Patch 'n mod

[Kristoffer O]

Scene I:
A small army camp by a coastal village.

Enter:
The Lord of this World, an attendant.

Attendant:
- They are watching us. Watching with their flat pale eyes. And more have come since the moon rose. They follow the tide. Perhaps by dawn they are numerous enough to dare a fight.

The Lord of theis World
- Then we should drive them back from whence they came before the sun rises. Commander! Call the men to arms. Commander?

- He is dead, my lord.

- Dead?

- Thrown himself off the cliffs, sir.

- Damn fool! Who's next in command?

- No one. They have all been lost to the sea sir. To answer some strange song. Everyone but that mercenary captain.

- What sorcery is this? I suppose I'll have to lead the men myself.


Enter a scout.

- My lord, there is an army of halfmen advancing from the south.

- Halfmen? Impossible! Pangaea was destroyed years ago. Their god was burned on a pyre in that sacred grove.

- Still there are satyrs in the army and a great Pan seems to be leading them.

- Well, we have dealt with halfmen before. Let the mercenaries deal with the fish faced ones. I prefer to let them be the target of any unexpected sorcery from the sea.

---

The depths have awakened. The tides rise with living
creatures. Oceania once again claim the seas.

---

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/News/pr_01.htm

[Kristoffer O]

Linux Version of the patch is ready, but a minor problem has delayed it. It will hopefully appear today (not sure how swedish vs american time will affect this).

[Taqwus]

Tentacle Face has lost his head? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif Theurgs used to attack during Utterdark?

Intriguing. (And wondering whether the attack-on-stealthy-commander fix includes horror attacks; if so, the scout-based Soul Contract factory becomes somewhat less powerful.)

[Tim Brooks]

The Linux patches are up now.

[Boron]

Great http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

I like the Oceania Mod especially .

In my fist quicktest i saw the following :

I ordered a few mermen + a wavelord and attacked a land indy province .
Underwater they are shown as amphibians , in the battle above the sea they were shown as poor amphibians though .

Is this a bug or a feature ?

I guess it is the former because above the sea they had 9 defense while underwater they had 10 defense .

P.S. is there a way ( item / spell etc. ) to make my aquatic units air breathing that they can leave the sea ?

[johan osterman]

The oceanian units change shape when they enter land. This is the cause of your discrepancy. So it is a feature. Try the Capricorn and you'll see his magic stats change as well.

[Alneyan]

The Amulet of the Fish is what you want for aquatic commanders; I cannot think of anything to help the aquatic troops though (the only ones are the elite units of Oceania if memory serves).

[CJN]

A small error found in the Linux x86 patch:
- The files orania.map and oraniawar.map extracted into the main dominions directory instead of the maps/ directory.

EDIT: Ignore, my mistake, forgot to copy the executable to /usr/local/bin:
- The Version number is still 2.14.

[Legacyspy]

If I want to use the patch in a sp game but not a mp game can I? Can I use it in 1 mp game and not in another?

[Kristoffer O]

If you patch the game it goes for all games, the mod on the other hand can be turned on and off in different games.

If you really want to have one game with 2.14 and another 2.15 you can probably make a copy of the game in another directory and patch one of them. This is not something I would recommend as it sounds like an invitation to trouble. Be sure to make backups of save files before trying this.

[Alneyan]

You would need to copy your dom2.exe, rename the copy to dom214.exe (or anything really), and apply the patch. Only the original dom2.exe will be patched to 2.15, while the copy will stay on 2.14.

You will have to make sure you use the correct executable when playing the game though. The only problems while using the wrong Version should be bogus battle reports; the keyword here is should.

Hmm, the patch modifies (or adds) a file called army9.trs, though it looks like it does not affect Dom 2.14. I am not sure if it was present before 2.15, or if it has been added by this patch. If it is the latter, it will be fine, but there might be a problem or two otherwise. My guess is that this file is used to add some descriptions for the units of Oceania, as a few units of the nation are without description when playing the mod under 2.14. That is, however, a mere guess, so don't sue me if something goes wrong (of course, praise is welcomed if I am right). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Legacyspy]

Hmm, how do I activate the oceania mod, I went into mods it wasnt there, but I saw when creating an alantian god, that under atlantis was special themes-oceana, but at the part where u change dominion I selected special, but the oceana did not come up.

[Alneyan]

You will have to download the Oceania mod from Shrapnel download page, extract its contents to your mods directory, and select the Oceania mod before creating a Pretender. Once you have started a game with this mod, it will be automatically switched on when you play this particular game.

