Re: Kristoffer\'s encouragement thread
 

I also vote to not care for balance when adding new nations. If they are really imbalanced mods/houserules can solve this issue for mp. But for sp somewhat imbalanced nations are a good thing imho http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Though i have been rather quiet lately i have played a lot of sp recently http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. With every new patch i like Dom3 more, especially thanks to the much improved modding and new nation(s). I am looking forward to the new nations also, especially to the new machaka and pythium nations http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Kristoffer\'s encouragement thread
 

Many kudos on Dominions 2 and 3. I am playing a multiplayer right now that is so dramatic that I find myself holding my breath while taking a turn. I have to remind myself to breath. Dom 2+3 are most likely the best games I have ever played, possibly just behind Fallout 1+2.

Anyway my vote is give some good national spells to Marverni, they are very weak right now IMHO. I really like them thematically however.

Re: Kristoffer\'s encouragement thread
 

There's a mod adding new spells to Marverni in the mod forum. Just so you know.

Re: Kristoffer\'s encouragement thread
 

The movie 300 has been released in the USA this weekend... not sure how long before it arrives in your country, but watching this movie might also spring new ideas for the upcoming patches.

Re: Kristoffer\'s encouragement thread
 

I was thinking of doing a blood-favouring war-hungry EA arco replacement nation myself. Not inspired by 300, but similar themes I suppose.

Re: Kristoffer\'s encouragement thread
 

If you do then you have two choices (probably more if I thought about it).

(1) a balanced nation suitable for playing against other unmodded nations in the game

(2) a wildly unbalanced nation meant as a more powerful AI opponent

Both have their difficulties. With (1) its hard to do good balance. With (2) its hard to get it to make best use of the AI code.

Re: Kristoffer\'s encouragement thread
 

I like the descriptions the most. I don't actually have time to play much now, and haven't actually played that much in years - but I've enjopyed the stories and the developing world quite a lot. While modding has added a little to this since DomII, most of it has been done by Kristoffer, not Johan.

As for what I'd like to see, I'm most curious about between-ages things like what really happened with the Seal in the caves of Agartha, or some explanation about the origin of the Umbrals. Heroes are the simplest way of adding nation-spesific, semi-hidden descriptions, of course. *hint hint*




P.S. I'd like to add that there was a really cool piece of news about Sweden in Finnish television today. Your country has a great immigration policy, and I'm not sure if Finland would be ready for a black woman as minister. Finland is a long, long way behind Sweden in accepting different people. It seems Vanheim is overpowered even in the real world. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Kristoffer\'s encouragement thread
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif That's a strange thing to say to me Gandalf. There are several mod nations which attempt to be balanced against the vanilla standards, including my last 3. I haven't seen any which were designed to be used only by the AI (although Amos' nations aren't balanced to vanilla standards).

Re: Kristoffer\'s encouragement thread
 

Wasnt it DrPraetorious that did a bunch of nations which sparked balance discussions. Based on back-and-forth discussions I thought he had decided to leave them unbalanced. In fact, I thought the whole thing culminated in
Mass Mod

Re: Kristoffer\'s encouragement thread
 

Right, but I don't think he's working on it any more because of the graphics limitation coded into dom3. I could be wrong.

I've personally come to the conclusion that it's sort of pointless as well - combining Amos' mods with other mods doesn't make that much sense and you can simply find or edit mods that work together as combos. Plus there actually aren't that many 'serious' nations added for each age - for example the late modcombo I listed is only missing Frank's Amazons (excluding Amos' LA nations, which I believe should be used as a seperate combo).

As for the doctor's nations - I only see the two recently released ones, both of which are in beta, lacking graphics etc. The nations he listed in the combined mod proposal, as far as I know, haven't been released. It's possible that there are a great many mods which people have half finished or not gotten around to posting up, many of which could be very good. I prefer to let people play while I knock up new versions, but some people prefer to wait until they're completely (or very nearly) finished before uploading, such as Zepath.