Game Modding for Buildings

NTJedi · #1 June 5th, 2006, 07:54 PM

I know modding within the game has been greatly increased. I'm wondering if the game modding will be available for building types as well. This would allow gamers to add another level of new content.

New Building Types for Dominions_3 I would like to MOD into the game:
Building cost is not listed until we know more about DOM_3.

Healing Shrine: Same as a unit which does the command healing... basically any units in the territory have a percentage chance of getting afflictions removed.

Athenaeum: Any units researching here will get +2 research bonus.

Armory Hall: Castle gets +20 Defense, units defending castle get +1 defense during siege. Towers get increased accuracy +2 and increased damage +2.

Bank: Increases total gold income of province by 20%.

Marketplace: Resources +50, +2 gold for each gem alchemized into gold.

Statue of a Nations Hero:
Defending nation receives +2 morale for all units.

Training Grounds: A non_mage commander without stealth may enter the training grounds which pulls a little population and makes them into random types of soldiers. (crossbowmen, swordsmen, slingers, spearmen, etc.)

DominionsFan · #2 June 5th, 2006, 08:22 PM

Oh yeah I would like to see this as well....who doesnt?

However AFAIK again...we cannot "mod" the existing buildings, and we cannot add new type of buildings at all.
It would be good to see some answers from Kristoffer anyways, because Im not 100% sure, just lets say 90%.

NakedLunch · #3 June 5th, 2006, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Bank: Increases total gold income of province by 20%.

20% is kind of a lot. Considering that on one of my games I'm getting 1000 gold per turn (Yes, it's on the easy settings) that's an extra 200 gold. The banks would have to be expensive as hell to support that. I'd say lower it to 5 or 10 percent and it'd be cool.

Quote:

Training Grounds: A non_mage commander without stealth may enter the training grounds which pulls a little population and makes them into random types of soldiers. (crossbowmen, swordsmen, slingers, spearmen, etc.)

That would be neat if you ditched the random part. Here's another idea: You could make up camps within the grounds and then train specific types in each camp and that sort of thing.

Quote:

Marketplace: Resources +50, +2 gold for each gem alchemized into gold.

I think +50 is a bit too much. IMHO the amount you get should be based on the properties of the province such as population, unrest, resources it has to begin with etc.

Quote:

However AFAIK again...we cannot "mod" the existing buildings, and we cannot add new type of buildings at all.
It would be good to see some answers from Kristoffer anyways, because Im not 100% sure, just lets say 90%

Lame

NTJedi · #4 June 5th, 2006, 09:19 PM

Quote:

NakedLunch said:

Quote:

Bank: Increases total gold income of province by 20%.

20% is kind of a lot. Considering that on one of my games I'm getting 1000 gold per turn (Yes, it's on the easy settings) that's an extra 200 gold. The banks would have to be expensive as hell to support that. I'd say lower it to 5 or 10 percent and it'd be cool.

I've had gold income over 3000 per turn after paying upkeep for some of my maps. The bank doesn't effect gold for all provinces just whatever location the bank is built. So provinces which only bring 25 gold per turn really wouldn't benefit.

Quote:

NakedLunch said:

Quote:

Training Grounds: A non_mage commander without stealth may enter the training grounds which pulls a little population and makes them into random types of soldiers. (crossbowmen, swordsmen, slingers, spearmen, etc.)

That would be neat if you ditched the random part. Here's another idea: You could make up camps within the grounds and then train specific types in each camp and that sort of thing.

Your idea sounds better... I suggested random to make the programming easier and quicker for setup.

Quote:

NakedLunch said:

Quote:

Marketplace: Resources +50, +2 gold for each gem alchemized into gold.

I think +50 is a bit too much. IMHO the amount you get should be based on the properties of the province such as population, unrest, resources it has to begin with etc.

Well maybe the building name needs to be changed... basically I was looking for a method where resources can be made available after a province has had it's population dropped near zero. I've seen a single unit cost as much as 48 resources so I figured a building which gave 50 would allow one of those units to be bought each turn.

NakedLunch · #5 June 5th, 2006, 10:06 PM

Quote:

I've had gold income over 3000 per turn after paying upkeep for some of my maps. The bank doesn't effect gold for all provinces just whatever location the bank is built. So provinces which only bring 25 gold per turn really wouldn't benefit.

