The new general "Dominions 5" Thread

[deuterio12]

Pokemon 0.44 up, increased cost of troops roughly by 30% accross the board, fixed some bugs, most electric pokemons now have storm power, added the option to build training sites of several degrees, magikarps need 50 exp to evolve and have 20% chance to desert per turn.

Ritual sites for extra recruiting not implemented yet since I need to think a bit about how best to do those, like cost and research level.

Would it be too much if, say, each granted 1 gem income, considering they would only be buildable on certain types of terrain? Another thing that would be flavourful is boosting ritual range for the nation's element. Other things can be easily implemented are granting a discount to rituals of certain schools of magic, changing scales, changing unrest and bringing gold. Maybe just vary it a bit between sites?

[lord_khaine]

magikarps need 50 exp to evolve and have 20% chance to desert per turn

Thats a quite novel idea of preventing large buildup of magiccarps.
And it also means you would need at least the master gym to train them.
Since during the 6 turns it takes to do so, then about 75% of them would desert.

Would it be too much if, say, each granted 1 gem income, considering they would only be buildable on certain types of terrain? Another thing that would be flavourful is boosting ritual range for the nation's element. Other things can be easily implemented are granting a discount to rituals of certain schools of magic, changing scales, changing unrest and bringing gold. Maybe just vary it a bit between sites?

It does sound like a pretty interesting idea.
I dont think it would unbalance things. Especially not if you reserved them for the 3 rare terrain types.

[deuterio12]

Thats a quite novel idea of preventing large buildup of magiccarps.
And it also means you would need at least the master gym to train them.
Since during the 6 turns it takes to do so, then about 75% of them would desert.

You could also just throw a lot of magikarps and throw them at a lower level gym, some should be bound to last the whole training. Actually considering that units gain 1 exp automatically, 9 exp would take 5 turns. And that's roughly 1/3 chance of each magikarp lasting.

It does sound like a pretty interesting idea.
I dont think it would unbalance things. Especially not if you reserved them for the 3 rare terrain types.

So here's version 0.45 with the new site summoning spells. The pokemon recruiting ones are all at Thaumathurgy 5 for each nation. Penalty to rituals and crafting from pokemon champions was also removed.

Also since tyckspoon still seems to be in his trip, how about that 1x1 initial test game between actual human players?

[tyckspoon]

Also since tyckspoon still seems to be in his trip, how about that 1x1 initial test game between actual human players?

Got back Monday, still game to help with live test. Just let me know how you want to try to organize it.

[deuterio12]

Got back Monday, still game to help with live test. Just let me know how you want to try to organize it.

Great! Since it seems like we only have 3 people here, we can either go for a 3 player game, or I can go post a thread in the official dominions 5 steam forums since there seems to be quite a fair bit of activity over there and they're also open to mods. Do you have a preference for either?

In the case of steam forums, I would say it should be fine to leave the door open to anybody wanting to play a vanilla nation along the pokemon ones (ever dreamed of stabbing pikachus?). Heck, if 2 other people show up wanting to play one of the pokemon nations, I would be fine playing a vanilla one myself.

[Glimbur]

Dominions 5 is on sale at 40% off until July 9th on Steam. Not a bad time to try it or buy it for a friend.

[lord_khaine]

Its a perfect time for doing so, for everyone who likes strategy games.
The game is rather complex. But easy to start with.

[Glimbur]

EA Johto 0.6 is out.

Previous version of EA Johto was underpowered. I wonder if I went too far the other direction with this one. I'm particularly concerned about the power of the Geodude line, and if Gary Oak is usable and at a reasonable cost.

[lord_khaine]

Ill get back to you after close review.
What nation should they be compared to?

[Glimbur]

Ideally they will be somewhere in the vanilla balance for EA. Looking for better than EA Tien Chi but maybe not as good as... uh...someone overpowered in EA.

[tyckspoon]

Ideally they will be somewhere in the vanilla balance for EA. Looking for better than EA Tien Chi but maybe not as good as... uh...someone overpowered in EA.

