Incline Dominions 6

[Johannes]

4 I dont remember what changed compared to 3.

Off the top of my head, it added slow-to-recruit mages instead of everything recruiting in 1 turn, removal of reverse communions, thrones as mentioned, disciples mode, new spells and nations, UI improvements, upgradable forts, gemgens don't give permanent gems and hammers give fixed bonus instead of percentage, death upon retreating in fort defense, had to have a line to a fort to draw income from a province, and lots of small things like that.

The change from turnbased to realtime battles was the big change in 4 -> 5, maybe bigger than anything in 3 -> 4.

 

[Hag]

removal of reverse communions

Pretty sure I've used this in Dominions 5.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

The MP focus is my number one big sad about the series. Imagine how crazy shit could get if no one gave a single fuck about balance.

Plenty retarded, imba and random shit in every DOM game, but there's enough of it and there are so many fringe options that it stays fun and interesting. Wouldn't say it's focused on MP (the AI sucks but that doesn't constitute a focus on MP, just that the AI sucks) or balance at all.

 

[Malakal]

The MP focus is my number one big sad about the series. Imagine how crazy shit could get if no one gave a single fuck about balance.

Plenty retarded, imba and random shit in every DOM game, but there's enough of it and there are so many fringe options that it stays fun and interesting. Wouldn't say it's focused on MP (the AI sucks but that doesn't constitute a focus on MP, just that the AI sucks) or balance at all.

Lets be realistic here, its impossible for a studio like Illwinter to deliver a good enough AI for a game of this complexity so MP will always provide the best experience.

With the dedicated servers MP is also way easier than before and no longer PBEM. Granted human opponents can sometimes be worse than AI somehow...

Ultimate magic power SP is a great dream but I don' see any developer being able to do that for us so let's maybe not fill this thread with our impossible hopes.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

MP will always provide the best experience.

Join 3 games at once and come back to me.

Spoiler

I kid, I kid :D

 

[Malakal]

MP will always provide the best experience.

Join 3 games at once and come back to me.

Spoiler

I kid, I kid :D

I peaked at 6 at a time but with using keybindings and rushing to wrap up games (a thing many players don't do fast enough) I managed that on 2h a day for turns... Still a bit too much.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

MP will always provide the best experience.

Join 3 games at once and come back to me.

Spoiler

I kid, I kid :D

I peaked at 6 at a time but with using keybindings and rushing to wrap up games (a thing many players don't do fast enough) I managed that on 2h a day for turns... Still a bit too much.

Dayum

 

[Optimist]

Our friend Malakal here is modest, but he's been pretty (in)famous in some communities for being a prolific and very diplomatically-efficient player. This reached a point where it spawned a "t. Malakal" meme that was around for a while.

Seriously man, you've been one of very few Codexers I knew by their handle before setting up an account here.

 

[Optimist]

I also get what JarlFrank is coming at, it would certainly be fun to have some sort of Dom/MoM hybrid, where you'd run battles manually, in a turn-based mode of some sorts, like HoMM on blood magic crack. Thing is, I don't think this'd mesh well with a lot of current Dominion's systems, including pre-scripting of the mages (and doing so in a way where your setup could withstand interference from your opponent), and giving orders to commanders. It'd also impact one relatively important balancing element - commanders' leadership skills, which governs both size of the armies they can manage and orders they can give. The name of the game is being one relatively free-willed entity in a world full of incompetent idiots, and trying to wrangle them to do your bidding.

 

[Hag]

Scripting your army and watching the results is part of the fun, although I could do without the late game micromanagement hell.

 

[Axioms]

The MP focus is my number one big sad about the series. Imagine how crazy shit could get if no one gave a single fuck about balance.

Plenty retarded, imba and random shit in every DOM game, but there's enough of it and there are so many fringe options that it stays fun and interesting. Wouldn't say it's focused on MP (the AI sucks but that doesn't constitute a focus on MP, just that the AI sucks) or balance at all.

Lets be realistic here, its impossible for a studio like Illwinter to deliver a good enough AI for a game of this complexity so MP will always provide the best experience.

With the dedicated servers MP is also way easier than before and no longer PBEM. Granted human opponents can sometimes be worse than AI somehow...

Ultimate magic power SP is a great dream but I don' see any developer being able to do that for us so let's maybe not fill this thread with our impossible hopes.

I don't need the AI to be amazing, that's obviously unreasonable. I just want twice as much insane magic and maybe a more detailed strategy layer. Also some more individuality to mages wouldn't hurt.

 

[Silva]

About having both strategic + tactical layers detailed:

I'm not a fan. Not only because the chance to get it rightly balanced is remote (and instead have some layer more abuseable than the other) but also because of that Sid Meier "Covert Mission" rule, that states something like "do not have multiple core experiences less they fight each other and detract from the overall experience" or something, which in this case translates to shit getting too complex and probably bloated as soon as you're out of the early stages of the game.

These days (I'm in my 40s) I play games to have fun not to do unpaid work. YMMV of course.

 

[Axioms]

About having both strategic + tactical layers detailed:

I'm not a fan. Not only because the chance to get it rightly balanced is remote (and instead have some layer more abuseable than the other) but also because of that Sid Meier "Covert Mission" rule, that states something like "do not have multiple core experiences less they fight each other and detract from the overall experience" or something, which in this case translates to shit getting too complex and probably bloated as soon as you're out of the early stages of the game.