Okay, that idea would actually work well I think.

Quote:

Your idea sounds better... I suggested random to make the programming easier and quicker for setup.

Hmm, I'd guess it'd be like recruiting units except just automatic. Like have columns with drop down menus to select which units to train, perhaps?

Edi · #6 June 6th, 2006, 02:51 AM

Ah, another suggestion to turn Dom3 into pure micromanagement hell (because there'll be plety of micro already despite the streamlining from Dom2) and remove the uniqueness of quite a few of the specialties that some nations have.

Let's see:

Healing units, previously only for Pangaea and Arco until Faerie Court was researched, now for everyone
Marketplace, giving enough extra respurces to turn any nation into an Ulm-like industrial powerhouse and neatly removes any penalty for low admin forts (not as much of an issue if fort selection is removed, but an issue nonetheless).
Athenaeum: Let's remove the biggest incentive for choosing magic scales so those points can be used for something else. Right...
Training Grounds: Yes, let's really make the sites Academy of War and The Ancient Master completely useless and worth exactly zilch when found, because we can just build our own wherever we want. And we'll also toss in some freespawn units as well. Really good idea there...
Armory Hall: Who cares about the +20 to defense value and ballista accuracy, but giving +1 castle defense to all units is really going to increase the specialty value of units like Guardians of Ulm, Tower Guards and other such. Oh, wait...

And then I look at who the thread author is and am not surprised at all. Yes, the criticism may be harsh, but have you put any thought at all into what you suggest? Any consideration on what it will add vs. what it will remove, and how massively all this (most of it badly thought out crap) would increase the micromanagement. We all saw what happened to Age of Wonders between the original and AoW2, and the single biggest problem with that was the massively increased micro that turned it from a wargame to an empire management game once you captured enough cities. If the comtents of the opening post were to be implemented as is or even in diluted form, we'd see exactly the same effect.

The only suggestion I liked was the Statue of Hero, because it doesn't have such a huge impact, but it's still too much micro, and would presumably also be destroyed whenever a province with one is conquered. After all, the invaders are hardly going to let the statue of a poster boy for some heathen faith stand so the locals don't get any ideas of resistance.

Edi

DominionsFan · #7 June 6th, 2006, 06:34 AM

Actually, I think that ntjedi was talking about that what buildings would he add to his own mod, not to "release these buildings" with the vanilla game.

I think we all have our own ideas for buildings and its all good...afterall we are talking about mods, not some CB mod, which was a slightly modified version of the vanilla game / balance. If we talk about "total conversion" mods, the "add building/edit existing building" modding feature would be awesome.

Edi · #8 June 6th, 2006, 07:03 AM

Humm, so it seems. But I still stand by my assessment of what the effects of such buildings on the game would be. I wouldn't touch the mod with a ten foot pole because it takes too much away without adding anything but micro hell. Especially in MP, which with the crowd here is competitive in the extreme.

I do agree with your point about the total conversion mods, but how common are those realistically going to be? The biggest gripe about nation modding so far has been the inability to mod the starting magic site properties, which is a different beast altogether.

Edi

DominionsFan · #9 June 6th, 2006, 08:25 AM

Well Edi I dont know. Total conversion mods are only good, if they are perfectly bugtested and playtested. There are total conversion mods for RTW for example, and almost everyone using them, and they skip the vanilla game.
..people are creating these mods so others can have some fun...not all mods are perfect but the players can help to the modding team with ideas/suggestions always.
Im very happy with the modding support of doms. Im pretty sure that we gonna see some nice mods for the game, and maybe many people will play with them, if they will be decent.

Edi · #10 June 6th, 2006, 01:55 PM

I don't have anything against mods per se (as should be obvious from my participation in the CB mod project). It's just that I do have enough experience with Dominions so far (from both PPP and AW) to recognize when an idea won't work. The OP idea was one of those.

Now, if you had a different building for each nation and restricted to that nation, e.g. something that allowed you to build some special units in your castles also outside the home province, that I'd be fine with, or something else in a similar vein that will not work to simply equalize and flatten things for everyone.

I'm not opposed to the idea of buildings as such, as long as they're not overboard and are kept limited in scope.

Edi