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[Petrolsky]

„What do you guys think? What's missing before I can make a proper release? Bit of necromancy here and there, but the rest seems like nice fluff, but not necessarily required. (The main problem I see is, that they are too close to dwarves. You can still do everything dwarves do and more. They can make steel, cage traps, indoor farming, adamantine, anything goes. There is no NEED for players to alter their playstyle when playing warlocks.)“

I dont know how much is possible, but i would wish for the following:

No Indoor farming (to force the player into above-ground)
No steel (make us trade for it)
Less tough armor and weapons 

And: higher needs!
I don't know how you image warlocks, but in my imagination they are evil, greedy, weak wizards. 

So less heavy armor/weapons and all that dirty dwarven stuff, but more needs for luxury stuff and nice rooms, maybe (if that's possible) make them more greedy and all. (And pls dont let them be scarred of dead bodies, bc.. necromancers and stuff.)

I really enjoyed the succubus mod (but now with old grumpy humans instead of sexy demons, noice) bc of the creativity that came with less possibilities but higher needs. And i think that would be a great thing fort he Warlock-Mod too. Anyway, looking forward to it, it will be in the tileset too, right?

[FantasticDorf]

After the fifth time trying to damage control my night creatures tearing apart the liason, i've resolved to removing them from the RAWS and starting over as forgotten beasts & night creatures are getting phased out because of the incompatibility with non-hermit mode. It is a bit similar to dwarves (who in turn succubi are also quite similar to) but i guess that the multiple undead races and gargoyles pseudo magic help it stand on its own, besides from excellent aesthetics.

Animation of your own zombies via tactically deployed bodies in gargoyle zones are one thing to just defend a area, but its a bit tedious to lose multiple warlocks at once to a semi-megabeast child who can't be sent offsite/exiled or targeted directly. Same problem persists in vanilla when megabeast pets (roc's, dragons etc) will attempt to murder your military dwarves, though i havent seen that happen yet.

• I had also been thinking about finding souls unrelated to slaves, a alchemist could break apart a phylactory for a complete soul (barring a warlocks resummoning) or search corpses for soul fragments, which then are arranged into a complete soul at the correct workshop/forge.

Perhaps hammering enough souls into your weapons or armor could yield a alloy (though succubi sort of do that)[/list]

[Meph]

Good feedback so far.

I did remove the nightcreatures and steel; added a few more necessities to the nobles. They are a bit greedier now.

I was thinking of maybe adding another civ creature; something like a gremlin or imp. Magical servant race that you can summon to do jobs, like in Dungeon Keeper.

I'm going to play my own proper fort now, see what I missed. ^^

[Splint]

Just a couple questions.

Is there anything going on concerning getting replacement/additional warlocks? I remember that being a major bottleneck before that ended up being over-corrected in the final 34.11 release. Is it that "corrupted" civ members bit mentioned for the greater altar? A bit odd that to get more warlocks you have to murder people and then resurrect them. Would think that'd make them feel a little... Vengeful and unfriendly.

Actually corrupting outsiders would probably be more sensible, and encourage the player to make use of taverns and libraries to draw in potential recruits, rather than using migrants or killing and resurrecting people to make new warlocks and enforcing a "button up and never interact with anything or anyone ever" playstyle. Set a small visitor cap, and take on bards or scholars as your needs for warlocks grows and convert them when they deign to throw their lot in with the dungeon as citizens.

Bit of a quibble on my end though I guess, considering I noped out of my dungeon after seeing those initial ethereal block walls (and from FantasticDorf's report on the night critters and FBs, that was probably for the best.)

Second question, has the test release been updated? Just curious, because I've been playing the human mode of masterwork on a quest to slaughter orcs and goblins.

Hasn't worked, the goblins keep sending elves and dwarves.

Spoiler: Some random suggestions (click to show/hide)

Maybe reduce the volume of raw boulders needed for things due to their weight, and with the more important ones above the basic altar, compensate with other things - spell focuses, totems, things of that nature. 5 boulders and some slabs for the basic ghoul factory is much more manageable and perfectly believable for instance, and add increasing numbers of spell foci, totems, and a slight increase to the boulder count for the bigger and better ones. I make this one purely out of frustration because of the long hauling times for boulders without wheelbarrows.

The spell foci could also be used as single-use reagents for various warlock upgrades.

