suggestion about commanders

[st.patrik]

There is the magical item 'Pocket Ship' which enables you to sail over ocean provinces in much the same way Vanheim does (at least according to the manual).

If you think about oceans being pretty big it kinda makes sense that most nations can't sail on them. The technology involved in ocean-going ships is not something I'd expect Abysia (for example) to have - whereas small boats I think are reasonable for everyone to have, which is why you can go short distances from island to island without needing a special ability.

It also makes sense of why two nations sailing over the same sea wouldn't bump into one another - you can't exactly keep scouts all over the ocean to warn you of incursions. [of course under sea is different - outlying kelp villages, etc.]

[Nerfix]

I'm completely OK with Dominions II the way it is... The lack of ships just constantly jumps straigth to my face... But i agree that formations would be awesome.

[Yojinbo]

Guys,

Formations would be very taxing to the AI compared to the current battle logic. What we need is a borgMod; Dominions 2 strategic map with a call to Total War for the battles. Then you could run your own formations. (flashback; who remembers the game Breach? It had some kind of two-game integration) Now ‘all’ we need is an interface application to move the data and a complete rework of TA to model the monsters and magic.

Sea Battles would really need two phases; ship to ship and boarding. Look how Port Royal handles this; the boarding is all AI (no ability to watch anything but the numbers of sailors per side) while the ship to ship continues. This would drive my crazy; not seeing my boarding operation succeeded (or fail) while I sail around firing arrows and fireballs.

I would like to hear what Illwinter wants to do with Dom III before I have any suggestions. I trust these guys to make games that I like to play already.

[Nerfix]

About Dom III, i think IW will more likely make CoE III first...

Or then try something else...
*an image of Dominions JRPG flashes somewhere in the dark mind of Nerfix*
Now, a Dominions JRPG would be awesome!
How to combine heroic and high-lethality fantasy, how to mix Japanese and western RPG's, now that would be some challange for IW!

Of course i am kidding, unless IW is realy planning something like that...

[ September 29, 2003, 20:19: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

[Pocus]

didnt knew the wishlist for dominions XVII was already open...

[PDF]

Well, the problem IMHO is not that we don't have "ships" per se, but rather than sea is impassable to most nations...

So why not implement a simple "Port" structure, that will allow a (limited) army to cross 1-3 sea provinces, in the same way than Vanheim can sail ?

The port could be only allowed to some nations, and its cost, the ship range and ship capacity (size of army movable per turn) could depend on nation : Vanheim would get small cost ports and long range (they could use ships for armies w/o "sailing comander"), Arco could get medium range and capacity, Pythium short range/big capacity, Abysia nothing etc...

This won't be difficult to do, as the mechanics already exist , and will solve the problem.
The only big impact is on game balance ...
What do you think ?

[ September 29, 2003, 20:33: Message edited by: PDF ]

[Nerfix]

@Pocus:LOL!

@PDF:
Hmmmm... Well, that would be one solution...