National summons/spells of old nations

[DominionsFan]

I hope that there will be a large variety of national summons available for all sides. "large" = 10-20 summons at least.

[Vicious Love]

Right... let's forget about all the new nations/eras for a sec, as well as Dom II's themes. You're asking for 170-340 new summons, on top of all the old summons and of all the new summons that aren't nation-specific. About a tenth of which actually get used in multiplayer games.
Disregarding the time and effort this'd take the developers, looking at this solely from the player's PoV, am I the only one seeing the downside to this?

[Nerfix]

Vicious Love said:
Right... let's forget about all the new nations/eras for a sec, as well as Dom II's themes. You're asking for 170-340 new summons, on top of all the old summons and of all the new summons that aren't nation-specific. About a tenth of which actually get used in multiplayer games.
Disregarding the time and effort this'd take the developers, looking at this solely from the player's PoV, am I the only one seeing the downside to this?

Are you saying that only new nations should get summons?

[Sandman]

I actually like the fact that many summons are (in theory) open to all nations, and it's their mages/gem income which decide what they get.

[Argitoth]

Sandman said:
I actually like the fact that many summons are (in theory) open to all nations, and it's their mages/gem income which decide what they get.

So you are saying everyone in the universe has the exact same technology at all times no matter WHAT? That's what national summons are, the natural imbalance of technology, or in this case magical knowledge.

[Endoperez]

Argitoth said:

So you are saying everyone in the universe has the exact same technology at all times no matter WHAT? That's what national summons are, the natural imbalance of technology, or in this case magical knowledge.

Actually, magic and science are both pure research, while technology and spells (but NOT summonings!) are actual uses for the collected information. If the engineers/mages are good at creating devices that hurl bits of dense metal at the enemy at very high speeds//at heating and moving fire and flames, there might be variations but the results are often similar. In this case, we have to presume that the different nations use different techniques to get the same effects. Some spells could be restricted a little, like not giving Abysia Holy Pyre (especially if it is fixed to work on Devils!).

Summoning spells are very different. Summons aren't created, or at least not by the spells that summon them. They are called forth. National summoning spells summon forth the local critters, like Vampire Counts from the time of Malediction. Even if one civilization uses ships that consist of bionic, semi-living photosynthetizing matter because they have that sort of trees back at home, other civilizations can't use those unless they have the trees - and they probably don't. Similarly, Vampire Counts are as limited to the area of Black Forest as the Wolfherds or Fortune Tellers.

In China, they have stories about celestial servants cleaning the celestial houses, and celestial warriors guarding the palaces of the gods. In Dominions, around the capital of the empire of the Tien Chi people tell the same stories, because they have seen the creatures.

IMO, they are one with the dominion of the nation. Where people believe in the god of that nation, they believe in the creatures that serve him, and there they exist, or something similar. And if they can be summoned, they will be seen - and after even just a few generation in there, everybody would know the stories of horse-headed soldiers to be as true as the ghost stories, and that the mad old men who listened to strange sounds near the sea just might be eaten by something not-exactly-visible one of these days. Unfortunately, I have forgotten the name of the site that was a house on a hill near the sea, straight from Lovecraft's story. That would've made a better analogy. I hope that words means what I think it means, any way.

[PrinzMegaherz]

Argitoth said:

So you are saying everyone in the universe has the exact same technology at all times no matter WHAT? That's what national summons are, the natural imbalance of technology, or in this case magical knowledge.

Natural imbalance of technology = different ability to do magic research, which is already included in the game. Natural imbalance of ressources = different paths of magic for national mages.

If national summons were a natural imbalance of those things, only the nation that discovered cars first would be able to build them today, at least thats what you are arguing for (cars being american / german national summons).

[Ed Kolis]

PrinzMegaherz said:
If national summons were a natural imbalance of those things, only the nation that discovered cars first would be able to build them today, at least thats what you are arguing for (cars being american / german national summons).

Careful, with patent laws the way they are, within a few decades your statement will be redundant

[Vicious Love]

Whoa. Looks live I've been in Limbo for about a full week. Lemme just resurrect this thread to say...

Nerfix said:
Are you saying that only new nations should get summons?

Not at all. The more distinct flavor each nation has, the better. If that flavor can survive into the midgame or even lategame without becoming woefully obsolete, so much the better. On that note, there's a major difference between simply adding in new units that are either no-brainers or utterly unusable, and adding in new units that will fulfill their roles without overshadowing existing units. The more units there are, the trickier it is to strike this balance and find the right niches.

I also agree with Sandman on the point of universally-available summons making things more interesting, at times. The more specialized and predictable the nations get, the more the outcome of the game is determined during nation selection, rather than during actual gameplay.

[Edi]

The site you're thinking about is Strange House in the Mists, Endo. A site that allows astral mages to enter to summon void creatures.

Edi