Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Angels. I always thought Angels and the Virtue should be ethereal and have zero encumbrance.

Please add your own ideas!

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Vampires should probably get back their ethereal trait because they are quite vunerable now. In exchange for the ethereal trait vampires should receive one of the following punishments below:
1) cause population to drop since they have a strong desire to feed.
2) stats lowered for balance reasons... ethereal was removed because I assume they were viewed as too powerful previously.
3) each turn they lose 2hitpoints when leaving their original province the same as the blood lord and blood warriors... thus forcing them to be pushed into battle to steal more life.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

I think that it would be good to eliminate the 0 encumbrance from the game. Enc 1 instead.

Late game is overpopulated by Tartarians or any enc 0 commander. It has become over exploited.

If the argument is that undead never tire. Then some do. Count Dracula had to return to his coffin with earth form his lands every day.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Cool idea, NT - you could copy the ability from the Harvester of Sorrow, but hopefully to a lesser degree. I agree Vampires got a bad break in Dominions 3.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

I believe that vampires were nerfed b/c the vampire queen was nerfed, b/c people thought the VQ was overpowered b/c somebody was cheating http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Ethereal never made sense to me for vampires, though. They're not like ghosts.

Invulnerability - a natural prot of 20 - would seem to make more sense to me. But that would be even more powerful than ethereal, I think.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Maybe 20 prot, with a vunerability to fire?

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

"There is no death for me in fire" - Count Dracula

A vulnerability to shock would be more interesting, I think - and hardly anyone has it.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

This depends on the historic source being referenced. Slavic reports vampires start out as an invisible shadow and then gradually gained strength from the blood it had sucked. Sounds pretty ethereal.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Could be an assasin-vampire that gain strenght when they kill many commanders.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

And a chance that they are attacked by an angry mob, van Helsing or Buffy.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Cant vampires gain mistform instead?

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

The *heims' glamour cavalry should be ethereal. They're too underpowered right now!

They should also:

• fly,
• inspire fear,
• have a strategic move of 10,
• have 100% poison immunity,
• have 100% cold/fire/shock immunity,
• heal any afflictions they accumulate, and
• have a bonus life-draining attack.

...

Um, what were we discussing again? Ethereal Bog Beasts or something? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Bog Beasts should definitely be ethereal.

The difference between a "hungry spirit" and a "vampire" is pretty marginal, folklorically, okay, BUT, these are pretty clearly either dracula-type vampires, or bathing-in-blood-type vampires, neither of which are ethereal.

Mistform would be good, but I don't think mistform is available as a unit intrinsic.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Another use for the #onebattlespell command?

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

I think natural prot 20 for vampires makes sense.

Some kind of vulnerability makes sense too, like fire. After all it isn't going to kill them, since they're immortal, it will just cause them to go back to the cap.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Please. No more requests for Heims buffing. They are badass troops and quite well-balanced as is.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Where does the prot 20 come from? The legends I've read about tell that to kill a vampire, you have to put a wooden stick through their heart, and that'd be impossible if they had that high protection.

I really liked the idea of giving vampires a home province oustide of which they would have to drain life to survive, but I don't think it would work, mechanically. If you summoned vampires anywhere but you capital, the immortality would transform them to a province where they'd hurt until they died again, to again reborn in the capital, etc etc. Also, trying to move the vampires out of the capital would be really annoying, as some would have full hp, some under 5, and many would die before you reached a battle.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

I believe that Vampires should be not be ethereal if anything, they should just have something like 10 natural protect and more hp, cause their evil powerful undead, but once you get past that, all Vampires are in Dom 3 are immortal Thralls of the Vampire lords, Peasants and Farmers giving immortality, They shouldn't be ethereal but the Spell Blood Rite should give a hell of a lot more vampires.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Something should change with vampires... I like the mistform trait idea. Currently ghosts are more powerful.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Ahh, but ghosts die and don't come back, it's difficult to actually kill vampires.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Unless the player doesn't have a really strong dominion and is using their flying well by attacking more than just provinces next to his own.
And once you hit the enemy once or twice, it gets very hard to use vampires out of your own territory - although I do love the little guys(particularly with LA Ulm).

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

I think you can cite a myth to support just about anything regarding vampires. It depends which myths we're following and how we apply them in the game.

For example: Regarding prot 20 vs the myth of the stake in the heart - most of the time the staking is supposed to be done to a prone vampire body, one sleeping or who has already been incapacitated. Therefore a critical hit, perhaps against an unconscious foe. Therefore one that bypasses protection.

I think most of us agree that the vampire thrall summon is underpowered. You can fix this by making it cheaper, making it easier to cast, making it summon more vamps or by improving the vamps in some way. I personally think vampire thralls should be better, because vampires (even thralls)are generally regarded as dangerous, strong and resilient. They aren't in the game. They lose to light infantry, pretty much. So natural prot increase would help in that regard.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

So would Mistform, etherealness, increased stats and many, many other things. Any way, I could see a prot increase, but not all the way to 20. That's just... strange.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

What about 15 protection? Would give them a reasonable resistance to normal weapons, but its far from overpowering.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

15 sounds alright to me, I say we add that or something similar to the wishlist!!

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Adding protection sounds like something that's done in mods. If Johan or Kristoffer played MP, summoned hundreds of vampires and found out first-hand that they suck, they'd probably come up with a new mechanic to give them more vampire-like buff, like they made them unable to enter water when Vampire Queen was nerfed.


Also, you shouldn't just decide that 15 prot is fine. It should be tested before you decide it's good to go. Even if it "sounds right", it can be too good when combined with flying and lifedrain.

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Considering most versions of their myth, werewolves should be "ethereal" far more than vampires, as ethereal = resistant against normal weapons (and 25% of having a silver weapon already seem a big chance for a militia). A stake looks far easier to find.

edit : a cool ability to add for both vampires/werewolves/and some other powerful undeads or void creatures would be #nwimmortality : if killed by normal weapons / mundane dammage (only) the unit is immortal (eventually even out of dominion), but killed by magical weapons, spells or other kinds of dammage it remains dead (then a #silverweapon tag may be added also, making a weapon able to kill these units without having the to hit bonus and ability to hit ethearal beings of a magical one) - but of course this kind of restricted immortality is probably very hard to implement

Re: Why isn\'t X ethereal?
 

Twan, that is an absolutely brilliant idea!!! you should be knighted for that!! the normal weapons thing I'm talking about, not the silver weapons, I don't think anything has silver weapons, but it seems feesable to code into dom 3 and is frankly a great idea and I can for see alot of uses in mods for such a command!!