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Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
"What is the Dominions series?"
Dominions is a series of grand strategy games where you play as competing Pretender Gods trying to become the ultimate supergod. To do this, you take control of a nation of more or less fantasy dudes and attempt to conquer the world. You can build a giant army, take over territory, build infrastructure (on a very basic level), and fight each other in a turn-based, hands-off, grand strategy way. While there are AIs and you could technically play this game by yourself, the AIs are not very strong or fun to play against. The reason for that is because the major and most fun mechanic of this game is an insanely massive and complex magic system. You will use all sorts of wizards to research and cast all sorts of spells, forge all sorts of magic items, and summon all sorts of creatures. Games will usually be won or lost based on how you exploit the magic system, which unfortunately the AI has never been good at handling.
"Why pitch Dominions at us?"
Dominions has always been the kind of game that is difficult to find, not to mention play. It has a steep learning curve, isn't a very pretty game, and although it's on Steam now, it's usually been distributed through some lesser known channels. I remember buying Dominions 2 by mailing a check. As a result, Dominions can be kind of intimidating to play multiplayer; the game is extremely deep, and it feels like every other player has been playing for forever. But now is a pretty good time to get into it. The release of Dominions 5 is liable to shake things up as a whole new iteration of the games, with brand new mechanics and changes. I fully expect more experienced players will have a massive advantage off the bat, but a bit less so than jumping into an older Dominions game. And, now that Dominions is releasing on a more mainstream platform, perhaps there will also be a larger base of newbies to the series that you could learn alongside.
I'd also expect GITP to make a pretty good Dominions community. We are gamers, we have a forum (with private messaging) to organize and discuss the games. So. Who's interested in starting a Dominions enclave on GITP?
Spoiler: Players for Dominions in the Playground
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People who are interested in Dominions in the Playground:
Manticoran - Mentor
deuterio12 - Mentor
Knaight - Mentor
Sen isSaqqara - Mentor. Is willing to help us run a dedicated server!
Hicks - Mentor
Olinser - Mentee
Nadevoc - Mentee
Ionbound - Mentee
Vitruviansquid - Mentee
Otomodachi - Mentee
The Hellbug - ?
Thrantar - ?
Currently looking to start the game on Jan 2.
Spoiler: First game roster and nations
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Glimbur/Olinser: Caelum and Jotunheim
Vitruviansquid/Sen isSaqqara: Vanheim and Ulm
Thrantar/Hellbug: Pangaea and Abysia
Ionbound/Knaight: Marignon and Pythium
Nadevoc/deuterio12: Ys and Agartha
Spoiler: Game 2 roster
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Team 1: Olinser, Knaight, deuterio12, lord_khaine
Team 2: Grif, The Hellbug, houlio, , Thrantar
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I tried to get into Dominions 4 but it never really worked for me, so I'm looking forward to seeing how Dominions 5 works out and will probably be up for giving it a shot
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I'd give it a bit of time before getting it - a few early patches can really help, particularly given how often these patches work out to borderline free expansion packs.
Also good riddance to some of those lesser known channels. Shrapnel Games and their insistence on keeping the $60 price point indefinitely was a load of nonsense.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
You're seriously underselling the basic troops side. There's hundreds of units with lots of stats and actual individual equipment (including now shields that can break during combat if they take too much damage) and not only gain exp but can also gain permanent afflictions from wounds. There's giants and bat-people and lychantropes and deep ones and monkeys and demons and all kinds of exotic cavalry and placing them in the correct formation will win or lose battles, in particular in Dominions 4 where magic was reigned back quite a lot.
Then there's the strategic map where turns are resolved simultaenously so if you want to hit the enemy army you need to take in account where they will be moving next, not where they are now. And armies of fliers can fly and stealthy commanders with stealthy units can move unseen on the strategic map until they punch you out of nowhere or you find them with patrollers and then there's stealthy flying armies oh my.