Replace the steward initially and have the Steward serve as the mayoral substitute. The EL equivalent can simply be called a Cult Leader. Also maybe not have them lead a squad. They're supposed to handling the day to day affairs of the warlock coven and making sure the wizards are well looked after right? Leave all that war-waging nonsense to the Crypt Lords, they have a dungeon to run for the overlord/head sorcerer. Elections even make sense in that perhaps the warlocks might consider a steward unfit, but disposing of a perfectly good warlock  through the "usual" means that they handle unreliable politicians would be considered very... Wasteful.

Magma-powered minion forge: Use excess metal to make stronger gargoyle defenders that are more resistant to damage than their stoney counterparts (and get rid of unwanted metal in a productive fashion,) and combine obsidian, wolframite, (or with vanilla, large volumes of lead or smaller amounts of the ever expensive platinum,) and large numbers of souls to create the ultimate melee unit: The Slade Guardian. I base this off the Iron Colossi/Guardians sometimes found in Masterwork from relics, which were actually really good for battling other megabeasts and played nicely with militiadwarves.

[Meph]

Added a few more things:
 - Warlocks can extract blood in the kitchens.

New workshop: Corrupted forge/furnace.


 - Grinds bone into bone-meal (flux stone)
 - Uses bone-meal + ash to make bonemold bars. (iron-like metal)
 - Uses bonemold bars + blood + ash to make bloodsteel bars. (steel-like metal)

This way we have an alternate metal industry based on bodyparts, bones and blood and burning down trees. It fits the theme.

Is there anything going on concerning getting replacement/additional warlocks?

The corrupted civ-units you can resurrect at the highest grade altar are essentially warlocks.

Actually corrupting outsiders would probably be more sensible, and encourage the player to make use of taverns and libraries to draw in potential recruits, rather than using migrants or killing and resurrecting people to make new warlocks and enforcing a "button up and never interact with anything or anyone ever" playstyle. Set a small visitor cap, and take on bards or scholars as your needs for warlocks grows and convert them when they deign to throw their lot in with the dungeon as citizens.

No idea how that would even work tbh. I haven't played long enough to see if the civ even gets visitors at all.

I can upload another test version.

Edit:

Maybe reduce the volume of raw boulders needed for things due to their weight, and with the more important ones above the basic altar, compensate with other things - spell focuses, totems, things of that nature. 5 boulders and some slabs for the basic ghoul factory is much more manageable and perfectly believable for instance, and add increasing numbers of spell foci, totems, and a slight increase to the boulder count for the bigger and better ones. I make this one purely out of frustration because of the long hauling times for boulders without wheelbarrows.

That's intentional. It's like a timer on the building, should take forever to build. At first I started with 250 boulders.

PS: Slade guardian might be unkillable.

[Splint]

I don't see why they wouldn't. Travelers aren't picky about the taverns and libraries they go to - I get visitors from hostile civs all the time.

I have a building that converts vanilla humans into armsmen (the civ's non-magic using military caste) for my religious crazies civ. Works fine perfectly fine last I tested it.

[Meph]

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

I have a building that converts vanilla humans into armsmen (the civ's non-magic using military caste) for my religious crazies civ. Works fine perfectly fine last I tested it.

Can I see this? Using some weird make-own script variant?

Edit: Mh... looking at the old 34.11 Masterwork mod just makes me sad. Sooooo much stuff lost to compabitlity issues that no one plays anymore; and now I'm just redoing things again once more. Maybe I should better do something new. ^^

[Splint]

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

I have a building that converts vanilla humans into armsmen (the civ's non-magic using military caste) for my religious crazies civ. Works fine perfectly fine last I tested it.

Can I see this? Using some weird make-own script variant?

It just uses reaction-trigger to impart a transformation syndrome on the relevant creature, either male or female humans in this case. The kicker is they have to be a citizen as the one you want to transform is the one running the reaction, and who is most likely to join a fort from outside? Bards and scholars. It'd work on the same principle here. Bard or whoever becomes citizen, newly minted citizen runs reaction and embraces the dark side as they are turned into a warlock of the relevant race.

Should note, I think there needs to be a reaction per caste, so while this isn't much of a big deal for vanilla, it'd be a huge hassle for all the various castes found in Masterwork. Not 100% sure there because ZM helped me with the testing and we did that with just vanilla humans in mind.

