What it will take for me to purchase Dom III

[BigJMoney]

I don't know how most of the entrenched community (especially those of you from Dom I) feels about this topic, but I'd like to offer my opinion as a still fairly new player to Dominions. I don't really play Dominions very much. I played the demo, and I paid retail for the game, but after a few games, I just can't bring myself to play it again. The reason? I think summoning magic is too necessary for winning the multiplayer games. And, if it is used in Single player the same way it needs to be used in Multi Player, you can utterly dominate your opponents. Dominions II has a nice range of Empires, a nice range of units, a huge range of spells; thus, a varied range of available tactics. The problem is, none of the truly winning tactics seem to rely upon all of the nuances that can arise when you mix the Empire specifc traits and units with all the other factors. They do seem to rely on summoning magic, however. Now, what Empire you choose will affect when, how and which summoning spells you use. It also affects the early game strategy. Supposedly, some Empires use magic more than others. Truthfully, I think they all rely upon it exactly in the same way. Some Empires have more and varied magical options open to them, but I can't think of a single empire that can rely on any of its non-magic special abilities to win a game.

Now, maybe all this is intentional. It could be that Dominions simply isn't the right game for me. However, with all of the 'content' that Dom II has, I find it very hard to believe that it was intended to be the "summoned armies game". One other area this comes up in Dominions is in some of the "must have" magic items that exist in the game. I read a very informative article that a WotC Magic: The Gathering designer wrote on good strategy gaming design. One of his points was that a "broken" piece was a piece in a game that the majority of players look at and say "why should I NOT include that piece in my strategy?" That's sort of how I feel about a few things in Dominions, either a few spells or a few magic items, maybe depending on which Empire you choose.

Anyway, this isn't meant to be a threat or negative criticism. It's just my opinion on the few areas I think Dominions could do better in for Part III. And, if they aren't addressed, I can't say I would be willing to buy it. Which would be too bad, because Dominions has so much going for it.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[Arralen]

You're right.
This is a very accurate analysis and critcism of Dom2.

It might help somewhat to try a game with
very difficult research
map with 10..14 prov/players
indies 6 or 7
sites <45% *i forgot to mention*
That way it should take some time for the summons to show up. Nations like Vanheim with a Fire9-Water9 bless could get away without any summons for quite some time. But, o.c., in the long run they are inevitable.

Unless you use some mods.
E.g. you may mod the scales and the production settings so you get more growth, more supplies and more gold - all this will strengthen the conventional units somewhat.

And if I ever find the time before Dom3 arrives (or maybe even afterwards), I'll finish my mod which roughly doubles the gems costs of summons and will make most of them require upkeep. This is a huge task, so I can't promise I'll ever finish it, sadly.

A.

edit: added sites setting

[Sammas]

Even with the bias toward magic, Dominions still has far more content and depth in it than any other game in its genre.

But yes, I too think it could be even better if national troops played a role throughout the game (configurable PD? more spells enhancing national troops and troop production? better gains from XP?).

At the moment, to lessen the power of magic, you need to make research harder, reduce magic sites (on large maps), and ban or limit clams, fetishes, and blood stones.

[Chazar]

Using small maps (10-12 per participating player) is all it takes make the game to progress quicker, where there isnt simply enough time to accumulate the gems necessary for lots of summonings... How long do your games take? Are they over after 40-60 turns?

Another thing is the playstyle: If all player wait and built-up, national troops are a burden by their upkeep alone. As soon as there is one aggressive player around, the game changes, as gems are burned by mages on the battlefield rather than hoarded and turned into summonings...

But you are still right somehow: resources, upkeep, food, slow movement are much too much trouble for troops which get burned away by the next mage, if there are so many upkeep free non-eating critters around, which actually survive a blast and deal damage all by themselves. National troops can use a little boost (see mods) and battlespells should have casting times longer than a single turn.

There are boosting spells, but most are area-1 or battlefield wide and I agree that there should be more 10-area boosts and more of the barksin variety, which also have some drawbacks...

[Ironhawk]

Yeah your points are good BigMoney. I'm also saddened by how little national troops get used as well. Dom2 definitely has a bias towards summoned creatures for combat. The only way you could really get away with it is with an uber-bless on a small map as Arralen pointed out. But of course thats just a niche case.

That said, I still think that Dom2 is the best MP game out there. National troops aside, it still has the most depth of anything I've seen. Plus it really has the format and pacing for long term multiplayer games down *pat*.

As for how to solve the problem of national troops... dunno. Maybe you could have it where mortal/national troops gain exp way faster? Or perhaps there could be national spells which effect only national units? Kind of like a bless but on regulars? That would make national units increase in power as you put in more research.

Might also be interesting to have new buildable structures. They would add on a nation-specific site that would allow you to recruit really really powerful national elite troops on par with summons. Could make the sites cost like 2000gold and like 30gems of whatever that nation normally uses? Some kind of mechanic like that where you can put an investment in that is not based on Research and magic/gems.

Oh - I forgot to mention the battlefield killer spells (wrathful skies, etc). Gonna have to do something about them if you want to have more emphasis on troops. Right now battle magic goes: single target, ball target, slightly larger ball, and *entire battlefield*. Might be nice to have some more granuality there and less extremeity at the end http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[condors]

I think every troop summoned or not should have an upkeep value attached to it (closest to being free should be your national troops, than neutrals, highest should be magic summons). Bane lords shouldn't serve me for nothing while commander joe costs me money every turn.(imho)

[Arralen]

As I Said - doubling the gem cost and giving them a gold cost (upkeep = cost/15) will do the trick. I started working on the mod, but it's a hughe task and I doubt I'll ever get it finished without help.

Btw., doubling the summoning costs will make thugs from hired commanders more viable, and forged low-level items more valuable. Atm, who's going to forge a spear for 5 nature gems if he can get 10 or more vine men for the same amount of gems?

[Chazar]

condors said:
I think every troop summoned or not should have an upkeep value attached to it (closest to being free should be your national troops, than neutrals, highest should be magic summons). Bane lords shouldn't serve me for nothing while commander joe costs me money every turn.(imho)


Completely agreed! Resources, upkeep & food cleverly govern troops! The whole thing is just side-stepped by powerful non-eating upkeep-free summons! I don't mind ashen-empire's soulless and their ilk, but immortal commanders should demand something for their power! So what's the solution?

Limiting the time of service of a summon, thus turning higher summons into mercernaries paid with gems instead of gold? Hmm, not sure if I would like that... Otherwise, undead/demon pretenders receiving discounts on summoning might then present a bridge between both systems.

Let's hope that DomIII improves that situation, without loosing its endgame-flavour as a war of gods and magic where mortal pawns are consumed by the dozen...this is important too, isn't it?

[Arralen]

You don't have to wait for Dom3 - modding Dom2 gives enough possibilities to rectify the shortcomings IMHO.

So any volunteers to help me ?

[shovah]

Chazar said:

condors said:
I think every troop summoned or not should have an upkeep value attached to it (closest to being free should be your national troops, than neutrals, highest should be magic summons). Bane lords shouldn't serve me for nothing while commander joe costs me money every turn.(imho)


Completely agreed! Resources, upkeep & food cleverly govern troops! The whole thing is just side-stepped by powerful non-eating upkeep-free summons! I don't mind ashen-empire's soulless and their ilk, but immortal commanders should demand something for their power! So what's the solution?

Limiting the time of service of a summon, thus turning higher summons into mercernaries paid with gems instead of gold? Hmm, not sure if I would like that... Otherwise, undead/demon pretenders receiving discounts on summoning might then present a bridge between both systems.

Let's hope that DomIII improves that situation, without loosing its endgame-flavour as a war of gods and magic where mortal pawns are consumed by the dozen...this is important too, isn't it?



would immortality not be enough of a payment?

[Endoperez]

shovah said:

Chazar said:

condors said:
I think every troop summoned or not should have an upkeep value attached to it (closest to being free should be your national troops, than neutrals, highest should be magic summons). Bane lords shouldn't serve me for nothing while commander joe costs me money every turn.(imho)


Completely agreed! Resources, upkeep & food cleverly govern troops! The whole thing is just side-stepped by powerful non-eating upkeep-free summons! I don't mind ashen-empire's soulless and their ilk, but immortal commanders should demand something for their power! So what's the solution?
SNIP




would immortality not be enough of a payment?



Shovah makes a good point. Most of the immortal commanders are not recruited, but granted the power of immortality. This is the case with at least Demiliches and regular Vampires, probably with Vampire Counts as well. Similarly, most of the summons are willing to fight, for the gratitude of letting them here or for the joy of fighting on itself.

Non-mindless commanders, maybe units too, should have some kind of an upkeep cost though. There isn't any reason to use national units over summoned ones. It would be nice to have a reason to do what I've been doing all along. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
In Master of Magic, only national units could become experienced. This might work in Dominions as well. Creatures like Devils should have to fight for their first star as much as the Velites fight for their third or fourth, as the trident-wielders have already fought for centuries in the depths of Hell from where they were summoned.

