Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

I don't hold any pretentions of how lucid this particular ramble will be, but I reserve the right to edit it, if it confounds and/or confuses too many people. It's been a REALLY long day...

Anyway, as it is, we have over a dozen high quality mod Nations, plus 60 or so vanilla Nations, which is a lot. But we only have 8 separate magic paths, which is not so many, since those 8 paths determine a great many things, and in many ways, make those 75+ Nations a lot more similar than they really need to be. Same spells, same bless choices, same Pretenders, same magic sites, same gems. etc ad tedium.

Since making my own mods, and playing the game for a while now, I've noticed that their are a whole lot of things about the 8 paths that resemble a typical mod Nation. In other words, if I were to make a new path, I'd think about the same basic things (or atleast, in the same basic way), as I do when considering how to make a mod.

Here are some of the things I'd hypothetically think about, if I were to design a brand new magic path:

The spells, themselves, ofcourse. This is equivalent to designing units for a Nation. More powerful spells go at higher level and cost more gems. Pretty straightforward, and there's enough options within just the spell abilities we currently have. I'm guessing that the devs would give us more tools for spell-creation over time, as they have for unit-creation. Summons, globals, combat spells, etc. We ofcourse already have the ability to create National spells, so this isn't as big of a deal as it may seem.

The bless. Even confined to a direct extrapolation of the current blesses in the game, there's an enormous amount of variables to play with. I won't go into detail in this post, but there's obviously a lot. Some Nations are stronger in the early game, while others are stronger in the late game. This synergises with blesses, where some paths have strong blesses, but relatively simplistic (if powerful) spells, while the strongest paths have the weakest blesses, atleast in theory. Balancing a bless is ofcourse very important, but we already have the ability to mod in sacred units, so we're atleast in the ballpark.

The gems. New gem types means designing new sites, new forged items, new generic and National summons, and the choice between allowing alchemization into gold or not. Each new path would get a new gem type, and it's possible that some gem types could actually be Nation-specific, found only in that Nation's capital. Imagine what that might do to diplomacy. Along with this, new gem types may or may not be alchemizeable from Astral Pearls--ala Blood Slaves. Options might be added, allowing gems to come from different places than just magic sites. Blood converts from population, so maybe some other gems convert from population, or corpses, or gold (reverse alchemy), or temples, etc. Again, we've already got the ability to mod in magic sites. Modding new gem types isn't that much of a leap.

Pretenders. Although it may not be obvious, this is the heart and soul of a magic path. Who uses what type of magic? What do they represent, and what Nations are they represented by? Limiting or denying the path on existing or new Pretenders limits access to that path, since no current Nations will have it (unless modded in), so that's also a choice. But every Pretender would still have theoretical access to any path allowed in a given game, and thus, you could never completely isolate a type of magic from any Nation. When we create mod Nations, we have to think hard about what that Nation *is*. What they look like, how they operate, the strategies at their easy disposal, and what's harder for them to do. The character of a Nation and the character of a magic path aren't so terribly distant concepts. They both share a basic elemental identity. "This is Fire" isn't so different from "This is Abysia". When you think of Abysia, you think of fire, and vice-versa.

Finally: How is the new path going to work? Will it be fun? How much will it add to the game? How does it affect the balance? What visual and sound effects will it's spells have? Which Nations embrace it, and which don't want anything to do with it?
This is a little different from creating a Nation, but at it's heart, it's about design. Making your creation special, different, and most importantly--making it play well with others.

The thing about adding magic paths into the game, the argument that I've always gotten, is that it would involve creating all kinds of new spells, throwing the balance out of whack, etc. It's always been "too much work" to put a new path, or several, into the game. But we do it all the time with new Nations. We add units, we work the balance out, we fit and integrate them into the game in ways that add to the gaming experience. Ofcourse, not everyone likes them, but not everyone has to use them. Not everyone would have to use brand new Paths, either. But I think it's time we (and the Devs) consider the possibility of having that option.

Having the choice and the tools to add new paths to the game, modding them in *as options*, by the community, wouldn't force anyone to use them, but would alleviate most of the doubts and arguments against them. And it would almost certainly help make the game itself more interesting, the Nations more diverse, and benefit overall strategy.

We already have the ability to add new sites. Being able to add new blesses, new gem types, new spell types, new forged items, even whole new schools, is the logical next step, and I think a very important step towards helping Dom3 achieve it's full, magnificent, potential.

Ofcourse, it's a lot to ask, too, but I think it would benefit Johan and Kristoffer (once their share of work was done), to allow us to develope new magical paths, and to also more robustly mod the ones already in the game. It's part of our job, as the community, to balance things out in the game. To help organize, to spot bugs and troubled areas, to identify, correct, and exploit the unforseen, and to explore the unknown. Being able to do that with magic paths would allow us to cast new light on the entire game, on every single Nation, old and new. To see it in brand new ways--and I have to believe that that's something the Devs are interested in.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

No, magic paths are not like mod Nations.
Magic paths are part of the game mechanics. I think adding one is impossible for anyone but the devs.
Remember that you'd have to change the UI if you wanted to add more gems. That is the Page for Units, the page where you transfer gems, the page where you can look at your gem income (f7 i think) and the box where your resources are displayed.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

While it is currently impossible to add new paths, I propose that it become possible.

They're not exactly alike, but there are, however, similarities. Including mechanical ones. When we create new Nations, we make choices about the mechanics of that Nation. Hp, movement, att and def, etc. All those things are mechanics that we alter, in order to create something new. Now if you mean the AI, I don't know how hard it would be to get it to accept a new path, but there are already 9 magic paths (including Holiness) in the game, so maybe not all that difficult?

The UI for selecting Nations at the beginning of the game is alterable, by the choices we make when we make a new game. So it's not impossible that the UI for magic paths could become alterable, as well.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

It's a nice theory, but even Dominions 3000 mod doesn't try that. Unless and until someone tries to change an existing path into something else, I claim that this would be totally unnecessary.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

I actually tried to steer Dom3K in that direction, but I have this phobic aversion to scripting, so I lacked in the creative control department. :p

It was a daunting task, to replace what, 700 spells? Most wouldn't have an analogue in the new system, but still, the game would need at least 200 or so to justify the effort, and make the game feel somewhat "complete".

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

You currently can't change one path into something completely different, though. You can only add to it. Spells currently can't even be deleted, that I'm aware of.

Coming up with new ideas is, ofcourse, not hard to do. We don't *need* 75+ Nations, but we have them, because it's fun to have so many. They're not necessary, per se, but they're fun.

If it helps, I'll think up 8 brand new paths today, just to prove that it's possible.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Let's see...off the top of my head, how about metal, crystal, animism, chaos/wild magic, mentalism, shadow, numerology, and sex magic? There, that only took 10 minutes.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

I also suggested that, but I'm a chronic procrastinator and and even if we take only one spell per path per level per school, that's 1*7*9*7=441 (not counting blood as a path, but counting the school as quite a few blood spells have secondary requirements). That is, needless to say, quite a few. Even if we only replace the summons (which we might do), that's still, well, quite a few.

:happy:

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Spells can be removed easily in at least two different ways.

#selectspell X
#clear
#end

and

#selectspell X
#school -1
#end

You just remove all items and spells of the path, and change all spells in other paths that come too close to the new specialization, and that's that. Say, replace Blood with something.


Metal: "Chinese 5 elements" metal or "technology and construction" metal? The latter is part of Earth magic (iron dragon, black steel, gate cleaver, mage engineer etc etc), but more on that later. The five elements stuff, however, is rather intriguing. I'd play a total conversion called Dominions: The Five Elements, with an Asian theme. I won't make it, and I doubt anyone else will, either.

Mentalism: part of Astral in Dom3.

Crystal: Earth/Astral magic in Dom3.

You could probably divide Earth and Astral spells again to create paths of Metal (forging, physical changes, constructs, telestic animations, juggernaut, stone shards/gifts from heaven/blade wind etc) and Mentalism/Crystal (crystal coins, magic resistance, mind burn/paralyze/enslave mind, etc). This should be rather simple, as it would mostly consist of redistributing existing items and spells differently between two existing paths. And I still claim that as long as no one does even that much, no one is going to create a whole new path.


Chaos magic would be interesting to see, but how would you do it? We can't mod any randomization. We can't mod spells to summon random creatures, or even summon creatures chosen from a list, or even one unique from a spesific group of uniques, or to have random effects.

Animism could probably be modded in as an alternative Holy magic which can be researched to allow for more varied effects. As far as we're theoretical, I could imagine a nation whose priests could control stronger spirits and animate stronger beings when researched reached higher levels, replacing Reanimation some mages can do.

I don't think the others would work as whole paths, except the sex magic, but I really hope that will never happen. The current game is bad enough. Blood Slaves used to fuel magic? Converting "gold to slaves"? Cross Breeding? "Unruly guards have defiled some of your blood slaves" event? I mean, sometimes it's awkward to watch a fight against amazons when there are other people around, what with all that screaming.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Endoperez--you can pick those apart all you want, it took me less than 2 minutes to come up with each one :p I can guarantee, however, that with time and effort, I could make each one unique against all the paths we currently have in the game.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

I think I actually did describe how Metal and Mentalism magics could replace two existing paths, and described how Animism could be implemented, and said that I'd play a Five Elements conversion. I'm with you there, the paths could be made unique. I just don't think it will ever happen.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

It depends on the context of the mod, as to what makes sense as a "path".

But in current Dominions terms, it seems that most of your list would be schools of magic, not magic paths. The difference of course being that a school describes what can be done with your magic, and the path is where you derive your energies. So paths necessarily must be something primal, such as elements, but I fear the most you can really hope for is recategorizing of what exists, it doesn't seem that there are many "previously unheard of" sources of magical energies. Sex magic is good, but perhaps not entirely appropriate, as Endo complained. :p

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

I think you're grossly underestimating the modding community. It would happen, in some form, if we had the tools to make it happen. Somebody, at some point, will mod something in, if it's possible to do. Just having the ability to clear spells and schools puts us a step closer. If the long standing modders don't want to, someone new will show up who does.

It would probably happen something like this:

Lots of people hate how the blesses currently work, not just me, so that would be the first thing to be modded, as a fix, but eventually someone would want to add new blesses, and since the only way to do that is to add new magic paths, eventually someone adding new blesses would want to add a handful of spells to their path, because-well, why not? If nothing else, it helps to legitimize the new path (it's not just to add a nifty bless effect, see it's got spells, too!). That effort would lead to more and more advanced efforts, and eventually I'd guess we'd probably end up with atleast 4 new, quality paths. 33% more isn't such a high figure, considering we've accounted, with mod Nations, for atleast 20% of the total Nations available to play, while having 60 vanillas to choose from.

Since there's only 8 paths available, the total number of additional mods is likely to be higher.

And ofcourse, as far as random effects go, we would want to have those tools. That's what I'm asking for, though, the tools to make this happen.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

If blood magic is appropriate, so is sex magic. The others are all potential sources of magic:

Metal-as in the "Asian" element.

Crystal-not Earth magic, but the historic belief in the power of crystals, used for healing, divination, psychic energy, to power Atlantis, what have you. Nothing particularly "earthy".

Numerology-the power of the underlying mathematical basis and language of the Universe, itself. It's good enough for physics, and it pops up in various forms of real-world occultism/magic, such as Qaballah.

Mentalism-psychic energy, and the power of the mind and will, over matter, over fate, and over the wills of others. Not Astral magic, which comes from the stars, but power derived internally, from pure imagination and perception.

Shadow magic we already sort of have in the game. Shadow beasts, strength in darkness, banefire, etc, but this would be power derived from light and darkness, and their interplay.

Animism, what I had in mind, would be power derived from *all* the beings, competing for Godhood at the same time, and all the other powers who aren't necessarily after godhood, but are caught up in that. Sort of the magical "waste energy" from all that. Holy magic, of a sort, in a sense, but not pure or direct.

Chaos/Wild Magic, in this case, wouldn't just be random effects, it would also be the power of unrestrained Creation, itself. This would include such things as "faerie magic".

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

I don't think I'm underestimating anything, other than humans' propensity for creating something out of nothing, though with no profit margin here, the market for this is small. :p

All I am saying is to clarify Endo's point, that essentially just about anything that you can come up with, will either be an aspect of an already existent path, or will consist of and overlap with multiple paths.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that you are limited in what you can accomplish here. You can add a Psionics path, but with current game mechanics, and all the spells that already exist, what will this path do? It seems most of what you'd want exists in Astral already, and while you could add a few more, the largest benefit would be in the creation of another bless opportunity.

This seems entirely out of the range of the modding community, only because the hardcoded structure of the game does not allow for it. If you are capped at 8 paths due to game mechanics that you can't change, then you have a bit of a conundrum. The first part being that you wouldn't be able to add blesses, not anytime too soon, but then you would also be limited to 8 of them regardless, so inventing new paths is somewhat silly, if all you can do is push around the spells that already exist.

If it were at all possible though, I think it's an intriguing idea. But broadening and diversifying the sources of magic would require a massive overhaul of the game, to the extent that you are envisioning. For example, if you have 12 paths, then likely the multiplier for pretender acquisition would need to be dropped from 8 to 6, as each path contains less power than previously. Likewise, all mages in the game would have to be modded, and many of them would require immense amounts of guesswork and testing to place them in the approximate power range that they occupy in the current game balance. Then you get the magic sites, and the gem issue would only exacerbate the problems with alchemy, where now you have 12 actual gem types, and so your chances of A) not finding sites, or B) ending up with gems you don't need, seem to both begin to rise. The obvious answer would be to make most sites cross-path, so that when you find one gem type, you usually find 2, however since you can only search for that site through one of the paths, your site acquisition will still be terribly hampered, you will essentially find 66% as many sites in any given game as you would now, because the others are in paths that your nation can't access.

The complications with this really are innumerable. It would be interesting to play with for another game, or really cool if they made the paths/schools fully moddable for the eventual Dom4 (people are acting like children lately, directly construing the "won't come soon" of Dom4, to a "won't come ever"), then if you wanted to really put in the effort, some truly unique and bizzare scenarios could be developed. But for now, there's just no way it can become anything other than an interesting mental exercise.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Explain to me then how battlefield Sex Magic works. :p But..... you don't have to get into the effects..... the US government supposedly tried to develop a "Gay Bomb" to distract and pacify enemy soldiers. o.O

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

It's easy! Say you summon a spectre, and it has a sex random. Then you summon a succubus and have them form a tantric communion and... well, I'm not sure what they're going to do with it, cast spells that make allies feel good?

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Other sources of magic might include (with better names, ofcourse): Enlightenment/Nirvana, Time and the turning of the seasons, Communication (we already have musical magic in the game, and the game itself is about the power of myth and storytelling. Add to that the power of words.), Blasphemy (the opposite of holy magic), and Emotions (love, hate, war, desire, despair, etc.).

Ofcourse, the schools themselves could be added to, as well, but schools filter the raw power itself into what you *do* with that power. They aren't the sources of power, just the specific engine the power turns.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

The Crystal magic I mentioned replaced Astral, not Earth. Astral Healing, Crystal Sphere/Astral Window, Mind Burn/Paralyze/Mind Hunt etc, it would pretty much cover the same stuff you listed. Besides, since all Dominions rituals use gems/crystals as a power source, the idea wouldn't be exactly "ground"-breaking, pardon the pun.

Mentalism is Astral by a different name, judging by effects. And it's not like the "from the stars" actually affects any in-game effects, besides Gifts From Heavens.


And regarding Blasphemy, there used to be Holy and Unholy priests. Holy priests could preach, Unholy priests could reanimate undead. It was removed, the reason being that e.g. Marignon thinks that the Mictlan priests are unholy, but the Mictlan priests think they are holy.
It would be easy to just give each nation a bunch of national holy spells, perhaps available at spesific research levels. And that'd actually be a good idea and not too hard to do, either, since we already have examples:

Pangaea: Carrion spells
MA/LA Ermor: Unholy Blessings, Anathema, Apostacy etc etc
(LA) C'tis: spells providing +MR or +ATT for undead
MA Ulm: Iron Darts, Iron Blizzard
Marignon: Holy Pyre (just change it to F1H1 at the same research level)

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

JimMorrison, you're turning this into an entirely more complicated proposition than it ever has to be.

I was referring to Endoperez, when I said he was underestimating the modding community, but you clearly are as well. Not being able to come up with anything new beyond the 4 elements, and 4 fairly random power sources is hardly fair. Better to say that we'd never be able to come up with any new and unique Nations-after all, we've got 60! Nations that come with the game! we could *never* come up with anything that wasn't just a rehash of what's already been done... In this, I refer you to Amos and Sombre's mods.

Why would any of the current paths be diminished? Sure, they might be altered a bit, but you don't cut down a tree just because you want it to grow in a slightly different direction. Mages in the game would go unaltered. Why should they change at all? some might gain a path or too, possibly, but it hardly can be said that we have a perfect balance in the game, in it's current form.

And if you have death gems, where you were hoping for sex gems, that doesn't make death gems useless, in any way.

The random sites are "random" for a good reason.

I have no idea what you mean by "Pretender acquisition". Do you mean when you "buy" Pretenders in the beginning of the game? In that case, there would be very little, if any, change to the process. Adding fire to the Niefel Pretender is the same as adding crystal magic would be.

The only path that would necessarily overlap would be the metal path. And that would just make sense, because Earth is already such a powerful path. Ofcourse, the key here is that it would be *optional*.

And we're already adding magic sites, so that's really a moot point. It's not that far-fetched for one determined person to come up with 100 new magic sites in a month. Creating a site is not terribly labour-intensive, after all.

And ofcourse, as I explained, some or all new paths could be alchemized from pearls.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Sex magic on the battlefield works in a similarly unlikely, far-fetched way that blood magic works.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Honestly, if we didn't already have multiple excellent mod Nations, if we didn't already have those tools, and I suggested that Nations be moddable, I suspect I'd be getting the same overly conservative, under-imaginative arguments.

I'm not trying to offend anyone, but half of my rebuttals are boiling down to "please actually read and consider for a moment what I've actually said so far".

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

To be fair, what you've said so far is "wouldn't it be great if we could do some really interesting things, that we can't even do". :confused:

And I've not said that it would be impossible to do it, IF you had everything open to modding (which I don't think is possible with Dom3's architecture), only that it would be an incredible amount of effort to take to the level you are suggesting, and would be profoundly hard to rebalance, once implemented on the level you are suggesting. Nothing is impossible, but things can approach a degree of difficulty approaching 100%, when certain factors are looked at realistically - such as your likelihood of having access to implement the sorts of changes you want to discuss. Because let's be honest here, essentially what you are saying is that you want to change much of the fundamental foundation of the magic system. It's fine and good if you say it's because you want to expand on it and play with it, rather than simply replace it, but whichever way you look at it, you still lack the tools, and it's a valid assumption that those tools are not going be provided. Therefore you don't need modders to actualize this, you need hackers and coders.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Endoperez: I'm aware of the former holy/unholy priest situation. I'd make a Blasphemy path do things like harm sacreds and angels, remove permanently remove sacred status from sacred units, do "black halberd" effects to sacred units, boost independent power, and destroy temples and dominion at distance. Things that are harmful to any holy power. This path might be confined to independents, making them more interesting and dangerous.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

What I'd need would be support from the forum community, and the willingness of the Devs to provide the necessary tools. That's-once more with enthusiasm!-the whole point of this post.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

And honestly, very little is impossible, or "approaches impossible", even within the scope of the game, as long as the proper tools are provided. Some of the mods that people have come up with are downright unlikely, and that's only using the basic stuff that comes with the game.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Seems to me that a quick PM to KO asking whether or not it is even mechanically possible for these things to be opened up to modding, would avoid some of the need for discussion. ;)

You could open up a petition to the US government stating that everyone with a driver's license should own a tank, but even with 200 million signatures, it won't accomplish much.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

That's true, and something I'd considered, but I thought it polite to present such an idea to the community, before hurling it at the devs. If they loved it, and added it "behind your back", there might be a passing sense of betrayal, outrage, etc. and if they didn't initially love it, then a show of enthusiasm and support could only help. Plus, there's always the possibility that someone might have something really constructive to add to the idea, that would make it better and nicer.

Illwinter isn't the US government, fortunately, and I like to think that we have some effect on their policies, as consumers. Maybe not a great deal, but that's usually a good thing.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

The intent of my metaphor wasn't to relate the organizations, but to relate the logistics of the request. Even though the government would be compelled to comply with a request from 200 million citizens, they can only do what they are capable of.

Something like this, is pretty huge. I wouldn't worry about it being "stealth added". In all likelihood, it falls under one of two categories, the "not possible", and the "well maybe, if enough people want it". There are integral parts of the UI associated with the current paths (from gem display, to sorting hotkeys in spell lists, etc), so my money is on it simply not being possible.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

I disagree that it's as big as you seem to think and imply that it is. The same thing I'm suggesting has already been done a total of 9 times. So it's something that can indeed be done, and done often enough that the process itself fails to disrupt the game. And, to put it another way, if someone were to remove Blood from the game, would that really destroy the balance of the game, for those Nations that don't use blood? Sure, it can be a useful path, but unless you're Mictlan or Lanka, the absense wouldn't exactly cause the game to become unplayable.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

While I would thematically like the ability to add new paths I like Jim think it is hard to implement.

Adding/changing a nation, spell, unit, item, magic site affects nothing but that nation, spell, unit, item, magic site.
Adding a new path requires all nations to have places where the gem income is stored and all units need some place to store their pathlevel, too.
And that is both in the UI and behind the curtains.
If those places have not already been reserved then old games probably would be incompatible with a version that has more paths.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

That's correct, Illuminated One. This would require help from the Devs.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

hmmmm a very very late fase in dom3K would be to remove all spells that don't fit in there thematically. Most damage spells could stay and it would mostly be the summons that would need to be removed. Also a lot of the globals should be renamed and or deleted. More importantly would be the magic item modding though (and even that would be something I'd only do in a very very very late phase) since those (in general) hardly fit with the setting. THe effects could stay but new names and sprites would be needed for the mod. I'd also love to delete all mercs (impossible now) and rename all magic sites (forest = space so that will give a somewhat unrealistic amount of space with "groves of this" and "tree of that" etc etc. Well enough on dom3K since it wasn't really the topic but since it was brought up....

On topic:
New magicpaths might be a nice idea but I think the problem would be that the AI wouldn't recognize the new spells and wouldn't use them anywayso ti would severly demolish SP gaming. And if JK was going to put effort in something I can think of a few things higher on my list... since.. let's face it magic CAN be modded quite extensively already and there are other things (see mu dom3K wishlist above) which need more love in the modding department. (can forts be modded now btw.. I've looked for it today but couldn't find it)

PS where is that thread where they keep us posted on what is going to be in the next edition?

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Well, yes, making the AI work with the new paths would just be a part of the whole "This would require help from the Devs." statement that seems to be throwing everyone off so badly. Is there some sort of psychic block in place here? I didn't think this idea, that we can't actually do this now, was so darned hard to grasp.

We can't do this now. That's why I'm suggesting it be altered to another state in which we could. If we could now, I'd just do it.

And yes, there are other things that I wouldn't mind seeing JK spend his time on, and fortresses is a good example of that, but having only 8 blesses, several of which aren't very good for almost every Nation, is a big deal.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Having a typo or a minor bug fixed is "would require help from the devs".

Adding in fort modding is "someone just spent few weeks on this thing, and there are still bugs and creating new forts or changing sprites is still impossible".

Your request is on the "divine intervention" level.


I could see extra blesses (although I don't know how the bonuses could be expressed), and I can see how that would require extra paths, and that'd be nice. But where could you put the new paths so that you could choose them in pretender creation? There's no space in the current magic screen, and if we're asking for a major rewrite of that...

well, I'd as soon have blesses/themes that could be independent from magic paths and could be used to alter anything from blesses to starting sites to starting gold/equipment to national recruitment and spell list to dominion effects (Arcos scrying, strength of popdeath, Abys heat spreading, etc).

When you wish upon a star, don't settle for just the impossible.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

I honestly can't see equating expanding the magic screen with "divine intervention". For all we know, it's as simple as adding a few lines of code and a sprite at the end. Not necessarily major at all. It's a computer, after all, and one could potentially just scroll the page down = All the room in the world!

Now the "themes" you're talking about sound a lot more like wishful thinking than anything I'm suggesting. Plus, it would require the Devs going backwards to Dom2.

You do realize that your idea would require entirely new mechanics not currently present in any way, shape, or form, to the current game, while mine only ask that we be able to more robustly mod what's already present, and already atleast semi-moddable?

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Much as I like the idea of adding mod nations with access to warrens like Kurald Galain, Kurald Thyrllan, Ruse, Serc, Tellann, etc. (done up as paths), the idea of moddable magic paths seems to me as fundamentally difficult as moddable stats. By this I don't mean altering the stats a unit has (Strength -> 30) but adding the concept of a new stat (Initiative) and semantics for it (Initiative affects how likely a unit and its army are to 'win' if it's trying to move straight at an enemy army; high Initiative means you almost always move first and thus wind up in the territory you were trying to move to). You'd need a whole new metasystem.

It's much easier to envision moddable blessings for the existing magic paths, but even that would be a lot of work to design and implement.

-Max

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

It COULD be as easy as you think, or it could be that all pages and references to magic paths would have to be updated. Commander handling, empowerment handling, gem income/storage handling, pretender creation, calculating bless effects, creating magic sites and putting them into maps, searching for magic sites, Acashic Record and perhaps some other spells, checking for innate magical bonuses of commanders... Magic paths affect pretty much everyhing. If it's not been designed mod-friendly, adding your request would change everything. If it HAS been designed that way, it would be rather simple, or at least not as complicated as we disbelievers think, and you'd have been right the whole time.


Implementing either suggestion would require adding new choices to the pretender design screen, and adding to the basic gameplay interface. "For all we know, it's as simple as enabling the parts of code that were used for themes and adding a few lines of code. Not necessarily major at all." It might be easier re-implementing something from earlier iterations than adding something drastically different. Of course, we'd still not have a modding interface for adding any/all effects that already exist in the game in new ways and in new instances, like dominion effects or magic path bonuses to leadership.


I'll grant you something, though: there's at least one currently unused magic path, Unholy. Modding that probably could be implemented without too much hassle, as long as you don't want it to have gems, give a mage innate bonus (Fire - attack, Air - precision etc) or grant bless effects. Bless effects and innate bonuses would have to be able to read unit modding commands in some way, because that's the only way to have enough choices to make them matter, and that's something else that I think would be really complicated. Of course, "for all we know it could be just a matter of adding a few lines of code" as well.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Your request is on the "divine intervention" level.

--> seems how it is too me, and I really think it wouldn't be the effort. If you want to change something you CAN delete all spells and make new ones in the paths that exist. I mean especially when on of the replies to the idea is to make "adding mod nations with access to warrens like Kurald Galain, Kurald Thyrllan, Ruse, Serc, Tellann, etc" which could probably PERFECTLY fit in the existing path system. As I said before I'd rather have them spending time on giving me a "space" terrain type and a space form, fort modding, decent magic item modding to be honest.. but I might be biased there.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Although you can't add paths Honey, you already have the ability to replace the existing ones, since it is possible to remove spells. Just clear all the current spells (that's quite trivial, I could do a mod for you if you wanted), and start afresh. You could claim the brown gems were animism gems rather than earth gems, or whatever you wanted.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Well, I do think the spells themselves are important, and that there's room for several more paths, but the primary focus for me, as far as new paths are concerned, is going to be on new bless options. I like sacred units. I like bless strategies. That's fun for me, both to mod in, and to play around with. But our choices there are currently *severely* limited. Does anyone strongly disagree with that statement?

Are there more than 2-3 vanilla Nations that are regularly played with an Air bless, or a more than circumstantial Blood bless? How many human Nations regularly and competitively take a high (more than 4) Nature bless? Earth, Fire, and Death are also somewhat niche, and Astral and Death are considered by many to be some of the weakest blesses (admittedly, they see a lot of use).

At the very least, I'm hoping that Johan and Kristoffer will take a look at this thread and consider it. Even if we don't get the option to mod in new paths (and I hope we do, I'd like to design a few), maybe we'll atleast get some more options. A new Illwinter-made path or 2 is a lot nicer than no new paths and no new blesses.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

I don't really agree with your bless analysis, but ho hum. Well, there's nothing to be done about it, I think the chances of moddable extra paths are close to zero. If you can't see why that is from a coding perspective, maybe just believe those of us who say we can make some guess at what'd be involved, and it isn't going to happen.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Well, I disagree, and will continue to disagree, especially since there's yet to be presented any particularly convincing evidence. I've been playing Dom3 as long as anyone who isn't from Sweden, and I can make educated guesses of my own about what will throw off balance, and what's simply reactionary. Maybe not as well as some of the top MP players, but well enough to keep my own council.

And honestly, I've been on these boards longer than you have, Llamabeast, so there's no need to put on a patronizing tone.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

We discussed this on IRC over the weekend. Settled for penetration +5, reinvigoration +3 and maybe quickness as sex magic bless effects. Got into an argument with Alneyan what the gems are supposed to look like, I pleaded for dildos, while Alneyan demanded Ben Wa balls. Custom flysprites would be needed for some spells as well. I'm off to look up some more research material...

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

... you know, I would appretiate some sort of path modding commands.

One idea that occured to me a while ago is that death magic should work somewhat akin to blood magic. Since modding it so that it uses corpses instead of gems straight off is impossible, I was thinking that if I could make some spell akin to raven feast (albeit very cheap and working on same province) avaiable early on, and force necromancers to go around with moving mages to cast that spell in every province with corpses to get a few gems. (Or, alternatively, pillage a province of your choosing to get the corpses and the subseçuent gems more çuickly)

Goes without saying that death magic gem sites rate would need to go down...

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

I believe Llamabeast was speaking from a programming-experience perspective, not a length-of-time-on-the-boards perspective.

I'm impressed that dominions is as moddable as it is, but remember where mod commands come from: KO comes up with cool ideas (like your Shadow Magic), JK codes them up, and if we're lucky JK adds in some extra code to attach a mode command and make the new abilities moddable so we can (re-)use them in new units. Even KO can't create new spells without code changes.

-Max

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

Penetration +5 is way overpowered. :re:

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

I'm impressed with how moddable it is too, MaxWilson, but that doesn't mean it can't be better. AI and the magic system are two areas where we lack important modding tools.

I can say a lot about where, exactly, I think Llamabeast was speaking from--but I won't, because that wouldn't be politic. As far as Llamabeast's "programming experience", Llamabeast isn't JK, so there's the end of that argument.

Ich, however silly it might seem, it remains that sex magic is something that people believed in for thousands and thousands of years, and continue to believe in. Feel free to giggle about it all you want, but it really is a serious, and major, part of the magical tradition.

Re: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.
 

You missed the point. Even KO lacks modding tools for the magic system. Such things must be (and are) hard-coded.

-Max