New nations extremely well crafted and enjoyable

[lch]

sector24 said:
Did the other "appreciation" thread get deleted or something? Don't make me go to YouTube for entertainment!

heh

[Beorne]

I'd like to tell my appreciation on the new races that are beautiful. I'd like some the older races too be reworked and polished in such a way
(Beware, this is not "pushing the devs" or "complaining" )

[Kristoffer O]

Me too

[Beorne]

So tell the devs!!!

[Aezeal]

It's not that I don't appreciate the new races but...
I think most original races are nicer than the new ones

hard to beat R'hyle (never could type that), Ermor, Pangaea when looking at all sides of a nation combined IMHO

[HoneyBadger]

This is just to counter-balance the bad karma I've been getting lately with posting appreciation threads. I didn't get a chance to experience the Fomorians all that much, and they were the most recent nation I got to play with, but I thought I'd mention a few minor things that bothered me about this new nation.

It's not in any way a complaint! The artwork is gorgeous, the nation is very fun to play, and my intention is mainly to confirm that yes, Fomoria is extremely cool, a very welcome addition to the game, and I just want the coolness to go a little further in the direction I want it to.

And to show that yes, there are some things I'm not a total fan-boi about in the game, here's an admittedly short list of things I wish had happened for Fomoria:

1: Why oh why must all giants in Dom3 be cyclopes? Ok, not all of them are, infact most of them aren't, but we already have a race of 1 eyed giants in the Agarthans, plus real actual cyclopses running around. Plus there's probably others I'm forgetting about. I wish Fomorians (except ofcourse for Balor) had had 3 eyes each. Why 3? 'Cause 3's a fun number, and shows up in mythology constantly, and particularly in Irish mythology. It would have been cool as background if King Balor's three eyes, upon encountering the great well of evil that he looked upon, grew together into one single Eye of Doom, making him, uniquely, a 1 eyed Fomorian, rather than the whole race.

2: Fomorians are supposed to have strong connections to the sea, to the dead, and to the sea dead. It would have been cool if more had been done with this. If they had the ability, say, to summon aquatic soulless or longdead Celtic pirates, or something, but only while they were in the water. Also cool if they were the only race that could build fortresses on land and sea both, since that seems thematic to me.
Also, now that Terrain-forms are in, maybe Fomorians could have a water-shape where they turn into some kind of undead when they go into the ocean? That would make strategies involving them a little more interesting.

3: I was honestly disappointed that atleast some of the Fomorians weren't (more) monstrously grotesque. I know some of them have the heads of goats and things, and you probably wouldn't want to date one if George Clooney was answering your calls, but I was hoping-atleast as a subtype or a summons, to get a real freakshow of nasty inbred cannibalistic monstrosities, like giant magical versions of those folks that live in West Virginia and haven't heard about the end of the Civil War yet, and have their own ideas about the benefits of tourism.
Maybe something along the lines of Crossbreeding, that occasionally throws in the extra head or hoof or tentacle? Adding or subtracting to the overall strengths and abilities of any given Fomorian, in a random fashion, in addition to the possibility of disabilities, would also be interesting for balance and strategy.

And maybe instead of Awe, they could have an opposite Disgust ability, where they're so grotesque that once an opponent has struck one, there's a chance that that opponent will go berserk and be unable to run away and stop trying to kill the poor Fomorian until it's dead, or the attacker is-which would be a double edged sword on both sides-and maybe balance out the beneficial stuff I suggested above.

On the subject of grotesque supernatural monsters, Midian would make a fun nation of beastmen, if the Devs are going to continue with the Biblically-inspired nations. I wonder if Kristoffer has ever rented Nightbreed?

[Kristoffer O]

> Why oh why must all giants in Dom3 be cyclopes?

Probably because I'm influenced by Powers & Perils, a splendid pen&paper RPG from the early 80's. They have lots of one eyed giants there. Earth giants, Orchi, Searbhani, perhaps others as well. P&P is quite heavily mythologically influenced and I suspect this is one of the reasons Dominions is as well. Greek myth and historiography id full of them. Herdotos writes about one eyed giants. One eye is one of the most common traits of monstrous guys. Three eyes might come second . I like cyclopes. But I like three eyes as well.

> Fomorians are supposed to have strong connections to the sea, to the dead, and to the sea dead. It would have been cool if more had been done with this. If they had the ability, say, to summon aquatic soulless or longdead Celtic pirates, or something, but only while they were in the water. Also cool if they were the only race that could build fortresses on land and sea both, since that seems thematic to me.

While I like the fomorians I'm actually a bit dissatisfied that they did not turn out more dead-sea-attuned.

> Also, now that Terrain-forms are in, maybe Fomorians could have a water-shape where they turn into some kind of undead when they go into the ocean? That would make strategies involving them a little more interesting.

Watershapes are cool.

>I was honestly disappointed that atleast some of the Fomorians weren't (more) monstrously grotesque. I know some of them have the heads of goats and things, and you probably wouldn't want to date one if George Clooney was answering your calls, but I was hoping-atleast as a subtype or a summons, to get a real freakshow of nasty inbred cannibalistic monstrosities, like giant magical versions of those folks that live in West Virginia and haven't heard about the end of the Civil War yet, and have their own ideas about the benefits of tourism.
Maybe something along the lines of Crossbreeding, that occasionally throws in the extra head or hoof or tentacle? Adding or subtracting to the overall strengths and abilities of any given Fomorian, in a random fashion, in addition to the possibility of disabilities, would also be interesting for balance and strategy.

I agree. I did want a bit more variation to their monstrosity, but it demanded more work both from me and from JK. There is no random unit recruitment. The random afflictions was the second best thing.

> I wonder if Kristoffer has ever rented Nightbreed?

Only parts (according to my brother, who knows what I have seen and what not).

[AreaOfEffect]

I will also show my appreciation for the new races. Before the patch came out I was thinking how utterly important it would be if a race had a decent astral forger, then Kristoffer picked the idea out of my brain.

Off-topic
---
On the Fomorian front, I personally like the idea of combining the waterform with underwater animation. An easy way to do that is to make their underwater form typed as undead. That would be an interesting way of making them more dead-seaish.

[HoneyBadger]

Nightbreed is a personal favorite of mine. It's very much 80's style horror, so it's a little campy (not as much as most 80's horror films though), but it's 80's style horror taken in a completely different-deeper and more compelling-direction. It's even better than Clive Barker's Hellraiser in many ways, in my opinion, and a great movie for Dominions 3, because it combines real world mythology and archetypes with stuff right out of Barker's grim and bloody imagination. It's also one of the sexiest (without descending into outright pornography) movies you're likely to come across, providing you don't mind your fantasies and nightmares intermingling.

I keep hoping against hope that they'll remake it, without ruining it ofcourse. It'd lend itself well to a series too, or a graphic novel, even a video game. There's just tons and tons of content that's only touched upon, but leaves me wanting a lot more.