Abyss Town revived!

Download link added.

Also, I would like some feedback on unit names. I made numerous changes and some might not fit well with everyone.

Cool! Quick info: there’s possibly one conflict. Guardian is albo Preserve town might hero. And works on Preserve are still in progres.

Thanks for the info! If anyone has an idea for a hero title, I am, as always, all ears! Here are some ideas:

Sea Lord
Watcher
Judicator
Magistrate (might be better fit for a spellcaster due to the “magi” bit possibly causing confusion)

Sea Lord and Magistrate is my favorites

I am going with Sea Lord for now then! Here are some random ideas:

Yuan-ti to Merrow:
The name “Yuan-ti” was probably originally chosen as Naga was taken, as they wanted them to mimic the warcraft nagas. Both are originally snake monsters not affiliated with the sea, and personally I am not too big of a fan of the Yuan-ti name because of this. However, they do resemble the Merrow depicted in the book “Faeries” a whole lot, possibly by accident. If more people like the change I don’t see why not.

Sea Worm changed to Charybdis:
Charybdis is an unseen monster in greek mythology, most often considered the monster causing whirlpools. Quite fitting considering their building. Sea Worm is the name of a large set of underwater creatures who are mostly small and not that frightening.
Question: should the upgrade be “Dire Charybdis”? Or maybe “Lurid Charybdis”?

And for a big beefy thing:
The grail map needs to be completely reworked. Currently, it is borrowed from the Grove town and needs to be redone. This may be a massive undertaking for most people, especially mere tweakers such as myself.

About puzzle map: I have no graphic skill but this Macron1 post maybe be promisiong for who has such talents.

"MACRON1 PUZZLE TEMPLATE FOR PAINT.NET

I’d like to share PDN multi-layer file for Paint.NET, that I’m using to easily create puzzles for new factions.
It’s not classic, I tried only to make easy and quick way for puzzles, not bother with H3 puzzle style.

  1. Place picture of correct size (596X546) on “Picture layer”.
  2. make layer 47 visible (other numbered layers must be hidden). “Save as” 8-bit 00.bmp.
  3. Hide 47 layer, make 46 layer visible. repeat this until you have 00-47.bmp on your disk.
    JSON puzzle file for them also in archive.
    Just rename “mytown” by your town identifier. "
    forum.vcmi.eu/download.php?id=604

Updated with misiokles’ tweaks and bugfixes and new namechanges.

I think it’s hight time to talk about heroes balance. So far we have:

Abiss:
Might hero
Speciality: Abysall Crabs
Army:
slot 1 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
Skills: Advanced scouting

Arkana:
Magic Hero
spellbook : teleport
Speciality: Scouting
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 3 creature, min : 4, max : 6
Skills: Basic scouting, basic tactics

Dissana:
Magic Hero
spellbook : Land mine
Speciality: Land mine
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 3 creature, min : 4, max : 6
Skills: Basic wisdom, basic misticism

Gril
Magic Hero
spellbook : Chain Lightning
Speciality: Chain Lightning
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 3 creature, min : 4, max : 6
Skills: Basic air magic, basic luck

Karnti
Magic Hero
spellbook : Sorcery
Speciality: Sorcery
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 3 creature, min : 4, max : 6
Skills: Basic wisdom, basic sorcery

Kasta
Might hero
Speciality: +350 gold
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 3 creature, min : 4, max : 6
Skills: Basic tactics, basic armorer

Kingsax
Magic Hero
spellbook : none
Speciality: Intelligence
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 3 creature, min : 4, max : 6
Skills: advanced wisdom

Kraken Teamster
Might hero
Speciality: Giant Octopus
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 12
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 5, max : 6
Skills: advanced wisdom

Pears
Might hero
Speciality: Armorer
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
Skills: Basic tactics, basic armorer

Perha
Magic Hero
spellbook : berserk
Speciality: berserk
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 3 creature, min : 4, max : 6
Skills: basic wisdom, basic water magic

Raytlii
Might hero
Speciality: Jellyfish
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
Skills: advanced wisdom

Season:
Might hero
Speciality: Yuan-Ti
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 3 creature, min : 4, max : 6
Skills: basic diplomance, basic resistance

Sirranna:
Magic Hero
spellbook : weakness
Speciality: +1 gem/day
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 3 creature, min : 4, max : 6
Skills: basic wisdom, basic pathfinding

Trila
Might hero
Speciality: Armorer
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
Skills: Basic tactics, basic armorer

Verna
Might hero
Speciality: Giant Gold Seahorses (?)
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
Skills: Basic wisdom, basic air magic
speciality: haste (???)