These days (I'm in my 40s) I play games to have fun not to do unpaid work. YMMV of course.

Not a big fan of Landlord's Super then eh?

Dunno why games about jobs are so popular these days.

 

[Dadd]

Would it be feasible to make a direct control mod?

 

[Lagole Gon]

>Make an underwater faction named "Ys".
>Zero demonic content in it.
Why.

 

[communard]

ITT people who have never played Dominions demand that the game stop being Dominions.

 

[Dadd]

"People" more like one person

 

[Malakal]

>Make an underwater faction named "Ys".
>Zero demonic content in it.
Why.

Theres almost no content for Ys demonic or otherwise, for a new nation it feels like some of the old ones in that regard.

 

[Johannes]

>Make an underwater faction named "Ys".
>Zero demonic content in it.
Why.

Theres almost no content for Ys demonic or otherwise, for a new nation it feels like some of the old ones in that regard.

Content would mean special rules and national spells etc.? I prefer nations like that honestly, where you can just look at the roster, look at the mage paths, and you already have an idea how it will play. Stuff like Ind or Nazca is tiresome when you first face it, you don't have a clue what they actually do, how they work, how you might best play against them.

 

[Malakal]

>Make an underwater faction named "Ys".
>Zero demonic content in it.
Why.

Theres almost no content for Ys demonic or otherwise, for a new nation it feels like some of the old ones in that regard.

Content would mean special rules and national spells etc.? I prefer nations like that honestly, where you can just look at the roster, look at the mage paths, and you already have an idea how it will play. Stuff like Ind or Nazca is tiresome when you first face it, you don't have a clue what they actually do, how they work, how you might best play against them.

I can understand that but they even lack troops and mages to pick from, especially out of capital.

Id like a few national spells and mages for every nation, some especially glaring examples are EA Helheim with like four mages total and like two unique units...

 

[Lagole Gon]

Just give them water breathing leaders that can harvest blood slaves (wait, would that work?).
There. A water nation that kidnaps land people for sacrafices. Cool gimmick.
Cherry on top - hero unit slut princess Dahut with blood and water magick.
Perfect.

 

[Malakal]

New info on 6:
-dynamic terrain type change in Dom6 confirmed, influenced by scales too, but seems to only be the boring type change and not real plastic terrain changes like in SMAC,
-when creating a pretender, scales go from -2 to +2, but the actual province scales go from -5 to +5, meaning events and spells can really fuck you up now, also no more free temp dumping, also apparently things get REAL bad starting at extreme 4-5 scales,
-you can go beyond 2 scales during pretender creation if you pick a chassis that has scales affinity, looks like another balancing issue possibly, we already have many obviously superior pretenders...

 

[Axioms]

New info on 6:
-dynamic terrain type change in Dom6 confirmed, influenced by scales too, but seems to only be the boring type change and not real plastic terrain changes like in SMAC,
-when creating a pretender, scales go from -2 to +2, but the actual province scales go from -5 to +5, meaning events and spells can really fuck you up now, also no more free temp dumping, also apparently things get REAL bad starting at extreme 4-5 scales,
-you can go beyond 2 scales during pretender creation if you pick a chassis that has scales affinity, looks like another balancing issue possibly, we already have many obviously superior pretenders...

can you expand on the terrain thing? just you can change the type for a province? what is a plastic terrain change?

 

[Malakal]

New info on 6:
-dynamic terrain type change in Dom6 confirmed, influenced by scales too, but seems to only be the boring type change and not real plastic terrain changes like in SMAC,
-when creating a pretender, scales go from -2 to +2, but the actual province scales go from -5 to +5, meaning events and spells can really fuck you up now, also no more free temp dumping, also apparently things get REAL bad starting at extreme 4-5 scales,
-you can go beyond 2 scales during pretender creation if you pick a chassis that has scales affinity, looks like another balancing issue possibly, we already have many obviously superior pretenders...

can you expand on the terrain thing? just you can change the type for a province? what is a plastic terrain change?

Well in SMAC you can terraform the planet - drill for new rivers, rise and depress the terrain and it affects the map, you can even drown areas or raise new islands from the sea. That is a plastic map that even represents wind patterns and rainfall.

In Dominions terrain types are just a modifier on base province - waste means it will be generated with very low pop, mountains give resources etc. It seems like in 6 those terrain types can change but withut affecting the overall look of the map, river beds, elevation (not that it was even implemented before ignoring some artsy maps and the way they were drawn).

I believe the example given was how Death scales can turn forests into wastes. Its a start and could be fun with spells or events but meh, not amazing.

 

[Dayyālu]

Well, I was getting the Dominion bug, almost wanted to reinstall 5.

I guess I'll wait until December, a new one is the best time to get your rust off and waste more life on pixelmen. I've heard from /domg/ that we'll get pseudo Conquest-of-Elysium stuff like separate cave/plane layers or that was just memery?

(Also they aren't taking away my blood slaves right, that was memery too, please)

On the direct combat discussion, having to control direct every battle would nuke PBEM and send most players insane, and reward even more no-lifers that can waste 5 hours to optimize a single spell casting. I imagine lategame battles and I shudder in horror in thinking anyone would dream of wasting hours on that, lategame dominions was already an endurance match.