Dominions 3

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Richrf
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:29 am

Dominions 3

Post by Richrf »

Anyone playing or played Dominions 1-3?

In theory it seems to be the successor of master of magic.

* Tons of magic spells and ability to forge magic items (default only). You research by schools (conjuration, evocation etc). Each level e.g finish researching conjuration 1 will unlock several spells each with different requirements. E.g if you have the right number of "paths" (fire,water,earth,air, nature, blood, death, astral) then so and so spell will be available.

* Tons of creatures with different abilities and stats.

* Deep customisable ability, you have design points to buy the "Pretender" forms (which will affect whether it is a combat worthy, how easy it is to buy magic paths, dominion strength, plus other special abilities) , choose among 8 paths of magic (1-10 levels), customise dominion scales, etc..

Plus tons of other mechanics ...

Problem : NO tactical combat!!!!! You give orders before battle and that's it...

Sigh hundreds of interesting spells, but only limited control (you can select up to 4 specific actions (spells) for heroes to cast). But you cannot RESPOND as the situation changes!!!

Let's face it, part of the fun of researching all those spells is so you can get the chance to use a well chosen spell cast at the right time to turn the tide. So you had nice spell battles... One guy hits you with psionic blast, and almost kills your hero, you counter with healing... He casts black sleep on your unit , you dispel it etc..

Also in MOM, you wanted to win, but without hurting your mana reserves too much, which made it a interesting balancing act....
Richrf
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:29 am

Post by Richrf »

I've being playing it some and reading the manual (300 pages worth!!)...

It is really a deep game, the mechanics are quite interesting.

Combatwise while there are popular SC or "supercombantants" strategies, which you equip a commander unit with all kinds of items, buff them up with spells, to create a killer unit, in general, the system tends to make it easier for a gang of weaker units to kill a "invincible" unit.

Firstly, for every attack on the same unit in the same round, the defender unit takes a -2 defense bonus, so you can swarm a single well protected unit.

Secondly, the game models fatigue factors, and when fighting for a long time, even the most powerful unit gets fatigued (there are ways around it of course, reinvigate spells, drain weapons but these are limited in effect in dom 3)

Fatigue reduces defense and to a lesser extent attack and also increases the chance of critical hits against the fatigued unit.

Thirdly the game models morale. In Dom3 they made it such that squads with less than 4 units, had the make morale checks when they got wounded every turn.....

Fourthly, there are a few spells similar in nature to crack calls, so if you keep spamming them, even the unkillable hero will go down soon.

Fifth - The system uses "open ended dice rolls". This involves using rolling 2 dices. and if a 6 is obtained on any of the dice, 5 is added instead, and the dice is rerolled (and if it is 6, you repeat). This minimizes the importance of high scores.

For example to see whether a unit has hit another,

First attack score is calculated based on the attack stat plus open ended dice roll..

Defense score is calculated based on the defense stats plus the same open ended roll.

Higher score hits.

Example, A Paladin has an attack of 17 tries to strike an archer with defense of 8. The attacker rolls 3,4 so the attack score is 17+3+4 = 24
Defender rolls 3,6, 4 (the 6 allows another roll and itself counts as 5). So the defense score is 8+3+5+4 = 20. The attack score is higher so the attack hits.

What is interesting about the combat mechanics is that it allows modelling of the difference between a unit that is hard to hit (high defense) and one that is well armored and hard to damage (high protection). Similarly there is a difference between a unit that is accurate and tends to hit, with one that if it hits causes a lot of damage. This is something MOM system does not allow.

Basically units have a Protection stat, as well as a Strength Stat (added typically to damage stat of weapon) and this is matched against each other.

Again both sides do the open ended dice roll (2 dice, 6 counts as 5, and results in another roll). And the difference counts as damage (if protection + roll is higher than no damage is done of course).

E.g Paladin has strength of 6, wields a holy sword of damage 10. He throws a 2 and 3, so damage is 6+10+2+3 = 21

The archer has protection of 3. He gets a 5,4 so he reduces the damage by 3+5+4 = 12.

Effective damage done is 21-12 = 9.

There is also a nice mechanic on shields for melee, where shields have a defense parry value as well as a protection value. In the above case for example, if the archer was holding a shield with parry of 4 or more, the combined defense score would be 24 or more (instead of 20 without the parry), as this equal or exceeds the attack score of 24., this results in a "shield hit".

In a shield hit, damage is calculated as normal, except the defender gets to add the protection value of the shield as well , which can be significant in reducing damage (even to zero). So in the above case, instead of getting 9 points of damage, the defender with a shield will get 9 less the protection value of the shield. If the protection value of the shield is 9 or more, no damage is done!












9+3+5+3
Richrf
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:29 am

Post by Richrf »

Interesting enough, missile weapons cannot be defended against by your defense stat.

It is more a function of shields (their parry value). Also in dom3, it is very very common for units to miss what they are shooting for...
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Singularity
Posts: 25
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:50 am
Location: Alicante, Spain.

Re: Dominions 3

Post by Singularity »

Problem : NO tactical combat!!!!! You give orders before battle and that's it...
The real problem is that the scripts to give that orders are severely limited. The current system with a much more powerful scripting engine would be nice.

You can only order to "Cast a specific spell", but no "Cast a specific spell against a specific enemy", for example. Nor keep a spell from being cast, as the AI chooses as it pleases, and is stupid like all AIs (for example, "Do not cast a fireball against an enemy if our troops are fighting him", as I do not want to miss a shot and set them aflame). Nor you can condition orders, like "Attack Trolls with a fireball first if there are trolls in the army, if not cast a Gust of Wind to drive Light Infantries away". Tactical combat is thus rather random and poorly designed. Heck, even I should be able to change orders just after starting a battle, when I see which enemies I'm going to fight!

Also, the interface is very cumbersome and unprofessional. Lacks functionality (I'm not able even to issue a "Select all units" order) and one misses some features, such as a detailed unit list where I can see at a glance which units have battle wounds and what battle wounds.

Adding new spells and units is easy, but so will be in MOM-IME...

Dominions has very nice ideas and underlying combat mechanics are deep, but it cannot claim the "Successor to MOM" title with those and other painful errors. Nor is even close to be "the last fantasy strategy title you will ever need", as they claim.
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