Illwinter Next Project

[Spendios]

Will it be Dominions 4 ?

[Gandalf Parker]

the last word was "no dom4 in the pipeline"
Looking historically at Illwinter I think their "next project" will still be CoE3 for quite awhile.

Id be happy just to see more patches. I keep making requests for CoE3 based on "like we had in Dom3" but a number of things have come out in the Conquest of Elysium 3 release which I would love to see ported backward also

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Spendios

Will it be Dominions 4 ?

Dominions_4 would be 2020... at the earliest yet could be longer.

[legowarrior]

I realize it is a ways away, but I'd like to see more control of the nations picked. Perhaps you equip units yourself (from a set list available to that nation) and have similar control over leaders and mages.

Also, what would be fun if mana wasn't so tied to special sites. In my limited experience, the nation focused on few elements (like the Agatha) will almost always have fewer gems than a nation like the T'ien C'hi (with more diverse magic). I realize that Agatha have other advantages, but it would be cool to see a way to equalize specialized nations and diverse nations when it comes to gem income (one suggestion would be more Gem Generating Globals or a Domain that is prone to produce a certain type of gem).

[Gandalf Parker]

You mean like modding?
and then you mean like gem generator items?

[llamabeast]

Gem-generating dominion is an interesting idea!

[brxbrx]

Are you guys talking about a Dominions themed Bejeweled or something?

[Kelan]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Gem-generating dominion is an interesting idea!

Hmm, yeah that could have all kinds of interesting opportunities.

They could automatically generate certain kinds of gems based on nation and number of candles (dominion) or even terrain type or scales. It could also influence the effectiveness or amount of gems you get from sites.

Heck it could even generate a new holy gem type that harvests dominion that you could use to enhance or power up existing spells or items, or open up new holy production items or spells using Holy paths.

I like the enhancement idea although it may be a coding/stat tracking and balancing nightmare. Add some holy gems while making a 75% resist item and it becomes some % higher, or adds re-invigoration or something. Same could be used to add special effects to certain spells.

[legowarrior]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

You mean like modding?
and then you mean like gem generator items?

No, not like modding, but actually having more options in the game itself. And no, not like Gem Generators items, I find those awkward and cumbersome.

I guess the best example I could come up with would be 4x games, like Fallen Enchantress, Master of Orion (create your own ships) Swords of the Stars and the like.

Also, Domain generated gems would be a great way for nations to specialize in a single magic, but not feel like they are handicapped in later games.

[elmokki]

There was some discussion on IRC at some point about making nations (well, this was actually probably mostly me throwing game ideas to be honest) more generic. For example take MA Marignon: you'd have your troop chassises and your equipment and could combine them as you like - probably with some limitations though, like maybe you couldn't make MA Vanheim skinshifters use spears or something.

Directly implemented to Dominions 3 this would be utterly stupid since item quality vs resource cost just simply isn't balanced and in most cases people would end up using very limited rosters. I mean, seriously, the armors are somewhat more balanced and getting extra prot usually means you'll need to actually sacrifice something, but if you have a spear or mace and a broad sword available, you just won't pick the mace for anyone who's going to fight in melee.

In general the idea is cool, but for Dominions game series I prefer having lovingly made nations with their own quirks instead of something very minmaxable. CoE3 (or hopefully streamlined Dominions 3 that isn't crap) could use a customization thing. Though I suppose if it's designed well it might work in Dominions too.

Also as UnitGen hopefully proves, implementing this is in no way impossible (the units can also look better and more unique, UnitGen just uses generic stuff with my not-so-awesome sprite editing skills), but it is extra work compared to just making nations like in Dominions 3.