Dominion Spread

diamondspider · #1 January 26th, 2004, 06:21 PM

@ ceremony:

I found the first paragraph particularly interesting in regard to:

".... the game designers did not pursue the possiblity that this [spreading of dominion] could be done through polite discussion.... Instead it can be done militarily ... or through a more abstract mechanism...."

Actually, building temples and preaching are pretty much, indeed, going from door to door and represents the "abstract mechanism" that need not be violent.

This interests me since I often like to explore non-military Versions of wargames. For example, the economic based scenarios in the Stronghold game. Or, more generally, a "war of ideas".

I was just thinking it would be fun to set the victory conditions to "Dominion" and disallow direct combat except for rituals that don't involve melee.

So, while it is true that the game has a huge military component, the flexibility of the settings allow a non-violent Version to be played based only on preaching and sly usage of the gods power through his/her/its followers.

Chalk another point up for Illwinter and for the flexibility they built into D2 so that a game could actually be based on a "conVersion/economics" approach instead of combat, albeit indirectly since the game wouldn't enforce the "no melee" rule.

What would make this fully possible is if, at a certain very high level of dominions (say 9+) the indies would convert and join you

[ January 26, 2004, 16:43: Message edited by: diamondspider ]

PhilD · #2 January 26th, 2004, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ceremony:
I've put together a short primer on dominion and its spread and effects. All the mechanisms you ask about are there:

http://www.maladjustite.com/dominion.pdf

Awesome job. If the section on morale is done, I want it ASAP, because there are a lot of details in there that I'd like to know.

One point you might want to add: in the "i" window for a Province, you will see the name of any special dominion that applies there. It would be nice (devs: hint

) if you got the name of the nation responsible, too - not a big balance change, IMHO, but it would help sometimes.

ceremony · #3 January 26th, 2004, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by PhilD:
If the section on morale is done, I want it ASAP, because there are a lot of details in there that I'd like to know.

The morale section is going to come Last. It will require some work from the devs to hunt through the code and get a definitive answer on how it works, so I guess the deal is that if I can put together a comprehensive guide to the rest of it, they will get an answer for me about morale so that it can be complete!

Quote:

Originally posted by PhilD:
One point you might want to add: in the "i" window for a Province, you will see the name of any special dominion that applies there.

Good suggestion -- I'll add it.

One thing I really want to do in the guide is get across the fundamental concepts without necessarily burying the reader in detail, BUT having the detail in there for those who want it. For example, a pretender wih low dominion (3, for example) will see his dominion spread much faster initially than one with dominion 6, but once he starts meeting enemy dominions he will have a harder time reducing them, and will see high-dominion pretenders overwhelm his low-dominion provinces, since the chance of random spread to an enemy dominion depends in part on your maximum dominion. However, he can redress this by building a lot of temples. Thus, Man (for instance) can go with slightly lower dominion to start because temples are half the normal cost, and for all purposes, maximum dominion includes # of temples / 5.

None of this requires specific knowledge of the formulae involved. I'm still not sure how I want to end up writing it, but the further I get, the less likely it is to change because the more text would have to be completely re-written.

Quote:

Originally posted by diamondspider:
Actually, building temples and preaching are pretty much, indeed, going from door to door and represents the "abstract mechanism" that need not be violent.

Good point. However, the fact remains that unless you have stealthy priests, you're going to have to conquer provinces to be able to preach and build temples, since any provincial defense will likely be able to defend against a solitary priest. Anyway, it was kind of meant as a joke.

Saxon · #4 January 27th, 2004, 06:12 AM

Ceremony,

Thanks a lot for this! I posted Last night before I went home from work and when I checked this morning, I was a bit worried. It had fallen way down the forum list and I thought no one had replied. Then I saw 12 replies and then saw your chapter. I have printed it and will see if I can read it at lunch, things are busy today.

Thanks again!

Kristoffer O · #5 January 27th, 2004, 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by PhilD:

quote:
Originally posted by ceremony:
I've put together a short primer on dominion and its spread and effects. All the mechanisms you ask about are there:

http://www.maladjustite.com/dominion.pdf

Awesome job. If the section on morale is done, I want it ASAP, because there are a lot of details in there that I'd like to know.

One point you might want to add: in the "i" window for a Province, you will see the name of any special dominion that applies there. It would be nice (devs: hint ) if you got the name of the nation responsible, too - not a big balance change, IMHO, but it would help sometimes.

Hmm, that is not intentional. It will probably be removed

diamondspider · #6 January 27th, 2004, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ceremony:

quote:
Originally posted by diamondspider:
Actually, building temples and preaching are pretty much, indeed, going from door to door and represents the "abstract mechanism" that need not be violent.

Good point. However, the fact remains that unless you have stealthy priests, you're going to have to conquer provinces to be able to preach and build temples, since any provincial defense will likely be able to defend against a solitary priest. Anyway, it was kind of meant as a joke.

Yeah, I appreciated your humor! It just got my mind chugging and I always like it when something I read does that.

And, yes, there are ways besides stealthy priests to deal with indies by they are very inefficient e.g. Miasma, using rituals that don't create units but damage things from afar, etc. So, it doesn't work too well. The priests would also have to be set on Retreat to stop them from fighting... It isn't very practical and fighting is, unfortunately, pretty much inevitable as you implied.

edit: actually, it seems you can set indies to zero! Hehehe... maybe it is possible after all

[ January 27, 2004, 08:57: Message edited by: diamondspider ]

Pocus · #7 January 27th, 2004, 12:53 PM

really good chapter, with some formulae difficult if not impossible to find without feedback from the devs!

* I once read somewhere that victory points provinces help spread the dominions, any infos on this?

* in which order temple spread and priest preaching is done, can be of importance.

* how can it be that a dominions spread can be observed more than one province away from a dominions source? Or is it that a province which is receiving a dominions increase have a chance to redirect this increase to yet another province?