[PvK]

Originally posted by Nerfix:

quote:

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Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Protection is for sissies

Does this mean Dominions is now officaly a Grognard game?

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I hope so.

Curses and fate are two different things, both in mythology and in the game.

I have a cursed hero/prophet who has a few afflictions but is continuing to smear foes with near-impunity thanks to his skills and equipment. I am working on seeing if I can create the Chalice so I can heal his afflictions. Seems to me that being able to cure most afflictions in one way or another is a reasonable countermeasure to a curse.

On the other hand, I agree that it'd be nice and reasonable if a wish could remove a curse, since a curse is the will of some sour-hearted mortal, rather than Fate. The price is nicely excessive, too, so it doesn't remove the interestingness of the status quo that curses are easy to apply but difficult to remove.

It is pretty nasty how easy it is to apply a curse - the range and accuracy are very high, and there are items like that nasty voodoo shield, or the annoying cursed weapons which foolish heroes pick up and get stuck with.

Personally, I would probably reduce the range and accuracy of curse attacks compared to Dom I, and maybe have different types and/or strengths of curse, with some difficult or costly ways to remove them, or at least, the weak ones.

However one of the things I like most about Dominions is that there are so many diverse game systems (such as abilities and afflictions) which operate independently, and therefore don't have direct counters which can erase them. Also I really do like the mortality risk and detailed afflictions down to the individual militiamen. Perhaps my favorite aspect of the game, versus the computer anyway, is to follow the fates of my elite minions, and try to keep them alive and powerful, and it's often really interesting, comical, and difficult to do.

One great example just happened to me. Another arena competition for a powerful magic item occurred, which I had never been able to win, as it is pretty difficult to have a competitor who can defeat all of the opposition. In this case I knew one competitor would be Ermorian, no doubt a summoner of undead. I didn't want to see any of my best men die, and was looking for an expendable volunteer to try my luck, when I saw Henric the Priest, who had been cursed somehow without my noticing, even though he had only seen one or two battles. I figured at least if he died (which seemed almost certain), I wouldn't have to be annoyed by a cursed priest, and he might get lucky and banish some foul Emorian from the world. He was also in the same province as several heroes with lots of magical equipment, so I loaded him up with a full suit of armor, and a jar containing an elemental. To my complete surprise, he won the tournament! He lucked out and only faced the Ermorian at the end, after the Ermorian had wiped out everyone else. Henric managed to banish the undead, while the elemental went over and (barely) wiped out the Ermorian summoner! However, the ironic twist was that he was given a magic weapon as a trophy, but it's cursed so that he won't let go of it! So now I have a powerful magic weapon as my prize, but I have to have Henric the cursed novice priest wield it! Laugh! Actually, with a bunch of other magic equipment, he may be pretty formidable, and it'll certainly be amusing to see how the rest of his story turns out!

PvK