Forge
 

I was just thinking (which usually is what gets me in trouble), and had a thought that, while appealing to micromanagers, but not to the point where it clutters the game up by any means, one might possibly add one other type of building, the Forge. Thematically, a Forge is very different from a Temple or a Lab, and mythologically it's a vital, central element. I'm thinking that this would allow leftover resources to be converted to gold, or gold to resources in the province that it's built (this would definitely help some nations like EA Atlantis). It would also allow greater diversity as to soldiers' equipment. For instance, with Niefelheim, a Niefel giant comes equipped with an axe, a shield, and leather armor. With a Forge, a Niefel soldier could be created who was armed with a flail or a spear or a greatsword, and scale or plate armor. Naturally, these unit improvements would cost double the normal resource price for identical equipment for an "off-the-shelf" soldier, because that nation makes that specific equipment for that unit better than it does specialty equipment. Also, some nations would have greater variety and different (better or worse) equipment selection for it's troops. Ulm would have the best equipment, but a nation with lots of diversity and trade partners, like Ermor, would have the widest range. I don't think it would be too hard to program into the game, and it would make for a lot of strategic and modding possibilities. Provinces without Forges wouldn't be able to create or transfer magic items, while ritual spells would continue to require labs. Alternate to creating a whole other system for soldiers' equipment would be that some units require a Forge to be produced, such as Living Pillars with their basalt armor or a Niefel giant armed with a flail. These units could still be Capital-based, while allowing tougher units to be built away from your Capital (decentralization is a fine strategy, ask the Turks who conquered Constantinople, or the Mongols for that matter). The Forge could also give provinces a bonus to gold and resources, representing trade and improved infrastructure, without having to put up a castle in the area. Ofcourse, having a castle would still be great for a province, and Forges would be more expensive than temples or labs, at 600 gold a piece (300 for Ulm).

Re: Forge
 

There are several forge *sites*.

I don't think it is possible to build any national units in provinces without fortresses. AFAIK, this is pretty fundamental to how the game handles unit production. Likewise, it would require a major rewrite

Other than that, what you're suggesting is obviously out of the scope of current modability - but I don't think it would be a problem in principle. You'd need to introduce some new commands -

-- Building modding
#selectbuilding <nbr>

This enables you to select buildings other than 1 (the temple) and 2 (the lab).

#defaultcost <cost>
#defaultpic <file>
#end
Would be all you'd need to set requirements for your new building. Other than that, you need site commands to give the building stuff it can do - like add recruitable units and so forth. Set the cost to a negative number to make the building disabled by default.

-- In nation modding, add:
#buildingcost <nbr> <cost>

To change the cost of a given building for a given nation. If 0 is temple and 1 is lab, that'd enable us to mod those easily.

-- And in unit modding, add:
#customreq <nbr>

Where <nbr> is the building number.

I'm sure you can see how you'd use this to add Forges, and units that require forges (which would then have an increased resource cost.) They'd require a Fortification, as well, unless everyone who build a Forge got them.

Re: Forge
 

It's a great idea, but the way you portray it would require the developers to do it, and I believe it would be a major effort.

Another way to do it would be a mod with a special Place called The Forge that allowed 4 new units: x, y, z, and p. You could have several special places:

Iron Forge: several types of light infantry (not rare)
Steel Forge: sevearl types of heavy infantry (rare)
Adamantium Forge: several types of super heavy infantry with low encumbrance/fatigue(super rare)

The Corral: sev tps of lt cavalry
War Corral: sev tps of hvy cavalry
Circus Corral: sev tps of super cavalry like elephants, rhinos, and giant mutant humans a la freak lord

Archery Range: sev tps of archers
Mech Range: sev tps of xbow archers (pistol, auto, hvy, small arbalests)
Siege Works: catapult units, arbalest units, etc.

Likey?

Re: Forge
 

Forge, as in a place to build equipment, a place for gathering resources, the places where living is easy and where work is available, a place where tools are sold, and food as well, and where markets are established... Place where your people will gather, where they can live, where they can be levied and given proper equipment and put to fight. They're called forts in Dominions.

Now, if you want a forge for improving excisting units... there really isn't a way to do that. The closest thing is the broken armor tag, which is repaired when there are unused resources in a province the units with broken armor are in. Other than that and magic items, restricted to commanders, different equipment would mean different unitand that'd mean making a better-armored version of almost everything.

Re: Forge
 

I have no problem with forge + fort being required, I probably was confusing in the way I wrote it though, but that's what I meant. Uh-nu-buh, I like your idea, providing it can be nation-specific. It's not a perfect solution, but it would help. Endoperez-Fort as in 4 walls and a roof. There's no reason that a forge couldn't be in addition to a fortress rather than assumed a part of it, or a part of a magical lab. Forges had a lot more intrinsic meaning to them-socially, spiritually, and economically-than we tend to give them credit for, especially the further back in time you go. A forge would be the beginning and perhaps the heart of a major marketplace, but it wouldn't encompass a bazaar. It also may attract a population, but it wouldn't be the only feature of a community. Resources would be gathered from farms, mines, quarries, and lumberyards. Forges would only maybe turn ore into iron or work basalt into armor, not collect it. Same thing with wood, leather (tannery, pasture), etc. People may move to a location with a forge, but they certainly wouldn't live in a forge, maybe just the smith on cold winter nights. They'd be a lot more likely to live in a temple. A lot of what you mentioned above could go hand-in-hand with a temple, which were natural centers of communities, as were forges.

I'm also thinking that a Forge would be required to build any kind of field-artillery or field-fortification pieces (which the game could use, and sadly lacks for every nation, even Ermor), and Province Defence may be of a better quality in provinces with a Forge.

