Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

Yeah, plains are the blank space. I assume the bushes (because a bushel is a unit of measurement) you're talking about are actually the little tree, which means forest.

Also, since you seem to have forgotten already, Neoclidia is a nation with a few ties to R'lyeh but more to the Cthulhu Mythos (which Honeybadger is also working with, and which R'lyeh is partially based upon). The Great Old Ones are, well, powerful and old beings. Cthulhu, for example, lives (or rather sleeps) under the sea in R'lyeh (an underwater city, duh). A lot of Lovecraft's work is based around the idea that there are forces much more powerful than humanity which simply don't care about humans; forces which are not good or evil, but simply have completely different thought processes than humans. What Wikipedia tells me is that then August Derleth came along and messed it all up with his 'good' and his 'evil' and his 'elemental forces'. :cold:

Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

so shouldn't you and honey work together then :D and create one nation out of this since honey clearly admits he's got a lot of other priorities and his idea's aren't that simple maybe you could just borrow some of his good ideas and put them in your mod which I think will be finished a few centuries before Honey even has his new computer :D

I meant the farmland icon which I though was a a pack of grain which I thought is also called a bushel but it's not now I look at it again

ok so plainshape it will be .. will be a lot of work, need to decide which ones deserve a 2nd shape and which ones don't even need one. wtf to do with monsters in space.. can't give them a space suit or a pod .. they'd need a cage and then they'd be useless... well that might be the best idea and then it'll have to be balanced in price.

Another thing I was thinking of is giving militia (or most militia) a very very useless space form.. that would lower their price though but then they'd be VERY effective just to defend the province they are in, that might invite turtling.
I'll start plainshaping ulm since I hear their infantry is a bit overpowered.. a less effective space form might be just what they need.

Jomon's battlesuits stay the same in space I think, as do all spaceships
I guess R'lyeh's chaff need to have weaker plainshapes to and the predator aliens (which you haven't seen yet, another indie that R'lyeh dominates) needs to go in cages and not be able to do anything in space. R'lyeh still has the spacepirates though.

Another thing I fear while thinking of this is that pplz might just go for the most flexible troops (which are the spaceships) a solution would be to give them a weaker "landshape" but I can't really explain to myself (and thus to others) WHY a spaceshipfighter wouldn't be as effective on the earth (in shooting for example)

Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

I think the solution to the ship problem is to make spaceships cost a lot more. Maybe 15 upkeep for a basic, recruitable ship, with a capital ship armed to the teeth costing as much as 100 gold per turn, as well as quite a few gems. Troops would likely be slower in space and less accurate, so there's an idea for you. Also, militia are essentially raw recruits from the general populace who likely don't even know how to handle a gun or have any useful weapons, useful only because they're easy to produce. Militia in space would likely have practically no mobility, very little precision, and low health (due to the harsh conditions of space and their inadequate armor). At least that's the way I see it.

Finally, Neoclidia and HB's Aboleths are fairly different, though both borrow somewhat from the same source material. Neoclidia is centered around the idea of the Great Old Ones and their awakening while the Aboleths are, well, undead fish-things spewed from a black hole who create pylons which use said magical hole's energy to summon various undead critters from worlds sucked into the hole, among other things. Two completely different ideas.

Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

i disagree with this, with no air resistance in space you actually wouldn't slow down so fast(less friction) and the course of ranged amunnition wouldn't be affected by the direction the wind blows in, meaning units should in theory go faster and missiles should be more accurate. Saying this it would likely be hard to direct yourself when moving in space, now i know some commanders can autocast spells in battle (like the communicant thing which does auto communion slave) but i don't think we can for units (though it's worth checking anyway), if we could then we could mod all these militias to auto cast blink at the start of a battle to emulate them not really being able to control where they are going. If not then i have no other ideas right now.

Also i agree with militias have reduced hp due to the conditions in space.

Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

Hmm I've looked into #plainshape and it appears to be the opposite of #forestshape (so not a seperate form for when you move to a plain, but the form you get when leaving a forest.)