Pangea and all the Elf and Giant nations (aside from Mekone, I think, and even they have some pretty decent and obvious strengths you can lean into - part of being bad is just how obvious those strengths are and how easy it is to set up a counter) are considered strong in EA, IIRC.

[lord_khaine]

new patch

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-Alright MewTwo is a viable expander now.
And with the center having a chance to heal its afflictions its a little less troublesome that he lacks regeneration or rejuvenation.
-Pikachu is still to squishy to use in combat.
-Graveler is reliable now.
-Raichu might be a little op.
-spelling error on Charizard promotion event
-Charizard ranger missing text
-Dragoniar still has headbutt
- tier 3 pokemon is perhaps a touch nasty in the numbers you can build them

edit.
Further thoughs

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Its perhaps a little to hard to balance tier 3 pokemon to both be meaningful and interesting.
Without also running into situations like when a full army of venomsuar and raichu munched first a throne army and then a rival nation army without casulties.

The Pikachu/Raichu line of units could be made meaningful by perhaps slowing rate of fire to 1/2.
As well as by capping damage at 5 on pikachu.
As well as limiting recruitment on them somehow.
In return you could then also give Pikachu a ranged thunder attack.

As for the tier 3 pokemon.
Perhaps limit promotional evolution at stage 2?
That should be much easier to balance the units.

But it was awesome when some of the tier 3 suddenly became commanders.
It was perhaps again a little OP as i suddenly found myself with a small army of flying F3 mages.
So you might want to limit that to 1/turn.
Or create a spell that evolve a tier 2 pokemon into its tier 3 commander shape?

[Glimbur]

Mewtwo deserves some affliction resistance since all pokemon get it now. Probably 2 or 3.

Tier 3 pokemon are supposed to be good, but it sounds like they are too good. Maybe I should have the tier 2 evolve into tier 2+ and the only way to get tier 3 is as pokemon rangers. That naturally limits them a lot, could work. Another thought is to make the tier 1 and 2 weaker, but that feels unsatisfying. I can also play with the XP levels, I had doubled the XP gain of pokemon gyms for this release and also made geodude line take more XP to evolve.

I am ok with pikachu dying a lot as long as they are also pretty killy. I think I will make raichu melee again, sounds like ranged lightning is just too good.

I also want a variety of build options to work, and with bless strat being non-viable that means maybe more pretender options. Could add a more conventional monster expander (Gyrados?) And maybe a titan too, though the baseline eastern pantheon has some titans already.

[lord_khaine]

Tier 3 pokemon are supposed to be good, but it sounds like they are too good. Maybe I should have the tier 2 evolve into tier 2+ and the only way to get tier 3 is as pokemon rangers. That naturally limits them a lot, could work. Another thought is to make the tier 1 and 2 weaker, but that feels unsatisfying. I can also play with the XP levels, I had doubled the XP gain of pokemon gyms for this release and also made geodude line take more XP to evolve.

I do think the most satisfying option is to limit the number of tier 3 somehow.
Instead of making them weaker. But you might still want to look at changing their item slots.
As i recall they all had full slots.

I am ok with pikachu dying a lot as long as they are also pretty killy. I think I will make raichu melee again, sounds like ranged lightning is just too good.

You could look into making it work like javlings.
2-3 shots at low range. With a damage cap of some sort.

I also want a variety of build options to work, and with bless strat being non-viable that means maybe more pretender options. Could add a more conventional monster expander (Gyrados?) And maybe a titan too, though the baseline eastern pantheon has some titans already.

Well MewTwo is a pretty effective Astral expander after just a bit of gear.
Though other than that it seems like its hard to come up with that many different builds.
Its either full scales or monster expander.

[Glimbur]

I made Tier 3 Pokemon much rarer by requiring Rangers to evolve them. And fixed a few other things. Not sure when I'll have time for another iteration but here it is.

Still to do: different sprites for veteran pokemon, maybe add surfing pikachu, proofread and make nation description more standars format, balance attempts.

