Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

The indies in Dominions II are really neat, and one of the things that make the game deeper and less predictable than, say, MoM, MOO, Populus, AoW, and the like. But they could be made much more fun and interesting, without much trouble.

This is something that can hopefully be added to the game engine - the ability to vary scales across the map, using factors other than the God's domain. Currently, special sites affect the local scale of some provinces. However, the map would become a more dynamic, less homogenous landscape if local scales were affected by indy populations, as described below.

To be very precise, independant civilizations do not have god-like scale-tipping power. However, certain types settle in places that are suitable to their physiology - for example, cold-blooded lizards choose locally warmer provinces, and cold-loving Raptors choose colder ones. On the other hand, Feudal societies (Knights and Longbows) imposed order on their citizens, while the concept of order being desirable just confuses barbarians. Merfolk only occur in highly magical environments, and Amber Clan Tritons have developed means of adapting the materials available underwater for efficient use.

Scale Modifiers by Indy Population:

Druid: +1 Growth
Barbarian: +1 Turmoil
Feudal: +1 Order
Garnet Amazon: +1 Heat
Onyx Amazon: +1 Death
Crystal Amazon: +1 Magic
Merfolk: +1 Magic
Amber Clan Tritons: +1 Productivity
Lizards: +1 Heat
Raptors: +1 Cold
Ichtyid: +1 Sloth (not good with tools)
Hoburg: +1 Luck
Others - Human non-feudal, Tribal, Atlantian, Triton, Jade Amazon: Neutral.

Scale Modifiers by Terrain Type:
(Note: Does not affect capitol provinces)

Mountain: +1 Cold

Also, I would love for the "Province Info" screen to add space for a description of the indies living there, and of course support for added text. An example would be:

Oaklands (27)

Feudal Society

Serving their liege lord, knights frolic about this land jousting, slaying dragons, and imposing order on overworked peasants. The population is kept safe from evil target-bearing haystacks by the keen eye and steady arm of longbowmen. When trouble threatens, knights and longbowmen may be found in the sampling ale at the local tavern, while the townfolk are handed a spear and leather jerkin, and sent out to fight.

Scale Effects: +1 Order

(Scales)
(Dominion)
(Terrain)

Note that Illwinter has only to add the text-tag capability and the text will be supplied by eager fans http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

-Cherry

[ January 19, 2004, 05:02: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

How does these scales interefere with the scales of your god's domain? (how does it work with sites today?)

What will the scales end up with if a heat3, magic0 race settles in province with 'natural' scales of +1 cold, +1 magic?

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Currently, if a magic site says "Increases Heat" or "Increases Death", that is cumulative with the dominant scales. So... for example... if a magic site in a province under your dominion increases Heat by +1, and your dominion is Cold +3, then the province scale becomes Cold +2.

On the other hand, if your dominion is Heat +3, the province will stay at Heat +3. (Note: Personally, I'd favor a +4 to -4 scale system so that events and magic sites could tip scales off their normal limits).

I envision the independants and terrains affecting scales the same way as magic sites do currently.

Incidentally, one more indy scale effect:

Hoburg: +1 Luck

-Cherry

P.S. In answer to your specific question, the province's scales would eventually become Heat +2, Magic +1.

[ January 19, 2004, 04:49: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

damn good idea there!

the possibility of giving each indy province some personality is god damn good. Illwinter. listen to this boy! It shouldn't be hard to implement this in a future patch.

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

Very interesting. As social structures don't necessarily change when conquered I see merit in your suggestion.

Another idea to spice up indies would be having indie's start with their troops in a variety of useful, and not so useful, deployments. The character of indie bashing is so different from real fighting because you always know how the indie will be setup. Changing this could be spicy and would probably go best with the upper levels of difficulty.

Cheers

Keir

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

Why not turn it the other way 'round?

Terrain -> Scales -> general Indie Type -> randomly selected Indie -> re-adjustment of scales

A.

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

Great ideas to make a good game better! Keep it coming and we can keep our fingers crossed that it is included in a patch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

Good idea. Now we just need more Versions of independants to allow for more Versions of scale adjustments. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Could get very interesting since holding a province will get a lot more important if the scales are "Right".

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

does magic sites influence the kind of independents in a province?

It would be sweet if you could use the independents as a barometer for what kind of magic sites might be in the province (hmm i wonder what 3 air mages are doing in that mountain province, might they have a secret lab or maybe a cave with air gems?).

Everything that makes the fantasy world look more alive and coherent really adds to the ambience and lets you create stories when you play.

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

Very good idea.
What about some "mundane" indies with drain +1?
Could some have +/- 2?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This could be problematical because of game balance issues; currently, your mage must search each province without knowing if she finds something.

[ January 19, 2004, 14:14: Message edited by: onomastikon ]

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Mundanes - hmmmm. Tribals, maybe? I can't think of any rationalization why they would affect the magic scale, or be able to notice it. And as for +-2... that's getting potent enough to be fairly game-altering. As it stands, the majority of indy provinces would still have neutral scales, with a few special ones made a little more special.

