Dominions 3000 - MP game - 2-3 nations left

[Aezeal]

The dominions 3 mod "Dominions 3000" takes dominions 3 to a new age.. an age where nations have either invented spacetravel or died. 7 nations currently exist

The Galactic Empire of Ulm
Jomon
R'lyeh
Orcs
Dragons
Insectoids
Commonwealth

These nations will battle for supremacy on the Solar System map, specially made for dominions 3000 and populated by special independants. The nations are either spin-off of dom 3 nations (Jomon, R'lyeh and Ulm), nations made by me from scratch (Orcs, Dragons) or nations Amos created for dom 3 and which have been adapted with his permission (Insectoids and Commonwealth). The setting is characterized by: high armour and much AP weapons, space provinces (forests) and units with different shapes in space (forestshapes), overall higher mobility. The progression of magic decline throughout the ages has not been continued however.. magic is on about MA level I'd say.

Llama has offered to host the game so wel will play on his server.

In the mods forum there is a large thread about this mod with in the last pages an excellent review of the nations by Rdonj http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39996.
In there you can also see a description of all nations and other features of the mod in the first post.

The game will start somewhere in the next 3 weeks, minimum amount of player I require is 3 (which could include me) and max is 7 (all races, which would be a bit crowed but would make a great fast and mean game) If enough pplz enlist I'll refrain from playing my self and be an independant observer.

The mod has been tested extensively and is considered to be reasonably balanced (not more unbalanced than vanilla dom 3 that is) but if there are obvious flaws in the game then adjustments can be made (and players are expected to inform me of clear bugs or loopholes) to the .dm file. All loopholes that are generally not allowed in other MP games are not allowed here either.

- Loren has requested to have the Dragons nation
- Aezeal (me) will take the nation of R'lyeh since it is considered to be the weakest nation

The other nations are free to those who sign up first. If all are taken and someone would like to play he/she cuuld sign up for R'lyeh and I will not play them (which would not bother me at all, I could make needed changes more objectively.)

Dragons: Loren
R'lyeh: Aezeal
Orcs: Rdonj
INsectoids: Calmon
Jomon: Free
Commonwealth: Darkwind
Galactic Empire of Ulm: Dragar

Sign up now!

Needed mod and map file are in the mod thread and attached to this post. Game will be played with version 0.76 (latest release as of 2-1-09). As always the unzipped map files need to go into the map folder of your dominions directory and the mod files in the mod folder of your dominions directory.

[rdonj]

I would like the orcs, please.

[Darkwind]

Haven't I called the Commonwealth already?

This should be fun :D

[Aezeal]

right 4 players already that is, I'm not expecting a lot more really since for some reason very different games aren't that attractive to most pplz but I can't start the game now anyway so we'll just keep this thread up next weeks and see if there will 1-2 more who dare try an adventurous game.

PS: NO MERCENARIES ALLOWED!! (completely unthematic, I'm not sure how I could find all the mercs to mod them out, might look into that later, but it's no priority.)

[rdonj]

I never used mercenaries in my sp games, so that doesn't bother me. What about building forts in space? I've avoided doing that for the most part because I'm not 100% sure it's thematic, but I could see an argument for them being allowed.

[Aezeal]

they are spacestations clearly completely thematic. Do not hesitate, once I get fort modding I'll make a few different spacestations for the forestprovinces. Ulm gets expensive ones, insects cheap ones (which in theory would be useless but will actually just be cheap.. the great paradox of dominions.) The can't spawn with spaceforms anyway :D.

PS for that map you are making. Spaceprovinces should have low pop, and never high (unless you really want it, could call the province a spacestation then)

[rdonj]

PS for that map you are making. Spaceprovinces should have low pop, and never high (unless you really want it, could call the province a spacestation then)

I set all the space provinces to have low pop, but there are one or two that would be good with a higher population... I will probably go and up the population of one or two.

