military groups of 1 unit each.

 - The Steward does daily tasks (expedition leader) and appoints other nobles, namely...
 - The Fleshmonger (doctor)
 - The Keeper of Knowledge (broker, manager, bookkeeper)
 - The Mistress of Pain (hammerer using a whip, also meets unhappy workers) - female only.

 - Off-site your civ is ruled by the Sorcerer Supreme!
 - His lackies might visit from time to time, the shady merchant (trader) and his emissary (outpost liaison)



 - Skeletons might only accept one "noble" role, the Crypt Lord, leading military groups of up to 10 units.



 - Zombies might only accept one "noble" role, the Ghoul Master, leading military groups of up to 10 units.



Pets so far:
 
 - Mephits, 4 types (earth, water, air, fire). Hunt vermin, war/hunt trainable, each with some minor spells related to their element.
 - Prisoners. Your main... cattle. Material source. Food for zombies.
 - I also enabled procedurally generated creatures like FBs and Demons and Titans, but playtesting has to show how that goes in an actual fort. ;)

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Meph

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2019, 12:34:31 pm »

Lets brainstorm a little bit... what pets could they have?

Giant toad (Witches have toads, right?) that could eat vermin.
Black cats, also vermin hunters.
Crows & Ravens.
Creeping eye (everyone needs a guard at the door, right?)
Blood Man (like it was made for this mod)
Elemental men (gabbro man, iron man, mud/fire/magma/amethyst, etc)
Giant leeches
Grimeling
Giant Rats
Giant Bats
Giant Cave Spider

Vermin pets: demon rats and phantom spiders for the animal traps/terrariums in rooms.

Those are all from vanilla DF.

Modded pets could be... Animated weapons (like the broom in the Sorcerers Apprentice, moving on their own), summoned Demons, Frankenstein-like creations, Lovecraftian horrors, body-horror things like "The Thing", Island of Dr Moreau, The Fly...  Or stationary magic-using objects/creatures like totems, monoliths, etc. You pasture them where you want them, and they cast spells on invaders or civ-members coming by.

Summoned monsters from workshops could be... ghosts, banshees, werebeasts, vampires... mythological beasts like Barghests, Kelpies, Draugr, Gorgons, Gargyoles, Cerberus... all sorts of demons.
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brolol.404

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #5 on: September 04, 2019, 02:28:54 pm »

This is really cool. Will this be part of the Meph launcher or will this and dfhack have to be installed manually?

Meph

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #6 on: September 04, 2019, 02:42:43 pm »

It's too large a mod to just throw it into the meph launcher as a tileset release. But I will offer a pre-installed version of this + the tileset. In theory this is for the new MasterworkDF. ^^
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Meph

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #7 on: September 04, 2019, 05:15:30 pm »

Everything is fine....



I mean, this is fine, isn't it?



I'm sure it's alright.



Ok, so Warlocks need something to do.

Dwarves usually want food, alcohol, shelter, then dig for rock and metals, make furniture, traps and armors/weapons, then get adamantine and kill goblins and demons. Trade with allies and survive sieges.

Warlocks... well, they also need a bit of food, but no alcohol. Instead they drink water; I can forbid all alcohol making and make new "potions". Aka alcoholic drinks with special syndromes attached. Food... regular food should do, but farming seems out of place for wizards, especially since zombies only eat meat/bones. To make players actually want/use bones for items, I'd also remove the carpenter. Everything wood would be now made of bone instead.

I'd also remove the Mechanic. No cheap trap corridors or invincibility-drawbridges. (What do you think?) Instead we could make static base defences with immobile or pastured summoned creatures. Gargoyles!

You'd still dig for rock and metals though, but I don't think Warlocks really need rock. I plan to give them a free building material, to promote above-ground wizards tower constructions. But rock could be used for other things... Golems? Compressing it into slade for super-heavy siege weaponry? (Imagine a slade ballista bolt) Or we can grind/crack open boulders, to check if there aren't any trace minerals, ores or gems inside. Gets rid of the rock, gives access to more useful things.

That brings us to what Warlocks want: Dig for metals and gems; kill dwarves, humans, elves, goblins and everything else; use the corpses and bodyparts to make new zombies and skeletons. They would also want to learn magic; summon minions... guess Adamantine will have magical abilities too, because that's still what we'd go for as late-game objective.

Summary:
 - Remove alcohol, wooden items, mechanics.
 - Add potions, bone items, stationary defensive pets.
 - Add free rock replacement, magical.
 - Add workshops to scrap now useless rock and wood; getting more ores/gems and ash/coke.
 - Add workshops to create civ members, skeletons and zombies. Maybe ghosts?
 - Add poisonous mushrooms/plants to grow for the potions; maybe to cover weapons.
 - Adamantine-based end-game magic. Become a LICH!
 - Workshop to summon monsters/demons.
 - Workshop to learn magic abilities.
 - Workshop to make new weapons/armors.
 - Workshop to make new materials. (Ironbone, Bloodsteel)
 - Workshop to upgrade workers (since they can't learn skills otherwise in case of skeletons/zombies. Dfhack-ed skills don't count for professions, so they never change their sprites)
 - Some evil decorations.

Random thought: can cages be made of materials so hot or cold that they damage the inhabitant?

Anyway, this is the old altar from 34.11:


I think I can do this better now... 44:12:
Spoiler: ingame screenshot (click to show/hide)

Yes, I can do it better now.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: September 04, 2019, 05:45:10 pm by Meph »
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Splint

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #8 on: September 04, 2019, 06:13:34 pm »

For ghosts, they could come in simple variations


Being able to make use of those vanilla critters as well would probably help sell the whole "evil lair" shtick. Can't have a dungeon without a few oversized vermin around!

