Patch \'n mod
 

Scene I:
A small army camp by a coastal village.

Enter:
The Lord of this World, an attendant.

Attendant:
- They are watching us. Watching with their flat pale eyes. And more have come since the moon rose. They follow the tide. Perhaps by dawn they are numerous enough to dare a fight.

The Lord of theis World
- Then we should drive them back from whence they came before the sun rises. Commander! Call the men to arms. Commander?

- He is dead, my lord.

- Dead?

- Thrown himself off the cliffs, sir.

- Damn fool! Who's next in command?

- No one. They have all been lost to the sea sir. To answer some strange song. Everyone but that mercenary captain.

- What sorcery is this? I suppose I'll have to lead the men myself.


Enter a scout.

- My lord, there is an army of halfmen advancing from the south.

- Halfmen? Impossible! Pangaea was destroyed years ago. Their god was burned on a pyre in that sacred grove.

- Still there are satyrs in the army and a great Pan seems to be leading them.

- Well, we have dealt with halfmen before. Let the mercenaries deal with the fish faced ones. I prefer to let them be the target of any unexpected sorcery from the sea.

---

The depths have awakened. The tides rise with living
creatures. Oceania once again claim the seas.

---

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/News/pr_01.htm

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Linux Version of the patch is ready, but a minor problem has delayed it. It will hopefully appear today (not sure how swedish vs american time will affect this).

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Tentacle Face has lost his head? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif Theurgs used to attack during Utterdark?

Intriguing. (And wondering whether the attack-on-stealthy-commander fix includes horror attacks; if so, the scout-based Soul Contract factory becomes somewhat less powerful.)

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

The Linux patches are up now.

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Great http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

I like the Oceania Mod especially .

In my fist quicktest i saw the following :

I ordered a few mermen + a wavelord and attacked a land indy province .
Underwater they are shown as amphibians , in the battle above the sea they were shown as poor amphibians though .

Is this a bug or a feature ?

I guess it is the former because above the sea they had 9 defense while underwater they had 10 defense .

P.S. is there a way ( item / spell etc. ) to make my aquatic units air breathing that they can leave the sea ?

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

The oceanian units change shape when they enter land. This is the cause of your discrepancy. So it is a feature. Try the Capricorn and you'll see his magic stats change as well.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

The Amulet of the Fish is what you want for aquatic commanders; I cannot think of anything to help the aquatic troops though (the only ones are the elite units of Oceania if memory serves).

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

A small error found in the Linux x86 patch:
- The files orania.map and oraniawar.map extracted into the main dominions directory instead of the maps/ directory.

EDIT: Ignore, my mistake, forgot to copy the executable to /usr/local/bin:
- The Version number is still 2.14.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

If I want to use the patch in a sp game but not a mp game can I? Can I use it in 1 mp game and not in another?

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

If you patch the game it goes for all games, the mod on the other hand can be turned on and off in different games.

If you really want to have one game with 2.14 and another 2.15 you can probably make a copy of the game in another directory and patch one of them. This is not something I would recommend as it sounds like an invitation to trouble. Be sure to make backups of save files before trying this.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

You would need to copy your dom2.exe, rename the copy to dom214.exe (or anything really), and apply the patch. Only the original dom2.exe will be patched to 2.15, while the copy will stay on 2.14.

You will have to make sure you use the correct executable when playing the game though. The only problems while using the wrong Version should be bogus battle reports; the keyword here is should.

Hmm, the patch modifies (or adds) a file called army9.trs, though it looks like it does not affect Dom 2.14. I am not sure if it was present before 2.15, or if it has been added by this patch. If it is the latter, it will be fine, but there might be a problem or two otherwise. My guess is that this file is used to add some descriptions for the units of Oceania, as a few units of the nation are without description when playing the mod under 2.14. That is, however, a mere guess, so don't sue me if something goes wrong (of course, praise is welcomed if I am right). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Hmm, how do I activate the oceania mod, I went into mods it wasnt there, but I saw when creating an alantian god, that under atlantis was special themes-oceana, but at the part where u change dominion I selected special, but the oceana did not come up.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

You will have to download the Oceania mod from Shrapnel download page, extract its contents to your mods directory, and select the Oceania mod before creating a Pretender. Once you have started a game with this mod, it will be automatically switched on when you play this particular game.

Oceania does not seem to be available under the special themes of Atlantis (unless I badly need to have my eyes checked), and instead replaces the whole nation.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Looks fun! Can't wait to try it tonight...

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it wasnt aviable, but you know when u click a race its like
Description
Priests
Military
......
.....
Special Themese: I coulda sworn I saw Oceania here/

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Oceania is indeed in the description, but cannot be selected as a theme (when playing Atlantis). You need to switch the mod on to have Oceania instead of Atlantis (as for other mods changing a nation).