[Aezeal]

nice

HEY noone else dares to try a different sort of game..

not even you Gandalf with you requests for special games etc?

[Dragar]

I'm keen, will take a better look at the mod and revert with a race selection :)

[Dragar]

I'll take Ulm

[Aezeal]

good choice, ulm has it all :D

[Dragar]

I just checked out the map for the first time - gonna be a bit crowded eh? ;)

[rdonj]

Depends on how many are playing. If it's the full 7 races, yeah, it'll be crazy crowded. If it's only 4 or 5 of us it won't be nearly as bad. Probably by the time you kill one neighbor you'll start feeling like maybe you have a little elbow room. With current numbers though it should be fine.

[Dragar]

I've just read through that mammoth development thread you guys have built - impressive amount of work. I haven't had any time to play yet unfortunately, so odds are won't get much testing done before the game starts. I'm happy to play it mostly by ear, just don't want to stuff up my pretender too badly.

So, if I went with the droid pretender as a an awake rainbow mage for early research and site searching, with good order and production and whatever negative scales and low dominion I need to make that work, would I go all right? Presumably ulm will as normal benefit a lot from early research in construction and alteration?

[rdonj]

Wow, I'm impressed, that must have taken hours :)

Order and production are both very good for ulm, and keep in mind that there's a lot less land to build on in this map than normal maps, so you can't make up for lack of resources by fort building. There are also several very resource-expensive units ulm can build from all forts that it can't get otherwise (capital ships and tanks). I haven't really experimented a whole lot with pretenders... what I've done in sp is mostly race towards Enchant 7 for earth blood deep well (bonus is you get arrow fend doing this, and thunder/fire ward which is great against jomon), then research construction up to 8, then win. That would probably not work as well in multiplayer because you probably will not be left alone long enough to research that far. Construction is useful early on for making spaceships, and evocation gets you magma eruption. Alteration is good for buffs, mostly for thugs but there aren't really lots of "good" thug chassis in dom3k, also wind guide is very useful for ulm. The personal artillery marines with wind guide could be quite devastating.

Things to bear in mind:

You have mages with natural picks that can reach n1, E4, F2, S3, and A2, and you'll get EFS crosspath mages, as well as SA crosspath. Your starting income covers earth, astral and fire. It's hard to get all of those paths up to max so it may be beneficial to cover some of that on your god if you go rainbow. You probably also want to take a magic dominions since magic is very important to ulm.

Prot is about half as good as it is normally, since AP damage is everywhere.

Misfortune can be a bit nasty with dom3k, it takes a lot of pd to beat independant attacks.


Anyway, to answer your question more directly, yes that sort of pretender will work for ulm. If you have to go negative, probably your best bets are the temperature and death scale, but ideally you don't want to dip too far because d3k also has low gold income I think because space provinces are small, and you will want lots of mages.

[Dragar]

Cool, thanks for that. It looks tenable then, just a question of the usual trade-off of magic vs scales.. I think given the size of the map there isn't much point looking at end game strategies too carefully at this stage ;)

[rdonj]

You're probably right about that :)

[Aezeal]

yeah though rthe last 2 might be battling somewhat longer.. if the races are somewhat balanced... I do hope R'lyeh gets to summoning space-eels I think they would eat most other SC for breakfast :D especially if somewhat equipped. Must admit I've never had one sofar though :D

Is misfortune that much of a problem? I can't really imagine why PD is so much weaker than in vanilla.. do you get to few units? because most nations have much more prot than vanilla etc.

[Aezeal]

So far 5 nations taken and that won't really crowd the map though..

I do want to tell I'll update the mod one last time before we start (with the last things from dev thread) but pretenders won't be changed (as far as I can see now at least) so just make pretenders already and somewhere in the next week maybe I'll see about getting llama to set it all up. we'll try to start before end of the month

[calmon]

Give me the insects. Your mod looks good! :)

[rdonj]

Is misfortune that much of a problem? I can't really imagine why PD is so much weaker than in vanilla.. do you get to few units? because most nations have much more prot than vanilla etc.