And also the infamous Bless system, where each nation has "sacred" units that can gain extra buffs with the basic blessing spell if you invest the points during your pretender creation. Before those bonus were fixed by type of magic, but Dominions 5 greaty expands by allowing different options per type of magic plus some super effects that are only active if your pretender is actually active (instead of taking a nap or dead). With some nations is perfectly viable to go "screw mages" and just spam sacred units with a super bless and go all khorne in your enemies.
Sadly there's just no denying the very steep learning curve, between needing to keep in mind all the options while in late game you need to macro dozens of provinces and script your armies mage by mage, formation by formation. and since the most popular MP mode is ffa, it also means great risk you're ganked and/or other player tries to take you down with them out of spite. Doubly so if you don't dedicate great effort to diplomacy effort with the other players through PMs and whatnot, which can easily be more time-consuming than actually macroing your nation.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
deuterio12
.. deep ones ..
Frankly any game without deep ones is doing it wrong.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Another nice thing about Dominions is that it actually has quite a bit of underwater nations, including not-aboleths and not-mind flayers. Except in the last age in which not-mind flayers succeeded in giving maddenning dreams to everybody else underwater reducing every other sea faction to broken slaves, but several Atlanteans manage to run away to a colony on land besides other races taking atlatean refugees.
And if land Atlantis returns to the seas, they actually find a deep one resistance movement!
Spoiler
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Mother Hydra, the Once and Future Queen, is the last remaining Basalt Queen. She has slept for millennia under the pale light of a crystal shard. Recently her slumber was disturbed by eerie dreams. Rudely awakened, she emerged from her millennial slumber, never to sleep again. Mother Hydra is now traveling from ruin to ruin gathering her flock and teaching them how to resist the urge to sleep. With the sudden arrival of the Atlantians of the Forsaken Coast, her power and teaching has become instrumental in the conquest of the dream-ridden seas. Mother Hydra has slept for a thousand years. She need not sleep anymore. Her sleep under the crystal shard has prepared her for the dream war and she will not let herself be dominated by dreams or magical coercion.
Which is pretty damn awesome, but again creates its host of unique problems. First you need to make sure the map you're playing has the right number of water provinces for the number of underwater players, and even then most land nations have no way to attack underwater until mid-late game, and even then it's rarely worth the trouble (except if you're late Atlantis versus late not-mind-flayers in which case all your troops are good anphibians with greatmagic resistance tailor-made to fight the not-mind-flayers, but that just means Atlanteans take over the sea late age).
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Wow, didn't 4 just come out?
Also, is there much new this time? I felt at the time that buying 4 over 3 really wasn't worth it as it felt like a large patch, not a new game.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I would say the greatly improved UI alone was well worth Dominions 4.:smalltongue:
There's a lot more mechanics overhaul this time:
-Combat is real time with everybody taking actions simultaneously. Spells take some time to cast and be disrupted if mage takes damage. Fliers need to spend some time flying up before they can drop to attack. All of this should help reduce the "1st turn alpha strike" problem of late game.
-Map movement also overhauled, now you can attack non-adjacent provinces with non-fliers if you have enough movement, snow from cold slows down most forces.
-New resource of "recruitment points", comes in troop and commander version. As resources each province has their own that renew every turn and don't accumulate. A fort can amplify recruitment points, but not to draw from surrounding provinces like resources. Scouts and non-mage commanders cost only 1 commander recruitment point while mages cost 2-4 so you can now buy multiple smaller commanders in a single turn instead of a big one.
-Forts always start at pallisade, and then you can upgrade them to bigger tiers by paying more. Main advantage now is extra recruitment points.
-Scales overhauled, Order now mainly grants extra troop recruitment points
-Yomi overhauled, oni are now freespawn, end of culture is a global that increases it.
-Immortality now comes in different flavors, several of which work outside of dominion, but have varying "delays", aka instead of getting the unit back right next turn, you'll need to wait several turns.
-Fatigue crits now only ignore 1/4 armor, making armor more valuable.
-New repel mechanics.
-Shields can break from big damage.
