Dominions 3000 (name confirmed!)

[Darkwind]

JimMorrison said:
Deep Water - Deep Space
Shallow Water - Near Space / Solar Space
Mountains - Asteroids / Dead Planets
Forests - Habitable Planets (Earth)
Grassland - Habitable Planets (Fully Terraformed Mars)
Swamps - Marginal Planetary Bodies (Partially Terraformed Mars)
Waste - Hostile Planetary Bodies (Venus, Jupiter)

It seems unanimous that one-province planets are the way to go. I still don't know whether I should put up my map-designer hat (metaphorically speaking of course, I don't have one) or continue with the map-making.

Also, can I reserve S gems? I'm planning on using them in Noneuclidia (my Lovecraft nation which I'm currently making) for awakening the Great Old Ones (and Old Ones, and Lesser Old Ones...). I haven't the faintest idea what to call them though.

[JimMorrison]

Boson Matrices

I don't know, but it sounds awesome.


And no reason to stop thinking about map ideas, there could be blitz maps that are essentially fought entirely within 1 system, could be a lot of fun actually.

Just plan on the actual terrain types of a multi-province planet (just use default 'no' terrain) would be determined through the use of sites.

[Darkwind]

Quick question:

What should we do with the Horrors? Remove them or turn them into something new (I hear Lovecraft has some pretty horrific gods, if you know what I mean)?

Edit: I'm going to sleep now, but here's what I have of Noneuclidia. Just in time, too, I think I'm pretty much finished with the Yithians.

Also, Honeybadger, could you give me some sprites for these guys?

[JimMorrison]

Hey are you married to that name? Neuclidia, or Neoclidia could be fun. Just a thought. <3

Horrors..... Aliens? Facehuggers and Chest-Bursters, oh my! They ARE pretty horrible. But I can't see any existing mechanic that could be made to work, other than maybe Horror Seed, that would be hilarious.

[HoneyBadger]

What kind of sprites do you need? I can't download anything, just put a list on this thread as a reply.

[llamabeast]

I guess my suggestions for making it relatively hard to travel in space are only reasonably if there are several provinces per planet. Then you have battles for the surface of each planet before entering the transports and moving on to the next. Space blockades would be strategically crucial.

If you only want one province per planet, you'll want to make it easy to move between them, otherwise it'd be cumbersome as you say. Seems a pity to me, to lose out on the option of orbital blockades, but I guess there are pros and cons.

[JimMorrison]

Well, there is definitely something to said for some sort of space trench wars. Looking at this as basically an entirely new game, some space games go quick and dirty for conquest, some make it a very painstaking affair.

There certainly could be multiple province planets, as I said terrain could be in some way defined by magic sites, which unfortunately would have to be manually assigned to get the right flavor. Of course, everything but the inhabited planets could be left to chance, but if a planet is defined by terrain, and terrain is defined by sites, then each map will need to be modded with that in mind.

I do appreciate your input very much Llama, and I think that ultimately the mechanics can work out to allow both schemes, for different styles and scales of maps. It comes down more to a matter of which direction is easiest to initially develop, so we can get a working model off the ground.

[Darkwind]

Once again I'll just skim over most of this to say that in general, I think that nations with stronger planetbound troops will be more defensive (take a system/planet and hold it), while nations with powerful ships will be more offensive (use the powerful ships to invade many different systems and leverage the powerful navy).

JimMorrison said:
Hey are you married to that name? Neuclidia, or Neoclidia could be fun. Just a thought. <3

Excellent idea! Neoclidia it is.

What kind of sprites do you need? I can't download anything, just put a list on this thread as a reply.

Alright then.
YITHIANS (as long as it has two arms and four eyes it's fine)
-Cultist (base Yithian, just some clothes or robes or something is fine)
-High Cultist (commander, it'd also be nice if it was more priest-looking)
-Awakener (commander, they use digging lasers instead of claws for melee weapons)
-Elder Awakener (commander, really old, has really long "Strange Claws" instead of normal claws)

That's everything that I've finished for now. There's also the Deep Ones (not sure how they'll turn out, they can wait until later to be sprited), Shoggoths (kinda bubbly masses of stuff which will also come in War Shoggoth variety) and Nyars/Flying Polyps (not sure which ones I want or what they'll do yet).

Finally, I'd like it if you could make some Old Ones (and Lesser Old Ones, and Greater Old Ones...). Giant eyeless slugs with five arms, incoherent masses of living primordial goo, horrible beings that mankind has only glimpsed in the most fearsome of nightmares, go wild. Maybe a ranged (yay for beings who can blast multiple minds!) and melee (yay for weakness-inducing Strange Claws!) variety for each one? The Great Old Ones, of course, will all be unique. Also large and scary.

I'm trying not to limit your artistic expression. Am I doing it right?

[Sombre]

Darkwind said:
Excellent idea! Neoclidia it is.

Sounds like some horrible STD :O

[llamabeast]

ehm I was thinking about giving all Ulmish troops the same waterform (once active) but that can't work right? since then they can't transfor back to all their different froms on land? So if I wanted all troops to have the same spacesuit.. I'd need to make a form (nearly similar) for EACH troop?

Yes, but they could be EXACTLY similar. They would all be the same, apart from having different #landshapes. You might want to give them different names/descriptions though, so you could still differentiate them.

Agreed with Sombre that Neoclidia sounds like an STD.