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Zen	December 9th, 2004 12:28 AM

FRAG! Newsletter

FRAG! Newsletter here

Developer's Diary from both Kristoffer O. and Johan K.

If you haven't already joined FRAG and are interested in the Development of Dominions 3, this might be an opportunity to do so.

Enjoy

PvK	December 9th, 2004 06:07 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

Yes, that was fun to read.

About the part about insanity versus feeblemindedness in the Void Gate... in Dom 2, are they the same thing? e.g. Black Bow of Botulf gives feeblemindedness, or something else?

PvK

Cohen

December 9th, 2004 06:39 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

Good I'd say.

National spells and summons rocks!!!

I still hope in a nation based upon the myth of uberintelligend and overgrown tapyr warriors.

liga	December 9th, 2004 07:04 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

Quote:

Kristoffer O. said:Morale system is remade. Perhaps we will be able to explain how it works now.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

johan osterman

December 9th, 2004 07:04 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

This is the second time you have mentioned the Tapyr. Apparently you are not talking about Tapirs, the shy bignosed quadropedes. Googling yields no results in english except Tapir references. So where are these Tapyrs a myth? Do you have any reference to this?

ckfnpku

December 9th, 2004 07:34 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

I think it's hillarious that the unit count is the measurement of progress. Cracks me up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

liga	December 9th, 2004 08:03 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

Quote:

johan osterman said:
This is the second time you have mentioned the Tapyr. Apparently you are not talking about Tapirs, the shy bignosed quadropedes. Googling yields no results in english except Tapir references. So where are these Tapyrs a myth? Do you have any reference to this?

I would also like to see a Rat (skaven-like) race ... but I think it is only in the GW mythology!

Cohen

December 9th, 2004 08:04 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

I've explained in another thread, a friend of mine talked about, but I believe it's something about literature or fable (I lack of any reference), and not any real myth, because it mixes chivarly and with oriental martial arts, with those Tapyrs, that acts likewhise the christian angels, as warden of the heaven (in that case the heaven of the dead Warriors) and of Good, created by a Tapir God.
The myth is that the Tapir God sent his Tapirs in the material world to fight the forces of evil generated by the Shadowlord. The Tapirs are however covered of thick furry, and have pointy noise (I'd say they seems more like rats than tapirs), gifted with intelligence and magical powers. The magical Tapirs aided the mankind to subdue the forces of evil, but the Shadowlord managed to seal the gate that allowed travel from the Tapir Heaven (I'd translate with Flegrean Field in English, but I'm not so sure) and the material world.
The Tapirs now secluded in a world not belonging to them secluded themselves in the mountains, inhabited by mystics and monks, who were a mix of knights and martial artists. In the tresspassing of the time, the Tapirs and that community befriended, and the Tapirs teached those humans about the Shadows, the Evil, and made them guardians against a potential return of the Shadowlord. The Tapirs allowed those humans to ride them in case of battle since an human oracle forecast the return of the Evil to menace mankind.
For what I recall the Tapirs are ordered by their furry, the most powerful was the White Tigrated Tapir (an all white tapir, with tigerlike black "lines"), below in order there were the Black Tapir, the Dark Grey Tapir, the Tigrated Grey Tapir, the Brown Tapir and the Grey Tapir. (like Seraph, Cherubin, ArchAngel, Angel and so on).
Among they powers I recall an attack that is a combo of blink and trample (they're so fast that they could likewhise teleport to another spot of the battlefield, but they really move ... trapling everything in their way), and the ability to jump all around splatting under their massive more the enemy, meanwhile the rider is able to fight.
The land where the Tapirs and the hermits lived was plentiful of forests surged of magical power, and mountains, the human inhabited monasteries-fortresses mostly dig into deep inside the core of the mountain and used the power of the sun and of the justice. That land was called Paffust Hengia, and there was here the Last epic struggle. At the end, when all seemed doomed, the Last white tigrated tapir sacrified itself granting a choosen man, renamed thereafter Tapyrion, all his powers, combined to those of the man, to enable him to duel the Shadowlord himself and to slay it.
About their magic, I don't recall ... it was time ago when I was 14-15 that my friend talked to me a lot about them.

That's all ... I really doubt this could find a spot for a Nation in Dom3, but I'd bet on, it will be for sure an original nation!

deccan

December 9th, 2004 08:28 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

Wow, all the while I thought you were joking about the tapir animal.

Zen	January 7th, 2005 05:03 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

Here is the latest developer diary edition of Frag for Dominions 3 (Issue 43) reposted from the Email for those who don't Subscribe to the newsletter.

Quote:

5 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dominions III Developer Diary

Developer Diary 02
------------------

Happy New Year!

Time flies. Another month, another year, another Frag!.

Christmas was good. Perhaps not for the development of Dominions, but for me, and
that is good for Dominions. The Last couple of days on the other hand has been a
productive time.