[deuterio12]

Well real life happened and didn't manage to get that test game going, but been updating the mod bit by bit.

Pokemon mod 0.60 ready, with both Fuschia (poison) and Cinnabar (fire) cities added.

Spoiler: rough changelog besides new nations

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-Great veterans pretenders now have airshield 100% since otherwise the combat AI always prioritized targeting them first and took them out pretty fast.
-Great veteran retinues expanded.
-Added shield and heavy pikachu to Vermillion City.
-Added Starmie Rider and Starmie Rider commander to Cerulean city.

Spoiler: some preview pics

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Will give another try at getting a MP test game going in the near future, in particular since now there's a fire nation to round things up.

[lord_khaine]

Oh god thats hilarious :)
I will try and look into giving both of those nations a quick playthough, to see if there are any glaring issues they suffer from.

[deuterio12]

Great to hear that, thanks a lot!

[lord_khaine]

Fuchiba initial impression

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*Giant Soul Badge. Seems a little pricy. Main purpose is likely just to provide a D/N Bless?
*Cant really see the purpose of legendary Arbok.
*Rain mages who can actually expand. Pretty shocking!

*Arbok Is this unit not meant to be sacred?
*Nidorans seems fairly effective expanders due to ranged AP attack.
*Weedle uses ranged web; Thats super effective. Perhaps to effective?
*grimer is perhaps just a touch to squishy. Maybe give it piercing/slash resistance and a few more hp.
*Remain skeptical of Koffings. A single one dying to poison damage chain detonated an entire expansion group.Perhaps they are more useable in war than expansion.
*Zubat is actually useful when paired with Weedle. But it does not fly?

*Poke Kindergarden does work. Can upgrade a batch of Pokemon before the end of year 1 if you focus on it.

[deuterio12]

Fuchiba initial impression

Spoiler

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*Giant Soul Badge. Seems a little pricy. Main purpose is likely just to provide a D/N Bless?
*Cant really see the purpose of legendary Arbok.
*Rain mages who can actually expand. Pretty shocking!

*Arbok Is this unit not meant to be sacred?
*Nidorans seems fairly effective expanders due to ranged AP attack.
*Weedle uses ranged web; Thats super effective. Perhaps to effective?
*grimer is perhaps just a touch to squishy. Maybe give it piercing/slash resistance and a few more hp.
*Remain skeptical of Koffings. A single one dying to poison damage chain detonated an entire expansion group.Perhaps they are more useable in war than expansion.
*Zubat is actually useful when paired with Weedle. But it does not fly?

*Poke Kindergarden does work. Can upgrade a batch of Pokemon before the end of year 1 if you focus on it.

-Will reduce the price of the giant soul badge to 180 like the other giant badges.
-Not sure which "rain mages" you are refering to but seems like they're ok so yay!
-Hmm, I see your point, the autocalc gives it a much higher price. Heal+Fear is nice for an awake expander monster, but at 170 points is probably just too expensive. Will lower to 100.
-Ups, forgot the #holy tag in that one, fixed.
-So which one do you think would be better to nerf string shot, a) single target, b)less range, c)less ammo, d)less acuraccy, e)combination of previous?
-Will add piercing/slash resistance and increase HP by 3 to grimmer as you suggest.
-Yes, koffings are meant to be a more exotic tactical option-
-Ups, typo in the flying tag for that one, will fix too.
-Nice that Poke Kindergarden is a viable strategy.

Thanks a lot again!

[lord_khaine]

Your very welcome. Will look at the fire nation a little later.
And with rain mage i meant rainbow mage.
Kinda funny its the dom1 who are possible expanders.
While the dom2 monsters are mostly good for magic stuff.

And still not certain what role it will fill at 100 point either.
Well i guess perhaps provide cheap D magic. But it need something else, like Awe, to expand.

Else, as for string shot then im not entirely certain.
It seems at least partly important since the nation dont have a solid front line.
Perhaps start by simply making it single target.

[deuterio12]

Isn't one of the basis of pokémon that a veteran trainer can just waltz in a region and tear through most opposition they meet with their own team of pokémon?

