Item wish list?
 

I havent seen an Item wish list anywhere, and just wondering if I could start one.

What would you think of some of the following? Do you think these could be included in an update?

- Cloak of the Forester: Prot 0, Enc 0, enables the wearer to move unseen through provinces as if he/she were a stealthy unit.
Nature 2, Astral 1 (?), Lesser Magic Item (?)

- Ring of Hiding: Anyone wearing this ring will have his or her ability to hide unseen in a province increase.
Nature 2, Astral 2 (?), Greater Magic Item (?)

Any other suggestions?

Re: Item wish list?
 

The variation of magic items that could be made to fit this game are so numerous that I wouldn't know how to start listing my suggestions.

It would be a moot point though since I don't know if we will ever be able to add items to the game. Might be able to edit the existing ones eventually perhaps?

Re: Item wish list?
 

More nation specific artifacts. There is only one for C'tis now. Why other nations haven't got any? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Mjollnir or Gungnir would be great for Vanheim.

Re: Item wish list?
 

Metamagic might be interesting; say, a magical item that gives bonuses to dispelling enchantments, or even an artifact which locally causes a substantial drift towards drain, and a twin that's the other way around.
A Standard of the Dead artifact that automatically does low-magnitude reanimation of corpses might be thematic, but perhaps too strong.
A magical eye artifact that lets the wielder ignore Mirror Image and phantasms, and gives him a patrol bonus might be nifty.
Perhaps a commander could benefit from a magical horse, giving him the benefits of being mounted (namely, more speed plus ignoring armor enc for melee purposes).

Re: Item wish list?
 

What about the ability to forge custom items with combined effects (similar to Master of Magic). You could balance with the cost: e.g. Items with 2 effects cost 3x and take two rounds to forge, etcetera…

Re: Item wish list?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They might appear with the Ragnarök scenario/patch i never seem to finish.

Re: Item wish list?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Balancing of items is a major obstacle. Simple spell effects can be very powerful when placed in an item. A wise way to assign paths, levels and research is not easily done. I haven't played much MOM, but IIRC artifacts was one of the major imbalances in that game. Modding of items is easier and not as easy to abuse vs other players as they will have to agree to your mods if you want them in your game.

Re: Item wish list?
 

Thanks Kris. I agree that the ability to customize or combine powers into an item can take a lot of effort to balance. I don’t believe the developers can be made accountable for every way in which people will abuse the system. We know that it is never possible to completely balance a game…. ;-)

In any case, if you would support that feature, others could write a mod that would enable its use. In that way it is up to the players as to if they wanted to include it.

As a side, it is really great that the developers actively participate in the Boards and I appreciate all the hard work you have done to date on the game.

Re: Item wish list?
 

(Misc)Pocket Lab. Should be a UNIQUE S5E5 Item.

(Misc)Glimming Pearl. Con.2 S3. When you cast CotW, you get extra 5 hawks.

(Misc)Mana Cylix. Con.4 N2A1. Spell encumbrance -= 2.

(Misc)Star Compass. Con.6 S3. When a mage cast an astral spell, the gem-cost reduced by 1. Any spells cost lower than 2 are not affected by this effect.

(Head)Mask of Intolerance. Con.6 D3B2, DEF 0,Prot 0,2 damage/turn to the wearer in battle,All path +1(include unholy).

(Hand)Legacy Weapon. 2H, Unique, F5W5A5E5. You cannot wish a Legacy Weapon. Dmg 1,Atk 0,Def -3,Length 3, Attack nbr:2. Area Enslave Mind.

Re: Item wish list?
 

Stealth items could be used with the heart that creates assassins. Being able to add both of those to anyone you want might be too hard to try and figure the balances on

Re: Item wish list?
 

Agreed. MOM had tons of balance issues, bugs and AI weaknesses, and the magic items were probably one of them. Another advantage of Dominions items not being free-form-creatable (besides balance issues) is that they are well-chosen in interesting and appropriate ways that make sense have have a history (or comedy, or mystery) to them. It was sort of fun in MOM to be able to put the same spell on every picture, but it also detracted from the meaningfulness of the images, since they generally meant next to nothing - an impressive-looking item could do nothing impressive and/or nothing related to what it looked like, or could look the same as a completely different item, even though they both looked unique, etc.

