Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
There are some errors with "see page xxx" referencing to the wrong pages. Please report any other errors so we can fix them at the same time and put up a more correct version of the manual.
Edit: or, to find a more apt word, "is it gonna be reprinted?" :P
First, bookmarks are no longer there, and when I open the PDF I get a font error (I'm on Windows 10, using acrobat reader).
As for specific errors...
Page 79:
The list of blood-sacrificing nations does not mention Vanarus.
Page 141 and onwards:
'The origins of nations" was not updated with the design history of Xibalba, Ragha, Nazca, Therodos..
Also it still says that 'Rus is likely to be one of the first additions to the game' which can't be the case anymore.
Page 11-12:
Tutorial pretender for Machaka still can't be created (if you try, you end at negative points)
page 137:
The pretender suggested in the Ulm guide can't be created, either. It's based on the pre-pretender patch. Allfather pathcost is now 40, not 30.
Page 115:
Therodos' dominion description: "Ancient spectres will reawaken and the living will suffer and die from the Telkhine Malediction. Units in the dominion also suffer from reduced morale. These effects will also take place for disciple players and the undead will obey the disciples when they appear there"
Two issues here
1)Undead are not affected - should be mentioned. Although 'the living will suffer and die' might imply that already?
2)Disciples do get the popkill, but don't get the morale penalty or freespawn (did a quick check with Oceania as a disciple). Manual mistake or mechanical bug?
page 154, EA Arcocesphale: Does not mention the Lykaeon and Academia. National income is described as 2 Air 2 Astral, but Lykeion also gives 2 Earth
page 187, EA Vanheim: Vanhalla gives 3 Air, not 2.
page 256, MA Vanheim: Income listed as only 3 Earth, but there's also 2 Air
http://www.lulu.com/shop/bruce-geryk/dominions-423-manual-bw/paperback/product-22630464.html.
The color manual is at http://www.lulu.com/shop/bruce-geryk/dominions-423-manual/paperback/product-22630454.html for $26.32 (not quite as cheap, but still...).
#onlygeosrc says 'Ritual can only be cast from one of these terrains'. Since the command DOES work for battle spells too, I feel changing it to the more generic 'spell' would be better.
(1) The folksy personal tyle of the tutorial is fine. What I don't appreciate so much is carrying over that style into the main body of the manual. The main body covers a lot of game mechanics and data. Like a good boardgame manual, I want information about HOW THE GAME WORKS (within the program code), with tables and charts. A few comments on implications for gameplay, perhaps in italics, should be at the end of a section. Mixing that into the manual text just makes for a MUCH longer read, and therefore much greater difficulty when trying to refer back to find information later.
(2) The grimoire of spells that is introduced on page 335 doesn't really exist. In the PDF (or a printed) version of the manual, it is impossible to sort battle spells by path. I had to take pages 336 through 349 and put them into a spreadsheet so I could sort by school or path.
The grimoire of spells introduced on page 335 doesn't help me very much. Since the PDF file is not interactive, the alphabetical list (pages 336 to 349) is no help at all. Instead, I had to enter the data into a spreadsheet, with school and path being separate columns, so I could sort by column. Incidentally, for that purpose, always putting the more costly path first is helpful (right now blood is listed first, above all other paths).
I would appreciate seeing the nation-specific summoning spells (pages 371-412) WITH nation in question (in the nation lists (now found between pages 154 and 334). It's a pain to look in two separate places just to see what is unique about your nation.
Personally, I would appreciate a sortable master list (such as an excel file) for all spells, with full details for each spell on the same row, delivered with the game. As a designer myself, I know I'd maintain such a file for easy comparison between spells. Would it be too hard to include this in the game, perhaps in a "manuals" folder? Even a CSV file would be a start, so people could import it into the spreadsheet or database of choice.
(3) Along a similar vein, the unit data for the nations (page 154 to 334) is confusing, and/or missing information in places.