Boulders: That feels like a very artificial and, as much as I hate to say it, gamey reason for using large amounts of boulders. I would think the main issue should be actual... like... Important things to make the altar work, not the time it takes the builder to drag unprocessed rocks to a given place. While I can't speak for anyone else, I'd prefer needing to make things to make the higher altars with, not needing to wheel or autodump rocks around.

Slade Guardian: The unkillableness of it would be intentional, but it'd also be very much something you couldn't just throw out instantly or in large numbers. Magma, souls, hard to come by materials (platinum or tungsten, depending on if it's vanilla or masterwork,) or huge amounts of the exceedingly common alternatives. It's basically meant to be an ultimate unit, but I wouldn't be against it having some kind of damageable weak spots (preferrably multiples so they can't be instantly one-shotted, cause that would be the defintion of tragic and rage inducing to have that happen.)

EDIT: Don't forget a use for vermin remains. Gather some up, grind'em up for blood, or for hunks of ground vermin meat to feed the ghouls!

EDIT II: God, there's so much good that was in the old warlocks. I feel like them and the orcs probably got hurt the most by the world activation changes.

[Meph]

Boulders: That feels like a very artificial and, as much as I hate to say it, gamey reason for using large amounts of boulders. I would think the main issue should be actual... like... Important things to make the altar work, not the time it takes the builder to drag unprocessed rocks to a given place. While I can't speak for anyone else, I'd prefer needing to make things to make the higher altars with, not needing to wheel or autodump rocks around.

More based on historical stonehenge building. Expensive ingredients I can still use in the reactions.

EDIT: Don't forget a use for vermin remains. Gather some up, grind'em up for blood, or for hunks of ground vermin meat to feed the ghouls!

Good point!

EDIT II: God, there's so much good that was in the old warlocks. I feel like them and the orcs probably got hurt the most by the world activation changes.

Yeah, not being able to force sieges; or not having interactions that are used in a reliable manner is pretty sad.

[FantasticDorf]

I was just thinking as a extension of potentially hammering souls into weapons and armor for some kind of buff like dwarf runes, or to increase the potency of weapons, we could apply them to create new units?

Phantasmal weapon (swords for basicness, short, twohanded etc) basic mobs for a pet, and sentient armor ghosts (armor centerpiece needed for living as it binds the ghost to the world and maximum tissue regeneration on the uh, ghostly other parts?) as a flying unit?

A ghost wearing a second set of armor on their already armored chest might be a bit silly though.

Yeah, not being able to force sieges; or not having interactions that are used in a reliable manner is pretty sad.

Just bully sites through raids to encourage escalation of conflict, though understandably hermit mode would make this harder.[/list]

[Splint]

As an additional thing, using locations also, in theory, provides a steady stream of travelers to murder for souls/materials (and possibly artifacts.)

While I'm probably going to be the minority on the matter, I'd still rather use something other than raw boulders past the "just starting" stage. It just doesn't really feel proper for the primary focuses of their evil magic to be comprised primarily of unprocessed rocks. Sounds more like how kobolds would do it rather than evil sorcerers.

I was just thinking as a extension of potentially hammering souls into weapons and armor for some kind of buff like dwarf runes, or to increase the potency of weapons, we could apply them to create new units?

Phantasmal weapon (swords for basicness, short, twohanded etc) basic mobs for a pet, and sentient armor ghosts (armor centerpiece needed for living as it binds the ghost to the world and maximum tissue regeneration on the uh, ghostly other parts?) as a flying unit?

A ghost wearing a second set of armor on their already armored chest might be a bit silly though.

I made a suggestion for something like the ghostly units, though granted my idea was for war animal-type minions, not full-on civ members. There also used to be ethereal and... i forget what the next  version up was, but you could pull basic weapons from the same portal you got blocks from to quickly arm your goons, but they'd degrade and disappear after a season (iron-grade one,) or a month (the steel-grade.) I never used it, personally. Never saw the benefit.

I do like the soul-forging idea though, that actually sounds pretty neat. gem as a focus/channel + soul + weapon = improved weapon, maybe.

Downloading the less rough test version now. Wonder if I can find a spot with obsidian as a layer stone... Managed it one time, and it fit way too well for the warlocks. Dunno if it was a glitch or not, but a dark purple base strata just looked so good for the task.

