Dominions 3 Thread - Conquest of Elysium 3

Hi there. I started to play Dominions 3 recently ( very good game by the way ) and although I had read the whole manual I still do not understand a few things. Mainly the information provided in the spell appendix. Example:

Fireball:
Fat - 20
Range - 30+
AoE - 1
Prec - 1
Dmg - 16+
NoE - 1

Sulphur Haze:
Fat - 20
Range - 25
AoE - 4+
Prec - 0
Dmg - 2
NoE - 1

The thing I do not understand is that + on the end of some digits. Can you please tell me what is the meaning of it? Why stats of some spells have it and some not? The manual will not help me too much because explanation about this is not provided in the magic nor in the spell appendix section of the manual ( or maybe I overlooked it ). Also I know this forum is dedicated to the CoE 3 but I created account on the Shrapnel Games recently and althought I confirmed the received activation email my account is still not authorized by the moderators of that site so I cannot post new threads there therefore I decided to post it here instead.

So thank you for understanding ( and for the future answers ).

Also sorry for my crappy english

Edited by: Mauritiux

The + sign at the end of an attribute means that the spell has a base value of x for that attribute, but higher casting levels than minimum required increase the effect.

For example, the fireball does a base 16 points of damage and requires 2 levels of the fire path to cast. If the caster has level 3 or more in the fire path, each additional level beyond the first 2 increases the damage further. With fireball, the range is also increased. For Sulphur Haze, damage is unaffected, but the cloud appears in a larger area if the caster has more levels.

Oh I see. Thank you very much for this info. By the way how big is the bonus to these attributes? + 1 for every additional level or it differs depending on the type of spell? Also this kind of info should be really provided in the manual but I didnt find it anywhere. The only bonus mentioned there for additional magic path above the casting spell level is reduction in fatigue. The second thing I found out in the Dominions 3 forums is that even if the spell have in its description written that it is causing 300- fatigue or more it actually cannot cause more then 200 fatigue to the mage which casted this spell so this mage will not die from exhaustion. Only when some enemy spells cause additional fatigue to him he will start to receive damage after his fat cross 200 points. This is also very important piece of information and should be written in the manual so the players will have a better grip of the games mechanics. So will be this kind of information added to the manual in the future? I hope that yes. It will help a lot....

Edited by: Mauritiux

The bonus varies depending on the specific spell.

It's a very complex game, and the manual is pretty amazingly thorough, but it doesn't cover everything. For the rest, there is discovery, experimentation, and all the other rabid fans and their forum posts. I don't think anyone is going to try to write a better manual for Dominions 3 unless maybe it's a crazed fan... you, perhaps. ;-)

Edited by: PvK

Do not want to be annoying with this constant questions but......what do you mean by "The bonus varies depending on the specific spell"? How can I calculate this bonus to know "exactly" how effective this spell will be if my casting level is higher then the minimum required level? Is there a formula for it? Sorry.....I just really want to know that.

And about the manual. Im not saying that it should be rewritten completely from scratch. Im saying that only the things which are missing there should be added into it. Like the things I mentioned in my previous posts ( and many more ) because this kind of information is very important and should be provided in the manual by default and not require from me to search the net for this crucial stuff....

Although I love this kind of games I cannot say that Im their fanatical fan and I do not understand every single aspect of this game in that detail as its creators so I dont think that there will be a new manual from my side any time soon. Just started to play this game recently as I said but......maybe someone with much more experience than me should do that....like you??? ;-P.

It's not annoying. The way you know, is by casting the spell in combat and seeing what the bonus is. It is usually a bonus per extra level, often +1 per extra level of magic path, but sometimes some other constant number per level. If you want to know before actually casting it in combat, you'd need to ask or search for it (best place is probably the Shapnel Games forum).

I hear your opinion about the manual, and you have every right to it, and I disagree, because:
* I do not want Illwinter to spend time rewriting the Dom 3 manual to add specific details about what each spell bonus and other things are. I want them to be working on making the existing games even more fun, and to be making new fun games.
* If they had included more details about specific number values when they made the game, then many of those values would have become wrong as the game values changed as the game evolved because Illwinter listens and responds to good suggestions from players.
* There are already many specific details in the manual, more than I particularly want in a manual. I enjoy exploring the game and learning things, and having the mystery of what values and abilities are to be discovered. After years of playing Dominions, there are still many items, spells, and creatures I have rarely seen, not used yet, etc., which I like. I would rather keep discovering things than be able to look everything up.
* I don't really want a publisher to feel a need to reprint the manual as things change, or to make it include every detail in the first place, and to need to wait longer and pay more for games because of it.
* Some players enjoy discovering such information and sharing it and organizing it, and they tend to do a better job than the creators and publishers would of making it accurate and keeping it up to date anyway.

