Suggestions for new patch

[Executor]

I would like to hear some opinions and suggestion on this matter. Here are the thing I would like added to some future patch, feel free to share your thoughts.

A command to transfer gems like blood slaves would be very nice. If you have 100 clams or blood stones it is very frustrating to move every turn.

I would also like to see a bigger magic treasury, if you're playing a 50 provinces map you have 50 spots for items same if you are playing a 500 province map.
Sure you can give items to commanders, but I often forget what I have on commanders, and there are always spells like fires from afar and murdering winter to ruin your day.

[Illuminated One]

If your clam-carriers are in a province with a lab you just need to click on pool to get the gems. But maybe I'm misunderstanding you here.

Well, the only thing I'd like to see would be the ability to change the position of commanders in the unit queue. Just click on a commander portrait and shift-click on another and they change places.
Communions are such a cool feature, and the different behavior of slaves depending on casting order is nice, but it sucks that you can't control it.

[Executor]

Pool transfers ALL the gems from ALL the commanders, including the gems you put on your mages for spells and stuff like that, and that can be disastrous.

Edit: What I mean is you select the mages with clams and shift+z just like when you transfer blood slaves.

[Edi]

Having that would certainly expedite micromanagament. So instead of pooling just blodslaves from the commander, it might as well pool all gems in the same manner.

[Omnirizon]

you've ever had 100 clams/bloodstones before? I mean like in a serious game? The time it would take you to get that many the game should have ended long before... around turn 50 clamming becomes potentially wasteful because the game might end before you would get a pay-off from each new clam. Well... at least around turn 50 in any game I would play in, but I try to avoid large maps, not to mention mega maps.

[Psycho]

I've also suggested this some time ago in one wishlist thread.

I've had about 80 clams in a game on a small map with 8 players, so yes it is quite possible in a serious game. Clamming doesn't become wasteful in late game, especially if you put the forge up.

[Sombre]

I completely agree with illuminated one. The ability to move commanders in the order sequence would be mondo. Yes, mondo. It would be so good it caused me to reach back in time and grab that word, as no modern word suffices. Even if it was very limited and didn't entirely solve the issue, even partial control over that stuff would be rad. Yep, rad.

[AdmiralZhao]

If you hold down shift or ctrl when transferring gems, it transfers 5 or 10 gems at a time. This would save a lot of effort for players managing late game blood nations.

Also, when you transfer items, move the Laboratory to the top of the list rather than the bottom.

For the clams issue, I've had 100+ in a couple of games with 10-14 players and ~15 provinces per player. It is entirely possible to have to manage that many.

[Executor]

I too agree with Sombre and Iluminated one about changing the commander position.
Omnirizon, I'm in a mid size game with much more than 100+ clams, and another 5-10 each turn depending on the situation, so that's too much micromanagements, and the game is far from over.

I consider that clamming could become potentially wasteful because your not using those gems for GOR or items or spells and you might meet your end before they pay off.
And if you plan on clamming you need to start early and by the time you reach turn 50 you'll know if it's worth continuing to forge them.

Edit: Zhao has a good point about the laboratory, I'd also move the throw away button, one easily makes a mistake like that and doesn't even notice.

[Tifone]

About the order affecting reverse communions, I feel I should remind you about a conversation of some time ago - where KO said it is possible that in future patches all the communion slaves will be busy catalysing the power of the master, and so be able only to fight if required, not to cast spell.

Nothing certain yet, but I can just agree with this solution, if you ask me. I've always found those a bit of weird.

[Psycho]

Don't you just love it when something that developers didn't put there on purpose makes the game even better. I think I've used more reverse communions then regular ones so far.

[BesucherXia]

I think there should be a switch to filter the commanders, whose gems should not be pooled, and even be automatically resupplied as far as they are in laboratory provinces and gems are available.

But for this patch, my pesronal wish is more summons and features for the war underwater. And how about new races like EA machaka or MA Bogarus?

[Spendios]

Some units of Muspelheim giants :D

[Illuminated One]

I would certainly like to keep that they can fight or fire bows, but I wouldn't have to much against it if they couldn't cast spells anymore.
However being able to change the casting order has some other benefits. If you're using a crystal matrix then you want all the slaves casting communion slave before the master in order to get a defensive buff or strong spell cast on the first round.
Also if you combine some mages without a communion it would be a good way to optimize scripting.
For example when an A4 mage casts Storm and A2 mages cast Storm Power after that or a priest blesses all mages before they cast their first spell.

[Gandalf Parker]

I can see the transfer request since it should be fairly easy to just make Shft-Z work on slaves AND gems.

But the change of sequence on commanders would have to be temporary for that one turn or mean that the game would have to maintain a list of the preferred order. What is that now? 50,000 commanders?

[Edi]

9000 commanders per game, max. Still too much.

[Sombre]

About the order affecting reverse communions, I feel I should remind you about a conversation of some time ago - where KO said it is possible that in future patches all the communion slaves will be busy catalysing the power of the master, and so be able only to fight if required, not to cast spell.