-Elemental resistance changed so that immunity is harder to achieve. Like c'tis can't just cast foul vapors and be immune to it anymore.
-Already mentioned, blesses are now build-it-yourself. Like where before Nature only granted extra HP and then some regen, now you can pick between regen, poison resistance, forest walk, recuperation and whatnot. Astral can give magic weapons or etherealness besides magic resistance. The best blesses are only active if your pretender is actually in the field.
-Holy spells also gain benefits from your bless, like Smite dealing elemental damage.
-Other stuff I can't remember/missed from the previews.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Why is it that whenever I resolve to save my money, a new full-sized game comes out that I must get?
Well, it's because I have poor self-control regarding finances, and it's liable to get me into trouble one day, obviously. But this one's on you OP!
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I'd be down for giving D5 a shot. I enjoyed D4 but I was never particularly good at it.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ionbound
I'd be down for giving D5 a shot. I enjoyed D4 but I was never particularly good at it.
The learning curve is long and full of overhangs - and as someone who put a lot of time in D3, I can say that I still couldn't keep up with the ridiculous shenanigans of competitive multiplayer.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I always felt like I want to like that game, but i am always hit in the face by the level of complexity involved in the game. And the metagame.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Okay, let me pitch an idea here. First, we start a GitP Dominions Discord. Secondly, people get paired up so that new players can jointly run a nation with an experienced player in the first game or two as a kind of mentoring thing. How does that sound?
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Man, I've been trying to get Vanarus off the ground in these AI games, and both times I've run into AI Man or Eriu, and they always have amphipteres that just eat my mages alive.
If only there was a place I could get game advice...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ionbound
Okay, let me pitch an idea here. First, we start a GitP Dominions Discord. Secondly, people get paired up so that new players can jointly run a nation with an experienced player in the first game or two as a kind of mentoring thing. How does that sound?
... oh.
Well then.
That sounds great.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vitruviansquid
Man, I've been trying to get Vanarus off the ground in these AI games, and both times I've run into AI Man or Eriu, and they always have amphipteres that just eat my mages alive.
The thing about attack-rear scripting is that it's easily spoofed by putting a blob of durable* minions behind your valuable mages.
*For their price point; there are some counterintuitive competitive picks for this role, such as markata.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Okay, I got two things to ask here.
-Have they improved the UI?
-Are the tooltips actually helpful?
I had tried and couldn't get into Dominions 3 because of those two questions, so, here you go.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Cespenar
Okay, I got two things to ask here.
-Have they improved the UI?
-Are the tooltips actually helpful?
I had tried and couldn't get into Dominions 3 because of those two questions, so, here you go.
Dominions 4 (and then 5) have several quality of life improvements. The UI isn't hugely different, but for example you can see the paths a mage has from the main screen, rather than needing to right click on them to get more details. There's also something about multi-turn pathing now, but to be honest I haven't looked into it at all. Lots of other balance-type changes, fortifications take more than a month to build and they revamped the bless system. I liked Dominions 3, I liked Dominions 4 more, and I think I will like 5 even more.
I think the tool tips are pretty good, the '?' button gets you a lot of useful hotkeys.
Check out a game play video and see if it looks workable. In general, if you liked Dominions 3 you will probably like 5. There is a lot of depth to it, some people like it some don't. And game balance is... enforced by people ganging up on whichever nations are believed to be strongest, which does not always work.
Also, were I not already in another game I'd be up for teaching someone in a disciples game. Try me in a month or two? Depends if I stumble into another game after this one.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Glimbur
Dominions 4 (and then 5) have several quality of life improvements. The UI isn't hugely different, but for example you can see the paths a mage has from the main screen, rather than needing to right click on them to get more details. There's also something about multi-turn pathing now, but to be honest I haven't looked into it at all. Lots of other balance-type changes, fortifications take more than a month to build and they revamped the bless system. I liked Dominions 3, I liked Dominions 4 more, and I think I will like 5 even more.
