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[NordicNooob]

The Challenging Mod
Vanilla, but harder!


Getting sick of winning? Bored with your "challenge fort" that effortlessly became invulnerable to all threats, inside and outside? Just want some !!FUN!!, and at a more reasonable rate than usual? This would be your mod, then. Not much else to it; if you want your game to be harder, try this.

The Challenging Mod is a moderate size mod that tries to keep the vanilla experience while re-balancing the game to be much more difficult.


Downloads:

• v0.5; for 0.47.xx

Key Changes:

• Dwarven learning is stunted in a few areas, most notably in combat skills that used to go up way too fast.
• Dwarves have some different weapons, including a more dwarfy replacement to the shortsword; the bluntsword!
• Elves are naturally skilled in combat and tactics, and have three spells to help them not be complete weaklings like they used to be.
• Goblins have exclusive access to titanium, a better-than-steel metal, and have several new abilities to help them destroy your fort: trapavoid, martial trances, the inability to feel pain, and most worrisome, their presence inflicts uneasiness on dwarves, even through walls!
• Most metal equipment costs more to forge, and the bar yields from ores are decreased.
• Large monsters are more common and many now have trapavoid.
• Megabeasts are the new semi-megabeasts, and three new metal beasts take their place as the new megabeasts: the steel colossus, the dragon engine, and the golden roc!

All that said, you aren't completely defenseless against the onslaught: a few things have been buffed. Bluntswords are slightly better than short swords and more effective against armor, dwarves actually learn armor user and marksdwarfship faster, and giant cave spiders are much more common despite not having trapavoid, giving skilled players a chance to exploit their webs to catch things they otherwise might not be able to, like the breedable golden roc.

Spoiler: Detailed Changelog (click to show/hide)

creature_amphibians:
-much needed change to toad men

creature_birds:
-decreased frequency of several types of birds

creature_birds_new:
-decreased frequency of several types of birds

creature_mountain_new:
-added mountain dragons; similar to cave dragons, but they can fly, and will also drink your booze!

creature_next_underground:
-decreased frequency of weak cavern creatures and increased the frequency of large one, also giving some trapavoid.

creature_standard:
-Dwarven personalities changed to be more vulnerable to stress and more dwarf-like
-Dwarven skill learning rates lowered, especially combat skills. Armor and crossbow learning rates contrarily increased, to account for the rarity of metal and slow rate of learning for marksdwarfship respectively.
-Dwarven females given beards, as it should be.
-Elven personalities changed to be more elf-like
-Elves given natural skill in student, discipline, archery, dodging, tactics, climbing, riding, ambushing, and bow
-Elves given three spells: a curse that weakens the target to wooden weapons, a spell that increases the size of friendly animals, and a spell that inflicts terror and queasiness in its target. Spells courtesy of http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=146882.msg5900903#msg5900903
-Goblins made mortal (albeit quite long-lived), to enable them to make necromancer towers
-Goblins given trances and now feel no pain, can pick locked doors, and are trapavoid
-Goblins given demoralize interaction, which inflicts uneasiness on your citizens at infinite range and through walls, in order to punish players who lock sieges out.
-All former megabeasts demoted to semimegabeasts and given trapavoid. All can now breed (except the bronze colossus, of course!)
-Semimegabeasts removed due to their relative weakness against even a mildly prepared fort.
-Three new megabeasts added, each a metal variant of one of the former megabeasts: the steel colossus, the dragon engine (stolen taken from Masterwork), and thlden Roc. The golden roc alone can breed, of these three.

creature_subterranean:
-weak creature frequencies decreased, dangerous creature frequencies increased, especially giant cave spiders.

entity_default:
-dwarven weapons changed: dwarves gain daggers, bluntswords, greataxes, mauls, and axehammers, and lose short swords
-Dwarven civ max size heavily restricted
-Squad leaders now need rooms. In addition, your first squad can have 16 dwarves where all others can only have 8. (include instructions for change?)
-elves now have access to longswords and are given much larger individual site pop cap
-human weapons slightly revamped; they can no longer forge some smaller weapons that have better, larger variants that humans can effectively use.
-goblins given panthenon religion, to enable necromancers.
-goblin weaponry made more goblin-esque; they now use whips, spears, maces, pikes, halberds, mauls, scourges, flails, morningstars, bows, and scimtars.
-goblins given reaction to make titanium.