I'll do a lil test with this but it probably means we'll have to use forests as space. which means 'we'll probably have to give nearly all forms forest survival for else they won't be able to move fast through space.

Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

Well seems that plainshape isn't what we wanted.. so I've changed all space to forest and put a forestform on all units that REALLY need it (some remain open for debate)

I'll test it a bit myself tomorrow and if it seems to work for a few units then I'll post the mod.

This certainly means we need to do a race that is best in space too.. sadly we can't let them randomly start in space (nothing like a "foreststart" command in the game) but I'll place it on the map if we have such a nation (maybe they neoclidia?)

Hey how is your nation proceeding anyway? I could already put what you have (if you also have some art) in the next version as a sort of teaser. If you have like 2-3 ready units with stats and an idea for the start sites then you could send me the code and the sprites and I'll put them in before I release this

Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

My idea for Neoclidia was to make them an aggressive race with powerful space-faring units, yeah. This is what I have so far, in .dm form. No sprites though. I'd love it if someone (anyone!) could get me some, since I'll likely otherwise just start taking them from Dominions III itself (and no one wants Illithid-flavored Yithians or Shoggoths who look like piles of meat). Also notice the Old Ones line is done and I began work on the ships (although no spells are in yet so the Old Ones don't feature in yet). Finally, I wanted to give Azathoth blood vengeance but the manual said nothing on how to so I gave him fire shield instead. So yeah I think I'm making inroads (all of the troops' planet forms are done, Old Ones are done, sites are in, retender is in) but I still have a lot to do before this becomes a complete nation.

Also the balance is completely off whack most likely; I can't balance due to being spriteless. I don't really want to test a nation where all of my units look like shades because I couldn't find any other sprite.

Edit: Text file as well if anyone wants that instead.

Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

aren't there some dom 3 sprites you can colorize and then use...

Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

I really like your nation and I think it will fit in perfectly. Your troops look great and divers. There are just a few armor and weapon thing:

I gave all ships a natural high protection (to avoid a low head protection.) I see you giva e ship prot 0 and then shipplating. I'd recommend you change that to no armor and just 20 prot.

All your ranged weapons have very high #att and that means troops and ships will fire AP, high damage shot AND can't miss. (att 10 means +10 precision I think) already the ranged troops I have in my mod rip through indies and yours would be even worse.
In addition to this I think the heavy lasergun might be a lil too strong on the #dmg part.
The anti-ship cannons (why anti-ship they seem to be able to kill troops just as well.. why not just cannons?) suffer from this too.

Basicly just lil changes I'd advice based upon what I've encountered so far in playtesting my own nations.

Another thing is that I think it might be best if we just use the same weapons as base weapons (not the fancy stuff like your strang claws and deadly signs) but these

#newweapon 652
#name "Light Lasergun"
#att 5
#armorpiercing
#dmg 8
#nostr
#rcost 2
#range 40
#ammo 30
#explspr 10102
#end

#newweapon 653
#name "Lasergun"
#att 10
#armorpiercing
#dmg 12
#nostr
#rcost 3
#range 45
#ammo 40
#explspr 10102
#end


#newweapon 656
#name "Heavy Lasergun"
#att 20
#def 1
#armorpiercing
#dmg 18
#nostr
#rcost 5
#range 50
#ammo 50
#explspr 10102
#end

and

#newweapon 657
#name "Anti-Ship Cannons"
#att 20
#def 0
#armorpiercing
#dmg 15
#nratt 2
#nostr
#aoe 1
#rcost 25
#range 75
#ammo 50
#explspr 10110
#flyspr 362 4
#end

kinda resembles

#newweapon 700
#name "Laser pistol"
#dmg 8
#nostr
#att 0
#def 0
#len 0
#range 40
#ammo 50
#nratt 1
#rcost 1
#end

#newweapon 701
#name "Blaster"
#dmg 10
#nostr
#att -1
#def 0
#len 0
#range 50
#ammo 50
#nratt 1
#rcost 2
#armorpiercing
#end