As far as weapon skills, I'd personally prefer they could also use swords, but that's because I imagine evil spellcasters using either magic staves or enchanted swords, so that's just a personal taste thing on my part.

For materials, I think scraping rock and wood entirely is a bit much in terms of having it as a material for stuff, but again, this is more of a personal taste issue - I'd rather make warlock strongholds that look like repurposed ruins, rather than stuff that literally got magicked into being by a bunch of social rejects in the woods.

A full range of decorative stuff would also be good, if only to help sell that aspect - webs, blood stains, skeletal remains, boxes and barrels of stuff to give a feel of plundering and pillaging the defenseless peons in the countryside...

I will say I kind o object to the whip-as-execution-tool thing. I get the point behind it, make it hurt and it's in the job name and whatever, but two other civs already do that (orcs and succubi.) A beating will be plenty sufficient to hurt someone who deserves it (and is typically lethal already.) The executioner's job is to kill, not get their jollies whipping people because they're too stupid to use the whip for less serious offenses.

I'd suggest a sword, because such a manner of execution was typically reserved for the nobility and it'd show that they consider themselves "above" the mere peasants and so forth and the equals of dukes and princes, more deserving of a dignified death than the filthy rabble around them if they make such a dire mistake in the overlord's operations.

However the whip thing is 100% a personal taste issue that I'll just change myself if necessary. I don't personally care for it being used by executioners, but that's because I consider my executioners to be executioners, not torturers. Also please no hook swords, those felt really out of place for the warlocks.

Also I'm digging the new graphics. Can't say I'm crazy about leaning on Vordak's for the prisoners, but eh. Looks good all the same.

EDIT: Ain't gonna lie, this actually made me kinda want to play the old mod for shits and giggles.

Asin

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #9 on: September 04, 2019, 06:27:49 pm »

Hm... I imagine the Warlocks would probably not want to do much fighting, so perhaps they could have a way to create a servant demon race (that is more man-sized) that can perhaps do menial labor and make for good soldiers.

Splint

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #10 on: September 04, 2019, 06:44:53 pm »

Hm... I imagine the Warlocks would probably not want to do much fighting, so perhaps they could have a way to create a servant demon race (that is more man-sized) that can perhaps do menial labor and make for good soldiers.

Skeletons are the word you want. They could be pretty decent when you level them enough, but they should still need the warlocks or some other means of supporting them. Else you'll need a lot of them to make up for the kinda sluggish speed they have if memory serves (otherwise you'll burn through a ton of thread and bone repairing them between fights,) though I dunno if that sluggishness'll be kept.

Meph

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #11 on: September 05, 2019, 08:23:19 am »

Hm... I imagine the Warlocks would probably not want to do much fighting, so perhaps they could have a way to create a servant demon race (that is more man-sized) that can perhaps do menial labor and make for good soldiers.
they already have two of those, skeletons and zombies. ;)

Splint, the new skeletons are faster.

For ghosts: I remember nice material/tissue bugs with "the attach passes through", which would be a nice feature for ghost units to have. I was thinking of making them civ-members though....

Wait.

Dfhack can spawn civ members.

I don't even need the whole fuss with limiting skills to get kinda-cast specific sprites, I can just spawn a different creature that is part of the civ.

I can make full profession sheets for warlocks AND skeletons AND ghouls AND ghosts AND zombies. (And vampires, werewolves, nightcreatures, frankensteined monsters and slaves and what else I might come up with.)

Why didn't I notice that sooner? XD
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Ventus

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #12 on: September 05, 2019, 05:53:05 pm »

In terms of defenses i like the idea of gargoyles to serve as static defense. Maybe having different types with separate breath attacks to distinguish them from each other so a fire breathing, poison spitting and maybe a lightning spitting one.
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FantasticDorf

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #13 on: September 06, 2019, 11:19:15 am »

In terms of defenses i like the idea of gargoyles to serve as static defense. Maybe having different types with separate breath attacks to distinguish them from each other so a fire breathing, poison spitting and maybe a lightning spitting one.

I am actually unsure if creatures that are unable to move can be pulled into place, i havent been paying a great deal of attention to scarecrows/decoys etc in the masterwork mod, and you could probably exempt them from raids by using animal grouping to blacklist them if they weren't DFhack summonable only due to being reasonably powerful conceptually.

Talking of grouping & exempt, im totally unsure if multiple instances of [POSITION:CAPTAIN] apply despite initial testing not having clarity but the arguements on species should work that correctly linking them to races should bring the appropriate warriors. Maybe distinct warriors like zombie, skeleton and necromancer squads might prove my initial failure to get it working wrong but other factors like whether those positions are actually held by any other race than the entity headliner is important because without a captain noble there can't be the rest of the squad until they are active.
 
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Quote
Random thought: can cages be made of materials so hot or cold that they damage the inhabitant?

As long as they're actually resistant they can by using the same code as nethercap which is cold to the touch to keep it static like that. I assume you'd need some workers able to withstand even being near it though.
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Meph

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Re: [WIP] ☼Warlock☼ Necromancer Evil Magic Villain mod - Work in progress
« Reply #14 on: September 07, 2019, 07:27:43 am »

It works!

A dwarven miner, a warlock miner and a skeleton miner all happily working together, with correct graphics. Despite being in the same entity and having the same profession. Nice.



EDIT: I guess I can go all out... kobold, goblin, dwarf, elf, human X ghost, zombie, skeleton, prisoner, corrupted/converted.



I mean, a profession sheet only has around 200 sprites each. With those 25 creatures, that's a meager... (oh please kill me now) 5000 sprites. :D
« Last Edit: September 07, 2019, 08:01:19 am by Meph »
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