Default settings varry a bit by era, e.g. more magic sites early on.
Super destructive nations like Ashen Empire Ermor are all confined to Late Era.
Research in Dom 3 costs more than Dom 2, and is in general by default somewhat slower, especially if your pretender starts dormant.
The classic nations (including all those picked so far except Ermor) tend to be middle era, and won’t necessarily work for the early era (e.g. no early era Man).
I’m fine with the default settings for the most part, but vote for size 15 Hall of Fame, and victory by “Cumulative Victory Points” as opposed to the default “Last Man Standing”.
I only ordered recently, so it might be a while before I receive my copy, but if I get it in time, please put me down for either R’lyeh or it’s predecessor in the Bandar Log game!
He had a lot of problems and didn’t make very many friends, but I also suspect he was a touch on the young side so I hold out hope it was just a phase he will grow out of.
Tell ya what peaches, if we go late era I’ll avoid the Ashen Empire Ermor and take C’tis instead. Death magic gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, well, erm, actually a cold clammy one but I like it all the same.
P.S. I’m not actually a notorious Ermor player, I think I’ve played them a grand total of two times in M.P. I just got a lot of publicity for my win one time :)
BTW is SG Ermor also unavailable in the early era? IMHO there are no issues with the base theme of Ermor (Broken Empire) in MP. And you would still get plenty of that cold and fuzzy feelings with it Nick. ;)
Just to clarify my point, one of the reasons why I strongly feel Ermor can be very annoying in MP is that even if you lead undead crusade and win, than what? Your whole game reseach/army/summons/items will have to be very specific and utterly dedicated to anti-undead duty. Most of this stuff willl be at best marginally effective against normal nations and at worst - worthless. Fighting no other nation requeres nearly as much specialization in your forging/troops/production and reseach as anti-undead battles.
What worse, even if you win, all you get as the result of your troubles is dead land with no income, and no population, in exchange for large part of your army/resources being destroyed in the process, while other people expand into fertile lands. But if you are Ermor neighbors with Ermor being played by a competent player, you have no choice but to try to destroy it, before it becomes unstopable. Because if left unchecked and played well, they will dominate the game. And it works both for AE and SG. AE is just more newbie friendly Ermor with larger free undead hordes, etc., but SG has its own huge advantages and in the hands of good player it can be as deadly as AE.
Believe me, the above reasons are not just my fantasies, if’ve been in these shoes many times. That’s why in many games that I’ve played, the house rule was “no Ermor”.
Of course, this game is not orginized by me, and as I said all I can do is to explain my reasoning, ask politely and hope for the best.
P.S. It’s quite possible that SG Ermor is also prohibited in early era, in which case all this is a moot point. Base Ermor is played more like any other nation and is totally fine for MP balance IMHO.
P.P.S. Sorry for the long rant guys, but I had to get it out of my chest. ;)
P.P.P.S. Thanks for being a great sport Nick, it is most appreciated.
True. Undead Ermor fighting is a bit of a community effort, the Ermor player is basically gambling that the other players can’t get organized properly. If they can, Ermor loses.
JP, FYI, I just ordered Dom3 for $54.95 including priority shipping. Frankly, you should be bitching at Blizzard who sells millions at $50 instead of the little publisher/developers who are lucky to sell 50,000 and have to make a profit somehow.
I’ve been reading AAR for Dom3 game, trying to learn what’s new, and I saw your new “Glory of Gods” map Jason.
It is beautiful! Together with your great “Cradle” map for Dom2, they are my favorite maps so far. You are so good, Illwinter should try to hire you as contractor to draw maps for them (as I am sure many people have said already… ;) )
My compliments to you and thanks for your great work.
Thanks, Stormy. I love Illwinter as a developer, and especially admire Kristoffer’s imagination and creative vision, so I volunteered my services for D3 and they graciously allowed me to contribute. Unfortunately I only had time to make one big map and one small map (for Bruce’s tutorial), but hopefully I’ll be able to get a few more out shortly after release.
I’d like to play, with a random nation. I’m not sure what settings to suggest, although I can say my favorite games (including the Dom2 game still going on) have been difficult research and low magic site games.
