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[ThtblovesDF]

Dominions 5.15
27. Februar - johan   
This update has two new middle age nations Phlegra, Deformed Giants and Phaeacia, Isle of the Dark Ships. There are also new spells and tweaks mainly for the greekish nations.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There is also a more detailed and logical hit location system. The shape of the monster will influence what body parts are reachable. A size 6 giant snake will be much easier to reach and hit in the head than a size 6 giant humanoid, an elephant will be somewhat in between.

New Throne defenders and measures have been taken to make throne defenders get enough supplies even when playing on high independent strength settings. There are also be some UI improvements, new minor features and the usual bug fixes and modding improvements.


General

    2 new middle era nations: Phlegra and Phaeacia
    Bodytypes for monsters (more logical hit locations)
    LA Agartha gets extra entrance guards in cave PD and none otherwise
    LA Arcoscephale +1 divine title
    New heroes for Erytheia
    Erytheia got national fort defenders over water too
    Ritual messages have both 'goto commander' and 'goto targeted province'
    Late Arcoscephale has the new Syncretism ability
    New spell for greeks: Forge Brass Bull, Craft Keledone
    New spell for late Pythium: Taurobolium
    Spell for Mekone: Blessing of the Godslayer
    New look for some spells
    Improved Spell AI for sacred spells
    New commander for late Arcoscephale: Cerulean Commander
    New spells for Phaeacia and Erytheia: Call Ladon, Contact Hesperide
    New spell Summon Hound of Twilight for all Greek nations
    Golden Apple event for Phaeacia and Erytheia
    Summon Hekateride & Summon Daktyl for Erytheia too
    New layout for menu in battle
    Another message level that is basic log, but with dark background
    Removed change battle graphics detail with 5-9
    Some units from rituals causing battles did not show up in battle summaries
    Send Horror rituals never resulted in a horror mark
    Mekone: Geronte and Ephor cheaper
    Mekone: Basileus +1 water magic
    Devils from Soul Contracts could disturb the bodyguard squad
    Blood Vengeance effect more visible over long distances
    Removed nostart on Silent Sea islands
    Chill Aura was not printed among bless effects
    Tweaked spell terrain restrictions
    Events stealing provinces destroys temple too
    Merc units could be transferred to garrison in one circumstance
    Can no longer interact with random events while sneaking
    Vastness better at obeying scripted orders
    Flame Jelly has fire shield that works under water
    Fire shield doesn't strike on secondary attacks
    Dragon Teeth, number of effects 5 -> 10
    Cyclops Shepard Shaman with Muflons
    Shrunken commanders drawn smaller on commander tokens
    Small elementals drawn smaller outside battle too
    Army rout less affected by PD and slaves dying
    Suitable throne defenders for more wild and death thrones
    Return gems before changing spell to make it easier to switch between spells
    Hit location details printed under Size
    Gigantes affliction resistance and cheaper
    Gigantes of Mekone more skillful
    God Slayer Spear +1 att & dmg
    Greyed out order for search/preach when they aren't useful
    Inspirational Presence no longer gives leadership to sacred scouts
    Dragon could not fire after voluntarily changing shape
    Fix for flippering berserkers
    Riches from Beneath gives more gold too and is extra good for mines
    New dual colored team squares
    Invisible units could be seen in scout reports
    Only one spy message from multiple spies doing instill uprising in same land
    Proper reincarnation for late Arcoscephale
    Graph knowledge spreads to all allies
    Less defenders in waste
    Supply items for some throne defenders
    More orders remain during item redistribution
    Don't cast petrify on petrified targets
    More space for commander tokens on map screen if playing on widescreen monitor
    It was possible to use undisciplined as bodyguards
    Fix for disease spreader not affecting units
    Can change between different event interactions directly
    Stability improvement
    Stat fixes
    Event fixes
    Typos fixed


Modding

    Mod command #eyeloss works on items too
    New monster/item mod commands: #unsurr, #skirmisher
    New spell mod command: #nogeodst
    New mod command: #commaster
    Autocost takes 25-75% randoms into account as well

[Coffeespoons]

I've still not dipped on this yet despite being a huge fan of two earlier iterations.  What's the consensus on an upgrade for SP/MP?

[Kagus]

Heat auras used to be able to occasionally set people on fire, same for cold auras and getting the chilled debuff. Don't know if that got carried over from Dom4, but it could potentially take out a few extra dudes. The cold aura was nice for leveling a playing field and letting your dudes punch above their weight, while heat auras could potentially be "fire and forget" (if you'll forgive the pun) by setting human-sized enemies alight and letting them just burn to death regardless of how dead your aura carrier happened to be.

Was it worth it? Ehh... It's more just icing on the cake of whatever unit you'd gone for, rather than the *reason* you'd picked them up.

Yeah, it's works the same and it's a nice little ability, I was assuming "worth it" meant "worth the cost of the bless" since that's the only context you'd talk about the auras independently of the units they come on. And unfortunately the blesses are priced really highly compared to the utility of the effect. It's five bless points, barely less than fire weapons. Considering it's barely more useful than +2 attack when it comes to killing things, it's not at all worth two more bless points and incarnate. And chill aura's in the same situation too, except that frost weapons are the same price (but take a scale) and defense is an excellent choice with even more units than attack.

