Dominions 3: Speculation Wars

[Vicious Love]

B0rsuk said:
Pythium - marsh people before Ermor came> regular Pythium > ?

You got it all wrong. Pythium are the Byzantines. They split from Ermor while Ermor collapsed under its own undead weight. Then chose to go off and live in a swamp, apparently. Go figure. If Serpent Cult is still around in Dom 3, I imagine it comes after base Pythium.
If Ermor's first age is before the 'splosion(Malediction? Cataclysm? That nasty thing that happened), first age Pythium would have to be part of the empire, if only in name. 'course, pre-nastyness Ermor also predates Marignon and Ulm, so the timeline would still need some work. I imagine the earliest available Ermor will still be the Broken Empire.

furthermore, Kuritza_Dru said:
Pythium with C'Tis (sauromancers helping the Theurgs) > Serpent cult / Pythium. Dunno in which order. Perhaps second era is about 'sauromancers are gone, but there are still some serpent temples around', and the third one is a 'pure' Pythium.

I thought Pythium split from Ermor precisely because of the sauromancers, and all those signs and portents they entailed?

Desert tombs > C'Tis > Miasma, with Tombs not as a 'return of the ancient Kings' theme, but as an 'Ancient nation obsessed with Life after Death' thingy. More Egypt please.

That does solve the problem of Miasma and Desert Tombs being somewhat exclusive, but it raises the question of just where the undead half of Desert Tombs C'tis went between eras.

Golden Era - Alexandria - Arcoscephale.
We have seen Arco as an old (tired) Empire and we've seen that land in its time of legends. Now its time to play a Hellinistic Empire at its prime.

Sounds good, though there might not be that much of a difference between mid- and late-era Arcoscephale in terms of actual units and commanders.

Diabolical Faith / Marignon / Conquerors.
When the first waves of the Undead overwhelmed the outer defenses, great fear arose. While the most devout priests were sacrificing their live at the front lines, others were... sacrificing others lives to get help from an even more sinister source. Heresy took some time to weed off, but eventually the Inquisition was founded and succeeded in both dealing with both keeping the Death at bay and weeding out the blasphemy.

Also good, but raises the question of why CotS would be synchronous with Ashen Empire or Soul Gate. There's also something to be said for Marignon resorting to diablerie only after exhausting their alternatives. I'd imagine they found it almost as abhorrent as the cult of death, back when they could afford to be picky.

First of the Tuatha > Man > Last of the Tuatha.

But... base Man hasn't got any Tuatha. It's already after LotT.

Regular Pangaea > "Iron" Pangaea > Carrion Woods ?

Carrion Woods and New Era are mutually exclusive. One will have to be reworked to fit them into the same timeline.

Raptors > Caelum > ?

Return of the Raptors necessarily follows base Caelum. Pre-banishment Caelum was presumably nothing like RotR, as it had most of what base Caelum has, and the harab seraphs. Now THAT'S overpowered.

[Kristoffer O]

> Now THAT'S overpowered.

One might think so

[Endoperez]

Hmm, Kristoffer mentioned that some themes have been merged, and also that early, middle and late versions of Caelum are quite close to each other... And much earlier, in one of the dev diaries, "Caelum now has it's three themes almost finished. Now I like the raptor theme, not just the idea."

So, does this mean that Caelum has wider range of magic (some Raptors) in all of its themes? Or have the Raptors become closer to the other Caelumians?

[Sandman]

You could have 'Age of the Tuatha' before Last of the Tuatha. Tuatha units would be recruitable everywhere - but no longbowmen, bards or monks.

[Nerfix]

BTW, I think that it was mentioned in a dev diary that the late era is an "unit era" so I guess that many of the nations have stronger units, steelier plate armors and less potent mages.

[Chazar]

Yes, I recall that too, so if late era means the advent of mechanical powers and thus heavy armored units, etc. Which one is the high magic era? Early era, were powers are still primordially raw and mould the face of the earth?

I wonder whether the available magic spells will change with the era one plays in, i.e. mechanical men are only available in late era, while the demon summonings from the early era got forgotten slowly... That would be interesting!

[Nerfix]

Chazar said:I wonder whether the available magic spells will change with the era one plays in, i.e. mechanical men are only available in late era, while the demon summonings from the early era got forgotten slowly... That would be interesting!

Yes, intresting is the word...and it could have some real effect on play strategies...