The new general "Dominions 5" Thread

[Glimbur]

It would be interesting to have enough nations to have an all pokemon game. I do not have the time or ambition for that, but once the first mod is released it could serve as a base for more. I expect I am a couple months out at least, depends how quickly the Dominions game I am waiting on gets started. At least the sprite work is pretty easy.

[Manticoran]

It would be interesting to have enough nations to have an all pokemon game. I do not have the time or ambition for that, but once the first mod is released it could serve as a base for more. I expect I am a couple months out at least, depends how quickly the Dominions game I am waiting on gets started. At least the sprite work is pretty easy.

I can help with the unit work if you want, I'm very familiar with monster, site, and nation modifications, although less so with sprites and spells.

I am SUPER in for like, type or gym themed nations, with the different ages as different pokemon games.

[Glimbur]

I want to figure out the event scripting to turn units into commanders at a specific site, and spells that make sites. After that I could send you the (very) rough draft so you can start diversifying the pokemon list and making many nations. I'm a little surprised by how much enthusiasm there is for this idea, we might get a non-standard game out of it!

[deuterio12]

It would be interesting to have enough nations to have an all pokemon game. I do not have the time or ambition for that, but once the first mod is released it could serve as a base for more. I expect I am a couple months out at least, depends how quickly the Dominions game I am waiting on gets started. At least the sprite work is pretty easy.

Which program are you using for making/editing sprites? Any nice guides online?

Asking because I would really love to do some sprites myself and tried using multiple tools but just can't seem to get the hang of it.

[Glimbur]

I use paint.net. I find it easier to understand than gimp and unlike paint3D it can make tga files as required. For the pokemon mod I have been taking existing sprites and rescaling them to the right size and format. Otherwise I usually take an existing dominions sprite and fiddle with details.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=42737
Is one Sprite guide

[Manticoran]

I want to figure out the event scripting to turn units into commanders at a specific site, and spells that make sites. After that I could send you the (very) rough draft so you can start diversifying the pokemon list and making many nations. I'm a little surprised by how much enthusiasm there is for this idea, we might get a non-standard game out of it!

Look, you said the word Pokemon.

I've got a discord for doing dominions modding projects, do you want to join? That way we could coordinate easier with real-time text. We should do a centralized file to edit too so we make sure we don't duplicate work.

[deuterio12]

I use paint.net. I find it easier to understand than gimp and unlike paint3D it can make tga files as required. For the pokemon mod I have been taking existing sprites and rescaling them to the right size and format. Otherwise I usually take an existing dominions sprite and fiddle with details.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=42737
Is one Sprite guide

Thanks, trying it out and indeed seems much simpler to use than gimp so far!

[Glimbur]

I got the events working, so the remaining work is just making units and writing descriptions. Hopefully I can have an alpha test ready in another week or two, depending on if my next dominins game starts soon.

We can also argue about balance: right now the magic looks like EA Tien Chi but better. The five elements (earth water air fire wod/nature), you get a pokemon that casts one each at 3 (maybe only air 2). Humans have one path at 2 and another at 1, random so they could also have a 3. Cap only humans will have same magic but either +1 master ritualist or +1 master smith. Broader but less deep than most EA nations. Thoughts?

[tyckspoon]

I got the events working, so the remaining work is just making units and writing descriptions. Hopefully I can have an alpha test ready in another week or two, depending on if my next dominins game starts soon.

We can also argue about balance: right now the magic looks like EA Tien Chi but better. The five elements (earth water air fire wod/nature), you get a pokemon that casts one each at 3 (maybe only air 2). Humans have one path at 2 and another at 1, random so they could also have a 3. Cap only humans will have same magic but either +1 master ritualist or +1 master smith. Broader but less deep than most EA nations. Thoughts?

Having a path at level 3 recruitable is generally what I'd consider quite good access to that path - it will let you cast or bootstrap up to almost everything relevant in that path, as well as being able to site search without fear of missing sites and having to search again later with a higher path or use searching spells. It's a bit weaker without certain crosspaths (ie, Fire + Death so you can make Flaming Skulls - without that your 'easiest' Flame booster item requires already having a very high path mage + a ton of gems, and Air just doesn't have easy boosters at all) but if you have a nation that has reliable, native level 3 mages without requiring communions or randoms I'd consider that quite powerful.

