Mod: Dominions 3000 v0.81 - lots of new indies, new map (using the brand new map commands)

[rdonj]

The new map should make that a bit better... with 130 provinces and 7 players, that's 18 provinces a player, versus the current 69/7 = 9.8. The current map is definitely crowded for 7 races, it will be very hard to expand much with so few provinces. Just curious, what difficulty were you playing on?

I think for dom3k the bonebiters are actually probably not an optimal choice, you'd probably have better luck with ghost dragons. Fighting in space is probably also a good idea, since most races are weaker in space. Unfortunately jomon is not one of those races, and R'lyeh is a terrible enemy for the dragons to have to fight period, because of mind blasting.

[Loren]

Originally Posted by rdonj

The new map should make that a bit better... with 130 provinces and 7 players, that's 18 provinces a player, versus the current 69/7 = 9.8. The current map is definitely crowded for 7 races, it will be very hard to expand much with so few provinces. Just curious, what difficulty were you playing on?

Normal.

The ghosts can't take out many of the more powerful leaders and the ability to control the enemy with the ghosts is essential for the dragons.

I think for dom3k the bonebiters are actually probably not an optimal choice, you'd probably have better luck with ghost dragons. Fighting in space is probably also a good idea, since most races are weaker in space. Unfortunately jomon is not one of those races, and R'lyeh is a terrible enemy for the dragons to have to fight period, because of mind blasting.

I wasn't even using them. They're no longer worth it.

[rdonj]

Oops, I wasn't thinking at the time, sorry.

[rdonj]

Umm... I just started a new game with the dragons under the new version and ended up in province 1 with no starting army. I'm not quite sure why, I checked the .dm and the lines for starting units are there. I think maybe it's the province. Btw, you never did fix the venemous dragon's ranged attack.

[rdonj]

Monster number 1394, a space kraken is named "predator alien". It's possible it's both ways, I didn't see. Also I have some monter number 0 PD in a forest with dragons.

Well, it's possible to expand with the dragons, but it is REALLY hard to accomplish a lot. I had to use ghost dragons to assassinate most things, and steel dragons to take krakens. Haven't met many space eels but I was able to kill one by sending 3 stargazers set to cast personal luck and attack. Though blessing first would be a good idea to get a little extra morale. I think as things are now the dragons are definitely the weakest race, they can make annoying for other people by assassinating commanders, but they're stuck at their weak level for far too long. I don't think that a rainbow pretender with paths within booster range will work, at least for this map, as you basically need to hit construction 6 to summon anything. Couple that with the amount of research and gems you need to summon anything, you're looking at several years of research before you can summon anything.

I think the dragons need to ramp up faster, and possibly reduce the cost of the summons. Possible changes to make them more competetive in dom3k:
1. Give at least some of the dragons a research boost of a couple points.
2: Make stargazers recruit-everywhere.
3: Make another type of dragon that's good at research and not horribly expensive, but otherwise relatively useless.
4: Give the dragons some level of air magic on recruitables, even just 1 air on stargazers would be enough.
4: Reduce the cost of the level 5 conjurations by about 10 or so gems. They might end up being slightly cheap for that level, but you still want 10-35 extra gems worth of equipment to use them, and since you can't get forge bonuses for the nation they'd still be a lot more expensive than something like a bane lord. Plus the dragons need thugs more than other races anyway.