Oceania does not seem to be available under the special themes of Atlantis (unless I badly need to have my eyes checked), and instead replaces the whole nation.

[Ironhawk]

Looks fun! Can't wait to try it tonight...

[Legacyspy]

it wasnt aviable, but you know when u click a race its like
Description
Priests
Military
......
.....
Special Themese: I coulda sworn I saw Oceania here/

[Alneyan]

Oceania is indeed in the description, but cannot be selected as a theme (when playing Atlantis). You need to switch the mod on to have Oceania instead of Atlantis (as for other mods changing a nation).

[Legacyspy]

I must be blind.
The downloads I see
Demo
Item refernce
summond creatures
mod manuel
addenum
walthrough
patch 2.15
At first I thought patch 2.15 had the mod but it did not, where do I download it. I feel verys stuped.

[PvK]

Alneyan said:
...
Hmm, the patch modifies (or adds) a file called army9.trs, though it looks like it does not affect Dom 2.14. I am not sure if it was present before 2.15, or if it has been added by this patch. If it is the latter, it will be fine, but there might be a problem or two otherwise. My guess is that this file is used to add some descriptions for the units of Oceania, as a few units of the nation are without description when playing the mod under 2.14. That is, however, a mere guess, so don't sue me if something goes wrong (of course, praise is welcomed if I am right). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



army9.trs was there in 2.14 too.

[Alneyan]

I will toy a bit with the 2.14 army9 file then. It seems to be working fine with the new one, but "seems" is not quite the same thing as "is". My theory mostly rests on the mention on the patch history about making Dominions able to run the Oceania mod (which does not exactly work under 2.14), but that remains an assumption.

Legacyspy, the link to download the Oceania mod is right below the links for the various patchs, and above the list of all the changes. Maybe your browser has not loaded the most recent Version of the page? At any rate, the direct download link is here (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/downloads/dom_215/oceania.zip) .

[Legacyspy]

Thanks alot.

[PvK]

This patch sounds great! I will have to celebrate by making some more mods!!

What was a "uw snowfall"?

[Alneyan]

It looks like the army9 file from 2.14 is exactly the same as the one in 2.15, so making one exe for each Version of the game should work out; and my theory about this file was incidentally quite wrong.

Edit: An uw snowfall was, I think, a snowfall happening underwater.

[Boron]

Congratulations , Illwinter . The different sprites above and underwater , changed magic etc. are all imo very creative . And i like the flair of Oceania as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

I have now though 1 worry :

How can Ryleh or Atlantis win against Oceania in earlygame ?

Most maps have only 1 ocean so even if you play orania e.g. with one player Ryleh and the other Oceania at about turn 10-20 both will meet .
Then if e.g. Oceania just took a f9 blessing and built some knights of the deeps and attacks asap how can Ryleh defend against that ?

And all Oceania troops are flying . But no way to stop them underwater . So even 25 PD will give huge trouble to a Ryleh earlygame army .
So you could just attack , buy 30 Pd in the conquered province and advance .
Then in about 5-10 turns you will have wiped out Ryleh no matter how well he plays .

Against the "common" Oceania troops Ryleh could probably defend more bad as good but at least defend by a combo meteorite guards , shambler tralls , crab hybrids and illithid soldiers .
But against e.g. F9 blessed Knights of the Deep he will be screwed no matter what he does . With the limited God Choices underwater Ryleh even can't do a good SC God .
Finally Oceania can make good thugs very early out of the Triton princes .

[Kristoffer O]

Oceania is designed for dom3 as a separate nation. Oceania is supposed to be somewhat stronger under water than the other two nations.

> How can Ryleh or Atlantis win against Oceania in earlygame ?

By being 2 vs one. This is of course not possible in dom2. So you'll have to come up with another solution. A big sea perhaps. You like huge maps IIRC. Two different seas? Poisoned weapons if you play atlantis vs oceania (it is not too difficult to replace R'lyeh instead of Atlantis).

Mind bLast vs knights perhaps. Tritons of your own with poisoned weapons. Loboguards. I dunno. Leave the sea. Get mindburn or paralyze.


Hmm, f9 blessing should not work under water. Burning weapons feels a bit out of place under water.

[quantum_mechani]

Thanks to Illwinter for taking the time to make this a mod rather than just waiting for Dom III.

I'm not sure it would be really be overpowered vs. Ry'leh... it is like saying Vanhiem is no good because using fire blessed vans you could overrun nations like Mictlan, T'ien Chi, or Ulm in the early game.

A few typos I think, the Mermidon description says he can't leave the water, but he is amphibious. Also, the Triton King mentions summoning hippocampuses, is this dominion/scale related?