Master Ritualist and Master Smith can have negative values - if you're wanting certain things to be mainly battlefield mages you can use that to restrict them. You could also give Pokemon restricted equipment slots - rings/misc + crown-only head slot is pretty common on monster Pretenders, for example, and would lock out most boosting gear (also strongly restricting trying to turn them into thugs or super combatants, which may or may not be desirable.)

[Olinser]

I got the events working, so the remaining work is just making units and writing descriptions. Hopefully I can have an alpha test ready in another week or two, depending on if my next dominins game starts soon.

We can also argue about balance: right now the magic looks like EA Tien Chi but better. The five elements (earth water air fire wod/nature), you get a pokemon that casts one each at 3 (maybe only air 2). Humans have one path at 2 and another at 1, random so they could also have a 3. Cap only humans will have same magic but either +1 master ritualist or +1 master smith. Broader but less deep than most EA nations. Thoughts?

Well that depends on how far into the 'theme' you want to go and how much you're willing to change.

They've got 3 types of leadership already - normal, magic, undead. Add 2 more and turn them into Elemental leadership.

If you want to go full Pokemon theme then everybody should have access to every Pokemon but each square has different ones and some are available only through rare sites, but the elements all take different leadership so they'll be much more/less effective under certain trainers.

As for magic, you should have 'levels' of trainers/pokemon and as they get higher level they cost much more but have much more magic. Like a level 1 trainer should only have 1 level of 1 magic, a level 50 trainer should have L2/L3 in multiple paths.

Higher level pokemon can only be summoned by trainers entering sites requiring higher level magic of that path.

[Glimbur]

I like the idea of using negative master smith and master ritualist so the humans and pokemon both have a role. Terrain recruit for pokemon is very thematic but difficult to balance. I have some leveling included but it is not nearly as emphasized as in pokemon games.

[Olinser]

I like the idea of using negative master smith and master ritualist so the humans and pokemon both have a role. Terrain recruit for pokemon is very thematic but difficult to balance. I have some leveling included but it is not nearly as emphasized as in pokemon games.

Not leveling as in they actually need experience.

But like a Pikachu square for instance could have like 5 different 'levels' of it.

Level 1 Pikachu costs 5g and has no magic
Level 10 Pikachu costs 20g, has better stats, but still no magic
Level 20 Pikachu costs 75g and has L1 magic
Level 50 Pikachu costs 200g and has L2 magic
Level 100 Raichu costs 400g and has much higher stats across the board and L3 magic.

Just an example.

[Manticoran]

I really like the idea of Trainers having no more than 1-2 in any path, but having master ritualist/forger if they should have more.

That way they're your best out of combat support, but are generally kind of garbage in combat. And it should only be the like, Master Trainers that have 2 in any path. Maybe basic level trainers with 1 in one path, Intermediate Trainers with 1 in 1 path, but Master Ritualist 1/Master Forger 1, and Masters maybe go 2/1 for pathing.

[lord_khaine]

I kinda like the idea of making it part of a nation pack.
It would likely make for some more interesting choices as well, if this does not need to balance against a regular Dom 5 nation.

[Aeson]

I really like the idea of Trainers having no more than 1-2 in any path, but having master ritualist/forger if they should have more.

That way they're your best out of combat support, but are generally kind of garbage in combat.

X2 isn't "generally kind of garbage in combat," it's usually the mainstay of your battlemage corps for most paths, because it's generally readily available, relatively inexpensive, and good enough to cast most of its path's core battle magic - a lot of which often benefits more from having a lot of casters than from having a few very powerful casters. Most of the battle magic that an X2 cannot or should not cast is stuff that isn't likely to be cast more than once or twice in a battle anyways - battlefield enchants, wide-area buffs, major summons like Living [Element] that require quite a bit of investment to cast with anything other than your nation's biggest recruitable mages and are almost guaranteed to put them to sleep for the rest of the battle, et cetera.

[Manticoran]

X2 isn't "generally kind of garbage in combat," it's usually the mainstay of your battlemage corps for most paths, because it's generally readily available, relatively inexpensive, and good enough to cast most of its path's core battle magic - a lot of which often benefits more from having a lot of casters than from having a few very powerful casters. Most of the battle magic that an X2 cannot or should not cast is stuff that isn't likely to be cast more than once or twice in a battle anyways - battlefield enchants, wide-area buffs, major summons like Living [Element] that require quite a bit of investment to cast with anything other than your nation's biggest recruitable mages and are almost guaranteed to put them to sleep for the rest of the battle, et cetera.

Well yes, but X2Y1 for your high end expensive STR mage is kind of garbage in combat, but having X3Y2 for forging/rituals is quite good, particularly if you have a few variations on it.

[Aeson]

Well yes, but X2Y1 for your high end expensive STR mage is kind of garbage in combat, but having X3Y2 for forging/rituals is quite good, particularly if you have a few variations on it.

I'd debate the "expensive" part; STR X2Y1 with Master Smith/Ritualist 1 is basically the same as Vanheim's Dwarven Smiths, and they're only 140 gold. Not at all bad, especially considering you're only paying the recruitment costs every other turn, or maybe twice every three turns if you have a fort with three commander points.

It's also still worth it if it's your only good way to get a useful path combination into battle, though unless they're recruit-anyfort/anywhere it'd probably have to be for something that you don't need a lot of casters for.

[deuterio12]

X2 isn't "generally kind of garbage in combat," it's usually the mainstay of your battlemage corps for most paths, because it's generally readily available, relatively inexpensive, and good enough to cast most of its path's core battle magic - a lot of which often benefits more from having a lot of casters than from having a few very powerful casters. Most of the battle magic that an X2 cannot or should not cast is stuff that isn't likely to be cast more than once or twice in a battle anyways - battlefield enchants, wide-area buffs, major summons like Living [Element] that require quite a bit of investment to cast with anything other than your nation's biggest recruitable mages and are almost guaranteed to put them to sleep for the rest of the battle, et cetera.

120% true. I once won a MP game with a mod nation that had only either astral 2/death 1, or death 2/nature 1, or Nature 2/astral 1 mages with a 10% chance for +1 in either of their paths, anything more powerful only by spending gems, and said basic mages carried me to victory once I got some research going by spamming cheap astral/nature/death spells (stellar cascades, mind burn, skelly spam, nether bolts, that death blast, swarm, protection, breath of the dragon, etc) and the occasional communion.

This is also one of the reasons I suggested a pokemon nation for each gym/element/city, because otherwise you have an excuse to cram every magic path at decent level and that's pretty brutal. Tien Chi is held back by only really having lv1 magic on most paths outside their cap mages, but a nation that can reliably spam any type of mage at level 2 for combat would be extremely powerful unless the troops are complete garbage or something.

So if you're cramming every type of magic in the same nation, recruit-anywhere mages should only get lv1 magic outside of rare randoms.

[Glimbur]

On the other hand, look at arcosephale. They have recruit everywhere mystics with guaranteed S and some shots at SWEF. The proposed pokemon are X3 but take 60 XP to get there (pikachu A2 for 40 XP) and the humans are X2Y1 with a 20% chance of them lining up for X3. Most importantly they get no blood, astral, or death. Earth is also strong but the lack of any armor makes Legions of steel useless.

I think we'll have to see the nation as a whole to evaluate it. They do have pretty good fort recruit mages and potential thug chassis but with some caveats. Maybe the diversity is too much but I don't want to make several nations right now.

[deuterio12]

On the other hand, look at arcosephale. They have recruit everywhere mystics with guaranteed S and some shots at SWEF. The proposed pokemon are X3 but take 60 XP to get there (pikachu A2 for 40 XP) and the humans are X2Y1 with a 20% chance of them lining up for X3. Most importantly they get no blood, astral, or death. Earth is also strong but the lack of any armor makes Legions of steel useless.

I think we'll have to see the nation as a whole to evaluate it. They do have pretty good fort recruit mages and potential thug chassis but with some caveats. Maybe the diversity is too much but I don't want to make several nations right now.

Arco is precisely a fine example of "excellent mages, crapish troops". Mystics are a serious candidate for best non-cap mages in the whole game. But they're significantly held back by so-so national troops and no thug chassis either.

Even if they get no blood/astral/death, something like MA Ulm shows that simple E2/something 1 mages can be pretty brutal. Summon Earth power and then go to town with magma spells, Strength of Giants, Blade Wind, Marble Warriors, Rain of Stones, Earth Meld, Maws of the Earth, etc. Lack of Legions of Steel is hardly a problem. Lots of A2 mages spamming lighting wins games. Fire 2 goes to town with Phoenix power then fire elemental spam or plain blasting. W2 is for quickening and ice strike and fighting underwater. I'm hardly taking in account any crosspaths here.

And you don't need to make multiple nations at once, just pick your favorite element/city/gym and start there.

Or if you really insist in 20% of non-cap mages to get level 3 magic in one of 5 paths of your choice, then at least add the terrain limitations mentioned before (with the cap able to recruit any).

Forests-Nature.
Coast-Water.
Mountains-earth.
Wasteland-fire.
Plains-Air.

There, at least that way you can't just spam the right element to hard counter your current opponent.

[Manticoran]

Arco is precisely a fine example of "excellent mages, crapish troops". Mystics are a serious candidate for best non-cap mages in the whole game. But they're significantly held back by so-so national troops and no thug chassis either.

A note that I strongly disagree on this. Mystics are fairly meh in Dom5(They're significantly stronger in dom4, and ludicrously stronger in dom3), being strongly outperformed by mages like Guru for Astral, and most X2Y1 mages being flat better than them in my opinion, such as Witch Hunters, Caelian Seraphs, and the aforementioned Ulm Smiths.

[Aeson]

On average, 25% of Mystics are S2, 12.5% are F2, 12.5% are W2, 12.5% are E2, and the remaining 37.5% have no paths above 1. Mystics are good mostly because Communions are good; if you for some reason aren't using Communions, or if we're dealing with a hypothetical Mystic-like mage who had the same randoms but who traded guaranteed S1 away for a guaranteed level of A/N/D, cost reduction, or some ability that isn't a guaranteed path-level, they'd be a lot worse because their path combinations are unreliable and a lot of them aren't natively strong enough in any path or combination of paths to make good battle mages without some form of gem investment.

Also, I agree with Manticoran - in general, I would much rather have an X2Y1 mage with guaranteed paths than Mystics upon which to base my battle mage corps. Mystics aren't particularly powerful Communion Masters, the variability of their paths often means that the ones that become Communion Slaves tend to be exhausted rapidly, and Communions can be somewhat iffy for X2/X3 battle magic, especially if you're relatively unlucky and don't get any Mystics with more than 1 level in whatever path you're looking to cast from, because X2/X3 battle magic tends to want many casters, and a Communion with many masters and few slaves exhausts its slaves rapidly while a more balanced Communion requires a lot more mages to get the same number of active casters. A guaranteed specific X2Y1 combination might be more predictable, but it's easier to plan around and doesn't cost you a decent chunk of your mage corps in Communion Slaves.

[Manticoran]

On average, 25% of Mystics are S2, 12.5% are F2, 12.5% are W2, 12.5% are E2, and the remaining 37.5% have no paths above 1. Mystics are good mostly because Communions are good; if you for some reason aren't using Communions, or if we're dealing with a hypothetical Mystic-like mage who had the same randoms but who traded guaranteed S1 away for a guaranteed level of A/N/D, cost reduction, or some ability that isn't a guaranteed path-level, they'd be a lot worse because their path combinations are unreliable and a lot of them aren't natively strong enough in any path or combination of paths to make good battle mages without some form of gem investment.

Also, I agree with Manticoran - in general, I would much rather have an X2Y1 mage with guaranteed paths than Mystics upon which to base my battle mage corps. Mystics aren't particularly powerful Communion Masters, the variability of their paths often means that the ones that become Communion Slaves tend to be exhausted rapidly, and Communions can be somewhat iffy for X2/X3 battle magic, especially if you're relatively unlucky and don't get any Mystics with more than 1 level in whatever path you're looking to cast from, because X2/X3 battle magic tends to want many casters, and a Communion with many masters and few slaves exhausts its slaves rapidly while a more balanced Communion requires a lot more mages to get the same number of active casters. A guaranteed specific X2Y1 combination might be more predictable, but it's easier to plan around and doesn't cost you a decent chunk of your mage corps in Communion Slaves.

