Spells that allowed summons to bolster an other player's/indy province

[chrispedersen]

Spells that allowed summons to bolster an indy - or whoever the resident happened to be.

Aka. Ermor attacked by Ctis? A Spell or spells that anyone could cast that would bolster the province defense- a remote summons of some kind.

[HoneyBadger]

That's not bad...the option to improve independent PD might be useful, and would definitely be realistic, since Nations have been doing that all throughout history, and as late as the US aiding Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Panama, etc. Places where we don't take over the country, but do send soldiers, money, goods, arms, officers, intelligence, and experience.

Gandalf might be the one to ask about the specifics of how this might work? I think he worked in military logistics.

[Gandalf Parker]

There are spells that will attack a province but not automatically make you the owner if they win. So in a way that can "bolster" a province altho it will knock out the original owner..

In my solo games I often send gold, gems, or magic items to an AI. For example, if I am up against Ermor with masses of undead. My scouts discover who is on the other side of Ermor. Then I send them lots of weapons that do extra damage vs undead such as Herald Lances. It helps that nation stand up to Ermor and provide a squeeze. However, once Ermor is taken the fact that they have Herald Lances will not cause me too much of a problem when it comes to taking them out.

[Dectilon]

I'd like to see more nation-specific spells! They wouldn't have to be better than some other similar spell, but it adds some flavor to the teams. It's fun to play around with national summons etc.

Balance can always be dealth with, but fun requires fodder! ;D

By the same token I'd like to see some more pretenders and magic sites for the underwater teams, and that pretenders in general are looked over. As it is now quite a few of them are never worth using, which is a shame.

Another suggestiong which I am a bit unsure of: Province defense could to some degree deal with unrest. Their job is to patrol the province, so maybe ever 10 points of pd could remove 1 point of unrest or something? : /

Have heavy armor looked over: As it stands now (at least as far as I can tell) heavy armor is strong early game, but you can't really buy that many armored troops since they cost such absurd amounts of resources. Then later on, when you have a fairly large force of armored warriors they've already become obsolete because the enemy is using stronger, cheaper soldiers with army of gold (or similar protection spells) cast on them. They are unencumbered and almost as well protected.

Wouldn't it be nice to have some spells that enchant heavy armor, giving them various abilities. Poison barbs perhaps, or a blinding shine that lowers enemy attack skill.

Maybe this has been discussed somewhere else but... why can't you break down magic items into their component materials? There might be a structural loss (forge for 5, regain 3 when you break it down), but I bet everyone has tons of useless magic items sitting around in their laboratory at certain points in the game.

[Gandalf Parker]

Not a bad list of things to want. In particular I totally agree with wanting more national spells. I know its rough with just one person coming up with all of those, and Kristoffer has done a fantastic job above and beyond what full teams of developers have accomplished in other games. But I do feel that the later nations have a ton of such spells while older ones go t only a few. And that there is a definate tendency to fill the Conjuration spells with nationals instead of spreading it out abit.

Which pretenders are never worth using?
Keep in mind that there is:
never worth using in MP games
never worth using in solo games
never worth using in rpg games
never worth the AI using
Often when someone says that something in the game is worthless or not worth having in there they meant to say that its true of one of those categories.

[Dectilon]

Well... What use does the Naiad and Freak Lord have? The *****queen? The Lich? The Mother of Monsters?

I realize I'm inexperienced, but there just seems to be some options far more attractive than others, and the element of surprise doesn't last long in a turn-based game

Other than that... Maybe a few more spell animations? Some spells don't look very much like what their description says they are. And perhaps up the movement speed of magical projectiles. When you have 10 mages per side in a battle it takes quite some time for those Storm of Thorn's to land : P

Another thing I'd really, really want to see is to have the sound looked over. Some sound effects are just unnecessarily loud (especially since they "stack"). Some hurt even from just one unit shrieking (HYDRA!).

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by Dectilon

Well... What use does the Naiad and Freak Lord have? The *****queen? The Lich? The Mother of Monsters?

Another thing I'd really, really want to see is to have the sound looked over. Some sound effects are just unnecessarily loud (especially since they "stack"). Some hurt even from just one unit shrieking (HYDRA!).

Search the mod subforum for Conceptual Balance (easy to find) and Sound Mod (slightly harder). The first makes many if not most sub-par choices playable, and there's a version that only improves pretenders if that's the only thing you want. Sound Mod replaces many of the annoying sounds (elephants, female death-scream, illithid mind blast) with things that won't kill your ears.

[Ironhawk]

Many of the pretender chasis and units are simply not effective with the vanilla game. No reason to ever take them unless you are a player that enjoys role-play.

Use CBM (Conceptual Balance Mod) if you want to balance things properly and make these choices more attractive.

edit: Hahah - jinx, Endo!

[Dectilon]

Sure, but there's really no reason for the game to be reliant on mods ;&

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Dectilon

Well... What use does the Naiad and Freak Lord have? The *****queen? The Lich? The Mother of Monsters?

Ive taken all of those for rpg purposes. And I have used them in scenario maps where appropriate.

The upcoming game of Chronicles might see some use of such gods since the purpose of the game is more AAR (role-play writing about the game) than it is the winning.

And perhaps up the movement speed of magical projectiles. When you have 10 mages per side in a battle it takes quite some time for those Storm of Thorn's to land : P

You might try running Dom3 with some of the switches. Such as..
--partamount X Max nbr of particles 0-8 (0=none, 4=default, 8=max)
--noarcade Don't draw floating damage numbers
--renderpath X Use different optimizations 0-1 (0=good for low mem cards)
-x --fastgrx Faster graphics (use 3 times for best performance (-xxx))

A list is available here...
http://www.dom3minions.com/docs/CommandLine.txt

Another thing I'd really, really want to see is to have the sound looked over. Some sound effects are just unnecessarily loud (especially since they "stack"). Some hurt even from just one unit shrieking (HYDRA!).

There are some user-made packages which change some of the sound files. I dont remember hydra but I know that the elephant trumpet and the girls screams were modified if you install their changes.