Re: New patch??
 

Allowing a Lord Guardian to enter the Forges Of Ulm and train an elite warrior, at a rate of 1 per turn would help. He could have decent mr gear, so he would not be 1 smited, and perhaps wield a 2hed sword of sharpness.

Given the slow rate of fire of arbalests, allowing smiths to start with the ability to cast earth meld would help a bit also.

Since Ulm is a thematic race of forgers, perhaps taking their capital should be really painful. Of course if your capital is being sieged, your income is lost and you are likely just delaying the inevitable.

Many good players take astral races, and MA Ulm has few answers to many of the potent spells that "magic resistance negates."

Re: New patch??
 

> Okay, then. I guess I thought they had a different theme, but "susceptible to and afraid of magic" works too. Hmmm.

Why else ban magic and kill magic users?

Fear is a strong incentive to do stupid stuff http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: New patch??
 

Large numbers of cheap (but effective) troops are a form of answer to many of the MR-negates spells. Soul Slay hurts relatively less if it only kills a 10-gp warrior.

-Max

Re: New patch??
 

I would love to see MA ulm get a bonus to dominion spread. Make people struggle to keep the commoner's fear of magic out of their territories.

-Jeff

Re: New patch??
 

An off the wall idea-

Let ulm's PD at level 1 have a bonus of a mechanical man commander and 5 mechanical men. Or allow the construction of crushers or mechanical men in their capital.

Crushers are size 6 and highly effective at stopping size 6 tramplers from charging into your mages.

I am not sure being a smith means being an expert at building
mechanical beings, but it may be thematic.

Re: New patch??
 

I love Ulm for their weaknesses. Don't take the fun out of the game. They already have a production bonus in all their forts. Their LA variant has the inquisitors (bonus on dominion spread), and astral mages (including prevention for bad events) that have been mentioned.

Re: New patch??
 

We are discussing MA Ulm only. None of my statements, at least, cover the other 2 ages of Ulm.

Re: New patch??
 

There's a couple of things that have always bugged me about ULm. One is that they get arbalasts in their PD. This sounds good on paper, but on the battlefield it means that their own PD is one of the few things that their super heavy armor troops fear and you have to be carefull not mix field armies and PD for fear of friendly fire casualties. Meanwhile the low fire rate makes them kinda so-so as general purpose PD.Another is that the black plate guys have so much encumbrance that the benefit of the armor is easily countered by tiring them out. Given the low numbers they usually come in, this is easy to do. I think adding some sort of low cost hard hitting troop to their roster would help them out. Would berserkers with two handed weapons be thematic?

Re: New patch??
 

I know, I do aswell. You may skip the last sentence where I was commenting about the thematic flavors of Ulm if you want. Suggesting magic-driven PD for a magic-impaired and -fearing nation is probably never going to make it into the game, IMHO.

Re: New patch??
 

Magic impaired, but not when it comes to construction and forging.

Re: New patch??
 

Ulm should have a dominion effekt that weakens magical creatures.

Re: New patch??
 

Another off the wall idea. Nations have national only spells, yes. So how about Ulm having national only magic items?

You never know it could start a trend and result in even more diversity, uniqueness with nations.

Re: New patch??
 

There already are items that would be unique to certain nations, if that was possible. Black Laurels, Jade Mask... Anyone can make them, but only few can ever use them.

Re: New patch??
 

I'd really like to see Kristoffer play EA R'lyeh in a multi-player game. It's at once one of my thematically favorite nations, and one I consider to be the weakest.

Re: New patch??
 

Aha, not heard that one in a while, but I tend to agree.

Re: New patch??
 

I'm-very, very slowly-working on a mod nation for MA Aboleths that incorporates an Islamic theme. After all the Polypal Mothers are wiped out, the Aboleths turn to a Pretender that not only promises to bring them back from the dead, but actually has the power to do so, in return for the Aboleths' slavish devotion and willingness to be experimented on by the weird "god".

The Aboleths, in turn, have a massive slave force of their own, who-due to the greatly reduced Aboleth numbers-have become much more independent and more powerful, politically-along the lines of the Mamluks.

The middle age Aboleths have no starting priests, but they can summon Polypal Mothers across time, as well as a powerful sacred undead unit. They can recruit several different kinds of tough slave troops, including: slave trolls, kraken chariots, and a stealthy breed of icthy.

Finally, the Aboleths themselves are being bred and twisted for specialized purposes, a fact they loathe, but have no choice about, as the alternative is imminent extinction.

The really pitiful thing about the whole ordeal is that-by the late age-the Aboleths eventually discover that the so-called "god" wasn't really moving the mothers across space and time, he/she had just captured a handful of living mothers, shielded them with powerful magicks, and then used them to blackmail the Aboleths, while experimenting on them as well, at his/her leisure.

So, by late age, the Aboleths have access to 4 or 5 different types of Mother, only one of which breeds "true". The slaves-who aren't really slaves anymore, by this time-up and leave when they find out how easily their "all-knowing, all-powerful" masters were duped, and the Aboleths are left by their lonesome, a nation of mainly freakish, twisted mutations. Fortunately for the Aboleths-who are understandably extremely pissed-off by this point-their freakish brothers and sisters are friendly, and, for the most part, intensely combat-ready.

Re: New patch??
 

Or better yet, all drain dominions should do so, like coldbloods in cold - maybe even like fire elementals in cold. That would give some real teeth to the magic/drain scale, which right now seems to just be "pay as much as you want for the amount of research you want".

(Coldblooded magical creatures like nagas and lamias should then be especially careful of cold+drain...)