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I must be blind.
The downloads I see
Demo
Item refernce
summond creatures
mod manuel
addenum
walthrough
patch 2.15
At first I thought patch 2.15 had the mod but it did not, where do I download it. I feel verys stuped.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

army9.trs was there in 2.14 too.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

I will toy a bit with the 2.14 army9 file then. It seems to be working fine with the new one, but "seems" is not quite the same thing as "is". My theory mostly rests on the mention on the patch history about making Dominions able to run the Oceania mod (which does not exactly work under 2.14), but that remains an assumption.

Legacyspy, the link to download the Oceania mod is right below the links for the various patchs, and above the list of all the changes. Maybe your browser has not loaded the most recent Version of the page? At any rate, the direct download link is here .

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Thanks alot.

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This patch sounds great! I will have to celebrate by making some more mods!!

What was a "uw snowfall"?

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

It looks like the army9 file from 2.14 is exactly the same as the one in 2.15, so making one exe for each Version of the game should work out; and my theory about this file was incidentally quite wrong.

Edit: An uw snowfall was, I think, a snowfall happening underwater.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Congratulations , Illwinter . The different sprites above and underwater , changed magic etc. are all imo very creative . And i like the flair of Oceania as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

I have now though 1 worry :

How can Ryleh or Atlantis win against Oceania in earlygame ?

Most maps have only 1 ocean so even if you play orania e.g. with one player Ryleh and the other Oceania at about turn 10-20 both will meet .
Then if e.g. Oceania just took a f9 blessing and built some knights of the deeps and attacks asap how can Ryleh defend against that ?

And all Oceania troops are flying . But no way to stop them underwater . So even 25 PD will give huge trouble to a Ryleh earlygame army .
So you could just attack , buy 30 Pd in the conquered province and advance .
Then in about 5-10 turns you will have wiped out Ryleh no matter how well he plays .

Against the "common" Oceania troops Ryleh could probably defend more bad as good but at least defend by a combo meteorite guards , shambler tralls , crab hybrids and illithid soldiers .
But against e.g. F9 blessed Knights of the Deep he will be screwed no matter what he does . With the limited God Choices underwater Ryleh even can't do a good SC God .
Finally Oceania can make good thugs very early out of the Triton princes .

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Oceania is designed for dom3 as a separate nation. Oceania is supposed to be somewhat stronger under water than the other two nations.

> How can Ryleh or Atlantis win against Oceania in earlygame ?

By being 2 vs one. This is of course not possible in dom2. So you'll have to come up with another solution. A big sea perhaps. You like huge maps IIRC. Two different seas? Poisoned weapons if you play atlantis vs oceania (it is not too difficult to replace R'lyeh instead of Atlantis).

Mind bLast vs knights perhaps. Tritons of your own with poisoned weapons. Loboguards. I dunno. Leave the sea. Get mindburn or paralyze.


Hmm, f9 blessing should not work under water. Burning weapons feels a bit out of place under water.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Thanks to Illwinter for taking the time to make this a mod rather than just waiting for Dom III.

I'm not sure it would be really be overpowered vs. Ry'leh... it is like saying Vanhiem is no good because using fire blessed vans you could overrun nations like Mictlan, T'ien Chi, or Ulm in the early game.

A few typos I think, the Mermidon description says he can't leave the water, but he is amphibious. Also, the Triton King mentions summoning hippocampuses, is this dominion/scale related?

EDIT: Didn't notice the Siren's air magic above water http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

walk on the land with your sirens, they become air1 water1 casters there. As for balance problems oceania seems to have really expensive researchers, that should balance their superiour armys out somewhat.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

You MISCREANT! If with enough faith you can tell mountains to lift up, why couldn't you have weapons burning with holy fire under all circumstances, for God's sake?

Or just rub them with white phosphorus before entering combat underwater, for Mendeleiev's sake! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

> You MISCREANT! If with enough faith you can tell mountains to lift up.

No you can't. They'd stare at you as if you were stupid. Mountains are very good at that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Mermidon has been changed. Initially it was not amphibious. Old description seems to hang on.

Hippo summon is dominions related. Works as VQ and GK summoning. This ability partly makes up for the missing conjuration spells of dom3.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Hm at least the flaming weapons icon is shown . And they get +4 to attack as well .

So probably they work underwater . It is hard to say though because they have 2 attacks + on first turn the lance attack / battle turn already .
So hard to tell if the flaming weapons are really in effect or not .

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Oh, yes they do work. It was just a sudden thought i got.

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Omigod, what a shocking revelation! Could Jaysus be that wrong?

