The biggest problem with Dom III

[Potatoman]

Ahh, Moo2. The overpowered custom options of that game were great fun- the best race that I remimber creating was the huge production bonus one with Feudal, + a few other picks that I do not remimber. It could crank out colony ships so quickly right out of the gate that I would often control most of the galaxy before P2 even reached their 3rd world. Fun!

Also amusing was the challenge to create the worst Moo2 custom race possible, then have your friend try to last as long as they could in a small galaxy with impossible opponents. The creator of the most pathetic custom race was the winner!

[TirAsleen]

i have moo2 still installed i agree research race was insane so i looked for a more fun race and that was silicodis...

hehe and not using customization at all + hardest game setting was still too easy for advanced players, that know what to research first and so on.

[Gandalf Parker]

Sombre said:
That's a strange question to ask Gandalf. I mean Edi basically just explained how to make it and pointed out how easy it is. So my question is this: Why haven't YOU made it?
(snip)
This reply could be given to any number of threads in this forum: You can spend a long time waiting for 'someone' to make the changes you want. Or you can just do it yourself in about 5 minutes.

Apologies to Edi. I did miss that excellent post. We were a few minutes apart (my connection isnt the fastest today) so I might have been typing

@Sombre
True enough. But thats not what I do.
Mods are a whole territory unto themselves. I spend more than enough time in the territories of server and maps. And since such a mod would be simple. It would be a good mod for someone who might just be curious about doing mods.

(Actually if I wanted to I could cheat horribly. We had such a mod in the beta area that I could copy). But if someone wants to put their name on such a mod, it would be one of the only mods Id consider putting up on the server for a game. 75 players would be a blast. Id also like to see portable nation mods so we can have a game of 23 Ulms, or 23 Vanheims.

[johnarryn]

Xietor,
Not that I disagree with everything you say, but how do you reach the conclusion that "less than 1 percent of Dom3 players read these forums"?

[Xietor]

Just a guess. It is like that with most sport's fans, and of the numerous gamers i know that play several games, none read message boards. Personally, I played DomII for years and never visited a forum.

Given the the game was sold to a few hundred thousand or so,
and you see less than a thousand posting, it is just an educated guess.

[Gandalf Parker]

Most forums find that to be about right. At most you can expect 10% of players to visit a forum, and 1% of players to post.

Even in the Dominions IRC channel not all of them visit the forums. And there tends to be discussion of Dominions in places like the strategy newsgroups, AI newsgroups, other gaming forums, which show that many of those people know and like Dominions but dont tend to visit here.

[Archonsod]

Xietor said:
for the advanced player, you may want to play a MA race, and add some EA or LA empires to create more of a challenge. It would be an option, not a requirement.

There's plenty of ways to give yourself a challenge without actually needing to alter the Era system. Try imposing some rules on your own pretender build or similar (no bless, no SC and the like). I'd argue that this would be way more effective, since the challenge of another era nation depends heavily on other factors (for example, EA national troops tend to have lighter equipment, and would likely struggle to expand in a late era game).
The same applies to multiplayer games. Turn the site occurence to minimum and let your opponent pick a nation less dependent on magic (like Ulm) while you take one heavily dependent on it (Caelum).

[Kristoffer O]

> Given the the game was sold to a few hundred thousand or so,
and you see less than a thousand posting, it is just an educated guess.

It was? Wohoo!!! Heh! I mean: HUNDRED THOUSNAD! WOHOOOO! I'd better visit my bank and go to Bahamas

Cya in a couple of years

[Gandalf Parker]

If you want a challenge, try playing the game with all defaults. I mean ALL defaults. Dont answer ANYTHING.

I think you have to choose era, and name the game. Maybe map (choose the top one which the game should probably default to). After that just hit OK on everything without selecting

[Xietor]

The game, even though it could be improved, is still one of the best ever, which is why I have played it for years.

That said, there can be improvements to any game. one of the things the AI does to pythium that always dooms it, is to kill its own troops with hydras. One way to fix this problem, which appears simple, is to give hydras to ctis, which has units with poison resistance. hydras seem a natural for swamps.

Of course balance is a sticky thing, but i think some races should be tougher than others by design, to provide a challenge.