pampl
Veteran
Dominions is an excellent indie strategy game by Illwinter Game Design. In it, each player or bot is a pretender to the throne of godhood and is in charge of their own nation as well as religion. Your goal is to be the last would-be god with any territory or religious followers. The awesomeness lies in the incredible variety of pretender gods and nations that you can play as - you can be a manticore leading an Aztec-like nation with sacred werejaguar troops, or an inanimate monolith leading the frost giants of Norse mythology, for example. I want to bring some of that variety to M&B and thankfully have been given written permission to do so (hooray for no C&Ds!). Here's a brief run down on the 15 nations that I'm adding, followed by the nations that will take serious work or be impossible to really implement.
Arcoscephale: a nation inspired by ancient Greece, there are astrologers and hoplites and peltasts and more. I've already implemented its troops, but unfortunately two of its more distinctive troops (elephants and chariots) are going to be very hard to add.
Pythium: a snake-worshiping splinter empire off of Dominions' equivalent to Rome. The troops making up the bulk of its armies have been implimented, but like Arco I've had to hold off on one of its signature units- hydras (or hydrae or however its pluralized).
Man: a kingdom inspired by Arthurian Britain, there're Knights of Avalon as well as vicious longbowmen. This was pretty straightforward.
Ulm: the simplest nation to implement, Ulm is a Germanic nation that puts its faith in steel and is hostile to magic. The blacksteel armor of Ulm is the heaviest armor in the game, and their crossbowmen use deadly arbalests. Unfortunately for Ulm, though they can forge magic items well they don't have access to any powerful combat mages.
Marignon: no one expects the Inquisition! Marignon is a nation of zealots who put heathens and witches to the pyre. Good for keeping the faith, not so good for the environment. Besides priests and witch hunters, Mari has the kind of knights and men-at-arms you'd expect from a fuedal society.
Mictlan: these guys are the Aztec-ish nation I mentioned before. They have weak weapon and armor technology, but sacred warriors including werejaguars and dudes who can fly (they'll be limited to merely riding extremely fast mounts in this mod).
T'ien Ch'i: based off Chinese mythology, T'ien has some conscripted meatshield troops as well as some heavily armored troops devoted to protecting the Imperial Beauracracy. Another pretty straightforward nation.
Machaka: an African nation of spider-riding knights and sorceror kings. Texturing a horse to look like a spider could be tricky..
Agartha: a cave-dwelling society dedicated to the worship of its giant cyclopean precursors. I'm fudging timelines a bit on this one because the earlier age of this society, when giants walked alongside the humans and the troop variety was pretty limited, would've been harder to do well.
Abysia: demon-worshipping humanoids that live by volcanoes and in wastelands, the blazing heat radiating from their bodies prevents them from wielding any wooden weapons (like bows and crossbows) or riding any mounts. They'll be scripted so that occassional gouts of flame burst from their bodies, if at all possible.
C'tis: marsh dwelling lizardmen who are vaguely Egyptian in flavor. They'll need nice texturing, as well as some special scripting for their poison slingers.
Vanheim: a Nordic-inspired mixed society of humans (including berserkers and werewolves) and sailing, flying, illusion-weaving Vanir. Valkyries! Flying again will be substituted with fast riding, at least for the time being.
Bandar Log: a caste-based society of intelligent apes that resembles parts of Hindu mythology. They have a large variety of ranged weapons, from chakrams tossed by chimps to rocks hurled by gorillas. Nothing tough here besides the varying sizes of the troops.
Shinuyama: a realm of Bakemono- Japanese goblins. Diverse sorcerors fight alongside goblin samurai. Varying troop sizes are the only really tricky part for these guys.
Eriu: home of the Tuatha of Irish lore. I don't really know much about them.
Other nations which I'd like to do but will have to wait/will be impossible: the underwater nations (Oceania, Atlantis, R'yleh), the bird people (Caelum), the giants of Norse and Abrahamic myth (Jotunheim and Ashdod), and the undead (Ermor).
