Forge

[Endoperez]

I disagree with this idea for two reasons. First, there is no need to separate the school of construction from other magic by making construction require another building. If there are siege engines, there is no need to make them require anything but a fort.
Secondly, I don't agree with your view of the buildings of Dominions. Let's talk about Temples first. For Pangaea, a forest glade is enough for a temple. Late Age Marignon might have temples such as what you described, or perhaps MA Ermor. I doubt most nations even have cemeteries in or near their temples, because temples don't make dead bodies disappear any faster except for LA Ermor, in which case those dead bodies come alive faster.

Similarly, some nations might have need for such a complex laboratory - but a Mictlan laboratory would be very different. Machakan laboratory wouldn't be anything even close to that. Ulmish lab would be like the Forge you described.

You list things that could happen in a laboratory, and expect that any one of those things could happen in every laboratory at any one time. In reality, however, most nations won't have good dungeons for blood slaves, master alchemists will be almost unheard of (300 gp!), torture or autopsy or charnal rooms would only be used by some nations and mages...

Laboratory costs almost half of the cost of many forts (1000 gold seems to be the most common fort price). We don't know what goes in there, but in my opinion, it could be a Covenant.

From Ars Magica 4th edition rulebook (the system that impressed Dominions magic system, concept of gems, mages, perhaps even the way path and school are separated):

A covenant, most basically, is a place where a group of magi live together. It might be in a manor, a castle, a ship, or a hole in the ground. Covenants provide for the needs of magi in several ways. First of all, they provide security. Mythic Europe is a dangerous place for all, and magi in particular need safety to perform their arcane studies.
Covenants also provide for the mundane needs of magi: food, clothing, work space, and the like. Most magi would prefer not to have to devote their time to such concerns. Finally, covenants provide magi with a community of peers. When in a covenant, a magus is surrounded by others who think about things in the same way that he does.
Covenants are also the most meaningful way the members of different houses work together and learn from one another. Although some covenants are composed only of members from one house, at least two thirds are composed of magi of different traditions. In fact, loyalty to one's
covenant is often the strongest loyalty a magus feels, even
more than loyalty to his house.

Different Houses could be interpreted as more than just national mages: Witches, Amazons, Sorceresses, or at least Druids or Shamans of the various tribes. Covenants of Ars Magica include the mages themselves, their Companions (bards, Captains of the Guard, rogues and scoundrels that the mages have befriended, Arthur Pendragons and other characters who are important, but not to the same extent as someone who could fully tap to the primal forces of magic) and a horde of Grogs (servants, smiths, hunters, masons, woodcutters, bookbinders, leatherworkers and everyone else needed to keep a community alive) who don't need a distinct personality (but could be given one).

A covenant in Ars Magica is designed to have everything the mage needs, except for the spesific spell that must be researched or the Vis (gems) that must be collected or traded for from outside the Covenant. Sagas (adventures and campaigns) could center around supplying the covenant with what it needs and perhaps protecting it from mobs or infernal forces. In my opinion, a Laboratory in Dominion can hold everything a mage will ever need, from servants to forges to complex devices to a storage room full of glass vials.

[Edi]

To comment some more on the

I don't think it would be too hard to program into the game, and it would make for a lot of strategic and modding possibilities.

bit in the opening post:

No, it wouldn't be too difficult, it'd only require a major engine rewrite because of the way the units are programmed into the game and how they're modded. It would require in-game, on the fly modding and every separate different combination of things (unit+armor+weapons). Every such combination would have to be modded in as a new unit, on the fly, and made available as a recruitable unit, so not only would you be modding the units themselves, you'd also be modding the nations on the fly. When you toss in the roughly 1800 different units, ~1000 weapons and ~200 armors and start running combinations where each unit can have up to 4 (or is it 6 now in Dom3?) weapons and 3 armors, I'd really like to see just how much unit namespace you'd require for even a 4-player game, never mind all the other crap this would entail.

With the way the unit coding is done currently (I've seen a couple of samples), this just WILL NOT work.

Then there is what Endo said about the forge. It's incorporated into the fort and the lab as they are right now. If you happen to find Ancient Forge, The Steel Ovens or Banefire Forge, the sites that give forge bonuses, THAT is the specialized "devil bound in an anvil etc" kind of forge of truly epic descriptions that has the kind of facilities not normally available. Otherwise the lab or lab/fort combo is sufficient.