My favorite change in Dominions 4 was the battle screen - they actually tell you what troops were on each side, you can look at them without viewing battles, and you can look at troop specific losses without watching the battle and counting. It's a huge improvement.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ionbound
Okay, let me pitch an idea here. First, we start a GitP Dominions Discord. Secondly, people get paired up so that new players can jointly run a nation with an experienced player in the first game or two as a kind of mentoring thing. How does that sound?
I'd be up for this. I have ~1400 hours in Dom4, and am racking up hours in Dom5 already, so I'd be happy to talk anyone through... Just about anything to do with the game. I'm also one of those crazy people who got good enough to not just play, but also win, giant multiplayer Dominions 4 games. >.>
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I played a decent bit, but the main thing about Dominions 4 that always bugged me was just the total lack of your ability to affect a battle once it started. I understand its not a RTS game, but a complete lack of ability to affect the outcome once a battle starts just bugs me in any game.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
There is a weird property with this game where, if I'm sitting down to just look at the spells and see what's out there, it feels like every element is powerful and every school of magic is great and there are so many things I could use so many mages for.
Then when I start up a game, like with Vanarus, I'm just staring at the mages and spell research screen going, "wow... I can't find anything helpful here."
What would I want to do with some of these mages that have many low paths like Vyedun and Vyedna? What do I do with the mages of MA Man? What are some common power spells that I should be researching or expecting from opponents in games?
At this point, I think it might be helpful to keep a running list of which players would want to be mentors and mentees, as it looks like the thread is picking up steam. I will be starting this list when I get home from work today. How many players do we reckon it would take to have our first game in the playground?
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
I'd be up for this. I have ~1400 hours in Dom4, and am racking up hours in Dom5 already, so I'd be happy to talk anyone through... Just about anything to do with the game. I'm also one of those crazy people who got good enough to not just play, but also win, giant multiplayer Dominions 4 games. >.>
Wow.. that has my respect.. i just barely manages to win against Mighty Ai's. But i do kinda know that a lot of my favorite tricks, like sending in the hero army, is countered a lot easier by a human.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I have started a list via edit of the first post for players interested in a Dominions game.
I only really want to include Manticoran and myself, as these are the latest posts that mention interest in an actual game, although I'd probably safely be able to assume Ionbound wants in as well, having made the original suggestion of organizing a game.
Still, I don't want to volunteer people who have not recently and explicitly decided to join, so if you want in, please post. I'll also want to know if you want to act as a mentor or mentee.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vitruviansquid
I have started a list via edit of the first post for players interested in a Dominions game.
I only really want to include Manticoran and myself, as these are the latest posts that mention interest in an actual game, although I'd probably safely be able to assume Ionbound wants in as well, having made the original suggestion of organizing a game.
Still, I don't want to volunteer people who have not recently and explicitly decided to join, so if you want in, please post. I'll also want to know if you want to act as a mentor or mentee.
I mean i'd be down for a couple games, although I have a really weird schedule because I work swing shift from 2-11 PM Pacific time, so that may be tough to coordinate.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
lord_khaine
Wow.. that has my respect.. i just barely manages to win against Mighty Ai's. But i do kinda know that a lot of my favorite tricks, like sending in the hero army, is countered a lot easier by a human.
The AI may not be the best to practice long term since they're immune to diplomacy but get extra gold/resources, so at the end of the day they're quite a different challenge from human players. As in they can afford to rush you with bigger numbers and try to drag you down with sheer attriction while in mp your opponents will have an harder time recovering from mistakes, or afford to pay you attention if you attack them while they're busy with somebody else.
I strongly recommend joining a mp dominions game even if you don't feel that confident. There's often newbie games starting where everybody is learning the first steps. Even if you end up curbstomped you will get valuable experience. Make sure to spam scouts to watch what other players are doing if nothing else. Ally with somebody who seems to know what they're doing and gank somebody else. You'll probably end backstabbed, but will still learn. And with some luck you may manage to backstab them first! Also helps if you use simpler nations so there's less chance of tripping over yourself. For me I managed to win my 3rd mp dom4 game as MA Ulm with an awake dragon expander.