Version 0.61

Spoiler: changelog

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-Giant Soul Badge cost changed to 180.
-Added Awe 2 to Legendary Arbok and cost changed to 100.
-String Shot single target now.
-Normal Arbok is now properly sacred.
-Grimer's HP increased to 14 and gains resistance to slashing and piercing.
-New Shield Grimer with spear and shield but only resistance to piercing, no stealth and can't evolve.
-New Heavy Grimer with spear, shield, helmet and armor, no stealth and can't evolve. Fluffwise this and the shield grimer are more solid than the normal grimer allowing them to use some equipment but at the cost of being more vulnerable and unable to fit in tight spaces to sneak around.
-Zubat flying fixed.
-Fixed some typos here and there.

[lord_khaine]

Isn't one of the basis of pokémon that a veteran trainer can just waltz in a region and tear through most opposition they meet with their own team of pokémon?

Well yeah.. i guess most often they can do so with just1-2 Pokemon and what they catch on the way.
And so once again showing how responsible this is!

Else. Version .61 looks good.
I will try and run a test of it later today.

[lord_khaine]

second impression

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*String shot is still aoe 1.
*Legendary Arbok is now a pretty efficient expander. And hilarious with Reanimator.
*Heavy Grimer also a lot more useful.
*Regular Grimer can win battles as well
*Zubat is suddenly a lot more effective when it flies
* Some issues with events. Had Korgar the Gym leader vanish in a puff of smoke, to appear before my city gates.
*Poison Hive doesnt allow for recruiting additional pokemon. Despite being on a fort.
*Same for the other recruitment sites created by spells.

[deuterio12]

-Ok, string shot should be properly single target now.
-Koga was coded as both a normal hero and multihero while being unique, derp, should be fine now. Still interesting to know the game will make him pop at the cap again.
-The recruitment sites should be working now, was using the #homecom/mon command but also cheated in my testing by making them pop right at start but seems like if the site is created later then the #homecom/mon will not recognize the player as the original owner of the site. So as a secondary effect if the province gets taken by somebody else they'll be able to recruit the pokémon as well, but that may create some interesting dynamics.

Pokemon 0.62

[lord_khaine]

Alright tested the new patch

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*Legendary Arbok is perhaps a little to good at expanding now. Perhaps reduce Awe to 1, and smack another 40 point to its price.
*Zubat is also a touch to good now it flies. Easy to mass large groups of rear attackers. Likely bump its price to 10?
*Grimer is also kinda good now. Maybe add 2 gold to all variants? And maybe its more fitting to make it pierce/blunt resistant?
*Weedle is still very good. It can likely use another GP in its cost. As well as perhaps 50% more recruitment cost.
*Bedrill having ranged An attacks feels a little to strong. Perhaps lower it to AP hits?
*All the site creation spells now work.

Besides this then nation looks done, and quite interesting to play.
I like the idea of recruitment sites done though spells. Its adds a new layer of objectives.

[deuterio12]

Nice! Could you take a look at the fire nation city next please?

-Legendary Arbok's Awe reduced to 1 and price bumped to 140.
-Zubat gold cost bumped to 9. It's meant to be cheap cannon fodder option and still a 50% gold cost increase.
-Grimer's gold cost bumped to 16, slash resistance changed to blunt resistance.
-Weedle gold cost bumped to 10, recruitment points increased to 15.
-Pin Missile now armor piercing instead of armor negating.

Pokémon 0.64

[lord_khaine]

Oh yes of course, i have already glanced at them a little.
And are initially concerned about the def 27 knights.

[deuterio12]

Wait, 27? I'm seeing 21 defense skill for rapidash riders. It's still high, ok, but they're quite expensive with not so good HP and not particularly good armor either.

Also another typo that was pointed out from other people and fixed was that the special site rituals for Cainnabar ended up being death instead of fire, but version 0.64 should have that fixed.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah, but they have Fire power 2, so thats another additional +6 defence as soon as it grows warm.