What is all the fuss on modding about?

Edi · #1 September 23rd, 2004, 08:02 AM

It depends on your taste, I would say. Some people like certain mods because they alter the thematics of some specific nation more to their liking, or add something to the game that was not there previously. Some mods seek to address certain balance issues, but these should be approached with extreme caution. Often it is a question of the modmaker not knowing what to do when faced with something, so he or she thought it was "unbalanced".

I'd be willing to play MP with some mods (haven't tried many, but I've seen enough positive feedback for some mods). One very good mod is Zen's recent Concept Balance mod, because it only affects pretenders, not the nations, and it makes more pretenders attractive for MP purposes (and in SP).

Thing is, if you've played Dominions extensively and know the ins and outs of different strategies for different nations, odds are you will be able to tell what effect a particular mod will have on a game, or at least make a relatively accurate educated guesstimate.

You should take some time to look at the mod specifics before using a mod in a game, and perhaps experiment a little with some short SP games that you can abandon, as and if your time constraints allow.

In MP it also depends on what kind of game you're playing. With some friends, I could very well play co-ops on a large map with victory by provinces and using quick turns, to test out things. Or in sandbox play. But for competitive take no prisoners games, mods are not necessarily good unless everyone agrees to them in advance and knows what they are committing to.

Edi

Chazar · #2 September 23rd, 2004, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Edi said:
Thing is, if you've played Dominions extensively and know the ins and outs of different strategies for different nations, odds are you will be able to tell what effect a particular mod will have on a game, or at least make a relatively accurate educated guesstimate.

You should take some time to look at the mod...

The problem is that neither do I have the time (I can hardly play the three games I am currently in, since it takes more than 1h to complete a turn for me!) nor the experience to judge a mod, which is essentially why I am asking here. There should be enough experienced mod-Users around to share their opinion about some mods. Of course, this gives no guarantees, but guidelines...

The other thing that bugs me is that I do not understand why I should be the first to ask for Mod-experience-reports...

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@Alneyan: Thanks for the Version info! And yes, I am asking for opinions right here...

@PDF: Me and my friends care a lot whether the game is balanced, and we dont want to spend substantial time to built-up a game just to see that its over due to an imbalanced setup:
For me, the game starts to be fun as soon as the nations meet and fighting gets stuck somewhere. Its no fun to be rolled-over in an instant as well as rolling-over somebody else without resistance. Its the mid-game, when everybody agrees that its entirely unclear who will prevail at the end when the game is most fun.

And actually we consider the 17 nations to be quite balanced and so far everybody got his choice without any conflicts, but I agree that the balancing depends on the correct map size (~10 provinces per nation).

Soapyfrog · #3 September 23rd, 2004, 09:45 AM

This is not an MP only forum... so why shouldn't there be extensive discussion of modding?

I don't think you have to worry about the supply of Vanilla MP games drying up!!!

Chazar · #4 September 23rd, 2004, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Soapyfrog said:
This is not an MP only forum... so why shouldn't there be extensive discussion of modding?

I don't think you have to worry about the supply of Vanilla MP games drying up!!!

I dont! I see that a lot of effort goes into modding, and I am merely asking how I might access all the work done...

Gandalf Parker · #5 September 23rd, 2004, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Chazar said:
I dont! I see that a lot of effort goes into modding, and I am merely asking how I might access all the work done...

Not quite all of the work but there is a stickie at the top of the screen which lists mods. and www.illwinter.com (the home site of the game developers) has a section listing most of them

Chazar · #6 September 23rd, 2004, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Gandalf Parker said:
Not quite all of the work but there is a stickie at the top of the screen which lists mods. and www.illwinter.com (the home site of the game developers) has a section listing most of them

I am aware of those and I am wondering why there are no postings about people's experiences in using them...

Arryn · #7 September 23rd, 2004, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Chazar said:
I am aware of those and I am wondering why there are no postings about people's experiences in using them...

Have you read my AAR? In particular, the early Posts?

Gandalf Parker · #8 September 23rd, 2004, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Chazar said:
I am aware of those and I am wondering why there are no postings about people's experiences in using them...

This is probably going to come off wrong but when I worked for an ISP I used to say often...
"This is Internet. You can find anything. If you do search and dont find what you want, then you found a need. Fill it! This is Internet."

Im also surprised that we dont have a single concise "review" of the mods now that there are so many. If anyone wants to tackle it then feel free. Im afraid that Im more interested in maps than mods.