The whole idea is stillborn and would also lead to a complete micromanagement hell even if it was doable. There are other games out there that have this sort of thing, such as afaik Space Empires V.

Edi

[HoneyBadger]

Endoperez, Edi, you're both blowing this thing way out of proportion. Yes, each nation might have different ways of going about magical labs, temples, etc. but-except for two nations, Pangaea and Man (and yes, your vision of a temple for Pangaea makes sense at 200 gold, but 200 gold temples to Man patently flies in the face of your very same vision)-they're all the same price, and they all do generic things. You don't have the Mictlan temple, you don't have the Agarthan lab, you have temple, lab. You use the presence of those two buildings to your advantage depending on your particular strategy-which includes which nation you decide on. They may represent different things to different people-which is what I was trying to illustrate above-but they're otherwise almost totally generic, and each one has to be capable of the same thing, plus national things, depending on the choices the player makes. Not that my argument about the nature of labs and temples has any real relevance, since they're already in the game. I just wrote an example for purposes of comparison-as perfectly valid a comparison as yours, Endoperez.
Edi, comparing adding one building which can be purchased by every nation in every era, to the gameplay of Space Empires 5 is patently ridiculous. You even state that you don't know about SE5 in your argument, and "afaik" you've never played it, so why are you even making it a part of your argument??? It's the moon being made of green cheese and the world being flat all over again. You've never been to the Moon and you've never seen the Earth from space, so you're going to argue about it with an astronaut? I haven't played SE5, but I've played a LOT of SE4 (infact I've exchanged emails with Aaron Hall on one occasion, he's a very nice man-SE3 is why I know about Shrapnel Games in the first place), and SE4 had dozens of buildings, hundreds if you count mods. SE5 certainly has that many and probably more, it's something I've researched extensively in preparation to buy it, and it IS micromanagement-hell, in a good way, mind you. (If you want to argue that, because I haven't played SE5 either, I don't know what I'm talking about, well you can, but you'll be undermining the base of your own argument, and as far as you know, maybe someday the Earth WILL be flat and the Moon WILL transform into green cheese.)
What I'm talking about is 1, as in a total of 3, specialized buildings, in addition to fortresses (which ARE distinct from one another). It wouldn't require any more programming than adding temples to the game right now would, because forges wouldn't be doing anything OTHER than what temples do, or labs, already. Ok, that might be a significant amount, considering all the units, but NOT every unit would be affected.

As far as construction being a little different from the other magic schools-it already is because of the ability to manufacture magical items in place of spells. Construction in the game represents technology combined with magic or fantasy elements, and if you haven't noticed, even without the presence of "working, everyday magic"(I refuse to believe that there's no magic whatsoever in this world, I think just maybe the server goes down a lot). I'm for making Construction more a part of a nation's life, more powerful and diverse, and the overall "intelligence" of our little computer people, more intelligent. If there's a discovery that would be blatantly obvious to a society capable of creating flying metal suits or iron dragons or even chainmail, crossbows, folded steel-or bronze for that matter, then they should be able to utilize it. I'm not talking big things like gunpowder or steam, I'm talking ancient-age, at best Greko-Roman, technology and it's equivalent, up through perhaps a handful of 13th through 16th century inventions. These are already present in the game, in the Arbelast(spring steel crossbow design, as compared to the Roman Arcuballista), which as far as I know was invented around the 14th century A.D. during the Cruisades. Certainly, the stirrup wasn't invented until a couple of centuries A.D. and they have to be present in early age or lances (perhaps not light lances, but definitely lances) would not function the way they do. I'd like to give nations the ability to create field artillery (not castle-smashing catapults/trebuche/mangonels, I'm talking scorpions, ballistas, Greek-fire throwers, and the like) and field fortifications-again not improving castle defenses, I'm talking ditches, rows of stakes, pitfalls, small-scale motte-and-bailey, etc. Eventually, I'd really like to see the ability to build bridges-and for those bridges to become another strategic element-into the game, but I think that will have to wait for a long time. All of those ideas, plus "magic tech" would be connected somehow to Forge, just like holding a dwarven hammer is somehow related to making a blood-soaked parchment more efficiently, as someone stated earlier (I expect the dwarven hammer allows for a cleaner kill, ala 19th century slaughterhouses).