An additional note that relying on communions also has a serious time cost in combat, as your opponent starts throwing kill spells potentially immediately, so there's a greater chance with matrixing everyone up that some critical part of your communion gets gibbed by a random fireball or crossbow bolt before they do their thing.

[deuterio12]

A note that I strongly disagree on this. Mystics are fairly meh in Dom5(They're significantly stronger in dom4, and ludicrously stronger in dom3), being strongly outperformed by mages like Guru for Astral, and most X2Y1 mages being flat better than them in my opinion, such as Witch Hunters, Caelian Seraphs, and the aforementioned Ulm Smiths.

Hmmm, fair enough in the mystics bit, weakened communions over each game edition don't do them any favors.

Still X2Y1 mages in five different flavors is ridiculously good, since even a single flavor can be the magic backbone of a nation like the Master Smith does for MA Ulm.

An additional note that relying on communions also has a serious time cost in combat, as your opponent starts throwing kill spells potentially immediately, so there's a greater chance with matrixing everyone up that some critical part of your communion gets gibbed by a random fireball or crossbow bolt before they do their thing.

By what insanity would you position your communion corps in crossbow/fireball range with no troops for bait/screening?

[Aeson]

By what insanity would you position your communion corps in crossbow/fireball range with no troops for bait/screening?

Bait doesn't always work. Even when it does, arrows, crossbows, and many spells aren't perfectly accurate; some spells are additionally deadly over large areas, e.g. Shimmering Fields, or a Shadow Blast cast by a particularly high-level death mage. Bad luck can be just as crippling to a Communion as poor screening.

[Manticoran]

Hmmm, fair enough in the mystics bit, weakened communions over each game edition don't do them any favors.

Still X2Y1 mages in five different flavors is ridiculously good, since even a single flavor can be the magic backbone of a nation like the Master Smith does for MA Ulm.



By what insanity would you position your communion corps in crossbow/fireball range with no troops for bait/screening?

First yeah, that's why I was recommending they be expensive and str at the x2y1 level. If your x2y1 mage is 250 gold or more, not sacred, and str, it's going to be hard to mass them to be combat mages. You'll use them for forging and rituals and some battlefield magic, but not like evocation spam unless you're desperate.

And yeah you wouldn't, but sometimes you have units with 4 precision throwing fireballs 6 squares or more off target, or fliers coming in and chewing through your guard units, or... Or... Basically you can do all the things that protect against it but it's still added risk compared to not having to cast communion.

[deuterio12]

First yeah, that's why I was recommending they be expensive and str at the x2y1 level. If your x2y1 mage is 250 gold or more, not sacred, and str, it's going to be hard to mass them to be combat mages. You'll use them for forging and rituals and some battlefield magic, but not like evocation spam unless you're desperate.

That sounds better, in particular since the nation should be about pokemon, not spamming cheap efficient humie mages. Those should be non-spammable.

Bait doesn't always work. Even when it does, arrows, crossbows, and many spells aren't perfectly accurate; some spells are additionally deadly over large areas, e.g. Shimmering Fields, or a Shadow Blast cast by a particularly high-level death mage. Bad luck can be just as crippling to a Communion as poor screening.

And yeah you wouldn't, but sometimes you have units with 4 precision throwing fireballs 6 squares or more off target, or fliers coming in and chewing through your guard units, or... Or... Basically you can do all the things that protect against it but it's still added risk compared to not having to cast communion.

And why would non-communion mages be any safer?

Bad luck and flier swarms will be just as deadly for a non-communion mage force.

If anything, it's easier to protect a communion because the slaves can go anywhere that there's less chance of them dying while masters can enjoy greater range whereas most non-communion mages need to go where their spells will make an impact which usually means closer to the action. Plus since slaves share master buffs, you can have a dedicated master buffing the crap out of the slaves until they're all regenerating ironmen with personal anti-arrow fields.

Sure the non-communion mages may get one non-buffed spell off before they get murdered by bad luck or an air force, but the impact will be so little compared to properly buffed mages that statistically it's worth the 1-2 rounds worth of buffing more often than not.