EDIT: Didn't notice the Siren's air magic above water http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Turin]

walk on the land with your sirens, they become air1 water1 casters there. As for balance problems oceania seems to have really expensive researchers, that should balance their superiour armys out somewhat.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Kristoffer O said:
Hmm, f9 blessing should not work under water. Burning weapons feels a bit out of place under water.



You MISCREANT! If with enough faith you can tell mountains to lift up, why couldn't you have weapons burning with holy fire under all circumstances, for God's sake?

Or just rub them with white phosphorus before entering combat underwater, for Mendeleiev's sake! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Kristoffer O]

> You MISCREANT! If with enough faith you can tell mountains to lift up.

No you can't. They'd stare at you as if you were stupid. Mountains are very good at that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Kristoffer O]

quantum_mechani said:
A few typos I think, the Mermidon description says he can't leave the water, but he is amphibious. Also, the Triton King mentions summoning hippocampuses, is this dominion/scale related?




Mermidon has been changed. Initially it was not amphibious. Old description seems to hang on.

Hippo summon is dominions related. Works as VQ and GK summoning. This ability partly makes up for the missing conjuration spells of dom3.

[Boron]

Kristoffer O said:

Hmm, f9 blessing should not work under water. Burning weapons feels a bit out of place under water.



Hm at least the flaming weapons icon is shown . And they get +4 to attack as well .

So probably they work underwater . It is hard to say though because they have 2 attacks + on first turn the lance attack / battle turn already .
So hard to tell if the flaming weapons are really in effect or not .

[Kristoffer O]

Oh, yes they do work. It was just a sudden thought i got.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Kristoffer O said:
> You MISCREANT! If with enough faith you can tell mountains to lift up.

No you can't. They'd stare at you as if you were stupid. Mountains are very good at that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Omigod, what a shocking revelation! Could Jaysus be that wrong?

[Boron]

Kristoffer O said:
Oh, yes they do work. It was just a sudden thought i got.


Sitesearching + Clamhoarding with them is imo probably rather difficult compared to the other 2 underwater nations http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

Imo they are like an underwater pangenea new age , but way cooler http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Cainehill]

Kristoffer O said:
> You MISCREANT! If with enough faith you can tell mountains to lift up.

No you can't. They'd stare at you as if you were stupid. Mountains are very good at that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Mount Rushmore is the only mountain in the USA capable of staring - perhaps the mountains in Europe are different? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[archaeolept]

they stare, just very slowly

[deccan]

It's very interesting that Oceania is implemented as a mod (Oceania is spelled wrong on the web page btw). I'd bet it's to preserve compatibility with ongoing games. Currently, I see few (no?) MP games that are played with purely modded nations (except for that only modded nation game of course), so I wonder if this addition would make modded nations show up more frequently in MP games.

[Jurri]

Oceania seems to have the national heroes of Atlantis, which is pretty unthematic...

[Kristoffer O]

Good point Jurri. I think there is a #nonationalheroes command available in modding. I'll take a look. You can probably do it yourself as well. There are no heroes made for Oceania yet.

> I'd bet it's to preserve compatibility with ongoing games.

That's part of the deal. Another part is that some features were difficult to make as a theme. There are more restrictions on themes than on modded nations. As we are making an overhaul of the nation/theme system in dom3 it would be quite bothersome work on another theme remake just for dom2.

[PvK]

Kristoffer O said:
Good point Jurri. I think there is a #nonationalheroes command available in modding. I'll take a look. You can probably do it yourself as well. There are no heroes made for Oceania yet.

...



Yes, #clearheroes. Or if you want to do a lot more work, you can mod each of the unit numbers of the nation's heroes, like I did in my Amazon Empire mod. Hardest part of that is needing to make image files for the hero units.

PvK

[tinkthank]

Nice mod!
The replacement nation does indeed seem quite powerful; sirens are an excellent touch, and also happen to be an easy way for Oceana to expand in coastal provinces early-game. What is interesting about them is that if they fail to lure an enemy commander, nothing happens! It is a "no-risk" assassination attempt. That seems pretty tough. Methinks almost a wee bit too powerful.

I like the fact that the underwater units all have strat-moves of 1 -- finally!

I think Oceana is certainly more interesting and powerful, at least at first glance, than Atlantis. Water and nature, what an interesting combo!

[tinkthank]

Kristoffer O said:
> How can Ryleh or Atlantis win against Oceania in earlygame ?

By being 2 vs one. This is of course not possible in dom2.