Nothing certain yet, but I can just agree with this solution, if you ask me. I've always found those a bit of weird.

I would also support that. But even if that were true, it would be nice to be able to influence casting order.

[rabelais]

Changes a few days with the demo has made me want:


Open ended random magics for 10% chance paths, i.e. 1 in 100 should get +2 1 in 1000 get +3 (split rather than grouped, I would think) etc. Not important, just whimsical oe consistency.

Starting nation points should be moddable for both SP and MP.

A variant of ulm that has sacred black knights, just for funsies. (replacing black steel with the shroud is just silly.

Rare recruitable independents, that can heal afflictions... i thought witches fit the bill, but it was just flavor text.

--

Rabe who has the game but hasn't installed yet, for fear of having no life.

[Agrajag]

A variant of ulm that has sacred black knights, just for funsies. (replacing black steel with the shroud is just silly.

Rare recruitable independents, that can heal afflictions... i thought witches fit the bill, but it was just flavor text.
Both can be done via modding.

[Endoperez]

A variant of ulm that has sacred black knights, just for funsies. (replacing black steel with the shroud is just silly.

LA Ulm has sacred Black Templars (and Hochmeister commanders, and Black Inquisition). It also incorporates Black Forest theme of Dom2.

[JimMorrison]

That would be kinda neat if Witches and Druids had maybe Healer (20). It's awfully low, would take a good handful of them to even hope to get Disease or Feeblemind off, but it would be a nice reason to actually purchase them. ;)

Also, Enchantresses should be able to Seduce. Meow. :happy:

[Bwaha]

The two changes I would like to see is: First, the ability to trade research, and steal it.(Like MoO2) Second: The ability for nations to co-exist in the same province, (using something similar to move and patrol) This order would be move and co-exist. Please note If both parties don't give the order to cooperate, They fight... :D

[Gandalf Parker]

Sharing a province can already be done via castles. I use castles to allow allies to pass thru my territory.

Stealing research might be cool. Maybe make Spies more useful. But trading tech I think would be bad.

[Mithras]

I like both Bwaha's ideas. Especially the second one. I'd like a system that makes alliances easier to implement. Perhaps to go with that would be an option to cede control of a province to others.
And at the risk of making the diplomacy simplistic I wouldn't mind a simple dimplomacy for the AI...
Something along the lines of "don't attack me" and "declare war on nation c" With referance to score graphs, gifts and diplmacy laready in place, perhaps even a way to stop an ai from being at war with you...

[Tifone]

Maybe I'm counter-current but I always thought that the whole idea at the base of this game is RELIGIOUS wars. All of our units are more or less religious zealots, and the one who gives orders is a Pretender God which looks with EXTREME, UNCONCEIVABLE hatred to whoever is on the way to his goal of ascendance. While to reach that goal we have the need to create temporary pacts, peaces or even "let's go together against a common enemy", including something like coexisting and happily cooperating hand-in-hand, in the game mechanics themselves, doesn't appeal to me.

But I'm the one who pretty much always dislikes potential changes of this game and likes it as it is, so don't consider me too much :D

[Loren]

A simple solution that will fix most of the clam harvesting problem:

Any creature which generates gems either naturally or via items and is sitting in a province with a lab should transfer those gems to the lab.

This leaves only blood hunting (where you might not want to put labs in every province being hunted) that would need micromanagement.

[Mithras]

Good point Tifone, maybe we shoud have a zealot tag for those types of troops that would just attack everyone else... but not all soldiers are zenophobic mad men even in relgious wars, and most of them are clever enough to do what their god(who happens to be there personaly)says. Hmm we couldn't have two pretenders in the same province either though...

[rdonj]

I would very much appreciate it if, when you have a stealthy commander selected, their default move command was move instead of sneak. I can't count the number of times I've accidentally snuck with a commander that really needed to move to a province.

[Zeldor]

I think we could use a next increase in troops and commander limit. I am a bit worried about Kingmaker hitting 9k commander limit.

[Gandalf Parker]

Speaking of defaults, I wish the default on mages was research. Which would of course fall to defend if there was no lab.

[HoneyBadger]

I'd like to see Blesses separated from the magic your Pretender has. Pretenders would still be built as they are, currently, but you'd pay a little less for magic paths and levels, and you'd pay separately for whatever Bless you want to give your Sacreds. Pretenders would have bonuses or maluses that would affect the cost you'd pay for that particular Bless.

Separating them out would allow more types of Blesses-even Pretender-specific ones-to be added to the game, without having to add whole new types of magic, and it would also make modding the Blesses easier, and maintaining balance easier too.

Furthermore, it would allow balancing between different types of Blesses, and more, and more interesting and/or powerful types to be added, but at the cost of design points, or force you to choose a specific Pretender type. And, ofcourse, it could be used to make various less popular types of Pretenders more attractive.

