Re: A Crone by any other name
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">never encountered a single one of these individuals in my pbem too.

Come on Kristoffer, we are not playing with Command and conquer (I played it btw http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ) pre teen which knows nothing but insults. See how our younger forum members are, they are quite polite, educated and intelligent I would say.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: A Crone by any other name
 

Doh, I am going to miss this one, loved renaming my HoF heroes...pls reconsider.

Re: A Crone by any other name
 

You can name your ships, planets, and ship classes whatever you like in Space Empires IV (SE4), and I've never seen a profane name. The worst names I saw were my own, when I was roleplaying the EEEvil Oooze, and even those didn't get very bad. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

SE4 players _do_ use deceptive or changing names sometimes to deceive enemies, though there it's generally considered a neat feature. Renaming ships is a bit different than renaming people. On the other hand, it was fairly common historical practice to deploy decoys dressed as kings and princes to protect the real ones.

I didn't know I could rename characters in Dom I, and slightly enjoyed having to live with the names, except when they repeated. Repeats made some things kind of confusing, like the Hall of Heroes list.

Now that I know I can, I may rename or add epithets to some of my men.

It'd be interesting to be able to tag enemy units, as "licker" and Psitticine suggested.

I suppose the ability to rename could be an option which the person who creates the game can set ON or OFF.

PvK

Re: A Crone by any other name
 

I don't see why renaming (which I didn't even know about prior to this thread!) should be removed just because of a handful of idiots. As the others here pointed out, that sort of people are not very prevalent among the target audience anyway.

I'd like the renaming capability just to be able to differentiate between my 12 different idiots named Inberke (curiously enough, while this name bugged the hell out of me at first, I've sort of gotten to like it) without needing to figure what type of unit it was. It'd also enhance my immersion. I like to play thematic games, where I pick a concept pretender (useful or not) around a larger idea, and it'd be nice to be able to rename the generals to reflect the characters that go with that theme.

Pretty please, allow full renaming?

Edi

Re: A Crone by any other name
 

A compromise would be to show a leaders name when you put him in the build queue, and allow changing it there.

This gets rid of all the "gamesmanship" issues around changing names to mislead your opponent, while still retaining the usefullness. Lame name choices are still possible -- but that's already the case for Pretender names anyway.

Re: A Crone by any other name
 

>You can't change names in DomII...

Aargh, please reconsider this decision. I use to change the name of most of my commanders :
1) to avoid having 2 (or more) commanders with the same name at the same place -- it is very annoying to lose a starshine skullcap because you gave it to the first Rodoald seen in the commanders' list and you realize too late that _this_ Rodoald was a new scout and not your favorite astral mage.
2) to add flavor (I like to use Latin name for Pythium, like Cartapus, Faipalgugus, Epinedecactus etc -- those who speak French will appreciate -- or volcano names for Abysia mages).
3) to protect a physically weak pretender against Seeking Arrows or Mind Hunts (who will waste a spell to kill Gothmog the Great Sage if the Astral Window shows only a certain "Rodoald the Scout" ?), knowing that even kings could disguise themselve to deceive assassins. Of course he is unmasked in battle (the picture and use of magic unveil his true personnality then) if a battle occurs.

Cheers

Re: A Crone by any other name
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana"><snip>

3) to protect a physically weak pretender against Seeking Arrows or Mind Hunts (who will waste a spell to kill Gothmog the Great Sage if the Astral Window shows only a certain "Rodoald the Scout" ?), knowing that even kings could disguise themselve to deceive assassins. Of course he is unmasked in battle (the picture and use of magic unveil his true personnality then) if a battle occurs.

Cheers</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree with points 1 & 2, but not with #3. Your example would be a textbook one of the abuse of renaming pretenders to mask them, which was cited as a major reason for withdrawing renaming capability. Sure, a great sage or master druid could don a disguise, but what about the the wyrm and the dragon? Sorry, but no. There are other ways to ward against farslaying spells than just renaming with the intent to deceive. The choice to build a physically weak pretender is up to the player and this sort of things should be taken into account. Rainbow Mages tend to be physically weak, but magically powerful and flexible, whereas a physically powerful pretender usually ends up not as powerful magically, at least not across the board.

Personally, someone who would use such a cheap cheating tactic as renaming pretenders in a game against me would have to find himself somebody else to play Dominions with. Besides, isn't the whole point of the pretender's presence expanding/strengthening his dominion just undone conceptually if nobody knows they're dealing with a god? Flies against certain basic premises the game rests on.

Edi

[ October 06, 2003, 10:13: Message edited by: Edi ]

Re: A Crone by any other name
 

I think I know what to do: Add an option to the general's char sheet: rename.
Than the general will have a new random name.
There, problem solved. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

PS. The renaming by the 'hands of the players' would be better of course, but if we cannot have that, add this feature at least.

[ October 06, 2003, 11:31: Message edited by: Mortifer ]

Re: A Crone by any other name
 

I really want to be (still) able to continue to rename commanders/heroes/mages ! :cry:
I need to sort out who is doing what, and when you have 10 commanders of the same name, it's tedious !
I go so far that I name my mages "Search FBD" (Fire Blood Death) or "Research 6" to help me organise stuff...
The reason given is quite poor, you're penalizing 99% of "honest" players to prevent a lame trick used by 1%, that could easily be solved by always giving away the TYPE of unit to other players (so you'll see "JoeSmith the Scout - PRETENDER" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

And even if the argument stands and the solution isn't that easy, it only stands in MP, at least allow renaming for all Solo games, please ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: A Crone by any other name
 

In open defiance, I intend to use post-it notes on my monitor to "locally" rename my commanders in Dominions II. Take that Illwinter! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I'm fighting for the rights of my minions to reinvent themselves!