Excuse me, am I reading this correctly? Are you implying that -- unlike dom2 -- we will be able to ally in dom3 (perhaps in a way similar to what I suggested in the Wishlist thread)? May I indeed get excited and desire to shake your hand -- or must you dash my well-deserved hopes upon the harsh rocks of your unyielding will?

[Kristoffer O]

I'm only implying that when there are three underwater nations you are not as alone in the dark. In MP at least you will not be certain that your own strength is enough to conquer all seas.

So wait with your hand shakes until i hint at alliances.

I do not dash hopes on my unyielding will. I might however suffocate them with uncertain answers.

[tinkthank]

Suffocation: Level 4 Marketing, path requirements: Cryptic Ambiguity 3 and Resource Inscrutiny 1. Number of Effects: 100+. Damage: 100+ (pain damage only). Magic resistance and stubborn hardheaded blut reasking offers no defense against this spell.

[Taqwus]

The sirens do face a slight risk -- if the targeted commander is lured, but is immune to drowning; then they fight, and while a Siren has magic, it has very few slots for toys. The luring also seems easily resisted. All in all, I'm not sure it's much faster than expansion using Star Children, who can also operate in non-coastal provinces (although Triton commanders are probably still death for them, and they have trouble with the sheer speed of Knight commanders).

It's an interesting nation; the recruitable national tritons are handy. That the Capricorns lose half their magic on land, and that the only priestly unit is aquatic, gives quite a bit of flavor. The latter bit worries me a bit for an AI, 'tho; will it actively pursue getting an amphibious or land-only priest (e.g. by prophetizing, or by summoning?)?

[PhilD]

I downloaded the Linux (x86) patch, but tar tells me the header is incorrect, and won't show me the archive contents.

Has anybody met with better luck?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Cainehill said:
Mount Rushmore is the only mountain in the USA capable of staring - perhaps the mountains in Europe are different? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Maybe they'll just turn a blind eye at you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[CJN]

PhilD said:
I downloaded the Linux (x86) patch, but tar tells me the header is incorrect, and won't show me the archive contents.

Has anybody met with better luck?



Yes, it worked for me.
The file has a .tar extension, but it is in fact a compressed tar archive. Did you use the z option with tar?

[Alneyan]

Someone, please slap me. The army9 file must have been introduced prior to the 2.14 patch, hence its presence in the 2.15 patch; I was overlooking the obvious, as usual.

Back to the Oceania mod: I gave a Moonshine Cap to an Astral 1 Capricorn, and it kept Astral 1 on the land (he should have lost Astral 1, and the Cap should have had no effect on his paths). Is it intentional, or a bug? It seems rather interesting to me (pay to keep your magic on the land), but that might not exactly be what Illwinter had in mind.

[Vicious Love]

Bishop fish! Finally, some validation!
Always loved that thing, I did. My favorite bit of Christian mythology.

[Cainehill]

One bad thing about the 2.15 patched executable: it seems that running a second copy under Windows causes problems - the 2nd executable takes 100% of the CPU, making it _very_ unpleasant and almost unusable. (For instance, when you want to check something from the game while writing a message, it's almost mandatory to bring up a 2nd copy so you can look at the turn while writing.)

I expect this'll also cause problems for anyone attempting to host a game on the same machine they're playing on - ie, blitz games.

I didn't see this happening before I applied the patch, albeit maybe it's just my machine (Windows 98 SE), etc.

[Cainehill]

Alneyan said:
Back to the Oceania mod: I gave a Moonshine Cap to an Astral 1 Capricorn, and it kept Astral 1 on the land (he should have lost Astral 1, and the Cap should have had no effect on his paths). Is it intentional, or a bug? It seems rather interesting to me (pay to keep your magic on the land), but that might not exactly be what Illwinter had in mind.



It seems likely to me that the astral path is simply reduced by one on land, so empowering or putting a starshine skullcap on it raises it high enough to still have 1 on land. This would be consistent with the way a number of the shapeshifters (primarily dragons) have their paths reduced in one form.

[Alneyan]

You are correct Cainehill; I thought the magic reduction was because of two different sets of magic paths on the land and water Capricorns, but it is merely a reduction of 1 level everywhere. If this drops the level in any path to 0, it is still possible to raise it back to 1 with any item, so the path is not "lost".

[Vicious Love]

Would this make it possible to use an air path booster underwater? And would it have to be equipped on land, when air >0?
Also, any word on bugs relating to path reduction and spells like Returning, Teleport, Twiceborn, etc?

Update: Err... not that an aquatic nation would want to cast Twiceborn unless Thetis' Blessing was in effect.

