Capturing Capitols

[LoloMo]

In MP it definitely just serves to increase micromanagement. Before their capital gets taken over, people would send all their stuff to an ally, after the capital is taken over, send the stuff back.

Capturable site would be better. I would suggest adding a site to each capital only national site that mimics the national troops, but at a slightly lower stats to reflect non native conquerors recruiting them. Perhaps even eliminating sacred status, or increasing costs. Would require a big mod though.

[LoloMo]

On second thought, bad idea. This would just lead to "let's exchange capitals for a few turns" deals between allies.

[Sombre]

I think if capitals had a higher gem income there would be much more incentive to try and capture them. I would consider making/using a mod which simply doubled home province gem income.

So EA - 12 gems total
MA - 10 gems total
LA - 8 gems total

[Gandalf Parker]

Or a map. A map could be created which set starting positions and also assigned a next door province with extra magic sites. MAYBE even duplicate the capitals sites but I havent tested that yet.

[Ballbarian]

If (make that a big IF) the ability to modify or assign units to custom population types in a map file were added, it would be easy to allow recruitment of specific national units underneath the normal nationals which become disabled when you capture the cap. (Are you listening JK/KO? )

[Kristoffer O]

Capturing gems:

I generally like the idea of plundering capitols, but it was decided against in the early days of dom-ppp. There are several reasons to this. Micromanagement is one. Interconnection of labs another. You could say that all gems are transported to the metaphysical lab of everywhere after all is lost, to keep the realism

Also treasuries are interconnected. The micromanagement heavy and realistic solution is of course to separate the economy. One city, one lab. One city one economy. Transport all your gold by cart or with your armies. Keep the salary chest with your soldiers. Risk loosing it when attacked. Baggage trains with supplies. There is no end to the economic and logistical implications of this system. I like it a lot, but it would make dominions an entirely different game. So we skipped the logistics (it's bad enough that gems are moved around ) and the effect is that there is no particular effect of plundering a lab or capitol.

A nice solution to this, which I personally like, but also has been decided against, is an autoplunder, so that armies automatically plunder every province, and especially fortress, they capture. Reduce the population by half or more and get some quick gold and merry, unstarving soldiers. I think most players detest this idea, since most players in my experience dislike the downward spiral of dominions .

Only being able to recruit your own national troops is one of the basic tenets that dominions is built around. When dom-ppp was initially designed we had played a couple of games in which a few players came to be all possible nations at the same time. Take VGA-planets where you were lucky if you could capture an enemy ship an copy it. Soon the fleet of the Evil Empire was made up of Death Stars towed by privateer ships. Same thing in other PBEM games where your army soon turned into rainbow armies of the elite units from every nation. Not much fun either.

To avoid 3 players sitting and farting in their capitols, use VP, preferrably cumulative, one in each capitol and one extra. This way you can't afford sitting around if you are not the leading nation.

[Jazzepi]

I've always felt the advantage of a huge spike in gold and gem income was far and away enough to encourage people to conquer capitals. As well as getting rid of one of your opponents.

I know that my capital in Perpetuality is worth more than 7-8 provinces combined.

Jazzepi

[Nick_K]

I don't think elite or special units should be recruitable, but it'd be nice if the non-human capitals had units of the correct species recruitable when captured. These shouldn't be stronger than other indep forces, but it's a tweak, like the species-specific undead, that I think would help immersion. Of course, this isn't a big deal.

[SlipperyJim]

Kristoffer O said:
Only being able to recruit your own national troops is one of the basic tenets that dominions is built around. When dom-ppp was initially designed we had played a couple of games in which a few players came to be all possible nations at the same time. Take VGA-planets where you were lucky if you could capture an enemy ship an copy it. Soon the fleet of the Evil Empire was made up of Death Stars towed by privateer ships. Same thing in other PBEM games where your army soon turned into rainbow armies of the elite units from every nation. Not much fun either.

For my $0.02, this was a good decision. It guarantees more replayability for Dominions, because each game is slightly different depending on your national troops. National spells only increase the variability.

Dom3 would be a lot less fun if Man & Ulm played the same, let alone Abysia, Caelum, and/or Agartha.