EDIT: Heck, if somebody here wants wants to try out mp, I'm also volunteering to teach to play with them and go easy.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ionbound
Okay, let me pitch an idea here. First, we start a GitP Dominions Discord. Secondly, people get paired up so that new players can jointly run a nation with an experienced player in the first game or two as a kind of mentoring thing. How does that sound?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Manticoran
I'd be up for this. I have ~1400 hours in Dom4, and am racking up hours in Dom5 already, so I'd be happy to talk anyone through... Just about anything to do with the game. I'm also one of those crazy people who got good enough to not just play, but also win, giant multiplayer Dominions 4 games. >.>
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vitruviansquid
I have started a list via edit of the first post for players interested in a Dominions game.
I only really want to include Manticoran and myself, as these are the latest posts that mention interest in an actual game, although I'd probably safely be able to assume Ionbound wants in as well, having made the original suggestion of organizing a game.
Still, I don't want to volunteer people who have not recently and explicitly decided to join, so if you want in, please post. I'll also want to know if you want to act as a mentor or mentee.
I'm definitely down. Exams just finished up for me and I'm rearin' to play some dom. I've played eons of dom3, so I can go in the 'experienced player' category. We aiming for a disciples game or something to do the pairing between experienced and inexperienced players?
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I'm provisionally in, and also done with finals - although my work schedule is a bit all over the place, and I'm going to be swamped for another couple of weeks.
EDIT: I lost hard when trying high level competitive multiplayer, but I've put a decent amount of time into the series and am fairly familiar with Dominons 3.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Definitely interested in a game as a mentee. I played a little Dominions 4, and really enjoyed it.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I've heard good things about the series for a few years now; this seems like a good time to try it out.
I'd be interested in an MP game. Since it's a 4x, is multiplayer done in a 'play by email' style? What's the time commitment?
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I am recently and explicitly volunteering. :P
Here's the thing though... I've been playing since Dom3, I've probably got a total hours logged in the vicinity of Manticoran.... but I've literally never played an MP game. So I don't know how useful I'd be as a mentor, but I don't think I need a mentor as much as more raw players, like, I'm sure there's stuff I could learn but it'd be a lot more incremental than it'd be for a newer player.
But yeah, I'm in, I wanna dive into the world of MP.
EDIT: On second thought, I guess I do have SOME things to offer as a mentor. I really DO know how the game works, so I guess there's WORSE people you could pair with a really new person. I just have no idea how MP really works out in practice.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nadevoc
I've heard good things about the series for a few years now; this seems like a good time to try it out.
I'd be interested in an MP game. Since it's a 4x, is multiplayer done in a 'play by email' style? What's the time commitment?
I haven't done it myself but I understand its basically the same as Dominions 4 - as in, IN CLIENT you can only play direct connect, which is extremely difficult to coordinate more than a couple people, or you can go outside the client and use llamaserver and email your turn actions and receive the updates just like Dominions 4.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nadevoc
I've heard good things about the series for a few years now; this seems like a good time to try it out.
I'd be interested in an MP game. Since it's a 4x, is multiplayer done in a 'play by email' style? What's the time commitment?
As already pointed out, the game itself allows you to do direct connect but it's kinda clunky. The most popular option is llamaserver to which you send and receive your turn files, with the added benefit it sends warnings when there's only X hours left to update, you get to keep old saves and even restore a previous turn in case something goes wrong.
Usually time commitment is 24h for early game where you only need to do some orders per turn (or 25 h to avoid the deadline slowly creeping back in your schedule), normally increasing to 48-72h after the first 12 turns (1 year in-game) as micro increases. It's also ok for players to request deadline extensions in case real life stuff happens.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I'm willing to run a dedicated server if people want that. I've run a dom3 server for a group of old highschool friends for the last year or two, so I know how to get them running.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Otomodachi
I am recently and explicitly volunteering. :P
Here's the thing though... I've been playing since Dom3, I've probably got a total hours logged in the vicinity of Manticoran.... but I've literally never played an MP game. So I don't know how useful I'd be as a mentor, but I don't think I need a mentor as much as more raw players, like, I'm sure there's stuff I could learn but it'd be a lot more incremental than it'd be for a newer player.
