Incline Dominions 4 announced

[Johannes]

I updated my old balance mod.

See here:
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=2768&st=0

comments men

 

[Norfleet]

- AI is obessed with patrolling his provinces, and on higher difficulty levels (which you obviously should prefer to give AI at least a resemblance of hope) AI gets a massive boost to patrolling, due to hordes of chaff he receives. All your stealthy warfare (assassins, glam elves SC, Bane Venom Charms, and whatnot) basically don't work.

Bane Venom Charms are actually extremely stealth defeating and will actually work better against the AI than against a human player, as long as you can avoid being patrolled, as the AI does not comprehend what is happening and will not change his behavior in response to it. A human player, however, instantly realizes what's up. If your intention is to distort behavior, this works, but you're guaranteed to draw attention and response, which will mitigate the effectiveness of this tactic.

In general, the AI is not a learning animal at all and will continue to perform ineffective actions over and over, never adapting or countering. AI players in every game, not just Dominions, are a mushy morass. You never get the sense that you've broken their back like you do with a human, the point at which effective resistance ceases. The AI will fight ineffectively to the bitter end, whereas a human player will hold you at bay until you break his back.

 

[Dreaad]

I updated my old balance mod.

See here:
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=2768&st=0

comments men

I like certain aspects of it, haven't read through everything yet of course. Kind of sad to see Yomi still left behind. Moot point as it's your mod but I've felt for a long long time that a great way to fix Yomi would be to make all the priests they build capable of reanimation, even indie priests, same mechanic that lanka has and it provides a massive boost for surviving the early game. UW nations I'm not sure, I suspect the biggest issue is a lack of a magical item or global that would let aquatic troops to go on land, not sure if that could be modded but it severely cripples some UW nations to have all their best troops unable to participate in 90% of the game.

Also really liked the almost across board decrease of gem prices for national summons, especially some of the bigger beasties. I think some of them could have been a bit more radical as I doubt a 5-10 gem decrease will actually make anyone use them over the standard thug/mage summons but that's something only testing will tell. I actually think a great baseline for high level stuff is the Theredos telkhine (not sure of spelling is right) 59 water gems for a great multi purpose commander with huge path diversity, combat potential, forge bonus and a minor downside in population killer. If I'm going to spend 40 + gems on one unit in conjuration 8-9 it better be capable of standing up to a wraith lord

But yeah I'm impressed if for no other reason than their being a ton of changes, must of taken quite a while. I'll try look over all of it and give more feedback sometime probably next week. Good job bro.

 

[KoolNoodles]

^ Agreed on national summons changes for the most part, from just glancing through. Though still unlikely that some are used even with reduced cost.

I liked some nerfs/buffs(like increased cost for Mictlan Jaguar Fiends and Shard Blade on Moon Warrior to make them at least have some niche role and more in line with flavor text), but not sure on some others....like cheaper androphag archers(they are already pretty good) for Sauromatia and the upped Soothsayer cost to 50G(A spirit guide is 45G with a guaranteed D1 and they aren't old). That said, cheap ass communion slaves are generally always welcome, but the way I saw the reduced cost was that it plays out in the 10% random chance you get nothing and old age. Even with G3, half those dudes will have afflictions in a couple years. Maybe there's a compromise but 50G seems too much for that baggage.

Although in the context of other cheap slaves(I see Theurg Communicants went up to 60G), maybe it makes sense. Hard to say without playing out some games I guess.

 

[Johannes]

I updated my old balance mod.

See here:
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=2768&st=0

comments men

I like certain aspects of it, haven't read through everything yet of course. Kind of sad to see Yomi still left behind. Moot point as it's your mod but I've felt for a long long time that a great way to fix Yomi would be to make all the priests they build capable of reanimation, even indie priests, same mechanic that lanka has and it provides a massive boost for surviving the early game. UW nations I'm not sure, I suspect the biggest issue is a lack of a magical item or global that would let aquatic troops to go on land, not sure if that could be modded but it severely cripples some UW nations to have all their best troops unable to participate in 90% of the game.

Also really liked the almost across board decrease of gem prices for national summons, especially some of the bigger beasties. I think some of them could have been a bit more radical as I doubt a 5-10 gem decrease will actually make anyone use them over the standard thug/mage summons but that's something only testing will tell. I actually think a great baseline for high level stuff is the Theredos telkhine (not sure of spelling is right) 59 water gems for a great multi purpose commander with huge path diversity, combat potential, forge bonus and a minor downside in population killer. If I'm going to spend 40 + gems on one unit in conjuration 8-9 it better be capable of standing up to a wraith lord

But yeah I'm impressed if for no other reason than their being a ton of changes, must of taken quite a while. I'll try look over all of it and give more feedback sometime probably next week. Good job bro.