#newweapon 702
#name "Power Blaster"
#dmg 12
#nostr
#att -1
#def 0
#len 0
#range 60
#ammo 50
#nratt 1
#rcost 3
#armorpiercing
#end

#newweapon 703
#name "Infantry Heavy Blaster"
#dmg 15
#nostr
#att -1
#def -1
#len 0
#range 60
#ammo 50
#nratt 1
#rcost 4
#armorpiercing
#end

and

#newweapon 706
#name "Ship Artillery"
#dmg 25
#nostr
#att -2
#def -2
#len 2
#range 100
#ammo 10
#nratt -2
#rcost 10
#aoe 1
#armorpiercing
#explspr 10101
#end

so maybe we should just make use of the same weapons to keep the future mod nice and tidy. If you have though about all your sounds etc I'll gladly add them to the weapons in my mod and then just change the weapons your pplz are using in the weapons from my mod (you could just copy the basic set of weapons from my mod while you are working so you have them in tehre to work on and then later we leave them out again.) I'd be willing to make the switch for you so you won't be bothered at all. If you are completely against this then so be it but I think it will make balancing the complete mod easier later.

Let me hear what you think.

Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

That's a good idea (I'll probably try it), but what if we were to make "helmet" armor for ships and call it Cockpit Protection, Heavy Cockpit Protection, etc.? That could work too.

I agree, I'm not sure what I was thinking when going through the laserguns. Looking back on those, wow. Compared to Ulm's (I assume), Neoclidia's guns are incredible. I'll tone down those #atts and raise the resource cost of the Heavy Lasergun. It was meant to be able to kill things quickly (in one shot I guess), but wow.

Part of the idea of Neoclidia was that they used mostly laser weapons instead of conventional weapons (a Blaster sounds a bit different). My lasers look like gifts from heavens compared to yours, though. Perhaps lasers could have higher precision vs Blasters, at the cost of damage? Either way, I might exchange the Light Lasergun for a Laser Pistol. The Anti-Ship cannons probably do need some reworking too, and I might replace them with the Ship Artillery.

Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

That's a good idea (I'll probably try it), but what if we were to make "helmet" armor for ships and call it Cockpit Protection, Heavy Cockpit Protection, etc.? That could work too.

--> sure would work but doing it for all ships is a lot of work and different than how I started so why go there :D

on the last point I actually meant blasters to be laser myself (like in star wars) so the idea would still be identical :D

Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

In an astonishing coincidence the idea for more or less the same mod (Dominions in space) came to me when I looked at a Star Wars map recently. The one on Wikipedia already looks well suited - minor modifications and it would be ready to go!

Re: Dominions 3000 (tentative name)
 

Well, I don't want my Deep Ones and Yithians going around carting Blasters, heavy Blasters, etc. Perhaps we can simply say laserguns focus on lighter but more precise damage? Also, I may as well post the Neoclidian Capital Ship up since that's basically all I did today. Keep in mind it will be summonable with a spell and is meant to be the biggest, baddest ship in the Neoclidian arsenal (as in, really awesome):

#newweapon 670
#name "Devastator Cannon"
#att 25
#nratt -4
#armornegating
#dmg 75
#aoe 2
#nostr
#rcost 20
#range 100
#ammo 13
#explspr 10102
#end

#newweapon 654
#name "Streamcannon"
#att -3
#nratt 4
#armorpiercing
#dmg 8
#nostr
#rcost 5
#range 35
#ammo 90
#flyspr 210 4
#end

#newmonster 2223
#name "Neoclidian Capital Ship"
#spr1
#spr2
#descr "The Neoclidian Capital Ship favors brute force over ancient technology's myriad powers. It cannot move close enough to a planet's surface to battle due to its sheer size; however, the Devastator Cannon deals massive amounts of damage and its Streamcannons are powerful as well. The greatest aspect of the Capital Ship, however, is its sheer bulk."
#flying
#ap 8
#mapmove 5
#size 5
#supplies -65
#flying
#hp 225
#prot 30
#str 10
#enc 1
#att 20
#def 20
#prec 14
#mr 10
#mor 17
#gcost 1500
#rcost 0
#weapon "Devastator Cannon"
#weapon "Streamcannon"
#weapon "Streamcannon"
#maxage 200
#greatleader
#amphibian
#end


