The forging abilities and costs are fine. Some of the legendary items are ridiculously OP though - basically an 'I win button' for whatever hero is wearing them

Now that I've found this, I might actually buy the DLCs.

I played the campaign without the forge and the lack of legendary items for my heros completely ruined the game for me and I have thousands of hours with all version of AOW.

You can check my hour count on AOW Planetfall if you want.

I was shocked when I played the campaign and saw that they nerfed the forge.

Hey Dude, I have one idea for you about a new type of weapon for the Dreadnaught. It's called the steam punk chain gun, aka the minigun, which can be created using each one of the elements of the game, for example a cold chain gun which inflicts cold damage, but at this contrast it cost three action points and can only be shoot into a straight line, and need one or two turns to reload the weapon cartridge or whatever it's called the ammunition.

Thanks for this, finally playing AoW3 again and this is a must.

Is this mod still alive? Im thinking of exchanging my current Forge mod with this one in my next PBEM. Is it possible to add floating/flying to boots or something?

Aaaand Another one.
1.6 is out. First batch of custom Leadership-abilities to the forge. Hopefully not too OP or cheap. Tried to keep it simple for now.
Lots of attempts in balancing as well.
5 new items too.
See changenotes.

Another one.
The lists should be more bearable as there is now more variance in point-costs. Added ranged life stealing (weaker than normal and overrides normal, applies to all attacks). Ranged life stealing upgrades itself like the normal one does.

Another one.
Thanks to jancomx, added some color and all names now unique (should be...)
See the last 3 pictures and changenotes 1.4c. Don't look at 1.4d.

Another one.
Some fixes I overlooked and a buff to Berserker.

Hot fix... fixed Swallow Whole to only weapons. Also added a few abilities I'd missed, see changenotes.

First round of rebalancing is out now. Please see changenotes for what I've changed.

Made some of the changes discussed in "Requests". Also added a few things discussed as well. Please see the actual prices in-game, as I have no list to show at this time.

This was just a quick update to fix the glaring issue of overpriced upgrades in forge. In-game experiences have proven that the prices were waaaaay too high. Even in huge/long games.

There will be more rounds of rebalancing when I have time again. Hopefully this mod now adds more spice to the game across the board in terms of game lengths.

I would like to know if the changes made to defense, resistance, hp and damage upgrades conflict with the mods you mentioned @jancomx. I believe not, but there is a possibility. Please tell me if funkiness occurs in launching a new game or anything at all.

@varegi Thanks so much for your responses!! I really appreciate it. Posting more in the Requests discussion.

ok that's a lot of text
please start from the bottom

TL:DR
Thank you jancomx for your comment, I will try to balance the mod when I have time.

@jancomx, also see the posts below please

to respond to your assumption in point 4 of your post real quick:

the information about ability costs are in the pictures above:

The extra points are actually just a mechanic to make the player think/choose whether they want to have the ability cheaper by adding defects or pay for a more useful item. The costs depend on the ability itself.

T4 Regrowth that requires 9 points costs with no defects for a normal player 10520 mana, but for a dwarf who chooses the race upgrade it costs 6838 mana which is still extremely high...
BUT
with max defects and dwarf+quest discount that ability can be in an item for 5000 mana which requires 13 cities for a Dwarf Sorcerer.
Of course that is a high number, but the tier 4 abilities are a very VERY lategame thing.

Consider the fact that this ability heals 50% of your hp each turn and stacks with the other tiers of regrowth. Which is something I think I need to balance too...

@jancomx, please see posts below first

Yes the costs are very high even with all this, but I hope you can see what the problem with balancing it is. If I lower the costs too much it will be way too easy for a sorcerer dwarf and if they are too high it’s no fun because you can’t use them.

I've been thinking of maybe toning down the dwarf bonus and changing the quest bonus as well so I could better balance the mod... I also need to tone down many of the ability costs like the inflict abilities just because they really don't need to be that expensive at all.

I've planned to get deeper into it once I have the time, but for now they are as they are. If you would like to help me calculate better costs for the upgrades or if you have any other ideas, that would be great!

@jancomx, please see post below first

(The following information about costs can also be found from the table in the pictures above)

Let’s take the Quick Learner (+50% xp) and Fire Breath abilities as an example.

Normally: Quick Learner costs 6656 mana and Fire Breath costs 3393 mana.
which is way too much when your max mana is as you said way below 3000.

However your dwarf friends that choose the forge bonus, put the worst defect and have completed the quest before you will be getting them for 3200 and 1503 mana respectively. That’s a 56% cut in the cost. Also classes like Sorcerer and Arch-Druid (maybe others) get max mana boosts from their Class buildings.

So a Sorcerer with 5 cities can have a mana cap of 2700 and a Warlord only 1700. The sorcerer class building gives a 200 mana cap with each city.

@jancomx,

I'm glad you like the items part, which is the purpose for which I originally made this mod. I'm also very happy that someone would like to use this mod enough, to comment and give good critique as well.

About the forge upgrades:
Basically they were just an addition to make it possible to create items in endgame, without destroying the balance of the game. What you're seeing there is my initial attempt to balance these extra forge abilities. I didn't have time to properly balance this part of the mod before heading abroad to study and I hit a very annoying snag in balancing them.. So I opted to play it safe and make the costs a tad high. Too high in most cases.
Let me explain in the post(s) above.

I love the better items as the empire quest reward, but I have had trouble with the rest of the mod:

1.) I wanted to make a +50% exp("Fast Learner") helmet for my leader, which costs 6 points - only 1 point above the usual max.
2.) I added the worst defect possible and had the 20% discount from doing the empire quest.
3.) The mana cost was still 4900. My max mana is 800, and I could push it to 1800 by dropping everything to build grand temples in all 5 of my cities and researching all remaining levels of casting. But 4900 is completely unattainable.
4.) This is for a 6-cost enchantment - so, I assume anything that costs 7 or more might as well not be in the game, since I will never ever have 5000+ mana.

Am I missing something? Am I the only one who wants to use this mod in a scenario where I control less than *50* grand temples? Or does the mod also include a way to massively increase mana capacity that I have overlooked?

Enough forge mods out that I want to be discerning as far as balance and variety with which I select. Glad to see you're still further supporting this Varegi. Thank you.

Oh sweet! Thank you so much for this info Varegi, it will help me in more ways than one. Cheers!

@spaceweezle

It's in:

AoW_UnitProperties.rpk -> Category: Active Abilities - Cast DLC3 -> starting from line 7

It's with the base-game rpk-files. It's one of those rare rpks that get updated with more DLCs.

It's also the rpk to mod for all of your ability/spell/property needs for all units.

Thanks for the Mod! I was wondering if you could tell me in which pack file would I find the data to mod the Invoke Death spell ?

Looked in SkillNecromancer.rpk and numerous other core packs but can't for the life of me find the Invoke Death spell data.

well, i know about that, i couldnt find the ability in either the "quickbar" nor the detailed unit description during tactical battle :s

@Nox667

If it shows in the strategic map but not in the tactical map, the reason is most likely this:

You have too many abilities. There is a maximum amount you can have show in the middle of the screen during tactical combat. However, you should still be able to use it from the unit menu in tactical combat. It's weird yeah, but I think there's a mod that expands the list...

might have just been me being blind, but i didnt seem to be able to use the Cleave ability of the Berserker Axe reward from the empire quest. the ability showed up in the units list on the strategy map, but wasnt available in the list in tactical combat. Again, might ahve just been me being blind, or one of my other mods conflicting somehow
other than that, great mod, perfect for xtra large maps :D

A little bit OP is really OKAY for Hero's.. as we all know Hero's tend to die very easy.
This looks good.. will gives this a try in the coming week(s).

Thank you, when you've had the chance to try it out, know this: all feedback is welcome (good, bad, critical etc.), because I haven't had an opportunity to play a lot of AoW3 as of late.
I'll be taking feedback seriously if it is workable and I'll also be considering the requests when making one last update before I go away for a full year.

About 3-4 weeks until I'm gone and the mods will not be updated for a year.

So if anyone out there wanted to say something or make a request, now would be the time.

I will try this out as the mod makes sense (indeed getting an egg as the prize for completing the quest always makes me swear pure anglo-saxon :) ). Subbed.

For requests see the discussions (Item, ability, mod version and balancing requests go there)