This would have been a lot better than dominions!

[Kristoffer O]

Ah! Thanks. That was a nice, constructive and instructive answer.

I agree on much of what you say. Dominions is designed to have a core similar for all nations, while CoE is less symmetric. This makes dom easier to mod and expand. Dominions differentiates background and nation content, while CoE differentiates the playstyle and game content of the warlords/mages. Interesting point. I hadn't thought about that.

Some of your thoughts are things we want to implement in our next project.

[Arralen]

Kristoffer O said:
Ah! Thanks. That was a nice, constructive and instructive answer.

You want more of that?
Ok, scratch the "nice", but otherwise ... :

At first, let me say there's plenty of difference between (at least some) nations, even in playstyle. It would be more apparent if there wasn't "The Great Equalizer"(TM), but I'll come back to that later ...

I doubt Dom3 needs even more RPG-like events: micromanagement can be quite tedious at times already .. imaging sending out 1 commander with a 5-men-squad to hunt some rats somewhere in a backwater province .. . That kind of thing simply does not fit the scope and the focus of dominions, which is battling on a strategic and (big) tactical scale.

The feel of uniques in CoE feels a lot better than in dom. And that is while CoE is pretty limited, sure the more you expand it the harder it gets, but at the same time it gets even better.
In dom most races, are pretty similar, there are a lot, but that doesnt help a lot. They might seem different, but in the end they feel all to familiar.

That's because
- ressources are worth next to nothing, as you don't need them. Unless you're Ulm, but then you're dead before the mid-game anyway. Everyone is taking sloth and does not recruit national troops after the first few turns, because they're useless unless they belong to the handfull of overpowered F9W9 or N9Ex blessable superunits.
- gold for (national) mages is only of importance unless you have enough mages (and therefore research) to get the (upkeepfree) summons.
- starting in mid-game, everyone is summoning the same generic summons (most national summons are rather bland) using the same summoned mages.

What Dom3 needs are not even more summons (no matter if generic or somewhat restricted), but upkeep cost for everything, as to prevent summons being a no-brainer. Btw., don't even the dragons you summon in CoE2 to guard your mines cost some "upkeep" in form of income they take away from the revenue?

And it needs most likely vastly more expensive mages, or national combat commanders will nearly never by recruited. Shouldn't mages be the exception, not the rule on the battlefield after turn 20, or should they?

[Kristoffer O]

Agreed in most parts

Dragons are the only thing that costs in CoE (and golems that consumes a mine).

Upkeep free magic units in dom was an early design desicion. I have thought about it several times. I will probably make other desicions regarding upkeep in future projects.

Dominions was designed to be a game system, into which you could fit new nations. We did not intend magic to be as generic as it became, but with the limited amount of national summons etc the game was rather converegent at first. Attempts to alleviate this has come a bit on the way, but it will never be fully accomplished.

[CaoCao]

Kristoffer O said:
Some of your thoughts are things we want to implement in our next project.

That is good to hear.



The rat quest was just a example for events that can last several "turns" and change accordingly to your actions.

When you find the deepest cave in the province for example... you could decide whether you want to explore it deeply,
just take a quick look, ignore it completely or even try to seal it up/"destroy" it.

That would provide a lot more options and deeper connecting and lots of additional possibilities.
The more risk, the more possible gain.
Just a few such events would make a game and its world much more alive, with random functions their outcome could be quite different
and you could never know what you might get... The added replay and strategic value would be surely nice to have.

Do I encounter monsters, or even a whole hive? Do I find valueable items/gold/gems/"free units"?
The deeper the exploration the higher the chance for more gems/gold/??? production every turn.

You could also have a option to always be able to destroy some sites, so they do not fall into enemy hands or simple if you don't like their side effects.
If I like the freezing cold, why would I not raze a heat radiating site?
Or imagine a demonic blood temple, where innocent virgins are captured and even sacrificed... how could a righteous and beloved leader not do something against that,
without losing support from his people and feeling ashamed?
Of course, he could not!

More interaction with sites would be nice, so they are not only gem/gold/supply/unit producer.
After all some are magnificent buildings and most important to you and your race or your enemies...

Surely this is only a small part, but could improve the whole quite a bit.


Your Dominar spoke once again and my trust in you, my most beloved citizen, is great.
Your hard work shall prosper greatly and its fruit be harvested without any delay, for me to enjoy!
If the Dominar is most well, his loyal subjects surely must be as well!

[Tichy]

A thought: It seems to me that magic summons are part of the design. The nations are supposed to become more powerful as time goes on, both horizontally (more provinces, money, larger armies) and vertically (more powerful individual units available). Vertical power is implemented in two ways. 1) Magic summons that must be researched, 2) items to give to recruitable units to put them more on a par with the units available through magic. The problem seems to be that most veterans agree that recruitable+items is almost never as powerful as decent mid-game summon+items.

A possible solution: A third way of introducing an increase in vertical power. Add in researchable spells specific to different nations that create magic sites that either allow the nation to recruit uniquely powerful units (thus adding in an upkeep component to certain particularly desirable troops) or allow mages to 'enter' the site and summon these units 1/turn (to prevent horde-ing).

I know that magic sites exist with these properties, but I don't know if the capacity exists for spells that create them. (Or if anyone would think this is a good idea.)

[konming]

This idea is implemented quite well in Master of Magic. In that game you get more and more powerful summons but as you develop your cities, you can also produce more and more powerful units. Top tier producable units like paladins can go toe on toe to most summons. And normal units buffed up by spells (like slingers) can also be extremely powerful.

[konming]

I think dominions is fine as way it is. COE is a quite interesting game, but it is geared towards single player. You always find more interesting encouters etc. But these role playing things are not so good for multiplayer as 1) it creates huge balance problem 2) it makes the turn even longer than it is now 3) multiplayer strategy are based mainly on strategy and therefore predictable things. The role playing element makes random choice and luck much more important and possibly defeat much of the strategy part.

[Nightblade]

I have only 2 annoyances with COE.

-sneaking armies
This one is annoying because of the very limited vision around your towns and towers, most of the time you find enemy troops in the middle of your whole territory wondering how they could have traveled there without being noticed by your army, towers or towns.
Certainly as a workaround you could send additional single commanders everywhere as scouts, but when i tried this i quickly understood that doing so is hurting your economy so much that you will be unable to field enough troops and so you are in fact dooming your side to lose in lnog term.

-combat rules
The primary annoyance i have with COE, the combat system that gives the advantage to the defense allowing a defensive stack to have all of their units hitting 1st.
Basically if you want to have a chance you must never attack an enemy stack that is globally equal to your troops, because by attacking them they will hit you first, weakening your troops a lot before you have even a chance to retaliate.

Certainly the problem is not big in the beginning of the game when you meet some stacks with 2 militia inside or 1 lonesome deer.
Or against some of the enemy races that field weak troops, but in the case of races that are capable of fielding several stacks like this one :

with the combat rules of defense hit first, this kind of enemy stack will always devastate your troops if you attack first, as they have more than 100hp each, multiple attack of strong damage and regenerating (those swamp gods especially i can't believe how much troops and catapults it took me to take just one down ).

And because the system always gives the 1st attack to the whole defense units, if you field some good troops yourself, those kind of stack will not attack first, waiting for you to do this (and so to have your troops weakened a lot).

Despite Dominons 3 combat system is turn based too, it avoids creating this problem in a verty elegant way with all the troops positions, scripted orders and units stats that will affect the outcome of the 1st assault.

But for a simpler game like COE that has no conditions to influence the 1st hitting side, it is very unfortunate that both sides do not attack in the same time during a turn, it would have been a lot better than the current system.

[Aezeal]

Hmm I'd say the point that dominions equalized mid-end game through use of summons if often correct. My suggestion for improvement would be the addition of a few "buildings" (al civ or even better master of magic (not so much of em)) which give the option to produce stronger units with a little better power/cost (either cash or resource) ratio OR (and this would be best) nice special attacks. More specialized units coudl have a role there too.

In the end it'll still end up with all nations taking the most powerfull mages and summons but there would be more steps towards that making the games more varied. Also making more national summons and or other spells and making them more powerfull OR giving them more special abilities would also help a lot in differentiating end game play.

Give some nations strong melee summons, others stronger mages, others weaker summons which summon other special troops that sort of thing.

Making more STRONG unique summons would help too, sure it would be a bit of a race towards the strongest of them but if they cost a lot then the runner up could always take nr 2 and still not be far behind. Or he could focus on killing the summon and then taking it himself.. or wishing for it

Aez