The (not really) Official Endgame Summon Thread!

[Ironhawk]

JimMorrison said:
But for those of us who haven't been playing since release, and don't have these algorithms plugged into our brain to allow us to accurately evaluate completely new units and capabilities on the fly, it would seem to just inspire confusion.....

Actually, it is a trap to think in this way. Dominions has such a huge number of units and spells that its really not possible to learn them all. Sure, you need to build a base of experience in a static environment. But the skills you should be building are unit evaluation, rather than rote memorization. If you do that, then it doesnt matter what mods your game has.

[llamabeast]

Okay, I have been looking at pretenders. Here is a list of pretenders which I think might be reasonable, to a greater or lesser extent, to use as a summon:

Wyrm
Lord of the Desert Sun/Summer Plague
Titan/Titaness
Asynja
Divine Serpent
Lady of Springs
Manticore
Cyclops
Dragons
Dracolich
Nataraja/Destroyer of Worlds
Scorpion King
Son of the Sea
Ancient Kraken
Old Man of the Sea
Lord of the Waves
Nerid
Lord of the Sky/Son of the Heavens
Ageless Olm

Some will need some changes to their descriptions and so on, but none of these are truly unique (most of the human ones are described like "The so-and-so is a demigod born from a river" which I would think there could be several of). So I think all of these are at least possibles. Some, though, feel somehow wrong. To me a Wyrm is very much a pretender, and shouldn't be summonable. Can't say why I feel that more about a Wyrm than a dragon though.

I'm still really interested in any new ideas people have for late game monsters though. Personally I'm drawing a creative blank right now. I may be able to do graphics if I can find time, for a small number of original ideas at least.

[chrispedersen]

I, for one, would rather see the game become *less* about endgame summons.

Decrease the importance, emphasize thematic elements, and better balance... not as easy as a quick patch

[Loren]

My take is that there should be something at Conjuration 9 for each path.

Or perhaps a generic "Summon Dragon" that can be cast by any level 9 caster no matter what the path--it's just what you get will be based on whatever path(s) the caster has.

[Twan]

For dragons I had the idea of a spell summoning a dragon egg, then you'll have to shapechange it each turn during a five or six turns, to end with an adult dragon -with young dragon forms before the last one- (the only problem is : with actual mod commands the egg would be able to shapechange each round of combat).

[Endoperez]

Twan said:
For dragons I had the idea of a spell summoning a dragon egg, then you'll have to shapechange it each turn during a five or six turns, to end with an adult dragon -with young dragon forms before the last one- (the only problem is : with actual mod commands the egg would be able to shapechange each round of combat).

Wouldn't it actually be able to cycle through all of its forms in a single turn? I just tried to do something similar, but couldn't, because you can shape change and give other orders afterwards.

[Twan]

Endoperez said:

Wouldn't it actually be able to cycle through all of its forms in a single turn? I just tried to do something similar, but couldn't, because you can shape change and give other orders afterwards.

Yes in fact the only way to have the desired effect is to use a cycle of firstshape commands, so the dragon evolves after each fight (but sending an egg to combat isn't very logical).

[sector24]

Twan said:

Yes in fact the only way to have the desired effect is to use a cycle of firstshape commands, so the dragon evolves after each fight (but sending an egg to combat isn't very logical).

Could you add a non-shapeshift action or spell that calls the next shape? So you have Move, patrol, defend, etc. and another action called "Transform". But you don't transform until you end the turn with that action selected. Or give him a ritual spell that kills the current unit and creates a new one in it's place. I don't know if those types of things are possible though, because my mod-fu is not strong.

[TheMenacer]

I doubt the Nataraja or Destroyer of Worlds should be summonable because they're based off of specific hindu gods (forget which ones though, I think the one with the severed head and all the anti demon weapons is based on Kali, although nobody should quote me on that) and the various "Lord/Son of ..." titans probably wouldn't make for good summons unless a given player were to rationalize summoning other gods to help him out as building up a pantheon (there's a thought, instead of just pretender god vs. pretender god, it's pretender pantheon vs. pretender pantheon). The other assorted monstrous pretender types would definitely make for solid endgame summons though. I'd still like to see a lot of nation specific summons as well as more general one though, although that's me.

Just a thought, despite the fact that it changes nothing about how awesome blood magic is for the endgame, I'd like to see LA Marignon get some national blood summons for more specifically Christian demons. I mean, it gets all those sweet angelic summons for the middle era, so it's firmly a Christian-inspired nation, and yet it's got nothing specifically Christian for its horrifyingly corrupt late era except for the angels which still hang around for some reason despite the whole nation being based entirely on how much it loves to sacrifice virgins and torture people. I suppose the vast majority of blood summons are already pretty well based on Christian mythology, but there have to be at least a few demons, specific individuals or otherwise, just waiting to be turned into summonable minions.

Also yet more ideas, Machacka is supposed to have a dead god sleeping in their mountain, right? Well I think by the time endgame magics start getting tossed around, it's high time they woke his *** up. Also, just so they can have more than one endgame monster running around, how about size 6 divine spiders with an awe or fear aura that just bust all kinds of heads in.

And for Pangaea, I think carrion summons are awesome, and also things like the carrion dragon are cool as hell, so why not push the carrion-related envelope. Having a really high level summon that just calls up a carrion tartarian would be wacky as hell and pretty much the best thing. Failing that, any unit's carrion equivalent would be fun to play around with.

[Ironhawk]

I'm seeing a lot of monster-type summons in the list you all are putting out. While I definitely like my monsters, you have to keep in mind that monster-type commanders are not nearly as useful as titan-type commanders in the late game due to the difference in slots. If you are trying to balance out the endgame SCs, you might want to concentrate on units that have all (or most) slots.