Multiplayer - which nations are being chosen?

[Sombre]

Yeah a lot of people have asked for something like that, allowing aquatic only units to get on land in the mid-late game. A global or an item basically.

[Tifone]

The best (obviously absolutely IMHO) thing discussed about this matter so far is Thetis' Blessing working both ways, really. It opens so many strategic possibilities my mind just blows. But I don't wanna go off-topic

[Gandalf Parker]

Interesting. Lanka came out pretty high.
I wonder if its one of the nations that can be duplicated by MOD. Then I could offer Lanka-vs-Lanka blitz games.

[llamabeast]

It can't quite be done, because of the reanimation.

Well actually it could - you'd just have to base the copy nation on MA Ermor.

[Omnirizon]

Wrana said:
Actually, Earth being about 75% water-covered doesn't mean anything for fantasy universe. That's the same as most fantasy authors place their adventures in the North hemisphere of their worlds. Just an economy of thought (sp?). Actually, fantasy world can have almost no seas and even be a Mars-like desert one.
What I agree with is that more aquatic nations would be fun - but I guess that there are just not much good ideas of such in the developers' minds at the moment. And I don't remember much mod nations which are aquatic, too... It's possible that some Polynesian folklore would be helpful, but I don't know this enough...

yeah but the massive amount of sea surface has an important role in sustaining life... not the least of which is acting as a carbon sink.

without it, it is hard to speculate how any human-like lifeforms could exist. Since dom3 fantasy, and basically 95% of all fantasy for that matter, is based around human-like life, it seems quite necessary to have a large sea.

Guess I'm just nitpicky
its like the time one of George Lucas' writers or actors or somebody pointed out that one of his alien species was physically impossible to explain, and asked how him how it could possibly exist; he replied "well, it was a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..."

EDIT:
also, at any rate, it would be fun to have games with different dynamics than current. underwater has little to no missile fire, lots of stabby weapons (daggers, spears, and harpoons) nets, poison, very little non-natural armor, and whole different types of magic use. would make for completely different types of balance. I think it might be a lot of fun to experiment and play with

[Xietor]

I have not read the whole thread:

The only game I am in now where i chose the race I took MA Pythium.

[rdonj]

Reverse thetis' blessing is really unlikely to ever happen, partly because it doesn't really make sense. The problem is, conceptually there are only two ways it would work. 1) by flooding the surface world with water while simultaneously causing all creatures on the map to be capable of breathing water, or 2) by physically altering all aquatic-only creatures so that they can breathe air and actually move on land. Now, option 1 almost sounds viable until you realize that for it to be true, it makes no sense that there wouldn't be a version of the spell that doesn't cause air-breathers to breathe underwater.... Option 2 would require too much dev-work, creating new sprites and forms for the aquatics to take, so that's pretty unlikely.

That's part of why I suggested a quasi-domelike flood spell in another thread, you could imagine raising the water level enough that an aquatic creature with no means to get around on dry land could at least be there, and without drowning and killing everyone in the province.

[Omnirizon]

I don't know how you'd possibly have enough water to allow aquatic creatures to get around on land without killing everyone there.

Just a little bit of water goes along way to killing things. And just a little bit of water ain't near enough to let aquatic creatures survive.

I don't know why reverse thetis makes any less sense then normal thetis. The only reason we can't breath water is because our bodies use more oxygen than gills can possibly draw in through water. So thetis must magically enhance lungs to allow them to draw in massive amounts of oxygen from water. Now you face the problem of the fact that water probably doesn't hold enough oxygen for that to even happen. So Thetis has to make the water magically hold more oxygen. Now oxygenated water has different bouyancy, and nothing could float or swim in it. So thetis magically makes water retain its same bouyancy despite all the extra oxygen. Let's not get into the matter of magically creating oxygen and how that relates to conservation of mass and energy.

Given all that magical finagling. I think a reverse thetis is quite imaginable. It would actually take far fewer broken laws of nature to accomplish. In fact, all you need to do is magically keep gills from every drying out, and they would pull oxygen out of air just fine. You also need to give the fishy people legs.

EDIT: this also gets into the fact why no underwater species with higher thought functions than an octopus ever evolved, despite that fact that life has been present in water far longer than on dry land. Also why mammalian aquatic creatures, like dolphins, are the most intelligent; since they actually breath air. Basically, the amount of oxygen in water is not enough to support higher brain functions. Thinking, it appears, requires a lot of air.

[rdonj]

Giving the fishy people legs is all well and good until you have to start making 4-legged shark knights and fungi.

[Omnirizon]

maybe it could give them hover powers and cause the air around their bodies to be the same viscosity as water.