Re: Forge
 

"Imagine trying to live without an available smithy before 1860, or even later in some comunities not readily reached by rail or ship. It simply could notbe done without revenrting to the Stone Age. Certainly, many of our pioneers learned to substitute wood for iron in many instances, but even this would have been virtually impossible without the irreducible minimum of iron and steel tools such as axes and knives and hammers.
The traditional blacksmith's most important function, until mass production replaced him as a tradesman, was supplying the tools of civilization and war. In a large city or a small backwoods settlement he would make, according to his own design or that of his patrons, the hammers, axes, adzes, plane bits, knives, sickles, scythes, auger bits, files, chisels, carving tools, spears, swords, arrowheads, and all other necessities of the various farmers and craftsmen found in a community. All crafstmen were basically dependent on the blacksmith's skill and availability."
The Art of Blacksmithing, by Alex W. Bealer, revised edition

Forges were everywhere. Smelters for making metal weren't quite as common, as most iron and steel could be reworked many times. The aforementioned book describes piles of scrap-metal as a necessary and unavoidable part of any smith's backyard. It also describes simple smelters which could be used virtually everywhere. Making iron didn't become organized industry until the 13th century (when the Catalan furnace was developed), and while this would fit the MA/LA timeframe of Dominions, it wouldn't have the mythical qualities you would give it; that would be simply a way to increase resources, already available to some nations (Ulm) as a resource bonus in forts.


EDIT: it's surprising how little 'lrage' has to do with 'large'.

Re: Forge
 

Ofcourse there's going to be SOME forging going on, unless you're talking about Mictlan or Agartha or probably Arco or Sauromatia or C'tis or...well most of EA seem to be using-or could be assumed to be using-copper or bronze. One can assume that Ulm discovered steel-or iron that they're calling steel, or possibly perfected it to the point where it was superior to bronze, but even Jotuns may be using mostly stone and bronze weapons. Iron should be very scarce in EA. Even in the middle age, before the invention of the Catalan furnace, master smiths are going to be rare. Sure the local yokel can shoe a horse, but create a Flambeau? or a Gate Cleaver? or an Elf Bane? Even so, only 1 in 100 or 200 or more people are going to have the basic blacksmithing skills. Bronze and copper are more expensive in the long run, but they're going to be common. And iron did have mythical qualities, so did good weapons and armor, often enough. We're also not talking 13th century until perhaps late age, and I'm not convinced late age would run that late, since that's about when gunpowder started showing up in Europe. Until that furnace was invented however, you and that book are correct about the piles of scrap iron, but what you're not realizing is that scrap iron isn't by itself a resource in terms of Dom3 because that's metal that has been produced and is now being recycled. It's already accounted for and can be explained away as the source of Ulm's (and others) bonus resources.

I really suspect, if you give equal amounts of thought to old established concepts and new concepts, that a magic item capable Forge (capable of atleast producing obsidian glaives and basalt armour, and of producing under mage guidance even artifacts) supplied with rare materials and gems, and a master smith (in addition to atleast a dozen other highly skilled artizans, apprentices/journeymen, and pure artists) not only experienced in smithing and other arts to a high degree, but in low-level enchanting and field-combat engineering, equipped with several magically altered forges, anvils, and smelters, themselves made of magical or enchanted materals and/or designed by magical beings (or possibly even embodying magical beings themselves-imagine forging a dwarven hammer on the back of a bound earth elemental, or a hellsword on a black steel anval that imprisons the soul of a devil)-large specialized equipment in large specialized rooms for creating golems, iron dragons, juggernauts, field artillery and war machines-is no less reasonable as a separate entity than a temple overseen by educated, intelligent priests, incenses, icons, wines, catacombs, crematories, and/or cemetaries for the processing of the dead, secret, sacred chambers where the religion's mysteries occur, and where the Pretender may be summoned back on earth, and possibly small manufactories for the production of goods and books, and the temple's local lands and properties-which may be extensive, or a magical laboratory-probably in some kind of wizard's tower, or atleast heavily guarded against thieves, overseen by apprentices and master alchemists, filled with the rarest of materials and chemical items, as well as atleast a dozen expensive, fragile apparati, expensive devices made from gold, silver, and gems, a secure place to house living blood slaves in relative comfort, separate from one another, until sacrifice, autopsy rooms, torture rooms, and charnals for housing corpses, and permanent consecrated-or desecrated-areas for the summoning of angelic or demonic beings-not to mention elementals and undead spirits-areas which would have to be secure against both extremely powerful and dangerous beings such as demon lords, and tampering-intentional or unintentional.

I'm not suggesting throwing up a dozen buildings, it's just to me reasonable that wildly different things-like producing fine axes and spells which cause forests to turn mean, be a little more separated and a little more complicated, because it would add to the game, not because I want the game bogged down

Re: Forge
 

I disagree with this idea for two reasons. First, there is no need to separate the school of construction from other magic by making construction require another building. If there are siege engines, there is no need to make them require anything but a fort.
Secondly, I don't agree with your view of the buildings of Dominions. Let's talk about Temples first. For Pangaea, a forest glade is enough for a temple. Late Age Marignon might have temples such as what you described, or perhaps MA Ermor. I doubt most nations even have cemeteries in or near their temples, because temples don't make dead bodies disappear any faster except for LA Ermor, in which case those dead bodies come alive faster.

Similarly, some nations might have need for such a complex laboratory - but a Mictlan laboratory would be very different. Machakan laboratory wouldn't be anything even close to that. Ulmish lab would be like the Forge you described.