This would have the added effect of more closely relating Pretenders and their percieved domains of influence, so that instead of adding *any* Bless, relatively easily and cheaply, to any Pretender Chassis, you could still allow all the choice we have now in Pretender creation, but limit how their divine-now separated from magic-power reflects upon their sacred followers.

For example-a god of ice, the Niefel Pretender, for example, might not even *have* the ability to bestow a fire bless to his followers, but he could grant the Water bless, as well as-for instance-a cold weapons bless, or a bless that strengthens his followers' armour in cold weather.

You could still give him fire magic though, and you'd still pay more for it than for the water path.

You'd be able to pick and choose the blessings your Pretender granted, from whatever options are open to that Pretender (some Pretenders might grant less expensive, or more unique "innate" blesses, starting at various levels of power, that you could then improve upon in Pretender Creation, while others would have to pay "retail" for Blesses from a pool of common choices), without having to pay a ton of design points for a path that it doesn't make a lot of sense for your Pretender to have, so that he/she/it can grant a power that it doesn't make a lot of sense for your Pretender to grant.

You still might end up paying a lot of design points if you want a good Bless, but the investment would make more rational sense, and involve less min/maxing alchemy.

[JimMorrison]

I don't think it would in any way eliminate min/maxing (it's a much larger problem than Dominions can solve ;)).

BUT, I do think that's a great idea. It would take a bit of work to implement, but wouldn't be all that hard, since the blesses are determined at pretender creation, so are encapsulated into a small segment of the coding.

It's probably a lot to ask, but would be so cool. ;)

[Illuminated One]

But the change of sequence on commanders would have to be temporary for that one turn or mean that the game would have to maintain a list of the preferred order. What is that now? 50,000 commanders?

I doubt you'd need a list of the preferred order.
The commanders have to be stored now allready in the turn files (of course) - I suspect in some large structure.
All that would be necessary to change the order would be to change the fields of the commanders in that structure which should be doable without need for extra RAM or complicated coding.
Well, of course I might be mistaken with the history of affliction and heroic skills each unit has got, but I'd be willing to try and make an external programm for that if it doesn't make it to the patch and the devs have nothing against it.

[Festin]

As I understand, the developers are currently modifying Yomi/Shimuyama/Jomon. So, some changes it would be nice to see:
1)Yomi demons need some sort of hp/prot/def increase, or something else to make them more powerful.
2)A bit of a power-up for Jomon infantry, something like less encumberance maybe?
3)Remove old age from Jomon priest, who is currently quite useless
4)Mages should be able to cast most of the national summons(with boosters, at least). Maybe some sort of dark sorcerer to summon Yomi can be added?
5)Also, Kitsune should be able to Seduce, obviously.

Oh, yes, and it would be great if the bug with typing capital letters would be fixed.

[Tifone]

Speaking of defaults, I wish the default on mages was research. Which would of course fall to defend if there was no lab.

Sorry, but no thanks. Expecially for mages with random picks, I want to be able to search for the newly rectuited ones and look what I've got new just with the "n" key, not trying to remember all my previous mages :D Also, If I was recruiting this mage for a specific task, better to find him with "n" instantly or so, instead of having to remember that and search him in my countless provinces and researchers :D

[konming]

I would like to see a few interface enchancement.

*F1 should remember where you scrolled last time, so you do have to frustrately scroll down everytime.
*PageUp/PageDown should work in F1 screen.
*Add a sort ability on F1 screen. For an example, you can sort province by name, or income, or unrest, and you can sort all mages by earth magic and so on.
*Expand filter ability on F1 screen. You can filter commanders to show/hide those who are idle or doing particular things, like research, or those who have items.
*Show castle/lab/temple on F1 screen.
*Recruit directly from F1 screen. (maybe with right click on the province)

[Gregstrom]

Heck, if the up and down arrows worked on the F1 screen I'd be happy.

[Zeldor]

Illuminated One:

Commanders are sorted by ID, so now to change their order on screen you'd need to change unit ID. And that is not an easy job.



There is very very small chance Illwinter will do anything we suggest here. It is just next spam topic with wishful thinking, we had plenty of them already. And most of them would require serious rewriting of the code [so dom4, which ain't happening soon].

Festin:

Yomi should get a Demon Gate, smth like R'lyeh one, but well, with demons.

[Gregstrom]

Yomi should get a Demon Gate, smth like R'lyeh one, but well, with demons.

Now that's a nice idea. More summoning gates like R'lyehs but with different summons would be a great thing to see. It would be nice and thematic if LA Marignon had one, too.

[JimMorrison]

Yomi should get a Demon Gate, smth like R'lyeh one, but well, with demons.

Now that's a nice idea. More summoning gates like R'lyehs but with different summons would be a great thing to see. It would be nice and thematic if LA Marignon had one, too.


An evangelist gate?


An unexpected event has occurred in Hybernia.

Tammy Faye Baker appeared and swallowed 20% of the inhabitants of the province. Most of the rest died of fright.