[deccan]

Alneyan said:
You are correct Cainehill; I thought the magic reduction was because of two different sets of magic paths on the land and water Capricorns, but it is merely a reduction of 1 level everywhere. If this drops the level in any path to 0, it is still possible to raise it back to 1 with any item, so the path is not "lost".



That's interesting to know. So I suppose that even at 0 astral, he can still be mind dueled!

[Kristoffer O]

Seems likely.

[Alneyan]

An Astral 1 Capricon wasn't Mind Dueled on the land, so it looks like you do need Astral 1 or better to be targetted by a Mind Duel. (My astral mage overrode my script, and cast Luck, Paralyse/Mind Burn/Paralyse/Mind Burn)

Still about the Capricorns, they have a limited Stealth ability on the land. If they move from a water province to a land province, they can still hide (you will have to click on the province to put back the hide order though), and so will not be attacked even with their Stealth gone. They cannot move either, so they will have to stay lurking in the province, or to try taking it.

[PvK]

I had a lot of fun spending most of yesterday playing a new 2.15 game as Oceania. It didn't seem overpowered against other water nations to me - they can all field swimmers, fodder, and armored underwater troops. Oceania may have a slight troop advantage, or not, but it seems perhaps weaker than Atlantis or R'lyeh at research, magic, and above-sea troops. It's different and interesting, anyway. Luring folks into the sea is fun... and interesting when the unexpected happens.

Regarding magic-changing capricorns and sirens... I wonder if their morphing magic skills can lead to discounts in empowerment - I didn't try that yet...

PvK

[Kristoffer O]

No empowerment cheezieness possible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Edi]

This is a repost from the bug thread, but thought it should be put here as well because it is relevant to this thread and won't be buried under other issues.

Three bugs with Oceania:
Mermidon (1101), the land-form, has wrong action points. It retains the AP value of the underwater form, Base 24 modified by armor, when it should have base 14. As a consequence, they are as fast as heavy cavalry on land.
Turtle warriors turn to regular mermen (1046) when you take them to land and back to water again. This is because the regular Oceanian merman (1046) has land-form merman (1047), which is shared by the turtle warrior. 1047 reverts back to 1046, regardless of whether it started out as turtle warrior or merman 1046.
Turtle Captain suffers the same fate as turtle warrior, he just becomes merman captain.

I think the turtle warrior and captain bugs are a consequence of incorrect secondshape assignment, because turtle warrior is #1097 and turtle captain is #1099, but I can't get monsters #1098 and #1100 (presumably the turtle warrior and captain landforms, respectively) visible in any way. These bugs take a lot of the flavor out from Oceania, in my opinion.

Edi

[tinkthank]

Ì must have been really out of the action for a few months -- when was Clam of Pearls changed from 2W to 2W1N ? Was this in 2.15? I cant find these balance change notes anywhere. Is this mentioned in a thread somewhere?

(Boron: This is another reason why "clamhoarding" will not be more difficult with them, Boron. Actually, I see no real feasible way to give them a fire blessing, since they dont have any pretender with decent fire-skills.)

[Edi]

The clam is changed in the Oceania mod, I'm not sure if it's changed in 2.15 itself, because the Oceania mod code has the change implemented.

[Boron]

tinkthank said:
Ì must have been really out of the action for a few months -- when was Clam of Pearls changed from 2W to 2W1N ? Was this in 2.15? I cant find these balance change notes anywhere. Is this mentioned in a thread somewhere?

(Boron: This is another reason why "clamhoarding" will not be more difficult with them, Boron. Actually, I see no real feasible way to give them a fire blessing, since they dont have any pretender with decent fire-skills.)


It is only changed in the oceania mod :
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre> #selectitem "Clam of Pearls"
#mainpath 2
#mainlevel 2
#secondarypath 6
#secondarylevel 1
#end
</pre><hr />

Hm this is unfair though .
So in a game with oceania mod they are the only nation which can hoard clams en masse .
All other nations need a jade sorceress for that with lucky random picks or really luck with random picks from their mages .

Hopefully this idea is not followed in dominions 3 .
I wanna rather see more hoarditems there especially like soul contract http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Turin]

You want to see more hoarditems?? Playing with tons of hoard items removes most of the strategy imho.

Who cares how many provinces you have when your income comes mostly from clams/fetishes.
I really like that in games with no hoarding you have to choose how to spend your limited resources and the game doesn´t turn into a giant wishfest/micromanagement nightmare.

Especially since you can get such massive discounts on forging.

Take the god is a bullet game for example. I had the forge of the ancients up for ~20 turns. Together with a hammer and a forge bonus site I can forge clams for 2 water gems. Now if there hadn´t been a limit on hoard items in that game my income would be so humongous now, that the other nations wouldn´t have the slightest chance resulting in an easy win for me.