inorganic_metal:
-color of some metals changed to make things more visually appealing
-added mithril metal, currently unused; is second only to adamantine
-added titanium, a slightly-better-than-steel metal

inorganic_stone_mineral:
-All METAL_ORE frequencies are changed; smelting ore gives less bars. Limonite is the richest ore of iron and magnetite the least rich. Native ores have reduced drop chances, but are still more likely to produce bars than other ores. The less useful ores have also been kept with slightly more likely drop chances, but are likewise still nerfed.
-Coal is much less common.

interaction_standard:
-Demoralize interaction; causes uneasiness, targets only dwarves, and rarely incites fistfights.
-Wood weakness curse; makes the inflicted target 10x more susceptible to being hurt by wooden weapons.
-Animal growth spell; temporarily makes an animal much larger and stronger.
-Terror spell; inflicts terror, numbness, pain, dizziness, and nausea.

item_armor:
-mail shirts and breastplates now cost more

item_gloves:
-gauntlets now cost more

item_helm:
-helms now cost more

item_pants:
-leggings and greaves now cost more

item_shield:
-shields now cost more

item_shoes:
-high boots now cost more

item_trapcomp:
-trap components now cost more

item_weapon:
-most weapons now cost more
-added bluntswords, a shorter, heavier sword.
-added axehammers, courtesy of stal's armory.

plant_standard:
-increased grow time of standard underground crops a modest amount

reaction_smelter:
-reduced output of ore alloying and coal smelting

This is still a work in progress, and I'd love to see some feedback on what needs further balancing; of particular concern is the steel colossus being immune to almost everything except titanium and maybe the elven wood-weakness curse, and also the goblin demoralize interaction possibly being quite unbalanced in an unknown direction. Metals may need more nerfs in terms of how common they are, but it's likely they will be left as-is, so people can still play around with metal and have some degree of freedom; if nothing else it's much more labor per bar now.

Planned Changes:

• Give elves and undead some form of the goblins' demoralize interaction
• If necessary, give goblins natural combat skill in offensive fighting
• Make humans more formidable in combat, to remove them as an easy (well, easier than goblins) source of goblinite should you go to war
• Do something with the currently unused mithril metal that I've added.

Suggestions are welcome! This is my first real experience with modding, so I'm bound to have made mistakes.

[Iä! RIAKTOR!]

Why you remove semimegabeasts, but add just metal copies of megabeasts? Will be better, if you add as megabeasts renewed semimegabeasts. They all four are intelligent, so may have magic powers - became all necromancers! Or acquire powers of intelligent undead. For goblins and towers you may not make them mortal, but write special type of necromancer secret, that allow to be learned by immortal creatures and have some more powers, than generated one.   

[NordicNooob]

Simply because the old semis were just too easy; they had no gimmicks, and weren't very strong in combat. The chance of a semi-megabeast showing up with actual abilities is incredibly rare, and I'm not entirely sure if it's even possible without the player trying to make it happen. Sure, I could've given them some gimmicks, or I could give megabeasts some gimmicks and then make some new megabeasts, which is what I did. I do agree that the metal beasts are a bit less than original, but I think they're unique enough. The steel colossus is the least unique, except in that your response to it will generally be way different than your response to a bronze colossus. The dragon engine, since I nabbed it from Masterwork, isn't just a bronze dragon, but is actually a pretty cool steampunk dragon, though I suppose yes, it's still pretty much just a metal dragon. The golden roc is sort of just that one beast you really want to catch a pair of, while still not being super OP. It's made of gold, so while it can deal fierce damage, it's still a soft material, and isn't immune to attacks. And, I'm not really sure what gimmicks I could add to ettins, giants, and the likes to make them feel like powerful foes while still keeping them feeling like the creatures they are. Probably like, a paralysis interaction to Minotaurs to mimic being paralyzed with fear, but past that there's nothing I can really think of to make ettins and giants cooler.

As for the latter, that's not possible as far as I know. I'm fairly new to modding, but at least in world gen, secrets will only be discovered by mortal creatures looking to extend their life-even if it's just fire-mancer powers or something-so goblins just can't make towers if they're not mortal. They're still bloody well near immortal-they live for a thousand years- so I don't think it's much of an issue having them be mortal. If it's a really unpopular choice then I'll probably bump the lifespan up to something absurd, like a million years, so nobody will ever see a goblin die of old age, but again, we'll see. The pantheon worries me a bit, since they appear to make a ton of monasteries around their dark fortresses during world gen, but I can't really control that. It might not be an awful idea to just cut goblin necros out of the scene altogether, since right now goblins are probably more dangerous than undead, and the extra monasteries hurts their growth a fair amount.