For example, weapon length is missing. I can guess how long a maul is vs. a spear, but only guess.
The listing includes abbreviations NOT discussed on 153. For example, I have no idea how to decode magic knowledge percentages, such as "S1 (+100%FWES) (+50%F) (+50%W) (+50%E)" for the Mystic on page 155. Does" +100%FWES" mean the player is sure to get one point of knowledge in one of those? If so, does the "+50%F" after it mean you have a 50-50 chance of getting another point in fire? After observing what different mystics look like in the game, I assume this is the interpretation, but I could be wrong.
Overall, I have the feeling that national data has been tweaked, but nobody bothered to update the manual. While some information is better than none, after a while the failure to document changes will make the manual worthless, and much too costly in time to fix. Keeping the manual updated as you go seems a MUCH better idea. Why do I think this? Well, on the same page (154) for mystics, it says "+1 research." In reality it appears to be "+1 or more research," since I've received one mystic with 16 research, and another with 12 research.
(4) Finally, the definition of home province gem "income" was at the end of page 153, as an afterthought, while the data appears at the START of each nation listing. Originally I misinterpreted this to mean something about magic users, not gem income.
(5) I would greatly appreciate the manual to include a master list of all keyboard shortcuts in one place.
(6) It would be nice if the commentary about nations, now currently on pages 141-151, was split off into nation by nation commentary, and included at the end of each relevant nation. Right now, I have to flip back and forth between commentary and national lists to associate points in the commentary with information about the nation itself.
On #5, '?' ingame should bring up a masterlist.
There are also still no bookmarks, which were very helpful in navigating to specific sections. In fact I still use the old manual pdf in preference to the new one simply because without bookmarks I find it a pain to navigate.
I continue to have trouble with the index to the grimoire, starting on page 336. If the random numbers on the right end of each line are supposed to be page numbers (as described on page 335, paragraph 3, first sentence), they are horribly wrong. In fact, I have not yet found a single number that refers to the correct page for that spell!
@Momacii #2: I tried the Dom4 Inspector. It's a little faster than searching through the manual, but the search terms are insufficient for my needs. For example, in searching construction 2, I can't filter out construction 0, I can't filter by nation, nor can I search by special effects, such as granting Amph, or Fly, or whatever. When I scan down the list, I still see fanciful names, but nothing about what the spell does. Does it help me, hurt enemies? Furthermore, it uses tiny icons for magic types, which are totally unhelpful to newcomers. Using something like a spreadsheet allows me to use multiple search terms, arrange things as I wish, and read across the row to get all the data in a (hopefully) unambiguous alphanumeric format.
@Momacii #5: Sorry I missed the mention of "?" as the last list item in the "Squads" section on page 67, or the "Battles View" section on page 85. I should have realized that keyboard shortcuts access would be found in those sections. I'm afraid my eyes must have glazed over on the third night reading through the manual. So thanks for the hint. Now all I have to do is screenshot them, paste them together, and I'd have a handy reference.
You can 'filter out' Construction 0 by sorting and then only looking at items/spells Construction 2 and above.
You can filter spells by nation, but not items ...but note that the number of national items is *very* small (0) in comparison to spells. At least directly. You *can* search for the 'restricted' property with the field set to the nation ID number, btw.
You can search for tags like 'enemyimmune' (='affects friendlies only').
The ingame descriptions which the Inspector uses often aren't as helpful as the manual, but they are far more than 'nothing'.
I also don't understand your complaint about magic icons - they are pretty obvious.
Regardless of the method you prefer, it seems painfully obvious that the manual's spell lists are better than nothing, but inadequate for a gamer's need.
Overall, I think the game would be better received by players if it were easier to examine strategic choices when you need them, in game. This includes at the start, before you build your pretender. Right now, it's like playing Warhammer 40k miniatures for the first time - zillions of rules and rule exceptions to master before you move a single unit.