[Aeson]

And why would non-communion mages be any safer?

Bad luck and flier swarms will be just as deadly for a non-communion mage force.

Say I want to cast Fog Warriors. I need an A5 caster. How do I get that?
- A5 either natively* or with booster gems/items/empowerment/non-Communion spells.
- A4 Master with two Slaves
- A3 Master with four Slaves
- A2 Master with eight Slaves
- A1 Master with sixteen Slaves

(Note that I'm assuming that the casting mage is the level listed including any setup like booster items, combat pathboost spells, and gemboost.)

There is only one unit on the field whose death can prevent me from casting Fog Warriors if I'm using an A5 mage to cast it; there are seventeen units on the field, any one of whose deaths can prevent me from casting Fog Warriors when I cast Fog Warriors using an A1 master and sixteen slaves. Which is more likely? That a stray fireball hits my one of one A5 casters, or that a stray fireball hits one of sixteen Communion Slaves or the A1 master?

It's a lot easier to disrupt a big spell being cast by a Communion than it is to disrupt the same spell cast by a single powerful caster; the Communion is a lot harder to protect, and - especially in the extreme case - has an enormous opportunity cost in all those Communion Slaves who aren't really doing anything except boosting the masters and acting as fatigue sinks and all the stuff you may need to commit to protecting them. You can put more mages into the Communion to build in some redundancy and offset its vulnerability to some extent, of course, but that requires even more mages, and, well, it's not like you can't do that with the individual powerful caster, either, if you're willing to invest the gems or get lucky with your recruits. There's also that the less setup you need to do before casting the spell you really want, the less time there is for bad luck to strike and prevent you from doing it - if I have to spend three spells setting up to cast Fog Warriors (Communion Master => Storm => Summon Air Power => Fog Warriors), that's a lot more time in which a stray fireball could hit one of the members of the Communion than if all I have to do is have my A5 cast Fog Warriors on Round 1.

*It's possible to recruit such a mage, though I think that the best chance might be with EA Caelum, about 1 in 40 of whose Eagle Kings are natively A5. Fomoria (1 in 90 Fomorian Kings), Vanheim (1 in 160 Vanadrottir), Eriu (1 in 160 Tuatha), Tir'na'Nog (1 in 160 Tuatha Sorceresses), MA Caelum (1 in 160 High Seraphs), MA Ys (1 in 160 Morgen Sorceresses), and MA Phaecia (1 in 160 Prince Consorts) can theoretically manage it, as well. Might be some others I've missed that can do it, but probably not many.

[lord_khaine]

There's also that the less setup you need to do before casting the spell you really want, the less time there is for bad luck to strike and prevent you from doing it - if I have to spend three spells setting up to cast Fog Warriors (Communion Master => Storm => Summon Air Power => Fog Warriors), that's a lot more time in which a stray fireball could hit one of the members of the Communion than if all I have to do is have my A5 cast Fog Warriors on Round 1.

Thats a false comparison though, when one part have to add Storm and Summon air power.
And it could be turned around. Since Storm -> Air Power -> Fog Warriors are slower than Communion master -> Fog Warrior.

[deuterio12]

You can put more mages into the Communion to build in some redundancy and offset its vulnerability to some extent, of course, but that requires even more mages, and, well, it's not like you can't do that with the individual powerful caster, either, if you're willing to invest the gems or get lucky with your recruits.

Except that it's always possible to simply build more forts and labs for spamming extra communion slaves, whereas there's no reliable way to increase gem income and no way at all to increase recruitment rate of cap-only super mages.

If you luck out with an A5 mage, then sure it's superior to communion, but, well, only a few nations can do it and most will need some insane luck to pull it off to pull even one of said A5 mages, but a lot more nations can set up multiple fog warriors communions, and covering multiple armies to boot.

And as Lord Khaine pointed out, it's also faster going from big communion-»fog warrior than it is storm-»air power-»fog warriors.

With a crystal/slave matrix a communion can pull it turn 1, and it's actually competitive with building Air boosters if you have a base A3 mage (50 gems either way), actually cheaper with communion items if you have a dwarven hammer and also more versatile (since the slaves can still support other masters while a lone big air mage will spend the rest of the battle recovering from fatigue).