Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)

[Darkwind]

As no one else has made a thread for this here yet, I figured I might as well. I might as well add in a summary of Dominions 3000, too.

Basically, the idea is to create 'Dominions in space'. I suppose you could call it a total conversion. It will likely be one age with maybe ten nations. So far, the people working on this (or saying that we'll work on it) include me, HoneyBadger, and JimMorrison.

And, well, that about wraps it up. There will definitely be numerous problems with actually putting this into action, but that's just part of the fun, isn't it?

EDIT: New members list, may or may not be updated as time goes on:
HoneyBadger (graphics for Ulm in Aezeal's proto-mod, enthusiasm, various nation ideas)
Aezeal (created the proto-mod/trial-version for Dom3K, enthusiasm, lots of work, more enthusiasm)
Nikelaos(?) (creates graphics for Aezeal's prot-mod (?), enthusiasm, active in debate about the mod)
Darkwind (me, mostly brings up questions, occasionally works on Neoclidia, also enthusiastic)

This mod is made out of enthusiasm and duct tape. Quite a sturdy construction don't you think?

EDIT II: As far as I know everyone's okay with Dom3K, including KO (who I just sort of assumed spoke on the behalf of Illwinter I guess so yeah), so the title is hereby changed.

[llamabeast]

Sounds like you have it all planned out nicely

[HoneyBadger]

I've been thinking about how combat is currently displayed-are we going to include ground combat? or will it all be spaceships?-I'm thinking ground combat would be best, but how to handle space combat and not make it look goofy?

Maybe something Stargate-ish, with few or no actual spaceships. A bit like the old SSI Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday game.

[llamabeast]

You should probably aim to represent ground combat on the surface of a planet. Perhaps the planet is strategically crucial or something. Games like Dawn of War tend to go with that kind of concept.

You could certainly have close combat troops (there are plenty of examples from sci-fi, e.g. Jedis, zerglings, aliens from Alien etc), plus obviously ranged troops. They could be tricky due to the lack of appropriate projectiles. Of course, for real laser weapons no projectile would be visible. Still, it would look strange not having one.

I think this will be hard. Probably you should start with just two races. Maybe something really coolly thematically opposed, a la Terrans/Zerg or Space Marines/Tyranids.

Spells would be interesting. I wonder what they would represent.

[Darkwind]

I was thinking we would represent ground combat. Also, I might as well lay down what I think should be done with ships, also tying in to planets and spells:

I, personally, think that space should have no or few people (due to lack of anywhere to put said people). Thus, planets would contain all (or almost all) of the population. The recruitable ships would likely be small and weak, though they wouldn't cost much. Also recuitable would be commander "orbital building stations", which would have magic. As all (or most) of the spells we currently have will likely be scrapped, the Conjuration line would become a "blueprint" line, which would likely start with a number of blueprints at the beginning.

Builder ships could use gems to create the more powerful ships which couldn't be launched from the planet (and can't enter a planet). There would likely be a spell to summon droves of the recruitable ships, too. I'm thinking that most of the "blueprint" spells will be national, so that both the zergrushkekeke and the size10deathstarfleet races couldn't both summon the same ships. Mercenaries could likely be included as well, as 0-resource units in space with large amounts of upkeep (different from the mercenary bidding used in-game, which would hopefully also be used).

So, for planets, should they all link to other planets (and stars) in the system? Or should one have to conquer a planet from above in order to bring men with them (or use ships that can carry a few men)? Should stars (if included as conquerable) link to all other stars, to only the nearest stars, or be essentially the same as deep space? What will we do about ground-unit commanders and items (I'm thinking we divide slots between ships and ground units, so, say, the ship might get the helmet, boot, and chest slots, but ground commanders get the hand and misc slots)? How will we scale ship power versus human power? Will this wall of text made up solely of questions ever end?

[llamabeast]

So, would the planets be represented by land, and space by water? Then spaceships could be aquatic. The troop carriers could grant "water breathing" to the units they commanded, hence allowing carrying troops through space. However, the troops would then be present in space combats. The only solution I can think of to this would be to have spaceships vastly superior to troops, so that troops fighting in space would be largely irrelevant (as you'd expect if troops were floating around in spacesuits, although that still doesn't explain why they got out of their transports in the first place).

The stats will look very strange on spaceships. Strength and magic resistance at least. Most of the rest are probably okay.

[Endoperez]

Sailing isn't stopped by enemy controlling the water province, is it? I thought about troop carriers "sailing" over space-seas that "aquatic" combat ships control, but I guess that's impossible.

[Darkwind]

llamabeast said:
So, would the planets be represented by land, and space by water? Then spaceships could be aquatic. The troop carriers could grant "water breathing" to the units they commanded, hence allowing carrying troops through space. However, the troops would then be present in space combats. The only solution I can think of to this would be to have spaceships vastly superior to troops, so that troops fighting in space would be largely irrelevant (as you'd expect if troops were floating around in spacesuits, although that still doesn't explain why they got out of their transports in the first place)

That was what I was thinking, that troop carriers would be able to bring units into space. Endoperez's idea could work, as well, since either way the carriers would have to be amphibious, but with sailing the problem of a small army of units leaving the carrier to unload their clips (or lasers) against the vastly superior hulls of the enemy spaceships is avoided. It might not help with cross-system expeditions, though.

[HoneyBadger]

Lazers, realistically speaking, are invisible, so no real worries there.

Maybe space combat, etc. should just be a non-entity for now, as has been suggested. That way, we could still represent worlds that are too hostile to life, to enter without special equipment.

[Aezeal]

hmm troops in space could actially wear spacesuits armoured with heavy weapons (which troops can't carry on land to stay thematically) so they could fire on ships though

--> this would mean most troops would need an other form for when in water though (like oceania mages?): the interesting thing could be that all troops would be similar in space (water) while there could be vastly different in power on the ground.

(though I'd say militia should still be weaker in space than elites.. but the difference could be nice.. attack elite armies in space and not on land if possible so they are relatively weaker.)

you could then also make more space based races (more powerfull spacesuits) and more land based races

Troops in space province could be living in spacestations or something.