:angel

[rdonj]

I also think it would be really useful to have an in-game troop/commander/province count for your nation. Probably in the Nation Overview screen. It would be much less mind-breaking than trying to count them all by hand and calculator on the occasion you might wish to :) I don't know about anyone else but there are times I find myself wishing I was playing sp games on the llamaserver to have more access to that sort of data.

Also, about Yomi- Being used to the idea of demons being associated with human sacrifices etc, it feels very weird that Yomi, the only actual nation of demons in the game, doesn't have any blood magic or demonic summons iirc. I suppose it's probably not as thematic with japanese mythology as it is with others, I admit I have a pretty poor knowledge of japanese mythology.

One thing that would be really nice is if the kuro-oni could be made sacred. They seem like they're supposed to be somewhat more 'special' than the other recruitable demons, and what would be a good bless for them is certainly not one of the more standard bless strategies. They would probably have to cost a little more, but I really think they would make for fun sacreds. Plus iirc the Jomonese nations never have a very good chassis for a bless strategy, so it would add more diversity to them :angel.

[Endoperez]

As I understand, the developers are currently modifying Yomi/Shimuyama/Jomon. So, some changes it would be nice to see:
1)Yomi demons need some sort of hp/prot/def increase, or something else to make them more powerful.
2)A bit of a power-up for Jomon infantry, something like less encumberance maybe?
3)Remove old age from Jomon priest, who is currently quite useless
4)Mages should be able to cast most of the national summons(with boosters, at least). Maybe some sort of dark sorcerer to summon Yomi can be added?
5)Also, Kitsune should be able to Seduce, obviously.

Great post! We've had many wishlist threads, but these tend to suggest things that are hard to implement. Congrats on being the first poster I remember to have actually suggested something for the NEXT patch, instead of "some patch way to the future, right before Dom4". :up:

On 4 - some national spells are meant to be almost forgotten or hard to cast for other reason. See LA Ulm for an extreme example (Vampire Counts at B3D3). A national hero is more likely than a new recruitable.

I'd like to see some kind of dragon-slayer hero for Jomon. The wikipedia article on Japanese dragons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_dragon) gives several good ideas, already.

Jomon Priests could be given some kind of anti-undead ability since Japan supposedly has and has long had lots of ghosts. Is that Tien Chi-spesific, or do Jomonese have it too?


Oh, yes, and it would be great if the bug with typing capital letters would be fixed.

Restarting the game should help. If you can reproduce it consistently, report it in the bug thread.

[Edi]

I think we could use a next increase in troops and commander limit. I am a bit worried about Kingmaker hitting 9k commander limit.
Not happening anytime soon. The current limits replaced the old limits in patch 3.20 and I don't see another increase coming immediately afterward.

Limits right now are 9k commanders and 140k units and people are just going to have to live with them. This means avoiding freespawn nations (mainly LA Ermor & R'lyeh) on massive maps.

[Festin]

Great post! We've had many wishlist threads, but these tend to suggest things that are hard to implement. Congrats on being the first poster I remember to have actually suggested something for the NEXT patch, instead of "some patch way to the future, right before Dom4".

Thank you. Of course I have lots of suggestions for new Yomi/Shinuyama/Jomon units and summons, but I tried to restrict the list to the things that the developers can actually include in a patch with almost no effort.

LA Ulm has a single national summon, which is quite expensive, so you won't usually be summoning more than one Count in a turn anyway. Plus, this unit is very important for LA Ulm, as its main strategy is built around it. Finally, with Skull Staff and Brazen Vessel a Count can summon more Counts. This means that LA Ulm just takes a D3B3 pretender by default, and the problem is solved.

Jomon, on the other hand, just has lots of (quite average)national summons, and almost no way to use them. I still think that a sorcerer with Death and some random magic can make this nation much more attractive. It's easy to add too - after all, developers can just repaint an Onmyo-ji sprite into some darker color, I don't think anybody will object :)

I'm not really sure what can be done to improve priests. Maybe add a random magic pick, or even a Summon Allies ability that summons some minor spirits(Kami)? Of course, this would make them more expensive to hire.

Also, I think that giving Seduction to Kitsune is important. Currently it is just an overpriced Nature mage summon. It is reasonable with Shinuyama, where it can boost its stealthy armies, but almost useless for Jomon. It's too expensive to be used as a spy too. Giving it Seduction would make it a powerful unit, as it also can cast Charm. Jomon is really underpowered right now, so it will not be unbalancing, while giving players an intersting and fun strategy to use. It is also thematic.

[Gandalf Parker]

I also think it would be really useful to have an in-game troop/commander/province count for your nation. Probably in the Nation Overview screen. It would be much less mind-breaking than trying to count them all by hand and calculator on the occasion you might wish to :) I don't know about anyone else but there are times I find myself wishing I was playing sp games on the llamaserver to have more access to that sort of data.

Actually that data is available to you. The game creates it in the games save directory if you ask it. Just add the switch --scoredump to your desktop shortcut that opens Dom3 for you. If you want a ton more info (such as watching the AI think) then also add -d up to -dddddd for how much debug data you want written to a file.