But yeah, I'm in, I wanna dive into the world of MP.
EDIT: On second thought, I guess I do have SOME things to offer as a mentor. I really DO know how the game works, so I guess there's WORSE people you could pair with a really new person. I just have no idea how MP really works out in practice.
I'm in a similar boat. Been playing a lot of single player because I like the background of the game and its ideas, but haven't ever jumped into multiplayer. Since I put myself down as Mentee, I guess I should also put you down as Mentee. I figure people who want to be mentORs should know how the game works and understand how the game's mechanics play out in actual multiplayer.
If I put anyone in the wrong category, neglected to put anyone down at all, or such, please PM me with instructions for how you wanted to be included in the list, that way I can't forget you or read past your post.
edit: It looks like we're getting a healthy enough base of committed players, though I realize some said they would be able to play in a few weeks.
Is it good with everyone if we start a game on Jan 2? I expect some people may be occupied in the time between the winter holidays, and I don't want to put the game on hiatus during that time, only for some to drop out as people tend to do during hiatuses. This also gives other players time to see this thread and participate.
Until then, maybe we should sort out the terms of the game. How are multiplayer games generally played? For newbies, what is the ettiquette, what is the format, etc?
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Alright, this sounds good - officially interested in joining a MP game!
I've messed around for like 15 minutes, but the UI makes it difficult to learn. I think I'll have to hunt down some Let's Plays or something to cover the basics - anyone have any suggested resources/streamers/etc?
I agree that starting post-holidays is probably wise, and 24 hours a turn seems reasonable.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nadevoc
Alright, this sounds good - officially interested in joining a MP game!
I've messed around for like 15 minutes, but the UI makes it difficult to learn. I think I'll have to hunt down some Let's Plays or something to cover the basics - anyone have any suggested resources/streamers/etc?
I agree that starting post-holidays is probably wise, and 24 hours a turn seems reasonable.
The game's starting menu has a selection for, I believe "Tools and Manuals" that should take you a series of informative youtube videos. You can also get to an interesting, informative, and gigantic manual as a PDF somehow, but I can't remember how to right now
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nadevoc
Alright, this sounds good - officially interested in joining a MP game!
I've messed around for like 15 minutes, but the UI makes it difficult to learn. I think I'll have to hunt down some Let's Plays or something to cover the basics - anyone have any suggested resources/streamers/etc?
I agree that starting post-holidays is probably wise, and 24 hours a turn seems reasonable.
24h should be to start but it should increase after about 15 turns when the amount of stuff per turn starts to skyrocket.
Though it can be shorter, typically its set so that as soon as everybody has submitted their turn the game creator/mod can waive the timer and immediately issue the next turn - so if everybody can arrange to be around for at least a couple hours for a game start time we could probably do 5+ turns real quickly to get the game underway.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I'm personally a fan of setting it to auto-host, so it hosts a new turn as soon as everyone's turns are in. If someone goes more than 24 hours, then we just get on their case on the forums, and if that doesn't get them in you set them to AI.
That way we can make as much progress as possible, while still being pretty flexible. And I always found that when someone misses a turn, they get out of the loop pretty fast and find it hard to get back in the game, thus AI.
Also: I'm down to act as a mentor as well as hosting. I think I posted that earlier, but I don't see it in the OP.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sen isSaqqara
I'm willing to run a dedicated server if people want that. I've run a dom3 server for a group of old highschool friends for the last year or two, so I know how to get them running.