You list things that could happen in a laboratory, and expect that any one of those things could happen in every laboratory at any one time. In reality, however, most nations won't have good dungeons for blood slaves, master alchemists will be almost unheard of (300 gp!), torture or autopsy or charnal rooms would only be used by some nations and mages...

Laboratory costs almost half of the cost of many forts (1000 gold seems to be the most common fort price). We don't know what goes in there, but in my opinion, it could be a Covenant.

From Ars Magica 4th edition rulebook (the system that impressed Dominions magic system, concept of gems, mages, perhaps even the way path and school are separated):

A covenant, most basically, is a place where a group of magi live together. It might be in a manor, a castle, a ship, or a hole in the ground. Covenants provide for the needs of magi in several ways. First of all, they provide security. Mythic Europe is a dangerous place for all, and magi in particular need safety to perform their arcane studies.
Covenants also provide for the mundane needs of magi: food, clothing, work space, and the like. Most magi would prefer not to have to devote their time to such concerns. Finally, covenants provide magi with a community of peers. When in a covenant, a magus is surrounded by others who think about things in the same way that he does.
Covenants are also the most meaningful way the members of different houses work together and learn from one another. Although some covenants are composed only of members from one house, at least two thirds are composed of magi of different traditions. In fact, loyalty to one's
covenant is often the strongest loyalty a magus feels, even
more than loyalty to his house.

Different Houses could be interpreted as more than just national mages: Witches, Amazons, Sorceresses, or at least Druids or Shamans of the various tribes. Covenants of Ars Magica include the mages themselves, their Companions (bards, Captains of the Guard, rogues and scoundrels that the mages have befriended, Arthur Pendragons and other characters who are important, but not to the same extent as someone who could fully tap to the primal forces of magic) and a horde of Grogs (servants, smiths, hunters, masons, woodcutters, bookbinders, leatherworkers and everyone else needed to keep a community alive) who don't need a distinct personality (but could be given one).

A covenant in Ars Magica is designed to have everything the mage needs, except for the spesific spell that must be researched or the Vis (gems) that must be collected or traded for from outside the Covenant. Sagas (adventures and campaigns) could center around supplying the covenant with what it needs and perhaps protecting it from mobs or infernal forces. In my opinion, a Laboratory in Dominion can hold everything a mage will ever need, from servants to forges to complex devices to a storage room full of glass vials.

Re: Forge
 

To comment some more on the
bit in the opening post:

No, it wouldn't be too difficult, it'd only require a major engine rewrite because of the way the units are programmed into the game and how they're modded. It would require in-game, on the fly modding and every separate different combination of things (unit+armor+weapons). Every such combination would have to be modded in as a new unit, on the fly, and made available as a recruitable unit, so not only would you be modding the units themselves, you'd also be modding the nations on the fly. When you toss in the roughly 1800 different units, ~1000 weapons and ~200 armors and start running combinations where each unit can have up to 4 (or is it 6 now in Dom3?) weapons and 3 armors, I'd really like to see just how much unit namespace you'd require for even a 4-player game, never mind all the other crap this would entail.

With the way the unit coding is done currently (I've seen a couple of samples), this just WILL NOT work.

Then there is what Endo said about the forge. It's incorporated into the fort and the lab as they are right now. If you happen to find Ancient Forge, The Steel Ovens or Banefire Forge, the sites that give forge bonuses, THAT is the specialized "devil bound in an anvil etc" kind of forge of truly epic descriptions that has the kind of facilities not normally available. Otherwise the lab or lab/fort combo is sufficient.

The whole idea is stillborn and would also lead to a complete micromanagement hell even if it was doable. There are other games out there that have this sort of thing, such as afaik Space Empires V.

Edi

Re: Forge
 

Endoperez, Edi, you're both blowing this thing way out of proportion. Yes, each nation might have different ways of going about magical labs, temples, etc. but-except for two nations, Pangaea and Man (and yes, your vision of a temple for Pangaea makes sense at 200 gold, but 200 gold temples to Man patently flies in the face of your very same vision)-they're all the same price, and they all do generic things. You don't have the Mictlan temple, you don't have the Agarthan lab, you have temple, lab. You use the presence of those two buildings to your advantage depending on your particular strategy-which includes which nation you decide on. They may represent different things to different people-which is what I was trying to illustrate above-but they're otherwise almost totally generic, and each one has to be capable of the same thing, plus national things, depending on the choices the player makes. Not that my argument about the nature of labs and temples has any real relevance, since they're already in the game. I just wrote an example for purposes of comparison-as perfectly valid a comparison as yours, Endoperez.
Edi, comparing adding one building which can be purchased by every nation in every era, to the gameplay of Space Empires 5 is patently ridiculous. You even state that you don't know about SE5 in your argument, and "afaik" you've never played it, so why are you even making it a part of your argument??? It's the moon being made of green cheese and the world being flat all over again. You've never been to the Moon and you've never seen the Earth from space, so you're going to argue about it with an astronaut? I haven't played SE5, but I've played a LOT of SE4 (infact I've exchanged emails with Aaron Hall on one occasion, he's a very nice man-SE3 is why I know about Shrapnel Games in the first place), and SE4 had dozens of buildings, hundreds if you count mods. SE5 certainly has that many and probably more, it's something I've researched extensively in preparation to buy it, and it IS micromanagement-hell, in a good way, mind you. (If you want to argue that, because I haven't played SE5 either, I don't know what I'm talking about, well you can, but you'll be undermining the base of your own argument, and as far as you know, maybe someday the Earth WILL be flat and the Moon WILL transform into green cheese.)
What I'm talking about is 1, as in a total of 3, specialized buildings, in addition to fortresses (which ARE distinct from one another). It wouldn't require any more programming than adding temples to the game right now would, because forges wouldn't be doing anything OTHER than what temples do, or labs, already. Ok, that might be a significant amount, considering all the units, but NOT every unit would be affected.