With the hoarding limiting rule there are 4 other powerful nations left, and I have to consider carefully on what I should spend my big, but not unlimited income and I´m looking forward to a very challenging endgame.

[PrinzMegaherz]

Oh please, no additional diplomacy.
I think the diplomatic options in dominions 2, or rather the lack of such, add more to the game than any additional stuff could do.




tinkthank said:

Kristoffer O said:
&gt; How can Ryleh or Atlantis win against Oceania in earlygame ?

By being 2 vs one. This is of course not possible in dom2.



Excuse me, am I reading this correctly? Are you implying that -- unlike dom2 -- we will be able to ally in dom3 (perhaps in a way similar to what I suggested in the Wishlist thread)? May I indeed get excited and desire to shake your hand -- or must you dash my well-deserved hopes upon the harsh rocks of your unyielding will?

[archaeolept]

lol. I think Kristoffer was just pointing out the obvious, that you can't have R'lyeh, Atlantis, and Oceania in the same game in DomII (as Oceania replaces Atlantis) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Tuidjy]

&gt; You want to see more hoarditems?? Playing with tons of hoard items removes
&gt; most of the strategy imho.

Just in your not humble enough opinion. First of all, hoarding is not 100%
necessary to win. I consider myself a decent player, and I seldom
start hoarding before turn 20-30, by which time many people have gone critical.
Second, hoarding is in no way a guarantee for winning. I would put it behind
diplomacy, race selection, and anticipating the enemy, in that order. Third,
even if hoarding in general were necessary to win, there are still enough
different kinds of hoarding to make things interesting. So, yes, I would
like to see more hoardable items.

&gt; Who cares how many provinces you have when your income comes mostly from
&gt; clams/fetishes.

And this is necessarily bad? If you managed to get to that point with just
your capital province, you must be really good. If not, what are you
complaining about?

&gt; I really like that in games with no hoarding you have to choose how to spend
&gt; your limited resources and the game doesn´t turn into a giant
&gt; wishfest/micromanagement nightmare.

What I really hate more than house rules, is unenforceable house rules.

&gt; Especially since you can get such massive discounts on forging.

You can? Then you must have done something right. Doing something is right is
what the game is about.

[Alneyan]

Technically, you can enforce "no hoarding" from a game, as item modding should now be available. Make clams and the whole thing require 5 Nature and 5 Air, and you will be virtually rid of them (summon spells are easier to remove from the picture).

The other way is, as usual, to have a devoted host (and host only) check the game every single turn. This would, however, not exactly be feasible in this case, unless you only have a few players in the game.

[Ivan Pedroso]

Turin said:
Take the god is a bullet game for example. I had the forge of the ancients up for ~20 turns. Together with a hammer and a forge bonus site I can forge clams for 2 water gems. Now if there hadn´t been a limit on hoard items in that game my income would be so humongous now, that the other nations wouldn´t have the slightest chance resulting in an easy win for me.

With the hoarding limiting rule there are 4 other powerful nations left, and I have to consider carefully on what I should spend my big, but not unlimited income and I´m looking forward to a very challenging endgame.



I'm C'tis in that game - and I feel that because of the limits on clams/fetishes/stones/contracts we'll have an interesting endgame.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I don't think your forge would have been up that long had it not been for those limits http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif - but I totally agree - if there are no limitations a Forge should be dispelled ASAP. And I hope that domIII will have well balanced gem producing items, they do serve a purpose as an on-board gem surply for a battle-mage. Actually they could serve to lessen micro-management if they were only used in that way, but of cause people abuse them.

Just got an idea(sorry if it has already been proposed) :
What if gem producing items were only usable by mages with a combined magic path level of 3 or above. They are the only ones that really need gems in battle, because most spells that have a gem cost have path requirements of 3 or above (so a WSS mage could use a pearl and would thus always have some on him, and if he communions or otherwise gets boosted in astral - viola - he has the gems he needs to cast the big stuff). And there are no cheap 3-path(combined) summons to use as mules (spectral mages are 10D, and so perhaps a restriction of 4+ combined paths might work better). Could this work ? You could still slap one on a commander that didn't have the required magic skill, it just wouldn't produce any gems, if you need to transport such an item. The fantasy-rationale behind this restriction could be that it requires some skill to harness the gems from the item. You would still be able to "hoard" them, but the mules would a least not be cheap scouts etc. Or make the total combined path requirement 4, then it would be quite expensive to use more than 20 of each - and I wouldn't call 20-30 pearls in a big game "hoarding".

[ckfnpku]

Another way would be if the gems where tied to the item, so they couldn't be put in the lab. And perhaps the items could even be cursed, so they can't be moved around.

[PvK]

Alneyan said:
...
The other way is, as usual, to have a devoted host (and host only) check the game every single turn. This would, however, not exactly be feasible in this case, unless you only have a few players in the game.



They could check only every 10 or 20 turns, as long as the penalty for violation was doing their turn for them and throwing away all their magic items and gems. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif Hoarding doesn't do any good unless the hoarder can keep the hoard for longer than that.

PvK

[Cainehill]

Edi said:
The clam is changed in the Oceania mod, I'm not sure if it's changed in 2.15 itself, because the Oceania mod code has the change implemented.



Heh. That seems to make it unlikely that the Oceania mod will be used in many MP games - certainly not games that include other nations like R'lyeh that can utilize clamming without the mod. (It'd be one thing if the mod removed clams altogether, but to take it away from some nations while keeping them for the Oceania theme?)

[Alneyan]

Well, a clam would be useful before ten turns are over if you only wanted to alchemise water gems into astral pearls (you would need 10 water to get 5 astral via alchemy, and so a clam is better after five turns in this case). I get your idea though, even if this particular rule does not require an host watch. Setting the hoarding items to cost 160 gems each would make any hoarding strategy slightly counter-productive. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

On the same topic, it would actually be possible to enforce a limit on the number of hoarding items per player. They would be set to cost the said 160 gems, and the host would have one nation in the game (and only one province, cut from the rest of the world). Set the Wish spell to cost nothing and make it available only to the host's nation, and the host could still forge enough hoarding items and give them to the players once they pay the regular fee. Once a player reaches the level needed to cast Wish, the spell would be set to normal cost/level, and no longer host-only.

On a somewhat related matter: is there a way to prevent Dominion from spreading for a certain amount of turns? I have been trying to do that, but the best I can think of would be to put Stone Idols in all provinces neighbouring the starting provinces, but that would take several turns at the very least.

[PvK]

A clam might be useful before 10 or 20 turns, but that doesn't mean that hoarding clams beyond some limit for 10 or 20 turns would be a good idea if the penalty was going to be a referee making you lose a turn and throwing away your clams and other penalty items and gems. Even if you only lost the clams, it would prevent unlimited hoarding of them.

As for tricks to keep dominion from spreading... I think stone idols and/or skeptics would work, if you are imagining giving them to some sort of referee nation while other nations are inactive for a few turns. It wouldn't need to take many turns if the map were edited so that the referee nation starts with enough (a whole bunch of) amphibious spy units who are modded to be able to teleport on turn 1 (maybe Teleport can be a zero-gem national Water-1 spell for the first few turns).

PvK

[Alneyan]

Skeptics. That was what I needed. Every nation would start with some of them, and they would be put around the starting province to prevent Dominion spread. Once the game actually begins, the Skeptics would be killed in battle. Thanks PvK!

I just noticed the #additem command. *Sighs* It would have worked as well, though it would have been more cumbersome. I thought you couldn't give specific items to commanders via the map making options, but I was wrong (as I am wont to be).

[Kristoffer O]

Edi said:
This is a repost from the bug thread, but thought it should be put here as well because it is relevant to this thread and won't be buried under other issues.

Three bugs with Oceania:
Mermidon (1101), the land-form, has wrong action points. It retains the AP value of the underwater form, Base 24 modified by armor, when it should have base 14. As a consequence, they are as fast as heavy cavalry on land.
Turtle warriors turn to regular mermen (1046) when you take them to land and back to water again. This is because the regular Oceanian merman (1046) has land-form merman (1047), which is shared by the turtle warrior. 1047 reverts back to 1046, regardless of whether it started out as turtle warrior or merman 1046.
Turtle Captain suffers the same fate as turtle warrior, he just becomes merman captain.

I think the turtle warrior and captain bugs are a consequence of incorrect secondshape assignment, because turtle warrior is #1097 and turtle captain is #1099, but I can't get monsters #1098 and #1100 (presumably the turtle warrior and captain landforms, respectively) visible in any way. These bugs take a lot of the flavor out from Oceania, in my opinion.

Edi



Crap!

The Mermidon is quite easily fixed. Just paste in this in the oceania.dm
#selectmonster 1101
#ap 14
#end

The landshape stuff is more of a problem. There is currently no landshape modding command. A patch is needed to fix this problem.

BTW the turtle captain had cavalry move as well in his land shape.