Well, the goal isn't to make everything as good as Telkhines or Grigori, but to get a more nuanced effect. Not sure which nationals you're meaning exactly that still aren't worth it compared to generic stuff, most are already good compared to generic stuff (of comparable purpose) in vanilla. What national summons do you thnk are worse than generic counterparts? A more common problem I see is that you don't need either the national nor generic summon of a type, since you have a similar thing as recruitable already.


On Yomi, I could be wrong but I think they're in a decent spot now. No huge buffs like reanimation or cheap temples as some have suggested, but a tad better all around, especially saving a lot of gold from recruitment. They play kinda similar as in vanilla, but much better. How did they ever have a problem surviving early game though? Nobody really wants to fight Yomi inside their dominion (well, unless they have archers, but that's life).

And yeah, landlubbing of aquatic troops is not possible to mod.

^ Agreed on national summons changes for the most part, from just glancing through. Though still unlikely that some are used even with reduced cost.

I liked some nerfs/buffs(like increased cost for Mictlan Jaguar Fiends and Shard Blade on Moon Warrior to make them at least have some niche role and more in line with flavor text), but not sure on some others....like cheaper androphag archers(they are already pretty good) for Sauromatia and the upped Soothsayer cost to 50G(A spirit guide is 45G with a guaranteed D1 and they aren't old). That said, cheap ass communion slaves are generally always welcome, but the way I saw the reduced cost was that it plays out in the 10% random chance you get nothing and old age. Even with G3, half those dudes will have afflictions in a couple years. Maybe there's a compromise but 50G seems too much for that baggage.

Although in the context of other cheap slaves(I see Theurg Communicants went up to 60G), maybe it makes sense. Hard to say without playing out some games I guess.

Main thing with Sauromatian Soothsayers is that they don't need a fort to build. So this gets p. ridiculous fast, when you play it right, even with increased cost (and they dont care about afflictions, even with disease just put them on comm slave duty & cast regen). And now Spirit Guide has at least some purpose, since S1 >> D1. Sauromatia can be a p. ridiculous nation played right, with the neverending S1's. Androphag archers in vanilla aren't really better for gold than normal sauromatian archers, and theyre a cool unit id like to see used. They're still cap locked afterall. Now you still want to spam the shit out of Soothsayers, but you'll have more incentive to also produce cool shit like cataphracts and andro archers.

Communicants are bloody good as well, yeah. In a way it doubles your mage production (though not research), it's p. awesome already at early rush stage. Caveat is that you need some skill to make use of these things... Newbies will have a tougher time with the more complex nations probably, but that's an acceptable tradeoff for me not feeling bad about raping them with said tools.

 

[Dayyālu]

Why you ignored Water Nations? Sure, there is Ohlmann's mod (that got worse and worse in every version, may I say) but the only changes to water stuff is done on LA Atlantis (that gets a random small nerf with more expensive troops and useless buffs on troops that no one employs, Mournfuls and Unsleepings) and the Atlantean Xibalban nations.

'cause MA Atlantis still needs a bit of reworking to be adequate, likewise EA Atlantis. Therodos is a barely-playable mess, and EA Starspawns have huge issues.


Not to be hostile of anything, but a rebalance mod that does not rebalance the 10% of the game that I like it's pretty much useless to me. And an alternative to Ohlmann's visions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Johannes]

Why you ignored Water Nations?

Cause they bore me, is the prime reason. I'll get to it... Later.

 

[Dreaad]

Hmm I about the troops UW thing. Would it not be possible to create amphibious versions of aquatic creatures... then make spells for each respective UW nation and their specific aquatic units, that summon those the amphibious versions you created earlier, you could even keep the gold upkeep qualities. It would take a LOT of work of course and you'd have to put the spells at appropriate magic levels depending on the unit but it could be done no?

 

[Johannes]

Hmm I about the troops UW thing. Would it not be possible to create amphibious versions of aquatic creatures... then make spells for each respective UW nation and their specific aquatic units, that summon those the amphibious versions you created earlier, you could even keep the gold upkeep qualities. It would take a LOT of work of course and you'd have to put the spells at appropriate magic levels depending on the unit but it could be done no?

Sure, it could be done, but I don't see how it makes any sense. If you have to summon stuff to get on land, instead of buying it with gold, why not have it be stuff that actually makes sense as amphibious?

 

[Malakal]

As everyone even says Rlyeh should get amphibious aboleths and that somehow fixes them - at least makes them playable. Same with their troop aboleths - low AP on land but amphibious never the less.

Mermen could get land shapes with legs, thatd help Pelagia and their mages.

In general make most uw things amphibious and its a serious start. Also adding cheaper items to get uw so uw doesnt suddenly get a huge advantage.

