Dom2: What up with the Void Gate?

Can someone explain how this damn Void Gate works? I can’t find anything about it in the manual or help text. It says “Enter to summon void beasts.” Only certain commanders (priests, I think?) can take the “Enter Void Gate” command, but when I do it, nothing happens. WTF?

I thought I read that only R’yleh can make use of void gates. I have no first hand experience though. But, come on, it’s a void gate, who else but the spawn of Cthulu would want to go in there.

No, I know, but I’m playing R’yleh (in a game against the AI), and I can’t get it to work. There’s a certain type of Starspawn that is a third-level priest, and IIRC he’s the only commander who can be told “Enter Void Gate” (not even my pretender can go in). But I give the order, and next turn everything’s exactly the same. Although most of the commander orders are covered in the manual, this one isn’t.

Just keep him summoning, there is a cumulative chance that he will succesfully summon a critter. Succes is certain after 3-4 turns. As soon as he has succesfully summoned one critter the summoner will recieve summoning skill that will increase the power (but not the probability of getting) the critters from the gate. All commanders have a chance of going insane or being attacked when they use the gate. The starspawn priests are much less likely to suffer insanity.

Thanks Johan!

I may go insane trying to figure out what is going on in this game :) I know there’s a good or even great strategy game here but man is this obtuse at times…

Yeah, I used to think I was a smart sumbitch, but this game’s interface has me completely baffled. Can someone link Geryk’s FAQ again?

Walkthrough: http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/walkthru.html (now hosted on the official site in even harder-to-read colors!!)

Strat guide: http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/strategy_guide.html

An honest suggestion to Johan O and crew: this is an awesome game, but in the future, I’d much rather have had a manual that explained stuff like the Void Gate and didn’t have the magic item list. Maybe give some examples of items, but let the player discover what can actually be forged. Use the space for explaining more of the game mechanics. Just a thought.

I’d like to second Ryan’s comment, Johan. The more I play this game, the more I realize your documentation just isn’t up to par. For such a great game, it’s a shame Illwinter/Shrapnel couldn’t have met the player a little closer to half-way in terms of explaining how things (spells, nations, magic items, morale, etc.) work. Tsk, tsk.

 -Tom

Any astral priest can summon from void gate.

The starspawn priests have a 5% (?) chance of going insane, the national hero (forget name?) has lowest chance at 3%. it’s in the readme.txt iirc. These are best chances you can get with it.

Also, the higher summoning skill the better monsters that come out. Put five units on guard commander, so when they get attacked by horrors they can survive.

the little assassin/cheapo priests also work for summoning… but they die pretty fast. It’s handy if you don’t want to risk a priest and don’t mind a useless assasin afterwards heh.

it’s in the readme.txt iirc.

Readme.txt? What readme.txt? My install has no such beast.

 -Tom

Hey Johan, seeing how I’m in a country to the far north… ah, screw it.
Hur får jag tag i spelet i Sverige. Jag har inget kreditkort och tänkte undvika att skaffa ett ett tag till, går det att få det på faktura eller något liknande, eller är ni helt bundna vid den amerikanska distributionen?

And a translation:
Bork bork bork, borkbork bork. Bork bork borkbork.

Oh yeah, I guess PMs exist for a reason… oh well.

Yeah, they do. You know, at least you can provide a faux translation that sounds plausible while you insult the dumb Americans. ;)

Tom:

Sorry, I was mistaken about the readme. I’ve been browsing the Shrapnel forums and thought I remembered reading a post about the numbers being mentioned in the readme. No, I have no readme either.

I couldnt agree more about the documentation. This game is never going to appeal to a lot of gamers because of complexity. But, it could be a lot more appealing than it is now with better docs. Much, much better docs.

olaf

The Void Gate rocks,really,although I’d have to agree that the lack of documentation is annoying.I was getting annihilated anytime I tried to enter the gate,but I’ve had luck with the Starspawn critters.There’s a large WTF? factor with stuff like the Void Gate,Arena,etc,unless you spend some time hunting down FAQs.

Anders,

bork, ett kostsamt alternativ hade varit att köpa spelet ifrån den finska spel butiken: Helsinki Dataclub OY, bork. Spelet kan också köpas på tuxgames, bork, men jag förmodar att även tuxgames, som är ett postorder företag för Linux spel, endast använder sig av kredit kort, men du kan ju se ifall de accepterar avi betalning. Bork.

Tom, Rywill

there have been a lot of complaints about the manual. The manual is in the state it is because shrapnel wanted a manual of fewer than 140p, and illwinter wanted it to include the the item and spell lists. It has become obvious that the most players would have prefered the first part of the manual to have been more extensive at the expense of the spell and item list. We also imagined that the manual in part could be replaced by the popup and the tips of the turns, most players do not seem to agree there either. Not that it is an excuse. but I guess this particular problem, as well as a few tohers, is to a large extent caused by the size of illwinter. The people that made the manual, and most of the beta testers that were asked opinions on it had been playing dom1/dom2 for 4+ years and might have taken much of the information other readers would have wanted of it for granted. I do not know how other companies make their manuals, but I assume they do not have their programmers and designers writing them, for those and other reasons. Anyway, glad you like it despite the flaws.

Thanks for the response. The game absolutely rules, so the critique of the manual is mostly because I wish more people would play the game, but I know a certain number will be put off because it’s only available online, and another group will never get past the learning curve. I want nothing but success for you guys so you can keep churning out products. This is one of the top three games I bought last year.

There’s a few new maps at www.Illwinter.com. The ringworld map plays very well- You end up playing against two countries at a time and move from chokepoint to chokepoint.
Has anyone reached the stage of competency where they now look at their email games and shake their head at the clown who put them in the situation they’re currently in? I have a pile of tips and questions to ask but I think they would reveal the desperate situations I’m currently having with my games.

I’m right with you,Peter,but I don’t mind taking my lumps while learning things about the game.I don’t want to ask questions,either,for the same reason you mention!