As far as construction being a little different from the other magic schools-it already is because of the ability to manufacture magical items in place of spells. Construction in the game represents technology combined with magic or fantasy elements, and if you haven't noticed, even without the presence of "working, everyday magic"(I refuse to believe that there's no magic whatsoever in this world, I think just maybe the server goes down a lot). I'm for making Construction more a part of a nation's life, more powerful and diverse, and the overall "intelligence" of our little computer people, more intelligent. If there's a discovery that would be blatantly obvious to a society capable of creating flying metal suits or iron dragons or even chainmail, crossbows, folded steel-or bronze for that matter, then they should be able to utilize it. I'm not talking big things like gunpowder or steam, I'm talking ancient-age, at best Greko-Roman, technology and it's equivalent, up through perhaps a handful of 13th through 16th century inventions. These are already present in the game, in the Arbelast(spring steel crossbow design, as compared to the Roman Arcuballista), which as far as I know was invented around the 14th century A.D. during the Cruisades. Certainly, the stirrup wasn't invented until a couple of centuries A.D. and they have to be present in early age or lances (perhaps not light lances, but definitely lances) would not function the way they do. I'd like to give nations the ability to create field artillery (not castle-smashing catapults/trebuche/mangonels, I'm talking scorpions, ballistas, Greek-fire throwers, and the like) and field fortifications-again not improving castle defenses, I'm talking ditches, rows of stakes, pitfalls, small-scale motte-and-bailey, etc. Eventually, I'd really like to see the ability to build bridges-and for those bridges to become another strategic element-into the game, but I think that will have to wait for a long time. All of those ideas, plus "magic tech" would be connected somehow to Forge, just like holding a dwarven hammer is somehow related to making a blood-soaked parchment more efficiently, as someone stated earlier (I expect the dwarven hammer allows for a cleaner kill, ala 19th century slaughterhouses).

By the way, not to complain too loudly-and I have NO complaints against Kristoffer or Johan or Illwinter itself, mind you-but I swear that, for all the often-vaunted "community of acceptance where you can have a voice and where your ideas can make a difference", I'm really finding that there's a great deal of stubbornness and opposition to any "new idea" that doesn't have to do with a gripe that goes back to Dom2 or even Dom1. I'm not some crazy person who's espousing adding 25 new buildings that each represent 1 unit for 1 nation, I'm trying to open up possibilities, make the game bigger and more fun. I think I'm being pretty reasonable here. I'm also NOT saying that this has to be done RIGHT NOW. I am fully cognizant of the size of Illwinter's development team, and atleast somewhat aware of the pressure they're under. And please NOTICE I'm also not saying that I'm RIGHT. I'm just making a suggestion that makes sense to me, as far as furthering the enjoyment, usefulness, and sense of the game-as in the way the game works making sense to me-and for all my troubles (creation is hard, and more hard the more complex the creation is-ask Kristoffer) I get something like a 500 word lecture on why I "might possibly be wrong because Ars Magica has something to say about how mages conduct their lifestyles" and other arguments which are plain contradictory, or at best personal interpretations which don't have a lot to do with the reality of the game. To me, what you have to say is more knee-jerk reaction and less intuitive, wise critique. I appreciate your trouble, Endoperez, it was an enjoyable read and you're an intelligent person, but I'm just as familiar with Ars Magica as you are, and I have always based my personal impression/interpretation of magic on-and compared Dom3 magic with-Ars Magica. There's no discrepancy between us. It's a good system. I just ask that you think about your arguments a little bit more as they pertain to Dom3, if you're going to argue against me.

Edi, what you fail to realize is that I'm your friend when it comes to being a watchdog against micro-management, NOT your enemy. I've certainly played as many or more strategy games per year that I've been alive, as you have, and a great many of those years I've spent designing games and systems and helping others design games and systems. I work with computers and complex systems for a living, infact. I have enough experience to be able to give a fair guestimate of the dangers and the rewards of adding or subtracting a given game-element.

And Edi, I'm intelligent enough and emotionally stable enough to understand and consider another's argument, without that argument being served with a gravy of sarcasm. If you have an opinion, please share it straight up. I'll give it more weight, I promise. I do agree with some parts of your rant that aren't hostile though, to a greater or lesser degree, but I also think that you could have made the same point without being extremely negative and off-putting.

If people have new ideas that might benefit the game (or even might not), I personally feel that those people should be encouraged and guided, not made to feel that everything is impossible (and not just impossible, the word used was "stillborn" which I consider not only negative but a tad repulsive when used to describe an idea I've invested a lot of time and effort into, for the hopeful benefit of everyone.). This is especially true in a very small community such as ours. We barely have a large enough population to sustain the production of fresh new ideas and new ways of looking at things, and discouraging the growth of that resource is just plain counter-productive.

Re: Forge
 

I like the idea of those types of site Uhnubuh

Re: Forge
 

Because you say so?

Yes, they do. What's wrong with that? They serve similar functions even if the actual details of worship, labwork etc were different (if we're talking suspension of disbelief here). You need some kind of abstraction and simplification so that you can get on with the actual game.

The thing about Man having cheaper temples at least in the early era sin't too far-fetched since we're basically talking about a circle of stones that doesn't even need to be a full-fledged Stonehenge. That's a lot cheaper relatively to build than e.g. a Mictlan type temple pyramid. But that is not much more than a tangent here.

Precisely.

That's already in there because the different nations have different national spells, different mages, hence different forging options etc, so why need more things?

Your comparisons are valid as such if one ignores the end-goal we're talking about here. The game is supposed to be smoothly playable, and unnecessary micromanagement tends to screw that up. That's why Endo is shooting down your suggestion, as am I.

Care to elaborate how, because what you proposed adding was something that would be building units up from scratch, which needs that kind of infrastructure from the game engine. SE5 has ship design from scratch, how is your proposal of kitting out units as one sees fit different?

Answer the point instead of blustering and waving your hands. I have very little patience for this kind of evasion, but very well, I'll humor you this time. I'll use an example of games I HAVE played, Master of Orion 1 & 2, which are in many ways similar to Dominions and from what I have heard, to the Space Empires series.

You have essentially provinces (the star systems) with resources and other things that allow you to build ships (units). The difference is that in MoO 1&2 you can design your ships from scratch and build them as you like, which REQUIRES the game engine to incorporate dynamic unit design as an integral part. Dominions does NOT have dynamic unit design as part of the game engine, but your proposed new forge building REQUIRES that to be added to it to work as you envision.

So, in that respect, HOW THE HELL IS THAT DIFFERENT FROM THE GAMEPLAY OF MOO 1&2 OR THE SPACE EMPIRES SERIES WHERE DYNAMIC UNIT DESIGN IS INTEGRAL TO THE GAME?!

False analogy. You're putting yourself in the position of the astronaut and assuming me to be completely ignorant, when both counts are wrong. I've never been to the moon, but I've seen rather vivid footage of it, as well as footage of what earth looks like from space. I may not be as qualified to talk about it as someone who has been there and done that, but that does not mean I am completely ignorant. Next argument, please, or are we going to get more handwaving?

Thank you for point blank verifying precisely what I was talking about. You may not have proposed hundreds of new buildings, but you did propose one building that results in hundreds or thousands of new UNITS, so there is no material difference with this game engine. And you have the gall to accuse me of not knowing what I was talking about when it is very clear that I know enough to make a sound argument.

In a good way if you like that sort of thing. If I were to get SE5, I'd expect it, just as I expected it of MoO2 after playing MoO. Dominions is a different sort of a beast in this regard, so why would we want to change it that radically?

And maybe you will one day stop handwaving and harping on this same fallacious angle.

Fine, let's cut the numbers in half so you only have ~1000 units, each with up to 4 weapons (out of ~400 possible) and 3 armors (out of ~100 possible). Run the numbers. Then tell me what the difference is from game engine alteration point of view?

Most of that stuff is already assumed to be in the game as abstractions. It'd be great to have as long as it didn't result in excess micromanagement, but right now that's a pie in the sky wish. There's other games that incorporate all of that and more. Never mind that they actually had working steam engines as curiosities in the Greco-Roman period, though those were lost and never got off the ground, as well as e.g. almost 20th century level medical technology wrt surgery.

In other words, let's rewrite the whole game - or not. Suspension of disbelief is a good thing, and in this case you might be able to envision the dwarven hammer as representative of some more efficient technique instead of the mage actually using a hammer on parchment. It solves a lot of problems much more easily than adding tons of extraneous stuff.

You will please point out where I've been invoking Dom1 and Dom2 except in comparisons to Dom3? There might be such stubbornness on some counts, but mostly it's when people start advocating radical changes that require rewriting the game to do and won't take no for an answer.

Then this is perhaps a topic that should be discussed in context with possible sequels to Dom3?

Given the way you tossed off the OP suggestion, it betrayed a rather large lack of understanding of the game engine of Dom3, which is the crux here. It's currently the limiting factor here. In another context, I'd have fewer things to say in opposition.

I'll admit that my opening was more than a bit sarcastic, but I tend to get that way when it seems to me that the most obvious relevant things have been missed.

I've never been known to sugarcoat my opinion. I'm sorry if you took that too personally, but the derision was toward the argument being put forth, not toward the person who made it.

I'm all for new ideas as long as they are well thought out. If we're talking about things to add to Dom3, we have to take into account the current limitations. If we're talking about things to consider for a sequel, that's a different story entirely. CONTEXT. In the first option, we're wasting time talking about virtual impossibilities. In the second, we're doodling on a relatively blank slate so they are worthwhile. You just put it in the first context in the OP.

Edi

Re: Forge
 

Both our examples are perfectly valid. I have given an in-game, "thematic" reason not to implement a Forge, you have given an in-game, "thematic" reason to implement it. We could argue about which is better, but because our opinions won't really affect whether or not a Forge will be implemented, it'd be rather dumb.

Also, I'd like to point out that as far as "other arguments which are plain contradictory, or at best personal interpretations which don't have a lot to do with the reality of the game" go, you're not any worse than I. As you said, these other arguments are fun to read. I found your post interesting, even if it was a bit hard to read and overly long.

I hope you don't mind the way I edited your post in my quote. I made it shorter, more compact, removed things that aren't needed to understand my reply.

You want a Forge building so that Construction wouldn't increase just the magical equipment available to a nation, but also the level of technology. If a Warrior Smith can forge full Black Plate armors and Piercers, if Helheim Valkyries and commanders start with magical Light-Weight Chainmails, why can't everyone use them? If any F1 mage can create a Just Man's Cross, why isn't Abysia using crossbows in EA?
I agree that it doesn't make sense. However, I wouldn't fix it this way. Developing plate armor and crossbows takes more than two or three years. Jotuns never learn to use slings, one of the simplest tools in excistence, for example. Man starts using lots of Crossbows between middle and late ages. It shouldn't be possible to research Construction 2 (Just Man's Cross) and start giving your Tower Guards crossbows.

The real problem is that magical items are the same across different ages. In Early Age, plate armors are trinkets. In Late Age, Fire Bolas and Rat Tails and Whips of Leadership are still Greater items. Early Age should have Basalt Spears and Basalt Armor as trinkets instead of Swords or Spears of Sharpness and armors of Black Steel. In LA, the armors giving resistances could be better - perhaps Full Chain instead of just Plate. Just the ability to add new pictures and edit descriptions would do a lot. After that, it'd be easy to select the item called Piercer, change it's name to Basalt Spear, change the picture, then select the weapon called Piercer and change it's stats.

I'd rather have magic item modding than a Forge.

Re: Forge
 

Thanks.

I like HB's basic idea, but as I stated (and as others have more vociferously stated) I think it would take the developers to do it--and it would be a pretty big task. One might even say an Elemental Task That Would Rock The Very Foundations Of This World!!!111 (queue eerie music).

However, adding a few special sites and the units they can allow should be pretty simple. I've been working on a dragon mod (from a previous thread) and I might as well incorporate these "Forge" ideas into the mod. 3 or more special forge sites that vary in their rarity and their products.

These will be simple mods, nothing elaborate. I will leave elaborate for those more able or more motivated.

Re: Forge
 

Edi, I'm not taking your reactions personally, I'm just trying to point out that they may have a detrimental effect on the confidence of people in general with new ideas-especially people new to this forum, as in people who have just bought Dom3 in the last 3 months, aka new customers (something we should be taking into consideration for the future of Dominions, even if Kristoffer and Johan aren't in it so much for the money)-without actually contributing anything really all that constructive.
You are blowing this thing out of proportion, a great deal more than Endoperez or even myself, because you've obviously invested quite a bit of time and emotion into expressing why what I consider a fairly simple, modifiable idea (as in I don't care if it's a "great" idea or if someone wants to use it to base another idea on it, as per Uh-Nu-Buh's mod) would basically "rewrite the whole game". Tell me that's not blowing things out of proportion.
Why need more things? well, why do we need the around 2000 units that we have? why do we need Dom3 to be as complex a game as it is? why does anyone bother making mods? because greater complexity serves the appeal of the game, by defining individual choices and strategies. Might as well ask "why do we need television when we've already got radio?" answer: because of the possibilities.
As far as "kitting out units" there's no reason it couldn't be done exactly the same as temple units currently are, just by adding more units (units that happen to look like and act like for instance a Niefel giant armed with a mace instead of an axe), and that doesn't mean adding them a thousand at a time. This once again can be done slowly and carefully, and you can eliminate each and every independent and summoned creature, leaving you with maybe 150-200 total eventual new units. No "dynamic unit design" necessary. You simply allow or disallow the new unit depending on whether or not a Forge is present in the process, exactly the same as is done with Temple or Lab units. You wouldn't be building a unit up from the ground by putting the head of a jotun on the body of a hoburg, for example, just possibly having more options of units to purchase, depending on what your nation can specialty manufacture.

By the way, I "handwaved" you because I felt that brushing you off with simplistic answers was more courteous than simply ignoring your post, which was another valid option, but now that you're being a little more polite, I'm taking the trouble to answer your questions a bit more seriously-good manners are appreciated.

Suspension of disbelief is fine, but notice that we don't suspend our disbelief to the point where there aren't any oceans in Dom3 for example. The more realistic (I'm not saying real, I'm saying realistic) a game can be made-often enough, atleast if it's done well-the better a game will be, because our suspension of disbelief comes easier and is more complete, adding to our game-immersion. Having an additional structure which adds a technological dimension to the game apart from magic and faith, could make the game stronger and more complete, and appeal more to games who both want a more in-depth strategic game and more choices.
I don't know why you see this as such a radical change. None of the basic idea I'm proposing hasn't been done already in the game. Uh-Nu-Buh's already partially implementing it in a mod. I'd be happy if it did show up in Dom4, but it's not remaking the whole game.

I'm willing to take some blame for confusion or hostility because of my enthusiasm for my own ideas, which may cause me to ignore some pertinent information at times, and also because of the lengths of my writings and any difficulty others have understanding me through the dubious medium writing (but what else do we have?), but I refuse to take complete blame. This is a good game, but it needs to continue to grow in SOME direction or like anything else it will eventually die of old age and obsolescence.

Re: Forge
 

Endoperez, I very much agree that I'd like to see different magic items at different ages (For that matter, I'd like to see 2-4 more ages). Forge wouldn't represent massive technical achievements, it would simply represent different styles of armor or weapons differentiating one unit from another. More resources could be put into creating more elite units who can afford the best armor and fine weapons, and more gold could be put into equipping elite soldiers. Having a Forge for some nations like Ermor for instance might mean more, but not absolutely. for every nation. Jotuns with a Forge might invent the sling but jotuns without one may be stuck with spears, javelins, and boulders. It wouldn't mean Jotuns would invent gunpowder-although maybe late era Tien'Chi does in the form of crude fireworks with limited battlefield value. My concept of the Forge is as a stepping stone to differentiate a province with a much higher technological infrastructure than others, a situation which historically often enough did occur, and which wouldn't be out of place. If you wanted the best steel, you went to Toledo or Damaskus. Venice had glassblowers and the Dutch had skilled craftspeople. Constantinople had silk and the weight of a thousand years of relative enlightenment. Other places were at best, well...midieval. You can compare this with places like Delphi and Jerusalem as far as temples go. As far as labs go, it's harder to draw a real-world comparison, but for ritual spells certainly Stonehenge comes to mind.
If you want to build the best armies then you need an infrastructure. A big part of the reason Rome was so successful is because it had Greece. Greek artizans, thinkers, and artists, and Greek soldiers who were both tough and smart. If Rome had been founded in England, we probably wouldn't be speaking English right now.

Re: Forge
 

That's an odd statement.

I've played the demo for about 3 hours & I've got a question about how the forge would help gameplay.

Doesn't the game already have this? In those three hours, I was able to conquer a total of four new regions (ok, not the best numbers there, but... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Two were forest regions right next to each other. One region was able to produce troops at 1/2 the cost of the other. Given that gold applies to the whole nation, doesn't the difference imply a better infrastructure in the 'cheaper' region?

Doesn't the game already have this? I was playing the available 'celtic' nation (EA obviously). It had soldiers, when you looked at their stats, who had helms and swords while others had maces and helms and shields and chainmail. The different soldiers had different equipment and different costs and looked different to boot.


But, those weren't my questions. My question is this.. Let's say at the beginning of the game, I can choose between a Troll race of 7att/ 7def folks and a Human race of 5att/ 5def folks. Why would I ever choose the Humans over the Trolls, if all the modifiers are the same? Could you really say that a human iron mace is worth +2, where a Troll iron mace is +1 on the same forge and construction level?

Which, that brings up the thought that you might consider resources, where you need iron or copper or horses before you can build specific troops/weapons/modifiers.

It seems to me that a moddable units with a forge adds needless complexity and removes some individuality from the game, because there might be a basic 'chassis' (or body type) that works better than another.

I might change my mind when I reach 10 hours of gametime, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Thanks,

Re: Forge
 

You make some good points, Levolun.

The reason I made that statement is because at the time of the Roman Empire, Greece was already a very technologically-advanced empire, so were Egypt and Carthage, for that matter, so Rome didn't happen in a test-tube. It had a lot of role-models and a broad base of military and technical know-how to draw from. England at the time was still barbarian backwoods, with only the remnants of the fringes of the Celts to look to for any real "civilization" in the, ironically, Roman/Western sense, and it took the advent of a conquering Rome to help the situation.

Forest regions do get better resources, because they have all that readily available wood. Wood's good by itself, but it's also good for smelting and forging metals because it can be made into charcoal. Owning a forest province doesn't make you Greece though, it just means you have a nice stand of timber you can lumber off. It shouldn't affect your gold-cost though.

Now we're getting into the heart of the matter. Ok, you compare humans to trolls. Your Celtic humans are a great example because some are equipped with chainmail while others are bare-chested. That's fine as per the purposes of the game, without Forging, but suppose you wanted to arm your Celts with some of the advanced weapons the Celts and Saxons and Gauls and Scottish and Irish and etc. actually invented? You could equip them with the Seax or the Falcata or the Irish longspear or the Scottish claymore or the dirk (perhaps a little anachronistically, but still...) or even a harpoon (to represent the Gae Bolga). The possibilities go on and on, but still you're talking one human with one weapon. You shouldn't have to invent a whole new nation just because you want the Irish to represent. But, advances like the Falcata SHOULD cost more to equip your units, and that cost is technology and resources. That's what the Forge represents, a determined effort to improve your nation via the application of technology and infrastructure. Now you might say "well one broadsword is as good as any other, why do we need seven different colors of the same thing when we already have a few types of generic sword in the game?" Well, because we already have the Falchion. And the falchion is a different breed of sword from a broadsword, so why limit ourselves and the game to one curious type of specialization?

Now, consider the Trolls. Trolls get a bad rep: they're stupid, ugly, and they eat gold like you and I would split a pizza. But they are crafty, and sneaky, and mercenary, and mean, and some of them more than others. Smart trolls (who grow up to be Troll Kings) are out there, and maybe some of them decide that they want to use technology too. Well, clever or not, they're lazier than humans, that's why they live under bridges instead of staying at the Ritz.
So when they invent, they think bigger, and spikier, and smashier versions of what us humans have already invented. Troll smiths come up with something like the Troll-sized 3 headed flanged iron mace. Great for smashing, carbon-graphite shaft, has a nice sweet spot. And because Troll-sized is Jotun-sized, they turn around and sell it to the Jotuns, and then the Jotuns start inventing, or more probably, they've been inventing all along, coming up with things like "axe" and "boot" and "war" while us humans were still dangling from the trees eating lice off of each other (until God told us not to, for those Christian creationists out there). Now Troll arms are far more expensive than human arms, because they're 5 sizes larger and because they can sell new designs to the Jotuns for a fortune (and Jotuns always want exclusive rights). They're also cruder, because as stated before, Trolls are lazy, and they're mostly just in it to make a buck. If you got a human or a jotun master smith to make you a triple-headed, flanged, iron mace, it's going to be a work of deadly loving beauty, and it's going to work great. If you get a troll to do it, it's going to be a hulking rusty monstrosity, and it just won't work as well. Att and Def will be reduced. Damage might even be a little tiny bit lower because all the flanges aren't individually aligned to maximal aerodynamic brains-on-the-slaughterhouse-floor angle. It'll still smash 'em up good though.

The Forge, however, doesn't take on balancing issues by itself. It's up to whoever uses the Forge application to resolve that, and hopefully that person will have some sense. Some nations just get more out of the Forge than others, and that's a good indicator of a population's overall intelligence, creativity, determination, and-most importantly of all-ability to steal ideas from their neighbors.

Re: Forge
 

I'm not quite sure if Marverni -> Marignon works, but Marignon (a nation of MA) has halberds, pikes and greatswords - those would be the Irish Longspears and Scottish Claymore.

Rome was in Italy precisely because the technology already existed.

Also, "a determined effort to improve a nation via the application of technology and infrastructure" doesn't mean magic. If Romans decided to invest on technology (as they did), they might have gotten swords of sligthly different design better suited for formations, or better armors, or better helmets, or perhaps may have come up with a more effective way of making armor. This took more than few years, though. Even a decade would really push it, and your Forge would produce wonders in very, very short time. Claymores weren't invented in 6 months, and a Forge shouldn't take longer to build than a castle...

Re: Forge
 

Yeah, I wish (and hope for the future) that there was a way, based on the time/aging system for new units to appear for nations at certain years. This would really help make the Forge useful, because you'd have to protect your Forge for say a year or 10 years or whatever until it started paying off in larger amounts. It still would be useful in the beginning of the game for added resources and a few different kinds of units, but it would grow better as time went by, providing the Forge had an "age".

Re: Forge
 

For that matter, the "aging" system could be applied to temples and labs. Older temples might spread Dominion faster and themselves produce the occasional advanced troop, while Labs might allow you to perform rituals for less over time, because you're assumed to have collected magical apparatus which can be reused or recycled. Better, older labs might also let you make or summon new types of undead, demons, etc. while at the same time increasing the chance for a magical catastrophy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif as the "land itself over time became warped by the vast concentration of magical power pouring out, until the very waters and forests and ground itself spewed forth abomination".

Re: Forge
 

Endoperez, magic is present and we have access to it. The Romans attempted quite extensively and earnestly to use magic, but it wasn't working for them nearly as well as, say, concrete. Dom3 however postulates a world in which the forces of the elements, the moon, nature, death, faith, and blood sacrifice are resources as easy to tap as, for instance, pulleys. They are in and of themselves a "sort" of technology that improves with research and application. I'm certain that if you dropped the Greko-Roman empire into a Dominions world, within 50 years they'd be coming up with all manner of new uses for magic, even if they had no power of magic within themselves to begin with. So there's no reason that technology and magic can't be interwoven, and no reason they can't develope along separate lines-magical "scientists" developing spells, performing rituals, coming up with new ideas, and magical "engineers" forging magic items, creating machines and technology, and utilizing ALL the forces and resources around them-not just the so called "magic" ones, but also the ones we use. They'd even be able to tap into things we can't, that you wouldn't necessarily call magic, like the Void. There's room for both, and there's room for faith, as well.

Re: Forge
 

Magic can be researched, and it does change the world. However, even if a mage can enchance the walls of a city, the masons of the city can't build a new castle whose walls are as good as the magically enchanced ones.

A historical empire dropped into Dominions world would come up with uses for magic, of course. All the nations in Dominions already have come up with all kinds of uses for magic. Many have uses for Faith too, for that matter (Arcos scrying dominion, MA C'tis Miasma dominion, etc, and then all the spells that work better in your own dominion). However, this has taken much longer than 50 years. Why do you think technology would be any easier to develop?

Magic and technology can and have been interwoven in Dominions. Ulm uses Black Steel armors! EA Arcoscephale has build flying contraptions! LA Man mages have siege bonus and can spy, doubtless with the help of simple Earth and Air magic! EA Vanheim and Helheim commanders use magical armors! EA Atlantis has Basalt Spears and Armors! And then there's Caelum who uses magical weapons and armor throughout all ages... But all of these combinations are heavily guarded secrets. The ways of mass-forging Black Steel were forgotten between middle and late ages. After Early age, the only flying armor is the super-heavy Stymphalian suit of bronze wings. LA Atlantis had to steal the secret of ice equipment from Caelum. The changes you suggest are too drastic for anything but time to solve.

Re: Forge
 

Technology is already there, it doesn't need to develope up from nothing. If the Romans landed in Dom3 World, they wouldn't find themselves surrounded by primitive cavemen unless they happened to have Cave Men neighbors http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif but that's not what we're talking about. I'm not saying that because a nation has a Forge they'll suddenly leap ahead in the technological arms-race, I'm saying the Forge will give them more avenues and more choices. They can devote more resources towards specialization, not technological wonder-making, just specialization, something most if not all successful nations have done, usually within single generations, and often within just a few years. Something that also often enough LEADS to innovation, but, it's much more matters of fashion, hunch, elitism, taste, community, family and fad, than it is a matter of genius.
Look at the American Revolutionary War for example (hint-there are better examples): Everyone more or less had access to pretty much the same technology, there weren't the huge innovations brought on by the conditions of the Civil War, but basically it was English against English, with some addition of mercenaries and foreign soldiers of fortune etc, but basically everybody spoke the same language and prayed to the same god. Yet you'll find there was an ENORMOUS variety to the troops both sides deployed. You had everything from Indian skirmishers to White Indian-fighters to German Hessian knights to Kentucky longriflemen, and plenty of variety within the rank-and-file of the English and American infantries/calvalries. It's logical and it happens that nations develope different units for different purposes, and it seems to be the nature of war that fighters come in endless variety. Look at modern weapons-at it's most basic, a gunpowder weapon is a bullet, a barrel, a trigger, and the internal and external mechanisms which work together to propel that bullet to, into, and possibly through a target. A gun is superior to any weapon which has come before it to the point where an army armed with pretty much any kind of decent modern gun will defeat any army armed with more primitive weapons, providing the more primitively armed army doesn't have huge advantages over the one with the guns, and yet look at the incredible variety of guns. Yes, we modern folk can produce our ideas more quickly than people could in the past, but the answer isn't technology by itself, it's the reality of war and the reality of human response to warfare and strategy. The Forge represents a nation's ability to put the kinds of strategy that we call "mixed arms" "diversity of arms" and "arms-logistics" into effect in the game. It also represents a nation's internal diversity and a truer model of what the "unit" and the "fighter" really were.