Mod: Dominions 3000 v0.81 - lots of new indies, new map (using the brand new map commands)

[Aezeal]

Well it's dragons and did I say there wasn't a nation like it?

But Dragons against spaceships might be fun hating the new technology that makes the lesser races able to invade their territory (space) and fight with them more evenly.

I'm going to try to tell the "story" that quite some dragons are born, lots of them dieing early in live while still small (which are the basic troops) and having no intelligence (not mindless though) then while growing up they evolve into different sorts of dragons (I'm choosing to make all dragons of 1 race and not different races in one nation) the elder they are the more intelligent, more abilities etc. No sacreds amongst recruitables (why would "kids" be holy)
varied magic but probabaly not to much combined in the recruitables and not higher than level 3 in recruitables.

quite some summons of elder dragons, highly evolved, specialized, higher magic power etc etc etc

I'm thinking it will play as a nation of giants (even the smaller troops have higher hp and strengt and thus cost) with the commanders being more powerfull and thugish but less time slots (a major weakness I'd say) and no sacreds troops to get a bless on. (in this regard weaker than say Niefelheim (though I'll balance them primarily for dom 3000 in the first place so maybe I'd need to change some AP attacks to normal attacks to get a decent dom 3 nation) but with GOOD powerfull summons which won't really need the hand slots to be better thugs than niefeljarls (well maybe that is going a bit far... but I'll try to make the highest level summons REALLY powerfull)

I fear this setup will mean there will be a small number of commanders and troops recruitable, (always a weakness in most of my nations since ussually can give a nation what I think it needs with 5-6 recruits and 4-5 commanders. as Niefelheim I'm only recruiting Niefels and mages so the rest of the nation is a bit of a waste for me )

I hope this nation will be liked

[Aezeal]

hmmm the nation might even be underpowered.. it doesn't seem easy to play early age.. I've 20 or 21 dragons ready so now I only need to create 1-2 pretenders and they are nearly ready

[Darkwind]

I've pretty much finished Neoclidia. Seven Old Ones of various types, two heroes, one multihero and so many new spells (most of which are unique) I can't bother to count them. I stayed up all night to do this, too, after months of procrastination. Both the .txt and .dm attached; all the poor Neoclidians need now is some sprites and some balancing.

I particularly like the flavor text for the Great Old Ones and such. Though I guess it's hard to go wrong with alien beings of unimaginable power and no regard for morality at all. What does everyone else think?

Also, bump. It's been a while and it seems this thread has fallen into disrepair. What happened? While my questions never end, even after so long?!

Must sleep now. Bye.

[Aezeal]

hmm I'm having a lil less time (which is why I didn't reply to this last message in here sooner , but thanks for the PM anyway) and I'm optimizing the dragons nation which is intended for use in this mod too as a stand alone nation for the regular game to hopefully get some more replies too it (which seems to have worked) I'm posting a new version of it now as it happens. Once that one is sort of balanced I'll put that in this mod too, hopefully saving me tons of worry about the balance of them in this mod. Once your nation is ready I'll be sure to make an update ASAP though or if someone (you ) could set up a MP game for it then I'd add them too.

If you have questions: just ask them and I'll answer (usually the same day but some days like the last 2-3 I'm not much on the comp )

How do we get sprites for you nation though.. that is a harder problem... I've got no idea of what they should look like and I'm more used to taking pictures and only fitting them as a sprite so I can't really do it myself..

EDIT: WOW lots of work on the mod.. we really need graphs for this!!!

[Darkwind]

I haven't exactly been keeping up with the mod, and I don't have much time right now, so initial impressions:

Ulm:
-Evoc 7 (with no national spells elsewhere in the line) for a 45-gem spell that creates 15 units? By then, you'd probably want more space fighters for the war in space than fifteen ground fighters you could just recruit.

R'lyeh:
-Have you modified the Void Gate units? You'd think they would be changed after so much time and when force to fight on a galactic scale. Forcefield-shielded Vastnesses with mind-enhancing 'helmets', anyone?
-R'lyeh has no summonable ships. This makes puppies cry.
-Most of its national spells are high-end, though I guess that's not really too bad if that was what you were aiming for. Just saying.
-There seems to be some overlap between R'lyeh and Neoclidia. Namely, Illithids are immensely powerful beings who plan on conquering the universe; Old Ones are unimaginably powerful beings that plan on conquering the universe again. The only difference seems to be that the Old Ones can rip you a new one physically as well as mentally, instead of having to rely on slaves.

