Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)

[JimMorrison]

This whole thread is going to keep ME up at night!

I am positive you can delete spells, as you can totally change them around. The KingMaker makes good examples of this - and I am reasonably sure we can just delete the entire spellbook and start over if we wish (sadly, it would probably be best).

Watershape is in the next patch. We might actually see that patch sooner than later, if someone can get KO's attention to this thread, and he is in any way excited to see this project get rolling (who could resist this?!).


A note about terrain types, since it will be very important as far as the design of sites, and possibly some other effects -

Deep Water - Deep Space
Shallow Water - Near Space / Solar Space
Mountains - Asteroids / Dead Planets
Forests - Habitable Planets (Earth)
Grassland - Habitable Planets (Fully Terraformed Mars)
Swamps - Marginal Planetary Bodies (Partially Terraformed Mars)
Waste - Hostile Planetary Bodies (Venus, Jupiter)


I think because of how we need to think about distribution of terrain, that multi-province planets will be complicated. They'll be greatly restricted in terrain. I was sort of hoping that sites for Mountain/Swamp/Waste could be significantly different than those you would expect to find on an inhabited world. For example, a specific type of "Space Pirate Den" or something, that would only be found in Asteroid Belts, and never on an inhabited planet.

I'm starting to think that "Magic", the Sites and Spells, are going to take a massive amount of time and effort, and I'm thinking it's where I'm going to volunteer to start learning the modding commands, and how to build up these libraries.


I agree that everyone should get easy access to one type of gem, Earth is fine, it can represent Titanium or something, a somewhat common ore needed for starship hulls (and armored vehicles of all kinds). Each species of course would have a bit of a predilection towards one more more other types - say they have enormous Diamond deposits or something, so they get 5 Air/turn at their home, and a lot of Air summons.

I'll do some brainstorming after I grab some food, and see if I can come up with a preliminary list of actual gem types for discussion.

[Darkwind]

JimMorrison said:
Deep Water - Deep Space
Shallow Water - Near Space / Solar Space
Mountains - Asteroids / Dead Planets
Forests - Habitable Planets (Earth)
Grassland - Habitable Planets (Fully Terraformed Mars)
Swamps - Marginal Planetary Bodies (Partially Terraformed Mars)
Waste - Hostile Planetary Bodies (Venus, Jupiter)

It seems unanimous that one-province planets are the way to go. I still don't know whether I should put up my map-designer hat (metaphorically speaking of course, I don't have one) or continue with the map-making.

Also, can I reserve S gems? I'm planning on using them in Noneuclidia (my Lovecraft nation which I'm currently making) for awakening the Great Old Ones (and Old Ones, and Lesser Old Ones...). I haven't the faintest idea what to call them though.

[JimMorrison]

Boson Matrices

I don't know, but it sounds awesome.


And no reason to stop thinking about map ideas, there could be blitz maps that are essentially fought entirely within 1 system, could be a lot of fun actually.

Just plan on the actual terrain types of a multi-province planet (just use default 'no' terrain) would be determined through the use of sites.

[Darkwind]

Quick question:

What should we do with the Horrors? Remove them or turn them into something new (I hear Lovecraft has some pretty horrific gods, if you know what I mean)?

Edit: I'm going to sleep now, but here's what I have of Noneuclidia. Just in time, too, I think I'm pretty much finished with the Yithians.

Also, Honeybadger, could you give me some sprites for these guys?

[JimMorrison]

Hey are you married to that name? Neuclidia, or Neoclidia could be fun. Just a thought. <3

Horrors..... Aliens? Facehuggers and Chest-Bursters, oh my! They ARE pretty horrible. But I can't see any existing mechanic that could be made to work, other than maybe Horror Seed, that would be hilarious.

[HoneyBadger]

What kind of sprites do you need? I can't download anything, just put a list on this thread as a reply.

[llamabeast]

I guess my suggestions for making it relatively hard to travel in space are only reasonably if there are several provinces per planet. Then you have battles for the surface of each planet before entering the transports and moving on to the next. Space blockades would be strategically crucial.

If you only want one province per planet, you'll want to make it easy to move between them, otherwise it'd be cumbersome as you say. Seems a pity to me, to lose out on the option of orbital blockades, but I guess there are pros and cons.

[JimMorrison]

Well, there is definitely something to said for some sort of space trench wars. Looking at this as basically an entirely new game, some space games go quick and dirty for conquest, some make it a very painstaking affair.

There certainly could be multiple province planets, as I said terrain could be in some way defined by magic sites, which unfortunately would have to be manually assigned to get the right flavor. Of course, everything but the inhabited planets could be left to chance, but if a planet is defined by terrain, and terrain is defined by sites, then each map will need to be modded with that in mind.

I do appreciate your input very much Llama, and I think that ultimately the mechanics can work out to allow both schemes, for different styles and scales of maps. It comes down more to a matter of which direction is easiest to initially develop, so we can get a working model off the ground.

[llamabeast]

Realistically I'm not going to put any real work into this mod, so I absolutely don't mind whether you guys go with any ideas I have or not. Just thought I would splurge my thoughts!

What do you mean by having terrain defined by magic sites? Why not have it determined by terrain?

[Aezeal]

I think orbital blockades might be a bad idea because if you made a race stronger in space (which seems logical) it would be very easy for them to blockade the enemy.

Then again.. you could do all things really. I don't think it's worth fussing about.. one map could have planets all inside their own space province with no land contact.. others would have nearby planets connected... or a mix of both in the same map.

Not worth fussing about now.