By the way, not to complain too loudly-and I have NO complaints against Kristoffer or Johan or Illwinter itself, mind you-but I swear that, for all the often-vaunted "community of acceptance where you can have a voice and where your ideas can make a difference", I'm really finding that there's a great deal of stubbornness and opposition to any "new idea" that doesn't have to do with a gripe that goes back to Dom2 or even Dom1. I'm not some crazy person who's espousing adding 25 new buildings that each represent 1 unit for 1 nation, I'm trying to open up possibilities, make the game bigger and more fun. I think I'm being pretty reasonable here. I'm also NOT saying that this has to be done RIGHT NOW. I am fully cognizant of the size of Illwinter's development team, and atleast somewhat aware of the pressure they're under. And please NOTICE I'm also not saying that I'm RIGHT. I'm just making a suggestion that makes sense to me, as far as furthering the enjoyment, usefulness, and sense of the game-as in the way the game works making sense to me-and for all my troubles (creation is hard, and more hard the more complex the creation is-ask Kristoffer) I get something like a 500 word lecture on why I "might possibly be wrong because Ars Magica has something to say about how mages conduct their lifestyles" and other arguments which are plain contradictory, or at best personal interpretations which don't have a lot to do with the reality of the game. To me, what you have to say is more knee-jerk reaction and less intuitive, wise critique. I appreciate your trouble, Endoperez, it was an enjoyable read and you're an intelligent person, but I'm just as familiar with Ars Magica as you are, and I have always based my personal impression/interpretation of magic on-and compared Dom3 magic with-Ars Magica. There's no discrepancy between us. It's a good system. I just ask that you think about your arguments a little bit more as they pertain to Dom3, if you're going to argue against me.

Edi, what you fail to realize is that I'm your friend when it comes to being a watchdog against micro-management, NOT your enemy. I've certainly played as many or more strategy games per year that I've been alive, as you have, and a great many of those years I've spent designing games and systems and helping others design games and systems. I work with computers and complex systems for a living, infact. I have enough experience to be able to give a fair guestimate of the dangers and the rewards of adding or subtracting a given game-element.

And Edi, I'm intelligent enough and emotionally stable enough to understand and consider another's argument, without that argument being served with a gravy of sarcasm. If you have an opinion, please share it straight up. I'll give it more weight, I promise. I do agree with some parts of your rant that aren't hostile though, to a greater or lesser degree, but I also think that you could have made the same point without being extremely negative and off-putting.

If people have new ideas that might benefit the game (or even might not), I personally feel that those people should be encouraged and guided, not made to feel that everything is impossible (and not just impossible, the word used was "stillborn" which I consider not only negative but a tad repulsive when used to describe an idea I've invested a lot of time and effort into, for the hopeful benefit of everyone.). This is especially true in a very small community such as ours. We barely have a large enough population to sustain the production of fresh new ideas and new ways of looking at things, and discouraging the growth of that resource is just plain counter-productive.

[Strages Sanctus]

I like the idea of those types of site Uhnubuh

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Thanks.

I like HB's basic idea, but as I stated (and as others have more vociferously stated) I think it would take the developers to do it--and it would be a pretty big task. One might even say an Elemental Task That Would Rock The Very Foundations Of This World!!!111 (queue eerie music).

However, adding a few special sites and the units they can allow should be pretty simple. I've been working on a dragon mod (from a previous thread) and I might as well incorporate these "Forge" ideas into the mod. 3 or more special forge sites that vary in their rarity and their products.

These will be simple mods, nothing elaborate. I will leave elaborate for those more able or more motivated.

[HoneyBadger]

Edi, I'm not taking your reactions personally, I'm just trying to point out that they may have a detrimental effect on the confidence of people in general with new ideas-especially people new to this forum, as in people who have just bought Dom3 in the last 3 months, aka new customers (something we should be taking into consideration for the future of Dominions, even if Kristoffer and Johan aren't in it so much for the money)-without actually contributing anything really all that constructive.
You are blowing this thing out of proportion, a great deal more than Endoperez or even myself, because you've obviously invested quite a bit of time and emotion into expressing why what I consider a fairly simple, modifiable idea (as in I don't care if it's a "great" idea or if someone wants to use it to base another idea on it, as per Uh-Nu-Buh's mod) would basically "rewrite the whole game". Tell me that's not blowing things out of proportion.
Why need more things? well, why do we need the around 2000 units that we have? why do we need Dom3 to be as complex a game as it is? why does anyone bother making mods? because greater complexity serves the appeal of the game, by defining individual choices and strategies. Might as well ask "why do we need television when we've already got radio?" answer: because of the possibilities.
As far as "kitting out units" there's no reason it couldn't be done exactly the same as temple units currently are, just by adding more units (units that happen to look like and act like for instance a Niefel giant armed with a mace instead of an axe), and that doesn't mean adding them a thousand at a time. This once again can be done slowly and carefully, and you can eliminate each and every independent and summoned creature, leaving you with maybe 150-200 total eventual new units. No "dynamic unit design" necessary. You simply allow or disallow the new unit depending on whether or not a Forge is present in the process, exactly the same as is done with Temple or Lab units. You wouldn't be building a unit up from the ground by putting the head of a jotun on the body of a hoburg, for example, just possibly having more options of units to purchase, depending on what your nation can specialty manufacture.