[Chazar]

Well, flavour is important, but game mechanics are more so. There should be some restriction, and it is not too hard to come with explanations, e.g.: Elemental royalities simply do not exist out there on there own, but are distributed all over the world. The summoner forces these raw elemental power to form the entity it forms when angered. The spell's power to bind the raw elemental power into an AirQueen only last a number of turns, but can be renewed as well as stolen by an enemy mage. Otherwise the force slowly starts to disperse again (slow loss of HPs?) until it is called upon again to concentrate and form the identity it has done so a thousands of times before. Raw elemental powers like it quiet, until angered that is... Check common fairy tales why it might be a bad idea to bind devils to do your bidding. Devils need to be amused somehow, so an upkeep in the form of blood slaves (taken from lab) is not too unrealistic, is it? A lack of slaves must not drive them away, as devils take promises all too often, but their need could make it difficult to assemble enough blood slaves to summon even more. I am also happy with Devils/Demons consuming a quarter blood slave or less each...(e.g. as in once every four month) Undead and especially vampires feed on the living and spread diseases, so each undead in a province might yield a chance to tip the growth scale in that province towards death or even spread disease like some already do. This would not hurt the undead themes, but would make it more difficult for non-undead themes to use undead in abundance... Furthermore, I did not understand it that way that Wraith Lords were given immortality by the mage, especially not by pretenders lacking immortality by themselves (a ritual to make sacred commanders immortal would be nice). So why do they serve at all? Because of an old forgotten vow? No, thank you, I had enough of that before in that movie... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )

Again, the restrictions for national troops are plenty, thematic and useful, but summons are a bit out of the way. I am not saying though that ALL summons should require upkeep - wolves already need food, mechanical men need resources to heal, etc. - but a bit of variety cant hurt the game, can it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

---

I agree on the experience issues, as I wrote in an earlier tread months ago, experience for national troops should be enhanced. Luckily, mindless troops do not get experience already...

[shovah]

i was thinking of something like that, maybe summons cost gems to maintain, and will either
A:slowly drain your lab supply
B:Drain commanders held supply if no lab is present or
C:slowly decay/lose health overtime
this would be a realatively small amount (a percentage of summon cost perhaps) and although would trouble small amounts of summons would easily start to cripple players with large amounts of said creatures unless they clam in which case they will have a big advantage wether this rule exists or not (and clamming hopefully will be harder in dom3)

[Chazar]

I do not oppose clamming, since it isnt an issue if your games are finished by turn 50-70. The current balance mod is way to restrictive in that respect imho, e.g. as Machaka I had real trouble to forge a few fever fetishes to keep my "flaming arrow" archers hords going without the managing hordes of scouts shipping gems...

[shovah]

just as a little off topic note how would a flaming windguide combo work? just wondering . and yes although not a problem on small games they generally dont tend to get summon heavy so........

[Ironhawk]

That combo works quite well. Tho I think only Arco can reasonably implement it.

[B0rsuk]

Unless you use some mods.
E.g. you may mod the scales and the production settings so you get more growth, more supplies and more gold - all this will strengthen the conventional units somewhat.



I don't like this solution at all. Why should I have to pay additional costs to have halfway decent conventional army ? I already pay in gold and food - and now design points ? Scales aren't free.
I think that base income should be increased, not effectiveness of scales. Of course, if base amount of gold/resources was higher, scales would get you more, too. But I don't like the concept of scales being a requirement for decent conventional army.

[WraithLord]

I think that lowering the price of national fighting units (not mages) can make armies of normal troops more of an option.

After all, there are some pretty powerful national troops almost for all the nations.

For example a mod that halves the cost of all recruitable fighting units. (almost equivalent to doubling the cost of all summons, except that mages are doubly more expensive which further hardens the requirements for summons)

[B0rsuk]

izaqyos said:
For example a mod that halves the cost of all recruitable fighting units. (almost equivalent to doubling the cost of all summons, except that mages are doubly more expensive which further hardens the requirements for summons)



Would put more strain on commanders, and supplies (food), as bigger armies are harder to maintain.

[Arralen]

B0rsuk said:

Unless you use some mods.
E.g. you may mod the scales and the production settings so you get more growth, more supplies and more gold - all this will strengthen the conventional units somewhat.



I don't like this solution at all. Why should I have to pay additional costs to have halfway decent conventional army ? I already pay in gold and food - and now design points ? Scales aren't free.
I think that base income should be increased, not effectiveness of scales. Of course, if base amount of gold/resources was higher, scales would get you more, too. But I don't like the concept of scales being a requirement for decent conventional army.



It was "scales and production settings". Means you get more gold, ress and supplies with the same scales. Similar to choosing the "rich" setting.
And I don't see where I suggest you would have to pay additionally in scales if you want to build a conventional army. After all, you have use decent scales to do that with the basic settings already ...

On the other hand, it's not so much about making positiv scales better, but make negative scales more costly. Atm, lots of people go for negative growth and negative productivity to feed the points into high magic / double bless strategies. IMHO, death scale should really hurt.

And as there are only random events to kill pop but no to give free pop, having real high growth-%tage with positive scale wouldn't hurt either.


concerning troop cost
With troops costing only 10 gold, there's only so much you can do about the pricing ... qm already made lots of troops 20% cheaper in his complete balance mod, and I like the changes. But there's not much room if you want to differentiate between milita, light, heavy infantry and special elite troops ... .

[Sandman]

National troops should be upgradeable. At the moment they derive rather less benefit from magic research than mages, summons and SCs.

Suggestion: Castable perma-upgrades: These are a set of spells which confer a permanent bonus on mundane humans or similar. Fire resistance, demon blood, lycanthropy, undeath, etc. The key feature? Only one upgrade per unit - they don't stack. Even so, it gives you a lot of options to play with when it comes to national troops.

[WraithLord]

B0rsuk said:

izaqyos said:
For example a mod that halves the cost of all recruitable fighting units. (almost equivalent to doubling the cost of all summons, except that mages are doubly more expensive which further hardens the requirements for summons)



Would put more strain on commanders, and supplies (food), as bigger armies are harder to maintain.


Supplies wise. not gold wise. For supplies there are solutions. Growth scale, nature mages and food items.
I don't understand how more strain on commanders when in end games normal commanders are rarely used at all.

[Ironhawk]

Sandman said:
Suggestion: Castable perma-upgrades: These are a set of spells which confer a permanent bonus on mundane humans or similar. Fire resistance, demon blood, lycanthropy, undeath, etc. The key feature? Only one upgrade per unit - they don't stack. Even so, it gives you a lot of options to play with when it comes to national troops.



I like your suggestion. Have it with a moderate gem cost so that you have interesting decisions b/w summons and mortal troops: Should I spend these 5 nature gems to give these 25 elite troops the perma +10-15hp? Or should I summon 10 vine ogres? And before people start picking that example apart - I'm not promoting that as a specific spell im just trying to point out a concept.

And I still like the idea of a buildable site which allows access to even more elite national troops. Like say only your Prophet is allowed to build a single site which has some profound cost... Maybe you need to have so many points of total dominion before you can build it. Or it costs an absolute fortune in gold or time? But when this unique nation-specific site was built, you could then produce your nation's uber-elite units.

[HotNifeThruButr]

I don't think allowing more or more free troops or restricting magical troops is the answer.

I think the answer lies in expanding the content behind national (and independent?) troops. How about something like custom troops?

When you want to create a custom soldier, You get taken to a window where you start with a basic naked infantryman, cavalryman, or etc (no pictures http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif).

Then, you choose what sort of training you want, like militia, regular, elite, super-elite, and each higher option costs more gold.

Then you're taken to a window with your national weapons, like a glaive, pike, spear + tower shield, composite bow, and falchion + tower shield for Tien'Chi, and you pick a weapon, which costs either and/or resources.

Then, you're taken to another window where you pick your armor, like leather or scale, and you pick cuirass, hauberk, or full, with better armor costing more gold and/or resources.

Different nations will get different national weapons and armor, or troop types, and etc. Atlanteans would have something like "Atlantian" and "Shambler" instead of "infantry" and "cavalry"

This way, you can make "normal" Dom2 scale soldiers, or, for a lot more cash, you can make soldiers competitive with summoned enemies.

Another way to make national troops better would be to simply make better troops recruitable. Some factions have pretty pathetic selections of troops, often with redundant roles. When you've gotten down to it, few nations have more than two troop types. Maybe

just my two cents.

[Vicious Love]

HotNifeThruButr said:
I don't think allowing more or more free troops or restricting magical troops is the answer.

I think the answer lies in expanding the content behind national (and independent?) troops. How about something like custom troops?

When you want to create a custom soldier, You get taken to a window where you start with a basic naked infantryman, cavalryman, or etc (no pictures http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif).

Then, you choose what sort of training you want, like militia, regular, elite, super-elite, and each higher option costs more gold.

Then you're taken to a window with your national weapons, like a glaive, pike, spear + tower shield, composite bow, and falchion + tower shield for Tien'Chi, and you pick a weapon, which costs either and/or resources.

Then, you're taken to another window where you pick your armor, like leather or scale, and you pick cuirass, hauberk, or full, with better armor costing more gold and/or resources.

Different nations will get different national weapons and armor, or troop types, and etc. Atlanteans would have something like "Atlantian" and "Shambler" instead of "infantry" and "cavalry"

This way, you can make "normal" Dom2 scale soldiers, or, for a lot more cash, you can make soldiers competitive with summoned enemies.

Another way to make national troops better would be to simply make better troops recruitable. Some factions have pretty pathetic selections of troops, often with redundant roles. When you've gotten down to it, few nations have more than two troop types. Maybe

just my two cents.



This wouldn't actually make national troops any tougher, though. It'd mostly just allow players to field hordes and hordes of naked troops, since practically all national troops are good for is a quick meatshield.

