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I think the secret to success in general but esp. in a game as complex as dom is not to go to extremes.

By aiming to make nations more unique I'm not planning to start a crusade against all possible diversification paths. I think it's all about the right weights, so ideally a nation would have easier (as in cheaper) access to spells and summons related to it's theme (i.e. myth and culture) while it would find it harder (more expensive) to diversify.

Dimaz, to your example, there's no one color nation (that I can think of), so it's more likely you'll see say, E+A pitted vs. W+N+S for instance. I'd imagine this would actually make battles more interesting.

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I would be absolutely in favour of more nations having national summons. It would be great to have thematic endgame summons for everyone.

The difficulty is the work involved. Making big sprites is quite tiring somehow. As for the coding etc, that's pretty easy. Basically, if people make a load of awesome national sprites you'd have no difficulty in finding people to write the mod code. I would certainly be happy to do it if I liked the sprites.

Making sprites doesn't really need any skill. I have no artistic talent outside of dom3, and I certainly can't draw. Sombre and Burnsaber say the same, and their sprites are amazing. What it does need, however, is a critical eye, and patience.

You don't need to worry about conflict with CBM, EDM etc. That kind of thing can be fixed right at the end. Balance, similarly, can be fixed at the end.

I would suggest that design by committee is doomed. If someone would like to go ahead with such a project, they'd have to take control. Then that person would take suggestions from other people for units, but make their own decisions as to what to actually make. You will always get a mixture of good and bad suggestions, and there needs to be some filtering.

Personally I won't be working on such a project, since the EDM rather wore me out with respect to drawing big sprites. I did make it worse for myself than it had to be though - firstly, the Wendigo and Zmey had a silly number of sprites, and secondly I had to write up my PhD in the middle of working on the mod which knocked the enthusiasm out of me for a bit (writing up a PhD will knock the enthusiasm for anything out of anyone). On the other hand I might easily be persuaded to do a sprite or two.

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Not to be pendantic, but Niefel Flames are gonna take a big old dump on your "army of" guys, and quickening can be more effective than weapons of sharpness in plenty of situations. I find a lot of the time people think things are underpowered are because they're just not playing to their strengths...

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The question is, are all the nations can stay competitive in lategame battles with low diversification? Honestly I don't know, but so far it's the main concern I have with such mod idea.

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If they can't that's a balance concern in and of itself. One school of magic really shouldn't be shockingly stronger than another, overall. Naturally, some level of imbalance is alright, like anti-Undead Astral spells.

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I'm not sure there can be balance among magic schools in the real sense as some tend to be more battlefield oriented like fire evocation, and others tend to be more summons oriented like blood, which is hard to use on the battlefield due to slaves being able to get killed and being needed for every spell, and all the spells fatiguing the casters too fast, etc...
But that doesn't necessarily put one magic school over another, as all of them have some up and down sides, which is a seance balances them out.

So, it's my opinion that magic schools are balanced, more or less, and one can make due with limited diversification.

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True, I love how quickening is one of the few ways to take out two squares of chaff on attack and not one. I think this double attack isn't given by the quickening boots. Am I right or not?

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It is. Any form of quickness. Even the bless or heroic forms, though they won't give the second attack every turn.

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Thank you llamabeast. I'm tempted to take this project but I've RL obligations (don't we all? :) ) and this will take bestial amounts of time to complete. I was imagining a support role for me, not taking point.

I'll mull it over the next few days before I go/nogo.

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A slight suggestion: It may be useful to give Tartarians a severe malus to Fire and Shock (perhaps 300%)-- thematic, and would discourage use.
(The Lord of the Underworld wished to make them extra-torturable over his long years of enjoying them.)