Possible missing nations in Dom III?

[Epaminondas]

One of the great appeals of Dom III is its dazzling variety of nations from which we can choose (as well as the fact that the developers have done a decent job of balancing truly disparate nations--a formidable task in itself).

Nonetheless, there are certain "obvious" historical/fantasy nation choices that seem to be missing from Dom III, and I am wondering if there are any plans to add them. In the alternative, if they are "out of the picture," I'd be interested to know the whys.

1. An Elven nation: I recall that one of the developers said that they definitely won't be in the game but did not proffer the reason for their absence. Why would this be? Elves are quite possibly the most frequently-occurring fantasy race. I suppose I can imagine two reasons. First, the developers might have wanted to get away from the classical elves, dwarves, orcs, et al. formula because they are too shopworn. Second, the traits that elves are usually deem to possess might conflict with the traits associated with the Vanir or the Tuatha.

2. A Dwarven nation: I am puzzled as to their absence for the same reason I articulated in regard to elves. But I see a more powerful rationale here, given that dwarves are part of Scandinavian mythos, so there will certainly be problematic overlaps.

3. A nation based on Korea: Given that there are three nations based on Scandinavia, it is difficult to see how there is not even one nation based on Korea. Korea was a more important player than Japan in Far Eastern history until really the Meiji reforms in the 1800s, and it has probably a richer historical and cultural tradition than Japan (though probably not as much as the Japan-inferiority-complex-ridden Koreans claim). Other games that endeavor to include the major global civilizations of the world (e.g. the Civ series) almost always have Korea represented, and there is no reason that Dom III shouldn't.

As an aside, I find that this game is woefully lacking in representation regarding East Asia in general. It has two representative nations from a civilization that rivaled and perhaps exceeded that of the West for most of recorded history. Again, For Christ's sake, (no offense to the developers who are Scandinavians but...) Scandinavia gets 3 representatives in the Early Era of Dom III. I suppose Scandinavia has historically been more important than the entirety of the Far East put together!

On a related issue, it seems to be insulting to conflate the entire steppe/Mongolian civilization with the Sinic civilization of China. While the histories of the two people often collided and intersected, they developed distinctively different traditions, in particular military.

4. A nation based on Egypt: Egypt was a central player in Western history at least until Actium. Like Korea, it also has a rich mythological and historical tradition. Also like Korea, it is usually represented in most games that base their sides on the global civilizations. So why not here?

[void]

Epaminondas said:

3. A nation based on Korea: Given that there are three nations based on Scandinavia, it is difficult to see how there is not even one nation based on Korea. Korea was a more important player than Japan in Far Eastern history until really the Meiji reforms in the 1800s, and it has probably a richer historical and cultural tradition than Japan (though probably not as much as the Japan-inferiority-complex-ridden Koreans claim). Other games that endeavor to include the major global civilizations of the world (e.g. the Civ series) almost always have Korea represented, and there is no reason that Dom III shouldn't.

Reminder:

The famous CCG Magic: The Gathering (owned by Wizards of the Coast WOTC that is also the owner of Dungeons & Dragons) released it's first Far Eastern expansion PORTAL: THREE KINGDOMS(http://www.wizards.com/magic/p3k/p3k_edition.asp) at July. 6. 1999 that's based on "T'ien C'hi" history.

The 2nd MTG expansion of Far Eastern known as CHAMPIONS OF KAMIGAWA(http://www.wizards.com/magic/display...page=1&lang=en) released at Auguest. 2004, which described a war between Human and Spirits--or, people and oni.

And shall I say that, the very ARABIAN NIGHTS is the first expansion of MTG released December 1993....

No Korea block yet.

Edit:
BTW, there's no Korea civilization in CIV3 till its first expansion.

[HoneyBadger]

I'd love to see Korea and Tibet/Nepal. So far, I haven't found Tibetan mythology to be that accessible online, but I've only made a minimal effort. Persia/Arabia-ala Arabian Nights, and the Vedas-for that matter would be another excellent source of nations. I think Johan and Kristoffer purposefully have not given elves/dwarves as much as other games, partially I believe because elves and dwarves are fantasy novel steriotypes who don't actually feature much in real world mythology. Duergar, domovoi, gnomes, brownes, kobolds, etc. do show up in mythology at large, but dwarves in the Tolkien-sense are pretty much purely a Norse invention, and the Heim nations have them as sorcerors, which they traditionally were. Elves on the other hand-also a Norse invention, as much as they were an invention of the Keltoi and the British, are to be found primarily as Tuatha de Danaan, the Welsh Daonie Sidhe, the (again Norse) Darkalfar-which are closer to dwarves, by the way, or as vague impressions of peoples in other cultures' mythologies who might kinda-sorta fit our image of elves, for instance, the pale people of various Amerindian cultures. I think the basic, strong, integral concept behind this game is that it's based on Pretenders inforcing their versions of mythology and reality upon the world, not taking an already existing fantasy world and having the citizens of that world fight one another. It's a little bit like the Torg RPG, if you're at all familiar with that (not likely, I admit).

[Mind Elemental]

Hi Epaminondas,

Just thought I'd nitpick.

3. I wouldn't call the steppe nations conflated with China - that's only the case for late TC, which is in any case pretty heavily sinicised. The steppe nations are absent from MA, but in EA they're represented by Sauromatia (I know, from the opposite end of the Eurasian continent).

4. Isn't C'tis very loosely based on Egypt?

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, what kind of mythology do Mongolians and Siberians concern themselves with? Not to mention old Russia and the Cossac peoples? It would also be interesting to see a nation based on Gypsies, or Aryans, or the Slavic peoples. Maybe West Africa and Nubia or Central Africa and the Pygmies. We have Machaka which seems to be African, maybe Zulu in nature. I know that Nerfix made the Sar Elad nation based on the Israelites. We don't even have to rely on historical or even mythological based nations. Some really good nations could come out of Empire of the Petal Throne RPG, Talislanta RPG, or Narnia. I'm working on nations based on H.P. Lovecraft and some others. Late 19th and early 20th century authors are a fantastic source of creative material. H.P. Lovecraft and J.R.R. Tolkien are just the tip of the iceburg. C.S. Lewis and the other lesser-known "inklings", William Hope Hodgson, H. Ryder Haggard, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, the list goes on and on. People really had great imaginations back then before television and fast food sucked our brains out and everywhere you went started looking like everywhere you've already been. Ok that's not really fair, the main issue is that, with the spread of information, our imaginary landscapes have started to resemble each other's to a greater degree than was previously possible, except where the Bible was concerned, and consequently we get elves, dwarves, dragons, wizards, magic swords, and castles ad nauseum, which is why I'm recommending for interesting (read "truly bizarre") ideas, it's a good idea to dig a bit into the past, not that the likes of Neil Gaiman, Jack Vance, Steven Spielburg, George Lucas, Harlan Ellison, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Brian Lumley, J.K. Rowling, and a host of others with fine imaginations are doing us a disservice, it's just that it's more likely now than at any other time in history that their ideas and our ideas will be recycled ones.

[Endoperez]

Elves - Tolkien came up with elves. Hoburgs are pretty close to the mythological elves, or tomte, in the early era; the armor and such they have later is different. Gnomes, from few sites, are also good repressentations of the elves of the lore.

Fair Folk were in DomII (tuatha), and will reappear in Dom3, but are currently missing.

There are many nations that have some or even all features a dwarf nation would have:

All Vanheim nations have dwarves. Svartalfar are, again, a good representation of dwarfs (the original plural), but not of dwarves (Tolkien's plural).
We also happen to have two strongly-armored, magic-weak nations in MA (Ulm, Agartha). Ulm is an easier example: strong, tough and resilient soldiers, mountains, superior metals, Master Smiths, Earth mages, forge bonus, elite guards with castle defence bonus, crossbowmen, sappers... Humans of Agartha live under ground and see in the dark; their magic and national spells and Pale One recruitables wouldn't make this purely dwarven nation, but a nation of dwarf-Agarthan alliance. Best LA Agarthan mages happen to be quite similar to Svartalfar, too.

[johan osterman]

Epaminondas said:...

As an aside, I find that this game is woefully lacking in representation regarding East Asia in general. It has two representative nations from a civilization that rivaled and perhaps exceeded that of the West for most of recorded history. Again, For Christ's sake, (no offense to the developers who are Scandinavians but...) Scandinavia gets 3 representatives in the Early Era of Dom III. I suppose Scandinavia has historically been more important than the entirety of the Far East put together!

On a related issue, it seems to be insulting to conflate the entire steppe/Mongolian civilization with the Sinic civilization of China. While the histories of the two people often collided and intersected, they developed distinctively different traditions, in particular military.
...

This is an odd complaint. Dominions isn't striving to be an accurate portrayal of the world or the relevance of it's various cultures. Nor does it make the claim that any of the nations are made up of influences from just one specific nation, or that the representation is fair. It is a work of imagination and reflects whatever influences caught Kristoffers, mainly, imagination. Complaining that there isn't enough east Asian influences in dom3 is all but tantamount to writing to the Tolkien estate and asking for revised Lord of the Rings where sino elves are included. I am sure Japanese games with mythic content often draw more heavily on Japanese myth's and tales than they do on western, this is as it should be. Besides many turn of the century occultists believed the entry to Agartha to be located somehwere in Tibet, ergo Illwinter believes Tibetans to be big one eyed monsters, also Egyptians are Lizards and Persians can fly.

Edit: Btw C'tis names are mainly Assyrian, and there is some Sumerian/Babylonian influnces in there as well. I hope the Egyptians and Iraqis will survive the insult.

[Edi]

Now THAT. my friends, was a quality burnination.

Edi

[Twan]

Personnally I'm not a fanatic of real world mythology and wouldn't be shocked by a mix with classical/d&dish-generic fantasy (I wouldn't say exact tolkienish fantasy, Middle Earth is a very specific world, always betrayed by games pretending to adapt it), but as modders do it well it would be a waste of developpers time at this point to add dwarven or elven nations (even if I think to have this kind of very classical nations would have been a good idea at release, as new players may immediatly figure what kind of nation elves, orcs or dwarves are and how they are supposed to play).

About real world inspired nations, I would like to see an arabic human nation with a djinns cult, flying carpets, etc... and an amerindian nation, more than more far-eastern ones.

[Chacal]

What I find original and appeling in Dom series is the use of Mytholgy (and fantasy like Lovecraft inspired nations) to combine in nations, at different degrees. I'm amazed before the work done at this. (and wouldn't be surpised if the developers were also history professors)

I think adding classicall D&D elves or Dwarves or Orks just wouldnt fit with the spirit of Dominions (and we have enough of them in evry fantasy game), even if they would make the game more appelaing for common gamers, but Dominions is more a 'niche' game. I would prefer far much like you propose nations based on Korea or others (Maybe eastern Europe country which have also a rich mythology and colorful history or Monghol hordes, or even a combination of both)