Question on Strength of Dominion in God Design

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Besides the formulas and facts provided, I kindof miss the analogy of dominion that Dom1 had. In Dom1 not only did you have the candles but you could turn on a map filter which would show the effect on the map. Neutral or no real dominion was grey. Your dominion got a whitening effect of the provinces. And anyone elses dominions showed up black.

So the areas near your capital, or your pretender, or your prophet, would often show very white. You could see the gradual greying of the "light of your god" as you moved farther away from the capital. And you could see the effect of the darkening of other dominins pushing on yours.

All of this is now reflected only by the size of the candle which I dont find nearly so informative and I dont think is as easy for new players to grasp. Anyway, the dominion power in a way refers to your "push power"

Sad and true! The terrain changes and the representation of dominions is our greatest loss. Unfortunately we couldn't find a good and simple solution to the graphical problems posed by the new maps in the old system.

[Psitticine]

It'd be some extra work for the map-makers, but possibly scale effect look up maps would work?

This is right off the top of my head, so please excuse me if I'm not being very clear with it. What I'm thinking about would be optional files that show both what areas should be affected by each scale's settings, and what color effects each scale will have on that particular map.

For example, black areas would not be affected by scales at all. However, if one goes in and uses a paint program to quickly replace all the greenery with a tint of white (or, if feeling ambitious, do more detailed work), then their hue will shift one way or the other based on the scale represented by that look-up map. A map for Heat/Cold look-up could have a brownish-red color for Heat and a pure white one for Cold placed in an otherwise nul area at the top, so that those treetops appear to "dry out" in the Heat as the brown is multiplied in with the straight color off the main map file. Likewise, they would be frosted with snow in the Cold.

The amount of white in a pixel in the look-up map, adjusted by scale settings as they change during the game, would give the actual intensity of the color overlay, rather the same way an alpha channel affects image opacity. Thus, the brown would get more and more so as the Heat index climbs due to the effects of Dominion there. If you give the grass a pure white and the trees an airbrushing of white-grey, the brown will have more life-like variety in how it is applied.

Heat/Cold would be the primary recipient of this attention, I'd think, but I'm also thinking of all the interesting special effects possible to map-makers. What if Growth/Death settings tints the foilage and water to white or black? It'd make the land seem more (or less) vibrant, or even unnaturally vital/dull. How about if Magic/Drain uses a very lightly flecked map to add subtle traces of blue for an unusual energetic quality to magical lands or a flat brownish-grey to deaden things? Some unique and wild effects would be possible - a perfect tool for all the lively imaginations around here!

It wouldn't be hard to produce at least a quick-and-dirty map of this kind with color selections and the other tools available in any decent paint program. They should be optional, however, to prevent people who only have time to do the straight map file from being overwhelmed and thus not being able to produce anything at all. Still, as I say, it shouldn't be much work to produce these overlays. I have to whip over dozens of similar things for even a small animation project and they can be produced very quickly!

[onomastikon]

That was interesting info, but most of you were still talking about dominion effects and its spreading, not the effects that the initial *setting* (in God creation phase) of the dominion may have. That still seems unclear.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by onomastikon:
That was interesting info, but most of you were still talking about dominion effects and its spreading, not the effects that the initial *setting* (in God creation phase) of the dominion may have. That still seems unclear.

The original setting determines both how fast your dominion will spread from temples, your prophet, and pretender, as well as the initial maximum dominion available before the construction of any temples. Each temple (except for Mictlan) has a dominion*10% chance of increasing the candles in a province. Each sacrificed blood slave counts as one temple.

[Lord Hammer]

One VERY important fact left out...playing as Ermon Ashen/Soulgate you get much better "auto-summons" every turn the higher your dominion. It can make or break some games if you are Ermor. At Pretender setup set your dominion level at 10, then work from there with the points you have left. After awhile you'll see some neat troops showing up "at no cost to you" .

[ January 07, 2004, 18:12: Message edited by: Lord Hammer ]