The Future of the World?
 

Reading the dominions nations guide, and noting how nations change across the ages, dose anyone else get the fealing that the world is in trouble?

The sea's are now a realm of madness and void beasts. Both Cits & Agartha are dieing realms that rely on necromancy. Ermor is, well Ermor. Ulm has practically collapsed, Humans are takeing over from once mighty nations like Abysia, Vanheim and Jotunheim. One wonders what happens next?

If anyone has a good prediction (prefrably with evidence) I'm dieing to hear it.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Ah, it's all part of the general trend of mythology and the second law of thermodynamics. Mankind makes nature and religion less relevant, things were fancier in the Olde Dayes, and everything goes to crap in the end. Also see works by Tolkien, Miyazaki, and George Romero.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

You CAN'T tell me this is a closed system... second law not so important. But there does seem to be a steady downward trend. Death is fun!!!

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Yes - there will be no Dom4. Presumably, it is not worth making! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Actually, the old nation of Agartha is fully and totally dead in the late ages. However, the humans are reanimating the Ancient Ones, to learn from them. They will learn from their mistakes, rise to power, rule the world - and bring back the ancient Agarthans, start a new cycle. Eventually, Agarthans and humans will develop interstellar travel, and travel into another kind of void, space. Then we get Star Dominions 1: The Space Age.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

I can hardly wait. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Harmageddon, the Twilight of Gods (and mortals) is getting close.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

We r all doomed I am telling u, all doomed... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Its true, anyone know why in fantasy its allways more magical in the old days? I mean I absolutely LOVE the way you can see nations rise and fall over the ages, I just wish that there wasn't a general downwards trend twoards death and no magic. I understand it from a gameplay point of view but from a story point of view its not so good.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Not from gameplay point either. All death makes a boring late Era.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Comes directly from mythology. Magic is anything you don't know how to explain. So the farther away something is in time or space, the more of it is "magic".

The classic example is Beowulf's thistle shirt. At the time of his actual exploits, thistle was simply something that people made cloth out of (you soak it first, it doesn't sting or anything). In fact, the mentioning of his thistle shirt is there to show how completely ordinary his equipment was. Over time, techniques of making other cloth improved and people stopped wearing thistle and wore linen or cotton even if they were poor. The people stopped using thistle and the techniques of making it into cloth were lost.

But the mentioning of the thistle shirt persisted. And as people grew up so rich in linen that they never had to wear thistle, they also grew up without the knowledge of what thistle was like to wear. And well, if you poke a thistle with your hand it hurts. So that line of poetry began to mean to people that he was wearing some sort of magical shirt that was woven out of pain spines somehow.

What was at the time a perfectly ordinary list of clothing and equipment eventually transformed into a depiction of a man decked from head to toe in powerful magic.

And that's why the past is more magical. Technology isn't only discovered over time, it is also lost. So the ancients demonstrably did things different than you do. Everything you do is technology (not magic) and everything they did was magic. Therefore, the ancients had a lot more magic. By definition.

-Frank

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Well said, Frank. The same could be applied to literature about the far future (usually sci-fi). The galaxy at peace through the technology magic of robo-intelligence, contact with ancient races, etc. The near future, on the other hand, is much easier to write about without "magic".

Re: The Future of the World?
 

The problem with that of course is that in Dominions, the 'magic' (probably we would call it science) is something which could be researched. That being the case, you could also argue for it becoming more powerful in much the same way we went from the bow and arrow to automatic rifles.

I'm not so sure all is death in the future of Dominions, well, unless your on the losing side in the battle to become God http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. Older empires are dying, much like Rome did, but other Empires appear to be doing fine. I get the feeling it's moving towards the stereotypical "time of man" concept you get in much fantasy, where the humans exterminate or out compete everyone else.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Has the "time of man" ever come to an end in fantasy books? I'd love to see how writers do that.

Actually why is the "time of man" so common? pure mankind is rather boreing, and unrealistic, its hard to see how mankind would dominate many of the other fantasy races especially in dominions where there is such a large veriaty. I'd bet on R'lyeh

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Is it actually fading away, or is it simply that more mundane tools are proving more effective?
If all you have are sticks and spears, then a guy who can hurl a fireball across the battlefield is a god. Invent composite longbows and the same guy simply becomes a target.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Its actually fadeing away, Abyssa, Vanheim, T'len Ch'i, for example. just read their entries in the manual.

In addition there are less magic sites as the ages go on (but thats just a default setting)

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Can't because I'm at work at the mo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Doesn't Abysia give a reason for their loss in magic though, since the interbreeding has diluted the purity of the daemonic population? (again, humans outcompeting...). At least that's how I've always read it.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Yeah, but the magic of the Smouldergone is also apparently fading. The magical Vanirs are getting rarer and T'ien C'hi got invaded by spirit-worshipping barbarians and propably had large amount of their magic might killed in process. Etc.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

I would make that bet too... but you might have to consider Lovecraft to be a science fiction writer instead of someone using mythology conventions. In that case, Mankind always loses. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

I would guess the "Golden Age -> Iron Age" trend is more interesting because we would like to think of fantastic things as something that might have actually happened ages ago. Consider the Conan mythology, where he used a Europe that might have existed thousands of years ago. It's more fun to think about Conan and crew running around our real, though distant world rather than some goofy place like Faerun or Krynn.

Speaking of which... who wants to play on a Hyborean Age map? Maybe I'll mod the Enigma of Steel heroes. Conan probably wouldn't play well with your pretender though:

Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, and why we died. All that matters is that today, two stood against many. Valor pleases you, so grant me this one request. Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, the HELL with you! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Makes sense but I would have thought that a wider veriaty of fantastic beasts running around a mythical world would easily be more fun than having to give them up just to use earth.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Humans are the cockroaches of fantasy worlds.
Constantly breeding and ever adaptive, they use sheer tenacity and stupidity to overwhelm the opposition.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

Sure as heck we do! In fact, in most fantasy settings i have to constantly wonder why humans *don't* dominate everyone else, (say, in the ever-popular Forgotten Realms) Dominions is actually a nice exception to the rule. Ok, the complete undead are out since they kind of obviously win in any fantasy setting but other than that, there are still races that should outcompete humans in the dominions world. C'tis is a likely candidate, due to sheer population volume. (Laying eggs really is more efficient to produce cannon fod.., uh, offspring) But R'lyeh also look good.
Standars elves as seen in a hundred fantasy settings? Pshaw, living a few hundred years while still maintainting a constant population size means a birthrate far too low to compensate even for a single major war.

Re: The Future of the World?
 

I can't speak for fantasy books but the game Rudra no Hihou is basically completely about the end of the "time of man" in a fantasy setting.

Anyway I'm apt to think that, in Dominions, magic is fading from the world and in the far far far off future all these "gods" and "mages" are merely legends and the world is basically like our own, with no trace of all the magic in the past. Kind of the idea that Dominions is the history of our own world, as magic was fading from it.