How do you get a Doom Horror? I’m curious now.
Cast Wish, in the popup place “Doom Horror” then Gift of Reason it, so it can utilize it’s strategic movement and equip misc slots.
Cast Wish, in the popup place “Doom Horror” then Gift of Reason it, so it can utilize it’s strategic movement and equip misc slots.[/quote]
So is a Doom Horror only available if you wish for it? That would seem to put players at a disadvantage who don’t know about it.
I think there is alot in Dominions 2 that if you didn’t know about it would put you at a disadvantage.
I think there is alot in Dominions 2 that if you didn’t know about it would put you at a disadvantage.[/quote]
Yep, a lot of undocumented stuff.
The answer to your question is “Yes,” by the way. I believe there’s a spell that lets you send an independent Doom Horror to a province (like an Ashen Angel), but the only way to get one you control is by Wishing for it.
And you are at a SERIOUS disadvantage in Dom2 if you are playing someone who knows the game (especially the magic system) better than you do. In a “You will never win” sort of way. But the game is fun anyway, even though it can be incredibly frustrating to get hit with something like a Doom Horror, or Wrathful Skies, that you’ve never seen before and had no idea existed and couldn’t possibly anticipate (short of reading a ton of hardcore-player threads on the Shrapnel boards, or something).
Edit: typo
This question has to be answered on two levels. Of course requirements this drastic would change people’s mindsets, because they’d make it too difficult for most nations to build clams, and too costly to make it worthwhile.
But I wouldn’t like this change because it would equate to taking the clams out of the game altogether.
On the other hand I love Ryan’s Rule of Labs ( :P :lol: ), which would keep the clams in the game and give them a more limited field of application.
Like I said, what I dislike most about clam hoarding, besides the micromanagement, is that it takes away from the game’s diversity, because it partly negates water magic and water items, which aren’t as much of an advantage as an exponentially growing stream of pearls.
I like this rule as well. I think it could have great potential with only a few minor things. One of which is that suddenly transfering gems from one commander to another (I assume you could still do this, if not then you would totally cut out being able to transfer gems of any type?) would become a virtual hell (the UI is not kindly with transfers). Second, this would have to not apply to Blood Slaves, or Blood Slave and Blood Hunting would need to be reworked, yes?
Like I said, what I dislike most about clam hoarding, besides the micromanagement, is that it takes away from the game’s diversity, because it partly negates water magic and water items, which aren’t as much of an advantage as an exponentially growing stream of pearls.
Well this is where I see changing the cost to have it no longer be exponentially viable, but situationally or ‘in small doses’ usable. It’s too bad you couldn’t have an additional counter applied on certain things so that if you make one they have an additional cost applies when you make #2, then another when you make #3. Etc. This would stop the hoarding cold, but make using them for actually having an Astral income, viable.
Or, we could just get rid of the clam. Don’t worry about rewiring the engine to keep it- ditch it. How many players use it in the spirit it was meant (ie as an ammo belt for frontline mages) compared to the hoarders? There’s oodles of other magic items, let it go.
You’d also have to get rid of the Fever Fetish and Blood Stone.
I do use these as ammo belts for frontline mages, as well as using them as extra gem production. It is very handy to have one of these on a commander deep in enemy territory when he can’t get to a lab easily - having those gems can make a big difference.
In my original proposal of Ryan’s Rule of Labs, I specifically made an exception for blood slaves (they aren’t gems!).
Also, commander-to-commander gem passing is already a fact of life in the games I play. I know I don’t trust my mages to just carry around a cartload of gems and do intelligent things with them. They would blow them all the first time they saw a few enemy cavalry. I much prefer to have a scout cart around the gems, and give the mage a few before each battle so they can cast a key spell or two.
I do agree that jacking the cost way up would make the clammies less attractive for hoarders, but not a lot less attractive. I’ve been in situations in the end game where because of some poor luck with globals, I was getting by on 10-15 gems/turn in one of my core national magical schools. If my core magic was astral, 5 clams wouild look attactive in that situation even if I had to pony up 30 water gems a pop.
I’m of the opinion that any gems to be used for ritual casting should come from site searching, pure and simple. This evens out the playing field between all the magic schools and rewards those who site search appropriately (via mages or spells).
So ah … there’s a Site Searching 101 from Le Puma in the making?
Do you need a 101 on that? There’s like only 2 ways, one with mages searching on-site and one via casting spells. I’m actually in the minority in that I think the spells are overpriced for the gain unless cast very early on.
Actually, that bears on something I’ve been wondering about. When you site search in, say, a forest, with, say, an indie lizard shaman, the province gets marked as having been searched by a level 1 astral mage and a level 1 nature mage. If you don’t find anything, you get told you might need to search with a higher level mage.
The implication is that some sites are easy to find, and others aren’t, and if you want to actually maximize your gem income, searching with level 1 casters won’t cut it. Is that how it actually works? Or does a level 1 caster find exactly the same things that a level 9 would?
Do you need a 101 on that? There’s like only 2 ways, one with mages searching on-site and one via casting spells. I’m actually in the minority in that I think the spells are overpriced for the gain unless cast very early on.[/quote]
Well that’s a start. Site Searching 98. I probably don’t do as well as I could and the spells don’t seem to offer the bang for the buck.
Higher magic level == detect higher level magic sites. That’s why when you use a spell to search for a magic site, that province is listed as searched by a level 9 mage in that discipline. So a bunch of low level rainbow mages might work well for detecting a lot of low-level magic sites, but you need mages with higher skills in magic types to find the really good stuff.
I’m pretty sure the way it works is that sites have a minimum path requirement to be found, e.g. Astral 2, so the Astral 1 mage wouldn’t find it, but an Astral 2+ would. I think I saw a PDF or XLS listing all the sites and the needed paths somewhere, but I didn’t really want to see it, it felt kind of spoiler-y for me. I like the surprises this game has.
Edit: I found the file, for those who want to see it, it’s on Arryn’s site, “Dominions 2 Magic Sites by Sunray”. There’s a ton of other info there too, for those who haven’t seen it yet.
http://www.dominions-2.org/files.htm
Sites are rated 1-4 in every school of magic (including holy/unholy). That rating represents the level of the mage required to find it. A lot of the good sites required a level-2 or level-3 mage. A few sites do actually require level-4 to be found, but those are rare (though some are powerful).
For example, when I play Ctis and I have my death-3 suaromancers wandering around looking for death magic, I’m sure I’m finding 90%+ of death magic sites, because I’m only missing the occassional death-4 site.
Also remember that sites are more common in economically weak province types like swamp, mountain, forest, wasteland, etc.
Do you need a 101 on that? There’s like only 2 ways, one with mages searching on-site and one via casting spells. I’m actually in the minority in that I think the spells are overpriced for the gain unless cast very early on.[/quote]
Well that’s a start. Site Searching 98. I probably don’t do as well as I could and the spells don’t seem to offer the bang for the buck.[/quote]
I don’t like the spells either in the bang-for-the-buck department. The only time I’ll use them is when I think have a sure thing. To look for sure things, look for provinces where the scales are tilted in a way that doesn’t seem to make sense. For example, if I’m running a growth dominion and I run across a death-1 province inside my dominion, I’m pretty sure there is a death or unholy site hidden there that is spreading the death. Ditto for some odd temperate or luck/misfortune scales.
Well crap. No wonder I’m so low on gems in JM-Hardcore. I was guessing it was a 1 to 9 scale (since 9 is the maximum) and figuring costs and likelihoods accordingly.
I’ll know better in the future.