What could we steal from other fantasy games...

[JimMorrison]

Couple things-


First, on customizable units, I find this to be one of the most intriguing and interesting facets of a game that allows it. First of all, you would only have a select few chassis to build off of per race, according to what they can make. Second, there is already a robust system of gold/resource costs per equipment. There is the point that this MAY have a complicated imapact on balance..... On the one hand, I don't think there would be a "perfect" gear set, some people would go for plate for high prot, others might go scale or chain for lower enc. But it would allow a bit of tinkering such as if someone prefers mauls on their units, or likes falchions. Where it becomes complicated, is at the point of making a DW unit for a nation that usually doesn't get one, or adding shields on a nation that is supposed to be complicated by their lack thereof. I'd think that if the customization were developed for an eventual Dom4 however, that each gear type could be flagged such that everyone's available gear is different. An example would be that Coral and Meteorite armors would only be available aquatically, and only Ulm could outfit with Blacksteel. By the same token, some nations could be barred from kite shields, some would not use polearms, or perhaps would only have one particular chassis available that was flagged for 2h weapons at all. There are a lot of ways to tweak the system so that it gives people a little bit of flexibility, and the ability to play by their own preferences even when it gives no overt advantage, but still add depth to the gameplay. Also, it might be worthwhile to tie modifications in to Construction research in some way. At least for the magic items like Caelian crafted ice, or Blacksteel, you would need Cons research before you could add those special items to your own designs.


Regarding the item forging, again I think that people aren't looking at the interesting ways that these items could be limited. The first thing that I would do, is limit items to one path period, unless there were a costly and time consuming system for artifact creation. These single path items, could ONLY duplicate effects that you had access to via research. So, they would give a little help to people who went for spells before working on Cons, but their items would only reproduce the effects of spells that they can already cast. For example if you wanted a regen item, you'd have to unlock Personal Regeneration first. As to artifact construction, I think it would take some brainstorming to work out a system that makes it compelling to players, while insuring that the items are no more powerful than artifacts already available, but are significantly more costly to create. Also, adding risks of different kinds to artifact creation, such that an item that needs 50 blood slaves to create, could fail and summon a powerful demon that attacks the forger, or an incredibly powerful astral based item has a chance to leave the forger Lost in Time and Space, that sort of thing.



One other thing that I think could be interesting, would be the ability to create free form mercenary bands. The idea being that you would be able to hire independant mercenaries in a province, beyond your natural resources. The costs would be significant, you would not get to choose your commander type or unit type (though having the units be randomly chosen from what is trainable in the province makes sense), you would get a number of men somewhat relative to the amount you threw down to create the company, but there would be a random factor to it as well, to add the element of risk to it. I think this could be an interesting system for multiplayer, so that people have more options to remain competitive at game start, as well as giving a little more flexibility in how you deal with surprises. Of course, these mercenary bands would have the same 3 month contract, with the ability to renew at the end of the contract.

On the subject of mercenaries, I'd also like to see the mercenary bands that already exist, regenerate their numbers in some way. I mean if they take losses, they still demand the same amount of gold, you would think the excess would be used by the captain to replenish his manpower. They are mercenaries after all, if they're not really exotic like trolls or foulspawn or something, they should be able to hire more men, something like 10% a turn or something, which for most bands would only be 2-3 per month, rather slow but worthwhile if those mercs add something to your nation.



Just some thoughts, feel free to shoot some holes in them. <3

[Twan]

MoM has never been a game balanced for multiplayer. (hum not, in fact it could have been one.... as I doubt anyone would have been able to find the time to forge one uber MoM item against human opponents, remember the dozen of turns to make anything good)

Anyway, designing items doesn't mean no restrictions, and unlimited power for a done item.

Things like magic paths boost would have an hard limit with a limited number of cumulative effects no matter where the item is.

And there would be also soft limits, like different costs for the same powers on different slots, so if you want to enchant offensive items with defensive powers to cover all resist it's an huge investment ; and of course another soft limit would be research in appropriate paths needed to make each power available.

It's not hard to design a good and balanced system, just perhaps too much work for what it would add (and compared to the interest of UI improvements dom4 may have if its made one day).

[Jazzepi]

You could also institute a limit on the cost of the item based on your construction research.

Say that arrow fend and invulnerability for a chest slot item cost 50 gems (or something like that). For each level of construction you research you'd be getting access to a new "max cap" for the amount of gems in a given item you want to forge.

Level 2 might open up 10 gem items, level 3 15 gems items, level 4 20 gems, level 5 25, and level 9 would remove the cap entirely.

Jazzepi

[Omnirizon]

weimaar said:
Christoffer, giving people the FEELING of them being in charge is one of the most addicting and fun features one can add in a game. Being able - as a player- to tinker with magical items is a very very "empowering" thing. If you remember, half the reason one played master of orion 2 was the possibility to (even if it was completely unnecessary sometimes) design the ships. It made a unique game absolutely fantastic. Dominions 3 has the same potential.

yeah but you forget you could design a ship that could single-handedly take out hundreds of all the best things the AI could throw at you. All you had to do was combine two pieces of technology (I can't remember what they were called now) and you'de get 10 free turns at the start of every battle.

with the ability to design magic items all the players would quickly find the most exploitable designs and the great diversity of magic items would collapse to just a few that had to be used in order to compete. in practice the diversity of the game system would actually be reduced by designable magic items.

sector24 said:
...He ranks up there with Gary Gygax and Wikipedia as far as rewriting history goes...

I LOL'd. But hey, I love wikipedia! are you referring to the vandalism? Or simply the different perspective wiki offers on history?

Any _contemporary_ historian worth their salt will tell you history is subjective, and has commonly been written from a top-down perspective. There is a lot of effort today to capture history from other perspectives. Voices of the subaltern and all that. In reality, wikipedia is criticized for silencing subaltern perspectives, because it takes a certain expertise to use it that many of the "subaltern" (itself a subjective signifier) do not possess.

[MaxWilson]

Weimaar,

Yes, you can do that with a mod. You can create new magic items in a mod, and in fact you can edit the mod while the game is in progress to add new magic items. However, you can't make magic items cost gold, and the cost in gems is always fixed by the path forging requirements. N4F2 items will always cost 25 nature, 10 fire gems.

-Max