I haven't worked much on changing them to forestshapes yet, and I'm not sure how to go about making it impossible for the ship to enter land. I'm thinking it will end up being some sort of nigh-invincible, low-morale flying unit meant to rain Devastator death from above. It has high gold cost due to being huge and needing lots of maintenance, and lots of supplies due to being huge and requiring lots of maintenance people. Also the mapmove is so high compared to AP points due to a "warp drive" or whatever, basically it can fly in behind enemy lines for Devastator mayhem and then fly out.

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

I think you should lower att value for the devastator cannon the precision of the ship isn't that bad anyway.
Also I think the gc is very very high for a none magic user. I think 500 will be more than enough.

Looks nice though..

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

The point of the Devastator Cannon is to be, well, devastating. Though you can still devastate something if you happen to miss, it's more likely to be a space-orphanage. Thus the precision. :)

As to the gold cost, I already provided an explanation which was, admittedly, bad. I figured that since, as has been said, ships are going to be much more powerful than the average unit, they should cost much more than the average unit over time. Gems are often not much of a deterrent to summoning a horde of something; a huge upkeep is going to be. The Capital Ship has the highest protection, HOP, and damage of pretty much everything (short of Deadly Sign-equipped Great Old Ones, and it eclipses even Ktalu in pretty much everything) in the mod. It is meant to be a nigh-unstoppable super-weapon. It comes with a cost (two, actually, the huge gem cost and the huge gold cost). I don't want the Neoclidian Capital Ship to become a unit to summon in hordes and send in 10+ packs of 3 against enemies. I want the capital ship (every capital ship really, although I guess it depends on whoever makes the capital ship) to be a single unit that could take on small armies solo and, combined with the many units it can lead, become an unstoppable fleet hellbent on the awakening of the Great Old Ones. I noticed that UlmInSpace's capital ship was recruitable (and, well, just a recruitable ship), and didn't want that to happen to the Neoclidian fleet.

On a semi-related note, I may add recuperation to the Capital Ship to represent nanites and such, and also because a Capital Ship that's lost its eyes or one of its arms isn't much of a capital ship at all.

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

Ulms capitol ship is the generic large spaceship they have.. the dreadnaught is the pimped version of it that needs to be summoned. It's not as powerfull a summon as Jomon or R'lyeh has but that is since I don't want ulm to be really dependant on magic, not even on earth magic.

Well your nation to do with it as you please.. i think the high gc is a bit too much but we'll see later. :D

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

The gold cost will only really come in as upkeep, since the Capital Ship will be a high-tier (the high-tier) summoned ship. Besides, Earth magic is meant to represent general knowledge of construction and such (in my eyes) in Dom3K. Also in my eyes, Astral is knowledge of ancient civilizations and the ability to harness their magic or technology for one's own use. With Astral magic one could build a ship from an ancient design which appeared as three ships (glamour), or a ship with a shielding device that stopped 3/4 of all attacks (ethereal). Also, of course, summoning missiles which caused matter to decay or ancient forces that, well, killed stuff to destroy your enemies. Earth would deal with more conventional building in general (pretty much every ship would require Earth), building weapons, missiles, etc.

But anyways, Neoclidia will likely have very weak recruitable ships with the rest being summoned. Its generic large ship will likely be summoned as well.

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

for shielding I'd use airshield (very good shielding), ethereal I used as cloaking device.
There is only one thing I'd like to see on your ship though and that is #inanimate which makes it a construct. There is a special command now to do extra damage to constructs and I think all ships should be inanimate (there is more ship than crew in the end) so we can use it.