So far I've implemented all the nonmagical items, all the factions, 1/3rd of the troops, none of the NPCs, and no magic spells or items. I can handle the scripting that needs to be done (though I'd love it if anyone wanted help) but I need someone with an artistic bent to help with the map and the textures and maybe to help write dialog. New models could be cool too.
Arcoscephale: a nation inspired by ancient Greece, there are astrologers and hoplites and peltasts and more. I've already implemented its troops, but unfortunately two of its more distinctive troops (elephants and chariots) are going to be very hard to add.
Pythium: a snake-worshiping splinter empire off of Dominions' equivalent to Rome. The troops making up the bulk of its armies have been implimented, but like Arco I've had to hold off on one of its signature units- hydras (or hydrae or however its pluralized).
Man: a kingdom inspired by Arthurian Britain, there're Knights of Avalon as well as vicious longbowmen. This was pretty straightforward.
Ulm: the simplest nation to implement, Ulm is a Germanic nation that puts its faith in steel and is hostile to magic. The blacksteel armor of Ulm is the heaviest armor in the game, and their crossbowmen use deadly arbalests. Unfortunately for Ulm, though they can forge magic items well they don't have access to any powerful combat mages.
Marignon: no one expects the Inquisition! Marignon is a nation of zealots who put heathens and witches to the pyre. Good for keeping the faith, not so good for the environment. Besides priests and witch hunters, Mari has the kind of knights and men-at-arms you'd expect from a fuedal society.
Mictlan: these guys are the Aztec-ish nation I mentioned before. They have weak weapon and armor technology, but sacred warriors including werejaguars and dudes who can fly (they'll be limited to merely riding extremely fast mounts in this mod).
T'ien Ch'i: based off Chinese mythology, T'ien has some conscripted meatshield troops as well as some heavily armored troops devoted to protecting the Imperial Beauracracy. Another pretty straightforward nation.
Machaka: an African nation of spider-riding knights and sorceror kings. Texturing a horse to look like a spider could be tricky..
Agartha: a cave-dwelling society dedicated to the worship of its giant cyclopean precursors. I'm fudging timelines a bit on this one because the earlier age of this society, when giants walked alongside the humans and the troop variety was pretty limited, would've been harder to do well.
Abysia: demon-worshipping humanoids that live by volcanoes and in wastelands, the blazing heat radiating from their bodies prevents them from wielding any wooden weapons (like bows and crossbows) or riding any mounts. They'll be scripted so that occassional gouts of flame burst from their bodies, if at all possible.
C'tis: marsh dwelling lizardmen who are vaguely Egyptian in flavor. They'll need nice texturing, as well as some special scripting for their poison slingers.
Vanheim: a Nordic-inspired mixed society of humans (including berserkers and werewolves) and sailing, flying, illusion-weaving Vanir. Valkyries! Flying again will be substituted with fast riding, at least for the time being.
Bandar Log: a caste-based society of intelligent apes that resembles parts of Hindu mythology. They have a large variety of ranged weapons, from chakrams tossed by chimps to rocks hurled by gorillas. Nothing tough here besides the varying sizes of the troops.
Shinuyama: a realm of Bakemono- Japanese goblins. Diverse sorcerors fight alongside goblin samurai. Varying troop sizes are the only really tricky part for these guys.
Eriu: home of the Tuatha of Irish lore. I don't really know much about them.
Other nations which I'd like to do but will have to wait/will be impossible: the underwater nations (Oceania, Atlantis, R'yleh), the bird people (Caelum), the giants of Norse and Abrahamic myth (Jotunheim and Ashdod), and the undead (Ermor).
So far I've implemented all the nonmagical items, all the factions, 1/3rd of the troops, none of the NPCs, and no magic spells or items. I can handle the scripting that needs to be done (though I'd love it if anyone wanted help) but I need someone with an artistic bent to help with the map and the textures and maybe to help write dialog. New models could be cool too.
Got some more troops done today; I'll get that program that generates troop trees and add 'em to the first post once I'm done (hopefully in a week and a half- at one faction per day that should be easy to handle)