Well
Magic Hero
spellbook : Ressurrection
Speciality: Ressurection
Army:
slot 1 - level 1 creature, min : 10, max : 15
slot 2 - level 2 creature, min : 6, max : 9
slot 3 - level 3 creature, min : 4, max : 6
Skills: basic wisdom, basic water magic

Werser
Might hero
Speciality: Hyppocamph
Army:
slot 1 - level 3 creature, min : 3, max : 6
slot 2 - level 3 creature, min : 2, max : 4
slot 3 - level 3 creature, min : 1, max : 3
Skills: Basic diplomacy, basic resistance

Not lots of water, isn’t it? Any ideas to improve?

I highly agree. I also see little point in having two armourer heroes, especially of the same class. I am terrible at balance but I think the resurrection hero could get a power change along with one armourer. The resurrection one due to the spell not being very “abyssey”, in my opinion.

Update! Removed a line of internal text causing problems, changed some building descriptions (sea urchins are still WiP), changed a few possible town names that didn’t quite sound underwatery enough.

No big hero changes done yet as I want feedback before touching those.

Nobody reporting the fact that the mod isn’t working at all right now? I have noticed that editing files is extremely finicky and frail at times and will create problems for no other reasons than to cause grief. Heck, I tried to change the Bastion hero descriptions to proper english once and all heroes except one became unavailable.

I need people to help locating the problem.

Use Notepad++ to work on json files (it has syntax highlight and lights opening-closing (]) etc, it correctly works with unicode files).
If you have suspicions that somewhere in json file there are errors, you can use online json validator to check (just copy and paste contents of json to web form and press validate:

jsonlint.com/

The only bad thing is that it thinks comments (// text) are errors. So remove all commentaries before validation.

JSON doesn’t support comments so it’s valid behaviour.

Maybe, but VCMI supports:-)

JSON in VCMI closer to JSON5 (proposed extension).

Problem fixed! It was a hero description. Thank Poseidon it wasn’t some tiny word somewhere in the bigger files. Teaches me for not testing enough! I figured out how to find the problem while at work, but thanks for the heads-up!

By the power of awesome, misiokles also restored the old “abyssal murloc” (now dark one) as a neutral creature along with it’s and the original murloc (now deep one’s) dwelling. He is a cool dude like that. The both of them may get a power boost later to tier 3 to fit the new name better. This however, comes hand in hand with something important we need to discuss:

Balance.

We really need a discussion going on unit, hero and even building balance (getting tier 6 and 7 is way too easy). This is what makes or breaks a faction afterall.

if I don’t forget I will test the town today and suggest some possible ways to improve balance

Where the hell did you get these from. Jellyfish and Octopus are common words in English and in bestiary in general. Also it’s clear that both creatures are Jellyfish / Octopus and not something else.

Large number of H3 creatures are actually taken from D&D, like Basilisk, Gorgon or Beholder. So Yuan-Ti is a perfect match. Also, it DOES look like Yuan-Ti. Merrow is a word for Mermaid, not snake.

I get them from the English language, why thank you! :smiley:

The floating spire/sceptre is a placeholder name. I was incredibly confused when the jellyfish started shooting bolts of magic for no reason, so I wanted a name that explain it as a special type of jellyfish. Jellyfish, as explained prior, is extremely generic and dull (not to mention one of the english language’s silliest words) so I wanted to spice it up. If anyone knows of some odd creature name that fits and sounds cooler, sure, I will go for that. Same goes if jellyfish gets voted back in by a larger crowd.

The octopus is clearly a nautiloid creature due to the shell on the back. It was an obvious change. I mentioned this prior.