Might be an idea for a nation (I'm thinking of a specialized fighter, with airshield and attacks with extra damamge against constructs.. as a sort of tankbuster).. I think I'll add that one in the near future. I'm also still thinkin of a tank for ulm.. I really think ulm should have a tank or something similar.. they have a lot of tech "in the air" they should certainly have tech on the ground. I'm thinking siege tanks as summons or high construction recruitables.. both would fit well with Ulm with AoE attack, and decent AP and a acceptable close range attack and highish prot, and a shapeshift to an immobile siege engine with even better AoE en damage and siege bonus, no close combat attack (well something weak to replace the feared fist) and lower prot

(I think Ulm should be king of AoE attacks for high prod, balanced with low magic... basicly as ulm always is)

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

If Ulm is to have tanks, I think there should be a recruitable tank as well. Not any special tank, just a tank. Good old-fashioned kinetic weaponry.

Also, I noticed you were interested in adapting the Amos's Insectoids for space (and thus Dom3K). How do you plan on doing that? Will it be essentially the same as Amos's Insectoids or differ somehow to make it a bit more original? Will it even happen? I have a few ideas myself, but I'll wait.

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

Yeah I have it in already :D it's expensive and if it's overpowered it'll be cap only but 100+ resource cost makes most things not be that overpowered especially if all otehr troops are high resource too)

I have a nice sprite, nice and dark like the other ulmish machines, and bulky I think I'm gonna need to put thedark ulmish powerfull steel in a description somewhere.. nice inheritance from dom 3 ages. PS I think Ulm should have highest armor in the game overalland high resource cost (not that the best flagships of the enemy can't have as good armor but I think that the other machines of nations should generally stay below Ulm's armor rating. (and ulm should have weakest magic)

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

I got a question from aezeal the other day about space terrain.

I just thought of the void battle scene. It is not impossible that JK might do a void terrain since the void battle graphic is already present.

What would you prefer with regards to population, resources and possibly site frequency in a void-space terrain?

I'm not updated on the project. Are gems used in any way?
Ship summons? Beam me up?

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

KO,in regards to the void terrain i think low population and resources is fair as the word void if i am correct means a large empty space. Magic sites could include void gates (like R'lyehs) where other players may choose to ultimately sacrifice an astral mage (will go insane unlike r'lyehs i believe?) for the chance of summoning some void creatures. Sites giving astral pearls should also be abundant in the void in my opinion with perhaps the small chance of a negative site which causes soldiers to go insane.

hope that has helped, anyway this mod definately has summons if not many right now so gems are to be used, i might make some sprites for the jomon summons actually, we were also toying with the idea of giving all troops a space form which had flying (to emulate Zero Gravity) probably why aezeal asked you about a space terrain (we were using water before, no flying in water). I could say alot more but i could be here all day talking about MY ideas so i'll just wait till a question arises for now.

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

There're all kinds of sites you could have in a deep space terrain. Maybe an asteroid field giving you astral/earth gems, or a ship graveyard for death gems. Deep space pirate or mercenary bases that allowed you to recruit units would fit pretty well too (as well as giving a resource boost to offset the whole "no resources in space" thing). Even things like nature or water gems via mysterious planetoids that support life somehow. Plus, how cool would it be to find a mage recruiting site along the lines of Warhammer 40k's Black Library, just an enormous secret floating library hiding in deep space waiting for someone to find it and discover its secrets.

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

KO: I'd like a low population, low-normal resource and normal site frequency myself.
PS if we get a void/space terrain could we get a space-form too?

For the rest I've mainly been creating nations and some spells for each nation but most of that will have to wait till a bit later.

I've already got spacepirates we can recruit but special version of them out of sites would of course be nice, but Í don't want to ask for to much.. just the space terrain and the space background would be nice :D

I personally think the floatin thing will make battle a bit chaotic so just regular battle with a nice spacy background (I've never seen a void battle) would be fine for me to start with :D

Try the mod KO.. it's in the other thread

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

I had a quick check the other day, but I didn't play more than a few minutes. I might get back to it when JK is over, to inspire him to do a void terrain :)

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

Have you convinced JK yet?

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

He is somewhat positive, but adding a new terrain was not as simple as I hoped. Not sure if he's positive enough to make it happen.

Re: Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)
 

let him play my mod :D maybe it will help :D