 

[Johannes]

Making more things amphib kinda kills the flavor. There's a distinction between aquatic and amphib things, both inside and between nations, completely doing away with that would be lame. Most of the UW nations are alredy fully amphibious, keeping the half-amphibious ones as different in that respect makes sense. They just need a different playstyle - somewhat turtly for sure, at least if as the only water nation, but don't pick them if you don't like that idea.
Getting into land isn't the only problem water nations have, beating UW indies already is a pain as EA Rlyeh.

The cheap Amulet of the Fish also already helps to get the key mages up.

 

[Malakal]

Making more things amphib kinda kills the flavor. There's a distinction between aquatic and amphib things, both inside and between nations, completely doing away with that would be lame. Most of the UW nations are alredy fully amphibious, keeping the half-amphibious ones as different in that respect makes sense. They just need a different playstyle - somewhat turtly for sure, at least if as the only water nation, but don't pick them if you don't like that idea.
Getting into land isn't the only problem water nations have, beating UW indies already is a pain as EA Rlyeh.

The cheap Amulet of the Fish also already helps to get the key mages up.

Dude aboleths in DnD are amphibious, what fucking flavor is killed here? They flap on land.

Same with mermen mages, some of them already are amphibious , if that doesnt hurt the flavor why would it be hurt by making more of them be like that?

And the issue is with mages not troops, most uw mages still cant get on land. Especially for Pelagia, Oceania.

 

[Grimwulf]

Especially for Pelagia, Oceania.

In case of Oceania, the biggest problem is not the ability to surface, but transformations involved. Right after going surface, a moderately useful W2 Siren turns into a complete mess of A1W1 and no slots. I don't think anything can help this nation (both EA and MA), except for maybe radically decreasing the cost of mages. They are p.gud in disciple games, tho - for both dominion special effect and some cool chassises for Pretenders.

 

[Johannes]

Dude aboleths in DnD are amphibious, what fucking flavor is killed here? They flap on land.

No idea about D&D Aboleths, but they are aquatic in Dominions. And it's not just about lore shit, but gameplay flavor, if you pick one nation or another they should be different. Making everything samey to make it balanced is like that thing was talking about.

Same with mermen mages, some of them already are amphibious , if that doesnt hurt the flavor why would it be hurt by making more of them be like that?

Mermen are all amphibious. Tritons are all aquatic. There's a p. clear distinction between the two.

And the issue is with mages not troops, most uw mages still cant get on land. Especially for Pelagia, Oceania.

Any mage can get up with items as is. 5 (3 with hammer) gems per mage is possible to even mass to some extent. One way to buff aquatic monsters getting ashore would be to make Water Bracelet grant air-breathing, but I doubt whether it's necessary.


Ultimately all water nations are extremely map-dependent on how well they work. And that's not something you can really change by modding.
Intrinsically they will always be safe from most land nations, especially early game - it's their decision if/when they want to fight, and when to retreat. That's a huge advantage so they should suffer some inefficiency when getting to land. Not to say they can't be buffed from vanilla, but that it'd be easy to overdo it to.

 

[Grimwulf]

Dominions 4.23

Community Announcements - johan

This update continues with the underwater improvements as early R'lyeh gets new monsters and a Mind Vessel ritual for the Aboleths. There is also improvements to modding and a whole bunch of bug fixes and balance tweaks.

General

• New monsters for early R'lyeh: Grandmother, Androleth, Androdai, Abodai
  
• New ritual for Aboleths: Mind Vessel
  
• Turn limit for arrival of the more powerful heroes
  
• Event fixes & new events
  
• UW units for MA/LA Xibalba and LA Mictlan
  
• Fort PD for MA/LA Xibalba and LA Mictlan
  
• Slaves now have halved upkeep
  
• Fix for incorrect seduction message
  
• Remove floating text when exiting battle replay
  
• Description for Favored of Enki
  
• Solar Brilliance cannot be cast in caves
  
• Cursed items changed width of magic item treasury
  
• Changed temple picture for Ur
  
• Rebate for shape shifter gods wasn't shown correctly
  
• Gorgon can no longer petrify stone beings
  
• g can now be used instead of # for goto province number
  
• Foul Vapors got wrong enchantment icon in battle
  
• Fixed host crash involving Strands of Arcane Power
  
• File handle cleanup
  
• Fix for potential battle inconsistency with Vafur Flames
  
• Another potential battle inconsistency fixed
  
• Therodos popkill lowered
  
• Therodos spectres increased/decreased with death/growth
  
• Therodos slight increase in freespawn spectres
  
• Therodos reduction in freespawn sacreds
  
• Ephor cost 8 -> 7
  
• Therodian Philosopher cost 8 -> 11
  
• Morale malus from dominion does not affect undead
  
• Ermor and Lemuria morale malus
  
• Dancers size 2 -> 3
  
• Korybantes recruited in couples (limit 2)
  
• Korybantes descr changed
  
• Polypal spawn could not deal damage at all. Got new tiny tentacle with dmg 1.
  
