Idea thread: special provinces, unique defenders

[Endoperez]

CelestialGoblyn said:
This is a *great* idea.
Now, I'd need to research for details, but just a few ideas:

Innsmouth with cultists and fishmen. (R'lyeh, imprint minds)
Shaolin with disciples and monks. (EA Tien Chi)
Village defended by seven samurai. (MA Bakemono)
Cimmeria, land of barbarians, with Conan as one of them. (EA Ulm)
Kirke's island from Odyssey, sorceress and a horde of beasts and foulspawn. (Transformation, as a spell, exists so boars/iron boars are fine)
Holy sanctuary with clerics, flagellants and paladins. (Marignon)
Transylvania with a vampire count leading an army of infartry, peasants, villans and wolves.(LA Ulm)
Highlands with banshee's and barbarian swordsmen. (Banshee: LA Ermor summon Wailing Lady, EA Ulm/indep barbarians)

For underwater:
Land of the drowned - full of undead.
Sunken city - mechanical men, golems and other animates. (the animated things are called inanimates in Dominions )
Lair of the kraken - pretender-sized octopus with items (there is an octopus pretender)

All are good ideas, but need some fleshing out. R'lyeh is a sunken city, but I guess another would be fine if you don't find an alternative name. I mentioned good sources of fitting units in () symbols in the quoted part. Also, Circe is a Sauromatian hero who also affected LA Arcos Sibyls IIRC.

lch said:
This is just a silly idea...

Magic site: Xavier's School, enables recruitment of mutant with 100% AFWES random, 20-50% FWSN random

Xavier: S3, movement 1/2
Cyclops: high precision, ranged attack with the Solar rays animation or a better suited animation
Angel: Flying, high att+def, maybe some gear aswell
Beast: Bandar sprite, high Str, high MR, high movement
Iceman: Ice Elemental sprite, W2
Storm: A4, Flying
Jean: F3S2
Rogue: D2, Life Drain
Wolverine: E2, high Regen, 2x AN or AP Claw attack, maybe immortal
Nightcrawler: demon sprite, intrinsic Boots of the Crane or otherwise automatic Blink in battle

Maybe half of them in the outside, half of them in the inside. Maybe +1 Astral to Xavier and Jean, maybe -1 Air to Storm (though she should be able to cast Storm?). Prevent them from getting charmed, somehow. Make them SCs / Thugs.

Idea is good, but new units would need to be done as mods. Many heroes can be done with a combination of items and suitable unit types. Examples: Cyclops - Rod of the Phoenix. (Arch)Angel - Stymphalian Wings. Wolverine - maybe Troll with ring of regen, hydra skin armor, lycanthropos amulet and two Duskdaggers (curses everyone touched, AN) - something with both regeneration and rejuvenation would be best. Jean - Phoenix Pyre the spell would be very good, but we can't force her to cast that. Nightcrawler - Fiend of Darkness, chainmail of deception for glamour. Iceman - maybe a Caelian temple guard with Rime Hauberk. Storm - Staff of Storms.

Turin said:
The grey tower of nexus:
knownfeature: grey tower of nexus
3 shadow seers with a clam of pearls each (106)
2 grey lords (391)
20 grey knights (390)
poptype: standard farmlands


The factory:
knownfeature: the factory
4 mage engineers(1606) with 2 mech men as bodyguards
6 engineers (1072) with 1 mech man as bodyguard
10 mechanical men
40 clockwork horrors

Both are very rare and VERY powerful sites. Would these be in addition to the existing units? Even so, I'd say they need to be a bit more powerful. Your call, though.



Except something late Friday or Saturday. And please keep the ideas coming, and flesh out the existing ones.

[Turin]

Is it possible to disable the randomly spawning indies nowadays? If it is, you could double the number of the units listed, I figured they would be there in addition to the normal indies.
Anyway modify the number or types of units as you see fit, I spent like 5 minutes thinking about the proper power levels.

[ryo_akashi]

Is there any way to regenerate the units back to full strength after each encounter?

The problem I have with independents is that the indie troops diminish after each encounter. Sending in many armies over the course of several turns makes it easier for the players to take the hard provinces. I think having the units regenerate will make it a more worthwhile challenge/fun for the players.

[Gandalf Parker]

Disable Indies: Yes. If I understand what you are asking. There is a map command for setting the province and giving it things, and another command for sweeping it clean and then giving it things. But as far as I know it sweeps everything so its only reasonable if the province design puts back a poptype, magic sites, AND guards.

Regerate after each encounter: no. But there are some ways to make sure that a province continually expands its numbers such as with devils or vampires.

[alexti]

Here's my half-baked idea:
The Citadel of High Metals:
magic sites:
- The tower of Golden Order
- The tower of Silver Order
- The tower of Iron Order
buildings:
- mountain citadel,
- lab,
Outside:
- 3 adepts of each of orders (9 total)
- 4 human commanders (like regular heavy infantry)
- 12 watchers
- 40 heavy infantry
- 40 crossbowmen
Equipment:
mages - amulet of missile protecton, weightless scale mail, pendant of luck.
infantry and crossbowmen - high quality armor and weapons of regular kind (nothing magical or extreme).

Inside:
- 20 adepts of each of orders (60 total)
- 16 Telestic animates
- 4 human commanders (like regular heavy infantry)
- 32 gargoyles
- 16 iron dragons
- 240 mechanical milita,
- 180 clockwork horrors
- 200 crossbowmen

Equipment:
Mages - lucky coin, robe of invulnerability, brimstone boots, starshne skullcap, ring of tamed lightning, amulet of antimagic
Human commanders - brimstone boots, cauldron of broth, lucky pendant

The problem is obvious - mages are vulnerable to murdering winter (and to poison too) and I don't see how to solve it thematically. It doesn't seem right for the adepts of metal orders to have (or use) water magic - same for nature magic.

It is also tempting to give mages rune smasher - it certainly sounds like the item they would use, but how can they forge it? Lucky coin seems to be the only shield item self-respecting mage may carry into the combat, other than rune smasher, no other single-handed weapon seems appropriate (and/or useful).

Concerning the troops, I think that adepts of metal orders would be inclined to build their army primarily from the engineered constructs. Did I miss some suitable summons?

I would also expect them to cast Dome (or 5) of Arcane Warding, but are there commands to do that?

[Gandalf Parker]

You can provide a small list of randoms for the equipment. Maybe the Ring of Tamed Lightening could be random with the other rings which offer various protections.

As for items they cant make.. well, holding so closely to the logic of their limits is cool. But then again, they can always trade with other mage towers.

[Endoperez]

Alexti - very nice! Also, following Gandalf's suggestion would work very well. Each mage would have one ring that provides a resistance, chosen from (Ring of Tamed Lightning, Ring of Fire Resistance, Ring of Cold Resistance, Snake Ring). That way, you can't eliminate ALL the mages with any one spell, but the spells will still be useful. Perhaps alternating between Amulets of Antimagic, Amulets of Missile Protection and Girdles of Might (for reinvigoration).

They could be given Drakes. Also, Living Statues.