About caves and darkness
 

I was thinking the idea of caves with perma darkness was abandonned since a long time, but someone showed me that "caves are not dark as they should be" is still in the bug list.

Hum... If it's just considered a bug, to be honest I hope it won't be fixed soon. Seriously darkness is a level 6 spell, extremely powerful against some nations, extending the effect for free to all caves provinces IMO will have one only effect : make maps with caves unused for balance reasons (or force mapmakers using caves to make them border mountains to avoid the effect).

(so as the only maps I've made have lots of caves I feel concerned http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )

Anyway I also find unthematic that darkvisions nations don't have some reasonable advantage in caves. So I have a suggestion (no two in fact) :

-Create an half-darkness state (non magical = non ultra extreme darkness) for caves, with effects comparable to those of a swamp or quagmire spells (or even a little bigger, say -2 att and -4 prec, lowered by darkvision %).

-Or another one (if you find time to implement that) : give caves the default darkness effect, but add specific counter to non magical (caves) darkness (items or spells in the paths the most nations without darkvision have - air&fire I think-, allowing them to be competitive in caves in mid-game, not only one astral high level spell with a high gem cost).

A third option would be to add lots of counters to darkness in general but nations actually using the spell won't like that.

Re: About caves and darkness
 

Maybe half darkness, so attack and defense are reduced by 1/4, not 1/2, and precision reduced by 3/8.

Another way is to assume that everyone carries torches in caves. This would replace shield and give penalty to those who use two hand weapons. Precision is reduced as usual.

Re: About caves and darkness
 

Well it isn't like there are a lot of maps with cave provinces and those that do have them the designer might not have even been aware that caves don't cast darkness.

I really hope caves/cave forts/possibly deep seas too get autocast darkness in the future. To me it makes perfect sense and most of the nations with darkvision (Atlantis, Agartha, Abysia) are pretty underpowered anyway.

Re: About caves and darkness
 

I think some other nations would become underpowered on maps with caves if darkness is total/without more counters (human nations without death especially if their force is archers). And they are already weak on maps with many seas. IMO it may lead to caves map not considered good for MP, or nations like Man or Tien Chi not played on them.

For dark cave forts, I think it's a good national advantage for Agartha, and would find magical darkness normal for them even if an half-dark effect is added (but don't think other darkvision nations really need the same effect - are Atlantis and Abysia really underpowered ? always seen them having good results).

Re: About caves and darkness
 

Cave like they were meant to be shouldn't be too different from sea provinces, just dedicated to other races, and a bit harder to infiltrate.
EDIT: (Which is why I'll be happy if they will just work as intended.)
[Not that I've seen many/any cave provinces, afaik they are rarely used (maybe because they don't work properly?)]

Re: About caves and darkness
 

Sea nations can't build all their units out of seas and often may not even use all, so it can't be the same.

Agartha (with att < 10 units weaker than others out of darkness) may be designed to be the cave nation in maps with some dark caves but I see no other darkvision nation having this weakness in light lands, and all may build all units under the sun...

Re: About caves and darkness
 

What you are saying is that the advantage sea nations receive in their exclusivity of provinces is balanced by their hardships in taking land provinces, while cave nations have no disadvantage to balance their exclusivity on cave provinces, except for Agartha.
Well, I say that since cave provinces are so few, the advantage isn't that big. Its only considerable where there are "landmasses" of caves, and those would tend to be for thematic purposes (like underground passages), in which case balance isn't a consideration. Furthermore, a disadvantage in "light" lands would make these nations much weaker, since they still rely mostly on land provinces. (again, except for thematic maps.)
This would make underground units more of a perk (like free scrying) than anything to really base a strategy around.
The last argument I have for now is that darkvision is only useful under darkness, which currently is a D4 spell costing 4 death gems, which makes it a rarely used skill. And even Agartha which is a darkvision race, has a hard time casting darkness (one in 2 400 gold mages requires two boosting items to be able to cast it.)

Finally, which nations do you consider as cave nations?

Re: About caves and darkness
 

No nation as IMO caves shouldn't be treated like seas (reserved lands for nations starting there) but as swamps are (provinces with something like a quagmire effect advantaging a little some creatures/nations -also able live/start elsewhere- but not needing exceptionnal magic/pretender build to win with any nation against them).

Only two nations have full darkvision on all units (EA Abysia and Agartha) but many have units with half vision (the fey nations Tir Na Nog, Eriu ; EA Jomon, Fomoria... ; and all sea nations iirc). But death nations would be more advantaged than them by dark caves I think (if maps use them in numbers comparable with say forest or swamp).

Another option may be to simply give darkvision/blindness to more summons out of death/earth paths (ie : mindless monsters even if not undeads/statues) or create some massable summons with darkvision (cave animals) in low level nature , so as it is teh ultra-common path all nations would be able to invade caves with say giant ants or other summoned molebeast).

But anyway I think something should be done to balance the effect if darkness is added to caves (if the bug is fixed someday).

Re: About caves and darkness
 

Caves aren't used in numbers comparable to forests, swamps or even seas. Your point would be true if, and only if, caves were either

1) common enough to be just another type of terrain, like mountains of farmlands.
2) large and with many connections to the neighbouring provinces, like seas, thus forming important waypoints

If cave provinces aren't common and don't give the controlling nation the strategic movement of underwater races, it doesn't matter that your army can't take control of it. If they are, the map is probably somewhat unbalanced in multiplayer. To my knowledge, the only map that uses caves to a larger extent is the World of Geometry, but in that one caves are part of the story.

In short, I think that a map can be made so that having darkvision is a major bonus, but also so that the cave provinces are just a small bonus for several races, some of which really appreciate the help. What kind of darkness effect is in them doesn't really matter.

Re: About caves and darkness
 

I meant darkvision nations. No need to nitpick.

That said, the only nation I see as a real darkvision nation is Agartha. Abysia has one unit with full darkvision, and it isn't a good one. Other nations have either 50 darkvision or only have darkvision by virtue of access to darkvision summons, which technically everyone can get.
And if it is so, then a minor boost to Agartha would hardly imbalance the game. (especially since you said yourself that their darkvision troops are lousy.)

EDIT: Actually, EA Abysia could use a boost as well anyway :S

Re: About caves and darkness
 

This sounds like a thing for Dominions 4 - Since total darkness is to serious but some effect would be nice - specificly light effects that can be carried around or cast/thrown.

Re: About caves and darkness
 

How well would Yomi/Lanka demons do in cave Darkness? They're 100% effective when the Darkness spell is active. Is it the same effect? I think I saw the Darkness BE icon when I stormed a cave castle in the Dawn of Dominions map. But that was a while ago so there's a good chance I could be mistaken.

LA Rlyeh also has 100% DV units, and LA Ermor should be fine. An MA Ermor going heavy Shadow vestals would also be effective.

Re: About caves and darkness
 

All immunity to darkness from being demons, blind, undead, darkvision etc would work. Partial dv would actually work pretty well too, it would be a big advantage over units with no dv at all, though demons and undead would cause trouble.

I don't know why people would want to resist this. None of the default maps even use caves to my knowledge and this is listed as a bug, Illwinter have said they've fixed it/want to fix it a couple of times.

Really this is more for user created maps than anything else, because only mappers actually use caves and they are very rarely extensive.

I haven't seen darkness autocast by any of the forts that are supposed to (though I haven't tested) or cave provinces. It should certainly be cast by all of them.

Re: About caves and darkness
 

For Agartha at least their cave homes do have inherent darkness (check non darkvision units stats in battles) but it doesn't come as a cast spell effect. I.E. you won't see anything casting darkness but it is there.

Re: About caves and darkness
 

Is that just during storming the castle? Or is it any battle in the province?

Re: About caves and darkness
 

Just storming the castle.

Does the darkness spell icon show up when that happens?

I didn't notice any darkness effect when I stormed MA Abysia's cap fort.

Re: About caves and darkness
 

Iirc only when storming (which is logical considering cave forts can be built out of cave provinces) but not sure.

About maps with caves, I prefer fantasy worlds with an underworld so an high number of caves, and it's why I hope such maps (like the two I've made World of Geometry and Oeridia, but I hope other mapmakers will make some) won't end with big balance issues (I also like fantasy worlds where humans know how to carry a torch, and all serious mages learn the cantrip light spell).

Anyway, if a #darkvision command is simply added for modders (iirc already announced in a thread someone asked for) or even with some copystats (but there are some issues with the units actually having darkvision always having unwanted other stats) -or better a darkvision effect for buff spells / battle enchant (not announced but why not)- I think there will be no problem to make a mod to balance maps even with a huge number of (dark) caves if people want to - it would just reduce a little the power of darkness spell (or let some nations suffer in full dark if people prefer). So I won't argue more over this (eventual) issue.