National summons/spells of old nations

Nerfix · #1 June 2nd, 2006, 04:41 AM

What do the old nations like Marignon, Ulm, Caelum, Man or Machaka get?

DominionsFan · #2 June 2nd, 2006, 06:43 AM

I hope that there will be a large variety of national summons available for all sides. "large" = 10-20 summons at least.

Vicious Love · #3 June 5th, 2006, 03:14 PM

Right... let's forget about all the new nations/eras for a sec, as well as Dom II's themes. You're asking for 170-340 new summons, on top of all the old summons and of all the new summons that aren't nation-specific. About a tenth of which actually get used in multiplayer games.
Disregarding the time and effort this'd take the developers, looking at this solely from the player's PoV, am I the only one seeing the downside to this?

Nerfix · #4 June 5th, 2006, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Vicious Love said:
Right... let's forget about all the new nations/eras for a sec, as well as Dom II's themes. You're asking for 170-340 new summons, on top of all the old summons and of all the new summons that aren't nation-specific. About a tenth of which actually get used in multiplayer games.
Disregarding the time and effort this'd take the developers, looking at this solely from the player's PoV, am I the only one seeing the downside to this?

Are you saying that only new nations should get summons?

Sandman · #5 June 5th, 2006, 03:42 PM

I actually like the fact that many summons are (in theory) open to all nations, and it's their mages/gem income which decide what they get.

Argitoth · #6 June 6th, 2006, 02:30 AM

Quote:

Sandman said:
I actually like the fact that many summons are (in theory) open to all nations, and it's their mages/gem income which decide what they get.

So you are saying everyone in the universe has the exact same technology at all times no matter WHAT? That's what national summons are, the natural imbalance of technology, or in this case magical knowledge.

Vicious Love · #7 June 12th, 2006, 11:20 PM

Whoa. Looks live I've been in Limbo for about a full week. Lemme just resurrect this thread to say...

Quote:

Nerfix said:
Are you saying that only new nations should get summons?

Not at all. The more distinct flavor each nation has, the better. If that flavor can survive into the midgame or even lategame without becoming woefully obsolete, so much the better. On that note, there's a major difference between simply adding in new units that are either no-brainers or utterly unusable, and adding in new units that will fulfill their roles without overshadowing existing units. The more units there are, the trickier it is to strike this balance and find the right niches.

I also agree with Sandman on the point of universally-available summons making things more interesting, at times. The more specialized and predictable the nations get, the more the outcome of the game is determined during nation selection, rather than during actual gameplay.

Edi · #8 June 13th, 2006, 02:52 AM

The site you're thinking about is Strange House in the Mists, Endo. A site that allows astral mages to enter to summon void creatures.

Edi

DominionsFan · #9 June 13th, 2006, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Vicious Love said:
Whoa. Looks live I've been in Limbo for about a full week. Lemme just resurrect this thread to say...

Quote:

Nerfix said:
Are you saying that only new nations should get summons?

Not at all. The more distinct flavor each nation has, the better. If that flavor can survive into the midgame or even lategame without becoming woefully obsolete, so much the better. On that note, there's a major difference between simply adding in new units that are either no-brainers or utterly unusable, and adding in new units that will fulfill their roles without overshadowing existing units. The more units there are, the trickier it is to strike this balance and find the right niches.

I also agree with Sandman on the point of universally-available summons making things more interesting, at times. The more specialized and predictable the nations get, the more the outcome of the game is determined during nation selection, rather than during actual gameplay.

I absolutely dont agree with you. More national summons = more diverse gameplay. National summons can be balanced perfectly.

Sandman · #10 June 13th, 2006, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Vicious Love said:
I also agree with Sandman on the point of universally-available summons making things more interesting, at times. The more specialized and predictable the nations get, the more the outcome of the game is determined during nation selection, rather than during actual gameplay.

Exactly. One of the nice things about Dominions is the potential to take your nation in all sorts of different directions depending on what sites you find. If there were masses of national summons, this bootstrapping would be less effective.