wut can u wish for with wish?
 

wut are some good things to wish for. someone plz tell me im a noob.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

Following information taken from Sunray's Virtual Library.


Wish : a few keywords are acceptable for the computer. All wishes can be repeated. This is a (probably incomplete) list:

* "Armageddon" : earthquakes and meteors kill 20% of the population and of the units in most provinces of the world.
* "Army" : gives you 300 militiamen.
* "Artifact" gives you a random unique artifact. This is pretty funny if that artifact exists, whoever has it gets a message that it disappears into a poof of smoke and your mage suddenly has it! If the item is cursed, the mage cannot remove it.
* "(Artifact)" : gives you the said artifact... including those which aren't listed in the magical item manual or in the forge lists : Vial of Frozen Tears (+1 D,W), Sun Sword/Shield/Armor/Helmet (of Solaris - mostly awe, berserk, and magic resistance), Hammer of the Cyclops (50% forge, 37 damage), Precious (attack and strength bonus), Greenstone Armor (prot 17), Robe of the Sorceress (+1 S,D,N,B and prot 15), Crown of Karafagus (+1D and 1 mummy/t), Admiral's Sword (curses those it touches).
* "Blood slaves" : you get 250.
* "Broth" : same as "food"
* "(Creature Name)" : you get the said creature. Like "hero", they lose all magic. However, if you can cast Gift of Reason, they still have secondary powers, so Arco Priestesses have heal, etc.
* "Death" : guess what happens to the mage...
* "Death Match" : a Death Match is scheduled next turn.
* "Defence" : same as "power"
* "Dominion" : your dominion increases slightly.
* "Experience" : the caster gets 1000 experience.
* "Fame" : same as "experience".
* "Food" : you get 2 Cauldrons of Broth and 5 Endless Bags of Wine.
* "Gems" : gives 25 of each gem type, including astral (that's 175 gems for the price of 100 astral), but no slaves.
* "Gold" : gives you 3000 gold pieces.
* "Hero" you get a random hero from any race. The hero shows up as a normal unit, but loses his magic skills since he is not a commander (if you cast gift of reason on him, he still has no spells available). You cannot ask for a specific hero however.
* "Magic power" : the caster gets +1 to all magic levels, up to 10.
* "No starve" : same as "food"
* "Population" : brings more pop (+20%) in a random province you control.
* "Power" : the caster gets +20 strength, +10 attack, +10 defence, +10 precision, and +50 hitpoints.
* "(Pretender name)" : you get that pretender, with default magic and abilities (Daughter of the Land gets gems, Moloch gets imp, Ghost King gets ghosts, etc).
* "Provinces" : a couple of provinces just convert to be yours.
* "Strength" : same as "power"
* "Supply" : same as "food"
* "Troops" : same as "army"
* "Weapons" : get a random weapon artifact.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

You can wish for a "huge magical viz".

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

The following ones also work:

- Anything
- Nothing

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

Yep its still abit short. There are over 80 things that the wish can recognize if you ask for them.

Gandalf Parker

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

Does that "80" refer to wish categories or does it include individual things like magic items?

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

80 does not include individual items, because there are many more magic items in the game than that, and Wish can get you any of them,.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

Oh, really?

Just started up an SP game to put this to the test. Researched Wish, wished for "Maker of the Maze" and got me a spankin' new Daidalos. I then wished for "Great Hag", and snagged an ultra-rare Angerboda, still in her original packaging. 'course, they got generic names when I gifted them with reason, but they also retained their magic levels.

Unfortunately, Etimmu is still unavailable, what with that generic descriptor of his. Not that this matters, as not even Etimmu is worth 100 astral pearls and a turn of an ubermage's time.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

It looks like there are about 70 strings in the executable however it looks like many of them map to the same thing ex:

dough
copper
silver
riches
wealth
money
gold

fighting skill
combat skill
experience
fame ( not sure if this maps to the same thing )

commoners
peasants
populace
people

stop starv
wine
broth
supplies
supply
food

huge nation
large lands
provinces

etc.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

wishing for "hero" just gives you the arco hoplite hero. There are several heroes named hero, but only he showed up in my games.

you can get the others just fine, auluudh the aboleth might even be worth the gems if you are playing a water nation.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

Heehee. I wondered if anyone would pick up on how to get the whole list. Thats what I did, a "strings" command. I hope that in Dom3 they encrypt their data. Even if they did a Rot13 on each bit of text before using it I dont think it would slow the game down much and would make it alot more fun not knowing stuff like this.

