Mictlan

[Cainehill]

Other possibilities:

Another line of research, along the lines of Construction only affecting the recruited troops. "Armament" perhaps? It could work in any number of ways, including:

Allowing new buildings : Example, at Armament 2 Ulm could build a "Mithril Forge" that gave +1 attack + damage plus affects ethereal units. Some buildings might be cheap, some expensive, perhaps on a nation by nation basis.

Allowing the choice of a new ability for nationals : Armament 2, Ulm gets to choose between Enhanced Black Steel Weaponry or EBS Armor. Weaponry gives an effect as per above, Armor gives a 25% resistance to elements.

Give a new category of spells, "National" like Global, only each nation can only have say, 2 national spells up, each giving a certain effect to the recruited troops.

Sadly, these certainly can't be fit into Dom3. It's a shame really - most suggestions are either bandaids, or wouldn't fit Dom2/3 (though perhaps IllWinter has been doing things none of us has thought of to remedy the situation).

One thing that allowed games like MoM to have national troops that remained viable against high powered summonings was the unit enchantments - but you'd need a stack / unit mechanism that Dominions, with individual troops, doesn't have, whereas certain MoM enchantments were quite effective with differing troops. Halflings sucked - but having the most individual troops possible in the unit meant a few enchantments got extra oomph on them. Berserkers similarly were candidates for enchantments, being tough and having a thrown weapon in addition to melee, so they could attack flyers.

Ah well - have to wait and see.

[Gandalf Parker]

Maybe we should get Shrapnel to just go ahead and create another forum for Dominions 4. I know Ive got a few things Id post there.

[Endoperez]

Cainehill said:One thing that allowed games like MoM to have national troops that remained viable against high powered summonings was the unit enchantments - but you'd need a stack / unit mechanism that Dominions, with individual troops, doesn't have, whereas certain MoM enchantments were quite effective with differing troops. Halflings sucked - but having the most individual troops possible in the unit meant a few enchantments got extra oomph on them. Berserkers similarly were candidates for enchantments, being tough and having a thrown weapon in addition to melee, so they could attack flyers.

Hoburgs are size 1, and all AoE spell target more Hoburgs than humans. Of course, as there is no hoburg nation, it is hard to get enough of them for that to matter. Better example of that in Dominions would be Iron Woods Jotunheim - one could buy only Jotun, but there would be only one giant per grid, and many spells would be wasted. Mixing some Vaetti into them could triple the number of units affected.

There are no offensive AoE buff spells in Dom2, though. Strength of Giants give a little more strength, and Weapons of Shrapness helps a little against heavy armor, but I don't remember anything else with AoE. Body Ethereal and Luck are very short-ranged, and the better versions (Battle Fortune, and the Air spell Mist Warriors or whatever) already affect the whole battlefield. I'd like to see more AoE spells that give units offensive power.

[Fate]

I agree with the above posts, that buffs for national troops would solve everything (or a gem upkeep for summons). Maybe spells could be added that affect entire squads, regardless of unit position. Overall, I think more and better buff spells for recruited soldiers only would make them much better.