Ahh, derp, yeah. I still don't know the actual changes done to the bless system. Honestly not really sure why I keep posting in here, as I don't know diddly about Dom5...

[USEC_OFFICER]

I haven't looked at the new nations in the patch yet but I'm honestly surprised that they're out already. I was honestly expecting it to take another month or so before they showed up. _{In before everyone on Steam complains about more Greek civs.}

Also the changes to Mekone are welcome but arguably not far enough. Gernotes and Ephors are only marginally cheaper and the Gigantes still don't feel special enough to justify the reclimit. Oh well. At least they got buffed a little bit.

EDIT: Phlegan's Cyclops Shamans get to summon goddamn war sheep. If that's not the greatest thing ever I'm not sure what is. _{More seriously the sheep are kinda trash, with all of the problems you expect from an animal. Low protection, low morale, okay attack, low defense, terrible MR and so on. However they are also upkeep free, have great HP and generate enough supply to feed themselves and a single human soldier. You get 2 per turn per Shaman which isn't the worst in the world but not the greatest either. If you want to recruit enough Shamans to get a sizable chunk of sheep chaff I won't stop you but Phlegan can probably recruit better stuff.}

[ThtblovesDF]

Phlegra is actually pretty fun, especially if you feel like opting out off the bless stuff. The build in slaves + masters are fun, the giants that kick ass, are fun, getting 100 gold worth of slave-warriors from that one commander / turn is fun... dunno how well they do in lategame, but its good stuff.

The otherones are intresting, especially since your dominion is quite relevant, getting that 1 point of contact and then invading is great, but one really should play them with some UW-friendly pretender. To bad they don't have a "Sail-move and pillage the same turn" ability, but that might be a bit op, too.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Does Phlegra even have any sacred units? Is the Master sacred as well or is the only sacred unit they have that one mage-priest? Either way you don't opt out of the bless stuff so much as forcibly ejected. Phlegra has no real sacred worth investing it.

[Cruxador]

I've still not dipped on this yet despite being a huge fan of two earlier iterations.  What's the consensus on an upgrade for SP/MP?

It's a big upgrade in general. Not a lot of the change is specific to either mode of play, though improved AI matters more in SP, and all the MP community has moved to the new version, which obviously is a big deal for MP. As far as the general gameplay and usability upgrades, what you could find by googling will probably be better than any list that I could make off the top of my head.

I haven't looked at the new nations in the patch yet but I'm honestly surprised that they're out already. I was honestly expecting it to take another month or so before they showed up. _{In before everyone on Steam complains about more Greek civs.}

rather than just Greek, it's annoying that so many of the nations are Mediterranean, West Asian, and Scandinavian. Those three areas make up like a tenth of the earth and more than half of the nations. There's tons of unexploited mythology in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, India, and China, which mostly have at best one token nation. And all of the southeast Asian and pacific island cultures including Australian and Maori groups are represented by in total zero nations. It's not like the Greeks don't have enough myths to squeeze a few more nations out of, but is the rest of the world ever going to get this thorough of a treatment?

Also the changes to Mekone are welcome but arguably not far enough. Gernotes and Ephors are only marginally cheaper and the Gigantes still don't feel special enough to justify the reclimit. Oh well. At least they got buffed a little bit.

Every little bit helps, but when they were solidly in the running for worst land nation before...

[USEC_OFFICER]

I am well aware that plenty of other myths and legends can and should be turned into nations. I just remember a bunch of people complaining on Steam about how Greek-orientated the recent nations were when Mekone was released and they are definitely going to start complaining again. _{That was meant to be a little joke, sorry.}

[Cruxador]

Phlegra seems like a giant nation where you'd almost never want to recruit giants.

Tyrant and Elder Cyclops are very niche. You might want one cyclops for forge duty and a tyrant is your only D access for hounds of twilight, but you're not likely to go for them in combat. The tyrant doesn't really have great paths for thugging (E is good but not really enough by itself, so they're only decent at phoenix pyre if you pump them full of reinvig and accompany an army or at least mouflon blockers) and the cyclops has even worse stats and no gear, despite a chance at A2 for mistform, and they're too expensive to compete with your other mages, not least because oppressors are communion masters so you'll never need another high path unit, just send some shackled mages along with them for less cost, less fatigue per actual caster, and more versatility.

You'll also recruit a few shepherds to get sheep, whose supply bonus is nice and they're free of upkeep and a decent distraction + evo-catcher and the shepherd is already decently priced for a mage, even if it's just N1. But the big guys aren't nearly worth 300+ gold.

