Mods?

[Beorne]

I have very little time to try and evaluate different mods. My group is currently using the heroes mod and I'm awaiting some review of the CB mod.
I have seen a lot of nation mod, and some of them seems very good and "professional". I think a solution to broad the audience could be to package a set of verified and balanced new nations into a one mod, to have a "new nations mod" package, like the wonderful races and ai mod (I don't remember the name) of space empires iv.
A very good start has been the creation of the "mod list" thread, a step further would be the joining of all the best and actively mantained in a single mod.

[mathusalem]

I use only the worthy heroes mod and the one fort pretty flags.

[Teraswaerto]

I plan on hosting an MP game or games to test my nation mods in MP, but haven't had the time or energy to do it yet. The way I see it, if the mod maker wants to see his mod in MP hosting the game is the least he can do.

Of course, whether or not it works will depend on if people are willing to play in a game where modded and quite possibly unbalanced nations are present.

Still, there are plenty of games being played with Helheim in them.

[Sombre]

I'm going to list more combinations of mods that work together - so far I've just put up a Late Era combo. I think listing combinations of mods that work together and possibly altering a few of them to make them compatible is a better idea than combining them.

So far the mods haven't stepped on each other that much, because there are quite a lot of spaces for units etc. The main issue is nametypes, nation numbers etc, though that's fairly easily solved.

As for which mods are best,.. well it's slightly difficult to get any kind of consensus when people are reluctant to even try them. I'd say zepath's mods are the best in terms of overall presentation and they are seemingly ok in terms of vanilla balance too.

Amos has made more national mods than anyone and they are very distinctive, with plenty of eye candy. They also have good flavour and interesting gameplay concepts. The catch is that they are basically balanced only for use against each other, or for messing about in SP. That still isn't a reason not to give them a go as far as I'm concerned and I believe Amos has stated that all his nations of a certain age work together (so you can play a game with his four or so late era nations against each other). I have yet to test this and list it as a working combo though.

I can vouch that my three mod nations (one big project, two smaller) all aim for balance and gameplay and they all feature pretty good graphics too (attack sprites present and correct, right sizes etc). In the modlist I comment on other mods, but I don't have time to play and test them all.

Regarding the CB,... I'm not willing to get into it without some sort of readme explaining not the specific stat changes, but the rationale behind general changes, such as "all light cavalry decreased in cost to encourage their use - in vanilla they aren't worth using at all". I am totally onboard with a new balancing standard which strives to make 'useless' units viable picks and to ensure more variety. I've even offered to make CB balance versions of the 'top' mod nations - but first I need some kind of guide to what CB changes (again, a huge list of specific stat changes doesn't help me in this respect).

[Wauthan]

Heh, guess I really am an "inverted Gandalf" after all.

The only reason I play Dominions 3 because of its immense customizability. I ran quite a lot of MP games in Dominions 2 with my friends and eventually got bored with it. Each game simply takes way too much time to complete, and I find that I don't have the mental stamina to keep myself interested. When I want to play multiplayer I prefer RTS.

For me Dominions 3 is the near perfect singleplayer fantasy strategy game, an evolved Master of Magic, and I find myself spending quite a lot of time poking and prodding every aspect of the game. It's not at all unusual for me to run mods that alters all units, spells and items in fundamental ways. These days an completely unmodded game feels mind numbingly familiar and pointless.