Yesterday I enjoyed a game of Dominions for the first time in several months. Lately
the game has been more or less unplayable. All nations and themes have been reworked
and placed in one of three eras. Until a few days ago it was not meaningful to play
games in the early or late era. The middle age is more or less the default themes and
has not changed that much. So when I started to play a game of the early Version of
Ermor I had a bLast.

I decided to try the small Faerun map. I have never played on it and must say that I
liked it a lot. With eleven opponents of which several are untested I was excited. I
reduced research cost and increased gold, res and supplies to 200%. I got a good start
and found that my legions did a great job against the independents of this early
era. Soon I was the most wealthy of the players, but I ran into Niefelheim, Jotunheim
in the early era. The AI had good taste. He made Bolvitner, a Niefel Jarl with heroic
toughness his prophet. When I first met him he had 135 HP. Next time 203. But Bolvitner
wasn't my main concern. It was his neifel skinshifters. They replace the woodsmen in this
early mythological era. They are not quite finished and I had all but forgotten about
them when they hit me. Skinshifters turn into wolfmen with additional HP when slain. So
do the niefel skinshifters. Skinshifters regenerate. The niefel skinshifters are
sacred. This particular skinshifter was blessed with berserker fury. My main army defeated
the niefel army, at a high cost. It did not defeat the skinshifter. It defeated my
remaining army including my Augur Elders and Pontifices. The problem with the skinshifters
was not that they were unbeatable, but that they only cost 70 GP. A slight oversight
that made my conquest of Niefelheim a real bother.

At the same time I was at war with T'ien Ch'i and Sauromatia.

Sauromatia? What?, you say. Before Christmas we begun a remaking of themes that will
make things easier. Both changing stuff and modding at a later date. Each theme is now
made as a separate nation. This makes it easy to add, remove and change nations. This also removes the need for a nation to exist in a given era. There was no Pythium before
the break from Ermor, but another nation lived near the marshes of Pythium. There are
hydras in Sauromatia, but the theurgs have not yet come. Witch kings, enaries and
oiorpata rule the steppes.

More of the recent stuff? National spells and summonings. Mictlan got a couple of new
blood summons. C'tis got a Devourer of Souls and a Sirrush. I was annoyed when I saw an
old archer and remade some early rezoomed sprites from Dom 1. It felt good. It felt
really good. Then I realized thet there are about one thousand sprites that needs a
remake and went back to Mictlan blood summons again.

Next step? Not sure. We just got some new fun ideas. Probably not very important for
game play, but great fun, especially for role players I believe. Take that you
grognards http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

/Kristoffer

deccan

January 7th, 2005 06:37 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

How does one get Subscribed to Frag anyway?

tinkthank

January 7th, 2005 07:41 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

Interesting! I hope you guys are having fun!

anatoli11

January 7th, 2005 09:31 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

There is a subscription option on the Shrapnel website

Endoperez

January 7th, 2005 02:10 PM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

I managed to do it, also. And realized I had been giving away wrong e-mail address for three years... I only got Messages from people using the same local chat/e-mail/discussion program, and people I sent mail to. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif No wonder why.

Didn't Johan write anything into it? Or did Zen snip it away?

Johan K

January 7th, 2005 05:30 PM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

I didn't write anything this month. Too much work to do, but I'll give it a try next month.

Ighalli

January 7th, 2005 08:40 PM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

So does everyone need to play the same era in a given game?

Kristoffer O

January 8th, 2005 07:54 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

There will be an 'anachronistic' option, but the default will be all players from one era. The different eras will play differently (more/less magic, different troop types, etc) and we will not try to balance nations across eras.

Gandalf Parker

January 8th, 2005 02:02 PM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

Quote:

Kristoffer O said:
There will be an 'anachronistic' option, but the default will be all players from one era. The different eras will play differently (more/less magic, different troop types, etc) and we will not try to balance nations across eras.

Wow, so it will be like having 3 different Versions of Dominions in one? Plus the ability to cross-play between eras if someone really wanted to. neat.

Hmmmm I can see the imbalance thing of playing between different eras. But will you will be able to select AIs from a different era? I can see that being a good reason for selecting one you know is more powerful. To get a harder AI

Tuna	January 8th, 2005 03:17 PM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

So... Will we have one era for troops, one for magic and one for sc's, or something like that?

Can already smell the possibilities http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Taqwus

January 8th, 2005 05:17 PM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

If y'all like arms, how about a Hecatonchires with 100 hand and 50 head slots? :p Or Great Cthulhu, with his tentacles, quantity unknown?

Endoperez

January 8th, 2005 06:24 PM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

Heh, maybe I should get around to do that Ice Age mod after all... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Endoperez

February 5th, 2005 08:02 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

FRAG! of February has come! I post this here, so that we can discuss the chances.