[rdonj]

Hmm, I'll give that a try. But I'm not 100% sure I understand the format. Do you mean it should look like this ("C:\Program Files\dominions3\dom3.exe" --scoredump)?

[Gandalf Parker]

Exactly. Switches are outside of the quotes.
The quotes are just there because the space messes up Windows reading of the command. To make C:\Program Files\dominions3\dom3.exe a single command, it has to have quotes.

There are also lots of other great switches. Changing the defaults for things like magic sites, indepts, turning on renaming. Or changing the defaults for map colors and amount of water or mountains. Or turning off music, fades, the credit screen at the end. Changing the volume of things like those mouse clicks.

http://www.dom3minions.com/docs/CommandLine.txt

[rdonj]

Thank you, that is very useful to know.

[Ylvali]

I´d like it if the effects of spells cast by a specific mage were dispelled if that mage died or retreated, as is the case now with battlefield spells.

For example a s1 mage etherealizing two elephants, kill the mage and the elephants lose ethereal.

It would open more and funnier tactics in late game. If you could strip army of lead, fog warriors etc by managing to kill the caster.

There are lots of spells where this would not make sense of course, and those should be left as is.

I´d also like it if all (regardless of order) communion slaves could still cast, but didn´t get reduced fatigue for their own spells. But I´d like o keep the buffs cast by master affecting slaves. This could enable a more reasonable form of reverse communions, but prevent the current which is IMO a bit to weird.

[thejeff]

Casting communion slaves don't get reduced fatigue for their own spells. The benefit to the reverse communion comes from using the master's path boosting spells, particularly PotS & Earthpower, to buff the slaves.

[Executor]

Here's another idea on my part, mages shouldn't by default cast spells that can kill them, like shockwawe if you don't have 100 SR. It's very sad when your rainbow pretender kills himself like that.

[Stavis_L]

Casting communion slaves don't get reduced fatigue for their own spells. The benefit to the reverse communion comes from using the master's path boosting spells, particularly PotS & Earthpower, to buff the slaves.

Well, the slaves get the same +1 to paths bonus that the masters get, so this effectively reduces their fatigue (at least potentially) if the communion is large enough.

It just doesn't share out the fatigue for the slaves.

[Loren]

On research being the default action:

I think the answer is to make "defend" take a default action based on what the unit can do and what's there.

Mages would research.
Priests would preach if it would do any good.
Reanimators would reanimate.

These would be evaluated in order until a task was found.

[thejeff]

No, slaves only get the communion bonus to paths for calculating the fatigue they absorb from the master's spells.

For anything they cast on their own, they only have their own paths, plus the effect of any booster spells a master has cast.

[HoneyBadger]

When I first suggested that Yomi get a gate-site, like R'lyeh, 2 years ago or thereabouts, I was thinking that it would actually lead to the Japanese spirit-world, and contain primarily different types of Japanese ghosts and spirits. Japanese have a *lot* of ghosts and spirits. Some demons would be fine too, ofcourse, but I'd rather have demons for Yomi be National summons.

Now that we're getting site summons, I'm thinking that it would be pretty awesome if someone created a map (and once one was made, they could be added to other maps) with Yomi surrounded by a bunch of provinces-say six-each one containing a site that allowed a death mage to enter and summon a different type of Japanese undead. This would not only give Yomi a boost-a balanced boost, because those provinces would still have to be captured, and defended, because others could use them too-but it would also make Yomi distinct from all other Nations.

As far as summons go, I totally agree that Yomi should get some blood summons, and maybe some undead summons too. I think it would be great if they got some unique "demon lord" types-like one for every cardinal direction.

A couple of demonic Pretenders would be nice too.

[HoneyBadger]

Another thing I'd like to see would be some kind of "charisma" or PR/Diplomacy scale (whatever seems like a good term to call it), that would affect your Nation's ability to attract heroes, since I think heroes ought to be separated out from other good events.

Bad charisma might affect the Morale of your non-Sacred units negatively-or perhaps just Independents under your command, while reducing your chances to attract Heroes, but it would also give you some kind of boost to your PD-based on your bad reputation, other Nations don't want to risk your displeasure, and because you're not worried about keeping up appearances, there's no reason not to decorate in the styles of "early crow's cage" and "Spanish Inquisition", complete with pit traps and caltrops.

A good charisma would help you get more heroes, and maybe lowers the price of Mercenaries, and possibly even Summoned creatures, but it would also give you a negative Patrol factor, since your open tourist trade allows spies and assassins easy access.

I'd also like to see some generic, non-National heroes available. Examples might include a hoburg knight, a bog beast, a wandering Titan, a knight of the Chalice, a hero from one of the wolf/bear/lion/deer tribes, or one of the Amazon independents, etc. Units specific to Dominions, in other words, but not specific to any one Nation. I think a chance of getting one of those would add more of a specific "Dominions flavor". You can already get Necromancers, etc., ofcourse, I'd just like this expanded, and the units themselves labled as actual Heroes.

This would also be a fun as a moddable feature on certain "theme" maps, where each Nation would have a chance to end up with the same map-based Heroes, while still getting their own National Heroes.

[Endoperez]

Another thing I'd like to see would be some kind of "charisma" or PR/Diplomacy scale (whatever seems like a good term to call it), that would affect your Nation's ability to attract heroes, since I think heroes ought to be separated out from other good events.

Yes, I could see some kind of spreading influence thing added to the game. A kind of "scale of influence", perhaps. Hey I know, it could be called "dominion", like the name of the game! :p

I always thought dominion should have a stronger effect on the game. I hope you don't mind if I rewrite your suggestions to fit the existing model.




[Negative dominion] might affect the Morale of your units negatively, and reduce your chances to attract Heroes.

[Positive dominion] would also give you some kind of boost to your PD-based on [their fanaticism], other Nations don't want to risk your displeasure, and because you're not worried about keeping up appearances, there's no reason not to decorate in the styles of "early crow's cage" and "Spanish Inquisition", complete with pit traps and caltrops.

[High dominion] would help you get more heroes, and maybe lowers the price of Mercenaries, and possibly even Summoned creatures, but it would also give you a negative Patrol factor, since [disguising themselves as pilgrims and priests] allows spies and assassins easy access.

I'd also like to see some generic, non-National heroes available. Examples might include a hoburg knight, a bog beast, a wandering Titan, a knight of the Chalice, a hero from one of the wolf/bear/lion/deer tribes, or one of the Amazon independents, etc. Units specific to Dominions, in other words, but not specific to any one Nation. I think a chance of getting one of those would add more of a specific "Dominions flavor". You can already get Necromancers, etc., ofcourse, I'd just like this expanded, and the units themselves labled as actual Heroes.


What difference would it make if a unit was a hero? Currently, heroes aren't even unique the way unique summons are. A good event description would be enough IMO.

Knight of the Chalice:
"Group of peasants in a backwater province decided to join the army to get free food and upkeep. Fortunately, a wandering knight happened to hear about the nefarious plot and killed all of them. Dominion was increased."
Rare good event, requires dominion 4, gives Knight of the Chalice commander

Cyclops:
"Your miners dug too deep following a promising vein of rare metal ores and unleashed a nameless terror imprisoned under a mountain ages ago. The creature wreaked dreadful destruction and killed 1 percent of the population until a lone priest stood against him and threatened him with divine punishment. Now afraid of your power, the creature has accepted to serve you in return for his continued freedom."
Rare good event, requires dominion 8, requires Production 2, mountain or cave only, gives Cyclops with E3, creates a Mine of Superior Iron site.


Of course, similar bad events should also be made. A Cyclops freed from his imprisonment could kill 10% of the population and take control of the province if you had Misfortune.

[Endovior]

If we're talking about patching Jomon, one thing I'd really like to see is the Ninjas made a little better. They should at least be able to take out a generic indy commander without the use of magic items... given that the more common 'Assassin' can do this without difficulty.

[rdonj]

They can. I played using large amounts of ninja in one game and had a fairly high rate of success taking out non-mounted indy commanders. Mounted ones were rather a lot harder though. I may or may not have been using only ninja with one experience star plus though.

[HoneyBadger]

Also, Endoperez: Using Dominion would be a nice idea, and I agree that I'd like to see Dominions have more of an effect too, but I was thinking more of a determiner of how the Nation is viewed by other Nations, in terms of morality, aggression, social freedoms, etc. This would help balance out the really powerful Nations-Mictlan, Hinnom, R'lyeh, Lanka, Niefelheim, etc-who also always seem to be really evil, too.

They might start with a malus to their "Charisma", while weaker Nations might have a plus, due to their more open and friendly characters.

I'd rather see Dominion possibly affect things like morale, population types of indies under it's control, PD, and maybe some Pretender and Nation-specific effects.

There was one post that suggested Tien Chi might grant longevity to it's mages at Dominion 10. It ultimately seems that it doesn't, but what a great idea if the Celestial Emperor granted that power at high Dom.

Titans might perhaps grant all human units an extra hp or two at very high Dom.

Freaklord might add some freaks to your Nation's PD, or allow you to recruit them directly. Vampire Queen, the same, only with vampires and thralls.Dakaina-being a sea monster-might allow you to build PD in an underwater province with 10 Dominion, etc.

[Illuminated One]

This got me thinking.
What would be cool as well would be if some pretenders would get special spell effect.
For example if you take an Ancient Kraken all Krakens you summon would be sacred.
Or if you take a Medusa the Petrify spell would be easier to use for you national mages.

[HoneyBadger]

Krakens are pretty powerful as it is, I think too powerful just to make them sacred because your Pretender's a kraken. I could see maybe giving 2 krakens for the price of 1, or something, if you've got Dom10, since they're not that easy to get...and using your Pretender to summon them is costly enough as it is. Or at Dom10 allow the Ancient Kraken to attract 1 regular kraken a year. Something like that-but a Fire/Water blessed kraken would be very hard to deal with.