It's not the PD's fault, it's the fault of the random indy attacks. They're just a lot stronger than in vanilla. Changing the PD to try and be able to fight off independants would make it way too strong against other players. It's just a good thing there are no space eel random attacks....

Also, I look forward to being crushed by someone of Calmon's reputation! :)

[Aezeal]

stronger than in vanilla? I've not changed a thing there.. wouldn't even know how.. it's been a while since I've been able to play more than just a test of specific stuff (I'm pretty much not playing dom 3 just modding when I have the time.. I'll probably be killed of first in this game)

what is so special about the random attacks.. do you get attacked by other stuff than barbs? do you get attacked by dom 3 K creatures?

wait.. I did change something.. I've changed some pop types... that probably means I've changed some troops (must have but can't remember and can't bother to go look in my mod now) I seem to remember vaguely I've changed barbs...

ok just tell me what is it that attacks us now :D, if it's way to powerfull I'll just have to change something.

[rdonj]

You're right, it's the barbarians I'm thinking of. Instead of barbarians you get... SPACE TROLLS :O So instead of a 40 barbarian attack, you get 40 space trolls dashing into melee with your hapless guards, oh dear.

[Aezeal]

hehe maybe I need to change the unit numbers of blue aliens and spacetrolls then :D

40 trolls with 2 attacks, high strenght and HP ow and AP attack hehe.. you know I might just need to make them somewhat weaker...

Or I just give the weakest nations a better PD.. not dragons though..maybe a lil, but they aren't a PD race.... but R'lyeh might just get a lil better PD.. once

[rdonj]

Be very careful about increasing the PD, if you make it too strong it will be really hard to take provinces since money is a lot rarer in space.

[Aezeal]

hmm true true we'll play first anyway... there where small things I needed to change in this or the other thread and I'll do before we start.. can't remember what it was exactly.

[calmon]

Ok np with changes, but please take a new version id for your changes so we can be sure that everyone uses the correct version and don't have different battleoutcomes, etc, in the game.

[Aezeal]

Rdonj, I've changed the dragons, AP claws all around, higher dmg for the fvenom dragon, lower gems for summons of level 5, air 2 on stargazer (lowered research bonus with one so he only gets one extra rp)

where there other things you wanted me to change before the start of the MP game?

Calmo: I'll make the version we play on 0.77

[rdonj]

That sounds about right, I don't remember anything else I suggested be changed.

[rdonj]

Oh I just remembered, there was that thing with space krakens being called predator aliens. You get that fixed yet?

[Aezeal]

I did after your hint where the problem was to be found.

[Aezeal]

any (semi) last minute players wanting in

[Janlm]

hey there, sounds like a fun idea, let me try rlyeh in space.

[calmon]

hey there, sounds like a fun idea, let me try rlyeh in space.

According the first post only Jomon ist free to take.

[Aezeal]

hmmm well if Janlm wants R'lyeh I could take Jomon.

I'm going to delay the game a bit though next patch we will be able to give spaceprovinces a spacy background which will make playing the mod a lot more fun.

THe last patch is a couple of months in the past now and for next one quite some stuff is already done so I hope it won't take to long. In the meanwhile I'll polish a few sprites etc.

Maybe we can even play on the newer bigger map that is being mapped by Rdonj, last reports sounded like he was almost there.. once we get the new commands he (or me if he's busy) will just have to add the few commands needed to get the right background in space.

How is the map Rdonj?

[rdonj]

I've been pretty busy lately so I haven't gotten too much more done. I've been doing a bit of work on it today... there's still a lot more to be done but it is going pretty quickly. I will see what I can do about getting it finished up, no guarantees on when though. It will also need some playtesting to make sure I didn't make any mistakes with the map file before we can use it in an mp game.

[Aezeal]

yeah I know, no hurry :D.. if the patch is out I'll push you some more :D