Gath, dev diary or something

[Gregstrom]

I had a silly idea. If forts can act like sites, then the fort types for Gath in could allow Gittite recruitables in some terrain types and not others. Something like a 'Gittite Fortress' in mountain terrain that gives recruitable Gittites but costs more than a plains fort.

[chrispedersen]

Why not a shofar blower (or something similar) with a siege bonus?

[Kristoffer O]

They have a siege bonus in the early era, when they are giants and more magical. Since the rams-horn is small, I went for an anachronistic and culturally misplaced, but nice looking, brass horn instead.

[VedalkenBear]

Something else I was curious about, KO. While each nation's progression seems correct in time, there is absolutely no matching between nations and where they occurred in history. Gath is the time of the temple, so... before the Exile? If so, that's certainly in the pre-Christian era. This matches, if anything, to other nations' Early Era. The worst 'offender' in my opinion is Marignon vs. Ermor. MA Marignon is primed to take out LA Ermor, which they can't do short of modding.

What is your position on this?

[Kristoffer O]

Pretty much what Edi has said in some threads. WIth the change from dom2 themes into dom3 eras some inconsistencies have emerged.

I would like to make some changes, but it would probably affect both ongoing games as well as general setup, balance and the manual.

So currently nations are consistent only regarding to themselves. At times I dream of making more eras, but that would probably cause a lot more problems than it would solve.

LA ermor should be in the MA and both MA ULM and Marignon should be results of Ermors fall. Edis suggestion with the MA Ermor made LA might work with some changes. This is an idea I'm quite fond, but I'm not sure if a fix would be good. A problem might be the troops predating the ashen empire that is not in the EA Ermor (censors etc). If there was more eras I could have the current MA Ermor with its censors before ashen and keep ashen at the time of Marignon.

As you see I'm not entirely satisfied with the overall historical consistency

All three (Hinnom, Ashdod, Gath) are predating Christianity, and should be in Mythical and early eras if placed in real world history.

I'm starting to think that a reason for inconsistencies and stuff as well as SP gripes, is the lack of scenarios. If there was a premade map with a background story, a fully developed ermor and a couple of fringe states available for the new player, or another map where ermor just had fallen with Marignon and Ulm fighting to stall the dead, SP could be more fun and probably more challenging.

I wonder why there are so few scenarios out there. Probably because we didn't include any of our own in dom3.

[Zeldor]

Kristoffer O:

So another thing just moved to Dominions 4 to-do list?

And there are no scenarios cause AI sucks And people do not feel like making beautiful map with a lot of settings to see stupid AI ruin it. And map editor is not extremely user-friendly either.

P.S. When it comes to thematic things - why can you cast MAelstrom on land?

[Kristoffer O]

Good question.

[LDiCesare]

Kristoffer O said:
I'm starting to think that a reason for inconsistencies and stuff as well as SP gripes, is the lack of scenarios. If there was a premade map with a background story, a fully developed ermor and a couple of fringe states available for the new player, or another map where ermor just had fallen with Marignon and Ulm fighting to stall the dead, SP could be more fun and probably more challenging.

I wonder why there are so few scenarios out there. Probably because we didn't include any of our own in dom3.

It would be possible to make such a scenario, if one modded a new MA nation and copy-pasted LA Ermor into it, then did a scenario using this, Ulm and Marignon. This would really be interesting only for SP I believe, as playing MA Ulm against Ermor Ashen empire sounds like suicide to me.

"Let's slaughter the mass of walking dead with out fast firing arbalests!"

[Foodstamp]

LDiCesare said:

It would be possible to make such a scenario, if one modded a new MA nation and copy-pasted LA Ermor into it, then did a scenario using this, Ulm and Marignon. This would really be interesting only for SP I believe, as playing MA Ulm against Ermor Ashen empire sounds like suicide to me.

"Let's slaughter the mass of walking dead with out fast firing arbalests!"

That's not really how it works, but the truth is even easier. The mod would only need these commands:

#modname "LA Ermor in MA"
#domversion 3.15
#description "This mod adds LA ermor to the middle era."
#icon "modbannerlinkhere.tga"
#version 1.0
#selectnation 50
#era 2
#end
#selectnation 28
#era 0
#end

[capnq]

Kristoffer O said: I wonder why there are so few scenarios out there.

In all of my experience with 4X games, I've never found a scenario that was as interesting to play as the standard buildup from a single starting position.