Besides, everyone who favors the "beef up national troops" approach seems to be overlooking the thematic dissonance that sort of fix would entail. National troops, with the exception of Niefel Jarls and whatnot, should not be able to defeat mid- and high-level summons in a fair fight.
I suppose it might be balanced for a squad of heavy infantry to bring down a mad, undying god from the underworld, or a gargantuan flying statue with foot-long claws, or a brood of giant snakes whose skin can melt iron, but it would also be downright ridiculous. Either you're a hero, capable of picking your teeth with trees and chasing the sun into hiding with a scowl, or you're a mortal. In the latter case, you've got 12 HP, tops, and no amount of skill or determination is going to change that.
On the bright side, there are plenty of alternate means of making national troops viable without granting them power beyond mortal ken. For instance,
A) Create a niche for them. Going toe-to-toe with a wight or devil should never be a good idea, but a few tweaks to unit gold and resource costs might see them come into their own as patrollers, raiders, skirmishers, whatever.
B) Don't strengthen national troops, but price them much more efficiently(and/or raise the cost of summons, give them gem upkeep, et cetera). In smaller battles, where supply is not an issue, national troops would have a quantity>quality edge over most summons. In larger battles, they'd still make a strong backbone for an army of summoned shock troops, flankers, and so on. For an even larger battle, they'd still be so competitively-priced and expendable that they'd play a useful support role, if only as a meatshield or as missile support. Awfully similar to option A, save that the idea here is for national units to actually have the advantage on an open battlefield, rather than simply in a few specialized roles.
Note that this may require that something be done about spells that effect the entire battlefield. An army that can be effortlessly routed and half-annihilated in one casting of Wrathful Skies or two or three of Bone Grinding is no army at all.

C) Tweak research and the magical economy so that summons only begin to dominate later in the game. National troops would still serve no real function in the endgame, but they'd play more instrumental a role in the early stages of the war, when the infrastructure for the later stages is established. Sort of a gradual slide towards obsolescence, rather than a near-instantaneous plummet within the first two or three research levels.

[Vicious Love]

Sandman said:
National troops should be upgradeable. At the moment they derive rather less benefit from magic research than mages, summons and SCs.

Suggestion: Castable perma-upgrades: These are a set of spells which confer a permanent bonus on mundane humans or similar. Fire resistance, demon blood, lycanthropy, undeath, etc. The key feature? Only one upgrade per unit - they don't stack. Even so, it gives you a lot of options to play with when it comes to national troops.



I like, I like. Though it would be nice if national troops were still useful without magical support. Mages are crucial enough already.

[Ygorl]

I'm on the side saying that national troops shouldn't be competetive with summons (with the obvious exceptions), except for the cheapest crappiest summons, with which they are already competetive. If someone else has spent years of dedicated research to be able to summon serious nasties, why should I be able to match such an army from turn 1 just by clicking "Recruit"? Vice-versa, why would anyone research summons when they can do just as well hiring dudes, and divert their precious research, gems, etc. towards magic items to make their hired guys even more powerful, or combat spells to kill off the enemy's summoned guys even more effectively... No, summoned troops should be more powerful than those you hire. Hired troops are for growing in the early game, and depending on what you research and how you play, they can still be useful mid-game. One of the neat things about Dominions is that the power level grows so astronomically as time progresses and yet things still stay reasonably balanced. Proposals that would allow for the power of hired troops to increase as the game progressed are interesting, as long as that increase in power requires effort to be spent developing it, but making them much more powerful right off the bat would throw the balance way off, I think.

[jeffr]

I like how the Conceptual Balance mod handles things. It's the result of a lot of playtesting. National troop costs have been lowered and no brainer, devastating spell combos (Staff of Storms/Wrathful Skies) have been made more difficult to achieve. Unit enhancing spells have been made less expensive, allowing buffed national units to be more effective later in the game. Items, in particular, have been modded to try and eliminate the "there is always a best choice" problem. The Super Combatant remains very powerful but is no longer all powerful and different unit/summons/item mixes are more viable. There is room for both summons and national troops.

At least that's the idea, and I think it's working pretty well.

[Agrajag]

I think the problem lies in the fact that summons get stronger as the game progresses, while regular national troops do not.
If it was possible to divert magical research to technological research to improve your troops, it might contribute towards making national troops viable later in the game.
Maybe you can add a "techonology" tab to research, where you can choose to spend RP on technological advances, so in that tab, instead of "Enchantment" and "Conjuration" you would have "Infantry Weapons" and "Cavalry Shields", and instead of spells you would have upgrades, such as "Sharpening Stone" which increases damage for all weapons by 1 or "Combat Training" which gives all newly produced units an expirience star etc...

[Endoperez]

Many of the suggestions here would shoot micromanagement through the roof. While it would be nice to be able to enchance units magically, quickly choosing the most experienced, least wounded units of most useful types from hundred or so soldiers would take time. Another research tree would also be a nuisance, and I imagine most nations already know of the "Sharpening Stones", and that the more non-militia have already undergone "Combat Training" (just compare a Militia to a generic Light infantry).

I still think I'd like to see a way to have national units play a big(ger) role in DomIII, but Jeff, Ygorl and Vicious Love make good points about the absurdness of mere humans standing against unnatural, supernatural, or even b]big[/b] enemies.

[shovah]

i think being able to research upgrades for items is a good idea and after reading a litttle of what everything does i doubt it would add much micromanegement

[Endoperez]

If better armors can be researched, and mages will research those, doesn't that screw Ulm with its "better steel but less magic" policy? And why play Ulm if the only thing you get is a head-start on others on the arms war, when you can't get as far in the magic war?

[B0rsuk]

I think I have an idea how to make nationals scalable without increasing micromanagement.
--------------
National troops would get predefined bonuses for each additional fortification you control. Makes sense, as you need them to produce national anyway.
Flavor-wise it would be something along the line "The garrison of Blahuageuawraarhsaark made some improvements to heavy crossbow design and we can now use it nation-wide" or " new forging techniques, or news of national hero/propaganda (inspiration;see soviet Russia for reference), source of better ore...

To stop Watch Tower abuse, it would be NumberOfForts*FortAdminValue (no I have no idea of Dominions variables).
--------------------
Edit

For those of you who think that "you can just start producing nationals for free - therefore they should suck"
- nationals require forts (say 300-450 gold, 3-5 turns to build, and a commander)
- Process of building a fort can be interrupted.
- forts need adjacent provinces to work properly
- resources, unlike gems, don't carry over to next month (seems like, doesn't it ?)
- there's a hard limit on how much you can recruit in one turn. On the other hand, you can burn LOTS of gems in a single turns.
- you can get gems from another player, not true with resources. Technically you can get away without magic sites for some time.
- you can keep all summoners in one spot, forts force you to expand.
- many national units require temples (usually 200 and a priest to build it) or labs (200 and a mage). Combined with 450 fort, this means 850 gold, multiple turns of building and commanders.
- I'd say population killing spells are quite effective. Growth scale is slow. Your ability to buy conventional troops is affected by cold, heat, unrest, productivity, order..

[shovah]

Endoperez said:
If better armors can be researched, and mages will research those, doesn't that screw Ulm with its "better steel but less magic" policy? And why play Ulm if the only thing you get is a head-start on others on the arms war, when you can't get as far in the magic war?



i was thinking more like you just get x points of tech research per turn that dosnt require commanders research

[Chazar]

I dont like the course of this discussion: National troops should not be more powerful, neither should summons be less powerful. Summons should be powerful and become slowly more and more abundant as the game progresses.

However, allmost everything in the game is capped by either a hard limit or by some sort of upkeep (gold,supplies,...). So why should the majority of the summons be exempt from this upkeep principle?

[Turin]

national troops shouldn´t be more powerful, but buffed national troops should be more powerful.
Right now you can cast every troopbuffing spell on any number of (human) national troops and they´d still be unable to take out a decent SC/thug.

And unmodded troops are far too expensive for their power compared to mages. For example once conj 3 and evo 4 are researched, every e2 mage can kill dozens of lightly armored troops with bladewind. And he doesn´t even have to be near the front lines.

[Ironhawk]

One thing I've always found odd. If national troops play such a small role in the overall game, why do they have such a good and well used UI for recruitment? Whereas the UI for summoning is poor at best.

[Cainehill]

Hmm. Is it possible to mod upkeep down to 0 for national troops? Then, the only real difference between national and summoned troops would be that some summons don't eat food.

(And also, that one has to invest in forts for troops, vice mages for summonses. Given that a fort can only recruit in one spot, where a mage can move to summon elsewhere, a slight advantage to mages over forts. A bigger imbalance, imo, is that mages summoning can be concentrated in the safety of a fort, in a single province. Think : To go to an extreme, Clash of the Titans has what - 40 provinces? That means at most 40 forts to recruit, limitted by resources and gold. But with a single province, 50 or more mages can summon. Big advantage mages, _especially_ as resources doesn't carry over turn to turn.)

Here's a thought : something like 1/2 all resources from a fort only carry over to successive turns. IE : If someone has 1 province with a fort, but isn't buying troops, 1/2 the resources piles up from turn to turn, only for that fort.

This balances things a little bit with the mages, and also has an OOC justification : the troops are hired with gold, but the smiths can be forging weapons and armor for months or years before the troops are recruited.

Another thing that might help balance things : allow a fort to recruit troops the first turn after it's besieged. Gameplay-wise, this helps balance things against instant-army attacks ( Tree Lord popping in with 200 troops ) and is also justifiable in roleplaying / thematic terms : when a walled city is besieged by invaders (especially those of a different religion, ie all besiegements in Dom2), a certain amount of the locals inside are going to volunteer to serve their city/nation/god.

Again - this merely helps to balance another of the huge, major, issues favoring summons over national troops. Right now, if your province is invaded, 0 troops can be recruited, no matter how many commanders you have there. But if you had 20 researchers, that's 20 summoning spells that might be cast. Huge advantage, mages. ( Mind you : I happen to think that summons should be better than your average national troops. But right now, 0 upkeep, ability to gain while besieged, etc, give summonings too many overwhelming non-combat advantages.)

I've taken advantage of this a number of times : playing nations like Man, Pangaea, Arco, you wind up with boatloads of researchers with nature magic. With a mere conjuration 1, construction 2, every bard / dryad can be shifted to summoning very cost efficient quantities of vine men every turn. With enough nature income, I've held for ages. There is nothing comparable for national troops. If cities (forts) could recruit while besieged, I think it would be more balanced.

There'd still be starvation for troops inside the city; there'd still be a limit on how many troops could be marshalled, compared to the invader recruiting everywhere. But it would give a little balance, a little more of a chance to the defenders, in a situation where, well, all the women (or men) capable of wielding a weapon would be joining the military to protect their men and children from looting, rape, pillage, plunder, etc.

[quantum_mechani]

Cainehill said:
Hmm. Is it possible to mod upkeep down to 0 for national troops? Then, the only real difference between national and summoned troops would be that some summons don't eat food.


Upkeep cost is hard-linked to gold cost.

[Cainehill]

As far as weapon tech research screwing Ulm and a few others : what if it didn't improve the weapons and armor? If there were researchable things that .... could increase morale, or give better troops formations in battle, 6 scriptable mage spells vice 5, give a 20% increase in attack speed to troops, a little extra armor, a little extra chance to avoid an arrow, those seem like they might #1, fit more with Dominions - the average game ends within 40-100 turns, less than 10 years. Huge increases in weapons and armor don't tend to come in that span of time. Mmm, arguably magic might not progress as rapidly either - but tactics change rapidly enough to change the face of war. The hedgehog, the flanking maneuver, blitzkrieg, etc : tactics can transform the face of war.

All of these would be worth researching : but nations whose strength is in their troops to begin with would get greater benefits than would nations whose strength was mages. Ulm, Abysia, Jotuns, with solid troops, benefit more from incremental improvements to the troops than others do. But everyone would still want the improvements, especially if researching "tech" was separate from researching magic.

Maybe every fort generates weapons research; every military (non-mage, non-stealth) commander does as well. Maybe it's tied to Productivity (said scale needing some boosts, especially in the base game), or luck, or the inverse of the magic scale. Just some thoughts - but they do require changes in the base game, not just mods.

[Cainehill]

quantum_mechani said:

Cainehill said:
Hmm. Is it possible to mod upkeep down to 0 for national troops? Then, the only real difference between national and summoned troops would be that some summons don't eat food.


Upkeep cost is hard-linked to gold cost.



Yeah, I know. But asking a question seemed like it might generate more consideration than saying, "Upkeep is bad!" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Zen]

I agree that summons should have an upkeep associated with their pathcosts as well as some national troops having upkeep possibly in gems but goldcosts as well.

The game can be better balanced with more options for upkeep, however this does not change the imbalance in combat vs cost vs magetime vs mobility. Any of those can be addressed many ways.

Though, like I said, I agree.

[Arameyan]

Hi everyone, it's my very first post on this forum.

I play Dominions for the last 2 months. I think that its one of the best strategy game ever.

I'm only concerned by what I'm reading here: It seems that national non-mage and non-priest troops become useless in late game, were summonning rules.

I think it's obvious that even trained Velites can't beat an Uber Arch Devil summoned directly from hell, but I also think that players shouldn't have to rely on summonning to win. To preserve diversity in term of strategy, I think many strategies have to be viable (by strategy, I dont mean just choosing a different path of magic to summon another NNE summon). A solution can be like this: in some other games, national Super-Elite troops (Devils, Dragons, etc...) can't be recruited at the beginning, you have to build expensives structures while having a strong economy.

I agree that this game is based heaily on magic (and I approve it), but I don't think that high level summoning should be the only viable option for very long games.

[Sandman]

What if experience was made more powerful (ten levels, say) and also restricted to national troops and other recruitables?

[ioticus]

Yeah, winning strategy seems to be too dependent on getting a SC (Air Queen, Ice Devil, etc.) or mass summoning certain things like Vine Ogres.

[Ygorl]

If you're talking single-player, perhaps. The computer AI isn't very good at handling different SCs. Human opponents, though, can usually come up with something to oppose whatever you throw at them. A single SC, in particular, is begging to be Charmed or Herald Lanced or Smashered or Moon Bladed or Maggotsed or Banefired or Mind Duelled or taken down by means of whatever weakness it almost certainly has. I really like the progression from wimpy things to awe-inspiring effects as the game moves, and I also like how that progression can be so different depending on your strategy.

[Agrajag]

Sandman said:
What if experience was made more powerful (ten levels, say) and also restricted to national troops and other recruitables?


And how would you expect to get those national troops more expirience when they are constantly fighting superior enemies (=summons)?

[Graeme Dice]

If you want to increase the relative power of national troops without making magic significantly more powerful then you should mod the amount of population needed for each unit of gold income. Increase the base income by 250-300% and the relative cost of troops compared to mages drops way down as the mages can only be built one per turn while your troops will show up everywhere.

[quantum_mechani]

Graeme Dice said:
If you want to increase the relative power of national troops without making magic significantly more powerful then you should mod the amount of population needed for each unit of gold income. Increase the base income by 250-300% and the relative cost of troops compared to mages drops way down as the mages can only be built one per turn while your troops will show up everywhere.

This also greatly encourages mad castleing, however.

[Graeme Dice]

quantum_mechani said:
This also greatly encourages mad castleing, however.



Sure, but you'll have more than three times as many troops, so you can hit your opponent in more places than he can defend.

The real solution, however, is to play multiple games on small maps, instead of a single game on a massive map.

[quantum_mechani]

Graeme Dice said:

quantum_mechani said:
This also greatly encourages mad castleing, however.



Sure, but you'll have more than three times as many troops, so you can hit your opponent in more places than he can defend.

The real solution, however, is to play multiple games on small maps, instead of a single game on a massive map.

That is always my recommendation, more blitz games. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[RedRover]

Having read and considered the posts so far, here are a few more thoughts:


1) Generally I like the idea of some sort of additional cost for summoned units. The more variety in how the costs are configured, the better.


2) On the idea of gem availability, how about the following?

Make gems “sticky” and mages “grabby.” Each turn, all mages in labs fill to a personal limit before any gems go into the general pool.

Say the limit is one gem per level per path. The “pool gem” command ignores these gems. Unless you want to shift them manually, they are used only for tactical combat or a few special orders like Blood Sacrifice. Maybe allow a “sticky on/sticky off” toggle.


3) Give gem-producing items a “shelf life” of 20 gems.

After that, the device fails and is automatically discarded, even if cursed. Basically make some sort of #maxeffects mod code for items. (This makes gem-producing entities correspondingly more valuable.)


4) One idea to limit the “free troop” aspect of summons would be to stress the caster more.

Say a summons costs 1 hit point per two spell levels (round down) that never comes back.

So a 10 hp mage casting a 5th level summons loses 2 hit points that cannot be restored by any means. A fifth summon of this type would be fatal to that mage, and you probably wouldn't want to commit the mage to battle after the second or third such summons.

Likewise, leaders that summon magical being allies might lose a hit point or more per creature summoned—this represents the loss of personal vitality as it is transferred to activate the ally. The exact number might vary according to the creature summoned.

If this doesn't go into Dom3 proper, maybe the modding commands might allow for its incorporation for purposes of further testing.


5) Start certain summoned creatures with experience levels and adjust their base stats so there is effectively no change in their initial numbers.

For example, the Arch Devils might already be at 5 experience levels—further experience for them is irrelevant. Maybe the Draconians summoned starts at 2-3.


6) Limit ritual summoning spells to one per laboratory per turn, in the same way that Blood Sacrifice is limited to one per temple.

[This is the idea I'd most like to test.]


7) Maybe make resources a little easier to come by.

Allow Alchemy to produce Resources from Earth gems as well—maybe 5 resource points at that location per gem. These would, of course, have to be used or they go away.


On empowering national troops with magic abilities.
I’m not sure I like the idea of giving troops intrinsic magical special abilities (such as fire resistance or regeneration). That’s too much like magical crossbreeding, IMO.

I think that the option to equip entire units with magical weapons and armor of various types is worth investigating, though.


On a 250%-300% income increase:
This looks like an interesting idea to me. The mad castling issue can be dealt with simply by increasing the cost of castles and other structures in direct proportion to the income increase.

Other adjustments might be needed, though—for example, province supply capacity might have to be increased, as might the supply effects of Nature magic and certain magic items.


On "blitz" games
Advice to play more blitz doesn't really solve anything, IMO. Also, some of us like the 80-to-100-turn solo games, and desire to have a better time with them.

[Endoperez]

I heavily snipped this post, and only answered to things I disagreed with or would like to see made differently. I agreed in some of the things I snipped, but not with everything, and I don't know what to think of the rest of them yet.


RedRover said:
Having read and considered the posts so far, here are a few more thoughts:


4) One idea to limit the “free troop” aspect of summons would be to stress the caster more.

Say a summons costs 1 hit point per two spell levels (round down) that never comes back.

So a 10 hp mage casting a 5th level summons loses 2 hit points that cannot be restored by any means. A fifth summon of this type would be fatal to that mage, and you probably wouldn't want to commit the mage to battle after the second or third such summons.

Likewise, leaders that summon magical being allies might lose a hit point or more per creature summoned—this represents the loss of personal vitality as it is transferred to activate the ally. The exact number might vary according to the creature summoned.

If this doesn't go into Dom3 proper, maybe the modding commands might allow for its incorporation for purposes of further testing.




The idea is interesting, but at least leading magical creatures shouldn't have an effect of that kind. That would force one to have more commanders with high hps that are able to lead magical units, which would mean summons, and actually make summons (especially commanders) MORE valuable and common.

Also, instead of "damage", maybe the summons caused "fatique" (increased encumberance instead of lowered hp).



5) Start certain summoned creatures with experience levels and adjust their base stats so there is effectively no change in their initial numbers.

For example, the Arch Devils might already be at 5 experience levels—further experience for them is irrelevant. Maybe the Draconians summoned starts at 2-3.




I'm for this. It nerfs the skilled summons a little, but I don't mind that in this case...



6) Limit ritual summoning spells to one per laboratory per turn, in the same way that Blood Sacrifice is limited to one per temple.

[This is the idea I'd most like to test.]


I don't know if it would work. I think one is too slow a number. It would affect undead themes of Ermor dramatically, as they would be limited in the number of commanders they can summon, and don't have the money to build (huge numbers of) labs. But yes, it would be something I'd like to test. It would make for a really interesting alternate rule, but might make powerful summons and SCs even more important as you can't match Quality with Quantity.



7) Maybe make resources a little easier to come by.

Allow Alchemy to produce Resources from Earth gems as well—maybe 5 resource points at that location per gem. These would, of course, have to be used or they go away.




VERY good idea, but there should be more than 5 resources. I quess 15 could work. It allows you to recruit one med-to-high infantry instead of militia, and (quite often) one med-to-high cavalry instead of med-to-high infantry. It couldn't, of course, be economical, but it would allow one to "burn" gems to speed up starting progress.



On a 250%-300% income increase:
This looks like an interesting idea to me. The mad castling issue can be dealt with simply by increasing the cost of castles and other structures in direct proportion to the income increase.

Other adjustments might be needed, though—for example, province supply capacity might have to be increased, as might the supply effects of Nature magic and certain magic items.




The supply effects can't be increased, but are unchanged from Dom:PPP, and it had twice the gold of DomII. Castle/building prices can't be changed yet, but might be in DomIII. The scales' effects and the general richness (in gold, resources, food...) can be modded even now. Zen's Complete Balance mods includes a Scale mod, and Saber Cherry released a scale mod as well. I'm not sure whether they aim for gameplay balance or useful national units.

[quantum_mechani]

RedRover said:

On a 250%-300% income increase:
This looks like an interesting idea to me. The mad castling issue can be dealt with simply by increasing the cost of castles and other structures in direct proportion to the income increase.

Other adjustments might be needed, though—for example, province supply capacity might have to be increased, as might the supply effects of Nature magic and certain magic items.


On "blitz" games
Advice to play more blitz doesn't really solve anything, IMO. Also, some of us like the 80-to-100-turn solo games, and desire to have a better time with them.


The other problem with the income idea is it makes the cheaper mages mostly obsolete.

And why don't blitz games solve anything? Certainly everyone can agree that it would be ideal if long term games remained diverse and interesting for many games (and I have high hopes for this in dom3), but in the meantime there is no reason to ignore a game type that to a large degree avoids the problems.

[RedRover]

Endoperez: Thanks for the response and analysis. I could use some clarification on a point or two.

"Leading magical creatures." Do you mean "most powerful magical creatures" or "magical creature Leaders"?

In my post, "leading" doesn't cost anything, "summoning" does. I expect the effect would be that this would divide the casters involved with summoned creatures into two categories--the slowly dying summoners and the magic-wielding field commanders who don't summon because that would gut their battlefield usefulness. Putting together a combination to yield a viable summoned field force would be a greater strain on resources than the current setup.

I can't see this as doing anything but slowing down the process of accumulating a game-winning mass of summoned troops.

Also, if you are burning through a major leader like an Air Queen in a multiplayer game, you risk not being able to get it back via resummoning when it dies if the other players are actively pursuing it.

If your resources are limited, this configuration gives you a basic strategic choice of whether to use a tough magic leader to summon or to fight. If you fight, it cuts down on the number of summoned units in play. If you summon a lot and are attacked, your combined group will be more vulnerable than currently, and you run the risk of losing an important battle because the leader is easier to kill.

Fatigue: I'm not certain how using fatigue would work. Most of the time when I use summons, these take place in a comparatively safe laboratory a turn or more from the action. If the fatigue effect is temporary, it's gone by the time the troops get into action. If the effect is permanent, then it would build up too fast, IMO, rendering the caster useless very quickly.

I could see fatigue being a function of leadership rather than summoning. In other words, if the fatigue effect is based on the number of magical beings led as some function of the leader's capacity for leading them, it might work.

Say 1-25% capacity = +1 encumbrance
26-50% = +2 encumbrance
51-75% = +3 encumbrance
76-100%= +4 encumbrance
These might double with armor, as with spell fatigue.

On Lab Limits
Good criticism on this point. If coding Dom3, there may be an easy fix. Some options:

1)Code two Labs:

Lab1: Unlimited summons. This configuration is assigned to the undead themes.

Lab2: One summon per turn. This configuration is assigned to other themes

2) Give undead themes cheaper labs.

3) Define a new structure "Shrine" which is enabled for undead themes only. This is a cheap structure whose only function is to enable undead summoning by an undead leader. Like a Temple, a Shrine is automatically destroyed by enemy troops. A shrine only enables one summoning, but can be constructed in the same province as a lab.

(BTW, just as a side note, I'm assuming this is a Dom3 discussion, so the possibility of applying any of these to Dom2 isn't on my radar screen.)

Cost and Supply
Was unaware of the Dom1 connection. At this point, I'm out of my depth--I never had the opportunity to play Dom1. I think a continuation of this part of the discussion by those who have might be instructive. Did reducing the gold of Dom1 improve Dom2--or did it just push the pendulum from ground troops to magic troops?



Quantum_Mech:

Cheaper Mages: I don't see why cheaper mages should become obsolete. Costs are mutable and relative. You could keep an equivalent effect by adjusting the costs. Yes, rebalancing would require additional time, and whether the use of developer time to do it would be cost effective is a viable concern. But the idea does not in itself render the concept of the cheap mage obsolete, IMO.

Blitz Games: I was unclear. Blitz games as a temporary patch for the situation for Dom2 is a great idea. We are better off for your having brought it up. Anyone who hasn't played blitz is missing a significant part of the Dom2 experience, and should be encouraged to sample it.

What I meant to say was that a patch for current Dom2 play is of limited utility in discussion about what might happen in Dom3. I just wanted to steer discussion back to an element that could use some help as Dom3 is being put together, and I'm happy that we are in agreement that the longer game could use some tweaks.

So, thanks for bringing up the point. I hope someone reading the thread benefits from it while we are waiting for Dom3. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Endoperez]

RedRover said:
Cost and Supply
Was unaware of the Dom1 connection. At this point, I'm out of my depth--I never had the opportunity to play Dom1. I think a continuation of this part of the discussion by those who have might be instructive. Did reducing the gold of Dom1 improve Dom2--or did it just push the pendulum from ground troops to magic troops?




I'm not very good at balancing, or finding out the balance, or optimizing my strategy. However, I think it has been mentioned that in Dom:PPP, players bought just as many mages and summoned just as many units, but used the leftover money on troops. Troops made a difference, because you could get them without losing anything. They didn't have to be cost-effective, because the cost was mostly irrelevant.

I'm not sure how correct this memory of mine is.

[Arralen]

cost & supply




Other adjustments might be needed, though—for example, province supply capacity might have to be increased, as might the supply effects of Nature magic and certain magic items.



The supply effects can't be increased, but are unchanged from Dom:PPP, and it had twice the gold of DomII. Castle/building prices can't be changed yet, but might be in DomIII.



Was unaware of the Dom1 connection. At this point, I'm out of my depth--I never had the opportunity to play Dom1. I think a continuation of this part of the discussion by those who have might be instructive. Did reducing the gold of Dom1 improve Dom2--or did it just push the pendulum from ground troops to magic troops?



Do the math yourself:
- the sites didn't change (much)
- gold 'production' was halved
- ... and seemingly no-one really noticed: the province sizes where heavily reduced; while pop range was 5k-50k in DomPPP, now we have 500..15k pop

And taking away a strategic/tactical option is never good IMHO...

[Endoperez]

What kind of population randomization would be better? As the whole province/terrain system was changed for DomII, that changing of population numbers might have been accidental. Now provinces can be Small or Large, and (Plains or Underwater) or any combination of Forest/Farmlands/Mountain/Swamp/Waste. Large Farmlands could be up to 50 000 range, but what about Small Farmlands? Or Large Forest/Swamps? Would each terrain hold a multiplier (e.g., being a Farm gives 2.0 times the population, being a Swmap gives 0.5 times the population, Farm/Swamp has (2.0*0.5= 1) about the same population a plains would have.

[Arralen]

.. oh, great, forum ate a lengthy post of mine again.. so I'll keep it short this time:

Large Farmland: av. 18782pop, max 21.5k pop
Normal Farmland: av. 121250 pop, max. 14.4k pop
Small Farmland: av. 5557 pop, max. 7.2k pop

=> "Large" is +50% pop, "Small" is -50%

Normal Plains: av. 7921 pop, max. 9.1k pop

=> "Farm" is +50% pop

I'll add more numbers as I get to it ... .


And if that was a question, Endo, ye, those modifiers are cumulative. So with a small swamp/waste province you can get really ridiculous low pop levels..

What we can see from the above is - there's no way to get near the pop numbers of DomPPP, and something like that should only occure deliberatly .. should have been very obvious in the very first test game at the latest.

And check the maps which come with the game - lots of 'normal plains' and worse provinces. No, I don't think the devs ruined the gold economy by accident. Very much like they didn't overlook that there are no events which generate pop, but many which kill it. It's their/the games attitude.

What gets me back to the topic:
I don't like that. As I don't like the fact that the AI still cannot build castles and commanders from sites, chooses heavy death scale to often and has no clue about supplies - therefore crippling itself very effectivly. What I don't like even more is the fact, that the devs know about this very well but are not willing to fix it ... .
What that tells about me purchasing DOM3? Oh well, guess yourself ...

edit: typo

[Zen]

Arralen said:
What gets me back to the topic:
I don't like that. As I don't like the fact that the AI still cannot build castles and commanders from sites, chooses heavy death scale to often and has no clue about supplies - therefore crippling itself very effectivly. What I don't like even more is the fact, that the devs know about this very well but are not willing to fix it ... .
What that tells about me purchasing DOM3? Oh well, guess yourself ...

edit: typo



Interesting and incredibly close-minded thought.

[Ironhawk]

Zen said:

Arralen said:
What gets me back to the topic:
I don't like that. As I don't like the fact that the AI still cannot build castles and commanders from sites, chooses heavy death scale to often and has no clue about supplies - therefore crippling itself very effectivly. What I don't like even more is the fact, that the devs know about this very well but are not willing to fix it ... .
What that tells about me purchasing DOM3? Oh well, guess yourself ...

edit: typo



Interesting and incredibly close-minded thought.



Now, now, boys http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

While I think we can all agree with Arralen that the AI in dom2 is quite poor, saying that the devs are unwilling to fix it is unfair. In programming, sometimes problems which appear very simple on the face of it, are actually exceptionally difficult to make a program do properly. That could be the case here. Or the devs may just feel that the real meat of dom2 is in the MP aspects. So when they look at the list of issues to fix in a patch, MP issues trump all the SP/AI ones and the AI just ends up never getting fixed by default.

[Arralen]

@Zen
Sorry, but I don't get the "close-minded" part. Could you please elaborate ?

@Ironhawk
It's a stated fact from the devs that they want the endgame to be heavily focused on (summond) magic creatures, that it's not a bug that you'll end up with less than starting pop if you go with turmoil-3, growth-3, luck-3. They say it's a big war, and the pop will have to suffer. That the national units get superflous is just a side-effect of diminishing pop and ridiculous powerful LvL 8+9 magic.

And I don't say the AI is bad. In fact, I've seen lots worse AIs in games with 100x the budged for sure.
But the AI not building castles or commanders from (found) sites .. hey, even I could program that. (check my old thread about the suggested very easy recruiting/bulding alghorithm).
Pretender design might be a bit trickier, but the easy solution would be to restrict death scale to certain nations/pretender combos.
I agree that the supply issue might be unsolvalbe in Dom2. I'm not sure though, but I think it worked in DomPPP. As the castle building did, btw.

But the point is - if they arent't willing to even try to fix this, and even if it's (e.g.) with some randomly issued build order for the castles, how can't I assume that it will be the same with Dom3 ?

And that it's a MP game is no excuse. Actually, it's sold with the tag "1-17 players". So it should work correctly in SP as well. And Dom2 still sells well. But there aren't hundreds of players here. So I guess Dom2 is actually played SP by 60-70% of it's owners.

[RedRover]

Arralen: I remember your thread. It inspired me to do a little experimenting with a castle-building algorithm of my own awhile back (all general theory, my actual knowledge of coding is rudimentary).

If I can dig out my notes, I'll post them as a new thread next week, and we can talk more about AI castle-building there.

Thanks very much for your work on this.

[Endoperez]

Arralen said:
.. oh, great, forum ate a lengthy post of mine again.. so I'll keep it short this time:

Large Farmland: av. 18782pop, max 21.5k pop
Normal Farmland: av. 121250 pop, max. 14.4k pop
Small Farmland: av. 5557 pop, max. 7.2k pop




Wow, I just realized that provinces can be neither Small or Large... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif Thanks for the enlightement.

What would be better option, then, than the current cumulative multipliers? Would multiplying only the biggest and the smallest multipliers work better? And what about the multipliers themselves, how much better than Plains should Farmlands be?

I'd like to get different opinions on this as well.

[Kristoffer O]

> @Zen
> Sorry, but I don't get the "close-minded" part. Could you please elaborate ?


He happens to know that the AI in dom3 builds castles and that you get more gold in dom3. Now you know as well and may want buy dom3 when it comes out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Reverend Zombie]

Kristoffer O said:
> @Zen
> Sorry, but I don't get the "close-minded" part. Could you please elaborate ?


He happens to know that the AI in dom3 builds castles and that you get more gold in dom3. Now you know as well and may want buy dom3 when it comes out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



So Arralen was wrong on that score, but I am not sure that gets us to "close-minded."

Will the viscous ad hominem never end??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Ygorl]

Yeah, I like the runny ad hominem a lot better. Easier to digest, too... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Psitticine]

It's great on crackers, especially those little baked ones with seasame seeds on them. Mmmmmm!

[Zen]

I think any broad statements saying that the "Dev's are not going to do X" are pretty close-minded. Because as far as I know there are only 2 devs that would know whether or not they are going to do any particular desire that anyone may have. Also they may have any number of reasons that you may or may not feel are reasonable for doing or not doing what it is you don't like.

I just think it's very close-minded to get into wailing and gnashing of teeth that you have no idea is or is not going to be changed.

Obviously this thread is to talk about why people would or wouldn't purchase Dom3, but making up reasoning for the Developers that you have no idea are true or not is giving IW almost no credit. And I think they do deserve some, obviously they want to make as good a game as they can with the resources they have availiable.

[Sammas]

I agree that Dom2 is pretty poor for single player, and it would be nice if this could be fixed somehow.

Allowing for some form of scripted AI might be nice, in that people could create scenarios and AIs that were fairly challenging for the average player.

[Arralen]

Kristoffer O said:
> @Zen
> Sorry, but I don't get the "close-minded" part. Could you please elaborate ?

He happens to know that the AI in dom3 builds castles and that you get more gold in dom3. Now you know as well and may want buy dom3 when it comes out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Thanks for the info,
but what the AI in Dom3 does or does not is besides the point.

I have paid .. what, $40 .. for a game I would normally play >80% in SP, but it's more or less useless for that. So I'm forced to play MP, what I can only sparingly do because of time constraints (and time zone).
Atm, if I want a SP game that makes some sense, I have to edit the map to pre-place castles and make pretenders for every nation to hand over to the AI. What gets tedious work and takes a good part of the fun away from the game.
I even started writing an app to do exactly that for me - I'm not sure if it will get finished before Dom3 comes out, as I'm learning a new programming language especially for this.

So all I want is the game I already paid for in a state that it is not 'completely' (no software ever is, I guess), but at least 'sufficiently' finished. But it doesn't look like this will ever happen.

And can anyone assure that the same wouldn't happen with Dom3? That this or that will not work and I will be told to buy Dom4? I had that happen with too much games from the big labels already, and I really hoped this wouldn't happen again. That's what it takes to make me purchase Dom 3 !

[Chazar]

Huh, things are pretty hot here... /threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif

...nevertheless I'd like to comment that the AI is also important for MP games, since most of my MP games ended with someone sadly suddenly turning into AI. It would be furthermore more nice if players could set a basic AI guidline (including "do nothing") for themselevs in case of an unexpected stale turn. Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Endoperez]

Chazar said:
Huh, things are pretty hot here... /threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif

...nevertheless I'd like to comment that the AI is also important for MP games, since most of my MP games ended with someone sadly suddenly turning into AI. It would be furthermore more nice if players could set a basic AI guidline (including "do nothing") for themselevs in case of an unexpected stale turn. Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Now THAT is a good idea! We would need few AI templates (I don't know if they already exist), but it would be very useful.

[Cainehill]

And I can see what Arralen is saying - it doesn't bother me too much because I am capable of playing MP games, but if I wasn't, I'd be unhappy as hades : I find the SP almost totally unplayable.

Not just the lack of AI, but the things that AI does which are blatant cheating, or diplomatically insane. Example : Even on the World map with 4 players, by turn 15 the AI is hitting me with Seeking Arrows, Fires from Afar, Call of the Winds, etc. Blatant cheating which adds immeasurably to my level of irritation with the game.

Or the way the AI declares war against the human players - diplomatic insanity, as it does so regardless of strength, location, levels of threat, etc.

All of which is apparently considered acceptable because Dom2 is intended mainly as a MP game - but nothing in the game's description indicates that it's _only_ suitable for MP gaming. I can see where Arralen and players like him might be a tad bit bitter.

[Zen]

Arralen said:
I have paid .. what, $40 .. for a game I would normally play >80% in SP, but it's more or less useless for that. So I'm forced to play MP, what I can only sparingly do because of time constraints (and time zone).
Atm, if I want a SP game that makes some sense, I have to edit the map to pre-place castles and make pretenders for every nation to hand over to the AI. What gets tedious work and takes a good part of the fun away from the game.
I even started writing an app to do exactly that for me - I'm not sure if it will get finished before Dom3 comes out, as I'm learning a new programming language especially for this.

So all I want is the game I already paid for in a state that it is not 'completely' (no software ever is, I guess), but at least 'sufficiently' finished. But it doesn't look like this will ever happen.



Maybe what you categorize 'sufficiently' and what others categorize 'sufficiently' are two different things. It's impossible to argue that you want 'What you paid for'. There was a demo that was availiable which gave you a pretty decent representation of the game. For whatever reasoning you decided that it was worth the purchase alot of people didn't and not for the reasons you stated. You control what you buy. End point, there is no fault of the developer on what you considered was worth your money. For my $40.00 Dom2 has been well worth it though you may disagree and you are perfectly entitled too.

You can't blame IW for fixing things in a new version of the game that allows them the ability to add to all aspects of the game (and the desires of other people that play the game, other than yourself) the easiest way possible (by massively rewriting coding, placing modding where it wasn't originally planned, etc) with an entire new version and thus a new game.


And can anyone assure that the same wouldn't happen with Dom3? That this or that will not work and I will be told to buy Dom4? I had that happen with too much games from the big labels already, and I really hoped this wouldn't happen again. That's what it takes to make me purchase Dom 3 !



There will be a demo and release notes for Dom3 just like Dom2 I expect. You don't even have to try the demo if you don't want to, you can not play Dom3 for whatever reason you like. However if the Demo gives you enough reason to buy it, then it will. There are no assurances for your personal preference, unfortunately or the future possibilities.

[Zen]

And I would like to add finally the great truism of the Internet.

Even if you give people what they want, they still feel the need to complain. Kristoffer just told you that 2 of your list of X were already fixed. While that may not mean they are doing everything you want, it certainly does mean that you are being heard and implementing changes they feel are appropriate and within their ability/resources to change.

[Cainehill]

Zen said:
And I would like to add finally the great truism of the Internet.

Even if you give people what they want, they still feel the need to complain. Kristoffer just told you that 2 of your list of X were already fixed. While that may not mean they are doing everything you want, it certainly does mean that you are being heard and implementing changes they feel are appropriate and within their ability/resources to change.



Of course, outside the software world, when you're sold a car that turns out that only the wheels on the right spin, people don't get surprised and upset when you're not willing to simply buy next years model because "it'll be fixed in the next (model/version/release)". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Don't get me wrong - I like Dom2, and will almost certainly get Dom3. But if I hadn't been able to play lots of MP games, I probably would've shelved the game among all the others that I've bought and been dissatisfied with over the years. The SP game has immense flaws, which would be almost impossible to ascertain simply from playing the demo. (Players would be extremely unlikely to figure out that the AI never builds castles and has no clue about starvation. It'd also take someone willing to play the demo an awful lots for them to figure out the diplomatic blundering and blatant cheating going on.)

And, outside the software world, yes, people probably would have reasonable expectations that their car would work with or without passengers or whatnot. Only with games and other software (and possibly real estate development) can the seller consistently get away with a WYGIWYG (What You Got Is What You Got) attitude. Intel had to replace people's faulty Pentiums, even though the flaw was a lot less noticeable. Car manufacturers do recalls all the time - not just for exploding gas tanks, but for things arguably more trivial than the flaws in Dominions2. People don't have to suck it up and buy the next model to get the flaws fixed.

J and K have done a lot in supporting the game - I'm not saying they're guilty of that. But I can see how people are frustrated and disappointed in never getting a viable single player game out of their purchase.

[Zen]

Does not what just happened mean anything?

This isn't a car, this is an extended movie. You get your entertainment value out of it as well as everything else involved. You may like it for different qualities that other people do or do not enjoy. However, there are themes in the good movies just like there are themes in the 'good' games of a genre.

At the end of a particular movie you may like the movie but it indubidably it has flaws. In Dom2 (which is not what we're talking about in this thread, we're talking about Dom3) those flaws might have been bad ending and some shaky performances by actors.

Does that mean the sequel could be a stinker? Sure. Does it mean a sequel can be a hit? Yeah. But you can't determine that yet because there is no real information except what we've seen. If IW is addressing concerns in the production of the next Dominions, why are you bashing them for Dom2? Even to the point of idiocy to say "and they have no intention of changing this issue" which OBVIOUSLY is not the case by admission.

Maybe since I've played Dom2 from when it was released and know and agree with a big number of flaws. I have a different perception. Any improvements are good and if they can make a great game including as many really good ideas from the wishlist as well as correcting major flaws in Dom2 that they are aware of (micromanagement, UI, tutorial, balance, SP, etc) then why spit in the face of progress?

I'm glad this thread was started with by a newcomer who just threw his opinion out there and gave IW some perspective of people who are fresh to Dom2. Something they didn't have since it was released a few years ago and is a niche title.

Edit:

I may have not clearly expressed my point Cainehill. My point is you can't unwatch a movie. You spent the time and the money (or the bandwith) that you can never get back because you are enjoying a recreation.

That is why this is more akin to games. While they have the benefit of being modified while they are being watched (and is expected in this day and age of seeming incompleteness, bugs, hardware crap, etc) this particular movie is made like the any lowbudget B movie. You might have a Bruce Campbell who is the God of B-Movie actors but you can't spend much money on the set or special effects.

Also any movie that can keep my interest for more than 2 years I count it a pretty good movie, maybe not for everyone out there. I count the same for games. If a game can keep me for more than two years enjoying playing it (however limited) then I think it's a pretty good game by the standard of early 2000's.

[Graeme Dice]

Cainehill said:
J and K have done a lot in supporting the game - I'm not saying they're guilty of that. But I can see how people are frustrated and disappointed in never getting a viable single player game out of their purchase.



I fail to see how people didn't get a viable single player game. The game functions properly, and the AI will beat a new player most of the time. What I've seen so far is complaints that the AI is inferior to a human player and can't give a human a challenge without cheating. That's no surprise since there is no single stretegy game more complicated than Chess where that statement isn't true. I can't think of any complex strategy game where the AI isn't a pushover without massive cheating once the player has learned the game rules.

As an aside, even if you only played the single player game for 20 hours you got more than your money's worth out of the game considering that any non-strategy game has about that much actual gameplay.

[Cainehill]

Graeme Dice said:

Cainehill said:
J and K have done a lot in supporting the game - I'm not saying they're guilty of that. But I can see how people are frustrated and disappointed in never getting a viable single player game out of their purchase.



As an aside, even if you only played the single player game for 20 hours you got more than your money's worth out of the game considering that any non-strategy game has about that much actual gameplay.



When I'm more wide awake I may address the first part of what you wrote, but for now : "Any non-strategy game has about ... 20 hours of gameplay"??? I'd love to be able to say, "Ad hominem!" or whatever ( http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) but I'll have to settle for saying, patently untrue. Diablo and its clones certainly aren't strategy games, agreed? Not true RPGs, but hack-and-slash beer-and-bloodshed games aren't strategy titles.

Yet lots of people have gotten hundreds or thousands of hours of gaming experience out of them. Similarly, a game genre I don't play but whose players seem to manage to get hundreds or thousands of hours out of : First Person Shooters - okay, admittedly that's because of the MP thrills, but still - that's more than 20 hours.

Any numbers of RPGs have given players hundreds of hours of gameplay, as they restart with a different party, a different alignment choice, a 3 member party vice 6, etc. Hades - how many hours have people gotten out of driving games, golf games, or (gag) Dance Dance Revolution? More than 20.

You and Zen are comparing the game to movies - sorry, but that's comparing .... *shrug* Whiskey to milk. We drink both - but we don't expect milk to last as long as whiskey, and we don't expect as much fun out of it.

When we go to a movie, we expect at most around 2 hours entertainment. There's totally different expectations between the two entertainment choices / commodities, so please, just stop comparing the two. I doubt if many people would argue that (most) games are a better value, weighed in terms of money divided by time. I also doubt if many reasonable, intelligent people would say that a game was a life-changing experience, while people do sometimes feel that way about movies.

Even more pointedly : saying, "You got more gameplay for your dollar than you would've for a non-strategy title" is crap. Know anyone in recent years who ever bought a strategy game expecting 20 hours of play? How about a chess game that, because the AI is bad, occasionally removes one of your pieces from the board? That's what the Seeking Arrow from 30 provinces away on turn 12 is. "But they both make the game more challenging in the absence of better AI!" Gee - thanks! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

And yes, I can think of a number of strategy games that had a much more solid, satisfying SP gameplay, without blatant cheating (sometimes without cheating, period) than Dominions 2. The original Warlords - just one map, 100s of hours of play. Sword of Aragon - not exactly scripted, but early battles were easy; to win the later battles you really had to improve your game, to the point of replaying once you'd improved, in order to build up your armies / cities better through the course of the game. Again - 100s of hours of play. Stars! ( The one by Stardock.) Master of Orion. Master of Magic. Anacreon, even.

(Note : Moo / MoM gave huge bonuses to the computer players. That isn't "blatant cheating", just as the AI getting huge bonuses in pretender creation isn't in Dominions.)

And again - I'm not unhappy with Dominions. I'm not unhappy with J & K. Quite the opposite. What I'm unhappy with is the knee-jerk response of calling someone's reply "close minded" just because they're not nearly as happy with Dominions as you are (or for that matter, as I am). People can have legitimate complaints, regardless of how wonderful a _MP_ game Dominions is. After all - it's designed and meant to be a MP (and PBEM at that) game.

But it wasn't really marketed that way. Not that it was particularly marketed in the modern sense http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif but - Shrapnel never put a blurb out, "By PBEM gamers, for PBEM gamers - if you're not womanly enough for MP, you're not woman enough for this game", nor anything like it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[quantum_mechani]

Cainehill said:
I also doubt if many reasonable, intelligent people would say that a game was a life-changing experience, while people do sometimes feel that way about movies.


Dominions has been a life changing experience. Before, I was was depressed. I wondered what was the meaning of it all. I stepped on plants.

But I realized the error of my ways, I invited the Carrion Dragon into my life. Suddenly, it made sense. I knew I was doing the right thing.

[Zen]

Cainehill said:
And again - I'm not unhappy with Dominions. I'm not unhappy with J & K. Quite the opposite. What I'm unhappy with is the knee-jerk response of calling someone's reply "close minded" just because they're not nearly as happy with Dominions as you are (or for that matter, as I am). People can have legitimate complaints, regardless of how wonderful a _MP_ game Dominions is. After all - it's designed and meant to be a MP (and PBEM at that) game.