Gandalf Parker

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

how do u do a strings command?

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

I beg to differ on both points. Rot13 or the feeble method they used in the save files will fall very quickly to people who want to crack the game. Significant encryption raises the bar, but since the key(s) must be somewhere in the distribution, it will fall eventually... and even w/o the the keys built in, there are Other Ways of getting them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

As to making it more fun, well, not for me. I don't mind losing to a better player, but I strongly object to losing because I not only don't know the rules, but they're actively hidden from me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

On a Unix variant (Linux, Mac O/S, Solaris),

strings <name of file>

will dump all the printable strings in the file to the screen. The output can be redirected as normal, which is good, since there's a lot of text in the executable. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Sorry, I don't know if Windows has a similar command/function.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

Could someone just give the 70+ outputs that the rings command gives? I'd be happy to actually test through them one at a time to see what each one does, but it's a bit frustrating having to guess.

A real complete "everything you can wish for" list could then be made available, and people who didn't want to look at it could choose to not do so.

-Frank

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

Your wish is my, uh, reasonably good idea. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif The list is:

nothing
to die

death match
arena match
arena game
death game

dominion
divine power
divine authority

strength
physic
hitpoint
hit point

power
magical power
magic power
magic skill
magic master
magic might

ultimate power
armageddon
genocide
world
everyone
everything

slaves
blood
gems

troops
military
army
militia

provinces
lands
large
huge
nation

food
supply
supplies
broth
wine
stop
starv

people
populace
enemies
friends

peasants
commoners

kill

leader

fame
experience
combat skill
fighting skill

artefact
artifact
something
anything
sword
staff
weapon

gold
money
wealth
riches
silver
copper
dough

I've put gaps between the ones I think do the same thing. That list is 66 wishes; they're all grouped together in the file. If there are others, they're not in the obvious place. As Wauthan mentioned, you can also wish for heroes, artifacts, creatures, and pretenders by name.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

Well I disagree back. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
There is no way to encrypt the strings that will hide it from absolutely everyone. And any extreme effort would slow the game down more than its worth. But even something as weak as Rot13 (yes I purposely chose the weakest in the world) would work for a much larger chunk. For one thing you couldnt do a simple strings on it and jump right to the answer by knowing just one of the possibilities.

And even if people dont like not knowing things in the game, oh well. The game does do that on purpose. People can try to undo that, or they can shift to games where all the rules are known (I hear chess is good), but this one isnt like that.

My only comment was that in the next one maybe they will do better. Of course it will fail but all security does. Its always only an effort to block "as many as possible, as much as possible, for as long as possible" within reason (in this case without making the game too slow)

And, no, obviously Im NOT going to provide a whole list.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

May I ask what is the point?
I mean, if someone doesn't want to know those things, he can just (gasp) not try to find them out.
And if someone wants to know those things, what's the harm in him knowing?
Its not like hours of testing can't give him the answer.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

Since the players are human (well most of us are) that concept doesnt work. And even if they can avoid the temptation, they will convince themselves that their enemies did not so.. obviously I must have all of the cheat codes also and practice them. Just in case. (its kindof a game/virtual version of the old "cold war" concept). Wow, deep thinking. Too early. Headache starting.

Again, nothing stops anything. It can only be as hard as possible for as long as possible for as many as possible. Otherwise our society would fall apart.
Ouch OUCH theres that headache again

Gandalf Parker

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

Thas the problem with wish & co and multiplayer:

Either waste hours by
a) analysing binaries
b) reading huge forums on the web
c) stupid hotseat games against oneself
or
d) live with the unknown while knowing that your enemies will know.

Knowledge is victory, victory is life, err, or something like that...

...I think that DomIII should come with a switch which disables all these surprise thingys like "wish" for multiplayer. I think this would make threads like this one here obsolete and thus help to preserve the fun of exploration for those who enjoy singleplayer-mode.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

The desire to make Dom2 more "strategy" pops up in many ways. Desires to disable features, or make maps more fair and balanced, or take the extra random dice out of many of the rolls, balance the playing pieces between the races, take out the random events. Mostly from the multiplayer tournament folks who want winning the game to be based purely on the players skill and no luck rolls.

On the other hand, there are people who would like all of the above to be increased. Mostly from the solo players. (myself included)

It was suggested that it would be nice to have a switch that could set all of the randoms to a level from 0-9 but they are scattered thru the whole game so apparently it went to the wishlist for Dom3. I have no idea if it will be part of Dom3 or not.

Gandalf Parker

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

I'd be in favor of switches like that as well.

I'm a bit surprised people object to 2d6OE. It seems to simulate "the fortunes of war" w/o going overboard. Do you happen to know why people wanna reduce its effects? I can think of some, but they're not good. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

In a strategy game you are always having to scale things between extremes. And no matter what choice is made, some will complain. Hmmm ok, not just games, thats true of everything. But in this case the extremists at one end of the scale consider a strategy wargame to be best when it has no balance-affecting surprises. They want the "winner" to be decided purely by who has the best plans and strategy. They think alot before the game and they dont like their battle plans knocked out by a random. The extreme example of such a game would be Chess. Perfectly fair map, perfectly matched units, no randoms, no surprises.

The other extreme likes a game which has a ton of randoms. They love it when one of the "opponents" in a game is "chaos". Even if if has a map generator which is so EXTREMELY crazy that you have to throw out 4 or 5 maps to get one that you MIGHT be able to win. For them its the joy of tactics and making best use of whats thrown to you.

Of course MOST players are not at one end or the other of the scale. They are somewhere along it. But we see the push/pull in this forum often. Efforts to "balance" pieces when it would destroy the rock-paper-scissors at national level. Or efforts for more favorable random events where it could shift the positions on the scoreboard, especially with fast games on a small map.

As a "chaos" person myself I have created some game scenarios which can be found at my site www.dom2minions.com which you wont see mentioned much. They arent good to recommend unless someone (A) prefers solo play or (B) is bored with the game having tried all of the combinations

Gandalf Parker

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

I can see this, but perhaps not for Dominions. For example, I'd think the game balance would have to be looked at very closely before replacing 2d6OE with 2d6. As it is, if a unit has 10 more armor + natural protection than his expected opponent has strength + base weapon damage, he's very likely to escape unscathed (barring AP weapons, etc). But that's very different than knowing it's a sure thing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I think Dominions may be too complex to ensure that toning down the randomness doesn't result in "ultimate weapons".

But that's why I'd like switches -- if somebody else wants to play that way, great, so long as I don't have to.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

Can some one expalin this 2doe and 2d6 stuff and whey its bad/good.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

2d6oe is open ended.

This means if a 6 is rolled on a die then it is given another roll that adds to the total. So potentially you could roll as many times as you get 6's on the dice.

OE is important because it gives even the most ironclad of defenses the chance to be penetrated. It also allows even the lowliest of soldiers the chance to defend against a far more powerful opponent if they are lucky enough.

Certain rolls in the game are OE and others are closed.

Re: wut can u wish for with wish?
 

I can try...

2d6 is your bread-and-butter die roll for games: throw two six-sided dice and add them. If you do this a lot and keep stats, you'll see that you get a bell-shaped distribution centered at seven, and obviously, the score is limited to two to twelve.

The OE is short for "open ended". It's a bit different: throw two dice as before, but if you get any sixes, roll another die for each one. Keep doing this as long as you keeping rolling sixes. Then add up the all the dice. OK, there's a further twist that for each of the additional dice you throw, you substract one point, so they give 0-5 rather than 1-6.

So, 2d6OE gives stats that are a bit different. The distribution of scores is biased a little towards higher numbers, and there's (in principle) no upper limit. Of course, the odds of getting very large numbers are pretty slim.

Dom2 uses lots of 2d6OE rolls, especially for attacks and defenses. What this means to players is that sometimes odd things happen. Once in a while, a wimp with a knife will hurt a knight, or a crushing blow will be absorbed by light armor -- or a sure-thing attack will just miss, because the defender got an unusually high dodge roll.

As Gandalf said, some people don't like this, because it messes up their finely-honed strategies. I do like it, because lucky shots have been a part of war pretty much since the beginning.