It sounds like you want to be able to look up all kinds of values for everything, and that you may not have found the player-made tables that already exist. There are ones for magic sites and units and other things - I imagine there is one for spells and that it would include the bonus information. Check the Shapnel Forums, probably in a sticky thread at the top, for player/community resources. I think Edi made some pretty awesome spreadsheets with tons of values shown for people who think they want that available rather than learning it through play.

Edited by: PvK

Illwinter didn't write the dom3 manual to begin with so asking them to rewrite it is pretty hilarious. Also fanmade documntation covers things not in the manual as well as things that are in the manual but are wrong.

Both items quite true.
Altho, credit where due.. the fanmade wiki only lists 10 items out of the entire 300 page manual that were wrong at printing.
Most of the many necessary changes are to keep up with updates and entire nations that were added after the game and manual were released.

Lessons learned: for the Illwinter game that followed, the manual started as a PDF with multiple people holding the access code. Its keeping up pretty well this way. (thanks Edi)

For Dom3 the manual still works for tutorial (about as good as most games) but then you need to look to the fan maintained documentation

PvK
Yea it is definitely fun to discover things through play but some things are better to know right from the start so I cannot completely agree with you about "learn it through play" mainly if we are talking about game like Dom 3. Also Im not saying that detailed sheets for everything in the game are essentially needed but it would be really nice to have them for better orientation and understanding of the game.

Admiral Aorta
I dont care who written the manual. If I invest my money to some kind of product then I want to have detailed and accurate manual provided with it explaining to me how everything works and not to provide incomplete and sometimes misleading information as the current manual in some cases do. Am I asking too much? I dont think so.

gp1628
I already browsed the Dom 3 forums and found a lot of usefull stuff. This forum also seems pretty active. New threads and posts every day. I will definitely search for help there.

And by the way.......thanks for your replies.

Edited by: Mauritiux

[I dont care who written the manual. If I invest my money to some kind of
product then I want to have detailed and accurate manual provided with
it explaining to me how everything works and not to provide incomplete
and sometimes misleading information as the current manual in some cases
do. Am I asking too much? I dont think so.

I totally agree with this, I was just explaining some of the background as to why the manual is inadequate. Also the best place for more in depth modding questions is the dom3mods forum, that's also a good place to ask for gameplay related stuff as there's quite a bit of misinformation floating around on the shrapnel forums.

Edited by: Admiral_Aorta

My big question is, will there be a future patch this year for Dominions 3? I realize IW has their hands full at the moment, but my undying curiosity always gets the best of me.

Is there one of the items on the progress page that you are particularly hot to get?
I ask once in awhile if a CoE3 thing will be backported. But than that I dont want to redirect the flow.

I was just curious about the subject as I follow both progress pages for the relative games and, alas, there has been recent activity on the Dom3 Progress Page. There were also some older items added to the list since version 3.27 and I'm just assuming that a future patch is inevitable for the most part. Note the really curious May 31st entry...Hrmmmms. And a good Hrmmss at that!

Changes since Dominions 3 v3.27:

31st May 2012
* ALSA sound support in Linux.

15th October 2011
* Dominions will no longer get unresponsive during 'waiting for game info'.

13th August 2011
* Mossbody and twist fate in combination could result in many many unexpected abilities, fixed.

Almost makes me want to go play a game and use lots of Mossbody and Twist Fate, just to see what happens! :-)

Just a little bit of linkdump regarding dominions 3.

For a wiki and general information look here:
Dom3.servegame.com (Wiki is based on vanilla, and does not contain armor and weapon stats).
Wolfsbane.alwaysdata.net (Spell database)
Dom3-mod-inspector.googlecode.com (Item Browser)

For fan forums look here:
Forum.shrapnelgames.com (The Main Forum)
Z7.invisionfree.com (The Grumpy Veterans Forum)

Want to know what dominions 3 is? Something Awful has a great first post in this thread: Forums.somethingawful.com (You need to be a member to post, and reading is sometimes disabled for non members, just return later).

For all those who didn't know (I just came across it myself): Dominions 3 is now sold on Desura (definitely worth checking out): Indiedb.com

Edited by: vladikus