As far as Abysia, I think old guys should get a cost break (and especially old Abysians, because the nation is expected to take death). Lower cost means lower maintenance, so by the time they drop dead you can afford to replace them. With that and making Abysia immune to the -2% income/level from death as well as the supplies, they could actually be played with the heavy death they were meant to have (and in previous versions almost always did have).

I like the thematic idea - and it does very appropriately make your dominion hell on earth for invaders - but it just isn't practical with such expensive mages. Short-lived men should be cheaper than the unnaturally long-lived magic beings other nations have - if you want the nation to be played with a "life is cheap" attitude, then their lives need to actually *be* cheap. Instead Abysians are still paying extra for the physical toughness they used to have (but don't anymore, because they're old in Dom3) and the heat aura whose main effect is to set their blood slaves on fire.

The cost break should be larger for old sacred guys, because they have higher up-front cost that is theoretically compensated for by their half upkeep... but if they drop dead of old age inside 2 years, you don't get much benefit from the reduced upkeep.

Adjusting the age system so there is more debilitation and less immediate death might be nice too, but it would probably be more work.

Re: New patch??
 

I like that idea. It makes sense. Have magic drain dominion affect summons as well as battle-spells.

I would like to see Ulm get a boost against magic but they tend to have to worry more about summons than spells and I couldnt think of a way to give them a boost there thematically. The only thing I could come up with is maybe that their beliefs might give them a better chance at disbelief (pluses against phantasms and illusions). Of course that might help make them a rock-paper-scissors answer to Vanheim.

Re: New patch??
 

This has been suggested before and didn't get much traction, but it's one of my favorite ideas for the drain scale.

Re: New patch??
 

Late August. Are we close to seeing the next patch now?

Re: New patch??
 

Not sure yet. But they work on fun things so lets notmake it unfun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That wouldnt speed things up

Re: New patch??
 

Tell us more! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: New patch??
 

There is a perfectly good reason for the patch to be delayed a little while longer. We recently had two computer meltdowns and that sure was a setback for the patch. It means we can only create mac patches now because that computer hasn't died yet.

Re: New patch??
 

Was this hardware failure or software failure?
What happens when trying to boot these computers which had these "meltdowns"?

Re: New patch??
 

EDIT: Nevermind...

Re: New patch??
 

Though I'm as anxious as can be to get this new patch I'm very much for leaving the devs in peace. The more time they have the more magic they'll pour into the patch, so I'm content waiting. Who know, maybe they'll even throw in the 'e' key confirmation as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: New patch??
 

That was hardware failures. Totally kaputt.

Re: New patch??
 

soooooo... um, I take it what Kristofer said earlier in this thread was just a guess, I mean, it's late august now and no new patch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif um, so is there a date for the patch now, or is it almost ready or totally unprepared?

Re: New patch??
 

I think Kristoffer posted that prior to the crash. I would take the crash as new information as far as guessing on a patch release.

Re: New patch??
 

Gandalf is right. The patch is more or less ready, but we need to fix our comps first. This has turned out a bit more complicated than I would have liked. Since school has started in full now, I have problems getting away to do other business during daytime.

Re: New patch??
 

ah k, sry, I missed that, about the crash, okay! thats cool! thanks for clearing that up!

Re: New patch??
 

Bummer, if it was software failure I probably could have saved them based on my career background. Hopefully the harddrives survived.

Since you are probably building two new systems to replace the old systems I recommend a dual-boot or triple-boot configuration.

Re: New patch??
 

If I remember right, at last info he does dual boot (ubuntu and winXP)

Re: New patch??
 

I hope so too or the patch making will be much more work than I would like.

Re: New patch??
 

Was just reading through the Dom 3 progress page and all of the exciting additions in store for us when the patch comes online.

To the developers: Good luck getting those computers fixed. And thanks for your hard work and efforts making and improving this fantastic game.

Re: New patch??
 

The progress page?
Can you share the link, please? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: New patch??
 

Re: New patch??
 

Thank you!

Re: New patch??
 

Yes indeed. I would also like to wish the devs good luck on getting their computers fixed. I know first hand what a bummer this can be.

And thank you for continuing to support the game!

Re: New patch??
 

This new patch looks great. Thanks for all your hard work.

Re: New patch??
 

Do you live near strõmstad? Im willing to rent out my services as a semi-skilled hw builder for the onetime fee of 1 dominion patch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: New patch??
 

What's an hw builder?

Re: New patch??
 

Hardware Tech

Re: New patch??
 

So, was it a software failure at the end?
I hope you were able to get your machines online and most of all I hope you wouldn't have to redo any of your previous work.

Re: New patch??
 

Nothing is lost, code-wise. Only the computer used to compile with. There is a mac beta version, but I think you would be disappointed if the patch only was released for mac http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Therefore we wait.

Re: New patch??
 

As a mac user, I wouldn't be disappointed in the slightest. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: New patch??
 

Yoohoo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif
Three cheers for IW. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon33.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon33.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon33.gif[/img]

Re: New patch??
 

Can anyone tell when the patch will be released ? I know you cant say a certain date, but something like 1 week or 2 months would clear things for me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Im really looking forward to this patch, like always

Re: New patch??
 

There was a total hardware crash.
So first Johan has to go thru the 5 stages of loss. Then get a new machine. Then rebuild the tools he used. Then take the Mac patch (the one that survived) and make windows/linux versions from it.
Something like that.

Re: New patch??
 

hm.... too bad. im looking forward to the new nation. Any spoilers ?