Merrows are not mere mermaids, actually. According to folklore (and this is the most awesome thing about them), males look radically different from females, being grotesque and monstrous. And as I mentioned before, they look almost identical to a fairly well-known illustration of a merrow male. Also, it made little sense calling them Yuan-ti, as those are normal snake people, not vaguely fish-like things. There is also the problem of the wizards of the coast being quite sue-happy about some creatures (like illithids, for example) and less so with some they set in the public domain (gnolls, for example).
You can get what I mean by simply googling merrow or merrow male. Again, I am open to ideas but as nothing but d&d properties use the word “yuan-ti”, I am kind of scared of using it.

Edit: Oh crap!

If more people want the names returned to their formers, sure. So far I haven’t heard another complaint, but I am open minded if anything!

My names are merely there to avoid confusion from new players, which is also how I have tested them. As always, constructive criticism is most welcome and will be heard!

I did a bit of testing, and I think I can provide some feedback about creature strength, and the ways how I would adjust some statistics (adjust can be done in several ways, units can be adjusted to be offensive or defensive, in many cases I made choice based on current stats)

Generally many units in this town are very strong, with fairly high price. You can adjust units to be worth their price but keeping all units “fairly strong” results in town with too good units and if player can afford the gold then the town makes player able to get stronger army than the other.

About particular units:

level 1 not-upgraded: I would keep it as it is for now, maybe add +1 attack, seems to be average unit
level 1 upgraded: Not overpowered, but extremely strong. 2-4 damage, 8 hitpoints and high speed. I think I would increase the cost to 90 and keep it as it is or decrease damage to “2-3” and add +1 attack point. If you do not want it to be another pikeman-like unit you can keep downgrading stats and cost
Generally level 1 abyss units should not have base growth bigger than 14 with their strength and cost

level 2 not-upgraded: Seems to be ok cost and balance-wise. Similar unit to dwarves.
level 2 upgraded: Seems to be a bit too overpowered with their damage reduction, 18 hit points and 2-5 damage - most among all level 2 units. The most intuitive adjust seems to be damage downgrade to 2-4, this unit has already huge defensive capabilities. I would also increase the price to 165, because of the damage reduction ability, even though dwarves have 20 hit points and 1 more attack and defense point and they cost 150.
Growth seems to be good. 8-9 base growth is safe range for this unit.

level 3 not-upgraded: pretty expensive units, average hitpoints, high speed, rest of stats very strong. I would add -2 hitpoints, -1 attack and defense, -1 max damage to make this unit more “average”, unless you plan to nerf other units more.
level 3 upgraded: same as not upgraded, speed of serpent fly, stats of griffins (or whatever their name is). And I would do same as for not upgraded: get current creature stats and add -1 attack and defense, -1 max damage, -2 hitpoints
Growth looks ok.

level 4 (both levels): Generally this unit does not need changes I think, weaker stats than mages / archmages, but lower cost, and can shoot while enemy blocks unit.

level 5: Hard to say, stats are rather good. I would not decrease cost for this unit.
level 5 upgraded: Here comes the problem, this town has already many good units and this one together with seahorses looks like best candidates to leave not too strong. 70 hitpoints is huge amount, and rest of stats is pretty good too. I would keep hitpoints at 50, maybe 55, and maybe give additional +1 attack point and keep the cost as it is. The unit can already hit all nearby enemies.

level 6: This is interesting unit. 16-32 damage sounds like another “original” value good to beat new unit level stat records but this unit seems to be interesting when it stays strong. I would give -1 attack and defense point and change cost to 1050.
level 6 upgraded: I would give -1 attack and -2 defense and keep rest as it is. Can also give 25% shooting damage reduction and increase cost to 1400.

level 7: This unit has pretty weird balance in my opinion. It has same damage range as giant (also same average damage as angel), and 20 attack and defense, what seems to be unnecessary, this unit can be strong if adjusted down and whole town becomes less likely to be overpowered. I need to consider that unit is pretty slow, my personal preference would be to make this unit more attack-oriented I would give it 20 attack and 17 defense, 40-55 damage and keep rest as it is.
level 7 upgraded: Here comes unusual stat change: damage gets boosted over value of any other unit, hitpoints become very high, but attack and defense stay at poor value. If the unit cost is not meant to increase then I would make damage 45-55, 24 attack and 21 defense with keeping the rest as it is

Another things I noticed:
“Deep ones” fight value is way too high
unit buildings take too much wood
resource silo resource does not match 7th level creature building & upgrade resource