Mod: Dominions 3000 v0.81 - lots of new indies, new map (using the brand new map commands)

[Darkwind]

@Fate: I've got a couple (semi) answers, but I'm not too knowledgeable about a lot of this stuff, so I'll just skip some.
1-Space Mines' "self destruct" (if I remember) has an area of effect. I think Aezeal meant for them to hit themselves, but it doesn't seem to work out that way.
4-The power level of assassins in the mod might be due to most nations being, in Aezeal's own words, rather more powerful than your average Dominions nation.
5-Once again, nations are generally more powerful in Dom3K than Dom3. Though, I guess a thug in Dom3 would still be fairly powerful in Dom3K.
6-I think that was from Amos's original mod, actually. He suggested it for thematic reasons.

Oh, hey! Johan K, developer extraordinaire, is here! Let's see...
@the tank: Yeah, the frame around the tank hero is weird. Hopefully it's easy to fix, though.

@forest-vs-space: I think we settled on forest because water was coded to act like water, not space. Units can move 1 province/turn in water, period, which was a really big disadvantage. Sailing could've been cool though. Still though, the 1-move limit plus the lack of blood hunting sort of nailed the proverbial watery grave for water provinces.

We wouldn't have to use either, though, if you let us play around with void terrain and voidforms!

[rdonj]

I will Although, honestly I've never had problems with the space stations. It's just a matter of getting the independants to flee, then eventually your units run into melee and carve the space station up with their ap weapons. They're a pain to bring down with ranged weapons, but just about any unit with an ap melee weapon can kill one eventually. I've always found space eels to be the most problematic, especially when there's 3 or more in a province.

Btw Fate, the commonwealth does have a ranged unit. I believe their gun does 4AN damage. I haven't found it terribly effective personally, though.

Darkwind - Haven't had a chance to play yet to see if your new streamguns are effective. I'll try to look into that at some point.

[Johan K]

I have implemented two new map commands for the next patch that I hope will be used for Dom3k. #skybox "myskybox.tga" will put a custom made skybox in a province. #batmap "empty" will remove the ground you fight on. Together they should provide the possibility for a decent space map without any pine trees floating around when you fight.

[Aezeal]

Hey JK, nice to have your feedback too , it's been quite a task to get it this far but if you don't mind a bit below average graphs and nations with not (yet) as much background as most dominions races the gameplay should be decent.

Making spaceform for nearly every troops is quite annoying but just giving some troops space helmets was the only thing I could really think of.. and it's not as hard as giving them a whole new sprite (sprites are hard for me )

I heard the linux comment before and I'm trying to correct it somewhat but when I heard a few nations and most base weapons I use where already done... can't even promiss new nations won't ahve it since on my system it doesn't give errors so I won't notice it. I'll look into the orc tank hero since I tend to borrow my sprites of the internet and then adapt them I've had some start with a alpha channel which makes them not recognized as the black which needs to be transparant, but just as pure black.

I'd love it if I could get a spacy back ground !!! would increase the feel for space a 100 times..

About the seaprovince.. when others started this idea they started it about seashapes etc.. when I actually made a nation I noticed it isn't playable though. Several reasons:
- Movement with spaceships should be fast, not limited to 1 prov/turn.. though considering how large space is between planets and that on the maps they should be considered as "zoomed" in that wouldn't be the largest province.
- Biggest issue was this: spaceage dominions is not only about being in space, it's also about having more ranged weapons (though I try to include as many excuses for melee weapons since the combat system isn't nearly as much fun with only ranged weapons since it was not made for that.)
anyway as you know sea provinces and ranged combat are an exceptionally bad combination.

all in all forest use as space isn't that much of a problem except that I can't make ships that need to stay in space and all troops can walk into space and they will unless I make spaceform for them to discourage it. (which ranges from just having lowerstats to being in a freighter not being able to do anything.)

Ow and fate, darkwind is right that suggestion to use death was from Amos mod (I've tried not to change to much in his mod) he wanted pop to decrease under insect rule which is why he thought to thematic, I think he's already replaced it with a sort of deathdominions now that command is added to our modding arsenal.

anyway sailing could've been nice but if I want to create hyperspace lanes I can just link provinces which are distant.

On assasination: I've not played much with assassins much so I might just have underestimated it... it's not been THAT much of a problem yet so I'm leaving it for now.
On spacemines: yeah selfdestruct doesn't seem to do what I want, I've not encountered much mines myself though can some one tell me if they do actually attack or that they just don't hit them selves?

Rdonj: spaceeels are meant to be problematic as indies they shoudl I was hoping for them to be some sort of indie anti thug.
And as a summons for R'lyeh I think they will be devastating when equipped (I'll see if I can get there in our game )

[Aezeal]

JK, you are my hero

I'll put them in the map right away when the next patch comes out and see what happens
I guess I can just use any file to set as the skybox .tga and then just add that and the the #batmap "empty" command to a province?
Or will I actually need to use - #skybox "myskybox.tga" - and then I will get a background you've put in the next patch too

Rdonj will do the same for our new bigger map. (I think )

I think this will mean I'll wait for the next patch with our MP game since this will make it so much better.

[Aezeal]

PS I'll look into the orc hero thing (didn't remember he had a different tank sprite any more) once I have access to my old comp again with the files and the game on it.. the compenents for my new comp included a defect 4850x2 videocard so I'm using my old card now. (needed to test the rest of the system) If it takes to long I'll put it back in the old one but for now I'm enjoying my newer faster system.

[Darkwind]

I'll throw in with Aezeal that the new commands sound very, very awesome. Though, if experience is any indicator, we'll have to steal a semi-decent skybox from the Internet, or from Dom3. Assuming I have any idea what a skybox is. One would think the name gives it away, but there's always the chance it's something crazy.

[Fate]

Ok, some further thoughts.

The Orcs are VERY powerful. If you can get 1 province to 7+ dom and put just a few heroes in it you can get a full army every turn. On top of that the Orcish blasters are very powerful. Significant numbers of Orcish Shooters can take down just about anything. IDK about the summons, but just the basic orcs can really tear stuff up.

I still think the Common Wealth is underpowered. All their better belee troops are missing the all powerful shield. Also, their shield does nothing against the Neoclidean lasers (they get chopped down mercilessly). The only advantage to the Common Wealth is the ease with which they can defend territories. The turrets output ~20 AP rounds a turn, so two of them are normally sufficient to defend against most armies (with a little PD to catch enemy fire). Offensively I was helpless until I got Falling Frost, and even then I had to sacrifice swarms of my Teachers just to get close enough to cast it.

This could also all be a reflection of Neoclidia, which I think is very powerful. The recruitables are good, especially anything with a laser. A group of 20 heavy lasers can take down anything, including space worms. The tramplers are useless because of the speed with which chaff is destroyed in this game and the generally large enemies (especially the indies). I think their cheapest militia unit having mindblast is a little overpowered. Unless you really swarm them or attack with very high MR units you are dead, because they can mindblast entire armies into oblivion.

Then Neoclidia has powerful summons. I generally find the ranged more powerful for the above reason (if you get 40+ mindblasters there is really nothing the enemy can do). I was a bit confused at the way the summons ramped up. Because the higher level summons give you better Old Ones AND more Old Ones/gem there is really no reason to ever cast the lower level spells after that. Of course, some of the higher ones require more paths, but that logic doesn't apply to the lowest level versions which are easily researched and each makes the preceding version completely obsolete.

I also thought Neoclidia had no need whatsoever for the (admittedly very nice) space ships, because most their normal units (and certainly their best units) can go into space anyway. I would probably suggest making the standard troops significantly weaker in space, and maybe even weakening the Old Ones in space, both to restrict Neoclidia a bit more and to force them to use the battle stations.


And a small bug on the map, province 38 is connected to 25 (a planet on the far right to the center of jupiter). I found this out just in time to take advantage of it, :P

Still a very entertaining Mod, thanks guys!

[Johan K]

Originally Posted by Aezeal

I guess I can just use any file to set as the skybox .tga and then just add that and the the #batmap "empty" command to a province?

That's correct. A normal 512*512 tga or rgb image will do.

[Aezeal]

wow different views for different provinces NICE I'll start looking for some nice backgrounds. PS will larger images just resize to fit or will additional pixels just not be seen?

Fate: I've toned done Orc armour in the latest version but ifyou already have that I might need to do more... giving the basic Shooters a bit weaker gun might be it since you get so many of them. Anyway if you can get that much commanders that easily then I'll just increase their cost and upkeep
I might do this before our test game.