Anyway, modding items would be great. The current items are very diverse and well done, but more are of course always welcome, assuming they're carefully made and balanced, like the existing ones.

As for nation-specific items, they are nice, and would be fun to be able to mod in new ones. Ermor has a laurel (which for some reason, other nations can make but not use?), and Mictlan has a jade knife, but I think that's available to others as well.

I was thinking it'd be interesting to mod in some more national items, even if just generic ones like giving everyone Versions of the magic trinket and armor items that match their national equipment and/or theme - magic spathas, pikes, greco helmets and round shields for Arco, magic obsidian swords for Mictlan, etc etc etc, all pretty tame and based on the existing items and existing difference in generic items.

Not that I've got around to using anywhere near all of the existing items... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

Re: Item wish list?
 

I wouldn't say MOM had balance issues: There wasn't any multiplayer, and as such, it's hard to say anything is balanced or unbalanced. By that analogy, everyone would agree that Ashen Empire is way overpowered, because it steamrolls over the AI every time. Of course, Dom2 has multiplayer, and the overwhelming AI dominance of AE simply doesn't appear against humans who have any idea how to play.

Dominions 2 does a much better job overall than MOM, though: Master of Magic had a fair number of thoroughly useless spells and items, whereas in Dominions, everything does SOMETHING useful for somebody.

Re: Item wish list?
 

Well yes, that's what I meant. If you define balance as multiplayer human balance, well that's not what I meant by balance. As you mentioned, MOM (without 3rd party hacks) was single-player only, and the AI wasn't good enough to offer much challenge to a player who figured out what some of the more powerful techniques were, and who didn't prevent himself from using them. So yes, you could say that rather than being unbalanced, the AI just wasn't programmed to be able to compete against a human who had learned tricks. That's true of essentially any very complex game, and it becomes a matter of degree (how long it takes players to learn strategies the AI can't counter; in my case I don't think I ever actually lost any game against the MOM AI). Perhaps you could even claim MOM was balanced, because every choice of human nation could be used to wipe out the AI. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Naturally, there are different ways to define balance. (Edit: Another way to put it - there are different types of balance.) Ability to steamroller the AI using certain fairly simple techniques, and relative impotence of a large number of game features are a couple of them. Those were what I was referring to.

If you could play MOM multi-player, though (and yes a couple of 3rd party hacks allow this), there might be many interesting choices of nation and strategy which could be balanced and interesting to play against each other.

PvK

[ February 03, 2004, 23:09: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: Item wish list?
 

A couple of third party hacks did manage to enable multiplayer capability, but I don't think they ever overcame in the inability of a defending player to actually control his forces....so basically, the attacker always won, and defense was totally worthless. It tended to strongly distort the game in favor of making sure your units were able to disappear before being attacked at all. All in all, I wouldn't say that the multiplayer hacks did anything to demonstrate balance or lack thereof. While it's true that MOM had a fair number of humorous ways to abuse the AI, the Dominions II AI is just as susceptible to various abusive techniques that fail easily against humans.

Although at least Dominions II doesn't have the 13-book Free Infinite Monster flash mob summoner. Still, for a single player game....balance, schmalance.

[ February 04, 2004, 00:50: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Re: Item wish list?
 

I like variety. More magic items, please. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Item wish list?
 

Im still have MoM on my machine. And Im a faithful follower of the MoM2 rallying site.

The problem with most efforts at a MoM2 is that if they try to multiplayer it they do the balance like AOW:SM instead of like Dom2 does which kills the replayability. Especially any solo replay. (yes I do have AOW:SM also, and any other game that ever claimed to be a MoM2)

[ May 20, 2004, 15:10: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Item wish list?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Linky?

Also, did you try Leylines?

[ May 20, 2004, 15:28: Message edited by: sachmo ]

Re: Item wish list?
 

What the game really needs is more Helms or other headgear ! There are so few selections.

Re: Item wish list?
 

Well I'd wish for a:

A magic mace/MornStar that can destroy enemy armor/shield: even magic one, even artifact.

A similar special sword to broke/disarm enemy leader, even with magical weapon(s).

Gem of Tactics: this item would grant enhanced tactics, allowing:
-if you're moving away and an enemy army gets in your province, you move away before the enemy enter avoiding the battle.
- The opposite if you enter the enemy land and enemy is moving elsewhere.
-If 2 nations or more are attacking Indies, of themselves in the same province, your army will have the Last battle (so it's less tired than other).
The gem will work for all the stack of leaders in the province, assuming the gem owner is the comanding general of the army group.