[NTJedi]

I think we could use a next increase in troops and commander limit. I am a bit worried about Kingmaker hitting 9k commander limit.
Not happening anytime soon. The current limits replaced the old limits in patch 3.20 and I don't see another increase coming immediately afterward.

Limits right now are 9k commanders and 140k units and people are just going to have to live with them. This means avoiding freespawn nations (mainly LA Ermor & R'lyeh) on massive maps.


The increase was definitely appreciated. Ideally this setting would be adjustable by the gamer allowing the game to utilize computers of today and tomorrow. This would keep the game alive longer.

[HoneyBadger]

Anything less than 25,000 troops on a battlefield and a million troops on the map is just flimsy.

[Bwaha]

The Ermore javelins should be changed to Pilum. The Roman army used these weapons instead of simple javelins. The intent of a pilum is to negate the oppositions shields. The tip of a pilum was made out of a soft metal so it would deform while striking a shield. This would change the point into a hook that kept it in the victims shield. Also it was heavy so it would encumber the victim. One last atvantage of this weapon was after hitting something it was no longer effective till it was repaired. With a regular javilin you could pick it up and throw it back. Here's a link: http://www.soldiers-russia.com/kolobob/terms/roman_weapons.htm :D

[Nikelaos]

The Ermore javelins should be changed to Pilum. The Roman army used these weapons instead of simple javelins. The intent of a pilum is to negate the oppositions shields. The tip of a pilum was made out of a soft metal so it would deform while striking a shield. This would change the point into a hook that kept it in the victims shield. Also it was heavy so it would encumber the victim. One last atvantage of this weapon was after hitting something it was no longer effective till it was repaired. With a regular javilin you could pick it up and throw it back. Here's a link: http://www.soldiers-russia.com/kolobob/terms/roman_weapons.htm :D


nah don't think so, ermors militia would be unbeatable.

also i don't think you're source is right, it couldn't be heavy because if the head is soft (less dense and so much lighter than conventional heads) the shaft needs to be lighter than conventional shafts because if it is heavier than the head, the head would never hit the target unless it's standing 2ft away.

i have heard in a history lesson some many years ago that the top was soft and i'm not disputing that but the shaft would have to be light - possibly hollow, for the javelin(or pilum) to ever fly straight or far through the air in accordance to the laws of physics.

in short you can't have a soft head and a heavy shaft so little to no encumberance and second it would be overpowered if it caused encumberance.

PS. you can't throw javelins back at the enemy anyway in dominions.

[Trumanator]

In RTW the pilum are AP :)

[Bwaha]

Hi, I'm a student of military history. I know I'm correct on this subject. Since you didn't like that link try this: http://numbera.com/rome/tools/pilum.aspx . I wouldn't give it to militia, I would only give it to Principe. The old guys wouldn't have the strength to use them effectively If you don't like this link, just google Pilum. And you will see I'm correct. Thanks.:D

[Gregstrom]

I took an interest in this and looked up the pilum on britannica online. The pilum was apparently 7 feet long, with a bullet-shaped or pyramidal head to let it penetrate armour and shields better. It was sometimes thrown.

Wikipedia, while less reliable, has more to say. It says the head of a pilum was almost a foot long, and capable of lodging in shields and armour it penetrated. The pilum could be rigged to bend at the joint between head and shaft - one of the two pins joining the parts could be replaced with a wooden dowel, which would snap under the shock of impact. Mechanical strain would then bend or twist the pilum, making it useless and encumbering shields it lodged in.

A suggestion to work this in Dominions would be (this would require dev coding, so we're in the realms of fantasy here):

Missile weapon with 1 shot.
Stats like javelin - perhaps a point or 2 more damage, perhaps less range and/or accuracy.
Special effect: If the missile is blocked by a shield, apply a new 'shield destroyed' effect (like armour destroyed but only affecting shields - armour destroyed would overwrite this effect).

I suspect this would increase the power of legionaries noticeably.

Btw, Nikelaos: Soft =/= light. See lead for details.

[lch]

also i don't think you're source is right, it couldn't be heavy because if the head is soft (less dense and so much lighter than conventional heads) the shaft needs to be lighter than conventional shafts because if it is heavier than the head, the head would never hit the target unless it's standing 2ft away.
I don't quite understand that logic. What laws of physics forbid this? I'd expect that the less weight the head has, the less impact it has on the trajectory when you throw the shaft. If you'd have a heavy head and a light shaft, or hollow one like you suggested, then that would really **** up things. Unless you'd use it like in hammer throwing. BTW, from what I know, the soldiers had leather straps or something like that to propel their pila. They didn't throw them like a spear.

[Sombre]

Athletic javelin shafts weigh more than the heads.

So,... yeah.

[Gregstrom]

Athletic javelins (the modern ones at least) are apparently designed not to fly too far. I believe there was a problem with the older designs in that Olympic athletes were very nearly lobbing them into the stands.

[Gregstrom]

And... a nose weight does help with aerodynamics to an extent (for instance, paper planes fly far better with a nose weight). It would certainly help a javelin land point first (which is fundamental to the purpose of a javelin).

[Illuminated One]

I don't quite understand that logic. What laws of physics forbid this? I'd expect that the less weight the head has, the less impact it has on the trajectory when you throw the shaft. If you'd have a heavy head and a light shaft, or hollow one like you suggested, then that would really **** up things. Unless you'd use it like in hammer throwing. BTW, from what I know, the soldiers had leather straps or something like that to propel their pila. They didn't throw them like a spear.

Afaik it's about air friction and force/acceleration.

When you throw something air friction exerts a force on it that's proportional to the speed and size it has.
But the acceleration (in that case the break action) is force through mass as F=m*a.
So a smaller mass is slowed down more quickly by air friction.
Now imagine throwing two objects of the same size but with different mass tied together.
The light object will be soon slower than the heavy one, which means that the heavy one will move to the front pulling the light one with it.

It's a bit similar with the javelin, if the front end is lighter than the back end the javelin will start to turn in flight messing up tracetory.

That doesn't mean that the tip has to be more heavy than the shaft but heavy enough that the centre of mass is closer to the front than to the back end.
I'm quite sure that applies to athletic javelins as well, at least all arrows I've seen are constructed that way.

[Bwaha]

I'm sure the Roman army used practicable and efficient weapons, my last post showed pictures of these. My suggestion would be to change the weapon effect to the shield breaking flail. Maybe increase the encumbrance for both the carrier and the victim. Just a thought. Balista's and other artillery could be modded by using any immoble troop type. At least thats what I get from my small grasp of the mod stuff.:D

[Nikelaos]

still think the javelins would b overpowered in any case, however i shall concede that i actually no nothing on the realism side and any sciency stuff i say is probably bumwad.

[Bwaha]

The only real effect would be against SCs, everyone puts scum or krill up front to absorb the arrows, slings, ect... This would give certain units the capability to fight single combatants. Such as Joten and other SCs. I would give it a lower probability than a enchanted weapon to destroy a shield. :D

[Szumo]

-dont-scale graphics options for use with any custom resultion/windows size, pretty please.

[Bwaha]

Hi, new rant on a option I think would be useful. Being able to either change the name of a province, and or adding a comment to the province name. :D

[Nikelaos]

The only real effect would be against SCs, everyone puts scum or krill up front to absorb the arrows, slings, ect... This would give certain units the capability to fight single combatants. Such as Joten and other SCs. I would give it a lower probability than a enchanted weapon to destroy a shield. :D

still SCs cost tons, they aren't supposed to be taken out so easily by any means and are supposed to take alot of resources and planning to kill.

i suppose an elite, expensive sacred or something could pass with something like that but other than that it makes no sense to make the troops have such an uber effect.

[Bwaha]

I don't think thats absolutely true, Tartarians only cost ten death gems. I agree that it may be too powerful to issue them to everyone. I just played Ermor in a mp game and found them to be a weak power. Maybe it was poor play on my part, but I don't think so. After that I started musing on ways to give them a little help. :D

[Gregstrom]

Tarts cost 10 gems, plus 20 nature for GoR, plus maybe 20 for equipment. Plus whatever you determine the cost of healing their afflictions to be. And of course the actions of several mages who could be doing something else. They aren't so much cheap, as cheaper than the alternatives.
Oh, and hits that give them extra encumbrance wouldn't have much effect anyway because they're enc 0.

[Nikelaos]

I don't think thats absolutely true, Tartarians only cost ten death gems. I agree that it may be too powerful to issue them to everyone. I just played Ermor in a mp game and found them to be a weak power. Maybe it was poor play on my part, but I don't think so. After that I started musing on ways to give them a little help. :D

unfortunately any SC chassis can usually be killed quite easily before it's geared up, by the time people are calling forth SCs others are sending in communions and a good communion with a meat sheild is more than enough to take out an SC with no gear.

yes the initial cost for tartarians is cheap but then you have to think about the gear and ontop of that most tartarians need gift of Reasoning which costs a fair amount of gems, and before that there is empowering mages and giving them boosters to be able to cast tartarian gate (costs gems) and if not you'll have to spend design points (costly in their own right except if you're LA ermor) to give you're god enough death to cast tartarians.

[Tifone]

And don't forget possibly gift of health or the chalice to get rid of all the afflictions they naturally come with.

[Nikelaos]

And don't forget possibly gift of health or the chalice to get rid of all the afflictions they naturally come with.

exactly, though you probably want and should probably contend over GoH anyway seeing as nature gems and indie nature mages aren't exactly a rare resource ,and it's quite a boon to all you're troops in you're dominion.

but then most people in the game will want and be able to contend for GoH leaving the chalice which there can only be one of.

Which brings us back to GoH but you may potentially need to pay quite a bit more than the minimum gem cost if someone else has it (which they may well do),and if you don't give enough gems to take it from someone it's just gems wasted.