Quote:

5 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dominions III Developer Diary

Developer Diary 03
------------------

>From the keyboards of the dynamic duo behind the Dominions series comes their
third designer diary...

February...

Christmas holiday has passed. Time has become rarer and more precious. I believe
someone has cast a mighty ritual to slow down my work.

Hmm, I had to take a look at our archives. Not so bad after all.

Several new pretenders including the hilarious Solar Disc. Who wants a body when
you can have a disc? Still, it's quite nice to have a pair of wings, arms and why not
a head? Legs are useless if you fly. Discs rule!

Also several new blood summons for Mictlan. You like turkey? Mesoamericans did. I do.
Meet the turkey shapeshifters.

Another topic is the Angels. I like Angels, more than Devils actually, but I never
really liked the Angels in Dominions. They are ugly, they are friendly and they don't
sing. Devils are way cooler, and that is bad. Bad to the bone. Angels rule, or should
rule. Impossible to behold they mete out the justice of the Lord or praise Him with their otherworldly hymns. So

now the Angels have new sprites that I like. I have the harbinger
as my new forum avatar. Seems appropriate. Now they have to be revamped to be on par
with Arch Devils. There is also a new angelic being to match the Demon Lords. Feels
good.

Now some good news for the modders. We are moving an increasing number of traits to
the nation data to make mod-enabling smoother. Traits like blood sacrificing nation
and production bonus nation as well as default province defence and national heroes
are now part of the national data.

/Kristoffer

-------------------

After taking a look at the latest progress in Dominions III, I decided that this
months most enjoyable achievement has to be the age. We had a good time adding the
new age stat to units. The age adds a nice RPG feeling to your characters who will
now age one year every winter. Different monster have different lifespans of course.
So don't grow too attached to your monkeys, they don't live very long.

The aging system integrates quite nicely into the game system and I think it can result
in some new strategies or at least some hilarious situations.

/Johan

Endoperez

February 5th, 2005 08:27 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

Empowerment of Angels is quite nice, and the addition of unique celestial summon sounds interesting. Besides, the thread about angelic upgrade we had some time ago (in December?) seemed to indicate that majority of the forumites are for the change..

The modding news is very good, indeed! I just hope that the old mods don't become invalidated... Maps stay useable, as Kirstoffer played a test game with Faerun in earlier D3DD (Dominions III Developers' Diary, which some of my non-Dommunist friends have started to hate). I'm only worried that the unit pictures have been doubled again... The Harbinger in Kristoffer's avatar is in 128x128 picture, and is about 55 pixels high without wings... Either he is of Giant size, or humans have been enlarged, or Kristoffer's forum avatar is bigger than sprites in the game.

I rather like the idea of aging. Crones and Arch Theurgs will start suffering after some 120 turns of gameplay, so you can't just wait. And imagine Burden of Time! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

tinkthank

February 5th, 2005 11:37 AM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

The only drawback to the "Eras" structure would be, however, that now the opponents will automatically know which nation you are playing; if there are 17 nations, each with 3 themes, there will no longer be 51 playable selections for any given game, but rather 17.

Chazar

February 5th, 2005 12:18 PM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

The aging system sounds interesting - athmosphere-wise, but does it also imply that national troops become even more useless due to their short live spans? Is age another thing that Devils are good at? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

atul	February 5th, 2005 12:35 PM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

I'd assume that at the rate of one year per 12 turns it'd take a real turtleplayer for national troops' aging to be a problem. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

More serious it would be with mages and such you'd might see stay alive for long... ...and honestly, I'm itching to see some useful but really short-lived troops. They could even implement it so that Devils' contracts on earth last only a specified time, like a couple of years, if those guys are seen too powerful. Okay, and that was total speculation.

Endoperez

February 5th, 2005 12:40 PM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

Err, basing this to the fact (?) that Legionaires served 30 years before retiring, it would take 30 years (=12*30=360 turns) for a fresh Hastatus to retire. In fact, if age can change units, they would eventually become Principes, and then Triarii, and then retire. And even if he didn't fight in any battle at all, he would have 4th star of experience, gained just from serving in the military over 200 turn/months.

For a triarii (lets say 25 years already served) to retire, it would take "only" 5*15 = 75 turns. Besides, I think this aging system could be continued to magical creatures, so that they serve only a year/three/ten before returning to their home plane. It would be an interesting shift to the Seasonal Spirits if they retired in the second "late Season" before their own season. With this, Winter Wolves summoned in winter would last longer than Winter Wolves summoned in summer.

Oversway

February 7th, 2005 04:23 PM

Re: FRAG! Newsletter

Quote:

Also several new blood summons for Mictlan. You like turkey? Mesoamericans did. I do.
Meet the turkey shapeshifters.

Turkey shapeshifters sounds...interesting. Will there also be a Maize Lord pretender, with his corn husk helmet (or is it his head)?

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