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[Frumple]

... I won't lie, now I'm thinking of a nation that consists of literally nothing but freespawn foulspawn, from the troops to the commanders. Temples, labs, and forts all change what shows up in the province.

Though the easiest way to do that, iirc, would probably be a single commander that has a very broad list of what summon ally can pull up, or themselves freespawn specific stuff. Or a handful with different specifications. Is mostly how that one amazing fungus mod did it in Dom 3. Really freaking wish someone would port that over to D4. Would do it myself, but I don't even know where to start

[E. Albright]

The last patch gave us the ability to shapechange into montags rather than specific units, so you can have "template/category" units that are recruited and then immediately turn into one of 5-8 different individual units. For example, um, lessee what I have lying around...

Spoiler: An example very-much-WIP Foulspawn nation (click to show/hide)

If you wanted to do what you're talking about it would be very trivial. Just have the commander summon a -montag, set all the FS to that montag, and there ya go. We're doing something a bit more painful and involved (procedurally generated FS nations whose troops are recruited in a semi-random manner). Grinding out sprites and complex data files for it has been almost the only NG stuff I've done since the last patch. It's... been slow going. The results are satisfyingly NationGenerous, but it's been a slog, and I'm only maybe 1/2 done...

[Frumple]

Ha, yeah, I thought of saying it before noticing the edit, but a foulspawn nation definitely seems like something the NG randomization ethos would seriously benefit. Should be interesting to see when it gets finished, heh. Maybe even start up a FS only game :V

They should totally get an artifact that has improved crossbreeding on it, though. Maybe an (extremely) expensive const 6 item that has the lower version, too. Maybe give 'em population eater if an item can do that, or the BVC thingy... would possibly be best if it didn't work without pop in the province, but eh. Something to represent basically converting the people en-masse to foulspawn. Would be neat.

[E. Albright]

If you want to see where we've been going with this mess, Elmokki posted some more early test nations a few weeks back: http://koti.kapsi.fi/elmokki/dom4/unitgen/early_foulspawn/

FoulSpawn have basically been conceptually the ne plus ultra NationGen race and a bit of a holy grail for both of us (So.Random!), so this is getting undue and overwrought attention. Currently, I've finished melee size-2 FS, centaur-esque hybrid FS, mounted (on assorted normal mounts) FS, and winged infantry FS. That's the state of affairs in the nation above and those in the link. I'm almost done with ogreish size 3s; once that's done, we still need to work out how to handle mages, I need to do archers, and I'd like to have some simple random monsterous FS generation. Oh, and if I'm ambitious, I still wanna do FS mounted on random crossbred mounts, too. So there's a reasonable hunk-o-junk left to do before we're ready to push out the next version, but it's gradually getting there...

[Frumple]

Don't forget the scorpion tails

[E. Albright]

Like these, you mean?



;p

But yes, right, I still need to add extra tentacles and tails as possible options (third arms are a pretty common option as it stands...)

[Shadowlord]

I had an idea, not sure if it would be good or fun, but: What if all FS commanders had a chance to have magic paths, with the more expensive ones having more and greater chances?

Say, for example, one nation's scouts, basic commanders, and H1 priests may have a 10% chance of +1 END, slightly better commanders and H2s could have two 30% chances, even better commanders and H3s could have three 50% +1 END rolls. Maybe go further than that, more rolls, higher chances. Maybe have it generate at least one researcher with guaranteed paths? (Random paths per nation?)

(It would probably be !!FUN!!, I expect, when you can't get the mage(s) you need)

[E. Albright]

Aside from the !!!FUN!!! aspect, it doesn't seem like it'd fit as well since magic implies training. What we've talked about doing is using templates to assign magic paths then immediately transforming them into various FS bodies with various secondary abilities upon recruitment. So you know (and pay for) a T1 labrat, but you don't know if you'll get a winged blob of tentacles, or a short-sited dimwit with awful MR and poor precision, to give two extreme examples. If you have the normal 4-6 mage types as path templates, and then another 4-6 body/abilities they can have, you'll get a decent variety of mages alongside a moderate amount of unpredictability.

[Frumple]

Dooooes it, though? I'd think Yomi at the least would be a counterexample to the training thing -- the Dai Oni are specifically noted as being basically stupid as a rock, but still perfectly able to sling all sorts of nastiness around. Ashdod has a similar line with the Adon, just as another example, or the stuff like Great Eagles. And I kinda' doubt the horrors have a magic school somewhere in the void, though that would make for a hilariously terrible plot hook. Notice me, Kurgi-senpai?

Yours sounds a fair bit better from the playability angle, though, heh.

[E. Albright]

Well, yeah, there's the inherently magical stuff. But Foulspawns are just kinda degenerate things - you'll occasionally get magical ones, but they can only do very specific things like breath fire or kill with a gaze. They don't really seem like they'd have flexibility without developing it.

Also, yes, this would be a lot less frustrating. :p

[EuchreJack]

Mutating with magic potential makes sense to me.

[Shadowlord]

Yeah.

[BFEL]

... you do realize why that option doesn't exist, right? Because if you can download that, so can I, and everyone else actually playing the game

There's probably SOME way to do it that doesn't reveal everything. Worst case you could just have it be a post of the "happened last turn" page with viewable battles and such. With the obvious caveat of not zooming in on the region first

[Shadowlord]

Ah, but then everyone can see your army composition and formation, what spells you are using, etc, even if they have no scouts anywhere near the battles. A turn later still wouldn't be enough, really, for your strategies being revealed to all future opponents.

[EuchreJack]

... you do realize why that option doesn't exist, right? Because if you can download that, so can I, and everyone else actually playing the game

There's probably SOME way to do it that doesn't reveal everything. Worst case you could just have it be a post of the "happened last turn" page with viewable battles and such. With the obvious caveat of not zooming in on the region first

I'd be more than happy to share a nation with other players, so that multiple players would be playing the same nation, but nobody would be playing multiple nations.  Two lategame turns every other day is kicking my butt.