Forge

[HoneyBadger]

I was just thinking (which usually is what gets me in trouble), and had a thought that, while appealing to micromanagers, but not to the point where it clutters the game up by any means, one might possibly add one other type of building, the Forge. Thematically, a Forge is very different from a Temple or a Lab, and mythologically it's a vital, central element. I'm thinking that this would allow leftover resources to be converted to gold, or gold to resources in the province that it's built (this would definitely help some nations like EA Atlantis). It would also allow greater diversity as to soldiers' equipment. For instance, with Niefelheim, a Niefel giant comes equipped with an axe, a shield, and leather armor. With a Forge, a Niefel soldier could be created who was armed with a flail or a spear or a greatsword, and scale or plate armor. Naturally, these unit improvements would cost double the normal resource price for identical equipment for an "off-the-shelf" soldier, because that nation makes that specific equipment for that unit better than it does specialty equipment. Also, some nations would have greater variety and different (better or worse) equipment selection for it's troops. Ulm would have the best equipment, but a nation with lots of diversity and trade partners, like Ermor, would have the widest range. I don't think it would be too hard to program into the game, and it would make for a lot of strategic and modding possibilities. Provinces without Forges wouldn't be able to create or transfer magic items, while ritual spells would continue to require labs. Alternate to creating a whole other system for soldiers' equipment would be that some units require a Forge to be produced, such as Living Pillars with their basalt armor or a Niefel giant armed with a flail. These units could still be Capital-based, while allowing tougher units to be built away from your Capital (decentralization is a fine strategy, ask the Turks who conquered Constantinople, or the Mongols for that matter). The Forge could also give provinces a bonus to gold and resources, representing trade and improved infrastructure, without having to put up a castle in the area. Ofcourse, having a castle would still be great for a province, and Forges would be more expensive than temples or labs, at 600 gold a piece (300 for Ulm).

[DrPraetorious]

There are several forge *sites*.

I don't think it is possible to build any national units in provinces without fortresses. AFAIK, this is pretty fundamental to how the game handles unit production. Likewise, it would require a major rewrite

Other than that, what you're suggesting is obviously out of the scope of current modability - but I don't think it would be a problem in principle. You'd need to introduce some new commands -

-- Building modding
#selectbuilding <nbr>

This enables you to select buildings other than 1 (the temple) and 2 (the lab).

#defaultcost <cost>
#defaultpic <file>
#end
Would be all you'd need to set requirements for your new building. Other than that, you need site commands to give the building stuff it can do - like add recruitable units and so forth. Set the cost to a negative number to make the building disabled by default.

-- In nation modding, add:
#buildingcost <nbr> <cost>

To change the cost of a given building for a given nation. If 0 is temple and 1 is lab, that'd enable us to mod those easily.

-- And in unit modding, add:
#customreq <nbr>

Where <nbr> is the building number.

I'm sure you can see how you'd use this to add Forges, and units that require forges (which would then have an increased resource cost.) They'd require a Fortification, as well, unless everyone who build a Forge got them.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

It's a great idea, but the way you portray it would require the developers to do it, and I believe it would be a major effort.

Another way to do it would be a mod with a special Place called The Forge that allowed 4 new units: x, y, z, and p. You could have several special places:

Iron Forge: several types of light infantry (not rare)
Steel Forge: sevearl types of heavy infantry (rare)
Adamantium Forge: several types of super heavy infantry with low encumbrance/fatigue(super rare)

The Corral: sev tps of lt cavalry
War Corral: sev tps of hvy cavalry
Circus Corral: sev tps of super cavalry like elephants, rhinos, and giant mutant humans a la freak lord

Archery Range: sev tps of archers
Mech Range: sev tps of xbow archers (pistol, auto, hvy, small arbalests)
Siege Works: catapult units, arbalest units, etc.

Likey?

[Endoperez]

Forge, as in a place to build equipment, a place for gathering resources, the places where living is easy and where work is available, a place where tools are sold, and food as well, and where markets are established... Place where your people will gather, where they can live, where they can be levied and given proper equipment and put to fight. They're called forts in Dominions.

Now, if you want a forge for improving excisting units... there really isn't a way to do that. The closest thing is the broken armor tag, which is repaired when there are unused resources in a province the units with broken armor are in. Other than that and magic items, restricted to commanders, different equipment would mean different unitand that'd mean making a better-armored version of almost everything.

[HoneyBadger]

I have no problem with forge + fort being required, I probably was confusing in the way I wrote it though, but that's what I meant. Uh-nu-buh, I like your idea, providing it can be nation-specific. It's not a perfect solution, but it would help. Endoperez-Fort as in 4 walls and a roof. There's no reason that a forge couldn't be in addition to a fortress rather than assumed a part of it, or a part of a magical lab. Forges had a lot more intrinsic meaning to them-socially, spiritually, and economically-than we tend to give them credit for, especially the further back in time you go. A forge would be the beginning and perhaps the heart of a major marketplace, but it wouldn't encompass a bazaar. It also may attract a population, but it wouldn't be the only feature of a community. Resources would be gathered from farms, mines, quarries, and lumberyards. Forges would only maybe turn ore into iron or work basalt into armor, not collect it. Same thing with wood, leather (tannery, pasture), etc. People may move to a location with a forge, but they certainly wouldn't live in a forge, maybe just the smith on cold winter nights. They'd be a lot more likely to live in a temple. A lot of what you mentioned above could go hand-in-hand with a temple, which were natural centers of communities, as were forges.

I'm also thinking that a Forge would be required to build any kind of field-artillery or field-fortification pieces (which the game could use, and sadly lacks for every nation, even Ermor), and Province Defence may be of a better quality in provinces with a Forge.

[Endoperez]

"Imagine trying to live without an available smithy before 1860, or even later in some comunities not readily reached by rail or ship. It simply could notbe done without revenrting to the Stone Age. Certainly, many of our pioneers learned to substitute wood for iron in many instances, but even this would have been virtually impossible without the irreducible minimum of iron and steel tools such as axes and knives and hammers.
The traditional blacksmith's most important function, until mass production replaced him as a tradesman, was supplying the tools of civilization and war. In a large city or a small backwoods settlement he would make, according to his own design or that of his patrons, the hammers, axes, adzes, plane bits, knives, sickles, scythes, auger bits, files, chisels, carving tools, spears, swords, arrowheads, and all other necessities of the various farmers and craftsmen found in a community. All crafstmen were basically dependent on the blacksmith's skill and availability."
The Art of Blacksmithing, by Alex W. Bealer, revised edition

Forges were everywhere. Smelters for making metal weren't quite as common, as most iron and steel could be reworked many times. The aforementioned book describes piles of scrap-metal as a necessary and unavoidable part of any smith's backyard. It also describes simple smelters which could be used virtually everywhere. Making iron didn't become organized industry until the 13th century (when the Catalan furnace was developed), and while this would fit the MA/LA timeframe of Dominions, it wouldn't have the mythical qualities you would give it; that would be simply a way to increase resources, already available to some nations (Ulm) as a resource bonus in forts.


EDIT: it's surprising how little 'lrage' has to do with 'large'.

[HoneyBadger]

Ofcourse there's going to be SOME forging going on, unless you're talking about Mictlan or Agartha or probably Arco or Sauromatia or C'tis or...well most of EA seem to be using-or could be assumed to be using-copper or bronze. One can assume that Ulm discovered steel-or iron that they're calling steel, or possibly perfected it to the point where it was superior to bronze, but even Jotuns may be using mostly stone and bronze weapons. Iron should be very scarce in EA. Even in the middle age, before the invention of the Catalan furnace, master smiths are going to be rare. Sure the local yokel can shoe a horse, but create a Flambeau? or a Gate Cleaver? or an Elf Bane? Even so, only 1 in 100 or 200 or more people are going to have the basic blacksmithing skills. Bronze and copper are more expensive in the long run, but they're going to be common. And iron did have mythical qualities, so did good weapons and armor, often enough. We're also not talking 13th century until perhaps late age, and I'm not convinced late age would run that late, since that's about when gunpowder started showing up in Europe. Until that furnace was invented however, you and that book are correct about the piles of scrap iron, but what you're not realizing is that scrap iron isn't by itself a resource in terms of Dom3 because that's metal that has been produced and is now being recycled. It's already accounted for and can be explained away as the source of Ulm's (and others) bonus resources.

I really suspect, if you give equal amounts of thought to old established concepts and new concepts, that a magic item capable Forge (capable of atleast producing obsidian glaives and basalt armour, and of producing under mage guidance even artifacts) supplied with rare materials and gems, and a master smith (in addition to atleast a dozen other highly skilled artizans, apprentices/journeymen, and pure artists) not only experienced in smithing and other arts to a high degree, but in low-level enchanting and field-combat engineering, equipped with several magically altered forges, anvils, and smelters, themselves made of magical or enchanted materals and/or designed by magical beings (or possibly even embodying magical beings themselves-imagine forging a dwarven hammer on the back of a bound earth elemental, or a hellsword on a black steel anval that imprisons the soul of a devil)-large specialized equipment in large specialized rooms for creating golems, iron dragons, juggernauts, field artillery and war machines-is no less reasonable as a separate entity than a temple overseen by educated, intelligent priests, incenses, icons, wines, catacombs, crematories, and/or cemetaries for the processing of the dead, secret, sacred chambers where the religion's mysteries occur, and where the Pretender may be summoned back on earth, and possibly small manufactories for the production of goods and books, and the temple's local lands and properties-which may be extensive, or a magical laboratory-probably in some kind of wizard's tower, or atleast heavily guarded against thieves, overseen by apprentices and master alchemists, filled with the rarest of materials and chemical items, as well as atleast a dozen expensive, fragile apparati, expensive devices made from gold, silver, and gems, a secure place to house living blood slaves in relative comfort, separate from one another, until sacrifice, autopsy rooms, torture rooms, and charnals for housing corpses, and permanent consecrated-or desecrated-areas for the summoning of angelic or demonic beings-not to mention elementals and undead spirits-areas which would have to be secure against both extremely powerful and dangerous beings such as demon lords, and tampering-intentional or unintentional.

I'm not suggesting throwing up a dozen buildings, it's just to me reasonable that wildly different things-like producing fine axes and spells which cause forests to turn mean, be a little more separated and a little more complicated, because it would add to the game, not because I want the game bogged down

[Endoperez]

I disagree with this idea for two reasons. First, there is no need to separate the school of construction from other magic by making construction require another building. If there are siege engines, there is no need to make them require anything but a fort.
Secondly, I don't agree with your view of the buildings of Dominions. Let's talk about Temples first. For Pangaea, a forest glade is enough for a temple. Late Age Marignon might have temples such as what you described, or perhaps MA Ermor. I doubt most nations even have cemeteries in or near their temples, because temples don't make dead bodies disappear any faster except for LA Ermor, in which case those dead bodies come alive faster.

Similarly, some nations might have need for such a complex laboratory - but a Mictlan laboratory would be very different. Machakan laboratory wouldn't be anything even close to that. Ulmish lab would be like the Forge you described.

You list things that could happen in a laboratory, and expect that any one of those things could happen in every laboratory at any one time. In reality, however, most nations won't have good dungeons for blood slaves, master alchemists will be almost unheard of (300 gp!), torture or autopsy or charnal rooms would only be used by some nations and mages...

Laboratory costs almost half of the cost of many forts (1000 gold seems to be the most common fort price). We don't know what goes in there, but in my opinion, it could be a Covenant.

From Ars Magica 4th edition rulebook (the system that impressed Dominions magic system, concept of gems, mages, perhaps even the way path and school are separated):

A covenant, most basically, is a place where a group of magi live together. It might be in a manor, a castle, a ship, or a hole in the ground. Covenants provide for the needs of magi in several ways. First of all, they provide security. Mythic Europe is a dangerous place for all, and magi in particular need safety to perform their arcane studies.
Covenants also provide for the mundane needs of magi: food, clothing, work space, and the like. Most magi would prefer not to have to devote their time to such concerns. Finally, covenants provide magi with a community of peers. When in a covenant, a magus is surrounded by others who think about things in the same way that he does.
Covenants are also the most meaningful way the members of different houses work together and learn from one another. Although some covenants are composed only of members from one house, at least two thirds are composed of magi of different traditions. In fact, loyalty to one's
covenant is often the strongest loyalty a magus feels, even
more than loyalty to his house.

Different Houses could be interpreted as more than just national mages: Witches, Amazons, Sorceresses, or at least Druids or Shamans of the various tribes. Covenants of Ars Magica include the mages themselves, their Companions (bards, Captains of the Guard, rogues and scoundrels that the mages have befriended, Arthur Pendragons and other characters who are important, but not to the same extent as someone who could fully tap to the primal forces of magic) and a horde of Grogs (servants, smiths, hunters, masons, woodcutters, bookbinders, leatherworkers and everyone else needed to keep a community alive) who don't need a distinct personality (but could be given one).

A covenant in Ars Magica is designed to have everything the mage needs, except for the spesific spell that must be researched or the Vis (gems) that must be collected or traded for from outside the Covenant. Sagas (adventures and campaigns) could center around supplying the covenant with what it needs and perhaps protecting it from mobs or infernal forces. In my opinion, a Laboratory in Dominion can hold everything a mage will ever need, from servants to forges to complex devices to a storage room full of glass vials.

[Edi]

To comment some more on the

I don't think it would be too hard to program into the game, and it would make for a lot of strategic and modding possibilities.

bit in the opening post:

No, it wouldn't be too difficult, it'd only require a major engine rewrite because of the way the units are programmed into the game and how they're modded. It would require in-game, on the fly modding and every separate different combination of things (unit+armor+weapons). Every such combination would have to be modded in as a new unit, on the fly, and made available as a recruitable unit, so not only would you be modding the units themselves, you'd also be modding the nations on the fly. When you toss in the roughly 1800 different units, ~1000 weapons and ~200 armors and start running combinations where each unit can have up to 4 (or is it 6 now in Dom3?) weapons and 3 armors, I'd really like to see just how much unit namespace you'd require for even a 4-player game, never mind all the other crap this would entail.

With the way the unit coding is done currently (I've seen a couple of samples), this just WILL NOT work.

Then there is what Endo said about the forge. It's incorporated into the fort and the lab as they are right now. If you happen to find Ancient Forge, The Steel Ovens or Banefire Forge, the sites that give forge bonuses, THAT is the specialized "devil bound in an anvil etc" kind of forge of truly epic descriptions that has the kind of facilities not normally available. Otherwise the lab or lab/fort combo is sufficient.

The whole idea is stillborn and would also lead to a complete micromanagement hell even if it was doable. There are other games out there that have this sort of thing, such as afaik Space Empires V.

Edi

[HoneyBadger]

Endoperez, Edi, you're both blowing this thing way out of proportion. Yes, each nation might have different ways of going about magical labs, temples, etc. but-except for two nations, Pangaea and Man (and yes, your vision of a temple for Pangaea makes sense at 200 gold, but 200 gold temples to Man patently flies in the face of your very same vision)-they're all the same price, and they all do generic things. You don't have the Mictlan temple, you don't have the Agarthan lab, you have temple, lab. You use the presence of those two buildings to your advantage depending on your particular strategy-which includes which nation you decide on. They may represent different things to different people-which is what I was trying to illustrate above-but they're otherwise almost totally generic, and each one has to be capable of the same thing, plus national things, depending on the choices the player makes. Not that my argument about the nature of labs and temples has any real relevance, since they're already in the game. I just wrote an example for purposes of comparison-as perfectly valid a comparison as yours, Endoperez.
Edi, comparing adding one building which can be purchased by every nation in every era, to the gameplay of Space Empires 5 is patently ridiculous. You even state that you don't know about SE5 in your argument, and "afaik" you've never played it, so why are you even making it a part of your argument??? It's the moon being made of green cheese and the world being flat all over again. You've never been to the Moon and you've never seen the Earth from space, so you're going to argue about it with an astronaut? I haven't played SE5, but I've played a LOT of SE4 (infact I've exchanged emails with Aaron Hall on one occasion, he's a very nice man-SE3 is why I know about Shrapnel Games in the first place), and SE4 had dozens of buildings, hundreds if you count mods. SE5 certainly has that many and probably more, it's something I've researched extensively in preparation to buy it, and it IS micromanagement-hell, in a good way, mind you. (If you want to argue that, because I haven't played SE5 either, I don't know what I'm talking about, well you can, but you'll be undermining the base of your own argument, and as far as you know, maybe someday the Earth WILL be flat and the Moon WILL transform into green cheese.)
What I'm talking about is 1, as in a total of 3, specialized buildings, in addition to fortresses (which ARE distinct from one another). It wouldn't require any more programming than adding temples to the game right now would, because forges wouldn't be doing anything OTHER than what temples do, or labs, already. Ok, that might be a significant amount, considering all the units, but NOT every unit would be affected.

As far as construction being a little different from the other magic schools-it already is because of the ability to manufacture magical items in place of spells. Construction in the game represents technology combined with magic or fantasy elements, and if you haven't noticed, even without the presence of "working, everyday magic"(I refuse to believe that there's no magic whatsoever in this world, I think just maybe the server goes down a lot). I'm for making Construction more a part of a nation's life, more powerful and diverse, and the overall "intelligence" of our little computer people, more intelligent. If there's a discovery that would be blatantly obvious to a society capable of creating flying metal suits or iron dragons or even chainmail, crossbows, folded steel-or bronze for that matter, then they should be able to utilize it. I'm not talking big things like gunpowder or steam, I'm talking ancient-age, at best Greko-Roman, technology and it's equivalent, up through perhaps a handful of 13th through 16th century inventions. These are already present in the game, in the Arbelast(spring steel crossbow design, as compared to the Roman Arcuballista), which as far as I know was invented around the 14th century A.D. during the Cruisades. Certainly, the stirrup wasn't invented until a couple of centuries A.D. and they have to be present in early age or lances (perhaps not light lances, but definitely lances) would not function the way they do. I'd like to give nations the ability to create field artillery (not castle-smashing catapults/trebuche/mangonels, I'm talking scorpions, ballistas, Greek-fire throwers, and the like) and field fortifications-again not improving castle defenses, I'm talking ditches, rows of stakes, pitfalls, small-scale motte-and-bailey, etc. Eventually, I'd really like to see the ability to build bridges-and for those bridges to become another strategic element-into the game, but I think that will have to wait for a long time. All of those ideas, plus "magic tech" would be connected somehow to Forge, just like holding a dwarven hammer is somehow related to making a blood-soaked parchment more efficiently, as someone stated earlier (I expect the dwarven hammer allows for a cleaner kill, ala 19th century slaughterhouses).

By the way, not to complain too loudly-and I have NO complaints against Kristoffer or Johan or Illwinter itself, mind you-but I swear that, for all the often-vaunted "community of acceptance where you can have a voice and where your ideas can make a difference", I'm really finding that there's a great deal of stubbornness and opposition to any "new idea" that doesn't have to do with a gripe that goes back to Dom2 or even Dom1. I'm not some crazy person who's espousing adding 25 new buildings that each represent 1 unit for 1 nation, I'm trying to open up possibilities, make the game bigger and more fun. I think I'm being pretty reasonable here. I'm also NOT saying that this has to be done RIGHT NOW. I am fully cognizant of the size of Illwinter's development team, and atleast somewhat aware of the pressure they're under. And please NOTICE I'm also not saying that I'm RIGHT. I'm just making a suggestion that makes sense to me, as far as furthering the enjoyment, usefulness, and sense of the game-as in the way the game works making sense to me-and for all my troubles (creation is hard, and more hard the more complex the creation is-ask Kristoffer) I get something like a 500 word lecture on why I "might possibly be wrong because Ars Magica has something to say about how mages conduct their lifestyles" and other arguments which are plain contradictory, or at best personal interpretations which don't have a lot to do with the reality of the game. To me, what you have to say is more knee-jerk reaction and less intuitive, wise critique. I appreciate your trouble, Endoperez, it was an enjoyable read and you're an intelligent person, but I'm just as familiar with Ars Magica as you are, and I have always based my personal impression/interpretation of magic on-and compared Dom3 magic with-Ars Magica. There's no discrepancy between us. It's a good system. I just ask that you think about your arguments a little bit more as they pertain to Dom3, if you're going to argue against me.

Edi, what you fail to realize is that I'm your friend when it comes to being a watchdog against micro-management, NOT your enemy. I've certainly played as many or more strategy games per year that I've been alive, as you have, and a great many of those years I've spent designing games and systems and helping others design games and systems. I work with computers and complex systems for a living, infact. I have enough experience to be able to give a fair guestimate of the dangers and the rewards of adding or subtracting a given game-element.

And Edi, I'm intelligent enough and emotionally stable enough to understand and consider another's argument, without that argument being served with a gravy of sarcasm. If you have an opinion, please share it straight up. I'll give it more weight, I promise. I do agree with some parts of your rant that aren't hostile though, to a greater or lesser degree, but I also think that you could have made the same point without being extremely negative and off-putting.

If people have new ideas that might benefit the game (or even might not), I personally feel that those people should be encouraged and guided, not made to feel that everything is impossible (and not just impossible, the word used was "stillborn" which I consider not only negative but a tad repulsive when used to describe an idea I've invested a lot of time and effort into, for the hopeful benefit of everyone.). This is especially true in a very small community such as ours. We barely have a large enough population to sustain the production of fresh new ideas and new ways of looking at things, and discouraging the growth of that resource is just plain counter-productive.