Jomon:
-The Defender has an incomplete description.
-The fifth unit has no name. This is bad.
-A recruitable ethereal assassin with great stats and a 15-damage AN long-range weapon? Sounds like a walking deathbot for land forces.
-Puppies are still crying, although since Jomon has no ships anyways I guess they're just sniffling.
-Only one, really high-end national spell? That amounts two two weak oni, the Dai Oni, and Oni Dragons. I'm fairly sure Oni Dragons can pretty much only be summoned by your pretender, too. Although if they're as powerful as people say they are, that's not too much of a handicap.

Orks:
-No use for that earth magic?
-Ork Aspiring Heroes can immediately become Ork Heroes. Is there any drawback to this?

Insectoids:
-Are you sure giving the Primordia Regina earth magic (ie, easy access to powerful generic ships due to likely high E magic from crappy scales) was a good idea?

Commonwealth:
-The pretender has Astral and the site gives Astral pearls, but AFAIK the only use are a few high-end astral/w spells. Maybe reduce the Astral income in favor of Water income?

Also, on turn 2 all of Ulm's units disappeared. I don't know why. The mod seems a lot better than the last version I picked up, though all the vanilla spells still seem to be here, likely due to lack of anything to replace them with.

Finally, I'll come back to you with more well-based idea and opinions later; this was a quick look. Sadly, many puppies cried during the making of this post.

[Aezeal]

removing vanilla spells isn't really much of an option, most aren't that strange for dom 3K though.. items would be a bigger problem for "immersion"

[Darkwind]

How is it not much of an option? Wouldn't

#selectspell "spellname"
#clear
#end

remove the spell (or at least render it useless)? The only thing this doesn't work on I think is globals, of which there aren't many. The only problem I see is that it would take a while to go through all of the spells and remove them.

Also, I'm playing through as the orcs. Expect to see some commentary soon.

At first look, they seem interesting; I think something might be bugged though since none of the units seem to be getting increased paths when I upgrade them. It might be because I upgrade them immediately though.

[Aezeal]

no the idea is it makes cheaper recruit cost but later higher upkeep cost.. it also symbolizes the orcs following charismatic leaders that evolved from the ranks.. there is no penalty or bonus not to do it right away (you generally shoudl just do it right away) There should be improved stats, mages should get more magic, the leader more leadership etc.. not very much they start as minimal commanders and they just become about average commanders you'd normally recruit) BUT THEN THEY ALSO START ATTRACTING TROOPS which is the point

I think just clearing vanilla spells isn't very elegant.. AI would probably still cast the spells. And as I said.. most spells aren't very much a problem to have in the game. Summons are a bit of a problem, for best effect you'd probably best redo them all... but that is not for now IMHO

[Darkwind]

Originally Posted by Aezeal

no the idea is it makes cheaper recruit cost but later higher upkeep cost.. it also symbolizes the orcs following charismatic leaders that evolved from the ranks.. there is no penalty or bonus not to do it right away (you generally shoudl just do it right away) There should be improved stats, mages should get more magic, the leader more leadership etc.. not very much they start as minimal commanders and they just become about average commanders you'd normally recruit) BUT THEN THEY ALSO START ATTRACTING TROOPS which is the point

I'm getting the better stats, the better leadership, just not the better magic. I'm not sure why; I'm fairly sure Amos did it in the Insectoid mod and that worked. Though, looking at it, Amos used a negative #magicboost to give the Females less magic than the Queens, but with the same base magic(so after changing, the negative #magicboost would be removed and they'd get their full magical potential). Looking at the Crafter/Tinkerer, I see you did not do that, instead specifying the paths that they'd start with and not their maximum levels. So that's cleared up, I guess.

I think just clearing vanilla spells isn't very elegant.. AI would probably still cast the spells. And as I said.. most spells aren't very much a problem to have in the game. Summons are a bit of a problem, for best effect you'd probably best redo them all... but that is not for now IMHO

I can see your reasoning.

Edit: Also, someone else reply to this thread! I don't want it devolving into just me and Aezeal posting!

[rdonj]

I'm still taking a break from back when it was me and aezeal going back and forth for pages. At some point I'll test again and have feedback but for the moment I'm happy to see other people's opinions about it than my own.