Book of Ambushes:
This book explain how to ambush enemies and withdraw. Your troops will retreat even in enemy territory, and keeping them toghether. This works only if you're hiding capable.

Book of Strategy:
This book allow you to retreat always in a single army into a your province, avoiding the spreading effect.

Sword of Eternity (unique, you don't lose it when you die in your dominion and appears in your lab):
Gives immortal attribute.

Soul Sword (unique):
Sword with good stats, capable of *killing* immortal ones too. It should be nice if prevents regeneration too.

Steeds:
Put on the feet place ... various type of steed, to provide your leaders a mount. This could be a pegasus, a lava horse for abysyans, and so on ... the forge cost could be considerer a training cost in such a skilled creature.

Crusader Helmet (difficult to forge, const 6 fire and astral and if possible the character forging should be a priest too): Heavy protecting helmet adding +1 to holy skill. Should have Enc 2 or 3.


I agree with more helmets, and more footwear. At least 1 item for spell path (ie: a boot with fire requirements)

Re: Item wish list?
 

I think various forgeable holy/unholy equipment would be nifty. Things like the Wooden Stake (nullifies regen and immortality), Holy Water (area effect, good damage to undead and demons but won't hurt others), Holy Symbol (+1 Holy and Awe). Unholy could have opposite effect of Holy gear (healing demons/undead, hurting humans, etc). LIke I said, would be nifty, but not necassarily good. To me, it doesn't seem thematically correct for a nation like Abyssia using Holy Water, whereas Marignon would. Maybe different nations get different forgeable gear? I dunno.

Re: Item wish list?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Why on earth would it nullify regeneration? There's no reason for a Lamia to have their regeneration turned off because of a piece of wood.

Re: Item wish list?
 

Sword of Eternity could grant Horror Marked and Never Heals -abilites as well... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I would like to have more helmets too, and boots wouldn't hurt either, but what would firey boots be like? No items should be added just because public wants them if they are not thematic and/or do ont fit in with the other items of the game.

Re: Item wish list?
 

Hmm, new Posts. Wouldn't Holy Water be effectively the same as Banishment? Maybe short-range, big AoE banishment, but still Banishment. Maybe the same item could grant penetration bonus, but then it would be used by pure mages in combination with Stellar Focus and/or Rune Smasher.

What would Holy items be like? Would there be new Holy gems?

Re: Item wish list?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Linky?

Also, did you try Leylines? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think I gave enough info for it to be googled Its not good to put too many links to other games on a gameboard. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
And yes I did try Leylines. Not bad.

Re: Item wish list?
 

Next up:

The Codpiece of Justice!

Re: Item wish list?
 

Sheer perversity once suggested to me an artifact Meteor Magnet that sometimes attracted Gifts from Heaven during battle. Since that spell is rather low PREC, the bearer might actually live decently long.
The KODP fan in me wouldn't mind seeing an item that cast Flaming Arrows, either.
Would it be thematic for kills (lifeless need not apply) with a Jade Knife in the hands of a blood priest to have a chance to count as blood sacrifices?

Re: Item wish list?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Oooooh! All good suggestions! I especially like the jade knife one.

Things that change dominion strength before (or during) combat as a (even psychological?) counter against immortals would be wonderful.


Rabe the Rapt

Re: Item wish list?
 

The suggestions about the Jade Knife and the sword/stake/whatever that kills immortals are *excellent.* If the devs ever wondered what kind of racial item Machaka could have, that knife would be a great one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

And something for immortals to really fear would be nice as well.

Re: Item wish list?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think that if you're going to make an item that permanently kills immortals, that it would have to be a unique artifact, and require level 5 skill in three or more magic paths. Preferably useful gem types such as nature, death, and astral.

Re: Item wish list?
 

I writted down about an immortal slaying sword ... below.

Now I add Lythanies of Faith ... an item astral+fire that can have a random effect before battle if handled by a priest ... (raising morale, or stats or other things) or simply creating more lythanies.

Those represent the pre-battle blessing, sermons and so on, spoken by priest reading ancient holy texts, that their presence is similar to a relic one.