Mods for lower-powered magic

[PvK]

Replying to a question from another thread where my answer would be off-topic:

Saulot said:
...
On the other hand like you said, the ability to increase gold/resource/supplies and to lower magic sites, and increase research, really does change the game pretty dramatically in the direction you mentioned. (Not to mention what could be done on top of that with mods).

I'm just curious, do you feel like anything else should be done in that regard PvK? Perhaps some broader modding tools?

Again, I think there is a very wide range of enjoyable game styles available in Dominions 3, both from game settings, maps, and of course via mods. Dom 3 made some great strides with mod commands compared to Dom 2 which made my personal magic-rebalance mod project really possible (where it was tougher in Dom 3).

The balance-related mod commands I'd still like to see added at this point are ones that would also be useful for a mod for any magic level. That is, firstly, a way to adjust bless effects. Currently the main ways that can be done are limited: pretty much only to mod the sacred units, or mod the Blessing spells (which would tend to be an annoying nerf for players, no doubt).

As for my own personal tastes, I just today finally posted a mod I made during beta ( Price of Power mod).

I enjoy playing both unmodded, and with this mod, but my long-term project has been a much more extensive mod which changes the whole magic balance, basing power on magic level of characters far more than empire research level. Which, yes, is an enormous nerf to magic compared to the unmodded game, but still just makes mages more like they are in the RPG's I've played for many years - i.e., still very useful in unique ways, but only the really powerful ones are really powerful.

PvK

[Kristoffer O]

Sounds fun. I have become bored with the current research system, but it would not be feasible to remake it from scratch. Your mod idea sounds quite fun. It would take much of the 'turtling for magic' away I think, and it would be closer to a true RPG than a 4x game.

[PvK]

Thanks Kristoffer!

Yes, I like it because I tend to play Dominions as a wargame/RPG, following the characters' stories and trying to keep them alive in an increasingly deadly world. With power determined more by level than by research, investment in magic power (empowerment, items, communion) is done more by magic items and empowerment than by researching (and it's not unbalancing to use Easy research if one wants). It also makes strong magic on pretenders even more tempting than in Price of Power mod. Rainbow mage pretenders are even more tempting (but still fragile).

[Kristoffer O]

Now I have remade my MR4 and MR6 mods from the beta test times and added item restrictions. Somewhat sloppy of me, not to have made it already, but there is still the matter of spells with identical names. Seems spell number doesnt work in mods, anyway I didn't get it to work. On the other hand it is only the Summon Scorpion Man that is affected, and it should be fairly easy to see if anyone abuses the lapsus.

For you who have never heard of this (most of you) mod it is a Magic Restriction mod (two actually) that removes all spells and items from above research lvl 4 (or 6)

I'll post them in the mod thread.

[Saulot]

Thanks for putting a response not just into words but actions.

While I play a lot of smaller games to try out different nations and different strategies, to which Dom is really well-suited (which helps keep things fresh), I tend not to deal with as much late-game major magic power. If I ever do get there too often and get tired of it, I'll be sure to try your mod.

[MaxWilson]

I really like the idea of making mage power level more important than research level, to make the game more RPG-ish. One thing I've considered along those lines is to make all spells pre-researched (fairly easy to do) but with increased path requirements, or else to eliminate all non-hero spellcasters from the game. You'd probably want to reduce the power of summonable mages (demilich, Tartarian, etc.) so that they can't easily replicate themselves. The goal would be to make mages few, mysterious and important. The research system runs counter to that goal because it requires you to pump out lots of mages to do research. And oh, I'd probably give individual mages a hefty maintenance cost, like around 100 gp per turn each, even the summonables and heroes.

Fortunately the Dominions modding system is powerful enough to handle this. Yay, Illwinter!

-Max

[PvK]

I've actually got quite far on that project, though I'm not sure how everyone else will like the balance levels I've chosen. I'll try to speed progress and make a version to share.

I don't think removing the low-level mages is necessary - I just simply made the level-1 spells apprentice-level effects, the level-2 journeyman/hedge-wizard-level effects, etc. I just wish the maximum spell requirement weren't level 9 in two paths, because Dominions really has a broader spectrum of power levels, especially when magic booster items can be used. But so far I am pretty happy. There are just so many spells and items that it takes a long time to do them all and keep them consistent. And nation balance is of course all shuffled around by this, but that's interesting too...

[Edratman]

I've stumbled across a out-of-the-box game variation, thanks to a prod by Gandalf, that dramatically alters the game play as I knew it.

In the game setup menu, I set resources and money to 50, indies to 9 and research to easy. The alteration in game play was quite astonishing to me. Large armies are pretty much unattainable, the ratio of mages to units is increased and early expansion is very slow, unless you go for an awake SC pretender. But you really need good scales with this setup and the pretender selection seems even more critical IMHO.

[PvK]

Hehe, ya, sounds a bit like Dominions II!

It's also pretty astonishing to set gold, resources and supplies to 300% - afford everything, and have huge armies charging around very quickly.

I also like turning down magic site frequency quite low, especially on large maps, because it makes the sites there (and the home province magic income) more like valuable landmarks. Of course you can also turn it up and get magic resources practically everywhere.

[Gandalf Parker]

Yeah Im debating doing a map with not only my chaotic assignments of units to every province, but also random features on each province so that they are all gauranteed to have 4 sites.