Ooh, ooh, new info on patch page!

[Tifone]

Samurai Armor with lower encumberance would just help the balancing (maybe), but not surely thematicness. Ever tried, or even seen, wearing an ancient samurai armor?

On another note, I think it would be a mistake by the devs to start abusing the concept of the gates for many nations. Surely it is entertaining (I came up some time ago with the idea of a dinosaur gate like in Verne, and iirc someone before me with that too) and while it could help the early game of Yomi, and even be quite temathic with the "coming from netherworld" idea, I think going further would just add unbalance to the game... and be probably quite naive.

[AdmiralZhao]

I agree with Tifone, the gate is just right as a bit of Ryleh-only weirdness. If everyone and their brother has a gate, it makes it not nearly so neat.

[Amorphous]

Regarding Yomi:

I am admittedly not that familiar with Yomi, but if it needs a boost, I do not think it well advised to do it through making the Dai-Oni more powerful. The unit is already plenty powerful with excellent base stats. The starting armour is not good, but it is easily replaced even early on. The magic paths of the Dai-Oni allows for the casting of excellent buff spells after a little research is done, so it is not really dependent on a good bless.


Regarding R'lyeh:

I think pop-kill is the way to go. Perhaps not as drastic as with Ermor, but this seems like a good compromise. Limiting R'lyeh's astral power - other than through economics - is not such a good idea, however. The nation is a powerhouse, but with a dominion that makes everyone else insane it needs to be, and as far as I can see, astral is a big part of what makes it powerful later on. If there is a problem, I see it more as one of quantity and not of quality, which means limiting the amount of high-astral mages, not the level of astral on each mage, is the way to go - and increasing the pop-kill effect should accomplish this.


Regarding invasion of water provinces:

I do not like the idea of making it easier for land-bound nations to invade water provinces. As it stands now, I think there is a pretty good balance between land and water nations while still keeping them rather different in style and options. Making it easier for land nations to invade the water and provide water nations with better recruiting abilities on land would just make them more similar to each other.

Consider also that maps in general have more land than water provinces. In EA and MA there are 3 full-fledged water nations that compete under the waves and even in a game where only one of them is present there are undead and amphibian troops to contend with, not to mention that you do not win by just owning the water. And on land they are at a disadvantage. In LA, R´lyeh is the only nation that starts in the water, but Atlantis is still around and still a full-fledged water nation, Mictlan has some rather beefy amphibian units, Patala's Nagas are something to ignore at your own peril and there is death magic practically everywhere, so more or less everyone can just send wave after wave of undead.

Also, at construction 2 you can get thugs in the water and from construction 4 you can bring troops as well.


Regarding acid:

I think especially EA Atlantis is a great acid nation. All Basalt Kings and half the Mages of the Deep can cast acid spells. Great, dark old beings rising from the sea, calling down acid from the skies and making the population kneel in the acidic sludge before their giant god of the deep is an image that would make Lovecraft proud.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by Amorphous

Patala's Nagas are something to ignore at your own peril and there is death magic practically everywhere, so more or less everyone can just send wave after wave of undead.

Nagas are capital-only and not very good, so ignoring them shouldn't be too difficult, and wave after wave of mindless undead will die rather quickly when the Illithids Mind Burn can only target the non-mindless commanders. Once you have a small stronghold underwater, you can recruit aquatic units, but launching a straight land-to-water campaign is much harder than you imply and only possible for spesific nations, and far from easy even for them.

Great, dark old beings rising from the sea, calling down acid from the skies and making the population kneel in the acidic sludge before their giant god of the deep is an image that would make Lovecraft proud.

That IS nice.
I agree with your other points.

[Amorphous]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

Nagas are capital-only and not very good, so ignoring them shouldn't be too difficult, and wave after wave of mindless undead will die rather quickly when the Illithids Mind Burn can only target the non-mindless commanders. Once you have a small stronghold underwater, you can recruit aquatic units, but launching a straight land-to-water campaign is much harder than you imply and only possible for spesific nations, and far from easy even for them.

It was not my intention to overstate the case and claim that it is easy for land nations to just switch to underwater combat on the level with water nations - sorry if it came off that way. The point I tried to make was rather that it is not that hard for land nations to descend into the seas.