Let me bold it for you since apparently it's knee jerk:


Arralen said:


What gets me back to the topic:
I don't like that. As I don't like the fact that the AI still cannot build castles and commanders from sites, chooses heavy death scale to often and has no clue about supplies - therefore crippling itself very effectivly. What I don't like even more is the fact, that the devs know about this very well but are not willing to fix it ...



If you have already decided what the Dev's are going to do about something why are you waiting around for them to make the game? You should be Nostradamus and get a cult together with such prognostication abilities.

Or maybe that is being open minded.

And let me say for the record I agree with most of Arralen's points, reasoning, cause for concern, and desire for change. What I don't agree with is a blatent lie about something that someone has no clue about as far as IW's intentions. They have even changed their minds about things throughout the course of Dom2 so even if some grand statement that gave a certain impression it might only applicable to Dom2 and not Dom3 in terms of being able to change it.

I'm sure we would all like a patch right now for alot of things for Dom2 (morale, etc) but if the choice is between continued support of Dom2 or the development of Dom3, at this point in Dom2's life I would probably lean towards Dom3.

Especially if alot of the things that were to be patched would be much easier to do under a Dom3 framework thus allowing IW to further push the game in whatever direction they are going with it.

[Zen]

Cainehill said:
When we go to a movie, we expect at most around 2 hours entertainment. There's totally different expectations between the two entertainment choices / commodities, so please, just stop comparing the two. I doubt if many people would argue that (most) games are a better value, weighed in terms of money divided by time. I also doubt if many reasonable, intelligent people would say that a game was a life-changing experience, while people do sometimes feel that way about movies.



No, when you buy a game you are basically saying it is going to entertain you for X hours before you consider it a reasonable purchase. Some people might put that number at 1000 hours, others might put it at 200. It depends on the person and type of gamer they are.

Games are entertainment, luxury, non-neccessary consumables.

[Endoperez]

I'd like to add few obsevations into these recent "is Dominions worth playing Single-Player" and "Dominions vs all the others" posts:

Dominions' AI cheats. It knows where you are. However, it doesn't become blatant except in few exceptional circumstances, e.g. FOUR PLAYERS ON THE WORLD MAP! In most games I would play, versus AI or humans, there would be much less distance between enemies. And I think it's better that every AI player knows the location of all other nations (NB: this also includes other AIs!), because they can't communicate with each other and share information like humans could.

Re: AI starting wars against humans without reason: AFAIK, AI considers the threat of a nation before going into war against it. E.g. AI doesn't attack nation which has strong armies next to its own provinces, or even player who has lots of PD in his provinces. However, I think AI also follows the graphs, and starts war against someone who is in the lead. And I know that AIs war between each other, so I think this isn't limited to human players. I think that the only reason for AIs to pick out humans is because they are designed to attack the nation in the position humans most often acquire: the leading one, or in the case of a new player: weakly defended lands.

Re: other games giving more enjoyment than Dominions:
Roguelike games and their ilk (including Diablo and its clones) are games based very much on luck. Good equipment is critical for survival in hardcore roguelikes, and for enjoyment in low-risk games like Diablo (from this on, D&Co). I don't know if D&Co games give tactical options like roguelikes do, but I doubt it. From what I have seen, the AI in D&Co is very stupid. The AI in driving games was also quite stupid the last time I played one, but that was in year '97 or so. I'd say that it's easy to do a game where the player can challenge himself. The other drivers are there just to get him interested in the first place. After that, he competes against his own records, and to improve his skills. I don't know if D&Co work like slot machines, where players continue playing in the hope of better items, or if it's more like roguelikes, where the player's skill is needed to overcome all the obstacles until something the player OR character isn't able to cope with comes up and the player can start again, having learned something.
In Dominions, the players' skill should be the biggest variable. If AI could just get lucky, and its army of 300 militia, light infantry and longdead could defeat the 200-strong army of summons and sacreed units lead by the Fire 9 Moloch, protected, boosted and supported by dozen mages, there would be no reason to play. And it's not possible to make a "ghost driver" of your own strategy. An AI that scriptable would be awesome, of course, especially if it could "learn" your playstyle (research priority: Enchantment 1, Evocation 3, Alteration 2, Evocation 5, Construction 4, Conjuration 5, etc) from just observing your choices few times. But in driving games the "ghost" doesn't need to avoid other cars. You can't tackle the ghost. Similarly, the "ghost" in strategy games is more often a score list, where you get points for speed and might, for luck and skill, and you can see your improvement.
They are listening. (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showthreaded.php?Number=388321 )Writing a good AI is very challenging, and it's hard, impossible to copy the ways with which games of other genres achieve replayability (?), or in some cases it makes the game less fulfilling. I have enojyed DomII in singple-player. The best memories are often from those times I lost. Try playing Mictlan, with non-SC pretender, in a map too small and with too many enemies. It's like insta-death roguelike converted into strategy game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

[Chazar]

Arralen said:
What I don't like even more is the fact, that the devs know about this very well but are not willing to fix it ...

Zen said:
What I don't agree with is a blatent lie about something that someone has no clue about as far as IW's intentions.


Right, but (I don't know either, but it could be that) Arralen may have just worded it that way to provoke a response from the devs?! Since we're left without a dev's diary, a patch or something else for quite some time, people are getting more anxious to know how Dom3 is going to be. We all made wishes, but we dont know whether they might come true. And provoking some responses worked before (e.g. I recall a part in the original Zen's Balance Mod-Thread about life drainers in DomIII...) and seems like it worked here too. So I would really hate if DomIII would not implement my wish for... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Wick]

Endoperez said:
And I think it's better that every AI player knows the location of all other nations (NB: this also includes other AIs!), because they can't communicate with each other and share information like humans could.




I disagree. Not so much because cheating is annoying as because they don't seem to benefit from it. How is casting the occasional Fires from Afar halfway across the map anything but a waste of gems? How does declaring war preferentially on the strongest player lead toward victory? They should concentrate on eating their neighbors, weakest first. That way they might amount to a challenge by the time I get to them.

[ioticus]

JK mentioned in a previous post that there were further patches in the works for Dom II. I hope they'll see the light of day.

[Zen]

Chazar said:Right, but (I don't know either, but it could be that) Arralen may have just worded it that way to provoke a response from the devs?! Since we're left without a dev's diary, a patch or something else for quite some time, people are getting more anxious to know how Dom3 is going to be. We all made wishes, but we dont know whether they might come true. And provoking some responses worked before (e.g. I recall a part in the original Zen's Balance Mod-Thread about life drainers in DomIII...) and seems like it worked here too. So I would really hate if DomIII would not implement my wish for... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Being close-minded for a purpose doesn't make much of a difference and my response was as far as Cainehill's objection to me calling someone close-minded willy nilly or without proof.

But perhaps you are right. Some people may be very anxious for any news on Dom2 or Dom3 and resort to whatever kind of tactics they think might work no matter how low. I don't have an opinion either way, I myself might have been anxious enough for a game or two in my time to try something like that too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I certainly wouldn't feel bad about adding my own elbow to the nudge for another Dev Diary release.

[RedRover]

Thought I'd throw in another word here.

I find, as I discover various game exploits and work-arounds, that the vanilla SP game does tend to fade with time. At these times, a break from play, fiddling with mods, cranking the difficulty in various ways, and occasionally using self-imposed house rules that rely on personal discipline all work to freshen things up for me.

I've also been advancing myself slowly enough that I have barely scratched the surface of Impossible level play, and extremely low-magic play with nonstandard victory conditions. Perhaps Forum-based cooperation would be another avenue for investigation.

I have great expectations for Dom 3, especially when receiving news like the fact the AI will definitely build forts in the new edition. I have full confidence that the devs will be giving us significant advances and greatly extended play in the product to come.

As for this particular thread, perhaps we might shift to a new thread titled:

"What it will take for me to continue playing Dom II."

Perhaps the ball might be started rolling by Arralen, who voiced specific concerns here, or by Zen, who has taken one of the most significant steps toward addressing this issue with the Conceptual Balance mod.

Takers?

[boltcutter]

A suggestion on Dom III:

If my guy with the 2-handed flail loses an arm, could he have a backup dagger for when I throw him into the maw of battle again? Because seeing a guy in Ulm's finest platemail attacking with "Fist" is just pathetic.

[PvK]

My first post on this thread, so for the thread topic, I'll buy Dominions III as long as it was made by Illwinter.

Above all, Dominions PPP and II are some of the games I've enjoyed the most over the decades I've been playing computer games. I've played literally thousands of computer games, and these are some of the very best, for my tastes. Still addictively fun after years of play, which is rare.

However I do agree with much of the desires of BigJMoney, Arralen, et al, that I would have even more fun if the mortal units were more viable and the powerful magics (summons, spells) less so.

I'm really sorry I haven't yet had or made the time to finish my Hard Magic mod. I think it would probably be able to mod Dom II to my own taste in ways that could well-satisfy these desires.

At the risk of having someone else mod something that does the same thing before me, so I never get inspired enough to finish my own, I'll throw out what I'd like to see as a solution.

First, I agree with some earlier posts that it's good that Dom II has very powerful magic that should be very hard for mortals to overcome. Where I see the main problem coming in, is that it's so easy and cheap to deploy these powers. Simply put, much of the magic seems much too cheap and easy to me for what it does.

So, my mod-in-the-works increases the path requirements and cost of all magic that is better than on-par with mortal non-magic costs. One can still cast an army-blasting spell or create a super-powerful combattant, but it costs a ton to do and requires seriously powerful mages to do it. So magic is still very useful, but it takes serious investment. Less-used magic also becomes more viable because its cost isn't increased as much (or at all, for things like Corpse Man Construction).

As Arralen pointed out though, the main obstacle to completing a mod that changes the whole economy, is that there is so much content to mod.

PvK