Possible missing nations in Dom III?

HoneyBadger · #1 December 19th, 2006, 03:10 AM

Yeah, what kind of mythology do Mongolians and Siberians concern themselves with? Not to mention old Russia and the Cossac peoples? It would also be interesting to see a nation based on Gypsies, or Aryans, or the Slavic peoples. Maybe West Africa and Nubia or Central Africa and the Pygmies. We have Machaka which seems to be African, maybe Zulu in nature. I know that Nerfix made the Sar Elad nation based on the Israelites. We don't even have to rely on historical or even mythological based nations. Some really good nations could come out of Empire of the Petal Throne RPG, Talislanta RPG, or Narnia. I'm working on nations based on H.P. Lovecraft and some others. Late 19th and early 20th century authors are a fantastic source of creative material. H.P. Lovecraft and J.R.R. Tolkien are just the tip of the iceburg. C.S. Lewis and the other lesser-known "inklings", William Hope Hodgson, H. Ryder Haggard, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, the list goes on and on. People really had great imaginations back then before television and fast food sucked our brains out and everywhere you went started looking like everywhere you've already been. Ok that's not really fair, the main issue is that, with the spread of information, our imaginary landscapes have started to resemble each other's to a greater degree than was previously possible, except where the Bible was concerned, and consequently we get elves, dwarves, dragons, wizards, magic swords, and castles ad nauseum, which is why I'm recommending for interesting (read "truly bizarre") ideas, it's a good idea to dig a bit into the past, not that the likes of Neil Gaiman, Jack Vance, Steven Spielburg, George Lucas, Harlan Ellison, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Brian Lumley, J.K. Rowling, and a host of others with fine imaginations are doing us a disservice, it's just that it's more likely now than at any other time in history that their ideas and our ideas will be recycled ones.

Endoperez · #2 December 19th, 2006, 05:23 AM

Elves - Tolkien came up with elves. Hoburgs are pretty close to the mythological elves, or tomte, in the early era; the armor and such they have later is different. Gnomes, from few sites, are also good repressentations of the elves of the lore.

Fair Folk were in DomII (tuatha), and will reappear in Dom3, but are currently missing.

There are many nations that have some or even all features a dwarf nation would have:

All Vanheim nations have dwarves. Svartalfar are, again, a good representation of dwarfs (the original plural), but not of dwarves (Tolkien's plural).
We also happen to have two strongly-armored, magic-weak nations in MA (Ulm, Agartha). Ulm is an easier example: strong, tough and resilient soldiers, mountains, superior metals, Master Smiths, Earth mages, forge bonus, elite guards with castle defence bonus, crossbowmen, sappers... Humans of Agartha live under ground and see in the dark; their magic and national spells and Pale One recruitables wouldn't make this purely dwarven nation, but a nation of dwarf-Agarthan alliance. Best LA Agarthan mages happen to be quite similar to Svartalfar, too.

zepath · #3 December 19th, 2006, 05:37 AM

We could whine for days about the various mythologies that are under-represented in Dom3, but please keep in mind that the devs are still producing content for the game and have said that they have many more ideas for new nations. You may be able to satisfy yourself with mod nations that other players put out. For instance, I've made and released a complete elven nation in all it's D&D/commercial high fantasy glory if you wish to play with it. There's a semi-cliche dwarf nation there in the maps & mods sub-forum as well. Personally I am deeply impressed by the mythological knowledge the devs have compiled in this game and enjoy learning about the myths of other regions while soaking up the turn-based goodness. They have done a better job on content than any game of this genre I've played. Oh, and C'tis is something like 90% Egypt...

Endoperez · #4 December 19th, 2006, 06:03 AM

It seems I forgot to reply to the second half of Epaminonda's post...

Sauromatia is inspires by Herodotus' descriptions of the Scythians. C'tis is inspiree by Egypt and Mesopotamia.

While the majority of the historical-based nations (as opposed to fictional ones like R'lyeh) are based on European myths, there are several nations that are based on Asian or other myths. From Asia, in the Early age, there are:

Yomi (Japan), Tien Chi (China), Bandar Log (India), Lanka (India/Sri Lanka).

From Europe, there are:
Arcoscephale (Greece), Ermor (Rome/Byzantine), Ulm (German barbarians), Marverni (Celt/Gaul), Pangaea (Greece), Vanheim, Helheim and Niefelheim (Scandinavia).

There are also Sauromatia (Schythians), Caelum (Zoroastrian influences) and C'tis (Egypt). I'm not quite sure where Scythians lived, or where Zoroastrism was practised, but I think they were in Middle East or northern Africa, not Europe.

zepath · #5 December 19th, 2006, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Endoperez said:
I'm not quite sure where Scythians lived, or where Zoroastrism was practised, but I think they were in Middle East or northern Africa, not Europe.

As for Zoroastrianism, Persia. It was/is a monotheistic good-vs-evil religion similar to Christianity that emerged a few centuries before that much more popular following. Originated by a guy named Zarathustra.

Sandman · #6 December 19th, 2006, 06:15 AM

Quote:

An Elven nation: I recall that one of the developers said that they definitely won't be in the game but did not proffer the reason for their absence. Why would this be? Elves are quite possibly the most frequently-occurring fantasy race.

You've answered your own question there. Elves are boring, boring, boring. Same with dwarves.

Quote:

Other games that endeavor to include the major global civilizations of the world (e.g. the Civ series) almost always have Korea represented, and there is no reason that Dom III shouldn't.

Dominions is a fantasy wargame, and I don't think that 'representation' is really an important factor in what nations are added.

Edi · #7 December 19th, 2006, 06:26 AM

1) Tuatha are elves and will appear in alater patch. The Vanir are also elven in nature. Dominions is also not a cut-and-paste Tolkien or D&D copy, hence no traditional fantasy elves ever, and a good thing too.

2) See point about cut-and-paste above. We have all the dwarves we need with the Vanheim and Helheim.

3) See Endoperez's listing of Asian nations. Shinuyama, Yoni, Yomon, T'ien C'hi (3 eras), Kailasa, Lanka and the other Indian myhtology based stuff gives Asia more than a fair shake, but I'm not opposed to getting more from there.

4) C'tis has rather heavy Egyptian influences, possibly conflated with the Stygians from Robert E. Howard's Conan books (at least I get that feel from them, especially the LE C'tis)

If we're going to have more new nations, I'd really like to see something based on the myths from the Australian and Pacific Islands region and the Borneo and Indonesian area as well as something modeled after the myths of the North American natives. Of course, those mythologies may be harder to get hold of.

Edi

calmon · #8 December 19th, 2006, 06:37 AM

I would love to see an arabian nights nation

efreets, djinnis, sultans, califs, flying carpets, maybe some sort of 40 thieves, etc.

HoneyBadger · #9 December 19th, 2006, 07:15 AM

There's a really excellent mod based on an Amerindian culture called Haida Gwaii. I hope I spelled that right. Another one about dwarven pirates (great concept!), one about elves, one about blood elves (beautiful art here, but then the art standards of our modders are superlative all around), a Hoburg Nation (because small people got nobody to love)-Hoburgs are like halflings only feral cannibalistic psychics-or am I thinking Dark Sun? So atleast the modding community can scratch your itch for fantasy regulars.