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Sitesearching + Clamhoarding with them is imo probably rather difficult compared to the other 2 underwater nations http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

Imo they are like an underwater pangenea new age , but way cooler http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Mount Rushmore is the only mountain in the USA capable of staring - perhaps the mountains in Europe are different? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

they stare, just very slowly

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It's very interesting that Oceania is implemented as a mod (Oceania is spelled wrong on the web page btw). I'd bet it's to preserve compatibility with ongoing games. Currently, I see few (no?) MP games that are played with purely modded nations (except for that only modded nation game of course), so I wonder if this addition would make modded nations show up more frequently in MP games.

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Oceania seems to have the national heroes of Atlantis, which is pretty unthematic...

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Good point Jurri. I think there is a #nonationalheroes command available in modding. I'll take a look. You can probably do it yourself as well. There are no heroes made for Oceania yet.

> I'd bet it's to preserve compatibility with ongoing games.

That's part of the deal. Another part is that some features were difficult to make as a theme. There are more restrictions on themes than on modded nations. As we are making an overhaul of the nation/theme system in dom3 it would be quite bothersome work on another theme remake just for dom2.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Yes, #clearheroes. Or if you want to do a lot more work, you can mod each of the unit numbers of the nation's heroes, like I did in my Amazon Empire mod. Hardest part of that is needing to make image files for the hero units.

PvK

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Nice mod!
The replacement nation does indeed seem quite powerful; sirens are an excellent touch, and also happen to be an easy way for Oceana to expand in coastal provinces early-game. What is interesting about them is that if they fail to lure an enemy commander, nothing happens! It is a "no-risk" assassination attempt. That seems pretty tough. Methinks almost a wee bit too powerful.

I like the fact that the underwater units all have strat-moves of 1 -- finally!

I think Oceana is certainly more interesting and powerful, at least at first glance, than Atlantis. Water and nature, what an interesting combo!

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Excuse me, am I reading this correctly? Are you implying that -- unlike dom2 -- we will be able to ally in dom3 (perhaps in a way similar to what I suggested in the Wishlist thread)? May I indeed get excited and desire to shake your hand -- or must you dash my well-deserved hopes upon the harsh rocks of your unyielding will?

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

I'm only implying that when there are three underwater nations you are not as alone in the dark. In MP at least you will not be certain that your own strength is enough to conquer all seas.

So wait with your hand shakes until i hint at alliances.

I do not dash hopes on my unyielding will. I might however suffocate them with uncertain answers.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Suffocation: Level 4 Marketing, path requirements: Cryptic Ambiguity 3 and Resource Inscrutiny 1. Number of Effects: 100+. Damage: 100+ (pain damage only). Magic resistance and stubborn hardheaded blut reasking offers no defense against this spell.

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

The sirens do face a slight risk -- if the targeted commander is lured, but is immune to drowning; then they fight, and while a Siren has magic, it has very few slots for toys. The luring also seems easily resisted. All in all, I'm not sure it's much faster than expansion using Star Children, who can also operate in non-coastal provinces (although Triton commanders are probably still death for them, and they have trouble with the sheer speed of Knight commanders).

It's an interesting nation; the recruitable national tritons are handy. That the Capricorns lose half their magic on land, and that the only priestly unit is aquatic, gives quite a bit of flavor. The latter bit worries me a bit for an AI, 'tho; will it actively pursue getting an amphibious or land-only priest (e.g. by prophetizing, or by summoning?)?

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

I downloaded the Linux (x86) patch, but tar tells me the header is incorrect, and won't show me the archive contents.

Has anybody met with better luck?

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Maybe they'll just turn a blind eye at you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Yes, it worked for me.
The file has a .tar extension, but it is in fact a compressed tar archive. Did you use the z option with tar?

Re: Patch \'n mod
 

Someone, please slap me. The army9 file must have been introduced prior to the 2.14 patch, hence its presence in the 2.15 patch; I was overlooking the obvious, as usual.

Back to the Oceania mod: I gave a Moonshine Cap to an Astral 1 Capricorn, and it kept Astral 1 on the land (he should have lost Astral 1, and the Cap should have had no effect on his paths). Is it intentional, or a bug? It seems rather interesting to me (pay to keep your magic on the land), but that might not exactly be what Illwinter had in mind.

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Bishop fish! Finally, some validation!
Always loved that thing, I did. My favorite bit of Christian mythology.

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One bad thing about the 2.15 patched executable: it seems that running a second copy under Windows causes problems - the 2nd executable takes 100% of the CPU, making it _very_ unpleasant and almost unusable. (For instance, when you want to check something from the game while writing a message, it's almost mandatory to bring up a 2nd copy so you can look at the turn while writing.)

I expect this'll also cause problems for anyone attempting to host a game on the same machine they're playing on - ie, blitz games.

I didn't see this happening before I applied the patch, albeit maybe it's just my machine (Windows 98 SE), etc.