By the way, I "handwaved" you because I felt that brushing you off with simplistic answers was more courteous than simply ignoring your post, which was another valid option, but now that you're being a little more polite, I'm taking the trouble to answer your questions a bit more seriously-good manners are appreciated.

Suspension of disbelief is fine, but notice that we don't suspend our disbelief to the point where there aren't any oceans in Dom3 for example. The more realistic (I'm not saying real, I'm saying realistic) a game can be made-often enough, atleast if it's done well-the better a game will be, because our suspension of disbelief comes easier and is more complete, adding to our game-immersion. Having an additional structure which adds a technological dimension to the game apart from magic and faith, could make the game stronger and more complete, and appeal more to games who both want a more in-depth strategic game and more choices.
I don't know why you see this as such a radical change. None of the basic idea I'm proposing hasn't been done already in the game. Uh-Nu-Buh's already partially implementing it in a mod. I'd be happy if it did show up in Dom4, but it's not remaking the whole game.

I'm willing to take some blame for confusion or hostility because of my enthusiasm for my own ideas, which may cause me to ignore some pertinent information at times, and also because of the lengths of my writings and any difficulty others have understanding me through the dubious medium writing (but what else do we have?), but I refuse to take complete blame. This is a good game, but it needs to continue to grow in SOME direction or like anything else it will eventually die of old age and obsolescence.

[HoneyBadger]

Endoperez, I very much agree that I'd like to see different magic items at different ages (For that matter, I'd like to see 2-4 more ages). Forge wouldn't represent massive technical achievements, it would simply represent different styles of armor or weapons differentiating one unit from another. More resources could be put into creating more elite units who can afford the best armor and fine weapons, and more gold could be put into equipping elite soldiers. Having a Forge for some nations like Ermor for instance might mean more, but not absolutely. for every nation. Jotuns with a Forge might invent the sling but jotuns without one may be stuck with spears, javelins, and boulders. It wouldn't mean Jotuns would invent gunpowder-although maybe late era Tien'Chi does in the form of crude fireworks with limited battlefield value. My concept of the Forge is as a stepping stone to differentiate a province with a much higher technological infrastructure than others, a situation which historically often enough did occur, and which wouldn't be out of place. If you wanted the best steel, you went to Toledo or Damaskus. Venice had glassblowers and the Dutch had skilled craftspeople. Constantinople had silk and the weight of a thousand years of relative enlightenment. Other places were at best, well...midieval. You can compare this with places like Delphi and Jerusalem as far as temples go. As far as labs go, it's harder to draw a real-world comparison, but for ritual spells certainly Stonehenge comes to mind.
If you want to build the best armies then you need an infrastructure. A big part of the reason Rome was so successful is because it had Greece. Greek artizans, thinkers, and artists, and Greek soldiers who were both tough and smart. If Rome had been founded in England, we probably wouldn't be speaking English right now.

[Edi]

HoneyBadger said:
Endoperez, Edi, you're both blowing this thing way out of proportion.

Because you say so?

HoneyBadger said:
Yes, each nation might have different ways of going about magical labs, temples, etc. but-except for two nations, Pangaea and Man (and yes, your vision of a temple for Pangaea makes sense at 200 gold, but 200 gold temples to Man patently flies in the face of your very same vision)-they're all the same price, and they all do generic things.

Yes, they do. What's wrong with that? They serve similar functions even if the actual details of worship, labwork etc were different (if we're talking suspension of disbelief here). You need some kind of abstraction and simplification so that you can get on with the actual game.

The thing about Man having cheaper temples at least in the early era sin't too far-fetched since we're basically talking about a circle of stones that doesn't even need to be a full-fledged Stonehenge. That's a lot cheaper relatively to build than e.g. a Mictlan type temple pyramid. But that is not much more than a tangent here.

HoneyBadger said:
You don't have the Mictlan temple, you don't have the Agarthan lab, you have temple, lab. You use the presence of those two buildings to your advantage depending on your particular strategy-which includes which nation you decide on. They may represent different things to different people-which is what I was trying to illustrate above-but they're otherwise almost totally generic, and each one has to be capable of the same thing,

Precisely.

HoneyBadger said:
plus national things, depending on the choices the player makes.

That's already in there because the different nations have different national spells, different mages, hence different forging options etc, so why need more things?

HoneyBadger said:
Not that my argument about the nature of labs and temples has any real relevance, since they're already in the game. I just wrote an example for purposes of comparison-as perfectly valid a comparison as yours, Endoperez.

Your comparisons are valid as such if one ignores the end-goal we're talking about here. The game is supposed to be smoothly playable, and unnecessary micromanagement tends to screw that up. That's why Endo is shooting down your suggestion, as am I.

HoneyBadger said:
Edi, comparing adding one building which can be purchased by every nation in every era, to the gameplay of Space Empires 5 is patently ridiculous.

Care to elaborate how, because what you proposed adding was something that would be building units up from scratch, which needs that kind of infrastructure from the game engine. SE5 has ship design from scratch, how is your proposal of kitting out units as one sees fit different?

HoneyBadger said:
You even state that you don't know about SE5 in your argument, and "afaik" you've never played it, so why are you even making it a part of your argument???

Answer the point instead of blustering and waving your hands. I have very little patience for this kind of evasion, but very well, I'll humor you this time. I'll use an example of games I HAVE played, Master of Orion 1 & 2, which are in many ways similar to Dominions and from what I have heard, to the Space Empires series.

You have essentially provinces (the star systems) with resources and other things that allow you to build ships (units). The difference is that in MoO 1&2 you can design your ships from scratch and build them as you like, which REQUIRES the game engine to incorporate dynamic unit design as an integral part. Dominions does NOT have dynamic unit design as part of the game engine, but your proposed new forge building REQUIRES that to be added to it to work as you envision.

So, in that respect, HOW THE HELL IS THAT DIFFERENT FROM THE GAMEPLAY OF MOO 1&2 OR THE SPACE EMPIRES SERIES WHERE DYNAMIC UNIT DESIGN IS INTEGRAL TO THE GAME?!

HoneyBadger said:
It's the moon being made of green cheese and the world being flat all over again. You've never been to the Moon and you've never seen the Earth from space, so you're going to argue about it with an astronaut?

False analogy. You're putting yourself in the position of the astronaut and assuming me to be completely ignorant, when both counts are wrong. I've never been to the moon, but I've seen rather vivid footage of it, as well as footage of what earth looks like from space. I may not be as qualified to talk about it as someone who has been there and done that, but that does not mean I am completely ignorant. Next argument, please, or are we going to get more handwaving?

HoneyBadger said:
I haven't played SE5, but I've played a LOT of SE4 (infact I've exchanged emails with Aaron Hall on one occasion, he's a very nice man-SE3 is why I know about Shrapnel Games in the first place), and SE4 had dozens of buildings, hundreds if you count mods. SE5 certainly has that many and probably more, it's something I've researched extensively in preparation to buy it,

Thank you for point blank verifying precisely what I was talking about. You may not have proposed hundreds of new buildings, but you did propose one building that results in hundreds or thousands of new UNITS, so there is no material difference with this game engine. And you have the gall to accuse me of not knowing what I was talking about when it is very clear that I know enough to make a sound argument.

HoneyBadger said:
and it IS micromanagement-hell, in a good way, mind you.

In a good way if you like that sort of thing. If I were to get SE5, I'd expect it, just as I expected it of MoO2 after playing MoO. Dominions is a different sort of a beast in this regard, so why would we want to change it that radically?

HoneyBadger said:
(If you want to argue that, because I haven't played SE5 either, I don't know what I'm talking about, well you can, but you'll be undermining the base of your own argument, and as far as you know, maybe someday the Earth WILL be flat and the Moon WILL transform into green cheese.)

And maybe you will one day stop handwaving and harping on this same fallacious angle.

HoneyBadger said:
What I'm talking about is 1, as in a total of 3, specialized buildings, in addition to fortresses (which ARE distinct from one another). It wouldn't require any more programming than adding temples to the game right now would, because forges wouldn't be doing anything OTHER than what temples do, or labs, already. Ok, that might be a significant amount, considering all the units, but NOT every unit would be affected.

Fine, let's cut the numbers in half so you only have ~1000 units, each with up to 4 weapons (out of ~400 possible) and 3 armors (out of ~100 possible). Run the numbers. Then tell me what the difference is from game engine alteration point of view?

HoneyBadger said:
As far as construction being a little different from the other magic schools-it already is because of the ability to manufacture magical items in place of spells. Construction in the game represents technology combined with magic or fantasy elements, and if you haven't noticed, even without the presence of "working, everyday magic"(I refuse to believe that there's no magic whatsoever in this world, I think just maybe the server goes down a lot). I'm for making Construction more a part of a nation's life, more powerful and diverse, and the overall "intelligence" of our little computer people, more intelligent. <snip list of wishes>

Most of that stuff is already assumed to be in the game as abstractions. It'd be great to have as long as it didn't result in excess micromanagement, but right now that's a pie in the sky wish. There's other games that incorporate all of that and more. Never mind that they actually had working steam engines as curiosities in the Greco-Roman period, though those were lost and never got off the ground, as well as e.g. almost 20th century level medical technology wrt surgery.

HoneyBadger said:
All of those ideas, plus "magic tech" would be connected somehow to Forge, just like holding a dwarven hammer is somehow related to making a blood-soaked parchment more efficiently, as someone stated earlier (I expect the dwarven hammer allows for a cleaner kill, ala 19th century slaughterhouses).

In other words, let's rewrite the whole game - or not. Suspension of disbelief is a good thing, and in this case you might be able to envision the dwarven hammer as representative of some more efficient technique instead of the mage actually using a hammer on parchment. It solves a lot of problems much more easily than adding tons of extraneous stuff.

HoneyBadger said:
By the way, not to complain too loudly-and I have NO complaints against Kristoffer or Johan or Illwinter itself, mind you-but I swear that, for all the often-vaunted "community of acceptance where you can have a voice and where your ideas can make a difference", I'm really finding that there's a great deal of stubbornness and opposition to any "new idea" that doesn't have to do with a gripe that goes back to Dom2 or even Dom1.

You will please point out where I've been invoking Dom1 and Dom2 except in comparisons to Dom3? There might be such stubbornness on some counts, but mostly it's when people start advocating radical changes that require rewriting the game to do and won't take no for an answer.

HoneyBadger said:
I'm not some crazy person who's espousing adding 25 new buildings that each represent 1 unit for 1 nation, I'm trying to open up possibilities, make the game bigger and more fun. I think I'm being pretty reasonable here. I'm also NOT saying that this has to be done RIGHT NOW. I am fully cognizant of the size of Illwinter's development team, and atleast somewhat aware of the pressure they're under. And please NOTICE I'm also not saying that I'm RIGHT.

Then this is perhaps a topic that should be discussed in context with possible sequels to Dom3?

HoneyBadger said:
Edi, what you fail to realize is that I'm your friend when it comes to being a watchdog against micro-management, NOT your enemy. I've certainly played as many or more strategy games per year that I've been alive, as you have, and a great many of those years I've spent designing games and systems and helping others design games and systems. I work with computers and complex systems for a living, infact. I have enough experience to be able to give a fair guestimate of the dangers and the rewards of adding or subtracting a given game-element.

Given the way you tossed off the OP suggestion, it betrayed a rather large lack of understanding of the game engine of Dom3, which is the crux here. It's currently the limiting factor here. In another context, I'd have fewer things to say in opposition.

HoneyBadger said:
And Edi, I'm intelligent enough and emotionally stable enough to understand and consider another's argument, without that argument being served with a gravy of sarcasm.

I'll admit that my opening was more than a bit sarcastic, but I tend to get that way when it seems to me that the most obvious relevant things have been missed.

HoneyBadger said:
If you have an opinion, please share it straight up. I'll give it more weight, I promise. I do agree with some parts of your rant that aren't hostile though, to a greater or lesser degree, but I also think that you could have made the same point without being extremely negative and off-putting.

I've never been known to sugarcoat my opinion. I'm sorry if you took that too personally, but the derision was toward the argument being put forth, not toward the person who made it.

HoneyBadger said:
If people have new ideas that might benefit the game (or even might not), I personally feel that those people should be encouraged and guided, not made to feel that everything is impossible (and not just impossible, the word used was "stillborn" which I consider not only negative but a tad repulsive when used to describe an idea I've invested a lot of time and effort into, for the hopeful benefit of everyone.). This is especially true in a very small community such as ours. We barely have a large enough population to sustain the production of fresh new ideas and new ways of looking at things, and discouraging the growth of that resource is just plain counter-productive.

I'm all for new ideas as long as they are well thought out. If we're talking about things to add to Dom3, we have to take into account the current limitations. If we're talking about things to consider for a sequel, that's a different story entirely. CONTEXT. In the first option, we're wasting time talking about virtual impossibilities. In the second, we're doodling on a relatively blank slate so they are worthwhile. You just put it in the first context in the OP.

Edi

[Endoperez]

HoneyBadger said:
Not that my argument about the nature of labs and temples has any real relevance, since they're already in the game. I just wrote an example for purposes of comparison-as perfectly valid a comparison as yours, Endoperez.

And please NOTICE I'm also not saying that I'm RIGHT. I'm just making a suggestion that makes sense to me, as far as furthering the enjoyment, usefulness, and sense of the game-as in the way the game works making sense to me-and for all my troubles (creation is hard, and more hard the more complex the creation is-ask Kristoffer) I get something like a 500 word lecture on why I "might possibly be wrong because Ars Magica has something to say about how mages conduct their lifestyles" and other arguments which are plain contradictory, or at best personal interpretations which don't have a lot to do with the reality of the game.

Both our examples are perfectly valid. I have given an in-game, "thematic" reason not to implement a Forge, you have given an in-game, "thematic" reason to implement it. We could argue about which is better, but because our opinions won't really affect whether or not a Forge will be implemented, it'd be rather dumb.

Also, I'd like to point out that as far as "other arguments which are plain contradictory, or at best personal interpretations which don't have a lot to do with the reality of the game" go, you're not any worse than I. As you said, these other arguments are fun to read. I found your post interesting, even if it was a bit hard to read and overly long.

As far as construction being a little different from the other magic schools-it already is because of the ability to manufacture magical items in place of spells. Construction in the game represents technology combined with magic or fantasy elements. I'm for making Construction more a part of a nation's life, more powerful and diverse. If there's a discovery that would be blatantly obvious to a society capable of creating flying metal suits or iron dragons or even chainmail or crossbows, then they should be able to utilize it. I'm not talking big things like gunpowder or steam, I'm talking at best Greko-Roman technology and it's equivalent, up through perhaps a handful of 13th through 16th century inventions.

I'd like to give nations the ability to create field artillery and field fortifications. I'm talking about scorpions, ballistas, Greek-fire throwers, and the like; I'm talking about ditches, rows of stakes, pitfalls, small-scale motte-and-baileys, etc.

I hope you don't mind the way I edited your post in my quote. I made it shorter, more compact, removed things that aren't needed to understand my reply.

You want a Forge building so that Construction wouldn't increase just the magical equipment available to a nation, but also the level of technology. If a Warrior Smith can forge full Black Plate armors and Piercers, if Helheim Valkyries and commanders start with magical Light-Weight Chainmails, why can't everyone use them? If any F1 mage can create a Just Man's Cross, why isn't Abysia using crossbows in EA?
I agree that it doesn't make sense. However, I wouldn't fix it this way. Developing plate armor and crossbows takes more than two or three years. Jotuns never learn to use slings, one of the simplest tools in excistence, for example. Man starts using lots of Crossbows between middle and late ages. It shouldn't be possible to research Construction 2 (Just Man's Cross) and start giving your Tower Guards crossbows.

The real problem is that magical items are the same across different ages. In Early Age, plate armors are trinkets. In Late Age, Fire Bolas and Rat Tails and Whips of Leadership are still Greater items. Early Age should have Basalt Spears and Basalt Armor as trinkets instead of Swords or Spears of Sharpness and armors of Black Steel. In LA, the armors giving resistances could be better - perhaps Full Chain instead of just Plate. Just the ability to add new pictures and edit descriptions would do a lot. After that, it'd be easy to select the item called Piercer, change it's name to Basalt Spear, change the picture, then select the weapon called Piercer and change it's stats.

I'd rather have magic item modding than a Forge.