Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Hmm... a Roc, hmmm?

With a wingspan long enough to blot out the sun, maybe they should autocast darkness. Of course, with air magic, they'll be tough to get for the races that really would benefit from them, at least the ones I can think of. Shinuyama, Yomi, Atlantis, etc. Still, it might be interesting, though certainly complicated and possibly work too much against it... Though...

Idea 2: Talons. Why restrict yourself to two claws when you have a bird bigger than a 747? Rather, something big enough to carry off elephants, and maybe even whales? Take a penalty to damage, but give it eight attacks like a kraken? Haven't thought out the mechanics too well, so not sure about the idea, but the thought would be that their claws are just so big that each talon is a threat.

Idea 3: Auto-summon in combat djinnis. i don't have my inspirational source before me, but hark back to the tale of Aladdin. To quote a hurridly googled play:

There's a certain national summon recently added, that comes with four companions. I'm not thinking something as powerful, but definetly more numerous. A bird that auto-produces its own raiding force upon entering battle, losing them upon ending the battle. Make them a meaner, burnier, more magical version of the army one might get from hidden in snow. So something that would be threatened by a serious army, but is more than capable of taking on good pd that has some support from mages and soldiers... Disappearing afterwards, they wouldn't help with any sieges, or be deployed elsehere.

If you're looking at the rukh:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roc_(mythology)
there's also the Simurgh:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simurgh
The Simurgh is practically written for Dominions, with a lot of its traits easily translated into the game using existing features. Though I'd make this not have air paths, perhaps nature, water, and holy, and unique, with the roc repeatedly summonable, but a simurgh not. She might not be very ferocious in combat, but interesting in some other ways, such as healing, immortality, and some kind of ability similar to Shinuyama's vampire with its sleepy flute. Perhaps some lifesteal to imitate its eating.

I am curious what this 'Ghoghnus' is, especially since I've never heard of it before, and can only turn up four google hits, most of which google won't even offer to translate, but look like blogs.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

The Djinn actually gave her the egg in that play? Hmmm, in the version I recall he refused, called them ungrateful and said he would kill them except that he knew it was actually the magician's idea, and told them who the magician was. I thought it was interesting that the Djinn didn't actually _have_ to obey them.

-Max

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

I remember way back when in middle school reading the tale of aladdin, and not disney-version, but the peeping-tom verson. Also, the tales of sinbad. Owned that book.

Anyways, I agree, think play took artistic license. I would have linked to the play, but it takes an even more drastric reinterpratiion of the tales, somehow converting it into pregnancy? Anyways, the gist of there being a tie between the roc's egg and the djinni does ring true to memory, even if I can't believe how different the latter passages are.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Actually, he just ripped the arm off of a size 3 grendel.I was thinking more earth/other mages with high levels of heretic, halt heretic, and awe, along with some kind of mind control attack.Where's that quote from?

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Considering a thought which was given here - about making late-game LESS dependent on SCs I would offer to include some positive-event, etc. spells. I remember that somebody did include something like that in his mod using #copystats to gain positive-effect ability from existing Pretenders, than making new creatures immobile and non-attacking & naming the Menghirs...
There is also a possibility to include a Mountain That Walked as a Nature summon - a particularly large & wise elephant. This creature was known for his habit of making a regular ambushes against hunters who tried to shoot him. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Maybe he should even be a mage - though with research penalty.
Considering a bear-spirit having an access to Death - in North Asian folklore, at least, bear was considered to be a very wise animal, having an access to spirit world...

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

I'm not even sure it'd be possible to make the late-game less dependant on SCs without changing the entire base system of the game. Look at it this way, on the one hand, yes, it'd be nice to be able to have your legions of national mages not be obsolete by then, but considering the gradual escalation of magic it's just impossible. The fireball that by pure chance smacks right down in the middle of your mages is annoying, possibly altering the outcome of a battle, but isn't necessarily devastating. The earthquake/rain of stones that completely obliterates the entire lot of them could very well be if it hits your main army, and it will eventually. Important units with low HP just don't scale up alongside everything else. Thus it falls to supercombantants or thugs to shrug off hits that'd otherwise lose you five or six turns worth of recruitment and a potentially a whole bunch of gems.

That's why I think every path/nation should have viable endgame summons, because the current blood/death/astral split is just unbalanced. It'd be nice if we could keep the point of each path without losing its effectiveness by late game, but some paths, like fire for example, just aren't going to be able to do that. Fire being all aboud evocations could feasibly have some ridiculously powerful "smack the entire battlefield for a billion unresistable damage" spell, but without something big and mean to cast it, the poor mages who try are going to get a faceful of tartarian.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

I'd like to see paths keep true to their spirit. You bring Fire as an example, but why wouldn't some Evocation / Alteration bring smackdown even on Tartarians? Say a spell in theme of "brightest flames burn fastest" that targets one unit with highest Attack in province for some 999 points of damage? Or a Water spell that stops largest unit from moving, and if you attack the province on same turn it starts the combat under Encase in Ice effect? Air spell that instead of sending one Seeking Arrows at one commander's heart sends one hundred of them (think of Hero's ending)?

Naturally nothing actually moddable, but with some creativity (read: large enough boom) ideas can emerge for other things than summons.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Basically 2 things could reduce the dependence on SCs in the late game:

First, even stronger battlefield buffs. If there were huge effect or battlefield wide buffs that gave enhanced protection against mass damage spells, and/or made those mass damage spells uncastable for some reason, and/or simply made normal troops much more effective against SCs, then conventional armies would retain usefulness.

Second, incredibly powerful single target spells. I know there are some, but adding more, so there are more paths that have things that can disable or kill of targets of singular power, would make it harder to rely on a small handful of units to wreak havoc.

Personally though, I am against a prevalence of spells that can instantly kill such an investment of time and effort, so I am more in favor of the route of horribly powerful debuffs (having an SC pretender Soul Slain is just sad), but at the same time, I am very much in favor of more variety and availability of the type of singularly powerful endgame summons that are already available. I mean, if you aren't going to take out Seraphim et al, then there need to be more options, IMO. Especially for casters, if things like Rain of Stones are going to be considered to make human sized mages obsolete, then we should have more plentiful late game caster summons. If it costs less gems to summon a 30hp+ caster that is as powerful or more powerful than your capitol only mages and then give them some gear that -might- help them survive, then why not?

I mean, we are playing at gods. It only makes sense that once the little mortals have played out their ultimate usefulness in the war, it's because the gods are bringing beasts and beings of legend into the fray, it only makes sense that it would be so. What this just means, is that currently the range of options in the end game narrows, because of the limited number, so we add a slew of new ones to broaden those options again, and make different magic paths viable to compete at the top of the pyramid.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Wouldn't it actually be able to cycle through all of its forms in a single turn? I just tried to do something similar, but couldn't, because you can shape change and give other orders afterwards.

Re: The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Threa
 

Personnally my solution would be endgame non-SC summons casting powerful battle spells with the #onebatllespell command.

In the spell mod I'm (very slowly) developping, the endgame summons will be spirits with stats like that :

Spirit of Dreams (endgame air summon) hp and all stat (except MR) = 5, only 2 misc slots, but is a true ethearal and has a onebatllespell combining effects of Fog Warriors and a mass Confusion affecting 25% of the squares, also has two precision 100 long range attacks one with aoe 10 false fetters and one with aoe 10 confusion ; out of combat can call phantom beasts and domsummon/summon (a lot of) phantasmal warriors.