Double the Ulm, double the fun!

[PvK]

Hmm. If you're going to use a modded map, one approach would be to give everyone the heroes they need there, from the start.

Otherwise, I didn't think you could mod the heroes without hijacking the existing unit numbers for a nation, which meant you needed to create new copies of their bitmaps, which I anyway found to be a big chore.

Anyway, I'd suggest the general approach that if there is something that is hard to give to a clone nation, try giving them something else that is thematic and similar but slightly different. For example, if you don't have a good way to give clone-Ermor Body Ethereal from the start, maybe let them recruit Shadow Vestals instead. Ermor seems like one of the hardest to do though because they have special spells and undead effects.

PvK

[Endoperez]

PvK said:
Hmm. If you're going to use a modded map, one approach would be to give everyone the heroes they need there, from the start.

And no one would take Luck? It would suit some games, but I wouldn't like it so I won't be making it.

Otherwise, I didn't think you could mod the heroes without hijacking the existing unit numbers for a nation, which meant you needed to create new copies of their bitmaps, which I anyway found to be a big chore.

Ouch, I hadn't thought of that. Some new modding commands would be a bLast. If #school -2 didn't take the chosen spell away from its normal place and we had command for adding heroes cloning nations would be much easier.

Anyway, I'd suggest the general approach that if there is something that is hard to give to a clone nation, try giving them something else that is thematic and similar but slightly different. For example, if you don't have a good way to give clone-Ermor Body Ethereal from the start, maybe let them recruit Shadow Vestals instead. Ermor seems like one of the hardest to do though because they have special spells and undead effects.

Ermor is one of the worst, but the fact that makes it *really* hard to clone is rather hard to get around... They have three spells named Unholy Blessing. They can only be modded to have the first. Body Ethereal can be added through map commands, and unholy spells can be modded in without changing anything.

If I were to change something I would change the special unit they get from their two temples to something tougher. Maybe just giving it more protection, maybe special ability like paralyzation, high fear or even awe.

Thanks for your comments!

[Tuidjy]

It seems that many people would like to play a game of Dominions II that would
be more about national armies than about magic and summoned creatures. I do
not think that it would be that hard to have a setting which limits the
research level. For example, with research limited at 3, there would be no
false horrors, no battlefield affecting damage spells, no drain life... armies
would matter a lot more, especially if supercombatant pretenders are forbidden.

[Zooko]

There is a setting for research difficulty. Presumably if you set it to "difficult" or "very difficult" then this would have desired effect.

[archaeolept]

heh no.

going "very difficult" research does increase the longevity of national armies, no doubt.

but, perhaps paradoxically, it almost makes research more important, since if you get behind it is almost impossible to catch up; or if someone researches a devastating combo, you will be unable to research it's counter.

[Endoperez]

Heh, I never thought people *want* the level-4 cap of the demo! Well, it is quite a bore to go through manually, and I don't have an easy way to get list of spells (ordered by school or even research level) that a simple program could make into a .dm file. I think I will just mod a nation or two, I'm working with Abysia and C'tis ATM.

If/when we get more modding commands, does anyone else have any wishes? You might want to take a look on some of the wishlist threads before suggesting, though. The ones that came up in this thread were:

#addhero id|name
#startspell name
commands for editing the pretender list of a nation, including commands for clearing, adding and (maybe) removing pretenders from that nation's list
ability to give nation more than one different types of starting units (eg. 10 city guards/ 15 light infantries for C'tis)