[brolol.404]

I think it would be cool to gives summoning a small random chance to summon some evil demon/ghost(s)/eldritch beings that are really bad (opposed to life/beserk). As in something unexpected crossed through the portal during the summon

[FantasticDorf]

Quote

    Is there anything going on concerning getting replacement/additional warlocks?

The corrupted civ-units you can resurrect at the highest grade altar are essentially warlocks.

Technically according to code they're unequal, and without the regular 'undead' warlocks with phylactories and [NOT_LIVING] as a large key difference im pretty sure that they can breed assuming they've never been blessed with the interaction to make them friendly to the undead because they don't carry it themselves.

Phylactories should play a bigger part i feel, some paper sheets (the actual term phylactory is Jewish for a box of scripture, but DnD picked it up as a lich's soul vessel), gold or silvers (maybe a mixture or presented choice for how fancy = powerful it is) and a perfect gem could combine to create a new one, and we can go from there. There's not a lot we can do with the existing phylactories that (undead base) warlock EBO drop as how i understand.

It just uses reaction-trigger to impart a transformation syndrome on the relevant creature, either male or female humans in this case. The kicker is they have to be a citizen as the one you want to transform is the one running the reaction, and who is most likely to join a fort from outside? Bards and scholars. It'd work on the same principle here. Bard or whoever becomes citizen, newly minted citizen runs reaction and embraces the dark side as they are turned into a warlock of the relevant race.

Succubus mod did it by AOE for bystanders and the dwarf guild/human guild in the recent masterwork modifications are on pretty much the same principle. I still think (undead) base warlock being the superior version (and yet future superpowered warlocks on the horizon) could probably justify bringing your own phylactory for the racial powerless lich (but hey, not undead or a slave yet) to properly join the fortress would be good.

And uhh, maybe a description for Warlocks that describes their non-alive state, as its easy to think they all just wear hoods for fun when they quite clearly aren't alive. Bit more flavour as they have pretty generic titles.

[Splint]

Alright, gotten fairly far along, relative to last time, and my complaints for the walls are more or less gone. only other one I could levy is to make the "stone" part darker, more in line with the likes of smooth basalt and if you really wanna go the extra mile, a glow coming from between the bricks, but that'd be a ton of effort for so small a detail and so can't recommend doing it unless you really want to.

I genuinely like the floor. I could imagine someone snooping around being caught off guard by the floor tiling changing before their eyes.

Now this next thing is going to sound retarded as hell and probably way more work than would be worth, but maybe some directional variation for the altars, though that'd really just consist of moving around that central bit with the body. I feel compelled to arrange things such that the altar is arranged to face the door, but that's a personal problem, and so it's not a 100% serious suggestion.

Also hot holy hell do ghouls burn up your drink supply quick. I'd like to offer a suggestion of a digger/woodcutting minion with no needs that is literally only good for those two things and being a bolt catcher. While these ghouls are working fine, 9 (four for diggers, four as training dummies/emergency club goblins and wall smoothers,) of them made my drink supply practically evaporate by the second month of summer.

I'll admit I trimmed down the overlord squad massively to the standard 10 and reduced his needs to those of a baron or mayor. Lack of skilled labor and an unwillingness to make needlessly gigantic rooms so early made me a bit disincentivized to leave them as is, and it's just a personal adjustment so I can fiddle around with stuff.

EDIT: I also love the lighting buildings. I legit want to stick torches everywhere now and it's all your fault.

[Meph]

Ghouls should drink and eat just as much as any regular dwarf. If you don't like it, make skeletons.

Yeah, the nobles are probably a bit too greedy now.

I added 10 poisonous mushrooms for farming and potions, each one has a different effect. If a non-warlock drinks from it (corrupted civ-members are fine), they just fall unconscious for a month instead.


Those will be made in the "alchemist - potions".

I also got a magma and water creation workshop going (thanks Atomic chicken), and made sprites for a obsidian/slade factory.



Next up should be the reactions to make the potions and slade/obsidian blocks. Should be some easy copy/pasting.

PS: added [ALCOHOL_DEPENDENT] to dwarvish ghouls just for fun; and allowed corrupted civ-members to be friendly to undead. That was an oversight on my end.