How do you get them running in dom3? I've tried, and it's not been going well - I can get a server going and another copy on my computer hooked in, but not beyond that.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
If this ends up being personal hosting, I'll be bowing out. It's simply more unstable and limited, no reminder e-mails nor able to review previous turns, which would be particularly important for newbies. Plus the ever present chance it crashes midway with no chance of recovery and impossible to change administrator should the need arise.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Knaight
How do you get them running in dom3? I've tried, and it's not been going well - I can get a server going and another copy on my computer hooked in, but not beyond that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
deuterio12
If this ends up being personal hosting, I'll be bowing out. It's simply more unstable and limited, no reminder e-mails nor able to review previous turns, which would be particularly important for newbies. Plus the ever present chance it crashes midway with no chance of recovery and impossible to change administrator should the need arise.
It's actually quite stable! You just have to get intimately familiar with the console arguments for the executable. I assure you, I keep meticulous backups of my server computer. And I'm sure I could rig up some quick code to send out reminder emails (though with a 24-hour schedule I'm not sure why we'd need them). Keeping copies of old turns for review is not something I've done before, but if it's something people want I'm sure I could take a look at implementing it.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sen isSaqqara
It's actually quite stable! You just have to get intimately familiar with the console arguments for the executable. I assure you, I keep meticulous backups of my server computer. And I'm sure I could rig up some quick code to send out reminder emails (though with a 24-hour schedule I'm not sure why we'd need them). Keeping copies of old turns for review is not something I've done before, but if it's something people want I'm sure I could take a look at implementing it.
Why not simply use llamaserver then? It's the most common method of setting up big mp dominions games. If nothing else newbies would benefit from getting used to it since chance are that their future games will be through such method.
And again, you can't be sure of how things are going to go with you in 1-2 months (average game time assuming everything goes smoothly). Llammaserver allows the admin to share the master password with somebody else if they need to bow out, whereas if something happens that prevents you from taking care of the server (I sincerly hope not but you never know what may happen), the game would go down too.
EDIT: Another nice thing about llammaserver is that besides reminder e-mails, it also warns you when a new turn arrives, while with private server you need to check in-game.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sen isSaqqara
It's actually quite stable! You just have to get intimately familiar with the console arguments for the executable. I assure you, I keep meticulous backups of my server computer. And I'm sure I could rig up some quick code to send out reminder emails (though with a 24-hour schedule I'm not sure why we'd need them). Keeping copies of old turns for review is not something I've done before, but if it's something people want I'm sure I could take a look at implementing it.
I was thinking of the direct connection game, not PBEM. PBEM I can get working.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sen isSaqqara
I'm personally a fan of setting it to auto-host, so it hosts a new turn as soon as everyone's turns are in. If someone goes more than 24 hours, then we just get on their case on the forums, and if that doesn't get them in you set them to AI.
That way we can make as much progress as possible, while still being pretty flexible. And I always found that when someone misses a turn, they get out of the loop pretty fast and find it hard to get back in the game, thus AI.
Also: I'm down to act as a mentor as well as hosting. I think I posted that earlier, but I don't see it in the OP.
Yes but the problem is that the AI is so stupid that auto-AIing somebody out massively skews the power balance of the area they were in because its so easy to manipulate the AI and it turns into a feeding frenzy of grabbing up the now AI territory.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
deuterio12
Why not simply use llamaserver then? It's the most common method of setting up big mp dominions games. If nothing else newbies would benefit from getting used to it since chance are that their future games will be through such method.
And again, you can't be sure of how things are going to go with you in 1-2 months (average game time assuming everything goes smoothly). Llammaserver allows the admin to share the master password with somebody else if they need to bow out, whereas if something happens that prevents you from taking care of the server (I sincerly hope not but you never know what may happen), the game would go down too.
EDIT: Another nice thing about llammaserver is that besides reminder e-mails, it also warns you when a new turn arrives, while with private server you need to check in-game.