• More bronze weapon stat fixes
  
• Less iron equipment on underwater troops
  
• Memory cleanup after using lists
  
• Make sure incorporate cannot give negative effects
  
• Fix potentially weird host bug
  
• More responsive random map creation
  
• Typos and stat fixes

Modding

• Better cleanup after mods
  
• Some commands take 64-bit values
  
• No more 'pointless ...fx' after setting an ability to zero
  
• First/secondshape can now use negative montag values
  
• New weapon commands: #natural, #internal
  
• New spell commands: #nogeosrc, #onlyatsite, #notfornation, #farsumcom
  
• New monster commands: #slothpower, #mindslime
  
• New item commands: #sneakunit, #mindslime
  
• New nation command: #killcappop
  
• New event mod command: #transform

Map Editor

• Insert/remove province didn't move along names and special borders

Linux

• Smaller icon for pulseaudio

Dat ritual.

After merging the minds the vessel will be able to use its old magic knowledge as well as that of the Aboleth.

That's pretty crazy. Now I want to play EA R'lyeh.

 

[mondblut]

Therodos popkill lowered
Therodos slight increase in freespawn spectres

Therodos reduction in freespawn sacreds
Dancers size 2 -> 3
Korybantes recruited in couples (limit 2)

Sacreds were the only redeeming thing about Therodos, and now they are nerfing them?

After merging the minds the vessel will be able to use its old magic knowledge as well as that of the Aboleth.

That's pretty crazy. Now I want to play EA R'lyeh.

What exactly it does, fluff aside? Copies the casting aboleth's magic paths on a top of selected commander? Or creates a new commander having exact same paths? The former sounds delightfully exploitable, esp. when adding a twiceborn cherry on a top.

 

[Grimwulf]

What exactly it does, fluff aside? Copies the casting aboleth's magic paths on a top of selected commander?

This. Not only Aboleths, but I fail to see the criteria of who is allowed to cast it and who isn't. Probably all magic beings? In any case, Floating Mind can cast this ritual. So basically, you can create a super-mage-vessel with your Pretender, which is totally expedable (if the vessel dies, the host doesn't give a damn, and can create a new one).

 

[Matalarata]

Wait, what of shared paths? For example if I merge an aboleth with another S 1 mage is it added or replaced?

 

[Grimwulf]

On further testing, this is not as cool as it seemed at first. Forget what I said about Floating Mind - it cannot cast the spell, unfortunately (I'm retarded, and believe everything people say - thanks, Lizzurd).

Only a specific type of mage (Androdai) can be used as vessel, and only S magic is transferred from host to vessel.

The worst thing about Androdai is they are fucking insane. (edit: I mean it literally)



And expensive. But new units are sorta gud.

Basically Illithids avaliable in EA. Yes, slightly worse at every aspect, but that's still an asset for otherwise worthless unit roster of EA R'lyeh.

 

[Malakal]

Told you. Thought you tested it. Only aboleths can cast the spell.

 

[Lizzurd]

(I'm retarded, and believe everything people say - thanks, Lizzurd).

Ha. I was the first to believe you stupid screams about how much this spell is overpowered.

 

[Dreaad]

On further testing, this is not as cool as it seemed at first. Forget what I said about Floating Mind - it cannot cast the spell, unfortunately (I'm retarded, and believe everything people say - thanks, Lizzurd).

Only a specific type of mage (Androdai) can be used as vessel, and only S magic is transferred from host to vessel.

The worst thing about Androdai is they are fucking insane. (edit: I mean it literally)

I wish they had 4 arm slots.

 

[mondblut]

Only a specific type of mage (Androdai) can be used as vessel, and only S magic is transferred from host to vessel.

Meh.

Still, Androdai are 100% +WESD, which means one out of 4 can twiceborn itself with a staff. Free S3 wight mages who don't give a fuck about being tied to a mind lord or about old age? Sounds gud?

 

[Grimwulf]

Sounds gud?

It works. And they are no longer insane after being reborn.

But man, it's 15S + 10D + 190gp + 2 mage turns. Better to forge an Amulet of the Fish and use any Aboleth for surface warfare.

 

[mondblut]

Cost-efficient this and cost-efficient that, you Dom vets hate fun :D

Anyway, 10D is one-time investment, so you essentially pay 15S and 190g for a S3D1H1 (S4 with a good mind lord, S5 with a ridiculously rare one) sacred StR (providing you've got a reliable way to kill them off quickly) undead mage-priest. That's Ether Lord territory, who costs 90S (admittingly, with a bunch of not quite spectacular troops). Think Shadow Seer, except sacred, self-blessing, havind D and reanimating. And mindless, apparently (i.e. immune to magic duel). Of all the things you could potentially twiceborn, few beat this one, considering the penalties you are getting rid of (which is the fun part about it).