slowing research
 

Any new way to slow down research? I wanted to play in a super very hard research speed but could not find any reasonable way to mod it to the game...

If anyone found a way to slow down research i could install dominions again...

Thanks

Re: slowing research
 

Choose very difficult magic research when creating a new game.

Re: slowing research
 

I think he wants to have it even slower. Probably for extremely huge map.

Re: slowing research
 

I think the only easy way to do something like that is to make a pretender for each nation and choose magic -3 for all of them. Then start the game as all human and set research to very difficult. Also set magic site frequency to lowest possible value. Then at turn one default all the desired AI nations from human to computer control.

Should slow up research considerably.

Re: slowing research
 

you can also mod the scales effects to change the +/- research points for magic levels...

Re: slowing research
 

I would not like to use drain scales because i still want to use magic extensively, only the rate of research i would like to be reduced to slower than the Very Difficult setting...

Arcaeolept: whitou changing drain levels? how would i do that? can you give any examples?

Re: slowing research
 

ah, i don't know the modding commands, but d/l the conceptual balance mod and check the code for the scales mod... Quantum basically put the +/- research points back to what it used to be, so you could have it such that magic 3 gave you +0 RP, magic 0,1 -1, drain 1,2 -2, drain 3 -3 for instance

Re: slowing research
 

One option, althought a tedious one, would be to mod the nations you're intending to be using in the game. Just give all of the mages #researchbonus -3. And make Lightless Lanter, Owl Quill and Skull Mentor researchlevel 10. That should do it.

Re: slowing research
 

And then do the same with indies? Quite stupid solution.

Re: slowing research
 

Do it with all .. what .. 1234 mages in the game.
Including summons, indies and heros. Oh, wait - does the game engine take that many modding commands? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: slowing research
 

Possible, although it'd be a little funny if Oni researched as well as Loremasters. :p

Re: slowing research
 

Who said that that yuo'd have to mod ALL mages? If you intend to play a EA game with 8 nations for example, just preselect who those 8 nations will be and mod their mages + some common indies. (Tribe Shamans, Lizard Shamans, Druids). If he finds any independent mages from magic siten, he can just alter the .dm file to include those too and continue the game.

It's not the best solution, but the only one I can see at the moment.

Re: slowing research
 

If you do take the modding route you'll probably want to lower it by a % instead of a flat number, so that low-research nations aren't even worse off than usual (because taking away 3 RP from a starspawn stings, but 3 RP from a shaman and they're completely useless)

Re: slowing research
 

Is this for a SP game, a MP game? If it's SP you could just, you know, research less.

Re: slowing research
 

But isn't it possible to simply mod the requirements for each level? So level 2 would cost like 1000rp? I think that's what he wants.

Re: slowing research
 

No, can't mod that.

Re: slowing research
 

You could probably give a negative research ability to every single unit in the game, if you knew the range of unit ids; doing it by hand would be Tedious, but it should be straightforward to generate automatically. Well, assuming all possible unit ids are known in advance.

I don't think you could use percentages that way, though. Still, setting all mages to have only one research point, period, and then playing with the Magic research setting might do the trick for you.

Re: slowing research
 

Unit ID range is currently 1-1917.

So autogenerating

#selectmonster x
#researchbonus -3
#end

for the lot should reduce all units to 0 research unless they had more than one magic path. Then you need to edit the researchbonus individuals back to what they should be and you're done. Or take away 2 points or whatever.

Re: slowing research
 

Any easy way to mod that? That may do the trick...

Re: slowing research
 

Er, yes, as it happens. It turns out that #researchbonus -20 (say) will leave them all with research of 1. So you just need to apply that to all units.

Do you know how to autogenerate all those lines? Can you code in Perl or Python or anything? If not I can do it for you.

Re: slowing research
 

I've gone ahead and generated an example of this mod (gave me a nice excuse to play with Emacs macro system).

You may want to tweak the research malus, though: my value of -100 means 'nobody will ever have more than 1 research point in all reasonable circumstances', but you might want to go with -20 or so if you want powerful mages to get some research (with the relevant items).

Re: slowing research
 

Thanks Alneyan! I´ll use your mod whitout changes since a 1 reserch point per mage is what i want... tonight i´ll give it a try and tell you afterwards if it worked the way i want...

Thanks again!

BTW: would this mod work in Dominions 2 too? I only play Dom3 in my main machine because of turn processing times, but Dom2 is a little lighter and i sometimes play it in my notebook when i´m traveling... i would love to use your mod in Dom2 too..

Re: slowing research
 

The same idea should work for Dom 2. However, there are fewer unit IDs in Dom 2, so I don't think the mod would work out of the box. If someone knows the maximum unit ID in Dom 2 (I *think* it's around 1500, but I'm no Edi), we're out of the woods.

Re: slowing research
 

just tested the mod and it works well, both in dom3 and dom2 without needing any changes...
now I finally can play humongous maps without a too fast research rate...

thanks again!

Re: slowing research
 

I just play with money ,resources, magic sites, and supplies turned way down. Now you can't afford the upkeep for a lot of researchers and therefore the whole game slows down. smaller armies as well. easier to micromanage and pay attention to each individual troop. I find this more fun and RPGish. I hate making waves and waves of troops that I care less about and just send them into the grinder.

Re: slowing research
 

Lord_Drakken:

But once you get to summons they get really more powerful than tiny armies.

Re: slowing research
 

Not to put a fine point on it but if you read my post I also decrease magic sites propotionately with my other decreases. Not many gems to work with in my games. therefore fewer summons to fight.

You have to keep it proportionate to make all different strategies viable. also with the slowed research the summons dont become very powerful until very late in the game.