There is an ad hoc way to solve the problem. The independent merman (can be found in independent seas) can be replaced by turtle warriors. The result would be that other uw nations might come across turtle warriors, but it is not very likely.

Making the independent merman a turtle warrior:
#selectmonster 1065
#descr "Mermen are amphibious beings related to Tritons but have fish tails instead of legs. Mermen have strange powers of transformation and can remove their tails to walk on dry land. Some mermen build coastal villages. They are used to fighting on dry land. They are called turtle warriors by their bethren and are often used in raids on inland provinces."
#spr1 "./oceandata/turt1.tga"
#spr2 "./oceandata/turt2.tga"
#weapon 1
#armor 25
#armor 114
#end

#selectmonster 1066
#descr "Mermen are amphibious beings related to Tritons but have fish tails instead of legs. Mermen have strange powers of transformation and can remove their tails to walk on dry land. Some mermen build coastal villages. They are used to fighting on dry land. They are called turtle warriors by their bethren and are often used in raids on inland provinces."
#spr1 "./oceandata/turtland1.tga"
#spr2 "./oceandata/turtland2.tga"
#def 10
#weapon 1
#armor 25
#armor 114
#end

Making the independent merman captain a turtle captain:
#selectmonster 1067
#descr "Mermen are amphibious beings related to Tritons but have fish tails instead of legs. Mermen have strange powers of transformation and can remove their tails to walk on dry land. Some mermen build coastal villages. They are used to fighting on dry land. They are called turtle warriors by their bethren and are often used in raids on inland provinces."
#spr1 "./oceandata/turtcap1.tga"
#spr2 "./oceandata/turtcap2.tga"
#hp 12
#str 11
#weapon 1
#armor 25
#armor 114
#end

#selectmonster 1068
#descr "Mermen are amphibious beings related to Tritons but have fish tails instead of legs. Mermen have strange powers of transformation and can remove their tails to walk on dry land. Some mermen build coastal villages. They are used to fighting on dry land. They are called turtle warriors by their bethren and are often used in raids on inland provinces."
#spr1 "./oceandata/turtcapland1.tga"
#spr2 "./oceandata/turtcapland2.tga"
#hp 12
#str 11
#def 10
#weapon 1
#armor 25
#armor 114
#end

You will also have to replace the recruitment nbr of the turtle warriors with the new ones.

#addrecunit 1097 -&gt; #addrecunit 1065
#addreccom 1099 -&gt; #addreccom 1067


---

Do you want this made in the oceania mod or do you prefer to fix it yourselves until next patch solves the problem?

I would personally prefer to let you fix the problem. A oceania 1.0, another 1.1 to fix this problem and a third 1.2 when next patch might be a bother. On the other hand it would probably be easier for you to find a consensus (regarding what Version to use in MP) if we posted a new official Version of the mod on our site.

Let me know what you think of the suggested solution and if there are any problems or bugs.

[Leadman]

Please post an offical Version on your site.

Thanks,
Leadman

[Olive]

Boron said:

tinkthank said:
Ì must have been really out of the action for a few months -- when was Clam of Pearls changed from 2W to 2W1N ? Was this in 2.15? I cant find these balance change notes anywhere. Is this mentioned in a thread somewhere?

(Boron: This is another reason why "clamhoarding" will not be more difficult with them, Boron. Actually, I see no real feasible way to give them a fire blessing, since they dont have any pretender with decent fire-skills.)


It is only changed in the oceania mod :
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre> #selectitem "Clam of Pearls"
#mainpath 2
#mainlevel 2
#secondarypath 6
#secondarylevel 1
#end
</pre><hr />

Hm this is unfair though .
So in a game with oceania mod they are the only nation which can hoard clams en masse .
All other nations need a jade sorceress for that with lucky random picks or really luck with random picks from their mages .

Hopefully this idea is not followed in dominions 3 .
I wanna rather see more hoarditems there especially like soul contract http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif



I don't understand. Does it mean that clams are totally wiped out ? Or are there any means to get some ? In my last game, I've enabled oceania (don't know why...) and I've pytium. I've empowered a 6th water level mage and he still can't forge any. How can I forge some ?

[Alneyan]

It means clams have different requirements: every school has a number, and all schools are listed in the same order as in the game (Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Astral, Death, Nature, Blood), with the first one (Fire) being 0, and the last one (Blood) being 7. Holy/Unholy have their own numbers, but they are irrelevant for magic items.

So, what those commands say is that clams require a level 2 in Water, and a level 1 in Nature. Oceania has no trouble getting such mages, but other nations will find it much harder.

[Olive]

OK, it's clear now. Thanks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .