The biggest problem with Dom III

[Edi]

Your idea of what should be done with patches and the developers' idea of what should be done with patches may differ significantly, Xietor.

The IW guys are not doing this out of some great monetary incentive, but because they wish to, so things are mostly going to get done their way or not at all. If their vision is a division to different ages, then you WILL be stuck with that division unless you can muster the effort to do something about it for yourself. If you want all nations in a single age, then make a mod to the effect of

#modname "Single Age"
#description "1 age, all nations"

#selectnation 1
#era 1
#end

Repeat for all nations and you're done. Using copy-paste for three rows is not beyond anybody's capabilities and making that particular mod takes less than 5 minutes. You do need to make sure to change names so that the various nations with the same names will differ somehow to get them all in, but that's not much more work.

Then you can pick whatever you want. You can even do three variants, one for each age, if you want some change in the types of indies.

You complain about work and limited free time, but did it ever occur to you that both Johan and Kristoffer have full time day jobs and they use THEIR SPARE TIME for making Dominions. Time they cold spend with their families, friends and significant others or just doing something else. Think very hard about that.

[Gandalf Parker]

Why hasnt anyone done the "play all nations at once" mod?
That way you can have a 1500 province map with 75 opponents.

[TirAsleen]

i see some of the early era races bit too powerful while middle era is more balanced, so many sacred units, high lvl mages and very powerful beasts in early age to recruit in home provinces and just take hellheim and vanheim. early age is a bit ridiculous so i wonder why mixing eras now. but i agree with making the game settings with AI more customizeable.

[Sombre]

That's a strange question to ask Gandalf. I mean Edi basically just explained how to make it and pointed out how easy it is. So my question is this: Why haven't YOU made it?

If it's because you don't actually have any interest in having all nations in one era, you've just answered your question as to why no-one has made the mod. No-one who can actually be bothered to get off their arse and mod wants to do it,.. so they haven't.

This reply could be given to any number of threads in this forum: You can spend a long time waiting for 'someone' to make the changes you want. Or you can just do it yourself in about 5 minutes.

[Gandalf Parker]

Sombre said:
That's a strange question to ask Gandalf. I mean Edi basically just explained how to make it and pointed out how easy it is. So my question is this: Why haven't YOU made it?
(snip)
This reply could be given to any number of threads in this forum: You can spend a long time waiting for 'someone' to make the changes you want. Or you can just do it yourself in about 5 minutes.

Apologies to Edi. I did miss that excellent post. We were a few minutes apart (my connection isnt the fastest today) so I might have been typing

@Sombre
True enough. But thats not what I do.
Mods are a whole territory unto themselves. I spend more than enough time in the territories of server and maps. And since such a mod would be simple. It would be a good mod for someone who might just be curious about doing mods.

(Actually if I wanted to I could cheat horribly. We had such a mod in the beta area that I could copy). But if someone wants to put their name on such a mod, it would be one of the only mods Id consider putting up on the server for a game. 75 players would be a blast. Id also like to see portable nation mods so we can have a game of 23 Ulms, or 23 Vanheims.

[johnarryn]

Xietor,
Not that I disagree with everything you say, but how do you reach the conclusion that "less than 1 percent of Dom3 players read these forums"?

[Xietor]

Just a guess. It is like that with most sport's fans, and of the numerous gamers i know that play several games, none read message boards. Personally, I played DomII for years and never visited a forum.

Given the the game was sold to a few hundred thousand or so,
and you see less than a thousand posting, it is just an educated guess.

[Xietor]

Well,

for the advanced player, you may want to play a MA race, and add some EA or LA empires to create more of a challenge. It would be an option, not a requirement.

So you play MA Pangaea, create a map and random opponents, and they will default be all MA races.

But, for those wishing more of a challenge, You can "select" empires from different eras to throw in as opponents for a greater challenge. So it would be completely optional. Also, you may have 1 player that is an "expert" and a friend who is a casual player, so you may want to let him/her play a tougher race to equalize things.

MOO2 had a race that was overpowered on large maps, that got to research every tree at once. Many times i would allow my friends to play this overpowered race, while I would play
a more limited race to balance out the game. There is nothing wrong in having some races be overpowered, as long
as it is intentional and everyone realizes that they exist to allow the more casual player to compete against more experienced players.

In Dom II, ermor was overpowered. And I often allowed a friend to play ermor while i played ulm or some other race.
It created an even game that would not have been possible if my friend would have played a race other than ermor.

[Potatoman]

Ahh, Moo2. The overpowered custom options of that game were great fun- the best race that I remimber creating was the huge production bonus one with Feudal, + a few other picks that I do not remimber. It could crank out colony ships so quickly right out of the gate that I would often control most of the galaxy before P2 even reached their 3rd world. Fun!

Also amusing was the challenge to create the worst Moo2 custom race possible, then have your friend try to last as long as they could in a small galaxy with impossible opponents. The creator of the most pathetic custom race was the winner!

[TirAsleen]

i have moo2 still installed i agree research race was insane so i looked for a more fun race and that was silicodis...

hehe and not using customization at all + hardest game setting was still too easy for advanced players, that know what to research first and so on.