The main weakness of the nation, aside from the giants being a trap, is that your troops are terrible. I think you'll want an awake expander for that reason alone. But at least they're not hard to spam. And if you go the mouflon route, those are decent blockers for a short time, they can even do a bit of damage, which makes them well worth it if you consider that all they cost is the shepherd's upkeep as he generates them. Hounds of Twilight would solve the problem a bit if only they were more spammable. But requiring four gems and one Tyrant's turn per each, their role is gonna be very niche. Mix them with your mouflons (sheepdogs!) for the fear effect, maybe.

tl;dr: Basically Marverni with elemental paths instead of astral, except worse because your mages and forts cost more and your freespawn blockers aren't sacred.

I am well aware that plenty of other myths and legends can and should be turned into nations. I just remember a bunch of people complaining on Steam about how Greek-orientated the recent nations were when Mekone was released and they are definitely going to start complaining again. _{That was meant to be a little joke, sorry.}

All good, I ain't mad at you, only mildly annoyed at Illwinter's approach.

[USEC_OFFICER]

I don't think that Phlegra's troops are terrible. The human troops that is, not the giants. 8 gold for humans with 10 in most stats is a pretty nice deal, especially since their low morale can be easily boosted with taskmaster. Once you deal with morale they are on par with many other units while being a fifth cheaper. The soldiers are disposable blockers thanks to their long spears and moderate armour, while the warriors flank and the archers pretend that short bows are still relevant in MA. That should be enough to expand and then hold the line while you get your mage communions sorted out.

All good, I ain't mad at you, only mildly annoyed at Illwinter's approach.

As far as I'm aware, Illwinter treats Dominions as more of a passion project than anything else. Then you combine the fact that their head designer is a Swedish professor focusing on classical mythology and hings start to make a lot more sense. Unfortunately there's no real or good way to change the way they design their games. We just have to accept that they'll make what inspires them, which is obviously heavily focused around the Mediterranean. _{Besides. I think most of us would take a MA Phlegra over another MA Machaka, no matter how representative it is.}

[Cruxador]

Yeah, maybe the troops aren't too terrible, all things considered. It'll still be tough to get good expansion with just them, based on my exactly one try so far.

_{MA Machaka, no matter how representative it is.}

Machaka isn't really a very good representation of African cultures. It's unapolagetically Lion King in EA with some spiders thrown in because people like the Anansi stories in MA and I guess it pretends a bit at representing the epic of Sundiata and Mandé culture but really there's nothing much there, it's mostly a bunch of dark continent memes of pygmies and stuff. Which, I mean, that is what you expect from a Swede I guess. I should do some more work on my Yoruba mod, but I've been busy lately.

[E. Albright]

KO is a prof of comparative religion, not classics, IIRC.

The main reason we just got a pile of nations for Club Med is because they're re-using art assets - and name assets, too; the latter is easy to forget, but potentially a pile of tedious and under-appreciated work. It's also why we got these so fast. They're distinct, flavorful nations (good or bad remains to be seen, and they're not as deep as some others, but they still clearly have individual flavor)... but the new content requirements are really low. Lots of resize-n-tweak, recolor-n-tweak, tweak-n-tweak. Also, they have comparatively small recruitment rosters. I'm not criticizing, mind you - as the current main graphics producer for NationGen I'd be a glaring hypocrite if I did. But doing clustered nations like this and/or expanding from what you already have is a lot less intensive/time-consuming than creating entirely new nations, especially if you're not a dedicated graphic artist...

(Also, unrelatedly, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Syncretism for LA Arco. That potentially seems like a rather drastic change...)

[Kagus]

Also not much representation of North American cultures, beyond LA Atlantis poking around with some arctic circle cultures somewhat. Plenty of fun myths and religious practices to pull from there. I could definitely see things like wendigo or skinwalkers getting interpretations, but even just general views of Iroquois or Pueblo societies could lend themselves to some very interesting Dom nations. At least, that's what I think.


And I know from CoE how much he likes totem poles, so there's that too.

[Cruxador]

KO is a prof of comparative religion, not classics, IIRC.

The main reason we just got a pile of nations for Club Med is because they're re-using art assets - and name assets, too; the latter is easy to forget, but potentially a pile of tedious and under-appreciated work. It's also why we got these so fast. They're distinct, flavorful nations (good or bad remains to be seen, and they're not as deep as some others, but they still clearly have individual flavor)... but the new content requirements are really low. Lots of resize-n-tweak, recolor-n-tweak, tweak-n-tweak. Also, they have comparatively small recruitment rosters. I'm not criticizing, mind you - as the current main graphics producer for NationGen I'd be a glaring hypocrite if I did. But doing clustered nations like this and/or expanding from what you already have is a lot less intensive/time-consuming than creating entirely new nations, especially if you're not a dedicated graphic artist...

I think the main reason is just because this is an area that's on their mind right now. The cyclopes are totally new, for example, and one thing that came up in discussion some months ago was that he was reconceptualizing them in part because of how terrible their old sprite was, but he couldn't come up with a better notion within that original concept.

(Also, unrelatedly, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Syncretism for LA Arco. That potentially seems like a rather drastic change...)

How so? It seems pretty straightforward to me; just a way to save some gold.

[ThtblovesDF]

Silver and Gold Doggos are pretty good, too - 25 protection and like every resistance you can get is harsh if the enemy somehow doesn't have anything to deal with it.