-Cherry

P.S. Did I miss any indy types?

[ January 19, 2004, 15:20: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

Not that I'm against this idea exactly, but...

What does it do beside add some flavor to the game? What is the actual effect on game play? Do the indie scales spread? Are they limited to their province? I'm just trying to get a handle on what you actually want to accomplish.

Seems to me this doesn't do a whole lot besides slowing down (or speeding up) a given provinces rate of change to to a nations dominion. There's nothing really wrong with that, but it doesn't seem like a whole lot to get really excited about either. Also C'tis and Caelum would appear to be most influanced by this in terms of the effects of temperature on their troops. Again, not a big deal, but seemingly a bit of a disadvantage for them (disadvantage in that its now harder for them to bend the opposite temperatures to the side they want).

Again, its a cute idea, but on the whole... it doesn't do much for me.

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, scale effects are only half of the suggestion... and temperature scales are only 1/8 of it. Indy scales would work identically to the current magic site scales. Do you dislike those?

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

ok.
Oh I got "mundane" from a really bad SF/Fantasy author from the 1980s I liked as a youngster, Pierce (or Peirce?) Anthony, who in his Xanth series had a magic realm and a "Mundane" realm (= Florida) where magic was impossible. Maybe one could have some dwarven-type or some priestly-type indies by which "drain +1" is standard?

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, dwarves have magic skill of earth 3. Maybe if there was an indy province with Ulmish troops in it...

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It all depends on how you like to play the game. If you are a powergamer, you probably wont care about creating an engaging and coherent fantasy world for dominions. To some extent all the artwork, races, units, spells, could just be described logically and you could play the game without all the artsy stuff.

Thats cool, if that's really what you want.

I like dominions for many reasons. Sure i love the gameplay part, but the part of the game that lets me disappear into a fantasy world is just as important to me. Thats why "cute ideas" mean more to me than they do to you. I would love for the dominion gameboard to be much more dynamic. Conquering a "living" world, where the indies have "personality" and the indy provinces tell their own story is much more appealing to me than getting my flag planted on a white polygon labelled "whateverheim - income 45".

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ditto your opinion. Otherwise you can just play AoW, or Warlords, etc.

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is good.
Especially if it is not difficult to implement. I really like things that are cost-efficient to do, although I personally would give other types of changes (e.g. to interface or AI) higher priority.

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

As Saber Cherry said most of the ideas in this thread shouldn't require very much in the way of coding. In regards to the "dynamic province" issues, i think a lot of it could be scripted using very simple logic, since Dom II already has an underlying abstract province description (stats like income, scales, terrain, etc.). However, in the world of programming you never know. There's often some weird stumbling block when you want to change or add to some code, due to the ever present shortcuts and non-generalized instances. So i guess its moot until a developer actually puts it into perspective.

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ditto your opinion. Otherwise you can just play AoW, or Warlords, etc. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You lost me here... Are you saying that AoW or Warlords have less dynamic gameBoards than Dom? I always thought they had more dynamic gameBoards, though the process for changing the tiles is certainly different than in Dom (well at least for AoW). That's really neither here nor there, neither AoW nor Warlords can compete with Dom when you get down to the stratigic aspects, what they can compete on is the bells and whistles and 'cuteness'. This proposed addition is 'cute', it won't change much as far as how anyone approaches the game from a strategic viewpoint, all it does it add more 'flavor'. There's nothing wrong with that, all I said was that that *particular* added flavor doesn't interest me, and, unless the addition is trivial I'd rather the devs not bother with it, it just doesn't add much bang for the buck (depending on how much time/difficulty is involved in adding it).

Anyway, its been pointed out time and time again, that none of us knows what the time/difficulty is for the devs to add anything new, so just saying that 'it shouldn't take much' doesn't really mean anything. You can think that it would or wouldn't but we don't know.

I guess my point of view is that if you're going to change something (indies in this case) you might as well do it right and make it meaningful. I'd rather see a more complete reworking of indie provinces than minor additions that don't have a great impact on gameplay. Things like making it possible for indies to convert to your control without attacking them (if dominion gets high enough, or a new command for priests like 'convert' rather than just preach). I'd like to see indies sometimes act agressively against each other and existing nations. I dunno, I'd like the system to be more detailed with more options. Maybe this suggestion is a good start, maybe not, only the devs can tell http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

wwell, saying that you can't predict how
much effort a change is gonna take is all well and good. Still i think its possible to guestimate if a certain change will take a lot or a little effort. The changes that Cherry mentioned goes into my little effort guestimation-Category, while the things you suggest, although i like them, goes into the more effort Category http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Brilliant Idea to make Indies More Interesting
 

Ok, well how about this. Can there at least be text tags for provinces? And for equipment, too, that'd be useful.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzeeee?