Re: Patch \'n mod
 

It seems likely to me that the astral path is simply reduced by one on land, so empowering or putting a starshine skullcap on it raises it high enough to still have 1 on land. This would be consistent with the way a number of the shapeshifters (primarily dragons) have their paths reduced in one form.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

You are correct Cainehill; I thought the magic reduction was because of two different sets of magic paths on the land and water Capricorns, but it is merely a reduction of 1 level everywhere. If this drops the level in any path to 0, it is still possible to raise it back to 1 with any item, so the path is not "lost".

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Would this make it possible to use an air path booster underwater? And would it have to be equipped on land, when air >0?
Also, any word on bugs relating to path reduction and spells like Returning, Teleport, Twiceborn, etc?

Update: Err... not that an aquatic nation would want to cast Twiceborn unless Thetis' Blessing was in effect.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

That's interesting to know. So I suppose that even at 0 astral, he can still be mind dueled!

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Seems likely.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

An Astral 1 Capricon wasn't Mind Dueled on the land, so it looks like you do need Astral 1 or better to be targetted by a Mind Duel. (My astral mage overrode my script, and cast Luck, Paralyse/Mind Burn/Paralyse/Mind Burn)

Still about the Capricorns, they have a limited Stealth ability on the land. If they move from a water province to a land province, they can still hide (you will have to click on the province to put back the hide order though), and so will not be attacked even with their Stealth gone. They cannot move either, so they will have to stay lurking in the province, or to try taking it.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

I had a lot of fun spending most of yesterday playing a new 2.15 game as Oceania. It didn't seem overpowered against other water nations to me - they can all field swimmers, fodder, and armored underwater troops. Oceania may have a slight troop advantage, or not, but it seems perhaps weaker than Atlantis or R'lyeh at research, magic, and above-sea troops. It's different and interesting, anyway. Luring folks into the sea is fun... and interesting when the unexpected happens.

Regarding magic-changing capricorns and sirens... I wonder if their morphing magic skills can lead to discounts in empowerment - I didn't try that yet...

PvK

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

No empowerment cheezieness possible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

This is a repost from the bug thread, but thought it should be put here as well because it is relevant to this thread and won't be buried under other issues.

Three bugs with Oceania:

• Mermidon (1101), the land-form, has wrong action points. It retains the AP value of the underwater form, Base 24 modified by armor, when it should have base 14. As a consequence, they are as fast as heavy cavalry on land.
• Turtle warriors turn to regular mermen (1046) when you take them to land and back to water again. This is because the regular Oceanian merman (1046) has land-form merman (1047), which is shared by the turtle warrior. 1047 reverts back to 1046, regardless of whether it started out as turtle warrior or merman 1046.
• Turtle Captain suffers the same fate as turtle warrior, he just becomes merman captain.

I think the turtle warrior and captain bugs are a consequence of incorrect secondshape assignment, because turtle warrior is #1097 and turtle captain is #1099, but I can't get monsters #1098 and #1100 (presumably the turtle warrior and captain landforms, respectively) visible in any way. These bugs take a lot of the flavor out from Oceania, in my opinion.

Edi

Clam of Pearls??
 

Ì must have been really out of the action for a few months -- when was Clam of Pearls changed from 2W to 2W1N ? Was this in 2.15? I cant find these balance change notes anywhere. Is this mentioned in a thread somewhere?

(Boron: This is another reason why "clamhoarding" will not be more difficult with them, Boron. Actually, I see no real feasible way to give them a fire blessing, since they dont have any pretender with decent fire-skills.)

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

The clam is changed in the Oceania mod, I'm not sure if it's changed in 2.15 itself, because the Oceania mod code has the change implemented.

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

It is only changed in the oceania mod :
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre> #selectitem "Clam of Pearls"
#mainpath 2
#mainlevel 2
#secondarypath 6
#secondarylevel 1
#end
</pre><hr />

Hm this is unfair though .
So in a game with oceania mod they are the only nation which can hoard clams en masse .
All other nations need a jade sorceress for that with lucky random picks or really luck with random picks from their mages .

Hopefully this idea is not followed in dominions 3 .
I wanna rather see more hoarditems there especially like soul contract http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

You want to see more hoarditems?? Playing with tons of hoard items removes most of the strategy imho.

Who cares how many provinces you have when your income comes mostly from clams/fetishes.
I really like that in games with no hoarding you have to choose how to spend your limited resources and the game doesn´t turn into a giant wishfest/micromanagement nightmare.

Especially since you can get such massive discounts on forging.

Take the god is a bullet game for example. I had the forge of the ancients up for ~20 turns. Together with a hammer and a forge bonus site I can forge clams for 2 water gems. Now if there hadn´t been a limit on hoard items in that game my income would be so humongous now, that the other nations wouldn´t have the slightest chance resulting in an easy win for me.

With the hoarding limiting rule there are 4 other powerful nations left, and I have to consider carefully on what I should spend my big, but not unlimited income and I´m looking forward to a very challenging endgame.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Oh please, no additional diplomacy.
I think the diplomatic options in dominions 2, or rather the lack of such, add more to the game than any additional stuff could do.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

lol. I think Kristoffer was just pointing out the obvious, that you can't have R'lyeh, Atlantis, and Oceania in the same game in DomII (as Oceania replaces Atlantis) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

&gt; You want to see more hoarditems?? Playing with tons of hoard items removes
&gt; most of the strategy imho.

Just in your not humble enough opinion. First of all, hoarding is not 100%
necessary to win. I consider myself a decent player, and I seldom
start hoarding before turn 20-30, by which time many people have gone critical.
Second, hoarding is in no way a guarantee for winning. I would put it behind
diplomacy, race selection, and anticipating the enemy, in that order. Third,
even if hoarding in general were necessary to win, there are still enough
different kinds of hoarding to make things interesting. So, yes, I would
like to see more hoardable items.

&gt; Who cares how many provinces you have when your income comes mostly from
&gt; clams/fetishes.

And this is necessarily bad? If you managed to get to that point with just
your capital province, you must be really good. If not, what are you
complaining about?

&gt; I really like that in games with no hoarding you have to choose how to spend
&gt; your limited resources and the game doesn´t turn into a giant
&gt; wishfest/micromanagement nightmare.

What I really hate more than house rules, is unenforceable house rules.

&gt; Especially since you can get such massive discounts on forging.

You can? Then you must have done something right. Doing something is right is
what the game is about.

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

Technically, you can enforce "no hoarding" from a game, as item modding should now be available. Make clams and the whole thing require 5 Nature and 5 Air, and you will be virtually rid of them (summon spells are easier to remove from the picture).

The other way is, as usual, to have a devoted host (and host only) check the game every single turn. This would, however, not exactly be feasible in this case, unless you only have a few players in the game.

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

I'm C'tis in that game - and I feel that because of the limits on clams/fetishes/stones/contracts we'll have an interesting endgame.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I don't think your forge would have been up that long had it not been for those limits http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif - but I totally agree - if there are no limitations a Forge should be dispelled ASAP. And I hope that domIII will have well balanced gem producing items, they do serve a purpose as an on-board gem surply for a battle-mage. Actually they could serve to lessen micro-management if they were only used in that way, but of cause people abuse them.

Just got an idea(sorry if it has already been proposed) :
What if gem producing items were only usable by mages with a combined magic path level of 3 or above. They are the only ones that really need gems in battle, because most spells that have a gem cost have path requirements of 3 or above (so a WSS mage could use a pearl and would thus always have some on him, and if he communions or otherwise gets boosted in astral - viola - he has the gems he needs to cast the big stuff). And there are no cheap 3-path(combined) summons to use as mules (spectral mages are 10D, and so perhaps a restriction of 4+ combined paths might work better). Could this work ? You could still slap one on a commander that didn't have the required magic skill, it just wouldn't produce any gems, if you need to transport such an item. The fantasy-rationale behind this restriction could be that it requires some skill to harness the gems from the item. You would still be able to "hoard" them, but the mules would a least not be cheap scouts etc. Or make the total combined path requirement 4, then it would be quite expensive to use more than 20 of each - and I wouldn't call 20-30 pearls in a big game "hoarding".

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

Another way would be if the gems where tied to the item, so they couldn't be put in the lab. And perhaps the items could even be cursed, so they can't be moved around.

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

They could check only every 10 or 20 turns, as long as the penalty for violation was doing their turn for them and throwing away all their magic items and gems. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif Hoarding doesn't do any good unless the hoarder can keep the hoard for longer than that.

PvK

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

Heh. That seems to make it unlikely that the Oceania mod will be used in many MP games - certainly not games that include other nations like R'lyeh that can utilize clamming without the mod. (It'd be one thing if the mod removed clams altogether, but to take it away from some nations while keeping them for the Oceania theme?)

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

Well, a clam would be useful before ten turns are over if you only wanted to alchemise water gems into astral pearls (you would need 10 water to get 5 astral via alchemy, and so a clam is better after five turns in this case). I get your idea though, even if this particular rule does not require an host watch. Setting the hoarding items to cost 160 gems each would make any hoarding strategy slightly counter-productive. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

On the same topic, it would actually be possible to enforce a limit on the number of hoarding items per player. They would be set to cost the said 160 gems, and the host would have one nation in the game (and only one province, cut from the rest of the world). Set the Wish spell to cost nothing and make it available only to the host's nation, and the host could still forge enough hoarding items and give them to the players once they pay the regular fee. Once a player reaches the level needed to cast Wish, the spell would be set to normal cost/level, and no longer host-only.

On a somewhat related matter: is there a way to prevent Dominion from spreading for a certain amount of turns? I have been trying to do that, but the best I can think of would be to put Stone Idols in all provinces neighbouring the starting provinces, but that would take several turns at the very least.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

A clam might be useful before 10 or 20 turns, but that doesn't mean that hoarding clams beyond some limit for 10 or 20 turns would be a good idea if the penalty was going to be a referee making you lose a turn and throwing away your clams and other penalty items and gems. Even if you only lost the clams, it would prevent unlimited hoarding of them.

As for tricks to keep dominion from spreading... I think stone idols and/or skeptics would work, if you are imagining giving them to some sort of referee nation while other nations are inactive for a few turns. It wouldn't need to take many turns if the map were edited so that the referee nation starts with enough (a whole bunch of) amphibious spy units who are modded to be able to teleport on turn 1 (maybe Teleport can be a zero-gem national Water-1 spell for the first few turns).

PvK

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Skeptics. That was what I needed. Every nation would start with some of them, and they would be put around the starting province to prevent Dominion spread. Once the game actually begins, the Skeptics would be killed in battle. Thanks PvK!

I just noticed the #additem command. *Sighs* It would have worked as well, though it would have been more cumbersome. I thought you couldn't give specific items to commanders via the map making options, but I was wrong (as I am wont to be).

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Crap!

The Mermidon is quite easily fixed. Just paste in this in the oceania.dm
#selectmonster 1101
#ap 14
#end

The landshape stuff is more of a problem. There is currently no landshape modding command. A patch is needed to fix this problem.

BTW the turtle captain had cavalry move as well in his land shape.

There is an ad hoc way to solve the problem. The independent merman (can be found in independent seas) can be replaced by turtle warriors. The result would be that other uw nations might come across turtle warriors, but it is not very likely.

Making the independent merman a turtle warrior:
#selectmonster 1065
#descr "Mermen are amphibious beings related to Tritons but have fish tails instead of legs. Mermen have strange powers of transformation and can remove their tails to walk on dry land. Some mermen build coastal villages. They are used to fighting on dry land. They are called turtle warriors by their bethren and are often used in raids on inland provinces."
#spr1 "./oceandata/turt1.tga"
#spr2 "./oceandata/turt2.tga"
#weapon 1
#armor 25
#armor 114
#end

#selectmonster 1066
#descr "Mermen are amphibious beings related to Tritons but have fish tails instead of legs. Mermen have strange powers of transformation and can remove their tails to walk on dry land. Some mermen build coastal villages. They are used to fighting on dry land. They are called turtle warriors by their bethren and are often used in raids on inland provinces."
#spr1 "./oceandata/turtland1.tga"
#spr2 "./oceandata/turtland2.tga"
#def 10
#weapon 1
#armor 25
#armor 114
#end

Making the independent merman captain a turtle captain:
#selectmonster 1067
#descr "Mermen are amphibious beings related to Tritons but have fish tails instead of legs. Mermen have strange powers of transformation and can remove their tails to walk on dry land. Some mermen build coastal villages. They are used to fighting on dry land. They are called turtle warriors by their bethren and are often used in raids on inland provinces."
#spr1 "./oceandata/turtcap1.tga"
#spr2 "./oceandata/turtcap2.tga"
#hp 12
#str 11
#weapon 1
#armor 25
#armor 114
#end

#selectmonster 1068
#descr "Mermen are amphibious beings related to Tritons but have fish tails instead of legs. Mermen have strange powers of transformation and can remove their tails to walk on dry land. Some mermen build coastal villages. They are used to fighting on dry land. They are called turtle warriors by their bethren and are often used in raids on inland provinces."
#spr1 "./oceandata/turtcapland1.tga"
#spr2 "./oceandata/turtcapland2.tga"
#hp 12
#str 11
#def 10
#weapon 1
#armor 25
#armor 114
#end

You will also have to replace the recruitment nbr of the turtle warriors with the new ones.

#addrecunit 1097 -&gt; #addrecunit 1065
#addreccom 1099 -&gt; #addreccom 1067


---

Do you want this made in the oceania mod or do you prefer to fix it yourselves until next patch solves the problem?

I would personally prefer to let you fix the problem. A oceania 1.0, another 1.1 to fix this problem and a third 1.2 when next patch might be a bother. On the other hand it would probably be easier for you to find a consensus (regarding what Version to use in MP) if we posted a new official Version of the mod on our site.

Let me know what you think of the suggested solution and if there are any problems or bugs.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Please post an offical Version on your site.

Thanks,
Leadman

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

I don't understand. Does it mean that clams are totally wiped out ? Or are there any means to get some ? In my last game, I've enabled oceania (don't know why...) and I've pytium. I've empowered a 6th water level mage and he still can't forge any. How can I forge some ?

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

It means clams have different requirements: every school has a number, and all schools are listed in the same order as in the game (Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Astral, Death, Nature, Blood), with the first one (Fire) being 0, and the last one (Blood) being 7. Holy/Unholy have their own numbers, but they are irrelevant for magic items.

So, what those commands say is that clams require a level 2 in Water, and a level 1 in Nature. Oceania has no trouble getting such mages, but other nations will find it much harder.

Re: Clam of Pearls??
 

OK, it's clear now. Thanks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .