Dominions FOUR: Sequel to the Best Game Ever

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Donkringel: Apr 22, 2008

EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:

Someone did it, not sure how good/balanced it is

Just tried it now. The nation is a beast with infantry and paths available, but atrocious with research and priests. Very well looked into.

Also holy hell Dominions 3 UI is terrible.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 00:58

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# ? May 26, 2024 06:28

TheresNoThyme: Nov 23, 2012

What are people's thoughts on using revenants (9 d gems, 1D, ench 3) as a research summon when you're running M3 scales (7 + 3 = 10 rp for each one)?

Obviously the gem:rp efficiency is less than skulls, but having a bunch of 1D mages might have some emergency uses. I've been looking at these guys since early on I usually can't find things to throw D gems at besides ud elephants (situational, but good) and banes (usually capped by your item forging, and otherwise they're pretty gem efficient).

# ? Apr 17, 2014 01:37

Decrepus: May 21, 2008; In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.

Which D nation did you take M3 on.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 01:44

jsoh: Mar 24, 2007; O Muhammad, I seek your intercession with my Lord for the return of my eyesight

lemuria

# ? Apr 17, 2014 01:47

MrBims: Sep 25, 2007; by Ralp

TheresNoThyme posted:

What are people's thoughts on using revenants (9 d gems, 1D, ench 3) as a research summon when you're running M3 scales (7 + 3 = 10 rp for each one)?

Obviously the gem:rp efficiency is less than skulls, but having a bunch of 1D mages might have some emergency uses. I've been looking at these guys since early on I usually can't find things to throw D gems at besides ud elephants (situational, but good) and banes (usually capped by your item forging, and otherwise they're pretty gem efficient).

You need to throw those gems in combat with Darkness. 10 more RP is nothing, it is a drop in the bucket. It is like 125 gold for a lot of nations.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 01:48

AXE COP: Apr 16, 2010; i always feel like

somebody's watching me

If, theoretically, I wanted to put the Axes of Rulership and the Harvest Blade onto an SC so I could turn everyone into torsos, who would be the best chassis? (accounting for Copper Arms etc)

# ? Apr 17, 2014 01:52

TheresNoThyme: Nov 23, 2012

Decrepus posted:

Which D nation did you take M3 on.

Sceleria since it's a big increase for their recruit-everywhere mage. I'm aware of the potential banishment issues.

MrBims posted:

You need to throw those gems in combat with Darkness. 10 more RP is nothing, it is a drop in the bucket. It is like 125 gold for a lot of nations.

I was thinking of it as more of an early game thing. I would stop doing it as soon as I got access to more reliable or efficient ways to spend the gems, but I do think I'd rather have the research than be floating 50 D gems during year 2 like I usually am.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 01:55

Nuclearmonkee: Jun 10, 2009

TheresNoThyme posted:

Sceleria since it's a big increase for their recruit-everywhere mage. I'm aware of the potential banishment issues.

I was thinking of it as more of an early game thing. I would stop doing it as soon as I got access to more reliable or efficient ways to spend the gems, but I do think I'd rather have the research than be floating 50 D gems during year 2 like I usually am.

It's a legit use IMO. Revenants are a very easily accessible research booster with magic scales. They can also lead skellingtons and stuff later if needed.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 02:00

Neruz: Jul 23, 2012; A paragon of manliness

Nuclearmonkee posted:

It's a legit use IMO. Revenants are a very easily accessible research booster with magic scales. They can also lead skellingtons and stuff later if needed.

For Sceleria Revenants are also by far their most cost-effective research option because their mages are also priests and cost fucktonnes of death gems to summon.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 02:05

TheresNoThyme: Nov 23, 2012

Neruz posted:

For Sceleria Revenants are also by far their most cost-effective research option because their mages are also priests and cost fucktonnes of death gems to summon.

Think you have the wrong sceleria - this is the dom4 nation who are MA and have plenty of human mages just using the undead to like clean their houses and stuff. That said, their thaumaturgs are their only non-cap mage option and they have a wooping 9RP so M3 is a nice 33% boost for them.

TheresNoThyme fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Apr 17, 2014

# ? Apr 17, 2014 02:07

Jabarto: Apr 7, 2007; I could do with your...assistance.

As long as I've been asking about magic items, do Growth/Death scales affect the strength of a Vine Shield's entangling effect, and if so, by how much?

# ? Apr 17, 2014 02:19

Neruz: Jul 23, 2012; A paragon of manliness

TheresNoThyme posted:

Think you have the wrong sceleria - this is the dom4 nation who are MA and have plenty of human mages just using the undead to like clean their houses and stuff. That said, their thaumaturgs are their only non-cap mage option and they have a wooping 9RP so M3 is a nice 33% boost for them.

Yes I mean Lemuria not Sceleria :V Typoed the name there.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 02:24

Safety Factor: Oct 31, 2009; Grimey Drawer

EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:

Someone did it, not sure how good/balanced it is

Is there any way to get this to work in Dominions 4? The Malazan series is easily my favorite fantasy series and I'd love to mess around with this. I've tried before with a Dominions 3 file, but that just makes my game crash. :downs:

# ? Apr 17, 2014 02:26

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Safety Factor posted:

Is there any way to get this to work in Dominions 4?

Yeah it's going to be a matter of changing a couple of things, especially monster numbers, but it's not a huge deal.

I'll give a go if nobody else is up for it.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 02:33

Speleothing: May 6, 2008; Spare batteries are pretty key.

It's going to be a candidate for StR and terrain-specific recruits.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 02:59

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Since I know absolutely gently caress all about Malazan, all I'm doing with it is making the best mages and priests #slowrec, making it MC-compatible, and making sure the commands don't crash the game. I'm not changing gold costs or resource costs, or anything like that. The mechanic where buying commanders gives you some troops has been left in. At a glance, the mages look pretty disgustingly overpowered, especially considering it's an MA nation, but I'm leaving things as is.

The one change I have made is deleting a single mage that was listed as "edited out" and had a #copyspr to a dominions 3 monster number in any case.

If Deathjester wants to have another crack at it, or if there's some kind of "shocking" oversight that Oh Actually Marines Or Something Should Be #forestrec, I'm going to leave that to other people (should be done by tomorrow evening).

jBrereton fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Apr 17, 2014

# ? Apr 17, 2014 03:42

Donkringel: Apr 22, 2008

jBrereton posted:

Since I know absolutely gently caress all about Malazan, all I'm doing with it is making the best mages and priests #slowrec, making it MC-compatible, and making sure the commands don't crash the game. I'm not changing gold costs or resource costs, or anything like that. The mechanic where buying commanders gives you some troops has been left in. At a glance, the mages look pretty disgustingly overpowered, especially considering it's an MA nation, but I'm leaving things as is.

The one change I have made is deleting a single mage that was listed as "edited out" and had a #copyspr to a dominions 3 monster number in any case.

If Deathjester wants to have another crack at it, or if there's some kind of "shocking" oversight that Oh Actually Marines Or Something Should Be #forestrec, I'm going to leave that to other people (should be done by tomorrow evening).

Oh my you marvelous person,

jBrereton posted:

Since I know absolutely gently caress all about Malazan, all I'm doing with it is making the best mages and priests #slowrec, making it MC-compatible, and making sure the commands don't crash the game. I'm not changing gold costs or resource costs, or anything like that. The mechanic where buying commanders gives you some troops has been left in. At a glance, the mages look pretty disgustingly overpowered, especially considering it's an MA nation, but I'm leaving things as is.

The one change I have made is deleting a single mage that was listed as "edited out" and had a #copyspr to a dominions 3 monster number in any case.

If Deathjester wants to have another crack at it, or if there's some kind of "shocking" oversight that Oh Actually Marines Or Something Should Be #forestrec, I'm going to leave that to other people (should be done by tomorrow evening).

Oh my you marvelous person, thank you. I keep telling myself that I can churn through the Dom 3 UI but nope! Way too clunky.

Will you be making the sappers/marines holy troops? I notice the Malazans have no holy.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 04:36

Safety Factor: Oct 31, 2009; Grimey Drawer

Malazans shouldn't have any holy units. :colbert:

jBrereton posted:

Since I know absolutely gently caress all about Malazan, all I'm doing with it is making the best mages and priests #slowrec, making it MC-compatible, and making sure the commands don't crash the game. I'm not changing gold costs or resource costs, or anything like that. The mechanic where buying commanders gives you some troops has been left in. At a glance, the mages look pretty disgustingly overpowered, especially considering it's an MA nation, but I'm leaving things as is.

The one change I have made is deleting a single mage that was listed as "edited out" and had a #copyspr to a dominions 3 monster number in any case.

If Deathjester wants to have another crack at it, or if there's some kind of "shocking" oversight that Oh Actually Marines Or Something Should Be #forestrec, I'm going to leave that to other people (should be done by tomorrow evening).

I didn't expect a response like this, but I really appreciate it. I hope it's not too much trouble.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 04:48

The Gentleman: Jun 21, 2012

Safety Factor posted:

Malazans shouldn't have any holy units.

I didn't expect a response like this, but I really appreciate it. I hope it's not too much trouble.

Their Sappers should be sacred, honestly. Perfect representation of Malazan Insanity.

jBrerton posted:

Since I know absolutely gently caress all about Malazan, all I'm doing with it is making the best mages and priests #slowrec, making it MC-compatible, and making sure the commands don't crash the game. I'm not changing gold costs or resource costs, or anything like that. The mechanic where buying commanders gives you some troops has been left in. At a glance, the mages look pretty disgustingly overpowered, especially considering it's an MA nation, but I'm leaving things as is.

The one change I have made is deleting a single mage that was listed as "edited out" and had a #copyspr to a dominions 3 monster number in any case.

If Deathjester wants to have another crack at it, or if there's some kind of "shocking" oversight that Oh Actually Marines Or Something Should Be #forestrec, I'm going to leave that to other people (should be done by tomorrow evening).

I'm not sure about giving them different variants of high mages. It might just be better to condense them into one, perhaps two with ?-paths

# ? Apr 17, 2014 05:05

Speleothing: May 6, 2008; Spare batteries are pretty key.

It's always a tough choice between letting people recruit exactly what they want, but forcing them to choose, and letting people just recruit the same mage every turn without wondering if they screwed up. The EA Agartha way or the MA Sceleria way.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 05:24

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

Jabarto posted:

As long as I've been asking about magic items, do Growth/Death scales affect the strength of a Vine Shield's entangling effect, and if so, by how much?

It affects how difficult the effect is to break out of, and I don't know by how much. vine shield mechanics

# ? Apr 17, 2014 11:35

Donkringel: Apr 22, 2008

The Gentleman posted:

Their Sappers should be sacred, honestly. Perfect representation of Malazan Insanity.

I'd agree with this. It wouldnt change too much, since they are so flippingly high res anyway. I suppose a bless strategy could be interesting but I don't think it would matter too much, besides a strength bless to increase their grenade range.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 14:42

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Speleothing posted:

It's always a tough choice between letting people recruit exactly what they want, but forcing them to choose, and letting people just recruit the same mage every turn without wondering if they screwed up. The EA Agartha way or the MA Sceleria way.

Plus different paths make the most of different research trees, and maybe more importantly than that, there's been some nice spritework done on this faction which I don't want to just jettison into the dustbin of history.

Anyway, this is all done.

Changelog and facts for fellow modders etc.:

MC-compatible (according to the spreadsheet, from 25/02/2014)
Nation 137
Monsters 3640->3686
Weapons 1280-1294
Nametypes 166 and 173

Changes from Dominions 3 version are:

- Made Malazan its own nation, rather than being dependent upon EA Ermor.
- Removed dependencies on Dom 3 CBM weapons.
- Took out entries that were not actually used in the 0.84 version of the mod.
- Updated fort mechanics. Nation has standard MA Fortress/Castle choice.
- Slightly different non-national Pretender selection due to #homerealm system
- High Mages made Slow to Recruit.
- Removed Hamstring from Cattle Dogs (as Dog units in general do not possess this ability in vanilla Dom 4)
- Updated the Standard mechanics on:

Emperor (replaced Standard 30 with Inspirational +1)
High Fist (removed Standard 15)
Marine Sergeant commander (removed Standard 4)
Infantry Sergeant (replaced Standard 4 with Standard (1))
Coltaine (replaced Standard 30 with Inspirational +1)

- Updated Healing mechanics on:

Cadre Healer (healer 30 replaced with Autohealer (1))
High Mage of Denul (healer 100 replaced with Autohealer (2))
Quick Ben (healer 25 replaced with Autohealer (1))

- Updated research bonus/penalty upgrades on:

Claw Assassin (doubled research penalty to account for new research calculation)
Tayschrenn (doubled research bonus to account for new research calculation)

Link

e: oh and Donkringel, the nation had pretty good research even in Dominions 3 - research capability of 3 or 4 before scales was pretty much the baseline for a cheap researcher, not 7 or 9 like it is today.

jBrereton fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Apr 17, 2014

# ? Apr 17, 2014 15:04

Safety Factor: Oct 31, 2009; Grimey Drawer

Holy poo poo, thank you. I've already started messing around with the mod and this caught my eye:

It has a throwing range of 5. :getin:

# ? Apr 17, 2014 16:48

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Safety Factor posted:

Holy poo poo, thank you. I've already started messing around with the mod and this caught my eye:

It has a throwing range of 5.

If I read that right, though, given it's area of effect and Precision modifier, it's possible to accidentally drop it at your own feet. This is a good thing.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 17:07

goatface: Dec 5, 2007; I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.; Grimey Drawer

Is that designed as a suicide unit?

# ? Apr 17, 2014 17:09

Decrepus: May 21, 2008; In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.

Ynglaur posted:

If I read that right, though, given it's area of effect and Precision modifier, it's possible to accidentally drop it at your own feet. This is a good thing.

I think it deviating away from you would be the only likely chance of survival.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 17:17

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Ynglaur posted:

If I read that right, though, given it's area of effect and Precision modifier, it's possible to accidentally drop it at your own feet. This is a good thing.

I'm actually not sure of how precision works exactly, but what the weapon info means is that it reduces the unit's "base" Precision by 5 when calculating how it hits, not that the weapon's precision is set to -5. I'm not even sure if that's a thing that's possible.

That weapon can totally hit your own guys, though, yeah.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 18:06

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

If I recall correctly, you need to roll at or under your Precision to hit your target. I don't remember the dispersion formula.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 18:32

Donkringel: Apr 22, 2008

Safety Factor posted:

Holy poo poo, thank you. I've already started messing around with the mod and this caught my eye:

It has a throwing range of 5.

In the books, sapper accidental suicides are a usual thing. Either through idiocy or heroic self sacrifice.

I forgot that research rates were upped for characters in Dom 4!

# ? Apr 17, 2014 18:57

Safety Factor: Oct 31, 2009; Grimey Drawer

Donkringel posted:

In the books, sapper accidental suicides are a usual thing. Either through idiocy or heroic self sacrifice.

Yeah, a cusser isn't usually used as a throwing weapon except for in dire circumstances. They're typically used in traps or sieges. Naturally, the mod puts them on a regular dude and let's him have at it.

I know Fiddler is included in the mod somewhere. I wonder if he has his cusser crossbow...

# ? Apr 17, 2014 19:06

amuayse: Jul 20, 2013; by exmarx

Shouldn't it be sharpers or burners then?

# ? Apr 17, 2014 19:21

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Safety Factor posted:

Yeah, a cusser isn't usually used as a throwing weapon except for in dire circumstances. They're typically used in traps or sieges. Naturally, the mod puts them on a regular dude and let's him have at it.

I know Fiddler is included in the mod somewhere. I wonder if he has his cusser crossbow...

Yeah he has a "cusser launcher".

There are also Sharper and Burner guys. Sharpers are your recruitables, Burners are another summon.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 19:59

amuayse: Jul 20, 2013; by exmarx

Some of the Bonehunters had cusser launching crossbows.

# ? Apr 17, 2014 21:58

Jabarto: Apr 7, 2007; I could do with your...assistance.

Hey Jon Joe, I just noticed that your mod makes enlargement spells target enemies and shrinking spells target allies. I'm completely baffled by this change, can you explain your reasoning?

# ? Apr 19, 2014 04:28

Kitfox88: Aug 21, 2007; Anybody lose their glasses?

Huge = easier to hit
small = harder to hit

# ? Apr 19, 2014 05:05

Emmideer: Oct 20, 2011; Lovely night, no?; Grimey Drawer

Jabarto posted:

Hey Jon Joe, I just noticed that your mod makes enlargement spells target enemies and shrinking spells target allies. I'm completely baffled by this change, can you explain your reasoning?

Being big means less attacks per square. Being small means more attacks per square.

# ? Apr 19, 2014 05:13

Jabarto: Apr 7, 2007; I could do with your...assistance.

Jon Joe posted:

Being big means less attacks per square. Being small means more attacks per square.

I guess, but don't they lose a lot of hit points and become really vulnerable to trampling/area spells? Seems like a lateral move at best.

# ? Apr 19, 2014 05:16

dis astranagant: Dec 14, 2006

They lose hp, strength and morale and only gain dudes per square and some defense.

# ? Apr 19, 2014 05:17

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# ? May 26, 2024 06:28

Emmideer: Oct 20, 2011; Lovely night, no?; Grimey Drawer

Jabarto posted:

I guess, but don't they lose a lot of hit points and become really vulnerable to trampling/area spells? Seems like a lateral move at best.

Yeah, I'd say it's lateral, though more attacks per square is typically the more useful buff. I was thinking of copying the spells to re-add the original versions.

# ? Apr 19, 2014 05:18

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