Wishlist: Alchemy - Converting Gems for Gold needs a better Rate

[calmon]

Dominions is known for a big amount of details which makes this game so exciting.

One of this details is the ability of every mage to make some money out of earth and fire gems (10/15 gold).

While somehow useful in dominions 2 the ability isn't really useable in dominions 3.
Mostly because of the fact that there is more gold in dom3 and you still get the same (dom2) amount for your gems.

Using a master alchemist pretender early in the game would be a nice strategy for the useable nations like ulm. But its not because of this rate!

Alchemist stone give you another bonus but again because of the low base rate you don't trade valuable gems for money at this point of the game (its mid/late game when reaching contruction 8).

So i pled for more money for your converted gems. I think it should be doubled or trippled to make it useable. In case of nations with master alchemist (primary ulm) it should be a possible strategy by making more early gold instead of using the gems for items.

[MaxWilson]

Interesting proposal. I agree, right now 8 earth gems are WAY more valuable than 80 gold in the current game unless you are not balancing your checkbook or are otherwise desperately short on cash. (LA Ermor, and even then it's questionable.)

-Max

[Griefor]

I did use the feature once, but I was very desperate for gold and in retrospect it was probably a bad idea regardless. I did wonder why it would be in there to begin with if it's so bad. I feel trading should be expensive, but worth it enough of the time to add something to the game.

[Twan]

I agree, I actually only use alchemy when I'm 20 or 30 gp away from being able to build a castle or recruit a capitol mage.

In a mp with Machaka, I had to alchemize a lot in a war against Man whode bards were spreeding unrest in half my realm ; and finally realised that as long my mages upkeep was paid it was better to alchemize for other gems my huge production and summon thugs than to alchemize for gold and recruit troops. For 24f alchemized in death you get a bane lord, and it's far more interesting than recruiting 360g of anything.

[MaxWilson]

Alchemy would also be proportionately more valuable if you were playing with 25% or 50% gold multipliers.

[JimMorrison]

Twan said:
...For 24f alchemized in death you get a bane lord, and it's far more interesting than recruiting 360g of anything.

Odd. When I alchemize 24F gems, I get 12A, and then only 6D gems. Maybe I am doing it wrong? O.o Anyway takes me 48 of any gem type to get a Bane Lord, which is 720g, or a decent quality summons in its own right.

[MaxWilson]

Twan said:
realm ; and finally realised that as long my mages upkeep was paid it was better to alchemize for other gems

Why does the mage's upkeep matter? Commanders don't desert when unpaid (I'm about 90% sure of that but my memory is fuzzy) so this is only an issue if you want to buy more mages.

-Max

[Jazzepi]

Commanders never desert. I ran a long test with EA Pangea with 0 income for many many turns and they never lost a Pan.

Jazzepi

[Tyrant]

Jazzepi is right and i agree with calmon, it was marginal in Dom2 and it just didn't get scaled up with the economy in 3.

[Twan]

JimMorrison said:

Odd. When I alchemize 24F gems, I get 12A, and then only 6D gems. Maybe I am doing it wrong? O.o Anyway takes me 48 of any gem type to get a Bane Lord, which is 720g, or a decent quality summons in its own right.

Hum, yes.

In fact 720 g for a bane lord is rather expensive compared to 720g of good troops, it was only interesting because I didn't have money to pay upkeep for other troops (and my capitol had too much unrest to recruit my best ones iirc).

About mages upkeep I didn't knew as I always managed to have just the gold for my upkeep cost, it's interesting to know leaders can't desert (so finally you can completely ignore upkeep when you only use summons).