Fair enough! I've never actually played over llanaserver before, nor any kind of pbe. If you think that would be a better option, I have no objection.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Thank you for your understanding. Llammaserver indeed offers a lot of conveniences and it's pretty easy to set up too. I can be the admin for that if nobody else wants, got some experience.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Olinser
Yes but the problem is that the AI is so stupid that auto-AIing somebody out massively skews the power balance of the area they were in because its so easy to manipulate the AI and it turns into a feeding frenzy of grabbing up the now AI territory.
Actually, one of the nice things about Dominions 5 is that the AI has been significantly improved (even indies can no longer just be curbstomped with meathshield bait+bows) and you can default the difficulty level of players that leave. Not saying it's as good as a human player, but should no longer be the virtual free lunch it used to be.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I'm assuming the middle age is the 'default' choice, and so that's what I did during my learning game. Do any of the veterans have any strong opinions on the age?
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I wouldn't say any age is default, but MA is probably best for newbies because things are overall more simple there. EA relies more on capital uber mages, and LA has higher magic variety with most nations able to use blood spells which complicates things significantly.
And if we're going MA I would also suggest banning Ermor since it's the mother of death nations and definitely not suitable for a first mp game.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Ah, makes sense. I vote MA, then, because I could probably use all the help I can get.
Are duplicates allowed, or is there some form of draft? Trying to decide if it would be advantageous to stick to one nation or switch it up while messing around with AI.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
You would need some kind of mod to have duplicate nations.
Usually it's first come first served, but for a team game a snake draft is best, in particular because it's important to have some synergy between allied nations.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I'm in, relatively experienced player from the same mumble server as Manticoran.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Middle Age sounds good to me!
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I'm normally an Early Age fan, personally, but I can always do MA or LA too.
Edit: Just realized I initially typed "I'm normally an EA fan," and shuddered involuntarily.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
And if we're going MA I would also suggest banning Ermor since it's the mother of death nations and definitely not suitable for a first mp game.
Yeah do think this could really screw people up, who are not used to handling a wasteland full of the angry dead. Took me a bit of trial and error to figure out myself.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
lord_khaine
Yeah do think this could really screw people up, who are not used to handling a wasteland full of the angry dead. Took me a bit of trial and error to figure out myself.
MA Ermor isn't too bad - it's LA Ermor that warrants hard banning.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
My impression of EA is that everything in it is massively and grotesquely OP compared to what you find later. My impression of LA is that it ends up basically like MA in every way.
I'm personally down for a MA game or LA.
@Hicks I will add you as soon as I am on my computer, as opposed to my phone which I am currently using.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Vitruviansquid
My impression of EA is that everything in it is massively and grotesquely OP compared to what you find later. My impression of LA is that it ends up basically like MA in every way.
Most of the troops are garbage by MA standards (which really shines through when you get MA or LA mercenaries in EA; 40 Hysapsists can do a number on any EA army without mage support), and other than the one capital only mage the mages are generally no better.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
deuterio12
You would need some kind of mod to have duplicate nations.
Usually it's first come first served, but for a team game a snake draft is best, in particular because it's important to have some synergy between allied nations.
Should we perhaps do a nation draft here in the forums in the next couple days before everybody disperses for the holidays? That way everybody can look into how they'd like to build their Pretender and we'd be ready to start right away on the 2nd.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Olinser
Should we perhaps do a nation draft here in the forums in the next couple days before everybody disperses for the holidays? That way everybody can look into how they'd like to build their Pretender and we'd be ready to start right away on the 2nd.
That sounds like a good idea. Additionally, I'm not sure the 2nd would work for me as I'll be in transit for the better part of the day. Would it be possible to do the 3rd instead? If not, I can probably make the 2nd work, it's just more uncertain.
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Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sen isSaqqara
That sounds like a good idea. Additionally, I'm not sure the 2nd would work for me as I'll be in transit for the better part of the day. Would it be possible to do the 3rd instead? If not, I can probably make the 2nd work, it's just more uncertain.
I personally am totally flexible on the actual start date.
I'd definitely like to get the draft going if possible though, it will also let newer players have a decent time period to consult with the more experienced players to get advice on their initial Pretender build before they're committed.