Ooh, ooh, new info on patch page!

[Gregstrom]

Now visible on the patch page: Version 3.21

And an extra fix to BEs as well.

[Bwaha]

Hi, I can't find the new patch 3.21. Is it out? When I go to the Dominions 3 page it shows 3.20 as the latest patch.

[rdonj]

Patch 3.21 is not out yet. Rather, these are upcoming changes that will be released with the next patch or two

[archaeolept]

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Bwaha

Hi, I can't find the new patch 3.21. Is it out? When I go to the Dominions 3 page it shows 3.20 as the latest patch.

Odd numbered patches are "beta" patches, undergoing brief testing before the even numbered patch is released to us.

I can't remember the story of how we ended up getting 3.17, but the ill-fated performance fix pushed us to 3.2 from there.....

[Edi]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Odd numbered patches are "beta" patches, undergoing brief testing before the even numbered patch is released to us.

I can't remember the story of how we ended up getting 3.17, but the ill-fated performance fix pushed us to 3.2 from there.....

Going from 3.17 to 3.20 had nothing to do with the performance boost fix that was reverted, because that concerned v3.17 only, as you can see from the progress page.

[VedalkenBear]

A couple of things:

Re: Samurai Armor.. how bulky and encumbering it is depends entirely on what time period you're looking at. Early 'samurai' armor was full lamellar scale armor, adopted from Mongolian armor (this would be around 500 AD). Later samurai armor (such as used in the Warring States period and in almost all popular samurai drama) had a very different purpose. It has the famous paneled look because it tried to deflect projectiles rather than anything in melee. Presumably if you were fighting in melee, it was a test of skill rather than metallurgy. Thus, the primary factor in late period functional samurai armor was to leave the samurai mobile. Thus, it was incredibly light.

You could actually model this in Dominions with a low-prot armor that granted Air Shield.

As for the other Sinuyomijomon changes, very cool. KO, I volunteer my services for helping with fleshing them out. I note that almost all Buddhist elements in Jomon are esoteric. Are there any plans on importing the more popular Buddhist sects (like the Amida cult) into Dom3? I would think the Celebrant event could be modified quite well to show this, if nothing else.

[zzcat]

Hmm...Which element of Amida cult can be importing to a fantasy war game? there are neither monsters nor powerful mages. At best you can create some zealot for Daimyo era and a priest who can reduce unrest automatically for Shinu/Jomon and MA/LA TC. But it's not very funny IMO.

Vajrayana is much easier to present in game because it has tons of demons and sprites and rituals. Many Buddhist in old times of Japan who believe in Amida believe in it too, and it's accepted by the emperor and most mongolese officers in Yuan dynasty of China. Anyway, too many tantric elements in LA nation may be inconsonant to the theme.

I think Zen masters with astral magic and clear mind(resistance to R'yleh's dominion) may be interesting. Making them first appear in MA TC(may be heretic) but stronger in LA TC and Jomon.

About samurai armor. IIRC the Yumi(Japanese bow) is among the worst bows of the world, With the length of English long bow(many of them are even longer than 200cm), they have unbelievable short range(70 meters). So no shield is needed in ancient Japan and the banboo armor "to deflect the arrow" is very simple and only used by lower class warrior. All Daimyos and generals weared heavy armor.

[VedalkenBear]

zzcat: As I said, the Amida cult was the first really populist Buddhist sect in Japan. I contrast this to the earlier esoteric sects, of which the Onmyoji in Jomon is the best representative. As such, a 'flavoring' of the Celebrant event could be used to show this representation.

And the yumi was not a 'weak bow', at least the ones that the samurai used from horseback. After all, the samurai began as exactly the kind of mounted archer that dominated the medieval period in Asia. I am not sure exactly your source for your information, but it runs counter to everything I know about Japanese warfare.

I will point out as well that early Japanese warriors, proto-samurai if you will, did indeed use shields.

In the popular(ist?) version of samurai that has filtered to the west, samurai are foot soldiers, master of the katana, that disdained ranged combat. This does not exist until the middle Warring States period (1530 or so), and coincides with the rise of gunpowder technology in Japan. At this point, you might be correct, but everything said about arrows goes equally for guns: it is much easier to deflect than absorb, at least at the velocities and accuracy that early guns could achieve.

Before this time, though, the information is simply incorrect.

[zzcat]

Originally Posted by VedalkenBear

After all, the samurai began as exactly the kind of mounted archer that dominated the medieval period in Asia.

I think you are talking about Mongol horsemen, not samurai

I tried to google some English infomation about Yumi just a minute ago. Thousands of webpages are found but few of them even mentioned the effective killing range of classic yumi. Most of them are talking about Kyudo and self perfecting, I think it's pointless for westerner to care about its practical performance.

Anyway, two webpages are found when I search "japanese bow+effective range"
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/...amurai#Weapons
http://www.samurai-archives.com/ste.html
The first one said the yumi's effective range is 50 meters or less, and the second said it's only mere 30 meters.

In fact Japanese bow is still quite deadly at short range because japanese archers are very skilled at point-blank shooting and the heavy arrowhead can penetrate through some armor, but it depend on personal training, and point-blank shoot do little help in big battle.