Nagas, for example, may not be very good, but they are easily good enough to take underwater indies or provinces just defended by PD. And, as you said, once you have a water province you can start to expand using troops bought there. Since Nagas can be bought from turn one, ignoring them may lead to a rather nasty surprise later on.

As a general rule, land nations are the under-seadog beneath the waves, which means they should use a strategy appropriate to that - most probably raiding. Water nations cannot afford to let others have water provinces too long, or they risk the creation of another water power. And raiding with high taxes and pillaging is not fun for the target.

Specifically for LA R´lyeh, the nation needs expensive Illithids and/or mages to counter raiding. Keeping sufficient forces of these everywhere cost a lot - more than can usually be afforded.

Again, to be clear, I do not mean that it is easy for land nations to carve themselves a sizeable underwater empire, but for many it is relatively easy to be a bother to existing water empires. The same - even for LA R´lyeh - really applies to water nations trying to ascend to dry land. Late in the game this changes, but I think it does so for both parties, at least to some extent.

I cannot really claim any extensive knowledge of this game - what little MP I have played, have been with friends who, like me, probably are not very good. With that in mind, I still think that some of the complaints voiced here comes from less than well thought out strategies. Going into the seas is an investment for land nations that is initially expensive as is going on land for water nations. The difference is that when playing water nations, players tend to realize that they have to plan land campaigns well ahead, while in the case of land nations they do not do it to the same extent. I think you can get a good perspective on this through perusing the many strategy guides in this forum, while keeping the crossing of the water-border in mind. At least to my recollection, water nation guides more or less always include advise on how to get on land, while the converse is rarely true for land nations.

In my opinion it is hard for land nations to go up against water nations in the sea and it is hard for water nations to go up against land nations on land - and I like it that way.


Edit:

I like the basalt king acid sludge image!

I like the treatment of lovecraftian themes in this game a lot.
In fact, while I like Dominions for a lot of things, I have to say that it was the excellent treatment of mythologies - historical and purely literary - in general that drew me to it in the first place. It is rare to see a sound collection of mythologies handled so successfully and respectfully. In my mind mythologies are foremost good old stories that have stood the test of time and deserve to be remembered, added to and viewed from new perspectives.

Going on will just be even more like a rant, so instead I will just say thank you for a great game.

[Tifone]

Nice and reasonable analysis Amorphous. I must say I agree with almost everything.

[Kristoffer O]

I have other ideas for Yomi, but they are a bit mechanics-heavy, meaning I must convince JK to make them, meaning he must shift focus from other projects. Thus I need to be quite clear on what I want. So for the time being I will work on coolifying Jomon. The coolifying is coming along quite nicely I'd say.

I have a dragon break, meaning I have quit drawing dragons for the time being. They need attack sprites, which is annoying since the originals took me quite some time to draw. Scaly bastards. I've moved to kami making. Jomon will have a nice number of sacred summons. Some shinto and some buddhist. Also there will be a couple of new monsters for Jomon, shinu and yomi. Some, like the shikome, will be restricted to yomi and possibly shinu I suspect.

Jomon will also recieve a couple of new recruits and some priestly spells if I can make mechanics out of some buddhist concepts.

[zzcat]

Originally Posted by Kristoffer O

I have other ideas for Yomi, but they are a bit mechanics-heavy, meaning I must convince JK to make them, meaning he must shift focus from other projects. Thus I need to be quite clear on what I want. So for the time being I will work on coolifying Jomon. The coolifying is coming along quite nicely I'd say.

I have a dragon break, meaning I have quit drawing dragons for the time being. They need attack sprites, which is annoying since the originals took me quite some time to draw. Scaly bastards. I've moved to kami making. Jomon will have a nice number of sacred summons. Some shinto and some buddhist. Also there will be a couple of new monsters for Jomon, shinu and yomi. Some, like the shikome, will be restricted to yomi and possibly shinu I suspect.

Jomon will also recieve a couple of new recruits and some priestly spells if I can make mechanics out of some buddhist concepts.

Great news Finally we can see some buddhistic element in the east asia nations

[Kristoffer O]

I like the basalt king acid sludge image!

[Tifone]

I am partially buddhist so please treat us nicely mr KO