I appreciate the feedback!

[Iä! RIAKTOR!]

Simply because the old semis were just too easy; they had no gimmicks, and weren't very strong in combat. The chance of a semi-megabeast showing up with actual abilities is incredibly rare, and I'm not entirely sure if it's even possible without the player trying to make it happen. Sure, I could've given them some gimmicks, or I could give megabeasts some gimmicks and then make some new megabeasts, which is what I did. I do agree that the metal beasts are a bit less than original, but I think they're unique enough. The steel colossus is the least unique, except in that your response to it will generally be way different than your response to a bronze colossus. The dragon engine, since I nabbed it from Masterwork, isn't just a bronze dragon, but is actually a pretty cool steampunk dragon, though I suppose yes, it's still pretty much just a metal dragon. The golden roc is sort of just that one beast you really want to catch a pair of, while still not being super OP. It's made of gold, so while it can deal fierce damage, it's still a soft material, and isn't immune to attacks. And, I'm not really sure what gimmicks I could add to ettins, giants, and the likes to make them feel like powerful foes while still keeping them feeling like the creatures they are. Probably like, a paralysis interaction to Minotaurs to mimic being paralyzed with fear, but past that there's nothing I can really think of to make ettins and giants cooler.

As for the latter, that's not possible as far as I know. I'm fairly new to modding, but at least in world gen, secrets will only be discovered by mortal creatures looking to extend their life-even if it's just fire-mancer powers or something-so goblins just can't make towers if they're not mortal. They're still bloody well near immortal-they live for a thousand years- so I don't think it's much of an issue having them be mortal. If it's a really unpopular choice then I'll probably bump the lifespan up to something absurd, like a million years, so nobody will ever see a goblin die of old age, but again, we'll see. The pantheon worries me a bit, since they appear to make a ton of monasteries around their dark fortresses during world gen, but I can't really control that. It might not be an awful idea to just cut goblin necros out of the scene altogether, since right now goblins are probably more dangerous than undead, and the extra monasteries hurts their growth a fair amount.

I appreciate the feedback!

I not understand what is mean gimmick due to a bad english. For giant (and another two great sized) you may add just blast wave from their feet (interaction that make soil dust). They are really huge. Ettin based on Jotun, so can add them freezing "blizzard" breath, snow dust attack as giant's soil dust, ice bolt attack, changing weather... Cyclops may "throw" webs (made of cloth) from their hands. Minotaur may hide from your dwarves and, possible, control your animals (temporary make them like undead thralls). If you want interesting megabeast, but based on vanilla four megabeasts, you may remove your three, but add one mixing of vanilla four - bronze seven-headed dragon with ability to fly. Or with bronze/steel scales and golden/platinum fat, but I think, this will be too much. What do you think about my ideas?

[Iä! RIAKTOR!]

Whats about reworking ALL fanciful creatures? Weatherturning harpies, blizzard men ice attacks, necromancing foul blendecs, vampirespreading nightwings.

[voliol]

Looks very interesting. I'm not too great at the combat parts of the game myself, so I won't use this mod, but some of these changes are really clever. They should bring great !fun! to those seeking it. I especially like the goblin "unease" effect to discourage turtling. It sounds tricky to balance though, so that the goblins won't bring your fort to its knees just by arriving, even if they are swiftly dispatched.

I also like the new mega-beasts being badder metallic versions of the existing ones. The cool factor is off the roof.
Are the old semis still in the game somehow (e.g. as rare monsters in certain/all biomes), or are they fully purged from existence?

Some modding suggestions:

It's good practice to not add new objects (creatures, entities) to the existing text files, instead making new files (e.g. creatures_tchm) and putting the new objects in them. This makes a mod both more modular for those who only like parts of it, and easier to use with other mods. Mods that tweak a lot of existing/vanilla objects (like this one) are still bound for collision with each other, but it's good to minimize the risk as much as possible.
I also recommend using a prefix or suffix for all of your new objects, renaming the GOLD_ROC to something like "GOLD_ROC_TCHM" or "TCHM_GOLD_ROC". This removes the risk for duplication errors, which is great because those really mess things up. "TCHM" I took from "The CHallenging Mod", but you're of course free to use any suffix/prefix. Very few are taken already.

[Urist McSadist]

The Demoralize interaction doesn't work.