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EDM deilberately doesn't add many diversification options. My feeling (and qm's I believe) is that diversification is already too easy, and I didn't want to make that worse. I'd view the Tartarians as being too good for diversification rather than the EDM summons being too bad.

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I sympathize with that sentiment (diversification is already too easy). I'd personally prefer to see dom evolve so that in end game nations would be distinguished from each other and not all having same slew of uber summons.

I think angels for Pyth, Mari & the Israelites only is a good example. You could give the norse nations some endgame summon only for them. Same for the briton island nations, Same for Arco, Ctis etc. As part of such a tendency Tarts (with increased cost) could be made accessible only for the Ermors and maybe a few more death nations.

My vision: end games where different nations actually field different armies. Where not every army has access to all the battle spells from every color.

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yeah. two things there. tarts too awesome for diversification, and too easy to bootstrap into death because of its boosters.

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why not make tarts crazier?

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Yes, I fully support this. This is actually the reason I don't care much for the EDM - providing alternatives to Tartarians is great, but not same summons for everyone to use. Caelum or TC summoning Aesir is thematically just wrong.

The ideal EDM of my dreams would probably give each thematically linked group of nations their own national summons, like angels for Marignon-Pythium or Hindu things for monkey nations. Aesir for Vanheim-Helheim-Midgard, Ember Lords for Abyssia, some Lovecraftian things for R'lyeh and possibly Atlantis, etc.

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Yes Festin that's exactly what I was talking about :)

I'm not about to force my opinion on anyone but I'm not just talk either. If the mod makers would indeed come to like this vision I'd be willing to actively help them however I may.

This would be a sight indeed, two opposing armies engage at end game and each is distinct and composed of monsters that mostly fit the thematic flavor of its nation.

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Well, make a mod like that yourself. And if it's balanced and interesting enough, there is good chance QM will incorporate it in future CBM. Just talking about it will give you nothing.

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It's not that simple, there are quite a number of considerations, like:

- Incompatibility with EDM's approach of all nations getting all summons
- Possible effect on balance
- My lack of modding knowledge
- My absolute lack of graphical art talent
- My aversion to be in any way in competition with CBM+EDM, on the contrary if such a mod is made and conflicts with CBM then it's not worth much IMO

I could pull such a thing off but not alone and certainly not if its only me that's interested. The way to go about it, as I see it is:
a. Determine if there's demand
b. Determine whether QM and llamabeast think this can ultimately be made part of CBM
c. Get some players who are interested to contribute to design, sprites etc.

or better yet if QM et-al convert to the cause of LESS diversity is MORE :D

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In my opinion, restricting more summons to specific nations is very, very wrong.

It narrows your choices. It makes the metagame poorer. Right now, you strive to have both the beasties from Endgame mod and the Tartarians. If you cant have everything, you focus on something you can do well, but at least you have the choice.
... Not to mention that delving into non-native paths of magic is a unique and interesting part of Dominions.

Remake the most powerful summons into national spells, and you will kill this fun. Do you REALLY want to lock each nation to it's theme?

7 workers, 4 to gold, 3 to wood
4 houses
2 barracks
Upgrade Main hall
(numbers may vary)

Are you trying to make Dominions go that route, too?

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In principle the idea of restricting nations to their native paths sounds interesting, however my main concern is that it's necessary to have almost all paths in big lategame battles to have any chance. Imagine a battle between 2 armies with SCs and heavy mage support where one side has access to earth (Army of *, Weapons of Sharpness) and another only to water. The outcome is obvious. In current setup Tarts more or less balance this by providing enough diversity to support several armies, but with the 50 gems/tart with 1 level 4 path version, I fear endgame balance will shatter.

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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.)

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Oh right? Well I won't miss Forge of the Ancients if I have to remove it altogether. It's a broken bit of op cheese.

As for the werewolves, I plan to swap the "claw" to "claws", so they get 2 claw attacks and a bite without weapons.

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I think it is a combination of that, as well as group think. Group think is a terrible thing. I cannot tell you how many games have been ruined by group think, because people don't want to get out of the preconceived notions about a nation. Heck, look at Kailasa, BL, Patala. There have been a fair number of wins among those nations, but all you hear is the complaints about monkey PD (not trying to dredge that up again). If they were so bad, how are those nations getting the wins (K has 4, BL and Pat have 2 each)?

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no one ever moans about monkey's because of their pd. its just a meme on these forums because of a very famous thread a long time ago. look up Lord Bob's monkey pd thread

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Frankly, the hall of fame (and the results of multiplayer games in general) isn't the place to go to get an idea of whether or not a nation is balanced/powerful/objectively competitive, simply because of the very small sample size coupled with the fact that MP games are more often than not decided by map geography, random luck on sites and most importantly diplomacy and who fights whom when.

In the case of the monkeys for example, on paper they look like they have a great endgame (monkey PD or not) tacked on a really tough start. So if they get rushed, they lose hard - which is the time frame their dreck of a PD really hurts, too. When even the 25PD on your cap can be taken out effortlessly by 40 tribe archers... yeah.
But OTOH if their neighbours have other fishes to fry during those first few years, the monkeys probably have a decent shot at the win.

In the same vein, while everyone quite rightfully agrees Ashdod is overpowered as all getout I'd wager they'll very rarely if ever win one of the rare games in which they're not outright banned, simply because they'll immediately get ganked by a coalition of all of their neighbours LA Ermor style. Whereas an underdog nation in the very same game might unexpectedly thrive... because everyone else is busy ganging on Ashdod and leaving them alone.

(Yes, I know my sentences are overly long and convoluted :o)